A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale by AbyssRaven

Category: Original

Genre: Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Female Lead, High Fantasy, LitRPG, Magic, Non-Human Lead, Portal Fantasy / Isekai, Progression, Psychological, Reincarnation, Slice of Life

Status: In-Progress

Published: 2021-07-15

Updated: 2023-07-23

Packaged: 2023-07-26 10:26:12

Warnings: Gore, Traumatising content

Chapters: 438

Words: 2,194,717

Publisher: www.royalroad.com

Summary:

The story is currently preparing to transition onto Kindle Unlimited on August 1st

"Survival of the fittest is easier said than done...why couldn't I have been reborn a bit bigger, huh?"

If waking up in a new world wasn't bad enough, an idealistic teen starts her new life as a newborn dragon not by being embraced by a loving family, but having to escape two hungry kobolds wanting some grilled lizard for breakfast. Now, status screens obscure her vision in a hostile forest filled with vicious magical monsters, as two concerning Titles welcome her to her new life.

Equipped with fragmented memories from her past life and the game-like mechanics of her new reality, the young dragon must face trials and tribulation, undeterred by the reaper's scythe inches from her neck. Despite her challenges, she is determined to find civilization. For nothing will stop her from fulfilling her one true desire: to become an Idol.

Note: I am currently editing and rewriting my early chapters due to growing as an author over these two years. If you guys notice a sudden drop in writing quality or not a note that this chapter was edited, then please know that I haven't edited them yet. I am using you guys' feedback to grow, so thank you for your patience!

Author Notes: I'll update the story every 2-3 day, if nothing major in my life happens.

The story is mostly inspired by Japanese Light Novels, specifically "I'm a spider, so what?".

Cover art was created by dinal06 over on Fiverr

Please credit the artist and me, the author, if you were to use it. Also, please don't modify and photoshop it.

Art Gallery of Dragon Idol

Since people had trouble finding the artworks I commisioned for the story, I decided I would take on their feedback and create a gallery for all the art. I don't think I need to say much else than to enjoy them. To any potantially new readers, hopefully the art will entice you to give the story a try — please, endure the first 24 chapters if you can. They are short and I was still a complete newbie back then.

Anyways, here is the art!

Hestia:

Artist: Nuraproject

Facebook of my Artist: https://www.facebook.com/nuraproject/

Artist and Clients: https://artistsnclients.com/people/nuraproject

Hestia's Dragon Form:

Artist: Irenbee

Deviantart: https://www.deviantart.com/irenbee

Saori:

Artist: Nuraproject

Tasianna:

Artist: Nuraproject

Cover:

Artist: dinal06

Fiverr: https://www.fiverr.com/dinal06?source=order_page_user_message_link

Artist: Nuraproject

Ellaine

Artist: Nuraproject

Grimnir

Artist: diogodesigns

Fiver: https://www.fiverr.com/diogodesigns

Kingdom of Artorias Map + Belzac Forest + Some Saelariel

Artist: Me, but with the map creator, Inkarnate

It should go without saying but, please, don't modify or photoshop them and post them somewhere without my permission. I find it okay for people to use my art but, please, show some courtesy by crediting me as the owner of the art.

Chapter 0: Prologue

It’s … dark.

There wasn’t anything to see. No lights, no fire, just absolute darkness I couldn’t escape from.

Was I sleeping? Was this a dream? It had to be, right?

But, if I was sleeping, then why was my dream so barren? The last thing I remembered, I was pretty sure if I dreamt of something, it would have been more colorful or at least exciting. But … this was beginning to scare me. Not only was there nothing here, but I felt weirdly conscious of everything. Aside from thinking, I had nothing to do here.

I wanted to move, but I couldn’t feel anything, as if my body wasn’t there. Was I paralyzed? Is this sleep paralysis? I couldn’t do anything, not even scream or shout!

“Where am I? Help me! Help me!” kept echoing inside my mind over and over again.

As time went by, trapped inside this place, my sense of touch suddenly reappeared. I began to feel as if I was floating inside a swimming pool on a warm and sunny day at the peak of summer. It was calming, soothing me from the dark depths of whatever this world was. I kept drifting around, but it was strangely soothing to me. I didn’t really feel scared anymore.

To the point I just wanted to continue stay—

Ahhhh … arrrrrggghhhhhhhhhhhhh! Gargh!

Scheiße!? Shit! Wha—what was that!?

Pain burst from my side, it felt like I was being ripped apart. The intense pain never disappeared nor lessened, and my wailing once again filled my mind with echoes, disorientating me. It was pure agony. Torture.

Arrrgh! Make it stop! Make it stop! What is going on?!

The warmth I felt faded, replaced by an intense cold as if I was caught in a huge blizzard. Not even my mind could escape this glacial temperature. My sense of self was weakening with every second, as if my soul was being frozen solid.

Stop this, please! Wake up! Wake up!

I wanted to finally wake up. Why was I suffering like this? What did I do to deserve this?

This is all a nightmare! I just need to wake up, so wake up! WAKE UP!

I wanted Papa. I wanted Mama. I wanted them to help me. I pleaded and cried for them, hoping that this would be enough stimuli to wake my body up. My thoughts were becoming jumbled from the fear, pain, and confusion.

Arrrrrghhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Somebody save me, please! I don’t want to be alone here!

I don’t want to …

“It is done.”

“Hiehie, it seemed like everything worked out on the first try. Congratulations, my scaly friend.”

“Mhmm, fortune shone on you two. Good luck with your plans. Don’t waste this opportunity, shie shie shie!”

“The preparations are set. All we can do now is wait for her to grow.”

A note from AbyssRaven

Edit: I thought I should update the earlier chapters to my new writing style. It's needed but I'll do them when I have the time for them.

Chapter 1: Why Am I a Lizard?

… Huh?! W-wait, urk, what just happened just now?

That dream … that pain, cold, darkness. Why would I have such a nightmare? Did I watch one or two too many of those horror flicks yesterday? Did I even watch them at all? I couldn’t remember … Actually, now that I thought about it, was I sleeping in the first place?

Argh, whatever. Let’s go to the kitchen and get a muffin or something sweet. Gotta reset my mental after that weird as …

… Why is everything still dark?

I blinked, or at least, I thought I was blinking. I felt my eyelids opening and closing but due to how dark everything was, I was starting to question myself. It felt like déjà vu, as if I was still having that nightmare. So I blinked harder, so hard that it irritated my eyes. Despite all my best efforts, there was still no light. How could it be completely dark?!

My phone!

If I was just asleep, then my phone had to be somewhere close by. I probably fell asleep listening to music and dropped my earbuds, but if I could just find my mobile, I’d be able to turn some light on.

Stretching my arms around, my stiff muscles began to complain. Still, what worried me most was how there was resistance when I tried to move them. Something liquidy was there. It slowed me down like walking underwater.

Once I raised my arms a bit more, the feeling of that warm liquid was replaced by a sense of freedom. When I tried to touch my hands, I felt something sticky and smooth on them, and as I tried to smell it, my head just flinched back from how weird it smelled.

… Please, don’t tell me that I had an accident in bed. That nightmare was scary enough, but it shouldn’t have made me wet myself, right?! It was just cleaned! The bed sheets smelled so good!

My arms reflexively slammed on my bed in frustration, only for some mysterious fluid to splash into my mouth. My gag effect activated for a second, but for some weird, insane reason, it actually tasted pretty good!

Is this sticky liquid yogurt?

That thought calmed me down. Maybe I spilled some yogurt when I fell asleep, but even if that were the case, Mama probably would scold me since Nanny just cleaned all the bed sheets in the apartment. And my muscle soreness probably came from my dance training, made even worse after laying on my arms when night came. Yeah, that seemed the most plausible!

I am under my bed sheets, definitely. I just have to pull them … what are my nails scratching?

I felt my nails touching something tough but soft. From the sound of it, it felt like scratching something leathery. I became curious about what it was, so I placed some strength into my hands, but it wouldn’t budge at all.

As my curiosity took over, my mind focused entirely on this surface, ignoring the other weird things happening around me. It was then that I felt something inside my chest moving through my arms into my hands. Something inside me, like a gut feeling, told me to continue scratching with this energy.

What is this feeling? It feels so weird but also nat—oops!

Preoccupied with that “feeling,” a cracking sound echoed inside my room. I couldn’t exactly see what was going on, but from the feeling around one of my fingers, I presume I had pierced through the wall, making a hole.

O-oh no, S-Scheiße!

As I slowly took my finger out, the continued cracking sounds told me I had to start accepting my fate that Papa would 100% scold me for breaking the wall … somehow, with my meager amounts of arm muscles. Oh man, waking up from a nightmare was already mentally taxing, but now I would have to listen to a demoralizing lecture. Woe to me.

As I was silently hoping that Papa wouldn’t be too harsh to me when I explained my situation to him, my eyes noticed that the wall I pierced was colored white … Which didn’t make sense as my room was blue.

Wait, hold on, color?!

Looking down, my eyes registered light coming out of the hole. As I reached out my hand in bewilderment, I began to hear popping and squishy sounds coming from below me.

What I saw down there was the reason why I felt it so hard to move around. I was swimming around in a warm, slimy, translucent fluid. It looked far too similar to snot. It was absolutely revolting, and I was inside it for some effing reason!

Why am I—Guff! Gack! Gack! Yuck! Ahhhh, why does this actually taste good? What the hell?!

More of the liquid splashed into my mouth when I tried to escape this slimy hell, motivating me through disgust to widen that hole. I banged my body against the wall but noticed nothing happening. The pain from ramming myself against it helped me calm myself down a bit, remembering how I managed to pierce a hole in the first place.

I took a deep breath, ignoring the slime around me for now. I placed my fingers on the edges of the hole and began imagining that power again. I breathed in and out, trying to find that sensation in my chest, and the moment I did, that gut feeling appeared again. It supported me, showing me how to let this energy course through my body.

I closed my eyes and called up all the strength in my arms before beginning to tear the wall down. Slowly but surely, the cracking became louder and louder before warmth slowly seeped inside the room. Even with my eyes closed, I could see light through them. It gave me the confidence to continue until I burst out of the room and was greeted by the comforting rays of the morning.

As I fell to the ground, the fluids gushed out with me, drenching not only me but everything else around me. I had a deep wish to get under a shower at this very instant.

Regardless, I stayed in this pool of “whatever liquid.” For I was currently enjoying a sunbath, so much so that I didn’t have the willpower to stand up.

Whoooooew … did the sun always feel this great? Relaxing like this is, seriously, so dang good. Whooo—grk! Bleh! Not again; this damn liquid keeps getting in my mouth!

I forced myself up after that nasty surprise. The lethargy my body felt was gone, fully invigorated by enjoying the rays. Nevertheless, as nice as that was, the situation didn’t allow me to just rest at this point. After all, where was I at this moment?

Looking around, all I could see was green and brown, similar to Central Park, but also not. The trees towered over me; they were humongous, far taller than I remembered them being. The vibrant grass I was standing on was almost eye level, and a leaf fragment fell down from a gust of wind and landed softly on me, covering my head completely.

How?

With the sun rays showering the area, this whole place looked absolutely magical until I realized a leaf was able to cover up my entire line of sight. A single piece of leaf. Yeah, it sounded crazy since I was used to shaking off a single leaf from the top of my hair whenever I visited the park, so having such a thought was wild.

… No, no, forget about this. Y-yeah, maybe it was something like a palm leaf. Yeah, that makes sense! … But this looks like a forest … Nope, nope, forgotten all about it. Lalalalala.

My goal should be to find my parents. Yes, maybe I was stupid enough to fall asleep at a park after getting rejected again at an audition. I needed to give them a call and get back home immediately before they called the cops. The last thing I needed was somebody I knew seeing me covered in all this slime—that would be the worst!

I took a breath and began searching for my phone, only to immediately freeze up the moment I turned around.

… It’s an egg.

A broken egg, to be more specific. It was quite massive, too. I was not exaggerating. From my perspective, it was as large as a small house, and I could see a sizable hole in it. Looking at the eggshells mixed in with that weird liquid, the evidence of my actual situation was right under my nose.

Denial. I wanted to deny all of this. I was inside that thing? Ridiculous! Why would I willingly go into a giant egg for any reason? I had to forget about it. I needed to call my parents. I needed to go back home.

However, the surprises continued.

When I tried to run away from this place, I slipped on the mysterious liquid and fell on my stomach. Even more of that damn liquid—yolk, probably—entered my mouth, to the point that it felt like I drank a glass full.

I forcibly pushed myself back up but placed too much strength in them, tumbling over myself and landing on my back. And that was when I saw it.

A tail.

A black tail with shimmering, jet-black scales. When I raised my head, I saw this tail attached to my butt alongside two small legs eerily similar to lizard feet. None of them had bare, naked pink skin. No hint of any clothes, either. From my butt to my legs, all of them had the same glossy scales on the tail.

This should have been quite embarrassing. I mean, I was naked, inside a park. Until my eyes widened in the horror of my next thought.

Oh great, I thought I had stopped dreaming, but I guess this is part two. Hahahaha …

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Oh, come on, what the hell is this? First, I wake up in some giant egg in some park or whatever, and now I have a tail? With scales!? WHERE ARE MY CLOTHES? WHY AM I NAKED? WHAT IS GOING ON WITH ME?

I waddled in the mysterious fluid like a toddler giving a tantrum. At this point, I didn’t care how much of this fluid entered my stomach. I was going insane. I had to still be dreaming!

Okay, okay, I shouldn’t panic. This could all be in my head. Everything could be an illusion.

Breathing in deeply and then back out, I calmed myself down for a split second until I noticed that my “nails” were a bit longer than usual … and sharper.

… I need a mirror.

I jumped up. Every step I took felt awkward with these weird lizard feet, but I wasn’t slipping and tripping around anymore as I took it slow. It was progress, but progress I wished I hadn’t learned.

I looked at my surroundings, ignoring the absurdity of everything, just to find something that could reflect stuff. When I found a small puddle in the middle of this grassy place, I ran over there, trying my best to coordinate four legs.

Oh, right, have I mentioned I had four legs instead of two? Yeah, that warranted a mention, but I was screaming around so much that I found it unnecessary to repeat everything again. But in the depths of my soul, I was screaming. I was screaming nonstop for all of this to end.

Once there, I placed my head over the puddle of water, telling myself to be brave and just open my eyes. I reassured myself that it was all a dream and that this was probably just some cosplay or the sudden progression of VR to the point that everything felt real.

Okay, let’s get it over with … Why am I a lizard?

The image was unclear, but I could see a lizard’s face covered in black scales on it. There was no hair or outer ear, but I could see tiny knife-like teeth as I held my mouth agape from surprise. Yup, the hope I built up was once again destroyed.

“Kriiiiiiiah!”

Oh, just woooonderful. My panicked cries of absolute panic sounded exactly like the ones I heard lizards make during those animal documentaries. I could imagine it now, “Lizard wakes up to find out she’s a lizard and lets out a pathetic cry.” Ferocious. Brilliant title.

… The chance of this being a dream was now 100%, right? ‘cause if it weren’t, then this meant this wasn’t a dream, but reality. I wasn’t enjoying a peaceful sleep on my soft bed. This wasn’t a dream. This also couldn’t be VR … and with those options thrown out the window, the last one I had was—

Did I die?

NO! No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no! Stupid! Stupid thoughts!

Why the hell was that even a thought?! It was insane if you ask me! A sane person should not assume that she just died when something weird happens! That was just crazy, without any evidence.

… But what if it was the truth?

I did enjoy reading fiction, and some of those novels had portal fantasy or reincarnation into a new world as a theme. You die on Earth and were then reborn into an entirely new world, where you inherited your memories from your past life.

Dying and then being transferred into another world was absurd. It couldn’t be real. It was fiction for a reason. However, if I looked at it from that perspective, it would rationalize all the crazy stuff around me. The fact that I was a newborn lizard with all this information on reincarnation novels was kinda proof of this very idea.

But, then, how did I die? I couldn’t recall anything. My mind felt hazy as if I was missing something. If the thought of reincarnation should be put into consideration, then what about some mad scientist kidnapping me and turning me into a lizard from one of their experiments? It was equally crazy, but at least not morbid.

Hahahaha, ahhhhhhhhh! I screamed internally, this time so that I could avoid hearing that lizard-like scream again.

Either way, I needed to distract myself by doing something. Anything. I felt light-headed the more I thought about this, so I decided it was better not to build up even more stress by staying optimistic.

I did not die.

I had to stay composed. Whether this was a dream or not, the situation was dire. I had no phone, my parents weren’t around, nor my nanny, and I was immensely confused. I needed to assess my situation. Negativity would just cloud my judgment.

… That was when I heard something approaching from behind.

I turned around, noticing two individuals. Compared to the trees, they were around the size of small children but fully covered in fur. They each wore nothing but a loincloth and had a thick tree branch in their hands. They eyed me and began to drool.

“Grouu!” both growled with their fangs bared.

… I should probably run now.

A note from AbyssRaven

Nein = No

du = you

Dummkopf = idiot

scheiße = shit

Edit: Chapter rewritten to my current style. Honestly, looking back at this chapter was an eye widener. The growing pains were needed since I was a new writer and this was my first story, so to everybody rereading, thank you for sticking around despite how bad it was in the beginning.

Chapter 2: I Wish Using Magic Would Come With a Manual.

A note from AbyssRaven

Status boards incoming!

“Gruoooh!”

“Graaah!”

Seeing those two furred things shout before running at me with their tree branches raised, I couldn’t help but start screaming, “Krrrrrriiiiiiah!” before fleeing in the opposite direction.

No, no, no, no, no! I need to get the fuck out of here!

I didn’t care where I was running to. Anywhere was better than to stay here, waiting for those things to catch me. However, even as my fear shouted at me to run as fast as I could, my legs couldn’t match my commands.

I was used to sprinting on two legs, not four, and with all the relatively large leaves and branches in the way, I also had to bypass a parkour course. I wanted to run faster, but any more and my legs will just tangle into each other and cause me to trip.

My chest began to hurt from all this erratic breathing. My legs ached from being forced to move. I couldn’t keep this up for too long. There had to be something I could do to delay them, and I needed to find it out quickly!

My eyes darted around, looking for any kinda solution, but all I could see were bushes and trees. But then an idea appeared—couldn’t I hide inside one of those bushes? I was tiny enough to do so. Hiding inside these bushes wouldn’t be a problem, and I had the black scales to camouflage within its shadows.

With a plan set, I checked on how far those fur children were. However, the moment I did so, a stone crashed right next to me, leaving a small dent on the ground. It missed me, but it flustered me enough to realize plans wouldn’t work if I get crushed by a pebble. New plan—run even harder for your dear life!

As my breathing became more strained, my urge to not get caught suddenly invoked a weird “feeling” inside my chest again. Was it adrenaline? I wondered, but at this point, who the hell cared what it was? What was important was to push my legs, and if this “feeling” could help me with it, then even better!

I didn’t feel myself going faster at all, but then again, my vision was fusing all the green and brown of this park into a singular color. Fear and trepidation completely overwhelmed my mind, so much so that my body just moved single-mindedly for survival.

After what felt like an eternity, my body finally gave in.

[Exhaustion (Minor)] applied on [Dragon Hatchling *]

“Kra!”

My numb legs tripped over a branch, causing me to tumble to the ground and crash. I could feel aches all around my body, especially in my arms and legs. Well, actually, it was four legs, right? Regardless, when I opened my eyes again, I saw a large bush right in front of me.

My flight-or-fight instincts kicked in again, drawing out the last remaining amount of my power so I could drag my body under it. The moment I felt shadows around me, my body just lost all strength. My breathing was out of control and I could feel my chest constantly pounding the ground.

“Kreh. Kreh. Kreh. Kreh. Kreh! Kreh!” I was dead, I just had no will to do anything anymore.

Uuuieagh, this is too much to expect. I just woke up! This is far too harsh fo—

“Gruh …” I heard a low growl

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I’ll be a good girl and stop complaining, so please, don’t find me! Please, don’t find me!

I closed my mouth, holding my breath in as much as possible until those things went away. Sadly, as you could expect, my body had no interest in doing that when I was running out of oxygen. My muscles needed it so badly, but I forced myself to reject taking in deep breaths.

Breathe in … breathe out …

I couldn’t stop myself from taking in air, but I had to take it in slowly. I was a singer and dancer, knowing how to breathe was part of my training, and once I reminded myself of that, slowing down my rapid-beating heart was no problem.

Breathe in … breathe out … breathe in … breathe out. Take small ones. Sync it up with the blowing wind …

I felt like a ninja. This anxiousness to not get caught was so similar to how I felt inside a stealth game, where it was game over if you couldn’t hide or sneak well enough. That was exactly how I had to treat this moment right now.

If I fuck up, I lose. I lose, I die … D-die … I can’t—

Acquisition requirement fulfilled. [Stealth Lv. 1] acquired

… That startled me. Was that just a voice talking in my head? Wait, had I heard it somewhere before? Nevertheless, imagination or not, there was a time and place for everything, and I certainly did not need to think about that right now.

All of this could be pondered on later. For now, I need to stay quiet …

Some time went by. The tenacity those fur kids showed forced me to stay in stealth mode until the sky began to turn orange. In this time, curiosity replaced some of my fear, prompting me to sneak a look at my pursuers. Aside from the fur around their bodies and their primitive clothing, what I also learned was that they had dog-like heads. Fortunately for me, they didn’t have a dog’s sense of smell.

After they left, I finally had the chance to relax. My four legs became cramped after staying in the same pose for who knows how long after running so much. Warning, after you warm yourself up, sitting or lying down without doing anything was bad. It huuuuurts.

Still, since I was scared of moving out of this bush right now and had a great interest in taking a rest after that marathon, now was the time to organize my thoughts. So, to start off—

Proficiency requirement fulfilled. [Stealth Lv. 1] evolved into [Stealth Lv. 2]

Yeah, that voice appeared again while I was in stealth mode, but this time, I made a mental note of what it said. Now, the question was, how the hell do I make sense of this?

Like, it appeared when I was hiding in the bush and mentioned something about a fulfilled requirement, right? That weird, robotic voice echoed inside my mind as that sentence appeared inside my mind like an image.

And then, I received this second message. [Stealth]? Why was it in brackets? Why did it have “Lv. 1” and “Lv. 2” behind it? Those messages almost sounded like an admin or system announcement to inform players inside an MMO—a Massively Multiplayer Online game. In that case, is this [Stealth] a skill or perk?

If so, then I guess the monotonous voice announcing this “skill” acquisition should be a so-called System Voice? I mean, I didn’t know how it was actually called, but giving out names to unknown things would make it more convenient to address.

Coincidentally, that made this whole reincarnation idea more plausible, or maybe I was stuck inside a VR world. Who knows? Regardless, if I continued going with this thought, then there should be a way to observe my collective information, right? Like my skills or even status? The question was, how would I open it?

Making a sound isn’t smart. I don’t know what’s outside this bush.

With that option thrown out, the only way forward was to do it inside my head. Hmm, beginning with some simple commands first would best.

Status window, open. Nope.

Character window, open. Nah.

How about just—status! Nein.

Open the windows to my character information, please? Rejected.

Window? Denied.

Welp, I could continue doing this as often as possible. Haaaaaa, profile, maybe?

Name: * Level: 0 Race: Dragon Hatchling

Age: 0 Month

Status: Health: 26/30 Mana: 47/80

Strength: 10 Intelligence: 6

Vitality: 4 Wisdom: 5

Agility: 16 Stamina: 0/12

Effects: [Exhaustion (Minor)]

Skill Points: 0

Skill: Magic skills and related:

[Mana Control Lv. 1] [Holy Magic Lv. 1] [Primal Magics]

Senses and movement skills:

[Stealth Lv. 2]

Spell List: Holy Magic:

[Minor Heal]

The Light Magic:

[Shine]

Titles: [The Light] [Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] [Otherworldly Reincarnator]

O-oh, it worked! W-woah.

A large blue image appeared inside my head. They weren't in front of my eyes, as I managed to prove by pushing my head closer to the ground. This blue screen of information was all in my mind.

As my gamer sense began to take over, I began looking through all the information inside this “profile,” noticing something about race there. Under the section “Race,” it stated that I was a [Dragon Hatchling]. A dragon hatchling?

I turned around to look at my body, noticing my bony legs, my smooth scales, and a twig of a tail. There was nothing draconic about me. I was a lizard. No, the lizards I saw on those docus looked intimidating with their sharp scales or spikes. I was a gecko! A pitiful-looking thing that wishes to be a dragon!

But do you know what was more outrageous than this? The fact that I was accepting this. The fact that my eyes were also drawn towards [Otherworldly Reincarnator]. The fact that I might actually have died and been reincarnated in a fantasy world with geckos as dragon whelps! I could laugh right now!

Like hell! Wake up!

“Kuighhh …!” I held onto my denial. I wanted it to be a dream so badly that I bit my right arm … right front leg.

Acquisition requirement fulfilled. [Pain Resistance Lv. 1] acquired

[Bleeding (Minor)] applied on [Dragon Hatchling *]

Profile!

Name: * Level: 0 Race: Dragon Hatchling

Age: 0 Month

Status: Health: 18/30 Mana: 48/80

Strength: 10 Intelligence: 6

Vitality: 4 Wisdom: 5

Agility: 14 Stamina: 0/12

Effects: [Exhaustion (Minor)] [Bleeding (Minor)]

Skill Points: 0

Skill: Magic skills and related:

[Mana Control Lv. 1] [Holy Magic Lv. 1] [Primal Magics]

Senses and movement skills:

[Stealth Lv. 2]

Resistances:

[Pain Resistance Lv. 1]

Spell List: Holy Magic:

[Minor Heal]

The Light Magic:

[Shine]

Titles: [The Light] [Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] [Otherworldly Reincarnator]

That bite is enough to make me bleed through those scales?! How sharp are my teeth?!

No, wait, calm down! This is all a dream. This has to be a dream! I don’t care if my health drops down to zero ‘cause this is all just a dream!

Health: 9/30

… On the off-chance this isn’t a dream, wouldn’t I be kicking the bucket again?

… [Minor Heal]. [Minor Heal]. Minor heaaaal. Oh my GOSH, how do you use magic?!

The bleeding wouldn’t stop, and I couldn’t heal myself with this “spell.” At this point, I was just too scared of what would happen if I let my health drop down to zero. The unknown was scaring me. I must stop this bleeding.

Trying to remember what I learned during those first-aid lessons, I first applied pressure on my arm to staunch the bleeding before I grabbed a leaf from the bush using my mouth. Forcing down my tears, I wrapped this substitute bandage around the wound. With no thumbs, I had to rely on my tail and surprisingly flexible hind legs to help me out.

After I was done with the leaf bandage, I checked my profile once again, letting out a sigh of relief when the [Bleeding (Minor)] effect was gone. It was a bit inconvenient that the System wouldn’t announce when a status ailment disappeared, but whatever. Crisis averted.

… I’m sorry, Mama and Papa. I’m so sorry … I-I don’t remember how I died, but it’s a fact I can’t deny anymore. I left before you guys. I always, always made you two worry about me, and now this happened? I’m just the worst daughter ever …

To think that hurting myself was the way for me to finally accept the truth. Once I admitted to fearing my health reaching zero, that was when I stopped denying this world and calmed down.

Of course, I didn’t want to accept this life. I didn’t want to accept this world. I wanted to go back to my parents and my comfortable silver spoon life. This was a terrible reality for me. I was ready to accept wetting my bed or whatever, but if I could send myself back to my previous life with my loving parents, I would do … anything.

It’s useless. Nobody can hear me. Argh, why? You two always kept encouraging me whenever I failed an audition, and, jeeeeeez did I fail a lot. Now, I even failed at living. I died as … a nobody.

… What am I doing? Shouldn’t my priority be fixing up a [Minor Heal] so I don’t die again? Yeah, let’s do this …

From those initial tries, calling out the spell name wasn’t enough to activate it. Unfortunately, I tried calling up a manual or “Help,” but the number of attempts got to the point where I gave up. Even calling the words inside the Profile didn’t give me any details. The amount of information I was given was pathetic. I wished I had something to appraise these skills and spells.

… Nothing? System Voice, this is the moment you throw me a bone and grant me something useful, you hear? Please? You have to give others manuals or instructions. Otherwise, everybody would become as confused as I am.

It didn’t work, so I had to rely on brute forcing it at this point. If RPG magicians have taught me anything, casting time was just part of the process.

Okay, here goes—I beg of you to heal these wounds. Minor Heal.

Next one—I am the source of the winds of magic. Hear me, and grant me your blessing. Minor Heal.

Expecting this to work using random words might have been too optimistic, but you couldn’t fault a depressed girl for trying, right?

If that was the case, then it might be better to think about this properly. Some thinking time might actually be better for me than to continue feeling sorry for myself, and this might seem like the best way. Escapism to its fullest. Just this time, I was escaping into my Profile, and a skill called [Mana Control].

I had this skill the moment I opened my status window, but how did I gain it? Was I born with it? If so, how do I control mana? I used up almost half of my total mana pool, but I also noticed that my current amount increased from 47 to 48. Did I regenerate some of it naturally? When did I use it in the first place?

I had so many questions. This whole mana thing was turning into chocolate for me, and by chocolate, I meant make-me-feel-better drugs. So, better dig in then.

Minor Heal! Oooooh, OOOOOH! Yes, yes, yes, yes, look at that light! Healing!

A mysterious white magic circle with weird glowing symbols, or letters, decorating the outer edge of it appeared above my hand and basked my wound in soothing, dazzling light. As I took off my bandage, I noticed my wound closing up in real-time, leaving no evidence of there ever being a bite mark. Not even a scar!

Looking at my profile, my health filled up to 30. I was a cleric with this spell! No need to praise me here; I mean, I just learned how to use magic after just being born with it. I guess this was the benefit of being a dragon, huh? Even if I didn’t look the part.

So, to summarize how I made sense of this magic system. First things first, mana. What and how did I use it? From the look of it, that “feeling” I felt surging from my chest was exactly that. When I was trying everything out, I thought of summoning that feeling, only to learn that I was using up my mana pool as I kept this feeling lingering around.

It was only then that I finally made any progress in my spell casting attempts. While having this feeling around, I wished for my wound to heal, at which point I felt my mana automatically moving towards my head.

Surprised, I stopped before anything happened. With renewed confidence, I tried this method again, only this time, I personally moved my mana towards my wound, and that was where I imagined [Minor Heal] healing my wound. When I did so, mana began leaving my body, and this weird white circle filled with symbols and stuff materialized.

And then, everything happened without any problems. I healed myself and I was so pumped that I had to continue testing it. I began moving my mana around my body, from my head to my tail, learning how I could only conjure [Minor Heal] close to my body, as I couldn’t directly send my mana out. Maybe I needed more training, or different spells had different castable ranges?

A couple more pointers I received from these tests was that I didn’t need to cast the spell even if the magic circle was up. I could stop it, and it would refund my mana. I also didn’t have to move the mana myself; it automatically did it when I imagined it. As if a System was controlling it, eh?

But, I stopped the moment I felt a headache. It seemed like overusing mana wasn’t good for my body. It made me slightly light-headed, but nothing else. This certainly proved my idea of how I had to get more accustomed to this whole mana thing.

In any case, it was surprisingly beneficial. Imagine; letting mana form the magic circle; finally, cast the spell once the circle was fully formed If I followed these bullet points, I shouldn’t have any trouble in the future.

It sounded easy, but figuring that out without instructions was rather annoying. It took me some time to figure out that the good “feeling” I had inside before was actually my mana. Who could have possibly deduced that on the first day of their life? Well, me, but I was a dragon.

Still, it was a bit strange that I could do it so easily without an instructor. Was it due to me owning [Mana Control]? Did others have to learn it first to use magic? Well, not my problem ‘cause I was a mage now.

Welp, that was a lot of fun. I even feel better now … If I stop thinking of my past life and my parents. Arck! Stop thinking! I’m hungry! Brain food. The hatchling demands food!

But nobody answered.

Now that I thought about it, I hatched out from that egg, right? So, that fluid thing was actually the yolk, the main source of nutrients for a growing lizard. The egg was strangely pretty large in comparison to me, so was I an early birth? Was the reason why I was so small ‘cause of that?

Well, at this point, going back to it was impossible. I had no idea where I was, and the sun was setting. I did drink some of that yolk before leaving my egg, but I had to find a different food source now, and that was when I saw berries in a nearby bush.

I was scared of leaving my safety bush, but I had to do something about this hunger. Babies shouldn’t go hungry. I could just make the berry bush my next safety bush.

Poking my head outside, I turned my head in every direction; left, right, up, down, up-left, down-right, and so on. Every angle that my head could turn to, I checked. Better safe than sorry.

My body felt numb and exhausted from all that running, and sitting around hungry didn’t help my muscles adjust. I couldn’t afford to flee again. So, channeling mana into my legs, I quickly crawled over to the bush like a gecko, checked if anybody was inside it, and jumped right into it when the coast was clear.

I need to build up my stamina again. Dancing would be impossible if I couldn’t breathe after two minutes.

Making myself at home here, I looked up at the berry—on closer inspection, these berries were huge in comparison to me. I probably should get used to that.

I climbed up along a branch to the berry using my flexible gecko body, only noticing when I stood right in front of it that it was a gigantic strawberry. It was larger than the rock those dog-head kids threw at me.

Being tiny suckssss …

I grabbed the strawberry, having made up my mind to feast. I immediately dug my tiny teeth into the berry’s skin, easily piercing it. I slowly began sucking out the sweet oozing juices to quench my dry throat before tearing a chunk of its flesh off.

Chewing the soft interior, my reptilian tongue waved around happily as it enjoyed every single crunch. Gulping it down, I felt a warm sensation inside my stomach, praising me for a job well down. I knew my stomach wanted to continue eating, but I couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief.

… Delicious.

A note from AbyssRaven

The first status boards have appeared!

With that, I would like to ask you guys if you like the status board to be like this or if I should put it all in a table. I'll have a poll after the chapter, so it would be awesome if you guys could choose one of the options.

Thanks for reading!

verdammt nochmal = (not literal translation) damn it all

Edit: Switched old tables with Royal Road ones according to the wishes of the majority of the poll.

Edit 2: Chapter was rewritten to my latest writing style. I'll just leave the poll open because it's funny looking at it grow.

Chapter 3: I’m a Strawberry Lover Now.

A note from AbyssRaven

So I did some blue boxes. Well, that took a while.

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Physical Resistance Lv. 2] [Pain Resistance Lv. 2] [Mana Control Lv. 2] [Holy Magic Lv. 3] gained

Butterflies drinking from flowers. What a cute sight in this dangerous forest … Well, if you exclude that face of theirs, eeuk …

A group of butterflies was extracting nectar from a couple of flowers nearby, enjoying their meal, only for a bird to swoop in and grab one of them. Before the other butterflies could escape, the bird flapped its wings and slammed two of them. They were dead before they landed on the ground. Once it pecked those bodies up, it flew away, leaving me alone.

… I hate this place.

Three nights have passed since I made this berry bush into my new home. If you were to ask me what I did these past days, aside from avoiding every creature I saw, then I would like to point you at the once abundant strawberry bush. Most of its berries, or nuts if you wanted to be pedantic, were gone, fully digested in my stomach.

I guess it should have been expected, but even stuff like strawberries tasted differently compared to those from Earth. They were more sweet than sour, but, boy, did I love every single bite. With everything inside this place probably able to kill me, this was my sole haven. A damn fine one, at that! Free housing, free food and water, and mild protection from the rain.

Still, did that make me seem lazy? Think again and behold!

Name: * Level: 0 Race: Dragon Hatchling

Age: 0 Months

Status: Health: 30 Mana: 97 (+17)

Strength: 11 (+1) Intelligence: 8 (+2)

Vitality: 6 (+2) Wisdom: 5

Agility: 18 (+2) Stamina: 12

Effects: None

Skill Points: 0

Skill: Magic skills and related:

[Mana Control Lv. 2] (+1) [Holy Magic Lv. 3] (+2) [Primal Magics]

Senses and movement skills:

[Stealth Lv. 3] (+1)

Resistances:

[Physical Resistance Lv. 2] (+1) [Pain Resistance Lv. 2] (New)

Spell List: Holy Magic:

[Minor Heal] [Cure] [Modest Heal]

The Light Magic:

[Shine]

Titles: [The Light] [Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] [Otherworldly Reincarnator]

Staying in a safe location sounded all good and awesome, but there was nothing for me to do here but eat. I was too frightened to explore this place, and this bush wasn’t equipped with a TV or PC for me to look up a survival guide.

It got me thinking of practicing healing myself to prepare for the next emergency. Now, I know self-mutilation wasn’t a virtue, but I had to test how much my healing could do with every cast. This was an experiment; I was not a masochist, okay?

In any case, boredom was such a motivator that I was able to occupy myself with this in the last few days. As a result, I was rewarded with multiple upgrades to my skills and also a new one in the form of [Pain Resistance]. It did exactly what its name stated; it dulled down pain.

However, what surprised me the most was [Holy Magic]. With every level up, I received a spell—[Cure] from level two and [Modest Heal] from three. From my testing, [Modest Heal] was a straight-up superior version of [Minor Heal]. Talk about power creep within the first three levels.

Unfortunately, for [Cure], I wasn’t able to get any substantial results; however, if I could hazard a guess, it probably acted like an ailment cleanser. Like healing poison and venoms. I wasn’t sure about it, but I would have to keep that in mind if I ever was infected with a disease or something.

Of course, magic training wouldn’t be over if I didn’t try to understand more about this System. There had to be more to this, and I was likely only scratching the surface of this practice.

For example, I learned that you could increase or decrease the amount of mana spent on a spell, altering its potency dependently. Still, if you looked at the performance to mana ratio, using [Modest Heal] was just flat out better than [Minor Heal], even with this realization.

Reducing and increasing mana costs probably would become more useful once I got more spells with varying effects. If I received some offensive spells in the future, I could already imagine the power I could wield with this technique! Gigantic bombs would make some loud booms, ha! But that was a luxury for another time.

Seriously, with all the magic and game stuff, this world just made me wish it was all just a dream about a realistic video game, but I have already accepted the truth in these past three days. I had enough time to mourn for myself. Complaining about it any longer was useless.

After all, I somehow managed to handle myself using only the information I got from those fake survival drama shows, but I was a city girl at my core. You didn’t get wilderness survival training in the middle of a metropolitan city like New York while lounging in front of a TV!

There was nobody to ask for help, so I had to start relying on myself and adapt. If I wanted to survive, then I needed to be proactive and experiment since there were no search engines to look up the most efficient process.

There was also the most horrifying fact—getting used to living outside.

Food was sorted with the strawberries, and if it rained, I could snatch a droplet or two from the bush’s leaves. The berries also had a lot of liquid, so staying hydrated wasn’t a problem.

Climate-wise, it was rather warm and humid, but that posed no issues for me. On the contrary, the warmer the day was, the more comfortable it was for me. Maybe it was ‘cause dragons were reptiles and cold-blooded? Actually, now that I thought about it, were dragons even cold-blooded? Bah, whatever.

Unfortunately, that was all the good things about this life. What was so bad?

The fact that I had no access to a permanent water source. Yes, it rained, but not often enough. Thankfully, when it did rain, I could clean myself, but sadly it didn’t come whenever nature called. It felt disgusting not being able to clean after I peed or pooped, and all that waste was also neatly packed with me under this bush since I couldn’t go out.

Use leaves to clean, you say? Dig a hole and bury it all there?

Well, uh, you see, my front legs were a bit too short for that. I had to bend over, including my head, to clean anything, and it certainly wasn’t a welcoming sight. Also, I couldn’t dig too deeply; my arm strength was literally that of a hatchling. At least the waste was small and the rain could just wash things away, so this place wasn’t too stinky.

See what I had to go through in this dumb forest? And I was expected to continue doing all of this to survive. Honestly, dude, it wasn’t a fun feeling being under this bush for this long. I honestly want to put this topic to rest …

There was also the problem of my new body, specifically, being quadrupedal. After what happened during that chase, I made up my mind to relearn how to walk, but with how awkward it was to coordinate these four legs, I felt just annoyed by them.

My center of mass was different, and knowing when and how to put a single foot forward required getting used to it. Currently, when I try walking for an extended time, I would lose focus and ruin my balance before falling. Rolling around on the dirt so often was discouraging, but I had to learn how to do it sooner than later.

It also didn’t help that my home was, well, a bush. In the middle of nowhere. All the earth stuck onto my scales and claws, and it would linger there until the next rain shower. Literally, my safety bush was turning into an unwanted home.

And lastly … I haven’t been able to get a single good night’s sleep in these past few days. All the chirping, all the leaf rustles—every sound felt nerve-wracking to listen to. They came from every direction; sometimes, it was the wind, sometimes larger animals.

I couldn’t relax. I thought, Was this it? Will I get caught today?

I couldn’t fall asleep. The only way for me to stop complaining about everything was to do all that training and theory crafting. I had something else to think about instead of loathing every second of being here.

… Just like what I am doing right now.

Everything about this whole situation is fucked up! Verdammte Scheiße!

The best part about being half-German—cursing felt more impactful.

Why the hell am I stuck in this godforsaken place all alone, without anybody around for help? Why did I have to be born so early that I ended up in this hobbit reptile’s body when literally everything else is larger than me? Why can’t I have dragon breath like a normal dragon?

And most importantly … Where are my fucking parents?! Where are those damn lizards? Who’s cruel enough to dump my egg in this forest without any help, heeeeellooooooo?! GET ME OUT OF HERE!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Okay, deep breaths.

In … and out.

In … and out.

We’ve gotten over complaining about this.

This was what boredom did to me. Getting away from all this reality could only be done if I kept my mind focused on training and getting stronger.

For one, it seemed training helped improve my stats over time. For example, using mana increases your maximum capacity. Biting or scratching myself would increase my strength and vitality. Even doing sit-ups will show results in some way.

The second reason was, honestly, it felt wrong not to increase it. I’ve recently only had time for mobile games, but when I was still a kid, my Mama used to introduce me to the video games she liked to play, and RPGs were one of her favorite genres. My competitive side demanded me to go work!

However, these relatively quiet days were about to end today. This problem has plagued humanity since its inception—food. The strawberry bush was nearly exhausted, and I couldn’t find another one close by. I could explore the forest, yes, but that was just suicide with those large birds flying around. Birds liked lizard steaks.

Driven by desperation and this impending hunger, I had to make up my mind—I needed to hunt.

The egg yolk seemed to have given me the necessary nutrients for four days, but the lack of protein was giving me cravings now. Sadly, I didn’t have the physical prowess nor confidence to go out hunting. I might only be a few days old, but I couldn’t possibly grow up with only strawberries now, right? The situation was inevitable.

The only solace I found in all of this was that I was quite curious about the leveling system. The only way to find out how it worked was to … Haaaaaaa, I had to kill.

At first, I was really apprehensive about that idea, but as I weighed the pros and cons, I knew there was only one option left if I didn’t want to turn into a vegetarian.

But, man, was I surprised to find out I accepted that reality that quickly. What normal student randomly would decide that she wanted to kill for her dinner today? Was it ‘cause I was a dragon now? Dragons was like monsters even in this world, right? If that was so, then normalizing killing others would come naturally to me.

Speaking of monsters, my target finally arrived.

It was a rabbit with a pair of small doe antlers. It looked about the size of a normal bunny, but from my perspective, it was kinda hard to tell.

Inspecting myself, my new body would fit perfectly in an adult’s hands. If I had to describe myself objectively, without self-deprecating myself, then I guess you could compare me to a crocodile hatchling. The problem was that the bunny would probably overflow in a human’s hand with all its fluffy fur.

If you hadn’t guessed it at this point, I was targeting something that looked larger than me. Even that bird from before looked more intimidating compared to me. It wasn’t like I didn’t want to target something smaller; this was just the next largest target. Otherwise, bugs, but those critters were either too fast or nowhere around this bush.

In any case, during my time in this bush, multiple of these rabbits have been wandering around this area. Probably looking for food. So, I left my last strawberry in front of this bush in hopes to lure it in. I would hide and cover my presence before sneak attacking it while it nibbled on the berry. Simple, yes, but it should work.

Come closer, bunny, bunny, bunny.

The rabbit hopped towards the berry, staying slightly on guard as it looked around itself. I swallowed my saliva in anticipation. This was the last piece of food I was using as bait, so I couldn’t allow myself to fail. If I did, then, well, I would have to leave this place, and that was something I wanted to avoid.

Slow breaths, do it exactly how you’ve always done it. Calm yourself and just focus on the task … You can do this, girl.

… Now, Shine!

“Miiih!”

Casting my spell from my tail, a bright light burned the eyes of the rabbit as it began eating the berry.

Normally, the spell [Shine] only required relatively little mana to cast a small light source. However, pump the mana amount up, and it could act as a flashbang. Using my tail to cast it from behind me also prevented blinding myself.

“Kriii!”

My legs pushed off the ground, letting my body leap out of the bush. I poured mana through my jaw and crunched onto the rabbit’s throat with my fangs.

I confirmed that by using [Mana Control], I could use mana to empower my body temporarily. Back then, I used it on escaping my egg and fleeing those dog-headed men, and now I was using this skill to squeeze the life out of this rabbit with my bite.

It struggled, trying to throw me off, but I held onto it as hard as I could with my legs. I dug the claws on them into the rabbit’s body before putting every bit of strength I had left into my jaw. Without being able to breathe properly, the rabbit couldn’t summon the appropriate amounts of power to defend itself.

Urrrgh, please, just stop moving. Please, come on, j-just … please, die for me!

“Eiiii …”

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Dragon Hatchling *] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 4]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 400 skill points

Acquisition requirement fulfilled. [Mana Strike Lv. 1] acquired

Proficiency requirement fulfilled. [Stealth Lv. 3] evolved into [Stealth Lv. 4]

I’m sorry …

The warm blood of the rabbit spilled into my mouth, giving me the first taste of raw, warm blood in this life. The thick fluid filled my mouth, slowly seeping into my stomach as I was still recovering from the fact that I had just killed something. Once I regained my mind, I spat everything out, even coughing to make sure to clean myself from this foreign blood.

It was revolting. Traumatizing, even. How the rabbit struggled to break away from me or how I broke its neck with just my … teeth. I saw its eyes looking at me in terror as I crunched away the last remaining fire in its life … Killing with my mouth made it too personal.

However, as if the world wanted me to get over it, the moment I leveled up, I felt absolutely ecstatic. My body filled up with alien energy as my strength began to grow.

Profile.

Name: * Level: 4 Race: Dragon Hatchling

Age: 0 Month

Status: Health: 50/50 (+20) Mana: 137/137 (+40)

Strength: 19 (+8) Intelligence: 12 (+4)

Vitality: 10 (+4) Wisdom: 9 (+4)

Agility: 28 (+10) Stamina: 20/20 (+8)

Effects: None

Skill Points: 400 (+400)

Skill: Magic skills and related:

[Mana Control Lv. 2] [Holy Magic Lv. 3] [Primal Magics]

Physical skills and related:

[Mana Strike Lv. 1] (New)

Senses and movement skills:

[Stealth Lv. 4] (+1)

Resistances:

[Physical Resistance Lv. 2] [Pain Resistance Lv. 2]

Spell List: Holy Magic:

[Minor Heal] [Cure] [Modest Heal]

The Light Magic:

[Shine]

Titles: [The Light] [Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] [Otherworldly Reincarnator]

Hiehie … it was worth it. Yeah, this has to be the way. This was my reward.

I was happy to see my current profile. It looked proper now. It was also good to see that you receive a full mana recovery whenever you level up.

Furthermore, the leveling up gave me 100 skill points per level up, netting me 400 points to spend. When I first tried to look into this [Skill Points] thing in my profile, it opened up a skill list for me. Everything was grey out, though, but now that I had points, I should be able to buy something. Hopefully, there was something combat related since ambushing probably won’t always be available as an option.

Skill List Open—oof.

There were a ton of skills in this list, and as I expected, they weren’t greyed out anymore. I should probably sort them for now.

Display the lowest available skills.

Skill List

Sort by: Lowest available skills

Cost: 50 SP

[Fire Magic] [Earth Magic] [Identify] [Unarmed Mastery] [Enhanced Claws] [Enhanced Fangs] [Enhanced Enemy Sense]

Cool, first try. I’m getting better at using this thing.

Surprisingly, there were quite a few skills under the 50 points category. Wasn’t my current amount enough to buy all of them at once? There were some useful sounding skills in there, like sensing enemies or using magic or using even more magic!

What a discount!

If I had been born in a safer environment, for example, with my new parents, I could have probably tried to get some of these myself … But that was wishful thinking now. Live in the moment. I didn’t have the luxury to imagine what could have been when I was still trying to get accustomed to all of this.

Let’s also stop calling those deadbeat lizards ‘parents.’ I only have one true pair of parents, and that will never change.

Before I took any of those skills, I prepared the rabbit for a meal. It had to be bled out first, as I heard meat tasted terrible if there was too much blood. I could just eat it raw, but knowing which skill I could buy made me believe I could enjoy some “luxury” for just today.

As such, I bought the necessary skills.

From the lowest available skills category, I took [Fire Magic], [Earth Magic], [Identify], and [Enhanced Enemy Sense]. I didn’t take the rest ‘cause I found some useful ones among the 100 SP group. Those would be [Cooking] and [Dismantle]. The former group would help me kill stuff, while the latter would help me avoid food illnesses.

Would you like to buy [Fire Magic] [Earth Magic] [Identify] [Enhanced Enemy Sense] [Cooking] [Dismantle] for a combined amount of 400 SP? Your current SP is 400

Yes, please! Oooh, I’m actually buying skills!

You have bought [Fire Magic Lv. 1] [Earth Magic Lv. 1] [Identify Lv. 1] [Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 1] [Cooking Lv. 1] [Dismantle Lv. 1]. Your current SP is 0

Magic gained: [Fire] [Earth Wall]

Oooooooh, yes!

As I returned my eyes to the rabbit, [Dismantle] seemed to have activated, as I suddenly somehow knew how to take off its pelt. With my claw, I began scrapping its fur off.

… I couldn’t explain how disturbing this felt. The smell of iron quickly assaulted my nose, making me nauseous. A shiver ran down my body as I opened its throat wide open, letting the pool of blood grow and grow in front of the bush.

Ewwwww … this will attract predators if I don’t cover it up. Guess I have a use for all my bathroom trips now.

Once bled out, I cast [Fire]—from [Fire Magic Lv. 1]—on the soft rabbit fur, using it as kindling to make an impromptu fireplace. I then tore off the rabbit’s flesh, slicing them into mouth-sized chunks before skewering them with a branch. With this kebab, I laid it over the flame.

Compared to the fur, I believe I did a far better job with cutting up the meat. Just as with my teeth, my claws were surprisingly sharp for how small they were. They just weren’t fit for digging.

Mhmm.

It began smelling appetizing. I had no idea if [Cooking] would magically make the meat more edible, but it certainly smelled far better than it deserved for not being seasoned. Not even salt, meeeeeh.

… It should be finished now. I licked my non-existent lips. I expected it to be bland but seeing all the juices dripping onto the floor told me otherwise. Thanks for the food!

“Mhmpf!”

Hmm, interesting.

The meat was slightly tough from being overcooked, but the juices fully stimulated my tongue with that oh-so-amazing taste of cooked fat. It wasn’t bland at all, but I couldn’t say it was delectable. But then again, considering there wasn’t any salt in the cooking process, it was a pleasant surprise to see it coming out good enough.

If [Cooking] did all of that, then it was quite a cheat, although I wished it had told me before it became medium rare. I was a rare girl, you see.

… The organs?

As I finished the kebab, I still had a big appetite when I looked at the organs, wondering if I could make them edible with the skill. I was a bit apprehensive about consuming them, but wasting food wasn’t allowed in this household! Even if it looked less than desirable …

No, no, I don’t know when I’ll get another chance to eat meat! Oh, wait, what if I covered the organs with meat and skewered them? It would look similar enough to a döner kebab.

… I shouldn’t drool.

A note from AbyssRaven

A lot of time was spent on adjusting the width of the columns, lol.

I still am not fully satisfied with it, so I'll be working on them. I'll also edit in the blue boxes for the last chapter, as you guys want me to use them.

Ja = Yes

Verdammte Scheiße = goddamn shit

Edit: Did some editing.

Edit 2: Rewritten everything to my current writing style.

Chapter 4: An Informative Night.

Hey Mama and Papa, how are you guys doing? I hope you guys aren't feeling too down ‘cause of me.

It hasn’t been long since I was reborn, hiehie. You guys would not believe where I landed and how I was born into it. Another world? Not human but as a dragon? Chased in my first minutes alive by bipedal dogs?

No. It sounded too insane to believe. Unfortunately, this was my reality now. I was not a human anymore; I was turned into a dragon.

I just killed my first animal. It was a rabbit with small antlers. Like in those hunting documentaries, I bled the rabbit out before I began butchering it. I seared the meat over a magical fire, and then I ate it. It definitely couldn’t be compared to what Mama always bought home … but it was still good to me.

Well, that was all I had to say. I miss you guys. I really do.

I love you, ich liebe euch, aishiteru—Mama and Papa,

Your Little Girl.

Send. Beep, beep, beep, brrrrrrrrr! Failed to find a connection. Ripperonies … haaaaaaaaaa.

Nope, if you once lived in a world with computers and TV, getting stuck in the wild with nothing interesting to do was just boredom times 100. I mean, going out to hunt with a full stomach sounded painful, so staying underneath this bush was my only viable option. As I intended to survive, I had to be in stealth mode 24/7 and hope some animal didn’t just stomp on me accidentally.

Of course, I wanted to sleep. I needed it desperately. With the refreshing strawberries and filling meat inside my stomach, my insomnia was finally catching up to me, but I couldn’t relax. My sated belly was producing some much-needed melatonin, but neither my heart nor brain could rest.

Hold on, in this case, why don’t I just tire my brain even more?

I bought the skill [Identify] from the skill shop. Its name alone was reason enough for me to buy it, even if I had no clear idea what it did. Regardless of if it was a light novel or some drama show, information-gathering capabilities were invaluable. If this was an appraisal skill, then I just hit gold.

Identify.

Bush: It is a bush

… Cool, it works. Lame description though.

Profile.

Name: * Level: 4 Race: Dragon Hatchling

Age: 0 Month

Status: Health: 50/50 Mana: 124/137

Strength: 19 Intelligence: 12

Vitality: 10 Wisdom: 9

Agility: 28 Stamina: 20/20

Effects: None

Skill Points: 0 (-400)

Skill: Magic skills and related:

[Mana Control Lv. 2] [Holy Magic Lv. 3] [Fire Magic Lv. 1] (New)

[Earth Magic Lv. 1] (New) [Primal Magics]

Physical skills and related:

[Mana Strike Lv. 1]

Senses and movement skills:

[Stealth Lv. 4] [Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 1] (New)

Resistances:

[Physical Resistance Lv. 2] [Pain Resistance Lv. 2]

Others:

[Identify Lv. 1] [Cooking Lv. 1] [Dismantle Lv. 1].

Spell List: Holy Magic:

[Minor Heal] [Cure] [Modest Heal]

Fire Magic:

[Fire]

Earth Magic:

[Earth Wall]

The Light Magic:

[Shine]

Titles: [The Light] [Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] [Otherworldly Reincarnator]

Let’s start the mass Identify session #1.

Dragon Hatchling: A newborn dragon that has not matured yet. Rank G

Apparently, this world had a ranking system. So, it wasn’t established by a civilization but by the System Voice? I should probably look into this ranking system a bit more.

Rank G: The lowest order of monsters

Ahhhh, so I wasn’t an “animal” per se; I was a monster! I guess it was obvious, but at least I now knew that was the correct way to address all these creatures inside this forest. However, I wasn’t trying to demean myself by learning that I was of the lowest rank. I was trying to ask for the ranking system itself!! So, show it!

Rank: Strength measurements assigned to monsters

… Was this thing treating me like an idiot? How rude! Couldn’t the System have mentioned that this sorta information was classified or not available to me instead of giving me these lame-ass descriptions? It was so short that it almost felt like nobody gave a damn with the writing! Meh, whatever, next!

Health: The status that governs and controls the lifeforce of the individual

Mana: The amount of mana the individual can hold at one time

Strength: The physical prowess that can be exerted by the body

Proficiency requirement fulfilled. [Identify Lv. 1] evolved into [Identify Lv. 2]

Vitality: The body’s ability to resist and endure physical damage. Determines physical abnormal effects application chance

Agility: The body’s ability to move more efficiently. Lessens stamina usage on abilities and actions

Intelligence: The mental capacity to continuously cast spells and mana-intensive abilities. Applies a modifier and eases the use of mana

Wisdom: The sturdiness of mana surrounding the individual to resist and endure magical damage. Increases natural mana regeneration speed

Awwwwww, it doesn’t make me smarter? It would have made algebra and studying easier.

Stamina: The maximum burden the body can endure. Exhaustion will apply once stamina reaches 0

All right, a headache was building up for me. This might have been a bit too much information streaming into my head like that, but I should force myself to continue this. It was important.

The status information was pretty simple and obvious, but I did notice that by improving [Identify], the information given to me had increased. As such, I went back to the health, mana, and strength stats to take another look at them.

Health only told me that I would die if it reached zero. Obvious. Mana would stop regenerating once it reached zero, and I would have to wait off the ailment before I could gain it again. To me, this was probably the most important part. Lastly, strength also applied a modifier for physical attacks. Neat.

Did that mean [Identify] still had more to offer? From the looks of it, it had eight more tries to really knock my socks off, uhh, scales off. With it being level two, for now, it meant that System Voice wasn’t being rude or secretive towards me. I just didn’t have the skill at a high enough level yet. Whoops, my bad, System Voice. Let’s make up.

Rank: Strength measurements assigned to monsters by the Divine System

… Pff, disappointing.

Well, it wasn’t like I needed the small details anyways. This was technically enough for me to understand things.

Hmph.

Then again, what was next was probably the most important part of these appraisal sessions—my skills and titles. I knew that my stats would grow with me through level-ups and training. In other words, any effort I put into exerting myself would reward me with something. However, how did it work for the skills?

I wasn’t 100% sure just yet, but if there weren’t any repercussions for having more skills, then maybe the rule of thumb was the more, the merrier. Of course, quality over quantity shouldn’t be neglected. I mean, having too many low-level skills just sounded like being a newb, as proven with [Identify], which was somewhat useless at level two.

There were dozens of skills available in the shop, but both my time and skill points were limited. I needed to learn more about my skills and then decided on which was worth training up. Then, it would be time to specialize and get some skills that would synergize with my combat style.

Mana Control: Allows the user to move the mana around the body. Enables the use of magic

Primal Magic: An ancient skill that allows the user to wield magic with the highest efficiency

Oh my, oh my, just look at these two gems! Compared to my other skills, these two have that sorta “special” in their description. Well, [Mana Control] sounded like a basic mage skill, as it implied you needed it to cast spells, but still, it was special to me! In addition, it cleared up a few questions I had about how I was able to cast spells on my first day.

[Primal Magic] was ambiguous. [Identify Lv. 2] couldn’t display all the information, but even with its secrets, I could tell these two skills were responsible for my fledgling mage career. Since I was born with these two skills, these two had to be innate, right? Like, every dragon getting these two? Meaning dragons were naturally good magicians?

Nah, there was no need to think too hard about it. “Of course!” was the only answer to this, otherwise, wouldn’t it be strange? I figured it out through trial and error in a single day. Becoming a mage couldn’t be this easy, right? It had to be ‘cause these two skills synergize together perfectly!

Now I was totally pumped to see what my titles did. All of them sounded over the top, and I just got them for some reason. Oh man, just imagining what crazy things they’d been granting me just awakened the gamer’s soul inside me!

The Light: A title granted to a mortal recognized by the Goddess of Light. Boosts proficiency gain of magics based on Holy Element. Decreases Dark Element resistance and proficiency

Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood: A title granted to a mortal recognized by the God of Dragons. Boosts experience gain and decreases skill point expenditure. Decreases Water Element resistance and proficiency

Otherworldly Reincarnator: A title granted to a soul who has reincarnated with memories from its previous life. Enables the Skill Point function

Proficiency requirement fulfilled. [Identify Lv. 2] evolved into [Identify Lv. 3]

… It seemed like gods existed in this world. Sooooooooo, what in the hell did I do to become recognized by two gods? I had no idea on this matter, but I couldn’t believe a god would be whimsical enough to grant a newborn two divine blessings!

Then again, maybe my escape from those fur dudes was so entertaining to watch that they just thought, “Why not?” Or, maybe I was the one over-guessing a god’s thoughts here. I was just a teenager with no idea of stuff.

Haaaaaaaaaa …

… Why should I care for their reason in the first place? All I’d been doing in these past days was complain, complain, and complain even more. Maybe it would do me some good to be more optimistic about the situation, despite how effed up it was.

Thinking about it rationally, System Voice did not announce my titles at all, and I had them right at the beginning. If I could hazard a guess, this Goddess of Light and God of Dragon probably had something to do with my reincarnation. I had no other people to blame it on.

Still, it was a useless thought for now. I did wonder why they hadn’t talked to me yet or left me a message at the very least, but so be it. I’ll worry about it when the opportunity arises and ask them questions during our meeting.

I personally had better things to worry about, life-threatening things even. For example, what my breakfast was gonna be. My berry bush was empty, and I didn’t save any of the rabbit meat since it would only attract unwanted guests. To be honest, I should just be happy with being lucky enough to be reborn with all those boons; I was even a dragon, even if I looked like a gecko right now.

After all, “Goddess of Light?” Looking at the categories and skills inside my profile, [Holy Magic] and [The Light] spell section probably came from her. It would surprise me if dragons were born with the ability to cast healing spells. Then again, I might have inherited it from my lizard parents. I was a bit confused about what [Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] did, but it was whatever. It increased my experience and skill gain efficiency. That was good enough of a blessing for me.

Obviously, if two gods were willing to grant me their divine blessings, something was up. If that was the case, then how about this, Miss Goddess of Light—I will live up to the title you gave me.

My memory still felt a bit foggy, but I was simply attributing it to sleep deprivation. Nevertheless, I still remembered my dream clearly—to stand under the spotlight and sing and dance for everybody to see. Thus, I was planning to live up to my [The Light] title as best as I could.

I have no interest in what you gods have planned for me, but in this life … I will definitely make my dream come true. I will shine!

And to do that, I had to grow stronger. I had to survive at all costs! I couldn’t fulfill it back on Earth, but I will do it now.

And to achieve this goal, I must improve my stats and skills. In addition, probably finding a way back to civilization would be ideal. Naturally, to do so, I had to start getting used to … well, I needed to learn how to kill these “monsters” to level up.

A part of me was afraid of continuing all this killing and that it might affect my personality. The thought of me becoming a murder hobo or psychopath was chilling, even repulsive to me, but what other choice did I have? Become a vegetarian? A pacifist when everything around me was larger? I had no other idea to get experience.

No, no, I would just delay the inevitable here. Trying to neglect the status quo of this world simply ‘cause I came from another world with a different culture and worldview was naïve. Even for me, that was just pure stupidity.

The meat I ate every day on Earth had to come from somewhere. The only difference was how I was now the hunter and butcher simultaneously. I personally had to do the hard parts now. They were just animals, things I must kill to survive to further my dream.

I wasn’t human anymore; I was a “monster.” An animal just like everybody else here. I need this sorta mentality to keep myself going. Keep training my stats and skills and continue on leveling to become strong enough to survive anything this forest threw at me!

After all, this was all for my dream—to become an idol.

“Wra … wraaaaah …” I yawned.

Humanize: Enables a non-human to transform into a human temporarily. Requires 1000 SP

Leveling up gave me SP, and I needed SP for this very important skill. A dragon was a threat to humans and any other races this world had, but what about a cute girl? Fat chance, right? This was my plan to re-enter civilization. If I went into a city as a dragon, all I could hope was people trying to kill me … but let us leave this for tomorrow.

I hope I won’t regret being careless for one evening, but … I … sleep …

A note from AbyssRaven

I'll be putting a status board update at the end of the chapter, if something changed on it, while not being reported anywhere in the chapter.

Once again, thank you very much for reading.

Edit: Edited to match my current style.

Continue with Dragon Idol on Amazon KU

Hello, everybody,

A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale is no longer available publically available on Royal Road. You can read it in its official book form on Amazon on August 1st.

Awakening: A LitRPG Adventure (A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale Book 1)

Or you can listen to the story on audible!

Awakening: A LitRPG Adventure (A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale Book 1)

Otherwise, I do thank everybody who has read up till this point.

Chapter 37: Of Magic and Mana.

“To me, gather my embers, to me

From shadows to embers

From embers to flame

From flame to inferno

Cast away the darkness, burn brightly, oh, dear flames

Arise inferno hellfire, engulf the world in a sea of flames

For that is my Decree!

Imperial Hellfire!”

…

Nothing. Not even a spark appeared when I finished my incantation. The magic circle that always appeared when I would cast a spell just vanished into thin air. The mana I invested into it? Wasted.

It was a bit of a hit to my pride as a mage, but I just have to bear with it. This is expected for somebody without formal magic education. I have to look at it as an adult and take it as a stepping stone towards my magical greatness!

[“Taaaaassiaaannaaaaa. It didn’t work, again!”] however, that didn’t stop me from whining, calling for my newest companion, Tasianna, for help.

[“Princess Hestia, you constructed the magic circle wrong again,”] from the cover of a giant boulder, Tasianna came flying to me, evaluating my execution. [“I can’t understand the words you spoke, but there seems to be no problem with “Incantation”. Your “Activation” requires more practice though.”]

[“I guess?”] resting one hand on my hip, my whole body slouched in exasperation. [“Doing all of this without the help of the System is really hard.”]

Nodding to my complaints, Tasianna further added, [“It was also hard for me when I started, but this is how you start learning magic.”]

What I was currently doing is magic practice with Tasianna as my instructor.

During breakfast, Tasianna gave a short lecture on magic theory for Saori, who needed it urgently. Tasianna, being a resident of this world, had more basic knowledge of how magic should be used, making her the perfect magic teacher for Saori.

Me? I too listened to her lecture. I am inherently a better mage compared to Tasianna if you only looked at the stuff on my status board.

However, Tasianna has 87 years’ worth of experience living in this world. Fairies belong to the Faefolk, a mana composed race, so her magical knowledge should be superior to mine.

I’ve only used magic for less than a year, and most of it was gained through the system with my cheat-like titles and skill points. I’m essentially a newb that got lucky with her starting gifts. My ignorance of what magic really is, is baffling considering that I've been using it for six months now. My pride as a mage meant nothing if I'm not willing to improve. So, that's why Tasianna is helping me out.

Anyways, let me summarize the content of the lecture.

When it comes to magic, there are four parts to the whole process: Invocation, Incantation, Activation, and Release.

Through my own trials and errors, I kinda had a basic idea of how magic worked but it’s just a crude understanding. I didn’t know the details.

My lack of experimentation is really coming back to bite me. It’s embarrassing to think that I was acting like hot shit back then, despite how lazy I was.

First things first, Invocation. This is what I referred to as the “imagination” phase. The formal explanation would be “choose your spell and control how the spell should be used”. The more detailed the image, the better.

The second stage is called Incantation. As you might have guessed, this is the one stage that I never, ever had any experience in. [Casting Nullification] from [Primal Magics], now [Draconic Magics], allowed me to skip this whole part. It’s a given that I couldn’t explain it to Saori when she needed me to.

Simply put, in this phase, the System transmits a text into your head, which you must recite. The problem is that you require quite a bit of focus to fully chant the whole text. It’s even more difficult if you have to do this while you’re engaging an enemy, multitasking dodging, attacking, and casting a spell.

The issue can be mitigated with the skill [Concentration], or you can just avoid it completely with my favorite multitasking skill, [Parallel Thoughts].

The third stage is Activation, the phase where you start using your mana to form the spell. This is where I pour my mana to create those magical circles that the System uses to change, order and materialize whatever I wanted during the Invocation step.

Tasianna told me that the amount of mana needed to fully form the spell depends entirely on how detailed I was during the imagination phase. How large should it be? What should I heal? Be as specific as possible, essentially. That is how you can cast super cost-effective spells while maintaining the strength of it.

Of course, that only determined the base amount of mana you have to use to cast it. Like I have done until now, you may also add more mana into to strengthen the spell.

If you want to only heal a bone, then your [Minor Heal] will only heal that bone, ignoring any other parts like the nerves and flesh.

Magic isn’t some kinda party trick in this world. It is a divine skill that is governed by god’s System. If you have the skill and knowledge, the System is smart enough to accommodate you here.

Admittedly, I never went into detail about how my spells should behave. I always said, “heal me” or “burn that”. This meant that the System always had to accommodate my vagueness, resulting in using unnecessary amounts of mana. And the more mana you used; the more arcane corruption will be accumulated.

Honestly, it’s embarrassing how pitiful my usage has been up until now; it was so bad that I actually got affected by [Arcane Corruption (Minor)] once, despite how resilient I am to it.

I like to consider that I’m a pretty decent mage, but this really stings my pride. It’s the same terrible feeling when somebody was to tell me that my singing sucks

The last part is Release. This is the easiest part. You simply have to let your spell work.

During three out of four phases, focus is a prime resource. Having skills that help you concentrate like [Battle Mind] and [Concentration] allows you to perform more effectively.

It makes sense, right? Just like in a video game, mages aren’t supposed to be in the thick of a brawl, and instead should be relaxing on the sides. Bad focus means more mana will be used, leading to needlessly generated arcane corruption.

Looking back, I really have been blessed by a wonderfully, perfect skill set. My parallel minds helped me cast spells, [Battle Mind] kept me focused on the battle, and [Absolute Pain Tolerance] prevents my action from being dulled by pain. Calmness is invaluable for a mage, and panic is a fierce enemy.

Anyways, that was it about magical theory.

Now, comes the part about “custom spells”. The usage of magic without the help of the System. [Imperial Hellfire], [Create Water], and all spells not gained through leveling your magic skills are ones that were created by the people of this world.

Compared to the System made spells, these ones had to be learned through studying. Through using these easy to learn custom spells, any aspiring mage may learn a magical skill.

Despite being made outside the System, once the System registers it, it will be affected by your skills and stats like any other spell. The System shows its adaptability here.

However, there seems to be a problem with my [Imperial Hellfire]. Tasianna mentioned that she never heard of a spell like this before, which means it was my very own custom spell; a fact that was proven correct when I mentioned that there was no Incantation nor Activation phase.

I was essentially just throwing a large flame onto the ground. There was no finesse nor technique. Nothing.

It’s funny that the System registered this new spell, even though it wasn’t completed yet. Tasianna had no answer to this but implored me to complete it saying, “The System has acknowledged your spell. It’s the only proper way to show respect.”.

And that’s why I’m doing this magic practice.

Creating an Incantation was simple, it was just like writing song lyrics. However, the problem lies with the magical circle.

The letters, or runes, are written in the lingua franca of this world, “Common tongue”. However, I can’t speak nor can I read a single word.

["Yes, learning how to speak, write, and read is something that you must do, post-haste,"] Tasianna’s words are indisputable.

Remember the books I found in that one elven shack in the Belzac forest? I showed them to Tasianna and asked her to teach me and Saori how to read them. Regardless of my troubles with magic, learning the language of this world is not only important but essential.

I’m planning to debut as an Idol in this world and the last thing I needed was for people to think that I’m an uneducated freak that can’t speak a single word. It’s a necessary preparation before we reach civilization.

It shouldn’t be a problem for me if I put my mind into it. I knew how to speak four languages fluently on Earth; English, German, Japanese, and Korean.

The former three were due to living in America and having parents of those ethnicities, but I learned Korean for the sole purpose of singing their songs properly.

[“Anyways, Tasianna? I got a question for you,”] having practiced enough for today, I decided to take a break and ask Tasianna a question that I have been longing to ask. [“How does it feel to be made out of mana?”]

Hearing my surprising question, Tasianna’s quizzical face wanted to know why I was interested in this.

I told her about two of my evolution options when I was evolving into a C rank monster. These two dragons were called [Young Mana Dragon] and [Young Arcane Corruptor Dragon], both options would turn my body into one composed completely out of mana if I were to believe the description.

I was already uninterested in [Young Arcane Corrupter Dragon] as it would prevent me from casting spells, something that I can’t accept. I will not give up being a mage. I have invested too much SP and training into this combat style that losing it would be a horror.

However, [Young Mana Dragon], on the other hand, sounds like an incredible choice. I can only die when my mana drops to zero, and considering it's triple the amount of my Health, I will essentially be harder to kill.

[“Hmm, I understand,”] Tasianna thought for a moment before speaking again. [“Well, it’s not as different as you believe it will be, Princess Hestia. Yes, your Mana will become your new “Health”, so even if your Health drops to zero, you won’t die.”]

I gave a small nod, [“My mana is quite large, so I thought it would be a great way to help my defenses? Especially, when I don’t have to deal with stuff like bleeding, decapitation, and other stuff that would cripple my current body.”]

However, contrary to my expectations, Tasianna just shook her head, [“Mana will be your body; bleeding means leaking mana from your body; decapitation means losing a huge part of your maximum mana until you can regenerate it.”]

She held up three fingers, each one an argument against a mana body, [“Mana is our life, so you can’t heal yourself using healing spells anymore. The miraculous spells of the Goddess of Light, Aurena, can only heal Health; and us Faefolk merely become tired when our Health drops, dropping unconscious if it reaches zero.”]

Urgh, that is a bit of a bummer. That would kill my heal tank strategy, but it still isn't a deal-breaker. I can simply have my mana regenerated through skills. There must be more mana regeneration skills in the shop, and I might be able to gain some evolution bonuses after evolving.

[“Secondly, our lives are threatened by inventions that drain mana, like that mana battery those trolls were using. I can’t fathom the dreadful ingenuity of the humans so I’m not sure if they have created an even more devilish way to drain mana.”]

[“However, can’t you protect yourself with [Mana Leak Resistance]?”] I gave out an argument to rebuke her point. ["With access to the skill shop, we can both buy and upgrade the skill to its max level. Maybe at level ten, it will completely prevent mana leakage?"]

[“I see!”] Tasianna face was in awe, once she realized that using SP could possibly remove her biggest weakness. [“I’m not a very good fighter, but I will do as much as I can.”] Clenching her hands together, Tasianna seems to have found a goal for herself. My cheeks couldn’t help but loosen up, silently cheering for her success.

[“Oh! My apologies.”]

A cackle escaped my mouth as I waved her concerns away, [“Don’t worry about it. So, what’s the third point?”]

[“Ah, yes! The last point would be how it would work with [Humanize],”] I tilted my head at this point, not knowing what’s she trying to point out. [“I know that the royal family Iggdrasyl, the royalty of us fairies, are capable of humanizing into elves using the skill [Elven Transformation], the elven version of [Humanize].”]

I looked through my skill shop, but the skill couldn’t be found. Maybe I locked myself out by buying [Humanize]?

Tasianna continued, [“You lose a certain amount of your stats whenever you humanize, don’t you, Princess Hestia?”] I nodded to this question. [“When smaller creatures, like Faefolk, use [Humanize], we grow in size and our stats adapt to our new body. The only exception would be for mana. The amount will stay the same, but it spreads around our transformed body.”]

In other words, fairies that use [Humanize] will, instead of losing a percentage amount, gain stats. Fairies, being made of mana, will also keep this trait in their humanized form; the only difference is that the condensed mana will be spread around the body.

[“Wait, doesn’t that mean that you don’t have to pay mana to sustain your humanized form?!”] Tasianna gave an affirming nod, confirming my suspicion. A mana dragon would follow this exact same rule, which means that I could keep all my mana in human form.

[“However,…”] like a wrecking ball, Tasianna interrupted my daydreaming. [“I don’t know what would happen if somebody with huge amounts of mana would turn into a smaller being. It might be dangerous.”]

Wait, what? That’s the reason? That’s stupid!

[“Wait, Tasianna, that sounds like you’re just trying to find a reason so I wouldn’t turn into a mana dragon. That’s not a real reason!”] my assertion forced Tasianna to make a wry smile, while she kept flying in front of me.

[“I have no knowledge about it, so it might be dangerous, Princess Hestia.”]

["Mana dragons should exist in this world,"] I argue. [“I think it would be weird if they had these problems in the first place. There has to be a way.”]

[“Maybe, but I haven’t seen a mana dragon in my life before. You will walk into the unknown if you choose to switch to a mana composed body. I just wished to inform you of this, not persuade you.”]

[“…Well, I guess.”] I gave a sigh in resignation while massaging my temple. [“I guess there is time until my evolution. Thanks for your insight, Tasianna. It’ll help me make a decision in the future.”]

[“I am in your service, Princess Hestia,”] She bowed, hiding a smile that formed after I thanked her.

[“Well, I guess this is enough for today. We need to start being productive.”]

Turning my whole body around, my eyes caught the sight of a giant rock cube that was constantly moving up and down.

Looking under its shadow, a giant monster was lying there. That was Saori and she is currently doing a reverse push up using the rock as her training partner. She wanted to push herself with her new body and asked me if I could create something heavy, which was simple.

She’s been doing it for a while now, so she must be enjoying it. Just in case, I’ve set up a trap using [Trap Creation] that will automatically activate when the rock falls to a certain distance, to stop its fall.

Using [Telepathy], I shouted to her, [“Hey, Saori! I’m finished. How much longer do you still need to train?”]

No answer came from my wolf friend. It was likely that she didn’t have any concentration to spare for any pleasantries.

[“Uhm, this is a surreal sight. I hope Madam Saori will be alright,”] Tasianna said worriedly.

[“She’ll be fine ~”]

I hope she’s enjoying it.

“Wruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh!”

…I hope she doesn’t spend the whole day on it…

Hestia's skill update

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Draconic Barrier Lv. 4] [Poison Creation Lv. 4] [Noble Aura Lv. 4] [Mental Stability Lv. 4] [Mental Warfare Lv. 4] [Probability Correction Lv. 4] [Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 4] [Draconic Fangs Lv. 4] [Piercing Enhancement Lv. 4] [Leadership Lv. 4] [Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 4] [Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 4] gained. 9750 SP remaining

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Prediction Lv. 8] [Presence Killer Lv. 8] [Enhanced Intelligence Growth Lv. 8] [Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 8] gained. 8950 SP remaining

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Parallel Thoughts Lv. 7] evolved into [Parallel Thoughts Lv. 8] gained. 8650 SP remaining

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Enhanced Mana Growth Lv. 10] [Enhanced Mana Capacity Lv. 10] [Enhanced Intelligence Growth Lv. 10] [Enhanced Intelligence Enforcement Lv. 10] [Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 10] [Enhanced Agility Enforcement Lv. 10] gained. 3550 SP remaining

Skill requirement fulfilled.   [Enhanced Mana Growth Lv. 10], [Enhanced Mana Capacity Lv. 10] merged into [Arcane Conduit Lv. 1]

Skill requirement fulfilled.   [Enhanced Intelligence Growth Lv. 10], [Enhanced Intelligence Enforcement Lv. 10] merged into [Sorcerer’s Power Lv. 1]

Skill requirement fulfilled.   [Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 10], [Enhanced Agility Enforcement Lv. 10] merged into [Speed of Sound Lv. 1]

You have bought   [Mana Leak Resistance Lv. 1]. Your current SP is 3300

You have bought   [Dark Resistance Lv. 1]. Your current SP is 300

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Humanize Lv. 7] evolved into [Humanize Lv. 8] gained. 0 SP remaining

A note from AbyssRaven

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr!

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 38: I have officially become a party leader.

[“So, I just need to put this on and then let my mana do all the work, right?”] I said.

[“Yes, Princess Hestia. Simply say ‘Interface on’ and it will activate,”] said Tasianna.

Saying “Alright.”, I then proceeded to put on this bracelet onto my left wrist like a watch, pouring mana after it was strapped on properly. This accessory is a simple, gray-colored metal bracelet with a beautiful, marine blue colored stone, or gemstone, lodged into the middle. A strap was also attached so the wearer may adjust it to their wrist’s size.

Once my mana ceased leaving my body, meaning that the bracelet was fully recharged, I spoke the command “Interface on” to activate the gadget.

A blue screen projected out of the bluestone. It looked very similar to a video game’s pause menu, showing multiple little icons that were interactable by touch. Pressing my finger on the screen, it felt like touching a liquid, but somehow it felt very familiar as if this screen was an extension of my body.

<Iron Party Bracelet: A manatech in the form of a bracelet with these features: Enables the user to access the custom System, the Party System, Allows the user to display the information from an [Identification Card], Party member finder>

This is a manatech, a mana-fueled alternative to Earth's electric-based technology. What makes it a manatech is the little mana battery inside it that acts as its core to absorb and store mana for the tool's usage.

Compared to the mana battery inside that [Warhammer Mana Cannon] that we encountered during our troll battle, this one was a dwarven-made, meaning that it would only absorb my mana when I allow it.

Like an electric battery, you can only make the manatech work if it was sufficiently charged, otherwise, the device would be useless.

According to Tasianna, the first one was created by the dwarves; designed so retainers can keep taps of the status and location of their lords, but ‘cause of the experience sharing function, it has also become popular with veteran warriors.

[“This is a screen made from your mana,”] Tasianna informed me, explaining the familiar feeling once I touched it. [“Please have a look at these three icons.”]

Tasianna flew up to me and pointed at three separate icons on the HUD, each displaying different functions that this gadget had.

The first icon, in the appearance of a handshake, is the “Party” button. Touching it, another screen appeared, similar to a window pop-up on the PC, and gave me two options to choose. On the left side was the button for “Form Party” and the one on the right is “Join Party”.

Instructed by Tasianna, I pressed the left button.

Party Leader

Name: Hestia Atsuko

Level: 74

Job: None

Health: 2634/2634

Mana: 9021/9051

Stamina: 1352/1352

Effects:

[Damaged Mana Path [Left Wing] (Minor)] [Humanized (Moderate)]

The whole menu screen changed once I pressed the button. In the upper part of the screen, there was a UI very similar to an MMO's party system, displaying a couple of my status board information. I was currently in my humanized form, so my stats were suffering from [Humanized (Moderate)].

It has been a while since I last checked my status board in my humanized form but for some reason, I was level 74. When I first used [Humanization], I only just evolved into a D rank monster, so my level was zero, but my humanized form showed me as level 25.

Thinking back, it took me 25 levels to evolve and I was currently level 24 in my dragon form.

Does this mean my human level is scaling with my dragon one?

Huh?

Saori Segawa wishes to join your party

Accept

Decline

Tasianna Marinna Silverpond wishes to join your party

Accept

Decline

Turning my head around, I saw that Saori was fiddling with her own bracelet. It had the same simplistic design as mine but hers, on the other hand, does have a few small, red stains, residue from troll blood that we couldn’t clean off.

You see, these bracelets once belonged to the trolls that we killed outside the cave, who wore them like rings. This fact should be telling of how massive those trolls were, when two “rings” perfectly fitted mine and Saori’s wrists, although mine was a bit loose.

Looking to my side, Tasianna was also awaiting my confirmation by staring at her own blue screen. Compared to our party bracelets, hers was beautifully designed with a keychain attached to the strap of the bracelet.

It was a pristine white bracelet, adorned with small flower engravings. Instead of our marine blue colored stone, hers is a bright green that sat in the middle of an extravagant emblem. The emblem, a triangle made from three sets of curling lines intersecting each other to represent the wind, had two pairs of iridescent butterfly wings on its sides.

It was hard to recognize every single detail, due to how small Tasianna’s bracelet was, but I guess my improved eyesight due to [Enhanced Vision] is helping out.

Tasianna told me that it was the emblem for the Goddess of Wind, Zephira and that this bracelet was distributed to all servants of the royal family.

The difference in quality between ours and hers made me envious but I quickly buried this displeasure. Tasianna informed us that our bracelets’ model was extremely outdated and that it was lacking some of the features that the latest models had.

Disappointing but we really only needed one feature and this model had it. Beggars can’t be choosers.

Shaking off those thoughts, I pressed “Accept” for both prompts, accepting both my companions into my party.

Party Leader

Name: Hestia Atsuko

Level: 74

Job: None

Health: 2634/2634

Mana: 9038/9051

Stamina: 1352/1352

Effects:

[Damaged Mana Path [Left Wing] (Minor)] [Humanized (Moderate)]

Name: Name: Saori Segawa

Level: 50

Job: None

Health: 1941/1941

Mana: 639/639

Stamina: 1206/1206

Effects:

[Humanized (Moderate)]

Name: Tasianna Marina Silverpond

Level: 31

Job: Mage

Health: 472/472

Mana: 1751/1751

Stamina: 312/312

“Uhh…” Tasianna unconsciously let out her voice. [“T-These are Princess Hestia’s and Madama Saori’s stats? Incredible…”]

Were they, really?, I silently thought as I glanced over at a new icon that appeared at the top of the menu. Clearly depicting the abbreviation “EXP” this button definitely had the function to allow experience sharing. As the party leader, I could decide how much experience would be shared among everybody. I quickly activated the function and decided on a fair three-way split among us.

Saori, noticing that I activated it, laughed enthusiastically, [“He he, it seems our normal way to power level will be even more effective, Hestia.”]

Her gleeful smile was clearly showing her addiction to leveling. I massaged my temple and told her not to overdo it, again, unless she wanted [Battle Frenzy] to reappear.

She quickly apologized, saying “I did promise that I would stop that, huh? Sorry, just forget what I just said.”

Doing just that, I looked away and asked Tasianna to resume explaining the last two icons.

The second icon was a map, which I presume is the party member locator function of this tool. Unfortunately, my expectations that it was a real map were shattered once I opened it.

This function simply told the distance between each party member and if they were close enough to be eligible for the experience share. It seems you can't gain any experience when your party members gain experience outside the effective range.

[“Interesting,”] I said. [“Doesn’t this and the party function make one of [Hestia’s Retainer]’s effect useless? Specifically, the one where you can ask for my condition?”]

What I mean was that Tasianna and Saori could use [Hestia’s Retainer] to ask the System about my current condition and situation. They could ask it trivial questions like “Did Hestia eat something wrong?”, or even more serious questions like “Was Hestia in mortal danger?”

[“These functions will only work when you are wearing yours, Princess Hestia,”] Tasianna answered. [“If you were to put it in your [Storage Magic] then we would not be able to find you anymore. Especially in your dragon form, it would be impossible to use the bracelet, yes?”]

I nodded.

These devices use mana signals to detect and register the party bracelets of others when you wish to form a party. Once the party was formed, the devices only remember the mana signal of the bracelets itself, not the user.

It seems those that don’t have enough mana to spend on refueling their bracelet's mana battery carry portable ones that act as external batteries, so in most cases, the mana of the user wouldn't coincide with the one fueling the party bracelet.

The third, and last, icon looks like a card, specifically an ID card.

[“If I had my ID, I could have shown you it’s function. My apologies, Princess Hestia.”] Tasianna apologized, then proceeded to point at the keychain of her bracelet. [“You would attach your ID card on the keychain, therefore, enabling the function. Yours seems to have broken off, unfortunately.”]

Apparently, an ID is, quite literally, an identification card, similar to the ones we had on Earth. These are manatechs that serves as a way to identify us and is a necessary part to survive and live in any civilization in this world.

If this party bracelet wasn’t already enough of a surprise, then hold on tight. Tasianna mentioned that ID cards are also used to gain “Quests” that are assigned by guilds, freely available for anyone to accept.

[“Besides killing each other, anybody can gain experience by accepting and fulfilling quests from various guilds, like the artisan guild or merchant guild,”] Tasianna further elaborated on this very familiar video game mechanic. [“I didn’t rise up to this level through killing monsters, but from the daily awarded experience I would gain as an attendant of the royal family.”]

I was astonished.

Until today, I thought you needed to kill monsters to gain experience, but I just learned that you could share experience and that there were experience rewarding quests. Considering that the System is accommodating this, it must mean that the gods are doing a wonderful job of adapting their System to this developing world. For a bunch of old geezers, they’re keeping up with time.

[“[Identify] is usually a hard skill to acquire, so our world has ways to overcome this. One of them is that these party bracelets can display the current status board of the ID card’s owner by attaching it to the keychain,”] said Tasianna.

[“I see,”] I mumbled which made me curious about something. [“So, why don’t you have your ID anymore? Did they take it away before you went into self-exile?”]

Tasianna’s left eye twitched for a second, before casting them down, [“My belongings were taken by the troll and must be buried in that cave now. I’m not too sad about losing my ID, but the necklace given to me by Princess Schuri was with it…”]

Ouch, did I just open a wound?!

[“Oh my…”] Saori shook her head in exasperation. She then gave me a newly sewn one-piece and underwear. [“They should fit you now but do give me your impression on their design, later on. They are the prototype for your future clothes, after all.”] she then went to console Tasianna.

I left them alone and concentrated on switching to my new clothes. You see, as [Humanize] seems to be a Tier three skill, there were breakpoints at level three, seven, and nine. Upgrading the skill with my SP, my humanized form’s age has reached twelve, which meant that my height has increased. That also meant that I outgrew the clothes that I was just wearing this morning.

Constructing a small earthen room to change in, I dispelled my flame dress, preparing to put on the stuff Saori gave me. My first impression was that they were specifically made to accommodate my tail and wings, especially the underwear.

First, was the halter bra without a back strap. As I would usually have wings, all the strings had to be tied around my neck but that wasn’t the case when I was using [Humanize Lv. 8], which actually made me wingless!

Second, the bottom part was just a panty with a large hole to fit my tail through it.

It was form-fitting and feels comfortable to the touch, reminding me of the same feeling I had when I touched the party bracelet’s blue screen. I guess this is how mana feels likes.

The dress, a mana blue one-piece that stretched down to my knees, has an open back that leaves room for my wings to freely flap.

Now that I’m fully covered, I technically never have to take them off again. It’s made from mana, so cleaning it is unnecessary, and it can repair itself using my mana.

I and Saori previously tested this function out. It would turn into a choker when we monsterized and it reforms back into a dress once we humanized.

The only complaint that I had, was that you couldn’t change the appearance of the clothes with your mana, freely. You would need to modify the mana fabric itself to change anything on the clothes, however, I wouldn’t know how to do that. Saori probably does, but I’ve no interest in changing her work. It feels rude to do so.

Besides, everything feels comfortable and that's the most important part of clothes.

As a final check, I let my wings out to see how comfortable it was. Being able to freely change from [Humanize Lv. 7] and [Humanize Lv. 8] finally gave me the option to walk around without my wings, while retaining my new height and “Age”.

Oh gosh, I love them, but they were too cumbersome to live with. Anyways, there no problems even with my wings out, so retracted them back.

Now wingless, I exited the changing room and informed Saori of my impression, who responded with, “That is good to hear.”.

I also apologized to Tasianna about being inconsiderate, which she accepted without any problems. She said, “You couldn’t have possibly known, so I cannot fault you for it.”.

Thankfully, that was settled.

[“Ok, I’m done changing and we’re all in the same party, right?”] I announced to my two companions. [“So, where do we go from here?”]

I asked that question into our midst. We were still in the canyon and our paths forward were restricted. We could either stay in the canyon and explore it, or we could scale up the cliffs. Depending on our choice, we could either scale the one to re-enter the Belzac forest or we could go up the other one to leave it.

[“Hmm, I would like to suggest not to leave the Belzac forest”] Tasianna answered, which prompted me to ask her to go into more detail. [“If we were to leave the forest via the cliff, we would be going east. The east canyon would bring us to human civilization.”]

My eyes opened wide. My feelings were conflicting with each other, making my mouth twitch around, not knowing if I should feel happy or scared to know that we were this close to reaching a civilization. Taking this path would bring me a step closer to fulfilling my dream…but that also meant that I had to embrace public scrutiny, once again.

While I was deliberating, Tasianna continued, [“Going north, over the Belzac mountains, we would reach elven territory. The elves are a long-living race that we can trust, and I can guarantee that they will welcome you with welcome arms, Princess Hestia.”]

This time, Saori responded, [“How can you be sure?”]

["I know some elves that visited the fairy village, and they were all good-natured, respectable people. Compared to humans, they are a refined and civilized race that have ties with the Dragonewts of Loatryx. As you possess the God of Dragon Kargryxmor's blood, then that makes you royalty, meaning your treatment will be superb."]

[“Wait, Tasianna,”] I injected myself into the conversation. [“I have no plans to make myself known as a princess.”]

[“Miss Tasianna, it seems we haven’t talked about our goals yet. You see, Hestia wishes to become an Idol. They are dancing singers who are quite popular on Earth,”] Saori supported me, stating the goals that we two have settled on before we met Tasianna. [“I also wish to travel this new world and learn about its history and culture. I want to experience everything there is to be experienced.”]

[“That is a wonderful dream. The elven country is rich in history and culture, and I bet the elves would also love…”]

[“They most likely will, but we are not limiting ourselves to the elves,”] Saori interrupted Tasianna and further argued our point. [“Despite what we heard about humans from you, we were formerly humans, and I do wish to see how different they are compared to Earth’s. Is that not correct, Hestia?”]

["Yeah…"] Tasianna looks a bit dejected when her decision was completely shot down by us. ["I do have a question, though. How long is the travel time to reach the elven country, and how long will it take until we reach the human's?"]

Tasianna placed a hand on her chin, thinking deeply before responding, [“It will take about three months if we were to walk through the forest. Although, when I was with the trolls, they were also transporting the cannon and the mass amount of supplies, which prolonged our travel to a month.”]

Three months? That’s three more months that I can use to train up to make my debut perfect!

…Wait, did she just say that she was imprisoned for a whole month?! What the fuck!

I wanted to say something, but it seems Tasianna glossed over it, continuing speaking, ["I never entered a human country before, so I can't tell exactly how long it will take. All I know from maps in the fairy village's library is that we are currently on the border of a human kingdom. A week or two is all we need, maybe? That all depends if a settlement is close by."]

This time, anxiousness swelled into my chest, stopping the excitement I felt from hearing the former. It’s not that I don’t want to meet humans again; I actually really do want to see for myself if humans were as malicious as Tasianna described them, or if the ones she met were the stinking scum of this world. Exceptions to the rule.

If I take one cliff, I will only have an indeterminate amount of time before reaching civilization, while the other option will give me about two months at the minimum.

Staying in the canyon was completely a no go, nobody wanted to stay here.

I mean, do I really have to worry that much about debuting? I can reach a human settlement and just chill for a few days, practicing until I’m good enough…but, can I really do that?

I have lived until this point using that single mantra as my motivation, “I will become an Idol”. Becoming stronger, surviving, and enduring all the things that this forest threw at me. I was continuing my past life’s ambition so that I could prove that I would have been able to fulfill it. To make myself and my parents proud.

[“Hestia?”]

I want to, no, I must make this debut perfect. It has to be perfect. I need to make a good first impression. I want to hear everybody cheering for me. I want to see smiles, not frowns.

But, my dancing needs practice. I haven’t decided on a choreography, yet. All I’ve been doing is singing! I-Don’t I need more time?

[“Princess Hestia?”]

…Am-Am I worrying too much here? Overthinking?

“Hestia!”

“Bwuah!” I gave out a shriek. I saw Saori was shaking my shoulders, only stopping once I returned to reality.

[“What is making you think so much? Is something wrong, Hestia?”] she sounded suspicious. Maybe she already knows?

[“Sorry, I was just worrying about something,”] to avoid exposing my childish worry, I used [Thought Acceleration] to think of a believable excuse in the time it took her to ask me. [“I was actually thinking of going to the elven country. I was worried that you would not like it.”]

[“That is your reason?”] she was startled at what I said but her suspicions were now gone. [“Oh, Hestia. You have such a bad habit of worrying too much. I am perfectly content with whichever direction we go, as both will be a new experience. It should be obvious.”]

Letting out a sigh, she released me from her grip and shook her head.

Sorry for lying to you, Saori, but I really don’t want you to worry. It’s two months at the very least, which gives me enough time to solve my problems. I’ll be able to do this, I know!

Maybe it would've been better to tell her about this stuff, but isn't this a problem that I have to solve myself…or, am I not relying on my friend enough?

Urgh…Saori is right that I’m a worrywart. Sigh, it’s not like I’ll have these problems anymore in two months. Practice makes perfect, and I’ll be dancing like there’s no tomorrow.

[“Thank you very much for agreeing to go to the elven country, Princess Hestia. I actually just remembered that it will be winter soon. We might need more than two months, now.”]

I get more time?! Verdammt nochmal, JA!

Snapping my fingers in joy, all my worries disappeared in an instant. My motivation started to grow, after hearing that I had more time to practice. With more practice, I’ll be able to build up the courage and skill to give off a perfect first performance.

With our path decided, there was only one more question left that we needed to answer.

How do we get back up?

Hestia's Status Board

Profile:

Name: Hestia Atsuko

Level: 24

Race: Young Spark Inferno Dragon

Age: 6 Months

Status:

Health:

5267/5267(+765)

Mana:

18102/18102(+2541)

Strength:

2677 (+426)

Intelligence:

4682 (+1045)

Vitality:

1388 (+221)

Wisdom:

1654 (+280)

Agility:

5191(+941)

Stamina:

2704/2704(+438)

Effects:

[Damaged Mana Paths [Left Wing] (Minor)]

Skill Points:

0 (-7350)

Unique Skill:

[Spark Fire Dragon Lv. 8]

[Spark Fire’s Fire Boost]

[Spark Flame Veil]

Skill:

Magic skills and related

[Lava Magic Lv. 2] (+1)

[Holy Magic Lv. 10]

[Holy Amp]

[Holy Magic Efficiency]

[Sacred Magic Lv. 5] (+1)

[Fire Magic Lv. 10]

[Fire Amp]

[Fire Magic Efficiency]

[Inferno Magic Lv. 5] (+1)

[Earth Magic Lv. 10]

[Earth Amp]

[Earth Magic Efficiency]

[Terra Magic Lv. 1]

[Wind Magic Lv. 8]

[Wind Amp]

[Wind Magic Efficiency]

[Space-Time Magic Lv. 4]

[Space-Time Magic Efficiency]

[Synergist’s Oath Lv. 2] (+1)

[Draconic Magics]

[Draconic Barrier Lv. 4] (+2)

[Silent Casting Lv. 6]

[Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 5]

[Mental Stability Lv. 4] (+2)

[Mental Warfare Lv. 4] (+2)

Physical skills and related

[Unarmed Technique Lv. 4]

[Draconic Claws Lv. 4]

[Draconic Roar Lv. 2]

[Draconic Fangs Lv. 4] (+2)

[Sundering Enhancement Lv. 4]

[Piercing Enhancement Lv. 4] (+2)

[Crushing Enhancement Lv. 1]

Senses and movement skills

[Stealth Lv. 9]

[Accuracy Correction Lv. 6]

[Concentration Lv. 1] (New)

[Prediction Lv. 8] (+1)

[Danger Perception Lv. 2] (+1)

[Probability Correction Lv. 4] (+2)

[Detection Sensor Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 5]

[Tracking Lv. 2]

[Night Vision Lv. 8]

[Presence Killer Lv. 8] (+1)

[Evasion Lv. 10]

[Acrobatic Lv. 10] (+1)

[Air Walk Lv. 1] (New)

[Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 4] (+2)

Resistances

[Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 2] (+1)

[Absolute Pain Tolerance]

[Mana Leak Resistance Lv. 1] (New)

[Abnormal Status Nullification]

[Fear Resistance Lv. 1]

[Holy Resistance Lv. 4]

[Inferno Resistance Lv. 1]

[Terra Resistance Lv. 1]

[Wind Resistance Lv. 2]

[Water Resistance Lv. 1]

[Dark Resistance Lv. 1] (New)

Stat growths and related

[Health Recovery Lv. 4]

[Stamina Recovery Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Health Growth Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 2]

[Arcane Conduit Lv. 1] (New)

[Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Sorcerer’s Power Lv. 1] (New)

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 4] (+2)

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 4] (+2)

[Speed of Sound Lv. 1] (New)

[Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Stamina Capacity Lv. 4]

Others

[Singing Lv. 5]

[Dancing Lv. 3]

[Poison Creation Lv. 4] (+1)

[Trap Creation Lv. 4]

[Identity Blocker Lv. 2]

[Identify Lv. 10]

[Noble Aura Lv. 4] (+2)

[Battle Mind Lv. 6] (+1)

[Royal Etiquette Lv. 2]

[Leadership Lv. 4] (+2)

[Cooking Lv. 7]

[Dismantle Lv. 7]

[Thought Acceleration Lv. 2]

[Parallel Thoughts Lv. 8] (+2)

[Body Temperature Control Lv. 1] (New)

[Humanize Lv. 8] (+1)

[Pyrokinesis]

[Aerokinesis]

[Telepathy]

Ability List:

[Flame Blast]

[Spark Claws]

[Spark Flame]

[Spark Fire Breath]

[Spark Fang]

[Spark Inferno Blast]

Spell List:

Custom spells

[Imperial Hellfire]

Lava spells

[Lava Ball]

[Lava Stream]

Holy spells

[Minor Heal]

[Cure]

[Modest Heal]

[Smite]

[Light]

[Holy Protection]

[Holy Strength]

[Purify]

[Sacred Smite]

[Sacred Veil]

[Sacred Field]

[Banishment Beam]

[Major Heal]

Fire spells

[Fire]

[Firebolt]

[Imbue Fire]

[Fire Ball]

[Strengthening Flames]

[Flame Spear]

[Petal Flame]

[Flame Explosion]

[Inferno Blast]

[Blazing Twister]

[Inferno Beam]

[Scorching Sun]

[Spiral Hellfire]

Earth spells

[Earth Wall]

[Rock Blast]

[Earth Strike]

[Rock Bullet]

[Sturdy Earth]

[Earth Spears]

[Earth Crash]

[Earthen Shackles]

[Terra Wall]

Wind spells

[Wind Bullet]

[Wind Cutter]

[Air Shield]

[Wind Slash]

[Swift Winds]

[Wind Blast]

Space-Time spells

[Haste]

[Storage Magic]

[Warp Point: Entry]

The Light spells

[Shine]

[Sanctuary]

Titles:

[The Light] [Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] [Otherworldly Reincarnator] [Princess]

A note from AbyssRaven

I'll be honest with you guys, Tasianna's party bracelet would be extremely expensive to buy and it will only fit a Fairy. It's one of the latest models, it looks fantastic in my imagination, and I have to save the other functions for later. What a waste.

Also kinda sad that I couldn't give Hestia her first quest. What will her first quest be, hmmm.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr!

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 39: Skydiving is a wonderful hobby.

[“Hestia, could you not build another stairway using [Terra Wall]?”] Saori asked.

I remembered the stairway I created on the cliff’s wall, intending to have Saori use it to scale the cliff. It, unfortunately, got destroyed during the battle, but that’s not a problem for us.

[“I could,”] the mana costs weren’t significant, and I could use this opportunity to practice some of the magic theory. [“However, I want to try something else.”]

In my fight against the trolls, I received the skill [Air Walk] after [Acrobatic] leveled up to level ten.

Air Walk

A skill that allows the user to concentrate mana around their limbs, holding them on air. Mana and stamina will be continuously used until this skill is deactivated

Reading the description, an idea that might work popped up.

Considering that the description mentioned that I will have to use quite a lot of my Mana and Stamina to keep myself afloat, it will probably be hard to use it in a combat situation for a prolonged time. However, it might be good for scouting, traveling, and burst usages like when I need to dodge.

It also depends on practice, and I think I know a way to fully test out its potential.

[“Could you guys move a bit back?”] I held my palm up and gestured Tasianna and Saori to move away from the area.

Once they were at an acceptable distance, I returned back to [Humanize Lv. 7]’s version of my humanized form, giving me my wings back. Multiple magical circles then appeared under my right wing, ready to shoot [Wind Blast] onto the ground.

I also readied the spell [Flame Explosion] under me. My parallel minds were warning that I shouldn’t overdo it otherwise I will burn myself with my own flames.

I haven’t trained my resistance skills through self-mutilation in a very long time. Once I evolved into a [Young Spark Fire Dragon], any of my spells were very likely to hurt me.

However, now that my basic knowledge of magic theory was improved, I think it would be best to resume it. It will double as a way for me to become more adept at controlling my magic, while also upgrading my resistance skills in the process.

SP is getting harder to get, so I should be more frugal about it.

Ok, flame explosion, don’t kill me, please. Reduce the power of the flame to the level that my [Inferno Resistance Lv. 1] can fully block the damage. Come on, System, I know you can hear my thoughts. I just need a boom, not a grilled Dragonewt.

Phew, here goes nothing!

Having steeled my resolve, I jumped into the air and activated my spell.

“Flame Explosion!”

The magical circle flickered for a bit, sending sparks into the air, until a great fire exploded from the ground, sending me up into the air from the shockwave alone.

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Inferno Resistance Lv. 1] evolved into [Inferno Resistance Lv. 2]

Arrrrgh, Major Heal! Scheiße, it still huuuurts! …But I didn’t kill myself!

After a couple of seconds, a warm updraft began forming, slowing down my descent, as I glided in the air. Unfortunately for my nose, the wind carrying around the scent of my burned flesh and scales entered it directly, assaulting me with the disgusting smell of “Rare Hestia”.

Clenching my nose, I activated my [Wind Blast], sending winds down to collide with the updraft, which converged together to send me even higher.

With this, I reached the height of the cliff, but I wasn't done yet. I still have many more wind spells in reserve. I continued doing this until the flame on the ground died out. At that point, my little experiment sent me high enough that I could view the whole forest again, just like during my first flight.

My lips curled into a smile as I confirmed the direction towards the Belzac mountains, the checkpoint towards our next goal, the elven kingdom.

“Woooooooohoooooooooo!”

Despite my attempts to flap my wings, I was unable to create enough lift to keep myself from free-falling. Being disappointed isn’t exactly a thing anymore, as I already made up my mind that it will be impossible to fly until the mana paths in my left wings healed up.

Still, I enjoyed this little bit of time I could be up here. I think it will be a fun pastime to do some skydiving, once in a while.

Twirling and tumbling in the air, my body was closing into the ground. From this distance, I saw Tasianna screaming and panicking, while Saori simply held up a thumbs up, probably saying “hope, you’re having fun”.

To prevent myself from turning into a lump of meat, I activated [Aerokinesis] and started controlling the air to slow down my fall. Once the speed of my descent was at an adequate level, I poured my mana into my feet and activated [Air Walk], hop-skipping the rest of the way to the ground.

[“Princess Hestia, are you ok?! Did you hurt yourself somewhere?! Why were you falling so fast?!”] the first one to greet me after landing was an anxiety-filled Tasianna. I was honestly feeling a bit bad for not warning her, but Saori didn't seem to mind.

[“Sorry, Tasianna,”] I soothed her by letting her land on my palm. [“To answer your question, I damaged my wings when I was younger. I can’t fly anymore.”]

It’s true. I lost my ability to fly when I was 4 months old, so technically I wasn’t lying.

Tasianna covered her opened mouth with her hands in disbelief, then she demanded me to show me where I hurt myself, [“Unbelievable! Where? Please, show me!”]

[“My left wing. My status board says that my mana paths are damaged, and without them, I can’t fly. Not even in my dragon form.”]

[“Your mana paths?”] Tasianna looked a bit confused at what I said, but immediately shook it off and gave my left wing a check-up. [“Oh dear, it’s true. Your mana is having trouble flowing into your wing.”]

She then started touching different parts of my wings; the part connecting it to my body, the joints of my wing’s bones, and also the muscles of my wing.

She frowned her brows before giving me the bad news, [“It is unfortunate, but you will need a doctor.”]

Tasianna explained to me that mana paths are millions of little long paths that transported my mana throughout my body. There are also gateways in my skin that allow the mana from the air to flow into me, coupled with my body's natural mana generation and it made up my mana regeneration.

The explanation made me think that these “mana paths” are very similar to blood vessels. Is it like a physical thing inside my body? What would happen when somebody from another world were to be transported here, just like a normal “Portal Fantasy” novel?

The System determines it as only a minor injury. My left wings stilled had mana, but the amount was not enough for me to fly with.

Technically, I could heal it with healing spells, but it seems like it was impossible in its current state. Tasianna could feel where my mana was flowing but it seems like some mana paths were severed, the paths are blocked by muscles and flesh.

It seems like when I healed myself during the garm fight, I somehow messed it up enough that my healing magic has no effect anymore.

I can guess what the reason for that might be. In that battle, I barely had an idea of what mana paths were, and I only wanted my healing spells to heal the wound. It seems like I healed the wound but left the damaged mana paths to linger.

Well, nothing that I could have done. I didn’t know about them back then, so it made it hard to command the spell to heal that single wound. I’ll just do better next time.

Hmm, maybe I could try it now.

System, heal my mana paths. I want to be able to pour mana back through my left wing! Major Heal!

…

[“What a shame…”] I cried out in disappointment. [“Even [Major Heal] doesn’t work. How will a doctor help at this point, Tasianna?”]

[“They will need to do surgery on your back and connect everything back together with holy spells.”] said Tasianna.

That simple?!

[“If it’s that simple, then I can do that, too. Tasianna, tell me where I should cut,”] I demanded.

[“Hold on, Hestia,”] breaking from her silence, Saori joined the conversation with a frown. [“I believe it would be wise to leave this to an expert. You will only make your injury worse with your ignorance.”]

[“Princess Hestia, I must beg you to reconsider, also,”] Tasianna supported Saori’s argument with a worried face. [“I’m but a simple maid. I cannot tell you all the details you will need to perform a successful surgery. However, we are going to the elven kingdom, yes? They have wonderful doctors there.”]

Giving a sigh in resignation, I decided to listen to the sound judgment of my companions. Being reckless about it will only harm me in the future. Besides, it's not like I have to fly right now.

[“There is another thing, Princess Hestia,”] having dealt with the bad news, Tasianna decided it was now time for the good one. [“You actually don’t need proper mana paths to be able to fly.”]

I tilted my head and let out a “huh?”, before asking Tasianna to clarify.

[“Your wings haven’t matured yet. They are far too small to carry you in the air. I haven’t inspected your dragon form’s wings yet, but it must be the same reason.”]

[“W-Wait, you’re telling me that I can still fly despite my injury?!”] in my shock, my voice went high-pitched, sounding extremely shrill, when I wanted to confirm her words.

Tasianna nodded, [“You are still quite young, aren’t you, Princess Hestia? Dragons grow fast like most monsters, so you will only need to wait. Your wings will grow strong in no time!”]

That is good news!

Still holding Tasianna in my palm, I jumped and cheered like a little girl whose parents told her that she can make her dream come true.

You know, I should have probably realized this earlier, but I really thought that dragons would fly using mana in this world. Kinda weird that I had to wait for somebody to tell me the most obvious thing in the world.

Wait, if my dragon form is the size of a horse, then how large will I be once I become an adult dragon?

["Princess Hestia, if you would allow me, I would be honored to take care of your wings until they are strong enough to lift you,"] Tasianna left my palm and began flying in the air, flapping her blue, butterfly-like wings at a wingbeat resembling a real butterfly.

Tasianna was proudly offering her services, knowing that she could finally help me with something besides making tea and cooking. As it wouldn’t obstruct me very much, I agreed wholeheartedly.

After she gave her thanks, I grabbed Tasianna in my left arm and wrapped my arm around Saori’s waist with my right one.

[“P-Princess Hestia?!”] Tasianna said in a panic.

[“Hestia, what you planning to do?!”] Saori said.

Once they noticed the green magic circles appearing under my right wing and the giant red one under us, their panic turned into terror.

[“W-Wait, Hestia! It is ok when you do it, but do not think of doing it with us!”] Saori having realized my intentions, tried to tear my arm off her waist, but sadly for her, my Strength was still higher!

[“No, no, Princess Hestia! I can fly. I can fly. I can fly oooooonnnnnn myyyyyyyy ooooooowwwwwwnnnn!”]

Without letting Tasianna end her sentence, I jumped and activated [Flame Explosion] to send us all into the air, while continuously activating [Wind Blast] to keep ascending us into the air. Due to my previous experiment, I already knew what to adjust about the spell, significantly reducing the firepower but still keeping the shockwave that sent me upwards.

Saori held on to me tightly, looking scared as she clenched her teeth and eyes shut. It looked a bit weird as I was a head shorter than her.

[“Saori, open your eyes!”] reaching the same height I previously was at, I called out to Saori to open her eyes so she wouldn’t miss this sight.

She hesitatingly opened her eyes, immediately widening in amazement once she was able to see the sight. Her mouth was agape as she continued staring into the sunset. She turned her head around, fully immersing herself to the experience, not wasting even a single second of this sight.

“Wow…” Saori let out an amazed voice.

[“I rarely ever would fly this high but seeing the sunset again brings back fond memories of my earlier years,”] said Tasianna, reminiscing as she enjoyed the experience.

Being able to share this sight with my friends made my chest feel warm. I was imagining being able to do this with them every day and all the potential ways we could have fun.

The whole-wide world was still so big to me. I only knew this forest, so I was literally ignorant of what is happening outside of it. Will it bring me happiness, or will it make me sad? Who knows, but the future?

As much as I want to overthink it, I think it would be better to continue forward. My dream and new life lied behind that horizon and I must walk towards it.

[“Uhhh, Hestia?!”] Saori’s voice woke me up from my daydream.

[“Yeah?”] I nonchalantly asked.

[“We are falling!”]

Looking down, I finally realized that we were skydiving towards the forest at a frightening rate. Controlling the air with my [Aerokinesis] I slowed down our descent and then started walking on air.

The night will come soon so we needed to find a place to rest for the night. As I wanted to take a bath for the night, I decided to head towards the lake we found a few days ago, with Saori and Tasianna still in hand.

[“Oof, my legs are really feeling it now,”] complaining, I noticed that my legs were aching from using [Air Walk].

After what felt like a ten min walk, we finally reached the lake.

Releasing Saori and Tasianna from my grip, both began stretching, probably from how uncomfortable “Hestia Airlines” was. I mean, I can’t afford better seats yet. I still have no money.

[“Urgh, you held me too tightly, Hestia,”] Saori complained while adjusting her clothes. [“Hmm, there seem to be a few monsters in the lake.”]

[“Oh, really?”] I checked using my own skills, confirming that something was in it. [“Well, some grilled fish sounds like a pleasant dinner.”]

I then took out our camping tools and placed them on the ground so Saori and Tasianna could prepare our camp for tonight, while I would walk to the lake to fish.

“Alright, time to do some exercise. Ahem, come out now ~” however, when I mentioned fishing, I meant killing the fish with a grand EXPLOSION, ha ha!

Entering the water, it only took the bomb a few seconds before creating a deafening boom burst, sending a huge geyser of water into the air. As I was looking proudly at my handiwork, I suddenly noticed the silhouette of the monsters being tossed into the air, hiding behind the falling water.

Huh?!

Multiple large monsters with moist-looking skin and two long hind legs.

Eeeeeek!

A sudden primal fear inside me resurfaced. A fear that I had since I was a child and that never appeared while I lived in this forest. I completely forgot that I ever had it but this night, that very trauma came back to me, laughing into my face “did you really forget about us?”.

I knew it’s a simply childish and stupid trauma, but I averted my face the moment I caught even a peek of those “things”. My teeth clattered against each other, my body shivered, and my eyes couldn’t open despite my will to do so.

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEK! KYAAAAAAAAAAHH!”

[Terror (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atsuko]

A note from AbyssRaven

You guys probably forgot that Hestia was still a "Young" dragon, right? It hasn't reached its maximum potential yet but her wing muscles will develop.

Also, Hestia's trauma is the worst thing in the whole world. Probably the worst phobia that anybody could ever have, like, it's the worst thing in existence. Trust me.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr!

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 40: Who knew the dragon had a phobia?

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEK! KYAAAAAAAAAAHH!”

As I, Saori Segawa, was taking a few ingredients from my storage, I heard a girlish scream from the direction of the lake.

As if she was a rocket, Hestia bolted right pass me all while shrieking from the top of her lungs. In the fading sunlight, it didn’t take long for her silhouette to slowly melt into the depths of the forest, only her crimson hair was visible as it fluttered around in a panic.

My arm was stretched out in the direction she ran and my voiced tried to utter, “Hey, where are you going?”, but I quickly closed my mouth, my attention shifted to my [Prediction]’s warning.

From the shadow of the water geyser that Hestia caused, a long, slippery tongue shot out like a bullet.

“Tch!” clicking my tongue, my eyes began tracking its every movement.

Everything felt slower, as my senses went on overdrive to understand what is currently happening. My awareness of the surrounding was slowly being processed, quickly identifying the target of the attack and how long the tongue will need to reach it.

Reflexively, my right arm jolted upwards, claws ready, and sliced the tongue just a few centimeters away from hitting its mark, the flying Tasianna.

"Eek!" Tasianna shocked face suggested that she wasn't aware of the attack before I cut it apart.

Blood sprayed out of the tongue’s opening, showering the ground red, while its tip fell onto the ground with a thud.

“Miss Tasianna, would you please go find Hestia? I believe you will be safer at her side.” I told Tasianna, my eyes didn’t meet hers, as I was cautiously glaring at the new threat.

Knowing that she could find Hestia with the party bracelet’s search function, Tasianna began moving towards that direction after saying, “Please, be careful, Madam Saori.”.

Despite not having any real tracking skills, she moved with confidence and efficiency as she kept her eyes on the blue party screen projected by her bracelet. I do hope that Hestia didn’t run too far away, otherwise, Tasianna’s probability to encounter another ambush would be all too high.

I wanted to find Hestia, too, but most of our food was currently sprawled on the ground. I was confident that nothing will happen to Tasianna when she’s with Hestia, so it was my task to make sure that our food isn’t stolen from us.

Hestia’s insatiable stomach would cause me problems if I backed out now.

Identify.

Giant Fume Toad

A giant monster with pores that emit toxic fumes when it's endangered. Warts on its body are filled with toxins and are used to defend itself from being preyed by other monsters. This monster uses the neurotoxins in its tongue to paralyze its prey. It is extremely docile until it is harmed. Rank D

Oh, Hestia…

From the tingling in the hand used to cut the tongue, I could feel that the toxin doesn’t only paralyze potential victims. I was completely immune to even Hestia’s weird concoctions, after all.

Looking over to the enemy’s side, I could see fumes coming out of the skin of five toads. The posturing and angry croaking of one of the toads suggests that they won’t flee without a fight.

No choice, I should probably look at the bright side here. It’s a great situation to test out my new body.

I quickly took off my party bracelet, as it would break upon monsterization, and put it in my storage. A mana mist dispersed out of my body as [Humanize] transformed me back into a Cadejo, a wolf-like monster with red eyes.

“Wrooooooo!” the toads were clearly surprised by my new form; however, they did not back off.

How presumptuous. I should see what I can do, first.

With those words, I quietly chanted the spell [Dark Bolt]. Putting into action what I learned from Tasianna, the chant was quickly done, and a magical circle appeared before my head, before shooting the spell.

The front toad noticed the projectile and dodged to the side, leaving the one behind him as the next target. Crashing into the toad’s skin, the spell left a visible burnt mark, enough that it began squirming around. Seeing their friend in pain, this agitated the other toads to begin their assault by shooting their tongues out of their mouth.

Having already prepared a [Shadow Dash], I activated it and was taken into my shadow. It was only for a few seconds, but I could never forget this experience, whenever I used this spell.

Swimming through a completely dark and empty sea, there was nothing for me to do in it but to swim onwards. A single light in this vast world was shining at the end of my path through a hole, the shadow that I chose to exit out.

Reaching out to it, I transitioned from this dark world back into the world of light, which was behind the back of the toad that I attacked with [Dark Bolt].

Wrapping my claws with [Shadow Armament], I pierced its skull with spear-like claws of darkness and crashed its body into the ground. Water exploded upwards and showered me in it, as I was currently standing in the shallow part of the lake.

[Poisoned (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa]

I should hurry up.

My initial plan was to kill these toads with range spells, but an ingenious idea came flying into my head in the last moment.

“Isn’t this a great time to train [Poison Resistance]?”, was what I thought. Considering Hestia’s hobby of mixing and creating new toxins, it would be smart of me to use this to my advantage. The effectiveness of Hestia’s venom was shown when we fought the trolls.

It was currently too dangerous for me to continue using it for a prolonged time, risking being poisoned myself. Hestia couldn’t heal any status ailments that has reached the major stage, and how dangerous they were was currently random, until Hestia categorizes and organizes them correctly.

So, why not train my resistances with these toads, first? At the rate that I can kill these toads, at worst, I will be affected by [Poisoned (Moderate)], which is perfectly curable by Hestia.

The tingling throughout my body from being poisoned was uncomfortable, but I’ll endure it. Any Health damage will be healed up once I level up.

Once I finished casting another [Shadow Dash], I used it to dodge the incoming tongue lashes and re-entered the world of black.

Like a shark, I dived out of the shadow of my next quarry and quickly finished it off with another skull piercer. The toads were unsure of what is happening and weren’t able to adapt to it. Their natural cowardice showed when I managed to kill the third one, promoting the rest to flee.

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Poison Resistance Lv. 1] evolved into [Poison Resistance Lv. 2]

[Lifetaker (3 kills)] inflicted on [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa]

A surge of unnatural strength entered my body, empowering every single of my stats. Instead of ecstasy, the announcement made me ask myself a question.

Why haven’t I level up yet? They are D rank, this should be enough for one level.

I slightly tensed my face up as my question was left unanswered. My Health wasn’t anywhere close to critical yet, but it was nonetheless dropping slowly. It was baffling that I couldn’t level up even after killing three D rank monsters.

I shook off my concern and pursued the monsters before they could jump back into the lake’s depth.

I quickly slashed off the legs off one of the toads, making sure that none of the blood and warts would touch me, I then shot out a [Dark Slash] towards the last toad. The claws made of dark mana sliced a chunk of the toad and staggered it long enough for me to cast [Dark Tendrils] on it.

With that, the battle was over and all I needed to do was to kill them.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 1]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 500 skill points

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Poison Resistance Lv. 2] evolved into [Poison Resistance Lv. 3]

Upon killing the fourth giant amphibian, my level rose up. The damage I took quickly healed and I finally had SP, again.

I quickly used it to upgrade a skill.

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Poison Resistance Lv. 3] evolved into [Poison Resistance Lv. 4]. 450 SP remaining

[Poisoned (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa]

Oof.

The instant that messaged appeared; my body was assaulted by lethargy. My muscles complained similar to being under the effects of lactic acid and my head felt foggy.

My stomach churned and bits of vomit burnt my throat as I pushed it back down.

Shit, I wasn’t fast enough…

I lamented while I killed the last toad by slicing its throat from a distance using [Dark Slash]. I quickly rushed back to where our camp was and humanized back to my Wolfkin form.

[Humanized (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa]

I then picked up some herbs and started mincing it into small pieces inside my mouth.

Parshkey

A flowering plant that can only grow when the amount of mana in the soil reaches a certain level. The plant produces an antitoxin using the mana to cultivate itself. Letting it soak in water allows it to show its maximum effect

This aromatic herb is the Peolynca version of Parsley. The taste and smell were exactly the same, the only difference was that this version is exceptionally good at detoxing your body.

The dizziness caused by the poison suddenly stole most of the strength in my legs and sent me falling down onto the ground. I turned my body to lay on my back, making sure that my body was in a proper position to swallow comfortably.

[Poisoned (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa]

I continued chewing the plant leaves inside my mouth, making sure to swallow all my saliva that was soaked in the antitoxin that this plant was producing. I continued breaking down and sucking this wonderfully sweet spit until I heaved a sigh when my poison status was to back to minor.

I could feel the effects instantaneously. The tingling was dulled but hasn’t faded yet. I still needed Hestia to heal me up.

Brushing off my sweat-filled face, I took out my party bracelet and put it back on my left wrist. With my fever slowly dwindling, my mind was sober enough to notice something peculiar on my blue party screen.

Name: Saori Segawa

Level: 51

Job: None

Health: 1579/2002

Mana: 650/682

Stamina: 1006/1236

Effects:

[Humanized (Moderate)] [Poisoned (Minor)]

Party Leader

Name: Hestia Atsuko

Level: 74

Job: None

Health: 2634/2634

Mana: 9051/9051

Stamina: 1229/1352

Effects:

[Damaged Mana Path [Left Wing] (Minor)] [Humanized (Moderate)] [Terror (Minor)]

Name: Tasianna Marina Silverpond

Level: 34

Job: Mage

Health: 509/509

Mana: 1906/1906

Stamina: 280/391

It seems the experience sharing function was the cause of my reduced experience gain.

Tasianna was level 31 before I killed these monsters, so it seems she benefitted quite a lot from my efforts.

Looking at my section, I noticed that my humanized form’s level was 51. Wasn’t it level 50 when we formed the party? Hestia and I rarely cared what our human form’s stats were, as we preferred to fight in our monster forms. It seems like the two levels were synced with each other.

I really like that “Effects” will only show up when it’s filled. It’s a waste of space on the status board.

I then raised my finger and touched the map icon on the screen.

Name: Hestia Atsuko

Distance: 231 m

Name: Tasianna Marina Silverpond

Distance: 231 m

For some reason, this world was also using the metric system to calculate distances. Tasianna mentioned that the creator of this manatech, the dwarves, invented this system and it was quickly picked up by the majority of the world.

However, how did this happen? Why is a race of Peolynca sharing a system created on Earth? Even the pronunciation was exactly the same. It is baffling.

Sigh, well I should be thankful though. At least I won’t have to learn an entirely new unit system.

While having these thoughts, I eventually found Hestia and Tasianna using the locator. It might not be as effective as using my skills to find them, but it was definitely more relaxing. Even the toxin inside my body subsided during the time I walked.

“A-Are t-they gone?” shivering as if she was freezing, Hestia directed her gaze to me and asked me feebly.

“Yes, Hestia,” I walked over to Hestia’s body and shuffled her hair with my hand to calm her down.

My hand was quivering simply by leaving my hand on her head. I then proceeded to wrap my arms around her body in an embrace.

The poor girl was shaking so violently that some would presume that the cold was getting to her, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Her body was so warm that anybody unfamiliar with her would believe that she was stricken with a fever. Keeping her close to me was similar to being warmed by a hearth, warding off the cold, dark night.

I should make some warmer clothes soon. Winter is coming.

“Bwuh!” shuffling out from my hug was Tasianna. Her aquamarine dress was completely soaked in sweat as she huffed and puffed. [“Madam Saori, huff, I have fulfilled your request. Princess Hestia is alright, huff.”]

I quickly apologized to Tasianna for accidentally sandwiching her between me and Hestia. I then released Hestia from my grasp, but something prevented me from standing up.

“Not enough…,” like the spoiled little princess that she was, Hestia’s trembling hand pulled me back towards her, with a strength unimaginable for her thin arm.

Despite some struggling, I forcibly freed myself, [“Hestia, we need to go back to the lake. The food that we left there will be stolen if we don’t return soon.”] Looking at her pouting face, I used [Telepathy] to convey my thoughts as my throat couldn't manage to talk this much, [“The toads are dead so you can extract their toxins.”]

“NEIN!” as if she was about to hear something terrible, Hestia closed her ears with her hands and shouted. “No frogs! No toads! I won’t go back to the lake. Never! Never again!”

Hugging her lessened the shivering to an acceptable rate but, like a flash, it returned. The loud protests and this irrational behavior reinforced the [Terror (Minor)] that she had. Her habit of not crying, even in her most emotional moments, seems to persist even in her current state. Fear has completely overwhelmed her body and mind, but her conviction to never cry was still as strong as her scales.

It would be inspiring; were it not for the pitiful reason that forced her to do it.

I gave out a sigh in resignation, “Alright, we will make camp here. Miss Tasianna, with Hesta’s aid, please prepare a shower for the evening.”

My body was drenched in sweat and lake water. Having fur covering my whole body made me smell like wet dog hair. My nose couldn’t handle this.

With my orders, Hestia staggered to her feet and started constructing a shower with Tasianna.

I went back to the lake and packed most of the ingredients back inside my storage. I still haven't gotten used to the amount of mana I needed to use, but it was surprisingly good training to increase my maximum mana capacity. Might this be the reason for Hestia’s insane mana growth?

I was also considering cutting the frogs into unidentifiable pieces, but I quickly abandoned it. It would be insensitive to do that when the mere sight and mention made her scream in horror.

Even slimes weren’t this bad. She found them disgusting and would rather avoid them, but she never was this hysterical.

What a waste…

I would have loved to taste frog legs, but it seems that would stay a dream.

Maybe when Hestia isn't around?

Going against this annoying urge to bring them with me, I headed back to my companion’s location with a cauldron full of firewood and larger ingredients.

Back at our new camp, I saw that the impromptu shower was finished. Hestia seemed to have calmed down a bit but her crestfallen expression is telling me otherwise.

[“Do you want to go under the shower, first?”] I asked Hestia.

She hesitated for a moment before opening her mouth, “Nein, I’m good. You go first. I’ll prepare dinner.”

It was shocking to hear her say that, but those thoughts quickly subsided. I stroked her head and thanked her for her thoughtfulness “Thanks. I will expect a good meal, alright?”.

Her face loosened up and a smile formed.

I knew children and adolescents appreciated compliments and praises, but Hestia especially loved them. Her broodiness disappeared instantly, and she made her way to the cauldron.

I do hope she didn’t overthink things, again. She has an annoying habit of doing that.

[“Thank you for being with her, Miss Tasianna. I hope Hestia did not give you too many problems,”] I walked with Tasianna to the shower.

[“It was my honor and duty, Madam Saori. Besides being overwhelmed by an unknown power, she was very docile. I am worried that her [Terror (Minor)] was caused by something beyond our power,”] it would seem like Tasianna had not realized the reason for Hestia's behavior. It would seem like these two shared the tendency of being worrywarts.

I dispelled her worries and we entered the shower, after taking off our clothes. I looked up and flinched back when I saw something sticking at the ceiling.

[“Princess Hestia made it in the time you were gone. She told me that the heat will last long enough for us to enjoy the shower,”] Tasianna stated.

Hearing that explanation, my nerves calmed down, enough for me to inspect the item. It looked very similar to one of Hestia’s bombs, but it seems like its function was completely different.

Hestia’s Heater Ball

A creation made by Hestia Atsuko. The ball is packed with fire magic inside a thick, stone covering to maximize insulation efficiency

Hestia's bombs had the description that they would explode upon infusing her mana, but this ball seems to be different. It might be due to a difference in the spell she used to create it.

Tasianna started using [Greater Create Water] around the object and warm water started falling on me. The heat of the water slightly scalded my skin, but it wasn’t bad enough to not enjoy.

As time went by, the sticky sweat on my face was washed away while the water cleaned my fur from all the dirt that was gathered on it today. The slimy residue of the toad's mucus-filled skin stuck under my claws but that was quickly gone with a good scrubbing.

After she was finished creating the ball of water, Tasianna also joined me under the shower, prancing around as she let the dripping water wash away all exhaustion, sweat, and tension.

I then took out a cup filled with Tasianna’s shampoo and began applying it on her body, making sure to regulate my strength to an appropriate level.

[“Ow! A bit too strong…”] she winced in pain from my clumsy attempt.

[“I apologize…”]

After I finished cleaning her body, I was ready to apply the shampoo to myself, however, Tasianna pleaded that she would do it. She probably wanted to do it to assist Hestia while she showered, and this was practice, I believe? The size difference must be daunting.

How nostalgic.

My mother would always do it for me when I was little. We would enter the bath together and exit out of it squeaky clean.

Hestia was shy when we took a bath together at the lake a few days ago. We might have gotten used to seeing each other “naked” but her embarrassment was clear on her face. She quickly got used to it, but I did feel a bit hurt.

Thankfully Tasianna seems to not mind it very much. Is it due to her upbringing?

As Tasianna’s mana quickly dwindled from using [Greater Create Water], we had to stop this wonderful experience. After exiting the shower, our wet bodies felt the chilly winds of the night sapping our body heat.

Putting our mana clothing back on, we ran and flew together to Hestia, asking her to produce her magical body dryer. As our mana dresses couldn’t get wet, it was perfectly feasible to do it this way.

With the warm air drying our bodies off, our shivering bodies quickly regained the strength that was stolen by the night.

With that done, we both helped out Hestia with the cooking. Once I was done, we sat around the campfire and began eating.

[“So…,”] after half-filling my stomach with the warm food, I looked at Hestia, our eyes meeting each other. [“Only frogs and toads?”]

Her body shrunk down from embarrassment. Her mouth quivered for a bit before stopping, [“…I’m not good with any amphibians but frogs and toads are the only ones that can send me into a hysterical fit.”]

With that, Hestia has confirmed her batrachophobia, a fear of amphibians.

[“Really, Princess Hestia? But how?”] Tasianna looked flabbergasted just as I was dumbfounded from this information.

Our reckless dragon princess would look into the eye of a giant troll and smile, but she would revert back to a little girl at the mere sight of a small frog? It sounded unbelievable, but all the screaming and shivering wasn’t made up.

The terror that I saw in Hestia’s eyes was enough to cause a cold sweat bead to form on my forehead.

[“How did it happen?”] I asked Hestia, curious about the origin of this phobia.

Hestia’s frowned face was trying its best to pry her mouth open, wanting to speak with her voice. However, she realized that Tasianna wouldn’t understand so she reverted to using [Telepathy]

Slowly but surely, her words entered our minds, ["When I was little, my parents brought me to the park for their off-day. We had a picnic."] Her face tensed up when she started to remember this bit. ["I was left alone for a bit when they went to buy me ice cream, but that's when a big frog jumped onto our blanket. I tried to shoo it off when it tried to steal our food, but it just slapped my hand with its tongue. It then attacked me by jumping on me.”]

…Well, I guess that’s how some phobias develop.

[“From that day onwards, I just couldn’t look at frogs nor toads anymore. Their disgusting looking faces and that wide, monstrous mouth just sends shivers down my spine,”] she continued speaking after stumbling on her words. [“A-And that jumping! That jumping, urgh. They always look like they’re trying to cause a fight. Aaaahhh, I can’t stand anything about them!”]

Ok, that’s a bit more understandable. Their appearance scares her.

I stood up and went to soothe her with a hug, [“There, there. Do not worry, Hestia. I will make sure to kill all the frogs and toads for you.”] Patting her back, I further added in a murmur. [“I’ll also kill everything else, while I’m at it, too.”]

[“Nein!”] Hestia pushed me back a bit and stared into my eyes. [“You promised not to steal all the kills!”]

Eh, worth the try.

[“Besides, why are you hugging me again? I know it’s an embarrassing reason, but you don’t need to patronize me!”] she said in indignation.

I was about to stand up when Hestia, once again, pulled me into her arms. [“Wait, wait! I didn’t say that I wouldn’t like it. Sorry…”]

Oh jeez, this girl…

With that said and done, we finished dinner and then went to bed.

A note from AbyssRaven

Ha, you guys thought it was frogs but nobody expected the toads! I know it's pedantic :P

So, it has been a very long time since we last had a Saori POV chapter and I believe this was a nice one to have. We've only had Hestia's POV until now and very little of Saori's. It was a great moment to show her progress so that's why it's here.

Hope you guys enjoyed it!.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr!

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 41: Can I sweat poison?

A note from AbyssRaven

"Hey, guys! I'm finally on art!" said Hestia

As you can see my awesome readers, the artwork for Hestia is finally done and it's amazing! I would like to thank Nuraproject for helping me create Hestia. It was awesome working with you!

This is Hestia's current appearance if she lets her wings out. With [Humanize Lv. 8], she doesn't need to run around with her wings anymore but our dragon girl without her wings would feel wrong, right?

I would also like to thank my Patreons for helping me fund this. I would like to give a shout out towards them for supporting me and reading my chapters.

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These guys helped me a lot by reading my early chapters and also enabling me to spend some money on a well-made artwork for Hestia!

Of course, I wouldn't even be able to do this without all my readers from Royal Road! By keeping up with the story, you guys are supporting me greatly and it makes me feel great that we were able to reach over 900 followers and I was able to publish over 40 chapters for "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale".

There is stil a lot that I want to write about so I hope all of you will stick with me. There is currently a poll that determines what sort of extra chapter I will write, that only Patreons are able to vote for. Saori also doesn't have her art yet. If you guys would like to support me + also read 10 chapters ahead of RR then come over to my Patreon: Rawr

Now, enough of this. Let's get into the chapter. Please enjoy it guys!

Take this with you for it is not safe without it: Rawr

Experience has reached a breaking point.   [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atsuko] has risen from [Level 24] to [Level 25]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 600 skill points

Acquisition requirement fulfilled.   [Woodworking Lv. 1] acquired

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Singing Lv. 6] [Terra Magic Lv. 2] [Concentration Lv. 2] [Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 3] gained

Magic gained:   [Bedrock Blades]

.

“Hello, oh neighbors ♫

I was wondering if you would like to come and watch me sing ♫

My songs are yours, if you want ♫

Singing to no one but myself makes me feel alone on this stage ♫

.

Hello, can you hear my voice? ♫

I’m standing on a stage in the middle of this forest ♫

I call to you all, Belzac forest citizens ♫

You would always swarm before me when I began singing my songs ♫

.

So why aren’t you here now…for my concert? ♫

I beg you to return to me…♫”

.

Today is another slow one, huh? Well, that’s show biz…

.

“I won’t let this discourage me! ♫

The show must go on even without you ♫

But I wish that you’ll all here, to support me when I sing ♫

Seeing you scream and cry, makes me feel I’m given my all, ohhhhh ♫

.

I won’t let this stop my voice! ♫

An Idol never stops until she’s done ♫

Although, I want to stop but I can’t do it now ♫

The night will only stop, when I’m truly done ♫

With my show…♫”

.

“Ok, Hestia. I think we should stop for today. There are barely any monsters in the vicinity anymore,” finishing my song, my companion, Saori, gave a suggestion after killing the last monster close to my concert stage.

Her hands were dripping blood as she walked over to me with the monster on hand.

She wasn’t using [Telepathy], now that her throat was strong enough to articulate words. Some voice training tips that I got from my singing instructor was helpful for the starting process. Now she just has to continue speaking and it will be fine in no time.

[“This is incredible,”] I said sarcastically while shaking my head. [“This strategy has been working so well, until yesterday. Am I doing something wrong?”]

[“No, it is not your fault,”] I stored the corpse that Saori threw at me after she said that.

[“Are the results that unsatisfactory?”] sitting on my shoulder, Tasianna commented on our disappointment. [“The number of monsters that were attracted was frightening.”]

I simply said, “we are used to more" and then began helping Saori clean up the area from bodies.

Two days have gone by since that little incident at the lake, that I will never go back to again.

Our strategy of attracting monsters with my singing and having Saori kill them has been losing its efficiency since yesterday. A crowd still came but not only the quality but also the quantity of monsters dropped. It was even worse today.

We thought that we could've replicated the power leveling that Saori did to help Tasianna leech the experience. Her level and stats were far too weak compared to ours and we needed her to catch up.

Tasianna, despite her age, has barely ever had a fight before. Her current combat prowess was similar to mine and Saori’s when we were just reborn into this world. A bunch of city kids that never talked with their fists before.

That’s why we needed her to gain levels. Her transition from maid to a battle maid had to be quick, and the fastest way was through a power leveling strategy.

The experience sharing function from being in a party helped cover for Tasianna’s low firepower, as Saori or I could just kill stuff for her. She would gain levels, stats, and skill points.

Once she had enough, we will then help her choose her skills. That is when we will shift from Saori killing monsters to Tasianna killing monsters.

As a fairy, her magical potential was apparent, and it helped that she was able to use water elemental spells. With Tasianna, our party had full coverage of all elemental magic.

Fairy Magic

The racial skill for fairies that supports their life as members of the Faefolk. A combination of multiple skills that increases the offensive and defensive abilities of a being made from mana. The skills combined are:   [Power of Mana] [Arcane Corruption Immunity]

[“Maybe we have been using these concerts too often now,”] Saori pointed out a very valid point.

I nodded in confirmation, [“Yeah, that might be the case. The smarter monsters might have noticed that the belligerent ones were slowly disappearing.”]

Our presence is likely having the same effects as when the garms were still alive. We’ve been hunting monsters at an alarming rate and also mostly in the same area.

As I and Saori traveled to the eastern canyon part of the Belzac forest, we’ve been hunting and killing most monsters on the way. It got even more efficient when we started doing those monster concerts. Monsters were flocking in like crazy and Saori killed most of them.

If I were one of them, I would personally avoid the eastern part of the forest and migrate away. The north, west, and south parts would be safer without a giant dragon and garm walking around.

Still, it might be good for them, but it was seriously bad for us. Besides Tasianna’s leveling, we also needed to prepare for winter. We needed food.

Tasianna has recently taught us the calendar of the world. Just like on Earth; a year is divided into twelve months, a month into four weeks, and a week into seven days. We are currently in the year 2678 after the arrival of the origin gods to this world.

The twelve months are divided into 4 seasons, named Winter, Spring, Harvest, and Autumn. From the first to the twelfth month, the order is like this: WinterSun, WinterBloom, WinterMoon, SpringSun, SpringBloom, SpringMoon, HarvestSun, HarvestBloom, HarvestFest, HarvestMoon, AutumnSun, and AutumnMoon.

For your information, we are currently in the first week of HarvestMoon, at least according to Tasianna. She might have been captured by the trolls, but she still made sure to count the days while she was imprisoned.

Interestingly enough, at the day we met her, she actually arrived at that cave with the trolls. She managed to escape their clutches only ‘cause she meddled with her prison cage. Talk about a stroke of luck that she met us on that day.

Anyways, using this information, I learned that I was born on the 25th of WinterMoon and Saori’s birthday was on the 25th of HarvestSun. I also learned that Tasianna was born on the 8th of WinterBloom. That meant that I needed to think of a birthday present for her, although, finding a present in this place would be hard. Still, I had four months to think so no need to panic.

The days of a week are named after each of the origin gods, besides for the seventh day. The order goes like this: Fireday, Earthday, Waterday, Windday, Lightday, Darkday, and Restday.

As there wasn’t a seventh origin god, the seventh day is simply named Restday and is used by most people like Sunday on Earth.

Now, as there are only two months left until the new year, winter is slowly creeping towards us. I don’t know if it’s ‘cause I’m a growing girl, but I’ve been eating far too much lately. We’re going through our food stocks like crazy each day, meaning that winter is a very scary thought for us.

We still have time, though. We just needed to find a motherlode somewhere during this time.

Anyways, after we finished cleaning up, we made camp. Dinner was a simple giant steak and some mash toffels as the side dish.

Once, we were done with dinner, each of us went to do our own separate activity before sleeping time. Saori went to help Tasianna as she seems to have enough SP to buy a few skills.

That means I was left alone to my own devices…literally. I wanted to finally organize my toxic concoctions and I also needed to make more bombs, seeing as most of them were used up in Saori’s mountain destroying scheme.

Maybe I should make stronger bombs in those cases…?

I’ve decided to first finish making all the bombs, due to realizing that I might have too many different vials of toxins.

I sat down close to the campfire and produced a wooden bucket filled to the brim with water. I waited until the cold night cooled the water down and then proceeded to my bomb-making.

I first constructed a [Terra Wall] about the size of my hand and sliced off its edges to turn the square wall into a half-ball. I then carved out the inner parts of it until it had enough space to contain the explosion for a few seconds.

The trick to making these bombs work wasn’t to actually put fire into it but to use [Trap Creation] in conjunction with activating a spell. When I was making the first batches of this new bomb type, I learned that I could delay a spell’s activation by using [Trap Creation] on it, turning the spell into a trap that will only activate with the influx of my mana.

I laid a magical circle for the spell [Flame Explosion] and used the trap making skill to turn the spell into a new trap. I also made sure to properly do the Invocation part of the spell and instructed the spell to not explode without a stimulus, saving a lot of mana.

With that done, I created another [Terra Wall] and made another half-ball as I did with the first one.

I connected the ends of the half-balls together, forming a proper ball. Like a blowtorch, I blew out flames with [Spark Fire Breath] and only melted the point of contact between the ball cups.

As the heat of my fire breath increased over time, the stone slowly turned into molten rock, lava. The liquid rock was dripping onto the ground while I was turning the ball around its angle, making sure that the edges were liquefied.

Once the ball made a full revolution, I immediately stopped the blowtorch and plunged the ball into the cold water. The water instantly evaporated, and the steam assaulted my face, blinding me from what was happening in front of me.

Over time, condensation filled my face full of water droplets, slowly dripping back into the bucket. The humidity drenched my hair. Without my hands, I had to swing my heavy hair out of my face by tilting my head to the side.

Once the steam subsided, I had my fingers touch the ball, making sure that the solid, rough texture of the ball’s stone exterior was there.

I took out the ball and glanced at the little dents and spikes that were now connecting the two parts of the ball. I threw it into the air to quality proof that everything was fitted together properly, and then gave it a name.

System, name this one “Dragon Bomb”. Identify.

Dragon Bomb

A creation made by Hestia. By letting the mana from individual Hestia Atsuko flow into this ball, it will activate the magic circle inside it

Edgy and cool, nice. System, name everything that I will make now “Dragon Bomb” if it fits the description.

I learned from making stuff that I could order the System to name my creation. This naming function is restricted to only objects that I have made, which included food, poison, and utensils.

If the creation isn’t named, then the System will just create one itself.

I continued creating more bombs, only stopping after my motivation and enthusiasm was slowly fading. As fun as creating little exploding bombs was, the creation process was dull and there wasn’t any urgency to make too many.

After stretching my arms and legs, I took out my many cups filled with toxins and sat them down on the ground. The amount was numerous enough to fill out a normal dining table.

Identify.

Mixed venom concoction

A concoction that was made by mixing multiple different toxic fluids together with the skill [Poison Creation]. Depending on the resistance of the target, this venom may cause [Poisoned (Major)] upon injection

I’m pretty sure I only used minor and moderate level toxins for this one.

This was the one that I gave Saori during the battle against the trolls. At the time of its creation, I didn’t use [Identify] for the simple reason that I thought it wouldn’t have that kinda effect. Due to my immunity to most common toxins, I didn’t think it was necessary to check the effects of this venom as it posed no danger to me.

Well, I was taught a very valuable lesson to test everything I make, especially stuff that could cause some widespread disasters

I named the venom “Blood Fountain Venom (Major)” and set it inside my storage.

Blood Fountain Venom (Major)

A concoction that was made by mixing multiple different toxic fluids together with the skill [Poison Creation]. Upon injection, this venom causes the blood pressure of the victim to increase while also causing Thrombosis. Oxygen accumulation of the blood cells is also decreased. Depending on the resistance of the target, this venom may cause [Poisoned (Major)] upon injection

There weren't any test dummies for my toxins. Should I just identify them and then simply rename it?

Testing all my venoms on Saori and Tasianna wasn’t an option, but without testing it, I couldn’t learn what it would do to others.

Once I gave that venom a name, the description quickly changed to something that described its effect in detail. I had a feeling that the venom coagulates blood, but I didn’t think of the word Thrombosis, although it seems I still remember that word from biology classes.

Let’s rename this one “Poison that is moderate at best”. What happens when I don’t know its effect?

Poison that is moderate at best

A concoction that was made by mixing multiple different toxic fluids together with the skill [Poison Creation]. Depending on the resistance of the target, this poison may cause [Poisoned (Moderate)] upon injection

Shame, nothing changed.

From this test, it seems like the System can’t give a toxin a proper description without me knowing more details about it. It would help me skip the testing phase, but now I had to test it on something.

However, on what thought? I can’t test this stuff on my companions, naturally, and seeing how the wyvern and troll suffered from two of my strongest toxins, I can't possibly test it on monsters with a good conscience.

There is a fine difference between killing a monster quickly and painlessly, and killing a monster while it's slowly dying and suffering the effects of my concoctions. Witnessing them first-hand is enough to make me squeamish.

Well, there is still the option of testing it on myself. I can’t turn the resistance skills like [Abnormal Status Nullification] off but I might be able to detect the effects if I really focus. I wasn't in danger of dying, after all.

The only problem is that Saori might becoming angry. It’s reckless to use my body as the testing dummy, even if I am immune to it. I know that from her scolding.

With those thoughts, I peeked over at Saori and Tasianna and saw that they had their backs turned to me. They probably wouldn’t notice any weird shenanigans that I could do in this time

‘Parallel Minds, I leave the testing to you guys. Don’t fail me!’

‘Got it original mind! Don’t drink too much at once.’

‘Jeez, Saori will be so angry. I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this…’

‘Ah, come on #2! What she doesn’t know won’t make her angry.’

With all my parallel mind’s consent, I picked up [Poison that is moderate at best] and drank it. Immediately on contact, my tongue could taste the bitter taste of the poison, causing my body to reflexively reject the foreign substance. My throat wouldn’t allow it to enter and was closed shut despite my own acceptance.

The intense taste formed a grimace on my face, with small twitching movements. My eyes were glued to the sky as I prayed that this experience would end soon but quickly realized that I had to go through a table full of toxins. My stomach rumbled heavily and reminded me that what will come out today and tomorrow will not be pleasant.

With gradual big gulps, the poison eventually passed through my throat and into my stomach. Like a reflex, my body retched once my mouth was freed from the noxious stink.

“Gurrghhh…ueck! Haaaaaa…” a shiver ran through my whole body.

System, name this one “Mana Path Poison (Moderate)”.

Mana Path Poison (Moderate)

A concoction that was made by mixing multiple different toxic fluids together with the skill [Poison Creation]. Instead of applying the abnormal status effect [Poisoned], it instead inflicts [Weakened Mana Paths (Moderate)] depending on the victim’s poison resistance

My parallel minds managed to detect something happening to the mana inside my body after I swallowed most of the poison. It didn’t affect the amount, but it weakened the flow and my mana paths.

Nothing happened in the end, but I deduced that it was a poison that harmed either the mana paths or weakened the mana itself.

My mind quickly filled with ideas that could use this new poison as a weapon, however, I stopped those thoughts as I needed to first find out the recipe to create more of it.

My lips curved into a wry smile as I could imagine the practical applications like throwing it in a bomb.

…Well, I guess this will help me endure the rest of this crap.

With a, somewhat, newly formed motivation, I started chugging down numerous amounts of toxic fluids as if it was Ambrosia, the drink of gods.

After I was done experiencing the effects and then naming the toxins, I fell onto the ground and starting breathing heavily from my stomachache.

“Ahh, it’s finally done…” I mumbled to myself.

I looked over the, now, empty grass plain and heaped a sigh in relief that I was done with that chore.

I sat back up and began thinking of my next task. That is, to find and create the recipes needed to reproduce these toxic fluids. To increase my combat potential, I need to make more of this stuff. It might seem a bit overkill to add this to my arsenal, but who cares? It sounds very not Idol-like, but nobody needs to know this besides my companions.

Still, how should I go about with this? If I just mix random toxins, I’ll just make different ones, probably. Hmm, I wish I had written the recipe down.

‘Hey, we found something in the shop.’

‘Huh? What is it?’

Would you like to buy   [Toxin Secretion] for 600 SP? Your current SP is 600

…Ja.

You have bought   [Toxin Secretion Lv. 1]. Your current SP is 0

Toxin Secretion

A skill that enables the user to secret out toxic fluids of a certain kind. Depending on the amount of mana spent, the user may custom develop their own toxins instead of their natural toxin generation

I took out the cup filled with the [Mana Path Poison (Moderate)] and gulped everything in one take. My body shivered like crazy for five seconds but once it subsided, I ordered the System to do something for me.

System, use [Toxin Secretion] and copy the poison that I just drank. Mana cost is irrelevant. Make everything one to one.

Holding my right hand’s pointing finger over the empty cup of [Mana Path Poison (Moderate)], I activated [Toxin Secretion]. Little by little, blue-colored fluids dripped down my sickle-like claws and slowly filled the cup full.

I used [Identify] and confirmed that it was the exact same poison that I just drank.

“He he, that’s so disturbing. I can’t believe that worked, ha ha!” I gleefully laughed.

I stored the cup back into my storage and stood up. I walked over to the spot where Saori and Tasianna were, as I needed to report to them about my new skill and also Saori’s new endless supply of toxic fluids.

It might make me seem even creepier but that is a small price to pay for more power! Besides, I can always deactivate the skill. I just have to make sure that I clean my claws properly.

[“Hey guys, I just bought a cool new skill. I bet that you can’t guess what it is,”] I boasted, but nobody even turned their heads.

Huh, why is it getting colder?

I cleaned my hands from all the poison using some shampoo and water from my storage and went over to them, to see what’s going on.

[“Do you guys think it’s gotten colder, somehow? What are you looking at?”] I asked while approaching them.

[“Uhh, Hestia,”] Saori finally answered me. [“I think whatever you bought, will not be able to beat this.”]

Confused with what she said, I hurried over to their side. Closing into them, the air was getting progressively colder and lethargy started to assault my body. The sudden decrease in my body’s temperature made me stumble from the dizziness

Unsteady on my legs, once I made it over to them, I noticed a white mist surrounding Tasianna. It looked similar to the cold air that you would breathe out on a cold night in winter.

It made me feel a bit unsure if I should even move closer or not. I quickly activated [Body Temperature Control] to counter the cold.

[“So, what skill did you guys buy?”] I asked, challenging them to show what was able to beat [Toxin Secretion].

[“Miss Tasianna, please show it to her…,”] Saori said with a frown, still looking at Tasianna.

[“Uhm, alright,”] With that said, Tasianna began chanting.

It seems like Tasianna bought a magic skill, but what could beat [Toxin Secretion]? Maybe I was overvaluing that skill.

“Il south nah kaaln wug mierl sol tha hol…,” the words that came out of Tasianna was still not understandable for me. I and Saori were making ok-ish progress with learning the language but it wasn’t enough to remember everything.

Once Tasianna was done, a clear translucent spike materialized over the magic circle that formed on Tasianna’s hands. The air around it started to form a white mist and reaching close to it, my fingers could clearly feel the bone-chilling cold that emanated from it.

[“Ice Spike,”] with that, the icicle drops into Tasianna’s hands and she held it up to me.

[“…You can use ice spells? How?”] my eyes widened, staring at Tasianna with questions.

[“For some reason, I was able to buy the hybrid magic skill [Ice Magic] without needing to level up [Wind Magic] and [Water Magic],”] she further added. [“[Cryokinesis] was also available to me, so I bought that, also.”]

…

[“…Yeah, you win.”]

A note from AbyssRaven

Hey, isn't that Parallel mind #1, #2, and #3?! In a chapter and not the author's note? Wow, who let them out of the basement.

The song for tonight belongs to Adele and her song "Hello": Rawr

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr!

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Side Story 6: The Gathering of the Misfits.

A note from AbyssRaven

Another long chapter. Enjoy!

“Nervous, Tatsuya?” while walking with me, my best friend Kyouya tried to strike up a conversation.

“Why are you asking me?” I, Tatsuya Nagata, glared at Kyouya for his redundant question. “We promised Aiko so there’s nothing to be nervous about. Besides, shouldn’t you be asking her?”

I pointed to the girl that was walking beside us, visibly shrinking her body while she stayed in the middle of our three-man group.

This girl was Haruka Sakamoto, the youngest girl in our class. She was, like Kyouya, a member of the party that I will soon belong to.

“Ha ha, I guess that’s true,” Kyouya laughed it off, and then directed his eyes down to Sakamoto-san, reassuring her with a friendly smile. “Call for us if you need help, Sakamoto-san.”

“Mhmm, thank you very much. Please, take care of me,” nodding, she gave him a reserved smile.

Charismatic fucker…

It has been four months now since we were summoned into this world called Peolynca. Using the calendar from this world, the date should be the fourth of SpringSun in the year 2678.

As I was told about a month ago, the church has organized for us to enter a dungeon so we could finally start leveling up after learning how to use weapons and spells. We would form parties with our classmates and then fight together.

Today will be the day where our party will be introduced to the knight that will supervise our party for the trip.

I say party, but…too be honest, we haven’t actually met yet. Besides Kyouya and Sakamoto-san, the two other members of our group didn’t want to meet up at all.

One simply said, “I have better things to do than to talk with you guys! Like training under a powerful mage!", and the other said, "What do we even have to talk about anyway? Go fuck off and leave me alone.".

We barely talked when we were on Earth, but I knew them long enough to know that I shouldn’t have expected any other responses. I still held on a bit of hope. I thought the video game-like setting would bring us together but that was just being optimistic.

It’s not like I like this world myself.

As we promised Aiko and Tsuji-san, I and Kyouya were currently walking with Sakamoto-san to the meeting spot. We were introduced to her by the girls after we had that talk in the dining hall.

Sakamoto was not only small, but she was also pretty shy. Our relationship on Earth was merely limited to classmates that have worked together, but not enough to feel like a proper friendship. She’s always been reserved when she talked with boys, so I barely knew anything about her besides her shyness and the fact that our fathers do business together.

She seems to have gotten a bit closer with Kyouya, but nothing to send home about. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that he seems reliable?

Standing next to her, we really look like two bodyguards. It also doesn’t help that she’s 154 cm tall (5’1 feet) and we’re 173(5’7) and 178(5’8), respectively. Kyouya being taller does make him seem more reliable, I guess.

“We should hurry up,” I opened my mouth without turning my head. “Everybody is looking at us.”

I pointed out the fact that every priest and shrine maiden that walked past us was looking at us. Most of them knew us but it must look weird to them that two large guys were escorting a tiny girl.

Those people should take their heads out of the gutter.

“Yeah, it’s not very comfortable. Let’s hurry up, ok? Sakomoto-san?" once again, that "best friend" of mine was giving off a pleasant looking smile.

“Yeah, I don’t like their gazes. Let’s walk faster, please,” showing a little bit of assertion due to feeling embarrassed about being stared at, Sakamoto-san began to walk faster.

Our trip to the meeting spot was relatively uneventful and silent. Winter has gone by now and the temperature has gone back up to an acceptable number. Thankfully, as the meeting spot is outside the church knight’s garrison.

Exiting the church, we went to one of the training fields that belonged to the knights. There we saw the silhouette of somebody waving his staff around like a freaking idiot.

“Ha! Too slow!” once we came into his sight, the fucker smirked boastfully and shouted in his usual annoying tone. “I can’t believe I have to party with four slowpokes.”

This guy is the sort that gives us gamers a bad rep.

Donning a robe fitting for a mage, the spectacled guy continued speaking, “At least, I got [Ardent Defender] from this deal. Be my shield and I’ll power level you up, Ishigami-kun.”

“Can’t you shut up for once, Mikami?” I said reproachfully.

The guy leering at me now is Daichi Mikami…my classmate and, now, a party member. He is your typical anti-social gamer that is so driven by his competitive nature that he can’t help but to act obnoxious.

Me? Oi, I’m competitive as fuck too, but I know when and when not to be a dick. Kyouya and I experienced playing with him and he’s only mildly pleasant when he’s winning. Even then, his tendency to boast is unimaginable.

The guy is a sore loser and a bad winner. So unsportsmanlike that playing with him drains you mentally.

“…Hope you’re good with using that shield of yours, Nagata,” he said with a gleeful smirk. “If you try to steal any of my kills then I’ll have to blast you away like the fodder that you are.”

My eye started to twitch uncontrollably from hearing those words, “You still can’t work in a team, huh? Even with your [Kamikaze] skill, you still need to rely on others, otherwise, you'll end up on the wrong end of a spear."

Kamikaze

A skill that unleashes the owner's maximum firepower upon the world, disregarding the safety of the user. Upon activating this skill, [Kamikaze] is applied, temporarily increasing Intelligence, and the power and effectiveness of all spells. While [Kamikaze] is active, the user can not be affected by [Arcane Fever] of any stage, however, once deactivated, all arcane corruption inside the user's body will be unleashed, enabling [Arcane Fever] if the requirement is fulfilled. The skills combined are [Mana Efficiency Lv. 10] and [Arcane Corruption Resistance Lv. 10]. Cripples the user's Vitality and Wisdom growths, incapable of learning any stat growth or boosting skills for Vitality and Wisdom. Amount increase: ([Kamikaze] Level /10) * 3

Against my threat, Mikami simply ignored it and laughed provokingly, “Of course, I’ve learned to work with the team. I’ll just stand behind you and see you die. Perfect teamwork, ha ha ha!”

Kuck! Hold it in, Tatsuya Nagata…murder is not an option! Even if his face is in my punching range.

“Ha ha,” from the side, Kyouya tittered nervously to diffuse the situation. “Can you guys please not kill each other? I think the church wouldn’t be too happy about that.”

“You’re right, Ishigami-kun!” Mikami’s head instantly turned towards Kyouya and placed a hand on his shoulder. “We need to talk about our strategy and party formation, now.”

Mikami’s whole demeanor made a complete flip. His boastful smirk turned into an enthusiastic grin and he clenched his hand into a fist and placed it in front of Kyouya, asking him for a fist bump.

Kyouya awkwardly looked at it, not knowing if he should accept it or not. On one hand, he diffused the situation, but on the other hand, he’s now the target of Mikami’s over the top personality.

“Sakamoto will scout our enemies with [Foxian Slyness] and I'll bombard everything from afar with my spells, while you protect us all with your amazing defenses. Hanazawa can keep us alive with her healing spells, and Nagata can just die somewhere so he doesn’t leech our EXP,” Mikami’s suggestion seems to have turned something inside of me.

“Hey,” I grabbed Mikami’s arm that was touching Kyouya’s shoulder and slowly peeled it off, tightening it enough to show the difference between my Strength and his Vitality. “Keep your hands off my best friend, you ass kisser.”

Mikami was struggling against my grip but his pained face said that it was impossible for him to free himself.

The euphoria of this small act of revenge surged through my whole body, enough to replace all the rage that his toxic comments caused me. The feeling of fulfillment was enough that I could hold off my urge for coffee today.

My elation visibly seeped out of me with a chuckle, as I released Mikami’s wrist. The reddened mark on his arm was proof of the consequences of his actions.

“Grrr, Ishigami-kun, I got a proposal,” as if he didn’t learn anything at all, Mikami gave his aching wrist a short massaged and then went back to plotting, placing a hand in front of his face’s side, trying to block me from hearing his loud rambling. “Vote me in to become the party leader once the knight arrives. I’ll make sure that you get most of the experience…”

Mikami quickly glanced in the direction of Sakamoto-san who was standing behind Kyouya, before resuming his scheming, “…and Sakamoto, too. You’ll like that, right?”, he mumbled that last part with a sly smile. It was almost inaudible…were it not for our skills.

Foxian Slyness

A skill that embodies the quality of the Foxians. Improves the effectiveness of stealth related skills and [Identify Blocker]. Grants the user the ability to completely ignore [Identify Blocker] when using [Identify], revealing all information. Gives the user the smell of a Foxian and some of their improved senses

Sakamoto’s unique skill [Foxian Slyness] gave her improved hearing, and I already had [Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 3].

Once Mikami was finished, both Kyouya’s and Sakamoto-san’s faces lost most of their expression as they glared at him as if he was trash. It seems like the pompous dick misunderstood their relationship.

His face tensed up from the amount of negativity, backing away from them while stating, “Give it a thought, ok?”.

This awkward situation stuck around in the air, even after we dissolved the situation. Everybody silently kept to themselves as we let time past us, waiting for our last party member and our leading knight.

What the hell is taking them so long? I would have drifted off to sleep by now, were it not for the atmosphere.

In my boredom, I sat down on the ground and stared at the shuffling and day-to-day life of the grey-robed priests. These guys were fervently working, praying, and seemingly enjoying their lives in this church.

I have no idea how they could. Besides training and competing with Kyouya, there isn't much that I can do to kill time here. Maybe I'm being a bit too inflexible with adapting to this world.

If only I could have a cup of coffee each day. Oh, I would be content even with watching paint dry on the wall.

Eventually, the silhouette of four people appeared and began approaching us. One belonged to an adolescent girl wearing a white robe similar to Aiko’s, while the other three were decked out in spotless white armor.

“I do apologize for our late coming, venerable heroes,” the one who looked like the leader took off his helmet, revealing a man with bright blonde hair. His face showed his youth, but his polite smile showed his experience with talking to others, while his blue eyes showed a certain amount of eagerness and ambition. He was a prime example of a son of a noble.

He gave a slight bow and scraped his left foot behind himself, before continuing speaking, "We encountered a slight problem while escorting Lady Asaka. I do hope we did not inconvenience you too much."

You made us wait for nearly an hour! I complained inside my head. Looking over at my three party members, it seems they had a similar thought.

While the knight seemed very polite, his indirect way to excuse himself from all blame was clearly understood.

I looked over at the girl that was averting her gaze from us while crossing her arms.

This girl was also my classmate and, soon to be, party member. Her blue-tinted hair easily fused together with her natural black hair to create a mesmerizing look that captivated my eyes immediately. Her face was wearing a deep frown that showed off her annoyance to the situation, clearing stating that she was dragged here against her will.

Despite the defiant look, she looked more like a pouting girl than a delinquent.

“Oh, where are my manners,” with the wave of his hand, the two knights behind him excused themselves from us, before resuming his introduction with a bow. “I am Elrick von Karstein, second son of the Karstein family, a loyal noble from the Empire. I was recently promoted to the prestigious ranks of the knights of Aurena and I will, henceforth, serve as both your instructor and protector for the days to come.”

While I was troubled with how formal my response should be, Kyouya politely smiled and lowered his upper body, bowing at a 30-degree angle, “It is a pleasure to have made your acquaintance, Sir Elrick. My name is Kyouya Ishigami.” he looked refined while doing it, despite the bulky gambeson that he was wearing.

“My name is Haruka Sakamoto. P-Please, we will be in your care, Sir Elrick.” Sakamoto-san elegantly curtseyed while she timidly introduced herself with a shy smile. Instead of a skirt, she pinched up the hem of her trench coat to perform the gesture as she was wearing pants. She probably chose to curtsey instead of bowing because of the culture of this place.

Interestingly, Elrick smiled and nodded back.

“Daichi Mikami, legitimate son of the Mikami family, a dutiful house of the country Japan. It is an honor to make your acquaintance, Sir Elrick.” Mikami, against my expectations, performed a proper, business-like introduction, albeit it was brimmed full of his sycophant tendencies.

I knew Kyouya and Sakamoto-san had the proper upbringing to perform it properly, but I really imagined Mikami doing something grandiose while flaunting his “amazingness”.

As if it was peer pressure, I chose to follow their lead and bowed my body to a 30-degree angle similar to Kyouya’s and Mikami’s, “My name is Tatsuya Nagata. It is a pleasure to have made your acquaintance, Sir Elrick.”

Elrick smiled, satisfied with our responses and turned towards the other [Saint Candidate], asking her to give an introduction, also.

“What? They already know me. There isn’t a need for an introduction.” the girl spat out those words to the knight’s face.

“That may be true, Lady Asaka. However, is it not polite to reciprocate everyone’s introduction?” still keeping a calm smile, Elrick insisted that she do it.

Her glare met Elrick’s, seemingly piercing him with them, before sighing in resignation, “My name is Asaka Hanazawa. Let’s get along well, or whatever.” Compared to us four, Hanazawa simply waved her hand indifferently.

Tch, typical Hanazawa. Grow up already.

“Thank you very much, Lady Hanazawa. You honor me with your holy light,” he pressed his hands together and placed them in front of his chest, praying. Hanazawa averted her face from him and cringed.

Once finished praying, he directed his open palm towards the knight’s garrison, inviting us inside, “Now, please. We must create your identification cards and form your party.”

We were guided into the large white building where the church’s knights were stationed. Once we entered the pristine-looking garrison, we were welcomed by the lounge. The floor and ceiling were made from sublime marble, sparking and shining immaculately.

On the right side, the room was adorned with delicately painted art and extravagant statues, while the fine wooden tables and cozy couches gave the place a comfortable feeling.

Comparatively, the left side was relatively barren with only plant vases decorating the different entrances.

The duality of this lounge was intriguing, but I wasn’t sure why it was like that.

We went to the right side of the room and entered through a door that led us to room similarly decorated to the before-mentioned right side of the lounge.

Entering, we were quickly greeted by multiple grey-robed priests. Elrick nonchalantly continued walking without giving them even a bit of his attention, only stopping before a counter.

Behind it, a woman in white robes was working through documents of paper at a steady and unwavering pace.

Elrick waited for a bit but spoke once it was clear that the woman wasn't aware of our presence, “Greetings, Lady Amelia. How do you do on this fine day, honoring the god of darkness?”

Darkday? So today is Saturday, huh.

“Oh, Sir Elrick!” like she was spooked by seeing him, she jumped in shock, putting the feather pen down to speak. “I apologize for my inattentiveness.”

Once her head was no longer staring at the documents, she quickly noticed us, the entourage behind Elrick, "Oh my, my apologies dear heroes. I have been extremely rude to you."

The woman seems to recognize us.

“Where are my manners, I must introduce myself,” with that said, she quickly curtsied and spoke, “I am a daughter of house Baltalz, Amelia von Baltalz. I currently serve as a shrine maiden for the church of Aurena.”

“Besides her duties to the clergy, Lady Amelia also serves as the secretary of the Knight-Commander. We are currently in the area where important personages bid their time until our Commander can meet them or if they require certain documents,” Elrick went into more detail about Amelia’s job.

“Yes, that may be true, but I’ve also been doing work outside what I agreed upon. Sir Elrick, when will the next Quartermaster be inaugurated?” she was narrowing her orange-colored eyes as she asked Elrick a question, swaying her similarly-colored hair to the side.

Seeing her hair swing around, I was reminded that somebody with orange-colored hair was pretty unusual on Earth. If you don’t color them, it would be an extremely rare color for a human to naturally have.

However, having lived here for four months, I noticed that I could form a rainbow from the hair color diversity that people had in this world. Kyouya confirmed that due to the presence of mana in this world, the hair color of people can be influenced.

Damn, must be hard to recognize when your wife made out with somebody else, huh?

"I apologize, we've been giving you far too much work, Lady Amelia," Elrick said with an apologetic smile. "However, I must ask you to endure for a little longer."

Amelia gave a silent sigh but then shook it off, now directing her gaze back to us, or more specifically, Hanazawa, “Saintess Asaka, I humbly apologize for making you wait this long. I…”

“Don’t call me Saintess,” Hanazawa interjected herself before Amelia could finish talking. “Don’t call me by that annoying title.”

Amelia’s expression froze, clearly surprised by Hanazawa’s rude behavior. She only managed to close her mouth once Elrick spoke to her, “I apologize for Lady Asaka’s rude conduct. It is my fault for not informing you that she wishes to not be addressed by the title “Saintess”.”

Once Amelia apologized to Hanazawa, Elrick further added, “I would also like to apologize for coming this late. We had some complications when we escorted Lady Asaka.”

It seems like the reason why Amelia was so inattentive when we entered the room was that she wasn’t expecting us to come anymore. We made her wait that long that she chose to work on some documents.

She was so fully immersed with her work that she wasn’t able to hear her grey-robed shrine maidens calling for her. As they were servants, they were unsure if they should’ve interrupted her, as she seems to have a tendency to burst out in anger when her focus is broken.

She covered up her reddened face when Elrick told us that.

Great work, making everybody’s lives worse, Hanazawa.

“Ok, I believe we have talked enough,” Elrick clapped his hands together, echoing the crashing metal from his gauntlets, signaling that we came here for business. “Lady Amelia please bring out the Crystal of the Divine System. We must finish the ID creation today.”

With an instant shift in her demeanor, Amelia’s flush disappeared, and she gave a quick and professional acknowledgment.

From the bottom of her desk, she took out a crystal similar to the ones you see in fortune-teller tents, a manatech in the shape of a printer’s scanner, and five white cards.

“Please, put your hand on the crystal so we may begin the process.”

One by one, each of us began doing what she said. First Kyouya, then me, then Mikami, then Sakamoto-san, and lastly, also reluctantly, Hanazawa.

With each hand pressed against it, the crystal stole some of our mana until it shined white, and then projected a blue screen in front of Amelia. She then attached a cord from the scanner-looking-thing into an open slot of the crystal, placed the card under the scanner, and with some button mashing, the card was finished.

Once all five IDs were made, she gave us our respective ones.

The white rectangle-shaped card had a golden-colored frame. It was split into two sides, the right side with my information and the left with a symbol.

The right side showed my name, level, job, and age. It was so simple that I questioned how you could make sure that you were the person that you are, but then I remembered that the [Crystal of the Divine System] couldn’t be cheated, especially with mana.

On the left side of the card was a large emblem in the form of a sun reaching its hand towards the ground. The hand was clearly that of a woman.

The emblem reminded me of the one that was etched into the middle of my party bracelet. Speaking of which, I whipped my party bracelet that I was wearing and attached the ID card on the bracelet’s chain.

I activated the party bracelet and a blue screen appeared before me. I clicked the icon in the shape of an ID card, and something appeared before.

Hmm, so this is my status.

Tatsuya's Status Board

Profile:

Name: Tatsuya Nagata

Level: 0

Race: Human

Age: 18 Years

Job: Fighter

Status:

Health:

341/341

Mana:

79/79

Strength:

131

Intelligence:

56

Vitality:

97

Wisdom:

91

Agility:

100

Stamina:

205/205

Effects:

None

Skill Points:

0

Unique Skill:

[Rush Hour Lv. 1]

Skill:

Magic skill and related

[Mana Control Lv. 1]

Physical skill and related

[Spear Technique Lv. 3]

[Spear Mastery Lv. 3]

[Shield Technique Lv. 2]

[Mana Strike Lv. 1]

[Stamina Strike Lv. 1]

[Sundering Enhancement Lv. 1]

[Piercing Enhancement Lv. 2]

[Crushing Enhancement Lv. 2]

Senses and movement skills

[Concentration Lv. 1]

[Stealth Lv. 1]

[Accuracy Correction Lv. 2]

[Prediction Lv. 1]

[Probability Correction Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 2]

[Evasion Lv. 2]

[Acrobatic Lv. 1]

Resistances

[Physical Resistance Lv. 1]

[Pain Resistance Lv. 1]

Stat growths and related

[Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 1]

Others

[Royal Etiquette Lv. 1]

Ability List:

Spear ability

[Pierce]

[Flash Spiral]

[Sweeping Farewell]

Shield ability

[Guard]

[Shield Bash]

Titles:

[Otherworldly Visitor]

Yoooooo, that’s some fat gains!

I couldn’t tear my eyes away from my status board at all. All the training that I have done in these past three months is being shown in the form of numbers that I could evaluate and compare.

I gave a self-fulfilling chuckle and then checked up with the others.

“Yo, Kyouya,” I noticed that everybody’s eyes were glued to their status board, so I did what was necessary. I walked up to Kyouya, hung my arm around his shoulder and smirked gleefully, “The time has come. Show it to me. You aren’t gonna pussy out, right?”

Kyouya confidently smiled to my cajoling, “Don’t wet your pants too much, bro.”

We exchanged our ID cards and then attached each other’s card on our party bracelets.

Kyouya's Status Board

Profile:

Name: Kyouya Ishigami

Level: 0

Race: Human

Age: 18 Years

Job: Fighter

Status:

Health:

413/413

Mana:

87/87

Strength:

154

Intelligence:

63

Vitality:

145

Wisdom:

134

Agility:

121

Stamina:

317/317

Effects:

None

Skill Points:

0

Unique Skill:

[Ardent Defender Lv. 1]

Skill:

Magic skill and related

[Mana Control Lv. 1]

Physical skill and related

[Sword Technique Lv. 2]

[Sword Mastery Lv. 2]

[Shield Technique Lv. 3]

[Shield Mastery Lv. 2]

[Mana Strike Lv. 1]

[Stamina Strike Lv. 1]

[Sundering Enhancement Lv. 2]

[Piercing Enhancement Lv. 1]

[Crushing Enhancement Lv. 2]

Senses and movement skills

[Concentration Lv. 1]

[Stealth Lv. 1]

[Accuracy Correction Lv. 2]

[Prediction Lv. 1]

[Probability Correction Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 2]

[Evasion Lv. 2]

[Acrobatic Lv. 1]

[Ally Defender Lv. 1]

Resistances

[Physical Resistance Lv. 2]

[Pain Resistance Lv. 2]

[Holy Resistance Lv. 1]

[Fire Resistance Lv. 1]

[Earth Resistance Lv. 1]

[Wind Resistance Lv. 1]

[Water Resistance Lv. 1]

Stat growths and related

[Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 1]

Others

[Royal Etiquette Lv. 1]

Ability List:

Sword ability

[Slash]

[Swift Cut]

Shield ability

[Guard]

[Shield Bash]

[Shield Wall]

Titles:

[Otherworldly Visitor]

What the hell?

“Hey, you got nothing to say, Tatsuya?” this time Kyouya placed his arm around my shoulder with a smirk on his face. “I was part of the athletic club you idiot, and I trained for four months compared to your three. As if you could have beaten me, ha.”

My head felt warmer as I tried to respond to Kyouya’s boast, however, nothing besides stuttering words came out of my mouth. To stop embarrassing myself, I shut my mouth tight and just accepted my loss.

He even beat me in Agility! He’s the tank, for hell’s sake!

“Alright, please make sure to keep your ID card safe at all time,” after we were done looking at our cards, Elrick drew our attention with another clap of his gauntlets, “It would be problematic if you lost them.”

He also told us that the card will update when we pour in some of our mana. This manatech will only accept the mana of its original holder, so we didn't need to worry that somebody could override our ownership.

He then went and explained to us about the party system and the party member search functions.

“Lady Asaka,” he looked over at Hanazawa, “Please, form the party.”

“““Huh?””” three people unconsciously let out a questioning voice.

“Sir Elrick, p-please wait. Shouldn’t this be a majority decision for who should become the leader?” one of them was Mikami, who personally wanted to be the leader.

“Mikami is right, Sir Elrick. Besides, how could we have a leader as irresponsible as Hanazawa," the second person was me. I knew Hanazawa's attitude from Earth and she's the last person you would want to give something as important as the role of a leader.

“Fuck off you two,” Hanazawa wouldn’t let us bad-mouth her, so she pointed her middle finger at us, before continuing speaking. “Besides, why do I have to be the leader, Elrick?”

Elrick quietly pointed out Hanazawa’s crude behavior, before explaining his decision, “Lady Asaka is a [Saint Candidate] and the church wishes for her to assume a leadership role to develop her potential. I apologize but this is unnegotiable.”

I clicked my tongue, but I accepted it without further argument. If the church wants it, then be my guest. Even if she’s my party leader, she only has to enable a fair experience sharing and she can do whatever the fuck she wants.

Everybody else can do the heavy lifting while she can fuck around like the little shit that she is.

Besides, having Hanazawa be the leader seems to fit with the name that some of our classmates have been giving our party.

The Misfits…and Kyouya and Sakamoto-san.

Seriously, it seems like everybody wanted Kyouya and nobody was trash-talking Sakamoto-san. Most of the comments were directed at Mikami, Hanazawa and me! I. AM. NOT. LIKE. THOSE. TWO!

Back to reality, Mikami’s façade disappeared for a second but he quietly accepted it, mumbling, “If I can get to level up then whatever.”

I guess we had the same thoughts. All we needed from her is to enable the experience sharing function and we can all be a happy-go-lucky party, despite a single useless member.

With that decided, all four of us sent a party invitation to Hanazawa and waited for her to accept it.

Asaka Hanazawa has declined your party admission

Huh?

"Fuck you, Elrick!" suddenly, Hanazawa blew up at Elrick. "I told you this time and time again! Stop putting so much pressure on me and leave me the fuck alone! I don’t want to be a saint!”

This girl…!

A note from AbyssRaven

It's been such a long time since we had these appear again, and it looks like Coffee boy and his best friend are back at it...this time with their new party members.

So, who wants to guess when this side story happened and when Hestia's story began. Tip #1: Everything about dates and so on is was in the last chapter. Tip #2: Everything is currently happening in the same year of Peolynca

Hope you guys like it and are already hoping for the Job menu that will show up soon.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr!

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Side Story 7: I must become stronger!

A note from AbyssRaven

Long chapter today.

“What kinda fucked up logic is that supposed to be?! Why do I have to do something those old geezers said, huh?! Just give the leader position to that perverted otaku, Mikami. That slimy guy wants it anyways,” like a fountain of defiance, Hanazawa spat out complaints and arguments as if she prepared them beforehand.

Elrick calmly took in all her anger, smiling wryly as he neither soothed nor scolded her for the outburst. He was just standing there, nodding when she finished saying something and waited until she started a new sentence.

On the other hand, the others weren’t taking it too well.

Kyouya kept up a fake smile, showing a polite indifference to everything that is happening right now. He was rolling his eyes, looking away in the distance while he disconnected himself from the situation.

Sakamoto-san watched the scene with a frown, glaring at Hanazawa with cold eyes. Merely glancing at it was enough to send a slight chill down my spine, even though all her hostility was being aimed at the complaining Hanazawa.

Amelia had a hand placed before her mouth but from this angle, I could see that her jaw was slacked open. Her eyes showed none of her bewilderment, perfectly retaining the poker face of an experience noble lady.

Mikami seems to be the one that took it the worse, as Hanazawa couldn’t stop including him in her complaints. All the derogatory terms and insults used to describe him made veins appear on his face, quickly pulsating from his increased blood pressure. His bootlicking persona dropped and the bloodlust in his eyes was shooting at Hanazawa.

I followed Kyouya's example and simply shook my head in annoyance and then zoned myself out, waiting for her to stop acting like a bitch. This terrible personality of hers was one of two reasons why everybody at school called her the delinquent.

A lazy attitude coupled with the fact that she will vent her frustration at anybody if they even try to give her anything to do. Any responsibilities that are given to her has a 90% chance of never being finished.

Even Segawa-sensei hated her. She never explicitly said it aloud but the whole class knew that she valued and respected hard-work the most, even if you mess up or have an annoying character trait.

Hanazawa just gives up most of the time.

However, you can still say that it’s teenage drama, right? She was a terrible student and classmate, but she wasn’t failing at school. She always made it through somehow.

You wouldn’t call someone a delinquent just because of their bad performance or temper.

“Go to hell, Elrick!” at that moment, Hanazawa swiped a plant vase from the counter and was about to throw it on the ground, just to be stopped by Elrick who caught her wrist.

Woah, did his hand just teleported?!

“Lady Asaka, you may let out your frustration as much as you want. Your role and title must put an extraordinary amount of pressure on you, after all,” Elrick took back the vase with his free right hand and placed it back on the counter, releasing his grip on Hanazawa’s wrist after he was done. “However, vandalizing this waiting room? That I cannot permit. Your room is yours to change, but this room’s condition is important for many people.”

The second reason is her tendency to break and vandalize public property. She is known to breaking objects to de-stress.

She's not like those violent, bully-type delinquents in shows, but was more like those rebels who make the lives of others just unbearable by existing and breathing. The number of times I heard that her parents had to bail her out couldn’t be counted on one hand.

How the hell she even got the title [Saint Candidate] to begin with is questionable. It seems like the Goddess of Light, Aurena must have drunk something when she assigned it to her.

“I know you must be angry, but I ask you to bear with it. The bishops' decisions cannot be disputed even with your authority,” Elrick said with a troubled expression.

“Then go tell them that I won’t compromise,” Hanazawa kept shoving her finger into Elrick’s breastplate, shouting close enough that I bet some spit got onto it.

Elrick, an unmovable bastion against everything Hanazawa has to say, kept up his smile like he was used to it, “I will do that if you ask that of me, Lady Asaka. However, I must inform you that the chances are very slim. It will be more productive for us to form your party now.”

Kudos to him. I would have flicked her off by now.

“Don’t say that it’s my party!” it seems like Hanazawa still has the energy to continue this mentally straining quarrel. “You just can’t stop trying to put pressure and responsibilities on me, it seems. I told you this time and time again that…”

“Will you shut up!” my annoyance has finally reached its boiling point. “Can you do something else besides complaining? None of us wants you to be the leader but we’re accepting it because our lives are made easier when we accept the church’s decisions. All you need to do as the “leader” is to exist and activate the experience sharing function.”

Everybody’s gazes were directed at me, but I continued staring Hanazawa’s eyes down, instead of acknowledging everybody else’s.

Hanazawa’s jaw was slacked open, not expecting somebody else to intrude into their feud. However, given a few seconds, her brain rebooted, and she returned to shooting her words out, this time aimed at me, “Why the hell are you getting into my business, Nagata? Just shut your mouth and go outside and swing that stupid long spear of yours. That’s all you can do anyways.”

“At least I’m doing something compared to you,” I rebuked.

“What about that first month where you were just a recluse, huh? Now you’re trying to berate me for something that I don’t want to do? Fuck off hypocrite,” however her words stung harder than mine.

Kyouya noticing that I couldn't speak back, opened his mouth to support me, "Hanazawa-san, Tatsuya might have been practically useless in the first month but he's bettering himself now. That's all that counts."

“Nagata-kun is at least responsible compared to you,” my eyes opened when Sakamoto-san came to my support, too. “You made us wait 2 hours, 41 minutes, and 51 seconds exact, and now you’re delaying everybody with your stupid tantrum. Miss Amelia can’t get back to work because you’re making a big fuss!”

…I thought it was a rumor, but can she really count every second?

Despite it being inconsiderate, my eyes couldn’t stop staring at Sakamoto-san, who was like a little clock. I made a mental note to give her all the math problems that we will have as a party in the future.

“I’m not a big fan of yours too, Hanazawa, however,” from the side, Mikami spoke, having finally found his chance to say his mind. “I have literally better things to do than to stay here and listening to your braindead insults, but I need that party set up. It doesn’t even cost you anything to do it, besides pressing eight buttons!”

“We don’t need you to be our leader,” Mikami’s argument was the perfect segue for me to continue speaking. “We only need you to let us use the experience sharing function and not to get chastised by the church. We really can’t give a shit about you.”

To others, it might look like three dudes and one small girl bullying a single girl but…actually, this is exactly what we are doing.

We are ganging up against her, pressuring her to do something she doesn't want to do, while also insulting her. However, I really do think that we are in the right to do this. She is acting selfishly for such a mundane reason as "I don't want to take responsibility" without even considering a solution to it, except to shout as loud as she could.

“Tch…fine whatever,” Hanazawa’s flustered face had a bead of cold sweat drip down to her chin, as she finally caved in. “If you want your fucking party that badly then you can have it! Just remember that you did not pressure me into doing this, but that I was nice enough to do it for you.”

Fuck off with that shitty attitude of yours, I said to myself. How can anybody think this person is a saint, huh? Even her unique skill [Saint’s Wrath] is heresy for traditional RPG saints.

<Saint’s Wrath: A skill that enchants all attacks of the owner, according to their current holy elemental magic skill. Empowers all holy offensive spells. Any attack and ability used by the owner will always be holy element attuned. Physical attacks are also strengthened by the owner’s Intelligence stat>

Hanazawa, as she agreed to, quickly formed a party and invited us all into the party, then activated the experience sharing function according to Elrick's instructions.

It really looked like she could cry at any second during this whole process. There was nothing tough about this delinquent. She’s just a stupid adolescent girl with an attitude…which we now all have to deal with…

Name: Tatsuya Nagata

Level: 0

Job:   Fighter

Health:   341/341

Mana:   79/79

Stamina:   205/205

Party Leader

Name: Asaka Hanazawa

Level: 0

Job:   Caster

Health:   328/328

Mana:   234/234

Stamina:   219/219

Name: Kyouya Ishigami

Level: 0

Job:   Fighter

Health:   413/413

Mana:   87/87

Stamina:   317/317

Name: Haruka Sakamoto

Level: 0

Job:   Scout

Health:   257/257

Mana:   146/146

Stamina:   204/204

Name: Daichi Mikami

Level: 0

Job:   Caster

Health:   284/284

Mana:   165/165

Stamina:   104/104

The Misfit party has finally been formed...yay.

“There…happy?” all four of us decisively nodded simultaneously to Hanazawa’s question, which clearly shocked her. “Whatever…just leave me alone now.”

She was about to leave when she was once again stopped by Elrick, “Lady Asaka, please have patience for just a bit longer. You still need to update your Jobs. I would also like to announce that from today onwards, you are allowed to use the Crystal of the Divine System in the knight’s garrison to your leisure.”

Hanazawa grunted, shook her head in defeat, then sloppily walked over to Crystal of the Divine System and pressed her hand against it.

It glowed its distinct white to signify it was being activated. Hanazawa called out "I choose the Job [Cleric]” followed by a confirming “Yes”.

“There, I’m done…so can I go back to my room, now?” her face was devoid of energy, the result for her unnecessary childish tantrum. “Or do I have to wait for these clowns to finish, first?”

Elrick's silent smile was enough of an answer. Hanazawa sighed, lacking the energy to start another argument, and walked over to one of the couches in the room and plopped herself on it.

Ignoring our “leader”, the three others in my party started choosing their new Jobs.

From the explanations that I received, Jobs are exactly what you would imagine a “class” or “profession” from an RPG would do for you, in this case, it increases certain stats, grants you new skills, and spells or weapon abilities.

Besides in some special cases, you may only change your Job by interacting with a crystal of the divine system. From what I learned, there are starting classes like my [Fighter] and Sakamoto-san’s [Scout] and as we progress forward, more advance classes would unlock.

While the other three were choosing their new Jobs, I took the opportunity to ask Elrick for his status board as a reference to mine. He gave me his ID with his usual smile, not dropping it in public at all costs.

Placing it on my bracelet’s chain, the blue screen with Elrick’s status board appeared before me.

Elrick's Status Board

Profile:

Name: Elrick von Karstein

Level: 41

Race: Human

Age: 21 Years

Job: Paladin

Status:

Health:

1199/1199

Mana:

792/792

Strength:

531

Intelligence:

543

Vitality:

737

Wisdom:

704

Agility:

491

Stamina:

811/811

Effects:

None

Skill:

Magic Skill and related

[Mana Efficiency Lv. 2]

[Mana Control Lv. 5]

[Arcane Mind Lv. 4]

[Holy Magic Lv. 5]

[Water Magic Lv. 3]

[Chant Revocation Lv. 1]

Physical skill and related

[Sword Technique Lv. 7]

[Sword Mastery Lv. 5]

[Spear Technique Lv. 5]

[Spear Mastery Lv. 4]

[Archery Technique Lv. 3]

[Archery Mastery Lv. 2]

[Shield Technique Lv. 5]

[Shield Mastery Lv. 4]

[Unarmed Technique Lv. 1]

[Sundering Enhancement Lv. 4]

[Piercing Enhancement Lv. 2]

[Crushing Enhancement Lv. 2]

[Mana Strike Lv. 4]

[Stamina Strike Lv. 3]

Senses and movement skill

[Stealth Lv. 3]

[Accuracy Correction Lv. 3]

[Concentration Lv. 2]

[Prediction Lv. 5]

[Danger Perception Lv. 2]

[Probability Correction Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 7]

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 6]

[Tracking Lv. 1]

[Night Vision Lv. 1]

[Presence Killer Lv. 2]

[Evasion Lv. 6]

[Acrobatic Lv. 5]

[Ally Defender Lv. 4]

Resistances

[Physical Resistance Lv. 6]

[Pain Resistance Lv. 4]

[Holy Resistance Lv. 3]

[Dark Resistance Lv. 1]

[Fire Resistance Lv. 3]

[Water Resistance Lv. 3]

[Earth Resistance Lv. 3]

[Wind Resistance Lv. 3]

[Arcane Corruption Resistance Lv. 3]

Stat growths and related

[Health Recovery Lv. 4]

[Mana Recovery Lv. 3]

[Stamina Recovery Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Health Growth Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Mana Growth Lv.´3]

[Enhanced Mana Capacity Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Intelligence Growth Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Intelligence Enforcement Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Agility Enforcement Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Stamina Capacity Lv. 3]

Other

[Dancing Lv. 4]

[Musician Lv. 4]

[Identify Blocker Lv. 5]

[Identify Lv. 1]

[Defender’s Aura Lv. 2]

[Noble Aura Lv. 2]

[Battle Mind Lv. 1]

[Royal Etiquette Lv. 6]

[Riding Lv. 3]

Ability List:

Job abilities

[Aggression]

[Holy Guard]

[Shining Blade]

Sword abilities

[Slash]

[Swift Cut]

[Power Slash]

[Bleeding Edge]

[Duelist’s Counter]

[Calamus Shredder]

Spear abilities

[Pierce]

[Flash Spiral]

[Sweeping Farewell]

[Tempest Swirl]

[Perforate Stab]

Achery abilities

[Arrow Shot]

[Curved Pursuer]

[Long Flight]

Shield abilities

[Guard]

[Shield Bash]

[Shield Wall]

[Shield Charge]

[Air Shield]

Spell List:

Job spells

[Calm Mind]

[Veil of Light]

Custom spells

[Apply Light]

[Holy Shield]

[Apply Holy]

[Create Water]

[Greater Create Water]

[Cleanse Clothes]

Holy spells

[Minor Heal]

[Cure]

[Modest Heal]

[Smite]

[Light]

Water spells

[Water Ball]

[Water Wall]

[Water Bolt]

Defender’s Aura

A skill that emits an aura of protection around the user. The user receives a certain amount of Health damage when a party member is damaged. The user may choose who to defend and when to deactivate it. Deactivates automatically when the user’s Health drops below 30%

Scary dangerous. Good thing this guy is on our side.

Once it was my turn, I gave Elrick his card back and then went to the crystal. Placing my hand on it, I could feel my mana once again being drained by the crystal as it uses it to analyze me.

Once the white glow appeared, I said in my head “Open Job Menu” to make the menu appear on the crystal.

Weekly Job Change Limit: 3/3

Previous Jobs: [Fighter]

Main Job: [Fighter]

Available Jobs

Job: Spearman

Requirements: [Fighter] Job tree, [Spear Technique Lv. 1] [Spear Mastery Lv. 1]

Acquirement Benefits: Strength increase, Agility Increase, [Spear Technique] proficiency, [Enhanced Agility Growth] proficiency, [Enhanced Stamina Growth] proficiency

Main Job Benefits: None

Job: Freelancer

Requirements: None

Acquirement Benefits: Health increase, Strength increase, Vitality increase, Agility increase, Stamina increase

Main Job Benefits: None

Meh, disappointing choices.

To have Jobs available for you to pick, you have to fulfill certain requirements. Most of the time it all depends on how far your status board has progressed but Jobs like [Knight] or [Paladin] requires you to be knighted.

It's a bit daunting to imagine the number of Jobs that are possible, but that's where the fun starts. The thought of unlocking a rare or unique class has piqued my interest enough that I need to start planning things out when I finally level up.

“I choose the Job [Spearman],” I called out.

Will you change your Job to   [Spearman]?

Instead of a confirmation screen appearing on the crystal, I received a message from the System to confirm my choice.

Yes.

Individual   [Human, Tatsuya Nagata] has acquired Job [Spearman]

Attributes have increased due to Job acquirement

Multiple acquisition requirements fulfilled.   [Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 1] [Enhanced Stamina Growth] acquired

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Spear Technique Lv. 3] evolved into [Spear Technique Lv. 4]

Will you set Job   [Spearman] as your Main Job?

Yes.

Individual   [Human, Tatsuya Nagata] has switched his Main Job to [Spearman]

Main Job benefits have been updated due to Job change

In this world, every skill has a breakpoint where you can’t increase that skill’s level any further without fulfilling a requirement to break through it.

Usually, it's something extremely inconvenient and annoying to do. For example, my [Spear Technique] will only breakthrough to level four if I kill a certain number of enemies by using my spear abilities.

Our combat instructors explained that we have to reduce the enemy’s Health to zero with something like [Pierce] or [Flash Spiral], otherwise it wouldn't count. Like every RPG, some game mechanics just have to have some tedious requirement to unlock something.

Urgh, usually I hate it when game designers implement these things into something, just to prolong gameplay. At least, this requirement can be fulfilled, naturally, from just playing…I-I mean, fighting.

Yeah, fighting…

Anyways, besides naturally fulfilling the requirement, there is also the option of breaking through by changing your Job and gaining the proficiency bonus from them.

While the System doesn't show you the "proficiency bar" and how far you have progressed in it, we do know that it exists. The System says it, after all.

“Proficiency requirement fulfilled”, that’s exactly what the System told me when my skill [Spear Technique] evolved.

Logically, you can interpret something from this. To upgrade a skill, you need to increase the proficiency of the skill to its maximum amount, while fulfilling any breakthrough requirement.

However, it seems you can completely avoid this using the Job System. By just acquiring a new Job, I was able to avoid killing anything to level [Spear Technique] up.

There is also the Skill Point System that we [Otherworldly Visitors] have. I bet we can avoid the tediousness of the System with that, too.

Once you acquire a Job, it will be saved in your Job history and you can freely switch to any that you have already acquired. Some Jobs also have Job specific skills, abilities, and spells that can only be granted when it’s your main Job.

The "Main Job" is the one that is shown on your status board, ID, and party UI. While it is smart to gather as many Jobs as you can, sometimes it is better to strive for quality and to unlock advance Jobs for the actual OP stuff.

Elrick’s [Paladin] is a prime example of this, granting him three extra abilities and two new spells.

“Alright, everybody is finished, so goodbye!” jumping off the couch, Hanazawa made her way out of the room with unrestrained speed.

“Lady Asaka, I must escort you, so I beg you to wait for me outside,” upon hearing that, Hanazawa stopped for a moment and groaned.

“Hurry up, or I’ll leave you behind,” she muttered while she left.

After she left, I could hear Amelia mumble “So, that’s the other saintess…” before she flinched back from the gaze of Elrick. She bid us farewell and then went back to her paperwork.

The rest of us also started to leave the room, now that we were done here. However, before I could leave the room, Elrick called out to me while filling out a document on the counter. This was likely the report that he must hand to his superiors.

“Lord Tatsuya, I have something to ask of you,” putting his feather pen down for a second, he turned to me, now without his usual business-like smile.

I unconsciously tensed up myself from this sharp eyes, "What is it, Sir Elrick?"

“I would like to say that I disapprove of your actions towards Lady Asaka, today,” his expression was stern, ready to scrutinize whatever I will say to his words. “As you must know, the holy state of the church of Aurena, Aureolis, worship the Goddess of Light as their main god. We take our faith very seriously and holy magic practitioners are very respected here.”

He stopped his speech for a second to resume a praying pose, before continuing, “It goes without saying that people that bear the Goddess of Light’s blessing in the form of a title, like [Saint Candidate], are worshipped as if they are our goddess’ representative on human grounds. Once the commoners learn of Lady Asaka’s role as a saint candidate, then they will not take it lightly if somebody spreads hearsay about her.”

He stopped praying, opened his eyes and curved his lips back into his noble smile, “I know Lady Asaka’s brash personality, so I will not fault you for your outburst, however, I would like to ask that you not do this again, especially in public eyes. Even the church cannot save you from this sort of misunderstanding.”

A chill ran down my spine, I could feel my forehead wet from cold sweat. Elrick’s cold gaze and harsh words stirred both my body and imagination into action.

His words pierced my mind, sending forth images of peasant mobs chasing me down with pitchforks and torches, trying to punish me for speaking out against Hanazawa. They will not stop until I was ashes.

I gulped from that very thought and the fear that was assaulting my soul right now.

“Only once we enter the Empire or the other human Kingdoms, will you not have to fear being burned on a stake. However, while we are in Aureolis, you must take care of what you say. A “Hero” is nothing compared to a “Saint” here,” a shock went through my body when he placed a hand on my shoulder. “I will protect you as much as I can, but you must remember that my real orders are to protect Lady Asaka and Lady Aiko. That is my duty as a knight of Aurena.”

“Thanks for the warning…I guess? Still, with your strength, you could have simply stated a threat. You didn’t have to explain everything to me,” I said while trying to form a smile as best as I could.

"Threats are counterproductive if I wish to make allies for myself and my house. Your potential to outgrow me is obvious, and this is a great way for me to have you owe me a favor," he released his hand my shoulder and threw away all the tension that he had just a while ago. "I am not your enemy, Lord Tatsuya. Your role in opposing the demonkins aligns with my goal to protect Aureolis and my home. Besides, if you don't cause any problems then I bet even his majesty, the Emperor, will support you. Suppress your emotions and think of all the benefits you may reap."

“He he, that does sound good,” although the tension in my body hasn’t vanished yet, the lack of Elrick’s pressuring aura gave me some room to say something. “However, I think most of us want to leave this world once we are done with our task. I personally wish to taste a certain beverage in my world, again.”

Elrick nodded for a moment, content with my answer, “That is alright. I hope we will have a pleasant cooperation, “Hero” Tatsuya Nagata.”

He went back to filling out his document, finally dismissing me.

My legs automatically dragged my body out of the building. My mind was solely occupied with fleeing the scene, that I registered nothing else. I didn’t know how I got out, I didn’t know if the garrison’s lounge was empty or not, I didn’t know if Elrick even watched me walk out.

“Oi, Tatsuya!” I woke up with an “Ah!” after somebody grabbed me by the shoulder. “Dude, your gambeson is completely soaked in sweat. How the hell is that possible?!”

I turned my head around, noticing my best friend Kyouya wiping my sweat off his hand. The sight of his disgusted face and struggle to clean his hand was amusing enough to release all the tension inside me.

I sighed in relief but both my breathing and heartbeat still needed time to calm down, "God damn, it's good to see you again, Kyouya."

“Hold, on! Don’t hug me, dude!” Kyouya took out the shield that he, for some reason, always carries around and presses it against my body, blocking my hug. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Hearing him say that made me finally burst out in laughter, “Ha ha, nothing, nothing. It was just so hot in that room just now…huh? Where is Sakamoto-san?”

Kyouya’s suspicion wasn’t completely gone but he understood that I didn’t want to answer what happened when I talked with Elrick, “She went back to Aiko and the other girls. If you’re curious, Mikami went back to his mage training and Hanazawa went back to her room, after waiting for 5 minutes.”

Well, I guess that’s better for me.

“Well, whatever, come on let’s go,” I told Kyouya.

“Huh? Wait! Explain yourself before telling me to follow you somewhere," he called me out before I could walk off. "I have other things to do too, Tatsuya. You can't always drag me around wherever you want?"

"Pff, as if you have anything interesting to do. You only want to go back to Sakamoto-san," my words obviously caught him off-guard. "We have something more important to do that your little friendship-making, bro."

Kyouya's face was obviously annoyed that I mentioned his stuff with Sakamoto-san but I ignored it, "What is so important that we have to do it now?” he asked.

“We are departing the church for the dungeon in two days,” Monday, or Fireday, will be the day that we will finally enter our first dungeon, as tomorrow is Restday. “We have to train ourselves before then, Kyouya. We need to become stronger as soon as possible. No slacking off anymore."

Kyouya was silently contemplating my words, trying to understand what I meant with it, “…That important, huh? Coffee isn’t the only thing driving you forwards anymore, huh?”

I gave a nod to his response, "We absolutely need to become stronger to survive in the future. At all costs!"

Kyouya shrugged to my answer but began following me nonetheless, saying “A bit of prep before the big day sounds like a good idea” making me smile as we began making our way towards our chambers to grab the rest of our gear.

I need to become stronger. Much stronger than Elrick. Even stronger than the Knight-Commander!

I will not be burned on a stake in this world!

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Hestia's Status Board at the time this chapter happened

Profile:

Name: *

Level: 0

Race: Young Dragon

Age: 0 Months

Status:

Health:

100/100

Mana:

302/302

Strength:

46

Intelligence:

39

Vitality:

26

Wisdom:

30

Agility:

66

Stamina:

47/47

Effects:

None

Skill Points:

550

Skill:

Magic skill and related

[Mana Control Lv. 3]

[Holy Magic Lv. 4]

[Fire Magic Lv. 3]

[Earth Magic Lv. 3]

[Primal Magics]

Physical skill and related

[Mana Strike Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Claws Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Fangs Lv. 1]

Senses and movemetn skill

[Stealth Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 3]

[Evasion Lv. 1]

Resistances

[Physical Resistance Lv. 3]

[Pain Resistance Lv. 3]

[Holy Resistance Lv. 1]

[Fire Resistance Lv. 1]

[Earth Resistance Lv. 1]

Stat growths and related

[Enhanced Mana Growth Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Intelligence Growth Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 1]

Other

[Identify Lv. 3]

[Cooking Lv. 2]

[Dismantle Lv. 2].

Spell List:

Holy spell

[Minor Heal]

[Cure]

[Modest Heal]

[Smite]

Fire spell

[Fire]

[Firebolt]

[Imbue Fire]

Earth spell

[Earth Wall]

[Rock Blast]

[Earth Strike]

The Light spell

[Shine]

Titles:

[The Light] [Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] [Otherworldly Reincarnator]

A note from AbyssRaven

I honestly have no idea why I'm writing all these long chapters. Anywho, hope you guys enjoyed this little tidbit on the hero's side. We'll be back to Hestia and co. in the next chapter.

And yes, Hestia currently has a shit ton of Jobs available to her due to all the skills she currently has. Not all of them are unlocked due to her non-existent Job history. And, yes, she can gain a lot of stats from the Job System.

The question is will it be so easy as I'm making it out to be? ;)

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr!

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 42: A spar among friends.

A note from AbyssRaven

Hey, you might have already heard it but the RR staff have started a writathon yesterday due to the Coronavirus trapping people at home. I'll be participating in it with "A Dragon idol's Reincarnation Tale" as I believe I'll be able to fulfill the 25,000 words until April 12th.

I also checked the 55,555 words box just for fun, despite not being sure if I can actually manage that. However, I'll try to do it. xD

That means that the number of chapters that will be released per week will increase. At a minimum, I will release 3 chapters per week but that amount might increase if I can keep up writing more chapters. Anyways, that still means you guys will get more chapters so hopefully, you guys will enjoy them!

Also, I would like to wish everybody good health and that they avoid corvid-19 like the pest that it is. Stay healthy so you guys can read, ok!

Anyways, that's done. It's gonna be a fun chapter so please enjoy! ^^

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Dark Magic Lv. 6] [Unarmed Technique Lv. 2] [Sundering Enhancement Lv. 2] [Piercing Enhancement Lv. 2] [Prediction Lv. 6] [Tracking Lv. 3] [Night Vision Lv. 6] [Evasion Lv. 6] [Acrobatics Lv. 6] [Bleed Resistance Lv. 2] [Torpor Resistance Lv. 2] [Identify Lv. 6] gained

Multiple acquisition requirements fulfilled.   [Unarmed Mastery Lv. 1] [Holy Resistance Lv. 1] [Water Resistance Lv. 1] acquired

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Chant Revocation Lv. 9] evolved into [Chant Revocation Lv. 10]. 50 SP remaining

Abilities acquired:   [Just Blink] [Shadow Descent]

Spell acquired:   [Shadow Snake]

“Are you really sure about this?” a high-pitched voice asked me, skeptically.

“Of course, otherwise it would not be a fair fight, correct?” I responded to the girl’s question, unwaveringly requesting that she not hold back her strength. “A week has gone by and the only thing you fought was a kobold, and you finished it off with [Fire]. Your hands are trembling, your eyes have grown sharper, and your tail is on constant alert!”

Two days have gone by since Hestia gained [Toxin Secretion] and Miss Tasianna bought the ice skills. We were currently standing in a large arena Hestia created using earth magic.

I stood at one corner, staring at her scratching her messy hair.

I, Saori Segawa, was currently pointing out the many symptoms of [Battle Frenzy] that Hestia was showing since yesterday when she instantly killed a kobold.

Prior, I was only able to observe it once. Initially, when she explained it to me, I dismissed it as a tantrum since I thought she was unhappy that I was taking all the monster kills. However, once I learned that it was a problem, I made sure to ask her about the details again.

Now, they are resurfacing. Constantly sharpening her claws to destress, a tail that restlessly swings around like a pendulum, and overly energetic behavior.

Like a certain coffee addict that I knew, she was showing signs of withdrawal; in this case, it was the lack of a good fight to unwind herself. My dear friend, Hestia, was extremely close to being inflicted by the status ailment [Battle Frenzy (Minor)].

“You know how dangerous my spells are, Saori,” she argued.

“We are only sparring, Hestia,” I pinched my fingers together to remind her of the reason why we were doing this. “You are this close to having [Battle Frenzy] come active and as you can see; we have not found anything that can fulfill your urge to fight.”

As promised, I made sure to control my urge to gain experience. Ever since I gained the power to fight by myself, I wanted to progress faster and faster. Strong enough so I don’t have to rely on Hestia too much.

Unfortunately, before we gained these party bracelets, the only way for me to gain experience was to be the one to kill the monster. Seeing as all I ever did in my second life was to scout monsters, my detection skills have steadily outpaced Hestia’s, allowing me to strike any prey down first.

It was inconsiderate and who knows what will happen when [Battle Frenzy] worsens. To prevent that, we would hunt together when we aren’t using the idol concert strategy. However, a week has gone by since we fought those trolls and we have not found a single D rank or higher monster.

If Hestia can’t get excited or engaged in a battle, then it won’t get rid of her battle instincts. If she wanted to earn experience, then all she needed to do was to activate [Spark Flame Veil] and jump into a horde of weak monsters. She could literally fall asleep and wake up unharmed with one- or two-level ups if she wanted to.

Hestia requires stimulation from fighting strong opponents or through exciting hunts to keep herself stable. It’s a problematic trait to have but living in a forest filled with monsters makes it easy to manage…is what I thought.

[“Alright, Miss Tasianna please hide in this pocket,”] I called Tasianna over.

[“M-Must I really have to do this, Madam Saori?”] she hesitantly flew onto my shoulder, fear clearly shown on her face. [“I-I can’t imagine being able to survive Princess Hestia’s attacks.”]

I have decided that I will put Miss Tasianna’s newly found power to the test.

When I agreed to have Miss Tasianna join us, I knew that she wasn't a fighter. She was a simple maid that served a family and barely ever had any fighting experience.

She showed the determination to train herself up to becomes somebody that can protect others, especially as it is her way to atone for her past failings. She has not neglected her magical training since we met. Besides her dedication to serving Hestia as a maid, she is also teaching us a new language and lecturing us about various mechanics of the System.

The amount of work she's been doing is admirable and I praise it from the depths of my soul. I respect hardworking individuals and Tasianna is somebody that deserves it.

It goes without saying that she was elated when she learned that she could buy [Ice Magic] and [Cryokinesis] from the Skill Shop.

According to my two magical companions, [Ice Magic] is a hybrid skill similar to [Lava Magic]. It requires the user to have [Wind Magic Lv. 10] and [Water Magic Lv. 10] for it to unlock in the first place, however, Tasianna seems to have skipped that part for some reason.

We also learned that Hestia seems to be extremely susceptible to ice spells, just like she is weak to dark and water magic. Besides receiving more damage, when her body temperature lowers, her senses and movements are dulled by a second’s delay. She can mitigate it with [Body Temperature Control] but that requires mana to be used.

There was no better opponent to test Tasianna’s powers than Hestia. She gained a lot of levels from our power leveling and we needed to see how well we can fight together.

Tasianna's Status Board

Profile:

Name: Tasianna Marina Silverpond

Level: 36

Race: Fairy

Age: 87 Years

Job: Mage

Status:

Health:

552/552 (+80)

Mana:

2178/2178 (+427)

Strength:

65 (+23)

Intelligence:

873 (+175)

Vitality:

75 (+39)

Wisdom:

559 (+92)

Agility:

608 (+157)

Stamina:

414/414 (+102)

Effects:

None

Skill Points:

0

Skill:

Magic skills and related

[Fairy Magic]

[Arcane Mind Lv. 6]

[Ice Magic Lv. 2] (New)

[Water Magic Lv. 6]

[Wind Magic Lv. 2]

[Chant Revocation Lv. 4]

[Silent Casting Lv. 1] (New)

[Mental Warfare Lv. 2]

Senses and movement skills

[Stealth Lv. 2] (+1)

[Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 2]

[Prediction Lv. 1]

[Danger Perception Lv. 1] (New)

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 1] (New)

[Night Vision Lv. 2]

[Evasion Lv. 3]

[Acrobatic Lv. 3]

[Flight Acceleration Lv. 1] (New)

[Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 1] (New)

[Concentration Lv. 4]

Resistances

[Physical Resistance Lv. 3]

[Pain Resistance Lv. 3]

[Poison Resistance Lv. 1] (New)

[Paralyzation Resistance Lv. 1] (New)

[Torpor Resistance Lv. 1] (New)

[Mana Leak Resistance Lv. 1]

[Holy Resistance Lv. 1] (New)

[Fire Resistance Lv. 1]

[Water Resistance Lv. 4]

[Earth Resistance Lv. 2] (+1)

[Wind Resistance Lv. 2]

[Dark Resistance Lv. 1] (New)

Stat growths and related

[Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 1] (New)

[Enhanced Mana Growth Lv.´4]

[Enhanced Mana Capacity Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Intelligence Growth Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Intelligence Enforcement Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 1] (New)

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 4] (+1)

[Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 4] (+1)

[Enhanced Agility Enforcement Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 1] (New)

[Enhanced Stamina Enforcement Lv. 1] (New)

Other

[Identify Lv. 2] (+1)

[Cooking Lv. 1] (New)

[Royal Etiquette Lv. 4]

[Cryokinesis] (New)

[Telepathy]

Spell List:

Custom Magic

[Create Water]

[Greater Create Water]

Ice Magic

[Ice Spike]

[Frozen Shield]

Water spells

[Water Ball]

[Water Wall]

[Water Bolt]

[Cleanse]

[Protective Water]

[Droplet Torrent]

Wind spells

[Wind Bullet]

[Wind Cutter]

Titles:

[Hestia’s Retainer]

From the 2100 SP, she had available to spend, she spent 700 SP for [Cryokinesis] and 650 for [Ice Magic].

With the rest, she bought the other stat growth skills that she still needed. However, as a fairy, her Health and Vitality growths were pretty abysmal, to begin with, so taking the "enforcement" skills for a flat increase in her stats were better.

Fairies only needed to prevent their Mana from dropping to zero to survive but under the influence of the System, once their Health dropped to zero, they will fall unconscious. It would be safer to have it increase regardless of its niche use.

Speaking of limited usage, Tasianna chose to completely ignore her Strength stat. With me and Hestia around, it was unnecessary to increase her least used stat.

[“Alright, so what are the rules again, Saori?”] Hestia asked while shrugging her shoulders.

[“Everyone may be liberal with their skill and spell usage,”] I pointed a finger up. [“Of course, please be careful of inflicting lethal damage. Once your Health reaches 25% then you must forfeit the battle.”]

[“Yeah, thanks for the advantage,”] Hestia said sarcastically with a laugh.

I ignored her obvious concerns and continued raising my finger count from one to two, then to three, [“Your winning condition is to subdue both of us with that 25% Health rule or through submission. While ours will be to steal your party bracelet.”]

Hestia glanced at the bracelet around her left wrist, now understanding the goal of this spar [“Ahhh, I get it. In other words, instead of focusing on offense, you want me to concentrate on my defense.”]

I nodded, [“Miss Tasianna will stay by your side in the future, but it will not hurt to practice defending yourself while alone. You know that my skill set only allows me to be useful when I go into the midst of a battle, which means I need to become better with dodging attacks.”]

Aside from [Dark Tendrils] and [Shadow Clones], my skill and spell list are skewed towards infiltration and killing.

When I was choosing my evolution choices, I had three choices that I could have taken. Those choices were: [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo], [Young Fenrir], and [Young Guardian Inugami].

Young Shadowstalker Cadejo

An immature black-furred wolf with eyes of blood red that appear like mist when they melt into the veil of the night. These wolf monsters use their extreme bloodlust to eviscerate any monsters that dare to challenge them. These wolves have no predators, as anything is prey when these monsters begin hunting. Rank C

Young Fenrir

An immature mystical wolf type monster that is a descendant of the wolf monster Belzac. Using their enhanced magical powers, they prey on their enemies with the tricks of the god of darkness and fangs of the goddess of monsters. Rank B

Young Guardian Inugami

An immature mystical wolf type monster that acts as a guardian for a single person. While fighting together with their “ward”, they gain enhanced abilities and parameters. Their abilities skyrocket when their “ward” is close to death, finally displaying all their destructive might. Rank C

I had a hard time deciding on which evolution would benefit me the most even when I only had two real choices. Like Hestia, SP was more important to me than the extra stats that I could have gotten with evolving into the rank B monster [Young Fenrir].

During the time when Hestia was recuperating after the troll battle, I had the time to look through the Skill Shop for some more skills. Unfortunately, there was nothing that immediately caught my eyes.

Compared to Hestia’s and Tasianna’s more "colorful" and varied skills, my status board was pretty simple. My magical potential wasn't very high, although, it is increasing. I have also put more focus on improving them, but I was still conflicted about buying other magic skills, even after I had Tasianna teach me how to use magic.

Buying [Space-Time Magic] further deteriorated my confidence as a magician. I had more practice and more mana, but it still was exhausting. Hestia makes magic casting seem so easy; I couldn’t help but compare her with myself.

…But it wasn’t good to do that. My mother always told me that comparing oneself to others can be useful for motivation but that I had to choose the correct person.

My family wasn’t wealthy, but my father’s profession as a firefighter did earn us enough money to enjoy our lives in an expensive city like Yokohama. We had comfortable lives, but it never was enough for a trip outside Japan, just because our medical bills and my tuition costs didn’t give us too many options.

That, unfortunately, changed when my father died during work. My parents did a terrible job with our savings and the survivor benefits we got only lasted for a few years. My mother couldn’t function properly, and working was forbidden at the school that I attended.

Until I got my position at Shirako High School, I couldn’t help but be envious of everybody without money and family problems. I wish it hadn’t affected me so much but complaining about unfairness was a very teenager-like thing to do, unfortunately. I took comfort in the times that I could shout and cry in a tantrum.

Comparing my mediocre magic abilities to Hestia's was similar to comparing my family's situation to a "normal" one. It would be an impossible task to catch up with a person that improved at such a high speed.

So, instead, I chose something that I was good at. It wasn't my dream to be a teacher, but it was a stepping stone to fulfill my father's wish. I could earn good money by being an amazing teacher at a private high school where people with massive amounts of throw-away money send their children.

I would slowly build up our savings through this job and when we had enough, then I would take a vacation and go around places with my mother. We would take pictures, eat exotic food, and be happy for my father, who wasn’t there anymore.

I took that decision to heart, so instead of choosing magic, I chose to specialize myself completely with what my body was best suited for. I have one magic element that I can use well, and I have skills that complement it well, so why should I not choose the option to help me master it?

Hestia’s tip was correct: “why must we fight if we can take them out before we even engage in the first place?”. Why must the mage be the bait, when the assassin can slay everything before it gets to that point.

Why should I support Hestia by defending her with [Young Guardian Inugami] when she can do it better?

No, to protect my friend, I should do what I can do best. Take the initiative with [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo] and shred any soul willing to threaten us before they can even move a muscle.

If I am forced to fight, then this will be the path that I will walk on.

“Sanctuary!” casting her [The Light] spell, a holy barrier encapsulated Hestia under its protective light. [“I guess we are also fighting in our humanized form, right? How about you turn back into your [Humanize Lv. 5] version, so you don’t have [Humanized (Moderate)]?”]

Fighting in our monster forms was possible but I suggested that we should practice as “humans”. Once we enter the elven kingdom, it would be better to stay in our humanized forms to avoid misunderstandings. We could use some fighting practice in this form.

[“I expected you to be confident, but now you are looking down at me, Hestia…”] I said with exasperation. [“Fine, I lose too much mana in [Humanized Lv. 6]’s form anyways.”]

With that said, I transformed back into [Humanized Lv. 4]’s form. The edge of my vision registered black hair appearing around my eyes, growing long enough that it restricted my vision. The cold air assaulting my naked face suddenly disappeared, replaced by a cozy mantle of wolf hair.

[Humanized (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa]

My body also started to transform, elongating my claws and strengthening my muscles. The fur on my body also started to grow, making it difficult to wear my dress at this point.

I chose this form as it was the only one where my mana regeneration could fully compensate for the mana cost of keeping [Humanize] active.

Also, my [Humanized (Moderate)] degraded to [Humanized (Minor)], leaving me now with 2/3rd of my monster forms stats. I now had more Strength, Vitality, Wisdom, Agility, and Stamina than Hestia, however, by only a small amount.

This wouldn’t equalize Hestia’s immense mana capacity and Intelligence, but it gave me a small advantage with my own niche.

[“Alright, I’m ready,”] I stated while loosening my neck. [“You?”]

At that moment, eight magic circles appeared around Hestia’s silhouette, ready to shoot out holy, fire, earth, and wind spells at me, [“Ready.”].

[“Miss Tasianna, stick with me and follow our plan,”] my body tensed up after it saw Hestia’s smirk. [“Using [Telepathy] will use up our precious mana so you must react properly, despite my silence.”]

["M-Must my first battle really be against our Princess that we swore to serve? Gulp, I-I understand. I will do my best,"] Tasianna said with trembling hands.

[Hestia’s Retainer] validated our role as “servants” in the eye of the System but Hestia, the person we are supposed to serve, acts nothing like a “master”.

I might have teased her about it when we found out about it just to help her calm down from forcing her to relive her unpleasant memories, but I would have probably hated it if we turned our relationship into that. It was more comfortable and fun to occasionally pamper her than to entertain the idea 24/7.

Tasianna, on the other hand, believed that our “master and servant” relationship was similar to what would happen on Earth, so she didn’t have much to complain about. I and Hestia are indulging her in that idea, but we needed to find a way to persuade her to think otherwise.

Understanding that Tasianna grew up with a different mentality, it would be prudent to not force her into our thinking. Neither do we want her to force us to act how she would like us to.

[“Ahh, I swore to protect, Princess Hestia, but now I must fight her. Just imagining hurting her makes me anxious.”] similar to Hestia, Tasianna has a bad habit of overthinking things.

[“There is a saying from Earth that I would like to use here, ‘If you have no confidence in life, you are twice defeated. With confidence, you have won even before you have started’,”] I said with a smile while my eyes are still glued at Hestia. [“It is a quote from a famous man from Earth’s history, Marcus Cicero. I like your optimism, Miss Tasianna, but cast your fear away if you even believe for a second that you could hurt Hestia while she’s serious.”]

[Y-Yes! I accept your wisdom with gratitude, Madam Saori!] Tasianna said, tensing up from what I said.

Knowing Hestia, she won't treat this too seriously, otherwise, we wouldn’t have much of a chance. This is the girl that created a storage full of lethal toxins, survived a point-blank mana cannon shot, and fought off two giant trolls simultaneously and easily won.

While I had to fight three at once, I still had a very hard time even with Hestia’s fire support. I understood it. Even if Hestia were to hold back, my natural instincts told me that it was foolish to do this. My body didn’t want to fight, and it couldn’t stop telling me that this was a risky idea.

However, this isn’t the time to cower. This was my time to test myself against Hestia and it was also a great time to improve my skills! If I couldn’t find the trust in my own power, then what have I been training for?

Asking to fight her when she’s this close to awakening [Battle Frenzy] would be dangerous, and I would usually dissuade others from endangering themselves. However, I trust that she’ll be able to control herself and without a bit of risk, nothing great can be achieved.

Did I just use two famous quotes in a span of a minute? He, the wisdom from books gained is a life-long possession, I said to myself while smiling.

I disconnected my telepathic link with Hestia and steeled my will.

Let me show you everything I learned, my friend!

A note from AbyssRaven

I've given Saori a solo battle recently and now she's teaming up with Tasianna to fight the raid boss that is Hestia?! How will she win this? Do you guys have any ideas? Will she even stand a chance at all?!

Actually, I would like to hear if you guys can guess how the fight will progress and end. For reference, you have Tasianna's status board in this chapter, Saori's status board in chapter 36 + her update in this chapter, and Hestia's status board in chapter 38.

You guys know Hestia's strengths and weaknesses, so let's see if you guys can guess correctly. ^^

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr!

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 43: Cadejo and Fairy vs. Spark Inferno Dragon.

A note from AbyssRaven

Hey, guys! I told you that there would be more chapters and here it is. Abyss just published a chapter a day after the last one? What?! Impossible!

Nothing is impossible when the writathon is active. Please, enjoy the chapter.

Severing the telepathic link between us was the signal for Hestia to start fighting. Still hiding under her [Sanctuary] barrier, she shot out one [Flame Spear] to show that she acknowledged my challenge.

Dodging it, I cast [Haste] on myself. Despite the high mana cost and my relatively low mana pool, I still found the effects of that spell good enough to warrant using it. Speeding up my movements might be the only way for me to dodge Hestia's "firework show" if I can't cast [Shadow Dash] in time.

Like Hestia, with [Chant Revocation Lv. 10], I don't have to do ever do the Incantation part of spell casting ever again, which means that I can cast spells nearly instantaneously. Of course, once it was ready to activate.

Once my spell was finished, Tasianna started casting and shooting [Ice Spike] around the arena, piercing the ice spells into the rock.

These ice projectiles were freezing to the touch and lethal, as they were large enough to drill a hole through somebody’s stomach. Once she was finished, the arena was littered with shadows that I could use my spells on.

Previously, the area where we are currently fighting at was just an empty field of rock and earth. Most of the trees had to be cut down or bulldozed away just so we had enough space to fight in. Without any trees in the vicinity, the chance of a forest fire was lowered but it also took away locations that I could use [Shadow Dash], [Dark Tendrils], and [Shadow Snake] at.

["You didn't have to do this, guys,"] Hestia called us out while scratching her head. ["If you had asked, I would have gladly made some rocks for shadows."]

Knowing that we weren't willing to talk, Hestia simply activated all her buff spells without waiting for us to answer.

Heh, all those buffing spells are really unfair. Her stats are skyrocketing.

Giving Hestia liberal use of her spells and skills meant having to fight against a fully buffed dragon girl. Those buffing spells helped me compete with the trolls, and now I have to fight against it.

Only when your own tools are directed at you, will you recognize how powerful they are. However, I planned for that.

Activating [Shadow Armament], I shrouded my whole body in a misty dark cloak.

[Shadow Armament (Full Body)] inflicted on [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa]

["Madam Saori, the red mist around your eyes has just gotten larger,"] Tasianna stated.

It seems the mana around my eyes tended to turn red whenever I fight; visible enough that you could even see it in the darkness. The cloud of red mana might have grown larger due to fusing with [Shadow Armament].

["I don't know what you guys are thinking about but try doing that under suppressive fire!"] noticing that we were slowing the battle down, Hestia began shooting out multiple [Flame Spear] at us.

Using [Haste]'s effects, I slipped through each spell's trajectory, dancing around this firework.

Hestia showed a thumbs up and smiled, ["I wish you could show some of those moves when we dance together, Saori! I'll turn up the difficulty of this bullet hell, ok?"]

With that said, a wall of earth erupted from the ground and sent me up into the air before I could react to it. Multiple different projectiles were then shot at me like a machinegun, aiming to take advantage of my lack of aerial movements.

However, knowing this would have been possible, Tasianna already prepared a [Frozen Shield] spell beforehand. Casting the spell, a large tower shield made of ice began blocking some of the shots.

["Ahh! It's melting! My shield is melting too fast!"] Tasianna cried in panic.

That's all the time I need, Tasianna! I said internally. One string; grab my arm and pull me down! Dark Tendrils!

Locking my eyes on one of the shadows created by Tasianna's spells, a dark tendril shot out of the ground, towards my direction.

["As if I will let you, Saori!"] shouting those words, a [Sacred Smite] flew out of Hestia's hand and dispersed my spell upon contact.

Yet, that is exactly what I needed her to do. As she used [Sacred Smite] instead of [Holy Smite], the shining projectile didn’t stop after destroying my spells but continued flying, all while shining a brilliant light bright enough to project a shadow of myself onto the ice shield.

Turning my head around, I immediately shrouded Tasianna with [Shadow Armament] and then used [Shadow Dash] to enter the realm of darkness with her, escaping the bombardment before it destroyed the shield.

["Stay calm like always, Miss Tasianna."] I comforted my fairy companion sitting in one of my dress' pockets.

["Yes, it's like the other times. I just need to stay put and let you guide us out of here."] Tasianna meekly responded.

The dark world wasn't pleasant for anybody joining me for the ride. They could neither see nor were they able to move without me. While it is convenient to use this to transport everybody to a new location, it was also unclear what would happen if they accidentally let go of me.

Shaking those thoughts away, I swiftly swam through the dark sea and jumped out of a hole to re-enter the world of light.

"Bwah?!" the first thing I heard was a cute yelp.

Still only half-way out of the shadow, the person who gave off that surprised cry immediately used her tail to attack me, probably having noticed me with [Prediction] or [Detection Sensor].

Still, under the effect from [Haste], my reflexes responded by grabbing her tail, using it as leverage to pull myself out of the shadow world. Now fully outside, I jumped over the kick that was aimed at my stomach.

Turning her body around for the kick, the girl with brilliant crimson hair dressed in a blue dress finally noticed me.

As our eyes collided with each other, I activated my [Bloodlust] and [Terror Aura] at the same time. While I couldn’t activate [Bloodlust]'s secondary effect, as I wasn't actually trying to kill Hestia, it still projected the raw bloodlust that my race [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo] could freely emit.

"Kyaaaaa!" Hestia unconsciously let out a loud shout in a panic, enough that her shivering body forced her to jump backward instead of attacking me.

A good thing to know when you fight Hestia is that when something doesn’t go according to her plan, then she will panic. Although, with all those parallel minds, she can quickly recover from it in a millisecond by having them pilot her body.

It must be infuriating to know that she can even react to a surprise attack if the ambusher gives her even a tiny fraction of time to react to it.

Fortunately for me, I also knew that the girl can be a bit of a scaredy-cat.

Her first instinct when she's confronted with something she's scared of isn't to attack but to dodge backward and assess the situation. Her defensive skills and her parallel minds are enough to respond to any attacks during this window of vulnerability, though, so she's rarely in danger.

This, of course, doesn't work against her phobia, though.

During the time that Hestia needed to readjust herself, I was already finished with my next spell [Dark Bolt]. Conjuring up a dark elemental missile, instead of shooting it at my opponent, I grabbed it with my shadow covered hand.

Using [Shadow Armament] once more, I ordered the spell to transform into a dagger and then jumped at Hestia to continue the attack.

Hestia’s crippling weakness to dark magic helped me with my attack. Her [Draconic Barrier] would protect her body from most attacks, but it couldn’t stop the burning sensation on her skin inflicted by dark magic spells.

She might have bought [Dark Resistance Lv. 1] but it only made her a bit more resistant to my dark spells. It frustrated her that despite enduring so many of my spells, she wasn’t able to get that skill naturally.

Well, it was inconvenient outside a battle, but it was very good to know when I have to fight her. The bracelet is close enough to be grabbed!

"What the hell! Why are you taking this so seriously, huh, Saori?!" evading all my sword strikes, the girl called me out for my actions. "This is supposed to be a spar! If you're gonna be like this, then don't blame me for having you smell like burned hair for a week!"

Having said that, Hestia gnashed her teeth together, creating a spark.

["Princess Hestia, please wait! I'm here, too!"] the desperate plea from Tasianna was left unheard.

["Quickly! Tasianna. Left. Now!"] I shouted.

Dodging backward Hestia closed her mouth, allowed the spark to build up unperturbed.

Realizing that my attempt was thwarted, I threw the [Dark Bolt] dagger at her. She caught it before it hit her head but immediately dropped it like a hot rod.

Meanwhile, Tasianna shot an [Ice Spike] to my left as I ordered. Using the flying projectile’s shadow, I cast [Dark Tendrils] on it and let then grab me, dragging me out of Hestia's dragon breath.

["Spark Inferno Blast!"]

A breath attack, large enough to be called a flame rocket, smoothly burst out of Hestia's mouth and narrowly caught me by the tail, singeing off a few hairs.

Once it passed me, it flew through the [Sanctuary] barrier and then destroyed a part of the arena’s wall, causing the forest to once again catch on fire because of my companion's irresponsible usage of fire.

I also would like to note that she can burst up into flame when she's angry or annoyed...literally.

["Oi, Hestia. I told you this was a spar!"] I reconnected my telepathic link to scold her for her reckless attacks. ["A bit slower and I would have lost my tail! Were you trying to kill me there?!"]

["Then tell me what that [Bloodlust] activation was supposed to be, huh?"] she spoke while stomping the ground and shaking her fist. ["Besides, I could have thrown that inferno blast out the moment Tasianna cast her spell. I deliberately waited for you two to figure something out. You guys never were in danger in the first place!"]

["So that was revenge for that scare?!"] I spat out befuddled. ["Wasn't that too extreme?! You destroyed a section of the wall and the forest is on fire...again!"]

["The forest will live. Ever heard of slash-and-burn agriculture? The trees will regrow stronger and mightier,"] she dismissed my environmental concerns with a wave of a hand. ["Enough of that, tell me how did you do it? How did you escape that bombardment and entered my barrier?"]

I raised a brow, mumbled to Tasianna, "shield", before answering Hestia's question. ["It was thanks to you, of course."]

She tilted her head at my answer, brows frowned in a questioning look, so I had to continue, ["It was your [Sacred Smite], Hestia. Once it dispersed my [Dark Tendrils], it projected my shadow onto the shield. I used it to [Shadow Dash] to the shadow under your feet, which is being cast by the sun."]

Hestia looked under herself, noticing her shadow and sighed in exasperation, ["That's stupid. Your shadow wasn't even connected to the ground and you can still do that?"]

I shrugged, ["The shadow world doesn't follow the rules of the light world, after all."]

Simply saying, "I guess", Hestia readied herself back into a fighting stance.

Compared to her more carefree pose during that firework show, her current one suggested that she had no intentions of dispelling [Sanctuary], willing to fight me up-close and personal. Claws ready to defend herself up close, her legs postured to jump at me at any time, and her right wing was spread out with multiple magic circles ready to activate.

["Make sure to avoid getting mauled by my claws. I can heal you up, even your heart, if your Health doesn't drop to zero."] her eyes were razor-sharp, and her smirk seemed to have disappeared. ["Just make sure to dodge anything that comes to your head. I don't know if I can heal memories."]

["If you could, you would have healed yours a long time ago,"] I said.

["..."] Hestia's mouth was agape, as she slowly recovered from my words. ["That will probably be the only time that you will be able to hurt me today, Saori. I thought you were the adult here."]

["I once overheard from my students that you should banter a bit when you fight against each in video games,"] from my memories, I could remember Nagata-kun and Mikami-kun continuously bantering with each other after they played together the last night.

Obviously, as a teacher, I had to warn them not to do that when their studies are that much more important. Still, it was amusing to watch them being so competitive with each other, so much so, that I questioned why they were playing together when they obviously didn't like it.

["You have interesting students, Segawa-sensei. Never heard you talk about them much until now though, he he,"] letting her guard down from my joke, I was able to buy me and Tasianna a bit more time.

["There was never a need to do so, Atsuko-chan,"] this was the first time that I addressed Hestia as "Atsuko", even though I was the one to give her that name. Her confusion about being addressed that way was clear for everybody to see. ["Maybe I'll talk about them some other time. Today? We need to end the fight, agreed?"]

["Well, I guess you are right,"] Hestia bent her legs. ["Wind Blast!"]

Noticing the large magic circle behind her back, I quickly shouted, ["Tasianna!"]

Tasianna popped out of my pocket and answered, ["Already done, Frozen Shield!"]

Having bought Tasianna enough time to fully chant the spell, a shield of ice began materializing before me. Meanwhile, Hestia's spell activated, launching her body like a rocket towards us. Before the shield fully blocked my sight, I could see some fire in her mouth.

["No use! Flame Blast!"]

Shadow Dash!

Before the shield fully broke, beads of melted ice were slowly falling while Tasianna and I merged into a shadow. I barely saw Hestia breaking through the shield as my head was about to be submerged.

Once we were back in the world of shadows, I realized that the shadow we entered, the shield's, was splintered into pieces. Some of them were too small for me but one was just perfect.

Jumping out of the shadow, I immediately grabbed Hestia's tail and pulled her backward. Due to my high Strength and her low weight, I effortlessly pulled Hestia's entire body with my right hand. Once her party bracelet was in my sight, my left-hand darted towards it, ready to win me this match.

However, before my hand reached it, my [Prediction] warned me of an incoming claw, clad in fire. Giving up this opportunity, I cartwheeled backwards and used my legs to counterattack, kicking her fiery claws up to the sky.

Once I was back on my feet, I rushed back into Hestia's face. While it was also dangerous for me due to her claws, it was far easier for me to do something here where she couldn't blow me up with spells to her leisure. With my [Shadow Armament] covered body, I began mounting the counterattack on Hestia.

["Droplet Torrent"] Tasianna also began shooting out bullets made out of water at Hestia.

Rushing her down with overwhelming attacks coming from my hands and feet, I used both Tasianna's support and my now dark elemental enchanted body to force her into defense.

As we learned from the battle against the trolls, Hestia's [Draconic Barrier] was also susceptible against the elements that she was weak to. Instead of blocking, she had to dodge all my attacks otherwise her Mana and Stamina would take chip damage.

"Wind Blast!" not wanting to stay on the defense any longer, she blew me away from her. "Petal Flames! Bedrock Blades!"

Trying to stabilize myself after landing back on the ground, my [Prediction] went wild, warning me that attacks had me surrounded.

Looking up, I saw multiple flames in the forms of petals dancing in the air, awaiting to dive towards me. There were also multiple sharp-looking earth blades, tall enough to dwarf the trolls, swimming through earth and rock to slice me up.

["Dark Tendrils!"]

Noticing that my [Haste] has finally worn out, my confidence in dodging all these attacks dropped. Instead of relying on my Agility, I chose to use [Dark Tendrils] to dodge around them.

Choosing the shadow of the approaching [Bedrock Blades], I had the tendrils grab my hand and pull me towards them. Releasing myself mid-flight and then recasting [Dark Tendrils] elsewhere, I was able to avoid all the descending blades by maneuvering myself through the air as deftly as I could. Sliding through grabs with the help of these black tendrils, my plan was to find an opening to re-enter the world of shadows.

As I was about to cast [Shadow Dash], a [Terra Wall] suddenly burst from the ground, sending me tumbling into the air…again.

"Oooof!" gasping for air, I pulled myself back to the ground with [Dark Tendrils] before all the petal flames crashed into me. Still, it was impossible for me to dodge all of them, considering how numerous they were.

"Urrrghh..." my left leg received most of the damage. The smell of burned hair and skin invaded my nostrils as my burned nerves were telling me to stop despite having [Absolute Pain Tolerance].

Nausea causing smell was even more intense, as I both had [Primal Senses] and a wolf monsters nose. It was revolting.

"Go to sleep, Saori," Hestia said, readying her fingers in a coin toss gesture.

From here, I could see a colorless liquid secreting from underneath her claws. Before flinging whatever toxin she created with [Toxin Secretion], multiple additional [Wind Bullet] came flying out.

This spell would do virtually zero damage to me, nonetheless, their role wasn't to hurt me but to slow me down, so she could hit me with that toxin.

["Tasianna!"]

There weren’t any shadows large enough for me nearby and those spells were too fast for me to dodge.

With [Absolute Pain Tolerance], I could still move even under nerve-wracking pain but where was I supposed to run to? [Sanctuary] was still active and the area we were fighting was only as large as a concert stage. I trapped myself…I had nowhere to hide...which means I have to make it myself!

Burrowing my fingers into the ground, I used my entire Strength to lift a patch of ground up to create my own earth wall to block the incoming wind spells.

"No time for another [Frozen Shield]? Well too bad but it's checkmate, I guess," under the loud plopping of wind against my wall, I could hear Hestia breathing in deeply.

["Close your ears, Tasianna!"] I shouted, predicting something loud to happen.

"Will you grant me, ♫

Will you grant me, ♫

Will you grant me your eternal love, ♫

My Heart is yours, so stand with me, ♫

Let's celebrate until we fall! ♫

.

Will you grant me, ♫

Will you grant me, ♫

Will you grant me your eternal love, ♫

Trust in me, ♫

Let me hear your voice, so tell me that you love me! ♫"

While the lyrics of her song were pleasant, her singing couldn't be called romantic at all.

Using [Draconic Voice] and amplifying her voice with [Aerokinesis], her voice shattered the ground around me. My eardrums were shaking uncontrollably despite my best efforts to shield them from this ear busting shout.

Hestia knew that she could heal us without any issues even if we were turned deaf from her attacks.

Once her voice destroyed the wall, I was blown away and crashed onto the ground, tumbling. Although my ears were rattling painfully, I was still able to hear my moaning and groaning.

[Exhaustion (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa]

No! How did my Stamina drop that quickly?! Damn…did I mismanage it?

"Have a good nap you two!" now holding the toxin in a wind capsule, she flicked it at us.

Once it landed, the air ball exploded and released a white gas. For some reason what came out wasn't the toxin but gas? What is Hestia trying to...d...do!

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Torpor Resistance Lv. 2] evolved into [Torpor Resistance Lv. 3]

T-This was sleeping gas!

Shit, I miscalculated!

I forgot that she could heat up the toxins with her body temperature, turning them into gas. With the amount of heat her body could produce by simply breathing, it should have been obvious that that was possible. The gas was spreading too fast and I've already breathed some in! We've been had!

["Madam Sa-ori, I have an idea,"] Tasianna sluggishly said.

Tasianna told me her plan and that it all depended on how good my stealth abilities were.

Realizing that I had no other ideas, I agreed to Tasianna, ["We can only hope, huh? Ok, let's do it!"]

With that, the white smoke slowly covered us up. We didn't make a move yet. I just stood there, silently focusing, giving it my all to concentrate under the effects of the sleeping gas.

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Concentration Lv. 1] evolved into [Concentration Lv. 2]

The seconds counted down. One, two, three, four...and so on. I waited for the perfect time while being surrounding in a veil of gas, completely obstructing everybody’s vision of me.

Once I opened my eyes, I was behind the dragon girl and saw her hands on her hips. However, I also noticed that she sensed my presence before I made a move.

"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me," like a predator finding her prey, Hestia snapped her body towards me, searing hot claws ready to slice me into pieces. "Fool me thrice, then go to hell! Spark Claws!"

My reflexes responded to it perfectly but the speed difference between her fully buffed body and my unbuffed one was too large. Even with [Humanization (Moderate)] she equalized any disadvantages she had with magic. This was the power of the magic prodigy and the reason why trying to catch up with her was futile!

Her claws tore through my stomach, chunking off a large piece of muscles and organs.

["Just Blink..."] despite an obvious wound in my stomach, I decided to stay on the offensive instead of backing off.

[Just Blink] was an [Unarmed Technique] ability that I learned after Tasianna lectured us on how to obtain weapon and martial abilities in this world.

To gain these abilities you had to practice the same movements over 100 times and all of them had to be the same. After you finished the necessary number of moves, you would ask the System, "System I would like to acquire [Just Blink] as an ability".

The number of abilities you may have depended entirely on the [Technique] skill of the weapon. I only had [Unarmed Technique Lv. 2] so I was only able to learn two abilities until my capacity was full.

The [Mastery] skills are the ones that improved the strength of your weapon's attacks.

You may delete your abilities but Tasianna explained that it was extremely tedious to do so, just like with learning them. She couldn't remember the full details of it as it rarely happened among the fairy warriors and the elf warriors that came were usually elite that had their ability list perfected, she said.

However, that method only worked well when it's an ability that has already been established by the System...

Calling out my own custom-made ability, my fist clad in shadow turned invisible for a moment, attracting Hestia's attention. Before she could remember the effects of [Just Blink], my shadow fist punched her in her face.

"Owwwww!" recoiling back from the attack, Hestia was holding her nose. It shouldn't have hurt that much but I believe it's her human nature that made her do so.

[Just Blink] was an ability that I could only use when my arms are covered with [Shadow Armament]. Using the dark misty mantle, it turned my arm undetectable to the naked eye for a single second.

Activating [Stealth] and [Prescence Killer] at this very second enabled my attack to bypass any detection skills. Of course, if the recipient of the attack were to be completely focused, the effects would be easily neutralized as skills like [Prediction] or [Danger Perception] would immediately warn you to dodge my attack.

While a normal fist wouldn’t be very dangerous, if I had used my claws, I could have very likely torn a hole into Hestia's [Draconic Barrier] due to the [Shadow Armament]. I would’ve been able to morph my shadow into razor-sharp claws or pointy spears.

I was confident in Hestia’s ability to heal herself, but it still felt wrong to do it. If [Shadow Armament] were able to pierce her personal barrier, then what would happen if it pierced her skull?

This was a spar, not a duel to the death. Maybe I was worrying for nothing and underestimated her ability to protect herself. She might be able to defend herself completely against my skills.

However, to risk it was to be irresponsible. We can always try it out at a later time.

In the time Hestia backed away, I activated another ability of mine, ["Shadow Descent!"].

Focusing on the coat of darkness in my right leg, I jumped and somersault with my right leg extended. [Shadow Armament] extended itself, doubling the length of my leg.

While Hestia managed to dodge out of it at the last second, the ground, on the other hand, had to bear the full brunt of the explosive mana from this ability, creating cracks from the epicenter of my kick.

Like Hestia's dragon abilities, my abilities required me to have [Shadow Armament] activated to work, which meant I had to spend Mana and Stamina on it.

Seeing how many spells I used today, I should be careful of arcane corruption, but I had to keep moving now that I had [Exhaustion (Minor)]. If I stopped moving now, then I will lose!

Using the momentum of my dropkick, I launched my body back up and used another [Shadow Descent].

"You're annoying me now! Go away! Spark Flame Veil!"

With the activation of that skill, sparks of flame began to surround Hestia. Even covered in [Shadow Armament], the intense heat created around Hestia instantly sent my feet on fire. As the flames grew, so did the damage. It continued eating up my leg, then my torso, then my head, until all I could see was black.

"...You garm mother did the exact same thing, Saori..." a shiver ran down my spine as the burned body slowly dispersed into tiny particles of mana. "Sorry, but I can’t be fooled by you!"

Get the bracelet, now!

Jumping out of the shadow, I had my arm reach out for Hestia’s bracelet, however, at the very last second, I saw a white magic circle appear on her hand as she pointed it at my eyes calling out, ["Shine!"]

"Arrrrrrghhhhhh....wrooouuh? Arghhh!" with a hard bump, my head crashed on the hard ground.

"That was a nice strategy but it’s your loss through submission," trying to open my eyes was burning torture; even if I fought through the pain, I could only barely recognize a face staring down on me. "Using a [Shadow Clones] to bait me into thinking it was you so I would I fight it while holding back, giving you enough time to sneak behind me with [Stealth] and [Shadow Dash]. I must admit, I wasn't able to detect you until you used that last [Shadow Descent]. Arcane corruption is a real problem, you dummy. And my body felt the tingles when you came too close."

She found me out just because I was this close to my arcane corruption limit? Another miscalculation it seems…

"I still wasn't sure about your exact location, but I just needed an approximation for [Shine] to blind you," she continued her explanation. "Once you lost your eyesight, taking you down even with our small Strength difference was easy enough, he he."

["Tch, urgh, I thought that [Shadow Clones] plan was perfect,"] I complained. ["Your gas bomb surprised me, but thankful Miss Tasianna made these ice mask with her [Cryokinesis]."]

These masks were actually formally [Ice Spike] as I had a plan to use them to distract Hestia. She still had them ready to use as there wasn’t an opportunity to shoot them at her.

However, with her quick thinking, we were able to avoid going to sleep under the effects of the sleeping gas with the help of these masks. Her idea really saved me from using my own mana on making masks or taking them out of my storage.

"Shhh, no more talking. [Telepathy] uses mana so it's dangerous to use it at this stage, Saori," Hestia worriedly said. "Wait a minute...where is Tasianna anyways?"

["He he, I might have lost...but my team won't! Now, Tasianna! Shadow Snake!"]

With that signal, a snake made out of mana slithered out of the shadow and attacked Hestia's neck. She caught it in her hand, but it continued to wiggle around.

"What the hell! Saori, stop using mana to control it! You're gonna gain more arcane corruption with this!" Hestia shouted.

However, I wasn't the one controlling it. [Shadow Armament]'s description said that anything clad in it could control my dark spells!

"Haaaa!" jumping out of the shadow snake, Tasianna yelled a war cry before grabbing Hestia’s party bracelet.

"Fuck!" as if her hand teleported, Hestia stopped Tasianna from taking off her bracelet at the nick of time by grabbing her.

"Ow! Shadow Snake dive and attack!" Tasianna yelled in Hestia's fist.

Upon command, the snake shrunk down and escaped Hestia's clutches, before grabbing the now dangling party bracelet.

"Shit! Shine!" in desperation, Hestia once again cast [Shine] from her left hand, killing the snake instantly. ["...That was close...that was toooooooo close. Tasianna, you lost through submission."]

["It...no...we nearly won...,"] Tasianna groaned, crestfallen.

Hearing those words, my fist slammed on the ground. My tongue could taste iron as a thick fluid was flowing down my throat as I bit my lips.

It was so close. Just a bit more and the snake would have gotten it. If I wasn't detected after my clone died. If I had only considered the chance of Hestia turning her toxin into gas. If I had not gotten hit by her [Petal Fan]. Dammit!

I was THIS close to proving myself.

["Ahhhhhhhh,"] Hestia sighed in relief. ["That was so exhausting, but it really was an awesome match. I held back but I really didn't believe you guys could deceive me that much. I hate fighting against garms and their tricks."]

"Ooof!" something hard fell onto my chest.

Touching it, I could feel tangled but still smooth hair flowing on my hand. Moving my hand, a bit closer to my chest, my fingers felt something soft and elastic. Pulling on them was fun and satisfying. Once I released them, the object started adjusting itself until it found a good place to set itself on my chest.

["But fighting with and against you is fun, Saori,"] a voice came from atop my chest, the object was Hestia's head. ["You guys did a fantastic job. Saori, Tasianna, I humbly give my thanks for fulfilling my request."]

["It is a great honor to have served you, Princess Hestia. I have also learned much from this,"] Tasianna's voice came from above, sitting relaxed on my forehead.

["It was my pleasure, Hestia,"] I said with my lips curled up. [" I was not able to beat you, but it was close enough for me."]

It was a bit uncomfortable, considering her horns are poking my breasts but it was calming that I could stroke her head like this. It had the same effects as petting a cat while spending a day in a cat hotel.

["Too close, indeed,"] my friend laughed. ["Major Heal."]

With those words, a holy light basked us and healed us from all our wounds from this fight. If it weren't for the arena that we were fighting in, it would have looked like three young women taking a nice break under the noon sun.

I might not have been able to beat Hestia today, but the time will come. I just have to keep up with her pace on my own path.

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Shadow Armament Lv. 2] [Mana Efficiency Lv. 2] [Mana Control Lv. 6] [Dark Magic Lv. 7] [Mental Warfare Lv. 3] [Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 5] [Fire Resistance Lv. 3] [Wind Resistance Lv. 2] [Battle Mind Lv. 2] gained

Skill requirement fulfilled.   [Dark Amp] gained

A note from AbyssRaven

And that's how the fight ended. No cliff hangers and the fight ended within a chapter that turned it into another 5k monster. I hope you guys enjoyed it. ^^

Also, I would like to thank everybody for all the comments recently. Nothing makes my heart flutter more than to read people discussing stuff about the story, so I really appreciate it. It's also great as I can get inspired by some ideas which might be implemented into future chapters and arcs.

Just wanted to say that you guys are awesome.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr!

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 44: Hunting Strategy: Portable Hestia Rifle.

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Presence Killer Lv. 8] evolved into [Presence Killer Lv. 9]

[“Target found. 45 degrees turn. Aiming gun muzzle at monster’s head, now. Steadying arms. Ready, Hestia,”] Saori said.

[“Ice Spike. Ready, Princess Hestia,”] a cool breeze was flowing from my left side, where Tasianna was flying around.

["Surrounding ice in a pocket of air. Inserting object. Compressing air around bullet to form a rifle bullet. Deep breath…Wind Blast!”]

With the Activation of the spell, the wind bullet carrying the frozen spike was launched out of my wind rifle, plopping through the muzzle silently. The bullet pierced through the air like a soundless owl flying towards its prey, eventually piercing the skull of the target.

“Ikimasu!” with a determined voice, Saori threw me into the air and melted into her shadow in one movement. (I’m going!)

Forming a circle with my fingers around my left eye, I strained it hard enough to watch Saori jumping out of the shadow of just killed monsters and chugging its corpse into her storage.

While my body was now freefalling, Saori pushed her legs to the limit, rushing her body through the rough terrain of the forest, jumping from tree to tree to avoid bushes.

She was doing all of this to reach our location before my body touched the ground. It was a race against time and another of Saori’s weird training ideas.

It’s too far. She won’t make it.

The moment I said that, Saori cast [Dark Tendrils] on a branch’s shadow, made it grab her arm to pull her towards it, and then had it release its grip just before she crashed onto the branch.

The momentum generated by this action launched her through the air like a rocket. The trajectory was completely wrong but the distance she was able to overcome saved her a lot of time.

Once her momentum slowed down, she made her body dive to a tree's branch, landed roughly on it. She then aimed her body in my direction and kicked the branch to boost her forward once she locked onto me.

Just before I could use [Aerokinesis] to soften my fall, Saori caught me in her arms like a superhero. Lying on my belly in her arms, I readjusted myself and then said, “nice job” with a thumbs up.

[“…This might be the most excessive training routine since that giant boulder, Madam Saori,”] Tasianna said incredulously.

Both of us nodded to her statement and then resumed our hunt for the next monster, with Saori carrying me around.

After we had that fight yesterday, we rested for a bit before extinguishing the forest fire that I caused. If you were to look down on the Belzac forest from the sky, you can actually pinpoint where I have been just from the burned down trees.

After we did that, we continued walking north towards the Belzac mountains. We might have exhausted ourselves from the fight but making progress towards our goal, the elven kingdom, was important. We wouldn't be able to reach it before winter came so we decided to take it a bit slower. Enjoy the forest while we were still in it.

This place was my birthplace, after all, and chances are high that I won't come back to it any time soon after we meet the elves. Call it anxiousness or possibly homesickness, I still wanted to explore this place a bit more before we left it behind us. This place is so gigantic that I'm pretty sure that I barely scratched the surface.

Think about it. How much have I actually seen? In these six months that I have lived in this place, the only worthy places that I could call memorable were the two times I saw the forest from above and the place that the garm's called their home. Otherwise, I've only been single-mindedly walking through this forest from one place to the other, always on the pursuit to fulfill a specific goal.

That's why we're enjoying this place by going hunting. We needed food and also more experience, and as our Idol concert strategy hasn't been successful lately, we decided to go back to the classics.

That's when it came to me. I had a gun, right? Well, I can make myself a gun using [Aerokinesis] so it kinda counts. Well, why not use it more often then?

Looking through my spells, I had a ton that could do a lot of damage to monsters but, unfortunately, it would cause collateral damage to the forest. I also thought killing something from a certain range would be great practice to control my magic.

Fire spells could easily cause another forest fire, which I wanted to avoid as it would scare away the wildlife. Earth spells are too clunky to use from afar and if they hit a monster, they would make a mess out of the meat. That's why only holy and wind spells are useful to snipe things from afar, however, holy spells are too slow for my liking so that left me with only [Wind Magic].

That’s why my air rifle was the perfect weapon for the job.

That's when we decided on the current strategy the "Portable Hestia Rifle". I would carry my wind rifle and snipe monsters from a range, acquiring the experience. Saori would continue being the scouting for monsters, while also carrying me around to reduce the lag between kills. Tasianna would use [Ice Spike] to create the ice bullets that I will use to kill monsters, as ice wouldn’t mess up the meat's edibleness. It also doubles down as magic practice for her, improving her control and magic stats.

It was a great idea. Saori even thought of using this as training, by throwing me into the air to fetch the monster before returning to catch my falling body. It was a fun way to hunt but everybody benefitted from it, training-wise.

["I must say, you are quite comfortable with shooting, Hestia. Did you do a lot of shooting back in America?"] Saori asked while looking for the next target.

["Nah, I never held a gun before. My parents were no fans of guns and they forbade me to ever try one out,"] I answered. ["They would probably take away my credit card if they saw me now, but that's in the past."]

They might be American citizens but that didn’t change the fact that they grew up in different cultures. Germany and Japan weren’t so free with gun ownership and both of them didn’t like the thought of me becoming a gun enthusiast.

["Some of my students mentioned that sort of punishment also. Honestly, I envy that taking away money was enough of a consequence to prevent you from misbehaving,"] Saori said with a wry smile.

That's true enough. I wasn't a high maintenance girl, but I still liked buying delicious drinks and food, not to mention all the fiction. With how massive my unread library was, I really regret wasting all that money on books just to die sometime later. I should have realized that I didn't have enough time considering all I did was dancing and singing practice.

Good thing I stopped buying video games and started mobile gaming. The prices of some games and the number of good ones, oh my! I'm glad to have not wasted all my parent's money on that. Can't play games as a corpse, ha!

["Target found,"] Saori reported after finding another monster.

["Ice bullet ready, Princess Hestia,"] Tasianna responded after Saori adjusted my position towards our prey.

I coated the bullet in wind and inserted it into my gun, ignoring it's stinging cold aura, [" Bullet ready. Fire!"]

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Wind Magic Lv. 8] evolved into [Wind Magic Lv. 9]

Magic gained:   [Featherfall]

Featherfall

A wind spell that applies a one-time use mana field that protects the user only from falling down from a certain height, preventing all damage. One-time use only

Hey, that's useful.

Once the bullet ended the monster's life, my [Wind Magic]’s level increased and Saori, once again, threw me up in the air and used [Shadow Dash] to teleport to the monster. To test my new spell, I cast it on myself believing that Saori wouldn't make it back in time. Contrary to my expectations, she did make it back, catching my body that was only a few centimeters away from the ground.

"Synergist's Oath, apply all buffs," once I was back in her arms, I applied my [Featherfall] on Saori.

["Huh? That is a new buff spell. Did you just get it?"] Saori asked with a quizzical look.

["Yup, [Wind Magic] just leveled up. The spell prevents fall damage, but it didn't activate just now,"] I explained to my friend. ["Could you try it out? I want to see if [Synergist's Oath] decreases its effectiveness."]

Synergist’s Oath

Allows the transfer of all current active parameter boosting spells on the owner towards a target. All spell effects will be removed from the owner and will be transferred with a mana blast towards a designated target. Effectiveness of buff applied to others = [Synergist’s Oath] Level / 10. Aiming required

As [Synergist's Oath] the effectiveness of buffing spells once I apply it to others, I also wanted to confirm if it affected [Featherfall]. It would be an amazing supportive spell in case my allies were freefalling down, preventing them from dying from the fall. I just had to make sure that it retained its maximum effectiveness.

["Alright, sounds good,"] understanding what I meant, Saori immediately agreed to my experiment.

["Hold on, please! Isn't that too dangerous?!"] Tasianna intervened by waving her arms in panic.

["You do not have to be alarmed. Hestia only needs to heal me if our experiment fails,"] Saori rebuked Tasianna's worry. ["It is the same principle why we are mutilating ourselves with spells just to increase our resistances."]

["I have to make sure that I understand my spells correctly, Tasianna. It would be problematic if I made a mistake during an urgent situation,"] I further added to Saori's argument. ["Besides, you have been with us for a whole week now. Cast away your common sense while you're in this forest. I mean, you might be complaining about our training methods but aren't you also participating in them?"]

Tasianna groaned, knowing that her worry was unwarranted, ["I apologize, Princess Hestia, Madam Saori. It just feels a bit...surreal. Especially with how you two are training your skills."]

That prompted me to raise a brow, ["Do people, normally, not actively train their skills?"]

["No, of course, they do,"] Tasianna shook her head. ["It's just that not everybody trains it every day, especially combat skills. You do not have any idea how rare it is to find a [Holy Magic] practitioner. Truth be told, I was quite shocked when I saw you using [Sacred Field] during the troll battle, but it made sense when I learned that you were a champion of the Goddess of Light, Aurena. Having [Sacred Magic] must be expected."]

["Tasianna, please remember. I am no god's champion. Whatever they have planned for me, I don't know,"] I scratched my head in displeasure. ["I admit, a small part of me is curious but you also know my dream. Anything the gods want me to do will probably be annoying and will hinder my progress to spread the Idol culture around Peolynca."]

It also is baffling that they haven't made contact with me yet. What do they want from me? Why did they reincarnate me into this world? Why are my memories in shambles?

There are so many questions that I want to ask them but is it worth it when I can pretty much guess that the task that they will give me will be bothersome? Maybe even life-threatening? At least right now, I can just use the excuse that I'm ignorant and hope that Aurena and Kargryxmor aren't assholes about it. Argh, please, don't be assholes.

Tasianna thought about my statement before speaking again, ["If you want, I can tell you how to make contact...mhmph!"]

["No! No!"] using two fingers, I clamped them against Tasianna's mouth, stopping her from talking any further. ["No, please, don't tell me! I want to stay ignorant as long as possible just to be on the safe side. Please, let's just drop the topic, alright?"]

It might be risky, possibly even deadly, to ignore a god's will but thinking about my objectives, I didn't want to be controlled by them. I might receive their wrath one day, but hopefully, it will happen after my Idol dream has been fulfilled.

Optimistically, when I eventually have to meet them, they will turn out to be nice and excuse me for "wasting" their time. But who am I kidding, most people wouldn't be happy when their plans are being delayed or even ruined if a single cog doesn't want to cooperate. I am one of those people and I wouldn't blame anybody for feeling likewise.

I released Tasianna's mouth once she fervently nodded, agreeing to not tell me how to come into contact with the gods, ["Phew, thank you. Saori, sorry for taking so long but can you try the spell's effect now?"]

["No need to be sorry, Hestia,"] with that said, Saori put me back on the ground and then climbed up a tree to jump off it.

With a heavy thud, Saori landed back on the ground, leaving a deep footprint, ["No pain at all. It actually felt like I landed on a soft sponge that absorbed all the shock."]

With a smile, I gave a thumbs-up, announcing that this experiment was a success, ["Nice, [Featherfall] will be awesome to use with [Air Walk]. You don't have to fear falling to your death ever again, Saori."]

["Urgh, it makes me sick to be reminded of that, Hestia,"] however, contrary to my excitement, Saori caressed her stomach, showing none of the enthusiasm of uncovering a potential synergy between a spell and skill. Her first experience must have been awful. I wonder why? I was pretty careful about it.

["Anyways, there was something that I was curious about, Tasianna,"] Saori now matched her eyes with Tasianna's. ["You mentioned that there were not many practitioners who can use [Holy Magic]. Why is that?"]

["Oh, the reason mostly lies with how people see Aurena, the Goddess of Light, and her ruling element,"] Tasianna continued. ["The church of Aurena, at least the elven one, sees her as the goddess of miracles and healing, so most of their priests and shrine maidens tend to only heal those in the direst need of healing. Healing wounds caused by training is seen to be beneath them and blasphemous to be used on something that trivial."]

It's understandable. If you consider something a miracle then using it to simply close up a small wound would naturally take away from that fantasy. Still, in my opinion, it sounded a bit arrogant and selfish.

["As you must know, arcane corruption is a problem for every mage. Besides the oldest and most venerable priests, most clergymen and women usually don't have a high level in their arcane corruption resistance,"] Tasianna further added.

["Yes, I cannot help but agree,"] Saori agreed. ["The reason for why my [Arcane Corruption Resistance] reached level ten was because of skill points. Training it up meant being on the verge of being inflicted by that status ailment. I can sympathize with anybody not willing to do that."]

Tasianna nodded, ["Correct. As a fairy, I cannot say much more about it as we benefit very little from [Holy Magic] and aren't able to contract arcane corruption."]

That reminded me of my talk with Tasianna about races with a pure body of mana. Healing spells only restored Health, which is not vital for a fairy. They also can't accumulate arcane corruption inside their body so they could technically cast an unlimited number of spells if their mana was infinite.

To compensate, their stats decreased with their mana and they would die if it reached zero. While I cannot heal her with my spells, I can still keep her alive by donating my mana to her using [Mana Control].

["So...how do most soldiers heal themselves then?"] I asked the obvious question. ["There must be monster hunters or soldiers that go around killing dangerous monsters that are causing problems within elven territory, right? From what you're saying, those holy mages don't show up often enough, so how does that work?"]

The elves lived next to the Belzac forest so monster attacks must be common. A country must protect its citizens and soldiers are trained to do so, however, injuries can happen and considering this world, there must be a way to heal all of them in the field.

If I were a leader, I would do my best to keep soldiers alive. The amount of training and investment that a US soldier receives is staggering, so much so that it would be better to not endanger them too often. The elves couldn't possibly be that stupid to make such a fundamental error, right? Or am I too naive?

["Elf soldiers receive healing potions. The elves are one of the most experienced and wisest alchemists on Peolynca, at least, they are on this continent,"] Tasianna just dropped two info bombs.

Alchemy? Continent? Urgh, more things that I have to ask her about at a different date. Let's just have her finish this first.

Tasianna continued, ["Of course, those are military rations, so if they wish to use some for their private training, then they are required to buy them from alchemists. Potions cost money which means that it wouldn't be worthwhile to train every day, literally using hundreds of potions until they couldn’t train anymore due to their depleted Stamina. It would be better to use your [Sacred Field] on a group of soldiers, than to have them drink potions. That is why your ability, to cast so many spells, is worthy of worship, Princess Hestia."]

Woah, can I buy the skill [Alchemy]? ...Yes, I can! Should I though? Nah, I don't have much SP left and I don't think I want to get into it. Sounds too boring.

["Wait, so does that mean that alchemists are able to earn a great amount of money?!"] as if she were possessed by something, Saori eyes gleamed and she fervently asked Tasianna about the topic.

["Technically, yes,"] Saori's lips curved into a smile, her eyes now sparkling to what Tasianna just said. ["However, most alchemists are trained in specific recipes and that is something I have no knowledge about. Due to the demand for potions, alchemists would pay well for quality ingredients."]

Saori's head snapped to me, making me flinch backward, ["Hestia, my beautiful little dragon. You can already make some fine and... hazardous toxins. Making potions should be right up your alley, correct?"]

Oh gosh, she's looking at me like a predator! Even [Danger Perception] is activating!

["I can buy [Alchemy], yes, but I don't want to do it. It sounds too boring,"] I denied her request. ["Why don't you do it?"]

Saori snapped her fingers in frustration, ["Argh, I can buy it, yes, but hearing Tasianna's description made me not want to do it myself. It's selfish to ask you but it was worth a try."]

After telling me the truth, she proceeded to put a hand on her chin and then walked in circles while thinking. After a few seconds of that, it finally dawned on me why she was doing this. That attitude of hers reminded me when she told me to dismantle the monsters carefully, taking care to not ruin the fur and other pieces that we could sell.

...Which means, she's thinking about making money!

["Aha! Tasianna, do you know which herbs or ingredients can be used in potions?"] Saori's word assaulted Tasianna like a storm, pressuring her to think and respond.

Panickily flying around, she waved her hands before her body, stopping Saori's face from advancing any further, ["As I already said! I don't know about them. I was a simple maid. Nobody taught me about herbology!"]

It is easy to forget that Tasianna is 87 years old, considering how those two are interacting. Well, age doesn't really matter. I was only six months old and Saori was two months old. Our party had no right to talk about how to act your age.

["What a shame..."] Saori gave a sigh in disappointment but quickly shook it off, now standing upright. ["Alright then, if we do not know the plants, then let us just collect everything! We need more spices anyways to save us money for the future!"]

With that settled, we stopped hunting and were now going on a search for herbs.

At that moment, Saori's [Enhanced Enemy Sense] triggered and my [Detection Sensor] showed huge amounts of dots running our way.

Turning around, I saw the source of this.

It was a tidal wave of monsters running towards us...

A note from AbyssRaven

Ahh, I'm preparing all of these guilds, world-building, and information of the civilization of this world but I can't use any of them yet. >.<

Urgh, so who wants to guess who caused that tidal wave of monsters, huh? It's a plot point from an earlier chapter that I can finally use, now that the time has come.

Also what I imagined when I thought of the PHR(Portable Hestia Rifle)(Maybe NSFW warning): Rawr

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr!

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 45: How many monsters were in the area?!

A note from AbyssRaven

I wanted to release this chapter at my usual time but writing the next chapter for my stockpile took a bit too long. Well, I'm finished with it so hope you guys enjoy this one.

[“Sorry, guys this will be a bit rough!”] I wrapped my arm around Saori’s waist and had Tasianna grab one of my horns, before using [Air Walk] to jump through the air up to the trees.

Once we reached a branch, I released Saori. We looked down, noticing that the signals aren’t decreasing at all, in fact, they were increasing at an alarming rate.

Our attention was directed to a [Spiked Horn Doe], one of the more common and appetizing monsters, running past our location. Like Earth’s deer, these beasts were wary, triggered by even the slightest sounds due to their [Enhanced Auditory Sense], making it hard to close up to them without being detected.

However, from hunting these animals, I also knew that they could turn their heads around while they ran. Interestingly enough, they could keep their heads at a 90 degrees angle even during full acceleration, making them elusive against ambush hunters.

Still, these animals were cowards. Present them a monster that can overpower them easily and they will run away in a panic, ditching this trait of theirs as they tunnel vision into traversing the forest to escape.

We were all under the effects of [Stealth] and [Presence Killer] right now, and it just ran away as if it saw me or Saori in our monster form.

At that moment, another…no, three…four…seven…t-twelve…eighteen ran past us, completely overcome by fear.

“What is going…” I was about to say something but then more monsters came running past us.

Hundreds of different animals, ranging from rabbits, boars, squirrels, and even some kobolds using monsters as mounts, shot past us in a frenzy akin to an army of fans chasing after a pop star.

I wish it were an exaggeration but the number of insect-type and bird-type monsters flying past our party caused the tree we were standing on to shake. My [Prediction] overwhelmed me with its annoying beeping, as I had to dodge all the incoming monsters.

“Woah!” failing to dodge one, I began to lose my balance from being tackled by a monster, but quickly recovered after I dug my sharp tail into the tree’s body.

Noticing that the storm of flyers wouldn’t stop anytime soon, I cast [Sanctuary] around us. The bombardment of animals was blocked by my barrier, who rammed into it with a thud and then fell into the stream of monsters fleeing on the ground, tramped to never be seen again.

My barrier was perfectly blocking the monsoon, but it unfortunately still consumed my Mana and Stamina, while also not granting me any experience. Those verdammte monsters on the ground were stealing all my hard work!

[“What is even happening here, has anything like this happened to you before, Hestia?] Saori asked me since I have been in this forest longer.

However, all I could do was shake my head, [“Usually, I would cause this kinda event.”]

Shouting with [Draconic Roar] or even burning down the forest has caused chaos to erupt inside the forest on multiple occasions. Normally, I would be the reason, but I never caused something at this scale.

Looking a bit further from our location, I was able to confirm that chaos was happening everywhere, right now.

“Kraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” suddenly my ears picked up a roar.

[“To our left, a massive monster’s roar!”] Saori shouted through [Telepathy], pointing at the origin of the voice.

From the direction that her finger was directed at, I was reminded that that was where we had our fight yesterday. The place that I burned down!

“Kraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

“Kraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

Two more roars, different in intensity and tone from the first, further thundered from the location. I could hear the echoing coming from atop the trees, so chances are high that the culprits could either climb well or fly.

But what really creeped me out was that the roars sounded so familiar, as if I had heard them before. Yet, they were still different. Their pitch, volume, and tone were all so much more different than the ones I knew. The huskiness and confidence they were emitting in their roars were totally different.

[“Those voices are making my body tremble,”] Tasianna said, as her shaking hands made my head vibrate due to holding onto my horn.

[“Hestia?”] once I turned my head to respond to Saori’s call, I noticed that she was squinting her eyes with a deep frown, tensing up her ears to track the monster’s voices. She then warily asked me, [“…Do you want them to be your source to reach max level?”]

I didn’t even hesitate, [“No, we flee…”]

[“Wakarimashita, Hestia Oujo-sama,”] (I understand, Princess Hestia.) Saori briefly said before taking Tasianna from my head and putting her in her dress pocket. [“We are moving, Miss Tasianna. Hang on tightly!”]

Once Tasianna said “Ready!”, Saori pulled me closer to her, then covered both me and Tasianna in a veil of shadows with [Shadow Armament].

[Shadow Armament (Full Body)] inflicted on [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atsuko]

Once she located a shadow to teleport to, she pulled us into her shadow, inviting us to the world of shadows.

Swimming through the ocean of blackness, I heard a voice, [“Don’t let go, alright, Hestia?”]

[“As if I would,”] tightening my arms around Saori’s torso, I closed my eyes and let her do her thing.

I didn’t like this place at all. Weirdly, I very much preferred creating my own darkness by closing my eyes, ignoring everything that happened in this world, hoping that it would end soon. This place was neither cold nor warm, it had no flowing wind but I could breathe, I can feel nothing with my skin, but we were moving as if we were swimming through water.

How can a place be this neutral? How it can be this indecisive? What is this place even? Who created it?

Haaaah, there are so many questions for this, what the hell.

Still closing my eyes, light eventually entered through my eyelids and the tumultuous cries of hundreds of voices stimulated my eardrums into action. Even in this turbulent soundwave, a booming roar was echoing through my surroundings, further provoking an explosion of sounds, filled with confusion, panic, and dread.

[“Madam Saori, why have you used [Shadow Dash] to transport us into the wave of monsters?!”] a high-pitched voice resounded through my mind, instead of entering through my ears.

Prompted by curiosity, I opened my eyes to see somebody’s furry feet jumping from one animal’s back to the other, deftly traversing through this chaotic mass with ease.

Turning my head to the side, I noticed that instead of clutching Saori’s waist, I was being held under her left arm. My hands had a solid grip around her forearm, similar to gripping a roller coaster’s lap bars.

I also made sure that my claws weren’t penetrating her skin. She probably wouldn’t do it but any chance to avoid a scolding is good for me.

[“I think it would be better to stay among the monsters to hide from them,”] Saori responded to Tasianna’s question. [“My [Enhanced Enemy Sense] is still telling me that all three of those monsters are at the same location.”]

[“I agree, those roars are provocations and they are inviting me to come to them,”] I supported Saori’s argument. [“It would be safer to not cause a fuss and stay with the mass of fleeing monsters.”]

[“Princess Hestia, how can you be so sure?”] Tasianna popped out of Saori’s dress pocket, located around her hips, so our eyes naturally met.

[“Call it a dragon’s intuition or instinct,”] I explained to her. [“I’ve only heard it once in my life, but my body told me that these voices belong to wyverns. Either they are here to confirm their companion’s death, or they already know about it and are here for revenge.”]

Shouting “What!”, Tasianna continued to question me when all of this happened, panickily stumbling on her words.

[“We had an encounter before we met you, where I killed three of them under the effects of [Battle Frenzy],”] I explained this to Tasianna while pointing my finger at myself and Saori. [“Back then, they were only C ranks, but I can feel that these ones are much stronger.”]

A bit of regret was filling my mind that I killed those wyverns back then, leading stronger ones to appear to hunt us down. Still, I shouldn’t feel guilty ‘cause of that.

They came and pursued me. I only did what I had to and acted on self-defense, although I do admit that [Battle Frenzy] did make me more belligerent than usual. I bet anybody in my shoes would choose the same choice, considering the situation.

[“Come to think about it, Tasianna,”] an idea popped up. [“Do you know where those wyverns could have come from, or are they indigenous somewhere in the Belzac forest?”]

Tasianna gave it a long thought before answering, [“Aha, now I remember! According to a map that I read in my village’s library, the forest is protected by the Belzac mountains in the north and west, while travel is blocked by a canyon in the east. South of the Belzac forest lies ‘Avitor Peaks’.”]

[“Avitor Peaks?”] I asked.

Tasianna nodded, continuing her explanation, ["Mhmm, it’s the name for a mountain range filled with griffins, hippogryphs, wyverns, and other flying monsters.”]

Griffins and hippogryphs, huh? I wonder if they are exactly like the ones in Earth's myths. At least wyverns are exactly how you would describe them: Dragons with wings as forelegs.

[“Among the areas in that mountain range, there is one called ‘Wyvern Peaks’,”] Tasianna further added. ["The ones here likely originated from there.”]

So, what does that mean? Back then, why were those wyverns there in that location at that time? Was it ‘cause they heard my concert and curiously came over to check who was making all that noise? In other words, it would have been pure coincidence that they found me and decided to pursue me.

However, I should also consider something else. The fact that wyverns were related to dragons, and who is the God of Dragons? Kargryxmor.

Honestly, I have no conclusive evidence for this theory. Neither can I confirm that Kargryxmor could control wyverns nor am I really sure why he did it in the first place. I mean, those wyverns wanted to kill me and if Kargryxmor was the reason for that, then is my new great-great-great-great-great-whatever-grandpa trying to murder me?

Scheiße, what the hell did I do to deserve that? Is he actually angry that I haven’t talked with him yet? How petty can you be to act like that, you clingy old man?!

If you were to give me your phone number or E-Mail, then I would try my best to do it once per week, minimum. I had family in different time zones back on Earth and I’m pretty sure my memory told me that I maintained a good relationship with all of them. Maybe you should have researched that before reincarnating me or is that beneath a god?!

…Then again, I am actively trying to avoid contact so what am I talking about. I guess it’s a sense of betrayal? I’m also badmouthing him due to pure speculation alone. T-That’s exactly what those bitches did to me in my past life, so why am I imitating their fucking gossiping?!

I’m better than that!

["Tasianna, how far away are we from Avitor Peaks or even the Wyvern Peaks?"] acknowledging that I needed more information, I stopped my train of thoughts to ask her for some more useable facts.

Returning to another long-winded thought session Tasianna tried to remember the details but unfortunately shook her head, ["Uhhh, I'm not too sure about that. I'm sorry, Princess Hestia."]

Before I could speak, Saori jumped at a nearby tree, hooking her leg’s and right hand’s claws into it, then looked down at me and spoke, [“Enough, Hestia. I can already see that you are extensively monologuing with yourself…again. I do not want to sound too much like a teacher, especially as you are not one of my students, but maybe it would be more practical to share your thoughts with us, instead of keeping it to yourself?”]

‘Oof, she got us,’ the first of my parallel minds, parallel mind #1, spoke up.

‘Urgh, she noticed that? Are we that easy to read?’ parallel mind #2 reflected my embarrassment of being found out.

‘Yeah, I guess we are overthinking things,’ #3 stated. ‘Let’s just stop for now.’

Even the usually quiet #4 said something, ‘Tens minds are better than nine. Let’s pick her brain about this topic, later on.’

I looked at the rest of my parallel minds, #5 to #8, and saw them nodding and saying 'Yeah, let's calm down first, original mind.'.

Still hanging on the tree, Saori continued speaking, [“You are being influenced by the mood. Just look at all the panic, the shouting, the terror in their eyes,”] she moved my body, being carried under her left arm, and directed my gaze towards the stampede. [“If you are pressured to think then calm yourself down first. Deep breaths, come on, look at me and breathe in and out.”]

She pulled my body closer to hers and adjusted me like a puppet so our eyes would meet. Under her gaze, I did exactly what she wanted.

Breathe in…and out.

["Good job. The easiest way to refocus and reset your mindset during a test. It works for most students and I believe as an Idol trainee, you should have known about this trick,”] she said.

Breathing in once more, I was finally able to feel my heart pounding my chest up and down. Slight lightheadedness overcame me as my accelerated blood slowed down, returning my emotional and mental state back to zero.

[“Yeah…sorry, I got a bit ahead of myself guys,”] softening my clutch on Saori’s forearm, I showed her that my impatience disappeared.

["All is forgiven. We will talk about it after I find a place that we can rest. It also seems that the wyverns will not follow us, so we have probably escaped their search,"] once she said that, she jumped back into the tsunami of monsters, continuously jumping from one monster to the other, single-mindedly doing what she said she would.

[“Amazing, Madam Saori!”] Tasianna suddenly cried out. [“I apologize for underestimating you. You determined and resolved Princess Hestia’s problem immediately. It seems I was the one that was arrogant and ignorant. I shall do my best to improve from now on”]

[“Ah, thank you, Miss Tasianna, but praising me that much will make me blush,”] looking up, I could see Saori looking a bit troubled about the compliments. [“You will have no problem with understanding her personality, but you must make sure to adapt a bit to her common sense.”]

Tasianna groaned, [“Urgh, I believe I know what you mean. I will try my best. A good maid should adapt herself to her mistress, not the other way around.”]

What are they talking about?

I felt a bit left out from this conversation but I’ve also no reason to join in. I stayed silent and instead just closed my eyes, enjoying the bumpy ride of being carried around, limply hanging my legs and tail around.

I think we will make a lot of progress moving towards the north Belzac mountains today, however, who knows where we will end up at. The stampede will probably last for a bit.

What a weird day.

With that, I drifted into sleep, entrusting myself to my two companions.

*******************

While our trio began moving towards the north of the forest, a different group in the south of the Belzac forest was advancing through its canyon.

Compared to Hestia’s party, the number of members in this one far surpassed her by the hundreds, filled with both humanoid and normal monsters.

They were all moving through the canyon, transporting a large caravan. The beasts of burden, monsters tamed by this large gathering, pulled wagons filled to the brim with weapons, armor, and barrels filled with rations out of a cave.

This cave laid underneath a large mountain separating the Belzac forest from what was behind it. Fortunately for this group, as they bypassed this precarious mountain range through an underway, they were able to avoid the aerial predators swarming its skies. No matter how massive this gathering of monsters was, they would have been helpless under the constant attacks of Avitor Peaks' flying hunters.

Steadily marching onwards, this army of monsters showed none of the discipline that a normal army should have, yet, they moved onwards despite this unstable harmony.

The humanoid monsters consisting out of the brown-furred kobolds, the blue and green-skinned goblins, and the greyish skinned orcs, rarely ever worked together but today they were walking side by side, united by a single cause and goal.

The bulky orcs clad in heavy metal armor were strutting around, carrying their large halberds and axes around, proudly displaying their strengths and equipment with pride. Despite their flamboyance, they were diligently guarding the caravan, warily watching for any foreign movements.

Walking ahead and behind the caravan was an assortment of small kobolds armed with bow and arrows, while others rode on wolf mounts and some drove the carriages forward. Compared to the orcs, the size difference between these two races could be likened to a human adult and human child, where the orcs were the former and the kobolds were the latter.

A bit taller than the kobolds, the green-skinned goblins were marching in a formation dedicated to guarding the kobold archers and orc warriors, encircling them. Their outfits consisted of a mix-and-match between chainmail, leather armor, and simple linen, however, they all carried spears double their sizes.

Compared to the other two, the goblins were rowdier and harder to control, causing squabbles and fights whenever you left them to their own devices for even a single second. However, none of these troubles lasted for long, as the blue-skinned goblins repeatedly ended each quarrel with haste.

Sitting in the carriages, these goblins wore magically enchanted robes with sturdy chainmail underneath them, carrying around rune-etched staffs. Their faces were adorned with piercings, ritualistic tattoos, and their ears carried bone ornaments. If they were not diffusing a fight among their goblin brethren, they were instead organizing the objects in the carriage, making sure that no kobold, goblin, or orc stole anything.

While goblins are naturally belligerent and greedy beings, this was mostly caused by their lack of intelligence. The blue-skinned ones, their shamans and mages, on the other hand, were crafty enough to understand that survival and strength didn’t come from causing problems…at least when the gains are too little to risk it.

In front of this massive army rode a chariot, pulled by two monsters resembling oxen. A giant, hulking beast fully equipped in armor fit for the elite warriors of a king sat on it. The creature was an indomitable ogre.

These humanoid monsters had the same base rank as a troll, but they were nothing compared to them. While trolls had a sturdy body and great regeneration due to their racial skill [Troll Regeneration], ogres were hunks of muscles able to carry and swing weapons that a normal human would never be able to.

This giant of a monster stood up from his chariot and held a hand up. At that moment, every single member of this army stopped moving, freezing their movements either from admiration or fear.

“We have now passed Avitor Peaks’ hidden underground pathway,” the ogre turned around and spoke, his voice thundered, even reaching those at the very tail of this army of hundreds. “As you know, we are the first battalion to have come. Our duty is to make contact with our troll allies at the designated spot, deliver the caravan of supplies, and establish the camp for the rest of the army that will come soon. HAVE I MADE MYSELF CLEAR!?”

This bellowing command made all kobolds, goblins, and orcs respond. The orcs shouted with all their might “YES, SIR!”, while the cowardly goblins shakily shouted “Y-YEAH!”, making sure not to wet themselves. The kobold’s, on the other hand, responded using their animalistic voices, roaring “GRAAAAAH!”, instead of using any of the established languages.

In their own ways, the whole army made sure to respond to the commanding ogre’s order with resounding strength.

"GOOD! Now, shamans!" he pointed at the congregation of blue-skinned goblins, forcing them all to stand up straight. "Prepare a ritual to honor our ancestor father and mother. We will pray and rest, for now, HAVE I MADE MYSELF CLEAR!"

This time, every single member fervently yelled “YES!” with no hesitation. None of the monsters would show anything but fervor, especially the zealous goblins.

No monster in this army wouldn’t know the importance of this event. Besides a much-desired rest, they could also not allow themselves to miss this chance to be a bit closer to their gods.

“Prepare yourself to honor our mighty ancestor father, Marsven, the God of Darkness, and our beloved ancestor mother, Edna, the Goddess of Monsters and Fertility,” stepping down from his chariot, the massive hulk walked towards his commanding army, even towering the large orcs. “Then we will march! We will march towards our glory. For all of you should know that our future battles will be worthy to be etched in history! Our 300 men battalion will be the foundation for our revenge! A war that we will win for our glory! All humans will know our wrath and strength!”

Bringing up his massive axe, the ogre was ready to end his speech, “FOR THE GLORY OF HIS MAJESTY, THE OGRE KING! FOR THE HONOR OF MARSVEN AND EDNA!”

“““FOR THE GLORY OF HIS MAJESTY, THE OGRE KING! FOR THE HONOR OF MARSVEN AND EDNA!”””

A note from AbyssRaven

Nice work Dr. ZChochraine, Milanda, LazyDemon, and aqua787. You guys remembered that part and guessed correctly. Good job!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr!

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 46: Why can’t I remember my dream?

A note from AbyssRaven

A new month means Patreon pledges are renewed: Rawr

Join now and you can read up to 10 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until May!

“Hey, you’re running too fast!” I could hear something. “That’s so unfair, stop!”

“Ha ha, I’m not even trying. You’re too slow,” then another voice appeared, echoing a bit further away from the first. “I can’t help it when I’m tall, **k***-chan! You just need to continue drinking your milk and you will grow big and strong just like me.”

My senses once again looked over at the first voice, swinging its shadowy arms around in frustration, “How much do I have to drink, cousin? Mama is forcing me to drink so much, already.”

Slowly the haziness of this whole scene vanished, vividly showing more details of the scene. It seems I am becoming more conscious. Was I dreaming?

Looking around, I learned that I was currently in a park and that the two voices came from two shadowy individuals. Their faces and bodies were covered up by a black mist, making it impossible for me to identify who they were, but their clothing was exempt from this.

The one lagging behind the other was wearing a pure white dress with flower embroidery, showing off the little shadow person’s childish and energetic personality. It was also wearing a backpack with an animalistic theme on its back, probably carrying essential items for this outing. Somehow, I felt a bit of a kinship with it.

The other one was slightly taller, wearing an outfit consisting out of a pullover and jeans. It was also carrying a thermos in its hand while it ran, although I was not sure what the content was.

Both continued running on an earthy path while I followed them against my will. Then again, I wasn’t even resisting, I don’t think I could do anything besides watch.

Well, it was better than to stare at nothingness, I guess.

“Look, **k***-chan!” the taller shadow person began pointing at a large colorful totem. "You don't come to Japan very often, so you have to see everything you can in this short time! This is the most memorable sight in this whole park."

“Wow, are those robots?” as more of my consciousness returned, I was now able to determine that this shadow had a very high-pitched voice, similar to a small girl’s. “They are all stacked on top of each, and there are so many colors! It’s like a totem rainbow, cousin!”

“I told you already, **k***-chan,” that one also was fairly high-pitched, but I could hear its voice breaking a bit. Most likely it belonged to a prepubescent boy. “It’s not “cousin” but it’s “big brother”! Japanese is hard but you have to make sure you get it correct, ok?”

I now realized that they were talking Japanese. It felt so natural that I didn’t even consider it but hearing the boy pronouncing “Itoko” for cousin, and “onii-chan” for big brother kinda made me sensitive to it.

Ooooh, for some reason I was getting the chills when he said “onii-chan”.

“My Japanese isn’t that good but you’re my cousin so I’m addressing you as “Itoko”!” the girl rebuked her cousin. “You’re really weird for wanting me to call you “onii-chan”, *****-san.”

Hearing that, the boy stopped moving and turned around in shock, “No, no! I apologize, you can call me anything but please don’t use -san!”

However, the girl didn’t respond and simply ran past him, only turning her head around to stick her tongue out with a wink, having successfully fooled him.

The boy stood still, probably embarrassed from being fooled by his younger cousin, before following her, shouting, “W-Wait, was that a joke?!”.

The two eventually made it to a playground, filled with slides and other equipment to entertain active children. There were quite a few other kids and some adults there, playing around and having a great time.

“He he, I won. You’re too slow~” the girl was breathing heavily but nonetheless cheered in her victory, having beaten the boy in this race.

“Urgh, I can’t believe I was tricked…” the boy scratched his head in frustration but shrugged it off, allowing his little cousin this small win. “So, were you also joking about the whole “Itoko” stuff? I bet you were, **k***-chan~”

“No, I wasn’t,” the girl was merciless to the poor boy. “Why are you like this anyways, *****? You’re still behaving normally around Mama and Auntie, just like last Christmas, but why are you treating me differently? Have I done something wrong?”

The boy’s bitter expression couldn’t be ignored, sighing deeply before he responded, “I…this is a bit embarrassing but recently I wished I could have more family around. Sorry, **k***-chan, I-I didn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable. Please, don’t hate me.”

“Hate you because of something like that? Hmph, you’re overthinking too much, cousin,” the girl sounded a bit holier-than-thou, but she nonetheless showed a kind smile, now understanding her cousin a bit better. “Still, what happened to have made you think that way, dear cousin?”

“Nothing really,” however, his troubled face proved otherwise. “It’s just…It’s just…Chichi-ue has been personally tutoring me, as the entrance exams for junior high are in one year, and it's quite…difficult. I envy you for being in America. There is also…well, Haha-ue and Chichi-ue aren’t getting alo…woah! ”

Suddenly, the girl grabbed her cousin’s arm and pulled it towards her, “Enough! It’s such a fun day and you’re bringing it down. Come on, come on! Let’s go have some fun at the playground before Mama and Auntie pick us up.”

Jeez, stop being so “tsun” about it, it’s annoying when you act so dismissive of your emotions. The boy is being so polite. Somebody needs to tell her to dial it down a bit…

Still, “Haha-ue” and “Chichi-ue”, huh? Those are the Japanese words for “my mother” and “my father”, respectively. Compared to “Okaa-san” and “Otou-san”, you would use the two former terms to address your own family, while the latter two are used to address the parents of others…or, well, when you are speaking with your parents.

It seems like the boy seems to prefer calling his parents with the Japanese terms, while the girl favors using the western nickname “Mama” for her mother.

However, who uses the “-ue" suffix nowadays, anyway? I'm pretty sure only old-fashioned or super strict families would have their children say that. "Haha” or “Chichi” would be perfectly acceptable, even in the formality-hell that is Japan.

Regardless of my thoughts, the two kids entered the playground and started playing in it. Sliding down the slides, playing tag with the other kids, and rotating on the roundabout.

The tension on the boy’s face seems to have completely washed away, vanished from existence as if it never existed in the first place. The merrily laughing of little children playing and their mischievous nature of competing with others tightened up my heart and soul.

Is this…nostalgia?

It didn’t seem like they will stop any time soon, so having gained a sliver of control from waiting around, I moved my body to a spot where I could see them play. Under the shadow of the tree, I sat down, feeling the heat of the sun waning as my body cooled down a bit. The grassy ground cushioned me, allowing me to lean my back on the tree’s trunk.

I relaxed and watched the kids play, losing my sense of time as it seems like this moment would never end.

“*****, you haven’t drunk from your thermos yet. Aren’t you thirsty?” the girl asked the boy while drinking from her bottle of juice.

“Oh, this? I-I actually forgot to fill it up today,” the boy admitted.

“What?! No, wait…uhmm…aha, here!” after rummaging through her backpack, she took out another bottle of juice, offering it to her cousin. “It’s sunny, Mama says you need to drink when you play. Take it.”

“Thank you…” the boy said timidly, clearly embarrassed that his little cousin had to state the obvious.

“He he, of course,” the girl’s satisfied smile was boasting about her small achievement. “Anyways, why are you carrying the thermos when it’s empty? You should have given it to Auntie.”

The boy looked down at his thermos, before meeting his eyes with hers, "You see…Chichi-ue loves coffee and he always brings it with him to work. I thought, even if it’s empty, I could mimic him a bit so I could be a bit more like him.”

“Hmm, I’m sorry for bringing it up again. Let’s stop talking about it,” the girl suddenly clapped her hands together, her face brightened up. “I know! When we get back to Grandpa’s and Grandma’s house, I’ll show you my Nintendo 3DS. If you’re feeling stressed, then playing games will help you out a lot.”

“Your Obaa-san and Ojii-san, right? Hm, I don’t know if Chichi-ue will allow that…” the boy said.

“Obaa-san” and “Ojii-san” are the Japanese terms to address somebody else’s “grandmother” and “grandfather”, respectively. These two are related so that must mean that the girl mentioned the grandparents that weren’t related to him by blood.

The girl waved her arms around, appearing cheery, “But, if you do well on your exams then you can persuade your Otou-san about it, right? Your grades are so good, *****, so playing a little bit shouldn’t hurt.”

“…Yeah, I guess I can at least try it a bit. Especially when you’re offering to share it with me,” his lips curved into a smile. “Thank you, **k***, you’re good at making others feel better, despite your clumsiness. You will make an amazing Idol.”

“Clumsiness?! What?! Grrrr,” the girl glared at her cousin.

“Ha ha, sorry,” he didn’t look very remorseful for teasing her. “Still, you were only here because of the concert, correct? How was it?”

“Amazing!” like an explosion of emotions, the girl spread her arms out and smiled, showing off her sparkling white teeth; all the annoyance of being teased was completely gone. “Girl’s Generation was awesome, awesome, awesome! When the spotlights appeared and showed off all the idols, it was amazing, amazing, amazing!”

“Ahh, **k***-chan, you shouldn’t shout that much,” noticing that the other children and some adults were looking at them, the boy quickly calmed down his cousin. “Phew, it was your first concert, correct?”

“Yeah, and that’s when I decided I wanted to become an Idol. I want to stand on a stage and make people happy, too!” the girl proclaimed.

First Girl’s Generation concert? Ahh, I still remember my first when I was seven. Mama was so nice to comply with my wish, despite how far away New York is to Tokyo…and how out of the blue the request came from.

I believe she also wanted to visit her parents so that helped me persuade her.

“If that’s true, then…does that mean that you will move over here? I-I believe Japan also has an Idol culture, right?” the boy asked.

“…I-I don’t think so…” the girl looked apologetic as she saw her cousin’s disappointment. “Papa and Mama seem to like it in New York, and both like their jobs there. Besides, if I ever have the chance then I would like to go to South Korea, where SNSD and the other fantastic K-Pop Idols are.”

“I-I see…” the boy mustered a fake smile, but nobody was fooled by this, easily seeing that he was crestfallen.

“But! When I become an Idol then I will come to Tokyo for my tour, alright? When that happens then you must come cheer for me, alright?” the girl attempted to cheer her cousin up. “Please, it will make me so happy if came!”

"…Yeah, you will become an Idol and I will come to cheer for you," the boy's sadness didn’t wane.

The girl, however, did not give up on this, "And…and, you can always call me! Your Okaa-san has my Papa’s number so you can always ask her to call me. I will always answer, alright? I will always be there when you need me, just like a shining light in a dark concert hall. And…when I come back during Christmas, then we can spend so much time together, alright?”

“…Do you promise, **k***-chan?” he questioned her warily.

“Of course! I haven’t broken a single promise in my life yet, and I don’t want to disappoint my family,” the girl clenched her entire right hand, except for her pinky finger. "Promise me that you will come to my concerts and I will be there when you need me the most. Yubikiri, Onii-chan~"

“...Yubikiri. If you promise then I will too, **k***-chan,” the boy also performed the same gesture.

“Yubikiri”, also known as the “pinky promise” to westerners. The two cousins simultaneously said “Yubikiri” and then locked their pinky fingers together, signifying that a promise has just been made.

“…However, ‘Yubikiri’ means ‘finger cut-off’ in Japanese,” as if she noticed my presence, the girl’s shadowy head snapped to my direction and her black eyes were clear to be seen. “You promised to become an Idol.”

The girl, still locking her finger with the boy, slowly walked towards me. She was dragging her cousin with her, despite the clear size difference, who neither resisted nor supported her cousin, simply staying silent as his little cousin effortlessly lug him with her.

I still want to become an Idol, I replied.

The shadowy girl maintained her slow walk, responding immediately to my response, “Yes, we must keep our promise…but he isn’t here anymore.”

I can’t give up on my dream. I can’t fail my parents, I continued insisting, despite how uneasy it made me, as I watched this abnormal girl walk.

“Don’t be sad about it…it just happened,” as she advanced, the whole scenery cracked.

The whole playground, the robot totem, and even the park itself cracked. The surroundings were breaking apart into little pieces and melted back into the dark void of this dream.

The only place that stood was the tree that I was sitting under and the path towards me.

What? as I contemplated what to say next, I noticed something wet falling onto my legs. Touching my face, I could feel water leaking from my eyes as it flowed down my cheeks. It was an uncontrollable stream that despite my will to stop, wouldn’t disappear.

Looking down at my lap, I noticed a small pool of salty water forming, large enough to fill a sink.

N-No, I can’t cry. I promised not to cry. I can’t cry. I can’t cry. Stop it!

Swiping away the tears, clawing my eyes out, pressing my hands to stop the flow; none of the methods worked.

That was when the little girl placed her hands on my face and pulled it to hers, gazing into me as I noticed how reddened her eyes were.

“Forget it all…” she whispered. “Let it all stay in the past…”

With those words, seven more shadow people appeared, wearing the same dress and having the same size, as the first.

They all whispered, “Forget it all”.

Forget it all. Forget it all. Forget it all. Forget it all. Forget it all. Forget it all. Forget it all. Forget it all.

“Forget it all…Hestia.” the boy said.

****************************

“**ke u*, H**t*a.”

“Mhmm…,” I could hear something…but it wasn’t clear.

“C*me *n, w**e up, Hes**a!” the voice was becoming more audible by the second, as the haze in my mind cleared up.

“Urgh…urgh…urgh…wha?!” as I continued moaning, not having the energy to respond, my body suddenly started to shake.

“Oh, you are finally awake,” the first thing I saw once I opened my eyes was Saori’s face.

Looking down, I noticed that her hands were under my armpits, holding me up, “Wha-What happened?”

“Nothing really,” she said nonchalantly, putting me down on the ground and releasing me. “You somehow fell asleep while I was carrying you through that monster stampede, and as you did not want to wake up, I shook you awake.”

“Ahhh, I see…” stretching my arms, I yawned with one hand blocking my opening mouth. “Then does that mean that we escape that?”

[“Yes, Prin…H-Hestia,”] stuttering my name, Tasianna answered my question. [“Mad…Sao…Miss Saori, has brought us to a safer spot. We can rest here for now.”]

Am I still that dreaming, or did I just hear Tasianna call me by my first name only?

Checking out the surrounding, there wasn’t anything special about it. It was just the same old forest layout that we’ve seen time and time again…although, it does feel a bit more humid around here.

[“Hestia,”] Saori approached me and placed her face close to mine, slightly invading my personal space. [“Did something happen while you were sleeping? Your eyes look a bit reddened and puffy.”]

“Wha-?” not understanding what she meant, I touched my eyes but as I couldn’t see it, I wasn’t able to confirm it, meaning that I had to ask my companions through [Telepathy]. [“D-Did I cry?”]

Something inside me was telling me to ask them that but why? I promised myself that I would never cry until I was able to perform before a crowd.

Still, my heart tightened at the possibility that I might have broken my vow.

["Your skin is not parched, so no,"] Saori said.

[“Your head was swinging in front of me as you slept under Mada…M-Miss Saori’s arm, so I can confirm that you did not weep, Prince…H-Hestia,”] Tasianna said, struggling with calling me by my name.

[“Why are you asking that? Did you have a nightmare?”] Saori tilted her head as she looked at me, inquisitively.

However, no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t bring up what I dreamed, [“I…actually have no idea.”]

It was a complete blank. Neither I nor my parallel minds were able to dig up my memories for the dream, which isn’t too surprising considering most people forget it immediately after they wake up.

Annoyingly, that is the truth, although, I could give a guess.

[“I can’t remember it but the last time that I felt this terrible after waking up was when I remembered about the vow that I made,”] I responded.

[“Oh, why you stopped crying, correct?”] I nodded to Saori’s answer, which prompted her to put her hand on my hand, fondling it. [“I am repeating myself, but do not overthink everything too much, alright? If you require somebody else’s opinion, then ask them. You literally have two adults with you, so rely on us more, got it?”]

I said “Yes” in response.

[“You are too small to carry all your worries by yourself. Is that not correct, Tasianna?”] she winked at me and looked at Tasianna, gesturing that she should say something.

Tasianna, noticing this, corrected her posture and responded with fervor, [“Ah, yes! I’m here to serve you with all my body and soul, Princess Hestia. I only wish to see you happy so please allow me to offer my knowledge and mind!”]

[“I see…thank you, you two.”] maybe it’s ‘cause I was emotionally weaker now, or maybe I felt some invisible bond between us growing stronger from this, but I couldn’t help myself from embracing both of them.

Saori snickered a bit, [“Alright, we might be safe, but the possibility of those wyverns staying in the forest is high. Come on, we have to flee from this forest and enter the elves’ territory soon.”]

Acknowledging that she was correct, I released them and clapped my cheeks, shaking off any remaining drowsiness. Using this moment, I told my two companions about my worries, concerning the wyvern. I also told them about my theory linking Kargryxmor and the two wyvern groups together.

Tasianna looked mortified, hearing that a god might be hunting me, while Saori immersed herself in thought.

[“Yes, that is a possibility, I agree,”] the first to speak was Saori. [“However, it makes absolutely no sense for him to consider killing you. What has he to gain from that?”]

[“Yeah, I know,”] I scratched my head. [“I recognize that it could all be a coincidence and that the original wyvern group was just hunting in the Belzac forest. If I were in those wyvern’s shoes then I would also prefer hunting here, instead of contesting against other apex predators like Griffons and Hippogryphs. That is correct, right Tasianna?”]

[“I believe so?”] Tasianna said with little confidence. [“I cannot say much about how monsters behave, unfortunately. However, I can confirm that Avitor Peaks, where those wyverns should originate from, is populated by the mentioned monsters. The mountain range borders Belzac forest, so your suggestion might be correct, Princ…Hestia.”]

[“It would not be prudent for us to put all the blame on the God of Dragons without concrete proof,”] Saori agreed to this thought process. [“We should consider it as a coincidence for now, and that those wyverns are seeking revenge for the deaths of their companions. If I were Kargryxmor, then I would see more benefits from keeping you alive, despite your reluctance to cooperate. It was not your choice to ‘usurp’ [Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood], after all.”]

[“Yeah, exactly,”] I couldn’t help but agree to this idea. [“It just happened out of nowhere. The word ‘usurp’ also appeared on [The Light] but I can’t remember ever denying the gods outright. Before it happened, I wasn’t keen on it, but I didn’t hate them. They did give me a second chance to fulfill my dream.”]

Being selfish is part of being a human if you were to ask me. I don't hate the gods, but I also don't want to associate myself with them. I might not have asked them to reincarnate me, but they did give me a second chance to live my life and to become an Idol.

There still are some grudges that I have, for example, possibly ruining my memory, not contacting me despite how dangerous this place was, and not kicking my dragon “parent’s” ass for abandoning me.

I don’t have an extremely favorable opinion but this much shouldn’t be enough to warrant me “usurping” or even “hating” them.

[“Princess Hestia,”] Tasianna suddenly turned a bit serious, having a deep frown. [“I must warn you that when we speak about the gods like this, then we should do it in private, especially once we arrive in the elven kingdom. The elves are courteous but are highly religious. They will name us heretics if they hear us speaking ill about any god.”]

Noted, improve [Aerokinesis] so I can block sounds perfectly.

[“Miss Tasianna, do you not consider us that?”] Saori asked, curious about Tasianna’s opinion on us, considering she is a resident of this world.

[“No, distrusting and betraying my mistress will be the last thing that I will ever do,”] she returned a glare to Saori. [“I may belong to this world, but I have made my vow. Not only are you both my saviors but you have shown me trust, even though I don’t deserve it. My faith in you will not waver due to something as minor as this, Princess Hestia!”]

[“Thank you, Tasianna,”] I earnestly said.

[“I appreciate it also, Miss Tasianna. Having allies reassures me,”] Saori then clapped her hands together, signaling the end of our first team meeting. [“I know we must reach the elves as soon as possible but rushing it will be detrimental. Winter is coming and we still haven’t finish preparations yet, especially our food supplies will not last through it. I suggest we continue with our original plans, however, let us avoid causing any more spectacles that may attract the wyvern's attention.”]

Saori then looked at me, [“Unfortunately, that does mean that you must control yourself, Hestia. Do not overdo it with your fire spells and take care during your practice sessions, especially when you sing. That also means that any Idol concerts are forbidden at this point, alright?”]

I nodded. It should be easy enough.

[“Good, let us move forward until night falls. That is when I and Tasianna will check our location and how far we are from the Belzac mountains.”]

Having finalized our plans, we began following the monster tracks left behind from the stampede, which guarantees that we won’t meet the wyverns anytime soon.

Looking at my [Detection Sensor], monsters were spread around the whole area and some of them aren’t looking too well. Either they were left behind or were weakened from fleeing the wyvern’s roar. Seeing as we were moving with [Stealth] and [Presence Killer] activated, these monsters would’ve been dead if we were in a hunting mood.

Survival-wise it would be correct to do so, but I guess our whole party was just exhausted. We could sympathize with them, considering we did all participate in the same event, but it would probably only last for a day.

Tomorrow, once we reset our minds and bodies, it will be hunting season again.

As we continued onwards, I could faintly hear a monster’s cry. It was small, weak, and it sounded like it was in pain. As we moved in closer, the cries got even louder and even more desperate. It sounded like a weak animal that was very close to dying, which is nothing surprising.

However, it seems like the monster was too weak to even move out of our path, continuously yelping as it sat at the same location.

[“Should we check it out?”] I asked Saori.

She shrugged her shoulders but did say “Sure.”

As we approached the location, we noticed that the signal was behind thick vegetation. We pushed the shrubbery away, revealing to us the cause for all of this.

Hearing the wailing and desperate cry for help, my eyes noticed a small feline monster lying on the ground, covered in mud, dirt, and its own blood. The young animal’s green fur looked terribly unkempt, showing some trample marks, probably an unlucky victim that barely survived the monster stampede.

Identify.

Young Virigress

A young feline monster that possesses a fur of emerald green, only able to be found in the Belzac forest. Using their natural fur color, they can perfectly camouflage themselves atop a tree, ambushing any prey wandering under them using their venomous claws. Rank F

My eyes caught Saori shrugging her shoulders, looking a bit troubled, “Why does this scene seem so familiar?”

I had to agree. It was a young, probably newborn, monster sitting in a nest of twigs and leaves, looking helpless and mortified from locking eyes with the people that were towering it.

“First, it was a dog and now it’s a cat?” I said exasperatedly.

Welp, I just encountered my second “Abandoned Animal in a Box” trope.

A note from AbyssRaven

Honestly. Hestia stumbles at the weirdest things by living in the Belzac forest. First a wolf cub, then a fairy, now a cat?

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 47: Monster kitty adoption!

A note from AbyssRaven

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Anyways, let's get to the chapter. Please, enjoy!

Virigress' status board

Profile:

Name: *

Level: 1

Race: Young Virigress

Age: 5 Months

Status:

Health:

21/67

Mana:

4/19

Strength:

45

Intelligence:

20

Vitality:

31

Wisdom:

20

Agility:

51

Stamina:

0/68

Effects:

[Adrenaline (Moderate)] [Exhaustion (Moderate)] [Bleeding (Minor)] [Broken Leg (Left Hind Leg)]

Skill:

Magic skills and related:

[Mana Control Lv. 1]

Physical skills and related:

[Enhanced Claws Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Fangs Lv. 1]

[Toxic Claw Lv. 2]

Senses and movement skills:

[Stealth Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 2]

[Tracking Lv. 1]

[Night Vision Lv. 3]

[Presence Killer Lv. 1]

[Evasion Lv. 1]

[Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 1]

Resistances:

[Physical Resistance Lv. 1]

[Pain Resistance Lv. 2]

[Poison Resistance Lv. 3]

Others:

[Starvation Lv. 1]

At least it’s not another reincarnator, I thought.

Looking at the green feline monster, I noticed that it had features that resembled a tiger. It had no stripes and its fur was green, but its face reminded me of a tiger cub that I saw on the internet.

[“Wow, the cub is older than me,”] stated Saori.

[“I would find that hard to believe, were it not for the concrete proof that your status board is displaying, Miss Saori,”] said Tasianna, nodding.

The statement would make no sense considering how…mature Saori looked but once you remembered that she was literally reincarnated as a [Young Warg] two months ago, then it would make sense. She also jumped on the Hestia Power leveling train for the first month, so her growth has been abnormal if you compared it to this little Virigress cub here.

We both still had the “Young” prefix before our race name, but monster evolution has accelerated our body’s maturity by quite a lot.

If we were “normal” newborn monsters, then I believe we would be just like this little one here. Nobody would expect that I was only a month older.

“Hey, little one, where are your parents?” I said while raising my pitch to soothe it.

However, when I tried to pet it, the Virigress cub hissed at me with “mrrriiiiiiiehhh”, extended its claws and nearly scratched me but my [Prediction] prevented it. Despite posing literally no threat to me, my skill still dutifully fulfilled its task when the monster cat tried to harm me, although, I could have responded even without it activating.

To me, everything felt like it was in slow motion, anyways, if I didn’t drop my guard down entirely. Thankfully, it’s not snail pace slowmo.

[“Have your parents not taught you to not pet a wild cat, Hestia? Especially when the cat has venomous claws,”] Saori said in exasperation.

Scratching my cheeks, I responded with, [“He he, uh, not really. Most strays I met in the city were pretty nice, even allowing people to pet them.”]

If you brought them food, of course.

["Those cats are used to humans in their day to day life, while this one probably has never seen one yet, considering how deep we are into the forest,"] Saori reprimanded me.

Putting myself in the cub’s shoes, seeing a dragonewt trying to touch me while I’m on the brink of death would terrify me. In this current situation, my survival instincts would overrule the rational part of my mind and anything I would do would be to preserve my life. A cornered rat fights the hardest, after all.

It should have been obvious to me.

I guess being immune to all its attacks made me a bit arrogant. I should’ve considered its point of view first before doing something.

However, before I continued contemplating about it, I should heal it before it dies. Doesn't hurt to be nice once in a while.

Hmm, its left hind leg is twisted, probably a broken bone? Face and body are riddled with small cuts covered in dirt, so chances are high that the bacteria are slowly entering its body through the wounds. The status board hasn’t shown it yet, but you can guess it easily.

Well, not like I ever had those problems with [Cure] and the healing spells.

To start off, I cast [Cure] and [Purify] on the cub, intending to remove any possibility of infections and necrosis. Afterward, a simple [Minor Heal] would be enough to refill its Health.

“Mreoow?” noticing the mana particles cleansing its body and restoring its Health, the Virigress cub gave a confused cry.

The moment its attention was directed elsewhere, I gently grabbed it by the neck and pushed its head to the ground.

“Mraaaaoewwww!”

[“Princess Hestia!”] Tasianna cried out.

[“Don’t worry, I’m just checking its leg,”] I said to reassure my two surprised companions.

I made sure to tell my spell during “Invocation” to not heal the leg, in case I messed it up again like when I ruined any chances to heal my left wing’s mana paths.

The cub was screeching and hissing like it was possessed, struggling under my hand in total fear, unable to even budge my grip by even a millimeter.

It was trying to scratch my arm but [Draconic Barrier] made every attempt fruitless, even preventing the toxin in its claws to touch my skin. Well, it would have no effect anyway even if it could pierce through.

While it was in this state, I was holding and stabilizing its left leg so it wouldn’t harm it any further from all these movements.

I know a veterinarian would probably know how to handle this better, but I never owned a pet, nor have I watched a documentary about it before. All I knew was from a wildlife documentary series that I happened to enjoy watching.

When calm words won’t work then let the animal tire itself out. It had [Exhaustion (Moderate)] anyways, so it shouldn't take long. As expected, it only took thirty seconds for it to calm down.

[“Shhh, I’m sorry. I know you must be scared and stressed but I’m not here to hurt you,”] I told the cub through [Telepathy]. [“I used magic to heal your wounds and I will also heal your leg, so please allow me to help you for just a few more seconds. I promise that I will free you once you are in tip-top form, again.”]

Maybe its ‘cause I successfully persuaded it or maybe its ‘cause it had no more energy to resist, in any case, the cub looked at me in the eye for a second before glancing away, leaving its guard down completely.

A spectator would have told me to use [Telepathy] first before using brute force, but I had low confidence that it would have believed me in the current situation. If its parent did a proper job, then distrust for other monsters should have been imprinted into it once it was able to move. At least, that’s what I would have done.

I couldn’t have used the same methods as when I first met Saori. Fortunately, as she had [Telepathy], I was able to erase her fear and gain her trust early on.

However, not only can this monster not respond back but I wasn’t even sure it could understand me properly. [Telepathy] sends out information from one mind to the other, so it should have automatically translated my words into something that the virigress could understand.

That's why I resorted to dominating it. I might look back on this and cringe, but it was the best plan I could think of to gain its acceptance in a short amount of time…at least, that's what my parallel mind explained.

I might have watched too many animal docs…

Anyways, using the trust that it was reluctantly giving me, I examined its leg.

Yup, definitely broken into two pieces. Something crushed its shin, causing it to splinter.

The cub was groaning and moaning in pain but allowed me to continue, nevertheless. Unfortunately, “Invocation” needed me to go into detail and I wanted to not leave any lingering damage.

Ja, I could have paralyzed some monsters and allowed the cub to kill them for a level up, which would heal its entire skeleton, but could it do this in its weakened state? Not to mention with its low stats?

Sigh, it’s so annoying that leveling up won’t heal my wing’s mana paths.

After that complaint, I held the cub’s left hind leg with both hands and used [Major Heal] on it, using the right hind leg’s skeletal feature as a reference. I didn’t know how to confirm all the broken pieces of the shin but simply telling the System “repair the bones that I was holding my hands” seems to have done the trick.

It was still vague but specific enough to work perfectly.

[“Can you move it? Give it a try,”] I said.

It was having a hard time standing up, due to [Exhaustion], but it seems to have little problems moving it while it laid on the ground. Its eyes looked in wonder at its fully healed body.

[“That’s good to see, so where are your parents?”] I asked the cub.

“Mreooow,” it answered.

…Ok, that was a stupid question.

[“The stampede definitely separated them,”] Saori said. [“Maybe they are still in the area, but it is likely that they are gone due to all the chaos.”]

It couldn’t move. It couldn’t speak. It probably doesn’t even know where it was. Why did I even ask that question in the first place?

[“It would be very difficult to track them, I believe,”] Tasianna added, pointing at the ground. [“There are too many footprints and even with [Tracking], it would be far too hard to ascertain which belonged to the virigress’ parents.”]

[“Saori couldn’t you try and find their scent?”] I suggested to Saori, knowing her nose was the best among us.

[“I could…but in this chaos? I am not a trained police dog, Hestia. I still have not fully gotten used to my new sense of smell and discerning through hundreds of smells is impossible for me, right now,”] said Saori, shaking her head.

She was able to do it in the troll's cave, but I guess jumping from tracking four people to a triple-digit one might be asking too much.

[“Besides, do we really have the time to do this?”] she asked. [“We are currently being chased and you want to track down this cub’s parents? In this giant forest? I have nothing against detours if we are careful about them, but it would be a fool’s errand to do this actively.”]

I sighed, [“…Doesn’t that mean that we need to leave it here?”]

[“You have already done your best, Princes…Hestia. You have generously shown kindness by preventing its death. Nobody can fault you for your future actions,”] Tasianna said to reassure me.

Hmmm…oh!

Coming up with an idea, I picked the Virigress up, causing it to yelp “mreow?!”.

[“Then instead of searching for its parents, how about we just keep h…uh,”] before continuing, I lifted the cub’s tail up and looked at its private spot to determine its gender. [“Ah, it’s a him! How about we keep him and bring him along with us?”]

Hearing my request, Tasianna expressed shock, [“Wha-?! Princess Hestia, you cannot suggest keeping the monster with you! It's wild and dangerous and could possibly hurt you!"]

[“Hurt?”] I tilted my head. [“The only way he could kill me is with the power of cuteness.”]

I wrapped my arms under his forelegs and pressed him closer to my body, literally cuddling him now. He was dirty but that was no problem for my self-repairing and self-cleaning mana dress.

It’s true that the cub wasn’t the most cutest thing alive due to how fierce and wild it looked even as a cub, but a baby is still a baby.

As he was a monster and also five months old, his body was large enough to match my torso while his legs even reached down to my thighs. Watching him limply hang on my arms was simply adorable. He even turned his head around to look me in my eyes before turning back and accepting the situation that he was in.

It seems I was actually able to gain enough trust that he would allow me to treat him like this. Smiling, I petted his head with my hand.

[“See?”] I opened my mouth. [“Isn’t he the cutest? He’s even allowing me to cuddle him like this without being defiant about it.”]

[“Prin…Hestia, the cub is only allowing you to do so due to [Exhaustion]!”] Tasianna rebuked. [“Also, please stop rubbing your face on its fur! You are dirtying your delicate face!”]

Tasianna flew up to me and pushed my head away from the cub, before cleaning it with water produced by [Create Water].

[“Will you take care of him?”] Saori asked, chuckling from watching this comedic scene I was sharing with Tasianna.

[“Yup!”] I jumped up! [“I will feed him. I will wash him! I will trim his fur! I will also clean his litter box!”]

Saori stayed silent for a second, before saying, [“…Taking care of a wild monster will be more difficult than a normal pet, Hestia. Do you believe you can handle the responsibility of being a virigress owner?”]

["I can handle the responsibility. I am a grown girl now! I promise I will the most responsible dragonewt in all of dragonewt history!"] I said with pride.

[“…Sigh,”] however, it seems my answer made Saori exasperated, as she had to massage her temple. [“Why did I participate in this comedic act? I am an adult. I should not have acted so silly.”]

I giggled, [“You can never be too old for jokes, Saori! It just means that you aren’t a boring woman in your late twenties! You grew up properly!”]

[“Wha-What do you mean with ‘late twenties’!”] mentioning her age seems to have triggered her, as a red color spread across her whole face. [“Excuse you, Hestia! I was 26, that is not ‘late’. That is the prime time for women like me. And boring?! Pah, once we are in an elven village or city, then I will bring you to a bar or tavern and I will show you how 'boring' I really am.”]

[“Sooooo…can I keep him?”] I asked Saori in one of her rare unrestrained moods.

[“Yeah, keep him,”] Saori consented!

[“Miss Saori!”] Tasianna objected. [“No, we mustn’t. This is too dangerous and-and how can we be sure that we can take care of the virigress in the first place?”]

[“You do not have to worry, Miss Tasianna,”] Saori said, waving her hand. [“Hestia can do it. I can assure it. She was the one that took care of me when I was a mere newborn.”]

[“Did you hear that, Rajah? You are coming with us, if you don’t mind,”] I told Rajah, the virigress cub.

“Mreowh,” he said.

[“Oops, I did it again. Tap your left paw on my arm once, if you are against it, and twice, if you want to come,”] hoping that [Telepathy] is working properly, I asked him once again.

Rajah hesitated for a bit but after tapping his left paw twice, the elation of seeing this forced me to beam a smile.

.

“A Sea of Trees ♫

The shimmering emerald of this world ♫

The place that I found you ♫

Oh, Rajah, my love ♫

My little emerald tiger! ♫”

.

Not able to hold down my emotions, my mouth couldn’t hold back, and a song came out. It was a slight variation of my song “A Sea of Trees” that I sang during my first flight, changed to mention Rajah.

[“Hey, Hestia!”] although I wanted to continue singing, Saori blocked my mouth with her hand. [“What did I tell you about keeping quiet? The wyverns are not here anymore but that does not change the fact that we must be careful!”]

[“Oops, I apologize, Saori…My emotions went a bit crazy,”] I said apologetically.

[“It is fine. I understand,”] she released my mouth. [“Anyways, you already have a name for him? Rajah? That does not sound like an English, German, or Japanese name.”]

Of course, it isn’t. It’s a name from the movie “Aladdin”, belonging to the tiger from Princess Jasmine.

At first, I considered “Simba”, but he wasn’t very lion-like. I also had “Shere Kahn” in mind, but that guy was a dick. My little Virigress is not a bad guy. So, I gave him a name from a tiger that I knew was very likable. Who cares if “Rajah” was exotic, when my name “Hestia Atsuko” was already unique in this new world, in the first place.

[“Come on, Tasianna. Say ‘welcome’ to Rajah,”] I pushed Rajah in front of Tasianna.

[“…I welcome you to our little group, Rajah. May we serve Princess Hestia with all our body and mind,”] Tasianna said in the most formal way possible.

Rajah said “mreoow” and tried to swat Tasianna away like a fly.

[“…Dear Goddesses, Zephira and Plesia, please grant me the strength to endure all of this for my dear Princess Hestia Atsuko,”] Tasianna began praying after dodging all of Rajah’s slow swipes.

Nervously laughing, I apologized to her for Rajah’s behavior, [“He he, I promise I will make it up for you, Tasianna. I will make sure to discipline Rajah properly.”]

Saying that I looked at Rajah while having [Noble Aura] activated, [“Rajah, that was Tasianna, my friend. She is not an enemy and if you annoy her then she will freeze you into a popsicle. If you don’t listen to me then I will actually have to discipline you…ok?”]

Acquisition requirement fulfilled.   [Terror Aura Lv. 1] acquired

Oi, was zur Hölle?! (Oi, what the hell?!)

Rajah called out “mreoooorah” in panic and started shaking in my arms as sparks began flying around me. Did I unconsciously activate [Spark Flame Veil]?

[“…Well, let us forget about it for the meantime,”] Saori came in to diffuse the situation like she always would. [“We still have some plans until night comes, so let us be off.”]

As Tasianna and Saori went forward, I turned Rajah around and had him face me, [“I kinda skipped the process, but I think I should do it properly.”]

Remembering how Saori named me, I imitated her words, [“From today onwards you shall be ‘Rajah’. Let’s have as much fun as we can possibly have, alright, Rajah?”]

“Mreow,” he cried.

[Young Virigress *] was given the name [Young Virigress, Rajah] by [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hesta Atsuko]

A note from AbyssRaven

Oh, and the reason why she got [Terror Aura] is because it was about time. This isn't the only time that she acted scary or intimidating.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr!

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 48: This must be Revenge!

A note from AbyssRaven

Don't go without this : Rawr

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Dancing Lv. 4] [Royal Etiquette Lv. 3] gained

Ahhh, a dance without music is a true tragedy, only with music can it elevate itself to its divine status.

“Keep with the beat. Come on, a bit faster, Lady Saori,” I said.

“Lady He-Hestia, your movements are…too fast. It is h-hard to follow,” Saori said stuttering, due to her split concentration.

“What are you talking about? I’m simply following the beat. One, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three,” I said nonchalantly.

Although I was confident that I was counting the rhythm correctly, I still decided to ask my parallel minds, who were using [Aerokinesis] to play a fitting composition for this dance, if they accidentally increased the rhythm.

‘Hmph, don’t underestimate us, Original mind. We’ve been using this skill to imitate guitars, drums, violins, and many other instruments to perform our pop songs, correctly. One piece of music is easy enough,’ parallel mind #2 boasted.

Well, I would insult my own education if I couldn’t remember ‘An der schönen blauen Donau’, or better known as ‘On the Beautiful Blue Danube’. Then again, playing it on a piano is vastly different compared to imitating a whole orchestra version.

After checking, I continued speaking, “Besides, how can you complain when we haven’t started with the more refined movements, yet. I taught you the basic footwork and that is all we’re doing, except it’s with the guidance of music now.”

“I-I see,” Saori said hesitantly. “But is this not too fast for my first try?”

Saori's endless complaints during these practices have become a norm between us now. Funnily enough, it was her that asked me to teach her how to dance properly and she's now the one that is complaining.

It was currently the night on the day of the stampede. After I adopted Rajah, my little virigress kitty, our party continued following the monster tracks left behind from the fleeing animals, due to the wyverns’ loud roars.

Maybe it’s ‘cause winter is coming, but the daylight has grown less and less on each day and today wasn’t an exception to this. I had no clock to confirm it, but I was sure that the sky was turning orange much sooner than last month.

Also due to the number of trees blocking the light, it got darker much faster in the Belzac forest, so we had to prepare for camp before the sun even disappeared.

Once Tasianna and Saori confirmed our location from above the trees, as I shouldn’t do it in case the wyverns were scouring the skies, I immediately wanted to continue Saori’s dancing practice.

Since the troll encounter, there hasn’t been any time for us to resume it as there were more important tasks, for example, Tasianna’s power leveling and Saori’s magic training. There were also our daily language lectures from Tasianna, which we couldn’t afford to skip.

Learning a language is essential to surviving in our next foray, living in civilization. If knowing how to fight monsters, find food, and taking care of your health are the fundamental skills to survive in the wildness, then learning the lingua franca, the Common tongue, will be vital to blend into society.

We could use [Telepathy] but, honestly, nein. Heck, imagine an elf asking me or Saori why we couldn’t speak and we have to form some kinda embarrassing excuse to cover that fact up. Urgh, instead of doing something that stupid, why not put the effort into it and just learn it beforehand.

So, as nobody had any further plans besides our usual ones, cooking and practicing the Common tongue, I thought it was the perfect time for Saori to resume dancing.

It also was convenient that Rajah seems to have found it entertaining to chase and swat my swinging tail. I don’t think it looks anything alike but he’s playing with it just like a cat would play with those feather wand toys.

I was happy that he was even more active when my dancing is helping my tail swing even wilder. I'm just glad that he isn't being scared around us, seeing as his family is missing.

“What we did before was just learning the moves and how you should interact with your dancing partner,” I explained to Saori. “Yes, we could’ve practiced with something slower than a Johann Strauss Jr. composition, but once you get used to it, you can handle anything. It’s all about the foundation when it comes to dancing.”

“Johann Strauss Jr.?” Saori asked.

“An Austrian composer born in the 19th century,” I informed Saori, to help her lacking musical education. “You are a history teacher, but I find it very odd that you barely have any knowledge of the great composers of Germany and Austria. It is a tragedy, my dear wolfkin friend!”

“…Why Germany and Austria exactly? Although, I personally would not be able to tell you of any Japanese musicians who had no impact on history,” Saori said, averting her eyes.

“Obviously, ‘cause they are the best,” I said with pride for my former life’s German heritage. “At least, that’s what my dad always said. He does acknowledge musicians from other countries but when it comes to the best of the best, you won’t be able to persuade him otherwise. Not even my mom could do it.”

“…I see you inherited your stubbornness from him,” Saori said with a wry smile.

“What do you mean with stubborn? I’m simply stating an obvious fact, that it would do you good to know about people like Bach or Beethoven,” I rebuked with puffed cheeks. “Well…it would have.”

“Music is culture, I guess. Dancing really isn’t my forte,” Saori said with a sigh.

We haven't practice that often, but, indeed, Saori hasn't gotten the skill [Dancing] yet, despite how easy it was for me to do it. She practiced the footwork necessary for ballroom dancing and also the etiquette that came with it, resulting in her getting [Royal Etiquette] from our little “nobility” roleplay, saying crap like “Lady Saori”, “Lady Hestia”, “Ohohoho!”.

I thought she hasn’t gotten [Dancing] ‘cause all we did until now was simple practice, but it seems even the real deal was not enough for her to gain the skill. It also doesn’t help that she’s doing, uhh…okish? Not only was she going either too slow or too fast, she sometimes even stepped on my feet.

“I know you are more experienced but considering our size difference, should I not lead you?” Saori questioned.

Truthfully, Saori should be the one to lead the dance as she was the taller one between us two. Measuring our height, we got to learn that Saori was 169 cm (5’5 feet) and I was currently 150 cm (4’9), so she towered me by quite a lot.

Any of the more graceful movements would look awkward when we were to perform them, but thankfully that was not needed here.

“Der Walzer, or the Waltz, depends on the two partners knowing how to lead and follow properly. If either of them is desynced, then everything will fall apart,” I said. “If a gentleman would ask you for a dance, then he will lead, and you will follow. That was the common sense on Earth. I will have you practice both so you will understand it better and are prepared to adapt to the culture of this world’s dancing etiquette.”

I asked Tasianna about it, but it seems fairies do not indulge in this sorta dancing. They were more the party hard and dance harder types. I bet they would love techno music and would go out clubbing every single night if they existed in Peolynca.

“Anyways, don’t forget to smile and make eye contact, ok?” I scolded Saori for her frowning expression. “You will have to look at your partner’s face all the time, so you can’t let it slip for a second. The emotions you feel will be shared with your partner as you both stare into each other’s eyes, your souls filling up with these feelings as you are guided into wonderland by the beat of the music. Ahhh, dancing is when a person’s truest essence shine.”

“How poetic,” Saori giggled. “Is this how I look when I lecture my classes? The sparkling in your eyes is a sight to behold.”

“Well, I believe we have danced enough, yes? Let us end this properly, Lady Saori,” I said courteously.

Following my movements, Saori obliged with a smile, “As you will, Lady Hestia.”

We have been practicing for a while now and seeing how Rajah’s, my little green tiger cub, energy was waning, I think it was prime time for things to finish.

With a simple command, my parallel minds began playing the coda for the musical composition “On the Beautiful Blue Danube”, the ending passage.

.

“Don’t we look just nice? Tada tada. ♫

Dancing in moonlight, tada tada ♫

.

I wish this would last, tada tada ♫

Till morning comes at last, tada tada ♫

.

Let the music sound on, tada tada ♫

Must we stop it here? Tada tada ♫

.

But our time is short, and wasn’t it all fun? ♫

All things fun must have an end ♫

.

Let us continue our dance another time! ♫”

.

Fluttering our blue dresses around, I made sure that Saori was able to perfect this sweet sight for any onlooker, assisting in her movements, and after a pirouette and curtsey, our dance session has ended. As my singing and the music ended, I also dispelled the [Air Shield] surrounding the whole area. I was using it to block sounds from escaping but it also, consequently, prevented new air from coming in, meaning that we would suffocate if it stayed active.

“Moonlight? It is dark but the moon is nowhere close to the sky yet, Hestia,” as our dancing practiced ended, so did our noble lady roleplay.

“Ah, give me a break, Saori. No need to be pedantic about it,” I responded, also dropping most of my formal speech. “Argh, speaking like that makes me feel so stiff.”

[“Amazing!”] said Tasianna, clapping from the side. [“After that magnificent performance, you must be thirsty, correct? Lady Hestia and Miss Saori?”]

My nose finally caught the sweet fragrance of freshly brewed tea coming from the stone teapot…that I made! He he, and if I may, I would say that it might be one of my proudest creations yet. [Woodworking] unfortunately didn’t help me produce a more quality product but the amount of effort that I put into it, is incomparable to my wooden dishware and utensils.

Anyways, the teapot was sitting over a flame on a stone plate, steaming the calming aroma of the herbal beverage. Even though the teapot was larger in mass than Tasianna, she still did a good job of making tea with it.

Well, she only needed to put in water and the tea leaves…uh, that’s all I know about tea making. Her tea always tasted wonderful even without a corresponding skill, so she must have some technique that isn’t shown on her status board.

Taking out our cups from our respective space storage, I and Saori thanked Tasianna for the tea preparation. Saori began pouring into mine, then into Tasianna’s super small teacup, and finally into hers.

[“Hmm, I believe I should buy [Elvenize] soon. It feels…unsatisfying when I cannot serve my own tea,”] Tasianna said with a frown.

I think she mentioned that she also had access to [Humanize] but obviously she wouldn’t want that. Honestly, I’m a bit annoyed that I missed the chance to become an elf, like OMG, that would have been cool.

[“You could but please don’t do the same mistake and upgrade the skill like Saori,”] I told Tasianna.

[“How rude,”] Saori interjected. [“Who knows how long it would have taken me to reach [Humanize Lv. 6]. I much prefer having a body that can speak and that also has less body hair. I cannot wait for [Humanize Lv. 10] so I may shed all this fur from my body.”]

It seems Saori is a bit insecure about her current appearance. I personally like my dragonewt form so I can’t relate to it. My scales made me look cool and cute at the same time while only halving my stats with [Humanized (Moderate)], so besides blending into human society, I think I prefer to stick with this form.

I really have gotten used to my new body, huh? Saori will share my opinion eventually.

Producing two bowls from my storage this time, I poured some rainwater into one and put some raw meat into the other. I didn’t know what the diet of the virigress had been until now, so sticking with natural stuff should be alright. Especially when the meat is from a boar.

[“Rajah, we will hunt for our food tomorrow, ok? Do you know how to stalk and hunt? Nod if you can,”] I said, while also showing him how to nod through our telepathic link.

Once he nodded, seemingly understanding me, I gave him his bowls and said: "enjoy". His drooling mouth ravaged through his meal as if he hadn't had a meal in days. Crunching bones, chewing the meat, and slurping the water would disgust some people but I just looked at it with affection.

I was really worried that he would be too anxious to do anything among us. I mean, I literally abducted him away, without trying to find his parents. I know Saori was right, but it still doesn’t change the fact that Rajah might feel pressured from this whole situation.

Thankfully, he warmed up to me quite fast. I guess healing him and showing that I wasn’t a threat to him if he behaved did the trick. His [Exhaustion] made him fall asleep, napping long enough for him to reduce its effect to (minor).

Unfortunately, he isn't very friendly with Saori and Tasianna. Rajah was scared, terrified when Saori wanted to pet him and give him food. If I wasn't close to him, then the mere presence of Saori was enough to send a shiver down his spine. Did he notice that Saori had [Terror Aura] and [Bloodlust]? Well, in any case, Saori looked disappointed that our kitty rejected her.

Tasianna, on the other hand, seems to dislike Rajah for some reason. Was it 'cause he treating her like a fly when they first met? He also doesn’t like to interact with Tasianna due to me warning him about her ice magic. It’s not looking well for our group dynamic.

Also, something interesting happened, or more like, what didn’t happen. Compared to my other two companions, Rajah didn’t receive the title [Hestia’s Retainer] and subsequently had no access to the SP System.

I had no idea why that was until Saori reminded me that she and Tasianna both pledged their friendship to me, or allegiance, whatever you want to call it. I tried telling Rajah to do the same thing, but he couldn’t speak and all his meowing and mreowing didn’t count.

It's sad but it can't be helped. I just have to train him in the old fashion way!

Through monster evolution!

[“You look excited, Hestia. Have you thought of another weird idea?”] Saori asked.

[“Nah, I’m thinking of putting Rajah on the Hestia power leveling train tomorrow,”] I answered.

["Oh, but he doesn't have a party bracelet, though. We can't share the experience with him,"] Tasianna dropped a major bomb.

I completely forgot about that fact!

It’s only been a little over a week, but I’ve already gotten accustomed to the experience sharing function of the party bracelets. It just feels natural, you know. Like it should have been there all along.

[“That is no problem, though,”] reassured Saori. ["We had to live without the experience sharing function in the two months that we traveled together, Hestia. How were you able to power level me?"]

[“Right, I gave you all the kills,”] I said. [“I paralyzed them with my toxins and let you get the last hit on them. That changed when we started the Idol concert strategy, though.”]

[“Correct, so do not worry yourself over it,”] Saori said. [“Anyways, you are done with the tea, correct?”]

Looking at the now-empty teapot, I nodded. At that moment, Saori's red eyes shined brightly before she grabbed me by the hand and pulled me up. With a simple movement of her fingers, blue strings of mana started growing out of her claws, growing long enough that it was able to wrap itself around my waist.

“Wah?! Saori?!” I cried out in surprise.

[“You know, your dancing lesson has just reminded me that we have not done this in a while, also. Measuring and making your underwear and dress was boring, especially as I had to rush them,”] Saori said with a scheming smirk.

Before I could respond to her words, Saori took off my dress. In my embarrassment, I wasn’t able to stop her from taking my measurements again.

[“Annoying, I know it has only been a week, but you have barely grown in any department. However, I can still tailor one in your current size and then make another one when you grow up. It might be tedious, but I can adapt its design with your developing body. Yes, that is perfect,”] Saori said quickly.

Regaining some of my senses, I wanted to say, [“H-Hey, Saori, wait a moment, I’m not…”]

But I was interrupted when Tasianna suddenly materialized a [Frozen Shield] in front of me. Then, Saori took out a book from her storage and placed it on the shield.

Once she turned the book to a certain page, Tasianna said, [“I believe it would be wise to resume our studies, Lady Hestia. There is still much that you will need to learn.”]

Tasianna was talking about language practices. She wanted me and Saori to continue learning the language, Common tongue.

[“Wait Tasianna, Saori is currently…”]

“Li foup karnli,” (I can learn,) Saori responded in Common tongue.

“Hujkunti! Hujkunti, Cintriily Hestia. Plearsiz, git’kustul karnlus,” (Wonderful! Wonderful, Princess Hestia! Please, let us learn together,) Tasianna joyfully praised Saori while pressuring me to accept.

[“Wait, wait, I-I’m naked here and exposed! We can’t just con…,”] once again, I was interrupted!

[“Construct an earthen wall if you have to. You only need your tail to cast the spell, anyways,”] Saori mercilessly shot down my argument. [“Your fashion education is important, but what did you say to me, again? An Idol only needs a stylist to choose a fitting outfit and here I am, offering my talent to turn you into the shiniest star ever.”]

Stop using my own words to counter me!

[“Lady Hestia, I have decided to stop using ‘Princess’ to address you, so I believe I have done like you wished?”] Tasianna said with a bright smile, trying to hide her deviousness. [“You also requested to learn Common tongue as soon as possible so you may finalize your custom spell ‘Imperial Hellfire’, correct? You must learn our language to finish the magical runes.”]

Verdammte Scheiße, why is everybody using my own words against me!

“Mreow,” Rajah cried.

Et tu, Rajah?!

Well, I can’t understand what he said but he’s probably using one of my own words! My fake paranoia can smell it from here!

However, I was having none of that. Using my last argument, I shall persuade them to give me some time to think about this overwhelming situation.

[“Wait, you guys! You are scaring Rajah and…,”] however, I was not able to end my sentence…

Turning around, I saw Rajah chasing after my erratic tail movements. It seems having dinner was enough for him to regain most of his energy back, quickly returning to acting like a tiger cub, playing around and leaving me to fend for myself.

Betrayal!

And so, my afternoon was spent being made into a dress-up doll for Saori's numerous amounts of prototypes and Tasianna's intense lecture on how to speak Common tongue. It only ended when my stomach started to growl, and they decided that they have done enough for the day and that it was time for dinner.

Confratu het kol bunma…jis…(Thanks the for food…yes…)

A note from AbyssRaven

That last part is correctly written. Hestia's mastery isn't perfect yet so she said that sentence with a wrong syntax.

The song for today would be"The Blue Danube - The River of Light" from Faryl Smith: Rawr

Of course, the composition itself was composed by Johann Strauss Jr., but the lyrics belong to Faryl Smith.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr!

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Side Story 8: The church’s magic is amazing!

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #1 here to remind everybody about our Patreon, here is the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 10 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until May!

“Do you think you guys will be ok?” a person asked me in a girlish voice.

Walking, I, Tatsuya Nagata, looked over at the person who said that and reassured her, “Yeah, that slimy Mikami will listen to Kyouya…probably, and I think Sir Elrick will have it controlled, despite Hanazawa’s reluctance.”

“Urgh, that girl is still acting like an idiot? Even after four months?!” the girl, Aiko Hasebe said in an annoyed tone.

Well, it’s not like I can’t understand her, I said internally. Even if it has been four months, it still doesn’t change the fact that these people have kidnapped us into their world, Peolynca. Being homesick is normal and maybe Hanazawa is dealing with this whole situation by being her bitchy self, arguing against anybody and everybody whenever she can.

On the other hand, Aiko seems to be a bit too comfortable around here, but I guess that happens when the whole clergy is worshipping and treating her like royalty, or like the saint candidate that she is.

Of course, I had enough tact to not say this to her face. She can take a joke but being this blunt will insult anybody. Safer to stay silent.

"Yeah, don't worry Aiko-san. I made a promise, so I won't let anything happen to Sakamoto-san," Kyouya, my best friend, said with a smile and thumbs up.

Hearing that, I turned my gaze at the person walking beside Aiko; Sakamoto-san was pouting with a deep frown, "Ishigami-san, I'm here if you haven't noticed. I'm not the best, I know, but you don't have to treat me like a kid."

"Huh?! Wha-Wait, that's not what I meant…!" Kyouya tried to apologize but was shushed by Aiko.

Combat-wise, Sakamoto wasn’t very strong compared to Kyouya or me. I won’t say that I mastered the spear yet, but I did receive formal training from the Church of Aurena’s knight's Order, and looking at Elrick's status board, I believe that if I kept it up I can become just as a strong, or even more according to Elrick.

Sakamoto-san, on the other hand, didn't have a very athletic physique, to begin with. She merely maintained a healthy body and had a decent amount of stamina for somebody who jogged occasionally and ate healthily.

Honestly, I was also pretty scrawny when I was teleported to this world and my Stamina stat was lower than the majority of the class for that reason. Before I intensively trained in my goal to get those coffee leaves, I was just another lanky guy, so it feels pretty good that I was able to build up some muscles now.

Sakamoto's Status Board

Profile:

Name: Haruka Sakamoto

Level: 0

Race: Human

Age: 16 Years

Job: Archers

Status:

Health:

257/257

Mana:

146/146

Strength:

88

Intelligence:

149

Vitality:

54

Wisdom:

59

Agility:

183

Stamina:

234/234

Effects:

None

Skill Points:

0

Unique Skill:

[Foxian Slyness Lv. 1]

Skill:

Magic skill and related

[Arcane Mind Lv. 1]

[Mana Control Lv. 1]

Physical skill and related

[Archery Technique Lv. 2]

[Archery Mastery Lv. 1]

[Mana Strike Lv. 1]

[Piercing Enhancement Lv. 1]

Sense and movement skills

[Stealth Lv. 3]

[Accuracy Correction Lv. 2]

[Probability Correction Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 2]

[Presence Killer Lv. 2]

Resistances

[Pain Resistance Lv. 1]

Stat growths and realted

[Stamina Recovery Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Agility Capacity Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Stamina Capacity Lv. 1]

Others

[Singing Lv. 1]

[Dancing Lv. 2]

[Trap Creation Lv. 1]

[Identify Lv. 1]

[Identify Blocker Lv. 3]

[High-Speed Calculation Lv. 1]

[Thought Acceleration Lv. 1]

[Royal Etiquette Lv. 1]

Ability List:

Achery abilities

[Piercing Arrow]

[Curved Pursuer]

Titles:

[Otherworldly Visitor]

Admittedly, she was more fit during the first month of our stay here, but I’ve made a ton of progress, haven’t I? Well, I guess I should thank the “System” of this world for allowing Jobs to help you train. I might have my complaints about this world, but this System is so game-like that I feel like I’m inside an RPG game.

And we are about to do what every RPG player would wish the most; killing monsters and leveling up! Aha, I can’t wait to finally use those stat growth skills to their fullest potential. Without leveling they won’t have an effect so watching the number go up will be awesome.

“You seem to be excited Tatsuya…,” said Kyouya.

“Aren’t you? It’s time to grind, bro!” I responded.

Kyouya shrugged his shoulder but he couldn't hide his twitching mouth, slowly forming a smile. He might not have played as much as I did but once a gamer, always a gamer. We saw our stats two days ago and we've been training like madmen these past days, always trying to one-up each other, and now was our chance to do it on the field of battle!

“…I know exactly what you two are thinking about. I also know that I should chide you guys but…,” Aiko tried to hide her reddening face with a hand, but I was tall enough to see it. “…I also like watching the level of my [Holy Magic] go up. I wonder if I could ask the church to show me some of this world’s clothing. That would be a wonderful reward.”

While I and Kyouya were motivated by self-improvement and our rivalry, it seems like Aiko was willing to go train solely to stay in the favor of the church. It seems her [Holy Magic] stayed at level 3 for a whole month until it was improved when she changed her Job to [Cleric].

I heard from Kyouya the church was still quite pleased that she made this much progress in four months, while others would need years of training to equal her growth.

She seems to disagree for some reason, wanting to accelerate her leveling as much as possible.

I wonder why she’s in such a rush to level up, but then I thought, Wait, normal people actually need years to level that shit up to level 4?! Couldn’t they just abuse the Job change System?

Yeah, I don’t have the patience to learn something for that long. Compared to the gifted magicians like Aiko, Mikami, and, surprisingly, Hanazawa, it seems a plebian like me will have to be content with learning magic through the SP system.

Oh god, how could I forget that fact?! Once I level up, I can get some Skill Points to spend on skills! Ha ha, this will be great!

"My Lady, Saintess Aiko, if you wish I could bid my family to send a few of my dresses and casual clothing upon your request. They will be delighted to do so, absolutely," a woman in a white-robe spoke to Aiko from behind our group.

“Thyra, I couldn’t possibly ask your family to do something like that. I have no money to my name and the cost for the transportation must be too much,” Aiko responded to the woman while wavering her hand to reject the request.

“Nonsense, my Lady,” however, the woman quickly shot down her worries. “I would commit a great sin on House Morgiana if I couldn’t help a Champion of one of our Gods. Also, the country that I origin from, the Kingdom of Artorias, train Hippogryphs as mounts and my family does own a few personally. They will have no problem with the delivery, so allow me to aid you one last time.”

This purple-haired woman was called Thyra Nimue Morgiana and she is the self-appointed lady-in-waiting for Aiko while she is here in the church. From what I heard, she seems to only be a temporary member of the Church of Aurena, here in the holy capital Aureolis.

Aiko told me that she was an extremely gifted magician, a magical prodigy coming from a noble house focused on the arcane arts.

“…I see,” Aiko stood still, forcing everybody else to also stop. “You will be leaving the church soon, correct?”

“Yes, most likely I will not be there to greet you when you come back from the dungeon,” Thyra said with a wry smile. “My two-year stay has benefitted me quite a lot, but I am at the age of marriage and my family is requesting me to come back to take on my role as a member of House Morgiana.”

“Then…then how could I not accept your assistance,” Aiko said with teary eyes. “Thank you, these four months have been amazing just because of your help, Thyra.”

“Oh my, Saintess Aiko, we still have plenty of time left and you can always visit me when you arrive in the Kingdom of Artorias. It is to the west and borders the elven kingdom, so your duties as a hero will demand you to visit my country,” Thyra said to reassure Aiko. “Also, don’t be too worried about your progress, alright? It took me over a year to obtain [Holy Magic Lv. 4]. I’m quite envious of your progress.”

A year?! Yeah, forget about learning it at this point. If a magical prodigy like her needs this long, then I should just forget about it.

After their little talks, our group resumed walking. In no time, we reached the rendezvous spot where our whole class would meet with the knight's order and some of the big-shot priests.

Looking at the area, it was filled with clergymen and knights. While the knights stood in a row, guarding our path like a red carpet, the grey-robed priest congregation stood behind them and prayed.

As we approached the scene, a white-robed priest greeted us, “Welcome, our Goddess’ Heroes. My name is Michalis Astolfus and I shall guide you to your positions.”

Looking at the man, it was clear that he was someone from a noble house. His robe’s design was typical of a noble-born clergyman, filled with adornments and golden embroidery while an emblem, probably his house’s insignia, sat cleanly in the middle of his chest.

He could be called pudgy. His robe was trying to hide his protruding stomach but without a mask, most people will be able to see it from his chubby face.

Otherwise, he looks very classy. He looked close to his late thirties, had styled orange hair and a well-kempt mustache.

He first gave us guys a look and then directed his gaze to the two girls, where his eyes suddenly widened before striking a praying pose, “Oh, Saintess Aiko! My apologies for my lack of formality! I hope you and your companions have had a blessed day of the God of Fire, Danterno!”

Aiko then curtseyed, “Blessing to you from the Goddess of Light, Aurena. May today’s flames fuel your body with heavenly power and vigor as a servant of the gods.”

“May the light of our goddess be with you, Bishop Michalis,” Thyra also curtseyed but gave a different greeting.

Michalis smiled friendly and reciprocated his own greeting, before leading us all to the center of everything. Once we were there, I was able to see that the rest of our classmates have already settled in their individual groups.

Our own group was then split at this point. Aiko went to her own party, which was standing in the middle, while I, Kyouya, and Sakamoto-san went to our own. Thyra and Michalis both joined with the congregation of white-robed priests and shrine maidens standing before a platform, where a large man in shining white armor and an old man in an extremely gaudy robe were standing on.

As we three joined our party, the “Misfits”, we were greeted by the obnoxious slime Mikami, “Yo, you guys are always the last ones. Even Hanazawa got here early. You guys are making our party look terrible.”

“Tch, you want to start something this early on, Mikami?” I said with scorn.

“Ha, always the first to start a fight, Nagata,” Mikami said with contempt. “You’re the reason for holding back Ishigami-kun from reaching his true potential! I heard you forced him to train your sorry ass, again.”

Hearing him insult me like that made my head burst in fire, so I shouted “What the hell are you talking about, you fuck? We were training seriously and he’s benefitting a lot more from training with me than whatever the hell you’re planning to do with him. You want to duel me you bastard?!”

Kyouya tried to stop me from escalating it any further, but my hand was already readying my spear due to anger. I wasn’t planning to hit Mikami with it, but I sure could at this distance, especially when Mikami as a mage won’t have the time to cast his spells in time.

Doesn’t this idiot recognize that a [Spearman] like me could one-shot him if he’s stupid enough to provoke me into a fight? Somebody should teach him a lesson, so he doesn’t endanger himself once we leave the church.

“You two, please, that is enough,” before we could continue this quarrel, a knight came over to stop us. “You are disturbing everybody with your outrage. This is an important day so please settle down.”

The knight that called us out was Elrick von Karstein, our party instructor, and Hanazawa’s knight attendant.

Hearing this from him, I and Mikami looked around and saw that some of the grey-robed priests' gaze was directed at us. Their silent chattering would normally not be heard by us from this distance but the combined gossiping of all these people quickly built up, growing loud enough that it was understandable with my [Enhanced Auditory Sense].

Reluctantly, I also turned my head to my classmates. Expectantly, some of them were clearly embarrassed for us while others just mocked us with laughter.

Aiko was one of the former. She closed her eyes and shook her head while letting out a sigh, exasperated that I fucked up on this important day.

As he was the leader of her party, I could also see that moron Akanishi trying to suppress a laugh, probably ridiculing me from being in the same party with Mikami of all people.

Hanazawa, on the other hand, laughed at the scene, probably as it was more interesting to her than the speech that we were about to get.

Sakamoto-san’s was covering her face in embarrassment, reddened to the point that she looked like a tomato. I wasn't sure if she was ashamed of my outburst or if she didn't like that all the eyes were looking at our party, she is a shy girl after all.

Kyouya smacked me in the back, visibly looking annoyed as his eyes told me, “What the hell are you doing, idiot?!”.

We knew that the reputation of our party was quite low due to Hanazawa’s brash and unsaintly personality, while Mikami was known to cause a lot of fire accidents due to his training. The church wasn’t looking at us very favorable, but they still had hope due to Kyouya and Hanazawa’s awakening into a real saint.

If Elrick and the two other party members, me and Sakamoto-san, could show decent results then they would have no problems with us. However, it was very likely that I just further stomped it into the ground.

No idea what they will do with us if we plunged our reputation to the abyss, but I really don’t want to know about it…especially after the warning that I got from Elrick.

…Still, while nearly everybody was looking at us, the only person that didn't was the party leader of another party. The guy standing in front of his laughing posse, whose hair suddenly turned white a month ago on Earth, who still wore a set of glasses.

The guy that I saw as more of an asshole than Mikami or Akanishi. The bastard with the father that nearly ruined my mother’s life and her coffee shop.

That piece of shit, “Daisy” Akabane.

At this point, it was hard to remember his real first name, but I couldn’t care less. I will keep calling him “Daisy” just so I wouldn’t forget the shit that he tried to do to my family.

“Ahem, please let us all settle down. This is a great day, after all,” like it was all choreographed, all the priests and knights stopped talking.

Noticing this, everybody in our class forgot about my feud with Mikami and turned their gazes towards the man that said those words.

Standing on the platform, the man in the gaudy robe continued, "Let us please forgive our Heroes for their temperament. They are destined for a truly great task that nobody could possibly be ready and worthy of. It is understandable that some are uneasy."

He was the pope, or some sort of leader, for the Church of Aurena and also the one that greeted us when we were transported here. I didn’t catch his name, but I guess calling him the Pope is good enough.

“Now that quiet has finally returned to us, I shall now order the begin of this ceremony,” the Pope said, directing his eyes at the congregation standing beneath him.

At that moment, all the white-robed priests and shrine maiden simultaneously began chanting a spell. Looking back to the mass of grey-robed priests, I could see white particles escaping from their body which flew towards the magic circle that was materializing in front of the chanting mass of white-robes.

As time went by, the synchronized chanting began sounding like a choir. It wasn't my imagination that all of them have started singing as they continued reciting the cast for whatever spell they were trying to activate.

I never was in a Christian church or even participated in a choir session but this one felt soothing. As if their voices entered my soul and cleansed it from all the anger that it had for Mikami just a few seconds ago. I felt…released.

At the climax of this spell, the magical circle began to float upwards into the sky, before growing in size, rotating around once it reached a certain height.

As the voices of the white-robed reached their peak, multiple grey-robed shrine maidens handed each of them a white marbled staff.

Once they were done, the white-robed stopped singing and raised their staffs up higher, offering more white particles to the giant white magical circle floating above us, large enough to fill this giant religious gathering.

With the preparation done, the Pope stood in front of the stage to finish the ritual, “Oh Goddess of Light, Aurena. I bid you, hear our prayers of gratitude and ardent worship so it may empower you ever more in your duties of overseeing us. I beg of you to hear us and grant upon us your blessing of light, Prayer!”

With the cast done, the magical circle activated, and a warm, bright light started to envelop everybody under it.

[Blessing of the Goddess of Light (Moderate)] inflicted on [Human, Tatsuya Nagata]

Blessing of the Goddess of Light

A magical blessing granted by the spell   [Prayer]. Using the combined prayers of the follower of Aurena, the Goddess of Light, this status effects alleviate any status ailments inflicted on everybody involved, if possible. Also empowers Health, Mana, and Stamina regeneration. Increases Strength, Intelligence, Vitality, and Wisdom by 10%/30%/60%/100% depending on the strength of the blessing. The strength of this blessing depends on how many prayers are given during the cast time of the spell [Prayer]

If the choir was soothing for my soul, then this was enough to fully invigorate it. All the fatigue I gained from these past four months was washed away, seemingly as if they were never there in the first place.

Strength was filling my body and a certain amount of newfound courage erupted from the space that was left behind from all my negative emotions. At this point, I believe I could conquer anything I wished and that nothing could stop me.

Holy shit, 30% increase of my stats and it’s an AOE, too? Of course, the Church always has the most broken buffing spells.

“This is a blessing from our beloved Aurena. Our heavenly mother sitting in her divine realm above us, as she continues watching over our short lives,” the Pope said zealously. “What a great day for us all to gather around Aurena’s chosen heroes, as we send them off for their first mission.”

Cheering, loud enough to drown any other sounds, and clapping, numerous enough to send shockwaves, exploded from the sides and behind us, as all the grey-robed priests and shrine maidens celebrating from being granted this spell’s effect.

“Now, now my fellow brothers and sisters, we the church have given our respect to our Heroes, so we would like to ask for our two Saint Candidates, pure maidens that have been chosen by our goddess herself, to honor us with some of their words,” the Pope announced, holding his hands outstretched in front of him like some preacher.

Both Aiko and Hanazawa were then given staffs by two grey-robed shrine maidens. I could hear them mumble, “These are manatech rods that amplify your voices, oh graceful Saintesses.”

I’ve noticed this for a while now but although both of them still had [Saint Candidate] and, officially, there weren’t any saint or saintess yet, yet everybody is treating them like one at this point.

Wanting to take a better look at the rod-like manatech, I direct my identify ring at it and silently called out “identify”.

Voice Amplification Rod

A manatech that uses a mana battery to continuously activate a magical rune inside it that creates wind. By activating the object, the user may have their voice amplified depending on how loud they want it to be

In other words, it’s a microphone.

Aiko graciously accepted it and then went towards the platform. Hanazawa wanted to decline but it seems Elrick who was standing beside her, accepted it in her place, giving her no room to say anything. She dejectedly walked on the platform with Aiko, giving Elrick a sour look.

The first to speak was Aiko, who did it energetically, “Thank you so very much for everybody’s efforts today. Your prayer was wonderful, and it evoked my desire to rise up to your expectations for me as a saint candidate.”

Multiple priests and shrine maidens, both grey and white-robed, cheered at her natural charisma. Being the daughter of a family with a prestigious legacy as hers would mean that she must have had some speaking lessons.

Despite her Idol-like personality, she is quite a studious person. I don't know what her true ambition is or what is driving her, but it can't be disputed that she works hard for the things she wants.

Aiko continued once the cheering settled, “Although, I am still so very inexperienced, I received the merciful opportunity from the Goddess of Light, Aurena, to become somebody that can save everybody. In my time in Peolynca, I will do my best to fulfill my role as both a saint candidate and hero to aid you in this dire time. Please, I will require your support to change this world!”

Just like how she gave a perfect greeting, showing-off the things she learned from the church to the bishop Michalis, she now just said the perfect words to rouse the whole congregation of clergymen and women.

Even some knights dropped their guard and participated in the cheering. They had those crusader-like bucket helmets on that blocked their faces, but I can imagine them silently weeping from hearing Aiko’s speech.

As Aiko finished, everybody’s gazes turned to Hanazawa, who flinched back from the overwhelming expectations directed at her. This girl never did well under pressure and absolutely hated it when she was given even some bit, outright denying to do it.

Aiko’s effort to create such a large excited crowd was now backfiring at Hanazawa, the expectations for her were now at an all-time high.

Looking at Hanazawa struggling to get a word out of her voice, fidgeting on stage; it was pitiful to look at. I don’t like her at all, honestly, I found her a waste of oxygen, but even I can feel some sympathy when the supposed delinquent looks like a scared cat, right now.

“I-I…I als-also am-m,” Hanazawa was shivering like crazy, desperately trying her best to form the words she wanted to say.

I could also hear Elrick mumbling, “Come now, Asaka. You can do it. Please, we practiced this for a whole day. You can do it.”

Hanazawa, in all her anxiousness, looked at Elrick who was biting his lips, trying to ask for support but nobody could save her from this. She was all alone on that stage, nervously trying to speak, while every single priest and shrine maiden expectant eyes pierced her like sharp spears.

“Ahhh…I wish t-to say-say that I…ahhhhhhhhhh, fuck everything about this!” suddenly, Hanazawa threw her rod at the ground and ran off the stage.

“Lady Asaka!” Elrick cried out and ran after her.

The whole congregation went silent. Shocked at what just happened. Among us, everybody quietly mumbled their own thoughts.

“There goes our reputation…again,” Mikami said, giving me a stink eye.

“Well, I can’t fault her. I would freeze up too, but throwing the rod on the ground? Nope,” Sakamoto-san said, conflicted.

"I guess that would be too much. Literally, everybody was expecting her to give the same speech that Aiko-san gave," Kyouya agreed to Sakamoto-san.

I stayed silent. I felt pity and sympathized with her whole situation, but it didn’t go further than that. I didn’t like her, and it seems my bias has affected me enough that I didn’t feel anything more than “too bad”.

As the silence continued, the Pope told Aiko to go back to her party so he could diffuse the situation, “…As I have said. It is a very nervous day for our Heroes. Let us not forget that these children will be sent on their first mission today so it should be expected that some are more nervous. Our Saintess Asaka wanted to give us a rousing speech but her feelings overwhelmed her. Please, let us show her kindness and patience until she has accustomed herself to her role as a saint candidate.”

After everybody calmed down, the Pope continued with a calm smile, "Now, we mustn't dally any more. We still have important work to do today. Knight-Commander, please inform our heroes before we start our trip through the city.”

“Of course, honored Pope Gwyn,” at that moment, the burly man in shining white armor walked in front. “Now, honored Heroes, I shall now tell you what our plans for the dungeon trip will be!”

His bellowing voice, fitting for somebody on the top of a knight’s order, made all of us tensed up.

The serious part is coming now, huh?

A note from AbyssRaven

Ahh the power of buffing spells. A massive AOE one is always nice to see, especially when its only usage today was to be used in a ritual and ceremony, and nothing else.

Also, give coffee boy his coffee or a snickers, please.

There is still one more chapter until we enter the next arc with Hestia and Saori. If you guys have any suggestions about these side stories, then send them in. I'll be happy to listen.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr!

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Side Story 9: This party has no future…

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“As you must have been already aware, today is the day that you will leave the confines of the church for the first time,” the knight-commander said. “It has been four months since we have summoned you here to our world as Goddess Aurena’s chosen. As we have told you, your God-chosen task is it to aid us against the menace that are the demonkins, who threaten our society with their vile existence and wanton wish for our extinction.”

Gulp, I unconsciously gulped from the sound of this. It was clear that most of my classmates also had the same reaction when they heard the word “extinction”.

We were about to take a step towards our path towards returning back home, and the key to that door meant that we had to fight against the demonkin, one of Peolynca’s many sentient races.

…Considering how often this trope has been used in fantasy stories, movies, games, and all sorts of fiction, I shouldn’t be surprised about it, but I’m the one who has to do it this time. I have to participate in this fight, and I have to fight so that I could go back home. It’s fucked up no matter how many times I say it.

“Of course, we cannot expect to send you into the turmoil that is happening in the Empire, right now,” the commander further added. “They are currently at war with the beastmen and the demonkin. It is currently too dangerous for all of you to be there, especially when your task is to only defeat the demonkin. We would like to have it stay like that, but if the situation escalates…”

…we will have to participate in another war that has nothing to do with us.

"Excuse me," I controlled my emotions as I turned my head towards the person who said that, trying my best not to cause another stir. "You aren't insinuating that we must fight in another of your wars, correct?"

“Hmm, you were the one with the unique skill [Justice for All], correct?” the commander asked.

“Yes, I would like to be addressed as Akabane,” he said, annoyed that the commander called him by his skill name.

The one who spoke out was Daisy, one of the five party leaders. He confidently spoke up with his usual haughty tone even towards somebody with so much authority and power as the Knights-Commander?

“I see…” the commander scratched the stubbles on his chin, thinking his answer through. “I personally would like to avoid having to ask you heroes to join the war efforts, but were the Empire to lose the battle, then it would have dire consequences for all of us humans, including all of you.”

I could see multiple people gulping and wanting to scream and complain, but their common sense seems to have stopped them from doing so. However, I figured that it had something to do with the aura that the commander was emitting.

The pressure was strong enough that it made it hard to talk. I could feel my heartbeat speeding up from merely being in this person’s presence and I had to take in deeper and deeper breathes by the second.

Is this man trying to suppress us so we would stop asking questions? Is he seriously trying to stop us from talking? Who the hell is supposed to speak, right now, huh?!

“With all due respect, that’s not what we agreed on,” however, much to my surprise, Daisy continued speaking without a problem. “We are to suppress the demonkin’s rising power and eliminate their leaders in the process. That was the agreement.”

“Yeah!” at that moment Akanishi also spoke up. “My role is to bring everybody in our class back to Japan, back to Earth! You’ve kidnapped us to this world and you’re also forcing us to deal with your problem, while we don’t even belong here. Not only must we risk our lives to go back home, now you even want to put even more problems on our shoulders?”

“You are misunderstanding,” the intensity of the pressure began to increase, as the commander raised his voice. “It is only a presumption, but that is why I am mentioning it now. It won't happen anytime soon, but I am responsible for warning you of the possibility. That is why it is even more important that you work hard during your trip to the dungeon, as the strength that you gain there will become your insurance in the worst-case scenario.”

“…”

“…”

It seems the aura that the commander was releasing finally silenced those two. Still, it was impressive that those two were the only ones that were able to speak at all, while everybody's mouth was close shut.

I wanted to say something also, but it was impossible. My body wouldn’t want to listen to me at all. It wasn’t like when Elrick tried to force me into obeying him, I was sweating but I would have been able to talk back, I just knew that I shouldn’t.

However, I just couldn't do anything compared to the commander's presence. How fucking powerful is he?!

“I am glad that I have made myself clear so you may understand, honored heroes,” as nobody responded, the knight-commander took the silence as acceptance. “So, let me announce the plan for this excursion. You will all travel in carriages towards Laveata Town, where you will enter the E rank dungeon, Fur Walker Dungeon, to train and level up.”

Once we returned back to the topic at hand, the atmosphere became laxer and all the pressure from before vanished into thin air. I could hear a collective sigh in relief from nearly everybody when that happens. I wasn't the exception here.

Ignoring this, the commander continued, “Once there, you will each split up into your respective teams with your assigned knight to hunt and kill monsters. We will also issue you quests from the Hunter and Mercenary guilds, so you may earn money, gain experience, and raise your standing, or rank, simultaneously. You will be doing this on-site, at the local guilds.”

Hearing the words “Quest” and “Guild” would normally make me extremely excited but my mood just wouldn’t let me. If we had left after the Pope gave us that blessing, then everything would be just like normal…but this guy just had to kill our joy.

This is the first time that I’ve met the knight-commander, but I can already say that he is definitely a 100%, 24/7 asshole. What was that girl’s name again? Amelia von Baltalz? I pity her for being this guy’s secretary.

"I wonder if there are any continuous kill quests?" he said in a whisper, but my trained ears could clearly hear Mikami’s greedy talk.

“Killing…is that really what we have to do?” I was also able to hear the Sakamoto-san’s mumbling.

“Hopefully, they won’t toss us into hell to level up faster…,” Kyouya moved his head closer to me and whispered.

I nodded and responded, “As much as I enjoy getting carried through the first few levels, I would prefer learning how to do all this killing stuff than to rely on the church. Especially after today.”

“Yeah,” Kyouya agreed. “Killing can’t be as hard as they make it up in movies, right? ...Well, I hope I don’t have to throw up.”

As I patted Kyouya’s shoulders, the knight-commander continued speaking “Every party should have acquainted themselves with their assigned knight when they had the opportunity to change Jobs. I shall now introduce them to everybody so if I may have your…perfect timing Karstein.”

Arriving as he was about to be called up, Elrick came back with a red-eyed Hanazawa. Her tears were cleaned off and it seems her makeup was reapplied, seeing as a grey-robed shrine maiden was following the duo.

Elrick left Hanazawa off at our party's location and promptly went to the front of the platform and diligently stood still. Four other knights were already lined up in a row in front of the knight-commander. Compared to Elrick, these knights were definitely in their late thirties or early forties. The age and experience of these knights were apparent.

“These five knights have been chosen as your guide and aid during your trip to the dungeon, as they have shown that they can lead parties of knights. Do not worry, they are all strong enough to defend you in the dungeon if something were to happen,” the knight-commander then pointed at each knight, starting from his right, after saying that. “Sir Karlst von Kriemhild shall follow the party belonging to the hero with [Justice for All]. Sir Falamm Astolfus shall follow the party of [Magic Breaker]. Lady Yorshka will aid [Enchanter’s Oath]. Sir Royce Albert Loucestro will be the knight for the party with the Hero [Savior] and Saintess Aiko. Last but not least, Sir Elrick von Karstein will follow Saintess Asaka.”

Are you kidding me?! What are you calling us?!

Besides Aiko and Hanazawa, he addressed everybody with their unique skill, even Akanishi who had the [Hero] title. What is this fucked up situation?!

“That is all. Your knight will explain to you, the rest of the information,” the commander then proceeded to hand all the detailed explanation to his subordinates. “Pope Gwyn, I am finished.”

“Thank you, Lord Knight-Commander. You have done a great service to our Goddess,” the Pope said to the bowing commander.

Great service, my ass! I screamed in my head.

"Now, with this, we are done for now. As you are wearing your equipment, we may proceed with the departure. Please, follow your knights towards your carriages,” the Pope told us.

With all that done, our entire class let out a sigh in relief. The whole congregation of priests and shrine maiden then disbanded and went back to their individual duties. So did all the knights, besides the ones assigned to us.

Speaking of knights, Elrick was coming over to us right now.

“I apologized if the commander sounded rude. He is very stressed over the fact that his home country is at war while he has to stay here in Aureolis,” Elrick said once he was close to us.

I don’t know any other country in this world that is currently at war so I will presume he was talking about the Empire.

“Aren’t you also worried, Sir Elrick?” Kyouya asked.

“I am, yes,” he responded with a wry smile. “However, thankfully my family’s domain does not border the warzones so I can calm my mind with that. I also have heard from my House that my parents and siblings are doing fine. It is also relieving to hear that my younger sister’s and brother’s academic life in the Magical Capital, Aleistunum is just fine…O-Oh, my apologies. I should not have mentioned something personal there.”

Elrick scratched his neck bashfully, clearly showing that this inhumanly strong warrior still had a kind heart for his family.

“Anyways, enough with the pleasantries. We should hurry to the carriages, otherwise, the church might be furious about us delaying the festivities,” Elrick said while pushing us onwards.

“Festivities?” Mikami asked while walking.

“Of course, you are all our Goddess’ heroes so your departure will bring hope and joy to the people in the capital. As you ride through the city, the church will make a spectacle of you to ensure that your prestigious image shall live on,” Elrick explained.

“Urghhh,” Hanazawa groaned displeased.

“…Do we have to do something during this trip out of the city?” I asked, suspecting something from Hanazawa’s reaction.

“…How very sharp, Sir Tatsuya,” Elrick said while worriedly looking at Hanazawa. “To increase and promote your reputation, the church wishes you to interact with the crowd. Merely waving your hand will be enough. Do not worry, we have stationed soldiers to guard you against any approaching citizens.”

It would seem like Hanazawa was told this beforehand, evident of her distraught look. She still hasn’t fully recovered from the intense stares of that massive congregation yet, so it was understandable for her to be like that.

The citizens will probably want to see and witness the saint candidates in our class, so Hanazawa will probably be forced into doing it.

“…Are you chickening out, Hanazawa-san?” to everybody’s surprise, Sakamoto-san was the one who said that.

Noticing that Sakamoto-san had a gleeful smirk, Hanazawa burst out in rage, “What did you just say, you shrimp?!”

“You heard me right. You’re not getting out of this one so be prepared to do something good in your life for once, you lazy bum,” like a cat, Sakamoto-san was baring her claws at Hanazawa, ready to slice her down when she was currently at an all-time low, mentally.

“Sakamoto-san, I think this is…,” Kyouya tried to intervene but nothing would stop the volcano now.

“Get out of my way, Ishigami,” pushing Kyouya out of the way, Hanazawa then proceeded to grip Sakamoto-san’s collar and pull her up. “Say that again to my face, you little bitch! You think you know everything about me? You think you have the right to judge me? You can go to hell then, you spoiled bitch!”

Struggling in Hanazawa’s clutch, Sakamoto-san had a hard time breathing but that was not enough to stop her from continuing, "Spoiled?! Do you really think you have the right to say that when you're the one who is relying on your parents to get you out of every single mess that you've created?! Pray, tell me how a lazy bitch like you was able to get into a prestigious school like Shirako High, huh?”

"That is none of your fucking business. Why do you even care about it that much, huh? You little cunt?" Hanazawa was literally spitting at Sakamoto-san at this point. "You with your wonderful grades. How does it feel sitting atop the throne of one of the best students of our year, huh? Child genius, right? Hearing the crap coming out of your mouth, all I can see is a insecure little baby."

Team Misfits causes two scandals on the same day. What a perfect newspaper headline…

Before it could escalate any further, Elrick and Kyouya tore the two girls away from each other, trying their best to stop them from escaping their grip and continuing this feud.

“Fuck off!” Sakamoto-san shouted. “Don't call me that ever again! You don't even know how much pressure the title "Child Genius” demands from you! Considering how irresponsible you are and how often you are relying on your parents to resolve all the problems you create, you should be honored that somebody in this world is trying his best to help you out, trying to make everything comfortable for you! Have you ever said thank you to Sir Elrick or even apologized to him? Do you even know how many problems you are causing him, or how stress he’s at the end of every day?! YOU’RE FUCKED IN THE HEAD, HANAZAWA!”

Why is Sakamoto-san mentioning Sir Elrick? What does he have to do with this whole quarrel?

“SHUT UP!” suddenly, Hanazawa’s eyes began shining white and an aura covered her body. Shocked by this phenomenon, Sir Elrick let his guard down and Hanazawa was able to slip through his grip like a snake.

The girl then proceeded to punch Kyouya in the face with her fist still covered in that white aura like veil, knocking him backward helplessly as he groaned.

“Kyouya!” I shouted out.

Where is that strength coming from?! She knocked Kyouya out!

“Hiiiieeee!” yelping, Sakamoto-san fell on the ground limply as Hanazawa punched away our party’s tank.

Roughly picking her up again, Hanazawa roared, “SAY THAT IN MY FACE YOU MIDGET!”

As she was about to hit the crying Sakamoto-san with the same hand that sent Kyouya flying, I could see that Aiko, Akanishi and our two former class representatives, Tsuji-san and Kudo were rushing towards our location, weapons-ready.

My body was also demanding me to stop her, not because of the promise that I made to Aiko and Tsuji-san to protect Sakamoto-san but because that bitch Hanazawa just knocked out my best friend!

“HANAZAWA!” sheathing my spear, my body unconsciously moved by itself from this pure rage building up inside me, not relenting until the tip of my spear reaches her body.

<[Rush Hour] inflicted on [Human, Tatsuya Nagata]>

“ENOUGH!” with what sounded like Elrick’s voice, something knocked my spear out of my hand and slammed my whole body onto the ground.

“Calm Mind,” somebody said behind my body.

As he said that, the rage inside me dispersed and my mind started to cool down from all that adrenaline and anger.

Unfortunately, calming down also dispelled [Rush Hour].

<[Starvation (Minor)] [Exhaustion (Moderate)] inflicted on [Human, Tatsuya Nagata]>

…Immediately afterward, the side effects of this powerful skill assaulted me. Even if I wanted to do something now, the lethargy of [Exhaustion (Moderate)] has killed off all my strength and will to stand up.

Luckily, I was still able to move my eyes. I could see that the other four who wanted to stop Hanazawa were equally blocked by somebody.

Akanishi was slammed on the ground by his party’s knight, Sir Royce Albert Loucestro, while Kudo had his arm bent behind his back in a policeman grip by Sir Falamm Astolfus.

Tsuji-san and Aiko, on the other hand, weren't as roughly handled as us guys. Lady Yorshka, Tsuji-san’s party’s knight was simply holding an open hand in front of her, asking her to stop otherwise she will do exactly the same as what the knights have done to us dudes. Aiko was a saint candidate, so nobody even tried to stop her, but the mere sight of Akanishi being held down prompted her to stop from fear.

In the meantime, Elrick was able to use the spell [Calm Mind] on both Sakamoto-san and Hanazawa, diffusing the situation before it got to the point of no return.

If those four knights are there, then that meant that Sir Karlst von Kriemhild, Daisy’s knight, was holding me down. Did he target me because of Daisy’s orders?! I fucking bet he did!

With that, this whole mess ended. We were then scolded by our knights and were urgently forced to go to the carriage now, as we have wasted a ton of time.

While the other parties weren’t really affected by this whole fight, my party was in a terrible state. Kyouya was healed with healing magic but he felt dizzy and nauseous while he entered the carriage. Sakamoto-san kept crying and curled herself in a fetus position inside the carriage. Hanazawa pulled the window blinders of our carriage down and stayed deadly still as she silently wept.

Me? I was still under the side effects of my unique skill. I could barely move my body as I slowly placed bits of fruits inside my mouth, as nobody wanted to feed me. [Starvation] and [Exhaustion] are a bitch combination.

Elrick tried to console Hanazawa but to no avail.

The only person that wasn't affected was fucking Mikami who simply mumbled, "The catfight was at its peak. Just a bit more and they would have torn each other's clothes off. What a shame."

…I wish I saved up [Rush Hour] so I could turn him into shish kebab now…

From outside our carriage, I could hear the thunderous cheering of the citizens of this world and the voices of my classmates reciprocating the crowd's feverish yells.

I wanted to see the citizens and the city’s appearance, but the blinders were down. My body was too weak to even pull them up and even asking was impossible. Hanazawa told Elrick to not pull the blinders up at any cost.

So, it seems that Team Misfits, not only caused two loud shouting battles, but it would also seem like we would miss out on the crowd-pleasing part…

I fucking hate my life…

A note from AbyssRaven

I honestly felt bad that I had Hanazawa sucker punch Kyouya, especially when it was infused with [Saint's Warth]'s effect. Well, that happened.

We're going back to Hestia, Saori, and Tasianna in the next chapter + we're entering a new arc, so let's see what will happen.

Another discord link: Rawr

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr!

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 49: Hunting with Rajah.

A note from AbyssRaven

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[“That’s right. Stay still for [Stealth] to active and slow down your breathing so [Presence Killer] can be activated,”] I explained to Rajah through telepathy.

The young virigress didn’t answer, simply staying still as he continued lurking on the ground. Normally, I would think that he didn’t manage to understand me but prior to our current situation, I told him to not answer me if he understood me, otherwise, he should swing his tail to signal his confusion to me.

It was paramount that we stay still now for we are hunting monsters, or more specifically, Rajah was hunting. As we didn’t have a spare party bracelet, Rajah was excluded from our party’s experience sharing so to have him gain level I had to aid him while he hunted by himself.

Thankfully, it seems him already having [Stealth] and [Presence Killer] wasn’t for show as he showed his experience of having hunted before.

It seems his parents did well with teaching him. It was also possible that he gained his first level all by himself, having already killed his first prey.

…Somehow that makes me feel sad. Kinda like when something is right in front of you, and you really want it, but somebody just inconsiderately yoinks it away. That sorta annoyed sadness that also has a tint of jealously in it.

Oh well, whatever.

Morning has come and as I decided yesterday, I was taking Rajah out to hunt for some food today.

As Rajah was skulking in the bush, I hid in the tree above it. You see, not only am I quite tall now, but I also have very peculiar body features that would risk any potential prey from finding me.

You guessed it, it’s my bright crimson scales and hair.

Honestly, with my stealth skills on, they might not even notice that I was even there in the first place, perfectly evading the animal’s senses with the help of the System. I might not have done it ever since I was small, but my body still knew how to hide from prying eyes.

Staying in dragonewt form and retracting my wings would be enough for me to go ambushing, no problem.

I mean my bright red tail was hanging down the tree's branch like the lazy appendage that it is, but no one has noticed me yet. Insects have started creeping onto my motionless body, causing itchiness to spread everywhere.

It was like these things are seeing me as a part of the tree, and not as a very dangerous fire creating humanoid half-reptile.

However, it was better this way as it wouldn’t risk Rajah’s success chance. I was creeping on this tree, keeping a watch over him as he waited for something to ambush, to make sure that he was doing everything correctly and keeping him safe.

Anything that could endanger him will be quietly dispatched by the rare and sensational dropping dragonewt.

As we aren’t actively hunting and prowling around, it is taking quite long for us to find something. Hunting is all about having the patience to stand still and wait, but this was beginning to drag on. It can’t be helped that I was feeling a bit restless sitting on this branch, thinking that I was wasting precious time

Rajah is small and weak; having learned how to hunt from his parents he was only confident in this sole strategy, to lie in wait for his meal to come to him. It was safer to rely on something that you can trust when it comes to hunting animals in this dangerous forest, where one wrong encounter or event could end your life.

I’m not gonna criticize it, I had to do it in my first month of being reborn so I could fully sympathize, however, I’ve come to being accustomed to taking the lead and finding my meal. There was this disparity between us, but I didn't want to force my ideas onto him now, my better judgment told me to endure it and wait and see; facilitate his growth by gradually adapting your ideas and strategies to his strengths.

…Those were Saori’s words. She told me that a pet was different to a student but that I should give it a try.

Still, I could give him a nudge, right?

Activating my [Storage Magic] I plunged my hand into a random space around me and took out a Fragassa from my storage. These babies are the Peolynca variations of strawberries, only larger, sweeter, and less sour.

I absolutely adore them, and they are a perfect snack in between meals to keep my energy tank going. This fruit has a very special place in my heart as they were the first things that I’ve eaten after being reborn and they have stayed my favorite fruit ever since.

I’ve actually started picking off the seeds on them and storing them, intending to grow some Fragassa plants once we leave Belzac forest. I’ll be storing them in my storage but that should still count as a garden, right?

[“I’m dropping something, don’t be frightened,”] I said while surrounding the better version of strawberry in a capsule of air with [Aerokinesis] and dropped it, landing perfectly in front of the bush that Rajah was hiding in.

After that, silence returned, and we bided our time, fangs and claws ready for anything to come. Eventually, a wild [Mushroom Skorr] appeared, attracted by the scent of the sweet fragassa.

Mushroom Skorr

A four-legged monster that possesses an insatiable appetite for mushrooms. Through a symbiotic relationship with certain bacteria, mushrooms can grow on top of the hard shell on its back. Any mushrooms eaten by this monster will be grown on its back, feeding the bacteria colony on its back. Rank F

It was honestly a weird mix between a mushroom colony and a wild boar, so much so that it reminded me that Peolynca’s wildlife wasn’t as simple as the one on Earth…and it already has some bizarre animal species.

The Skorr shared quite a few features with a normal Earth’s boar, which included its long tusks, bristly fur, flat snout, and that annoying shriek that it does when scared.

Major differences are that the Skorr had tusks as large and sharp as an elephant and that a hard shell was protecting its back. On the shell, I could see moss and mushroom freely growing which reminded me of sloths.

This animal species and its many variations were the primary sources of pork in this forest. They had the same size as a normal swine, so they gave plenty of meat and were delicious to boot!

Just looking at this thing made my mouth watery.

[“Aim for its neck. You must immediately immobilize it with your venom and avoid its hoofs and disease-infested back,”] I warned Rajah.

Most Skorrs have good immunity towards poison due to their sturdy stomachs as they needed it to consume fungi of any kind. As the bacteria on its back cultivated the mushrooms that it ate, some very nasty-looking ones could be protecting its back.

Although it's hard to kill with poison, venom, on the other hand, doesn't enter its body through its stomach. Having no way to eliminate and filter the venom coursing through its bloodstream, it'll probably die if Rajah can inject enough with his [Toxic Claws].

All he needed to do now was wait and execute.

You can do it, Rajah!

Approaching the fragassa with its drooling mouth, the Skorr began ravenously consuming the large strawberry once it thought that nobody was around.

Taking care not to frighten the boar, Rajah slowly crept forwards, advancing soundlessly and carefully. He was waiting, analyzing for the correct moment to pounce at the Skorr to deliver the fatal bite and strike in one go.

Failing would mean that he would leave himself open to a counterattack from the swine’s huge tusks. Even though they shared the same monster rank, Rajah was only five months old while the Skorr was stronger on paper due to its age and tusks that could gore a hole into my pet virigress.

Wrapping my tail around the branch, I anchored my body to it and began materializing my wind rifle. Holding on to it tightly, I aimed at the Skorr’s head, ready to pull the trigger if it came to it.

Like a flash, Rajah’s strong hind legs pushed his body towards the Skorr’s undefended neck. Pouncing on to it, the Skorr wasn’t able to recognize his attack until the young virigress’ sharp fangs and venomous claws pierced through its skin.

Squealing and flailing in shock and horror, the boar tried to shake the young feline off his body, but Rajah quickly dug his hind leg’s claws into the swine’s body, attaching himself to the boar to avoid being thrown off.

His quick thinking helped him avoid the Skorr’s rampaging hoofs as it mercilessly stomped the remains of the half-eaten fragassa.

Finally realizing that it couldn’t shake its hunter off, the boar decided to slam its body onto the ground, effectively crushing Rajah under its weight.

[“Jump off!”] noticing this, I commanded him to unhook himself from the boar.

“Mroew!” hearing it, the young virigress escaped the body slam in time.

Growling, he waited for the Skorr to stand up again, as it was impossible to attack the beast as it laid on the ground. The shell was protecting its back, giving Rajah zero openings to land a successful bite.

However, much to our surprise the Skorr had trouble picking himself up from that fall. His legs were trying to push him up, but it seems like he didn't have the strength to do so, a consequence of the rampaging venom in his body sapping everything away from him.

Realizing that he’s already won, the young virigress began sauntering towards his fallen prey.

[“Stop!”] I shouted to him.

Visibly shocked from my outburst, the feline stopped and growled confusedly.

Prompted to answer, I said, [“It only has [Poisoned (Minor)]. Don’t approach your enemy when he isn’t dead yet. You haven’t gotten the level up, correct? Then just take it slow and patiently wait for it to perish. We waited for a whole day so a bit longer shouldn’t hurt.”]

He defiantly tried to continue approaching the Skorr, despite my warnings. Annoyed by his behavior I consequently ordered my parallel minds to attack him mentally, to reprimand him of his behavior.

He squawked in pain and hissed at me. Having him angry at me was better than risking his safety due to his arrogance. Maybe it was a bit extreme using a mental attack, but it beats actually shouting.

Reluctantly obeying me, Rajah stood still and waited until he leveled up to level two from the boar’s death. At that point, he quickly approached the Skorr’s corpse to feast on it, but I jumped down the branch in a hurry to stop him.

“Mreowwwww!” he aggressively snarled at me, baring his teeth to threaten me away from what was his.

What a feisty little guy, I said to myself.

[“Don’t be like that, Rajah,”] I tried to soothe him. [“I’m only trying to get rid of the poisonous mushrooms and the moss.”]

However, contrary to my expectations, he stayed defensive and blocked my path with angry hissing and meowing. He was even swiping his paws at me like an angry cat whenever I tried reaching my hand towards the corpse to disinfect it from bacteria and poison.

Fed up with the situation, I cast [Terra Wall] to launch the body up in the air. As Rajah watched his hunting prize getting thrown away, I used [Air Walk] to jump and catch the Skorr’s body.

I used [Cure] and [Purify] on it. Using my newly learned magical knowledge, I made sure to tell the spells to get rid of all bacteria, toxins, and other harmful substances.

Rid this beast’s body from any poisons and neutralize any toxic sources, Cure.

Purify the impure bacteria and viruses that are using this body as a housing, Purify.

Simply cooking meat over a hot flame was usually enough to kill off any biological hazards in my meat, and I rarely ever had to eat poisonous meat nor was I afraid of eating them with [Cure] and [Abnormal Status Nullification].

However, now that I finally realized that I could disinfect my food with a [Cure] and [Purify], I decided it was worth it to make sure that we stayed hygienic and safe. Never know when we accidentally eat a maggot, right?

I quickly peeled off the shell and stored it in my storage. As I landed, I threw the body to Rajah who thanked me with a defiant hiss. He might be cute, but I shouldn’t forget that he is considered a wild animal…

Saori might be right…sigh.

Voraciously biting and eating to his heart’s content, I simply watched. As time pass by, Saori and Tasianna returned.

“Hey, Hestia, you doing well?” Saori asked me in one of Peolynca’s languages, Common tongue.

“No, no, Miss Saori. You have to say ‘Cintriily Hestia, sa jou ilks klatfis?’ (Princess Hestia, how are you fairing?). What you said was grammatically not correct,” Tasianna told Saori as she corrected her speaking mistakes as she sat on her shoulder.

“Oh, ahem, Cintriily Hestia…,” Saori was about to say that sentence but I immediately stopped her.

“Oi, ‘Cintriily Hestia’ means ‘Princess Hestia’! Tricking no good, Tasianna,” I complained to Tasianna, having my own difficulty with the language.

Giggling, Tasianna began praising me, [“I apologize for my rudeness, Miss Saori. I was simply testing you if you could see through it, however, it seems our hard-working Princess is more adept with Common tongue.”]

[“Urgh…I am doing my best. Learning a new language takes time…] Saori mildly grumbled.

As it was for every new language, learning it was far more effective if you used it in your daily life instead of only doing it theoretically. Saori and I understood this fact, so we decided to use what meager vocabulary we have already learned to practice a bit, slowly getting used to the pronunciation and accent.

It was still impossible for us to participate in a deep conversation with it, but we were able to greet others, begin some small talks, and ask for directions. Slow progression is good.

[“To you question, Rajah finally hunted his first Skorr as you can see him feasting on it,”] I answered their question. [“How did it fair with you guys?”]

Acting as an answer, Saori slowly took out eleven different Skorr variations from her storage and gave them to me to dismantle. In the time that it took Rajah to hunt one single Skorr with my help, Saori and Tasianna hunted down eleven without breaking a sweat.

As they hunted the boars, I would dismantle them. They hunted around the area and in the limited range of the experience sharing function, so I was able to gain some of the experience, although it was little more than peanuts for us three.

As I disinfected and dismantled the Skorrs, Saori transformed back into her Cadejo form and began working out. Rajah didn’t bat an eye.

[“Are you training your abilities again?”] I asked.

After using one of her abilities, [Shadow Descent], she answered, [“I’m trying to incorporate my [Unarmed Technique] abilities in my normal form when we need to fight against something seriously. Using them in my wolfkin form is no problem but I still am not sure how to use [Just Blink] and [Shadow Descent] in a wolf’s body.”]

Tasianna not only taught us a language and magic theory, but she also introduced us to learning weapon abilities. Saori, possessing the skill [Unarmed Technique], was able to learn two unarmed abilities and through their usage was able to learn [Unarmed Mastery].

Through some creative thinking, she figured out that she could integrate her [Shadow Armament] unique skill to create new abilities to suit her own fighting style. Supposedly, people would be taught common weapon abilities first but as Tasianna didn’t know any, Saori had to create her own.

[“That’s good to hear. I’m kinda sad that I’m not showing any progress in that front…”] I said dejectedly.

[“Don’t give up hope, Lady Hestia,”] Tasianna comforted me. [“You possess the unique skill [Spark Fire Dragon] that grants you powerful, almost rare, abilities. With some practice, I am sure that you will be able to create a magnificent variety of abilities.”]

Tasianna has finally decided to address me as “Lady Hestia”. It wasn’t as stuck up like “Princess Hestia” and it was formal enough that Tasianna was happy about it. She also experimented with “Young Lady Hestia” and “Young Mistress Hestia” but she found that it sounded a bit too formal.

How she thought those two were “too formal” while addressing me as a princess wasn’t, was beyond my understanding and I wasn’t willing to pry any further.

Anyways, back to the topic of abilities. As Saori learned her first two abilities, I also participated in the training. Thinking of a choreography and a cool name, I repeated the move a hundred times, but it was denied by the System.

Not only did it not accept any of my ideas, but it also called it redundant. The skill wasn’t registered by the System. All four of my ability ideas were denied.

They were cool names too, like ‘Rampaging Tail Swipe’ and ‘Tail Lance of Heavens’. My Mama would be proud if she heard them~

[“Oh, that’s right,”] Saori stopped working out, having realized something. [“We actually found signs of a marshland nearby.”]

[“A marshland?”] I asked.

[“It was a small body of water, and I initially believe it be a pond, but as I followed it, I noticed that it continued on without an end.”] Saori said.

[“Couldn’t it just be a river?”] I responded.

[“I do not believe so, Lady Hestia. The water movement was minimal, and it was quite shallow. It seemed more like the start of a swamp or a marshland,”] Tasianna explained.

Hmm, that sounds pretty interesting. We could find new monsters there! But…

[“…Frogs and toads love those sorts of places, right? The ugliest and most disgusting ones are usually found there!”] I said, remembering something I saw on an animal show.

[“Unfortunately, it seems it is in our way towards the elves. We must go through it otherwise we must take a large detour,”] Saori informed me of my options.

Urgh, whyyyyyyyy…

On one hand, I wanted to make as much progress towards the north as possible, but I can’t stand the idea of random toads and frogs jumping out of the muck and attacking us. The horror of that thought was enough to send a shiver down my spine.

I admit, if that were to happen then I would turn into a useless, wimping kid. I would be useless as a fighter in that situation. Urgh, I could hide inside a blanket for days after showing Saori and Tasianna my embarrassing phobia for frogs.

[“Will you be alright with it, Hestia?”] Saori asked worriedly. [“I will make sure to avoid those sorts of encounter if you agree to come. However, we can also go around it if you are not willing to.”]

[“Your safety is our duty, Lady Hestia,”] Tasianna said. [“I have practiced, and I will make sure to block any threats!”]

Your ice is see-through Tasianna. It will be even creepier in that case, I said to myself as a counterargument to that statement.

Still…they are being so selfless about it…even offering to accommodate me…urgh.

[“I-I’m ok with it,”] I reluctantly said. ["L-Let's directly go through the north. Even if it's an amphibian infested zone."]

[“Good, thank you, Hestia. That’s very selfless of you,”] Saori said with a smile, stroking my hair in thanks.

[“I will be your shield, Lady Hestia! I will not leave your side!”] Tasianna said energetically.

“Mreow,” Rajah said once he was finished eating. He returned back to his more approachable self now that his stomach was full.

Gosh, I will discipline you well, you naughty kitty, I know cats are assholes, but I really thought Rajah was different. He was perfectly fine being cuddled but his aggressive behavior today must be stomped if I wanted him to travel with us.

His feral nature has to be toned down, which means teaching him like a proper pet owner.

[“Rajah, I understand that you have to be defensive around your food but don’t forget that we three aren’t here to hurt you, ok? You do understand, right?”] I said while sounding as authoritative as possible.

“Mreow,” Rajah laid himself on the ground and showed his stomach to me, displaying his submissiveness.

Scratching his belly, I praised him, [“Good boy!”]

“The girl is too soft…” I also faintly heard Saori criticize my pet handling…

After dismantling the rest of the Skorrs, our party began moving towards the north. It took us four days to finally reach the end of the lake, the main hub was a long streaming river surrounded by marshlands and swamps.

The sight of this massive body of water was entirely different compared to the lush green trees and vegetation of the Belzac forest. This place looked more like a rainforest. Water was everywhere and it even flooded the roots of some trees and shrubs.

It was an amazing change of scenery and I welcomed it happily.

As we wandered along the swamp bank, Saori made sure to keep an ear and eye out for any frog ambushes, stating “if I kill something without telling you then just presume it to be a frog or toad” and then shot out a large spear-like [Dark Bolt] into the depths of the swamps.

As blood slowly flowed up, I unconsciously shivered.

Don’t think about it. Just imagine it away as you wander through this beautiful natural scene, ♫ I sang to myself to keep my mind off the source of the experience that flowed into me.

“Mreow?” suddenly, Rajah stood still.

“Hmm?” Saori, having killed whatever horror was in the depths also stood still, noticing something.

All of a sudden, Rajah began running off without my consent.

[“Oi, Rajah come back…and there he goes. Urgh, and I was doing such a good job disciplining him and now he just runs off without telling us anything? What the hell?”] I complained in rapid succession.

However, Saori placed a hand on me in her wolfkin form and said, [“It is ok; however, I think we should follow him immediately. I think I just heard something interesting.”]

Interesting?

Shrugging my shoulders, our whole party began running after Rajah and towards whatever intrigued Saori.

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Synergist’s Oath Lv. 3] [Crushing Enhancement Lv. 2] [Probability Correction Lv. 5] [Tracking Lv. 3] [Air Walk Lv. 2] [Holy Resistance Lv. 6] [Wind Resistance Lv. 3] [Identify Blocker Lv. 3] [Toxic Secretion Lv. 2] [Woodworking Lv. 2] gained

Acquisition requirement fulfilled.   [Lava Resistance Lv. 1] acquired

Saori's Status Board Update

Profile:

Name: Saori Segawa

Level: 3

Race:   Young Shadowstalker Cadejo

Age: 2 Months

Status:

Health:

4385/4385(+503)

Mana:

1578/1578(+300)

Strength:

2654(+296)

Intelligence:

950(+98)

Vitality:

1750 (+158)

Wisdom:

1938 (+196)

Agility:

3575 (+346)

Stamina:

2862/2862(+453)

Effects:

None

Skill Points:

0 (-50) (1450 SP spent)

Unique Skill:

[Shadow Armament Lv. 2] (+1)

Skill:

Magic skills and related

[Mana Efficiency Lv. 2] (+1)

[Arcane Mind Lv. 4]

[Mana Control Lv. 6] (+1)

[Dark Magic Lv. 7] (+2)

[Dark Amp] (New)

[Space-Time Magic Lv. 3]

[Space-Time Efficiency]

[Chant Revocation Lv. 10] (+1)

[Mental Stability Lv. 3] (+1)

[Mental Warfare Lv. 3] (+1)

[Silent Casting Lv. 4] (+2)

Physical skills and related

[Unarmed Technique Lv. 3] (+2)

[Unarmed Mastery Lv. 1] (New)

[Sundering Enhancement Lv. 2] (+1)

[Piercing Enhancement Lv. 2] (+1)

[Crushing Enhancement Lv. 2] (+1)

[Enhanced Claws Lv. 9] (+1)

[Enhanced Fangs Lv. 7]

Senses and movement skills

[Primal Senses]

[Stealth Lv. 9] (+1)

[Prediction Lv. 6] (+1)

[Concentration Lv. 2] (+1)

[Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 8] (+2)

[Danger Perception Lv. 4] (+1)

[Tracking Lv. 4] (+2)

[Heat Vision Lv. 1] (New)

[Night Vision Lv. 6] (+1)

[Presence Killer Lv. 7]

[Evasion Lv. 6] (+1)

[Acrobatic Lv. 8] (+3)

[Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 5] (+1)

Resistances

[Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 1]

[Absolute Pain Tolerance]

[Bleed Resistance Lv. 2] (+1)

[Poison Resistance Lv. 4] (+3)

[Paralyze Resistance Lv. 10]

[Torpor Resistance Lv. 3] (+2)

[Arcane Corruption Resistance Lv. 10] (+2)

[Ice Resistance Lv. 1] (New)

[Holy Resistance Lv. 2] (New)

[Fire Resistance Lv. 3] (+2)

[Earth Resistance Lv. 5] (+1)

[Water Resistance Lv. 2] (New)

[Wind Resistance Lv. 3] (+2)

[Dark Resistance Lv. 4] (+1)

Stat growths and related

[Health Recovery Lv. 4]

[Mana Recovery Lv. 3]

[Stamina Recovery Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Health Growth Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Mana Growth Lv.´4]

[Enhanced Mana Capacity Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Intelligence Growth Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Intelligence Enforcement Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 4] (+2)

[Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Agility Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Stamina Capacity Lv. 4]

Other

[Dancing Lv. 1] (New)

[Identify Blocker Lv. 3] (+1)

[Identify Lv. 7] (+3)

[Terror Aura Lv. 4]

[Bloodlust Lv. 1]

[Battle Mind Lv. 2] (+1)

[Lifetaker Lv. 2] (+1)

[Mana Weave Lv. 6] (+1)

[Sewing Lv. 5] (+1)

[Royal Etiquette Lv. 2]

[Cooking Lv. 7] (+1)

[Dismantle Lv. 3] (+1)

[Humanize Lv. 6] [Telepathy]

Ability List:

Unarmed techniques

[Just Blink]

[Shadow Descent]

Spell List:

Dark spells

[Dark Bolt]

[Dark Tendrils]

[Shadow Dash]

[Dark Slash]

[Shadow Clones]

[Shadow Snake]

Space-Time spells

[Haste]

[Storage Magic]

Titles:

[Belzac’s Successor] [Otherworldly Reincarnator] [Hestia’s Retainer]

A note from AbyssRaven

Transition done, time for the next arc in the rainforest part of the Belzac forest. What could they have found at the end of the chapter?!

Also, trying to keep consistency for a fantasy language is hard.

Oh yeah, I just want to thank you guys for following and reading my story. Can't believe I actually was able to reach 1000 followers with my first fiction. You guys are awesome and also one of the reason why I'm trying to improve as a writer.

Thank you so very much, everybody!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr!

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 50: Reunion.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Hey, it's parallel mind #4 here, if you even remember me. I barely get to be in a chapter anyways. So, I'm responsible to tell you guys about our Patreon. If you guys want to read further ahead in the current arc then come over, it's 10 chapters ahead! Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 10 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until May!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

Running through the wetland, I came to realize how smart it was from Saori to tailor these mana socks for us two. These socks are helping me a lot as traversing the marsh’s cold and muddy water wouldn’t have been pleasant, otherwise.

They were, like most of her creations, blue and they went up to my thighs as that is where my scales stop appearing when I'm in my dragonewt form.

While having mud sticking on my skin could be rinsed off easily, that could not be said for my scales, where anything stuck in between them is as annoying as having dirt stuck under your fingernails.

The claws on my feet were protruding out of the socks but I can't help it when they are long enough to pierce through somebody’s chest and reach their heart. At least they aren't permanently damaged compared to a normal cotton-made sock.

Saori was kind enough to make a sock for my tail, too. While the scale ridges and spikes made it hard to put it on, once it was, it was comfortable and kept the cold wind away from my tail.

Shoes or boots might have been better but Saori wasn’t a shoemaker, and we never needed shoes when our feet soles were literally protected by scales and fur respectively. Socks are good enough

As we were pursuing Rajah, I also decided against using [Air Walk] as it would tire me out easily in this foreign place. If we were to fight something now, I wanted to be in tip-top shape and my senses were telling me that a fight was coming up.

After a couple of minutes of trekking through the bog, Rajah stopped advancing and immediately went into prone mode. Due to his height, his verdant green fur was already smeared with muck and soaked in swamp water, as he was now neck-deep in the water.

[“Good decision, Rajah,”] Saori scratched Rajah’s neck to praise him.

Noticing Saori’s focused glare, I directed my attention away from the nearly submerged Rajah and inspected the scene before me.

Using my [Detection Sensor], I found out that we were completely surrounded by multiple dots that indicated enemies in the vicinity.

Creeeepppy…

Shaking off the shivering from imagining all the possible ambushes in the area, I stared at the small patch of earth surrounded by swamp water where three weird beasts were circling something fully covered in mud, grim, and blood.

The three quadrupeds patiently waited for the dying monster to weaken as swamp water slowly entered its body through the many wounds on the creature’s body.

Identify.

Ottha

A beasts covered from head to tail in brown fur that it uses to camouflage in a swamp’s muddy bottom, where they can hide in seconds due to their well-adapted flat claws. These monsters travel through areas in large groups of over five otthas, all hidden in the gunky bottom of swamps, lakes, and marshes. Any unsuspecting prey that is attracted by its long whiskers, while it's hiding underground, will be quickly devoured by the family of otthas. Rank E

These monsters looked like otters, the only differences were that they were about the size of a juvenile wolf, had extremely long whiskers, and a tail ending in a flat fin.

Honestly, I found otter already adorable with their small beady eyes and cute noses. If you could overlook the numerous teeth in their mouth, then the whiskers just made otthas cuter than otters. Am I about to kill these cute beings?!

I mean, I personally don’t wanna, but there is a very good reason that I should. And that reason is the giant cat growling and hissing in the middle of this ottha encirclement…who for some reason was pierced by a spear!

Giant Cat Status Board

Profile:

Name: *

Level: 19

Race: Virigress

Age: 5 Years

Status:

Health:

90/619

Mana:

89/145

Strength:

291

Intelligence:

139

Vitality:

201

Wisdom:

174

Agility:

324

Stamina:

0/412

Effects:

[Bleeding (Moderate)] [Diseased (Bacteria Infection) (Minor)]

[Exhausted (Moderate)] [Starvation (Minor)] [Sleep Deprivation (Minor)]

[Fear (Moderate)] [Stressed (Moderate)] [Terror (Minor)] [Rage (Moderate)]

Skill:

Magic skills and related

[Mana Control Lv. 3]

[Mana Efficiency Lv. 1]

Physical skills and related

[Enhanced Claws Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Fangs Lv. 4]

[Toxic Claws Lv. 6]

[Mana Strike Lv. 1]

[Sundering Enhancement Lv. 1]

[Piercing Enhancement Lv. 1]

Senses and movement skills

[Stealth Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 3]

[Accuracy Correction Lv. 2]

[Prediction Lv. 3]

[Danger Perception Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 5]

[Tracking Lv. 3]

[Night Vision Lv. 8]

[Presence Killer Lv. 3]

[Evasion Lv. 3]

[Acrobatic Lv. 3]

[Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 2]

Resistances

[Physical Resistance Lv. 4]

[Pain Resistance Lv. 3]

[Bleed Resistance Lv. 2]

[Poison Resistance Lv. 6]

[Paralyze Resistance Lv. 1]

[Torpor Resistance Lv. 1]

[Wind Resistance Lv. 2]

[Water Resistance Lv. 1]

Stat growths and related

[Health Recovery Lv. 1]

[Stamina Recovery Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Health Growth Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Agility Enforcement Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Stamina Capacity Lv. 1]

Other

[Kin Controller Lv. 1]

[Pregnancy Lv. 1]

[Starvation Lv. 5]

Titles:

[Protective Mother]

Holy shit, how many status ailments does she have, huh?! What the fuck!

That was the most status ailments that I have seen in the “Effects” column, like ever. The last time I’ve seen a long list like this was when I met the garm matriarch after I beat her partner. Even then, it wasn’t this long.

Although, if I were to fully buff myself with all my status buffing skills, all of the buffs would be displayed in "Effects", effectively making it longer than the virigress mother, however, who wants to see that long list. It makes my head dizzy just by seeing it myself.

Still, I would like to consider it a coincidence but that would be a silly thing to do. It had [Pregnancy], it had [Kin Controller], Rajah led us here, and as Rajah was separated by his family during the stampede that happened a few days ago, it is quite likely that she’s his mother.

It could be an entirely different virigress but we can think about that scenario after we rescue her.

[“Saori, we’re going in!”] I commanded Saori.

[“Go kibo no yo ni, Hestia Oujo-sama,”] Saori quickly said. (As you wish, Princess Hestia,)

Thankfully, Saori immediately agreed to my rescue attempt. I was scared that we would have the same argument that we had during Tasianna’s rescue but luckily nothing like that happened today. Maybe the situation is different and she’s more confident in our party’s strength?

Yup, that has to be it!

Anyways, like a flash, both of us jumped over to the virigress mother’s location, putting ourselves in between her and the otthas.

“““Squeeeeeek?!””” the otthas squeked in surprise.

“Greowh?!” likewise, our sudden appearance caught the virigress off-guard too.

To make sure that she knew we were on her side, and to stop any misunderstandings, I decided to talk with her using [“Don’t worry, miss, we’re here to help you! This will hurt but bear with me…there! Cure, Purify, Major Heal, Major Heal!”]

Pulling the spear out of her body, I immediately started multi-casting all those holy spells. I quickly healed her from all the damage that she took and also freed her from all the nasty infections inside her body.

Still, even with my healing, it would be impossible for this monster to move nor defend herself in the current situation. She was starving, physically exhausted, mentally drained, and she was only a Rank E monster against three Rank Es. She still needed us to kill her hunters.

When I was finished, I directed my eyes back forward and spoke, [“Saori, [Identify] informed me that these otthas hunt in large groups. Are these three the only one or are there more?"]

[“Maybe it would have been more prudent to ask me this before we rushed in, but whatever,”] she complained. ["Besides these three, five are hiding in the mud. The cold water is making [Heat Vision] hard to use but I can confirm their existence.”]

Five more rank E monsters would be nothing against us, even with [Humanized (Moderate)] nerfing our stats.

Sorry, you guys are cute but if you won’t leave her alone, then it breaks my heart, but we have to kill you, I said internally as I stared one of them down.

“Squeeeeeeeeeeeeek!” with that war cry, the otthas turned around and…and…are they running away?!

[“…They ran away,”] Saori said with a slack jaw.

Scratching my head, it took me a bit to reboot from this anti-climactic ending, [“…I guess they somehow understood the power difference despite us being in our humanized forms?”]

[“It also could be because I activated [Bloodlust] and [Terror Aura] simultaneously,”] Saori confessed. [“I apologize, it was my fault. It worked for the toads so I was sure that it would be useful here.”]

Saori’s main fighting style was focused around killing monsters using her dark spells to outwit and deceive opponents, while mainly relying on stealth and surprise attacks to kill. Normally, I would be the one standing here alone while Saori would skulk somewhere out of sight, waiting for an opportunity.

It wasn't often that Saori would try to fight somebody head-on so she might have overestimated how courageous, or desperate, these otthas would be. Having been on the receiving end of her [Bloodlust] aura, I can tell that it’s no joke when you receive the full brunt of it.

[“Well, it certainly helped to scare them away,”] I laughed it off.

They were only rank Es anyways, so the amount of experience they would give would be pitiful, especially when our party was fairly sharing it among us. Trying to hunt those eight creatures down would be a less efficient usage of our time.

There is the option of shooting them, but they were too lovable for that. Would you shoot a kitten, you heartless humans?

[" 'The best victories are those without any fighting' a quote from Sun Tzu that fits this moment perfectly,"] Saori crossed her arms and nodded her head with close eyes. [“We avoided getting ourselves wetter and we can now take care of the virigress.”]

While I nodded with her, I soon realized something about the quote, [“Wait, I heard about that Sun Tzu dude on an internet forum before. Wasn’t he a famous Chinese warmonger or something? Why do you know a quote from him?”]

["Strategist, but I guess he was a war-advocate…anyways, to your question; I was reading about Confucius when I happen to stumble on a mention about Sun Tzu,"] Saori explained. [“I am not a big fan of his book nor his philosophy but a few of his quotes are memorable.”]

[“Who the hell is Confucius?”] I asked with one raised eyebrow.

[“…Incredible…,”] Saori knitted her brows in exasperation. [“You lecture me about not knowing about musicians, but you do not even know the name of one of the most famous philosophers in Asia? A person that has influenced a whole country. You did mention that you attended a school with a good curriculum, right?”]

[“Hey, don’t bad mouth Beethoven,”] I rebuked back. [“He may not have influenced history as much as this Confucius guy, but the evolution of music has benefitted from his legacy. The tragedy and success life of Beethoven is even worthy of Shakespeare, in my opinion. The horrors of becoming deaf is a musician’s worst nightmare.”]

Due to Saori’s lacking musical education, especially when it concerns its history, I’ve decided on my own that I must elucidate her about the legacy of so many wonderful musicians. So, I talked grandiosely and told her everything about Ludwig van Beethoven, a personal favorite of mine.

An Idol, like any other musician, benefited quite a lot when it comes to musical history when you compose your own songs. Usually, a lyricist would do it but an Idol who could do it herself is more valuable.

Staring at Saori’s eye, none of us wanting to break free, I noticed a small glint in her eyes as she started to smirk. My instincts were telling me that she’s having some weird ideas again…and for some reason, I had a good idea of what it could be…

Will I have to learn the whole history curriculum as I travel with Saori? Isn’t knowing about the old Greeks enough?

[“Rajah, wait! Lady Hestia! Miss Saori!”] suddenly, a voice interrupted our staring competition.

Turning around I saw Rajah jumping through the muddy water wanting to reach us, specifically the virigress next to us. He was struggling to move through the swamp’s vegetation due to his height and he was just tiring himself out from his rash movement, becoming more sluggish as he continued.

Shaking my head, I air walked over, picked him up, asked Tasianna to clean him with water magic, and then bought him closer to the virigress female.

“Mreowh!” Rajah cried once we landed next to her.

“Greowh…” she cried, prompting me to release Rajah.

As the small cub came closer to his supposed mother, both began smelling each other, trying to remember the other’s scent. After a couple sniffs, the virigress mother started licking Rajah as she began grooming and drying his wet fur. Both big cats were purring so loudly that all of us were able to hear it from a distance.

[“Ahh, this is heartwarming,”] I said as I placed my hands on my chest.

[“I said that we should not look for his parents, but it seems like fate brought us together,”] Saori said with a soft smile.

[“This must be a blessing from the gods due to your kind heart, Lady Hestia. Oh, fair Zephira and righteous Plesia, I thank you for your help today,”] Tasianna clapped her hands together and began praying.

I looked weirdly at her passionate faith, not understanding why gods would waste their time on something like this, [“I’m pretty sure gods wouldn’t have the time to help us find a lost cub’s near-dead mother.”]

Tasianna twitched, finally noticing her overeager behavior, [“T-That does make sense. Goddess Plesia and Zephira must be busy managing their followers and the races that worship them.”]

[“Come now, you two,”] Saori interjected with a wagging tail. [“As much as I want to enjoy this sight, I personally believe that it would smart to bring her to a safer spot. Looking through her status board, I think she needs to rest.”]

She was right, I healed and kept any infections at bay, but she wasn't healthy yet. She was mentally and physically at her limit, purely staying awake due to her love for Rajah. The parent and child pair have been away from each other for too long.

We have to find a safe spot for now. As we were in the swamp area of the Belzac forest, it might be better for us to sleep in the trees tonight. The ground was too dirty and muddy to sleep on.

Let’s see if I can make a treehouse today.

…

…What is this rumbling?

Looking down, my eyes caught some pebbles on the ground violently shaking and jumping up and down. My legs were affected by this weird trembling, vibrating around as I steadied my stance. Looking at the waves in the water, I was sure that something was about to happen.

[“Hestia, look over there!”] Saori turned my body around and directed my attention with her outstretched arm.

“Grrrrrrr!” the virigress mother’s agitation was shown in how she stopped grooming Rajah and snarling at the cause for the rumbling.

What the-!

The swamp wasn’t as densely packed with trees as the main forest area, so it was easy to see that something was about to erupt from the waters. The moment I thought that, a huge monster jumped out of the water like a shark, mouth open, sending a stream of muddy water into the air with everything else in that area.

“No, the otthas!” I screamed.

Besides some broken branches and root, a few fish and the two otthas were caught in between the giant creature’s crocodile jaw. With a loud snap that shook the trees around it, the otthas disappeared from sight.

Stopped by gravity, the crocodile-like beast’s trip to the sky stopped and it descended down to the ground, causing a large geyser of water to explode upwards.

"No, not the otthas!" holding my head with my hands, I mourned the unfortunate passing of those cute creatures.

We may not have known each other for long nor did we really bond but my heart ached for their deaths. It was a heartless world when cute beings could just vanish like that.

However, my mind literally got over that fact a second later as my attention was occupied with processing what I just witnessed. That monster was massive, titan-class. That monster was so large that it would make even those trolls look like dwarves.

My instincts instantly told me that I would have zero chance to defeat that monster at my current level, even with the help of Saori and Tasianna. If the garm matriarch was a boss monster, then this thing was the end boss of a raid, the ruler of the dungeon. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the apex predator of the Belzac forest.

[“W-Wow, I-I…let’s just leave that thing alone, agreed?”] I said, stumbling on my own words.

[“…Yes, I have no plans to catch that creature’s attention. I am not dying today…,”] Saori said with a pale face.

[“Goddess…how can anything get that large?”] Tasianna muttered, frozen stiff with fear.

Deciding that this monster was unbeatable for us, our party unanimously agreed to get out of the area as soon as possible, so we wouldn’t risk being detected. As Rajah’s mother also needed proper rest, our priority to find a quiet, safe place was placed at the top.

As Saori was about to grab the virigress mother, to carry her to a safe spot, the feline pushed her hands away roughly.

[“Wait, why does every cat monster hate me?”] Saori said, surprised. [“First Rajah, and now his mother?”]

The giant cat stumbled up to her feet, drawing up all her remaining energy. She then grabbed Rajah by his scruff and tried to wander off with him. While she was limping away, I could hear Rajah meowing at us.

What does this mean? Are they trying to leave? Are they leaving without us? Is Rajah trying to say goodbye? What! No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no! No, no, no, no, Rajah, no!

Wait, what is this supposed to mean?!

[“Wait, wait, please wait!”] like something was possessing me, my legs immediately began moving to stop them, as I stretched my hand out to stop them. [“Y-You can’t leave yet, please! You’re still injured, you can’t leave until you’re healed.”]

As I touched the back of the virigress, it seemed like all her strength disappeared and she slumped to the ground, huffing loudly. Rajah was released from her mouth and he immediately went to his mother’s side to check up on her, meowing loudly.

[“Oh no! I’m sorry! I-I didn’t mean to do that,”] I apologized quickly. [“No, no! I didn’t want to hurt you, I promise. I didn’t want you to leave this soon with Rajah. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been so selfish!”]

As I continued panicking, somebody grabbed my shoulders and shook them, [“Hestia, calm down. You’re casting healing spells when she doesn’t need it.”]

I turned around to see Saori’s worried face. I turned around to see that I unconsciously began materializing white magic circles, all ready to cast [Major Heal] on the no longer wounded virigress mother.

[“Calm down and look at her head. She’s shaking it,”] Saori pointed out.

She was right. Rajah's mother was shaking her head slowly as she looked me in the eyes as if she was trying to tell me something.

[“Are you telling me that I wasn’t at fault,”] I asked, which she nodded to.

[“Why were you leaving? I-I haven’t known Rajah…your cub for that long but I don’t want you to leave just like that,”] she shook her head to my plea. [“…You weren’t leaving us?”]

She nodded her head, confirming my question, [“Then, where were you going?”]

She turned her head upwards and looked in a direction, then turned to Rajah who was still meowing and rubbing his head on his mother's body.

I was thinking “Rajah? What about Rajah?” as I tried to interpret the gestures that she was showing me. If she had [Telepathy] then I didn’t have to try to identify everything like a damn detective. This would be so much faster if she could speak.

But she couldn't. She couldn't tell me it in words but the earnest glow in her eyes told me that I had to understand it. So, I sent my parallel minds and my own into hyperdrive and used [Thought Acceleration] to go through everything that happened just now. Did I forget about something?

When we met her, she was surrounded my otthas and was at the brink of death. She was covered in mud and her own blood as she tried to fend off her imminent death as best as she could, despite her the terror and fear.

But she also had [Rage (Moderate)] in her status screen, so was she mad at the otthas for trying to kill her? She was scared, terrified, and angry at the same time? It could happen but…no, next thought. Don’t waste time.

We jumped in and interfered with the otthas’ attempt to kill her. I healed and disinfected her, but she was still too tired to move. She initially was cautious about us but truly warmed up when she saw me bring Rajah over to her.

Wait…I’m missing something here. Her body was covered in wounds. They had some slashes but most of them were holes…like a bullet. Wait...

“The spear…” I said.

[“What is it, Hestia?”] Saori asked.

[“Someone, bring me the spear over there!”] I shouted as I pointed at the spear lodged on the muddy ground.

Saori dashed over and threw it at me. Firmly catching it, I said “thanks” and then spoke to the virigress, [“How did you get hurt by this spear?”]

Once again, she bent her head around and pointed it in the direction that she was about to head to before collapsing.

Normally, you would want to avoid the path where your aggressors are, but she was firmly determined to walk over there even in her current state. That’s when it dawned on me that she had the [Protective Mother] title.

Tigers and cats can have multiple offspring!

The knowledge that I learned from watching all those animal shows finally came to be useful again. How could I forget that cats can have more than one offspring!

[“Where are the rest of your babies?”] I could feel the inner fire inside me blazing up, finally boiling my blood and sweat. [“Tell me. Tell me everything.”]

A note from AbyssRaven

Yup, our group will finally meet the first beastman race of the story. Yay!

Also, Rajah and his mother, awwww.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr!

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 51: I found the fiends…

A note from AbyssRaven

Enjoy. ^^

[“Hmm, trying to find their scent in this place is difficult,”] Saori complained. [“I thought a canine’s nose should be better than this but tracking with scent alone is proving a challenge.”]

[“Could it be because your monster form hasn’t matured yet, Miss Saori?”] Tasianna stated. ["Lady Hestia's dragon wings are currently incapable of bringing her into the sky due to its lack of growth."]

[“Yeah, Tasianna might be right,”] I concurred. [“You’re only two months old. Nothing to do besides waiting.”]

Saori and I have transformed back into our original forms and I'm currently carrying the unconscious virigress mother with her cub, Rajah. We were currently traversing through the rainforest part of the Belzac forest, searching for the virigress mum’s two other children, who were abducted from her.

After I deduced that she was trying to rescue her babies, I made sure to ask her as much as I could. It was honestly quite hard as we couldn't communicate through words nor paper. As it was with Rajah, we had to rely on gestures alone.

As she didn’t need to speak and had [Starvation], we couldn’t just leave her hungry while I questioned her. Saori and Tasianna did their best to help her drink and eat using our precious rations, which, thankfully, wasn’t reduced by too much.

From what I learned, she had three cubs including Rajah. During the stampede that happened a few days ago, she was separated by Rajah during the whole chaos. Virigress usually hunted and lived in trees but due to a flock of birds and other tree climbers, Rajah fell down into the wave of monsters.

She and her two remaining cubs searched for him for a whole day but were unable to do so. As she couldn't just waste days and days to find one of her cubs while her others starved, she had to abandon Rajah to make sure that her other two could survive.

The cubs were able to hunt but she couldn’t risk having them hunt by themselves, at least when they were this young.

It was very likely that our party was the reason why the mother couldn't find Rajah during this time, as we did wander away from the area with him. Although, as a daughter myself, I wanted to condemn her for leaving Rajah to die, however, I also could understand that it was hard on her.

The moment she found Rajah again, she groomed and showered him with affection that only a distraught mother would give her lost child.

Maybe it was the same thing with my dragon parents? I thought as I heard this from the virigress mother.

Anyways, as the herd of animals was fleeing to the north, she was forced by the circumstance to follow them. Predators follow the prey, a simple logical decision that led the group into the rainforest a day before our arrival.

She found a massive lake deeper in the swamp and thought it was a well-suited area to hunt in, considering it was a hotspot for animal activity. Unfortunately, that idea was quickly squashed as that was when she noticed the giant crocodile-like thing emerging from the lake’s depths, forcing her to run away.

At that point, fortune completely left her. She was ambushed at a moment of inattentiveness by a thrown spear, lodging into her back, and her cubs have stolen away from her. She would have also perished at that moment were it not for the fact that she managed to injure one of her attackers, which forced them to retreat with the poisoned.

She tried to pursue them but accidentally triggered the ottha group, which brought her to the brink of death until we saved her.

Through some very specific questions, I was able to learn that the group was all wielding weapons like spears, shields, and sword. They had four limbs, stood upright, were covered in scales from head to tail, and that they had reptile-like heads.

From then on, any fantasy lover should be able to guess what those individuals were. I mean, when I’m using my [Humanization Lv. 5] form, I literally look like a female humanoid lizard, seeing as how my whole body was covered in scales.

I was talking about lizardmen, of course. Tasianna informed me that like dragonewts, lizardmen were counted among the beastmen. While dragonewt were the descendants of dragons, lizardman was a general term for any beastmen possessing a reptilian monster's blood.

Tasianna also warned me that I should make sure that I wasn’t mistaking lizardmen for saurians. What the hell were saurians you might ask? They were followers of the goddess Plesia and inhabitants from a continent far away from ours.

She never met one, but she was told that saurians were righteous and embodied the Goddess of Water’s main tenet of upholding courteousness. If it were saurians then there was a chance that we could settle this diplomatically.

Honestly, I wanted to eradicate them. My rage from hearing the whole story was burning brightly like a sun and I felt no reluctance at the very idea of “murder”, believing it was more like the “killing” I did to save Tasianna.

They might have the intelligence of a human, just like those trolls, but I couldn’t care less. Diplomacy can kiss my scaly butt if those cubs are dead!

That’s when I decided that our party will launch a rescue operation to hopefully get to the cubs in time. Thankfully, Saori was able to follow the scent of the group with the help of the spear that we had.

For your information, it wasn’t a crudely survivalist made spear, but its wooden shaft was polished, and it had a metal top, something a blacksmith or metalworker would make. It was worn down, the top has seen usage as there was evidence of blood, and despite an effort to maintain it, the metal top had chips.

These lizardmen weren’t like the kobolds and orcs that I have met in this forest, they were people that came from the outside.

Anyways, after the decision, our group transformed back into our original forms as we needed to transport the two virigress with us. The virigress mother was shocked to see our true forms, warily trying to distance herself from us but quickly realized that it was us after we used [Telepathy] to tell her about it.

Rajah, on the other hand, already knew about it and wasn’t really shocked. Frankly, he had no real reaction when we showed it to him the first time. Somehow…he just accepted it. Nothing else. He was nuzzling his head at me despite my larger size.

He is a true cutie. An undisciplined but adorable cutie.

Traveling through the swamp, the mother finally succumbed to her physical exhaustion and fell asleep. Tasianna decided to clean her from all the muck and blood as she found it disgusting that she was sitting on my back while dirty.

Once cleaned, her rich green fur returned, resembling Rajah’s. I also noticed that she didn’t look like a tiger at all, now that the mud was gone, which confused me ‘cause Rajah looked like a tiger’s cub.

The mother had the appearance of a Jaguar so maybe male virigresses are more tiger-like while females are jaguar-like? Sexual dimorphism isn’t anything to be surprised about.

[“I think they are close by…at least I hope my nose is correct,”] Saori said uncertainly.

[“Then, this is where we humanize,”] I said.

No matter if they had lizard heads or not, it would be more productive if the one you are talking to isn’t a large dragon. Tasianna insisted that we should try to resolve this peacefully, arguing that they were intelligent and that we may reason with them.

I found that statement hypocritical. How could I, of all people, even start discriminating between “intelligent” and “not intelligent”. I kill monsters to survive without batting an eye, not even giving them a chance to say their piece.

Ja, I did help Saori and Tasianna, and, ja, I did adopt Rajah and have decided to save his siblings, but that just made me fickle.

Honestly, I could continue this train of thought and begin philosophizing like the ancient Greek but I’m not smart enough for that. Merely thinking of a proper answer or if I really am a hypocrite by agreeing to Tasianna’s request was making my parallel minds get a headache.

Now humanized, I gave everybody a short briefing, [“Ok, first we shall look for the cubs. If they are still alive then we will try diplomacy otherwise…,”] I didn’t end my sentence as everybody here knew what I was about to say.

Saori, now carrying the sleeping virigress, Tasianna, Rajah, and I slowly prowled through the trees, all having [Stealth] and [Presence Killer] active. Rajah was especially motivated as his siblings' lives were at stake.

Once we were close enough, we then climbed up a tree and continued from there. The dense leaves of the trees helped cover the blue dresses that Saori and I were wearing.

Looking down, a group of bipedal lizards came into sight. They had scales covering their body colored in various colors and were all wearing badly maintained clothes.

All of them had exactly what you would expect, a lizard head that looked both intimidating and intelligent. Some had bone spikes protruding from their backs, while others had frills and webbing growing from their heads, acting like hair.

Sexual dimorphism seems to be apparent with them, too. The males had large, bulky bodies with rough scales that looked like the plating of a crocodile, while the females were taller and had leaner bodies with more smooth, vibrant-colored scales.

The male lizardmen were armed while the females only had small knives as they carried berries, mushrooms, and firewood with their arms. From the lit campfire, I presumed they were about to make camp.

[“Some of them have armor but most of them…well, they are rags,”] Saori pointed out. ["Honestly, they are so badly maintained that I cannot believe they are wearing them. They just covered the essentials and that was all. No style, creative, or anything.”]

Due to the spear and how they were able to outsmart the virigress mum, I had a different image of the group in my mind. The armor didn’t look very expensive, but it didn’t have any holes like their clothes. If you disregarded their weapons and armor, then they seemed more like a group of impoverished people.

Still, what the hell were they doing so deep in the forest then?! Besides a few people being equipped, they still didn’t have many tools; they weren’t even carrying around baskets or bags.

Either they were confident in their abilities or why else would they wander into the Belzac forest looking like that?

Identify.

Lizardman's Status Board

Profile:

Name: Caszcur

Level: 11

Race: Krokus Lizardman

Age: 32 Years

Job: Carpenter

Status:

Health:

249/383

Mana:

35/35

Strength:

209

Intelligence:

45

Vitality:

109

Wisdom:

73

Agility:

94

Stamina:

198/311

Effects:

None

Skill:

Physical abilities and related

[Enhanced Claws Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Fangs Lv. 3]

[Spear Technique Lv. 2]

[Unarmed Technique Lv. 3]

Senses and movement skills

[Stealth Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 1]

[Tracking Lv. 1]

[Night Vision Lv. 3]

[Evasion Lv. 1]

[Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 1]

[Swimming Lv. 4]

[Aquatic Fighter Lv. 1]

Resistances

[Physical Resistance Lv. 3]

[Pain Resistance Lv. 2]

[Disease Resistance Lv. 3]

[Bleeding Resistance Lv. 3]

[Poison Resistance Lv. 3]

[Paralyzation Resistance Lv. 2]

[Torpor Resistance Lv. 1]

[Wind Resistance Lv. 1]

[Water Resistance Lv. 2]

Stat Growths and related

[Health Recovery Lv. 3]

[Stamina Recovery Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Health Growth Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 1]

Others

[Cooking Lv. 2]

[Dismantle Lv. 3]

[Woodworking Lv. 5]

[Craftsman Lv. 4]

[Blacksmith Lv. 1]

[Metalwork Lv. 1]

[Handiwork Lv. 2]

[Starvation Lv. 3]

Ability List:

Spear Abilities

[Pierce]

[Flash Pierce]

Beastmen had higher parameters in all their stats except for Mana and Intelligence, which is one of the reasons why despite their physical prowess, they were considered weaker than humans in the era when the System hadn’t existed yet, at least that’s what Tasianna told me.

Sure enough, his stats were enough to take down every G and F rank monsters, but it wasn’t enough to fight against an E rank. This guy seemed like the leader of this group but in a solo fight, he would have had no chance against the virigress mother, who was an E rank.

Still, "Carpenter"? This guy's Job was a carpenter and he was supposed to be the leader? From observing the group, I saw him giving orders to everybody in the camp and both his stats and appearance screamed: "I'm the head honcho".

Which meant, these guys weren't hunters, poachers, nor "adventurers", they were simply normal people that have wandered in too deeply. Idiocy if you asked me.

Urgh, how could they have been this arrogant to wander into this place looking like that? What a bunch of suicidal idiots. Tch…they are making me furious, not at the fact that they kidnapped Rajah’s sibling, but at how terrible they were looking…idiots…what a bunch of Dummköpfe!

[“Hestia, you will give our location away if you do not keep your bloodlust in check,”] Saori reprimanded me.

[“Hmph! These people are looking down at our birthplace, Saori,”] I lashed out. [“The Belzac forest is not a forgiving place and these people are coming in here completely unprepared. Look at them as they continue preparing their camp, none the wiser that a cadejo and a dragon are spying on them.”]

Saori glanced at me before messing up my hair with her hand, [“…Keep the ‘tsun’ part to yourself, Hestia. I found the cubs, look over there.”]

Directing my eyes over at the direction Saori was pointing at, I could see the cubs trapped in a wooden cage, made with twigs and thatch holding them together.

The cubs were dirty, their green fur lost the vibrancy that Rajah’s had, and they were shivering meekly, scared of what was about to happen to them.

Besides being hungry and slightly bruised, they were in better shape than when we found their mother.

[“Cool yourself down,”] Saori looked at me. [“Try speaking with them first and if the negotiation turns bad, I will drop down and rescue the cubs. After that, you may do what you like, Hestia.”]

[“They don’t have [Telepathy] but most beastmen should know Common tongue,”] Tasianna said. [“I’ll translate your words so let us hope that they are rational enough to listen to us.”]

Ok…deep breathes…in…and out. Calm yourself, Hestia. Smother the flame.

[“Rajah,”] I turned my eyes to his. [“You stay up here and help Saori out, ok? Be a good boy and listen to her. I promise, whatever happens, I will save and bring back your siblings.”]

Rajah gave an affirming meow and nuzzled his head around my legs, probably telling me that he believed in me.

[“Saori, I’ll leave Plan B to you. Take care of these two for me, ok?”] I told her.

[“Leave it to me. Go in and break a bone…uhh, not literally and please do not do it before everything derails,”] Saori awkwardly assured me.

I giggled a bit as she used that sort of idiom but wasn't sure if I would take it seriously…I won't if everything works out peacefully.

Tasianna and I dropped off the tree and slid back into the shadows of the trees, walking to the opposite side of lizardmen camp and deactivated our stealth skills there.

If something were to happen, then their attention would be directed at me and their backs would be face Saori. They might be weak, but it didn’t hurt to be cautious, especially when we didn’t know if they had a trick up their sleeves.

Now in their view, we confidently walked towards them, which agitated the guards.

“Saaaah! Lappsasha! Lappsasha! Hiiljka gu Caszcur!” one of them said, as one began running into the camp while the rest readied their weapons.

[“I can confirm that they speak Common tongue, Lady Hestia,”] Tasianna announced. [“His accent was thick, but I will be able to understand them.”]

[“What did he say?”] I asked.

I managed to understand “Lappsasha”, which was “intruder”, and “Caszcur” but everything else was swallowed by the lizard-like hissing accent. Even if I wanted to prance around with my speaking and understanding skills, I will not be able to so today.

I was relatively still a novice and handling a volatile situation like this requires perfect speaking and listening skills.

[“He said, ‘Saaaah! Intruder! Intruder! Send for Caszcur!’,”] Tasianna translated. [“’Saaah’ was just a war cry, or maybe it was more akin to ‘aaaah’?”]

As much as this discussion would be terribly interesting, my focus was strained in the direction of the people pointing their weapons at me, essentially threatening me. I couldn’t see my face, but I knew that my eyes were locked onto every single one of these guards, leaking my animosity as my body felt the desire to rip them all into pieces for provoking me.

It was clear that these guys weren’t trained soldiers nor fighters as their quaking legs couldn’t handle my glare for more than five seconds, collapsing onto the ground and soiling themselves.

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! this pitiful scene was enough to loosen the tension inside me.

Oh my, how could grown adult lizardmen be terrorized by a small girl like me? I only went up to their waist and you’re telling me that they couldn’t even handle being stared by me?! They were armored and armed too, while I was only wearing a one-piece and some socks.

OMG, this totally kills their intimidating appearances for me. So lame…

Awesome, now I feel bad for doing that to them…

“Jaka-?! Jakaop sus buzta ki lire?!” suddenly, the lizardman, Caszcur, arrived with the guard that called for him. “Wuh niji! Jukaop…haji sa kiljaja?”

[“…Urgh…he said, ‘Wha-? What is going on here?! You two! Who…wait, an insect?’,”] Tasianna told me dejectedly, tears were building in her eyes. [“I-I’ll…begin establishing communications at your command, Princess Hestia.”]

[“No ‘Princess Hestia’, address me normally, Tasianna,”] I told Tasianna before she started speaking with the lizardmen group’s leader. ["Do you actually believe they will take us seriously when you address me like a princess, hell, what are we supposed to do when they actually do take it seriously, huh? You may begin but please don't expose me."]

[“Yes, of course, Lady Hestia,”] Tasianna bowed to me and then turned to the lizardman named Caszcur. [“I would like to request that you turn your frown into a smile, my Lady. It would do us no good, otherwise.”]

Sigh, what a pain…

Obediently listening to Tasianna’s advice, I slouched my shoulders before readjusting my posture, displaying everything I learned from my etiquette lessons on Earth.

Casting the frown away, I first let my face regain its default state for a second before moving my muscles to change my expression. Considering what just…uhh, happened, I don’t think an extravagant smile would do.

Considering that these people were practically “normal” working class and how my face just looked like, I think a neutral expression with a slight smile would be more appropriate. Make them feel comfortable without overdoing it but still showing that I mean business through my eye contact.

In the meantime, Tasianna also told me that she will be translating everything to me through [Telepathy] in real-time, as best as she could despite splitting concentration. I wish I were able to participate in the negotiation to alleviate Tasianna's need to translate everything, but a week and a few days are not enough to learn a completely foreign language.

“Greetings and blessing to you from the Goddess of Water on his fine Waterday,” still flapping her wings mid-air, Tasianna gave a polite curtsey as an introduction.

Tasianna wasn’t an extremely religious person but she still showed great piety towards the gods by counting each day, making sure that she remembered the calendar and every single day. As each day of a week, besides the seventh, was dedicated to the gods, she found it important to count them.

It was considered polite to greet others with the day that their god is dedicated to. If they were saurians then we could appease them by stating this, otherwise, we could only hope that they worshiped Plesia, the Goddess of Waters.

Tasianna continued, “My name is Tasianna, a fairy, and I speak in the name of my mistress, Lady Hestia Atsuko. May I ask for your name and which gods you worship?”

Oi, I said to address me normally! I wanted to scold Tasianna but knew that it was my fault for not being more specific…verdammt.

“Uhh, I see…” the tall lizardman said, clearly surprised that Tasianna spoke. “My name is Caszcur, the leader of this group of lizardfolk. Why are you asking, huh? What do you want?”

They didn’t reciprocate the greeting and they just confirmed that they were lizardmen. Guess our attempt was a dud.

As Caszcur regained his bearing, he responded to Tasianna with a powerful voice fitting for a man of his size. This gave the lizardmen guards who pissed their pants a chance to stand up, they then ran to their leader’s side, and once again pointed their weapons at us, although with shaking legs.

I honestly have no idea if I should feel bad for them ‘cause I was feeling a bit annoyed that they haven’t lowered their weapons yet. Even Caszcur wasn’t making an effort by ordering them to lower them, despite our friendly talks.

Urgh, I know they were probably wary of us, but this still didn’t sit right with me.

“We would like to speak about the virigress cubs you have in your camp,” undeterred that he didn’t name his gods, Tasianna stated our goals.

“What is a ‘virigress’ supposed to be?” he asked confused.

“Those are the green felines that you have captured. They are in your camp, no?” Tasianna explained.

Sharpening his eyes, Caszcur’s suspicion towards us did not waver, “And how in Marsven’s name do you know that, huh? Spit it out already! You two are not welcome here so stop slithering around our tails.”

[“This rude fellow doesn’t seem very willing to speak,”] Tasianna stated. [“However, although he didn’t want to state his gods, he unconsciously spoke about them. They seem to be followers of Marsven, the God of the Dark, and through proxy, probably also Edna’s.”]

From Tasianna’s lectures, I learned that Marsven, the God ruling over the dark element, and Edna, the Goddess of Monsters and Fertility, are one of two god couples. Compared to Marsven, Edna was once a mortal that was given apotheosis by Marsven to become both his wife and subordinate goddess.

“We would like to request that you free them,” Tasianna demanded.

“Free? And why should we do that, huh?” Caszcur, finally losing his patience for us, unsheathed his sword. “I won’t say it again, leave us now, otherwise we will kill you two!”

“Heh…,” I unwillingly let out a snicker at his ultimatum.

“What are you laughing about, huh?! You, lizard-lass, don’t you know what it means to be threatened?” Caszcur, annoyed that I leaked a giggle, pointed his sword at me.

"Control yourself!" Tasianna shouted as she flew in front of me to stand in between me and the sword point. “We are here in peace, but you are showing us unneeded animosity. I suggest you correct your rude behavior and show, Lady Hestia, a bit more respect.”

While Tasianna showed no hostility when she was threatened, genuine anger surfaced when the lizardman leader directed his sword at me. Her stare, as cold as the freezing south pole, pierced through the lizardmen's body as an icy mist started to materialize around her hands, a sign that she was about to begin casting her magic.

All the lizardmen flinched from this sight, instinctively knowing that if they were to anger us any further, that a fight would happen. The guards that had to endure my early presence all looked at each other, already knowing how frightening I could become.

The group began talking with each other quietly, believing that I wouldn’t be able to hear them. Eavesdropping might be considered rude, but they were rude to me first, so this is only fair. I told Tasianna what I heard, and she translated it for me.

“C-Caszcur, let us lower our weapons and hear them out,” a guard said.

“What?!” Caszcur spat out. “What the fuck are you suggesting, huh?! These people are dangerous, and we don’t even know if they are headhunters sent by that army of monsters. We haven’t sacrificed everybody back then just to be caught here!”

“B-But, isn’t the girl a lizardfolk, also? She might have more human blood but scale-kin is scale-kin, right?" another guard responded.

Army of monsters? Human blood? Ignoring the former, it seems like there was a misunderstanding about my race. Why is it that they can’t see me as a dragonewt?

[“Tasianna, tell them that I’m a dragonewt,”] I told my fairy friend.

Acknowledging my request, Tasianna spoke to the lizardmen, “Excuse me but there seems to be a misunderstanding. My Lady is not a lizardman but a dragonewt.”

Realizing that we overheard them, everybody froze in surprise, only Caszcur was able to continue speaking, "Y-You eavesdropped on us. W-What the hell is wrong with you. Have you not…urgh, HEY, what are you doing?!"

Before he could continue speaking, a few of the guards threw their weapon on the ground and grabbed him, “Caszcur, you idiot, stop speaking and cool down your head, first!”

“By Marsven’s name, didn't she just tell us that she's a dragonewt? That means she's neither a slave nor a headhunter, r-right?" another guard said in a panic.

“Kargryxmor! She must be a follower of the dragon god! She might also have other companions!” another said energetically.

“We’re so close! We’re saved! D-Down on your knees! We need to apologize for threatening the lass!”

Simultaneously nodded at the last guard’s words, every single guard threw Caszcur to the side like a ragdoll and then ran towards me before prostrating in front of me, while shouting “Ilsa lek gaznunt! Plersiz, ilsa histe!”.

[“…Uhhh, t-they are shouting ‘We are sorry! Please, help us!’…, Lady Hestia,”] Tasianna said flabbergasted.

How in the hell did this happen! Weren’t we hating each other just a minute ago?!

It can’t be said that I was any less surprised by everything that is happening just now. I mean, we threatened each other just a second ago and now these people are on their knees, begging me for help.

All this uproar was loud enough that the rest of the lizardmen from the camp came over to see what is happened. A whole crowd began forming before me, all curiously watching a group of adults begging a young dragon girl in an almost pitiful way.

While I would consider them idiots for doing this, I couldn’t help but feel extreme embarrassment from being apologized in this sort of way. Instead of a burning fire inside my chest, it seems like it was eaten up by the soaring flames heating inside my head.

The blood rushing up to my brain began making me dizzy as I wasn’t sure how to handle this situation. This wasn’t what we planned! It wasn’t even close to what I wanted to do here!

[“Tasianna! Tell them to stand up at once, please! They need to stop prostrating this instance!”] I shouted flustered.

However, despite her efforts, everything was drowned by the synchronized voices of the lizardmen guards shouting from the top of their lungs. Influenced by this, the whole crowd of lizardmen behind them also began speaking louder and louder. Can somebody please shut these idiots up!

…Somebody besides me, please!

“Shut up!” as if he heard my plea, the lizardman Caszcur stood up and ran at the prostrating guards, shouting at them, all while throwing them back on their feet. “You krill eaters, have you all forgotten about that giant monster that destroyed everything a few days ago?! Is everybody in this camp trying to kill themselves by telling it our location! Shut up already!”

Once he managed to calm everybody down, I couldn’t help but let out a sigh from this, silently thanking him.

“And you!” however, it didn’t take long for him to once again direct his anger at me, now pointing his sharp finger at me. “I don’t care if you’re a dragonewt or whatever, but I won’t endanger everybody here for somebody as suspicious as you. Leave now!”

“We will not leave without the virigress cubs,” Tasianna said adamantly from the side.

Turning his head to the side to give her a glance for a second, he suddenly grabbed my jaw with his hand and then continued shouting, close enough that his spit was touching the [Draconic Barrier] covering my face, “Why aren’t you speaking, huh?! You some little noble girl that isn’t even willing to talk to a slave like me, huh?! You too good to speak to me, huh?! What the hell are you even doing in this forest, anyways, dressed up like you’re on some kinda funny-little trip, huh?!”

“Kosh saf obiero juc ils,” I said nonchalantly, feeling no threat from this overgrown lizard. (Get your hand off me,)

Hearing me say that seems to have agitated him even further, “Now you’re talking, huh?! You’re probably pissing your scales now that your attendant can’t do anything for you anymore, right, you spoiled skink-ARRRRRRGH!”

Screaming in pain, Caszcur released his hand from my jaw and began wailing on the ground, holding his hand that was pierced by an [Ice Spike].

[“Lady Hestia! I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry! I can’t believe that I let you get touched by that savage! I’m so sorry that I reacted too slowly,”] Tasianna exclaimed, tears in her eyes as she apologized to me. [“I’m still too slow, I’m so sorry. I should have protected you the moment, I felt that…”]

[“Tasianna everything is alright,”] I interrupted her. [“I never was in any threat at all. He only needed me to vent his stress out and I was willing to do so. I should be the one to say sorry for making you worry.”]

Caszcur’s power was merely below an E rank monster. He couldn’t even hurt me even if he actually wanted to. Physically, I might look feeble in comparison to him but the stat difference between us was unquestionable.

It was actually a mistake from him to come this close to me. He might have thought that he could crush my head in case I resisted him, but my claws only needed a second to skewer his heart out of his body.

“You beast!” Tasianna accepting my apology with a bow, then turned her anger towards Caszcur. “How dare you sully Lady Hestia’s face! You deserved being hit by that ice spell!”

“Y-You did this to me?!” Caszcur said incredulously. “Y-You two tail polishers! Sakanta kroac kroks! I will…ARGHHH, KROAC, MY BACK!”

Krill eaters, skink, and now tail polishers? Are they insults? What are they supposed to mean?

While I was analyzing these weird idioms and words, Saori appeared out of nowhere, carrying the virigress mother on her back, Rajah with her left arm, and the cage with the cubs with the right.

Hearing what Caszcur was saying to me, she stomped her feet onto his back, pushing his face into the mud.

[“Mission complete. Nice work attracting mostly everybody from the camp,”] Saori said, ignoring the cussing lizardman struggling under her feet.

[“Nice work. I guess with that, we solved everything without spilling any blood,”] I said before realizing the frozen blood on Caszcur’s hand. [“Well, we didn’t spill much blood at least.”]

“Tail polishers!” Caszcur shouted out. “Everybody, look at them stealing our food! That skink lass is no savior, she’s just a filthy thief.”

His pained shouts were loud enough that most of the lizardmen were quite agitated by it. They began to hiss and yell as they began unsheathing their weapons. Ignorant of our abilities, the angry mob was compelled to attack us for rescuing the cubs.

"Thief? Me?!" I responded in my defense, annoyed at what he was calling me. "Dude, as I would do something beneath me like stealing.”

I said everything in English so he probably wasn’t able to understand me. I just wanted to vent it out.

[“…Hestia, what are you even saying at this very moment?!”] Saori looked at me with a bewildered face. [“That is not the issue here! Come on, it is time to go!”]

She was visibly angry at me for defending myself from being insulted. He said something terrible to me and I was the one to be reprimanded? Isn't that a bit unfair?

Urgh, whatever…I was planning to kill them anyway. This gives me enough reason to do so.

Raising my arm, I started forming a blazing red magic circle above my head. A small ball of fiery gas started materializing on it, first growing to the size of a soccer ball, or football like Papa forced me to say, then to a yoga ball, and then stopping when it reached the size of a giant inflatable beach ball.

Once the angry mob of lizardman saw my [Scorching Sun], their bodies froze on the spot, terror clear visible on their faces. They neither screamed nor fled, completely overwhelmed by the [Terror (Major)] that appeared in their status boards.

Even Caszcur finally realized what sort of person he managed to anger. His crocodile-like jaw hanged loosely as his eyes watched in horror as I was readying the killing blow.

Stay there and watch. Food? You tried turning Rajah’s siblings into food? Nobody important to me will suffer under my watch!

…Die.

“PLEARSIZ! PLEARSIZ, KTOPA!”

Before I could actually throw my spell at the mob, another group of lizardmen started prostrating in front of me. It felt like déjà vu but that’s ‘cause I recognized these people; they were the guards from before.

“PLEASIZ! ILLSA HAT OVLA BUMANTAMEND! PLEASIZ, OH KALMN LATHUE!” the guards shouted, weeping at the very same time.

As Tasianna wasn’t translating anymore, I was unable to understand them. Asking her, she told me that they said, “Please! Please, stop! Please! We ask for forgiveness! Please, oh fair-scaled one!”.

It seemed that every single one of these lizardman guards were talented in speaking out simultaneously, as their combined voices were even more powerful than before. They would make a great choir.

[“Tell that one to stand up,”] I told Tasianna while pointing at the lizardman who spoke out first. [“Ask him if they are actually willing to talk it out peacefully. If he is, then ask for his name and that he will lead the negotiation from now onwards.”]

We might be handling it like a bunch of thugs but who cares at this point. I’ll reflect on this later on but if it kept Rajah’s sibling from turning into dinner, then I won’t regret this decision.

Daunted, they agreed to our demands easily. I un-cast my [Scorching Sun] and the new de facto lizardman leader introduced himself as Aksmias before bidding us to follow them into the camp.

A note from AbyssRaven

So, I noticed that somebody mentioned that Hestia would ram the spear up somebody's b-hole but little did they know that Tasianna would be the one to do it!

Yes, it was [Ice Spike] but that's the same, right? No? Because it didn't go up his butt? Well, I guess that's true.

Now, let's see what Hestia will do after the "negotiation".

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr!

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 52: Doctor Hestia is in the house!

A note from AbyssRaven

Sorry, for the late chapter. Please, enjoy it.

After letting everything cool down, our group was being led into the middle of the camp. Besides the guards that heard us admitting that I was a dragonewt, the rest of the camp was more or less scared of us, actually, considering how intense they were shivering, maybe terror was a better word?

Isn't it a bit unreasonable for them to be this fearful despite how friendly we've been behaving since that whole situation in front of the camp's entrance was solved? I healed Caszcur’s pierced hand and his other injuries with no complaints and I didn’t even ask for any compensation; isn’t that a clear indication that I wasn’t looking for a fight anymore?

I only went as far as using a powerful spell, like [Scorching Sun] ‘cause they were trying to attack me as a mad mob. Seeing a miniature sun nearly slamming onto you might be scary, but what about me? If I were a normal girl then seeing large humanoid lizards wanting to tear me into pieces would turn me into a screaming little girl.

Well, they didn’t show the will to harm me anymore, so it was only mildly unpleasant. Even Caszcur turned meek, not even wanting to look me in the eyes.

Anyways, as we walked through the camp, I noticed that I was wrong when I thought everybody came to the front of the entrance. Although not all were set up, the few tents that were had lizardmen in them.

Once we were close enough, I took a glimpse through the opening. It was only for a moment, but it looked like it was filled with lizardmen, squirming on the ground, as a single female tried to take care of them.

It also couldn't be helped that all the moaning and groaning was audible from outside the tent, in addition to the fact that my nose was able to distinguish the reek of blood from the swamp's natural swampy smell.

[“That is why I said, ‘mostly everybody’,”] Saori, still carrying all the virigresses, told me as she walked beside me. ["The smell and the large number of individuals cramped in a single area made me curious, so I had to delay the extraction of the virigresses. You should have seen my face when I realized that it was a clinic."]

If that was the clinic then could the one the virigress mother have poisoned be in there?

[“…If you knew about this then why didn’t you mention this?”] I asked. [“Why didn’t you stop me? I actually was about to kill that giant group of lizardmen, and you said nothing? Why?”]

[“That is because if I had mentioned it then you would have immediately wanted to help them, am I not correct?”] Saori responded.

I wasn’t able to give an answer to her question, simply scratching my head and shrugging my shoulders to show my indecisiveness. It wasn’t like I was a saint or anything, but even I would turn mild if I heard that a whole tent full of wounded people were waiting for that angry mob.

However, would I have gone to their side and healed them? I don't know. I felt bad for them but besides a moral obligation to help, I had no reason or motivation to do so.

[“Hmmm, I see, fair enough. Sorry for assuming that,”] Saori said while looking away and scratching her cheek, embarrassed. [“A-Anyways, I would have stopped you if those lizardmen had not. When I arrived, I believed running away was the smarter choice, it was not our problem, after all. Would that angry mob have calmed down at that moment, even if you whole-heartedly asked them to stop?”]

Thinking from that angle, Saori had a point. What would it have done to the situation if I tried to talk to them? Wasn’t running away a better idea than to…wait a minute. If I had known about the clinic and offered them to heal everybody, then wouldn’t everything have gone smoother?

If there were family members or friends in there, then I could gain some favor if I helped heal them. That would have been the best way to solve everything without killing literally everybody in the camp.

OMG, we are a bunch of Dummköpfe!

[“Saori, you know…now that I think about it, if we had found the clinic during our initial reconnaissance, then we wouldn’t have had to scare everybody,”] I said meekly. [“I could have offered my healing abilities in exchange for the cubs.”]

[“…I am so sorry,”] Saori shook her head, shocked at my words. [“I-I think…I believe that I was influenced by the whole mood. It seems that I should have listened to my own advice and cool myself down. It really is not my day, today…”]

Our own hot-bloodedness prevented us from seeing the whole picture, causing unnecessary conflict between our party and the lizardmen’s. What was driving us to be that reckless today?

[“Uhm, I actually do not believe that would have worked exactly how you imagined it, Lady Hestia,”] suddenly, Tasianna chimed in. [“I thought about it, and I now know why the lizardmen are fearing us.”]

[“And that is?”] I asked.

[“It is because you used healing magic, or more specifically, holy elemental magic,”] Tasianna’s answer was so unsuspected that it caught me off-guard.

Saying “huh”, I bid her to continue, [“Do you still remember the history between beastmen and humans? Well, as you might have heard, this lizardmen group are followers of Marsven, the God of Darkness. Holy elemental magic belongs to the Goddess of Light, Aurena, who is the patron goddess of humans. There might be a possibility that they do not have a good impression of it.”]

Beastmen, due to their origin as monster and human hybrids, were badly treated by their relatives, the humans. Tasianna, being mostly a sheltered girl, had no knowledge of whether the humans and beastmen had reconciled with each other. All her knowledge came from books.

If their enemies, the humans, were being favored by Aurena then it’s no surprise that they didn’t like seeing holy magic, even when it’s only healing spells.

[“Is this not hindsight?”] Saori stated. [“We learned their religious following, only after we asked them about it. Working without more details, we should have tried reasoning with them using Hestia’s healing abilities. Whether they dislike it or not, they cannot possibly deny our help, especially when they have that many wounded.”]

Urgh, all this thinking is making me even more annoyed at myself. If we had only thought of all of this beforehand, then we wouldn’t have gotten ourselves in this sorta situation. We acted before asking any questions.

While reflecting on our actions, we finally arrived at the camp’s campfire. As we were about to sit down, the guards hurriedly stopped us as they wanted to bring us proper sitting accommodations. Scanning through the camp, I noticed that they lacked proper chairs and tables, instead, they improvised and used large rocks to sit on.

We told them that as Saori and I were wearing clothing made out of mana, we didn’t have to worry about them being soiled by the mud. Sitting on the ground wasn’t a foreign concept for us, seeing as it was normal to do so in a forest.

The guards insisted on it, telling us that they would shame themselves if we denied their hospitality. In the end, we were the only ones who weren’t sitting on the swampy mud, just like a bunch of VIPs, I guess.

Aksmias and the other guard truly wanted us to feel more comfortable. I had the feeling that if it weren’t for the tense situation, then they would probably prostrate themselves before us again.

Once everybody sat down, there was an obvious division between our two parties at the campfire. Rajah and his sibling were visibly showing their hostility, so we wanted to avoid further conflict, so we had to hide them behind one of us, preventing them from glaring the lizardmen to death.

His siblings weren’t very compliant at the beginning but after he talked with them, they started to warm up to us. As their mother was sleeping and Rajah was the oldest and currently the strongest among them, they were forced to listen to him due to the family hierarchy.

Coincidentally, just like Rajah, they didn’t like Saori very much and were more comfortable hiding behind me. Saori, being the one who freed them, showed obvious annoyance which further deteriorated their relationship. Rajah tried his best to resolve it but…unsuccessfully.

“Now, we would like to re-introduce ourselves,” Tasianna re-started the negotiations, once again translating everything. “I am Tasianna Marina Silverpond and this wolfkin is Saori Segawa. We both are loyal attendants of Lady Hestia Atsuko.”

“Aksmias…uhhh, builder," the new de facto leader of the lizardmen group said. "I am the representative for this lizardfolk group…please, we shall listen to your demands.”

“Thank you,” Tasianna bowed. “We demand the release of the virigress cubs that were captured by your party.”

It was redundant to say it at this point seeing as we already rescued them, but she said it for formality’s sake.

“…I understand…” Aksmias clenched his teeth, wanting to say something but he was unable to, as this whole negotiation was practically a formality.

“Plearsiz, itzanu,” I said with a nod. (Please, speak,)

After thanking me, Aksmias spoke his wishes, “We…we need food. I-If it was possible, then could you spare…”

Well, that was obvious to anticipate. They hunted and captured Rajah’s siblings ‘cause they wanted to eat them, just like any hungry animal would. I sympathized with them, truly, but sparing food was out of the options for us.

“We would like to apologize but due to winter, we aren’t able to part with anything that we have,” Tasianna said.

“I see…” Aksmias sighed dejectedly, frustration clear in his eyes. “I expected too much. You do not seem to be carrying anything…I…please forget it.”

Most of our belongings were stored in our [Storage Magic] so it does seem like we had nothing with us, even though we probably had more spices, water, and food than them.

[“Tasianna, tell them that I am willing to heal their wounded. That is the least that we can do after everything that happened,”] I told her.

[“Lady Hestia, I would like to suggest against it as it might not be as simple as you wish it to be,”] Tasianna worriedly said.

I knew what she meant with “not simple”, but being upfront with them would be better. I could just "accidentally" use [Sacred Field] to heal everybody as we say our goodbyes but that would be irresponsible.

They already had a bad image of my holy magic and I didn’t want to worsen it by doing it against their wishes, even if it’s less of a hassle for me. Besides, if I can make them like holy elemental magic then I can brag to Aurena that I did something good for her in our eventual meeting.

Giving in to my insistence, Tasianna agreed to do it with a sigh, "We saw the wounded in the tent. Lady Hestia would like to offer to heal them with her magic as a sign of goodwill."

Once Tasianna said that the whole crowd of lizardmen behind Aksmias began talking to themselves, quickly becoming noisy. As Tasianna was correctly worried about, the lizardmen weren't very thrilled about hearing this. She told me that they were saying stuff like, "S-She can use holy magic. She has to be a priestess of Aurena!" and "First those ogres, then the monster in this forest, and now a headhunter of that tail polisher?! This is the end!".

I’m beginning to believe that “tail polisher” might be a derogative term, whatever, it’s supposed to mean.

Aksmias was trying to calm everybody down but it seems the hysteria caused by our words was too much for this ragtag group of guards to handle. When the former leader was only a carpenter and the current one was a construction worker, then I have to wonder how they survived until now.

“Everybody, QUIET!” against my expectations, the one who calmed everybody down wasn’t Aksmias, nor a guard, but Caszcur.

With his frightening large mouth, he shouted and calmed people down as if he was used to it, “This girl is a dragonewt! Not some random lizardfolk who can use magic, you idiots. Why would our slavers try to hunt us down with somebody who can use holy magic, huh?!”

Once they heard that, the noise started to quieten down but it didn’t disappear. They might not think that I was here to harm them anymore, but it seems their suspicion wasn’t completely gone.

As I was curious about it, I had Tasianna ask him what he meant with “slavers” after he was finished.

“Huh, that is…for now, all you need to know is that we are former slaves and we escaped into this hellish forest three months ago,” Caszcur said before turning to Aksmias. “Aksmias, do you mind if take over now?”

Aksmias then turned his eyes to me which prompted Caszcur to ask me for my permission, “…Of course, if that is alright with you, little lady.”

Oooh, I upgraded from “lass,” to “skink”, then to “tail polisher”, and now I’m a “little lady”? Meh, good enough.

I nodded.

“Thank you…uhm, I’ll just say that I’m sorry for losing my temper and treating you badly. You all arrived at a time when everybody in camp was tensed from recent events,” Caszcur tucked his tail between his legs, sat on his knees, before bowing his head as an apology. “You can have those cubs back. No complaints. However, if you are still willing to help our brethren then I will accept it on behalf of our group. Just saying, but we have nothing to pay you back…”

“We have not asked for recompense,” Tasianna agreed on our behalf, although a bit aggressively.

Thanking us for accepting, he shouted to the rest of the lizardmen to “get back to work, you krill eaters!”, before leading us towards the clinic.

Saori insisted that she would stay at the campfire, so she could take care of the sleeping virigress mother and the cubs. Although Rajah and his sibling wanted to follow me, I told them to stay with Saori to guard their mother.

As we walked, my attention was drawn to the fact that a few curious lizardmen were following us. While the majority obeyed Caszcur and returned to whatever task they were doing, these few tried their best to stalk us by being as nonchalant as possible.

“Sigh, the few hatchlings we still have are too curious for their own good. We've been in this forest for so long that us old scales influenced the younger generation with our paranoia," Caszcur explained apologetically, realizing that I noticed. "They probably consider you 'interesting'."

“How old are they?” I responded in Common tongue to Caszcur.

“Most of them are young enough to be my children,” Caszcur explained. “I thought a dragonewt like you would understand that instinctively, or does your race have a different understanding of scale-kin growth?”

Not knowing how to answer this as I don’t know any real dragonewts, I averted my eyes and stayed silent. Caszcur seems to have noticed my embarrassment and simply said “oh” before dropping the topic.

"Uhh, Lady Hestia is still quite young. She isn’t acquainted with others of her age yet," Tasianna tried to excuse my ignorance but that just made the flush on my face even worse.

"Hmm, that's why she smelled like a hatchling to me. Her scent made me believe that she was younger than our young scales but her appearance and strength kinda made that hard to believe, you know?" Caszcur admitted as he began smelling me.

Please, stop sniffing at me! Grrrugh, how am I supposed to say that in Common tongue?!

“I ask that you stop that,” without me saying anything, Tasianna came to my rescue. “You are annoying my mistress, lizardman.”

“Uhh, sorry…” Caszcur, clearly intimidated by Tasianna’s hostility, stopped speaking for the rest of the way.

With my reddened face, we arrived at the tent where the clinic was stationed and entered it. The first thing that greeted me was a fat cloud of nasty smells, composed of old blood, urine, feces, and rotting meat.

““Urk!”” not able to handle the revolting stench, Tasianna and I clamped our noses shut.

Now I know why Saori wanted to stay behind.

“Hoh, can’t handle the stink, little lady?” Caszcur asked while widening one eye.

I nodded and cast [Air Shield] around Tasianna with [Synergist’s Oath], then on myself. Pushing the foul odor away from us, we were finally able to breathe cleaner air again, although it was limited.

“…I knew there was wind magic, but this was my first time seeing it in action,” Caszcur said with genuine surprise. “Huh, magic sure is incredible. I can only imagine what I could have done if I only had the chance to learn it…”

A shadow hanged around his face as he berated himself for not being able to learn magic, something that was supposedly hard to do according to Tasianna. Honestly, hearing him say this is making me even more curious about his past and that stuff about his “slavers”.

Still, it wasn’t the moment to ask him about it as the nurse responsible for this place approached us, finally noticing that we entered.

"Caszcur? What are you doing here? And who is this…red hatchling?” the female lizardman asked us, easily towering Caszcur due to her long neck and thin body.

Compared to Aksmias and Caszcur, she didn’t share the same ferocious crocodile-like head as the two males. Hers looked more like a gecko, with bulging large eyes and a less intimidating mouth. Instead of a multitude of spikes, her body had colorful frills.

Besides these differences, the most notable must be her long neck and smooth looking scales. Nevertheless, that didn’t mean that she was only cute looking as she also had sharp claws, perfectly able to slice chunks of meat out of her enemies.

It seems that she also recognized me as one of her own. The lizardmen here have spikes but none of them had large horns like mine, so why was I being confused for one? Not to mention that instead of being covered in scales from head to tail, my skin was soft beside my legs, arms, and tail.

“They are our guests,” Caszcur answered. “The flying one is Tasianna, a fairy, and the young scale is called Hestia, a dragonewt.”

“Wa-Wait, did you just say a dragonewt?!” the female lizardmen dropped a small broken piece of metal as her expression changed to a mix between joy and surprise. "S-So, does that mean that we are finally outside that damnable forest?! Are you telling me that we are finally saved?!"

Throwing away the rag in her other hand, she kneeled down to me and clenched my right hand with both of hers, weeping lakes of tears as she talked, “Oh, beautiful young scale dragonkin, I thank you for coming! Praise Kargryxmor! Praise Kargryxmor! Our prayers have finally been heard by the God of Dragons. I thank you so very much for sending our savior to us, oh merciful King of Dragons.”

“Caszcur! Caszcur! Stop her from praying now!” Tasianna shouted a command at our guide.

“Huh? Oh, uh, sure,” Caszcur flinched back from her loud voice but nonetheless did what he was told. “Hey, Apsala! Get on your feet already! Hey, you still have patients waiting for you so get a grip already!”

[“Uhh, Tasianna?”] needing an answer for her outburst, I turned to my fairy friend.

[“I apologized for the outburst, but everything is alright now. She didn’t pray, so everything should be alright,”] Tasianna said nervously, as she tried to reassure me,

[“Uhm, ok? What’s so bad about her praying to Kargryxmor? Didn’t you say that people being pious is important in this world?”] I asked with an eyebrow raised, confused at what was causing my friend to act this weird.

[“Nothing that you must worry about, Lady Hestia. Everything is solved now, so there is no need to worry,”] Tasianna said, adamant about not telling me about the reason.

If you tell me that I shouldn’t worry, then I’m gonna worry anyways!

Before I could continue interrogating Tasianna, Caszcur came over with the female lizardman, Apsala, “Alright, fairy lass, I did what you wanted. Hey, Apsala, calm down, she might be a dragonewt but we aren’t anywhere close to the exit…that’s correct, right, you two?”

“We aren’t close to the entrance between the Belzac forest and the elven territory yet, but we can confirm that we are on the correct path,” Tasianna answered Caszcur’s question.

“So…we aren’t saved yet?” turning limp, Apsala fell unto her knees, her eyes still wet from crying before, as she looked at us hopelessly. “Caszcur…we…we can’t take this anymore. I…I can’t take this anymore. We lost so many, hic, scale-kins in this forest and we keep losing more…this is, hic, too much. We should have all stayed there and prayed for freedom. Marsven and Kargryxmor would have listened to us…”

Apsala’s joyful tears were being drowned away as she continued crying helplessly, seemingly broken from hearing the truth.

“Apsala, the young scale came here to offer her abilities to help us. She can cast healing spells so she can hel…,” Caszcur tried to soothe her but was quickly interrupted.

“Healing magic! No! S-She’s a follower of that tail polisher?! No, l-leave me alone…I-I don’t want to die yet!” screaming, Apsala began crawling backward after hearing us mention healing magic.

“Hey, Apsala, stop!” Caszcur, trying to calm down the fleeing lizard woman, pinned her on the ground.

…

[“…Wow, you weren’t kidding when you said that these people might not like Aurena,”] I said astonished.

["…This is honestly the first time that I've seen anybody be so fearful of a god. I had the feeling…I truly did but…this is a first experience for me as well,"] Tasianna admitted.

It seems like she will continue like this for a while…guess I should do something.

Acknowledging that it would be futile to do anything about this situation, I instead went to one of the wounded patients. Looking over him, his body was riddled with small and large wounds; the large ones had the luxury of being bandaged by leaves while the smaller ones were left to fate. It was obvious that none of the wounds were correctly sanitized, but I couldn’t detect necrosis.

Looking at what was sitting beside him, I saw a bark with a weird white cream on it.

Identify.

Herbal Disinfection Cream

An alchemical cream composed out of materials from the Belzac forest. Has slight disinfection and healing features that aids in the recovery of open wounds

Interesting…

Scanning the tent’s insides, I also noticed an open fire heating up a cauldron. There were also a few thatch baskets filled with herbs and other plants in them, sitting neatly beside tree barks and leaf bandages.

[“It seems that Apsala is an alchemist,”] I told Tasianna.

[“Are you sure? There are no potions in the tent,”] Tasianna said. [“These ointments do seem to be effective, but does that make somebody an alchemist?”]

[“You’ve never seen one?”] I asked.

[“…No, I’ve only heard about them from the elves. Fairies usually don’t need the aid of an alchemist…,”] Tasianna said meekly.

Well, I can ask her or identify her later. First, we should heal this person.

Using [Identify] on him, I learned that he had [Poisoned (Minor)] and [Diseased (Bacteria Infection) (Moderate)]. The herbal cream must have worked but it seems it either wasn’t strong enough or it wasn’t applied early enough, seeing as the infection seems to have invaded his body.

Considering that he was the only one poisoned among the injured, I can only say that the virigress mother really did him in. Even with Apsala’s treatment, he would still die from natural causes at this rate, if I don’t give a hand.

[“Tasianna, tell him that I will be healing him now, so he shouldn’t be surprised when I start touching his body,”] I told Tasianna.

The wounded lizardman groaned, feebly nodding at us, “P-Please…it hurts…please, stop the pain…”

‘Ok, girls, time to get to work. Game face on, let’s do this,’ I hyped up my parallel minds as we had to go through all the wounded and sick today.

Taking out a wooden bowl, I had Tasianna fill it up with magic using [Create Water] and I heated it up to a boiling point with a [Fire] spell. I then dropped in a couple of drops of shampoo and then used it to clean my hands.

Doctor and medical dramas are plentiful on streaming platforms, so I’m merely using that knowledge to my advantage. Disinfecting and cleaning one’s hands and claws before treating people should be top priority even if all I will be doing is casting spells.

Now ready, I took off his bandages and inspected my first patient.

Ok, multiple open wounds that haven't closed up yet. Despite how fresh it looks, there are already some nasty looking spots, probably necrosis, so maybe scraping and cutting them from his body would be best, leaving the regeneration to [Major Heal]? Ok, guess that should be it.

Following my thought process, I used my sickle-like claws like scalpels to deftly cut off anything that looked rotten to me. The wounds opened up again, so I immediately disinfected it with [Cure] and [Purify]. After having Tasianna cast [Cleanse] on their bodies to clean away all the blood and dirt on his body, I only needed to use one simple [Major Heal].

Light began basking him as the white magic circle activated. The spell's effect slowly seeped into his body, the mana granting him temporarily improved regeneration as his flesh reformed and joined together again, closing all the wounds. In addition, broken or missing scales regrew back to normal, leaving no evidence for his injury behind.

“Wah! This light! You!” once the hardest part was done, I overheard somebody screaming at me. “No, what are you doing with my patients! My scale-kins, you little skink-huh! Let go of me Caszcur!”

“Hey, stop trying to bite me, woman! The girl is merely helping and healing them, so calm down!” Caszcur shouted as he continued to hold on to Apsala, who was using her long neck to bite his arm off.

Unrelenting, she continued struggling, defiantly calling me out, "Healing?! These are my patients and I know what's best for them! As if I will let some followers of the Light Goddess treat them under my super…wha?”

As the light dispersed, my first patient started to bring his body up with my help. Once he was sitting, I began checking his body in the case that I missed anything, although, I was quite confident that my spell would have healed it up even without my awareness.

It was just important to make sure that I did a good job. Whether it’s Idol training or healing people with my spells, I should take it seriously and do my best now that I committed myself to it.

“Do you feel any pain, or have we missed anything?” Tasianna asked my patient for me.

The lizardman slowly looked through his body, moving his body to make sure that he could still feel and move them, "No…the only aching that I can feel is from being sleeping on the ground…I feel like I could go back to fishing. Thank you…thank you very much for saving my life. I thought I was going to die.”

Silently weeping, he clenched his massive hands around mine as he continued to thank me. Noticing that the other patients were looking at me, Tasianna asked him to release me as I still had a full tent of patients to deal with.

As I was about to walk to my next patient, Apsala stopped me, “Wait…how…how did you do that?”

“Uhm, Lady Hestia used her magic to heal them, as you could see,” Tasianna explained o Apsala as I had no idea how to say it in Common tongue.

Well, I did more than just cast spells, but I guess the gist is that healed them with magic.

"I could see that, fairy. However, I wanted to hear it from the lass. Why did you not speak, young scale?" Apsala asked me as she continued glaring me with her large eyes.

As I panicked internally from being glared at by the giant lizard lady, I couldn’t help but look at Tasianna, calling her to bail me out of the situation.

"I would like to apologize but there are some…uhm, circumstances that Lady Hestia can't speak too much. Please excuse us, we still need to handle the rest of the people here," Tasianna explained, doing her best not to expose my inability to fully understand their language.

“…I see,” Apsala looked into my eyes for a couple more seconds before releasing me. “I’ll trust you with my scale-kins, Lady Dragonewt. I'll clean and take care of the ones you healed, and afterward, we must speak.”

As she said, she took my first patient off me and began testing his physical abilities, all while I began my inspection on the next wounded.

A note from AbyssRaven

Hey, we meet our first Kargryxmor follower...well, the first one that isn't trying to force Hestia to speak with Kargryxmor.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr!

There is also a discord, if you guys want to speak with about stuff : Rawr!

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 53: Emotional bliss and embarrassment.

[“Urgh, I’m feeling a bit dizzy,”] I said as I massaged my temples.

I was squatting outside the tent right now after I just finished curing every single wounded in it. I thought it wouldn’t be a problem, after all, there were only ten patients and I’ve delegated most of the work onto my parallel minds.

This definitely doesn’t feel like arcane corruption, so what could it be? touching my head, it felt quite hot, especially around my cheeks.

[“Lady Hestia, that’s why I suggested that you must reserve yourself; It would be an actual problem if your arcane corruption overflows,”] Tasianna said as she poured water in a wooden cup, offering me once it was filled.

[“I appreciate the worry, Tasianna,”] I said with an exasperated sigh, as I had to explain it to her again. [“but using that little amount of mana isn’t worth fussing about. I’ve used far more and the one time I accumulated too much arcane corruption was after an intense fight. I know my limit by feel alone and I haven’t reached it yet.”]

As both of us took care of the wounded lizardmen, Tasianna didn't miss the chance to warn me of arcane corruption, seeing as how many healing spells I was using. I admit I should have probably used [Moderate Heal] once in a while, instead of constantly casting [Major Heal], but I only had to treat ten people, not over a hundred or so.

I really appreciated that she was worrying that much about me, I truly do, but she shouldn't show that much concern, bordering at annoyance. She saw me fight before, and the number of spells that I can use simultaneously. I might not be immune as she was, but I was incredibly resistant to arcane corruption regardless.

Besides, showing that much effort was worth it. Similar to the first one, once the patients realized that their wounds and ailments were healed, they showed genuine happiness and gratitude, crying tears of joy, knowing that they would survive for one more day.

The patients included males and females. The females’ smile sparkled and enraptured my heart with their still cute looking face. While the males had intimidating reptilian heads, the heartwarming sight of their smiles eased my heart, easily forcing the corners of my own mouth to curl up as I witnessed my patients expressing their gratefulness.

Eventually, word came out that the people in the tent started to recover and their relatives and friends, or more appropriately, scale-kins crowded the already cramped space, crying as they held and hugged their family.

“The young scale over there helped me recover” and “I don’t understand how they did it, but the lasses over there treated everybody’s wounds” was what they said when they were asked how they recovered so fast. Some even went into detail and explained how a “white circle” materialized around their body and that “blinding warm light” suddenly appeared and basked them in a soothing veil that slowly closed up all their wounds and made the fatigue inside them vanish.

As they understood that I was the one responsible for this, most of them started dashing out of the tent, only returning after a few minutes with something edible. As I was helping Apsala take off the patient’s leaf bandages, the thankful lizardmen assembled around me and fervently offered their thank-yous in the form of fish, stacks of herbs, and fruit, shouting their apologies for trying to harm me before and that they were indebted to me for this show of kindness.

Apsala sarcastically explained, “We lizardfolk show our appreciation by sharing our hard-earned food with others, expressing that you have done something that we believe would be worth starving for, priestess of the Light Goddess.”

Reading between the lines, was she saying that this was the last of their food for today? Knowing that, how could I accept this?

However, it seems like humbly rejecting them wasn’t the correct thing to do, as it seems they misunderstood it that they weren’t offering me enough; that I was asking them for more. Despite how aggressive this misunderstanding sounded, they just nodded to each other and went outside once again to bring even more food, making everything even rowdier, as they started thanking me again with even more fervor.

“My scale-kins have acknowledged that your actions deserved an even larger reward,” Apsala translated their actions to me, as the difference in culture made it hard for Tasianna to properly explain it to me. "It is very likely that they won't stop if you don't accept their gratitude, little one.”

Apsala simply smiled and left me to deal with it the overwhelming wave of thanking lizardmen. I obviously couldn’t handle it, divided internally if I should take their food or not.

Managing and taking care of fans was one of the most important duties an idol and popstar had to handle, as they were the lifeblood of an entertainer’s career. I wish I could say that I was prepared for this, but how was I supposed to be if I didn’t even have a single fan in my life on Earth?

Usually, the fans are kept in check and held at a safe distance due to their respect for the idol, or by the staff, so it rarely ever gets to the point where people could fangirl their favorite star to death.

But…I was now in a situation where I really could use some fan managing classes or somebody that could help me get out of here! Tasianna, as I ordered her not to seriously harm them, didn't know how to do it without her magic, quickly panicking in the process.

I was screaming, “Somebody please help me!”, to myself as the sound of the begging and thanking lizardmen wasn’t ending anytime soon.

Fortunately, it seems my pleading was somehow heard as Caszcur began tearing the lizardmen away with the help of the lizardmen guards. It seems Caszcur predicted that I would escalate the situation even further with my badly chosen words, as he ran out and had Aksmias gather all the guards.

Once the loud crowd was pushed outside through sheer brute force, I silently said “thank you, Caszcur” as I resumed tending to the patients.

After the crowd dispersed, I also noticed that the lizardmen surrounding Apsala also went outside. Despite how loud it was, I was still able to overhear what they said to her during this whole ordeal of mine.

Having my parallel minds remember the words, I told I to Tasianna as she was unable to hear it. Translated, I understood that there were some skeptics among the lizardmen. They asked Apsala things like, “You are an alchemist. You must have been the one to heal them, right, scale-kin?” and “Apsala, I heard everything from my egg-sister but that magic she used couldn’t be like that, right?”.

It seems the distrust for [Holy Magic] practitioners was quite serious among the group. Apsala confirmed that I was the one to have saved them, not her medicine, but it was still quite a huge shock for the skeptical lizardmen.

"I hate the followers of the Light Goddess as many from my tribe, however," Apsala expressed as I could remember her slamming her tail on the ground in anger. "the girl, the red-scaled dragonewt, I believe we can trust in her."

The skeptics tried to reason with her and explained what happened in front of the entrance, exaggerating how terrifying I was and that I was about to kill them if Aksmias and the other guards hadn't stopped me.

Apsala called them out, as she heard everything from Caszcur, that they shouldn't have angered me in the first place. That if you were prepared to kill, then you should have been aware that you could be killed yourself; that it was something every lizardman should have been aware of since they survived in the Belzac forest for three months now.

Looking crestfallen, I could remember her continuing defending me, “You’ve seen our now healthy scale-kins, right? Then show your appreciation to her like the others, otherwise, you spit on the happiness and joy that she gave our once wounded.”

Quickly realizing what they were doing, they apologized to her, however, Apsala rejected it, saying, "Show it to the young scale, the girl. Show her your kindness as I believe that she…I will later ask her for help with our problem."

As they heard her say that, the talks ended there, or, at least that’s all I was able to hear from them.

Once they and the rowdier lizardmen left, Apsala, Tasianna, and I went back to cleaning and helping our patients.

Time just went by then, as I silently let the experience just now cleanse my soul. All the rot that polluted my soul from living in this forest, was slowly vanishing due to living and traveling with Saori and Tasianna.

The loneliness of wandering through this scary woods, the terror of abandoning my dream by dying that drove me to get stronger and adapt to my new body, and the conflicting opinions inside me if I should outright let go of my dream or not, kept tearing my sanity away.

Saori, Tasianna, and this crowd of thankful people…this is what I truly missed. They say that humans can’t live without others, that solitude would surely kill their sense of self over time, I can’t help but agree to it wholeheartedly.

I missed being with others, I missed talking with people, I missed sharing my pain and happiness with others. I truly missed it so very much. Was my determination to become an idol in this world an excuse, instead, I yearned to be with others? I…I honestly have no idea at this point…I have no idea what I wanted…what I really wanted.

All I know is that if I hadn’t met Saori and Tasianna, then my sanity would have probably broken sometime after the fight with the garm matriarch. My unease of being so much weaker than her, my concerns that there would be even larger monsters out there, and my own emotions crushing me underneath the fleeting dream of my old life.

I know that ‘cause I still had them. Everything turned out well, now that I had my companions.

Also, seeing all of the crying lizardmen, overjoyed that their lives were just saved, and their thankful friends and family, sincerely offering me something that they absolutely needed for themselves. I think my chest would have burst open from overflowing emotions if Cazcur hadn’t stopped them.

At that moment, I wanted to stop helping Apsala and just jump around, full of vivacity, and dance and sing to release my hyper-emotional state. Instead, I kept all of it inside…although, my mouth wasn't as compliant as I embarrassingly remembered that I sang.

…Ah, which means the reason for my steaming head and my flushed face was that. Tasianna did tell me that I began singing hyperactive songs, filled with vigor and power as I wasn’t able to hold back my volume.

Did I just unload all those anime openings?!

“Everything sounded strange to me but the energy that you showed reenergized me, ridding me of the small amount of fatigue that I had after helping everybody,” Tasianna said, confirming that they were the same anime songs that I would sing under the shower.

…OMG, ahhhhh, nein, nein nein, nein! Ahhhh, I can’t believe that I just dropped all those song covers! Ahhhhhh, how embarrassing, how stupid of me. Dummkopf! I’m a real Dummkopf!

[“Lady Hestia!”] Tasianna suddenly screamed. [“Is your headache getting worse?! Why is your face even redder now?! P-Please, drink! You must drink some water!”]

…Ah ja, I want to crawl under a blanket now…

Finally realizing why I was like this, I repeatedly hit my head with my hands as I reprimanded myself for showing that many emotions, not even restraining myself with calmer songs, in public.

As I hid my face with my arms in a fetal position, I was fully able to feel my boiling face. A non-fire dragon would probably be scalded if they touched me, so I stopped Tasianna from coming any closer, saying that it was simply me being me and that I need a bit of space right now.

“Ey…il kournyli guzha?” somebody just said. (“Hey…is something wrong?”)

"Ahh, Apsala!" noticing the female lizardman, Tasianna resumed her duties as a translator. "Lady Hestia seems to be…uh, contemplating something…otherwise, we are alright."

“Oh, is that so, Tasianna?” Apsala said with a confused voice, moving her face closer to mine. “Rest is good, little one. Don’t think too much about what just happened and just let your mind take a break. You’ve earned it.”

“Is there something that you need?” Tasianna asked.

“Yes,” Apsala confirmed. “The patients are sleeping right now, recovering from their fatigue, so I wanted to talk with you now that you are free, as I said before.”

She did say that she wanted to speak with me about something after entrusting me with her patients. As I eavesdropped what she said to the skeptical lizardmen, I already knew that she wanted to ask me a favor, of which I had no idea.

She then continued, “Are you ready?”

Heaving a loud sigh, I jumped onto my feet, clapped my face to reset my mindset before nodding, agreeing to listen to what she wanted to say.

“Good, thank you, but before we go…young scales, show yourselves!” Apsala shouted.

As she said that, the group of lizardmen that I noticed following us, appeared before us, nervously fidgeting their fingers. There were four females, only one among them was male. As I stared at them, besides being a bit shorter, they all looked almost exactly like the adult lizardmen.

“Let me guess…it was you five that told everybody in the camp that this young scale, Hestia, healed everybody, correct?” Apsala stated with a stern face. “Why did you not think before doing that, huh? You’ve overcrowded my clinic, annoyed my patients when they needed rest, and caused our benefactors major distress. What do you have to say for your actions, young scales?”

“We-we just wanted…to tell everybody of what she could do,” one of the females said, who had a red crest on her head.

“S-She used something to heal elder Caszcur and then healed everybody else,” another said, with a similar crest. “We just wanted the other elders to not treat her badly…She is strong so we thought if everybody liked her…that she would help us.”

“Naïve young scales, that's not how you gain favor," Apsala scolded. "You've caused the camp enough trouble, but you've caused the most trouble to her. Quickly apologize to Hestia!”

"""""A-As our tails are our witnesses, we apologize to Hestia for our mistake,""""" the five apologized as they tucked their tails between their legs.

“Il ko,” (Is ok,) I said in broken Common tongue, as I couldn’t remember how to say, “It’s ok”.

“Now go, Caszcur and I have much to talk with her,” Apsala said.

However, defiantly, they didn’t listen to the older lizard woman, turned to me and clenched my hands with theirs.

“Please, help us get revenge!” one said desperately. “Please come with us and help us get our revenge!”

“All our friends and all the elder scales are being trapped by those monsters, so please, please, help us,” one cried out, tears flowing down her rage-filled eyes.

“We five siblings wanted to do it ourselves, but the rest of the elders here are cravens, telling us that it was impossible!” one shouted from the top of her lungs. “They are scared of your power, but they don’t realize that you are the only one who can help us. Help all our friends and scale-kins!”

"You can use make that giant ball of flames and you can heal everybody so easily," meanwhile, one continued praising me while her sisters begged me for a favor.

“I offer my tail,” the male shouted as he began intertwining his tail with mine. “You can use it however you want, so please help us. Help us get our revenge and save our lost friends, please!”

“Hissssssssss, KRIIIIIIIEEEEH! Enough now, you krill eaters!” snapping out of her own astonishment, she pushed the five away from me. “What have we told you about controlling your anger, huh?! Get the hell out of here, all of you now! And you, boy! Don’t you dare twist your tail with another female, besides your egg sisters, if you know what’s good for you!”

Intimidated by the older lizard’s scowl, the five siblings flinched back. Before they ran away, they shouted in unison, “Please, help us!”.

“I apologize…” once they were gone, Apsala apologized. “Those young scales have caused you even more trouble…especially that idiotic boy.”

Apsala asked if we were still ready, which Tasianna and I nodded too. As we walked, I left Apsala to cool down first before asking Tasianna if she could translate a question for me, asking how old the "young scales" were.

“They all hatched at the same time, I heard, so all five must be five years old,” Apsala answered.

Five years old? Wow, being called young scales must mean that they were practically children or teenagers, but only five years old? Lizardmen grow fast, huh?

"I apologize for their rude behavior. The young scales usually behave well but it seems the recent events have caused everybody, especially the young ones, to tense up, making them act unnatural,” Apsala said in exasperation.

I still remembered how antagonistic Caszcur was and how Apsala literally wanted to pray in front of me, leading her to break into tears once she learned that our party wasn’t actually there to help them escape the forest.

“The young scales recently lost their parents,” Apsala dropped a bombshell, shocking me “That event also caused us to be separated from the rest of our group. Our other young scales, their friends, were also among that group, so their hot-headedness is affecting them. Grief and anger are a terrible mixture, able to kill even the most experienced of hunters.”

That would explain the anxiety and distress that their voices told me as they kept pleading me to help them get revenge and rescue their acquaintances. I couldn’t fully sympathize with how they felt about losing their parents, as I didn’t witness my parents dying seeing as I was the one that left my parents.

However, I know how lonely it must feel to not have them anymore. Never seeing the two people that meant the world to you, ever again, the people that were your strongest pillars and supporters as they kept you afloat and safe.

I felt grief that I was at fault for causing my parents to be sad, venting my frustration at myself and my surroundings, so it wasn’t surprising that these kids wanted to get revenge for the death of their parents.

“Their foolhardiness would have cost them their lives, wasting their parent’s memories, so we had to stop them,” Apsala heaved a heavy sigh, as she explained it to me. “Now they curse us. Naïve young scales, believing that they could do everything by themselves. Truly reckless idiots.”

“Does that mean that they were asking us to help them avenge their family?” Tasianna asked.

“Yes…us old scales contemplated before your party arrived,” Apsala said beforing becoming silent. “…Enough, the request that the young scales were talking about, that will be the main focus of what we will talk to you about. Let us leave all of that for later.”

I nodded, already anticipating what they would ask us ‘cause of that little stunt.

Tasianna also nodded but a question suddenly popped up, “…Oh, that’s right. I wish to understand what all that talk about tails has to do about it. First, ‘tail polisher’ and now when the boy intertwined his tail with Lady Hestia’s. What is the meaning of all these tail idioms supposed to mean?”

I can’t help but agree. I wanted to know about them too, considering that I had a tail and needed to educate myself on a whole new set of idioms and wordplays. Might as well do it now.

“Ahhh, the word ‘tail polisher’ is an insult towards females,” Apsala said while stroking her chin. “It literally means somebody who continuously comforts males when it’s dusk, enjoying a different partner every night for benefits.”

““Oh…”” Tasianna and I let out.

In other words, it’s a word for whore…noted.

“Oh?” Apsala noticing my surprise, moved her long neck so our eyes met. “Don’t tell me that our little one here didn’t know? Ohhh, my, my. So strong and mature despite how intense your hatchling scent is still lingering around you. I thought my nose was failing me, but it actually was correct. How precious you are, dragonewts also grow fast it seems.”

Wait! Has my age already been exposed…do I actually smell like a newborn?

Sniffing myself, I can 100% say that I have no idea.

Patting my head, Apsala continued, “Oh my, now I would feel bad for explaining to you about the whole tail thing, instead of having your egg mother do it. This is usually something a mother would share with her daughter to help her mature…I couldn't possible steal that away now, could I?”

Well, I don’t know where my dragon mother was or if she was alive at all. If you don’t explain it to me, then it will take ages for me to learn, ha ha.

“Ahhhh, who cares, Tasianna asked me, not the little one,” with a smirk, Apsala just waved her concerns away. “Intertwining tails is to show your affection towards one another. When men talk about ‘offering their tail’, they mean that they wish for you to carry their eggs. Doing it with your egg siblings and parents usually has no romantic implications, but that boy back then is an idiot, so don’t take it too seriously.”

Wow, did I just learn a lizardman pick-up line? Woah, he might not have meant it, but I just got flirted on.

“…That savage…how dare he say such nonsense to my mistress, tainting her innocence like that!” learning the truth, Tasianna was squirming around as she flew besides us. “That’s it! I need to teach that boy a lesson on threating others!”

As I was holding Tasianna back so she wouldn’t bore another hole into another lizard, Apsala was merrily laughing while messing up my hair.

Forgetting about the sour topic that we just talked about, Apsala continued treating me like a kid until we finally reached the meeting location.

I was once again led back to the campfire, in the middle of the camp, however, now there were only a few people here. The majority of the lizardmen from before cleaned up and left to fulfil whatever task they were doing.

The people sitting there were Caszcur, Aksmias, and lastly, Saori with the virigress family. Like it was before, Saori, Rajah, and his family were on one side, while the lizardmen kept a respectful distance by sitting directly opposite of them.

“You’re finally here, little lady,” Caszcur spoke. “Make it yourself comfortable, there is a lot we need to tell you about.”

A note from AbyssRaven

Next chapter will be about the lizardmen's backstory.

Also, as the deadline for the writhalon is coming up and I only need two more chapters to get the 55,555 word count, I will be releasing those two soon, so get ready! I will get myself that achievement.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr!

There is also a discord, if you guys want to speak with about stuff : Rawr!

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 54: The lizardmen’s backstory.

“You’re finally here, little lady. Make it yourself comfortable, young scale, there is a lot we need to tell you about,” Caszcur said with a small smile.

Listening to him, Tasianna and I went to sit beside Saori while Apsala went to the lizardmen’s side. Once I sat down, cross-legged, Rajah jumped onto my lap while his siblings sat to my sides, greeting me with a small cry before turning their eyes towards the lizardmen, keeping an eye on them.

[“…This is really unfair. I’ve spent so much time with them, and they just leave me the moment you appear?”] Saori said with a frown, glaring at me jealously as she complained.

I nervously laughed it off and began petting Rajah, ignoring Saori as she continued moping around. Saori did look very pleased, having a very rare girlish expression as she affectionately stroke Rajah’s fur before I came.

It is these sorts of moments where Saori sheds her cool and stoic personality that I find the most endearing, as she drops her guard and just enjoys herself. Whether it is tailoring new clothing, collecting new ingredients, or just plain training, she shows a much softer side of herself.

I personally think it fits her better to be like this, but I ask her to do so, as she shows no reluctance about showing it nowadays. When she wants to have fun, she will act on it…especially when it concerns hunting down animals and monsters.

“Now, we would first like to thank you for everything you did for our wounded scale-kins,” Caszcur began. “We started out on a bad foot, but you still helped. We would have lost even more of our group if it wasn't for you. We are in your debt.”

The three adult lizardmen simultaneously expressed their gratitude by bowing and saying “As our tails are our witnesses, we thank everybody for aiding us. May Marsven bless all of you with his shadowy veil”.

“Please, it’s alright. We were also at fault as we were equally rude due to the virigress cubs. Everything is forgiven and forgotten,” Tasianna translated what I wanted to say, as I felt guilty for not bowing ‘cause I was intending to rescue the cubs with brute force were it not for Tasianna.

“…I see,” Caszcur let out, as the lizardmen stopped bowing. “Actually, I’m curious, why is it that the fairy, Tasianna, is the only one actually speaking? The wolfkin, besides for ‘yes’, ‘no’, and ‘ok’, didn’t say anything else. You, little lady, I heard you speak something extremely long when we first met but you barely said anything longer than three words.”

“Huh, now that you said it, you’re right, Caszcur,” Aksmias said, praising him for his observation “You can speak, right, fair-scaled one? So, why don’t you speak? Does it have something to do with why the fairy is calling you ‘Lady Hestia’?”

It would seem like the lizardmen have finally realized that it seemed weird that Saori and I weren’t speaking very much. They knew that we could speak as we did display it by saying some words in Common tongue, so their question does have merit.

The question is, should we actually answer them?

“Come now you two, leave them alone,” while our party pondered on giving an answer, Apsala spoke up. “They must have their own circumstance, so let’s just leave them alone. Besides, you two should have already noticed the hatchling smell around the little one and the wolfkin…actually, we haven’t been introduced yet, right? My name is Apsala and I greet Hestia’s, our savior's, companion.”

[“…How annoying. She does not leave me much of choice at the matter,”] Saori complained to us through telepathy.

[“For courtesy’s sake, it would be better if you were to introduce yourself, Miss Saori, but that doesn’t mean that it would prevent me from doing it,”] Tasianna added.

Glancing over at Apsala, it was easy to see that she was using this chance to get more information from us. I did overhear her saying that she was willing to trust in us, or at least in me, but I guess not being able to speak must have sparked a bit of curiosity in her.

Well, it’s not like exposing that we can’t speak Common tongue fluently was that bad, nor was telling them that we could use [Telepathy] a problem. I really don’t see anything stopping us from doing this beside an unnatural amount of distrust and paranoia.

In addition, I’m interested in what Apsala will tell us, remembering what those quintet asked me to do.

After speaking about it among ourselves, we concluded that it wouldn’t harm us to be forthright about our situation as it benefitted us if we could communicate with the lizardmen.

“Please, don’t be shocked,” Tasianna warned the lizardmen.

Apsala tilted her head, before questioning what Tasianna said, “‘Please, don’t be shocked’? What do you mean about…”

[“Hello, it is a pleasure to have made your acquaintance, Miss Apsala. My name is Saori, I hope my Lady’s abilities were satisfactory?”]

Oh right, we are in public again…huh, I completely forgot about that.

Considering how much has happened ever since we met Tasianna, I completely forgot about my deal with Saori when I received my name, that she would use “my Lady” when we were in public. Funnily enough, I don’t feel that apprehensive about it anymore. Considering that Tasianna has kept addressing me formally, I think I’ve gotten completely used to it as the cringey sound of being called princess or lady was gone.

“Wha-! Something just popped inside my head,” Aksmias remarked as he held his head in bewilderment

“Urgh, you too? Kinda sounded like a female’s voice, huh? What was that supposed to be?” Caszcur scratched his head in irritation, as he couldn’t make sense of the situation.

“…Saori, so that is your name,” perplexed, Apsala uttered after needing a few seconds to understand the information she received through [Telepathy]. “So, that’s how you three have been able to communicate until now…how is that possible? No, let me guess, it’s a skill correct?”

[“Yup, nicely guessed, Miss Apsala,”] this time, I answered her. [“We’re using [Telepathy] to speak with everybody currently sitting at the campfire, including Rajah here and his two siblings.”]

“…That sounded neither like Tasianna’s nor Saori’s voice, so…is it yours, little one?” Apsala looked at me, unsure if she made the correct choice.

Making a heart sign with my hands, I gave her a wink to confirm her guess, [“Heya, another good guess, Miss Apsala. Hestia, at your service~”]

“…You sound peppier than I thought,” Caszcur said with a hanging jaw.

[“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean? How did you imagine me sounding before I started fully expressing myself, Caszcur?”] I asked, shocked at what he said.

“Well…,” adverting his eyes while scratching his back, Caszcur nervously stalled for time to think of an appropriate answer. “Uh, I guess more refined cuz your posture and movements until now seemed quite graceful? Or maybe more boisterous cuz you’re a mage?”

H-How rude! I screamed internally as I was too dumbfounded to say it out loud.

“Enough of this comedy act,” Apsala stated as she massaged her temple. “I shouldn’t have been surprised to learn that there was a skill like [Telepathy]. So, why is it that you two weren’t speaking while Tasianna was?”

[“Well, the reason is pretty simple isn’t it?”] Saori answered. [“Your nose guessed our age, correctly, Miss Apsala. We know how to speak in our own languages, but we have not mastered Common tongue yet.”]

“Ok, please drop the ‘miss’ part and just call me by my name; the extra formality isn’t needed among us lizardfolk,” Apsala said with a sigh before nodding. “Still, it is nice to finally understand. I thought it was some sort of priestess rule that prevented the little one to speak, so I thought it was weird that you weren't able to speak, Saori. That clears my questions."

“I thought it’s cuz of that ‘Lady Hestia’ stuff,” Caszcur admitted. “Some dragonewt appears, wearing something fancy like a mana dress with a subservient fairy and you start getting ideas.”

“I thought the fair-scaled one was simply angry at us while the wolfkin just wasn’t talkative,” Aksmias said while nodding.

…What the hell? That is a bunch of misunderstandings!

Noticing that everybody had a different take on the reason for our silence, everybody started nervously chuckling. It took a bit until the lizardmen chilled down enough that they wanted to begin talking about the main purpose for this meeting.

“I think that was enough pleasantries,” Apsala stated. “Time is essential so let us not slither around our tails any longer.”

[“Mhmm, I agree,”] I nodded. [“You’re gonna talk about the stuff those kids talked about, right? What they asked me to do?”]

[“Correct,”] Apsala said with down casted eyes. [“However, I believe you must be curious about why we are here in the first place, yes?”]

[“Well, I would lie if did not admit to it,”] Saori confessed, her eyes focused on the lizardmen. ["Looking through your camp, you lack essential equipment and the amount that you have, have been worn down and badly maintained. A general mismatched can also be seen as some of you have metal armor and weapons, while you mostly work with forest materials.”]

["I've also heard that the Belzac forest was mostly uninhabitable as the number of monsters, especially the variety of dangerous ones, made it too hard for a normal person to live in,"] Tasianna said, holding her chin as she tried to remember the little amount of information she gained over her lifespan. [“Well, besides for the occasional elven wood runner.”]

[“Ja, what she said,] I agreed. ["Nothing against you guys but I don't feel like anybody in this camp is really combat-ready, or at least nobody exceptional. You said you guys lived in this forest for three months, but I find that statement hard to believe with what I'm seeing."]

“What in the…you three are quite harsh. I think I found it better when you stayed silent,” Caszcur complained with a deep frown, massaging his temple. “Urgh, but I can’t help but understand what you mean. The lack of acceptable tools has annoyed me for a while now, and even the best can’t handle everyday usage when the maintenance quality is subpar. It is a disgrace for an artisan…”

“Surviving in a marsh is actually no problem for us lizardfolk, as we were born in one before everything that happened a year ago,” Aksmias said with a pained expression. “It just shows how many people had to be sacrificed for our current group to survive through all of that. This forest is a hell pit."

"We might have been freed but I regret having agreed to flee with everybody," Apsala said crestfallen, returning to the same personality she had when I first met her in the clinic. "I've seen so many scale-kins dying in front of me, either being torn by a monster or by their wounds in the clinic's beds. I prayed to Marsven and Kargryxmor so that our hell could finally stop but…look where it has gotten me.”

“Apsala,” Caszcur called her out. “You know I’m not the most religious person around, but you shouldn’t say that about Marsven. And, seriously, are you honestly talking about Kargryxmor like that in front of the little lady?”

Noticing that Apsala tensed up from hearing that, she looked at me apologetic with an open jaw, not knowing what to say.

[“Don’t worry about it,”] I told them. [“I won’t be offended. Whether it’s Aurena or Kargryxmor, I’m sure they can endure a bit of criticism.”]

While I'm not an actual believer of Aurena and Kargryxmor, Tasianna had suggested that it would be better to act like one. Due to the existence of gods being a fact, it's rare to see an atheist in this world and most people wouldn’t understand why anybody would not choose to follow some kinda god.

So, to keep ourselves safe, Saori and I have decided to adopt a religious following. As Saori was able to use [Dark Magic] it was easy to lie that she was a follower of Marsven. However, considering the number of magic skills that I had, it was actually pretty complicated for me, as I had to learn about Danterno, Crustacia, Zephira, Aurena, and my racial god Kargryxmor.

I just needed to follow Aurena and Kargryxmor, correct? Well, according to Tasianna, it would have been if I only knew [Holy Magic] but as I was a multi-elemental magician, I also had to know about the rest of the gods. It was custom for a mage to follow a god of a corresponding element if she wanted to learn it.

Due to knowing [Fire Magic], [Earth Magic], [Wind Magic], and [Holy Magic], it would be safe to just adopt all these gods. It was fine to just say that we followed them for now, but it would be wise to take up a theology book and read about them once we reach the elven capital.

“I-I see…, well, I’ll take your word as a priestess of Aurena,” Apsala said in shock.

[“Oh, to clear up another misunderstanding, I’m not a priestess of Aurena. I can use [Holy Magic] that’s all. I’m nobody special,”] I said with a straight face, which obviously caught Apsala off-guard. ["But, anyway, let's get back to the story. So, what forced you to enter the Belzac forest?"]

“I’ll take over from here,” Caszcur said. “So, how much do you three know about us lizardfolk and where we came from?”

“Well, you came from the other half of our continent, Altrust, correct?”] Caszur nodded to Tasianna’s answer so she continued. [“The beastmen country is located there, divided from this half of the continent by the dwarves’ mountains and the Folschreck Empire…now that I think about it, aren’t you all a bit far from your home?”

“Yup, we are far too far from our home,” Caszcur breathed in deeply to cool himself down. “Our tribes, the many tribes of us lizardfolk were attacked by humanoid monsters. We were enslaved and then transported on a ship.”

Cazscur added that it was just a normal day when an army of demi-human monsters suddenly attacked the marsh that these lizardmen came from. As they fought in their homeland, the army had a hard time moving forward as the army consisted mostly out of goblin and kobolds, who had trouble traversing the lizardmen homes due to their height, while the heavily armored orcs moved too slowly compared to the swift lizardmen.

They thought they could win through the combined power of the many tribes but once the army brought in their elite orc warriors, blue-skinned mage goblins, and their beast tamer kobolds, it was only a matter of time until the marsh was overwhelmed by the sheer number of enemy troops.

However, while many clans were defeated, their bravery and sacrifice to stay and fight bought the lizardmen enough time to call for help from the other beastmen tribes and clans, forcing the army of demi-human monsters to flee with their tails between their legs.

While it was catastrophic for Caszcur and his group, their sacrifice meant that the lizardmen were able to survive. In their defeat, the defeated clans were enslaved and loaded onto a ship like cargo. Due to a shortage of food, many lizardmen had to rely on cannibalizing their starving members and dying soldiers while the ship was moving.

Those that managed to survived made it to shore, where they were quickly put onto wagons and transported away to another port. Luckily, barely any lizardmen died along the way as food and water were abundantly available this time, ships were fully loaded with provision for another long trip over the seas.

While lizardmen clans were mostly territorial, antagonistic against foreigners in their lands, through this trial and tribulation, the clan members bonded together. Despite being slaves, the living condition improved, allowing the many weakened warriors and soldiers to recover along the trip.

They thought that they could bide their time and find a way to escape which made the defeated lizardmen regain hope. However, that was crushed when they finally landed on shore again, in a land ruled by an ogre.

“Wait, an ogre?!” Tasianna shouted out, surprised by the mention of a land ruled by an ogre. “I’ve never heard or read about a place that was ruled by demi-human monsters. I mean, I don’t know everything, and I bet my knowledge is outdated but where is this place?”

“On the other side of this forest,” Aksmias said. “It’s right over the mountains in the south.”

[“You mean Avitor Peaks, correct? The place where flying monsters live?”] Saori asked, remembering about what Tasianna told us about the mountain range located south of the Belzac forest.

“No idea what it’s called but I guess,” Caszcur shrugged.

“So…,” Tasianna hesitated before speaking. “What were they doing? What did they have you do?”

“They used us as labor,” this time Apsala spoke up. “Constructing buildings, making tools, mixing up medicine, and many more duties that you would expect from a normal village. Honestly, looking back, besides our lack of freedom, they treated us rather well. Being reminded of it just makes me regret my decision even more.”

[“I guess that is normal that they would use slaves as free labor.”] Saori mentioned. ["History has taught us that people conquered others to claim land that they wanted for profit while turning their inhabitants into slaves so they could gain much-needed labor."]

“History, huh? You know quite a lot about something that somebody older should know,” Caszcur said with a questioning look.

[“I-I like reading books, that’s all,”] Saori stuttered, understanding that she shouldn’t have said that.

["Hehe, well at least I'm glad that they aren't assembling an army to attack my home. I haven't heard anybody inhabiting that place so it shouldn't be a problem,"] Tasianna let out a deep sigh as she was relieved that her home wasn't threatened.

Caszcur simply shrugged before continuing. They explained that there were also other beastmen slaves there, all obtained by raiding and attacking the beastmen's land.

As Apsala said, the slaves were treated quite well as the ogre and blue-skinned mages knew that most of them were Marsven followers. Although in truth, most of them worshiped whatever gods they thought would fit their culture better, so the majority weren't Marsven believers, however, it was convenient enough for them, so everybody unanimously agreed to stay silent about it.

They were all in it together so there was no need to throw somebody else under the bus, especially when antagonizing another beastmen race would be devastating, as it could lead to an all-out war between them in the slave camps.

As many months went by, one day, a group of lizardmen announced that they should escape from captivity. They explained to all their scale-kins that they overheard that north of them lived the Elves and the Levianewts, the ocean dragon version of dragonewts, while in the west was the dragonewt's and dragon's continent.

As some of the lizardmen were worshippers of Kargryxmor, the Dragon God, those lizardmen were fanatical about it and thought that it was the correct time to finally escape. The hope that they had almost a year ago was finally reignited.

“I’m a worshipper of Kargryxmor, and I was also among those that fully supported the idea to escape,” Apsala confessed. “It was a mistake. An absolutely big mistake.”

With the hope of escaping etched into their heads, the lizardmen began planning and scouting for more information, finally learning that escaping through the borders in the north was impossible, as the demi-human monsters made sure that no information could go out nor in. They didn’t want their position to be found out as the construction process of their towns couldn’t afford to slow down.

That's when somebody found an entrance through Avitor Peaks's mountains by a cave. Once they knew that nobody besides the lizardmen knew about it, they began stealing food, weapons, tools, and other essentials from their capturers. Once everything was at the place, they initiated their plan to free every single lizardman, regardless of their clan.

Some considered to free the other beastmen slaves, but the majority decided against it as they had no responsibility to help them. It would have been detrimental for them if every single slave fled, as it was likely that the demi-humans would chase after them at all cost, while only the lizardmen leaving would only slow down their construction process by a bit.

The plan was to escape through the cave, travel north, and then make contact with the elves. They thought they had everything planned, but…

“We didn’t know that this hellish forest was in our way,” Caszcur expressed with silent anger. “We thought that it was just a normal forest and that the elves would be somewhere north. As the sun and moon as our guide, we walked north but that was when we started losing people.”

“Not every single of us lizardmen are proper warriors,” Aksmias explained. “While we know how to hunt and fight, we aren’t trained to kill strong or devious monsters. The hunters and soldiers that stilled lived suggested that those that can and want to fight should stand and fight, while the artisans would stay in the back and protect the women and young scales.”

“It worked for a time,” Apsala added. “People like Caszcur were able to make tools out of wood, while metalworkers kept our weapons and tools maintained. I and those that were able to use [Alchemy] started sorting through the herbs and plants, so we could start making more medicine and potions, as the rations that we stole wouldn’t last forever.”

[“So, what happened?] I asked.

“I don’t know, maybe it's our own darn luck, but it just happened," Caszcur said. “It was after we spent a month in the forest when we met our first real hurdle, a monster strong enough that even our warriors couldn’t slay.”

"We lost many of our scale-kins on that day," Aksmias continued for Cazscur. "Imagine, our group was over a hundred, and now it’s reduced to this amount. We thought we were safe after losing a few people, but it never ended. We started facing against toxic monsters, monsters in groups, or just a singular monster that preyed on the weakened."

“Regardless, we slowly began losing more and more people,” Apsala replied. “Our dwindling numbers meant that we became weaker but most importantly was that we were losing warrior, scale-kins that have gained a lot of levels.”

They lost the strong people, leaving those that have barely leveled to be vulnerable. Their strategy of traveling through the Belzac forest was effective when most of their enemies were weak, easily beatable in a group. However, once the actual terrors appeared and killed the skilled, the rest were left helpless.

They made it all up to the marsh, but all that remained from the group was 53 lizardmen. They were elated, finally, they were back in their preferred environment and it showed when they started to refill their provisions.

“So, how did you lose the rest of your group?” Tasianna asked.

“Two days ago, we were once again attacked by a monster, an indomitable beast that we never guessed made its home in this marshland,” Caszcur looked in the distance as he told us that. “If you were in the swamp at that time, then you should have seen the monster. The giant that jumped into the air to claim its next prey.”

[“Ahh, the one with the giant gaping mouth? Yes, we saw it eat a few otthas on the way,”] Saori said with a nodding head.

Nodding, Caszcur continued, “Our group wandered too close to the lake, the place that it calls home. Not realizing where we were, we were ambushed by the beast who ate all our remaining rations.”

"Nobody died, but we just lost everything. Most of our tools and all the food that we saved up for the coming winter," Apsala said with a deep sigh. "In our panic, our group escaped in another area that we should not have gone to. Three giant beasts with scales and fur mixed on their body attacked us and killed the remaining hunters and warriors that we had. We were separated from there, so we have no idea if they are still alive or not.”

[“So, those kids wanted to get revenge against something that wiped out all your remaining warriors, while they had no idea if their friends were still there?”] the three lizardmen nodded to my question. [“Scheiße, that is pretty stupid…but I guess that is understandable. They are their friends after all.”]

[“My Lady, I do not know what this is about, but you should not praise that behavior,”] Saori turned to me and scolded me. [“Endangering your life to save somebody else is already an idiotic thing to do but that is how friends act, correct? Still, you said ‘those kids’ so are you telling me that they are trying to do it all alone? Now that is absurd.”]

[“Come on, Saori, they lost their friends and the people they knew in that attack, so it can’t be helped that they are acting impulsive,”] I argued back.

[“Do not suggest acting recklessly in these sorts of situations, my Lady!”] Saori insisted with sharpened eyes. [“You only have one life and that is precious, especially when you have family and other people waiting for you to return home alive. Regardless of your intentions, the people that you save will not like it if you died in the process, so think about the people around you before you act on your desires.”]

Scratching my head in annoyance, I had to reluctantly agree to what Saori said, despite how uneasy her words sounded to me, [“That’s why I will agree to help them rescue their friends. If you believe that it’s stupid of them to go in alone, then I’ll just go with them.”]

"Hestia…" Saori's eyes suddenly turned cold as a blood-red mana mist started to form around them, visibly furious as she spoke English. “…Are you diving into another situation like when we met Tasianna? Are you risking your life again…for a complete stranger? You do not know these people and neither do you know about the enemy this time. I respect your noble spirit but even altruism has its limit, and this is one of those times!”

“Saori, I-I…,” stumbling on my words, I couldn’t get the correct words out of my mouth.

It was honestly suffocating to speak in her presence right now. She hasn’t activated her aura skills yet, but it felt like she was. Her words stung a bit, reminding me about how she reacted when I decided to rescue Tasianna.

Being glared at Saori was never a nice experience, it was one of the things that I personally would like to avoid as her anger is usually cold as ice.

“Uhhh, hey you two?” suddenly, the person to actually break the ice was Caszcur. “I know you two want to continue arguing but we kinda need…”

[“I know, we are wasting time if we stay here,”] I said so I could ignore Saori’s glare for a moment. [“You need to save the rest of your group, right? I’m in.”]

“Hestia!” Saori cried out, standing up. “Did you not listen to anything that I have said?!”

"I did, but at this point, I don't care. I'm strong enough to handle anything that is thrown at me, so I'll go and rescue them," I asserted.

“Hestia…you’re being really…urgh,” Saori stopped her sentence mid-way before turning her head to Tasianna. [“Tasianna I apologize but I need to rely on you for this. Please, keep her safe in my stead.”]

[“Huh, Miss Saori? What do you mean by that? Aren’t you coming?”] Tasianna said confused at Saori’s statement.

[“Somebody has to keep the virigress mother safe, and while I’m at it, I’ll also keep the camp safe. Take care of Hestia and let her do her childish want,”] Saori declared before walking off. [“I am sorry…urgh, I need to calm my head.”]

Saori…

I wanted to say something to how she wasn’t willing to help me with this but all I could do was clench my fist in frustration. Maybe…maybe I could have said things differently…I…urgh.

It was decided that we would travel tomorrow morning after we all rested for the night. As thanks for my help, the lizardmen decided to treat us to dinner for tonight, despite not having enough to eat for themselves. Understanding that they just wanted to return the favor, our group agreed to their hospitality.

Although the lizardmen were having fun, being cheerful and energetic, ‘cause of their healed wounded and that I agreed to help them rescue their scale-kins, our party wasn’t in a celebratory mood.

Saori averted her eyes and looked gloomy as she kept biting her lips while slowly ate her meal. I lost my appetite and wasn’t able to put anything into my mouth, while I kept brooding about my choice and if it was worth worrying Saori. Tasianna tried to get us to reconcile but as we both ignored everybody, not even speaking a single word, it was all unsuccessful.

Once daylight came, Caszcur, a few of the guards, Tasianna, and I departed for the rescue mission.

A note from AbyssRaven

It sort of happened during the Troll Arc but this time it's a real argument. Hestia's benevolent personality that has helped both Saori and Tasianna live, who are now two of her friends, against Saori's prudent side that wished that Hestia wouldn't risk her life this much for others.

I honestly tried to make it seem that both sides made good points and that the build-up until now felt natural. If you guys have any comment on how I handled it then please post them.

How did I handle this? Did it feel natural, something that could happen irl? Was it emotionally impactful? Any feedback is good feedback and will help me improve so fire away.

In other news, we finally have the lizardmen's backstory! Yay, also not yay because they were enslaved by that ogre army.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr!

There is also a discord, if you guys want to speak with about stuff : Rawr!

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 55: Rescue mission start!

A note from AbyssRaven

With this, I should have reached the 55,555 goal of the writhalon. I'm pretty sure I've posted that much since chapter 42. Otherwise, word's counter is wrong and whatever, so anyways, have fun with the chapter!

“Are you sure you don’t want to speak about it, little lady?”

[“No, I’m good, thanks for asking.”]

[“Lady Hestia, everybody can see that you annoyed at something, so may I suggest sharing it? Talking should be helpful, I believe?”]

[“Haaaa, I don’t need to, I’m totally fine everybody, so please don’t worry about me.”]

Despite believing that traveling to where the lizardmen separated from their allies would be a relaxing, calm, and probably a fun trip, it seems my traveling companions weren’t too fond of the idea as they were continuously pestering me.

During the morning of our trip the rescue team, mostly the lizardmen, had to prepare our equipment for the trip as Caszcur mentioned that it would take about a day to reach it. Using the time that was left, I went to talk to Saori about our fight from yesterday, but she just hugged me and said “stay safe” before leaving to take care of the virigress mother.

Honestly, I was so flabbergasted that I couldn’t even speak a word. My mind was filled with anxiety, not knowing how her mood was and if she even wanted to talk it out, but before I could say a single word, she just…hugged me. I felt awkward trying to talk to her at that point, so I just walked back to the group.

So, now we’re on the road. We’re on the road again. We’re on the road, on the road. On the road again. ♫

“Huh, where is that sound…it’s coming from you, little lady?” Caszcur, the leading lizardman of this rescue party, said after anxiously swinging his head around due to the sudden music. “What are you doing with the air…and how is sound coming out of it?”

[“This?”] I stopped playing my air violin to answer his question. ["It's just a little magic trick that I can do with [Aerokinesis]. I can make instruments out of air and perfectly replicate its sound and function. I thought a bit of music would help our rather boring trip.”]

[“Lady Hestia…are you sure you aren’t bothered with what happened with Miss Saori?”] Tasianna asked worriedly. [“Miss Saori might be able to understand it better but…you’re acting so carefree as if you’re trying to self-soothe yourself.”]

[“I’m ok, I’m ok. Come on, quiet down and just enjoy the music. I haven’t played the violin in a very long time, but I’m sure I haven’t completely forgotten it despite my rustiness,”] I admitted.

I still had the memories of playing one, I still had the experience of ten years of violin practice inside of me, however, the muscle memory of playing the violin was missing from my new body so I wasn't expecting a perfect performance. I could have had my parallel minds help me but that wouldn’t have been the same.

Until now, what prevented me from playing an instrument was my own proficiency over [Aerokinesis]. My parallel minds were only able to replicate the sounds by clashing and moving the air around, but they were never able to fully model an instrument.

Making that air rifle gave me the idea to practice making a piano or violin with my skill, although it hasn’t worked until now. Normally a rifle would be the more difficult task to replicate but I didn’t need to reproduce the machinery inside of a normal sniper rifle, I only needed a long barrel to shoot bullets out from. I also was only a violinist, not a luthier.

Finally, being able to play the violin again, I could clearly hear that my ability has significantly dropped. Besides having to play with long claws, the feel of playing an air violin and my lacking finger and arm movements told me that I had to relearn the proper movements, again.

Just like getting my body used to dancing and singing for an extended time again, practice was urgently needed so I could play the violin like in my past life. The piano can wait for…well, I don't even know if I can even replicate it, it was that complex. Still, purely from my memory alone, I was able to give an acceptable performance as I still knew how to properly play a song.

Acquisition requirement fulfilled.   [Musician Lv. 1] acquired

Heilige Scheiße, that was easier to get than [Woodworking]. It only took a few minutes of play, ha ha ha!

[“W-Wow…you did mention that you were a virtuoso but…song, dance, and an instrument. Magnificent! You would be incredibly popular among fairies with those skills!”] Tasianna cheered, frantically flying around me as she continued clapping.

Just keep it coming, he~

“Hey, I can enjoy music like anybody else but…shouldn’t we be less conspicuous?” Caszcur suggested; an opinion that the other lizardmen shared as they nodded. "See? The more monster coming at us, the more we'll be hindered."

[“Don’t you worry, Caszcur,”] I assured him. [“Even if something did come up, I’m pretty sure that Saori will just take care of…it…well, I can do it myself, I guess.”]

[“Lady Hestia…”]

Ok, maybe I am feeling a bit lonely.

This was the first time since I've met her two months ago, that she wasn't beside me. We’ve separated once or twice just to hunt, but she was always close enough that my [Detection Sensor] was able to track her, so it really was only a mild social distancing.

However, we were so far away now that we couldn't share the experience with each other when we kill a monster. It still works with Tasianna but Saori was too far away now. Bringing up the bracelet’s search function, the distance between me and Saori was increasing and increasing the more our rescue party progressed.

[“Ok, I’m sad that Saori decided against coming with us, there. You guys happy now?”] I said exasperatedly, slumping my shoulders as I stopped playing.

"At least you've finally admitted it, your behavior since this morning has been making everybody uneasy, you know," Caszcur called me out.

[“Hey, that’s rude! How can…,”] I wanted to respond back but Caszcur interrupted me.

“Oh, stop being a krill eater, little lady,” Caszcur interrupted me as he began lecturing me. “I don’t know about you, but everybody is on edge, as we don’t know when a monster will appear. As strong as you are, try to put yourself in our shoes; people who had to face the horrors of this place, who had to adapt after watching their scale-kins die. I know you have your own issues right now but control your emotions until we make camp.”

Tch, I know very well how dangerous this place is…I can relate too well, I kept this thought to myself, understanding what Caszcur actually tried to say. My mood swings, switching from gloominess into enthusiastic violin playing, was a bit too much for most people, especially when it is people that I’ve never fought together with.

Saori was used to my behavioral dynamic so she could adapt to it. These people, however, despite getting a glimpse of my power were still being cautious as they traversed the swamp. I was being self-centered.

[“…Sigh, I guess I was being selfish, sorry,”] I apologized dispirited.

“Ha! You know, the lizardmen clans usually scoff when somebody obediently apologizes, that’s where the origin of ‘krill eater’ comes from. A coward or weakling that would take any abuse just to eat, even if it’s small fry,” Caszcur laughed merrily as he explained the insult. "I wouldn't have dared call you a krill eater after you showed us that giant fireball, but that changed once you spoke. You still have much to learn, young scale."

He slapped my back as he said that, causing every single lizardman to chuckle at the sight. I gave them the stink eye for embarrassing me like this, shutting them up as they averted their eyes, trying their best not to laugh anymore.

“Everybody is on edge”, my ass. Watching them all enjoying themselves on my behalf just made Caszcur’s lecture seem so worthless.

[“He he, these beastmen seem less intimidating right now, don’t they, Lady Hestia?”] Tasianna said with a chuckle.

[“I can’t deny that,”] I said with a tired sigh. ["They certainly have a sense of humor, at least schadenfreude. Is this the first time that you've met a lizardman, Tasianna?”]

[“Actually, these are the first beastmen that I’ve met personally. You two, technically, don’t count after all,”] Tasianna stated, pointing out that Saori and I were technically classified as monsters by the System. [“I have heard so much over my 87-year lifespan, read so many books to fill my mind, and asked more knowledgeable people for information. This was supposed to be a self-exile, but never could I have imagined that it would be this fruitful and fun.”]

[“Ha, well you did get lucky, right? Life is full of twists if it made us able to meet on that fateful day, Tasianna.”]

[“True, I’ve met you two wonderful people, after all…although, I must say that the trolls treated me rather well, compared to my capture by those human bandits. If I had the choice between the two, then I would honestly stay with the trolls,”] she said with a shrug.

[“Really? Those giant things? Wow, that moment when trolls treat their prisoners better than humans, just how terrible were those people?”] I asked in actual amazement.

[“The absolute worse! Scum, even among humans!”] Tasianna’s anger shot out without a warning as she derided the human race. [“Lady Hestia, you don’t know how gladdened I was when you agreed to come to the elven kingdom.”]

Tasianna’s face looked like someone who couldn’t be happier as she started talking about her limited experience of elven culture, which made me curious about something. Wanting to know it, I asked Tasianna while minding my words, [“Tell me Tasianna…I understand how it could have been caused but why exactly do you hate the entire human race? Not all humans are like those fairy hunters.”]

Tasianna’s smile faded once I started prodding her for an answer, turning sullen as she decided to sit on my shoulder to answer it, [“I know what you mean…but how can you be so sure? Pray, have I not informed you about the heinous acts humans have done to fairies? About how they abandoned the beastmen, half-humans, just because they had different blood? They are warmongers, throughout history, they have caused instability.”]

With her tiny hands, she began caressing my cheeks with a small smile, [“I apologize, I truly do. I understand and fully accept that you must speak up for them, but they are nothing like the humans of your world, Lady Hestia. Ours are criminals, the worst of Peolynca’s inhabitants. I-I don’t think I can ever fully lose my hatred for them.”]

Looking at her dejected face, I couldn’t help but form a wry smile and pat her head, [“It’s ok…there is still a ton of time, correct?”]

[“Huh?”] confused, Tasianna let out a bit of her voice.

[“I’m a dragon, you’re a fairy, and Saori is a descendant of a Fenrir, I bet she will live for quite some time,”] I said with a full smile. ["You've merely come out of your own shell, your own self-contained home in the fairy village. There is still so much of the world that neither you nor I know about, and I will warn you that we will travel a lot due to my Idol career. There is still time for everything to change, I promise.”]

What mere information about our world we shared Tasianna wasn’t enough for her to understand that the humans on Earth had a similarly terrible history, filled with sins and wrongdoings. Even now, Earth’s humans aren’t perfect, they still show their viciousness at times.

However, I won’t tell Tasianna about it as there was no need to do so. What was important is the current world and how the humans are here.

Were Saori here, then she would debunk and argue about the history books Tasianna read in the fairy village. If Saori were a true historian, as she claimed, then she would know that history is filled with errors and half-truths, changed and edited so it may present the winning side as the “good guys”.

I will keep quiet about it, considering that I barely even knew this world to use a statement like “What if the elves and fairies weren’t completely truthful when they wrote those books?”. I didn’t even know the human race and I’m trying to defend them against somebody whose race had to experience the full brunt of a human’s mercilessness.

I couldn’t persuade her at this point, I had nothing to argue with, however, that won’t stop me to try it in the future. Our party won’t restrict ourselves with the elves only, I already told myself that I will shock this world with the idol culture, and I still am adamant about it, despite my lacking confidence.

As we travel the world, I hope Tasianna will learn more about it, just like Saori and I will.

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Noble Aura Lv. 5] [Leadership Lv. 5] gained

Acquisition requirement fulfilled.   [Benevolent Aura Lv. 1] acquired

Benevolent Aura

An aura that sends out the user’s inner nature in the form of an aura. People affected by the aura are soothed by the user’s good-natured spirit, calming them down from mental and emotional burdens. Higher levels increase the efficiency of curing mental and emotional status ailments

Looking at Tasianna’s dumbfounded face made me chuckle. I should have been a bit clearer so she would understand my intentions but repeating would be awkward, [“Anyways…I guess it has gone on a bit too long now…hold on tightly, Tasianna.”]

[“Huh? What do you mean…ahhh!”]

Conjuring a brown colored magic circle in my hand, I poured in the necessary amount of mana, quickly materializing a large, sharp, stone spearhead with its help. Giving its order “fly straight, aim true”, I turned my body around and shot a singular [Earth Spears] into the darkness of the rainforest.

Before it could hit its target, I tensed up my leg muscles and launched my whole body forward, darting through the air like a bullet, following my spell. Due to my acceleration, I had to dig my claws into the ground, tearing through mud and pebbles, to kill my speed. Still not stopping, I quickly nabbed a green, fuzzy object using my spare hand while watching my spear pierce the head of a monster.

Experience has reached a breaking point.   [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atsuko] has risen from [Level 25] to [Level 26]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 600 skill points

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 2] evolved into [Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 3]

“Wooo, nice, fucking finally a level up, it only took me a whole week of grinding,” I said as I swiftly decapitated the corpse to let it bleed out.

Now…

[“So…Rajah, what do you have to say for yourself?”] I said to the green, fuzzy object in my hand.

“Meow…mreow?” he answered, cajoled by the displeased face that I was making right now.

[“R-Rajah?! Why, why are you here? I thought we told you to stay with your mother and siblings!”] Tasianna demanded to know, quickly recovering from the sudden acceleration.

Morning, when we were about to leave, Rajah wanted to come with us for some reason, but I rejected it. We were going on a rescue mission against unknown odds, so I didn’t want to risk it by bringing somebody who couldn’t fight properly.

Rajah was still a cub, a mere F rank monster, a rank that wasn’t adequate enough to combat whatever lied ahead. If I’m supposed to rescue somebody, then I don’t want something holding me back.

Tasianna’s magic was a boon, helpful as it can support me defensively. It also helped that Tasianna was small enough that she could grab onto my horns to avoid being put in danger, I didn’t need to hold onto her.

The lizardmen insisted to come as they knew where the accident happened and were decently equipped to handle some situations. Caszcur’s and the guard’s stats weren’t extraordinary, but I already figured out a way for them to participate in the case a D rank or higher monster appeared.

I had a plan on how to use everybody in our rescue party to their fullest potential, but what could Rajah do? I love him but I can’t figure out a role for him.

“Hey!” while Tasianna and I continued interrogating the naughty little green cat, Caszcur followed and called for us. "What in Marsven did you two run off for, huh? This rainforest is filled with creatures and ambushers, so going on your…own…"

Seeing me carrying Rajah and the decapitated monster corpse must have answered all his questions, as he just shook his anger away, wanting to ask us what happened.

[“I noticed Rajah following us once we made a good distance away from the camp,”] I told Caszcur. [“I thought he would return by himself, so I left him alone. When HE was about to get eaten by a monster, I saved him and that’s that.”]

“You’re telling me that your pet monster followed us until now? Didn’t you say that he should stay behind?” he asked while scratching his head.

[“I did, yes, but this guy is so disobedient. Grrrr, I tried slamming some discipline into him but just look at this,”] I said as I carefully knocked my knuckles on Rajah’s head, showing him the ramifications of his actions. [“I’m sorry but we need to go back. We can’t bring him with us!”]

“Mreow!” at that moment, Rajah shook my hand away and directly stared into my eyes. “Mreow!”

Surprised at his continued defiance, I reciprocated his glare, [“Huh? No, Rajah, you can’t come with us, it’s too danger…”]

“Ahahaha!” interrupted by a boisterous laugh, I looked over to Caszcur. “I loved that small thing’s guts! A beast wanting to follow its master into battle so willingly would make the serpent tamers in our homeland jealous. It’s too late, little lady, you should’ve said something the moment you noticed him, but we’ve made too much progress already. We can’t afford to waste time, so just bear with it and live with the consequences.”

Caszcur and his lizardmen continued laughing merrily at us as they turned back to our original route, leaving us three alone, [“Rajah…”]

“Mreow!” he cried out, still adamant about following me.

[“Lady Hestia…at this point we don’t have much of a choice,”] Tasianna stated.

She was right. I don’t know how fast I could do it, but I can get back to the camp with Rajah at my top speed, however, getting back would be difficult. Time is of the essence, the lizardmen wouldn’t be happy about it but they have to stop if I decided to bring Rajah back. The one person they were counting on was me, the person who had enough firepower to help them.

They could continue traveling while I brought Rajah back but how am I supposed to find them in this dense rainforest? I could use landmarks or make them myself, but that was completely out of the question as it required me to search from the air to be efficient about it. We have no idea where those wyverns were and Saori did tell me not to cause another disturbance.

It was too risky. I could be found by the wyverns, get lost in the rainforest, or waste precious time that we needed to help the lizardmen’s friends. Bringing Rajah back to the camp brought too many disadvantages.

[“Tch, you little…stay with me the whole time, ok? Verdammt nochmal, I have to think of a way to keep you safe now,”] I scowled.

Thinking optimistically, it was a good chance to train him to get used to fighting with me. If, and only if, he still wanted to follow me now that he found his family, then this would be a good chance. Of course, I was also willing to bring his whole family with us, although Saori and Tasianna might be against that idea.

Still, why did Saori not notice that he went outside the camp? She should have been the one to…oh?

Looking at Rajah’s legs, all four were filthy and stained with mud, completely covering his beautiful green fur. Trekking through the swamp with his body size must have been hard on him.

Feeling pity, I asked Tasianna to clean him up.

“Mreow, hieeee!” as [Create Water] was about to be cast, Rajah jumped out of my hand and landed back down.

[“Hey, Rajah, I’m just trying to clean you up! Are you scared of water?”] I asked, fed up at his behavior at this point.

However, he just ignored me and carried on walking away from us. Before I could burst out in frustration, Caszcur shouted “hurry up already”, forcing us to leave it for later.

With Rajah joining us, we continued until night came. Deciding to make dinner, I took out my self-made cooking wares and started preparing using the ingredients that the lizardmen brought with them, who were once again generous enough to share with us. In gratitude, I made a masterful stew using one of Saori’s recipes. Mhmm, stew~

“Honestly, the stew is fantastic, absolutely mouthwatering,” Caszcur praised as he couldn’t stop slurping it.

“Thanks for the delicious herbal water, Tasianna. Ha ha, my body feels like it lost some of the pent-up anxiety,” a lizardmen guard said, joyfully enjoying Tasianna’s tea.

“Glad you ladies came with us. When I was just a young scale going hunting with the old scales, the only thing we got to eat was sun-dried fish without any seasoning,” another said as he devoured the stew and tea.

I made sure to be generous about the seasoning usage. If they were willing to share their food with us then it was only appropriate from us to share our spices and herbs with them, creating a rather humble, but delicious feast.

“You’re a great cook but did you say that you made these bowls and spoons, little lady?” Caszcur, having finished his bowl, inspected my creations with the meticulous eyes of a trained artisan. Knowing what was about to happen, I nervously clenched the cauldron ladle as I listened to his critique. “I can see that you’ve put some effort into it but, as my tail is my witness, I have to say that they are disastrous. The design is fine, but the execution is honestly clumsy. A complete newbie could do better than this.”

…

“Yeah gotta agree with Caszcur,” a guard spoke up, inspecting my cauldron. “The stone cauldron serves the general function but there is no perfection, none of the skill that a craftsman should show in his work. Bit disappointing.”

…

"Ah, don't let it get to you, little lady. We old scales are letting our Job's speak aloud, and it's not like you need to be the best at everything,” Caszcur and his pals laughed as they tried to soften their criticism. “Anyways, fill me up, ahaha! I can’t get enough of your stew.”

[“NO! You aren’t getting any seconds! You jerks aren’t getting any seconds! Oh, my poor bowls, you didn’t deserve to hear that!”] I yelled.

“Hey, hey, stop that, little lady! We still need to eat! I’m sorry, ok! Come on, your bowls show promise! You just need to practice and spend more time and you’ll…hey! Don’t drink the whole stew from the cauldron!”

After some frantic shouting and failing to hold me back, even with all the tall, strong-looking lizardmen, I stopped my tantrum and gave everybody the rest of the stew until they were full.

Before we went to sleep, I wanted to clean Rajah’s feet, but he kept on insisting that he didn’t want to. Having enough, I let out a tired sigh and allowed his legs to stay covered in mud, which was dirty enough that I couldn’t see his fur at all. Interestingly enough, I managed to wipe a bit of mud off one of his legs but somehow the verdant green didn’t appear, instead, it was extremely black.

It neither smelled like it was burnt nor as if he steps onto something weird, it was just muddy, moist smell of fur. At that point, I thought the mud dried and caused his fur to look like he painted it with black paint, so black that I could make jokes about looking into the abyss or something.

Well, he didn’t seem to be hurt so I didn’t worry about it. He was actually acting pretty sweet once I dropped it, so I decided to cuddle onto him as I slept. Tasianna, like always, used my head as her preferred sleeping location.

The night went by and dawn came. Reenergized, we advanced forwards and eventually found an area with broken trees and weapons lying on the ground. I could see some wooden bows and spears, but they were also some cracked metal spears and swords. Crushed metal pieces were also sprayed in the whole area.

It seems we finally made it to our destination.

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 4] [Synergist’s Oath Lv. 4]. 400 SP spent. 800 SP remaining

Hestia's Status board update

Profile:

Name: Hestia Atsuko

Level: 26

Race: Young Spark Inferno Dragon

Age: 6 Months

Status:

Health:

5709/5709(+442)

Mana:

19192/19192(+1090)

Strength:

2783 (+106)

Intelligence:

5280 (+598)

Vitality:

1423 (+35)

Wisdom:

1713 (+59)

Agility:

5702 (+511)

Stamina:

2814/2814(+110)

Effects:

[Damaged Mana Paths [Left Wing] (Minor)]

Skill Points:

800 (+800)

Unique Skill:

[Spark Fire Dragon Lv. 8]

[Spark Fire’s Fire Boost]

[Spark Flame Veil] (New)

Skill:

Magic skill and related

[Lava Magic Lv. 2]

[Holy Magic Lv. 10]

[Holy Amp]

[Holy Magic Efficiency]

[Sacred Magic Lv. 5]

[Fire Magic Lv. 10]

[Fire Amp]

[Fire Magic Efficiency]

[Inferno Magic Lv. 5]

[Earth Magic Lv. 10]

[Earth Amp]

[Earth Magic Efficiency]

[Terra Magic Lv. 2] (+1)

[Wind Magic Lv. 9] (+1)

[Wind Amp]

[Wind Magic Efficiency]

[Space-Time Magic Lv. 4]

[Space-Time Magic Efficiency]

[Synergist’s Oath Lv. 4] (+2)

[Draconic Magics]

[Draconic Barrier Lv. 4]

[Silent Casting Lv. 6]

[Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 5]

[Mental Stability Lv. 4]

[Mental Warfare Lv. 4]

Physical skill and related

[Unarmed Technique Lv. 4]

[Draconic Claws Lv. 4]

[Draconic Roar Lv. 2]

[Draconic Fangs Lv. 4]

[Sundering Enhancement Lv. 4]

[Piercing Enhancement Lv. 4]

[Crushing Enhancement Lv. 2] (+1)

Senses and movement skills

[Stealth Lv. 9]

[Accuracy Correction Lv. 6]

[Concentration Lv. 2] (+1)

[Prediction Lv. 8]

[Danger Perception Lv. 2]

[Probability Correction Lv. 5] (+1)

[Detection Sensor Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 3] (+1)

[Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 5]

[Tracking Lv. 3] (+1)

[Night Vision Lv. 8]

[Presence Killer Lv. 9] (+1)

[Evasion Lv. 10]

[Acrobatic Lv. 10]

[Air Walk Lv. 2] (+1)

[Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 4]

Resistances

[Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 2]

[Absolute Pain Tolerance]

[Mana Leak Resistance Lv. 1]

[Abnormal Status Nullification]

[Fear Resistance Lv. 1]

[Lava Resistance Lv.1] (New)

[Holy Resistance Lv. 4]

[Inferno Resistance Lv. 2] (+1)

[Terra Resistance Lv. 1]

[Wind Resistance Lv. 2]

[Water Resistance Lv. 1]

[Dark Resistance Lv. 1]

Stat growths and related

[Health Recovery Lv. 4]

[Stamina Recovery Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Health Growth Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 4] (+2)

[Arcane Conduit Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Sorcerer’s Power Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Speed of Sound Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Stamina Capacity Lv. 4]

Others

[Singing Lv. 6] (+1)

[Dancing Lv. 4] (+1)

[Musician Lv. 1] (New)

[Woodworking Lv. 2] (New)

[Poison Creation Lv. 4]

[Toxic Secretion Lv. 2] (New)

[Trap Creation Lv. 4]

[Identity Blocker Lv. 3] (+1)

[Identify Lv. 10]

[Noble Aura Lv. 5] (+1)

[Benevolent Aura Lv. 1] (New)

[Terror Aura Lv. 1] (New)

[Battle Mind Lv. 6]

[Royal Etiquette Lv. 2]

[Leadership Lv. 5] (+1)

[Cooking Lv. 7]

[Dismantle Lv. 7]

[Thought Acceleration Lv. 2]

[Parallel Thoughts Lv. 8]

[Body Temperature Control Lv. 1]

[Humanize Lv. 8]

[Pyrokinesis]

[Aerokinesis]

[Telepathy]

Ability List:

[Flame Blast]

[Spark Claws]

[Spark Flame]

[Spark Fire Breath]

[Spark Fang]

[Spark Inferno Blast]

Spell List:

Custom spells

[Imperial Hellfire]

Lava spells

[Lava Ball]

[Lava Stream]

Holy spells

[Minor Heal]

[Cure]

[Modest Heal]

[Smite]

[Light]

[Holy Protection]

[Holy Strength]

[Purify]

[Sacred Smite]

[Sacred Veil]

[Sacred Field]

[Banishment Beam]

[Major Heal]

Fire spells

[Fire]

[Firebolt]

[Imbue Fire]

[Fire Ball]

[Strengthening Flames]

[Flame Spear]

[Petal Flame]

[Flame Explosion]

[Inferno Blast]

[Blazing Twister]

[Inferno Beam]

[Scorching Sun] [Spiral Hellfire]

Earth spells

[Earth Wall]

[Rock Blast]

[Earth Strike]

[Rock Bullet]

[Sturdy Earth]

[Earth Spears]

[Earth Crash]

[Earthen Shackles]

[Terra Wall]

[Bedrock Blades]

Wind spells

[Wind Bullet]

[Wind Cutter]

[Air Shield]

[Wind Slash]

[Swift Winds]

[Wind Blast]

[Featherfall]

Space-Time spells

[Haste]

[Storage Magic]

[Warp Point: Entry]

The Light spells

[Shine]

[Sanctuary]

Titles:

[The Light] [Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] [Otherworldly Reincarnator] [Princess]

A note from AbyssRaven

Rajah, what funny black legs you have. What happened to your green fur? :O

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr!

There is also a discord, if you guys want to speak with about stuff : Rawr!

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 56: The Thrill of the Chase!

A note from AbyssRaven

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[“See, Rajah? Once you know you can go for the kill, then just do it. Of course, make sure that you aren’t being stalked yourself, ok?”]

“Mreow!”

[“Good boy! Now, show me how strong your fangs are, bite into its neck as best as you can and show me your strength!”] I ordered Rajah while holding onto a paralyzed monster on the brink of death.

Listening obediently, he vigorously dug his fangs right into the monster’s throat, but he still didn’t have the power to immediately kill it, struggling as the monster slowly bled out. Well, it was to be expected when I remember when he tried to kill that Skorr, that monster boar.

When I helped Saori kill stuff, we were lucky as kobolds seemed to have softer bones, but the monsters surrounding this location were all high leveled E ranks.

After a couple of seconds, the monster died from blood loss. Rajah looked dejected for a second until he began feeling the effects of leveling up, brightening his mood in no time.

[“You did well, don’t worry. Just keep on trying and you’ll eventually have the strength to do all of this yourself,”] I said with a grin, spreading my arms out to show that he could do the same thing as I just did.

The area was littered with the corpses of a monster herd that I detected while I was searching for the lost lizardmen. Hearing that Caszcur wasn’t too sure if our rescue party could take it, I just said “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it”, accelerated myself with [Haste] and [Swift Winds] and then began a tornado of claws and tail, ripping through the monster herd.

Figuring that it was an opportunity, I paralyzed the strongest looking one and gave Rajah the kill credit. It certainly helped as it pushed him three levels up, helping him reach level nine.

“H-How are you this strong…you made it look so easy,” hearing a stuttering voice, I turned around to see the lizardmen shivering.

“Were you not a mage? I thought you were a mage, so how were you able to kill all these monsters bare-handed?” Caszcur asked.

Looking at all the blood on my claws and tail, it would make anybody wonder if I were a mage at all but that’s why my Job was still filled with [None], he. Frankly, these monsters were only E ranks and their stats were completely outclassed by mine, despite my handicap, so wasting too much mana on them would be ridiculous.

Two spells, [Haste] and [Swift Winds], is all I needed to claw my way through everything. I wouldn’t even consider [Toxic Secretion], as I didn’t need the paralyzing venom to kill the last one.

[“Status board difference,”] I said with a shrug. [“Anyways, who cares about this. Were you guys able to find the tracks?”]

“Huh? Oh yeah, we found some clothing and metal scraps lying around,” Caszcur answered, guiding us again.

If Saori were here, then she would probably be able to track down the lost lizardmen, easily. We had to rely on the lizardmen’s keen smell, and my [Tracking] and [Detection Sensor] skills to navigate and pursue whatever leads we could find.

It seems like after they were separated, the surrounding monsters began spreading around the area, ruining the tracks left by the fleeing lizardmen and the monsters that attacked them.

Caszcur mentioned that a few days ago, a large wave of monsters entered the rainforest, keeping their group on their tails as they had to avoid and flee all of them. It really seems like their group couldn’t get a single break in since they started traveling through the Belzac forest.

Remembering how I nearly died thrice, how Saori nearly bit the dust once, and how we had to rescue Tasianna from a group of trolls using her as a battery to fuel a mana cannon that nearly killed me; I have to say that this place is pretty hostile towards everything.

You either get overwhelmed by stats alone or by monster groups using their devious skill combinations to kill you. Either way, you won’t have a good time if you aren’t strong.

[“Hey, Tasianna, was that really that weird that I was able to do that?”] I asked my fairy companion as we and Rajah followed the lizardmen after I quickly stored the motherload of monster meat inside my storage.

[“With common sense? Yes, that was quite extraordinary, however, they don’t know that you’re a genuine dragon. If they knew then they wouldn’t be so surprised anymore, just like me when I learned what you could do, Lady Hestia,”] Tasianna said, sitting on my shoulder.

[“Seriously? Well, I guess being a C rank is pretty high,”] I said, still unsure how all this ranking stuff worked.

[“I apologize but I can’t answer anything about the rank system of the world. It wasn’t a very interesting topic for me, but I do know that you possessing the blood of a god dragon must mean that you are strong, Lady Hestia,”] Tasianna said, puffing up her chest as she started taking pride in me.

Once we regrouped with the rest, we continued following any leads we could find, as the chaos of the forest seemed to have destroyed most of the tracks. Even with my [Tracking], it was impossible to find any lizardmen like footprints. We only managed to find our way due to how the skill was directing my attention towards a certain direction.

To be honest, this was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. It was exactly like how the wyverns haven’t found me yet. This forest is just too large, and despite our reduced search area due to Caszcur knowing where they were, they were attacked. However, that doesn’t change the fact that it has been four days since this happened.

We could only hope that the other group was able to survive until now.

I mean, I did tell those lizardmen kids that I would do it for them. They were so adamant about coming with us that it required the adults to hold them back from leaving the camp.

Thankfully, they haven't followed us as Rajah did, but that just meant that they were putting all their hope into us, that we could find their friends and maybe get revenge on the monster that attacked them.

Well, I can only say that it wasn’t going too well. Besides some random monsters and bits of clothing, the day ended eventless. Due to the coming winter, the shorter days are coming to bite our butts, or tails, like how the lizardmen said it.

Regardless of how much energy we still had, the night was dangerous, and it would be smarter to just rest. I can keep everybody safe even when’s nighttime, but our progression would be hindered as the lizardmen couldn’t navigate through the dark forest as efficiently as I could.

[“Sigh…this is harder than I thought,”] I said once my cooking station was set up.

“Huh?” Caszcur knocked his head to the side. “Little lady, it seems you never did an actual hunt before. Finding, tracking, and then forming a plan. I wasn’t a hunter by trade, but every young scale learns how to use a spear and hunt for food, even the females.”

Thinking back, the only real tracking that I’ve done in my life was when I tried to find some kobolds, otherwise, I’ve only followed tracks to find monsters. Just random hunting; find whatever you could and kill it if it was worth it.

But that changed when Saori came in, where she was responsible for finding prey. Our two most successful strategies: the idol concert and the mobile Hestia gun, didn’t need me to track anything.

[“I might have been too proud of my abilities, yeah, sorry for complaining,”] I said while cutting the meat of today’s game.

“Ha, don’t worry about it too much. We are searching for an unknown amount of scale-kins in this large forest after four days. I never expected it to be easy. We just have to focus and continue,” Caszcur reassured me.

[“Yeah, you’re right, Caszcur,”] I said with an energetic nod. ["Everybody at camp is waiting for us to come back with the rest of your friends, so I guess we shouldn't lose hope this early. I kinda did promise those kids, so I have to make sure I follow up."]

"Ha, that's the spirit of a warrior, little lady! We won't make any progress at today's pace, so make sure to wake up early tomorrow. We need to hurry up, otherwise, our chances will lower even more."

With that settled, our rescue party increased our effort. We were walking at a higher speed, while I would deal with any monster that could threaten us, trying my best to intimidate most of them away using my [Terror Aura].

It took us another full day until we finally found an actual useful clue…a bit too useful, unfortunately…

[“Scheiße…”] I said with slight disappointment.

[“Oh goddess…”] Tasianna let out as she held her mouth with her hands.

What our group was gawking at was the bloody body of lizardmen, his soulless eyes staring back at us. [Identify] proved that he was dead so I told Caszcur that I couldn’t do anything anymore. I could have healed him if he was on the edge, but no amount of healing spells was enough to bring back the life of a deceased person.

At a time like this, I was glad that I’ve gotten used to seeing corpses. I was disappointed that we came too late but nobody needed a squeamish girl, crying and shouting. Tasianna was keeping it together but the sight of the maimed body still affected her.

“Fuck…you just had to wait for a few more minutes, you idiot,” Caszcur sorrowfully muttered as he inspected the corpse.

[“Is he one of the people we are looking for? Does he have anything that could lead us to the others,”] I asked to confirm my conclusion.

Caszcur waited for a second before letting out a sigh, “Yeah, this guy is from the same tribe that I came from, he worked under me. Damn…unlucky bastard…”

Understanding that he needed time to mourn, I allowed him to do it. Maybe it’s ‘cause he knew this could happen but after a few more seconds, he closed the dead lizardman’s eyes and spoke, “The blood is fresh, which means that he just died, although considering the size of those wounds, I guess he must have died from the attack, not from bleeding out."

It was only a tiny difference, but it was detailed enough to give us a lot of information. If he died from blood loss then the ones who did this could be gone already, but if he died from whatever caused those large gashes, then chances are high that those perps are still in the vicinity.

Parallel minds, get on the detection sensor and find some clues!

After giving them a moment to work with, they told me that a cluster of monsters was moving in different directions. Focusing on this lead, my parallel minds further inspected it to find out that the largest cluster were in the north, west, and south, while only a small amount was in the east.

Honestly, it looked too suspicious to be a coincidence. Five dots quickly advancing towards a cluster of many.

[“To the east, follow me!”] I shouted, waking everybody out of their delirium.

Picking Rajah up, I speeded through the rainforest as I have pinpointed the location of my target…and experience bags.

At the speed that they were running, I wouldn’t be able to make it in time, before they started tearing through the fleeing dots. I need to buy some time!

“Kraaaaaahhhhh!” shouting, I announced my presence to the monster, hoping that it would provoke them to direct their attention to me.

Noticing that they stopped for a second before resuming, I made my parallel minds use [Aerokinesis] to amplify my voice while also playing something catchy…something that can pump up your blood.

.

“A simple request ♫

A simple challenge to you ♫

Are you too afraid to fight? ♫

I’m here, so come at me you fucks ♫

Try to pick on someone your own size ♫

Or can you only fight against the weak? ♫

So, prove yourself, oh ♫

.

How can you call yourself strong ♫

If you won’t even take me on ♫

Stop your feet now and turn your bodies around! Let’s go! ♫

,

Explosion! ♫

Let our claws slice and dice ♫

Can you bring me down ♫

Right now, let’s get on the ground, ♫

Fight or flight! ♫

.

Let’s see, can you face my magic ♫

Show me, a dragon, how to fight ♫

Come on, don’t disappoint me now! ♫

Fight or flight! ♫”

,

Singing while running at high speeds isn’t good for your stamina as you would throw your breathing rhythm in disarray, however, it seems it worked we adequately as the five chasing dots stopped their advances long enough for the other cluster of dots to make some distance.

I also stopped running, letting my breathing calm down, to let the pursuers know that I won’t go anywhere. It seems they were contemplating about it. Eventually, they sent three of their members at me while the rest continued the chase.

That’s good enough!

Noticing that the lizardmen finally caught up to me, I turned around to see that they were breathing heavily but that they weren’t exhausted.

That was the mark of a group of people who are used to running and traveling. I internally praised them, as Caszcur started speaking, “Huff, huff…hey, how can you run so fast…bwuh!”

I know what he wanted to say but there wasn't any time left so I gave them a couple of my poison bombs and three of my newest firebombs, “I found the rest of the group. I managed to provoke three of them but two continued the chase. I’ll keep these three at bay for now, but you have to catch up! Those bombs are dangerous, extremely dangerous, ok?! Pull the sticks out with absolute caution but I can promise you that they can blast away anything they touch. I made them after all!”

They were one of my newer versions. When I heard about the concept of mana batteries, I thought I could figure it out on my own, but I didn't even know how an electric battery worked so why did I even try.

So, instead, I kept with the basics of magic and how I have been making bombs until now. I needed a bomb that could be used without my mana, so I simply told the magic circle inside those bombs to activate once it gets in contact with a very specific gas that I can make with [Toxic Secretion].

If I could make extremely hazardous toxins, then shouldn't I be able to do the polar opposite of it? Pulling the sticks out of them releases this non-lethal toxic gas into the other chamber with the magic circle. Just like a normal grenade, after a few seconds it will go kaboom.

“…Got it! You can count on us, so you better hurry up, Hestia!” Caszcur said, only needing a few seconds to think about it.

Saying “Got it!”, I then enveloped all of the lizardmen into air capsules using [Air Shield] and [Aerokinesis]. To make sure that they had the necessary power, I rapidly cast all my buff spells onto myself to then transfer them onto them with [Synergist’s Oath].

Considering that I had to do this individually to all five lizardmen, I had to accelerate my casting speed to an abnormal rate, quickly consuming 25% of my total mana as I focused on speed instead of mana usage efficiency.

Proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Synergist’s Oath Lv. 4] evolved into [Synergist’s Oath Lv. 5]

There has to be a faster and more efficient way to do this! Casting all my buffing spells is already tedious and doing that for six people just takes way too much time!

That also meant that the beast had enough time to catch up to me, while the lizardmen couldn’t move at all.

Can’t help it…

[“Hold on tight!”] I announced, clearly unnerving the lizardmen.

Pouring in even more mana than was needed, I strengthened the [Air Shield]s even more while beginning casting another spell, constructing a large green magic circle behind the lizardmen.

More mana! Give it more mana! Blast through trees, break through the barrier! Wind Blast!

With a sound similar to that of a rocket blastoff, an ear piercing explosion launched the lizardmen forward, shooting them through the rainforest like a bullet. As they were protected by my [Air Shield], and their bodies had [Featherfall] on them, I was optimistic that they wouldn’t die even if the shield somehow broke.

I gave them all they needed, now it was their turn to show me their conviction and determination. I don’t think they can win the battle but all they needed to do was buy me some time…lose the battle but win the war.

With everything settled, I told Tasianna and Rajah to get ready. I know bringing Rajah into this battle would be dangerous for him, but he would be safer with me.

I technically also don’t have to win this battle. I only needed to somehow trap them, and make sure that they couldn’t follow me. I could outmaneuver them and join Caszcur but that all depended on what type of monster I would fight.

If it was strong then I can’t allow it to join with the other two, otherwise, even I will have trouble against all five monsters. It was two, and Rajah, against three. An acceptable amount.

Confidently appearing out of the trees were three large monsters. They were covered in scales and fur, just like what I was told, had an iguana’s head and a tiger’s tail. Their legs were completely covered in scales, perfect for the rainforest setting, while their backs were a mix between scale ridges and brown tiger fur.

Just looking at their size, which was about horse size, and their sharp claws and massive teeth would have been enough to scare away any normal person. While they pissed their pants, these predators would eviscerate their backs the moment they turned around.

Identify.

Panguana

A giant monster covered in both scales and fur, to protect it from attacks and from the environment. Using their muscular front legs, these monsters would crush any prey using this brute force. They use their incredible defensive abilities in conjunction with their agility to hunt down prey and predator in the swamps and marshlands that they inhabit. Works well in groups, especially before they hibernate due to winter. Rank C

He…so, to dragon or dragonewt. Which will it be?

A note from AbyssRaven

The song for today was one of the opening songs for the anime "Black Clover" called "Black Rover". hope you guys liked it. It thought it fit perfectly with the scene as I needed a hyper-like song that Hestia could sing as if she was challenging somebody.

If you guys haven't read the author notes at the beginning of the chapter, then I would like to repeat it. I've just finished writing an Extra Chapter that consisted mostly out of world-building that will allude to some future events.

It's about the garm matriarch, so if you guys want to read it then come over to my Patreon. I would appreciate it. ^^

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 57: Reptilian Showdown!

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #2 here to promote our story's Patreon. I hope that you guys, uh, I mean if you guys want to join, then here's the link: Rawr'

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Leading Panguana's Status board

Profile:

Name: *

Level: 23

Race: Panguana

Age: 13 Years

Status:

Health:

5456/5456)

Mana:

845/845

Strength:

2345

Intelligence:

330

Vitality:

2352

Wisdom:

1098

Agility:

4078)

Stamina:

2989/3120

Effects:

None

Skill:

Physical skills and related

[Enhanced Claws Lv. 9]

[Enhanced Fangs Lv. 9]

[Stamina Strike Lv. 5]

[Mana Strike Lv. 3]

[Sundering Enhancement Lv. 6]

[Piercing Enhancement Lv. 6]

[Crushing Enhancement Lv. 5]

Senses and movement skills

[Stealth Lv. 7]

[Accuracy Correction Lv. 2]

[Concentration Lv. 1]

[Prediction Lv. 8]

[Danger Perception Lv. 6]

[Probability Correction Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 9]

[Tracking Lv. 6]

[Night Vision Lv. 10]

[Presence Killer Lv. 9]

[Evasion Lv. 7]

[Acrobatic Lv. 7]

[Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 7]

[Swimming Lv. 7]

[Aquatic Fighter Lv. 6]

Resistances

[Physical Resistance Lv. 8]

[Pain Resistance Lv. 6]

[Fear Resistance Lv. 3]

[Disease Resistance Lv. 6]

[Bleed Resistance Lv. 3]

[Poison Resistance Lv. 8]

[Paralyze Resistance Lv. 8]

[Torpor Resistance Lv. 6]

[Ice Resistance Lv. 1]

[Earth Resistance Lv. 5]

[Wind Resistance Lv. 5]

[Water Resistance Lv. 8]

Stat growths and related

[Health Recovery Lv. 5]

[Stamina Recovery Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Health Growth Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Agility Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Stamina Capacity Lv. 3]

Others

[Starvation Lv. 5]

[Molting Lv. 7]

Ha, my dragonewt form can handle this! I thought optimistically as I thought that my magic could handle this if that is the status board of the strongest one.

…However, my overconfidence caught me out of surprise here, as the panguana trio weren't willing to give me any time to think of a strategy as they just dived into battle, leaping onto me with their powerful hind legs.

I was only able to react to this sudden attack purely ‘cause of my skills and buff spells. If [Prediction] and [Danger Perception] hadn’t warned me or if I hadn’t cast [Haste] and [Swift Winds] onto myself, then I would have lost over half my mana, and maybe also my Health, due to my negligence.

Narrowly ducking under the combined triple attack, I couldn’t help but finally acknowledge that going into this with my dragonewt form wasn’t the greatest idea. It worked with the trolls as my agility surpassed theirs but trying to avoid the attacks of these monsters was too much of a strain on my Stamina.

It also doesn't help that the area that we were fighting in had water on the ground, high enough that they reached my legs. It only slowed me down by a bit, but any extra effort will sap my Stamina even further.

I need some distance! Terra Wall! Flame Explosion! The rest, shoot Inferno Blasts at them!

Turning my head around, I threw away caution for the forest and dedicated myself to winning this battle. Still moving through the air, I constructed a wall made of earth behind them, blocking their direct line of sight to me.

Knowing that they could easily sense me using [Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 9], I immediately readied multiple [Inferno Blast]s and [Flame Explosion], finishing my preparations.

[“Tasianna!”] I called out to the fairy clutching my horns.

[“Y-Yes, I’m ready, Lady Hestia!”] she answered slightly anxious.

[“Good! Rajah, grab onto my shoulders, like your life is hanging on it!”] I shouted, making sure that my virigress pet understood my order.

“M-Mreow…,” knowing that I was correct, he made himself smaller and sat on my back like a backpack.

I planned to give Rajah some bombs so he could drop them onto an enemy’s head, while their attention was directed at me. Verdammt, if Saori were here then she could throw them or even use my venom to coat her claws with poison.

These panguanas wouldn’t be affected by any minor or moderate grade toxins. Rajah had [Poison Resistance] but he couldn't use any of them, due to its low level. It was too dangerous to give him anything at major grade.

Verdammt nochmal, why did I half-ass this plan. Dummkopf, Rajah isn’t Saori! Ahhh, why didn’t I expect something like this will happen!

While I was warning my companions, the three panguanas jumped out of the cover of my [Terra Wall], prompting me to activate my barrage of spells. Predicting that something was about to happen, instead of dodging it, two of them simply shoved the one close to all the attacks. Even more surprising, he didn’t resist and embraced all the attacks.

The [Inferno Blast]s melted through his hardy scales, searing the flesh that was behind it. Taking all of these attacks, the panguana’s health melted until it reached 60%, that was when my [Flame Explosion] activated and sent the burning iguana-tiger chimera flying away.

The sheer heat of these fire spells caused the surrounding water to evaporate, creating a smokescreen to hide the other panguanas from plain sight.

No level up? Scheiße, did it survive?!

Without a System notification, if I gained experience or not, I was unsure if my attacks killed it or not, but I couldn't afford to pay attention to the heavily wounded one when the other two are still on their feet.

Using the sacrifice of their comrade, the two remaining monsters escaped my attacks with singed hairs and slightly cracked scales. Due to [Humanized (Moderate)] reducing my original Agility to 2851, [Swift Winds] wasn’t enough to significantly close in the difference. The stat contrast showed as their combined assault sent me into the defense, relying on my max leveled [Evasion] and [Acrobatic] to stay alive.

[“Frozen Shield!”]

Unveiling the ice-white magic circle, Tasianna materialized a shield in front of me to block the next attack, stopping it but the panguana’s claw attack pushed the shield into my arm.

“Urghi,” instantly feeling numb, I couldn’t help but moan as my wet scales stuck onto the freezing shield. [“[Cryokinesis]! Use it and help me push!”]

Enduring through the cold pain, I gripped the shield with my other hand and with the help of Tasianna controlling her spell, were able to move the shield in the direction of the other panguana. As the one that attacked the shield also had wet forelegs, sharing my fate, he was dragged with the shield.

“Wind Blast!”

Activating the wind spell behind the shield, it tore off my scales as it launched itself like a cannon forward. The one we aimed at deftly dodged this attack and continued advancing towards me, not even glancing at his unfortunate teammate who unwillingly crashed into a tree due to his stuck arm.

“Stay away! Spark Flame!”

Gnashing my fangs to cause a fire, I spewed out intense dragon fire to defend myself. The powerful fire easily transformed anything liquid into a white mist. As the stream of fire showed no sign of disappearing, the panguana understood that it couldn’t attack while I kept using my dragon breath.

[“Lady Hestia, I didn’t mean to…,”] Tasianna wanted to say something, sweat covering her forehead from being close to my [Spark Flame].

[“Talk later! Ready the next spell, Tasianna!”] I interrupted my companion, who still wasn’t completely used to fighting.

Using this opportunity, I warmed up my shivering arms and healed them with [Moderate Heal] to regrow my scales. At the same time, I activated [Humanize], finally having enough time to transform into a more suitable form to close into the stat difference.

While the mana mist surrounded my body, I had to stop using my dragon fire, allowing the panguana to attack again. Like anybody else, he understood that I was up to something, so he didn’t waste this chance to end me.

Lunging forward, the panguana used his massive arms to swipe down at me, knowing one hit could severely injure me.

[Humanized (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atsuko]

However, it was too late.

“Kriiiiiaarrgghhhh!”

Screaming a roar, I jumped and twisted my body around, dodging the panguana’s attack at the very last second.

Take this, slither tail!

As my body continued twirling in the air like a rotating screw, an opportunity showed up where I could wrap my tail around the neck of the panguana, constricting it like a snake.

Now on the monster’s back, I put more pressure on my tail to choke every single breath out of my opponent.

“Kraaaaaaaaahhh!”

Roaring once again, I allowed the monster side of me rip through the monster’s throat with [Spark Fang], tearing out cooked pieces of meat with my sickle-like claws.

Technically, I could have gone back into my dragon form and overwhelmed them with my higher stats, but I thought that this was a chance to continue training with a humanoid body. Going back to a [Humanized Lv. 5] appearance, I reduced the transforming penalty back to only 1/3rd of my stats while keeping the slim frame of my dragonewt form.

With my active buff spells, my current body had enough Agility to surpass them, while also being a smaller target to hit for any incoming attacks…just like now.

Obeying [Prediction], I ducked.

[“Ice Spike!”]

“Kriiiiieeeeh!” something above me cried out in pain.

Looking up, I saw an [Ice Spike] having penetrated my attacker's mouth. The sharp spike made it impossible for the panguana to close its mouth as any attempts were doomed to freeze in place. Using my tail as an anchor, I spun my body around and used the momentum I gained to punched the panguana in its face.

Dragon punch...ah, come on System, just give me those abilities already.

Unfortunately, slither tail and dragon punch was somehow not accepted by the System…bummer.

[“Woo, nice shot, Tasianna,”] I complimented my current fighting partner.

Flustered by my praise, Tasianna stumbled on her words as she smiled, [“O-Oh, yes, thank you very much, Lady-watch out!”]

Agitated by Tasianna’s warning, I was about to cast [Sanctuary] but stopped when Tasianna shouted: "I can do it!". Turning my head around, I realized what was about to hit us wasn't claws or a bite but a white frisbee.

Struggling on my head, Tasianna stretched out her arms and told the frisbee to stop…which it surprisingly did! Upon a closer look, the rotating object wasn't a sport’s object but the [Frozen Shield] that Tasianna created.

[“W-Woah, I-I actually did it,”] Tasianna said, seemingly surprised by her ability to control her own spell with [Cryokinesis]

Noticing that the panguana that just threw the shield jumping at us, I released my tail hold from the panguana with the torn throat and used it as a spear to drill a hole into its arm whilst diverting it away from my body.

While it wasn’t very deep, I made sure that the spikes on my tail had the venom created with my [Toxin Secretion] coated onto them. My tests have shown that I can sweat my toxin and that I can sweat it through the scales of my tail.

As my tail was just wrapped around the neck of the panguana that I was standing on, this guy was about to die from blood loss, suffocation, drowning from his own blood, and my specially made venom that would definitely infect these highly resistant panguana.

To further help me with my [Toxin Secretion] tests, I wanted to know what would happen if a major grade poison were to affect a monster with [Poison Resistance Lv. 8]. Of course, my observation can stop after I help the lizardmen.

Looking at the panguana who was stung by my tail, I noticed that he had frozen scales on his arm, which made my eyes move to the side to look at the one that had an ice spike sticking out of its throat.

Oi, where are its burns?!

The panguana that I sucker-punched was the one who shielded everybody so how was it alive…and why does he only have minimal amounts of burned skin?

A quick search through its status board showed me that its miraculous regeneration was due to its [Molting] skill.

Molting

A skill that can only be owned by those that can naturally molt. The owner of this skill may use Mana and Stamina to molt their current skin away, regenerating Health and any skin-based status ailments in an instant. Consecutive usage in a short time will increase the cost of the skill while also inflicting [Starvation] after

…He hasn’t fully regenerated his Health but that’s pretty strong if you give somebody the time to do it…woah!

As I gauging the potential of the skill, the panguana under me finally showed its desperation when it noticed that its comrades have failed to free it. Struggling to kick me off, it rampaged around like a mad bull, shaking me around as I stood on its back.

Deciding that I only needed one research subject, I jumped up into the air from its back. Using [Air Walk] and my now released wings, I jumped higher into the sky and cast [Scorching Sun] in my hand, letting it grow even larger as time passed.

Once I was satisfied with its size, I used my unoccupied hand to materialized a large green magic circle behind me. Once again using [Wind Blast], I mumbled my praises for this spell’s flexibility due to how often I’ve been using it.

Releasing both spells, my body boosted towards the location of the panguana with the torn throats and I crashed my giant sun onto the monster, overkilling it.

Experience has reached a breaking point.   [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atsuko] has risen from [Level 26] to [Level 27]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 600 skill points

As I was stuffing the now blackened panguana into my storage, I suddenly heard a giant explosion further in the rainforest, loud enough that it sent a few birds flying into the air.

[“Scheiße, we have no time anymore! Tasianna we’re moving!”] I said, realizing that I was enjoying that battle a little bit too much.

While I was summoning up multiple magic circles to prepare my rocket launch maneuver, I was suddenly hit in the head.

***********************************************

As Hestia was dealing with the three panguanas on her side, Caszcur and the lizardmen guards finally caught up with the two remaining panguanas and the group that they were chasing.

“Hey, you algae infested corpse! Look over here you stinking skink!” a loud, gruff lizard-like voice shouted.

“You two krill eaters afraid to fight us? Come and fight some actual warriors, you damn monsters!” another lizard shouted from the top of his lungs.

"Don't look at them, look at me, you palette disasters! Smell the delicious aroma from this food? A fair-scaled one cooked for me, so if you want some then come and get it!" another lizardman shouted, holding pieces of his breakfast that Hestia cooked for the group.

These shouting lizards were none other than Casczur and the lizard group, barely able to keep up with the fast-moving panguanas. The only reason why they were still this close to them, able to call them out was due to Hestia's help.

Being launch through the air, crashing and breaking through trees, wasn’t a very enjoyable experience for any of the lizardmen, as the [Air Shield] simply protected them but didn’t prevent the nausea-inducing rotations.

Despite this hardship, the power and speed they managed to gain were enough that they landed right in front of the panguanas. Quickly recovering from the landing because [Featherfall] prevented all the fall damage, Caszcur and the others began throwing the poison bombs at the panguanas, however, to no avail.

Hestia, as she didn’t want to risk Caszcur’s life, decided to give them bombs filled with moderate grade poison gas, something that she can heal in the worst case that their [Air Shield] was somehow dispelled.

Having no effects on the panguanas, Caszcur and the others were shocked to learn that something they saw the effectiveness a day before wasn’t working. Not knowing what to do, they tried to threaten and look intimidating to scare the panguanas away.

They were courageous enough to insult the monsters that killed the remaining powerful hunters in their group, but they weren't stupid to attack them. Their role was not to fight and win but to buy Hestia enough time so she could arrive. They might be able to kill a normal human with ease, but these lizardmen were outclassed against the vicious monsters of the Belzac forest.

Ignoring the small group, the panguanas ran past them and continued their original pursuit, forcing the rescue party to follow them. As they were outmatched against the C rank monster’s immensely high Agility, it was impossible for them to catch up even with [Haste] and [Swift Winds] increasing theirs.

“Fuck! We have no choice now! I’m using our first bomb, so stay back!” Caszcur announced to the others.

As the two monsters were about to escape their sight, Caszcur decided to use the first of their three firebombs. Remembering Hestia’s instructions, he pulled out the pin and threw it using the Strength that he gained from [Holy Strength] and [Strengthening Flame] at the running monsters.

As the bomb flew through the air, a gas slowly seeped into the chamber of the magic circle. As the concentration of gas increased there, it finally reached the necessary amount and exploded mid-air.

The giant flame explosion blew away trees, vegetation, and even ground away. The panguanas, being fast enough to outrun the initial explosion were lucky enough to avoid any critical wounds, but it didn’t leave them unscathed as the shockwave caught them.

Disappearing from sight due to the smoke, the lizardmen were ecstatic that their desperate throw actually hit the monsters. Rushing past the affected area, Caszcur and the lizardmen guards caught a glimpse of the fleeing group, finally confirming that it truly was their lost comrades.

“Hey! Scale-kins, it’s us, it’s us!” wavering his spear above his head, Caszcur used his husky voice to stop them from running. “Stop running, it’s us; your scale brothers have come back for you!”

As the lizardmen guard also joined in, the combined voices started to sound familiar to the fleeing lizardmen. As they turned their tired faces around, their desperate faces only got worse when they noticed what was approaching them. Whether it was fatigue due to a severe lack of sleep and food, or not knowing how to feel due to all the surprises they have witnessed today, the ragged group of missing lizardmen pointed their fingers at Caszcur’s direction, mumbling “L-L-Lo-Look”.

“Hey, don’t weep on us yet, you krill eaters. We still need to get you out of here!” misunderstanding their stuttering and widen eyes for elation and relief, Caszcur continued shouting cheerfully at the sight of his friends.

They might look like they went through hell but Caszcur recognized that quite a few lizardmen were still alive. Although he still remembered the dead comrade he found before and the total number of missing lizardmen were fewer than he wished, he wouldn’t let sadness control him now.

These lizardmen have lost their homes, become slaves, had to devour their own dying scale-kins to stay alive, and now they actually went through the hell that was the Belzac forest. Caszcur’s heart stung from all the people he has lost over in these two years of his tumultuous life.

However, it is through this hardship that he has learned to find joy and hope in the little things in life, even if it’s fleeting. Without this, then he couldn’t have held onto his sanity over all this time, eventually sharing the same deranged mind that Apsala has gained due to being the group’s alchemist.

That was why he wasn’t able to understand anything until the last moment.

"Look behind you!" a lizardman finally found the courage to warn their scale-kins…however, it was too late.

Dread filled his heart when Caszcur finally turned around, and in just like a flash he could only see blood…his own blood. Without letting his brain register the sensation, the momentum of the attack slammed his body onto the ground.

The impact caused him to cough out any remaining air in his lungs as he laid on the ground battered.

“Kraa! Ha ha huff huff…huff-kraahhhhhhhhhhh!” Caszcur let out a scream filled with pain and anguish.

Getting back the oxygen that he needed to survive, it only took his brain a few seconds to finally realized that he was bleeding profusely from his open wound. Pain coursed through his nerves until he was forced to yell in a pained voice as if it was a reflex.

“No, no, no, no, arrgh! My arm!”

Looking at the origin for his pain, Caszcur’s eyes were directed at the bloody stump that was once his forearm. He couldn’t believe it; he didn’t want to believe it. His dominant right hand was no more, his trusted body part that he has used over and over again as he cut wood, polished them and used them to create many tools and homes for his fellow scale-kins.

The realization that his effort was gone to his lost limp made him hysterical as he shouted and screamed, destroying his already hoarse voice.

“Caszcur!” a lizardmen guard shouted.

“Surround him! Protect him, scale-kins!” another shouted, ordering the other four guards to flank Caszcur.

“You slug brains! G-Get, argh, the hell away from me and help our scale-kins!” Caszcur forced himself to speak, demanding everyone to protect the group that they were planning to rescue.

“Fuck off, you krill eater!” a guard responded back in kind. “Haven’t you noticed yet? Instead of going for anybody else, they directly went for you.”

“Slice off the group’s head, you. Disorganize us by killing you,” another stated. "But I have the feeling that they are just here for revenge. He, just look at those skinks face, Caszcur."

The two panguana had them surrounded, one behind him and one directly in front of his face; the very same one that bit off his arm and was now dangling it in front of him. By turning his head around, he noticed what his comrades were telling him, that the panguana’s faces were charred red and black, the remnants of their scales that were melted off from the firebomb’s explosion.

“Ha, besides, don’t forget why we’re here,” a third spoke. “We only have to wait for our fair-scaled one. I have the feeling that the lass, Hestia, is about finished with her part of the job. We bought enough time…now we just need to buy just a bit more…even if it costs us our lives.”

“We die together, Caszcur,” is what Caszcur was thinking when he heard this. Every single lizardman joining this rescue mission was already aware the chances of surviving were low. Even with Hestia's healing spells, they can't be sure that she would be around every single second, as it was the situation now.

They understood that they joined purely so they could direct and help however they could give Hestia the chance to rescue the rest. The lives of six old scale lizardmen were nothing compared to the lives of the many, especially when it includes many young scales. They were happy to trade theirs for them.

Lizardmen weren’t the most warlike beastmen race, but they still took pride in strength and hunting prowess. They might have been craftsmen, but their pride as men stung whenever they saw a hunter dying in front of them, protecting the important craftsmen of the group.

These six lizardmen couldn’t help but feel a bit of satisfaction that they could finally join their brethren by dying a heroic death to defend one of their own. There was no reason to fear their impending doom as they have done all they could.

“Yeah, we just need to buy some time and we…arghhhh!” a lizardman was interrupted by the swiping arms of a panguana.

Having finally had enough, the panguanas knocked the five guards out of the way, knocking them away like ragdolls.

“Fuck…I guess this is it…,” Caszcur said as he slowly took out the two remaining bombs with his left arm, glaring at the panguana that was dangling his arm in its mouth. “You skink…I will die but I will take one of down with me.”

As if it was done toying with its food, the panguana spit out the maimed forearm in front of Caszcur

Caszcur looked at his once trust limb for a second, before directing his anger at the one responsible for it, “He, not even good enough for you to eat, huh? I’ll make you regret throwing away your last meal!”

Jumping on his feet, Caszcur pulled out the bombs and held the stick with his mouth, ready to pull them out any second now.

Roaring, “Kraaaaaaaaaaaah!”, Caszcur ran towards the panguana with reckless abandon, confident that his self-sacrifice will be enough to save everybody, including his guard friends.

“Kriiiiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

Fully immersed by his own anger and revenge, Casczur wasn’t aware of anything else besides the monster that stood in front of him. Pulling the sticks out of the bombs, Caszcur was fully ready to die today.

I’ll leave the rest to you, little Lady.

“Die with me!” Caszcur challenged the monster.

“Kriiiiiiiiiiiiiieheheh!” the panguana responded.

“Kriiiiiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

As if the force of the two voices combined, the surroundings began to tremble at the sound of their roars.

Aiming to dodge the panguana’s attack, Caszcur readied his body to duck but little did he know that it was an unnecessary maneuver.

With a force of a landing boulder, something dropped from the sky and smashed the panguana into the ground, sending mud into the air from the sheer impact.

“Wha-!” blown away from the wind pressure, Caszcur couldn’t say anything else but that.

As he recovered, his eyes widened when he learned what stopped his suicide attempt, or, who just caused it.

The person that crashed onto the panguana was covered in red scales and had a head that resembled a lizardman greatly. Her tail was wrapped around the neck of another panguana, while her left hand held onto a second with her long, sharp claws.

Her right hand was tightly holding onto the panguana he was challenged with a fiery grip until she decided to rip its head out with sheer force.

The red-scaled girl ferocity and appearance were all very similar to a lizardman but her large, imposing wings were an unusual sight and made that idea hard to believe, as lizardmen don't have wings. What was more eye-catching was the blue dress that conflicted greatly with her vibrant crimson red scales.

“Little Lady?”

“Kraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

***********************************************

Experience has reached a breaking point.   [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atsuko] has risen from [Level 27] to [Level 29]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 1200 skill points

Have no fear! For I am here! I wanted to shout out but kept it to myself after my parallel minds warned me about how cringy it would sound.

Crashing down on the monster that was about to kill Caszcur, with Tasianna, Rajah, and two of my panguana opponents; it looked like a perfect moment to look like a superhero but that was very embarrassing.

So, instead of doing that, I immediately locked my attention at the last remaining panguana and activated [Bedrock Blades] to erupt massive sharp rocks from the ground. Caught out surprised by my sudden appearance, the panguana wasn’t able to notice its doom that was coming from the ground, instantly dying from having its entire body pierced by sharp rocks.

No level up? Shame.

“Little Lady? Is that you…no, wait, run!” I heard somebody shouting.

Looking down, I was able to see Caszcur lying on the ground while holding onto two of my firebombs with…one arm? No, I don’t think I’m imagining anything here; Caszcur was missing an arm and he was clutching onto the two last remaining bombs with dear life.

Realizing something was up, I jumped down and dash to his side, after releasing the two corpses of panguana that I was still holding on to, [“Tasianna freeze his wound, now.”]

After hearing her say, “You will, Lady Hestia.”, I pulled Caszcur’s arm away from his body. He was angrily shouting at me to “run away” and that I was “risking my life to help him”, saying that it was too late to help him.

Thinking that he was an even more of a drama queen than I was, I yanked the bombs away from him and then began sucking in the gas from the two bombs. As my bombs could only activate when the gas reaches a certain concentration, you only needed to remove the toxic gas and it'll become unusable as no more of my mana could activate it anymore.

You know, the original concept of my bombs only being able to activate with my mana was a pretty flexible rule. I mean, this toxic gas was made with [Toxin Secretion] using my mana, after all, hie hie.

“Wha?” Caszcur looked confused at what I just did.

["Can't recognize me or is it something else, Caszcur? These are my bombs, of course, I know how to diffuse them,"] I said confidently.

Turning my head around, I was able to confirm that the other lizardmen guards were also alive, albeit they probably broke a bone or so. I was also able to see that our rescue team was able to successfully rescue the lost lizardmen group, as I could see a large group of ragged looking ones mumbling to themselves.

I walked over to the spot where Cazscur's arm was and told Tasianna to freeze the stump. I don't know if I can re-attach Caszcur's arm but this was a good time to test the limits of my magic. If I can regenerate lost flesh, then I should be able to reattach it.

[“Well, there were some complications, but it seems this was a successful rescue attempt,”] I said while kneeling beside Caszcur to heal all his wounds besides his right arm.

"He he, you truly are a girl of a lot of secrets, little Lady. First, you can't speak and now you look like any other lizardkin…well besides your wings. Still, you came at the right time and saved my life. My debt to you is increasing by the second," Cascur said with a merry laugh.

[“I would have come earlier but there were some problems,”] I said with a wry smile.

As I was taking care of Caszcur, Tasianna went around to tell the lizardmen guards to group up to me so I can heal them, she also was responsible to talk with the lost lizardmen group, soothing and informing them about the situation.

While she was doing that, I retold Casczur about our little “accident”. You see, when I was about to launch myself into the air, Rajah smacked my head from behind, making me flinch from that startling action. I was about to scold him for that but that’ when I noticed that the panguanas were planning to throw something at me, and Rajah was simply warning me about it.

Annoyed at their persistence, I killed them as fast as I could and just [Air Walk] and [Wind Blast] my way to the others.

I was pretty surprised that Rajah was able to figure out the panguana’s plan before my [Prediction] activated but I guess he was keeping an eye on my back.

…Huh?

“Hmm? Is everything alright, lass?” Caszcur asked me.

["Huh? Oh no, it's just…I dunno, I kinda have a feeling that we're being watched,"] I admitted. [“Maybe I’m being too cautious but who knows.”]

“Well, if you say think that’s the case then I guess we should move away. Tasianna seems to have calmed them down so I’ll get them to move as soon as possible. We need to get to a safer place anyways,” Caszcur stood up once I was done with him.

[“I know the ice is uncomfortable but hold onto it until I can figure out a way to save your arm, ok?”] I said.

“You’re gonna save my arm? Ha ha, I don’t know how you’re gonna do something like that, but I’m already prepared to be indebted to you again,”

Standing up, suddenly the ground beneath me shook wildly, destabilizing my balance. That was when my skills finally activated and told me to jump away and as far as possible, ASAP! Before I could cast [Wind Blast] to blast me away, Rajah bit my arm, surprising me.

That was when my surprise turned into bewilderment as four long, dark snakes started to erupt out of Rajah’s feet and launched themselves as a nearby tree’s branch, pulling Rajah and me towards it.

Wha-? Is that [Shadow Snake]?

I was reminded of the spell’s name as I had to deal against it when Tasianna and Saori nearly beat me using that spell.

Before I could ask any questions, the ground that I stood on burst open to reveal an actual giant white snake. From the size of its mouth, If I stood any longer in that area, then I would have been turned into that snake’s snack.

…Identify!

Vellestra Leviathan

A giant monster with a giant predator’s head as a body and multiple snake heads that are used to move the massive monster through the water. Each individual tentacles have their own brain and consciousness, allowing it to act independently from each other. However, when their main body is in danger, this monster will use both poison and water magic to rain torrential punishment on any foolish challengers. Rank A

Holy fucking crap!

Tasianna's Status board update

Profile:

Name: Tasianna Marina Silverpond

Level: 48

Race: Fairy

Age: 87 Years

Job: Mage

Status:

Health:

697/697 (+145)

Mana:

3265/3265 (+1087)

Strength:

151 (+86)

Intelligence:

1296 (+423)

Vitality:

176 (+101)

Wisdom:

875 (+316)

Agility:

932 (+324)

Stamina:

719/719 (+305)

Effects:

None

Skill Points:

6050 (+6050)

Skill:

Magic skills and related

[Fairy Magic]

[Arcane Mind Lv. 7] (+1)

[Ice Magic Lv. 2]

[Water Magic Lv. 7] (+1)

[Water Amp] (New) [Wind Magic Lv. 3] (+1)

[Chant Revocation Lv. 5] (+1)

[Silent Casting Lv. 1]

[Mental Stability Lv. 1] (New)

[Mental Warfare Lv. 2]

Senses and movement skills

[Stealth Lv. 3] (+1)

[Accuracy Correction Lv. 1] (New)

[Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 3] (+1)

[Prediction Lv. 2] (+1)

[Danger Perception Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 1]

[Night Vision Lv. 3] (+1)

[Presence Killer Lv. 1] (New)

[Evasion Lv. 3]

[Acrobatic Lv. 3]

[Flight Acceleration Lv. 2] (+1)

[Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 1]

[Concentration Lv. 4]

Resistances

[Physical Resistance Lv. 3]

[Pain Resistance Lv. 3]

[Poison Resistance Lv. 1]

[Paralyzation Resistance Lv. 1]

[Torpor Resistance Lv. 1]

[Mana Leak Resistance Lv. 1]

[Holy Resistance Lv. 1]

[Fire Resistance Lv. 1]

[Water Resistance Lv. 4]

[Earth Resistance Lv. 2]

[Wind Resistance Lv. 2]

[Dark Resistance Lv. 1]

Stat growths and related

[Stamina Recovery Lv. 1] (New)

[Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Mana Growth Lv.´5] (+1)

[Enhanced Mana Capacity Lv. 3] (+1)

[Enhanced Intelligence Growth Lv. 5] (+1)

[Enhanced Intelligence Enforcement Lv. 3] (+1)

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 2] (+1)

[Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 5] (+1)

[Enhanced Agility Enforcement Lv. 3] (+1)

[Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 2] (+1)

[Enhanced Stamina Enforcement Lv. 1]

Others

[Singing Lv. 2] (New)

[Dancing Lv. 1] (+1)

[Identify Blocker Lv. 1] (New)

[Identify Lv. 3] (+1)

[Cooking Lv. 3] (+2)

[Herbalist Lv. 1] (New)

[Royal Etiquette Lv. 5] (+1)

[Cryokinesis] [Telepathy]

Spell List:

Custom spells

[Create Water]

[Greater Create Water]

Ice spells

[Ice Spike]

[Frozen Shield]

Water spells

[Water Ball]

[Water Wall]

[Water Bolt]

[Cleanse]

[Protective Water]

[Droplet Torrent]

Wind spells

[Wind Bullet]

[Wind Cutter]

[Air Shield]

Titles:

[Hestia’s Retainer]

A note from AbyssRaven

Remember the crocodile-like monster that appeared in chapter 50? That is the Vellestra Leviathan.

The concept for the Vellestra Leviathan: Rawr and Rawr

Imagine the hydra-like heads replacing the tentacles of the crocodile-like head of the second image. That is what our Vellestra Leviathan looks like. A mighty, giant monster that is large enough to swallow Hestia and co. with one bite

Oh, and don't forget that I mentioned in the last two chapters that the party bracelets are still working. There is only Hestia and Tasianna here so they're sharing 50/50 of C rank monster experience. Tasianna got a nice boost.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters + any patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 58: Heilige…what the hell is that thing?!

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #3 here to once again promote our Patreon. Our current Patrons are awesome, so how about you awesome RR readers join us? Here is the link : Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 10 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until June!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

Also if you guys want to hear me sing Dragon Idol songs, then come over too. I sing for your amusement!

LEFT! LEFT! LEFT! DODGE LEFT!

Although none of my skills besides [Parallel Thoughts] could speak with me, the combined warning from my [Prediction] and [Danger Perception] was so audible that it sounded like a voice was telling me to dodge left to protect my life.

At this stage of my life, I have learned to trust my skills when my life depended on it. Without a single other thought, I tensed up my legs and jumped to the side, at the same time the snake launched its mouth at me, destroying the tree that I was just standing on.

[“Heilige Scheiße, how fast was that?!”] I shouted out, unable to keep my surprise to myself.

The snake head of that [Vellestra Leviathan], the first A rank monster I’ve seen in my life, not only did it splinter the tree into little pieces like it was nothing, but it honestly felt like had I hesitated for a single millisecond, my body would have been caught.

That was after I immediately acted on the warning that my skill was telling me. I was hopelessly outclassed by this thing, and even in my dragon form, I don’t know if I could handle it. Should I transform back for my maximum Agility or stay small?

As I let my parallel minds figure out an answer to this question, I made no mistake to stay shocked for long, choosing to act and defend myself from this fearsome beast.

My instincts told me that this was not a fight that I could win, it was unwinnable at my current state and only fleeing would be the correct choice to do.

“Sacred Field!”

Draining my mana like a sink tap, I invested a huge amount of mana into my [Sacred Field] to increases its effective area to the size of a baseball field, however, at the same time I did that, the snake launched another attack.

“Aaaaah!”

While I managed to avoid being mauled by that attack, I didn’t expect that once it hit the ground, it had enough power behind it that it sent me flying from the sheer wind pressure and impact shockwave.

Flying backwards, Rajah’s shadow snakes helped me regain my bearing, preventing me from crashing on the ground. At the same time, my parallel minds finished casting my spells, materializing magic circles around me and in front of the snake.

Activating them, [Bedrock Blades] burst from the ground and pounded its sharp edges on the snake’s scales; [Inferno Beam] and [Banishment Beam] pushed the head away with continuous rays of magic; lastly, [Spiral Hellfire], my highest levelled fire spell, sent out a huge screw-like fire at the snake, drilling and forcing it to back away from me.

As a last measure, a thick stone wall as high as the trees grew up from the ground, separating me from that thing.

…My spells did barely any damage…

Due to the wall, I had to stop my beam spell, however, I could still hear my [Spiral Hellfire] and [Bedrock Blades] doing work from over here, so this should give everybody around me enough time to get out of sight. Looking around, I let out a silent sigh of relief that every single lizardman was on my side of the wall. I could also see their wounds recover due to [Sacred Field]’s continuous effect. They should be healthy enough to run now.

[“Caszcur, I know you’re still hurt, but I have to ask you for a favor,”] I said as I turned my head towards the actual leader of this rescue party.

“Spare your breath, little lady, I’ve lost an arm, not my mind. I’ll get these krill eaters away from here, so you just concentrate on your own survival,” Caszcur, ever the quick thinker despite his brutish appearance, quickly understood the meaning of my words. “Shouting at others is literally my job, so leave this to me…EVERYONE, FOLLOW ME!”

His loud voice and immediate action showed results as he quickly roused the scared lizardmen and the guards to run deeper into the forest. With Tasianna re-joining me and Rajah, I was about to follow the rest, when my [Prediction] warned me of another attack.

Knowing that it would hit the lizardmen group, I cast [Sanctuary] to protect the group behind me, while Tasianna wordlessly cast [Frozen Shield]. In the middle of its materialization, the white snake effortlessly busted through my [Terra Wall] and shattered my light barrier, even pulverizing Tasianna’s shield.

“Kyaaaaaah!” terrified by the sudden attack, my body instinctively stepped to the side to dodge it while letting out a shriek.

Anticipating the powerful impact this time, the shockwave wasn't enough to blow me away. Now standing beside its head, my tiny eyes met the large beast's, huge enough that I was able to see my whole body being reflected by it.

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Identity Blocker Lv. 3] evolved into [Identity Blocker Lv. 4]

Wha-? Did it just use [Identify] on me?! Crap, how much information did it manage to get from my Status Board?! Did my [Identity Blocker] even block his skill?!

That was when something stirred inside me, a desire to know if I could do it; letting my curiosity control me, I ignited a flame around my claws by grinding them against each other, poured in more mana to empower it even further and then crashed it into the beast’s eye.

As if I was trying to punch a wooden door like a normal human being, my claws managed to dent the eye, shooting out a dark red fluid out of it, but the hardiness of the organ was too much for my arm, as cracking and snapping sounds coming from my arm could be heard.

“Hiiiiiieeeee!”

“Ssssssssssssschiellaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

Overwhelmed by our respective pain, we flailed around as we tried to separate ourselves from each other. The large snake, being the massive beast that it was, swung its huge body into the air, trying to remove my claws from its eye, while I tried to push myself out of it.

It all ended when the shadow snakes reappeared from Rajah’s legs, attached themselves to another tree and pulled me towards it, freeing me from the rampaging snake. Dazed from all that shaking and swinging around, I clenched my teeth and grabbed my broken arm. With a loud crack, I re-adjusted it back to its correct position before pushing some bones back into my body.

Once everything was back inside me, I held onto my arm which had its entire bones either broken, sticking outside my body, or splintered into pieces.

[“Oh, my goodness, Lady Hestia…”] Tasianna said with a gasp.

“Mreow!” Rajah was equally shocked by the state of my arm.

However, I simply ignored them. There was no time to feel sorry for myself when I’m still not outside of the danger zone.

Using the same method that I used to repair Rajah’s leg, I cast [Major Heal] on it, making sure that my arm would come out even healthier than before.

Once my arm was back to normal, I let out a sigh of relief that the pain disappeared, but I couldn’t relax long as my skills began warning me again.

Reflexively constructing another [Terra Wall], I ducked my body down as my skill instructed me to. As if the air was being pierced, a clear beam flashed past me, destroying my stone wall and the tree behind me like paper.

“Uhiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeh!” I shrieked once more from witnessing this tremendous power.

I was able to sense mana from that attack, so it was likely that it was either a spell or maybe a racial ability like my [Spark Fire Dragon] skill. Whether it was or not didn’t matter as it only mattered that it was a water attack, something that my body was incredibly weak to.

Stat difference and elemental difference?! Ok, fuck this, I’m outta here!

I bought enough time for everybody to escape. I’ve done all I can! All I have to do now is to get out with my party members alive!

[“Run for your lives!”] I called out. (Nigerundayo!)

[“Retreat!”] Tasianna shouted.

“Mreow!” and Rajah agreed to both of us.

As we ran for our dear lives, more beams of concentrated water were shot at us as we delved deeper into the rainforest. Probably due to the monster’s skills, every hit was so accurate that if I hadn’t blocked it by throwing my own spells at it, I would have probably lost a limb or so.

After a couple of shots, the snake used its long body to pursue us as it began pushing away any tree in its path, persistent enough or driven by anger to kill us. Due to its encroaching mouth, I was able to confirm that those water beams were indeed spells, as I could faintly see a blue magic circle inside its mouth.

Still dodging all the beams, I had to continue blasting stuff like [Spiral Hellfire] and [Bedrock Blades] at it so it couldn’t catch up. The Agility difference was so high that if I hadn’t used [Wind Blast] with Rajah’s shadow snakes, swinging around the trees like Tarzan or Spiderman, then I probably would have ended up as leviathan food.

Eventually, we made it away as it seems like the snake couldn't follow us anymore. I guess it has reached the maximum length that it could travel. The [Identify] description did tell me this snake was just one of many heads of an even larger behemoth. It still continued blasting spells at us, but I luckily could rely on my mana to avoid dying at this point.

When I finally found a safe spot, I dropped to the ground and immediately puked, “Ooooooof, urrrrrrrrgh…ha ha, kurgh. Urgh, ha ha ha.”

Tasianna jumped off my shoulder and flew up to my face, clearly worried, [“Lady Hestia! No, are you alright?! You used so many spells, are you alright?!”]

Hearing the panicked cries of Tasianna, I quickly had my parallel minds check my body, confirming that I was at my limit, arcane corruption-wise. The nauseous feeling of going overboard with my magic, spamming countless of high-tier spells without controlling the mana consumption due to my own flight or fight instinct.

It can be called a success as I made it out alive, so I’ll forgive myself for forgetting the magic lessons I got from Tasianna. Keeping a cool head was the most important part, and when even my parallel minds had a problem staying focus due to my fear of death influencing them, then I think I shouldn’t beat myself over it.

Learn from this and get better…

[“Sorry, I’m…not feeling good. Too much mana used,”] I told Tasianna after recovering from puking my breakfast out.

[“Headache, tensed body, nausea; symptoms of arcane corruption. Urgh, I need a break…”]

I was making sure to reduce the amount that I was saying due to being unable to speak in my current form. [Telepathy] used mana so I needed to be careful to not make my condition even worse.

[“My Princess, I’m sorry, if only I’ve could’ve been more useful to you…”] Tasianna said dejectedly while cleaning my mouth using her water spell.

After she was finished, she told Rajah to help pull my weakened body towards a tree, resting me there. Once again, shadow snakes appeared out of his legs. I knew at this point who was actually behind those things, so asking Rajah about it would be redundant. I’ll just confront that person when we get back…if we can find our way back.

Leaving Rajah as my guard, Tasianna told me, “I saw something that can help.”, before flying away. I wanted to stand up, but the lethargy in my body wouldn’t go away. Magic wouldn’t help here, actually, it would make my condition even worse.

So, I just stroke Rajah’s fur while patiently waiting for Tasianna. When she did come back, she was holding onto a bundle of leaves that was larger than her body, preventing her from flying properly. After she got Rajah to help her, she laid the stack beside me and then pulled one of them out to show me.

["I thought I was imagining it when I flew past them these past days, but after smelling them, I can confirm that these are Fulinoe leaves,"] Tasianna said with an optimistic smile. [“I only know them growing around our village, but it seems we’re lucky that they have spread so far, even reaching the Belzac forest. Here, let me use [Identify] in your stead, Lady Hestia!”]

That skill needed mana to use so it was awfully considerate of her to do this for me. Enthusiastic about it, words began streaming into my head.

Fulinoe Leaf

A leaf from the Fulinoe plant that can only grow around areas with high mana density. These leaves have a soothing smell that can alleviate headaches caused my mana problems

Smelling it, I did feel a bit better, but it wasn’t effective enough to rid my dizziness. Confused why Tasianna thought this would help me, I had to ask her to explain.

[“He he, naturally you wouldn’t know this but if you use these leaves to make tea out of them, you can reduce the effects of arcane corruption, speeding up the recovery process,”] Tasianna said while puffing her chest up, looking proud. [“Us fairies hate the taste as it's too bitter, so it has more or less become something only elves indulged in. Not many people outside our forest know about this. That's why I'm so fascinated that they can be found in the Belzac forest. We are truly lucky.”]

Having no reason to deny her help, I helped her create a fire by just sliding my claws against each other. Creating sparks didn’t require any mana, only increasing the volume of the fire needed mana, so I was safe to help her.

Once I carved a crude hole in a rock, Tasianna filled it with water, added the leaves, and then placed it over the flame.

[“Please forgive me for the lackluster quality, but it should help you nonetheless,”] Tasianna offered me the now finished tea. [“Please, let me help you drink. It will be bitter so please don’t be surprised.”]

Opening my mouth, I allowed Tasianna to pour in the liquid inside it. Allowing the tea to cover my tongue, I was quickly assaulted by that bitter taste that Tasianna warned me about, but somehow, I wasn’t revolted by it. It was actually quite nostalgic.

Can this be? Coffee?

Finishing the beverage, I was fully convinced of what it reminded me of.

[“Bleg, bitter,”] I said while sticking my tongue out. [“However, it helped me. Thank you, Tasianna.”]

[“Of course, it was the least that I could’ve done, my Princess,”] Tasianna said with a fulfilling smile.

[“Also, could you please grab some seeds? I want to grow them,”] I asked, trying my best to describe the Earth beverage with as little words as needed.

She couldn't believe it, until I told her about how using milk and sugar was a good way to sweeten it, which cleared everything up for her.

It seems like fairies don't drink much milk, so they usually enjoy tea leaves that had a pleasant taste on its own.

Happy to help, Tasianna picked them up with Rajah's help and we stayed at that location, drinking tea until it was night time.

That was when my [Detection Sensor] noticed a group approaching us. Due to the tea, I’ve recovered quite a bit from my arcane corruption, so I was ready to fight, or at the very least to flee.

However, my worry was unwarranted when a familiar face appeared.

“Little Lady! Thank Marsven, you’re still alive,” the one-armed lizardman, Caszcur said with a relieved laugh.

[“Caszcur…y-you came back for us?”] I asked, surprised that he was willing to lead all these lizardmen just to find us.

“What?! Has that giant thing rocked your head so much that it turned to a slug? How many times have I said that I’m indebted to you?” he shouted, actually angry that I would question him for coming to help me.

After I apologized to him, we both shared what happened when we got separated. I told him about my current problem and that I needed rest, while he explained that it took a bit of convincing but he managed to persuade everybody to come, calling it a "debt worth giving up our life" and that they would dishonour themselves if they didn't come to help.

Seems like the snake’s rampage made it easy to look for me, you only needed to follow the destroyed trees.

[“Uhhh, so is this why they are cleaning me, now?”] I asked Caszcur, confused why the female lizardmen were cleaning my body.

“Ha ha, yeah, that fight must have really pushed you to your limits. You look nothing like when you narrowly saved my life; all that blood fits your appearance but not your personality, little lady,” Caszcur said with a calm nod. “Just accept it. It’s the same thing after you healed everybody in the clinic. We lizardmen don’t forget a debt this big that easily.”

Tasianna, taking her role as my retainer seriously, was directing everybody on how to help me, using the water that she was creating. As I had recovered, I also took out some already dismantled meat from my storage, which caused all the lizardmen to celebrate at the fact, telling me that they will create a feast for me.

“So…you mind telling me about your sudden…transformation?” Caszcur asked, pointing at my wings and head.

Sighing, I realized that I was in a bit of pickle now. Whether it was ‘cause I trusted him or due to my fatigue, I elucidate to him about my dragon origin. Of course, I wasn’t about to tell him anything about being a Reincarnator. While exposing myself as a dragon was already nerve-wracking, I knew that telling him about my other secret would be a mistake.

It also seemed like the dragon stuff was already too much for him to handle.

A dragonewt was one thing, but a dragon? He assured me that Apsala would go crazy if she heard this. After the feast, I decided to transform back to my preferred form, shocking every single lizardman who didn't know about it. They told me, "Your other form was so much more attractive" and "Human skin sure is weak, you should stay in your proper form".

My proper form would shock you even more…

After that, we rested for the night and began traveling on the next day. During this time, I also successfully reattached Caszcur’s arm. I first tried to regrow it with my spells but that was seemingly impossible even with [Major Heal], so I was glad that I quickly thought of freezing Caszcur’s stump and arm.

The frozen cells were a problem but that was still easily mended with my healing spells. Caszcur told me that he was just continuously accumulating more and more debts and was visibly depressed by that fact.

It took us about two days until we finally returned back to the camp. Arriving, a crowd was already assembling at the entrance, probably ‘cause of certain someone…

The cheers that I could hear was incredible, so full of energy of seeing their friends again. The five siblings even came up to me to thank me personally for doing it. Not only did they thank me for killing those panguanas but also for bringing all their friends back.

It was honestly awesome that I was able to see all of this, warming my heart that our party was able to help them.

“Hestia…” a voice came behind me, tightly embracing me. “I was so worried…You are too reckless for your own good, Hestia, but I am glad that you are alright.”

“Hey, Miss Spy. Sorry for showing you that pitiful sight, guess you were right once again, huh?” I said, holding onto her arms as I remembered our fight. “I’m sorry for making you worry like that, despite how much you were against it.”

[“Of course, I was correct! Do you think it was a good…,”] Saori interrupted herself, as I felt something wet drop down my head. ["No, I should not scold you about it. I-I worry, yeah, maybe too much? I should just be glad that I didn’t lose you. Tasianna, I thank you so very much for keeping her safe, if you were not there then I probably would have ran, after I saw all of that."]

[“Of course, Miss Saori, it was my duty…even if wasn’t enough. I promise to get stronger,”] Tasianna said while bowing.

Nodding to Tasianna’s show of, Saori then turned towards Rajah, [“You, Rajah, are just the best. You brave little boy, you did exactly what I asked you too. Good work.”]

“Mreow!”

It seems I was correct to assume that those snakes and that black coating around Rajah were Saori's work. Using [Shadow Armament] to coat his legs and then leaving dormant [Shadow Snakes], she was able to see through those things and help me.

I knew it was weird when I felt my mana leaving my body, but it seems they were sucking them out of me to be used. After I had the opportunity, I used [Identify] on them.

Shadow Snake

A dark element spell that conjures a semi-sentient snake made out of shadows. The user may transfer their senses into it to see what they can see. Can be used remotely only if the shadow is still connected with the user

As [Shadow Armament] was an extension of Saori’s mana, the snakes were able to stay dormant into them, using my mana once Saori thought she had to. Guess that also meant that she kept an eye on us by having Rajah follow me.

She's so sneaky…but she did prevent me from being eaten so all is fair.

“So, did I miss anything while I was gone?” I asked Saori who was wiping the tears off her face.

“…Yeah,” Saori averted her eyes, fidgeting her hands as she kept hugging me. “The mother woke up.”

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Draconic Claws Lv. 5] [Prediction Lv. 9] [Danger Perception Lv. 3] [Detection Sensor Lv. 3] [Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 3] [Fear Resistance Lv. 2] [Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 6] [Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 6] [Poison Creation Lv. 5] gained

A note from AbyssRaven

Yes, people. We've finally found the tea leaves that taste like coffee. I bet somebody we know will like that. Also do you guys like maid cafes?

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 59: A goodbye to dear friends and a message from above.

A note from AbyssRaven

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[“Wait, she did what now?!”] I asked unbelieving.

[“She destroyed the clinic tent, nearly killed some of the injured and Apsala. If I had not stopped everybody from fighting the whole camp would have been turned into a bloodbath,”] Saori explained exasperatedly.

Oof, so not only did she watch and help us deal with that A rank monster, she also had to stop the virigress mother from killing literally everybody in the camp and vice versa. Goodness, we might have been in a life-or-death situation but Saori had to babysit everybody in the camp.

Then again, isn’t teaching a whole class and bringing them to trips sorta babysitting? She should’ve been used to it.

Removing ourselves from the entrance and the celebrating lizardmen, our now reunited party was walking together to where the virigress family was, [“Well, how did you solve everything, Saori?”]

[“I did not. There was too much hostility between the two groups,”] Saori said. [“You remember anybody that was poisoned and had a huge claw mark when you were in the clinic tent? He and his friends were not happy to see the mother.”]

I nodded, still remembering the face of the first lizardman that I healed. I didn’t catch his name, but he sure was grateful that I helped him.

[“Well, that’s good, right? Wasn’t he our first patient, Lady Hestia? I am sure we can work something out,”] Tasianna joined in the conversation.

Saori simply said “maybe”, telling us that she mentioned my name to them but that they were so consumed by the moment that they wouldn’t stop. Neither the virigress mother nor the lizardmen were willing to drop the bad blood between each other.

To stop the conflict, Saori had to unleash her [Terror Aura] to intimidate everybody to calm down, something that I know can be pretty frightening. It stopped the fighting for now, but that didn’t change anything about the tension between the two groups, so they have been glaring at each other from a safe distance.

The virigress mother hasn’t fully recovered yet but her [Exhaustion (Moderate)] and [Sleep Deprivation (Minor)] were thankfully gone. Saori also was boasting that her relationship with the virigress family has improved since I was away, explaining that through some questioning she learned that it was ‘cause of the way Saori smelled. It seems Saori's cadejo smell was too suffocating for the cats.

After walking for a bit, we made it to where the felines were, a small spot in the rainforest a bit further away from the camp. Letting ourselves be known by calling out for them, the mother dropped down from the top of a tree branch and quickly approached Rajah, before licking and grooming him like crazy.

“Reowww!” she called out.

“Mreow?!” Rajah cried out in confusion.

Oh, this is a wholesome sight. How precious.

Enjoying the cute sight of a mother worriedly embracing her son after he left for a long time, our party left them to catch up. The two other virigress cubs also climbed down from the tree and the four-headed family have finally reunited.

[“So, what is our plan now?”] I asked in the round.

Now having finished doing what we could for the lizardmen, our group has fulfilled most of our goals. We didn’t have any obligations anymore to stay with the lizardmen, so it might be time to continue our journey up north. There was also the case of the virigress family that we needed to discuss, considering that Rajah has been reunited with his family and technically doesn’t need us anymore.

As much as it pains me to say this, we can’t keep Rajah with us if he wishes to stay with his mother and siblings.

[“Our plan is still to go north, correct? However, I do not know if we can make it before the snow,”] Tasianna said.

[“If we were to hurry then I believe we can make it. I have been thinking but if Hestia and I share running duty then we can probably make it,”] Saori suggested while putting a finger on her chin.

[“Oh, you mean either of us can carry the others while traveling through the forest in our monster form?”] having given it a thought, I was able to understand what she meant. [“That certainly would be efficient. We can manage our Stamina efficiently and I believe our [Terrain Maneuvering] can help us travel even faster.”]

Tasianna might have suggested that we needed more than two months to reach the elven country, but we have honestly made fantastic progress, due to how hard it is to get either Saori or me to be tired. It took us less than two weeks to reach the swamp and we spent about a week with the lizardmen. We could definitely make it to the border in one week if we rushed it.

However,…

[“If we rush it then our time in the Belzac forest would be lessened. Wasn’t it, your wish to stay here a bit longer, Lady Hestia?”] Tasianna asked quizzically.

That was the reason but I also planned to use this time to train. I wanted to get a bit more confident with my singing and dancing, however, I’ve nearly wasted a whole week without any sorta practice. Since we met the lizardmen, I haven’t been able to do my daily routine at all. The atmosphere for it wasn’t right.

And then there was the whole rescue mission and treating Caszcur’s arm. I just didn’t have any free time to practice. I’ve wasted too much time.

[“Y-Yeah, that’s true. Uhh, I still kinda want to see the swamp but…”] however, no matter how much I wanted to do it, I can’t endanger my friends. [“I think we should leave the swamp as soon as possible. That…thing. That giant snake was only one part of an even larger monster and I was not able to sufficiently hurt it.”]

[Spiral Hellfire] was the only spell of mine that manage to hurt the snake and it only broke off some scales and singed a bit of its flesh. My [Spark Claws] crushed its eye but as a consequence, my entire arm was crushed from the impact, the reward of being to wound it but losing the functionality of an entire arm is not worth it.

Neither magic nor my [Spark Fire Dragon] abilities worked. I also didn’t have any information on it besides the [Identify] description and my fight with it. How many snake heads does it have? I even forgot to see its status board in my panic. It’s too dangerous.

[“I can’t beat it; no, even with all three of us fighting it, we can’t beat it. Quality beats quantity in this case,”] I admitted.

[“Did you not mention that its description said that it had multiple heads? If that is so, then could it be similar to the Lernean Hydra or maybe Yamato-no-Orochi?”] Saori said, surprising me.

Prompted by my question, “How do you know that sort of fantasy RPG info?”, Saori explained in an annoyed tone, [“Hestia, those are mythological creatures. Myths and legends are an important part of a culture’s identity, which is also history.”]

Before she could retell “The Twelve Labors of Heracles” and “Nihon Shoji” in her excitement and derail our entire discussion, the virigress suddenly came over to us, meowing as if they wanted to say something.

[“Oh, hey you four, what’s up?”] I asked them as they approached.

“Mreow,” the mother said before licking my shin once and then staring into my eye.

Without verbally communicating with each, it was always necessary for me to interpret their actions. Maybe it’s ‘cause I’m used to it or maybe it’s easier this time but I was quickly able to understand that she was thanking me.

[“Oh, it’s alright, don’t you worry about it. Rajah is your cub and helping his siblings goes without question. He’s a companion of ours, after all,”] my smile twitched at the word companion, knowing that we might be separated soon.

I wanted to say something to the purring mother, who was snuggling her head on my legs, causing her cubs to do that too, in appreciation of my help, however, it was hard to do so.

Steeling my will, I scratched her chin to draw her attention to me, [“I-We, our party here, wishes to ask you and your family something.”]

I explained to her about our travels and our wish to go to the elven country, to civilization. I also talked about the fact that I’ve adopted Rajah as a pet when he was separated from her and my wish to keep him and continue our travels with him.

I knew it was selfish to ask, especially after they just reunited with each other, but I had to ask. I couldn’t run away from the problem for too long, anyways.

The mother thought on it for a while, looking at Rajah and her other cubs for a bit, until she began pushing Rajah towards us. Was she telling me that it was ok?

Rajah kept meowing, asking his mother what she was thinking when she pushed her, but she just continued staring at him. As Rajah was defiant about it, she grabbed her two other cubs by the scruff and started walking away from us.

Rajah kept meowing and ran towards her, unable to part ways with them but was quickly rejected by his mother with a quick tail swipe. The crying virigress’ cries became more frequent and more depressing. He truly wasn’t ready to part with her…

[“Wait!”] I called out after grabbing Rajah and dashing towards her. [“…It’s fine. It’s fine. I-I-I can’t…it’s fine. Please, don’t leave him. It’s fine.”]

The mother looked at me as if she couldn’t understand what I was talking about. At one moment I wanted Rajah to join me and, in the next, I was begging her to take him back? Crazy. She must have respected my wish and was willing to give me her cub after all that I have done for her.

It might, once again, sound like she was cold about it, but her aloofness couldn’t hide the sadness in her eyes of having to part with her son. Now staring into her eyes, I could see that they were incredibly watery as she looked at me, unbelieving.

[“He…doesn’t want to part with you. He doesn’t want to part with you. Please, don’t accept my selfish, egotistical, self-centered, inconsiderate, thoughtless, greedy request,”] I chastised myself, unable to accept Rajah if it’s like this. [“Please, don’t abandon him.”]

I put Rajah down on the ground, who licked my hand in gratitude. The mother placed the carried cubs on the ground and thought about it for a second, before looking at me as if she wanted to confirm my decision, one last time. I nodded, which prompted her to affectionately lick Rajah that justified her for having the title [Protective Mother].

I embraced Rajah and his family one last time before saying my farewells to them. Once I was finished, I stood up and walked away hastily. I said all I wanted; I couldn’t stand it anymore.

I heard Tasianna and Saori say their farewell too, then loud meowing, and then the slow steps of the virigresses. I didn’t turn around. I didn’t want to see them off.

Gods, how is saying farewell this hard…? Why does my chest hurt so much? We’ve only known each for a week, so why am I so sentimental about it? Why is this so painful…

While I suffered from this pain, a hand began rubbing my back, [“You did the right thing, Hestia. You were a good girl. You did amazingly,”] Saori said warmly, a smile so soft like a mother’s greeted me.

[“They looked happy when we saw them off. Their thankful cries; you must have heard them, Lady Hestia. Please, don’t berate yourself any further. Only a truly selfish person wouldn’t have done that,”] Tasianna comforted me, caressing my head with her tiny hands.

[“Come on, Hestia. Let is all out, you can cry now…OOF,”] I interrupted Saori by hugging her heartfully.

[“I can’t do it now,”] I said with a wry smile, digging my face into Saori’s chest to hide my wet eyes. [“I haven’t cried for so many years. I probably could cry a river full at this point. I can’t let Rajah feel bad about his decision nor do I want to break my…promise.”]

Gripping Saori even harder, it took me a very long time until my sadness disappeared. If I had cried, would I have felt better sooner? Who knows.

Goddess, please keep them safe. Please, keep them safe, Aurena.

Afterward, we returned to the camp and were welcomed with open arms by the lizardmen. They were wondering where we went as they haven’t gotten the chance to thank Tasianna and me for all our help. Thanking me individually and how they were once again indebted to me.

Wanting to celebrate the successful rescue mission the lizardman planned to have a feast in our name. Apparently, they were so optimistic about our success chance that they’ve gathered varies fish, meat, and fruits beforehand to turn it into something to be remembered.

Wanting to help, Saori and Tasianna participated in the cooking, while I…well, I told them that I needed some rest. Casczur, Apsala, and Aksmias were clearly bewildered and worried about me but Saori stopped them, presumably, explaining to them what happened.

I went into the forest and just waited there until the food was ready. My mind wandered between my farewells to Rajah, the time I spent with him, and the family’s safety. I also wondered about the pain I felt when I said farewell.

It still hurts so much…will I have the chance to meet Rajah ever again? Shouldn’t I have been more assertive about and asked the whole family to join us in our travels?

“Sigh, regretting about it…how pitiful of me…huh?”

[Young Virigress, Rajah] has become your follower

One   [Virigress *] and two [Young Virigress *] have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atsuko]: 6

Follower amount requirement fulfilled.   [The Light] proficiency requirement fulfilled

[Young Virigress, Rajah] has become your follower

[Faithful Function] unlocked. You may now access and see your total followers and retainers. You may also see what amount you need for the next tier of rewards. Call [The Light] to open the menu

[The Light] has gained [System Neutrality]. This title has turned immune to the effects and functions of the System and cannot be altered by anyone besides the administrators and individual [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atsuko]

Congratulations   [The Light], you have unlocked the title’s true function. Further growth will be rewarded for fulfilling the follower tiers

Your followers   [Young Virigress, Rajah], one [Virigress *], and two [Young Virigress *] have received the title [Aurena’s Blessed]

[Young Virigress, Rajah] has become your follower

A divine protection granted by the Goddess of Light, Aurena. While this title is active the owner will receive improved experience gain and skill proficiency gain

…

“Pff…ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!” I couldn’t control myself; the laughter wouldn’t stop.

After what felt like five minutes of non-stop laughing, the lack of air finally exhausted my lungs enough that I was forcibly stopped. Once I recovered my heavy breathing something else stormed into my brain but this time, it actually hurt me. The intense pain felt like a sharp spike drilled into my head.

I bid you a friendly, albeit late, welcome to the world of Peolynca, Hestia. My name is Aurena, the Goddess of Light, and one of the six primary administrators of this world.

This message is for sure too late of an introduction but there were many complications that made it impossible for me to speak with you. One of them is that my connection with you has somehow been severed.

The title that I gave you, [The Light], used to allow me to see through your eyes, but worry not, it didn’t give me any power to look into your mind. That ability of mine is now gone and my original plan to guide you has been delayed.

However, for some reason, I was briefly able hear your sincere prayer that enabled me to both grant your wish and also send you this message. Its intention is to ask you to hastily make to one of my altars and pray there, a close one is up north, in one of the many churches of the high elves.

This information is not privy to mortals, but we gods are only able to see through the eyes of our followers and gather information that way. However, as you were recently born, my connection with you is rather weak; your title being the reason why I could even send you this message.

Once you pray to an altar or shrine of one of us gods, we will be able to speak to you and form a connection with you. And that leads me back to my request.

You must have many questions about why you are here and what my intentions is. I can understand that, especially as it seems like your memories are intact despite the reincarnation. I will be forthright with you, yes, we gods are at fault. More specifically, Kargryxmor, myself, and another god that I am not allowed to tell you about.

You must be furious but that is understandable, please let your anger out if you must. If you must say those word to me, then come and pray to me. I must tell you much that I cannot with this message. Your mind would collapse if I sent everything.

If you have questions for why you are here then come to me, post haste. I will answer everything that I am allowed to answer. We cannot speak until you do so, as our connection will finally be completely broken with this.

Until we meet, develop your [The Light]. There is a reason why I have chosen you, and you know exactly why. Your memories might be in shambles, but your heart yearns for it, correct? Let it out, my little shining light.

Once again, I apologized for everything. I also apologized for copying your current memories and watching them. Mortals in your former world call this a privacy breach, correct?

I will await you until our next meeting. We gods can wait but the world cannot.

…He he he he…verdammt nochmal…I really fucked it up, huh? So praying was the trigger…that sly fox.

Granting Rajah and his family her protection and sending me this message at about the same time is no coincidence. I asked her for a favor, and she fulfilled it. Great, I now have a debt to her and also a reason to get into contact with whatever she is planning me to do. Absolutely awesome…

…well, she isn’t forcing me to do it now. Urgh, gotta look at the bright side, I guess. This was gonna happen sooner or later.

Well, it fits with my goal to go to the elven kingdom so I might as well plan a detour to the church.

“Thank you very much for helping me, Goddess Aurena…and fuck you for looking through my mind! Privacy breach, indeed! Just ‘cause you’re a goddess doesn’t mean you can do this me, you bitch!” as she allowed me to do it, I screamed my frustration for the gods out.

How they practically abandoned me until now. How they just had to put me in the Belzac forest of all places. How they just had to alter my memories. How they just had to include me in their plans

“…however,” finally satisfied and freeing myself of that burden, I bent my body to 90 degrees, showing a bow to the sky. “Thank you for reincarnating me. I don’t know if I actually deserve a second chance but thank you so very much. I don’t know why you want me to gather all those followers but I will do my job as an Idol and gather as many fans as possible!”

[Faithful Function] has been renamed into [Fans Overview] due to the owner’s wish

Enough running away!

I’ve made up my mind. If I want to become an Idol, if I actually want my dream to come true then I can’t slither around my tail anymore! Who cares if the first time is the perfect performance, huh? Not every K-Pop star made it big from their first single. It all depended on how much work they are willing to put into it and if they even have the confidence to continue!

I can do it!

My heart was racing as I firmly announced my renewed determination to fulfill my last and current life’s ambition. My mind ran through the many things that I needed for my first performance. What sorta song should I sing, should I use dance choreography that I already know or should I try to make one myself, and, of course, my outfit. I need to throw some ideas at Saori when I get the chance.

Once, I was back in the camp, the lizardmen had already finished most of the preparations, which was mostly the food and drinks. It seems Saori used quite a lot of our own spices so we could celebrate properly, while Tasianna helped prepare massive amounts of tea and juices.

It would seem like giving them all our cooking equipment and supplies was the correct choice as I was impressed by what they managed to make.

“Ahhh, I wish there was some sake…” Saori mumbled though the loud cheers of lizardmen.

…I didn’t hear that. I didn’t hear my aloof friend say that she wanted alcohol. Nope, didn’t hear that at all. Wow, this fragassa juice is amazing, mhmm.

The lizardmen were delighted to see me regain my positive attitude as they found the depressive me quite worrisome. How rude of them to say that directly to my face!

Not letting it annoy me for long, the whole camp began merrily joking, feasting, and partying. Still driven by my determination, I let my voice out and sang through the night as loud as I could. The lizardmen and Tasianna were unable to understand the lyrics but they at least complimented my voice and the music that I made on my wind violin.

It wasn’t true idol work but hearing them say those things really made me happy. I promised to myself that I would polish up my dance skills and my [Aerokinesis] skills so that I can give them the idol concert of their lifetime.

As the night continued and midnight came, all of us slowly fell asleep like sloths as we had enough of all the partying.

Once morning came, our party approached Caszcur, Apsala, and Aksmias as it was time for us to tell them about our plans.

**************************************************

In another place, deep inside a cave there was a throne room where a giant ogre sat on his throne with two armored ogres flanking him. In front of this ogre king a single green goblin was groveling before the mighty beast.

“That is what truly happened? I have your word, green midget?” the ogre king said in an imposing voice.

“Y-yes, great one. A-A big-big-big dragon attacked us and our leader, the ogre g-general, fought strongly but was r-roasted by their yellow zap-zap,” the stuttering and shivering voice of the green demi-human made it hard for everyone to hear, especially with how feeble is sounded, but the ogre king was used to this from the goblin shamans.

“How did they look?” he asked.

“L-Large wings, two feet, long tail, monster head. So strong, great one. It attacked us when we just arrived where we should meet the ugly ones. There was a landslide and a single dead-dead ugly one there. The-The cave was even destroyed!” the goblin further explained, retelling the aftermath of Hestia’s and Saori’s fight against the trolls outside the cave. “Ogre general commanded us to fight-kill, but they-they all died-died! The shamans all died-murdered. They are not looked upon by our Night Father!”

Tears stream down his face as he remembered the sight, the smell, and the sound of the electrified bodies, knowing that the Goddess of Death’s cold hands left a mark on his throat, “We are all the remaining-left. Dragons stopped before killing us all to fly away. So fast like they had to go someplace. However, they not stop soon enough…wagons are all gone-broken.”

The ogre king contemplated the words of the goblin, eventually coming to a decision. Crushing his throne’s arms with his hands, he shouted, “Kargryxmor! You dare interfere in our conquest?!”

How could it be a coincidence that they were there at the perfect time, thought the ogre king. Wyverns might not be as strong as true dragons but they were still dragonkin, subjects of the god of all dragonkins on Peolynca.

Kargryxmor sent his minions and destroyed the trolls and stopped their plans, eliminating a whole battalion of his warriors and also the supplies that they were transporting. Weapons, armor, and rations were in it, but most importantly was the “extra” that they planned to give the troll shaman.

That demonkin will further chastise me for this…

The plan was already delayed due to the late arrival of the trolls but now it was further hampered by the collapse of the cave and the, presumable, deaths of the trolls. It was likely that due to this interference and the coming winter that their attack on the humans wouldn’t happen this year.

“Goblin…stand up,” the towering demi-human said.

“Y-Yes, oh, great one!”

“Get out of here and get new weapons…,” he waited for the small goblin to run out of the throne room before bellowing from the top of his voice. “GET YOUR WEAPONS, MEN! WE ARE GOING WYVERN HUNTING! FOR THE GODDESS OF VENGEANCE AND GRUDGES, KRONNAZ, WE WILL AVENGE OUR FALLEN WARRIOR!”

With the cheering of the ogres resounding from every single corner of this cave and the clattering metal that came from outside the cave, the army of demi-humans were readying themselves for battle.

A note from AbyssRaven

Here we go, Hestia finally received a message from Aurena, and also a bit of her help. Rajah and his family are now blessed by the goddess of light and also have improved experience and skill gain. We've already known what could happen to beings with those benefits, right?

Also, that last part was ominous. What a big coincidence that everything that Hestia and Saori did will be pinned on the wyvern. Poors guys.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters + any patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

As the story is growing, how about jumping on the discord that I frequent. You guys can talk with me about the story or even ask me to sing Dragon Idol songs. Quality of singing is not guaranteed: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Character Summary 14.6.2020

A note from AbyssRaven

Hey everybody, due to some feedback that I received at the last side chapter, I've decided to write up a summary of the characters of the story. It's mostly only the main ones, the people that we will see often but I'll also consider putting in certain side characters in the future.

This is mostly used to remind people of who a certain character was and what they did in the story, so if you're new to this story, then head back, please. This is not the place for you.

Anyways, if you guys think I'm missing something in the summary then any feedback would be awesome.

Hestia Atsuko – Young Spark Inferno Dragon, 7 months (mentally 15 years), female

Main protagonist of “A Dragon Idol’s Reincarnation Tale” and currently the main visual, lead singer, lead dancer, choreographer, lyricist, and one-woman band of her own Idol group, although, it’s more like she’s a solo artist right now.

Formally a student with dual ethnicity, born to a Japanese woman and German man. Can speak English, German, Japanese, and Korean fluently. Loves stew and singing. Hates caves like a pest. Phobia for frogs and toads due to a traumatic event in her past life.

Died at the age of 15 on Earth and was reincarnated into the world of Peolynca by the gods Aurena, Kargryxmor, and a third unknown one. She led a life of wealth on Earth and made it her dream to become an Idol, unwavering despite all the criticism she has gained through her trainee years.

Is extremely fond of her previous parents and considers them her true parents, despite her second life. Due to their profession, Hestia has learned the violin and piano, while also becoming an adept singer and dancer from her idol training.

Received etiquette training and could mingle within high society were it not for an incident during her childhood where she decided to stick with a New Yorkian accent to sound more “normal”.

Was reborn as a dragon on Peolynca in the magical Belzac forest, a large landmass filled with many different beasts who wouldn’t hesitate with killing the newly born dragon whelp. Through her life in the forest, Hestia was able to adapt and grow into a formidable magician and dragon, who was able to contest many vicious creatures.

After an almost impossible battle against the Garm matriarch, Hestia emerged victoriously and met another reincarnated person in Saori Segawa. Due to the wish of her deceased garm mother, Hestia decided to protect the young reincarnated person, now a newborn wolf monster.

After she evolved into a Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia received the [Princess] title, making her question who she truly is.

Together with the newborn warg Saori, the duo traveled together intending to escape Belzac forest. On their way, they encountered the fairy Tasianna Marina Silverpond who escaped her imprisonment from a group of trolls.

After a successful rescue mission, Tasianna decided to join in the ranks of the party by pledging her loyalty to Hestia due to being a princess.

Now having an inhabitant of Peolynca traveling with them, the party has decided to make the elven kingdom, north of Belzac forest, their next destination, which led them to their current adventures in the rainforest and swamp part of the forest.

Is an active girl with a clear goal to fulfill her dream. Made a vow not to cry during her past life, until she became a real Idol. Can switch around between mania and depression in a switch, showing some signs of bi-polar.

Saori Segawa – Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, 3 months (mentally 26 years), female

Secondary protagonist and the first friend that Hestia made in this new world. Formally a history teacher from Japan who worked at the prestigious preparatory school Shirako High.

Values hardworking individuals. Can be a bit of control freak. Conscious of money. Speaks formally without using abbreviations. Hates lazy and ungrateful individuals.

Died at the age of 26 at she was about to head to her classroom, she was transported with her students to Peolynca. However, instead of being transported with her body, Saori was reborn as the pup of a Garm, a monster wolf.

Having lost her father when she was only a teenage, the young Saori had to take care of her ill mother and the financial situation of their house, which caused her to develop both envy towards reach people but also respect and admiration for anybody who would put in extra effort into making something right.

Dreamed of becoming a historian after college but had to settle with a teaching position at Shirako High due to her financial situation, prioritizing her mother over her ambition. Initially disliked it but quickly fell in love.

Considers Hestia an admirable youth who has a set goal and acts on it, despite her initially confidence issues. Considers herself indebted to Hestia as she saved her life twice, once by allowing her to follow Hestia when she was just born and the other time when the red-haired girl brought her back from the brink of death.

Loves roleplaying as two noble ladies with Hestia, as she feels like she is benefitting from Hestia’s already established etiquette education. Feels overwhelmed by how graceful she speaks and behaves sometimes but is baffled at how crude she can sound at other times.

One of her current goals is to help Hestia become an Idol so they can travel the world together to quench her thirst for historical knowledge. Another one is to become strong enough to contend against Hestia in a 1v1.

Tasianna Marina Silverpond – Fairy, 87 years (mentally 17 years), female

An inhabitant of Peolynca and the second friend that Hestia made on Peolynca. Being a fairy, a member of the Faefolk, Tasianna is a being composed entirely out of mana instead of flesh and blood.

Used to be the maid of the youngest princess of the royal fairy family of her village but due to an incident where human poachers killed her, Tasianna has ever since exiled herself from her village due to her negligence and failure.

Has ever since traveled with Hestia as her secondary maid, just beneath Saori. (Her hierarchy) Prefers to address Hestia with formality as she considers it only correct to do so, a characteristic that she inherited from her former home.

Has an intense hatred for humans and will act on her hostility if she were to be provoked. Considers anybody that harms Hestia or Saori a savage and enemy. Likes to over-think a situation due to being mostly a sheltered person that only gained knowledge from the outside world through books and the occasional elf visitor.

Loves making tea.

Tatsuya Nagata – Human, 18 years, male

Main point-of-view from the Hero’s side. Is named “Coffee boy” from the community due to his love for coffee, even making his first goal after being transported to Peolynca to become strong enough to gain enough money to buy coffee-tasting leaves to indulge in.

Was a student at Shirako high with his other classmates

Initially was not willing to cooperate with the church that kidnapped him to the new world, but changed his view after he learned about the coffee tasting tea. Wields a spear into battle, while carrying a shield around for emergencies.

Belonged to a wealthy family on Earth but hated his “normal” life, enjoying the more fantastical worlds of video games and literature over it. Is quite excited about being on Peolynca but most of that enthusiasm was destroy by his distrust for the church.

A confident and competitive person that is prone of becoming argumentative when somebody doesn’t share his opinion, however, knows when he should say it or not. Doesn’t like people that waste his time because of frivolous matters due to his tendency to always return home first after school.

Member of the “Misfits” party.

Best friend of Kyouya Ishigami. Good friends with Aiko Hasebe.

Dislikes Asaka Hanazawa and Daichi Mikami. Hates Takuma Akanishi. Despises “Daisy”.

Kyouya Ishigami – Human, 18 years, male

Best friend of Tatsuya Nagata. A member of the athletics club at Shirako High. Is a friendly person who enjoys being polite to others as it would avoid causing trouble for him.

The only person where he shows his competitive side is when he speaks with his best friend Tatsuya.

Wields a sword and shield and is physically strong enough to wear heavy armor.

Member of the “Misfits” party.

Best friend of Tatsuya Nagata. Good friends with Aiko Hasebe and Haruka Sakamoto.

Asaka Hanazawa – Human, 18 years, female

Student at Shirako High and also pronounced “The Delinquent” among the student body, for being the only one to show clear problems as a student at Shirako High.

Despises attention and heavy responsibilities as she can’t handle stress very well and would like to take everything at her own pace. Has a brusque personality despite how clear signs of formal etiquette training. Despises the church for kidnapping her and dragging her into a war. Despises them even more for trying to promote her as a saint, due to having [Saint Candidate].

Was assigned the noble Elrick von Karstein as her personal knight and protector. Does not dislike Elrick despite how pushy he can be about trying to make her fulfill her duty as a saint.

Due to being a saint candidate, possess high proficiency in using holy magic and is the designated cleric of her party but is also able to defend herself.

Leader of the “Misfits” party.

Dislikes everybody in her party besides Kyouya, however, this has mostly settled down after they made up with each other. Still considers Mikami a slimy bastard.

Hates Saori Segawa. Despises most people from the church.

Haruka Sakamoto – Human, 16 years, female

One of the top students of her class at Shirako High.

Is mostly a shy person that wishes people would look less at her age and more at her capabilities. Despises people that comment about her abilities without regarding her as a person.

Uses a shortbow and is her party’s primary scout and archer.

Member of the “Misfits” party.

Good friend of Kyouya Ishigami and Aiko Hasebe + most of the girls in her class.

Dislikes Asaka Hanazawa, although her hatred has recently died down due to her inferiority complex.

Daichi Mikami – Human, 18 years, male

Is a student at Shirako High. Is self-proclaimed “Top-Fragger” and considers his life in video games as the only one he has. Is extremely competitive and prone to using insults when anybody in-games annoys him and ruins his game.

Has a foul mouth and attitude but is fully capable of switching to a polite and respectful young man within the switch of a button. Loves pleasing others to benefit from them. Possess a short fuse even when he hiding his real personality.

Finds extreme joy in using magic and considers fire magic the best, fascinated by its prowess. Has a weak constitution so is physical unable to be a melee class. Is his party’s main mage.

Member of the “Misfits” party.

Dislikes Tatsuya Nagata.

Elrick von Karstein – Human, 21 years, male

Knight of the Knight order of Aurena. Noble of the Folschreck Empire and is currently employed as a knight in the Holy Capital, Aureolis.

Possess a graceful and respectful persona to be used for his day to day life as a noble. Is a worshipper of Aurena and considers both saint candidates, Aiko Hasebe and Asaka Hanazawa, as invaluable for the church and human race, fully willing to risk his life for their survival.

Paladin and current supervising knight of party “Misfits”.

Tamae Tsuji - Human, 19 years, female

Leader of the hero party "The Magical Biscuits" and former class representative of her class before they were transported to Peolynca.

Is considered the "caretaker" of the classroom as she has a tendency to want to help wherever she can. Also occasionally brings pastries to the class, making her extremely popular among her sociable classmates.

Her parents are both professional chefs and have trained Tamae in the culinary arts since she was young on her wish. Has become an adept chef and baker and currently considers it a hobby.

Despite her wish to return home, she still uses her time in Peolynca wisely by studying the different ingredients of this world and tries to recreate Earth's cuisine with them to give her teammates and classmates a small sense of home.

Is oblivious of Nishio Kudo's attraction towards her.

Nishio Kudo - Human, 18 years, male

Member of the hero party "The Magical Biscuits" and former class representative of his class before they were transported to Peolynca.

Is an extremely studious and competitive person that aimed to elevate his school to the top of the rankings amongst other schools. Considering the school that he is in, he expects everybody to rise to the occasion to improve the school's reputation, although he keeps this opinion to himself.

Acts aloof but is easily worried when something unexpected happens. Hates being spooked.

Has an intense crush on Tamae Tsuji and his feelings grow stronger and stronger the more often they work together as class representatives. Loves her pastries and learned how to bake to return the favor, although it can't be considered anything more than decent.

Essentially the bad cop in the "good cop, bad cop" act with Tamae.

Misaki Kawano - Human, 18 years, female

Member of the hero party "The Magical Biscuits" and a former semi-professional competitive archer.

Prefers using the Japanese bow, the Yumi, over the western bow. Uses the western version in competitions.

Good friends with Kazumi Hoshino and Kohaku Kobayashi.

Kazumi Hoshino - Human, 19 years, female

Member of the hero party "The Magical Biscuits" and known to be overly energetic. Is the catalyst to help her friend Misaki Kawano break out of her introverted shell.

Owns three cats and loves them to bits.

Good friends with Misaki Kawano and Kohaku Kobayashi.

Kohaku Kobayashi - Human, 19 years, female

Member of the hero party "The Magical Biscuits" and a known chuunibyou. Quite conscious of this fact as her friend Kazumi Hoshino teases her about it.

Calls out cool-sounding attack names as a way to dull the effects of having to kill with her sword. It doesn't work.

Good friends with Misaki Kawano and Kazumi Hoshino.

Side Story 10: Laveata Town.

A note from AbyssRaven

"We're technically running out of parallel minds who wish to speak here, so I, AbyssRaven, am here to promote our Patreon! Here is the link: Rawr"

Join now and you can read up to 10 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until June!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

Also if you guys want to hear me sing Dragon Idol songs, then come over too. I sing for your amusement!

“Honestly, this is more surprising than I thought,” I said with slight wonder.

“Huh, I can understand what you mean with that,” to my side, my best friend Kyouya agreed. “The town looks so…rustic, but the medieval setting really has its charm, right? Especially with that simple touch of technology.”

I, Tatsuya Nagata, had to nod to his statement, slightly enthralled by the rural appearance of Laveata town. Compared to the intense hustle and bustle of Japan’s Tokyo, there was much less noise and it wasn’t so crowded that I felt like everybody was touching me as I walked down the street.

However, it was still decently crowded due to a simple reason: the E rank monster dungeon, Fur Walker Dungeon. While there were quite a few normal citizens running around and working, my attention was drawn to those that were carrying around weapons.

Staffs, giant greatswords, mighty axes, and many other medieval weapons that you could imagine an adventurer would carry around. What differentiated them from guards, was that they were all wearing different kinds of clothes and armor as they walked past us.

While the guards had orderly and almost identical sets of equipment, the adventurers would range from gambeson, chainmail, metal armor, robes…and some also had leather armor…which was pretty good on the eyes.

Ahem, anyway, considering what I just learned, I should stop calling them "adventurers" and start differentiating them into "hunters" and "mercenary". You see, compared to a traditional adventurer guild, the "adventurer" job is separated into the hunters and mercenary guilds.

While they technically weren’t too different, both hired people to fulfill quests that mostly relied on endangering their lives, the quests that they offered differed. Hunters would handle anything that related to monster hunting and material acquisition, while mercs handled requests that could range from services to bounty hunting.

When we were in the respective guild houses to get our ID card eligible to accept both guild’s quests, we got an explanation from their guild masters about things. Apparently, the two guilds were practically the same with some adventurers accepting both guild’s quests.

“Hey, Nagata-kun, Ishigami-kun! We are leaving you behind so get a move on, please!” a girl with dark brown hair called us out from a distance.

Looking over, the girl that called for us was Tamae Tsuji, one of our two ex-class representatives, who was wearing a wizard outfit while carrying a staff.

As we hurried towards her, the guy walking beside her berated us, “Come on, you two. This isn’t Tokyo, anymore, but you can still get lost here, and getting lost here would be disastrous.”

“Ahh, cut us some slack, Kudo-san. We were just admiring the town. You have to admit that it’s pretty cool,” I said.

“Sigh, I know we are technically tourists, but you have to start being more serious about things," Nishio Kudo said exasperatedly. “We are in a world where people are allowed to carry around their weapons anywhere they wanted, while also being paid to kill things for money. Getting lost is a real problem here!”

“He’s right, you two. You heard what Sir Elrick and Lady Yorshka have said, yeah? Not everybody around here is civil, so we must stick together,” Tsuji-san said seriously. “We’re all a team now so let’s work hard together, alright?”

It wasn’t a mistake of her to say that we were a team now, as it was very much true. After the two stunts my party pulled in the church, it seems like the upper echelon wasn’t too happy about it at all. While my argument with that piece of shit Mikami only caused a scene, the fight Sakamoto-san and Hanazawa had knocked out two members of our party while it also forced the knights to handle the situation.

Elrick von Karstein, the supervising knight of party “Misfits”, lectured our group for that display, telling us that our party had to work with another one as the bishops were confident that we would be a danger to ourselves at this point.

The lecture content itself wasn’t as bad but the way how Elrick gave it was frightening. It was clear that something happened to him after we caused that incident as both his demeanor and mood worsened. He hasn’t dropped his usual façade, but his words have gotten a bit sharper.

Also, Sakamoto-san was quietly crying as she listened to our lecture, and afterward apologized fervently to Elrick for causing him so much trouble. She said something like, "I thought she wasn't giving you enough credit for all you've done for her. I’m truly sorry. I didn’t want to reciprocate your kindness like this…” which made him sigh exasperatedly, before telling her that it was alright.

Clearly, it wasn’t as he seems more stressed than usual. Sakamoto-san also made an effort to apologize to Hanazawa, but she just brushed it off, saying, “Yeah, yeah, whatever, I don’t care. I heard what you had to say” before walking away.

So, Sakamoto-san has been depressed ever since. Kyouya tried to comfort her but seeing him only made it worse for her as she felt bad that she was at fault that he was hurt. The punch Hanazawa gave him should have been hers, she said.

The depressing mood lasted for five days as we were stuck in a carriage while we traveled to Laveata Town. Once we were there, we were told that we would cooperate with Tsuji-san's and Kudo-san's party as a joint effort. We were told that they were the only party that was willing to help us as the rest declined.

Honestly, that suited Tsuji-san so well. She was popular due to being willing to help anybody she could. They might not be our class representatives anymore but those two totally still acted like they were…thankfully for us. Our party's cohesion was so bad that we needed extra help.

After introducing our status board to everybody, our party decided that it would be good to get something to eat together before we went to the lodging that the church reserved for us. The next morning, our knights escorted us to the hunter and mercenary guild. We got our ID updated and were then allowed to accept quests.

Quest: Kobold Subjugation

Rank: G

Reward:

Experience, 1 G Rank Point, 2 Larger Copper Davi

Objective:

Slay 10 Kobolds of any kind

Slain Monsters:

0/10

Once the receptionist registered the quest into our ID card, we could always review them using our party bracelet’s menu. I also overheard that older versions of the party bracelet didn’t have this function but who could possibly have something that old?

Anyways, we continued walking towards the location that we would rendezvous with our respective knights; the reason why we even came to this place, the dungeon. Once we were there, the rest of our party came into sight.

From our party, there was: Daichi Mikami as our mage, Asaka Hanazawa as our cleric, and Haruka Sakamoto as our ranger. Elrick was our [Paladin] and including Kyouya and me, the frontline of our party.

Tsuji-san's party also consisted of five people and a knight. Tsuji-san was the cleric, while Kudo-san was the mage. The other three were: Misaki Kawano as their archer, Kazumi Hoshino as their rogue, and Kohaku Kobayashi as their swordswoman. Lastly, their knight was Lady Yorshka whose class was [Dragoon].

Looking at her spear and how high she was able to jump made my heart skip a beat…it was so cool, just like in a video game!... What is she doing with Sakamoto-san?

Lady Yorshka was a woman of average height whose arms were lean but had enough muscles in them that they could probably crush my head, however, she didn't look anything like a bodybuilder. Her appearance was more like one of those super athletic girls in their early twenties.

Her snow-white hair also made her even more exotic looking, giving her a Scandinavian-like aura.

While she had an extremely attractive appearance, I was more mesmerized by her white spear and armor. While Elrick's was polished and more metal, hers had a lot of scales and other parts that I would associate with monsters. It reminded me of a certain monster hunter game where you could transform the materials of monsters into weapons and armor.

Although my eyes were at first looking at her cool gear, my focus was quickly directed at the fact that she was sniffing Sakamoto-san.

Closing in, I was able to hear Lady Yorshka say, “Sniff…Yup, that’s the smell of a foxian alright. Sniff, it’s not my favorite scent but I can’t help but want to nibble you up, little Miss!”, which clearly scared Sakamoto-san.

“Huh? Oh, sorry about that, I didn’t mean that literally. I was simply in awe of your unique skill’s effects,” Lady Yorshka said with a playful smile.

“Lady Yorshka, please, I bid you to behave yourself,” Elrick said with exasperation to the mischievous lady knight. “Are you trying to give everybody a bad image of the Knights of Aurena?”

Yorshka looked at Elrick for a second, blinking her eyes, before bursting into a giggle, “Oh, Elrick you’re too stuck up, honestly. You should know yourself that nobody is expecting a commoner like me to act like you and the other nobles in the knight order. They only need me for my fighting abilities, besides…” she then went to Kazumi Hoshino’s side and wrapped her arm around her shoulder. “start acting a little bit less distant and try to speak with your wards. The ‘Heroes’ did come from another world, so isn’t this the perfect chance to gain more knowledge. One of Aurena’s subordinate gods is the God is Knowledge after all.”

Ending with “Kazumi, could you continue talking about that “internet” of yours?” before they started hitting it off with each other.

However, as they noticed that the four of us finally arrived they had to stop, looking dejected that they couldn’t continue speaking of their interests.

As the whole group has assembled, Tsuji-san, acting as the de facto leader of our two parties due to Hanazawa not wishing to do it, announced the quests that we picked up at the hunter guild and what our plan for today was.

Elrick and Yorshka simply spectated and only added information when they really had to. As we had to learn how to coordinate this stuff alone, our knights decided to act their supervisor role and just support us, instead of leading us.

This seems to be done differently with the other three parties that went ahead of us into the dungeon. Yorshka "accidentally" mentioned that our classmates in the other three parties are being led by old-fashioned knights who wish to teach them how to lead by example.

"Urgh, those old men are such a drag…sure, they are drilling the fundamentals into them but nothing else. Fieldwork needs to be more flexible and it's better to learn this sorta stuff by making mistakes than by copying some stuck-up noble's fantasized image of combat,” Yorshka put a hand on her hips exasperatedly, before realizing that Elrick was listening. “Oh, nothing against you Elrick. You’re good.”

“None taken, Lady Yorshka, but may I ask you to stop bad-mouthing our fellow knights, please?” Elrick said with a sigh, clearly still stressed out.

Considering how Elrick is treating Yorshka, I get the feeling that she should be his senior, especially with how she’s speaking about the other knights who clearly looked quite veteran. She looks about the age of Elrick but how old was she really?

Finished with our briefing our group started moving towards the entrance of the dungeon. As it was only in the morning, a massive line was in front of it. It seems like the guards were checking everybody for their IDs.

Elrick wanted us to skip the line, using our church-issued IDs, but that was overruled by Yorshka.

“Jeez, Elrick, I know you are impatient but settle down. How many times have I told you about the importance of mingling among the crowd? Are you trying to make these adventures hate our wards?” Yorshka said with a disappointed tone, glaring at Elrick as she scolded him.

“Uck! I- I apologized for my rash decision, Lady Yorshka!” Elrick apologized, understanding his own faults.

Wow, this is the first time that I’ve seen this guy like this. Usually, he acts like that to us!

Apparently, the adventurers, both hunters and mercenaries, have established unofficial etiquette rules to keep the peace among the rowdy masses of freelance fighters. One of them is to never cut the line, except in the direst of situations.

Many adventurers wanted to enter the dungeon for exp, to fulfill their quests, or to gain materials. Nobody wanted to see somebody skip thirty minutes of waiting and then enter the dungeon while you still had 15 minutes left.

Reputation was important among adventurers and Yorshka understood the value of it. We might be chosen by Aurena but the common adventurer wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about that.

I guess this is similar to having a good rep in an online game. While the casual part of gamers just drifts around, not knowing who you are playing with, the people that play religiously absolutely will remember you.

If you showed bad manners, then that could cripple your future reputation with others. In an MMORPG, you can be hunted down, or your guild could suffer because of you.

Lining up, I was able to fully see all the different people that have made it their job to kill monsters. Some of the adventurers look like they haven’t eaten anything good for days while keeping badly maintained equipment, and then some people look like they've been doing this for all their life.

Yorshka explained that the people we see here aren’t anything special yet, due to the dungeon being an E rank. It wasn’t suitable for total beginners, but you wouldn’t find experienced fighters above rank C here.

“Hey, Kyouya, I don’t know why but I can’t get rid of this feeling that everybody is looking at us,” I told my best friend, uneasy of all the people glancing at us.

“Not at us, but at the girls,” Kyouya pointed out. “Some of them even look pretty jealous.”

Having my friend point that out made me understand our current situation. Our group was majority female!

Tsuji-san’s party had four girls, while our party had two. Quick math told me that we had six girls, while only having four guys. Our girls weren’t bad looking but I guess Yorshka was attracting the most attention due to her womanly charms.

Thinking of all these reasons, it might not be surprising that everybody was looking in our direction. Looking around, there were a few female adventurers, but they were in parties with mostly guys. We really must stand out.

After some waiting, we finally made it in front of the entrance of the dungeon. It wasn’t anything boring like a hole that led into the dungeon, but it was instead a proper entrance built by the people responsible.

“IDs, please,” one of the guards said.

We were told by the guild masters of the guilds that only the leader of the party had to show their IDs to gain entrance. When we registered by the guild, our two parties also made our five-man parties official, which also allowed us to name it. Hanazawa, in all her wisdom, chose to keep the joke name for our party, so we’re now officially party “Misfits”.

Both Tsuji-san and Hanazawa went forward and showed their IDs to the guards.

“Huh? G rank?! Wait, are you kids sure about this? The dungeon might only be an E rank but it’s still quite dangerous,” a guard burst out, worry clear in his face.

Monsters in the world are given a rank by the System, which starts at rank G and goes up to SSS rank, or also known as the Myth rank. The hunter and mercenary guild adopted a similar system by ranking each adventurer with a scale from G to S rank.

As we just registered, we had to start from the bottom of the barrel despite the church’s support. The guild masters told us that they couldn’t grant us that, and that a rank skip can only be given on rare occasions, and that this wasn’t one.

While G was our official rank, it wasn’t a correct measure for our current strengths. Elrick told us that every single one of us had the stats of an F rank adventurer, just without the experience.

“Hey, excuse me but this should clear a few things up,” Yorshka went in front and showed the guards her ID. "This is just to give them their first combat experience, and I can guarantee that these kids can hold their own…hopefully, ha ha ha!”

“Uhh..what?! Aren’t you the-mhrmmm!” the guard was able to comment on her ID when she pushed her hand to block his mouth.

“Uh, uh, silence, please. You should know what I mean with that, correct?” Yorshka said with a wink.

Once he nodded, Yorshka removed her hand. The guard whispered the details to his partner, who couldn’t help but also shout out, nearly exposing whatever Yorshka was hiding but he was also swiftly silenced by Yorshka.

After a few more seconds of this comedy act, the guards finally gave us permission to enter the dungeon. When we entered, I could faintly hear the two guards fanboying, saying, "I can't believe I met the-you know who!" and "Ha, the others will absolutely kill us for this but it'll be worth it!".

The dungeon was underneath the entrance, so we had to walk down a set of stairs. While we walked, Kohaku Kobayashi, one of Tsuji-san’s teammates approached Yorshka, while her long, black hair with red highlights flowed around.

“Hey, Lady Yorshka, can I ask you something?” she asked, only continuing after Yorshka nodded. “See, uhm, I’ll cut to the point, how does it feel to kill?”

“How does it feel to kill?”, a very important question for literally every single one of us. Since we came to this world, we learned how to fight but nobody has killed anybody in their lifetime before. As much as I was hyped of finally leveling up, I also was anxious about actually drilling my spear into somebody, even if it’s a monster.

“Hmmm, I guess that is something you kids would be interested in, so I’ll give you a serious answer,” Yorshka said, her carefreeness gone, which made all my classmates listen intently. "Frankly, it really depends where you came from. The place that I grew up never batted an eye about killing stuff. Besides the adrenaline rush and the thrill of having survived, we think of killing as something natural."

If you have to hunt to eat, then it makes sense that killing animals wouldn't affect you too much. It was their common sense, after all.

“However, I guess you kids are more like sheltered little nobles, right? Well, in that case, you should be content if you only have to vomit,” she further added. “I’ve seen some weaker willed people completely lose it. To defend their mind, their personality twisted into something more aggressive, so they can stay sane despite knowing what they just did. Still, in that case, maybe they were already insane, to begin with?”

All of us gulped at her words.

“Ha ha, come now, just because it happened to others doesn’t mean that it will happen to you kids,” Yorshka smiled at us, aware that her words struck us hard. “Stay focused, all of you. Elrick and I are here to defend you, but we won’t protect you from every single hit. It’s a battle for survival in the dungeon so treat it like that. If you have to throw up then do it, but get right back into the battle, otherwise, you are risking yours and your party’s life. I can describe how killing feels, but every single person handles it differently.”

With those words in our minds, we continued moving down the stairs, eventually reaching the bottom and entering into a large cavern room. It was mostly empty, besides the few adventurers preparing for their trip.

“Alright, young ones, it’s time for all of you to finally get out of level zero!”

A note from AbyssRaven

Honestly, I had a ton of fun writing Yorshka. Gives a nice contrast between Elrick, and I can use her to keep Elrick in line. Also, I love Dragoons. Nothing beats jumping up high and then striking somebody down like an eagle with a spear.

Also, while I am introducing quite a few characters on the "Hero's side", don't forget that this is all build-up for the eventual meet up between Hestia and these guys, especially with certain Peolyncians.

One more chapter to close this dungeon part up and we'll be back to Hestia and co.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters + any patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

As the story is growing, how about jumping on the discord that I frequent. You guys can talk with me about the story or even ask me to sing Dragon Idol songs. Quality of singing is not guaranteed: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Side Story 11: Realizing and making up for my mistakes.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #5, only appearing out of the basement because somebody asked for it...yaaaaay. Come hop over to our patreon for even more chapters to read....yaaaaay. Here's the link: Rawr

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“Daichi, you idiot! Look where the hell you’re shooting your spells!”

“I am, you piece of shit! You’re just rushing in like a blind mole whenever I finish casting my spells!”

“Urck! Hey, Tatsuya, stop arguing with Mikami and look in front of you. That kobold nearly stabbed you with his spear!”

“No, no, no. When am I supposed to shoot an arrow when everybody in front is moving around like that? Urgh, why is this so different from practice?”

“Sigh…what a wonder that nobody is hurt yet. Meh, that just means that I don’t have to do anything until the inevitable happens.”

While arguing among us was already a bad sign of a terrible team cohesion, it was even more evident when we’re doing that during a fight, and not just any fight, but one where our life was actually at stake.

After Yorshka gave us a rundown of how dungeoning worked; Tsuji-san, acting as the de facto leader between our two parties, suggested that we start using our first names when we work together. She mentioned that it was something she read in a book on Earth that said that calling each other by our first names would increase closeness and work efficiency

Also, as the people in this world would address us with our first names, she thought that it would stop any confusion whenever we talked with a native.

While it felt uncomfortable, our entire group nodded in agreement anyway, realizing that this was the case for the church. While the grey-robed priests and lower-rank white-robed priests would indulge us, the higher ones simply called us either by our unique skill's name or our first.

It honestly pissed me off and was another big reason why I still don’t feel extremely comfortable there. Frankly, a single day in Laveata town has been more relaxing than the four months I spent at the church.

After starting calling each other with our first name, we started moving in our ten-man group with our two knights walking behind and commenting on things. It was mostly Yorshka explaining the importance of working together and how we had to be careful as we walked through the dungeon, as traps could exist.

While the upper levels didn’t, she still told us that some monsters were intelligent enough to plan ambushes. They might not be very refined, but she warned us that many newbies have died from not knowing this simple information.

After moving through the first floor and watching other beginners fight against monsters, we finally found our first group of monsters responsible for giving this dungeon its name: Kobolds.

The ones we met were the lowest rank, G, and was eligible for our quest. There were three and as our “Kobold Subjugation” quest was shared among us, our two parties had to cooperate and kill ten kobolds in total.

Tamae-san, Tsuji-san’s first name, suggested that we first work together, which means ten people against three. It might seem overkill but I guess we needed that extra safety net so we could fight properly. The majority of us were anxious about actually "doing the deed", while Daichi, that psychopath, was the only one thrilled about it.

Our cautiousness actually proved correct because killing really was as hard as I seemed. Tsuji-san’s teammates Kohaku and Kazumi both were close combatants like Kyouya and I, so to kill these kobolds we had to stab our blades into their body, through their flesh, bones, and blood. Kazumi even had it worse as she was a rogue who uses daggers and short swords to fight.

The fight itself wasn’t anything special, though. We had professional training and our status boards were strong enough to fight against F rank monsters, so G ranks, with their pushover level of stats, were nothing to us.

However, trying to slam in the finishing blow was hard. Us frontliners struggled to actually get our first kills as we hesitated, so in the end our mages Mikami and Nishio-san plus Misaki, the other party’s archer, had to do it for us.

After killing our first monsters nobody in our party leveled up, while Tamae-san’s did due to having two of their members getting the kill credit. They described it as a short-term euphoria moment that not only restored their Health and Mana but it also made their bodies feel stronger.

Despite our first success, our groups couldn’t exactly move from the spot for a minute or so. Our sudden realization that we actually killed a living being stunned us in place. They might not have been humans, but they were still alive. Trying to think of them like animals at the end of the day didn't help at all.

It was only when Elrick and Yorshka came over and began to congratulate us that we snapped out of our frozen state. Checking myself and then the others, I noticed that I wasn’t the only one that was heavily breathing.

The fight wasn’t hard. We barely strained ourselves but…my heart felt like it could have exploded at any time, without any signs of slowing down. While I was able to endure my nausea, Haruka couldn’t.

After having a moment to recover, we continued onwards after everyone agreed to it. We then met another three-man group of G rank kobolds but this time we frontliners made quick work with them.

Kyouya and I got two of the kills so our party also leveled up once, gaining level one and 100 SP. While I didn’t buy anything from the SP shop yet, I was quite elated that a lot of the options whitened up. No longer was the shop completely grey for me, ha ha!

Still, I definitely have to say that actually killing something with my own two hands was not even close to a pleasant feeling as I thought it would be. I was so hyped that I would be able to finally power level, get stronger, and do whatever RPG dream you can do but it’s just…not as cool at all.

The resistance of the flesh, the cracking bones, and the flowing blood, all of this happened just because I rammed my spear into the kobold’s body. Coughing up blood because blood was entering its lungs and its slow but final painful cries as it breathed its last.

Our mages and archers truly had an incredible advantage, only because they didn’t have to experience all of this upfront. Kyouya, Kohaku, and I were completely unable to fight due to being the ones to deal the last blow this time.

Honestly, I was thankful that both Elrick and Yorshka were kind enough to let us three rest. Being important parts of our group’s frontline, nobody in our parties could continue onwards because of us.

This marked the second time that we had to stop and take a break just because we couldn’t handle the realities of killing living beings. Yorshka was quite happy that we weren’t pushing ourselves too much, slowly getting used to our new environment and the idea of killing to get stronger.

Hearing her say that made me think of what she said about the other three groups. It made me worry that Aiko wasn’t here and instead was with the supposedly “old-fashion” knights. Yorshka sounded so sure when she insulted them, but I do hope that Aiko’s bodyguard isn’t pushing her too much…but she’s the saint, maybe I’m worrying too much.

As we continued taking a rest, the other party started to talk about their unique skills, talking about what they were planning to buy with their SP.

I already knew about Tamae-san’s [Enchanter’s Oath], but besides the names, I had no idea what the others did. Asking them, I was able to learn the effects of [Sovereign of the Elements], [Samurai Distinction: Yumi], [Tricky Kitty], and [Dwarven Runeslayer] from Nishio-san, Misaki, Kazumi, and Kohaku respectively.

Enchanter’s Oath

A skill that promotes supportive actions. Improves the effectiveness of stat-boosting spells and enchanted items. Reduces the mana costs of all actions and arcane corruption accumulation

Sovereign of the Elements

Mana cost of using spells from the primary tetra-elements, fire, earth, wind, water, are decreased by 30%. User can weaken a target's elemental resistance by hitting them with a corresponding element. Able to cast two spells at once and mix these spells together to improve them at the cost of mana

Samurai Distinction: Yumi

User can expend mana to create mana arrow of any type they wish. The longer the user readies the bow, the more powerful the shot will become. The user will always ignore 25% of a target's Vitality when the arrow hits

Tricky Kitty

User can expend mana to create up to 4 [Dusk Clones] that the user may control the autonomy of, whose effectiveness depends on the skill's level. Increases Agility based skills and abilities. Ability to identify weak spots through observation and increases own damage to these spots. Gives the user the smell of a feline and some of their improved senses

Dwarven Runeslayer

The user is unable to expel mana from outside their body. Enchantments, parameter boosting spells, and runes have improved efficiency and cost less mana to maintain. User is 50% less susceptible to magic damage

Once break was over, we continued down to the second floor of the dungeon. Continuing her current job as a tour guide, Yorshka explained that each dungeon had a random number of floors, determined at the point which they were created. Dungeons are a natural phenomenon in this world that appeared after the introduction of the System, which suggests that they were made by the origin gods.

This dungeon only has ten floors, easily manageable for newer parties while being a good warm-up for stronger parties.

As we ventured into the second floor, we finally met our first F rank monsters: Kobold Warriors. Yes, most of the early monsters are kobolds, there is nothing we can do about it. There isn’t anything fearsome but that’s a godsend for us…

…as party “Misfits” is already struggling to deal with them.

“Dammit, Tatsuya, you bastard! Are you rushing all of this just so you can get the kills?! Let me fucking kill it for you, you weakling!” Daichi shouted with a face that matched the color of his fire spells.

“Yo, Daichi-kun, calm down already…have you forgotten what our instructors told you about letting your emotions run wild? Also, you’re so loud that you’re making me deaf,” Asaka Hanazawa said nonchalantly, clearly bored.

"Asaka-san is right, you two!" Kyouya proclaimed beside me, agreeing with Asaka's statement. "We're struggling here and you two can't work together, even now? Please, concentrate!"

The group of kobold warriors consisted out of four members when we first found them. Yorshka, showing a mischievous smile, suggested that this was a great chance for us to show everybody the results of our four months’ worth of training.

She told us to separate into our respective parties and challenge the kobolds, two for each. With our stats and skills, we should have literally no problem taking on two F rank monsters simultaneously, so Yorshka was confident that she could make this into a sort of challenge and test.

A test, to show us what we are still missing and where we should improve, while a challenge to drive competitiveness between the two parties. Whoever finishes first gets to go with Yorshka to an acquaintance blacksmith of hers, where that party may request him to create a weapon for them, on her tab.

While the church has given us some pretty good weapons with good stats, they were all without any skills. Magical weapons, or advanced weapons in general, all had skills that helped the wielder perform better in battle supplementing their battle style with a wide range of skills.

As we literally had no money, and we didn’t know how expensive it would be, most of us were enthusiastic about it, thinking that this would be a good way to not depend on the church that much.

Also, this sort of made me believe that Yorshka is stacked, cash-wise.

“Goddess…Elrick, did you help them at all in the one month you had with them?” Yorshka commented from outside the battle. “Their technique is still pretty crude, but the fundamentals can be seen, however, they look like a ragtag group of new adventurers…an actual G rank party!”

"Lady Yorshka, I humbly apologized that you had to witness this. I have failed as their supervisor,” Elrick said with a crestfallen expression.

While it might be true that we had a month to form a party and then work out our synergy, however…I did mention that Asaka and Mikami had no intention to do that. We didn't even know Elrick's name until the day of our class change…which was a week ago!

We had no time to train as a party nor did we have a synergy to begin with. I thought that if Kyouya and I could work on ours that everything would be alright, but a real battle is completely different.

I was initially quite optimistic about our chance to win this challenge due to our group’s unique skills. Firstly, party “Misfits” had high burst skills in my [Rush Hour] and Mikami’s [Kamikaze], while the low defense caused by these skills can be covered by Kyouya’s [Ardent Defender].

We can continue dealing DPS, while Kyouya can use his shield abilities to block damage for us. Even if one of us does get hurt, we could rely on Asaka’s healing abilities as a [Saint Candidate]. As we’ve seen from her sending Kyouya, our tank, flying away with a single punch using [Saint’s Wrath] we can rely on her to defend the backline while throwing out [Smite] from range.

Haruka Sakamoto didn’t have a combat-related unique skill but that didn’t mean [Foxian Slyness] was useless. Being able to ignore [Identity Blocker] meant that she could scout the enemy’s skill set for us, giving us a chance to anticipate whatever tricks they might have. At the very least, she could use her bow to shoot something.

But…well, we’re making no progress. Daichi’s selfishness of wanting to get the kills made it hard for me fight with him. We were both the damage dealers but our fighting styles conflicted too much with each other.

As he has to cast spells, there is a downtime before he can attack, a time that I'm using to go in. But before I can actually hit something, his spell activates, forcing me to dodge if I didn't want to be burnt.

As none of our attacks were hitting and I kept arguing with Mikami, Kyouya had to defend us when we were letting our guards down. They might be F ranks, but Kyouya still had to get used to fighting kobolds, and with us two arguing, he was fighting two at once.

Haruka tried to support him with her arrows but it was showing that she wasn’t a fighter. She kept missing her arrows, even if she used an archery ability. It also didn’t help that her meekness coupled with her recent depressive mood was causing her morale to drop with every single missed shot.

The only other person, besides Kyouya, who was doing their job correctly was Asaka…and that is by doing nothing! She might have [Smite] but her role was that of a cleric in our party, and Daichi, in his infinite wisdom, decided that it was more important to “conserve mana” instead of having her attack.

I mean, I can understand that but, come on, look how disastrous it was.

Looking at my dysfunctional team made it even harder to look at Tamae-san’s team…

“Take this! Dance of the Flame sword!” the black-haired girl with red tints shouted, swinging her flaming sword to end a kobold’s life. “Urgh, no, no, no, no! Screaming all this cringy stuff isn’t making it any better. I still feel terrible for doing this to them…woah!”

Pushing the swordswoman out of the way, a small brown-haired girl blocked an approaching axe swing from a kobold while chiding her flustered companion, “Kohaku-chan, you can complain about this later. Blocking axes isn’t part of my job description.”

Pushing the kobold back, she jumped to the side, shouting, “Nishio-san, now!”

“Good work, Kazumi-san! Oh, wind! Gather with my call and form into power to push back my enemies, Wind Bullet!” a guy with glasses called out, pointing his staff at the kobold before a pocket of wind is shot out.

“Grah!” the kobold shouted out, knocked on the ground before an arrow flew by and cleanly pierced his head. "Gruk…."

"Woooo, guess that means we won, right?" an aloof girl said, brushing her long black hair to the side after shooting that arrow.

"Nice shot, Misa-chan!" a girl wearing a white robe who also carried a staff said, praising her archer friend. "And yeah, we won the challenge. You’ll probably request for a change of weapons correct?”

“That’s correct, Tama-san. A western bow doesn’t feel as comfortable compared to a yumi,” Misaki, the archer girl, said with a small smile.

“Urgh, I guess this is my job from now on, huh?” Kazumi, the brown-haired dagger girl said with disgust, carrying around two large kobold fangs. “I even got [Dismantle] just now. Ewww, I can't wait to do a full-body autopsy in the future…bleh."

“Come on, Kazumi-chan, it could be worse. Don’t worry, you will have my aid for the future, my feline-smelling friend!” Kohaku, the swordswoman, said, walking besides Kazumi as she made a cool-looking pose. “Oh, and thanks for saving me there. I still can’t get used to stabbing things…”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself, Kohaku-san, you did great. I think all of us still have to get used this madness,” Nishio, the dude with glasses said with a deadpan face. “Also, it seems [Imbue Fire] really worked great with your [Dwarven Runeslayer]. It really was worth to train my [Fire Magic] up instead of [Earth Magic].”

“Ah, everyone! All of you did wonderfully!” Tamae-san, the white-robed girl, said, waving her hand at her approaching teammates. “Urgh, I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything there, guys. You guys really didn’t need my healing…”

"Wha-?! No, don't be sad Tamae-san!" Nishio cast his expressionless away once Tamae-san began chastising herself, anxiously trying to comfort her. "Y-You just haven’t reached your full potential yet! [Enchanter’s Oath] requires a lot of time investment but I bet you will be invaluable once it happens!”

“Thank you, Nishio-kun, but I know that until that happens, I can’t help much…oh, I know, I’ll treat all of you to some of my cooking later on,” Tamae-san offered, quickly switching her mood around.

“Wooo, awesome, that might be an even better reward than those weapons!” Kazumi cried out, jumping in excitement, before patting Nishio-san’s back. “You did a good job, lover boy. We get to enjoy Tama-chan’s cuisine, again!”

Holy shit, they actually made that look easy…just like Yorshka said…wah?!

"Wah?!" as I was looking at Nishio-san's brightening face, somebody suddenly pushed me to the side before dashing forward.

“Kyouya, back me up!” looking up, I saw somebody running to Kyouya’s side, somebody that I didn’t expect: Asaka.

With a short, “Yes!”, the two began fighting together. While Kyouya blocked any approaching attack with his shield while throwing a counterattack with his sword, Asaka would dash forward before swinging down her staff coated in a white aura at the attacking kobold’s head.

Once it was knocked down, Kyouya would defend the second kobold’s attack and the process repeated. In the end, with both kobolds knocked down, Kyouya simply had to push his blade into the monsters’ throat, killing them.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Human, Tatsuya Nagata] has risen from [Level 1] to [Level 5]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 450 skill points

Quest   [Kobold Subjugation] fulfilled. Please hand it in at the next [Hunter Guild]

…What?

Both Mikami and I were frozen in place, shocked at what we just witnessed. I mean, did we just see Asaka. Lazy, unreliable Asaka just team-up and kill the two monsters just like that?

“Jeez, that was so easy and you two were having this much trouble working with Kyouya to beat them? Loud and useless…” Asaka remarked before walking away annoyed.

“Wait a minute!” I called out to Asaka.

“Huh? What do you want, Nagata?” Asaka turned around, responded to me with my surname.

“Urgh,” I groaned, realizing that she wasn’t fond of me at all. “Can I borrow your ID? I’m curious about something on your status board.”

Shrugging, the blue-colored hair girl handed me her ID, telling me not to break it. Ignoring her comment, I simply attached her ID card to my party bracelet’s chain to display her status board on my blue menu.

Asaka Hanazawa's status board

Profile:

Name: Asaka Hanazawa

Level: 5

Race: Human

Age: 18 Years

Job: Cleric

Status:

Health:

356/356

Mana:

287/287

Strength:

136

Intelligence:

198

Vitality:

89

Wisdom:

176

Agility:

116

Stamina:

239/239

Effects:

None

Skill Points

550

Unique Skill:

[Saint’s Wrath Lv. 2]

Skill:

Magic skills and related

[Mana Efficiency Lv. 1]

[Mana Control Lv. 3]

[Arcane Mind Lv. 2]

[Holy Magic Lv. 4]

[Mental Stability Lv. 1]

Physical skills and related

[Unarmed Mastery Lv. 1]

[Staff Mastery Lv. 1]

[Mana Strike Lv. 1]

Senses and movement skills

[Concentration Lv. 1]

[Prediction Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 1]

[Evasion Lv. 1]

[Acrobatic Lv. 1]

Stat growths and related

[Enhanced Mana Growth Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Mana Capacity Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Intelligence Growth Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 1]

Resistances

[Physical Resistance Lv. 1]

[Pain Resistance Lv. 1]

[Holy Resistance Lv. 3]

[Water Resistance Lv. 1]

Other

[Dancing Lv. 2]

[Singing Lv. 1]

[Musician Lv. 3]

[Artist Lv. 1]

[Royal Etiquette Lv. 3]

[Cooking Lv. 3]

[Dismantle Lv. 1]

[Sewing Lv. 2]

Spell List:

Custom Spells

[Apply Light]

Holy Spells

[Minor Heal]

[Cure]

[Modest Heal]

[Smite]

Titles:

[Otherworldly Visitor] [Saint Candidate]

…There is nothing special about this.

I asked her to show me her status board because I thought she must have had something in her status board that allowed her to do that but there wasn’t. Her status board was as high quality as Kyouya’s!

“…Thanks,” I gave her card back, trying to hide my slight disappointment.

With a “Hmph”, she walked back to where she was, being greeted by Elrick with “A wonderful execution, Lady Asaka. That was wonderfully done.”

In response to his smile and praise, Asaka simply sighed in exasperation, "Yeah, of course, you would say that. You were the one that forced me to train with you. If it hadn't been Kyouya then I wouldn't have even tried that."

“Maybe, but once you knew you could do it, you did it. Forgive me for praising myself but I was correct that it would become useful, right?” Elrick said with a teasing smile. “[Saint’s Wrath] can deal quite a lot of damage the more you level [Holy Magic], so it was only obvious that you must learn those techniques, even if others would think otherwise.”

Ignoring the annoyed Asaka and mischievous Elrick, Yorshka walked forward to announce the winner of the challenge, "Well that was interesting but as everybody knows, there can only be one winner. With overwhelming results, ‘The Magical Biscuits’ have won over the ‘Misfits’!”

“““Wohoooo!””” Tamae-san, Kazumi, Kohaku cheered

“Good work, everyone,” Nishio-san clapped at the cheering girls.

“Thank you for your hard work until now. I’ll give you a good polish once we are back,” Misaki whispered to her bow, caressing it with a smile.

“Good, as nobody seems to be terribly affected this time, I suggest we continue. You should have finished your quest, correct?” seeing us nod, Yorshka continued. “Good, we won’t be fighting anymore until tomorrow. I want to show you kids the dungeon core.”

With that said, we continued onwards. Compared to the slow progress that our party did, having Elrick and Yorshka lead the way was way too fast. We were walking but there was barely any caution in their faces as they kept moving forward, undaunted by the fact that the deeper we went, the harder it got. They showed the difference in power as they swiftly cleaned fodder by fodder by fodder, not sweating even a bit.

Eventually, at stage four, we finally met our other classmates. All three parties were firmly led by their knights, listening, and obeying their commands as if they were soldiers. The only one who didn’t have to listen to the constant shouting was Aiko, whose guardian knight instead requested her to do it with a softer tone.

Not wanting to be seen, Yorshka led us towards a completely different path to avoid the eyes of the knights. She might have been part of the knights’ order, but she wasn’t showing any of the camaraderie you would expect from something that prestigious.

Continuing to mow down waves and waves of monsters, our party eventually reached the last floor of the dungeon. There we saw a group of guards standing in front of a magical barrier.

“Halt, this is the dungeon core area. If you wish to fight the dungeon boss then please go that way,” a guard said, pointing in the direction of another room…that aside, did he just say dungeon boss?!

“Ahh, sorry about this, boys. We two are church knights, and we’re supervising newcomers,” Yorshka said, before showing her ID. “I just wanted to show the kids the dungeon core, and then we’ll be going back up. Hope that won’t inconvenient you.”

“Mhmm…oh, Yorshka?!” one of the guards cried out while reading the ID with his party bracelet. “Oh, yeah, sure! Take your time, madam. The core has been gathering even more mana recently, so more monsters are being spawned inside. It sure looks beautiful but kinda sad at the same time, huh?”

While Yorshka was talking with the guards, we simply looked at the shining blue crystal sitting in the middle of the barrier. It wasn’t a small crystal but a large diamond-looking floating core with a deep marine blue color.

As Yorshka was socializing and making connections, Elrick replaced her as our tour guide. He explained that the darker the blue was, the more mana was concentrated into the crystal making the dungeon spawn more monsters and magical items, meaning loot.

While it benefited adventures the darker it was, the dungeon could only turn darker when outside sources of mana entered the dungeon. Apparently, the dungeon continuously consumes new sources once they expire and are left in the dungeon for more than a day.

While the guilds could donate high mana filled monsters’ part to fuel the core, another source could be dead adventurers. While there wasn’t any evidence, adventurers used to going through dungeons consider a deep blue dungeon core a sign of bad luck.

As we considered the meaning of this sad fact, Nishio began asking Elrick questions about dungeons. Elrick, agreeing to answer his curiosity, continued.

"Well, the first thing that you should know is the most important rule concerning dungeon cores," he began. "This one was made by the gods, so you could call this an absolute rule without any leeway. You may never break a dungeon core while it still has mana."

He explained that if you were to remove a dungeon core, a dungeon would cease to work, eventually disappearing if it isn't returned. While this would annoy the guilds, it wasn't the reason for this rule.

He told us that if a dungeon core that still had mana in it is cracked and was destroyed, the mana inside it would rupture and cause an explosion so devastating that it could destroy all of Laveata Town. While that would be bad enough, the explosion would leave a fallout behind that overflowed the area with mana that would continuously spawn monsters and mana plants.

Until the mana naturally disappeared over the years, the area would become uninhabitable due to the random appearance of monsters.

While it was forbidden to do that, the destruction of dungeons and cores itself wasn't. Once, you drained all the mana out of a core, which acted as a giant mana battery, you could safely salvage the valuable crystal for its chunks.

Due to the opportunity costs of a dungeons, dungeon core chunks have become quite valuable as it was both rare to get and an incredibly good material for magical weapons and armor. The high mana absorption features that the crystal had made it perfect to store skills in.

“You only have to remember to never destroy the core. That is a sin that even the gods would send down divine punishment,” Elrick said grimly.

“How do you know that? Was it written somewhere in a book at the church?” Nishio-san asked.

"Yes, that rule is written in our bible but us humans have already seen it happen once," Elrick said. "On the island where the Empire originated from, we humans waged war with the demonkins living in a small area. In their wrath, they triggered the destruction of a dungeon core in one of their own towns that were just occupied by the empire's army. While the mass destruction killed the army, the following wrath of Plesia, the Goddess of Water also destroyed the demonkins.”

Ending with that, Nishio-san stopped asking, staying silent at what we just heard.

Essentially, from what I understood, the demonkins triggered a nuke-like alternative and destroyed a whole army but also had their own army destroyed because they angered a goddess? Wow…

No wonder the church was showing this much disdain for the demonkins…but…this also meant that they were throwing us at people that were willing to risk the wrath of a goddess just to kill their mortal enemies. Urgh, what the hell…

After Yorshka finished talking, we all were done for the day and went back to the surface. We handed in the quest and got some money and experience. After that, Yorshka went with her party to a blacksmith to have them request their personal weapons.

Elrick brought us back to our lodging before going out, having to report today’s event to his superiors, the other knights.

In the living room of the mansion, I finally made up my mind to do it.

“Asaka-san,” I called out to her while she was lying on the sofa.

“‘-san’? Huh, did something kick you in the head on the way back, Nagata?” Asaka said, clearing bewildered by my sudden politeness.

"I wanted to first apologize to you for everything that I have done to you, until now!" I apologized, bowing deeply to show how serious I was.

“Wha-What?! Where did that just come from you idiot?! Wait, are you trying to trick me?” she questioned, suspicious of my out of character behavior.

The other members of my party were also in the living room, looking at me, probably thinking that I’ve gone crazy. My dislike for Hanazawa for her laziness was real and well known by the others due to my recent outburst.

"No, I am being earnest here!" undeterred by her comments, I continued. "Everybody saw me taking my spear out and my intentions to attack you with it, but you didn’t even mention it to the church. You could have told them about it and have gotten rid of me, just like that. Thank you for not doing that.”

If the knights were able to notice it then Asaka who was closer to me should have seen me unsheathe my spear. Seeing somebody try to attack you with a weapon would be a good reason for you to hate them, and I would understand if she told the church to throw me out or something even worse.

From hearing what Elrick told me, I knew that doing anything like that to Asaka was absolutely a death sentence. They had people like Yorshka and Elrick working for them, not to mention that giant prick, the knight-commander. Any of them could have “erased” me simply because Asaka, a saint candidate, said so.

Elrick warned me that people were zealous and fanatical about their religion, and I didn’t listen…

"Uhh, you know, I didn't do that for you, right? That was a jerk move, especially doing it with your spear, but I honestly didn't want to deal with the bastards at the top," Asaka said with a troubled face, honestly not seeing a reason for why I should thank her. "If you want to thank somebody, then thank Elrick. He was the one who had to persuade the church, telling them that it would be a scandal to do it on that day. I may cause him problems, but you just ruined all the work he's done for all his time as a knight."

“Urck…,” I groaned, damaged by what my actions caused.

The ramifications might not have affected me but that was only due to everything the others have done. If Asaka or Elrick had been just a bit more wrathful, I would have been a goner.

“Still, let me make it up for you,” I stopped bowing, corrected my posture before reaching out my hand. “It still doesn’t change the fact that I would have been thrown out of the church, or even worse, if you hadn’t been like…well, yourself.”

"Uhhh, ok? Still didn't do it for you, as I said…but, what's with the hand?" she asked looking at my stretched arm.

"It's my sign that I wish to work with you properly," I said. "In these past four months, I've been acting like a spoiled idiot and despite getting help from others, I still nearly caused myself a bad ending. So, to finally act like an adult, I want to say sorry and ask you that we work together…as a team."

While Asaka was thinking about it, Kyouya suddenly came over, “What the clumsy idiot here wanted to say is that he wants to make up, so our party doesn’t keep lagging behind. I also think that we should work together, Asaka-san. You don’t like the church and that we can understand, but you should also know that you can’t do it alone. Even if we can’t become friends, at least allow us to help you when you need a rest from them. We are, to your chagrin, a party now, ha ha!”

“Hmm, yeah, when Kyouya says it like that, I can understand how this would benefit me,” Asaka said, stabbing me in the chest with her words. “Still, I have to agree…watching Tamae’s party doing so well, while ours was dancing around with two left feet was embarrassing. I also owe Elrick, so maybe doing better would make his life better…”

“If that’s so, then count me in, too!” standing up from a chair, Haruka also came over to join in. “Asaka-san, I know you don’t like me, and I understand that. I also don’t…I have my disagreements with you but if you want to help out Elrick then I want to do it, too. Everything that happened that day was because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. And now, I’m making him look bad because I can’t get over my own reluctance of…killing, urgh. It isn’t fair of me to call you all those mean names when I myself am being immature.”

“…Ahhh, I get what you mean now, twerp,” Asaka exclaimed with a smile, which made Haruka blush. “Well, you all said your piece but that doesn’t mean that I want to work with you. You guys are making this sound like you’ll begin treating me like a leader, but you should all know this by now, but I have no intention to do so. Even acting as the ‘figurative’ leader is already causing me enough troubles, you know? Why should I want all those responsibilities, huh?”

Urgh, this is the part that I really hate about her…but that’s something I have to learn to live with now.

“I know, and I won't expect you to be like that. However, I still want to work with you somehow," I said unwavering, causing her to raise an eyebrow. "There is no commitment to this handshake. If you want out, then just say so and I won't complain. I just think that we should stop being stubborn about it and just work together just so we can all stay alive in the future. We won't stay with the church forever, after that, we'll be forced to do our 'Hero Duty', regardless of our wishes. By then, you will need our help and we will need yours. I don't want us to go out into the world like how we were today. It's embarrassing and, honestly, we can't keep on relying on Elrick or Yorshka.”

Giving myself a short break, I breathed in to fill my lungs and then continued speaking, “We’re a party, party ‘Misfits’. We’re a bunch of idiots that none of the other parties wanted as the first pick. Just like the ragtag team that we are, let’s keep each other safe. If you need help, then don’t be shy to call for us, Asaka.”

Asaka closed her eyes, scratching her temple, before opening up one eye, “Urgh, even having you guys look at me like that is making me feel like I want to run away, but…argh, ok, ok! You made your point. I understand what you mean and, honestly, dealing with you idiots should be better than those old church geezers…and, I guess being with people I know since our first high school year would be more comforting…”

Stretching her own hand, she grabbed mine and starting putting more strength into it, slowly crushing it, “This is the ramifications for persuading me like that, Tatsuya.”

Afterward, Kyouya and Haruka put their hands onto ours, as a sign that they agreed to it…which only leaves us with one last person.

“…Yo, Daichi,” I looked at our resident mage who was reading a book. “Will you also…”

"Leave me out of the party's 'bonding moment', dipshit. If you want me to work properly as a team, then I'll do it even without you wasting my time. I'm only interested in leveling up as fast as possible so I can get stronger and stronger," Daichi said without raising his head from the book. "Ha, I've seen all the skills that I can get from the shop, and boy, do I need a ton of SP for them! Call me when you want to train. I hate losing and I hate losing even more when a great prize like that was at the tip of my fingers."

…It seems we also got his agreement.

With that, "Misfits" was reborn.

We stayed in the town for a whole month, training until all parties finally were able to reach the lowest floor without any outside help. With our trip finished, our knights agreed that it was time to travel back to the church

As we spent time in the church, we continued studying about the world that we were about to be sent into and both “Misfits” and “The Magical Biscuits” kept training together to improve our stats and skills. Having no other chance to go outside, we made sure to use our times are best as we could until the day the church would send us out.

Three months later, on the eight month, HarvestBloom, the church has finally announced that we were ready to be sent out to our first real church mission: to hunt down a bandit camp.

A note from AbyssRaven

As you guys have noticed, I've started switching the Japanese kids' name, now using their first name in hopes of bettering reading easiness. Despite, knowing that this would go against Japanese conventions, I thought it would be better to do it here due to my reader base being majority western.

However, I know this is a big change so I would like to ask you guys about your opinions. Would you like me to keep addressing them with their first name, a.k.a. western naming standard, or keep the Japanese style.

I've set up a poll so please vote on it if you wish me to do one or the other.

Anyways, side story part is done. Next chapter we go back to Hestia!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 60: Preparations for the March.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #1 here due to author falling asleep. So, I'm here to promote our Patreon in his stead. Here's the link: Rawr

Join now and you can read up to 10 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until June!

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[“And that would be all. We might be asking a lot from you, especially as the rest of the camp has not fully recovered yet, but we believe it would be best if we were to move soon,”] Saori explained to the lizardmen.

“YES…well, I can’t speak for everyone, but I certainly want to get out of this forest as soon as possible!” Apsala said, nodding furiously.

"Well, we owe you quite a lot so we have no right to refuse it when you ask us to do so," Caszcur agreed, stroking his arm to stimulate his muscles. I might have re-attached his severed arm back to his body, but it seems like it sometimes goes numb if it isn’t active.

“Wherever you go, we will follow, fair-scaled one,” Aksmias responded, bowing his head slightly.

[“Aksmias, you do know my name is Hestia, correct? I don’t think you’ve ever addressed me with my name ever since we’ve known each other,”] I complained, realizing this weird habit of his.

Well, anyway, the reason for their behavior was quite simple: our party has decided to travel with the lizardmen. That meant that we would stay with them and help them get out of the Belzac forest, going north to reach the elven country so they could get help to reach their final destination: the country of the Levianewts.

While it might seem nice of us, we also explained to them that we would only do this on the sole condition that we start moving today as we kinda were in a rush to get out of the swamp. It was my party’s plan to get out of here before winter came, and if possible, escape this forest.

The reason for this was ‘cause of the stuff that I learned yesterday. After receiving Aurena’s message I knew that keeping this stuff to myself would be bad for our party especially after Saori made it clear that I should share these sorta stuff with them.

At the wake of dawn after the feast, I told Saori and Tasianna everything about the message and the fact that Aurena made the effort to grant Rajah and his family her protection to appeal to me.

Tasianna was naturally excited about the fact, calling me “A Goddess’ champion” and that she was proud to be my retainer. She was even more thrilled once I told her about my “Fan Overview” and the function of both my “followers” and “retainers”.

The description of [Hestia’s Retainer] already proved that it was created due to [The Light], so it surprised nobody that the “follower” part that everybody heard when they “swore fealty” to me had to be important, too.

I told them that [The Light] was practically a title that wanted me to start gathering “followers” to have it grow in strength, granting me even more abilities and skills. Saori theorized that if my title wasn’t showing its full strength yet, that I could possibly get rid of my crippling dark weakness if I reached a milestone.

Looking through the [Fan Overview], it wasn’t able to tell me if that was possible.

Hestia Atsuko’s   [The Light] [Fan Overview]

Follower Count: 6

Retainer Count: 2

Milestones: 0: Spell [Shine]

1: Spell [Sanctuary]

5: Unlock [The Light]’s [Faithful Function] and [System Neutrality]

25: Unique Skill [Venerated Saintess Lv. 1]

Maybe it’s Aurena’s way to keep me wanting for more but it wouldn’t tell me about any more milestones until I fulfilled the current one. I mean, it can’t possibly stop at 25, right? If the milestones actually stop there then I will probably be very insulted at this fact, believing that Aurena thinks that I can only handle that many people. Ooh, that would make my blood boil.

Still, the current milestone rewards are pretty good. [Shine] and [Sanctuary] have already shown their worth, especially [Shine] being the main reason for why I survived in the beginning as a G rank dragon.

While the [Faithful Function] was already active and it simply gave me an UI to track everything now, [System Neutrality] would certainly become useful. Not only does it act like an [Identity Blocker] but it also can’t be messed around with by anyone besides the gods and me.

Now, [Venerated Saintess] is definitely something I wanted just ‘cause it was a skill that enhanced my abilities.

Venerated Saintess

A skill that a saintess would earn after proving her abilities to her championed god. In the presence of her followers and supporters, the user will gain parameter boosts depending on the number. Reduces mana cost by 50% if the user uses a spell or skill that benefits one of her followers. Boosts holy elemental spells depending on skill’s level

Holy moly, I would finally get a skill that would further boost the offensive power of my holy spells. Until now, my fire spells were a clear cut above them due to my race’s unique skill, making them just the superior choice to use in combat.

The destructive power of my [Inferno Magic] spell and my [Spark Fire Dragon] abilities have shown, time and time again, that they can cause absolute carnage even against things that I shouldn’t be able to hurt usually.

Ahh, I love simple passives that just increase your damage. It makes it simple.

Anyways, now that I’ve told my two companions about everything that happened to me, Saori and Tasianna both agreed that it would be smart to rush through the forest as fast as possible. Not ‘cause of Aurena but ‘cause of the swamp.

There have been two encounters since I arrived in this swamp that have made me fearful of fighting, fully understanding that I wouldn’t have a chance against them. One was that giant crocodile-like head monster on the day that I met the lizardmen, and the other was that white snake after we successfully rescued the lost lizardmen.

I wasn’t sure if they were the same monsters, but my instincts told me that a connection was there. The description that I got from the snake also made the idea ever more plausible. Only a massive creature like that crocodile-head could be large enough to support that giant snake.

If such a monster existed here, then we would be in massive danger. Fleeing is the smartest choice. I think I’ve had enough of fighting against things that I have no chance of winning against…sigh.

So…three giants wyverns are looking for us, a giant crocodile with snakes for legs is living right over the corner, and heilige Scheiße there were a shit ton of frogs and toads in this place. I mean, I saw a frog just stand still when I woke up this morning. I had to strain my eyes to see it as it wasn’t anywhere close to the camp, but it stood there…watching us menacingly…awaiting a chance to steal my food…

…I’m pretty sure I made my point that I don’t wanna be here anymore.

While it might be better for us to leave the lizardmen here and just travel in our three-man group, none of us were able to do that. In these past days, we’ve become well acquainted with the lizardmen, sharing meals and even hunting together, so much that it would feel awkward to just leave now.

I’ve already had to say goodbye to a friend…so doing it once again before I can actually process that farewell isn’t good for me. Company makes traveling feel shorter, and I think that’s correct.

There is also the fact that I kinda promised the quintuplets and their friends that I would show them what an “idol” was, so yeah…something inside me told me that I shouldn’t break this sorta promise

Our party agreed unanimously that we couldn’t leave them behind on a good conscience.

“Ahh, forget about Aksmias’ zealousness, little one,” Apsala said before walking into the middle of the camp to start explaining about our plan. Caszcur joined and supported her with his louder voice, while Aksmias started gathering the guards and hunters, so they could start gathering their weapons and tools.

As it would be faster if we helped also, our party separated to help the individual groups. Saori and Tasianna joined the lizardwomen as they started packing food, herbs, and building materials like twigs and stone.

I technically don’t have to do anything as I was the mule. Two people currently in this camp can use [Storage Magic] and only one of them has a mana capacity large enough that she can put the whole camp into her storage. That person would be me and that’s why I’m the mule. I’m quite proud of it despite the rude moniker.

It’s also the reason why our idea is even feasible, to begin with. I healed the rescued lizardmen and also took care of any diseases that they had but nothing in my spell arsenal could fix fatigue or lethargy. That can only go away with time and through filling their stomachs with food.

In their current state, they couldn't carry anything heavy with them and having the healthy lizardmen handle it would just slow us down.

Also, remember when I told Caszcur and the rescued lizardman about my true form, my dragon form? Yeah, that kinda backfired on me, when those festive lizards literally told the whole camp about it, informing everybody about that fact.

Saori chastised me about it, that I was too careless about it; that I should’ve thought up of an excuse using my numerous parallel minds and [Thought Acceleration]; that telling others that I’m a monster would endanger me. It certainly wasn’t a pleasant morning.

Looking back on it, I maybe should have shown more caution and told Caszcur something like “I can switch from full dragonewt and partial dragonewt form”. That would have explained it and I wouldn’t have had to tell him about being a dragon.

B-But come on, I still had a terrible headache back then. It’s not my fault!

Despite telling everybody about my dragon form, Saori decided she didn’t want to expose herself. From what we heard from Tasianna, monstrous animals like dragons and garms are considered a threat if they don’t show the intellect to be reasoned with.

Hearing that, Saori was adamant that we be careful about telling anybody about this fact from now onwards. She mentioned persecution against us when we travel the world, and from what I heard about humans, I can’t help but agree. I mean they don’t like the beastmen just ‘cause they have monster blood.

I just hope that the elves are a bit kinder.

As I continued mulling through my thoughts, I wandered close to a bunch of lizardmen kids helping the adults deconstructing the tents, “Ah, Hestia! I’ve heard what elder Apsala announced, that we had to start packing but that you would join us! Is it really true?

[“Huh? Oh, hey Slazzaila,”] I responded to the eldest sibling of the quintuplets. [“Yeah, pretty much. Tasianna, Saori, and I will join you guys. We have the same destination, after all.”]

"Bwuh, having your voice in my head feels so weird, but I'm very happy that you're coming with us! Yay," Slazzaila cheered. "Ah, you're younger than me, right? So, you’re like another little egg-sister? I’ll make sure to teach you how to speak!”

[“He he, uh, I don’t…you know, consider you my sister, Slazzaila. Besides, I have my own tutor, so you don’t have to teach me,”] I declined her offer to help.

Slazzaila's tail limply fell to the ground in disappointment 'cause of my rejection, but quickly recovered before saying that she had to help the elders otherwise they would scold her.

Honestly, that was adorable. Technically, I was younger than the lizardmen kids but mentally speaking, I am 15 so I found the cheery personalities of them quite fun to be around, now that their friends are back.

I guess this childish nature of theirs was the reason why I even agreed to show them what an “idol” was. Just the thought of doing it was making me nervous, but I made up my mind to just do it. Even if it fails, it was better to sit around and do nothing.

As time went by, the camp slowly emptied while my storage became fuller and fuller. The lizardmen didn’t have many belongings to begin with, so my mana wasn't draining too fast. Once that was finished, Apsala and Caszcur gathered everyone and explained to them our plan.

"As we have already told you, we will be moving fast and with minimal amounts of breaks in between," Apsala started. "I believe everybody has had enough of wandering through this devil of a forest, am I right? Well, we finally have a chance to get out of here permanently!"

"I believe everybody should have already met our savior and benefactor, Hestia, correct?" Caszcur continued. "Although we lizardfolk have already amassed more debts that we can repay this young scale back, she and her companions agreed to get us safely out of this place."

"Don't worry about anything dangerous appearing with these three joining our travels," Apsala said, pointing out the strength that my party possessed to soothe any worries the lizardmen had. "Saori and Tasianna will be our guide and we will follow them as they direct us north while avoiding anything dangerous, while our beloved Dragoness, Hestia, will defeat any threats in our way."

“““YEAH!”””

The combined cheers of the rowdy lizardmen group were loud enough that I had to close my ears with my hands, as it got uncomfortable to stand so close to it.

[“Jeez, they really are showering you with a lot of praise,”] Saori commented.

[“Yeah…sorry, about that. You two definitely deserve more than this. I'll speak with those two to give you guys more recognition,"] I offered, slightly annoyed that I was getting all the cheers.

[“It’s alright, Lady Hestia. I’m already proud that they are relying this much on us. A simple maid like me only needs the acknowledgment of my mistress and close friends,”] Tasianna said with a short bow.

["The same applies to me. Having to deal with a crowd like this is not something I wish, so it is alright for you to have it, Miss Idol,"] Saori said with a teasing smile. [“Besides, did any of them trigger your [Fan Overview]? Did you get any new followers?”]

[“Nope,”] I said. [“Despite all the cheering, none of them have become my followers. I think we might need to be forthright with them about it later on.”]

[“Any plans for turning them into retainers? They will not be able to benefit much without [Hestia’s Retainer] or if Aurena decides to be generous again,”] Saori stated.

[“I thought on it, and I’ve decided to not tell them about that ‘retainer’ part. Being my retainer means getting access to the SP system and many other benefits. You might be correct that we should act more inconspicuous,”] I stated, remembering Saori’s lecture from this morning quite well. [“I don’t want to give anybody that kinda power without being able to trust them 100% percent.”]

While I didn’t distrust them, I didn’t trust them enough that I would make them my retainers. We would separate from each other once we reach the elven kingdom and that would be it. In that situation was it responsible for me to give them such a strong title like [Hestia’s Retainer]?

No.

It might sound hypocritical after I allowed both Tasianna and Saori to do so, but their situations were different. Saori and I were both humans from Earth in our past lives and we both had nobody else except the two of us. Besides, it was also an accident that she even got the title to begin with, as I didn't even know that it existed.

Tasianna, on the other hand, had no place to go to. She self-exiled herself from her village and wanted to travel with us due to her wish for self-atonement by “serving another princess correctly this time”.

There is also the case that the title could be seen by everyone. If somebody were to read the description then that person would be suspicious about it, no? Who was this “Hestia” and why does this title with her name in it give you access to the SP system. You catch my drift?

There were so many factors that I had to consider, and it wasn’t worth it in the end. That’s why making them my retainers was a no-go.

[“I also agree that you shouldn’t make them your retainers, Lady Hestia. No one is allowed to join our prestigious rank without our approval, correct, Miss Saori?”] Tasianna asked Saori with sparkling eyes.

[“Huh? Uhh, I guess?”] Saori responded, weirded out by Tasianna’s enthusiasm to not allow anybody from becoming my retainer.

While Tasianna already knew that Saori was my retainer only in name, she stills treated her as if she was the head retainer. Her respect for Saori must have grown ever more after she found out that Saori hid her [Shadow Snake] in Rajah’s feet.

“Ok, that was all! Everybody gets into position and let’s move out!” Apsala said, interrupting our private talks with another explosive cheer from the lizardmen crowd.

Finally finished with her speech, Apsala went over to us with the other two head lizardmen, "Hey, sorry for taking so long. Everything should be sorted out now. I thank you three for agreeing to help us with this. It really means a lot to us."

“Yeah, taking care of carrying our equipment and baggage, and also defending everybody. We can’t thank you three enough for doing this,” Caszcur said with a rare smile.

“We have said this a few times already but please don’t hesitate to ask us if you need something. Even giving my life wouldn’t be enough to repay the debts of our group,” Aksmias offered with a nonchalant smile despite how dark that sounded.

Hey, I’m not some kinda creepy cultist that would ask you to sacrifice your life, dude!

…Although, I might actually act like a cultist, right now.

[“…If that’s the case, then I actually do have a favor that you three would be able to help me with,”] I started out, enticing them to ask what my favor was.

"YOU DO!" Apsala shouted out, bursting out with a face that looked like she was about to get a cookie. "Tell it to me then, little one! Whatever it might be, allow me to fulfill it as a way to thank you and also Kargryxmor. Oh, our luck has certainly turned around since you arrived, little one.”

One of the consequences of having my identity as a dragon known to everybody was people like Apsala, a follower of Kargryxmor, who were naturally excited about being in the presence of a dragon. I thought she didn’t think much of it despite knowing about it, but it seems she was showing her true colors now.

…What would happen if I told her that I was a descendant of Kargryxmor? I mean I do have his blood if the title wasn’t false…you know what, let’s keep this to myself.

“Well, Hestia? Spit it out, already. Anything you need, I’ll do it,” Caszcur stated, fully willing to repay his debts.

[“Awesome to hear! So, I want you guys…,”] the three lizardmen bent their necks, drawing them close to me, not wanting to miss a single sound. [“I want you guys to become my followers.”]

“““HUH?!”””

A note from AbyssRaven

Will Hestia get more followers or will this be the start of a comedic scene. Find out next time on "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale"!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 61: The Importance of “Followers”.

A note from AbyssRaven

Hey everybody, I just wanted to apologize for the extremely late release. I recently had to do something for my bachelor thesis which required my full attention, preventing me from concentrating on writing the story.

However, I've now some free time until I have to write my bachelor. There are still a few more days until the month's end, so I'm planning to make it up to everybody for my mistake. I'll be ramping up the release of chapters until the end of the month to make it up to you guys for not only the slow releases but also this 4-5 day wait from the last one.

Thank you guys, for sticking up with me here. Hope you guys enjoy this chapter. ^^

I usually update you guys on discord so come join it: Rawr

“You want us to do what now, little lady?!”

[“I want you three to become my followers,”] I answered Caszcur’s question.

“Followers…?” Apsala stopped for a moment, thinking about my request. “Little one…you told me that you weren’t a priestess of Aurena, right? And you also know that I’m a Kargryxmor follower so isn’t asking this a bit redundant?”

It seems like there was a misunderstanding when I told them to become my “followers”…actually, maybe there wasn’t one? I mean, technically, I am asking them to become affiliated with Aurena due to the origin of [Fan Overview] and [The Light].

[“No, that’s not what I meant. I mean that you become my followers, not Aurena or Kargryxmor or any other god,”] I responded, making the lizardmen even more confused. [“Ok, truth be told, I have an ability that grows stronger and stronger, the more ‘followers’ I have. You don’t actually have to do anything besides…well, I also am not really sure what you’re supposed to say. The skill is still quite mysterious to me, its owner.”]

Both Saori and Tasianna became my followers when they simultaneously got [Hestia’s Retainer], while I’m not sure how Rajah and his family did it. Was there some sorta ritual or a specific phrase that they have to say?

“…Little one, although I’m not quite sure what you’re even talking about, you should know that we lizardfolk take our religion seriously. The tribes that we three came from have a history of being Marsven worshippers,” Apsala said in a troubled tone. “Yes, some of us worship Kargryxmor but that is because of our culture. The once renowned dragon that was known throughout the world ascended to godhood through his strength alone. This ideal helped us stay strong through our harshest time, that perseverance and courage would bring us fortune…and it has, in you, Hestia.”

Apsala cast her head down, crestfallen as she continued speaking while tucking her tail between her legs, "You want us to become your 'followers' so it may make you stronger, and nothing would make me happier than to be able to help you but…I-I can't do that. It feels like I would abandon my faith if I did. My faith has brought me both happiness and sadness but without it, I wouldn't have been able to keep my sanity through these trials and tribulation."

…I honestly didn’t think about that. I knew that these lizardmen were religious, but I never had the feeling that they were that faithful about it. I wasn’t trying to make them convert or anything, but it seems I underestimated the meaning of a “follower”.

I’m not religious myself, neither in this life nor in my past. Despite knowing that gods actually existed in this world, I never wanted to worship them or anything, merely thinking of Kargryxmor as my super old grandfather and Aurena as a benefactor.

However, being stubborn about what you believe in is something I can respect, as my dream would have died a long time ago if I had given up on it the moment it got hard. There is no need to force her to do it if she didn't want to. I wanted [Venerated Saintess] but it wasn’t a must.

“As my tail is my witness, I’m so sorry, little one. Argh, I have insulted the God of Dragons and Oaths by not being able to fulfill my debt to you,” Apsala apologized wholeheartedly, completely inconsolable as she fell on the ground and held up her tail. “I-I offer my tail up for breaking this oath, and in the name of Kargryxmor I shall cut it off to repent.”

WHAT?!

[“Miss Apasala, please you do not have to go that far!”] Saori shouted, attempting to calm the crazy lizardwoman down.

["HEY! Listen to Saori, Apsala. Who fucking cares about that little favor anyway?! Don't fucking maim yourself just 'cause of me,"] I also shouted, rushing over to her side to take her hand away from her tail.

“Little one, let go of me, this has to be done. I’ve shamed my faith by my own selfishness,” Apsala pleaded, tears flowing from her eyes as she helplessly tried to remove my hand.

[“What do you mean you’ve shamed your faith, huh? Heilige scheiße, I was merely asking you for a simple favor, not a holy quest,”] I said frantically, not understanding what’s gotten to her.

["Miss Apsala, please you must calm down. Think about what you are trying to do here. If you were to cut your tail here then you would undoubtedly ignore Lady Hestia's wish once again,"] Saori remarked.

Her words seemed to have an effect as Apsala was visibly worried about it, “I-I would?”

[“Yes, yes! She is the one who asked you to not do it, so please stop,”] Saori continued. [“Isn’t that right, Tasianna? Lady Hestia asked her to not cut her tail, right?”]

“Uh, y-yes. Madam Apsala, nobody would be satisfied if you were to sever your tail, especially if you did it because you couldn’t help Lady Hestia. She would feel guilty,” Tasianna uttered, albeit hesitant at first.

Looking at Caszcur, Aksmias, and Tasianna and how they were just standing around and not doing anything despite how loud Apsala was shouting that she was about to maim herself, made me slightly flabberghasted. Admittedly, it doesn't seem like she had the strength to cut nor was there any sharp objects to help her, but just the thought counted.

Saori words seemed to have hit Apsala, as the hand she was using to tear mine away slowly lost strength and went limp. As the two of us tried to comfort her, I couldn't help but question what even happened just now.

Apsala tried to cut her tail, her two companions didn’t even try to stop her, and Tasianna was even hesitating to even help before Saori called her out. It felt…I feel like there was some kinda disconnection between us two and them.

Noticing that the other lizardmen were slowly becoming louder, I decided to ask Tasianna or Caszcur about the issue later on, [“Enough, forget about what I just said, alright? Let’s just go, we’re holding everybody up.”]

With that, our trip with the lizardmen began. I’ve already noticed it during the rescue mission but the lizardmen really were adept with moving through a swamp, barely being affected by the water that went up to their knees.

To not be slowed down, Saori and I had to be creative about it and move along the trees if the water was too deep. The lizardmen were taller than us so if the water went up to their knees, then it would go up to Saori’s hips. I was even shorter than her so my belly area would get submerged if I weren’t on a tree.

As we wandered at a relatively good pace, Saori and I talked with Tasianna about what just happened this morning, wanting to know her PoV, first.

Tasianna firstly apologized to us before telling us that she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do there. Although she did find it a bit extreme she thought she had to respect it, as she mentioned that she was doing it for her god.

After questioning her a bit further, she told us that some of the gods are pretty strict about certain tenets. Plesia, the Water Goddess, was not only the chief goddess but she was also known to govern over order, honor, and tradition.

Despite being an extremely generous goddess to her followers, she was known to show disastrous consequences if they were to dissatisfy her extremely.

She thought this was the case with Kargryxmor. As a god who presided over dragonkins and oaths, she thought what Apsala was trying to do was just normal. She thought that it was something a follower from Kargryxmor would do to atone.

As she knew that I had no idea about the gods and that I wasn't interested in them until yesterday, she never thought it was important to mention it. She explained that the god a person chooses to follow usually was a good indicator of that person's personality.

Races that have a patron god usually worship theirs regardless of their disposition, however, whoever they chose to worship next was usually considered their primary god. Tasianna was a fairy so growing up as a Zephira believer was normal. By becoming also Plesia's, she made it clear that she valued her tenets.

[“I equally pray to Zephira and Plesia every night, but I consider myself more a water mage than a wind one,”] Tasianna admitted, telling us that she felt much closer to other Plesia worshippers than Zephira’s. [“Our ideology and values coincide, I believe.”]

In a way, this explained why she was so distraught about not being punished for her mistake, blaming herself for being the real reason why her last mistress died. Not only was it her honor and pride as a maid, but also her religious belief that made it hard for her to understand why nobody was willing to condemn her for her mistake.

Having that explained to me helped me understand the situation a bit better, knowing that my feeling of disconnect wasn't wrong. People in this world were religious, knowing that an actual god was overseeing them above the blue skies, so I guess people would be more careful to follow certain religious rules.

I mean, Earth’s history has shown time and time again that religion could be extremely manipulative, being able to cause hate and war. Just looking at the many crusades was enough to convince you about that.

It shouldn’t be surprising that something like that might also be applicable to this world.

Sigh, guess this whole “follower” stuff is harder to do than I thought. I should rethink all of this before attempting it again…

Eventually, the sun went down, and it was nighttime. Even in our rush, it wasn't a smart choice to travel while it's dark. Everybody needed sleep and it was better to rest now, so we can continue moving without any problems tomorrow.

After unpacking everything, the lizardmen immediately went into work mode, showing a surprising amount of energy despite having to walk for the whole day with only a few breaks. I also thought 'cause lizardmen were cold-blooded, like normal reptiles, that they would feel less energetic when winter was right over the corner, but it seems I wasn’t completely correct.

“No idea what you mean with ‘cold-blooded’ and ‘warm-blooded’ but if you want to know why, then I guess our bodies got used to it,” Caszcur answered, who was teaching me about proper woodworking. “Sure, it is cold with these rags but we gotta live with it. It doesn’t get as cold where we come from, but cold winter visited us every year like most other places. Shouldn’t you be more worried? You’re shivering in that simple dress.”

Activating [Body Temperature Control] I regulated my body heat back to normal to avoid shivering, making a “seeee?” face, afterward. While it might be effective, this was still only a temporary solution to my freezing problem.

The temperature was sinking and so was my body’s. It might not be a lot, but I was feeling chilly nonetheless and without reheating my body, my senses were getting duller the longer I stayed like this. I guess a fire dragon would feel less comfortable the colder it got, huh?

Understanding that it would be inefficient to continue using my skills to warm up, I took out the pelt of a [Rock-Skin Horned Grizzly] that I killed a month after I met Saori. While I would be around its size as a dragon, as a dragonewt it was so huge that I could completely cocoon myself with it.

Deactivating [Body Temperature Control], I wrapped myself with the pelt and dropped my “seeee?” face to change it to an exhausted one, [“Ok, yeah, I’m not doing too well with the cold, brrrr!”]

“Yeah, winter truly is a test for every young scale. I’m sure you’ll have no problems but be careful, alright? Many never survive theirs to reach adulthood,” Caszcur said, showing concern for my health.

[“If something crazy doesn’t happen then everything will be alright. Still…thanks. I appreciate it,”] I said with a small smile, accepting his concerns with gratitude. [“How about the other kids? You guys have it harder than me, so shouldn’t you be more concerned about them?”]

“Ahahaha,” bursting out in laughter, the tall lizardmen gently patted my head while responding. “They might be young, but I think this experience has hardened them. They still are a bunch of hot-headed krill eaters, but I think we won’t lose anybody this winter. Right, little lady?”

Understand what he meant with that smirk, I swiped his hand off my head with a chuckle, [“Shut it, you’re gonna jinx us if you continue thinking that it’s an absolute. It’s still a long way, you know? Anyways, enough of that, you told me you would teach me how to properly do these bowls so come on, let’s do it already.”]

"Ha, you got it, little lady! Leave it to this old scale to repay you back with these free lessons," Caszcur slammed his chest with his fist before taking out one of his woodworking knives and a log.

As the whole “become my follower” thing failed, the lizardmen trio were visibly worried that they might have ruined any chances to repay the debt. Crazy pessimistic, right?

Anyways, as I didn’t want to get back to that question before knowing how to handle it, I instead asked Caszcur to show me how to properly woodwork. Considering that he did criticize my bowls and utensils, I thought I should use this chance to learn how to do it properly. Our party’s eating comfort relied on my creation and if I can make better ones to make our dinners better, then so be it.

Saori went with the lizardwomen to cook our dinner for tonight, wanting to learn some lizardmen cuisine. She said something like, "Learning about another culture's cuisine is one of the joys of traveling. I'll not let this chance go by!".

Apparently, the lizardmen had a trick where they could soften hard, sun-dried fish for dinner. From what little that I heard, you put any dried fish into a mixture of forest herbs and muddy water and boiled it over a flame. The herb oils would mix with the fish while the muddy water would slow down the cooking process of the fish.

As her plan was to learn about these herbs, Saori went with them. While it might not be very useful for us as we can just put them into mine or Saori’s storage, knowledge was nothing to scoff about. Also growing more herbs in my future garden would be fun.

As Tasianna wanted to join her, I was left without a translator. While it was hard to understand everything, I learned from my previous mistake and had my parallel minds remember numerous amounts of words that Tasianna translated for me.

While it took a while to respond, I was able to do it, slowly learning Common tongue. Still, regardless of how many words I’ve been able to learn, I still haven’t mastered it yet.

“You see how my knife is hiertunlut? Cut the bowl like this while keeping your hands still and precise. Control your strength and just let your claw slide around,” Caszcur explained.

“Hiertunlut?” I asked aloud, unsure what that word meant.

“You didn’t understand it?” I nodded to his question, prompting him to think about it. “Hmm, dammit. Words aren’t my specialty; I just know which to use. Hmm, sorry, I can't figure a definition, little lady. Just follow my movements, and you'll get an idea of what 'hirtunlut' means. That's how I learned the word, and you're smart enough to figure it out, I figure."

With that said, he began cutting the bowl into shape, finely rounded any edges while keeping cutting to a minimum. While I observed his movements, he also patiently continued repeating the word “hiertunlut” to help me interpret it, which was a success after I finally understood that it meant “angled”.

While I was celebrating my success, I quickly learned that it was only a minor victory when the lizardmen were finished setting the camp up. Aksmias and a few lizardmen artisans and builders joined our little woodworking session as they also wanted to help me get better with my craft.

While my heart felt fuzzy and my tail couldn’t stop waggling due to their hospitality, I also was overwhelmed when the lizardmen started speaking among themselves, analyzing my every move and giving feedback to them. While most would find this unnerving, I thought that it was sweet of them to put this much effort into it.

However, what actually made me anxious was that I couldn’t understand most of the words they said. Sometimes I couldn’t differentiate between a lizardman idiom or a Common tongue word, while other times I questioned if certain accent-heavy words were just growling or not. It was so nice of them…but it doesn’t help if 50% of the comments sounded more like bestial howls.

Acquisition requirement fulfilled.   [Handicraft Lv. 1] acquired

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Woodworking Lv. 2] evolved into [Woodworking Lv. 3]

“Oooh, you’re showing some fantastic talent there, lass,” a lizardman artisan said, praising me for the bowl that I made under their supervision.

“Mhmm! This is better than most of the stuff the young scales at the tribes can make. Quality-wise it’s still ok but this is enough for me to allow an apprentice to sell it,” another said, inspecting the cut marks.

“It certainly looks better than your old ones, little lady,” Caszcur laughed, slapping my back in congratulations.

[“Oof, jeez, don’t slap my back that hard. I’m still a girl, you forgot?”] I chided Caszcur, giving him a stink eye in the process.

“A female? Ahhh, stop yanking my tail with that krill eater act. You’re the sturdiest scale-kin among us artisans, and whether you’re a female or male, it doesn’t matter. A lass that can’t take that sort of slap wouldn’t be able to survive the swamps of our tribes,” Caszcur waved my girlish act away, unimpressed of it.

Urgh, getting criticized for acting like a normal girl…

He was right that acting like that wasn't needed at all. It was an unnecessary way to attract attention that I shouldn't use anyway. Still, while it was redundant, acting like that does make me feel better as it would show that I still had some sense of a normal girl inside me, despite how much I’ve changed.

Getting no reciprocation for my act did make me feel a bit insecure about myself, but maybe it’s just a racial thing? Maybe lizardmen valued strength and valor more in their women? Showing false vulnerability that didn’t reflect the amount of power I had could also be interpreted wrongly by them, for all I knew.

Well, whatever.

[“So, what’s your opinion on the bowl?”] I asked Caszcur, ignoring what just happened.

"Hmmm," Caszcur laid a hand on his chin, scratching it as he carefully inspected every single angle. "You still put a bit too much force into your swipes which makes everything a bit inaccurate. Here, look. You can clearly see where you began your cuts and how a small dent is left behind. I’m pretty sure you would do better with a knife, but you’ve gotten so used to using your claws to cut that it would be bad to change now.”

Digesting the criticism everybody gave me, our little group of artisans continued creating small wooden creations. While most of it was giving me tips on what wood would make good dishware, what technique I should use, and what other objects I should make to improve my skills; there were also some moments where the lizardmen had a quarrel about conflicting ideas.

“You skink, we’re here to repay our debt to her and you’re trying to teach her some outdated technique? I’ll cut your tail before that happens!”

"Krrrrashu! This is something my workshop mastered, and we've been selling our wares in the grand clan village for multiple years now! I'm trying to teach the young scale something that I would never show an untalented krill eater like you!”

“Mastered? You try to fool our tails, huh? The last time I saw you there, I’m pretty sure you were begging people to buy your stuff, ha ha ha!”

Hearing all that makes me kinda wish I could visit that place one day…but depending on how large this continent was, that might be a bit too hard and time intensive.

Despite the rowdy noises, I still much enjoyed and benefited quite a lot from their lessons, feeling like I could breakthrough to [Woodworking Lv. 4] without needing to spend SP.

After everybody started leaving for dinner, I quickly collected any finished bowls so I could join them.

However, before I was about to go, Caszcur stopped me, “Hey, little lady, can I speak with you for a moment?”

Turning around, I answered yes to the tall lizardmen, prompting him to continue, “You remember what happened this morning? About that whole follower stuff?”

[“Huh, that? Caszcur, I already told you that it was fine. No need to bring that topic back up,”] I said, in response to his sudden questions.

“Nah, see…I’m alright with becoming one…one of you followers, I mean,” he said, scratching his head nervously.

Caught off-guard by this, I made a bewildered “huh?” before speaking, [“Wait, wait, why would you want to do that, huh? Weren’t you against it when I asked about it this morning? You just stood still like a statue, as if you were petrified by the very idea of becoming one!”]

“What the hell is that sorta imagination!”Caszcur shouted, scolding me for what I just said. “I didn’t answer because that question came out of nowhere! Do you really think somebody could think properly and give you an answer after you said, ‘Become my followers.’, huh!?”

After letting ourselves cool down a bit, Caszcur once again brought up the topic, "I gave everything a thought and I made up my mind that it wouldn't be that bad. You said to only become a follower so your skill can evolve, right? Well, who am I to disagree with my lifesaver about fulfilling a favor?"

[“But what about your belief? Shouldn’t Apsala’s reasoning also work with you?”] I asked, still remembering what Tasianna and Apsala told me.

“My tribe are Marsven followers, so I had to become one, too. I never had a choice on that matter,” Caszcur remarked. "I never really was religious, to begin with. It's just too much of a bother when it doesn't help me better my craft, after all. But I still did it because it was part of being a tribe, a family."

Casczur let out a sigh in exasperation, clearly annoyed at what he was about to say, “I asked Apsala about it and she made a big fuzz, explaining that it wouldn’t be right to do it due to my duty to Marsven. Eventually, she did relent telling me that I technically didn’t have a second god yet and that she also wasn't part of my tribe, so she had no authority to stop me if I really wanted to.”

[“Do you really?”] I asked.

"Well, I heard that the Earth Goddess, Crustacia, was also a Goddess of Craftsmanship so I actually planned to have her as my second god, but there also wasn't a rule that I couldn't have three gods that I could pray to," Caszcur responded. “Well, you aren’t a goddess but I guess this ‘follower’ thing might be bit similar.”

Remembering what I heard from Tasianna, any person may pray to as many gods as they wanted to. The gods see no problem in a person praying to all gods as in the end results, the gods are receiving that person’s prayer anyways.

Tasianna told me that the elven culture, more specifically speaking, the high elven culture promoted polytheism. Some elves chose to stick with one while others could choose how many they wanted to. It was all allowed.

If the gods see no fault in it, then technically we mortals shouldn’t also.

[“Still, what made you so willing about it? Just ‘cause I said that nothing big will happen doesn’t mean you should believe me on it. I’m not the greatest liar but I also don’t hesitate to do it when I have to,”] I admitted, remembering that I have made excuses to keep my two friends unaware about a few of my personal issues.

"Sure, you want me to count them up for you?" once I nodded, he continued. "You saved the lives of my scale-kins without any payment. You agreed to come with me on that rescue mission. You rescued me and our lost scale-kins from those terrors, and you also re-attached my arm. We didn’t start out well, especially concerning those virigresses, so everything you’ve done for me and my scale-kins wasn’t something we deserve. Despite also knowing how we treated them and that we were the ones that chased them away, you still were willing to stick around.”

…Hearing everything I’ve done for them really puts stuff into perspective. I really was a bit too nice to the people who chased away Rajah’s family! I better confront them about this later!

“We haven’t told you anything about how lizardmen tribes worked, but a chief is usually chosen due to their strength. Not only are you the strongest among us but you’ve also shown the leadership needed for one,” Caszcur said before bowing, placing one hand on the ground and the other on the chest. “There really is no reason for me not to accept, right?”

[“…Sigh, ok, let’s do it,”] I said, throwing my arms in the air in defeat. [“Let’s not make much of a deal out of it, but I really have no idea how this will work out so how do you…huh?”]

[Krokus Lizardman, Caszcur] has become your follower

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atsuko]: 7

“Hmm? What is it?” Caszcur asked, oblivious of the fact that he just became my follower.

What just happened?!

[“Well, congratz Caszcur, you just became my follower…somehow,”] I stated with slight confusion.

“That happened? Weird, it feels nothing changed for me but…I guess that’s fine,” he expressed with a shrug. “At the end of the day, if it benefits you then whatever. Never expected anything to change anyways.”

[“…Yeah…but I still have no idea how that happened, though? There has to be a reason for why the System gave me the message now, right?”]

As I mulled for a reason, Caszcur placed his hand on my head and patted it, “Come on, little lady. I think you’re thinking too hard about it now. There is a dinner waiting for us, so leave the thinking for later, ha ha ha!”

With that said, he slowly walked towards the center of the camp where our dinner would be held. Noticing that my stomach was growling, I gave my parallel minds the duty to think over it while I refueled our body with food.

The night is cold and eating some good food will warm me back up again.

A note from AbyssRaven

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 62: The Rhythm of the Wandering Scale-kins.

A note from AbyssRaven

A cheery song this time so take this: Rawr

[“Ok, everybody, repeat after me,”] I said before taking a deep breath to sing. “Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do ♫”

“““Kro Kre Kri Scha Scho Sla Kri Kro!”””

Hmm, this seriously reminded me of the time I tried to sing when I just got [Humanization]…how nostalgic.

Morning has come and my party and the lizardmen’s group continued traveling through the rainforest part of the Belzac forest, with our goal to escape it. As we started moving at around dawn, it slowly became clear around noon that the lizardmen were getting hungry, so we decided it was best to just take a break and eat.

Compared to our dinner last night, we didn't have the time and set-up to feed up the large lizardmen group with a freshly cooked meal. Usually, the lizardmen would take out their rations of sun-dried fish and eat them as they rested their weary legs…but that wasn't necessary with us.

Knowing that this would happen, last night I had everybody cook another batch for lunch. Putting the piping hot meal in my storage, I was able to keep everything warm, allowing the lizardmen to enjoy a relaxing lunch instead of boring fish.

Dinner and lunch did come out of our own pocket, so our storage didn’t look too super after treating the lizardmen for what was equal to two dinner servings, large enough to feed 50 people. It was our winter savings but as we already planned to arrive in elven land before the snow came down on us, we thought that it would be best to keep everybody full during this tiring trip.

After we were done eating, the lizardmen decided that they would hunt for our meals for tonight. Leading hunting parties, Caszcur, Aksmias, and Saori went ahead to fish and hunt in the short time that we had until we needed to move.

While they were doing that, Apsala, Tasianna, and I were moving with the non-combatants to gather any edibles, spices, and herbs.

We would meet up at our rendezvous spot after the sun moved to a certain spot in the sky.

During this gathering session, some of the lizardmen kids asked me about the promise that I made them; that I would give them an idol concert.

As the word “idol” didn’t exist, they couldn’t understand what I truly meant with it even through [Telepathy]. They thought it was a fancier word to call a ritual dancer, somebody who would sing and dance to show their reverence to their gods.

They pestered me about giving a religious dance to please Kargryxmor, forcing me to clearly explain to them what I actually meant. They look displeased for a moment until they asked me to perform a ritual dance anyways, something that I had to shoot down immediately.

To appease them, I was now showing them what an idol truly was. I might not be able to show them a real show, but a simple demonstration was enough to sparkle their interests. Some of the adults also were curious about it.

Due to how I sang during the feast two days ago, everybody already knew that I was able to sing well…just that they were confused about my song lyrics. They complimented everything about it, from the way that I sang, that the music that I was able to reproduce was extremely fitting, and that they still liked my songs despite not understanding the lyrics.

I guess that was similar to how non-Koreans and non-Japanese still loved listening to anime songs and K-Pop even when they had zero knowledge of the language. All you needed was the rhythm to jump-start your heart, I say.

As I continued singing, some of the lizardmen began forming an interest and started imitating me, trying their best despite their untrained voices. I also helped them train their voices, but it seems they weren't serious about practicing.

It was fine, though. They were clearly having fun and that is was singing is, no? You sing under the shower ‘cause you feel like it, not ‘cause you’re a vocalist or opera singer, after all. When you hear something good, something that can pep you up, you hum it unconsciously just for funsies.

“Elder Apsala, is this the herb you needed?” as I was grabbing some fruits, I overheard a lizardman kid talking with Apsala.

“Hmmm, yup! Good work, young scale,” praising the kid, Apsala rewarded him with a pat on the head. “Don’t forget to take all of the roots, too. They soak in a lot of the earth’s bounty and mana, making them even better than the herb itself.”

“Yes, elder scale!” he said energetically before sprinting back to where he collected the herb.

"Elder scale, we found a lot of mushrooms over here. We can't pick all of them up!" a lizard girl cried out, huffing from running.

“Mushrooms! Good, we can make a grand mushroom stew for tonight! Scale-kins, we need to help the young scales!” another older lizardwoman shouted, calling for everybody to join in on the mushroom pickings.

Steeeeeeeeew!

Tasianna, knowing that I absolutely adore any kinda stews, flapped her wings like a hummingbird and flew in the direction that the mushrooms were. Also wanting to fill up my storage even more with food, I rushed collecting all the fruits from a tree and hurried over to help everyone.

“Hestia, some of the bags are full! Can you put them in your magic box?” Slazzaila, the eldest of the quintuplets spoke, carrying bags filled with our harvest with her four siblings.

Nodding, I took everything from their hands and slowly placed the harvest in my [Storage Magic].

“This looks so weird! It’s like a hole in the air, wow!” the second sibling, Nixliel, said. "Magic looks so fun! Can you teach me some of it later on, Hestia, please? I want to be as useful as you and the elder scales!"

“Huh? Elder scale-sister Nixliel, we already planned to participate in Hestia’s ‘ritual dancing’ training. We can’t change that,” the fourth sibling, Yonzecla, insisted on sticking with my idol sessions. “I want to sing, and dance like her. I can be like the shamans and priestesses back in our swamps!”

"You can learn how to sing, later on, elder scale-sister. Elder scale-sister Nixliel is right, instead of wasting time on being ritual dancers, we should learn magic and how to be a warrior from Hestia,” the youngest sibling and only boy, Yutzallas, said, arguing that it would benefit them more to learn how to fight. “All the elder scale warriors are gone. We need to become warriors so we can protect our scale-kin friends!”

“Shut up Yutzallas and help Hestia put the food in. If you want to learn how to fight then just ask the elder scales already,” the middle sibling, Asansda, grumpily replied while helping me unpack the food from the bags.

It might be true that the kids have become calmer ever since their friends and acquaintances returned but it seems each of them had their own ways to cope with it losing their parents. In general, over this year that they had to stay together due to their enslavement, the lizardmen group has pretty much become a giant family.

They grieve for every single one of their members, and it's even worse when somebody precious to them died. All of the kids that are currently with us are orphans, having lost their parents and maybe one or two blood relatives on the way. The quintuplets are just the most recent ones.

While the other kids adapted by clinging with certain adults, looking up to them as a replacement to their actual parents, the quintuplets would follow me around wherever I went, if they were allowed to.

It was honestly adorable but also a bit depressing. Well, I enjoyed their company and they helped me learn more words so that helps.

Hmm, I’m up for a song, again.

.

“You guys are good kids ♫

Staying strong in this forest ♫

Picking yourself up, not crying aloud, despite the hardships ♫

You’re making them feel proud ♫

I bet they’re watching ♫

Just do you best, don’t let yourself down, and it’s gonna be all alright ♫

.

Don’t push yourself too much ♫

Just live on ♫

We can do it all ♫

Believe it ♫

.

Don’t you dare give it all up ♫

I’ll push you to your limits ♫

I can sympathize with you ♫

Trust me, we’re strong together ♫

.

Come on, stand up up ♫

Let’s go, let’s go oh oh ♫

Who do you think we are, eh? ♫

That’s right, scale-kins! ♫

Come on, stand up up ♫

Let’s go, let’s go oh oh ♫

I can see that light in your eyes ♫

We will never give up♫”

.

Playing and singing something that just came out of my head was quite fun but what made it even better was that the quintuplets were clapping, smiling as they seemed to have liked the song.

“Hestia, what did you just sing? Why can’t you sing it in Common tongue? I want to know what you sang. Your voice is so calming,” Yonzecla spouted out like a machinegun.

[“He he, sorry but I’m still learning the language. I can only sing in the language where I come from, but I’ll get Tasianna to help me translate it so I can sing it later on for you,”] I replied, promising the tall lizard girl while feeling super proud.

It is a half-truth. English wasn’t a language in the Belzac forest, my place of birth, but it technically came from my soul’s origin.

“Really! Oh yes, thank you! Are you also teaching me how to sing, too?” she further asked.

[“Leave it to me, Yonzecla,”] I said, bumping my fist on my chest. [“Kyaaaaaah! I can’t wait! I can’t wait! It’s so awesome to meet another music enthusiast! I’ll show you the true brilliance of an Idol, I promise!”]

Jumping and shrieking like two excited girls, this sight could also be called a tail whipping event. We were so overwhelmed by the individual excitement that we weren't able to control our tails. While it was ok for Yonzecla to wag her tail, having mine do it could be disastrous so thankfully nobody was behind me…that couldn't be said about the tree which was behind me who had most of its trunk cut and sliced off.

While my time with the lizardmen had it’s up and downs, I am honestly glad that I’ve met them just for this reason. She’s not technically a fan yet but having fun like this was worth it. It reminded of my time with my ex-friends on Earth, before we started to drift away from each other.

Speaking of “fans”, I’ve sorta tried to make them into my “followers” after the System registered Caszcur as one of mine. He didn’t say anything besides wanted to become one but it still didn’t give me a conclusive idea for how somebody can become a “follower”.

If I wanted to have [The Light] continue growing then I first have to find out what the requirements are to increase the number.

As a test, I told the kids about it without giving them any details, telling them that it was to become my “fans”, however that failed. Most of the kids were receptive to the idea and wanted to become "fans" but that didn’t do anything for my counter.

I also went ahead and held a little singing performance in the morning, trying my best to impress them with my voice. I could hear the clapping and, boy, did that nearly make me want to open the floodgates and just cry out loud, but I was still reserving that moment for the idol concert that I was promising them.

Regardless, it didn’t change anything. Just considering how much Yonzecla has been warming up to me is making me really question what I’m supposed to do about it. What was the difference between Caszcur’s and Yonzecla’s cases?

I helped both of them with some kinda request, just like in an RPG to gain an NPC's favor, while treating them to something amazing that made them like me even more. If this really were a game then I would be at my wit's end, complaining at the developer team that I believed it was a bug, trying to search the internet for an answer but…this was real life…

There is always that Idol performance. I don’t know if Aurena knows about it, but she did imply something about my idol stuff, so maybe an Idol concert might work?

Of course, that didn’t explain Caszcur nor the virigress family, but thinking about it was getting harder and harder. As I didn’t want to scare them off by telling them the real truth, I had to go back to the planning board to figure this strange title out.

After an hour of gathering, the hunters eventually made it back with a shit ton of fish and a couple of games. As the fish around here were practically monsters, they also had mass to boot so that meant more food!

After packing everything in my storage we continued moving forwards, determined to make decent progress for the day and find a spot where we could have another great feast. While packing everything was already a hassle, doing the reverse was even worse as I pulled everything out at the same time.

Losing 10% of my mana in literally 2 seconds felt as if somebody was forcibly trying to pull out an organ from inside my body. This not only included the food but also everything else from our camp.

In any case, the mushroom and meat stew with grilled fish was amazing and definitely filled everybody up. It was also good to know that we had enough leftovers which we could use for tomorrow’s lunch.

Hunting and gathering for our food with Tasianna and Saori was already fulfilling but doing it with a giant group like this was extra fun. “The more the merrier”, definitely is correct.

Once dinner was finished, some of the lizardmen suggested doing some hunting and gathering during the night. As it seemed likes the lizardmen still had the energy to do more for the day and more food wouldn't hurt, we decided on sending only a small group with Saori to go out.

It was evening, after all, so moving away from light was in itself just foolish. If the party was small enough, then Saori could protect everybody easily using her spells and [Shadow Armament].

We still needed somebody to protect the whole group and my [Sanctuary] was perfect for the job. Tasianna also wasn’t confident in herself that she would be able to lead a group into the forest so she’s staying with me in the camp.

After seeing Saori off, I went to the kids to give them some singing practice. Explaining the basics that I learned from my own teacher, I quickly gave them a rundown on how our vocal cords worked.

While I technically didn’t know if lizardmen vocal cords were the same, I do know that they were a muscle. Caszcur’s hoarse and Aksmias’ gentler voices were the perfect comparison that I needed to be sure about my theory.

While the lizard kids were trying their best to follow my instructions, I also had Tasianna try to translate my new song. Using it as an opportunity for another language lecture, she insisted that I help her with it while I was coordinating the kids.

Thankfully, I have become pretty adept with multi-tasking so doing this was no problem.

“Hestia, my voice is starting to hurt,” one of them complained, pointing a finger at their throat.

[“Ok, take a break and drink some of this tea. Try not to speak and just rest,”] I advised.

“Hestia, my voice just made a weird sound. Did I do something wrong?” another said, massage their throat.

[“Oh, nothing wrong there. You just can’t reach that pitch yet,”] raising my own pitch to demonstrate how it should sound, I continued giving him tips after he knew that nothing was wrong with his voice. [“It takes a while to go up, so keep training. This is something you can’t get better at without continuous practice.”]

The kids weren't terrible, apparently 'cause they had some practice before they became slaves, having sung during rituals and other ceremonies. Expectantly, as they never had to properly sing, their ability to keep up with the rhythm or even intonate their singing voice was amateurish.

We kept up with this until Saori’s group came back as we had to go to bed early for the next day. The next day of travels was pretty uneventful so I and the kids just kept up with the singing practice until evening.

However, once we woke up and continued walking during that day…

[“Woah, this is a massive swamp!”] Saori called out.

Nodding in agreement, I stared at the giant body of water that was standing in front of us. It had the features you would expect from a swamp with countless vegetation ranging from water lilies to overgrown trees with roots submerged underwater. The green surface was only a cover for its depth that at first glance looks like the abyss, showing no signs of the ground.

The water was muddy so it might just be an exaggeration, but it felt like we would have to swim if we wanted to traverse it…all of us, even the tall lizardmen.

This worries me…

"Little one, what do you want to do? All of us are pretty good swimmers so we would have no problem getting over here," Apsala stated, asking me for my opinion on how to proceed.

[“No, no, let’s not. I think it would be better to just go around it, even if it means we are delaying,”] I replied.

“Huh? Why though, fair-scaled one?” Aksmias asked.

“I don’t believe my intuition is completely correct but…,” Tasianna started, looking at us before continuing to speak. “…I believe I can speak for the three of us that we think we might be in danger of that giant beast.”

“You mean that monster that attacked us about a week ago?” Caszcur mentioned. “But we’ve made so much progress up north now from that giant lake where we first saw it. You think it would follow us?”

[“Maybe but I agree with Tasianna and Lady Hestia that we should try to avoid any risks,”] Saori prudently suggested. [“I believe that would be the wisest decision, especially considering that your group has seen their fair share of trouble, lately. Do not worry, our party wishes to hurry up, but we are not willing to put anybody in danger…right, Lady Hestia?”]

Yes, yes, I’m not gonna throw myself into the fire, again. Saori can you please not look like I was willing to jump into every single trouble that I see? I told myself, instead, I simply nodded to reply to Saori’s question.

Honestly, I wasn't joking this time. If there was a chance that we would meet that rank A monster again or not, then I would choose avoidance. I was only a little dragon that hasn't even reached the juvenile stage, yet.

“Well, if that is what you wish then we will-”

[“Stop! Quick, back into the forest, now!”] Saori shouted, before grabbing Tasianna and me.

Carrying me under her arm, Saori continued shouting “follow me!” as she delved deeper into the forest. Not understanding what was going on but knowing that it would be better to stick together, the lizardmen also hurriedly tried their best to keep up with Saori’s high movement speed.

Once we started grouping up the lizardmen naturally wanted to ask what was happening, but they were quickly silenced with a fat “silence” from Saori, who’s eyes were now covered with red mist, a sign that she was agitated.

To further show that something was wrong, Saori was snarling, blemishing her beautiful face with a show of ferocity by baring her fangs like a wolf. While she loosened her grip on us two, she still hadn’t completely let us go, only allowing me enough wriggle room to stand on the ground.

After a couple of seconds of intense concentration, trying to find what was making Saori so anxious, I quickly found out what it was.

Scheiße, how?!

My [Detection Sensor] was finally able to pick up the signals of three individuals entering my detection area at a high speed. They were separated and were moving around in every single direction as if they were searching for something…or maybe someone?

Air Shie-?! Saori?

[“No, Hestia,”] Saori said, stopping me with a short response.

[“Saori, I can build it large enough that it would cover everybody. It would remove any danger that they could find us with sound or smell,”] I suggested.

[“No, Hestia, do you not remember what we found recently? Those magic sensing skills?”] Saori replied, bringing up something that I forgot about. [“‘Who knows?’ I know, but we cannot risk it. They might have not found us last time, but we cannot be sure that these are the same ones.”]

A few days ago, after the three of us rummage through the skill shop, we managed to find a few skills that allowed us to detect magic and mana flow with the help of the System. While we already had a good feel of when magic was being activated, even without any magic circles showing up, it wouldn’t hurt us to expand our sensory skill arsenal.

The problem was that Saori didn't have enough SP to buy it 'cause she didn't come with us to rescue the lost lizardmen, Tasianna was in dire need of expanding her skill set with combat skills while also upgrading the quality of her skills, while I, on the other hand, was saving up until my evolution.

I didn’t know if I would evolve into a B rank after reaching level 30 but the pattern until now suggested that is what would happen. As this was also the rank where I could evolve into a [Young Mana Dragon], I also began thinking that I might not have been very efficient with my SP usage.

I regret nothing, just saying. I survived until now ‘cause of my decisions so it would be idiotic to blame myself for any supposedly “wasted” SP. However, realizing this also meant that I had to start looking at my choices better, especially my evolution.

I wanted to have so many options this time that I would be so overwhelmed by them that I couldn't choose for…uh, about a week or so. What I mean is that I wanted to be sure that I would be able to choose from a wide range of options that would let me tailor my build to Saori's and Tasianna. We were a team now, after all. I had to start thinking like one.

So, to save on SP until I reached level 30, I decided to not buy any of the mana sensing skills, believing that whatever was chasing after me wasn’t in the area.

…well, I regret my frugality!

[“Everyone, please do not say anything at all until we say stop,”] Saori pleaded the lizardmen, knowing that most of them were extremely confused about the situation. [“We might be in trouble if anybody makes a noise.”]

Hearing the nervous voice of Saori seemed to have made everybody understand that the situation was not a joke. Slouching down to make their bodies seem smaller, the lizardmen kept quiet.

With looming terror continuing their search, our group could only silently wait, anxiously wishing that they would just disappear. The signals started to disperse even more, with only a single one moving towards our location.

It was still not a straight line though, moving around and stopping whenever. We were also in the cover of the dense foliage of the trees, so Saori and I were pretty convinced that they won’t be able to find us if everybody kept up their [Stealth].

As seconds passed us by, we finally were able to hear the sound of beating wings, pushing the air around them up and down. Although it was only slightly, I was also able to see leaves falling down, as if somebody blew some air towards.

Verdammt, are they really the same ones?!

With the confirmation that something was flying above us, some of the kids and non-combatants began to shiver as they held onto whatever tools they were carrying. It might not be worth anything as actual weapons but gripping them seems to give them some sense of calmness.

Seeing this, Apsala decided that it would be best to start praying. Putting her hands together, Apsala quietly mumbled, so slowly and quietly that not even Saori’s ears were able to properly catch on.

It makes you wonder to whom she was praying?

[“Miss Apsala, stop! You can’t pray!”] Tasianna, slipping through Saori’s hand quickly flew to stop Apsala from praying.

Hearing this the loud sound of Tasianna’s voice resounding through her head, Apsala did quietly stop her prayers but looked at Tasianna as if she was crazy. Nobody told me yet, but I think stopping somebody’s prayers might not be too polite.

While I wished to continue thinking about that subject, something else was catching my attention…something big.

With the rustling of the tree’s leaves, a reptilian head poked out of them, stretching its long neck as it slowly laid its eyes on us…but most importantly…

…on me.

“E-Enemy!”

““““W-Wyvern!””””

Not being able to hold it in anymore, the surrounding lizardmen started shouting and screaming as they witnessed the four-limbed creature’s full body slowly come into sight.

Looking at the wyvern’s beige and navy-blue scales sent a shiver down my spine, literally, as a visible white mist could be seen being emitted out of its mouth. Its winged forearms had a membrane that was thicker and more elastic than my own that looked more suited to help the slim creature stay airborne.

As more of its body came into view, I was also able to identify two dorsal fins, one situated like a crest on its head and another on its back. The last part that came into view was its tail which had webbing resembling the tail fin of a whale, that it could retract at will.

“Kriiii.” The wyvern growled ready to-!

[“Don’t let it roar!”]

Freeing myself from Saori’s grip and releasing my own wings, I jumped out of the group of lizardmen and began my assault and, hopefully, my escape.

A note from AbyssRaven

Inspiration for that wyvern: Rawr

Also, get your pants ready people because we're about to jump into some dragon, wolf, fairy vs. wyvern action! Can Hestia's fire beat this flying terror, just like she did with the three previous ones, or will grand-papa Kargryxmor finally capture his little dragon whelp?

Find out next time on "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale"!

Also, Hestia's second outfit artwork is finally finished and posted on Patreon. Do you guys want to see how Adventurer/Wandering Idol Hestia would look like? Come join my Patreon: Rawr

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 63: Thundering Roars!

Drifting Snow Wyvern

A wyvern that has specialized itself to its life in the Aviator Peaks by developing strong wings to support aerial battles. Possesses specialized organs that can cool down the air through mana injections, even able to flash freeze water particles to coat itself in a protective icicle mantle. Using speed, sharp talons, and icy winds, this predator scours the air and ground to swiftly end its prey’s life. Rank B

[Humanized (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atsuko]

“Kriiiiii-!”

Wind Blast!

Before the wyvern could scream aloud, I prevented with power blast of wind, slamming its jaw shut.

I can’t let it shout!

At all costs, I couldn’t afford it to shout, otherwise, chances are high that it would be checkmate for us. The monster being a rank B was already disastrous but what would be worse than one B rank monster? Three.

My draconic instincts already knew that they were strong, and I definitely know that we can’t fight all three at once…I don’t even know if I can fight this one alone…

[“Saori!”] using the small opening that I created, I called out to my first companion.

[“On it, Hestia!”] dropping any formality to keep her answer concise, Saori replied, before leading the lizardmen away from the battlefield. [“Apsala, Caszcur, Aksmias, lead everybody away from here! We'll find you guys, so take these and run!"]

Taking some of my bombs from her own storage, Saori shoved them into the lizardmen’s arm after ordering to go.

[“Tasianna!”] in the meantime, my fairy companion made it over to me, already knowing that we had to get serious. [“Wings!”]

Having readied her [Icicle Spike], both of us shot out spells with the sole goal to strip the monster from its wings. Our first victory condition was to ground this flying monster at all cost, it was so essential that if we couldn’t fulfill it then it was game over already.

Having recovered from my initial surprise attack, the wyvern quickly understood our hostility as it swiftly stretched its wings and body. While the wyvern was larger than me, its movements were graceful, leaving little wasted movements as it curved and swerved and slipped through our spells like a slipstream.

Not even giving us a second look, once it found a window of escape in my spell-slinging machinegun, the wyvern turned its body upwards and began digging itself through the tree foliage, fully intending to get back to its comfort area: the sky.

[“Wind Blast!”] activating the wind spell behind me, I blasted my body in the direction of the wyvern. [“Spark Claws!”] using my wings to readjust my body mid-flight, I only barely was able to catch the wyvern by its tail.

Due to the momentum of grabbing it, I was swung forward. Using my tail to pierce a nearby tree, I anchored myself to it to prevent being dragged away by the wyvern. Holding with all my strength, the wyvern desperately struggled to free itself from my grip, losing its balance as it broke branches with its flapping wings.

“Krriiiiiiiaa!”

Verdammt nochmal, its scales are hard!

While it wasn’t as hard as the eye of that [Vellestra Leviathan], it was still quite hard to sink my claws into them. I’m pretty sure if I hadn’t used [Spark Claws], I would have only slightly scratched its carapace.

However, what made everything worse was not only the high-pace battle but also the cold aura that was chilling my bones down, just by being close to it. Thankfully, my unnaturally high body temperature and [Body Temperature Control] conflicted with this cold air, making it bearable for me without freezing off my fingers.

Can’t use fire magic, verdammt! I complained, knowing that anything flashy as a fire spell would risk gaining the attention of the other wyverns.

While causing a forest fire was a problem, using any giant spell that made too much noise was bad, too. I can’t use [Bedrock Blades] to slice it ‘cause they are too noisy and [Banishment Beam] is the definition of a flashy spell.

Sanctuary, yes! Get it on the ground and I can construct it large enough to stop its movement without it being too large!

With a plan settled, I started straining my arms and tail, even more, to pull the wyvern closer to ground. Once my feet were close enough, I used the claws on my feet to dig into the tree.

This short moment finally allowed my parallel minds a break from casting other spells to finally begin activating my buffing spells. While it took a while, every single one was helping me balance out the stat difference between this B rank monster and me, a C rank one.

[“Tasianna, shoot its wings down! Forget about its [Ice Resistance] and just get it down!”] I shouted.

I can’t overpower it. It was impossible using my current form. I had no chance with only 2/3rd of my stats even with all my buffs. The surprise of my sudden actions probably caused it to panic but as it slowly recovered from it, it was quickly making my previous attempt to hold it down, irrelevant.

Arrrrgh, holy hell it’s too strong! I screamed internally as my body was being painfully stretched apart.

Fuck, I’ve no choice! Humanization deactivate!

Activating [Humanization], a mana mist dispersed from my body, covering me and Tasianna in its blue cloud.

“Kraaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” the wyvern cried out in agony.

As I was slowly returning back to my true form, my claws continued growing larger, piercing even further into its flesh. Once I felt my neck was long enough, I moved it outside of the fog and bit the wyvern in its tail.

“Krieeeeeeekraaaaaaa! Kra!” it roared.

“Krueeeeegh!” I screamed

[“Lady Hestia! Winds of the mystical fairy goddess, oh, I plead for your ethereal veil, Air Shield! Falling water from the air, freeze and shield us from the danger of the world, Frozen Shield!”]

“Cold, so so cold!” is what I thought as I released my grip from the wyvern and started falling. At the very moment when I bit into the wyvern’s tail, my [Prediction] warned me that the wyvern’s patience for me has ended, as it was about to launch an attack at me.

However, certain circumstances like having my tail stuck in the tree and having just bitten its tail made it impossible for me to avoid it, forcing my [Draconic Barrier] to take the full brunt of the attack.

Regardless, the wyvern’s larger mass slamming one of its wings at my smaller body was a sure-fire way to knock me completely down.

See me getting hit, Tasianna quickly conjured up [Frozen Shield] to protect me from the fall and [Air Shield] to keep the cold touch of the shield away from me. Very thoughtful, as I was suffering from the intense cold from the wyvern’s attack.

[“Grrrrrgh, this actually hurts. OMG, why the hell is it [Absolute Pain Tolerance] and not nullification or something, argh, fuck!”] I cried out, holding my left arm that was slightly frozen by that wyvern’s attack. I don’t think it reached my bones nor did it freeze any of my muscles, but seeing my crimson scales turning blue immediately made me slice any frozen scales off my body to stop the terrible pain that was coursing through my arm.

Looking up at the wyvern, I saw that its left wing was fully covered in frozen, jagged ice as it began to flap its wing to fly up anew.

No! Quick, stop healing me and shoot something, girls! I cried out to my parallel minds, stopping them from using healing and buffing spells due to the current problem.

As it was about to catch wind, a giant monster leaped onto its back and starting biting into the wyvern's wings, holding itself onto the flailing monster with shadowy long talons.

[“Saori!”] I cried out.

[“Miss Saori!”] Tasianna cried out, too.

[“Yes, hi. Enough, do something about this thing already! I can’t hold onto it without your buffs, Hestia!”] Saori's voice was hurried, struggling to stay on the wyvern’s back.

Oh, right! Sanctuary! Air Shield!

Realizing that the wyvern was grounded as I wanted it to, I materialized a barrier of light just large enough to give us room for our battle but not large enough for the wyvern to fly freely or above the trees.

The [Air Shield] was there to stop any sounds from escaping the fight, giving me back my access to [Draconic Roar], [Terra Wall], and [Bedrock Blades].

No longer having to worry about it calling for its friends made this a bit easier on us but, hopefully, the other wyverns won’t find us anytime soon.

[“Saori, jump off. I can’t hit you with [Synergist’s Oath] when you’re swinging around like that,”] I called out.

Understanding that I might transfer all my buffs on the wyvern, Saori let go of it and jumped on the ground. Finishing the first batch of buffing spells, I transferred them to Saori before redoing it to buff myself.

This is gonna be a rough battle, even after taking its ability to fly, so any advantage then we can gain over it is absolutely necessary. Be it extra stats, ganging up on it…or even some dirty tricks.

I need to buy as much time as possible!

“Grrrrrrr,” Saori snarled.

“Kriiiie ah kraih,” the wyvern let out.

“Kriiiiiee,” I growled.

There was a standstill between the three of us giant animals as we kept an eye on each other, cautious of our opponent's next move. While it did make me nervous that the wyvern wasn’t showing as much hostility as I thought, it did work into my favor that it wasn’t attacking me, allowing me enough time to fully buff myself.

What is it doing? Is it not seeing us as a threat? Calmly standing around, waiting for its companions?

I can’t let that happen!

Once I readied my determination, I invoked magical circles behind me, causing the wyvern to cry out “Kriah! Kriah!” before having to brace for it.

Unfortunately, I do not understand wyvern cries, so this was useless. Relying on my earth spells like [Earth Spears], due to my fear of burning this forest down, I shot at the hesitating wyvern.

Understanding that I was intending to kill it, the wyvern cried out once more before shooting out a breath attack, a very cold breath attack!

Scheiße!

[“Stay behind, Lady Hestia! Falling water from the air, freeze and shield us from the danger of the world, Frozen Shield!”] Tasianna announced confidently.

Seeing the ice shield materializing made me put my hope into Tasianna as Saori delved into the shadows to protect herself.

[“Urgh!”] Tasianna groaned, doing her best to hold the shield upright as she pushed back the stream of cold air.

As I tried to keep my body from freezing, I suddenly heard a loud howl coming from the other side of the shield, and then another pained shriek. Noticing that the icy stream stopped, I immediately took this as my cue to move into action.

The sight of two giant shadow wolves combating the wyvern, fully shrouded in a black veil of [Shadow Armament], while they held it in place using [Shadow Tendrils] kinda made me reminisce a certain ninja video game that I once saw the “Let’s Play” of.

Regardless of that though, it seems Saori used [Shadow Clone] to duplicate herself, creating a fourth combatant for our side. Using the surprise attack to its fullest, she evaded attacks and countered the wyvern, inflicting chip damage with her clone and limited spell arsenal to their fullest potential.

As I ran towards them, I filled my mouth not with saliva but a thick, viscous fluid, which tasted absolutely horrendous, using my mana. Spitting the concentrated ball of venom out of my mouth, seemed to have alarmed the wyvern quite a lot as it knocked its head in my direction the moment I did that.

Its own [Prediction] probably warned it as it quickly reacted by freezing its wings and using them to shield itself. Having no way to enter her body or even touching its skin, my attack was ineffective, but this little distraction gave Saori the opportunity to deal a proper attack.

Enlarging a [Dark Bolt] into a long spear, she and her clone pierced the wyvern’s legs with them, essentially pinning it to the ground. Shrieking once again, the wyvern seemed to have finally had enough of us, immediately flash freezing the air around it, coating itself a thick veil of ice.

Using its newly hardened body, the wyvern used its long forearm wings like sickles, defending itself from my spells, and my melee attempts to land a [Spark Claws] or [Spark Fang] on it. Saori and her clone were also struggling as the wyvern masterfully used its now trident-shaped frozen tail to sweep, stab, and slice any of Saori’s further attempts.

I can use a fire attack now!

Realizing that it had no way to dodge my larger attacks now, I smacked my teeth together to create a spark then added mana to have it grow and surge inside my mouth.

Spark Fire Breath!

An eye for an eye, if you used a breath attack then I should be allowed to use one, too, right? Knowing what was about to happen, the wyvern tried to slam my mouth shut, but it was unable to due to Saori holding its tail back with her mouth.

[Prediction] is warning me?! No, I am fast enough!

Ignoring my trusty skill to focus on dealing damage, I was fully confident that I could make it before its attacked hit me. Opening my mouth, the last thing I saw was the wyvern’s face twisting around and then slamming into mine with a force of a truck.

The next thing I saw were the leaves of the forest burning from a flame pillar, as I then began tumbling on the ground, rolling around before stopping.

Ahhhhh, my head-ahh, cold!

Clutching my head with my forelegs made me notice that a portion of my head felt cold to the touch. The freezing sensation, similar to a brain freeze, that came from that area made me soon realized that I failed my attacks.

[“Lady Hestia, please stand up! You must stand up!”] a voice resounding inside my head, but the sheer headache that I was having made it hard to follow its instruction. It was so bad that I wasn’t the one to hear it but my parallel minds.

Urghhh, dizzy…come on legs!

The next moment, my whole body was sent flying as my sides felt an intense sting that reached down to my stomach.

[“Hestia, heal yourself!”] another voice came into my head which I obediently listened to.

Relying on my parallel minds to identify how to heal myself, I heated up my head and then cast [Major Heal] on my head and sides, releasing me from the aching. This act helped me regain most of my senses back, quickly eyeing that Saori and Tasianna were holding an onslaught of attacks back that was intended for me.

…Bedrock Blade!

Invoking a massive sharp blade of earth from the ground, my assailant had to quickly dodge it mid-flight, uncomfortably flapping its wings inside my [Sanctuary] which restricted most of its aerial ability.

Looking at our opponent, the wyvern, I could see that the spears that Saori had drilled into its legs were still there, but those wounds were bleeding profusely. It also had more blood coming from its tail, probably the area where Saori bit into to hold it back. The last wound was a charred area on its face, most probably the reason for its now enraged state.

[“Thank you, you two. You really saved me there,”] I told my two friends.

[“At yur service, Lady Hestia!”] Tasianna said proudly, still hovering her [Frozen Shield] before me.

[“Good to see you up, Hestia. Now come on, I can see that your ‘dirty trick’ is finally showing its effect,”] Saori pointed out, making me look at the wyvern’s status board to see that it had [Poisoned (Minor)] and [Paralyzed (Minor)].

Ehehe, it worked ~

When I transformed back into a dragon, I quickly injected some venom into its body using my bite. Due to how sudden the battle started; I barely had any time to buff myself nor was I able to realize that I should have used [Toxic Secretion] when I dug my claws into its tail.

Unfortunately, the wyvern quickly knocked my mouth away before I could administer a full dosage.

Thankfully, it’s finally kicking in. I was elated to see the wyverns breathing heavily and struggling to keep itself in the air. The wyvern was finally being serious about this battle and it showed when both of its recent attacks broke through my [Draconic Barrier] and dealt some serious damage to my Health.

So, this is the power of a B rank, huh?

We were keeping it at bay until now only ‘cause we were working as a team, but it seems it wasn’t even going all-in just yet. But with that poison, I have no choice but to end this now!

[“Get ready! Bedrock Blades!”] I told my friends.

Erupting even more earth blades from the ground, the wyvern was forced into the defensive, having to swerve its body through this hellish grinder. Even with the damage and status affliction that we caused it, it still showed its dominance as an aerial fighter, having no problem with dodging while using breath attacks to counter.

[“Not while I’m alive!”] Tasianna proclaimed, shielding me with her floating [Frozen Shield].

[“Take this!”] Saori shouted, throwing one of my poison bombs from her own storage at the wyvern.

Exploding in the air, the wyvern breathed in a huge amount of it which slowed down its movement drastically enough or it to get it by one of my spells.

“Kriii!” groaning, it falling down once it got struck.

[“Close your ears!”] I warned everybody.

Taking in a deep breath, I then roared, further amplifying its intensity with [Draconic Roar] and [Aerokinesis]. The wyvern desperately shielded itself with its frozen wings but looking at the breaking ice, it was only a matter of time before my attack got through.

I can’t hold on! Didn’t get enough air…

Due to how long this fight lasted, the oxygen inside this double dome of [Sanctuary] and [Air Shield] was nearly gone. I can have [Air Shield] prevent sounds to escape it but that also meant that we couldn’t get new air inside, slowly being reduced as the fight got more intense.

My [Sanctuary] was also on the verge of breaking due to the chaos. During the whole fight, the wyvern also made sure to hit my barrier, intending to break free before going apeshit on me. My own spells also hit the barrier, so it was no wonder that the wear and tear almost broke it.

I need to end this now! Any sorta attack could break the barrier right now-WHAT?!

[Prediction] once again exploded to warn me from a new attack directed at me. Realizing that [Danger Perception] was also telling me to stop attacking, I stopped my assault and dodged from my current spot.

As if somebody heard my inner thoughts, something broke through my [Sanctuary] like breaking through glass, nose-diving where I once stood. Noticing that my [Air Shield] also broke, Saori, Tasianna, and I quickly pumped our lungs full with oxygen.

That spell is so useful, but its double-edged sword effect is so annoying, huff, puff.

Once the dust settled, my party’s eyes were looking at the other silhouette who stood next to the injured [Drifting Snow Wyvern]: another [Drifting Snow Wyvern]!

“Kriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeah!” it shrieked angrily.

How did it find us…oh.

As my party wondered how it even knew our position, we breathed in a bit of smoke caused by the burning leaves above us…which happened ‘cause of my botched [Spark Fire Breath]…

[“He he, scheiße…we have a situation now,”] I said anxiously.

[“Less speaking, we need to run now! Our plan failed!”] Saori announced as she began running away.

Knowing that if we struggled this much against one, we couldn’t justify trying to attack both of them at the same time. Fighting one B rank at a time was our party’s current limit…two was not possible when I couldn’t even use all my fire spells.

We don’t know where the third one was and now that one of the wyverns shrieked loud enough that I could probably hear it a couple blocks away, we didn’t have any other options besides to flee.

But the second one didn’t even let us move a few meters as it twisted through the air like a cold tornado, appearing before us before shooting out an [Icicle Spike] at us. Compared to Tasianna’s, this one was indeed quite a bit larger.

Wind Blast!

Casting the spell, I barely managed to change its trajectory to prevent it from hitting one of us. However, the wyvern didn’t leave us any time to decide on our next move as it shot out a stream of ice at us. Using whatever was left of her shield, Tasianna threw it in between us, saving us from an icy shower.

At the same time, Saori once again used [Shadow Dash] to dive into the shadows, appearing behind the second wyvern attack before ambushing it. The attack stopped the stream of ice, leaving us free to support Saori who was struggling to bring the flying beast down with [Shadow Tendrils].

That was when another icy stream came flying behind us, forcing Tasianna’s shield back into action, however, it finally broke from all it has done. Quickly casting [Terra Wall] to protect us, I managed to stop it, but I could see that the ice breath was making quick work out of my wall.

Unable to let this happen, I cast [Earthen Shackles], sending numerous chains towards the wyvern in hope of being able to catch it.

Using whatever strength, it still had, the wyvern flew up in the air, moving its breath with it. I technically could have challenged it with my own but Saori needed my help now, and I can’t waste time with a stupid draconic duel!

Casting an even higher [Terra Wall], I made it block not only the wyvern’s attack but also its sight from me, giving me time to move to the side and cast [Wind Blast] to rocket jump up into the air.

Striking my claws together, a brilliant flame enveloped my claws as I tore the wyvern’s wing membrane into shreds. Unable to hold itself up with only one wing, the wyvern quickly fell, grounded for the meantime.

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Wind Magic Lv. 9] evolved into [Wind Magic Lv. 10]

Skill requirement fulfilled.   [Storm Magic Lv. 1] gained

Skill requirement fulfilled.   [Lightning Magic Lv. 1] gained

Magic gained:   [Aerial Blitz] [Tornado Blast] [Lightning Bolt]

………..Lightning Bolt.

A purple magic circle materialized in my hand as I began falling towards the ground. The crackling of electricity surged around it as a yellow bolt began to form, sizzling the very air as I put in even more mana.

Strange, the casting time is as fast as a wind spell but I can feel its intensity growing, almost as if it was benefitting from my fire strengthening skills!

[“Vaporize into nothingness, Lightning Bolt!”] I shouted out as bolt of lightning was shot out of its magic circle, causing a thunderous sound a few seconds after it was cast.

Terror crossed the wyvern's face who was unable to recover in time from my attack, striking the beast down with unrelenting magic power. The electricity overwhelmed the wyvern as it dulled both its movements and senses.

Spasming from being electrocuted, the wyvern showed clear signs of being alive despite how powerful that spell was. This was one of the results of its high Health, Vitality, and Wisdom. The System truly is amazing for giving a living being the resilience and toughness to survive even the most fatal of attack, if your Health doesn’t reach zero.

Landing on the ground, I and my combined eight parallel minds simultaneously agreed to end this once for all.

Like a fierce fire, unquenchable and unrelenting, I will not let you kill me today! Sparkle, nine lightning strikes! Lightning Bolt x8!

With the nine purple magic circle having materialized, I was fully ready to shoot them at the now crippled wyvern. From the side of my eye, I also noticed that the other wyvern pushed Saori to the side and was rushing forward, fully intending to shield its fallen companion from my assault.

…Verdammt, I scorned myself, feeling slightly guilty at witnessing this remarkably selfless act but I nonetheless steeled my will ‘cause they are my enemy.

I’m sorry…but I won’t let you kill me or anybody I hold dear! I thank you for this battle and farewell!

As the crackling intensified, I could slightly feel my own body being affected by this miniature thunderstorm that surrounded me. As the second wyvern was about to reach the first, I released my-

[“I request that you stay your hand, Princess Hestia Atsuko.”]

As I was about to release the full arsenal of my newly gained [Lightning Magic], the spells suddenly activated and moved by themselves upwards…towards another wyvern?!

Identify!

Wyvern's Status Board

Profile:

Name: Astalos

Level: 43

Race:   Boltreaver Wyvern

Age:   153 Years

Status:

Health:

20456/20456

Mana:

8578/8867

Strength:

7451

Intelligence:

7067

Vitality:

6597

Wisdom:

6490

Agility:

9874

Stamina:

13450/14310

Effects:

None

Unique Skill:

[Lightning Revolt Lv. 10]

[Lightning Rod]

[Boltreaving Blade Lv. 4]

[Electromagnetic Barrier Lv. 2]

Skill:

Magic skills and related

[Mana Control Lv. 9]

[Arcane Mind Lv. 6]

[Mana Efficiency Lv. 8]

[Fire Magic Lv. 10]

[Fire Amp]

[Fire Magic Efficiency]

[Inferno Magic Lv. 2]

[Wind Magic Lv. 10]

[Wind Amp]

[Wind Magic Efficiency]

[Storm Magic Lv. 7]

[Lightning Magic Lv. 8]

[Silent Casting Lv. 1]

[Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 2]

[Mental Stability Lv. 6]

[Mental Warfare Lv. 7]

Physical skills and related

[Dragonkin Claws Lv. 6]

[Dragonkin Fangs Lv. 7]

[Toxic Claws Lv. 6]

[Sundering Enhancement Lv. 9]

[Piercing Enhancement Lv. 5]

[Crushing Enhancement Lv. 7]

Movements and senses

[Stealth Lv. 3]

[Accuracy Correction Lv. 7]

[Concentration Lv. 6]

[Foresight Lv. 3]

[Danger Perception Lv. 8]

[Probability Correction Lv. 6]

[Detection Sensor Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 7]

[Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 8]

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 10]

[Tracking Lv. 8]

[Night Vision Lv. 10]

[Presence Killer Lv. 3]

[Evasion Lv. 10]

[Acrobatic Lv. 10]

[Air Walk Lv. 4]

[High-Speed Aerial Tempo Lv. 4]

[High-Wind Maneuvering Specialist Lv. 5]

[Superior Aerial Fighter Lv. 2]

Resistances

[Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 4]

[Absolute Pain Tolerance]

[Bleeding Resistance Lv. 10]

[Poison Resistance Lv. 6]

[Paralyzation Resistance Lv. 9]

[Torpor Resistance Lv. 7]

[Arcane Corruption Resistance Lv. 7]

[Fear Resistance Lv. 5]

[Lightning Resistance Lv. 9]

[Fire Resistance Lv. 6]

[Earth Resistance Lv. 3]

[Storm Resistance Lv. 4]

[Water Resistance Lv. 7]

[Dark Resistance Lv. 3]

Stat growths and related

[Health Recovery Lv. 6]

[Mana Recovery Lv. 7]

[Stamina Recovery Lv. 9]

[Enhanced Health Growth Lv. 8]

[Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Mana Growth Lv. 9]

[Enhanced Mana Capacity Lv. 7]

[Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 8]

[Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Intelligence Growth Lv. 7]

[Enhanced Intelligence Enforcement Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 3]

[Speed of Sound Lv. 3]

[Steadfast Endurance Lv. 1]

Others

[Profile Protection Lv. 2]

[Eye of the System Lv. 2]

[Noble Aura Lv. 1]

[Terror Aura Lv. 8]

[Warrior’s Mind Lv. 2]

[Leadership Lv. 2]

[Starvation Lv. 10]

[Thought Acceleration Lv. 2]

[Body Temperature Control Lv. 7]

[Humanize Lv. 10]

[Telepathy]

Information Blocked

Boltreaver Wyvern

A green-black wyvern with an ability to attract lightning towards it, empowering its large crest by using the surging energy as a blade of light to strike down enemies. Once enraged, this mighty thunder wyvern can super-charge itself to turn its green-tinted scales into blue, drastically increasing the power of its lightning. A true nightmare for other fliers. Rank B

That’s a Rank B, too?!

Not only was its stats much higher than the two Drifting Snow Wyverns, but it had a more quality status board than both of them combined. He was 40 levels higher than them and also the age disparity was apparent…so much that those two wyverns seemed more like his grandchildren in his presence.

[“I do not know what might have happened, but I request that you not harm my subordinates any longer, Princess Hestia Atsuko,”] the wyvern spoke.

Wha-?! I-It spoke-It spoke to me through [Telepathy]?!

Gulp.

[“…”] I stayed silent, not moving a muscle but also not dropping my guard.

[“You have my gratitude,”] the wyvern said with a short head bow before directing his attention to the other two wyverns, speaking with the only one that was conscious.

[“Hestia…,”] Saori called me out as she returned to my side, all bloodied and weary from her solo fight. [“This is not good…not good at all…”]

I couldn’t help but nod. The situation was fucked up. The second wyvern already had a higher Agility stat but this thing…was another level. H-How are we supposed to get out of this situation?!

[“I see…Princess, it might not be my place as a wyvern to lecture a true dragoness, bearer of our god’s blood and one of his descendants, but I must insist that it might have been inappropriate of you to attack someone without speaking,”] the wyvern said with a grim expression. [“However, I believe that should have been known to me as I heard you killed three other wyverns.”]

Hearing this, I instantly readied myself, spells ready to be activated at any second. Saori looked confused as she saw me getting into a stance but hastily adapted her own, despite having trouble standing up due to her wounds. It seems like the wyvern was only sharing a telepathic connection with me.

[“Oh, now I must apologize. I have no right to say that after bringing that topic up without considering your situation,”] the wyvern said with a bow. [“Honestly, despite being saddened of seeing my subordinates hurt, I will still praise you for a grand performance. A magnificent display of your abilities as a dragon, Princess Hestia Atsuko, despite your extremely young age.”]

…

Silence. Neither Saori nor Tasianna said anything as they weren’t able to hear anything, while I didn’t answer ‘cause I wasn’t sure what I should even say in this situation. It was beyond surreal.

[“Mhmm, Princess? Is your silence due to not being able to speak our language, yet?"] the wyvern asked. [“Ahh, I forgot, I did see you have [Telepathy] with my [Eye of the System], so even if you do not know how to speak, you should still be able to convey your mind to me. Well, you are a newly born whelp, so it makes sense. Hmm, I also made my status board available for you to see to show you that I have no hostile intentions, so what further must I do…”]

[“Aren’t you mad?”] I finally build up the courage to ask.

[“Oh, Princess! Your voice is truly divine, absolutely wonderful. You honor this old wyvern with your words,”] he said with another bow but this time the only conscious [Drifting Snow Wyvern] also joined in. [“However, what do you mean about being ‘mad’?”]

[“The three wyverns! Weren’t they your friends or something? Wh-Why are you so calm about this?!”] I nervously asked, not knowing if this was just an act of his to have me drop my guard before stabbing me in the back.

[“Do I mourn for the deaths of those wyverns? He he, nonsense,”] he said with a chuckle. [“Yes, they were also arbiters of our god but I could care less. They were lesser wyverns that haven’t gained power over an element yet. The law of the strong. You have done well to show them their place, Princess Hestia Atsuko. I am in awe of your power.”]

[“…Tch,”] I couldn’t do anything but click my tongue, knowing fully well that I was the last person to reprimand him for his words due to being the one to have killed them. [“Then who the hell are you, huh?! Stop slithering around my tail and stop hiding behind that persona of yours, verdammt nochmal! You’re here to kill me, right? Well, fuck you and that blasted Kargryxmor as if I'll let that happen!”]

I could feel that my [Fear Resistance] was doing its best to stop me shaking but my inner self told me that it was helpless. I couldn’t beat him…not without any sorta preparations at all.

Even then, was my conviction to win enough when both strategy and power are completely useless against something this overwhelming?

I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die!

It almost made me cry that I’ve gotten this far but circumstances said no to my life. Why hasn’t Aurena done anything yet about this? Why was she letting me get killed by Kargryxmor, huh? Why is that?!

What have I done wrong? Are those two gods fighting against each other and she can’t do anything right now? But she’s an origin goddess, one of the mightiest beings in this world! How can she be stopped by a subordinate god like Kargryxmor?

W-Was all of that a lie?! Was I lied to?! Why-Why would she send that message just to abandon me!

WHY?!

[“WHAT?! What nonsense, Princess!”] the wyvern shouted. [“By my name Astalos that was granted to me by the grand wyvern priestess, I have come for nothing of that sort! Our Lord has given us unworthy relatives of the true dragons a divine quest to escort you to safety! Back to our home at Wyvern Peak, so you may speak with your ancestor, our lord Kargryxmor!”]

…eh?

…

…

[“Lady Hestia? Lady Hestia?! Are you alright, Lady Hestia?! Why aren’t you responding?! What have those monsters done to you?!”] Tasianna cried out in full panic.

[“Hestia! Damn it! No, this can’t happen! You monsters, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY PRECIOUS FRIEND!”] Saori howled, having fully cloaked herself in [Shadow Armament] again, despite being heavily wounded from her battle with the wyvern.

[“Wait…calm down you two…”] I said to stop my companions from doing anything stupid, finally healing Saori with my healing spells. [“I-It’s all a big…verdammt nochmal, it’s all a goddamn misunderstanding!”]

Fuck! Fuck!

[“I’m sorry…I truly apologize,”] I told the wyverns, bowing my head in shame and guilt for causing this amount of problem just ‘cause…just because I wasn’t willing to talk it out! [“I-I murdered them in cold blood…I also nearly did that to your companion…I am so so so so sorry.”]

[“Princess!”] the wyvern, Astalos, shouted out. [“Preposterous, how could you bow your head to us, your lesser relatives. Stand strong, you have nothing to be ashamed about, actually, you should be proud of defeating them! My subordinate has much to learn if she wishes to further survive in this world, and her brother should have been there earlier! They should blame themselves for being weak and nearly falling to your prowess!"]

After explaining the situation to Saori and Tasianna, while also requesting Astalos to also share a connection with them, I finally calmed down.

[“However, I cannot…I cannot come with you,”] I said hesitantly, still not sure what this wyvern’s real personality was.

[“Hmm? Ahh, I think I might have an idea why,”] he said before releasing a bellowing roar.

Once that happened, the ground began to shake and from it, a giant white snake head appeared. I don’t think it was the same but using [Identify] definitely proved that this thing was another snake head of the [Vellestra Leviathan].

Why can’t I see its profile?! How high is its [Identity Blocker]?

As my party was shivering at the mere sight of the only A rank monster that we knew about, the ground once again quaked as another head came out, this time opening its mouth to spit out several dozens of lizard-like mons…no, those were the lizardmen!

As I was further dumbfounded by the situation, the surprises seem to not want to stop as in the next moment a giant crocodile-like head appeared and blocked the sky for us. Considering the direction, it was most likely the area where we found that deep swamp.

Releasing a roar that was loud enough to shake the whole world around me, I couldn’t help but feel like this was a stupid gag. That was how ridiculous the station was!

[“I heard that you were a belligerent one, so I made sure to ask for aid from one of the true dragons, or, leviathan, in this case,”] the wyvern said proudly, strutting his large crest around. [“It was just insurance, but that unfortunately delayed our meeting. I apologize, Princess Hestia Atsuko.”]

What the fuck?!

A note from AbyssRaven

Welp. This seems bad.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 64: Take that damn Wyvern down!

[“Caszcur, Apsala, Aksmias!”] I called out to the lizardmen, as I ran towards them. [“Are you guys, ok?! Are you alright?”]

The groans and coughing of the lizardmen were audible enough that it slowly reassured me that most of them were alive. Looking through the vomit-saliva covered lizardmen, I couldn't detect anybody dead which was a massive relief.

As I was approaching the lizardmen, one of them jumped on their feet and screamed, “Ahhhhhhh, stay away from me! A monster, a monster!”

W-What?!

Hearing this, the other lizardmen exactly copied what he just did, screaming from the top of their lungs that I should "stay away", while holding their arms in front of them, slowly crawling backward.

[“Wait, everybody! It’s me, it’s me, Hestia!”] noticing what they were panicking about it, I quickly responded back as the mana mist from [Humanize] covered me.

[Humanized (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atsuko]

[“Everybody, see. It’s me, it’s me! I’m not here to hurt you,”] doing my best to control the situation, I stopped coming closer to give them all a chance to cool down.

Fuck…why did I just do that?! I’m leaving myself exposed right now!

That wyvern, Astalos, stood there and watched the scene with benign curiosity, however, I have to admit that being a dragonewt in his presence was sending goosebumps throughout my body. I could only gulp down my saliva, as the combined eyes from the giant snakes, Astalos, and the massive monster crocodile relaxing in the background gave me a grim reminder that transforming back into this form was the worst move I could have done.

I did it reflexively, but I seriously needed to reflect on this. Despite my intention to calm the lizardmen, letting my guard down was a terrible mistake. I should be better than that!

“Little Lady?” the first to recognize me was Caszcur, who cleaned the spit from his face.

[“Yes, yes, it’s me! Your lovable dragon girl and idol! Are you alright?”] I said, reaching my hand up to my head to pinch on Tasianna’s skirt, who was clutching my horns, shaking them as she froze at the sight of the monsters in front of us. [“Tasianna, please, we need to clean them. Tasianna!”]

[“Oh, oh, Lady Hestia! I-I-I apologize. I’ll get right to it,”] with that said, my fairy companion flew through the sky and began casting [Create Greater Water] to wash away the remnants of them being in that snake’s mouth.

[“Hmm, interesting dragonewt form, Princess Hestia Atsuko. Most dragons and wyverns around your age should have a smaller body, but I guess your blood make you grow faster?”] the wyvern, Astalos, commented.

Well, my body certainly was pretty small when I started using this. I guess I really do grow fast?

Looking at the lizardmen, they don’t seem to be panicking or anything, which probably meant that they couldn’t hear what Astalos said. Having another voice that they didn’t know appear in their head should be reason enough for them to start questioning it.

While silently thanking him for not taking advantage of my mistake and allowing me to help the lizardmen, I went over to help the beastmen with Saori, who also transformed back. While they seemed to have calmed down a bit, it still didn’t change the fact that all the lizardmen had the [Terror (Moderate)] status affliction.

Shivering as we tried to clean them was a normal reaction towards the amount of high-rank monster in the area. We had a gigantic A rank that had an uncountable amount of snake heads, while two B rank wyverns were chilling on the side. The only B rank that didn't respond was the one lying unconscious after I zapped it.

The venom doesn’t seem to want to stop anytime soon…she’s gonna die if nobody does anything.

While the other [Drifting Snow Wyvern] was looking after her, the [Boltreaver Wyvern] wasn’t. I didn’t know what they wanted to do about it but that’s none of my business.

Yes, all of this happened ‘cause of my misunderstanding but I was earnestly trying to defend myself there. Apologizing was all I could do, but I still wasn’t sure what to do about all of this. In any case, I had to make sure that the people I actually cared about were alright.

As the three of us kept on helping them, it quickly became clear that the lizardmen were also scared of us. Seeing Saori and me in our true form transforming into our humanized forms must have shocked them.

They knew that I was a dragon, seeing as the quintuplets asked me to show them it but looking at them now, they were cowering like small children. If it had been in any other situation, I think they would've shown some enthusiasm but this just wasn't it. It hurts to be rejected like this, but I didn't let it linger that long.

[“Hey, Apsala are you al-woah!”] walking towards Apsala, she suddenly jumped up and began clutching my hand, hard.

“Hestia…your form…it was beautiful! Your dragon form was truly brilliant,” Apsala said with excitement but looking at her shaking legs made me think otherwise. Was she scared of me?

[“Apsala, are you alright?”] I asked her.

“Y-Yes, yes of course! I’m alright, all fine. My scales are in tip-top shape! Nothing for you to worry about…L-Lady Hestia,” Apsala said as she glanced over at Astalos. “Praise Kargryxmor and his rulership over the skies!”

She shouted as if her life was at stake. Was she trying to appease me with this nonsense or was it for the wyverns? Whether it was or not was unimportant now ‘cause after Apsala released my hand, she sat on her knees and began praying, reciting stuff like “Marsven, I beg your veil of shadows these dark days” and “I beg of you, oh, grand dragon of the age of old. I beseech your protection”.

I was honestly expecting Tasianna to stop her from praying just like before, but she simply glanced over it. What was making her so serious before?

[“Now, Princess Hestia Atsuko. I believe you have done enough for these lesser beings,”] Astalos called us out after I finished cleaning the lizardmen. [“Now that is done, let us go. Our lord has requested us to escort you to safety and to speak to him.”]

“Lesser beings”? Really?

[“I apologize, but as I have said before, I cannot join you,”] seeing as he saw me as a princess, I tried my best to keep up a proper appearance this time, although, that might have been too late. [“I promised these lizardmen that I would aid them in their travels towards the elven kingdom up north. I cannot leave them.”]

[“What? That is your reason to reject your ancestor’s calling?”] Astalos began laughing creepily before continuing to speak. [“Ehehe, ah that cannot be, Princess. Your lord calls for you and as a dragon, you must abide by it. So, now come. No more defiance, please. We have wasted too much time already."]

Leaving them? Yeah, in your dreams. I made promises with these lizardmen and I plan on keeping them!

[“As I have said, I will not,”] nervously swallowing my spit, I retorted. [“I gave them my word. I promise to help them. You can’t expect me to throw that away now, right? Why can’t you give me some time, huh?”]

[“Hestia, what are you doing?”] Saori asked anxiously.

[“Saori, I can’t break what I told these lizardmen. I gave them my word,”] I responded. [“I don’t know why but something inside me was telling me that I shouldn’t break this promise. No, that I shouldn’t break any promises. I’m sorry…but I can’t let it go.”]

[“Goodness…t-this is honestly a terrible part of your personality. You are negotiating with something that could kill us right now just because you wanted to keep a simple promise?”] although her words were harsh, it didn’t last long, as she gave a sigh and scratched her head in exasperation. [“Honestly…this is giving me a terrible headache…hey, do you still remember when I called you a ‘good person’?”]

[“When I was questioning my own worth as a person?”] I answered back.

With a wry smile, Saori nodded, [“Yeah, seeing you now, I find it absolutely ridiculous that you even questioned me back then, but still…I will get you out of here. I do not trust these wyverns and risking everything for these lizardmen is not worth it in my book, regardless of the promise. Hestia, I want you to know this as I will get all three of us out of here no matter what…”]

[“…Got it.”]

With a short answer, I transformed back into a dragon with a single goal in mind.

[“Hmm, interesting. I suggest that you do not resist, Princess Hestia Atsuko. My duty is to bring you back safely…but if you wish to invoke the law of the strong…”] Astalos mumbled.

[“I’m sorry but I won’t. As somebody who worships Kargryxmor, shouldn’t you know that I can’t break this promise?”] I stated.

As he questioned me about it, I continued, ["Kargryxmor, the god that oversees over all dragonkins and also the god of oaths. I made a promise with these people and I intend to keep it. You can’t be seriously demanding me that I should break it, no?”]

One thing that I remembered from Apsala’s constant religious talks was that Kargryxmor was also considered the god of oaths. A promise was exactly what an oath was, albeit, not as formal. I can’t win against this wyvern, not even with my whole party. We were outmatched and Saori was already feeling exhausted after her solo battle with the other [Drifting Snow Wyvern].

I was declining to come peacefully ‘cause they were essentially forcing me into it. I expected Kargryxmor, just like Aurena, wanted to tell me my real purpose but couldn’t he have waited? Aurena contacted me and I am willing to talk with her so why is he doing this?

If I wanted to stay free, then I had to persuade Astalos. He seemed to show me some amount of respect due to my [Princess] title, so I’ll use that against him.

[“An oath, you say? Ridiculous. That is a petty promise, not an oath, Princess. There is a stark difference between those two. For example, I have made an oath to our lord to bring you to him at all costs…I believe I have made myself clear that I was fully committed to it, no?”] Astalos said, spreading his wing as if he was prancing about the fact that he brought he called for help.

Looking at the snakes and the giant crocodile monster, I couldn’t help but nod. We couldn’t flee in any direction, even if Saori somehow did teleport me out with [Shadow Dash]. We would be easily found again just ‘cause of the leviathan’s and wyvern’s combined efforts.

[“Whether you consider a promise an oath or not, is irrevelant in this situation. In the first place, I have given my word and do you expect a ‘dragon princess’ like me, a descendant of the mighty dragon god, Kargryxmor, to so easily cast it aside just because of the situation?”] I stated, activating [Noble Aura] in hopes of moving him.

[“Goodness…honestly? No, I do not care if you are a perfect representation of our lord or not,”] Astalos answered, dropping a huge bombshell.

[“W-What?!”] I exclaimed in surprise.

["All I care about is that I fulfil my oath to my lord by bringing you to him. Ahhhhh, the divine quest that he has given me demands me to do so! Oooooh, the sweet experience that I will gain if I do exactly that will help me reach the level cap for a B rank monster! Ahhahaha, I will finally be able to evolve!”] Astalos admitted.

D-Divine quest! Are you serious?!

The concept of a divine quest wasn't something that I didn't know. Video games or anime also depicted some hero receiving a quest from the gods, requiring him to fulfill a grand task. This would usually be the story quest or some end game stuff in those types of media.

Tasianna has already explained to me that quests were a natural part of this world. “Requests” or commission acted exactly like how you would imagine a fetch quest would function.

For example, a “quest giver” or customer would ask an artisan to build something for them. The artisan accepts it and they then deliver the product after finishing it after a few days. The “quest” would be finish and the transaction of money and goods would be initiated.

It seems like this divine quest demanded me to be “escorted” so I may speak with the client, who was Kargryxmor. It honestly sounded too similar to what a bounty was. Was Kargryxmor so desperate that he had to put a bounty of my head?

Wanted: Hestia Atsuko. Only Alive. Reward: 1 million berry, uh, experience. Something like that?

["However, if you feel like this 'promise' is holding your back, then allow me to reduce your burdens. That is my job as a lesser wyvern, correct?"] Astalos snapped his head aside, his eyes glaring the lizardmen as lighting started to form around his mouth. [“Allow this humble wyvern to free you from your chains!”]

Verdammt, now!

Pouring in as much mana as I could, the ground under Astalos and the other wyvern started to light up, eventually blowing up, stopping Astalos’ hostile actions.

Heilige scheiße, Saori’s [Shadow Snake] is fucking amazing!

What exploded under Astalos were the bombs that I created. Although I didn’t know when she did it, Saori did somehow place the bombs under the wyvern without them noticing. As she was here the whole time, it had to be from her spell [Shadow Snake].

Seeing as I couldn’t see any of my bombs on Caszcur and that Tasianna was somehow not around, I suspected mid-way in this negotiation that those two must have done something. It was purely ‘cause my parallel minds seemed to have felt something weird under the ground that I found my bombs hidden beneath their feet.

Props to them ‘cause that gave me the time to renew my buffs.

Those guys couldn't have died from that attack. I need to give it my all! All buffs activated! All parallel minds begin casting fire spells!

Send out hellfire, burn everything to ashes and ruins! Spark Inferno Blast! Spiral Hellfire x 3! Blazing Twister x 2! Inferno Beam! Lava Stream! Maximum Scorching Sun!

Searing hot flames surrounded me and with a simple command, all of them started bombarding the area where the [Boltreaver Wyvern] was. The hellfire exploded as they collided with the twisting inferno that suddenly appeared in front of me.

The water around us was literally evaporating while every single tree burned to ashes. Destruction and carnage enveloped the area as the lizardmen were having trouble even breathing in this sweltering heatwave forcing them to back off if they wanted to not be turned into grilled lizard. Even Saori, who now had Tasianna standing on her shoulders, had to move away as even the fur on her arms began to singe.

[“Hahaha, amazing power! I thank you, I thank you, Princess Hestia Atsuko! I have finally increased my [Fire Resistance]! Ahhhh, the pain that is coursing through my body is truly supreme, raising my stagnating resistance towards fire by two whole levels! Absolutely magnificent!”]

Just as he said, his [Fire Resistance Lv. 6] did indeed become [Fire Resistance Lv. 8].

I knew that he had [Absolute Pain Tolerance], which it possible for him to ignore pain, however, I really thought that he would be pissing his pants or do something else besides screaming aloud as if he was climaxing!

Ewwww, gross! Continue shooting at this pervert! Spiral Hellfire!

Shooting at the perverted wyvern felt like shooting at a dummy but without any of the anger release. It didn’t feel good at all nor did it make me less wary. That wyvern not only had a Wisdom stat that surpassed my base Intelligence, but he also had about four times my Health.

This thing was not only a tank, but he also had the stats to absolutely murderize me! Gulping my own saliva as I watched his Health lower wasn’t an exaggeration ‘cause this is actually nerve-wracking!

[“Ahhhhhh, 80% of my Health! Urrrrgh, only a dragon like you could do this to a B rank like me. Princess Hestia Atsuko, you are a wonderful C rank…but playtime is over."]

“Grooooooooooooooooooooarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrh!” a thunderous roar resounded throughout the air, as lighting and thunder escaped the grey mist that surrounded the wyverns.

Oof!

Barely able to register the spark that appeared, a sudden force sent me flying to the side as my head started to feel a massive pain as if a truck had just hit it. Twisting through the air, the next thing I felt was a fierce hit that struck my chest with enough force that my [Draconic Barrier] was barely able to protect me, probably breaking a few bones as I landed on the ground.

While I, original mind, was unable to do anything, my parallel minds, on the other hand, were desperately trying their best to heal my wounds, keeping my Health at a good range.

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 3] evolved into [Physical SUper-Resistance Lv. 4]

[“Amazing, I was holding back to not endanger your life, but this is unprecedented. How interesting that your [Sacred Magic] can keep up with my attacks- huh?”]

Bedrock Blades!

[“Ahaha, that nearly caught me off-guard! But earth magic is far too slow to catch me, Princess!”]

Verdammt! Spiral Hell-!

[“No, no, Lightning Bolt.”]

Obeying [Prediction], I held myself back from going on the offensive and instead decided to dodge it. The crackling thunder caused the mud to explode as it landed on the place that I just stood but that just exposed me for the next attack.

[Prediction] was sending me signals that the same attack that sent me flying in the first place was coming again. He twisted his body and was about to hit me with his tail before shadow tendrils constricted around him.

[“Hmm, oh my, do we some interference from outside participants?”] Astalos stated as he quizzically looked at Saori who was in her cadejo form. [“Ahh, that wolf from before. What is a fodder interfering in a battle between dragonkin? Were you not satisfied that I gave you the privilege of listening to this prestigious talk that went over your intelligence?”]

[“How rude, you bastard. Tasianna, now!”] Saori shouted after swearing.

“Level three [Ice magic] spell! Water in my palms, freeze with my will. Oh, winds of the gods, cry forward! Frost Ray!” Tasianna called out, activating her new spell that sent a hail of ice at Astalos, the wyvern.

Blocking it with his wings, the wyvern couldn’t help but resume his scumbag personality, [“Uhhh, ice? Weak compared to my two subordinates.”]

[“Fuck you!”] I insulted him, as I spewed out a poisonous cloud out of my mouth.

[“Cough, kuck, ahhhh, Princess…now this is making me a bit angry…”] he said as he continued to cough.

Before he could do anything, I activated [Earthen Shackles] to shackle him even further. While Saori’s [Shadow Tendrils] were flexible, they were still fragile. My [Earthen Shackles] were unwieldy and slow but once they caught somebody, they would instantly harden, making it hard for anybody to break out of it while Tasianna bombarded him with ice.

This is a risk but I need to try! I know the words, I just need to bring them up! I’ve seen your power so please appear again! Please!

.

To me, gather my embers, to me

From shadows to embers

From embers to flame

From flame to inferno

Cast away the darkness, burn brightly, oh, dear flames

Arise inferno hellfire, engulf the world in a sea of flames

For that is my Decree!

.

With my incantations readied, a massive red magical circle appeared above the imprisoned [Boltreaver Wyvern].

Tasianna translated my incantation into Common tongue while also helping with me with the pronunciation. In addition, as the original magic system of this world, custom spells, demanded that you knew the runes of a magic circle, I was also given a crash course in Common tongue vocabulary.

I did all of that for this very moment. All I could do now was to go through the magic theory tat Tasianna taught me. The basics! The foundation!

I got them all!

[“Ahhh, I can feel the power coming from this spell! Princess, bask me in your inferno grasp and I shall embrace it! I challenge you to lower my Health below 75% with this spell! Lower it and I shall grant you your request, ahahhaha!”] Astalos shouted out in a mad laugh.

My mana surged through my body as it escaped my body to be used as a resource to fuel the giant magic circle. The red brightened as if it was telling me that it was ready. Ready to turn this wyvern into cinders.

.

Shine red my custom spell, send this guy into the light! Imperial Hellfire!

.

…

…

…

…N-N-N-N-N-

[“Hmm, Princess? Why is your magic not activating, actually, the magic circle is disappearing even…what is this?] Astalos asked me disappointingly.

N-No-No-No! D-Did I fail…again?

My eyes widened at the sudden realization. I didn’t know if my [Imperial Hellfire] could do enough damage to harm him but I knew that my other spells couldn’t…at least not in a single cast.

They were only able to lower his Health to 80% in the first place ‘cause I was spamming all my powerful fire spells at once…

[“No, no, no, no…I was so excited. Reaching level nine with my [Fire Resistance] would be grandiose. Ha, three levels in a single day would be glorious…but, alas, you failed, Princess Hestia Atsuko.”] he said with a sigh. [“You did well but…I need to fulfill my quest now. Boltreaver!”]

Lighting surrounded his horn as he called out his attack, growing in size until it turned into a crackling thunder blade that was longer than his body. Swiping it down, not only did he break out of his bondage, but he also caused a rupture in the ground, cleaving through like a knife.

With most things pulverized to atoms, only mud exploded into the air and began raining down on me. Saori, Tasianna, and I were completely unharmed as Astalos never had a reason to seriously harm me…luckily, as I was only able to see a flash.

Once the mud rain stopped, the wyvern pranced proudly with his still energized thunder blade, flying in the sky as he looked down on us, [“Well, enough play. Let me rid you of what bonded you here, Princess. That is my thanks for an impressive first round…but a disastrous second round…”]

Turning away from me, Astalos directed his eyes back to the lizardmen as he swiped down his blade

Huh?! Nooooooooo! Wind Blast!

[“Hestia, no, don’t!”]

Boosting my body with my spell, I sent it flying towards the lizardmen intending to protect them by casting [Sanctuary] around them…but it wasn’t enough.

Nooooooooooooo!

…

…

…Huh?

[“Wyvern…this is enough. Do not continue.”]

Huh? Where did this voice come from?

[“Tch…yes, honored leviathan. I am a simple wyvern compared to an ocean dragon like you, so I shall obey,”] Astalos responded with dissent.

Leviathan?

Looking up, I could see that one of the white snakes moved and blocked the attack from the wyvern, which left a clear mark on it.

Why did it do that? Wasn't it on their side? What is going on? Why am I asking so many questions today?

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 6] [Mental Stability Lv. 5] [Unarmed Technique Lv. 5] [Draconic Roar Lv. 3] [Body Temperature Control Lv. 2] gained

A note from AbyssRaven

We are close to the end of the Swamp Arc and, soon, ready to journey into a new area with Hestia. The question is, where to? The Elfen kingdom like everybody originally planned, or to the southern mountain ranges of Belzac forest, the Avitor Peaks.

Or maybe, we will go somewhere else?! Or maybe I'm bamboozling all my readers like a mischievous kid.

Find out next time on "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale"

P.S. RIP Hestia failing to cast a spell without the System's help in a real battle

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 65: The Leviathan.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Diego Rossi

Lars Stratenwerth

S1nZ

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Simon

Darth Bayes

Morg535

The Shining Light

Austin Reff

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CHoobler

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Ryan Voigt

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Matthew Tiffany

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Shadowmeister

Cadastral

Frederic B.

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Termac

Sylent-M

WalkingPark

Thank you guys so much for another great month. Now time for the chapter!

[“You have your duty to fulfill and Kargryxmor wouldn’t be thrilled to see his descendent in whatever state you were planning to put her into,”] a low, bellowing voice resounded through my head which seems to belong to the giant crocodile-head [Vellestra Leviathan]. ["Furthermore, have you forgotten about your two subordinates? If the young dragoness was able to inflict this much damage on you, then what would happen to the ice wyverns?”]

Hearing him mention the two [Drifting Snow Wyvern], I turned my head back to the area where Astalos took all my fire spells head-on, without trying to avoid it. What stood before me was a trembling ice wyvern whose wings were burnt pitch-black, as if they were turned into coal.

It was holding its wings up like a shield, protecting the unconscious ice wyvern behind it. While it managed to prevent any harm on the other wyvern, the absolutely dreadful state that his wings were in and how his body was having trouble standing up made it clear that it paid a heavy price for its gallantry.

Those wings need immediate help, if they wish to ever touch the sky again.

[“…Hmm, their situation is quite dire, that I can understand great ocean dragon, however, isn’t only one of us needed? As we can see, Princess Hestia Atsuko cannot fly but I am enough to aid her,”] Astalos, the leading wyvern, said coldly, dismissing the state that his two subordinates were in. [“The boy showed too much sympathy for his failed sister and his confidence to face a true dragon’s flames, a girl that shares our lord’s blood, was admirable, but utterly foolish. I’m proud to have seen his determination.”]

T-This-What sorta sicko is this guy?!

I know I have no right to say this as I am the one that caused it all, but I-I just can’t stand the fact that that wyvern said all those things towards them. It looked like he was celebrating that the ice wyvern was able to survive my attacks, instead of being worried about his still depleting Health.

I dunno. It just rubbed me the wrong way, made me feel uncomfortable at hearing those words but what could I do? We're still in a pretty bad situation despite the leviathan having stopped Astalos' attack.

The lizardmen were cowering and screaming like the world is ending, while Saori’s Stamina finally has dropped to zero. She was keeping herself on her legs but her heavy breathing and trembling legs told me enough that she couldn’t keep fighting anymore.

She’s been pushing herself far too much today, especially with her solo duel against a full Health [Drifting Snow Wyvern]. I can’t expect her to fight any more than this.

However, what am I supposed to do? The only one left to fight with me was Tasianna and she was getting overwhelmed through stats here. Astalos’ status board was nullifying Tasianna’s efforts, regardless if it were offensive or defensive.

And then there was me. I’ve been spamming spells like crazy and I certainly can feel that arcane corruption was starting to build up, seeing as my body was feeling oddly cramped and how something inside me wanted to make me stop casting spells. Mana itself was also slowly becoming a problem too.

I poured in a ton of mana to make [Imperial Hellfire] work but holy fucking goodness, that DIDN’T WORK AT ALL. AHHHH, WHY DIDN’T IT WORK!

Tch, I made sure to recite everything in Common tongue and I also did my best to imagine the runes for my magic circle using Common tongue letters. I did everything that I learned from Tasianna and it all fumbled. My spell fizzled!

Urgh, get a grip, Hestia. It’s frustrating but we gotta stop acting like a kid right now. The parallel minds will kick your mental ass, after all.

[“Nonetheless, what is done is done. The law of the strong says that it is fair so I see nothing wrong with the situation. It is a shame but I will not abandon my holy oath for them. I can assure you that they won’t find fault in my actions, great ocean dragon,”] Astalos said in an aloof manner, completely fine with abandoning his fallen subordinates.

[“Hmm, I see…,”] the leviathan mumbled before retracting the snake back into the ground, closing up the hole before pushing his head into the sky and turning his head aside so his eyes could meet us. [“If that is the case then what do you have to say, dragon Princess Hestia Atsuko?”]

Huh?! He’s talking to me now?!

[“Uhhh, huh? A-Are you speaking with me?”] I asked, stumbling on my own words due to how sudden that was.

The leviathan moved his head even closer to us, making it extremely intimidating as it felt like I was an ant in his presence, [“Girl, your time is waning, so speak fast. In your current situation, what would you do?”]

What are you trying to say to me, old man? Stop implying stuff and just say it clear and loud.

Urgh, while complaining was my first thought, I had to ignore my bratty side for a second to actually understand what his words meant. I was about to be kidnapped by a masochistic, zealous wyvern that would abandon his own subordinates at a moment’s notice just to fulfill a quest to earn experience; this isn’t the moment to joke around, ok!

The leviathan saved the lizardmen and also stayed neutral during the whole battle. I don’t have any evidence that he was my ally, but my draconic instincts told me that he is attempting to help me, somehow. I just have to understand what he means.

Girls, [Thought Acceleration] now! We need to think!

My senses slowed down as it started to feel like everything around me was going in 0.5 speed. The leviathan's eyes locked onto mine as I tried to find some sorta clue in his words but noticing that staring deeply into his navy blue eyes was similar to gazing into the depths of the ocean, I turned my head to my surroundings.

“In your current situation, what would you do?” he said…well, Astalos is about to force me to come with him, and considering his size, he’ll probably be able to, even if he had to carry my dragon body. It would be easier for him in my dragonewt form.

There is also the case of the lizardmen that I needed to help get out of the Belzac forest. I made them a promise and I will not break it if I have the choice, however, Astalos is firmly against it. If I continue mentioning it then an "accident" might happen, although I think the leviathan would be able to defend against it.

“In my current situation…”, well I needed to persuade Astalos. My goal is to help the lizardmen and Astalos’ is to take me in peacefully if it was possible. I honestly didn’t want to come with him but what choice do I have in that matter?

I can’t escape nor can I fight back. Continuing fighting would be futile and once I’m down, he’ll just swoop in to pick me with his talons. I’ll be dragged through the skies like a prisoner in that situation. Not to mention what he could do to Tasianna and Saori…

As I continued to mull over my options, the sight of the two defeated wyverns came into my view. The male wyvern with the destroyed wings had finally fallen on the ground, lying there as he panted heavily.

Looking at the wings, the webbings were completely gone but the limbs themselves didn’t look that terrible. I mean, they were still coal-black but I could only see a few spots of burnt flesh, as the scales of the ice wyvern seemed to have managed to defend against most of my fire.

It was very unlikely that he would actually be able to fly with those damaged wings but…maybe there is a possibility for him to fly again?

Hmmm, can I do it?

[“Astalos!”] I called out.

[“Oh? Princess Hestia Atsuko, are you finally willing to drop your resistance? Oh ho ho ho, if that’s the case then let us be off, swiftly,”] he said with elation.

[“No, but I do believe you wish for me to come with you peacefully, correct? That would make your job easier, right?”] I asked.

[“Hmm? Well, that is quite true, yes. Flying is already hard but having to drag your body with me would be a challenge, especially considering the distance…so, what do you mean with ‘No’?”] he asked with suspicion.

[“Astalos, I wish to bargain,”] I announced. [“You know that I made my promise with the lizardmen and that I will not drop it. If you want me to come, then allow me to first fulfill it.”]

Astalos tilted his head for a second before responding, [“That is not a bargain. A bargain would benefit me in some way but that just won’t. I have no time to waste waiting for you to finish that frivolous wish of yours when I can instead drag you through the skies. It might be a trial, but I consider that more beneficial for me than giving you a chance to escape.”]

I hesitated for a moment to gulp down a dry spit but reaffirmed my courage as I knew that I had to, [“…Well, that’s why I am offering my skills. My ability to heal those two wyverns from their wounds.”]

[“Healing? Those?”] Astalos twisted his neck around to confirm that I really was talking about the ice wyverns. [“Princess, you were the one that brought them into that state and now you’re ‘offering’ to heal them to bargain with me? Why, that is rather shameless but also completely irrelevant to me. I won’t entertain your wish.”]

Heilige scheiße, this guy is impossible.

While I expected him to mention the fact that it was hypocritical of me to even consider healing the wyverns, it surprised me that he was dismissive about that fact. I thought he would have at least considered it if the chance appeared…but I guess that was too naïve.

While I was trying to think up a reason to persuade him, Saori moved in front of me to talk to him, [“Please, mister Astalos, they will die at this rate, you must allow-”]

[“Oh, what is that beast doing, speaking with me? Your words are meaningless so stay silent lesser being,”] Astalos cruelly shut Saori down before she was able to make her point.

[“How audacious! Lady Hestia is merely offering to fix the results she created so how can you not even consider that! How can you call yourselves a ‘humble servant of the true dragons’?!”] seeing Saori not even given any attention, Tasianna blew up on Astalos, forgetting that angering him might be a problem.

["Hmmm? First, a beast and now an insect tries to speak with me? You were given the honor of listening to my conversation with Princess Hestia Atsuko so why must you speak up? You are interfering, can you not see?"] the pompous asshat responded.

This bastard…

Gritting my teeth and scratching the ground in frustration. I was ready to claw his face at this point for insulting my friends like this, insinuating that they weren’t people in his eyes. He probably was thinking that anything not related to dragons was beneath him, an arrogant mindset that made it hard for me to think of a measure.

What am I supposed to do in his situation? I wanted to punch him in the face but that meant that it would justify him hitting me back.

[“Time is waning. Wyvern, allow the dragoness to heal your subordinates,”] suddenly dragging me out of my anger, the leviathan’s bellowing voice interrupted the tense situation between us.

[“…I honestly cannot agree to that, great ocean dragon. I believe I requested your help to ensure the safe escort of the Princess? Excuse my rudeness, but may I ask why you are so supportive of them now?”] the wyvern asked with slight annoyance, hiding most of it behind a veil of formal speech.

[“As we have agreed upon, I shall aid you with it, but isn’t our agreement exactly what the girl would consider a ‘promise’? Why value our agreement so much if you cannot agree to have the girl fulfill hers? Within the vicinity of this swamp, no one will escape my tentacles now that I am awake once again,”] the leviathan stated. [“Allow her to heal your companions, appease me, and I will ensure that she will not escape you north of this forest.”]

With a low growl, Astalos finally caved in and accepted my proposal, allowing me to heal his subordinates in return for helping the lizardmen escape Belzac forest.

Walking towards the snow wyverns, the intense smell of burnt scales and flesh was clear to the nose. Looking at the male wyvern, I could only ignore his stares as it made me uncomfortable to be looked at by him.

Healing the wings themselves wasn’t as hard as I thought. Scratch off the burnt scales and use [Major Heal] to regenerate any lost flesh and regrow new scales in place. The webbing for his wings took a bit longer to heal as it was like trying to make somebody’s whole body regrow skin. The membrane had to be strong and flexible enough as they were important for flying.

Once I was finished with that, I headed over to his sister, the wyvern that fell unconscious after I used [Lighting Bolt] on her. A couple of heals and [Cure] later, the wyvern regained all her Health back but hasn’t woken up yet.

In the meantime, it seems Tasianna and Saori both calmed the lizardmen down as they came over to thank me.

["No, please, don't. I was the reason that they even chased us this far and, ergo, that meant that it was my responsibility that they nearly killed you all. I should be the one to apologize instead of accepting your thanks,"] I told the lizardmen with a frown.

“Don’t be too harsh on yourself, little lady. It all worked out in the end, right? You shouldn’t let it annoy you that much…,” Caszcur responded somberly.

“Yes, Casczur is right, fair-scaled one. You’re gonna help us out like you promise so you still deserve our thanks. You fought for us there, we all know that," Aksmias answered with a wry smile.

“Little one, I’m sorry. I-I was just overwhelmed by your sudden form…I knew it, but you still frightened me. It seems I haven’t repaid you once yet while always causing you grief. I couldn't become your follower and I even rejected you in my heart for a moment," Apsala admitted, crestfallen. "I have sinned too much. I honestly should cut my tail for everything I’ve done, especially now as it has come to the point that I won’t have a chance anymore.”

[“…Do not say that, Apsala. We might be leaving now but that does not mean we will not meet one day, again,”] Saori said to reassure the dejected lizardmen. [“Hestia’s personal goals will eventually bring us to the levianewts, so we will meet again.”]

“I planned to aid you in this but it seems I won't get the chance anymore," said Tasianna. "Please remember this phrase 'Dahel saehla tuilloso eir Aifli Tasianna Marina Silverpond'. This Elvish roughly translates into 'We have come with the blessing of the fairy Tasianna Marina Silverpond'. You might meet people that do not know me, but they will not treat you discourteously if they hear my family name 'Silverpond'."

Wait, is Tasianna's adoptive family a bigshot?! Well, she did tell me that they had a history of serving the royal family of the fairies but I didn't think their position was that high.

“Thank you, Tasianna. Whether it was your tea, your hospitality, or even your help just now. It makes me want to laugh how terrible our first meeting was, ha ha ha,” Caszcur laughed.

“He he, I’m also glad that Lady Hestia was able to heal that wound. It would have made me feel saddened if it was still there because of me,” Tasianna agreed, reminding us that she shot an [Ice Spike] into Caszcur’s hand.

After allowing ourselves some rest after the massive headache with the wyverns, the third wyvern finally woke up, which signaled that our trip with the lizardmen was about to end. The wyverns planned to have us on their backs as they transported us through the skies. Considering that we had around 50 lizardmen, this was only possible ‘cause of Astalos, who was pretty large.

As we were sorting the lizardmen to their respective wyvern, another headache suddenly came up.

[“Those two will stay. They were not part of your promise,”] Astalos incredulously stated.

["What?! What is this supposed to be, huh? First, you insult them, calling them lesser beings, and now you won't even allow them to come with me? They are my friends and retainers, Astalos!"] I spoke back to the intimidating wyvern, anger seeping out.

[“Retainers? Hmph, Princess Hestia Atsuko, you do require an entourage, considering you are an important personage but a wolf and insect?”] Astalos scoffed at the fact that Saori and Tasianna were my “retainers”, before directing my attention to the two individuals behind me. [“Two B ranks should be enough to defend you from most threats. Take them and throw your current ones away.”]

What?!

[“What is this bullshit! You can’t expect me to do that! Do you even comprehend how awkward that would be? I nearly killed them, over a misunderstanding and accident. I don’t even know their names as their status boards doesn’t show it,”] I talked back, blood boiling once again ‘cause of this retarded lizard.

[“Give them a name, then. That honor is usually reserved for our priests and priestesses but no better is the honor when a true dragon grants you a name. Ahh, I adore my name but my jealously grows knowing that you will name my two subordinates,”] Astalos said creepily. ["Besides, the law of the strong demands them to not hold a grudge against their opponent. They should be grateful that you even healed them in the first place."]

Fuck this, I’ll actually claw his face now!

As I was about to ignite a flame, the leviathan spoke, [“Enough of this prattle, wyvern. Give her, her old followers if that is what will make her cooperative.”]

Reluctantly, Astalos agreed to bring Saori and Tasianna with us but also demanded that I take the two ice wyvern siblings with me, saying that they can protect me better than my two friends.

Well, with those two, our party has finally reached five people…

Ignoring the idiot lizard, we had a bit of free time until all the lizardmen boarded the wyverns, so we took this chance to speak with the leviatan.

[“Mister Leviathan?”] I called out for the massive monster.

[“Yes, girl? I am listening,”] he responded back.

[“I just…I just wanted to thank you for everything you’ve done for us,”] I said earnestly.

[“We were in a precarious situation and worse could have happened if you had not interfered. For that, you have my deepest gratitude,”] Saori thanked him.

[“Yes, I do not know what I would have done if I were separated from Princess Hestia. Thank you so very much, great leviathan. May Plesia bless you with blessed water,”] Tasianna gave her gratitude in prayer.

[“Oh ho ho ho, a fellow Plesia worshipper? That pleases me greatly for I have not seen another in so many years due to my slumber. You have my thanks, young fairy, for granting me a blessing from our righteous lady of the depths,”] the leviathan said joyfully. [“I would love to say that I did everything for you in the name of Plesia but that would be a lie, and Plesia condemns such rude behaviors.”]

["The Goddess of Order, Honor, and Traditions. While she may not like lies, she condemns rule-breaking the most,"] Tasianna further added, enthusiastic as she hit it off with the massive being.

They really are hitting it off. Are all religious people like this in this world?

[“Pardon, but could you explain what you meant by ‘helping us not in Plesia’s name’?”] Saori asked. [“I know it is rude to question our benefactor, but it does make me wonder why you would support us despite not knowing us.”]

The leviathan suddenly turned silent before giving what sounded like a snicker, booming the surrounding with a low intimidating growl, [“True, I apologize for not explaining sooner. You see, a few days ago, my senses awoke me from my slumber after my tentacles found somebody. I remember that one of them did attack you, young dragoness. For that, I apologize. In my slumber, I require food and my tentacles are the only way for me to hunt here without destroying the environment.”]

That did remind me of the one time he jumped out into the air to eat some otthas. Trees, the vegetation, and probably many more things were destroyed in that area.

[“It’s ok, I didn’t die and I believe I paid him back by destroying its eye…although, it just regenerated it back instantly,”] I said with slight disappointment.

Ever since I met that snake, I’ve only experienced losses. I’ve lost against the snake, the wyverns, and also my negotiation with Astalos. With my fucked up custom spell, Astalos’ constant speaking, and all the losses that I faced recently, I honestly feel terrible.

[“Ha ha ha, that is good to hear,”] the leviathan said with a wide smile. [“Now…I presume you three cannot see my status board, correct?”]

We nodded. We didn’t know his name, nor his stats. All we knew was his description. Everything was blocked behind a fat [Information is blocked].

["That means my skills are still working properly. I detest having my status board known to others, so I am glad that my skills are helping me protect my secret,”] the leviathan nodded for a moment before continuing. [“What I want to tell you is this.”]

Through his [Telepathy], some sort of information came rushing right into our minds.

Apex Predator: Belzac Forest

A title given to the current strongest monster in the Belzac forest. Grants the owner increased experience gain within this monster-filled place

[“Young garm, did you know that this title once belonged to your bloodline? The mighty S-rank [Three-Eyed Fenrir] Belzac was once the ruler of this forest and after his death, his bloodline inherited this strength,”] the leviathan further added. [“However, a few years ago, that title was suddenly granted to me, awakening me from that slumber. I was acquainted with that [Fenrir], who I suppose is your great-grandfather. I was surprised that such a prideful monster like him was taken down.”]

[“Wait, that [Fenrir] had that title before you? Was he that much stronger than you?!”] I asked.

["Ha ha ha, I must disappoint you but no. I am many, many, many centuries his senior. I am old enough to have witnessed the appearance of our great origin gods into this world. I did not receive that title before his death because I never vied for it, for I was a foreigner of these woods. My home is the oceans of Plesia and I am simply living here to ensure that I gather enough strength for my evolution into an S rank. It would seem like the title has finally accepted me as a denizen of Belzac forest.”]

In other words, this place was like a summer vacation home for him.

After he reminisced on his age, he continued with our original topic, [“I met your mother, young garm.”]

[“…Do you mean my garm mother? You met her?”] Saori hesitantly responded. [“Sorry, I actually do not know her much. She died after I was born…in an accident.”]

"In an accident", yeah…thank you, Saori.

[“I see…a shame. When I met her, I wanted to aid her but she suddenly wandered away from me. A shame but seeing as she was able to give birth to you, then I should not be worried about Belzac’s lineage. You have grown into a fine wolf, and you make your title [Belzac’s Successor] proud,”] he said.

[“So that was the real reason you helped us…I guess your family saved us three from being separated, right Saori?”] I joke as I looked at Saori but she didn’t seem to have realized it, mulling about something.

[“No, that is one reason but not the main one,”] the leviathan once again moved his face closer to us, inspecting us with his giant eyeball. [“The main reason is you, young dragoness.”]

Flinching backward, I said “me?” which seemed to be the reaction that the leviathan wanted from me, [“I can feel it…it somehow eludes my eyes but I can feel the presence of the origin gods inside you. The light that surrounded you and your ability to heal people from such a young age made me believe that you were chosen by Aurena, Goddess of Light.”]

That’s right! [System Neutrality]!

[The Light], the title that I got from Aurena recently unlocked both [System Neutrality] and [Faithful Function] after Rajah and his virigress family became my followers. [System Neutrality] made it so that it was invisible for everybody, besides for the gods and those with my permission to see it.

[“[Otherworldly Reincarnator] and the blessing from Aurena and Kargryxmor. Anybody can see that the gods are planning something, although, it seems that wyvern over there hasn’t noticed yet. Hmph, he is far too young,”] the leviathan scoffed. [“My goddess Plesia is the head Goddess of all six origin god and if somebody like her was willing to allow another [Otherworldly Reincarnator] to enter this world, then as her servant I must make an effort to help.”]

Huh, I already had a good impression on her ‘cause of Tasianna but now it got better. Plesia rocks!

[“Wait, excuse me but could you repeat that? ‘another [Otherworldly Reincarnator]?' there have been more instances just like the both of us?"] Saori pointed out to my surprise.

["Yes, but that is something of the past. I've met that person and greatness has found them in their lifespan. You two will soon learn about that person, but I will not be the one to tell you about it,"] the leviathan said with a small shake of the head. [“It seems your wyvern escorts’ patience is waning, so our talks must end. Before I go, I would like to tell you two something. Consider it…a welcome gift to Peolynca and her beauty.”]

Hearing that, Saori and I began listening intently to what he has to say.

["To the young garm, whenever you reach Plesia's domain, I bid you to call me at that time. I hold onto your birthright and in respect to my late friend, I would like to grant it back to you. However, you must prove yourself at that point to me,"] he said before focusing his eye on me. [“For you, young dragon princess of the dragon empire Kargryx, these words might be heresy but I believe it would be appropriate of me to warn you. Do not put all your full trust in any of the subordinate gods.”]

[“I should not put my trust into the subordinate gods? Wait, are you telling me that I shouldn’t trust Kargryxmor?”] I asked, not sure if I heard it right.

[“Kargryxmor is a subordinate god of Aurena, and although he is righteous due to being the god of oaths, I do not believe he has called you to this world with a pure intention. All the subordinate gods that I know, the ones under my goddess Plesia especially, are ravenous. They seek to further their goals and quarrel amongst each other, while their leading deities are working peacefully to ensure our world’s safety. I witnessed the origin gods’ power when they came into our world, and in them I trust.”]

The leviathan eyes suddenly sharpened, as if he was trying to remember something that agitated him, ["However, once a mortal, always a mortal. And what we mortals know since the day of our birth is to be greedy. Greedy for resources to survive, to become stronger, to be more influential. Some seek fame and honor in a mad pursuit to fulfill their own desires, bringing carnage and pain to everybody around them. The tragedy that brought my old friend's bloodline to ruins is a clear indicator of mortal lust."]

[“Then what are we supposed to do then? We’re about to meet Kargryxmor and you’re telling me to not believe everything he says? I’m sorry but that is nerve-wracking,”] I admitted my personal feelings at the information that was given to me.

[“I apologize if it displeases you but that is why it is: heresy. I have merely retold you what I have experienced in the long years of my life and how I witnessed the ascension of four primal beasts. Ancient beings that have reached the peak, where we are mere ants to them. How they became known to the origin gods is a story for another time.”]

Stopping there, the leviathan jerked his head back before roaring out, “Mooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrhhhhh!”, and then dived back into the swamp, sending a geyser of water into the air, showering us like rainfall.

[“I wish you good travels, Hestia, Saori, and Tasianna. May the origin gods guide you to whatever your heart desires. Remember my words, young garm, the next time we meet it will be when I have evolved into an S rank, so gain power and challenge me to regain what was rightfully yours,”] with those parting words, the leviathan disappeared into the depths of the swamp.

As I quickly work through the information that the leviathan gave us, having my parallel minds sort everything for easier reference in the future, I noticed that my two companions were still staring blankly at where the leviathan once was.

[“Hey, guys? You two ok?”] I asked a bit of worry.

[“Huh? Oh yeah, sorry, Hestia. That was…a lot to process,”] Saori said exasperatedly. [“That was…too much information for me. Far too much and it is giving me a slight headache.”]

[“I’m also alright, Lady Hestia. I was in wonderment really. A fellow follower of the goddess of water and he was old enough to witness her in her glory and beauty. I only wish I could’ve asked him a few questions but, alas, I didn’t want to interrupt your conversation,”] Tasianna admitted with a playful smile.

[“Well, we have to meet the lizardmen again anyways, so you can always ask him about the details later on when we visit the levianewts, right, Saori?”] I turned to my first friend in this world, after seeing Tasianna say “I can’t wait”.

[“Huh? M-Meet the leviathan, again? W-Well, I guess it would interest me also from a historian’s perspective,”] she said a bit absent-minded.

Worried that she was being a bit weird, I asked her about it, [“Saori, is something wr-”]

[“Princess Hestia Atsuko, you have spoken with the ocean dragon, yes? Now that he has left, I advise that we move out as soon as possible. It will still take me the whole day today to reach there, so let us be off now,”] Astalos urged us.

Knowing that I can talk about it to Saori later on, I decided to put it aside, for now, to focus on bringing the lizardmen out of the forest. As everybody slowly climbed onto the wyvern’s back, I noticed that the wyverns were pouring in mana into their wings.

Wanting to learn how to fly, I asked Astalos, [“Flying, Princess? Hmm, it will still take a while until your wings grow large enough to carry your whole body. However, once we are in Wyvern Peaks, I will have your two new retainers teach you until you are content.”]

Two new retainers, huh? I guess he was talking about the two ice wyverns. It’s a shame that they didn’t have [Telepathy], otherwise we could talk about it…but I think it’s better this way. I haven’t apologized yet and I also feel too awkward to do it.

Once everybody was on board, the wyverns began flapping their wings after casting wind magic to help them take off. The burst of powerful winds gave the wyverns the necessary oomph to catapult their bodies upward despite how many people they had to carry right now.

Being up in the sky again was quite the experience. Instead of feeling like I was free when I flew, it felt more as if I was on an airplane, cruising through the skies on my way to Japan or Germany during vacation time.

As Astalos said, it took until the evening for them to make it past the mountain pass that connected Belzac forest with the elven territory. Watching the sea of trees just slide pass me in a single day does make me envious. Flying was so much faster.

After exiting the mountain pass, we chose a spot close to an elven settlement that Tasianna knew about and let the lizardmen off. Saying our tearful goodbyes, especially when I had to do it with the kids, made me feel nauseous. I wanted to give the kids an idol concert but until we met again, that promise would be left unfulfilled.

It’s just sad…but what can I do? They were finally out of that devil’s hole so I should, instead of feeling sad, be happy for them that they didn’t have to suffer anymore. They were finally so close to reaching their goal.

It might have been a depressing goodbye, but I could also see the elation and relief in their faces. They were sick and tired of the forest so it made sense that they felt like that.

After giving them all their belongings back, including some of our rations to help them for a few days, we parted. With that taken care of, Saori, Tasianna, and I departed with the wyverns towards the south, intending to reach Wyvern Peaks which was among the mountain range of Aviator Peaks.

*********************************

“General, are you sure about what that scout told you?”

"Yes, my King! The scouts spoke with the indigenous kobold tribes and found out that the wyverns were flying to the north!”

"Huh, that should make it easy for us. Turn our aims up north and let no one enter the skyspace of these mountain ranges without my permission."

“Permission to fire at will?”

“Shoot them cannons when you see them. We’re gonna hunt us some wyverns.”

A note from AbyssRaven

This is now the ending for the swamp arc, which means a new arc will happen! Now, what would happen next?

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 66: No, anything but that!!!

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #2 her to promote our Patreon. You guys probably want to know what will happen next, right? Join our Patreon and I can promise you will! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 10 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until July!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

Oh, it's so breezy up here…feels good to have my hair flow with the wind.

["Oh? Princess Hestia Atsuko, are you enjoying yourself, or are my eyes deceiving me?"]

[“Leave me alone, please. I don’t want to talk with you.”]

[“Hmm, fair enough. I shall respect your terrible mood.”]

Sigh, what a dick…

Frankly, I shouldn’t be acting like an asshole to Astalos but it honestly irks me when I think about playing “nice”. Technically, this was a kidnap and why should I be nice to somebody that kidnapped me, right? Of course, it would be more sensible to deceive him by being friendly and eventually finding an opening to escape but…no, I don’t want to.

After saying our goodbyes to lizardmen, our trio continued flying with the wyverns a bit to the south until it was completely dark, forcing the wyverns to land in the forest to rest for the night. During our night with them, we were served raw meat that one of the ice wyverns hunted down.

Saori and I wanted to cook it but for some ungodly reason, the wyverns were adamant about us eating it without spicing it up. Astalos said something like “You would ruin the flavor” and “Eat it fast, otherwise, it will be snatched away”.

Snatched away by whom? The wyverns? Nope, those guys simply hunted their own meals and the amount of meat was enough to satisfy them.

Then what about Tasianna? I’m kidding, of course, but even if she were to feel too hungry, she was more a fruit person than a meat-lover. She simply picked one from the surrounding trees and considering her size, that was ample enough.

That leaves the animals from our surroundings, but which monster was idiotic enough to come close to us? If you excluded my party, three B rank wyverns surrounded us like bodyguards which should be enough to scare off even the dumbest monsters.

However, as much as Saori and I wanted to continue complaining, we had to eat. Astalos told me that as a “whelp” I needed to eat more to grow. Well, it made sense. I was a growing girl and I’d fallen into some gluttonous phases before, so more food is good.

The problem was just the taste. We had to deactivate [Humanize] as our taste buds differed between forms or to be more exact, our true forms could endure the unpleasant stink of blood better.

In all my time as a dragon, I still haven’t gotten used to the crude, iron taste of blood. I would usually drain the body before eating, but the wyverns were insisting that we didn’t. Well, while it didn’t make me want to puke anymore, I still found it bland and disgusting.

I also realized something during that night which surprised me, greatly. It’s the fact that watching those giant scaled lizards strutting around me was quite pleasant. If you took away the fact that they were killer machines and that we sorta fought to the death a few hours ago, then they were pretty cool.

Astalos already looked incredibly awesome with how rough and edgy his scales were, sending me into a bit of a trance when he shook his body to loosen it up. The crazy amount of fantastic monster and enemy designs in video games already made me say “oooooh”, but seeing the real deal is something else.

The two ice wyverns also didn’t disappoint. On Astalos’ command, the cleaned me up for the night using their tongue. While getting licked wasn’t pleasant, it did give me a good look at their shining beige and navy-blue scales. It was beautiful to the eye as if you were taking a glimpse into a wonderland of snow-white gemstones.

.

Sleighbells ring, are you listening? ♫

Cold in the air, winter is coming ♫

When will the snow fall ♫

The fall of year’s end ♫

Flying in a winter wonderland ♫

.

["Oh, what is that sound you're making, Princess? What is that humming?"] Astalos asked.

[“S-Shut up, Dummkopf!”] I responded flustered.

[“Hmm, your hostility has increased again. It makes it uncomfortable for me, not knowing if it’s you or a threat from above, that is directing their bloodlust at me,”] Astalos said with a slight frown.

[“Can you blame me? I’m still angry that you had to ruin everything. I fulfilled one promise but now my other will have to be left unfinished, for an unknown amount of time. Ahh, this is frustrating,”] saying that, I clenched my teeth and tightened my grip on Astalos’ scales while he flew with me on his back.

The second promise that I mentioned was the one I made to the lizardmen kids. I know I told them that I won’t forget about it, but it still was terrible to see them cry, telling me that they will miss me. It was just a terribly quick farewell.

I’d had hoped I could have stayed with them a bit longer, just long enough that I could translate my song and sing it to them in Common tongue. I wanted them to hear me and understand the lyrics, while I graced through the dance floor at the beat of the music. I had envisioned something spectacular, although humble, for my first idol performance.

But that enthusiasm is now replaced by a creeping pain in my chest, gnawing on my guilt. Everything was set, the stage was near, and the music was about to play…but three wyverns just had to ruin everything.

I’m in this shitty situation ‘cause of them and if it weren’t for me feeling a bit of kinship, due to them being the first dragonkin that I could speak to, then I would have honestly hated them as a way to vent this frustration inside me.

But it just felt wrong to do so. The ice wyverns might have been fierce during our battle, but they’ve just been meek since this trip started. I guess they were afraid of what I did to them. Watching them does make me want to sigh sometimes but I couldn’t hate them.

However, Astalos on the other hand…I had [Featherfall]…I didn’t need to worry about falling down. I personally wanted to slice his throat, right about now, but I also understood that it would’ve been impossible.

I was sitting on his back in my dragonewt form with only half of my original stats. If I couldn’t do anything in my dragon form, then my dragonewt form would have even more trouble. I was even trying to scratch his scales with my claws right now, but it wasn’t even leaving a scratch. Granted, I wasn’t trying nor was I empowering it with either buffing spells or [Spark Claws] but it’s the principle that mattered here.

[“Hey, Hestia are you alright? Want some stew? I think I still have some in my storage,”] Saori offered while she rode on the female ice wyvern.

Saori wasn’t using “my Lady” or “Lady Hestia” here as it was redundant to do so. The wyverns already knew our situation and Saori also wasn’t in the mood to keep up appearances. Ever since we talked to the leviathan, she seemed to be acting differently.

[“Ooh, would tea be to your liking, also, Lady Hestia?”] Tasianna offered before realizing that she couldn’t make any while sitting on Saori’s shoulders. [“On second thought, that might cause too much of a mess.”]

[““Yeah,””] both Saori and I responded.

Not only would it prove hard for Tasianna to make tea when we were this far up from the ground, but it would also be difficult for her to hand it to me when they were a couple of miles behind us, flying on the ice wyvern's back.

That was the sorta formation that the wyvern agreed on. Astalos would lead with me on his back, while the two ice wyverns would flank on his side a couple of miles behind us. It was to ensure that they would be ready for combat, but I think it’s to keep me away from my two friends.

I know they wanted to cheer me up, but it’s just empty words at this phase. Saori found it difficult to use [Shadow Dash] while the wyverns were flying this fast. It’s the thoughts that count but I was in a bit of a bad mood to appreciate it.

As we continued flying through the day, my boredom grew more and more. Flying should be exciting but I was kinda getting fed up by it. Was it ‘cause I wasn’t flying myself or is ‘cause of something else?

“Sigh…” I sighed.

["Please, bear with it a bit longer, Princess Hestia Atsuko. We are already flying at a fast pace but any more and there will be a risk that you might be blown off me,"] Astalos informed, noticing my unenthused mood.

He was right about that. Now that they’ve found me, they didn't have many reasons to slow down and search for me which meant that they could speed up as much as they wanted. We were skating through the skies like a Ferrari at top speed, making all the effort of our party to go north null in a matter of hours.

While my hair was fluttering from the wind, the sight of mountains could be seen. If north were the Belzac mountains, then this must be the Aviator Peaks mountain range.

[“Yo, Astalos. Don’t tell me that those mountains in the horizons are Aviator Peaks. Are you seriously telling me that you made it this far just from a single day?!"] I asked, flabbergasted at this crazy thought.

We’ve started out at the dawn and we've been flying without any breaks since then. I could already see the sun starting to set and the sky turning orange which meant that evening was coming, but this was still unbelievable. How were these wyverns able to do this?

[“It is all a matter of experience and having to live in an environment that forces you to know how to fly. Still, I must admit that we’ve been straining ourselves a bit too much as you can see my Stamina having dropped below 50%”] Astalos admitted which was quickly confirmed with an [Identify]. [“I do not believe it is wise to actually enter the mountain ranges today. My subordinates will not be able to keep up any longer and with all the griffons there, we will need our full strength to outmaneuver them.”]

With a simple nod of his head, the two ice wyverns behind us understood his intention and were slowing down drastically with Astalos, [“You will learn this once you stay up in the sky for a prolonged time, but your wings will start to feel strained. If you start feeling it, never attempt to continue flying at that state, otherwise-evade!”]

“Wooooooaaaaaaaah!” as if somebody suddenly twirled a car, Astalos jerked his body to the side at high speed, causing me to nearly lose balance.

Before being able to complain, a large, blue ball shot right past us.

[“Huh?! What in the hell was that?!”] I let out in surprise.

[“Hostile located! Spread out and retreat! We retreat with the dragoness!”] Astalos shouted a command, bringing the snow wyverns into actions as they began flanking us from the side.

To get away from what was attacking us, the wyverns had to twist their bodies mid-air like a snake, killing their forward momentum in the progress. However, before we could actually fly, my [Prediction] suddenly noticed an attack, no, multiple attacks coming from below.

From within the foliage of the trees, hundreds of projectiles shot up and flew towards us. However, instead of clashing against Asatalos' body, they were instead reflected by an invisible barrier that surrounded his body. Considering that static was affecting my hair, I believe this must be his [Electromagnetic Barrier] doing work.

While we didn’t have to avoid those attacks, the same couldn’t be said about the snow wyverns.

While the male one could freeze his body to protect his body from the attacks, the female one couldn’t do that as she had Saori and Tasianna on her. She was only able to freeze her underside and belly, but it wasn’t enough as she was dodging with the same elegance as she did during our battle.

As I was looking at their direction, I suddenly notice the form of the projectiles. Instead of magic spells or toxic spit that most animals in the Belzac forest used to attack us, these were instead something man-made: arrows.

[“Insolent beings! Know your place, know thunder’s fury!”] with a loud shout, three purple magic circles appeared in front of Astalos. Whilst chanting his spell, lightning suddenly started flowing from these circles, intersecting which each other as a ball of lightning grew from this joint union. The ball’s shape suddenly began to flow, breaking off as pieces of it started joining the three magic circles, creating an even larger magic circle.

[“Ramuh!”]

With that word, the giant purple circle glowed a lilac glow as the static became louder and louder, forming a singular, condensed mana concentration in the middle of it. With the sound of numerous thunderstorms raging at the same time, a massive beam of pure magical electricity shot out from the circle and into the forest.

The shockwave of the impact caused Astalos and the other wyverns to be blown backward, closer to the mountains and the canyon that separated the Belzac forest from Aviator Peaks. However, even from this distance, the aftermath of the explosion could be clearly seen.

The howling thunder ravaged the trees and ground, evaporating anything organic while singing the very ground they stood at. With one single spell, Astalos was able to wipe out a whole area of its vegetation while also scorching the ground, leaving embers behind in its wake.

[“Lesser beings should stay down and respect the rulers of the skies. Their arrogance have-huh, what is this?!”]

While gloating in his victory, shadowy tendrils started coming from out of my shadow and entangled Astalos’ wings in a solid grip, preventing him from moving in the skies. Before he could free himself, another blue ball shot through the skies, crashing against him and sending him tumbling through the air while I was launched off his back.

HEILIGE SCHEIßE-oh wait, why am I worried about falling? remembering that I had measures to protect myself from fall damage I chastised myself for panicking. While spreading my wings to slow down my descent, a sudden chill ran down my spine as I heard Astalos’ bone-chilling roar.

That ball…there is no doubt about it! I know that, no, I was once hit by the very same thing! That’s a [Warhammer Mana Cannon]!

Directing my eyesight towards the direction of that mana ball, I was able to spy the exact location of the cannon and the ones who were wielding it. In my memory, the cannon was manned by giant demi-human monsters called trolls, however, this time it was a wide range of beings.

Goblin

A green demi-human who are renowned for being devious and cruel. These little monsters might be weak individually but can work with themselves to defeat larger enemies. Envious creatures that take sadistic joy when they can overwhelm and defeat anything larger than them, pleasuring themselves by torturing their fallen enemy. Rank G

Kobold

A brown-furred demi-human whose intelligence is restricted compared to their other demi-human relatives. Social creatures that form strong bonds with one another, working in solidarity to achieve their goals. Shows high potential for evolution options. Rank G

Orc

A green muscular humanoid monster with two small tusks. Although not the smartest, these monsters still possess an adequate amount of intelligence. Stunning strength and sturdy defense must be planned for when one fights such a creature. It has a strong sense of smell, despite its small nose. Rank D

Ogre

A giant cantankerous humanoid monster with muscles large enough to break another being’s bones with a single swipe of the hand. Extremely intelligent with an ability to be reasoned with, these demi-humans are dangerous foes for any unprepared challengers. Possess high alcohol resistance. Rank C

These are my first-time witnessing goblins and ogres, which is surprising considering how large the Belzac forest was. I’ve witness tribes of kobolds and also a few orc groups, but never have I seen all four of these demi-humans in the same place.

From how they were fidgeting with the cannon, I can assume that they must be the ones who shot it. Quite interesting…but very helpful.

[“Hestia! Use [Featherfall]!”] finally having caught up, Saori called out mid-air while clutching Tasianna in her hand.

After quickly casting [Featherfall] on myself and then transferring another to Saori, she then grabbed me around my waist and sped up our fall. Protected by my spell, Saori landed with a loud thud at the bottom of the canyon, leaving an indent of her feet behind.

With me under her arm and Tasianna sitting in her hand, Saori looked around for a second before speeding up to the nearest…cave?!

[“Saori, hey! What are you doing?!”] struggling in a panic, I questioned Saori’s action.

[“I am sorry, but we have to. Please, bear with my plan for the moment, alright? While the wyverns have to deal with those attackers, we have to get out of their sight,”] Saori stated, pointing at the loud cannon fires that were happening above us. [“The cave is our only hope! If we can escape there, we can either find an exit or come out of the entrance when everything settles. In any case, we need to disappear!”]

Urgh, what a turn of fate… I mumbled to myself, realizing how ironic it was that we’re back here after spending nearly three weeks walking north. How crazy is it that we’re back in the canyon where we met Tasianna?

Entering the cave, Saori sprinted through it without a bit of worry, with the sole goal to get us away from the wyverns before checking out the situation. Igniting a [Light], I held onto our only light source with a fierce persistence as [The Light]’s side-effect made me feel unwell inside the darkness.

Suddenly, the [Prediction] of all three of us sounded its alarm directing our attention upwards. With the sound of streaming electricity, a bright light appeared as it cleanly sliced the cave’s ceiling and floor.

The effects of that attack caused the cave to quake, crumbling as rock and sand fell onto us. Casting both [Haste] and [Swift Winds] on Saori, she quickly caught my intention and turned back into her monster form, throwing us on her back.

With improved speed, my cadejo friend sped through as the ceiling began collapsing, eventually blocking our way back out. Once the shaking stopped, we heaved a small sigh at nearly being buried under the mountain.

[“What the hell…I don’t think [Sanctuary] would be able to stop a whole mountain from falling on us…”] I said while looking at the fallen rocks.

[“Huff, puff…that wyvern is a menace. He nearly killed us,”] Saori breathed heavily as she complained about the one who caused all of this.

[“That was definitely lightning, and my wings could still remember the same static that happened on the day we met him,”] Tasianna pointed out. [“That had to be his [Boltreaving Blade] …what frightening power.”]

Nodding at her statement, our group then turned our heads towards the remaining path of the cave.

[“Well, I guess we can only go forward, right?”] I said.

With another nod, our trio continued onwards after barely escaping the wyverns, certain that what lied ahead of us was another adventure…hopefully without any wyverns.

A note from AbyssRaven

So anybody want to guess what will happen now? I'll give you guys a tip, reread chapter 38 and you will know exactly what I am planning.

The question now is: what will happen inside the cave?

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 67: A Raging flame growing inside the Cave.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #3 here to promote our Patreon. Come on guys, join us already! 10 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork, what's there not to want! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 10 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until July!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Singing Lv. 7] [Dancing Lv. 5] [Musician Lv. 3] [Poison Creation Lv. 6] [Toxic Secretion Lv. 3] [Trap Creation Lv. 5] gained

Panguana Meat Stew

A highly nutritious meat stew that uses the vigorous meat of the panguana as its base. Placed in a special liquid of strong seasoning and swamp water to rid the meat from its terrible smell, leaving only a fine steak behind

It feels like we’ve been wandering underground for nearly a week or so. Haa, a warm meal really is refreshing.

“Mhmm, it’s pretty delicious…but swamp water? Seriously, Saori?” I replied to my friend in Common tongue, instead of English or Japanese. “But, honestly, don’t you want to make something for yourself? You’ve been making things that I liked to eat ever since we’ve met.”

“Well, it is my pleasure to serve you something you enjoy. Good food is best eaten when everybody can savor it,” Saori responded back, also in Common tongue.

“I know, but don’t you want to…uh, don’t you want to-,” I tried to reply back but it seems I couldn’t remember a certain word, forcing me to resort to [Telepathy] to convey my thoughts. [“Don’t you want to make some Japanese cuisine? I like western and eastern cooking equally, so you don’t have to restrict yourself.”]

“Ohhh, isn’t this ‘Japanese’ a country from Earth? I would love to taste your home country’s cooking, Miss Saori,” Tasianna said with expecting eyes.

“You two…,” Saori scratched her head in defeat. “It is not like I do not want to make it; it is just that I cannot make it. The ingredients for them were not in the forest, and I would not want a proper breakfast without….uh, let me say the rest with [Telepathy].”

We were already showing improvements with our language comprehension due to Tasianna’s daily lectures. Speaking with the lizardmen has also widened our horizon enough that we could start speaking completely in Common tongue…although, we still had our problems here and there.

[“Rice. Without rice, it would not feel very authentic. Grilling some kebabs or cooking a steak is much easier with our current tools, anyways,”] Saori said.

She was right. Our current cooking tools were just our claws and hands as anything else would be less effective. While cutting was not a problem, anything fancy was practically quite difficult to reproduce, so Saori must have decided that simple was best.

Speaking of missing tools, I didn’t have anything to bake. I honestly want to start baking again when I get the chance.

"'Rice'?" Tasianna questioned, tilting her head for a moment, before hitting her open palm with a fist. "Oh, it took a bit for the telepathy to send all the information. Are you speaking of a hard, yellow grain that turns soft and white after you moisten them? They're small and about this big, yes?" Using her small arms, she imitated the size of a rice kernel.

“Wait, Tasianna are you meaning to tell me that you know about rice?!” Saori burst out in surprise and anticipation.

“Oh, yes. According to my adoptive parents, rice is actually one of two national crops that the dwarves absolutely adore because you can make strong alcohol from them. I remembered that my father once brought some of that beverage back after he went with his majesty to the dwarves," Tasianna said while tapping her chin, reminiscing about her childhood. "It reeked as terrible as any other alcohol. Revolting. For some reason that I cannot understand, the elves also like that untasteful liquor.”

Wait, is she talking about-

“Hold on!” Saori shouted once again before grabbing Tasianna with both of her hands. “Rice, did you just say rice? I-I understood that! Not as a Common tongue word but as the Japanese one. Huh, what does this…wait, confirm this for me Tasianna. Sake. S. A. K. E. Sake. Is that the word of the rice liquor?”

Looking at the fanatical Saori, Tasianna could only wince at this bizarre sight, "A-Ah, y-yes, Miss Saori. I do remember it being called sake."

Saori, satisfied with that answer, released Tasianna from her clutch, “Then please answer two more questions for me. Do you know the origin of that name and where the dwarves live?”

“Uh, yes, I do in fact. According to my father, rice became a national food due to its history with one of their rulers. They were the one that led the dwarves during the infamous Fairy War and they later on ascended to godhood after their death,” Tasianna explained. “I apologize but I do not remember the name of that specific god. However, the dwarves themselves live northeast from the elves.”

In other words, due to our little kidnapping, we’re too far away now.

“Hestia…” after hearing that, Saori turned around and looked at me. “Do you remember what that leviathan told us? About somebody who was exactly like us? Would you believe that it might be a coincidence?”

“…Nope, not at all,” I said after a quick thought. “‘Achieved greatness’, or something like that. If becoming a subordinate god isn’t considered 'greatness', then I'm tone-deaf. You aren't thinking what I'm thinking, right?"

“Yes, after we get out of this forest, we should probably make it our goal to visit the dwarves if we get the chance,” Saori stated. “Not only for the rice. Not only for the delicious sake. But I honestly want to know about this person. They might not have much to do with our situation, but I must admit that I am curious as both a person and a historian."

“…Are you serious? Saori, do you know what a dwarf is?” I asked Saori a rhetorical question, hopeful that she’s well-informed about pop-culture. “Tasianna can you explain to me what a dwarf is?”

“…Apologies but I cannot, Lady Hestia. Just like how I couldn't describe a beastman to you before I met the lizardmen, I also can't tell you how dwarves look like because I never met them. All I know is that they live under the mountains and that-"

“That’s enough!” I shouted, interrupting Tasianna. “You hear that Saori! Cave! Underground! Mountain! Darknesssssssssssss!”

“Alright, alright, Hestia! Please, you have to calm down! I know you do not like being in caves but are you not feeling curious about all of this?" Saori tried to soothe me as I began jumping up and down due to my frustration of still being inside this cave!

I don’t know how long it has been but we've stayed inside this cave for an extremely long time now! I miss being outside, alright! It’s dark, musky, cold, and just a pain to be in! OMG, I want out of here.

“Don’t you try that on me, Saori! You should know by now how much I hate being inside a cave! I’ve been stuck inside one for a whole month, just by myself! Being forced to speak with myself through my parallel minds! That is not healthy!” I shouted hysterically, finally letting out my frustration. “Arrrgh, I want to get out of here already, so just let me make a hole and we can get back to fresh air, Saori! Please!”

“Hestia, have you forgotten that we are trying to evade the wyverns? You told me personally after we left that you were suspicious about Kargryxmor. That speaking with Aurena first sounded safer,” Saori pointed out, reminding me why we were in this cave in the first place. “I will not tell you that taking the word of a giant monster like that leviathan at face value is a smart move, but that is beside the point. Astalos, that [Boltreaver Wyvern], has proven to be an asshole and we should stay away from anything related to that psychopath. Staying low and not causing a fuss is our only way out, so please, I beg you to have a bit more patience Hestia. Is it really as bad as you think?”

“Urgh…,” I groaned at her sound arguments.

It…honestly isn’t as bad as my first time being stuck inside a cave. Last time, I was completely alone and couldn’t share my annoyance of being inside a cave beside blasting things with magic.

Being together with somebody is reassuring. Saori and Tasianna have made my time inside here much more comfortable. We haven’t found an underground lake yet but the constant showers that Tasianna could conjure up were enough for me to feel clean with.

“Huh?”

“Saori?” interrupted by Saori’s sudden voice, I stopped thinking about the issue on hand.

“Uhhh, nothing. Just forget it, ok?” Saori said nervously, fidgeting around. “Oh, how about I make you ice cream? Fragassa, those giant strawberries are your favorite, right? Tasianna could you help me make some for Hestia?”

“I don’t know what ‘ice cream’ is, but it would be my honor to continue serving Lady Hestia,” Tasianna announced with a proud face.

“Well, I wouldn't mind ice cream, but what is this? I might look like a twelve-year-old, but you don’t have to appease me as if I really was one. I’m not a kid, gu-…ys…,” at that moment, something felt off.

I’ve already mentioned that it felt like we’ve been in here forever, but how long has it actually been?

“Tasianna, do you remember what the date was when we fled from the wyverns?” I turned to my fairy companion.

“Wait, Miss Tasianna you mus-”

“Of course, Lady Hestia. It was the 18th of HarvestMoon, the tenth month of our calendar. I always count the days…but as you can see, it is quite hard to do so inside here,” Tasianna said with a quizzical face.

I checked my status board yesterday and I was still six months old…

“Hestia…don’t.”

Open profile.

Hestia's status board update

Profile:

Name: Hestia Atsuko

Level: 29

Race: Young Spark Inferno Dragon

Age: 7 Months

Status:

Health:

5709/5709(+442)

Mana:

19192/19192(+1090)

Strength:

2783 (+106)

Intelligence:

5280 (+598)

Vitality:

1423 (+35)

Wisdom:

1713 (+59)

Agility:

5702 (+511)

Stamina:

2814/2814(+110)

Effects:

[Damaged Mana Paths [Left Wing] (Minor)] [Humanized (Moderate)]

Skill Points:

2600 (+800)

Unique Skill:

[Spark Fire Dragon Lv. 8]

[Spark Fire’s Fire Boost]

[Spark Flame Veil] (New)

Skill:

Magic skills and related

[Lava Magic Lv. 2]

[Lightning Magic Lv. 1] (New)

[Holy Magic Lv. 10]

[Holy Amp]

[Holy Magic Efficiency]

[Sacred Magic Lv. 5]

[Fire Magic Lv. 10]

[Fire Amp]

[Fire Magic Efficiency]

[Inferno Magic Lv. 5]

[Earth Magic Lv. 10]

[Earth Amp]

[Earth Magic Efficiency]

[Terra Magic Lv. 2] (+1)

[Wind Magic Lv. 10] (+1)

[Wind Amp]

[Wind Magic Efficiency]

[Storm Magic Lv. 1] (New)

[Space-Time Magic Lv. 4]

[Space-Time Magic Efficiency]

[Synergist’s Oath Lv. 5] (+1)

[Draconic Magics]

[Draconic Barrier Lv. 4]

[Silent Casting Lv. 6]

[Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 6] (+1)

[Mental Stability Lv. 5] (+1)

[Mental Warfare Lv. 4]

Physical and related

[Unarmed Technique Lv. 5] (+1)

[Draconic Claws Lv. 5] (+1)

[Draconic Roar Lv. 3] (+1)

[Draconic Fangs Lv. 4]

[Sundering Enhancement Lv. 4]

[Piercing Enhancement Lv. 4]

[Crushing Enhancement Lv. 2]

Senses and movement skills

[Stealth Lv. 9]

[Accuracy Correction Lv. 6]

[Concentration Lv. 2]

[Prediction Lv. 9] (+1)

[Danger Perception Lv. 3] (+1)

[Probability Correction Lv. 5]

[Detection Sensor Lv. 3] (+1)

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 5]

[Tracking Lv. 3]

[Night Vision Lv. 8]

[Presence Killer Lv. 9]

[Evasion Lv. 10]

[Acrobatic Lv. 10]

[Air Walk Lv. 2]

[Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 4]

Resistances

[Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 4] (+2)

[Absolute Pain Tolerance]

[Mana Leak Resistance Lv. 1]

[Abnormal Status Nullification]

[Fear Resistance Lv. 2] (+1)

[Lava Resistance Lv.1]

[Holy Resistance Lv. 4]

[Inferno Resistance Lv. 2]

[Terra Resistance Lv. 1]

[Wind Resistance Lv. 2]

[Water Resistance Lv. 1]

[Dark Resistance Lv. 1]

Stat growths and related

[Health Recovery Lv. 4]

[Stamina Recovery Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Health Growth Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 4]

[Arcane Conduit Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Sorcerer’s Power Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Speed of Sound Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 6] (+1)

[Enhanced Stamina Capacity Lv. 4]

Others

[Singing Lv. 7] (+1)

[Dancing Lv. 5] (+1)

[Musician Lv. 3] (+2)

[Handicraft Lv. 1] (New)

[Woodworking Lv. 2]

[Poison Creation Lv. 5] (+1)

[Toxic Secretion Lv. 3] (+1)

[Trap Creation Lv. 5] (+1)

[Identity Blocker Lv. 4] (+1)

[Identify Lv. 10]

[Noble Aura Lv. 5]

[Benevolent Aura Lv. 1]

[Terror Aura Lv. 1]

[Battle Mind Lv. 6]

[Royal Etiquette Lv. 2]

[Leadership Lv. 5]

[Cooking Lv. 7]

[Dismantle Lv. 7]

[Thought Acceleration Lv. 2]

[Parallel Thoughts Lv. 8]

[Body Temperature Control Lv. 2] (+1)

[Humanize Lv. 8]

[Pyrokinesis]

[Aerokinesis]

[Telepathy]

Ability List:

[Flame Blast]

[Spark Claws]

[Spark Flame]

[Spark Fire Breath]

[Spark Fang]

[Spark Inferno Blast]

Spell List:

Custom magic

[Imperial Hellfire]

Lightning magic

[Lightning Bolt]

Lava magic

[Lava Ball]

[Lava Stream]

Holy magic

[Minor Heal]

[Cure]

[Modest Heal]

[Smite]

[Light]

[Holy Protection]

[Holy Strength]

[Purify]

[Sacred Smite]

[Sacred Veil]

[Sacred Field]

[Banishment Beam]

[Major Heal]

Fire magic

[Fire] [Firebolt]

[Imbue Fire]

[Fire Ball]

[Strengthening Flames]

[Flame Spear]

[Petal Flame]

[Flame Explosion]

[Inferno Blast]

[Blazing Twister]

[Inferno Beam]

[Scorching Sun]

[Spiral Hellfire]

Earth magic

[Earth Wall]

[Rock Blast]

[Earth Strike]

[Rock Bullet]

[Sturdy Earth]

[Earth Spears]

[Earth Crash]

[Earthen Shackles]

[Terra Wall]

[Bedrock Blades]

Wind magic

[Wind Bullet]

[Wind Cutter]

[Air Shield]

[Wind Slash]

[Swift Winds]

[Wind Blast]

[Featherfall]

[Aerial Blitz]

[Tornado Bullet]

Space-Time magic

[Haste]

[Storage Magic]

[Warp Point: Entry]

The Light magic

[Shine]

[Sanctuary]

Titles:

[The Light] [Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] [Otherworldly Reincarnator] [Princess]

“…Saori?” I looked at Saori.

“…Sigh, I was checking my mana consumption. Making sure that my [Humanized] was not draining too much and I just found out that my ‘Age’ has changed to three months,” Saori said with a reluctant tone.

“Wait, Miss Saori. If you’ve just become three months old, then that means that it's the 25th. Oh, it is a relief for me to know the date again. Which means today is a Restday,” Tasianna said, pleased to know the date again.

“Sigh…I see,” compared to the happy-go-lucky fairy, I, on the other hand, had to take a breath to calm myself down. “LET ME OUT OF HERE!”

Shouting at the top of my lungs, I began materializing the magic circle for [Inferno Beam] to drill a hole in the ceiling of this cave, planning to create an escape out of this abominable place.

“Hestia, no!” Saori called out before tackling me onto the ground like a football player, holding my arms down. “We need to stay incognito here! Please, you have to calm down!”

“GET OFF OF ME, SAORI! GET OFF!” putting my feet on Saori’s body, I kicked her off me, despite her resistance.

Jumping back onto my feet, my spell’s red magic circle was finished, ready for me to active it. However, as I was ready to activate it, [Prediction] warned me, informing me of Saori who dashed behind me.

‘Cause she used [Haste], my reaction time wasn’t fast enough for me to avoid being grabbed from behind and being slammed onto a wall. Due to my barrier, it didn’t hurt much, a fact that Saori knew as she wasn’t holding her strength back.

"Damn it, we've gone a week without fighting! Fuck, at least [Battle Frenzy] hasn’t appeared yet!” Saori shouted. "Tasianna, I need help now!"

“GRAAAARRGH, I WANT OUT! NOW! Ooof!”

“Hestia, please stop struggling. You need to control yourself! Don’t let [Battle Frenzy] control you!” Saori once again shouted, but my ears weren’t registering them due to a singular word resounding in my mind: Outside.

“Miss Saori, I apologize for the indecency, but I believe this should help us,” Tasianna called from behind, however, I couldn’t understand what she meant by “indecent”.

“…! Miss Tasianna?!” Saori gasped, surprised at something. “Ah, never mind. We’re all women here, anyways. Just come and help me. We need to control her before she blows this place up!”

“LET ME GO! I WANT TO GO OUTSIDE, ALREADY!” I shouted, putting even more strength to free myself. “I want to see Rajah. I want to see Caszcur. I want Apsala. I want to see Aksmias. I want to see my forest again. I want to see Belzac forest again. The air, the green leaves, the peaceful animals! I don’t want to be in this cave anymore, Saaaaaaooooooriiiiii!”

‘She’s having a tantrum,’ parallel mind #1 said.

‘Yup, and I’m getting influenced by it, too…awesome,’ parallel mind #2 said with annoyance.

‘Come on, girls. I want to get out of this cave too, but we need to calm original mind down!’ parallel mind #3 commanded the others into action.

It was like my parallel minds said, I was having a tantrum. I can’t remember the last time that I had one, so I guess this was my first in this new life. Honestly, the rational part of my mind was telling me that this was an embarrassing thing to do for my age but being inside a cave already made me go mildly insane the last time I was in one.

The thought of staying inside another cave for another month was not cool at all. I didn’t want to stay another day inside here!

I was already extremely annoyed by the recent events. Having to say goodbye to so many people that I would consider friends. Yes, I considered Rajah more of a pet but that didn’t mean the impact of having to say goodbye was any less.

The lizardmen and I had a rough beginning, but I grew fond of them as individuals. There were Caszcur, Aksmias, and Apsala, sure, but every single one of them were awesome and super polite. I even made a promise to sing for the kids, for fuck’s sake. If that didn’t tell you how much I liked them then nothing will.

And that is why…LET ME OUT OF HERE!

“GRAAAAAGH! GRRRRRUUUUUUUGH!”

“Damnit, Hestia!” with a swift twist of her body, Saori threw me onto the ground, knocking my jaw closed to prevent me from releasing dragon fire. “I’ll apologize to you later, but we can’t have you go on a rampage now! Shadow Tendrils!”

“Urrrrrggh!” I winced in pain from the mere touch of the shadow tendrils wrapping themselves around my body, before ignoring it and casting a spell on my horns. “SHINE!”

“Shit!” a glaring light filled the room, freeing myself from Saori’s spell. Noticing that my body could move around freely, I stomped Saori with both legs, using it to jump back on my feet.

“Inferno B-!” as I was about to shoot out a beam of searing hot fire, something surprising came into my view.

It was not a monster nor a beastmen, but a woman with rose-colored skin, completely naked besides for a collar around her neck. She had a slim body with a non-existent chest size. Her face was youthful with an obvious red blush on her cheeks, framed by azure-blue hair that would reach down to her back if she hadn’t tucked them in a prim and proper style.

Normally, she would also have short, pointy ears but her current ones were abnormally long and sharp giving her face a different "feeling". However, what surprised me the most was her bare back, completely void of two of her limbs, her wings.

"…T-Tasianna?" I said aloud, the only thing that came to my mind as I saw the beautiful woman who was a head taller than me.

“…I apologize for this, Lady Hestia! Please, forgive me!” with an incredibly reddened face, the woman rushed towards me and embraced me with a cold hug.

“Gaaaaaaah…..c-c-c-c-c-cold! Tasianna, let me go, please!" I pleaded, trying to fidget my way out of the naked woman's arms.

“Please, calm down first, Lady Hestia! I don’t want to see you make a mistake! Please, control your urges and listen to Miss Saori!” Tasianna said as she looked me straight into the eyes.

"ALRIGHT; ALRIGHT, just put some clothes on first!" this whole scene was too surreal, surreal enough that it cooled down my head enough to stop my tantrum.

After taking the time to apologize to Saori, I just sat down for a moment to reflect on what just happened, doing breathing practices to cool myself down even further. It was frustrating to think that I lost myself that much in my emotions.

That was soooo…urgh, lewd. Gods, let’s just forget that this ever happened.

Forgetting about that little embarrassing scene, I went up and asked the still flustered Tasianna about her current form after Saori gave her one of her spare dresses. Apparently, her current form was caused by the skill [Elvenize] that she recently bought from the skill shop. It was the elven equivalent to [Humanize], turning her into an elf, or more specifically a wind elf.

“Wind elves are the children of Zephira and one of her subordinate gods, Krunal, the god of Harvest and Weather,” Tasianna explained. “Wind elves are usually shorter than high elves, the original race. Due to being children from Zephira, wind elves also have a higher potential in learning wind magic. Otherwise, the two races are practically the same.”

“Wow, two gods did it with two mortals? The gods are horny,” I commented.

“Hey, it is not like our mythology has any less of that. That’s where the word ‘demi-god’ comes from, after all,” Saori said.

“You do not need to worry about that fact. They might be the children of Zephira but they possessed none of her powers besides a higher proficiency gain for wind magic. They are nowhere are godly as you might think,” Tasianna further explained.

In addition to that, we also learned that she literally spent 1000 SP to learn [Elvenize] and then 2400 SP to fully upgrade it to the maximum level. She admitted her reason for buying it was purely personal, wishing to serve me tea with her own hands.

She always felt restless whenever she couldn’t serve me anything in her fairy form, feeling jealous every time she had to watch Saori do it in her stead due to her lack of strength to pick up human-sized teapots and cups.

She stated, “A maid that cannot serve her mistress properly is an incompetent one.” Which was good enough of a reason for her to go all-in with the skill.

As she once mentioned to me, a fairy using a skill akin to [Humanize] and [Elvenize] will create a body made out of mana, same as her original form. That meant that her body wasn’t able to bleed like a normal wind elf.

However, the biggest benefit to her form change was an increase in her Strength and Vitality stats while keeping everything else. As a being made purely from mana, she also didn’t have to consume mana to maintain her form, meaning that she could keep it active indefinitely if she wished.

Still, that didn’t mean it had no disadvantages. She was still a Faefolk, meaning that losing mana in any way would weaken her combat prowess. Anything that could sap her mana from her body was deadly.

She also didn’t have her wings anymore so aerial movements was impossible until she could get [Air Walk]. Her increase Strength also meant a larger body, which means a larger target. She could still fight in her current form, but Saori and I agreed that it would be more beneficial for her to fight as a fairy whenever possible as she could keep her mana levels high by taking ours. A fairy would be small enough to fit on our shoulders, after all.

After that explanation, we continued our walk through the cave, now that Saori and Tasianna have persuaded me to not let [Battle Frenzy] control me.

[Battle Frenzy (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atsuko]

However, that was easier said than done. This damn thing always appears after a week of no proper battles as if it was on a timer. I needed to fight something…but unfortunately, the whole tunnel was too cramped for us to fight in properly.

There was the option to widen the tunnel using my earth magic, but anytime we wanted to do it, the whole tunnel shook. Like it wasn’t even a small quake, it was large enough that a boulder once fell from the ceiling, nearly crushing Tasianna in the process had she not reacted in time.

It was too risky. If I held back for the cave’s sake, then it wouldn’t get rid of [Battle Frenzy]. All I could do was to hold it in…this incredibly frustrating itch inside my chest, that tugged every single fiber of my being.

Whether it was sitting still or eating properly, it was difficult to do due to my shaking body, similar to a drug addict. I was punching the ground, clawing the walls like a cat, and did various other activities to relieve myself for even a single second.

My companions also noticed this so Saori eventually caved in and allowed me to drill a hole, admitting that it was unreasonable of her to expect me to hold it in. Apologizing, she wanted me to drill a hole out of here, as she believed that holding in [Battle Frenzy] for any longer would be risky for me, but I rejected that idea.

As stubborn as that sounded, Saori was right. We needed to avoid the wyverns. We needed to stay low and quiet. Our goal was to first speak with Aurena about everything before we go to Kargryxmor. It just made sense to speak with his boss before we have anything to do with him…and I honestly wanted to avoid Astalos at all cost.

I don’t want to have anything more to do with him, especially when I can assume that he must be fuming at this moment. He’ll probably not stop until he has me in his grasp once again!

I also needed to learn to control these urges. If there are resistances for most status effects, then there should be one for [Battle Frenzy], right? [Mental Stability] helped me keep calm but I needed a real skill that directly helped me with it, but it wasn’t in the SP shop. I couldn’t find it.

If I can’t find it then I shall make it myself. The System is flexible, right? If I hold it in, resisting my urge to fight while constantly asking the System to create a skill like that, then it should happen eventually, right?

Ahhhhhhh, when will this torture end…come on…just one measly skill, please!

After what felt like an eternity, my nose suddenly was stimulated by the sweet smell of fresh air. Dashing through the cave’s tunnel in a frenzy, my patience was completely overruled by an incredible lust to kill anything that came in my sight, once I leave this damnable place.

Seeing the light in this endless darkness, my legs couldn’t stop anymore, forgetting about any restraint.

Once, my body felt the soft feeling of sunshine gracing my scales and the clear air filling my lungs, I finally felt true freedom again. Controlled by both [Battle Frenzy] and this intoxicating dopamine influx, my desire to kill something surged even further to the peak.

[Battle Frenzy (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atsuko]

And then everything went black.

.

*********************************************************

.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atsuko] has risen from [Level 29] to [Level 30]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 3000 skill points

Max level has been reached. Evolution is now available for   [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atsuko]

When I woke up, the first thing that stimulated my senses was the loud “ding, ding, ding, ding” that appeared from having my level rise. I questioned why I even leveled up in the first place, as I couldn’t remember killing anything. My memory was completely blank.

It took my brain a couple of seconds to readjust itself, but when it did, I suddenly noticed that I was standing in a pool of blood, holding onto the shards of a broken skull, unable to use [Identify] to learn what it was, as my skill continued calling it [Shards of a Broken Skull].

Looking around, some trees were broken, and the amount of viscera was astounding. This couldn’t be called anything else but a slaughter field. No refinement. No goal. Just pure and an utterly revolting show of carnage and bloodlust.

“Hestia…!” looking around, I could see Saori and Tasianna having caught up to me, watching me as I stood around in my own creation.

“Lady Hestia, a-are you a-alright?” Tasianna said while she trembled at the sight that I caused.

“Saori…Tasianna,” I mumbled. “W-What have I done? W-What did I do? No…”

I threw the skull shards onto the ground as if I was disgusted at touching them, blocking my mouth from opening with one of my hand and as my mind started digesting the scenery.

“Hestia! Hesta, come here, don’t look!” I could hear Saori say.

“No, no…what is this?! Achooo!”

As I recovered from the shock with a sneeze, my eyes wandered back onto the ground, where I saw a few hints of white. Looking up again, my eyes could make out small, little flakes of white spots dropping from the sky, descending down slowly in a mesmerizing pattern.

*I ****** ********** ********** ****************************************

Argh, so much static in my head, what is that? Wait, snow?

Winter, huh…urgh.

Skill requirement fulfilled.   [Mana Eyes Lv. 1] gained

“HESTIA!”

With a loud cry and thud sound, my eyes closed, and my mind wandered into nothingness.

A note from AbyssRaven

I have this weird feeling that the comment section will be filled with lewd jokes about Hestia nad Tasianna, completely ignoring everything else, ha!

Also, yay, Hestia made it to level 30! Also, nay, she turned everything into mincemeat. Also, yay, she can evolve!

Edit: Besides some typo and prose fixes, I also had to clarify the scene break a bit better. Sorry, that was some bad style from me. Thank you for commenting on it.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 68: Crying is not so bad.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #4 here again! I don't get much screentime, but at least I have a job, and that is to promote our patreon! 10 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork, we have it for lore and reading fans! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 10 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until July!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

“Mhmmmrgggh…sleeeep…”

Urgh, I want to continue sleeping, body…

My head was feeling groggy due to my wish for more sleep I believe, or maybe I’m just been lazy about it. Sleeping is pretty comfortable. Well, massaging my temple for a few seconds is enough to soothe this annoyance.

As I slowly woke up, my ears could hear a crackling sound a few feet away from me. From recent events, I could only think of thunderbolts and electricity but the warmth that emanated from it made it clear that it had to be a flame or something similar.

Scrubbing the sleep from my eyes, I opened them as I wanted to know where I currently was as I couldn’t remember when I fell asleep.

“So, where-ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHH!”

“Hestia?!”

Pain! Pain! Pain! Pain! MY EYES! ARRRRGH, MY HEAD!

As I opened my eyes, something blue shined into and overstimulated them, sending extreme pain that felt similar to having a needle pierce into them and injecting huge amounts of information that overloaded my brain. [Absolute Pain Tolerance] was helping but I still couldn’t let go of my head at all, the information wouldn't stop streaming in!

‘Close your eyes, original mind! Hestia, close your damn eyes!’ parallel mind #1 screamed like a harpy as she ordered me to do what she said.

‘Stop screaming! Stop screaming already, arrrrrgh!’ parallel mind #2 shrieked in agony.

‘Please, original mind, close your eyes. It’s too much! We can’t process all of it!’ parallel mind #3 pleaded to me.

‘Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop speaking, ihr Dummköpfe!’ (you idiots!)

The absolute chaos inside my mind was pure torture, not showing any signs of ending any time soon. I didn’t need my other selves shouting at me to do something. It already hurts enough without them going crazy!

However, their advice wasn’t dumb. Closing my eyes did help, all the blue disappeared. The information was still inside my head, but my parallel minds were doing their best to dump everything out, erasing them as if they never existed.

If only they could just stop screaming while they did it, then I would be actually thankful for them! I really love having headaches every time I wake up in an unknown place I don’t even know about, oh, who would have thought that I would awaken to such a weird fetish?! Right?!

‘‘‘Sorry…’’’ my parallel minds apologized.

‘Urgh, whatever. Honestly, guys…’

“Hestia! Are you ok?!” somebody called for me.

“Lady Hestia, I’m coming!” another shouted.

I was unable to see them due to my closed eyes, but my ears could clearly recognize their distinctive voices, any time, any day.

Saori? Tasianna? Isn’t that their voi-wait…urghhhh, noooooooooo!

“Stay back, stay back! Stay back! Please, step back from me!” I howled like crazy as I turned my head away from Saori’s and Tasianna’s voice.

Still closing my eyes, I crawled away from them as if I was trying to flee. Panic and confusion assaulted me as the memories of what happened before I fell unconscious quickly came back to me, being released from pandora’s box with a simple voice command.

The blood, the red-soaked viscera on the ground, and all the crumbs of what used to be living beings, lying before my feet in a puddle of my own handiwork. A normal girl would feel nausea from this revolting memory…but I, unfortunately, wasn’t one.

No fear. No terror. No disgust. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. None of the bad feelings that should be there, was there! Why wasn't it there?! Where is my fucking conscience?!

“Hestia, stop! You’ll hit the w-”

Oof!

Ok, so not only did I wake up to a mind-numbing headache, but I also bumped my forehead and then landed on the back of my head? Goodness, gracious. This is a rude awakening. At least this won’t leave a scar or bruise.

“Lady Hestia, are you ok?!” a clear voice called for me.

“No, Tasianna! Stay….stay away from me, please!” I cried out while stretching my hand to stop her from coming anywhere closer.

“B-But Lady Hestia, I j-just wanted…,” the quivering voice of my fairy friend made my already confused state even worse, as I wasn’t sure what I was doing anymore.

“Hestia, is something wrong?” a careful tone from Saori came, asking me about what was happening right now.

“Wrong? Wrong…of course, there is something wrong. It’s me!” I stated.

“W-What do you mean by that?” Saori further asked.

"I-I…I'm dangerous," I said, still with closed eyes. "I'm dangerous to both of you. Haven't you two realize this?! I'm dangerous."

I’ve never thought about this stuff ever since the first month of my new life, having accepted my new identity as a dragon and that I needed to do so in the long run. Killing was normal, especially after I understood that I had to do so to live. It was literally survival of the fittest.

Feeling bad for every single animal that I kill, so I could eat, would have made me gone mad, so I didn’t. I guess, my mindset underwent a change due to becoming a dragon as that guilt for taking another’s life never resurfaced.

Until now.

“Hold on, what are you trying to say? How are you dangerous to us? Are you talking about what happened before you fell unconscious?” Saori asked, trying to understand the situation. “Hestia, we already checked everything there. That was just a bunch of monsters…you did not do anything to us if you are worried about that. We barely made it to the scene after you dashed off because of your [Battle Frenzy].”

“That’s the not the point, Sao-arrrghhhh, verdammte scheiße!” wanting to speak back made me instinctively look at Saori’s eyes, but that also meant that the blue screen came back.

Verdammt nochmal, have you guys found the damn cause yet?! Oh, you guys did? I spoke to my parallel minds, who somehow found the source for this annoying new sight of mine.

“Lady Hestia?! This is the second time you’ve screamed this loud. Please, you have to let me do something-I- no, maybe there is a tea that might help you with this?” Tasianna anxiously called out to me.

“No, no, I’m-I’m good. See? Nothing is wrong. S-Something just got into my eye,” I told them to reassure them.

[Mana Eyes] was at fault. “When did I get this skill?” is what my parallel minds are currently trying to find out but we’re pulling a blank here.

Mana Eyes

A skill that allows the user to perceive the flow of mana in the air. Requires tremendous cognitive abilities to process properly

Disabling the skill got rid of all the blue from my sight, allowing me to see my companions clearly again…but also the place that I was currently in…another cave.

“W-Why, no, no, no, no, no! Why am I in a cave, AGAIN?!” I shouted, scratching my head in frustration. “Wait, that isn’t the point of this! Tasianna stop coming closer!”

"Eek! Lady Hestia?" Tasianna flinched backward after I shouted in her face.

“Hestia, what is going on with you?! This…is erratic, even for you!" Saori replied to my sudden outburst.

“I told you already didn’t I?! I’m dangerous to you two, so stay away from me!” I answered. “You’ve seen what I could do! You’ve also seen what I did when [Battle Frenzy(Minor)] hadn’t appeared yet! I’ve hurt you just because I wanted to get out of that damn cave. I-I could’ve done the same to you, just like all those monsters.”

“Calm down, Hestia, what you are saying is an ‘if’,” Saori began. “Neither of us were hurt and, besides, you needed to let your frustration out due to [Battle Frenzy]. We understand, everything is alright.”

“You aren’t understanding me! You aren’t getting what I meant by that, Saori!” I cried out in irritation. “I don’t care that I killed that many monsters and turned them in a smoothie. That by itself is already fucked up! I don’t have a sense of how valuable life is anymore. I’m killing monsters left and right for survival and experience, but I know that I had to do it. If I wanted to live then I had to do that, however, I’ve never in my second life killed without a strict goal.”

Survival and experience, those were always my main reasons to hunt and kill monsters in the Belzac forest. I’ve found fights to be exhilarating and watching my skills go up was a fun side activity too, but at worst, they were always a side product. They were never the reason for me to fight.

I don’t kill for fun. I don’t kill in frustration. I don’t kill for idiotic reasons. That is what kept me on the border of turning into a real monster. The idea of an Idol killing everything willy-nilly was what kept me conscious of myself.

However, what have I been doing recently? I was fully committed to killing the lizardmen for doing something like trying to survive, and I went on a rampage due to [Battle Frenzy].

While I didn’t act on my anger ‘cause Tasianna was my voice of reason, however, seeing what I can do in an act of rage made me tremble in fear. “What if I did that to Tasianna?” or “Could Saori stop me?”, all these different questions started pouring into me as I processed what happened.

“That was a revolting sight. Blood everywhere, as if we were in a slaughterhouse. There was no finesse, no plan, just pure cold-blooded killing. ‘Did I really do that?’, is what I thought when I woke up after [Battle Frenzy (Moderate)] expired,” drawing my head upwards, to looking in Saori’s eyes, I asked her one simple question. “Saori, would you be able to stop me?”

“Huh?” she gasped.

“I’m asking you if you could have stopped me in that scenario? If I had been consumed by my anger, would you have been able to stop me there, because I don’t think you could have. Even with Tasianna’s help,” I looked at them seriously, unwavering as I asked them that.

“‘Would we be able to stop you?’…I-I’m not sure what you mean by that,” Saori said with a pale face, obviously having already gotten the gist of my words.

“I mean, could you k-ki…ugh, could you ki-fuck, I can’t say it,” unable to say those words due to my own fear of death, I instead, let go of my head and dropped my hands on the ground. “I can’t say it. I-I don’t want us to get in that scenario, but I also don’t want to hurt you. I can’t be like those cliché people who can just say ‘Kill me if I go mad’. I can’t say it. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to fight you. I don’t want to hurt those that I care for. What am I supposed to do?”

“Hestia, you have to calm down first. I understand you’re scared but-”

Hearing that, I snapped my face back up, “Can you?! Can you understand what I’m going through, Saori?! Tell me…what am I? I’ve lost so many of my previous values already from becoming…this. Can you honestly understand what I’m going through? Don’t you understand that I need to stay away from you two for your own saft-HUH!?”

I wanted to vent more of my frustration onto Saori but before I could, Saori hugged me.

“I don’t,” was her first words. “I don’t fully understand what you’re going through. There are moments where the blood goes up my head and I act on the impulse, but I never had it as intense as yours. We were both reborn as monsters, but I would be lying if I told you that I could 100% understand you.”

I wanted to push her off me, but my shivering hands wouldn’t listen to my commands. They continued trembling in the air, moving not an inch from the spot. Meanwhile, Saori’s embrace became stronger, not allowing me to leave it.

“I know you are scared,” Saori hand moved to my head and began stroking it. “You don’t want to hurt us, but you also know that you can’t control [Battle Frenzy] right now. I also don’t want to fight you in earnest, Hestia. It would break my heart if that day were to come. You are my friend, Hestia. My complicated little friend.”

“Lady Hestia,” hearing Tasianna’s voice coming from the side, I turned to her direction to see tears dropping down from her elven eyes as she was still using [Elvenize]. “I-I of all people can’t tell you anything in this situation. I’m still scared of fighting, but I also know that I can’t be a help to you if I cower behind it. Watching you in this state makes me feel useless, I don’t want to see you in such agony.”

“Please, don’t say that we would stay away from you Hestia. What are you trying to say about being alone? Don’t you hate being alone? Don’t you like us being around you?” Saori barraged me with questions, all piercing my heart like sharp needles, despite how fragile it was from seeing Tasianna cry.

“No, no, I do like it, but what will happen if I go mad again. What if I can’t control it and go wild?” I told them.

“It won’t happen again because that was all my fault. I told you to control yourself because I was worried that the wyverns would find us. I’m sorry for putting your through all of that,” Saori apologized as she tightened her grip around me.

“No, I was being stubborn about it. You told me that I could break through the cave after I got [Battle Frenzy (Minor)], but I just said, ‘No, I can hold it in’ but I couldn’t. I didn’t get a skill to protect me from it and I blew up, and I-” I continuously spoke back before Saori started stroking my head again.

“Shhhhhhh, it’s alright. It’s alright. You don’t have to excuse me for my mistake. I thought it would be better to avoid the wyverns, but I didn’t account how much it would hurt you to hold it in. I was the one who made that terrible decision in the first place, a choice that negatively impacted you,” Saori said a somber tone. “I failed not only as an adult but also as your friend at that point. Leaving you to be tortured by that malicious status effect should have never been a choice in the first place. I could have thought of something else, but I was…lazy. I couldn't see anything besides the one path that I'd chosen."

I didn’t think she was being lazy at all. What other choices were there? The cave would have never survived a sparring session between me and my two companions, and we couldn’t even start one as the tunnel was too cramped.

Trying to widen the tunnel nearly caused the ceiling to drop down on us. If I had tried to drill up the ceiling, then what would have happened? I know mountains, canyons, and other natural landmarks normally weren’t that fragile, but I also never saw one nearly collapsing due to a lightning blade cutting through it.

“You know, I sometimes also question who I really am. Am I still the same ‘Saori Segawa’ from my past life on Earth or am I somebody completely different who inherited her memories. My change in behavior ever since I evolved into a cadejo has made my view on life so much more different,” Saori said with a sigh. “Then there is also ‘my’ business with that leviathan and all this birthright and history that my garm mother had. I…I don’t want to embrace any of it. It’s not the life that I wanted nor the one that I’ve chosen.”

Saori took in a deep breath before continuing, “However, so many events in my past life were completely random, too. I never wanted my father to die when I was still in high school. I never wanted to take care of my mother’s deteriorating health while managing our house’s financial situation as a college student. I never wanted to take a teaching position, instead, I wanted to travel the world or maybe write a thesis about certain historical era. But that is what I did until I died. I didn’t want to leave my sick mother all alone in Japan, who had little family anyways. I stir in my sleep as I wished that my mother was doing well. That is life, Hestia.”

As I was listening to her confessions, my tail suddenly felt something wet landing on it. The sound of Saori’s faltering voice made me lose all the agitation in my body, stopping my hands from trembling as I reciprocated Saori’s comforting hug.

"I've come to love many things while also despising others. I guess, you could call me a bit of a control freak? I feel most comfortable when everything works exactly as I envisioned it to be. I shouldn't impose my ideals on others, but I wished others would catch on," Saori stayed silent for a moment before continuing. "You told me on the day that we made our promise to each other that we would travel the world, right? I still don’t know if I should embrace my lineage or not, but I guess you’re on the same boat, right?”

“Lady Hestia, you’ve also told me that you would show me the world. That we would travel together as you journey to fulfill your dream. I don’t want to leave you, yet, so please don’t push me away,” Tasianna said while still weeping. “Please, don’t leave me. I know I’m not much of a fighter and that I’m a worthless maid for being unable to alleviate your problems, but I wish to better myself. I wish to gain the strength to soothe your mind. Your fear of hurting others, I wish to be the one to protect you from that. I wish to become your shield that would fend off anything that may bring your pain.”

“Dark and Ice. We are here when that time comes, Hestia. We might not have the strength yet to stop you with your full strength, but you also haven’t found a way to resist it yet, right? We’ll support you with that. I can’t allow my little dreaming Idol to back down from the stage, just after she found her conviction, right?” Saori said.

“I-I-I, you guys…sniff, no,” I said as something slowly flowed down my eyes.

“Shhhh, no, no, no. Let it go. You’ve been holding it in for so many years. It’s ok to cry. It’s ok to break that little promise of yours. Isn’t your current conviction enough to drive you forward? Even without that promise to hold you back, I will bet my dream to travel the world that you won’t back stop until you fulfill your dream,” Saori uttered warmly.

“Sniff…I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to leave either of you two. I want to master [Battle Frenzy], to make it my own so that I would never hurt anybody I love. I’m terrified of hurting either of you, but I don’t want to become a burden…sniff… by isolating myself,” I confessed as a dam opened in my tear ducts, releasing nearly five years of suppressed tears. “I’m so sorry for making either of you worry about me. I’m sorry that I was hurting you by wanting to stay away from you. I regret losing sight of that for a moment.”

A puddle fell down from my cheeks, soaking Saori's fur-covered tail. I’ve broken a promise. An oath to myself to never cry until I could become a real Idol. I wanted to keep it up, but everything was pounding on it, like hammers breaking down a wall.

My chest hurt from breaking it but somehow, deep inside, something there was feeling relief as my voice was quickly drowned out by my wails. Frustration, fear, envy, anger, disdain; every single emotion that kept producing my tears ever since I made my promise flowed out of my eyes. My body was determined to empty my eyes from all of it.

My core wished me to forget and abandon it, now that it tasted this freedom.

“…Make another promise to me, Hestia. Tasianna guessed that we should be in the 11th month now, AutumnSun. We can’t confirm it until our ‘Ages’ change, but when that happens then it should be about a month until Earth’s Christmas, right?” Saori said as she kept stroking my back. "Would you…would you do us the honor of becoming your first two fans? I would love to listen to Hestia Atsuko's first Idol concert in this world. There is still a lot of time until you have to perform, so that should be plenty enough for you to prepare everything. What do you say? Promise?”

“I PROMISE! I’ll give you a concert that will instantly make you into an Idol fan. I will overwhelm you so much that you will scream for an encore. Saori and Tasianna, I will give you a concert that you will never forget!” I screamed. “I promise to do this on Christmas Eve!”

With that passionate promise, I kept crying and crying, showing no signs of stopping as my body lost more and more fluids. Eventually, my eyes stopped weeping at midnight. The fatigue of releasing all of my tears made my body weak, instantly knocking me out and sending me back into dreamland.

I could already imagine how dry my eyes would be once I wake up. I woke up in the morning and cried for a full day. It was an unimaginable amount of water, but something that freed me from another of my past life’s bonds.

I cried and I was proud of it.

A note from AbyssRaven

With an old, self-hurting oath broken, a new one will form to lead the way for our young dragoness. Let your voice be heard, Hestia, for new adventures will find you in the future!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Side Story 12: Three-way duel.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #1 here to promote our Patreon! Author-sama just released another map for our story, this time for the Kingdom of Artorias! If you guys are interested in maps + 10 more chapters + patreon-only chapters + artwork, then come join us! Here's the link: Rawr'

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Also, as this is a side story, here is a link to the character summary. I've updated it! Rawr

“Rising Phoenix Slash!”

Crap!

A sword covered in searing flames came at me like a flying bird, slicing through the air as it launched itself into my face. I, Tatsuya Nagata, only narrowly dodged it purely because the girl who swung her sword at me was yelling the name of her attack with euphoria.

“Nice dodge, Tatsuya, but how about this? Swift Cut!”

Understanding that she would leave herself vulnerable with that attack, the girl called out a System approved sword ability, enabling her to deftly move her body to block all my options for a counterattack.

The swinging of her black ponytail with red tints seemed like a flowing fire as it merged with her body's movements. A relentless assault began, forcing me to stay on the defensive and dodge, otherwise, her flame sword would probably have turned my skin black like coal.

Usually, in medieval combat, a spear would have the reach advantage over a sword, but that fact will become irrelevant once the sword manages to touch my face. I was caught off-guard by her and my reaction speed was not fast enough for me to launch a counterattack.

Eventually, I was able to detect an opening in her rampage, but I didn’t know how to capitalize on it without getting hurt in retaliation. A more seasoned spearman would’ve been able to think of an attack but all I could do was block her sword and swing the shaft of my spear like a staff to stop her assault.

“Fucking hell, Kohaku. You could’ve killed me there!” I shouted at the girl with the flame sword.

“Ehehe, I did get a bit too enthusiastic…but you made it out of there without a scratch!” Kohaku, the girl with the black hair and red tints, responded with a carefree smile.

While we were having this conversation, I could hear voices coming from the side. Spectators of our fight were hurling complaints at us, back seating, and calling us out for our mistakes.

“Kohaku-chan! You can’t continue screaming all of that chunni stuff! You're giving yourself away!” the brown-haired Kazumi shouted.

“Kohaku-san, that’s not even a proper sword ability, so please stop it! You could have beaten Tatsuya if you hadn’t done that!” spectacles-wearing Nishio called out.

“Holy fuck, Tatsuya, you suck so much! You have a spear and you’re taller than her but you can’t keep her out of your reach?! Argh, this is what I have to work with…” annoying bastard Daichi Mikami yelled, criticizing me for one mistake.

Tch, it really wasn’t my fault here!

“Hehe, sorry guys. I’ll get a bit more serious, fire off, wind on!” Kohaku called out, dissipating the flames on her sword before touching it to invoke a veil of wind to cover her sword. While that was already pretty impressive, my eyes were more attracted to the brightly shining green rune.

After we lost that little challenge to Tamae-san's party "The Magical Biscuits", Yorshka brought their party to a dwarven friend of hers where they got some sweet weapon upgrades. And yes, you heard it right, those guys got to meet a dwarf. They were retelling that meeting so enthusiastically that it sounded a bit like boasting, which made me a bit jealous.

Anyway, after three months of hard work, a package arrived at the church with Yorshka's name on it. Opening it up, she revealed that the weapons that the other party ordered have finally arrived.

This was around a week ago, and Kohaku here is brandishing her personal weapon right now.

Kotodama

A sword made from the magical alloy Eoriant. Sturdy and able to absorb mana from its user, it can sustain its form even under the wear and tear from magical auras. Rune slots are engraved into this sword allows the user to wield elemental attacks

Skill

[Elemental Attack Up Lv. 5]

[Mana Efficiency Lv. 5]

[Mana Conductor Lv. 4]

[Sword Mastery Lv. 3]

[Decreased Weight Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Agility Enforcement Lv. 3]

[Mind’s Eye Lv. 1]

[Durability Loss Reduction Lv. 5]

Currently, the sword has three runes etched on it: wind, fire, and water. I’ve heard from Yorshka that you needed a skill called [Runesmith] to etch more into it, which could range from ice, thunder, and many more that could combine with each other and create wild creations.

Kohaku, seeing as she had the unique skill [Dwarven Runeslayer], was naturally proficient with using the runes, to great effect. Her chunnibiyou soul(8th class syndrome/Naruto phase) had been flaring up ever since she got it and she’s been calling out cringe-worthy attacks names like “Rising Phoenix Slash”, amongst others.

Well, who am I to stop her fun-wahhhh?!

While I was looking at her fidgeting with her sword, another blade came at me, interrupting my daydreaming and forcing me to block it with my spear’s shaft again.

“Oi, Tatsuya, stop looking at girls when you haven’t beaten me yet,” a guy who was completely covered from head to toe with armor said.

Still struggling to push his sword away, I could only mumble a few words, “Fuck you, Kyouya!”

"Yeah, I know, but that's what a three-way duel is supposed to be," Kyouya excused his surprise attack. "Oh, and sorry for this, Shield Bash!”

Kyouya wasn’t only wielding a sword but also a shield. Having both of my hands occupied by his sword, he used his other hand to slam the point of his metal shield into my stomach.

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Pain Resistance Lv. 3] evolved into [Pain Resistance Lv. 4]

Like having a hammer ram into my stomach, my internal organs felt the full brunt of the attack, and I was launched away from my sparring partner. Lying on the ground, I was having a hard time getting up, coughing as I clutched my pained body.

Damnit, get up, Tatsuya! I ordered myself, trying desperately to ignore the excruciating pain that was spreading through my body.

Using my spear as a crutch, I leaned against it and forced my body up again. Besides a gambeson and chainmail, I wasn’t wearing anything that could otherwise protect me from harm. Due to my unique skill [Rush Hour], Elrick and Yorshka have advised me to learn how to fight without much armor so I could stay mobile to use my ace to its fullest potential in a dire situation.

However, that also meant that if I couldn’t evade stuff, that I would receive quite a good amount of damage. Luckily, a combination of a gambeson and chainmail were both light and defensive, able to protect me from blunt and slash trauma and reducing the amount of Health that I would’ve lost.

Still, the rattling of my bones and aching organs were a thing. If this would have happened to me during the start of this year, then I would undoubtedly have puked out my breakfast and stayed limp on the ground. Training as a soldier and warrior really toughen up my body.

Thankfully, while I was recovering, Kyouya didn’t launch any more attacks on me, instead, he was focusing on fighting Kohaku.

Kohaku was like me a lightly armored fighter, focusing more on evading and using her sword’s magical properties to enhance her attacks. With her sword covered by an aura of wind, she was flowing around the fighting ground like a sparrow, slicing and dodging without losing her momentum even once.

Kyouya, on the other hand, looked pretty much like a knight and was fighting exactly like a heavily armored combatant. Any hits that he could block with his shield he would take it on but otherwise, he would shrug off attacks like the tank that he was, using any window of opportunity to push Kohaku back with both shield and sword.

If this were a video game, then his ability to both peel and create space for others would be fantastic. Kohaku, on the other hand, wasn’t taking any damage but she also wasn’t dishing out enough with her current enchantment. She needed fire or water, I think.

However, there was also another way for her to deal damage.

Dashing forward, I launched myself back into the fight with my eyes set on Kyouya’s defenseless back, “Perforate Stab!” I shouted out.

Energy began to surge through my body as I called out that spear ability. Stamina was being drained from my status board as a cost for using it, but it was all worth it. At that moment, my body knew exactly the most optimal stance, grip, and angle that I should use to launch my attack.

“Shit! Guard!”

With a simple step forward, my spear struck at the speed of a bullet, however, as if Kyouya was warned by something, he turned his body to the side and narrowly defended himself from my attack.

While my attack only caused him to flinch backward, that was all the time Kohaku needed to switch her runes from wind to water. Water began flushing out of the rune, instantly covering the blade of the sword with a thin, sharp veil of water.

“Power Slash!” she called out, swing her sword vertical upwards.

Kyouya, the crazy guy, still was able to divert some of his focus to Kohaku’s side, moving his sword to block her attack. Unfortunately for him, her attack was not only empowered by a more offensive enchantment but also a stronger ability.

Abandoning landing swift strikes, Kohaku’s attack broke through Kyouya’s defense and sliced a bit of his armor off.

“Argh! Fuck!” Kyouya screamed in pain.

“Sweeping Farewell!” I shouted.

Having lost his balance from that attack, I pulled my spear away from Kyouya and activated another spear ability. Jumping into the air, I twisted my body and swept my spear in front of me in a roundabout, sending Kyouya flying away and giving me some space from my next opponent.

“First blood: Kyouya! You’re out Mister Ishigami!” Yorshka, acting as the referee of this little battle, yelled with fervor, clearly having fun watching us. “Tamae, could you heal him up?”

“Yes, of course!” Tamae-san jumped off from her chair and rushed over to Kyouya, who was checking his chest for blood, to take care of any wounds. “Wow, that’s some back luck there Kyouya. There is a shallow cut on your arm.”

“Wait, what?! Seriously? Damn, it would have been weird if all of their attacks sliced through armor, gambeson, and chain armor. How annoying is it that there is an opening under my armpits,” Kyouya said in exasperation, confirming that he really was bleeding. “Thanks for the patch-me-up, Tamae-san.”

“No problem, that’s my job after all. Oh, goddess up high, grant to us your mortal servants a miracle of blessed wonder. Minor Heal!”

Haruka also came over and handed him some water to drink.

Seeing Kyouya enjoy his time with the girls, I was a bit relieved to know that one of my two opponents was finally out. It was really a bit lucky for me that heavy armor couldn’t cover the joints of a person, otherwise, you would lose your ability to move around.

While Kohaku slashed his chest, I used my opportunity to deal the one hit that would take Kyouya out of the equation.

With everything having cooled down, I could finally relax a bit. Thinking about this fight that we were having; I have to say that it’s pretty fun to be able to fight like this with my classmate.

After our trip to the dungeon, my party and Kohaku’s party have been training with each other ever since. We fought together, got to know each other better, and trained in party battles. All of this is to become stronger and stronger.

After my party sort of resolved our internal dispute with Asaka, compromising on a more beneficial cooperation while supporting Asaka’s leadership role anyway we could, we all began being more friendly with each other.

Well, I say more but it’s only a little. Daichi still is too competitive for his own good and Asaka rarely appears during training. Haruka learned that she hated fighting in general, finding the whole thought of killing anything unpleasant, so she’s mostly relegated into a cheerleader role until now.

Kyouya and I are working on it. We’re trying to make it work. I also know that I should stop being angry at them and instead figure out a solution to accommodate everybody. Honestly, I really felt that Kyouya and I were the de facto leaders.

Thankfully, we’re getting the support of Tamae’s party so our training session hasn’t been terrible. For example, the current battle that was being held with Kohaku, Kyouya, and me.

Besides for Kazumi, who was more a rogue, we three were the only ones who you could consider a part of the frontline. One tank, one spearman, and one swordswoman. A three-way fight against each other to hone our abilities.

Since we started it, we’ve been keeping up with each other pretty well but ever since Kohaku got her new sword, she’s been mostly wiping us out with it. The power of her rune sword is a real menace with how flexible it can be.

Some would call me dumb for sending Kyouya out instead of Kohaku but ganging up on her every single match would turn out boring. I’ve defeated her with Kyouya’s help before, but I honestly want to see if I can do it on my own.

Yeah, it’s dumb, I know, but I want to see if I can really do it. I’m competitive, it’s my nerd spirit. Spear vs. magical sword, let’s go.

“You ready, Kohaku?” I asked her.

“Water off, fire on,” Kohaku said in response, posing like an anime character. “Let us end this battle in a dance of fire, Tatsuya!”

Cute…

With her sword in hand, she was making a pretty cool pose while I kept the normal stance that I learned from my combat instructors. Steadfast stance, relaxed but firm grip, and…pointy side always in the direction of the enemy.

“Let’s go! Flash Spiral!” I shouted.

“Yeah! Swift Cut!” she reciprocated my war cry.

Charging into each other with our respective attacks, we engaged in an all-out rumble. Flaming swings came from Kohaku as she tried her best to get close to me, rotating from wind to water and then back to fire, but I managed to keep my reach advantage this time.

Compared to before, she wasn’t able to catch me off-guard so maintaining the basics was easier this time, but Kohaku was making it hard for me to keep this up. She was fast, just like me, but unlike me, her sword could extend its reach by concentrating the mana aura around its tip.

While dueling with Kyouya would feel like a down-to-earth medieval combat between a sword and spear…with the occasional power moves; this fight that I was having with Kohaku was fantastical, exactly how you would imagine a fight in a world with magic would work out.

…It’s just too bad that I wasn’t able to shoot one of two spells myself.

However, it seems my perseverance worked out, managing my Stamina and my weapons durability while having Kohaku use her up. From the SP that I received from leveling up, I decided against buying [Identify] for now, concentrating on gaining more stat growth skills and combat-related ones.

While changing Jobs led to skills increasing, you actually have to reach the skill requirements first. By gaining a variety of skills and then leveling them up, I’ll focus on gaining more jobs to promote everything into quality.

[Identify] would give me intel on Kohaku’s current stats, but I needed stuff like [Prediction], [Danger Sense], [Accuracy Correction], and [Probability Correction] to fight better. Winning fights and fulfilling Quests were the only ways I could gain levels, but I could only survive by being more proficient in combat.

Fighting in that dungeon made me realized that this shit that the church is forcing us into, stopping the demonkins, was fucked up. No, it’s even more fucked up now that I know how it feels to kill.

Taking the life from somebody, even a monster, made me feel nauseous but what it truly gave me was a real value of what life was. What if I was one of those kobolds and some arrogant kid walks up to me just to kill me for experience? Sure, we kill animals to eat and I understand that, but…dude, it’s just so complicated!

How can these people even do this at all? I don’t know if I’m being a pussy here or not but how can anybody even feasible kill another person just like that. Argh, I don’t know. I’m so confused about all of these.

I know I have to fight to go back home but I don’t want to know what it’s like to push my spear into another human or even a demonkin. The church explained to me that they looked like tall humans with large horns, long claws, and sharp, pointy fangs. I don’t even know if I should trust the church’s description now. I’ve never fully trusted them.

Kill or be killed. Can I end another human’s life at a-waaaaaah?!

“Waaaaaah?!” I yelped, interrupting my monologue. “Urgh…what the…fuck?”

My head hurts and all I could see was the blue sky, which means that I am on the ground? Wait…I’m pretty sure that the fight was even, with neither side having a real advantage over the other.

While trying to remember what happened, a girl’s face began blocking the beautiful sky that I was looking at, “Tatsuya? What happened there? Were you daydreaming while we were fighting or how was I able to knock you down so easily? Oh wait, let me help you up first, here.”

Grabbing her hand, she helped pull me up, “Uh, yeah. Sorry, about that. I, uh, shouldn’t have done that.”

“Not a problem, really,” Kohaku said with a nod. “However, you do know that I’m goofing around with those weird catchphrases, right? My way to calm myself down during fights and so…uh, you know. Don’t do that in a real fight.”

Hearing that made me scratch my chin, a bit embarrassed at myself from hearing that from her, “Yeah, t-that won’t happen. Sorry, if that worri-”

“Holy fucking shit, Tatsuya?! How the fuck did you lose that?!” before I could end my sentence my attention was directed at Daichi who was wildly shouting on the side. “My [Identify] showed me that her Mana and Stamina were getting drained like crazy. She wasn’t pacing herself at all! You had it, you idiot! You could have fucking won! Oh my…fuck! Why am I stuck in this shitty party? Why are we always losing…sigh.”

Daichi looked absolutely defeated, slouching on a nearby bench as if his soul left him, however, considering why; I couldn’t help but smile wryly. Ever since we teamed up with Kohaku’s party, we’ve been having challenges and so on just to keep each other competitive.

Seeing how strong their personally made weapons were, I think he’s still salty about it. He hates losing and it’s even worse when he loses despite not being able to do anything…just like now.

At least, there wasn’t anything on the line otherwise he would throw a fireball at me.

As Kyouya, Kohaku, and I were getting a lecture from Yorshka about our mistakes, Elrick and Asaka entered the practice field.

“Oh, good morning Asaka-san and Sir Elrick, where were you…during training,” Tamae-san went to greet them but quickly lost most of her enthusiasm. “Did something happen?”

“…Sigh…yeah. Something very fucking sick,” Asaka answered with a pale face.

That was when Yorshka stopped her lecture and went over to the equally pale Elrick, intending to get an answer from him, “Elrick, what’s wrong? Wait…don’t tell me we’ve got a job.”

“Affirmative, Lady Yorshka,” Elrick then turned towards us, taking a deep breath before telling us the news. “The knight order has recently received reports of a massive bandit camp located on our border to the kingdom of Artorias. The church has ordered us knights to judge the threat in Aurena’s name and to bring back order.”

Elrick stopped, taking another breath to calm himself down, “…The church has also ordered to make this the first official church quest for the Heroes. Party ‘Misfits’ and ‘The Magical Biscuit’, you are to join the Knights of Aurena and use this chance as your entrance onto the world’s stage.”

…Crap.

A note from AbyssRaven

Now, I know everybody was awaiting Hestia's evolution but I also needed some time to plan the next arc when I wrote this. I'm sorry everybody but I would like to ask you for your patience.

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Side Story 13: The Start of a Classroom Assembly.

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“Sigh…”

“Woah, that’s a pretty long sigh there, Tatsuya.”

“Yeah, it is…I’m just…you know, thinking about everything that is about to come, Kyouya.”

It has been a day since our party received the announcement about our first real mission as “Heroes”, that being to aid the Knights of Aurena in subjugating a bandit camp that has made itself known in the country.

They told us this was “to purge the holy country from these criminals, blighting Goddess Aurena’s beloved believers” and that we, her chosen champions, are necessary for the task. They wanted to see what we can do after eight months of training and, frankly, I can somewhat understand why they would. Eight months is quite an investment, especially considering the quality of training, education, food, and accommodations that we were given.

After we learned about this fact, one of my classmates came over to us and asked us to come to an assembly on the next day. It was a “Shirako High-only” gathering where we would have our very first class get-together since…well, since we first came here.

The other members of "Misfits", after some persuasion for Asaka and Daichi, agreed to attend it. Instead of walking with Kyouya and me, they would go there independently depending on their schedules.

Our meet-up location would be our class' private dining room. I would have thought it would be disqualified as anoption, because these talks will probably get pretty heated. After thinking it through, however, I have to admit that we barely have any “safe zones” large enough to fit 25 students.

Kind of ridiculous to remember that we weren’t exactly in a “friendly” place, more like we were imprisoned here against our will. Being here really makes me wish I was still in Laveata Town and not in this suffocating church, feeling like I was a caged-up bird.

“Oh, yeah…you’re thinking about that mission, huh? About the bandit camp?” Kyouya asked timidly.

“…W-We might have to kill them, Kyouya. We might actually have to kill another human,” I said with a tremble in my throat. “Sure, the knights are there but there is no guarantee that we can even make it out there alive. W-We’re about to be sent into a battlefield.”

I knew how killing felt. I did it myself. Piercing the frail bodies of the monsters in that dungeon made me realize how heavy the burden was when you killed somebody. How your senses would sharpen, making every blood spray, death cry, and moaning even more vivid. The feeling in my hands once your spear transmitted the tremble from clashing metal with bone, and the eventual decay of life happening right in front of me.

How can people stay normal after that? How can video games make so light of what is actually happening? This isn’t the sort of excitement that I was looking for! I wanted out of my normal, boring life but I didn’t want this.

I, honestly, want to go back to Japan. Apologize to dad and mom for my lackluster behavior and just continue indulging my mind in mindless video games while giving my all for school. If I ever have the chance to knock some sense in my past self, then I would take it 10 out of 10 times. Kick him in the balls if he was stupid enough to speak against it.

Idiot bastard…

“Yeah, I know. I know. I still haven’t gotten over that sensation and it’s been, what, three months now?” Kyouya said while looking at his hand. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just being a pussy for-”

“No, no, no, no, don’t say that about yourself. You aren’t a pussy at all for behaving that way. It’s normal. It’s normal for us to feel like that,” I tried to console my best friend, placing a hand on his shoulder. “In fact, if somebody calls you, the man that would jump in front of a sword for me, a pussy, then let them know that they can crown me the king of cowards. Only an idiot would even think of a knight as a pussy.”

“He he, thanks bro,” Kyouya said while scratching his hair, flustered. “Makes you really think, huh? Who would have thought that I would be fit enough to wear all this armor without breaking too much of a sweat. I never would have imagined it when we were still kids.”

“True, you really were fat back then. Overweight and easily bullied by the nicer-looking ones. Kids are already pretty cruel, but rich ones? Yeah, I can personally say that we are assholes,” I said carefreely.

“What are you saying? Sure, you still are an ass but you’re one of the only ones that have stuck with me since the start. You had no obligations to, but you're still my first friend, even best friend now,” Kyouya said with a pleasant smile.

“Get off me. You know I did it back then because you had a 3DS and were playing the same game that I was. It was purely a coincidence that I even bothered to talk with mister greasy and obese here,” I said in a sarcastic tone, nostalgic of how I first met Kyouya.

“So? Who cares what your reason for speaking with me was. It only matters that you’ve stuck around for me ever since,” Kyouya stated.

“Well, that certainly did help me. If I hadn’t, then I wouldn’t have gotten all that support from you in our first month after we were kidnapped to Peolynca,” I said, reminding myself of the miserable state that I was in, knowing that I had no way back home for some of my mom’s freshly brewed coffee. “In fact, I owe you honestly. There were so many times that you could have just left me and done something for yourself. You’re too selfless, you know that?”

It is this kindness that makes him so pleasant to be with. It makes me jealous, but Kyouya knows how to treat other people properly. No wonder he’s so popular with the girls.

Kyouya simply laughed at my remark, clapping my back in embarrassment before beginning speaking again, "Ever since experiencing how it was to be bullied, I sort of thought to myself, 'Shouldn't I punch them?'. I wanted to get back at them, make myself feel better by seeing them cry, and ask me for forgiveness. I might have been obese, but I was always tall. However, if I had actually accepted those thoughts, then would you have still played video games with me? Wouldn’t you have thought differently of me?”

“Wow,” I gasped. “that’s the first time that that heard about that. Geez…doesn’t that makes me a bad friend for never noticing? You can get competitive sometimes, but I never knew that you had those deep thoughts.”

“Ha ha, I’ll also say that I didn’t become fit just for you,” Kyouya admitted. “After my family moved away from our old neighborhood, I had a certain realization that I wouldn’t have you around to talk anymore. We could still play over the internet but that wouldn’t change anything about my school life. I had to change to make my life better. Gotta lose some pounds, yo.”

“Honestly, that was the thing that shocked me the most. You going to the athletics club despite being a massive eater was crazy to think about,” I said incredulously. “After a few years of visiting your house during middle school and you suddenly turned into somebody else. You being able to wear all this armor is due to your own perseverance. Argh, dammit. I should have done some sport when I was still on Earth, it would have made the training here so much easier.”

“Ha ha ha, your gaming addiction really made you look all scrawny. Instead of coffee, you should have drunk a few kiloliters of protein shakes or something," Kyouya joked at my expense. "Well, that's in the past now, Tatsuya. I think we're nearly there."

Looking forward, I could see a few familiar faces entering a room, chatting among themselves. We might have not spoken to each other a lot since we came to this world, but I still wouldn’t forget them. They were my classmates, of course.

“…If you think about it, this will be the second time that we’re having a class meeting without a teacher. Without Segawa-sensei,” Kyouya said after a while of silence. “The first one was already unproductive because we had it directly after we were transported to Peolynca. Sparks flew, I remember. Nice to see that we’re having one now with everybody…well, sort of.”

“Yeah, we had her ever since we came to Shirako High, right? We just got out of middle school and our first year as high schoolers and we get a total newbie of a teacher. I think Segawa-sensei told us that she just barely graduated a few months ago or so…sort of miss her now. That was supposed to be our last year together.”

Having Saori Segawa being our sensei, our teacher, at a prestigious school like Shirako High was pretty crazy. Not only was she a newly graduated but that was also her first job as a teacher. You have to imagine how angry our parents were once they heard about it, even attempting to sue the school.

A homeroom teacher wasn’t just a simple tag that you give a teacher and that was it. A homeroom teacher was an integral part of their classroom, acting as both a mentor and counselor. Of course, our parents would be livid when somebody eight-years our senior was to become our classroom teacher. They expect the best of the best for us after all.

However, all of those complaints vanished after Segawa-sensei began teaching us, showing that she truly was a top-tier pick. Experience-wise, she wasn’t as good as the other history teachers, but she made up for it by being a hard worker and an enthusiastic educator.

She was so much of a hard worker that she valued it quite a lot in others, even seeing past their faults when they give it their all. There were still some flaws here and there but being around our age really made us bond together.

The best part would be talking about mythology. Video games draw a lot of inspiration from Greek, Norse, and Japanese myths that when we spoke about it to Segawa-sensei, she would go on a passionate lecture about how they were depicted in history and tales. Really goes to show that she knew her stuff.

…And that’s why it makes me miss her even more.

I don’t think anybody can blame me for this, but we needed her now even more. It’s only a gut feeling, but I believe this assembly will probably blow up.

Entering the room, we quickly scanned around to find Tamae-san’s party speaking with ours.

Seems like we are the last ones…again.

“Oi, Tatsuya. Why? Just why are you the last one again?” approaching them, Daichi was the first one to speak, commenting about our arrival like always. “Is this some sort of gag? Or are you doing this on purpose?”

“As if, you idiot,” I responded. “Does it even matter if we are the last? We aren’t late so why should that matter, right?”

“True enough,” Nishio said in my support. “If it doesn’t hold the group back and he comes before the appointed time, then I see no fault. Everybody has their own plans, Daichi-san.”

“Ok, ok, sorry,” Daichi apologized after seeing Nishio look at him. “Whatever, I’ll stop mentioning it when you don’t come late. I don’t want to see you hold back our best player Kyouya.”

With that handled, Kyouya and I went to greet the others from our party and Tamae’s. It was still pretty early so I could see that some of the girls still had to yawn. Noticing the eye bags that they had, I could only wonder if they were able to get any sleep at all.

Nobody in our party, besides for Daichi, was very keen at the idea of killing humans. Haruka especially looked like a total mess, wobbling around in her seat. This girl couldn’t stomach slaying a kobold so how could she do it when it’s a human’s life.

They might be humans from another world, but they were still humans. They acted like humans. They had wants like humans. You can't tell me that they were different.

“Good morning, you two. Hope you guys had a good night,” Tamae casually greeted both of us. “I’ve already given some to the others, but I bet you two haven’t eaten breakfast yet, right? Here, freshly baked from the supplies that I bought from town.”

Unveiling the cloth that she was holding, four pieces of fluffy looking bread appeared before us. According to the smell…yup, warm and sweet-smelling, as if they were made just this morning.

“Woah, fluffy bread!” Kyouya shouted. “Tamae-san, don’t tell me that you were able to make some yeast?!”

“He he, yup I did,” Tamae-san said with a big grin. "Sorry, if it doesn't taste as good as usual. Sugar was seriously expensive so I had to be mindful of how much I could add without draining my own supply. That also means there is no filling or cream, unfortunately."

“No, don’t worry about that!” I said with joy as I thanked her for the bread. “I thought sugar would cost a bit but who knew even yeast would cost that much. How the hell is yeast a luxury in this country?!”

For some unknown and unbelievable reason, the knowledge of yeast was known in this world but Aureolis couldn’t make it. What is that supposed to mean? Tamae-san wanted to order some yeast, seeing as there was fluffy bread with our meals, but what she instead got was the information that the church had to import yeast from the surrounding countries.

For something as simple as yeast, Tamae-san had to pay an exorbitant price. She had limited funds due to having to buy sugar to please our sweet tooth so that forced her to make her own yeast.

And, I got to say that these things are delicious. Warm, smooth milk bread that needs barely any strength to bite off and chew.

As I was enjoying my breakfast, some of my classmates began making noise due to the smell that was enveloping the room. I’m pretty sure everybody is hungry, right now.

“Bread?! Tama-chan, you made bread?!” one of the girls said.

“Hmmm, smells like freshly baked. I haven’t eaten any of your pastry, like, since we left Earth. Gosh, do you have any cookies?” another girl said.

I believe that was all the girls in our class, crowding around our party as they pestered Tamae-san for some bread. I could also see some of the boys looking like they wanted some too, but I guess pride was stopping them from coming closer.

Take it from me. Daichi, Kyouya, Nishio, and I had to back off because we felt awkward standing around the chatting girls.

As I continued eating my bread, I noticed somebody staring at it intently. Turning my head around, I greeted the hungry person, “Hey, Aiko.”

Finally noticing me, she shook off her bread stupor and responded, “Oh, hey Tatsuya…and Kyouya! It’s great that you guys could come. I know this wasn’t something you guys would’ve joined normally.”

"Hey. Aiko-san. Well, I don't mind it too much," Kyouya answered. "I personally think we should have had more of these meetings, but I guess everybody had their own worries. Training, learning, and also adapting to their new place.”

“I know what you mean by that, Aiko, but I agree with Kyouya that we needed more meetings. Eight months and nobody even thought about it? Then again, it’s still pretty much a wonder that everybody even joined at all, considering the situation,” I responded.

“Yeah…Takuma had something to say about our first Hero mission and I guess Akabane-san thought it was worth hearing about,” Aiko said pointing at “Daisy” and his posse.

Fucking piece of shit.

“Daisy” Akabane’s party consisted of four guys from our class that were known to have done some martial arts on Earth. From a base strength value, his party is probably the strongest right now, barring any unique skill shenanigans as I do not know theirs.

Just to contrast, in our ten-man joint party, only Misaki from Tamae-san’s party has had any experience with weapons due to her being a semi-professional archer, having won one or two tournaments before. Which makes sense, as she can actually compete with the archers from Knights of Aurena in a static setting. Like the rest of us, she still needs to get used to shooting down living targets.

“Oh, anyways. Tell me what you think of my new outfit, you two!” Aiko cheerily said before making a full 360 turn, swaying the ends of her robes.

Looking at it, as she asked me to, I noticed that it wasn’t the same robes she wore until now. Meeting her in the church, her clothes mostly consisted of prim, white robe with golden lines and markings called [Saint Candidate Robes].

However, what she was wearing right now looked more like the robes of a battle wizard or war cleric. She still had the iconic white and golden that resembled her saint robes but many areas like the length, the sleeves, and bagginess have been removed in favor of more practicality and efficiency.

I believe the fabric has also been switched out. No more did it look silky thin, instead, it looked like it could take a sword slash or two while still maintaining a high-quality appearance.

When her clothes swayed around, I managed to see some metal under her robes. Chainmail I would guess, considering it had to good for protection while being light for long travels without making her look bulky. Good, I was wearing a high-quality version myself, and I can attest to how useful they are from my time in the dungeon.

Considering she was a saint candidate, the church probably also enchanted her whole outfits with a ton of protective skills or something. Can’t let a saint be in danger when you send her into battle, right?

Speaking of saint candidates, I also noticed that Asaka was also wearing something similar. Asaka might act brash and rebellious but it still can’t be denied that the church’s religious deity deemed her worthy as a saint. They can’t neglect her…which is good for me because that makes our party stronger.

I wonder how many skills her clothes now have? Let me check with my identify ring.

“Hold it, Tatsuya. I allowed you to look and admire how pretty they are but that’s a no for looking at the skills,” Aiko said, crossing her arms in an X. “There are some…questionable skills that they gave my clothes. Pretty embarrassing so don’t look, please. Otherwise, I can tell you that I definitely have more skills on my clothes now. I feel pretty powerful really.”

Kohaku’s sword had a shit ton of skills on them, making her pretty powerful. I can only imagine the number of freebies Asaka and Aiko got from the church!

“Everyone, if I could have your attention, please!” somebody shouted.

Standing up on a table, a dude with slick black hair wearing white armor similar to the knights presented himself. Compared to Kyouya’s armor, his was extremely flashy, almost shined to a polish, while not having the same bulk which made me think it was more similar to Elrick’s. Sturdy enough to defend yourself but still light so you can go dish out damage.

Takuma Akanishi…hopefully this arrogant bastard won’t proceed to spout out hot garbage again.

My classmate Takuma Akanishi was always known in our class to be a real egocentric prick that only looked out for himself. He would rarely participate in class activities and had a tendency to look at things more like a businessman: profit-oriented.

However, that didn’t mean that he was completely terrible. While he wasn’t the best team player, he still was extremely charismatic and did a great job whenever he could assert himself as a leader, showing his talents as the son of a company CEO. He was both smart and hard-working enough that anybody would think he was a perfect student…were it not for his overblown ego that was created due to his self-made environment.

“I’m overjoyed to see all 25 of us joining this small assembly of mine. I believe everybody is slightly on edge due to the recent notice, about our first mission as this world’s ‘heroes’,” Akanishi said. “However, firstly, I would like to address something that I consider quite important. I believe everybody should already know the fact that everybody in this world is using the western naming convention, correct? They would call us by our first name, instead of our surnames.”

A few of my classmates called out to agree to his statement. I’ve also noticed that some of the higher-ranking clergy members would prefer calling us by our first name, mentioning that addressing us with our surnames was too…distant.

I personally don’t want to associate with them, but I do remember Tamae-san's speech about our team's naming convention. Switching around from first to surnames would confuse people that weren’t used to it, and that this was only useful when we were still in Japan.

But how many months has it been since we came to this world? Wasn’t it about time to adapt a bit? It’s not like not doing it anymore would change our personalities or something, right?

“Yes, that’s why I propose that we adopt it until we return to Japan,” Aka-Takuma said which made a few among us pretty rowdy. “Please, calm down. I know this is much to ask, due to how we have been raised, but wouldn’t doing this be sensible in our situation? We are about to depart from the church and then be introduced to the natives of this world. I am not saying that this should be permanent and that we can’t speak to each other like we used to, but to build some trust with the people of Peolynca, I believe it prudent to do so.”

After a couple of more noisy arguments, eventually, everything settled down to democratically vote on it. With a clear majority, Takuma's decision was accepted…which obviously fed his ego even more as he had a massive smile on his face now.

“Thank you, everybody! It is great to see this amount of unity after so long,” Takuma stated with enthusiasm. “Now to start everything off. My name is Takuma Akanishi and you may call me Takuma if you wish.”

Considering that some are still calling him with “-san” and “-kun”, I think using Japanese endings was still allowed.

“Anyway, with that handled. Let us get into the main topic at hand! The bandit subjugation mission!”

A note from AbyssRaven

First time that I made a triple chapter for Coffee boy, but I also thought it was time to flesh out some of the characters a bit more. Next chapter we'll be getting the two rumored "Assholes" according to Tatsuya.

After that, I got a pretty awesome chapter for Hestia's side + also the start of a new arc. Hope you guys can't wait!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Side Story 14: Lethal or non-lethal, that is the question.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“TEST, TEST! CAN YOU HEAR ME?” Takuma shouted at one of my classmates who was outside the room, waving at him.

My classmate waited for a second before crossing his arm, shaking his head in denial before entering the room again, “I couldn’t hear you, Takuma. No sound came out of the room.”

“Perfect, thanks for testing,” Takuma said with a smile, before turning to Nishio. “‘Sovereign of the Elements’, that skill name really fits you. Thanks for putting it up, Nishio-san. I didn’t know that [Air Shield] was a soundproof barrier.”

“It doesn’t allow air to enter nor exit, so it’ll be hard to breathe after a bit,” Nishio said nonchalantly as if it was obvious. “However, none of us are very proficient with sensing mana nor do we know if the church has a sound probing spell or tool. This should help prevent random eavesdroppers, though.”

“Don’t worry about it. Not much we can do about it when we’re still stuck here. We just have to accept the consequences if the church is willing to listen in,” Takuma stated with a frown.

“So, what do you suggest, Akanishi-san?” still sitting at his table with his posse, Daisy spoke up once everything was in place for our assembly to begin uninterrupted.

“Ahh, of course, I’ll come to that in a moment, however, as everybody has voted democratically to use our first names, I would ask you to use my first name: ‘Takuma’,” Takuma spoke.

I might not like him but his argument was sound. Adapt to our new surroundings, something that I ought to do, too.

“Regardless of how we feel about this new world, it can’t be denied that we must compromise on a few things,” Takuma continued. “The church wishes to use us as figureheads. They might have given us a job to kill somebody, but you of all people should know that they won’t hold back on using us to further their influence. After all, aren’t you the son of one of our country’s top prosecutor, F-”

“Akabane,” Daisy interrupted.

This sudden interruption in Takuma’s speech must have caught him off-guard as he had a clear “huh?” face on, slightly twitching his smile in annoyance. Everybody around me also starting whispering and talking with each other, showing concern that this might derail the original intent for this meeting.

Is the same thing as last time about to happen?

“…Maybe I was a bit stubborn. I concur that it might prove useful in the long run to use our first names to build up trust, especially with dignitaries. Everything points to this country being similar to medieval Europe,” Daisy spoke with a sigh. “I will start addressing everybody with their first name, as you wish, Takuma-san. However, I won’t allow you to use mine. I am Akabane, to you.”

And there we go again. Daisy, being trained by his father to become a prosecutor, is usually the first person to start arguing about stuff. Considering how he gave up so quickly, he must have internally known that he shouldn’t be debating about this, that Takuma gave sound arguments.

So, what’s wrong with him now, though? Despite agreeing to call everybody else by their first name, he himself isn’t willing to? It’s not like nobody knows it. So, what’s his deal?

I’ve also noticed during the vote that he and his posse were the only ones who didn't raise their hand, disagreeing with the idea. Why is he so against anyone calling him by his first name? He never minded it in the three years that we’ve known each other at school.

Then, again, why should I care? If it makes him uncomfortable, then should I maybe switch back? Using his first name might annoy him even more than “Daisy”, he he.

“Uhhh, may I ask why?” Takuma asked with a frown. “Akabane-san, you should know this already, but we’ve been kidnapped and transported into a foreign country. They’ve kept us imprisoned and under constant watch for eight months while plotting whatever they wished to do with us once they set us into the world. This is what this ‘Quest’ is supposed to be. If there is a time that we, Japanese, should stick together, then this is the time.”

“…Japanese, huh?” Daisy swept his pure white bangs to the side, thinking for a moment before continuing speaking. “If you insist, then call me ‘Light’ from now on. I will not compromise any further than that. Either Akabane or Light, however, I won’t allow you to use my first name.”

Urgh, he’s looking at me now…

My whole body shivered for a moment, chilled to the bones from that guy’s stone-cold glare. His last words were probably directed at me as he wouldn’t stop staring.

Oh great, now his posse is looking at me, too. I don’t need those yes-men causing me trouble.

“Just nod. Don’t cause trouble, Tatsuya,” Kyouya whispered next to me, leaning close to my ear.

“Yeah, I know,” I responded, then made a short nod to tell Daisy that I wouldn’t do it.

Squinting his eyes for a moment, he adjusted his glasses and then turned his head back to Takuma’s direction, prompting his party to do the same. Well, I can’t use his first name but he said nothing about “Daisy”, right?

I’m planning to change myself, but I won’t let go of my grudge. He and his family don’t deserve anything but my contempt. I bet every single of his family members are selfish, egotistical, narcissistic, and arrogant.

…Yeah, let’s stop that train of thought. Thinking this way isn’t healthy. Speaking of family, I hope mine is doing alright.

“…Alright, ‘Light’. You don’t seem to want to speak about your reason, so I’ll let it go,” Takuma threw his hands in the air, having given up. “Anyways, let us get back to the main topic, alright, everybody?”

With that issue quickly dealt with, the noise in the dining hall quietened down. Still, the tension inside the room hasn’t waned one bit. Clenching fists, racing hearts, deep breathes, many signs indicated that everybody was nervous.

Skills like [Enhanced Auditory Sense] and [Enhanced Vision] didn’t give me superhuman senses. It’s more like they improve periodically because you strain them to become better. I couldn’t hear most of the things I just described but what I could do was to predict what was going on with everybody. It also helped that I was feeling the exact same thing.

I really don’t want to do this…

"Now, I know everybody is afraid," Takuma started. "We experienced killing when we were in the dungeon. I can understand how some of us haven’t gotten used to it yet. After all, ending another living being’s life is an uncomfortable thought, especially when we’re about to fight against other humans.”

At those words, I suddenly heard somebody’s breathing accelerate. Turning my head to the side, I saw Haruka hugging herself, shivering madly in total terror. Her wide-open eyes were looking down to the ground, slowly becoming wetter and wetter.

I guess this was a normal reaction for her. She wasn’t able to kill a single monster when we were in the dungeon and she was about to be sent into a battlefield to subdue a bunch of criminals. This was the reality of the situation.

I wanted to comfort her somehow, but I was hesitating. It felt awkward for me to try and I didn’t know what to say? “It’s ok, I’ll protect you”? No! Not only is that extremely cliché but how can I say that when I myself am not very comfortable about the whole idea of killing a human? It would be hypocritical of me to do so.

As I was worrying about how to handle this situation, Kyouya move to her right side and took her hand, holding onto her small hands as he whispered, “Don’t worry, it’ll be ok.” Surprisingly, Asaka, who was standing next to Haruka, started stroking her back while keeping her eyes at Takuma, seemingly trying to act distant.

…Urgh, why can’t I just go and say something? Anything.

“However, I ask you to strengthen your resolve,” Takuma continued his speech. “We can’t avoid it. I’ve spoken with the Knight-Commander, we will be sent into battle regardless of how much we complain or struggle.”

A commotion began to form as Takuma spoke of this fact, as my other classmate questioned him on it. They asked stuff like, “We’re all around level 15 to 25, right? They can’t expect us to be ready for it, right?” and “Hey, Takuma! Are you telling us that he didn’t accept your idea, huh?!”

It was expected that the four other parties would be mad about it, but it also seems like he hasn’t informed his party about it yet. Emotions ranging from anger, denial, and fear were evoked in everybody, as their hope of avoiding this Quest was quickly crushed under the reality that Takuma just admitted.

“Please, everyone! Please, quiet down and give me your attention,” Takuma tried to diffuse the situation but utterly failed. "I know that you aren't pleased to hear this from me, but we have little time left until our departure, so please allow me to talk about my plan!"

“We didn’t come here to listen to your half-baked plans, dude,” a headstrong sounding voice came from Daisy’s direction, belonging to one of his posse: Ryuji Enokida. “Everyone expected something more than what you just told us. If we aren’t allowed to sit out of this, then that means that nothing changed about our situation. We have to fight for our life, so any plan you’re trying to spout out is meaningless.”

“Ryuji-san is correct, Takuma-san,” Nishio suddenly spoke up. “It might have been presumptuous of everybody to believe we would be exempt from the quest without any evidence, but why else would you call for a meeting? Any plans you would suggest won’t be effective compared to the experienced knights of the church.”

While our two parties weren’t sure how good the other knights were, we did know that Yorshka was not only a battle-hardened warrior but an experienced field leader, too. She might work for the church, a reason to distrust her, but I rather work with somebody that I already know, compared to somebody like Takuma.

Not only have we never fought together, in fact, we’ve only fought against each other. Training in the church also included spars between everybody and every time this guy won against us; he always used those moments to parade himself. Why would I want to work with somebody like that?

“I understand that everybody is disappointed, but that’s why I’ve called in this meeting in the first place!” while it hasn’t cooled down completely, it was quiet enough that we could hear Takuma speak. “We were never able to get away from our current situation, anyways. Has everybody already forgotten that these are the people who were willing enough to evoke some magical summon just to call for people from another world to help them? They are willing to send students to solve their problem, send us to kill some demon lord straight out of a fantasy novel.”

Realizing what he meant with those words, everybody stopped speaking. Maybe the reason was naivety for why we held onto that tiny bit of hope, any chance to avoid doing something unpleasant.

“Unity. That is why I called everybody to join me today. Unity as a class, as Japanese, as humans from Earth,” Takuma further spoke. “We can’t avoid what will happen. Everybody, all of you wish to return back to Earth, correct? To our homes, to our families?”

Everybody nodded.

"See? That is our goal. That is why we have trained until today, to become stronger so we can face the hardships before us. Our ticket back home will be filled with trials and tribulations, things that wish to stop us from fulfilling our top priority: to get back home alive," Takuma then spread his arms, trying to appear taller. "As one of the top students of Shirako High and also your classmate with the title of [Hero], I only wish to bring back everybody before me back to Earth. However, I can’t do this if we don’t steel ourselves. Not only do we have to work together to overcome every challenge, but we need to finally accept one single part of this new world.”

"Takuma, you can't possibly mean-?!" Aiko burst out a response.

“Yes, Aiko, that is exactly what I want to say,” Takuma took a short breath before saying exactly what nobody wanted to hear. “We all need to learn how to cope with killing. We have to learn how to kill properly.”

For a single moment, everything was quiet. Nobody took a breath and all seemed frozen in time. As if it was a spell, Takuma's words petrified us as we were dumbfounded at what we have just heard.

And then, everything exploded.

“Kill?! Are you crazy?! That’s murder!”

“Kuck, I can’t even make killing those kobolds feel like in anime, at all. How am I supposed to do this with…other humans?”

“…I guess I was being a bit wishful. Never would I have thought that I would one day shoot at a person with a bow…”

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don’t want to murder. I don’t want to murder! I don’t want to do this, Papi!”

Whether it was from my party or the others, nobody was an exception of panicking. Frankly, I was already getting a stomachache from thinking about the moral impact this would have on me, once I actually have to do it.

“Everyone, please, calm down! It doesn’t do you good to be this dismayed!” Takuma shouted into the mass.

“…Yes, everybody please calm down!” Aiko, after hesitating a bit, came to Takuma’s aid.

"Please, everybody! We can't have a proper discussion if everyone speaks among each other!" Tamae-san also said, doing her best to resume her duties as one of our class rep.

"Let us hear Takuma out first before panicking! This is not proper behavior for Shirako High students!” being our second rep., Nishio also felt compelled to bring back order.

It took those four a total of ten minutes to have everybody not shout anymore, however, the general mood hadn’t gotten better. The depressive air that clouded this mess hall was suffocating.

"Now, I know that everybody isn't willing to harm another human but what can we do? We will be forced to do it regardless of how apprehensive we are," Takuma continued after he got everybody's attention again. "Think about it, if one of the bandits were to attack you, then would you want to hesitate at that moment? What if one of your friends were about to be attacked, could you move in their defense at that moment?"

While some were able to keep their eyes at Takuma, some could only cast theirs down, unwilling to answer.

Making a frown due to the silence, Takuma continued, “This will not change in the future, so I believe that all of us have to start changing our mindset. Does everybody remember the feeling when you leveled up? That exhilarating feeling? I want everybody to start thinking of it whenever you need to kill, to protect yourself in self-defense as-”

“Hold it!” coming out of nowhere, Daisy suddenly jumped on his feet and shouted, moving closer to Takuma. “What sort of rubbish are you trying to feed our fellow classmates, huh? I can understand why you are trying to have people accept the reality of this world, but what is this nonsense? Exhilarating feeling? Leveling up? Cut your bullshit, Takuma!”

“F-Light? What are you talking about? Can’t you see that everybody is having trouble with this troubling fact? We need to start growing out of our current state and finally adapt to everything. We aren’t in Japan anymore,” Takuma responded. “Killing is part of the culture of this world and some random thug wouldn’t hesitate, so we should-”

“‘We should murder him in self-defense’? Is that what you’re trying to say?” Daisy asked flabbergasted. “I honestly have no words for you, for someone who would drive his fellow man to perform bloodshed. I will endorse you in your attempt to rally everybody to learn how to fight to keep themselves and those around them safe, but I will not allow you to make murder into some sort of sport. Every criminal deserves to be judged under a fair process under the eyes of justice.”

"Justice? Oh, are you trying to spout out those nonsensical ideals of a prosecutor? Hello, Peolynca to Light. This isn't Earth anymore!" Takuma shouted. "Don't scold me on trying to help everybody get into a proper mindset. I want everybody here to make it back to Earth and the only way to do that is to face reality. We need to kill. Monsters to level up and humans to defend ourselves. Anything else and we endanger what matters most here: our lives."

As I predicted, those two are arguing again…however, compared to the last time…

“What about the moral consequences of all of this, huh? Not everybody is mentally strong enough to handle the act of murder, evident of our trip to the dungeon,” Daisy argued. “Do you have any idea of how lasting this will be to everybody’s minds? Psychopaths, that is what we call a person that doesn’t feel any remorse anymore when they perform an illegal act, something completely against human nature.”

“Oooh, how dreadful…but I’m sure everybody in here is smart enough to not fall that far. Tell me, while you continue rambling about your perfect image of a human being, what happens when one of us gets injured…or even dies, all because they were unwilling to kill, huh?” Takuma said, shocking everybody in the room. “You, as a future prosecutor, should know how criminals are. They are a pest to our society and a constant danger to upstanding citizens like you and me. Why should I value their lives over people that are important to me? Tell me, Prosecutor-san.”

“Isn’t it obvious? To keep yourself mentally healthy, of course.” Light drew closer to Takuma, only the length of an outstretched arm away from each other. “Go on about your aggressive tendencies about staining your hands with blood. Whether they are guilty or innocent, you as a human have no right to judge somebody else to death. That is the role of the community, the combined democratic opinions of sound-minded individuals who have inspected every single fact and evidence. Murder…should only be used as a last resort.”

They stared at each other, having nothing more to say as they have exhausted every single argument they had. Neither was willing to bend to the other’s demand as that would not only damage their pride but make themselves look weaker to the other.

It was no surprise that they weren’t willing to compromise. Both have prideful personalities with obvious hints of arrogance and also narcissism. Believing themselves to always be correct.

From an objective standpoint, neither of them incorrect. Both Takuma and Daisy looked at the situation while being under the heavy influence of their personal ideals and mottos, but both also considered everybody around them.

Who is correct? I don’t like the thought of killing but I don’t want to die.

“Enough, you two!” while I contemplating my own issues, Nishio walked towards the two and put himself in between them, pushing them away. "You two have made your point so drop this ridiculous stand-off."

“Tch…Nishio-san is correct. I have made my point clear to everybody,” Takuma then turned his sight back to us, the rest of the class. “I have talked with my supervising knight about a plan to make our fight easier on us. If anybody acknowledges what I said, then join me.”

“Hmph, I too have a suggestion to everybody who wishes to listen,” Daisy also said, as if he was challenging Takuma. “If you still worry about whether you should kill or not, then come to me. If you are on the fence then it would be wise to stick with non-lethal methods, something that I can offer. If possible, I would like to ask the aid of our two [Saint Candidates], so may I ask Aiko-san and Asaka-san to join me? It will not take long, I promise.”

Hearing that, Takuma mumbled “Tch, you bast-" before walking out of the room, literally stomping his feet. He also made eye contact with Aiko, probably telling her not to accept Daisy's offer.

With Takuma gone and Daisy also leaving the room with his posse, the mess hall started to disperse also. Which left only my party and Tamae-san’s behind.

“Well, I knew that would happen, but it seems the two of them were more productive this time,” Kyouya said.

“Nah, as if. They were able to end it without a literal rant against each other this time, but that was only because of the situation back then. We were just kidnapped, after all,” Daichi remarked. "This time though? Those idiots tried to assemble everybody under their own banners but failed spectacularly, literally confusing the whole class and probably causing a split. Well, either way, I was willing to join whoever gave me the chance to kill, anyway."

“Are you serious, Daichi?!” I shouted in response. “Even now, you still want to murder people?! I can understand monsters, but are you that hungry to make yourself seem like the top fragger-”

“Now, shut the fuck up, Tatsuya,” Daichi interrupted me. “This is why you are a pussy. You can’t see anything in front of you because you lack imagination and drive. You know you should kill because it’s the best way to keep yourself safe, but you also know that it’s wrong, hesitating to choose a side. Take it from me, you dipshit, I want to survive this whole farce of a ‘Holy Quest’. Leveling, magic, murder, all of that crap is a way for me to achieve my goal. Besides, are you an idiot or what? Just because I can and know how to end somebody’s life, doesn’t mean that I’m willing to go on a murder rampage. Murderhobos are uncool, you retard.”

With a short “see ya”, Daichi walked out, following Tamae-san’s party and Asaka who wanted to return to her room to catch up on sleep. Kyouya, wanting to escort the still shivering Haruka to her room, also left the room, leaving me behind…all alone.

‘"ust because I can and know how to end somebody’s life, doesn’t mean that I’m willing to go on a murder rampage." That’s what he said, huh?

Can I really do it? I want to see my parents, again. I want to see my uncles and aunts, again. I want to see my grandparents, again. And fucking hell, I have to go back to beat my cousins’ ass in that one video game…

I have so much to live for, I don’t, I can’t die here. I’m already making them worry about me, I have to go back to tell them that I’m alright!

With those thoughts, I left the dining hall and went to the practice field, only understanding that I had to get stronger, regardless of what my choice will be in the future.

A note from AbyssRaven

Thank you very much for your patience, everybody. Last side chapter about coffee boy for a while. We are returning back to Hestia in the next chapter!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 69: Evolution and Skill Predicaments.

A note from AbyssRaven

Well, the promised chapter is finally here. Thank you guys for your patience through the side chapter spam.

It's a fun one so please enjoy. ^^

Ok, the first thing that I need would be a song. I could use the one that Tasianna translated for me but that probably wouldn’t fit Saori’s taste. Considering how aloof she can be at times, I think maybe a more serious song would be better?

No, that’s just her working persona. She’s pretty fun and I’m more used to singing cheerful songs anyways. Also, considering the theme; a Christmas song might be pretty good but that would confuse Tasianna. Wait, maybe I should ask her if there are any winter-based Peolyncian holidays and celebrations, first?

“Hestia!”

“Uwaaaaaaaaah!”

While I was deep in thought, planning my first ever idol performance, somebody suddenly tugged at my tail, surprisingly me enough that I made a loud yelp. Noticing no hostile intents, I turned my head around with slight annoyance, neither baring my fangs nor claws.

Looking at the woman who pulled my tail, I could only think how childish it was of her as she tried to suppress her laughter, “You really love teasing me, right, Saori?”

Gleefully wearing a smirk, my wolf friend answered while giggling, "Hie, sorry, you were so concentrated on your drawing that I was unable to draw your attention. I just wanted to tell you that Tasianna and I were about to go outside the cave and we wanted to know if you wanted to come with us.”

“Outside? Brrr, I have to wear this bear fur here, as if I want to go somewhere colder,” I said showing off the giant pelt from the [Rock-Skin Horned Grizzly] that I was using to cover my shivering body. “I know I don’t like caves because of [The Light] but this one is small enough that it doesn’t matter. I can still see the entrance.”

“Oh, wonderful. I do miss your New Yorker accent, but I believe your current one is much better. More refined and less crude, just as I wanted it to be,” Saori said with a grin.

“Stop teasing me, it’s because of Tasianna. She didn’t know many colloquialism or abbreviations,” I said in exasperation.

Before I began speaking Common tongue well, I used to adopt a New Yorker accent as I spoke due to my past life. However, as I continued learning this Peolyncian language from Tasianna in addition to us three mostly speaking telepathically, I’ve slowly been losing my old accent while getting influenced by Tasianna’s.

Learning a new language really depended on from whom you learned it, as you will inevitably copy your teacher's accent. While that may have an effect, what influenced it the most is when you speak with others. Take it from me, I’ve learned my usual accent when I started mingling with people outside of my parent’s friendship circle, causing me to drop the accent I learned from my etiquette teacher.

I still am able to switch to it when I focus, but how I’ve been speaking until now was how I always speak

Unfortunately, after speaking with the lizardmen and Tasianna, I’ve accepted that I had to give up on my current accent as it didn’t fit with Common tongue. I couldn’t pronounce certain words correctly and Tasianna would chastise me if I tried to.

It’s sad to see that more of my past self is slowly disappearing but I couldn’t help it. I have to adapt to my new life. That’s what I once told myself.

“So, what are you doing?” Saori asked.

“Oh, this? Well, fulfilling my promise to you, of course!” I answered.

Yesterday, after I cried for the first time in nearly a decade, I made a promise to Saori to show her my first idol performance. Not some half-ass one or the one during my “Idol concert strategy”, but a full-fledged and properly prepared Idol performance that could pass as one on Earth.

Maybe, I’m putting a bit too much pressure on myself, but I ought to do so. I cried; I broke that oath that I made in my past life. Some may say that it’s healthy, that I should start leaving the past in the past. I did feel better, I felt liberated that I was able to just let everything out, even if it did last a whole day until I fell asleep with puffy eyes.

However, it still meant that I broke a pretty personal promise. I don’t intend to break the one I made with Saori, so I’ve been brainstorming ever since I finished breakfast. The song, choreography, outfit, special effects, etc. There are quite a lot of things that I needed to do for prep.

“Hmm, are you writing a song? That is English, correct?” Saori asked as she looked on the ground that I was just writing on.

Having no paper was pretty inconvenient but thankfully I was strong enough to just scratch everything on the ground. All that handiwork training I’ve had until now has really benefitted me, making me get used to using my strength in my dragonewt form.

"Yeah, I'm still figuring out the theme so I'm just playing around with words. I wanted to try writing it in Common tongue but speaking and writing are completely different, especially when certain words have different meanings," I answered.

“True. Metaphors and similes are used quite often in songs, I believe? Figures of speech may be easy for fluent speakers, but we have merely started,” Saori agreed to my statement.

Flowery or poetic speech is a staple in songs as the best usually can intertwine words to form a story or image that you wish to relay to your listeners. Of course, there are simple ones with the sole role of just making you happy and fluffy inside, but I also want to make a meaningful song in the future. Call it a lyricist's pride.

"Well, I am glad that your new goal is making you active and work hard, however, do remember that we still have over a month left for you to work on it. Do not overexert yourself," Saori warned me.

“I know, I won’t. I want it to be perfect but collapsing on the day that I would perform it would not only be embarrassing but dreadful for me. I promise I’ll take it easy,” I answered making Saori nod in contentment. “Oh! Oh! Oh! Saori, that reminds me! An outfit! We need new clothes now!”

Grabbing Saori, I shook her like crazy causing her to let out “huhs" like mad, "Hestia, let go, please! I am already working on yours, Tasianna's, and mine. They require time!"

“Oh, Tasianna needs one? Oh right, her elven form doesn’t have any clothes!” I snapped my fingers, remembering that mana dresses do not grow with the user.

Agreeing that we had to get new clothes, I called out for Tasianna who promptly rushed over to us, “Lady Hestia! Is there anything that you need?”

Explaining to her that we three needed new clothes, I got Tasianna to agree to stop her plan to go out today, which made Saori a bit mad at me. I had to persuade her that she could use me as a dress-up doll as much as she wanted so she would stop looking at me as if I was an irresponsible teen.

I know we ought to scout our position but delaying it by a day won’t be the end of the world. When I scouted using my [Detection Sensor] this morning, I honestly didn’t sense that many monsters around us and if I did find something, they weren’t something I would consider a threat. There was no need to rush.

“Hmm, are you sure you want me to do this now, or when you reached level 10 in [Humanize]. I believe you will grow again, right?” Saori asked as she did my measurements.

“I mean sure, but I don’t want to waste any my SP on leveling it up when it’ll level over time…although, I would love to have my 15-year-old body back,” I stated. “I have a total of 5600 SP now but…you know, we aren’t in the Belzac forest anymore. Who knows when I’ll get a new level.”

“Oh, speaking of level and SP, Lady Hestia what will you evolve into?” Tasianna asked as she helped Saori measure me.

After that little rampage I had, I gained enough experience to reach the final level of rank C. I could finally evolve into a rank B, the same rank as those three wyverns, if I wanted to.

“I don’t know yet, Tasianna,” I answered. “The thing is, I haven’t actually looked through my list of evolutions yet. I actually was planning to use my remaining SP to learn some new skills to get a wider range of evolutions, but I’ve been pre-occupied with planning that idol performance for you two.”

“Mhmm, this will take a while so why not look it over? Both the evolution and skill list will take a while for you to look through. It would give us something to talk about,” Saori suggested.

Well, she’s right. Ok, might as well get this over with. Girls? Let’s get to it.

Evolution

[Young Black-Wrath Dragon]

[Young Angel Dragon]

[Young Lava Dragon]

[Young Magma Dragon]

[Young Volcano Dragon]

[Young Thunder Dragon]

[Young Mana Dragon]

[Young Arcane Corrupter Dragon]

[Young Noxious Blight Dragon]

[Young Dreadflame Dragon]

[Young Hellblade Dragon]

Huh, more options than I thought.

Dragon Type Descriptions

Young Magma Dragon

An immature lava dragon that possesses a body equipped to traverse the searing hot sea of a volcano. Compared to their cousins, these dragons are magquatic, perfectly able to maneuver through molten rock. Rank B

Young Volcano Dragon

An immature lord of molten flames and the leader of both lava and magma dragons, that has not even touched its immense potential yet. This superior dragon swaggers through its obsidian realm in the depths of the earth, ruling over their molten domain with ruthless aggression. Either on land or magma, this behemoth of a creature will chase off any intruders with its titanic body and piercing lava beams, while being invulnerable to most weaponry with its harder-than-metal scales. Rank B

Young Thunder Dragon

Soaring through the sky like a thunderbolt, these immature dogmatic fighters of the sky will shoot any wannabe challenger down in a heartbeat. Whether with talons or arcane thunder, these dragons are masters of blitzing down others just like their wind elemental cousins. Rank B

Young Noxious Blight Dragon

An immature dragon with a toxic factory of a body, able to produce sludge waves of toxic fluids to mark its territory. Although passive, extreme caution should be shown against these creatures as getting too close might spell the end for the careless. A threat to the environment if it is found outside its natural habitat. Not the most proficient of fighters. Rank B

Young Dreadflame Dragon

An immature, mutated inferno dragon who rules the sky with powerful wings, shimmering with an intense crimson red. Soaring through the skies while turning the ground under it into ash and ruins, these wrathful predators will descend on anything to reap its offering from the land. They are most vulnerable in their immature state, not having the strength to carry their fearsome body to the skies. Rank B

Young Hellblade Dragon

An immature, mutated inferno dragon with a hell blaze core protected by an armor of scales and razor-sharp blades. Wielding its blade-like tail like a massive greatsword, these ferocious brutes can turn any defense into little more than crumbled remains as they relish in their impending victory. Any challenger should also be wary of the mineral dust that these dragons can send into the air using their special claws and tails, as even a little spark will cause a hellfire of devastation. Vulnerable in their immature state due to their weaker scales. Rank B

‘Oh shit, so we have a choice of becoming something like a leader for a group of lava and magma dragons,’ parallel mind #1 commented.

‘Yeah sure, but look at Dreadflame and Hellblade. I guess we should have anticipated an evolved version of [Young Spark Inferno Dragon],’ parallel mind #2 remarked. ‘Dreadflame seems to make our already powerful fire magic even stronger, while Hellblade would improve our body. I do hope we won’t lose one of them upon evolving. That would be a scam.’

‘Ehhh?! Come on, girls. Look at that [Young Noxious Blight Dragon]. I want to already veto that option!’ #3 shouted. "Its description is frightening, and I get the feeling we will be hunted down if we took it! Besides, ewwwww, sludge!”

‘Am I the only one who is interested in [Young Thunder Dragon]? It’s quite low-key compared to the others, but the descriptions sounds rad,’ #4 stated.

Sure, but that’s not our endgame, right, girls? Come on, let’s go to the skill shop.

As impressive as these dragons sounded, I was actually a bit more interested in expanding my horizons here. If you looked at my current skill set, you would notice that I had quite a few skills that improved my fire attacks or were related somehow to it.

My unique skill [Spark Fire Dragon] by itself is already an amplifier while also granting me quite a lot of dragon abilities with the element fire as a focus, especially [Spark Claws] and [Spark Fangs] which were the only abilities that allowed me to contest others in close combat.

On the other hand, my other elements lacked firepower due to having no amplifying-like skills. One of the reasons why I wanted [Venerated Saintess] from my follower milestone was to make my light spells hit harder. I don’t want to be a one-trick pony here, something that I painfully learned from the garm matriarch.

Thankfully, I’ve been able to broaden my fighting ability by getting [Toxic Secretion] and [Poison Creation] which enabled me to produce and use different assortments of toxins. I've also [Trap Creation] which gives me the ability to make my bombs, although, I’ve been thinking of getting a more specialized one for the job.

This would be my B rank evolution. Considering how strong those wyverns were, I have to make sure that I chose the correct one. Whenever we will meet again, I had to be ready and strong enough to fend them off…if Saori and Tasianna can’t reach a proper power level until then.

I also need to find some sort of measure to stop [Battle Frenzy]. Saori said that we would handle it before it happens, but you can’t be sure of that. Being a whole week in that cave was enough to make my worry. For the sake of my friends, and my conscience, I needed some sorta skill to help me out.

With my many objectives established, I sent my parallel minds back into the fray that was the skill shop. There are thousands and thousands of skills in there that it would make you just dizzy if you looked at it.

With a proper idea of what I was searching for, I could pin down specific skills to make it easier on myself. Randomly looking around would prove futile, after all. Without any keywords, you can imagine it like trying to search for a niche video on YouTube, frustrating yourself ‘cause you can’t find it no matter how often you push that search button!

I better do something, too. How about this category: Display skills that protect you from mental status effects like [Battle Frenzy]

Skill List

Sort by: Mental protection skills

[Mental Corruption Resistance]

[Mind Protection]

…Is this all?

‘Original Mind, you have to understand that we already got a few when we last had a skill buying session. Remember [Mental Stability] and [Mental Warfare]?’ #2 said. 'We found a few skills that might interest you. Want to look them over?'

Feeling a bit irritated from the lack of choice, I simply agreed to my parallel mind’s suggestion and sorted through the skills that they found. Considering that my goal was to increase our evolution choices, I had to make sure that I would choose the ones that would benefit me the most with my limited SP reserve.

There was also the fact that I could try leveling a few skills up and hope to merge them into others to create an entirely new skill or even a superior version. That was the case when my [Enhanced Fangs] and [Enhanced Claws] transformed into [Draconic Fangs] and [Draconic Claws], respectively.

As I was mulling through literally hundreds of options, I thought that it would be useful to get some outside opinions. As efficient as my parallel minds were, they were still me at the end of the day.

Having explained both my evolutions and also my current plan to improve my skill set to my two companions, I awaited their responses.

The first to speak was Tasianna, “Hmm, Lady Hestia, I believe you still remember the concept of ‘Custom Spells’, correct?”

“Urgh, yes. Speaking of custom spells, I really have to get my own spell to finally work. That was so embarrassing when it fizzled out,” I said with dissatisfaction at my own skills.

My only custom spell currently was [Imperial Hellfire], a spell that I somehow created during my battle with the garms that didn’t even deserve to be called a spell, yet. It was unfinished. I thought I had everything prepared but when it just failed on me during my fight with Astalos, the Boltreaver Wyvern, I could only describe that experience as a blow to my pride. It was humiliating.

“I agree, you still haven’t mastered writing and reading yet, something that we must continue to improve. However, that was not what I meant when I mentioned it to you,” Tasianna continued. “There are two magic concepts in this world, the ones created by the origin gods and the one made from mortal hands. Custom spells belong to the latter, the traditional way to display arcane prowess.”

“You explained that to me already. To cast a custom spell, most of the hard work has to be done by the mage. That meant you were responsible for creating the Invocation, Incantation, and Activation,” I answered. “Not only must I be able to imagine the process, but I also have to make the incantation and magic circle on my own. That’s why I’ve been learning Common tongue from you. I needed to know how to pronounce the words correctly while also knowing the vocabulary to fill the runes for my magic circle.”

However, that didn’t mean that they were unaffected by the System. Custom spells still were affected by your Intelligence and Wisdom stats, in addition to any other skills that improved your magic power like [Magic Power Enhancement]. Think of it like so: you had to cast the spell without the System’s aid but anything that helped your System-based spells would also affect your custom spells.

At my current state, I was able to imagine how my [Imperial Hellfire] was supposed to work and I’ve already translated my incantation into Common tongue. The only thing that was left was my magic circle. If I only was able to read and write back then, maybe I would have been able to scare those wyverns away.

“Exactly, marvelous, Lady Hestia. Which brings me back to my point,” Tasianna raised one finger as she explained her thoughts. “The System is a wonderful gift from the gods, but you shouldn’t restrict your strength to it alone. Elves, masters of the arcane and martial arts, have long understood that they had to adapt their ancient arts and wisdom with the System to grow even stronger. Even without the full support of the System, I believe you can develop your own power.”

“During my first two months in this world, you mentioned something very intriguing to me, Hestia,” Saori added. “‘Stats aren’t everything’, instead, focus on improving your skills, and I believe you meant both definitions. Level up your skills as they will help you in combat while also remembering that you must master them, also.”

Placing a hand on my chin, I thought over what they said, “So, you guys are suggesting that I focus on quality instead of quantity? Hmm, if that is so then it would be better for me to search for superior versions of my current skill sets, or maybe level my current ones up.”

“Come now, depending on if Tasianna’s memory of Peolynca’s map is correct, we might not have to endanger ourselves for very long anymore. You have time to think it through, Hestia, something I would personally endorse, too," Saori remarked. "As we are a team, I also would like to suggest that we chose our SP investments depending on our team's needs. We should complement each other, after all."

“Oh, that is a wonderful idea, Miss Saori! I haven’t spent my SP yet, so it has been accumulating ever since we fought those Panguanas,” Tasianna stated. “Now that I have the body of a wind elf, I should experiment a bit with it. My lack of wings is infuriating. I feel as if a part of me is lost.”

“Hmm? Didn’t you say that wind elves are the mortal children of Zephira and one of her subordinate gods? I thought that you would be more excited about it,” I said.

According to Tasianna, Zephira, the goddess of winds, once took up the hand of a mortal high elf and granted him godhood, all so she could make him into her husband. Now called by his divine name Krunal, he acts as the God of Weather and Harvest while also being the ancestral father of the wind elves.

“I’m afraid I must betray your expectations, Lady Hestia. The wind elves, although having an incredible affinity for wind magic, are merely like any other elves, so this body doesn’t grant me as many advantages as you might think,” Tasianna explained. “As my real identity is that of a fairy, a Faefolk, my current body also doesn’t have any flesh or blood. I am purely made of mana and still possess the same weakness as my fairy body, despite having lost my ability to fly."

Wow, she seems pretty down about that fact.

“But Tasianna, was not your goal for buying [Elvenize] being able to serve Hestia some of your tea?” Saori remarked.

“You…You are absolutely correct, Miss Saori! I must make tea! Only the finest tea for my Mistress and Miss Saori!” Tasianna jumped on her feet and went back to our campfire, getting ready to brew a warm tea. “I must find a tea making skill. There must be one in the skill shop! A divine tea to please Princess Hestia’s regal tongue! I must!”

…

“…She seems pretty excited now,” Saori said.

I gave a chuckle while making a wry smile, “Well, she’s happy and we get a warm tea to keep us warm for it, so who cares?”

Saori shrugged and then suddenly produced a black mana string, prompting me to ask her where she got, “Oh, this? Well, while you and Tasianna were talking about what skills you wanted to buy, I looked over my own skill shop and managed to find [Elemental Mana Weaving Lv. 1].”

Elemental Mana Weaving

A skill that requires   [Mana Weave] to work properly. The user can create strings infused with the elements of a person's mana, creating magical tools that can display certain qualities of that element. Control and reliability depend heavily on the level of [Mana Weave]

“I made this black string by concentrating on trying to cast a dark spell, coloring the once blue fabric into black. It is currently a bit unstable…however, do tell me how you want your outfit to look like, Hestia. I am sure I will make you into a bright star.” Saori said.

With a creeping grin and a clear image of my new clothes, I told Saori all the details while she made her notes. Filled with extreme excitement, I finally caved in and decided to say, “fuck it” and bought the last two upgrades for [Humanize].

Not the smartest choice, if I wanted to become stronger but I wouldn’t say that I regretted it. My primary goal is to become an Idol and right now, I needed a body that fitted that image. Finally, I was back to my former body as I joyously looked in my status board at my “Age” which finally showed me the one number that I wished to see: 15.

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Humanize Lv. 8] evolved into [Humanize Lv. 10]. 4900 SP remaining

700 SP, worth it.

A note from AbyssRaven

There is also a poll if you guys want to show me which dragon type you would choose. Let me know what you would like.

Also, this is the beginning for Hestia and crew to switch from plain mana dresses into their adventurer garb. If you guys want to imagine Hestia's outfit then go right ahead, otherwise, you guys can come to my patreon. I got my artist to draw it for you guys. ;)

As requested, a recap on the other dragon descriptions

Young Black-Wrath Dragon

A rare dragon-type that possess scales of pure darkness. A dragon with a short temper, who’s rampage would send an entire city in ruins. Can shoot out a strong beam of concentrated black mana that eradicates anything in its path. Called a "Spawn of Kargryxmor". Rank B

Young Angel Dragon

A unique dragon type that possesses the aura of divinity. A dragon that possess serene feathers that makes this dragon look like an angel. Specializes in supportive magic and skills, while possessing scales that nullify all spells related to the holy element. A dragon created by the Goddess of Light, Aurena. Rank B

Young Lava Dragon

A young dragon that can only be found in the vicinity of extreme temperatures. It can feast on both flesh and minerals. Compared to a Magma Dragon, these dragons lack the ability to deftly traverse through pools of molten rock. Rank B

Young Mana Dragon

A young dragon that embodies the power of mana. Its whole body is composed of mana, instead of flesh and blood, so it can only die if its mana expires. Punishes foes with unending amounts of magic, with no risk of arcane corruption. Rank B

Young Arcane Corrupter Dragon

A young, mutant Mana Dragon that spreads corrupted mana in its surroundings. Its whole body is composed of mana, instead of flesh and blood, so it can only die if its mana expires. Instead of pure mana, its body is composed of arcane corrupted mana, thick enough to materialize into anything it wants. Cannot use spells. Rank B

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 70: This is why you should take traumas seriously.

A note from AbyssRaven

Seriously, frogs are monsters.

Acquisition requirement fulfilled.   [Stonecrafting Lv. 1] acquired

You have bought   [Mental Corruption Resistance Lv. 1] [Mind Protection Lv. 1]. 800 SP spent. Your current SP is 4100

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Silent Casting Lv. 7] [Stealth Lv. 10] [Presence Killer Lv. 10] [Prediction Lv. 10] [Handicraft Lv. 2] [Wood Working Lv. 3] gained

Skill requirement fulfilled.   [Stealth Lv. 10] evolved into [Silence Lv. 1]

Skill requirement fulfilled.   [Presence Killer Lv. 10] evolved into [Odorless Lv. 1]

Skill requirement fulfilled.   [Prediction Lv. 10] evolved into [Foresight Lv. 1]

[Humanized (Major)] inflicted on [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atsuko]

Wild Swine

A beast with a voracious appetite with a very low ability to defend itself. A cautious creature that will run at the first sight of danger. Rank E

Urgh, I already miss those mushroom Skorr from Belzac forest…these boars are too small.

Sigh…Wind Blast.

Aiming a green magic circle in front of my finger at the boar, I shot out a concentrated ball of wind at its head, knocking it to the ground and stunning it. Casually walking towards it, I grabbed its head with both hands and with a snap, twisted and broke its neck.

Quick and painless…they are more like animals than combat-ready beasts. No need to be ruthless.

Three days have passed since we left the cave, our most recent dwelling. While I wanted to stay there a bit longer to fully dedicate my time to planning my first-ever idol concert, Saori and Tasianna made a good point that we couldn’t stay around one area for too long.

That is ‘cause after Saori showed how [Elemental Mana Weaving] worked, how she could produce colors depending on whose mana she borrowed, she wanted to fight against me. The reason was obvious: to prevent [Battle Frenzy] from appearing.

After thinking it over, I decided to not only buy the last two levels of [Humanization] but also the two mental protection skills [Mental Corruption Resistance] and [Mind Protection]. While I wasn’t sure if it really would help me, I bought then anyways purely to have peace of mind, that I was doing my best to control my primal urges.

I think I’ve made my point already, but I was gravely afraid of letting my inner beast out again. That bloody sight…it was an important reminder for me that I was dangerous if I couldn’t control my instincts and my ancestral blood.

I guess you could call the way I just dispatched this boar as a way for me to reassure myself…although, didn’t I just kill it without any guilt for ending life? Meh, better than getting an existential crisis every time I hunted for dinner. Now that would be a headache.

Anyway, as it was like last time, my fight against Saori and Tasianna was pretty intense, despite how much we all had to hold back to prevent causing a scene that would attract any unwanted spectators like those wyverns.

I won, of course, with the same rules as our previous spar but I could tell that Saori was getting better. Not technique-wise but her battle instincts. Maybe it was ‘cause she kept watching how I fought but her in-battle reactions and tactics have evolved, showing development.

Speaking of which, I still have to hunt a few more [Wild Swine] for dinner, so I might as well kill some time and review her status board.

Saori's Status Board

Profile:

Name: Saori Segawa

Level: 8

Race: Young Shadowstalker Cadejo

Age: 3 Months

Status:

Health:

4385/4385(+838)

Mana:

1578/1578(+500)

Strength:

2654(+503)

Intelligence:

950(+163)

Vitality:

1750 (+265)

Wisdom:

1938 (+327)

Agility:

3575 (+582)

Stamina:

2862/2862(+755)

Effects:

None

Skill Points:

1050 (1450 SP used) (+1050)

Unique Skill:

[Shadow Armament Lv. 4] (+2)

Skill:

Magic and related

[Mana Efficiency Lv. 4] (+2)

[Arcane Mind Lv. 7] (+3)

[Mana Control Lv. 8] (+2)

[Dark Magic Lv. 8] (+1)

[Dark Amp]

[Dark Magic Efficiency] (New)

[Space-Time Magic Lv. 3]

[Space-Time Efficiency]

[Chant Revocation Lv. 10]

[Mental Stability Lv. 3]

[Mental Warfare Lv. 4] (+1)

[Silent Casting Lv. 6] (+2)

Physical and related

[Unarmed Technique Lv. 6] (+3

[Unarmed Mastery Lv. 2] (+1)

[Sundering Enhancement Lv. 3] (+1)

[Piercing Enhancement Lv. 3] (+1)

[Crushing Enhancement Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Claws Lv. 10] (+1)

[Enhanced Fangs Lv. 8] (+1)

Senses and movements

[Primal Senses]

[Silence Lv. 1] (New)

[Prediction Lv. 7] (+1)

[Concentration Lv. 3] (+1)

[Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 9] (+1)

[Danger Perception Lv. 6] (+2)

[Tracking Lv. 5] (+1)

[Heat Vision Lv. 2] (+1)

[Night Vision Lv. 6] (+1)

[Presence Killer Lv. 8] (+1)

[Evasion Lv. 10] (+4)

[Acrobatic Lv. 10] (+2)

[Air Walk Lv. 1] (New)

[Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 5]

Resistances

[Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 2] (+1)

[Absolute Pain Tolerance]

[Bleed Resistance Lv. 4] (+2)

[Poison Resistance Lv. 6] (+2)

[Paralyze Resistance Lv. 10]

[Torpor Resistance Lv. 4] (+1)

[Arcane Corruption Resistance Lv. 10]

[Ice Resistance Lv. 1]

[Holy Resistance Lv. 4] (+2)

[Fire Resistance Lv. 6] (+3)

[Earth Resistance Lv. 6] (+1)

[Water Resistance Lv. 2]

[Wind Resistance Lv. 5] (+2)

[Dark Resistance Lv. 4]

Growth and related

[Health Recovery Lv. 4]

[Mana Recovery Lv. 4] (+1)

[Stamina Recovery Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Health Growth Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Mana Growth Lv.´4]

[Enhanced Mana Capacity Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Intelligence Growth Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Intelligence Enforcement Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Agility Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Stamina Capacity Lv. 4]

Others

[Dancing Lv. 1]

[Identify Blocker Lv. 3]

[Identify Lv. 8] (+1)

[Terror Aura Lv. 4]

[Bloodlust Lv. 1]

[Battle Mind Lv. 3] (+1)

[Lifetaker Lv. 3] (+1)

[Mana Weave Lv. 8] (+2)

[Sewing Lv. 7] (+2)

[Elemental Mana Weave Lv. 2] (New)

[Royal Etiquette Lv. 2]

[Cooking Lv. 8] (+1)

[Dismantle Lv. 5] (+2)

[Humanize Lv. 7] (+1)

[Telepathy]

Ability List:

Unarmed

[Just Blink]

[Shadow Descent]

Spell List:

Dark

[Dark Bolt]

[Dark Tendrils]

[Shadow Dash]

[Dark Slash]

[Shadow Clones]

[Shadow Snake]

Space-Time

[Haste]

[Storage Magic]

Titles:

[Belzac’s Successor] [Otherworldly Reincarnator] [Hestia’s Retainer]

Due to Saori declining to rescue the lost lizardmen group with Tasianna and me, she has been staggering a bit behind us concerning experience gain. She managed to level up five times when we traveled with the lizardmen which is, well, normal?

The increased experience gain we get from our titles does make us level faster than normal so I guess only earning a few levels over two weeks should be above average…I think. I don't have a reference, ok?

Still, that didn’t mean that she neglected her training. Whether it was hunting, her daily training regimen, or our most recent spar, her skills are showing amazing growth.

The only thing that she still needed to figure out was how to fight me when I kept spamming spells. No matter how much she used [Shadow Dash] and [Dark Tendrils] to outmanoeuvre me, she couldn’t contest with me whether it was close-range, mid-range, or long-range.

“Hestia! We are here, how many have you caught?” speak of the devil, what woke me up from my thinking was Saori’s voice

Turning around, I responded while holding up the body of a boar with little to no effort, “I got seven.”

Taking out the other boar from my storage prompted Saori to do the same, "I got five, and Tasianna got two. We will not have to use any of our rations tonight. Good job.”

Showing a thumbs up to my friends, my attention was focused on Tasianna who looked quite troubled at something, “Tasianna!?”

Shit!

“I-I…I apologize, Lady Hestia!” Tasianna yelled out as she kneeled to the ground, diverting her head to not look at me. “But…I humbly ask you to change back to your dragonewt form…I apologize…please, Lady Hestia.”

Tasianna…sigh.

[Humanized (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atsuko]

After the mana cloud dispersed enough that my form became clear, Tasianna stood back up with an apologetic expression, “I am unforgivable. I will face the consequences on your commands, so please, Lady Hestia.”

"Enough, Tasianna!" I shouted with an exhausted tone. "As if I'll do anything to you…I should be the one to apologize. I was preoccupied with my thoughts so I didn’t notice you coming. I could have transformed back in time if I had.”

“No, no, you mustn’t apologize to me, Lady Hestia!” almost hysterical, Tasianna burst out in another shout, small beads of tears flowing down her elven face. “I’m just a mere servant! This is inexcusable for a maid like me! I should be serving you regardless of your circumstances and not feel…disgusted being in your presence! I’m an embarrassment! I shouldn’t feel these emotions towards my mistress, so please, I ask you t-”

Hearing a sharp clap, I flinched backward as I saw Saori having slapped Tasianna’s cheek, “Enough! It is far too early for us to shout at each other! Hestia, do not go anywhere, please. We will be back in a minute. Tasianna, we need to talk.”

As Saori pushed the still crying Tasianna deeper into the forest, I could only sigh in exasperation and take out a “chair” from my storage to sit on it, waiting for them to come back.

I say chair but it was just a log that had its side cut off to form a square. At the very least, I managed to make it smooth and comfortable to sit on using the knowledge that I gained from Casczur and the other artisan lizardmen.

That [Handicraft] that I got really has been useful. I even got [Stonecraft] after working with stone for a while. It’s nice to learn that some skills are easier to learn once you acquired a base one…

…Fuck.

“Arrgh, verdammte Scheiße!” I said as I scratched my head in frustration, irritating my scalp.

Humanization.

[Humanized (Major)] inflicted on [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atsuko]

No wings, no tails, no scales, no claws, no fangs, no horns…

Now that I was able to use [Humanization Lv. 10], I was finally able to completely transform back into a human while also being able to maintain my 15-year-old body with every transformation stage.

I was elated. Not only ‘cause I was 15 again but also ‘cause my status board showed the word [Human] as my Race. That was one of my goals crossed off. One of the first goals that I made during the first month of my second life.

And it was amazing. The feeling of having nothing weighing your head down and the lack of something swinging around your butt was nostalgic. Yes, my stats were reduced by 2/3rd ‘cause of [Humanized (Major)], which gimped my ability to fight but I didn't care. I felt normal, again. I felt like a normal teenage girl who could scratch her heads without worrying about cutting herself.

However,…in all my excitement, I never anticipated how intense Tasianna’s hatred for humans was. When we were still in the cave, as I was playing with my body, touching everything, I suddenly felt a cold chill emanating behind me, causing both my [Prediction] and [Danger Perception] to tingle. It even was enough for my [Prediction] to reach level ten and evolve into [Foresight].

It wasn’t a lot, but the little bit of hostile intent was enough for my reflexes to instantly cause my body to tense up and move into a fighting position. My parallel minds even had some spells ready to shoot out!

You should have seen how shocked I was to learn that it was Tasianna who showed all that hostility. When she finally realized what she was doing, she had the exact same reaction as just now.

She was calling for me to punish her for what she did. It was the most erratic behavior that I have ever seen from Tasianna, even more, impactful than that time when I told her to stop calling me "Princess Hestia" or when I told her to stop acting like a servant.

I knew what the humans did to her was terrible but was it naïve of me to think that her anger towards them was only limited to disgust? I mean, Tasianna at that moment was ready to attack! Me! Her friend!

While I was worrying about how abnormal I was and that I could hurt my friends one day, it didn’t come to my mind that we might have somebody that hated humans enough that she would shut her brain off at the mere sight of one.

For crying out loud, I technically wasn’t a human anymore! I am a dragon, aahhhh!

Who knew we had two people with mental problems…

…Which leaves us in a weird position. Frankly, I didn’t have to be in human form at all. I actually liked my dragonewt form better. My dragonewt form without wings was my favorite one to be in.

It was the right amount of feeling strong, due to my stats and claws, combined with the flexibility and cuteness of a humanoid’s body. There is also the fact that I can’t use any of my dragon abilities in human form.

I can’t create any sparks with my human nails and teeth, making it impossible to use any of [Spark Fire Dragon]’s abilities. My "Draconic" skills are also unusable as if they were sealed while I was human but they were still there in my status board.

If it wasn't obvious, being human fucking sucks. I’ve gotten used to scratching and biting while fighting up-close while using my tails for various attacks, which included choking, piercing, and strangling.

However, I still liked being a human. This was the problem that our party is currently having. Tasianna knew I was once a human and could easily accept that fact but seeing me as a human seemed to have awakened her trauma, causing her to feel unease around me and, therefore, guilt.

This isn’t something you can solve with a simple talk or snap of the finger…all I can do right now is to try to avoid showing my human form to her. Oh, speaking of the devil, humanization.

[Humanized (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atsuko]

Noticing two approaching signals with [Detection Sensor], I immediately changed back into a dragonewt. As my two companions came back into view, I could see that Tasianna’s eyes were quite puffy from tears while Saori looked mentally exhausted.

The first to speak was Tasianna, who bowed her torso in a 90 degrees angle, “Lady Hestia, I apologize so much for my inappropriate behavior. I-I have no excuses.”

For somebody with ice magic, you can be quite hot-headed, I thought to myself.

“It’s all good, Tasianna. I was careless at that moment, so you don’t need to worry about it. I know how you feel about humans,” I said with a wry smile.

"No! As your maid, I should be the one to-ouch!" Tasianna was about to go ballistic again with her apologies but Saori stopped her with a chop to the head.

“Tasianna, I believe we have spoken about this already,” Saori said as she kept a pleasant smile while exuding an aura of annoyance. “You are not making it better by continuously apologizing, in fact, it will have the opposite effect in this situation. We will let this rest for another time, alright?”

With a firm “yes”, Tasianna nodded to Saori scolding, ending this argument for today. However, as Saori said, we need to deal with this eventually.

“Do you have any ideas, yet, Saori?” I asked warily. “We already checked our surroundings and if Tasianna is correct then we should be in, well, in a human kingdom now.”

After we left the cave, our party scouted our surroundings as we needed to know where we should be going. As we stood up there at the peak of the trees, my eyes caught the sight of a massive mountain. If my memory was correct, Avitor Peaks was south of Belzac forest and considering how we couldn’t see the canyon anymore, we ha to assume that we were in a totally different area.

This meant only one thing and that was that we were finally outside the Belzac forest. However, that also made me remember a small detail that Tasianna once told us; that east of Belzac forest was a human kingdom.

Tasianna didn’t know the name of the place but it was irrefutable that we had to be in their lands. Of course, you could argue that we could be in another section of the forest, just like the rainforest and swamp, however, I have two facts that made me unable to believe that theory.

First, the lack of “monsters” in general. You’ve seen that [Wild Swine], yes? Its description was literally that of a wild boar on Earth, it even looked like one. In Belzac forest, I’ve seen creatures that I would call animals but they still had fantasy-looking ones like the [Mushroom Skorr] having mushrooms growing on its back.

Second, and probably the reason for the lack of “monsters”, was the amount of mana in the area. [Parshkey], the parsley look-a-like, and [Fulinoe], the plant with coffee-tasting tea leaves, are both plants that could only grow in soil with a high mana concentration. I haven’t found one yet in these past three days.

There is also my reduced mana regeneration. Mana regenerates in two ways, inside our bodies by turning food into mana and letting mana particles in the air into our bodies through the mana paths.

I’m still regenerating ridiculous amounts of mana every second, so it didn’t affect me that much but Saori’s natural regeneration was on the average side. Due to the lower mana concentration in the air, she can’t sustain any humanization forms above level 6. She recently got [Humanization Lv. 7] but she’s not able to stay in that form for an extended time, otherwise, she’ll use up all her mana.

I have no idea how there was so little amount of mana around, but I guess I can ask somebody around here when I get the chance. For now, our party only needed to know that we were in human territory and that we had to find a measure for Tasianna to stay calm. The last thing we needed was her to go berserk on the first human native that we meet.

“For now, I have suggested Tasianna to get used to your human form,” Saori responded. “It is unlikely that she would attack you even in that state and even in the worst case, you can defend yourself, yes?”

“…This is all so embarrassing and humiliating. I cannot believe I must do this,” Tasianna said with a pained face. “Lady Hestia, I swear that I will do my utmost to meet your expectations. As I have sworn to become stronger, I will also overcome my…displeasure.”

“Don’t push yourself too much, Tasianna. I can understand how traumas can affect you. I still haven’t gotten over my frog fear and I recently started to hate caves,” I said with worry. "Anyway, let us put that behind us for now. Let us continue traveling…oh, that's right! Did you two feel any difference when I made the experience share 50-50?"

Due to being at max level, any experience that I received would be wasted on myself. Being the leader of our party, I made it so that only Saori and Tasianna were able to receive the experience, even if I was the one who killed it.

I’ve said it already, but these Party Bracelets are amazing. Tasianna did mention that hers was the most recent version and there are some few interesting features that mine doesn’t have. I really wanted one now. I’ll buy our party new ones once we’re in a town that has them.

“Well, mine is made for fairies so I must still fight like one if I wish to gain the experience,” Tasianna said. “However, I believe everything is working correctly.”

I guess Tasianna’s bracelet is a bit too small for her elven body.

“We have not gained a level so we cannot tell you anything,” Saori reported.

After taking a break and eating lunch, we continued our travels in whatever direction we thought was correct. Saori explained that if we really were in a medieval setting, then we should look for a river or waterbed as villages or towns are usually close to them.

That made sense. Farm villages needed access to water for their crops while a town might need it for trade, or for a place to dump their wastes.

Regardless, that is currently our goal for now. Scouting above the trees was similar to how we did it in Belzac forest, as it was difficult to find a landmark within all these trees. I could jump into the sky with [Air Walk] but that would be idiotic, as the wyverns might find us.

I guess ‘cause this place was so close to the Belzac forest that some features are still the same despite the lower mana concentration.

As we continued onwards, we suddenly detected a few signals appearing. Agreeing that some more meat would go well with the mushrooms and fruits that we picked up, we hastily ran towards them.

Once there, we didn’t exactly find an animal nor a ferocious monster, nothing like that at all. Instead, what we found was not something that I expected to find this early, however, my attention wasn’t focused at it but at Tasianna.

“H-H-Huuuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmaaaaaaaaaaaaan!”

A note from AbyssRaven

Oh yeah, I'm pretty sure that I mentioned that Humans are worshippers of Aurena. She's their Patron Goddes after all.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 71: Tasianna's true reasons.

A note from AbyssRaven

:)

“Stream of numbing cold, freeze the very breath of the Goddess of Wind, Icicle Gale!”

Jumping forward while shouting out “H-H-Huuuuuuummmmmaaaaaannnnnn”, Tasianna conjured up a cyan magic circle as she was about to launch the level three ice spell [Icicle Gale] at the person laying on the ground, fully intending to ravage them in a storm of ice.

Thankfully, as Tasianna hadn’t max leveled her [Chant Revocation] yet, she still had to chant, giving Saori and me enough time to react to her sudden antagonism towards the human.

Saori cast [Dark Tendrils] to fully restrict our unusually aggressive companion while I shot out a [Fire Ball], reforming its shape into a shield using [Pyrokinesis] to block the activated [Icicle Gale]. Tasianna’s spell sent a blast of wind and simultaneously froze it while it moved, creating something akin to a hail only with very, very sharp ice, launching itself at my flame shield and, luckily, melted before it could do any harm.

“Tasianna, you must calm down, please!” Saori called out in panic.

Tasianna struggled in a frenzy, fervently trying all she could to free herself from Saori's spell, “NO! Let me go, Miss Saori! Stream of numbing co-!”

“Tasianna!”, I shouted as I placed my hands on her cheeks and pulled her head to face my eyes. Looking at her with a bit of annoyance and worry, I strained my eyes and kept eye contact with her as if I was staring into her soul. “Please, calm down, Tasianna. Look at the woman. She’s lying face-first on the dirt and it doesn’t even look like she’s conscious!”

Turning her head to the side, I drew her attention back to the human, showing in what sorta state she was in. Ragged clothes that looked like they haven’t been washed in weeks, shoeless feet with plenty of scratches and grime, and dark green hair thickened with grease and flakes of skin. I couldn’t see her face nor in what condition her body was in but as the scent of blood was faint on her, it meant that she wasn’t in immediate danger…I guess.

Tasianna gave her a short glance before asserting her position to me, “Please, unhand me, Lady Hestia! I must, I must do this for-”

“Do it for whom?” instead of me, Saori spoke out from behind Tasianna who then told me to step aside for her to speak. “Tasianna, we have spoken about this already. Hestia and I have a goal, and that goal includes assimilating into society, which includes human society. I am grateful for your help and I also understand that I am asking you for something difficult, but I have given my warning already, have I not?”

Saori's aura felt as cold and ruthless as the one she just had when she wanted to speak with Tasianna, causing our fairy friend to shrink down from the sheer intimidation force. Cold beads of sweat began to form on her forehead as her eyes started appearing wet.

“M-Miss Saori, I-I-,” Tasianna struggled to speak, stumbling on every letter as she tried to respond.

However, Saori felt no pity and kept speaking, "No excuses, Tasianna. That was a near attempt of murder. Do you not remember what you tried to do for Hestia when she was consumed by anger, ready to attack the lizardmen due to them kidnapping the virigress cubs? Do not be a hypocrite.”

It is true that I wanted to attack and kill Caszcur and the lizardmen when we first met. I was angry when I heard they’d attacked the family of Rajah, my former virigress pet, and were about to turn his two siblings into a meal.

Tasianna was the only one among us that wanted me to be diplomatic about it. Looking back, that was a mistake that I narrowly dodged 'cause of Tasianna. Reflecting on it, I made the correct choice to speak with the lizardmen first instead of deciding to be a murder hobo.

Which makes this scene so bizarre. Tasianna has her quirks but it never blemished her dutiful maid persona. The Tasianna from back then and the one standing before me now were completely different.

“We cannot afford antagonizing humans every step we go, especially when we are in a town or city," Saori said with a grim expression. “I have said this already, Tasianna, if you do not want to learn how to control your urges, then we will have a problem. I understand that your trauma is controlling you here but even my patience will grow thin if we must repeat this every day.”

It would be a problem if she were to behave the way she did when she saw me as a human. I want to humanize when I sleep as I've found out that my sleeping posture has improved massively due to not having to deal with my horns and tail.

[Humanize Lv. 9] and [Humanize Lv. 10] are the only ones that removed a majority of my draconic features while also changing my race into human. I already had to deal with the fact that I would receive [Humanization (Major)] while also lacking the ability to use dragon abilities, I also didn’t want to experience Tasianna acting uncomfortable around me.

“You told me that you are doing this for your late mistress, Princess Schuri? Tell me, how would she feel if you kept going on with this pseudo-vengeance of yours that you are masking your trauma with? Are you not just afraid that everything will happen, again? You told us that Plesia is the Goddess of Honor and Order, correct? What you were about to do, cold-blooded murder, would have gone against all of that.” Saori gave her frank analysis.

This might be a part of what those two privately talked about. I can’t say much as I wasn’t able to deduce that on by myself. I only knew that Tasianna’s trauma was caused by her past experience of having lost the person that she last served, the youngest princess of the royal fairy family.

I was curious about this vengeance that Saori mentioned, but I’ll have to leave that alone for now. However, I will have to ask them about this. This sounds pretty serious and, honestly, should be something that I know about. We are a party after all, right?

“I personally have not experienced what responsibilities a maid has, however, I understand that you consider protecting somebody a duty, correct? You admitted that you are traveling with us now because of your desire to atone through serving Hestia,” Saori continued. "Do you still want to serve her? Do you still want to travel with us? Then this moment here will be the start of your change. I can and will help you Tasianna when it is within my abilities, but you personally have to start accepting it."

“I-I-I…yes,” Tasianna said with tears streaming down her face. “I do not want to be abandoned. Please, don’t leave me, Miss Saori, Princess Hestia. I want to be useful and I want to know that these 87 years haven’t been a complete waste.”

As Tasianna’s anger began to subside, Saori’s tendrils disappeared and released her, letting her body slump down in defeat. Still silently crying, she continued, “I will change, I will change. I swear this on my faith to Plesia, the Goddess of Order and Honor, and Zephira, the Patron Goddess of the Faefolk.”

With a quiet “thank you”, Saori turned her head around and gave a fierce snarl, as if she was letting out all her stress until now. With numerous whimpers resounding from the thickets and bushes, around six wolves scurried away from the area, terrified of Saori, a superior canine monster.

The signals are now reduced to one…only the woman’s.

Considering this scene, she must’ve collapsed in exhaustion after being pursued by them. Speaking of her, I was currently walking over to her as I was the cleric of the party. Saori understood this as there was no communication between us and she quietly kneeled down to console Tasianna.

She’s light…either it’s ‘cause of my high Strength or…yeah, that is what I thought.

Her body looked thin, unusually thin. Her arms and torso weren’t only skin and bones, but it was clear that she had been malnourished or starving for a few days now. I was already able to smell it further away but coming closer, the intensity of her sweat and grime caused my nose to be overwhelmed by a serious rotten egg smell. I had to cast [Air Shield] around me to prevent having to smell that shit…actually, she literally did smell like feces and urine.

Breathing? Good. At least she’s not dead…urgh, too bad I don’t have some tic tacs for her…

If I remembered Saori’s medieval lectures correctly, from her appearance alone, she must belong to the lowest class of the medieval feudal system. Well, Saori also elaborated it further by explaining about the “Yeoman” and “Villein”, the two distinctions for the somebody who didn’t belong to either nobility or the clergy.

In essence, a yeoman is a commoner who is able to own some sorta land, a house, for example. They could live in cities and had rights similar to a normal citizen, which is akin to how we treat people in modern time on Earth.

A villein is a serf, a person that owned nothing and is bound to work on the land of their lords. Usually, you can just think of them as the stereotypical peasant that has to work the land and take care of farms while being forced to hand over a certain amount of their harvest as a tribute.

I was leaning a bit on the villein side for this woman, but appearances can lie. Still, that was my first impression once I had a good look over her body’s current state.

There are some wounds on her back, signs of being snared around her wrists, and also…urgh, oh no…oh no. Th-That, I can't fix that…

I laid her down softly before having to stand up and close my mouth in disgust, walking a bit away to digest what I just saw.

"Hestia! Is something the matter?" Saori asked, still beside Tasianna.

“I’m fine…I’ll explain everything later. Let’s just make camp and rest for the day, please…,” I said as I scratched my head in exasperation.

**********************************

“Ok, now I understand the true reason why you left your village. Thanks for sharing that with me, Tasianna,” I told Tasianna who was kneeling down, helping me put on one of Saori’s clothing. “Still, you can’t go around trying to kill every single human you see, Tasianna. Not all of them are like that person, you can’t stereotype people.”

“Yes…your words are wise, but how am I supposed to know that? What if they went against their words like those poachers who attacked me? As your retainer, I will never allow them to ever harm you, Lady Hestia,” Tasianna said with a conflicted tone.

After I healed some of the woman’s wounds, Saori washed her using Tasianna’s water and shampoo, who was adamantly against doing that as she considered it as “wasted” on a human. We covered her up in a mana blanket and laid her closer to our campfire.

With nothing else to do until dinner, Saori suggested that we try some of her designs out as she believed four days of work should be enough to test out outfit combinations. Honestly, there were a lot. Trying them all on gave us enough time for Tasianna to explain to me what Saori meant with her “vengeance”.

Essentially, she withheld information from me. When she explained the reason why she left her village, it wasn't only 'cause of her self-exile but also 'cause she wanted to avenge the death of Princess Schuri, her late mistress.

The poachers that captured them were executed under the laws of the elves so there shouldn’t be anybody she could direct her wrath to, right? Well, it would seem like those poachers had an employer, and that very person was the one Tasianna was aiming for.

What made this even crazier was that Tasianna had absolutely no idea where this person was, only that they were somewhere in human territory…which is absolutely zero help as the continent is huge, according to the people that I've talked to.

“So, why were you in the vicinity of the Belzac forest anyway? How did you get captured by those trolls, in the first place?” I asked.

“My first objective was to become strong enough to pose a threat to that person and to be able to defend myself. I was a fool, I believed that I could survive due to having 87 years of experience with magic, despite it only being rudimentary. I did not lie when I told you that I was a simple maid, for that is what I have always been. My streak of victories consisted merely out of two [Loopabit], uhm, those rabbits with those antlers, before being overwhelmed by a D rank and having to be rescued, which is ironic as they immediately made me their prisoner.”

“That so? That must have been very conflicting for you, Tasianna,” Saori commented as she used my mana to create crimson mana strings. “Being first rescued by the trolls and then being put into a mana drainer? Disastrous.”

“Actually, no. They simply put me in a cage when I was lying on the ground, exhausted and battered. I actually believed at that point that they were doing it to protect me as they treated me well,” Tasianna continued with a sigh. “Aside from the shaman, who was extremely deranged and mad, the four troll warriors were kind people. It was naïve, now that I reflected on it, but I wouldn’t have minded if I could’ve stayed with them, especially if they had told me that they attempting an attack on the humans.”

Huh? What am I missing here? I thought when I heard that.

Noticing my confused expression, Tasianna explained it to me, “Apologies, Lady Hestia. Well, do you still remember what the lizardmen told us about how they made it to Belzac Forest?”

I nodded, which prompted her to continue, “Trolls are like ogres, kobolds, and goblins. They count as demi-humans, also known as grimgarians by the elves. When the lizardmen talked about an army of grimgarians, I instantly thought of the trolls who pulled a huge mana cannon and massive stocks of equipment with them through the forest. What else could they have been planning with that amount of weapons?”

Urgh, how could I forget about that mana cannon? It was literally one of the attacks that were able to break through my [Draconic Barrier] and caused me actual damage in the form of two nearly pulverized arms.

However, I do remember seeing some weapons and armor in a pile…but my attention was instantly drawn to the barrel filled with supplies and the pleasant-smelling cauldron.

“My theory was then further reinforced by the appearance of that giant grimgarian army and their mana cannons while the wyverns were escorting us. I believe that point should be irrefutable,” Tasianna concluded. “If they weren’t so willing to use me as fuel for the mana cannon, I probably wouldn’t have escaped on the day we met. In fact, I might have decided to join them as their objective sounded so…fulfilling. I deserve to be reprimanded; I know…”

“War is a difficult topic, indeed. The history on Earth has shown many times that hatred and anger, primal human emotions, are usually great motivators for the worst wars,” Saori said solemnly. “Never forget, Tasianna. A warpath that you walk because of your emotions will always create more people like yourself. It will not bring you happiness, in fact, it might actually cause more harm to the people you love.”

“I understand…thank you, Miss Saori. Despite our difference in age, you show not only more maturity but wisdom,” Tasianna admitted.

“…Do you still want it, Tasianna?” I asked cautiously. “Your revenge. On that person, that employer guy, I mean.”

“I know I withheld my true reasons. Lying isn’t considered a sin as it doesn’t break any of Plesia’s tenets, but that doesn’t change the fact that I only told you a half-truth, Lady Hestia,” Tasianna looked into my eyes for a second before nodding. “If I am to be honest, then yes, I do; however, you are my primary goal, right now, Lady Hestia. I have sworn my loyalty and I will not abandon my duty this time, as I have told you when we first met! My carelessness, my emotions, and my lack of competence made me neglect Princess Schuri. I will not make that mistake once more.”

Tasianna stopped fiddling with my clothes and then took my right hand, firmly grasping it with both of hers, “I cannot forgive them nor can I forget my wish for revenge, but I promise that it will not affect with my duty. My wish to become your cold, indomitable shield is true. I want to become stronger for you.”

…I admit, that sounded extremely cool.

“Do not forget what you just said today, Tasianna. Do not treat every human like that person. A trauma is harsh, but you must make an effort to overcome it,” Saori remarked.

“Yes…I will do my best…,” Tasianna said as she looked at the unconscious female human.

“Now, enough with this talk!” Saori clapped. “Hestia, how does it look?”

Inspecting myself now that I had everything on, I could only say “wow!” My clothing consisted out of two parts: the outfit, itself, and a glorious white mage cloak!

My outfit is mostly inspired from modern K-Pop outfits while keeping comfort and combat in mind. They had to look good but Saori knew that I will be fighting in them, too. Which meant no excessive accessories nor frills.

To the outfit itself, I was wearing a thin, white turtleneck to cover my whole upper body. With this as the base, Saori also added a stylish, grey form-fitting vest with a red short jacket. Finishing it was a red double-layered skirt with minimal frills to add a bit of cuteness.

My cloak was made with major inspiration from the white mages from the video game series “Final Fantasy”, which meant that it was completely white with a few red triangles at the hem. With a black ribbon to hold it together, I felt pretty excited to walk around with it.

He he, people from Earth might know the reference but I don't think the people on Peolynca will, which will keep my specialty a secret…also, this hood is large enough to accommodate my horns…and it feels so warm!

"Amazing!" I cried out once I covered the cloak over my whole body, feeling warm and fuzzy. "Wait, why do I feel so warm when I cover myself with the cloak? Wasn’t it made with the mana from my holy spells?"

Saori’s [Elemental Mana Weaving] allowed her to make colored mana strings according to the mana that she extracted it from. The thing is, if she were to extract it from our bodies then it would stay blue like always, however, as we know, magic circles have to be filled with mana. That is the trick behind getting colors.

During the spell casting step “Activation”, Tasianna and I create magic circles and fuel it with mana for usage, however, if we don’t go through with “Release”, which is the last step, we can just let the circle hang around in the air. Saori would create mana strings out of them and use both [Mana Weaving] and [Sewing] to create some fabric and then the clothing themselves after she got enough.

It might be free, as it didn’t cost us any money, but it consumed a fuck ton of mana for everything. This outfit here was just one of many, just imagine what an insane amount she had to take from me to create this primarily red outfit and this white cloak.

“Oh, there is trick to that. Do you know about the color spectrum?” I nodded to her question which prompted her to continue. “Well, then you must have also heard about “complementary colors” and “additive color mixing”, right? Your fire magic creates red strings while Tasianna’s ice magic is colored cyan. Red and cyan are complementary colors and if you mixed the two mana string types together, you get white mana strings. Due to them having both fire and ice mana infused in them, that cloak is actually pretty good at keeping you warm. I did add fabric infused with the holy element into them to reduce my usage of red.”

“Oooooh, sugoi!(Oooooh, incredible!)”, I called out as I jumped into the air, not having to suffer under the annoying effects of winter again! Due to my curiosity, I also used [Identify] on my cloak.

White Mage Cloak

A white cloak with red triangles created with [Mana Weave], consisting of mana from three elements. Protection is very limited without any enchantments, but it possesses a few natural skills due to its creation method

Skill

[Warmth Lv. 1]

[Cooling Lv. 1]

[Holy Resistance Lv. 1]

[Fire Resistance Lv. 1]

[Ice Resistance Lv. 1]

…Well, I finally got [Ice Resistance].

Even after getting hit by Tasianna’s spell a couple of times, I still haven’t gotten [Ice Resistance] so I’m not sure what to feel about getting the skill through equipment. Well, I guess it is normal to do so. Getting equipment to cover for your weaknesses is not only a staple in RPGs but also in human history.

As my outfit is completely made from Saori’s [Elemental Mana Weaving], every piece had [Fire Resistance Lv. 1] or [Holy Resistance Lv. 1]. Seeing all these skills imbued in my clothes begged the question on how they actually worked.

Are they additive or are they multiplicative? How do gear skills affect my own skills? Do override each other? There are still so many tests that our party had to conduct on them, as Tasianna didn’t know the answer, but, honestly, that sounds like a ton of fun. It sounds similar to learning how skills interacted with each other; you know.

…Or we could just circumvent everything and ask the next blacksmith or anybody with professional knowledge on it. Meh, sounds dull.

“Alright, I personally think this one is the best-looking. It fits you extremely well if I am allowed to praise my own work,” Saori said with a smile. “Alright, if you have no more complaints, let us do Tasianna’s now. I bet one of these dresses will suit your likes~”

“Mhmm.”

Immediately hearing a foreign sound, the three of us dropped what we held and turned our gazes towards its direction, wary of all threats and ready for battle. However, instead of an enemy, what we instead saw was the awakening body of the injured woman, feebly raising her body with her emaciated arms.

“Wh-where am I, wh-tails…beastmen…”

A note from AbyssRaven

Hestia Adventurer Garbs

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Chapter 72: The Start of a new Request.

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“Hieee! Hurgh, hurg-ACK!” the woman cried out in pain as she attempted to stand up.

The moment she woke up and was alerted about our presence, she immediately tried to get up but that didn’t lead to anything as her dislocated ankle gave in. I actually noticed it, but I intentionally decided against healing that one as I was a bit worried that she would run away from us.

Paranoid, I know, but I was worried due to Tasianna’s description of the relationship between beastmen and humans and thought that she would run away from us. Also, by leaving the injury there, I gave myself a chance to heal it, enabling me to show off that we were friendly.

A bit devious, I know, but well…there wasn’t any excuses besides me being cautious.

“Oh, hello! You woke up,” I said as I approached her with a smile, doing my best to pronounce everything correctly in Common tongue.

“Stay back!” she called out, stretching her hand forward to separate me from her. “Wh-Who are you? A-Are you one of them?”

“One of them”? Is she talking about the people that did “that” to her?

“I don’t believe I know who you are talking about but we three are simply passing through this forest, that is all,” I answered, waving my hands with a wry smile to show my sincerity. “Oh, right, where are my manners. My name is Hestia, it is a pleasure to meet you.” I introduced myself with a curtsy.

I actually have no idea why I just did that, honestly. Was it due to Tasianna’s influence or was it ‘cause I wanted to give her a proper impression of me? Whatever, what’s done is done. I can only hope now that she doesn’t think that we’re some random brigands or something.

Noticing that she was still confused, I continued with introducing my companions, “These are my friends. The wolfkin is Saori and the wind elf…uhh, is Tasianna. We found you when you fell unconscious and chased those wolves away for you.”

I should be happy that Tasianna hadn't pounced on her yet but the literal cold eyes that she was giving the young woman weren't any better. I was trying to show to her that we were friendly, that we had no intention of hurting her, but Tasianna really isn’t helping towards that cause.

Thankfully, after I told her through [Telepathy] to stop, she listened to me and just went back to sorting out the dresses that Saori made for her. I feel like she was still on-guard but that was better than her bone-chilling glare.

I turned my attetnion back to our injured guest and continued speaking with her, “I am sorry about that. If it would be acceptable for you, may I take a look at your ankle? It seems I missed it when I healed you, he he.”

“Huh!? W-What are you planning!?” she asked, still wary.

“Nothing, nothing! Please, this is all I am planning,” with a smile, I conjured up a white magic circle atop my palm. “It is a simple spell to heal your wounds, nothing else.”

“…H-Holy Magic…Are you a shrine maiden or priestess?” the woman said with widened eyes, glued to my spell.

“Uhm, I’m more like a wandering entertainer that wishes to help,” I stated. “So, will you allow me to help you?”

Blinking her eyes at my answer, the woman stayed mute for a few seconds, thinking over her options and choices, eventually coming to the conclusion that she might as well allow me to heal her leg.

Confirming her answer with a nod, I walked to her and kneeled. Taking her injured ankle in my hands once more, I conjured up another white magic circle, this time for the spell [Moderate Heal].

Alright, I actually do want to do a proper check-up this time. Guess I should use them, Mana Eyes, on!

Exactly as I activated my newest skill [Mana Eyes], I was quickly assaulted by a screen of blue, penetrating my brain with a huge influx of information. I was straining my eyes to keep them open as they were exposed to an experience similar to looking at the sun, only that everything before me were blue mana particles swimming around in the air.

Compared to when I was first introduced to this new view, I was sorta prepared for it this time. I made sure to have my parallel minds ready to intercept everything so they could process all of it.

However, despite all my preparations, my brain couldn’t handle all this stress for too long, but it was enough for me to see what I needed. I could see mana particles exiting the woman’s body through her mana paths, I could see the concentration of my mana inside the magic circle quickly transforming the mana into odd forms and shapes as it entered the woman’s body, attaching themselves to her body and performing what they had to, to heal her body.

If I wasn’t getting the greatest migraine of my life right now, I probably would continue watching this scene, but I just couldn’t. It was physically impossible, and it exhausted every single of my parallel minds, as they had to work in overtime to keep up with the amount of information that I was receiving. Honestly, this might be the closest you could describe overclocking your brain, similar to how you would do it for your computer.

Thankfully, I wasn’t an emotionless machine, but that also meant that I couldn’t handle the pain. Besides for skills like [Mental Stability] or [Mind Protection], nothing in the System actually helped me keep this up. My stats were useless against this mental stress and my skills weren’t being too helpful.

Yeah, even with my parallel minds helping me out, I can’t process all of this perfectly. Maybe it’ll get better when the skill levels up, but I’ll get an information overload if I keep this on for too long.

After getting a proper taste of how much of a strain it put on my mind, I deactivated the skill. My eyes felt hot and my brain seemed like it could explode any second now. My breathing was laborious, and I could hear my heart beating faster than usual.

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Mental Stability Lv. 6] [Mental Corruption Resistance Lv. 3] [Mind Protection Lv. 3] [Mana Eyes Lv. 2] [Parallel Thoughts Lv. 9] gained

Multiple acquisition requirements fulfilled.   [High-Speed Calculation Lv. 1] [Multi-Thought Processing Lv. 1] acquired

He, I deserved that after that torture…

With a resounding crack, I brought her ankle back to its proper position and then healed it with the [Moderate Heal] spell, in case, anything was broken.

“My foot…thank you very much, Miss Priestess. And…sorry for being rude, and thank you for saving me from those wolves! May the blessing of the Goddess of Light be with you,” the woman said with a small smile, but quickly turned it into a frown. “However,…I-I’m sorry but I don’t have the money to repay you for this service. I apologize, sincerely! Please, I ask for forgiveness!”

A piece of information did stick with me when I traveled with the lizardmen and that was their fear of holy magic. More specifically, holy magic practitioners and the race that they belonged to. According to Apsala, she associated holy magic with human priests who occasionally came to her home's swamps and attacked many scale-kins, therefore, making her cautious of anybody who practiced it as she didn't have a good impression of the goddess of light, Aurena.

Knowing this, I used this information against this woman, which proved to be a success as she just thanked me in a blessing-like way. However, what was this talk about money?

“Money? I’m sorry but what do you mean by that?” I asked to resolve my confusion.

“Miss Priestess, the money for your miraculous service. Didn’t you summon a miracle from our Goddess to protect me? My prayers have come true and you have come to help me, but without repaying you, how can I call myself a faithful servant of our Goddess,” the woman said, fidgeting with her fingers as she kept her head down.

This is problematic. Why do I always meet these religious people, jeez. I need to ask Tasianna for more information. I can’t do anything now, I mulled to myself.

After thinking for a bit, I asked her a question, “…May I have your name?”

“Yes, of course, Miss Priestess! It is Lorena,” she responded firmly.

Hmm, now that I look at her face without all the dirt and grime, she doesn’t look as old as I thought. Not around my age, maybe around Saori’s?

“Alright, then, Miss Lorena. We can speak about all of this later on, but I think you require some food, no?” I said with a smile, pointing at her growling stomach, causing her to hide her blushing face.

“Saori! Tasianna!” I called out, now finished with my talks, interrupting them as they tested out different dresses as if they in a clothing store on Earth. “If you haven’t heard, this is Lorena. Now that it’s getting late, how about we start dinner preparations?”

Putting everything inside her own storage, Saori showed me an "ok" gesture with her fingers and began taking some ingredients out. I also began unpacking our utensils, dishware, and cauldron, placing them close to our campfire. Once I gave Tasianna her teapot and cups, she helped herself to some of Saori's herbs and began making tea for us.

Lorena, seeing everything coming out of our storage, was initially flabbergasted about everything, asking, “What is this magic?! How did everything appear from thin air?!”, but quickly accepted what was happening.

Regaining her rationality, she then wanted to help us with the preparations but was swiftly refused by Saori and Tasianna. Saori told her, “Please, you are our guest. Let us do the work,” while Tasianna plainly said, “Do not touch our Lady’s food…”

You know, I should be angry at her rude remark but watching Tasianna tremble and struggling to keep herself composed made me pity her. She really didn’t like being this close to Lorena. Where has my lovely and polite maid gone?!

Once we finished our preparations, I produced some chairs and we all sat down as Saori and Tasianna served both our meal and tea. Not surprisingly, there were also some complications here as Tasianna was pretty reluctant about serving her tea to Lorena, forcing me to order her to do so.

With a quiet “Itadikimasu” from us three, that included Tasianna, we were about to eat but were stopped by Lorena who asked us why we weren’t praying beforehand. Saori and I never really prayed, only saying “Itadikimasu” to give our thanks for the food, while Tasianna recently stopped doing it in favor of copying us.

Saying that it’s alright and that we wanted to keep this casual, I managed to explain to her why we didn’t do it. Nonetheless, she still gave a prayer to Aurena as thanks for the food. Once, she was finished, she immediately jumped onto her stew with ravenous hunger and began devouring it with gusto.

You should be able to see this, right, Aurena? You did say something about being able to see through the eyes of your followers?

“Thank you, this is so good,” Lorena praised without giving up gorging herself.

He he, she’s eating exactly like a lizardman…pretty surreal, I thought, finding it good that she had an appetite.

After she finished her first bowl, Saori asked her if she wanted seconds but she humbly declined it. Saori seemed to have wanted to give her more but respected her choice, nonetheless, giving up on it. So, instead of doing that, we decided to ask her what happened to her.

"I'm sorry if you are fine about it, could you tell us what happened with yourself? Finding you unconscious in the woods isn’t normal, right?” I asked her with obvious curiosity.

Upon hearing me ask that, Lorena immediately jumped on her feet and shouted, “No, I forgot! I must return to the village now! I need to call for help!”, before trying to sprint off into the night. I guess some people would let her off as it wasn’t their problem in the first place and trying to intrude in other’s businesses would be considered rude, but I would feel bad letting a young woman go, who barely ate enough considering her body’s state and who nearly ended in some wolves stomach.

Constructing a [Terra Wall], I impeded her advance and called her out, “Miss Lorena, you might be in a hurry to leave but it’s already evening. I don’t think it’s wise to wander alone, especially when there are wolves around.”

Lorena stopped before crashing onto my wall, asking in confusion how the wall was constructed and if an earth mage was around. It took her nearly ten seconds to finally calm down to respond to my words, “Miss Priestess, is this one of your companions doing? Please, I know I haven’t paid my due yet, and that I am being rude, but I have to leave now! I have to inform my village about what happened!”

“That was my work and please call me Hestia. You are mistaken to think that I’m a priestess,” I informed her. “I’m not holding you back because of anything besides thinking that it might be a bad idea for you to wander off alone…into a forest…during the night.”

“I agree with Lady Hestia. Miss Lorena, you are in no state to walk and I believe you are not able to defend yourself if the worse were to come?” Saori added. “We mean you no harm, and whatever you must do can wait for morning. So, please, stay.”

Jeez, Saori. If you actually use “Lady” in this situation then this misunderstanding will never go away! I told myself, now realizing how inconvenient it was that my two companions cannot stop addressing me with “Lady” in public.

I know I allowed them to do so and it honestly wasn’t so bad with the lizardmen, but I was feeling a bit embarrassed every time they said it. I honestly thought I got used to it, but it seems I was wrong.

“Th-Thank you very much for your offer, but I really have to go! My ma and pa and many other villagers are counting on me to return to our village and to rescue them!” Lorena shouted. “Please, don’t stop me! I can’t waste any more time-urgh!”

You literally devoured a single bowl of stew in literal seconds, almost drinking it. Can’t you see that your [Starvation], still hasn’t disappeared?!

When I first used [Identify] on her to get a quick summary of her injuries, I noticed a few interesting things on it. First, that her stats were incredibly low, around the lower end of a Rank F monsters, and that her level was only one. I have the impression that this is what I should expect a normal woman would have.

Secondly, that she had [Starvation (Moderate)] and [Exhaustion (Moderate)]. She managed to reduce both after dropping unconscious and eating Saori's stew, but neither has disappeared yet.

I can personally say that doing anything while you had these two status effects was suicidal. If you had something like [Adrenaline], then I can understand your decision to move, but without it, it was just dumb.

"Here, let me help you stand up," Saori stood up and went to Lorena's side, offering her shoulder. "Your body has reached its physical limits for the day, Miss Lorena. We do not wish to force you to stay but we cannot allow you to go on with a good conscience. Stay the night with us and rest. Once morning comes, you may do what you wish.”

Lorena tried to stand up on her own, but it seems her body has finally realized that she literally had zero stamina and a malnourished body whose owner refused to eat more to fill herself up. Finally, giving up on her escape, Lorena leaned herself onto Saori’s shoulder and allowed her to set her down onto her chair.

Afterward, Saori took her bowl and filled it up with another serving of our stew, offering it to her once again. Lorena tried to humbly decline it, again, but that didn't work on Saori another time, as she expertly persuaded Lorena that she needed food if she wished to have the energy for the morning.

After two more bowls of stew, Lorena’s [Starvation] disappeared and her lips formed a satisfied smile, although her eyes were still tingling with anxiousness and restlessness, probably concerning whatever was so urgent.

After wetting her throat with more tea, she thanked us wholeheartedly, genuinely having fulfilled most of her needs besides sleep. Although looking at how she was fidgeting with her cup and her trembling legs, I really was starting to become interested in what happened with her.

However, the first to speak wasn’t me but Lorena, “Miss Priestess, may I ask a favor of you?”

“Sure, ask away. However, please call me Hestia,” I responded. “As I have said before, I’m a wandering entertainer and not a priestess of Goddess Aurena. I wouldn’t dare call myself one.”

It was true. I really am not a priestess or a shrine maiden. Aurena never said anything about it in the missive that she sent me, simply telling me that I should get to one of her churches and pray to her so we could speak.

I am, however, an aspiring Idol. But the thing is that until now, nobody in this world knew what an Idol was, and even after describing it to them, they had no recollection of anything similar to it. The lizardmen called me a ritual dancer and Tasianna simply understood that I sang and danced energetically.

There would be confusion if I told Lorena that I was an Idol, and I wasn’t in the mood to go through the effort to describe it every single time. That’s why I’m calling myself a wandering entertainer until I can show them what an Idol was. Showing is far superior to an explanation, especially when it concerned Idol culture.

“Oh, yes, if that is what you want, Hestia. And you can also drop the ‘Miss’ part for me, too. I think I’m a few years older than you but by not much,” Lorena said with a gentle smile. “Oh, Miss Saori and Miss Tasianna, right? If it’s alright, coul you also call me Lorena, too?”

Fair enough, I thought with a shrug and nod.

“I am fine with that, Lorena,” Saori accepted the proposal. “So, what do you wish to ask of us? You mentioned a favor?”

“Yes, I know this is extremely rude of me to ask, especially after all you’ve done for me, but could you please guide me back to my village?” Lorena stated while clasping both her hands together and placing them in front of herself in a prayer-like pose. “I must return to my village as soon as possible and tell everybody there something important! The forest is filled with dangers like those wolves, but I believe with the presence of a holy mage then we should have the Goddess’ protection with us! Even if you aren’t a priestess now, you must have been when you learned your magic, correct?”

Uhhh, no?

“Please, wait. I understand what you need but we require more information than this,” Saori interrupted Lorena, cautiously asking her for more details. “Could you start with what happened with you? Lady Hestia, inspected you while you were unconscious and…what have they done to you?”

Lorena fell silent for a while, apprehensive of revealing how she got “that”, “I-I…please, whatever I say, can you please keep it to yourself? I-I don’t want anybody to know this, nobody! I can’t have anybody know. I promise I will say everything under the guidance of our Goddess.”

Tears began to stream down her face as she clutched her hands together, once again adopting a praying pose. She was trembling as she covered her lower private part, probably remembering the reason for her trauma.

“Don’t worry, nobody will know anything you say from our mouth, I promise,” I said with a deep frown, knowing from just looking that she really didn’t want to talk about it.

"Lorena, you have my word that we will not tell anybody what you are about to tell us," Saori responded with a focused gaze.

The only one who didn’t say anything was Tasianna as she was more pre-occupied with enjoying her meal. She should be able to guess what happened to the poor girl, which makes her indifference a bit callous. It seems she really isn’t interested in anything Lorena has to say.

Lorena swept away some tears as she started to speak, “T-Thank you, huck…It happened about a month ago. HarvestFest just ended and we just came back to our village after enjoying the festivities at Firwood. We were so exhausted, and we thought it would’ve been a peaceful night, huck!”

Lorena explained that a raid happened that night. A group of humans and beastmen invaded the village, robbing everybody from their belongings and killing a few of the guards. In the aftermath of the attack, the group of bandits kidnapped any woman and man who couldn't escape, taking them as prisoners.

Lorena and her parents were among the few villagers who were unlucky to have been captured. They were stripped of all their valuables and then placed into prison wagons as the bandit transported them away from the camp. It seems they got lucky as they were able to keep their clothes, especially important as winter was coming.

They were brought to the bandit’s camp and kept there, waiting for somebody. Lorena thought that it must have been a slave trader or somebody who wanted to buy the villagers, as the bandits kept speaking about money when they taunted them.

Lorena and the villagers hoped that some help would come as not everybody from the village was enslaved, trusting them that they would call the mercenary guild for help. And, as they wished for it, some help eventually did come but those mercenaries were hopelessly outmatched and dispatched. Most man was killed during the attack while any surviving women were spare from the worse ending.

At this point, Lorena's floodgates opened up once again and wailing of pain and sadness resounded from her. It took her a near minute to calm down again, continuing her story.

“Nobody came anymore after that. The bandits also kept moving and moving around, never staying in one place for too long after those mercenaries attacked,” Lorena said with a trembling voice, ready to break into tears once again. “A-And then, about a week ago, a couple of men appeared at the camp. I don’t know who they were, but they began talking to the bandit’s leader. After that, he told one of his men to bring a girl forward, and I was the one they chose.”

No matter how much she resisted, the lack of good food and the tiring environment she lived in made it impossible for her to break free. She was sent into a tent with an obese man dressed in fine clothing and jewels aplenty.

He told Lorena to enjoy the fruit and wine that was placed on the table. Lorena, who was starving at this point, couldn’t help herself but jump into it just like she did just now. She ate everything in a mad frenzy, so unbecoming of a person that it resembled more like that of an animal.

After she was full, she suddenly felt extremely drowsy and was unable to hold herself on her feet, instantly falling on the ground and losing consciousness. The next moment she woke up, she found herself on the ground feeling extreme pain and blood around her bottom.

She wanted to reject the very truth at that moment, wanting to believe that she was merely on her period, but nothing could change that she was feeling a pain that she never felt in her life before. She wanted to cry but she also noticed something else that made her stop her tears.

And that was the noise that came from outside the tent.

Peeking through it, she could see the fat man and the bandit leader arguing with each other as some of the slaves were put into cages. The argument was so heated that most of the bandits and the fat man’s bodyguard were concentrated around that area, leaving everything else without a guard.

Lorena knew at this point that she had to go. This was her moment to escape. She wanted to free her parents and villagers but at that very moment, she was overwhelmed by an incredible fear of staying in the camp.

She was just raped. She was bleeding so heavily from her bottom, not because of natural causes, but because of wounds that probably occurred during that despicable moment. And all of that after she spent nearly a month in captivity.

Her natural instincts took her over and forced her body to sneak out of the camp and run as fast as she could away from it. She didn’t look back, despite knowing that her parents were there. She didn’t watch where she was heading, as she just wanted to get away as far as possible, running completely on adrenaline at that point.

“I fell unconscious then and woke up when the light of the sun shined into my eyes. I-I remember everything, hieeeeeee,” Lorena began weeping again. “I left everybody there! I don’t even know if they’re still there or not.”

She was determined to get back to her village. She didn't know where she was nor in which direction she had to go. All she knew was that her village was located right next to a river as the crops that they farmed needed an immense amount of water to keep alive.

Lorena wasn't used to the woods but she knew the basics on how to survive and forage for food. This was a result of her father bringing her out on trips with the other villagers. This was usually a father-son event but she didn't have an siblings, so her father took her instead.

She managed to create simple fires to stave off the cold night while being able to gather a few berries and fruits to keep herself from starving. Her attempts were small and meager, but it kept her alive.

Eventually, she was attacked by those wolves that we saw today. She didn’t know how to hunt, and her body was not in any condition to do so in the first place. She couldn’t do anything but run, run as fast as she could…until her stamina failed her.

“Once again, thank you so very much for rescuing me. If you hadn’t…I prayed so earnestly for our Goddess’ protection,” Lorena said with tearful eyes.

As she cried, Saori, Tasianna, and I used [Telepathy] to talk about the situation, [“So, what do you guys think? I say we help her.”]

[“I also think we should at least help her back to her village. We do not know where we are and this might be a good chance for us to get some directions while doing some good,”] Saori remarked. [“…However, just to make sure, Hestia. You are not intending to hunt down those bandits, right?”]

I would lie if I didn’t think about it. As a fellow girl, I can’t exactly let this go unpunished. If there is one thing that I learned from watching random history documentaries, was that women during these ages valued their virginity quite a lot. You couldn’t get married easily if somebody knew that you already lost it, and the general social stigma was pretty harsh on them.

If anybody knew about this, then I don’t know what will happen with Lorena. I honestly want to go to those bandits and turn them into ash. Let them feel the consequences of being absolute scum and igniting the wrath of a female.

However,…

[“No, of course not. I heard the stuff about the mercenaries,”] I responded. [“I’m pretty sure that I’m stronger than your average person, but I’ve already experienced once what it feels like to run into something recklessly without proper information. I’m not gonna do it, again.”]

During the rescue mission to find and save the lost lizardmen, I accidentally stumbled on one of the snake heads of the [Vellestra Leviathan] and nearly died in the process. It was the first A rank monster that I’ve ever met, and the power difference was too clear. I had no chance of winning, zero.

This isn’t paranoia here; it was being careful. Maybe the bandits have an ace in their sleeves? There is also the fact that I don’t know what the standards were for strength. How strong are human bandits in general?

Yes, I have the lizardmen as references, but that is such a small sample size. I promised Saori that I would give her an Idol concert here. That promise is more important to me than to go on a vigilante mission just to avenge Lorena’s lost purity. I sympathized with her but I had to look out for my friends, foremost.

[“Thank goodness, you are learning,”] Saori said with relief. [“You should know about the whole concept of villeins, right? Her village should have a lord or a knight that should be responsible for her village’s protection. Leave it to the professionals, Hestia.”]

[“Yeah, yeah, I know. I won’t jump into something without a plan, I promise,”] I said while scratching my neck. [“Anyways, what is your answer, Tasianna?”]

Tasianna turned towards me and gave me a small bow, [“…I will do as you command. Your wish is my duty, Lady Hestia.”]

Oh goodness…

Yep, Tasianna was zero interested in Lorena’s problem. At least, she was willing to help just ‘cause I said so. She was so hot-headed and impulsive before Saori’s speech but now she’s ice-cold, brrrr.

With that decided, Saori told Lorena that we would accept her request to bring her back to the village. She was elated to hear that, promising to repay us when she gets to speak with her village chief.

After that was done, Saori kinda forced Lorena to wear one of her new clothes, as she found the rags that she wore, dreadful. This little dressing event lasted until both Saori and Tasianna finally finished choosing out their new outfits.

We then went to sleep and woke up the next morning. Knowing that Lorena was in a hurry, Saori carried her piggyback style as she was too slow to keep up with our speed. It only took our party a few hours to finally find a river and then the village after Lorena gave us directions.

While I wanted to comment about the beautiful blue, sparkling river that was different from Belzac forest’s deep murky swamps, my attention was directed at something else.

Is that a rice plant?

A note from AbyssRaven

The Swamp Arc is over, now let's get into the next one: The Winter Arc!

Also, although Lorena hasn't exactly realized it yet, Saori just gave her one of her mana dresses, which is considered pretty high-end due to the production skill needed for it. A serf, a simple farmer's daughter, just received a pretty pricey dress, lol.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 73: Carine Village.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #2 her to promote our Patreon. 10 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! That sounds like a good amount of benefits, right? Well, I hope you guys will like them. Here's the link: Rawr'

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“Hestia, if it isn’t rude to ask, what sorta beastman are you?” Lorena asked. “I’ve never seen your type around here.”

After finding an opening in the forest, we were welcomed by a slow streaming river in the middle of a deforested area. After wandering along it for a bit with the guidance of Lorena, we managed to find some fields. According to Lorena, they already harvested the last batch of crops for the year, so the fields were rather empty.

However, what actually surprised me wasn’t the field itself but the remains of the crops. To Saori’s and my surprise, we actually found rice plants. Tasianna did mention that something similar existed in Peolynca but that it was a staple in dwarven society. I didn’t really expect to find it here.

As we were observing the fields, Lorena suddenly asked me what type of beastman I was.

“Uhh, I'm a dragonewt, a half-dragon," I told her, hiding my dragon origin.

Still remembering Saori’s lecture about hiding our real forms, I decided to just say what was obvious to anybody who could see. I technically am a dragonewt in this form, my status board says that, after all.

…Come to think about it, something doesn’t feel correct.

“Oh right, Lorena can I ask you a question?” I spoke, now that it was my turn to ask some questions. “Besides your initial reaction when you woke up, you’ve been…well, comfortable? Yeah, I believe that word fits. You seem rather comfortable around us despite there being two beastmen.”

This has been bugging me ever since I healed her. Although she was acting cautiously when she first met us, she completely let her guard down after I healed her. Yeah, I made the correct move and showed that I could use holy magic, the same element her goddess is associated with, but that shouldn't be enough to make somebody act friendly, right?

Tasianna told me that the history between humans and beastmen is rather tense. I was expecting some racism or stereotyping, of some sort. I know it is pessimistic of me to think so, but Tasianna honestly made everything sound super terrible.

There is also the case of those bandits. Lorena mentioned that a few beastmen were among the bandit party, so I honestly thought she would be a bit more vigilant of us.

“Oh, is this because of how I reacted when I woke up? Ah, I’m sorry about that, I know that was pretty rude,” Lorena said in hurry. “I was pretty nervous because I thought I was caught by the bandits, so I wanted to run away as soon as possible. He he, that was a bad mistake on my part. All three of you look far too pretty and proper to be one of them.”

"Uh, no, that's not what I meant. This is my first visit to these lands, and I was informed that humans didn’t like beastmen. I’m surprised that you’re acting so friendly to us,” I admitted, believing that being forthright would yield the most answers now.

“HUH?! Who would say such things? Well, I guess I never left my village before this incident but why should humans hate beastmen?” Lorena said, tilting her head to the side, raising an eyebrow. "We have no beastmen villagers but beastmen hunters usually come to our village to hunt down wolves and goblins. I think our village chief would send a request to the hunter guild once our guards notice large groups of monsters or beasts."

Wait, what?

Ignoring my confusion, Lorena continued, "I mean, the more animalistic-looking beastmen are scary and they can be pretty rowdy and rude, but none of them ever harmed anybody from the village. The only terrible people are those damn bastards that attacked our village."

…Excuse me, but what?

[“Tasianna, could you explain this?”] I demanded through [Telepathy] so Lorena couldn’t hear us, looking at Tasianna with a tint of confusion.

[“This…are you sure those books you have read were not outdated, Tasianna?”] Saori, too, was questioning Tasianna, breaking away from her aloof public appearance as she gave our fairy friend a worried look, unsure of what she knew was outdated or not.

Tasianna flinched back from our glares, waving her hands in a panic as if she wasn’t at fault, [“I-I, no! Lady Hestia, Miss Saori, I didn’t lie to you about this! I am sure that my books were telling the truth! Humans and beastmen should have a bad relationship with each other…at least, in history. Maybe that human is lying!”]

[“Tasianna, please, pointing fingers at somebody else? You are better than that, so stop that,”] Saori expressed with clear disappointment. [“Besides, at this point, I truly believe that those books you have read are not up-to-date concerning recent times. It is alright, Tasianna, it is not your fault. I know I sound upset but this has also piqued my interest. What is the political situation when a peasant like Lorena has a friendly attitude to a beastmen, and what caused it?”]

The ends of Saori's lips suddenly curved up, turning her previous frown into an inquisitive smirk as she placed a finger on her chin. Compared to her playful and enthusiastic attitude concerning anything money or sewing related, her historian side was way more serious. I guess this is the difference between a hobby and a passion.

“Uhm, excuse me…is everything alright?” forgetting that Lorena couldn’t hear anything, all three of us flinch from hearing somebody interrupting our conversation.

“Oh? It is nothing, Lorena. I was just curious to see you growing rice,” Saori said, using an excuse to hide our surprise.

“Oh, really? You know, that happened because the previous lord of our land suddenly introduced it to us, literally ordering that this should be what we should grow,” Lorena explained. “These lands belong to nobles, so our elders weren’t able to refuse the decision. Whatever we can keep after giving our harvest tax tastes great, but they require so much work to grow.”

Lorena was slumping her shoulders but suddenly snapped herself back straight, “Ahhhh, I’m sorry but we have to go now! It’s so carefree traveling with everybody that I forgot about what we have to do! Please, can we hurry up!?”

Widening our eyes at the fact that we got distracted by rice plants, we remembered why we were hurrying since morning. Lorena, once again, got onto Saori’s back and our party dashed like the wind where she told us to. While we were running, I quickly got another look at my two companions’ new clothes.

Both were made using Saori’s [Mana Weave] so they counted as mana clothing, perfect for us three shapeshifters.

Tasianna's was based on a halter dress but adapted to look like her fairy form's clothing, resembling more like a fantasy outfit. It was primarily a cyan dress with tints of purple and white to give the dress some life and style. As Tasianna wasn’t a frontline fighter like Saori and me, we had more liberty to add more fluff to it, creating a rather stunning dress for her.

As both her fairy and wind elf form were flat, the chest part of her dress was left covered and white. Beauty in modesty. While the top part wasn’t as decorated, the skirt part of the dress showed how much effort Saori put into it, turning the hem of the dress into multiple vividly colored butterfly wings, overlapping with each other as if they were resting.

The whole dress also came with two separate cyan sleeves that started from her biceps and ending at her wrists. She was also wearing a mana-blue butterfly styled cloak and a bandana on her left wrist, which was actually Tasianna’s clothes as a fairy, there in case she ever decides to transform into a fairy.

As a final addition, Tasianna also requested Saori to add a white waist apron on the dress, as she wanted to signify to the world that she was a maid. Although she loved the dress, she still considered it too colorful to be worn by a servant. Tasianna honestly took pride in looking like a maid when she’s willing to do that.

So, to please her, Saori sewed an apron with a similar design as her hem, while keeping it completely white to resemble a maid dress.

Saori’s outfit, on the other hand, threw away any notion of looking cute like Tasianna’s and mine. Hers looked the most modern among us, taking on a professional style with a black dress shirt and trousers, looking as if she was about to enter a classroom for a lecture.

Instead of a cloak like ours, Saori is styling a black and white short-sleeved trench coat that was pretty reminiscent of a certain Victorian assassin game that I knew about. To finish her look, she also sewed herself a crimson red scarf and fingerless gloves, finalizing herself a very rogue-like outfit while maintaining a sense of modernism.

As you should know, Saori couldn’t make boots at all, so Saori and I were running through on the grounds barefooted. It wasn’t much of a problem for us as I had my scales and Saori’s were protected by thick fur and paws. Tasianna was the only one who needed some foot protection, so I just made some wooden sandals for her.

Interestingly enough, Saori absolutely hated the fact that she couldn't make boots as she despised seeing her legs covered in fur. That was the main reason why her outfit barely showed any skin. I can imagine her wearing some long boots, reaching her thighs if we ever get some.

Also, to note, we switched out Lorena’s rags with one of our spare blue mana dresses, as she didn’t fit into any of Saori’s custom creations.

As I was musing about how absolutely, fricking awesome we looked now, we eventually reached the vicinity of a group of houses.

Many of the houses were demolished, showing signs that they were burnt down from the still black grass that remained despite the buildings being slowly removed. A few new buildings have already been constructed but they looked like they were rushed, probably just there so they could stave off the cold winds and nights.

There were no walls or anything that resembled defensive structures. It was very likely that the budget and manpower was invested into getting houses and the necessary facilities up, decisions that benefited the recovery of the once-raided village.

Hmm, I guess you don’t need too many walls when a few guards and…a militia? I dunno but they look like watchmen.

Saori, using her incredible eyesight, used [Identify] on the few remarkable ones but was quickly let down. They all were stronger than Lorena, who was practically a weak or untrained F rank monster, but none of them impressed us. They could all go up against an F rank and defeat them, but they would have trouble fighting against an E rank alone.

Both their stats and skills weren’t anything to talk about, but it was enough to protect themselves. It also was interesting that all of them had some kinda weapon ability.

So, from peculiar and dangerous monster skills to weapon abilities. I guess this is the biggest difference between humans and monsters.

It makes sense, human ingenuity isn’t reserved for equipment and tools alone. Techniques and knowledge are also a reason why humans can dominate beasts, despite the difference in raw power.

They might look weak but I shouldn’t underestimate them. I was a human once, too, and I know how good they can be working together. Until I can get a good reference, I shouldn’t look for a fight.

…Well, I never intended to do so. I can’t go around and look for conflict everywhere I go. I’m a dragon but I don’t have to act like a feral monster.

Lorena jumped off Saori’s back with gusto and sprinted towards the village. As we couldn’t leave her alone until she made it to the village, my party ran after her.

As we approached the village, some of the militiamen saw us and shouted, "Guards!" and "Everybody come over!", and then suddenly unsheathed their weapons.

“Stop! Who the hell are you people?! Nobody ‘sides the folks living here can get past,” one of the militiamen shouted to stop us.

“Halt! This land belongs to Lord Count Helvas. If you don’t stop now, we will attack!” one of the guards shouted.

Ahh, how nostalgic. It’s always a great feeling when people point their weapons at you~

“No, wait!” Lorena screamed. “I’m a part of Carine Village. I’m one of those that got kidnapped during the raid a month ago. Please, I need to talk with chief Colwyn!”

The guards and the militiamen looked at each other for a moment, unsure if they could trust her words or not, but eventually snapped out of their confusion and reasserted their stance.

"We are under the order of the Lord Helvas to not allow anybody in without their ID. Show your ID and you can go in,” a guard said.

“What?! Did you not listen to me? I was one of the ones that got kidnapped! How am I supposed to have my ID with me when I escaped!” Lorena then turned to us in a panic. “Hestia, Saori, could you please show them your IDs. I bet they will let us through once they see yours.”

“Sorry, we do not have any,” Saori said nonchalantly.

“Same,” I agreed with a shrug.

“…,” and Tasianna stayed silent.

Tasianna lost hers during her stay with the trolls and we never got ours. What else could we have said?

“If that is the case, then please leave the area. We are under orders of our lord to protect this village. We can’t make any exceptions for you, Misses,” one of the guards said.

Looking at the fact that the militia also agreed to it, we really have no way to persuade them. Well, too bad but I’m not really willing to cause a ruckus today. We have to think of a different way.

“Wait, even if that is the case, you can’t do this because…uh,” suddenly without much warning, Lorena grabbed my arm and pushed me forwards. "She's a priestess of our Goddess! We are by law not allowed to forbid a member of the Church to enter a settlement! You can't stop us, otherwise, you will have sinned in front of a priestess!"

WHAT?!

“Uhhh, Lorena?” I looked at her with bewilderment.

“Please, play along,” she whispered. “If you can use holy magic then you must have been a shrine maiden or priestess-in-training. That still I counts…I think.”

What do you mean ‘you think’?! I don’t need Aurena believing I’m somebody who pretends to be somebody else just to get benefits!

…Also, Tasianna could you please stop glaring at Lorena like that! Your aura is sending a chill down my spine.

"Wait? A priestess?" Lorena's words seemed to have caused some unrest among the watchmen as they were once again talking among themselves. Militiamen or guard, it didn’t matter as everybody had their own interests to follow here, some were worried and were willing to let us through while some stayed steadfast and argued back.

“Oi, mate, what you think you doing? We got clear orders and I’m not gonna break my contract, here. Don’t care if it’s a priestess or the pope, nobody gets in the village without IDs,” one of the militiamen shouted at a nervous-looking guard.

“The hell?! Use your fucking brain, merc! She’s a priestess of our Goddess here, mate. I don’t know about you, but I have a family to take care of and I’m not fucking risking angering her,” the guard rebutted.

“And how are we supposed to explain this to the cap, eh?” another guard spoke up. “He’s gonna report this to Lord Helvas and we will get punished if we break our orders. I’ll apologize at church for this, but I need the job, mate.”

An absolute mess erupted from Lorena’s lie, voices clashing with each other and getting louder and louder the longer this fight lasted. Nobody went for their weapons but if we left them to their own devices, all of them would probably end up using their fists to “strengthen” their arguments.

As the chaos continued, eventually, a few other people arrived to see what the cause of the ruckus was. Considering they had no weapons and their clothes were very similar to Lorena’s, before they became revealing rags, I would guess that these must be her fellow villagers.

“Oi, what is with all this noise before 3rd bell? Are we getting attacked, again?!” coming forth from the mass of villagers, an older looking man with a lumberjack beard shouted as he carried a woodcutter’s axe with him.

At his sight, Lorena let go of me and ran pass the quarreling watchmen, making herself towards the villagers, “Chief?! Everyone! Chief Colwyn, it’s me!”

“Hey, lass, nobody told you could enter yet-warrgh!" one of the militiamen noticed this and was about to apprehend her, but through a twist of fate, he suddenly tripped on a small patch of earth, crashing on the ground face-first. This was the universe speaking…and not me using [Earth Wall] to stop him. Nope, that wasn’t me at all.

As Lorena ran screaming towards them, some of the villagers suddenly expressed surprise, exclaiming stuff like, “Hey, isn’t that Lorena?!” and “What the hell, weren’t you captured with your family, lass?!”

Lorena was embraced by a group of women, crying as they saw the once enslaved girl. "Are you alright, you poor thing, you look like a stick." and "Lorena, thank the Goddess, you've made it back. I thought I would never see you again, my friend", are just a few heartwarming "welcome back" from this tear-jerking sight.

Yesterday, Lorena's tears were filled with sorrow, caused by the recent events of her life and also her decision to prioritize her survival over others, feeling guilty that she had to do it. Now, her face was filled with relief and joy, a reward for successfully returning to her village after a week in the wilds.

“Back off, back off,” interrupting this sight was none other than lumberjack beard, the chief of this village. “Lorena, is that really you? H-How did you make it back?” he asked in astonishment, placing his large hands on her dainty shoulders.

As if she remembered her original goal, Lorena grabbed onto his arms and hectically shouted, “Chief Colwyn, the bandits! W-We need to send help now! My ma and pa, and the other villagers! We have to act now, otherwise-”

“Hold onto your equerochs, how am I supposed to understand anything from all that screaming, lass?!” the village chief expressed, stopping Lorena from speaking by blocking her mouth with his hand. “Let’s go into my house, and talk there…who are those women over there?”

“Huh? Oh, they! They rescued me from a pack of wolves and brought me safely back!” Lorena explained. “Ah! That beastmen lass with the horns, she’s a former priestess of our Goddess! Chief, she used her miracles to save my life! The White Grace!”

“Wha-?”

‘The White Grace’? Huh, is that what people call holy spells? I think Lorena did mention something like that yesterday. Well, whatever it is, it’s causing a stir among the villagers.

A few villagers were looking at me with deep curiosity while others were conflicted if they should believe what Lorena said at face value or not. Putting myself in their shoes, I couldn’t say that I would fault the skeptics. I was just a stranger and nothing besides my white mage clock was very “priestess”-like…even then, nobody would understand the reference anyways.

“…I see, if you’re telling the truth, then we have to welcome them properly,” the village chief said with a frown. “Hey, guards! I can confirm the identity of this girl, she’s one of us! Also, let those lasses inside, too! I’ll speak with Lord Helvas about everything, so don’t worry!”

With that, our passage into the village was pretty much guaranteed. The chief said a few words to the other villager and then told them that he would take care of us, giving my party a passionate welcome, “Welcome to Carine Village, I’m their chief, Colwyn. A blessed Light day onto you, Priestess of our Goddess, we welcome you and your companions to our humble hamlet, protected by her merciful light.”

This religious greeting was very similar to what Tasianna once gave the lizardmen, emphasizing on giving respect to the gods that the current day was dedicated to. It just so happens that today was LightDay, Aurena’s day, and also a Friday if it were on Earth.

This little bit of information actually was enough for Tasianna to figure out the exact date. According to her, today was the 6th of AutumnSun. With this little amount of information, we managed to solve one of our problems after we left the cave.

Now knowing what day, it was, I knew exactly what I had to do now. As a cover for our future life outside Belzac forest, Saori and I had to take on a religious following, even if it was fake. Everybody in this world was religious, especially when every origin god had multiple subordinate gods under them.

I was already sorta affiliated to Aurena due to [The Light] and my [Holy Magic], so choosing my deity wasn’t so hard. To create the perfect persona, Tasianna made sure to drill into me how the fairy royal family would give thanks to the gods. Considering it was just remembering some words in addition to acting formal, I had no problems learning it.

I pinched the hem of my clock, which was closed and only showed the lower half of my thighs due to modesty, and gave a curtsy, reciprocating a greeting worthy enough to greet royalty, “I thank you so graciously for your hospitality on this fine LightDay. Let Goddess Aurena’s hands hold you tightly in your time of need, and her light warm you with hope in the cold of the darkness. Under her guidance, I, Hestia Atsuko, accept your reception from the bottom of my heart, Chief Colwyn.”

Finishing my response, the surrounding suddenly turned silent, awestruck as they slacked their jaws. Even the rowdy guards and militiamen were affected by it, some turning deadly silent as not even their armor and weapons clattered, while others dropped on both knees and started asking me for forgiveness.

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Noble Aura Lv. 5] evolved into [Noble Aura Lv. 6]

Multiple acquisition requirements fulfilled.   [Alluring Aura Lv. 1] [Stage Fever Lv. 1] [Admiration Lv. 1] acquired

Damn, I nailed that perfectly! Mhmph!

A note from AbyssRaven

Hestia bringing the heavy guns by greeting a bunch of serfs as a royalty would. Her common sense is a bit off, no? Oh well, she just made her first entrance as a priestess rather than an Idol, lol.

Also, sorry about not being able to show Saori's and Tasianna's outfits! They aren't done yet so everybody has to wait.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Side Story 15: A Proud Dragon, a Worried Goddess, and an Ambitious Inferno.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #3 here to promote our Patreon. 10 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! Come on now, what are you waiting for? Everybody is waiting for you guys! Here's the link: Rawr'

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As Hestia was about to have her first meeting with Peolyncian humans, another meeting was being held up above the skies, in one of the realms of the gods.

In this realm, the ground you walk on is made from soft clouds surrounded by unending light sources that illuminated this place every second, banishing every shadow the moment it appeared.

In a specific area within this white world, extravagant furniture was placed for the sole occupant of this place. So refined was the furniture that most would believe that its owner was either wealthy or influential.

This was the world of the Goddess of Light, Aurena, and it was currently hosting a tea party.

“Problems and more problems, and I can’t intervene as they are not breaking any taboos,” a somber black dragon spoke out, stress contorting his face in a deep frown.

“That is, after all, our roles as gods. We observe and maintain the balance of our world, while our followers change the status quo,” a beautiful, youthful woman responded to her titanic tea partner, fluttering her light blonde hair and pure white feathered wings as she gave out a teasing laugh. “Hie hie, 2000 years and it seems you still cannot adapt to your new role.”

"His duty is the most taxing I believe, although I cannot sympathize as I have never been pushed this far due to a lack of genuine worshipers," a sharp-eared man said in defense of the giant dragon, documenting every word spoken by this meeting's participants on his right arm. "Magic and the pursuit of knowledge will never die out as long as this world possess mana, which means my source of power is infinite as the depths of the unknown."

As light-hearted as the atmosphere was in this radiant home of the Goddess of Light, the talk itself was far from it, as the giant dragon continues to mull over the recent events that have occurred under his command.

“My first attempt failed disastrously because I underestimated the girl for being a newborn, while fate decided the outcome of the second. Now, the girl has escaped, and her escort party was injured during the ambush,” the black dragon, Kargryxmor, retold the occurrences that he witnessed through the eyes of Astalos, the Boltreaving wyvern. "I don't understand, why did that girl flee? Shouldn't she seek me for protection? Her instincts as a newborn should compel her to do so."

“Kargryxmor, did you not mention that the girl’s name was ‘Hestia Atsuko’? Please, use it as it would make my job far easier, don’t you agree, Goddess Aurena?” the elven man suggested to the dragon god, not raising his head from his arm as he kept writing.

“Oh, yes I do, Istari. She is our champion, after all. As young and inexperienced she might be, we must show her respect as we were the ones to appoint her to this duty,” Aurena replied, shifting her white wings as she turned to address the dragon. “So, Kargryxmor, where is she now? Do you know?”

The great dragon let out a small sigh before materializing a blue globe of the world and resuming his report, “The attack from the grimgarians, God Marsven’s descendants, took place in the southeast part of the Belzac forest. From what little that I could see, Hestia should have entered a cave in the direction of a human kingdom. Mhmm, this one, here. You are the God of Knowledge and Magic, Istari, enlighten us.”

On request, the elven man observed where the great dragon pointed at and then tore the skin off his arm, unwrapping it like a bandage until it transformed into parchment, “…From the most recent information, this land is currently called the Kingdom of Artorias. This piece of knowledge was given to me about 1 second and 23 milliseconds ago, by a human male with the [Peddler] Job. I must give my thanks to the God of Mercantilism, the next time I meet him for sharing this, he he he.”

The god of dragonkins observed this, silently mumbling, “Use the damn administrative window, you idiot” as he watched the high elven god wrap the skin back onto his arm, leaving no signs of it ever being anything else but fair elven skin.

Ignoring the eccentric elf, the dragon turned his head back to the goddess of light, "Goddess Aurena, I still cannot form a connection with Hestia and she will likely evolve before I can tell her anything. I apologize, but it would seem like I will have to delay our meeting with her.”

Kargryxmor was vexed at his current predicament. Never had he thought that a single mortal would give him this much trouble. Not only has Hestia killed three wyverns with relative ease, but she was able to flee from three B rank wyverns, who were significantly stronger than her pure stat-wise.

In fact, if Hestia hadn’t had her companions help her in the fight against the first [Drifting Snow Wyvern], or if it had gone all-out right at the start with a death-match mentality, the dragoness would have never stood chance, even if she had gotten [Lightning Magic] during the battle. The mobility and experience differences between the two combatants were too huge, it was just the dragoness’ luck that the wyverns were ordered to not kill.

The God of Dragon was also the God of Oaths, considering any promise or duties bound by a mutual contract to be extremely important, worthy to risk his life to fulfill. He was dissatisfied with himself, unsure if he had overlooked a more efficient option.

Kargryxmor has always been a person who considered performing the task himself was the only way to ensure it is done right. He was headstrong and wished to jump back to the mortal plane to speak with Hestia directly, as having to rely on somebody else to fulfill this important task was causing him unrest.

However, he couldn’t, for he was bound to the rules of being a god.

While it wasn’t common for gods to mingle among mortals, the origin gods dissuaded them from doing it too often. Sometimes they would come down due to their work, but it wasn’t uncommon to see a god simply finding the god realm too boring and wishing to spend some leisure time with Peolyncian natives. They could still work with their administrative window from down there.

It was just unfortunate that Kargryxmor’s duties relied on him to be in the god realm. There is also the fact that gods are forbidden to interfere with anything that would influence the world. Mortal politics belonged to mortals. Gods may judge but they shall never contribute anything to it.

The only time that they were allowed to execute their powers is when a taboo is broken, but that will always be scrutinized under the eyes of the head goddess Plesia.

Aurena listened to Kargryxmor’s report with a gentle smile which grew into a teasing one after taking a sip from her tea, “…You say that, but aren’t you also proud? Compared to our last meeting, you seem far less stressed out. You haven’t burst into anger despite how much I have joked around.”

Kargryxmor instantly fell quiet, jaw agape, hesitating to respond back. He was assessing if Aurena’s words were another of her plentiful jokes or if they were genuine, looking inside himself to analyze the many different feelings that were circulating in his head.

“Why should I be proud?”, he thought for a second, but that was when he remembered everything he saw through his worshipper, the female lizardman Apsala. Due to her prayers during her time in Belzac forest, he knew everything that went on around her. That meant that he witnessed all of Hestia’s feats that Apsala witnessed or any that Caszcur told her about.

He could keep track of Hestia’s status window and her growth through the blessing that he gave her, but never was he able to see all the trials and tribulation the young girl had to go through.

Aside from her fight with the three C rank wyverns, Kargryxmor was never able to observe her first month or her fight with the orcs and the garm matriarch. He was astounded when he saw how valiantly she fought against the ice wyvern, displaying the culmination of her life in the Belzac forest.

However, what made the black dragon even more elated was Hestia’s creed. Nothing was more exciting for this old dragon to see than knowing that his choice for a champion was correct. After all, how can one be a god’s champion if they cannot be considered a paragon of that god’s dogma.

Hestia’s fervent belief that promises had to be upheld fitted his mentality perfectly. It made his heart race that one of his direct descendants was acting exactly how he envisioned for his race to act after he ascended to godhood: a guardian for the world.

As a dragon, he took pride in the fact that a dragon whelp from his bloodline was able to grow strong enough to defend herself from most threats. As a god, he felt satisfaction that his plan to create a champion has worked so well, despite all the hardships to get her to actually speak with him.

There were a few things that concerned him though. Why did she suddenly talk about making the lizardmen her followers? How did she retain her memories despite her rebirth? Why was another [Otherworldly Reincarnator] with her and how did she get into this world?

There was also the fact that he was able to confirm that Aurena had placed her blessing on Hestia and that she was able to use [The Light]’s spells. He had a feeling it was true and the fight with the three C rank wyverns gave him the evidence to be fully convinced, but witnessing it all in action against the [Drifting Snow Wyvern] was certainly something else.

…But those issues can be dealt with later.

“Ahhhhhhh, YES! I AM!” the dragon god roared with euphoria, shaking Aurena’s realm. “Gahahahahaha, she’s just perfect! That girl should only be seven months old now, but she’s showing so much promise, I can’t hold back but roar. YEEEEEEEEEEEEES!”

Kargryxmor was infamous for being the emperor of the skies during his mortal life, his mere presence was enough to quieten even the most cantankerous of beasts. He was known as an SSS rank monster, a monster of unreachable heights for a mere human.

This very tyrant was now wagging his tail like an excited dog who’s waiting for his owner to open the door after being away for a whole day. He was creating a maelstrom with his beating wings, moving them around like an overly excited bird.

Kargryxmor, the God of Dragonkins and Oaths, was acting like an excited grandfather.

“There were complications during her birth, the main cause of her being born as a G rank dragon whelp. Her parents, those incompetent fools, even lost her egg in that gigantic forest! But she survived it all, and she’s about to reach rank B!” Kargryxmor’s unnatural excitement was quaking everything. If there were any angels around, they most likely would have fallen unconscious from the sheer pressure. “If only she hadn’t inherited so much of my blood. She wouldn’t have gotten her current weakness when I gave her my blessing. Still, she might be the first of my direct descendants that has made me…proud of being her ancestor, in a long time. Ahhh, I only wished getting her to me wasn’t so difficult.”

“Hmmm, this meeting has certainly proven to be more interesting than I have thought,” said Istari. “I was already excited to be around my ‘Apocrypha’, Goddess Aurena. But this might be the first time that anybody has witnessed the almighty SSS rank dragon, Kargryxmor, behave like this in public. This meeting has been too fruitful, heh heh heh heh.”

“Hie hie, oh my, Kargryxmor your behavior is certainly adorable. You have waited too long for a worthy spawn, I see,” Aurena remarked with a mischievous laugh. “Then, I can confidently tell you that our little dragoness has made it to the human kingdom Artorias. In fact, she has already made contact with some of my worshippers. It should reassure you to hear that she has also reached level 30, ready for her evolution.”

“Agh, she has? There will be little chance for her to take my [Young Black-Wrath Dragon], then. She still has a bad impression of me…,” Kargryxmor said with a frown, all his excitement gone. “There is also the issue with those B rank wyverns. I cannot send them a divine message. They are not spiritually connected to me like the wyvern priestesses, so I am unable to stop them from entering human territory.”

Kargryxmor was worried that Astalos and the two ice wyverns would venture into the kingdom of Artorias. He knew that Astalos took his oath to him very seriously, uncaring of the fact that it would bring him to human territory to fulfill it.

Kargryxmor gave him a holy quest with a reward that was too enticing to give up. Astalos wanted to level up so he could evolve, and this was his best chance to achieve that. Callous of human life, this lightning wyvern wouldn’t relent until he captured Hestia and bring her to Avitor Peaks.

“That is unfortunate, but you cannot interfere here, Kargryxmor. You may try by informing your priestesses, but they will simply send more wyverns into the kingdom of Artorias,” Aurena sternly warned the dragon god, informing him of the repercussion of any future decisions. “This also isn’t enough to warrant divine intervention. You must let it past, observe as a god, and deal with the consequences later on. Hestia and my followers will have to weather the storm, despite how much I want to prevent it.”

Aurena’s carefree expression quickly turned into a scowl. She was the human race's patron goddess, so having to stand on the side while there was a chance that a huge amount of her followers would die was enough for her smile to break apart.

She has watched countless of lives die for infinite amounts of reasons, tempering her through her 2000 years of being in Peolynca, but nothing brought her more anger than another god’s mistake bringing destruction towards her followers.

Aurena’s mischievous attitude towards Kargryxmor was always a foil for her to show her annoyance towards his failures without resorting to bursting out in anger. She found it inelegant, especially when the other party knew this fact.

“That is our roles as gods,” Aurena said with a deep sigh. “Anyway, I thank you Kargryxmor for keeping me updated. Also, you too, Istari. Keeping our words documented will be useful for the future.”

With that said, the god of dragons and the god of knowledge dispersed into thin air, disappearing from this light-filled world, leaving only Aurena behind. Once she was sure that she was alone, Aurena gave a long sigh.

“…I should have told him,” Aurena said in a serious tone, letting her teacup down. “As one of the two subordinates gods I could rely on, I shouldn’t have kept this to myself. As his goddess, I should have informed him that I had contacted our champion. What is this attitude of mine? Childish!”

What Aurena was mentioning was the time she managed to send a system message to Hestia, despite how weak their connection was. She was elated to learn that she could finally communicate to her champion, but quickly realized anything longer than what she sent would have caused grievous repercussions on the still young soul.

It was already plenty enough, thanks to Hestia owning two divine blessings. One from a weakening subordinate god, and one from the second most influential origin god. She was fine with the results but wished for more.

“I know it wouldn’t have helped the situation, it isn’t Kargryxmor’s fault that his worshippers are stepping out of line,” Aurena mumbled. “The only way that would have prevented all of this was if our connection hadn’t been severed for some reason. I still question how Hestia was able to do this in the first place.”

If Aurena had made contact with Hestia before Kargryxmor sent out his wyverns, everything would have smoothly resolved itself. Hestia would have made it to the elves and Aurena could have made contact with her. It should have been that easy.

“Well…it’s still fine. After that display, I ought to keep Hestia away from Kargryxmor before I can have a talk with her alone. That big oaf is distressed that his faith is waning due to his descendants, so instead of looking at the bigger picture, he will most likely get Hestia to resolve his issue first. However, those demonkins must be dealt with first for the safety of Peolynca. Sigh…if only that race wasn’t considered a Peolyncian native, I would have already done everything by myself.”

Aurena suddenly let out another deep sigh, placing a hand on her cheek, “Sigh…I never would have thought that she would go to the kingdom of Artorias. This is…tch,” With a small movement of her hand, a blue, translucent screen appeared before her. “…The information my angels have compiled for me isn’t reassuring at all. I honestly am not willing to plunge Hestia into that land, especially with what Kargryxmor has reported.”

Argh, my desires are too akin to his. I wish to appear before Hestia and tell her everything over a cup of tea…tch, Elder Plesia would not be pleased if I did that, Aurena mulled over her options with exasperation.

“Sigh…I think it might be time to visit father to ask him for some of his wisdom. I haven’t met him in a while, he must feel lonely,” Aurena said with a cheerful smile. “I apologize in advance, Hestia. I do hope the conflict that you will find there won’t be too much for you. Politically and militarily...however, this might be a chance for you to develop your [The Light] and gain a few followers, no?”

Aurena let out a repressed laugh and then continued looking through the footage that she got from Lorena and Colwyn, two humans that Hestia just met, “At least, I can keep an eye on you until we meet. Do make haste, Hestia. The more you become ‘famous’, the more eyes will look at you. You can’t stay unknown forever. No, you don’t want to stay unknown forever, right?”

Dematerializing both her administrative window, Aurena stood up from her chair, “May the light’s fortune be with you and guide your path with hope, banishing any shadow that wills to consume you, my champion. Hie hie, good luck, Hestia~”

And with that, the Goddess of Light turned into a stream of light particles and vanished from her realm.

*********************************

“…Sis will be so angry if I did it though,” a person with the appearance of a great menacing inferno spoke, moving his searing hot arms to navigate through his administrative window.

This was Danterno, the God of Fire, one of the six origin gods and also the brother of the head goddess, Plesia. Despite how different their governing element was, the two share a strong bond of siblings, ignoring the duality of water and fire.

“But…I need her. Everybody else has a proper form but I still can’t materialize myself, forcing me to stay in this outdated form. I need somebody worthy to champion my cause!” Danterno mumbled as he anxiously tapped his window in his divine realm of fire. “What my faith currently needs is somebody to rally everybody to a single cause. Conflict from within my religion and also the fluctuation of believers due to their recklessness. Why are all my worshippers so hot-headed, ahhhhhhhh!”

And the fire that was his head grew in size, erupting like an active volcano.

Once he cooled down, Danterno then looked at his list of gods, “There is also the issue with my subordinate gods. Greedy…all of them only think about their own growth while neglecting the whole picture. How can anyone grow in strength when I, their leading god, cannot even reach the power of the fifth spot, Zephira!”

Danterno was considered the weakest of the six origin gods without any debate. The gulf in power between Danterno and the fifth rank, Zephira, the Goddess of Wind, was massive. Danterno’s lack of talent as a leader and for management has caused a terrible blockage in his growth as a god of Peolynca.

Due to his divided faith, none of his followers were able to conclude on a form for Danterno, each praying to a different image of their inferno god. This has twisted Danterno’s divine form, creating a creature that wasn’t even close to the serene form of his sister, nor the other three goddesses, Zephira, Crustacia, or Aurena.

Even Marsven, the God of Darkness, was able to create a form that resembled a race of Peolynca. The God of Shadows was close to his worshippers…but that wasn’t the case for Danterno.

“No, I can’t let this go! I, a being of fire, cannot accept being the weakest! I am destruction and power, carnage and purification. I can accept being number six, but I will never accept my current position!” Danterno roared. “I must close the gap, any way possible! This isn’t even outlawed by Sis. Aurena will be annoyed but I am not planning to fully take her over, I only need a spot in her soul.”

Danterno then navigated to a footage that he received from a goblin shaman, one of the warriors of the great demi-human army of the ogre king. He observed and analyzed the footage to find the young dragoness Hestia and where she was fleeing.

He then conjured up a globe of the world, trying his best to pinpoint where Hestia should currently be. Usually, this would be a job for his angels and aids, but the god of fire was ambitious and determined. He wanted to find the girl as soon as possible. He couldn’t wait any longer.

“…One of my worshippers in the vicinity. Trash. Do your only good deed and serve as a sacrifice to create my champion,” Danterno said with conviction. “I can’t destroy his soul, otherwise, Sis would kill me, but I can influence it enough. Once she is in sight, I will grant her my blessing.”

With a one-track mind, the god of fire went back to his work. Fiercely resolute to do anything to have his faith grow.

“Fire consumes fire.”

A note from AbyssRaven

I smell trouble in the air. What could it be?

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 74: Meeting with Carine Village’s Chief.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #4 coming out of the basement to promote our patreon. 10 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! I don#t come out very often, so please have a look! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 10 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until August!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

“By the goddess, Lorena, I can’t believe that you had to go through that sorta hell,” Colwyn uttered with disgust, massaging the bridge of his nose as his face slowly contorted from anger. “Damn, those were good people. I know being a merc is a risky job and I had a feeling something happened to them but hearing that most of them are dead is fucked up. Those poor women…may the goddess protect their souls.”

“…We need to save them, chief Colwyn. My parents, the others, and all the other captives,” Lorena announced with red eyes, puffy from having cried.

After giving my introduction, the village chief of Carine village, Colwyn, brought us to his home where he wanted to hear what happened to Lorena. As you would expect from a hastily made home, it was sparsely decorated and only had the essentials which included a meeting room, as the chief had to expect to receive the lord of the village, even if it barely ever happens.

Guess I shouldn’t have expected a comfy couch. Sitting on a hard bench with a tail is pretty cumbersome.

“We will, Lorena, but we need to sort some things out first…oh!” Colwyn suddenly flinched back, realizing that he had more than just Lorena as a guest. “My apologies, Miss Priestess. We really shouldn’t be talking about this stuff right in front of you.”

“Oh, there is no problems, no worries. Also, please don’t call me ‘Miss Priestess’ anymore. As I have explained, Lorena lied about that part,” I replied while shaking my hand.

“But, Hestia, you must have been one, right? Only people from the church can learn the ‘white grace’!” Lorena called out in protest, trying to excuse herself.

"Hey, Lorena, knock it off. I apologize, my Lady, she’s is not used to dealing with, uh, fine ladies. We are devoted followers of our Goddess here, so I apologize in advance if I sound, uhm, stiff,” Colwyn remarked. "Anyway, that isn't really important. Uhm, how are the ale and the dried fruits? It’s not much, I know, so I hope I haven’t offended you.”

After we entered his house, Colwyn’s wife quickly came out of the kitchen and began serving us some dried fruits as snacks, showing their hospitality despite the predicament that they were in. We were also served some of their finest ale, which Saori told me was alright to drink.

["From the smell alone, I think it should be ‘small beer’. I heard that it was quite nutritious without containing much alcohol, a staple beverage for medieval times as people considered it cleaner than drinking well or river water.”] Saori explained [“You are still a minor, but I heard that children would drink this, so you can give it a taste if you wish, Hestia.”]

I don’t know why she would mention me being a minor when she was biologically younger than me. Still, I was curious about the taste, though. I never tried anything alcoholic in my previous life and I always wanted to know why people even drank this stuff to begin with.

As I was about to drink it, Tasianna asked me telepathically, “Should I brew you some tea?” which I had to decline as I thought it would be rude to deny their kindness. Tasianna was also worried that the drink would have impurities in it, but I quickly shot that argument down by reminding her that I had [Abnormal Status Nullification] and my tendency to drink my own toxic concoctions.

Colwyn even showed us that it was safe to drink after it he tried it himself. As the one who offered the drink, it was his duty as the host to drink first, as it was courtesy to show his guest that it wasn’t poisoned. How intriguing that a farming villager would know this, even making a show of it.

With nothing to stop me, I pumped myself up as I was fully ready to learn why people liked drinking alcoholic stuff. I was expecting it to either have a pleasant taste like tea or that it would give a rush-like feeling like energy drinks.

As I took my first sip, the first thing that touched the tip of my tongue was a “sweet and fruity” taste, which made me initially quite interested in it as I kept pouring in more into my mouth. It wasn’t the most delicious beverage I've ever drunk but it wasn't terrible. It would go well with some bread, I think.

However, as the liquid moved down my throat, a horrible bitter aftertaste assaulted my taste buds. I quickly stopped drinking more of it and covered my mouth with a hand, as my body didn't want to drink it. Whether it was 'cause I got used to drinking bitter liquids through ingesting venom, or 'cause I overcame my body's order, I swallowed the rest of it while keeping myself composed.

Having rehydrated myself, I put the quarter-filled ale mug back on the table and heaved a small breath. For some reason, I was feeling a bit dizzy when Colwyn finished talking with Lorena and asked me for my opinion on the ale and fruits.

“…Bitter,” I answered in a meek tone while scratching my cheeks. “The fruits are nice, though.”

"Ahahaha, I'm sorry, it isn’t the low alcoholic ale as this is meant for important guests. It’s only a bottle but I can guarantee the quality of it,” Colwyn said with a wry smile, scratching his neck in unease.

“Mhmmh, how I missed that bitter taste!” as if it was perfectly timed, Saori let out a satisfied moan, having chugged her ale down as if she hadn’t had anything to drink in a week, before blushing. “Ah, I apologize for drinking too fast. Also, Lady Hestia is still young and had not had any experience with drinking yet. If I am not terribly rude, may I ask for more, please?”

“Oh, of course, my pleasure, Miss Saori!” responded Colwyn’s wife, Harriet, with a big smile.

Compared to Saori who downed her whole drink in one go and me who took a mouthful of it, Tasianna didn’t touch it at all. According to our telepathic conversation, Tasianna admitted that she wasn’t too much of a fan of alcohol, from her experience with sake.

I thought she didn’t try it ‘cause it was made from humans, but she just didn’t like it.

"Ahhh, that is good to hear, although, now I feel bad that I can't treat you to the good stuff that our village makes. The harvest was extremely good this year, you know,” Colwyn said with pride, although his eyes showed a hint of sadness.

Saori looked at the chief for a moment before uttering one word, “…Sake?”

“Ahh, I see you know your liquor, Miss Saori! We usually serve that stuff at the end of the year to celebrate it in Aurena’s and Krunal’s name, for blessing us with a wonderful year.” Colwyn said with a big smile, stroking his beard as he reminisced past memories.

As the chief and Saori were happily talking about sake, I quickly took this chance to telepathically ask Tasianna about something, [“Hey, Tasianna, if I’m not remembering it incorrectly, Krunal was a subordinate god of Zephira, correct? Why are members of the Aurena faith praying to a wind elemental god?”]

Tasianna gave me a small clap from her lap, inaudible in the midst of Colwyn’s energetic explanation of his village’s tradition and Saori’s wonderment, [“Brilliant, Lady Hestia, you remembered his name but you seem to have forgotten who he was. Krunal is indeed one of Zephira’s gods but he is also her husband and the father of all wind elves. Beside from that, Krunal also rules over us as the God of Weathers and Harvests.”]

[“Oh, the God of Harvests, and this is a farming village. Makes sense now,”] I responded, prompting Tasianna to give me a smile filled with warmness and joyfulness, completely different to her cold and distant attitude towards the village’s plight.

“FUCK!” suddenly slamming the table with his fist, Colwyn then let out a tired sigh. “What good is talking about our village’s specialties when everything is gone…After those bandits raided nearly everything, I think Carine village has to skip this year’s festivities. I don’t even know if all of us will even survive this winter with how we needed a whole month to rebuild three houses-yeowch! What da heck, Harriet?!”

Interrupting Colwyn’s rather depressive speech was his wife, Harriet. She hit him on the head from behind with a wooden box, which looked pretty painful, as Colwyn was massaging his head with a pained face, having reverted back to his villager accent.

Harriet looked pretty peeved and chastised her husband for his mood, “Honestly, Colwyn! We have guests and are you seriously trying to worsen the mood after what Lorena had to say?! Stop complaining and act like a man already. Carine village will get through this like we always do, otherwise, we’ll shame our parents and the god’s blessing. Here, give the young mistress her money, whether she is a priestess or not, she still deserves it for granting the ‘white grace’.”

Colwyn uttered a short, “Oh yeah” before accepting the wooden box from his wife. Harriet then went over to Saori and refilled her cup with cold ale.

“I would like to apologize if we don’t have enough to repay you, but, please, name your price. We can also give you products if we must,” Colwyn stated as he opening the wooden box before him, inspecting the contents.

Saori and I looked at each other for a moment without saying a single word and then turned back to Colwyn, where Saori took charge of the discussion, “As we have informed Lorena, we do not require any monetary payment or physical recompense of any kind. We simply helped because we could.”

"I understand that, but if we don't do this, we will look ungrateful in the eyes of the Goddess, right?" Colwyn replied with a conflicted expression. "It happens randomly, but priests would come on RestDay to our village to give sermons and they sometimes use their miracles to heal any sick villagers. We are used to this and we have no problems with paying, especially when the priests exert themselves so much to grant us humble worshippers one of the goddess’ miracles.”

Exert? What does he mean by 'exert themselves'? Besides using [Mana Eyes] on Lorena, the healing itself didn’t even make me break a sweat.

Well, I already heard from Tasianna that elven priests would heal people if they required healing. However, they would never heal somebody if it wasn't absolutely needed, as they considered Aurena's magic to be holy and a miracle. Any self-inflicted wounds, due to training, for example, were seen as unworthy of her spells.

However, Tasianna never mentioned having to pay for healing. Even through [Telepathy], Tasianna couldn’t confirm any of it. She wasn’t sure if elven priests demanded a payment.

Saori’s eyes sharpened once she heard it, slightly tilting her head for a second before continuing speaking, “Oh, really? Then, I believe we should respect your customs; however, do you not require the money yourselves? We cannot take it in good conscience, now.”

Colwyn groaned in exasperation as he held his head, contemplating on Saori’s question before responding, “…I will speak with Lord Count Helvas about paying it. He probably will be annoyed as we are asking for more money, but he will relent once he sees your IDs.”

“We don’t have our IDs, anymore,” I said. “That’s why the guards didn’t allow us entry into the village until you came.”

Colwyn jumped up in surprise, looking at all three of us with panic, “Huh? How can you lose your IDs? Wait, now that I think about it, why do you three ladies not have anything on you? Did something happen when you were on the road?!”

Noticing that my lie was causing Colwyn distress, I quickly held my hands in front of me and waved them around, “Wait, please calm down. Nothing really happened to us. We just lost them when we traveled through the Belzac forest.”

As if he just heard something outrageous, he froze in place, standing still like a statue.

“Dear?” Harriet asked, worried.

“Chief Colwyn?” Lorena asked, tilting her head to the side from confusion.

Well, I guess this is why Mama always warned me of lying. I have no idea what I just caused! What did my words do?!

“The Belzac forest…unbelievable,” it took about a minute of standing around until he finally thawed, sitting back down as if he lost all strength in his legs. “Never was there, but I heard stories about it from hunters I met in town. If it isn't rude to ask, how strong are you three if you can survive in a monster-infested zone classified as C rank by the hunter guild?”

“…You aren’t doubting me?” I asked cautiously.

“NO! I would sin if I doubted somebody who helped one of our villagers, especially a fine young lady like you. Honestly, compared to the people I saw in town, you ladies don’t look like fighters…uhm, I apologize if I offended,” Colwyn stated. "No weapons, no staves, no armor, no gear. You have to admit that anybody would find it far-fetched but…I also don't know how this would benefit you. IDs are incredibly important to accept job requests and they are needed to enter towns and cities, after all.”

Oh, that might be a problem.

Tasianna did mention how important IDs were for day-to-day life. You needed them to accept “Quests” to earn money while they also acted as your only identification tool in a world without proper official personal records. I knew Saori and I had to get ones issued to us, as we technically weren’t citizens of any state or country, but it might actually be harder than I thought.

Colwyn stared at us, scrutinizing us three before reaching behind him and placing a piece of paper on the table, “…Can you take a look at this?”

As Tasianna was the only one among us who was literate, she took it from the table and read it aloud for us, “‘Quest: Bandit Subjugation in House Helvas Territory. Rank: D. Reward: Experience, 4 D Rank Points, A full amount of 21500 Davi paid in copper and silvite coins. Description: A group of bandits has recently raided Carine village, stealing winter rations and belongings while also kidnapping a few of the villagers. Lord Count Andre Helvas, in the name of Lord Duke Isaac Albreaus Greenveil, will reward any party that can subjugate the designated bandits and bring back the villagers of Carine Village. For further information, speak with Chief Colwyn from Carine village.’”

[“Davi?”] I asked Tasianna through [Telepathy].

[“Oh right, I haven’t explained this to you nor Miss Saori, right, Lady Hestia?”] Tasianna realized. [“Davi is the official common currency for all countries and races of our continent, Altrust. It is a dwarven made currency system that spread around the continent over centuries. Unfortunately, that is all that I am able to tell you, as I personally never had experience with money before. Fairies have no use for coin.”]

["In other words, you do not know how much '21500 Davi' are and what those coins mean, correct?"] Saori questioned Tasianna.

[“Yes, I apologize for my ignorance, Miss Saori,”] Tasianna replied, ending our telepathic communication.

Once we finished talking amongst ourselves, Saori took the quest paper from Tasianna, stared at it with suspicion before handing it back to Colwyn, “May I ask why you are showing us this request? I do not believe you are doing this just to satiate our curiosity.”

Colwyn went silent for a second as he inspected the contents of the paper, heaving a sigh to signal he was ready to speak, “…You know, those bandits caused some irreplaceable damage to Carine village. Sure, they took our winter rations but what was more important was the people. While I was lucky that my children and wife weren’t harmed that night, some weren’t as they were taken away from us through cages and swords. Lord Count Helvas was generous enough to spend his winter savings to send us food and new guards, while also putting a bounty on those bandits. However, none of that will help those that we have already lost.”

Colwyn then wrapped the quest paper up and placed it back from where he got it, “Maybe I’m overstepping my boundaries here, my Lady, but I honestly believe that you three meeting Lorena on that day was part of our Goddess’ will. You need either numbers or real power if you want to survive in a monster infested area, and I don’t think three is enough to be considered ‘numerous’.”

“I am sorry, but that is unacceptable for us,” interrupting Colwyn’s speech with a slam on the table, Saori expressed her displeasure against his request. “We are not professional problem solvers, especially not when violence is included. I can confidently say that we are able to defend ourselves, but I also do not wish to endanger myself nor my companions.”

There is a problem concerning information here. If the quest is marked as Rank D, then our party should be good enough to deal with it, as we have two C rank monsters in Saori and me, while Tasianna can deal some serious damage with her magic against D rank beasts. However, that is assuming the ranks are identical in power.

I had no idea how strong a D rank human would be nor how well I would fare against one. There is also the fact that we have no idea how many bandits were there in the first place. We can't just wander in and expect to bulldoze through everything without a plan. That is reckless.

“I have to agree with Saori, Chief Colwyn,” I sided with my companion. “We are only three people and you also cannot tell us how strong those bandits truly are, it would just be like plunging into the dark without a light. I do sympathize with your plea but we need to be realistic here.”

Am I being too cautious? Not at all, especially after I learned that lesson from meeting one of the snake heads of the leviathan. Sure, I was able to overwhelm the Panguanas during the lizardmen rescue mission, but I honestly could have died on that day. That snake head was not a joke. My spells did barely anything against it.

The same thing could happen with the bandits here. The majority of them can be fodder for all I care, but if even one of them can match me in stats and skills, then I need to know that so I can form a plan.

If I can assess their strength and plan accordingly by preparing tools and traps, then I would accept it without question. My party was able to take down a B rank wyvern without much planning, after all, albeit she wasn’t trying with her full strength.

“If you need more people to help then you don’t have to worry about,” Colwyn said to reassure us. “There is actually a mercenary party camping in the woods, waiting for more people to come until they can depart. They are beastmen like you and I’ve seen their ranks, they’re a C rank party consisting of four people. Your party should be around that rank, or even higher, so if you two work together then it should be alright, right?”

Colwyn, in a panic, quickly picked up the wooden box and opened it, revealing the contents to us, “The 21500 Davi was deposited at the mercenary guild, however I do have 5000 reserved for emergencies in addition to a budget for our winter rations given to us by our Lord. I haven’t forgotten your payment for your ‘white grace’, my Lady. If your party accepts our request, then I will pay an additional amount for directly requesting it to you, I promise in the name of my faith. May our fair goddess judge me harshly if I sin against one of her priestesses!”

Colwyn then took out a pendant from beneath his shirt, clutching it with both hands. It hung around his neck and had an emblem that looked like a praying winged woman, “If my word isn’t enough, then let me swear it. I, Colwyn, hereby swear in the name of the Goddess of Light to uphold my promise to Lady Hestia, Miss Saori, and Miss Tasianna. Once the Quest is fulfilled, I shall do anything in my ability to pay them back.”

[“…I think we should accept it, Hestia,”] Saori suddenly suggested causing me to question her reasons. [“If you haven’t noticed it yet, I think your little stunt in front of the village seemed to have left an impression on Colwyn. I do not know what he considers you for but this might be the opportunity that we needed.”]

[“Miss Saori, you must understand that this Quest is dangerous, right? We will be endangering our lives for these…humans,”] Tasianna stated with disgust as she looked at Colwyn.

[“Have we not endangered our lives plenty enough while we were in the Belzac forest? Hestia, tell me, what do we currently need to fully integrate ourselves into society?”] Saori asked me.

I gave it some thoughts before giving my answer, [“Money, identification, and a job. Even if I consider being an Idol a profession, I’m currently unknown and I can’t expect people to just give their money just because I sang or danced well. I’m pretty much like a street performer right now, somebody who has to hope for donations from kind-hearted people.”]

[“Exactly, we need money. This is our chance to get some of it before we hand in all our spoils from Belzac forest,”] Saori stated, reminding me that my storage magic was filled to the brim with monster parts and alchemical herbs and plants. [“There is also the issue with our lack of IDs. You heard it from Colwyn, we can’t enter a town or city without them, however, what if we had somebody that could vouch for us?”]

[“Ahh, I get it. Even if Colwyn’s recommendation isn’t enough, he could ask his lord to help us. Colwyn owes us a favor if we help him with this request and having the support of a nobleman should be useful,”] I finished Saori’s thought process. [“Still…an aristocrat? Urgh, all those Netflix shows usually display nobles as cunning assholes. Then again, this one was willing to support Carine village after they got raided.”]

[“Regardless, as a party, we would benefit tremendously from it. It will be dangerous, yes, but we will not go into this alone,”] Saori announced. [“Let us take a look at that C rank mercenary party, first. Then after, we may agree or decline, alright?”]

[“Mhmm, I personally do not wish to trust this human but I can’t disagree with your arguments, Miss Saori,”] Tasianna said reluctantly. [“If fulfilling Lady Hestia’s dream requires me to do so, then I will dedicate my soul and body into it.”]

[“It’s settled, then.”]

“Chief Colwyn,” I uttered.

“Yes, my Lady? Have you come to a choice?” he asked anxiously.

“Yeah, could you tell us where that mercenary party is? We would like to speak with them before we make our decision,” I stated.

Colwyn’s eyes widened, slowly forming his lips into a smile, “Yes, of course! I’ll lead you to them, this instant. Harriet, tell everybody that I’ll be gone for a bit, and that the kids should behave while I’m away…oh! Here, I have to give your payment for the-”

“Please, hold onto it for us,” Saori interrupted the overly excited man, completely going against his lumberjack-looking appearance. “As you can see, we do not have anywhere to store it properly. Until we come back, please hold onto it, or even use the money if you need to.”

Shocked by Saori’s generous attitude, Colwyn couldn’t help but stumble on his words, “B-But I need to repay-no. I must have faith, faith that you will come back safely with everybody. This money will serve as my reminder to keep my promise to you three.”

With this meeting having concluded, Colwyn and my party went outside his house and exited the village towards the woods.

After a bit of walking, we eventually arrived at what seemed to be camp. There, I was able to recognize the figures of four individuals. As Colwyn said, they were undoubtedly beastmen, but what he forgot to mention was that they had scales covering from the tip of their tails to the front of their jaws.

If Caszcur looked like a crocodile and Apsala looked like a gecko, then these guys were dinosaurs. They were divided into three body types, each recognizable by the size and head differences.

One of them was small and had the looks of a velociraptor with the iconic sickle-like claws on his feet, while two of them were bulky and tall like a bodybuilder, possessing two crests above their eyes like a carnotaurus.

The last of the four was a humongous giant with the head of a menacing crocodile, who could tower over a house, I believe. He was like a hulk compared to everybody involved.

“Oh, Chief Colwyn? Ashlak’leel sa’got toth zacotl,” pressing both his hand together, the robed velociraptor-looking scale-kin greeted us with a bow, speaking unknown words to us. “We welcome you in Xohulotel’s name and may the Goddess of the Depths bless your every step with power. How may we Saurians aid you today?”

A note from AbyssRaven

Some people might say that I like scale-kins, and I won't argue against that. Certainly better than frogs.

Also, these guys are Saurians, not Lizardmen. There is a difference.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 75: First Quest accepted.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #1 here to promote our patreon. 10 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 10 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until August!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

“Ah, good day to you, Kus…uhm,” as the velociraptor-looking scale-kin greeted us, Colwyn intended to reciprocate it but stumbled on his words for some reason.

“Kushlek’zar is my name,” the scale-kin answered with a polite bow, swinging his brown-green scaled robes around in a dignified way.

Colwyn flinched back, quickly apologizing to him for his failure to remember his name, “Oh! Crap, sorry about that. That was inappropriate as your contractor.”

"I take no offense, you may rest your worries, Chief Colwyn. It is a hard name to pronounce for anybody not used to us saurians,” the saurian, Kushlek’zar, revealed as he shook his green velociraptor head to the sides, waving the plumage on his head around.

He calls himself a saurian but what is so different from him compared to a lizardfolk? Is the giant guy also a saurian? But he looks more or less like Caszcur, but with a larger frame and more menacing features.

Hmmm, should I use [Identify] on them? I kinda want to know how strong they are for a C rank mercenary party.

As I was contemplating the idea, the giant crocodile saurian suddenly moved it’s head to face our direction, seemingly returning the stare that I was giving him. Flustered, I abandoned any thought of using [Identify] and just turned back to the discussion on hand.

Besides, I think it might be best to use [Identify] reservedly on people that I’m not planning to fight. I don’t know about others but Saori and I considered it to be a breach of privacy and something that we shouldn't be using just to satisfy our curiosity.

Think about it for a moment, what would happen if their [Identity Blocker] were to level up if I used [Identify] on them? If you were in that person’s shoes, what would you do? If I was that person, I would immediately become suspicious.

You don’t get any warnings or signals if somebody identified you, something I learned when our party used it on ourselves to train our skills, but once you know that the other person has [Identify] then you don’t need to be a detective to understand what’s going on. I knew by instinct that the garm matriarch, Astalos, and the Leviathan used it on me to spy on my skills.

It isn’t the greatest feeling when you know somebody could access your status board. Common sense told me that if I wanted to stay on somebody’s good side, then I shouldn’t use the skill willy-nilly.

Remind me to level my own [Identity Blocker] later in the day, parallel minds.

After finishing the talks with Colwyn, he finally moved his head towards my party, greeting us with another prayer-like bow before politely asking who we were, “Ashlak’leel sa’got toth zacotl, guests to our camp. My name is Kushlek’zar and I am the speaker for my comrades.”

Understanding that it was our time to introduce ourselves, we walked forwards and Saori began for us, “It is a pleasure to have made your acquaintance, Mister Kushlek’zar, I am Saori Segawa. I hope we are not intruding.”

“Oh, a wolfkin, I presume? I am still not perfectly capable of identifying the beastmen from Altrust, so I hope I did not guess wrongly," he said with a wide grin, fitting for a dinosaur-like head. “Miss Saori, it is an honor to meet someone like you.”

“Blessed water to you, Mister Kushlek’zar, may our Goddess’ kindness grace your with warm tides,” Tasianna said, greeting him respectfully as a fellow worshipper of Plesia. “My name is Tasianna Marina Silverpond, and I greet you on our Lady’s behalf.”

Huh? She’s back to her usual self? I thought as Tasianna gave Kushlek’zar a curtsy and moved behind me.

“Ocean’s bounty to you too, Miss Tasianna. It is always a pleasure to be acquainted with more of our goddess’ followers, for the land is lonesome so far from the sea,” he responded as he held onto a pendant with an emblem of a woman’s head, framed by tentacle-looking hair. “Am I right to conclude that this is your mistress, Miss Saori and Miss Tasianna?”

He let go of his pendant and placed one hand on his chest and the other behind his back, greeting me with a formal bow, “It is a great honor to meet a dragonewt so far from Loatryx. I must admit, I did not expect to meet another scale-kin so deep into the continent of Altrust.”

Pinching the hem of my robes, I reciprocated his greeting with an elegant curtsy while raising my tail, “The honor is mine, Mister Kushlek’zar, this young scale salutes you with her tail raised. My name is Hestia Atsuko and my party is here at the request of Chief Colwyn to meet our potential allies for his Quest.”

Nailing the formal speech is pretty satisfying when you consider that I've only been speaking this language for two months now. Granted, I had a pretty good tutor in Tasianna who could immediately send this sorta information through [Telepathy] into my mind, where the skill immediately translates everything for me.

I’ve been having my parallel minds just remember as many words as possible, accelerating my learning process while I practiced sentence structure and grammar by speaking with Tasianna and Saori. As Tasianna has been our primary language tutor, our accent and speaking habits were mostly influenced by hers, although I do admit that the lizardmen had a profound effect on me, too.

However, I do wonder why both Saori and Tasianna introduced themselves with their full names? W-Why I did it? W-Well, I can’t just not do it, right? I don’t want to be left out!

“This elder scale is joyous to have met you,” Kushlek’zar grinned happily, revealing his long tongue. “I am also glad to hear that you have acquired more help for us, Chief Colwyn. It is always better to have more allies before one jumps into the water’s depths.”

“Ah, yes, of course. We just got word that the mercenaries who previously accepted this quest were defeated. I hope your party is still willing to take on the Quest,” Colwyn said with caution, aware that hearing this might scare away most people.

“We appreciate your concerns but rest assured, we have no intentions of not fulfilling this Quest, Chief Colwyn,” clearly, this scale-kin wasn’t ‘most people’. "We are members of the 'Tide Watchers', a group of free-roaming 'Depths Guards' that serve our Goddess Plesia by bringing justice to people that need it. Those bandits have caused injustice to pious followers of Origin Goddess Aurena. How can we overlook the continuous existence of these criminals?”

Upon hearing that, Colwyn heaved a sigh in relief, "Oh, thank you so very much! If there is anything you need, then please ask me before you leave! I cannot pay you any more than the Quest is offering but I’ll provide whatever rations or tools you need!"

“I thank you on behalf of my brothers-in-arms, however, by bringing more fighters, you have helped us enough,” Kushlek’zar then turned to us, staring at us inquisitively before speaking. “Krim-slak. Grazlahta. What are your opinions on our guests?”

The two tall saurians who were sitting behind Kushlek’zar stopped sharpening their weapons and took a look at us three. Considering we were planning to do the same to them, it was only fair if we reciprocated their actions.

Compared to Kushlek’zar who was a head shorter than Saori due to his slouched back, these tall saurians were about two meters tall (6’7”). Equipped with giant reptilian muscles that could make a human strongman look weak, these saurians with two short, spiked crests above their eyes looked exactly what you would expect if the ferocious dinosaur carnotaurus were to become a humanoid.

Showing some scars despite being armored to the teeth with their thick, hardened scales and heavy, scaled armor, it was undebatable that these two were seasoned warriors, veterans of the battlefield.

Without needing to use [Identify], my draconic instincts were telling me that these guys were strong. I wasn’t sure how strong they were, but they were clearly C rank or above if they were to be considered monsters.

“…No armor and their clothing aren’t enchanted. They don’t look like warriors,” the blue saurian on the left, Krim-slak, said concisely. “…I wouldn’t underestimate them, though. The young scale and wolfkin are experienced, I can see it from their eyes. They know how to observe others with keen focus.”

“Mages? Probably. The wind elf has a chill around her, I can feel it,” the red saurian on the right, Grazlahta, continued the analysis. “However, I agree with Krim. The young scale’s claws could pierce my scales, and I feel like everything about myself is being scrutinized by that wolfkin’s blood-red eyes. I feel uneasy around them is all I can say.”

"Yes, I can feel mana in their clothes. There are no enchantments on them, so they probably are mana clothing," Kushlek’zar correctly guessed. “As my tail is my witness, I apologize for our failure. We cannot fully understand your abilities from sight alone. As we will become future companions, could we get a look at your IDs?”

Uh oh…

“Uhh, Kushlek’zar? I didn’t get to that point yet,” Colwyn said as he scratched his head. “These lasses don’t have any IDs. They told me that they lost them in the Belzac Forest.”

“Belzac Forest?” Kushlek’zar’s eyes widened in surprise, turning away from Colwyn and back to us. "…Still, as warriors, you must understand that we cannot believe those words without proof. Under Xohulotel, the serpent god’s eye, I cannot risk my party’s safety by accepting unknown mercenaries. If you cannot produce IDs to display your abilities, then I ask if I may use my [Identify] on you.”

“Pardon?” Saori exclaimed. “You wish to see our status boards like that?”

"Yes, however, if you do not wish to show specific information then I will have no problem if you block it with [Identity Blocker]. I only wish to know your combat prowess,” he answered. “I have no worries that a fellow worshipper of our goddess and her companions will be truthful. All your information will only be known to my group, I swear as my tail is my witness."

Realizing what he meant by that, our party quickly held a telepathic conversation, [“Bump it up to level 10?”]

[“Agreed, Hestia.”]

[“By your command, Lady Hestia.”]

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Identity Blocker Lv. 4] evolved into [Identity Blocker Lv. 10]. 2350 SP remaining

Oof, 1750 SP spent…but I guess we will need this to hide our status boards from others. Our luck that this guy is polite enough to warn us before using [Identify]!

From doing skill experiments with Saori and Tasianna, I’ve learned that the skill [Identity Blocker] allowed me to choose which skill I wanted others to see, without hiding everything. That meant that I could allow people with lower levels of [Identify] to look at my status board. However, the skill was picky about what I could do with it. I could neither change skill levels nor could we get rid of “Information Blocked”, no matter how many times we tried.

So, after taking out everything related to the gods, my dragon heritage, and being a reincarnator, my status board looked like this now:

Hestia's Dragonewt Status Board

Profile:

Name: Hestia Atsuko

Level: 80

Race: Spark Inferno Dragonewt

Age: 15 Years

Job: None

Status:

Health:

2932/2932(Dra: 5864)

Mana:

9692/9692(Dra: 19284)

Strength:

1427 (Dra: 2853)

Intelligence:

2731 (Dra: 5461)

Vitality:

723 (Dra: 1446)

Wisdom:

891 (Dra: 1781)

Agility:

2950 (Dra: 5900)

Stamina:

1476/1476(Dra: 2951)

Effects:

None

Skill:

Magic and related

[Lava Magic Lv. 2]

[Lightning Magic Lv. 1]

[Holy Magic Lv. 10]

[Holy Amp]

[Holy Magic Efficiency]

[Sacred Magic Lv. 5]

[Fire Magic Lv. 10]

[Fire Amp]

[Fire Magic Efficiency]

[Inferno Magic Lv. 5]

[Earth Magic Lv. 10]

[Earth Amp]

[Earth Magic Efficiency]

[Terra Magic Lv. 2]

[Wind Magic Lv. 10]

[Wind Amp]

[Wind Magic Efficiency]

[Storm Magic Lv. 1]

[Space-Time Magic Lv. 4]

[Space-Time Magic Efficiency]

[Synergist’s Oath Lv. 5]

[Silent Casting Lv. 7] (+1)

[Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 6]

[Mental Stability Lv. 6] (+1)

[Mental Warfare Lv. 4]

[Mana Eyes Lv. 2] (New)

Physical and related

[Unarmed Technique Lv. 5] (+1)

[Sundering Enhancement Lv. 4]

[Piercing Enhancement Lv. 4]

[Crushing Enhancement Lv. 2]

Movement and senses

[Silence Lv. 1] (New)

[Accuracy Correction Lv. 6]

[Concentration Lv. 2]

[Foresight Lv. 1] (New)

[Danger Perception Lv. 3]

[Probability Correction Lv. 5]

[Detection Sensor Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 5]

[Tracking Lv. 3]

[Night Vision Lv. 8]

[Odorless Lv. 1] (New)

[Evasion Lv. 10]

[Acrobatic Lv. 10]

[Air Walk Lv. 2]

[Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 4]

Resistances

[Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 4] (+2)

[Absolute Pain Tolerance]

[Mental Corruption Resistance Lv. 3] (New)

[Mind Protection Lv. 3] (New)

[Mana Leak Resistance Lv. 1]

[Abnormal Status Nullification]

[Fear Resistance Lv. 2] (+1)

[Lava Resistance Lv.1]

[Holy Resistance Lv. 4]

[Inferno Resistance Lv. 2]

[Terra Resistance Lv. 1]

[Wind Resistance Lv. 2]

[Water Resistance Lv. 1]

[Dark Resistance Lv. 1]

Growths and related

[Health Recovery Lv. 4]

[Stamina Recovery Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Health Growth Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 4]

[Arcane Conduit Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Sorcerer’s Power Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Speed of Sound Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 6] (+1)

[Enhanced Stamina Capacity Lv. 4]

Others

[Singing Lv. 7] (+1)

[Dancing Lv. 5] (+1)

[Musician Lv. 3] (+2)

[Stage Fever Lv. 1] (New)

[Handicraft Lv. 2] (+1)

[Woodworking Lv. 3] (+1)

[Stonecrafting Lv. 1] (New)

[Poison Creation Lv. 5]

[Trap Creation Lv. 5] (+1)

[Identity Blocker Lv. 10] (+6)

[Identify Lv. 10]

[Noble Aura Lv. 6] (+1)

[Benevolent Aura Lv. 1]

[Alluring Aura Lv. 1] (New)

[Terror Aura Lv. 1]

[Admiration Lv. 1] (New)

[Battle Mind Lv. 6]

[Royal Etiquette Lv. 2]

[Leadership Lv. 5]

[Cooking Lv. 7]

[Dismantle Lv. 7]

[Thought Acceleration Lv. 2]

[High-Speed Calculation Lv. 1] (New)

[Multi-Thought Processing Lv. 1] (New)

[Parallel Thoughts Lv. 9]

[Body Temperature Control Lv. 2]

[Pyrokinesis]

[Aerokinesis]

[Telepathy]

Spell List:

Custom

[Imperial Hellfire]

Lightning

[Lightning Bolt]

Lava

[Lava Ball]

[Lava Stream]

Holy

[Minor Heal]

[Cure]

[Modest Heal]

[Smite]

[Light]

[Holy Protection]

[Holy Strength]

[Purify]

[Sacred Smite]

[Sacred Veil]

[Sacred Field]

[Banishment Beam]

[Major Heal]

Fire

[Fire]

[Firebolt]

[Imbue Fire]

[Fire Ball]

[Strengthening Flames]

[Flame Spear]

[Petal Flame]

[Flame Explosion]

[Inferno Blast]

[Blazing Twister]

[Inferno Beam]

[Scorching Sun]

[Spiral Hellfire]

Earth

[Earth Wall]

[Rock Blast]

[Earth Strike]

[Rock Bullet]

[Sturdy Earth]

[Earth Spears]

[Earth Crash]

[Earthen Shackles]

[Terra Wall]

[Bedrock Blades]

Wind

[Wind Bullet]

[Wind Cutter]

[Air Shield]

[Wind Slash]

[Swift Winds]

[Wind Blast]

[Featherfall]

[Aerial Blitz]

[Tornado Bullet]

Space-Time

[Haste]

[Storage Magic]

[Warp Point: Entry]

My status board is still pretty long even after taking the most interesting parts out. I also took out [Toxin Secretion] as I found it a bit too…dangerous to show? I mean, what would your first impression be if you saw that skill in my status board, huh?

“Alright, we are done. You may look if you wish,” Saori urged, inviting Kushlek’zar to take a look.

After widening his eyes two or three times, he stayed quiet for a second before expressing his surprise to us, “Well…my expectations leaped away like a jippotyhopper, that is for sure. I have no more need to question your abilities. As you have come to assess us, it would only be fair if I gave you a look, too. Do you possess party bracelets, Lady Hestia?”

Huh?! Why is he calling me ‘Lady Hestia’ now?! I-I’m pretty sure I hid everything that could prove me a princess! [Royal Etiquette] has a very ‘princess’-like name but it really is only responsible for etiquette, as both Saori and Tasianna had it!

Regardless of my flustered reaction to him addressing me with “Lady Hestia”, Saori and I both showed our iron party bracelets that we looted from those trolls that captured Tasianna. Tasianna couldn’t show hers as it only fitted her fairy form, which was out of the question as we didn’t want anybody knowing that she was a fairy.

“Wha-!?” flinching backward from the sight of our bracelets, Kushlek’zar needed a few seconds to reboot his brain to form a proper response. “I…there are quite a few surprises today. Oh, great Xohulotel, I have many stories to retell you this evening. I apologize but considering how those bracelets do not have these chains, like on mine, I can confidently say that they are far too old to be able to read IDs and accept Quests.”

It was a revelation, but not a surprising one. Tasianna already informed us that our bracelets were very outdated models, so old that they weren’t even decorated and looked like simple iron rings. Tasianna’s fairy bracelet, on the other hand, was beautifully crafted with plenty of colors and engravings, even possessing the emblem of the Patron Goddess of the Fairies, Zephira.

We kinda knew this would happen. Not only did we not have any IDs but we also lacked proper party bracelets to accept the Quest in the first place.

“Chief Colwyn, we have no problem working with these fine warriors but without IDs nor a party bracelet, I do not know how we are supposed to share contribution. Even without an ID, we could still share the Quest by partying up,” Kushlek’zar said with disappointment.

“Ah, you don’t have to worry about that fact. I’ll personally go to the guild to give them a report after it's done. Doesn't the guild have a retroactive acceptance system? That should work for the ladies, right?” Colwyn answered.

“Hmm, that is the case. Excellent, if you are willing to do that, then there should be no problems for them to join us,” the scale-kin answered with elation. “Lady Hestia, Miss Saori, and Miss Tasianna, you allowed me to use [Identify] on you three, so it is only right from us to allow you the same. We four saurians are ready."

Looking between the two carnotaurus-looking saurians and the massive crocodile-looking one, none of them showed any displeasure, simply nodding at us to do so. It seems Kushlek’zar wasn’t lying when he told us that he was the voice of this party. Everybody respected his decision.

The three of us decided on splitting the work between us. Saori would identify the crocodile one, Tasianna would do the two carnotauruses, while I would inspect the velociraptor Kushlek’zar. We could always share the information amongst us later on, so there was no need for us all of us to look at them individually.

Identify.

Kushlek'zar's Status Board

Profile:

Name: Kushlek'zar

Level: 71

Race: Raptorsilian

Age: 64 Years

Job: Depth Priest

Status:

Health:

4612/4612

Mana:

5120/5120

Strength:

1843

Intelligence:

2453

Vitality:

1432

Wisdom:

2031

Agility:

2147

Stamina:

3143/3143

Effects:

None

Skill:

Magic and related

[Mana Control Lv. 10]

[Mana Efficiency Lv. 10]

[Arcane Mind Lv. 10]

[Water Magic Lv. 10]

[Water Amp]

[Water Magic Efficiency]

[Torrent Magic Lv. 6]

[Chant Revocation Lv. 9]

[Silent Casting Lv. 6]

[Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 7]

[Synergist’s Oath Lv. 7]

[Mental Stability Lv. 8]

[Mental Warfare Lv. 3]

[Multi-Cast Lv. 7]

[Delayed Cast Lv. 5]

[Continuous Cast Lv. 6]

[Fluid Cast Lv. 3]

[Arcane Chorus Lv. 3]

[Long-Range Spell Enhancement Lv. 3]

Physical and related

[Unarmed Technique Lv. 3]

[Unarmed Mastery Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Claws Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Fang Lv. 3]

[Mana Strike Lv. 6]

[Sundering Enhancement Lv. 2]

[Piercing Enhancement Lv. 1]

[Crushing Enhancement Lv. 1]

Movement and senses

[Stealth Lv. 9]

[Accuracy Correction Lv. 7]

[Concentration Lv. 8]

[Foresight Lv. 1]

[Danger Perception Lv. 8]

[Probability Correction Lv. 6]

[Detection Sensor Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 7]

[Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 6]

[Tracking Lv. 8]

[Night Vision Lv. 10]

[Presence Killer Lv. 7]

[Evasion Lv. 10]

[Acrobatic Lv. 7]

[Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 7]

Resistances

[Physical Resistance Lv. 7]

[Pain Resistance Lv. 9]

[Arcane Corruption Resistance Lv. 10]

[Mental Corruption Resistance Lv. 1]

[Abnormal Status Nullification]

[Fear Resistance Lv. 6]

[Holy Resistance Lv. 4]

[Fire Resistance Lv. 4]

[Earth Resistance Lv. 7]

[Wind Resistance Lv. 6]

[Torrent Resistance Lv. 2]

[Dark Resistance Lv. 4]

Growths and related

[Health Recovery Lv. 6]

[Mana Recovery Lv. 8]

[Stamina Recovery Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Health Growth Lv. 7]

[Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Mana Growth Lv. 9]

[Enhanced Mana Capacity Lv. 7]

[Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Intelligence Growth Lv. 7]

[Enhanced Intelligence Enforcement Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Agility Enforcement Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Stamina Capacity Lv. 3]

Others

[Handicraft Lv. 7]

[Woodworking Lv. 4]

[Stonecrafting Lv. 3]

[Poison Creation Lv. 7]

[Trap Creation Lv. 6]

[Identity Blocker Lv. 7]

[Identify Lv. 8]

[Benevolent Aura Lv. 6]

[Terror Aura Lv. 4]

[Battle Mind Lv. 2]

[Leadership Lv. 7]

[Cooking Lv. 1]

[Dismantle Lv. 8]

[Body Temperature Control Lv. 6]

Job Skills

[Water Amp]

[Water Magic Efficiency]

[Torrent Amp]

[Water Resistance Lv. 10]

[Supportive Spell Amp]

[Hydration Healing]

[Ocean Pressure Resistance Lv. 8]

[Depths Guard’s Unity]

Spell List:

Job

[Depth’s Call]

[Plesia’s Grasp]

[Tidecaller’s Blessing]

[Depth Priest’s Blessing]

[Invocation of Water]

Custom

[Create Water]

[Greater Create Water]

[Ocean’s Blast]

[Moisture Sucker]

[Marine Lungs]

[Slithering Serpent]

[Xohulotel’s Wrath]

[Xohulotel’s Scaled Barrier]

[Tehenhauin]

[Saurian’s Rage]

[Raptor’s Agility]

Water

[Water Ball]

[Water Wall]

[Water Bolt]

[Cleanse]

[Protective Water]

[Droplet Torrent]

[Aqua Prison]

[Aqua Beam]

[Torrential Rain]

[Ocean Healing]

[Azure Blade]

[Sapphire Membrane]

[Kraken’s Destruction]

[Perilous Tidefall]

…He is a-!

“Thank you very much…that was educational,” Saori uttered, showing an expression mixed with surprise and interests. “Thank you, we would be happy to help a veteran party like yours.”

“So, does that mean you three will take the Quest?” Colwyn asked with a smile on his face.

The three of us looked at each other and wordlessly nodded our heads.

I then turned towards Colwyn and gave him a small nod, “Yes, Chief Colwyn. The three us will accept your Quest and we will bring back your villagers. As my tail is my witness, I promise you that.”

After escorting Chief back to the village, our party was given some rations and a few bags for the trip as we never had the chance to explain to them that I had a feast stored inside my storage magic. We also said goodbye to Lorena and promised her that we would bring her parents back, and then we departed back to the saurians.

Once we returned, Kushlek’zar welcomed us, “Welcome back, our allies. This might be very sudden, but I believe we have enough people for the Quest, so we wish to depart. Shall we?”

From a numerical standpoint, seven might not be enough but the quality of the party was what made me agree with Kusklek’zar. On the way back, our party shared what we learned from each of the saurians and we understood from this that we were covering all the basics that you would expect a team composition would look like in a video game.

At a minimum, you had to have at least one warrior, mage, priest, and rogue; which we fulfilled splendidly.

“Yeah, let’s do it. We are ready to go whenever you want,” I answered.

He nodded to my affirmation, grinning with satisfaction, “Excellent, we must not rest until those bandits are brought to justice, either by our hands or the law.”

‘By our hands or the law’, huh? What will I do?

My party took on the Quest fully knowing these bandits would not just stand by and let us free the kidnapped. If they really are criminals, then we had to be ready for them to resist us and that meant a fight was entirely possible. While subduing a weak opponent was as easy as beating Saori in a dance battle, the problem lies in when we meet somebody as strong as Kushlek’zar and his party, where holding back could mean our deaths.

We would be idiots if we hadn’t thought of this possibility.

“I cannot wait to see your abilities in action. As a mage myself, there is so much to learn from observing other practitioners and it would be considered rude if I wasn’t interested, heh,” Kushlek’zar joyfully said, snickering as he mulled over the idea. “Oh right, there was something I wanted to ask you and your companions before we go. I don’t believe you to be novices, but most members of the mercenary guild would ask this question of people they’d never fought alongside before. Call it a tradition, and as a worshipper of our goddess of the depths, I must respect it, no?"

“Oh yeah, sure,” I responded carefreely, believing it to be a trivial question.

“Thank you,” Kushklek’zar thanked me with another prayer-like bow. “Have you ever killed a humanoid before, Lady Hestia the Dragoness?”

…WHAT?!

A note from AbyssRaven

Too much blue! Too much blue!

Also, anybody can guess how the saurian found Hestia's hidden identity out? Hint: Only a Mage with claws would know.

P.S. The (Dra: Stat) part is just for you guys. I got that suggestion from a reader and wanted to try it.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 76: I’m terrible at SP usage.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #2 here to promote our patreon. 10 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! Don't be a baka, come join us! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 10 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until August!

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“Wait, is getting one Job so much of a difference?!” I asked, shocked at this revelation.

“I have only acquired two Jobs. [Mage], which is my current one, and [Caster], which is a pre-requisite for the former. Each Job has a separate level which allows you to gain certain stats depending on your specific Job. I apologize for not informing you about this earlier, Lady Hestia,” Tasianna apologized with a bow while walking beside me. “Coincidentally, my [Mage] is max leveled, so I do require a Job change.”

“That is unfortunate, Miss Tasianna, ha ha ha,” agreeing with Tasianna’s statement, Mister Kushlek’zar laughed merrily beside me. “Lady Hestia, do you remember seeing ‘Job Skills’ and ‘Job Spells’ in my status board? Certain advance Jobs give you skills and spells as long as you have it as your ‘Main Job’.”

“Mister Kushlek’zar, please, don’t imitate Tasianna. You don’t have to address me like that. I’m fine if you were to drop the ‘Lady’ party,” I insisted with exasperation. “Still…that does make me a bit envious.”

What felt like about two or three hours have passed since we departed east from Carine village. We were traversing towards the spot where we found Lorena, the place where we will start hunting the bandits that kidnapped the Carine villagers.

Now, I’m pretty sure most people would be more interested in what happened during the beginning, when Mister Kushlek’zar suddenly revealed that he knew that I was a dragon. Well, all I can say is that it started out pretty heated but ended quickly as if it was dowsed by water.

Sparking my inner fire, I was immediately agitated by his words, readying myself by preparing ten magic circles and raising my body temperature to the point that the very air around me was too hot for Mister Kushlek’zar to stay close to me. Although, I didn’t mean to, even [Spark Flame Veil] activated itself, creating a zone of explosive sparks to protect me, in case one of his companions attacked me with their weapons.

Although it looked like I was blazing to fight, I actually wanted to run away from them. I saw those guy’s stats, so I knew that my current dragonewt form wouldn’t cut it if they were to fight me all at once. My stats were inferior and I felt an instinctual fear from Mister Kushlek’zar.

Not only was this guy an experienced magician with skills I’ve never heard before but he was also a water mage. One of my biggest elemental weaknesses.

Sure, with Saori and Tasianna we definitely would have stood a chance against them, I think, but I’m not risking defeat here. I did, once again, make a promise with somebody so I felt compelled to escape the saurians and just wing it with the bandit subjugation with the three of us.

Pretty impulsive, right? Well, that was exactly what Saori told me after Mister Kushlek’zar explained to us that they had no ill intentions and were actually pretty elated to meet a dragon. In fact, their race, the saurians, considered levianewts and dragonewts as distant cousins due to their racial god Xohulotel.

The serpent and ancestral god of the saurians was described to me as a massive serpent creature that flew through the skies, bestowing the jungle where the saurians came from with bountiful blessings, until it one day disappeared, which was later explained to them that it ascended to godhood.

Now, if I took their “distant cousin” talk seriously then this Xohulotel couldn’t be a normal serpent. If you looked at Earth’s mythology on dragons then shouldn’t there be quite a few that fitted this description?

There were the North European Wyrm, Lindwurm, and Amphiptere, the Chinese Long, and the Japanese Ryuu. As Mister Kushlek’zar never laid eyes on this god and as we had to take into account that depiction of gods could change over the millennia, then Xohulotel’s draconic origin could be any of these dragon types.

Of course, there’s also the possibility that he was a native Peolyncian dragon or that Mister Kushlek’zar had a wrong idea of him, and that Xohulotel was just a flying serpent like a Quetzalcoatl or something.

Regardless, all that mattered was that the saurians weren’t our enemies. I had to quickly apologize to them as it would have felt too inappropriate if I hadn't.

Thankfully, building up the courage to dissolve that awkward situation wasn’t too bad. What awaited me afterwards for worst, and that was Soari’s scolding, telling me telling me that I acted far too recklessly and brash.

Verdammt nochmal, she gets scarier and scarier, the stronger she gets. Still, she’s right, I really should tone down my impulsiveness to avoid misunderstandings like with the wyverns…

“Sigh…,” I sighed in exasperation as I reflected on my behavior.

Noticing this, both Tasianna and Mister Kushlek’zar turned their heads, prompting the younger of the two to ask me with curiosity, “Hmm? Is something the matter, Hestia?”

“Ah, sorry about that. I was just thinking about what happened before. It's still irking me that you saw through my [Identity Blocker] so easily,” I complained to the elder scale.

I mean, [Identity Blocker] was level ten. TEN! It wasn’t the level that annoyed me, but the fact that my 1750 SP investment was completely fucking useless! I couldn’t level anymore, meaning I couldn’t earn more SP, until I evolve. This wouldn’t have been a big loss when I was younger, but it honestly hurts when I'm at this stage.

“Hmm? I believe I explained everything to you, correct?” Mister Kushlek’zar stated with a finger on his chin. “About how [Identity Blocker] was a skill suited for the hectic field of battle, while its use will deteriorate once everything calmed down. If I would have fought you, it would have taken me a few minutes to realize your true nature, Lady Dragoness, and in a fight to the death, every second is precious.”

“However, in that case, wouldn’t it be better to just completely hide your whole status board? It would be a contest between your [Identify] and my [Identity Blocker],” I argued back.

“Correct, Hestia. That is [Identity Blocker]’s true usage. Information is key and every second that you have to work without knowing what your opponent is planning is perilous. Besides sensitive titles or skills, only custom spells or abilities are worth hiding," Mister Kushlek’zar explained. “That is why, Miss Dragoness, I suggest that you and your companions issue an ID, post haste. If possible, get yourselves ones that allows you to hide certain information on them. Ahh, the wonders of Altrust’s technology astound me every time I witness them.”

After Mister Kushlek’zar correctly identified me as a dragon, he also did the same with Tasianna, exposing that she wasn’t a wind elf. While there wasn’t much evidence for him to prove Saori was also a shapeshifter, he still was suspicious about it.

Asking him how he guessed it, he explained to me that he had three reasons that pretty much confirmed his hypothesis that I wasn’t just a normal dragonewt.

First, it was something only a mage would be able to identify, and that would be my lack of [Mana Control], [Arcane Mind], and [Arcane Corruption Resistance]. Pretty embarrassing of me to forget this fact, but the thing is that besides for [Mana Control], the two latter skills were always fused with [Primal Magics], and [Draconic Magics] later on, ever since I was born.

[Mana Control] is needed to move your mana through your body, [Arcane Mind] allowed you to learn spells, and some sort of [Arcane Corruption Resistance] was something beginners like Saori always got after they started using magic to level up their skills. Without these, most people couldn’t become fully-fledged mages.

The second reason was my lack of “claws” and “fangs” skills. As I had the superior versions [Draconic Claws] and [Draconic Fangs], I couldn’t exactly show them as they, you guessed it, sounded pretty dragon-like, right?

Grazlahta, the red carnotaurus-looking saurian, mentioned how dangerous my claws looked. Only Dummköpfe or somebody who is not used to clawed beastmen wouldn’t have noticed it.

And the last reason was that my job was “None”. Mister Kushlek’zar was a 64-year-old mage who has probably taught one or two people in the art of magic before, so somebody like him would become suspicious when a 15-year-old were to appear with so many high-leveled skills without ever having taken a Job.

Let me make this clear that skills are hard to level up the higher they got. I’ve only been able to do this at an accelerated phase due to skill points and my monster evolutions. However, dragonewts couldn’t evolve normally, which begs the questions of how the hell I got so many skills.

Mister Kushlek’zar just explained to me that humanoids like him depended on the Job system to level their skills up faster. Changing Jobs not only granted skill proficiency but also stat increases. Pretty nifty, right?

…Which means, how much SP have I actually wasted here? I used 1750 SP to get [Identity Blocker Lv. 10]…but it proved to be completely useless. Now, how many easy to level up skills have I spent SP on that I could have easily leveled up with the Job system?

…Fucking hell. Fucking hell. Verdammte Scheiße…I think I need a moment, otherwise, I’ll explode here.

…ARGH, how much SP have I wasted, waaaaaaaaaaaaah!

“Anyways, anyways, so about the Job system…is it really that powerful as you made it to be?” I asked Mister Kushlek’zar, ignoring how much my pride as a gamer just broke into pieces…regardless of the fact that I never was the best to begin with.

Nodding in confirmation, Mister Kushlek’zar began his explanation, “If evolution is what makes monsters into the indomitable beings that they are, then the Job system is what allows humanoid races to catch up to them. Stats, skill proficiency, and Job-specific abilities and spells are what makes this system so important. A monster receiving the [Humanize] skill is rare, but I have heard you can receive a Job with it, young scale.”

“Mhmm,” I stared at him in wonder. “If that is true, then…doesn’t that mean that I can become even stronger without having to worry about evolving?”

“Ha ha ha, that is very much true, young scale,” Mister Kushlek’zar laughed merrily, finding joy in my excitement. “I have heard this from the people of the Republic of the Aquapolis, Caedhul. The levianewts, nagas, and merfolk there are all followers of the Goddess of Water, Plesia, so I can assure you that they are not twisting the truth around their tails.”

Enjoying how curious I was about it, the saurian continued laughing as he pulled out what seemed like a card from beneath his robes. Showing it to me, the first thing that I thought was that it looked exactly like an ID card that you would be able to find on Earth.

It was a cyan-colored card that was split into two sides. On the right side, you had his personal information like his name, level, Job, and age, while the left side was adorned by a beautiful emblem that depicted a trident jumping out of the ocean, piercing a fish in the sky.

From what I heard from Tasianna, an ID was a manatech like our party bracelets, a Peolyncian invention that is powered up by a mana battery to activate its System-like functions. Although I was unaware of how they were able to do it, I still found it pretty intriguing how you can fit anything into such a small, thin card.

I mean, this is a foreign technology in a world filled with mana and magic. Who wouldn’t want to know more about it?

“This is what an ID looks like. Everybody has a past, and I won’t push you to dispel my ignorance on it, Lady Dragoness. All you need to know is once you reach a town with access to a [Crystal of the Divine System], then you should issue IDs for all three of you. Your elven friend should know the importance,” directing his eyes to Tasianna, Mister Kushlek’zar gave her a nod, signaling to her if she understood it. “I would recommend the town Firwood to the north of Carine Village. It isn’t the friendliest place, but it gives you access to most combat-predominant guilds. Unfortunately for you, it doesn’t have a mages guild for you to register at, which is a shame as a fellow seeker of the arcane.”

Noticing a sudden change in the emblem of Mister Kushlek’zar ID, my curiosity was once again piqued by this new experience. Knowing that I could display my party bracelet’s party menu by pouring mana into it, I guessed that Mister Kushlek’zar was doing the same thing with his ID, as it was a manatech.

Driven by my want to learn, I reluctantly activated [Mana Eyes] for five seconds to grasp the mechanism of this object. What was revealed to me was well worth the headache that I received from activating this taxing skill.

Once Mister Kushlek’zar’s mana flowed into the ID, the blue energy quickly joined together into one mana condensed area, most likely the mana battery, before being released in one direction like a river. Enveloping the emblem, the mana started to escape from the card as it activated the IDs function, reforming it into a completely new emblem until all the mana was turned into small blue particles.

"As you already know, I am a mercenary, aside from my duty as a Tide Watcher. That means that I receive and accept Quests at the ‘Mercenary Guild’, a guild focused on dealing with humanoids. It can range from simply helping them with fetch requests to high risk Quests like these,” Mister Kushlek’zar said nonchalantly. “However, there is another guild similar to this called the ‘Hunters Guild’ which focuses on monster subjugation and material acquirement. Together with the mercenary guild, members of these two guilds are called ‘Adventurers’.”

Looking at the emblem with [Mana Eyes] activated, I could only say that it was pretty simple compared to the other one. All the emblem showed was a lance, a sword, and an axe placed behind a shield. Noting really fancy or colorful. Was this the mercenary guild’s emblem?

“I suggest you join one of them, as they provide official ID registrations. Once we finish this Quest, you will probably receive some money, but you will need even more if you wish to stay in a town or city,” finally finished, Mister Kushlek’zar placed his ID back into his pocket and gave me a smile.

“Thank you very much, Mister Kushlek’zar. That was really informative,” I said with genuine gratitude. “Although, the first emblem on your ID…what was that?”

“Oh, you mean the trident one? That is the emblem of the 'Tide Watchers'. The trident flying out of the water represents how the members of this group would wander away from our homes, close to the water, to travel the world to bring justice. Piercing the fish is a symbol of us performing this justice by any means possible," he explained. "It actually isn't a saurian faction, but one created by Plesia’s faithful. Caedhul, the aquapolis, the center of Plesia’s faith, that is where our group originated from…oh, I think your wolfkin friend is calling for us to hurry up.”

As we were talking, we eventually reached the site where we found Lorena. Lead by Saori’s nose, we made it back here at a good pace without needing to hurry up as we did this morning. Compared to us, the saurians had to carry around all their equipment, which included their cooking and camping tools. Although I suggested to them that I could store everything in my storage magic, they refused.

They explained that this is all part of their traditions, especially the giant crocodile-looking saurian, named Akasht, who felt threatened by me. It was his job to act as the pack mule and he took pride in being able to carry all the luggage of his fellow companions.

The saurians also explained that rushing the rescue Quest was unnecessary, arguing that the threat of winter would prevent any large-scale mobilizations from people like bandits. It was already hard to prepare winter rations for ordinary folk, but it was even harder for lawless people as they had to gather and hunt for a large community of backstabbers and belligerent fighters.

Mister Kushlek’zar said, “Most of these men only have respect for their leader while having little loyalty towards the group. Winter is harsh and every man must fight for themselves.” According to him, it was normal for whole groups of bandits to fight over supplies, so it was very unlikely that a smart leader would relocate.

Saori argued with, “What about the kidnapped?” and “Shouldn’t they be aware that they are hunted?” but Mister Kushlek’zar quickly shot those down, too.

“As much as it pains me, the Tide Watchers cannot save everybody. We have our own duties and responsibilities so our safety must come first. Besides, I personally do not believe that our targets will move any time soon. You remember the mercenary group that Chief Colwyn mentioned? I have little faith that the bandits have taken no casualties.”

While I wasn’t satisfied with his answer, I had to admit that “hastes makes waste” as my dance instructor always told me. I promised Lorena, yes, but falling into a trap isn’t worth it. I could only hope that Mister Kushlek’zar was correct.

“Good work, Saori,” I told my friend. “I know we were here just this morning, but it’s still awesome that you found it in these woods. Your sense of smell must have gotten better, right?”

“Yeah, the more days pass, the better I get with detecting a certain scent among thousands. My new body is still growing, after all,” Saori said with contentment, proudly tapping her nose. “Although, that meant being in the village was a bit tiring. You understand, right?”

Grimacing, I nodded my head in agreement, “The stink…well, I guess without a proper irrigation system, they had to throw the poop and pee somewhere. I’d just wish they dug a hole like when we do our ‘business’.”

I had a pretty well-developed nose but Saori’s was even better, seeing as she had [Primal Senses] and the body of a cadejo, a giant wolf monster. Although it was unpleasant due to how stinky Carine village was, we couldn’t do anything else but to endure it.

I mean, we have to, uh, smell each other after our “business”, after all. It also doesn’t help that nearly all of Saori’s body was covered in fur. The amount of times that she had to ask Tasianna for water in a day is baffling.

Ahhh, having a good sense of smell is such a curse.

Anyway, Saori was able to detect remnants of Lorena’s scent around the area and managed to find a trail, which matched the vague directions that Lorena gave us. They weren’t detailed enough for us to work with, so having Saori’s nose on our side is a godsend.

We continued as far as we could until the sky started to become orange. Knowing full well that going any further today was foolish, all of us agreed on making camp for the night.

After taking out our cooking tools and a few ingredients we started preparing dinner, while the saurians prepared the tents. Luckily for us, Akasht carried an extra tent that was large enough for us three to fit inside, which means that we won’t be sleeping with a view of the stars tonight.

With the cooking finished, we began serving both warm tea and stew with meat kebab to everybody. Interesting to note, Tasianna was acting quite cheerful around the saurians, finding joy in the fact that every single one of the them was a follower of Plesia. Compared to her attitude with Lorena and in the villagers, I could only say it was day and night.

Finished filling a large stone bowl, which was larger than me, with stew, I carried it over to Akasht, the huge crocodile saurian.

…You’re wondering why I have such a huge bowl ready? Well, I was curious if I could eat from it in my dragon form, but that, unfortunately, wasn’t as effective as just eating it as a dragonewt.

Anyway, interested in starting a conversation with him, I spoke to Akasht as I handed him his meal, “Hey, Mister Akasht? Here is your stew. I hope you like it~” I said with a wide grin.

“Tha…nk you…, Mi…ss Dra…gon,” he thanked me slowly with a deep, bellowing voice. "…Mhmmm, gragk escliel saotl, higrm gomak es, shevak.”

Unable to understand what he just said, I could only tilt my head in confusion, however, that didn’t last long as one of the carnotaurus saurians came up to me, "Hey, young scale. He said, 'Mhmmm, this meal is nice, you are a good cook, Miss Dragon.’ and I have to agree too, cause this stuff is better than what Kush can make, ha!”

“Uhm, oh, Krim-Slak, right? Thank you for translating that for me,” I greeted the blue saurian. “Is what he just said in your language?”

“Kri, young scale. Sarcosilians like Akasht are as intelligent as any other saurians, but unfortunately, they don’t sound too smart because their throat can’t pronounce Common tongue words. That’s why he speaks ‘Aelulash’ with us. It’s easier for him,” the elder scale explained to me with a full mouth, continuously consuming more stew despite speaking with me.

Ew.

“‘Aelulash’? Is that your native tongue?” I asked, ignoring how disgusting his eating habits were.

“Kri, it’s the language of the continent that we came from. As you might have heard from Kush, we aren’t Altrust natives,” Krim-lak stated, dropping his spoon and emptying his mouth before speaking this time. “We saurians come from over the oceans of the Goddess, from a jungle-filled place we call ‘Aelozonia’. Trees everywhere, like the Belzac forest where you once were. We only got over to Altrust because a Caedhul expedition team found our spawn-elders there and didn’t just kill them off, ah ha ha ha!”

Slamming his tail on the ground, Krim-Slak continued with a merry laugh, “You know, I gotta thank your wolfkin friend. After Kush became an official priest for the Depths Guards, he lost his touch as a hunter and tracker. Even as a Tide Watcher, he’s still too rusty, so Saori really helped us out here.”

“Oh, I did wonder why his evasion and tracking skills were so high, despite being a mage. Then again, that’s the same thing for me,” I remarked with a confused frown. “Oh yeah, I wanted to ask you about your race, Krim-Slak. Mister Kushlek’zar is a ‘Raptosilian’ and Mister Akasht is a ‘Sarcosilian’, right?”

“Urgh, come on young scale, you could call me ‘mister’, too. Or at least ‘old scale’. Anything to show that I’m older than you,” Krim-Slak requested with a plea.

Sorry, Krim-Slak, but you lost most of my respect by speaking with your mouth full. I felt the spit hitting me, I justified to myself, staying silent to signal the blue saurian that I wouldn’t budge.

“Urgh…anyways, to answer your question, me and Grazlahta are ‘Carnosilians’. Raptorsilian, carnosilian, and sarcosilian are the three main races that comprise us saurians. All of us have our own roles in saurian society,” he explained. “Raptosilians like Kush are responsible for hunting small fry and being priests for our God Xohulotel. Carnosilians like me are builders and heavy-duty artisans, although, don’t you dare underestimate us in a battle, girl, we fight with the ferocity of Aelozonia’s monster-infested jungles.”

Roaring out a war cry, Krim-Slak flaunted his muscle and power, releasing a blood-chilling aura as he stared at me with a bestial focus. While I knew he wasn’t serious about it, it was still incredibly intimidating and suffocating when another predator glared at you with unrestrained bloodthirst, baring his dinosaur fangs right in front of my face.

I couldn’t do anything but ready my claws and return his glare with a burning gaze, commanding him to back off by heating up the air around me.

“…Gooooood, I like those warrior eyes of yours, Hestia. You don’t need to fight but don’t show weakness in front of others when they challenge you. Remember that when you enter the merc or hunter guild, aright? Hmph, scale-kins should look out for each other,” Krim-Slak tapped my shoulders with a menacing, but kind, grin.

Was this his attempt in trying to gain respect from me? If so, then I won’t fall for it. Sorry, Krim-Slak.

“Anyway, back to where I left off. The last are the sarcosilians, like Akasht over there,” he pointed at the slow eating hulk. “Transporters during peace, but unstoppable juggernauts during war. That’s why he didn’t agree with letting your carry his stuff. Those big guys take pride in being able to carry anything and everything. It’s even more meaningful when they carry the stuff of the priests they are assigned to guard.”

“Huh, you mean, Mister Kushlek’zar?” I asked, pointing at the elder scale mage who was merrily talking with Saori and Tasianna about cooking and tea making.

Nodding, Krim-slak continued, “Yeah, sarcosilians find the most joy if they are assigned to a raptorsilian priest, as we believe that serving a priest is akin to serving Plesia and Xohulotel. We carnosilians and sarcosilians aren’t the best mages, you see.”

“That so?” understanding the situation, I turned towards Akasht who finished enjoying his meal. “I’m really sorry about what I suggested back then, Mister Akasht. I didn’t know your circumstances.”

“It…is…alright, Mi…ss Drago…n,” he said slowly with a nod. “I carry…your stuff…if you…wa…nt.”

Allowing him to carry the massive stone bowl, I told him to put it next to the cauldron so I could give him a second serving. As I was about to follower the big guy, Krim-slak spoke to me, asking me for a favor, “Yo, young scale, if you get the chance after this Quest, do us old scales a favor and teach Kush this recipe. Guy isn’t the best cook and he tries his best to recreate Aelozonian dishes but without our continent’s spices, it ain’t gonna cut it. Save our tongues, young scale.”

Showing him a wry smile, all I could do was to slightly nod to his request, I’ll just leave this to Saori, I thought.

After filling Akasht’s bowl up, Mister Kushlek’zar suddenly called out for me to come to him. Sitting myself down on the cold ground, I waited for the elder scale to speak.

“Now, Hestia, I would first like to give my thanks for an impeccable dinner. ‘Never is a dinner dull, when one shares it with others’ especially when it can warm one up during these cold nights,” Mister Kushlek’zar started. “And now to the second part…as you’ve requested from me, let us begin this magic theory lecture.”

A note from AbyssRaven

As I don't know if most of you have read my new author's note in the last chapter, the (Dra: stat) in Hestia's last status board was purely a reader-only feature. As a reader suggested me to do this, I wanted to try it out if it was good or not.

Anyway, the serious part is done, so I'm back to being me. Yo, so much lore, yo! Aelozonia, yo, yo , yo!

...Ok, maybe that was a bit cringy from me. Parallel mind #2 will probably smack me for embarrassing myself in front of everybody.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 77: Lizards playing with Magic.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #2 here to promote our patreon. 10 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork!  Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 10 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until August!

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Stroking the feather plumage on his head, Mister Kushlek’zar muttered “Create Water”, producing a blue magic circle in his other hand which slowly poured water onto the ground, “Custom spells. I’ve asked Miss Tasianna about what she thought of you. Is it true that not only was she your first magic tutor but that you’ve also learned the basic four phases of magic casting from her?”

Forming a wry smile, I nodded in response.

“…I’ve promised not to ask your circumstance, but my curiosity grows ever more the more I learn how ignorant I am. Just like the God Istari, we mages will always wish to seek knowledge,” Mister Kushlek’zar said with a short sigh.

If I remembered Tasianna’s theology lessons correctly, then this god should be a member of Aurena’s pantheon. Acting as the God of Knowledge and Magic, Istari serves as the god that overwatches all mages.

Despite only being a subordinate god, Istari is considered an incredibly important figure among mages, embodying all the values that one should uphold as a practitioner of the arcane.

Mister Kushlek’zar might be a priest in the service of Plesia and Xohulotel, but it seems he valued Istari as much as Tasianna mentioned.

“I really wish to question how you grew up to be such a fine young lady with such extraordinary amounts of talent in the arcane arts while knowing barely anything about the world. I had about the same evaluation of your friend Saori, although, I found her maturity quite fascinating. You two mystify me,” he remarked, still stroking his plumage.

Unable to break my wry smile, I could only nervously swallow my spit as I stayed silent before the saurian’s inquisitive glare.

Once he noticed that he was making me feel uncomfortable he quickly apologized, “Well, that was terribly rude of me, apologies, Hestia. Do not worry, I’ll keep my word to not push you into elucidating it, after all, I very much sympathize with you concerning your ignorance of the world.”

“You do?” blinking my eyes in surprise, I reflexively asked him about it.

Nodding in confirmation, he continued speaking, “I’ve overheard Krim-slak speaking with you, so you should know about the saurian's history, yes?"

I nodded.

“Good, then this should make it easier for me to explain. You see, the ships from the Caedhul expedition did not have enough space to transport all of us to Altrust. Every half decade, ships meant for our migration would come, but even now, many of my fellow scale-kins are still in the vast jungle of Aelozonia,” he explained. “I was among the few that had to wait a few decades to come over here, but once I did, I had to say that it was worth the wait.”

He then took out his ID again and even revealed the party bracelet under the sleeve of his robe, "I was amazed by the technology. How could mortals create tools which complemented the God's System? Simply astounding. Compared to saurian society, we were embarrassingly behind."

He then packed everything back into his robe and continued, "I've learned here that traveling from Altrust to Aelozonia took time and money, and this money doesn’t come from thin air. Many of us saurians have joined the Tide Watchers for this very reason. Being a Depths Guard was an honor, but I wanted to learn more of this continent while also earning money to help my scale-kins.”

“…So when you mentioned that you sympathized with me…,” I muttered as I glanced as his party bracelet which bared the symbol of Plesia.

“I meant that I also once felt overwhelmed by everything. As if I was transported into a whole new world, with how different this continent was to mine,” he admitted, tugging a few of my heartstrings as I clenched my hands into a fist. “If you wish to blend among society, then remember what I told you today, young scale. That also includes the magic lesson that I will give you in a minute, ha ha ha ha.”

Listening to how much he’s revealed about himself, I followed along with his laughter with a giggle, feeling a bit of a kinship with him.

Although my circumstances were a bit more complicated, I understood what he meant by it. Whether it was the System or the magic or how beautiful my first flying experience was, I could vividly remember all the “WOW!” moments I had in this world that just blew my mind away.

“Yeah, I guess I was acting a bit childish today when you showed me your ID. That emblem change was a real surprise,” I said with a grin, scratching my cheek in embarrassment.

"Oh, really? Well, speaking of surprises, did you know that saurians aren't considered beastmen?" he casually dropped. “What?” I uttered.

“Beastmen are children between humans and monsters. We saurians do not share that link. We are spawn of the jungles of Aelozonia,” Mister Kushlek’zar mentioned. “Also, I was also pretty intrigued by how varied the males and females are among the races of Altrust. Saurian males and females all look the same, among our three races.”

“HUH?!”

“And then there was that-” he was about to continue but I quickly interrupted him.

“Stop! Stop! STOP! Enough! I think I’ve had enough random information dumps for tonight. Can we just skip all of that and get to the magic, please?” I said in a rush, wishing to end this before it turned into Trivial Pursuit.

“Hmm, a mage should always seek more knowledge, especially when you do not know much of the world, young scale. Still, if that is what you wish, Hestia, I shall oblige,” seemingly quite disappointed at my abrupt stop to his trivial session, Mister Kushlek’zar gave an elaborate sigh before looking at me with stern eyes. “First, I require you to show me your full status board. No [Identity Blocker]. I cannot determine your current strength without all the information.”

I guess it does make sense. Without showing my draconic skills and [Toxin Secretion], he won’t be able to fully know what I can do. Still, I shouldn’t show my titles, [The Light]'s spells, nor the SP System to him at all costs.

After tweaking my status board, I nodded to his request, allowing him to use [Identify] on me again. Needing a moment to process all the information, I waited for him to finish his thinking.

"Hmm, alright. Besides your draconic skills and abilities, you didn’t hide many skills at all. Although, that [Toxin Secretion] sounds pretty dangerous," he said with a grim expression before shrugging. "Anyway, it seems you really do not have any advanced magic skills. I was wondering how you were able to cast so many spells this morning, but it seems your [Parallel Thoughts Lv. 9] was the reason. Interesting.”

Stroking his raptor-looking head’s jaw, the elder scale took another moment to think before continuing, “The four processes of magic casting, recite now!”

“Huh?! Wha-?! Uhm," staggered by his sudden demand, it took me a second to work my brain. "Invocation, Incantation, Activation, and Release!" I responded, reluctantly remembering why I always hated this flash questioning that teachers would sometimes do.

“Good. Invocation to command how your spell should work, Incantation to prepare your spell, Activation to fuel your spell with mana, and Release to cast your spell. This is the foundation of magic casting, proper mages can repeat it the second I ask for it,” he scolded me.

Urgh, give me a break, I haven’t been to school for seven months now.

“The reason why I am emphasizing this so much is if you wish to become a better magic practitioner, then you must master all four. Magic is as fluid as water, ever-changing and always adapting. Your vast mana will help you improve, but it will never be the reason why you became a true master,” he explained. “If you master the basics, then you will advance naturally to the next level. Invocation for [Fluid Cast], Incantation for [Multi-Cast], Activation for [Delayed Cast], and Release for [Continuous Cast]. I have those skills in my status board, so look the descriptions up now.”

Identify, I diligently listened to my magic tutor.

Fluid Cast

An advanced form of magic casting made into a skill. Allows the user to morph and change a spell’s form depending on their will

Multi-Cast

An advanced form of magic casting made into a skill. Allows the user to directly control multiple spells simultaneously without needing to fully cast one. Its effectiveness is influenced by the [Concentration] skill

Delayed Cast

An advanced form of magic casting made into a skill. Allows the user to fuel the magic circle of a spell with additional mana to sustain it before releasing it

Continuous Cast

An advanced form of magic casting made into a skill. Allows the user to sustain a spell's magic circle for multiple casts, continuously draining more mana the longer it is sustained. Its effectiveness is influenced by the [Mana Efficiency] skill

Hmm, some of these techniques sound familiar.

“Is something the matter?” Mister Kushlek’zar asked.

“Nothing really. I just think I’ve been able to do some of them for a while now, but haven’t gotten the respective skills,” I answered.

Intrigued by my statement, Mister Kushlek’zar requested me to display them for him. For [Fluid Cast], I showed him that I was able to materialize spells in different sizes depending on how I imagined it be.

“Good, it seems you’ve understood the fundamentals of [Fluid Cast]. However, that is not the limit of Invocation. Observe, Hestia," with that said, he then began casting [Water Bolt], morphing the bullet-like form of the spell into a spear. "A mass of water hitting the head will stun people, but a sharp, concentrated water spear can even pierce armor. An offensive spell can also act as a defense. The potential of our God's spells is limited by your ability to control mana. Interestedly enough, this is the origin of custom spells."

For [Delayed Cast], I showed him my self-made bombs, showing him the magic circles that I’ve attached to them, explaining that they will activate the moment I inject my mana into them.

"Fascinating, it seems your experimentations have caused you to accidentally start with the fundamentals of runecraft, however, as you are using the System-made spells, you haven't received [Runecraft] yet,” he explained. “Also, that [Storage Magic] you just showed me, that is [Space-Time Magic], right? How in the world did you manage to learn such a rare skill? I must reevaluate your potential once again it seems, ha ha ha.”

As Mister Kushlek’zar was laughing, I was quietly pouting at the fact that none of what I showed was enough to impress him. Lately, it seems my pride as a mage has been continuously tested, from my inability to cast my custom spell and my lack of mastery of the fundamentals of magic.

“Ha ha ha, don’t be so disappointed, young scale. Don’t focus on what you haven’t learned yet, but on what you have already achieved. How old are you and when did Miss Tasianna teach you about magic theory?” he consoled me. “You are still young and you’ve already achieved this much. You already have the hard part behind yourself: leveling up your skills. Now you only need to master it, which only requires time and diligence.”

Casting another spell on his palm, this time [Water Ball], he morphed the shape of the spell into a star, "Our time together is limited until we finish the Quest, afterward, my party must set forth to continue our duties as members of the Tide Watchers. That is why I shall teach you the basics of the four advanced skills and how to practice them. How fast you improve will depend on your willingness to learn. Now, let us start with [Fluid Cast] as this is what you need to construct your own custom spell.”

This is where the real lecture started. Miss Kushlek’zar would start with the theory behind each of the four skills while demonstrating an example as a reference for me. He then asked me to start practicing Invocation. In other words, he wanted me to acquire [Fluid Cast] first.

Whether I actually gained the skill or not was irrelevant for today. It only mattered that I understood his lecture, he explained. Polishing my foundation would be integral for me to learn more advance custom spells.

Doing this was actually the harder method. Usually, he would teach me one or two beginner-level custom spells like [Create Water] or [Greater Create Water] to help me improve, but as he only knew water spells in addition to my low affinity for that element made it hard for me to learn them, he decided that it would be better for me to just become a better caster.

I couldn’t ask for a better teaching philosophy as this was exactly what my dance instructor always told me. “Haste makes waste” and “Solidify the foundation before you start dancing on it”, were two of his most often used phrases.

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

While I was focusing on my own practice, Saori and Tasianna came over to us and also asked Mister Kushlek’zar to tutor them on the basics.

Saori, compared to me, had the opportunity to learn [Water Magic] not by spending SP but naturally by increasing her proficiency for it through learning [Create Water]. Unlike a monster, most humanoid races learn magic by first learning how to cast a custom spell, then they would transition to the System-made spells like [Water Ball].

Tasianna, as she always mentions, was a simple maid before she met us, having only a limited magical education. To make up for neglecting to further her magic training during her time in the fairy’s village, she needed a water element specialist like Mister Kushlek’zar as a tutor. Acquiring even one of his custom spells could benefit her immensely.

As they were doing this, I continued trying to gain [Fluid Cast].

Ok, Firebolt. Morph the form. Morph the form. Make it into an arrow to make it fly faster. Increase the speed and po-eaaaaakkkkk!

“FOCUS, HESTIA!” my magic tutor shouted into my ear, causing my eardrums to ring. “On a battlefield, your goal as a mage is to continue the casting process while avoiding being distracted! You can’t level up [Concentration] if you can’t multitask!”

Urgh, shouting into my ear and scaring me by splashing cold water at my exposed back, after I took off my cape, were the few ways that Mister Kushlek’zar would use to disrupt my focus. It was honestly super annoying, but I understood the intent behind his actions. It really felt like this was the best training method for [Concentration].

I could technically use my parallel minds to help me multitask but that would be cheating. I couldn’t avoid unpleasant stuff if I wanted to become better. It was the same thing with my dance instructor’s training. Repeating the same movements is super boring but how am I supposed to get better if I didn’t? Diligence and determination, I’ve been through this already, and I can do it again.

“Mister Kushlek’zar is this teaching method truly necessary-eek!” noticing my plight, Tasianna wanted to come to my defense but quickly received a finger snap to her forehead.

“You have nothing to say, Miss Tasianna. You too are a pure beginner when it comes to the arcane arts. 87 years old but your class is merely [Mage]? Inconceivable as a member of the elven race, masters of martial and arcane arts. I will sharpen your fangs, Miss Wind Elf,” Kushlek’zar sternly scolded my friend.

We haven’t told the saurians about Tasianna’s fairy origin yet as she didn’t want to reveal it. Although, Mister raptorsilian did show his displeasure, he respected her decision and was treating her to the standards of a member of the elven race, instead.

“Witness Miss Saori’s diligence, Miss Tasianna. She hasn’t stopped the construction of her magic circle yet, despite how loud the surrounding is. IS THAT NOT CORRECT, SCALE-KINS!” he shouted once again.

“KRIIIIIIIIIIIIII, I’M SHARPENING MY HALBERD-honestly, we shouldn’t be shouting during the night, Kush. Unwanted visitors might hear us,” Krim-slak the blue carnosilian responded with a frown.

“Don’t let your old habits appear again, Kush. You were considered one of the worst instructors by most of the Tide Watcher’s trainees back in Caedhul. You don’t even have the [Instruction] skill yet, because of how slow your students learned skills,” Grazlahta the red carnosilian casually commented as he focused on maintaining his axe.

“Grrrrrr….zzzzz,” while all this was happening, the massive sarcosilian, Akasht, was already fast asleep.

…Honestly, I never imagined Mister Kushlek’zar to be such a dork when it comes to magic…huh?

<Acquisition requirement fulfilled. [Fluid Cast Lv. 1] acquired>

“Oh?! As your scales just clattered, I just got [Instruction]. Did one of you three get one of the skills?” Kushlek’zar said as he tilted his green-scaled head.

Raising my hand and saying “me”, he went over to me and sat down while holding onto a long stick, “Perfect, thank you for being the one to grant me this skill. It would seem like my affinity for it was bad enough that it took me eight years to learn it, ha ha ha. Ok, now that you’ve learned [Fluid Cast], let me now explain to you how to properly construct a custom spell. You told me that the System already registered it?”

I explained to him how I received the spell, retelling how it happened when I was frustrated during a fight where the System randomly gave me it. Mister Kushlek’zar was quite intrigued by it but couldn’t understand how it happened to me.

He mentioned that it was common for the invention of a new spell to begin with the magician experimenting with different mental images while writing down the magic circle for the spell. After numerous tests and the construction of a proper Incantation and magic circle, the spell would be put to the test under the eyes of fellow magicians to scrutinize every bit of it.

Until this was down, the spell would not be acknowledged by the System.

“You are becoming more fascinating by the second. Come, show me your spell and we will work on it together, Hestia.”

Obeying him, I recited the Incantation of my spell and constructed the magic circle. I followed through the proper magic casting process as I’ve learned from Tasianna and Mister Kushlek’zar. Invocation, Incantation, and Activation. It was all down with ease, however, like during my battle against Astalos the wyvern, I couldn’t execute the Release of the spell.

“Tch, dammit, not again,” I said disheartened.

“Hmm, as you’ve correctly presumed, the runes for the magic circle do not match your Incantation. I suspect you’ve not mastered the Common tongue alphabet yet, correct? Are you illiterate?” he asked, causing me to shrink down in embarrassment.

Speaking and reading a language was completely different. It took me merely two months to learn how to conduct a proper conversation with others, but I was still learning the grammar and writing rules for Common tongue. It couldn’t be helped that I still had trouble.

“Unfortunate, indeed. That is why the first thing initiates learn is to read and write. Custom spells require you to know the language,” Mister Kushlek’zar explained.

With the stick in one hand, he started writing my whole Incantation down with Common tongue letters before showing me how it should look like as rune in a magic circle. With that in mind, he told me to work on it, telling me that some of the words sounded off and that my imagination of the spell could use a revision.

This whole magic lecture lasted for three hours until it was late enough that we could see the moon. Understanding that we needed to rest, we all agreed to end today’s magic lessons. Our party quickly thanked the saurian priest for everything that he’d done for us and then retreated into our tent.

It was quite spacious since this was made to accommodate the saurians, so all three of us had enough room to sleep without needing to squash each other. We discussed what happened today and how we could improve in the future before slowly falling asleep due to fatigue.

During the night, I suddenly woke up as I had to, uh, ‘water the flowers’. Slipping out of the tent soundlessly, I planned to quickly go to a bush and then go back to the tent, but my attention was attracted to the fact that one of the saurians was sitting beside the campfire.

“Mister Grazlahta?” I said as I came closer to the fire, recognizing the red carnosilian.

“Oh, Hestia? You’re still awake?” he responded.

“I, uh, needed to go to a bush. Uhm, I could ask you the same question,” I answered back.

“Hmm? It’s not like I couldn’t go to sleep. Somebody has to keep watch, don’t you think? You can’t let your guard down during the night, even if you have [Enhanced Enemy Sense] or [Detection Sensor],” he stated while feeding the fire with more bits of plant matter as fuel.

Realizing why he was doing it, I used [Pyrokinesis] and fed it my mana instead to keep it going, "Oh, I'm sorry for that. Our party forgot to offer to help."

“Jikla, don’t worry about it. Considering you had to go through a magic lesson under Kush’s tutelage, I think you fully deserve a good night’s sleep,” he said, causing me to form a wry smile as I couldn’t argue back. “Oh yeah, thanks for keeping the flame fueled. You really have an impressive mana capacity considering you can just donate mana like this, despite your age. Most priests require years of training to get as much as yours, and that is only to reach your humanized form’s mana limits.”

Abruptly losing the desire to empty my bladder, I simply sat at the campfire with Grazlahta, staring into the starry sky that I sleep with every night.

After stoking the fire a couple times, the saurian turned his head towards me and spoke, “Say, Hestia, you still haven’t answered Kush’s question. About if you’ve ever ended a sentient person’s life before.”

“…I guess I did,” I answered.

“You ‘guess’?”

“You know about the race Grimgarians, right?” I asked him, waiting for him to nod before I continued. “Kobolds, orcs, and a couple of trolls. Demi-humans. I don’t know what society views them as, but I’ve recently learned that they were pretty similar to wind elves. You know, the fact that they are spawn of Gods.”

Wind elves are the children of Zephira, the Goddess of Wind, and Krunal, the God of Weather and Harvest, while grimgarians were born by Marsven, the God of Darkness, and Edna, the Goddess of Monsters and Fertility.

I always treated kobolds, orcs, and trolls like any other monster as I was used to them always being ones according to Earth’s media, but now that I’ve listened to Tasianna’s time with the trolls, I had to question this very idea.

I knew the System considered them to be monsters ‘cause they had a monster rank and could evolve, but what would that make me then? I was the same way; I had a rank given by the System and I could evolve into many variations of dragons but am I not sentient? Could I not reflect on my own actions and learn from them, while hoping and wishing to pursue a goal that didn’t revolve around the five basic needs?

Although it was very hostile, those trolls wished to go to war against the humans ‘cause of some selfish reason, a very “human” way of thinking. Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve started to consider them similar to humans and beastmen.

“Hmm, society treat all grimgarians, like goblins and orcs, like monsters, as they are handled by the hunters guild rather than the mercenary guild,”Grazlahta answered in a textbook way, lacking in overloading energy like his blue carnosilian companion. “However, I do understand what you mean by that. Then let me rephrase the question, ‘Have you ever killed a human or beastman, yet’?”

“…No,” I uttered truthfully. “I do admit that I am a bit hesitant about the idea. I can’t exactly explain to you why I am feeling that way, but I just feel a bit nauseous concerning the idea of killing humans. Urgh, I know I shouldn’t be saying this to you now, I’m sorry.”

The nausea itself wasn’t due to me not wanting to kill humans but it was a by-product of my fear of hurting Saori and Tasianna if I couldn’t control my urges. I know that they reassured me about it, but I still felt insecure about my ability to stop.

That’s why I felt conflicted about killing a human. Could I do it? Could I do it similarly to how I ended the lives of numerous amounts of animals and monsters in the Belzac forest over my seven months of living there?

What will I feel when I do it?

“…Don’t lose your tail over it, young scale. Saurians don’t think like that nor do Tide Watchers initiates. When you join something like the mercenary guild, where you will have to fight against humans and beastmen someday, then you should understand and accept that idea before the day comes and smacks you in the face with reality,” Grazlaht remarked with unwavering eyes. “As a warrior, the only things I put my trust into are my weapons and people that I’ve fought together with. Kush informed me about your status board already, but that isn’t enough to reassure me. The last thing I need is a young scale hesitating to deal the last blow amid a battle.”

Urgh…, I cowered at his gaze. While I could return his glare if he questioned my ability to fight, I couldn’t do it when I’m so conflicted about what he just said. I accepted this Quest ‘cause it benefitted me financially while also giving me a chance to help Lorena out, however, our party’s real objective was to learn if we could fight to the death against a human or beastman. We needed to know this. There won’t always be a chance for us to hold back, after all.

“That’s why I asked your two companions this question. Want to know their responses?” he offered, to which I nodded. “Tasianna gave me the answer that I liked the most while also giving me the eyes that proved her sincerity. She said, ‘If it is to protect Lady Hestia and Miss Saori, then I would summon an Ice Age to bury the human race in unending snow’. Extreme, but I can respect that sort of loyalty.”

Tasianna…

He continued, “Saori was indecisive but she eventually came to an answer that was acceptable for me. Pretty personal one too, she said, ‘I’m not sure if I will be able to do it without hesitating, but I definitely will do it if I must. If it is to protect my two friends, then not even my conscience will stop me’.”

Saori…

Grazlatha then went silent, awaiting my answer.

Tasianna and Saori would do that for me? Can I-no…I will.

Raising my head, I stared deeply into the elder scale's eye, unwavering as I gave out my answer, "I made a promise to my friends, something that is very personal to me. I…will not allow anything to happen to them. I would prefer not to have to do it, but if I was given the choice to protect my companions by killing somebody, then I would turn that person into ashes the moment they made that choice. Ethics, be damned!"

“…Get some rest, Hestia,” he patted my shoulder before returning to stoking the fire in pure silence.

As he wasn’t talkative anymore, I quickly dipped myself into a bush for a few seconds before returning to my tent, sneakily.

Once morning came, we continued following Saori’s nose, as she led us on a trail of Lorena’s scent. It stayed relatively calm, aside from one or two beasts that we simply scared away, until the weather suddenly told us to stop by sending down rain on us.

Technically, we could have continued. The saurians didn’t really care about the rain as Mister Kushlek’zar could simply keep us dry with [Xohulotel’s Scaled Barrier], a spell that morphs water into reptile scales and uses them to form a thick barrier, giving me a feeling that we were protected by the coiling body of a snake.

It was very similar to my [Sanctuary], only that it was more difficult to cast as it required the caster to imagine and control a detailed design. Although…that does give me an idea on how to train my newly acquired [Fluid Cast].

Anyway, due to the rain, Saori couldn’t pick up the scent trail anymore. She was still able to sense it, but the rain broke it up, giving us only a vague direction. So, instead of continuing any further, we decided to just bunker down for the day, as wandering aimlessly wasn’t smart.

As a consequence, that did give our party another magic session with Mister Kushlek’zar, which we all appreciated as our progress from yesterday wasn’t satisfying enough for us.

We all continued trying to acquire the four advanced magic casting skills but to no avail. It was hard. Nothing we can do about it. Although the three of us had titles which enabled us to learn skills faster, it didn’t mean that it would be miraculously fast. Just like Mister Kushlek’zar when he first started out, we all had to show some effort to become stronger.

In fact, the only reason why I was able to receive [Fluid Cast] so early compared to my two friends was that I was already pretty good with the Invocation part of magic casting. There had to be a reason why I suddenly received an unfinished custom spell, so there is a chance that it simply popped into existence due to my ability to control fire spells well due to [Pyrokinesis].

Well, it’s just a theory, really.

Before it was time to sleep, I also sat down to work on my custom spell [Imperial Hellfire] now that I had [Fluid Cast]. Forming the magic circle was still a problem for me, but, on the other hand, the image that I had for the spell was slowly coming to me.

Compared to how I tried to make it work in the Belzac forest, this new version of [Imperial Hellfire] had a different concept. Knowing that I could create the spell however I wanted with [Fluid Cast], while suddenly remembering that I could use [Pyrokinesis] to negate certain deficiencies, the only thing that remained was simply its name.

Once morning came and the rain ended, our search for the bandit continued, although extremely slowly as Lorena’s residual scent was barely traceable now. Like yesterday, it was simple and calm, until Saori suddenly caught onto something fishy.

Asking us to hasten our pace, we followed Saori as she ran through the woods, blindly following her nose towards the destination. As we closed in, the smell of burnt trees and leaves began to greet my nose, something that I was extremely used to.

Eventually, Saori raised her hands up and asked us to follow her slowly, as the sight of smoke became clear to us. Once flames appeared, our parties stopped advancing to analyze the situation.

What we saw were two vehicles resembling wagons being torched to charcoal by a powerful pyre, while multiple men in ragged clothes with varying amounts of leather and cloth armor watched it happen. All of them were carrying some sort of weapon and some were even carrying food and trinkets onto an unharmed wagon.

There were also three carts that looked like mobile wooden prison cells that carried beaten up men and shivering women in them. Their clothes reminded me of the ones I saw in Carine village. Simple but patchworked clothing that looked extremely used, as if those were the only ones the villages had.

“Ha ha ha ha,” drawing my eyes away from those imprisoned people was a haughty laugh, sounding intentionally provocative. “Flames, pure POWER! Ha ha ha ha, the strongest element is fire, so witness this everybody! In the name of the God of Fire and Destruction, Danterno, may you be graced by his eternal blessing! Now, who wants to convert to his religion?!”

“Oi, shaddup, Macklemor. The boss ain’t hiring you for ya damn sermons, ‘ere. Kill them flames of yours so nobody can see us!” a man with greasy hair, styled in a mullet, shouted as the pyromaniac. “We need to get this ‘ere loot back to base. Fucking lucky us that some dumb idiots were dumb enough to sleep in the forest during that rain. Ha, we ain’t got problems for winter with this amount!”

“Ack?! Killing my flames?! That is a sin as I have dedicated these flames to Danterno! Let them continue to burn!” the pyromaniac said, as he rattled his red cape vigorously. "Come on, Jasper, give me some of your boys. Some of them have an affinity for flames and destruction. Danterno’s church needs people, so give me some time to turn them into-”

“WHO FUCKING CARES?! We only need one fire mage and that’s you! Make a fire with ya fancy magic and kill them before some soldiers or mercs find us! We got da loot and we got them slaves, so we're leaving now!” the mullet guy shouted.

Begrudgingly, the pyromaniac recited an Incantation as a magic circle appeared above the flames, before calling out “Reduce Heat”, turning the fire smaller and smaller until it was gone. He sighed in exasperation before getting onto one of the wagons.

“Tasianna, Saori…” I uttered.

““Yes!”” they answered back with fervor.

“The bandits have been found. Let’s go and save some people,” I commanded.

“By your will, it shall be done, Lady Hestia,” Tasianna said with icy rage, unable to suppress her cold aura as she witnessed what happened with pure contempt.

“Anata ga meijita yo ni, Hestia Oujo-sama,” Saori responded in Japanese, as a blood-colored aura surrounding her eyes, locking onto the bandits like a predator would on her prey. (As you have commanded, Princess Hestia.)

A note from AbyssRaven

Well, that guy likes using fire.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 78: How to sneak a bomb into a bandit camp.

A note from AbyssRaven

I apologize for how long it took for this one to be posted. I had to put some time into my Bachelor so these things happened. Regardless, I hope you guys will enjoy the chapter, otherwise....I quote the last thing Tasianna said in this chapter.

Wails of pain, sorrow, and defiance. Those are the screams that the [Fire Sorcerer] Macklemor was currently hearing from behind his carriage, comfortably enjoying the ride as ragged farmers and villagers spouted out pleas in their rickety prison wagons.

From the sides, an unorganized band of human and beastmen highwaymen reciprocated the distraught cries of these captured men and woman with malice, remarking, “Quiet down, or ya want us to rip your tongues out?” and “Cry some more, bitches. We need ya loud to enjoy winter together, ha ha ha!”

Urgh, they are always so lustful… Macklemor thought as he clutched his amulet of Danterno, silently apologizing to the God of Fire for extinguishing the flame that he dedicated to him.

Water was the eternal rival of fire, and Macklemor, like most fire mages, hated the sight of pouring rain. For him, it was another demonstration of the tyranny of the Goddess of Water, Plesia, and the God of Weather and Harvest, Kurnal, working together to smother the feeble influence of his god. For he hated nothing more than a flame dying before it can display its iridescent might.

“The other gods have grown jealous of the superior potential of fire,” was what most fire mages believed, as it was widely known to many aspiring mage novices that becoming a fire mage, was akin to sacrificing their future career. For no mage received so little requests as a fire mage.

The God of Fire and Destruction, that is the epithet of the mighty Origin God Danterno, and no one expresses these values more than human and beastmen fire mages. Almost like a doctrine, all Danterno worshippers are made to believe that preserving a beautiful inferno until it naturally dies out is the only way to show reverence towards the fire god, regardless of how much that flame will destroy.

Due to this mentality, the job prospects of a mage who only focused on fire magic was meager at best. Compared to earth, water, wind, and holy mages which have found a place in society with utility-based spells to allow their practitioners to live a peaceful life, fire mages could only seek out Quests that enabled its destructive impulses.

One could view this philosophy as stubborn and one-dimensional, restricting an otherwise high potential magic element, but it was only common sense among fire mages. For this reason, in mage society, fire mages ranked the lowest, mirroring their God who was the weakest among the Origin Gods.

For what use is destruction and carnage during times of peace?

[Reduce Heat] is a custom spell that helps a fire die out naturally…but how can it be natural when a mage was the one to cast the spell? It hurts so much to see my own fire die out, Macklemor muttered silently.

After the rain from yesterday, the bandit camp that Macklemor was currently working for detected the camp of a group of villagers and farmers who were transporting their goods towards a town or city. Knowing that winter was coming, the bandits couldn’t think of anything else but to raid them for their food and water.

Macklemor himself was delighted to hear this news, as it was a chance for him to display his abilities as a mage in front of all these magicless plebeians, hoping that he could impress one of them into becoming his apprentice.

While the faith of Danterno wasn’t exactly dying out, its influence and number of clergymen was waning. While worshipping the Fire God wasn’t frowned upon, becoming a mage was an entirely different case.

Not only could I not convert anyone, like always, but this raid also brought some casualties. Yes, fire consumes life, but my faith does not preach unnecessary bloodshed, Macklemor lamented how some villagers lost their life due to the bandits' over eagerness.

"Oi, Macklemor, watcha making that face for? Come on, we gonna live big through winter with this amount of loot!" sitting beside him on the carriage, a man with a mullet carefreely patted his back.

“Jasper…couldn’t you have stopped some of your men from killing them?” Macklemor responded to the man with the mullet named Jasper. "Those people were unarmed. They didn't even have a guard! There was no need to end their lives."

“Eh? Why are ya complaining about that? Yeah, my boys did some retarded stuff by killing them, but those bastards resisted. We don’t need any strong-willed people trying to rile everybody up. The last thing we need is the slaves revolting, man,” Jasper explained. “Besides, I saw ya enjoy the extra bodies we brought to your fire. Ya smile when it lit up, ha ha ha! You fire mages are all fucked up in the head.”

Macklemor couldn’t say another word. Jasper’s words struck deep with undeniable accusations, causing the mage to reflect on his actions. After they captured the villagers and put them into wooden wagon prisons, ready to be transported back to their camp by their trusty Equerochs, Peolyncian beasts of burden that were a mix between a horse and an ox, Macklemor created a fire to destroy the evidence of the scene.

The wagons, useless items, the blood on the grass, and the corpses, everything will be turned to ash with Danterno’s purifying flames. Nothing made him happier than to see the fire rise up high, consuming the fuel that laid under it.

But that didn’t mean that he felt elated about the dead villagers. He wanted to avoid it, but what could he say when he himself was working for criminals that felt no guilt about ending another person’s life?

“Enough sulking around, mate. Let’s share some of that sake we got from that rice village once we get back to camp. We fucking deserved it after what happened three months ago,” Jasper stated, trying to console his brother-in-arms.

…I guess, we have been pretty lucky ever since we got attacked by those Aureolis Knights.

“Aureolis Knights” or better known as the “Knights of Aurena”, an elite order of holy knights in the service of the Holy State Aureolis. The bandit group that Macklemor belonged to was ambushed and raided by these elite warriors three months ago, during the month of HarvestBloom.

Ever since they fled in tatters from Aureolis, they have been moving around the Kingdom of Artorias until they finally set camp in the territory of the Lecartiglio Duchy, on the border of the Helvas County which included Carine Village.

“…Jasper, what did the Boss say? We can’t stay here for too long,” Macklemor said with worry. “After what happened with the ‘White Winged Dragoon’ in Aureolis, our group has been in tatters. Only mercs have come for us until now, but we know why the Kingdom of Artorias is also known as the Kingdom of the Griffon, and once their knights find us, we’re doomed.”

“You worry too much mate…,” Jasper said with a deep frown, reluctantly acknowledging the situation that they are in. “The Boss said that we will stay 'ere until the last month of winter, recruit any wannabe fuckheads and then piss ourselves off down south. Atadoro, or something was the name of that kingdom, but if we can get out of this place before our fucking kingdom sends their Hippogryph and Griffon knights at us, then we fucking snuck the egg out of mama bird’s nest.”

"…And what about mercs? I burned down that village under the Boss' command and looking at how big it was, it was probably one of the larger and more profitable villages. Nobles don't give up once you embarrass them," Macklemor said, as he continued clenching his amulet, biting his lips from concern.

“Ya learned that from ya magic school, or was it a university? Whatever, still I can see how stuffy it can be to be with a bunch of mana bloods, studying away in your halls of magic. Them nobles will have to give up once we’re south,” Jasper said as he spat on the ground from all this talk about nobles. "Oh, and ya worry about mercs? Fucking hell, mate, it's winter! Which sane merc would come now, especially after we just annihilated a fuckton of them? Me, you, and the Boss. That’s all we need. The only idiots that will even consider taking that Quest at this point are the coinless and ‘justice’ fanatics, ha ha ha!”

“Uhm, excuse me?”

As the bandits were either laughing or tormenting their captives, the carriages and wagons abruptly halted as a person suddenly appeared in front of their track, waving for them to stop.

Hmm, a girl? Macklemor remarked to himself.

“Uhh, I’ve lost my way in these woods. Could I possibly ask you to direct me towards the ex…it…,” the young girl asked towards what she thought was a caravan, but upon realizing the imprisoned villagers, she quickly became silent with an agape mouth and widened eyes. “N-N-N-N-Nooooo!”

“Catch her, lads!” Jasper commanded, mobilizing all the bandits into action.

Terrified from the sight of these highwaymen, the girl began running away but immediately tripped over the roots of a tree, crashing onto the ground as bandits quickly surrounded and captured her.

“No! No! No! Unhand me! Unhand me, please!” the girl shrieked in panic, flailing her still free legs as she attempted to free herself from the grip of these adult men.

Silky-looking crimson hair bound together by a black hairband into a ponytail, expensive-looking clothes in pristine condition, and a pretty well-mannered speaking habit? But…where are her shoes? Macklemor thought as he scrutinized the young girl.

“Treat her well, lads. That girl ain’t looking like a countryside bimbo. We can actually make some goldite coins after we sell her off!” Jasper shouted out with a huge grin. “Fucking hell, look at us lads! Looks like Lady Luck is on our side today, ha ha ha ha!”

“““Ha ha ha ha ha ha!””” the bandits joined in Jasper’s laughter after they stuck the crimson-haired girl into one of the wagons.

She has no tail, no horns, no fangs, no claws, or any other beastmen-like traits. She’s taller than a dwarf woman and her ears aren’t pointy like an elf. If I have to guess, she’s probably a lost noblewoman or a rich merchant’s daughter from the Lecartiglio Duchy.

Macklemor’s observation was correct. The girl had no defining trait that would link her to the many beastmen races in the world so his conclusion that she was a human was correct. In addition, the way she presented herself, the way she spoke, and how little arm strength she demonstrated compared to a peasant’s daughter made it clear that she had to have grown in a well-off environment, leading the bandits to presume her for a noble’s or wealthy merchant’s daughter.

But for some reason...I-I feel something about her. Something about her spurns my inner fire mage! I-I feel it! I can see her potential as a mage, the warmth she’s emanating!

“Ooooh, Macklemor, ya fancying her? Can’t believe ya tiny sausage finally got excited, ha! Being in that magic school, or whatever, seemed to have made ya like noble girls, huh?” Jasper mocked his friend, interrupting his inner monologuing. “Sorry, but that girl is worth to us more when she hasn’t been deflowered yet. Keep your cock in your pants, mate.”

“Shut up, Jasper!” Macklemor replied in annoyance, diverting his attention away from the crimson-haired girl. “I’m not interested in fucking a girl that’s practically still a kid…Tell the Boss to give me some time with her. I haven’t been able to convert anybody into a fire mage in all my time with this group, but I think I finally found somebody with potential. Tell him to give me a chance to convert her, otherwise, this is where we say goodbye.”

Macklemor stared directly into Jasper's eyes, unwavering like an indomitable inferno, cajoling him into doing what he wanted, "Ok, ok, ok! Where's that sudden backbone come from, mate? If it's only to do ya little sermons, then I don't think the Boss will mind it. I'll speak to him, don't ya worry."

Good, good! I know everything will work out now! She has an amulet of that bitch Plesia, but I’m sure if I show her the potential of Danterno magic, then she will convert immediately!

Macklemor was on cloud nine, gleefully imagining and planning whatever he needed for his meeting with the girl in red. As if he was controlled by an unnatural power, every single fiber of his body was telling him that she was the one!

There were many things this mage wanted to do in his life. Level [Fire Magic] up to level 10 to gain [Inferno Magic], receive [Identify], achieve the Job [Arch Inferno Sorcerer], and so much more. However, none of these goals could compare to his desire to convert this girl into a Danterno believer.

Danterno, oh my eternal lord, today I will not fail you. Today, I will make somebody my apprentice. Today, you will have a new worshipper! Today, a new fire mage will be born.

While Macklemor was praying to his god with zealous fervor, a certain girl watched everything that was happening before her. Analyzing each bandit one by one, before showing a cute smirk, waiting for everything to unfold.

*************************************

That girl…I knew she mentioned that she and her mother used to roleplay anime characters a lot but that was when she was little. This performance…was extremely believable…

“Unhand me, Mister saurians! Unhand me this instance! My Mistress needs me! I must free her from the clutches of these abominable h-humans! HUMAN SCUM!” Tasianna pleaded in a shrill voice behind me, as she was effortlessly held back by the carnosilian, Krim-slak.

“Tasianna, please stop struggling, otherwise, they might see us,” I, Saori Segawa, scolded my friend. “Lady Hestia’s lingering [Air Shield] is blocking out the sound but these bushes are not large enough to hide Krim-Slak and Grazlahta. Do not force them to stand up.”

“Urgh…I apologize, Miss Saori. B-B-But, we can’t just let those humans touch Lady Hestia with their filthy hands!” Tasianna again tried to argue with me, tears falling down her face as we slowly watched Hestia being transported away as a “prisoner” by the bandits.

“Please, I understand that you are very much distressed, Miss Tasianna, but this is all part of Hestia’s plan, no?” Mister Kushlek’zar answered, trying to reason with our very loyal maid.

“Ha ha ha, truly a reckless move from that young scale. Hey, Grazlahta, remember that time we gathered a few eggs without realizing that one of them was rigged by its mother? Nasty surprise, right?” Krim-slak joyfully retold an old story.

“You nearly lost your arm, Krim. We were careless young scales back then,” Grazlahta replied with a sigh. “However, I have to agree. Those criminals unwittingly just brought a bomb into their hold. If the young scale’s strength is true, then this should be an easy battle.”

The plan that the saurians were talking about was how we just allowed the bandits to suddenly capture Hestia and turn her into a prisoner. The idea behind it was to send her into the bandit’s camp where she will locate all the prisoners and help free them from within.

While that went on, Tasianna and I would cause a “distraction” and lead some bandits away from the camp to allow the saurians to lead the main raid into the camp. With Hestia already inside the camp, she could not only protect the prisoners but also aid the saurians in their assault.

Also, yes, these were the bandits that Chief Colwyn contracted us to subjugate. I know it because I heard one of them mention they stole sake and rice from a nearby village in addition to burning it down.

There is no questioning it. They are our Quest targets.

I haven’t had any sake in such a long time…I was so excited when I saw those rice plants and you dare steal it from me? I monologued with myself, slightly annoyed about the fact my hope for a good drink was taken away from me.

While my real reason for taking this Quest was to see how I fared against humans and beastmen in battle, I couldn’t deny that not getting a drink was a reason, too. And no, I am not an alcoholic, thank you very much. I enjoy drinking as nothing is more relaxing than some drinks and food after a hard day at work.

And I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit stressed out right now. Although some reasons like, Tasianna’s fierce hatred for humans, Hestia’s recent emotional breakdown, and what that Leviathan revealed to me about my “heritage” were quite concerning, what actually bothered me the most was our lack of funds.

Yes, money. The one thing that kept the world turning around. Ever since I first laid eyes on Davi, the official currency of the continent Altrust, I quickly came to the realization that our party needed money now that we were inside a human kingdom.

While Tasianna had no real idea what money truly was and Hestia was more preoccupied with her Idol performance, I couldn’t help but feel like I was the only one who was a bit scared about our party’s future expenses.

While Hestia’s storage was filled with monster bodies and plants that we could sell, doing this Quest to receive some before we head to a town was necessary, especially when I assume issuing an ID will cost money just like on Earth.

“Miss Saori, do you have Hestia’s scent?” Mister Kushlek’zar suddenly asked me.

“Of course, she is the only dragonewt around here, after all,” I answered, tapping my nose confidently.

“Perfect, then let us proceed with the plan,” the saurian stated. “Grazlahta, tell Akasht that he may follow us now but that he should keep a certain distance as to not alert any of our targets.”

With that settled, we started pursuing the bandit caravan. While this was happening, I also kept an eye on Hestia through a hairband that I made for her, wrapping it with my [Shadow Armament] and then hiding my [Shadow Snake] in it to allow me to see around her.

Interestingly enough, while I praised her ability to act before, I was now witnessing Hestia throwing all that effort out of the window and simply singing and annoying the bandit guards, showing little concern for any of their threats.

I’ve said it before, but that girl can be a real brat sometimes, heh. How unlucky that I cannot hear it, she has an extremely beautiful voice.

After a while, the bandits finally reached what essentially looked like a campsite surrounded by crudely made wooden spikes, serving as a stockade fence for this large assortment of highwaymen. From a quick glance, I believe there should be around 20 to 30 of them in there. We were grossly outnumbered.

“Mister Kushlek’zar, here are some mana threads, a few of Hestia’s bombs and venom. I would like you to help us set up traps for the ambush,” I requested to the old saurian.

“Ha ha ha, I would gladly. Do not fret, all raptorsilians know the art of trapmaking, and I’ve been serving as one ever since my birth. I will not waste yours nor the young scale’s trust,” he answered back with a praying bow.

“We two will scout out the perfect angle for our raid onto the camp. Gotta catch these idiots out by surprise,” Krim-slak stated with confidence.

From a quick [Identity], I understood that the average bandit was honestly too weak to contend with any of us. Basically, all of them were around level ten and had the abilities of a weak rank E monster, while possessing an underwhelming skillset. They were “fodder” as Hestia would call them.

“Tasianna, hold it in for just a bit longer,” I told my extremely agitated friend.

“They are dead!” Tasianna announced, holding herself back from jumping straight into the camp.

Alright, we're waiting for your signal, Hestia.

A note from AbyssRaven

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Also, come over and join the discord channel! Talk with me, stress me out about the releases, or enjoy a few lizard-based novels: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 79: Agent Hestia ‘007’ Atsuko.

A note from AbyssRaven

Music for today's song belongs to Luis Fonsi "Despacito": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJQP7kiw5Fk

I wanted Hestia to rap, but I'm bad at making rap so I had to scrap that idea, so I took a song that would fit Hestia's behavior in this chapter.

[Humanized (Major)] [Stage Fever (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atsuko]

“Yeah, there is nothing to do here besides to sing ♫

Because my hands are tied together, oh, oh ♫

And, this wagon shakes around far too much ♫

Why couldn’t you give us some cushions ♫

.

Look, this wagon is far too dirty to sit inside ♫

Go clean it up once we make it to your camp ♫

Come on, that’s the least you could have done, oh yeah ♫

.

And, the river is right next to these woods ♫

Do yourself a favor and go jump in it ♫

You idiots, you smell like excrement♫

.

You guys are losers ♫

Can you even understand what my words mean ♫

Or has crime degrade your brains to waste ♫

Or was it that barrel of beer from last night? ♫”

.

“FUCKIN’ HELL; you little noble bitch! Close your whore mouth, otherwise I’ll cut that damn tongue of yours off!” a filthy man shouted, banging on the wooden bars of this prison wagon with his fist.

.

“OH, SHUT UP you greased up rat! Threaten me as much as you want but you can’t do anything to me because…

You guys are losers ♫

Why can’t you try to live with everybody peacefully ♫

Get a job, instead of killing people wantonly ♫

Or at least try to clean yourself daily! ♫”

.

The bandits, with their dirt-filled hands, banged on the prison bars as they furiously shouted at me for insulting them in song. The other people in the wagon with me were obviously scared from this display of pure hostility but they looked like they were more worried about me, than themselves at this point, seeing as none of the bandits harassed them.

Whether friendlies or enemies, the more people that are focusing on me seems to not only increase my stats but also my morale. If I can increase it up to ‘Moderate’, then [Stage Fever] is pretty dope.

Stage Fever

A skill reserved for those that seek attention. Increases all static stats and regeneration of Health, Mana, and Stamina depending on how long the owner is able to keep the attention of people, increasing in effectiveness with more people around. Increases mental fortification of the user, defending them from the effects of detrimental ‘Aura’ and ‘Mental’ skills or spells. Low effectiveness with Minor. Moderate = Level of Skill / 10 increase to stats. Major = 0.5 + (Level of Skill / 10) increase to stats

“Will you fucking piece of shits shut your mouths already!” a man with the greasy mullet shouted, riding the carriage in the front. “Are ya guys so dumb that ya would get provoked by the mana blood?! She’s intentionally doing it! Ignore the bitch already, and don’t ya fuckin’ dare touch a hair on her! She’s made from pure goldite!”

He then stood up from his seat and glared at me, angrily, “Lass, you better shut ya mouth up, too. I’ve got nothin’ against some good singin’, but you’ve been spoutin’ out that shit for the past hour, now! Don’t forget that we can decide whether you get back to ya cozy home or become a whore for some fat noble pig!”

Hearing that, I raised a hand in the air and answered back, dispassionately, “Yeah, you’ve already told me that. You’re repeating yourself, Mister, but I don’t care. Instead, tell these idiots to clean the wagons next time. My skirt is getting dirty from sitting around.”

He scowled at me for a moment but then turned around and sat back down roughly, having to massage his butt due to the wooden seat.

Heh.

So, you might wonder why I’m inside a prison wagon while greasy, filthy, disgusting men, humans and beastmen, are transporting it, right? Well, after we found the bandits attacking a group of villagers and farmers, I suggested to Saori and Mister Kushlek’zar operation “Agent Hestia ‘007’ Atsuko”.

With Saori having lost Lorena's scent after the rain, we were pretty lucky to have found the bandits immediately afterward. We technically could have busted them at the spot, but the problem was "how much would it benefit us?"

How do we know that these are the only bandits? Where was their camp?

Krim-slak and Grazlahta both suggested to torture them for the information, and, in hindsight, that might have been the better idea to preserve my clothes’ hygiene. However, sacrificing my personal needs was more important here, as I had a way to efficiently finish this Quest, securing the villagers in addition to beating all the bandits.

First, we needed to sneak one of us inside. We needed somebody that looked weak enough to be a perfect prison target for the bandits without getting too much surveillance while inside their camp.

The saurians were out of the question as they looked intimidating. Saori could have done it but she wasn't able to transform into a human and her wolfkin form looked pretty scary, honestly. That meant the only choices were Tasianna or me…but Tasianna hated humans so much that she would've probably blown her cover the moment one of them touched her.

After my capture, I would try to gather all the villagers in one place and afterward signal everybody outside to launch the attack on the camp. With me inside, I can not only protect the villagers with [Sanctuary] or [Air Shield] but also take the bandits down with my spells. It was a pretty good plan if nothing weird happened.

So…then why am I purposely provoking these bandits, then? Antagonizing them and risking them being wary of me?

Well, the reason lies with the fact that these fucking bastards LITERALLY harassed all the women that were with me inside these wagons. They admitted to the fact that they killed a few male villagers in their attack and then burned their corpses, all in front of their family.

There were also a few men inside but compared to the young women who had minor bruises, they were beaten up to the point that they lost consciousness. Bloodied faces and black eyes, it looked like a mob thrashed them with sadistic pleasure.

Honestly? I could believe that, considering how much fun these bandits had while aggravating the women to the point of tears, terrorizing them with “You’re gonna make for a fine night partner, lass” or “Big ones bring in the money, mhmm”.

Lecherous filth.

So, the moment that I heard their boss telling them to not land a hand on me ‘cause they thought I was a noble girl, technically I was royalty, I knew that I could bitch around without any repercussions.

And by god, I’ve been doing just that. I didn’t just want to spit in their faces with insults, but I wanted to dedicate songs to their filthy appearances, enlightening them about why they are the filth of society. I drew the ire away from the women and girls and towards myself.

Hie hie, watching their faces, reddened to the point of tomatoes, showing anger and frustration at me was the best. Oh, now I know why some people found this sort of schadenfreude so delightful…and it’s even better when I was stronger than every single one of them, despite only having 1/3rd of my original stats.

Yes, I was under [Humanization (Major)]. I am a human right now, instead of a dragonewt. I needed to look weak and innocent, after all. With my clothes that even Colwyn and Lorena found “wealthy-looking”, I knew if I turned into a human, these bandits would think that I was some important person. I could have done it better if I had shoes, but, alas…

“Hey, it’s us! Drop your bows, lads!” the man with the mullet shouted once we were out of the woods.

“Jasper? Jasper! Lads, it’s Jasper and fire slinger. Don’t fuckin’ shoot!” one of the bowmen commanded from behind a fence made from wooden spikes, recognizing the two men riding on the front carriage.

“Fire slinger”? Oh right, the fire mage. Uhm, I think his name was Macklemor or something when I took a look at his status board.

Fire Sorcerer, Macklemor's Status Board

Profile:

Name: Macklemor Talsyn

Level: 38

Race: Human

Age: 28 Years

Job: Fire Sorcerer

Status:

Health:

712/712

Mana:

1345/1345

Strength:

234

Intelligence:

643

Vitality:

298

Wisdom:

598

Agility:

309

Stamina:

512/512

Effects:

None

Skill:

Magic Skills

[Mana Control Lv. 7]

[Mana Efficiency Lv. 5]

[Arcane Mind Lv. 6]

[Fire Magic Lv. 9]

[Fire Amp]

[Fire Magic Efficiency]

[Chant Revocation Lv. 6]

[Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 4]

[Mental Stability Lv. 4]

[Mental Warfare Lv. 2]

[Multi-Cast Lv. 1]

[Delayed Cast Lv. 1]

[Fluid Cast Lv. 1]

[Continuous Cast Lv. 1]

[Arcane Chorus Lv. 1]

[Long-Range Spell Enhancement Lv. 5]

Physical Skills

[Staff Mastery Lv. 5]

Movement and Senses

[Stealth Lv. 3]

[Accuracy Correction Lv. 5]

[Concentration Lv. 5]

[Prediction Lv. 3]

[Danger Perception Lv. 4]

[Probability Correction Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 5]

[Tracking Lv. 1]

[Night Vision Lv. 4]

[Presence Killer Lv. 1]

[Evasion Lv. 4]

[Acrobatic Lv. 1]

[Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 2]

Resistances

[Physical Resistance Lv. 3]

[Pain Resistance Lv. 4]

[Arcane Corruption Resistance Lv. 6]

[Bleeding Resistance Lv. 3]

[Poison Resistance Lv. 7]

[Paralyzation Resistance Lv. 5]

[Torpor Resistance Lv. 7]

[Fear Resistance Lv. 1]

[Holy Resistance Lv. 3]

[Fire Resistance Lv. 8]

[Earth Resistance Lv. 6]

[Wind Resistance Lv. 6]

[Water Resistance Lv. 7

[Dark Resistance Lv. 4]

Stat growths

[Health Recovery Lv. 2]

[Mana Recovery Lv. 6]

[Stamina Recovery Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Health Growth Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Mana Growth Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Mana Capacity Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Intelligence Growth Lv. 7]

[Enhanced Intelligence Enforcement Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Agility Enforcement Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Stamina Capacity Lv. 1]

Others

[Handicraft Lv. 4]

[Woodworking Lv. 3]

[Identity Blocker Lv. 1]

[Leadership Lv. 1]

[Cooking Lv. 4]

[Dismantle Lv. 5]

Job Skills

[Fire Amp]

[Fire Magic Efficiency]

[Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 5]

Spell List:

Job Spells

[Fire Wall]

Custom Spells

[Ignite]

[Reduce Heat]

[Flame Bomb]

Fire

[Fire]

[Firebolt]

[Imbue Fire]

[Fire Ball]

[Strengthening Fire]

[Flame Spear]

[Petal Flame]

One word…weak.

That was all I could think when I used [Identify] on him. It was a bit rude of me to think like that. However, my only other mage class reference was Mister Kushlek’zar, who admitted that he was stronger than his rank suggested.

According to him, society has adopted the rank System of monsters into their own, giving each adventurer a rank to make it easier for the Quest givers to gauge their contracted employee’s strength. This rank should display their veterancy, status boards, and reliability.

Mister Kushlek'zar and the saurians all had stats that would be eligible for rank B in the mercenary guild, however, due to being rather new members, their ranks were all C.

Remember this Quest’s reward? Besides money, they also gave “4 D rank points” which are points that you needed to acquire by fulfilling Quests to be promoted to the next rank. This was the guild’s way to display a person’s veterancy and reliability.

I’m pretty sure that this will be extremely important for us once we register at one of the two adventurer guilds.

Anyway, back to Macklemor’s strength; it was only enough to be qualified for a D rank…or in monster terms, he would only be an E rank. Everybody participating in this Quest outclassed him by far. Even with [Humanization (Major)], I outstat them easily. I could break out of this rope with ease.

That is the source of my cockiness, right now. Among the bandits surrounding the wagons, he and Jasper were the strongest by a mile.

Still inside the wagon, doing my best to act like a normal prisoner, I was led with the bandit caravan through the camp’s entrance. Not wanting to waste this opportunity, I began using [Identify] on every bandit I saw.

Whether they were greasy men in their twenties or hairy beastmen that included wolfkins, foxians, and a few other variants, they all had one thing in common: they all had shabby equipment. Their Armor was a mix-and-match between cloth and leather pieces while their weapons looked chipped and badly maintained, as if these people gathered all of this from a run-down second-hand shop.

Scars, some fresh, some old, were the norm among all of them. A few were missing a body part or had serious wounds that haven't been properly taken care of, showing signs of necrosis under the yellow pus. There were attempts of first aid, but it was clear that neither a holy mage nor somebody with the [Herbalist] skill was around.

No signs of that fat man that did ‘that’ to Lorena. I also can’t sense somebody like that. Is he gone?

The camp itself was also unimpressive. The tents were in tatters with only a few patched up, caused by fire damage and small holes from arrows and spears. Assuming that this was caused by a recent battle, that would explain why some of the bandits were in a terrible state.

I haven’t seen the mercenaries that went before us yet, but chances are high that this was their handiwork. If that was the case, then we should make sure to not mess up this chance.

Although I couldn't speak with Saori right now, she should be able to see everything that I could. I was currently holding my hair in a ponytail with a hairband that Saori made for me. It was covered in her [Shadow Armament] and she even hid a [Shadow Snake] in it, enabling her to spy through it while I am pouring mana into it.

While I was examining everything, the wagons eventually stopped before a couple of large tents. The other prisoners and I were roughly taken out of the prison wagons and then pretty much kicked into the cages inside the tents.

They told us to “Shut up and be quiet”, before walking out of the tent, leaving us alone in the dark. Some of the younger women started tearing up while the older ones attempted to tend their still unconscious men.

I ignored them for a moment and started looking among our other "roommates", the prisoners that were here before us. They were in a terrible state. They were in a very similar state when we found Lorena, skin and bones with a crestfallen look, fatigued to the point that they looked almost lifeless.

“The smell of death”, or whatever you wanna call it, filled the very air that I was breathing in, overwhelming my sense of smell with one-month-old excrement and unwashed bodies. “Hope” was an entirely foreign subject for this group of people.

Oh, thank goodness, they’re here. Looks like I can give Lorena some good news.

Standing up, I walked over to a man and woman pair, slouching on each other as their gazes were lowered to the ground. According to Lorena, her father had brown hair while her mother’s was muddy green like hers, a perfect match with the two people before me.

I quickly checked with [Detection Sensor] if anybody was around me, noticing that most of the bandits were gathering around at a faraway spot, probably celebrating from all the cheering that I was hearing.

Also, with a quick usage of [Mana Eyes], I confirmed that nothing magical, or at least nothing with mana, was eavesdropping us. However, from my paranoia of being in enemy territory, I also silently cast [Air Shield] around the cages to block all sounds from escaping. I was risking being detected, considering the fire mage, but I was confident in my ability to make this spell cast soundless but also untraceable.

“Are you Lorena’s parents?” I started after everything was in place, kneeling before the two.

Whether they actually heard me correctly or if they were surprised by the sudden name drop, a small glint of light returned into their eyes as they raised their heads, ““What did you just say…Lorena?”” both of them spoke.

“Dark green hair like yours, ma’am. A happy face like this, and…I think she’s around 17 or 18? Now that I think about it, I haven’t asked her age yet but I guess that would be rude to do so, mhmm, yep quite rude,” I stated, nodding in confirmation about acknowledging my own thoughts. "Well, anyway, so are you-woah!"

As I was about to continue, the two of them suddenly grabbed my shoulders, pressing their dirty faces close to mine, speaking almost in sync, ““You’ve met Lorena?! Our baby girl! Is she alright, please say that she’s still alive!””

Woah, I guess this is the best answer I could have gotten.

The glint of light returned into their eyes, casting out the hopelessness, as they urged me energetically to answer them, belying my first impression on them, “Oh yeah, she’s fine. We left her at Carine village with Chief Colwyn and his wife Harriet.”

Dropping the names of the chief of Carine village and his wife seemed to have not only caused the pair's eyes to widen but it also caused some of the surrounding villagers to finally awaken from their fatigued state, uttering "Colwyn?" and "Harriet?" over and over again as they gazed at me.

Shaking off his bafflement, Lorena's father wanted to stand up from excitement but quickly keeled down as his legs lost all the strength in them. His malnourished and exhausted body had no right to strain itself right now.

“Mister, I recommend you to sit down for a moment. You can be excited as much as you want later own, but I need to heal you first,” I said.

Ok, girls, time for some training. Let’s try to get [Multi-Cast] now. Everybody try to cast [Cure] and then [Moderate Heal] simultaneously. Don’t forget, you girls need to focus on the Incantation, the second phase, alright?

Taking this chance to better myself, I began the treatment of the people around me. Two spells per mind, focusing on nothing else but to try to cast two spells at once. If getting [Fluid Cast] was a question of how well I could manipulate my spells, then getting [Multi-Cast] was a question of how well I could maintain two [Fluid Cast], two Invocations, at once.

““““…!””””

All the mumbling villagers uttered no more sounds upon the sight of multiple white magic circles appearing before them, mouth agape as if they were witnessing something spectacular. It wasn’t just the villagers but also a few strong-looking women and men behind them and the women that were with me in the prison wagons. All of them couldn’t keep their eyes away from all the spells, overwhelmed by the white color of hope.

Whether it was due to [Stage Fever] empowering me through all this attention or my nostalgia from remembering the faces of the lizardmen that I healed back in Belzac forest, I couldn’t help but feel more motivated as if I couldn’t fail at anything now.

Slowly releasing all my spells, the sight could only be described as light descending from heaven, enveloping everybody that I was targeting in a rain of serene, warm-looking white light particles, ridding them from any traces of fresh wounds or damage. I also made sure to not forget about the unconscious ones.

…Yeah, my human form sucks, to be perfectly honest. I can still do my job but having less Mana and Intelligence is making me nervous. I should have used [Sacred Field] to save up on mana.

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Benevolent Aura Lv. 1] evolved into [Benevolent Aura Lv. 2]

No [Multi-Cast] despite all of this? Tch, verdammt, seems like I need more practice.

“…A-Are you an angel?” Lorena’s mother asked.

“Huh? No, of course not,” I nonchalantly shot down her suggestion. “Oh yeah, where are my manners? Hestia Atsuko, it is a pleasure to meet you. Also, please, I beg everybody to be quiet. Help will come, but please continue acting like before, ok~”

“H-Help?” one of the strong-looking women, probably one of the mercenaries.

“Yup!” I winked. “A C rank mercenary party and my own party are waiting, setting up the ambush for tonight. I can guarantee you that all of them are B rank in strength, so don’t give up hope. We will get you out of here in one piece.”

“Y-You will? Y-You really will? But…why are you here, lass?” one of the villagers asked me with non-believing eyes, formerly void of any shred of light.

“Me?” I pointed at myself, before showing a giant grin, winking and striking a pose as I continued casting spells. “Because I am here to save you all, that’s why! The shining light in your darkest hour!”

I was contemplating on also dropping Aurena’s name here, as I knew that they had to be her worshippers from speaking with Colwyn and Lorena, however, I couldn’t help it, I wanted to act cool here. Not only am I infiltrating an enemy base like a special spy agent, but I also get the chance to strike a pose? Blame me all you want, but I won’t let that opportunity fly!

With those words coming out of my mouth, everybody began weeping, shedding tears as they seemed to have believed my words. The people that were captured today also began praying, clutching onto their pendent with Aurena’s emblem on them.

Noticing the heightened motivation of all these people, I also took the chance to ask if there were any other prisoners around, but they denied it. All the people that were crying and praying before me were the only ones here, meaning that the first phase was fulfilled on my part.

Knowing that most of them were starving to the point of being only skin and bones, I wanted to give them something to fill their bodies, but that would prove impractical as my [Detection Sensor] suddenly noticed signals approaching the prisoner tent.

I quickly told them to start acting crestfallen, cajoling them with [Noble Aura] so to not appear suspicious before the bandits. Unfortunately, I couldn’t stop the people that were already crying but I guess that was acceptable to a degree…

I dispelled any ongoing holy spells and also the [Air Shield] surrounding us, sat down against the cage's bars, and then hyped myself back into my "bitchy" persona.

Bursting into the tent, two beastmen strutted forward, exuding the smell of alcohol and vomit, “Ha! Crying again, ya weak fucks? Guess you’ve forgotten what we-”

“Oh, shut up already, you mangled mutt,” I spouted out in retaliation.

“…Da fuck did you say to me, ya little bitch?” the wolfkin bandit uttered, looking far from calm.

“What? Deaf? Oh now I really feel sorry for you. Not only do you reek like you’ve thrown up your morning ale, but you also have a hearing impairment? Wow, must be really sad if a human can hear better than a wolfkin,” I said sarcastically, doing my best to impersonate the “nasty bitch” cliché from most High School movies.

His partner the foxian, a fox beastman, began to snicker but was quickly sucker-punched to the ground by the wolfkin, who rushed to the cage bars to grab me but failed to do so. "Oh my, you really smell like alcohol. Poor pup, are you so drunk that you can't move properly anymore? Are you seeing things, or what are you doing?" I ridiculed him with contempt.

In truth, I was just dodging everything. Even without [Foresight], dodging his grabs was as simple as doing a pirouette for me, slow enough that they were slow-mo for me.

The wolfkin was furious, transforming into a berserker as he frenziedly attempted to grab me from the bars, forgetting that he could just open the cage, “Fucking hell, you little cunt! Stop moving around! I’m gonna rip that pretty face off, and use it after I take a shit on your-GACK!”

“Woah there, I guess ya didn’t get the memo about not harming the noble lass, huh?” knocking the wolfkin out with a swift punch into his solar plexus, the greasy, mullet-hair guy that sat next to the fire mage appeared before me. “And you, lass. I’ve honestly had enough of your stunt. You’ve forgotten what I told you before, or are you so up your ass that you can’t listen to a commoner, huh?”

“Oh, fret not, I don’t really care about the class system or whatever. I give the same amount of respect to everybody I meet just as my parents told me to,” I answered truthfully, seeing no reason in the noble-commoner relationship. “It’s just that I have no respect for you and your friends. You ruin the lives of innocent people with no sense of guilt, right? I honestly cannot and will not sympathize with such a mindset, so I apologize if I seemed…rude.”

"And from what high equerochs are you spouting that shit out of, huh?" the man named Jasper said. "Probably seem so high-and-mighty from ya gold and silver palace that you've never even thought what shit the people outside your view are stepping on, huh? You damn mana bloods. Wow, just 'cause ya bloodline is somehow special, ya think you’ve got the right to reap what we commoners works for with our own blood and-! What the hell are you laughing for?”

“Hie hie, alright, I admit that was pretty rude of me. I apologize for interrupting you, hie hie,” I giggled, unable to hold it in. “However, didn’t you listen to me? Maybe you’re also deaf like that wolfkin over there, but didn’t you hear me when I said that I got nothing against commoners? I got something against you people who not only kidnapped a cage full of people but also myself. So, how about you drop that self-righteous act of yours because you have no right to say it after how you treated these people. You’re scum, plain and simple, making people outside your self-interest step in shit.”

Jasper turned silent, glaring at me with reproachful eyes. He didn’t say another word as I showed my disdain towards him with a cold glare, seeing him as nothing else but vermin. He eventually sighed and opened the cage, “Step out, now. I’m doing my best to not punch your face right now, lass. Nobody would pay to fuck you if ya had a bloodied face.”

Giving a shrug, I obediently did what he said and stepped outside but was immediately grabbed by the nape, “Heh, how rough. Where to, jerk?”

“To the Boss.”

With my hands still tied up, Jasper proceeded to drag me outside the tent. There, he ordered two guards to take the two unconscious beastmen somewhere for them to rest. With no one guarding the prisoner tent, the people inside should have a moment of respite until the plan begins.

Eventually, we reached another tent that looked rather unimpressive, like the rest of them. Pushed inside, my focus was quickly directed towards a towering beastmen with a giant horn above his nose. Granite grey skin wrapped around his body, so thick that it could chip blades but flexible enough to not impair his movements. His muscles were thick and course, massive enough to even rival Kim-Slak’s and Grazlahta’s primal strength, covering his body like a natural suit of armor. If that wasn’t enough, the beast also wore an external layer of leather armor for extra protection.

On his back was a massive great axe, so heavy that it made no sense how a normal human would ever be able to carry one this huge. The sight of this rhinoceros-looking beastman could only be called “monstrous”.

“Hoooh, Jasper, that really is a good catch. Damn, if we only had her a week ago, we could have just sold her off and gotten enough money to go south,” the huge man said with a deep, booming voice.

Alright, that was the surprise that I didn’t wanted to see.

Rhino Beastman's Status Board

Profile:

Name: Narube

Level: 60

Race: Rhinoncerum

Age: 48 Years

Job: Grand Ravager

Status:

Health:

5542/5542

Mana:

1045/1045

Strength:

2421

Intelligence:

413

Vitality:

2098

Wisdom:

756

Agility:

1345

Stamina:

3213/3213

Effects:

[Broken Knee (Left) (Moderate)] [Numb Arm (Right) (Minor)]

Skill:

Magic Skills

[Mana Control Lv. 6]

Physical Skills

[Unarmed Technique Lv. 8]

[Unarmed Mastery Lv. 7]

[True Axe Technique Lv. 1]

[Axe Mastery Lv. 9]

[Hammer Technique Lv. 7]

[Hammer Mastery Lv. 6]

[Mana Strike Lv. 4]

[Stamina Strike Lv. 9]

[Sundering Enhancement Lv. 3]

[Piercing Enhancement Lv. 9]

[Crushing Enhancement Lv. 8]

Movement and Senses

[Stealth Lv. 3]

[Accuracy Correction Lv. 7]

[Concentration Lv. 4]

[Prediction Lv. 9]

[Danger Perception Lv. 8]

[Probability Correction Lv. 7]

[Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 9]

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 7]

[Tracking Lv. 4]

[Night Vision Lv. 8]

[Presence Killer Lv. 2]

[Evasion Lv. 7]

[Acrobatic Lv. 5]

[Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 9]

Resistances

[Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 5]

[Absolute Pain Tolerance]

[Arcane Corruption Resistance Lv. 2]

[Bleeding Resistance Lv. 8]

[Poison Resistance Lv. 5]

[Paralyzation Resistance Lv. 8]

[Torpor Resistance Lv. 5]

[Fear Resistance Lv. 6]

[Holy Resistance Lv. 4]

[Fire Resistance Lv. 6]

[Earth Resistance Lv. 8]

[Wind Resistance Lv. 7]

[Water Resistance Lv. 5]

[Dark Resistance Lv. 6]

Stat Growth

[Health Recovery Lv. 8]

[Mana Recovery Lv. 2]

[Stamina Recovery Lv. 8]

[Enhanced Health Growth Lv. 7]

[Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Mana Growth Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 7]

[Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Agility Enforcement Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Stamina Capacity Lv. 5]

Other

[Handicraft Lv. 6]

[Stonecrafting Lv. 2]

[Metalworking Lv. 4]

[Identity Blocker Lv. 6]

[Terror Aura Lv. 6]

[Battle Mind Lv. 8]

[Leadership Lv. 4]

[Cooking Lv. 1]

[Dismantle Lv. 2]

Job Skills

[Axe Mastery Lv. 7]

[Hammer Mastery Lv. 7]

[Two-Handed Amp]

[Physical Resistance Lv. 10]

[Berserker Mode]

[Destruction Path]

Ability List:

Unarmed

[Natural Armor]

[Strike Horn]

[Bulldozing Rhino]

[Crash Horn]

[Blast Rush]

Axe

[Slice]

[Crash-Slash]

[Flying Axe]

[Sword Breaker]

[Purgatory Beast]

Hammer

[Smash]

[Descending Boulder]

[Earth Wrecker]

A note from AbyssRaven

Hestia might be a nice girl but that doesn't mean her brattiness doesn't exist! She acted pretty bratty with Astalos, the wyvern, but his trumps it I guess. RIP, bandits, you guys got roasted hard.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 80: An Idol always seeks the Spotlight!

“Can’t deny her pretty face and she would’ve been perfect…only if she shuts her damn trap,” with a rough jerk, Jasper pulled me closer to him and brought his face close enough to mine that I could feel his breathing. “Now that I think about it, ‘m’lady’, we haven’t been introduced yet, right? The name's Jasper, Love.”

Giving him the stink eye, I simply stuck my tongue out and smirked, thinking, Sorry, already know your name, buddy.

“See what I mean, Boss? Spoiled little noble brat. Thinks she’s so much better than us,” Jasper scoffed, pushing me towards his boss.

The huge rhinoceros-looking beastman placed two fingers under my chin to raise my head up, making eye contact as if he was appraising me, “True enough…Hmph, not even looking away, lass? You either have the confidence that we wouldn't do anything to you, or you're delusional from whatever your family told you to do in these situations. Jasper, give me her ID, I want to know who she is.”

“Sorry, can’t do that for ya, Boss. My lads already checked through her, we couldn’t find one nor any other identifications like those emblems nobles love to wear on their clothes. For some reason, she didn’t even have any shoes when we found her,” Jasper shrugged, swaying his mullet slightly.

Just to note, I did step on something wet when Jasper brought me here, and those bandits didn’t hide their horniness when they searched me through. I know how it feels to be grossed out by something disgusting but I gotta say that those were nothing compared to today.

I felt a primal rejection and an instinctual revulsion that sent a painful chill throughout my body as those men touched me. You know, when I volunteered for this job, I honestly didn't imagine this happening. Pretty naïve, yeah, but I also haven't watched my crime dramas for seven months now.

Also to note, I really should get some sorta footwear. I got so used to having scales covering my feet that walking around without them makes me question why humans were born without some natural feet protection. Like, honestly.

“…Doesn’t matter. The slaver probably knows who she is. Argh, fuck, can’t believe I have to get that slimy bastard back. He’ll probably try to fuck us over again by lowering the price of the prisoners, like last time,” the beastman complained.

"Boss, I like a fight like any other scrapper, but you really should have kept your cool back then. After that Dragoon bitch and her knights kicked us out of our old place, and then that merc ambush, our crew can’t go around looking for trouble before we get more lads,” Jasper stated with worry in his voice.

“Stuff it, I know that much already. We’ll sell all the prisoners to the slave trader and I’ll try to squeeze as much as I can from him,” the rhino then went to his desk, picked up a ring and directed it at me, a grin forming after a blue screen came out of the ring’s blue gem. “Whew, you’re pretty mysterious, lass, but I guess all the nobles from this kingdom are expected to learn magic. Never thought that you’ll just wander in here with a whole set of mana clothes. That’s already a goldite mine, if you ask me.”

How the hell did he find out about my clothes? Was it that ring? I asked myself, mystified at this new item so I immediately used [Identify] to quench my curiosity.

Identify Ring

A manatech in the form of a ring. Uses mana from the owner to activate [Identify Lv. 1 (Restricted)] to analyze an object. Can only analyze inanimate objects and skills

Identify Lv. 1 (Restricted)

Possesses the effects of [Identify Lv. 1], however, it can only be used on inanimate objects and skills

How fun that I was able to find a new type of manatech among a group of bandits, and it’s an item that can use a skill, too. An “Identify Ring” is exactly what I would expect when you combine technology, fantasy, and game-like systems. It makes so much sense to make an item like that to make the lives of people easier.

Still, considering that he didn’t mention the skills on my clothes, I would guess that the descriptions didn’t lie when it said that the level of its [Identify] was only level 1. The higher the skill’s level, the more information it can display.

“So, lass, the name’s Narube and I am the leader of this band of unlucky bastards. I got a person that will know your background anyway, so you want to spare him the trouble by telling us who you are? Gotta treat you right if you’re important, right?” Narube, the tall rhinoncerum offered me as he pushed his horn closer to my face, as if he was trying to intimidate me. “Otherwise, you’ll have to dirty your pretty ass with the commoners. You also have to deal with my men. I can tell them to not go too far, but just saying, a lot of them aren’t too fond of nobles.”

“Thew,” I didn’t even consider it for a second, my only response was to spit into his eye. “Sorry, I don’t like being in the good grace of a bunch of rapists, slavers, terrorists, murders, and tort-HUH! OOOF!”

As I was about to end my sentence, [Foresight] and [Danger Perception] erupted into action, warning me of an attack that was about to hit me. I could see it, I could react to it, but my body couldn’t move in time. I let my guard down, my body wasn’t in the position to dodge it, as something hard slapped my face, sending me crashing onto the ground.

Kuuck, what the fuck…urgh, that actually hurts!

My head was ringing, my brain rattled inside my skull creating an intense headache. Whatever hit me was hard, as hard as getting hit by a metal slab. Nervously checking my Health and Mana, my eyes widened in shock when I saw my Mana wasn’t touched while my Health was lowered down to 2/3rd of its original.

That’s when I realized my mistake. I was under the assumption that my [Draconic Barrier] was in effect. “Why? Why was it not activated?” I thought in horror. I knew that my draconic abilities like [Spark Fang] and [Spark Fire Breath] were unusable but I thought something like [Draconic Barrier] would still stick around.

“Fucking hell, Boss! What the hell did you just do?!” Jasper shouted as I still limply laid on the ground.

“Shut it,” an unamused voice responded as loud, rumbling footsteps came closer to me, ending when a hand grabbed my throat and pulled from the ground.

“Urgh…, kragh, krrr,” I moaned, weakly grabbing my aggressor’s arm and trying to claw it off, instinctively thinking that I still had my dragonewt form’s sickle-like claws.

Hold it in, hold it in! Don’t go ballistic yet, Hestia! The others aren’t ready yet.

“You’re lucky that I know how valuable you will be, brat, otherwise that arrogance of yours would have meant your death today,” Narube callously stated. “Still, you’re used to combat, right? I saw you nearly dodging my hand back there, even when I wasn’t being serious. A mage and experienced enough to react, you’re pretty interesting, you stupid brat.”

“Nearly dodged it”, I don’t think so. That was not a glancing hit at all. I might not have taken the full brunt of that slap, but it still dealt a lot of damage to me, enough that I was even bleeding from my nose and what felt like a concussion. I guess I should be thankful that he held back, otherwise, I probably would have lost a tooth or two.

Still, why didn’t my [Draconic Barrier] activate? [Draconic Magics] is a dragon skill and it should be gone too while I’m a human but I could still use magic like normal. I had no problems hunting while in this form nor did I feel any difference from healing all those injured villagers and mercs.

Honestly, what is going on?

“Jasper, put the girl back with the others. Have Macklemor check up on her, while you’re at it. He wanted to ‘convert’ her, right?” Narube said, releasing his grip and letting me go. “Also, tell the lads to not drink too much and go to sleep early. We’re going once dawn comes to avoid anybody searching for the lass.”

“You got it, Boss,” Jasper responded with a nod, pulling me up roughly and essentially dragging me out of the tent. Once we were out, he began talking to me, “Damn, you got some guts to spit into a giant beastman’s eye, lass. If you weren’t a mana blood, I would have totally hit you up.”

I didn’t say a word. Instead of humoring Jasper, I was more pre-occupied with what happened just now.

Why can I still use [Draconic Magic] but not [Draconic Barrier]? was my main conundrum.

I can understand stuff like [Draconic Claw] or [Draconic Fangs] being unavailable but why [Draconic Barrier], too? I was relying on it to endure any retaliation from Narube. Tch, if I had known this, I wouldn’t have provoked him so much.

“Well, Love, have fun with the ‘commoners’,” with a push, Jasper put me back into the prisoner cages, leaving me here as he left the tent.

The moment he left, a man came up to me and anxiously called me out to draw my attention, “Miss Priestess, what have they done to you?!”

Like daughter, like father. Are all holy magic practitioners priestesses?

“Don’t worry about it, Sir,” with a simple snap of my fingers, three white circles appeared around me and started casting [Major Heal], healing my wounds in a white veil.

…Yeah, I also don't feel very fatigued from arcane corruption or anything. The amount of mana I use and regen is exactly the same as this morning, which means all of [Draconic Magics] effects are still active.

Draconic Magics

An ancient skill that embodies the intense power of a dragon’s magical capabilities. A combination of multiple skills that assists a dragon, who’s affinity over magic towers over others of its kind, in her control over the arcane. The skills combined are   [Power of Mana] [Arcane Mind Lv. 10] [Arcane Corruption Resistance Lv. 10] [Chant Revocation Lv. 10]

Power of Mana

A skill that embodies the user becoming a source of mana. Combines   [Mana Control], [Mana Recovery] and [Mana Efficiency] into one and awakens the true power of these skills

I wanted to continue brainstorming for why [Draconic Barrier] didn’t work, but my headache from that slap was still annoying me. For now, I’ll just remember this: Human form is shit for combat, don’t ever, ever use it to fight others.

I’m too accustomed to all the conveniences of being a dragonewt. I already said it once, but I really want to emphasize how shit it is to be a human. So fragile…

His 2421 Strength against 1/3rd of my original 1781…I needed to stay with the prisoners for the plan to work but I bit off more than I could chew.

“Phew, see? All is good, anyway, could I possibly have your name, please? I'm not so sure how to address you besides 'Lorena's father' or 'Sir'," I said with a smile once I wiped the blood off my nose.

“Oh right, of course! Dear, come here,” he said, calling for his wife to come closer. “My name is Glenn and this is my wife Linda. W-We don't know how to thank you for what you did for our daughter. Thank you so very much for helping her, although, it would've been fine if you had left us. Somebody as young as you shouldn't have sacrificed yourself like that.”

“Sacrifice? Now hold on, I think I did mention that help is coming, right?” I responded with a brow raised.

“Yes, but isn’t this too much?” Linda, Lorena’s mother, replied in her husband’s stead. “Miss Priestess, please, once your companions arrive, just slip out and run. It’s been a month of nothing but gruel and leftovers for everybody here. You granted a bit of the ‘white grace’ but we can’t run. We can’t escape with you.”

“Besides, young Miss,” from the corner, a male mercenary further remarked. “You just met their Boss, right? You should have an idea of how strong that beastman is. None of us mercs could fight him properly, even after we ganged up on him. He took all our arrows and swords like they were nothing. That guy is a monster, even with a limping leg, we stood no chance.”

"The guy who escorted you and the fire mage are also strong," in support, the female merc beside him mentioned. "We lost a few comrades against those two. That Jasper can slit your throat up in an instance, while that fire mage, well, you know how fire mages are. All they can do is destroy and burn, but they’re really good with it.”

Come on, I don’t always go around causing trouble. I’ve also never intentionally burned down…wait, didn’t I do that when I fought the garms? Uhhh,…I’ve got nothing more to say.

Jokes aside, are those guys really that strong? Macklemor had some interesting things ‘cause he’s a mage but Jasper was barely worth mentioning. Their combined stats were pretty much the same. The only one who is dangerous is that big asshole.

“Oh, don’t you worry,” I answered in response to all of their arguments. “Like I’ve said. We got a few B rank strong people outside, waiting for my signal. I also won’t run away but thank you for your concern. I promised Lorena and Colwyn to bring everybody back if I could, and I don’t forget my promises. Every prisoner, of course.”

There was a mix of reactions amongst the group of prisoners. The ones that I was transported with were clearly elated, praying and smiling, holding onto the rope of hope that I gave them. However, on the other hand, those that were here before us showed obvious hesitation. Did they not believe me about Mister Kushlek’zar and Saori, or were they that concerned about Narube?

Frankly, I experienced how strong that guy was, but he also took me by surprise. No matter what you told me, our victory was guaranteed.

As I was standing around in this awkward mix between happiness and uncertainty, my [Detection Sensor] informed me of somebody approaching the tent.

“Excuse me,” a croaky voice uttered before revealing a lanky man in his late twenties entering the tent. “My Lady? Could I have a word with you?”

The person that came in was none other than Macklemor, the fire mage that made that “bonfire”.

“My Lady, please don’t look at me like that, I am only here to talk to you,” he stated, uncomfortable from the glare that I was giving him.

Well, I wasn’t the only one who showed him that he was unwelcomed here. Those who were captured by the bandits today, who had to see their wagons be set on fire while having their food supply stolen, weren’t hiding their hostility at all. They were furious.

“Not interested,” I replied flatly.

“No, please, it isn’t what you think,” he pleaded. “Ah, where are my manners, I must introduce myself first. I am Macklemor, a fire sorcerer and a loyal servant of the Origin god Danterno, the God of Fire and Destruction. May I have your name, please, my Lady?"

“Hestia,” I responded. He said the magical word, after all.

“‘Hestia’, a beautiful name if I must say so myself, my Lady” Macklemor bowed, attempting to seem courteous. "Now, I would like to immediately get to the subject at hand, as I presume you would like it too. Please, could I convince you to accept Danterno in your heart?"

Huh?

“Hu-Wait what? Is that all that you came here for?” I asked flabbergasted.

“Affirmative, Lady Hestia. I saw your pendant, you are a follower of Plesia, the Water Origin Goddess, correct?” he remarked, causing everybody behind me to make a loud ‘Huh?’ sound before he continued. “However, I don’t think you know how much potential you possess as a fire mage.”

No, I’m pretty sure I know that very well.

“You must have heard so many outlandish rumors about us fire mages, that we only seek destruction and carnage, burning everything down wherever we go. I can tell you this from my 18 years of experience that they are all wrong,” he said firmly, revealing his pendant.

No, I’m pretty sure I caused quite a lot of trouble in the Belzac forest. Trouble also found me, so that also counts, I think.

Macklemor presented to me his pendant, which depicted a sprouting seed covered in flames, "Our magic is indeed powerful and destructive, but we don't do it purely out of pleasure. Every flame that we nourish to its fullest potential is our way to show our loyalty and faith to our God of Fire. Destruction amounts to rebirth, the church of Danterno doesn't seek wanton and unjust carnage, but a precise control over flame to promote the revitalization of the world. Fire purifies corruption. Fire consumes fire.”

This…This is starting to sound like a sermon. He is preaching to me, literally! What the hell, I was first getting threatened by a wolfkin, then by Jasper, after that by their boss, and now some fanatic is actually trying to convert me to his religion? Jeez, sneaking into this bandit camp has been a real adventure.

"Uh, ok, and why are you doing this then?" I asked, confused. "Your boss Narube is planning to sell me off, so won’t all your efforts become useless once that happens?”

Frowning, Macklemor slammed his hand at my prison bars, fervently responding, “No, I won’t let that happen! Lady Hestia, if you were to accept my proposal then I can buy your freedom back. My…estranged family, the Talsyn, isn’t a noble house like yours, however, that doesn’t mean that we aren’t influential. Not only is my family quite wealthy in Davi and magical knowledge, but we also have a good amount of influence as we are retainers of House Morgiana, one of the seven dukes who support our Kingdom of Artorias, as you should know.”

No, I don’t know that fact as I am not an aristocrat from this country but thank you for telling me anyways.

“House Morgiana?” I asked, acting surprised.

“Exactly, the current Grand Duke of Arcane Affairs. I heard what you did back there with Boss, extremely unwise if I may add, so the chances are high that he would do his best to make your life hell. That man is terrible when it comes to handling his emotions,” the fire mage explained. “He won’t allow you to get back to your family, however, I can intervene. I can pay for everything using my connection to my family. I can give you back your freedom if you wish. You won’t have to stay here any longer the moment you accept my proposal, I swear this on my mortal soul.”

Wait, what did he just say?

“You’re actually trying to help me here? B-But…why? What do you get out of this?”

I didn’t expect that at all. From the moment I was captured by these highwaymen, everything I experienced during my captivity was maddening. Their lecherous gazes that could kill a girl from disgust, the cruel treatment they gave their prisoners, and the general lack of concern for the well-being of others.

My impression of them was filled with an unbending rage that was further tempered by that sucker-punch Narube gave me, flaring up my will to show that guy who he messed with. I had nothing but contempt for every single person here, helping me to make up my mind to fight. I wasn’t gonna go on a murder rampage, I had enough sense, but breaking some bones would provide me with much-needed catharsis.

So, you can guess that I wasn’t exactly expecting somebody like Macklemor to appear. I honestly thought he was as bad as everybody else from what I heard from the prisoners.

“I already told you, Lady Hestia. I want to convert you to Danterno’s religion. I don’t know why I am feeling this way but I feel something within you that is calling for me, that I should do all I can to convert you to a fire mage,” Mackelor stated. "As you know, we fire mages aren't popular but that is just because of everybody's ignorance. They don't understand us. There are bad eggs in every group but that doesn't give people the right to persecute the entire group because of them. Unfortunately, we can’t ignore reality as the fire mage order receives fewer novices every year…but that can change with you, Lady Hestia! I can assure you that you will become-Huh?"

In the middle of his ramble, Macklemor suddenly stopped, standing still as he looked at something with widened eyes. I asked, “What is it?”

“Y-Your ponytail, it’s flailing about,” he pointed out.

Holding on to it, I could confirm that he was telling the truth, my ponytail was swinging around like crazy, “Mister Macklemor, before I give my answer, could you answer mine first?”

“Of course, anything you must know, I will answer!” he replied without hesitating.

“Thank you. First, why are you with these… ‘people’? You are clearly educated, and you don’t strike me as a psychopath like the others,” I asked with a frown.

“…It’s not a pleasant story, I must say. I-I committed a crime due to my emotions. As a mage, I shouldn’t let my emotions control me at that moment, but I just couldn’t help it. Jasper…he was a friend I made at our capital and he was also the one to save me from my impending death,” Macklemor replied with a distraught face, pained from having to remember it. “You see…I’m not a particularly talented mage compared to the rest of my family. It also didn’t help that I rejected my family’s custom spells and converted to fire magic. I’ve nothing against nobles like everybody else here, as I have grown up with them, but I can’t deny that some are…unpleasant. Their mockery was harsh.”

That stung deep. Although our situation wasn’t the same, I kinda sympathized with him. My memories from my past life, the time when I was bullied and ignored by my fellow dance trainees due to my family’s background, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.

"I was supposed to be executed but Jasper got me out of there. He saved my life. W-We didn't exactly plan to join a bandit crew but…it just happened. Life just brought me here," he continued. "At first, it was quite fun. I could finally do what a fire mage should be doing, burning down the old so the new can flourish. I couldn't be happier…but I quickly realized the reality of it when I accidentally killed a bystander while I was possessed by joy.”

Macklemor heaved a short sigh before raising his head, "I love fire, I can't help it when a magnificent flame grows before me…but I take no joy in all this bloodshed. Danterno doesn't preach needless bloodshed!" He then turned his gaze to the women that he captured today. "I am sorry. I apologize as a worshipper of Danterno but also as a fellow believer of our Goddess, Aurena. I am a sinner. I couldn't stop them from taking your neighbor's lives, nor could I help myself from feeling delighted from burning their corpses. I deserve nothing but your anger."

Silence, nothing but silence. The women he dedicated those words to didn't say a word, simply glaring at him with reddened eyes caused by weeping for their fallen and unconscious men. There was no forgiveness despite how sincere he sounded. It may be silent, but the atmosphere was filled with rage and sadness, permeating the very air with a thick cloud of emotions.

A good man made a mistake and landed with the wrong crowd.

“…If you were given the chance, would you escape from this place?” breaking the silence, I asked Macklemor my last question.

Staring at me, he wept, mouth agape as he tried to form some words, “I-I cannot.”

“Are you serious?” I replied in shock. “Then what was all of that then, huh? What was that heartful backstory of yours supposed to do then? You’re even shedding tears, but you say, ‘I cannot’? Why?”

“Lady Hestia, I owe Jasper my life. If he hadn’t been there then I would have been executed for my crimes. I can’t abandon him, he’s my friend,” he said with a wry smile, tears still flowing. “If that is all your questions, then please accept my proposal. I can get you out of here unharmed, I promise. Your family doesn’t have to pay for your release. However, I will only do that if you accept becoming my apprentice. Become a Danterno worshipper. You don’t have to give up on your other faiths.”

I stared into his eyes to confirm his intentions, let out a sigh of exasperation in response, and then freed my ponytail with my still tied-up hands. After a few seconds, a booming explosion suddenly resounded, terrifying everybody in the tent, besides for me.

My fellow prisoners were in a panic, questioning what it was, while Macklemor simply left the tent.

With him outside, I strained my arms and broke free from my bindings, easily tearing through the thick rope. I then cast [Flame Spear], grabbed it, and morphed it with [Pyrokinesis] into a blade to slice through the prison bars like butter.

““Miss Priestess?!”” Lorena’s parents asked, surprised at my actions.

“Mr. Glenn and Mrs. Linda, please call me ‘Hestia’. I’m not a priestess,” I answered.

Not stopping, I then cast a few green and brown magic circles around the cage and a single giant white one under us. Seeing all these magic circles, the villagers and mercs quickly stood up, mesmerized by all the colors that were appearing before them, “T-Then, who are you then?!”

Before I could answer that, Macklemor stormed back into the tent, sweat flowing down his forehead, “Lady Hestia, something happened! I have to ask you to…stay here.”

Giving the anxious fire mage a short glance, I dispelled the [Flame Spear] that I was holding and began emitting a mana cloud from my body, covering my whole body.

[Humanized (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atsuko]

Once my vision returned, I flaunted everything about myself. My horns, my claws, my fangs, my scales, my tail, and even my slit dragon pupils. Like a curtain, the mana cloud from [Humanization] hid me behind it, eventually revealing the ticking-time-bomb that was waiting to blow.

“Sorry, Mister Macklemor but I can’t stay backstage,” I said with a grin. “For I am an Idol! And an Idol always seeks the spotlight! Terra Wall, Wind Blast, Air Shield!”

Gusts of wind and walls of earth erupted from the ground, sending not only the cage but also the tent into the orange sky. While my barrier of wind slowly enveloped over me, protecting the villagers and mercs, another explosion rumbled the bandit camp, sending the already alarmed bandits into another round of hysteria.

Time to own this night.

A note from AbyssRaven

Well, the bandits will have a very eventful evening today, ha ha ha ha!

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Chapter 81: The Cold Touch of a Fairy.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Thank you guys so very much for another great month. T3: The Shining Light is growing pretty fast, so I really have to thank you guys for the support. It's amazing. Of course, everybody, T1, T2, and T3, you guys are awesome.

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Filthy! Filthy! They dared touch my Mistress! Those humans dared to harm my Princess?! Unforgivable!

Hatred. Anger. Frustration. Fear.

My mind was being overwhelmed by a typhoon of emotions that a normal fairy should never experience, as my race is a carefree, free-spirited humanoid race whose daily thoughts are, “How can I have fun today?” Whether it was through being mischievous and pranking others or celebrating another festival in honor of our patron goddess, Zephira; we fairies knew very little of how dark the world truly is.

It isn’t even because of our lack of knowledge about the outside world. My elders have always told me tales about how fairies would wander the continent of Altrust, experiencing so many wondrous sights that you could never imagine in our village deep in the elven forest of Saelariel.

Once these adventurous fairies returned, they were always accompanied by treasures and trinkets from places unknown to the common fairy. Their return was always worthy of celebration as they retold grand tales of their adventure, so filled with exaggerations and twists of truth that nobody really knew what was true and false.

But we didn’t care. Fairies didn’t care. We weren’t interested in solemn and truthful retellings that would waste our afternoon appetite, but we craved for the exciting, heroic stories of how a being no larger than an insect could topple a giant beast that would even tower over our elven neighbors. We needed something to spice up our pollen drinks, after all.

However, I never was able to experience this part of our history, for when I was born, our village accepted a total isolationist policy from all races, aside from the elves and dwarves, the only races that came to our rescue in our darkest hour.

The main culprit for this end of an era of fairy adventurers was none other than the wicked souls of the humans and their monstrous creation that would lead to the notorious 'War for the Fairies'.

Many fairies died during this time, captured and taken advantage of by the jealous humans who realized that the only way to overcome their inadequacy was to decimate a large population of an already low populated race.

It didn’t even stop there, their invention the “Arcanuit Drainers”, a twisted contraption of the dwarven mana battery, even led to the capture of all things mana, and there was no better prey than Faefolk, like sprites and wraiths. Nothing showed the humans’ total lack of sympathy for other races better than this cruel showing.

This should have been the time when us fairies should have accepted reality and escaped our self-imposed fairy tale, though nonetheless, we didn’t. We kept true to our traditions and culture that stood in alignment with a fairy’s nature. We didn’t give in to despair, we kept going.

So what if we are trapped here. So what if we can’t travel the world anymore. So what if we can’t savor new exciting stories anymore. We shall adapt. We shall make up our own stories that we can retell others, after all, weren't most of the stories the free-roaming fairies gave us figments of our creative nature?

So we hid from the world and its terror. In our own dreamland. In our own perfect “fairy tale”.

I believed all of this. All the books I’ve read and all the “wisdom” I heard from my elders were my truth, the only one I knew. Whether it was the conflict between the beastmen and humans or the “War for the Fairies”, I only thought of them as “fun and games”, stories that my elders made up for us young fairies to roleplay.

…But all of it…my entire life crashed and cracked on me in the most brutal, callous, and damning way possible! The person that I, a simple maid, was supposed to protect and serve died right before me, all while I was unable to act rationally because my view of the world was destroyed. My anger at that time was my way to cope with the situation that ultimately clouded my decision making.

What use is 87-years’ worth of living when I can’t do anything when it mattered the most? I was at my wit's end when it happened, so please explain to me why everybody else was acting as if nothing happened?

A PRINCESS JUST DIED! OUR FAIRY PRINCESS!

I initially became a follower of Plesia because I found her tenets “exciting”…but I soon fully accepted them, as I found Zephira’s not sufficient. The Goddess of Wind was also the Goddess of Celebrations and Travels, it fitted perfectly with the fairy’s old lifestyle, but not anymore.

So, I left. I left on a quest to regain the honor that I’ve lost on the day Princess Schuri died. I was distraught, scared, and frightened of the big world but that was when I found my shining light, illuminating the darkness away inside my mind.

Princess Hestia Atsuko, a descendant of the legendary black dragon Kargryxmor and chosen champion of the Goddess of Light, Aurena.

Origin Gods, is this your way to tell me that the path I am walking on is wrong? Is this my chance to atone?

On that day, I swore to atone for my sins. My revenge was only a second thought to my true duty to serve, protect, and educate this newly born dragoness with memories from another world. The look of childlike wonder that she would give whenever she learned something new, truly fulfilled me as her retainer.

I thought, until the day I get my revenge, that I would never be able to feel such simple joy like serving tea to my new mistress and head retainer. Princess Hestia and Miss Saori made me embrace my fairy nature that I thought I had given up.

…Which made it unbearable as I saw my Princess being threatened ad grabbed. Rage overflowed me as I shot that [Ice Spike] in that lizardman’s hand. “I will never forgive those who hurt Lady Hestia!”, I thought at the moment, and I truly believed so, but it slowly waned when I learned that Caszcur, the lizardman that grabbed my Mistress, only did it to protect those he swore to protect. I sympathized with it.

My anger once again invoked when I saw Princess Hestia turn into a human with her [Humanization]. I don’t know what overcame me. How could I even think of hurting the one I swore to protect?! Only with the help of Miss Saori did I finally calm down and reflect on my actions, accepting that I had to cast away the dark shadow that was covering my soul if I wished to be a help to my mistress and friend.

For that reason, I controlled myself in the presence of those humans, Lorena and Colwyn. I wanted to do nothing less than to freeze them in an eternal sleep, but I knew that Princess Hestia would hate me for it. I respect Miss Saori for her maturity and wisdom, so earning her ire would be unthinkable also, especially after her scolding. I had to adapt.

However…please, forgive me Plesia and Zephira for what I am about to do…I will never forgive those scum who defiled Princess Hestia’s fair skin with their filthy hands and harmed her to the point of bloodshed.

For receiving the title [Hestia’s Retainer], I, Tasianna Marina Silverpond, could only do one thing…

"Oi, Lads, fucking stop slogging behind and get them legs moving! Ya saw that explosion, we gotta check it out," a filthy, greasy, mullet-wearing man shouted, stopping his sprint through the woods to look back.

“Fucking hell, Jasper!” a few of the people following behind him, human and beastman, complained. “You have da Agility and Stamina. As if we can catch up if you start running!”

The man named Jasper frowned, glancing at his entourage like a dissatisfied leader, “Huh? Ya think I will take that for an excuse?! Go hunt some fucking boars or goblins, they’re everywhere. Get some experience for levels, ya idiots! Ya ain’t getting stronger if ya glog ale the whole day.”

This group of bandits, robbers and killers, were currently running towards the explosion that I’d set up using Princess Hestia's bombs. Upon her signal, I was supposed to set off her bombs to cause a massive explosion to spread the bandits into two groups, drawing some away from the main camp where Priest Kushlek'zar and the saurians would start the main raid.

My role was only that, and nothing more. I was supposed to distract them and then swiftly return back to the camp to aid in the main raid…however, I have decided that am I needed elsewhere. As much as it pained me to admit, I knew that the person that I am supposed to protect was stronger than me. She didn’t need me to defend her.

Although I trusted that she was strong enough to protect herself, it also brought me great shame as I couldn’t help but admit that I was still far too weak to serve as her shield. Just like the heroes from our tales. I admired her strength and her will to strive for her dream.

…Which meant that I couldn’t afford to stand still.

“Brrr, fuck! What the hell, why has it gotten so cold?!”

“Argh, fuck! Shoulda brought more coats with us with how winter is ‘ight around the corner.”

“Enough with ya complaining, you maggots! Don’t drop ya guards while we have no clue who da hell caused that shit!” Jasper shouted, trying to calm down his group of brigands. “Grrr, but what the hell. It wasn’t this cold just a minute ago-OH SHIT!”

Piercing through the air, an [Ice Spike] flew towards the mullet-headed bandit with deadly accuracy, aiming to immobilize his legs, however, through his usage of [Prediction] the man avoided it and my spell instead hit a man behind him.

“Arrrrghhhhhh!” my wrong target screamed.

“Bitch! She’s there, after her!” Jasper commanded, having found me hiding in among the trees.

Tch, I’m still inferior to them. Regardless, Frozen Shield!

From the most recent spar that I had with my companions, I finally learned the disparity between people who have a fully max leveled [Chant Revocation] and those who didn’t. This difference is massive in a tense battle where every second mattered.

I accepted that simple fact, so I did what was correct and fully leveled that skill. No price is too high if it can help support my Princess.

With barely any delay, I shot out the shield made from freezing ice in the direction of the bandits.

“Dodge!” he yelled, prompting all the bandits, aside from one, to jump out of the way of my spell’s trajectory. “Ha, ya think ya got us with that ya bit…ch? Where da fuck is she?!”

The bandits were turning their heads around in a frenzy, bewildered by the fact that they weren’t able to see my silhouette anyway, shouting that I simply disappeared into thin air. They were directing their weapons in an unorganized fashion, clearly on-guard from my failed ambush.

They were probing in every direction…besides from above.

[Elvenized (Moderate)] inflicted on [Fairy, Tasianna Marina Silverpond]

Icicle Gale!

“““Uarrgahhhhhhhh!”””

Hysterical wailings of pain resounded beneath me as I stayed afloat in the air by constantly flapping my butterfly wings. How did I get there? Well, I used my [Frozen Shield] to block their sight from me for a second, which I used to [Elvenize] back into my fairy form, using my now smaller frame to slip through their sight and attention as I snuck up in the air to buffet them in a rain of cold, sharp icicles.

No mercy.

I knew Princess Hestia was currently conflicted on if she should be killing these people or not, but that was not a problem for me. I felt no restriction from killing these filthy bandits at all. Those who harm my friends and mistress will be judged by my Goddess’ magic.

“Fucking, bitch! DIE!”

Being the only one at an adequate level with a decent skillset, Jasper narrowly dodged through this hailstorm with labored breaths, wheezing as he threw one of his daggers at me.

Naturally having already noticed it with my [Prediction], I canceled my spell and materialized another [Frozen Shield] in front of me, blocking the dagger. If I only was able to learn [Multi-Cast] or [Continuous Cast] in time, I might have been able to keep [Icicle Gale] active, but alas, I was unable.

“Fuck! That trick again! Ha, as if I will fall for it this time! You’re aiming for my blind spots, right, but now I know that you can fly, you bitch, you won’t fool me again.”

His breathing was heavy, clenching onto his remaining dagger with a fierce determination as he kept moving around to protect himself from another supposed sneak attack, all while his comrades were moaning their last signs of life in their own puddle of blood. Jasper was so focused on his own survival that nothing else mattered to him…which proved to be his last mistake.

A thud.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh!

An explosion.

It wasn’t as loud nor destructive as the other one, but it was enough to send Jasper flying away, riddled with wounds and burn marks. The sounds of dying men also vanished from below, as all were in the center of this powerful attack, probably already on their way towards the Goddess of Death, Ilsaphone, to be judged under her unbiased gaze.

[Elvenized (Major)] inflicted on [Fairy, Tasianna Marina Silverpond]

Descending, I shapeshifted from my fairy form back into my complete wind elf form once I believed I was low enough to the ground to safely land. I went over to the air where I first started my assault and picked up the outfit that Miss Saori so meticulously made for me.

As I became smaller once I transformed back into my real body, I also had to leave what I was wearing behind. The only items that I brought with me as I flew to the sky to launch that attack were the clothes I wore as a fairy and one of Princess Hestia’s bombs, a perfect tool to end this fight.

I dusted and cleaned my clothes from every piece of dirt and quickly put them back on. Miss Saori and Princess Hestia picked this combination out for me, so I have to make sure that they are presentable once I meet them. It would be rude if I were to damage them, although, they would be easily fixed using my mana.

“Grack, gack…urgh.”

As the dust cloud started to settle and the pained coughing of a man on his last breath spread through the quiet night sky, I knew that my time here was nearly over. I walked over to the man, who was holding onto his bleeding stomach, pierced by his own dagger from that explosion.

He leaned against a tree, trying to patch himself up until he saw me approaching, “Hehe, you got me good there, lass. What the hell sorta attacks were those, huh? Damn, didn’t expect a mage would come with the next batch of mercs. Guess I fucking jinxed us, huh?”

I did not speak. Silence was my answer.

“Come on, Icy. No need to give me the cold shoulder while I’m fuckin’ bleedin’ out here. Don’t leave a man hanging like that, ha- gack, gack, ark…”

Blood came out of his mouth, plenty enough that it would fill up one of my mistress’ cups. From the amount of blood he lost, I believe a normal human should have already died but until his Health dropped to zero, he would continue existing.

“Hey, mind letting me go? Promise I’ll turn a second leaf and-oof! Urggh”

Before he could utter any more words, I grabbed the man's throat as a cold aura began emitting from my body, slowly sapping the warmth away from his body, "Silence, human. For your sin of harming my Mistress, you shall be judged.”

“M-Mistress…?” he murmured with the last of his strength, losing even the power to staunch his bleeding as the pink color of his skin started to turn pale.

"Lady Hestia Atsuko! You dared to blemish her with your filthy hands and then you even harmed her! Unforgivable…Unforgivable!" I shouted, letting out all the emotions that I was desperately trying to hold back. "You will die."

“Is…tha…t…so?” he replied with a smirk, looking up into the starry sky as the light in his eyes slowly faded. “Worth…the try…S-guck-orry Mackl-”

And with the sound of breaking glass, the pressure that I was exerting on his freezing throat snapped it apart, decapitating the human and ending his miserable existence.

Experience has reached a breaking point.   [Fairy, Tasianna Marina Silverpond] has risen from [Level 49] to [Level 50]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 600 skill points

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Arcane Mind Lv. 9] [Silent Cast Lv. 3] [Stealth Lv. 5] [Accuracy Correction Lv. 2] [Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 5] [Night Vision Lv. 6] [Evasion Lv. 5] [Acrobatic Lv. 5] [Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 3] [Identify Lv. 6] [Stamina Recovery Lv. 2] [Enhanced Mana Growth Lv. 6] [Enhanced Mana Capacity Lv. 4] [Enhanced Intelligence Growth Lv. 6] [Enhanced Intelligence Enforcement Lv. 4] [Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 5] [Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 3] [Enhanced Stamina Capacity Lv. 2] gained

Multiple acquisition requirements fulfilled.   [Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 1] [Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 1] [Battle Mind Lv. 1] [Terror Aura Lv. 1] acquired

…

…

“…Sniff…Miss Saori was right…," I whimpered as something slowly flowed down my cheeks.

Holding onto the cold, bloody remains of this human's throat, something stirred inside me the moment I saw my level go up. I felt re-energized from having my Mana regenerated but there was also something that was currently weighing down my shoulders.

I-I don’t know what was going on within me. I killed all these men to fulfill my duty as Princess Hestia’s protector and retainer, bringing down just punishment for a band of criminals that caused nothing but suffering for the people around them. They were clear sinners in the eye of my Goddess, as even Priest Kushlek’zar and the other Tide Watchers were condemning them.

That was the right thing to do, right? Right?

Princess Schuri, what I did was correct, right? Right? Don't you want me to stop the man that did that to you? The man that broke our peace. The man that shattered the dreamland. Our fairy tale ended too soon…

Princess Hestia? I did this to get stronger. To become strong enough to serve you well. It was the right thing to kill them, right? Right?

…So, why do I feel so empty?

Why do I feel so empty, Miss Saori?

I was confused, so confused. However, I knew that standing around and weeping in my own solitude would help no one. The night was still young and the fighting hadn't stopped yet.

My Mistress needs me, was my only thought as I dragged my heavy footsteps towards the person that I considered my "Shining Light".

Tasianna Updated Status Board

Profile:

Name:   Tasianna Marina Silverpond

Level: 50

Race: Fairy

Age: 87 Years

Job: Mage

Status:

Health:

762/762 (+65)

Mana:

3684/3684(+419)

Strength:

180 (+29)

Intelligence:

1406 (+106)

Vitality:

213 (+37)

Wisdom:

962 (+87)

Agility:

1035 (+103)

Stamina:

945/945 (+226)

Effects:

None

Skill Points:

700 (-5350)

Skill:

Magic Skills

[Fairy Magic]

[Arcane Mind Lv. 9] (+2)

[Ice Magic Lv. 3] (+1)

[Water Magic Lv. 9] (+2)

[Water Amp]

[Water Magic Efficiency] (New)

[Wind Magic Lv. 6] (+3)

[Chant Revocation Lv. 10] (+5)

[Silent Casting Lv. 3] (+2)

[Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 1] (New)

[Mental Stability Lv. 2] (+1)

[Mental Warfare Lv. 3] (+1)

Movement and senses

[Stealth Lv. 5] (+2)

[Accuracy Correction Lv. 2] (+1)

[Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 5] (+2)

[Prediction Lv. 4] (+2)

[Danger Perception Lv. 4] (+3)

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 3] (+2)

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 2] (New)

[Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 4] (New)

[Night Vision Lv. 6] (+3)

[Tracking Lv. 1] (New)

[Presence Killer Lv. 4] (+3)

[Evasion Lv. 5] (+2) [Acrobatic Lv. 5] (+2)

[Flight Acceleration Lv. 4] (+2)

[Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 3] (+2)

[Concentration Lv. 6] (+2)

Resistances

[Physical Resistance Lv. 7] (+4)

[Pain Resistance Lv. 6] (+3)

[Poison Resistance Lv. 5] (+4)

[Paralyzation Resistance Lv. 4] (+3)

[Torpor Resistance Lv. 5] (+4)

[Mana Leak Resistance Lv. 1]

[Holy Resistance Lv. 3] (+2)

[Fire Resistance Lv. 5] (+4)

[Water Resistance Lv. 6] (+2)

[Earth Resistance Lv. 4] (+2)

[Wind Resistance Lv. 6] (+4)

[Dark Resistance Lv. 3] (+2)

Stats Growths

[Stamina Recovery Lv. 2] (+1)

[Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Mana Growth Lv.´6] (+1)

[Enhanced Mana Capacity Lv. 4] (+1)

[Enhanced Intelligence Growth Lv. 6] (+1)

[Enhanced Intelligence Enforcement Lv. 4] (+1)

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 1] (New)

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 5] (+1)

[Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Agility Enforcement Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 3] (+1)

[Enhanced Stamina Enforcement Lv. 2] (+1)

Others

[Singing Lv. 4] (+2)

[Dancing Lv. 2] (+1)

[Identify Blocker Lv. 10] (+9)

[Identify Lv. 5] (+2)

[Cooking Lv. 4] (+1)

[Dismantle Lv. 1] (New)

[Herbalist Lv. 3] (+2)

[Brewing Lv. 1] (New)

[Battle Mind Lv. 1] (New)

[Terror Aura Lv. 1] (New)

[Royal Etiquette Lv. 5]

[Cryokinesis]

[Telepathy]

Spell List:

Custom Spells

[Create Water]

[Greater Create Water]

Ice Spells

[Ice Spike]

[Frozen Shield]

[Icicle Gust]

Water Spells

[Water Ball]

[Water Wall]

[Water Bolt]

[Cleanse]

[Protective Water]

[Droplet Torrent]

[Aqua Prison]

Wind Spells

[Wind Bullet]

[Wind Cutter]

[Air Shield]

[Air Shield]

[Wind Slash]

[Swift Winds]

Titles:

[Hestia’s Retainer]

A note from AbyssRaven

Well, Tasianna just killed a group of bandits. At least most of them died in a very EXPLOOOOOSSSSIIIIIOOOOONNN! way.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 82: Leading the Prey.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #2 her to promote our Patreon. 10 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 10 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until September!

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“Zahala’teel garusch Xohulotel! Hisch’kaneel Plesia mefhi’kushtel za!” a primal war cry boomed from the edge of the bandit camp, rumbling the very air and shaking the earth.

And at the very next second, a fire explosion thundered. Flaring up the dimming sky in a bright red, eradicating not only a part of the fence but also the tent that served as the armory, leaving nothing behind but ash and molten metal.

Seeing as how the flames had a tint of crimson red, it was indisputable that these flames were mine, caused by the bombs that I engraved a fire spell into to explode after you pulled the pin to release the mana inside.

“W-What-Fuck, this shit hur-ARGH?!”

“My arm! Ahh, my arm-ARGH!”

Somehow, no bandit actually died from the explosion, as they weren’t close enough to ground zero, but none of them came out of it unharmed as eh shockwave sent them flying away like ragdolls. Pain contorted their faces as they held onto their wounds, a mix between burn marks and bits of wood and stone sticking in their flesh.

Their wails should’ve been dedicated to their pain but, instead, all of them screamed in surprise, as tentacles of water tangled around their legs. They were abruptly pulled up into the air, dangling around as these magical tendrils hung afloat from their magic circles

“Depth’s Call,” a lanky raptor-like beastman monotonously called out. “Krim. Grazlahta. Subdue the bandits. Akasht. The prisoners are protected by Hestia’s wind barrier, get to her and transport all of them out. Only return with my summon. ‘Depth Serpents’, Xohulotel, laruz!” Mister Kushlek’zar concisely commanded his saurian companions.

““Xohulotel, laruz!”” the red and blue carnosilian duo shouted in unison, before rushing in with their shields and weapons, treating any retaliating bandits as fodder.

“Gruuuuuuarrrrgh! Xohulotel, LARUZ!” Akasht, the massive sarcosilian charged in like a tank, swinging around his mighty hammer en route towards me.

“Sorry, move. Wind Blast,” realizing that he wouldn’t stop before he reached me, I activated my spell and sent Macklemor flying away in a gust of wind. “Terra Wall.” Not wanting to see him harmed, I imprisoned him in an earthen cage to take him out of the battle immediately.

“Lady Hest-!” he wanted to cry out but was quickly silenced by my wall.

Once Akasht made it to me, smashing a few bandits into smithereens on the way, I greeted the intimidating giant with a wave and smile before turning around to the ex-prisoners, "Everyone, this is my friend and a mercenary that has accepted this bandit subjugation Quest! I swear to the Goddess of Light that he is a faithful follower of Plesia, the Water Goddess of Order, Honor, and Tradition. He will bring you to safety, so please go with him!”

However, despite shouting from the top of my lungs, all of them were in shock, moving their eyes between me and Akasht, uttering, “What is that giant monster?!” and “The Priestess is a beastman?!”

Scheiße, they’re taking too long!

I seriously underestimated the shock value that all of this would give the fatigued villagers. They were hesitating, unable to choose what to do as they gazed at the chaotic camp, the giant saurian hulk, and my new form. We had to round up all the bandits as soon as possible, and that meant that we couldn’t have the prisoners around.

I had to persuade them quickly, which meant I needed to activate my charisma-based skills. [Noble Aura] will help me cajole them. [Benevolent Aura] is to calm them down. Lastly, [Leadership], [Royal Etiquette], and my newly acquired [Admiration] were passive skills so as long as they could see me, I should be able to persuade them eventually.

Admiration

A skill that boosts the user’s ability to influence others who have a good impression on them. This is not a mental skill, so it won’t be affected by a target’s mental resistances. This skill does not work on those with a neutral or negative impression

“Please, listen to me! Mr. Glenn! Mrs. Linda! You must snap out of it, now. Your daughter is waiting for you back at Carine village! Please, leave with Akasht now otherwise, we can’t fight the bandit without worry for your safety,” I explained to them.

The villagers and farmers turned their attention to me, only keeping watch of Akasht from the corner of their eyes. They still had looks of doubt, clearly intimidated by him.

Fortunately, the first group to snap out of their delirium were the mercenaries, showing their experience to adapt to the situation. They began pushing and ordering the other prisoners towards Akasht, trying to take their mind away from the chaos that was ensuing around them. As some of them were unconscious, the mercs, both women and men, carried them onto the massive sarcosilians.

Looks like my healing helped.

Akasht sheathed his hammer and began putting the humans into his empty bags that were originally used to haul the saurian’s belongings. He might be huge, but there were still over 20 prisoners. However, surprisingly he managed the feat as everybody was essential clinging onto him for dear life.

“Me. Go,” he said with his growly voice.

“Be safe, Akasht. Here, Air Shield,” I wished him as my spell surrounded him in a protective shield before he charged back into the forest.

Ok, time to give that bastard a visit-woah!

[Foresight] warning me, I turned my body and dodged an incoming [Fire Spear]. Considering the trajectory origin and how there was only one other fire mage, I couldn’t help but be surprised at what happened.

“Don’t count me out yet, Lady Hestia, or are you a noble at all, dragonewt?” Macklemor announced with heavy breath, looking outside a cracked wall from my earthen cage.

“You’ve burned yourself, Mister Macklemor,” I pointed out the slightly burned skin on his hands, which was carrying a slightly charred wooden staff.

“A real embarrassment for a fire mage to be burned by his own fire, but I must admit that this wall was too sturdy. A fire mage, a wind mage, an earth mage, and you also have an amulet of Plesia? Young Lady, you’re embarrassing me here with how talented you are,” Macklemor said with a wry smile. "Still…I knew you had the potential for a fire mage, but little did I know that you were this powerful. You held onto that [Flame Spear] like a sword, without being burned at all. What are the depths of your abilities?!”

“…Surrender. Frankly, I don’t want to fight you, Mister. You don’t deserve to be here,” I said with a troubled frown, as I cast [Sacred Field] under him.

“…! A-A W-White Grace?! You’re a woman of the church of Aurena, also? Wha-This is frustrating…,” Macklemor grimaced, clenching his now healed hands into a fist. “Were my words worthless in the end? So much talent at such a young age just like my younger sister and the young mistress…This is frustrating. What have I worked so hard for, for my whole life, just to be outmatched by someone younger than me, again and again? Danterno, was I never worthy of your honor?”

“Mister Macklemor, I-”

“No, stop it, please, Lady Hestia. I-I can’t take this anymore. Do not show any more pity for me, I beg you. I am unworthy of your attention,” Macklemor cradled his head as tears flowed out of his eyes again. “Danterno, I have sinned. I have lied to you! A new fire mage won’t be born today, as she already exists! Her fire flaring so beautifully like a gleaming ruby.”

At that moment, Macklemor pointed his staff forward, muttering an incantation as a magic circle appeared before him. Noticing this, I couldn’t help but shout, “Stop! I told you I don’t want to fight you! Stop it now, Mister Macklemor!”

“Enough!” he exploded, showing an expression so deranged that you would believe his mind has shattered. “If I cannot serve my god by converting someone to him, then I shall offer up something else. Fire consumes fire. If I cannot be useful as a mage, then I shall entrust the next generation with my faith! I would ask you for a final favor, Lady Hestia. Show me. Show me the depths of your power and knowledge! I Beseech you, grant me the honor of witnessing your all-consuming inferno!”

Before I could say anything else, he threw his spell at me.

*********************************

“Fucking hell, this damn leg! Damn those fucking ‘Depth Serpents’!” a bulky beastman with a rhinoceros body blurted out in pain, massaging his still broken leg as he limped through the woods in a rush.

The “Depth Serpents” was the party name of Kushlek’zar’s group, which I overheard when he shouted that during the initial engagement of the raid. I wasn’t sure what it meant when he stated it back then, but after stalking this person for a bit, I believe I have all the information together. He talks to himself quite a lot, thankfully.

The “Depth Serpents” are a new up-and-coming mercenary party that seemed to have gained some renown since last year after they registered at the mercenary guild in one of the northern territories of the Kingdom of Artorias.

Known to always announce their welcome with “Zahala’teel garusch Xohulotel! Hisch’ka Plesia mefhi’kushtel za!”, which directly translates into “Beware the might of Xohulotel! In her grace’s name, Plesia, we bring down justice!”. Nothing was more fearsome and intimidating to hear than their combined “Xohulotel, laruz!” before they charged in, meaning “Xohulotel, witness!”

With the zealous show of their faith and how they would always accept bandit subjugations and headhunting Quests, always coming out of them almost unscathed, their reputation grew. Kushlek’zar’s party was feared as extremely aggressive when it comes to chasing down criminals.

And that is why the moment this beastman heard that shout, he ran away, abandoning his group without a second thought, only wishing to preserve himself. And as Tasianna was responsible for the initial distraction, Kushlek’zar and his party for the main raid, and Hestia for securing and protecting the prisoners, it was left to me to chase down any stragglers.

The only problem was that the person that I was chasing was also the strongest fighter in their group.

Calm down, Saori. This is exactly what we wanted!

I saw his status board and this Narube was as intimidating as any single member of Kushlek’zar’s party. I could fight him, maybe, to a standstill as a Cadejo, but my wolfkin form might not be strong enough to fight against him. I could call the saurians for help, but I doubt they’d arrive in time. They’re all preoccupied with the many weaker bandits at the camp, and they prioritize numbers over bringing justice to a single wrongdoer.

I know I should give up and retreat…but I will not because this was the person who hurt Hestia.

Last time, I could only watch through my [Shadow Snake] as my friends were getting hurt by that giant Leviathan. I was the one who told Hestia that I wouldn’t join her due to my annoyance of her disobedience, so I shouldn’t be saying this but I was beyond frustrated at myself when I saw them in danger, while all I could do was use the shadow snakes that I hide inside Rajah's legs.

I wanted to sprint towards them and help, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t able to remember their path nor was it physically feasible for me to make it there on time. I was helpless.

And then Hestia’s accident happened where she got [Battle Frenzy (Moderate)] due to my mistake. I should have listened to her opinion instead of stubbornly sticking to my own plan. When I was still a teacher on Earth at Shirako High, my seniors did mention that I was “too much of a control freak” and that I should “loosen” up more as a teacher. Apparently, even for an “education-first”, competitive, Japanese high school where rich and talented students gather, I was still too strict.

I didn’t want to admit it back then but…it might be true. Although I made up my mind to adapt properly, I just couldn’t be flexible enough. I should have gone with Hestia to help the lizardmen. I should have done something to soothe Hestia while we spent a week in that cave. As an adult, I should have done something more.

So, how could I make that mistake again? I always worry about her safety and recklessness, so why did I agree to sneak her into that bandit camp alone? Was I so confident that Hestia could do everything, that I let it obstruct my decision-making? My decisions have been far too inconsistent.

When I saw Hestia getting hurt, I couldn’t accept it anymore. I couldn’t let my friends and those I value so much to get hurt anymore. I needed to start acting responsible and take things in my hands, whether I liked it or not.

So, that’s why…

“Fuck off!” having finally noticed my presence, Narube the Rhinoncerum threw a spare throwing axe at me, which I avoided by delving into the shadows with [Shadow Dash] and appearing somewhere else. “Fucking bastard! I can see you!”

His detection skills were below my hide-based skills, so it was unlikely that he could actually detect me, however, he was speaking the truth when he said he could see me, for red blood mist was being emitted from my eyes. My race, the [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo], is a wolf monster that would emit its distinctive red mist from its eyes when it is ready to hunt and kill, and nothing was more noticeable than this in the darkening woods.

“Rargh!” Narube dashed over to my second location, swinging down his now unsheathed two-handed axe, but I quickly melted back into the shadow to appear somewhere else. This went on for a couple more times, where I would mix in certain skills and spells to misdirect him even more.

One example would be creating [Shadow Clones] to confuse him while I would stay somewhere else, activating [Bloodlust] at the moment he was about to strike my clone to tense him up.

The idea behind this whole tactic is to unnerve him. Physically, due to [Humanization (Moderate)] I wasn’t as strong as him and I don’t think I can beat him in a slugfest. He seemed trained and experience with his usage of his weapon, while I was untrained and unarmed. This difference must be respected.

That’s why I’m abusing the fact that he had [Broken Knee (Left) (Moderate)] and [Numb Arm (Right) (Minor)]. Not only was he limping, but I also realized from this dodge tactic that his reaction time with his right arm was definitely slower.

I had to be sure that I wasn’t going overboard with my mana usage, to not build up too much arcane corruption, but seeing his Stamina lowering while he became more and more enraged made me feel like I could do it. Confidence was surging through me as my movements became more refined.

“Fucking mutt! Aeeerrrrrgh!” frustrated from how none of his attacks hit, Narube screeched like a steam tank, before his legs began to tense up, ready for a charge. "Bulldozing Rhino!"

Like a spring, his legs instantly released the tension, launching his massive rhinoceros body forward in a straight line, tearing trees down as if they were nothing but styrofoam. Anticipating this, I dodged to his right but was immediately greeted by [Prediction] and [Danger Perception] warning me as the beastman jumped into the air, raising his axe above his head.

“Flying Axe!”

[Shadow Armament (Full Body)] inflicted on [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa]

Without a second delay, I shrouded myself in a veil of darkness, blending into the darkness perfectly besides the red mist around my eyes. My new clothes were already darker-toned so it was already harder for people to detect me when it's dark, but I honestly felt like I was a part of it now, like nothing could defeat me while I was in this state.

As this counted as a “shadow”, [Shadow Tendrils] erupted from my body, clutching the trees behind me and pulled me out of the path of Narube’s thrown axe. Seeing as it was able to dig rather deeply into the ground, I probably wouldn’t have survived if I had taken it head-on.

Before Narube could pick it up, I kicked it away with [Shadow Descent], a shadow armament-only attack where I would extend the veil to increase the reach of a kick. With the axe flying away, I then shot out a few [Dark Bolt] at the humanoid rhinoceros.

“Natural Armor!” he called out. “Ha, these attacks tickle! My tribe would gore you for these attacks, wolfkin!”

Humanization.

[Humanization (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa]

My cadejo form was my trump card here, I can’t show it now, however, with my [Shadow Armament] covering my whole body, I could hide the fact that I had [Humanize] from him. I was really fortunate that he didn’t have [Identify] like Kushlek’zar.

Using the mana mist that would be emitted whenever I activate [Humanize], I cast [Shadow Clones] once more and ran beside it towards Narube. With 2/3rd of my original stats and the blessing spells that Kushlek’zar cast on me prior, I threw away my previous tactic and engaged the tall beastman in guerilla warfare, now that he was unarmed.

Tidecaller’s Blessing

A spell given with the Job [Tidecaller]. This spell increases Health, Mana, and Stamina regeneration depending on the caster’s faith in the Goddess of Water and their Intelligence stat

Depth Priest’s Blessing

A spell given with the Job [Depth Priest], male priests of the Church of Plesia. This spell increases Strength and Intelligence stats depending on the caster’s faith in the Goddess of Water and their own Intelligence and Wisdom stat

Invocation of Water

A spell given with the Job [Water Priest]. This spell increases the effectiveness of water spells and resistances against it. Also increases the effectiveness of the [Swimming] skill and the ability to stay underwater

Raptor’s Agility

A spell that grants the fleeting speed of the Raptorsilian, one of the three races of the saurians of Aelozonia. Increases Agility stat

Compared to Hestia’s buffing spells, I received only a few from Kushlek’zar, however, I could tell that they were equal in effectiveness, or maybe even more. Job and custom spells are definitely something that our party must look out for if we want to become stronger in the future.

“Kuck! Damn, rat!” Narube cried out, trying to hit me but failing.

His skin is tough! All my attacks are too shallow even in this form?

Hit-and-run is what I do best considering my spell element and skills. I am able to take multiple weaker enemies out at once and power up with [Lifetaker], however, I can’t use this skill to its fullest potential when I am fighting one strong person, first.

I couldn’t overwhelm him. I had to slowly chip him away, whether mentally or physically. The first phase was for me to analyze his movement while tiring him out. The second phase is for me to dig deep into his skin with my claws, applying one of Hestia’s toxic concoctions to cripple him. However, with how shallow my cuts were, it was hard to execute this part.

“Crash Horn!” he roared, slamming his head onto the ground, creating not only a minor shockwave but also cracks in the ground, sending rocks and earth up into the air.

Using my veil of shadow like an extension of my body, dodging through all of this was no problem as countless [Shadow Tendrils] wiggled around to keep me from harm's way. With my balance recovered, I launched my own [Unarmed Technique] ability on him.

“Just Blink!” despite the weird name that I gave it, it did just that. Using my shadow armament, my arm was able to slip through his attention while he was blinking.

Seeing how close my claws were to his eyes, Narube flinched back immediately. Unfortunately for him, he forgot that I was fighting with my clone here and didn’t notice that the one who just used [Just Blink] was her. The real me jumped onto his back and wrapped thin mana strings around his neck which I took out of my storage magic, strangling him with them after I got a good grip.

“Kriiiack!” rampaging like a bull, he was swinging me around as hard as he could but I didn’t let go. These were my mana strings. As long as I can fuel them with mana, they will never tear apart. Fortunately, as he kept on struggling, it made it easier for me as my clone could continue attacking him while my mana strings started to cut his neck, a tiny flow of blood appearing.

Venom applied!

As I could apply Hestia’s venom on my claws, so could I do it with my mana strings. They were all tools which I could use with the tactic that I have been using with Hesta ever since we’ve met. She might not be a venom dragon, but no one around could make a stronger venom than her by simply sweating.

The venom immediately showed its effect despite only being minor, making it harder for him to breathe. Eventually, he did manage to grab my leg and pull me off him, throwing me away like a ragdoll. While I was in the air, Narube used [Bulldozing Rhino] to charge over to his axe.

“DIE! BLAST RUSH!”

Like a shotgun, the massive rhinoncerum shot through the battlefield in a mad rush, having fully descended into madness through his wrath. My shadow clone had to sacrifice herself to buy me a few precious seconds, which I needed to land back on the ground, get back on my feet, regain balance, and then dodge out of the way.

However, before I could breathe, the mad rhino swung down his axe and then continued with a flurry of slices, unconscious of where he was going and swinging.

Berserker Mode

A skill given to the Job line of [Ravager]. Doubles the Strength stat and Stamina regeneration while halving Vitality and Wisdom. The user loses his rationality. Effects linger for a while even after deactivating the skill

Destruction Path

A skill given to the Job [Grand Ravager]. Gives up usage of spells while this skill is under effect but grants the user the ability to ignore negative status afflictions. The effects aren’t nullified but the user is able to go beyond the body’s natural fatigue limit. Increases Strength by half of the base amount while causing the user to go on a rampage

He was a walking wrecking ball, without a doubt. He couldn’t control himself and his movements were reckless and unpredictable, leaving me no room to counterattack. His Agility didn’t increase but he wasn’t stopping his assault anytime soon. There is also the fact that even a simple hit could possibly kill me at this point from how much his Strength was increased by these two skills.

Hang on! Hang on! You have to hang on, Saori! Everything is going as planned!

The woods were turned into a field of carnage as if a twister just appeared and uprooted and destroyed all the trees and vegetation in the area. I tried to use [Shadow Dash] to move away from it but Narube would simply use [Bulldozing Rhino] or [Blast Rush] to shorten the distance in a second, literally.

He wasn’t giving up and despite using everything in my repertoire to dodge his attacks, whether it was skills like [Evasion] and [Air Walk] or [Shadow Tendrils] pulling me away or [Shadow Dash] towards a faraway point, it mattered little. He would never stop, just like a real rhino, charging forward the first moment it felt threatened.

He was relentless…and I couldn’t keep up with it.

“Arrrrrrrgh!” not managing my breathing correctly, my movements dulled for a moment and I was slammed by the blunt sides of his axe, being blown away, crashing onto a nearby tree.

“Uuuurgh, hie, urck,” I moaned. I had [Absolute Pain Tolerance] just like Hestia but I still wasn’t too used to intense pain. It only got me around its tip, but the damage was still done. My arms rattled like crazy and crashing with my back on the tree made it hard for me to stand up properly.

I wanted to lie down and rest, but instincts drove me back up onto my feet as Narube, once again, [Blast Rush]ed to me.

“Purgatory BEAST!” grabbing his massive axe with both arms, he swung it down with pure impunity, slicing the very air in half as an image of a demon was invoked in my mind.

The very earth quaked, ripping apart anything unfortunate enough to stand in the way of this monstrous attack, calling forth a blast wave of wind to send chunks of ground flying.

[Broken Arm (Right) (Major)] [Bleeding (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa]

As the dust settled, the silence was broken by a pained weeping.

“You actually survived that?” Narube said with widened eyes, having deactivated both [Berserker Mode] and [Destruction Path], before chuckling with a sadistic smile. “…Heh heh, I guess this is a better result. You know, you’re just like that fucking bitch. That damn ‘White Winged Dragoon’. All she did was play around with me as she stomped on my pride as a warrior, while her fucking knights destroyed everything I built up!”

Urgh, my a-arm…it’s n-not m-moving…at all.

"…I wanted to crush her, my wish is to make her squeal and beg for a pitiful life as I stomp her bones to dust…but she's a giant wall…you will do, for now, wolfkin bitch,” he announced with blood-red eyes, grinning like a lunatic. “You don’t look the same but you remind me of her too much. I will have you wish that you had never angered me, Narube! A great warrior from the great plains! BLAST RUSH!”

I didn’t listen to anything of what he said. I was able to hear it but nothing stuck in my head as my brain was more pre-occupied by the large amount of pain that was surging around my bloodied arm, broken to the point that I couldn’t move it around anymore. I needed Hestia’s healing, now!

…But I wasn’t that much of a novice that I didn’t notice his hostile intents. I stood my ground, regardless, because…

“Kruck-?!”

Got you.

“ARCK!” unable to stop himself, Narube tripped over a thin mana string as electricity streamed through his body, flying over me and crashing into a thick layer of mana strings that I’ve set up in this area, spasming.

[Humanization (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa]

Putting on a bit of pressure on a nearby string, Narube was immediately constricted by a colorful grouping of mana strings.

Red, cyan, purple, green, red-brown. All the colors of our group's available elements.

“W-What the fuck is- ARCK” he tried to speak but I prevented that by tightening the string around his throat.

“T-Thank you for falling into my trap,” I said with a quivering voice, still affected by the pain.

As my job was to hunt down any stragglers, I’d set up my mana strings in the area to intercept the bandits. Up until now, I’ve primarily used [Elemental Mana Weaving] to create clothes with the colored mana string, but that wasn’t the skill’s main usage. These mana threads created from an element’s mana could produce their element if I sent mana through them.

That meant red mana string would emit fire while purple strings could send lightning through your body. Unfortunately, they actually don’t show this effect when I make them into clothing. Hestia did mention that it would be cool if I could make a purple dress that continuously shoots out lightning, which I honestly questioned why that would be awesome. The problems with your hair, oh my.

"Your trap-AAAAAAAAHHHHH!" he screamed as the red-brown mana string began oozing out lava, scorching his arm.

“Your [Berserker Mode] was too much for me to handle but otherwise, everything worked just like I wanted,” I answered.

The first and second phase was dedicated to unnerving Narube, causing him to rage. To make sure that he wouldn’t figure out my plan, I had to risk it and cause him to go berserk. The only reason why I believed I could execute this plan was because my Agility was so much higher than his with the addition of my dark spells and [Shadow Armament], helping me outmaneuver him.

The first phase was to reduce his Stamina, so he had to use [Berserker Mode] while the second was to cause him to go use [Destruction Path] to counteract the venom. I honestly wanted to inject a more lethal venom into him, but at minimum, I only needed him to be annoyed by being poisoned, realizing that the poison would slow him down even more.

With those two phases succeeding, he would go crazy and I could lead him around, easily bringing him into my net of mana strings. The only problem was that [Purgatory Beast]. I saw its effect with [Identify] but it caught me out of surprise with how strong it was.

I haven’t said this very often, but I am honestly in love with my [Dark Magic]. Although it is neither as strong as Hestia’s multitude of spells nor Tasianna’s [Ice Magic], it had the power of deception. I could outmaneuver anybody if I’m skilled and fast enough.

Why am I saying this? Well, I only survived that attack due to [Shadow Dash]. I simply dived into the darkness but unfortunately my arm couldn’t make it inside fast enough, so it literally broke from the shockwave of his attack. The pressure was so high that it damaged me without even hitting me.

“Goodbye…,” I uttered, pouring mana into a nearby string.

I could only call it a firework with how colorful it was. Numerous mana strings activated, sending out lightning, flames, ice, lava, and wind as they began to tear through Narube’s body, ripping him apart with magical power.

This was a victory due to [Identify]. As Sun Tzu said, “If you know your enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.” Knowing his skills and stats was enough for me to plan out this rather risky fight, despite it being smarter to just ignore him and retreat.

That was Hestia-level of recklessness if I say so myself, but I guess that is what I need to do to catch-!

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Prediction Lv. 9] [Danger Perception Lv. 8] gained

Seeing Narube’s Health decreasing at a good rate, I was confident that I had won. I was about to turn around and return back to the camp when my [Prediction] once again did its job and warned me like a trusty alarm clock from the axe that flew past me.

“Heh, heh…,” Narube laughed with laborious breathing, smiling as he held a glass bottle with his teeth.

Identify.

Glass Potion Bottle

An empty potion bottle made from glass with Fairnite included to insulate the mana leakage from the potion water. The concentration of Fairnite: 60%

What did he drink?!

“Ha ha ha, this potion was pretty damn expensive, you know. You don’t know how much you just made me lose, but you will feel the power of this potion right now!” Narube said with a wide smile, having broken free from my mana strings, blood-red eyes filling his…wait, has his left eye gotten redder than last time?

As I was wondering that, Narube roared out in pain, “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! MY EYE!” Suddenly, blood began flooding out of his eye, as it slowly started to wrinkle up, necrosis having started to set in.

The pain was excruciating enough for the rhinoncerum to fall onto his knees, holding onto his eyes as his wailing become louder and louder, having abandoned his pride as a warrior. He slumped down, as his other eye also began to show similar symptoms, turning black while blood flowed.

“P-Please, h-help me…,” he pleaded, having fully lost his eyesight as his grey skin turned into a deadly purple, pus spewing out from his pores. “AHHHHH….argh! H-Help! Th-This is not h-how I want-ted to die.”

…She did mention that she made a venom that would only work after an extended time.

I could never forget this sight. The last time I saw this venom in effect was when I personally poisoned a troll when I was rescuing Tasianna. Who gave me that venom? Hestia. Who wanted to improve her venoms to be less conspicuous to avoid the status boards? Hestia. Who spat in Narube’s eye while she was playing prisoner? That crimson-haired brat.

This sight is as dreadful as always…but I guess I should thank her. Humanize.

[“I might have considered helping you in the past,”] I said telepathically, staring him down with my cadejo form’s eyes, unwilling to forgive this person for what he did. [“However…you hurt my family.”]

“Wha-ARGHHH!”

I pounced on him, holding his arm back with my sharp claws while I pierced his neck with my sharp fangs, ravaging through all the blood and flesh until I had a good grip on his neck. The tall beastman struggled despite how much in pain he was, unwilling to die even in his final moments. With a simple crunch, the death cries finally ended.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa] has risen from [Level 9] to [Level 19]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 3600 skill points

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Mana Efficiency Lv. 5] [Arcane Mind Lv. 8] [Mana Control Lv. 9] [Dark Magic Lv. 9] [Mental Stability Lv. 4] [Mental Warfare Lv. 5] [Silent Casting Lv. 8] [Sundering Enhancement Lv. 5] [Enhanced Fangs Lv. 10] [Concentration Lv. 4] [Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 3] [Bleed Resistance Lv. 6] [Health Recovery Lv. 5] [Stamina Recovery Lv. 5] [Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 6] [Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 5] [Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 6] [Enhanced Agility Enforcement Lv. 5] [Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 6] [Identify Lv. 9] [Bloodlust Lv. 2] [Battle Mind Lv. 5] [Mana Weave Lv. 9] gained

Skill requirement fulfilled.   [Enhanced Claws Lv. 10] evolved into [Lupine Claws Lv. 1]

Skill requirement fulfilled.   [Enhanced Fangs Lv. 10] evolved into [Lupine Fangs Lv. 1]

Magic gained: [Enfeebling Winds]

…Yeah, I definitely am conscious that I have killed somebody similar to a human. Good. At least, that will keep me from doing it too often. That is one concern handled.

It seems like killing monsters like it is nothing until now has made me able to adapt to killing this beastman. Well, it also helps that I was angry at him, making it a bit easier for me to get used to it.

Thankfully, my mind was still human. I was worried that my mind had fully turned into a monster’s, so it was reassuring to know that I still wanted to avoid killing people who resemble humans. It would be a great relief if there was a chance for a peaceful life for me.

…A naïve thought if I can’t gain the strength to ensure that I could stand up against this world’s injustice. The books that I’ve read on the medieval era, whether it was feudal Japan or Europe, depicted a world filled with strife and conflict. Humans are greedy and that is especially true for people in power.

Hestia already mentioned that she was scared that I wasn’t strong enough to stop her when she goes into a rampage, which is true. I don’t have the ability to do it now. It isn’t even debatable at this point. I need to become stronger.

Killing Narube was a good chance to finally catch up to my companions, especially now when Hestia and Tasianna weren’t sharing EXP with me.

They mean too much to me. I don’t want to lose them.

I have no blood relatives anymore. I died before my mother on Earth. My garm family in this world are all dead. I was alone. With how that giant Leviathan talked about my “heritage”, I personally didn’t want to accept it as I felt no kinship to anybody now.

…Aside from two people: Hestia and Tasianna.

During the time when I most needed her, when I was just born and when I nearly died against those chameleons, she was there for me. She helped me. She taught me. She was the reason why I survived this world despite only being a month old.

Then there is Tasianna, the little fairy that would always treat me like I was a “head maid”. It was annoying at first, but it eventually grew on me. Her cheerfulness while she kept going through whatever training she has to do to become stronger. I admire hard work, so it goes without question that I am fond of her.

I know I am technically the youngest among us three, but I can’t help but think of them as little sisters. Little troublemakers.

So, that is why it pains me so much when both of them are so tormented by their own problems. Hestia and her doubts about her humanity and Tasianna about her trauma. I am glad that Hestia got over her fear to perform as an Idol, but it seems our party’s problem aren’t over yet.

Well, that is my job. Can’t have my new family be torn apart, right?

With that handled, I should get back to the rest. Hopefully, everything is alright on their side.

*********************************

“Lady Hestia! Stop! You have to stop!”

“Enough! Hestia, control yourself! The battle is over!”

“Young scale, get a grip of yourself!”

“Dammit, Kush, call Akasht back now! My tail is tingling and it ain’t a good feeling.”

“O, flames, so beautiful pyre! Grant me your divine purification! Cleanse me of my sins in the inferno!”

“O, gather with me, o tiny embers

Weave yourself in my divine mana

Oh grow, oh feast, never smother your potential

From darkness you grow, shining brightly to cast your origin away

O, Inferno, your form so mighty

Dance with my melody, my song

Hear my voice, hear my decree, your ruler of crimson

Blaze in power in a sea of red and yellow

Oh dear flames, listen to my music, my grand orchestra!”

By the divine System, individual   [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atsuko] is granted the title: [Divine Inferno]

Evolution options updated

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Spark Fire Dragon Lv. 9] evolved into [Spark Fire Dragon Lv. 10]

Ability gained:   [Firedust Trailblaze]

Skill requirement fulfilled.   [Spark Fire Dragon Lv. 10] evolved into Unique Skill [Dreadflame Dragon Lv. 1]

Skill requirement fulfilled.   [Draconic Claws Lv. 5], [Draconic Fangs Lv. 4] merged into Unique Skill [Hellblade Dragon Lv. 1]

Abilities gained:   [Dreadflare Aura] [Hellblade Edge]

Abilities   [Spark Claws], [Spark Fang] merged into [Hellblade Edge]

Skill requirement fulfilled.   [Fire Magic Lv. 10], [Holy Magic Lv. 10] merged into Unique Skill [White Flames Lv. 1]

Skill requirement fulfilled.   [Inferno Magic Lv. 5], [Poison Creation Lv. 5], [Toxic Secretion Lv. 3] merged into Unique Skill [Corrosive Fire Lv. 1]

Magic Lost:   [Minor Heal] [Cure] [Modest Heal] [Smite] [Light] [Holy Protection] [Holy Strength] [Purify] [Fire] [Firebolt] [Imbue Fire] [Fire Ball] [Strengthening Flames] [Flame Spear] [Petal Flame] [Flame Explosion] [Inferno Blast] [Blazing Twister] [Inferno Beam] [Scorching Sun] [Spiral Hellfire]

Skills Lost:   [Holy Amp] [Holy Magic Efficiency] [Fire Amp] [Fire Magic Efficiency]

[Spark Fire Dragon Lv. 10] reached. Race requirement fulfilled by individual [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atsuko]. The System has collected enough data. Missing mutation characteristics will now be corrected

Unnecessary Skills and Abilities will be combined:   [Spark Flame Veil], [Flame Burst], [Spark Flame], [Spark Fire Breath], [Spark Inferno Blast], [Firedust Trailblaze]. Abilities gained: [Scale-dust Veil] [Hellflame Breath]

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

‘Original Mind!’

‘Parallel Mind #1, she’s losing it! We can’t stop it anymore!’

‘Where the fuck did this title come from! Ahhh, it started hurting the moment our spells and skills were ripped away from us! I can’t concentrate at all!’

“Huh? Mister Kushlek’zar, what is going on with Lady Hestia?!”

“Miss Saori! You’ve come at the perfect timing, Hestia-!”

“Symphonie des Feuergottes!”

Custom spell   [Imperial Hellfire] was changed into [Symphonie des Feuergottes]

Custom spell   [Symphonie des Feuergottes] has been perfectly integrated into the System

A note from AbyssRaven

Oh oh, what has Danterno done?

Also, RIP [Imperial Hellfire], make way for the German spell. For those curious, [Symphonie des Feuergottes] translates into [Symphony of the Fire God]. Just like in anime, once the characters begin using German words to announce their attacks and spells, you know something big is about to happen.

Good thing Hestia actually knows German. O_O

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 83: An Unexpected Boss Battle.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #3 her to promote our Patreon. 10 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 10 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until September!

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There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

[Humanization (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa]

“W-What is going on?!” I exclaimed once I saw the state the bandit camp was in.

After killing Narube, I made my way back as fast as I could despite still having a broken arm. I admit I was counting on the Health regeneration from leveling up to heal it up for me. From my experience, it would usually fix up any minor fractures, but I guess this might be too much.

Another reason could be that once it counted as a status effect, it disqualifies from the leveling up regeneration bonus. An example would be the damaged mana paths inside Hestia's left wing that haven't healed up yet.

Well, it wasn’t a huge problem considering that Hestia can heal this quite easily.

However, as I approached the bandit camp, the smell of smoke and the sight of red instantly made me think, “Everywhere she goes, she leaves a fire behind…” I mean, nothing could express “Hestia Atsuko is here” better than a massive forest fire…during the night…

Exasperation aside, the sight of so much fire was a bit worrisome. Not because I was still cautious of the wyverns but because Hestia shouldn’t need to use this much.

Sure, she was angry at the bandit, but I don’t think she would go so far as to kill them when she could easily subdue them with her earth and wind magic. Hestia’s current problem was that she was worried that her humanity was slipping due to her new body. Killing a human might not be the best choice to resolve this issue.

Of course, as a former teacher, I would have to advise her against doing it, but this situation wasn’t easy enough for me to just decide on one single correct answer. I couldn’t instill into her that killing humans was forbidden as we are monsters, so there is always the chance that we would fight a human to the death. If she were to hesitate and got hurt because of this advice, then I wouldn't be able to forgive myself.

So color me surprised when I arrived at the scene and saw Hestia chanting something while she approached a robed man prostrating himself before her. The next moment, I turned my head to the side towards the voices of Tasianna and the saurians who were telling Hestia to stop, with the captured bandits lying unconscious next to them.

“Huh? Mister Kushlek’zar, what is going on with Lady Hestia?!” I called out the leader of the “Depth Serpents” party.

“Miss Saori! You’ve come at the perfect timing; Hestia isn’t listening to our calls!” the lanky raptorsilian voiced out. “The bandits in the camp are subdued but the young scale is not stopping her assault.”

Kushlek’zar retold what happened during the raid. After Akasht, the mighty sacosilian, escaped with all the prisoners, the saurians began subjugating all the bandits by capturing them with Kushlek’zar’s water magic while Hestia had to fight against the bandit’s fire mage, who I recall was Macklemor.

Hestia wasn't willing to fight him and tried her best to subdue him but she underestimated how persistent he was, which was the reason why the camp was on fire. Macklemor slung fire spells over and over again, either missing Hestia and hitting the tents or hitting her but being ineffective as Hestia's barrier and resistance towards fire prevented all damage.

The saurians left them to their duel, due to their cultural belief, as they were more interested in capturing the rest of the bandits. Once they were finished, Tasianna came back from her distraction task looking troubled, as if she was being tormented by something.

While they questioned her what happened with the bandits she led away, they instantly stopped the moment Hestia cried out in pain.

The next moment, Hestia’s draconic body parts started to morph, as she continued growling. Her fangs and claws became even sharper and more pronounced, her scales became edgier and more vivid, while her tail started to resemble more like a jagged blade due to her protruding scales. Although she didn’t have her wings out right now, I had the feeling that they too must have had an appearance change.

Looking at her right now, at first glance, she looked similar to how I've gotten used to her for nearly two months now. To me, her dragonewt form looked just like always.

While I was doing that, I also observed the massive magic circle that was floating above Hestia in the sky, following her with every step. It was the largest spell circle I’ve ever seen in my life, dwarfing even Hestia’s [Sacred Field] which was an area-of-effect healing spell, able to grow in size according to the mana invested.

The only spell that could match it in size, albeit it still was slightly smaller, would be Hestia’s custom spell [Imperial Hellfire].

It’s nearly ready…that isn’t good. I have no idea what [Imperial Hellfire] would look like but just looking at it is already sending a shiver down my spine.

“Symphonie des Feuergottes!”

At the same time I ended that thought, Hestia cast her spell.

“Hmph! Coil around us, o, mighty serpent, Xohulotel’s Scaled Barrier! O, Goddess of the Depths, I ask you to perform your justice, Aqua Prison!” dual casting two spells at once, a snake made out of water completely coiled around the whole raiding party, forming a scaled barrier while a water sphere covered it, creating a double-layered protective shield.

For a moment, I couldn’t help but stare in wonder at the materialization of these two azure-blue spells, granting me a short glimpse of how it would seem like to be underwater in an air bubble. However, this feeling of amazement quickly died down as my instincts forced my attention towards the glowing circle of Hestia’s spell, menacingly floating in the sky, at the brink of activation.

“Such a beautiful sight…Oh, from the bottom of my soul, I thank you Danterno for granting me a glimpse of your power…,” the robed fire mage Macklemor suddenly uttered with a wry smile, tears floating down his face like a broken dam. “Forgive me, my brothers and sisters for besmirching the Talsyn name…I await my God’s absolution. Jasper…my friend…please, you must escape…”

Seconds felt like minutes as small beads of cold sweat formed around my forehead, soaking my bangs, as I couldn’t help but shiver.

Acquisition requirement fulfilled.   [Fear Resistance Lv. 1] acquired

With the sound of a rocket engine exploding, a stream of fire poured out from the magic circle onto Hestia, pounding on the ground like a cascading waterfall to then recoil back into the air. A magnificent inferno displayed itself, consuming anything in its wake as it spread itself like the water of an open sink tap.

"HESTIA!" I cried out as my heart raced to the brink of exhaustion as I saw my beloved friend being enveloped by her own spell, fearing that even she couldn’t survive this blazing glory.

“PRINCESS HESTIA!” Tasianna shrieked from the top of her lungs, clutching her head as she tried to run out of the water barrier with a mortified expression, before being stopped by Kushlek’zar.

“You will waste your life the second you leave our Goddess’s protective shields, Miss Tasianna. Even my barriers cannot hold on for too long,” the saurian said with a frown, clutching onto Tasianna’s arm without budging.

Tasianna struggled to break through despite kicking, punching, and even using spells on Kushlek’zar, but the saurian stayed stoic and ignored her wails of grief, “LET GO OF ME! MY PRINCESS NEEDS M-ME! I MUST SHIELD HER!”

My legs froze in place, unable to move despite my deepest wish to grab Hestia out of the sea of fire. I could only watch in horror as I covered my mouth to stop myself from shouting, as I knew that Kushlek’zar was right.

We might be inside his barrier, but the sheer heat transmitted through the water was great enough that it felt like a sauna in here, as the outer layer of the barrier quickly evaporated, forming a white smokescreen around us.

I could technically look through it with my [Heat Vision] but Hestia’s fire was in the way, making it impossible for me to pinpoint her location. This realization, however, eventually reminded me that I had [Enhanced Enemy Sense]. Using it, all my worries washed away as I was able to feel somebody inside the flames.

It has to be her; it just has to be Hestia. It’s callous of me to say this but Macklemor can’t possibly survive through this.

Once I confirmed the signal, I immediately informed Tasianna about it, calming her down enough that her shaking legs gave up on her. “Thank goodness,” she exclaimed as she reclaimed control of her breathing.

I began caressing her back, not only to soothe her but also myself. While I was doing that, Kushlek’zar conjured up three blue magic circles, two to reinforce the barrier with [Xohulotel’s Scaled Barrier] and [Sapphire Membrane] and one to heal my arm with [Ocean’s Healing].

“Unfortunately, water magic isn’t as powerful when it comes to healing wounds compared to holy magic. However, it should be enough to staunch the bleeding and recover a few parts of your broken arm,” he said as he continued casting spells.

[Broken Arm (Right) (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa]

After seven casts of [Ocean’s Healing], the bones inside of my arm healed enough for me to move it. He was right when he mentioned that this spell wasn’t as effective as [Major Heal]. Hestia could probably solve this problem within two casts, I believe.

Eventually, the sea of flames died down, disappearing into thin air as the saurian priest’s barrier survived through it all, although the white mist of evaporated water was so thick that it could serve as a smokescreen for a whole battalion of soldiers.

Dematerializing his barriers, our whole group got a clear view of what Hestia’s spell did. Everything, plants, tents, wood, even the very ground was scorched into ash, leaving nothing but a huge coal-black scar behind. Strangely enough, the spell was quite controlled as the pyre seemed to have left behind a circle.

Although not clean, it was unquestionable that whatever laid before the circle, the spell’s effective range, seemed to have survived the inferno, only showing singed patches of grass due to the extreme heat. From the look of it, the tent with all of the food supplies miraculously survived.

"Miss Saori, look over there…," Tasianna pointed, leading my eyes towards the center of the spell, where the ground was in the direst state. There, I could see a young girl clad in an outfit inspired by Earth's Idol while a white cloak laid on the ground. Her hair was shining a bright crimson, almost as if they were glowing, as an aura of fire circled her like flies around a campfire.

Suddenly, a blue mist started seeped out from her body before a deafening roar erupted, “KRRRRRIIIIIIIAAAAAGHHHH!” as a pair of dark-red wings blew the mist away, revealing the tattoo-like markings on her wing’s webbing. The hardened scales covering her wings were nothing like the ones I remembered, rivaling the immense intimidation force of the ones on her tail.

The girl then turned her head towards us, baring her fangs as her wings released a dust-like substance into the air before flapping them in our direction. “Hestia!” I wanted to call out to my dragon friend but the red glowing eyes of hers, sharper and more primal than ever, pushed those words back down my throat.

Something is wrong! I thought.

The flames surrounding her like servants would their mistress, glowing crimson hair that looked like they could combust into fire any second now, blazing red eyes that looked at us like they would an enemy, while the dust from her wings quickly floated through the air towards us.

Something had to be wrong!

"Kash! Kash! Kash!" a crackling sound came from Hestia as she gnashed her teeth together, sparks appearing like a firelighter.

“Mister Kushlek’zar!” I shouted, driven by instinct.

“The might of the oceans made into a shield for her Eminence’s protection, Sapphire Membrane!” equally realizing that something was wrong, Kushlek’zar immediately understood my intentions and materialized a thick, almost viscous, shield of water in front of us.

“Khaarrrr-KASH!” opening her jaw wide and then gnashing them together, a sound like the sizzling of a dynamite’s fuse resounded for a second before the dust in front of her exploded.

Like a chain reaction, the explosion in front of Hestia led to the whole trail of dust to erupt in flames before stopping in front of the [Sapphire Membrane] breaking it into pieces.

“Not fast enough! The spell wasn’t cast fast enough!” Kushlek’zar chided himself, growling like a dinosaur in front of his failed spell, despite successfully protecting us from any harm.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" an ear-piercing scream roared out of Hestia's mouth as more "kash" sounds came from her gnashing jaw.

Once the mist settled, everybody saw Hestia shooting out three beams of dragon breath into the sky, vanishing into the horizon. In between each beam, she continued screaming what sounded like she was in pain, as tears flowed down her rage-filled expression.

“AHHHH, A DRAGON! This feeling of being glared at by a superior beast rattles my scales into action every single time! The young scale really is a powerful dragon!” Krim-Slak the blue carnosilian said as he clenched onto his halberd and shield with vigor, slamming his tail onto the ground like an excited puppy.

“Seems like the lass has finally drowned herself in her draconic rage. She is nothing but an feral beast now,” Grazlahta the red saurian uttered as he glared at Hestia with the eyes of a hunter. “Kush, call Akasht, now! Before she condemns her soul by hurting an innocent, we shall do what is merciful to allow our Goddess to judge her fairly.”

“WHAT, NO!” Tasianna blurted. “No, you can’t do that! I-I won’t let you! I am her Highness’s shield! If you dare harm her, then may the Goddess forgive me for what I am about to do.” An icy mist appeared around Tasianna as she stared down the two excited carnosilians.

Realizing what they meant, I couldn’t feel anything else but disgust at what the two carnosilians said. I turned towards Kushlek’zar, who was still analyzing Hestia, “Mister Kushlek’zar, there has to be a rational explanation here!” I pleaded. “She’s not acting herself right now otherwise, she wouldn’t even think of attacking Tasianna and me. Please, I beg you, don’t jump on a wrong conclusion here.”

From how it is looking, it would be impossible for Tasianna and me to defeat the saurians. Not only were we outmatched as mages but also as fighters, giving us literally no other option than to plead to the saurians, hoping that they wouldn’t resort to attacking Hestia.

I was trying to find a reason for why she was like this but my [Identify] was inferior to her [Identity Blocker]. I couldn't look at her current status but I had a feeling Macklemor had to be involved in it.

Without giving me time to breathe, I continued speaking, trying to find some argument that was good enough to persuade the saurian priest, “That fire mage could have done something to her! I can’t look at her status now but you know we two have the [Telepathy] skill! I can speak to her! Please, give me the chance to do so!”

“Depth Priest Kushlek’zar, I plead to you as a worshipper of our Origin Goddess, please don’t harm our Princess! I swear to Goddess Plesia that her Highness has done nothing but good in her life! Anything but saving her is unjust in this situation, and it will sully your prestige as servants of our Goddess!” Tasianna supported me with a religious reason, talking back against the two carnosilians as they hissed at her.

“I will take that as an insult, wind elf. If that young scale means anything to you, then you should know what is the right thing to do,” Grazlahta responded with a reptilian hiss.

"Grazlahta’s right, Tasianna. It's not a good feeling to strike down an honorable scale-kin, especially a young scale, but duty compels us," Krim-Slak justified their reasoning. "Kush, call Akasht! We need everybody for this. Xohulotel is watching us!”

I swallowed hard as I heard them say this, but the moment laughter escaped Kushlek’zar’s throat, I couldn’t help but be baffled.

"Ha ha ha! Has the heat warmed your blood so much, that you've lost your reasoning also, Grazlahta? Krim? Miss Tasianna is right. The lass doesn't deserve to die yet, and we would dishonor ourselves if we were to choose the easy way out. Besides, we saurians owe Caedhul and the Levianewts greatly, so harming their relationship with both Loatryx and Kargryx would destroy everything we have worked for to support saurian greatness,” Kushlek’zar announced with an outstretched tongue. “Ahhh, my curiosity has been fulfilled! A Dragon Princess of the Dragon Empire?! No wonder for the secrecy!”

The sight of the inquisitive raptorsilian grinning while fidgeting with his fingers like a villain was a sight to behold, as he continued speaking, “Aside from that, that lass is the reason for me finally gaining [Instruction]! As if an educator can ever harm one of his precious students.” He said with widened eyes. “Capturing and subduing, that is what water magic does best. Symbolizing our faith to Goddess Plesia, the Goddess of Honor, Order, and Tradition, no element is superior to water magic when it comes to detaining others, not even dark and earth magic. So do not worry Miss Tasianna and Miss Saori, my student will be punished, my way of course!”

The disparity of reactions from Kushle’zar’s decision was evident from how Tasianna and I were relieved to the point that we relaxed our body although we knew that we had to fight Hestia in a second, while the two carnosilians scoffed and hissed in displeasure. Thankfully, they obediently listened to their leader and asked us what the plan would be.

However, before we could that, Grazlahta and Krim-Slak both pounced forwards, calling out [Aegis] to defend themselves from Hestia's sudden attack using her flame-red claws. She jumped off the shields and returned to where she was when she shot out those fire beams, striking and grinding her tail on the ground until it glowed as hot as molten metal.

“Tch, without [Aegis] our shields would’ve been pierced!” Krim-Slak exclaimed as he examined his shield.

In this short moment of pause, Hestia began sharpening her claws by placing them between her teeth, using them as a grinding wheel until each claw regained their sickle-like sharpness. Her bright red glowing tail looked exactly like a blade with how her scales perfectly aligned with each other, while the spike at the end of it was pointing at us. With how her tail was longer than her whole torso, it would be dangerous to come too close to her spear-like tail’s range.

Kushlek'zar gave a raptor-like call, sounding exactly like a velociraptor from a dinosaur documentary, before telling Tasianna and me to try [Telepathy] on Hestia while his party subdued her. With that said, the saurians immediately went into action with ferocious determination.

[“Tasianna, let us do this!”] I called my friend into action through our telepathic link.

[“Yes, Miss Saori!”]

As we were trying to establish a connection with Hestia, meanwhile, the fight between her and the saurians began with a flurry of strikes from her tail, slicing through the air and pushing each carnosilian back.

Kushlek’zar tried to apprehend Hestia with [Depth’s Call], conjuring up watery tentacles, but due to Hestia’s Agility, none of them even manage to come even close. With her tail as a weapon, Hestia used the flammable dust from her body to stand up against all three saurians.

How is she using her dust so proficiently?! I thought as suddenly the telepathic link connected onto something.

[‘Hello, hello?! Saori?! Tasianna?!’]

[“Hestia!”] I called out while Tasianna said [“Lady Hestia!”]

[‘No, no, you two got the wrong Hestia. I’m parallel mind #1! I’m taking over while the original mind, your Hestia, is trying to get her body back in control!’]

[Parallel Thoughts], one of the few skills that Hestia possessed that neither Tasianna nor I could get from the skill shop. We scoured through it, but we were unsuccessful. I know it is rude to say this, but it says something about her if she's able to gain a multi-mind skill like this. It honestly made me worry about her mental health before our meeting.

Anyway, this was actually the first time that I’ve ever had a conversation with one of her parallel minds. She explained the skill to us once, but I never was able to imagine having multiple people speaking inside my head, even if they are technically copies of myself.

[“Parallel mind #1, yes? What is going on right now? Why is Hestia on a rampage?! Has [Battle Frenzy] appeared again?!”] I bombarded her with questions.

[‘Yes, yes, I’ll answer them all but please give me a second…,’] our telepathic connection disconnected for a few second before reconnecting. [“I don’t know how this happened, but original mind’s body has gone on a rampage! After we suddenly got the title [Divine Inferno], we lost all our fire spells and the ones from [Holy Magic]! Original mind couldn’t handle that shock!”]

According to her, Hestia started acting weird the moment [Divine Inferno] appeared, causing her mind to disconnect from her body. Hestia herself was trying to re-establish the connection but when she saw her body attacking us, she lost control of what she was working on. Seeing us nearly getting hurt from her custom spell [Symphonie des Feuergottes] and her exploding scale-dust made her curse her body.

Speaking of that custom spell, it seems like something happened that changed her [Imperial Hellfire] into it. She was guessing that it had something to do with her new title.

Divine Inferno

A title granted to a mortal recognized by the God of Fire. Boosts proficiency gain of magics based on Fire Element, while also boosting their power. Decreases Water Element proficiency. The possessor of this title will also gain immunity to any fire spell that he/she cast

Symphonie des Feuergottes

A custom spell created by individual [Hestia Atsuko]. Opening the symphony with a grand inferno explosion pouring down from the magic circle, the caster will undergo the four movements of a standard symphony: allegro, adagio, minuet, finale. Robed in flames, the caster gains an increase of stats depending on the movement currently in action. Mana consumption continues until the spell is deactivated

Symphonie des Feuergottes Movement (Allegro)

Flames burning as fast as flashfire, increasing the caster’s Agility by half of the base amount. All fire elemental attacks increase in strength

[‘Original mind and we parallel minds will get this in control! Please, you have to stop our body before it reaches the ‘finale’ movement. If it acts like a true symphony, then we definitely don’t want it to reach that point!’] parallel mind #1 informed us before cutting the telepathy to resume whatever she was working on.

Relieved that we actually got some information on the situation and that Hestia herself hasn’t gone mad from [Battle Frenzy], I elatedly explained to Kushlek'zar about it while keeping quiet about her new title. Considering that Tasianna accidentally exposed Hestia's [Princess] title, giving the saurians any more privy information would be…well, I don’t think Hestia herself would like it.

“You two heard her companions, the young scale has a tantrum. Take this as training and subdue her. We haven’t fought against a strong opponent as a group for a while now,” Kushlek’zar said.

““Shut up, Kush! Use some spells already you idiot! She’s overwhelming us with all this dust!”” the two carnosilians responded in unison.

And they were right. Hestia wasn’t casting any spells due to having no “mind” dedicating to use magic but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t a threat. Her body still was able to control fire with [Pyrokinesis] and the ones flying around her can be used offensively or defensively. We also had to be wary of Hestia's claws and tail which were practically weapons at this point, including the explosive scale-dust from her body.

Parallel mind #1 also explained that something happened to her body, causing her to gain new abilities that we should be careful of. Considering that she never really used her “sparks” so offensively, I guess this has to be one of them.

With another bestial roar, Hestia “sharpened” her tail against the grind, reheating it, before jumping up and slamming it onto Krim-Slak like a broadsword.

“Graceful slithering, Slithering Serpent!” Kushlek’zar cast onto himself before shooting it to Krim-Slak with [Synergist’s Oath].

Hestia’s tail crashed onto his shield but instead of cutting through, she slipped off it due to a blue gel that was covering Krim-Slak's weapons and body. Sliding on the ground with that gel, the blue saurian moved behind Hestia who lost her balance from that last attack. He shouted [Molt] to remove [Slithering Serpent]’s effect, before slamming the edge of his shield against her stomach’s sides.

Before she was sent flying, she gnashed her teeth again, causing an explosion that caught Krim-Slak head-on. Not willing to give Hestia a moment to act again, Kushlek’zar shot an [Ocean Blast], a highly condensed ball of water. It crashed against Hestia’s skull like a hammer, sending her right at Grazlahta who swung the blunt side of his axe at her.

It hit her head, leaving a visible bleeding bruise behind as her body crashed onto the ground.

That broke her [Draconic Barrier]?!

Before Grazlahta could follow up on his attack, Hestia rotated her body over, avoiding the saurian’s attack by moving on all fours and began a flurry of swings using her tail like a spear. Although he managed to redirect all the attacks with his shield, it still was intense enough that he wasn’t able to defend himself from Hestia’s next attack.

The crimson haired girl drew her claws through the ground, releasing two sets of claws made from literal fire. Slashing into the carnosilian’s chest and ripping through his armor and scales, a clear cut could be seen, oozing enough blood to be considered critical for a human.

As Grazlahta was trying to distance himself to avoid another attack, Hestia’s body instantly attempted to take advantage of this fact, but I prevented it by casting [Shadow Tendrils] to entangle her arms. As pain began to contort her face, white flames appeared from her arm, destroying my tendrils before starting to restore her Health from all the damage that she received.

What in the-?!

The white fire, something that I’ve never seen before, started enveloping her whole body. The bruises caused by Kushlek’zar’s [Ocean Blast] and the one from Grazlahta's axe disappeared as if she just used [Major Heal] on herself. Any residue white flames simply left her body and began swirling around her like the others.

This is why this girl is so hard to fight against. She can simply take any damage and heal it back in a matter of seconds without any problems due to her high mana capacity.

“Kroooooooooarrrrrghhhh! Xohulotel, laruz!” a loud war cry resounded from a huge humanoid crocodile, before he threw his hammer.

Hestia simply dodged it, before baring her fangs at the one who threw that at her.

“Akasht, don’t kill her. Only subdue!” Kushlek’zar ordered him.

From here on out, Tasianna, all the saurians, and I cooperated together to capture Hestia, which was difficult to do as Hestia's swiftness was boosted by her custom spell.

Even if somebody could get close enough to attack, Hestia’s [Draconic Roar] would always burst out, stunning everybody close to her with an ear-destroying attack. Even Akasht, the physically strongest among us, was forced to back away from her when she did this. If Tasianna hadn’t tried to shut Hestia’s mouth with her ice magic every time she did that, we probably would have even more trouble.

Although she was taking quite significant damage from our combined efforts, the white flames would always appear and heal her up almost like it’s automatic. Any damage we would take would also be healed from Kushlek’zar’s [Ocean Healing].

The only attack that we seriously had to avoid was the purple flames that she occasionally shot out. Fortunately none of us was hit by them, but anything that was, immediately turned into a dark purple shriveled mess, that reminded me too much of Hestia’s poison.

As we continued this fight, Hestia eventually realized that we were quickly wearing her down. She wrapped her wings around her before releasing an unbearable heat wave from her body, sending anybody close to her flying away as the heat slowly cooked everybody alive.

From what parallel mind #1 told me, this had to be one of the two new abilities that Hestia suddenly got. The one where she would sharpen her claws and tail was [Hellblade Edge], similar to her [Spark Claws] and [Spark Fangs], while this heatwave was [Dreadflare Aura].

I admit that the name fitted this ability very well. The sheer aura around Hestia right now was so hot that coming any closer would definitely combust my fur on fire. None of us could come any closer, but Hestia could continue shooting out fire projectiles at us like it was nothing.

“Enough! Does this young scale believe she can defeat me with fire? Impudent! Learn the terror of the oceans, Princess Hestia! Observe, my student!” Kushlek’zar shouted as he pulled out a rosary with a beautiful clear blue stone embedded into it, shining the moment he started casting spells.

[Azure Blade], [Kraken’s Destruction], [Torrential Rain], [Perilous Tidefall], and so many more spells were cast without stop. Strangely enough, he wasn’t casting any of them, magic circles simply appeared around him as his rosary continued beaming.

I-It changed?! Will he be able to keep up?!

Symphonie des Feuergottes Movement (Adagio)

Flames burning slowly with powerful notes, increasing the caster’s Strength and Intelligence by half of the base amount. Mana consumption of all spells is reduced by 50%

The second stage of her custom spell activated, removing the effects of the previous one while applying the current one. Explosions of scale-dusts and huge infernos controlled with [Pyrokinesis] answered the saurian priest’s spells in kind.

A clash of elements, fire and water, pushed each back and forth, continuously producing steam until it was so thick that no one could see anything besides for me with my [Heat Vision].

I was doubtful that Kushlek’zar could actually beat Hestia is a duel of spells, as I have seen the intensity of he power far too often when we sparred. I was so pessimistic about it that I was contemplating to pull everybody into the shadow world to escape this heat wave.

…However, I was proven wrong. Kushlek'zar is an experienced water mage with years of practice and training that made him superior to Hestia as a mage, clearly to be seen as he was pushing Hestia's aura back. Water was dominating fire.

I was astounded. Never have I seen anybody be able to contest Hestia in a straight up magic duel. I know I had a very low sample size, but I was immensely confident that Hestia couldn’t lose. Noentheless, I can’t deny the truth that I was seeing here: Hestia was losing.

However, the problem lies with the fact that he couldn’t contest her when it comes to mana consumption. Hestia wasn’t even using actual spell here, as all her attacks were made from the fire surrounding her, controlled with [Pyrokinesis].

I couldn’t see her status board as she was blocking everything, but I know that Kushlek’zar’s mana was already at half.

[“Hestia stop! Please, you have to stop now!”] I shouted at her with [Telepathy].

[“Lady Hestia, please, I beg you to stop. I-I can’t bear this heat anymore,”] Tasianna copied me, once she heard my thoughts.

What am I supposed to do here?! I shouted to myself, unable to think of any plans as exhaustion clouded my mind through the heatstroke.

But as I was thinking this, the aura of heat and the fire barrage suddenly stopped. Kushlek'zar halted his attack once he felt no more resistance, although, one of the spells did hit its mark. Rolling on the ground like a ragdoll, steam began leaking from Hestia's mouth as she laid on the wet ground, unwilling to stand up or move a muscle.

After lowering the temperature with Tasianna’s ice magic and Kushlek’zar’s water magic, the area was bearable enough to walk through. The moment we knew that, Tasianna and I immediately sprinted towards Hestia, bringing her body up before embracing her tightly.

Gurgh! …Her body is still burning! Ouch!

“OOF! Guys…that’s too tight,” she meekly uttered.

“S-Shut it, Hestia. That was not cool at all, not cool at all…,” I said as I tightened my grip around her, ignoring the pain.

“Miss Saori is right, Lady Hestia…P-Please give up your right to refuse up for today. All of this was too much for us,” Tasianna agreed without letting go of Hestia, eyes closed as she was stimulated by her warm body, although, in truth it might be torturous for her.

“…Sorry,” I muttered silently.

“Don’t be. Just explain everything, that’s all I’m asking. You already did well by coming back to us,” I stated as I caressed her crimson hair, having lost their yellow glow.

“Yeah, sure…could I ask a favor before I do that?”

“Sure.”

"Well…, I'm really hungry. Like really, really, really, really, hungry. I think I just burned through three days' worth of calories," Hestia shyly said as a growl escaped her stomach.

“Hie hie, anything you want.”

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 84: The Aftermath and Spoils of a Quest

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Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Sundering Enhancement Lv. 5] [Piercing Enhancement Lv. 5] [Water Resistance Lv. 2] [Stage Fever Lv. 2] [Terror Aura Lv. 2] [Body Temperature Control Lv. 5] gained

Title   [Divine Inferno] description has changed

[Overheated (Minor)] [Starvation (Minor)] [Dehydration (Minor)] [Arcane Fever (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atsuko]

“Say, ‘ahhhhhhhhh’,” Saori said as she drew a wooden spoon filled with steamed white grain coated in a mouthwatering brown sauce close to my mouth.

“Ahhhhhhhhh, mhmph,” I bite onto it, drawing the warm, savory food into my mouth, letting my saliva run as I started chewing on it. “Mhmmmm!” The tender meat and the filling toffels compliment the white, oval grain, adding an extra flair of texture as my cheeks turned red from the nostalgic taste after I swallowed it.

“Hestia, your cheeks! Is it the food or are you warming up again?” Saori asked as she hastily grabbed a cup of tea and poured it into my mouth.

“Bwuah! Saori, I’m not a kid! And it’s the food! You should know how nostalgic the taste of rice should be,” I blurted out with a frown as I nearly coughed on the tea.

Saori's eyes widened for a second, her mouth agape as she put the teacup down, “O-Oh…I apologize, I overreacted a bit…How is the taste?”

“It’s good on the Saori cooking scale, but the curry isn’t there yet. The spice combination isn’t correct I believe,” I answered her question as she fed me another spoonful of curry rice.

Subjugating the bandits not only meant that we fulfilled the Quest that we got from Colwyn but also that we secured the food that they stole. Honestly, I was glad it wasn’t destroyed during the whole raid. It’s a miracle that it didn’t get burned to ashes!

Speaking of burns…

“How are your burns? They still hurt?” I asked with a troubled expression, eyeing her singed arms.

“…What is that frown? Come on, smile for me, Hestia," Saori urged me as she placed two fingers on the edges of my mouth and pushed them upwards. “As you once said, ‘An Idol must always keep up a smile’. Do not worry, Kushlek’zar already healed me. The fur will need some time to regrow, but I prefer this look personally, heh.”

Despite how much Saori was trying to cheer me up, I couldn't help but continue looking at those burns, regardless if they were gone now or not. The thought of who gave Saori those wounds made my heart hurt as if it was being squashed.

…I know it wasn’t technically my fault. I mean, who would have thought that the fuckin fire origin god himself would be so “nice” to grant me his blessing and the new title [Divine Inferno]. I should be grateful ‘cause it improved the strength of my fire spells, right? FUCK NO! I’M NOT HAPPY ABOUT IT AT ALL!

Why, why, why, why did that fucking bastard do that to me, huh? Not only did I gain his “blessing” but I also lost all my fire, inferno, and holy spells. Sure, I got [White Flames] and [Corrosive Fire] in return…but who asked him to do that for me, huh?!

I also never asked him to fix my custom spell “Imperial Hellfire”, alright? Oh, wait, I mean, [Symphonie des Feuergottes]. Do you know what “Feuergottes” means in English? Fucking, “Fire God”! Translated that meant “Fire God’s Symphony”! Argh, not only did he steal my chance to finally finish my custom spell, but I am now the “proud” owner of a spell made by that narcissistic piece of shit Danterno!

…Jeez, why, why? Harrgh, I told myself that I wouldn’t go on a rampage and kill things like that. I didn’t want to kill things without my own consent. I’m sorry, Macklemor…why didn’t you surrender…Dummkopf.

I'll be honest here, I was frustrated that I killed him due to my rampage but it actually didn't mean that much to me. Macklemor was a bandit and he stayed adamant about being my enemy to his last breath. To me, as a monster, it was just business as usual.

“Whew, that [Starvation (Minor)] will not disappear anytime soon it seems. I’ll get you some more curry rice. Tasianna, like before, please take care of her,” Saori ordered the person behind me as she stood up and went back to the cauldron manned by Mister Kushlek’zar.

“Of course, Miss Saori!” Tasianna stated with fervor. “Lady Hestia, how is it? Should I raise the temperature or is this cold adequate?”

I showed her a small smile before nodding, “No, it’s perfect. I can feel myself cooling down and I think [Overheated (Minor)] will disappear soon. Thanks for asking, Tasianna.”

“That is a relief to hear, Lady Hestia. It is a pleasure to serve you,” she responded. “…If I may, could I ask you how it felt to lose so many spells? You mentioned that was the reason why you lost control of your body.”

After Danterno took away my spells, my mind essentially went into shock. It felt like the System didn’t know what it was supposed to do when so many spells were deleted from my “mind” in such a short moment. I went unconscious for a few seconds due to the pain of having them ripped out from me.

Don’t forget that I didn’t learn all these spells naturally like a custom spell. They are System spells created by the Origin God and they literally are implanted into you through your status board. I never gave it a thought but thinking of them as “rented” spells kinda made sense now.

I just wish the process was less painful. My parallel minds explained to me that due to me, the original mind, disconnecting from our body, none of them could get my permission to control it, leading to me acting as if I was under the effects of [Battle Frenzy (Moderate)]. I was essentially acting on my draconic instincts, my monster side.

It saw everything as an enemy and all it wanted to do was to protect itself. The dread I felt when it didn’t even register Saori or Tasianna as friendlies. My parallel minds and I did our best to regain control, but it took so long. It was like something inside me was rejecting me. It’s such a disturbing thought that even now sent a chill down my spine.

It also didn’t help that I somehow gained the skills [Dreadflame Dragon] and [Hellblade Dragon] by losing [Spark Fire Dragon], [Draconic Claws], and [Draconic Fang]. I don’t know how it was possible that I got those two skills despite not evolving into those two races. My body literally changed with them without me needing to evolve.

Seeing my body use [Scale-dust Veil], [Hellblade Edge], and [Dreadflare Aura] did make me a bit excited from the sheer flexibility and power of those abilities but that instantly disappeared once I saw myself use them on the saurians and my friends. I was so hysterical about it that all the progress we made on taking back our body was gone, as any distressing emotions I felt would influence my parallel minds.

Eventually, I did calm down though, but that was mostly ‘cause my body reached its limit. [Dreadflare Aura] and [Symphonie des Feuergottes] covered me in intense heat that would usually kill anything that couldn’t withstand a literal volcano…and I was in the epicenter of it.

It consumed so many calories that I got [Starvation (Minor)] while also giving me [Dehydration (Moderate)] ‘cause my sweat was literally evaporating from my skin due to the heat.

I was currently unable to move my body due to [Arcane Fever (Minor)]. How did I get it despite being extremely resistant against it? Well, imagine me having to manage my [Overheated (Moderate)] to the point that my [Body Temperature Control] jumped three levels while keeping [Symphonie des Feuergottes], [Dreadflare Aura], and [Hellblade Edge] active.

That is a ton of mana that I used in a short amount of time…but that wasn’t all. I also used [Pyrokinesis] to emulate some of my [Inferno Magic] spells. There were no magic circles, I just transformed them into a certain form and shot them at Mister Kushlek’zar who was dueling me with his water spells.

Saori admitted that she couldn’t believe that I lost a mana duel against somebody with less Mana, but what can I say except I used too much. Thankfully, I passively recovered enough Mana that I didn’t run out of it. The last thing I needed was to experience [Mana Stress], again.

Mana Stress

A status effect inflicted when the owner’s Mana is zero. Restricts all Mana recovery. Any further usage of Mana will stress out the mana paths

Urgh…that memory of the garm matriarch’s limbs exploding in a bloody fountain due to [Mana Stress] is as vivid as on the day I saw it.

While [Mana Stress] was already terrible, [Arcane Fever] fucking sucks. I’m having a terrible headache, I puked blood, and my body was limp. The last time I felt this way was after my first encounter with one of the snake heads of the leviathan, but this was the real deal now.

While [Mana Stress] wouldn’t kill you if you just chilled and rested, [Arcane Fever] continuously decreases your Health while it’s active. I was lucky to have a lot of Health and also Mister Kushlek’zar to cast [Ocean’s Healing] on me, otherwise…

Yeah, thinking about it does drain the blood from my face.

“Ahhh, Lady Hestia! Depth Priest Kushlek’zar, she needs healing, again!” Tasianna worriedly shouted out before grabbing the tea and pouring it down my throat. “My Lady, please, you must drink the tea!”

“Mhumphfpfpf!” I mumbled, unable to answer as tea water gushed down my throat.

“Ocean Healing!” Mister Kushlek’zar shouted out as he dashed over to me.

Tea made out of the leaves of the Fulinoe plant that could alleviate arcane corruption problem while Mister Kushlek’zar was always close by to heal me the moment my Health dropped too low. Yeah, I am really lucky to have friends around to help me with my first case of [Arcane Fever]. If I were still alone in the Belzac forest, I would have definitely died.

“Hestia, are you alright? Here, another bowl of curry rice ready to fulfill your [Starvation (Minor)],” Saori stated after running to us.

"Ha ha ha, that is very optimistic of you, Miss Saori," Kushlek'zar responded with a merry laugh. "She ate through two cauldrons filled to the brim with your wonderful food. She probably needs more considering that she not only used quite the amount of Mana but is also a dragon.”

He says it like that, but I didn’t hoard those two cauldrons for myself. The saurians and the humans ate quite a lot themselves.

“Thank you…,” I thanked them with down-casted eyes, trying to hide my tears as I was unable to wipe them away with my feeble arms.

“Hestia…,” Saori placed the bowl on the ground, ruffled my hair with affection, and then gave me a short hug. “See? You cooled down enough. You cannot burn me in this state.”

The meaning behind these words lies with the fact that Saori and Tasianna both burned themselves after embracing me the moment my rampage ended. Despite Mister Kushlek’zar cooling the area with his water magic, it wasn’t enough as I still had [Overheated (Moderate)]. Even if it was an accident, it didn’t make me feel any better.

“Seeing a young scale in such a state does not make this old scale very happy, Hestia. Do me a favor and go back to your previous state,” Mister Kushlek’zar urged me while crossing his arms. “Besides, you mustn’t fault yourself for something caused by the gods. Instead, feel honored that you have fancied an Origin God.”

I couldn’t hide anything from Mister Kushlek’zar at this point. I might not have told him about Kargryxmor and Aurena but I couldn’t construct a proper lie to excuse my rampage at all. There is also the fact that I couldn’t hide [Divine Inferno] in time before he used [Identify] on me. If the cat is already out of the bag, I might as well come clean. Especially when he was kind enough to hold back to avoid killing me during that battle.

“…I do understand what you mean, Mister Kushlek’zar, but…aren’t you annoyed that I killed those captured bandits?” I asked feebly, avoiding making eye contact with him.

The bandits the saurians captured weren't lucky enough to survive my rampage as nobody helped them when I activated [Dreadflare Aura]. They were too close to me that I literally cooked them alive, scorching them until only their bones were left.

Speaking of which, I also destroyed my party bracelet with that act. Saori might have gotten the experience when I killed Macklemor but she missed out on those 21. It is disturbing to think that I was more annoyed at the fact that the experience was wasted instead of me killing 22 humans and beastmen today.

Has my mind turned completely into that of a monster?

"Don't let that cloud your mind, young scale. They were destined for judgment anyways, due to their crimes of pillaging and murder," Mister Kushlek'zar answered with a firm tone, sternly speaking against my naivete. "You have a good soul, lass, so don't let these criminals distort it. Helping the innocent and condemning the wicked is a worthy cause to strive for. Just look over to the prisoners you’ve freed.”

His arm directed my eyes toward the group of 30 or so villagers and mercenaries, all huddled up away from the saurians. They were all devouring the curry rice that Saori made. As the food was technically theirs, we couldn’t exactly deny them from getting any especially with how malnourished they were.

“We were lucky that none of them actually were sold off to a slave trader. My co-workers there informed me that the bandits had an argument with them that led to the end of any transactions. Ha, and here I thought the ‘Depth Serpents’ had to go headhunt them,” the relief in Mister Kushlek’zar’s voice suggested that this wasn’t a common occurrence. “I believe every culture has a tradition where they hold a feast after a momentous event. Isn’t the joy in their faces enough to soothe your mind, young scale?”

Breaking bread with each other while beads of tears dripped into their curry rice was a wholesome sight, equivalent to the time I spent with the lizardmen…although the “feast” was pretty lacking.

“You call it a feast but I was the only one who cooked, and only curry rice is not enough,” Saori complained with a frowned face, as she kept stuffing my mouth with the exact curry rice. “Thankfully we were able to cook the hardened rice quite fast, thanks to Hestia’s body temperature. As much as I wanted to create a variety of dishes, Hestia and the malnourished prisoners required an easy-to-eat and filling meal, which so happens to be curry.”

“Thanks to my body temperature”, yeah, putting my weakened body under a pot to cook a large batch of rice without having to create a fire was a pretty good idea. Due to the transfer of heat, that process also managed to cool me down a bit, so we hit two birds with one stone. It just doesn’t help that I felt like a tool.

“Mhmm, certainly helps that it was delicious. How long has it been since I tasted curry? Since I left Caedhul? Yours however has a certain charm unlike the marine country’s, which I assume is due to it being sweeter? Curious, where you learned this meal, Miss Saori,” Mister Kushlek’zar mumbled as he licked his mouth clean with his long tongue, still suspicious that Saori was a monster like me.

Regardless of how tensed it seemed, the two somehow hit it off as Saori simply ignored his attempt to draw an answer out of her and just talked about curry with him. Mister Kushlek’zar wasn’t exactly helpful as he didn’t know the spice blends too well, but any criticism for her curry was satisfactory for Saori.

As I was watching them talk, while Saori kept feeding me the curry and the fulinoe tea, Tasianna suddenly tickled my ear as she talked into it, “Lady Hestia, are you still worried about what happened?”

The concern in her voice made me clench my teeth, “…Was I that obvious?”

“You usually are far more talkative,” Tasianna answered with a nod. “Even when you were enfeebled after our fight with one of the leviathan’s appendages, you tried to speak even when you were so close to [Arcane Fever]. However, it feels like you are trying to avoid speaking if it isn’t urgent.”

Well, what can I say besides I’m not in the mood…

“Hestia…,” Saori stopped speaking with Mister Kushlek’zar the moment she heard Tasianna, putting the bowl of food down. “Look at me, nothing happened to us. You neither hurt Tasianna nor me. This is Danterno’s fault, not yours.”

“…You still couldn’t stop me, though…,” I meekly gave out while looking at my new set of claws. “My body didn’t know how to control its new power output, so it recklessly used everything in my arsenal without a care. However, the more I get used to it, the more I can master my new abilities, the more dangerous my feral state will be.”

I shook my arm, releasing shining red scales onto the ground, “Condense [Symphonie des Feuergottes]’s initial explosion, use [Dreadflare Aura] as a one-second burst attack instead of a continuous heatwave, ignite the scale-dust with my claws instead of my mouth to prevent the explosion to cloud my vision. I can think of so many ways to refine my battle habits, and I don’t think this is all my body is capable of. I still haven’t even checked my dragon form’s yet. Due to [Divine Inferno] I can’t hurt myself with my own fire spells and it seems like my feral state somehow is able to cast custom spells, but not System spells.” I gave a defeated chuckle as I counted up all these reasons. “It has only been a week or so and we’re back to the same fucking discussion. When will I next go on another rampage? Can somebody stop me next time? All this worrying is making me sick of myself.”

I eyed the sharp end of my claws. So sharp, so durable, so strong. They can pierce even metal at this point, not to mention simple bare flesh. One clean swipe. That is all I need to end somebody’s life. One clean swipe and it all ends.

As my line of sight never strayed from my claws, a black-furred hand blocked them, displaying its own claws to me. They were shorter, duller, and less imposing. They couldn’t be compared to mine at all.

“Don’t,” Saori uttered with a shake of her head, a bitter smile trembling to keep itself together, as her deep-red eyes peered into me.

“…I gave you my promise, and I plan to keep it. I have a dream, which I will not squander a second time. I have two precious friends, whose eyes I don’t want to see empty,” I breathed in deeply, so much so that I felt dizzy from the extra amount of oxygen, before exhaling and looking at them with firm eyes. “I’m counting on you two. Please support me as I try to control the beast inside me, so I won’t make you two sad ever again.”

“By your will, Lady Hestia!” Tasianna shouted as she kneeled down, hiding her wet eyes by casting her face down.

“Keep your shine, Hestia. Don’t let this week’s events pull you down,” Saori encouraged me as she presses her hands around my cheeks, showing a smile at my renewed determination.

I’ve learned some valuable lessons from this Quest. First, that killing when I need to do it, whether it may be humans, beastmen, or monsters, isn’t something that I should worry so much about. Feeling guilty about every single kill isn't good for me, but I should always be wary to never abandon the moralities that I've learned.

Second, seeing my friends being sad is more painful to me than I actually thought. Crying and being depressive about the matter is natural but what’s important is that I get myself up and going. Nobody wants to see me in this state and if an Idol can’t bounce back from a bad day, then what have I been doing with my life on Earth.

Third, and lastly, fuck Danterno and Kargryxmor.

Fuck those two, seriously. Fuck Kargryxmor for giving me this shitty blessing that only produces troubles. Weakness to water and also that shitty [Battle Frenzy]. Pah, this is more like a curse at this point!

And Danterno, you can go suck a big one, you bastard. Nobody asked you to help me here. Do you honestly believe that I would be grateful to you when you didn’t even have the courtesy to prevent me from attacking my friends? Your asinine execution of your plan makes me want to vomit. Don’t even think about me becoming your pawn!

Divine Inferno

A title granted to a mortal recognized by the God of Fire, whose control has been usurped by the owner. Boosts proficiency gain of magics based on Fire Element, while also boosting their power. Decreases Water Element proficiency. The possessor of this title will also gain immunity to any fire spell that he/she cast

I don't know what Aurena is like, but I honestly am contemplating working with her just to spite those two sick fucks. Nonetheless, any wyverns or dragons will probably be bad news for me. I'm not gonna speak with my "grandpa".

“Hmm, that spark in your eyes seemed to have reignited,” Mister Kushlek’zar stated with a wide grin. “Here’s a lesson for the future, never stay in debt with a mercenary. You understand, young scale?”

“Uh, uhm, yes!” I responded with a weary tone.

“Good, then once your [Arcane Fever] is gone, we will get back to training. I do not have much time until I must depart but as my student, I want you to learn all four advanced casting techniques. You said that your lost [Fire Magic], [Inferno Magic], and [Holy Magic], right?" I nodded at his question. "Then it is even more imperative that you learn how to properly construct a custom spell. As a mage and your master, I cannot fathom what you can do with your talent, especially with those white and purple flames."

Mister Kushlek’zar scratched his plumage again, thinking about something before speaking, “…As a member of the mages guild, I am actually obligated to report to them about your custom spell. The mages guild is responsible for managing all official mages including their custom spell usages. However, at this point, it is very likely that they will forbid your spell, so until you can control that spell properly, don’t show it to the world.”

The old scale then turned his head towards Saori and Tasianna, “I will also assume you two wish to learn, too, correct?”

The two nodded in unison.

Astalos is still hunting for us and Danterno won’t be happy about what happened here. It can’t be a coincidence that I got this blessing when I was in the presence of Macklemor. I need more strength to fend those two away, to keep my happiness…which means it is almost time…

After I ate and drank enough to get rid of both [Starvation] and [Dehydration], everybody rested for the night, while the saurians kept watch. Once morning came, both [Overheated] and [Arcane Fever] disappeared.

Having fully recovered from the aftermath of that bandit raid, the saurians and my party started our escort of the former prisoners towards Carine village. Unfortunately, we couldn’t move too fast as most of the villagers and mercenaries couldn’t muster enough strength to walk for too long until they needed a break. We had to move slower, especially when the cold nights came earlier now.

Fortunately for my party, that meant that we had more time to learn from Mister Kushlek’zar while also giving us a chance to bond with the whole saurian party. It also got to the point that I started calling Krim-slak “elder scale” out of respect. I mean, the saurians were reluctant about helping me but they still did. It’s just normal.

After four days of travel through the woods, we finally reached the outskirts of Carine village.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Side Story 16: A Storm in Heaven.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Sparkling azure blue, that was the perfect description of the sea of brilliance, radiating under a clear blue sky. Small movements could be seen as the water wavered softly up and down, creating waves with every second.

The calm quickly ended, however, as a rumble underwater caused the sea to shiver, trembling so much it looked like it could split apart at any second. And that it did, as a figure shot out of the sea, leaving a fountain of water as the silhouette of a woman flew up into the air.

Long, blue octopus tentacles framed her head like hair, giving the sight a comedic moment as it looked like the octopus was flying like an eagle through the air. Her torso was covered in soft, pink skin similar to a human woman’s, only a marine green bikini top was there to cover her tender breasts. Her bottom was that of a fish, covered in an assortment of different colored scales so plentiful that it mimicked a rainbow, ending in a tail fin.

The female silhouette looked like a mermaid, a half human-half fish hybrid. The woman fell from the sky, diving back into the water until her body was pushed back up to the surface as if she commanded the water to do so.

She combed through her tentacle hair with her hands, squeezing the water out until it switched to seaweed and then into silky marine hair. The scales of her bottom slowly morphed into skin, turning her whole fishtail into a human woman's, wearing the bottom part of her bikini.

Her wet body stretched and exhaled under the glare of the sun. Her appearance was so lovely that any normal man’s eyes would be enraptured by this sight. If she weren’t walking on water, most people would assume she was spending a day on the beach.

As much as my home can imitate the world’s oceans, it just doesn’t feel authentic enough. However, spending some time with my followers would cause my church to panic. How troubling.

The carefree thoughts of the woman brought a smile to her face, until she received a message from one of her angels, causing her serene smile to waver with a sigh. The droplets of saltwater started to merge with each other as this happened, transforming her bikini into a marine blue cocktail dress, while scales formed on her legs and a slim shark tail grew out of her rear.

Despite how fun-loving and casual she might appear; this was undoubtedly the leading goddess of the pantheon of Peolynca. The Ruler of the Depths, The Benevolent Mother of the Oceans, The Patron Goddess of the Merfolk, Nagas, and Levianewts, The Goddess of Order, Honor, and Traditions.

The Origin Goddess of Water, Plesia.

It is time, it seems. It is never easy in a position of power, even if I would like to believe we are all equals. How I would like to just laze around under the sun every day, Plesia complained without letting anybody see her distress, carrying around a deceptive smile.

Disregarding her personal wishes, the goddess simply conjured up her waterbed, sat on it, and summoned her administrative windows with the flick of a hand. Until her guest arrives, she had to fulfill her duty as a goddess…which was administrative work with her angels and aids.

“Hmm, Caedhul’s population is rising healthily…hie hie, the youth of today are too reckless. Oh my, I say that every generation, hie hie,” the water goddess inspected with a pleasant smile as she looked over statistics and videos of her followers. Whether it was joy or grief, she would look through them with an unfazed gaze, neither judging nor feeling much emotion besides, “This is the life of a mortal. Pleasant.”

Once she was done with her administrative work, she then turned to the next panel, now with an exasperated expression, “There are so many prayers every day. I know this is the most effective way to gain faith, but the young are far too wishful. I guess ‘the less you have, the more you want’ quote makes a lot of sense for them.”

Tirelessly, she worked through billions of prayers from her followers. Prayers also included the many spell casts that would be performed every day, as all System-based spells have chants that were constructed in a prayer-like way.

Although the gods receive the energy regardless of this fact, this way of forming a spell was an efficient and effective way to promote yourself to your faithful. “Oh, my Goddess…” and “My God, I call for you…” were all ways to imprint the idea of thankfulness and reverence into the minds of their followers.

“…Oh, she’s here…,” she uttered as her windows disappeared, letting out a sigh before forming a smile befitting of, not a mere goddess, but the leading Origin Goddess.

A veil of light appeared before her, quickly forming themselves into the figure of a slim woman with a set of white angel wings. Her light blond hair fluttered around as the face of a human woman formed, showing her youth and beauty off with her white dress, befitting an aristocratic saintess.

“Greetings, Elder Plesia, and thank you for accepting my attendance in your realm,” the woman greeted Plesia with a curtsey, hiding the anxiousness that was clouding her face.

“Aurena, it is always a pleasure to see you, dear,” Plesia responded with a genuine smile, similar to the one she had before assuming her duties. “I heard you visited your father? How is he? Lazy as always?”

Although the Goddess of Light was here for urgent business, she couldn’t help but be swallowed up by the Goddess of Water's pleasantries, casting her worries away for a moment, "At this point, that question should be obvious. He was having a good time.” Aurena answered with a shrug and an exasperated sigh.

Plesia couldn’t help but form a wry smile at the troubled goddess, “And despite your answer, you nonetheless took over some of his work, correct? Haaaah, Aurena, I’ve advised this to you so many times already, but you can’t always help him like this. He is around my seniority, so he is perfectly able to do his duty by himself.”

With a simple hand movement, a table with a set of teacups appeared from the depths of the sea, as warm tea water slowly filled them. Aurena bid her to sit, which Aurena graciously accepted, before continuing the small-talks, “How is your step-mother? Is she doing well?”

Aurena smelled her tea, enjoying the scent before taking a sip, “Elder Plesia, please, she’s ‘mother’ now. Father loves her very dearly so as his daughter I will accept her with open arms regardless of any trivial facts. It also helps that she too is annoyed about father’s total lack of urgency and duty, helping us bond.”

“I can imagine,” after enjoying her tea for a moment, her smile disappeared, as she raised her eyes and looked at Aurena with weary eyes. “I unfortunately can already presume why you are here, dear.”

Those words instantly made Aurena frown, glaring at her tea as she responded, “I would expect nothing less from you, Elder Plesia. Your followers had a clear view of everything, after all.”

Both Goddesses couldn’t help but remember the scenes they saw from their followers. Aurena’s knowledge of how the fight went on was limited because the prisoners Hestia saved from Narube’s bandit group were quickly escorted away from the battlefield, however, she still could hazard a guess from the massive wildfire that something was off.

Since Hestia couldn’t level up nor did she evolve, Aurena couldn't keep herself updated on her status board without her followers being close to her. She knew nothing of Danterno’s blessing, but she knew that something was wrong.

“Elder Plesia, I am here with the expectation that you will not hide any information from me,” Aurena started out. “Despite the fact of how our subordinates would rank us, I still understand my place as your junior. However, you have said that as ‘Origin Gods’ we are all equal amongst each other. That is why I require you to speak truthfully with me, just like how you would speak to Elder Crustacia and Zephira.”

Hiding her clenched teeth by sipping some tea, Plesia reluctantly answered, “…Yes, it would be hypocritical of me to go back on what my religion preaches. Ask me…dear.”

With unyielding eyes, Aurena glared into the older Goddess’ octopus eyes, unflinching from how they were morphing due to her wild emotions, “Did Elder Danterno bless my champion?” She uttered bluntly.

“…,” the frustration wasn’t shown on Plesia’s face but her body morphing around wildly was enough for others to understand. “…Yes.”

A white aura surrounded the Goddess of Light's wings, swirling around wildly before calming down, "…I know that he hasn't made personal contact with her yet. I know that because I would have felt her soul in the divine realms. You would also not allow him to come down to speak with her, I trust?”

Aurena knew that she had to stay regal. She knew the elder Goddess well enough that too many breaches against form would be detrimental to her. This was Plesia’s home and she had to abide by her rules while she was here, and no one took formalities as seriously as the Goddess of Water.

Before her power would go wild, she took a deep breath and calmed her energy down. Reining in her anger was just business as usual at this point, as she has done this many times to keep her outer appearance of a refined, elegant, and sophisticated Goddess to her subordinates.

Even if everybody knew this truth, especially Kargryxmor, she had to take care. She was their Goddess, after all.

“Elder Plesia, I saw one of his followers there. Your brother unrightfully blessed the champion that Kargryxmor and I have blessed ourselves since her birth! She is ours!” Aurena proclaimed.

"I acknowledge that. I gave you my permission, after all," Plesia responded meekly. "However, you must understand that she has accepted neither of you as her Gods yet, as your blessings came before she made a choice of faith. Even if you have marked her as your champion, before she consciously makes the decision to become your follower, she isn't yours."

There is also the case of Hestia having usurped both blessings from the two gods, so her allegiance is up in the air at this point.

Aurena’s displeased expression grew. She put her teacup down and push it aside to lean forward on the table, “I know he is your brother, Elder Plesia, but you can’t possibly expect me to accept this argument. You are the eldest and you also accepted your role to keep everything organized and peaceful amongst us six. I’ve used actual effort and resources to ensure the soul transfer to work, so I apologize if I sound angry about the fact that Elder Danterno would simply steal her away like that!”

Plesia looked at the youngest Goddess, closed her eyes to think, and then spoke, “I understand. I will talk with him.”

"No!" Aurena responded defiantly. "You say that I coddle my father too much, that I ought to stop to give him less chance to slack off. I understand familial love very well, but I expect you to do what you preach, Elder Plesia. Your hatred for rule-breaking is known to us, and your brother broke the rule to 'never cause dire conflict between Origin Gods', which means he has to face the consequences for this. He did not even warn me, he did everything behind my back due to his greed."

With those words said, the Goddess of Light stood up, bid herself farewell, and disappeared in a stream of light, leaving the Goddess of Water to contemplate alone. The silence lasted for a whole minute, the sea was calm and no waves could be seen. It was so calm that one would think the sea had died.

But the second that minute finished, the teacup in Plesia’s fingers rattled, shaking violently as the liquid began to spill. The sparkling azure blue underneath her quickly turned dark blue, as a monsoon clouded the clear sky, blocking the sun and turning the realm of Plesia into a chaotic storm.

A shadow emerged from the depths of the oceans, humongous enough that it could even dwarf a leviathan. A deep growling could faintly be heard as the water rumbled into action, releasing tidal waves into the horizon.

“**** ********** ******** ******** *********!”

*************************************

“How did it go, Goddess Aurena?” a deep voice resounded as a stream of light appeared before him, immediately materializing the form of a winged woman.

“Well and also not. Elder Plesia was not pleased, at all,” Aurena responded to her black dragon accomplice. “Kargryxmor, has anything happened yet? Did you receive a missive while I was away?”

“No, I haven’t. Even with God Danterno’s interference, I should be able to know when she evolves or levels up, as she has my blood. Rest your worries,” the black dragon answered. “Maybe the battle has ended? Her death would be known to us the moment it happens, so she must be alive.”

“Hmm, that is true,” Aurena agreed before summoning her administrative windows. “…Yes! She appears weak but she’s alive. Her two retainers are taking care of her right now, so it seems nothing particular happened…WHAT?!"

Aurena immediately shut her mouth with a hand the instant her voice burst out from surprise. Kargryxmor looked at her with a quizzical look, prompting her to explain, “…Pardon my outburst. First, it would seem like I was right with my assumption that Elder Danterno has given Hestia his blessing. [Divine Inferno]…while that was expected, what actually surprised me was this.”

Swiping the window towards Kargryxmor, the huge dragon enlarged it to suit his liking and inspected her profile, "…Hmm, her racial skill has evolved but she herself hasn't. That should grant her much strength, which will hopefully persuade her to take another evolution path." Skipping everything else, his eyes finally landed on her title section. "…This is a jest…"

A frown appeared on the God of Dragon’s face, prompting Aurena to continue speaking, “It becomes more concerning the more I think about it. I believe we still have no idea how she was able to sever our connection with her, right? Then how was she able to do it to Elder Danterno? She once again ‘usurped’ a godly blessing…”

“Could there be a chance that something during the soul transfer went wrong? Crustacia’s champion might not have shown any problems, but this might be different. Might it be wise to consult ‘him’?” the black dragon suggested.

Maybe it is time to talk with father properly. The last time he simply glazed over my issue, and I accepted it, however this time I really need his help. If he ignores me this time, then I’ll just call on my sisters and mother for help. He can’t possibly ignore all of us, right? the Goddess of Light took a moment to deliberate on the situation before coming to a conclusion.

“No, ‘he’ outranks me in seniority, and he isn’t as patient as Elder Plesia and father. I would prefer not to go to him. For now, the situation seems to be in control after Hestia broke Elder Danterno’s influence on her. Let us watch for the time being,” she spoke before mumbling in a growl fitting for a wrathful beast. “…And see to it that Elder Danterno finally learns how to control his stupidity.”

And with that, the two white and black figures disappeared, leaving the realm in silence.

*************************************

“Ha ha ha ha! I must say that should be enough to impress her, ha!” a boisterous voice spat out, similar to an active volcano. "Mortals love power, and I've given her so much. Not only did I fix her custom spell, but I also merged redundant skills together and made them stronger for her! This should be enough to make her worship me!"

Thankfully, [Holy Magic] wasn’t locked by Aurena. Made it easy to just merge it with [Fire Magic] to create [White Flames]. Should keep the power of FIRE…while keeping the healing properties of her holy magic.

Danterno, the God of Fire, was currently looking at the status board of Hestia, due to him having given her the title [Divine Inferno]. This connection that he has established enabled him to see the results of his efforts through Hestia's eyes as if she were one of his worshippers.

“Ahhhh, that custom spell is so powerful. I had to change a few words of her chant and also rewrite the whole magic circle, but the results have come out perfectly. Mhmm, reincarnators from another world are so unique,” Danterno thought. “Hmmm, she might be a dragon, but would it be possible for me to finally get a race to pray to me as if I were there patron god? That would be incredible for my growth!"

Danterno was confident of the possibility of a golden age for his religion, anticipating that Hestia’s presence will break down the foundation of his church and rebuild it, making it stronger than ever. “Fire consumes fire”, might be an aggressive quote in general, however, Danterno himself envisioned this plan with Hestia.

Consume the current status quo of his church, and then recreate it with her at the helm of everything, growing the flickering flame into a mighty inferno. Both [White Flames] and [Corrosive Fire] were made for her to show the world that fire mages could do more than just destroy. He personally wasn’t sure what the young dragoness will do with them, but he was confident that it will benefit him in the end.

He even made sure to help her even more by strengthening her racial abilities, to ensure that she will become strong and useful for the future. He couldn’t go too overboard, of course. He couldn’t show too much favoritism.

With this champion, I’m pretty sure I can finally get my subordinate gods to listen to me. They can’t interfere with her directly but she will extinguish anybody that they send to her!

Those were his thoughts on the situation, unaware of the consequences that his action will have.

“Whew, sis’ follower is pretty strong. That is some great water usage there, I have to admit. The girl will have a hard time beating hi-huh?” the video suddenly stop progressing, freezing on the spot without showing any intention of continuing. “Wha-What is this?! Is my administrative window malfunctioning? Fuck, guess I’ll have to repair it for now…Huh? It’s not broken?”

Danterno’s raging inferno body grew smaller, flabbergasted that he couldn’t continue watching although his windows still worked. Nothing was out of the usual, which made his flame slow down as he needed to think.

“Damn…whatever, I’ll check her status board. There was no message that she died so everything should be alrig-HUH?!” Danterno blurted out as a blue screen appeared before him.

<[Divine Inferno] was usurped by individual [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atsuko]. Your connection with this individual has been severed, Origin Administrator Danterno>

What?!

He refreshed his windows, he restarted them with different settings, he even asked his aides and angels to check it for him. He tried everything and the more he failed, the more his realm grew warmer. The raging hellfire has finally been unleashed.

"HOW DID A MERE MORTAL USURP MY CONTROL OVER MY OWN BLESSING?! INSOLENT INSECT!" his fire was unrelenting at this point; none could stop him now that wrath has overtaken him…

“GIRL, THE MOMENT YOU APPEAR BEFORE ME, I WILL MAKE YOU REGRE-!”

…actually, one person in this world could smother this flame.

“S-Sis?! Why does she want to talk with me-SHIT! FUCK!” the image of Kushlek’zar and the saurians flashed in his head, instantly making him understand that something was up. “…Sis can’t be that mad at me, right?”

With that single ray of hope, the God of Fire moved to answer the Head Origin Goddess’ summons, unbeknownst to Danterno, he was about to head into a torrential storm.

A note from AbyssRaven

Sometimes I forget how much fun it is to write in third person.

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Side Story 17: Bandit Subjugation.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Listen up, holy knights of Origin Goddess Aurena!” a commanding shout echoed through the ranks of knights, fitting for the leading commander of this squadron. “Today, the Cardinal Vicar himself has issued ‘The Knights of Aurena’ a church Quest to suppress a growing group of highwaymen, foolish enough to not understand their place in society. Their ignorance in threatening subjects and clergymen is a stain on our honor, as defenders of the Holy State of Aureolis!”

I’m getting the chills here…so this is how Yorshka usually behaves, huh? It’s completely different from how she treats us.

It had been three days now since my class and I, Tatsuya Nagata, left the church on a carriage towards a nearby bishop's mansion. Because it was the closest place to the last sightings of the bandit group we were supposed to subjugate on the orders of the Church of Aurena, we were using the mansion as our temporary base.

After getting a night to prepare with my classmates and to rest, we were now receiving a speech from Yorshka before we start our task. She was fully clad in her beautiful white dragon-scaled armor while carrying her dragoon helmet in one arm and her spear in the other.

Assigned by the knight-commander himself, Yorshka was acting as the leader of the knight detachment for today’s Quest. Although it might seem weird that this carefree knight was supposed to order all these trained warriors, especially if you knew the fact that Yorshka was a commoner among an order of nobles, her commanding voice and the intimidating pressure that she was exuding was almost similar to the one I felt from the Knight-Commander himself.

Looking around, none of the younger knights were disobedient, all of them were listening intently to Yorshka’s speech. The aristocracy is prominent in this world as even the church showed how influential it was, so seeing these nobles act this way was…refreshing?

Well, aside from them, the older knights that were assigned to each of our parties didn’t look too pleased about the fact that Yorshka was their commanding knight. Naturally, as I bet each of them wanted this honor for themselves.

“Today will be a perilous day, but do not forget that you are knights! Your training and faith are superior to these scoundrels, so hold up your weapons and fight with your brothers-in-arms to cleanse these filths!” Yorshka raised her spear with fervor, invigorating the young knights into a cheer. “And rest easy, for today we have Goddess Aurena’s chosen, the heroes, with us. And with them, we have our two saint candidates, both given this honor by divine right. We have faith, righteousness, and our Goddess behind us our cause.”

The cheers boomed around me, as not only the knights but also a few of my classmates were infected by the atmosphere, clapping and shouting in support of Yorshka’s speech. This lasted a few more seconds until she dismissed everybody, telling them to get ready for the moment the scouting party returns, we would depart.

I wasn’t so sure what to do in this situation as I had everything I needed on me, so I simply followed Kyouya back to our party.

“Alright, well…that was certainly a surprise. I didn’t know that Lady Yorshka could be so…tough,” Tamae-san commented the moment our party ‘The Misfits’ joined with hers, ‘The Magical Biscuit’.

“She is a professional, and she did once say that the Knight-Commander himself recruited her,” Misaki-san, our archer, explained with a finger on her chin. “If the leading figure of an organization comprised mostly of noblemen personally recruits a commoner woman, then you should expect her to be competent.”

“I wonder how high her ‘aura’ skills are. I can understand with the recently appointed knights, but even the older ones looked pretty nervous around her,” Kohaku, our runeslayer, mentioned, tapping her sword “Kotodama” restlessly. “…I know I sound pretty nervous, but shouldn’t we go and talk with Light-san, like, now? I know the plan is pretty safe for us, but I still want to go over everything with him.”

Light, or how I like to call him ‘Daisy’, announced in that “assembly” that he had a plan for anybody who would prefer not to engage a bandit in the raid. He explained that some of our classmates weren’t mentally able or prepared to fight a human to the death…which I have to admit is very much true.

Despite my absolute hatred for that guy, I couldn’t exactly go against my party’s decision. Both Tamae-san’s and my party decided that they would stick with Daisy’s plan while Akabanae’s “Fight with the knights” plan only got one party’s support.

After getting a few potions and supplies, our three parties discussed the plan again to make sure everybody knew what to do until the scout team came back. The moment Yorshka got a grasp of the situation, she announced that we would start the Quest.

All knights took out small brown figurines, which were designed after monsters, on command. Each of the knights injected a certain amount of mana into them and threw them on the ground, where those figurines quickly grew in size until they were all large enough for the knights to ride on them.

This was another manatech of this world. Instead of using animals or monsters as mounts, these knights would ride these things. The appearance of the monsters varied, ranging from pegasuses, manticores, griffons, etc. What all of them had in common was that they all could fly.

As we had to hurry and keep up with the knights, all 25 members of our class had to ride with one of the knights. Besides for Asaka and Aiko who rode with their respective escort knights, which means Yorshka and Elrick, everybody had to choose their own. Thankfully, the knights considered it an honor to allow an "Aurena’s chosen” to ride with them, so none of the knights were reluctant about it.

“Lady Kazumi, it would be an honor to escort you to the battlefield,” a knight offered.

“Lady Haruka, if you are willing, then allow me to aid you,” another proposed.

“Lady Misaki, I’ve heard that your archery is masterful. How would you like to ride this hippogryph and try shooting from it? I would also be thrilled if I could introduce my personal hippogryph to you one day,” another knight suggested…ok, that guy just flirted.

Well, it should have been obvious but the knight’s prioritized the girls first before any of us guys. Their dicks were so hard that it got so heated that the senior knights had to personally step in to prevent any further quarrels.

Once all the girls had a partner, the combined sounds of “tch” was so audible from the remaining knights that it actually made all of us guys cringe. Well, at least they didn’t cause a fuss when we sorted out this part.

Traveling through the sky was a pretty fun activity. The cold air breezing through my hair really freshened me up and getting a bird’s eye view of the lands was pretty wild, especially when I saw how organized farming fields were. It was a totally new outlook on the world.

After what felt like a 30 min ride, we descended down, landing a few miles away from some woods, presumably where the bandits were hiding. The knights withdrew their figurines, shrinking them with their mana before Yorshka explained the plan for the operation.

Essentially, we would split into two groups. The first group would be the raiding party where Akanishi’s party would participate. Yorshka would be leading this group, and considering how strong she is, the bandits had to have somebody on her level to even slow her down from demolishing everybody. Seriously, even the younger knights were saying that it would be a cinch with the “White Winged Dragoon”.

‘White Winged Dragon’? How did she get that nickname if she doesn’t have any wings? I thought, curious about the origin of this epithet.

The second group, mine, would be responsible for long-range attacks. We would support the main raid with spells and arrows, acting as an artillery squad, to keep the bandits down. Daisy wanted to us to completely avoid the battle, but it seems like the knight's and the priests denied this suggestion.

Our three ‘hero’ party would act as the core of this group. Although each knight was proficient with the bow and magic, most of them were more interested in joining the main raid as this would be the best way to gain honor…and experience.

To make sure that we would be useful here, he had our mages and archers buy and upgrade skills that would benefit this strategy. We didn’t have too much SP but it was enough for some of us to gain some useful spells and skills.

For example, our mages like Tamae-san and Nishio were able to use the buffing spells from the different magic skills like [Strengthening Flames] and [Swift Winds], transferring their effects after buying [Synergist’s Oath].

Asaka, as the saint candidate of our group, had to learn a few custom spells useful for her role. Of course, she already knew them before Daisy explained his plan to us. The church and Elrick were pretty persistent about having her learn those spells.

It was a pretty SP expensive plan, but, at the end of the day, it only matters that most of us were allowed to sit out from the main raid. I hate Daisy…but that was a really considerate plan.

“Karlst, we will need you in the raiding party, so get your party ready for combat,” Yorshka suddenly announced, shocking Daisy and his party.

As Sir Karlst von Kriemhild was the supervising knight of Daisy’s party, that meant hey had to follow him. Karlst looked pretty pleased about this decision, but that couldn’t be said about Daisy.

“Lady Yorshka, what is the meaning of this? I thought we agreed that I would stay with the supportive party,” Daisy complained with a scowl. “Taking Sir Karlst and my party away would leave Asaka-san vulnerable to ambushes. What are you planning?”

“Sorry, kid, but the situation has changed. We’ll need Karlst with us, although technically you don’t have to come, I still believe this a good experience for you,” Yorshka explained with an aloof expression, leaving no room for Daisy or anybody else to talk up. “Elrick, choose five additional knights to stick with you. Until I return, you are their commanding knight and your orders are to protect saint candidate Asaka and the remaining heroes. Aid them in their duties, also.”

“Yes, Lady Yorshka!” Elrick called out, saluting by grasping his pendant of Aurena, a symbol of his faith.

Obviously, the five extra knights that Elrick picked out were a bit disappointed that they couldn’t join the raid but quickly shrugged it off after Elrick reminded them that they would be guarding Asaka.

Why is everybody so excited about all of this?! They’re about to go into a life-or-death situation…

After Nishio, Asaka, Daichi, and Tamae-san buffed up the knights and wished them luck with a very religious, “May the Goddess of Light sanctify your path, guiding you through darkness and trials. The Light is with you.” As they had the idea that we were “Aurena’s chosen”, they received it with gratitude, but it nearly reached reverence once Asaka said it.

A hero might be a god’s holy appointed warrior, dedicated to fulfilling their will, but a saint was considered the mortal representative of a god. They had the same authority as their religion’s god themselves within their church. What they say, will be considered the words of god.

Of course, that will only happen after Asaka or Aiko become the saintess.

“Well, there they go. Hopefully, everything will work out," Kyouya commented. "Keep your senses up, Tatsuya. We're in enemy territory."

“No need to tell me twice, I have [Enhanced Enemy Sense] on the whole time,” I responded, shaking my leg restlessly. “Damn, not only is it cold as hell but I can’t calm down at all. It feels like my whole body is vibrating at this point.”

I don’t think anybody would be able to sneak up to me while I have [Enhanced Enemy Sense] activated. Although it was only level 3, I don’t think a group of bandits would be able to ambush us, especially if we have Elrick here with us.

However, that doesn’t mean that I could just slack off. Random arrows or spells could fly to our direction. I guess I was sturdier than I was in Japan, but an arrow piercing my skull would kill me, nonetheless. I couldn’t even try to calm down with how cold today was.

“Lady Misaki, can you the other group from here?” Elrick suddenly asked.

“Mhmm,” she confirmed. “It really helps that all of them are wearing white. My arrows will hit from this distance.”

As we were responsible for long-range supportive attacks, we needed Misaki and Haruka to scout enemies for our mages to shoot spells at. As our archers, they had the best eyesight and it also helped that Misaki was one of the few students who was ok with shooting at other humans.

“Crying about our situation won’t help us get back home. I didn’t train to shoot at other people, but as the situation is forcing me into it, I better do it well,” she explained. That contrasted Haruka who was still too scared to do it. At this point, I think she might never be able to get over her fear of fighting.

We were closely following behind the main group until we heard war cry and spells resounding through the woods. The fight had begun and that meant that our job had to start.

Our mages and the knights began shooting spells at the direction Haruka and Misaki directed them at. Some of the spells actually landed on a few bandits, confirmed by Misaki, knocking them back and enabling a knight or one of our classmates to land a hit.

Although my vision wasn’t as good as theirs, I still was able to see blood spraying out of those bandits like a leaking garden hose. They would on the ground after getting slash and just…lay there, twitching before they stopped moving in general. I know we caught them off-guard, but those people were dropping like flies.

So this is the strength of a knight against an average person?

The longer this kept up, with the main raid attacking and our long-range spells supporting them, the morale of the highwaymen quickly depleted to the point that a few of the bandits were consumed by their fear, either running away with damp spots on their pants or screaming like lunatics as they tried to crawl away.

It almost seemed like our presence was completely irrelevant. I know this is simply a PR move from the church to send us on this Quest, but…well, I guess it is helping a few of my classmates to get used to fighting humans and beastmen.

The beastmen really look like the ones in anime. Fur, animalistic features, all while walking on two legs.

Not all of the beastmen bandits were completely beast-like, however. Some looked like humans cosplaying beast with very minimal beast-like features, like fangs, longer claws, and fur-covered limbs, while having human faces.

When I was in Laveata town, I always wondered if there were any races that you would see in fantasy novels and shows. Yorshka confirmed there were elves, dwarves, beastmen, aside from demonkins, and that each of these races had variations of them.

I guess you could say that I was prepared to see them, it's just that I wasn’t prepared to see how ferocious and primal-like these beastmen were. How they bared their fangs, howled like frenzied monsters, and attacked with unhuman athleticism and strength.

The more the raiding party advanced into the bandit camp, the more we had to go deeper with them. Thankfully, [Enhanced Enemy Sense] hasn’t detected any enemies close to us yet, which meant that I didn’t have much to do but I was just glad that everything was working proper-

“Arggghhh! Urgh-! AHhhhHHHaarrrggghhhh…urgh…,”

“Haaaaaaaaarrrrgghhhhh! Harrrrr…”

“Haaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrr! Argh! Haaaarrgh!”

What?!

“Hansel! Gillian! Octovus! Goddess of the Depths, I plea to you, grant me the privilege to be one with your element. Your grace, your element I call, Water Ball!”

What was going on?!

Loud, shrill cries of pain appearing from behind me sent a shiver down my spine, terrifying me as I wasn’t expecting those sounds to be so close to me. As Elrick’s voice suddenly echoed through my eardrums, my body reflexively turned around, seeing him shoot a water spell to douse a burning knight.

“Eeeeeeeeek!”

“What the hell!”

Ear-piercing shrieks from the girls and shouts from the guys, my classmates’ voices directed my eyes towards two knights, both bleeding profusely. One was stabbed at the sides and had his throat slit, which was now flowing a river of blood. The other had his torso completely pierced through, leaving a hole large enough that we could see what was behind him.

“Fuckin’ hell, Boss told us to attack their rear but who woulda thought that they had more mana bloods behind them, right, Macklemor?” a human man grinned with glee, twirling two blood-stained daggers playfully.

"Yeah, I was wondering why so many spells were flying from the woods. It seems a few noble kids joined the Knights of Aurena in a church Quest? How curious," a red-robed human man with a staff called out with interest. “Hey, Jasper, Kaian, take care not to kill the ones with the different outfits. The Boss said the slave trader is coming soon for our prisoners…Ooooohhhh! Are you another follower of our great God?!” The man named Macklemor shouted at Daichi.

“Fuckin’ shit, there he goes again…Kaian, that guys over there with the spear looks like the commanding knight. Ya want to take him on?” the man named Jasper suggested, pointing at Elrick.

With that said, a lean panther-like beastman appeared from the shadows of the woods, flaunting his bloody spear with pride, “Sounds like fun. Spear against spear, and a knight too? Ha, can’t wait to get a knight-killing related Job for this, like you Jasper.”

“Owe ya a mug of ale for that, mate. Don’t have too much fun, otherwise, the Boss and the others might have too much trouble. I heard the 'White Winged Dragoon' bitch is here today,” Jasper stated, whistling as he summons a horde of bandits from behind him. “Ok, lads! Kill the four remaining knights and capture the brats! Don’t fuckin’ end them mana bloods yet, ya hear me? We need bargaining chips to get out of today’s mess.”

The bandits quickly surrounded Tamae-san’s and my party with frightening speed, all having drawn their weapons, directed at us.

“Lady Asaka-! Urgh!” Elrick wanted to break through this formation but the panther beastman quickly dashed between them and attacked him with his spear.

“Wrong target, human. Do me a favor and don’t turn your back to a beast, eh? I know how much you noble bastards hate beastmen, but it’ll leave a bad taste in my mouth if I took you out so fast,” Kaian provoked Elrick by baring his fangs, glaring at the blond-haired knight with predator-like eyes.

“Tch, damn beast! You face a servant of the Goddess, sinner!” Elrick shouted with wrath, pushing the panther away before engaging him in battle. “Julius! Wendell! Protect the heroes with your life! Release the flare!”

“Heroes, Saintess Asaka! Stay behind us, now!” Julius, one of the two still standing knights proclaimed, while the other, Wendell, shot out a red flare into the sky.

All of us crammed ourselves between the two knights, with the mages and archers in the center while Kyouya, Kazumi, Kohaku, and I acted as their frontline, completing the circle. Looking at them trembling while trying to keep a cool face despite how scared they were, I could only feel a sense of fellowship with them.

While we stared at the bandits that encircled us, Jasper went over to the charred body of the knight Octovus and callously pierced his throat with his daggers, “Damn, these knights are low-leveled! Rookies, huh? Only got two levels for killing two, damn shame.” He said with a frown.

Bastard!

“E-Everybody, I-I-I identified them. I-I’ll send you the infor-information now,” Haruka suddenly announced with rattling teeth, terror in her eyes, as she fiddled with the blue screen of her party bracelet. Due to her unique skill [Foxian Slyness], she was able to identify people and bypass their [Identity Blocker], so the church gave her a unique bracelet that allowed her to send his information to everybody she’s in a party with.

Spoiler: Spoiler

Profile:

Name: Jasper

Level: 29

Race: Human

Age: 30 Years

Job: Stalker

Status:

Health:

834/834

Mana:

171/171

Strength:

377

Intelligence:

149

Vitality:

338

Wisdom:

306

Agility:

741

Stamina:

834/834

Effects:

None

Skill:

Physical Skills

[Unarmed Technique Lv. 2]

[Unarmed Mastery Lv. 5]

[Dagger Technique Lv. 5]

[Dagger Mastery Lv. 4]

[Piercing Enhancement Lv. 4]

[Sundering Enforcement Lv. 3]

[Stamina Strike Lv. 2]

Senses and movements

[Stealth Lv. 6]

[Accuracy Correction Lv. 5]

[Concentration Lv. 1]

[Prediction Lv. 6]

[Danger Perception Lv. 7]

[Probability Correction Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 7]

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 3]

[Tracking Lv. 6]

[Night Vision Lv. 5]

[Presence Killer Lv. 5]

[Evasion Lv. 6]

[Acrobatic Lv. 5]

[Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 4]

Resistances

[Physical Resistance Lv. 5]

[Pain Resistance Lv. 5]

[Bleeding Resistance Lv. 4]

[Poison Resistance Lv. 3]

[Paralyzation Resistance Lv. 3]

[Torpor Resistance Lv. 1]

[Fear Resistance Lv. 4]

[Holy Resistance Lv. 1]

[Fire Resistance Lv. 4]

[Earth Resistance Lv. 1]

[Wind Resistance Lv. 2]

[Water Resistance Lv. 3]

Stat growths and related

[Health Recovery Lv. 4]

[Stamina Recovery Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Health Growth Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Agility Enforcement Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Stamina Capacity Lv. 3]

Others

[Handicraft Lv. 5]

[Woodworking Lv. 2]

[Battle Mind Lv. 1]

[Leadership Lv. 2]

[Dismantle Lv. 5]

Job Skills

[Dagger Mastery Lv. 3]

[Agility Increase Lv. 1]

[Stamina Increase Lv. 1]

[Armor Piercer Lv. 1]

[Critical-Damage Amp]

Ability List:

Dagger

[Backstab]

[Dagger Throw]

[Parry Blade]

[Vital Pierce]

He’s too strong! No, even that Mage Macklemor is the larger threat! He’s almost the same level as Elrick.

Jasper might be somebody my party could fight against if we ganged up on him and only him alone, but with all these bandits and that mage Macklemor supporting him, makes that plan impossible. He bandits themselves were weak, around our levels, however, their stats and skill quality were inferior to ours by a mile.

The normal bandits were around the strength of a G rank adventurer, Jasper was an upper E rank, while Macklemor could probably pass as a D rank at best. Unfortunately, that meant that we were grossly outmatched here.

The two remaining knights were new recruits, so they were around Jasper’s strength while Elrick had to deal with another D rank bandit. We were only F rank at best…and this was a life-or-death situation where we aren’t in control.

What the fuck are we supposed to do?!

“Everyone, we have to stall for time until the others come back. P-Please, stand behind us and allow us to protect you,” Julius forced those words out, clearly distressed of the situation just like all of us.

"No, it's ok," Kyouya responded. "We can fight, at least, we can support you and cover your backs, Sir Julius and Sir Wendell."

“T-The Warriors o-of L-Light are here to h-help. How c-could we back d-down-n now?” Kohaku declared with teary eyes, trying to pump herself up with chunni talk, despite how much her body was shivering from sheer terror.

Why can’t I say anything?! Talk, you bastard! Come on, Tatsuya, this is the time where you stand up and act heroically just like in an anime. Come on!

“Nice talks, mana bloods, pretty brave talks. However, do us a favor and just give up, ‘k?” Jasper said with a smile. “We’ll be rough with the capture but ya don’t have to worry about us hurting ya.”

Everybody looked at each other, their eyes clearly asking, “Should we?” I know we shouldn’t trust these people but it beats dying. That was the rational decision, right? The correct one, r-

“Fuck off! Fire Ball!” Amidst the silence, where only the sound of clashing spears could be heard, Daichi shouted in defiance and shot out a fire spell with his staff. “I’m the hero here, motherfucker! No fucking piece of shit will stop me!”

“Woah! Fire, hear my command, for I am a servant of your lord, Reduce Heat!” the giant fireball was aimed at Jasper, but quickly disappeared into thin air, having hit nothing. “That’s the spirit, fellow Danterno worshipper! How about you join me and have me teach you, huh? I’ll promise your safety as my apprentice!”

“How about you kill yourself, you son-of-a-bitch! O, I plead for your support, oh mighty flame lord! Grant me power, grant me strength, burn my enemies, Fire Ball!” Daichi rejected Macklemor’s offer with another [Fire Ball].

“Tamae-san!” Nishio suddenly called out to Tamae-san, which she quickly responded with a nod. ““O, Goddess of Earth, we beseech you for your protection, Earth Wall!””

Two walls of earth erupted from the ground, blocking our sides, creating a two-way chokepoint for us. Our two ex-class representatives quickly assessed the situation and created a way for the two knights to defend us from only two directions.

Seeing us defend ourselves, the bandits quickly rushed into the two pathways, grinning sadistically as they began to swing their weapons.

“Tatsuya, let’s go!” Kyouya slapped my back before starting to help Wendell.

“Y-yeah!” I shouted out to hype myself up before jumping into the fray with my best friend, clenching my spear hard enough to create blisters.

The fight quickly descended in chaos as spells and metal clashed with each other. Macklemor continuously tried to stop us by launching high-level fire spells at us but the combined the efforts of Nishio and Tamae-san using water magic to protect us and Daichi using fire spells to counter them, prevented us from being destroyed by their mage. However, that meant that our three mages couldn’t help us with the mob.

Misaki, who didn’t lie about her statement, continuously shot out arrow after arrow with formidable accuracy. Although most of them were blocked by shields, a few of them did hit a bandit straight in the head, instantly killing them. This helped Tamae-san’s party level up, which means their mana would continuously recover wit this way.

Kazumi and Kohaku both helped Julius out, swinging their personal weapons with adrenaline-empowered strength. Flames, water, wind all exploded from Kohaku’s blade as she continuously switched from one element to the other with her rune sword, while Kazumi supported both Julius and Kohaku by fending and debilitating the bandits.

While their side was doing alright, ours was having some trouble.

Asaka was the only healer amongst us, including the knights, so she was constantly on healing duty. Not only did she have to take care of our party but also Tamae-san’s as everybody was receiving chip damage.

Haruka wasn’t a fighter, despite me calling her our archer. Instead, she helped Daichi and Asaka out by helping them drink mana potions, all while screaming from the top of her lungs. It also couldn’t be helped that her outfit was slowly being drench in tears as her eyes couldn’t stop crying.

The biggest difference between our party to Tamae-san’s was that we aren’t able to kill anybody. Both Kyouya and I were having problems landing the last hit on anybody as the mob of bandit kept protecting each other. The wave is only thinning due to Wendell’s efforts.

It couldn’t be helped. The bandits might be weak, state-wise, but that didn’t mean they were any less of a threat. Spading forks, farming scythes, hoes, axes, all they were carrying were farming weapons, no real swords or spears. They might not be as sturdy as our church-issued weapons but one clean hit to any of our vitals would mean death to us.

We also have to be careful of the stones that they were throwing. A thrown stone could knock any of us down if it hit somebody’s unprotected head. We frontliners couldn’t even dodge them as we had to block them, otherwise, our backline would get hit.

[Exhaustion (Minor)] inflicted on [Human, Tatsuya Nagata]

We were slowly taking down the bandits with this strategy, however…, “Argh, I c-can’t cast any spells anymore.” That didn’t mean that we could continue this for too long.

“Fuck…fucking arcane corruption! Urgh…,”

Both Tamae-san and Daichi seemed to have reached their limits concerning arcane corruption. Considering the amounts of spells they were slinging around, it was obvious that they were accumulating too much for their body to handle. Even Asaka and Nishio were showing signs of fatigue.

“No, I’m out of arrows!” Misaki cried out in distress, eyes widened in surprise and fear.

While the frontline was keeping up well due to our backline’s support, the moment that broke down due to arcane corruption and lack of arrows, the bandit’s counterattack began.

“Kyahhhh!”

“Ahhhhhh!”

A spear of fire suddenly broke through the [Earth Wall]s, destroying them and reducing them back into rubble, demolishing our strategy now that the bandit can attack us from all directions.

“Hey you tired, knight? Haaaa!” slipping through our attention, Jasper went up to Julius and-!

“Kyaaaaaaaaaah!”

A shriek. An ear-piercing shriek escaped Kohaku’s throat as she tried to suppress it by blocking her mouth with her hand.

“Nice, another level!” Jasper shouted out in joy as the head of Julius dropped on the ground, bouncing lifelessly.

“N-No, no, no, no, no, no, no! Keeeeeek!" Kohaku shrieked as she saw Julius' body slump to the ground.

“Kohaku-chan, focus! Focus!” Kazumi desperately tried to wake her up, all while defending her from attacks.

“ARGH!” as I was distracted by the two girls trying to support each other, I didn’t realize the fire ball shot at Wendell as it crashes on him, lighting his armor up on fire. He flailed on the ground, screaming in pain as the fire slowly cooked him alive.

While this was happening, Kyouya and I couldn’t do anything but defend him from stones and metal. We didn’t have the time to smother the flames, neither did our teammates. All of them had their own troubles to worry about in this chaos.

“Waghhh!" another scream resounded, almost like it was normal at this point, however, the person who let out that scream was no one other than-

“Kyouya!” I shouted, watching a bandit smacking his chest with a hammer, sending his falling on the ground from exhaustion.

“Nice job, lads! Last knight, take him out and we’re done,” Jasper suddenly said.

Wha?!

“Stop, he’s not a knight. He’s one of us!” I cried out in desperation…all for it to fall on deaf ears, as the hammer-wielding bandit ignored me and was about to hit him again.

Kyouya! Nooooo!

Kyouya? Not Kyouya, not Kyouya, not Kyouya, not my friend! NOT MY FRIEND! NOT HIM!

RUSH HOUR!

[Rush Hour] [Adrenaline (Major)] inflicted on [Human, Tatsuya Nagata]

A foreign energy began to surge through me, accelerating my heart, as blood pumped through my veins with increased speed, filling my body with adrenaline as my body started to break down anything to grant me energy. [Exhaustion (Minor)] disappeared from my status board and was instead replaced by [Rush Hour] and [Adrenaline (Major)].

As if my mind emptied itself from all my conflicts and hesitation, it immediately went into overdrive with a sole goal.

Protect my friends!

“HAAAAAAH!”

“Gurck?! Bwuaaaah!”

Using the increased speed that I got from my unique skill, I dashed forward, swinging my spear and piercing the bandit’s throat, before taking it out and slicing his head with a [Sweeping Farewell].

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Human, Tatsuya Nagata] has risen from [Level 12] to [Level 13]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 200 skill points

Despite my initial goal having been fulfilled, I didn’t let go of my aggression. The effects of [Rush Hour] were limited because the longer I had it active, the more serious the aftereffects will be for my body. If I don’t want to die, then I need to finish this as fast as possible.

“AHHHHHHHHH!”

Almost like a frenzy, I plunged myself into the bandit crowd, swinging my spear tirelessly, taking somebody’s blood with every strike and movement. It got to the point where my vision was temporarily blocked from the sprays of blood, forcing me to rely on [Enhanced Enemy Sense] and [Enhanced Auditory Sense] to continue my assault.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Human, Tatsuya Nagata] has risen from [Level 13] to [Level 14]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 200 skill points

“Fuck this shit! Fuck this shit! As if I’ll let you top frag, Tatsuya! KAMIKAZE!” somebody shouted from behind me, simply ignoring me to face the foes before me.

Eventually, somebody’s blade finally stopped mine, ringing a shrill sound from metal clashing, “Woah, shit! That’s some strength, mate! Ya think ya can hit me, mana blood!”

I couldn’t see anything, but I could hear. At this stage, I wasn’t able to distinguish it from the countless cries of pain, but it was enough to provoke me.

“Ha ha! Can you even see with all that blood on ya face, mate?” my opponent commented. “Ya hearing must be pretty good if you can follow me around like this! How about I go silent, huh?”

I needed sound to move right now. I needed it to find my next opponent, which means it was my biggest weakness right now.

“Huh?!” I let out, confused why I couldn’t detect him anymore. No matter how much I stressed my ears, I couldn’t feel his breathing at all. It was like he disappeared from my attention.

My instincts told me to wipe away the blood, but as I was about to do that, both [Prediction] and [Danger Perception] warned me to block instead. I did what my skills told me too, but…

“Argh!”

“Shit! Nice dodge at the end there, kid. One more second and I would have gotten your throat there, heh!” he proudly flaunted his success.

As I crashed on the ground, a terrible pain assaulted me around my mouth. Touching it caused the pain to amplify, blood flowing down it like a river as my gambeson soaked up my own blood.

I wanted to see what it was. I wanted to see it so much that I wiped the blood away from my eyes, slowly clearing up as my tears cleaned them. My vision was blurry but it was enough to see the person standing before me: Jasper.

“That oughta leave a nice scar for ya, kid. The lasses are gonna swarm ya the moment it heals up, hah!” he said boisterously, playing with the dagger that he used to cut me.

[Exhaustion (Moderate)] [Starvation (Moderate)] [Bleeding (Minor)] inflicted on [Human, Tatsuya Nagata]

No, damnit! No! Stand up, body!

Despite all plea, my body was unable to move any further. I felt hunger, a ravenous hunger that was huge enough that I could eat the whole world with. But I could only helplessly look up, my body has reached its limit.

“Not moving? Huh, ya should’ve learned how to control ya stamina first, before you go on fighting, kid,” Jasper stated. “Well, can’t be helped. Ya brats put up a good fight and killed a few of my men, so gotta respect ya for that. Still, sorry, but ya’re still unlucky.”

Beaten? Is Kyouya alive? Haruka? Asaka? Daichi? Tamae-san? Nishio? Kohaku? Kazumi? Misaki? Are they all right?! What happened with Elrick?! Where are the others?!

…But none of those words escaped my mouth.

“Welp, time to end thi-HUH, WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!” he exclaimed, turning his back to me as he gazed up in the sky.

There the white silhouette of a dragon mysteriously appeared. Glowing so incandescently that I could even see it with my blurry vision. With a loud roar, the dragon descended on the ground, exploding, and sending a shockwave that shook the very earth that I was laying on.

“Shit! That fuckin’ dragoon bitch! It’s that fuckin’ ‘White Winged Dragoon’!” Jasper shouted out in distress. “Lads, go! Fucking run away now!”

“Huh!? Jasper what about these brats-!”

“Did ya see that, you fuckhead!? That white bitch will hunt us down if we capture these brats at this point. We fucking screwed up! If we only had been a bit faster!” Jasper said, flustered. “Fuck, somebody help Kaian! That knight injured him!”

I wanted to continue watching. I wanted to see if Kyouya and the others were alright, but my eyes felt so heavy. So very heavy. So very…heavy…

And darkness consumed me.

***************************

“H…Tat….ya! …a…e…UP! Wake the fuck up, Tatsuya!”

“Woah!” I blurted out, grabbing onto somebody’s arm. “K-Kyouya?”

His short black hair, his perfectly aligned chin, and black eyes that could mesmerize any girl into a dream world with him. My-My best friend Kyouya! He’s alive!

“Huh, what is with that face, Tatsuya? Did you see a ghost when you were sleeping?” he asked with a pale face.

“Nah, he probably dreamed of coffee. That fulinoe tea, I mean. The church gave him so much but this addict used up all the tea leaves in a week,” turning my head toward this stern voice, a blue-haired girl with defiant eyes glared at me with suppressed interest.

“Asaka-san?”

“Is something the matter, Tatsuya-kun?” a high-pitched voice directed my attention away from Asaka towards the petite girl that was sitting to her side, Haruka. “Did you have a nightmare?”

“Hey, Daichi! Wake up! Sir Elrick told us that we are about to arrive,” Kyouya shook the red-robed guy sleeping beside him, waking him up into a daze.

“I’m awake, I’m awake. Urgh, these carriages are so uncomfortable. Couldn’t they have given us a larger one? Or better yet, how about you two dudes sleep outside and let me enjoy the trip with all the girls, especially with Tamae-san’s party,” he complained with a lecherous gaze.

“Shut it, trash,” Asaka spat out.

"You aren't making yourself more likable with that, Daichi-san," Haruka criticized with a worried expression.

They were arguing with each other but…they were all alive.

“Pfft-ha ha ha ha ha!” I burst out in laughter, unable to hold it back.

Everybody looked at me with an expression of confusion until Kyouya built up the courage to question me about it, “Sorry, sorry, guys. I was just…I just dreamt about how we got here. You know, our first few months up until that bandit subjugation.”

“What do you mean ‘how we got here’? It’s literally been three months since that quest. Don’t speak like we spent years in this world,” Asaka stated with a frown.

“True, but it has been an experience, right?” I countered.

“…I’ll give you that. That bandit Quest was just the worse. We nearly died after that, urgh, [Arcane Fever] is just the worst. Kyouya-kun, Tatsuya, get better at dodging so I don’t have to heal you two, alright?” she insisted.

“Yeah, I remember that fight,” slapping my back with a firm hand, Kyouya began laughing merrily. “I really owe you for that, dude. I honestly thought I was about to die back then, so you coming in clutch with your hero act was awesome. Damn, have I already told you that I seriously fell for you because of that.”

Flustered, I punched his head with a fist, trying to punch some sense back into this idiot, “Oi, you have! Stop joking around, Kyouya!”

“Hie hie,” Haruka chuckled. “But it is true that you were pretty heroic back then. You slashed your way through so many of those criminals that I couldn’t help but be grateful to you. You were really cool back then, Tatsuya-kun!”

“Agreed,” Asaka said with a teasing smile. “You also got something nice from that fight, right? That scar on the left side of your mouth is pretty hot. It has elevated your ‘averageness’ but 100%, you know.”

I touched my lips, moving my fingers across the scar that I got from Jasper on that day. It really has been three months since that Quest, huh?

It was still crazy that we somehow survived that despite being terribly outnumbered. Unfortunately, none of the knights survived that ambush, aside from Elrick who dueled Kaian, that panther beastman, to a standstill, both receiving severe wounds from that fight.

I honestly thought that I would die on that day, but thankfully Yorshka did something that pretty much scared away all the bandits, even defeating the bandit leader. The Quest was a success, regardless of the fact that we couldn’t capture all of them. As we routed them and they fled from the country, the church considered it a job well done and gave us all a reward.

Everybody there, from [Arcane Fever] to [Exhaustion], survived because Haruka was the only one who didn’t receive too much damage. She nursed us with potions and herbs until the knights were able to reach us. We really owe the little ‘scaredy-cat’ our lives.

After a while, the church finally announced that we were finally ready to venture out to the world. That meant that our original Quest was about to start.

However, somewhere during those three months since the bandit quest, our groups just split apart. We were all wounded from that battle, so I thought we would bond from it, but it seems both Daisy's and Akanishi’s faction couldn’t.

On the day of our departure, our class split into three groups. Akanishi’s and Yuuko Takeshita’s, the [Magic Breaker], parties went south-east to catch a boat ride towards the Folschreck Empire. Daisy’s went east towards the Magical Capital, Aleistunum.

And we…

“Pardon me, but if everybody is awake, may I ask you to look to your right?” after knocking three times, a small wooden window opened up and Elrick’s voice could be heard, directing us to look outside.

What we saw there was a majestic city, so large that it could easily rival the capital city of Aureolis, no, I think it was even larger. Massive walls surrounded the city, protecting its citizens from any threat from the ground and above.

“Look, Asaka-chan, there are griffons flying around!” Haruka blurted out, opening the window of our carriage to shout at the one behind us. “Kohaku-chan, look, look!”

A black-haired girl with tints of red suddenly poked her head outside her carriage’s window, “Woah, you’re right! Ahhhh, fantasy! This is so anime! Kazumi-chan, Tama-chan, Misaki-chan, you guys have to look at them too.”

As the right side was too crowded, I went to the left side, opened up the window, and looked up. Besides the wind flowing through my hair and the bright blue sky, the first thing to draw my attention was a platoon of griffon knights, flying through the sky in a formation. I think these knights belong to the famous Order of the Lionhearts, an order of knights riding griffons as their mount.

"Hey, what are you kids doing, huh? Some of you are already 19, so stop acting like a bunch of kids," a white-haired woman scolded us, manning Kohaku's carriage as the driver. "All of you are heroes so act like ones. If a guard sees you guys acting like this, they might give even me some trouble. So, calm down already!”

“Sorry, Lady Yorshka, we were just overwhelmed by the scene, ha ha ha,” Kyouya apologized in our stead.

“The Kingdom of Artorias…,” I uttered.

“The Misfits” and “The Magical Biscuits” both chose to stay with each other. Both parties decided where we wanted to go, and the first place was the Kingdom of Artorias. Although our Quest was to defeat the demonkin lord, we also had a duty to socialize and build up connections with the monarchs and leaders of this world, to help spread the influence of the church, so they could help us in our goal.

I’m pretty sure they were driven with selfish desires, but I was thankful that we didn’t have to plunge into demonkin territory just yet. We still needed to train and gain strength after all, and nothing was better than to go on an adventure.

Today is the present day, the 13th of AutumnSun in the year 2678, and we have arrived at the capital of the Kingdom of Artorias, Griffonpeak.

A note from AbyssRaven

Well, I know many of you guys aren't very interested in PoV of Coffee Boy, and I understand that. I executed it terribly, especially when Hestia's side of the story is more fleshed out.

The original intent for these side chapters was to give people an idea of how the world outside the Belzac forest worked. To flesh out the world and what Hestia will one day experience herself. Well, considering how unpopular these side chapters were, I guess it wasn't a big success.

Now that Hestia has finally arrived in civilization, the original goal of these side chapters is gone. That doesn't mean the characters won't appear again as I still want Saori to appear before them one day and show them kids what their teacher has been doing all this time.

Ok, I said my piece. I'm just happy I was able to give the kids a good ending to their side chapter until they one day appear again. Hopefully, by then, they'll grow strong enough and Hestia can "play around" with them. Anyway, next chapter we're going back to Hestia!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 85: Sermon of the Crimson Dragonewt.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #3 her to promote our Patreon. 10 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 10 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until September!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

Acquisition requirement fulfilled.   [Delayed Cast Lv. 1] acquired

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Concentration Lv. 3] [Singing Lv. 8] [Dancing Lv. 6] [Musician Lv. 4] [Woodworking Lv. 4] gained

Custom magic gained:   [Prayer]

“Snows here, winter is about to start ♫

Let’s cuddle up together, around the fire with stew, ooh, ooh, ooh ooh oh! ♫

Have fun, turn this time so merry, yeah ♫

New Year with my family, is all I could really wish for ♫”

…

“So, how was that, Tasianna? I think that would make a good chorus for what I’m planning for the song. Hmm, the melody would be something like this,” I shoved my blue-haired friend a wooden slab covered with black letters into her hands before using [Aerokinesis] to reproduce the song that would guide my lyrics.

“It certainly flows better than your previous attempts, although I must criticize your pronunciation a bit, Lady Hestia,” Tasianna responded as she scrutinized the slab, correcting any typos I made with a piece of charcoal. “Lady Hestia, considering you have nine extra minds, you randomly made a typo here. I believe Priest Kushlek’zar did mention this was one of your weaknesses you must overcome, if you wish to construct your custom spells more consistently.”

“Uh, I’m sorry…,” I responded with my tail lying flat on the ground, scratching my cheek as Tasianna handed me back my slab. “Jeez, you’re so strict now. Did you really have to take Saori’s advice so seriously?”

“Enough complaining, Hestia, she is doing this for you,” speaking of the devil, Saori approached us while carrying a plate filled with rice balls, before sitting herself down on the vacant wooden chair. “Besides, to me, she is not that strict as you might think. Anyway, enjoy the onigiri and let me clean your slab, Create Water.”

A light blue magic circle appeared on Saori’s hand, pouring water down on my slab as she wiped away all my typos and Tasianna’s corrections, leaving only my lyrics behind in a more readable state. She then laid it down and joined us for breakfast, eating the onigiri and the other dishes she made for us three.

I believe today is the 20th of AutumnSun, exactly a week after we arrived back at Carine Village after our bandit subjugation Quest. As you might have guessed, the welcome back “celebration” was pretty grandiose as Colwyn, Harriet, Lorena, and the rest of the villagers practically charged at us to greet the formerly captured villagers the moment they saw us.

Family members would embrace and cry on each other’s shoulders, releasing all the pent-up emotions they built up from awaiting their captured relatives’ return. Friends would become raucous as they either cried or laughed with each other, all elated that the nightmare was finally over.

Of course, the mercs and the non-Carine villagers couldn’t exactly do the same. It was pretty awkward for them as they had to look at the wholesome moment with wry smiles, aware they couldn’t interrupt this moment.

Mister Kushlek’zar’s party and mine couldn’t help but watch the scene with pride. I mean, look at what we did. It might have been dangerous fighting those bandits, but the results speak for themselves. Happy faces and reuniting family and friends were already rewarding enough for me. It was a real tear-jerker.

After everything cooled down, the hecticness of getting everybody inside the village was a real headache as the watchmen took their job pretty seriously. Well, they were getting paid for it, and orders are orders, right? Couldn’t be helped that most of the prisoners lost their IDs after getting captured…also couldn’t be helped that I was the reason for everything turning to ash during my rampage…whoops.

Colwyn thanked us for a job well done, ready to write a report so we could hand in the Quest to receive our money from the merc guild. However, instead of accepting it now, Mister Kushlek’zar told him that he would stay in the vicinity of the village for a few days to rest, while the mercs we saved were still not well enough to wander back to the nearest town on foot.

We, on the other hand, received the “white grace” money from Colwyn including a report to make us eligible for the reward money. However, as we knew they needed the money for themselves, our party “paid” them to allow us to stay in the village for over the winter.

Of course, Colwyn wanted to deny it, explaining it would be inappropriate for him to take money from us, his benefactors. In addition, he found the idea of us living among serfs unappealing.

He offered us to inform his lord about it so we could find proper accommodations at his mansion, befitting of my "status". I know I should have realized this back then, but I think when I did my "formal greeting" when we first met, I gave him the impression that I was a noblewoman priestess of Aurena.

I know there was royalty among dragons as I had the [Princess] title, but I didn’t know if dragonewts had nobles, so I couldn’t confirm his suspicions. I do know that Loatryx, the dragonewt country, was a vassal of Kargryx, the dragon empire, my supposed home. At least, I think that’s how it worked after Tasianna explained it to me.

Anyway, as that guy was a noble, I refused him outright. Except if I really, really, have to, I don’t want to meet an aristocrat. Colwyn still insisted to the very end but eventually caved when Harriet told him it might be “rude” if he kept this up. He quickly recovered his posture and welcomed us to stay at his house if we wanted to.

Once again, our party went against his expectations and instead told him we would like to help him with the construction of the village, in exchange for our very own home.

After we were away for six days, the village made progress with the rebuild, constructing two additional houses in our absence as the villagers were absolutely sure we would save the ones the bandit kidnapped. They weren’t very complicated, so it made sense the villagers were able to finish them so soon.

After Colwyn announced our intentions, the villagers were naturally overjoyed. “A priestess of Aurena that can wield holy magic, as witnessed by our saved relatives and friends, wishes to stay in OUR village? OMG, what an honor!”, or at least something of that kind was mumbled among them.

It also coincided with the wishes of the people I saved. Remember the whole “white grace” stuff? About the fact people actually have to pay for priests to cast healing spells on them? Well, the people I cast it on during my stay in the bandit camp couldn’t exactly pay me back, as most of their money was stolen by the bandits, so they were distressed that they couldn’t think of an alternative payment.

In the end, we agreed that they would help me construct my party's house in their village while also sharing their winter rations with us. We gave everything we recovered from the bandits back to the villagers, as it was the right thing to do, resolving the village's food problems.

With the help of the saurians and the villagers, we finished my party’s house on the same day, and we were able to enjoy a relatively large feast during the evening. I gotta say, earth magic and wind magic make construction work pretty fast.

Earth spells create a firmer foundation with strong walls, while wind magic enables precise cuts of tree logs. My job in the construction was simply creating the resources, while Krim-Slak, Grazlahta, Colwyn, and the villagers assembled them. Akasht, the lovable giant, did what he loved and carried all the construction materials.

With that done, I left the construction to the experts, the men, and went to the women to prepare for the welcome back feast. Lorena and her mother Linda took the chance to personally thank me for everything I did for their family by promising that they would serve their family recipe to me. You can guess that I was hyped about it, so I wanted to help them prepare…

…Too bad that a “Lady” like me was not allowed to “dirty” her hands. Harriet explained most of the villagers were appreciative of what I did for them, however, they felt nervous that a “priestess of my refined background” would damage her hands while cooking. Not only did I honor them with the “white grace” but my display of the arcane was so noble-like.

Ooooh, the tragedy. If I hadn’t exposed my refined education and formal background, I could have experienced the joy of life with them…Urgh, they really looked like they had a ton of fun while cooking. Sitting around and sipping tea was boring me to death.

Well, watching them cook did entice my appetite, though, and I was rewarded for my patience during the feast. Everything was simple and European-like, not exotic like what the lizardmen made, but it was filling. Especially the rice, which complemented all their sauces and soup. They truly showed that rice has been a part of their lives for a while now with their recipes.

A few days passed after the feast, where I continued helping the villagers construct more houses while taking different lessons from Mister Kushlek’zar or Tasianna depending on the day. I would continue under his tutelage to widen my horizons as a mage when Mister Kushlek’zar had time, while Tasianna would continue helping me with my letters. I still had to overcome my illiteracy, right?

Speaking of houses, I was currently with Saori and Tasianna inside our own right now, enjoying breakfast as the roosters just woke us up. Our home was medieval, I guess you can call it. It was quite minimalistic as you might expect, only having the essential furniture and a hearth in the same room where we were sleeping.

Compared to the other villagers' houses, ours didn’t have a place for livestock to live like theirs. Instead, that space was occupied by our very own garden and work out space. Yes, you heard me correctly, we had a garden. Remember how I would collect seeds and plants in the Belzac forest? Well, now that we could finally “relax” I took the chance to build everything up with Tasianna’s help.

Saori did say, “We finally can live like normal people, so why not enjoy it until spring comes?” While as a former city girl, I couldn’t call living in a village where people threw their bathroom business out of the window “normal”, it was certainly peaceful enough that I could deactivate [Detection Sensor] for a night.

Of course, I won’t keep it up in case some bandits appear. I like to relax but not to the point of being useless.

Still, the feeling of sleeping on a bed, an actual bed instead of on a pile of foliage, was…comfortable. The villagers were nice enough to share some good bedding with us, but you can’t improve too much from below mediocre, nonetheless, there was a certain charm of sleeping on it, knowing that you don’t have to fear for your life. I slept like a boulder on the first day, even oversleeping, and it felt amazing.

It’s still not what I’m used to, but it’s better than a bush or a cave. We’re also bathing now, instead of only showering, but our toilet situation hasn’t improved though…

As my party was enjoying breakfast, a sudden knock on the door drew our attention, as the voice of a woman resounded from behind it, “Hestia, uh, Lady Hestia. Saori. Tasianna. I wish you a wonderful morning on this fine day of the Goddess! Chief Colwyn asked me to call for you if you are ready.”

…Urgh, verdammt.

A loud bang on the table could be heard as my neck lost all strength, letting my head crash on the it. Ignoring my dramatic showing of despair, Saori stood up and went to answer the door, “Oh, good morning, Lorena. I wish you a fine LightDay, and may the Goddess find you well.”

“Ah, Saori, may the light guide you through the day,” despite digging my face on the wooden table, I could audibly hear their conversation. “Excuse me if I disturbed your breakfast but Chief Colwyn told me to inform you that everybody is awaiting Lady, uh, Priestess? Lady Priestess Hestia? Uhm, he said that everybody is waiting for her sermon.”

“Oh, right, thank you for informing us, Lorena. I will get Lady Hestia ready,” Saori answered before closing the door. Once she was back to the table, she tapped my head with a finger, "You opted into this so do not think you can just run away, Hestia. If you have anybody to blame, then it would be yourself.”

I raised my head with a mix of exasperation and reluctance, glancing at the book with the leather cover laying on my bed, “Frankly, I have no idea why I agreed to Chief Colwyn’s request. I’m not even a priestess or a shrine maiden. I don’t even know the difference between them, so how am I qualified to preach about ‘Aurena’s majesty’ to a bunch of REAL followers?”

Tasianna watched me swing my hands up in defeat before opening her mouth to comment, “But you are [The Light], Lady Hestia. You have been chosen by the Light Goddess herself to be her champion, evident of her missive to you and the awakening of your title’s true powers. There is nobody inside this village who is more qualified than you.”

“I agree with Tasianna, Hestia,” Saori said with an encouraging smile. “You knew nothing about Aurena’s religion, besides the tidbits that Tasianna was able to teach you. However, although you were studying on your body’s new abilities in addition to learning custom spells, while also preparing songs, dance choreographies, and other tasks for your concert; you’ve been reading and memorizing that ‘bible’ for the past week, diligently.”

Placing my arm on the table, I used it to support my unenthusiastic head, “…I needed it to learn how to read, and it was a better practice material than the books I found in the Belzac forest. It was so annoyingly hard, though…” I let out a fatigued sigh, remembering the request that I, unfortunately, promised Chief Colwyn and his wife Harriet.

It happened the day after the feast while I was conjuring up [Terra Walls] and using [Wind Slash] to slice through tree logs, having decided to help in the construction work of the village. A few of the older villagers were a bit nervous about me helping out but as I wasn’t part of the assembling itself, only the magic casting, no one outright refused my help.

That was when one of Colwyn’s kids, a young boy around six, asked me to come to their home. Arriving there, I was greeted by Harriet and her twelve- and ten-year-old daughters, who quickly showed me to our seats where Colwyn was awaiting us.

After serving me some of that ale that Saori liked so much, we had some small talk about our home and if I needed something for it. It was pretty pleasant which kinda reinforced my opinion that he was pretty well-educated and informed compared to the image that I had for a medieval serf, or villein.

Compared to the other villagers, Colwyn and Harriet were both able to write, read, and do simple calculations. They were also the reason why Lorena began addressing me with “Lady” instead of just my name as we agreed with each other when we first met. I don’t think it was a coincidence that Harriet herself kicked me out of the kitchen, and why the villagers were nervous that I would do manual labor.

They were pretty educated and knew proper, although lacking, etiquette. Both of their daughters were trying to imitate their mother, but you could see the difference between them. I do wonder where they got this level of education.

Well, that was beside the point as the main reason why Colwyn invited me wasn’t to pry into their history. The reason why they called me there was to perform a sermon.

“Wandering priests are rare and they usually do not come during winter due to the weather,” Colwyn explained. “Until spring, where the church’s clergymen bring their grails to celebrate the end of WinterMoon and the start of SpringSun, we are used to not being able to receive sermons and the white grace. Although we aren’t worthy to receive you, Lady Hestia, it honors us that you decided otherwise.”

He gave me a short prayer bow before raising his head with nervous eyes, “From the depths of our hearts, could we request you to perform a sermon to honor our Goddess in these dire times?”

Considering they just survived through a bandit raid and their captured villagers had just come back after a month of imprisonment, I guessed they needed some religion to soothe their souls, especially if some were close to the guards that died during that night. I understood that, however…

“I refuse,” I plainly answered. “I’m neither a priestess nor a shrine maiden, nor do I even know what I should even say during a sermon. I have never done one.”

“If you do not remember the words, then please take this bible. It should tell you all that you need,” he responded immediately, placing a book in front of me. The book had a leather cover and the symbol of a long-haired woman with two feathered wings, wearing a silk dress. According to what I learned afterward, this was the official appearance of Aurena.

“B-But I’m still not a priestess, like I said a thousand times already,” I stammered.

“I don’t understand how our Goddess’s religion works in other lands but you must have learned your magic from the church, correct? You might not be an official woman-of-cloth, but your belief must be,” he answered.

“I’ve never done one, like I said,” I uttered, slightly unnerved by his determination.

"There is always the first try," he answered.

Argument after argument, he always had an argument against it while presenting it as politely as possible. I couldn’t complain. In the end, I told them that I would do it, although, that they shouldn’t expect much.

…And that’s how I got myself into this Scheiße.

Saori glanced at me for a second, before grabbing the book from my bed and placing it in front of my plate, “Hmm, then how about this; think of this as a chance to gain followers for [The Light].”

“Huh?” I let out with a brow crooked.

“Think about it, Hestia. Do you know what the average population of a medieval village is?” Saori asked me with a teacher’s gaze. “Admittedly, after the attack, the population has decreased due to the death of the guards that defended the village. However, most of the villagers are villeins, non-free men and women bound to their lord’s land, which meant that a certain number will always be there.”

Now that I think about it, there are a lot of people here. If I remember it correctly, we saved around 25 Carine villagers during the bandit raid, which was quite a lot of people. However, if I included the masses of kids and teens, there were around 150 or even more people here.

They just don’t have the houses up yet. Most households were living with each other in a single house, and I even heard whispers that a few people serving at the lord’s manor are coming back to the village, once the buildings were up.

“Oh my Goddess…,” I uttered once I came to the realization.

“Exactly, and they are all followers of Aurena, which means this might be easier than the time we did it with the lizardmen,” Saori pointed out, tapping her finger on the table. “You used your holy magic in front of the prisoners, healing them with the ‘white grace’. Haven’t you noticed how friendly they are to you, regardless of the fact, that they are repaying a debt.”

I picked up the ‘bible’, turned to a certain page, readying it for a second before raising my head, “You’re a genius Saori.” I admitted with true admiration. “If I were able to get [Venerated Saintess] from [The Light]’s milestones, then that would replace my missing [Holy Amp] and [Holy Magic Efficiency].”

At that point, another idea appeared in my head, "…Why haven't I thought of this before? A concert! A fucking concert!” I shouted with energy, jumping from my chair to put on my white cloak, closing it to turn myself into a white mage.

“Are you guys coming?” I asked my companions as I was standing next to the door.

Saori put her jacket on and opened the door for me while Tasianna shook her head and went to the garden, telling us goodbye before beginning to take care of our herbs and plants. She might have stayed around humans for over two weeks now, but her hatred is as glaring as ever. Until now, she has never allowed a single person to enter our home.

As Saori and I walked through the village, we noticed a few villagers, adults and teens, greeting us with, “A blissful LightDay to you” before walking towards the location of my “sermon”. A few kids imitated them, but it was obvious they did it ‘cause the adults did it instead of out of respect, as they ran away with their friends, giggling.

“Adorable,” I muttered with a wry smile.

“True. Walking through the street, suppressing our actual speed to the point that little children can outrun us, is certainly nice,” Saori said with a smile.

Immersed by the atmosphere, we walked silently with each other, only speaking when we had to greet a villager. It had been a while since we just enjoyed our presence together. The hectic was gone from our days, at least for now.

After a while, we arrived at the place where my “sermon” would be held. It was a wide area where a church once stood, however, it was terribly burned down after the bandit raid and the rubble had to be removed. As the villagers considered the area still “sacred”, Colwyn decided I should perform here.

The first to notice us was Colwyn, who ran towards us, swinging his lumberjack beard around while he did it, “A blessed day of the Goddess, Lady Hestia and Miss Saori. I hope the Goddess has treated your well today?”

“Good morning, Chief Colwyn. I wish you a fine LightDay and may Goddess find you well,” Saori greeted with a short bow.

“It has found me well, Chief Colwyn. Let Goddess Aurena’s hands warm you in her merciful light, on this auspicious day dedicated in her honor,” I answered with a curtsy.

Saori gave me an annoyed glance with a slight blush before looking away. I mean, I’m sorry that my greeting was grander, but that happens when Tasianna wouldn't stop urging me to do so. I never read the bible in my previous life, but do all bibles have weird, confusing sentences?

We waited for a bit longer until the plaza was filled with villagers, before Colwyn quietened everybody down. There was a wooden platform with a podium placed on it, probably the spot where I should go as all the villagers were standing in front of it.

After Saori gave me a few encouraging words to scare away my stage fright, I took in a deep breath and walked up to the podium. I gazed in front of me, into the crowd of people, ranging from small toddlers to old, hardy adults. As I inspected this sight, I noticed that there weren’t any grandparent-type people among them, almost all were around Lorena’s age, although people like Colwyn or Lorena’s parents were substantial enough.

Oooooh, goodness. There are quite a lot of people here, I thought nervously, fiddling my fingers as everybody was staring at me with both curiosity and expectation. Why are you people putting so much pressure on me?! Colwyn I thought you told everybody to not expect anything!

“On this beautiful day of the Goddess of Light, I welcome all of you standing before me with gratitude for accepting me,” I started out, planning to stay safe as I meekly retold a few preset lines I practiced beforehand. “Everybody from Carine village, may the Goddess bless with bountiful light.”

As I assumed a praying position and bowed, everybody followed up with me. I honestly had no idea why they did this, as I watched this flabbergasted. I honestly wished a priest would actually educate me on this or, better yet, do it for me.

Mister Kushlek’zar was technically a priest but he admitted that he never gave a sermon in his life before. His “priest” status was purely restricted to his role as a mage among the Depths Guard and Tide Watchers, nothing like a clergyman.

“Although I am quite inexperienced with giving sermons, Chief Colwyn has given me the honor to perform one in front of all of you, fervent followers of our Goddess of Light, Aurena,” I continued. “That is why-”

I paused for a bit as I suddenly noticed people whispering, and due to my enhanced hearing, it was pretty easy to distinguish what they were saying while it was this silent. They were stuff like, “Did the priestess just forget to mention something, or am I imagining things?” or “I know Colwyn said she was inexperienced, but she already messed up the beginning.”

Most of the gossiping came from people that never witnessed my introduction at the entrance of the village or those who didn’t have any of their relatives or friends kidnapped by the bandits. The village was huge so most probably only thought of me as a fancy girl deciding to “play” around in the village.

“T-That is why-,” I stuttered as I opened up the bible, turning pages and pages, trying to find a reminder on what I was missing, however, I couldn’t. In addition to my parallel minds also not knowing, I was beginning to feel a bit anxious.

“Didn’t know beastmen worshiped the Goddess. Heard most preferred the God of Darkness,” and “Urgh, having beastmen adventurers visiting Tobbes’ tavern already spoiled my drink, but having one live here wouldn’t have happened before Colwyn became the chief. Even if she’s cute” were a few more things I overheard.

I looked over at Colwyn who was scratching his beard and Saori who was giving me a worried expression. If I don’t do something soon, the crowd will only get louder and louder, eventually splitting up. I know I didn’t want to do this but I’ve already decided to gain some followers out of this, so I’m not planning to waste this opportunity.

I took another deep breath before slamming the bible closed; amplifying the sound with [Aerokinesis], drowning out the sounds of the slowly displeased congregation.

“Ok, this isn’t working out too well,” I complained as I scratched my head, dropping my formal tone. “I’m sorry everybody if I made a mistake somewhere, but I don’t know what it was.”

A commotion was slowly starting to form as people looked at each and the whispers started to sound like talking.

However, I kept talking, keeping my voice loud with [Aerokinesis], “That’s why I’m doing it my way now, and not like what your bible or Chief Colwyn or what you are expecting from me. I don’t know what a normal priest would say here, so sorry if you aren't here for your usual sermon, then please leave. May the Goddess bless you on this auspicious day, of course."

The commotion became silent. The complainers had an expression mixed with nervousness and uncertainty, unsure if they should take my word seriously or not. I personally wasn’t expecting them to stay after I changed tone, but I guess I should just accept it.

However, the look of those who witnessed my healing magic, among them Lorena and her parents, never wavered their attention. They were respectful through the entire sermon.

“For those willing to stay with me, let me prove my worth to you. Let us pray,” I announced as I conjured up a white magic circle.

The combined gasping sound of the crowd was audible to all, none were more surprised that my naysayers. However, this only lasted for a second as everybody quickly understood what I was planning to do, clutching their hands together as they prayed.

“The Goddess watches over us ♫

In her name, we pray, we sing, we love ♫

For her merciful light, protects us all ♫

Purify the ground, wherever her feathers touches ♫”

The song went on and on as everybody followed my singing with their own, eventually sounding like a choir. White particles also began escaping everybody’s bodies, which I confirmed to be mana particles with my [Mana Eyes], as they streamed to my magic circle.

After a bit, I released the magic circle from my hand and sent it into the air, all magic runes having been filled up already. Honestly speaking, from a mage’s point-of-view, the spell was already ready to be activated.

If you haven’t noticed it yet, this was a custom spell. Not just any custom spell, but one that I learned inside the bible. Call me surprised when I realized this truth, finding it pretty curious when I read the chant out loud.

When I questioned Tasianna and Mister Kushlek’zar about it, they helped me decipher the magic runes and chant from the bible, writing the whole chant and how the spell worked. The spell’s name was [Prayer], a fitting name, as it was a buffing spell that would become stronger the more people prayed.

Prayer

A custom spell whose strength depends on the combined prayer of everybody before it is cast. Applies   [Blessing of the Goddess of Light] to everybody within the spell’s effective range

Blessing of the Goddess of Light

A magical blessing granted by the spell   [Prayer]. Using the combined prayers of the followers of Aurena, the Goddess of Light, this status effects alleviate any status ailments inflicted on everybody involved, if possible. Also empowers Health, Mana, and Stamina regeneration. Increases Strength, Intelligence, Vitality, and Wisdom by 10%/30%/60%/100% depending on the strength of the blessing. The strength of this blessing depends on how many prayers are given during the cast time of the spell [Prayer]

A pretty strong buffing spell if I may say so myself, although it required a long process to hit its maximum potential.

What I read from the book was that singing while the “miracle” was happening would “empower” the spell while giving prayer to Aurena, empowering her with our faith. The spell granted all those who prayed to her a blessing, which essentially was a spell’s activation effect.

From the point-of-view of a mage, it wasn’t very truthful. The way they described it sounded like they were trying to glorify it, especially once you understood some of the intricacies of it. And what I mean with “intricacies”, I mean how this custom spell actually worked.

I’ve tested this spell with Saori and Tasianna, and we noticed that the “prayer” wasn’t needed. You see, whoever made this spell gave it the function to absorb the mana of those under its magic circle while they sang along with the caster. While singing wasn’t a pre-requisite, the spell required people to willingly donate mana if the caster cannot pay the mana costs themselves, and I would guess this song was an effective way to do so without revealing the truth of the spell.

Pretty sneaky, you have to admit.

By my second cast, I was personally able to grant both of them [Blessing of the Goddess of Light (Moderate)] by purely using my own mana, although I do have to admit that it was pretty taxing. The important part was that I didn’t need them to “pray” with me.

However, that didn’t mean that praying together was completely useless. The mana cost for this spell was immense, and a single normal priest might not be able to satisfy the requirements to even cast it in the first place. I can do this ‘cause I have a fuckton of mana.

It was pretty obvious that somebody from Aurena’s church made this spell and that they spread this song to reinforce the faith one had to the Goddess of Light. Most villagers here were illiterate, so song lyrics were a great way to have them remember those words, seeing as everybody here aside from the really small kids could keep up with me.

Still, I do wonder why they had the instructions for the spell in a bible. Was it an instruction manual for priests in case they forget? Then why spread it through publicly sold books instead of personal, church-issued bibles?

It’s weird sure…but not really my problem to think about. I’m only interested in its effectiveness and it has impressed me. Both Saori and Tasianna agreed that the stat increase was powerful, despite how much work and effort it demanded for a single cast.

I would definitely want to use it more often but unless I want to spend the mana to cast a "major" version which grants a 60% increase of stats, it would still be more effective to use the individual System buffing spells for that job.

Still, thanks for the custom spell, bible!

Thinking that enough mana was poured into the magic circle, I stopped singing and started the chant, “Oh Goddess of Light, Aurena. I bid you, hear our prayers of gratitude and ardent worship so it may empower you ever more in your duties of overseeing us. I beg of you to hear us and grant upon us your blessing of light, Prayer!”

I technically didn’t have to chant [Prayer] anymore as the System registered the spell into my status board so it was affected by [Chant Revocation]. I still have to draw the magic circle and write the runes, however.

The white magic circle glowed for a solid second before releasing its effect. Light began descending on the congregation of villagers, basking them in light as everybody was quickly granted a powerful buff.

[Blessing of the Goddess of Light (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atusko]

“Woah! A ‘miracle’ of the Goddess! I was blessed!” a villager screamed.

“We are your servants, Goddess! Praise be to our Goddess!” another shouted.

“Thank you very much, Priestess! Thank you,” one the villagers shouted, recognizing him as one of those I rescued from the bandits.

Appreciation was predominantly given to Aurena, as I expected, but the few people that actually gave me their thanks were the 25 Carine villagers, the ones from another village, and the mercs that I healed with healing spells. I hadn’t noticed the mercs and the villagers who were captured with me be there, but their shouts were so distinct compared to the normal merry-go-happy villagers.

“Thank you so very much for everything, ‘Crimson Saintess’,” one of the mercs shouted…wait what?!

‘Crimson Saintess’? Oh come on, what is that nickname? That’ll just cause a ton of trouble for m-!

39 humans have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atsuko]: 46

Follower amount requirement fulfilled.   [The Light] proficiency requirement fulfilled

Milestone reward gained: Unique Skill   [Venerated Saintess Lv. 1]. Next Milestone unlocked: 100: [Sacred Amp]

…

"Heh," I let out as a smile merged my mouth. "…And I would like to announce one more thing before this sermon ends. On the eve of the year's end, I will be performing an Idol concert for everybody in the village. On that night, I will become your shining light to welcome the new year, so ask of you from the depths of my heart to attend!"

It was clear that everybody was confused about what "Idol concert" meant, so I knew that I had to do something to give them an idea of what that meant. So…I danced and sang. It was only a sneak peek of what I will be performing on that day but I showed them everything.

The still unfinished lyrics, the mumble-jumble that was the music, and the chaotic mess that was my dance choreography. It was so imperfect. It was embarrassing. It was killing my soul as I was doing all of this…but I didn’t stop. Seeing everybody's eyes locked onto me, no one looked at me with disgust but instead were filled with interest, gave me the motivation to continue.

[Stage Fever (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atusko]

The moment I was finished, I thanked everybody and immediately ran off the stage and rushed out of the plaza with my natural, unsuppressed Agility, speeding through the village like a speedster before arriving at my house.

I opened the door, closed it, identified where Tasianna was and jumped at her.

“Lady Hesti-AAAAHHHHHH!”

“Tasianna, omg, omg, omg, omg, omg, omg, omg, omg. I can’t believe I just did that,” I cried out in embarrassment, feeling like I would turn into ash at any moment now. “OMG, kyaaaahhhhh! What went through my brain that I would even think about showing anybody sensible that terrible stunt. Ahhh, I can’t believe that I showed that in front of a whole crowd! Ahhhrgh, I want to wrap myself under my blanket and just die there!”

“OW! Lady Hestia you’re actually starting to burn me here! Also, please, don’t say that you want to die!” Tasianna scolded me, trying to push my embrace away as my cheeks were burning hers.

After calming down for a bit, I retold Tasianna everything that happened, which she simply responded with, “As expected from you, Lady Hestia”, crossing her arms together before nodding her head proudly. Wanting to experiment with [Venerated Saintess], we quickly departed from our house, after leaving a note for Saori, to go to Mister Kushlek’zar.

Oh yeah, maybe today would be good day to evolve.

A note from AbyssRaven

Witness her first sermon, and summon the cult of the Crimson Priestess!

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Chapter 86: Daily Training and Lessons.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Thank you guys so very much for another month of greatness. I apologize for the late chapter and I gave an explanation on what happened in the author note. Don't worry, nothing bad happened.

So, instead of worrying, please enjoy the chapter!

“Lightning Bolt!” I shouted out, quickly materializing a purple magic circle, shooting out a single stream of lightning at the robed man standing before me as my opponent.

“Raptor’s Agility! Slithering Serpent!” two blue magic circles appeared around the mage’s body, applying two buffing spells on him, enabling him to deftly avoid my spell as it crashed against the earthen wall of the arena we were dueling in.

“Not fast enough, Bedrock Blades!” conjuring up several blades of rock, I controlled them to force him into the defensive. “Now, Lightning Bo-!”

“Xohulotel’s Scaled Barrier. You’re not fast enough, Hestia, Kraken’s Destruction,” he called out as a water serpent protected him from my attack.

Without looking around, I dodged to my left as a massive watery tentacle smacked the spot where I stood, cracking the ground under its mighty power. [Foresight] was a skill that allowed me to see a few seconds into the future if I spent Mana on it, otherwise it would function exactly like [Prediction], its previous form.

Foresight

An improved version of   [Prediction]. By consuming Mana, the System calculates the possibility of future events by a certain amount of time, informing the owner about all possibilities and the percentage of it happening. Any possibility altering skills may affect this skill. Its base function warns the owner of any attacks aimed at the them

Maybe it was a bit of an exaggeration, as my options are never 100% so the idea of “looking into the future” is a bit false. The System allows me to see simulated situations of what could happen a few seconds into the future, which I have to examine and act on. Using it every single second would drain my Mana like crazy, so most of the time I would leave it with its base function.

Another demerit the skill had is a need of focus. [Concentration] could be trained this way, but I do admit it is quite hard to cast spells and use this skill. Of course, my parallel minds can take care of the analyzing part for me.

Unfortunately for me, I told all my parallel minds not to participate.

“Woah!” I cried out as another kraken’s tentacle slammed in the direction that I was dodging towards, knocking me a bit back from the bone-shaking shockwave.

“You rely too much on that [Foresight], Hestia. Your instincts are good so stop relying on the System, instead, trust your body and decision-making!” the saurian mage scolded me while he started the cast of three additional spells.

Scheiße!

“Wind Blast,” not knowing which spells he was about to cast, I cast a wind spell to push my body into the air, using [Air Walk] to hold myself up.

Using [Foresight], the System began overflowing my brain with information about two different futures, one showing me being caught as I waited for his spells to cast while I was able to avoid in the second by preemptively casting wind spells to maneuver myself in the air.

Using the information from this skill activation, I was able to learn that two of his spells were [Depth’s Call] to catch me with water tentacles and one was [Sapphire Membrane] to defend himself.

Damn, now I know how Saori and Tasianna felt when I had my parallel minds cast spells too. A mage with [Multi-Cast] is really tricky to fight against!

“Tornado Bullet,” I cast my only [Storm Magic] spell, shooting out an incredibly powerful, spiraling wind bullet at my opponent, sending me flying backwards due to the recoil, which felt like being blown back by a storm’s gale.

As I was flying backwards, I saw two blue magic circles appearing in the air before disappearing without getting cast, as the saurian mage evoked [Sapphire Membrane] to protect himself from my spell. Piercing through the water shield, the spell hit my opponent, shaving a few scales as he crashed onto the ground.

Using a few [Wind Blast]s to prevent me from flying out of the arena, I used another [Tornado Bullet] to propel myself forward like a rocket. Materializing a red-brown magic circle, I was ready to unleash it once I was above him.

“Watch out, Mister Kushlek’zar! Lava Ball,” I called out, shooting out a huge ball of lava down.

After losing all my fire and inferno spells, I lost many of my extremely powerful spells. To fill in that void in my combat arsenal, I had to see if an element could emulate the amount of damage I once was able to do with inferno spells. From tests, I’ve found two elements that could do it, and [Lava Magic] is one of them.

I personally never was a fan of lava spells as they require unbearably slow casting times compared to fire, despite having the same fire power. Now that I had no other choice, I needed to learn when to use them.

Scales still wet with water, my opponent, Mister Kushlek’zar, raised his head up to eye me, “I appreciate the warning, young scale, but never do that in a real battle! Ocean’s Blast, Sapphire Blade.”

His water crashed against my lava, quickly cooling it down to solid rocks that were broken apart as a blade of water pierced right through them. Although I could prevent a direct hit by swaying my body around with wind spells, I couldn’t avoid the hit completely. The water blades penetrated my [Draconic Barrier], slicing my thighs as blood leaked from them, before disappearing as white flames automatically appeared to heal them.

[Sapphire’s Debilitation(Minor)] inflicted on [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atsuko]

Sapphire’s Debilitation

A negative status effect that is caused by being hit by   [Sapphire Blade]. Reduces Strength and Intelligence by 10%/25%/50% depending on the severity of the hit

Ahhh, fuck. The damage is nothing compared to how annoying this effect is. Debuffs suck!

Luckily, Mister Kushlek’zar didn’t come out of it unscarred either, not having enough time to block the hail of rocks completely with one of his defensive spells.

“Ocean’s Healing,” he cast as he stroked his plumage. “Continue!”

With that said, our magician’s duel continued. I kept flying through the arena as if I was flying despite not having wings while Mister Kushlek’zar held his ground like a boulder, focusing on counterattacks and protection as I kept my offensive.

Wind for movement and fast counters, earth for defense and disruptions, lightning for extremely fast attacks, and magma for slow but powerful spells. This was my current usage of spells now that fire was gone. This was one of the reasons for why I was doing these battles with Mister Kushlek’zar.

The other reason was for me to acquire [Multi-Cast] and train up [Concentration]. Mister Kushlek’zar suggested we do these whenever I would have time, acting as training as this was the best way for me to achieve this goal. To make sure it was effective, he forced me to order my parallel minds not to interfere during the duel, as using my parallel minds didn’t count towards the acquisition requirements it seems.

Of course, I could cheat but that couldn’t happen with both Tasianna and Saori keeping an eye on my status board. And even then, why should I cheat in the first place when this is supposed to be training for me. Mister Kushlek’zar didn’t have to do this, after all.

Still, I do admit that fighting without [Parallel Thoughts] was initially hard to get into. As my teacher has [Multi-Cast], he was able to overwhelm me with multiple spells at once with ease. The only reason why I was keeping up was my flexibility with a wide range of spells.

The last reason was to quell [Battle Frenzy]. No use living among other people when I can’t control my temper, right? These battles can get quite heated.

As our battle was reaching an equilibrium, my eyes suddenly eyed small glints in the air, swarming around in a trail leading to the back of Mister Kushlek’zar.

Scale-dusts successfully placed!

Flying around the arena with [Air Walk] and my wind spells wasn’t just ‘cause I needed the movement advantage, but it was also for me to spread my scale-dusts. Normally, the correct way to do this would be to use my wings to spread the dust throughout the area but I couldn’t as I had no wings in my current form.

Honestly, I was having major problems using it to its fullest potential during combat. Before my body morphed due to gaining the skills [Hellblade Dragon] and [Dreadflame Dragon], I could only spread my scale-dust with [Spark Flame Veil]. It felt like my body finally unlocked its fullest potential, you know.

Now, I just have to use it correctly. There has to be some use for it that I can’t figure out yet. My magic was just better in general, but I don’t want to forget it. It would feel like a waste.

Maybe I was forcing its usage a bit but experimenting during spars like these was exactly what I should be doing.

After I snapped my fingers, a spark appeared around my claws before a river of small explosions erupted into action, streaming without rest until it reached behind Mister Kushlek'zar. Conjuring up a wall of water, he blocked the fire from catching him but that left him vulnerable to my next attack.

“Banishment Beam!” I roared as a ray of holy light descended down onto Mister Kushlek’zar’s barriers.

Now that I had [Venerated Saintess], my holy spells finally received the power boost that they desperately needed to become a good offensive element for me. Still, losing [Holy Amp] was annoying but it was just my luck that [Venerated Saintess] could grow in power, increasing the damage I can do the more I level it up.

The force of my spell was showing as Mister Kushlek’zar had to reinforce his barrier with even more spells, neglecting offensive ones to support his defense.

He’s casting more protective spells! This is my chance. Come on, I should use [Blazing Twister] or maybe [Spiral Hellfire]. I know he can survive them so…wait, I don’t have those spells anymore…

“Wonderful! Ever since that bandit Quest, our duels have always been intense enough for me to be forced to take out my catalyst! You have shown this old scale your power, young scale, but it’s about time for me to end this,” he announced as he took out a rosary from his robes. “Feel the might of the oceans, Hestia!”

From this point onwards, the battle only lasted for a few more seconds. His rosary was a magician’s catalyst that not only improved his power but also his casting efficiency. He kept casting two spells to support his defense while conjuring two [Plesia’s Grasp] around me, forcing me to stop my spell cast and dodge.

Although I was getting used to this after consecutive losses against him, my inability to learn [Multi-Cast] to cast multiple spells at once meant that my momentum quickly faded into obscurity, before I was quickly apprehended by his spells.

I was knocked onto the ground before having my tail and legs pulled up by water tentacles.

Multiple acquisition requirements fulfilled.   [Long-Range Spell Enhancement Lv. 1] [Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 1] acquired

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Sacred Magic Lv. 6] [Terra Magic Lv. 3] [Concentration Lv. 4] [Danger Perception Lv. 4] [Air Walk Lv. 3] gained

Magic gained:   [Omnictus] [Rumbling Might]

“Eeeek!” I shrieked as I was held upside-down, holding onto my skirt to prevent it from falling down.

“Phew,” he let out, calming down his breath as he gave a prayer to Plesia. “Another victory for me, Hestia. I have come to the conclusion that it is impossible to defeat you without my catalyst, especially with how much you still have to grow. Ha, getting [Chant Revocation Lv. 10] during training wasn’t enough it seems.” He wrote down today’s duel’s results on a wooden tablet before throwing it towards Akast as a part of their luggage.

“M-Mister Kushlek’zar, w-what are you thinking!?” I shouted out as my face became redder and redder. “PUT ME DOWN!”

He stroked his chin for a moment, looking genuinely confused why I would raise my voice, until Tasianna explained it to him, “Huh? This is usually never a concern for saurian females, thus I thought nothing of it. Regardless, if I have offended, I apologize sincerely as my tail is my witness.” Tucking his tail between his legs, Mister Kushlek’zar gave a short bow as he released me from his spells’ grip.

Landing on the ground like a cat, I stroked my tail as I responded back with a pout, “Jeeeeeez…Don’t worry about it, elder scale…”

“Gaha ha ha!” ignoring my blushing face, Krim-Slak, the muscular blue carnosilian approached us with a hearty laugh. “The fights are always so even before Kush becomes serious. So, any luck with [Multi-Cast]? This has been your sixth duel with him with the same restrictions.”

I looked through my status board, half-doubtful that I had it, half-hopeful that I missed the System notification during the battle, until I could confirm which one was correct, “…Nah.”

“…Is that so? Unfortunate,” Grazlahta the red saurian commented with a frown. “Your efforts aren’t wasted though, young scale. A warrior pursues strength no matter how often one fails. Be proud that you’re able to fight Kush on even grounds, despite how more experience he is within the rules of a magician’s duel.”

“Well, Lady Hestia did use her scale-dusts during that one attack…which isn’t really a spell,” Tasianna suddenly dropped, freezing me up as I realized this.

“Well, that is debatable as her scale-dusts are part of her body, although it is considered an ability to the System. Punches and kicks are not disallowed, after all,” Saori came to my rescue, before letting out a defeated sigh. “Although I am pretty sure you mentioned that you would only use your spells to defeat him. Using your scale-dusts will not give you [Multi-Cast].”

“Why are you two throwing me under the ‘bus’!” I shouted at my two friends, feeling betrayed by their backstabbing.

“Hmph, a ‘normal’ magician’s duel is a bore where the first hit would determine the winner. This was a magician’s fight,” Mister Kushlek’zar stated. “With our daily battle done, let us get into the lectures, shall we.”

“Yeah, let’s go. Air Shield!” I invoked a huge barrier of air, blocking all sounds from exiting this bubble.

Aaaaaand another part of our daily routines begins.

After leaving the village to enter the woods where we first met the saurians, we chatted with them about [Venerate Saintess]. At this point, our group pretty much trusted Mister Kushlek’zar and his party enough that we practically divulged everything besides [Otherworldly Reincarnator] and the SP System.

I mean, Tasianna trusted him enough due to his faith to Plesia and Saori and I were just grateful he left me alive after my rampage, even willing to still be our magic tutor. As a sign of trust, we revealed nearly everything. And besides, they practically knew or guessed everything at this point so we saw no harm in revealing it.

You should have imagined Mister Kushlek’zar’s darkish face when he confirmed Saori was a cadejo. It couldn’t be helped in the end that he desperately wanted to see our true forms, but the two carnosilians quickly interjected.

Frankly, the saurians were still curious why our profile still had “Information Blocked”. “It is something extremely personal, and we are only willing to tell you if join our party,” I said shamelessly in an attempt to recruit them. I’ve grown quite attached to them, and it wouldn’t hurt to have more muscles in our party, right?

Of course, sadly, they had to reject it as their duties conflicted with our goals. It was an ordeal to explain to them what “Idols” were and I had a bit of a hope that they would accept after seeing their reactions. Well, I guess the path of an entertainer wasn’t theirs. “Justice never rests.”

Even now, they couldn’t stay too long. They had to escort the non-carine villagers back to their own village, while my party wished to stay here for winter and depart in spring. So whenever we could train with the saurians, we trained with the mentality it could be our last.

One of the topics we absolutely had to take care of was custom spell creations. After “Shiterno’s” little interference, I practically lost all my fire and inferno spells aside from [Symphonie des Feuergottes]. I tried to look through the skill shop to reacquire them but to no avail. Annoyingly enough, the moment I lost those two skills, I also lost my ability to create pure fire and inferno custom spells.

Honestly, considering he’s an Origin God, he’s pretty stupid as fuck. Why would you steal away this ability of mine, you shitty fire god? Even [Divine Inferno] doesn’t grant any benefits to my retainers.

Anyway, due to this fact, I had to substitute my other spells now that my jack-of-all-trade fire element was gone. Two of our experiments included [White Flames] and [Corrosive Fire].

[Overheated (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atusko]

“Huuuuuuuh…huuuuuuuh,” I moaned as purple sweat began dropping from my forehead into a wooden bowl. “Huuuuuuh…compared to [Toxic Secretion], this is far too inconvenient. That bastard, honestly, doesn’t understand anything of how I was using my skill set.” I scowled at the mere thought of the creator of this skill.

“Oi, young scale, we’re followers of Plesia but cursing an Origin God brings down bad luck,” Krim-Slak commented as he took out his amulet, shaking it in front of me as if he was trying to dispel a ghost. “You were chosen as God Danterno’s champion, so you should be grateful.”

“Yeah, I could, buuuuut, fuck no,” I answered with spite. “Don’t forget that Aurena also blessed me. I have no idea what the gods are planning to do with me, but I’m currently leaning towards supporting the Goddess of Light. I even helped her reinforce the faith of Carine village.”

“Well, your little Idol ‘performance’ did make the men pretty excited. I guess that is what you meant with ‘reinforce’?” Saori said with a teasing smile, forcing me to cover my blushing face with my coat’s hood. “Oh, it is about to overflow. Tasianna, you may cool her down now.”

“Yes, Miss Saori. Please excuse me, Lady Hestia,” Tasianna uttered with a pleasant tone as she started cooling the air with a cyan magic circle, placing it behind my back to lower my body’s temperature.

As my body slowly cooled down, Saori took the bowl filled with purple in her hand, identified it, and then handed it to me, “It is diluted but it is the real deal. [Corrosive Fire] has the same recreation feature of [Toxic Secretion].”

Identify.

Mixed venom concoction

A concoction created through [Corrosive Fire]’s feature, diluted with sweat. Depending on the resistance of the target, this venom may cause [Poisoned (Minor)] upon injection

One of our tests was to see if I could continue supplying Saori with venom and poisons, as that was one of her strongest tools in battle. Unfortunately, after losing [Toxic Secretion] I couldn’t just make new vials of venom upon request, as [Corrosive Fire] could only create fire with venom effects.

I could recreate my old venoms for Saori, however, the only way to get it is to have myself sweat. The only way for me to sweat was to overheat myself using these purple flames, infusing the impurities into my sweat as bowls began filling with a purple liquid.

Unfortunately, mass production was difficult with this method. I sweat very little due to my race and overheating myself too much is just unreasonable. Another problem were the flames requiring nutrients from my body, ravaging my Stamina and calories whenever I used them.

That was actually the case for both flames. The perfect comparison to them would be my scale-dusts. The flames have literally become a part of me now, being emitted after spending Mana and Stamina to create them.

Considering my dragon abilities consumed massive amounts of Stamina already, I honestly should consider leveling both my Stamina skills up to max to attain the superior merged version of them.

If you think about it, these flames sounded like a bit of a nerf compared to the previous me, right? My fire spells had so much flexibility and firepower that I could punch through most threats with them, but now I had to use up Stamina, an average stat for me, in addition to Mana.

However, interestingly enough, I could create custom spells with these flames. [White Flames] would create white magic circles like holy spells, while [Corrosive Fire] would create brown magic circles like earth spells. Although none of the test spells actually worked, it was good enough for me to know those skills allowed me to create some new spells myself.

After losing [Holy Magic], I also lost [Cure], the only way for me to remove status afflictions like poison and paralyzation. It wasn’t an offensive spell, but I absolutely needed it. If I could create my own venom, then I should know how to neutralize them.

“Hmm, how about ‘Holy Fire, rid their body of impurities. Purify them’, and how about this letter? Oh, maybe write these runes like this and this?” I suggested, drawing and writing everything down on wooden tablets.

As I was experimenting with words to create a spell which could “remove physical status ailments”, Mister Kushlek’zar, Saori, and Tasianna were documenting all my progress on wooden tablets with coal pencils. Funnily enough, it reminded me of a scene of scientists congregating in a single room to create the next scientific milestone.

Well, I guess it was fascinating for them as I presumed myself to be the only person with [White Flames] and [Corrosive Fire]. At least, if we could believe that they really were “unique”. I hope they will show their worth like my two racial skills, [Dreadflame Dragon] and [Hellblade Dragon].

“Oh yeah, Mister Kushlek’zar,” I asked my saurian “Teach”, now taking a break from our lectures. “I was just thinking about my unique racial skills, which reminded me that I thought it was good time to evolve.”

“Hmm!” at the mere mention of “evolve”, Teach perked his body upwards, stroking his plumage as his eyes’ focus intensified. “Are you finally willing to evolve, Hestia? Oh, you bless this old scale. God Istari, I thank you for granting me this chance to learn, and Goddess Aurena for granting me the honor to meet your champion.”

“Well, we have been in the village for a week, and besides a few wolves or goblins, everything has been peaceful,” I answered. “I know you wanted to see Saori’s and my monster forms…too bad there are far too many ‘birds’ around.”

It seems the appearance of small monsters like [Wind Raccoon], [Loopabit], and [Blight Rat] aren’t a rare sight around villages far away from towns. Their lord was supposed to protect them with soldiers during these times, even hiring hunters if a swarm appeared.

Feral grimgarians like goblins and kobolds were also a common sight, showing little intelligence compared to the ones I met in Belzac forest. They honestly acted like idiotic, cantankerous beasts that have to be exterminated before they cause problems for my life…too bad they were G ranks.

Monsters were either born naturally like other animals or they could just appear from thin air through the high mana concentration in the area. I’ve already mentioned this, but the area had far less mana in the ground compared to the Belzac forest, meaning weak monsters like these could be spawned.

G and F rank monsters were weaker than humans, stat-wise, but that doesn’t mean they were any less of a threat. According to Mister Kushlek’zar, goblins and kobolds have insane reproduction rates, meaning subjugation Quests for them were near limitless.

“The ‘birds’, huh? Yeah, damn pest,” Krim-Salk complained as he washed his tail with a damp cloth. “Anyway, Kush wants to stay around a bit for your evolution and our wards aren’t ready just yet, so you don’t have to fear anything during your evolution, young scale. We’ll keep watch with your companions.”

“So, do you mind sharing to us your evolution choices? Saori already gave us a rundown of how monsters evolve,” Grazlahta answered in his usual stoic tone, taking a sun bath on a moist grass bed.

“Sure.”

Evolution

[Young Black-Wrath Dragon]

[Young Angel Dragon]

[Young Infernal Demon Dragon]

[Young Ragnarok Dragon]

[Young Lava Dragon]

[Young Magma Dragon]

[Young Volcano Dragon]

[Young Thunder Dragon]

[Young Arcane Corrupter Dragon]

[Young Dreadflame Dragon]

[Young Hellblade Dragon]

[Young Obsidian Blaze Dragon]

[Young Sunfang Dragon]

Young Infernal Demon Dragon

A unique dragon type that possesses the aura of divinity. A dragon that possess scales of pure heat, purging the sinners and criminals as the embodiment of the God of Fire’s will. Specializes in fire elemental attacks, while possessing scales that nullify all spells related to the fire element. A dragon created by the God of Fire, Danterno. Rank B

Young Ragnarok Dragon

An immature unique dragon type that symbolizes the will of rebellion. A walking profane dragon who has decided to defy the gods, possessing flames that would bring down even the mightiest of creatures. Rank B

Young Obsidian Blaze Dragon

An immature, mutated inferno dragon or terra dragon created through the usurped power of a God of Dragons and God of Fire. With a body of jet-black scales, this dragon possesses the power to solidify its flames into a unique obsidian, hard and sharp enough to pierce through dragon-skin. Vulnerable in their immature state as their dragon flames have not reached its maximum potential. Rank B

Young Sunfang Dragon

An immature, mutated inferno dragon or sacred dragon created through the usurped power of a God of Light and God of Fire. Burning like a miniature sun, these red scaled dragons possess power bodies and searing hot flames, able to both purify and destroy. A calm dragon that wishes to flaunt its imposing presence to dominate prey, instead of wasting its flames on them. Vulnerable in their immature state as they require obscene amounts of food to fuel their growing bodies. Rank B

Young Black-Wrath Dragon

A rare dragon-type that possess scales of pure darkness. A dragon with a short temper, who’s rampage would send an entire city in ruins. Can shoot out a strong beam of concentrated black mana that eradicates anything in its path. Called a "Spawn of Kargryxmor". Rank B

Young Angel Dragon

A unique dragon type that possesses the aura of divinity. A dragon that possess serene feathers that makes this dragon look like an angel. Specializes in supportive magic and skills, while possessing scales that nullify all spells related to the holy element. A dragon created by the Goddess of Light, Aurena. Rank B

Young Lava Dragon

A young dragon that can only be found in the vicinity of extreme temperatures. It can feast on both flesh and minerals. Compared to a Magma Dragon, these dragons lack the ability to deftly traverse through pools of molten rock. Rank B

Young Magma Dragon

An immature lava dragon that possesses a body equipped to traverse the searing hot sea of a volcano. Compared to their cousins, these dragons are magquatic, perfectly able to maneuver through molten rock. Rank B

Young Volcano Dragon

An immature lord of molten flames and the leader of both lava and magma dragons, that has not even touched its immense potential yet. This superior dragon swaggers through its obsidian realm in the depths of the earth, ruling over their molten domain with ruthless aggression. Either on land or magma, this behemoth of a creature will chase off any intruders with its titanic body and piercing lava beams, while being invulnerable to most weaponry with its harder-than-metal scales. Rank B

Young Thunder Dragon

Soaring through the sky like a thunderbolt, these immature dogmatic fighters of the sky will shoot any wannabe challenger down in a heartbeat. Whether with talons or arcane thunder, these dragons are masters of blitzing down others just like their wind elemental cousins. Rank B

Young Arcane Corrupter Dragon

A young, mutant Mana Dragon that spreads corrupted mana in its surroundings. Its whole body is composed of mana, instead of flesh and blood, so it can only die if its mana expires. Instead of pure mana, its body is composed of arcane corrupted mana, thick enough to materialize into anything it wants. Cannot use spells. Rank B

Young Dreadflame Dragon

An immature, mutated inferno dragon who rules the sky with powerful wings, shimmering with an intense crimson red. Soaring through the skies while turning the ground under it into ash and ruins, these wrathful predators will descend on anything to reap its offering from the land. They are most vulnerable in their immature state, not having the strength to carry their fearsome body to the skies. Rank B

Young Hellblade Dragon

An immature, mutated inferno dragon with a hell blaze core protected by an armor of scales and razor-sharp blades. Wielding its blade-like tail like a massive greatsword, these ferocious brutes can turn any defense into little more than crumbled remains as they relish in their impending victory. Any challenger should also be wary of the mineral dust that these dragons can send into the air using their special claws and tails, as even a little spark will cause a hellfire of devastation. Vulnerable in their immature state due to their weaker scales. Rank B

“Two choices, [Young Mana Dragon] and [Young Noxious Blight Dragon], were removed but I wasn’t considering them at this point anymore. The new options are pretty good, I think,” I responded with a small smile.

“Have you decided? I personally would recommend you take one of the God’s chosen dragons, despite your grievances with them,” Mister Kushlek’zar suggested with a frown. “I will not preach to you, I consider it more important that you choose your own path. I will, however, warn you that defying the gods isn’t a smart choice, Hestia. You should consider it an honor.”

“I understand what you are saying, Priest Kushlek’zar,” Tasianna suddenly responded with a firm gaze. “however, my mistress will follow down the path that she considers best. I will follow her and defend her choice, no matter what happened.”

“Don’t take it too seriously, Tasianna,” Grazlahta interjected himself into the discussion. “You lasses aren’t defying Goddess Plesia or Xohulotel, so we have no right to speak up. However, gaining the ire of a god is irrational. Considering what happened to you at the bandit camp, Hestia, you should be aware that divine punishment can happen whenever.”

I looked at them with exasperation as I responded, “Guys, it’s not like I’m actually doing this ‘usurping’ stuff on purpose. Maybe I did actively defy Danterno’s control, but I never did it to Aurena’s or Kargryxmor’s. Nevertheless, Tasianna is right. If I am to evolve, then I will be seeking the best option.”

After looking through the SP shop, I’ve accepted that finding a unique or special skill that could influence my evolution options was hard. There was also the case that my SP was low now, and I didn’t have enough to do anything substantial.

“Chill, though, I only thought today was a good chance to evolve, not that I will evolve now. We have a ‘birdy’ problem, after all,” I uttered before looking at my wolfkin friend. “Saori.”

She nodded before disappearing into her shadows with a, “Sure”. We waited at the spot for a moment, enjoying our tea and lunch as we awaited Saori’s swift return. Eventually, Saori walked back into sight, dragging along four tied up men with her mana strings.

After I dispelled my [Air Shield], she threw them before us, speaking with red mist emitting from her blood-red eyes, “Four spies like always. They have been observing you saurians for a week now, but they have not gotten better with concealing their presences. Should I also bring the ones from the village, Hestia?”

“Nah, don’t bother,” I replied with a dismissing hand wave, before forming a smile as I greeted the captured men. “Now, how may I help Lord Helvas, gentlemen?”

A note from AbyssRaven

Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed the chapter. I would like to apologize to you all for the long delay since the last chapter. I am not dead, don't worry, and this isn't my ghost speaking with you.

The reason for my inactiveness was because of my bachelor thesis which I have to hand in in 1 weeks time. That is why I chose to halt writing for a whole week to finish the thesis and be done with it. Now, I'm done with it and am a free bird, or dragon, again. Chapters will come out again at their usual times.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 87: Insecurities issuing a Challenge.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Four human men were anxiously wriggling around on the ground, struggling to free themselves from their bindings. They wore plain tunics with leather jerkins, thick trousers, knee-high leather boots, leather bracers, leather gloves, and finishing the outfit, they had winter-thick hooded cloaks. Over their shoulders.

Under their hoods, the men looked like the type of guys who would intentionally make themselves look gruff and tough, with wild hairstyles and stubbles on their faces. Thankfully, they weren't filthy like the bandits.

Considering they should be working for the lord of these lands, a noble, I guess they had to groom themselves properly. The lack of a strong scent was probably to help them sneak.

“Pardon me,” Saori said as she looked at the captured spies with calm, but serious, eyes. “but those are mana threads. As long as I can supply them with mana, it would be very hard for you to break through them without sufficient strength. I would ask you to stop struggling.”

They looked at us with defiance, unwilling to speak as they shuffled their eyes around to look for an opening to escape. Sweat was moisturizing their faces, clattering their teeth at the sight of the saurians.

“Grrrr,” Akast growled, having been awoken from their fear of him.

"Please, be at ease," I started out, attempting to diffuse the situation and calm the men down enough to speak to them. "We have no intention of harming you. Your little surveillance job was becoming a bit of an annoyance, so we wish to resolve a few things with you."

“Ashlak’leel sa’got toth zacotl,” Mister Kushlek’zar greeted them in the saurian’s tongue, bowing in a prayer pose. “we are faithful servants of Plesia, us saurians. As members of the Tide Watchers, I swear on our faith to our Goddess that no harm will befall you, on the assumption that you have no ill will against us.”

“You heard him,” I continued. “I’m not technically a priestess or shrine maiden, as I admitted many times, so I can’t promise to Goddess Aurena. Nevertheless, my party also wishes to stay peaceful with Lord Helvas, as we have plans to stay in Carine village for winter.”

The spies stared at each other, discussing with their eyes until the eldest looking guy spoke, "…We can’t say anything, my Lady.” He directed his brown eyes to the ground as he said that, raising them to us with a glance of anxiousness.

Curiosity was tempting me to look at his profile, but he was neither an enemy nor did I really need to look at it. Politeness was important, so looking at other people’s private information was a no go for me. Besides, even if these guys tried to look into mine, chances are low that they could break through my [Identity Blocker Lv. 10].

A bit reassuring that I didn’t waste 1750 SP for nothing.

“I understand you have your orders, but I believe you owe us answers,” Saori stated, picking up her cup of tea to drink from it. “Ever since the morning of our first day in the village, I have been able to detect six men skulking around the village, keeping watch of our house and following each of us. You should understand that our wind elf friend is not a fan of people disturbing our Lady’s peace.”

Although I was ignoring it, Tasianna was exerting a chill. Her [Terror Aura] wasn't high level but it was enough to scare the captured men, all far low-leveled than her. She hasn't diverted her gaze once since the men came into sight.

“I suggest you come clean. There is nothing productive you could do by silencing yourselves,” Saori suggested, freeing the men from their binding.

Their confusion was expected but none of us gave it a second thought as Grazlahta, Krim-Slak, Akasht, and Tasianna went back to their lunch. Saori began pouring tea into cups that she took out from her storage and offered it to the spies. Once she was done, we started the interrogation with Mister Kushlek’zar, Saori, and I.

Showing them a friendly smile, I hoped to thaw the ice between us, “I believe you should know enough about us, especially from Chief Colwyn’s report, correct? So, let us skip our introductions and go to yours.”

I never saw Colwyn or his family hand in the report, nor did they tell me about it, but I would be a Dummkopf to not assume it. Considering they were responsible for the management of the village, whose ownership belongs to Count Helvas, it was only normal for him to do so.

I also heard from Colwyn himself that he had to request Count Helvas about our stay. Apparently, moving into a village wasn’t so easy as to just ask Colwyn for it. As it was his fief, his possession, Count Helvas himself had to give Colwyn the ok in the end, to legitimize our stay in the village for an extended time.

Although I thought Colwyn's family had the status of a serf, a villein, they actually were wealthy enough that they bought their freedom from their lord. They were considered yeomen, or freemen, and were actually employed as official caretakers of the village. That explains why that family was so educated.

Baffled at their freedom, the spies remained silent for a moment until the man with the brown eyes spoke up again, “…Jecht.” He said, acting the representative of the group.

“Well, a pleasure to have met your acquaintance, Mr. Jecht,” I responded.

Widening his eyes in surprise, Jecht’s jaw slacked as he repeated, “‘Mr. Jecht’?!”

“Is something wrong?” I tilted my head. “You’re obviously older than me, so addressing you with ‘Mr.’ is the polite way to do.”

“M-My Lady, I am a simple servant in the service of Lord Count Helvas. There is no need for you to show me this amount of care,” he answered flustered, astonished of what I said.

It should be obvious by now that they think I was a noblewoman of some kind. My education might have been enough to pass me as an authentic noble, but I have no idea how the aristocracy actually worked. Not a big fan of being treated differently…

“Hmm, revealing your allegiance as a spy isn’t very professional,” Mister Kushlek’zar dropped, unnerving him even further upon the realization that he made a blunder. “Once again, we bid you to give us answers. Being observed is one thing but knowing that we are being observed and pinpoint each member successfully is another. As a former scout, I find it frustrating to see that no improvements have been made over a week of surveillance.”

The brash criticism of the spies’ skills and abilities clearly agitated everybody besides Jecht, willing to speak back, but any attempt was prevented with a swift punch to their stomachs from the man himself. Jecht’s prudence seemed to have increased after he unwillingly revealed the fact that he was ordered by Count Helvas to spy on us, a fact that we already guessed.

As the silence continued, I eventually got fed up by it as I sighed, “I guess we can’t get anything from you if we don’t resort to torture.”

The word “torture” made the men tremble for a second before returning back to their aloof attitude. They might not be bonded by Saori’ mana threads anymore, but they made no attempts to run away, knowing that if Saori was able to find them in the first place, then she would be able to hunt them down in no time.

Instead, they accepted their fate. Spies were always in danger of being found out and captured by an enemy force, so the idea of escape was usually dime if they hadn’t gotten the skill to do it themselves. Torture and death was and should be expected, so these men had to have the training to not talk under duress, not show their fear, as that could lead to the downfall of their lord.

Well, at least those loyal to their lord. Spy flicks always make sure to explain this to their viewers, heh.

Seeing Mister Kushlek’zar and Saori nod made the men click their tongues simultaneously, grimacing as they held their heads low, “Well, we’re done here. You may go, goodbye.”

“Huh?” burst out from the four spies, mouth agape as they looked at me incredulously, prompting Mister Kushlek’zar to speak, “I swore to not harm you if you show us no ill intents. As a follower of the Goddess of Water, I keep my word.”

“I believe my Lady has made it clear that we wish to not create any problems for Lord Count Helvas,” Saori continued.

“However, could I request you to call off the surveillance? This should be enough goodwill to show that we aren't enemies, correct?" I requested to the still dumbfounded spies. "Oh yeah, please also do us a favor and relay to Lord Helvas that if he wished to speak with us, then we are ready anytime. I have something to talk to him about.”

With a lady-like smile, I waved them goodbye as the spies slowly slinked back into the woods, disappearing after a certain distance. However, although our vision couldn’t find them, our skills and senses were still sharp, easily tracking them as they fled.

“Hmm, I didn’t know you wanted to speak with the lord of this fief, Hestia,” Mister Kushlek’zar stated with an intrigued voice. “You are royalty from Kargryxmor, so I presume you know how to deal with them, nevertheless, I hope you will ask Chief Colwyn for advice. People from the mercenary guild always advise members to properly respect human nobles as they are quite fickle, prone to take offense and act on their privileges as superiors to commoners.”

“Lady Hestia would have no trouble with that. What is a lowly human noble to dragon royalty?” Tasianna commented with pride. “Regardless, I know we must do this, Lady Hestia, but I do want to mention that dealing with any humans will only cause trouble for us. The less we must interact with humans, the less we must be wary of them.” Tasianna ended, showing contempt towards the direction the spies fled to.

“It cannot be helped, Tasianna,” Saori responded with exasperation at Tasianna’s behavior. “we need support if we want to enter towns. We rejected the money from Chief Colwyn, to have our house built. Most of the villagers had little coin left after the raid, so we cannot sell them our supply of rations. The villagers must rebuild their houses, so work is limited to construction, and even with Hestia’s magical help, she is being paid with fresh eggs and milk. We have zero funds to our name.”

“If that is true, then the town guards won’t allow you three entry,” Mister Kushlek’zar added. “Entry to towns and cities are strict, to keep unwanted visitors from entering that lord’s domain, so you either must show your IDs or a recommendation from an influential person. In the worst-case, you may apply for a temporary ID as most adventurers do if they lost theirs, but that will cost Davi.”

“I don’t want to deal with nobles if I can help it,” I stated with a frown. “but we need more than normal IDs. You said it yourself, Mister Kushlek'zar, we need those more advanced IDs where we can hide certain information more securely. Also, Tasianna, I won't abuse my [Princess] title, just saying. I’ll just do want Chief Colwyn says.”

I’m currently acting on the assumption that Colwyn would ask Count Helvas to do us a favor, considering we did just eliminate a troubling bandit group and rescued his subjects and returned their winter rations. If the man was a benevolent noble, then we won’t have any problems.

However, our party wasn’t naïve enough to think that it would go according to the plan entirely. Nobles were like politicians and businessmen, always seeking to further their influence and gain benefits. He will try to take advantage of us and that is something we have to make sure we understand once we accept his invitation.

…I hope his politician talk, or noble talk in this case, won’t be too hard. I’m not the best when it comes to reading between the lines.

With that resolved, lunch was over and we resumed training. Whether it was furthering our literacy or working on custom spells, we did everything you would assume in a magic theory lecture. Even if I wasn't making too much progress with gaining the last two advanced magic casting types, the training still benefited me as it increased my Mana slowly through effort.

Learning how to write and read would become more effective when I actually do some proper reading. The church of Aurena’s bible was a good help but reading it over and over again was boring. It has been a long while, but I finally took out a few of the books I found in the Belzac forest in that elven shack to read.

Now that I think about it, paper was nonexistent, huh? I mean, I should have expected that as it was a medieval world, but looking at the bible and these elven books now, I think I kinda forgot about it.

The Quest paper Colwyn showed us was made out of parchment, the books are from vellum, a higher quality parchment, and what we were documenting our experiments on were wooden tablets or slabs. The Quest paper and books clearly were written with ink while we had to use coal we made ourselves to write on our tablets.

I guess the reason why I hadn't realized it until now was that I didn't think too much about it. It was irrelevant in my life in the forest and would have just been a waste of brain cells. Now that I had to read and write again, my want to write down a diary came back, but I pushed that childish thought away, embarrassed.

My second life was different from my past, and my reason for starting one in the first place doesn’t exist anymore. Aside from how frustrated I am about my decaying humanity; I didn’t have much to reflect too much about. I wasn’t a victim of bullying, I have two great best friends, I regained my courage to perform, and my first Idol concert was coming up soon.

The villagers would have people to make parchment and wooden tablets, something I heard from Colwyn, but currently, we had to make our tablets ourselves. None of us actually wanted to make them, so our tablets were limited, and I was too lazy to make more for my diary. My thoughts were good enough of a diary, right.? Heh heh.

Anyway, forgetting about those talks, I think I should start reading one of these books. The first one was titled “The Wedding in the Dark: The Birth of our Relatives”, a book about the marriage of the God of Darkness Marsven and the, now, Goddess of Monsters and Fertility, Edna.

It retold the tale of how the origin gods suddenly appeared in the world, and how they slowly established themselves as the rulers of Peolynca through the System. Unfortunately, it didn’t go too much into the myth, as it immediately focused on Edna when she was still a mortal high elf.

The woman that will one day ascend to godhood was a monster tamer in her lifetime, a capable and reputable one. While her own prowess in battle wasn’t anything to talk about, her ability to tame and command beasts of any kind through a supernatural charisma empowered her as monstrous wolves, hydras, wyverns, and many more monsters would protect her with their lives.

Eventually, on a typical day where the elf would pray to the new gods, Marsven appeared before her as an elf with blue-purple skin. Unbeknown that he was Marsven, Edna began dating him, spending time with each other, and fighting side by side.

However, this time eventually ended due to a debilitating toxin that Edna received after her most recent successful tame. She might have tamed the beast but the cost was too high.

The high elves at that time were still experimenting with the System magic of the Origin gods, trying to create new, magnificent custom spells. Even the magic that they used prior to the arrival of the Origin Gods weren’t effective against the venom of this unique monster, unknown at that time as it was the first of its kind.

The toxin would have ended Edna's life, extinguishing her existence from this world, if it wasn't for Marsven himself. Unable to accept the death of his lover, the God of Darkness used his authority as an Origin God to appoint Edna as his first subordinate god, granting her the divinity to purge the impurities inside her body, saving her life.

But little did they know at that time that Edna was pregnant with Marsven’s children. The ascension of its mother and the divinity of its father made it so that the child born was a true god, possessing the blood of an Origin God and Subordinate God.

That first child was born as the first dark elf in existence, the Goddess of Death and Necromancy, Illsaphone. Whether it was due to the influence of her mother’s looming death or her father’s elemental affinity, the child possessed the ability to command the dead.

Although at first hated for her power over the dead, considered a sacrilege to the dead, eventually the goddess was accepted into the lives of mortals, as the one you would pray to if you wished your loved ones to enter the afterlife, peacefully.

However, even with one child, the Goddess of Fertility didn’t stop there. They conceived two more girls. The first of her kind, the Goddess of Vampires, Vivachel, the second child. And the third child, the Goddess of Vengeance and Grudges, Kronnaz, the progenitor of all grimgarians.

Inherited from their mother, the three goddesses acted on their horniness and started conceiving children. Knowing that this would cause great harm to the world if demigods began appearing too rapidly, Plesia ordered Marsven to weaken each child, stripping them from their divinity so they may live the life of a normal Peolyncian child among their fathers.

The balance of powers wasn't disturbed due to this decision, as all three new races were able to adapt to their new existence on Peolynca. The population grew so quickly that even towns could be populated by one of these races alone.

And that is where the book ended.

…Holy shit, this sounds like some fucking fiction. Romance novel at the beginning, but mythological stories about how horny these goddesses were in the end. It honestly felt like I was reading some Greek pantheon stories, wow.

“So, how was it?”

“Bwuh!” I shrieked out as somebody tapped me on the shoulders, waking me up from my thoughts.

“Oops, sorry about that, Hestia,” turning around, I could see Saori’s apologetic expression. “You were so engrossed in your reading that nobody wanted to interrupt you, however, the sun is about to set. We should probably end it for the day.”

“Oh, is that so?” I responded as I looked up, witnessing the sky slowly turning black. “Well, I just finished this book anyways. Saori, you should probably read it when you have the time. You like Greek god stories, correct? You would like this one, I think.”

I handed her the book, invoking a smile from her, “Once we return home, let us take those books out and categorize them. I honestly want to immerse myself into as many of them as possible.”

Packing up our stuff, we were about to leave when Mister Kushlek’zar stopped us, “Wait, I think you forgot something, Hestia.”

I looked at him with confusion, prompting him to continue, “Well, did you forget about your evolution? You wanted to evolve today, correct? Your evolution only requires a day and I wish the honor to watch, if I may.”

Well, it was true that I needed a day to evolve, but that would mean that I would awaken during the same time tomorrow. If Count Helvas invited us to come tomorrow, then we couldn’t exactly deny it as I did say that I wanted to meet him.

“We cannot do that, Mister Kushlek’zar,” Saori said, figuring out the problem. “If Hestia were to evolve now, it would be a problem for us if Lord Helvas were to summon us. We cannot do it today.”

“Oh, I have forgotten that in my excitement. I apologize,” the saurian priest admitted, apologizing. “Then, should we plan this on another day?”

“Actually, I don’t think we should go through with it,” I unexpectantly stated, shocking everybody to ask me what I meant with that. “I mean, that I don’t want to evolve. Not now, at least.”

“W-Wha?!” Mister Kushlek’zar’s slacked his jaw, displaying the razor-sharp teeth in his mouth.

“Hestia, what is the meaning of this?” Saori asked. “Wouldn’t evolving be better?! You cannot level up anymore, so you cannot improve your stats. The only way you can become stronger is by leveling your skills at this point.”

“I know,” I said, scratching my cheeks as I forced myself to answer her question. “But…the thing is, I don’t want to become too strong, you know?”

“You…don’t?” the incredulousness in Saori’s eyes told me enough that she still didn’t understand anything.

“Yeah, I know I sound pretty stupid, right now, but think of it from my perspective, Saori,” I then looked into her eyes, glaring into her red-blood irises apologetically. “You aren’t strong enough. You too, Tasianna. I don’t want to evolve right now when I’m not sure that you two could handle my berserk state. I don’t want to hurt you two, and I definitely don’t want to isolate myself. This is my way to solve the problem.”

I shrugged as I said that. Frankly, doing this was frustrating for me to no ends, but I decided on this after the bandit Quest. I couldn't afford to evolve now, not before my two companions were strong enough to stop me if I ever rampage again.

It gnawed at me. I wanted to protect my friends, and the best way to do so would be to evolve, gaining more strength while allowing me to earn more levels and SP. Stagnating like this was infuriating. If I weren’t improving my magic skills and learning how to use my new skills and body, then I really was just lazing around.

“I’m sorry, Mister Kushlek’zar. I know you were excited, but I don’t think I can do it while you are still here. However, I could still show my-!” while I was apologizing to the elder scale, a sudden chill ran down my spine, giving me goosebumps as I turned my head towards this hostile aura. “S-Saori?”

“‘A, educator’s job isn’t to teach students about what would come on the next quiz, our true duty was to help them flourish, help them to grow into responsible adults’,” Saori suddenly cited, as a dark aura cloaked her body. “That was what my sempais, the senior teachers, taught me when I started out.”

She clenched her fist, grinded her teeth together, glaring at me with a frown as red mana mist exuded from her eyes, "'I am holding you back'? I know that. I know that very well. Nothing was more anguishing then watching you suffer due to Danterno’s influence, helplessly watching Mister Kushlek’zar being the only one who could stop you. I was only able to support everybody, I couldn’t prevent your torment.”

Her eyes started to wetted, but she pushed it all back, “I want you to evolve, Hestia. I am not your teacher, but I am your friend. As your friend, I will not allow you to obstruct your own growth!”

Frustration grew inside me as Saori’s stubbornness smacked my consideration down, “Saori, I know you want to help me but-”

“Fight me, Hestia.”

“H-Huh?!”

“If you don’t think Tasianna or I can contend with you, then let’s fight. Our usual spar, same rules, no need to hold back,” her challenge flustered me, simultaneously causing Tasianna to release her chilly aura, showing me that she wasn’t backing down. “I understand why you underestimate us, Hestia. We haven’t proven ourselves and you keep becoming stronger. However, as your companions and retainers, that is an insult.”

“Please, excuse me for issuing this challenge, Lady Hestia. However, I request you, from the bottom of my heart, to grant me the chance to display what I can do,” the usually timid Tasianna uttered with complete confidence.

Shadows began hugging Saori’s body like armor, “Let me show you how far a teacher will go to help her students.”

A note from AbyssRaven

Just wanted to dedicate this author's note to thank everybody for helping me find syntax errors and typos. It's a big help considering I somehow couldn't find it myself.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 88: Crimson Storm Challenge

A note from AbyssRaven

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“The arena is finished, and I’ve recovered my mana,” I announced out loud, looking over at the saurians standing underneath a water barrier on the edge of the reinforced arena.

“Do not worry about your attacks affecting the surroundings, Hestia,” Mister Kushlek’zar announced with confidence as he took out his pendant. “Shoot as many spells as you like, they will all falter before my Goddess’ wall of water.”

“Mamph! Yeah, give us a damn good fight, lasses. Nothing better to resolve some conflicts among warriors than in the arena!” Krim-Slak shouted out with a mouth full of meat and tea.

Ewwww.

“We’ve watched two duels today but neither of us participated in them,” Grazlahta complained with a sour face. “Krim, want to give it a go after theirs? Watching others fight makes my tail restless.”

“Graaaaaaaaaaah!” Akasht gave a bestial roar, either saying he wanted to fight too or that we should start fighting already. It could also be something entirely different, I dunno, I can’t understand him, but it seems the saurians could as they began talking to him.

“Hestia, catch.”

Hearing that womanly voice. I turned around and caught the object she threw at me. Even without her warning, [Foresight] would have warned me. Releasing my fist, it revealed a crude iron bracelet with a blue gem in its middle; Saori’s party bracelet.

Strapping it on my left wrist, I activated it to see if it was still working as normal, which it did. This reminded me of how I destroyed mine during my rampage in the bandit camp. The bracelet itself was just made out of iron, and was super old to boot, so it shouldn’t be surprising to see it literally melting off my arm after activating [Dreadflame Aura].

Luckily, my clothes didn’t just vanish like my bracelet. I would die from the embarrassment, dude…maybe. At least, I now know that mana fabric was difficult to burn, especially when my body was exuding mana to repair it.

“Same rules…but are you two sure I should actually fight seriously today?” I asked the two women standing before me…well, one was standing on the ground and the other on the former’s shoulder. “Until now, I’ve always gone casually and you two never won against me.”

“We have done it only twice, you know that, correct?” the wolfkin woman responded with an armor of pure black shadows. "And in both cases, we narrowly missed it. If you are going 100% now, we will show you that we can go 200%.”

"Please, allow us to show you that we can stand by your side, Lady Hestia. We do not want to be burdens," the blue-haired fairy declared, wearing the same green-blue fairy dress since the first day I met her, instead of her elven dress.

It’s been a while since I saw her as a fairy. She can’t do it in the village due to the spies, so this must be her first [Humanization] in over two weeks. The saurians never could guess she was a fairy, heh.

Saori and Tasianna stood there, confidently proclaiming they can beat me today in our usual sparring method. The flames of determination was flaring in their eyes, staring me down to cajole me into believing their words.

However, I was skeptical. They should know how strong I was and be able to measure up their own strengths compared to mine, but they were still recklessly demanding me to go all-out? Don’t they know what that meant? That meant I would use all my parallel minds, all my spells, all my tactics, all my dragon abilities as best as I know how to.

They’ve seen me fight; they’ve seen my body fight. How can they request this fight, despite knowing those things? That’s idiotic. As if I could do that…

Shaking my head in exasperation and worry, I attempted to persuade them once again, “If you want to show me how strong you guys are, then couldn’t we do this without me going all-out? This is reckless, especially from you, Saori.”

“‘Never venture, never win’, I know that very well Hestia,” Saori said with a wry smile, expressing the irony of the situation. “I complain about your tendency to dive head-first into a situation, but here I am challenging the dragon. At least, I know perfectly well that as monsters, I could never defeat you in my current state.”

Mystified at her last sentence, my mouth opened up again, “Then why are yo-”

“The same case cannot be said about our beastman forms, though,” she stated assertively, without a hint of doubt. “Until now, you have rampaged twice. Once due to [Battle Frenzy (Moderate)] and the second time due to Danterno’s influence. In both cases, you never transformed into your dragon form once, not even when Mister Kushlek’zar was pushing you back."

True enough. I had a front-row seat when my body went crazy and if I saw somebody push me back so much, then I undoubtedly would have resorted to my dragon form if I thought my life depended on it. So, why did my body not do it? Could I not do it when I was berserk? The sample size was too low to actually make a conclusion, in my opinion.

Saori suddenly giggled, waking me up from my thoughts, “Hie hie, that face. I should be happy to see that you are deliberating everything but from the way I’ve got to know you, anytime you overthink a subject, I have to worry. What have I told you to do when you’re constantly monologuing with yourself?”

“But I was just-” I intended to respond but…

“You worried that you would hurt us if you were to fight seriously, you wondered if what I said had any merit to it,” Saori guessed my inner turmoil correctly, showing a caring smile when she did that before forming a telepathic link with me. ["Before I became a teacher, I deliberated a lot about my future. After getting my degree, I contemplated on either continuing my studies or enter the workforce. Managing the four years of studies with a part-time job on the side, was no easy feat, especially when my mother herself still hasn’t fully accepted my father's death yet.”]

Oh right, she practically had to do everything once her father passed away. Her mother’s health deteriorated, so she wasn’t able to contribute to the household, on the contrary, she had medical bills to pay.

[“In the end, I chose my mother, instead of advancing my dream, and decided to pursue a different career. I needed a well-paying job and, hopefully, one where I could use what I learned,”] Saori said with a grin. [“My passion is history, as you know, but I only had a bachelor, needed to live close for my mother, and my alma mater was not the best so that limited my options. It took me so long to decide, especially when even my friends thought taking the job at Shirako High was impossible.”]

Saori nodded with a satisfied expression, reminiscing her past, [“Frankly, I would have continued if it were not for all the bills that were piling up, ha ha. I took the highest paying job, the teacher position at Shirako High. I went to the interview expecting to humiliate myself and not getting the job, but somehow receiving the position in the end.”]

[“…So…that’s cool?”] I asked, not knowing what she was trying to tell me.

[“What I am trying to tell you is that you should listen to the wisdom of your elders and stop thinking too much about the future and live in the present,”] Saori said with a wry smile. [“What use is it to think this battle is useless? In my opinion, at the very least, it is training for you but for us, it is a chance to show you that you should not worry about our progression. We promised to support you, did we not, Tasianna?”]

[“Yes, and I will keep to my word to you, Princess Hestia,”] Tasianna added with vigor. [“I am your retainer, your maid, and my highest priority is your life and happiness. How can I do this when I am nothing but a burden right now? I made my conviction clear, so I beseech you to allow me to show you my determination, Princess Hestia!”]

Conviction?

“Hey, what are you three-mamph-staring at each other at, huh?” a loud, rowdy voice suddenly interjected into our telepathic discussion, pausing to munch on something. “The sun already set and it’s getting darker and darker. Do us a favor and fight already!”

Krim-Slak…

“…Heh, well, I guess he is right about that. Guess I should make it less dark, right?” I cackled as I looked at Saori and Tasianna, who both showed a smile as I said that. “Honestly, why do I always need a motivational speech from you when I’m like this, huh? I’m hopeless.”

“Wrong, you are still a kid so you are allowed to do that. A teacher just has to help you focus your thinking a bit more,” Saori stated, assuming a combat posture. “So, let me do just that. Let me show you that you can trust me enough for you to evolve.”

“Agreed, watch us, Lady Hestia! Witness our strength!” Tasianna loudly requested me.

…They definitely got something prepared if they are this confident. Should I take a peek at their status board? No! I don’t know what they did, but if they want to show me their power then why should I spoil it for myself? Besides, chances are high that they will be blocking a good amount of their profile with their own [Identity Blocker Lv. 10], anyways.

“You guys ready?!” I shouted, using [Humanization] to regain my wings. “My win condition: Take both of you down! Yours: Steal this bracelet! Understood?”

“Affirmative, Lady Hestia!”

“Ready!”

“Begin!” without a second delay, I closed the distance between us in a mere second. If they want me to be serious, then I’ll end this immediately! Blitzkrieg them!

“Tch!” Saori clicked her tongue, having enough time to step back from my claw swipe.

Using the momentum, I strike my pair of claws against each other, using one of them like a flint to release a burst of fire against my companions. Aside from a few singed hairs, Saori and Tasianna successfully avoided most of the flames, giving me enough room and time to have my parallel minds fully buff me.

Relying on my parallel minds to cast all the necessary spells, I pressed onwards, relentlessly chasing them with searing-hot claws and tail. I might have lost the individual skills like [Spark Claws] and [Spark Fangs], but they all merged into one powerful, fusion skill: [Hellblade Edge]. Aside from [Symphonie des Feuergottes], I have fully lost all my fire and inferno spells, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t “spark up” an inferno, right? The crimson fire inside me won’t die out that easily!

Slashing ferociously, a twister of crimson flames began to light up the darkness, searing through the air as Saori’s body quickly accumulated small amounts of damage. She was evading my claws and tail themselves, but looking at her sweating forehead, being this close to this intense heat must be incredibly uncomfortable.

Come on, show me why you’re being so confident, you two! This can’t be all, right!?

Normally, fire would just die out if there was nothing for them to feed on. Oxygen might keep them alive, intense heat to start things at the molecular level, but they needed fuel to burn from. And what better fuel can there be but mana?

Controlling all the produced flames with [Pyrokinesis] into a long, sharp spearhead, I wrapped it around my right claws, piercing right through the air towards Saori.

“Huh?” however, instead of hitting her, my arm stopped moving, feeling like something was clumping my blood vessels.

“Jeez, would you stop melting Tasianna’s ice, please? It feels like I am having a fever,” Saori smirked, having constricted the movements of my arm with a spiderweb of red mana threads. Looking at her hands, they weren’t wrapped in shadows anymore, instead, it was white-blue ice.

“[Glacial Protection], the level 4 spell of [Ice Magic]. I had to spend all my remaining 700 SP to level it up and also buy [Synergist’s Oath] for this to work, Lady Hestia,” Tasianna explained. “[Glacial Protection] has the effect to automatically defend yourselves from damage, similar to your [Draconic Barrier], but it, unfortunately, has a lower effectiveness rate. It would also be uncomfortable weren’t it for your fire, Lady Hestia.”

I guess having your hands surrounded by ice wasn’t the most pleasant experience.

“Well, excuse me for this, but I will need your party bracelet, HAAA!” shouting, Saori gave me a swift kick into the gut.

“Urgh!” [Draconic Barrier] might have blocked a normal kick, but Saori’s limbs were wrapped in her [Shadow Armament], meaning every kick was infused with dark element, one of my weaknesses. “Verdammt nochmal, Saori!” After receiving another kick, I readied my tail and shot it like a bullet at her, but she simply jumped over it and landed on my shoulder, still holding onto my right arm with her threads.

With a quick movement, she twisted my arm with a loud “crack” sound, “Argh! SAORI, YOU BROKE MY ARM!”

[Broken Arm (Right)(Major)] inflicted on [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atsuko]

HELLFLAME BREATH!

Ignoring the pain coursing through my arm, I turned my head upwards and opened my mouth, releasing a destructive dragon breath large enough to consume Saori’s body whole. However, her [Prediction] probably warned her as she released my arm and jumped away, swiftly dodging through the air due to Tasianna’s [Wind Blast]

Tch, she even leveled up her [Wind Magic]? And she’s even using my strategy against me?! You’re on, girlfriends!

Melee might not have been the best idea, but how about long-range spells, huh?

Invoking [Bedrock Blades], I kept the duo on their toes while using wind magic to prevent them from ever landing on the ground again. Saori tried using [Dark Tendrils] in an attempt to land, but unfortunately for them, once they entered air space, I wasn’t about to let them regain back an advantage by being on the ground. Shooting [Sacred Smites] at the tendrils, they quickly dispersed without being useful.

With blades of earth attacking them like a chainsaw, wind spells disrupting their movements, and holy magic destroying any dark spells. It was a stalemate, as I wasn’t hitting them, but in an endurance match, I had the advantage. I even had the time to fix my broken arm with a [Major Heal].

Heh, so that’s what she meant with my dragonewt form being beatable, huh? But breaking one arm isn’t enough to win this!

Looking at her distressed expression, I followed her eyesight towards a specific shadow where a black magic circle began to form. Smirking, I was already readying a white magic circle to counter it but that was when both [Foresight] and [Danger Perception] warned me of something coming from my back.

Turning around, what came into view was an even larger black magic circle, rotating and shining as if it was just activated. With a wild roar, a massive shadowy wolf pounced out of the magic circle, fangs bared at me.

Eeeek!

But before it could maul me, I used my tail to slap it away with enough force that it could split a tree apart. The wolf flew through the arena and crashed onto the wall, but immediately stood up without any damage.

“How do you like my little magic trick, Hestia?” Saori conveyed, showing a hint of smugness.

“Y-You…when? N-Not only was that two magic circles…but…w-was that a dark spell or…a custom spell?” I asked her with widened eyes, grinding my teeth together as a single cold sweat bead dropping to my cheeks.

Landing on the ground as my onslaught of spells momentarily stopped, Saori showed me a “peace” sign as she snickered, “It took me almost three weeks, since we arrived in Artorias, to finish that custom spell. Thankfully, Mister Kushlek’zar did give me a ton of support, especially explaining how I could use [Shadow Clones]’ magic circle as a foundation for it. I learned [Fluid Cast] and [Multi-Cast] after we defeated the bandits.”

Her custom spell [Shadow Pack] was finalized a few days agao. Apparently, Mister Kushlek’zar advised her to copy the chant and magic circle of [Shadow Clones] as the foundation of her spell, replacing certain words to construct an entirely new spell.

I dunno how she hid this from me, but it seems she sneakily did a ton of magic training while I wasn’t looking.

“Training and studying do not just end after the sun has set, Hestia,” Saori proudly announced, summoning a shadow clone of herself. “You use your evenings to practice your singing, writing your songs, and creating your choreography. Your idol concert is more important to you, and that is something I respect as you are giving it your all. So, do not be so surprised that we were spending our time with training."

Now that I think about it, in our week of stay here, Saori and Tasianna always disappeared in the evening. After having dinner with them, I would engross myself in my prep for the concert, ignoring my surroundings. Morning was always busy for us, so I never had time to work on it after breakfast.

They always gave the excuse that they were spying on the spies or speaking with the village watchmen, so I never doubted them. Hiding the whole picture under a veil of truths?

As I was thinking that, Saori equipped both herself and her clone with shadowy daggers, both were made by morphing [Dark Bolt]s with her [Shadow Armament].

“Gahahaha! You’re showing the daggers now, Saori? Show her what you learned from us, lass!” Krim-Slak shouted, positively radiating anticipation.

“Don’t forget that weapon abilities use up Stamina, Saori. Use your ‘dagger’ and ‘unarmed’ abilities with care,” Grazlahta gave his support. “The young scale’s attacks are dangerous so your need to conserve energy to dodge her attack. Pierce her defenses only when you know you can hit her. That is how a true warrior fights!”

“Wait, you learned weapon abilities too?! F-Fuck, I forgot,” I responded, staring at the two carnosilian warriors with astonishment, having completely forgotten to ask them to teach me about “weapon ability”.

“Well, I am still not an expert with these daggers but a rogue without one seems unnatural, right, Miss Gamer? Tasianna, now!” dashing towards me with Tasianna’s [Wind Blast], Saori imitated my first move with her own flurry of blades.

She and her clone deftly attacked with their daggers, not with the skills of a master but with the instincts of a beast. Like an extension of their claws, those blades were like my own, although they could elongate themselves compared to mine.

In a melee brawl like this, I was in the advantage with my flaming claws and tail but with Tasianna’s and the shadow wolf’s help, they were pushing me back. As Tasianna wasn’t attacking, purely supporting, she wasn't too affected by the fact that her stats were dropping when her Mana was being expended.

It was a four vs. one right now. One supportive fairy with wind, water, and ice magic; two shadow-clad wolfkins with daggers whose stats were the closest to mine; and a massive shadow wolf as large as Saori’s cadejo form; were assaulting me here.

I would call this unfair…but I had nine “mes” ready to help.

Terra Wall, Lava Stream, Sanctuary, Earthen Shackles.

Bombard them with spells, that was the idea to get them off me. I might have been capable in a melee brawl, but not against four enemies. Saori, her clone, and Tasianna both began jumping and dodging around me with [Shadow Dash], melting through darkness and shadows like water. Slippery was an understatement with how skilled Saori was with that spell.

Well, if I can’t hit her with my spells and my [Sanctuary] was ineffective against her [Shadow Dash], then I’ll deny her shadows! Shine!

Flaring the area in an intense holy elemental bright light, the darkness was banished around me. Saori’s shadow wolf couldn’t enter my [Sanctuary] but it was now cowering, stepping back from the holy light, almost like it was scared of it.

Now, the only shadow left was the one under me. If Saori wanted to attack me, then she will have to come from that one. [Shadow Dash] always has a small delay depending on the distance traveled as the user has to traverse the shadow world, so she should be aware of the lack of shadows around me. She’s smart enough to guess what I might have done.

Rattling my wings a bit, I activated [Foresight]’s ability, looking into the future until Saori’s figure came into view. Stepping to the sides the moment Saori jumped out, I strike my claws against each other, igniting the scale-dust like gunpowder, engulfing Saori and Tasianna in fire.

What came out from the smoke was the pair hiding behind a shield of ice, Tasianna’s [Frozen Shield], with parts of their clothing burned away as Saori’s clone “died”. The shield protected them from most of the explosion, but I could see burns on both of their bodies.

“Rumbling Might!” casting a huge brown magic circle, my new terra spell began rumbling the very earth like a miniature earthquake, disrupting their footing. With my [Shine] still active, the only place she could escape to was her shadow.

Taking this as my chance, I jumped into the air and started levitating with wind magic and [Air Walk]. Although my wings were incapable of helping me fly due to my injury, I can still do it with magic. Where there is a will, there is a way.

Bombarding them with spells, I began doing what I did when I fought Mister Kushlek’zar. Wind for movement and fast counters, earth for defense and disruptions, lightning for extremely fast attacks, and magma for slow but powerful spells.

The only difference was my usage of explosive scale-dust, shooting them with [Pyrokinesis] controlled fire, and using dragon breath to keep them on their toes. You come into my arena, my BOSS arena, then you better be prepared to play by my rules, Saori, Tasianna!!!

As I was speaking, Dark Tendrils suddenly came out from my shadows, but it quickly dispersed without me looking. If Saori mastered [Multi-Cast], then I’ll just use my [Delayed Cast]. I’ve littered the interior of my [Sanctuary] with magic circles, all ready to shoot.

The idea was very similar to my firebombs where I would delay the cast with [Trap Creation], but I was now doing it the correct way, by expending more mana to keep them from activating. If I kept the mana flow, they could stick around for an eternity, really. The only problem was the Mana and arcane corruption costs.

Still, could I continue doing this until Saori was too exhausted to move? Sure, easy enough.

“Haaa!” whether it was desperation or not, Saori threw one of her daggers at me like a throwing knife.

“Oh, whoops ~" I snickered as I just sidestepped it with [Air Walk]. “Come on, Saori, what was that su-WOAH!”

In a complete surprise to me, Saori was in the air, launched up by Tasianna’s [Wind Blast]. But what truly surprised me was the pitch-black mana thread she was wielding like a whip, throwing it at my right leg, wrapping around it before the dagger attached to its end lodged into my thigh.

“Argh!” dark elemental spells could easily pierce through my [Draconic Barrier], reducing the damage only minimally.

I activated all my delayed spells, targeting Saori with them but that was when I forgot that Saori too had [Air Walk]. Standing on the air, she tugged the mana thread roughly, pulling my lighter body towards her, where she caught me.

"I'm sorry, I'll treat you to whatever later, I promise, Hestia! Shadow Pierce!” Saori anxiously shouted out, before using what seems to be a dagger ability to pierce a dagger into my left thigh as if my flesh was made out of butter.

“ARRRGH!” I screamed out, but before I could do anything, Saori dispelled her [Air Walk], free-falling down as she began wrapping mana thread of different colors around my body.

My arms and wings were bound together, a purple mana thread, probably lightning element, around my neck, and the rest of my body was covered in red and brown-red threads. Pain was coursing through my thighs as those daggers sunk deeper in my thighs while black mana threads were wrapped around my legs like [Dark Tendrils].

S-Scheiße, now I understand what she meant!

It wasn’t just the ability to dislocate and break my limbs, but when we fought in this form, Saori could use her daggers and mana threads effectively while bits of my body were not protected with scales. My thighs were just pink, human skin, and as I had low Vitality in the first place, her higher Strength could easily overpower my defenses.

S-Scary!

[Terror (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atsuko]

Her red predatory eyes glared down at me as she struggled to get my party bracelet. Saori is s-scary! Scary! Scary! Scary! Scary! Scary! She’s able to hurt me this much without hesitating! She’s scary! Scary!

As my spells clashed against each other above, the shockwave pushed us even further towards the ground.

If I’m on the ground, wrapped around these threads, then I’m gonna lose! I can use as many spells as I want but all she needs is to activate these mana threads and I’ll be attacked by lightning and ice! I can’t let this happened.

“Dreadflame Aura!”

“WHAT?! Ahhhhhh!”

Seeing no other way out, I activated the ability I got from my racial skill [Dreadflame Dragon]. Like a miniature bomb, an aura of inferno exploded from me, sending both Saori and Tasianna flying away, fully enveloped in fire.

Compared to my rampage where I left it activated for an extended time, causing my body to overheat, I only had it on for a second to get those two pesky Dummköpfe off me.

Tasianna quickly doused themselves with water magic but looking at Saori’s and Tasianna’s terrible state, it looks like being in the GROUND ZERO was a bit too much. Burns scars riddled Saori’s pristine, white skin, even shortening some of her hair, while Tasianna looked pale and fatigued, almost like she was close to being out of Mana.

“Graaaaaaaaarrrrrrr!” I roared out, breaking through the mana threads, pulling the daggers from my thighs, as white flames began healing up all my wounds before beginning a chant. “O, gather with me, o tiny embers

Weave yourself in my divine mana

Oh grow, oh feast, never smother your potential

From darkness you grow, shining brightly to cast your origin away”

“Shit, Tasianna! Take my Mana!” Saori ordered as she held on tightly to Tasianna.

“T-Thank you, Icicle Gust!” she meekly called out, blowing a chilling wind with icicles in my direction.

Constructing a Terra Wall, I continued my cast without delay,

“O, Inferno, your form so mighty

Dance with my melody, my song

Hear my voice, hear my decree, your ruler of crimson

Blaze in power in a sea of red and yellow

Oh dear flames, listen to my music, my grand orchestra!

Symphonie des Feuergottes!”

The huge red circle hovered above me, engulfing me in a waterfall of flames, spreading like water around the arena, destroying my recently made [Terra Wall]. Compared to the first time that I used it, I’ve managed to control its output.

No matter if it was [Hellblade Edge], [Spark-Dust Veil], [Hellflame Breath], [Dreadflame Aura], or [Symphonie des Feuergottes], my first goal had to be to find a way to use them effectively. Yes, I might not have trained as much as they did, but I hadn’t neglected my own training. The only two new skills I haven’t fully mastered yet were [White Flames] and [Corrosive Fire], so I didn’t plan to use them in this fight, aside to heal myself.

[Symphonie des Feuergottes Movement (Allegro)] inflicted on [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atsuko]

Feeling the heat of my flame veil running through me as if it was a part of my body, I felt like a ruler of fire. Whether a cape or a dress, I was able to transform my flames so easily to my image that it felt like I was commanding it through my will alone, instead of controlling it with [Pyrokinesis]. This feeling was…addicting.

“You are bringing out everything now, huh, Hestia?” Saori asked with a smile, despite clutching the right side of her face in pain.

"Yeah, your fault for literally scaring me, Saori," I said with still slightly shivering legs. "If you want 'my all', then you'll get 'my all'. Before, that was the first phase of a boss battle where you learn my combos and moves, but I hope you’ve planned to come at me in my second phase. You had your chance to get my party bracelet, but you failed. And now, you will lose, plain and simple.”

Still can’t go too hard. That [Dreadflame Aura ] was a close call.

“Hie hie,” Saori snickered with weary breathing. “I am used to being strict to my students but I never, ever hit them before. Even hitting you with those daggers felt terrible…but that is what I had to do. I personally believe that a teacher should do her best to educate and protect her students, help them advance to the next phase of life with everything they need. A great teacher would do that, at least.”

Her exhausted sigh suggested she was very close to her Stamina’s limit, trying to recover it as she spoke, “…I do not want you to hold yourself back for us, Hestia. You are your own person. If you cannot see that, then as a former teacher, it is my job to educate you, whether through words or force. Don’t think you’ve won yet, Hestia-chan.”

“…Tasianna, how about you. You’ve been so assertive ever since we finished that bandit Quest. I know something happened, and I do miss my old Tasianna. Do you want to share something?” I asked my fairy friend, having regained some of her Mana by absorbing Saori’s.

“…I will do anything for you, Princess Hestia,” Tasianna said with teary eyes. “If I have to stain my hands with blood, then so be it. I do not wish to hold you back, I want to stand beside you as you walk into the world. You cannot understand how much it pained and humiliated me when you told me that you would slow down just because of me. My life is yours, my Princess, so if this could persuade you to think of Miss Saori and me more highly, then I will fight with my life on the line!”

“…Then come and show me that determination. Hope you two can still hold on for the second phase,” I challenged them with a Korean “heart” sign, grinding my claws together to create a flaming heart. “I’m wasting the time limit of my spells, so let’s do this already HAAAAARRRGH!”

Saori produced another clone as she conjured up new daggers while Tasianna was readying to defend them with her spells. Bombarding them with my own spells, Saori and her clone nimbly moved through the artillery, only receiving damage when it was a wind spell.

Once again using her dark elemental mana threads she attacked me with them, as her clone went up close and personal to fight me. With the increase in speed from my custom spell's "Allegro" stage, speed was in my favor right now, but that was when a dark magic circle appeared around my body, sapping red particles from my body into it.

Enfeebling Winds

A dark spell that constantly saps the Health of a target while healing the caster by half of the amount. Also drains their Strength and Vitality by 5%/10%15%

Tch, if you can’t hit me then use a targeting spell, huh?

“Claws of Darkness!” she called out, conjuring up huge black claws from my shadow, carving up the air and earth where I stood as it retreated back into its magic circle.

Level 10 [Dark Magic] spell? Then doesn’t that mean that she has-?!

“[Tenebrous Magic Lv. 1] spell: Umbral Pendulum!” invoking a black magic circle in the air, a deathly-black humongous double-sided scythe so tall as a tree materialized, swinging side to side, scaring the earth with an unstoppable blade.

“What?!” baffled by the sheer strength of this spell, I could only watch as it pierced my [Sanctuary], destroying it into tiny fragments. “That thing won’t disappear!?”

"Not if you stop it yourself, HAAAA!" taking advantage of my distraction, Saori and her clone teamed up and began assaulted me with daggers, while Tasianna concentrated on keeping Saori away from my claws and spells. "Shadow Descent!” Even with her daggers, Saori didn’t forget her unarmed abilities, somersaulting to drop her heel down. The shadow armament of her body elongated her attack, nearly stomping me if I hadn’t dodged it.

“Fuck, how about this!” unable to cast fast enough, I allowed my [Storage Magic] to shoot out a few of my bombs like a cannonball.

Although I couldn’t make my old bombs anymore, as I don’ have any simple fire spells, I managed to figure out another way to do it by stuffing my scale-dusts inside them. They were like nitroglycerin or gunpowder, activating when they came into contact with friction.

However, there was a small problem with this method as the hull couldn’t stop man from leaking, causing the bombs to explode prematurely. Storing them inside my storage was the only way to delay the explosion as time literally stopped in there.

Compared to the other version, all these bombs needed was an impact stimulus and it goes boom. The mana inside would even increase the explosion.

As I shot them out, Saori’s clone accidently hit one of the bombs as they flew out, causing a chain reaction to create a major KABOOOOOOM! As we were close to the explosion, Saori’s clone died while I was completely unharmed by it. [Draconic Barrier] and my incredibly high fire resistance only made that feel like a sauna.

Shrouded in the dust, my vision was completely obstructed, so I had to rely on my hearing and [Detection Sensor]. However, nothing being pinged for me. Where was Saori?

She must have used [Shadow Dash] to hi-woah!

Shrieking, I dodge after both [Danger Perception] and [Foresight] ordered me to. Although my [Detection Sensor] still wasn’t telling me where they were, I could confirm that Saori attacked me as my skills kept telling me to dodge and dodge. Even activating [Foresight]’s ability to look into the future was useless as everything was obstructed by the smoke. It seems I’ve found a weakness in this skill.

“How was she able to see and sense me here,” I thought, but I quickly remembered her [Heat Vision]. My body temperature was higher than a normal human being due to my biology as a dragon, and this affected my dragonewt form, too. She could see me through this thick smoke with ease.

While she was able to see me, I couldn’t detect her at all. Not one bit. If I couldn’t detect her, then she must have activated her stealth skills.

I need to get this smoke away now! I can’t win in here.

I wasn’t taking any damage due to my increased Agility, but I can’t fight back inside this smoke. Flapping my wings, I blasted everything away, regaining my vision of the area but not Saori.

“Shine!" I cast, banishing the shadows.

Only place to come out is from my shadow, Saori. Come on, I dare you.

I waited.

…

…

Why are they not appearing?

“Hey, Hestia. [Bloodlust] activate!”

“EEEEEEEEEP!” a voice, followed by a bone-chilling feeling assaulted my body, prompting me to turn around as a purple mana thread caught around my left arm, where my party bracelet was. “BrrrrrBrrrrrbrrrrbrbrbrbrbr!” Before I could see who was behind me, lightning suddenly surged through the mana thread into my body, shocking me like a taser gun as I fell on the ground.

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Lightning Resistance Lv. 1] gained

“Tasianna!”

“Yes, Miss Saori! Aqua Prison!”

As my body started to get used to the weak lightning, I was about to rip through the threads, but a blue magic circle appeared before me, encasing me completely in water. Being surrounded by water, I couldn't use my scale-dust. Just like gunpowder, if they got wet, I couldn’t ignite them.

Turning my head up, I could see Saori and Tasianna standing next to the [Umbral Pendulum] that still hasn’t disappeared. Seeing as Saori had an arm inside it, did she just use [Shadow Dash] to appear out from that!? You can do that?!

With me on the ground, Saori began pulling me towards her. [Draconic Barrier] might defend me from attacks but it had the weakness that grabs couldn’t be blocked. Bear hugs, [Aqua Prison], Saori’s mana threads, were perfect counters to a barrier. If you only had to abduct me, then even my powerful [Draconic Barrier] was ineffective…well, it’s not like it had any use today against two people who could abuse my elemental weaknesses.

Seeing as my victory was literally being pulled away from me, I couldn’t help but began casting spells before experiencing an excruciating pain ravaging my arm.

“Good boy! Hold her down, Shadow Wolf!” Saori praised the creature blocking my sight.

“Grrrr!” the shadow wolf growled, sinking his fangs into my right arm while helping the two pull me over. It was even blocking any spell that I was launching at the two, aside from Earth-type spells.

“Dark Tendrils, Slithering Serpent!” Saori cast, conjuring up tendrils of darkness and a single serpent, swirling around like an octopuses’ tentacles.

[Shine]! I need to use [Shine]!

Flaring away everything, even the giant shadow wolf, I couldn’t help but feel relief, but that feeling quickly was replaced by agitation as both Saori and Tasianna rushed over me. They cast the [Aqua Prison] away, entangled my arms with mana thread, and were about to take my party bracelets.

“Omnic-!” I tried to shout out but stop before I did.

W-What am I doing?! That’ll kill them!

With that last thought occupying me, my wrist suddenly felt lighter as I could only helplessly watched my pair of friends flash the metal bracelets.

“We won, Hestia,” Saori proudly announced.

“We won, Lady Hestia,” Tasianna responded also.

“…,” I was speechless, baffled, astonished. “…Y-Yeah, you guys just did…”

“We…got your back, Hestia. Always. We won’t stagnate too much, we promise; we will become strong enough to stop you one day,” Saori spoke, stuttering as she swayed back and forward. “So…go evolve…” Before falling down.

“Until tomorrow morning, Lady Hestia…,” and so did Tasianna.

“Saori! Tasianna!” I quickly jumped on my feet and caught my two friends, having fallen unconscious after the battle.

Identify!

Saori's status board

Profile:

Name: Saori Segawa

Level: 19

Race: Young Shadowstalker Cadejo

Age: 3 Months

Status:

Health:

1980/5428(+1043)

Mana:

321 /2386(+808)

Strength:

3421(+767)

Intelligence:

1228(+278)

Vitality:

2510 (+501)

Wisdom:

2495 (+557)

Agility:

4507 (+932)

Stamina:

0 /3918(+1056)

Effects:

[Exhaustion (Moderate)] [Arcane Fever (Minor)]

Skill Points:

4650 (+3600)

Unique Skill:

[Shadow Armament Lv. 5] (+1)

Skill:

Magic skills

[Mana Efficiency Lv. 6] (+2)

[Arcane Mind Lv. 8] (+1)

[Mana Control Lv. 10] (+2)

[Dark Magic Lv. 10] (+2)

[Dark Amp]

[Dark Magic Efficiency]

[Tenebrous Magic Lv. 1] (New)

[Space-Time Magic Lv. 3]

[Space-Time Efficiency]

[Chant Revocation Lv. 10]

[Mental Stability Lv. 5] (+2)

[Mental Warfare Lv. 5] (+1)

[Silent Casting Lv. 9] (+3)

[Fluid Cast Lv. 1] (New)

[Multi-Cast Lv. 1] (New)

Physical skills

[Unarmed Technique Lv. 7] (+1)

[Unarmed Mastery Lv. 3] (+1)

[Dagger Technique Lv. 2] (New)

[Sundering Enhancement Lv. 6] (+3)

[Piercing Enhancement Lv. 4] (+1)

[Crushing Enhancement Lv. 2]

[Lupine Claws Lv. 1] (New)

[Lupine Fangs Lv. 1] (New)

Movement and senses

[Primal Senses]

[Silence Lv. 1]

[Prediction Lv. 9]

[Concentration Lv. 5] (+2)

[Detection Sensor] (New)

[Danger Perception Lv. 9] (+1)

[Tracking Lv. 6] (+1)

[Heat Vision Lv. 3] (+1)

[Night Vision Lv. 8] (+2)

[Presence Killer Lv. 9] (+1)

[Evasion Lv. 10]

[Acrobatic Lv. 10]

[Air Walk Lv. 1]

[Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 6] (+1)

Resistances

[Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 3] (+1)

[Absolute Pain Tolerance]

[Bleed Resistance Lv. 6] (+2)

[Poison Resistance Lv. 6]

[Paralyze Resistance Lv. 10]

[Torpor Resistance Lv. 4]

[Fear Resistance Lv. 1]

[Arcane Corruption Resistance Lv. 10]

[Ice Resistance Lv. 2] (+1)

[Lightning Resistance Lv. 1] (New)

[Holy Resistance Lv. 4]

[Fire Resistance Lv. 8] (+2)

[Earth Resistance Lv. 6]

[Water Resistance Lv. 4] (+2)

[Wind Resistance Lv. 5]

[Dark Resistance Lv. 6] (+2)

Stats and others

[Health Recovery Lv. 5] (+1)

[Mana Recovery Lv. 4]

[Stamina Recovery Lv. 5] (+1)

[Enhanced Health Growth Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Mana Growth Lv.´4]

[Enhanced Mana Capacity Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 6] (+1)

[Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 5] (+1)

[Enhanced Intelligence Growth Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Intelligence Enforcement Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 6] (+1)

[Enhanced Agility Enforcement Lv. 5] (+1)

[Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 6] (+1)

[Enhanced Stamina Capacity Lv. 5]

Others

[Dancing Lv. 1]

[Identify Blocker Lv. 10] (+7)

[Identify Lv. 9] (+1)

[Terror Aura Lv. 4]

[Bloodlust Lv. 2] (+1)

[Battle Mind Lv. 5] (+2)

[Lifetaker Lv. 3]

[Mana Weave Lv. 9] (+1)

[Sewing Lv. 8] (+1)

[Elemental Mana Weave Lv. 3] (+1)

[Royal Etiquette Lv. 2]

[Cooking Lv. 8]

[Dismantle Lv. 5]

[Humanize Lv. 7]

[Telepathy]

Ability List:

Unarmed

[Just Blink]

[Shadow Descent]

Dagger

[Shadow Pierce]

Spell List:

Custom

[Shadow Pack]

Dark

[Dark Bolt]

[Dark Tendrils]

[Shadow Dash]

[Dark Slash]

[Shadow Clones]

[Shadow Snake]

[Enfeebling Winds]

[Claws of Darkness]

[Umbral Pendulum]

Space-Time

[Haste]

[Storage Magic]

Titles:

[Belzac’s Successor] [Otherworldly Reincarnator] [Hestia’s Retainer]

“Holy Scheiße, Saori! Why did you push yourself so much! Major Heal, Major Heal!” shock and fear filled my head when I saw how low her Health and Mana were.

Not only did she push her body to the absolute limit but she was so close to actually contracting both [Mana Stress] and [Arcane Fever], which would have been brutal for her remaining Health. With a few casts, I was able to fully recover it but that still didn’t exactly take away the shock.

...Saori, you've pushed yourself too much.

After that was done, I looked at Tasianna. I knew she couldn’t accumulate arcane corruption so she shouldn’t be in much of a danger. Which was proven correct when only [Exhaustion (Minor)] was there.

Her Health was quite low, but fairies supposedly didn’t die if it reached zero, they simply fell unconscious. What concerned me was her Mana but filling it up with my own Mana was enough. I had enough to spare anyways, compared to these two.

“Well, that certainly was a duel, he he he he,” Mister Kushlek’zar snickered joyfully.

“…Jeez, and you knew about their improvements, right? They did train with you,” I accused him, showing my annoyance of being left out of the loop.

“Don’t scorn me too much, young scale. Your two friends wished to keep it a secret from you, so they might surprise you with it, and I believe it certainly should have,” he responded. “They wanted to show you that they were strong enough to be with you. What wonderful companions, I believe.”

“…,” I looked at their sleeping faces, remembering what they told me today and why they even wanted to fight me in the first place. They said I should have been serious, but that would have meant your death, guys.

Imagine me spreading my scale-dust around even more than when you were inside my [Sanctuary]? Imagine if I had cast [Omnictus], my new [Sacred Magic Lv. 6] spell? Imagine for a moment if I had aimed for your heart, head, or organs instead of your limbs…

“Dummköpfe,” I uttered with a wry smile.

“Hestia?” Mister Kushlek’zar spoke up, unable to understand what I just said.

“Nothing, forget it. I should probably carry them home, midnight is approaching,” I stated as I picked Saori up in a piggyback, while I placed Tasianna under my clothes to hide her from the watchmen. “Hey, Mister Kushlek’zar, don’t go before I evolve, you hear me?”

With that, I went back to our home in the village of Carine village. I placed them in their beds, made sure that the heating system in our garden was still working so our plants didn’t freeze to death, and then took a bath with the water and shampoo in my storage.

“…Life is so complicated,” was the only thing I said as I enjoyed my evening bath, cleaning myself from all the sweat and dirt from today’s fight. Of course, I made sure to always keep healing Saori, after all. Until her ailment disappeared, I think I’ll stay in the bath and enjoy the night with myself.

Don’t risk your life for my sake, again, you two. It would be unbearably lonely…

…Evolution…Yeah, let’s do it. For them, for myself.

A note from AbyssRaven

The girl clad in crimson has made her choice, with peace at hand for the moment, her path towards newer heights await.

No JeBait this time, guys. They just need to do their tasks before their meeting with the Count and Hestia will have enough time to evolve. No seriously, I'm not JeBaiting you guys! It's coming!

Like Clegane Bowl... :P

...Ok, jokes are done. It will come. I won't delay it anymore.

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Chapter 89: No Tea Party is complete without some Cake!

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #4 her to promote our Patreon. 10 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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“No, I’m serious, you honestly gave me a fat scare when you stabbed me with those two daggers. Those red eyes with the anime-like red mist, and how you scowled at me like a beast was so similar to your garm mother that chills went down my spine. Look at these goosebumps!” I shouted as I dramatically shoved my arms in front of Saori’s face, urging her to look.

“…Your arms are mostly covered in scales, Hestia, and even the bare skin parts are goosebumps-free," Saori said with a glare, pushing my arms away and giving me a swift, but gentle, tap to the head. “Still, was I really that intimidating? I guess I went a bit overboard with how I attacked you. I am sorry.

“Hey, at least you didn’t go crazy and stab me in the stomach or chest, that would be going overboard, I say,” I responded while repeatedly stabbing myself with an imaginary dagger, before checking on the fragassa plant before me. “And besides, I burned one half of your face off. We’re even. Thank goodness that no scar was left behind after I healed you.”

Morning came after I had my fight with Saori and Tasianna. Luckily, Saori’s [Arcane Fever] ended exactly like the first one she had, during the middle of the night, so I still had some time to catch some shut-eye.

After I woke up, Saori and Tasianna had already woken up and prepared breakfast. We ate and were now working in the garden inside our house.

You might have already wondered how we are even able to grow a garden when winter is so close, right? I mean it is late autumn now, after all, and the temperature has gotten so cold that I had to wear an extra layer of clothing just to go out without having to use [Body Temperature Control] to regulate my body.

So how am I able to keep our plants from dying? Well, remember the heater ball that I made? The one that our group would use to heat up our showers and baths?

Hestia’s Heater Ball

A creation made by Hestia Atsuko. The ball is packed with fire magic inside a thick, stone covering to maximize insulation efficiency

I, unfortunately, can’t make any more ever since I lost my ability to cast fire spells. Technically, I could use [Symphonie des Feuergottes] to replicate it but the intensity of that spell was unideal. I needed a spell that would create a smaller flame to make it work otherwise the ball itself would explode.

I could encapsulate the spell in a larger and sturdier rock ball but that still hasn’t worked out after multiple attempts. Even putting scale-dust into it was a foolish idea as they always “spark” an explosion before burning.

Thankfully, I made a ton beforehand, so the ones we were using right now were from a month ago. However, as wear and tear affected them, our supply would run out soon if I don’t figure out an alternative.

“You have been doing an amazing job, Tasianna. The plants look healthy and happy,” also tending to the garden, Saori began praising Tasianna who is the one responsible for caring for it.

“Thank you, Miss Saori, your praises warms my heart,” Tasianna replied, wiggling her elven ears in elation. “I am very glad to have obtained [Herbalist] while I was doing this in the Belzac forest. The skill is amazing.”

Herbalist

A skill that helps the owner in their care of herbs and plants. Allows the user to gauge the needs of a plant and the quality of a plant product. A higher level will increase the precision and information revealed

Think of the skill as a specialized version of [Identify] that only shows the advance or “hidden” parameters of a plant. Tasianna can learn if the plant had gotten enough water, sun, warmth, carbon dioxide, or even other information like the toxicity of the soil. Some plants even require a certain amount of mana in the ground to grow.

It was an essential skill to have if you wished to cultivate many interesting and fantastical plants you’ve never seen or heard before.

Remember when I told Tasianna that I wanted to grow certain plants? Well, after that moment, we started our very own “garden” inside my storage magic during our stay with the lizardmen. As we always had to move around, we had to put the plants inside pots I made to transport them around.

We would periodically take them outside my storage to let them take in the rays and air if we had the opportunity to. Now that we were here in Carine village, our plants haven’t been inside the storage ever since.

Whether it was fruit or herb plants, they were still growing so we couldn’t harvest anything yet. However, once they reach adulthood, I will make a fragassa cake, I swear…and Tasianna can make more of those coffee tasting leaves. Sounds delightful.

“These will surely produce some money for us if we sell the excess,” Saori suggested, wary of our lacking funds. “Otherwise, they can solve some of our food expenses. Hestia, you and I have pretty large appetites, after all. I believe Mister Kushlek’zar mentioned that recovering Mana would require food.”

If somebody wasn’t affected by [Mana Fever], a status effect that appears when your Mana reaches zero, one would naturally regenerate Mana from the air and using the body’s nutrients as fuel. [Mana Recovery], or similar skills, accelerated the regeneration process but didn’t reduce the cost.

I always thought my large appetite was due to me being a dragon, but I guess my usage of spells and abilities was also a major factor. For example, Mister Kushlek’zar and the two of us could eat as much as the saurian warriors, Krim-Slak, Grazlahta, and Akast despite our smaller bodies. The only exception was Tasianna whose mana body had a different biology compared to ours, so she needed far fewer calories per day even after going crazy with spells.

“Hmmm, you know, why should we sell the product in their raw form?” I mentioned, thinking of the fragassa cake. "Cake, cookies, biscuits, honestly, we can turn everything into pastries and sweets, right? Those have to sell for a higher price, just like a finished good." I suggested with anticipation to be praised, believing this was a great money-making idea.

“Oh, really?” Tasianna responded while tilting her head, showing her confusion at what I said. “Why do you earn more money if you do it that way? Whether you buy pastries or buy the ingredients for it, it should be the same price at the end of the day, correct?”

Oh right, Tasianna is a fairy, a race that doesn’t do transactions with coin. Items and goods were instead traded amongst each other by exchanging favors, labor, or other goods similar to the time before an accepted currency was invented.

The fairies are a carefree race who celebrate a lot, so restricting one’s access to certain food or drinks was seen as crazy. Exclusivity was a foreign word for them as even the royal family would share dwarven and elven delicacies to the populace after they return home from an ambassador mission.

The idea of trading goods and labor for money was unknown to Tasianna, which meant Saori and I had to educate her on that subject. That’s why she didn’t understand the concept of “manufacturing costs” which would increase any finished good’s final price.

The cost of the raw materials used in the production of the product, the cost of labor as time is needed to produce it, and any indirect costs that are required for the production like rent, water, electricity, etc. As the goal of a successful business hinged on the profit you make per product sold, knowing how to calculate this was important.

Impressed that an idol nerd would know this? Well, it’s mostly thanks to Papa and Mama as I too asked them the same question when I was younger. “Why do sweets cost so much when we can just make them ourselves, Mama?”, or “Why do tickets to your Orchestra always cost so much, Papa?” were a few childish questions I asked them, heh heh.

“Hmmm, I think I understand, thank you for your explanation, Lady Hestia,” Tasianna thanked me with a bow after I finished explaining “manufacturing costs” to her. “So, because baking a cake requires so much time, and as we need to create funds from it, increasing the price would be smart?”

“Exactly,” I agreed by showing her an “ok” sign. “Charging for only the raw materials would make no sense because we would be wasting our time. The time we use for the baking process could’ve been used for something else. That’s ‘opportunity cost’.”

I should also thank the economics lessons at school for this as I would otherwise never research it by myself.

“Hmm,” as Tasianna was praising me with “Amazing, as expected from my mistress!”, Saori was pondering on something. “do you really think that is a good idea? The material costs would be high.”

“What do you mean, Saori?” I asked with genuine curiosity. “You are already trading in some of our vegetables, fruits, and meat for stuff like eggs, milk, and grains, right? We will be able to keep the cost down with this, especially with how much meat we have. We might have worried about our winter rations in the Belzac forest, but we still have monster meat from our ‘Idol Concert Strategy’ time.”

Our worry for our depleting storage was a real concern when we were still in the Belzac forest as our daily calorie consumption was immense there. Here in Carine village, I’ve noticed that we have been eating less of our meat and more of the rice and other products we received from the village.

I say it comes from the village, but Colwyn’s family was mostly paying for it. One of the reasons why I couldn’t exactly reject the offer to give a sermon, as our daily rations have enriched our meals.

Now, with our reduced meat consumption, Saori has been going around the village, trading our meat with any products the village could trade-in. I’ve heard from her that villagers would mostly eat dried jerky they made before winter as their main source of protein, so what fresh meat we had was a blessing for them.

They technically had Peolyncian versions of sheep, chickens, and cows, at their home but nobody would think of killing them if meat was still available. Farming animals would produce dairy products like eggs and milk, which would benefit them in the long run. The only animals that would be slaughtered would be pig equivalents. Fatten them up until autumn time and send them to the butcher.

There was the option of hunting monsters and animals, but anything inside a forest was the property of the lord. The saurians and our group have been hunting them but only on the request of Colwyn, where our payment was the monster body itself. Any animals or G rank monsters were to be handed to him, where we would receive additional village products for compensation.

Although I might say any G rank monsters, Colwyn has declined to accept goblin and kobold meat. He called it a sacrilegious act to eat it and showed a bit of disgust when I mentioned that I would keep it as rations. I can understand not wanting to eat them, as they have a peculiar smell, but I wonder why it was ‘sacrilegious’, hmmm.

“The village doesn’t only grow rice, but also wheat, which we can turn into flour. We got some ourselves and if we needed more, we just need to ask. We got eggs and milk, and I believe some of the villagers are turning their milk into cheese, cream, and butter, so no problem on that end. We also have honey and fruits to substitute the sugar part, reducing the costs even more,” I counted out the ingredients. “I like baking a lot, and my mother especially. She taught me how to make homemade yeast and also how to make cake without baking powder. I can promise you a delicious pound cake that would sell easily.”

Saori looked at me for a moment before sighing and muttering, “…Somehow, this might be a foreboding to our future financial problems.”

What is that supposed to mean?

“Fine, I do not know about selling, but we can certainly make it for ourselves,” Saori said in exasperation. “So, what do we do about the oven? You want to make one yourself?”

I thought on the idea for a second before responding, “Hmm, I could, yes, but I think I’ll ask around the village first. There should be a baker around, I think.”

With that decided, Saori and I went outside to find an oven. Tasianna stayed home, as usual, to avoid the villagers and take care of the garden.

I’ve already told Saori and Tasianna about my desire to evolve but until the lord of this land sent our invitation, we didn’t know when I had the time to do so. Saori explained that rejecting or even coming late to a noble’s invitation could mark us as criminals in Earth’s history. As if I wanted to risk that when our village life hasn’t even properly started yet.

So, until that time comes, we could spend our days leisurely. Gotta be responsible here.

“Hey, excuse me, could I ask you something?” I called out to two young women around Lorena’s age, carrying buckets of water from the village’s well.

““Huh?!”” they gasped the moment they saw us, putting their buckets down before greeting us with a prayer bow. The taller woman with the green hair then started to speak, “M’lady Priestess, w-we pray to your health and for gracing us with your time. Excuse us for not noticing you earlier. We thank you so very much for yesterday’s sermon. May the goddess bless your benevolent soul.”

Once the women started saying that, all the villagers around us dropped their hustle-and-tussle and greeted me similarly before excusing themselves and practically running away.

“Urgh,” watching them run caused my heart to ache a bit. “You…I saw you speak with Lorena once. Are you two her friends?”

“Yes!” the smaller, brown-haired woman answered with a shout. “I-I mean, we are, yes, m’lady Priestess. Before the raid, we lived in the same neighborhood and were of the same age, so we naturally became friends. D-Do you need something from her…if I can ask that, of course.”

She’s stuttering and acting extremely nervous in my presence. This is more draining for me, you know?

"Please, do not worry," as I was wallowing in my annoyance at how they were acting to me, Saori suddenly took the helm. "My Lady and I are simply asking where she is as we have a favor to ask for her. She’s a good acquaintance, we do not mean her any harm.”

"O-Oh right, you're Miss Saori, right?" the green-haired woman spoke up, showing more surprise to see Saori than me. "Right, right, Lorena did say that m’lady Priestess saved her and her folks, right? We apologize, we acted quite rude.”

Seeing both of them apologize to me with a bow, a certain sting in my heart reappeared that I haven’t felt since…I reincarnated, “It's ok. No harm done…”

Once they informed us that Lorena was in the fields, we said goodbye to them and went in that direction.

“…Hey, Hestia, are you feeling alright?” on the way, Saori asked me with a brow raised, worry clearly to be seen.

“…Honestly? Annoyed…,” I answered reluctantly, instead of trying to make an excuse. “They aren’t like those bitches from back at school but…”

“You do not like the fact that they are treating you differently, correct? Due to their assumption that you are a noble priestess?” Saori ended my sentence for me, forming a wry smile as she guessed my worries correctly.

“Sigh…yeah…," I uttered meekly. "I don't want them to act so nervously around me. I’m a girl just like, just with a few more benefits. It’s so annoying to see everybody greeting me and then run away as if their life was in danger. It’s not like I even admitted any of their claims, but they're already fully accepted that I was a noble and a priestess. Fuck's sake…”

I don’t know if it could actually be called bullying, but it honestly felt like that when I was training to become an idol, in my past life. The other trainees would tease and annoy me to the point where I just blew up on them, causing my reputation among them to plummet to the point that nobody wanted to have anything to do with me.

And why did they do this to me? ‘Cause my parents were rich and they thought I was given everything on a golden spoon. Sure, I might have a great family but that doesn’t mean I cheated or slacked on my training. I worked as hard as they did ‘cause I honestly wished to become an idol. It wasn’t a spontaneously, rich-girl fancy, but a true aspiration. A calling. My life.

Yes, in this life I became a princess for some reason. I’ve also received Aurena’s, Kargryxmor’s, and, unfortunately, Danterno’s blessings. Doesn’t mean that I want to be treated differently ok? I behave and speak properly not ‘cause I wanted people to revere me but ‘cause my two companions preferred me like this.

“Hie hie, well I am just glad that you are not trying to hide your feelings like in the past,” Saori giggled joyfully, patting my head as if I was a child. “Besides, was it not your fault that they are seeing you in that light? You behaved so gracefully when you first greeted Chief Colwyn, that I personally thought you were doing it with purpose.”

"No, of course not!" I denied it immediately. "Tasianna taught me how to say it to sound more authentic. How could I have known that it was over the top?"

“Then why not do it like me? Talk with everybody. I’ve got to know quite a few people just by trading for some eggs and milk,” Saori suggested.

“Didn’t you see how they tried to avoid me? How can I talk to them if they act so nervous? The only people who were ok to talk to were the people I saved from the bandits, the same people that have become my followers,” I responded. “And even then, I think they’re super anxious around me because I speak formally. But I can’t help it. They are strangers and I feel awkward speaking to them like I would speak to you, Tasianna, or Mister Kushlek’zar.”

I honestly would have liked a few more relationships similar to the one I had with the lizardmen but what can I do?

Leaving the village through the gates, we ventured closer to the river where the farming fields were situated. The fields were completely empty compared to when we first came to the village, with no more crops around, probably having been harvested.

While there weren’t any crops, villagers and animals called equerochs, a mix between horses and oxen, were there plowing the field. Saori and I didn’t know much about farming so we could only stare at them for a moment until the figure of a young woman plucking up a blue balloon-like plant appeared.

“Ahh, Hest-Lady Hestia! Saori!” the moment she saw us, Lorena began waving her hand and ran towards us. “Blessing of the light to you two. Oh, and Lady Hestia, I listened to your sermon yesterday. It was certainly something different than what we usually got but it was pretty nice hearing you sing. Thank you so very much for your blessing. Can I ask why you two are here?”

“Ah, we’re here for you, Lorena, but before I ask my favor; is that a ‘Macula plant’?” I asked, pointing at the two blue balloons she was carrying. “Were you checking for the mana concentration in the area?”

“Huh? These?” Lorena tilted her head as she held onto one of them. “I don’t really know much about them. I just wanted to help out because most of the farmers had to help with the rebuild, and Dad said this was perfect for me. I heard from Chief Colwyn and the farmers that these plants drain mana from the ground and grow up. I’m supposed to take care of them because Lord Count Helvas demands every single one harvested.”

Macula plant

A plant that absorbs mana from the ground. Depending on the concentration, its growth will vary. High concentration of mana will accelerate growth, while at low concentrations, they will grow slowly. The liquid inside is infused with mana

Mister Kushlek’zar explained to me these plants were a necessary tool that any mage should carry around in abundance, as they not only drain mana from the ground but can determine how high the mana concentration in the area was. After an excessive use of spells in a single area, especially after a magician duel, the custom was for the mages to put these plant’s seeds down and see how fast they grew.

If it becomes ripe too fast, then it was a clear indication that mana was in overabundance. Too much mana in the area and the risk of a powerful monster spawning was high. The mage had two options in this situation, either drain as much mana in the area as possible with macula plants or report this to the mages and adventurer guilds.

We reported the area around the bandit camp to Colwyn, while we kept draining the area where we trained. Even if a powerful monster were to appear, none have yet, we were there to immediately subdue it. However, we weren’t allowed to completely drain the area of mana as that would slow down or even harm the growth of certain plants. A major reason why I felt the area was so low in mana was due to macula plant draining.

While our training was posing a danger to Carine village, there was a financial incentive why the lord and Colwyn haven't reprimanded us yet. The water these macula plants produced, dubbed “macula water”, was high in mana and was considered an essential component of alchemy.

Well, high-quality mana water was essential, not this one specifically. As these seeds are common and inexpensive to buy while mana water was in high demand, Colwyn explained that his lord would “ignore” what we were doing if we handed in all the macula plants we got.

Thinking about how profitable they were, Saori has been thinking of it as a way to fill our coffers. Get some seeds from Mister Kushlek’zar, drain the area after our training, and then sell them at the nearest town. Unfortunately, we couldn’t just infuse our mana into ordinary water as the water was too impure for use. Shame.

“Anyways, we have a favor to ask you. Do you have time now?” I asked Lorena.

"I still have a few more to pick up but afterward we can talk at my house, if you want," she replied with a sweet smile, showing no sign of the same distrust or anxiousness her two friends had.

“…I’m honestly glad that you’re like this. Really, thanks,” I answered with a wry smile.

“Huh?”

“Oh nothing, come on, I’ll cheer you on while you work. Harriet would probably complain if I helped,” I stated, pushing her forward to the next macula plant.

After wandering among the three giant farming fields of the village, collecting every ripe macula plant, we then proceeded back to the village and gave Lorena’s house a visit.

A note from AbyssRaven

A bit of rest after all those action chapters, however...

IT'S COMING!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 90: The Prelude of an Awakening Star.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #1 her to promote our Patreon. 10 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 10 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until October!

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“Well…welcome to my house,” Lorena introduced us to her home, a multi-familial house built due to the village’s need for houses after the bandits burnt everything down. “Then again, my family is sharing it with another family, so I don’t know if we can really call it ‘ours’, yet.”

Opening the door, she welcomed us in, “Uhhh, make it yourself comfortable? Excuse me, the house isn’t exactly fit to welcome somebody from your status, Lady Hestia. Chief Colwyn and Harriet would be mad if they knew. I don’t even have anything to serve you as drinks.”

“Oh, if that is the case then let me make some tea for us,” Saori offered as she entered her home.

“T-Tea?! Oh, that drink you three gave me when we first met,” Lorena bumped her open palm with a fist, remembering our first meeting. “Ahh, I heard from Harriet how expensive good tea can be, so is it really alright for me to have even more although I haven’t even paid for the first? It was very, very delicious but…”

“That’s all we needed to hear, don’t worry about it. We don’t need any payment, like I’ve told you a thousand times already, Lorena,” I told her to ease her worries. “We’re doing this for a friend and you’ve already answered our question, so consider that our payment if you will. You’re one of the few who aren’t acting submissive in front of me, so I’d like to have our relationship stay that way.”

On our way to Lorena’s home, we asked her if she knew anybody who had an oven or if there was anybody who baked in the village. She told us two families were responsible for the bakery in the village, but similar to everybody else, their bakery burnt down after the bandit raid. They still haven’t had the time nor chance to get the ovens rebuilt.

It is what it is. So instead, I asked Lorena if she could introduce me to them the next time we had the chance.

If there aren’t any ovens in the village, then it is time for me to bring out the craftsman inside me and build it myself. Nothing will stop me from eating some cake!

Although Saori and I didn’t have any other reason to visit Lorena’s home, we still did it anyway just for fun. She was one of the few villagers who treated me like any other person, if you overlooked the part that Harriet and her parents forced her to address me with “Lady” at the very least.

“Hie, I thought it would be awkward to suddenly change it after we got along at first. But I can understand why the other villagers can’t adapt. They don’t know you, after all,” Lorena stated, before having to pause as she witnessed Saori taking teacups and a teapot from her [Storage Magic]. “W-Wow, mages are amazing. You can do so much with the Origin God’s power.”

Watching Lorena dazed by this mundane sight was surprising, however, once I reminded myself how wonderous it must be her, I simply shrugged and entered the house. The interior of the house was made in a very similar style to ours, only larger as it was supposed to hold multiple families inside.

The floor was practically just grassless earth and the walls were made from stone blocks, supported by wooden pillars. The roof was made from a combination of thatch and rice plant straws, hastily assembled together to finish the house. There were signs that it needed maintenance, but I guess Lorena’s family will do the repairs once the village was rebuilt.

The furniture inside was also basic. A few crudely made wooden chairs and tables, four family-sized beds, and a hearth where the cooking was to be done. Aside from these inanimate objects, Lorena’s family also kept farm animals in their house.

Chocochuckle

A small, flightless bird with powerful legs designed to enable the bird to run away. Coated in a thick plumage that can protect them from winter’s cold and predator attacks, they usually shed the majority once spring comes, and regains them in autumn. They have a sharp beak as a last resort weapon. Rank G

Wooly Gheeper

A medium-sized gheeper variant that possesses thick wool that protects its entire body from its bottom to its neck. The thick white wool acts as a great insulator while also enables good defense. Aside from their defenses, these animals can only run from strong predators. Rank G

Horned Gheeper

A medium-sized gheeper variant with two tusk-like horns. Although having horns strong enough to compete against a predator of the same rank, these animals would prefer to run away using their strong legs than to risk fighting. Their milk is strong and nutritious, enabling the growth of these strong horns and legs. Rank G

Chocochuckles are literally chickens without their innate cowardice. Due to them being a bit larger than our lovely Earthen chickens, their eggs are also larger with a very sticky and firm yolk. Even without baking powder, I had the feeling that I could make any cake if I used them as an ingredient.

The two gheeper variants respectively are the sheep and goat versions of Peolynca. At first, I didn’t really recognize the wooly gheeper as a sheep as they looked more like rice balls with how bulky their wool was. However, to nobody’s surprise, the wool was so soft that it felt like a real cloud. Colwyn mentioned that he would like to give us pillows and bedding filled with gheeper wool, so I can’t wait.

On the other hand, the horned gheepers were a bit of a disappointment. It honestly surprised me how pathetically cowardly they were. If horned gheepers didn’t recognize you as one of its owners, then their first instinct was to run away. At least their milk was pretty delicious. The only good thing about them, in my opinion.

‘Never judge a gheeper by their appearance’, huh?

However, as you would expect from keeping farm animals indoors, the smell of animal dung was intense.

“Urgh,” I groaned, holding my nose with a hand to block the smell.

As I was checking out the animals, despite the smell they were exuding, Saori was preparing the tea. She poured water into the pot with [Create Water], then placed it on a small stone table that I made, stacked some twigs under it for kindling, and then…

“Ah, Saori, let me get the flint for you,” Lorena offered, but before Lorena could actually run off, Saori stopped her and asked me for help. I snapped my fingers, causing a spark, which grew into a flame after I poured a bit of mana into it. Using [Pyrokinesis], I moved the levitating flame over to the kindling before pouring even more mana into it to allow it to grow faster, shocking the already baffled Lorena. "I-Is this magic? There was no circle-thingy this time though…"

Come to think of it, I never did show her that I could produce fire with my claws, right?

After blowing the dirt off a chair with a wind spell, I sat down and called Lorena to sit down to, before elucidating the truth to her, “Nah, that’s something that my body can do. I also used a skill to help me, but that’s all. The wind was magic, not the fire.”

“T-This is honestly so confusing, but if you say so, Lady Hestia,” scratching her head in total confusion, she just accepted the situation and sat herself down.

After Saori served us tea, I took out some fruits, especially a lot of fragassa, from my storage. As these fruits were from the Belzac forest, Lorena’s surprise also spread to them. Lorena has been to Firwood, the town north of Carine village, to sell the village’s produce with her parents before, but she never saw these fruits there before. At least, not at the farmer’s market.

Unable to accept us being the only one to offer something, as the host, she took out some gheeper milk for our tea. It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough for us to share with each other.

Also, to the tea itself, it was alright. Definitely not Tasianna-tier, but I could see that Saori took some pointers from her. It’s crazy how much you can do to make warm leaf water taste better, huh?

“Mhmm, after getting a feeling of how much all of his might cost me, I can’t help but think that you two are really generous, Saori, Lady Hestia,” Lorena stated with a beaming smile, having just tasted the tea and fruits. “I bet the others would like it too.”

“That might be true…but I don’t think they can calm down with me around. Aside from the people I helped out during the bandit raid, none of the villagers really seem to like me," I said, chomping down on a fragassa as I thought of it.

“Hmm, I did hear from the other villagers that they are feeling nervous having a noble living inside the village, instead of our lord’s manor. They do like Saori though,” Lorena admitted, stinging me a bit in the heart.

“Urgh, but I never admitted to it. I even said that I’m not a priestess, but everybody just ignores me,” I complained.

“But, Lady Hestia, if you really were trying to hide it, then why are you wearing such a beautiful white robe?” Lorena suddenly revealed, causing me to utter “huh?” before continuing listening to her explanation. “Our Goddess’ priests always wear beautifully embroidered white robes and cloaks whenever they visit our village, granting sermons to the whole village and the white grace to our sick. Chief Colwyn told everybody in the village that priests were ‘mana bloods’, people born into nobility, so we had to be polite otherwise we might cause trouble for our lord. Is it different from where you came from, Lady Hestia?”

W-What?! Why did nobody ever tell me that?! T-Tasianna!? Wait, maybe this is only a Kingdom of Artorias thing, so I guess Tasianna couldn’t have known that…

Fuck! And here I thought, I made a cool white mage reference, but I just doomed myself! Maybe I should take it off…but I really like wearing it…

“…Well, I certainly didn’t know that,” I admitted, meekly scratching my cheek.

After that little revelation, we drifted away from that topic and talked about something more important to me. Festivals, celebrations, and holidays; humanity has always loved to celebrate ever since they started congregating into large groups.

Afterparties, Christmas, Thanksgiving, the founding of a country; if you’re creative about it, there is always a reason for somebody to just celebrate. People love to slack off and just take it easy, have a drink with buddies, feast with the family, or just spend money to make somebody’s day.

To assimilate myself into Peolynca, I learned how to speak and read Common tongue, the universal language for this world. The next step was to adapt to its culture. Luckily, Lorena knew that I wasn’t from this kingdom, so it was easy to draw information from her.

Dedicating a song to a holiday would also be great. I mean, on Earth, we produced so many Christmas songs that I wouldn’t be able to count them up. An Idol’s job is to bring happiness into people’s hearts for just a moment, touch their souls with music, as my papa liked to say. A song that fits the festival’s mood would be too perfect.

While I did learn of quite a few events, there were only three close enough for us to focus on.

On the 28th to the 30th of this month, they would have the “Barracuda Migration” event. Barracudas, and other fish, would stream down the river of Carine village towards their spawning place. The villagers would use this opportunity as their last chance to acquire meat for their winter rations. This sounds pretty similar to what a grizzly bear would do when salmons migrated.

Next month on the 7th, they have something called “Origdiviel Arashan”, which directly translates into “Thanking Origin Gods”. “God Thanking Festival” is the general term for it. Essentially, it was Thanksgiving, where the whole village would celebrate together with a feast, as this would most likely be the last time they could before the snow starts dropping. Compared to the former event, this was a universal one throughout Artorias.

The last event of the year was during “New Year’s Eve”, on the 31st, the last day of AutumnMoon. The day that I will give my first Idol concert…hopefully, it’ll be good enough to send them into the next year well.

“So…Lorena,” as time flew by as we had fun, I suddenly remembered something that I wanted to ask her. “well, uhh, I know you don’t want to talk about it but have you…have you told your parents about ‘that’ yet?”

“…,” Lorena’s smile faded, frowning sadly as she looked down to her tea, probably having anticipated the discussion. “…No.”

“…I see,” I uttered, feeling bad that I had to bring up the subject when we were having so much fun talking about other stuff.

“You have not told us about it, but have you had any signs yet? Like vomiting, missing your period, having to do your business more often, or even intense food cravings?” Saori listed out, equally showing worry for our friend, as we haven’t heard about it ever since we met her.

Tears began to overflow her eyes, falling down when there was no other space to go, as she nodded her head weakly, "…M-Mother had it, too, when she was pregnant with my little sisters and brothers. I-I don’t want it yet. I don’t want it yet. I don’t want it, t-this ‘thing’ from that monster…”

Aside from the fact that her little siblings weren’t around…, I couldn’t imagine how she was currently feeling. I never was raped, nor have I ever had to contemplate being pregnant with my rapist’s baby. Saori and I could only soothe her by caressing her back and hand respectively. We had no words for this young woman.

“I-I can’t let them know. N-No man would want an impure woman like me, and nobody in the v-village, hick, would accept the child. M-My parents will never be able to live with this shame,” she was weeping as if she had no way out anymore, cornered by the reality of her situation.

Tch, I wish that fatso was there on that day. I want to burn his face off so badly now.

“Lorena, I know this might be harsh to hear but your parents need to know this. You cannot wait until it happens for them to know,” Saori suggested.

“NO! I-I can’t…I can’t have them know this…,” Lorena clutched her belly, biting her lips before forcing her next words. “I-I’ll run away, have the baby and then…I’ll return to the village. I-I heard the church takes in orphans; I’ll do that and then everything will be back to normal.”

From what I heard, having a baby was an extremely painful and stressful procedure for the mother. Without proper care, especially concerning hygiene, chances will be high that neither child nor mother will survive childbirth. Child mortality was an extreme concern during medieval times, especially for impoverished families like Lorena’s. She’ll only endanger her life with this reckless plan.

“Are you crazy?!” Saori shouted, mortified at what Lorena just said. “Lorena are you even listening to what you just said?! I will not say my personal thoughts as this is your child, but the way you are handling it deserves criticism. Do you have any idea how worried your parents will be?! Even then, do you have anybody to go to help for or how did you think to survive until the child’s birth, huh? Do you know anybody who will help you?!”

“I-I…no…,” Lorena meekly responded under the suffocating glare of Saori.

“Lorena, please think this over,” I continued for Saori. “Do you know what your parents said to me when I first met them? They asked, ‘Is Lorena ok? Is our daughter alright?’ even though they looked even worse than when we found you. They worried so much for you. You guys just reunited but do you really want to separate yourself from them? Your parents who love you so much that they didn’t even blame you for escaping without them? Please, we can think of something together, that’s what friends are for, ok?”

Lorena’s tears didn’t stop as I hugged her, nodding after she gave up on her reckless idea. She was dirty from a day’s work, but I didn’t care about it as I allowed her to warm herself with my body. She was a bit taller than me, but it didn’t feel awkward when she cried her eyes red on my chest.

As she was slowly calming down, the door suddenly opened up, letting light through as a man stood there and shouted, “Father! Mother! Ron! Wendy! Are you here?!”

“R-Ruld?” Lorena uttered, raising her head once she recognized the man’s voice.

“L-Lorena?! W-What are you doing here, no, that can wait for later, where are my-! W-Why are you crying?! Who are these two people?!” without anybody welcoming him in, the man strutted inside, waving around his brown medium-long hair. “Hey, what did you two beastmen do to-OOF! L-Lorena?”

But before he could say anything else, Lorena tore off me and jumped onto him, embracing him roughly as she silently muttered, “I missed you, Ruld…”

After a tender moment of Ruld blushing like a ripe tomato and stuttering to say a word, Lorena let go of him and spoke, “Why, why, are you back? It’s winter, Ruld, you shouldn’t come back when you need to start preparing for winter.”

“I-I’m sorry but I heard news about what happened to the village,” Ruld said with a pained expression. “It took me so long until I could convince my foreman to let me leave. Damnit, I wish I could have come earlier but at least you’re alright, thank the Goddess. How are my parents and yours?”

“They’re alright, don’t worry,” Lorena stated. “The bandits burnt down the whole village, stole all our winter rations aside from the animals and what we still had on the field, and also kidnapped a few villagers. My parents and I were amongst them, but we were lucky enough to have Lady Hestia and her retainer Saori there to save us.” She then pointed at us, drawing the young man’s attention back to us.

“I-Is that true? A-A ‘Lady’, too?!” he dropped his brown bag causing a heavy thud, while also noticing the white robe I had. “Oh shit-ah, please forgive me, m’lady! I beg you in the Goddess name to forgive my sinful actions, I didn’t mean to do anything! Please, I didn’t mean any offense, m'lady!”

…This white robe really is effective…fuck.

After Lorena calmed him down and explained to him that I was not like other nobles, he finally calmed down enough for us to talk, although he was still shivering. After introducing ourselves, Lorena asked him to explain why he was in the village so late in the month.

Although hesitating while I was there, he reluctantly explained to us that he heard from a few adventurers that Carine village was attacked. While he was repairing their shoes and boots, they told him how a large group of mercenaries was defeated by the bandits and that a C-rank party had to go handle it.

He wanted to return back so badly, however, since he had taken up a few requests, he was forced by his workshop to stay and fulfill them, otherwise his worker and housing contract would've been nullified. He worked tirelessly for the last week, fulfilling every single request.

During that week, no word came from Colwyn nor his family, so it was obvious he would be desperate to come back. It seemed that after he became of age at 15, he left for Firwood to work as a shoemaker at Firwood, and would rarely come back to the village due to work.

“Wait, stop!” Saori suddenly interrupted the story. “Could you repeat that. You said you are a shoemaker? A cobbler?”

“Huh?! Uh, yeah,” Ruld confirmed, not expecting that Saori would just interrupt him like that. “I actually got my tools with me. I thought I could help out the family by fixing people’s shoes, so I brought them with me. Although it’s the workshop’s, my foreman told me that I shouldn’t let my skills rust while I’m gone.”

Saori’s eye widened, smiling a devious grin as she drew closer to Ruld, “Can you already take requests?”

“Huh?!” he flinched backward from Saori, who was baring her fangs excitedly.

“My Lady, another companion, and I require footwear as you can see,” pointing at her feet. “I can offer you fresh meat, fruits, vegetables, and other rations if you accept it. We can also provide you the leather. We need them desperately, so let us get started now, Mister Ruld.”

“Wow,” astonished, I looked at Saori pressuring Ruld to take out his tools. “She knows how to take advantage of a situation. Well, I wouldn’t mind some boots, really. Walking around the village would be much easier with them.”

“Hie hie,” Lorena giggled. “Yeah, that’s Ruld, alright. He can be assertive when it comes to people he cares for, but when it comes to women, he always gets bullied by them. Even my friends used to bully him for being like that. Although we did meet when I was in Firwood, it felt like an eternity after being those bandit’s prisoner.”

“Hey, did you forget that you two have to share a house together, now?” I poked her sides, prompting her to blush in embarrassment.

After Saori got Ruld to accept her request, she called me over to have my feet measured. Being the one to design our clothes, Saori also took the helm of designing the appearance of our shoes, adamant that it should fit stylistically.

Using a wooden tablet, she drew with a charcoal pencil a general appearance of the boots, while also showing him the leather she wanted him to process. Unfortunately, all of our C rank monster’s pelt were too thick for him to process with his tool. I audibly heard him softly complaining to himself for not asking his foreman for better tools, as he worked on our request.

“Jeez, never would’ve thought I would work for a noble, a priestess even. Damn, hopefully I can do this,” he muttered as he meticulously tested out each pelt, looking for ones his tools could process.

After a few attempts, he finally showed us the ones that he could work on, which were a few weak D ranks and below. After Saori chose one option, he told us that he would get it processed with his father.

Lorena couldn’t help but smile as she watched, finding joy in seeing Ruld's excited face as he worked. As we were still working on the design, the door once again opened up roughly, revealing a woman this time, a very familiar woman, “Lady Hestia, Miss Saori, are you two here?!”

“Harriet?” I uttered.

“Thank the Goddess you two are here! I was at your house and Miss Tasianna told me that you were looking for Lorena, but I didn’t think you would be at her house,” Harriet confessed, looking like she had been running around the village since morning. “Please, you must come with me immediately, my Lady. Lord Count Helvas has sent his steward to deliver a missive to you, and Miss Tasianna isn’t allowing them to enter your house.”

Looking at Harriet’s mortified expression, I can hazard a guess that Tasianna is about to blow up. She wasn’t a fan of humans in the first place and I can already imagine her anger if somebody tried entering our home.

"Lorena, don't forget to tell your parents about everything, okay? Saori and I will support you no matter what, so tell that to your parents, alright?" I tapped her shoulders, before excusing myself. "Saori, let’s move. Harriet, lead the way, please.”

Quickly walking out of Lorena’s house after saying our goodbyes, we rushed back to our house only to see a group of black suit-wearing men and carriages standing before it, with Tasianna adamantly blocking the door from two knight-looking men.

“My Mistress is not home yet, and neither has she given you her permission. I ask you to leave, gentlemen,” although her words were polite, her tone and eyes were telling otherwise, sending a chilling aura towards the two armored men.

However, instead of the knights, the man behind them spoke, “Pardon our unannounced visit, Miss Elf, but we only wish to deliver your mistress our Lord’s present. As the representative of the feudal lord of this land, I ask of you to allow us entry so we may do our work.”

Even from this distance, I could see cold sweat on his face, clearly unnerved by Tasianna’s presence. However, compared to the knights who were slowly backing off, the man wearing a fine black outfit fitting for a butler, stood his ground, forcing himself to smile despite being on-guard.

“Your thoughtfulness is a blessing, however, without my Lady’s permission, I will not back away,” Tasianna repeated herself, nowhere close to being calm. “It might be true that we do not own this land, but the village representative gave us your lord, Lord Count Helvas’, permission to stay here. Or are you saying that your lord does not respect the privacy of my Lady? You must only deliver your message, not enter our house, especially not unannounced as you said.”

It would seem like our little talk with Jecht has been fruitful as he delivered my message to the Count Helvas. I did notice that no spies were around us today, so that’s something good.

The entourage was quite large just to deliver a message though. The men around the carriages all seemed like butlers, wearing a less finely made version of the black suit the man talking to Tasianna had. As he was flanked by two knights, I guess he had to be the steward Harriet mentioned.

I knew they would contact us eventually but coming unannounced? I know this was Count Helvas’ land but he should know basic courtesy like giving the receiving person an hour’s notice to prepare for the arrival. Colwyn and his spies should have told him about me, and even if I hadn’t admitted my royalty status, a “supposed” holy magic priestess should earn some respect, right? At least, that’s the impression I got from the whole village.

“Excuse me, Mister steward,” Harriet rushed over to him the moment we got close enough, bowing to apologize. “I apologize for taking so long but I have brought Lady Hestia to you.”

As she was doing that, Saori went over to speak with Tasianna who explained to us with a relieved smile about what happened, “Retainers of Lord Count Helvas have arrived to visit Lady Hestia, Miss Saori. They asked for her presence but after explaining to them that our Lady isn’t at home, they wished to replace our furniture with their ‘presents’. I declined them until permission was granted but they kept insisting.”

“Thank you very much, Tasianna, I believe I understand the situation,” Saori answered before telling me to “play along” through [Telepathy]. She then turned towards the steward and gave him a polite Japanese bow. “I do apologize for not being here to greet you, Sir. My name is Saori Segawa and I am a retainer to Lady Hestia Atsuko. How may I help you?”

Pausing for only a second, the man’s smile never faded as he bowed politely from the waist, “No, it is I that must apologize for my rudeness, Miss Segawa. I acted on my rashness and pushed your companion, for that, I personally apologize. Let me introduce myself, I am Barathan Kiesmay, steward and head-butler of Lord Count Andre Helvas, Lord of Carine Village. I am here today to deliver your mistress an invitation to my Lord’s manor for dinner and also his welcome presents to you. May I?”

Saori stepped aside, signaling to me that it was time for me to “play along”. But what the hell does she mean by that? What am I supposed to do in this situation? She said three lines, listened to him speak, and then threw the hardest part to me. How the hell is a “noble lady” supposed to answer in this situation?!

Verdammt nochmal, this stupid white robe! Why did you want to be funny, huh? Hestia?! Verdammt, oi, parallel minds, I need your help, now!

Running through all the books, movies, tv-series, and mangas I’ve consumed in my past life, I hoped something would help me solve this problem. There was a big difference between casually acting like a noble and actually being one, okay? Even with [High-Speed Calculation] and [Multi-Thought Processing], I only had a few seconds to think about it and that certainly isn’t enough to go through everything I experienced in my past life.

But the biggest problem was that I didn’t know any etiquette rules in this world, or in this kingdom specifically. Every country has different rules after all. But one rule that would always exist would be to never imitate a noble, and using my [Princess] title to get me out of that situation should be a last resort.

Barathan stepped forward, bowing from his waist up with his right hand on his chest and left hand on his back, “Under her gaze, I would like to apologize to you, my Lady. Please, be assured that my intrusion was not under the wish of Lord Count Helvas, only mine.”

For now, let’s actually ‘play along’ and stick to something safe. You can do this, Hestia.

“You may rise,” I responded, lifting my hand up a bit. “I accept your apology. Do not let this happen again, please.”

“My deepest gratitude, my Lady. May the Goddess bless your gracious soul,” Barathan responded before taking an envelope from his jacket pocket, bowing his head before handing it to me with both hands on it. "This is an invitation to Lord Count Helvas's manor to join him for dinner. As you are the most recent guest in his domain, he wishes to express his goodwill. More information will be contained inside it."

I took it from his hand, gave it a short glance, and then gave my thanks, “I thank you for your time with the deepest gratitude, Mister Barathan. I will consider it.”

He raised his head, showing me a smile that certainly sent a shiver down my spine, before talking again, “Thank you. My Lord has also sent you presents, will you accept them?”

I glanced over to Saori, signaling her to take over, “Certainly, Mister Barathan. However, this is not your responsibility as the task belongs to us, our Mistress’ retainers.”

With another bow, Barathan accepted the suggestion. He told the other butlers to unload everything and then to place them beside our house. He then gave another bow but this time to tell us farewell, driving away with his group in the carriages.

After thanking and seeing Harriet off, the three of us entered our house, “Do you think I did everything properly?” I asked.

“…I’m not sure, Lady Hestia. Fairy etiquette is pretty lax, compared to other races, I believe. At least I saw no wrong,” Tasianna replied, worry on her face.

“Well, we can only hope that we did everything properly. You made the correct choice by not letting them in, Tasianna, good job,” Saori commented.

“True enough, nice one, Tasianna. Now, we only have to deal with the presents and this letter, but before we do that…,” I paused before jumping on Saori’s back, grabbing her long wolf ears and pulling them up as if I was trying to tear them off. “Verdammt nochmal, du Dummkopf! Warum zur Hölle musste ich alles tun, während du zur Seite standest und drei Zeilen gesagt hast!“ (Damn it, you Idiot! Why the hell did I have to do everything while you stood by and said three lines!)

“Ahhh, Hestia, I can’t understand German! Ow, ow, ow! Stop pulling on my ears, please!” Saori cried out in a panic, struggling to move as I controlled her like a rat would a chef using his hair.

After I cooled down from Saori apologizing to me, I opened the envelope, taking out a letter made from parchment. In it, the letter stated that Lord Count Helvas invited me to come to him on the 27th to join him for dinner, which would mean that I had six days to get ready for it. There would be a carriage to pick me up and that I may come in my priestess outfit or whatever else I liked.

I know that nobles love using fancy doublespeak due to Earth’s media, so I guess this letter was also filled with it. Both Saori and Tasianna never experienced any of it, so all three of us were pretty bad in deciphering this…if it even had any “codes” in the first place.

However, I do understand what he meant with “whatever else I liked”. He was considering me a noble priestess right now, so I had to act that way. Fine dresses and no punk style, I guess.

Shame, and here I was thinking of coming in my dragon form. ‘How do you do, Lord Helvas? Would you like to experience a firework?’

Heh heh…

“Alright, that settled it, let’s go you two,” I announced, handing Saori the letter for safekeeping.

““Huh?”” they both uttered.

“What’s there to ‘huh’ out? We have six days to prepare, so that means I have the time to evolve,” I answered with a grin. “You guys wanted me to do it, right? So let’s do it before I second guess myself. Let’s visit the saurians.”

With my mind set, we first placed all the presents inside our house before leaving the village, entering the woods where the saurians were camping. There, I told them of my intentions which naturally excited Mister Kushlek’zar to the point that he took out his tablet and charcoal pencil.

Upon his suggestion, we moved deeper into the woods, as far away from the village as possible, where the risk of being detected was lower. Mister Kushlek’zar materialized a massive [Xohulotel’s Scaled Barrier] while Saori placed her mana threads among the trees like a spider web. This was sensitive information, after all, so we needed to be sure that nobody could enter the area and see me.

After Mister Kushlek’zar told Krim-Slak, Grazlahta, and Akasht where to guard while I was evolving, he told me that he wished to see Saori’s and my original forms. We agreed to it, knowing that he deserves to see them, but before we actually did it, I gave Saori a wooden tablet for the recipe for homemade yeast, telling her that we will need it for the cake once I wake up.

Activating [Humanization], mana mist emitted from our body.

How long has it been since I was last a dragon? Damn, I didn’t look at myself after I had my little accident with Danterno. I got so used to being a dragonewt, huh?

“Oooooooh, magnificent!” Mister Kushlek’zar shouted, sticking his tail up to the sky. “Tasianna is a rare fairy, Saori is a mighty wolf, and Princess Hestia is such a beautiful dragon. Incredible, a sight to behold. How I would like to use [Identify] to learn more about you!”

[“Mister Kushlek’zar, you’re actually embarrassing me here. I personally think I look intimidating instead of beautiful, really,”] I gave my honest opinion.

“Oooh, this is [Telepathy]. I guess it must be hard to talk with your throat, Hestia. I bet Akasht would love that skill,” the saurian priest looked over to the giant sarcosilian, who nodded firmly.

Having established a telepathic connection with everybody, Saori began talking, [“So, Hestia. What evolution will you take? [Young Ragnarok Dragon]?”]

“Hmm?! I know this is your choice, Hestia, but please don’t consider such a blasphemous choice. You might still be young but please remember that the Gods are holy, even if you have defied some of them,” Mister Kushlek’zar warned me. “I personally believe that [Young Angel Dragon] would be the best choice. Do not forget your duty as Goddess Aurena’s chosen champion, young scale. It would do you good to show her more devotion.”

“If I may, I would like to agree with Priest Kushlek’zar, Lady Hestia,” Taisanna agreed. “You’ve shown your dislike to God Danterno so [Young Infernal Demon Dragon] is impossible. Taking God Kargryxmor’s evolution choice might also worsen your [Battle Frenzy] condition, while [Young Angel Dragon] sounds like a serene choice.”

[“Hmm, I understand what you guys are saying,”] I nodded with my dragon head. [“However, I won’t be choosing any of those choices, because I will take [Young Sunfang Dragon].”]

The saurians widened their eyes, clearly showing that they couldn’t understand why I would just abandon the thought of taking a god’s evolution choice. Tasianna, on the other hand, could only show a wry smile, maybe already anticipating this choice before she gave her opinion.

[“Hmmm, may I ask why?”] Saori asked with what looked like a smile.

[“Hie hie,”] I giggled as I thought of my reason. [“I actually already decided on it the moment I saw it. I knew that it was the correct choice for me. I will become an Idol, and an Idol always seeks the spotlight to become a star. If you think about it, the sun we see in the sky is just a star for all the planets outside our solar system…maybe it’ll even reach other dimensions…”]

“‘Solar System’? ‘A sun is a star’? What are you talking about, Hestia,” Mister Kushlek’zar questioned me, curiosity and confusion having morphed his expression.

Ignoring him, I continued my speech, looking up into the blue sky, staring deeply into it, [“If I become a sun, could I become a star for those far away from me? To the people that I’ve disappointed, who I told that I will become a star, could I actually become one now?”]

While the saurians were looking extremely confused at this point, Saori and Tasianna stayed silent, knowing exactly what I meant with my words. They gave me a small nod, before telling me to “go for it”.

System, I wish to evolve. My choice is [Young Sunfang Dragon].

Will you choose to evolve into   [Young Sunfang Dragon]?

Ja.

Evolution choice decided. Commencing evolution of   [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atsuko]

Those familiar words…how long have I not heard them? With this evolution and my new life in this kingdom, I guess the next time I will hear them will be a ways off.

But that’s ok. Even if it will take a while, I’ll reach it eventually. And so will Saori. Tasianna too will become as strong as us. I saw their burning fire in our fight, shining so brightly that it was able to dwarf mine…

One of the few things that Saori told me when I made her my retainer was that I needed to build up more “confidence”, which I have to agree. [Young Sunfang Dragon], you say that you’re a calm dragon, right? Well, you better hold onto your promise there, dude.

Before I finally lost consciousness, I sent my friends one last telepathic message, [“Trust you guys. See you tomorrow~”]

And darkness consumed me as I fell to the ground.

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Chapter 91: The Star Blazes forth.

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Serene music. The tunes emitted from the strings as every stroke from my bow vibrated them. My fingers weaved on them, applying pressure on the strings to control the flow of music. From larghissimo to prestissimo, from slowest to fastest, whichever tempo I wanted, I could play.

I was the maestro of this small sonata. My body, my mind, my soul; all three knew exactly what they had to do as I flawlessly played the violin as if it was just another part of myself. Even if I became deaf now, I would still be able to hum it.

Hmm hmm hmm la la la la hmm. ♫

…

I-I don’t remember this. Not this scene at least. Considering how modern the room looked, decorated with high-end technology, a black piano, and huge glass windows to stare into the city below, I don’t think I would ever see this sight in Carine village.

A shadow in the form of a girl played her violin in front of a towering shadow with the form of a man. I couldn’t see her expression but from how she was swung her body as she stood before the sitting man, I could understand she was enjoying it form the depths of her soul. As the music resonated in her ears, my soul felt her excitement.

No melody came from the shadow. It was as if a mime was playing the violin, staying completely silent as she went through the proper movements. It is eerie that I could perfectly guess and hum the melody, but it all became clear once I asked myself one single question.

Is this a memory of my past life?

A sense of kinship swelled inside my chest, compelling me to jump into the taller shadow’s embrace. A desire to feel his warmth, to be protected by his strong arms, and to hear his voice once more.

However, while those feelings filled me with longing, so did darkness. Envy. Jealousy. Anger.

Look at me too. Why are you only looking at her? I’m also here. I miss you.

But my silent thoughts never reached the shadow, his attention completely focused on the violin-playing girl, the source of my pain.

…Is this the first time I’ve ever been this lucid in a dream? Well, I can’t remember if it ever happened before. Most of the time, I only dream about what happened on that day or my impending idol concert and how I will totally rock it.

I think the last time a memory actually resurfaced was after my near-death experience when I had my first meeting with the garms. It was a totally rude awakening, honestly. Nevertheless, that was the last time that I remembered something that I didn’t know beforehand.

Was this the second time…or has it happened before but I couldn’t remember them? I had quite a few questions I wanted somebody to answer, but unfortunately, nobody could do it. If that is the case, then I should just try my best to remember this dream.

I might not be able to talk, but it seems like I could walk around the scene.

Hmmm…

The shadow of the girl really seemed like she was having fun. Frankly, I kinda wanted to shove her a bit so she would fumble, embarrassing herself before the tall shadow, but any attempts were futile. My hands would just pass through her. Whoever said that you were the master of your dreams, must have smoked something, ‘cause it honestly felt like I was going along this ride into my past memories, broken and forgotten after I was reborn to Peolynca.

“Bravo,” while I was being mischievous, the man suddenly clapped his hands, standing up to speak to the girl. “it pains me to admit this, but you are so much better with your mother’s instrument than mine. Your movements are so much livelier with the violin, **k***.”

“Hie hie, thanks Papa,” the girl said, acting all cutesy and stuff. “Honestly, you don’t have to feel that bad. Mama gave me my own violin and I would always play it if I needed to express myself. If I wanted to play the piano, I had to go outside my room and into the living room for it. It’s just a difference between convenience.”

The man stroked his shapely chin, showing no signs of a long beard, “Then, how about I buy you one now? Your Papa does feel a bit jealous that your violin skills are improving while your piano skills are stagnating, mein Schatz.” (my treasure/my dearest)

‘Mein Schatz’? Kuck, that really stings…I want you to call me that again, too…

“Oh, jeez, you say that all the time, Papa. It might work with a digital piano, but you always want a classically made one. As if a grand piano would ever fit into my room!” the girl rebuked, shaking her head in exasperation. “Besides, I appreciate the thought, but training comes first. With schoolwork and training taking up most of my time, playing the violin and piano is more a hobby now, just like playing video games. We might be well-off but that still would be a big waste of money, Papa.”

“‘Big waste of money’, huh?” the taller shadow muttered. “…**k***, then why haven’t you given up on the ‘Idol’ stuff yet? If you ask me, that is a real ‘waste of money’.”

The girl shadow looked at the taller shadow in shock, shivering as she shouted out an ear-piercing, “PAPA, WHAT THE FUCK?!”

However, instead of flinching backward or even reciprocating the girl's anger, the man calmly stayed seated. "It's true. Neither your Mama nor I ever really wanted to say this to you…but we really do not think that you should pursue your ‘Idol’ goals anymore.”

“W-Wha-!?” the girl stuttered, unprepared for the revelation from the man’s mouth, a man she has trusted since her birth. “Y-You, but- WHAT THE FUCK?! But you two told me that you’re gonna support me! Mama and Papa, both of you promised me that I was allowed to do this. You told me that you believed in me! You fucking LIAR!”

“**k***!” the man shouted, loud enough to make the girl shriek in fear. “Watch your mouth while you’re speaking with your parent.” He paused to look at the girl, placing his hands on his knees as he let out a sigh. “Don’t think that we haven’t noticed it yet. Putting up a fake smile as you keep yourself from crying. It’s one thing if you don't want us to see you cry, I get it, but it's a problem for us if aren't even willing to do it inside your room. Your Mama especially is worried.”

The girl stayed silent, looking downward for the entirety of the man’s lecture. Not knowing if his words were going into one ear and then out the other, the man continued, “As your Papa, I love you dearly, mein Schatz. You and your Mama are my two most important people in my life, so it pains me whenever I see you depressed after a failed audition. You aren't even willing to share your anguish with us.”

Even with those words, the girl didn't raise her head nor did anything flow down from her face, simply staying still to continue being confronted by the man's words, "Before this ‘Idol dream’, we honestly thought you would follow in our footsteps. You are a natural with the violin and piano and, despite neglecting your daily practice, you still were able to perfectly play whatever sonata I asked you to play. You could easily enter whatever university you wished to further your musical education, and I could then pull some strings to help you after you graduate.”

But that’s not what I want…

“But that’s not what I want…,” the girl quietly mumbled, looking like a pouting kid.

“I know. That isn’t your dream, after all,” the man agreed, soothing the girl enough for her to raise her head. “Even if you don’t want to become a violinist or pianist for an orchestra, then why don't you become a singer? It was a surprise to us, but your 'Idol' training did reveal that you had talent as a singer. Compared to your dancing skills, which you had to work extremely hard to improve, singing seemed almost natural to you."

The man then released his hands from his knees, using them instead to massage his temples, “Classically, an opera singer; but I know you don’t want that. You’re influenced by modern media. Something like those fancy popstar artists that only do it for the money and fame, instead of furthering the art of music as true musicians do. You're good enough of a singer to embarrass the majority of them, and that profession isn’t anything different from your Idol dream.”

“N-Not different?! Y-You just can’t tell me that after you admitted you don’t believe in me!” the girl rebuked, having found her rebellious attitude back. “Papa, do you know how much bull-you don’t understand. An Idol and a popstar are two completely different professions, two different niches.”

“How so? A popstar is simply somebody who encompasses a generation’s or era’s most influential genre. The most ‘popular’ music. Mozart was a pop icon when he lived because of how progressive his music was, to the point he was called one of the best during the classical period,” the man lectured with an extremely familiar enthusiasm. “Ein koreanisches Idol oder ein westlicher Popstar, wie unterscheiden sie sich? Sie singen, tanzen, und beide werden von Fans verehrt. Schatz, eine Opernsängerin kann das auch, das weißt du.” (A korean Idol or a western popstar, how are they different? They sing, dance, and fans idolize both of them. Honey, an opera singer experiences that too, you know that.)

“Stop speaking German, Papa! If you start this argument in English then finish it in English, that habit of yours annoys me!” the girl complained vehemently. “They are different, ok? I don’t want to argue with you about that. Anyway, if you really think those three options are all the same then why do you care that I’m choosing to become an Idol, huh?!”

“Because your mother and I can actually help you in two of those cases,” the taller shadow stated. “Besides your trainer, we don’t know many people in the Idol industry in Japan or Korea. However, if you want to stand on stage, bask in the spotlight, and touch people's souls with music then we have connections to help you enter the western music industry. It might surprise you how many music producers love classical music.”

Papa was a really successful conductor and the main reason why our family had so much money in the first place. If he said he had or didn’t have certain connections, then you could believe him. He could be as stubborn as a bull, but he wasn’t a big liar.

“No,” the girl refused. “This is my show. I appreciate your support, but I don’t want your help with this, Papa. If you help me by using your influence, then it would only prove those idiots correct that I’ve been born with a golden spoon in my mouth. I want my success to come from myself, and only myself. My talents, my skills, my hard work.”

“Those girls, your ‘future co-workers’, only say that because they are jealous of your talents. You’ve changed yourselves for others for the entirety of your trainee years, instead of impressing people for how you truly are,” the man said. “**k***, even with my connections, I wouldn’t recommend you to any of them if you didn’t have the ability to back it up. I don’t want to give my associates the impression that I’m a nepotist. You’re nearly 15, mein Schatz. We will still support you if you won’t give up on your dream, but give it some thought, ok? I have somebody willing to record you.”

With that said, the taller shadow stood up and walked away, leaving the girl shadow behind as she held onto her violin.

“…It’s cool that I’m starting to remember things again but,” I mumbled now that the memory has ended, “is this my subconscious telling me to quit being an Idol? To stop dreaming just ‘cause of the shit I experienced on Earth? Well, too late. Should’ve made me remember before I made my promise to Saori and Tasianna and began all that prep for the concert.”

It was honestly nice to hear my Papa again. I would lie if I said I wasn’t missing him and Mama. It would be so much better if I could remember his appearance, but I guess all that shadowy vagueness was telling me that I couldn’t. Only his silhouette was visible.

It’s also kinda weird that I can’t see my past life’s appearance nor name. Her voice was 100% mine, which is a good thing, I guess. I don’t know if how I currently looked, resembled her or if the System constructed something similar but, at the end of the day, was different. Then again, I have horns and a reptilian tail, so I was already pretty much different, heh.

It was nice. A very pleasant experience to see this but I won’t change my course. I won’t second guess myself. What happened in my past life stays there, so I can develop my second the way I want.

Danke schön, Papa. Ich liebe dich. Du und Mama, ich vermisse euch so sehr. (Thank you, Papa. I love you. You and Mama, I miss you two so much.)

Wiping away my mental tears, I turned around and went towards the direction of where I remembered my room would be. I don’t know if I will ever have such a lucid dream ever again, so I better try my best to remember everything. The fond memories, you know.

"Well, I guess my room was this way? Our apartment wasn't that big so it shou-huh?" beore I could walk off, a large shadowy arm grasped my shoulders, surprising me, even more when it forcefully pulled me around, making eye contact with me.

“Forget it all…Hestia,” Papa said.

****************************

Skill requirement fulfilled.   [Health Recovery Lv. 4], [Stamina Recovery Lv. 5], [Spark Fire’s Fire Boost] merged into unique skill [Solar Core Lv. 1]

Skill requirement fulfilled.   [Draconic Magics], [Arcane Conduit Lv. 1], [Sorcerer’s Power Lv. 1], [Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 4], [Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 4] merged into unique skill [True Draconic Lineage]

Skill requirement fulfilled.   [Body Temperature Control Lv. 5] evolved into skill [Core Regulation]

Skill requirement fulfilled.   [Terror Aura Lv. 2], [Alluring Aura Lv. 1], [Admiration Lv. 1] evolved into skill [Draconic Aura Lv. 1]

Skill requirement fulfilled.   [Noble Aura Lv. 6], [Royal Etiquette Lv. 2], [Leadership Lv. 5] evolved into skill [Royal Presence Lv. 1]

Skill requirements fulfilled.   [Enhanced Health Growth Lv. 7], [Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 4], [Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 6], [Enhanced Stamina Capacity Lv. 4] merged into [Gluttonous]

Abilities gained:   [Solar Beam]

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Dreadflame Dragon Lv. 2] [Hellblade Dragon Lv. 2] [Lava Magic Lv. 3] [Lightning Magic Lv. 2] [Synergist’s Oath Lv. 6] [Draconic Barrier Lv. 6] [Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 7] [Draconic Roar Lv. 4] [Unarmed Technique Lv. 7] [Crushing Enhancement Lv. 3] [Mana Leak Resistance Lv. 2] [Lava Resistance Lv. 2] [Lightning Resistance Lv. 2] [Holy Resistance Lv. 8] [Inferno Resistance Lv. 3] [Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 6] [Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 5] [Battle Mind Lv. 7] gained

Spells gained: [Molten Guard] [Purple Flash]

Individual   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko] has reached Rank B through evolution. Congratulations, you have reached the maximum Rank achievable for a [Young] monster. Bonus: 300 in all stats, 3000 Skill Points

Due to becoming Rank B, individual   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko] will receive reduced experience gain until maturation requirement is achieved. Evolution is blocked until maturation requirement is fulfilled. Maturation requirement: Age: 5 Year, [Dreadflame Dragon Lv. 10], [Hellblade Dragon Lv. 10], [Solar Core Lv. 10], [Royal Presence Lv. 10]

Heilige Scheiße, this is honestly the worst part about evolving. Ow, ow, ow, ow. I didn’t even dream of anything this time! What a waste of good sleep, urgh…

“…sh, the cocoon! S..ri! Tasi….! The ….. scale is waking up!” somebody shouted, loud enough to reach my ears.

Krim-Slak? Sounds like him. I can’t open my eyes yet but, if I can hear them now, then the process should be done anytime now.

As more seconds passed, the darkness surrounding me slowly disappeared until my body began sensing the sun again.

Ooh, w-what is this? This is, uh, well it feels good but weird.

The last time I really felt so good after taking in the sun rays was when I hatched out of my egg, I think. The energy of the sun seeped into my body, energizing each cell while it slowly streamed towards a singular point, a center.

It’s gathering in my chest. The warmth coming from it felt satisfying, like filling your stomach with delicious stew. The heat is addicting, honestly. The sun, I want more. I need more.

But before I do that, another desire was calling for me. An insatiable desire that would haunt me until my grave if I didn’t do it now!

Air Shield!

“Huh?! Oi, young scale, what are you doing?!” somebody sounding like Grazlahta shouted in confusion.

Opening my eyes the moment my spell was complete, letting light dissolve the darkness in my vision, I stood on my hind legs and ROAAAARED!

“KRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” I roared with all my might, producing a sound so loud that my [Air Shield] was quivering. [“GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD MOOORRRRRRRRRRNIIIIIINNNNNG! I HAVE REACHED RANK B!”]

Having taken a moment to let everything out, I dispelled the wind barrier where I was quickly welcomed by the complaints of a tiny, blue lizard being, “Oi, young scale, that honestly scared us, okay! Don’t just stand up and roar like a wild monster the moment you wake up! We thought you were about to rampage!”

[“Krim-Slak?”] I asked cautiously, literally looking down on him.

“Huh? What’s with the questioning tone, Hestia? Did that evolution mess up with your head?” an equally small, but red, lizard questioned, holding his head in exasperation. “You gave us old scales a huge shock, young scale.”

Grazlahta?

“Drag…oness…has gott…en taller. She tall…er than Akasht,” to the sound of that gruff voice, I turned towards it just to be greeted by a sarcosilian that was about my size…wait, isn’t that Akasht?! Why am I about his size?!

“W-Wow, Hestia, you have really grown. That evolution was a huge change…Literally,” appearing from the woods, a female wolfkin wearing a full black outfit with a red scarf commented, showing me a thumbs up the moment our eyes met. [“Ohayou, Hestia-chan~”] She spoke to me with [Telepathy] in Japanese instead of Common tongue.

Walking beside her, a blue-haired elf girl began waving her hand, energetically shouting out, "Good morning, Lady Hestia!" before running towards me to greet me with a maid bow. “Is there anything you wish to eat?”

“Ha ha ha ha! What a magnificent sight! I have finally learned how monsters evolve to the next rank! Glorious knowledge!” a lanky raptorsilian suddenly shouted out joyously while I was greeting the elf. “So when a monster evolves, the mana inside their body gets released outside for the sole purpose to wrap the monster in a large mana cocoon. The change will then happen for a day. How exciting to know."

Oh yeah, evolution does happen like that, huh? Funnily enough, I wouldn’t have learned this fact if I hadn’t traveled with Saori. I was always there to watch her evolve, after all. It was quite mystifying the first time I saw her evolve, to be honest, as I didn’t expect it to happen like that.

When a monster evolves, their mana wraps around their body like a cocoon, allowing the monster to change their appearance for a day. Just like when a caterpillar would transform itself into a beautiful butterfly.

…But that was not important. The important part was that everybody was there to greet me after I evolved. Damn, I kinda wanted to roar again just to release this soothing feeling in my chest, hie hie.

Well, after everything calmed down a bit, I took the chance to check out my body first, considering how everybody commented on that fact. I thought they were exaggerating a bit but after carefully measuring myself with the nearby trees and Akasht, the results were undeniable. Everybody didn’t get tinier, I just got a lot, lot, lot, lot taller.

My previous height in my dragon form was a bit taller than a horse. Now, if I stretched my neck a bit, even while walking on all four legs, I was taller than a grown elephant but smaller than a mammoth. Considering Akasht was around an elephant’s height, it was a bit funny that I could see over him now.

Aside from my height, the next biggest change was the glowing “boss weakness” mark in the center of my chest. Considering the sun rays were congregating in that spot, this had to be a feature of evolving into a [Young Sunfang Dragon]. Thankfully, it seems that the area was protected by pretty thick scales as even my claws were having trouble scratching through to it.

My body itself seemed to have gotten bulkier and tougher in general, I think. It was still covered with bone spikes and carapaces, hardened by shimmering crimson scales. I thought a “Sunfang dragon” would be more yellow or white in appearance, but at best, it looked more like I was scarlet now.

My wings also benefited from the evolution, having grown longer and larger, hopefully enough to at least glide. Unfortunately, it seems they still weren’t strong enough to carry my even heavier body up into the sky, meaning that flying still was a no go.

“If I could repair ‘Damaged Mana Paths’, you ask, young scale?” I asked Mister Kushlek’zar as he was examining my body with the enthusiasm of a mad scientist.

[“Yeah, you’ve seen me try to fly, right? Well, the reason why I can’t fly in either of my forms is because I damaged the mana paths in my left wing. I can’t pour mana into them nor are they large enough to support my body,”] I explained to him, reserving a bit of hope that he could help me solve this problem of mine.

“If you ask me to repair it then I wouldn’t know how to, young scale,” he looked at Tasianna, just to see her shake her head in denial. “If not even your fairy companion can do it, a being of pure mana, then you require a professional, Hestia. Unfortunately, the ones I know who are capable enough are in Caedhul.”

"I have suggested going to the elven kingdom for the procedure, but through circumstances, we've reached this kingdom," Tasianna commented.

Well, I guess that didn’t work. Verdammt.

Aside from all those details, my body was actually pretty similar to my former one. Just imagine my [Young Spark Inferno Dragon] form but bigger and with a glowy “magma or sun” core in the middle of my chest.

With that done, let’s see my status board! Profile!

Hestia's Status update

Profile:

Name: Hestia Atsuko

Level: 0

Race: Young Sunfang Dragon

Age: 7 Months

Status:

Health:

9302/9302 (+3438)

Mana:

32453/32453 (+13169)

Strength:

4796 (+1943)

Intelligence:

7896 (+2435)

Vitality:

2735 (+1289)

Wisdom:

3846 (+2065)

Agility:

8000 (+2100)

Stamina:

678/5432 (+2481)

Effects:

[Damaged Mana Paths [Left Wing] (Minor)]

Skill Points:

5350

Unique Skill:

[Dreadflame Dragon Lv. 2] (New)

[Hellblade Dragon Lv. 2] (New)

[Solar Core Lv. 1] (New)

[Venerated Saintess Lv. 1] (New)

Skill:

Magic skills

[Lava Magic Lv. 3] (+1)

[Lightning Magic Lv. 2] (+1)

[White Flames Lv. 1] (New)

[Corrosive Fire Lv. 1] (New)

[Sacred Magic Lv. 6] (+1)

[Earth Magic Lv. 10]

[Earth Amp]

[Earth Magic Efficiency]

[Terra Magic Lv. 3] (+1)

[Wind Magic Lv. 10]

[Wind Amp]

[Wind Magic Efficiency]

[Storm Magic Lv. 1]

[Space-Time Magic Lv. 4]

[Space-Time Magic Efficiency]

[True Draconic Lineage]

[Synergist’s Oath Lv. 6] (+1)

[Draconic Barrier Lv. 6] (+3)

[Silent Casting Lv. 7] (+1)

[Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 7] (+1)

[Long-Range Spell Enhancement Lv. 1] (New)

[Mental Stability Lv. 6] (+1)

[Mental Warfare Lv. 4]

[Fluid Cast Lv. 1] (New)

[Delayed Cast Lv. 1] (New)

[Mana Eyes Lv. 2]

Physical

[Unarmed Technique Lv. 7] (+2)

[Draconic Roar Lv. 4] (+2)

[Sundering Enhancement Lv. 5] (+1)

[Piercing Enhancement Lv. 5] (+1)

[Crushing Enhancement Lv. 3] (+1)

Senses and Movements

[Silence Lv. 1]

[Accuracy Correction Lv. 6]

[Concentration Lv. 4] (+2)

[Foresight Lv. 1]

[Danger Perception Lv. 4] (+1)

[Probability Correction Lv. 5]

[Detection Sensor Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 5]

[Tracking Lv. 3]

[Night Vision Lv. 8]

[Odorless Lv. 1]

[Evasion Lv. 10]

[Acrobatic Lv. 10]

[Air Walk Lv. 3] (+1)

[Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 4]

[Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 1] (New)

Resistances

[Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 4]

[Absolute Pain Tolerance]

[Mental Corruption Resistance Lv. 3]

[Mind Protection Lv. 3]

[Mana Leak Resistance Lv. 2] (+1)

[Abnormal Status Nullification]

[Fear Resistance Lv. 2]

[Lava Resistance Lv. 2] (+1)

[Lightning Resistance Lv. 2] (New)

[Holy Resistance Lv. 8] (+4)

[Inferno Resistance Lv. 3] (+1)

[Terra Resistance Lv. 1]

[Wind Resistance Lv. 2]

[Water Resistance Lv. 2] (+1)

[Dark Resistance Lv. 1]

Growths

[Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 6] (+1)

[Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 5] (+1)

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Speed of Sound Lv. 1]

Others

[Singing Lv. 8] (+1)

[Dancing Lv. 6] (+1)

[Musician Lv. 4] (+1)

[Stage Fever Lv. 2] (New)

[Handicraft Lv. 2]

[Woodworking Lv. 4] (+1)

[Trap Creation Lv. 5] (+1)

[Identity Blocker Lv. 10]

[Identify Lv. 10]

[Battle Mind Lv. 7] (+1)

[Cooking Lv. 7]

[Benevolent Aura Lv. 2]

[Draconic Aura Lv. 1] (New)

[Royal Prescence Lv. 1] (New)

[Dismantle Lv. 7]

[Gluttonous] (New)

[Thought Acceleration Lv. 2]

[High-Speed Calculation Lv. 1]

[Multi-Thought Processing Lv. 1]

[Parallel Thoughts Lv. 9]

[Core Regulation] (New)

[Humanize Lv. 10]

[Pyrokinesis]

[Aerokinesis] [Telepathy]

Ability List:

[Dreadflare Aura]

[Hellblade Edge]

[Scale-Dust Veil]

[Hellflame Breath]

[Solar Beam]

Spell List:

Custom

[Symphonie des Feuergottes]

[Prayer]

Lightning

[Lightning Bolt]

[Purple Flash]

Lava

[Lava Ball]

[Lava Stream]

[Molten Guard]

Holy

[Sacred Smite]

[Sacred Veil]

[Sacred Field]

[Banishment Beam]

[Major Heal]

[Omnictus]

Earth

[Earth Wall]

[Rock Blast]

[Earth Strike]

[Rock Bullet]

[Sturdy Earth]

[Earth Spears]

[Earth Crash]

[Earthen Shackles]

[Terra Wall]

[Bedrock Blades]

[Rumbling Might]

Wind

[Wind Bullet]

[Wind Cutter]

[Air Shield]

[Wind Slash]

[Swift Winds]

[Wind Blast]

[Featherfall]

[Aerial Blitz]

[Tornado Bullet]

Space-Time

[Haste]

[Storage Magic]

[Warp Point: Entry]

The Light

[Shine]

[Sanctuary]

Titles:

[The Light] [Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] [Divine Inferno] (New) [Otherworldly Reincarnator] [Princess]

W-Wow, dude. Guess that System message didn’t lie at all. Additional 300 stats points in everything but what was even more important was that 3000 extra SP. That must be the real jackpot.

True Draconic Lineage

An ancient skill that only a descendant of a true dragon may possess. A combination of multiple skills allowing the dragon to wield immeasurable magic and dragon abilities with ease. Reduces the Mana costs of dragon abilities by half. The skills combined are:   [Draconic Magics], [Arcane Conduit Lv. 10], [Sorcerer’s Power Lv. 10], [Sage’s Wisdom Lv. 10]

Venerated Saintess

A skill that a saintess would earn after proving her abilities to her championed god. In the presence of her followers and supporters, the user will gain parameter boosts depending on the number. Reduces mana cost by 50% if the user uses a spell or skill that benefits one of her followers. Boosts holy elemental spells depending on skill’s level

Draconic Aura

The aura emitted from a fearsome dragon to either dominate or impress others of its kind. As this skill is intended to be used on other dragons, using it on lesser beings would have other effects depending on the user’s mood. The skills combined are:   [Tyrant’s Aura], [Seducer’s Aura], [Charmer’s Charisma]

Royal Presence

A skill only given if the user possesses a title befitting of a royal family member. Lead using the privilege given to them by the Gods themselves. The skills combined are:   [Noble Aura Lv. 10], [Royal Etiquette Lv. 10], [Leadership Lv. 10]

Gluttonous

A skill given to those with a voracious appetite, insatiable even after consuming large quantities of consumables. Increases Stamina regeneration from all sources. The skill   [Starvation] cannot be received while this skill is in the owner’s profile. If the owner consumes food while Stamina is at maximum capacity, [Insatiable Glutton] is inflicted. If the owner would receive the status effects [Starvation] or [Exhaustion], they are instead inflicted with [Starving Weakling]. The skills combined are: [Prime Vigor Lv. 10], [Unyielding Endurance Lv. 10]

Core Regulation

A skill that beings with a heat core possess. Automatically regulates the temperature of the core, preventing it from overheating or freezing. Prevents status effect [Overheated] and [Freezing] while the core status hasn’t reached [0%]

I might as well check out my new racial unique skills, I guess.

Solar Core

A skill unique to a Solar Dragon, an advanced, mutated fire dragon. Allows the dragon to absorb sunlight and store that energy inside the solar core, which can be used as a source of nutrition and healing for the dragon. This energy can be exchanged into Health, Mana, or Stamina. Increases the dragon’s fire and holy abilities and spells while the sun is up or if the sun core is filled. Sun Core Status:   [100%]

Dreadflame Dragon

An advanced skill of a Dreadflame Dragon, the evolved version of a Spark Inferno Dragon. Embracing the absolute firepower of this ruler of the sky, all scale-dust attacks and abilities are improved compared to its previous version

Hellblade Dragon

An advanced skill of a Hellblade Dragon, the evolved version of a Spark Inferno Dragon. Focusing on polishing and sharpening their body into a natural weapon, this skill improves scale-dust concentration around claws, fangs, and tail blade compared to its previous version

I revealed everything that I inspect to everybody involved, aside from the more confidential information as I didn’t want the saurians to know them. This included my age, SP, and that I’m a Reincarnator. I’ll also leave the fact that I can’t evolve anymore out until I can speak about it in private with Saori and Tasianna.

Although he knew that I was a [Young Sunfang Dragon], his lack of knowledge of when a dragon would mature was enough that he couldn’t just guess my age. I’m pretty sure if he knew I was about to turn eight months old in a few days, then he would go crazy.

With this done, it was finally time for me to turn back into a dragonewt.

[Humanization (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko]

A mana mist escaped my body as I activated the skill, covering my humongous body and blocking my view. I could feel my body becoming lighter as seconds passed by. My long neck and tail shortening, while my spine corrected itself to allow me to stand up on two legs.

At this point, I thought I’ve gotten used to the sensation of transforming into a humanoid but doing it with this new body felt weird. There was something crazy about a dragon larger than an elephant transforming into a small little girl, right? I mean, where does all that mass go to?

As the mist dispersed, I opened my eyes and gazed at the people before me, all retaining the height I was used to before my evolution. I looked at Saori and asked her, “How do I look? Any changes?”

“…Disappointingly, no. Your dragon form definitely has changed, even if it’s just the color of your scales. Your dragonewt form…is exactly how I remembered it,” Saori earnestly told me.

Looking down, the scales on my hand did look more crimson than scarlet. Maybe the claws have gotten a bit longer and sharper, but that would only be a minor change. My hair and horns still had the same length and shape, nothing to comment there.

However, what felt different was a heat coming from my chest. My clothes recovered after my transformation so I can’t look if there was a change. Plus…I shouldn’t do it before everybody…

“Saori, Tasianna, come over here please,” I called them over, constructing a square to block everybody’s sight of us while explaining to Mister Kushlek’zar that we had to check something “private.”

Now amongst us girls, I told them of my thoughts and undressed myself to see if what I assumed was true. And there and behold, a large glowing crevice similar to the one in my dragon form was in the spot where my cleavage was. Instead of pink human skin, the area was instead protected by thick scarlet scales, just like in my dragon form.

Honestly, it was weird that my body now had a "glowly spot" you would see in a video game boss would have to direct the player's attention to them. "Hit this, it's my weak spot", you know? The only difference was that my "weak spot" was probably one of the hardest areas to attack.

After putting back on my clothes, our party said goodbye to the saurians and returned back to the village. As we entered the village, I heard from the guards that Saori and Tasianna told everybody that I was spending the night with the saurians, and that I would come back on the next day. It seems like those two took care of everything.

As I entered our house, I noticed a very major difference between the furniture we once had and the ones we now had. Our former furniture was crude, a result of being hastily made by village’S craftsmen. I honestly could make better ones after the lizardmen taught me how to do it, frankly.

But the furniture now was beautiful. All the wooden furniture was covered in resin, giving it a soft touch, while showing clear signs that it was made by experts with care and precision.

Our beds now had soft mattresses with pure white bedsheets, contrasting extremely against the dirty, brown walls of our house. "A rich girl's belongings inside a farmer's house," huh? That has a certain charm, I guess, but not something I ever thought could be possible…

“Well, it is a present from a Count, Hestia. I personally expected a noble’s taste to be too refined for our humble accommodation,” Saori commented. “I could not find any manatech bugs, but could you make sure the Count did not put an enchantment to spy on us?”

I nodded and used [Mana Eyes] on them. Fortunately, none of them had any magical traces. Once I thought we were safe to talk about it, I sat on our new comfy chair and told them about what the System told me after my evolution finished. About the fact that I could still level up but would now receive reduced experience per kill, and also how I was barred from evolving into an A rank before fulfilling the requirements.

Five years. I had to wait five years for my evolution and to lose the “Young” prefix in my race name. At least that’s what I concluded when it said, “maturation requirement”. It’ll be a while, but I have the feeling that these five years will pass by easily.

After our small discussion, the three of us then went to do whatever we wanted for the day. Saori had some stuff to do in the village and Tasianna hadn’t taken care of the plants yet. I personally jumped on my new bed, enjoying the soft sensation of a finely made bed. I could just fall asleep now, but Saori would lecture me if I just took a nap now.

There are still five days left until my meeting with Count Helvas. Better start the prep~

A note from AbyssRaven

She's become pretty large, huh? Others would call it...thicc. >:)

In other news, welcome Sunfang Hestia because we will be seeing a lot of her.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 10 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 92: Master and Student.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #3 her to promote our Patreon. 12 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 12 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until October!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Accuracy Correction Lv. 7] [Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 5] [Enhanced Vision Lv. 6] [Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 2] [Wind Resistance Lv. 4] gained

“Are you really sure you want to drink that, Krim-Slak?” I asked, chomping down on a fragassa as I watched Krim-Slak nearly drink a purple liquid.

He placed the bottle of liquid on the ground and shook his head in exasperation before chastising me, “I’m here to help you test your skills and new custom spell, young scale. Stop worrying about me and prepare the spell already. Even if it fails, training my [Paralyzation Resistance] isn’t a bad thing.”

“We always have curatives on hand for status afflictions, Hestia. Water magic doesn’t have any abnormal status healing spells, so these are a must for our party,” Mister Kushlek’zar explained while dangling a glass bottle filled with a green liquid. “One of the reasons why holy mages have grown to be so respected is their access to early healing spells and [Cure]. Potions made with alchemy can do the same but are usually far more expensive.”

Urgh, I understand, but I don’t want him to suffer if my spell fizzles.

“As a holy mage, a priestess of Goddess of Aurena, you must be able to cure minor poisons and venoms. With the loss of your [Cure], the finalization of your custom spell is imperative,” the saurian priest stated, straining how important it is for me to cast this new custom spell I made.

Three days have passed since I evolved into a [Young Sunfang Dragon], which meant today was the 25th of AuthumnSun. In other words, it was time again for my Age to increase a month. I was officially eight months old now, according to my profile, just like Saori who became four months old.

The night after I finished evolving, Saori came back home to give me a rundown of what missed during that time period. As our meeting, or rather, my meeting with Count Helvas was happening soon, most of what we discussed had to do with that immediate problem.

Following the instructions I wrote for her, Saori started three yeast farms, all cultivating inside my self-crafted wooden bottles. Seeing bubbles appear made me quite excited about how they would end up. It was nostalgic, reminding me of the time I did it with my Mama back on Earth.

As guests, we had a duty to bring presents to thank the host for inviting us, especially if we were the guests of a real life noble. I had a feeling he wasn’t actually expecting anything from us, as we literally brought no belongings with us when we moved into the village, but better safe than sorry. I wouldn’t be giving him the yeast, of course, but what I will do is gift him something I will make with it. You guessed it: cake.

I know he’s a man but, come on, it’s cake! Who doesn’t like cake? Even if he doesn’t like it, he had to have a wife, right? He’s a noble, and we all know how nobles could have multiple wives in medieval times according to history documentaries and shows, right? He could even give it to his daughter.

It’s a low risk that it’ll backfire, so I considered it a great present. What’s important is that we gave him something, of course, especially after we accepted his “presents.” We didn’t want to look unthankful when our intention for this visit was to ask for a favor.

The other discussion topic was my outfit. It was decided by Saori and Tasianna, without my consensus, that if I was supposed to be the “star” of our party, then I absolutely had to look the part. Technically, I am, unwillingly, a princess of royal dragon blood according to Tasianna and the saurians, which makes me the only real noble among us. Even if I wanted to argue against it, my [Princess] title didn’t allow me to.

And as I now know how much Saori loved to use me as a dress-up doll for her clothing creations, I had no right to veto this idea. Going in my normal get-up was acceptable, I believe, but maybe dressing the part will help us persuade him better.

This also included our parties’ shoes we requested from Ruld the cobbler, a childhood friend of Lorena. After I began my evolution, Saori immediately went back to Ruld, this time together with Tasianna. They requested theirs and also decided on the final design of my boots.

Saori also managed to make contact with the bakers of the village. It was decided that I would build them new ovens with my magic, in exchange for us being able to use them whenever we needed them. Yes, we could have just made one inside our own home, but due to the garden and all our new furniture, we didn't have much room left for an oven.

Now that I think about it, Saori is fucking amazing. She managed to do all of those things in the single day I was unconscious.

After that, we just had to wait. Our three days of wait have been used for training and concert planning. As I had a new body, I needed to get used to it immediately. I still hadn’t finished practicing and mastering Danterno’s “gifts” yet, so there was much to do for me.

One of my most recent achievements was the creation of my second custom spell. A spell I would be casting for the first time, right now.

“Well, cheers,” Krim-Slak announced, pouring the purple liquid into his mouth before swallowing it all in one big gulp. “Kri, drinking poison never changes. You can’t get used to that awful taste, ever.”

Tell me about it, dude…

After losing my ability to produce toxins with my body, as Danterno “kindly” chose to get rid of [Toxin Secretion], I had to make do with [Corrosive Fire]. Poisons and venoms were one of Saori’s and my most important tools in battles. The flexibility and lethality of concoctions I could make and apply on attacks made fighting against stronger opponents far easier, so it would be an understatement if we said we missed them.

My current toxin creation using [Corrosive Fire] was inefficient. Although I could control the the effects of the “corrosive” part of the fire, it was unusable for Saori in that form as she didn’t have [Pyrokinesis]. The only way for her to use my toxins was for me to overheat myself and have my sweat capture the toxins.

I don’t think I have to say how uncomfortable that was. I don’t sweat from temperatures humans consider infernos, I sweat under conditions even fire dragonewts would overheat.

Using [Core Regulation], I could manually increase my body temperature high enough so I could sweat enough for a whole vial of poison for Krim-Slak to drink. He was my practice dummy for my new spell.

“Urgh, got [Paralyzation (Minor)]. Look at how slow my arm is moving, ruha ha ha ha ha ha!” Krim-Slak laughed maniacally, almost as if he was enjoying it. "Come on, young scale, don't just stare. Do it already and make sure it works otherwise, we might have to waste that expensive curative, ha ha!”

“O-Oh, yeah,” I fumbled with the wooden tablets before me, trying to find the one with the chant. Reading the chant one more time, making sure that everything was correct, I began the casting process of the spell.

“Hear me, my embers of white

Your form so bright, your warmth so soothing

Burn, naught for who you once were

The Light beckons, seeking your aid

White fire, mend and protect my allies!

Sanctified Blaze!”

Pointing my index finger at Krim-Slak, a white circle appeared before it. After casting the spell, the magic circle attached itself onto the elder scale-kin like a tattoo, before releasing white flames.

"Woah!" Krim-Slak uttered in surprise, reflexively readying his hand to smother it. "I-I feel no pain. No heat! It honestly feels like being healed by a holy spell! Damn!"

Using his personal dagger, the bulky saurian cut his arm, tearing through scales and flesh until blood began leaking out. The white flames hurriedly moved towards the wound, wrapping itself around it before dispersing to other parts of his body, leaving no signs of him ever cutting himself.

It acts exactly like my healing spells. Flesh and scales are being reformed. The flames helped the regeneration process!

The flames continued moving around his body as if they were restlessly chasing something away. After a couple seconds, their movements dulled and the flames returned to the white magic circle, causing Krim-Slak to widen his eyes, “The status effect is gone. By the Goddess, your spell just got rid of [Paralyzation (Minor)]. Extraordinary!”

“Hmm, it seems I can touch the flames without being burned. This isn’t the case with the fire your body produces, right, Hestia?” Mister Kushlek’zar stated after touching the white fire on Krim-Slak’s arm.

I nodded in agreement. Compared to what was happening now, there was one huge difference between the spell and my own [White Flames]. Both fires could heal wounds automatically, almost as if it was a HoT, a Heal over Time effect. However, the flames I produced naturally from my body were hot and could burn others, while the one cast as a spell weren’t.

…Actually, I haven’t tested that yet. Maybe this was a special trait of these flames?

“Alright, let me try out the secondary function, haaa!” Mister Kushlek’zar announced, readying his raptor-like claws to slash Krim-Slak. However, before his claws connected, the white flames suddenly grew in size and enveloped themselves around the saurian priest’s hand, forcing him to withdraw it.

“Argh!” his once green scales on his hand were now slightly black, singed by the fire he touched. “Ocean Healing”, he cast to heal his hand using magical water, returning the vibrancy back to his scales.

Smirking at what happened, I couldn’t help but clap my hands together from total excitement.

The spell worked, ahahaha!

I can’t believe this. I can’t believe this! The spell actually worked exactly how I imagined it. “Sanctified Blaze” was a new custom spell I developed with the help of Mister Kushlek’zar using [White Flames] as the “element” of the spell. Whether it was the intention of Danterno or not, I could use both [White Flames] and [Corrosive Fire] as the base for a spell.

Mister Kushlek’zar called those two skills “empty vessels”. Two magic skills with the ability to create spells but providing none for the user to use. The only way for these skills to reach their maximum potential was for me to start creating spells with them.

“Thank you so very much, Mister Kushlek’zar. I can’t believe it actually worked on the first try this time,” I giggled like a little girl, remembering how my first custom spell [Imperial Hellfire] always fizzled and failed whenever I tried to use it. “However, the System didn’t say that it got registered. Did I do something wrong?”

"No, you didn't," he answered, still inspecting the white magic circle. "Most mages assume the first cast of their spell will be a failure, which is the case most of the time. We went through the spell creation meticulously, going through every word, every part of the magic circle, and how you should envision your spell. You got lucky on your first cast, a proof of your talents, but to make the System recognize the spell, you need to cast it as if you mastered every last part of it.”

When Mister Kushlek'zar mentioned "mastered," he meant knowing what my spells did in and out. We needed to test the spell and see everything that it could do, which included how long it would last and if it could heal moderate stage status affliction or not.

From our tests, we found out that as long as the spell lasted, it could heal the recipient of the spell as much as they needed. There was no cap. It truly acted like a HoT like [Sacred Field].

Strength-wise, it seems the healing wasn’t burst-like. It would heal wounds slowly and it couldn’t cure abnormal statuses above minor. We had to use one of the saurians’ potions when we found out that my spell couldn’t heal Krim-Slak’s [Paralyzation (Moderate)]. Poor him.

Mister Kushlek’uar suggested the strength of the spell was lacking either ‘cause of my chant or the level of [White Flames]. If it was the latter, all I needed to do was to start leveling that skill up. If it was the former? Well, then I’ll have to work on it in the future.

We also tested what its effective range was. Acting just like Saori’s [Shadow Snake], the spell would function even without me in the area. The Mana I used to cast the spell lingered inside the magic circle, after all.

Now concerning the casting range, it was similar to [Minor Heal], [Moderate Heal], and [Major Heal]. I could only cast it on people directly in front of me.

The last thing we needed to test was the damage. Currently, I didn’t know if it was elementally more aligned to holy or fire. I couldn’t burn myself on my own fire spells, so this meant that it had to have some fire inside itself. I also want to know how much it can protect its recipient from attacks.

“Come on, Saori!” While I was contemplating this, my attention was drawn to two people sparring with each other, a wolfkin and a carnosilian. “Having a high Agility is advantageous, but with those large movements, you're just wasting your Stamina! In a drawn-out battle, the moment your Stamina reaches zero, your chances of winning will be the slimmest.”

“Yes!” Saori responded back energetically to Grazlahta, her sparring partner, sweating buckets full as she dodged every attack.

After our duel with each other, Saori and Tasianna lost their reason to hide their extra training from me. Saori would fight and train her body with both carnosilians, learning how to wield daggers while she was a wolfkin. I considered joining her, but I noticed how little leisure time I would have if I did.

On my list of to-dos, I had to attend Mister Kushlek’zar’s tutoring on magic, master my two new fire skills and create custom spells with them to replace my loss of [Fire Magic] and [Inferno Magic], learn how my body worked and how to effectively use my scale-dust, and lastly, prepare my concert. There were too many things on my schedule that also doing physical training was just too much.

Instead of doing everything, I’ll concentrate on becoming the best in one category first, and then the next. Exactly like Tasianna. Instead of joining me in creating new custom spells, Tasianna was training up her magic skills first. She wanted both [Wind Magic] and [Water Magic] to reach level 10, to attain the advanced versions [Storm Magic] and [Torrent Magic].

Knowing the sorta spells she will get from them; she was planning to enrich her arsenal of System spells before starting on creating custom spells.

As I was watching Saori and Grazlahta fight, I suddenly had an idea. I activated [Humanization], revealing my wings, and used wind spells to “fly” towards them. With my wings having grown after my evolution, it was now so much easier for me to keep myself afloat with magic. I couldn’t fly with my strength alone yet, but flapping my wings while staying in the air was flying in my book.

Staying around Saori like an annoying fly, who was ignoring me, I began casting “Sanctified Blaze” again, now having completely remembered the chant and flow,

“Hear me, my embers of white

Your form so bright, your warmth so soothing

Burn, naught for who you once were

The Light beckons, seeking your aid

White fire, mend and protect my allies!

Sanctified Blaze!”

Custom magic gained:   [Sanctified Blaze]

Custom spell   [Sanctified Blaze] has been perfectly integrated into the System

"Ohhh, wohooo!" once the spell attached itself to Saori, the System suddenly sent me the message I was longing to see. Thrilled at reading it, I began celebrating as my parallel minds kept me afloat by casting wind spells. "Mister Kushlek'zar I did it! The spell got accepted by the System. Yes! Ahahahah! My first spell, my first spell, my first spell! See that Danterno! I don't your meddling to do it, I could have perfected [Imperial Hellfire] on my own!”

“Hestia, I am happy for you but could you celebrate some-, urgh, where else instead of here, where you are interrupting us!” Saori chastised me, dodging to the side from Grazlahta’s attack. As she did that, flames started seeping from the magical circle, retaliating against Grazlahta.

Identify!

Sanctified Blaze

A holy-fire mixed elemental spell using white flames to protect its recipient. Continuously heals Health and cures status affliction while it is in effect. White flames will also attempt to shield its recipient from attacks, depending on the will of the user. The power and effectiveness of this spell does not increase through increasing the Mana cost but through the skill [White Flames] and Intelligence stat of the caster

I couldn’t stop smiling. It was like my muscles themselves wouldn’t want to listen to my brain. I did feel a bit embarrassed about not being able to control myself but what could I do? Damn, this elation of having made a custom spell might be addicting.

“Hey, hey, Mister Kushlek’zar!” I called out as I flew to him. “This means that [Sanctified Blaze] now follows the rules of the System, right? It gets boosted by ‘amp’ skills and I don’t have to do the chant anymore, right? Just like [Prayer] and [Symphonie des Feuergottes], right? Ahhhhh, this is amazing~”

To some people, my voice might have sounded like a hyperactive squirrel, as I pranced around in the air as I flapped my wings like a crazy bird, uncontrollably casting wind magic to balance myself in the air. But to me, it felt just appropriate to do so. It’s magic! I made my own magic spell! Hello, that’s something spectacular, never before seen, a moment in my life!

Just like when I cast my first spell, or the moment [Imperial Hellfire] appeared in my profile. Magical, magical, magical! I’ve been in this world for eight months but something like this is still able to excite me to no ends, it seems.

“Hmm, pretty much yeah. However, never forget the chants of the spells, alright? [Symphonie des Feuergottes], [Sanctified Blaze], and any other custom spell you create in the future, they are your creation and the creator should always know their spells best,” Mister Kushlek’zar lectured me, staying strict as always. “And do not forget, once you get the chance to register at a mages guild, do it promptly! Register yourself as a mage and display your spells, which will not only increase your prestige but ‘legalize’ your spells.”

I was told that it was imperative for me to announce highly destructive spells like [Symphonie des Feuergottes] to the mage’s guild. The guild was responsible for managing magicians in the kingdom, so the threat of an unknown spell like this would make some people sweat. Instead of angering some old, sensitive archmage, it would be better to just follow some rules.

“Also, if they ever ask you for a master, I wouldn’t mind you naming me as yours, ha ha ha,” Mister Kushlek’zar stated in a joking tone, but seeing the glint in his eyes and the prideful smile he had made me think otherwise. “Honestly, I am really thankful for your help, young scale. If I hadn’t met you, Saori, and Tasianna, I don’t know when I’d be able to receive [Instruction]. Lacking it after training so many Depth Guard apprentices had always been a thorn to my pride. Witnessing you create a new functional custom spell under my tutelage has been an honor, my student.”

“Hie hie, well I couldn’t have done any it without you, Master Kush!” I beamed a smile, causing the elder scale to stroke his plumage in embarrassment, showing extreme joy through his waggling tail.

It was true that creating this spell took a while. The importance of creating a custom spell lied with the caster’s ability to imagine the spell, and then record those thoughts into words, acting as the chant. Mister Kushlek’zar explained to me that mages are fleeting and adventurous, seeking knowledge and new experience just like the God of Knowledge and Magic, Istari.

Creativity and knowledge were important to creating a spell, as a mage needed to know how their spell was supposed to look and do. With [Fluid Cast], they were able to morph their magic but without little inspiration, most custom spells would just seem like a weaker version of a System spell.

He explained a normal mage would learn magic from a tutor or instructor. The “master” would teach them their custom spells and tell them how to cast spells and use them in the real world. Apprentice mages would imprint all this information and the habits of their masters, developing themselves as a lesser version of them if they continued staying under their tutelage.

This would be alright when they were building their foundation, leveling up their magic skills and increasing their Mana, Intelligence, and Wisdom stats. However, once they began developing their own custom spells, many began to realize all they were trying to create were replicas.

A normal mage at this phase was considered “sheltered”, having experienced only System spells or the custom spells of their master. They couldn’t think outside of the box. They kept studying tomes and parchments, taking so much pride in them that most forget Istari’s lessons.

At least, these were Master Kush’s opinions, developed from his stay in Caedhul. He loved his stay there as a Depth Guard priest, as it was an invaluable opportunity to serve Plesia and the country that took him and his race in.

But he knew if he wanted to continue developing himself as a mage, he needed to wander. So he became a Tide Watcher, a wandering justicar in the service of Plesia. He could wander the world and learn. Exactly what a mage should be doing in his opinion.

A good mage would wander the world, travel, and fight against many foes. This was their chance to test their mettle, their trained knowledge, and come out of it with power and experience. This would fuel the mage’s ability to create new and powerful custom spells.

I guess in that case, I was quite “knowledgeable.” Having had the power of the internet, it was easy for me to think of spell effects. [Sanctified Blaze] attaching itself like a tattoo and acting like a “Heal over Time” from an RPG game. [Symphonie des Feuergottes] might have been finalized by Danterno but no way could he have known about a symphony’s movement.

“I admit that my only self-made custom spell is [Tehenhauin]. The others were taught to me by my elder scales,” Master revealed. “That sight that inspired me, that magnificent creature who was gracious enough to show me its power. How lucky I am to have survived that, he he he.”

Master Kush then looked down, heaved a sigh, before crossing our sights once again, “If you truly consider me your Master, then I must start acting like one. I am far too green. Our meeting has given me so much inspiration for new custom spells. We will soon say our farewells, but once we meet again, I assure you that I will live up to my role by then, young scale.”

Hearing the word “farewell” did dampen my mood for a second as I never really liked that word, but I knew I had to stay strong here, “Yeah, I’ll make sure to show you some cool spells too, when we meet again.”

"Ha ha ha, that's what I want to hear!" he laughed merrily, before turning his head to Tasianna. "You too, Tasianna! I expect much from a fellow worshiper of the Depth Goddess! Show me how powerful your ice magic will be the next time we meet."

Having her focus broken, Tasianna flinched as she hurried process an answer, “A-Ah, yes, yes! For my princess and to become stronger in general, I will make sure to become a mage worthy in your eyes, Priest Kushlek’zar!”

“Good answer! You have the spirit of a saurian, Tasianna!” Master Kush then opened his pouch, taking out a leather bag. “We will be leaving on the 29th as the villagers wish to arrive at their village in time for Origdiviel Arashan. I believe the mercenaries helping out in the village also are planning to go then too. Here are a few macula plant seeds. You will be training, I presume, after I leave so having them on hand is important. The last thing you want to do is cause strong monsters to spawn around the village, right?”

I accepted his offer with gratitude. I was planning to train with Tasianna and Saori during winter, so these are invaluable to us. Imagine us polluting the area with so much mana that something like a C rank monster would appear. We could all take one on easily, but if a villager saw that, then I think Count Helvas would complain about it.

Besides, Master Kush did say that the water these macula plants produced was high-quality mana water. We had to hand them to the lord for now, but once we were outside the area, we could just, you know, "farm" them, he he. I had enough mana to do so.

With our training over, we said goodbye to the saurians for today as we had something important to do.

“Alright, Ruld should be finished with our boots,” Saori announced as we walked outside the woods. “Let us visit him and then…time for your little dress-up, Hestia~ ”

Oh boy…

A note from AbyssRaven

So, my Patreon just reached the second milestone and I've expanded the available chapters to 12. That means, at the two highest tiers, you are able to read 12 chapters ahead of the current RR release. T2 gets 6 chapters now, too.

Thank you to everybody, RR and Patreon, for all the support you've been given me and the story. Thank you, guys!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 12 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 93: Preparations for the Dinner.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #4 her to promote our Patreon. 12 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 12 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until October!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

Core Status.

[Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko]’s solar core status: [100%]

It fills up so fast when I’m under the sun.

“Yeah, 100%, no problem like always,” I answered as I chomped on a meat skewer, one of the many “snacks” I placed inside my storage.

“Good. This is something neither us nor the saurians could answer, so monitoring it is important. Such a weird biological phenomenon,” Saori uttered. “You can transform all that energy into nutrients, right? Similar to photosynthesis? Do you really need to eat all the time, because I believe your eating has increased remarkably, regardless of the fact you have [Gluttonous]?”

Touching my new physical characteristic under my clothes, I felt an incredible heat radiating from my chest. My solar core, a feature I got from my evolution, was bursting with energy, filled to its maximum capacity from absorbing all the sun rays.

Saying goodbye for the day to the saurians, my party walked outside of the woods where sun rays were illuminating the area without being blocked by the woods’ orange foliage. From how huge the leaf piles were, it shouldn’t be long until the tree lost all their leaves.

Since my core was something Tasianna and the saurians couldn’t explain to me, Saori and Tasianna have decided to monitor my condition to learn more about it. I also couldn’t say much about it. Everything I knew about it was from its description and the tests we’ve done the past days. At least I was sure my core wasn’t my heart; instead, it seemed like it was an entirely different organ.

The tests we’ve done on it were mostly to see how much stress it could take. As I could absorb sunlight and turn it into energy like a plant could, I had to know what its limits were. Using it as a way to feed myself would be a complete waste of potential.

In battle, I could activate the core to increase my Health, Mana, and Stamina regeneration at a certain rate. One trick I found out is if I concentrated fully on either Mana or Stamina, I could continuously use spells and dragon abilities and offset the costs with the increase regeneration speed. The Health regeneration my core could do was a nice backup plan in case I ever was at risk of Arcane Fever, as it didn't accumulate arcane corruption, but its healing was far inferior compared to [Major Heal] or [White Flames]’s automatic healing.

While it might sound all fine and dandy, doing this while I wasn’t absorbing sunlight was foolish. In one of my duels with Master Kush, we fought under an earth dome where the sun was blocked while I had to continuously use my core’s energy. In this situation, my core depleted quickly, and an intense lethargy made it impossible for me to continue fighting.

Eating food helped restore some power, but it couldn’t alleviate the energy consumption in an intense duel. Never use the core while fighting inside a cave or during the night, was what I learned. In any other condition, beware enemies of mine, for the sun hungers.

“I could, yes. The energy I get from using the core is fulfilling and we all know how brokenly efficient photosynthesis is in nutrition production. Between eating meat or transforming sunlight into energy, of course, the latter is better,” I answered Saori’s question, unfazed by it as I finished my skewer. “But tasting and filling my stomach is half the fun of eating. My solar core’s photosynthesis merely gets rid of the feeling of hunger. Not the cravings. [Young Sunfang Dragon]’s description of how it always feels hungry seemed to be true.”

“My Lady, I believe Miss Saori knew that and was instead pointing out the fact of our potential food problems in the future,” Tasianna interjected herself into the discussion.

Realizing Saori was talking about money again, I gave a shy laugh as Saori sighed about it. With our usual ramblings, we entered the village and went directly towards Lorena’s and Ruld’s families’ house.

We knocked on their door and entered once Lorena let us in. Inside, lively sounds of a filled house could be heard as I saw two teenagers, a boy and girl, a young man, an older woman, and lastly a tall, muscular man all crowding around a table. Instead of a warm and friendly atmosphere, an intense argument was currently being held between the two men.

“Holy shit, Ruld, have you learned nothing from your job? If you’re selling something, make sure you keep it lookin’ good! You ain’t sellin’ these to a fucking villager,” the muscular man scolded the young man, meticulously cleaning something black with trained movements.

“What do you mean by that, old man?! It ain’t my fault, here! They were looking perfect, the best shoes I’ve ever made! Shout at Wendy for messing around in the house,” he then snapped his head in the direction of the two teens, glaring at the girl with unbridled anger. “Fuckin’ hell! Those shoes are for the noble priestess, Wendy. Why did you have to jump around like that when you should know how much work we all put into them?! Argh, Wendy, damnit, damnit!”

"C-Come on, bro, you're being too harsh on her," the boy spoke up for, I presume, his sister. "The Priestess was doing this dance and sis was only copying it. She's crying, she already said sorry."

“Hick, I’m so s-sorry,” the girl sobbed uncontrollably, only to be soothed by her mother.

…Okay, what am I looking at?

After a moment of being shocked frozen at what I was seeing, the family of five eventually noticed us and Ruld quickly apologized for his family’s “embarrassing” display.

From Lorena's explanations, it seems his younger sister Wendy accidentally spilled some water on the shoes our party requested, which caused both Ruld and his father to panic. They immediately cooperated with each other to dry and clean the shoes, all while throwing insults at each other for different reasons. Ruld was angry at his sister and his father was angry at Ruld for shouting at his sister. Family drama, a classic.

"I-I'm so, so, so, so very sorry, m'lady Priestess. I-I didn't mean to do it, so please forgive brother Ruld," the girl, Wendy, apologized heartfully, crying her eyes red as she bowed.

Overhearing she was copying my dance; I couldn’t exactly be mad at her. To be honest, it was only water, and our shoes will have to endure long travel distances anyways so if they fell apart just ‘cause of that, then only then will I become mad.

I told the girl how flattering it was for me for having my dance copied and that I wasn’t angry at her or her brother. She quickly calmed down once she saw me smiling, showing no signs of being angered at all. She even informed me how enthusiastic she was for my next sermon and hoped I could show her my dance again.

Uh, nah, sorry, Wendy. Never doing a sermon again if I can avoid it. I’m not a big fan of doing them.

With that behind us, Ruld finally had the chance to reveal his creation to us. The nervous expression he and his father made me giggle a bit, as I began inspecting my shoes, I mean boots.

Before me stood a pair of knee-high boots, colored black from a charcoal-made paint I could see on the table. They were flat, either 'cause Ruld couldn't make high heels or 'cause Saori made sure they were combat-ready, as high-heeled boots would be risky to use in battle.

“As you requested, the shoes are made from orc skin and the soles from wyvern skin. They were tough to work with, especially the wyvern skin, but the results should tell you everything,” Ruld explained to me.

“Gotta say how lucky I am to get my hands on some orc and wyvern leather. Honestly, m’lady Priestess, I heard from Glenn that you rescued him from those bandits, but I thought those lizardfolk did most of the work. It was a real shock when I came home to see Ruld work on them leathers,” Dierck, Ruld’s father whose name I just learned, said that in the most stoic way possible to hide his excitement and anxiousness. “Never had the chance to work on these fine leathers around the village. Thankfully, Ruld had enough experience with monster leather from his time at Firwood. Praise the Goddess for that.”

From what I heard from Saori, Ruld was a cobbler at Firwood. Compared to a normal cobbler from Earth, Ruld's job wasn’t just creating shoes from animal leather but also monster leather. As a town with monster slayers inhabiting it for work, Ruld had many chances to create shoes out of those materials.

Ruld’s whole family was specialized in creating anything leather related. His father was the tanner, his mother a seamstress, and his siblings were trained in leatherworking just like him. The shoes might have been Ruld’s request, but it seems the whole family worked hard on it to finish them as soon as possible with the highest quality they could muster.

And it showed, the boots honestly displayed their hard work.

Orc skinned boots with scaled soles

A pair of boots made with the thick skin of a D ranked orc, complemented with wyvern leather as their soles. The sturdiness of the boots can stop most common weapons, while the flexibility allows the wearer to stay agile.

Skill

[Slash Resistance Lv. 3]
[Physical Resistance Lv. 3]

[Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 4]

All the components of the boots came from the materials we gathered in the Belzac forest. We used the orc skin I got from the ones I defeated in the cave, while the wyvern leather came from the three C ranks who pursued me. Ruld couldn’t process the wyvern leather with his tools so Saori had to help him with her claws.

Ability-wise, they weren’t anything spectacular but what was more important was the design. They exuded a modern vibe, probably a result of Saori's design, as they heavily contrasted the villager’s shoes.

Both the toe box and the heel counter, the front and hind ends of the boots, were missing as it needed to accommodate the claws and scales on my feet. It might seem weird that the hind part was also missing but, from initial wearing tests, my scales would scratch on the leather, causing some unwanted damage. It was decided that both the front and hind had to be removed to ensure the boots’ longevity.

To finish its design, black shoelaces kept them tight to my legs while I was wearing them.

Feels awesome, I thought as I wore them.

Looking over at Saori’s and Tasianna’s, I could see similar design choices to mine.

Saori’s looked exactly like mine, only with heel counters as the fur on her feet didn’t irritate the boots. As her claws were also long, the front had to be removed too. Ruld mentioned that most beastmen he worked with had sandal-like designs due to the claws on their feet, so he was already used to it prior to our request.

Tasianna was the only one among us who had shoes. Hers looked similar to the ones “maids” in maid cafes always wore. No idea if it was the same design in this world, as Tasianna never wore shoes in her fairy form.

“These are awesome, thank you very much, everybody,” I thanked everybody involved in the creation of our shoes.

After Saori gave them a huge amount of meat as the payment, which shocked the whole family at how much we had, we said our goodbyes as our business was done here.

Before I walked outside, I leaned close to Lorena to whisper into her ears, “How was it? Did you tell your parents?”

She paused for a moment, looked at me for a second before giving me a nod, “Yes, thank you and Saori for telling me to do that. My parents…they told me that they already had a feeling it would happen after I was taken to that man. They didn’t blame me but they were furious at him for, well, ‘deflowering’ me. However, they also understood if anybody knew this, I would probably be in more trouble than I could think of. They told me that the best way out of this was to marry somebody as soon as possible before my belly started growing.”

Marry, huh…I guess her choices were pretty limited to begin with.

On Earth, there was the choice of having an abortion but I’m pretty this choice was impossible with the lack of a doctor in the village. I mean, most of the villagers relied on priests coming to the village for healing. I don’t think anybody could do such a task here.

“Do you want to marry?” I asked her in a serious tone.

“I mean, I have to even without this circumstance. My mother and father do want grandchildren, and me too…a real one is what I want,” she replied as she glanced at her stomach. “But I’m not sure who to choose. It has to be someone I can trust with this secret and is willing to help me.”

“…Have you asked Ruld, yet? You’re always blushing around him ever since he arrived,” I nonchalantly stated, causing Lorena face to turn into a ripe tomato.

“W-What?! No, no, no, no, I couldn’t. He’s a childhood friend, a very dear friend, I just couldn’t…,” but before she could continue, Ruld suddenly came over with a leaf-wrapped package.

“Ahh, thank the goddess you are still here, m’lady Priestess. This here is a special cleaning wax made with tree sap and honey used for cleaning monster leather. You gave us enough meat to last us through the whole winter, so this is on the house. Thank you so very much for your patronage!” he said before dashing back into the house, where his family already began processing the meat into jerky.

Seeing how Lorena was blushing in the direction of Ruld, I gave her a small knock on her shoulder and wished her luck, before rejoining my party. We returned home and immediately started the dress-up session, with Saori testing out a few prototypes on me before we finally decided what fitted me and the boots.

As this was my only footwear, my outfit for Count Helvas’ dinner invitation had to suit it. Saori also took the chance to remind Tasianna and me that we shouldn’t be fighting in our new footwear, as they weren’t made with mana threads. If Saori or I were to transform mid-fight into our original forms, then the boots would rip apart and be ruined forever. Tasianna wouldn’t rip apart her shoes ‘cause she turns smaller, but they would fall off and might get destroyed in the crossfire.

Our shoes were for our everyday life. They were there for us to look normal, in other words. Although the saurians weren’t wearing any sorta shoes either, suggesting people from Caedhul weren’t shoe fanatics, it was appropriate to wear them in this country.

After the dressing session, Saori went back to work and started adding more details to my dress until it was time to sleep. I heard Saori and Tasianna were staying in their normal outfits as they were technically my retainers according to their titles, and this was the impression they gave Count Helvas' head butler Barathan.

The next morning, the day before my meeting, our yeast had finally finished cultivating. Seeing the bubbles forming above the water and taking in the sour, vinegary smell was nostalgic to experience. It’s been a while, but nothing beats homemade yeast water made with delicious fruits.

“Wow, so this is how ‘yeast’ is made,” Tasianna commented with curiosity, saying yeast in Common tongue for us to know. “The elves always brought the finished version to us, so I didn’t know how to make it. Especially this ‘sourdough’. This was a wonderful experience.”

Apparently, the concept of yeast wasn’t unknown in this world. Yeast was used in elven bread, something Tasianna has tasted before. I wasn’t sure if this country knew about it but considering how close it was to the elven kingdom, it would weird if they didn’t. I expect at least nobles and merchants to have heard of it.

With the yeast finished, we took the three bottles with yeast starters and went to the village’s bakers. Tasianna, unexpectedly, followed us as she was interested in the usage of yeast.

“Ahh, Miss Saori! Welcome, welcome, are you here for more flour and rice? My husband hasn’t finished today’s batches yet so I can’t trade you any yet, ha ha!” a woman about the size of Saori cheerily answered the door, smiling like she was greeting a good friend until she noticed Tasianna and me. “And a fe-! Ah, m’lady Priestess! I apologize for not greeting you first, he he. I didn’t get the chance to thank you but bless your soul for all that you’ve done for us. I heard from my friends you saved about what you did for them and I can’t help but thank you with all my heart. May the Goddess keep the shadows away from your path.”

Rita looked like she was a few years younger than Harriet, Colwyn's wife, as she had a few wrinkles. Her belly was bloated, not 'cause she was obese but due to pregnancy, I believe. I haven’t seen a single obese person in the village yet and I don’t think Rita would be the single exception here.

She gave me a friendly praying bow, before resuming, “I heard from Miss Saori that the villagers are giving you a hard time. Please don’t take it too badly. Miss Saori and the people you saved told me how friendly you are despite being a noble priestess, but most people don’t know that fact. The priests who visited our village rarely spoke with us and mostly stayed at Lord Count Helvas’ mansion, while every kid is taught to not get too close to nobles. There are also a few who are afraid of beastmen, heh heh heh.”

“You aren’t?” I asked her, tilting my head to the side.

"Nah. Beastmen adventurers usually visit the bakery or my brother's tavern, so I know how they are. Some are real handfuls while others are pleasant to speak with. Just like in our village. There are black sheep and idiots here, too," she answered before beckoning us to enter, swinging her medium-length hair around. “Ah, where are my manners. My name is Rita, and I thank the Goddess for our meeting today. Now, come in, please. If you are here, m'lady Hestia, then does that mean you'll make me a new oven?"

Considering Saori was making friends with the whole village, I guess it was no surprise she knew my name. I did also announce it at the sermon, so I guess that could be a factor, too. Honestly, Saori has been making friends with everybody. If I wasn’t so preoccupied with my own training, I would do that, too!

As we entered her house, Rita tried to strike up a conversation with Tasianna but as our fairy friend wasn’t a human lover, she simply thanked Rita for letting her inside and stayed quiet. Hey, it was better than the time she met the unconscious Lorena.

Inside, we quickly noticed how large the interior was. I probably should have noticed the size of the house before we came in, but I only realized it after we came inside. Compared to Lorena’s and mine, Rita’s house was large enough to fit two family bedrooms, a living room with plenty of tables, a separate space for the hearth and, possibly, ovens. It looked like a bakery was mixed in with the family part of the house.

In the cooking area, I asked Rita how many ovens she needed and how they were supposed to look. She told me she needed two ovens as the demand for bread was extremely high throughout the year, especially with unmarried men as they rarely knew how to bake properly. She didn’t give me any details for the appearance as it only needed to be large enough for her to put multiple batches of dough inside them.

Knowing it had to fit inside their house, I went outside and constructed two [Terra Wall]s. In the middle of them, I carved a large hole in the shape of a half-circle, and emptied its inside for the kindling and dough to fit in. It was a very simple construction I saw on TV, but it seems none of the villagers could craft one now as houses were a priority for the builders. Well, none of them could make ovens this sturdy, so I guess waiting for me to do it was better in the long run.

Putting them inside my storage, I went back into Rita’s house and placed them inside like in that one life simulation game. That Sim game, I mean. With Rita expressing shock at how fast I made them, I ignored her and took out the three yeast bottles.

Two of them were filled with bubbly red water while one was doughy with holes like cheese. These three were all yeast starters, although different in their preparations.

“Huh? What are these? Is that juice? And why did you put dough inside a stone bottle? Some kinda food preparations where you came from, m’lady?” Rita asked with genuine confusion at what she was looking at.

“You don’t know yeast, Miss Rita?” I asked her.

She frowned, scratching her head as she replied, “‘Yeast’? Sorry, never heard of it. What is that?”

Not knowing if she had her own preparation for yeast, I explained to her the process of making yeasts and what they were. Essentially, yeasts are fungus responsible for the creation of those bubbles inside my three yeast farms. In baking, they were responsible for making bread fluffy and soft to eat, helping it rise and grow during the baking process.

There were two ways to make them, one way was with fruits and the other way with only flour. Both methods work and the only difference between the two was the end appearance and the taste of the bread.

With the fruit method, you place your fruit of choice inside a bottle and ‘feed’ it sugar and water before closing the lid and giving it a good shake. In our case, we chose fragassa, the Peolyncian strawberry, and used honey as refined sugar wasn’t available to us.

The process takes around four to five days, where you have to open the lid to let oxygen inside for the yeast to use. Always give it a good shake after you open the lid. Bubbles will start forming on each day, growing in size and number, until the top is filled to the brim with bubbles.

This, with the sour smell of fermented food, is the sign of ready yeast water. Simply remove the fruits and the yeast water is ready for baking.

The other method is a bit more complicated. Add two spoons of flour, sugar, and water inside the bottle and give it a good twirl with the spoons. Close it up with a lid and let it cultivate. Again, we used honey as our sugar while our flour was made from wheat and rice.

On each day of this five-day process, repeat the instructions above until a sticky, slimy dough with tons of air bubbles is made. Compared to the yeast water, this was called sourdough and gave a nice sour-ish taste if you made bread from of it. It is immediately usable so you can start baking with it anytime.

In both cases, it was important to use natural water. Thankfully, Tasianna's and Saori's water was pure water without anything dangerous for the yeast, like chlorine. If this were Earth, I would say don’t use tap water as I heard chlorine was inside it. Instead, use filtered water or pure water.

In any case, both methods deliver great-tasting bread, so I would recommend home bakers to try making some just for the experience like my Mama and me.

Unfortunately, it seems Rita still couldn’t understand what yeast was so I concluded that this village at least had no idea of its existence. Nonetheless, it won’t stop me from doing what I came here for - to make a cake!

According to our agreement, as I made her ovens, my party was given permission to use them whenever we needed to. Using a bottle of the yeast water, my party immediately began the cake making process. Rita tried to intervene, telling me that Harriet would be unhappy if I was to bake. Apparently, using magic to create an oven was fine for me to do, but baking? Heavens no!

M’lady Priestess, you’re a noble and as a noble you are not allowed to join the fun of cooking and baking. Bah, what a joke, I complained to myself.

Stating that I’ll handle Harriet’s complaints, Rita shrugged it off and began inspecting the baking process. It seems like the baker inside her awakened once I began using the yeast water. Normally, you would use baking powder as a leavening agent to soften the mixture, but as we didn’t have any, we had to accommodate this in our recipe. My Mama taught me I could either use yeast or add more eggs into the mixture to help it rise, alleviating the need for baking powder. As I was planning to make strawberry pound cake made with fragassas, this was just perfect.

The yeast will help the cake rise up. Without it, the pound cake would feel dry and hard. You wanted a fluffy, flaky feeling when you bite in, after all.

While instructing Saori and Tasianna, we added in the necessary ingredients. Wheat flour, chocochuckle eggs, horned gheeper butter and cream, wild honey, and a bit of fragassa juice. Give it all a good stir and pour it into a rock pan I made for the occasion. Don’t forget to butter and flour the pan, so nothing sticks onto it, and put it all into the oven with the flames on.

Wait until it finishes rising and boom - a delicious, moist fragassa pound cake. Compared to a vanilla butter pound cake, the interior was sweet pink, showing off a cutesy appearance.

Yum!

“W-Wow, it’s so soft. This is some incredible bread you made there, m’lady,” Rita announced after touching a sliced piece of pound cake, before biting a piece off. “Mhmm, incredible, its, wow, so sweet! Damn, this is even sweeter than fruit juice! Hrk!”

While Rita was enjoying the taste, she suddenly tensed up, looking behind her as she noticed Tasianna exuding an aura of hostility, while speaking, “Miss Rita…, this is Lady Hestia’s. Her treat with her tea…” she uttered through clenched teeth.

“O-Oh, I- I apologize. That was really, really rude of me. I’m sorry, m’lady Hestia, I think I acted a bit too, uh, friendly there. This is a noble’s food,” Rita apologized once she understood what she did, bowing before me despite her large belly.

"Ah, it's ok, don't worry about it. In fact, I’m happy to hear that my cake is so popular with you. That’s good to know,” I replied to soothe her before looking over at Tasianna to reprimand her. “And Tasianna, sharing is caring. Don’t be like that, okay? Especially when we’re guests inside her home.”

Realizing she was the one who made the mistake, Tasianna imitated Rita and apologized profusely for her rudeness. I think she must have noticed her own actions as she also apologized to Saori for her mistake.

Shrugging it off, the four of us then began tasting and eating the cake. Tasianna offered to hand hers to Rita as an apology but I told her it was ok. I knew her trauma was controlling her actions, so I understood I had to have patience for her. She was learning, seeing as she was here instead of inside our house.

Ahhh, this is the best! Tea with cake. A tea party with cake. I feel so fancy.

Once we were done with this sample, I knew my recipe would work for the one for Count Helvas. Rita insisted she wanted to make the next one but after telling her this was for the lord of the land, she submissively gave up on the idea, instead, I told her it was alright for her to make some good ol' fashion bread with the sourdough mix.

Elatedly, she boasted she would bake something amazing as payment for the delicious cake. Using the other oven, she began baking.

After the cake and Rita's bread were finished, we packed everything inside my space storage and said our goodbyes to her. We were planning to come over once in a while to do more baking, so we told her to welcome us the next time we came over.

As the sky began to darken, we called off our training session with the saurians and instead used this time to help me familiarize myself with noble customs. Colwyn and Harriet had to be capable enough to welcome the lord of this land in their house, so I finally took the chance to ask them some very important questions.

I used there the excuse that etiquette could differ between countries, and they were genuinely excited to answer everything. For the most part, it was information I already knew. Nothing that would shock me really.

However, a few questions were impossible for them to answer, like dining etiquette and noble-to-noble interactions. All I could do in this case was to use the information my etiquette teacher pounded into me.

There were things that differed but I could count them as differences in culture and worlds. Peolyncian, or Kingdom of Artorias, versions, if I may call them so.

Once that was done, we went back home. We ate some of Rita’s bread for dinner and then called it a day. Once morning came, it was finally time for my meeting with the first noble of this world.

A note from AbyssRaven

A quick summary to make some yeast. Make your own bread, guys!

Well, if you have the time but just saying but freshly baked bread gives off an amazing smell. Mhm!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 12 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 94: The Dragoness dresses for the Occasion.

“Okay, waistband tightened. Get rid of any wrinkles…and done. Tasianna, be sure to tighten the strap of the mantle, otherwise it will fall down,” Saori ordered as she was meticulously taking care of every detail. “Hestia, this is made with mana, so any damage will not be long-lasting, but make sure you do not accidentally scratch your sleeves with your claws.”

“Yeah, of course,” I answered, carefully taking care to not ruin these pure white sleeves with my claws. “The band is pretty tight, but I guess it could be worse. Infinitely better than a corset, I think.”

It was finally the day of my meeting with the lord of these lands. As Colwyn, the chief of Carine village, promised me a favor if I accepted and finished the bandit quest, I told him I wished to ask for a favor from this aristocrat of the Kingdom of Artorias. An urgent one, actually.

IDs, identification cards or identity documents, were essential for somebody to live inside a town or city. You needed them to receive Quests, joins guilds, get a job, and even to enter a town in the first place. Master Kush made sure to emphasize how important they were to us.

However, he also informed us how IDs were issued. Using a manatech called a [Crystal of the Divine System], guilds and government organizations would take a copy of your current profile, your status board, and print them onto a manatech card. Issuing shouldn’t be a problem, as the fee isn’t that high, but what was problematic were those crystals.

According to Master Kush, you couldn’t lie to them. You couldn’t hide your complete status board from them. Even with [Identity Blocker], the truth cannot be hidden. The only effect that might would be [System Neutrality]’s ability to circumvent this rule, as only the gods and I could control its visibility.

As my title [The Light] had this effect, I believe even these crystals can’t see it, but this doesn’t apply to my other titles. [Otherworldly Reincarnator], [Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood], [Divine Inferno], [Princess], even my dragon abilities will be exposed by this.

Even if the guild were to keep quiet about it, others wouldn’t. When we first met, Master Kush asked us to show him our IDs so he could see our status with his party bracelet. While it wasn’t common, some Quest givers, like Colwyn, can ask you to show them your ID, and depending on your answer they could reject your employment entirely. You even had to show your IDs to village and town guards. Imagine if they had party bracelets to check on you!

Master Kush wasn't sure if the crystal would document our humanized form's status boards or our true form's, so it was risky. The last thing our party wanted to do was to tell the world we were two monsters and a fairy, especially not inside a human kingdom.

That’s why I needed to talk to Count Helvas. Special IDs used to hide a person’s true status board existed, and we needed them. Only a few people knowing the truth was better than everybody. I can only hope this meeting will be successful.

“Whew, done! Let me have a look at you…oh my! You really, really look like a princess from a fairy tale, Hesta!” Saori answered while covering her mouth with both hands, however, looking at her cheeks and glimmering eyes, she couldn’t entirely hide her excitement. “Tasianna, Tasianna, quickly! A mirror, conjure up your ice shield and let her look!”

Tasianna also covered up her mouth, having the same expression Saori did when she responded, “By the Godd-Oh y-yes, Miss Saori! You look gorgeous, Princess Hestia!”

After she conjured up her [Frozen Shield], I used its smooth surface as a pseudo-mirror, peering into the image of me wearing a dress, “Wow.” I exclaimed before doing a twirl, fluttering my long dress hem like an umbrella. “I wore dresses in my previous life, but never such an…extravagant one.”

It might have been fun to wear this for prom…

“Earth’s medieval dressing culture was richly documented in books. Noblemen and noblewomen were expected to show off their status through their clothing,” Saori explained. “The type of cloth, the variety in colors, the amount of fine cloth used, everything you can do to increase the prestige of your clothing without ruining the aesthetics. First impressions are important, and if the noble culture in Peolynca is similar to Earth’s, then this should do the trick.”

My dress was a complete 180 from my normal outfit. Whereas my normal clothing emphasized an energetic, idol-like appearance with all its bright colors while retaining the ability to fight in it, this dress was designed with the idea of giving me a more mature look. “Dress for the occasion,” Saori mentioned when she went for an elegant and noble approach with the design.

When we had our first dress-test, the dress was simple in design without any special embroidery as Saori wanted to see which dress style fitted me. Now, with all the colors and added parts to compliment the dress, it was nowhere recognizable from its version two days ago.

My dress at its base was a navy-blue dress long enough to reach down to my ankles. Medieval times valued modesty, I believe, and the length helped cover up the upper part of my boots, only showing off my feet.

The embroidery on it was made with white mana threads, fashioned like small scales to fit with those on my feet and hands. There were also purple ones, mostly placed around the hem of the skirt and the collar of the top. All added to give the dress a maximalist feel, compared to modern dresses which emphasized minimalism.

My red and white sleeves were also quite long to show this mentality off. Saori told me rich people used to wear long sleeves, so long you could dirty them while eating, to show others you had servants to do all the labor-intensive duties.

Actually, now that I think about it, shouldn’t noble ladies wear this as their normal get-up? A ball gown should be even harder to walk in, I believe. Hopefully, I'm not underdressed for the occasion.

To finish off my dress, Saori also added a white mantle to give it a more majestic look. As I didn’t want people to know about that large, bright solar core in the middle of my chest, the navy-blue dress should be enough to cover it up, but we added the mantle just in case. It was a weak point, after all.

Although that was the reason for its inclusion, Saori didn’t let the opportunity slip to add an abundance of red and purple threads to give it that extravagance look. It was so outstanding I felt a bit nervous wearing it.

She even made my hair to fit with my dress. I usually don’t style my hair so it felt nice to have it prim and proper similar to Tasianna’s.

“Ahhh, those two sleepless nights were so worth it with how amazing the end result looks,” Saori casually dropped, finally giving a long-winded yawn.

“W-Wait, you didn’t sleep for the past two days?! Saori, that’s unhealthy!” I called out her outrageous action, looking down at the dress she made for me.

Now that I think about it, considering how elaborate the details were and how it was just blank two days ago, shouldn’t two days still be too little to work with? What kinda sewing monster is Saori?! A teacher, a historian? Fuck that, her true calling is a seamstress or fashion designer!

“Ah, did you forget I had [Abnormal Status Nullification]? That also includes [Torpor Resistance Lv. 10], so nothing bad will happen if I go sleepless for a few days. I will catch up on it tonight,” Saori responded, showing no signs of fatigue or drowsiness after her yawn. “We should be going now. While you are walking, do not forget to pick up your skirt. We do not want the hem to be dragged on the ground.”

With my dress-up finished, we departed from our house and went to Colwyn’s. Seeing how the sun was slowly descending, the carriage Count Helvas would send for us should be coming soon. Dinner time won’t start anytime soon, but welcoming and greetings needed to be done before it.

As we walked to Colwyn’s, some villagers saw me walking through the village. All of them gasped before assuming a prayer stance to bow, giving praise to Aurena before thanking me for the sermon I gave this morning.

As today was Friday, which meant LightDay, it was time for "Sunday church" again. At first, I had absolutely no intention of giving another sermon considering how the first was. Instead, I was planning to use the morning to practice some dinner etiquette to get rid of some rust, but it seems the villagers had other plans.

Lorena and Ruld came with their families, asking me why I wasn't in the church area. Then Rita came with her husband and two sons, giving Saori the same response. Then Colwyn and Harriet came, informing Saori how the villagers were complaining “why is the priestess not here yet?” and were wondering if I was sick or something. You don’t know how much I wanted to shout, “leave me alone!” with everybody coming.

But then Saori and I had this weird premonition of an angry mob coming to our house with torches and farming tools. In that situation, it was either them or our poor house. We three could defend ourselves perfectly but if we started killing villagers in self-defense, I don’t think we could stay around any longer. Even if I establish a barrier around it, the animosity would be a reason for us to move away anyways.

So I said, “fuck it,” and gave them a quick sermon. I just used [Prayer] and sang some older songs I made during my days in the Belzac forest and told them that was it. I anticipated some disapproval for the short and effortless event, but everybody just thanked me.

Apparently, Carine village didn’t receive priests often, so sermons were an uncommon event. Everybody wanted a moment to give their thanks to Aurena and ask her for her blessing, and while I was channeling my [Prayer] spell was considered the perfect time to do so. The villagers seem to believe these moments were holy and the best time for Aurena to hear their prayers. I guess that’s why people call it [Prayer], huh?

While we were waiting at Colwyn’s house, the carriage eventually came, being driven by two equerochs. The three of us boarded it and said goodbye to Colwyn and his family. While it was moving, I also began to notice how unenjoyable a carriage ride was. It wasn’t due to the carriage itself but ‘cause of my tail.

Medieval carriages got this reputation for being less comfortable than modern cars, but I had to disagree. There was no shaking and the seat were laid well with cushion and other soft materials to make it feel like I was sitting on a cloud, until my butt reached the hard wood. What actually made it hard for me to enjoy this ride was a lack of space to put my tail, so it felt annoying to have it in this situation. I want to point out how super long my tail was.

The ride lasted for a good amount of time, enough for Saori and Tasianna to go through what they learned from Colwyn. Compared to noble etiquette, which was very similar to what I already learned, the etiquette and conduct expected from a retainer were completely different. Both of them were going through their notes meticulously.

While they were doing that, I suddenly noticed Saori’s outfit has changed, “Saori, didn’t you say you didn’t want a wardrobe change?”

Saori’s previous outfit was completely black except for the red scarf she had, but her current attire had purple and white added to the black. Saori told me she eventually noticed how monochrome it was, admitting she didn’t notice the “gothness” of her appearance. It looked much better, in my opinion, so I just gave a thumbs up to support her.

After a good while, the carriage stopped. We looked outside the window of the carriage and saw the carriage driver speaking with the guards, who opened the metal gate after confirming the driver’s identity. They seemed pretty friendly with each other, so I wonder why they had to do that.

Hmm, it felt like I entered something. It feels warmer now. Was that Mana? I thought as I felt a change in temperature once the carriage passed the gates.

Anyway, we finally entered Count Helvas’ demesne. As you would expect from a noble, the garden before his manor was filled with statues and well-maintained shrubbery flowerbeds, informing me how much this person must be spending to keep everything looking nice despite it being winter.

Soldiers clad in armor were patrolling the area while I could see some men sparring on a field a bit further away from the garden. The ones along the path also saluted us the moment our carriage passed them.

The manor itself was also quite grand, a stark contrast from how sloppy the construction of the village houses was. The pure white paint covering the whole mansion showed me a clear contrast from the rich and the poor, delineating how different the worlds were for the two sides. From the door frame to the beginning of the roof, everything was carved with delicate ornate designs, too beautiful to ignore.

An example of maximalism to boast their wealth and status.

When the carriage finally stopped before the mansion, the time for us to slip into our roles was here. The driver opened the door for us, and Tasianna left first with our presents before Saori followed. Once Saori was outside, she held a hand in front of the door, signaling it was time for me to come out.

Colwyn, who was trained in this stuff, told Saori and Tasianna that a lady needed “help” to come out of a carriage. With their long dresses, it was expected of knights or the head servant to give the noblewoman a hand while walking down the carriage’s stairs.

And just like that, I trusted Saori to help me down by giving her my hand. “Don’t look down, a Lady should always show confidence,” another quote from my etiquette teacher. Fixing my posture, I slowly walked down the stairs, keeping my head up and carrying myself regally.

In front of the mansion’s doors, a group of men in black suit and women in maid outfits stood in front of it. The man with the most decorated suit came forward, a person I already knew. “On this beautiful day of the Goddess, I welcome you to Lord Count Helvas’ home, Lady Atsuko. I am Barathan Kiesmay, the head butler and steward, and I am here to guide you inside, on the behalf of my Lord,” he welcomed us with a graceful bow, reintroducing himself like the perfect attendant he appeared.

Ok, time to act like the perfect little noble, Hestia, I encouraged myself.

“May the Goddess bless your soul, illuminating your path forward,” I responded to his religious greeting in kind, as I believed it was proper to do that first. “Lord Helvas has my deepest gratitude for inviting me to his dignified home on this wonderful day of Autumn. You have my trust, Mister Kiesmay. Please, guide me inside.”

Barathan widened his eyes for a moment before collecting himself, giving me a short bow in acknowledgment. He gave some quick commands to the maids and butlers before they dispersed and then began asking us to follow him. We were guided inside with me in the front and Saori and Tasianna walking behind me.

For a moment, I nearly stopped moving once I entered through the brilliant white wooden mansion doors, only continuing when Saori gave me a gentle push forward. “You are a noble lady right now, Hestia. Do not hesitate,” Saori told me through [Telepathy].

I understood what she meant, but it was honestly hard to execute it fully. The exterior was already amazing to look at, but the interior was so much more. Red, velvety rugs covered the smooth light-brown wooden floors we were walking on, as Barathan led us through rooms of pure white, richly decorated with statues of griffons and knights and verdant green plants.

There were also chandeliers and lamps radiating white light like incandescent electric bulbs. “Did they have electricity in this world?” I asked myself, but this assumption was quickly dispelled once I activated [Mana Eyes]. My eyes picked up blue energy flowing into those bulbs like electric wires, giving me the impression that these were manatechs from how similarly they functioned like Master Kush’s ID.

My home on Earth was simply an apartment filled with wealth, but this was the real deal. A real noble owning an authentic medieval house, filled with properly employed servants and guarded by knights and soldiers. I was amazed at the sight, but anxiousness was growing larger and larger inside me, as the pressure I felt made it impossible to relax.

Barathan suddenly stopped before a door, prompting us to stop too. He then picked up a bell from the table stand next to it and shook it, sounding an all-to-memorable bell sound, “Head butler, Barathan Kiesmay, here with Lord Count Helvas’ guest, Lady Hestia Atsuko, and her retainers.”

“Her retainers”, you know their names, dude, I thought, but kept it to myself. Saori and Tasianna are my friends and party members, but currently, they were visiting under the guise as my retainers. As individuals, they weren't invited, unfortunately, otherwise this whole charade would've been unnecessary.

After a moment of wait, a middle-aged woman in a maid dress opened the door for us, giving us a small bow before leading us inside. Seeing as how her outfit was nearly as fancy as Barathan’s, I would guess she must be a high ranked maid.

In any case, before I could enter the room, I noticed each side of the walls being decorated with filled bookshelves and butlers lining against them, like a bunch of robots waiting for their master's orders. Barathan and the maid led us inside before assuming positions at either sides of a desk.

There I noticed a blue haired man dressed in a lavishly decorated suit sitting comfortably in his ornate chair. To his sides, a blond woman around his age and a, rather attractive, young man stood next to him. Both wore clothing fitting for somebody living inside this mansion, filled to the brim with embroidery and colors. Compared to the butlers and maids, these three all had a similar-looking embroidered emblem of blooming rice plants growing on water stitched somewhere on their clothes.

I-I think our dresses look the same, right? I don’t need to be nervous, I think. Yeah, I look good, yeah, I thought as I compared the woman’s dress with mine.

[“Hestia,”] Saori suddenly called out to me, bringing me back to reality.

Shoot, I have to greet first!

The guest should introduce herself to the hosts first, that was common courtesy. Quickly collecting myself, I gently pinched the hem of my dress up and gave the people before me a curtsy. “May this meeting be blessed by our Goddess of Light, Aurena, on this holy day dedicated to her eminence. I thank you from the depths of my heart for this invitation, Lord Helvas. My name is Hestia Atsuko and may the friendship we form today last long and strong.”

The man I presumed as the lord of these lands narrowed his eyes in a small frown for a second, before restoring them and his polite smile. He stood up from his chair, showing how tall he was compared to me by being about two heads taller.

Still showing me a smile with his week-old beard, he pressed his right hand to his chest and gave me a short bow. As if they practiced it, the woman and young man imitated his posture and simultaneously bowed with him.

“House Helvas equally wishes you the bountiful blessing of our Goddess of Light, Aurena, Lady Atsuko. I am Andre Orlean Helvas, rightful Lord of the Helvas county and an ardent supporter of Lord Duke Greenveil, a loyal vassal of the royal House Artorias. It is both a privilege and honor to welcome you to our home and kingdom,” he replied in a tone so regal it made me dizzy for a second. “These are my wife and son. Including my daughter, they will be joining us for dinner.”

Acting like a signal for her introduction, his wife pinched the hem of her dress and curtsied instead of bowing this time, gracing me with a warm smile, “It is a great honor to have made your acquaintance, Lady Atsuko. I am Marianne Yvera Helvas, wife of Lord Helvas and countess of the Helvas county. I hope your travels from Loatryx hasn’t been arduous, and I wish your stay with us will be one to be remembered.”

Considering Colwyn must have informed them about me, they should know we came here through the Belzac forest.

“Our meeting must have been ordained by the Goddess, your Ladyship. My name is Jonathan Matthew Helvas, the only son and current heir of my father Lord Helvas. I thank the Goddess for our meeting today and wish our bonds to stay true,” the son of the pair, a tall and muscular young man, greeted me with a large smile.

“If the Goddess wills it, Sir Jonathan,” I replied nervously.

Before we continued the discussion, Count Helvas stretched his arm to the side and offered us to sit with him at the guest table. Accepting his offer with a nod, his family moved first while my group moved behind them, while Barathan and the maid moved elsewhere.

Offering me the seat, I sat down on the couch first while Saori and Tasianna stayed behind me. With me seated, Count Helvas and his family followed. Once everybody was seated, I took this chance to finally hand him the presents we bought with us.

Telling Tasianna to hand over our gifts, she moved around to the table and placed a thick purple piece of fabric and a blue fabric box onto the table before returning behind me, all while showing little to no emotions. “Presents, to show my gratitude for being invited and for the beautiful gifts you sent me, Lord Helvas.” I informed him.

“Hmm, I thank you very much, Lady Atsuko,” he replied before inspecting everything before him with the eye of an experienced appraiser. “This is…purple mana threads? Isn’t purple…?” he exclaimed before pouring mana into the cloth of mana threads, producing electricity from them. “Astounding, lightning element. Mana threads of this quality and abundance is already a precious gift. What benevolence, Lady Atsuko, I thank you,” he replied with an almost genuine smile.

“Hmm, and this is?” Putting the fabric aside, he then opened the fabric box, revealing a strawberry colored cake with a smell only freshly baked cake could have. “Pastry? Hmm, it certainly looks and smells wonderful, thank you.”

Compared to the pure excitement he showed when he saw the mana fabric, his response to the cake was lackluster. It seems he wasn't a cake person. Shame.

“Hold on, dear.” However, that wasn’t the case for Countess Helvas, who pulled the box of cake to her side before appraising it. “…Lady Atsuko, may I ask if you’ve made this yourself?”

“Yes,” I answered, as I was one of the three people who made the cake.

“As a dragonewt of Loatryx, you must also know the valuable elven product ‘yeast’, correct? Did you add some into this cake?” she asked with eyes filled with anticipation and longing.

“The cake was baked with yeast, yes. It’s called ‘fragassa pound cake’, and I can attest to its taste. Would you like to taste it with me, Lady Helvas?” I replied with excitement for finding another cake lover.

“Oh, I would love to, but dinnertime is around the corner so we must refrain for now. Pastries and desserts are best eaten with tea, after all,” she smiled as she closed the box. “Cake with yeast is hard to acquire, even at our capital, so please excuse my excitement. This is a very rare occasion, and I thank you so very much for this opportunity. Would it be impertinent of me to ask if we could taste it after dinner with my daughter? She would be very delighted.”

“Oh no, it would be my pleasure,” I answered with sparkles in my eyes, excited to get another taste of our cake.

While giving them presents was to give House Helvas a better impression of us, there was also another hidden agenda behind it. Information. Colwyn gave us a quick run-down of what the noble ranks were in this kingdom and it was similar to England’s, according to Saori. A noble of the count status was in the middle of the hierarchy, so it should be obvious these people must know trends and other subjects.

From my observation of their responses, it seems like both mana fabric and yeast were quite popular. It also confirmed that yeast was known by the nobility of Artorias, and I presume by merchants also. Rita, being a village baker, couldn’t know it as it was considered a luxury product for some reason.

With this information, we now knew we could always sell some mana threads and yeast if we ever needed cash. I bet Saori must be happy to know that. We also learned Count Helvas was a magician, and an educated one to boot. He knew how to activate mana threads and how purple related to lightning. Even without using [Identify] and [Mana Eyes], I could feel all three of them being acquainted with magic casting.

With the initial stage of our discussion finish, we carried on with small talk. They asked me questions like how I defeated the bandits, how my stay was in Carine village, and if I wanted to come over and stay at their mansion. Everything was harmless until now as they wanted to get a feel of how my personality was.

Honestly, I was expecting them to try to poke some info out of me. I mean, why wouldn’t you ask me who I was? Sure, there was the chance they could [Identify] on me, but there’s a low chance of them breaking through [Identity Blocker]. I wasn’t using it either as it was considered rude. I also didn’t know much about manatechs and, in the case there was something to tell you somebody used [Identify] on you, I would be found out. Can’t risk it.

In the middle of our talks, somebody knocked on the door and informed Barathan about something. He came over and whisper the information into Count Helvas’ ear. “Ahh, brilliant. It seems my chefs are ready to serve dinner. This was a very wonderful time, Lady Atsuko, but let us continue this at the dinner table. I also think it is time we talk about why you wished to speak with me, yes?”

Guess it’s time, huh?

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Chapter 95: Dinner with House Helvas.

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“Lady Atsuko, it is a pleasure to have made your acquaintance. My name is Ellaine Fiero Helvas, daughter of Count Helvas,” a young woman, with blue hair similar to her father, greeted me, curtsying with her green dress. “It would be an honor if we could learn about each other more after today.”

“I heard you like pastries from your mother, Lady Ellaine. Please tell me if today’s will be to your liking, and, if I acquire more, I would be delighted to accept your invitation,” I answered her with a smile, leaving when I will come ambiguous.

Jeez, not only the son but also the daughter wants to know me better. They might be nice people, but I’m already on the edge being inside their home.

Outside the supposed dining room, Ellaine, the daughter of Count and Countess Helvas, stood waiting for us. Her father introduced us and we both greeted each other for courtesy’s sake. She too asked me, just like her brother, for us to meet each other after this dinner to know more about me.

While it might just be normal for nobles in this country, I think it has more to do with the maid behind her. While I gave my greeting to the leading figures of this noble house, my [Detection Sensor] detected a few people eavesdropping on us. Telepathically, Saori also confirmed this maid was one of the eavesdroppers through her scent, probably having informed Ellaine about everything that occurred.

Well, I am a foreigner so it shouldn’t be a surprise they wanted to know more about my background. I mean, they did send spies to surveil us. They probably wouldn’t have stopped if Saori hadn’t captured them.

Oh just for your information, as the lord and lady of House Helvas, it was correct to call them “Lord” and “Lady”. Jonathan and Ellaine, having not fully inherited the title, could only be addressed with their first name if their parents were around.

As I was the person representing the “Atsuko” name, I had to be called “Lady Atsuko” in a formal situation like this. Even if I was the only one with that name, as Saori was the one who gave it to me.

It was similar to how you would address the parents with “Mr.” and “Mrs.”, while you could call the kids with their first name on Earth. Thankfully, Colwyn informed me about this. Otherwise, I might have made a mistake here.

Once that was done, two butlers moved towards the door and opened it for us. Entering, my eyes immediately were enraptured by all the lights released by those manatech lamps and chandeliers, brightening the room so much it seemed like everything was sparkling and shining.

White light showed off the beauty of all the furniture, highlighting them like spotlights on a show stage. From the dark, engraving-filled wooden chairs to the massive paintings decorating the walls of the room; it seems the word “cost” wasn’t even considered with how opulent this whole room was.

As one of the maids led me to my table position, I suddenly noticed the chair before me.

…This one looked different compared to the others.

While all other chairs at the dining table had armrest, mine didn’t. Considering how long my tail was, it was inconvenient to sit down with it while wearing this dress, so without a place to rest it, sitting down could be quite painful.

Seeing as how Jecht, the spy, Colwyn, or even Barathan himself should have seen how long my tail was, I guess they made appropriate preparations for me. How thoughtful.

“This is a beautiful chair,” I mentioned as I sat down with Saori’s help.

“Barathan himself suggested it. I hope it is to your liking, Lady Atsuko,” Lord Helvas informed me. “We…rarely receive beastmen guests so I am not too acquainted with accommodating dragonewts.”

Understanding he was trying to be humble, I just smiled back, “It is perfect, thank you very much.”

The table was wide, enough to fit around twenty or so guests. As we were only five, we were all grouped on a single end. Count Helvas sat at the end as he was the head of the house, while his three family members sat together on the same side. My seat was on the opposite side, naturally.

A few seconds after everyone sat down, Barathan and the head maid came in pushing cart-like things, and behind them were two other maids and Tasianna. Each of them went to their respective masters and mistresses and began opening wooden boxes, releasing a myriad of pleasant scents similar to a field of flowers.

“Lady Hestia, which tea would you like to drink? I would recommend this one, as I believe it would fit your palette,” Tasianna informed me with a pleasant smile, perfectly fitting the image of a maid.

After we left Count Helvas’ study, the head maid had called Tasianna to follow her for dinner prep. The reason was to inform Tasianna about everything she could and had to do inside the mansion, telling her the schedule of the whole dinner. As my retainer, she had to do it.

It seems like, if a noble brought their servants with them, the servants will be responsible for serving their master. This was to ensure the servants could get a chance to taste the food for poison and to make the tea their master wanted. Saori and I had no confirmation, but we guessed it from the context. Incidentally, wouldn’t [Poison Resistance] be perfect for a servant? I kinda want to see Barathan’s status board if this was the case. He really seems like the perfect retainer.

After brewing my tea, both Saori and Tasianna moved outside the room. I made some small talk with Ellaine and her family before my two friends returned with dinner. After serving the dishes, Count Helvas dismissed all the butlers and maids, including Saori and Tasianna. We were about to talk business, so I guess he didn’t want anybody uninvolved witnessing it. Besides, a butler or maid could be called anytime with a bell.

[“Have fun, Saori. Stay cool, Tasianna. Don’t get caught,”] I wished my friends luck.

[“You will have it worse, Hestia. Enjoy the meal, it tasted alright when I taste-tested it,”] Saori said before leaving the room with Tasianna.

Now, I’m alone in the lion’s den…

“Let us enjoy the meal a bit before we speak. It would be an insult to both Krunal and Anuiqa if we didn’t,” Count Helvas stated, mentioning two subordinate gods of Zephira before beginning a prayer. “Oh Goddess, we thank you for your blessing today. For showing us the rightful path and for our meeting tonight…”

His family closed their eyes and stayed silent as Count Helvas spoke a dinnertime prayer. I too copied this action as I had to fit in. When I first met Lorena, she gave a prayer too before we ate. Not only the villagers but also the nobility are religious, huh?

While I was listening, I went through my head as I think I remembered the name “Anuiqa” somewhere. Tasianna’s theology lessons were currently my only source of knowledge on the gods of this world. The bible Colwyn gave me was only about Aurena, so it wasn’t too helpful. Without her help, I would never have known of somebody like Anuiqa.

Krunal was the God of Weather and Harvest, and I think Anuiqa was the Goddess of Festivals and Cooking. Both were subordinate gods of Zephira, the Goddess of Wind. Considering Zephira was also the Goddess of Celebrations and Travels, those two gods really fitted her.

After the prayer was done, it was finally time for me to try out the food. Saori told me nobles in medieval times used hard bread called trenchers as plates during these times, and I was preparing myself for it. However, against my expectations, what was served before me was the appetizer in a white clay plate.

Well, to be honest, my expectations were kinda destroyed the moment I entered the mansion. There were barely any candles; all light sources came from those manatech lamps and chandeliers decorating the whole place. If you removed the clear medieval setting, most people would think this was a 21st century, modern “medieval” mansion. I mean, the only candles I saw were inside this room and they were scented with herbs.

Anyway, while Colwyn wasn’t able to teach me how to dine like a noble, thankfully, I already new this from my time with my etiquette teacher. Several utensils were placed before me, all of them were either spoons, forks, or knife. The only difference between each type were their forms and lengths.

As the appetizer was soup, using the soup spoon, the largest of the spoons, was the choice. Even for the bread, which was still warm, there was a butter knife to apply butter to it. You don’t use the dining knife, nor the salad knife, you will only and always use the butter knife.

There was also the annoying rule of having to break the bread in pieces before buttering it. You weren’t allowed to cut it in half and then put condiments and meat on it like a sandwich. Tear a piece off, apply butter on it, then you may eat it. Never skip a step.

While I was enjoying myself, I kept it slow. Not only did I have to temper my strength to not accidentally break everything, but I was also keeping an eye at how the nobles were behaving. Seeing them follow the rules I had to learn ever since my childhood was a relief. I hate to admit it, but I was totally in my element. Like a prim and proper young lady, I was doing everything correctly.

…But that just made me crave for more. Without the sun around, hunger assaulted me like a ravenous beast. Every bite of bread and spoon of soup caused my mouth to fill with saliva, compelling me to continue eating and eating without stopping.

I was currently chewing my bread? Then my fork was already picking up some salad. Once I was crunching some salad, my fingers were already holding my soup spoon. I was an efficient eating machine.

The slow nature of formal eating was a real bore, honestly. I wasn’t even allowed to eat everything, always having to leave a bit behind to show everybody I enjoyed it but that I wasn’t completely hungry.

After a couple minutes passed without anybody speaking, simply enjoying their meal, the next course, the entrée, arrived. After it was served to us, the wine was then poured into silver goblet adorned with engravings. Taking a sip, I could only say I didn’t like it but, nevertheless, I didn’t say it aloud.

The entrée itself was a beautiful piece of meat seeped in a red sauce, accompanied with a small bowl of fried rice. I guess they did own a rice-farming village.

The appetizer, the soup, was a complete failure in my opinion. Seasoned with only salt, it couldn’t even compare to anything Saori could make. Even the salad was only acceptable 'cause I was hungry. The only thing good about the appetizer was the bread and salted butter. The bread was hard, yes, but the nuts inside it gave it a great texture.

On the other hand, the entrée was on a completely different level. Seasoned well with mouth-watering meat and firm, piping hot fried rice. It was delicious, so much I was wishing for more. I wanted to pick it up with a fork and tear each piece off with my mouth, instead of slowly cutting it with the knife. I wanted, no, I needed more!

But I kept myself from going that far. As I nearly lost myself in my ravenous side, I suddenly realized there was music in the room. Where did they come from?! Were they here the whole time?! Was I that engrossed in eating that I didn’t notice them?!

Looking in their direction, my eyes were introduced to the wonderful beauty of a small band. I wasn’t well-versed with old instruments as my parents instructed me in the piano and violin, so I wasn’t able to name every instrument. However, among the four women playing, two were playing banduras and one a zither.

The last woman was…wait that doesn’t sound like strings being plucked. Wait, isn’t that...!

“Lady Atsuko, is something the matter?” Ellaine suddenly asked, noticing me looking at the musicians.

Awakened from my trance, I turned around to see everybody at the table looking at me, having stopped moving their metal utensils. “I-I was just enjoying the music,” I forced myself to answer under the pressure of eight eyes.

“You were?” Ellaine asked while tilting her head, frowning her blue brows in confusion. “I did not think you a lover of music, Lady Atsuko. You were pretty quiet during the appetizer.”

Urgh, true enough. Fucking sunfang dragon always being hungry. Now I’m hungry again from thinking about food!

“Uh,” understanding what my feeding frenzy made me do, embarrassment caused me to hesitate, forcing me to think of a suitable excuse. “I was listening to it silently. It is embarrassing to say, but I was a bit nervous to speak out.”

Against all my expectations, everybody was nodding their heads with an understanding expression despite my lackluster attempt of an excuse. Swinging her long blond hair around as she settled down her utensils, Countess Helvas began to speak in a calming tone, "Understandable, dear. Rank differences or not, you are still young and are alone in a foreign country's noble house."

Rank differences?

Before I could ask her what she meant, Count Helvas put down his utensils, wiped his mouth, and then added to his wife's statement, "I planned to give you some time to calm down before we speak, however, maybe it would have been wiser for me to start the conversation myself. My apologies, Lady Atsuko.” He gave a short nod, swaying his short blue hair before looking back at me. “Is there something we could help you with? To make you more comfortable?”

“It is alright,” I stated as I couldn’t think of something at the spot, but immediately thought of something as the music kept playing. “Actually, could I ask you to give me permission to play that instrument?”

Pointing at one of the women, I drew everybody’s attention towards what she was playing. A wooden instrument with strings attached to it being bowed with a musical bow, resembling my favorite instrument.

“You play, Lady Atsuko?” Jonathan, the son, spoke up with blond hair similar to his mother. “If that is the case then may I suggest we spice up this evening? A display of musical talents would definitely calm everybody down, no?”

“Oh, that would be wonderful!” Ellaine clapped her hands together, looking excited at the prospect. “Mother. Father. I would agree with brother’s suggestion, especially if Lady Atsuko is asking for it. It would certainly brighten up this dinner.”

"I see no problem with the children's wishes, dear. You too?" Countess Helvas asked her husband, who gave a simple nod as an answer. "Wonderful. Lady Atsuko, you wished the 'Geigler', correct?" She then rang the bell, calling the musician to deliver the instrument over to me.

Receiving it, I thanked the musician and Countess Helvas for accommodating my wish. Once the instrument was in my hands, nostalgia quickly rushed through my fingers. The familiar feeling of the sleek wood, the firmness of the strings, the pegs to tune them. It was quite a bit larger than what I was used to; I think it would be called a viola on Earth.

However, I didn’t care. Violas are just larger versions. The deeper notes wouldn’t dissuade me. So what if it’s called ‘Geigler’ in this world? What does a name change do when I knew this was my so, so, so favorite. My mother’s preferred instrument. The violin.

“Lady Atsuko, what is your [Musician] level?” Ellaine suddenly asked.

I told them I had [Musician Lv. 4], which garnered me only confirming nods, suggesting level four was below average, maybe. Well, my level might be low, but I don't think my skill was. I have been practicing on my [Aerokinesis] violin since I learned how to construct one.

After playtesting the geigler so I could tune it to my liking, I then began playing a slow classical song to test out my skills first. I wanted to use [Aerokinesis] to imitate the sounds of a piano ‘cause I personally liked it in this sonata. Ludwig van Beethoven’s piano sonata no.14, also called the “Moonlight Sonata”.

Sure, the piano was better known to play it, but making covers of songs and sonatas is just normal for musicians. The 21st century just made it more prominent through the internet.

Ahhhhh, this is…this is just wonderful. How I missed you so much!

Music is my life; that fact has been true ever since I chose my dream to become an idol. Almost compelled by this chance to get my hand on a violin after establishing I was still able to play a normal violin, I didn’t stop just with the “Moonlight Sonata”. Highly energetic songs from animes or video games, either of them was fine to me. I just needed to play something that could challenge me.

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Musician Lv. 5] gained

After finishing my fourth song, Count Helvas suddenly clapped his hands before I could start the fifth, “Bravo. Excellent. Are you sure you spoke the truth, Lady Atsuko? Those were not the skills of someone with only [Musician Lv. 4]. The way your arm moved and how you didn’t skip a beat is only somebody with years of experience can produce. As wonderful as that was, we cannot have you hoard all the brilliance now, no? As the hosts, allow us to entertain you.”

Starting with Ellaine and ending with Count Helvas himself, all four members of house Helvas chose their personal instrument and played a piece. Fortunately for my ears, all of them were brilliant and educated musicians, able to play pieces I’d never heard before. Were all nobles given musical educations? Considering how refined they are, how overpowered social beasts are they?

Once it calmed down, Count Helvas ordered the women to put the instruments in their spot and dismissed them from the room. We kept eating but it seems like the discussion will start now.

Staring into my eyes with a firm gaze, Count Helvas spoke clearly and regally, displaying the image of an experienced politician, “Now, aside from your wonderful music, I would also like to officially thank you for your assistance in subjugating those bandits. As the lord of this land, that duty should have fallen on me but I had failed, I will admit. The village under my protection was razed and my subjects were killed and captured, a shameful display, especially when this land was given to me by one of the seven dukes of this kingdom. I do not know if you know much about our lands, but simply ask if you require information.”

He paused for a moment before looking at his daughter, before returning his gaze back to me, “I have heard how you helped in the reconstruction of the village with your magic. Seeing as how much you have helped the progression, I will not doubt what a talented mage you are. As you are new to these lands, I would like to warn you not to do this too often, as you are entering the work interests of earth mages. Are you affiliated with the mage guild in our country? If not, then, please, stop otherwise you might cause unwanted conflict with the guild.”

Kuck! Wait, people pay earth mages to build houses?! Okay, now I really hope a bunch of earth mages aren’t just gonna show in front of my house one day. They’ll probably complain my ears off.

“Now, I’ve also heard you aren’t calling yourself a priestess or shrine maiden of the church of Goddess Aurena. However, then how do you answer your ability to cast healing spells on the wounded the bandits captured and that massive [Prayer]? I heard you had two sermons and I was able to witness your magic circle even from my home today,” Count Helvas stated those facts before me, placing his hands on the table as he continued increasing the intensity of his warnings. “You have also rejected compensation for the white grace. I do not know how the church of Goddess Aurena of Loatryx handles church taxes, so I will not blame you for your ignorance. However, do know the worship of Goddess Aurena is equal to the worship dragonewts give Kargryxmor, the Dragon God. If the church learns about this, they will not only cause trouble for you but also my house, who is acting as your host. I hope you understand, Lady Atsuko.”

A chill went down my spine as I heard these warnings. Problems with the mage guild and the church. Master Kush did recommend me to join the mages guild as soon as possible so I think heeding this advice after Count Helvas’ warning would be the smartest choice.

However, honestly, does everything require money to have somebody cast some magic? Are magic casters service providers like builders and doctors on Earth? Do I have to be more careful with casting spells to help people? I don’t know. I really am ignorant of the laws of this world.

Looking at me realizing my mistakes, Count Helvas only gave a sigh before returning to the subject at hand, “Anyway, proper reflection would be wise. I have given my warning to you, so let us return to your reward. You have helped me immensely. Defeating the bandits, returning the captives, returning the village’s winter rations, helping the reconstruction of the village with magic, granting white graces, and also holding two sermons to ease the suffering of my subjects. As the Lord Andre Orlean Helvas, ask me anything you wish, Lady Atsuko. Let us speak as nobles and I will grant whatever I can give.”

Anything, huh? Considering how meticulous he has been with information collection and how he is warning me, should I truly ask him about that request? I’ll only make myself suspicious…No, I must ask him.

“If that is the case, then I thank you very much, Count Helvas. I will make sure to not cause your family any more trouble,” I answered before taking a deep breath. “As you should have already heard, my companions and I have lost our IDs before we came into your domain. We have also heard your country is able to issue special IDs able to hide certain information. I know how this will sound, but would it possible for you to do this for me? That would be my only request.”

He glared at me, squinting his eyes as he leaned his head on his hands, hiding his mouth, “Do you truly understand, Lady Atsuko? Through your behavior, education, and magical expertise I have no doubts you must have come from a distinguished family, but you still have not told me enough about yourself. Lady Atsuko, you are a dragonewt. Your home is Loatryx, or maybe even Kargryx? The Kingdom of Artorias has not received any ambassadors or aristocratic visitors from those two countries in, well, since that damnable war your elven attendant should know about.”

If he’s talking about a war, then the only one I know about is the "War for the Fairies". The one where humans captured Faefolk, a race of mana composed individual like fairies, and used them as fuel for mana batteries. Pretty horrific when I heard about it from Tasianna.

“I have nothing against beastmen but you should understand I must be prudent. You are a foreigner who is asking the head of a noble house for a specialized ID to hide your profile. If you cause trouble, then my family and I will be responsible," his gaze was firm, even showing a bit of hostility in them, as he told me the repercussion his decision could cause him. "I do wish to reward you, but only if it doesn’t severely cripple me. This request of yours is impossible to grant.”

So even after going through all of this, I never had a chance? Verdammt! There has to be a way for me to turn this around. We need those IDs!

“However…,” he suddenly said. “that is why we are negotiating. I have a proposal.”

Swallowing a nervous spit, I listened and hoped his offer isn’t too unfavorable, “Just as a warning, you will not be able to hide your status from me, your benefactor. Once you make the ID, I will know your status, I hope you know that. With that said, my proposal to you is to come with me to the capital.”

"The capital?" I uttered, having already accepted the fact he might learn about my profile. I rather have a small number of people know it than everybody.

“Griffonpeak, that is the name of the Kingdom of Artorias’s capital, where our King and Queens rule over us nobles. Origdiviel Arashan, the god thanking festival will come up soon. That also means the winter fest at the capital, held by the royal family for all nobles and commoners, will come soon. I wish you to come with me,” he stated, pausing to drink some wine. “Once the royal family knows about you, everything should be alright. Do not worry, we haven’t received a guest from Loatryx for a very long time, so I can guarantee you the royal family will want to treat you well. My family and I will leave in two days, now that our land has stabilized again, and we will stay there until the snow melts."

…That means…

“I’m sorry but I cannot accept that, despite your goodwill,” I immediately answered, surprising not only Count Helvas but also his family. “I made a promise with the villagers to perform, well, a musical concert for them on New Year’s Eve. And promises are something important for me, something that I will not break if given the chance. This musical concert also has sentimental value for me. Could we possibly change the requirements to something else?”

“And what can you offer me?” he plainly said, giving me no leeway. “Negotiations can only happen if you have something of value to me. My offer was simply out of courtesy as thanks for all your help, and with the royal family's assistance and agreement, there will be no repercussion for my house. So what can you offer me, Lady Atsuko?”

“You liked the mana threads, correct? I could offer you more,” I meekly offered, grasping on straws for a way to overturn this whole situation.

He shook his head roughly, looking almost exhausted as he spoke, "Rejected. Your gift was wonderful, especially the lightning element is extremely expensive, but it isn’t worth possibly dooming my house. Lady Atsuko, I do not know you. You may either reveal what you are trying to hide or offer me something I cannot reject because money and goods will not.”

I stayed silent. There was nothing I could think of to give me an advantage here. My whole plan relied on the pre-discussion phase here. Acting like a noble, using skills to charm and impress them, using music to sway them to my side. I thought it would work. He looked so amazed by everything. He even admitted to it!

What are my options? Think, Hestia! What can I offer him? A ticket to the concert? Dumb idea, he’s about to leave in two days so why should he stay here? My service? Definitely no, I don’t want to become his employee or something. I value my freedom.

Come on, think! Why can’t I think of anything?! Just one more step, just one more step! Verdammt, what would Saori say her?!

“I have one thing I would like from you,” throwing me another lifesaver, a tiny bit of hope came back to me as I anxiously awaited his answer. “I would like to propose a trade. Two IDs for your elf servant.”

Huh?

“Huh?”

Ignoring my surprise, he continued, “The Kingdom of Artorias, as you should know, has a very difficult relationship with the elves of Saelariel. The war has cut off all elven knowledge and products from entering our country through legal means. Precious goods, luxury products, and production information. Aside from a few political reasons, the Kingdom also wishes to reintroduce yeast and other products back to Artorias. This is precious, invaluable to the growth of my house and my country. I would gladly add additional requests if you were-”

“NO!” controlling myself just enough to not break the table in rage, I returned a glare filled with hostility at Count Helvas for even suggesting such an outrageous thing. “Tasianna is not a thing! She is my retainer, not something to be haggled with. This has been a very pleasant dinner, despite this difficult discussion. I would ask you to keep it that way, Lord Helvas!”

It wasn’t intentional but I believe [Draconic Aura] automatically activated once my anger reached its boiling point. Ellaine’s and Jonathan’s eyes widened up like terrified dogs, shivering in their chairs as they instinctively step back from me. Countess Helvas looked at me with fear, but I could feel magic from underneath the table form her direction.

The only one who stood his ground was Count Helvas, although cold sweat was already pouring down his face like a stream. He was clutching his armrest so hard the sound of cracking wood could be heard.

“Ha ha, very well, Lady Atsuko!” anxiously forcing a wide smile, Count Helvas kept his eyes on me, defiantly going against the stream of bloodlust and hostile intent. “I apologize from the depths of my soul for what I just mentioned. As the Goddess is my witness, I swear to never, ever attempt to steal what is rightfully yours ever again, Lady Atsuko. I humbly ask for your forgiveness.”

Taking a deep breath, I told myself to cool down, using this chance to disable [Draconic Aura] and eat up the rest of the entrée, “I apologize for my outburst. I acted inelegantly, unfitting for a guest.” I answered with a firm glare once I wiped my mouth clean.

At that moment, butlers and maid stormed into the room but were immediately dismissed by Count Helvas with a thundering voice before slumping into his chair, drenched in sweat and heart racing like an escaped prey, "Thank you very much, but I will not allow myself to be strong-armed. If you cannot offer me anything, I also cannot give what you want."

Despite that, he’s staying strong?! What kinda mental resilience does this guy have?!

“…It is alright, I understand. I’m not here to make enemies,” I replied disappointed.

"However, I will help you with your request," he suddenly said, surprising me as I uttered a "huh". "The reason is that I finally know what your 'rank' is, Lady Atsuko. My family might only be the rank ‘Count’, a Magnoble. However, I have been honored to meet His Majesty and Her Highness throughout my years as an aristocrat. Every notable nobleman and noblewoman should know the ‘feeling’ of meeting a royal.”

My eyes widened as he mentioned that, realizing what his words were telling me, “…Oh.” I could only utter.

"I have been a terrible host, for that, I must recompense you, Lady Atsuko. As somebody with such a prestigious bloodline, I must offer you to live inside my mansion. You may accept or reject my offer to come to the capital, but you may stay in my mansion as long as you wish, too," Count Helvas afford, showing a smile as he recovered his posture. "I do hope our relationship hasn’t worsened due to this. I will keep my word and I will get you the IDs you wish, in addition, the most modern party bracelets and other goods. That is the least I should be doing for you.”

…Guess I lost before I even came here today, huh? No, did I fuck something up on the way or missed something? Fuck…

“…Thank you,” I dejectedly answered. “This night has been very pleasant. I thank you for your offer to stay with you but I must bid you farewell now. Lady Helvas. Lady Ellaine. I do hope you will enjoy the cake, I made it myself with the help of my retainers. It’s also my favorite fruit. Farewell.”

Standing up, nobody stopped me as I slowly walked to the door. Count Helvas rang the bell, causing the doors to open and I immediately left the dining hall without glancing back. Tasianna and Saori were waiting there, probably having felt my anger, and followed me outside where we left through the gates of the mansion on feet.

“…I presume it was a failure?” Saori asked once we were far away from the mansion.

“Nah, I got us our IDs and even some party bracelets,” I replied, looking down as I made sure my dress wouldn’t get dirtied from the ground. Saori and Tasianna worked so hard on it, turning me into a pretty acceptable young lady. I didn’t want to dirty it.

“Huh, is that so? Then why did you suddenly get-Woah!”

Without another thought, I turned around and embraced both of my friends. They were taller than me and I couldn’t fully wrap my arms around both of them but the warmth I was feeling made me forget that fact. It was so comfortable.

“You guys are the best. I will never let anybody get you guys,” I stated with conviction.

“Lady Hestia?!” Tasianna called out as I released both of them.

“Come on, guys. Let’s go home. Sleep and more yeast are waiting for us, ok~”

Don’t mess with my friends. I don’t care who you are. Nobles, Kings, Gods, whoever you are, come if you dare. The sun will incinerate you to dust.

A note from AbyssRaven

Hestia, I made Count Helvas say that, you could have caught on...

Hmm, why do I smell smoke?

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Side Story 18: Plotting under the moonlight.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Don’t you think that was a bit too reckless, Dear?” a woman in a beautiful dress questioned the man sitting in front of her, fluttering her long blond hair around as she shook her head in exasperation, as she remembered today’s events. “The moment we guessed her identity, we should have changed how we engaged her. I didn’t think you were foolish enough to ignore her ‘aura.’”

“Nonsense. We both have met the royal family before, so I know as well as you do the fell of a royal’s aura. It is a gift given by the gods, and I felt her aura the moment she walked into my office,” the man answered in frustration, massaging his temple as a butler silently settled two cups filled with tea on the table between the couple.

Count Andre Helvas and Countess Marianne Helvas - those were the two participants in this discussion, having retreated back to Count Helvas’ office once dinner was done. In the aristocratic society of Artorias, the noble rank of “Count” served as the midway between the lower and higher noble houses. To become a count or countess meant you have become worthy within the eyes of all aristocrats.

Wealth, influence, and history; those were the key traits for any count house in either world. However, due to the presence of mana and skills in Peolynca, Artorias works with a hierarchical system that values high mana capacities and quality profile statuses from every noble as they were responsible for the majority of the military and magical advancements. Despite their long history and wealth, counts were not considered exceptional by nobles of a higher rank.

“However, as a noble of the Kingdom and a loyal vassal of Lord Duke Greenveil, I have a responsibility to assess any potential threats entering our lands. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have been that aggressive, but I only felt hints of her royal aura. I thought her [Noble Aura] was the cause and ignored my instincts here, until her outburst. I had to make sure,” Count Helvas informed his wife while sipping the tea, expressionless. “I admit, I underestimated her mental resilience. She showed the grace and elegance any family would teach their daughter, but she was entirely lacking when it came to negotiations. She didn’t even know the basics. I had thought her timidity and need for secrecy was enough leverage.”

Countess Helvas squinted her eyes, turning her usual calm façade into a frown. “Unbelievable, have you forgotten that massive [Prayer] circle hovering in the air? Andre, your talents lie with the sword and pen, but even you must acknowledge that girl’s immense magical talent. Both the spies and the village chief reported she was the only priestess at the sermon, which means she made a magic circle large enough to surround the entire congregation of villagers unaided. That is a feat for multiple priests, yet she was entirely unperturbed after the cast.”

[Prayer] was a spell created by the church to not only strengthen the faith of the faithful but also act as a powerful, large-scale buffing spell for military needs. Numerous priests would pour their mana into the initial construction of the magic circle as the faithful sang along with the spell chant. Due to [Prayer]’s ability to sap mana from people under it to fuel its cast, the difficulty of casting this custom spell decreases the more people were gathered underneath it.

Priests usually do not create such a large magic circle due to the extraordinary mana cost would be, and if the amount of mana siphoned wasn’t enough, the priests must spend even more mana to finish the cast. The spell would stay modest in size, only enough to encompass those involved, and no one else. In that sense, if a larger magic circle were needed, then either more priests had to participate as casters, or an extraordinarily powerful priest would need to cast the [Prayer] spell.

“My time at the Church of Aurena not only gave me an opportunity to learn holy magic, but also provided me access to information on how [Prayer] actually worked,” Countess Helvas explained. “Normal villagers barely have any mana, so most of the work must be done by the clergymen themselves. Considering how taxing casting the spell is and how most priests and shrine maidens aren’t talented holy mages, it should be obvious why priests rarely visit farming villages. That girl was able to create such an impressive magic circle on her own and in consecutive weeks. Do you understand now?”

“Your words are always harsh when you scold somebody, Marianne,” Count Helvas said with a suppressed laugh, smiling as he watched his wife’s frown. “Do not belittle my intelligence. I was able to work that information out for myself. It would do me no good to not understand, especially when my wife herself is an accomplished mage. I tried my hand on swiping a few of her scales and I was burnt. I admit, my gambit failed and that’s that.”

Countess Helvas glared at her husband with rage, before heaving a deep sigh as she reluctantly gave up under the gaze of her partner’s firm eyes, “You have always been like this. Why am I working myself up? House Helvas has always been notorious for their foolish recklessness, gambling with anything in the pursuit of profit. Honestly, the nobles of the Greenveil Duchy are all impossible. You all act more like merchants than nobles.”

“House Greenveil is one of the two ducal houses focused on economic merits. Greenveil duchy has always put more focus on agriculture and mercantilism. That is how we are, Marianne,” Count Helvas spread his arms, flaunting himself before his wife as he leaned against the sofa. “I know a noblewoman from the Morgiana duchy wouldn’t understand our mindset, but we’ve been together for years now. I presumed it wasn’t a surprise anymore. After all, wasn’t this attitude of mine the reason why you fell in love with me in the first place? You initially hated the idea of us marrying when our fathers arranged it, ha ha ha!”

An “Arcanuess” was the rank above “Count”. Compared to the latter, an arcanuess house was usually younger and less wealthy; instead, they valued strength and ability over everything else. These nobles originally gained their rank through past achievements that led to the founding or elevation of their house. A feat the houses above them had to respect. An arcanuess, compared to a count, would commonly outpower the latter not only with magic but also with martial prowess.

For a noble, going down a rank wasn’t diserable but sometimes it was necessary for the good of the house. Children, even if the parents loved them, were necessary to form bonds with other noble houses, as nothing could cement a lasting relationship more than a marriage. Each house needed an heir, but the rest of the children were potential bargaining chips.

Countess Helvas’s face reddened as she opened up her fan, hiding her smile as she responded. “Hmph, my father ‘traded’ me for your house’s wealth; I understood the reason behind it but you cannot blame me for despising the idea. Especially when my husband-to-be was inadequate with magic, only being able to gain his heir status with his sword arm. My younger self would chide me for giving up my hatred and having my heart stolen by you, somebody who hasn’t mastered the four advance casting skills yet despite his age.”

Both husband and wife began laughing as they reminisced their childhood, adolescence, and then eventual marriage. Considering this wasn’t the original intent of the discussion, how they lost track of it and entered their own rose-colored world, Barathan, the head butler, coughed, interrupting the two.

“Ahem,” Count Helvas composed himself. “What is your opinion on her, Marianne? We know she’s a princess with incredible magical abilities and that she’s from either Loatryx or Kargryx. Aside from her race, what do you think of her from the perspective of a mage and a woman?”

Countess Helvas snapped her fan together, gave the question a short thought, and answered with confidence, “I think we can believe she’s not a proper priestess or shrine maiden of the church of Aurena. I do not know how the dragonewts give thanks to Goddess Aurena, but I can see some indecisiveness behind her words. When I was still a temporary priestess, I learned the difference between official and temporary clergy members. The way they form their words to put Goddess Aurena on a pedestal, elevating her to the image of a head goddess is infamous amongst the other elemental mages. Princess Hestia simply said what she assumed was correct at any given moment.”

“Mhm, I see, the reports did mention her dislike for being treated as a priestess,” Count Helvas nodded. “As a mage, would you be able to defeat her in the worst case?”

Marianne shook her head at the question, tapping her lips with a finger, “Even if I could, I wouldn’t start a duel with her in the first place. That is why I was enraged at your mistake from before. If the girl were less sensible, we could have had a devastating incident today, Andre.”

“Yes, I see that now. I apologize for endangering our house, you, and our children,” Count Helvas bowed to his wife. “I assumed she was less attached to the wind elf, considering the reports always mentioned Princess Hestia leaving her behind at their home.”

“She is a young girl in a foreign country, and she has already admitted to coming to the kingdom through the Belzac forest. Battles forge strong bonds, as you can see with the two of us,” Marianne responded. “If you truly wanted to profit from her acquaintance then you should have been less greedy. While the production secrets of yeast, floral shampoo, and others would reduce the cost of these luxury items for us nobles, I would have preferred to maintain a good relationship with her. Ellaine and I enjoyed her cake quite a lot, and I can guess the same will be for the other noble ladies, too.”

Count Helvas let out a sigh as he began to frown. “I see…Barathan, inform the two adventurer guilds in Firwood to anticipate her arrival there. Joining either the mercenary or hunter guild will give her the least trouble, after all. I shall also inform Lord Marquess Sirius and Lord Duke Greenveil about this so we can prepare what I promised Princess Hestia. Also, inform all servants and attendants about her and to treat her with the same respect they would a greifnoble. I would also like to keep Ellaine here and have her serve as Princess Hestia’s lady-in-waiting until we can find a better solution.”

Countess Helvas widened her eyes at his last sentence, questioning her husband with a tint of disbelief, “Andre, what are you saying?! Ellaine has only recently become an adult. The God Thanking Festival at the capital will mark her first appearance in noble society as an adult! She is a noble lady! Have you any idea what it would mean for her reputation if she were to miss her first appearance?!”

Compared to Earth where a child becomes an adult at the age of 18, the humans on Peolynca consider 15 the entrance to adulthood.

“I do. I also know as a man that I shouldn’t interfere with the noblewomen faction. It isn’t my place,” Count Helvas answered. “However, who are we to assign to her? Are you suggesting we leave an unknown factor, a foreign mage with enough mana to rival a greifnoble freely wander around our land without any supervision? Her wolfkin retainer easily captured our spies, Barathan or a male servant cannot accompany them everywhere as they are men, any knights are redundant, and assigning a female servant will be suspicious. Barathan, report.”

“Yes, my Lord,” Barathan bowed before replying. “The elf, Tasianna, seems hostile towards anybody entering their home. The village chief has also noted that she has never let anybody inside the house when Princess Hestia isn’t around, and this became apparent when I tested them. They do not require any protection and any servant we assign to them will most likely have a hard time with the elf around. I agree that a noble companion would be the wisest option.”

“We cannot have Jonathan stay behind because he is my heir. His role will be to build new relationships as the future head of the house, so our options are limited,” Count Helvas answered with a matter-of-fact tone, calming his enraged wife down. “I know it is important for her, but this is a duty far more important than a ball at the capital. Imagine what would happen if Princess Hestia were to get into trouble due to her ignorance of our culture and rules. She’s a foreigner, after all. Besides, Ellaine will benefit a lot if she manages to befriend her.”

From the standpoint of the count, Hestia wasn’t just a princess but also a mage with an unknown amount of power. The display of her sheer amount of mana was already an indicator that this wasn’t a carefree princess entering another kingdom’s borders but a magician and warrior with strength enough to threaten the status quo of the land.

Her retainers also were a large concern for him. He knew about the difficulty of the Belzac forest and how it was known as a C ranked monster-infested area, meaning that Hestia’s party were strong enough to pass through it unharmed. Nobody who heard this could consider the trio as anything but upper C rank in adventurer terms.

“Marianne, our daughter is a noble, and as a noble she has the responsibility to defend her land. I might have failed with my initial impression, but I do believe she is a kindhearted person, especially from what the reports have said,” Count Helvas argued, remembering the reports he received from his spies and chief Colwyn.

Mages in society had many options available when it came to a profession. They could join the mages guild as an associate, become adventurers, or even join the workforce by offering up their services. In any case, as not every citizen could become a mage, the service of a mage was needed for certain projects or just to accelerate procedures.

Although Hestia was neither a mage guild associate nor an actual priestess, she was fully allowed to demand payment from Colwyn or Count Helvas himself for all she has done, from constructing the foundations of the houses and hunting wild G and F rank monsters in the village’s vicinity, to her sermons and granting white graces.

But she chose not to do any of them. She rejected payment, simply taking goods and a place at the village to stay over winter. Count Helvas, who expected to pay a good amount of money for the village’s reconstruction, earnestly thought it would’ve been impossible for him to leave Carine village before the God Thanking Festival at the capital. Without Hestia’s presence as a priestess giving sermons and [Prayer]s, there was the chance that the village would still be in turmoil.

I might have felt a bit…insulted, when she denied my first proposal, but I shouldn’t have let that get to me considering how large the debt I have to repay, Count Helvas complained to himself.

“Ellaine is my daughter and this is my land. Although they might find her presence an annoyance, they cannot order her to remove herself, as Princess Hestia has no royal authority within our lands,” Count Helvas explained. “This will give them a chance to hopefully bond and a way for me to repay my debt. If Princess Hestia is smart, she will take this opportunity to learn about our land and culture. All mages seek knowledge, correct Marianne? Praise Istari for that fact.”

With a deep sigh, Countess Helvas gave up on objecting, having accepted her husband's arguments, albeit begrudgingly. “There will be a chance in summer,” she whispered before she thought of an excuse good enough to prevent her daughter from facing the social repercussion of her husband’s plan.

“Barathan, call Ellaine to my office once she finishes breakfast. I will inform her about everything then.”

And with the discussion done, the couple returned to their private chambers, musing about their days of youth and how their love blossomed on the battlefield. Plotting and scheming weren’t their favorite activities, but they had their responsibilities as nobles. They could only hope their future with the mysterious princess will be bright.

***********************************************

“…Tch.”

In the dusk of night, a lone silhouette could be identified at the bottom of a grand canyon, staring at the rubble in front of him. His golden hair and yellow skin tone shone through the night, unsuitable for stealth for how conspicuous it was. Two jagged horns grew from his forehead, rising upward like two long stakes, sharp enough to pierce through flesh. A long, thin spiked tail extended from his bottom, devoid of any fur as it swung around from its owner’s emotions.

“I have come back, expecting progress from my investment, and what do I find? The only entranceway destroyed from a collapsed ridge and multiple grimgarians killed by three wyverns. Fantastic,” the man with a demon-like appearance spoke out in anger, tapping his feet restlessly as he stood. “This will set us back until late spring or early summer. Fantastic, absolutely fantastic. Sigh, if I were a demonkin of wrath, I believe I would destroy this mountain to create a path, but I’m not barbaric enough to do something so conspicuous. The grimgarians will fight the Artorians, not I.”

Swiping his hair backwards, he flaunted himself in the darkness, disregarding the fact nobody was looking at him. He gave out a sly smile as a devious idea suddenly sprang into his mind, “Well, can’t do anything about it. Greenveil duchy will survive for a bit longer then, but they’ll eventually fall. Hmph, the sea option will be enough after I get some tamers to do their magic on a few beasts, and conquering that harbor will give the army easy access to reinforcements. The grimgarians will take down the Lecartiglio duchy first, while mayhem and chaos will strike the other duchies.”

He then looked up in the sky, smirking as he showed off his carnivorous fangs, proudly exclaiming, “Hope you six will have fun watching us destroy everything you love. On the fact that I am a demonkin of pride, I will make you grovel onto the ground before our gods, pretenders!”

A devilish laugh erupted from his mouth as he slowly waltzed back into the darkness, bringing with him carnage and destruction as his voice echoed through the night, an omen for the future.

A note from AbyssRaven

Hope you guys liked it. Writing about nobles is kinda hard, ya know, but I liked this chapter for the challenge. Any feedback will be nice!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 96: Barracuda Migration Event.

A note from AbyssRaven

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"Why are you here?” I asked with annoyance, the question directed at the young woman sitting beside me. She was wearing an elegant dress that would make her stand out among the villagers and their patchwork clothing.

“How rude, Princ-, my apologies, Lady Hestia,” she nearly let slip with a frown, before immediately correcting it back into a smile, hiding her emotions behind it as she kept speaking. “I have simply decided to spend my day outside, on my dear father’s land, to observe the barracuda migration through our village’s river. It was surprising to me to meet you here, so I decided to join you. The more the merrier, correct?”

Ellaine Fiero Helvas, the daughter of Count and Countess Helvas. A beauty with shimmering blue hair braided with care into a hairstyle I would call cute and refined. Unlike her mother who kept her long blond hair kept in buns to appear more mature, Ellaine let her hair reach her back with braidings to cement the appearance of a youthful but proper young lady.

The dress she was wearing was different from the one she had worn to dinner the day before. It was shorter, only reaching her shins. It looked more comfortable to walk in, as I can attest the dresses we both wore yesterday would be ill-suited to walking around the village, as the hem would dirty without question. However, despite the difference, the amount of embroidery, the inclusion of her family’s emblem, and the cleanliness of her dress made it obvious to any onlookers who she was. She was screaming to be robbed if this weren’t her house’s fief.

“Please, don’t lie. I don’t know exactly what your parents are planning, but I can deduce you are here to supervise me. At least you aren’t resorting to spying, like last time,” I replied, already understanding the situation without needing her to answer.

This was the day after my dinner and disastrous negotiation with house Helvas. Sure, I might have secured the IDs which our party needed, but seeing as how Ellaine nearly called me “Princess”, it’s pretty clear they’ve already figured out one of my secrets. Count Helvas did mention he was able to “feel” the aura exuded from my [Princess] title, after all.

When I told what happened to Saori and Tasianna, they did mention I messed up a bit by not simply telling the Count I was a princess. We had already decided before the dinner that it was better if only a few people knew rather than everyone, so it wasn’t much of a problem for me to confess my royalty status. I had to agree. It was my mistake for not being able to figure that out. I was nervous but I did have nine “brains” to think that through…sigh.

Ellaine placed a hand on her cheeks, looking unperturbed at my guess. “Well, if I have been exposed so easily, then there is no more reason to stay quiet about it. Father ordered me to keep you company while you are here. He has told me he owes you a debt, so this is his way to repay you aside from your deal with him.”

“Having you as company is supposed to be repayment? Ahem, I do apologize if I sound extremely rude but, after what happened yesterday, I am not in the mood to entertain you,” I said bluntly, ignoring the slight glares I got from her retainers.

As Ellaine was a young lady from a noble house, she hadn’t come alone. Barathan, along with her personal maid and two knights were also here today as her escorts. Her maid and knights visibly showed their disapproval from my choice of words but were quickly silenced once Tasianna glanced at them. Barathan was the only one who ignored my words, almost like he was expecting them, and reprimanded the three for their behavior.

“Pardon our rudeness, Lady Hestia. Although we do understand your standpoint, we would like you to understand ours. As our guest, a prestigious one if I may say, we do have a duty to make sure no harm comes to you. Politically speaking, we are simply looking out for ourselves,” Barathan explained in response to my bluntness, keeping his persona of a perfect butler intact.

“It is as Barathan has said, Lady Hestia. Instead of thinking of me as a problem, may I suggest we build up our relationship like you mentioned yesterday? Is speaking with me that revolting?” Ellaine asked with the face of a girl betrayed by her best friend, causing me to sigh in exasperation.

“…May I also point out the fact that your presence is quite unnerving. Not for me, but for the villagers? This is supposed to be a fun day for them but look at them,” I pointed at the villagers, all of them standing close to the riverbank with self-made nets and harpoons. Although they looked ready, some of them were looking back at us with anxiousness.

Harriet once explained to me that the villagers couldn’t relax around me ‘casue they believed I was a noble. Since the class system ruled these lands, as serfs, they were aware they needed to show respect to nobles and were worried that their actions might insult them. Nobody wanted trouble with nobles, so it couldn’t be helped that they were worried when I started living here with my party.

At this point, though, the villagers had come to tolerate my presence due to Saori’s efforts to befriend them. They wouldn’t stop walking when I appeared, but speaking and interacting with them was still impossible. That scene with Lorena’s friends was still clear in my mind. Due to this, I couldn’t participate in the fishing itself, unfortunately. It’s always the fun parts that I couldn’t do.

So, Saori was the one to fish for us. We needed more meat to satisfy my cravings, after all. Tasianna had come along with us, but her hatred for humans was still too strong, so she hung out with me as we snacked and sipped tea together. That was when Colwyn and Harriet had shown up with Ellaine.

“Oi, I can see the fish! I can see the fish! Barracuda season is back!” someone acting as a spotter shouted before running back to the main group.

“Saori, catch us a feast, alright!? Lorena, good luck to you and your family! May Themestra, the Goddess of Hunting and Archery, bless everyone in Carine village seeking to feed their families!” I shouted to pump everybody up, causing the villagers and Saori to erupt in cheers as they readied nets and harpoons.

Colwyn asked me before the event began to speak that last sentence. As everybody believed me to be a priestess of Aurena, any blessing I say could motivate the villagers even more. As I already knew about Themestra from my lessons from Tasianna, I already understood what he meant by this despite everybody mostly praying to Aurena and Krunal, the God of Harvests and the Weather.

Themestra was not only the Goddess of Hunting and Archery but also a subordinate Goddess of Aurena and Zephira. The reason why she was serving two origin goddesses was ‘cause, in life, she was a half-elf, half-human who was respected by both elves and humans as one of the best archers during her mortal life. The stories say the two goddesses took her in after her apotheosis; as they couldn’t decide who should take her as their subordinate, Plesia gave Themestra the choice. She chose both goddesses, and that’s how she became who she was today.

As I sat back down on my wooden chair, I noticed Ellaine hiding her open mouth with a fan, looking a bit astounded. “You’ve seen me at my best, Lady Ellaine,” I answered.

I then spread a bit of scale-dust into the air before igniting them, imitating the sparkle of stars. “But this is how I truly am. If I am too vulgar for you, then you may leave. This was supposed to be a relaxing day for me, and I have no intention of acting like yesterday to accommodate you,” I said proudly, before taking out a wooden table and Tasianna’s tea set from my storage.

“W-Was that space-time-?! Ahem,” she stammered, her eyes widening in surprise at my [Storage Magic], nearly break her noble persona before recovering it just in the nick of time. “Well, I would by lying if I said your sudden outburst did not surprise me, Lady Hestia. The image you gave my family yesterday was that of an elegant and refined greifnoble. Seeing you mingle with our subjects is…well, I have visited the villagers twice with my father due to our duty as their lords, but I cannot imagine living here. The smell is foul and nauseating; surely, you must be aware of that, no?”

“Saori, my wolfkin retainer over there, and I are both beastmen. We have finer noses, so yes, I can smell it too clearly. Still haven’t gotten used to it,” I shrugged. “However, don’t try to persuade me to live in your mansion. Instead, what is this ‘greifnoble’ you compared me to?” I spoke, stopping her from offering me to come to her home.

Ellaine pouted a bit but answered my question, nonetheless, “A greifnoble is the highest tier of noble ranks in our kingdom. We have five tiers; greifnoble, magnoble, the clergy, schwertnoble, and knights in descending order of their power and influence. My father is a magnoble, as he is a count. Lord Duke Greenveil possesses the prestigious rank of duke, given to him by His Majesty the King, and is so a greifnoble.”

Curious about the aristocratic system of the Kingdom of Artorias, I continued asking her about the rest of the ranks. In descending order, the ranks would go like this: greifnobles included grand duke, duke, and marquess; magnobles included arcanuess, count, and viscount; the clergy with their priests and shrine maidens; schwertnobles included baron and baronet; lastly, knights were treated similarly to schwertnobles while the rest of their family stayed commoners. Of course, the king and queen stood above them all as royalty.

“Father and mother did mention your ignorance of our land, but to not even know the ranks and tiers is quite surprising. Pray tell, Lady Hestia, do you possibly know how nobles of a lower tier address those of a higher tier?” Ellaine asked me with worry on her face, clearly having no intentions to hide her emotions here.

Once I admitted I did not, Ellaine muttered an “oh my” as she quickly explained it to me. Apparently, if you were a person of a lower social tier and ranking, you were supposed to address a noble of a higher tier with “lord” or “lady” first and then their noble rank with their family name. For example, if I were a baroness, I would have to address Count Helvas with “Lord Count Helvas” instead of how I did it yesterday with “Lord Helvas.”

It wasn’t a law, but an unofficial social rule to show respect to nobles of a higher rank. This was especially the case for a commoner who was speaking with a noble, as some prideful ones could take it as an insult.

Wait, was that the reason why both Barathan and Count Helvas squinted their eyes when I first introduced myself?

Flabbergasted at my total lack of knowledge of this fact, I quickly questioned Tasianna about it. I did notice Colwyn, Saori, and Tasianna abiding by the rule, but it seems Tasianna and Saori both did it ‘cause they copied Colwyn. They didn’t know the reason and thought only “lord” or “count” was enough when I did it.

In other words, this is all Colwyn’s fault! How could he not have informed me about this fact?! Colwyn, what have you done, you Dummkopf?!

Great, I exposed myself. Argh, I should have just asked him about it!

Now beaming a brilliant smile at knowing my weakness, Ellaine continued, “If you wish, I could help you expand your knowledge, Lady Hestia? We are both mages, correct? As mages, we must always seek knowledge just like Istari, the God of Magic and Knowledge.”

“You are a mage, too? I felt mana from your mother, but I didn’t know you could cast spells,” I asked with curiosity.

Showing me a self-mocking smile, Ellaine answered my question reluctantly, “I see…Am I that weak? Ahem, that is beside the point, but yes, I am a mage. Every noble is expected to learn to control their mana, as that is our noble duty. As the descendants of distinguished warriors and mages, we are to harness our innate abilities and high mana pools to gain the strength to protect and serve our kingdom and its people.”

She then proceeded to conjure up a [Earthen Wall], speaking a chant I never had to do myself. When she asked me to showcase my own, I was a bit hesitant about doing it but ultimately decided to do it as I had no reason to not flaunt my abilities. When I conjured my own [Earthen Wall], Ellaine was shocked at seeing me do it without a chant. It would seem her [Chant Revocation] was only level 3. She was stuck at the breakpoint requirement.

There was a silence between us after she saw my spell, perfectly aligned with Tasianna having finished the tea. Ellaine’s maid seemed a bit restless when she saw that, probably feeling a bit uneasy that I was served tea while her mistress wasn’t. It was a bit nostalgic seeing this sight as Tasianna used to be like that too, always fidgeting when Saori had to serve me her tea as she couldn’t in her fairy form.

Unable to keep watching her like that, I called over Barathan and lent him a spare teapot and some of our tea leaves. I sparked a fire for them with my claws and told Barathan they could use it if they wanted to. Barathan bowed deeply, thanking me for my generosity, before beginning the tea preparation with the maid. I also had the chance to learn that Barathan was a water mage as he could cast [Create Water] for the water.

Dunno what’s bugging you Ellaine but…whatever.

She hadn’t said anything since I showed her my [Earthen Wall]. If she didn’t want to speak then it’s fine. We weren’t friends, and her father was somebody I didn’t want to associate myself with too much. So, instead, I just watched Saori and the villagers fish.

“Woah, shit! They broke through!”

“Dammit, a new net! Come on, give me a new net!”

“Ahhh! I got one! Look at this big bugger! Wait! I got a level! I give my thanks to Goddess Aurena and Goddess Themestra for this blessing!”

Woah, it looks more intense than I thought.

The river looked like a cascading waterfall right now, caused by a stream of barracudas and other fish swimming down the river at a rapid speed. None of the villagers were able to stay in the river and had to stand at the riverbank for safety’s sake, as they threw nets and sharp wooden spears into the river, hoping they could catch some fish.

Identify

Barracuda

A barracuda that has adapted to freshwater. Unlike higher rank barracudas, this kind cannot evolve under normal circumstances. Rank G

When I was still a [Young Spark Fire Dragon], I did get a taste of some barracuda sashimi when I was stuck in that cave. Those fish were pretty vicious with their long fangs and water attacks. I wasn’t sure but, if this was a migration, then does that mean the barracudas I met in that cave were once participants of this event? I met them somewhere at the end of spring and start of summer, while this migration is happening at the start of winter.

Funnily enough, the villagers seem to be earning experience from catching these fish. Only an extreme minority were actually benefitting from it, so I guess their experience gain was quite low. Still, any level is good, I think.

“Hey, Miss Saori, you’re catching all of them! Leave some for us!”

“Wow, look at this giant bowl. She’s filling it up with fish.”

“Ahhhhhhhh! Sashimi! Nigiri! The spirit of a ryoshi compels me!!!” Saori shouted.

…It seems she’s having fun.

While the villagers were staying by the shore and fishing with wooden harpoons and nets, Saori was standing in the river. Like a grizzly swiping salmon out of the river, she was enthusiastically fishing with just her paws. Erm, hand, I mean.

Similar to a grizzly bear swiping salmon out of the river, Saori was the only one standing in the river, actively catching fish like an animal. The fervor she was putting into this task was remarkable and a bit worrying, considering she was only doing this to refill our meat storage. “Saving on food costs”, would be a fitting refrain for Saori, as I can imagine her excusing herself with it.

Still, the bowl I made for Akasht’s soup was slowly being filled up with fish. I couldn’t see how full it was from this distance, but I could already guess from all the comments and the speed Saori was working. “Ryoshi”, huh? A Japanese word to describe Japanese hunters and fishermen. Yeah, I don’t think any ryoshi have ever fished so…beastly.

Enjoying the sight of Saori letting out a bit of steam, breaking out of her usual personality, I took out some potato, I mean, toffel chips from my storage to snack on. If I had popcorn, you know I would munch on those, too. Being a sunfang dragon makes you hungry, alright?

“Oh, thank you very much, Lady Hestia,” Tasianna thanked me, accepting a toffel chip and bit into it with a crunch, following with me doing the same.

No salt but honey glaze is awesome, too. Sweet~

When I noticed Ellaine looking over at us with curiosity, I offered her a bowl of chips. “If you want some. But don’t get the wrong idea here. I’m not doing this for you, I’m doing this for courtesy’s sake.”

After I demonstrated how to eat a chip as elegantly as possible, Ellaine picked one up and slowly put it into her mouth. After the chip gave out a satisfying crunch, Ellaine’s eyes widened and she placed a hand on her mouth. “What is this…Honey?” she uttered.

“Toffel chips; we made it. Think of it like cupcakes or cookies…wait, do you even know what those pastries are?” She shook her head to my question. “Oh, okay. Well, then think of it as a snack that accompanies tea or any other beverages. It usually is made with salt, but we had none, so we had to compromise with honey.”

Like how simple it was to make potato chips, toffel chips had about the same process. Toffels, the Peolyncian version of potatoes, were tougher and larger than a potato and needed to be cooked longer to attain that soft interior you wanted to bite into.

So, Saori suggested to steam cook the toffels to soften them up first, then I would use wind magic and [Aerokinesis] to thinly slice them up. Meanwhile, Tasianna made a special honey glaze using Belzac herbs and honey according to a recipe she learned from her village. I would then bake them, and finally Saori would apply the glaze coating and set them to dry under the sun.

They used me to steam stuff again…

We did all of this just this morning so there weren’t a lot of chips. Still, I had to say that it was a grand success. I got cake and chips on my side now. I can attain the perfect state of a teenager now, that of a chill slacker in her pajamas. Yes!

“I have a question, Lady Hestia,” Ellaine asked after her second chip. “You mentioned yesterday that you and your retainers made the fragassa cake, like these toffel chips. Were you literal with your statement?”

“Of course,” I answered immediately. “I don’t know how you treat your retainers and servants, but Saori and Tasianna are my friends. Sure, they might technically be my retainers, but, to me, they are my equals. That was why I had that outburst yesterday after your father was audacious enough to suggest such an outrageous idea. I do apologize if I scared you, but I hope you now know why I am not willing to live in your mansion.”

Before Ellaine could respond, I suddenly noticed Saori shouting, carrying a huge barracuda in her arms like a proud fisherwoman.

Identify.

Moss Stone Barracuda

A freshwater barracuda who lives in rivers with moss stone. The parasite cultivated in moss stone helps the barracuda develop a weak venom they can inflict with their long fangs. Rank F

It wasn’t massive, like a giant tuna, but it certainly was large enough to feed a family, “Awesome work, Saori! I hope your fish dishes are as good as your meat ones!” I shouted out to cheer for my friend before calming down to look at a shocked Ellaine. “No need to be surprised. I did say you’ll get to know the normal me, outside my dress.”

“O-Oh, I see. I apologize,” Ellaine replied. “Uhm, speaking of dress, now that I look at it, isn’t your skirt a bit too short?”

Looking down at my legs, I couldn’t agree with her statement. Maybe it’s how I’m used to seeing it from k-pop idols, but I didn’t think my skirt was that short, even if my thighs were exposed. Standing up, I put my arms into the sleeves of my robe and buttoned my robe up, covering up my skirt and only showing the ends of my boots.

Proudly flaunting them in front of Ellaine, I spoke to her while twirling my robes, “And it’s gone. I use this outfit for fighting and traveling, so practicality had to be respected. Of course, I’m a girl, so I wanted a bit of cuteness with it.”

Interestingly enough, Ellaine seemed to be quite interested in the design of my outfit now that I explained about it. We were about to start talking about clothing and fashion but…

“Ahhhhhhhhhh!”

…something happened.

“Dammit!” Saori, hearing the scream, threw the barracuda in the bowl and rushed over to the person who cried out. Looking over, I noticed that one of the men had a large barracuda latched onto one shoulder and a wound in one leg, which was bleeding profusely.

Scheiße!

I rushed over, reflexively. Saori managed to remove the barracuda, tearing it off the man’s shoulder and punching it back into the river, where its mangled corpse was dragged away by the stream of fish. Colwyn, noticing me coming over, told everybody to make room for me, so getting to the man was simple.

That’s one of those venomous barracudas, right?! Yeah, [Identify] proved it, he’s poisoned.

“Major Heal!” I cast to stop the bleeding in his leg, restoring it back to normal.

“Oooh! The white grace! The priestess granted him the white grace!”

“That’s the same light she gave us! See everybody! I told you Priestess Hestia can grant it! Look at how his wounds are healing! It’s Goddess Aurena’s mercy!”

While the villagers were erupting in excitement or reverence, whichever it was, I had to draw my attention towards the man, “Sir, you were poisoned by that barracuda. I will now heal you from it but whatever happens, do not be surprised or alarmed, alright!”

“Y-Yes, Lady Priestess! Please heal me, I-I can’t feel my shoulder anymore,” the man uttered in pain, grimacing from the deep wound in his shoulder, which looked like it nearly got torn off.

“Alright, ahem, Hear me, my embers of white

Your form so bright, your warmth so soothing

Burn, naught for who you once were

The Light beckons, seeking your aid

White fire, mend and protect my allies!

Sanctified Blaze!”

A white magic circle attached itself onto the man, before white flames immediately burst out from it, gathering around his bloody wounds. Custom spells could be cast chantlessly with [Chant Revocation Lv. 10], but I didn’t have enough practice to do that realiably. Master Kush told me chanting was there to help the mage concentrate on the spells and prevent misfires. I couldn’t afford to let the spell fizzle out, so I decided to do it slowly but surely.

[Major Heal] could heal his wounds but [Sanctified Blaze] was the only spell I had to cure status afflictions like [Poisoned].

“A-Ah, fir-!” he was about to shout but Saori shut him up with her hands.

“Hey, didn’t you hear what I told you! Are you rejecting a white grace?!” I announced loudly, causing all the villagers to mumble “That’s a white grace?” The only ones who didn’t were those I already had as my “followers”, those that I saved from the bandits, who saw me use both holy and fire magic. Lorena and her parents were among them, and they were supporting me by calming the other down.

Once the man calmed down and understood what I meant, the flames quickly purged the venom out of his body, regenerated his flesh, and then disappeared.

“A-ah, thank you so very much, Lady Priestess! Thank you so very much for your healing! Thank you for the white grace, thank you! Praise Goddess Aurena for bringing you here!” the man thanked me after I healed him.

Overwhelmed by how much he was thanking me, I could only force myself to answer, “Uh, it’s nothing,” while everybody around me began to copy him. The amounts of praise and thanks I received today were insane but it seems like I didn’t manage to get any followers today. It’s ok, it’s not like I’m trying to rush for the milestone reward.

However, what was unnerving was how he and his family wanted to give me their bounty of fish as all their money was stolen by the bandits. Yes, I love taking the winter rations of people who have nothing else to give- Of course, I didn’t take it! But, just like last time, rejecting their generosity seemed to have made them see me in an even brighter light.

“She’s a saintess! She must be! All the other priests and priestess always asked for money!”

“Gracious, so merciful! Lady Priestess, may Goddess Aurena bless your kind soul. Thank you for saving our friend!”

“The ‘Crimson Saintess’! I apologize for being so scared of you for being a beastman! Bless your soul!”

Noooooo, stop it! I don’t want all your fish! Stop it! It’s yours! Keep it!

The chaos was eventually resolved after Colwyn and Harriet got everybody to calm down. In the end, those two told everybody that they will repay me under the orders of Count Helvas. That reminds me, he did mention that the church of Aurena might get angry if I go around healing people and not taking compensation for it. Is this his way to solve that?

Anyway, after what happened, I thought the villagers would stop for the day, but they didn’t. It was their last chance to get meat for winter, so one person getting hurt wouldn’t stop everybody as their own families depended on this event.

My party, on the other hand, stopped. We had enough fish and there were still two more days. Apparently, the larger barracudas wouldn’t appear on the first day of the migration as the smaller, less dangerous, ones were faster and appeared sooner. Things like that [Moss Stone Barracuda] were supposed to come on the third day. To be sure that nobody else would get hurt, we still stayed around, grilling the fish to share with the hard workers.

Ellaine, after a while, went back to her mansion. It seems she had to attend some appointment.

The next morning came, and it was time to say goodbye to the people from another village, the mercenaries, and Master Kush and the other saurians.

“Here, young scale,” Master Kush took out three wooden tablets and gave two to me. “These are instructions for you to train your [Multi-Cast] and [Continuous Cast]. Get them, even if they are difficult for you to get. Make more custom spells and expand your roster of spells. Tasianna, here is a list of custom water spells I know of. Some you have seen me cast but others are from my colleagues at Caedhul. If you can learn the ones you need, you will be able to construct your own ice spells.”

“Thank you so very much, Master Kush,” I replied with teary eyes.

“I give my thanks to you, Priest Kushlek’zar. May Goddess Plesia bless your path forward, grant you with holy water on your quest,” Tasianna bowed reverently. “I will assure you, I will become strong enough to protect my Lady.”

“Ha, unlike to Kush, I can’t give you anything. Sorry, Saori,” Krim-Slak said.

“Ah, do not worry about it. This lesson plan to help me train my magic is good enough, beside, you have helped me a lot with my fighting style. If it were not for you and Grazlahta, I do not think I could have won against Hestia,” Saori said giving the red carnosaurian a handshake.

“Ahh, dammit, I can’t accept this. Hmm, ah! Here, take this,” Krim-Slak then took out a token or something and handed it over to Saori. “If some bastard at the mercenary guild at Firwood gives you or the Princess trouble, show them that token. I bet they’ll remember the pounding I gave them, but I guess you’ll give them even more hell, ha ha ha!”

It was a tearful farewell for me, as those guys gave us quite a lot of help. From a combat standpoint, we got a huge boost in power just from their lessons alone. I still felt a bit annoyed that Master Kush was leaving before I could beat him once in a duel but…we’ll meet again. We will meet again, yeah!

You better hear my name once my Idol job get’s going, guys! Master Kush, Krim-Slak, Grazlahta, Akasht, thank you!

A note from AbyssRaven

Time for sushi. Also, bye bye, Master Kush for now. I liked writing about them. :(

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 12 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 97: My first Davi.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #4 her to promote our Patreon. 12 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 12 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until November!

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There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

On the same day the saurians left with the people from the other village, the mercenaries and Count Helvas’ party left also. While saying goodbye to the mercenaries wasn’t anything spectacular, I was quite surprised to see Count Helvas’s transportation method. I thought they would use their carriages to travel toward the capital of Artorias, Griffonpeak, but I was wrong. Befitting the capital’s name, an actual eagle-lion hybrid griffon appeared!

Stormfeather Griffon

A feathered monster with the head and wings of a majestic eagle and the body of a mighty lion. These large griffons possess wings with the ability to adjust themselves quickly to rapidly changing turbulences, enabling them to traverse through even the most turbulent windstorms. Their feathers enable them to send out gusts of wind to topple aerial opponents before striking them down with their sharp talons. Rank B

Similar to the wyverns I met in Belzac forest, this griffon was around the size of an elephant. It had long, powerful brown wings like those of a bald eagle, while its body had the musculature of a lion with sharp talons on its front legs and lion-like hind legs and a tail. Instead of a mane of fur, brown feathers covered its chest and neck, giving off a regal aura whenever it puffed them up. It looked exactly the way fantasy novels always described them.

Curious about the griffon, I sneaked up to the Count’s house with Saori and Tasianna following me. We watched how Count Helvas appeared out of the house, donning a suit of armor riddled with dents and scars only a veteran warrior could possibly have, and greeting his griffon with a wide smile. “Always on time, my partner”, he said before mounting it.

Countess Helvas and Jonathan, their son, left the house also. As no other griffons were there, I thought they would travel with the carriage while Count Helvas would either travel to the capital without them or join them as a guard. However, against my expectations, both the Countess and Jonathan took out brown statues and poured mana into them, making them grow into brown griffons.

Gargoyle Manatech Statues

A manatech created through a combination of technology and alchemy using monster parts to create the form of a monster. By pouring mana into them, these statues can grow in size and perform whatever simple motions their referenced monster can do, but only when they are attached to their masters. These gargoyles do not possess a will and lack advance combat features

Gargoyles: stone statues that would awaken into fierce monsters when mana was injected into them. Fantasy novels always had them as guardians of a sorcerer’s estate, defending their master’s belongings with fierce loyalty until they were destroyed. I wasn’t expecting to see them here, but neither was I prepared to see a griffon.

Countess Helvas, in an outfit suitable for flying, and her son both mounted their gargoyles and set off with Count Helvas into the sky, only escorted by two knights on their own gargoyles. Weirdly enough, before they left, I had the feeling the griffon was looking in our direction but…that couldn’t be it, right? Saori, Tasianna, and I all had our stealth skills activated, so we should have been impossible to detect. Somehow, I felt a bit of hostility from the griffon, but that had to be my imagination, right?

Strangely enough, during that whole event, Ellaine wasn’t joining them in their travels but was the one saying goodbye to her family with Barathan. Carriages were then prepared, which I thought was Ellaine’s travel method, but only Countess Helvas’ head maid and a few other servants entered them as they departed with a few soldiers as their escorts. Later, I learned they were also traveling to the capital, where they would serve in the count’s mansion there.

Once Ellaine returned inside the mansion, with a dejected expression similar to an abandoned puppy, our party left the mansion’s vicinity. We returned to the same area where the fishing from yesterday happened and resumed what we did with the villagers. The number of streaming barracudas hadn’t decline, to everybody’s joy.

The next day, the 30th, the villagers couldn’t join us due to the higher ranked barracudas appearing today. Large ones like those [Moss Stone Barracuda]s would appear today, so only the three of us could physically fish them without endangering ourselves. Thankfully, as nobody would be watching us, I could finally unleash my pent-up excitement and fish up an amount worthy for a feast. What I consider a feast, mind you.

The day after that, AutumnMoon 1st, Ellaine returned to supervise me. She greeted me with Barathan after we finished breakfast, followed beside me as we walked to the village’s gate, unnerving the villagers. With them, we strolled into the forest, giving them a front-row seat of our training sessions. She barely said anything during training, but I could see the visible shock in her eyes when one of us cast a high leveled or compound spell, like lightning or ice.

Hiding our power was an option, but I needed to let off some steam. Becoming a [Young Sunfang Dragon] has certainly calmed me down more but I’ve noticed myself acting a bit more arrogant when I’m annoyed. There was no need to risk [Battle Frenzy] and we three needed training. Our stats and skills increased so it was rewarding, nonetheless.

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Long-Range Spell Enhancement Lv. 2] [Air Walk Lv. 4] [Thought Acceleration Lv. 3] gained

“Lady Hestia, this might be presumptuous of me, but you are aware dark elemental magic isn’t favored by the church, right? It surprises me one of your retainers is a dark mage,” Ellaine suddenly mentioned after my spars.

“…Do your spies not use it?” I asked cautiously.

She shook her head, “Our house doesn’t, no, but that’s because hiring an arcane rogue is quite difficult due to the church. You might not be an actual priestess but seeing a holy mage together with a dark mage is…unusual.”

This reminded me of the time I met the lizardmen and learned of their fear of holy mages. While dark magic practitioners weren’t outlawed in Artorias, they weren’t popular among the more fanatical followers of Aurena. The reason being Origin God Marsven and his subordinate gods. I guess having the goddess of monsters as a wife and a daughter responsible for the creation of the grimgarians might be reason enough for the church of Aurena to ostracize them.

Ellaine, herself, didn’t have a strong opinion on the subject. Her mother came from the Morgiana duchy. House Morgiana focused on the arcane, so they and the noble houses serving under them are favorable towards all Origin Gods. Her opinion as a mage was also influenced by her time at the royal academy at the kingdom’s capital, where no element was prohibited.

Huh, I guess even medieval times had an understanding of school, at least for the nobility.

“The academy begins again in SpringSun, and I would love it if you would join me, at least, for a tour. Considering your display just now, I honestly believe you might be superior to my professors, which will garner you exceptional esteem from other nobles,” Ellaine mentioned with wonder.

“Thank you for the praise, but I don’t know if I’ll have the time nor opportunity,” I declined with a faint smile from the compliments.

On the next day, Ellaine took me to her mansion before I trained, and was still clean from my morning bath. Due to my actions on the first day of the barracuda migration where I healed somebody, I had to be paid for granting the white grace. I initially wanted to decline the payment but the words of Count Helvas were still vivid in my memories, so I accepted it. I’m a good girl, I don’t want trouble.

Saori, who accompanied me, was shivering with delight at the sight of money. If we were at home now, I bet she would take the purse away and start counting it or maybe cuddle with it as she fell asleep. Somehow, I had that image in my head. She was so relieved that our coffers finally weren’t empty anymore.

While I was there, I also asked Ellaine how money worked. Initially, she was quite surprised I didn’t know how Davi, the universal currency of this continent, worked but I quickly explained I was used to a different kind. Accepting my excuse, she nodded. With a slight move of her hand, Barathan moved forward, took out a small pouch, and spread a few coins on the table.

“Then, please, allow this humble servant to educate her Grace,” Barathan announced, before ordering Ellaine’s personal maid to bring the gold coins.

On the table, an assortment of coins colored in copper and silver laid before me, with the majority being of silver.

I did see these coins when Colwyn showed them to me but back then I had literally no idea what they meant. Learning how to use money is a necessity.

“As you might be aware, Davi is a currency introduced to us by the dwarves, as they are the leading force when it comes to minerals and metalwork. All human nations have adopted it as their national currency to ease trade with the dwarves,” Barathan explained. “To begin, this small copper coin is worth one Davi.”

The small copper coin looked simple aside from an insignia with a shield and hammer in the middle of it. The medium copper coin was worth ten Davi, with an appearance similar to a Japanese ten yen coin, while the large copper coin was a little larger and worth a hundred Davi.

“Ah, thank you,” Barathan thanked the maid, accepting two gold coins from her. “Now where were we? These are silvite and goldite coins, a creation of the dwarves made by mixing silver and gold with impurities. My warning might be redundant, but please be careful not to melt them. Due to the impurities, the worth of the minerals inside of it is vastly inferior compared to using the coin outright.”

I might not know what went through the minds of the creators of these coins, but mixing impurities inside of them to prevent them from being melted was ingenious. Although, considering dwarves in fantasy novels were usually extremely prideful of their work, maybe their intention was simply to prevent people from ruining their work?

Regardless, back to the coins. A small silvite coin was a thousand Davi while a large one was ten thousand. A small goldite one was a hundred thousand and a large one was worth a million.

“The price for the white grace depends on the spell cast during the healing. They work on the different tiers of the ‘heal’ spell and if [Cure] was needed,” Ellaine explained. “[Minor Heal] would cost 200 Davi, [Moderate Heal] is 1500 Davi, and [Major Heal] is 5000 Davi. You’ve used [Major Heal], yes? And also a custom spell I’ve never seen before, which means I owe you…”

“200 Davi is enough for me,” I answered before Ellaine could speak. “Casting a single [Major Heal] barely puts a dent in my mana capacity, and my [Sanctified Blaze] acts similarly to a [Cure]. Besides, that man wasn’t in critical condition and I use [Major Heal] liberally due to my mentioned reason.”

It’s more ‘cause I can’t use [Minor Heal] and [Moderate Heal] anymore due to Shiterno’s idiocy, but I can’t say that here. Who would believe me having [Sacred Magic] but not [Holy Magic] anymore?

“…That is unacceptable, Lady Hestia. I will agree to your offer but as you have cured him of [Poisoned], I must insist you take the price of a single [Cure] cast, which is 500 Davi.”

And with that, our group was 700 Davi, or seven large copper coins, richer now, yay. Apparently, bread was worth around five Davi per loaf according to Barathan so we had quite a nice amount. However, when I said that at home, Saori began scolding me for not thinking it through, that I forgot about the other costs of living. Urgh, getting scolded sucks…especially when I didn’t care that much about the subject. I could always earn more money with my magic.

And that’s exactly what I did the next day. When I walked around the village’s perimeter, I noticed how flimsy the wooden walls were and thought, “wouldn’t stone walls work better?” And so I asked Ellaine.

She wasn’t convinced about it initially, but when I started mentioning I could create a [Terra Wall] strong enough to block most fire spells and argued it could prevent attacks on the village, she accepted. I also offered to do it for her mansion’s walls, but it seems they were already fortified by a terra mage. Damn.

Still, I earned five small silvite for the whole procedure which means my party had 5700 Davi in total funds. Usually, this sorta task would require multiple mages to do but I can do it by myself in a single day. Now, Carine village was supported by a [Terra Wall] made by me, hie hie.

Also, I finally took the chance to ask Ellaine if I could build my concert stage inside the village. I’ve only been preparing the songs and dance choreographies these past days, I completely forgot about the venue; without a stage, I wouldn’t be able to call it a proper idol concert. Ellaine suggested building it in the area where I always gave my sermons, as it was the largest unoccupied space in the village. The village used to have a church here, but it was burned down during the bandit attack and hasn’t been rebuilt due to a lack of masons and earth mages.

The stage itself was kept simple. I only needed a platform, really. Of course, I haven’t forgotten about the lights and other necessary equipment to show Peolynca what a true idol concert would look like, but I can solve this problem later with my spells and scale-dust. I was a one-woman team right now, at least until I can figure out how Saori or Tasianna can help me. It was honestly a skeleton crew, but all this concert needed right now were my parallel minds and me, the idol.

“We’ve been promoting it around the village, and considering we’re doing it here, there will be a high chance that all villagers will join aside from the small children,” I informed Ellaine. “It might become crowded, but I would be delighted if you could join,” I told her with a wink.

“New year’s eve, correct? I’ve heard you play the geigler, but I would love to hear your singing voice, Lady Hestia,” Ellaine replied as a connoisseur of music.

After that, I started visiting Ellaine at her family’s mansion. I’ve kinda realized how important it was to start gathering information about this world, not slowly, but with full tempo. My mistake of not knowing how to address nobles might not have been too damning, but who knows what will await me in the future. Ellaine, who was giving me insight on the noble side of society, was invaluable.

“Mhmm, this taste…heavenly,” Ellaine uttered as she finished taking a bite of fragassa pound cake, mesmerized by the taste as she kept her eyes with a pleased smile. “I fear our sweets cannot compare to your generous gift, Lady Hestia.”

“You are being far too harsh, Lady Ellaine. The pastries were passable but the sweets go perfectly with our tea,” I answered in my “noble” tone as I ate another of the candy.

During my information gathering sessions, I learned that having tea and sweets was customary when a noble lady visited another. As Ellaine was fond of our cake, I made sure to bring some cake whenever we came over to loosen her tongue a bit more.

Speaking of sweets, the pastry and candy she offered me weren’t too bad. While the pastry didn’t hold a candle to our beautiful cake, I could taste the craftsmanship and high-quality ingredients used in its preparation. The candy, especially, was delicious as Ellaine’s chef team used authentic sugar for it, not some fructose sugar they extracted from fruits or honey as we did. I had no idea how much the candy cost, but Ellaine was serving it liberally, so there shouldn’t be a problem.

“So this event happens every five years? When was the last time this happened?” I asked her on a certain subject.

“The last ‘Grand Duke Selection’ was held two years ago. Aside from House Morgiana who lost their title to House Myrddin, all the other Grand Dukes have stayed the same,” Ellaine explained.

Our discussion was about the seven dukes of the Kingdom of Artorias. Ellaine had already explained to me the concept of the three different tiers of nobles but there were also two tiers within the dukes. At the top of noble society sat the royal house of Artorias, the ruling family of the kingdom of Artorias, and acting as their pillars were the four grand ducal and three ducal houses.

Although I wasn’t sure if I could remember every single noble house, remembering seven names was easy enough for me. The seven dukes were split into four categories; Morgiana and Myrddin belonged to the arcane houses; Lecartiglio and Groushia were military houses; Greenveil and Equevanna were focused on economics; and lastly, Olivus was the only religion-focused house.

Every five years, a “Grand Duke Selection” happens where the king chooses four grand dukes from the four different categories. These grand dukes will serve as the advisors for that specific affair and gain the prestige of the title.

The current grand dukes were; House Lercartiglio as the Grand Duke of Military Affairs, Equevanna as the Grand Duke of Economic Affairs, Myrddin as the Grand Duke of Arcane Affairs, and Olivus as the Grand Duke of Religious Affairs.

That remindd me, that fanatical fire mage, Macklemor, once mentioned House Morgiana held the Grand Duke rank but it would seem his information was outdated.

While I don’t know when I’ll be able to use this information, learning about it now would be better than later.

“Thank you very much for your help, Lady Ellaine. It was another fruitful day for me,” I said my thanks to her as I noticed the sky turning orange.

“Your words honor me, Lady Hestia. If it would please you, could I suggest you stay here in the mansion with me? That way you wouldn’t have to travel to our mansion every morning,” Ellaine offered with a serene smile.

Showing her an equally pleasant smile, my mind only came up with one word to reply to this question she’s been asking me every day, “No.”

She shrugged her shoulders, having anticipated my answer, and dropped the subject for the day. “Tomorrow will be the God Thanking Festival. I heard from Barathan that the village has been preparing for the celebrations and subsequent feast. Will you serve as the priestess for them?”

Oh right, time has passed quite quickly, huh? Today was already the sixth of AuthumnMoon and tomorrow would be “Origdiviel Arashan”, the God Thanking Festival. Well, considering I’ve been learning about the kingdom, experimenting with special effects for my stage performance, and developing new custom spells, it would be weird if time hadn’t gone by so fast.

“Yes, the village chief asked me about it. I’ve only learned the lyrics recently, but I will attend it as a priestess, mostly because all the villagers have been begging me to do so,” I responded without sarcasm as people were begging outside my house when I initially declined it. “…And you? Will you join us?”

“…I am a noble and they are my subjects. I have no place there, especially with how filthy it is. I cannot understand why you would spend your time there, Lady Hestia,” Ellaine said with a forced smile, hiding the glint of sadness in her eyes.

“…As rude as this sounds, your family are acting extremely selfish. They are enjoying their time at the capital, leaving you all alone here. I’m beginning to lose all respect for your father here, unbelievable,” I said bluntly as my smile waned.

I’ve recently learned why Ellaine wasn’t accompanying her family to the capital, and that’s ‘cause her father ordered her to stay here to act as my lady-in-waiting or whatever. I’ve also heard she recently came of age, which means she was 15 years old like me, and was excited to join the festival and ball at the capital as her noble debut as an adult.

Personally, I didn’t care about the ball part, but I could understand her desire to attend a ball very well. However, I was more annoyed about the fact she wasn’t spending time with her parents tomorrow, as I believe this event was the Christmas eve equivalent. You’re supposed to spend time with family during Christmas!

“Lady Hestia, please, it’s alright. It is my duty as a noble to stay here, supervising you while you stay in our lands. This might be rude of me to say, but I am being forced to stay because of your reluctance to go with us to the capital,” Ellaine squeezed out in defense of her family. “While it might not be what I wished for, I do feel a sense of pride in being helpful to you. If I could help my house’s relationship with you, then I will have done my best as a lady of House Helvas. It isn’t often a daughter of a count can become an acquaintance to a royal princess.”

I couldn’t speak against her anymore, so I left the mansion feeling sad for Ellaine. Could I maybe visit her after the feast, I wonder? But I wanted to spend my first Christmas with Saori and Tasianna; they were my family now after all. It was a debacle, but the answer was clear once I asked myself who was more important to me.

On the next day, the villagers were in high spirits as all of them, men and women, participated in the festivities. The sounds of laughing kids playing with each other resounded through the village. All while the men started drowning themselves in ale and the little amounts of rice wine they somehow managed to make before the festival, releasing their inner child as they challenged each other with sports.

On the other hand, the wives and single women tried their damnest to hack and slice through the mountain of dried fish. The intensity of the cooking process made the cold of winter seem almost non-existent with multiple cooking stations roaring in unison, crowded by those very same chefs. Rita and her bakery brought out piping hot yeast-less bread while fresh milk was being transformed into butter and cream in merry excitement.

This whole scene made the tragedy they had faced two months ago almost feel like a bad dream.

As the food slowly piled up on the dishwares, the humble yet fantastic feast began to form. Any men or teens the women managed to drag away from their sports and fun, they ordered them to carry everything into the church grounds, where the feast was being held this year.

“The Gods watch over us as the earth turns heavenly white ♫

To honor our patrons, we servants feast in their name, praying and praising their name with every bite ♫

They blessed us with shelter, food, friendship, love, and life ♫

So in their name, we shall live good lives, so our faith may fuel their power above in their domain ♫”

The song I sang was dedicated to the origin gods, to show our thanks for them coming into our lives. The effects were too profound for me to fully understand but it seems every villager was in deep prayer as I sang it. Usually, without a priest, villagers would sing it together, but with me here, they could dedicate this time to praying to the gods, asking for their blessing and help in the comming year. It shouldn’t be a surprise to me anymore, but I was being constantly reminded of how pious these villagers were.

Once the song was over, the feast officially began. As I was the “guest of honor”, my table was situated on my concert stage where I could overlook everybody, while also having the most food on the table. Saori joined me, but I hadn’t been expecting Tasianna to agree to come as well, as I thought we would celebrate later at home. As the table was away from the villagers, Tasianna would be able to tolerate the company, especially when she really wanted to celebrate this day with me.

This is exactly what I wanted. The three of us, having fun on this day.

The food wasn’t anything to write home about with the severe lack of seasoning, but I didn’t mind the taste as I was eating it with the two people I considered the most precious in this world. The solitude until I met them was torture, now that I think back on it.

So spending my time, laughing and joking with them at this table made my spirit shine like it never did before. Nobody cared about status or social ranks today, giving my companions and me free rein over how we acted in public. The villagers were so intoxicated by the atmosphere that the amount of people calling me by my name instead of “Lady Priestess” or “m’lady” grew considerably in size.

I hope Ellaine is doing well…

“Lady Hestia,” suddenly somebody snuck past the festive villagers and climbed up on the stage, speaking to me with a hushed voice. “Do you have time, right now? Could I speak to you?”

Looking in that direction, I noticed it was Lorena, slightly flushed from all the merriment with a wry smile plastered on her face. “Oh, sure, I’ve got time. What do you want to talk about, Lorena?”

“It’s about my pregnancy and my plans for the future.”

A note from AbyssRaven

Look at her making money.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 12 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 98: The Planning of the trip to Firwood.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #1 her to promote our Patreon. 12 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 12 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until November!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

Urgh, getting used to sitting with a tail seems to be the hardest challenge of my life…

Once again riding House Helvas’s carriage, I experimented with ways to make sitting inside it more comfortable for myself as I fumbled with my long tail. No matter how fluffy the seats were, it just felt weird having my tail there.

“…We have been using this carriage for over a week now. You still have not gotten used to it?” Saori asked, perplexed at my continued troubles.

“Give me a break, Saori. Your tail isn’t longer than your torso and head combined. Mine alone is already longer than the whole seat,” I complained with a troubled face. “Even without the dress, it’s such a bother.”

Today was the day after the God Thanking Festival. My party and I were being driven towards Ellaine’s home during our usual visiting time. The reason for our meeting today would involve what Lorena told me yesterday.

Lorena’s problem was she was raped by some slave merchant and now had to deal with the repercussion of being pregnant with his child. Due to the negative stigma of a “deflowered” woman in her village, and presumably most of society, her parents have also suggested she marry and try to hide the truth about the baby. The only thing she needed was a fiancé.

Luckily for her, a man willing to take her as a wife despite knowing the full truth was available in the village — her childhood friend, Ruld the Cobbler. Ruld, the person who made my boots, and his family had agreed to the marriage once Lorena and her parents explained the situation to them. As the two families had a great relationship and were living together in a single house anyway, both parent couples were pretty overjoyed at the suggestion according to Lorena. They dearly wanted their eldest children to marry, it seems.

“It took us a while to decide on a plan but we settled that I would marry Ruld and move to Firwood with him. We have to make it there before the 8th of WinterSun so we can participate in the Binding festival and make our marriage official under the eyes of the Goddess,” she told me with a small smile as she told me her plans. “I do not want it, but the child still deserves a proper life. Not drinking with everybody was rough, but I don’t want it harmed.”

Weddings in Peolynca couldn’t be arbitrarily held on whatever day you wanted, unlike on Earth. Commoners weren’t financially able to plan one, and everybody wanted their marriage to be acknowledged under the God’s eyes according to religious tradition.

There were four chances in a year for couples to marry, and this always happened in the first full week of the season on LightDay. According to Lorena, the 1stof WinterSun, so January by Earth’s calendar, was a LightDay, but, as it wasn’t a full week, it didn’t count. So, they planned to travel to Firwood on the 1st and marry on the subsequent week.

As Lorena was impregnated about a month ago, her belly wasn’t visible under her clothes yet, but it had started to swell. As winter was coming, she could continue hiding the bump with more clothing until the marriage using the cold as an excuse. Once Lorena moved to Firwood with Ruld, it would become easy to convince people I was Ruld’s baby since nobody knew her. Even if a woman were to question the belly size and their time of marriage, it seems having pre-marital sex was accepted in this world as long as the couple had already decided to get married.

If the birth happened after the marriage had been blessed by the gods, the child would still be “blessed” and wasn’t considered a bastard. Lorena didn’t know the exact reason for this, believing the gods didn’t mind, but I think it had something to do with Marsven and his wife Edna. The current Goddess of Monsters and Fertility had been pregnant with the Goddess of Death before her ascension, but the marriage wasn’t mentioned when I read that tale.

According to Tasianna, while fairies didn’t marry, elves did, using the same concept of the Binding festival. All marriages would happen in the first week of summer, where the day the couple would marry would be determined by their choice of god and faith. I figured they probably did it this way so as to not exclude any of the Origin Gods.

Anyway, Lorena and Ruld decided that once the baby was born, they would give him or her over to the church’s orphanage. Using the excuse that they couldn’t financially take care of it, they would escape any negative stigma from their neighbors while distancing themselves from the newborn. Nobody would judge a young couple for handing their child over to the orphanage, as they could always have more children once they’re better prepared.

While I personally didn’t like the idea at all — my values conflicted with theirs — I wouldn’t judge them. Lorena didn’t want the child ‘cause it was from her rapist, and this was the only realistic way without resorting to any extreme methods. I guess I was a bit too naïve for this subject in the first place, huh?

Anyway, this leads back to why I was going to Ellaine. Lorena asked me to escort her and Ruld to Firwood, as they couldn’t make the trip themselves. The roads were filled with monsters, and winter was almost here. It hadn’t snowed yet, but she assured me snow always appeared by the end of this month.

I planned to help them after I performed my concert, and, for that, I needed Ellaine. More specifically, I needed her authority as the daughter of the count. A serf was a belonging. They were owned by the lord of the fief and required the lord’s authority to become free as leaving the fief unannounced could be punished by the law.

Ruld’s cobbler workshop bought his freedom for him, but in return, he had to stay contracted to the workshop until he worked off all his debts to them. He was happy working there, so it was fine in my book. Lorena, on the other hand, would have it harder, so I had to do something about it.

From our discussions, I learned Ellaine wanted me to either stay at her mansion or go with her to Firwood, the opportunity to solve this problem was easily available right now. My party didn’t want to leave the village this early, since we’d planned to stay here for the whole winter, but Saori and I both agreed to help a friend in need, whereas Tasianna stayed indifferent. Besides, we needed IDs, and Count Helvas did mention we had to go to Firwood to acquire them.

“Ah, it seems we’ve arrived. I can feel the warmth of the barrier,” I uttered as the carriage entered the demesne of the mansion.

The feeling I had from entering the area of the mansion during my first visit was due to a huge mana barrier covering the whole area. Ellaine told me it was a manatech used to keep the cold and snow away from the mansion, keeping a perfect temperature for their garden to flourish even in the midst of a snowstorm.

Honestly, I was baffled she had the mana to keep the barrier and every single light active in the mansion, but she quickly explained to me that wasn’t the case. The house was currently being fueled with mana batteries her mother made in the case of her absence, as she was the most accomplished mage in House Helvas. “Did the Count marry her just for that reason?!” I thought when I heard that, worsening my already bad opinion on him.

Interestingly enough, Ellaine also carried around a necklace with a similar function like the barrier. It kept her warm while she continuously channeled her mana into it. Considering I couldn’t make my heater balls anymore, I think I would need to buy one of these pendants in the future to keep our garden working during winter.

“Manatech is amazing,”I thought, wondering if it could be used on the village to modernize it a bit, but that idea was quickly shot down by Ellaine when she explained how incredibly taxing and expensive acquiring mana batteries was. “Investing that much money into commoners, when they cannot maintain such exquisite technologies?! Unthinkable and foolish. Lady Hestia, who has planted that seed of thought into you?” she questioned me with the most mortified and outraged expression she has ever shown me.

Speaking of Ellaine, once we arrived before her mansion’s doors, Barathan greeted us and immediately showed us our way to his mistress. Saori and Tasianna were led to the kitchen so they could unpack today’s cake and get my tea, while I greeted Ellaine.

“I wish you a bountiful EarthDay, Lady Ellaine. May Goddess Crustacia bless your land,” I said, assuming my “noble” persona while inside her home.

“Your blessing is welcomed. My gratitude from the depths of my heart to you, Lady Hestia,” Ellaine replied before dropping a bit of her mannerisms for casualness now that we became a bit more acquainted.

Noticing her cheerful smile compared to the fake smiles she’s been giving me these past days, I asked her, “Oh? You seem quite happy? Did something happen?”

“Yes, my family sent me letters,” she answered, slightly embarrassed as she said that. “I may not have been there with them, but they reported everything they’ve done at the capital. It is…shameful to say this, but I wasn’t able to sleep until I finished those letters, he he.”

Oooooh. That’s relieving to hear. You weren’t alone on Peolyncian Christmas it seems, Ellaine. Good for you!

They might not have been here with her, and it was clear to everybody that she was saddened by it, but at least in her heart, they were together. Maybe the Count isn’t that bad? At least, not as a family man.

We had some small talk until Saori and Tasianna returned with the cake and tea. I then explained to Ellaine my problem, hiding the fact that Lorena was pregnant. As expected, she was quite pleased with the proposal.

Aside from being my lady-in-waiting and keeping watch over me, the Count wanted Ellaine to get me to either stay at their mansion here or at the one in Firwood. When I asked why she was so upfront about it, she told me that hiding it wasn’t worthwhile anymore. She understood I valued honesty and trust more than some convoluted scheme.

“Then, I shall send a message to my father to inform him. I do not know if he has made all the preparations for your reward yet, so I must give him the information about our departure. We will also need the permission from the lord of Firwood to enter town,” Ellaine uttered as Barathan retrieved a brown, clay-like bird and some parchment.

When I asked her about it, she told me it was a [Messenger Bird], a manatech similar to those gargoyles her mother and brother rode, before showing me her own gargoyle mount. “They are creations alchemists produce using a piece of manatech as the base while adding monster parts to form its shape. They grow once mana is infused into them, and depending on the animal, they may also fly. Our house’s emblem would make an ill-fitting gargoyle, as they are crops, so instead we chose our kingdom’s beast, the griffon.”

I already knew this from spying on her family’s departure, but she didn’t know that, so I listened intently. The [Messenger Bird] was a manatech able to reproduce the voice of its owner to the recipient. They had an incredible flight speed, allowing them to travel long distances in no time, so they were used similarly to a phone call. The only problem was they were quite expensive even for a magnoble like her father. The profession of the normal messenger wasn’t endangered due to this reason.

“…However, before I send it,” she muttered, stopping her hand from writing, before looking deep in the eyes. “Lady Hestia, please be truthful with me. Are you possibly…a follower of God Danterno?”

“Huh?” I let out unwillingly, not expecting this question.

“I confess, my duty was to supervise you as my father needed to know if you are a threat to our kingdom or not. You have admitted to not being a priestess of our Goddess, and you should be a follower of God Kargryxmor as you are a dragonewt, but I realized we never questioned your allegiance to the other Origin Gods,” Ellaine explained with caution. “Greenveil duchy is an agricultural focused land, so we also give our respects to Goddesses Zephira and Crustacia. Their churches might not be as affluential as Goddess Aurena’s, but they exist in Cedaraille, the capital of this duchy. If you weren’t Goddess Aurena’s follower then you must be one of the before mentioned Origin Goddess, but your custom spell…I’ve never heard anything about it, even at the academy.”

She proceeded to explain to me how shocked she was to see me create fire so easily with my claws and how unnatural my white flames and [Sanctified Blaze] were.

Well, you’re unnatural too! Ahem…shouldn’t take that too personally.

She understood, as a mage, about my power once she witnessed me spar with Saori and Tasianna but was always confused why I never used a single fire spell.

“You could produce fire from your body, but I never witnessed a red magic circle, the sign for either a fire or inferno spell. Your [Sanctified Blaze] even has a white magic circle, making it a holy spell, no?” Ellaine face contorted slightly from confusion as she continued her interrogation. “I had to report this to my father once I saw you use your custom spell on the injured man. I watched your training to see your current level in [Inferno Spell] but was left more perplexed afterward. My father has searched the libraries of the royal university and also asked houses specialized in magic, even Houses Myrrddin and Morgiana, but found nothing. I am aware our information on dragonewts is outdated, but a mention on flames as white as Goddess Aurena’s magic should be available.”

She tightened her hands, almost as if she was fearful of my answer to her questions. “I have already told you my stance on mages of other elements. Dark or fire mages, I do not pretend I haven’t heard the stigma surrounding them, but I do ignore the rumors, as my mother taught me the importance of understanding each system spell. However, my father is the Count of a noble house. As such, he must be aware of your intentions before giving you your IDs. While we respect God Kargryxmor as a subordinate god of Goddess Aurena, we are more concerned if you are a fervent believer in God Danterno or not, Lady Hestia. If you are aware of his church’s preaching…then you must know why I worry.”

Macklemor, that fanatical fire mage I met at the bandit camp, came back to mind. His constant preaching of how Danterno’s church actually worked compared to how the outside looked on it was still vivid in my memory. I didn’t know if he was speaking the truth, but I was not interested in it anymore. Due to a certain someone, I wanted nothing to do anymore with his church. Nothing!

Frowning throughout the whole interrogation, I couldn’t help but scratch my head in irritation from her accusations. “Don’t lump me in with that damn imbecile!”

“Lady Hestia?!” Ellaine cried out in surprise as I broke my façade.

“I’ll make it clear for you right now, Ellaine. I have nothing to do with him, and I want to continue not having anything to do with him or his church,” I spoke, raising my voice as anger started to consume me, only calming down once I felt Saori’s and Tasianna’s hands on my shoulders. “…I apologize, Lady Ellaine. It seems I am terrible at controlling my feelings once I’m angered. I lashed out at you once again.” I apologized, noticing a bit of my [Draconic Aura] must have leaked like last time.

“No, it is I who must apologize. I wouldn’t have mentioned this if I had known how much is would displease you,” she said with a wry smile.

“Thank you…To elucidate further, [Sanctified Blaze] is a holy spell with fire properties, I can assure you that. It was made with one of my unique skills,” I explained to her about the existence of [White Flames] without telling her how I obtained it, knowing she will learn about it soon enough anyway. “I am a dragonewt and my body produces special scale-dust which I use to create sparks and fire, and I use [Pyrokinesis] to control them. I only possess one fire spell in my arsenal and it’s my own custom spell. I do not possess [Fire Magic] or [Inferno Magic].”

“What? But that cannot be. You must have one of them to even create a custom spell with fire as its element. That is how custom spells are created,” Ellaine replied with a frown, stating an obvious fact. “I witnessed you cast both lightning and lava element spells during your spar. I am not a fire mage myself, but even I know the different composite elements and which elements are required as their pre-requisites. Lady Hestia, it is hard to believe you with those facts.”

“I know, I understand it must sound far-fetched, but I am telling you the truth. I once had [Inferno Magic Lv. 5], I admit, which should clear up how I could create a custom fire spell and own lightning and lava magic. However, sometime during my travels, I lost both fire magic skills and I am currently in the process of reorganizing myself as a mage,” I informed her without being startled of her sudden distrust. “Yes, I have heard about Danterno’s religion, but I am not their associate. I was never and will never become a servant of that idiotic god.”

“…Well, insulting an Origin God isn’t what I would recommend myself, but it isn’t outlawed in our kingdom. I understand, Lady Hestia. I apologize for having my suspicions. I will trust your words considering the person I have come to know,” Ellaine said with an elegant nod. “I will inform my father about everything and our plan to travel to Firwood. The information on your status board will be sent to him and everybody who must know will too, when we issue your ID. It will reassure him once he learns what you said.”

“Please tell him not to be shocked when he sees it.”

With that finally done, Ellaine agreed on releasing Lorena from her serfdom; in return, I would join her in moving to Firwood. After finishing the letter, she wrapped it around the manatech bird’s leg and activated it, speaking to it as it recorded her voice. She also urged me to repeat what I told her, so her father can hear my admittance, releasing it after everything was sorted out.

The moment it left Ellaine’s hand, the bird flapped its wings like a hummingbird and shot off into the sky. I had no idea when it would return, but seeing it fly away like that, I had no doubts it would reach her father.

“The two commoners will sit inside the servant’s carriage while you and I stay in my carriage. A gargoyle would be faster, but I wish to enjoy a calm trip with you, don’t you agree?” Ellaine said with a smile now that the official business was done. “Also, I wish to have your two retainers, Saori and Tasianna, in the same carriage.”

Seeing me raise a brow, she explained, “I was baffled when you said you considered your companions your equals. While I do adore Josine and do trust her with everything, I also know there is a social barrier between us,” she smiled at her personal maid.

“Your words honor me, Lady Ellaine,” Josine smiled back warmly.

“That is why I wish to know them better. A mage seeks knowledge, as Istari intends us to do. However, due to the social barrier and how it is considered rude to speak with a retainer without her mistress’ consent, I wish to do this under the pretense of this being similar to a request from a noble to an adventurer,” she suggested, finally taking a bite of the pound cake.

“You wish to hire us?” I asked.

“Yes, I will offer you an F rank quest to escort me to Firwood, turning our relationship, until it is fulfilled, to noble and mercenary. I will still treat you with the respect you are due as a princess and guest to House Helvas, but this is all a pretense so I may speak with your retainers.”

It was so round-about, so incredibly round-about, but I guess that is how nobles handled stuff like this? I don’t know, but she was speaking so comfortably as if she knew exactly what she was doing. Urgh, am I glad I will never have to do this sorta stuff.

“F rank is acceptable as the further we go from a settlement, the higher the mana concentration in the area, meaning the risk of monsters will be higher. I am confident in my ability to fend off G or even F rank monsters, but my level is quite low, despite my abundance of skills,” Ellaine told me, explaining she gained most of her levels from fulfilling academy requests but never from participating in a real fight like her father and mother. “I do not believe a D rank would appear, but considering your strength, you would be able to take one down, correct?”

“With the flick of my fingers…literally,” I answered with a smile, before chuckling as I realized the possibility for that statement becoming true.

“Fantastic. You still have the fulfillment document for the bandit quest, correct, Lady Hestia?” Ellaine asked, to which I nodded. “Good. Please hand it over to me. I will gather all the necessary documents and will make sure you gain the appropriate recompense. The nobles of the Greenveil duchy know the importance of a proper transaction, and every deed demands a reward.”

Ahh, so her “merchant-spirit” was the reason why she was so adamant at giving me the money for the white grace. Well, I can say Saori was literally trembling at the idea of even more money. I can already guess how she will fantasize about it later on.

With all our plans finished, I stayed a bit longer to ask her a few other questions before leaving the mansion. Most of the questions were directed at how the God Thanking Festival would be celebrated at the capital, and if there was anything exciting she could mention.

“Brother wrote that a few heroes, chosen by Goddess Aurena herself, have arrived at the capital for the ball. One of the two saint candidates was supposed to join also, but didn’t,” Ellaine reported. “Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to learn their names as he and my parents had to report your stay here to the royal family. Even after they returned to the ball, everybody was already crowding around the heroes, so neither my brother nor my parents had the chance to approach them.”

Heroes, huh? I guess that concept was a staple in fantasy novels. So, Aurena already has chosen her champions, then why did she need me? Hmm, I hope she’ll be able to answer this question once I talk to her, although I have feeling I won’t like it what she has to say.

Saying our goodbyes, we left after a lot of talking. Once we were outside, Saori suddenly noticed something in the sky, pointing it out for me.

“Snow?”

For the second time in this life of mine, I saw snow falling from the sky. However, instead of fading away like the first time, this one continued into the night, covering everything in a blanket of white snow. Like a curtain signaling the end of a theater show’s act, this pale veil was like a sign that my time in Carine village was soon to end.

Soon my first idol concert would begin. My debut as a proper idol in Peolynca, the start of my dream becoming true. And with it, the start of my new adventure at Firwood.

A note from AbyssRaven

Yes, time for the plot to move on to the next arc! But first...we have something very special to do, no? Something only Hestia can do!

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Chapter 99: An Idol's Fire.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Acquisition requirement fulfilled.   [Continuous Cast Lv. 1] acquired

“Air Shield! Sanctuary!”

With the activation of two spells, a transparent wind and a yellow glowing barrier expanded away from me, their epicenter. As the two protective spells stood still like a solid wall, I felt reassured that what I will do today won’t accidentally set the village on fire…I hope.

“Saori, the villagers will probably get curious despite our warnings, so can you take care of them?” I called out to Saori, who was standing at the entrance of the church area.

In the last two weeks, the amount of time I’ve been able to invest in my idol preparations has been rather disappointing. After all, during the first week, I had to prioritize the meeting with Count Helvas and learning about magic from Master Kush. And since the saurians left, I've mostly been spending my time learning about the world from Ellaine. As we would travel to Firwood soon, the information I got will probably become handy.

So, I decided to dedicate my time to preparing my stage in the church area. It was a simple stage made from my terra magic, and it would be enough for my first stage performance, I admit, but I still needed to add some flavor to it.

I was reminded of my time in the Belzac Forest where I used to perform to lure in monsters for Saori to power-level with when I look at this stage. The special effects I made with my spells back then were simple, as I didn’t put too much effort into it preferring to focus on my singing and dancing. However, with my current abilities, I had to give it my all.

Hopefully, nobody will disturb me. I did warn the nearby villagers and Colwyn about it, and Saori will handle any curious villagers, so everything should be fine. Once Saori went outside the barrier and Tasianna backed off a bit, I began spreading my scale-dust with my arms.

The spark of a single scale looks like the flashlight of a camera, and the greater the density of the scale dust cloud, the larger the flames.

When I lost [Holy Magic], I also lost the [Light] spell. That spell was essentially the same as [Shine] except that it couldn’t harm dark elemental beings, so I thankfully had an alternative after I lost it. Using [Delayed Cast], I’ll be able to set the magic circle inside a bucket or something to imitate a spotlight, activating it whenever I need light.

However, usually a spell only has one cast, right? Well, I knew this would be the case, so I held an emergency training session after I left Ellaine’s mansion yesterday. Using the reading material Master Kush gave me, I thankfully got [Continuous Cast] in time to use it for my concert…but this does leave a bit of a sour taste in my mouth, as I still can’t get [Multi-Cast]. Why?! Why?!?

Ok, enough of that. I took out a wooden bowl from my storage and inscribed the magic circle for [Shine] onto it with [Trap Creation], much like how I had done when making my bombs in the Belzac Forest, but then I activated [Delayed Cast] when I enchanted it. This way, the spell would still be connected to me and I would be able to control it remotely. If I'd used [Trap Creation] alone, it would have severed my connection to the spell, so I would have had to directly infuse mana into the bowl to activate the enchantment.

I threw it over to Tasianna and told her to point the opening of the bowl towards me. I turned around and activated the spell. Almost immediately, a bright light shined at my back, casting a large shadow of myself onto the snow on the ground. While my body was keeping me warm, seeing how much more snow had fallen since yesterday sent a shiver down my spine.

Using [Continuous Cast], I first deactivated the spell, turning the spotlight off, and then successfully reactivated it. This proved that both the advanced casting techniques I was trying to use were working perfectly.. The four stages of magic casting were invocation, incantation, activation, and release. During this process, I had to cast my spell in a way that it wouldn't activate immediately and could be released multiple times until I dispelled it myself, to make the skills work on the spell.

The only problem was the mana cost. I had to continuously feed the magic circle mana while I kept it active, meaning it would be impossible for me to keep it up for an entire night. Most K-pop concerts are between one and two hours long, but I think it would be safer for me to perform three songs max for my first time.

In broad daylight, with my core continuously using the sunlight to replenish my mana and stamina, I think I could probably keep a concert going indefinitely, but trying for that long, when I'm not even sure of my current limits would be bad. Maybe for my next concert, I'll be able to buy some manatech spotlights. For this one, though, I'll have to make do with what I have available.

Next, I had to make the truss, the “roof” of the concert stage, where all the lighting and other decorations were attached to support the concert. Constructing four pillars to act as the support and then the roof, a simple earthen truss was made with my magic. I called Saori for help, and had her grab all the spotlights I’d made with our wooden bowls and attach them on the truss before she went back to the entrance.

I climbed on the stage and started activating all the spotlights in different combinations, testing how much my mana pool could handle while simultaneously scrutinizing the light formation. I had to make sure that wherever I was on the stage I would never be left in the dark. Can’t have the star not be in the spotlight, right?

As if I was being supported by a perfect production team, no matter where I went, the lights would turn on and off without a second of delay. It’s almost like the performer and the team supporting them were 100% in sync. Well, that is, of course, exactly what’s happening ‘cause my production team consisted of my parallel minds. They knew what I needed do, so they were the perfect partners.

I twirled around like a ballerina, quickly engulfing the stage in a cloud of scale-dust. The cloud shimmered under the spotlights, giving no indication of how dangerous it would have been without me here to control it. Snapping my claws and swinging my tail around as I began practicing my dance choreography, the scale-dust began to spark with every movement. Thankfully, [Pyrokinesis] was enough to manage everything, reducing the intensity of the tiny explosions to make them seem like a sparkling veil.

Using my scale-dust, I could fully surround myself with fire. Trails of flames appeared with every flourish of my arms and legs, emitting like an ethereal aura as they burst into existence and quickly faded away, leaving both Tasianna and Saori mystified as they watched me. By increasing the power, I could even unleash an inferno storm to spiral around me.

[Divine Inferno] gave me complete immunity to my own fire spells, but that immunity didn't extend to my burning scale-dust, as scale-dust isn't a spell. Still, both my draconic physiology and my high inferno resistance made every explosion feel like a tickle, which would quickly be healed up by my natural regeneration.

[Shine] and my scale-dust will make excellent special effects to complement the show, I could even use some wind to flutter my hair and dress and maybe lightning spells to spice things up, I think…On second thought, lightning isn’t needed when I can have my scale-dust act as sparkles.

…That’s all good and so, but still…

“Is something bothering you, Lady Hestia?” Tasianna asked me as she noticed the frown I made after testing a few things out.

“…It’s nothing really…but, despite everything, I still feel a bit…disappointed,” I said, dramatically shrugging my shoulders, throwing my hands up. I wasn’t sure how to explain it to her.

I understood my current situation quite well, but I couldn’t help but feel the aesthetic of the stage…lacking. Everything about it was made out of earth using my spells so it couldn’t help but look simplistic in design and color while the wooden spotlights made it seem cheap.

Creating a wooden stage was impossible by this point. The village was too preoccupied with preparing for winter and I don’t think Ellaine could hire craftsmen to make me one when the snow would soon cover the roads. Even if a stage could be made before my concert, why would I want numerous trees being hacked down for a one-time use? I haven’t tried it yet, but I doubt I could fit something that big inside my [Storage Magic] in one go for transportation.

I dunno, maybe it’s my former idol perfectionist tendency hindering me again, but it’s kinda hard for me to accept this current stage. I thought I was annoyed ‘cause it didn’t have a catwalk and B-stage, the secondary stage usually in the middle of the crowd, so I added them, but that feeling still didn’t go away. I had this persistent, gnawing sense that something just wasn’t right. It really was infuriating.

“Hmm,” Tasianna thought over my words for a bit, before replying with her own question. “Then, maybe it is something that is missing from the stage, instead of the quality?” She said before pointing at it.

Something missing?

As I continued muttering to myself, unable to figure it out, Tasianna told me to go back on stage and stand there. “It might be something I don’t understand about ‘idol concerts’ but, from my perspective, doesn’t the stage feel a bit lonely?”

“Lonely?” I glanced behind me, noticing all the empty space on the stage. “Well, I am the star of the show. Idols usually have background dancers to fill the area, but it isn’t necessary. Well, that doesn’t mean I am not keen on the idea, if somebody wishes to dance with me. Right, Tasianna?”

Noticing the intention of my words and smile, Tasianna giggled a bit as she responded, “He he, I wouldn’t mind, Lady Hestia. Song and dance are things any fairy can do, and I wouldn’t mind joining you, of course.” But instead of coming on stage, she shook her head. “However, that isn’t what I meant, Lady Hestia. You see, when we fairies celebrate, we do it with everybody. To create a spectacle worthy for our beloved Goddesses, Zephira and Anuiqa, we always give our all when we decorate, filling every nook and cranny with flowers and colors so the very idea of lacking never comes into mind.”

The Goddess of Wind, Zephira also serves as the Goddess of Celebrations and Travels. Anuiqa, a fairy, is one of the few Faefolk gods. She’s the Goddess of Festivals and Cooking.

Considering that Zephira’s subordinate gods include the Goddess of Hunting and God of Harvests, her pantheon sure seems to be well aligned with the normal people. There’s even Mercurias, the God of Mercantilism. Maybe it’s different in Firwood, but I’m a bit surprised that Aurena seems to be more popular than Zephira in this village, although everybody here does know those gods’ names. I should ask Ellaine when I have the chance.

Back to the present, I do agree I could maybe add a bit more flavor to the stage. K-pop concerts usually have a digital background fitting to the song playing during the performance and it’s also common to use a multitude of different colored lights to accentuate the artists. Humans feast with their eyes, and this is also true for idol concerts.

I couldn’t use my flames to color the lights, as the bowls would easily burn with my purple and crimson fire whereas my white ones have proven themselves safe — they feel warm, but not hot — however, white on white sounds, well, boring. If I couldn’t use my other fire for colored spotlights, then I could use them to wrap myself in it, turning myself into a human torch! Er, dragonewt torch.

Wanting to test this idea, I invoked both [White Flames] and [Corrosive Fire]. Heavenly white flames burned in my right hand and deadly dark purple ones in my left. I was still a bit reluctant to use these purple flames, mostly ‘cause I wasn’t sure of its limits yet, but I guess that also applies with [White Flames].

Sure, I made a custom spell out of it, so I understood its main properties: holy elemental fire that can damage and heal, but that’s about everything. I have the feeling I’m only scratching the surface, though. With [Sanctified Blaze], I should be able to cure anybody affected by [Corrosive Fire] if I dial down its power, so it’s about time I try using it more.

I snapped my fingers, creating a crimson red flame on my left hand. “Wow,” I exclaimed as both crimson and purple twirled together in unison.

I see my flames every day but, weirdly, I’ve never tried mixing them together like this. I released the fire in the air, using [Pyrokinesis] to keep it afloat and alive, and then began twisting them together into a spiral of crimson and purple, before finally adding the white flames to them.

I held my hand up, and began willing the flames to move. The triple combination of flames spiraled through the air, continuously mixing the color as it flared through the sky. With a thought, I expanded this single beautiful wonder while feeding it more mana so it would keep burning in the cold air as it grew, eventually forming it into a flaming dolphin swimming through the sky.

Geez…have I really forgotten how much fun it was to observe my crimson sparks light up? I can’t let some idiotic god of fire ruin the image I always had for them. Blame the creator, not the tools…

“Hestia,” somebody’s voice suddenly broke my trance, redirecting my attention away from the spiral. “Tasianna told me everything. If you needed aesthetic help that much, you could have just asked me. Besides, your flames and lights are starting to attract everybody.”

Looking over at where she was pointing, I noticed numerous kids and young teens having assembled at the entrance, watching me with sparkling eyes. Smiling, I waved at them. They flinched back for a moment but quickly gathered themselves, waving at me vigorously before running away.

Cute.

Once my attention was back to Saori, she began listing suggestions out to improve the whole design of the stage to make it feel more alive, even if we were working on a budget. One of those suggestions was to weave mana threads around the pillars, hiding the hideous brown with a myriad of bright colors to illuminate the night. I could even activate them and turn the pillars into a light show.

I thought it was crazy to suggest ‘cause that meant Saori and Tasianna had an arduous task before them and I couldn’t imagine them doing that much work. However, Saori and Tasianna simply shrugged off my concern and told me they had enough time. It was only the 9th, after all, and my concert was on the 31st.

Speaking of mana threads, Saori also had the brilliant idea of wrapping different colored threads around the bowls, so when [Shine]’s light is emitted, the threads would color the light much like how those colored films are used. Surprisingly, a pretty simple solution. Ten minds, and none of us were able to think of this answer.

Sigh, I really overthink things too much.

“Wait, you want to do what with the stage?” I asked again, not sure if I heard Saori’s idea correctly.

“I want Tasianna to turn the floor into ice,” she suggested. “You think the stage is too boring? Well, how about we turn the stage into color itself? The light of the spotlights will enter the ice and mix together, then it will refract it towards the audience. Yeah, I can see that, I can see that. Like a rainbow or a disco. Come on, you can imagine that, right, Hestia?”

“Uh, yeah, of course. That is a pretty great idea but,” I paused for a moment to bring my fire dolphin into Saori’s eyes. “I was planning to incorporate some flames into my performance, especially the second song. I can’t use ice on the ground, it’ll just melt.”

“Hmm, indeed, your flames could easily melt Tasianna’s ice, but you can simply tone the temperature down, no? The fire from your [Sanctified Blaze] doesn’t feel warm, for example,” Saori explained.

I told her my thoughts on her suggestion. I explained how I had thought of using my red and purple flames as colored light sources, but had abandoned that idea when I realized I couldn't control the heat nearly as well as I could with [White Flames]. I believe it’s one of the traits of [White Flames], while the other two kinds can’t exist without being hot.

Saori placed a finger on her chin, pondering as she continued, “While I do understand what you mean, that logic only applies if mana were to not exist. I mean, you can keep a fire alive for hours with [Pyrokinesis] without it physically being close to any fuel. I might be presuming because I am not a fire mage, but maybe there’s a skill you can buy to do it?”

Hmm, I haven’t looked in the shop in a while. I did get that 3k SP bonus from my evolution, so I might as well use it.

Agreeing to her suggestion, I had my parallel minds immediately go on a search. If I can control fire, then shouldn’t I also be able to control temperature and so on? Unfortunately, similar to how I couldn’t find any exciting skills before my evolution, my shop was once again barren. There were solid sounding ones, but nothing like “Thermokinesis” or “Geokinesis”, or something outlandish like “Smartphone Summon.”

The shop required me to have some affinity to unlock certain skills, as proven by Saori and Tasianna who both had different selections of skills compared to me. Tasianna was able to outright buy [Ice Magic] and [Cryokinesis] without fulfilling the skill requirements, and Saori had [Mana Weaving] and [Elemental Mana Weave]. In video games, unlocking certain “super” skills always meant doing something crazy. Maybe speaking with a Goddess counts?

Anyway, I currently had the option to upgrade my skills by spending skill points, but I’d rather hold off on that until I get my first Job. After getting my ID in Firwood, the first thing I will do is get a Job like Tasianna’s [Mage].

…Speaking of skills, what about my [Space-Time Magic]? It has been level four since forever; however, whenever I try to invest SP to upgrade it, I always receive this notification:

This skill cannot be altered or adjusted without Administrator permission

Weird, right? Guess I could just spam [Haste] like my younger days…

After explaining the situation to Saori, she told me to try controlling my flames manually. Like advancing my proficiency with using [Pyrokinesis], I could try controlling both my crimson and purple flames, reducing their temperature while keeping the fire alive. It was for the good of the show, so I consented.

As purple was my least explored option, I tested it out first. The main way I always used to cool down my fire was to do it the way I learned it from chemistry class — dialing down the number of chemical reactions. However, as the main fuel for my fire was my mana, all I needed to do was to reduce the amount of mana.

Yet, that was exactly what I shouldn’t be doing. The temperature of my purple flames was dropping, but so was its size. Taking away all the mana would kill the flame or make it less cool looking, but I guess it would be cool enough to not accidentally melt the ice. Compared to how brilliant my white flames can flare up without harming anybody, this is disappointing to see.

Is there a way to do this? Taking away the mana isn’t gonna help that much, but how should I know how to cool down a fire? Sure, I might be a fire dragon, but I have only been one for less than a year without anybody around me to teach me. I had to experiment and try things out on my own.

Scheiße! Couldn’t Shiterno give me something more usable like knowledge on how to control my fire better? He is supposed to be the almighty fire god, right? Oooh, thinking about him is making me angry again. Urgh, every single time I hear that damn name, my mood just worsens and worsens.

“Hestia!”

“W-Wah?!” hearing somebody shouting into my ears, I screamed out in shock, wobbling my head around to find the origin of it.

“Your hand! Control your flames!” I noticed Saori say. I obeyed and looked, only to see my once dark purple flames blazing a mix of yellow and purple, surrounding my arm like a gauntlet with the appearance of a dragon claw.

The flame was not only exuding a heatwave but was also releasing some purplish fumes into the air. It reeked terribly, and my instincts told me to kill the flames immediately.

“Urgh, Tasianna get out of the barriers, now! It’s poison, that has to be the smell of your toxins, Hestia!” Saori shouted as she covered up her nose.

As instructed, Tasianna immediately rushed out of the barrier as she was the only one among us without a fully leveled [Poison Resistance], wanting to train it up instead of spending SP. Saori then wrapped her arm around my waist and picked me up, running out of the barrier while carrying me after activating [Haste] to speed herself up.

She sprinted out of the village and into the forest, where she ordered me to shoot it away instead of killing it. Throwing the foul-smelling flames on the ground, it immediately exploded upon contact, releasing not only an explosion of fumes but also bits of solid matter into the air.

Once I blew the terrible smell away, the two of us investigated the area slowly as we were still cautious of the blast. “Verdammt…look at this purple rock, Saori.” Picking one of the solid pieces up, I held it up for Saori to see.

Corrosive Obsidian

A dark purplish glass created through the result of rapidly heating up [Corrosive Fire] and then cooling it down within a short time period, crystalizing the toxin into glass. The toxins forming the base of these flames were bonded together, dripping toxic sludge when these bonds separated from heat. Toxin Included:   [Minor Paralyzing Venom]

“…”

“…”

“…Hey, Saori, you thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked to break the deafening silence surrounding us.

“…Yeah, I think so. Is this not the solution to my toxin problem?” she asked, wearily picking up the obsidian before throwing it back to me. “You can make it gaseous; you can use it with your flames, and now we have the option to use it as a sludge, a semi-liquid. We can even store it in its obsidian form depending on how much heat it can take. Try it out.”

Nodding to her suggestion, I closed my palms, slowly increasing my body temperature using my solar core with [Core Regulation]. Once I increased it high enough for my body to feel like it could sweat, the obsidian began to soften a bit. It wasn’t as hard to touch, almost feeling like a sponge before it slowly lost its form as some liquid dripped from it.

“Huh, it seems like I can still sweat poison,” I uttered as a joke. “Now, I understand why I had that [Young Obsidian Blaze Dragon] option. Aside from maybe being related to Kargryxmor’s and Danterno’s evolution options, the option was unlocked because of this skill. Which means that [Young Sunfang Dragon] was unlocked by [White Flames]?”

I took out one of my poison vials and poured the sludge into it, handing it over to Saori as a “present” for helping me find out this interesting fact. With this discovery, I threw away my plans to decorate my stage and took a “day off.” I dispelled the two barriers at the church area and dragged Tasianna into the forest to help me experiment.

…Hey, I’m not slacking. I’ll do the rest of the decorating on the remaining days with my two friends’ help. We still have three weeks, after all.

We took some time to experiment with [Corrosive Fire], and confirmed that the creation of the obsidian wasn’t just a one-time thing. Superheating it to the point it changed color would exude toxic fumes, applying the effect of the poison I mixed with these purple flames. Similar to my [Toxin Secretion], any poison or venom I once consumed I could reproduce near-perfectly. These flames were like my crimson fire but toxic minerals were added as a “fuel”.

Interestingly enough, this fuel can be used up once it leaves my body. If I used [Pyrokinesis] to levitate it away from my body and waited for a while, the purple flames would slowly turn into a normal orange-yellow fire, all toxic effects gone. Superheating it would burn things even faster, which meant these flames were lackluster as a range attack method compared to my crimson flames. I mean, if it isn’t applying the poison effect, then why should I waste Stamina on it? Don’t forget it uses up Mana and my own Stamina to produce it!

My crimson flames were great as a damage source, while white ones were great for healing, and finally, my purple fire could debilitate anybody close to me. A trifecta of damage, healing, and debuffs. Still like I said before, I honestly think I’m only scratching on the surface of everything. I mean, if I can turn my purple flames into fumes, then what if those fumes were something beneficial? Good smelling fumes sound nice. Couldn’t I make some scented oils or something like that with this skill? I would smell even better after a bath! Opulent comfort here I come, hie hie!

Now, concerning custom spells, I think I have a few ideas using [Corrosive Fire] as its base. First, a wind-like spell which releases those fumes out to weaken the enemies around me the longer the fight lasts. Second, maybe a sludge explosion to spread the poison even more? Third, if this skill is responsible for [Young Obsidian Blaze Dragon], then couldn’t I maybe replicate some of that dragon’s abilities, even if I don’t know what it has.

Not surprisingly, my first attempts to create any of these spells were a total bust. Without Master Kush here with us, we lost our veteran opinion. From now on, we had to create our spells with our own minds. Even after working for a couple of more days on it, I still couldn’t figure out either the chant nor imagery.

Still, it’s not like I will give up. Creating [Sanctified Blaze] took a lot of trial and error and, even with Master Kush’s help, the spell wasn’t completed after a couple of days. I mean, I still have so many other ideas for custom spells, especially concerning my [White Flames]. Think of a spell where anybody close to me will immediately heal from my white flames, or maybe a miniature white sun? So many options.

Concerning my usage of flames during my concert, I’ve settled with only using my white flames. I wasn’t able to learn how to cool down my crimson and purple flames enough during my practice sessions, melting the ice only a few seconds into the dance.

These two weeks flew by like crazy, with me juggling my time around Ellaine, training, concert preparation, and the villagers. Winter came so fast with snow growing high enough to block our door from being opened. During this time, four villagers even got sick.

Now, from my time with the villagers, I learned that, if the injury was superficial or the illness is something minor like a cold, they would never ask a priest to grant them the “white grace”. These people weren’t rich and 200 Davi for [Minor Heal] and 500 for [Cure] was already too much for them. Ellaine was paying me for anything magic-related, but, ordinarily, the villagers or Colwyn had to pay it themselves. They’ve become quite finicky with paying for church services, so when I had to act, then the illness or injury had to be serious.

Two had major fevers, one had something similar to pneumonia, and the last had diarrhea…’cause he thought it was smart to sneak a bite from berries he’d never seen before. “Stealing from the lord’s forest”is an actual crime, you know? Aside from how stupid that guy was, I did manage to heal everybody with [Sanctified Blaze], which not only increased my reputation among the villagers but it also made me 2000 Davi richer.

Honestly, curing their sickness so quickly was pretty interesting. While these villagers were used to this sight, people on Earth would probably question the authenticity. I don’t think pneumonia should be this easy to get rid of.

And with all those events behind me, the day of my destiny finally came. My concert. Today, I will leave behind the unconfident girl who always worried about the “perfect” debut and be reborn as the girl of my dreams: Hestia, the Idol!

A note from AbyssRaven

Oh, yes, you guys guessed it right. Next chapter. No more dilly-dallying. The show will start on with the release of number 100!

Hestia's debut will come!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 12 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 100: Promise.

A note from AbyssRaven

First song Twice 's "Merry and Happy": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi_6oaQyckM

Second song Girl's Generation's "Lionheart": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVCubhQ454c

Last song, and I would recommend you guys have it playing while you read the lyrics, Kana Nishiono's "If": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQK9itJT4LA

Yes, three songs. Hope you guys enjoy this milestone in Hestia's arc.

___________________

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Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [White Flames Lv. 2] [Corrosive Fire Lv. 2] [Silent Casting Lv. 8] [Concentration Lv. 5] [Singing Lv. 9] [Dancing Lv. 7] [Musician Lv. 6] [Handicraft Lv. 3] [Woodworking Lv. 5] [Trap Creation Lv. 7] gained

“““Itadakimasu!”””

With that Japanese word for “Thanks for the food,” the three of us began breakfast. However, each of our breakfasts were split across multiple smaller dishes, different from how we usually ate, with each meal served in a single dish. Today was the 31st of AutumnMoon and also New Year’s Eve.

After picking up my chopsticks, a pair of crude wooden sticks I should improve one day, I analyzed the dishes on the table. Before each of us sat a bowl of steaming white rice with a fresh raw egg cracked onto it, an herb grilled barracuda steak, pickled veggies we made with vinegar we bought, an omelet, and a bowl of wheat “soba noodle” soup. Saori might not be the best tea brewer, but she’s an excellent home chef. Despite the small food quantity, the smell was too mouth-watering to resist.

Opting for a spoon and fork, as she still hadn’t learned how to use chopsticks, Tasianna took a bite of the tender fish. “I may not be a fan of meat, but this is tempting me to become one, Miss Saori. Our garden herbs make the meat incredibly aromatic,” she said as she continued restlessly going through the assortment of dishes, enjoying each bite.

Although I knew how to use chopsticks from my previous life, I now found it troublesome to use them since my claws were as long as my fingers. “It really has been too long since I had a traditional Japanese breakfast. I do miss my mom’s cooking but yours is almost as good as hers, almost.”

“Oh really?” Saori asked with a teasing smile. “With how ravenously you always ate my stew, I find that hard to believe, Hestia.”

Once we went through most of the dishes, we then placed the “soba” in front of us upon Saori’s command. Clumsily putting the chopsticks in her hand, Tasianna remarked upon the delicious smell coming from the soup. “Mhmmmm. So, this is a tradition in your home countries, Miss Saori, Lady Hestia? Is there a reason why this dish holds this much meaning to you?”

“‘Soba’ is a type of noodle made with soba, or ‘buckwheat’, we Japanese usually eat on New Year’s Eve,” Saori explained as she dexterously picked up a few noodles with her chopsticks. Unlike mine, her claws were short enough that she could still use chopsticks easily. “Slurping these long soba noodles is said to represent a person’s long and healthy life, while each bite symbolizes our wish to break free of our past. I would always eat them with my family before visiting the nearest shrine for ‘Hatsumode’ on the next day. Sigh, it is just a shame they are more like ‘udon’ because of the wheat.”

Saori, being a super nice person, always catered to my western food preferences over her own whenever she cooked our meals, mostly ‘cause of the lack of Japanese ingredients. As this was our first New Year’s celebration as a group, Saori wanted to do something special and tried her best to prepare a breakfast just like she always ate with her family.

She held those memories with her family fondly, as she still wanted to remember the good times. The death of her father made her dearly miss these times since she wasn’t able to do it anymore with her heartbroken mother. Spending time with us like this must be a way for her to comfort herself, I guess.

Also, the reason why Saori and I weren’t calling these noodles “soba” was ‘cause they were completely made of wheat. We tried asking Tasianna if she knew about buckwheat, but it seems she didn’t even know of a word for it. Without buckwheat, no proper “Toshikoshi-soba” could be made. It was still delicious though, even if Saori could’ve cut the noodles better, but who am I to judge?

“Eating like this feels nostalgic, but...it’s hard to remember every single detail with my fuzzy memory.. I know I spent New Years in Japan before — I have grandparents there, after all,” I mentioned as I slurped up some “soba.” “Ooooh! It’s delicious.”

We kept to ourselves as we continued slurping the noodles, taking in the nostalgic nature of this event. Tasianna’s eyes darted between us, probably feeling a bit awkward, but kept quiet for our consideration. Saori and I, although our situations were different, probably felt the same thing at this moment, but neither of us said a thing about it. We just…enjoyed each other’s company in silence.

“Thank you very much.”

“Arigato gozaimasu.”

Once we were done with breakfast, Saori pulled out the three outfits she prepared for me today and we went towards the church area, the place where my concert stage was. Just like a production crew, we had to set everything up before my debut could begin.

My debut…it is about time I become the idol I always wished to become.

…I can do it!

*********************************

“I can do it!” the crimson-haired dragonewt girl shouted at the top of her voice. Only Tasianna and I heard her, though, as over a hundred villagers were cheering, feasting, or otherwise making merry outside this dressing room.

I clapped her shoulders in support, adding, “Are you ready, Hestia? Your time to shine has finally come.” Once I saw her smile, I made sure her clothes and hair were in tip-top shape.

For her concert, we used the clothes I’d made for her previously and combined different clothing pieces to make idol outfits for each of her three songs. Considering Tasianna and I had to help Hestia decorate the stage as well, these past three weeks have been quite stressful. Our schedule has been filled to the brim with activities.

“Tasianna, I’ll count on you, but please don’t overexert yourself. You’re the only one who shouldn’t use too much Mana,” Hestia told Tasianna with determined but slightly trembling eyes.

“Your wish is my command, Lady Hestia! I will make sure to perform everything we practice perfectly!” Tasianna responded, eyes dazzling with both excitement and pride.

As we exited the dressing room Hestia made with her earth magic, our eyes were drawn towards the lights shining next to the towering concert stage. As the show hadn’t started yet, they weren’t from the stage itself, but from the celebrating villagers of Carine village.

Even if today was New Year's Eve, the villagers considered the day more like every other day. While the villagers had needed no encouragement to celebrate Origdiviel Arashan, the God Thanking Festival, we had to persuade everybody to attend by hosting our own festival for the evening, as an excuse to get them to attend Hestia’s concert. Of course, we didn’t have to host a small festival, as a few villagers were willing to come, but Hestia wanted everybody to come. Every single villager.

So, to give everybody a good excuse to not go to sleep early and instead to attend her concert, which she wanted to host late in the evening for the darkness, we cooked up a feast for everybody using our own resources. There was a lot to cook, so Hestia and Tasianna had to help me. Thankfully, we didn’t have to supply the alcohol, as the men just brought their own. Rita, the baker, and her husband, who owns a small tavern, were a great help, also.

Well, I personally didn’t mind all the alchohol, as I could just consider it my usual New Year’s drinking party with my fellow teachers. I might have worked at a prestigious school, but once classes ended for the day, I was just another adult like anybody else. Working hard is important, but letting loose once in a while is good for your health.

The real problem was to keep the area warm and cozy for the villagers to stand around. It was still snowing and nobody wanted to stay outside to freeze their toes up. Thankfully, Ellaine’s family had a spare manatech responsible for regulating the temperature inside its barrier, which she gladly lent to Hestia on the condition we three stayed at her mansion in Firwood for a few days. At least our accommodations were handled beforehand now.

“It really sounds like everybody is having fun. I feel a bit bad for interrupting them now, ha ha,” Hestia laughed nervously, trying to hide the tension in her voice with a joke. “Urgh, I hope people won’t just walk out once they are full.”

“I am convinced Colwyn or Harriet would have said something to them,” I stated. “However, stop worrying about it so much. Instead, just do your best. Tasianna and I have heard you sing when you put all your emotions into it. I will 100% guarantee you that you will captivate everybody.”

Aside from decorations, practice sessions were also part of our preparations. We had to plan out Hestia’s dance choreography with the lighting and special effects, making sure everything was just so. Tasianna, being responsible for the ice floor, had to practice her control with [Cryokinesis], to make sure Hestia’s scale-dust sparks wouldn’t cause it to melt. She might not be seeking complete perfection anymore, but I think Hestia would lose her confidence if our plan didn’t go exactly as we planned.

This girl needed confidence the most right now, and we had to make sure we support her correctly. Tasianna and I made sure not to let it show, but we were pretty tense, too. We’d been traveling with Hestia for a long time now, and we both understood how important this was for her.

“I can do it. I can do it. I can do it. I can do it,” Hestia repeated it to herself to pump herself up, as the show was about to start.

But, before that, I took something out of my [Storage Magic] and handed it over to her. “What is that?” she asked me as she took the small mana thread-made envelope, rattling with small audible metal clings and clangs as she shook it.

“Do you still remember ‘Otoshidama’? New Year’s gift for children? Well, it would not be New Year without a gift from your elders, right?”

Hestia listened to me with widened eyes, before she opened the envelope and took out a couple of copper coins, worth 185 Davi in total. She looked at me with confusion but also astonishment, prompting me to answer, “I remembered it a bit too late. I was never the giver, only the recipient. I asked Colwyn if he had any paying work, but none of them demanded my artisan skills, so the amount I could earn was just…well, it is a bit embarrassing to admit. Still, you are younger than me and you mean a lot to me, Hestia, so please use it for whatever you want.” I looked away to avoid eye contact.

Otoshidama was literally the Japanese version of the red envelope tradition in China. It was a monetary present for occasions worthy of celebration.

But instead of laughing at me for being flustered, she gave me a large smile with the calmest eyes I’d seen from her since the sun disappeared on the horizon. “…Thank you so very much, Saori. This…this really means a lot to me.” She held the coins in her palm and clenched them into a fist, slightly trembling as she did that before looking up, the anxiety completely gone from her eyes. “So, because of this, I will make sure to fulfill my promise. I will give you two the greatest Idol concert you have, or will ever, hear! So, you guys better listen to me, otherwise I’ll pout at you guys!”

“Promise,” I said.

“Always,” Tasianna replied.

“Thank you…” She placed the envelope and money into her storage, turned around and…turned back to us? “Uhhh, wait a minute, this is money you’ve earned right? So isn’t this, like, our party’s funds, similar to the amount I’ve been able to earn?”

“No! No!” I shouted, holding my hands out as I waved them at her. “It isn’t a lot but it’s yours. Your pocket money. You can do whatever you want with it. It stays separate from our funds. Now, instead of joking around, how about you go up on your stage and wait for me to announce the start, huh? Do you not have a show to go to?”

Giving me a confident smile, Hestia replied, “Sure, it’s time for me to take to the stage. It’s SHOWTIME!”

With our last pep-talk before the show, Tasianna and I headed to our stations. Tasianna went to the side of the stage and began applying the icy floor, while I inspected the set to make sure everything was in order.

Through our decorations, the dirt-brown earth pillars were nowhere to be seen, completely replaced by a carapace of mana threads wrapped around them. The now rainbow-colored pillars had peculiar designs some would call abstract art, but, as these threads could light up if mana was poured into them, they will seem more like neon signs once we enter the show. However, for safety reasons, we couldn’t use lava elemental threads, as “light up” meant producing real lava.

We also added multiple curtains on the stage, attaching one for the front, back, and roof. We also switched the wooden bowl spotlights with wooden buckets painted black from coal. Now, they really looked like actual spotlights if you didn’t give them a closer look. With the colored threads covering their openings, once Hestia’s [Shine] activated, the multitude of colors she wanted would shine on her.

To finalize the look, we also included lights on the stage’s sides. As there was a main stage and a catwalk to the “B-stage,” we had to make sure everything was lit up. As she is the star, Hestia has to be visible for everybody to see.

Honestly, aside from missing a video-like background to play with Hestia’s performance, we managed to recreate all of an idol’s stage decorations through creative solutions. Hestia was a craftswoman, and once she set her mind to something, especially concerning her concert, she would create it to ease our lives. Just like those “spotlights,” we placed multiple other gadgets and tools around the premise to improve the show.

Like the production crew that we were, Tasianna and I had the important duty of activating whatever gadgets and tools Hestia couldn’t activate herself. Making sure the mana threads activated, applying other special effects, and using the gadgets needed for the moment. Hestia could, technically, do most of the task herself, but we weren’t sure how she would hold up during the night, so we decided to take off some of her workload.

We have only practiced in the mornings and Hestia could continuously produce Mana under the sun. However, once the sun went down, that advantage was gone. We didn’t know how long Hestia could last as a one-woman production crew, so performing with less strain was better. She had to focus on performing, after all.

After the ice was applied, I walked up on the stage, fully confident everything was ready. I looked at everybody partying and loudly spoke, “Welcome, everybody from Carine village! I thank everybody for attending my Mistress’ ‘Idol Concert’!” As Hestia was amplifying my voice using her [Aerokinesis], it would be hard to believe nobody heard me speak. “I do hope everybody has enjoyed the feast we carefully made for everybody. However, I must ask you now to draw your attention to the person of honor. Today, please disregard all the titles and other opinions you have accumulated until today, and please look at the girl performing as no one other than Hestia Atsuko, an aspiring idol!”

There were murmurs among the crowd, clearly not understanding what I meant with “disregarding titles,” but I should also presume nobody was aware of what an idol truly is. That word doesn’t exist in Common tongue. Should I explain it to them?

“I am sure there is confusion among everybody. Lady Hestia has been acting as a priestess of Goddess Aurena since late AutumnSun, and she wishes to perform something special for everybody here. She would be delighted if you could grant her some of your time and attention, but this is not an order from either a priestess or a noble. You may leave whenever, you have our words as servants of Goddess Aurena,” I told everybody. “And, if there are those who are questioning what an Idol is, then…please, enjoy.”

Whether it was necessary to swear to Aurena or not, I wasn’t sure, but, knowing everybody was religious, I thought using Hestia’s deeds as a priestess of Aurena could make everybody calm down. There was obviously still some confusion, but I’ll let Hestia handle this.

“Music is the art of touching the souls of thousands to empower and heal them” was Hestia’s motto, right? She learned that quote from her father, and it has been a driving force of her will to perfect her art.

Once I left the stage, there was a moment of silence before the lights around the stage suddenly turned on. People gasped at the sudden light, before all other sounds were drowned by the music. Hestia’s [Aerokinesis] can not only control air, but, through some fine control, she can even reproduce the sounds of instruments. While I still wasn’t sure how her parallel minds worked, they were responsible for the music right now.

.

“Every time AutumnMoon, makes us crowd around the hearth ♫

I know that time of year is just around the corner ♫

Then we look upwards, into the bright blue sky of theirs ♫

We pray to them, renew our faith, make it even stronger ♫

Origdiviel Arashan, we give our thanks to all the Gods ♫

So bless our trip into the New Year! ♫”

.

Her voice was as soft as an angel, similar to the time I first heard her in her [Humanization Lv. 6] form. The spotlights immediately turned on, illuminating Hestia’s darkened silhouette as the music played a Christmas-like song, complete with all the jingle bells and soft tunes. The villager’s expressions were a mix of surprise and bewilderment, eyes open wide, as some were looking at each other for reassurance.

For her idol concert, we split her time on the stage into three songs. Her first song was inspired by Christmas songs and was focused on the God Thanking Festival. Hestia was adamant that her first song had to catch everybody’s attention immediately, and so dedicated her first song to Origdiviel Arashan, the closest Peolyncian equivalent to both Thanksgiving and Christmas.

An idol concert was a foreign concept for everybody on Peolynca, or at least Carine Village; that’s why Hestia wanted something the crowd felt attached to. She asked Lorena for the different events, festivals, holidays the Kingdom of Artorias celebrated for this reason. A song about the Gods sung by such a talented singer should be able to attract everybody’s attention.

And I was right.

.

“Our love to the Gods, ♫

Thank you, thank you, Origin Gods ♫

Let’s welcome the New Year with open arms ♫

Turn that frown into a smile, join us to the fireworks ♫

By the Gods, they wish us merry now ♫

Together with your family ♫

So let us all slide well into the next Year ♫”

.

The crowd wasn’t clapping yet, but their small head nods and tapping feet showed they were following the rhythm of the song. Cuteness was a universal concept. Although everybody had different preferences, I knew from overhearing their whispers during my trips around the village that both men and women found Hestia adorable despite her scary draconic features.

Due to this information, Hestia’s first song was “cutsie.” Small, cute dance movements while keeping her voice soft. To fit this theme, I made her an outfit that was mostly white with pink frills while keeping the overall design of her usual outfit intact. Even the boots she was wearing were white as Ruld, the cobbler, was able to make a few pairs just in time for the concert.

To the performance itself, Hestia already began using special effects to complement her song. She used her scale-dust to produce small sparks that made the air around her seem to glitter. At the same time, Tasianna used [Cryokinesis] to produce snow to appear on the stage, and from the coating of ice she’d applied to the floor rose a white mist that the spotlights illuminated. It was “icy” but Hestia’s constant movement and singing kept everything alive.

White was the color of purity and innocence, so I believe this fits the theme of the song perfectly. A winter special.

I don’t need to use [Identify]. I am sure she must have her [Stage Fever] active. Everybody is looking! Good for you, Hestia, keep it up!

Those who were already Hestia’s “fan” or those who liked her singing during her sermons were naturally inclined to enjoy her current performance. The serene singing pushed those people into humming along while doing their own dance to release the energy they were gathering from the performance.

Others were still carefully assessing the situation, but I could see they were enjoying it as they listened intently, unable to divert their eyes from Hestia. The few who were still eating showed some signs of liking it, as they kept quiet and ate slowly as they watched the light show.

As the chorus repeated itself in the second half song, Hestia’s movement became more refined and trained, finally dancing properly. She was shaking her shoulders, swinging her imaginary microphone, making long, sweeping arm motions. It got to the point where her confidence surged, and she began truly making full use of her body, fully embracing the singing and dancing combo of a Korean pop star.

The smile she was beaming was all the evidence I needed to know how much fun she was having, and, although I wasn’t sure if I saw it correctly, I think her eyes were beginning to get wet. The number of emotions she was going through, I could only hazard a guess at this point.

Speaking of watching the show, I also noticed the presence of Barathan and Ellaine during the second half of her song. They were hiding behind the wall of villagers, sticking to the dark as they watched Hestia perform. While Barathan kept a neutral expression, Ellaine was visibly entranced by the performance. This was her first time listening to Hestia sing, after all.

The song should end soon.

.

“Our love to the Gods, ♫

Thank you, thank you, Origin Gods ♫”

.

The music continued for a bit more after she stopped singing and finally fell silent. As Tasianna and I began clapping, the crowd of villagers imitated us, understanding the song was over. The silence once again disappeared and was now replaced by an orchestra of claps and exclamations of amazement.

“THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH!” she shouted out at the top of her voice, bewildering everybody in the audience. “Uhm, I’m sorry about that. Uhm, the next song will come in just a few minutes. Please, have patience, and thank you so very much for listening.” After informing the crowd, Hestia rushed off the stage and into the backstage where Tasianna and I were already waiting for her in front of the dressing room.

“I-I, hick, did it. I r-really did it, hick,” Hestia struggled to say as tears streamed down her face, wiping her running nose as she entered the room.

“Yes, you did a fine job, Lady Hestia. It was wonderful. You were so enchanting!” Tasianna responded in support with a huge grin, wiping Hestia’s tears and snot with a handkerchief.

“You did amazing! See, I told you just needed more confidence in yourself! Everybody loved you!” I said to encourage her even further, slowly taking off her current outfit to help her switch into the next one. “However, don’t cry yet. You still have two more songs to go through.”

“Hick, yeah, I know.” Hestia finally stopped crying, and cast [Major Heal] on herself to clear the redness from her eyes. “I’m working right now. An idol has to keep smiling, she can’t cry until the show is over.”

Once we were done with her next dress, Tasianna and I left the room first to set up the “smoke” balls. I placed one of Hestia’s heater balls on each side and Tasianna covered them with an [Air Shield]. As Hestia was readying herself at the entrance of the stage, Tasianna and I each cast [Create Water] and poured the water into the barriers. The water quickly evaporated in the heat from those heater balls, producing steam which flowed onto the concert stage.

.

“Ooh, ♫”

.

The lights immediately lit up. under the veil of steam, Hestia appeared with the music already playing. Compared to her previous outfit, her current one was more daring as it was designed according to Earth’s modern fashion styles. Instead of her usual multi-layered outfits, her current one was a form-fitting one-piece red dress, accentuating her more womanly features instead of her youth.

Incidentally, the first prototype of her dress was quite revealing for medieval times, so I had to persuade her to change it. She was adamant about the idea as she wanted to perform a more mature song, but when I told her the villagers might assume her to appear slutty if too much skin was revealed, she caved in.

Now, it was tastefully sexy, covering up everything above her waist aside from her hands and neck, while the dress’ skirt went down to her knees. Funnily enough, her “mature” dress had a longer skirt than her usual outfit, but the dress showed her curves better, so it did fit how she wanted to appear.

.

“Ooh, the moment our eyes met, ooh, my heart couldn’t stop beating ♫

Badump, dump, dump, it’s like you used a skill on me ♫

Ahh, but don’t you even think I’m so easily swayed ♫

Can you prove to me that you can set my heart on fire, pal♫”

.

Her wish to use her fire in her performance finally came true in the second song, where every move produced white flames that trailed behind her arms and legs. With her renewed confidence firmly settled at her foundation, her every movement was powerful and refined, leaving no room for mistakes.

This energizing love song filled the surroundings with color and sound, banishing darkness and silence away from the stage and concert attendees.

.

“Until you show me the flames in you ♫

I will smile and keep these three words for myself! ♫

I can’t wait! ♫

Just watching you makes me feel so anxious ♫

I dream of the day that you will hold me ♫

You are it, my Fireheart! ♫

Say those words! ♫

Don’t just stand there and keep your mouth wide, dummy ♫

Can’t you feel the rhythm of our heartbeats ♫

Say those words, my Fireheart! ♫”

.

It was obvious from the loud cheering that the song was incredibly popular among the men, both young and old. Those who had a wife were obviously being scolded by them, but it seems even those very women were enjoying the song, almost like they were reminiscing their own love lives.

While the married women were showing their excitement through their smiles and intense scolding of their men, the single ladies couldn’t help but sing along. Despite not being the star of the show themselves, it was like they were intoxicated by the atmosphere and aura Hestia was creating, crudely imitating Hestia’s every move.

Hestia herself, noticed this fervor, amplified the intensity of her flames and the usage of the lights, making the stage dazzle in the night like a disco light show. Although it was blinding, somehow it all fitted perfectly together. The only problem was that Tasianna and I had to adapt to this sudden shift in gear, making sure the mana threads lit up exactly how Hestia would want them.

I do believe my synergy with Hestia during a fight is good, but this was my first idol concert. My first music concert of any kind, I admit. During our practice, I was able to learn how Hestia envisioned an idol concert, but I don’t believe I could perfectly imagine it yet.

Still, the crowd was riling up in excitement, completely overwhelmed by the mood Hestia had set with her performance. None of them had ever seen something like this, so it probably contributed to their interest. Regardless, the smiles of everyone at the front of the crowd were genuine. Even those who were initially uninterested had stopped eating and were watching Hestia sing and dance with affirming nods.

The night sky, darkening as time went by, was now brightened up by shimmering rainbow lights and white flames. Considering this was a normal medieval farming village, having something like this happening must be extraordinary. Even the thick terra walls wouldn’t be here weren’t it for Hestia.

Colwyn did say it was Hestia’s role as a priestess to help the villagers regain hope after the disaster of the bandit camp. In her own way, she was creating so much fun and hope from this single concert that I think a few of the attendees probably considered it an impromptu sermon.

Well, whatever they thought, I was happy to see everybody having fun. It made me proud to see Hestia having the time of her life, raising her voice to the extreme, releasing her singing talent to the wide world.

Ending the song with an over-the-top display of her white flames, she created a pair of white flaming wings floating behind her back and showed a large heart sign with her arms. Once the music stopped, there was another break where we switched Hestia’s outfit to the last for today.

Her outfit was… Actually, there wasn’t much to talk about. For the last song of her concert, we decided to have Hestia perform in her usual outfit without her white mage robe. We dressed her in the simple, pop-idol outfit made from her crimson-red mana threads she would walk around in nearly every day. Considering her next song, it was just perfect.

“Hey, Hestia,” I called her before she entered the stage. “Stay brave. You can do it.”

She stood still for a moment, wiping something from her face with her arm, before turning around to me, forcing the biggest smile she’s given today, “I-I know. Just one more step and…and my dream will come true. I’ll become an idol. My dream from my past life, my promise to my parents, my promise to you two. It will all become true today. Just one more step.” Her eyes trembled with those words.

Tasianna, unable to bear it anymore, gave Hestia a firm hug. “You can do it, my Princess. Nobody today shined more than you. I am sure, if your family were here, they would say the same thing. For you, I will dedicate the best tea I’ve ever made to congratulate you on becoming the star you always wanted to become. You have fully captured my heart with your songs, Princess Hestia.”

“I could not have said it any better,” I added in support as I held her head to my chest. “Just one more step. You said it yourself. Don’t forget, an idol always smiles. Even through the toughest times.”

If her first song was a Christmas song, her second was a love song, then her last song was a ballad. Her song, aptly named, was “Promise.”

The stage was silent for a moment with no lights illuminating anything. As the villagers started to wonder when the show would start again, two lights beamed onto the stage, showing a singular figure walking forward, the music already playing.

“Haaaahaaahaaaaaaaaaaa ♫” Hestia let out her voice softly, audibly once she raised her pitch.

As the music kept playing, Hestia stepped onto the catwalk, walking towards the B-stage as she finally started singing.

.

“As I stare into the sky, I wonder what happened that day ♫

It was bright, so bright, my dazzling dreams; It pains me, to think of them ♫

I sealed my tears, sadness into a mask, how could I be so blind to theirs ♫

Oh, by chance, I wish a second try, but now, that chance was gone. ♫”

.

Standing still at the center of the B-stage, the only lights surrounding the young idol were the stage lights and her own white flames levitating above her like a halo.

.

“Instead, everything was changed ♫

I could have cast my past into flames ♫

But my memories remained, I couldn’t fail; their hopes for me, I will hold to my heart! ♫

Hick!”

.

But before the chorus began, tears began streaming down her face, unable to hold in the emotions she was carrying with every word she sang. The villagers were baffled, but they didn’t say a word, keeping quiet as the crying girl continued singing, keeping her smile up even as her outfit was being soaked with her tears.

.

“Like a soaring star, I will fly ♫

Through this darkness, my light will never fade ♫

Even in the darkest hours, this smile will always stay ♫

This promise etched to my eternal soul! ♫

As if reality can break my wings ♫

Defy all, keep your eyes on the prize ♫

For this single chance in life, I will stand tall and proud ♫

Let the world hear my voice! ♫”

.

“Hierck hieck, hick, hierck,” as she received a small moment to cry, Hestia roughly tried to wipe all the tears away from her eyes, but whatever she tried, the dam in her eyes wouldn’t stop.

The villagers slowly understood what was going on, shouting “Stay strong!” and “You can do it, lass!” in support of Hestia. Nodding her head in affirmation, Hestia sniffed and continued singing.

.

“Wooohooooooo whoooooohaaaaaaa. Haaaahaaahaaaa… ♫

Time and time again I thought, “Shouldn’t I give up on this dream?” ♫

But I would lie, break my heart; I couldn’t live it down, I made a promise to them ♫

I didn’t want to let them down, they brought the light back to my life ♫

So hear me sing, watch me dance, witness this spectacle; for them, I give it my all! ♫

So, please, forgive my selfishness ♫

I dearly wish to see you two, again ♫

But, by chance, I was given a second try, I would reject it, this is my path! ♫

As if reality can break my wings ♫

Defy all, keep your eyes on the prize ♫

For this single chance in life, I will stand tall and proud ♫

Let the world hear MY VOICE! ♫

Like a soaring star, I will fly ♫

Through this darkness, my light will never fade ♫

Even in the darkest hours, this smile will always stay ♫

This promise etched to my eternal soul! ♫

As if reality can break my wings ♫

Defy all, keep your eyes on the prize ♫

For this single chance in life, I will stand tall and proud ♫

Let the world hear MY VOICE! ♫”

.

The song was at its climax, and the sounds of wailing weren’t only coming from Hestia. All the women, young and old, witnessing the sight of this young singer putting all her raw emotions in front of everybody couldn’t help but cry, too. Even Tasianna and I, who had already heard this song, couldn’t help ourselves. Dedicated to both of her two lives, this song resounded in our very souls.

The men, on the other hand, weren’t the crying type, but they kept supporting Hestia in their own ways by cheering. The music was supposed to drown all the surrounding noise, but the choir of cheers couldn’t be stopped.

[Music Resonation (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa]

Something popped up in my status board, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t help but cheer for Hestia at this moment.

.

“However, I will always hold you close ♫

For my life was filled with all your love ♫

So, please, watch over me you two ♫

My promise to you, I will now make it true! ♫

Like a soaring star, I will fly ♫

Through this darkness, my light will never fade ♫

Even in the darkest hours, this smile will always stay ♫

This promise etched to my eternal soul! ♫

As if reality can break my wings ♫

Defy all, keep your eyes on the prize ♫

For this single chance in life, I will stand tall and proud ♫

Let the world hear my voice! ♫”

.

As the song finally ended, sounds of sizzling gunpowder came from behind the stage before it was replaced by explosions. Three objects shot from behind the stage, into the air and outside the village, before exploding into multiple beautiful fireworks illuminating the night sky in crimson-red, white, and purple.

Hestia’s personally made fireworks, using the same principle when she made her bombs, were filled with scale-dust as a gunpowder replacement and three different magic circles. Hestia activated those fireworks like she did her spotlights, and shot them outside the village to make sure none of the villagers would be hurt from the firework’s remains.

“THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH! THANK YOU EVERYBODY FROM CARINE VILLAGE AND THE HELVAS TERRITORY! YOU HAVE BEEN AN AMAZING CROWD!” Hestia shouted with all her remaining strength, before collapsing on her knees, crying tears of happiness in front of the entire crowd.

As they did for the two previous songs, the crowd exploded in cheering and claps, shouting words of support as they, surprisingly, stayed away from the stage. None of them tried to storm the stage, all understanding how important this moment was for Hestia.

Tasianna and I ran on the stage, supported Hestia on our shoulders, and slowly carried her off the stage, all while the crowd didn’t stop cheering.

“I-I’m an, hick, Idol,” Hestia managed to utter through her wails.

“Yes, you are, Hestia. You have finally become the shining light you always wished for,” I answered in response.

“And this won’t be the last concert, right, Lady Hestia? You won’t stop shining, right?” Tasianna asked her with a proud smile.

She vehemently shook her head, “No, no, this, hick, won’t be the last! I will never stop ever again. I’m an idol and an idol will perform until she can’t anymore. I will establish the idol culture on Peolynca, no matter what it costs me!”

And with those words, the first idol on Peolynca was born. As we brought the already sleeping Hestia back home, Tasianna and I noticed the moon suddenly radiating an intense orange for a couple of moments before switching over to a pale white, eventually returning to normal.

Tasianna explained the moon was the reason why this world knew when a season would end. At the night of the transition, the moon would shine the previous season’s color and then announce the next season by adopting its color. This would always happen at midnight.

I was surprised to learn this as Hestia nor I ever witnessed it ourselves. The trees in the Belzac forest covered up the sky and we always went to sleep early. What a coincidence I would learn about it today, after the concert.

It felt like the world was accepting Hestia’s announcement. The light she showed today and the following moonlight felt symbolic to me. Today wouldn’t be her last show as her dream was too large to keep her down. No more was she only a trainee or aspiring idol. She was now an authentic Idol star!

A note from AbyssRaven

I'll be honest, I teared up a bit while I wrote the lyrics for the third song. It made me remember Hestia's backstory too much. Hope you guys had fun with the ending of this arc. Next up, Firwood!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 12 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 101: A Pleasant Trip to Firwood.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #4 her to promote our Patreon. 12 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 12 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until November!

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Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Singing Lv. 10] [Dancing Lv. 9] [Stage Fever Lv. 3] gained

Skill requirement fulfilled.   [Synergist’s Oath Lv. 6] [Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 3] [Singing Lv. 10], [Dancing Lv. 9], [Musician Lv. 6] merged intounique skill [Idol Lv. 1]

81 humans have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total followers of [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko]: 127

Follower amount requirement fulfilled.   [The Light] proficiency requirement fulfilled

Milestone reward gained: Unique Skill   [Sacred Amp]. Next Milestone unlocked: 2500: [Dark Weakness Removal]

[Sacred Amp] merged into [Idol Lv. 1]

Idol

A skill given to someone who has become accepted as an Idol by the populace. While the user is performing idol-like actions and others can witness it, all buffs already applied to the user will also affect the audience through the   [Music Resonation] buff. The user can share buffs independently, but they will be removed from the user. Depending on the stage, others will only receive a certain percentage: 25%/50%/75%/100%. All acoustic-related attacks will be boosted. Access to the Idol System. The skills combined are: [Sacred Amp] [Synergist’s Oath Lv. 10] [Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 10] [Singing Lv. 10] [Dancing Lv. 10] [Musician Lv. 10]

Idol System

A System made specifically for Idols. Enables the user to register their songs into offensive or supportive abilities. The registration slots are determined by: [Idol Lv.] * 2. Aurena: Don’t try to cheat, Hestia. Only you can see this

Sneaky, Aurena. Well, she was right that I would try upgrading the skill. Meh.

Well, I don’t know what to say, to look at my status updates. I mean, what can I possibly say more than “I ACTUALLY GAVE MY FIRST CONCERT, AHHHHH!” OMG, my first idol concert and I made it through all three songs as I planned, and I only had an emotional meltdown at the very end of it. Ha ha! What a wonderful way to welcome the new year!

Like I said, today is the very first day of the new year. The 1st of WinterSun in the year 2679, and it would also be my last day in Carine village. As I planned with Lorena and Ellaine, I would travel with them and Ruld to Firwood, where I would not only help out with Lorena’s problem, but also finally receive my party’s IDs.

After breakfast, Barathan arrived at our house, almost too punctually, to pack up all the furniture I got from Count Helvas. Although they were presents, I gave them back to Ellaine, since our party couldn’t use them. We had no real home, and it would be a total waste to leave them in our current house.

He and his group of butlers packed everything onto the train of carriages, and then we then picked up Lorena and Ruld, who finished giving their farewells to both family and friends. Although I never admitted it, I was practically considered a priestess by everybody in the village, and I believe every single villager became my “fan” when I gave my show. As a way to thank them for attending and being an amazing crowd, I gave them one final sermon and [Prayer] before leaving.

Reaching the 100 fans milestone was already awesome, as it gave me another damage modifier for my holy spells, but hearing the villagers call me the “best priestess ever” was quite endearing, especially when they told me to return one day and hold another idol concert. I had the suspicion they also wanted the free food, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt.

Once we departed with Barathan as our carriage driver, I instantly shut my eyes, as I had a slight headache from what happened yesterday. It wasn’t anything serious, just a bit of fatigue. The whole concert was an emotional rollercoaster for me, and it all climaxed once I performed “Promise”. Ballads are wonderfully emotional if done right, and the music I chose for it was too overwhelming for me. That song holds a lot of sentimental feelings.

While I wasn’t actually sleeping, just resting, I took a chance to review the new skill I got: [Idol Lv. 1]. Although I was excited to have unlocked the [The Light]’s [Sacred Amp] milestone, and knowing I could get rid of my dark element weakness with the next, I still found immense gratification from [Idol]. It’s like the esteem of getting a medal after you got 1st place in a competition. This skill is a badge of honor to me, proving how I successfully fulfilled the first stage of my long-awaited dream.

Now, aside from the fact that Aurena secretly slipped a message to me, knowing full well I would try using SP to upgrade the skill, I took a look at how the skill actually works. While I haven’t registered a song or tested it out yet, I can presume from the description that any song I register will probably begin displaying RPG mechanics. It sounds similar to a bard ability, honestly.

I don’t have time now, but I’ll probably try it out in Firwood or maybe on our way there.

“Lady Hestia, please wake up. We have arrived,” I heard Barathan say from the coach’s seat.

Opening my eyes, I could see Saori packing up teacups and a teapot back into her storage, while Lorena and Ruld began anxiously grooming themselves, making sure nothing was wrong with their appearances. As they were meeting Ellaine, the fief lord’s daughter, they were wearing their cleanest clothes. Although they knew they weren’t in trouble, they still trembled as the carriage entered through the gates.

Once in front of the mansion’s doors, we left the carriage to see butlers and maids loading luggage into clean white wagons. We were let inside the mansion, where Ellaine was sipping tea in our usual meeting room.

“Lady Hestia! I am glad you have made it. I hope this beloved LightDay has found you well,” Ellaine greeted me with an elegant curtsey as always. “I managed to attend your concert yesterday. I must say, your voice was heavenly, and I especially was fond of your second song. You made my heart skip a beat, I must admit.”

Is that so? I’m pretty sure Saori mentioned you cried during my 3rd song? I wondered, but kept that to myself as it would have been rude to tease her now.

Replying with an equally flawless curtsey, I greeted her with a Korean heart sign by overlapping my thumb with my index finger. “That’s great to hear. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Lady Ellaine. As a traveling ‘priestess’, I bless you in Goddess Aurena’s name.”

After giving my greetings, I introduced Lorena and Ruld to her, as they were gonna travel with us, after all. “I see. Lorena?” Ellaine called Lorena forwards.

“Uhm, y-yes, your ladyship!” Lorena responded, kneeling before her.

“You may rise,” Ellaine ordered with the wave of her hand, maintaining a dignified expression. “I have heard your plea from Lady Hestia, and, using my authority as the daughter of Lord Count Helvas, I shall grant it. I will revoke your serfdom to Helvas County, making you a free woman now, a yeoman; however, that will also mean you will relinquish any right to call for our house’s support. You will no longer be affiliated to House Helvas. Will you accept, Lorena?”

Lorena stayed silent for a bit, thinking on it, but raised her head and looked Ellaine directly in the eyes. “Yes, my Lady. I accept.”

“Good. I, Ellaine Fierro Helvas, revoke your status as a subject of House Helvas. You are officially a yeoman now. Once we reach Firwood, do not forget to re-issue your ID from the temple and apply for citizenship if you wish to stay in Firwood,” Ellaine informed Lorena with a reserved tone.

“I thank you so very much, my Lady. I will remember your mercy for my whole life,” Lorena said, bowing deeply before the young noble lady.

I believe Ellaine should be one of the friendlier nobles. The way she is interacting with Lorena should be what I should expect from an interaction between a magnoble and a commoner, although it was likely that this won’t always be the case. I guess I’ll use this as reference material for the future.

Once Ellaine did her duty as a noble, we all went outside. When I saw the amount of luggage packed into the wagons, it reminded me I had to hand over something to Ellaine. Barathan called over four butlers at my wish and I took out two boxes filled with ripe macula plants for them to place inside the wagons.

Macula plants are plants that need mana in the ground to grow, where their speed of growth is determined by the concentration of mana. If the concentration is high enough, they can grow in just a few seconds, producing high-quality mana water which is used in alchemy. As high mana concentration can randomly spawn strong monsters, it’s imperative to use these plants to reduce it.

Master Kush gave me two bags full of macula seeds before he left, so I could continue sparring with Saori and Tasianna. We wouldn’t want Carine village to be overrun by monsters now. As you might presume, the amount of mana I had to use to fuel the whole concert was insane. I could have done one more song, but even three saturated the ground with enough mana to produce two boxes full of macula plants.

As per the agreement we made at the beginning of our stay here, I could continue training in Helvas County, but I had to hand over all the macula plants to House Helvas. These boxes were the spoils of my concert.

We then began entering the carriages. Lorena and Ruld would enter one of the three servants’ carriages, while Ellaine, her maid Josine, Saori, Tasianna, and I would ride in House Helvas’s personal carriage, coached by Barathan. Compared to the one we’d been using until now, this one was not only a bit larger, but also more adorned with decorations.

Remembering Barathan was the seneschal, the caretaker of a fief in his or her lord’s stead, I had to ask him why he was coming with us to Firwood when it should be his duty to stay here to monitor Carine village. He told me Count Helvas ordered him to come with Ellaine to monitor me in Firwood, so another servant was installed as the seneschal.

Once again, everybody from House Helvas was being very forthright about everything to me. Compared to my first meeting with them, if I asked them about something, they would simply answer it. No tricks or lies; any strings would be revealed the moment I questioned them.

Well, whatever they were planning with it, I appreciated it. It makes interacting with them far easier when I don’t have to walk through a web of double-speak. Still, if my future will be filled with even more nobles than just Ellaine and her family, then I should probably start learning how to decipher how nobles speak.

Once our carriage began moving, the three servant carriages, the wagons of belongings, and an entourage of knights and soldiers riding equeroches followed directly behind us. It honestly made me feel like a VIP.

As for the carriage itself, it actually felt far better than the previous one. As it was a bit larger, its seats were also more spacious, giving me room to rest my tail comfortably. There also seemed to be retractable tables attached to the carriage’s inner doors, wide enough to fit a tea set and maybe a few treats.

As everybody made themselves comfortable inside, Josine suddenly produced a sheet of parchment and handed it over to Saori. “It is rather unnecessary, but this is the Quest. Please, confirm all the details,” Ellaine told us.

Saori read it out loud for everybody to hear. The Quest Ellaine would issue my party was to escort their entourage from Helvas County to Sirius March’s capital, which means Firwood was governed by a marquess or marchioness, a Greifnoble. This was an F rank quest that required my party to participate in the removal of any obstacles threatening the Helvas retinue’s safety during the trip. In payment, we would gain 1000 Davi and one F rank point, which I had no idea what it was, but I assumed it has something to do with the rank system inside the adventurer guilds.

The Quest itself was just a pretense for Ellaine to speak with Saori and Tasianna more freely, as it was considered rude of a noble to have an extended conversation with another noble’s retainers or servants. Nobles valued appearances, and this was a round-about way to go about it for Ellaine. Getting to know adventurers better wasn’t seen as improper, and we would be employed by Ellaine until we fulfilled the Quest.

I accepted the Quest once the formalities were done, and Ellaine dropped her noble persona and returned to the casual one I’d recently gotten to know. “Excellent, now before we speak, shall we prepare tea? The midday sun hasn’t arrived yet and it will be nightfall before we reached the viscounty. Josine, would you please?”

The trip to Firwood will take three days with the carriages. We’ll spend the first night at the mansion of a viscount, who’s Count Helvas’s neighbor. On the second night, we planned to stop at a small village inside the Sirius March, and then finally arrive on the next morning at the capital of the region, Firwood.

If nothing bad happens, we would follow Ellaine’s schedule to a T. Well, I know I’ve just jinxed myself here, but whatever. Come at me, evil lurkers, this idol won’t back down! But, before we actually fight, let me finish my tea and cake first.

Josine, Ellaine’s maid, prepared the tea while Tasianna took care of the cake. A tea party is nothing without cake, right? During the preparations, I had the feeling Tasianna was leering at Josine, slowing her movements down a bit. Although I wasn’t sure, I bumped her side with my elbow to remind her to behave. I guess being stuck inside a carriage with two humans for three days will not be a pleasant experience for Tasianna, but I honestly hope she would learn from this and adapt her opinion on humans a bit.

“Lady Ellaine,” I uttered after taking a sip, finally remembering something important I had to ask her. “Would you possibly know an expert on mana paths? A surgeon, maybe?”

“An expert?” she repeated, giving my question some serious thought. “Hmm, I am not personally acquainted with them, but I believe either Lady Duchess Morgiana or a noble house in her duchy should have one. The Morgiana duchy is located on the borders of the Elven kingdom, and they had a good history with the elves before the ‘War for the Fairies.’ House Morgiana are experts in the arcane, as most of their knowledge came from the forests of Saelariel, which also caused their relationship…uhm, pardon me, I nearly let that slip. Please, I ask you to forget what I just said there.”

Saying that will just make me even more curious…but I could already guess it’s politics related.

From what I could gather from that small amount of info, House Morgiana once had a good relationship with the elven kingdom, Saelariel, but it probably deteriorated after what the humans did to the fairies. Both dwarves and elves then went to war against the human race, and all I know is that the humans lost. I don’t know which factions or countries participated in it.

Nevertheless, the elves and fairies have isolated themselves from the humans, blocked the flow of elven goods like yeast to the kingdom of Artorias and restricted any human entry into their forests. If House Morgiana had a good relationship with the elves and then this war came to be, I would guess they would be pretty angry at the ones responsible for it. Did the royal family of Artorias start it? I don’t know, but I think I should be wary just in case. Better not get involved in anything political.

“Where was I? Concerning a mana surgeon, why do you ask, Lady Hestia?”

“I had an accident during my stay in the Belzac forest and wasn’t able to fix the problem with magic correctly,” I told Ellaine, leaving most of the details out.

She widened her eyes in surprise. “Well, it shouldn’t be surprising. I heard from my father the forest was given a C rank for how dangerous it is, not because of any particularly strong monsters, but because of the wide variety of monsters residing there. Many of them possess abilities to inflict debilitating status effects. Anyway, if you require a surgeon, then wouldn’t Miss Tasianna know more? She is a wind elf, after all,” Ellaine wondered aloud, before turning her head to Tasianna, watching her with full interest.

Tasianna frowned for a second but quickly recovered. She took a moment to form her words, and then spoke them as if she rehearsed them multiple times inside her head. “We had to make a detour into the Kingdom of Artorias, as Lady Hestia’s safety was more important. I am not an expert on the subject, so we require the talents of a professional.”

Ellaine frowned a bit as she noticed the cold reception she received from Tasianna, but didn’t say a word about it. Instead, she turned her head to me and asked, “Would you require it urgently? Their services are expensive, not to mention most nobles are currently at the kingdom’s capital and would be irked if they had to travel now. Of course, once we confirm your [Princess] title, the royal family would gladly provide you our best mana surgeon.”

“You do know you could use [Identify] on me, right? I wouldn’t mind it, honestly. I trust you to not throw the information around too much,” I offered as a sign of trust, but instead, Ellaine contorted her face, mortified by my suggestion.

“No, no, no, you mustn’t even suggest such an outrageous idea, Lady Hestia!” she rebuked me. “I apologize for raising my voice, but using [Identify] on another noble is considered almost a death wish in the Kingdom of Artorias. It might be different in your country, but the moment somebody notices you use [Identify], not only you but also your whole house might be ostracized by the majority of the respectable noble houses. Look, look at my armlet, Lady Hestia.”

Josine immediately started pulling the right sleeve of Ellaine’s dress up, revealing a thin silver armlet in the shape of a flower. Ellaine pointed at it and continued, “This is a [Ring of Identification]. My [Identify] is actually still level one, since it seems my proficiency with it isn’t very good, but by wearing this armlet, I am allowed to use [Identify Lv. 5] and [Identity Blocker Lv. 5]. However, what is important is its primary effect. As a mage, you should have [Identify], right, Lady Hestia? Please, take a look.”

Identify.

Ring of Identification

A manatech shaped in an armlet. It enables the user to use [Identify Lv. 5] and [Identity Blocker Lv. 5] by spending their mana. If [Identity Blocker] successfully blocked an outside [Identify], this manatech will use [Identify] to counter the attack, recording the status of the opposition’s profile

Nani?! (What?!) C-Counterattack! I thought, faking my bafflement.

“Nobody would trust somebody if they used a skill to invade somebody’s private information. Spies exist, yes, but every notable noble possesses some version of this manatech, and if you were to be exposed so easily, then that says a lot about your abilities,” Ellaine slowly spoke, making sure I understood what she was saying. “More influential nobles will have higher tier versions of these armlets. Please, Lady Hestia, if you have ever had this maddening idea, banish it.”

Seeing her so angry was certainly a surprise, and her explanation also suddenly validated my concerns of using [Identify] willy-nilly on humans. Apologizing to Ellaine was only a small price for finally knowing a reason to not even think about it.

After the tension quietened down, Ellaine began talking to Saori, finally taking the opportunity to speak to my friends. “So, tell me, Miss Saori. I’ve heard rumors that you might be the seamstress who produced that wonderful piece of purple mana cloth for my father. Would it be incorrect to presume you also made her beautiful dresses? I especially loved the one Lady Hestia wore to the dinner, and the one for her second song was intriguing. Is that a dress from Loatryx?”

Saori smiled proudly, overjoyed to hear she could speak fashion with Ellaine, “You are correct, Lady Ellaine. Making Lady Hestia’s clothes is a joy for me. If I may, could I question your ladyship and Josine about Artorias’ current fashion trends?”

“With how dazzling and bewitching Lady Hestia looked, I believe the red dress could possibly start a trend, but I will indulge you if you require my advice. However, first you must answer my question.”

Although discussion could spice everything up, we technically didn’t have much to talk about Loatryx or Kargryx really. We never were there in the first place. The only thing we could talk about was our experience in the Belzac forest. Ellaine was a mage but until now she’s only been gaining levels through small Quests during her stay at the royal academy.

She, and, like most of the other young nobles, had never actually fought or killed a monster. This was reserved for the time they graduate and either join the mage’s guild or a knight’s order. Young nobles had to first be educated on how to be proper members of aristocratic society, while also learning how to control their abilities. Until they did, most never needed to fight monsters.

So, Ellaine was ecstatic like a little kid when Saori and I began describing our travels in the Belzac forest. I started with my time at Belzac mountain, omitting the fact Saori and Tasianna weren’t there and that I was literally just born, and then gave Saori a chance to speak once I reached Saori’s first appearance. Time flew by like crazy and we still hadn’t made it to the party of the trolls when we reached the viscounty.

The viscount wasn’t there, as he was attending the winter balls. There at his mansion, I also learned that Ellaine was considered “sick” and had to stay at her family’s fief during the God Thanking Festival. This was all an excuse, of course, one spread around by her mother to prevent her daughter’s absence from negatively impacting her social status.

A priest could’ve cured her supposed sickness, but I learned that priests, like nobles, usually disliked traveling during the winter. I was being used here to explain why Ellaine was traveling now. As I said, nobles love their round-about ways.

Anyway, to the mansion itself, it was clearly a downgrade compared to House Helvas’s. Carine Village was considered a rich fief and Count Helvas also had several other businesses where the products he received as tribute from the village were making him a lot of money, enough for him to afford the amount of splendor his mansion had.

About the meals themselves, they were all served by Ellaine’s chefs. It seems both Tasianna and Saori weren’t welcomed by the chefs, as they didn’t want foreign cooks to enter the kitchen. Ellaine, being a noble, was indifferent to the issue, stating it would be more proper for her to host me. The three of us had to accept it, as we didn’t want to cause a fuss.

We spent the night there and continued our trip the following morning. Our storytelling continued until we reached the small village, by which point we’d only barely gotten to our first meeting with Rajah, my precious little virigress cub. Ahhh, I honestly hope he and his family are doing well. My “fans” counter hasn’t decreased, so nothing should’ve happened, but I still can’t help but worry a bit. I really do miss both him and the lizardmen. I hope Caszcur, Apsala, and Aksmias are all doing fine.

The village’s mansion wasn’t anything special, as its purpose was to accommodate traveling nobles. For that reason, it was quite large, almost like a hotel mansion. It was decorated like you'd expect a noble's house to be, and the stay there was as comfortable as I expected. Only the toilet…well, when I have the chance I’ll speak about it, but not now. For now, I want to forget it.

Morning came, and the third day of our trip started. Despite my thinking I’d jinxed it, our trip went by calmly. I did manage to see a few G and F rank monsters, but I just left them alone. They weren’t threatening our little caravan, and it wasn’t worth it to kill them. I mean, would you bother trying to stomp on every single ant? Okay, that might have sounded a bit too arrogant. I guess my sunfang dragon side was showing a bit.

On a more positive note, I finally saw Tasianna interact with somebody aside from us. When Josine was trying to make tea for us this morning, Tasianna quickly stopped her, telling her to just watch how she made our tea. Josine should have seen Tasianna make tea already during the barracuda event, but this time, Tasianna was actively explaining her actions and the whys and hows. Josine was speechless, keeping quiet as she soaked in the knowledge Tasianna was giving. Even Barathan opened the coach’s latch to listen to it.

Hie hie, you two better be impressed. This is my super maid here! Tasianna Marina Silverpond, the best tea brewer I will ever know, probably.

The time flew by, and we finally reached the capital of Sirius March, Firwood.

A note from AbyssRaven

Time for the new arc and time for a slow chapter. We're in Firwood next, guys.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 12 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 102: Firwood.

At first glance, most newcomers would probably notice the huge walls surrounding the town. While I could hop over the one I made for Carine village in my dragon form, the walls of Firwood would probably require me to jump up to reach the top. As my dragon form was probably a bit smaller than a mammoth, I think any monsters smaller than me would probably have a hard time scaling it.

Covered in a blanket of snow, a sign of how deep we were into winter, the grey-brown walls stood majestically before us, showing little sign of deterioration. Were they newly made or were they regularly maintained? From this distance, it looked like the walls were made with [Terra Wall], and then further fortified with stones and fortifications. A fact Ellaine quickly confirmed for me when I muttered it. Another difference between this wall and mine.

While I couldn’t see any buildings from this angle, I was able to describe the land surrounding the town. On the road to Firwood, I was able to see multiple small farming villages managing patches of fertile land. While a lot of the land was now completely barren due to the snow, it seems the management of Firwood still left large forest areas intact, probably to serve as monster nests, as my [Detection Sensor] confirmed multiple signals coming from those areas.

When I asked Ellaine why so much land was kept unattended, she explained it had to do with the mana in the soil. While too much was dangerous, small amounts helped soil cultivation, enabling plants to grow stronger and faster, which led to larger produce harvests. Normally, monsters spawning around a town or village were only around G and F rank, similar to the situation in Carine village, so normal soldiers and stronger villagers could handle them easily.

This balance was actually beneficial for soldiers and adventurers in general, as this opened an opportunity for them to train up their newcomer’s levels and stats while keeping them close to the town. If a newbie were injured, veterans would be able to respond immediately.

“You know quite a lot on the subject, Lady Ellaine,” I complimented her for the explanation.

“This is common sense for any properly educated noble, Lady Hestia. Despite not managing a fief like Firwood, it is the duty of a noble to know. Knowledge is power, and as the elites of our kingdom, we must strive to better ourselves,” Ellaine explained passionately, but then raised her brow as she continued. “That said, it is surprising that you weren’t aware of this fact. Does Loatryx handle this matter differently? I cannot imagine it.”

Realizing I had no good excuse for this question, I just shrugged and responded bluntly, “I have nothing to say to that. I’ll have my ID issued soon, so you will probably understand by then.”

Ignoring her confused expression, I turned my head away. The moment they see [Otherworldly Reincarnator] and my racial skills, they’ll probably be able to piece together the puzzle. I very much doubt they would be stupid enough to not figure it out, and that’s why I only wanted a few people to know about it. I hope I’ll be able to count Ellaine and her family as allies by then, despite my grievances with her father. I’ve been a good girl.

As the carriage and our entourage drew closer to the town’s gate, we suddenly turned to the left, driving away from the gate. Apparently, that gate was for the general populace, commoners. The town was split up into two parts: the noble and the commoner sections. As a noble, Ellaine had the privilege to avoid riding through the “lower town” and could instead enter the noble district directly.

It was logical. The Kingdom of Artorias had a caste system, and nothing would enforce this even better than having different districts for different social groups. I mean, they even do this on Earth. Take for example my home in New York and how it was divided into five boroughs. My apartment was in Manhattan, the richest county, but the moment you went into the Bronx, you’ll notice a clear difference in apartment prices.

As I was looking outside the window, I suddenly noticed a commotion at the front of the commoner’s gate. A burly man with two ox-like horns protruding from the top of his head was standing before two guards.

When my [Enhanced Auditory Sense] merged into [Idol], my hearing became much more powerful. Even from this distance, if I focused on it, I could clearly hear everything.

“So, your name is Cernust? Is that correct, Sir?” a guard asked cautiously, looking a bit scared of the almost 190cm (6’3 inches) tall man.

“Yeah, of course, it says it there on the ID. What the hell you so suspicious of, huh? You’re a guard. As if you’ve never seen a bovline before,” the man responded aggressively, pointing at his sharp horns.

After my carriage moved a bit more to the side, I finally got a good glimpse of this Cernust guy. Not only was he tall enough to stand out among the crowd, but his whole appearance was conspicuous. Aside from his massive arms, he had a cow-like tail coming out of his brown trousers, minotaur-like hooves for feet, a small ox-like nose, and two floppy ears. This confirmed there was a beastman version of oxen and bovines in Peolynca.

Regarding the rest of his appearance, he had medium-long verdant green hair, armless black studded leather armor barely able to hold in his massive frame, and two polished wooden gauntlets covered in green scales with a mystifying gleam. He was also carrying a full backpack, but I wasn’t sure what it held.

I wonder where those scales came from? It’s curious.

“Uhm. Uh,” the guard stuttered, struggling to form the words of his question. “S-So, uh, what are you here for, Sir? Why have you come to Firwood?”

“Oh, come on! I’m getting this same question every single time I arrive in a city. Why can’t you humans be just a little bit less suspicious about beastmen, huh? My companion is tired, and we need to get an inn!” The bovliner named Cernust walked forwards, pointing at something on the card. “This here is the hunter’s guild emblem. I’m a merc and a hunter, plus an alchemist on the side. My companion and I are taking a break at Firwood during our travels, and I’m planning to do some work to get some Davi. You happy? Is that enough for you?”

“Uh, y-you’re an alchemist?!” the guard flinched, taking a step back as he looked at the bovline’s hairless human face, to his full backpack.

Cernust sighed, took a glass bottle filled with a green liquid from his backpack, and showed it to the guard. “Minor agility potion. Not often on sale. I made it. Proof enough?” The other people in the queue started raising their voices, murmuring at the bovline’s potion, which attracted Cernust’s attention. “Fucking hell! Can you please let us in, now?! You’re holding everybody up and I’m behind schedule. I need to get my companion to an inn already, so get your ass to the crystal and inspect our IDs already!”

Hearing him say that finally made me notice the smaller person standing beside him. The person was completely wrapped in a black robe, but, according to her frame, I guess it had to be a woman. She wasn’t saying much despite being called out by her companion, but looking at how she was panting quickly, she really must be tired.

While the guards weren’t sure how to handle the situation, almost as if they were freezing up in fear, an older man with the aura of a veteran soldier came over. “You two, what’s the hold-up?” he asked the two before being given an explanation of the situation. “Damnit, that’s why the line is being held up?! Get your asses to the crystal and check the IDs’ authenticity. That’s all you needed to do!”

After the guards fled the veteran guard’s commandeering voice, he then turned towards the bovline. “Sorry about that, kid. Those two are newcomers; they’ve barely had any experience with beastmen outside of wolves, cats, rabbits, foxes, and birds. Don’t cause too much trouble once you’re in, alright, adventurer?”

Instead of raising his voice like before, the bovline smirked and gave the older guard a thumbs up. “Yeah, no harm done, old man. I’ll be careful to not party too much, hahaha!”

The guard nodded and then turned towards the woman. “…No problems, I hope?” He asked with a grimace, before shrugging it off after the woman nodded firmly. “Good enough. I’ll handle everything. Go in already and get your IDs; welcome to Firwood. NEXT!”

Before the pair went through the gate, the bovline turned around and started sniffing the air. “Is something wrong, Cernust?” the woman finally asked.

The bovline scratched his head in confusion before shaking his head, “Uhm, I think it’s nothing? Dunno, I thought I smelled something sweet. Nostalgic even. Well, whatever, let’s go inside.”

Weird guy. Strangely, speaking of weird smells, I thought I smelled something weird from his direction. Meh, whatever.

Once we reached the noble district’s gates, the process went by more quickly than what I’d just seen, since the queue was empty. Everybody showed their IDs except for Saori, Tasianna, Lorena and me. Ellaine pulled out a sheet of parchment.

“Lord Marquis Sirius has given these four individuals the right to reject showing their IDs. As you have confirmed my identity as the daughter of Lord Count Helvas, I can vouch for the upstanding characters of all four,” Ellaine informed the guards, emitting an aura of respectability and authority.

Later, I learned the guards of this gate were usually knights belonging to houses of schwertnobles and knights. Schwertnobles comprised of barons and baronets, while knight houses only had a pseudo-aristocracy status. As the daughter of a count, Ellaine outranked all of them and, with an official document of the lord of Firwood on hand, none of the guards could say anything to Ellaine. She was pretty cool.

“Lady Hestia, if you weren’t aware, having your ID checked at a town or city always means having it checked by a [Crystal of the Divine System], which exposes all your information without fail,” Ellaine explained once we entered through the gates. “Usually, if you lose your ID, you have to pay the guards a sum for a temporary one. Much like when you issue your own ID, all your information will be exposed by the crystal, since even [Identity Blocker] cannot stop its function.”

I wonder what those crystals were made from if they were able to bypass an entire skill’s purpose of existence. Honestly, I’m really bothered by how my investment into [Identity Blocker] is becoming more disappointing the more I learn about the world. I would love to ask Ellaine here and now about those crystals, but I think I’ll reserve that for after I get my ID.

As the carriage continued through the opulent streets of the noble district, my eyes were naturally drawn to all the mansions and their large gardens. Much like at Ellaine’s mansion, everything inside the gates was completely protected from the wintery white blanket by a barrier of warmth.

Of course, that didn’t mean every single house was the same. The ones closest to the gate were smaller mansions similar to large houses, while the deeper we went into the city, the larger the estates got. I couldn’t see any other buildings. It was like everything in the noble district was just the houses of nobles.

Kinda boring, to be honest.

Eventually, we reached House Helvas’s mansion in Firwood. Compared to their estate at Helvas county, this mansion was noticeably larger, probably to show off to the neighbors. Rich people love showing their wealth off, and, from what I’ve heard from Ellaine, it was expected of nobles of a higher rank to not only strive to improve, but to also innovate.

To develop a country, not only must technology be advanced, but its culture too. A greifnoble was expected to always find new trends and to introduce them to society, while schwertnobles could rarely innovate, due to their lacking wealth, and so had to follow the greifnobles’ lead. Ellaine’s magnoble family were not only wealthy but also agriculturally focused, so most of their innovations were food related, but seldom anything else.

The reason why Count Helvas wanted Tasianna so much was ‘cause he believed Tasianna knew how to make yeast and other elven products. The Kingdom of Artorias had lost correspondence with the Elven kingdom and, with it, the ability to trade with them. He wanted to know how to produce yeast so much, he risked angering me. Honestly, his reasoning still hasn’t made my opinion on him better.

How ironic that I was the one with the yeast and pound cake recipes. Should I try recreating more pastries just to spite him? I get to eat good food while he has to look on the side, jealous.

…Maybe I am a bit too bratty here? Nah.

“We welcome the young mistress to Firwood! May the Gods bless you on this fine RestDay” a woman in a maid outfit announced with a retinue of servants the moment we exited the carriages, kneeling down and bowing before Ellaine, their mistress.

“Manuela, I have arrived. I hope everybody has had a good morning,” Ellaine started out, standing before everybody and speaking to them with elegance and grace. “I understand that today should have been a day of rest for everybody, but I would be grateful from the bottom of my heart if you would accommodate me and my guests for the days to come.”

They all stood up, placed their right hand on their chest, and bowed once again as they simultaneously said, “By your will!”

Ellaine then called me to step forward. “This here is Lady Hestia. She is an invaluable guest to not only me but also my father, Lord Count Helvas. While she is here, treat her with the respect you would give a greifnoble.” The servants shivered for a moment, widening their eyes when the word griefnoble left Ellaine’s mouth. “Manuela, work with Barathan to ensure that Lady Hestia’s stay here is comfortable. Also, provide her retainers a room close to hers and a space in the kitchen for them to prepare her meals. I have given my orders.”

Like a stout commander, Ellaine commanded her servants like chess pieces, standing nobly as everybody rushed around to fulfill their duties. Manuela, the head maid who welcomed us, immediately paired up with Barathan to order around the butlers and maids, although I had a feeling there was some spark between them when they saw each other.

While the servants were unpacking the luggage from the wagons and the soldiers along with the knights joined the mansion’s garrison, I took this time to speak to Lorena and Ruld as this would be where we separate.

“Lady Hestia, I thank you so very much for everything you’ve done for me. Rescuing me, helping my parents and the other villagers, and then bringing me here. I-I cannot repay you, I know that, but please allow me to pray to the Goddess for your health and success,” Lorena told me as she bowed, tears filling her eyes. “I know you don’t like us saying this, but I honestly believe you have been the best priestess we have ever had. This is the noble district so I can’t say much, but…I really hope you can visit us.”

“Lady Hestia,” Ruld continued to say his piece. “I haven’t known you for as long as Lorena, but I will be eternally grateful for what you have done for Lorena and the rest of my village. Thank you so much, may the Goddess bless your soul. If you are still willing to have me as your cobbler, then please come to my workplace in the, uhm, lower town. If you’re planning to become an adventurer, then you’ll need equipment and I know a few good blacksmiths.”

“Yeah, don’t worry. I’ll also try to attend your wedding if I can, so you guys better explain to me how the whole thing works,” I told them but then suddenly realized something. “Ruld, you should know where the hunter’s guild is, right?” He nodded, so I continued, “Good, I need to walk after staying in that carriage for two days, so lead the way.”

As I wasn’t quiet about it, it seems I caused a bit of a commotion among a few servants, but they were quickly chided by the more experienced ones. I could hear the sheer terror and anger in their voices as they explained to those gossiping servants to not talk behind my back. Considering how scared they were, I should probably hold back once I come back to not give them a heart attack.

After I informed Ellaine about it, she nodded and explained that it was a good idea for me to get my ID issued as soon as possible. She ordered Barathan to accompany me, since he had the documents to ensure everything at the guild would work without issue. I was a bit against it, but, if he was needed for everything to work, then it was better to just bite the bullet.

“I will have your rooms ready upon your return, so please enjoy your trip, Lady Hestia. However, I would like to warn you of the…smell.”

With those parting words, we went back into Ellaine’s carriage and departed to the gate connecting the lower city with the noble district. To the side of the gate, I noticed a large, church-like building protruding over the wall, which Barathan told me was the temple. “As white-robed priests must also attend to nobles, having the temple close to the noble district is imperative for the safety of all the priests,” he told me.

After we got clearance using the same document Ellaine showed the other guards, we left the carriage and began moving on foot. Barathan was clearly against it, but he held his opinion to himself after Saori informed him our party wanted to have a leisure walk.

The first district of the commoner’s part of the town was the upper district, reserved for wealthy merchants and businessmen who dealt with both schwertnobles and other wealthy commoners. Here, the technological development of the city could be seen as streetlamps fueled with mana were lighting up the city and mostly clean windows let light into the buildings.

If the noble district was a place reserved for the only the super-rich and influential, then the upper district was similar to a more medieval version of a town’s giant plaza. Yes, there were no cars and the overall fashion of the people here was nothing modern like I knew it, but it honestly was pretty…normal. However, the smell wasn’t too pleasant, although it was not as bad as the village.

As we moved away from the upper district and into the middle one, I finally realized what Ellaine meant by her warning. The smell was HORRENDOUS. OMG, was there no plumbing system here or what?! How is it that the upper district smelled decent but the moment I entered this place I get reminded of Carine village? I can understand a village, but a town?!

Also, the quality of the surrounding also dropped significantly, looking dirtier and less advanced compared to the upper district. I also began receiving eyes from everybody around us, gossiping as they commented on my clothes and my appearance. I could see beastmen like wolfkins and katzunes, cat-like beastmen, walking the streets, so these people must be more used to beastmen than Carine village, but it seems dragonewts were still pretty rare here.

Anyway, as I walked through the streets with my companions and temporary “party members,” we finally reached a building with a big sign displaying “Hunter’s Guild” on it with an emblem of a sword and bow entwining with each other.

As Ruld wanted to bring Lorena to his home, a safety precaution due to Lorena’s health, they left us before we entered the guild. With Saori, Tasianna, and Barathan with me now, we entered the guild and were assaulted by…In fantasy novels, adventurer guilds are always filled with armored men with swords and elves wielding bows or magic. Those classic novels, you know. Well, instead of cheering men and women drinking along to tavern music, I was instead greeted by extreme stares.

Although it wasn’t filled to the brim with people, the few hunters inside dropped what they were doing, whether it was maintaining their weapons or eating, and were now all staring at me with inquisitive eyes, assessing us. They eventually lost interest and returned to whatever they did as liveliness returned to the guild. Still, no music. That’s sad.

Barathan pointed at a counter manned by three women and led us to the far left. I was expecting some tall, muscular dude to appear and question what we were doing here, but nothing tropey like that happened. Ahh, no confrontations, the best outcome. Sometimes a calm day is what I needed instead of constant action and excitement.

“Welcome,” said a cat-eared woman. She wore a pleasant smile fitting for a person in the service industry, and looked to be in her early twenties. “My name is Melia. The hunter’s guild is ready to accept any Quests, how may I help the young mistress?”

The young woman had marine blue colored hair tied up neatly into a ponytail, giving her a mature look similar to Saori’s. Aside from having cat ears where her human ears should’ve been, she also had a fluffy tail that reminded me of ragdoll cats, furry clawed hands she was covering up with fingerless gloves, and two long fangs that showed whenever she spoke. The black outfit she wore was identical to the other receptionists, giving all three women the aura of a secretary.

Seeing as Saori and Tasianna were following behind me while Barathan stood to the side, the receptionist probably understood the “hierarchy” between us. I mean, I could understand Barathan and Tasianna choosing to act like that as they are true servants, but you aren’t one of them, Saori! I hope you aren’t doing this simply for the laughs, otherwise I’ll get your ears again!

“Hello, I wish to issue hunter IDs for my two companions behind me and myself,” I responded, causing the receptionist to show a hint of surprise before hiding it back behind her smile. “Barathan, please give her the document.”

The receptionist took the document from Barathan and began reading it, covering her mouth multiple times as she gasped at what she read. She then told the human receptionist next to her to get a [Crystal of the Divine System], to prepare the issuing process, and to wait for her to return before handing us our IDs. Afterward, she ran up the stairs behind the counter.

What the hell was written on that thing?!

“Uhm, please place your hand on it. All the information on your status boards will be recorded and we will then turn it into your hunter IDs,” the younger receptionist informed us, looking bewildered as her colleague ran away.

So this is a crystal, huh?

The orb placed before us was similar to the one you could find in a fortune-teller’s tent, attached to a printer-like machine through a cable. I placed my hand on it and my mana was instantly stolen away from me as the orb shined a glaring white, meanwhile, a blue screen projected before the young receptionist.

“You may take your hand off, young mistress,” the receptionist told me, inspecting the blue screen probably projecting all my information. “Let’s see, is everything-LEVEL 80! Mhmph!” She screamed something before shutting her mouth up with both of her hands. Her warm pink face quickly turned paler as she looked at me with utter shock.

Her attempt might have stopped her from saying anymore, but I already heard her scream my level…and it seems like I wasn’t the only one.

“Wait, what did she say? Level 80?!”

“Oi, what the fuck, that can’t be true now, right? Some random B ranker?!”

“Bro, my ears are better than a human’s, I bloody heard her say that whit-priestess’ level.”

The surrounding adventurers — whether they were humans or beastmen, or man and woman — all of them were causing a massive commotion as they overheard the young receptionist say my level. The third receptionist then came over to check on what was wrong with the young receptionist, as the latter couldn’t get her eyes off me.

I looked over at Barathan and noticed his smile slightly waning. Was he also surprised?

“By the Goddess …” the third receptionist muttered as she checked the blue screen, but, unlike her younger colleague, she quickly regained her composure and pushed her back to her counter. “I-I apologize dearly for what happened, y-your Grace. I will continue in my colleague’s stead.”

She then picked up a silver card, placed it inside the printer, waited for a few seconds, and took a card filled with small details from the printer. “Your ID is ready, your Grace. However, your original receptionist told us this was only the preparation, so I cannot hand it over to you yet. Please, understand. If you wish, we can continue with your companions.”

The poor lady couldn’t get a break as her face turned paler and paler when she inspected both Saori’s and Tasianna’s status boards. Although the intensity of the shock wasn’t as high as the younger clerk’s, I heard her quietly mumble my two friend’s skill levels. Her eyes were wavering on the brink of wonder but also total disbelief, although I could barely hazard a guess at why. We three just had numerous skills and titles that we just wanted to hide so dearly. Oh, among these skills, which one was shocking her the most?

…I hope my sarcasm came out properly, ‘cause this is making me feel bad. I think I just shaved years off these three receptionists’ lives. Considering I’ll be working with them now, I hope they won’t take this too badly.

Once all the cards were done and our status boards were recorded onto them, we waited for a while until Melia, the first clerk, came back. “Thank you, you two. I apologize for making you wait, Lady Hestia.”

“You know my name?” I asked, wondering how she knew it, as I hadn’t introduced myself yet, nor has she seen my status board.

“Yes, the document informed me of it and the guild leader confirmed it,” Melia told me with a smile, having completely abandoned the terror she had before. “Back to your IDs, the special ones we have to prepare for you and your retainers will be done in three days. We will use the ones we’ve made today as the reference material. I apologize for the delay, but I must humbly ask you to have patience. We will have everything done by then, my Lady.”

“That won’t be a problem. Thank you very much for informing us,” I told her with a nod, before shyly continuing. “Uhm, about before. I do apologize for giving you all a shock. It wasn’t my intention, sorry.”

Melia raised her brow for a moment, waggling her ears in astonishment, but then gave me a big sister-like smile. “You have done nothing wrong, my Lady. As members of the hunters guild, surprises should be expected at every turn. Although we must wait for three days, I will happily anticipate the time when we may work together.”

While I was feeling good that I fixed my first impression, Saori suddenly asked Melia if we could hand in our monster pelts and materials. Although this service was reserved for hunters only, as we couldn’t officially become ones today due to circumstances, Melia took the liberty to direct us to the third receptionist who was responsible for it.

There were quite a few monster materials inside my storage and I don’t know when the last time I checked on them was, so I think we will be sorting through it all for a while. However, once we’re done, I think it’s about time that I finally meet with my mysterious benefactor.

To the temple I go. See you soon, Goddess Aurena.

A note from AbyssRaven

Her dragon form is level 0, but her dragonewt form is level 80. Just a reminder for everybody.

Also, Mister Cernust here was a creation from my very first T4 "Draconic Popstar" Patron, AlphaFenrir! He caused some problems at the gate, eh?

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 103: The Church of Aurena.

A note from AbyssRaven

You can consider it a Halloween extra chapter, but I kind of released it late, so I'm not sure what to think of it. Anyway, please enjoy!

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“Not every business closes on RestDay, as the economy of a town mustn’t completely stop on a single day every week. Adventurers may flock into town on any day and at any time, so both the mercenary and hunter guilds must stay open,” Barathan explained as we walked through the streets on our way to the temple. “Artisans and laborers will take a break on this day. With people enjoying their rest day, taverns and street vendors stay open to serve them.”

This was only my first day in town, but I already was wondering why so many people were still working today. You see, RestDay, Peolynca’s Sunday, was considered a day of rest so people may pray to the gods and heal their fatigue for the next week of work. However, the hunters guild was half full of people anyway, and even had those three receptionists working.

We left the guild after selling all of our G, F, and E rank monster materials at the guild, earning us a whopping 6743 Davi. To be honest, the only reason why we were able to earn this much was due to the mountain of pelts, claws, scales, carapaces, and fangs I’d stored up after every single “Idol concert strategy” I’ve done with Saori. The material from G and F rank monsters were practically worthless compared to those from D and C rank monsters.

We could have made even more by selling the higher tier materials, but we wanted to keep those for equipment. Ruld mentioned a blacksmith, so I’ll be waiting until we meet him or her before selling everything. Thank goodness the E rank material was profitable. Saori couldn’t stop smiling after we left the guild.

Now to our next destination, the temple, we had to walk through the same street again and that was when I noticed a bustling market nearby. That is when I asked Barathan about RestDay and why so many people were still working.

“I see, that is understandable. If you do not work, you do not get to eat. Although the day has a significant religious reason, not every man and woman can afford to not work,” Saori stated, earning a sharp nod from Barathan. “This is quite different from how you grew up, correct, Tasianna?”

She nodded to Saori’s response. “I grew up praying to Goddess Zephira during the morning of RestDay and then spending the rest of my day frolicking with everybody else. The liveness of this town cannot compete.”

This is one of the major reasons why Tasianna has been keeping us updated on the days ever since we met her. As Tasianna was religious and a devout follower of Zephira and Plesia, she took counting the days seriously. During our time together, she always spent a small amount of time in the morning to give those two goddesses a small prayer before returning to her duties, believing a maid should make her mistress’s day more peaceful.

“If you are wondering if the temple is open today, Lady Hestia, then please do not worry. As servants of the Goddess, they can never rest when their services might be needed. Winter is a dreadful time for everybody’s health, though we we are lucky Firwood does not receive storms as often as the north,” Barathan informed us before raising his head to the skies and inspecting its blue luster. “God Krunal blesses us,” he muttered.

“Services, huh? Do you mean the ‘white grace’? I’ve noticed the upper district covered in snow; don’t they have one of those temperature regulators like at Lady Ellaine’s mansion? There would be fewer people sick if it wasn’t so cold,” I asked, barely noticing the cold myself as my core was managing my body temperature.

Barathan showed me a smile before bowing in respect, continuing where he left off, “As expected of you, Lady Hestia. While their wealth may be enough to acquire a [Season Regulator], it is very unlikely that most merchants would buy one due to the maintenance costs. Nobles are born with a high affinity to mana due to their venerable bloodlines, making it easy for them to fuel manatech without the need of mana batteries. However, merchants are commoners; some have the innate talents in magic, but most cannot even write a sentence with a mana pen. A merchant might use their mana batteries for certain luxuries, but their houses are not mansions, so a simple hearth is simpler and more cost-effective.”

Ellaine always used these mana pens whenever she needed to write on something. Using her mana as the ink, Ellaine would sometimes fill out documents when I visited her. Considering she never showed signs of exhaustion whenever she wrote with it, most humans must really have low mana.

“You surprisingly know a lot about the town, considering you’re the seneschal of a village, Barathan,” I said in wonder, pleasantly surprised at how he was able to answer every question with confidence.

“Your words honor me, Lady Hestia; however, it is only natural. I was once the head butler of House Helvas’ mansion in Firwood, after all,” he stated with pride. “My grandfather was the previous seneschal of Carine village, but he, unfortunately, passed away a few winters ago; may the Goddess bless him. I handed over my role as the leading servant here to Manuela and have been living in Helvas County ever since. I would be a failure of a butler if I didn’t know this much about the town I once worked at.”

“My condolences, Sir Barathan,” Saori said politely. “How is the rest of your family? Were they not at the mansion to greet you, or do they live somewhere else?”

“My father and mother work as the leading servants at the mansion in Cedaraille, and my brothers and sister work as regular servants at the mansion in Griffonpeak. I presume they are doing well as I have not received a notice. As you might have noticed, my family are loyal servants of House Helvas, and we’ve been given the family name ‘Kiesmay’ for our service,” he answered with absolute pride, puffing his chest up as his lips curved into a genuine smile.

Barathan continued giving us small historical trivia of the town, exciting Saori enough to awaken the historian inside of her. The two of them conversed mostly one-on-one while Tasianna and I ignored them. After reaching the upper district, we immediately made our way to the temple, which was next to the noble district’s gate we’d passed through earlier.

Looking at the temple, it fitted perfectly with the nobles’ decorated mansions, as its walls were pristine white and filled with intricate engravings. Although the building was considered a temple, it looked more like a gothic catholic cathedral to Saori. She drew our attention to the murals and stone ornaments plastered on the temple’s twin towers, which towered even over the surrounding walls. Beautiful stained glass windows depicted various figures on them. In particular, the largest showed a winged woman shrouded in a veil of light as she smiled peacefully with eyes closed.

A pair of guards stood before the gates to the temple, who prompted us to show our IDs before we entered the temple area. Barathan went forwards before I could say anything and produce the same document he showed the other guards. These guards, however, weren’t able to read well, so Barathan had to read everything out loud. Suffice to say, those guards will probably remember my party’s faces from today onwards.

Honestly, the amount of people that document has scared is baffling. I know you’re the lord of Firwood and a greifnoble but Marquis Sirius, you have sealed an unworldly power into this piece of parchment.

“Barathan, I heard white-robed priests are nobles. I wish to avoid them if possible,” I told him as we entered the temple’s premises.

“Is that so?” he wondered as he raised a brow, but quickly accepted it with a nod, once again showing what a proper butler he was. “In that case, you have nothing to fear, Lady Hestia. While it might be true that most white-robed priests are nobles, as your grace is aware, but that doesn’t mean commoners cannot become priests.”

Barathan then proceeded to give me a quick rundown of how the clergy worked, beginning with the two types of priests: white-robed and grey-robed clergymen. At the bottom, grey-robed priests and priestesses are members of the clergy who are usually either orphans or commoners who were banished there as punishment. Rarely, there will be pious people who wanted to join the church as a grey-robe, but there was usually a better alternative.

The reason for this is ‘cause grey-robes are treated similarly to servants. In the church’s ecosystem, the grey-robes serve the white-robes similar to a servant and master relationship. While they wore the robes of a grey priest, these people were the property of the church. As hard as it was to say, that was the reality of the situation.

As mentioned by the villagers, white-robes are usually nobles. That was why they treated me as one after I introduced myself. However, commoners born with the potential to become mages were also allowed to enter the church to become an official white-robe, theoretically possessing the same influence and power as a noble priest.

Barathan informed me the reason why he tested me with the presents was ‘cause the Count wasn’t sure if I was a commoner or not. They had to test me to see what my social rank was by using the Count’s name in an attempt to intimidate me.

“However, as our discussion back then progressed, your [Noble Aura], or maybe even [Regal Aura], was obvious to me. You exuded it with every word, although I must criticize how you accepted the letter, Lady Hestia. And you too, Miss Saori, Miss Tasianna. A master must never physically accept a present before their retainers have made sure it is safe. I hope you will be more prudent in the future, Miss Saori and Miss Tasianna,” Barathan informed us about his intentions with a smile, but then frowned as he chided the three of us. Once we acknowledged his reasons, he returned to his explanation. “I informed Lord Count Helvas about my findings, but it seems you noticed how he winced when you omitted the ‘lord’ part. Back then, my lord was not aware of how much you outranked him.”

Continuing his explanation on the church, white-robed priests and priestesses were responsible for spreading the white grace and the word of the Aurena to the populace. Aside from healing people’s wounds and illnesses, white-robes were responsible for performing the many religious rituals, like the one I gave during the God Thanking Festival.

As most white-robes were nobles, they needed servants to attend to them, and this tradition also spread to the white-robed commoners. Whether they came from the slums or a rich merchant house, every commoner white-robe was given the same duties and right to grey-robes, which made them pseudo-nobles.

“Today is RestDay, and it is likely most of the noble white-robeds have returned to their demesne in the noble district. During their tenure, all white-robes are members of the clergy and they possess the influence of one, however, nobles are nobles still. A noble cannot retain their House’s noble rank, but if they weren’t banished to the church through trial, they still retain noble privileges,” he answered to reassure me. “All remaining white-robes are commoners. At most, the shrine maidens will remain in the church, but they must make preparations for the ‘Binding Festival’ next week.”

Shrine maidens, compared to priests and priestesses, were responsible for the maintenance of the church and the preparations of the various rituals and festivals. While a priest would handle matters concerning the political and economic side of the church, the shrine maidens took care of the day-to-day situations involving the church and its members. They were responsible for the grey-robed priests and the orphanage.

Similar to all white-robes, they too could grant the white grace and had servants to take care of their needs and follow their orders. However, most of them only prepared rituals. Rarely would they perform them. During a [Prayer], the priests and priestesses would be the caster of the spells, while the shrine maidens supported them with mana.

The division in duties might seem a bit lopsided in the priest’s favor, but it seems this divide in duties was to accommodate the different personalities of the white-robes. Not every white-robe wishes to participate in the church’s politics. They still had the same influence and power at the end of the day.

As we entered the temple, Saori once again pointed out how similar the temple was to a cathedral. It was huge and wide, so grandiose that it made me feel tiny. The first room we entered was a long hallway with benches along one wall, leading to an altar.

Barathan then directed my attention to the crowd of people congregating near the altar, and informed me that a few priests were there, granting the white grace. Concerning the recipients, I only noticed humans in fine clothes, but none of them had a [Noble Aura] like the one I felt from Ellaine and her family. Were they merchants?

As I was pondering that question, a lanky man suddenly approached us from the side, wearing a well-maintained grey robe. “The church of Aurena humbly greets your-Ah!” as he was greeting us, he suddenly noticed me behind Saori and quickly kneeled down, holding his arms together in a pose of prayer. “I humbly ask for your forgiveness for not having noticed you, my Lady Shrine Maiden! May the Goddess bless your every step on this holy ground.”

Huh?!

The man didn’t raise his head for a moment, diligently keeping still as if he was waiting for something. As I wasn’t saying anything due to my confusion, Barathan whispered, “Your white robes, my Lady,” which quickly made me realize what was going on. This guy thought I was a priestess of Aurena!

“Y-You may rise,” I told him, timidly.

“May the Goddess bless your soul,” he gave his thanks, rising to his feet before asking what I was doing here. “How may the Firwood temple serve you, my Lady Shrine Maiden. If you are here on a pilgrimage, should I call a white-robe priest at your behest?”

Barathan then informed me the reception would’ve been more fitting if I had gone through the noble district’s temple entrance. White-robed priests would have come to greet me and gave me a proper welcoming, but that required me to announce my arrival beforehand.

I had to send one of those messenger bird gargoyles to inform the temple I was coming, as it was considered rude to appear without warning. As I wanted to enter the temple immediately, Barathan thought it would be faster to come from the commoner’s entry to avoid all the commotion. A decision he considered validated once I told him I didn’t want to meet any nobles.

As I looked up the tall grey priest, I spoke with a mix of casualness and nobility, “That won’t be necessary. I have come today to pray at the shrine of the gods. Nothing more. Please, lead me to it.”

The priest gave me a swift nod the moment he heard my wish, almost as if he didn’t even question it. With my retinue, he led us out of the altar room and into a room to the right, where six shrines were placed there.

“If you have more orders for me, I shall await them gladly,” he said as he bowed to me.

“That won’t be necessary. You may stay if you wish or go.”

The shrine of the gods, a place of worship for the various followers of the origin gods. Barathan informed me when I said I wanted to pray at a “shrine of Goddess Aurena” that every temple or church should have a place where all the origin gods’ shrines were placed together. Although the temple was dedicated to Aurena, the denizens of Peolynca still, in one way or another, worshiped all the origin gods.

Similar to how Tasianna had Zephira and Plesia as her main goddesses, or how the lizardmen prayed to Kargryxmor and Marsven, the god of darkness, most people usually worshiped two or more subordinate and origin gods. This place was there for everybody to pray.

…But it seems the popularity of the God also affected the appearance of the shrine.

Jeez, Shiterno, why does your shrine look so sad? Does nobody pray to you?

If I were to rank the overall appearance of the shrines, then I would start with Danterno at last place…and honestly, it wasn’t even a contest. His shrine was covered in dust and spiderwebs, but unlike the other shrines, this one didn’t have a statue of a person, only a flame. It was small, and nothing was put before it as an offering.

Marsven’s shrine was nearly as barren as Danterno’s, but it seems a few people left black amulets and statues before it. It certainly looked clean and well-maintained, at least. The next was Plesia, although, compared to the former two, her shrine was decorated with plenty of gifts and offerings. Although, Plesia wasn’t super popular in Firwood, she was still admired and respected by plenty of citizens. It made Danterno and Marsven seem like minor gods.

Both Zephira’s and Crustacia’s shrines almost had the same amounts of offerings, looking prettier than Plesia’s, giving weight to Ellaine’s words when she said the Greenveil Duchy also worshipped the Goddesses of Wind and Earth. Being an agricultural land would make you like the two Goddesses responsible for land management.

Lastly, the largest shrine belonged to none other than Aurena herself.

I walked closer to her shrine as everybody else stayed back. I wasn’t a religious person in my past life, but, as if something was speaking to me, I knew exactly how to pray to her. I kneeled down, kept my hands together, and closed my eyes. I then focused on the image of the statue on the shrine, the figure of an angel-winged woman with flowing blond hair.

And the moment I opened my eyes, all I could see was a white and formless world. I wasn’t in the temple anymore and no matter how often I turned my head around, Saori and Tasianna weren’t there. I was alone.

My surroundings immediately changed the moment I spouted, “Where the hell am I?” The ground turned into clouds, but it felt soft and stable to stand on. I peaked down, noticing the lack of shadows in this place.

My body was then forcibly turned around before stopping before a room decorated with white and golden furniture only a rich girl could ever possess. The luxury and wealth inside this room would even overshadow Ellaine’s mansions. It could only be called the epitome of opulence, keeping everything tastefully stylish without including anything gaudy, meaning the designer of this room knew exactly how to decorate fashionably.

“Welcome, my dear champion,” a serene voice full of warmth suddenly called out for me, filling not only my ears but also my soul with a feeling of relaxation. All the anxiety I had was just swept away with the tone of her voice.

“A-Are you, Goddess Aurena?” I asked, finally noticing a woman sitting down at a table, sipping her tea inside the beautiful room. Her appearance fitted perfectly the image of the statue I just prayed to.

She smiled so genuinely it felt a bit nostalgic, as she gazed at me with golden irises. “You are correct, Hestia. Aurena, the Origin Goddess of Light and a primary administrator of Peolynca, is here. Sit, we only have a limited time together.”

As her elegant hand movements mesmerized me, I followed her order and took a seat at the table, before a piercing headache assaulted me. It stung my brain, feeling like a sharp needle was slowly piercing through my head. I clutched the table. The pain was unbearable. I couldn’t open my eyes anymore!

“Arck!”

ARRGGGGH! STOP! STOP! MAJOR HEAL! MAJOR HEAL! ARRGH!

“Child!”

The pain coursed through me like a wave of blades, slicing not my body but my very soul. I desperately tried to use [Major Heal] to fix myself, out as I have been doing up until now, but magic circle manifested. I couldn’t feel my mana. I couldn’t invoke my powers. I felt helpless. I felt helpless as I struggled to keep myself sitting on the chair.

But at the next moment, everything was gone. I clutched my chest, breathing heavily as I collapsed with my head on the table, too fatigued to even sit back up. However, even this feeling eventually disappeared completely, replaced by calmness.

What was that?! I thought I was about to die.

“I-I apologize for that, Hestia. I was so elated to finally speak to you that I forgot the situation of your soul,” a womanly voice apologized softly, causing me to sit back up and face a frowning Aurena frowning, her blond eyebrows furrowed together as she regarded me. She looked more worried and troubled than angry that I nearly slobbered over her white table.

As I kept looking at her with bewilderment, prying her for an answer, she opened up mouth to respond, “Do you know how your soul was able to ‘usurp’ my control over the title I gave you? Yes, due to this ‘rebellion’, my divinity was actually overpowering your soul instead of nursing it.”

“M-My soul?!”

“Your soul is currently visiting my home, my divine realm. Through the connection from my shrine, you are here with me. I apologize, most mortals who visit me are my followers so this never happened before,” she explained to me with a wry smile.

Rebellion?! Usurp?! Oh, scheiße!

From the shock of remembering those things, I jumped up like I hadn’t just been hurt, waving my arms around in complete denial. “Wait, wait, wait! I didn’t do it on purpose! I didn’t do it! I swear, I swear! I don’t know how it even happened in the first place, it just happened out of nowhere, I never even wanted to usurp your title at all. I swear, I swear!” almost like my mind was affected by that extreme crushing, I apologized to her profusely.

“Hold on, I should be the one to apologize. I invited you here and I nearly erased your soul accidentally.”

YOU NEARLY WHAT?!

But before I could freak out again, Aurena only needed to say “calm” to strip away all the fear I had in my mind, resetting my mindset to tranquility. “Please, I meant it when I said we have limited time. Instead of wasting our time on this accident, I must tell you what you must know before we part.”

Seeing as she was serious about it, I simply sat back down again and asked her to proceed. “Thank you. First, let me tell you exactly why Kargryxmor and I have summoned you to Peolynca, Hestia.”

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Chapter 104: Aurena, the Origin Goddess of Light.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“So, let me get this straight. Kargryxmor wanted an otherworlder to do something for him, and, as you are his origin god, he had to go through you for the okay. You then went to Goddess Plesia for her permission to reincarnate me to this world?” I repeated what Aurena just explained to me.

“That is correct. Kargryxmor is the God of Dragons, but he has lost control over them through the years. The true dragons are supposed to act as defenders for Peolynca, but they have succumbed to slothfulness,” Aurena added to my words, shrugging as she responded. “However, the fool only has himself to blame for his waning faith. Your role was to be his ‘avatar,’ his representative to fix his problem. Your birth location, the Belzac forest, was unintended. You were supposed to be born in the land of the dragons with your Peolyncian parents. Technically, you shouldn’t even be born yet; you should have hatched as a C rank.”

“…So, that whole Belzac forest time wasn’t some trial or tough love, huh? You do know I nearly died five times there, right? Say what you want about me now, but back then, I wasn’t prepared. You told me in that missive that you saw my memories, so couldn’t you have-! Argh! Verdammt. I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

Kobolds nearly caught me on the first day of my second life, those garms nearly turned me into a meal, I nearly died during my match with the garm matriarch, I got shot by that troll cannon thing, and then I fought against an A rank monster when I was vastly underpowered and under-geared. Those were the times where I nearly died.

I was a young city girl without any survival training, who was forced into a situation where I shouldn’t have survived. I shouldn’t even have experienced all of that! I honestly thought I was gonna go insane in that fucking place, if I even survived long enough! If I hadn’t remembered my dream from my past life, I don’t think I would have had the determination to continue after dropping down into that cave.

I didn’t know why I nearly blew up in her face. Sure, when I was in the Belzac forest all alone I was frustrated, I couldn’t accept the reality of the situation. I didn’t want to live in a dog-eat-dog world like that. I didn’t want to become the person I currently was but…if I hadn’t, my dream wouldn’t have finally come true.

…I died. I was given a second chance. I have made good friends here. I am an Idol.

Unfazed by my emotional outburst, Aurena kept her smile up and spoke to me softly, “I understand, Hestia. These words cannot excuse your tribulations, but Kargryxmor and I were surprised that you survived. You were unlucky and were born prematurely as a G rank dragon, but you prevailed through this; just a look at your status board is evidence enough. We gods cannot intervene in every single matter; we are observers and guiders.”

“I mean, considering how Shiterno changed my status board, you could have thrown me a bone, Goddess Aurena. Still, I am thankful you listened to my prayer back then,” I admitted to her, thanking her for what she did for Rajah. “…But, I presume you weren’t too happy when he did that to your ‘champion?’ I don’t know much about gods and goddesses, but I do know I would get angry if someone were to harm something ‘mine.’”

Aurena broke her smile, looking as if she was jokingly angry as she held up a finger to scold me, “Now, now, Hestia. Regardless of your opinion on him, Elder Danterno is an Origin God. Your life will be intertwined with the gods now, and Elder Plesia is very strict with decorum.” However, the moment she finished, she dropped her teasing persona and grew serious. “Elder Plesia is currently dealing with Elder Danterno. I do not know what his punishment will be.”

Yeah, I can hear her annoyance from the tone of her voice. I’m angry at him but this is a matter between gods, in the first place. What could I do to him, anyway?

As she wasn’t saying anything more, I nodded my head in acknowledgment and then tapped my temple. “I think we derailed a bit there. Let’s go back. You promised me in the missive you would explain why my memory is fragmented and why you even tried to erase it in the first place. You should know a bit from reading my mind that I’m really, really, anxious to know. I want to know why I can’t remember my dad, my mum, my grandparents…and how I died.”

I had to force those last words out. I needed to know. Even if my death was painful, I wanted to know.

Aurena formed a wry smile as she looked at my frown. “I have made it a habit to not read mortal’s minds after speaking with a few of my followers. Rest assured, I kept watch of you through all the humans you’ve met but not once was I even curious at your thoughts,” she replied a bit condescendingly.

Oh, come on, my thoughts are super interesting, I swear…Wait, you’re a goddess, why do I even try?

Without knowing about my complaint, Aurena continued her explanations. “Elder Crustacia once reincarnated a person from your world into ours, to great success even. Kargryxmor wanted to mimic her action to restore his faith, and, as I agreed to it, I called upon the very same outsider who performed the first soul transfer. The third person who was participated in your reincarnation.”

“There is a god responsible for souls? I thought Ilsaphone was the goddess of death, so I presumed she was the third one because of death and souls. It made sense for me,” I replied.

I thought that since Ilsaphone was the Goddess of Death, she was the third one, because of death and souls. Like Hades from Greek mythology, or Hel from the Norse myths …Geez, I think Saori is influencing me with her myth trivia.

However, at my assumption, Aurena simply shook her head, “Ilsaphone is still young for a goddess. She ensures that every soul is cleansed and is returned to Peolynca as a new life, but she has not awakened her ability to control souls yet. No, the one who brought your soul to us is somebody else, but I cannot tell you that person’s name. It is for your own safety, so banish that wish, Hestia.”

She paused for a moment to make sure I understood her, then continued, “The reason why you were reborn without most of your memories is because that person advised it, stating ‘the soul would not survive otherwise.’ Kargyxmor and I both agreed to it, as we believed if you came to be as a blank slate, you would serve our purpose better. The only memories I wanted you to still have was your desire to become an Idol. You should have noticed how [The Light] and [Idol] were specifically made for that cause.”

…So in the end, both gods still wanted me to “lose” myself, huh? The person I was now wouldn’t have existed anymore, the “Hestia” who still remembered her papa and mama would have been completely dead. That’s fucked up...

“However, those plans never came to be. You should have been reborn anew like every other mortal except with your desire to become an Idol intact; that way you would be eligible for the [Otherworldly Reincarnator] title and, as a result, have access to the SP system. Even the way you usurped the control over my blessing is still a mystery…but, truth be told, as unexpected as it was, I do prefer you like this.” The tension in Aurena’s face softened but her face contorted into a small frown, looking both wary and apologetic.

“So, in the end, you still think of me as a tool in your plan, huh? A little gadget in your grand machination…which means it must have made you angry when it happened.” My earlier calm started to give way to growing frustration. The fear from when her aura suppressed my soul, and the anger from her confession overwhelmed me, and I lashed out. “I bet you hated it when you learned you couldn’t control me. I bet you hated it when I usurped your blessing, even though I didn’t even know how I did it myself. I don’t even know how it happened with any of the blessingsI bet you hated it that you had to rely on your followers to keep watch over me instead of through your blessing like it was supposed to be!”

I stood up, slamming my hands on the table as I drew my face closer to Aurena’s, anger filling my eyes as I spat out word after word filled with the frustration I had to endure in the first months of my second life. “You knew I was vulnerable and that I wasn’t equipped to survive in that damn forest, but you still did nothing! If I had actually lost my memories, I would’ve been a fucking newborn and been quickly killed by those kobolds. The only reason why I even survived in the first place was dumb luck! Luck that my body knew how to use mana! You call me your champion but where was my support, huh? WHY DIDN’T YOU HELP ME AT ALL!”

I couldn’t praise Kargryxmor’s attempt to help me, since it came far too late. When the first wyvern escorts showed up, I had already adapted to my new life, and the second escorts was led by an asshole. What kinda help is that supposed to be? Come rescue when I was still a bloody dragon whelp, you bastards!

Sure, Aurena helped me with Rajah and his family, but giving somebody a blessing should be child’s play for a god. That piece of shit Danterno was able to change my status board like it was nothing! So why couldn’t she help me then, huh? If she was the patron goddess of the humans, then couldn’t she have sent somebody on a griffon to get me like Ellaine’s father?

“And-And now you think it is better for me to keep my memories, right? It’s just because of how much the follower counter for [The Light] has grown that you’re okay now. If I was still stuck in that fucking forest all depressed from my situation, I bet you would have either given up on me or have told Kargryxmor to do your dirty work.” My hands clenched on the table with all my might, which should have broken by now, but this was a god’s table. “I’ll be straight with you! I want to punch you in the face right now! My strength and abilities are because of my own hard work, not because of those titles you gave me! I want to use all of those things to- I want to use all of them to-I-I-I want to…tch!”

If what Aurena said was correct, then I should be only a soul now. I shouldn’t have any physical limitations right now, but I felt exhausted anyway. It felt harder and harder to push myself any further; with every word I spat out, a bit of my anger at the goddess disappeared.

And during my whole rant, Aurena’s expression stayed the same. The pity in her eyes was sickening…

My body went limp, I slouched back into the chair and rested my head on the chair’s back. Although I was sure there was no actual air here, I felt like I’d just run a marathon, breathing in quickly and deeply.

Smiling like a caring mother, Aurena simply waited until my breathing calmed down to speak. “I did mention you may release your anger in my missive, right? Are you satisfied?”

I stared at Aurena, still looking unfazed, as if nothing could ever annoy her, and gave up on raging at her from her lack of a reaction. “I guess…Is it true?” I uttered weakly. “Is everything you just said true?”

“Yes,” she responded with a nod. “I have nothing to gain by lying to you, Hestia. I wish for your help and I want you to do it of your own free will. Every answer I speak will only be the truth.”

“…Then, can you give me back my memories?” sullen, I asked.

“…I would advise against it. Those memories, instead of being tied to your brain, are a part of your soul. I do not know how your soul will react with all your memories coming back all at once,” Aurena told me, shaking her head in denial. “Besides, shouldn’t you have noticed it by now? Even now I can see your soul reforming its fragments, however slow it might be. Have you taken a good look at your soul since you came here?”

Now that she mentioned it...

Taking a look at my arms, I noticed that they were covered in a near translucent aura of fire while my arms looked almost ghost-like. Checking my whole body, I noticed a complete lack of draconic features like my claws, tail, and horns. It was almost like…this was a human’s body. On closer inspection, there were small scale-like patterns with yellow linings covering my body, giving my body an outline to differentiate itself against the white background of this place.

However, not all scales were bright yellow, some looked almost translucent and others weren’t even there, leaving holes inside this glowing body. If this was my soul, then it looked pretty mangled. It honestly looked disgusting with how I was able to look through my soul with all those small holes.

“Your soul still remembers the old you, the one from your past life, so it still retains your old form. However, souls adapt to their corporeal vessels and we can already see small changes to yours,” Aurena pointed out, directing my eyes at the aura of fire and small scales. “If you wish for your memories to return, then we can either wait for them to naturally come back as your soul molds itself with your new body, repairing itself in the same process. Or, we can have an expert fix it.”

All this talk about my memories sparked up a memory of the time I remembered a snippet of my previous life, of why I stopped crying. Which reminded me of other moments whenever I woke up from an “empty” dream; I couldn’t remember what I dreamt, and it always felt like I was missing something. Like I shouldn’t forget something. Were those times when my memories tried to come back?

…But did I really want them back? Although it would be sweet to see papa’s and mama’s faces again, did I really want to dig the bad with the good up? I know for sure my painful memories are hidden among the sweet ones from how my first memory snippet went. There had to be a reason why that “outsider” thought it was important to get rid of my memory.

“…You know, I can smell you’re trying to bait me here. It would be quite nice to get my memories back, but forget it,” I stated, causing Aurena to place a hand on her cheeks, knowing the cat was out of the bag. “I wouldn’t have been able to fulfill my dream if I hadn’t started leaving certain stuff in the past, so how about you start telling me what you want from me, then. You made [Idol] and [The Light] fit my idol dream so much that I just know you have something planned with them, aside from helping with whatever ‘grandfather’ Kargryxmor wants.”

She called herself a primary administrator aside from her role as an origin god. As origin gods can influence a person’s status boards freely, I would presume all the gods are like game masters, GMs, with varying amounts of authority depending on the god themselves.

[Idol] had that sneaky message from Aurena herself and [The Light] is her blessing to me. After hearing her admit she wanted to keep my idol memories intact after my reincarnation, it’s all becoming clear to me that Aurena is planning something with the followers I’m gathering. It all fits together, but what is her intention?

“Ah, right, we are running out of time soon. I should explain to you why I gave Kargryxmor my permission,” Aurena replied, keeping her smile up while her gaze hardened. “My primary goal is for you to reform my church.”

Reforming her church? Wait, is she trying to tell me she wants me to reform everything?! Like everything, like in the whole foundation and all the things on it?! What the fuck!

Aurena seemed to have noticed my bewilderment as she paused for a moment, nodded, and then continuing where she left off, “My religion has grown a lot, but, compared to Elder Plesia, Crustacia, and Zephira, I have made mistakes on the way to my current status. While they haven’t toppled my standing yet, the blight seeping through the cracks will eventually show, and when that time comes, everything about the current Church of Aurena will change.”

Aurena then gave a small sigh, frustration slowly lowering her smile. “Per the rules of the leading Goddess, Elder Plesia, all gods are forbidden from interfering with the progression of the mortal world. Only if certain taboos are broken or requirements are fulfilled may we intervene directly. Unfortunately for me, I may only watch as my church slowly descends into its own downfall, and although it will eventually rebuild itself, I wish to do something about it. That is where you come in, Hestia.”

Hmm, something is weird to me…

“Question,” I interrupted her, raising my hand like a diligent student. “I don’t know much about being a god, so maybe this question is irrelevant, but why do you exactly want to do something? Aren’t you a goddess, and not just any goddess but the Origin Goddess of Light. You said it yourself in that missive, ‘We gods can wait but the world cannot.’ You don’t seem like an impatient person, considering you haven’t kicked me out yet despite how disrespectful I was.”

“Fair enough, you deserve to know,” Aurena nodded, her eyes gleaming with dissatisfaction. “My reason is simple, I hate seeing some outside force trampling on my creation. I possess the power to eradicate the ants, but I will abide by the rules as I am a stronger existence. I will not cull the weak just because they annoy me. Instead, I will play by the rules…with you as my champion.”

Her warm golden eyes narrowed even more, looking sharper and colder as she said those last words, sending an immense chill through my soul. I gulped to ease my anxiousness and spoke, “What will you do with me after I am done with your task?”

Aurena’s eyes widened in wonder as she heard me say that, holding her hand up to slowly shake it for me to see. “Oh my, I apologize for scaring you. Do not be afraid, I will not do anything to you, Hestia; I have grown quite fond of you and your songs. Once you are finished with your task, I will handle the reconstruction of my church and you may do whatever you like. Become the idol you always wanted to be, travel this world wherever and whenever you want. You are a denizen of Peolynca now.”

Giving her words some thought, I was deciding on what to say. I know it will be annoying to work with her, since it would be silly to think reforming a whole church would be easy as making a cake, especially if that request came from a god. If fantasy novels and shows have taught me anything, then the end boss of this whole quest line will probably be some demon lord or giant evil turtle monster.

However…if I were to help her, could she do something like that?

“Ok, I am quite thankful for you to even give me a chance to make my dream come true, especially when it seems like I’ve died on Earth, so I’ll forgive you a bit for trying to fuck up my memories and use me as a pawn. I won’t trust you 100%, but I’ll consider us even for now,” I stated. “So, if I were to accept your request and help you as your champion, then would you be willing to…I mean, can you travel through dimensions? From Peolynca to Earth? I mean, you probably can as I am asking you this question but-ok, what I want to ask you is: Can you give me a chance to meet my parents on Earth, again?”

I know I should leave those things in the past, I even admitted it with “Promise,” but the opportunity was there for me to grasp and I wouldn’t back down without at least trying. It’ll just be a visit to show them that my dream has become true and…I’ll also like to apologize to them. A daughter should never, ever go before her parents and the amount of misery I must have caused them is just unthinkable.

Please, say yes…

“Oh, if that is all, then sure. That is easy enough for me to do,” Aurena answered in the most nonchalant way ever.

Yes!

“Thank you!” I said sincerely. “Ok, you got yourself a deal, Goddess Aurena. I’ll help you as much as you want but I must insist that you don’t try to control me. This is my life and, if there aren’t any pressing matters, then I wish to do it my way.”

“I am perfectly fine with giving you more autonomy; in fact, I never intended to control your actions anyways. Your premature birth was a blessing in disguise as you have done more than Kargryxmor and I expected,” Aurena stated. “I would like to thank you for your help and also give you a formal apology. I already did it in the missive but please allow me to do it in person now. Hestia, I apologize for all the suffering I have caused you and how I wasn’t able to support you.”

Then, by accepting her deal, I was now officially Aurena’s champion. Surprisingly, nothing changed after that, as Aurena told me she wanted to keep everything as is. She didn’t want to change anything about me “usurping” her blessing, as she thought it was unneeded; however, now that I was connected to Aurena through this deal, she was once again able to see things through my eyes. When I told her I considered that a breach of privacy, she relented by allowing me to shut off the connection through [The Light]. A girl needs her secrets, okay!

About the plan itself, she was quite vague about it, telling me she wanted me to witness the situation concerning the church by myself to form my own opinions on it, and tasked me to interact with the church. My next goal was to reach the church in the capital of the Kingdom of Artorias, Griffonpeak, and pray to her there. Until then, I should learn more about Peolynca’s culture and her church.

She also told me to start calling myself her priestess, as that would not only give me more room to work inside her temples, but also solidify my role as her champion. She wanted the other Origin Gods to know it. She even stated that I should also start using the title of saintess to spread my reputation around, as it wasn’t false to say it.

A saint or saintess was the mortal representative of a god, spreading the word of their gods to try to convert people to their religion. My whole follower mechanic was practically this, especially when everybody already considered me a priestess due to my white robe. I told her no, but she just jokingly uttered, “the title will come soon enough, dear.”

…That was a joke, right? Right?

Anyway, aside from that, I still had to get a pendant or amulet made to show my allegiance to Aurena. The people of Peolynca usually wore an amulet dedicated to their favored god to show their devotion and, as I will now serve as a priestess, I had to look the part. Tasianna, for example, had an amulet dedicated to Zephira, but lost it when she was kidnapped by the trolls. I guess we had to get new ones together soon.

Another subject I brought up was about Danterno’s “gifts”: [White Flames], [Corrosive Fire], and his blessing [Divine Inferno]. Apparently, the God of Fire wanted me to become his champion to help him grow his religion; as a result, he gave me those power-ups to win me over. It will annoy him when he learns I have no intention of helping him, and I can always hide behind Aurena if he tries to mess with me.

Fuck you, Shiterno, he he he.

Nonetheless, despite being pleased with my defiance against Danterno, Aurena couldn’t exactly remove the blessing of another origin god. There was also a problem with separating [White Flames] back into [Holy Magic] and [Fire Magic], and [Corrosive Fire] into [Toxin Secretion], [Poison Creation], and [Inferno Magic], as they both required their respective skills to exist. It seems Danterno made sure those skills couldn’t exist if their prerequisite skills weren’t fused with them.

Well, I wasn’t very interested in getting [Holy Magic] back in the first place as I could cover everything with [White Flames]’s custom spells and [Sacred Magic]. [Inferno Magic] would be nice to have again, but the potential of [Corrosive Fire] was too great to ignore. Even if I hadn’t wanted them initially, I shouldn’t just throw them away to get something outdated. I’ll make those skills mine.

Funnily enough, I also was curious if Aurena could take [Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] away, as Kargryxmor was her subordinate, but she told me, if she did that, I would most likely die ‘cause she’d have to remove all my blood to do so. My dragon parents are descendants of Kargryxmor and the blessing came from the special blood inside me. It was only a joke but, urgh, that was not fun to think about.

“Oh right, I wanted to ask you two more questions,” I interrupted our discussion. “It’s about my friend, Saori. The other Earthling who got reincarnated on Peolynca and is now my best friend and travel companion. I’ve been thinking about it for a while now, but were you the one who sent her to me?”

Although Saori didn’t say it aloud, I knew she was bothered by that. Why was she reincarnated to Peolynca? Why was she born as a garm and conveniently inside the Belzac forest at that specific location while I was passing through? There was also that whole leviathan thing she didn’t want to deal with, telling me she wanted to live a relatively normal life.

I wanted to gain some information here to ease her worry. Compared to me, no god has spoken to her and given her answers to those questions yet.

“Ah, Saori, the wolfkin you’re traveling with. Tell her to come to visit me in the future, I love talking with mortals,” Aurena said casually, slightly ticking me off by ignoring my question for a moment. “Hmm, but I can say that I was not the person who called your friend over to this world. Concerning the one who did it…let me say that Saori wasn’t the only one and that I didn’t authorize their summon. Their fates are deeply tied with your own, Hestia, and it will be inevitable that you will meet.”

Huh? Can you please stop speaking in riddles?

However, I didn’t have time to say it as light started to surround me, which Aurena told me was a sign for our meeting to come to an end.

“Oh wait, before I go!” I stopped her as she was about to wave me goodbye. “Why are you calling all the other origin gods ‘Elder’? Why is that?”

“Ah, the reason is because I am the youngest among all of them. Compared to the others, I am far, far, younger so I show them the respect they deserve.” With that last smile, light enveloped my whole vision in white and Aurena’s serene figure disappeared.

When I noticed the white turning black, I hastily opened my eyes to notice the figure of Aurena once again, but not in all her radiance and grace, but as a statue, the very same statue I remembered being on her altar. Instead of the white background of her world, my vision was filled with white walls covered in small engravings and stained-glass windows. It was the church and I was back in my body.

“Hestia.” Hearing a very familiar voice, I turned around and saw Saori and Tasianna approaching me, worry on their faces. “Are you alright? It took you quite a long time.”

“Lady Hestia, if I may be presumptuous, white hair fits you also,” Tasianna told me with a wide grin, completely baffling me as I had no idea what she meant.

White hair?

Apparently, while I was talking with Aurena, my hair suddenly turned white and a halo-like object appeared behind me. When Saori used [Identify] to see what happened to me, she noticed something new in my status board called [The Light Awakened] but couldn’t read its description, as it said “Information not available.”

Apparently, my hair changed back to crimson red just now, which gave me the impression it had something to do with my meeting with Aurena. I wanted to read [The Light Awakened] but it wasn’t there anymore.

When the grey-robed priest saw what was happening, he quickly ran out. Barathan told Saori and Tasianna that the priest was probably informing the white-robed priests of the event, as Barathan believed what just happened could be considered a “meeting with the Goddess.”

“Lady Hestia, you have been adamant you weren’t a priestess of the Goddess but I find it very hard to believe after what happened,” Barathan told me bluntly, holding a wry smile now instead of his usual polite one.

I chuckled shyly, understanding what he meant, so I decided to clear up a few things. “I wasn’t lying about not being a priestess, I promise, Barathan. Please believe me…however, I guess you may call me a priestess from today onwards. I can’t exactly deny it now, hehe.”

The shock on those three’s faces was pretty hilarious as they quickly understood the implications of my words. Tasianna congratulated me for speaking with Aurena and told me that she always knew I was worthy of becoming Aurena’s champion, while Saori quickly tried to hush her loud mouth before everybody could hear it. However, I could see the curiosity in her eyes as she told me telepathically that we will talk about it once we get back to Ellaine’s mansion.

Before the priest could return, Saori woke Barathan up and told him to start getting out of the church before anybody could question me. Barathan, understanding what was going on, obliged and quickly followed us outside. I was a bit surprised that he kept up with us, although, the three of us weren’t giving it our all.

We left through the commoner entrance and entered the noble district through its gate. On the way, Barathan sent out one of those messenger bird gargoyles, and the moment the gate opened, a carriage was already waiting for us there, ready to bring the four of us back to House Helvas’s mansion.

Barathan excused himself to inform Ellaine of what had happened today, and told us dinner will have to be postponed, probably to give the three of us as well as him and Ellaine time to discuss what happened today. Once we were back in my room, I started retelling of my encounter, starting with how Aurena’s divine realm looked, then my outburst, and finally how I officially became her champion.

Tasianna was naturally excited as she was a native Peolyncian, clapping like an overly excited fangirl, but Saori looked exhausted. She pointed out how crazy it sounded to reform a whole church, citing how much influence religion had during the middle ages.

However, what caught Saori’s attention the most was when I told her about her reincarnation and how Aurena wasn’t a part of it.

“Wait, what?!” Saori stood up, almost knocking her chair down as her eyes widened, struggling to continue as her mouth wavered. “I ‘wasn’t the only one’?! Could it be that I wasn’t the only one on that day?!”

A note from AbyssRaven

Oh yeah, I should announce that I'm participating in the RR writhalon. No idea if I can do it with how I slowed down recently but I'll try to bring out as many chapters as possible. Free promotion, yo!

Also, I am aware that many of your guys did want to see Hestia join Plesia instead of Aurena. Aurena's depiction here also isn't perfect at all, too. However, hope you guys enjoyed their interaction here. The Idol will shine.

...Nobody said she couldn't help another God, he he.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 12 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Side Story 19: Hestia’s future.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #3 her to promote our Patreon. 12 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 12 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until December!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

With Hestia’s meeting with Aurena over, the Goddess of Light sat silently in her chair, neither drinking her tea nor checking on the bond she’d just established with her new champion. Her only emotion was the delighted smile she kept on her face, still pleased from securing Hestia’s support and seeing the progress she has made.

Under the old plan, Hestia was to be reborn as a dragon whelp with most of her memories removed to preserve her soul, and during the five years she needed to mature, she would slowly remember her past life’s dream and eventually pursue it. Although the memory erasure was a failure, and Hestia’s birth happened earlier than expected and without her draconic parents even, it was a resounding success in Aurena’s eyes.

While Aurena was lost in her own thoughts, something suddenly caught her attention. An aura-like signal resounded through her divine realm. Although weak in intensity, the unease behind it was enough to pull Aurena out of her contemplation, in order to soothe the source of the signal.

Shaking her head in exasperation, Aurena took a sip of her tea, placed it back on the table, and then opened her administrator window. Seeing the many unopened messages she’d accumulated since her meeting with Hestia, Aurena gave a wry smile at the fact that her duties as an Origin Goddess would never end. Among them was a single request to speak to her, personally.

The moment she accepted it, a dark mist appeared in her realm of light, slowly forming into the figure of a massive dragon. With scales of pure black, the dragon stood there majestically, easily dwarfing the maiden of light. However, against all common sense, the one who was slightly shivering was not the regal goddess but the god dragon of legends.

“Inform me of everything, my Goddess,” the dragon demanded with a submissive bow. The contrast between his words and his action would catch most people off-guard but Aurena disregarded it, already accustomed to this proud dragon’s strange behavior quirks.

Instead of telling him everything verbally, Aurena decided to send the black dragon Kargryxmor a video of the meeting, as it was more efficient this way. So, through his admin window, Kargryxmor watched Hestia’s visit, changing his expression numerous times throughout it. With every new emotion, he learned something new from his young descendant, whether it was pleasing to him or not.

“Ahhhhhh! How could she even propose such an outrageous idea?!” Kargryxmor roared as the video neared the end. “My bloodline is prestigious even among the other dragons of legend. I was the Tyrant of the Skies, every mortal would feebly retreat once they saw me, and this little whelp asked to give up her lineage just like that?! Ahhhh, and here I thought we could work together, girl!”

Aurena blinked in surprise as she heard his rant, waving her hand gracefully to stop the misunderstanding this dragon had, “Wait, stop, Kargryxmor. Hestia only said it as a joke. Elder Danterno’s blessing is a different matter, but I believe she had no intention of actually wanting me to remove your blessing.”

Kargryxmor looked down at the Goddess of Light, who could be compared to an ant when it came to size differences, with a quizzical eye, having dispersed his rage at her words, “Is that true? Bah, I felt a slight hint of anger in her words, I thought she meant it, but if it was all a misunderstanding then I shall simply forget it. We have other matters to discuss, anyways.”

Aurena nodded in agreement with her subordinate god. Hestia had finally made contact with those responsible for her reincarnation and made a divine pact with an origin god to serve her as her champion, and most likely a saintess in the near future.

As a champion, Hestia’s duty was to eventually reform Aurena’s church and religion and eradicate the blight currently infesting them at their core. Although probably still unaware of the purpose behind it, Hestia’s dream to become an idol fitted well into Aurena’s plans to turn Hestia into a saintess, a messenger and representative of the goddess herself. Being the first idol of Peolynca, Hestia was the first of a new type of saintess inspired by otherworldly knowledge.

Although most saints and saintesses worked under the support of a certain temple to garner the respect and attention of the locals, Hestia needed to build up her reputation alone as she traveled. Aurena couldn’t imagine Hestia would chain herself to a singular organization, especially when she had managed to do so much by her lonesome, according to her discussion with her. If this crimson blossom could flourish without the care of a caretaker, then Aurena personally believed it would be wiser to let her spread her roots around.

…Even if it would conflict with certain interests. To begin a reform, the first step was to break the status quo.

“Winter has graced Peolynca, and considering how most fire dragons despise it, I presume she won’t continue her travels until after the snow has melted. Although, with how a certain annoyance is approaching, I don’t believe her winter rest will be quiet at all,” Aurena said teasingly, now once again able to see through Hestia’s eyes.

That idiotic demonkin is making his move…what will you do, my beloved champion?

“Once she visits me the next time, I believed it should be appropriate to tell her everything,” Aurena stated, now discussing plans with Kargryxmor. “By then, it would be time for you to make your entrance, Kargryxmor. You can finally have your long-awaited meeting with your new ‘heir’. Oh, do make sure to unleash the full potential of your blessing by then, he he.”

Kargryxmor scoffed as he heard that, scowling at the teasing goddess, “Yes, yes, by your will, Goddess Aurena. Hmpf, you could have given me a chance to speak to her today, but you didn’t. I do appreciate that you gave your consent and also persuaded Goddess Plesia, but I sometimes ask myself why I still trust you despite how much you meddled with our original plan.”

Kargryxmor’s intention in bringing Hestia over was to have her correct the current status quo in his descendants’ country, Kargryx. He was displeased at their general lack of action as the protectors of Peolynca, and how his faith was waning due to this. He needed somebody to topple the lazing emperor of Kargryx and Loatryx, and Hestia was supposed to be this champion…if it weren’t for Aurena’s interference.

“Can you only think of your own problems, Kargryxmor? Do you not see what widespread problems these demonkins can cause to our world if it isn’t handled in time? Your little problem with your descendants is paltry in comparison,” Aurena stated coldly, staring down the dragon without flinching. “If I had informed you about this beforehand, you would have been angered. You are angered now, so what differences does it make? I will still support your desire to repair your waning faith, even if this could have been all avoided if you hadn’t underestimated your role as a god. I allowed your apotheosis simply because you swore to me to turn the dragons into this world’s protector but look at what my trust has given me?”

Kargryxmor clicked his tongue in annoyance at Aurena’s words but otherwise kept silent as he knew she was right. As the Dragon God of Oaths, Kargryxmor felt embarrassed that he couldn’t fulfill the oath he gave on his day of ascension to godhood. Kargryxmor believed Aurena intentionally prevented the completion of the original plan due to his failings, that her anger was clouding her actions. Considering how Aurena has treated him until now, it sounded plausible.

In Kargryxmor’s mind, he thought solving the dragon problem first was the best course of action to prevent the demonkins’ plans. He believed the moment the dragons understood their true purpose again that they would rush to the defense of the world, but it seems Aurena had a different opinion on the subject.

“Humans and beastmen make up the majority of the population of Peolynca, and most humans worship me. If my church were to descend into chaos, then my followers could be cajoled into directing their swords at everything around them. I do not want that,” Aurena fiercely stated. “We can solve your problem afterwards; we have enough time due to Hestia’s early birth and rapid growth in power. Actually, think of this quest of mine as a way for Hestia to gain not only strength but allies. Do dragons not have a tradition where they send their young into the world to allow them to gain strength and knowledge?”

“…You are correct, Goddess Aurena. That was the plan; once Hestia matured as a dragon, I would have contacted her and informed her of the goal behind her ‘Adulthood Ceremony’,” Kargryxmor gave a quick nod, his eyes softened from being enlightened of his goddess’s plot. “The ceremony requires the whelp to travel the world outside of Kargryx and gain enough strength to become a B rank dragon. Hestia is my descendant, so she would have been born as a C rank [Young Black-Wrath Dragon] and mature into a B rank [Black-Wrath Dragon], and would’ve been exempted from this travel were she not a member of the royal bloodline. She would travel, and only come back as an A rank.”

To gain the ability to evolve into the next rank, a monster had to either kill or somehow accept and complete quests. While monsters could transform into the humanoid races of Peolynca and gain quests that way, it was a rare skill with a difficult acquisition condition. It was far more common for a monster to evolve through killing those weaker and stronger than them.

However, there was a problem with this as the more a monster’s rank rises compared to their foes, the less experience they would gain. Monsters of B rank and above needed a constant source of strong monsters around their strength to progress at a decent pace, which was wishful thinking as the population of strong monsters would dwindle more quickly the more strong monsters existed. It would take years for a normal monster to reach A rank, which frustrated certain individuals.

With Hestia’s experience gain boost from [Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood], Hestia would be able to reach A rank at a faster rate than others by constantly seeking strong enemies. This was Kargryxmor’s initial intent, however, that plan was foiled due to Aurena’s actions and Hestia still possessing fragments of her precious memories.

“Even now, dragons and drakes are mingling among humans and beastmen, as we teach all true dragonkins the ability to transform into the lesser intelligent races. Hestia’s proficiency with [Humanize] came from this fact and her past life as a human,” Kargryxmor continued. “I believe a few of her siblings are still on the mainland. I wonder when they will meet, or if I should accelerate the process,” he said with a smile similar to Aurena’s.

Dragonkind going on such a journey could only return to Kargryx once they fulfilled the goal of the Adulthood Ceremony, and not sooner. They would either live out their lives outside of Kargryx, or die during their travels to evolve.

“Well, I am glad you can see reason, Kargryxmor. I have nothing more to hide from you, so let us make sure we support our champion fully now,” Aurena responded with a friendly smile, wanting to bury the problems they had previously. “Once I have informed her about the demonkins at our next meeting, make sure you have her escorts ready, I will give Hestia notice to avoid complications. I would prefer your roughness to not intrude in our discussion, so have her pray at one of your shrines. Concerning escorts, have you solved the problem with the last one?”

Kargryxmor turned smaller, gave Aurena a solemn bow, and replied with “If our trust can be maintained, then I will give my vow once again, my Goddess.” Although there was some reluctance in his eyes due to her treachery, Kargryxmor has known this goddess for over 2000 years now, and knew the bond they have maintained over these years. As a dragon, he respected strength and honor. Although he found her actions unhonorable, he realized it was he who was misguided. In his eyes, Aurena was worthy of a second chance because she looked at thebigger picture.

“That might pose a problem, my Goddess,” he then replied to her question, shaking his head in denial. “The two ice wyverns returned to their roost and informed my priestesses, but it seems the one named ‘Astalos’ continued his pursuit. He lost his horn against the grimgarian army and is now even more desperate to evolve. I can send wyverns to-”

“No, that is not needed,” Aurena interrupted Kargryxmor. “Let the fool do what he wants. I believe you mentioned Hestia needed to be rank A to ‘return’ to Kargryx, correct? Well, isn’t this good fortune for our champion, a flying bag of experience is coming towards her willingly.”

Hmpf, and some of her mortal followers believe their goddess of light to be only compassionate. Considering the subordinate gods she possesses, they are fools.

Thinking of the other gods, Kargryxmor began to speak again, “About the other gods, what should we do?”

Despite Kargryxmor’s unease, Aurena simply shrugged her shoulders, “There is no need to worry about them, whether they are my subordinate gods or the other origin gods’. I also do not care if the other origin gods speak to her, as I can trust them to respect the quest I gave Hestia. Most likely they will give her one of their own, hie hie. If other subordinate gods wish to speak to Hestia, then let them. The girl isn’t a fool, although, a bit naïve. She can reject all of them because I have her back.” Aurena gave Kargryxmor a swift glance, making him scowl, but quickly returned to her usual expression as she reassured him she would try to persuade Hestia to help him.

After their discussion was over, Kargryxmor left Aurena’s divine realm, returning peace and pure white and yellow back to her home. The goddess of light let out a short sigh, finally looking a bit troubled.

“While the other gods aren’t much of a problem, what does concern me are my other champions and saints,” Aurena muttered as she opened her admin window again, looking through a list of individuals who had acquired her blessing, with Hestia at the very bottom. “How unfitting of me to complain, but I need to inform all of them to avoid them being too surprised.”

Compared to dealing with gods, Aurena couldn’t meddle into mortal affairs. She would be able to remove her followers’ blessings if they did cause Hestia trouble, but showing too much favoritism to a single champion would cause discontent among her followers. The status quo had to be shaken, but Aurena didn’t like the idea of hurting the champions and saints who had served her faithfully for so many years.

Aurena, as an origin god, couldn’t personally interfere with mortals, so she had to rely on her champions and saints to deal with problems on Peolynca. She needed her followers to spread her faith and to solve the problems of her worshippers. Hestia had to deal with her colleagues one of these days, and Aurena could only hope that everything would work out. If they could work together, Aurena would be pleased. She hoped dearly no blood would be shed among them. To Aurena, her champions and saints were like her little children.

“I can delay the information for a bit until you grow up more, Hestia, but once your achievements are too much, the kingdoms and empire of man will know a new champion and saintess has been elected. I hope you can work with your fellow champions and saints, Hestia,” Aurena uttered before standing up. “Elder Plesia should be done with Elder Danterno by now…I should check on it.”

A note from AbyssRaven

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 12 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 105: Did I mention I hate Slimes?

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #4 her to promote our Patreon. 12 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 12 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until December!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

Saori’s face paled, her red eyes wavering as she heard the information I received from Aurena, the origin goddess I’d decided to be the champion for. She stood there, massaging her temples as she silently contemplated my words.

“Saor-” I started to say but was swiftly silenced by my troubled friend.

“S-Sorry, not now, Hestia. I need a moment to think this through,” she replied, now beginning to pace throughout the bedroom I was borrowing inside Ellaine’s family mansion. Tasianna and I could only awkwardly glance at each other, as we weren’t sure what to say to Saori in this situation. She was supposed to be the cool-headed one among us and was usually there to reassure us if we were troubled.

I could see Tasianna wanted to say something, as she started to stand up multiple times but faltered before she walked over. I was also confused about what exactly I was supposed to say; I thought it sounded nice that people she may know were here in Peolynca with us, but looking at Saori’s grim face, my mouth couldn’t release those words.

Why is she acting so weird, shouldn’t this be good news? I thought about the situation. I know Aurena was being pretty cryptic about it, which made me suspicious, but from how nonchalant she was, I didn’t believe it was too troubling. The only thing I was concerned about is how she wasn’t the one who summoned them and, subsequently, Saori herself.

Eventually, Saori calmed down and sat back on her chair. It looked like she had finished pondering it. “Hestia, when you spoke with Aurena, were you able to ask her about her other champions and saints? I believe Lady Ellaine mentioned her brother saw Aurena’s chosen ‘heroes’?”

…Wait, now that I think about it, wasn’t that one of the things I wanted to ask Aurena?! Oh shit, I forgot!

It has been nearly three weeks since Ellaine randomly mentioned the fact the capital of this kingdom was hosting heroes chosen by Aurena herself, among them being two saintesses. Back then, I questioned why she could have multiple champions when she was planning something with me, but then I thought, “Wouldn’t it be better to have multiple people working for her?” I disregarded it afterward, and as time went by I simply forgot about it as my focus was mainly on my concert.

Apropos, couldn’t I have asked Aurena why my dragon parents even left me in that stupid forest in the first place? Why was my egg left there and why did nobody come back to help me? Couldn’t Kargryxmor have done something as the god of dragons? Verdammt! From all that anger I had for Aurena, I lost the chance to ask some seriously important questions!

You know, for somebody with a fractured memory, I really wonder why I’m not making notes. Maybe I should start a diary?

“...I’m sorry.”

“Urgh, it is alright, if you forgot about it then it cannot be helped,” Saori responded, stroking her chin as she returned to mulling over the situation before snapping her fingers. “Hestia, could you ask Ellaine if her parents could investigate the ‘heroes’ for me? I want to know their names, appearances, and from where they came from. Her father should receive our status boards before her letter, so I do not think he will deny us once he learns the truth.”

“Sure, I can do that,” I said, before tilting my head in confusion. “Although, why are you so interested in them? Weren’t you just now more worried about the other people who came to this world with you? Actually, I wanted to ask you this but, are you alright? You don’t seem very happy despite the good news.”

Saori mumbled, “good news?” as she winced at me. “The thing is, Hestia, I do not think it’s ‘good news’ at all,” she stated.

When my face contorted into confusion, Saori nodded, telling me she guessed I wouldn’t understand it and decided to explain her thoughts to me, “Do you remember those fantasy novels you told me about, the ones where people were transported into another world? When I heard what Aurena told you, I was more afraid than joyous. Hestia, I think you’ve forgotten this but this world is not exactly safe, especially not for people from our world who never once in their lives left civilization. If they are people I once knew, then I have this extreme dread inside my chest, telling me it is either my senpais or students, as they were the closest to me when I died at work.”

In this case, she was probably talking about those isekai novels where a whole class of students would be transported into another world to be turned into heroes. It would sound pretty farfetched, even for me despite being literally reborn into Peolynca, were it not for Aurena’s info.

I really thought Saori would be delighted to have people she knew in this world, but I guess she was right to assume they could be in danger. The positive influence Saori had on me after we met made me assume everything to be optimistic, but seeing as how often our party was put in danger until now, I guess my thoughts were too naïve.

“Hey, hey, Hestia, it is ok, you do not have to look sad. I know you meant well,” Saori reassured me as she noticed me feeling frustrated over my blunder.

“Miss Saori, is it too presumptuous to believe you assume those ‘Goddess Aurena’s chosen heroes’ are the people you once knew?” Tasianna questioned to make sure, earning her a confirmation from Saori. “Then the solution is clear, no? Once it is confirmed they are the people you know, we can travel to Griffonpeak where Lady Ellaine’s brother mentioned they are. This also coincides with Lady Hestia’s goal.”

Tasianna’s suggestion made our next goal clear. Whether they were Saori’s acquaintances or not, it was irrelevant to my meeting with Aurena at the capital of the Kingdom of Artorias. Of course, I do hope they are the people Saori was assuming as that would quell her worries.

I’ll report this to Ellaine during dinner and ask her for the favor. Whatever we do afterward will depend on her intel.

While we were still discussing the plan, the sound of a bell ringing suddenly came from outside our door. From the time I spent with Ellaine at her mansion and at the different accommodations we stayed at during our trip to Firwood, I now understood what the meaning of this sound was. In the home of a noble, bells were the usual way for people to call each other, whether it was a noble calling for a servant or a servant announcing themself and requesting to enter a room with a noble inside.

Saori, having gotten used to it during the trip, stood up and walked to the door to open it after confirming who was behind it. After greeting each other, Saori welcomed two maids into my room. Tasianna was already standing behind me before those two entered, keeping up appearances whenever we weren’t amongst ourselves.

“Lady Hestia, as you remember, this is Miss Manuela, the head maid of House Helvas’s mansion in Firwood,” Saori presented, introducing a dark blue-haired young woman in her mid-twenties. “She has come to inform us about the dinner plans.”

In her highly decorated maid dress, clearly contrasting the simpler design of the maid behind her, Manuela bowed before me with the other maid and spoke, “May the goddess bless you on this peaceful RestDay, Lady Hestia. As Miss Saori just said, I am Manuela. As the head maid of House Helvas’s Firwood mansion, I welcome you and your two attendants in our Lord’s name. As the humble servants of Lady Ellaine, please, use us however you may, your word is our command.”

“Thank you very much, Manuela, you two may rise” I responded politely, only continuing speaking once they raised their heads. “You are here to speak about dinner? Is something wrong?”

Confidently, Manuela kept up a smile as she gave me a short head shake to my question. “There isn’t, my Lady. Dinner will be at the same time Barathan informed you, and I will come to escort you once the preparations have been made. I am here to guide your attendants to the kitchen and also inform them how to operate inside the mansion. Lady Hestia, as you only have two attendants, the whole servant staff will act as your hands during your stay.”

Coming from a decently wealthy family, I’m used to having people taking care of the housekeeping, instead of doing it myself. My mama did do the cooking and participated in the cleaning, but, in general, my nanny was responsible for most of it while we also employed cleaners. Only now that I was living with Saori and Tasianna have I started taking care of the household, although Tasianna was the one who did most of it, to be honest.

Taking care of a small cave or a farmer’s house was one thing, totally doable for three girls, however, a large mansion was a whole other beast. There is a reason why a mansion owner must employ so many people to keep it maintained. Although I wasn’t exactly super useful as a housekeeper, I was still an extra pair of hands for my two friends, but during our stay here, they’ll probably have to take care of my room, clothing, meals, and other tasks, which wasn’t feasible for only two people.

I was a guest at Ellaine’s, but visiting nobles were expected to have servants and attendants take care of their own meals. Receiving a celebratory or welcoming feast was acceptable, but during an extended visit, the visitors had to cook for themselves to show-off to the host’s chefs. The ingredients would be provided by the host as a sign of hospitality, though.

That was why Saori and Tasianna had to be taken away to prepare our meals, and I was now given a replacement in their absence. Apparently, noble girls weren’t allowed to be servant-less; they always had to have a servant nearby to serve their needs.

While I wasn’t very fond of having a stranger take care of me, I couldn’t say anything against Manuela’s explanations. Maybe it’s ‘cause of her soothing voice, perfectly fit for a teacher or instructor if she became one, or the fact it was simply this country’s culture and social rules. I still remembered the terrified faces those gossiping servants had, and I didn’t want to cause them too much trouble, so I relented and accepted.

“I will look forward to your service, Manuela. Please, serve me well,” I told the head maid, prompting her to bow and thank me graciously.

She then left the room with Saori and Tasianna, leaving me behind in my room with Svena, the chestnut-brown haired maid who accompanied Manuela into the room.

“Lady Hestia, is there anything you need,” she asked me with a polite smile, showing a will to serve. If I remember correctly, she was one of the maids who chided the younger servants, looking scared as hell when she did so. Right now, though, I couldn’t see any anxiousness in her eyes. She looked confident, dependable, and competent.

“Svena, correct? I apologize for what occurred this morning. You look terrified back then, but please don’t worry when someone gossips behind my back. If it isn’t too extreme, I won’t be bothered. I’m used to them,” I told her, so she didn’t have to chide people if they complained about my behavior. Honestly, I didn’t like bad gossip at all from my time on Earth, but I had to say it to make sure people weren’t stressing themselves out for me.

Svena’s eyes widened, clearly not expecting what I just said, as her brows formed into a small frown, “Lady Hestia, your compassion is beyond what a humble maid like I deserve, may the goddess bless your warm heart. However, only a fool speaks behind a noble, especially when that noble is our mistress’s guest. If they weren’t disciplined there, then the chance of them shaming House Helvas in the future would be higher. Also, please rest assured that we were informed in detail of how to serve you, so please, enjoy your stay and let us handle everything, Lady Hestia.”

So, the reason why Manuela and Svena weren’t acting nervous or scared around me was ‘cause either Ellaine or her servants at the Helvas county told them about Saori, Tasianna, and me. If that is the case, then why am I acting like this?!

“Well, if that is the case…then let us start with acting less stiff around each other. Nobles must keep up appearances in public, but in private, I wish to relax. Is that acceptable, Svena?” Breaking out of the noble persona I’ve been developing as I spent more time with Ellaine, I directly informed her of my intention and wish in my usual tone while staying mildly polite.

With a confirming bow, she replied with “by your will.” After I mentioned I wanted some tea, Svena immediately rang a bell outside my room, summoning a young butler in his teens. After receiving his order, he rushed through the hallway and only returned with a cart filled with tea making essentials and tea snacks.

Svena then began preparing tea according to the leaves I chose. Instead of choosing from among my own supply, the few tea leaves offered were unfamiliar to me, so I decided to taste test it. That reminds me, I should really go to the market with my party once we have the time to restock our supply and maybe find some special herbs or spices.

After I was halfway through with my tea, nature began calling for me. Considering I needed to take a bath before dinner anyways, I asked Svena if there was enough time for one, and entered the bathroom once I got confirmation.

The bathroom was similar in style to a master bedroom’s. It had a toilet, a bath, a dressing area, and what looked like a shower. Like my room, it was large and filled with fine colors and engravings to enrich the look of it. Like the rest of the mansion, manatech lamps were shining bright light as they illuminated the room.

I was ready to finally get rid of the smell and dust I’d accumulated from today’s trip to town. The only problem was that Svena followed me into it.

“Lady Hestia, I presume Miss Saori or Miss Tasianna were responsible for washing you during your baths, and it must feel awkward with a stranger like me, but, please, allow me the honor,” Svena boldly told me.

Huh?! Y-You, washing me!? WHAT?!

Just to make this clear, Tasianna did enjoy washing me during my baths and showers, but I thought she only wanted to do so ‘cause of her fixation on serving me. Eventually, I got used to it and it turned into us just washing each other like in a Japanese bathroom. At least, that’s what Saori used to excuse herself to join us. I know I’m half-Japanese, but this part of Japanese culture still gets me as somebody who grew up in the U.S.

Now, having a complete stranger do it was even crazier. My face felt a bit warmer as I heard Svena offer it to me. Even after she explained that nobles would have their attendants clean them didn’t make it better. Thankfully, going to the toilet was more private.

When Svena started casting [Create Water] to fill the bath, which was made of a material similar to limestone, I had to ask her if she was a mage. She explained she wasn’t a mage as she only knew basic custom spells to help her work more efficiently as a house servant. [Create Water], [Ignite], [Apply Light], and [Wind] were all the spells she knew, as she still hadn’t gained any of the elemental magic skills.

“A high-ranking servant must know simple spells for efficiency’s sake. If a servant cannot protect their liege, then they will not rise in the hierarchy,” she explained.

Apparently, noble houses would train their servants in magic theory if they showed any promise as a mage. This was not only to produce strong defenders for the house’s defenses but also to help them do their duties better. Both Barathan and Manuela were not only able retainers but also capable fighters and mages. That would explain why Barathan was able to keep up with us after we sprint-walked out of the church.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case for all the servants. The majority of them had too little mana to even think of joining training, while others like Svena could only cast simple spells, making them not suitable as mages. Servants like Barathan and Manuela who attended the royal academy with their noble master and mistress were rare, but, fortunately, they had knights and soldiers responsible for the protection of the demesne, so this wasn’t a problem.

After that lengthy explanation, I couldn’t hold it in any longer and went to the toilet. Thankfully, privacy was a concept here as I pulled a curtain to hide behind.

Grrr! Verdammt, I really want to kill you slimy bastards. If only you weren’t House Helvas’s property. I hate going to the toilet…

I wasn’t exaggerating when I hated it. A toilet in a noble’s mansion wasn’t a simple pot or jug you would do your business in, but it actually looked and acted like a modern toilet. The only problem was the method of sanitation and draining, as instead of using water, they used something completely else.

SLIMES! FUCKING SLIMES, AHHHH!

Aroma Detritislime

A slime able to change their color depending on the herb, flowers, or fruit they consume, preferring sweet-tasting food. They can exude a pleasant smell from their body according to the herb, flower, or fruit they’ve consumed, attracting animals and monsters to them so they may consume their main source of nutrition. Herbivores and detritivores. Extremely passive and noncompetitive, making them capable of working with other slimes of any kind, even the more lethal ones. Rank G

That’s right, slimes. What was under the hole wasn’t water, but a bunch of blue and green slimes, all exuding a pleasant aroma. At first, when I saw them in that viscount’s mansion, I thought they were just gel or something but when I saw their cores and how they wriggled around to surround my finger, I instantly shrieked loud enough for everybody to hear me. That encounter with that moss slime in the elf hut inside Belzac forest was still fresh in my mind.

Now, setting aside the fact that I was willing to put my finger into a toilet, I also wanted to see if these things were as passive as their description told me. Ellaine also assured me they were as she’s been using them since her childhood, but my mind couldn’t calm down with words alone. The test showed those eldritch beings were completely harmless, but I still hated having to go to the toilet.

Bladder, why must you always force me to the toilet?

A good thing about these things was their ability to make both pee and poop smell good. It comes out of you and the smell instantly turns into that of a flower or herb. So, despite my hate for going to the toilet, I still enjoyed this luxury whenever I turned my head off for a moment.

Ahhhh, feels better now.

After using a fine towel to clean myself, I left the toilet to see Svena using [Ignite], a basic custom fire spell to heat up the bath, now filled to the brim with fresh blue water.

She said the full chant and I’ve memorized the magic circle…I think. If I can’t get [Fire Magic] from the SP store anymore, I wonder if I can actually learn fire spells like Master Kush told me. It’ll be useless but I should test this theory.

Knowing it would take too long with her small fire, I took out one of my heater balls and poured mana into it, then told Svena to stop so I could throw it inside the bath. The water quickly began to bubble, at which point I took the heater ball out of the bath. Svena was worried I’d burned myself but telling her I was a dragonewt and that most fire couldn’t even hurt me seemed to have persuaded her.

Once the bath was ready, I was about to take off my robes before Svena stopped me, asked me to come behind a divider, and began undressing me without my permission. “Lady Hestia, please raise your arms, I will now take off your coat. I will also be wary of your horns and tail.”

Bit by bit; my robe, my jacket, my vest, my turtleneck, my boots, my skirt, and finally my underwear was removed with finesse in that order. Svena did it so fast and gracefully that my mind didn’t even register that I was naked for a moment. It seems I had still had much to learn when it came to being a noble lady, but hopefully, I wouldn’t have to with Saori and Tasianna at my side.

When she saw my sun core, she widened her eyes. It was obvious without her saying anything that she was surprised. Unfortunately, I couldn’t avoid it. Svena looked adamant about bathing me that I couldn’t do anything but show it to her. Well, time to use my silver-tongue.

“Svena, this is a private matter for me, so I don’t want you to speak of it to anybody. Not Barathan, not Manuela, not Lady Ellaine, not even Lord Helvas himself. Please, keep this to yourself, I hope I can trust you. Ok, time for a shower~”

Strangely enough, she looked a bit shaken when I said that. Did I say something wrong? Before I could think about it, Svena guided me to the shower. While it might seem weird to see a shower during medieval ages, the shower itself was actually a manatech with a blue crystal-like ball in the middle, where I could pour my mana into to let warm water flow out. I didn’t know how it actually worked, but when I used [Mana Eyes] on it at the previous mansions, I understood both water and fire was being produced through a sigil-like rune to make the shower work. I have to learn how runes work, I’d thought to myself at the time.

Svena then took a blue pendant hanging from the showerhead and asked me to pour mana into it. Once she put it on, a water-like aura coated her whole body, designed to not protect her from damage but to keep her dry. With the pendant on, she entered the shower with me and I, reluctantly and with a big blush, activated the shower.

“Please, use this. I don’t know what conditioner or shampoo you are using but I like these,” I told Svena after taking out the shampoo and conditioner Tasianna made for the three of us. I remembered Ellaine mentioned shampoo and conditioners were elven luxury products, so I made sure to give Svena clear instructions on how to use them.

After showering and cleaning myself, I then entered the still steaming bath. It seems nobles from the Kingdom of Artorias have a habit of showering and then bathing. Water creation was all done through either magic or manatech, meaning there wasn’t a cost behind them after the tools were bought. It was easy and not a hassle, so the nobles enjoyed it without care.

Mama taught me to shower first and then bathe due to her Japanese habits, so it wasn’t much of a problem for me. Saori also loved it, so we seriously enjoyed them when we stayed at the other mansions.

After the bath, Svena realized she didn’t have any clothes for me to change into, but I simply took out the dress I wore during the dinner with Count Helvas. It fitted then, so I thought it would fit again. Ellaine also wore these long dresses, so it shouldn’t be a problem.

After my relaxing, although pretty embarrassing, bath, Manuela returned to escort me to the dining hall. On a grand dining table, I sat on the opposite side of Ellaine and we waited for our meals to come while making small talk. Once they arrived, she asked all servants to leave the room aside from Barathan and Manuela, while Saori and Tasianna would stay at my side.

Now dropping her façade, Ellaine chuckled for a bit before forming a teasing smile. “Hie hie, Barathan gave me a detailed report on everything you’ve done, Lady Hestia. Now, I am pretty sure you’ve mentioned that you weren’t a priestess, right?”

Unable to ignore her words, I could give a wry smile and shrug in defeat. “Hey, when I told you that, I really wasn’t. I didn’t lie to you, honest. But…I can’t say that now.”

“Don’t worry, Lady Hestia, it is merely a jest, hie hie. If what Barathan said is true and if you also admit to it, then my father will have nothing to fear. Honestly, as a dragonewt and worshipper of Kargryxmor, it should have been obvious,” Ellaine then pressed her hands together, gave me a short prayer as she spoke in a congratulatory tone. “May your souls be blessed by the Goddess of Light, Lady Hestia. Congratulations on being recognized by Goddess Aurena herself. Now, are you a champion or saintess?”

I knew she was trying to get some information out of me with that last question, probably to use for her house’s advantage so I simply smiled and told her to wait. After that, Ellaine’s face became serious and told me to stay inside the mansion until my IDs were ready, to prevent the church from finding me.

It seems my little meeting with Aurena caused a stir with the white-robed priests and priestesses, even to the point where the nobles even went back to the church due to it. Ellaine’s spies reported they were currently trying to find me but couldn’t due to Barathan stopping all information leaks after what happened. Even the guards I met today were silenced by the Marquis’ document.

I’m telling you, that document is super scary. It can even silence people!

Apparently, the church wanted to bring me into their midst, while Ellaine wished to keep me outside their influence. Despite technically being Aurena’s priestess, they knew I wasn’t affiliated with the church itself as I always denied it whenever they asked me. Simply being a priestess didn’t mean I was part of the church, as Aurena’s religion had many different churches, especially with all the different subordinate gods. Interesting.

“If they’re that much trouble, I could probably blow them up,” I stated, causing Barathan to turn deathly pale as he quickly shut my idea down. Saori and Tasianna, too, joined in, telling me to not even joke about it as I could cause some serious trouble if I did.

To keep her word of being truthful with me, Ellaine explained an ID wasn’t just a way to identify ourselves, but also a way to show one’s allegiance to a certain faction. While emblems can be easily removed, the design of a card cannot, and it could attribute any future achievements I made to the church.

When I mentioned the fact her kingdom could do the same, Ellaine answered she wasn’t sure what her father and king would do but that I should trust them until then. She informed her father about today’s report with a messenger bird, but it seems he hasn’t received it yet. I had to be patient, she asked.

I told her I would agree to her request if she could have her family investigate the “heroes” at the capital. I didn’t mention that Saori was the one who wanted the information, only that I wanted to know their names, appearances, and where they came from. As this was a favor for a favor, I didn’t have to worry that I would owe her house in the future.

Truth be told, I didn’t think I would be involved in politics the first day I entered Firwood. I was already hating it, but I guess this did fit with Aurena’s request to learn about her church and also this world’s culture. I guess I’ll just suck it up and be a hikikomori for the next three days. Lorena’s and Ruld’s wedding won’t happen until LightDay, which is in five days.

“Miss Saori. Miss Tasianna. I will require your aid to protect Lady Hestia, so I will be eternally grateful if you could support me with a plan,” Barathan told my two friends, which they agreed to.

And just like that, schemes and plans were happening around me while I was stuck in my room, simply practicing magic and training as I had literally nothing better to do. Just like that, three days passed.

A note from AbyssRaven

Yes, the arrival of P*** eating slimes! Hurrah! Hurrah!

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Chapter 106: Farron, the Guild Master of the Hunters Guild Branch.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Bwuaaah…” I yawned, before peering over Tasianna’s shoulder at what she was making. “Do you think you’ve gotten used to human society, yet, Tasianna?”

Tasianna’s face contorted into a frown as she thought over my question, however, her hands didn’t stop, continuously applying a sweet soy sauce-like coating on a batch of pre-baked rice crackers. “…I still feel uncomfortable. I still believe we shouldn’t be in here, Lady Hestia. Lady Ellaine is gracious for allowing us to stay here and use her kitchen, but I cannot trust Barathan or Miss Manuela one bit. Not to mention all the impertinent maids acting like you are their mistress, hmph!”

Only able to laugh wryly at her clingy behavior, I rubbed her shoulders in an attempt to cool her down. Despite her anger, the rice crackers she was making looked marvelous, and I couldn’t wait to bake and try them.

During these last three days we’ve spent in Ellaine’s mansion, Saori and Tasianna have been allowed to use the ingredients from her storage for our meals. While a lot of the veggies, fruits, and spices that House Helvas could provide were similar to the ones we had gained from the Belzac forest, a few actually caught our eyes.

Tazloksoy Sauce

A fermented liquid condiment created through a tazlokbean and tazlokwheat paste mixture. This black liquid has a slightly sweet and rich umami taste

Tazlokwheat

A type of wheat found inside the Tazlok mountains, only able to grow underground. Its grains are hard and tough, with a mild sweet taste when eaten. These plants are as hardy as the creatures living under the Tazlok mountains

Sugarcarratas

A carrata whose roots have a high concentration of fructose. The size of the carrata and fructose amount depends on the mana concentration in the ground

A carrata was a Peolyncian carrot, only with longer roots, and this type could produce sugar similar to sugarbeets. I was honestly surprised when I saw these things, in addition to multiple sacks of sugars, telling me sugar wasn’t scarce in this kingdom. Imagine that, yeast was a luxury product but sugar wasn’t?

However, what surprised us the most was the sauce and this tazlokwheat. First, we found rice at Carine village being an integral part of a villager’s diet, and now we found the Peolyncian versions of soy sauce and buckwheat?! When we asked Tasianna why she couldn’t think of them, she simply told us the description didn’t match when we last described them to her.

According to Tasianna, and Barathan after he overheard us speaking about it, tazlokwheat and beans are dwarven commodities originally found under the Tazlok mountain, one of the many mountains within the territory of the dwarves. Today, tazlokwheat and rice were the two national crops within the many dwarven strongholds of this stout realm.

Although it’s now grown on farms all over Artorias, rice was once only grown by the dwarves as famine food since it was easy to store, while the wheat was used to make hard-to-decay bread for dwarven miners during their mining expeditions. It was only until the ascension of the one known as the “Revolution Queen”, who introduced sake, noodles, and many of today’s manatech, did those two crops raise this much in importance.

Saori and I planned to visit the Dwarven territory ‘cause we wanted to learn more about this “Revolution Queen”, a supposed [Otherworldly Reincarnator] according to that Leviathan. However, listening to Barathan’s information made me curious about the dwarves’ culture if it was influenced by a person from Earth. Once we reach Griffonpeak, we’ll make our way to the dwarves.

Also, considering House Helvas had these crops, I could guess they must have a good relationship, or at least, a trading agreement with the dwarves. Compared to the elves, I guess they managed to resolve the bad feelings after the “War for the Fairies.”

Mhmm, delicious.

While Tasianna was making a ton of snacks for us, Saori was making fried tazlokwheat soba, better known as yakisoba, and also a huge batch of experimental curry using some new spices we got from the mansion’s food storage. Funnily enough, we were making all of this before dawn came, as I wasn’t exactly allowed to enter the kitchen.

Well, it’s not that I was forbidden from it, as I could inspect how the meals were made, but the chefs and the other kitchen staff couldn’t feel calm with me around. Svena and Manuela explained to me that the older staff members were used to the previous Count and Countess Helvas, Ellaine’s grandparents, entering and exiting to make sure feast preparations were correct, but the younger staff members hadn’t gotten used to that, yet. Their work would be compromised with me around, especially after Ellaine told everybody to treat me like a Greifnoble, a noble tier above hers.

So, before the chefs started work, the three of us had some time for ourselves in here. I hadn’t baked anything in the last five days, so I really needed to satisfy my desire to bake something myself and eat it. And, honestly, the bread that was inside the kitchen’s oven smelled fantastic, and I couldn’t wait to bite in.

Baking is so satisfying.

After a while, alas, Svena came running in and called for me to return to my chambers. But I’d gotten to bake something, and I managed to catch up with Saori and Tasianna on their task for Barathan, so I wasn’t particularly peeved. I returned to my room with Svena and Tasianna, who readied me for the morning, and then I went to eat breakfast with Ellaine.

After filling my stomach, I was about to leave with Saori and Tasianna to the hunters guild to pick up our IDs, but was stopped by Ellaine and Barathan. Barathan wanted to come with me to ensure everything would work out well, but I declined his offer and expressed my dislike of being “followed” whenever I left the mansion. Yes, I know he meant well, but if I allowed him to come every single time he was “worried”, then I’d never be able to enjoy my normal time outside the restraint of a noble.

I wasn’t here for any reason other than to simply enjoy my life. I came to Firwood to help Lorena, but aside from that favor, I just wanted to explore the city without somebody’s bias influencing my party and me. I lived for multiple months in the wilds, so coming back to society, now a full-fledged idol, I wanted to learn more about how people lived their lives here and maybe do a gig or two while I was in town.

I told them my opinion straight, even threatening to leave the mansion if they rejected my wish. I fulfilled my promise to Ellaine by traveling with her to Firwood and also by staying here for an unspecified time. She probably thought I would enjoy the noble district more than the commoner’s after visiting it; believing I would want to stay here instead of moving out.

However, although I was used to wealth and splendor, and while I wished to stay for all the conveniences, I didn’t need them. Knowing she wanted to keep me here for surveillance under her father’s orders, she reluctantly handed over all the needed documents and warned me to stay away from the church, before seeing the three of us off.

We rode the carriage to the entrance to the commoner district, scared the guards with the document from Firwood’s lord, and then continued through on foot. With anticipation in my heart, I rushed through the streets and pathways with Saori and Tasianna frantically following behind me. Luckily for the baffled citizens of Firwood, I was tactful enough to be careful not to break their paved streets.

As the three of us gathered in front of the hunters guild, my ears picked up a multitude of voices and music coming from inside the building. It was a bit after breakfast time, so presumably, adventurers were picking up Quests and mingling with each other. Seeing as how adventurers were constantly entering and exiting the building, it had to be full!

Oooh, I can’t wait! I’m gonna become an adventurer!

Entering through the door, the sounds intensified. Numerous people with varying appearances all carried around different weapons ranging from swords, bows, spears, staves, and so on, were walking and standing around in this crowded building. Compared to the soldiers surrounding the gates and patrolling through the streets, their weapons varied a lot, from shabby-looking to well-maintained killer tools.

Their outfits, on the other hand, made me the most excited. Whether it was thick, padded cloth armor, leather-like armor with scales or carapaces attached to them, or just fine, silky looking robes; I could see “normal” armor and armor made out of monster materials. Heavy metal armor was the rarest, but those who did wear it “felt” the most impressive to me.

I didn’t know the exact terms for the different armor, but I think Saori did. I could tell she was quietly naming each of them gleaming eyes, hidden behind her stoic mask. She never showed her interest, but every time we met a soldier or one of Ellaine’s knights, she would always glance at their armor first. Maybe she was an armor fanatic, in addition to a history nerd?

About the races, all of the adventurers were humans and beastmen, which was disappointing to me as I thought I would at least see a dwarf. Elves, faefolk, and demonkin were out of the question as they hated humans. Thankfully, the variety of beastmen made up for the lack of races.

Wolfkins, katzunes, and foxians comprised the majority of them, which translates into a bunch of wolfdogs, cats, and foxes. There were also a few leonids, lion beastmen; loopridae, rabbit beastmen; and arvisians, bird beastmen. They would range from full animalistic humanoids like Master Kush and the saurians, to human-like with a few animal features like Saori and I.

Cat-girls, rabbit-girls, fox-girls, huh? I have the feeling a boy would go crazy here.

Coming from the medieval European world of Ellaine’s mansion to this fantasy-filled place was exciting. It really was exhilarating to be reminded that I was in such a fantasy-like world with all these adventurers. I do remember that a small minority of Ellaine’s servants were beastmen, but I haven’t seen them.

Honestly, if it weren’t for our races, the three of us would stand out considering how “unadventurous” our outfits looked.

“Huh? Look. A saurian lass just came in.”

“Saurian? Hey, pal, there is a difference between a saurian and lizardman, and that girl is a lizard. Jeez, you humans…”

“An elf? Huh, never thought I would see one around town.”

“Just go to the capital. All the half-elves live in the north part of the kingdom anyway.”

There were so many voices that I had trouble identifying who exactly was speaking.

While taking in the atmosphere of the guild, our party went over to the counter and lined up before it, as there were three massive lines of rambunctious people occupying all three counters.

While we were waiting, I focused on listening to the music. When we first visited the guild, it was devoid of music, being populated by the sounds of people speaking. However, now, I could see some bards playing lyres and harps over at the tables next to the kitchen-bar counter manned by two identical-looking rabbit-girls.

I did notice this bar the last time I came, but back then, there wasn’t anybody working at it, so I thought it was deserted. As today was a “normal day at work”, the vibrancy and life filled not only the eatery but this whole building, contrasting the lukewarm welcome I received three days ago.

“Welcome to the hunters guild, how may we-Oh! Lady Hestia, Saori, Tasianna!” Once it was our turn at the counter, a familiar katzune woman greeted us with a brilliant smile.

“You still remember our names?” Saori asked with a brow raised.

“Of course, as an employee of the hunters guild, it is my duty to remember adventurers with renown or with the potential to become powerful one day inside our town. My name is Melia, in case, you three forgot,” she responded before calling over a receptionist working on papers behind the counter. “You must be here for your IDs, yes? Before I am allowed to issue you them, the guild leader of this branch of the hunters guild wishes to speak with you three.”

He wants to speak with us? Why do I have the feeling we’re gonna get interrogated again?

After her colleague took over for her at the counter, Melia guided us behind the counter and up a set of stairs to the first floor. After announcing us to the guild master’s wolfkin secretary, she rang a bell behind a large door similar to how a noble would be announced, and a deep, rough voice escaped from behind the door, welcoming us in with a “you may enter.”

We entered the room to see a bulky flare-red-haired human man sitting behind a document-covered desk. The room had a pair of sofas situated in the middle with the desk in between them, probably to serve as a place for discussion and negotiations instead of for lazing around.

To the left, three bookshelves filled with a handful of books and a vast assortment of scrolls lined the wall in a tidy fashion. Did the guild master organize them himself or was it his secretary? Regardless, it gave the impression the guild master valued neatness. In contrast, the right side of the room looked more fitting of an adventurer guild’s room, decorated with two standing suits of plate armor and three shields mounted on the wall with two swords in an x shape placed behind them. While one part of the room gave a respectable and business-like atmosphere, the other side would remind any visitors they were in a guild responsible for the management of numerous monster hunters. Considering this wasn’t inside the noble district, it was very well decorated.

Without turning his eyes away from the documents, he gestured with his left arm for us to sit on one of the couches, while he kept on working in silence.

Kyaah! You look soooo the part, Sir! I silently thought to myself, but Saori still gave me a “I know what you thought” glance when she noticed my tail swinging around joyously. Verdammt nochmal, tail! How could you expose me!

Once the secretary closed the door, the man stood up, gave us a deep bow from the hip, before speaking to me with a polite but aloof look, “I, Farron Nordor, the current guild master of Firwood branch of the Hunters Guild, welcome you, Princess Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor of the Dragon Empire Kargryx. Please, let us sit and speak.”

[Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko] true name has been revealed. Individual’s name has changed to [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]   due to association to the true dragon, Kargryxmor

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!

“Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!” I screamed out from the top of my lung the moment that System notification appeared in my head. As my befuddlement receded, I felt my face heating up as everybody in the room stared at me, overwhelming me with the realization I just fucked up. “…Sorry,” I could only utter, rushing towards the sofa and sitting down on it before anybody else could respond, hiding my face behind my hands.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

“Hie hie.”

“He he ha.”

“Hie hie meow.”

Three female voices laughed. Two came over to the sofa and began consoling me, while another tried to suppress her laugh from the other side of the room.

“Ahem,” a man cleared his voice, probably the guild master as he was the only man in the room right now. “I apologize for surprising you.”

As his footsteps stopped, Saori told me to stand up and uncover my face. Once I did, I saw Saori and Tasianna standing beside me, while Melia stood behind the sofa opposite of ours with the guild master in front of it, stretching his arm out with his tanned hand open. As I believed he wanted a handshake, I shook his first, then Saori, lastly Tasianna, although reluctantly under Saori’s scrutiny.

We sat down on the sofa afterward. The guild master, Farron, adjusted his coat as he sat down, revealing his amulet of Aurena from underneath his vest. The guild master looked to be in his early forties or so, and while I’d expected him to appear rougher considering he was the guild master, he actually had the air of a respectable and diligent man.

“Clothes make the man,” and he just oozed leadership and charisma from the way he dressed himself, despite his lack of a smile. He was stoic and had a sorta sharp focus behind his eyes that reminded me of the saurians, suggesting he was not only calm and confident in the situation, but that he knew not to drop his guard.

Although outer appearances are a bit deceiving to gauge a person’s strength, with the three of us being good examples, I trusted the draconic instincts I’d been training since my birth, and it told me I should be wary of him. He wasn’t activating any aura skills right now, but his presence alone made my tail restless.

I wasn’t sure if he was stronger than the saurians, but I knew he was at least at their level. His muscles, barely held back by his clothes, lead me to believe he was a close combatant like Krim-Slak and Grazlahta. I couldn’t feel that much mana from him compared to Countess Helvas and Master Kush, so he couldn’t be a mage. Urgh, my strength evaluation isn’t quite there yet. I must use [Identify] to get an accurate assessment but I’m still wary of those [Ring of Identification] like Ellaine showed me.

“No need to be so wary, Princess Hestia. As someone blessed by the Goddess of Light, Aurena, and also a daughter of the royal family of Kargryx, the Guilds of Hunters and Mercenaries have no intention of harming you,” Farron told us with a matter of fact tone. “I am here to confirm certain information with you and also give you a rundown on how your guild membership will work. Normally, Melia or one of the other receptionists would do it but I wish to have a little talk with you and your companions.”

“Pardon my rudeness, but why is Melia here exactly? When you casually revealed Lady Hestia’s true status, she did not seem very surprised,” Saori replied with a hint of caution.

“The walls are fortified with a soundproof enchantment. No sound will come in or out, so a leak of information won’t happen the moment all doors and windows are closed,” Farron responded, pointing at one of the mounted shields and revealing the enchantments were hidden behind them. “As for Melia, she is here as your official handler while you stay and work with us in the Firwood branch. To fulfill her job correctly, I’ve revealed to her your IDs, and I also made all the other receptionists sign a magic contract to not reveal your profile or identity to anybody not privy to it. If she is available, Melia will act as your sole handler to smoothen your time at the guild.”

Magic contracts? Enchantments? I can sorta guess from their names, but no way can I say what they actually did.

“What’s a magic contract? And what exactly did you make them sign?” I asked, not wanting to be so ignorant about everything.

Farron raised a brow to my question. “A contract connected to the contract department of the mages guild. Once you sign it, the magic within it forbids you from breaking the contract’s conditions while in its effective range. In this specific contract, nobody is allowed to speak about you without Melia’s or my permission. As you do not wish this information to spread, we have made the appropriate arrangements to prevent leaks.”

Seeing me confirm with a nod that I understood him, he then took out three black cards and white bracelets from inside his coat and placed them on the table. “Now…A dragon, a fenrir, and…I presume a fairy? A rather interesting and diverse party, honestly. Kargryxmor’s descendant, a spawn of Belzac the [Three-Eyed Fenrir], and a fairy in the form of a wind elf…”

The three of us already accepted that our secrets would be exposed the moment we issued our IDs, but it kinda felt weird to have somebody just lay it out like that.

The guild master pinched the bridge of his nose as he leaned forward. “However, what made these past three days a nightmare for me and presumably for everybody involved in it was the fact that we have two world reincarnators among us. The last and only recorded otherworlder was the Ankoran Queen, or High Queen to non-dwarves, called the ‘Revolution Queen’. Now, we have Princess Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor and Madam Saori Segawa in our world.”

I tilted my head as I responded, feeling a bit sympathetic to the plight from the tone of his voice. “Sorry, I guess? We really needed those IDs to start living properly, and with memories of our past life, living in the wilderness was a no go. If you want to blame somebody, blame it on Count Helvas for accepting our heartfelt plea.”

“Lady Hestia- Actually, do I need to keep up our pretense here?” Saori wondered as she realized this was the same situation we had with the saurians. She shook her head and looked straight at Farron. “Hestia and I do apologize for giving you trouble with the process, Mr. Farron. However, with how much we’ve heard, living in society without an ID would be impossible and our goal to live a relatively peaceful life would be impossible without them. You should understand our position, without IDs we cannot even take on a job.”

Saori wasn’t exaggerating here. When we even needed to show our IDs at the village gates to enter Carine village, when they didn’t even have a [Crystal of the Divine System] to authenticate it, it was clear to me how important they were. Master Kush and Tasianna both explained how you couldn’t accept Quests and get a proper working position at an establishment.

I understand the revelation of our profiles was an information nightmare but what were we supposed to do when making IDs required revealing our information? The reason why we did it with the help of a noble in the first place was to keep this nightmare hidden from the majority of the people around us.

The guild master massaged his temple for a moment, but then opened up his eyes, having had his chance to complain. “Sorry, had to get that out of me, and call me Farron. I would rather avoid formalities if possible, and you two are already being causal so let’s stick with it. Let’s get back to the topic, I wish to know your monster ranks,” he demanded. “I can guess from your stats what you are, but I need confirmation for when I send this report back to the nobles. As one of the hunters guild’s branch managers, I also have a responsibility to protect our clients and Quest givers, the town’s populace, so excuse me if I sound cautious. Count Helvas’s and Lady Ellaine’s report stated your behavior was fine, but I must assume the worst when a dragon, a fenrir, and an angry fairy are among us.”

Gesturing over to Tasianna, I could understand from her sour expression that she wasn’t enjoying her time here. After speaking it over with Saori and Tasianna through telepathy, we decided to inform him of our races and ranks, but nothing else.

Farron nodded when we told him our ranks, noting he guessed correctly but that he didn’t expect us to have races he’d never heard of before. Melia even commented she’d never heard of [Young Sunfang Dragon] or [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo], nor their adult versions from the bestiary before. She eyed us with curiosity and even prodded for more information, but we refused to tell her anything more, as we wanted to keep the finer details a secret, for example my solar core.

Apparently, [Identity Blocker] worked even inside our IDs. It could protect the card from being inspected with [Identify] if its level was high enough, and it seems Farron couldn’t get all the information from our cards. He could see the names of our skills and title, but he couldn’t understand what they did. He wanted to know what our unique skills did, as he couldn’t read up on them, but we refused to tell him when he admitted he didn’t need the information.

Another point for investing in this skill, yes!

“…Hold on, I think I overlook something here,” he muttered after he finished explaining, widening his eyes upon realization. “You two still possess the ‘young’ prefix in your race name? Impossible…Lady Hestia, this isn’t your ‘Adulthood Ceremonial Pilgrimage?’ You haven’t reached dragon maturity yet?”

…Ok, more words I’ve never heard about. My whole stay in Firwood has revolved around information, information, and, oh guess what, more information! Ahhh, I feel so dumb...

“No idea what you’re talking about but the System told me I would lose ‘young’ once I reach five. I’m only nine months old and Saori is five months old,” I said nonchalantly.

“What, you two aren’t even a year old yet?!” Melia blurted out in surprise.

“…I see, the headaches won’t stop this early, huh?” Farron complained once again as he massaged his temple and leaned back on the couch, trying to relax.

“We were both born inside the Belzac forest and the three of us met there, if you want to know the truth. Imagine it, you wake up one day and somebody tells you you’re the princess of some unknown empire you’ve never heard of, and you’re a dragon to boot. The world we came from only had dragons in fables and myth, and now you’re telling me I’m a dragon princess?! What the hell?” I continued, shrugging over this information as a joke. “Although, I guess you could call my previous lifestyle ‘noble-like’, so that helped me fit into the role a bit. But nothing could have prepared me to aid a goddess in her goals.”

“That is pretty fascinating, Princess Hestia! I joined the hunters guild to listen to interesting tales from wandering adventurers, but yours and Saori’s might actually be the most outlandish ones. I’m happy to have the honor to meet two otherworlders,” Melia commented.

“True. The tales of Lady Hestia’s and Miss Saori’s world are wonderful, although I sometimes get confused by them,” Tasianna added, looking cheerful, as she was now speaking with a katzune. “Did you know, on their world, ‘Earth’, most of their technology works using controlled lightning and fuel, and it is completely devoid of mana. The descriptions felt nostalgic for our fairy tales.”

So the reason why you believed us so quickly was ‘cause of your previous experience with the ‘fables’ of those wandering fairy adventures?! Tasianna! I thought dumbfounded, remembering when she commented about it during one of her history lessons.

Farron clapped his hands to catch everybody’s attention, aware the discussion would diverge if he didn’t. “You can all talk about it when you four are free. Let’s return to my questions before we forget everything; there are only a few left so hear me out.” He leaned forward as he said that. “Princess Hestia, I need a proper answer here. Your royalty status and the fact you’re a descendant is indisputable thanks to your titles, so were you actually born in the Belzac forest? Have you never visited Kargryx, yet, your homeland?”

“Kargryx isn’t my homeland. As far as I am concerned, the Belzac forest is more my homeland, as that is where I was born,” I told him bluntly, not even hesitating when I replied. “I don’t know my dragon parents, and I’ve never been to either Kargryx or Loatryx. I also don’t know what you mean with this ‘Adulthood Ceremonial Pilgrimage’, and I also just recently became a rank B, for your information.”

“I can attest to that,” Saori chimed in. “You seem to know about Belzac and his descendant so you can take my word, for whatever it is worth, that I met Hestia inside it when she was only a rank D. She evolved into a rank C in front of me and then into a rank B inside the kingdom.”

“So, can I. I made my vow to become her retainer when she was only a C rank,” Tasianna added too.

Farron was decently surprised that we were this willing to give him this information, but Saori believed there weren’t any consequences to telling him. If none of the information leaked, and he didn’t have any ill intentions, then nothing bad would happen to us. Actually, she sounded so confident that nothing bad would happen when she told me to not worry through telepathy.

“We will become adventurers, no? As the guild master of one of the two adventurer guild branches, I presume you wish to have us work as proper guild members. Intentionally sabotaging us would give you no benefit, while the guild could use two willing hunters,” Saori asserted her position with a confident smile. Farron noticed the intent behind her words and nodded, telling us he would suffer if he were to anger me.

“Actually, Farron, you can help me elucidate something while we're on the topic of my dragon heritage. When you called me ‘Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor’, the System randomly changed my full name to it. You should’ve seen my full name on the ID, so why did the System just change it? I didn’t even accept it!” I asked with genuine confusion as I remembered I’d only received my current name “Hestia Atsuko” when I accepted Saori’s suggestion to name me.

Farron scratched the back of his neck as he sighed. “I guess I do owe you some answers when I’m dumping information on you. Seems like you have it rough too as an otherworlder, huh?” Farron said with a hint of pity in his eyes. “True dragons born into a lineage, and not through a random monster spawning, usually take up the name of their ancestor as their last name as a sign of respect and to honor their deeds. Elder dragons might be powerful due to their advanced age, but getting to that age in the first place when other mighty predators and challengers prowl the skies, lands, and sea; is a feat worth celebrating.”

He paused a second to point at me and then continued, “You were reborn as a princess of the Dragon Empire, Kargryx, Princess Hestia. This means your lineage flows back to its origin with the Black Tyrant of the Skies, Kargryxmor, when he was still a mortal. Now, he rules over us as the God of Dragons and Oaths, which makes your heritage even more prestigious. The System accepted this change so easily, presumably because of this tradition… Do me a favor and don’t speak about where you got this information. Melia, you, too. I did not tell you this, you learned it from your fairy companion, understood?”

With the stern gaze he was giving everybody inside the room, the four of us could only nod in confirmation. He nodded fiercely in response and then mellowed out again. “Good. I appreciate it. Now for the last question, which might be the most important. I need to know if you three are a threat, especially you two.” He announced and squinted his eyes, looking between Saori and Tasianna, the two targets of his question.

“Huh, what do you mean by that? Didn’t we just answer that question before when we told you about our ranks? I thought our good behavior was good enough of a sign,” I complained earnestly, feeling like our discussion from before was redundant.

“My previous question was to assess the danger and what I need to prepare in the worst case, but now I want to know if you will become a threat or not,” Farron asked, now completely serious. “Goddess Aurena is the patron goddess of the human race, so I believe you, Princess Hestia, won’t become a threat to the town, despite how whimsical the mood of a Kargryxmor is.”

“Actually,” I interrupted him. “While I don’t think I’ll do it intentionally, I do have an annoying flaw where I can gain [Battle Frenzy] if I don’t fight seriously for at least a week. While my mood does worsen tremendously at the minor stage, I can still control it somewhat. Anything above that and I run the risk of losing myself. Wah! Now that I mention it, I forgot this was the sixth day!”

Saori and Tasianna have taken it upon themselves to monitor and supervise my mood as I can easily lose myself in whatever I do, whether it’s magic, idol training, or simply lazing around. Although they have been helping Barathan with whatever he was asking them, they have been around me every single day. They even told Svena to watch out if I ever become moody.

While I haven’t felt any serious irritation in the last six days, I do think it might be risky to leave this hanging while we’re in town. I wonder why they haven’t said anything yet.

Farron snapped his tongue and then began to scold me, “That is what I mean with the mood of the Kargryxmors! It is the blood of the Black Tyrant compelling you, so you better keep it well monitored in the future, Princess Hestia… Ahem, you may use the guild’s training ground if you need to fight. Reinforce it with earth and ice magic, and don’t go overboard. That said — that leaves your two companions.”

Farron first faced Saori. “Saori, you might be an otherworlder and were born after the entirety of this event, but that doesn’t excuse you of the possibility of seeking revenge. At least, in the eyes of a hunter’s guild master. Just to be clear, the extermination of the Belzac forest’s garms, fenrirs, and the A rank alpha male we dubbed ‘Grim Messenger’ seven years ago. Through a pyrrhic victory we paid with heavy casualties and the lives of two A rank hunters, we presumably eradicated all garms and fenrirs eligible for [Belzac’s Successor]…Apparently, we didn’t.”

…Oh no. No, no, no, no! D-Did I just-!

While my eyes widened in horror, I couldn’t help but turn my head in Saori’s direction as I wasn’t sure how she would feel by this revelation, but against my fears, she kept a calm, albeit, troubled expression. “…What were the reason and goals for this Quest?” She asked in her usual tone when we were in public.

Snapping his fingers and directing his fingers towards the bookshelves, Farron ordered Melia to look for a scroll among the pile. She returned with it, and Farron handed it over to Saori. “More details are inside the scroll. The gist is that our Quest giver wished to expand into the Belzac forest and set up an advance camp to collect valuable alchemical resources for the alchemist guild. In fact, while I could guess who the true sponsor was, the client on paper was the alchemist guild. Exterminate Belzac’s spawn and gain control over the forest. While we cannot completely take it over due to its value if it stays ‘free’, setting up a small camp for hunters to collect herbs and kill monsters would be ideal.”

“Did the plan work?”

Farron shook his head to Saori’s continued questioning, “No, we underestimated the environmental repercussions the extermination of ‘Grim Messenger’ would have on the forest’s ecosystem. Numerous monsters from various places of the Belzac forest looked at this power vacuum as an opportunity to migrate, and with our dwindling manpower and the abandonment of the quest by all the A and B rankers, the Quest was marked as canceled by me. Thankfully, the guild didn’t face any repercussions thanks to Lord Marquis Sirius, but it still did a blow to this branch’s reputation.”

“Huh, no wonder you are the only strong person I noticed inside the guild, guild master,” Tasianna scoffed, having looked displeased the moment this discussion started.

“…I see,” Saori nodded, gave it a few moments of thought and then responded. “Well, I thank you very much for this helpful information. I will take care to not reveal my origins to any hunters to avoid causing trouble. In addition, you have nothing to fear from me as I feel no familial bond to my garm parents and siblings. When I met Hestia, she had just battled my ‘family’ and bested them. To me, the two people sitting with me on this couch are my family.”

“S-Saori…” I uttered with a mix of guilt and happiness. I felt bad for killing possibly the few last Belzac wolves, but also joy from Saori’s continued enforcement of our relationship. Noticing it, Saori patted my head for a moment.

“Good enough for me,” Farron responded, shrugging his shoulders. “And you, Madam Fairy? You are the only Peolyncian native among your party, and from the moment you sent that chilly aura towards me, I knew your hostility towards the human race. I won’t deny nor excuse the actions of our past kinsmen as it was a terrible and cruel act from humankind — which makes you the largest threat, right now.”

Tasianna stayed silent, glaring at the guild master with icy fury. Farron barely responded to it but reciprocated with his own stern gaze. The two battled in a staring contest for seconds until Tasianna finally opened her mouth in contempt.

“…I hate you humans, I admit it, I really do. I’m sorry, Lady Hestia and Miss Saori, but I can’t simply turn my feelings off at this moment. These humans have done something unforgivable to us faefolk and killed many innocents to sate their greed, and they took something precious away from me. The majority of fairies might make-believe and ignore the truth, but I will stand tall and display my disdain like my neighbors, the long-living elves of Saelariel,” she declared with derision. “However, I don’t care about you if you leave me and my party alone. I am a retainer and friend first, before my hatred. Firwood, as a town, has done nothing I personally felt a grudge to because humans aren’t the only ones living here.” She then glanced at Melia for a moment with softer eyes, before returning them to Farron. “I hope my answer was pleasing.”

“If it helps, she’s my retainer,” I figuratively stepped forwards in support. “I have ordered her to behave and we’ve been doing our best to help her adapt to human society. Please, we don’t want to cause any trouble, honestly.”

Farron then sighed in exasperation but still showed us a thumbs up, signaling we passed. He then went on to explain our privileges as hunters, as the three of us let out a relieving chuckle at the dispersing tension.

First, as members of the hunters guild, we are legally allowed to accept monster-hunting Quests commissioned to the guild. Second, concerning monster hunts, we will possess the protection of the guild when it comes to those matters, but that also means we are representatives of the guild and need to respect the laws of the towns and cities we work in. Third, we can use all resources and functions of the hunters guild, which includes Job changing. Lastly, hunters have a responsibility to report on their Quest fulfillment and also any potential monster infestations or attacks.

“Melia, take care of their registration with these three cards. Help them set up the bracelets, and, well, do your job, really,” Farron said before handing the three blank IDs and party bracelets to Melia. “I’ve heard you have two Quest commissions from House Helvas, but they are related to the mercenary guild. The hunters guild only deals with monsters. I’ll inform the guild master at the mercenary guild about everything so simply hand over those documents to the receptionist there and show your IDs.”

We stood up, and Farron gave us one last bow to wish us luck as newly appointed guild members. “May Themestra, the Goddess of Hunting, bless you on every Quest.”

He knew quite a lot about Kargryx, didn’t he? Why does he want me to stay quiet about it, then? Weird…

We then went back down to the rowdy ground floor with Melia and she began our registration process at an unoccupied fourth counter. “Oh, before I begin to surprise you. The guild master has ordered me to directly promote you three up to Rank D hunters.”

“Rank D? Why rank D all of a sudden? We haven’t even done anything yet” I asked.

Shouldn’t we start at the bottom like everybody else?

“The adventurer guilds measure their members similarly to the monster ranking system, which means rank D is around the average of a hunter. Although it is rare, a guild is allowed to directly give a new member a higher rank than rank G if they show us their skills. However, we are not legally allowed to give you anything higher than rank D, as you must show us you can work by fulfilling Quests and accumulating quest points,” Melia explained. “Concerning why we are doing this, it is because the materials you handed over was plenty enough in points and because of your true power. We wish to not restrict our members.”

“Miss Melia, I have a feeling there is a hidden intention behind this,” Tasianna stated.

I clapped Tasianna’s shoulders after she said it. “Ahhh, come on, Tasianna. Who cares? Getting rank D now just speeds everything up and we can start taking on higher Quests earlier. Uhm, I believe we’re only allowed to take on Quests either one rank higher than our current one or anything below it, right, Melia?” I remembered one of the things Farron told us.

“Yes, that is correct, Lady Hestia,” She responded with a nod. “Now, please put your hand on the crystal and I will officially welcome you to the guild as D rankers!”

“Will we also be able to gain and change Jobs with your help once we join, correct?” Saori asked.

“Ah, that reminds me, you two do not have a Job yet. Which now makes sense after I heard your background,” Melia replied, her cat ears moving around in excitement as she recounted what we said in her head. “But, yes, you may change your Jobs immediately after your IDs are issued. So, shall we start, Lady Hestia?”

‘Super Arcane Mega Pyro Mage Light Idol’, here I come!

A note from AbyssRaven

Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor.

So, who wants a stab in the dark and guess who the guild master is?

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 107: We are Adventurers!

A note from AbyssRaven

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Party Leader

Name:   Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor

Level:   80

Job: None

Health:   4651/4651

Mana:   16225/16225

Stamina:   2716/2716

Effects:

[Damaged Mana Path [Left Wing] (Minor)] [Humanized (Moderate)]

Name:   Saori Segawa

Level:   69

Job: None

Health:   2806/2806

Mana:   1211/1211

Stamina:   2005/2005

Effects:

[Humanized (Moderate)]

Name:   Tasianna Marina Silverpond

Level:   50

Job: Mage

Health:   1544/1544

Mana:   3897/3897

Stamina:   1080/1080

Effects:

[Elvenized (Major)]

The party is online once again!

The ID and party bracelet registration didn’t take too long, as we only needed to pour our mana into the [Crystal of the Divine System], and without further ado, our party was officially back.

“These party bracelets are the newest model,” Melia explained. “Aside from the essential functions like ‘party creation’, ‘experience sharing’, ‘ID tracking’, ‘Quest list’, ‘ID reader’, ‘mana storing’, ‘notes’, and ‘verification’, these bracelets allow you to use the ‘platoon party’ function, which allows you to register up to twenty people at once. Your mana is registered to these bracelets, so please be aware they can only be used by their respective owners.”

I looked down at my wrist on which I was now wearing a pristine white bracelet, contrasting the crude iron one I used to wear. Touching it, the material felt tough like stone but soft to the touch from the high-quality craftsmanship, reminding me of the bathtub I bathed in during my stay at Ellaine’s. Melia had just explained to me it was a mineral called “Fairnite,” a white stone known for its ability to insulate mana. Due to its beautiful white appearance, reminding me of a mix between marble and limestone, it was very popular among nobles as a furniture material.

Aside from the difference in materials, this bracelet also had an emblem of a black dragon’s head surrounded by flames in a crescent moon shape on it, which was the royal crest of my “family” and also Kargryxmor’s religious symbol. “Hiding in plain sight.” As I was a dragonewt in this form, people would believe I was a worshipper of Kargryxmor instead of a royal family member. And, if I ever had to use it, I could always tell people vice versa.

The symbol was on all three bracelets, as Saori and Tasianna were treated as my retainers, but there was also Zephira’s rainbow-colored butterfly symbol on Tasianna’s and Aurena’s angel woman on mine, to symbolize the origin gods we were aligned to, although Tasianna was currently a Plesia worshipper. Saori’s was left blank, as they didn’t know who to choose, but I was sure Marsven was an option due to Saori’s dark magic.

Lastly, there was a sapphire blue core in the middle of the bracelet, responsible for displaying the game-like blue menu.

“All IDs are made with the mana of their owners and react less favorably to foreign mana. The crystal can easily identify this which makes it very difficult to fake ownership of an ID you do not own,” Melia answered Saori’s worry that our cards might be stolen while our registration to the hunters guild was being completed. “I was told these IDs will only function if its owner pours their mana into them, so there should be no chance of anybody else using it without your consent. They also possess the ability to hide information from [Identify], and from the crystals. Due to this feature, they are quite expensive, a minimum of two small goldite and five large silvite, so please do not lose them.”

“What?!” Saori let out once she heard the price of these cards, horror-struck. “Y-You are telling us these three cards cost 750 thousand Davi?! I-I-I have no words. Wait, how much do these party bracelets cost?”

Apparently, the white party bracelets cost 85k Davi each which added up with the IDs to 1,005,000 Davi altogether, translating into one large goldite and five small silvite coins. Wow, lucky me I made Count Helvas or somebody else pay them for me in exchange for giving out my profile information…You know, maybe I am the one who lost out on this deal, maybe?

“1,005,000 Davi…if I translate it one-to-one to yen…guck…” Saori’s pale face looked a bit worrying, especially with her twitching eye. Was she not used to holding this much money on hand?

Hmm, if it were 1,005,000 yen then that would be…parallel minds quick math please! Ok, who am I kidding, I don’t even know the conversion rate for it. All I know is that mama once told me to simply subtract two zeros from it and I’ll have my number, although, it won’t be the exact one. Which means, these three cards and bracelets cost us around 10,000 USD. Huh, that’s a lot but I guess these things are similar to iPhones.

“Ah, and they are finished. I thank you for your patience. Please, take them,” Melia stated, handing us our three black IDs before giving us a small bow. “And with that, I would like to officially welcome you to the hunters guild! I anticipate much from you three!”

Adventurer ID, acquired!

The black rectangular ID felt firm in my hand, although, I should still watch my strength to not accidentally break it. The front of my ID was divided down the middle. On the right side, it had basic information, like my name, age, level, and job, while the left side was decorated by a large Kargryxmor emblem.

Remembering how Master Kush could morph the symbol on his ID, I activated [Mana Eyes] and began pouring mana into the symbol. Aside from getting a massive headache since the room was filled with adventures, whether they had a lot or little mana, I could confirm the mechanism was similar to Master Kush’s card. The emblem switched from Kargryxmor’s to Aurena’s and then to one with a bow and sword entwined with each other, the exact one I saw outside the guild. This has to be the hunters guild’s emblem.

“These IDs and bracelets are also adaptable, so when a new model or function is released to the public, simply go to a dwarven manatechnician and they will fulfill your request. Unfortunately, the only branch in Artorias is in our capital, Griffonpeak,” Melia explained.

“Alright, cool, very cool, but can we get our Jobs now?!” I demanded with an excitement-filled voice, placing my hand on the counter and leaning forward.

“Oh, of course,” Melia confirmed with a professional smile, undeterred of my childish enthusiasm. “Please, place your hand on the crystal. Once it glows white, please, say ‘Open Job Menu’ and I will give everybody an explanation during the whole process.”

As Saori and Tasianna simply shrugged at who should go first, I volunteered without a single delay. Placing my hand on the crystal, I called out “Open Job Menu” once the crystal glowed white from stealing my mana. A blue screen projected from the crystal, once again showing how game-like this world was.

Weekly Job Change Limit: 3/3

Previous Jobs:

Main Job: [None]

Weekly limit?

“Melia, there is a limit to how often I can change my Job in a single week?! But- this blows!” I shouted in disappointment.

Melia shook her head at my complaint. “The hunters guild cannot do anything about it, as this is a rule from the Divine System. The Origin Gods have set the rules, and we as their followers can only abide by them. However, please rest your worries, the restriction isn’t too terrible once you learn the rest of the details. Please, put your finger on the menu and pull it down.”

With Saori and Tasianna watching over my shoulders, blocking anybody from peeking, I did what Melia instructed me to do, muttering, “This is so RPG-like,” as more information came into view after I scrolled down.

Available Jobs

[Freelancer] [Caster] [Fighter] [Bard] [Scout] [Worker] [Academic] [Noble] [Scale-Dust User] [White Pyromancer] [Corrosive Pyromancer] [Usurper] [Champion of Aurena] [Crimson Saintess] [Idol]

Fuck, where did I get [Crimson Saintess] from?!

“…Lady Hestia, please pour your mana into this manatech.” Melia handed me a small staff with a green ball on its top. Once I poured in a bit of mana into it, an invisible barrier flowed out from it.

“[Air Shield]?” I asked, knowing this sensation very well.

“Correct, as you have the spell, you should be aware we don’t have too much time to speak before dispelling the shield,” Melia said. “Anyway…May your soul stay eternally bright, champion and saintess of the Goddess of Light! It is wonderful to have confirmation!” Melia shouted in excitement, bowing before me in a prayer pose. This action caught people’s attention, but most of them simply shrugged it off, probably since I looked like a priestess with my white robe.

After I told her to stop as I still didn’t feel comfortable with my new role, Melia explained this manatech was loaned to her by Farron, the hunters guild master, as it was necessary to work with me due to the confidential information. Aside from wanting to keep it a secret myself, the kingdom did too. Why? Well, it seems I will get all my questions answered by Ellaine.

With that said, we went back to the Job menu. Although every Job after [Noble] was conspicuous, there were also a ton of Jobs I thought were missing. Remembering all the people I’d identified who had a Job, I was 100% sure there should be more. There wasn’t even [Mage], which Tasianna had.

“Ah, the reason for that is because you must unlock them first, Lady Hestia,” Tasianna chimed in. “Aside from the obvious ones, all of your current available Jobs are the beginner ones, the basics. Think of the Job system as a tree. The novice classes are the seed and every time you acquire another Job, more branches of the original Job will unlock until you reach the end of the Job line. For example, you must first acquire [Caster] to obtain [Mage], and afterward, you can specialize your elemental preference like [Wind Mage] and [Water Mage].”

“That is correct. Every Job has a specific requirement you must fulfill before it becomes available. Aside from requiring the prerequisite Jobs, you must sometimes acquire certain skills, reach a minimum stat line, obtain merit, or even, in your case, for example, possess blessings and titles,” Melia added. “There is a book the guild can lend you if you wish to plan your route. Otherwise, if you would please choose a Job, I will continue with the benefits of gaining a Job.”

Hmm, a Job, huh? I would like to get [Idol] first, but I think taking [Caster] first will increase the number of available Jobs. Seeing more Jobs will be so satisfying. I can take [Idol] later on, after all.

Job: Caster

Requirements: [Mana Control], [Arcane Mind]

Acquisition Benefits: Mana Increase, Intelligence Increase

Main Job Benefits: None

Caster

A novice magician who has taken their first step into the arcane. This class aids the novice by increasing the necessary stats to help them acquire their first [Magic] skill

The requirements are exactly what I expected you needed to become a mage.

[Mana Control] to control mana and [Arcane Mind] to open up spell slots. [Arcane Corruption Resistance] wasn’t necessary but every mage will one day get it if they cast too often. Feels good that I guessed it correctly in the first two months of my life here.

“Whenever you acquire a Job, you will receive an immediate boost in your stats or even acquire skill proficiencies. As you are aware, when the proficiency of a skill reaches a certain amount, you unlock or level up a skill,” Melia explained.

“What is this ‘Main Job Benefit?’” Saori asked, pointing at the bottom of the menu.

Melia diligently nodded her head in confirmation and continued explaining once I deactivated the [Air Shield] manatech. “Are the three of you aware of ‘Job Skills’, ‘Job Abilities’, ‘Job Spells’? Anybody can get as many Jobs as they wish, as they are only limited by the acquisition requirements and weekly limits, and their Job timeline will be noted down in the ‘Previous Jobs’ column. However, the Main Job is the one you currently have, the one that will show on your profile and ID. If a Job offers a certain skill, you are only allowed to use that skill when you have that Job as your Main Job.”

“Woah, that’s good to know. I presume we can always change the Job whenever we want, correct?” I uttered, surprised to hear a mechanic like that.

“Yes, if you have access to a [Crystal of the Divine System]. Lady Hestia, if this is the Job you wish to acquire first, then please say ‘I choose the Job’ and then your preferred one.”

Nodding, I called out “I choose the Job [Caster]” and immediately another System message came flying into my head.

Will you change your Job to   [Caster]?

It’s been a long time since you last asked me something, System voice. Ja.

Individual   [Sunfang Dragonewt, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has acquired Job [Caster]

Attributes have increased due to Job acquisition

Will you set Job   [Caster] as your Main Job?

Ja.

Individual   [Sunfang Dragonewt, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has switched her Main Job to [Caster]

Main Job benefits have been updated due to Job change

Caster Level: 0/5

Huh? Level?

“Oh, that is one of the wonderful parts of the Job system, Lady Hestia. As you know, monsters can only grow in strength by leveling, performing strenuous activities, or evolving. Humanoids like beastmen and elves, on the other hand, do not possess the ability to evolve, so they must rely on the Job system for continuous stat improvements, compared to a monster’s burst improvements,” Tasianna clarified, hinting on our difference in improvements. “Each Job acquisition grants you stats and skill improvements, and each Job also has a separate level unrelated to your current one. Even if you reach a ‘wall’ or ‘blockade,’ you can always level up your Job to further increase your stats. Any method which grants you experience works.”

She then shyly scratched her cheeks, showing us a wry smile as she continued, “Hopefully, I can finally catch up. I have been waiting to change my Job for a very, very long time.”

Ahh, yeah, I can understand her frustration. It was similar to my evolution. My level was maxed out so any experience I gained was being wasted until I evolved. The fact that it was my own decision to not evolve dulled that annoyance, but imagine if I couldn’t just ‘cause of some stupid reason like having no access to it? Yeah, poor Tasianna.

“Once you have maxed out your Job level, simply return to the guild and you may change your Job,” Melia said with a wide smile. “However, each subsequent Job acquisition will cost you one small silvite. Merely switching between Jobs you’ve already acquired is free, though.”

“Hold on!” Saori yelled, holding her hand up in a stop sign. “One silvite?! Are you telling me each change will cost us 1000 Davi? Why do we have to pay for that?”

Still keeping up a professional smile, Melia spoke slowly and calmly to soothe the distressed Saori. “While the hunters guild as a whole possesses adequate resources, individual branches often do not have the funds to buy a [Crystal of the Divine System]. We must rent them from either a noble, a wealthy merchant, or the lord of the fief. Most guild branches must do this if they aren’t managed by a wealthy individual, to save on costs. We only charge for Job acquisitions in order to acquire the funds for the monthly payment.”

“Come on, Saori, it’s not like it’s a lot to pay. We got the money and we can always earn more, no problem,” I added, unsure why Saori was making such a fuss over 1000 Davi.

Saori brows curled up, scowling at me as she began her lecture. “…Hestia, the costs pile up. If each of us receives one Job acquisition free of charge, but each subsequent one costs us, then we have to pay 6000 Davi for this week alone. If we use up our weekly limits every time, it will cost us 9000 Davi. We currently only have 14,443 Davi exactly in party funds. Do you know how much each Quest pays or how much we need to pay for other services like equipment, maybe some potions, or, you know, our insane food costs?! Are you planning to leech off Lady Ellaine forever?”

…Oh, whoops. Kinda overlooked those things. But, can’t we just earn more money? How hard can it be?

Watching Saori and I argue over it, Melia couldn’t help but giggle. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause an argument between the two of you, hie hie. Please, don’t worry, the hunters guild treats their accomplished hunters well, and we offer each hunter a free Job acquisition each time they are promoted to the next rank. Young and new hunters cannot afford Job changes so this is a good way to incentivize them to work hard! You three are eligible for three free changes, excluding your welcoming bonus.”

Ahh, I see, how smart! With how powerful these Job changes are, beginners will want to improve fast to get the free changes and, presumably, access the higher paying Quests.

“...Do beginners even have the funds to change their Job often, in the first place?” Saori mumbled, but told us to ignore it.

Now that I was the proud owner of the [Caster] Job, Saori and Tasianna took the opportunity to change their Jobs too. Saori started out with the [Scout] Job, the first Job in the rogue tree line, and Tasianna acquired [Water Mage] as she only needed one more level in her [Water Magic] to unlock [Torrent Magic].

As it would be irresponsible on my first day as an adventurer to not get a proper Quest, I went to the bulletin board next to the counter, where a ton of parchment sheets were hanging. A few adventurers stood there, probably deciding on which quest to take.

“Oi, the new ‘D ranker.’ Better stay away from her, I think she’s a noble.”

“Geez, I thought even nobles weren’t given this privilege. You work like everybody else and get promoted after completing Quests. She’s not even properly equipped. If she’s a mage then where is her catalyst?”

“Hey, shut it. You weren’t here three days ago. I heard she’s level 80, and look at that robe. Priestess. If you want to keep buying those overpriced healing potions, then go ahead and make her angry.”

Ok, all these whispers are really ticking me off!

There was quite a lot of gossip coming from the adventurers, and most of them moved away the moment I came over. The ones remaining were the only ones who ignored me, seemingly unfazed by my appearance. The largest among them was a well-built man in his thirties, with a massive greatsword or claymore he was carrying around on his shoulder, who exuded an aura of veterancy and competency. He carefully took three sheets from the bulletin and slowly walked back to his party who were sitting over at a table.

As I was curious who they were, I turned around and accidentally locked my eyes with one of them, a young man with wild dark-red hair. His decently used leather armor, the sword on his hip, and round wooden shield strapped to his left arm suggested he was a fighter with some experience. The stare he was giving me felt uncomfortable, as it looked like he was in a bad mood.

And that was when it came back to me. He was one of the people who gossiped; something about how I wasn’t properly equipped or something. Well, hopefully, you mind your own business, mister!

When I made my intention clear, the four other members of his party probably told him to stop from how they were gesturing. A mage girl in her late teens smacked him on his head with her staff; the female arvisian archer with beautiful verdant green wings scoffed at him; the fully furred wolfkin rogue scolded him with wild, energetic gestures; and the veteran greatsword warrior simply smacked the sheets on the table to gain his attention.

Ha! Serves you right, you douche!

Ignoring them, I returned my attention to the board and took a couple of Quest sheets. I was more interested in the subjugation and hunting quests, although it seemed the hunters guild also offered gathering Quests. Whether it was herbs or specific monster materials, anything related to going out to nature and gathering was there. One of the two sheet’s I’d picked was for a gathering Quest, just to try it out.

I returned to the counter and handed the sheets to Melia. She took out one of them to explain to me how Quests worked. She placed the parchment in a printer-like scanner and a blue screen projected from the crystal.

Quest: Goblin Subjugation

Rank: G

Reward: Experience, 1 G Rank Point, 2 Large Copper Davi

Objective: Slay 10 Goblins of any kind

Slain Monsters: 0/10

“This is what most adventurers call ‘Novice Grind Quests’ as they are always available and mostly targeted for beginners. Goblins and kobolds spawn even if the mana concentration in the area is low and they reproduce quickly in high numbers if they somehow survive, so they will always need to be culled,” Melia explained. “Honestly, if you weren’t rank D, I would advise against taking any subjugation Quests before you raise your levels. Although they are only rank G, grouped goblins and kobolds are the main reason why most novice hunters die. They underestimate how dangerous this line of work can be…” Melia’s smile darkened for a moment as she paused, but recovered the next moment. “Thankfully, I will not have to worry if you three were to test the waters as hunters with this Quest. Otherwise, you may do a gathering Quest and hand it in to me.”

Noticing she didn’t want to talk about it, Saori didn’t press for more information and instead directed our attention to something else. “Tell me about this ‘Rank Point’ in the reward section. What are those? And we also receive experience from completing Quests?”

Tasianna did mention you can gain experience from Quests. Good to know this RPG feature is faithfully adapted in this world.

“Rank points are needed for you to be promoted to the next rank and you can collect them by completing Quests. The guild works on a merit system, instead of assessing each adventurer by their strengths alone. That is why we cannot promote you any further than rank D,” Melia replied. “We wish to build a good relationship with our clientele and to do so, we must gain their respect and maintain our reputation as being reliable and trustworthy. Although strong hunters are needed for dangerous Quests, we also need reliable and friendly ones. An untrustworthy, almost criminal hunter will find it hard to get promoted as we the guild are the judge, and a lazy hunter who would only does the minimum will accrue points slowly. This point system was established to help the guild assess this.”

She then paused for a moment and pointed at our ID and bracelet. “Some guilds, like the hunters guild, unlock new features in your IDs and bracelet once you register. For example, the ‘Guild Point System’ wasn’t initially available to you at the time of your registration but once you attach your ID to your bracelet, you can keep track of your points and how many you will need for your next promotion. You can even show your adventurer rank on your ID much the same way as you switch emblems.”

Melia’s ears then twitched into action, making a gesture that suggested she remembered something. She then went over to the bulletin board and took a sheet off. “I apologize if this isn’t something you want but please have a look.”

Quest: A Dreihorn Skorr pack have gathered near Talua Farm

Rank: D

Reward: Experience, 5 E Rank Point, 1 D Rank Point, a total of 4357 Davi

Description: A pack of [Dreihorn Skorr] has gathered near Talua farm, presumably for winter rest. They have not harmed any farmers yet but the risk demands attention. The farmers have sighted around 12 but couldn’t confirm a number as they live deep in the woods. These beasts are rank E, but please make additional preparations in case an alpha is leading this pack

Objective: Slay all [Dreihorn Skorr] and disperse the pack. Protect the farmers of Talua Farm

Slain Monsters: 0

“In general, D rank Quests would require a minimum of 8000 to 15000 Davi in Quest money to compensate hunters for the risks and preparations. I told the poor farmer this, but it seems he couldn’t afford to pay more. This Quest has been lying around for five days now,” Melia mentioned. “Being a hunter does not make you a philanthropist nor does the guild promote it. A hunter should put their lives foremost in consideration before they take a Quest. Although it isn’t very far from Firwood, winter has made traveling difficult for most hunters. Bad pay, snow, and a difficult request. Not a good combination, especially when the payment has to be divided among the party.”

“True, even if we were to divide it amongst us, it would only be 1452 per person. That is one Job change, excluding what preparations a normal hunter must do. However,” Saori then looked at me with a questioning look. “we aren’t normal. If it is close by, we can probably reach it in about an hour even with all the snow. We have not set up our personal funds yet, aside from Lady Hestia, so all this money will simply go into our party funds. There won’t be any disagreements and we can begin accumulating points. As a side note, I gained [Mathematician] from that quick math.”

“Considering the distance and also how we do need to ‘test the waters,’ this would be a nice Quest to begin with,” Tasianna agreed to Saori’s arguments. “We will probably return before sunset and also get a chance to change our Jobs again. Twelve rank Es will easily max our Job levels.”

Thinking over it, I had only one question in my head. “Can we keep the materials, like the meat?”

“Lady Hestia!” Saori suddenly yelled out. “You are supposed to say ‘this is a good opportunity to gain fans’ instead of reasoning it with your stomach. Helpless people needing help and you can provide it is your entire gimmick since we met, Lady Hestia. The next milestone is very important for you!”

Hey, I can’t help it, Saori. The last time I tasted their meat, it was pretty delicious. Besides, this would cut down our food expenses so cut me some slack.

“I’m joking, I’m joking, jeez. You do know you’re the person who told me to be less self-destructive and stop recklessly plunging into every single situation, right. And now you’re promoting it,” I shrugged at the obvious irony of the situation. “Still…you’re right. Our first Quest should be for the people. We can treat this as another of our hunts, and I haven’t hunted a rank E in a while now, hie hie hie.” I said with glee.

“I-I see, if you can help, then I will be eternally grateful, Lady Hestia. That would erase a worry of mine,” Melia bowed, speaking with a mix of awe and concern for my creepy laugh. “I will need your IDs to register the Quest.”

I also told Melia to register us for two goblin slaying Quests and one gathering Quest, as I wanted to stay out on the field for a bit. I can’t believe I would say this one day, but I actually needed a break from the city life for a bit. As comfortable as it was to live in Ellaine’s mansion, my combat senses would dull if I stayed there for too long. I need to sharpen them, even just for a bit.

After Melia wished us luck and to take care of ourselves, we walked from the guild to the town’s gate in the commoner’s district. After showing the guards our IDs, we ventured into the white, snowy wilds outsides of Firwood.

“Ahhhh, freedom!” I shouted out, scaring a few of the people entering the town. “I’ve set our experience share to give us an equal one-third share. Hie hie, I haven’t leveled in such a long time now, I don’t know when the last time was. You ready, Saori, Tasianna?”

“True, it has been nearly three months since your last level up. It feels a bit nostalgic, no? The last time when we actually just went out of our way to hunt was during our stay in the Belzac forest,” Saori commented, chuckling. “Hie hie, those days were so simple despite the dangers. So, are we using the ‘Idol concert’ or the ‘Portable Hestia Rifle’ strategy, this time?”

“Miss Saori, I hope you aren’t planning to bolt from tree to tree, again. I believe you would scare the farmers and cause a misunderstanding,” Tasianna said with worry before unrolling a map. “The map Melia sold us for 3000 Davi is pretty detailed and encompasses the whole of the Sirius march. With our usual moving speed, we should have no problem reaching it before the lunch bell. Let us go, Lady Hestia, Miss Saori.”

Tasianna learned how to read maps during her time in her village, where she spent a lot of her time in the library. Although her general knowledge was sometimes outdated, her ability to understand maps would help us maneuver around quicker.

As estimated, we reached the farm pretty quickly. We spoke with our Quest giver and then went hunting for the skorrs. Using the super impressive “Portable Hestia Rifle” we cleanly slew a total of 15 skorrs and now had a ton of delicious pork.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Job [Caster] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 5]

Max level of Job   [Caster] has been reached

Attributes have increased due to level up

This confirmed two things; my stats would increase whenever I leveled my Jobs but it wouldn’t give me Skill Points, which was a shame. I still had to be careful with my SP usage until I started consistently leveling again.

I also wanted to confirm whether the stats I’d gotten from my Job would also carry over to my dragon form. If they did, then I had to start gathering Jobs and level them up. This would be a great side project to make myself stronger outside of evolving and training.

After showing the farmers the bodies, they gave us a confirmation paper to hand to Melia for our reward. We left the guild and I opened the ‘Quest List’ function of my party bracelet to see four Quests in it. I put a tick to the side of the Quest [A Dreihorn Skorr pack has gathered near Talua Farm] to remind myself I fulfilled it and we then went to kill some green goblins.

Compared to the kobolds I saw in the Belzac forest who showed some intelligence, these goblins were feral and ravenous. The moment they saw us, they let their tongues out, smiled at us gleefully, and charged at us with such a perverted laugh I almost cringed. Suffice to say, their charred bodies smelled terrible.

Similar to the skorr Quest, the moment anyone in my party killed one of the designated monsters, the “Slain Monsters” number would increase, proving we killed it. It was satisfying to see it go up. Gamification of tasks like this made it fun.

We killed twenty goblins and gathered some herbs, and quickly returned to town. We handed in the completed Quests to Melia just a bit before sunset. She was surprised to see us back so early but once I showed her all the skorr and goblin bodies, she simply smiled and muttered, “as expected from Lady Hestia, Saori, and Tasianna.”

Aside from her sweet smile, we also gained a total of 5107 Davi. 4357 from the skorr quest, 400 from the goblins, and 150 from the gathering one. Saori still complained it was quite low, but quickly gave up on complaining once she reminded herself to simply work harder. I was more annoyed I couldn’t get any fans from the farmers.

Maybe I should have acted more like a priestess to impress them. They treated me similarly to the Carine villagers, when they saw my robe, but it seems it wasn’t enough to convert them into “fans.” However, how does a priestess actually act? Should I ask the church for some lessons?

Individual   [Sunfang Dragonewt, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has switched her Main Job to [Mage]

Main Job benefits have been updated due to Job change

Mage Level: 0/5

After changing our Jobs, my party then went to the mercenary guild. The receptionist there, somehow recognizing me, helped our registration as mercenaries. Aside from killing bandits, there were also various jobs to help the locals, such as bodyguard duty or skill training. Compared to the hunters guild, we were only rank G here. With the registration done, we handed in the two commission papers we got from Ellaine.

For the bandit subjugation Quest, we received 10750 Davi. Although I rejected Chief Colwyn’s offer to pay us, instead suggesting they could repay us by letting us stay in their village for winter, Ellaine personally couldn’t let it go. Her father commissioned the Quest so House Helvas had a responsibility to pay. It was initially 21500, but the other half went to Master Kush’s party.

The escort “Quest” where I accompanied Ellaine to Firwood was worth 1000 Davi. Considering it was all a pretense and how she literally fed me and gave me a place to sleep, the money was really redundant.

Anyway, altogether, we made 16857 Davi but used up 3000 to buy that map, today. In total, our party’s funds were now 28300. I have no idea why Saori was still worrying. Whatever.

We then returned to Ellaine’s mansion to rest for the day and get ready for tomorrow. While work and getting some money would be nice, I haven’t done my Idol training for three days now. I think I’ll do some tomorrow and maybe I can borrow Ellaine’s geigler and play at the local tavern or even in the guild itself?

“Lady Hestia, I welcome you back. I see you have been active.” The moment we entered the mansion’s demesne, Ellaine greeted us in front of the door and quickly pulled us into her room. With Barathan and Manuela having accompanied us, Ellaine began explaining what was stated in the letter she received from her father this morning after I left the mansion.

Surprisingly, there wasn’t much stated in it aside from the fact that her father, the royal family, Marquess Sirius, and Duke Greenveil were made privy to my information and wanted Ellaine to keep me close as much as possible. To make sure Ellaine understood what was going on, she and the two head attendants standing behind her received a copy of our party’s IDs.

After she was done explaining, she stood up from her chair, bent her left leg, and genuflected with both of her attendants. “Lady Hestia — No, Your Imperial Highness, Dragon Princess Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor of the Dragon Empire Kargryx and the Vassal State Loatryx. I, Ellaine Fiero Helvas, would like to officially welcome you under the gaze of her holiness, Origin Goddess of Light Aurena, to the Kingdom of Artorias. May the Goddess guide you with her divine light and may your stay with us be sublime.”

It was just over the top. Unlike how the hunter’s guild branch master addressed me, Ellaine dialed it up to 200%. The elegance she showed me was filled with her [Noble Aura], making me feel a bit dizzy about the whole situation.

Knowing they couldn’t stand up before I told them to, I told them to rise with a gesture of my hand. “Jeez…you know I don’t like that, Lady Ellaine. Haaa, is it even appropriate for a noble to kneel before foreign royalty?”

Back on her seat, Ellaine’s lips curved into a teasing smile as she responded, “I do apologize but it is for courtesy’s sake. House Helvas believed you were a princess, but we neglected to give you a proper welcome, no?” Holding her hands together, she quickly clapped in a girlish way. “And yes, nobles are to show proper respect to royalty, even if they come from another country. They were, after all, given a title by the gods. Your question nearly caught me off-guard, if I hadn’t remembered you were an otherworlder. We must have more tea parties for you to learn about our world, yes?”

“…You’re taking this pretty lax; I imagined you would be a bit, well, overwhelmed.”

“Oh, please, take my word on it that this morning was chaotic for Barathan, Manuela, and me. I nearly fainted from the information overload, hie hie,” she giggled. “However, I had nearly an entire day to accept the information. It is my duty as a noble to keep a calm mind.”

As I was feeling a bit guilty for nearly giving Ellaine a panic attack, Manuela stepped forwards and asked Ellaine and me if she could speak with Tasianna. We obliged, as Tasianna wasn’t against it.

The moment she was face-to-face with Tasianna, Manuela dropped to her knees, earnestly prostrating. As my party was flabbergasted at her action, Manuela began to speak in a sorrow-filled tone. “Miss Tasianna, at the beginning, I had believed you were an elf and thought the cold reception you gave me was for the unforgivable history between our two races. I accepted it as we humans deserve it for what we did.”

She paused for a moment to calm down the anxiety in her voice before continuing, “But, now that I have learned about your true nature. I must ask for your forgiveness as a former resident of the Morgiana Duchy. Everything that happened to the fairies and the other faefolk was because of our negligence and cowardice! I didn’t live during that time, but my ancestors’ decision to stand neutral was the gravest mistake the Morgiana duchy has ever made! We talked about being allies but history has proven our weakness…”

Manuela’s strained breath made it seem like every word her mouth released was piercing her body like a dagger. I didn’t know she came from the Morgiana duchy, but I did hear a bit of how that duchy was the closest to the elves before the “War for the Faefolk” happened. I still didn’t know much about that particular piece of history, but it seems the Morgiana duchy did something to betray the elves’ trust.

Tasianna’s eyes glimmered with a hint of sadness as she simply looked at Manuela, keeping her mouth shut. After a couple of seconds, Tasianna responded, “…I can never forgive the human race for what they did to me and my race. The fairies might forget, but I won’t…However, please, rise. Your words might soothe the departed more…”

Giving out one last “I’m so, so sorry…,” Manuela asked Ellaine for permission to leave the room. The lingering awkwardness was suffocating.

In an attempt to diffuse it, Ellaine cleared her voice and looked at me. “L-Lady Hestia! I wish to ask you for a favor if it would please you,” she suddenly stated in her noble persona.

“Uhhh, sure, what?” I uttered, feeling hopeful this would break the tension.

“After analyzing much of your ID, would it be rude to ask you for your age before I ask my favor?”

“Uhm, nope. I’m a nine months old dragon whelp, but when I died in my previous world, I was 15. So, I am 15 mentally and physically in my dragonewt and human forms,” I answered.

“Good, thank you…” she paused for a moment to breathe in heavily, before shouting, “Then…please, I ask you to tutor me! I wish to become a better mage!”

Well, that is one way to break the mood.

Profile:

Name: Saori Segawa

Level: 69

Race: Wolfkin

Age: 18 Years

Job: Rogue Level: 0/5

Status:

Health:

2806/2806

Mana:

1211/1211

Strength:

1750

Intelligence:

637

Vitality:

1321

Wisdom:

1295

Agility:

2293

Stamina:

2005/2005

Effects:

[Humanization (Moderate)]

Skill Points:

2650 (-2000)

Unique Skill:

[Shadow Armament Lv. 6] (+1)

Skill:

Magic skills and related:

[Mana Efficiency Lv. 8] (+2)

[Arcane Mind Lv. 9] (+1)

[Mana Control Lv. 10]

[Dark Magic Lv. 10]

[Dark Amp]

[Dark Magic Efficiency]

[Tenebrous Magic Lv. 1]

[Space-Time Magic Lv. 3]

[Space-Time Efficiency]

[Chant Revocation Lv. 10]

[Mental Stability Lv. 6] (+1)

[Mental Warfare Lv. 6] (+1)

[Silent Casting Lv. 10] (+1)

[Fluid Cast Lv. 2] (+1)

[Multi-Cast Lv. 1]

Physical skills and related:

[Unarmed Technique Lv. 9] (+2)

[Unarmed Mastery Lv. 4] (+1)

[Dagger Technique Lv. 3] (+1)

[Sundering Enhancement Lv. 8] (+2)

[Piercing Enhancement Lv. 6] (+2)

[Crushing Enhancement Lv. 3] (+1)

[Lupine Claws Lv. 2] (+1)

[Lupine Fangs Lv. 2] (+1)

Senses and movement skills:

[Primal Senses]

[Silence Lv. 1]

[Foresight Lv. 1] (New)

[Concentration Lv. 6] (+1)

[Detection Sensor Lv. 1]

[Danger Perception Lv. 9]

[Tracking Lv. 6]

[Heat Vision Lv. 3]

[Night Vision Lv. 8]

[Odorless Lv. 1] (New)

[Evasion Lv. 10]

[Acrobatic Lv. 10]

[Air Walk Lv. 1]

[Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 6]

Resistances:

[Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 3]

[Absolute Pain Tolerance]

[Abnormal Status Nullification] (New)

[Fear Resistance Lv. 1]

[Arcane Corruption Resistance Lv. 10]

[Ice Resistance Lv. 3] (+1)

[Lightning Resistance Lv. 2] (+1)

[Holy Resistance Lv. 6] (+2)

[Fire Resistance Lv. 9] (+1)

[Earth Resistance Lv. 7] (+1)

[Water Resistance Lv. 5] (+1)

[Wind Resistance Lv. 6] (+1)

[Dark Resistance Lv. 7] (+1)

Stat growths and related:

[Health Recovery Lv. 5]

[Mana Recovery Lv. 4] [Stamina Recovery Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Health Growth Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Mana Growth Lv.´4]

[Enhanced Mana Capacity Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Intelligence Growth Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Intelligence Enforcement Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Agility Enforcement Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Stamina Capacity Lv. 5]

Others:

[Dancing Lv. 1]

[Mathematician Lv. 1] (New)

[Identify Blocker Lv. 10]

[Identify Lv. 10] (+1)

[Terror Aura Lv. 4]

[Bloodlust Lv. 2]

[Battle Mind Lv. 5]

[Lifetaker Lv. 3]

[Mana Weave Lv. 10] (+1)

[Sewing Lv. 10] (+2)

[Elemental Mana Weave Lv. 5] (+2)

[Royal Etiquette Lv. 3] (+1)

[Cooking Lv. 10] (+2)

[Dismantle Lv. 6] (+1)

[Humanize Lv. 7]

[Telepathy]

Ability List:

Unarmed abilities:

[Just Blink]

[Shadow Descent]

Dagger abilities:

[Shadow Pierce]

Spell List:

Custom Spells:

[Shadow Pack]

[Create Water]

Dark Spells:

[Dark Bolt]

[Dark Tendrils]

[Shadow Dash]

[Dark Slash]

[Shadow Clones]

[Shadow Snake]

[Enfeebling Winds]

[Claws of Darkness]

[Umbral Pendulum]

Space-Time Spells:

[Haste]

[Storage Magic]

Titles:

[Belzac’s Successor] [Otherworldly Reincarnator] [Hestia’s Retainer]

A note from AbyssRaven

Well, well, well, thank you guys so much! We reached 1500 followers! Thank you guys so very much for the support. I'm not the best author ever, but it really makes smile to see so many people read the story. Thank you so very much.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 108: Groceries for the Hungry Dragoness.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #3 here to promote our Patreon. 12 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 12 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until December!

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“Miss Saori, wouldn’t it be too risky for us to leave Lady Hestia at the mansion? I understand signs of [Battle Frenzy] are minimal at most, so we don’t have to worry for any accidents, but we are still leaving her alone in a human noble’s home,” Tasianna stated out of concern while walking beside me in the bustling streets of Firwood’s upper district of the commoner half.

“You worry too much, Tasianna. Hestia is smart enough to understand not to get involved in political matters of the kingdom, and no aristocrat can force her into their plans without facing diplomatic repercussions. The church is more of a concern, but as long as they cannot pinpoint her location, we have nothing to fear,” I explained. “It seems House Helvas has a vested interest in keeping Hestia’s existence hidden from the church, so we can trust Barathan’s countermeasure to work. Let us stop talking about it and proceed with our own plans.”

After officially becoming adventurers by registering at both adventurer guilds and fulfilling our first Quest together, our party was split today. Hestia was helping Ellaine with her magical training as she promised yesterday, while Tasianna and I were exploring the town without her. She pouted and expressed dislike for being excluded, but after I explained to her this was necessary and we had to do it as soon as possible, she relented.

What we needed to do today was to buy food and acquire some work. Yes, House Helvas was sharing their resources with us, but I dislike having to rely on somebody else to survive, especially when it concerns money. Also, I just want to handpick what our party gets to eat, know where the ingredients came from, you know.

While I wasn’t sure how long Hestia wanted to stay with Ellaine, the three of us agreed we couldn’t stay there for too long. Ellaine will be annoyed, but as we planned to travel the whole world, we had to learn how to be independent in society — and that required money.

Through my time as a teacher at a school focused on talented students with rich parents, I knew some of them had a skewed outlook on money. Hestia’s comment yesterday “we can always earn more money, no problem,” made me more worried than calm. I understood her argument and while it is true, I still felt the need to ensure a more stable money flow than killing monsters and taking down bandits. It’s too dangerous, no matter how much more powerful we will become one day.

That was why Tasianna and I were outside today when we could’ve just relaxed. We needed to stay active and make preparations for our party’s future.

“Urgh…There are too many humans around…” Tasianna complained with an exhausted sigh.

We walked through the upper district, where most of the wealthy commoners lived and worked, and entered the middle district, which was more crowded. As a history student, I absolutely adored the scenery and the architecture of the town as it validated the knowledge I’d gained from those thick history books on my professor’s literature list. Even the slightly advanced mana-fueled streetlights interested me.

It was just after the breakfast bell, so it was rush hour in the district right now. There was a minor rush hour in the upper district, with shop employees commuting to merchant shops, but the one I was in now felt nostalgic. Tasianna hated the crowded environment, but I simply smiled as Tokyo’s rush hour made me resistant to it. Thankfully, it wasn’t as terrible as Tokyo’s metropolitan areas but, unfortunately, it reeked worse.

I should ask Melia or any beastmen around here about how they are able to survive here. The few at Ellaine’s estate are too used to the noble district. Urgh, this smell…

WinterSun, or January, was freezing and snow was falling from the sky, but that didn’t dissuade able-bodied journeymen and women from strapping on a thick coat and marching through the snow-riddled streets. Although I hated having my body covered in fur, it made it easy to endure the cold. Tasianna, on the other hand, was just resistant to it; the perks of an ice mage.

Although I understood the reason for why it wasn’t possible, I really wished the town’s lord had installed a few of those temperature regulator orbs. Peasant workers were a society’s blood, even if it was dominated by a caste system, so it would be smart to support them more.

I can hear complaints, but it seems the general mood of the town is good.

If the economy is still active even during the middle of winter, then a town can continue to act as a hub of commerce and trade, which was a sign of a prosperous settlement. The hunters and mercenary guild were filled with people yesterday too, during both the morning and afternoon rush hours. Marquis Sirius is the lord of Firwood, right? Whatever you’re doing, good work.

The streets were filled with journeymen, trained workers who worked for daily wages; children in working garbs, probably apprentices; and housewives who brought their small children with them. We had to push ourselves through all of them to finally reach the crowded and lively main marketplace.

Barathan’s directions were correct to the point, I praised him in my mind, stuffing the sheet of parchment with directions into my pocket.

Tasianna and I moved through the market, eavesdropping on gossip, haggling, and general chit-chat among the many housewives and merchants. Winter, as expected, had reduced the amount of food sold in the open stalls. There were still stall owners selling homemade crafts, foraged winter fruits and vegetables, and also some even sold cooked monster meat.

Winter might be rough, but the diligent folks of this market were determined to earn any kind of money at all.

“Miss Saori, we’ve been all around the market twice already. Are we buying anything or are we simply observing?” Tasianna questioned me with slight confusion.

I shook my head. “We are, but before you make a purchase, do some research on what is sold. We might have enough money to buy what we need but I would like to be as frugal as possible. We never know when we will need a large amount, urgently, right?”

Looking at me with wonder-filled eyes, Tasianna nodded her head vigorously as she began noting down my words onto her party bracelet’s “notes” function. One of the few new features our new party bracelets had, “notes” worked similarly to a notepad. You could document certain information down and review it whenever you needed to, saving on parchment and paper. Kushlek’zar’s had this feature, but he liked having everything documented on hand instead of “digitally.”

Opening my own “notes” to remind myself what we needed to buy, I decided I had listened enough to the market’s gossip and went to the first stall.

“Excuse me, what are these white fruits?” I asked the human stall owner once he was done with his previous customer.

“Oh, travelers, I presume? No problem, happy to help if you’re planning to buy, ha ha,” he joyfully laughed before pointing at a melon-shaped fir cone. “We locals call these ‘frost cones.’ You ladies should’ve seen them fir trees surrounding our town, right? That’s where ‘Firwood’ came from, after all!”

He explained these frost cones are a winter-only fruit, as normal fir cones usually grow during the other seasons. What distinguished them aside from the color and appearance was that frost cones had a sweet-sour tasting liquid inside them and their shells would turn soft like bread after you cooked or baked them.

When I asked him if I could taste it, he winced, looking confused and unwilling. Sighing, I took out a bag of Davi from my storage and showed it to him, telling him I would pay for the taste test but needed to know how good they were before buying in bulk. Aside from looking flabbergasted at the suddenly appearing money pouch, he looked pretty delighted when I told him I was interested in buying.

He was about to take out a tool to open it, but I simply pried the fruit open with my claws. “Jeez, you wolfkins…” he muttered but I ignored the rest. Instead, I took a sip from it and gave Tasianna the rest.

Sweet and sour, yeah, just like a grapefruit. The inner part is fleshy like a citrus fruit but he wasn’t kidding when he said the scales were edible. What a strange fruit. Peolynca never fails to surprise me.

A total of 31 frost cones were at display and I bought out his entire stock for 8 Davi per piece. His lips curled up in a smile and thanked me, cheerily saying “my family can eat well today!” Considering I heard goblin meat was around 15 Davi from Melia, if he didn’t mind the stench, his family would be eating some unsalted meat today.

As for the frost cones, I wasn’t sure what I would be doing with them. They had potential and the seeds for the fruits were under the scales, so we could always grow them if they proved useful. They needed a cold environment to grow but we had Tasianna for the job; she loved tending to our garden, so she probably won’t mind taking care of a tree.

Aside from some more frost cones, whose vendors adamantly tried to sell to us after witnessing how I brought out a whole stall, and some other winter specialties, there wasn’t anything I was particularly interested in. Most of the food being sold was dried fruit and salted meat. There were some eggs, milk, and animal feed around, but we didn’t need them yet. I still had most of what I’d traded for in Carine village.

Moving away from the stalls, our next goal was a “grocery” shop. Compared to the vendors on the street, these shop owners appeared to have fairly fresh-looking products in abundance. However, what was important was the fact they sold spices.

Entering one of them, I noticed the race of the employees – foxian, a fox human. Although I knew Tasianna’s book knowledge was outdated, the idea of hostility between humans and any other “race” was still imprinted in my head, if Earth’s history was anything to go by. Tasianna mentioned demonkins, but I haven’t seen a single one since we came to Firwood. I should ask Barathan about this subject.

“Welcome, dear customers. I am Zeather, I pray to God Mercurias that we can form a good transaction today,” a foxian welcomed us with a smile on his fox-like head.

Mercurias was the God of Mercantilism and Commercialism and was a subordinate god of Zephira. As a foxian, he was one of the few beastman gods, which should make him extremely popular with his race.

“Hello, Mister Zeather, we wish to see your spice catalog, please,” I told him, and he confirmed with a wide smile before moving behind the counter and taking out two boxes full of spices.

While he did that, I took a look inside the shop. It was a small to medium-sized shop manned by Zeather and another clerk who was checking on the products on display, scribbling something down on a wooden tablet. Aside from the spices we wanted, the store also sold a variety of local fruits, vegetables, and imported goods. The store was humble in appearance, but it had to have been profitable.

“Dear customer, please inform Zeather if something catches your eye. Zeather would be happy to help!” he said with a small bow.

I looked through the spice catalog, picked some up with my gloved hands, and smelled them. “Do you have any fulinoe leaves or parshkey? I recognize a few herbs and spices came from the Belzac forest.”

“Ahh, we don’t sell those tea leaves and herbs, esteemed customer. They are reserved for nobles. Zeather can confirm we received a few of the spices from hunters and herb gatherers who ventured into the Belzac forest, but most of them come from local spice farms,” he explained to us, saying Belzac forest herbs and spices were grown at a farm near Firwood. “Otherwise, our honored employer imports quality goods from the rest of the kingdom. Of course, we keep everything fresh and safe. Dear customers, you can rest assured, we always deliver the highest quality products. In the name of the merchant guild and God Mercurias.”

“Miss Saori, I saw some tazlokwheat and beans. I’ve also spotted other products on our to-buy list,” Tasianna informed me, having roamed through the shop as I was speaking with Zeather.

“Mister Zeather, you seem to run a very impressive shop with such a wide variety of goods,” I praised him. “You mentioned you value quality, so how can you assure the quality of your products? It’s in the middle of winter and I can see spring and summer crops inside your shop.”

Zeather’s smile widened even more, looking prideful as he began explaining everything to me, “Those products were grown to the south of Artorias, in a kingdom called Atadoro where winter’s frost doesn’t affect the farmer’s life too much. We import them before winter to our shop where we store them in our storages to preserve their freshness, eventually selling them to wealthy customers for their winter preparations. Outside of winter, we support the kingdom’s farms, of course. Also, if our dear customers ever wish to travel outside the kingdom, I would dissuade you from going to Atadoro. No beastmen can live there in peace.”

“What do you mean by that? How do you know we aren’t from Firwood” I asked him with curiosity and suspicion.

“You have a smell unfamiliar to me and Firwood, so our dear customers must be travelers, and I only wish to look out for our dear customers. A foxian’s sense of smell is almost as powerful as a wolfkin’s, if Zeather may be so proud to say,” Zeather replied with a waning smile. “Unlike in Firwood, slavery and oppression of beastmen is normal in the human ruled Kingdom of Atadoro. If you, our dear customers, are adventurers then please remember to not go to Atadoro. Even the dukedom to the south, the duchy of Lecartiglio, isn’t too friendly to beastmen, but they, at least, don’t have slavery.”

Looking at Tasianna, I saw a tiny bit of smugness in her eyes, telling me “I knew my books weren’t completely wrong!” as her hatred for humans was once again ignited. “Thank you for the information,” I responded. “As thanks, how about we talk business. This is what I need, and I’ll also take those, those, and those. The whole box, please.” I showed him the list of ingredients and products I had in my “notes” and then pointed at a few other crates.

Zeather’s eyes widened in surprise and called over the other foxian. To my surprise, it wasn’t a man, but a woman. Compared to Melia who had the face and form of a human with animal features, she reminded me more of my “werewolf” form. Her whole body reminded me more of a two-legged fox with the height of a small woman, only differentiating herself from Zeather through her build and a large scar across her left eye, which was completely white.

Was his warning based on personal experience?

“This is my sister, Quini, she works with me at our honored employers’ store and handles our inventory,” Zeather introduced her, while she gave us a small bow without saying a word. “Quini, I’ve written down what our dear customers need. Please, check the storage if we have enough. I will take care of the rest of the transaction.”

With a small nod, Quini went into the back of the shop.

“I knew humans were terrible. Cruel beings…” Tasianna muttered as she watched the female foxian go.

“…I will not pry if you do not want to speak about it, but I will once again thank you for warning us, Mister Zeather,” I said.

Keeping up his smile, he thanked me for respecting his privacy and encouraged us to forget about it and return to business, as that was our goal here. After getting confirmation from his sister and calculating everything together, the total price for everything was one large silvite and two small silvite, which was 12000 Davi.

…Are you kidding me? That’s nearly half of our current funds!

While we could save money by growing and harvesting some spices and seasoning by ourselves, we couldn’t do it with vegetables, fruits, and spices like salt. The amount I needed, not to mention Hestia’s gluttonous appetite, was huge, and Tasianna would need a whole farm to fulfill our calorie requirements. This isn’t even including how much the meat would cost.

I wasn’t sure how long this supply would last, but it should be enough for a whole week. I needed to gauge our party’s food consumption and its costs before seeing where I could save on money.

Hestia could stay relatively healthy with her “photosynthesis” during mornings and a hearty dinner meal after the sun went down, but I couldn’t do that to her. She’s a bit of a picky eater and she has complained how boring it was to only “eat” solar rays. I had to agree, food was one of life’s greatest things and it would be torture for a growing girl accustomed to eating to suddenly give it up.

If we wanted to retain our current lifestyle, then our party needed to make more money. Just to clarify, I wanted our party to find an alternative source of income aside from hunters and mercenary Quests. While higher-ranked Quests would earn us more money, how often would we find one?

Yesterday’s D rank Quest with the skorrs was admittedly underpaid, but its pay range was only around 8000 to 15000 Davi. A higher difficulty quest would pay more, but who knows how much money we have to invest to fulfill it in the first place? We couldn’t fight on an empty stomach. Getting a C rank Quest from the hunters guild would be ideal as we could earn money and hopefully acquire some meat with it.

“Mister Zeather, we are buying a huge amount of your stock in bulk. This is worthy for an entire household, don’t you agree?” I hinted to Zeather, who quickly caught on as he was an experienced merchant. “We will be staying in Firwood for a while but we have not found a steady supplier for food and spices just yet. Our Lady would be delighted to hear from you and your employer.” I then placed a hand on my cheek, showing off Hestia’s royal seal on my party bracelet. “How about 30%? That should be a generous discount.”

While Zeather kept a cool façade, not wavering one bit, there was silence between us as he simply smiled for a moment. He was obviously contemplating the seal’s importance. I wasn’t sure if he knew about Kargryxmor’s religious symbol or the Kargryxian royal family’s seal, but I hoped he would understand the former’s importance.

I knew Artorias hadn’t received contact from Loatryx or Kargryx for years now from my interactions with Ellaine and Barathan. It was unlikely that Zeather could know about it, even if he was an accomplished merchant. Kargryxmor’s religion just wasn’t popular here.

My gamble had a low percentage of success, but it was worth the try.

“Hmm, Zeather does not believe dear customer is a liar. God Mercurias says, merchants must be able to judge a person’s personality well. It also helps when dear customer’s party bracelet is obviously one of the newer models.”

Wait, he was more interested in the party bracelet’s worth?

“A chance to know dear customer’s honored mistress would be fine, but 30% is far too much! God Mercurias advocates profit-making, and this would cut too much into it! 5%,” Zeather gave a counter-offer, staying steadfast to his wares’ worth.

Although I understood why he was doing it and didn’t want to push him too much, I had to stay greedy to push the price down. “5%? Zeather, that is not a discount, that is taking pity on us! I believe you would want to keep us as customers, so 25%.”

Zeather shook his head. “I apologize if I insulted, dear customer. However, I believe dear customer will understand the value of our products once they are in your hands. Ice crystals are expensive manatech and our honored employer must spend mana batteries for the transport and storage. Zeather must make sure the shop makes a decent profit. 10%, my final offer, dear customer.”

He’s tough, however…

“Zeather, now that you mentioned mana batteries and ice crystals, you should know the cost to maintain everything, correct? At least, you should know, Miss Quini,” I looked over the reserved foxian woman. “The amount we ordered should at least fill up a decently sized ice storage, yes? If we buy most of the storage out, that would leave only the leftovers and that you can store in another unit. You now have a free unit you do not have to maintain anymore, reducing costs.”

This information was something I got from Barathan. Ellaine’s mansion used a similar ice storage with a small temperature regulator to keep everything cool inside. It was essentially a magical fridge. Barathan told me he knew stores like these had to have storages to sell imported goods to wealthy families. I thought it was good to know, but I didn’t think I could actually use it today!

“You do not serve nobles, correct?” I returned my focus to Mister Zeather. “Your store is not close enough to the upper district, and I have seen larger stores deal with nobles there. You serve merchants and people with enough money to buy your imported goods. However, Mister Zeather, we are currently in the middle of winter and I am sure most houses with the funds to prepare for winter have already done so. If you still have this much inventory to sell to us, then I believe saving costs on a storage unit would be beneficial to you. Instead of hoping for somebody in the future to free it up, why not simply sell it to us and enjoy the possible advantages of our Lady’s continued patronage?”

Zeather’s face turned into a frown, heavily considering my offer. He turned to his sister and began whispering to her. Once his sister nodded and showed him the calculations, he turned back to me with a renewed smile. “17%, that is as much as I can offer you without stretching our profit margins too much, dear customer.”

[Mathematician] help, please. 83% from 12000 is 9960. I saved 2040 Davi! Nice! Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! Wooo!

Sorting through my money pouch, I slammed nine small silvites, nine large coppers, and six medium copper coins on the table. “You have yourself a deal!” I stretched my hand out and we both shook our hands to finalize the deal.

Zeather then picked up the coins, counted them, and then looked up to us with a confirming smile. “May God Mercurias bless this day for we have made a successful transaction. Dear customer, may I know your name?”

“My name is Saori, this is my friend Tasianna. Pleased to meet you, Mister Zeather, Miss Quini.”

“May Goddess Zephira bless your travels with a gentle tailwind, Zeather, Quini.”

The two foxians returned Tasianna’s blessing to her, also showing their respects to Zephira. Zeather then turned back to me. “Miss Saori, I must admit, you have defeated Zeather today in this negotiation. You have humbled Zeather today.” He bowed to me before looking at me with confusion. “However, why do you not have an account at the merchant’s guild? Coins are nice to feel but dangerous to bring along.”

I just learned if a merchant joined the merchant’s guild or an artisan opened up a store and was a member of one of the many artisan guilds, they could open up a bank account which could be used to exchange money with other merchants and artisans, using party bracelets or IDs.

Zeather didn’t know the exact details of how it worked but knew that coin didn’t need to be exchanged physically but would instead be safely stored at the guild. They would be able to withdraw and deposit coins whenever they visited the merchant’s guild as it was international.

I then told Zeather to deliver all the goods to House Helvas’ mansion. Unlike Hestia, my mana capacity was far too normal to store all the food at once. Taking out and storing items into the storage required mana and storing all these boxes would consume far too much. I would drop unconscious if I tried.

After saying our farewell, we exited the shop. “Miss Saori, that was amazing! 17%! I have no idea what that means, but it must be impressive if Mister Zeather gave his approval! How did you do that?!”

Adorable.

I patted Tasianna’s head, knowing she still hadn’t fully adapted to money yet. “I will be honest – I just tried it out because I saw it on the (TV) once, ha ha ha ha ha! I’m only used to using (coupons) and (point cards) to get a discount because my family was poor, but I really wanted to try out haggling once in my life, ha ha ha.”

Haggling wasn’t a thing in Japan. Sure, some prefectures would have people talking prices down but Yokohama’s and Tokyo’s street markets didn’t. If the sign said 1000 yen, then you paid 1000 yen for it. End of the discussion. The only way for you to get a discount was through point cards you’d accumulated through continuous patronage or coupons from magazines.

I used to watch these shows where Westerners would go around haggling on street markets like it was such a normal thing, while I just thought “What a bunch of stingy assholes.” I still found it funny and continued to watch them because I got invested in the host.

I wanted to save money by only buying the essentials and maybe just a few extras for experiments. I wanted to manage our finances well. So, I was tempted by my previous knowledge and tried it out for once. And, wow, was it intoxicating. Such a good feeling. That was nearly a 20% cut! Oh my gosh!

That felt so good!

“Anyways, we’ve secured some food for our hungry mistress. We still need to go to the mercenary guild to look for a job or Quest, and then to the tailor, chef, and alchemy guilds. Let’s go Tasianna!”

“Could we get something to eat, first? This has been a very stressful day.”

“…Sure.”

Profile:

Name:   Tasianna Marina Silverpond

Level: 50

Race: Wind Elf

Age: 87 Years

Job: Water Mage   Level: 0/10

Status:

Health:

1544/1544

Mana:

4244/4244

Strength:

406

Intelligence:

1520

Vitality:

498

Wisdom:

1345

Agility:

1461

Stamina:

1100/1100

Effects:

[Elvenized (Major)]

Skill Points:

0 (-700)

Skill:

Magic skills and related:

[Fairy Magic]

[Arcane Mind Lv. 10] (+1)

[Ice Magic Lv. 4] (+1)

[Water Magic Lv. 10] (+1)

[Torrent Magic Lv. 1] (New)

[Water Amp]

[Water Magic Efficiency] (New)

[Wind Magic Lv. 9] (+3)

[Wind Amp] (New)

[Wind Magic Efficiency] (New)

[Synergist’s Oath Lv. 2] (New)

[Chant Revocation Lv. 10]

[Silent Casting Lv. 5] (+2)

[Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 2] (+1)

[Mental Stability Lv. 2]

[Mental Warfare Lv. 4] (+1)

[Fluid Cast Lv. 1] (New)

[Continuous Cast Lv. 1] (New)

Senses and movement skills:

[Stealth Lv. 7] (+2)

[Accuracy Correction Lv. 4] (+2)

[Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 6] (+1)

[Prediction Lv. 5] (+1)

[Danger Perception Lv. 5] (+1)

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 4] (+1)

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 3] (+1)

[Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 6] (+2)

[Night Vision Lv. 6]

[Tracking Lv. 1]

[Presence Killer Lv. 4]

[Evasion Lv. 6] (+1)

[Acrobatic Lv. 6] (+1)

[Flight Acceleration Lv. 5] (+1)

[Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 3]

[Concentration Lv. 7] (+1)

Resistance:

[Physical Resistance Lv. 8] (+1)

[Pain Resistance Lv. 7] (+1)

[Poison Resistance Lv. 7] (+2)

[Paralyzation Resistance Lv. 6] (+2)

[Torpor Resistance Lv. 6] (+1)

[Mana Leak Resistance Lv. 1]

[Holy Resistance Lv. 5] (+2)

[Fire Resistance Lv. 8] (+3)

[Water Resistance Lv. 7] (+1)

[Earth Resistance Lv. 5] (+1)

[Wind Resistance Lv. 8] (+2)

[Dark Resistance Lv. 4] (+1)

Stat growth and related:

[Stamina Recovery Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Mana Growth Lv.´6]

[Enhanced Mana Capacity Lv. 5] (+1)

[Enhanced Intelligence Growth Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Intelligence Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Agility Enforcement Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 3] (+1)

[Enhanced Stamina Enforcement Lv. 2]

Others:

[Singing Lv. 4]

[Dancing Lv. 3] (+1)

[Identify Blocker Lv. 10]

[Identify Lv. 6] (+1)

[Cooking Lv. 6] (+2)

[Dismantle Lv. 3] (+2)

[Herbalist Lv. 4] (+1)

[Brewing Lv. 4] (+3)

[Battle Mind Lv. 2] (+1)

[Terror Aura Lv. 1]

[Royal Etiquette Lv. 5]

[Elvenize Lv. 10]

[Cryokinesis]

[Telepathy]

Job Skills:

[Water Magic Efficiency]

Spell List:

Custom spells:

[Create Water]

[Greater Create Water]

Ice spells:

[Ice Spike]

[Frozen Shield]

[Icicle Gust]

[Glacial Protection]

Water spells:

[Water Ball

[Water Wall]

[Water Bolt]

[Cleanse]

[Protective Water]

[Droplet Torrent]

[Aqua Prison]

[Aqua Beam]

[Torrential Rain]

Wind spells:

[Wind Bullet]

[Wind Cutter]

[Air Shield]

[Air Shield]

[Wind Slash]

[Swift Winds]

[Wind Blast]

[Featherfall]

Titles:

[Hestia’s Retainer]

A note from AbyssRaven

I wonder if a greed skill exist?

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 12 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 109: Guilds.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #4 here to promote our Patreon. 12 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 12 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until December!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

“Ahh, that was filling. If you had not mentioned it, I would have forgotten to eat, Tasianna. Hie hie.” I giggled with reddened cheeks.

“I would presume so; you ate multiple dishes at the inn, in addition to whatever we picked up on the way,” Tasianna commented. “However, wasn’t it too little? Don’t you eat more, Miss Saori?”

The blush on my face intensified as I began scratching my cheeks with a wry smile. “I would, yes, but the stares I got from the adventurers were suffocating, he he. We usually eat in private, no?”

For lunch, we decided to try out the tavern next to the hunters guild. As adventurers needed to travel from town to town to fulfill their quests, similar to Kushlek’zar and the saurians, both the hunters and mercenary guilds had set up inns next to their guild houses for their members’ exclusive use.

While inns, places for travelers to find lodging, were common in town, it was very well possible not enough rooms would be available for adventurers, especially when other travelers like merchants and vagrants were around. With winter making travel difficult, it seems most inns were fully reserved according to the hunters I asked.

As the inn also acted as a tavern to serve drinks and warm food, I thought this was a good time to learn how townspeople ate and listen to gossip. I’d tried village food, the food of a noble’s chef, lizardmen swamp cuisine, and my own cooking style with Peolyncian ingredients. I learned about medieval European foods from books but never tasted them myself. There were medieval fairs on Earth, but I never had the opportunity to attend them. In this life, I wanted to correct that.

One of my goals in my past life was to travel the world with my mother to honor my late father’s wish. My father believed enjoying a culture’s cuisine as part of the whole experience as life’s hardship molded a region’s specialties. I didn’t consider myself a certified chef, but I do believe in my cooking. If I want to become better, then I should try as many dishes as possible and experiment with as many new ingredients as I could get my hands on, like those Firwood frost cones.

For example, Yokohama, the city I was born and raised in, belonged to the Kanagawa prefecture and had a regional specialty called “shirasu,” which translates to whitebait or baby sardines in English. The “shirasu heaven” of the prefecture, Enoshima island, made tons of dishes and snacks with them, of which I liked the shirasu don the most. A bowl of rice with some raw baby sardines. Ahh, heavenly.

It’s only south of Tokyo and you can easily get to the Kanagawa prefecture by train, so I would recommend any tourist to try them. I may be dead on Earth, but I will still support my prefecture!

Anyway, while on our way to the hunters guild’s inn, we also visited a few eateries. Most of them only served one or two dishes, but each dish was made with passion by the locals. It made my home chef’s heart flourish. I believe Hestia would like them too, even if they were mostly made with greens.

The hunters inn, on the other hand, was quite bizarre if I still had the mindset I had on Earth. Most of the meat or dishes with meat in them were made from monster products, so they had a very unique taste due to the texture. I also learned the kitchen was connected with the eatery in the hunters guild’s main hall, so I guess we could hang out while looking at the Quest board, ha!

The smell of ale and cider was so pungent…I need to come back after I finish visiting the guilds. I need some alcohol!

After eating my fill, we greeted Melia, took a look at the Quest board, and then made our way to the mercenary guild. It wasn’t far from the hunters guild, so we made it there in no time.

Similar to the hunters guild, it was rowdy and full of mercenaries ranging from tall, buff men with hunks of metal shaped into weapons to beastman women of various subraces. It was around lunchtime now, so it was relatively calmer than our second visit to the hunters guild.

“Saori and Tasianna, correct? Thank you for coming back to the guild!”

This was Rachael, a human receptionist of the mercenary guild who had apparently been assigned to be our exclusive handler, much like Melia. Unlike Melia, this orange-haired girl who looked around 17 was energetic and full of passion whenever she spoke to anybody, reminding me a bit of an unrestrained Hestia.

“Good afternoon, Rachael, how are you today? Are we eligible for the promotion?”

“Ah, yes, I have confirmed it with the Boss. He has received a report made by the ‘Depths Serpents’ party, and they have acknowledged your names as valued participants,” Rachael replied with a thumbs up. “We have also questioned the guild members you’ve mentioned. They have safely made it back to Firwood and given their full support on the matter. A rising C rank party and multiple D rankers have attested that the three of you were an invaluable help during the Quest, which means your party has received the 4 D rank points. Congratulations. You, Tasianna, and Lady Hestia are now F rank mercs!”

To get promoted to the next rank in either adventurer guild, you had to gain a certain number of rank points through Questing. While the circumstance of us gaining D rank at the hunters guild was abnormal, our beginner rank of G at the mercenary guild was the norm for any new member, no matter how strong. We had to work our way up here like anybody else.

The bandit Quest we’d received from Colwyn should have given us 4 D rank points, which should be enough for an F rank promotion, however, the guild worked independently from the kingdom’s nobles. They wanted to investigate our claim by finding evidence for our participation. That was why they needed the reports from Kushlek’zar’s party “Depth Serpents” and the mercenaries we rescued during the bandit raid. They were our witnesses and I was glad to see everything worked out smoothly.

Tasianna and I handed over our IDs for the promotion to Rachael. Normally, a promotion interview would be scheduled to assess our characters and ability to improve, but that wasn’t necessary since four C rankers endorsed us: Kushlek’zar, Grazlahta, Krim-Slak, and Akasht. The saurians might be in a different town now, but it seems they couldn’t stop helping us.

Unfortunately, Hestia wasn’t here so she couldn’t get promoted just yet, but she can do that next time she’s here.

“Oh, that reminded me. Saori, has Lady Hestia already registered your party? I mean, giving you guys an official party name, that’s what I meant. Considering what the three of you can actually do, it would be a total waste to not market yourself better! One name is easier to remember, after all,” she said with an excited smile after handing our IDs back.

Being our exclusive handler, she was the only one in the mercenary guild aside from the guild master to be privy to our information. She had to know who and what we were, to support us correctly. I was a bit worried her friskiness might cause her to accidentally leak some information, but the guild master seemed to trust her enough to give her this much responsibility.

After thanking her for the promotion, I shook my head to her question. “We have not. I will leave the name choice to Lady Hestia. Anyway, are there any interesting Quests?”

Hunters Guild Membership Rank: D

Fulfilled Quests: 4

Points: 1 D, 3 G

Rank Total: 1 D / 40 D

Mercenary Guild Membership Rank: F

Fulfilled Quests: 2

Points: 4 D, 1 F

Rank Total: 12 F / 15 F

I should ask Melia or Rachael for an explanation of the rank point system. More details would be nice but having Hestia around would save me the effort of explaining it to her. I’ll see if there are three F rank Quests we can do to earn another promotion.

Tasianna and I went over to the board, scouring the board for any Quests, just like we’d done at the hunters guild. While there were a couple of Quests I would imagine a mercenary to do, like escorting merchants like bodyguards, home security, and headhunting; there were also more peaceful options like being shop bouncers, package transporters, or even service personnel for shops and stalls. Hunters focused on monsters, while mercs handled humanoid related jobs.

Eventually, somebody interrupted us while we were looking at the board, speaking loudly to catch our attention. “Hey, you two, looking for a Quest to do?” Turning around, three adolescent humans geared in basic gambesons stood before us, each carrying either an arming sword, mace, or spear. Prudent enough, all three had wooden heater shield strapped on their left arm.

While there were quite a few adventurers who looked like they were cosplaying fantasy warriors, it seems there were also those who looked more grounded, like actual medieval European mercenaries you would read from books. These three gave me that impression, at least.

“You ladies were looking at the board for a while, so I thought you two might be looking for a Quest. We have an easy F rank one and with you two, we’ll have a full party,” the young mercenary with the mace offered with a friendly smile.

While Tasianna gave his party the stink eye, visibly annoyed, I bowed and politely declined, “Thank you for the offer, but we are not looking for any help. We were only inspecting the board for Quests.”

…Rachael went upstairs to the guild master…Did they time this or was this a coincidence?

Waving his hand in a joking manner, the sword wielder spoke instead of his friend, “Oh, come on now, no need to be so cold. You guys are G ranks, right? Just joined the guild? We’re F ranks, and we just want to help our juniors. In this line of work, it can get really dangerous, so getting some help once in a while isn’t bad.”

Before I could respond, Tasianna jerked her head to their direction, scowling at them as she growled, “Leave!” in a low-pitched tone. Even her [Terror Aura Lv. 1] could be terrifying if she began cooling the air around her with [Cryokinesis]. Her patience was at her limits.

“Hey, hey, what is that kinda attitude?!” Although having intimidated all three, the spear user among them bravely stepped forward, reproaching Tasianna with a slightly pale face. “We’re just here to help, ok! You three obviously have no weapons or protective gear so either you two are mages or idiots who think joining the mercenary guild is easy money. Pah! Learn to work with others or get the fuck out of here!”

The guildhall is loud with everybody speaking, they probably didn’t hear our conversation with Rachael. That should explain it, I believe.

““Yeah, yeah! He’s right!”” the two others said in unison, having regained their morale from their friend’s speech. “Three front liners, two back liners. A solid composition. Besides, you two are girls, so why not just take the free help and be happy about it?!”

The people around us are mostly watching with interest or outright ignoring us. The receptionists look annoyed but aren’t intervening. Was this normal? I guess, if you joined a guild focused on dealing with people, you had to have the necessary people skills.

Sighing in exasperation, I discreetly took out a token from my storage before this argument escalated even further. Tasianna looked like she would explode any second now. “I would ask to please leave us alone. We appreciate your help, but it is not necessary.” With a blue squared token in my hand, I showed it off to them, not forgetting to flaunt the serpent symbol on it.

While the three were confused at what I was showing, around 16 mercenaries quickly rose from their seats, rushed over to the three, and placed their hands on their shoulders. “Enough flirting, you hot-bloods,” they all said and began pulling them away from us. The three complained and tried to resist but it was futile against all those muscles.

“Urgh, those lizardmen are everywhere…” was all they muttered as they quickly removed themselves back to the guild’s bar.

…Interesting.

Without giving it any thought to just what the saurians had done to them to cause this reaction, we left the guild without taking a Quest. Seeing as Tasianna was still annoyed by what had happened, I had to help her cool down first before continuing our guild visits.

After enjoying a snack break with our self-made rice crackers, we then went to our next destination. However, as we didn’t know where the chef, tailor, and alchemy guilds were, and it would be annoying to ask a stranger for directions, we instead went to a cobbler store in the middle district.

Entering it, our vision was filled with shoes, shoes, and more shoes. With an assortment of shoes and boots on both sides of the shop, there was also a counter with a clerk and an area where a cobbler was repairing a worker’s boots. We went to the counter.

“Good afternoon, does Ruld work here? Brown hair, medium length, around 18 years old?” I asked the clerk, who answered affirmatively. Ruld was the young man who crafted our party’s boots and shoes when we stayed at Carine village. Our party was in Firwood because we’d done a favor for him and his soon-to-be wife, Lorena.

“Hey, lucky boy, come out! You got a customer!” he shouted through a door leading to the back of the shop. “Lucky boy,” huh?

“Yeah, I heard you, I heard you. Where is my… Oh! Miss Saori, Miss Tasianna!” Once Ruld came out from the back, we greeted each other, and I told him what I needed from him. As his lunch break was about to begin, he agreed to bring us to the tailor guild once I promised him a meal.

On our way, while we was having lunch, I began questioning Ruld about the guilds of this town. While he didn’t know much about the merchants guild, he was acquainted with the artisan guilds, more specifically the cobbler guild, as he was an official member.

In Earth’s history, guilds were essentially groupings of people aiming to protect their vested interests by aiding and protecting each other much like labor unions. Aside from the two adventurer guilds, guilds in Artorias, and possibly all of Peolynca, were split into two groups: the merchant guild and the artisan guilds. Thankfully, most of what Ruld explained to me was similar to what I’d learned of historical guilds on Earth, albeit with some differences, since Peolynca was a different world.

Normally, most merchants from a town or city belonged to the merchant guild and benefited from their protection and connections, as the guild was responsible for maintaining industry standards and prices. I would have to go there eventually, but it's good to know they were mostly the same.

The artisan guilds, on the other hand, were multiple smaller guilds, each responsible for one specific trade. They were so numerous, like the tailor, chef, blacksmith, mining, bakers, alchemy, etc. Artisans could rely on their guilds to enforce and further their interests, especially against the other guilds.

Ruld led us to the tailor guild, where I asked to join them as a full member. The reason was that I needed to make money outside of just doing adventurer Quests since I didn’t believe relying purely on them would be smart. What happens when we can’t do one because one of us was too exhausted after a hard Quest? We had to diversify our income.

There was also another reason and that had to do with what Barathan asked Tasianna and me to do. Initially, he wanted me to help him as a spy to gather information on the church as he believed it was necessary to protect Hestia. While I did agree, I also was reluctant to fully trust House Helvas. I don’t believe they would do anything bad to us, but I didn’t want us to be involved too much in political matters.

So, instead, I decided on a different plan. I wanted to make our own business. Our party’s current worth came purely from Hestia’s royal bloodline and her role as Aurena’s champion, nothing more. We had little to no contacts and influence outside of House Helvas’s daughter, Ellaine, and even that was flimsy at best.

Through a business and being part of multiple guilds, I had the idea of using our talents to acquire both funds and acquaintances. Inspired by traveling circuses and idol tours, I thought we could not only spread Hestia’s name as an idol but also increase her power through [The Light]’s fan milestones. Meanwhile, Tasianna and I could start increasing our own values by becoming better artisans.

Yes, our goal also included increasing our reputation as adventurers by increasing our ranks, but I would love to make something like a mobile café or restaurant. Not only could we serve food and drinks but we would also be the only place to listen to Hestia sing! Her singing had always left an impact on me but her first concert was something else. I wanted to make her dream come true.

But to do that, we needed money. We needed to raise enough capital to start building a real concert stage for her. This also brings me back to Barathan’s plan. To protect Hestia from the church we needed more influence and power, outside of the status profile. To lead the life the three of us wanted, we needed to make this work so not even an emperor could go against us.

And the first step to this whole plan was to join guilds and fix our financial problems!

Taking out Hestia’s noble dress from my storage, I showed the tailor guild’s members my work. Normally, you would join a guild by first becoming an apprentice at the age of seven after your baptism at the temple of Aurena. You would work there and hone your abilities until you slowly reached adulthood with 15, at which point you would have to show the guild your “masterwork” as a qualification work. Similar to a university thesis for a bachelor or master.

My noble dress for Hestia was one of my best works which was even approved of by Barathan and the maids of House Helvas themselves. Hestia’s idol outfit was also splendid but I believed they were too “modern” for the tailors. I had to work with what this world considered standard first, and then start the fashion revolution.

As I was a foreigner who hadn’t had an apprenticeship at the guild before, the guild members were naturally suspicious of me. They were impressed by my work but it seems they weren’t too happy with it being only made out of mana threads.

Mana threads were only used for the robes of mages and the extravagant protective clothes of nobles. As they were made with mana, not only were they easy to enchant with protective runes and enchantments but also light enough to be worn underneath the armor. They could boost stats and also improve firepower, but that also meant they were expensive as a useful quantity of threads costhe a large amount of mana to make.

Powerful mages like Hestia were able to produce threads easily, but it seems most disliked doing it. The guild members couldn’t tell me why, but I guess it had to do with arcane corruption. These people weren’t mages, after all. For this reason, there was a scarcity of mana threads.

However, not every client was a noble. “If you can only work with mana threads then go work with a noble, we only work with normal threads,” they told me and would only accept me if I could show an equal masterwork with their rules. “Challenge accepted,” I said.

I believed they wanted me to show them my sewing techniques from how they inspected my masterwork. Thankfully, this also meant they would supply me with thread and fabric, so I didn’t have to pay for it. I didn’t know what they expected but after I started sewing, their jaws just dropped to the ground.

With a combination of high Agility, [Sewing Lv. 10], and through constant practice; planning the design and executing it felt too easy. My hands deftly moved the needle with no wasted movements, steadily stitching up an elaborate dress I saw a woman wear in the upper district. Nevertheless, even with my full focus on sewing, it took long enough that Ruld had to return to his shop. If I had to estimate, I believe I needed three hours to finally finish the heavily embroidered dress.

With my brain having reached its limit, the guild members didn’t make it better when they started questioning me about my techniques and training. I was so mentally exhausted I had a small blackout. Thankfully, the tailors understood at that point how exhausted I was. It didn’t take them long to accept me as a member.

I had to give them my ID and I also had the chance to use its ability to hide information. They were surprised at my high level but they never expected me for a cadejo. Now a member of the tailor guild, I could receive commissions through the guild or directly from my clients, however, I had to pay a tax whenever I finished a commission or tailor Quest. In return, they would hook me up with potential clients if I wished.

Despite my near brain numbness, Tasianna and I continued to the chef guild after a short break for me to recuperate. The process was about the same, only that I had to cook something on the spot. Besides me, Tasianna also decided to join. I was a bit nervous that she would antagonize the guild members, but I was confident in her ability to cook. I taught her, after all.

Needless to say, we aced it. We now could legally work in any eatery’s kitchen or open up our own if we wanted to. The wandering restaurant dream will one day become true.

Our last goal for the day was the alchemy guild. Tasianna recently decided to become an alchemist to help our plan as she was also our herbalist. Barathan informed us about the prices for health potions in Firwood and it was pretty high. We had a ton of Belzac herbs with system descriptions that suggested they could be used for health potions, and we were cultivating more in our garden. One more guild membership for the day and we’re done!

“I apologize but we only accept new members who have received an invitation from the guild master.”

…What?

“I understand but my friend wishes to join as an apprentice. She wishes to learn how to do alchemy,” I told the receptionist of this huge guildhall, reminding me of a bank’s.

Her brows furrowed, looking apologetic as she replied, “I do apologize but apprentices require recommendations from a current alchemy meister to join the guild under an apprenticeship.”

“…Can we speak with one of them, or maybe the guild master?”

She shook her head. “I am afraid not. We value the privacy of our members, and our guild master is currently not available.”

…Well, this is sad.

We were riding on a wave of success until now but it seems it all broke down here. I wanted to try a bribe, but I wasn’t confident about it. I thought it would cause us trouble, so I rejected the idea. So, instead, we gave up after she said “next” and an alchemist rudely shoved us out of the line. I was mildly annoyed.

“…I hate humans,” Tasianna uttered once we left the grandiose building in the upper district of the town. “They have been infuriating me since our visit at the mercenary guild.”

“You did not seem very annoyed about Rachael,” I countered.

She shrugged in response. “She’s tolerable, much like Lady Ellaine and Lorena. I won’t start a conversation with them but I also don’t mind them too much.”

Chuckling, I caressed her back and then gave her a slight push. “That is good! That is an improvement, Tasianna! Good for you. Not every human is bad, so if you can tolerate them now, it will not be long until you can start befriending them. Anyway, let us go to the inn and take a well-earned rest! We can deal with the alchemy guild another time!” I told her with a smile.

“Hie hie, you only want to drink some alcohol, Miss Saori,” she replied with a wry smile. “Urgh, couldn’t we simply buy some for take away like with the eateries…Mhmmph?!”

“No, no, no!” I stopped her by pressing a finger on her lips, silencing her. “There is an after-work tradition where I come from where co-workers drink and eat together and enjoy the atmosphere of the nightlife! We are both members of the chef guild now, which makes us co-workers! No Hestia to stop us, only us two adults. Come on, I will show you how to unwind, Tasianna!”

I don’t think I was a big drinker but I still enjoyed the nightlife and spending time with my senpais at izakaya pubs, places where the working adult can unwind a bit in a casual setting with alcohol and snacks. With how stressful life is, everybody needs to take a break once in a while.

I’ll ask Barathan or have Hestia ask Ellaine for some alchemy tips. Maybe they know some recipes. Tasianna can practice first and then we can return to the guild.

Although I was a bit suspicious why the alchemy guild was so exclusive. Yes, guilds on Earth were like gentlemen clubs but I thought a human alchemy guild would at least want to learn about elven alchemy. Sure, Tasianna had no idea about it, but at least they should be curious. She looked like a wind elf.

Ahh, whatever, I can think about it later! It’s time to party, first, ah ha ha! Pub time!

A note from AbyssRaven

On Earth she was only a teacher, but on Peolynca she can live her dream.

Oh yeah, guys be careful of getting a dragon as a pet. Your food costs will rise!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 12 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 110: The Binding Festival.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #1 here to promote our Patreon. 12 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 12 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until December!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Storm Magic Lv. 2] [Space-Time Magic Lv. 5] [Mana Eyes Lv. 3] gained

Spell gained:   [Sylphid’s Cloak][Warp Point: Exit]

Custom spell gained: [Ignite]

Sylphid’s Cloak

Become the center of a fresh breeze. Empower wind elemental spells and its composite elements by 30% for everybody within the effective area. Reduce Earth elemental damage by 30% for everybody within the effective area. Requires continuous mana costs to maintain the spell after cast

“You two actually got drunk without me?” I remarked incredulously at Saori and Tasianna, both of whom showed different signs of having partied yesterday. “You know, I honestly thought [Poison Resistance] would make it impossible for us to get drunk because, you know, it’s a toxin. Still, I didn’t think you guys would go out and have fun without me. Mhmm...”

Seeing my jealous expression, Tasianna became flustered as she waved her hands in front of me. “No, no, Lady Hestia! We didn’t plan it, it was a spontaneous idea from Miss Saori because she said it’s a Japanese tradition. I-I didn’t even want to! The alcohol, all those loud drinkers, and the chaos! It was so much fun — uhhh, ahhh, I-I-I mean, I hate humans! Humans are the worst!”

Whether there were humans or not, your race literally has the Goddess of Celebrations as their patron goddess, Tasianna. Of course, you would enjoy parties.

While I was helping Ellaine with her magic training yesterday morning, Saori and Tasianna went to the lower town, bought a ton of food and joined the chef and tailor guilds. In the afternoon, they went to the hunters guild inn to have some recreation time with drinks and food. In other words, adult stuff.

I didn’t notice when they actually came back, ‘cause I was already asleep, but I was wondering where they were when a bunch of crates with food and spices arrived at the mansion, signed under Saori’s name but delivered by a foxian man named Zeather. Barathan wondered where to store everything, but I simply had him help me put everything in my storage. I have to admit, it drained quite a lot of my mana.

Anyway, after I woke up today, I was greeted by a refreshed-looking Saori and a hungover Tasianna. Surprisingly, there wasn’t an “Alcohol Resistance” in this world, nor did [Poison Resistance] make it harder for you to get intoxicated, you had to build up your tolerance like on Earth. Saori had a habit of drinking in her past life but her new body wasn’t used to it, so both Saori and Tasianna came back home completely hammered. Talk about irresponsible drinking, dude.

The novels I read usually had skills to protect the MC from becoming vulnerable after drinking, since most of them were only adolescents and had never tasted alcohol before. I wondered if there was a an “Alcohol Resistance” skill but it was under a different name. A God of Alcohol would do that, right?

I asked Tasianna whether a god of alcohol existed, but she didn’t know. She knew all of Zephira’s subordinate gods, but she was less sure about the gods among the other pantheons; even she didn’t know a few of Plesia’s minor gods. If I thought of alcohol in a fantasy setting, then I would think of a drunk dwarf.

I still remembered when Aurena called herself a “Primary Administrator” in her missive to me. If an origin god were a primary administrator, then shouldn’t a subordinate god be an admin with lesser authority? If there were a god of alcohol, wouldn’t it be possible for them to delete the “Alcohol Resistance” skill to make it easier for people to get drunk? If it’s a dwarven god, wouldn’t they be a subordinate god of Crustacia, the patron Goddess of the dwarves?

Unfortunately, none of us had an answer on hand. No use thinking about it, for now, I guess.

Nevertheless, that wasn’t what we would be doing today. For today was the 8th of WinterSun, a LightDay. We had a very special appointment today revolving around the marriage of a friend of ours, Lorena.

On the first LightDay of the first full week in a season, a festival called the Binding Festival would be celebrated around the Kingdom of Artorias, or any other country where Aurena was the primary origin god. Other races had the concept of the Binding Festival too, but they were celebrated on a different day of the first full week, depending on their primary god. In other words, dwarves would celebrate on EarthDay and levianewts on WaterDay, presumably.

“How does it feel to be a human, again, Hestia?” Saori asked me offhandedly.

“Well, if we don’t have to fight today, then it’s ok. It just feels uncomfortable to have only 1/3rd of my maximum stats. I feel weak,” I answered.

No tail, no horns, no claws, and no scales. I didn’t look one bit like a dragonewt anymore since I was now a full human. I even had “Human” in my race field now. I was once again a frail human who couldn’t use her dragon abilities. Thankfully, I took yesterday’s opportunity to learn [Ignite] from Manuella, the head maid, so I could still use fire magic.

Master Kush already guessed that I could, but by actually learning a custom fire spell, I confirmed for myself that I was able to learn a fire spell despite no longer having either [Fire Magic] or [Inferno Magic]. With [Ignite] I could produce flames even in my human form. The only other ways for me to make fire were either with scale-dust and claws, or the overkill spell [Symphonie des Feuergottes]. This new spell was weak, but that didn’t matter with me as its controller.

Now, for the reason why I was in this form in the first place? It was due to the Binding Festival. The only ones who could wed couples were white-robed priests and priestesses, which usually meant they were nobles. These priests and priestesses who stayed in Firwood over the God Thanking Festival at their own or family estates had to return to the temple to prepare for the festival.

Ellaine didn’t want them to recognize me, although I did mention to her that Aurena wanted me to understand the culture and workings of her church. After she learned literally every single big secret of mine, I honestly didn’t have a reason to hide something I considered this minor. She understood my reason, and couldn’t go against an origin goddess’s wish, but she still wanted me to delay it for a bit, at least, until her father gave her the ok.

I didn’t know what Count Helvas was planning, but I nevertheless agreed to help since I couldn’t say no whenEllaine gave me puppy eyes while she pleaded with me. Seriously, this girl can be manipulative when she wants to. Then again, I also didn’t have a reason to rush it. Aurena did say I had a ton of time since I was born earlier than expected.

So, while attending Lorena’s wedding with her childhood friend Ruld, I decided to stay in human form and hide my face for the duration of the ceremony. As it was possible that one grey-robed priest we met could recognize us, Saori and Tasianna also had to take measures to hide their appearances with new clothes.

Funnily enough, I almost forgot to switch too. My white robe was a dead giveaway that I was a priestess, despite its original meaning, so I had to replace my entire outfit with another of Saori’s many creations. Honestly, you can tell me the meaning of this robe on Peolynca, but I still considered it a “white mage’s robe.”

According to Ellaine, the Binding Festival would start in the afternoon, and commoners would have their weddings first. Usually, nobles would be wed after that, but it was unlikely there would be any noble weddings today, since most nobles were currently in the capital. The white-robes returned to the temple in the morning from their homes in Firwood, so I shouldn’t run into any of the priests, but Ellaine still insisted I be careful and use her carriage.

“Lady Atsuko, we have arrived,” our coachman announced once we arrived at the gates. We entered the upper district and noticed a huge shift in the atmosphere.

Unlike the more reserved and peaceful noble district, the commoner district was filled with jubilation. The carriages of the wealthy were fully decorated from top to bottom with colorful accessories, while countless laborers and workers still dressed in their working outfits were crowding around the very few in clean, but simple, clothes.

Although it was cold outside with snow on the streets, the people didn’t care as they continued cheering and shouting on their way to the temple. Seeing as the sun was slowly turning orange, most of them must have been done with their daily grind. Even if the young single men and women were celebrating somebody else’s happiness, they still gave it their all to liven the mood.

Saori and Tasianna met with Ruld yesterday, so they discussed a place for us to meet. Curiously, when we arrived there, a bunch of young and older men were surrounding a dark green-haired young woman and a brown-haired young man. If they hadn’t been laughing and clapping Ruld on his shoulder as he bashfully scratched his neck, I would have honestly thought they were muggers.

“Lady Hestia! Saori and Tasianna too!” Prying herself out of the group of men, the green-haired bachelorette fluttered her spotless white dress as she moved to us. “May the light guide you three on this beautiful day! I’m so glad you three could make it, today! Thank you so very much.” She held a wide grin as she greeted us.

“Congratulations, Lorena! I’m so happy for you, and, wow, you look amazing!” I told one of the friends I made at Carine village. “Oh, I see Ruld is also wearing a white outfit. Does it have something to do with a tradition or so?”

Lorena wryly laughed before replying, “He he, yes, our mothers made these white outfits for us after we agreed to marry. They told us both the groom and bride must wear white during the wedding to show our respect to the Goddess. I know you’re not a priestess but it surprises me you didn’t know this, Lady Hestia.”

Since they’d left Carine village, Lorena didn’t need to hide her pregnancy anymore. Her white dress was thin enough to see her swollen belly. The men laughing with Ruld were his co-workers from the workshop he works at. They were all teasing him with the nickname “lucky boy” since he was about to marry. This marriage was done out of necessity for Lorena but I’m happy to see them looking warmly at each other.

Lorena and Ruld were surprised to see me without my iconic dragonewt features, so I had to tell them I could transform into a full human to hide my true self. They knew I didn’t like being called a priestess or shrine maiden, so they understood why I wanted to hide from the church. Seeing me without my white robe really sealed the deal for them.

Mingling with the group, we followed them to the temple. Once again passing through the commoner gates, we entered the temple’s premises. From here on, only couples who wished to marry were allowed to enter the temple itself after they registered themselves with one of the white-robed priests.

Seeing as the attendees weren’t causing trouble or being loud in front of priests, it looked like the commoners in Firwood knew not to provoke a noble, much like in Carine village. The rambunctious atmosphere might be gone but the wide grins and soft claps to guide the couples into the temple kept the merry nature of this event going.

Ruld and Lorena joined the other grooms and brides in front of the altar and lined up into two rows. Once the temple bells rang, all the white-robed priests entered, and a couple of grey-robed priests closed the temple doors. The temple must be using the same temperature regulators the nobles were using, as the premises were comfortably warm despite the cold of winter outside.

“Saori, any problems?” I asked her, who stood beside with closed eyes.

She shook her head, still with her eyes closed. “No problems, it sneaked in undetected. The temple itself seems to be blessed with holy element, but it is not as strong as yours so I might have fortified my [Shadow Snake] too much. It will not disperse until I will it to.”

We expected something like this to happen but we still didn’t want to miss out on this valuable chance to learn about the church of Aurena and its rituals and ceremonies. So, Saori sneaked in a [Shadow Snake] to watch the procedure while sharing with us her vision with [Telepathy]. As a champion of Aurena, isn’t it my duty to learn more about the church?

I could simply use my authority and title to ask to come in? Pah! Not only did Ellaine ask me not to reveal myself but where is the fun in that?! To see the truth, I must act like a hidden food critic or something like that.

After a short moment of silence inside the temple halls, a handsome purple-haired man dressed in a fine and highly decorated white robe stepped in front of the altar, staring at the crowd of pairs with a thick book in his arm. He had sharp but slightly tired-looking eyes while carrying around a reserved smile, unlike the other white-robeds who smiled priestly and friendly.

“The High Bishop has entered the room,” a woman wearing a distinctively red and white robe announced, silencing any still whispering groom and bride. At that moment, all doors leading into the altar room closed and all the grey-robed priests and priestesses leaned their backs against the walls.

Was she a shrine maiden? I thought as the woman’s dress’ color scheme reminded me of Japanese mikos, the shrine maidens on Earth. Just as I was wondering about that, all the white-robed priests, priestesses, and, presumably, shrine maidens raised their arms above their head in an arch, closed them, and posed in a prayer style. This motion prompted all the couples to clap their hands together and also pray, only without the excessive movements.

The only one who abstained was the purple-haired High Bishop who placed his thick book on the podium. “I greet every young man and woman in these sacred halls of our beloved Goddess of Light. In her name, I, Theodore, will humbly accept my duty to bind every lover’s fate with their chosen partner, blessing them under her divine eyes for their new start in life,” he preached.

The High Bishop then began reciting a tale from his book in a calm but resounding tone, which I presumed was an extended version of the bible I read in Carine village.

He told the story of how the Binding Festival was once called the union between the Origin Gods and the world of Peolynca, about how they gave their initial followers the task to spread not only their names, but also the small bits of power they granted them. In doing so, not only did their religions grow but the wild elemental energy left untouched before their arrival to Peolynca was slowly converted and tamed, giving rise to the bountiful world we currently live in.

After the “bond” was established, the Origin Gods retreated back to their divine realms, leaving their followers to govern the mortal realm while they kept watch over us. In their honor, six days of a full week were named after them so that each god could be revered equally, while the seventh was called RestDay to symbolize their retreat to their divine realm.

Since Origdiviel Arashan happened on the 7th of AutumnMoon, the celebration of the Binding Festival would always happen in the first full week of each season to show further respect to the origin gods. With each season beginning with the moon changing color, they believed it was a sign from the gods.

That was why the church of Aurena would celebrate the Binding Festival only the LightDay in the first full week of a season, as that was the day Aurena’s power and authority were the highest. The marriage bond they would create today would be blessed with her divine grace.

[“Lies,”] Tasianna called out telepathically. Apparently, the fairies and elves had a different tale to the creation of the Binding Festival. [“We named the days after the Origin Gods to revere them, yes, but the Binding Festival already existed long before the arrival of the Origin Gods 2000 years ago. The tradition is so old, not even the elves have documented how and where it originated from. Mages and arcane practitioners already existed before the arrival of the Origin Gods. I’m not saying the Origin Gods haven’t granted us better control over our power with the Divine System, but even this is too far-fetched. The older races like elves, dragonewts, and levianewts already controlled the elemental power of Peolynca, but these humans simply erased their achievements from human history!”]

I recently learned from Tasianna how the different seasons were given their names. When a season transitions to the next, at midnight, the moon would radiate the previous season’s color and then the next season’s. This was how the Peolyncians knew when a season began and ended.

I guess a religion would want to promote the gods as much as possible. A commoner wouldn’t have Tasianna’s book smarts and it was likely they would believe somebody like a noble-born priest on stuff like this.

As I felt no attachment to Peolynca’s history yet, I couldn’t feel angry at the church of Aurena like Tasianna did. Saori and I could only nod as we understood a little bit more of this world.

The ceremony then continued after the High Bishop finished reciting the tale. Shrine maidens began filling two ornate grails with [Create Water] while white-robed priests and priestesses began praying loudly. The High Bishop then took out a vial of white liquid and began pouring it into both grails. He then touched both grails, causing them to glow an incandescent white as he declared it “holy water.”

I can’t use [Mana Eyes] since it’s Saori’s memories but it has to be mana. He has to be pouring mana into those grails.

The shrine maidens then began bringing the two grails to the couples, telling them to take a sip each. Once the last pair drank a bit of the “holy water,” the shrine maidens and priests returned to their positions as the High Bishop began preaching again. “May this holy water cleanse your soul and body from the trials and tribulations you have faced in the past. May it bless your now clean soul for the future waiting ahead of you and your partner. Now, let us pray to Goddess Aurena and ask her for her blessing!”

With this loud command, all clergy members aside from the High Bishop kneeled with their hands pressed together. Understanding what was happening, the grooms and brides also kneeled, holding each other’s hand as they closed their eyes.

.

“The Goddess watches over us ♫

In her name, we pray, we sing, we love ♫

For her merciful light, protects us all ♫

Purify the ground, wherever her feathers touches ♫”

.

A small white magic circle appeared on the High Bishop’s hand before growing in size using only his mana. It then slowly moved to the ceiling of the temple as he began singing the lyrics for the custom holy spell [Prayer].

Heilige Scheiße, this guy has a lot of mana! Not as much as me but still.

Although I wasn’t inside the temple, I could feel the dense mana concentration, even from outside. There were multiple mana signals of varying strengths but one of them was the most remarkable. Considering I cast [Prayer] in Carine village every LightDay for my “priestess” duty, I would know when a person was contributing a ton of mana.

After a while, [Prayer] activated and rained down white particles onto the newlyweds, blessing them. The High Bishop then told everybody to rise. “Goddess Aurena has answered our prayers. No doubt, your future henceforth will be guided and watched over by her merciful care. In Goddess Aurena we trust. To finalize the binding of your souls, the grooms may grant their brides the embrace of love.”

With a heartfelt and warm kiss, the ceremony ended spectacularly. The grey-robeds then opened up the doors and the grooms stormed out of the church with their bride in their arms. “Congratulations, Lorena and Ruld!” the three of us and Ruld’s co-workers shouted as they came out, helping them find us.

“Awroooooo!” all Ruld’s cobbler friends howled like a wolf, acting like a signal for everybody else to howl too. “Come on you lovebirds, the real fun starts now! Get going!”

Confused, I asked one of the older cobblers. “We got a tradition here in Firwood, once the weddings are finished, the husband has to bring their wife back home safely! Course, we ain’t hurting them for real so everybody will howl like a wolf. Awrooooo! You block their way and any newlywed ain’t allowed to touch ya, so they have to find a different path home! A man who can’t protect his wife is worthless!”

With a wave of “awrooo,” everybody rushed out of the church. Before they left, I also learned where they lived and told Ruld to keep a day open ‘cause we wanted him to introduce us to a blacksmith. “Yeah, sure! I know a very good blacksmith recommended by a ton of adventurers! He’s a dwarf, too!”

N-Nani?! A dwarf?!

Without considering what I wanted, Ruld’s co-workers pushed both Lorena and Ruld outside the temple before I could ask them. Like a pair of rabbits, the two ran away after saying goodbye to us.

I hope you two will have a happy life! I’ll make sure to visit you often to keep you and the baby healthy!

Whether it was single men, women, or small kids; everybody made sure to give it their all as they passionately chased all the new husbands and wives back home. The town was so lively it was incredible.

The three of us could’ve joined but we had to finally buy our pendants. The Binding Festival had three phases: the commoners’ wedding came first, then the wealthy merchants’, and finally it ended with the private weddings of nobles. Before the merchants arrived, we had some time to buy our pendants while the white-robeds took a break.

We entered the temple the moment all priests and shrine maidens exited the altar hall and went to a grey-robed priest. “May the Goddess bless you on this fine LightDay. The three of us wish to purchase amulets of the Origin Gods,” I said as a greeting.

He bowed and led us to another grey-robed who asked us to follow him inside a room. If I remember correctly, the room with the altar of gods should be close by. However, before we could enter the room, a man suddenly appeared and said, “I will handle our guests, you may leave. Thank you.”

Turning around, a man in a white robe with golden embroidery stood before us. His medium-long purple hair was carefully combed back with only a single strand hanging in front of his nose. His well-defined jaw was cleanly shaved while his tired lilac eyes gave him the appearance of an overworked intellectual.

Only a single person stood behind him and it was a grey-robed priest. Considering the grey-robeds acted like servants and attendants to the white-robeds, it was likely this person was the High Bishop’s personal attendant.

“H-High Bishop?!” I exclaimed.

“Shhh,” he shushed us as he pressed his finger on his lips. “Please be quiet, these halls were filled with merriment, but unnecessary shouts will only annoy the other members of the clergy.” He showed a hint of annoyance but he wasn’t angry when he scolded us, keeping a aloof expression as he spoke without a smile.

[“Are we fucked?”] I asked Saori and Tasianna telepathically.

[“Since when have you been this pessimistic?”] Saori replied. [“Whether he knows or not, it does not matter. If he is not asking, do not say a word.”]

[“I agree, let us buy the amulets and begone,”] Tasianna agreed, to which I complied.

The grey-robed priest excused himself as we followed the High Bishop into the room. Once inside, I inspected it. It looked like a storage room with all the cabinets and chests, only decorated with two rugs to keep the room looking decent. Otherwise, it was a very dull room compared to the altar hallway and altar of the gods room.

“You wish to buy amulets? May I ask where your previous ones are?” he asked us, turning around in the middle of the room.

“We are adventurers,” Saori responded. “Our adventure brought us to dangerous places, and at one of those places we lost most of our belongings, including the amulets.”

Very sly, Saori. Very sly. The only amulet and pendant we lost were Tasianna’s; her Plesia pendant and the amulet she got from Princess Schuri. Good job not lying.

He raised a brow for a moment but returned back to his neutral expression. “Amulets are simple material items; always replaceable. The origin gods will forgive you seeing as how you are ready to reacquire them. Now, let me help you.”

We told him which origin god’s amulet we wanted: two Aurena’s and one Plesia’s. With my role as a champion practically secured by Aurena, Saori didn’t have to blend in as a Marsven follower, as we initially planned. Most Peolyncian are religious and mages followed their element’s origin god, but with me she didn’t have to face the scrutiny behind dark mages in this kingdom.

The High Bishop ordered his grey-robed like a noble a servant, directing him to two cabinets where he picked up two wooden boxes. Inside them were an amulet of Aurena and Plesia, which he handed over to Saori and Tasianna respectively.

For mine, he took out a key and personally opened up one of the chests, taking out an ornate white box, probably made from Fairnite, that ore nobles loved so much. When he opened it up in front of me, a glossy white amulet of an angel woman laid in the soft black furry interior, adorned with golden wings.

“W-Wha?!” I uttered with widened eyes. Even Saori and Tasianna stood aside me silently, watching the amulet being unfurled before us.

“I must apologize but the church cannot accept any more donations today. Not only is it a blissful LightDay but multiple wealthy personages have donated a generous amount of Davi to us. For your continued devotion to the gods, please, accept these amulets on behalf of the church,” he stated before pretty much shoving the box into my hands.

“W-Wait, High Bishop, we ca-!” I wanted to shout out to stop him but my voice was silenced by the temple’s bell, signaling the second part of the Binding Festival.

With a perfect reason to not stay any longer, he excused himself and ordered another grey-robed priest to escort us outside. After we were reluctantly guided out, grooms in beautiful white suits and brides in enchanting white dresses entered the temple. As we didn’t have a reason to stay anymore, we left the temple’s premises.

Holding onto the box, I picked up the amulet and stared at it. “Told you guys, we were fucked,” I said before putting it on.

Amulet of Aurena

A detailed amulet dedicated to the worship of Aurena, the Goddess of Light

Skill

[Holy Resistance Lv. 5]
[Health Recovery Lv. 5]

[Mana Recovery Lv. 5]

[Holy Amp]

[Holy Magic Efficiency]

Saori’s amulet didn’t have any enchantments, and neither did Tasianna’s.

“…I was sure Barathan told me all information should be safe from the church. How is this possible?” Saori massaged her temples in exasperation, worry evident on her face as my identity was most likely revealed.

“Maybe he didn’t know? Maybe he saw the holy aura around you and believed you were a potential priestess?” Tasianna suggested, giving us a very delusional answer.

“Urgh, forget about it. I’ll report this to Ellaine, let her deal with it. I didn’t do anything wrong and he didn’t push me on it. It’s fine, I believe…”

So, instead of actually worrying too much about it, we instead went to the marketplace in the middle district of the lower town. The festivities were still going on, as the howls were still echoing through the town’s streets. Thankfully, the night festival was about to happen at the market.

The Binding Festival had two parts when it came to the celebration. First, the marriage followed by the tradition of chasing the newlyweds back home, and then a night festival where singles could drink and eat until the night ended. It was supposedly a chance for potential bachelors and bachelorettes to find a partner for the next Binding Festival.

Taking this as a chance to have some fun with my friends, I told them to get some food while I prepared a space for us to celebrate. Taking out chairs and tables from my storage, I placed them on the ground and set out some dishware for us. I also took out a geigler I’d borrowed from Ellaine.

She had her personal geigler and the one I had was a replacement in case hers ever got broken. She didn’t mind if I brought it with me but insisted I return it. Otherwise I’d have to pay for it. She was ruthless when it came to money…Like Saori!

To liven everything up, I began playing the geigler nonstop; not even stopping when Saori and Tasianna returned with street food and eatery specialties. I was simply captivated by my chance to finally play the violin again, even if it was called differently. It also helped that a few townspeople began clapping as I played, crowding around us. Suddenly, the place turned into a mini dance floor.

That was when Saori’s eyes beamed with a glint of gold. Telling me to take out our cooking tools and utensils, she also took out a few of the new ingredients she’d bought yesterday. Telling me to continue playing to lure people in, Saori and Tasianna used their newly acquired chef guild membership to open up an impromptu cooking stall! What the heck!

Was this even legal?!

Weirdly enough, although I was in human form, I could still control my body temperature even when my solar core wasn’t visible on my chest anymore. My core shouldn’t be there in this form, but somehow, I can feel it. It’s weird that I don’t know how my body works. I am naturally resistant to heat from my [Inferno Resistance] and [Lava Resistance], so it wasn’t problematic to increase my body heat to steam or bake food.

Ok, I’m starting to really question my role in this party! Am I a steam cooker or an idol?! These two Dummköpfe were balancing rice crackers on my head to bake them! What the hell! Stop using me to steam and bake food!

However, even if my emotions were rebelling against them, my body couldn’t. I was enthralled by my own play and couldn’t stop.

You two win this time…

A lot of people actually did buy our rice crackers, meat skewers, and stuffed vegetables, earning us around 1975 Davi. “Urgh, I should have priced the rice crackers more. Shame, the stuffed vegetables did not sell too well,” she complained after we were done with our impromptu restaurant as the sky was dark now.

Considering the amount of spices and meat we used, did we even earn back the amount we paid for this? Wait, wasn’t all of this food for me to eat? Well, I’ll leave the whole math and money responsibility to Saori. I just enjoyed the audience I had, even if I hadn’t sung.

Before going home, Saori wanted to go to the mercenary guild to have my rank updated, but it seems like my luck finally ran out. My aura of dissuading tropes from approaching me has finally deactivated as ten dudes in cloth armor followed us since we closed our “restaurant.”

Come on…I’ve been able to control my [Battle Frenzy] for this long now and you guys want to provoke me? Come on, man. Not cool.

Sighing in exasperation, I told Saori and Tasianna to go into a dark alley. Like a bunch of easily caught fish, the thugs followed us into it and suddenly one of them began laughing. “Ha ha ha, what a bunch of dumb bitches! Did you notice us? That elf probably did, so why would you lead us into this dank place?!”

Turning around, nine young adolescent boys menacingly blocked our way out. Wait, was the tenth guy a random? I thought, but decided to ignore it. My [Detection Sensor] was effective at finding people, but I couldn’t assess a person’s intentions. Well, one less person to deal with.

“I presumed we had dealt with everything yesterday. Why are you three here and why have you brought ‘friends’?” Saori asked with a blood mist emitting from her eyes, showing she was ready to hunt, but not to kill as she hasn’t activated [Bloodlust] yet.

“Yeah, ‘dealt’, you two really did it alright. You fucking shamed us in front of all those other guys, didn’t even give us a chance. Fucking hell, are you two stupid?” a spear wielder angrily shouted. “Some seniors helping some juniors, what’s so wrong about it, huh? We give you some time to ask us for tips and we get some fun with you girls, what’s your deal, huh? The fuck is wrong with you by showing that trash token thing, huh?”

“And now? What is your grand plan supposed to be? Kidnap us? Beat us down?” Saori aggressively exuded her [Terror Aura], scaring a couple of them.

“I will say this once, humans. Back off now or face an icy burial!” Tasianna intimidated them without holding her bloodthirst back. The chilly aura even made me uncomfortable.

The mace wielder’s eyes widened in surprise as he waved his hands in front of me, looking mortified. “W-wait, this is a big misunderstanding, we aren’t here for a fight, we just wanted to say our piece and-HUH?!”

Before he could speak, the people behind him began screaming and yelling as they were flung onto the walls. It might be dark, but with [Night Vision] it was easy to see their faces bruised and bloody, looking like somebody just beat them down.

“Hey, hey! Who the hell a-ARGH!”

“W-Wait, we weren’t tryi-UARGH!”

“Stop, please, we wer-ARGH!”

…Huh? What just happened.

“Ha ha ha, that’s what you get for ganging up on people nine to three, punks!” In front of me, instead of a human, a tall man with sharp pointy horns and minotaur-like legs stood atop the moaning pile of our wannabe thugs. “Yo, girls, hope you weren’t hurt there.” His deep voice and carefree attitude gave me the impression he was a jock but something in my brain was telling me otherwise.

Wait, don’t I know this smell? Why does it smell sweet?

He stared at me for a moment before he began using his bull-like nose to sniff, widening his nostrils as I thought that. “Hey, say something you creep! Wait, now I remember, I remember that smell, you’re the tenth guy! You must be taking advantage of the situation! Saori, sic’em!”

“Hey, hey, wait, wait, I got a very good explanation for this!”

As Saori didn’t think my joke of treating her like a dog was very funny, she was calm enough to listen to him. Hey, you guys use me as a steamer and over, I get the chance to use you like a dog!

“The name’s Cernust, I’m a bovline. An ox beastman,” he introduced himself. “I’m an adventurer and alchemist, and I saw you three at that food stall.”

“Oh wait, now I remember! You were one of our customers!” Saori stated.

“Yeah, yeah, right! I really love those stuffed veggies. The meat and cheese really make the veggies shine, mhmm!” he fidgeted like an excited foodie. “Anyway, I saw these punks stalk you girls and thought I could send them flying if they try to gang up on you. Horny bastards, you know? I also wanted to use this chance to get a favor from you.”

Cernust? Oh wait, that guy I eavesdropped on the gate when I arrived at Firwood! I suddenly remembered but didn’t say anything as I didn’t want to interrupt everybody.

“Technically, we did not need the help, but you did save us a lot of trouble so I guess it should be alright. If it is not something too hard, I would be glad to help,” Saori stated.

“Ha ha, awesome! Thanks, this really means a lot to me!” Cernust responded with joy, shaking Saori’s hand with fervor. “You see, I saw you guys exit the chef guild with smiles, and when I tasted what you did today, I was just blown away! You see, I have a companion who is a very, very picky eater. She didn’t like most of the food I got her and I can’t cook. If you can make a dish worthy for a wealthy merchant, I’ll make sure to repay you for it!”

With this small problem settled, we went out of the alleyway, leaving the wannabe thugs behind. “We just wanted to complain…” I heard one of them utter, making me feel a bit guilty that Cernust suddenly pummeled them like that. Considering I saw him have some sorta special gauntlet and no other weapon, he should be a martial artist or monk, in RPG terms. Yeowch.

After getting my rank updated, Saori and Tasianna went to the mercenary inn to borrow the kitchen to cook up whatever Cernust wanted to make. As I could easily protect myself from most threats, I went home by myself since the cooking would take a while.

Is somebody following me? I thought but gave it up when my [Detection Sensor] couldn’t pick anything up.

When Barathan came to pick me up at the gate, he was mortified and gave me a lecture about how a young lady shouldn’t be outside in the night all alone. It was improper, he said.

Once I was back at Ellaine’s mansion, she suddenly asked me for more training for some reason. I initially wanted to decline but the fire in her eyes was hard to talk back to, so I agreed and told her to expect not to sleep tonight.

*************************************

“…He made a mistake,” I said to Tasianna.

After finishing Cernust’s request, instead of going back home, Tasianna and I went to a small tavern in the depths of the lower district. Compared to the middle district, this place lacked the need to look good in front of customers as most of the buildings here were residential. They weren’t completely impoverished, it just looked plain.

Since we arrived at Firwood, I’ve been suspecting somebody following us every time we were in the commoner districts. It felt uncomfortable that I couldn’t find them, meaning my detection skills were inferior to his stealth skills. However, in his little surveillance, he made the mistake of being caught in the atmosphere of the town.

In other words, he drank too much and got caught by my [Shadow Snake]. Thank you, Binding Festival.

Sitting on a double table, our spy was flirting with one of the barmaids, drinking down his mug of ale without worrying about the fact he has been drinking like crazy the whole day. After telling the barmaid we had something serious to talk with him about, she went away and we sat down.

“Hick, wow, never-ver thought some nice-looking girls would come and speak with an old man like me, ha ha ha!”

Despite his claims of being “old” he kept himself clean and shaved, only having a three-day beard. His dark brown hair was messy but it wasn’t wild or unsanitary. Although he was drunk, it seemed more like he was acting it.

Conjuring up a [Dark Bolt] and molding it into a dagger, I simply dangled it from my hand. “Please, drop the act. Who are you? Why have you been following us this whole time? Answers, please.”

His smile softened, he straightened his back, pushed the mug of ale away and began looking directly into my eyes. “Vice-Guild Master of the hunters guild. Farron told me to keep watch over you three and make sure you don’t cause trouble. The name’s Gael. You girls took quite a long time to find me. Heh.”

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Chapter 111: Training Ellaine.

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“Good morning, Ellaine.”

“Mhm…Bwuh! Whe-Where am…I? Lady Hestia?”

“You know…Considering how you bragged about being able to stay up the whole night, I actually thought you could do it with that determination I saw in your eyes. I even use my fulinoe leaves to help reduce your arcane corruption so we could continue training!” I expressed my exasperation at the young noblewoman who was looking up from my lap, her face still appearing blue-ish. “As a mage, you should understand where your limits are! You have [Arcane Corruption Resistance Lv. 4], in other words, you should understand when your body cannot handle it anymore. Geez, Ellaine, you made me worry!”

“‘Ellaine’? So casual, Lady-” She was about to say but I interrupted her before she could finish her sentence.

“That’s not the point, dummy! Barathan, Manuela, Svena, your knights, and don’t get me started on Josine! She almost had a heart attack!” Irritated at her obstinate persistence to adhere to formality, despite being among us girls, I lightly tapped her forehead.

Letting out an exasperated sigh, I looked up as I ignored Ellaine’s painful yelp. I observed the room we were in — a magical training room located under House Helvas’s mansion designed as a safe space for nobles to train and experiment to prevent collateral damage. Before I came in here to train Ellaine, it was white and spotless; now it was riddled with burn marks and rocks.

To work as a magical training room, there were countless safety measures in place in case of an emergency. A ventilation system made with wind magic, a sprinkler system, and sturdy walls made out of fairnite and eoriant to absorb mana-based attacks. According to Ellaine, with fairnite’s high mana insulation and eoriant’s ability to absorb and store mana, it made it hard for spells to escape outside this room.

As this was another fantasy metal, I was curious and asked Ellaine what eoriant actually was, and apparently it was an alloy made with steel and euorinium. If I wanted more info on it, it was better to read a book on it or ask a blacksmith. Ellaine was educated but she didn’t have all the answers on hand.

“If that is the case, are they used to make shields and armor?” I’d asked her when I received this information two days ago.

The answer was a clear yes, but it would be expensive. Fairnite, by itself, was a beloved stone among nobles due to its color and ability to insulate against mana attacks, in addition to its many other usages that Ellaine didn’t want to explain as she was too impatient to start her training.

So, two days ago, I trained Ellaine in magic and combat. Due to her prior education and experience as a mage, she already knew basic stuff like the four processes of casting and already learned two of the four advanced casting techniques. Unlike me, who still couldn’t get [Multi-Cast] no matter how much I tried, she’d learned it.

Profile:

Name:   Ellaine Fiero Helvas

Level: 13

Race: Human

Age: 15 Years

Job: Magic Tinkerer Level: 3/5

Status:

Health:

301/301

Mana:

454/454

Strength:

158

Intelligence:

298

Vitality:

73

Wisdom:

208

Agility:

139

Stamina:

243/243

Effects:

None

Skill:

Magic skills and related:

[Mana Efficiency Lv. 6]

[Mana Control Lv. 5]

[Arcane Mind Lv. 4]

[Earth Magic Lv. 5]

[Wind Magic Lv. 5]

[Synergist’s Oath Lv. 1]

[Silent Casting Lv. 2]

[Chant Revocation Lv. 1]

[Mental Warfare Lv. 1]

[Fluid Cast Lv. 1]

[Multi-Cast Lv. 1]

Physical skills and related:

[Sword Technique Lv. 1]

Senses and movement skills:

[Stealth Lv. 1]

[Accuracy Correction Lv. 2]

[Concentration Lv. 4]

[Prediction Lv. 1]

[Danger Perception Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 1]

[Evasion Lv. 2]

[Acrobatic Lv. 2]

Resistances:

[Physical Resistance Lv. 2]

[Pain Resistance Lv. 1]

[Holy Resistance Lv. 2]

[Fire Resistance Lv. 6]

[Water Resistance Lv. 6]

[Earth Resistance Lv. 5]

[Wind Resistance Lv. 5]

[Arcane Corruption Resistance Lv. 4]

Stat growth and related:

[Mana Recovery Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Health Growth Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Mana Growth Lv.´4]

[Enhanced Mana Capacity Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Intelligence Growth Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Intelligence Enforcement Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 1]

Others:

[Singing Lv. 4]

[Dancing Lv. 5]

[Musician Lv. 6]

[Handicraft Lv. 1]

[Enchanting Lv. 4]

[Artificer Lv. 1]

[Identify Lv. 1]

[Identity Blocker Lv. 3]

[Noble Aura Lv. 3]

[Royal Etiquette Lv. 6]

[Riding Lv. 2]

[Scholar Lv. 2]

[Calligraphy Lv. 6]

[Mathematician Lv. 6]

Spell List:

Custom Spells:

[Create Crack]

[Wind Gust]

Earth Magic:

[Earth Wall]

[Rock Blast]

[Earth Strike]

[Rock Bullet]

[Sturdy Earth]

Custom Spells:

[Wind Bullet]

[Wind Cutter]

[Air Shield]

[Wind Slash]

[Swift Winds]

I had the chance to use my new party bracelet to read her ID, giving me all the information stored inside her ID, which meant her profile. To tell the truth, her stats were lackluster but that was to be expected considering her level. The only other person whose profile I’d had a good look at and was around her level was Caszcur, and his was of a lower quality compared to Ellaine’s.

Thanks to her noble lineage, I guess, her Mana was decently high and with her previous Jobs revolving around mages, her Intelligence and Wisdom were good enough for her level. However, stats weren’t everything. Skills mattered, too. On that front, she did well to train up her magic-related ones but she has been neglecting her other combat-related skills, like her senses and resistances.

On the first day of her training, I received detailed information on how Ellaine usually trained with her tutors and parents. Most of the information concerned her time in the royal academy but she also had private tutoring to complement it. Honestly, if it weren’t for Tasianna and Master Kush, I wouldn’t have been able to decipher most of it as I was mostly self-taught. There were a lot of special terms.

Once I understood the gist of it, I threw everything out of the window. The reason? They focused too much on skill acquisition and improvements through practice. Her schedule was mostly theoretical with minimal amounts of practical applications, especially during her time in the academy as it seemed to have a heavy focus on socializing with other aristocrats, instead of combat training.

When I explained this to Barathan and Manuela, two of her former tutors, they looked aghast. Excuses like, “A noble lady should also appear graceful and refined even during training” or “Sparring could cause serious damage.” I wasn’t sure if they were being overprotective or if this was just normal in noble society.

Still, I told Ellaine I couldn’t help her train if she wasn’t willing to do what I wanted her to do. I only knew how to train one way and adapting everything around her wishes was too much work for me when I myself was still inexperienced. The look in her eyes was enough for me to nod my head in satisfaction.

I did contemplate giving her the SP system and my bonuses through [Hestia’s Retainer] but I wasn’t sure if I could fully 100% trust Ellaine yet. It’s not about her, it’s about her family and whatever they were planning to do with me. Thankfully, Ellaine accepted my reasoning without any further arguments.

As my dance instructor always told me, “Haste makes waste.” He always advocated for a slow but steady training regimen to iron out my foundation. When the time came for me to show off the fruits of my training, the basics I’d learned would always be there for me. Sure, sometimes I would lose myself in my idol training but I’ve been following my instructor’s motto since then. Train a little bit every day and never go overboard.

“Here, don’t lose your catalyst.” Returning my mind to reality, I handed Ellaine a ring adorned with both a brown gem and a green gem once she was back on her feet.

“Thank you, Lady Hestia…and thank you for healing me. I’ll make sure to repay you for the white grace,” Ellaine said with downcast eyes.

Waving my hand in dismissal, I looked at her with a frown. “Nonsense, as if I would take payment for saving a friend’s life. Do me a favor, instead, tell me you have [Arcane Corruption (Minor)] before you suddenly collapse on the ground.”

While training on the first day went smoothly with me helping Ellaine develop some sorta stamina and seeing how well she can cast magic, the second day didn’t. After I returned from the Binding Festival, she immediately asked me to train with her despite it nearly being midnight. We haven’t slept since we started and I’ve just learned from Barathan the sun was about to come up.

Our training involved training her stats and skills through competition. Another thing I learned through my idol training was that rivalry is an incredible motivator. The other idol trainees were bitches, but their ridicule did make me want to work harder, even to the point when I had that delusional “perfect debut” mindset.

The only problem was she underestimated her mana usage and built up too much arcane corruption until she collapsed. Fulinoe leaves, a plant you could only find in the Belzac Forest and the elven kingdom Saelariel, had an effect similar to an antioxidant that reduces arcane corruption when made into tea.

Apparently, it was a luxury product among nobles and potion makers which could fetch us a good amount of money if we sold it. Tasianna was growing a ton of those leaves in our garden, so I felt it was alright to use it to help Ellaine’s training free of charge. Like Ellaine said, a noble should flaunt her wealth, so I was simply flaunting mine.

Still, even with all that fulinoe tea, if you didn’t rest once in a while, even the tea couldn’t keep up with your arcane corruption accumulation.

When she collapsed, luckily, I was around to nurse her with healing spells much like I’d done for Saori. However, when I informed Barathan and her other servants, they were devastated and wanted to bring Ellaine back to her room, but I told them off. I didn’t want them to disrupt us.

“Dawn is about to come. Do you want to continue?” I asked her.

After drinking another cup of fulinoe tea, Ellaine smiled and caressed her ring. “…One more round, please. Just one more and I’ll be satisfied for today, Lady Hestia.”

We took our positions inside the room. With one of her ring’s gems shining an emerald green, Ellaine cast [Swift Winds]. This ring was actually something similar to Master Kush’s amulet, which was called a catalyst or magic tool by proper mages. With the skills enchanted on it, it helped every single aspect of magic casting: speed, power, efficiency.

The difference between a catalyst-less mage and a mage with a high-quality catalyst was huge. A great example would be my spars with Master Kush. The fights would always feel equal before he pulled out his catalyst, leading to a quick victory in his favor. Ellaine was using a catalyst her mother made for her, but our stat difference was far too large for it to make a difference, unfortunately.

A magic tool, or catalyst, was similar to manatech where it needed an external influx of mana to activate, but what differentiated the two was that a manatech required a mana battery to work while a magic tool needed an alchemic stone. The former was more complicated and expensive to make, while the latter was simpler and only needed magical knowledge.

Alchemic stones were gemstones transformed through alchemy to focus a mage’s mana and to heighten the effects of runes and enchantments etched onto the tool. While warriors could improve themselves with stronger weapons, a mage needed higher-quality catalysts. Wands, staves, amulets, rings; whatever you could think a magician would bring to a fight to become stronger.

Our party needs an equipment day, urgently. We could improve ourselves so much with some weapons and catalysts.

“Just a reminder, you only need to touch me once, while I can only avoid your attacks with [Warp Point: Entry] and [Warp Point: Exit]. Understood, Lady Ellaine?” I told Ellaine, who gave me a confirming nod.

I’ve lost track of when I actually got [Space-Time Magic Lv. 4] and its system spell [Warp Point: Entry] but I know for sure it has been over three months. While training with Ellaine two days ago, I leveled up both [Storm Magic] and [Space-Time Magic]. From those two skills, I learned [Sylphid’s Cloak], a buffing and damage reduction spell, and [Warp Point: Exit], which finally allowed me to use [Warp Point: Entry].

Think of [Warp Point: Entry] and [Warp Point: Exit] like portals that can only work if I cast both of them. They open up a crack in the air right above their magic circles, which anybody can use to, well, teleport themselves from one point to the other.

Unfortunately, despite how amazing it was to teleport everywhere, two restrictions were holding them back. First of all, the cast didn’t cost too much mana but once both portals were open, my mana would be continuously drained to keep them open until I closed them myself. And secondly, the larger the distance between the two, the more mana I had to pay to maintain them.

With that said, what could I use warp point for? Well, I could use it as an instant teleport to avoid attacks, a quick long-range escape from a tricky situation, or mass group teleportation from one point to the next.

The first option is redundant since dodging attacks with my high Agility would be faster than casting those two spells. The second could be useful but without using [Delay Cast] on the entry, it would timeout eventually, which means it would cost me mana to maintain it. Also, if somebody were to damage the magic circle before I cast exit, the circle would dissipate. The last option was actually the most useful part of this spell. If I needed to rescue a large group of people or animals, I could place “entry” down and then get slingshotted by Saori at a far-away point, place “exit” down, and then bring everybody to safety instantly. I just have to make sure the mana cost doesn’t kill me, he he.

So why was I using warp point to dodge here? Well, I’m using a portal to move around and that’s cool. Isn’t that reason enough? I’m in a world with dragons and magic, going through portals is just part of the fun.

Once the match began, Ellaine chanted [Wind Slash] and shot it at me. I placed one grey magic circle next to me and then another next to Ellaine, causing a crack in the air to open up. I entered through the portal next to me, shouted “Peekaboo,” and attempted to touch Ellaine with my hand but she quickly dodged. I was holding my power back.

Our little competition was a game of tag but with magic. Luckily for me, I didn’t need to explain the rules as it seems this game existed at the royal academy as a way for students to train against each other. Similar to the rules of tag, once you touch somebody they are out of the game, however, unlike Earth’s tag, Peolyncians could use magic to extend their touch range. There also wasn’t a single “it” among the players as the game was played more like a battle royal, where the person who caught the most people would be the winner.

Usually, the players could use any spells or tricks they had up their sleeves, barring any lethal ones of course, but since it wouldn’t be fun if I gave it my all, I suggested playing under a handicap. I was only allowed to tag Ellaine with my hand and my only dodging method was to use warp point. Otherwise, I could be liberal with my usage of spells to block, disorientate, and trick.

The idea behind this training was to help Ellaine level up her sensory and movement skills as I knew from experience that relying only on magic and resistances was too unreliable. If she were to ever meet an Agility or stealth-reliant monster, she would have a hard time fighting it. Saori and the garm matriarch are great examples of this.

Movement Skills and [Prediction] were also phenomenal to win in Peolyncian tag and a normal magician duel. Unlike the magician duel I had with Master Kush, in a normal one, the rules state the moment a mage loses their catalyst or if they received a certain amount of damage, they would lose. In both rulesets, being able to predict your opponent’s moves and accurately hit them with a counter were effective methods to win.

The two of us continued for a while until Ellaine’s concentration waned. Noticing it, I decided we had trained enough. Using [Wind Blast], I blew her off her feet, then used [White Flames] to blind her in conjunction with my scale-dust to make her flinch, causing her already deteriorating focus to drop even more. Using my last portal, I grabbed her shoulders and pulled her into the portal to bring her to my side.

“Don’t use your spells only for attacks and feints. There are many other ways you could use them, you just need to be creative about it.”

Breathing heavily, Ellaine slouched onto the ground and congratulated me for winning. Seeing her messy hair, sweat-covered face, and the dirtied training suit she was wearing, it made it hard to think this was the elegant, refined noblewomen I’d come to know. The exhaustion she was showing was proof of the effort she put in today.

“This was the 5th match and I’m still unable to put, huff, your suggestions into practice,” Ellaine complained with a shake of her head. “I’m learning far too slowly, considering all you’ve for me, Lady Hestia. I apologize for my incompetence.”

“Ellaine, this is only the second day, geez.” Massaging my temples in exasperation, I couldn’t help but show a hint of annoyance at her self-deprecation. “The academy starts at the beginning of spring, right? We have so much time to train with each other. Ellaine, you can’t expect to catch up with your brother in such a short period.”

“I know…I understand. It’s just…frustrating,” Ellaine forced herself to admit. “I am the daughter born between a Count and a noble from an Arcanuess family. Mother could have inherited her House’s title and become Arcaliess Talshia, if only she’d been born earlier. Brother Jonathan inherited our parent's talents, so why couldn’t I?”

In the Kingdom of Artorias, nobles inherit their parent’s title not through the time of their birth, but through their abilities and amount of Mana. Mana was the foundation of noble society and what differentiated them from commoners. As nobles were considered the elites and protectors of the kingdom, it was expected of House heads to not only be strong warriors but also capable magicians.

Inheritance rules state the children of the first wife/husband would compete in an assessment of their total Mana and the quality of their profile, ending with a duel between each of them. The second and third of the head of the house had the option of competing against the first in the same way, and if they could best the first spouse, then their children would be eligible to compete for succession, too.

As Mana and high stats could be inherited by their children, nobles prioritized merit and abilities over arbitrary barriers like a child’s age and the ranking of the head’s spouses. Ellaine’s mother Marianne, for example, was the second daughter of the second wife of an Arcanuess, but could still participate in the inheritance battle despite being the youngest. She only lost the right due to her siblings being more capable.

Another example was Count Helvas himself. He was the second son but he bested his older brother in a duel with his sword despite having less mana than him.

While age wasn’t a factor, that didn’t mean it was irrelevant. Once the first child was born, parents usually gave him or her the most resources to improve until the next child was born. This meant that Jonathan, who was three years older than Ellaine, had more time to benefit from his House’s resources and teachings.

Aside from the age gap, Ellaine also mentioned the talents of her brother. Not only was he a capable swordsman like their father but also inherited their mother’s talents as a mage. On the other hand, Ellaine was just normal. She was average and took longer to learn new subjects compared to her brother.

When the first child comes of age at 15, the inheritance battles would start. At the age of twelve, Ellaine was forced to compete with her brother for the noble title of her house, but after years of possessing an inferiority complex and knowing how far ahead her brother was, she gave up her right before the competition even started. Her brother was made her father’s successor, while she lost all respect from her former retainers.

The only retainers Ellaine still had were Josine, who was only a commoner, and her two personal knights, who were only the children of barons. It seems her parents still loved her despite what she called an “embarrassing display.” Ellaine’s failure and cowardice still clung to her three years later, which is why she asked me to train her.

I could sympathize with Ellaine. I knew too well how it felt to disappoint your parents despite all the love and support they’d given you. Ellaine couldn’t become a countess anymore and it was likely she would be married off to another House, but I didn’t want her to feel like she was worthless.

Students at the royal academy graduated at the age of 18, so if I could help make her feel better for herself, I would gladly. Sure, “haste makes waste” so training during the night without any sleep might be counterproductive but the fire I saw in her eyes when she asked for more training yesterday evening was enough for me to know she wasn’t fooling around.

Pressing a button on the wall, I spoke into a blue crystal. “Barathan or Manuela, Lady Ellaine and I are done training. Lady Ellaine is probably too tired to move by herself so please have somebody carry her up to her room.” After a few seconds, the crystal glowed blue and Barathan’s voice came out from it. I didn’t ask how this intercom-like manatech exactly worked but looking at it with [Mana Eyes] it seemed it was connected through a wire to the other end.

Ellaine was then brought back to her room by Josine and Manuella while Barathan and Svena guided me back up to my room. Inside my room, Saori and Tasianna were seated, looking slightly troubled as they stared at Barathan and Svena. At that point, a chill went up to my spine as I noticed the two servants glaring at me.

“No matter how strong you are, a noble lady should never, ever be left alone inside the city!” They gave us a lecture so intense it even made Saori look apoplectic because I’d walked through the streets without anybody attending to me. Regardless of whether I could protect myself or not, it was seen as inappropriate for a noblewoman to be completely alone without an attendant or retainer. Rumors could be created from it.

While I didn’t care much about it, Tasianna was the one who was affected the most by the lecture. “I have grown too lazy and abandoned my Lady,” she muttered before affirming her loyalty to me again. “I shall never leave your side again!” she proclaimed.

Once that was done, our days in Firwood went on. A week has passed where I would split my time with training Ellaine, working on Quests at the hunters guild, and preparing for my next idol concert, whenever it would be scheduled. In this time, our party was able to gain two more Job changes.

Max level of Job   [Mage] has been reached

Attributes have increased due to level up

Individual   [Sunfang Dragonewt, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has switched her Main Job to [Fighter]

Main Job benefits have been updated due to Job change

Fighter Level: 0/5

Max level of Job   [Fighter] has been reached

Attributes have increased due to level up

Individual   [Sunfang Dragonewt, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has switched her Main Job to [Cleric]

Main Job benefits have been updated due to Job change

Cleric Level: 0/5

The monsters and Quest experience we gained weren’t enough for any of us to level up, but our Job levels received experience independently. Instead of choosing more mage Jobs, I wanted to see what Jobs would open up if I were to take [Fighter] and [Cleric]. I had so many skills that I wanted to know how many options I had before taking harder to level up Jobs.

Saori did the same thing by acquiring [Caster] and [Fighter] herself after finishing [Rogue]. Tasianna, on the other hand, became a [Torrent Sorcerer] to improve her water magic even more. Unlike all the Jobs Saori and I have gained so far, [Torrent Sorcerer] could be leveled up to level 15, instead, of only five. This was our first experience with a Job of a higher tier, meaning it had not only a higher level cap but was also harder to level up. Similar to how a G rank monster would level up more quickly than a D rank one.

Weekly Job Change Limit: 2/3

Previous Jobs: [Caster] [Mage] [Fighter]

Main Job: [Cleric]

Available Jobs

[Freelancer] [Pyromancer] [Earth Mage] [Aeromancer] [Wind Mage] [Holy Mage] [Space-Time Mage] [Magus] [Healer] [Priestess] [Shrine Maiden] [Synergist] [Warrior Priestess] [Brawler] [Aggravator] [Ravager] [Hellblade] [Bard] [Scout] [Worker] [Academic] [Noble] [Scale-Dust User] [White Pyromancer] [Corrosive Pyromancer] [Usurper] [Champion of Aurena] [Crimson Saintess] [Idol]

As expected, having certain Jobs would open up hybrid Jobs like [Magus], a warrior mage, or [Warrior Priestess], the precursor for paladin-based Jobs. Interestingly enough, there was a job named [Hellblade] and I could unlock it since I had the [Hellblade Dragon] skill, so apparently my unique draconic skills also affected the Jobs I could take. I guess that should’ve already been obvious with [Scale-Dust User], though.

I was planning to get these advance Jobs one day but unlocking the easy ones first was my priority. What I currently needed wasn’t just skills and abilities, but also stats. Stats weren’t everything but it would be stupid to say they were irrevelant. After all, the higher my Mana becomes, the more reckless I could be with spell casting.

During this week, signs of my [Battle Frenzy] eventually showed up during a Quest. Saori mentioned I lasted almost two weeks without showing symptoms, probably ‘cause of my choice to evolve into a [Young Sunfang Dragon], but it was still a bit disappointing to see the status effect wasn’t gone for good. Damn you, Grandpa Kargryxmor!

Taking the opportunity to fight outside the town, Saori, Tasianna, and I had one of our usual duels. The symptoms quickly disappeared before our spar ended. While we were there, I tested something I’d been wondering about this whole time: whether the skills and stats I got from my Jobs transferred to my dragon form.

As the Main Job benefit, [Cleric] gave the Job skill [Healing Amp], which improves the effectiveness of my healing spells, so I wanted to see if it stayed when I transformed. Unfortunately, it didn’t; meaning Job skills, abilities, and spells couldn’t be used when I’m fighting in my original form. However, any bonuses to my stats stayed. That was really good news and gave Saori and me another incentive to get more Jobs and level them up.

As a result we knew for sure that staying in our beastmen forms was the best to enjoy the perks of being a monster and a humanoid. Being a full human meant losing skills like [Draconic Barrier] or my ability to produce scale-dusts, while being a dragon meant losing precious Main Job skills. It wasn’t too bad now, as I only had low-ranking Jobs, but once I get “Supreme Overlord of the Heavenly Orchestra” or “Mega Super Bla Bla Bla Bla Idol,” that’s when losing some skills will hurt.

Still, being a dragon meant being able to fully release all my power. Nothing can beat that.

However, from now on, our three free Job changes were all used up. From now on, we had to spend one small silvite, or 1000 Davi, for each Job acquisition. Due to our financial situation and our need to get more Jobs the moment we could, Saori told us to start making money.

A note from AbyssRaven

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 12 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 112: Discussing Saori’s Business Plans.

“So, we finished four F rank quests and one E rank in this one week, which gave us 7211 Davi. We still have one Job change remaining this week, which will cost us 1000 Davi per person, but tomorrow is already RestDay, so it would be unlikely for us to use it up.” Saori then began writing some more calculations on her wooden tablet, murmuring our food costs, essential buys, and future equipment funds. After massaging her brows for a moment, she handed me the tablet.

O-Oh, we aren’t doing too well financially, I see…

“I expected the food I bought to last us for at least a week, but I believe that, at the rate we are eating through it, I will have to buy another batch before next week. I already talked to the merchant who provided our first supply, but I was not able to talk the price down this time. He argued that there was a supply shortage, rejecting every argument I made. Haaa, winning a bargaining war is nice but losing it feels so bad,” Saori complained with a long sigh, slumping a bit in her chair. “Anyway, do you now understand why I said it was important for you to join the bakers guild?”

“Y-Yeah, I’m sorry. I really thought we could earn all our money from doing some Quests and we’d be happy. I didn’t know we needed this much money for food and spices,” I admitted with furrowed brows. Becoming a sunfang dragon has made it easier for me to control my [Battle Frenzy] but it also gave me a bottomless stomach. “I committed my mornings to training Ellaine, which only leaves the afternoon free for us three to do Quests together. We can’t go out in the evenings since the gates close.”

There were night guards at the gates, but nobody was allowed to enter the town after the day was over. Once the sun sets, the town guards found it too risky to let anybody in during this time. Adventurers who came too late had to camp outside.

I guess I was an aristocrat and we did have that scary document from the Marquess of Firwood, so if we ever did lock ourselves out at the commoner’s gate, we could always use the noble one. However, given that Barathan and Manuela lectured me just for walking around town unsupervised at nighttime, they might be more angry at Saori and Tasianna for having me stay outside of the town, even if it was for a Quest.

“Exactly. To keep everything easy to manage, I want us to work together on Quests as often as possible. We could track our rank points with our party bracelets, but it would be problematic if we became C rank before you. The rules would allow the two us to take B rank quests, but you wouldn’t be able to,” Saori stated. “Also, we need to remember to register our party as an official one. Melia did mention it to me, but I forgot about it until we had that moment yesterday.”

Yesterday during an E rank Quest, one of our clients wanted to learn our party’s name, but as we hadn’t chosen one yet, we couldn’t give it to them. Argh, it was pretty embarrassing when having a party name is so obvious. If our reputation grows, people will start knowing our names, but before that, they will hear the name of our party. Learning one name is easier than three.

…Names are the worst. Would we be an idol group if I named us like a K-pop one?

As I was contemplating this seriously difficult task, a bell ran from outside our room. Before Saori could answer it, Tasianna’s voice came from outside so I bid her enter. Joined by Svena, who brought the tea cart with her, Tasianna came to our table and set rice crackers, toffel chips, and multiple pastries from House Helvas on it. Meanwhile, Svena prepared our tea.

Seeing as I have been living in this mansion for two weeks now, Svena has also started learning my likes and dislikes, including which tea I loved drinking. It might not be coffee, but fulinoe tea always tastes nostalgic, reminding me of Earth.

As Svena was brewing the tea, Tasianna was giving her a small glare. Not out of hatred, but out of envy. Before she had [Elvenize], Tasianna would always feel jealous that only Saori could serve me the tea she brewed. Now, with Svena acting as my temporary attendant while I stayed in Ellaine’s mansion, Tasianna felt a bit threatened by her.

The two would always squabble when it came to who could brew my tea, or who would bathe me. Yes, those two argued who would help me take a shower and bath, once. And yes, I felt very uncomfortable since I had the mentality of a teenager from Earth. I can shower on my own, thank you very much!

Aside from their competitive drive motivating them to work harder, the two had been working well together. Tasianna still isn’t much of a fan of humans, but it seems she didn’t mind working with Svena if it helped me.

“You seem troubled, Miss Saori. May I assist you with anything?” Svena offered after she’d served me my tea.

“It is not a problem… Actually, if you could, would you please call Mister Barathan and Miss Manuela to come over if they are free? I wish to ask them something.”

With a small bow, Svena left the room. A few minutes later, she returned with Barathan and Manuela.

“I hope you have had a pleasant DarkDay. Thank you for coming. I know you two must be busy with managing the household,” I welcomed them.

In his usual, finely made butler outfit, Barathan bowed like a gentleman, looking extremely capable with his clean appearance. Despite his grey hair and eyes, Barathan looked more around his late twenties than a silver-fox butler. “We thank the Goddess, for we are honored to be welcomed, Lady Hestia…Although, we couldn’t have declined even if we were drowned in work.”

“Shush, Barathan. Mind your words,” Manuela scolded him, looking annoyed. Compared to Barathan’s monotonous color scheme, Manuela was more like a color explosion. She had her dark blue hair in a fishtail braid, while her blue and red heterochromatic eyes looked magical. “May the Goddess bless your kind heart, Lady Hestia. It was of no problem for us, for we live to serve. How may we be of assistance?”

Their dynamic really is weird, huh?

Despite being the two head attendants in the mansion, I’ve noticed a certain hostility between the two, more specifically from Manuela toward Barathan. I didn’t want to pry, so I haven’t asked them about it yet, but it was clear enough they had some sort of history. There was a certain synergy with how they commanded the other servants, exactly knowing what the other might think. So, why does it seem like Manuela dislikes him?

“Actually, I was the one who called for you,” Saori chimed in before I could say anything. “Barathan, it is about the plan we spoke about. About setting up a business, or faction in your words, to help us earn what we need for our travels. I have been having a hard time thinking of how to properly execute it, so I wanted to learn what exactly the Greenveil duchy specializes in.”

Since they were standing, I asked Tasianna, Svena, Barathan, and Manuela to sit down with us at the table. Once he did, Barathan placed a hand on his chin, raising an eyebrow as he responded, “Haven’t you gotten all the guild memberships you needed, aside from the alchemist guild? Once you have an accurate plan on what your business will revolve around, you can present your idea to the merchant guild for membership. Why do you need to know our duchy’s trade goods?”

Aside from the two adventurer guilds, Saori also went ahead and joined the tailor and chef guild, while Tasianna only joined the chef guild. Saori even made me join the bakers guild due to my baking hobby. It was weird; unlike the adventurer guilds who had a [Crystal of the Divine System] inside their guild halls, I had to go with the baker guild members to the artisan guild in order to have my ID updated with my new membership.

All of these preparations were for Saori’s plan to start a business with the three of us as founders. Looking at our recent activities, I was spending most of my time inside the mansion while Saori and Tasianna would leave me behind with Svena as they roamed the town. Aside from helping Ellaine with her training, the cold weather also made it hard for me to go outside all the time.

Ignoring all the finer details, I was still a fire dragon and the cold made me feel drowsy; I enjoyed spending my days in my pajamas, lying on my bed, playing music with [Aerokinesis], and composing songs. Svena did look exasperated whenever I would snack on my bed, looking extremely lazy until Saori picked me up for a hunter’s guild Quest.

Now, while this lifestyle was acceptable when I had two wealthy parents taking care of all my needs, it was problematic while living with Saori and Tasianna. I was high maintenance, and I wasn’t earning enough money to sustain it. If our group wasn’t working through Quests every possible hour of every single day, we needed an alternative income source and Saori’s business plans were the solution to it.

“At its core, the plan revolves around Lady Hestia’s career as an idol. Uhm, an Earthen version of a—” Before Saori could continue, Manuela interrupted her.

“One moment, Miss Saori. Svena, please, leave the room.” Manuela’s word not only shocked Svena, but also my party. When I asked for further elaboration, Manuela explained Svena wasn’t privy to my party’s secrets as she was neither a member of House Helvas nor one of the head attendants. As my wish was to limit information spread, Manuela judged it would be better for Svena to leave the room.

I really appreciated the fact she was taking it so seriously. It made me trust House Helvas a bit more; however, technically, Svena already learned about my core when she saw me naked. As it was too much of a chore to have her leave the room every single time I wanted to discuss stuff concerning my secrets, I rejected Manuela’s suggestion and elucidated Svena on everything.

“T-This is a lot to digest, P-Princess Hestia Atsuko Kargrxmor! An otherworlder, a dragon princess, and also a champion of the goddess. Also, I didn’t expect Miss Saori and Miss Tasianna to have such secrets, too.” Instead of looking elated about the fact, Svena looked a little bit mortified.

“Ignorance is bliss…,” Saori mumbled, to which everybody in the room, aside from me, nodded.

D-Did I do something wrong?

“Your Grace, might I remind you that the only other confirmed [Otherworldly Reincarnator], or any otherworldly visitor in general, was the dwarven high-queen known as the ‘Revolution Queen?’ Were it not known that the Origin Gods came from another world, no one would have believed that the ‘Revolution Queen’ came from another world, either. It is simply surreal,” Manuela explained.

She continued, “However, not only do you come from another world, Lady Hestia, but you were born as a princess of Kargryx as well as made a champion of the Goddess. Your authority is indisputable; as attendants of House Helvas, we are ordered by our lord to keep your party’s secret safe. If we were to leak this information, even unintentionally, our punishment would be most severe.”

In other words, by speaking without thinking about the consequences, I’d just endangered Svena’s life. Horrified by this sudden realization, I couldn’t help but apologize to Svena. “I-It is no problem, Lady Hestia. I am honored to receive your worry. Besides, your words when I first began serving you have long-since imprinted itself in my head. This mouth will not tell anybody about your secret.”

With the situation defused, Saori promptly brought the discussion back on topic. She explained her plan to build a business surrounding my idol career, similar to an idol agency, to not only give me a chance to live my dream, but also to fulfill my role as Aurena’s champion. Increasing [The Light]’s fan counter was a sub-goal, after all.

However, to accumulate the funds to sustain our high maintenance lifestyle, especially the food and spices, while also having enough to start equipping ourselves with gear, buy manatech, and to create a proper concert stage, we needed more sources of income than just doing adventurer Quests. We joined the various artisan guilds for this reason, but Saori wasn’t sure how to implement her ideas without disrupting the local economy.

After all, stuff like Tasianna’s shampoo, Saori’s Earthly cuisine, and my pastries could fetch a lot of money among nobles and wealthy commoners if something mundane like yeast was considered a luxury.

“Hmm, I see, so you wish to know what our duchy’s trading goods and other specializations are, correct? While I do understand what you mean, wouldn’t a merchant be more suitable for this?” Barathan answered.

“Nonsense.” However, instead of accepting his answer, Manuela interjected with a denial. “You are one of the head butlers of a noble from the Greenveil duchy. You may not be a merchant, but your knowledge should be adequate to answer Miss Saori’s question. You were, after all, the former head attendant of this mansion and managed our lord’s businesses here.”

I do remember Barathan mentioning he handed Manuela the role as the head attendant of House Helvas’s Firwood mansion when his grandfather passed away, in order to assume his new role as the seneschal of Carine village. If he also managed any businesses Count Helvas was maintaining in the town, then he should know what Saori wants. Why was he avoiding it?

Furrowing his brows, Barathan sighed. “My apologies. Ahem, the first thing you must understand is the division between the seven duchies of our kingdom. I presume everybody is still aware of them, correct?”

Greenveil, Equevanna, Morgiana, Myrddin, Lecartiglio, Groushia, and Olivus, I listed out in my mind, nodding after I confirmed my memory.

Barathan continued, “Each duchy specializes in different goods and services. The Greenveil duchy specifically puts a high focus on spices, herbs, alchemical ingredients, and monster materials from the Belzac forest, also whatever we can retrieve from the dungeon in Cedaraille. However, we are mostly—”

“WAIT, WAIT! HOLD ON!” I shouted, slamming my hands on the table. “DUNGEON! You just said dungeon, right?! Delving through dungeons to fight monsters and get treasures! Cedaraille, Cedaraille, where have I heard that name before! Ahh, I know! The capital of the Greenveil duchy! Saori, Tasianna, I know where we are going after Firwood!”

The rush of adrenaline, dopamine, or whatever chemicals that were causing this sense of mania inside my body made me jump up and down like an excited primary school girl. Once this cheerfulness ended, I began noticing the warm gazes Saori and Tasianna were giving me, the indifferent look Barathan had, and the shocked expressions of Manuela and Svena. I shyly gave out a giggle and sat down after apologizing for interrupting everybody.

“…As I was saying, Greenveil is an agriculturally focused duchy. Most landed nobles here focus on improving the production efficiency of their lands. ‘Even commoners do not starve in Greenveil,’ is a popular saying among the nobles of the other duchies to acknowledge how bountiful our harvests are. To live up to this reputation, most nobles here are earth and wind mages as that allows them to manage their fief without hiring a mage from the mages guild,” Barathan explained.

Of course, the duchy did import goods from other duchies and countries, like tazlokwheat from the dwarves to the north, but Greenveil Duchy had become wealthy and prosperous as the largest supplier of food in the whole kingdom. The well-managed lands, high fertility of the soil with regulated amounts of mana, and abundance of rich materials from the Belzac Forest, which was right beside Firwood,all combined to make this duchy capable of supplying the whole kingdom with food even in the event that all the other duchies had a bad harvest year.

With so many food products, cooking and alchemy were also significant industries within the duchy. They were widely supported, and even sponsored by multiple nobles. Being picky about their food and wine was simply the norm for any magnoble or greifnoble in Greenveil. There was even a joke among the nobles of other duchies that you could only find merchants and farmers in Greenveil.

“It’s all a jest without any ill will behind it, but it feels awful when I cannot even talk back to the schwertnobles. I would only sully Lady Marianne’s name if I were too captious with court gossips.” Placing a hand on her cheek, Manuela gave out an exaggerated sigh without opening her mouth.

Hold on, what did she say?

“Oh, Miss Manuela, are you a noble?” Saori asked in my stead, also befuddled by the sudden reveal.

“Oh my, have I not mentioned it, yet?” Placing a hand in front of her mouth, Manuela responded with slight shock. “Yes, I am. The third daughter of a viscount from the Morgiana duchy…” Manuela paused mid-sentence, her mouth agape as she gave Tasianna a glance before continuing with a stutter, “t-to be more precise. I was made Lady Marianne’s, ahem, Lady Countess Helvas’s retainer when she needed a tutor for her daughter, Lady Ellaine. I have served House Helvas for five years.”

When Saori asked why she was wearing a maid outfit, Manuela answered with a proud smile. “Once I was made the head attendant of this mansion, I decided it would be better for the mansion’s peace if I acted like a maid, instead of a noble. While I wear this dress, I am a humble retainer. I do not need to flaunt my noble title when I can earn the obedience and respect of the servants with my competence.”

“Your diligence is an inspiration to us, Miss Manuela,” Svena praised her, causing Manuela to puff up her sizable chest.

From further questioning, Manuela admitted to being assigned to Ellaine’s mother, Marianne, due to her status as an arcanuess’ daughter, the highest rank among the magnobles. This was a political decision as it granted Manuela’s family a few benefits from Marianne’s noble House.

She was initially only there to tutor Ellaine in magic and accompany her at the royal academy, but was later assigned to her current role as the head maid of the House Helvas’s Firwood mansion after Ellaine forfeited the succession competition. The reason why Barathan and Manuela were so worried about my training method and schedule for Ellaine was ‘cause they used to tutor her. In other words, I was right that they were overprotective.

“Wait, please, hold on,” Tasianna interrupted. “If you are a noble, then you must also be a mage, no? We heard there wasn’t a mage’s guild branch in Firwood, and after searching for it with Miss Saori, I can confirm the rumor. Why isn’t there one when so many nobles live here?

Come to think about it, I completely forgot about that. Didn’t Master Kush mention that?

Fiddling with her fingers, Manuela breathed in slightly as she shook her head in denial. “It is the fault of the local alchemist guild. Before I took over the role of the head attendant, I heard the alchemist guild won the right to manage most of the materials from the Belzac Forest. This caused the mages guild to conclude that having a branch in Firwood was unnecessary since they couldn’t profit from the rich alchemical ingredients from the Belzac Forest, so they closed the branch here. Well, it is tedious, but we nobles have gargoyles to simply ride to Cedaraille whenever we needed to access the services of the mages guild.”

And what about the mages from a commoner background? I saw quite a few mages at the hunters and mercenary guild.

“Usually, this would be impossible,” Barathan continued. “The mages guild is run by nobles, while the alchemist guild is operated by commoners. However, the unfortunate part is that the current head of the alchemist guild is supported by a local Arcanuess, Lord Arcanuess Chezaic. Although with limited authority, the alchemist guild does act as the representatives for the commoner mages in Firwood, if they need mage-specific requests and commissions.”

“…In other words, the alchemist guild has a monopoly on mages and alchemic ingredients in Firwood.” Saori concluded, at which both Barathan and Manuela nodded. As items like magic tools and gargoyles require alchemy for their creation, in addition to potions and elixirs, our party had to go through the alchemist guild to acquire our first wands and staves.

I heard Tasianna was denied membership ‘cause they only accepted new members if they had a recommendation from a veteran alchemist. There is also the fact they ordered the extermination of all garms and fenrirs in the Belzac Forest. While I was no friend of the garm matriarch, isn’t it a bit scummy to order a monster’s death if they haven’t done anything to humans or beastmen? The Quest stated to “eradicate every single one” so the hunters guild could establish a forward camp inside the forest. Mhm, this rubs me the wrong way.

“…Which means, without a membership, we cannot start training Tasianna as an alchemist unless we catch the attention of a noble. We also have to go to Cedaraille to acquire our mage guild memberships…and also the dungeon entry. I will remember it, Lady Hestia,” Saori stated, before looking at her wooden tablets which were filled with notes she made during this whole discussion. “Aside from making money, we must also make sure the business can stay mobile for our travels. Hmm, food is the obvious option. Something like a wandering restaurant or café. Mister Barathan, Miss Manuela, would it be possible for Tasianna and me to cook for Lady Ellaine? I wish to have her taste test a few dishes if it is possible.”

Barathan immediately nodded. “That is possible. Lady Ellaine has commented on how delectable Lady Hestia’s meals were. I presume you will cook cuisine from your world, correct? I will make the necessary preparations once you decide on a time.” Revealing a slim party bracelet from under his sleeve, Barathan opened up the “notes” function and began writing everything down. “Do you require assistance with your tailor guild membership? Will you prioritize mana clothing or clothing for commoners?”

Saori shrugged. “I am not sure yet. Clothing for wealthy merchants is a possibility, but the upfront cost to buy all the threads would be too much. On the other hand, Lady Hestia and Tasianna have enough Mana to supply me with mana threads. What is mana clothing used for in noble society?”

“Protective robes filled with enchantments. They make excellent armor for mages if properly enchanted or, in some cases, runed,” Manuela explained. “Aside from threads made from certain monsters, clothing made from normal threads cannot be enchanted easily, as it would simply combust from all that mana. Mana threads, on the other hand, can easily accept many enchantments and runes to protect a noble when they meet with other nobles. In that case, if they are attacked and forced to fight, outfits and dresses made with mana threads allow a noble to be combat-ready immediately.”

After a pause, Barathan continued for Manuela. “However, the problem lies with the scarcity of threads. Not every noble has the skill [Mana Weave] to create their threads, and the suppliers know this and raise their prices, subsequently. And because mana threads adopt the color of the magic circle they are weaved from, certain colors are harder to come by. For example, the purple mana cloth Lady Hestia so kindly gifted to our lord, Lord Count Helvas.”

Mumbling, “I see…” Saori then turned her head to me. “I am not sure if we should open up a restaurant or a café, but how about this. On weekdays, we can open up our restaurant and serve customers our food, while on the weekends, we can use our time to increase our adventurer ranks. But, on LightDay, the day dedicated to Goddess Aurena, you, her champion, will give an idol performance to everybody in attendance. We can sell tickets for reserved seats or even idol merchandise like t-shirts, which should earn us some money and give you a chance to gain ‘fans.’ This way, we can save some funds by using the restaurant as the venue, until we have enough money for a real concert stage.

Oh, that does sound interesting, I thought with excitement, uncontrollably flailing my tail around.

Aside from the stage itself, I still had all the decorations and accessories we'd made for my concert in Carine village in my storage, ready to go for my next concert. We were short on money for the time being, so we’d have to make sure not to spend too much preparing for my concerts, especially when strengthening ourselves with more Job changes and buying equipment, as well as the essential quality-of-life items that were more important right now.

If I need to start from the bottom, then I will do it gladly as long as it gives me even a small chance to spread idol culture to Peolynca. I didn’t choose to become an idol to make money and become famous, I chose this dream to make people smile and be happy. If this allows me to operate for longer and grant me a larger audience, then I will go along with it with a smile on my face.

“Pardon.” After agreeing to Saori’s suggestion, Manuela raised her hand, wishing to ask something. “What exactly is an ‘idol’? I presume this is a word from your world, Lady Hestia, but using unfamiliar words like ‘concert’ and ‘tickets’ makes it hard for me to conclude from context alone.”

…Guess I will have to do this quite a few times, huh?

After giving her a gist of what an idol was, and vehemently denying any connections it would ever have with a bard, Manuela and Svena both asked me if I could “grace them with a tune of my voice.” I happily obliged them.

“Ahh, marvelous. Like the voice of an angel directly sent to us by the Goddess,” Manuela praised. “Lady Hestia, you know, appreciating the fine art is a beloved pastime for nobles in the Morgiana and Myrrdin duchies. We specialize in magic, yes, but there is no noble who can appreciate art more than us.”

“The ‘idol concert’ you had at Carine village was brilliant. It was a truly enchanting performance, I must say.” Closing his eyes, Barathan’s lips curved into a smile as he seemed to reminisce my debut. “I can still vividly recall your third song. The power and emotion in your voice was a privilege to experience. Even Lady Ellaine was unable to hold back her tears.”

“Mister Barathan! You mustn’t reveal that about our Lady! You know better!” Svena chided him.

After discussing Saori’s plans a bit more, our party went to the commoner district to visit the merchant Saori was dealing with, a foxian named Zeather. When Saori asked him for advice on introducing new goods that might disrupt the economy, he plainly told us “Ignore it until complaints come in.”

“God Mercurias promotes competition among merchants. Zeather’s job isn’t to only sell, but also be up to date on new trends and goods. If you wish to introduce new goods, Miss Saori, then you mustn’t let compassion for other merchants stop you. Get as much profit as possible and the moment somebody complains about it, go to the merchant or artisan guild and open your own sub-guild. You will gain their protection,” he answered with a sly smile. “Honored Lady Hestia, this humble Zeather can provide you with the supplies you need. As I swear on my tail, I will make sure the business we perform together will be blessed by God Mercurias.”

“Huh? You know scale-kin speech?” I asked the foxian, surprised he knew how to give a promise like a lizardman or saurian.

Beaming a proud smile, Zeather replied, “A few lizard— ahem, saurians visited the town once. I asked them for a few speech tips in case I ever do business with another scale-kin. Learning how to make our clients comfortable is a part of being a merchant, honored Lady Hestia.”

Saurians? Was it Master Kush and the others?

“As my tail is my witness, this young scale awaits a very beneficial relationship, Mister Zeather.”

Using my visit as an excuse, Zeather told Saori he would reduce the price of our next food order. Getting to meet and talk to me, instead of simply transporting the goods to me, was worth giving us another discount. Like our first order, we had to pay 9960 Davi. It was less than the original price but it was still quite a lot.

Once we were done there, I decided to spend some time at the hunters guild. It was shortly after lunchtime, so I thought it would be good to see how well my songs would be received by the rowdy adventurers.

A note from AbyssRaven

Idol Restaurant.

Meet your favorite dragon idol as she serves you some stuffed vegetables.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 12 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 113: Bards and Music.

A note from AbyssRaven

Sorry for the late release. I had a headache yesterday so I had to delay the chapter release. Couldn't concentrate.

'Parallel mind #1 her to promote our Patreon. 12 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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Another month of thank yous to everybody who is supporting me. Thank you very much for reading Dragon Idol!

[Stage Fever (Minor)] [Music Resonation (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

.

“Until you show me the flames in you ♫

I will smile and keep these three words for myself! ♫

I can’t wait! ♫

Just watching you makes me feel so anxious ♫

I dream of the day that you will hold me ♫

You are it, my Fireheart! ♫

Say those words! ♫

Don’t just stand there and keep your mouth wide, dummy ♫

Can’t you feel the rhythm of our heartbeats ♫

Say those words, my Fireheart! ♫”

.

Loud applause erupted from the numerous adventurers relaxing and eating inside the hunter’s guild. Some were shouting for me to sing another song, while others turned their attention back to their food and companions at their table, knowing I would continue regardless. Others didn’t cheer or clap, simply enjoying the atmosphere or minding their own business, probably knowing this was just another day in the guild.

On the other hand, several were giving me looks of unease. Those people were the ones with a [Bard] related Job, or at least that is what I assumed, considering they were the people who usually played on their instruments or sang a tune whenever I visited the guild. Now, most of them were looking down at their harp-, flute-, and lute-like instruments with dejected eyes.

A few of these bards were surrounded by their parties, being comforted by their wryly smiling companions. The loud cheers and general rambunctiousness of the guild made it hard for me to eavesdrop since all these sounds mixed together. I might have been able to listen in, but that would require me to properly focus. Plus, at the end of the day, I had no interest in meddling with everybody’s lives.

Seventh song; a success like the others. Hmm, this makes it hard for me to choose…

While seeing and hearing most adventurers asking for encores and praising me for my singing, aside from a few perverts who were shouting some M-for-mature comments, made me quite happy about myself, it also gave me valuable information on how people received my songs.

My geigler play at the marketplace during the Binding Festival gave me some idea of which genres were popular among the people of the lower town. While I couldn’t be sure if they came for my tunes or the smell coming from Saori’s impromptu food stand, the way they danced around us and the lack of criticism must have meant that they were interested. I only did the instrumental version last time, so I was including my vocals this time.

I decided not to dance this time in order to prevent the guild from having the idea I was some sorta ritual dancer or something. It would be a pain to resolve that misunderstanding afterward, after all. I also shouldn’t expect them all to like my dancing like the villagers from Carine village did, so I was going about it slowly.

I activated my party bracelet, opened up the “notes” function, and ticked off another well-received song from a list of them while sipping some fruit juice from a wooden tankard. Saori and Tasianna weren’t around. They’d wanted to ask Ruld when he could guide us to the blacksmith he recommended, so they left me here and asked Melia, one of the hunter’s guild’s receptionists and our Quest handler, to “supervise” me. Or, how I would like to call it, babysitting.

“Hey, hey, come on, little lizard cleric! Another song, come on!”

“Yeah, one more! Oh, don’t forget to come over to the tavern! We could use some good songs to end the day! I’ll even listen to a sermon about the Goddess if you do it in song, ha ha!”

Guys, give me some time for a break…

When the sky started to turn orange, most adventurers working outside the town since this morning would come back to town, and subsequently head to the guild building or tavern for the evening merriment. Most of these hunters and mercenaries were “low rankers,” which included G, F, and E rank adventurers, and had to work over winter as they lived paycheck to paycheck from what they earned through their Quest rewards.

In contrast, all the D rankers and the most prosperous E rankers weren’t too keen to freeze their toes off in this cold and had saved enough money to last them until spring came. Most of the people listening to me today belonged to the latter group, although there were also a few low rankers who’d finished their quests early.

That didn’t mean all adventurers who went out of town this morning would return this afternoon. I wasn’t talking about them dying, of course. Melia explained a few Quests would require you to travel long distances that could last for multiple days even when it’s freezing outside, usually enticing Quest takers with higher pay.

Apparently, that skorr Quest my party took last week would’ve taken a normal E rank hunter party at least three days to complete if it went flawlessly. The first day to travel to the farmers and confirm information, the second day to plan the attack and execute on it, and the third day to come back to Firwood. Our party finished it in a single day since we were a bit over-leveled.

“Whew! The next song please, little miss priestess! Cheers, ahaha!” a hunter shouted as he raised his ale tankard to bang it with his friends.

While their enthusiasm was nice, a singer needs to take breaks from singing once in a while during an extended session. Our most valuable tool is our vocal cords, after all. Although, couldn’t I simply heal them if they ever get sore? My throat hasn’t even gotten tired once since I came over to Peolynca. Can I even get a sore throat with Peolynca’s System? Would my Health drop if that happened? Maybe my Vitality is protecting me from it, or maybe even my Wisdom since [Draconic Roar] and [Idol] improved my acoustic attacks? Was it being influenced by my skills?

Oops…I’m overthinking things again. How about we deal with this problem when it actually happens, eh, parallel minds?

‘Point taken, original mind. Say when you want to continue and we’ll start playing some music,’ parallel mind #1 said.

‘Hey, it’s not like we can take a break,’ parallel mind #2 interjected. ‘We still haven’t tested [Idol] out yet, and it’s ‘cause you can’t decide on a song, original mind. All we’ve been doing is lazing around in our room when we have free time!’

Hey, give me a break. The number of times I could just laze around up until now could be counted with our hands. It has been such a long time since I had a free schedule.

‘Original mind, kinda don’t wanna tell you this considering you are me, but aren’t we being too lazy? It’s like we lost a lot of our drive after our debut and we’re just ‘playing’ around with all the new RPG-like stuff,’ parallel mind #3 pointed out. “Sure, Aurena told us to take it at our pace but I don’t like the fact we haven’t even tried out [Idol] once yet! This is our skill. Since when do idols sit on their laurels and stop practicing and training each day? Just look at ‘SNSD’, ‘Twice’, or ‘ITZY’ for examples, girl.”

Pondering at what my parallel minds have said, I had to agree I have been neglecting my training…a bit. Since we left Carine village, the last time I actually had this much free time was…Wait. I don’t think I’ve ever had this much free time.

Before I met Saori in the Belzac Forest, I was forced to train every single moment I could purely to survive, even inside that cave. After meeting up with Saori and Tasianna, my time was used practically in the same way, the only difference was that I wasn’t always responsible for cooking. Even in Carine village my schedule was filled with idol training, Master Kush’s lectures, and visiting Ellaine.

Now that I think about it, the last time I really exerted myself during training was that one single duel I had with Saori and Tasianna to get rid of [Battle Frenzy]. Training Ellaine was, not to be rude, nearly effortless. My life could be compared to a young Earth teenager nowadays. Shouldn’t I be tinkering with my skills more and trying to make more custom spells?

“Empty vessel” was the proper term for a magic skill that didn’t give its owner any System spells but allowed the creation of custom ones. Either they could be created through mortal hands or given to them from gods like what Shiterno did to me. In any case, to actually use these magic skills properly, they must be used as the base for new spells.

Sure, I could use my two empty vessel skills without needing a spell for them, but looking at how I created [Sanctified Blaze] with [White Flames] and what that spell could do, in comparison, to how lonely [Corrosive Fire] is looking, I should probably kick my ass and do some proper work.

I mean, [Idol] was made just for me, but I still haven’t chosen a song for it. I had two slots while [Idol] was level one. I could just choose “Promise” or even “Sea of Trees” for my first song and test it out. Even if I couldn’t delete songs after registration, it would be worth it to just try.

In my mental space, parallel mind #2 was nodding her head vehemently. ‘You really should, Dummkopf. Saori and Tasianna have been busting their asses to bring their restaurant idea to fruition, but what have you been doing? We had our successful debut and made our dream come true, yes, but can we, please, get back to our usual schedule? Go back to training, original mind.’

Did my drive really drop after the concert? I thought. It felt awkward to consider, honestly.

“Sigh…thirsty.” Noticing my tankard of fruit juice was empty, I was about to call for one of the two waitresses going around serving the other adventurers at the bar area for a refill, but a couple of people approached me.

“Erm, pardon us? Uh, Miss priestess?” A man wearing a brown cloak carrying around something similar to a lute called out to me, acting like a representative for the four people behind him.

Waving my hand to greet them, I kept it short and said, “Hey,” nonchalantly.

Flinching from my casual response, the representative massaged his neck, looked back to the people behind him, before clearing his throat. “Uhm, we are a couple- a few humble bards who witnessed your storytelling and we were quite stunned by your serene voice. Pray, fair maiden of heavenly light, whence did your music cometh and goeth, for it enthralled our ears and mind without being here for us to see?”

“…What?” Blinking my eyes in confusion, even my parallel minds couldn’t decipher what he just said. Was he curious where I learned my songs, or what now? “C-Could you repeat that please? I’m sorry, I know you want to sound eloquent, but it is hard for me to understand your intentions if you don’t make yourself clear enough. Simple Common is just fine.”

As if a dagger had pierced his chest, the man pressed his hands on his chest and dramatically recoiled back a bit. However, after noticing the look I was giving him, he straightened up his back and began speaking in a less flamboyant way. “…Uh, sorry about that, Miss priestess. What I wanted to say is that we’re wondering where your music came from. Your voice is like a gift presented by the Goddess herself to grace us, her humble servants-Ow!” Before he could continue his exaggerated description, one of the bards behind him smacked him on his head.

To summarize what he said, ignoring his frequent use of colorful words, the bards were confused about how I was able to create my music without an instrument, as well as what some of the sounds were. I assume they were talking about stuff like the piano or electric guitar, as I was mostly playing anime songs. It shouldn’t be a surprise that they weren’t able to identify some of them.

As it wasn’t a secret, I told them about my [Aerokinesis], even showing them how I was able to mimic different instruments and play a literal air piano. When they asked where I heard the more modern instruments, I just told them the truth; that they came from where I was born. As they thought I was a lizardman, instead of a dragonewt, they’d probably never visited the far easten swamps before, so they didn’t argue back.

“Oh, while we’re at it, could I ask you guys a question?” I asked the bards, to which they agreed. “You five are adventurers, right? How do bards fight or support their companions?”

The representative eyes widened at my question. “Miss priestess, you don’t know? With your fine musical talents? Aren’t you a bard and cleric?”

“False, I’m not a bard,” I denied his claim. “I’m a mage and priestess. I think this should be clear from my white robes.”

There were even a couple of white-robed priests inside the guild right now, drinking and eating with their adventurer parties. From what Barathan told me, not only nobles but also mana sensitive commoners were able to receive a white robe and learn holy magic. Considering they were active guild members, it seems it wasn’t forbidden for priests to fight monsters with warriors and rogues.

Aside from maybe manners and the skill [Noble Aura], the only way for somebody to distinguish a commoner from a noble, or at least a rich commoner from a poor one, was their white robes. The more wealthy and more influential you were, the more embroidery and decoration were tailored into your robes. Most priests I could see here had plain white robes.

“I did have the option for the [Bard] Job, but I wasn’t sure if I should take it. I didn’t know how bards fought, and taking the mage- or cleric-based Jobs are far more beneficial for my growth. I didn’t want to waste a Job change for something uncertain,” I explained.

Ahh, that seemed to have made it clear enough.

Nodding their heads understandingly, they began their explanation. Apparently, once a person gets the [Bard] Job and its advanced versions, they receive the [Bardic Magic] Job skill. Essentially, it worked similar to my [Idol], except that each song was counted as a spell and had their own effects, beneficial or otherwise.

From what I understood from [Idol]’s description, the [Idol] skill itself allowed me to transfer all the buffs I currently have onto other people. It was like an automatic [Synergist’s Oath] that didn’t require mana to use. With the [Idol System], the System created for this skill, I could register certain songs to grant additional buffs or use them to attack somebody. That meant the latter’s effect must have been inspired by [Bardic Music]. However, this System was created by Aurena for me. It can’t be that simple, right?

“La la la la ♫” the bards began to hum, stringing their harps and lutes while some blew into their flutes. Using [Mana Eyes], I was able to see hints of their Mana entering their instruments and being spread with each tune they played. I could feel a similar sensation when I would use buffing spells like [Swift Winds] or [Sturdy Earth] on myself. However, unlike normal spells, the amount of Mana used was far smaller than expected, which resulted in a lesser impact.

“Do you five have the [Mana Control] skill?” I asked, to which they shook their heads. This meant that you didn’t need to be versed in magic to know how to be a bard, but even if each song cost less Mana than a normal spell, seeing as how it continuously drained your mana the longer you played, a bard should still have more Mana than a normal warrior.

The bards admitted they couldn’t play for too long and that once they stopped playing, the effects of the songs would end. Compare that to buffing spells which could last even if the mage wasn’t around, and you could see the disadvantages to [Bardic Magic]. A mage could stand on top of a hill and be useful, but a bard had to stay close to his allies to support them if he or she didn’t have wind magic to spread their music.

That fighting style does fit me. I am a mage but I’m still mostly a front liner anyways, since neither Saori and Tasianna could act like tanks. In the worst case, I could just use [Aerokinesis] to spread my songs over a whole battlefield.

…Still, that didn’t help me figure out which songs I should choose.

As I was listening to the bards sing their tales, I noticed a few other bards hiding among the adventurers, looking at us with troubled expressions. When I asked why the latter didn’t step up like these five, I learned they had some reservations about me. Seeing me enchant the whole building with my music and receiving everybody’s applause and cries of the encore, these bards saw me more as a rival or a target of envy.

“Usually, people only treat us as background music, as another part of the atmosphere. We bards travel the world, from towns to villages to cities, sometimes even ruins, to gather all the lore and experiences this world can provide us under the origin gods’ eyes. Impressing the local townspeople or a new adventurer is easy, but we require some seriously impressive adventures to impress a veteran,” the representative admitted. “Don’t get me wrong, veterans love stories and tales as much as anybody else, but I don’t think anybody’s been able to catch the whole guild’s attention like that, before. Your songs of love and fiery passion coupled with daring tales to evoke the adventurer spirit from within during this freezing season. All sung by a muse with a heavenly voice, la la la, the priestess of red showed us a glimpse of the goddess’s serenity ♫”

Before he continued singing, he stopped as he saw me frown a bit. “Is something the matter, fair priestess?”

Shaking my head, I replied, “It’s nothing. I just feel a bit bad that they think that. I’m only trying out some songs, I wasn’t intentionally trying to steal their spotlight. Urgh, sorry about that. I guess you five feel the same?”

“Music is the art of touching the souls of thousands to empower and heal them,” was one of my favorite quotes my papa told me. It was his motto. I might have made a few people happy and smile but I didn’t want my fellow musicians to feel threatened by me. We are all in this together.

“Another breeze in the wind, fair priestess. Being jealous of other bards is part of being one because it drives us forward to seek tales of heroics ♫”

Nodding my head with a smile, I could only say one thing, “Oh yeah, I’m not a bard. I’m an idol.” This caused them to tilt their heads, but before they could ask what it was, I simply offered them to play some music with me. It would be a great chance to experience some actual medieval music, after all.

However, before we could start, a bunch of adventurers stormed inside the guild, shouting and screaming, “Priests! Clerics! We need healers!” Seven hunters carried in three others on their back. All three looked pale, sweaty, and had their eyes closed.

“Put them on the benches!” Melia shouted as most of the receptionists ran out from the counter, carrying bottles of red and green liquids. Without questioning it, the adventurers close to the door listened to her orders and helped lay the three down. Once on the benches, I could see bandages wrapped around their bodies even as the stench of blood exuded from them.

“What happened?!” Melia asked one of the hunters. He looked quite young, probably around my age, so it took him a few tries to stop stuttering at Melia’s questioning. Once the few white-robed priests announced they would look after the injured with the guild staff, the young man finally felt relieved enough to start his story.

“An ambush! Our party was out to take down some wolves when we were attacked by a bunch of kobolds and goblins on the way to town! My friends got hit by arrows and they’ve looked like this ever since! I-If it wasn’t for them, we probably would have been wiped out!” the young man said as he pointed at the five more experienced looking hunters who helped him carry his three injured friends.

While Melia spoke with the young hunter, another receptionist questioned the others. “I saw four kobold archers, four kobold warriors, and seven goblin fighters. They took out the backline first, those two girls and boy there, and were about to overwhelm the frontline. We managed to kill three goblins before driving them off,” the archer of that party reported.

“The kids are poisoned! Two minors and one moderate! Two minor cure potions, one [Cure], and three minor health potions are enough,” one of the priests told a receptionist. Meanwhile, the other three priests began giving the two girls bottles of a green liquid and the boy received [Cure]. After the paleness slightly subsided, the priests administered the red liquid.

The three priests then raised their hands, directed a ring at the soundly sleeping young hunters, before confirming they were not in critical situations anymore. “We pray to the Goddess for the safety of their souls,” the four priests announced in a prayer pose.

As the chaos of the situation subsided with the cheers of adventurers, Melia and the other receptionist called the young hunter and the leader of the rescue party to come to the reception for a full report of the situation.

Phew, thankfully everything went well. I don’t have to be the hero for every situation, especially when those priests competently handled everything without any issues.

A feeling of relief swelled in my chest as the tragedy was prevented. I didn’t know where they learned holy magic, it could be here in Firwood or from another church, but they left me with a good impression. The [Cure] took a bit as the priest needed to say the whole chant, but how they were quickly able to assess the injury and how to heal it was inspirational.

Aurena did tell me to learn more about her religion, which included her priests and priestesses. Maybe I should use this chance to ask them about it before I ask the local temple?

“Tch, didn’t even move a muscle. Probably has no talent, and she’s been instantly made D rank. Dafuq is wrong with the guild?”

As I was smiling at this sight, my ears suddenly picked up some annoying gossip from behind me. Turning around with a confused frown, my eyes directed me at a dark-red haired young adventurer glaring at me with hatred. As our eyes met, he snorted at me, rolled his eyes, before turning back to his party, who were already complaining at him. I wondered who he was, but that's when one of my parallel minds reminded me that I saw him on the day I met the hunter's guild master and registered as a hunter. He was the asshole who gossiped about me!

Hey, hey, hey, that piece of shit! It’s that guy again!

For some reason, hearing him ridiculing me not only ticked me off but made me feel like my pride as a mage was insulted. I thought I was used to mockery, due to my past with the other idol trainees, but it seems I hadn’t built up a tough enough shell yet.

Fueled by anger, my feet moved by themselves, moving me towards the table with the red-haired brat. My parallel minds were complaining and warning me I was acting childish when I could just ignore it. Words hurt, but that didn’t mean I had to react to them every single time…Well, maybe that argument would have cooled me down if I were older, but it was a bit too early for me to behave that maturely.

“Hey,” Standing before him, I called him out as my aura skills were leaking my irritation. “How about you tell me that directly in my face instead of hiding behind a crowd with your tail tucked behind your legs, you rooster head.”

A note from AbyssRaven

:X

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 12 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 114: Temper.

A note from AbyssRaven

Well, I would like to apologize for the extreme delay. You see, after I released the last chapter, my body somehow caught the flu and I've been practically useless these past days. Even getting this chapter out is giving me a headache right now, but waiting for nearly a whole week is also torture for you guys. I apologize for not mentioning this but usually, this announcement would be on discord.

Anyway, I'll try my best to get the next chapter out sooner but no promises, unfortunately. My brain isn't liking the fact that I'm thinking. Join the discord if you guys want to follow my sickness, ha!

'Parallel mind #2 her to promote our Patreon. 12 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 12 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until January!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

“Did you think that I wouldn’t be able to hear you through all this noise, huh? Did you honestly believe I wouldn’t remember that ‘rooster head’ you call hair? Come on, I know you want to let everything out, so do it already!”

I was livid. Blood was rushing through my body from my heart’s furious pounding, agitated by the words this young man sneakily gossiped about me. The rational parts of my brain, which included my parallel minds, were trying to convince me to calm down, but the childish side of me, the part that still remembered the annoying prattling of the other idol trainees, overwhelmed everything else.

The searing heat I could feel from the center of my chest made me aware that I had to let my anger out. My solar core wouldn’t rest until I did.

The red-haired boy widened his eyes like a surprised pug, looking at me with a mix of bafflement and anxiousness. As I was staring him down, my anger was slowly taking the control away from my [Draconic Aura] skill. Among the three skills that comprised this master skill was [Tyrant’s Aura], the evolved version of [Terror Aura], and it was just oozing out of me, pressuring the five people sitting at this table.

“Hey, Miss priestess, I would like to ask you to calm down. We ain’t looking for trouble. We want to enjoy our evening after some hard work,” a well-built man with a greatsword leaning next to him at the table reproached me. His glare told me of his irritation, that he didn’t want to deal with whatever argument that was about to happen.

Within the hunter’s and mercenary guild, there were rules for how an adventurer was allowed to act in public. As fantasy as this world might seem, guilds were still run by the guild master using a set of rules that each member had to follow, regardless of their rank. This was to keep the unity and peace within it. This wasn’t some rag-tag organization just ‘cause of their rowdy members.

A couple of these rules mentioned the interaction between adventurers.

Normally, from what I heard from Ellaine, a commoner was never, ever allowed to disobey a noble, regardless of their rank. If a noble invited you to come to their mansion for a meeting, a commoner wasn’t allowed to decline without a proper reason. The caste system in the Kingdom of Artorias influenced its society, giving nobles even the right to punish a commoner without a real reason.

However, Melia explained that within guild property, a noble could not exert their influence over an adventurer. From what Farron, the guild master, told me, I had the support and protection of the guild while I was a member so long as I followed the local town’s laws. The guild wasn’t part of the Kingdom of Artorias; it was international and had some room for leeway concerning the unfair authority nobles had over commoners, but that didn’t mean they could break the law. If a member broke a law, even the guild couldn’t protect them without risking being shut down.

’Cause of these rules, nobles couldn’t ask for special treatment from the guild. Even as royalty, I would have started at G rank like any other newcomer, if not for my profile and all the D rank monster materials I handed in.

As such, a noble adventurer couldn’t force a commoner adventurer to do anything. I had no authority over them. Then again, I’m not the type of person to actually abuse my titles and status to strongarm somebody.

“I would like to apologize for interrupting, but please stay out of this. This is between me and your party member here, this rooster head,” I replied, still conscientious enough to not direct my rage at bystanders. “As long as I don’t escalate this, then nothing can be done, right? The guild doesn’t forbid quarrels.”

Adventurers weren’t allowed to attack others without a warning or the other party’s approval. If you did, you would be kicked out of the guild and sent to the local authorities. I also wasn’t allowed to kill another member if it wasn’t for self-preservation. Arguing and fighting, however, is just another part of being a rowdy adventurer.

However, this rowdiness that I was creating seemed to have attracted the attention of those around us. As my rage wasn’t subsiding, more and more people noticed the atmosphere deteriorating; the cause coming from a table of five adventurers and one angry little crimson-haired dragonewt girl.

“U-Uhm, Lady Shrine Maiden, f-fighting here would displease the G-Goddess,” somebody said as I was staring daggers at Rooster Boy, so I turned around. Standing behind me was one of the white-robed priests who handled the healing of those poisoned hunters, whose hands were trembling as he was about to touch my shoulder. “Eeeeeek!” But before he could, he flinches backward, nearly falling.

Why was he calling me ‘My Lady?’ Did he notice my robes?

“I apologize for this unsightly display,” I responded. “But, leave me alone, Mister. This has nothing to do with Aurena or the church. This is personal.”

With another scared groan, the priest finally landed on his butt, looking at me with fearful eyes.

Huh, why did you fall down, Mister? Did you trip on your robe? As I was puzzled at my interaction with this priest, my attention returned to the table as somebody slammed his fist on it.

“Why the fuck do I gotta apologize to her?! She came and shouted at me first, Lucia!” Rooster Boy shouted in defiance at the robed girl next to him.

Adjusting her blue mage hat, a strand of green hair fell on her dainty face, which was beginning to redden in anger. “Because you’re the one who can’t stop speaking behind her back, you imbecile! Just because she’s a noble doesn’t mean you have to spite her every single time, Leif!”

Like kids, the two began to shoot out arguments and insults at each other, having completely forgotten about the events leading up to this point and the atmosphere surrounding them. Although the girl’s tongue was sharp, the boy wasn’t holding his punches back. If I were a responsible adult like Saori, I would try to diffuse the situation or watch on until they became too tired.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t. If two can play this game, so can a third!

“HEY! Don’t just ignore me like that and enter your own tiny world!” I pointed my finger at Rooster Head to interject, before turning to the girl beside him. “In the first place, I’m supposed to shout at him, not you!”

I expected her to come to his defense now that I interrupted their own argument, but against common sense, she raised her hands as if she was surrendering, and replied in a nonchalant tone, “I’m sorry, my Lady. Leif is all yours.” She then turned her head away from me and began whistling, treating the situation as if it had nothing to do with her.

Rooster Head’s other companion did the same in her own fashion. The beautiful green-feathered arvision lady, a bird beastman, covered her face with her winged arm, using it as an impromptu fan. Meanwhile, the fully furred wolfkin said, “Damn, am I thirsty. I need more ale,” before standing up and literally running away from us, displaying his high Agility as a rogue. The human greatsword wielder massaged his temples, muttering, “You reap what you sow, brat,” before continuing eating from the plate in front of him, silently.

Ooooh, even his teammates gave me their approval. Well, get ready to get roasted, dude!

Whether it was ‘cause of the consent of his party member or maybe ‘cause of time, my anger slowly waned to the point that my lips curled into a smug. “Well, well, well, looks like you’re in a pick—”

“Shut up, you bitch! As an adventurer, you’re not allowed to use your status as a noble to order me around! I know the rules! I can say whatever I want cuz your birth doesn’t matter here at all! Now, fuck off!” Rooster Head blurted in a fit of trepidation.

…Ok, now I’m angry again.

Before I could say another word, the red-haired boy’s mouth wouldn’t stop opening. “And you want to hear what I said before, huh?! That’s right, you’re a lousy priestess! The Goddess is a warm-hearted divine mother who cares for her followers, but you ain’t showed anything similar! You didn’t rush to help those injured hunters. You made those other priests do the job cuz they are commoners, and you can’t move a finger cuz you’re a stinking noble sitting on her golden chair!”

…Uh, wha-what?

I was flabbergasted, and it seems I wasn’t the only one. The other adventurers around us had their mouths open, looking at the young man as if he was crazy or stupid. The atmosphere shifted from me being the center of attention to him. Even my [Stage Fever (Minor)] was gone.

Probably thinking his words intimidated me, Rooster Head continued, “You heard that right! With the hunter’s guild, I’ll rise through the ranks and gain enough strength and authority so nobles like you can’t even touch me. In fact, I’ll make sure incompetent adventurers like you will be punished for abusing your status to—”

“WILL YOU FUCKING SHUT UP, ALREADY!?” My agitation boiled over. I raised my voice to shut the Dummkopf up, accidentally activated [Draconic Roar], slightly injuring the people in front of me. Considering he looked around my age, it probably looked like two red-haired kids flaring up a childish argument.

“Are you fucking serious, when you said all that? Do you even have a brain, Dummkopf? Did you not notice my tail or horns? I’m not from this kingdom, you fucking moron! I don’t have the authority to do anything to you and even if I did, I’m not shallow enough to wield it just because I’m angry, you asshole!” I yelled out. “You can call me selfish, lazy, stubborn, or whatever you want, but don’t you fucking dare question my abilities! I’ve worked hard on them like anybody else! I’ve got to this point because I’ve trained every single day; even if I have been slacking recently, I can still kick your pathetic ass to the other side of town like a fucking football!”

Amidst my earnest rebuke, a few adventurers who showed equal displeasure at the fact he was unfairly bashing me, made their own opinions clear.

“Hey, brat, you and your party have been away for a week now. The lass and her party have been working like any other upstanding adventurer. What kinda man badmouths a girl behind her back, eh?”

“She’s been doing G, F, and E rank Quests despite being D rank. Who cares how she got her rank when she’s actually doing her bloody job?”

“Hey, Miss priestess, don’t fuckin’ fight inside the guildhall! Use the fuckin’ training grounds behind the building like anybody else! Drag the brat out already so we can actually get back to eating!”

…That last guy knows his priorities. Respectable.

With more adventurers voicing their discontent, Rooster Head’s face reddened like a tomato, and not ‘cause of embarrassment but of indignation. “You buncha slimy old men! You’re talking like horny bastards! In the first place, why the hell did the guild promote her to—”

“That is enough!” The voice of a woman pierced through the rambunctiousness of all the adventurers. Pushing herself through the crowd, the figure of Melia, the katzune receptionist, appeared. “The guild building is not a place for fights! Stop this immediately!”

It was like Melia’s words were the law. The loud adventurers hammering complaints into both Rooster Head and I became silent, despite having had complete control over the situation up until now. Although I didn’t speak back like Rooster Head, I did feel uncomfortable. My parallel minds were right, and the amount of “I told ya” I was receiving dampened my mood.

Why did Melia and the other receptionist come now?

Melia then walked to me, placed a hand on my shoulder and back. As she was taller than me, it was easy enough for her to move her mouth to my ear and whisper, “Lady Hestia, I would like to ask you to come with us and—”

“Hey, hey, why is the guild showing so much favoritism to this damn noble! Aren’t all hunters supposed to be treated equally!” Rooster Head shouted, rejecting a chance to escape this fight between us.

“Leif! The guild is responsible for diffusing fights and mediating between adven—” Melia was about to rebuke the young man, but I raised my hand to interrupt her. I understand that the guild wanted to stop our fight, as it was quite loud and annoying, but just like him, I too wasn’t done with this quarrel yet. I really don’t like being gossiped about behind my back, so it would be better to uproot the problem now.

“To start, why were she and her party made D ranks, huh? Sure, white-robed priests are invaluable to the adventurer guilds but that doesn’t mean she can just skip the novice ranks! Raian, here is a C rank mercenary but he still had to start as a G rank hunter!” He pointed at the greatsword wielder. “He had confirmed ability from the mercenary guild, but was still made a G rank. That proves the guild treats everybody, regardless of their background, as equals until they prove their worth. This girl has done nothing worthwhile.”

“Leif.” As he was used as an example, Raian stopped eating and looked at Rooster Head. “Dealing with a human and a monster is completely different. The strategies you use against a human or beastman cannot be used to fight something like a troll or bullvark. The guild did the correct thing.”

“Hestia has proven her ability to slay monsters by handing in D rank monster materials on the day she issued her ID,” Melia defended me. “Considering the amount of G, F, E, and D rank monsters sold to the guild, her party would have been eligible for a D rank promotion from points alone if they were Quests. Including her profile, the guild has assessed it would benefit both parties more if we promoted Hestia and her party members to D rank.”

“Yeah, I heard one of the receptionists blurt out she was level 80 or something. You can’t fool the crystal if you’re trying to make an ID!”

“W-Wait, what the fuck?! She’s level 80?! Da fuk, why isn’t she a C or B rank, then?!”

“I was there when she first visited. Most of the materials were from Belzac Forest monsters. Doesn’t matter if you question her skill and give her companions the credit, cuz you ain’t surviving that hellhole if your holy mage or alchemist can’t keep the healing and affliction curing up.”

The amount of support I was receiving was relieving. However, Rooster Head didn’t give up. I would have admired his persistence if he hadn’t been directing it at me. “T-That doesn’t mean she should be allowed to rank up to D just like that! The adventurer guilds also value the trust in their clients, right? The Quest givers! Even if she is strong, this is about principle! How can the guild allow this? This has to be cuz she’s a noble. How can the guild master, who was famously known as the A rank adventurer ‘Wing Ripper,’ allow this?”

Wait, Farron is A rank? Wait, is he supposed to be even stronger than Master Kush?!

While I was interested in what he just said about Farron, I had to admit Rooster Boy’s argument this time was sorta correct. Although they hadn’t admitted it, I know for sure they gave me D rank for some ulterior motive. Was it ‘cause I was an otherworlder or a champion of Aurena? I know my princess title shouldn’t be the cause if the integrity of the guild is everything they say. Then again, being a B rank dragon could be the actual reason.

Regardless of what the reason really was, Saori and Tasianna were correct to assume they wanted us for our strength. I wasn’t sure why they did it; nonetheless, it should be obvious enough that they didn’t do this for our benefit. Rooster Head was correct with this one argument.

However, the other adventurers didn’t know this; they looked at him with exasperation and annoyance. Even the girl sitting next to him thought he was dragging this out for too long, as she was attempting to calm him down.

If I continue throwing oil at this hothead, the situation might get worse. In the first place, an idol shouldn’t cause such a stunt.

Having the chance to cool down, the rational part of myself began to feel my mind with guilt and shame. I thought I had outgrown this part of the person I once was on Earth, the me who couldn’t help but blow up at people for badmouthing me. It had almost been a year since I was reborn into this world, but I guess an almost 16-year-old isn’t much different from a 15-year-old in maturity. I was still a brat.

My abilities were still ridiculed and that meant the sunfang dragon inside me still felt her pride was hurt. I had to fix it to feel refreshed again, but how was I supposed to do that? What am I supposed to do here?

…Couldn’t I just show-off like how the [Young Sunfang Dragon] description explained the dragon?

“Alright,” I announced, now with a calm mind. “You don’t believe in my power and think I used my status to get my D rank, right? Well, I don’t like my efforts being ridiculed so how about I show you what I can actually do, huh? A demonstration to shut you up, Sacred—”

“L-Lady Hestia, wait, wait, you can’t!”

“Lady Shrine Maiden, by the Goddess, please, you mustn’t!”

“Woah, woah, get away. She’s casting a spell!”

“L-Leif, Leif, say sorry, now!”

A white magic circle appeared before my hand. For some reason, Melia, the priests, and the mages among the adventurers were frantic and erupted in a panic. The arvisian lady was also agitated into action, but instead of panicking, she took out her bow while her other hand took out an arrow. The greatsword wielder grabbed his weapon and attempted to grab my arm with his free hand.

Huh? Why are [Foresight] and [Danger Perception] activating? Is somebody attacking me?

But before I could actually figure it out, my lips let out the name of my spells. “Sacred Field.”

A white circle appeared under my feet, quickly expanding to encapsulate the whole guild floor, before shining a blinding white light. A serene aura with small white particles was released from my spell, touching each adventurer and guild staff.

It has been a while since I used [Sacred Field], mostly since my party didn’t need healing. We were over-leveled for Firwood and nothing gave us a challenge. Aside from Ellaine’s training, I never had a reason to use a healing spell in this town. Nonetheless, the effectiveness of this AOE healing spell was as great as ever.

“T-The cut I got today is healing up! Is this a white grace?!”

“I-Incredible! Without a chant and such a large magic circle! Has she mastered [Chant Revocation]?! How much Mana does the priestess have?! Where is her catalyst!?”

“S-Sacred Magic! Ooooh, the Goddess has given this humble servant a glance of the power of a high-ranking shrine maiden, nay, bishop! The finest miracle of the Goddess of Light!”

Everybody was marveling at my spell. Even the arvision lady and the veteran Raian, lowered their weapons as they noticed the spectacle. It should be one if I understood a normal magician correctly. Each spell had a minimum amount of Mana that I had to pay to activate it, but by increasing the cost, both power and size could be increased. I intentionally made [Sacred Field] super large to boast.

“In the Goddess’ mercy, this ‘white grace’ shall be free of charge,” I proclaimed with [Benevolent Aura] activated to appear more “priestly.” I then raised my hand with the other white circle. “When was the last time you guys have been to church? When was the last time you got blessed? It’ll be on the house, then~”

Although I still couldn’t obtain [Multi-Cast], I still was able to cast multiple spells at once due to my parallel minds. By materializing both spell’s magic circle simultaneously, I was literally telling everybody I had [Multi-Cast], or at least, that’s what they should think. Even if Rooster Head couldn’t understand it, I had a feeling the girl next to him should. She was a mage, after all.

The white magic circle in my hand flew up to the ceiling, which was one story high, quickly expanded like [Sacred Field] and began rotating. “Oh, Goddess of Light, Aurena. I bid you, hear our prayers of gratitude and ardent worship so it may empower you evermore in your duties of overseeing us. I beg of you to hear us and grant upon us your blessing of light, Prayer!”

Pouring in as much mana as the spell needed, I made it immediately ready to cast the moment it rotated. Normally, [Prayer] was a cooperative spell that needed multiple priests to be cast due to its insane Mana cost. As not every priest had as much Mana as I did, the spell also had the effect of absorbing praying followers’ Mana to fuel it.

Only an accomplished mage with a huge dispensable Mana capacity would be able to be the sole caster for it. Even for me, it felt like a piece of me was just ripped off. Next time, it would be better to do this as slowly as possible.

[Blessing of the Goddess of Light (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“I-Impossible! Brothers, did you start praying to aid the Lady shrine maiden?!”

“N-No, she cast it all by herself, and it’s ‘moderate,’ too! Dear Goddess, is this a message from you? Have you chosen this merciful maiden to show us our lack of faith? Oooh, we are unworthy!”

“Praise the Goddess, for she has blessed our souls. Her graceful hands are guiding us on our path of growth! This noble shrine maiden is showing our lacking piety.”

“A message from the Goddess, indeed, brothers! Our noble sister here cannot just be an ordinary shrine maiden. A saintess! She must be! Ah, I can see the divinity of the Goddess, the light shining around her! We white-robed priests have much to learn, oh, Crimson Saintess!”

4 humans have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Spark Inferno Dragon, Hestia Atsuko]: 131

Dudes, I’m not your sister…Also, what’s with this freak-out?! This should be entirely possible for a high-ranking bishop or cardinal, or whatever clergy ranks existed in this world!

While everybody was still mesmerized by the sight, I smiled at a job well done. I then turned to Melia, whose eyes were shining like stars, and told her I wanted to meet with the guild master. Before she could come to her senses, I was already at the stairs.

The guild master’s secretary said I needed to make an appointment to meet him, as he was supposedly busy. However, before I could start complaining, the voice of a man suddenly came from behind the secretary’s desk. “Let her in,” it said in the guild master’s voice.

“What do you want, kiddo?” Farron, the guild master, greeted me without taking his eyes away from a stack of documents.

“K-Kiddo, where did that come from?! Didn’t you call me ‘Lady Hestia’ last time?! No, not that! How did you know I wanted to see you?” I asked, a bit flustered at my sudden nickname.

“When Melia and the other receptionist were reporting to me what happened to those three newbies, my secretary reported some loud shouts from the guildhall. When the door opened, I heard your voice,” Farron explained, informing me why Melia didn’t diffuse the situation immediately. “So, now, what do you want? A complaint? Didn’t think you were the type of person to come running after getting angry.”

“Nah, I just resolved it. No problem there, don’t worry,” I replied with a hand gesture. “However, what I actually came here for is because I want to spar with you, Mister Mysterious Know-it-all.”

“Spar?”

“Yep, I heard you were once an A ranker, right? Well, my Master has the strength of a B ranker, you see. I haven’t been able to defeat him once yet, but I’m curious about how you stack up to him.”

Raising his head, he frowned in confusion. “Huh? You have a master? How did-, when d- wait, no, it doesn’t matter. The answer is no, kiddo. I’m busy.”

“Yeah, yeah, I kind of had that feeling you would say that,” I replied with a shrug. “So, let’s just assume I’m close to [Battle Frenzy]? How about that? I need to cool down and I’m asking the strong and brave ‘Wing Ripper’ to help me train. And besides, if you’re stuck in this chair the whole day, then some exercise is better than none. Take it from me, my world proved sitting down too much is bad for your health.”

He narrowed his eyes, looking at me with a hint of irritation now, but quickly gave it up to sigh in exasperation. “…The training grounds are at the back of the building. Give me some time to prepare. Meet you there, kiddo.”

After hiding my presence with my stealth skills, I sneaked past the adventurers that I had blessed. They seemed to be in a good mood. When I went through the guild’s back door, a field the size of a European football field greeted me. Despite the falling snow, the training ground remained snow-free.

I could see a few adventurers currently training and sparring inside it, but luckily there was still enough space for my spar with the guild master.

When I entered the premises of the field, a warm sensation covered my body, reminding me of those temperature regulators Ellaine’s mansion had. Was it the same kind of manatech? Wait, how rich was the hunters guild? Or was this another loan like those [Crystals of the Divine System]?

Regardless of what it was, I simply shrugged and chose a spot large enough for the upcoming spar. I stretched and did some warmup exercises to bring my body into top form.

Woooo…Somebody stronger than Master Kush. Wow, I feel kinda nervous.

It had been a while since I last had a chance to fight somebody that might be stronger than me, status-wise. Saori was a great sparring partner, but after evolving into a B rank monster, the stat disparity between us increased to the point I could mostly brute-force through her strategies. If not for Tasianna and her smart usage of skills and spells, it wouldn’t be much of a challenge.

But now, I got the chance to fight somebody who could be stronger than the man I still couldn’t defeat. Farron wasn’t a mage but a warrior. I’d learned how to fight against a mage and an arcane trickster, but I don’t think I’d ever gotten the chance to spar with a warrior before, so this was exciting.

However, what motivated me most about this fight was ‘cause of what happened today. Did I earn this instant promotion to D rank? Well, my stats and skills are good but I’m currently lacking the attitude of one. I’ve been taking it too slow after my debut and I forgot an Idol can’t just stop her training. She needs to strive for more and more. Vacation is over, it’s time to get back into the groove.

I’ll take care of [Idol] tomorrow. Today, I’ll see where I still need to improve and test out some ideas.

Eventually, Farron exited the guild building; with him was a posse of adventurers. No, I think most of the guild came out to spectate us.

“What’s with that look?” he mentioned as he stood on the opposite side of me. “You don’t have any armor or real gear, so I only brought out my weapon. With all the enchantments and runes on my armor, there would be too much of a handicap for you. I saw your profile so this one weapon should be good enough.”

He sounded a bit arrogant, or maybe just confident in his strength, but that wasn’t why I was staring at him. What actually caught my eye was his massive greatsword or halberd. It was essentially a sword stuck on a long spear shaft, looking like a “sword spear.”

As far as appearance goes, it was the most eye-catching weapon I’ve ever seen in this world. It’s shaft was black and shiny, looking like it was made from some sorta black metal, while the cross guard was covered in a combination of white and black feathers. The sword part of this “sword spear,” or whatever, was long and looked like the long canine of a giant lion. The blade was decorated with multiple weird circles in different colors, each of which emanated a dim light.

This was the first real fantasy weapon I’d ever seen. I had the feeling it was not only made with exquisite metals, but also high-quality monster materials, combined by a master blacksmith into this intimidating weapon of death.

…Wait, is he trying to kill me?

A note from AbyssRaven

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 115: The Dragoon.

A note from AbyssRaven

The flu is gone! I'll be returning to my usual schedule with great health! Now, to celebrate, please enjoy the chapter!

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Profile:

Name: Faron Nordor

Level: 113

Race: Human

Age: 51 Years

Job: Freelancer

Status:

Health:

1199/1199

Mana:

2141/2141

Strength:

4061

Intelligence:

1312

Vitality:

3712

Wisdom:

2531

Agility:

3059

Stamina:

5489/5489

Effects:

[Crystallized (Lungs)(Moderate)]

Unique Skill:

[Skylord Lv. 3]

Skill:

Magic skills and related:

[Mana Efficiency Lv. 7]

[Arcane Mind Lv. 4]

[Mana Control Lv. 5]

[Wind Magic Lv. 9]

[Wind Amp]

[Wind Magic Efficiency]

[Chant Revocation Lv. 1]

[Silent Casting Lv. 3]

[Mental Warfare Lv. 2]

[Fluid Cast Lv. 1]

Physical skills and related:

[Unarmed Technique Lv. 6]

[Unarmed Mastery Lv. 9]

[True Sword Technique Lv. 4]

[True Sword Mastery Lv. 2]

[True Spear Technique Lv. 5]

[True Spear Mastery Lv. 4]

[Mana Strike Lv. 8]

[Stamina Strike Lv. 10]

[Mind’s Eye Lv. 4]

[All Damage Enhancement Lv. 2]

[Artorian Lionheart Swordsmanship Lv. 10]

[Dragoon Spearmanship Lv. 8]

Senses and movement skills:

[Stealth Lv. 8]

[Accuracy Correction Lv. 8]

[Detection Sensor Lv. 1]

[Concentration Lv. 8]

[Foresight Lv. 3]

[Probability Correction Lv. 9]

[Danger Perception Lv. 10]

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 9]

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 8]

[Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 3]

[Tracking Lv. 8]

[Night Vision Lv. 10]

[Presence Killer Lv. 7]

[Evasion Lv. 10]

[Acrobatic Lv. 10]

[Air Walk Lv. 6]

[Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 8]

[Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 9]

[Superior Aerial Fighter Lv. 3]

[Superior Mounted Fighter Lv. 6]

Resistance:

[Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 8]

[Absolute Pain Tolerance]

[Mental Corruption Resistance Lv. 6]

[Abnormal Status Nullification]

[Mind Protection Lv. 4]

[Advance Abnormal Status Resistance Lv. 6]

[Fear Resistance Lv. 6]

[Arcane Corruption Resistance Lv. 5]

[Lava Resistance Lv. 2]

[Lightning Resistance Lv. 3]

[Ice Resistance Lv. 4]

[Mud Magic Lv. 1]

[Sacred Resistance Lv. 1]

[Inferno Resistance Lv. 2]

[Torrent Resistance Lv. 1]

[Terra Resistance Lv. 2]

[Storm Resistance Lv. 5]

[Tenebrous Resistance Lv. 1]

Stat growth and related:

[Health Recovery Lv. 7]

[Mana Recovery Lv. 3]

[Stamina Recovery Lv. 8]

[Prime Vigor Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Mana Growth Lv.´8]

[Enhanced Mana Capacity Lv. 5]

[Herculean Power Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Intelligence Growth Lv. 8]

[Enhanced Intelligence Enforcement Lv. 5]

[Indomitable Bulwark Lv. 5]

[Sage’s Wisdom Lv. 2]

[Speed of Sonic Lv. 1]

[Unyielding Endurance Lv. 3]

Others:

[Dancing Lv. 5]

[Handicraft Lv. 7]

[Woodworking Lv. 6]

[Identity Blocker Lv. 10]

[Identify Lv. 6]

[Monster Tamer Lv. 8]

[Monster Synergy Lv. 6]

[Tranquil Mind Lv. 3]

[Cooking Lv. 1]

[Dismantle Lv. 10]

[Tyrant’s Aura]

[Seductive Aura Lv. 6]

[Benevolent Aura Lv. 2]

[Admiration Lv. 7]

[Ladies’ Man]

[Starvation Lv. 6]

[Royal Etiquette Lv. 9]

[Instruction Lv. 7]

[Commander’s Aura]

[Thought Acceleration Lv. 4]

[High-Speed Calculation Lv. 2]

[Supreme Rider Lv. 7]

Ability List:

Unarmed abilities:

[Dragoon Jump]

[Gale Steps]

[Dracobody]

[Punch]

Artorian Lionheart Sword abilities:

[Stabbing Charge]

[Storm Devastation]

[Calling Wind]

[Vortex of Talons]

[Griffon’s Claw]

[Bird of Prey]

[Nordor Style: Voidlight Erasure]

Dragoon Spear abilities:

[Dragoon Dive]

[Spiral]

[Wind’s Trail]

[Nordor Style: White Griffon’s Descent]

[Nordor Style: Highwind]

Spell List:

Custom spells:

[Wind Gust]

[Enchant: Wind]

Wind spells:

[Wind Bullet]

[Wind Cutter]

[Air Shield]

[Air Shield]

[Wind Slash]

[Swift Winds]

[Wind Blast]

[Featherfall]

Title:

[Rider of Storms]

[Wing Ripper]

[Doting Family Man]

Caliarus

A beautiful swordspear crafted by dwarven techniques in a dragon fire furnace, using both draconic and griffon materials. Due to the use of eoriant and andurium in its creation, this weapon boasts high durability, strength, and nimbleness. An unbreakable blade made from a dragon’s fang, and the wing feathers of a griffon used to decorate the crossguard; this weapon can show its full potential even in the worst of storms.

Skill

[Mana Conductor Lv. 8] [Mana Efficiency Lv. 5] [Sword Mastery Lv. 8] [True Spear Mastery Lv. 1] [Decreased Weight Lv. 7] [All Damage Enhancement Lv. 3] [Herculean Power Lv. 5] [Speed of Sonic Lv. 5] [Unyielding Endurance Lv. 5] [Superior Aerial Fighter Lv. 1] [Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 5] [Mind’s Eye Lv. 5] [Durability Loss Reduction Lv. 10] [Wind Pressure Nullification] [Explosion Pressure Nullification]

Rune

[Enchantment Rune: Lightning] [Magic Rune: Tornado Bullet] [Defense Rune: Auracoil] [Defense Rune: Pavise] [Passive Rune: Life Steal] [Passive Rune: Clean Blade] [Attack Rune: Triple Strike]

His profile and weapon are OP! That description box isn’t a text anymore, it’s an essay!

I was allowed to look at the guild master’s profile and weapon; considering he already knew my status, it was just fair. I knew he was supposedly an A rank adventurer, but that still didn’t prepare me for the absolute surprise of his status. What was he? Some “I trained for all my life and I became OP” character from a light novel? He’s strong, like, so fucking strong!

If I were to compare him to the many people I’ve met in my life, then he would definitely be stronger than Master Kush, but his stats were lacking compared to Astalos, that B rank wyvern I met in Belzac Forest. Even then, I think Farron’s skills were superior to Astalos’s. There was also the power of items; Farron was a human and able to equip himself with weapons, armor, and elixirs.

I was earnestly grateful. I’ve been stealthily identifying the weapons and catalysts from the other adventurers, but nothing caught my eye. On a fantasy scale, they were normal and uninspiring. However, what was this “Caliarus?” It was a top-tier weapon, that was what it was. The sense of awe I had for the weapon was great…but so was my fear for it.

H-Hey, why is he bringing that weapon of mass murder to this spar?!

“W-Wait, hold on! This is a spar, a spar! Why are you bringing that overpowered weapon just to have a fight with me?! You’re not actually trying to kill me, right? RIGHT?!” I asked, dread filling my head from the sight of that weapon.

“Huh?!” Farron uttered with surprise. “Kiddo, did you hit your head on the way out? You said you wanted to spar with me, so here I am. Why would you think something that crazy?”

“O-Oh, yeah? Well, then why are you bringing that?!” I pointed at his weapon.

It wasn’t just his weapon that I was wary of, but also his skills and titles

Skylord

A skill given to an extraordinary aerial fighter. Reduces wind elemental damage and pushback by 50%. As long as the user fights or uses an attack from the air, their damage will be increased by 100% + ([Skylord Lv. X]* 10%)

Mind’s Eye

Increases the sharpness or destruction capability of a weapon, enabling them to damage hardened metal, shells, or barriers better. Reduces durability loss of weapons and protects attacks using the body

Monster Tamer

A skill designed to support the relationship between beast and master. Improves the training of a tamed monster, increasing the amount of experience and skill proficiency they gain. Increases trust of tamed monsters

Monster Synergy

While the user is fighting with their tamed monsters, increases those tamed monsters’ parameters by 5% * [Monster Synergy Lv. X]

Rider of Storms

A title given to a superb rider who has ridden and prevailed through numerous trials on their monster mount. The Mana and Stamina cost of [Air Walk] will become 0. While fighting on a monster mount in the sky, increases the user’s and mount’s parameters by 30% each

Wing Ripper

A title given to those who are recognized as a hunter of winged creatures. If the attacked creature possesses wings, increases damage to them by 10%. Increases the destruction on the creature’s wings if hit

Doting Family Man

A title given to a family-oriented man who will do anything to protect his family, and who has proven his resolve. Increases all parameters by 15% if a family member is in danger

It was insane. I actually hadn’t met a single monster tamer up until Farron. Considering how often it was used as a class in fantasy novels and games, I was disappointed that they weren’t more prevalent in Firwood. There was even a large forest filled with them right next door, ready for a “gotta catch 'em all” trip.

So, will he be using his monster partner or not? Thankfully, he said no; although I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination or not, it seemed he was quite reluctant to answer that question. Almost sad. Well, I had no right to pry, instead, I should be happy I didn’t have to deal with a 1v2. Still, I couldn’t be relaxed considering he had a ton of skills and title effects that gave him high damage multipliers. In a game, the higher your multipliers, the more dangerous you were.

Master Kush was, in his words, not a master of the arcane arts, yet but he was still able to overwhelm me with his refined magic casting and decision making once he got serious. Farron not only had higher stats than my dragonewt form, but also the advantage of techniques. How do you fight against somebody who knew the sword and spear, in and out? Undoubtedly, he would be the strongest opponent I had faced yet.

“Don’t worry about your safety, kiddo. I can manage my strength well enough even with all those skills. Your [Draconic Barrier] should be able to block most of it, so keep it up no matter what,” he responded off-handedly. Some people would consider his tone arrogant, but I thought it was more the confidence of somebody strong; it was warranted. “If I actually was intending to hurt you, I wouldn’t have changed my Job to ‘Freelancer.’ You want to witness my strength? Then let me show you what a former A rank adventurer can do.”

Sighing in exasperation, I handed him back his ID. “Jeez, you called me ‘kiddo’ again. Guild master, shouldn’t I be considered an adult at this age in Peolynca?”

Casually waving his hand, Farron returned to his starting location. The training field was currently barren as most of the adventurers had stopped training and were now watching us with the rest of the guild on the sidelines. The younger spectators had gleaming eyes focused on Farron, while the older ones were watching him with interest. Only the magicians and the four priests were curious about me.

To be expected. I don’t think I have much to offer to melee classes. Anyway…Sanctuary!

A glimmering barrier of light materialized around Farron and me. It was around the size of a baseball field, giving us enough room to fight while the barrier would protect anything outside from my stray spells. I could hear the awe and wows from the spectators.

“Ready, kiddo?”

After doing some stretching, he probably thought I would be ready. However, instead, I took out multiple bowls of stew and skewered meat. “Itadikimasu!” I shouted before gorging myself with all of Saori’s delicious food.

“W-Wait, she’s eating? Why is she eating so much before a fight?!”

“You’re gonna have cramps if you do it before a hard fight. Is she looking down at the guild master?”

“No, no, why did that fact catch your attention? We should be asking why she is doing this right in front of us! That commotion made it impossible to eat, and now she’s digging into all that delicious smelling food. Ahh, I can smell it from here!”

“You’re right! I’m still hungry!”

Noisy.

I do feel a bit guilty as I was the reason why they couldn’t eat, but why the hell weren’t they eating now? Stop complaining about useless stuff and go get some food then! You guys are about to witness a show. Now, speaking of food…

[  Insatiable Glutton] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Insatiable Glutton

A status effect inflicted by the skill [Gluttonous]. While this status affliction is under effect, increase all parameters and stamina consumption by 20%. Stamina can overflow over the maximum capacity, by the amount consumed. This effect ends once Stamina is less than 100%

Gluttonous

A skill given to those with a voracious appetite, insatiable even after consuming large quantities of consumables. Increases Stamina regeneration from all sources. The skill   [Starvation] cannot be received while this skill is in the owner’s profile. If the owner consumes food while Stamina is at maximum capacity, [Insatiable Glutton] is inflicted. If the owner would receive the status effects [Starvation] or [Exhaustion], they are instead inflicted with [Starving Weakling]. The skills combined are: [Prime Vigor Lv. 10], [Unyielding Endurance Lv. 10]

The [Gluttonous] skill was given to me after I evolved into a [Young Sunfang Dragon], fitting for a dragon who was known for being a voracious eater. Until now, I didn’t really have the opportunity to use it in a fight, but I knew from the description alone that it was immensely powerful. I had around 4000 Agility as a dragonewt, but what would happen if it got increased by 20%? That was 800 more Agility just from one skill. Crazy.

The biggest downside about it was that it was hard to maintain it. All of my dragon abilities cost Stamina and fighting, in general, was tiring. There was also the issue that could come up if my Stamina dropped to zero.

Starving Weakling

A status effect inflicted by the skill [Gluttonous]. While this status affliction is under effect, decrease all parameters by 50% but increase Stamina regeneration from all sources by 20%. The effects of [Starvation] and [Exhaustion] would activate too. This effect ends once Stamina is more than 0%

[Starvation] inflicted Health damage while [Exhaustion] weakened your body, making it feel lethargic and feeble. Combined these two debuffs with a 50% decrease in parameters and it would turn into a disaster. This skill was a double-edged sword.

However, I was a sunfang dragon. I had a very easy way to overcome all of this with my sun core. While the sun was still up, I could regenerate my Health, Mana, or Stamina using solar rays. With [Gluttonous]’s increased Stamina regeneration, I could eat mid-fight or use the sun to keep the effects of [Insatiable Glutton] on.

Farron’s stats are too high. If I want to win, I have to keep [Insatiable Glutton] active no matter what! However, it's already the afternoon…I will have to stop fighting once the sun is down. Well, good enough for me.

Once I gave my thumbs up, Farron assumed a fighting pose with his swordspear. Aside from his weapon, he had no other equipment. He had no armor, he was only wearing a simple jacket to ward off the cold. If his normal equipment was as well-made as his weapon, he would probably be ultra-buffed.

I felt anxious. I was confident in my strength, but I knew I still had a long way ahead of me to become strong. Astalos, the Leviathan, Master Kush, the Gods, and now Farron stood before me as hurdles. As an idol I didn’t seek combat power, but it was different for my monster side. I was nervous, but I also felt immense excitement. I didn’t want to admit that I was a battle junkie in the past, but maybe I was? Who knows.

Seeing as he wasn’t attempting to move first, I guess he conceded the first move to me.

Thanks~ Let the show begin!

“Music, start!” I yelled as the ear-busting sounds of guitars, violins, drums, and all other instruments boomed through the training field. Unlike [Air Shield], [Sanctuary] allowed air to go in and out of it, meaning everybody could hear this battle theme.

However, while the spectators might think I was just playing some music like what I did in the guild, for Farron who was the target of all this music, it was an attack. The reason for that was ‘cause of my skill [Idol].

Idol

A skill given to someone who has become accepted as an Idol by the populace. While the user is performing idol-like actions and others can witness it, all buffs already applied to the user will also affect the audience through the   [Music Resonation] buff. Depending on the stage, others will only receive a certain percentage: 25%/50%/75%/100%. All acoustic-related attacks will be boosted. Access to the Idol System. The skills combined are: [Sacred Amp] [Synergist’s Oath Lv. 10] [Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 10] [Singing Lv. 10] [Dancing Lv. 10] [Musician Lv. 10]

“All acoustic-related attacks will be boosted.” The time for sound-based attacks to be fully implemented into my arsenal was here. Even without [Draconic Roar], I could make people bleed with my music.

“All buffs on!” Farron winced as he blocked his ears from my surprise attack. I could’ve used this opportunity to attack him with all my spells but what I needed to do first was close the stat gap with all my buffing spells. Stats weren’t everything, but it would be stupid to ignore them.

I technically could have done this before the battle began, but that wouldn’t be proper training. Saori made me aware that people will never, ever give you time to fully prepare during a fight. You had to be a seer or fortune teller to know when somebody wanted to ambush you, making it more practical to learn how to fully buff myself during a fight.

This acoustic attack was weak, but it gave me the time needed to buff up.

“May the Goddess of Wind bless me with her winds of protection, Air Shield!” Knowing he couldn’t give me more time to prepare, Farron endured through the pain and materialized a shield of wind around him, neutralizing my music attack. “Dragoon Jump! Dragoon Dive!”

The moment he shouted those abilities, Farron jumped up into the air like a kangaroo, nearly reaching the end of the [Sanctuary]. He then kicked the air with [Air Walk] and used this momentum to dive onto me like a descending meteor.

Fast! I thought, but it wasn’t fast enough since I had anticipated this. There were three options for him to reach me: [Stabbing Charge], [Dragoon Dive], and using [Wind Blast] to propel himself forward with his agility. However, two of these options were not available to him.

[Stabbing Charge] was a sword ability and weapon abilities can only be used with its corresponding weapon. The third option was also out of the question as he needed to chant his spells, unlike me, while his Agility was inferior to mine after all the buffs. His only option was the second one, making it easy to predict.

Wind Blast, I cast, blowing me out of the landing zone of his [Dragoon Dive]. A large dust explosion was caused by the landing, creating a crater and a cracked ground. “Dragoon” was an RPG class specialized in jumping and attacking with a spear from the sky, and I was fighting an expert in it. It sent chills down my spine.

Exciting! I thought, unable to suppress my grin.

Despite the awe I felt for this super-cool attack, I didn’t waste this window of attack. One parallel mind was still playing the battle music, albeit at a lower volume, so I still had eight other minds to cast spells. This was just a spar, not a real fight, so why not enjoy it with some good music? I still was able to use the myriads of spells I had in my arsenal to turn this training ground into my personal battlegrounds, after all.

Streams of [Lightning Bolt] shot at Farron with blinding speed. “Auracoil,” he said calmly, touching another rune on his blade. The [Air Shield] dispersed around him and was replaced by a bright, scale-like barrier. Once my lightning spells touched it, they immediately sizzled out, not even leaving a dent on this barrier.

“Good decision. Gale Steps,” he mumbled quietly, using footwork I wasn’t used to. Instead of a straight line, he weaved his body through the training field like a wandering breeze, zigzagging as he dodged any of my other spells.

I need to stop him.

Normally, when there was enough of a distance between me and my opponent, I would use this chance to fly up in the air with [Wind Blast] and stay there with [Air Walk]. Gaining the high ground, or air superiority, was my right as a dragon, enabling me to shower down spells with impunity.

…However, what can a whelp like me do before a “Skylord,” a “Rider of Storms,” the “Wing Ripper?” I needed my wings to properly stay in the air, and that would just increase [Wing Ripper]’s damage on me. Also, I will gladly admit I am just a noob compared to people who can actually fly or fight in the air. It wasn’t even a contest here. I know Farron’s status, so instead of being prideful and stupid, I’ll take the smart choice and stay outside his fighting area.

After all, shouldn’t a dragon fight in an arena advantageous to her?

“Terra Wall! Bedrock Blades! Rumbling Might!”

That’s right, there was no need for me to fight in the air. I was also an earth mage, I can control the tempo of the fight!

The earth moved at my command, turning the fields into a parkour area as sharp blades descended onto Farron. Even his [Gale Steps] was stopped by the quakes of the earth, breaking his posture and balance.

“Hmph, easy.” At that moment, Farron grasped the cross guard of his swordspear and pulled it down. The blade became longer while the handle decreased to the point the spear was transformed into a greatsword. “Vortex of Talons.”

Bending his knees, Farron lowered his body as he began slicing anything coming into his slashing field, staying steady despite how much the ground was shaking. As if it was butter, all my earthen blades and walls were sliced with ease, crumbling into debris. Even Saori or Master Kush wasn’t able to dispatch them this easy!

“Stabbing Charge.”

He dashed towards me. My [Foresight] and [Danger Perception] were ringing but the warning came too late. I couldn’t dodge, I had to defend. Purple flames began wrapped around my hands and tail, quickly turning yellow-ish before disappearing as they left behind a purple metal-like coating.

“Grck!” I groaned as I used my claws to divert the blade’s trajectory. Splinters of [Corrosive Fire]’s obsidian broke apart as I prevented the blade from hitting my face. Although I was protected by [Draconic Barrier], I knew with Farron’s Strength, this attack would have definitely dealt a lot of damage if it was a direct hit. I had to prevent it if I couldn’t dodge.

My hands might have been covered in the hard scales of a sunfang dragon, but I couldn’t risk injuring them. The obsidian from my flames was sturdy. I could raise my defense through them, but, in the end, they weren’t strong enough.

Regardless, it gave my scale-dust enough time to surround me. Opening my mouth, I gnashed my fangs together, creating a small spark leading into a gigantic explosion.

“Oi, what the fuck?! What is that priestess doing?!”

“Shit, is she suicidal?!”

Far from it.

[Scale-Dust Veil] was just a fancy name for my natural ability to spread scale-dust into the air, which was an explosive substance. As the one who could produce it, my body was naturally more resilient against it compared to a human. As I had the feeling I was the only dragonewt in town, I was sure that nobody could tell if I was actually a dragon in disguise. Even if I used a dragon breath attack, I could just say a dragonewt can use breath attacks, too.

There was currently a large cloud of smoke surrounding Farron and me, but I knew what was going on with [Detection Sensor]. As it exploded, Farron activated “Defensive Rune: Pavise,” creating a large magical shield before his weapon to defend against my attack, blowing him away from me without receiving any damage. I took a bit of damage, but everything was easily healed up with the automatic rejuvenation effect of [White Flames]. Instead of worrying about it, I instead started to grind my tail against the ground. This action ignited all the scale-dust currently under my tail’s scales, turning it into a searing flame spear.

Using [Wind Blast], I catapulted myself at Farron, somersaulted as I slammed my tail onto him. [Hellblade Edge], the signature ability of the “Hellblade Dragon” increased the destructive power of my tail, turning it into a lethal weapon able to slice even metal.

I was sure I was fast enough, I planned it to happen like this. Even my parallel minds agreed this was a great way to catch Farron off-guard. What warrior would expect a mage to deliberately challenge them in close combat? I might be a mage, but my Strength stat was no joke after all the buffs and stat multiplier.

Also, my tail was coated in the purple obsidian. My purple flames from [Corrosive Fire] and my natural crimson flames from my scale-dust; it was a combination of my most damaging flames and my toxic one. Even if I couldn’t do much damage to Farron, I would leave him poisoned due to the obsidian’s poison trait. I was sure that this attack would hit.

“Damn! That’s a nice attack, Hestia!” But it wasn’t enough. Farron guarded against my attack with his greatsword — the ground cracked and it seemed like I pushed him into the earth, but he was only smiling. “However, a young lady should act more modestly! Get down!”

Moving his blade dexterously, he disrupted my balance as my tail was on his blade. He spun me around before slamming the blunt part of the sword into my side.

“Ack!” I was able to narrowly block his attack with my arm, but that didn’t mean I didn’t take any damage. Since I started my path as a “Spark Fire Dragon,” I had always fought as if I was a glass cannon. I had high Strength and Intelligence, but my defenses were flimsy. Dodging was more efficient.

But not only was I forced to block one attack, but two of Farron’s attacks in a row. My [Draconic Barrier] was sturdy but even this skill couldn’t fully block an attack from a 4061 Strength swordmaster.

I was blown away like a ragdoll as my [White Flames] quickly surrounded my wounds, beginning the healing process. This automatic healing was amazing and was one of the reasons why I loved my white flames so much. By having it heal me automatically, I could free up a parallel mind from healing duty.

Even if I, the original mind, was preoccupied, my parallel minds wouldn’t miss an opportunity to attack. Eight magic circles appeared around Farron. This was the power of [Delayed Cast]. Normally, if I wanted to cast a spell, I had to go through the entire casting process without stop. Invocation, Incantation, and Activation- I had to go through each of them before the last step, Release.

However, with [Delayed Cast], I could begin the cast of a spell and use my mana to keep it active even if the magic circle hasn’t even been formed yet. With [Mana Eyes] I noticed a small mana signature whenever I experimented with it, too small to notice in the rush of combat. I could hide spells to surprise my opponents.

[Lava Stream], [Lava Ball], [Tornado Bullet], [Lightning Bolt], [Banishment Beam], and [Sacred Smite]. High damaging spells barraged Farron as he activated his auracoil once again to protect himself. Getting the chance to fight somebody with runes on his weapons made me want to learn about runes even more!

Luckily, the surprise attack seemed to have taken effect. Farron was fast, but he wasn’t fast enough with his rune activation. Under the auracoil, I could see sizzling coming from dark spots on his body, a result of being hit by [Lightning Bolt].

Using this chance, I began shooting out more and more spells without rest. I didn’t need to chant and I learned how to use my magic more efficiently from a true magic master; I could continuously use the same magic circle to repeatedly unleash the same spell with [Continuous Cast]. Runes needed mana to activate and maintain, and, similar to my [Draconic Barrier], the more damage the auracoil had to absorb, the more mana that Farron would lose. As a non-magician, he simply didn’t have enough Mana. In an attrition game, I would win.

Gotcha!

“Yes. Take advantage of my mistakes and shoot me down. Fully utilize your strengths while preventing mine!” Farron praised me as he kept shielding himself with auracoil. But that changed the moment his eyes brightened up. “Dracobody!”

Scales began covering his skin as he said that. It reminded me of a lizardman but without the long snout and tail. He disabled auracoil and began weaving his body through my barrage of spells, keeping up his footwork as he quickly advanced towards me with [Gale Steps]. If this wasn’t a fight, I would’ve been slightly enchanted by it, as it reminded me a bit of a dance.

However, my mind remained sharp. [Battle Mind] kept frivolous ideas like this out during a fight. I immediately began countering his movements by using the most effective attack in this situation: a roar.

“KRAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

Wide-ranged AOE attack with high damage potential. In the past, I used this ability to instantly kill a wyvern by shouting into its ear at point-blank range. Even Saori was caught by it and became temporarily deaf despite being further away than the wyvern. Now, with [Idol], this supersonic attack was heading towards Farron.

However, against my expectations, Farron stopped his movements, which caused him to get hit by a few of my spells. He transformed his sword back into a spear and then jumped up super high into the sky to avoid the worst of my [Draconic Roar].

Scheiße! He’s a warrior, I forgot!

I was a mage-pugilist hybrid who focused mostly on damage and support. Saori was an arcane trickster who used her dark magic and mana threads to trick and deceive people before landing the killing blow. Tasianna was an ice mage who could support us with her wide-range crowd control and defensive spells. The three of us all had different fighting styles but all of us had one thing in common: we were frail.

I had a pseudo tanking ability by either taking damage and then healing it up or using my [Draconic Barrier], but it wasn’t efficient against high damage attacks. However, Farron was different. He had high defenses and Health, making it possible for him to take on a few attacks without worry. So, unlike my party, he could afford to tank the damage from a few of my spells in order to avoid the more dangerous roar while continuing to close the distance between us.

He even used [Dracobody] which increased his defense even more.

Dracobody

An unarmed technique that transforms the user’s skin into dragonkin scales. Temporarily increases Fire elemental damage by 50% and magic resistance by 30%. Consumes both Stamina and Mana until dispelled

Dashing through the air with [Wind’s Trail], Farron’s movement speed couldn’t be compared to when he was on the ground and he quickly closed the gap between us. My parallel minds began shooting out spells at him, but that was futile as his body began twisting like a tornado, cleaving through my spells as “auracoil” activated once again.

[Spiral] to pierce through the air like a twister, while aiming at me with [Dragoon Dive] to send me falling on my back after he landed on the ground. That was his plan. As I tried to recover from the wind pressure, Farron changed his spear into a sword and used [Calling Wind]. His motions were quick and smooth, so smooth that it looked like no friction was caused.

Farron slashed downwards, pulling his sword behind him. Without warning, what felt like a claw pushed me forward towards Farron. Was it the wind or was it magic? In the short time I had left before Farron could slash at me, I used [Air Walk] to stop my body from moving mid-air.

“Wrong choice. Use [Wind Blast] next time. Again!” he uttered before punching me in my stomach.

“Gargh!” The air escaped my lungs as I flew through the air, tumbling on the ground before stopping. I had to clutch my stomach as I tried to stand up.

Scheiße! He got me! He got me good there!

[Draconic Barrier] blocked some of the damage but the impact of his fist caused my organs to shake violently. I felt nauseous. If it weren’t for [Absolute Pain Tolerance], I would definitely be wailing on the ground right now. Thankfully, my parallel minds knew me well enough to activate [Major Healing] almost immediately. The damage was completely healed.

Raising my head, my first thought was to find Farron, but my eyes couldn’t find him. My [Detection Sensor] told me he was in front of me but, where was he?

“My Lady shrine maiden, look up!” one of the priests shouted.

As I moved my head upwards, a spiraling tornado descended from the sky. It was Farron!

Purple Flash! Purple Flash! I thought immediately. Even if I avoided the attack itself, I couldn’t dodge the shockwave. If the same thing happened a few seconds ago, everything would just repeat. I had to get out of here!

Purple Flash

Like lightning, the caster can instantly cast one spell without any delay. The spell cast using this effect will cost thrice the mana cost

Instead of an offensive spell, the level two System spell I got from [Lightning Magic] was an instant cast. Through my experiments, I could even cast a long-winded spell like [Symphonie des Feuergottes] immediately, but the problem was the mana cost. The higher the initial cost, the more expensive it got. There was also the problem that I couldn’t use [Fluid Cast], [Delay Cast], nor [Continuous Cast] with the chosen spell. [Purple Flash] was a strong but niche spell.

By using [Purple Flash] twice, I could use two spells immediately. My targets were none other than [Warp Point: Entry] and [Warp Point: Exit]. “Urgh!” I moaned as I frowned, feeling a large quantity of Mana escaping my body, however, I endured. I slipped through the portal and completely evaded Farron’s attack and the aftermath.

I thought I could start my counterattack, but I was wrong. Taking a sharp punch into my gut and then using a ton of mana for two terribly Mana expensive spells took a toll on my mental stamina. My body couldn’t feel any fatigue as I haven’t even lost [Insatiable Glutton] yet, but my decision making was slowed. Ever since I had to defend against his first attack, my concentration was at an all-time high but for a split-second, I stumbled on my thoughts.

“Watch it, kiddo!” I heard somebody shout as I noticed Farron closing the distance with a somersault. With his swordspear, he slammed the mighty weapon on the ground as I barely avoided it. I wanted to take some time to regain my breath, but it wasn’t meant to be.

[Storm Devastation], that was the ability he used. It was a triple hit attack with the greatsword where he somersaulted and slammed his blade down like a hammer. I couldn’t afford to get hit. While I managed to avoid the second hit, I couldn’t dodge the last as the shockwave of the attack made me lose my balance.

S-Shit! Dreadflare Aura, now!

As the blade nearly hit my head, heat began to gather inside my body as cold sweat began to form on my face from the seeing the blade descending on my face. However, the blade gently swept to the side, a cold gust of wind assaulting my face instead. I instinctively deactivated [Dreadflare Aura] before releasing the accumulated heat.

As I was about to fall from my loss of balance, Farron grabbed my arm and pulled me back up. “What are you doing?! This might be a spar but that doesn’t give you the right to daydream! And what was that footwork?! That was a mistake which could have cost you your life!”

Eh?

Farron then stuck his blade into the ground, then began straightening my posture and pointing out flaws in my movement. “When you dodge, put more strength into your waist and butt. Stop moving your body by twisting it and relying on your [Evasion] skill! Put more weight to the bottom of your torso, that makes it harder to lose your balance.”

“Use your neck when you dodge. Look, just like this. You got that, kiddo? Move your head and use it as an arm to pull your body into the direction you want. This reduces Stamina usage by a bit.”

“You’re a mage. I can see your Magic Master trained you well on how to use spells to fight so stop fighting a warrior like a warrior! Defend, counterattack, back off. Defend, counterattack, back off. If I was serious, I would have cut your tail, back then!”

“Also, was that supposed to be a counter-attack or a defense? There is some lingering heat surrounding you so you must have tried to do something. Have you forgotten the fact that you’re a mage? Emergency defensive spells and abilities should be used last. You must do better to not get yourself pushed into the corner!”

Tips, tip, tips; Farron was showering me with numerous tips on how to move my body while also pointing out my faults. I gained quite a few thumbs up for my magic casting, but he found my battle sense a bit lacking, while outright criticizing my decision to fight in melee.

As I was listening to him, I couldn’t help but do some self-reflections on my own. I thought about not being able to find the time to use [Symphonie des Feuergottes], how I wasn’t able to use my scale-dusts properly ‘cause of my lack of wings, or how I just couldn’t break through his auracoil once.

I dealt some damage, yes, but considering Farron was able to capitalize on it and sent me into checkmate, I didn’t really consider it a success. There were some singed areas but that one decision to tank some of my spells gave him his victory.

Come to think about it, the moment he blocked my tail instead of cutting it, shouldn’t that have been enough for me to realize I could afford to use Symphonie and [Omnictus]? This might be a spar but why didn’t I go all-out at the beginning?

The answer was clear. I was too used to fighting Saori and Tasianna. I was even unintentionally holding back against Master Kush. I didn’t want to hurt any of them. I was an idiot. Strong people deserve to fight the strong, not the sympathetic.

So, this is the strength of an A rank adventurer? Could I defeat him in my dragon form? Pah, ludicrous. I’ll just become a larger target dummy for him.

I couldn’t use the sky to my advantage against him. That small moment where he moved through the sky was enough for me to be convinced. He was strong. Really, strong. And the current me can’t think of a good way to counter him. Did it hurt my pride? Nope. People who were stronger than me already existed in this world. This was just another lesson.

I know I still was a dragon, so my full potential couldn’t be shown in my dragonewt form, but I have a feeling I would have more trouble against him as a dragon. Something like a gut feeling was telling me this. Maybe he would have fought differently if I had fought him as a dragon, but that was a “what if” situation. It wasn’t worth considering when I wanted to spar with him to get better.

“Due to your small frame you can- GRACK! HACK! HACK! GAH!” As he was giving me more advice, Farron suddenly started coughing out blood.

“Guild Master!” As if it was instinct. White magic circles surrounded him; some of them were [Major Heal] and some were [Sanctified Blaze]. I did hit him with spells but I didn’t think I dealt that much damage. How could he be hurt?!

As some of his wounds healed, Farron raised his head. “Thanks, but you can stop. Working out too much is pretty hard with my lungs, so this is just normal,” he responded with heavy panting.

His lungs? Oh no, didn’t it say it was crystallized or something?

“You don’t need to give this old man those eyes, kiddo. You can’t heal this with the white grace, anyway. Healing magic improves your natural regeneration and helps your body regain its ‘normal’ form, but it can’t do anything when the form changes this dramatically. You should be aware of that fact,” he explained.

Something that can’t be healed with holy spells? I guess my damaged mana paths was something like that.

Breathing was one of the most basic of basics when it came to moving efficiently. Yes, breathing was needed to live but knowing how to breathe was important even for a dancer. As an idol, our job included singing and dancing when we performed so we had to manage our breathing well during the one to two-hour concerts. Each song required focus.

As I began learning how to fight and dodge, I also began learning how to breathe properly and manage my Stamina better. It was just natural. So I knew how important it was for a warrior to breathe properly. I saw his debilitation, but I didn’t say anything since he didn’t mention it. I thought I was worrying too much.

However, coughing up blood was a very bad sign, obviously. Without breathing correctly, he beat me. Extraordinary. Just absolutely incredible.

Farron then picked up his weapon as I was once again in awe of his abilities. “What are you looking at? Come on, kiddo. Get back to your spot, we ain’t done yet.”

“Huh?” My eyes wandered to the dark orange sky, signaling nighttime was almost here. “Ah, sorry, guild master. The sun is about to drop. I don’t think I should be fighting if I can’t use my sun core.”

“Really?” He looked at me with confusion. “Will you always have the luxury of fighting with the sun up? What about when you’re inside your home? Inside a cave. An ambush during the night? Not every variable will always favor you in a battle to the death. You wanted me to show you the power of an A ranker, so let us continue fighting. I will show you how to minimize your Stamina consumption.”

Wait, this should be a spar, not a training session! Wait…isn’t sparring training? No, wait, that’s not what I meant!

I was about to reject his offer again, but an epiphany just happened.

Wait, wasn’t this a chance to finally train again? And wait, isn’t this a chance for me to finally get some actual weapon or unarmed abilities? Didn’t I swear to get back to training and becoming stronger like I used to do? Isn’t it time to stop being lazy?

In my opinion, I deserved the break that I had. A simple hiatus to catch my breath after everything that happened, but an Idol cannot stop forever. Not only have I neglected to spread idol culture to Firwood, but my training has also stopped. Nobody except Carine village knew what an idol was, nor was I the strongest being in this world.

I am weak. I am still weak. A sunfang dragon cannot be weak. I was a B rank monster who will one day turn into an A rank monster, but before I could do that, I had to become stronger. I had to train my skills and gain more combat experience. Farron was right that I wouldn’t always fight in the morning. I can’t slack anymore!

“You know what, yeah! Let’s do it, Guild Master! Please, train me!” I asked with conviction, the fire inside my eyes was burning once again. Winter and my debut have smothered it, but I found kindling. To protect Saori and Tasianna, I swore back then to become the strongest, so I cannot go back on it.

Yes, I promise! Yeah, it’s a promise!

“Good choice, kiddo! Come on, I haven’t fought in a while so let me-”

“Father!”

A high-pitched voice called out, interrupting Farron’s words. We turned around to see a girl pushing herself through the wall of spectators. Once she got through, her snow-white hair fluttered through the air as she ran towards us. If this were Earth, I would say she looked like a Scandinavian.

“Father, I heard from Melia that you were fighting! You should know better to fight, you’re not healthy!” the girl chastised Farron. At a closer inspection, the girl was wearing a pretty cyan-white dress with a dirty white apron like a chef’s. Her dress looked similar to what I would see with the other commoner women, but hers didn’t have any patches. It looked well-made but didn’t have any embroidery.

Father?

“Priscilla, please, it was only a spar. Just some light exercise to help train a guild member,” Farron replied, looking timid as he looked at the white-haired girl.

“Light? Father, I can see a crater, multiple cracks on the ground, and, uh, lava?! There is lava over there!” the girl cried out, widening her red eyes.

“W-Wait, what is going on here? Guild master, who is she?” I asked.

Farron scratched his back in exasperation, looking reluctant, but quickly replied after he received a glare from the girl. “Hestia, this is Priscilla, my daughter. Priscilla, this is Hestia, an adventurer who registered last week.”

Daughter? Well, I guess he is old enough to have a kid.

At first, I couldn’t recognize her as Farron’s daughter due to her white hair and fine facial features. She looked like a pretty flower, compared to Farron’s red hair and rough appearance. However, those red eyes she had showed a resemblance to her father’s. Both looked pretty aggressive when they frowned.

Priscilla then turned to me, smiling as she greeted me. “Hello, my name is Priscilla. Thank you so very much for sparring with Father. I can see he’s very happy, but he’s unhealthy so he can’t continue. I’m sorry…Wait. Huh?” She paused as she moved her head closer to me, moving her nose as she sniffed the air.

Huh? Why are you…Sniff. Huh? Why does she smell sweet?

Without saying another word, both of us moved closer to each other as we began sniffing at each other. Like two dogs greeting each other, we couldn’t help but sniff at each other’s hair.

W-Why the hell am I doing this?! Stop it, me! Stop it, me! Ahhh, I’m gonna die from embarrassment!

However, despite all my cries to stop, my body didn’t. We continued sniffing each other until we both looked satisfied. I was 15 and the girl looked around 12…What the hell was wrong with us?

“…”

“…”

We couldn’t say anything. Priscilla’s face turned bright red once we finished and as my head felt hotter, I guess the same was applying to me too.

“…Nice to meet you. It’s a shampoo my friend made for me.”

“…Yes, nice to meet you, too. Uhm, my father bought an aromatic incense for me. It smells very sweet…”

That was the best both of us could think of to excuse our actions. However, despite this embarrassing moment, I couldn’t help but feel closer to her. This was just weird. It was abnormal and I have no idea what I just did.

As we kept looking at each other dumbfounded, somebody else’s voice brought us back to reality. “I heard everything from Melia, Lady Hestia. We need to talk about your temper.”

It was Saori and Tasianna.

“Guild Master, I apologize for Lady Hestia’s behavior. We must depart now.” Picking me up like a puppy, Saori and Tasianna began the long way back to Ellaine’s mansion.

In the meantime, I couldn’t help but cover my tomato-red face.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 116: The Idol System.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Fear Resistance Lv. 2] evolved into [Fear Resistance Lv. 3]

Acquisition requirement fulfilled.   [Instruction Lv. 1] acquired

Idol System, on! Hello, Hestia, how will your light shine today? Fighting!

1. Register Song

2. Song List: 0/2

Register Song.

To register a song, please choose one of the options below. You will then have to perform your song to its fullest so the System may record it. You may then review the results before completing the registration process.

1. Damage

2. Buffing

I should probably do one of each first. I have two song slots open as [Idol] is level one, so I should use this chance to learn as much about this skill as possible.

I was currently inside House Helvas’s mansion’s training basement, one day after my spar with the guild master. Having finally gotten off my lazy butt, I’ve decided it was high time to use the idol system that Aurena specifically made for me. It was another part of my strength; if I wish to fully incorporate music and sound attacks into my battle arsenal, then I must learn how to use this system properly.

Unlike how I first learned to use magic, there was a tutorial. Thanks to that, I was able to grasp what I could do with the system immediately. It also helped that the description for both [Idol] and the Idol System were clear and easy to understand.

Idol

A skill is given to someone who has become accepted as an Idol by the populace. While the user is performing idol-like actions and others can witness it, all buffs already applied to the user will also affect the audience through the   [Music Resonation] buff. The user can share buffs independently, but they will be removed from the user. Depending on the stage of [Music Resonation], others will only receive a certain percentage of the shared effects: 25%/50%/75%/100%. All acoustic-related attacks will be boosted. Access to the Idol System. The skills combined are: [Sacred Amp] [Synergist’s Oath Lv. 10] [Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 10] [Singing Lv. 10] [Dancing Lv. 10] [Musician Lv. 10]

Idol System

A System made specifically for Idols. Enables the user to register their songs into offensive or supportive abilities. The registration slots are determined by: [Idol Lv.] * 2. Aurena: Don’t try to cheat, Hestia. Only you can see this message

Its base function was similar to [Synergist’s Oath], which allowed me to give buffs to people. With only a few exceptions like my [Sanctified Blaze], the majority of buffing spells couldn’t be applied to other people, only to yourself the caster; so, if a mage wanted to give his allies buffs, they needed to use [Synergist’s Oath]. It sounds like a great skill, but one downside about it was that it didn’t share buffs, it transferred them. [Idol] was superior since it allowed me to share my buffs with everyone simultaneously, instead of just transferring the effects.

Buffs given through [Synergist’s Oath] also were restricted; only a percentage of the buff was applied depending on the level. Level one would only apply 10%, level two 20%, and so on. Idol was able to circumvent it through the [Music Resonation] buff.

Music Resonation

A buff applied through the star power of an idol. Whether dancing or singing, any action considered idol-like will apply this buff so long as the recipient witnesses it. Depending on the stage of   [Music Resonation], the recipient will receive a certain percentage of all buffs active on the Idol. Minor: 25%/Moderate: 50%/Major: 75%/Critical: 100%

Through my concert at Carine Village and the tests I performed with Saori and Tasianna, the way to increase the Music Resonation quality was by being more idol-like. The louder my music, the more intense my dance moves, the more spectacular my performance, the higher the quality would go up. I didn’t need to level up [Idol] to give somebody 100% of all my buffs, I just needed to become a better entertainer.

This skill was such a good supportive skill that it made [Synergist’s Oath] look like a beginner one. The only caveat about it was that I could only apply it to people who can see or hear me, and it had to be through an idol performance.

Between boosting my holy and acoustic attacks as well as the buff sharing, this skill was already extremely powerful, definitely worthy of its “unique” status. Then, how would I evaluate it with the Idol System attached to it? Limitless potential. At least, it’s the optimistic viewpoint I want to have for it.

Let’s start with something easy first. Buffing.

Please confirm once you are ready to perform your song. Dancing is not needed. You must reproduce the melody and the lyrics from start to finish

The question is... which song should I choose? Does the theme of a song affect the effect of the buffs?

I received no answer from the System. It gave me a tutorial and instruction on how to use the system, but I thought it would be better if it could answer more detailed questions like these. It’s like how math teachers taught you the basics of algebra, but then made you answer some difficult question that required some serious critical thinking. Hello? I’m not even sure why we are using letters instead of numbers now.

I wouldn’t be this worried if it could tell me if I could delete a song from the list or not. It would make me less reluctant to potentially “waste” a song slot…But then again, no risk, no reward, right? Wasn’t my first spell casting attempt filled with failures and failures? An idol should think positively!

The effect doesn’t matter, I just need to see how the system works. Afterward, I’ll level [Idol] up and use the newly acquired slots more efficiently.

I’ve decided on a high-energy, peppy song for the buffing spell. I was considering “Promise” to be my first song, it would be very fitting, but the ballad would cause me to be emotional. The lyrics had a profound effect on me since it retold the struggles I faced on my journey to become an idol. What if, instead of a buff, it caused a debuff due to the earnestness of the song?

So, what sorta high-energy, peppy song should I choose for my test run? There were many choices, ranging from anime, rock, metal, pop, techno, and their many sub-genres. I could either choose one of the songs I’ve already written, or just pick one from Earth. Considering the notification didn’t specify that both the lyrics and melody must be included, shouldn’t I be able to play an instrument-only song?

“Hey, Saori, do you think an anime song or the battle OST of a game would be better for a high-spirited, motivating song?” I asked Saori, explaining to her what I’ve been thinking until now.

Saori stopped her hands, pausing from taking my measurements, as she looked at me with a frown. “…I have never played a game nor have I ever watched a modern anime, Lady Hestia. You know this already.”

Oh yeah, right.

The reason why Saori was addressing me with “Lady” was ‘cause we weren’t alone in the basement. Tasianna, Ellaine, Svena, Josine, and Barathan were all here with us. Technically, everybody already knew the true relationship between Saori and I, so speaking casually with each other was alright. However, Saori wanted to keep it up in front of nobles and their attendants so she wouldn’t slip up in the future and cause a problem.

Anyway, the reason why so many people were currently in the basement was ‘cause of this:

“Haaa, haaa, haaa, haa, haaa.” That was the exhausted voice of Ellaine, panting heavily as her personal attendant Josine was wiping away beads of sweat from her forehead. Similar to why I told Svena about my secret, Ellaine also told Josine so we didn’t always have to exclude her from discussions concerning my party’s secrets, despite not being a top attendant of House Helvas.

I guess she took it to heart when I told her I considered Tasianna more like a friend than a retainer. I might have the princess title, but I had no intention of conforming to the standard and status quo of the nobles.

“Ellaine, don’t forget about hydration. Sweating drains salt and water from your body, so remember to drink! Barathan and Josine, please, make sure she drinks that specially-made drink.”

As part of Ellaine’s training, I decided to increase her physical fitness. It was far too low in my opinion. Yes, she was a mage, but that didn’t mean that she shouldn’t train her body. In the future, Ellaine wanted to hunt monsters and join the mages guild to further develop herself, but this would happen after her graduation at the royal academy.

Even if she wouldn’t need a stronger body now, gaining more Health and Stamina from cardio would benefit her survivability. Fighting monsters requires Stamina even as a mage, as you needed to dodge and run in some cases. If Stamina dropped to zero, [Exhaustion] would be applied, drastically reducing movement effectiveness. I was thinking about her future.

As a result, I had Saori write up a whole training schedule for her, which not only included physical but also mental training. Similar to Saori and me, I wanted Ellaine to not only have a strong mind but also a body. That is my goal ever since she asked me to make her stronger.

For maybe the first time in ages, Saori was able to show her abilities as a former educator as she formed a training schedule for her with Barathan’s and Josine’s help. Aside from magic and physical training, Ellaine also had her responsibilities as the current lady of House Helvas’s Firwood mansion. She had to take care of finances and other documents.

This schedule was to help her keep focus and maintain a proper life-work cycle.

“Bwuaaah! This ‘sports drink’ tastes fantastic. Your world produces such fine beverages.” Ellaine drank the cup of pink water with enthusiasm and greed.

A sports drink was a drink filled with electrolytes and energy-high minerals to help an exhausted athlete recover. On Earth, most of them were overpriced sweetened water that only helped a bit, in my opinion. There were a few brands that worked well in my experience, but most of them were scams.

To help Ellaine, who barely did any physical training, I wanted to concoct a sports drink that actually lives up to its name. In the one week I’ve been training her, through trial and error I developed a sports drink recipe that increased training efficiency.

Macula water for its high mana concentration to stimulate her body, crushed fulinoe leaves to get rid of her arcane corruption, and some fragassa juice to give her energy and turn the water pink. The last ingredient was salt, the electrolyte, from a harbor city called ‘Port Annencia,’ located in the Leartiglio duchy south of the Greenveil Duchy.

It was a simple recipe, but it covered all the resources you lost from sweating during training and practice. The price of the ingredients was a bit high according to Ellaine, but making it was easy. I honestly had fun when I made it, feeling the same gratification and sense of success when I used to concoct my toxin vials. Would alchemy feel the same?

After draining the cup empty, she continued her endurance training by running around the basement. She was currently wearing baggy jogging pants and a tank top, which exposed her cleavage and glistening white arms. It was a complete 180 from her noble clothes.

Initially, Ellaine and her attendants were against the clothes, as it was unsightly, but Saori argued it helped her body “breath” more properly than her noble training clothes. The clothes were to make it easier for her body to sweat and feel comfortable during training.

Ellaine eventually relented, but she wanted a jacket to cover up her cleavage. Saori made one for her, but the sweat and heat got to her during training and she eventually threw the jacket away. She looked very much like a girl from Earth now.

While that was going on, Saori, Tasianna, and Svena were taking my measurements. Why? Svena wanted to make more dresses while Saori wanted to make a kimono for me. I could understand the dresses as I only had a single one fitting for noble occasions, but why the kimono? Apparently, it was for our future business, but she didn’t elaborate. How funny that I was being served by three maids; never would I have guessed this back on Earth.

“Lady Hestia, if I could give you my input? A song should be able to inspire whoever listens to you. Without flattering you, your voice is the most impactful part of your songs. I believe it would be wise to use a song that uses its fullest,” Tasianna suggested.

Kuek! I know my singing is better than my dancing, but it never stops hurting when I hear it.

Tasianna’s suggestion was solid. Regardless of my personal feelings, I know I’m a better singer than a dancer. It would be wise to heed Tasianna’s advice…but I wouldn’t be a musician if I only looked at that aspect. I am the daughter of one of the best conductors and violinists on Earth. Instruments are also part of the experience.

I’ve decided! Idol System, start!

Acknowledged. Please start, Idol

A clap of thunder rumbled through the basement, catching everybody’s attention. Ellaine stopped running and the two maids and Saori yelped in surprise as they were the closest to me. It was the loud impact of a drum.

The beat then continued with the sounds of a bass, playing as low as it could with every pluck of its strings. Naturally, all these sounds weren’t literally played by real instruments, they were made through [Aerokinesis].

Played at a moderate tempo, the melody eventually incorporated drums into them. As they kept playing, another loud bang woke everybody up again, the thunder vibrating and echoing inside the training room.

.

“Is this the fated battle, the light shines ♫

It’s blinding my sight ♫

But I’ve gotta hold on, the stage calls ♫

The cries of a thousand, the flames of war will descend ♫

.

The carnage of the blazing sun ♫

Blood rain from swords and claws ♫

The strive to pierce the sky ♫

The light that beckons you forth ♫

.

I couldn’t just stop now, my heartbeats ♫

The show must go on ♫

You cannot silence my voice now ♫

Be dazzled, be humbled ♫

I’m destined for the stars ♫

.

Prepare for a beatdown, no mercy ♫

Gonna overwhelm them♫

A chance for the spotlight ♫

Don’t regret getting burned to ash ♫

.

The carnage of the blazing sun ♫

Blood rain from swords and claws ♫

As the music drops, our emotions will run wild ♫

Top the world ♫

The strive to pierce the sky ♫

The light that beckons you forth ♫

The promise to stand fast ♫

Family and Friends ♫

The Will to Fight and Survive! ♫”

.

As I continued the song, the eyes of everybody present was naturally drawn to me. As an idol, the gazes of a hundred people have already witnessed my singing, so having six people stare while I performed felt like nothing. No, I still appreciated them. I haven’t grown conceited enough to think I’m above a few eyes. My goal is to bring happiness to people with my songs…although, I would lie if I said I wouldn’t enjoy some fame. I am a dreamer, after all.

The positive reception I got from everybody’s entranced state gave me enough motivation to give it my all in the second half of the song. The ends of my mouth curled up and the volume of my voice rang louder.

At first, I did consider the opening songs of an anime; after all, they were designed to raise the energy of the viewer and make them crave the show. It worked similar to a jingle, an iconic little earworm. Then I had an epiphany. What was also iconic but fitted a battle well? That’s right, a boss battle theme. The signature background music for an exciting match against fate and heaven. If a boss battle is worth remembering, so will their theme.

Admittedly, the song was written on the spot. I used my parallel minds and my accelerated thinking skills to think of the lyrics for this new song. But I think it worked out well. My goal was to give my allies a sense of heroism, to rally them forth against their enemies in an unstoppable charge to gain victory. With the haughty and arrogant sounding lyrics, I also wanted to make enemies feel some fear. Music wasn’t just to motivate, it was also there to give people a sense of foreboding, just like a boss battle theme.

So, what was the result?

You have poured your emotions into the song, granting it more impact. The performance you gave won’t be in vain. The influence of the song will reflect your efforts

The recording has ended. Please wait as the System analyzes the song

Congratulations. The song has been successfully accepted. You may now give your song a name

…Yeah, I’m convinced. That’s definitely Aurena’s style of speaking.

Technically, Aurena wasn’t speaking to me, but rather the voice I’ve been accustomed to since the first day of my life was. It was the voice of the Divine System, or System Voice like I liked to call it. It sounded like a woman was speaking but the monotonous nature of its tone made me imagine a robot. It definitely wasn’t Aurena who spoke to me, but I was sure she wrote these lines.

Through the missive and meeting up with her, I caught a glimpse of how she liked to speak. Her voice was serene and filled with care, but her style of speaking was distinct enough when she’s being casual. I was already suspicious when the System said the word “fighting” as an encouragement.

In Korean, there was a word pronounced “hwaiting” which translated into “good luck” or “do your best.” For English speakers, “hwaiting” sounds like “fighting.” The Divine System of Peolynca couldn’t know this word if it hadn’t gotten this information from Aurena, who did look at my memory in the past.

A name…Hmm, let’s stick to simplicity. The Will to Fight and Survive.

Will you name this song “The Will to Fight and Survive?” Once you confirm, you cannot change the name of the song under any circumstance. Will you still give this song this name?

Why do I hear disappointment?! Come on, the name isn’t bad! Ja! Ja, this is the name of the song, System Voice!

Maybe I’m being paranoid. The name was good. The name was good.

“The Will to Fight and Survive” has been registered. Song description and effects will now be generated. You have chosen “Buffing.” You have given the song your all, overflowing it with emotions and images of victory and success. The song was written to promote yourself, both positively and negatively. Your naming sense is creative

Was that last point necessary?! This is the first time I’ve been burned by the System notification. This is so not unbiased!

At that moment, I made sure to note down that [Idol]’s System Voice is an asshole. Regardless, the effect was tremendous. My eyes widened and my jaw dropped. The reason? It was this notification.

Custom magic song gained:   [The Will to Fight and Survive]

Custom magic song [The Will to Fight and Survive] has been perfectly integrated into the System

The Will to Fight and Survive

A song created by the Idol   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]. Through images of being a force of destruction and inspiration, this song will rally any allies in the vicinity while demoralizing enemies. All allies affected by [Music Resonation] will receive these effects: Recover from [Exhaustion (Minor)]. Stamina cannot drop to zero. Stamina regeneration will increase while Stamina usage will decrease. Increase Fire and Holy elemental attacks by 10% each. All enemies affected by [Music Resonation] will receive these effects: Become more vulnerable to [Fear] and [Terror] status afflictions. Decrease Wisdom stat by 5%

W-Wait, wasn’t this a buffing spell?!

Yes, this was supposed to be a buffing song. I know I chose “Buffing” when the prompt came. So, pray, tell me why there was a debuff effect attached to the end of this description? It increases the chance to inflict [Fear] and [Terror], two crowd control effects that I personally experienced before. If you fear something, your morale and attacks would decrease.

But the worst part, or maybe the best part, was the “decrease Wisdom stat by 5%” effect. I and my allies with the [Music Resonation] effect also receive an increase in damage for all fire and holy elemental attacks, not just spells.

Wait, doesn’t this mean [White Flames] would become even stronger?

[White Flames] and the spell I made from it, [Sanctified Blaze], were considered as fire and holy elemental. [Divine Inferno] increased the power of fire spells, while [Idol] and [Venerated Saintess] increased holy spells. All three effects only affected magic.

But this buff? It affected every damage. That meant my spark-dust, my [Hellblade Edge], and [Corrosive Fire]. It was a tremendous buff. Aside from offensive buffs, there was also the Stamina part. Recover [Exhaustion (Minor)] and no Stamina cost while this song is in effect? Crazy. Just Crazy. I can only imagine what a warrior like the guild master could do with this stuff.

That reminds me, I should spar with him again tomorrow.

This has to be my cheat, right? This idol system is such a cheat, what the fuck?!

In the beginning, I thought [Primal Magics] and its current form [True Dragon Lineage], were my cheat skills given to me by the gods. That, plus [Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] and [The Light], helped me acquire quite a lot of magical power. I put in a lot of effort, but I can’t deny these titles and [Primal Magics] accelerated my growth.

But now? What the hell was this broken skill? What the fuck is [Idol]?! An AOE buff and debuff that would last forever as long as I keep on playing the song, which only costs me Mana and one or two parallel minds to keep [Aerokinesis] active. I knew it. Idols transcend bards.

This is just broken…Let’s try it out.

With my new song ready, I sang it. The music began filling the room once again, stopping the cheering and praises I was receiving from everybody.

[Music Resonation (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Oooooh! What is this?!” Saori exclaimed.

“My body feels so much lighter! Lady Hestia, please continue singing, I need to finish this lap!” Ellaine shouted, continuing her jog around the basement. She has turned into a fitness junkie.

“Wait, what is this? ‘Stamina cannot drop to zero?’ T-This is insane! How is this possible?!” Barathan was massaging his temples as he said that, looking more freaked out at the description of this song. “T-This shouldn’t even be possible for a saint or advance support Job. No, I’m too ignorant. I don’t know enough to make that claim.”

It was mass amazement. Everybody looked at their profiles to confirm the effects of my song. It seemed the description wasn’t lying when it showed me all those effects. It was genuine. It was broken. It deserves a nerf.

…Wait, but that still didn’t answer my question. Why was a debuff attached to a buffing song?

It made no sense. A buff should buff, while a debuff should debuff. That was common sense in games. As Peolynca’s System was similar to video games, I thought this rule would also apply it. Yes, there were attacks and spells which had duel effects, like attacks also including debuffs or crowd controls, or spells that simultaneously(?) buffed and debuffed people. But my problem was this song did both, and I have no idea how I did it.

“Images of being a force of destruction and inspiration,” was it due to how I structured the lyrics or how I thought about being an imposing boss character while singing it? Or maybe it was both reasons? There was much to test out in the future it seems.

…Wait, was there a chance that there were more options than just damage and buffing songs?

Two options were too little for such a strong skill. It was a unique skill made just for me, after all. Would more options unlock in the future? I couldn’t answer it now, so I’ll have future Hestia deal with it. Now, I had to confirm one thing.

Songs cannot be deleted

I knew it.

When an artist debuts their singles, their songs, it was almost impossible to change the name. Once they are released to the public, that was it. Under those rules, it made sense that you couldn’t change their names nor delete them. An ordinary idol on Earth wouldn’t be able to do that.

My cautiousness was rewarded with such a strong song. In the future, I have to be careful with how I write my songs. No more doing it on the spot, it would be too reckless to waste a song slot.

Custom magic song gained:   [Dragon Fire]

Custom magic song   [Dragon Fire] has been perfectly integrated into the System

As planned, I also made a damage-based magic song. This time I took almost the whole day to think of the lyrics and melody to make sure I covered everything I wanted this song to do. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as powerful as [The Will to Fight and Survive] but it was decent enough, fitting for a unique skill.

After today, I spent a whole week doing whatever I could to catch up on my training. Using the mansion’s library to research magic, making more custom spells, training with Farron, and discussing my party’s future business with Saori and Tasianna. And, of course, continuing my idol training.

As Saori made a training schedule for Ellaine, it meant that Barathan and Manuela could help Ellaine train according to my wishes. Barathan and Manuela are both combat-proficient, so it wasn’t necessary for me to always supervise Ellaine’s training. I could leave that job to her attendants why I concentrated on my own stuff. And that was baking and cooking.

The planned dinner test was scheduled at the end of this week, so our party had to start figuring out different Earthen cuisine with the help of Peolynca’s ingredients. I wanted to recreate quite a lot of them, not for money’s sake, but for my own selfish reasons. I mean, delicious food makes the world go round.

That also meant that my schedule has finally become so full that I barely had any time for breaks. It felt amazing. Researching established custom spells and then using their logic in the creation of my own was exhilarating. It’s like Master Kush told me, “A magician must also seek more knowledge and wonders.” Istari, the God of Magic and Knowledge, promotes the idea of traveling and learning about new stuff, as it was necessary for a mage to widen their horizon. I finally learned why it was so important.

To create more spells for [White Flames] and [Corrosive Fire] was my goal. I will make those two skills mine. Shiterno gave them to me, so I now have the obligation to usurp his right to call these skills his, by creating more and more custom spells. It would improve my strengths while giving me the right to brag.

But that wasn’t all. Training with Farron was also an important part of this week. I never learned a real weapon ability since I was born, as all of them came from my racial skills. Aside from learning how to fight, I also was given a chance to get a glimpse of the creation of weapon abilities.

Unfortunately, due to this full schedule, we weren’t able to go on any Quests to earn money. Thankfully, Saori was able to keep our budget in check by working at the tailor guild. Her talents and practice until now made her not only an extremely experienced tailor but also a fast one. Nobody in the guild could possibly make as many clothing pieces as Saori, and she was making it all for rich merchants. The money was coming in, but they were drained quickly through our food expenses. Shame.

But these times of normality soon came to an end. Our time in Firwood wasn’t ending, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t go away from Firwood for a prolonged time for some adventure. A Quest arrived at the hunter’s guild and nobody else wanted to accept it.

Was it ‘cause of the money that we accepted it? Was it ‘cause it was the right thing to do to help those people? Was it ‘cause it was the first C rank Quest our party would take since becoming adventurers? Nope. Nope to all those reasons.

There was only one reason why we accepted it.

“Ruins! Ruins from before the kingdom got founded! Hints of the pasts etched into stones that stood for time immemorial. Hestia, we will take this Quest!”

It was ‘cause Saori was a history nerd.

A note from AbyssRaven

It was 'cause Saori was a history nerd.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 12 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Side Story 20: A Maid’s Respect.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #4 her to promote our Patreon. 12 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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“Hurry now, everybody. Lady Hestia, Miss Saori, and Miss Tasianna are having breakfast. We must clean their rooms.”

“Yes, Miss Svena.”

Walking through the halls of a large, grandiose mansion in quick, but graceful, steps was a young woman in her late teens. Behind her, four girls younger than her were following her, pushing a cart with cleaning tools and another with high-quality bedding. The identity of the leader of this group wasn’t Hestia, Saori, nor Tasianna. It was Svena.

Nobles must provide proper hospitality for their guests, especially if they are nobles. As the elites of the land, reputation and image were an important core of noble society as this influenced the connections they could make with others. An ill-mannered noble would be ostracized, leading to a political and social “death.”

As a foreign princess in the eyes of a noble of Artorias, Hestia was given the highest degree of hospitality that Ellaine, the daughter of Count Helvas, could give. She was given a room worthy for a marquess, two rooms close to hers for her retainers, unrestricted free movement throughout the mansion, and a personal retinue of maids and butlers to serve her during her stay in House Helvas’s Firwood mansion.

Today, we follow Svena, a maid who has served House Helvas since her youth and was assigned as Hestia’s personal maid.

“Hati, begin sweeping. Vaeri and Lara, bathroom. Papala, the bed. I will take care of the windows and Lady Hestia’s desk.” Svena gave quick and precise orders to her fellow maids once they entered Hestia’s room. To a well-trained attendant, this was the minimum.

Her desk is in disorder, again…I heard from one of the guards that he heard sounds from Lady Hestia’s room after midnight. Haaa, Miss Saori will not be pleased once she hears this, Svena thought as she organized the many books sprawled on the wooden desk, showing a relaxed smile.

She knew Hestia has been studying overtime ever since she performed [The Will to Fight and Survive] and [Dragon Fire] in the mansion’s training room a week ago. Due to her wish to get back into her rhythm, Hestia has once again started her rigorous training schedule. She considered herself lazy, but it was undoubtedly that once she promised herself or somebody something, she would drive to fulfill that promise without delay.

Svena knew this. She has also chastised Hestia with Saori’s help for her overnight study. Although Svena knew that Hestia could survive without a lot of sleep, Svena couldn’t allow it as she was a maid of a noble house. She was educated to expect noble ladies to maintain a proper sleep schedule.

It fascinates me every time…Magic…I wish I could understand these magic formulas more… Svena thought with wonder, gazing at the wooden tablets filled with magic circles and chants. Although a commoner human, she was born with a decent amount of mana and a minor talent in magic, allowing her to learn simple spells from the more gifted attendants of House Helvas. Her eyes were sparkling as she looked at the many magic circles Hestia has made for her custom spell creation.

Imperial Hellfire’s successor? Consecration, Sun’s Embrace, Imperial Whitefire? …Oh my, this is unprofessional. I should get back to work.

Shaking off the remnants of her curiosity, Svena continued the cleaning process in an orderly fashion. Books about earth and wind magic were stacked into two neat piles, while those about gods' myths and fiction were separated into their own place. Svena also had to sort through the many wooden tablets on Hestia’s desk and categorize them to help her temporary mistress find the importance of cleanliness. Song lyrics, magic formulas and chants, recipes, and other subjects Hestia found interesting, found order with Svena’s help.

There were also a few interesting curious on the leftmost side of the desk. Svena wanted to clean it up but she remembered the words of her current mistress, “Don’t touch them. They are experiments.” Black, shimmering rocks inside a glass bowl, wooden cone-shaped items, and rock spheres lied there.

Hestia might not be a master in handicraft, but she still found creating new items fun. Despite her self-inflicted busy schedule, she still made time in the hope to improve her past inventions.

The more I spend time around her, the more interested I become. She is truly fascinating.

In the beginning, Svena feared Hestia. The young lady of the house, Ellaine, named her a greifnoble, the highest tier among the nobles when Hestia first arrived at the Firwood mansion. Although she received an extensive explanation on Hestia’s personality, she still felt intimidated. After all, what was a noble to a commoner? A superior being who wielded extraordinary powers.

In her youth, she realized how lucky she was to be made a maid of House Helvas. Numerous nobles have come and visited the Firwood mansion to speak with her lord, Count Helvas, about business. At first, she thought of nobles as gallant, strong, and powerful figures due to her life as a servant of House Helvas. Her mother, a former servant, wanted to imprint into her that she could admire a noble, but she should always understand the gap between them. Not every noble was good.

Her fantasy of the noble aristocrat shattered when her mother died. A visiting noble coveted her mother due to lust and wanted to buy her from House Helvas. Naturally, he left disappointed. At that time, she still had a naive mind as she was only a child, barely having reached her teens. She didn’t think much of it.

That changed once her mother went missing. Nobody could find her after she went to the lower town to buy groceries for the other servants. Svena was afraid. Two days passed, and no news. On the third day, one of the soldiers returned to the mansion with heavy breaths, as he told the senior servants something. All of them walked outside, leaving her in the dark.

They eventually returned, baring terrible news. Her mother was found dead in an alleyway. The details about her mother’s death were left omitted, as nobody wanted to be the one to tell the now orphaned Svena the truth.

…Mother? Mother is gone? W-What does that mean?! M-Mother, where is my mother?!

Fear and loneliness filled her mind. She couldn’t understand this information. She wanted to see her mother! But, none of the senior servants allowed it. “…I am sorry, we cannot do that. We are servants of nobles,” they said with trembling voices, showing pity towards the young girl.

Her mother’s death wasn’t investigated. She was just a commoner and this wasn’t Earth. Firwood might be peaceful but that didn’t mean accidents couldn’t happen. Svena couldn’t think of anything else than the day her mother went missing.

That noble? Was he the cause? Why? Why? Why…

She was powerless. She was weak. What could she do to a noble? House Helvas was gracious to her, but they couldn’t spend the manpower to find the culprit of her mother’s death. Only the comforting voice of the older retainers gave her a brief respite in her new-founded loniliness.

Nobles are scary…

She liked House Helvas. She liked Ellaine and her brother Jonathan. Although they had the pride of nobles, they were always nice to her. She could find peace that not all nobles were evil. However, that didn’t mean she wanted to serve anybody but members of House Helvas.

When she was assigned to Hestia by Manuela, the head maid, she couldn’t stop herself from objecting. Manuela might be born a noble, but she knew from working with her that she was one of the “good” nobles. In her role as an attendant, she never once abused her noble lineage to force others to work for her. Svena respected Manuela for this and was grateful to support her, but this had a limit.

“Svena, serving a noble of such a prestigious rank is an honor. I will not force you, but Lady Ellaine’s return will cause a lack of personnel. We cannot bring dishonor to House Helvas. You are the only one I can trust with this duty.” Manuela wasn’t aware of Svena’s past so she made an unbiased choice on the matter. Svena couldn’t reject the trust given to her.

She was fearful when Hestia returned from her outing to the lower town to register herself at the hunter’s guild, but it quickly waned when they introduced themselves.

“Svena, correct? I apologize for what occurred this morning. You look terrified back then, but you do not have to worry about gossips behind my back, I’m plenty used to it. They don’t anger me.”

What? she thought. A noble just apologized to her? Svena began considering Barathan’s words, but that disappeared when Hestia wanted to bathe. She noticed the sun core placed in the middle of Hestia’s chest and was quickly reminded why she feared nobles, when she was threatened into staying silent. Of course, that wasn’t Hestia’s intention, but for the noble fearing Svena, it couldn’t be helped that she misunderstood. For a beastman at the rank of a greifnoble, this threat was a fact for the commoner Svena. It was truly a rollercoaster of emotions.

Svena wanted to stop. She didn’t want to serve Hestia anymore, but she also noticed how the other attendants couldn’t afford to take over her role. They were too busy; she really was the only one who could fulfill the duty of serving House Helvas’s guest. She complained that Saori and Tasianna, Hestia’s retainers, should be the ones to fulfill this duty, but it would be too much for two people to take care of Hestia inside this noble mansion. Svena rationalized the situation and gritted her teeth for the second day of serving Hestia.

But nothing terrible happened.

“Good morning, Svena, I’m sorry about yesterday. That was really a bad first impression…I’m sorry.” Hestia then gave a small bow.

It was weird, truly weird for Svena. On the first day, a noble apologized to her, and on the second day, she bowed? Svena thought it was just a trick, a deception to make her feel welcomed. Her memory of Hestia’s threat(?) was still vivid.

Against her expectations, the week went by smoothly. Hestia might have her moments of her emotions running wild, but at its core, she was still a friendly person. She didn’t mind sharing snacks with Svena, she didn’t mind showing her real self, she didn’t mind going against noble expectations. Her modern upbringing helped her close the gap between her and Svena.

I thought she was a rather lazy girl, but she can be surprisingly diligent when she wants to. However, she studies too much.

Unsurprisingly, for Svena, who was always used to nobles acting like nobles, the carefree and free-spirited Hestia was a breath of fresh air. Outside her room, Hestia was an elegant young lady who could carry herself well like any respectable noble, but in private, she was a young teenager. She was not afraid to show it, and it began to feel endearing to Svena.

The misunderstanding on the first day was still imprinted in her head, which caused her to be wary and cautious of her actions in Hestia’s presence, but that changed once Hestia told Svena her secret. About the fact she was a dragon, a champion of Goddess Aurena, and an otherworldly reincarnator. At that point, it all made sense to Svena.

With so much to hide, no wonder she acted like that. She wanted me to be silent about that thing in her chest to protect me!

It was another misunderstanding. Still, it helped her relationship with Hestia. As a servant of a noble, she knew too well what a responsibility it was to know this much information about somebody so important. She could very much end up like her mother. But Svena also understood Hestia’s trust in her was real.

Lady Hestia is good.

The mysterious language she sometimes uses when she cursed, her thinking habits that went against other nobles, and her delicious snacks. When was the last time somebody treated her to simple snacks?

Mother…

Svena was friendly with the other maids, but her trauma with her mother’s death made her too distant to become friends with them. After being orphaned, her ability to create deep bonds with others lacking. She felt lonely because she couldn’t bridge her emotions with others.

So, seeing Hestia and her retainers urging her to share snacks and tea together was a small moment of relief to her. She felt the warmth of friends. Her education made her understand the status difference between them and her, but she couldn’t help but feel comfortable. For the first time since her mother’s death, she felt like she belonged somewhere. Even if this was a fleeting moment, she wanted to enjoy and cherish it as much as possible before her temporary Mistress would eventually leave.

“Hati, Papala, and Lara, please manage Miss Saori’s room. Vaeri please help me with Miss Tasianna’s room.”

But Hestia wasn’t the only one she made friends with.

Tasianna — at first, Svena felt uncomfortable around the wind elf woman. The icy glare she always gave off felt like it could freeze her blood and the general lack of warmth she gave to all the human attendants made it hard for Svena to work with. She was Hestia’s first maid and retainer, so Svena knew she had to cooperate with her to be efficient with solving tasks.

I really wish I could just stop. It wasn’t just Hestia but also Tasianna made Svena want to hand over this duty assigned to her to somebody else. This thought was prevalent in the first days of their interactions. She felt uncomfortable around Tasianna, nonetheless, as a fellow maid, Svena couldn’t disregard Tasianna’s talents, especially her tea brewing skill.

[Brewing] sounded like an easy skill to acquire, after all, isn’t it alright to just brew tea and other beverages to gain it? False. For a reason no Peolyncian could answer definitely, obtaining the [Brewing] was difficult. A senior maid or butler was able to brew good tea, acceptable for most nobles, but to actually gain [Brewing], you must not only be able to brew great tea but experience a wide variety of them.

Tasianna in her 87 years of living has served countless teacups to her former mistress and her current one. Not only that, but she was also exposed to the tea-making skills of elves and other fairies in the beautiful forest of Saelariel, the home of the Altrust elves. Those who live on this continent. Then, she was exposed to the ok-ish tea making skills of the Japanese Saori. It wasn’t perfect, but it gave Tasianna enough inspiration to improve herself until she received [Brewing] herself.

Those who have acquired [Brewing] also considered why they were able to receive it. Most believed it was a divine skill with a terribly high acquisition requirement because the origin gods loved tea, and others believed a tea master must know how different tea tasted to brew the most exquisite beverages. Tasianna belonged to the latter categories.

Nobles and many rich merchants love the smell of expensive tea leaves, so a servant must know how to make their masters’ and mistresses’ favorite cup of tea. To Svena, Tasianna was a person even superior to Barathan, her former model of a perfect attendant. Despite the icy atmosphere around them, Svena watched and learned.

Hestia misunderstood that Svena and Tasianna were competing with each other on who was the superior maid, but it was only a one-sided show. Only Tasianna felt threatened while Svena wanted to learn. Her opinion on Tasianna increased even after she learned she was a fairy. Being an educated person in the Greenveil duchy, she too knew about the “War for the Fairies.” She couldn’t help but feel sympathy for the hatred-filled fairy.

Her room is well kept, as always. Chambermaids exist to clean other maids’ rooms, Miss Tasianna!

Tasianna’s room was significantly smaller and less decorated than Hestia’s, but it might be the most unique. Compared to Hestia, who left her room like it was since her arrival, except for her desk and bed, Tasianna turned hers into a greenhouse. Instead of glass, the walls and ground were covered in blue mana threads.

Various plants and even a tree was planted and grown inside this room. Normally, a retainer wasn’t allowed to do this as it could ruin the room, but Tasianna was diligent. She kept her room so spotless and even prevented the carpet and walls from getting dirtied by placing mana threads around it, that no one could complain about it. It made Svena slightly envious of how good she was.

To the greenhouse itself, it was marvelous. Three glass windows allowed sunlight to enter the room, invigorating the plants, while the soil was mixed with Hestia’s mana. Since the first day Hestia and Tasianna started their garden in the swamps of Belzac Forest, they noticed Hestia’s mana was extremely beneficial for the plants. They grew faster and usually bore more produce than with Saori’s or Tasianna’s. They rationalized it must be due to Hestia being an advanced magician with far too much Mana than normally necessary.

With the addition of a smaller [Season Regulator] Ellaine lent the girls; the greenhouse could work independently of the temperature outside. Naturally, Tasianna’s room was warmer than the other girls due to this fact, but she felt it was very similar to the fairy village. Even then, to provide Hestia and Saori the necessary fruits, vegetables, and herbs they needed, Tasianna would turn into an impromptu farmer. Yes, Tasianna the farmer maid.

Tasianna’s room always takes the least amount of time. Only her bed and bathroom need proper care.

It was true. Even the books about alchemy, wind magic, water magic, and agriculture were neatly placed on Tasianna’s desk. There was nothing to criticize.

Finished with Tasianna’s room, the two maids entered Saori’s. Similar to Hestia’s, there wasn’t much to say about the appearance of the room. The only thing worth mentioning was the pile of books placed on the ground, high enough to reach the desk it was surrounding. At this point, it looked like the workplace of a sage or Ph. D. student.

So many books were taken from the library by Miss Saori…Didn’t she say she was an educator back from her world?

Saori, the former history teacher of Shirako High School, a Japanese private school catered to the rich and talented. Saori always had a fascination with different countries, so it was only natural that she would find interest in Peolynca’s cultures. To her, anywhere outside of Japan was like entering a new world, further fueled by her dream to travel the world for her late father’s wish.

So, it could be said that Saori was very curious about the Kingdom of Artorias. Books about the founding of the kingdom, about their neighbor the Kingdom of Atadoro, and also about the legends of the gods. She borrowed so many books from House Helvas and was like a sponge, absorbing all the information she could find about this world. Unlike Hestia, who was a magic junkie, Saori wanted to learn everything about this world. To Saori, Peolynca was a way to fulfill her dream to travel the world.

Of course, Saori wasn’t just interested in books. Many notes placed on her desk were about recipes and today’s dinner plan. As discussed with Barathan, Saori wanted to see if Earthen cuisine would fit a Peolyncian noble’ taste buds. Some ingredients from Earth had a Peolyncian version, but some herbs and fruits were completely different.

There was also the variable of the mana concentration inside the food that could change the taste. Normally, mana-rich food, like monster meat, usually tasted richer and was healthier for the body, but it would be detrimental for a dish as too much mana could overwhelm the eater. It was similar to a cook who thought having a dish taste sweet, sour, spicy, bitter, salty all at once was a masterwork. Nobody wants a mystery food X.

Saori is like Tasianna; someone who keeps their room clean, but…not everybody is perfect, Svena commented as she picked up some dirt from the front of the door. It wasn’t a remark made out of malice. Svena actually respected Saori quite a lot as she was the person she got along with the most among the girls.

To Svena, if Saori was an actual maid, she would be able to take the role of either Barathan or Manuela as the head attendant with ease. She was flexible, creative, and valued hard work above all else. In the beginning, she knew Saori as the head retainer of a greifnoble but against her expectation, like with the other girls, she never once acted arrogantly to the other servants. She respected everybody’s work and never abused her station. To a commoner, that was worthy of respect.

I wonder what she’s doing to look so tired every day.

Recently, Hestia has started her training with the guild master of the hunter’s guild, Farron Nordor. As a consequence, she always came back to the mansion with disheveled hair with some dirt in them. Strangely enough, that was also the case for Saori and Tasianna.

Similar to Svena, Hestia also did not know what they were doing. It wasn’t clear when Saori or Tasianna would admit that they’ve been training with the vice-guild master of the hunter’s guild, Gael. However, this was a story for another time.

“Alright, thank you very much for your work, ladies.” Clapping her hands, Svena drew the attention of all the maids to her after finishing cleaning the girls’ rooms. “Breakfast should’ve ended. Lady Hestia and Lady Ellaine must be in the training room right now with Barathan, Miss Saori, and Miss Tasianna. You may all take a break until after lunch.”

There the maids separated. As the attendant of a noble, Svena couldn’t take a break now. Her duty was to go to her mistress’ side. It might be temporary until she left this mansion, but Svena felt happiness. Serving a noble was a maid’s true duty.

Not all nobles are bad.

A note from AbyssRaven

Hope you guys liked this small side chapter that showed another character's point-of-view.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 12 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Side Story 21: A Butler’s Appreciation.

A note from AbyssRaven

Merry and happy holidays everybody! Merry Christmas to my readers in Europe and Merry Christmas Eve my readers in the US. I hope you guys are enjoying the holidays, and I hope this chapter can bring you some joy. I was planning to release a Hestia chapter on this day but my flu created an annoying delay, so I'm sorry.

Still, I hope you guys will enjoy it!

'Parallel mind #1 her to promote our Patreon. 12 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 12 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until January!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

The Kiesmay Family.

Once an unknown commoner family without a house name, now the competent retainers of House Helvas. Their lineage started with one Lazar Kiesmay, the grandfather of Barathan Kiesmay. Born as the eighth child of a laborer family in the slums of Firwood, Lazar was bought from his parents by the Head of House Helvas at the age of seven. The reason for this was because he was born with above average mana for a commoner human.

Nobles always strive to increase their numbers of capable servants and retainers, as this directly affects their power and influence. This was especially the case for commoners who have talents in magic. They could be trained as mages or magic knights to defend their noble masters, or, in the worst case, become another servant. Nobles often make a practice of collecting these magically inclined commoners.

It was a blessing for Lazar’s family that the Head of House Helvas was willing to pay for their youngest child; technically, any noble could take a commoner away without anybody’s consent if they do not already have a noble patron. Lazar’s parents, although slightly reluctant at first, decided it would be best to accept the nobleman’s decision. With the money they received, they would be able to help their other children while they could give their youngest child a better life. A noble who was gracious enough to buy their son, instead of taking him away, would undoubtedly treat their son well.

They were right, but not because of the noble’s compassion. As Firwood belonged to the Kingdom of Artorias, the act of possessing slaves was forbidden for commoners and nobles alike, unlike their neighbor the Kingdom of Atadoro. Lazar would be fed, educated, and once he reached twelve, he would be paid if he could become a proper attendant.

To the malnourished Lazar, who always had to fight for his food with his other siblings, this was a blessing. He didn’t have to gather food from the woods surrounding Firwood, he didn’t have to split his food with the other apprentice butlers and maids, and he could finally sleep inside a warm room. To the noble who gave him this chance to improve his life, he was grateful. To the Lazar who wanted to always sleep with a full stomach, he would dedicate his everything to become a part of House Helvas.

“You work, you eat,” is a common saying in the lower part of the town. A commoner learns this the moment they could move. He worked hard to learn the difficulty to handle magic and he adapted to his environment by getting rid of his origin as a slum dweller. In a flash, the thin and skinny Lazar transformed into a respectable senior attendant.

And then he got married. His son was born with the gift of high Mana, allowing him to become an even more capable magician than his father. His loyalty was eventually rewarded, and Lazar was made the seneschal of Carine village. As a result, the Count of House Helvas rewarded Lazar’s loyalty and diligence by giving his family a surname.

Similar to Earth’s medieval times, commoners could adopt bynames that describe what and who they were. Examples like “Harry the Baker” or “Mathilda the Barmaid.” However, the difference between a surname and a byname is the fact that the System doesn’t register the latter. Normally, people with bynames know it isn’t their actual family name so they do not accept the fact that they are “Harry the Baker,” instead, they were just “Harry.” As a result, people who have family names have accepted the dignity of having one, and the System adapts to their wishes.

So, when Lazar saw his name change from just “Lazar” to “Lazar Kiesmay” in his profile, he felt eternal loyalty for being able to receive this honor from his lord. By having a last name, his family could gain fame and the possibility to be remembered through generations. For a commoner who grew up in the slums who was destined to be forgotten after his grandchildren were born, Lazar felt hope that he would be remembered by his family and the house they serve.

At that point, Barathan was born.

“Come on, come on, come on! Feel the burn, Ellaine!”

“Haaa, haaa, haaa…Yes, Lady Hestia! The burn! I can feel the burn!”

Oh my…Our young Mistress…

Inside the training room located under House Helvas’s Firwood mansion, Barathan couldn’t help but sigh. It wasn’t made out of disapproval, but out of relief. To Barathan, who grew up with the values his grandfather and father instilled into him, he understood how much pressure a young child with high expectations would have.

Like his father, Barathan was born with a gift for magic. For a commoner, this was a blessing that could allow them to rise above their status and claim wealth and respect from even nobles. Mages were an important part of society as they could provide important services like monster subjugation, construction work, and priest services with the magic given to them by the gods. To Barathan who was educated to become a capable butler and combatant, it was easy to see how he rose through the hierarchy and became an indispensable attendant for Count Andre Helvas, the current Head of House Helvas.

In his youth, he managed to build a great friendship with both Andre Helvas and Marianne Talshia before she married and became Countess Helvas, back when the three of them journeyed together through the kingdom as adventurers. Unlike the heir to a Count family and the daughter of an Arcanuess, Barathan wasn’t as talented with the blade nor with magic. Nevertheless, he still reached the rank of a C rank adventurer.

It was through the expectation that he would serve as the sword and shield of his lord that drove him onwards. However, he knew exactly how stressful it was. He watched over the two children of his lord and lady when they grew up, and he knew the trials they went through.

Young Mistress, I will cheer for you. Rid yourself of your fears!

Like how Manuela was assigned as a teacher to Ellaine on the wish of her mistress Marianne, Barathan was Jonathan’s teacher due to Andre. In his opinion, Jonathan inherited the talent with the sword from his father and magic from his mother to the point that he could be considered a genius. In the future, Barathan had no doubts that Jonathan would grow into a fine man who could elevate House Helvas into an Arcanuess house.

So, what did he think about Ellaine? Pitiful, was all he could say. The second child of Andre Helvas was born with less magical talents than her brother and a more fragile body due to her gender. Her endurance was too low to fully learn her father’s keen swordsmanship, while her motivation always diminished whenever she witnessed how fast her brother could absorb the lessons of their mother. Aside from artificer and scholar work, her brother triumphed over everything she did. She developed an inferiority complex.

It was through the fear of losing against her brother again, that she willingly relinquished her right to become an heir. In Artorias, the line of succession doesn’t include the age of the person. Whether you were born as the first son or third daughter, every noble had the right to fight for the noble title. As nobles were the elite of the kingdom and acted to defend it, the competition between siblings was an important part of their culture. Even if you lost, participating in it would be considered a virtue.

However, the opposite was also true. Giving up before the fighting began would be devastating for a noble’s reputation. A lion without a mane. A beast without fangs and claws. Her retainers and attendant tried to stop her, but Ellaine chose the cowards way out. Subsequently, she lost the majority of her supporters, but she accepted it.

Barathan was aware of this girl’s weakness. She knew her only role now was to be a political tool. Even her loving father and mother had to close their hearts and separate private matters from work. For this reason, her father made Ellaine Hestia’s lady-in-waiting and subsequently forced her to miss her debut as an adult to a noble society.

However…

My Lord, your daughter has found her fire! Was this your plan all along?

A loyalist. That was Barathan. Ellaine was initially supposed to supervise and hopefully create a friendship with Hestia. To become the friend or retainer of a princess, even if she was from a foreign land, could help Ellaine’s and House Helvas’s reputation immensely. But the results were more than Barathan expected, no, it was more than even Andre expected.

“Drink it up! Hydration is the most important part of training! Fighting!”

“Guck, guck, guck…Waaaaaah! Yes, Lady Hestia, I’m ready! Fiehging!”

“No, no, it’s pronounced ‘fighting.’ There is a ‘t’ in the middle, don’t forget. It means ‘good luck’ or ‘let’s go’ in Korean.”

“Yes! Fighting, Lady Hestia!”

Hestia’s “Promise” touched Ellaine’s soul, causing her to reflect on the decisions she made in the past and how much of a defeatist she was. The reason for her failure was her own. She felt ashamed to always lose to her brother, so she gave up training hard, which caused the gap to widen even more. She finally understood when she saw the bright star Hestia tearing up at the end of the concert. In front of her, a person was able to make their dream come through by not giving up, despite all the hardships they experienced. Ellaine couldn’t help but cry.

Then, the moment she witnessed Hestia’s, Saori’s, and Tasianna’s profiles, she fainted. At that point, Ellaine thought Hestia was 15 years old like herself. Hestia has become so strong while she wallowed in her own self-made despair. Her eyes and soul burned with power for the first time since she was five as she asked Hestia to train her.

Self-esteem was important. No matter if you were born as the child of an impoverished commoner or were a god in heaven. Envy for others can lead to self-destruction. Without knowing your worth as a person, a human will slowly close themselves from everything and drown themselves in self-hatred. It happened with Hestia and Ellaine. It was just fortunate that they managed to escape it.

The sight of the sweaty Ellaine forcing her body to endure the spartan training Saori conjured up was a sight to be seen. She was out of breath, her hair was a mess, and the training clothes Saori made for her were far too revealing for Barathan’s taste. With Ellaine’s tank top clinging to her body from all that sweat, Barathan couldn’t help but sigh in exasperation also.

But he was proud. He was proud that the young girl he saw grow up was finally showing more ambition. Although, he wasn’t the only one who thought so.

“Two weeks. In these two weeks, I have seen Lady Ellaine look more exhausted than in the past five years. If only she had shown this much passion last year, then she wouldn’t have given up her birthright,” Manuela, the head maid of Firwood’s mansion and a noble, said with a wry smile. Her eyes were caring but also filled with regret. “I wonder why I couldn’t awaken her desire to become stronger? I have disappointed my Lady, Countess Helvas.”

“I would like to say that rivalry breeds strength, but our young mistress gave up because of her rivalry with our young lord. I am not completely sure but I believe Princess Hestia’s voice gave her strength,” Barathan answered with a quizzical look. “But…Let us not think too much about it. If she can persevere and keep her current attitude, then we can be sure that she will grow up to be a fine noblewoman.”

“I agree…but isn’t the training very demanding? A noblewoman shouldn’t train to the point of being drenched in sweat.”

Barathan’s brows frowned at Manuela’s words. Due to how he grew up, Barathan knew what others expected from nobles, so the sight of the sweaty Ellaine would be an embarrassment. “While I do agree you are right, Manuela, I think this is what our young mistress needs. Due to her gender, her father never pushed her to the limits during sword practice. Despite that, she still managed to gain [Sword Technique Lv. 1].”

It was true. Even though women are allowed to join the army and knight’s order in Artorias, compared to medieval Europe, people still have different expectations from the two genders. Noblemen are trained in both martial arts and magic equally, while noblewomen gave more focus on magic to compensate for their lower physical growth. The System made by the Origin Gods allowed a fragile-looking woman to overpower a muscular man, but that was not always the case.

Similar to how wind elves had more Mana and were naturally gifted with wind magic, a human male would be able to raise their Strength stat faster in most cases.

Unwilling to hurt his only daughter during training, Count Helvas never gave her as much attention as her brother. This was a bane in Ellaine’s growth as Hestia has proven that Ellaine would be able to keep up if only people had pushed her more. With the current training schedule, Ellaine’s Health, Strength, and Stamina were growing well despite having not leveled up.

“YOU BETTER LISTEN, ELLAINE. MAGIC CASTING IS ALL ABOUT CONCENTRATION. CONTINUE CHANTING AND GET THAT [Concentration] SKILL!”

“Eeek! I-I call upon the god’s-”

“We also need to train your resistances. Don’t worry, this will only be a small burn and I’ll heal you up. One white grace on the house!”

“-may the earth-YEOWCH! Lady Hestia, you interrupted me again! O-Oh, that feels better. My [Pain Resistance] even reached level three, wow!”

Of course, physical training wasn’t the only thing Hestia helped Ellaine with, magic was also a part. Mixing her self-taught days with the formal training she gained from the saurian Kushlek’zar, Hestia aimed to push Ellaine to her very limits.

Arcane corruption? Out of mana? Laughable in front of the Peolyncian sports drink, [Sacred Veil], and Saori’s carefully planned breaks. Stamina? Can you rest when you hear Hestia’s angel-like voice singing [The Will to Fight and Survive]? Damage to train resistances? Do you know Idol Hestia?

It was a boot camp. Plain and simple. Hestia was simultaneously breaking Ellaine’s body down through constant hardship while also healing everything up. This was the training method approved by Saori, a former teacher, and developed by Hestia, a former Belzac Forest dweller. If Hestia could cure mental fatigue and sleep deprivation, this hellish training would probably never stop.

With her incredible Mana capacity, couldn’t she do this for an entire army? A shiver went down Barathan’s spine as he watched his young mistress go through an almost torturous training regime. Deep in his heart, he was glad to not have to participate.

With Hestia as Ellaine’s training partner and the continuous production of the Peolyncian sports drink Hestia fondly called “Dragorade” along with the salt-free variant “Dragorade Lite,” nobody could stop Ellaine from her training as long as her spirit stood strong. On the other hand, Saori was silently weeping as she knew how much a noble would pay for these drinks and they were giving it out for free.

“Thankfully, nobody but us, her trusted attendants, are witnessing this. She will receive no shame. You have nothing to worry about, Manuela,” Barathan said in a friendly tone in support of Hestia’s training methods. “…I’ve been meaning to ask this for a while, but how are you handling your duty as the head attendant? Your initial duty was to train Lady Marianne’s daughter, our young Lady Ellaine.”

Five years ago, Manuela became an attendant for Marianne Helvas, the wife of the current Count of House Helvas. Similar to how commoners work for others for benefits, nobles of a lower rank serve those of a higher rank for numerous reasons like money, political support, loyalty, and so on.

Take for example Ellaine and Manuela. Ellaine is currently serving Hestia due to her father’s wish to supervise a potential threat to the kingdom while also wanting his daughter to befriend a potential political ally. It can also be assumed he wishes to gain Hestia’s and Saori’s knowledge from another world as well as Tasianna’s knowledge of elves and fairies. Manuela, on the other hand, was assigned to Marianne to increase her house’s reputation and to gain political support from Marianne’s family.

Of course, nowadays, their wish to serve their mistresses is more akin to respect and admiration.

“Do I hear a bit of pity in your voice? Heh, that is amusing coming from you, Barathan,” Manuela scoffed. “Don’t believe I haven’t forgotten the fact that you were one of the people who decided I wasn’t fit to be a maid in the first place. Yes, I am a noble, but I am only a viscount’s third daughter. Doing housework doesn’t hurt my pride when it’s for my mistress, besides, the head attendant’s duty is more about knowing how to use the servants to maximize efficiency.”

Manuela believes Barathan didn’t accept her as a maid due to her lack of qualifications. What was she? A noble daughter, that was what she was. Lazar, Barathan’s grandfather, died only two years ago and gave his role as the seneschal to his grandson. That meant, Manuela knew about the fastidious Barathan for three years, learning about his habit of being the perfect butler.

As a noble daughter trained to become a magician, she hadn’t done any housework for the majority of her life, until she became the head attendant after Ellaine gave up her birthright to become an heir. She thought the impeccable Barathan couldn’t accept her as the head attendant because of this fact. She understands his reason, but she still hated him for undermining her value.

However, what was the truth? Barathan didn’t believe she was incompetent, no, he learned from the two weeks he’s been staying in Firwood how good he was. He respects her. Nevertheless, the reason why he actually didn’t want Manuela to work as a maid is due to the belief his father and grandfather imprinted into him. For him, nobles were serene beings, too worthy of simple housework.

House Helvas is one of the few noble houses that barely have any retainers serving them as attendants. Most of them were knights, while Manuela was the only noble among the many butlers and maids. Barathan knew other noble houses had noble attendants but thought it was beneath a noble. A knight was acceptable as protecting their liege was honorable, but he believed housework was for commoners only.

He knew Hestia loves to bake and enjoys cooking, but he thought it was due to her life in another world. A cultural reason. Maybe nobles in her world cooked to innovate cuisine, like how the nobles of Artorias experimented with manatech and agricultural plans to further the technology of their kingdom.

For a man who has traveled around the kingdom, he was surprisingly narrow-minded. Nobody was perfect.

As neither Barathan and Manuela knew the truth, neither could diffuse the awkward atmosphere between each other. Barathan wanted Manuela to follow his ideal of a noble, while Manuela wanted Barathan to admit she was a capable attendant. To the 20-year-old Manuela, she wanted Barathan’s, who was in his early thirties, approval.

“L-Let us, haaa, haaa, stop here for the day, Lady Hestia. Josine, what time is it?” Breaking the weird mood between the two head attendants, Elainne ended her training for the day, as it was late in the afternoon. Dinner was about to be served.

Hestia and Ellaine both went to their respective rooms and were bathed and dressed in fine dresses. Normally, Ellaine didn’t expect Hestia to come in a dress to dinner, but today was different. To fully learn about noble customs, especially during dinner, Hestia wanted to practice as much as possible for the future. It also coincided with the day she wanted to serve Ellaine Earthen cuisine.

As the two young ladies met in the dinner room, they curtsied and greeted each other. As Hestia’s etiquette lessons on Earth gave her a good foundation on how to act during dinner, she only needed to learn the finer details.

Similar to how she greeted Count Helvas during their first meeting, Hestia gave another wonderful greeting.

“May this meeting be blessed by the Goddess of Light, Aurena, on this peaceful RestDay. I thank you from the depth of my heart for inviting me, Lady Ellaine.”

“House Helvas equally wishes you the bountiful blessing of the Goddess of Light, Aurena, Lady Hestia. As my benefactor for today’s dinner service, my gratitude cannot be described. Let us enjoy this night and strengthen our bond.” Both girls curtsied. After they were done, Ellaine spoke up, “Oh, one point of critique. ‘A noble doesn’t bow to those lesser than him’ is normally the rule; however, bowing and curtsying is polite and courteous, regardless of your rank. As the noble with a higher rank than I, you mustn’t curtsy deeper than me. Small movements in the acknowledgment are acceptable, however, please don’t do this to those equal or higher in rank than yours, as this will be considered rude. Luckily, you are a princess, Lady Hesta, so this will only happen if you meet the royal family.”

After they were seated, tea was served. During this time, Barathan and Manuela were coordinating with Saori, who was acting as the chef, to bring out the food.

The smell is mouthwatering, Barathan thought after leaving the kitchen with two servings of colorful salads and round golden-brown food.

“As the appetizer, I thought sharing some of my favorite salads would be best. Their names are ‘Sauerkraut’ and ‘kimchi.’ They are made from fermented orslagges. I believe the sauerkraut should fit your taste, but the kimchi is an acquired taste. I had some trouble eating it when I started,” Hestia described the different salads on the plate to Ellaine. “The round, golden-brown dish is called ‘hash browns.’ It is made from toffels and is one of my favorite breakfast foods.”

Orslagges are Peolyncian cabbages, while toffels are potatoes. Hestia and Saori have a desire to interpret Earthen food with Peolyncian ingredients.

“Hie hie, orslagges for loopabits, and toffels for skorrs. Most nobles wouldn’t accept eating the food of farm animals, but I know you’re making some of this for the common folk, yes? I can’t wait to try them.” With a single bite of each dish, Ellaine’s face brightened as a smile grew. “The sauerkraut is amazing. I can feel the tingling on my tongue, although the kimchi isn’t really to my taste. Compared to the sauerkraut, none of my taste buds are really excited by the kimchi. The hash browns are also delicious. It is well cooked and completely hides the texture of toffels. This isn’t common folk food, even nobles would eat them, I am sure of it.”

As a noble of the Greenveil duchy, Ellaine has been exposed to good food since her birth. Her tongue was trained to the point that she would consider herself a gourmet like most Greenveil nobles. To her, experiencing new food is an enjoyable hobby. Especially as she considered it a reward for enduring this week’s hellish training.

“There is actually a fermented vegetable dish made in the lower city of Firwood, if I remember correctly. Maybe it is due to the ingredients, but you Grace’s sauerkraut and kimchi are superior,” Barathan gave his opinion as he taste-tested a small sample of the salads and hash brown. He informed Hestia that if she could make them with less expensive ingredients, they would be popular in an eatery or tavern.

Meanwhile, as Ellaine, Barathan, Manuela, Svena, and Josine enjoyed the new taste, Hestia was attempting to control her eating. As a sunfang dragon, she couldn’t help but want to gorge everything. She was trying her best to act as a perfect noble.

During this time, the next dish was brought out. Made with tazlokwheat that was similar to buckwheat, the Japanese fried noodle dish yakisoba was recreated in Peolynca.

“Yakisoba are fried noodles with vegetables and meat. Usually, the correct way is to eat them with these two wooden sticks called ‘chopsticks.’ However, they require some practice and dexterity to use properly. I would advise you to try using these utensils, Lady Ellaine. If you cannot, then you can eat the noodles with a fork liiiiike this.”

“Oooh, chopsticks? Actually, I believe the dwarves in the north use them to eat, if I remember it correctly. Isn’t that right, Manuela?”

“Yes, Lady Ellaine. My family lives close to the border to the Groushia duchy, who are well acquainted with the dwarves of the Inkong Mountains. I believe a few Groushia nobles are acquainted with these wooden sticks.”

Hestia smiled as she learned of this fact. She had a feeling the dwarves of this world had aspects of Earthen culture due to the Revolution Queen, who was documented as an otherworlder, possibly from Earth. Her wish to meet the dwarves has become clearer.

“Mhmmm! This is wonderful.” Ellaine exclaimed as she ate the yakisoba with a fork, having given up on the chopsticks.

Aside from the tazlockwheat, everything can be made with relatively cheap ingredients. Amazing. A dish worthy for a noble can be made so easily? Princess Hestia, Miss Saori, Miss Tasianna, my admiration for you is increasing the more I learn about you.

Barathan admired elegant nobles and capable retainers and attendants. Although the girls didn’t have a too pleasant first impression of Barathan, he found them intriguing. Hestia’s knowledge of etiquette was great even if her conduct as a noble was lacking, although Barathan wasn’t too bothered about it as this can always be corrected. As the person who helped his young mistress regain her will to train, he admires and respects Hestia as a friend of House Helvas.

His impression of Saori grew at about the same rate. She was a diligent, hard-working person who always aimed for the best result when doing a task. When he first offered Saori and Tasianna the plan to spy on the church’s action to protect Hestia, he only looked at Saori’s worth as an arcane trickster and high [Dark Magic]. Barathan knew that rogues who were able to use dark magic could become the best assassins and spies as they can hide inside their shadows with the spell [Shadow Dash]. However, he was surprised when Saori offered her current idea to open up a business to increase their party’s reputation and influence.

Barathan initially wondered how this would benefit them. A business was hard to maintain as you needed to know the wants of your customers, but that changed when he learned about their origins. Otherworlders. If they could use their knowledge like the Revolution Queen, couldn’t they cause widespread cultural and technological advancements? When he finally realized this, he concluded that Saori understood her worth very well. He was honestly impressed. He determined he would learn as much as he could from her to better serve his lord.

However, the person Barathan was most impressed by was Tasianna. “An admirable attendant,” was his opinion on her. Since their first meeting, he admired her steadfast attitude to protect her Lady’s belongings and privacy, even when faced by multiple knights pressuring her. He also understood by watching her inspirational tea brewing skills that his skill was inadequate. Even though Tasianna showed her displeasure in working with humans, Barathan thought it was her right as a fairy. It didn’t disturb the mansion’s workflow, so he wasn’t annoyed.

The rest of the dinner went well. Due to hunger from all her training and the small dish sizes, Ellaine was able to eat an entire two additional entrees. Following the theme of yakisoba, the last two dishes were Japanese curry with rice and Tonkatsu, a breaded pork cutlet. That’s right, most of the dishes were Japanese. Including the kimono she was making for Hestia, Tasianna and herself, Saori clearly planned to open either a pure Japanese restaurant, or at least an Asian themed one.

Initially, Hestia wanted to also include Korean barbecue and other Korean dishes into it; she might be half-Japanese but she was still a Korean culture fan, a koreaboo. It was vetoed by both Barathan and Manuela as they realized how messy the barbecue could become, so Hestia had to give up on mixing Korean and Japanese cuisine for the dinner.

“I must say, dinner tonight was much fun. I thank you so much for introducing so many new dishes to me, Lady Hestia. Also, thank you so very much for more cake~” Ellaine praised as she ate another bite of today’s dessert.

“Oh, it was a pleasure. So, which dishes did you like the most?”

Pausing her fork movements, Ellaine pondered on the idea. “Hmm, I must say the curry was the best. I’ve heard much about the curry from the Caedhul, but I never was able to taste it. Yours was fulfilling and filled with many spices that stimulated my tongue. It was a fascinating experience, thank you so very much. In general, I found everything splendid. Except for the kimchi. Maybe I will get used to it one day.”

Hestia nodded with satisfaction before turning her head to the four attendants Barathan, Manuela, Svena, and Josine.

“I consider the tonkatsu the best. It was hearty and it urged me to continue eating with every bite. I am sure Count Helvas and many noblemen would love the dish. If you were to use the meat of a high-rank skorr monster, then it would be fit for a duke, I presume,” Barathan said. His feedback was aimed to help the girls get a feeling of ingredient choices and which demographic might like a dish more.

“The rice is a perfect partner for the curry, reducing the impact of the spices. The slight sweetness complements the spiciness, giving it a mild taste that fits my tongue well.” Manuela stated. Her explanation was less colorful but it was simple.

“Yakisoba is my favorite. I watched how Miss Saori and Miss Tasianna prepared it, so I know how easy it was to make. It is delicious and can be made quickly. It satisfies you and would be great to serve to the servants if the noodles were made out of wheat or rye,” Svena said. Her opinion was focused on helping the personnel of the house.

“I believe the sauerkraut was the best. It was simple yes, but did Lady Hestia not say it was a side dish? I believe if it was served with the main dish, it could elevate the taste even more. However, the sourness might be too overwhelming for some people so a dish which can neutralize most of it would be best,” Josine said. Similar to Barathan, she gave detailed feedback to help the girls improve their dishes.

As dinner was over, Hestia spoke up. “Oh yes, I nearly forgot. Lady Ellaine, the three of us will be leaving for maybe a whole week. We have acquired a very interesting Quest, and I also wish to move my legs for a bit.”

“Oh, is that so? Well, then please don’t let me hold you back. However, I ask you to come back safe, alright, Lady Hestia? It would pain me deeply if something were to happen to you. Also, I don’t believe I could continue my training to its fullest without you.”

With Hestia’s sports drink, [The Will to Fight and Survive], and healing spells, it would be hard for Ellaine to train as hard as she did until now. With Hestia’s help, she was able to rapidly level up her skills without the need for a Job change.

“Of course.” Hestia smiled. “A promise is a promise, and I always fulfill my promises. Anyway, I was planning to bring you out to hunt some monsters later, so I’ll take care of myself.”

As night came, Barathan prepared for sleep. As he laid on his bed, he couldn’t help but think about something.

Lady Hestia, thank you so very much for helping Lady Ellaine. Please, come back safely.

Shutting his eyes, everything went dark for Barathan. The day has ended and another day of work will await him tomorrow.

A note from AbyssRaven

AbyssRaven: Merry Christmas everybody!

Hestia: Heyo, guys! Thank you so very much for following me! Happy holidays to all of you! Merry Christmas!

Saori: Merry Christmas, everybody. I wish you all a pleasant holiday. Meri Kuri.

Tasianna: I am not very accustomed to Earth festivals, yet, but I thank you very much for your continued support! Meri Kurisumasu!

AbyssRaven: Hestia returns in the next release!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 117: Dwarven Smithy.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Acquisition requirements fulfilled. [Unarmed Mastery Lv. 1] [Sword Technique Lv. 1] [Spear Technique Lv. 1] gained

Proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Fluid Cast Lv. 2] [Unarmed Technique Lv. 8] [Danger Perception Lv. 5] [Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 5] [Wind Resistance Lv. 7] [Handicraft Lv. 4] [Trap Creation Lv. 8] gained

Hestia’s Holy Heater Ball

A ball of stone containing a magic circle that produces white flames, created by Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor. The ball’s shell is fortified with powerful terra magic, increasing its resistance against explosions and high heat. The creator of this item has made it possible for external mana to increase and decrease the temperature of the flame. Due to [Sanctified Blaze] being inscribed on it, the ball emits a weak healing aura when active gained

Hestia’s Improved Heater Ball

A ball of stone containing a magic circle made from the custom spell [Ignite], created by Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor. Anyone can control the strength of the flames by inserting or removing their mana, increasing the temperature around the ball

“The amount of mana needed to activate the regular balls is minimal, as I’ve inscribed the spell [Ignite] into them. However, compared to your and the other maids’ spells, mine is stronger thanks to my high Intelligence stat. It should be around the power of the level nine fire spell [Petal Flames],” I explained to Svena while holding a ball wrapped in red mana threads, before pointing at a white ball. “The holy heater balls are a bit different. They will require a bit more mana, so I recommend you to not use them. The normal heater balls are sufficient if you donate some mana in the morning and evening.”

“Understood, Lady Hestia. I will take this time as an opportunity to increase my mana stat,” Svena bowed to me before frowning. “…However, is it alright for you to leave today? Why not leave for your Quest tomorrow early?”

After receiving feedback for the dinner we hosted yesterday, our party was currently preparing to depart for our newest Quest. According to Melia, who was our exclusive handler for the hunter’s guild Quests, our destination would be Rashan Village, a small village in the tiny Teullon Barony. It would normally take someone three days on foot or a day by carriage.

As we didn’t know how long it would take us to finish the Quest, we told Ellaine that we would be gone for at least a week. While we’re away, the garden in Tasianna’s room will need maintenance, so I asked Svena for help. All she needed to do was to water the plants and put mana into the heater balls.

In the last week, aside from training, I’ve also started tinkering again. Recently, the number of spare [Hestia’s Heater Balls] stored in my storage could be counted with one hand. The longer the flame heating the ball was on, the more the rock shell of the ball would deteriorate and eventually break. It would eventually turn useless due to its crude design.

I made those back while I was in the Belzac forest, so their performance was lower than what I’m capable of making today. After evolving into a B rank dragon, improving my magical skills, and learning from Master Kush, I know I could make better heater balls today. Those stage lights I made for my concert proved as much.

So, I made new heater balls. At first, I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to create them. I used fire spells and [Trap Creation] to inscribe the magic circles onto the balls in my younger days, but I lost those spellsdue to Danterno’s interference. As my scale-dust was explosive and my [White Flames] and [Corrosive Fire] wouldn’t survive for too long outside my body, I was in a pickle.

Until I facepalmed and called myself an idiot. I had two custom spells that could emit the fire and heat that fitted the requirements to make my heater balls: [Ignite] and [Sanctified Blaze]. [Ignite] was the least powerful custom fire spell, developed so new mages could easily learn it and train their [Fire Magic] skill. Due to its low power and the fact that my triple colored fires outperformed it, I dismissed it as redundant. I only learned it to see if I could learn fire spells despite no longer having [Fire Magic].

However, that’s when I realized it had a niche. My scale-dust was destructive and useful for a bomb, but [Ignite] could be used to make heater balls like I made before. It was so obvious, but I hadn’t figured it out until now. [Sanctified Blaze] was also a proper substitute, especially when my white flames could become warm or “cold.” For this reason, I made multiple heater balls using both spells. With my high Intelligence stat, the rock shell ended up tougher and the fire stronger, even if only a small amount of mana was injected.

I’m so glad I bought [Trap Creation] from the SP shop. Being able to turn spell circles into “traps” enabled me to take my first step toward becoming an artificer. Once I return from the Quest, I should ask Ellaine or her mother to teach me the [Artificer] skill.

“Don’t worry, Svena. We want to get to the village tomorrow morning, as the Quest was printed with ‘Urgent.’ As adventurers, we have to fulfill our job,” I said to soothe the worried Svena.

Once we packed food and a change of clothes, we said our goodbyes to House Helvas’s most prominent members like Ellaine, Barathan, and Svena, and went to the lower city. Before we departed from Firwood, we needed to do one thing. We had to go to the smithy. We needed proper weapons and some armor.

On the way, we also visited the cobbler shop Ruld was working in and asked him about his wife Lorena, the friend I made in Carine Village. Due to the incident with the bandits where she got pregnant, I was worried she wasn’t doing too well, but it seems the two got help from the mothers living around their neighborhood. Lorena even got a job as a baker.

“Lorena’s cooking is just the best! You know, Lady Hestia, cuz I’m still contracted to the workshop, I don’t have a house. Lorena and I are living in the attic of the building, and she’s been cooking lunch for the whole workshop to stay. Ahaha, I can’t still believe I got married to my childhood friend! She used to be pretty bad at cooking!”

Looking at his flushed face, I couldn’t help but smile. He then continued, “She’s just the sweetest. However, sigh, she’s kinda having trouble during nighttime. You know why. I hope to make her feel better.”

“You do not have to worry so much,” instead of me, Saori comforted him. “She is going through a hard time; I think by always staying around her, she will get better eventually. I am sure she is very happy to have you as her husband, so make sure to treat her well, ok, Ruld?

It’s been a while since I met Lorena, so I think I’ll meet up with her after we finish the Quest, since she seems to be working today. After handing Ruld some food as gifts for himself and Lorena, we said our goodbyes and went to a smithy Ruld recommended, the one owned by the dwarf.

In a less popular spot in the middle district, a small building with a shop sign stood. The sign had the words “Smithy/Bundari” written on it and looked old and weathered, as if it had survived for years under harsh weather conditions. The building itself looked shabby compared to the human-run smithies in the center of the middle district, but there was a charm in its simplicity. As we neared the entrance, we could feel the heat from it. The smithy was active.

“Tonkon, ebdli. Welcome, customers.” As we entered the shop, a short woman greeted us from behind the counter. She had long dirt-brown braided hair that reached down to her hips, thick lips curved into a friendly smile, sharp round eyes darting around as she inspected the three of us, and full cheeks that gave her a very cute face.

A-A dwarf!

“E-Excuse me, this is a very, very, very rude question, I know. I apologize if it will offend you but… Uhm, you are a dwarf, right, Miss?” Unable to hold me back from possibly seeing my first dwarf, I rushed to the counter in less than a second and asked the small woman my question. I was so mesmerized and curious to see another fantasy race that I couldn’t control my tail.

“Oi, oi, little dragonewt, your tail is gonna mess everything up — sigh” she frowned as she chastised me but sighed in exasperation once she looked at my eyes who stared at her with wonderment. She began speaking in a very Scottish accent. “Ahh, a whelp, I see? Funny that you can’t recognize a ‘tazong.’ Thought we neighbors? Yeah, kid, I’m a proud dwarf of the Ankoran mountain ranges. To be more specific, an inko dwarf.”

Just like what I would imagine from fantasy novels, the female dwarf was short, reaching up to my shoulders. Her body was more lean than stout, unlike what I thought a female dwarf would look like, lacking unnecessary fat despite still being muscular, giving her a very athletic body. However, what caught my eyes the most was her chest, which looked like D cups, and the small bits of rock-like things growing around her ears and at the tip of her hair like moss.

“Woah, really!? Ahhh!” I clapped in excitement. “Oh, an ‘inko dwarf?’ What exactly is an—Ouch!”

A sudden pain spread around my head. If I were a normal human, I was sure my head would be bleeding now, so I felt confused about why my [Danger Perception] didn’t warn me about it. When I turned around, my question was answered.

“Lady Hestia, I know you are excited, but this is rude. Introduce yourself first before you ask all these questions.” It was Saori. “I apologize for my Lady’s lack of manners. My name is Saori.” She bowed politely, lowering her body by 45 degrees.

Widening her eyes in surprise, the dwarf smiled in acknowledgment and bowed too, equally at a 45-degree angle. “Ha ha, nice to see our land’s custom to bow spread to other races. Never thought I would see somebody greet others with a bow in a human kingdom. Nice to meet you Saori. My name is Kraftja.” Her proud eyes then turn to Tasianna and me, looking expectantly.

Bowing is a part of dwarven culture? Did the Revolution Queen share this with the dwarves, or was this already a thing? That’s a question for later, let’s just bow for now.

Already used to bowing to my family on my mother’s side, I bowed like Saori and Kraftja. “Sorry for before. I was too excited, so I hope you can overlook it. My name is Hestia. It’s nice to meet you.”

“My name is Tasianna. It is an honor to meet a tazong of the Inkong mountain ranges.” Unlike Saori and me, Tasianna gave a short bow.

…This feels too much like Japan now. Why is everybody bowing?

“Huhut? Do I see an elf? Ahh, what a neat surprise from the Goddess of Minerals. Crustacia be praised for giving me a chance to meet an ally among humans. I’m curious why you’re here in human lands, but I ain’t one to pry in other’s businesses,” she said before clapping her hands. “Anyways, this is waste of time. You’re here to do business, right? Look around the shop for something you want, or ask me if you have a commission for my husband.”

She’s very blunt but seems nice.

I stepped forward. “We would like to commission some equipment if that’s possible.”

“Got it, got it. My husband is working right now, so you need to wait. I’ll call him out once he’s done. ‘Never interrupt a dwarf when he hammers,’ otherwise, you’ll never share a drink with them, right?” she laughed energetically before retreating into the back of the shop. Unlike other shops, there wasn’t a second clerk nor employee, so I wondered if she was either too trustworthy or an idiot for leaving without supervision.

However, that was quickly cleared up once Tasianna saw my frown. It was as if she read my mind.

“Lady Hestia, the dwarves are one of the proudest races on Peolynca. They take pride in the bonds they make during their lives. They would destroy anybody who insults their clan’s name, be blinded by revenge for the death of a friend, they would even sacrifice their life to repay a debt as small as treating them to free ale,” Tasianna informed me. “The reason why she’s trusting us this much is due to the friendship between elves and dwarves. This is my first time meeting a dwarf, but I know from history books that they are invaluable allies. Elves live for a long time, so they remember debts and grudges well, while dwarves value bonds to the utmost. The friendship between these two races even affects individuals. A dwarf tricking an elf is a slight against their clan and liege, while an elf would face dishonor from their long-living families.”

“I see,” Saori nodded, having understood the situation. “So, she does not trust ‘us,’ she trusts that you would prevent us from doing something stupid, Tasianna? Wow, that is a lot of blind faith.”

“Umu, we are customers, and we planned to order equipment, correct? Disregarding my actual identity, we shouldn’t make a dwarf angry. I personally wish to stay friendly with all dwarves as they are the faefolk’s benefactors for ending the ‘War for the Fairies,’” Tasianna asserted.

The ‘War for the Faefolk.’ If I remember correctly, it was a war between the alliance of elves and dwarves against the human kingdoms to protect faefolk like fairies and spirits. Humans created a twisted version of mana batteries that allowed them to drain the mana from faefolk, slowly killing them, as they are beings made from pure mana. As the elves are allies to the faefolk, they naturally fought against the humans while the dwarves joined in due to the alliance between elves and dwarves.

The humans lost the war in the end, but a few twisted mana batteries could still be found. I haven’t seen one in Firwood, but I still remember the [Dwarven Warhammer Cannon] I’d seen in Belzac Forest when we fought the trolls that had captured Tasianna. When I was kidnapped by those wyvern escorts, we were also shot down with a similar cannon by an army of grimgarians, kobolds, goblins, orcs, ogres, and trolls.

Tasianna hated humans due to her history with them, but she was very friendly with other races. In the first place, I wasn’t a criminal so messing around in Kraftja’s store was a no-go anyway. However, it’s nice to learn the reason behind Kraftja’s trust.

As I was interested in the weapons the smithy sold, I took the chance and looked around the shop. Tasianna and Saori did the same since they were also interested in some gear in preparation for our Quest.

Unlike the outer appearance of the smithy, the interior was surprisingly clean and tastefully decorated. Of course, there weren’t much in the way of ‘normal’ decorations like rugs, plants, or paintings, but befitting a smithy, the owners used equipment to furnish everything. The only object that could be considered a decoration was a small statue on the counter, depicting a bearded man holding up a hammer in one hand and an anvil in his other. It was an authentic fantasy experience, and it made my heart beat in excitement.

As I looked around, I noticed there was no armor for sale. There were gauntlets and boots, but I couldn’t find any shiny armor or helmets. I haven’t visited the other smithies yet, but was it normal for shops to not sell armor or was this a dwarf thing?

On the other hand, there were a ton of weapons. Swords, lances, axes, daggers, and even bows among them. I thought bowyers or fletchers were the only ones who made bows, but do blacksmiths also make them?

Come to think about it, Ruld did say this blacksmith specializes in making equipment out of monster materials. That’s why Ruld’s workshop knows this smithy, as they also specialize in using monster leather for their shoes.

I didn’t know much about blacksmiths so let’s forget about it. I can ask the owners once they come back. I was curious about why they didn’t have any customers, but that wasn’t my problem. In the meantime…

Should I buy a spear or sword?

I’ve decided to buy a weapon? Why? It is ‘cause of my training with Farron. Keeping his promise, Farron and I have been sparring for the last week whenever we had time. As his duties as a guild master were his priority, the number of times I could spar with him was limited, but that didn’t mean I stopped my training.

Much like with my spars with Master Kush, I haven’t won a single time. It was honestly disheartening to see how weak I still was compared to the rest of the world. I dominated the forest part of the Belzac Forest, but then I met the wyverns and the massive leviathan. I won against the ice wyvern thanks to Saori and Tasianna, so I didn’t count that as my success alone.

However, I took it as a learning step. The reason why I couldn't win against Master Kush was due to my lack of equipment and experience. Even before he took out his catalyst, Master Kush could still hold up against me despite having less Mana and Intelligence, since he knew how to use his spells in a fight well enough to keep me on my toes. It was the same thing with the guild master. His spear was an OP-level weapon, so he could overpower me with both superior technique and higher stats.

It made me aware that I still have a long way to go in order to become strong. Stats alone aren’t everything. I knew that from the start, but now my faith in the statement was strengthened. To become strong enough to defend my two best friends, I needed to use my spells and skills better, while also concentrating on equipment acquisitions.

The trinity of power. Stats, skills, and items. Any RPG fan can attest to this.

In an attempt to improve, I’ve decided to try out using weapons instead of only my spells and my claws. It’s purely for curiosity’s sake. If I want to become stronger, wasn’t it important to try out new venues? It is similar to what Master Kush told me. “A magician always seeks out new knowledge.”

During my spars with Farron, I told myself to focus on his spearmanship and swordsmanship to learn from observing and imitation. That’s how I managed to learn [Sword Technique] and [Spear Technique]. Of course, he eventually noticed it and decided to stop our sparring in favor of proper training and instruction. Thanks to his [Instruction Lv. 7], I quickly grasped the basics of the spear and sword.

Instruction

A skill given to those who train others. If the owner of this skill trains others to acquire a skill that they own, the proficiency gain will increase. The efficiency will depend on the owner’s [Instruction] skill’s and tutored skill’s level. If the target’s tutored skill has a higher level, this skill won’t activate

I got the skill during my time training Ellaine, so I knew how useful it was. Ellaine was able to level up a few of her lower level skill with an improved pace once I got myself involved in her training. I was confident that I could level up my skills faster under the guild master’s tutelage. He even told me to try using the weapon whenever I hunt monsters to learn how to fight with it properly, so I’ve decided to buy one.

‘Don’t neglect your other skills, alright? You’re a mage at the end of the day, so don’t risk yourself!’ His words of wisdom, but it honestly sounds like he’s legitimately worried about me. Sorry, guild master, I’m not that weak to need to be worried about, I remembered while I was browsing the weapons. It was my pride as a dragon speaking.

Technically, I could use my SP to level up my weapon skills, but I decided against it. That’s because of Jobs. I could level up my skills by getting Jobs, so there wasn’t a need to waste SP. Yes, none of my skills have leveled up yet but that’s because my skills are already high level. The Jobs I took were for newbies, so their bonuses didn’t help me much. However, they opened up new Jobs and increased my stats, so they were worth grinding. I haven’t gone hunting once in the last week, but there was no need to rush it. Going at my own pace is important to keep from stressing myself out.

In any case, I stopped considering using my SP to improve skills. At this point where I needed large amounts of experience to level up, I couldn’t waste SP on trivial skills that I could level up easily. I decided to save as many SP as I could for the future when I desperately need to use them. It was an insurance plan, that both Saori and Tasianna agreed to now that we weren’t in danger all the time.

Let’s take a spear first. I’m interested in his dragoon skills.

Iron Spear

A spear made out of iron. Despite the low-grade materials used in it, it was made with the hands of an experienced blacksmith. It is sturdy and useable for beginners

Skorr Tusk Spear

A spear made with iron mixed with the tusk of a skorr. The hardy nature of the monster skorr increases the durability and penetration ability of the spear. With every strike, this spear will leave a hole like a mad skorr

Skill

[Piercing Enhancement Lv. 2]

Steel Spear with a hollowed Bone Shaft

A spear with a steel tip and a shaft made from a bird monster’s bones. Although terrible to defend with, the hollowed shaft enables fast attacks while the heavy steel blade enables dangerous penetration. However, it lacks durability

Skill

[Decrease Durability Lv. 1]

The most unfortunate part that I was desperately missing from the RPG System of Peolynca was the attack values of weapons and armor rating of armor. In games, numbers were everything. With numbers, you could grasp a quick understanding of if this weapon was better than another one until you looked at the available skills. Thankfully, weapons showed which skills and runes they had, but I still wished to know which spear would do more damage.

It would be easier for me to pick one among them to use if I knew which one was the best. I was contemplating if I should ask which weapon to buy.

“Hestia, have you chosen?” Interrupting my thoughts, Saori and Tasianna came over. Saori was holding a single dagger while Tasianna didn’t take anything. It was understandable, unlike the two of us, Tasianna had the lowest Strength and Vitality stat so she was more capable as a pure mage.

“Ha ha, I knew you would choose a dagger; however, can’t you make one with your [Shadow Armament]?” Saori was able to create her daggers by casting [Dark Bolt] and using her unique skill [Shadow Armament] to form them into any weapon she wanted. She didn’t need ones made from iron. Or so I thought.

“My daggers only inflict dark elemental damage and are affected by my Intelligence, not my Strength stat. As you know, my Strength is higher so it would be better for me to use a normal dagger. Plus, I know the guild master’s weapon, and I want one for myself. I cannot keep using my shadow daggers,” Saori explained. “It is a simple one anyway. I want to commission a dagger for the future, but I need one to practice with first. Here, take a look.”

Steel Dagger

A dagger made with steel. The craftsmanship is simple but effective, a result of the hands of an experienced blacksmith. It is sturdy and enables the user to properly unleash their physical strength

Simple indeed.

“Argh, why are you bringing me out. Just let me work, wife!” As our party was talking about which weapons to buy, a grumble came from the clerk counter.

“So, annoying. Stubborn to the end even after finishing your latest work!” Kraftja, the dwarf woman from earlier, came back from the back of the shop while dragging another dwarf out by the ear. I was wondering if she was the one wearing the pants in this relationship. “You have customers looking for a commission so come out already! We came to Firwood for monster materials, so shut up and do your work! Lasses, come over here, and let’s speak Davi.”

The dwarf next to her was clearly a man, considering he called Kraftja his wife. He had a stout, muscular body that looked like an indomitable shield as his every step seemed to shake the ground. He was like the trunk of a massive tree, unshakable and sturdy. As you would expect from a dwarf, his beard was massive and covered up his entire mouth and jaw, as it hung down with his long messy hair.

Strangely, similar to Kraftja, his ears had a strange “stone hide” while the tips of his beard looked like they were made from stone. Was that an accessory, or was stone actually growing from their hair? If it was a trait of dwarves, then my curiosity for this race has just increased by +1.

“Come on, introduce yourself. You know the basics of Mercurias’s teachings,” Kraftja spoke as she pushed her husband in front of us. As he stood before me, I noticed our eyes immediately meeting. He and I were the same height.

“Ooooh, I can smell it!” His eyes widened. Instead of looking at me, he looked at my arms, more specifically my scales. “Those are some seriously durable-looking scales you go there, lassie. I’ve heard of dragonewts making armor from their own scales, but I never had the chance to try it for myself. You’re here for armor! Got it, I’ll take it!”

“H-Huh?”

When he came out, the dwarf man looked annoyed like a kid who’d had his toys taken away from him, but now he was acting like an eccentric. He eyed my scales with such greed that it made me flinch back. Saori and Tasianna had to intervene, standing before me to block his sight from me.

Noticing my discomfort, Kraftja coiled up her hand and smacked her husband with her fist so hard his forehead landed on the counter. A loud boom could be heard. “Why in Crustacia’s name are you acting like that?! Are you trying to incur the wrath of Bleidla on us?! You are shaming us!”

Once the blacksmith recovered from the hit, he apologized to his wife and then to me as he mumbled, “Making powerful monster weapons is the only way to gain honor, so I got too heated up.” He then cooled down a bit after taking a mug of cold water and with a Japanese-style bow, introduced himself as Ogni.

“So, you got a commission? Just saying but I only take ones where I can work with monster materials. If they are low grade like bladdarg kobold fangs, then I’ll kick you out. No second chance, even for the elf lass,” Ogni spoke bluntly like his wife. “I can estimate how strong you three are. You aren’t normal adventurers, that’s for sure, so don’t disappoint me.”

I shrugged. “Why are you so fascinated by monster materials? Isn’t a blacksmith’s job to create stuff from ores and so on?”

“You don’t know? A dwarven blacksmith seeks to create strong weapons to present to his clan for the honor. The only reason why I and my wife are in this bladdarg human kingdom is cuz of the Belzac Forest and Avitor Mountains.”

As I was beginning to get confused with all the new information, Tasianna sent me a telepathic message to explain it. Dwarven society is split into different clans, which are essentially families, that serve dwarven strongholds in the Ankoran mountain range, north of Artorias.

As dwarves are a proud race, they take the concept of honor seriously, to the point they sound like samurais to me. Their extreme stubbornness combined with their desire to seek to elevate their clans make them seem like zealots or fanatics, similar to how Ogni acted when we first met. It is this desire to bring honor to his clan by creating powerful equipment that made Ogni and his wife travel from his home to a distant place like Firwood.

“Monster materials have strong traits and lingering mana that enhance the ores during the smelting process. Ores are very important as they act as the base of everything, but monster materials give the extra oomph, you know? For example, if you want a lightning infused weapon without resorting to runes, you get a lightning elemental monster’s materials and mix it with the ores. You know about the skills on gear, right? The majority come from the materials used in the process.”

“In other words, if we want really strong weapons, we need to give you monster materials?”

“Obviously, it’s common sense,” Ogni scoffed. “Strong ore, valuable monster materials, and the skills of a blacksmith. That way, the strongest weapons can be created. Ahhh, I still dream of making a masterpiece, hmm, hmm.”

“What about runes? Aren’t they also a part of making a weapon stronger.”

For the first time, Ogni frowned, looking troubled as he kept his mouth shut. Instead, his wife spoke up, “My husband and I aren’t runeworkers. We don’t have the tools to etch rune grooves onto weapons, nor the skill for it. If you want runes etched onto your stuff, your best bet is to go to the dwarven strongholds.”

After shaking away the disappointment and spoke, wanting to return to the reason for why we were here. “We have some C rank materials we want you to transform into stuff, but before that...” I took out a purplish stone from my storage and placed it in front of them. “Can you work with this?”

“Hmm?” Ogni picked it up and began observing it. The more he looked at it, the more his eyes widened. “W-What is this?”

And I answered. “Corrosive obsidian with a high iron content. Can you use this to make some weapons for us?”

Profile:

Name:   Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor

Level: 80

Race: Sun Dragonewt

Age: 15 Years

Job: Cleric Level 0/5

Status:

Health:

4760/4760 (Dra: 9520)

Mana:

16994/16994 (Dra: 33988)

Strength:

2447 (Dra: 4895)

Intelligence:

4017 (Dra: 8035)

Vitality:

1399 (Dra: 2798)

Wisdom:

2000 (Dra: 4001)

Agility:

4089 (Dra: 8178)

Stamina:

2821/2821 (Dra: 5642)

Effects:

[Damaged Mana Path [Left Wing] (Minor)] [Humanization (Moderate)]

Skill Points:

5350

Unique Skill:

[Dreadflame Dragon Lv. 2]

[Hellblade Dragon Lv. 2]

[Solar Core Lv. 1]

[Venerated Saintess Lv. 1]

[Idol Lv. 1] (New)

Skill:

Magic skills and related:

[Lava Magic Lv. 3]

[Lightning Magic Lv. 2]

[White Flames Lv. 2] (+1)

[Corrosive Fire Lv. 2] (+1)

[Sacred Magic Lv. 6]

[Earth Magic Lv. 10]

[Earth Amp]

[Earth Magic Efficiency]

[Terra Magic Lv. 3]

[Wind Magic Lv. 10]

[Wind Amp]

[Wind Magic Efficiency]

[Storm Magic Lv. 2] (+1)

[Space-Time Magic Lv. 5] (+1)

[Space-Time Magic Efficiency]

[True Draconic Lineage]

[Draconic Barrier Lv. 6]

[Silent Casting Lv. 8] (+1)

[Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 7] (+1)

[Long-Range Spell Enhancement Lv. 2] (+1)

[Mental Stability Lv. 6]

[Mental Warfare Lv. 4]

[Fluid Cast Lv. 2] (+1)

[Delayed Cast Lv. 1]

[Continuous Cast Lv. 1] (New)

[Mana Eyes Lv. 3] (+1)

Physical skills and related:

[Unarmed Technique Lv. 8] (New)

[Unarmed Mastery Lv. 1] (New)

[Sword Technique Lv. 1] (New)

[Spear Technique Lv. 1] (New)

[Draconic Roar Lv. 4]

[Sundering Enhancement Lv. 5]

[Piercing Enhancement Lv. 5]

[Crushing Enhancement Lv. 3]

Senses and movement skills:

[Silence Lv. 1]

[Accuracy Correction Lv. 7] (+1)

[Concentration Lv. 5] (+1)

[Foresight Lv. 1]

[Danger Perception Lv. 5] (+1)

[Probability Correction Lv. 5]

[Detection Sensor Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 5] (+1)

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 6] (+1)

[Tracking Lv. 3]

[Night Vision Lv. 8]

[Odorless Lv. 1]

[Evasion Lv. 10]

[Acrobatic Lv. 10]

[Air Walk Lv. 4] (+1)

[Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 5] (+1)

[Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 2] (+1)

Resistances:

[Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 4]

[Absolute Pain Tolerance]

[Mental Corruption Resistance Lv. 3]

[Mind Protection Lv. 3]

[Mana Leak Resistance Lv. 2]

[Abnormal Status Nullification]

[Fear Resistance Lv. 3] (+1)

[Lava Resistance Lv. 2]

[Lightning Resistance Lv. 2]

[Holy Resistance Lv. 8]

[Inferno Resistance Lv. 3]

[Terra Resistance Lv. 1]

[Wind Resistance Lv. 7] (+3)

[Water Resistance Lv. 2]

[Dark Resistance Lv. 1]

Stat growths and related:

[Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Speed of Sound Lv. 1]

Others:

[Stage Fever Lv. 3] (+1)

[Handicraft Lv. 4] (+2)

[Woodworking Lv. 5] (+1)

[Stonecrafting Lv. 1]

[Trap Creation Lv. 8] (+2)

[Instruction Lv. 1] (New)

[Identity Blocker Lv. 10]

[Identify Lv. 10]

[Battle Mind Lv. 7]

[Cooking Lv. 7]

[Benevolent Aura Lv. 2]

[Draconic Aura Lv. 1]

[Royal Presence Lv. 1]

[Dismantle Lv. 7]

[Gluttonous]

[Thought Acceleration Lv. 3] (+1)

[High-Speed Calculation Lv. 1]

[Multi-Thought Processing Lv. 1]

[Parallel Thoughts Lv. 9]

[Core Regulation]

[Humanize Lv. 10]

[Pyrokinesis]

[Aerokinesis]

[Telepathy]

Job Skill:

[Healing Amp]

Ability List:

[Dreadflare Aura]

[Hellblade Edge]

[Scale-Dust Veil]

[Hellflame Breath]

[Solar Beam]

Spell List:

Custom Magic:

[Symphonie des Feuergottes]

[Prayer]

[Sanctified Blaze]

[Ignite]

Custom Magic Song:

[The Will to Fight and Survive]

[Dragon Fire]

Lightning Magic:

[Lightning Bolt]

[Purple Flash]

Lava Magic:

[Lava Ball]

[Lava Stream]

[Molten Guard]

Holy Magic:

[Sacred Smite]

[Sacred Veil]

[Sacred Field]

[Banishment Beam]

[Major Heal]

[Omnictus]

Earth Magic

[Earth Wall]

[Rock Blast]

[Earth Strike]

[Rock Bullet]

[Sturdy Earth]

[Earth Spears]

[Earth Crash]

[Earthen Shackles]

[Terra Wall]

[Bedrock Blades]

[Rumbling Might]

Wind Magic:

[Wind Bullet]

[Wind Cutter]

[Air Shield]

[Wind Slash]

[Swift Winds]

[Wind Blast]

[Featherfall]

[Aerial Blitz]

[Tornado Bullet]

[Slyphid’s Cloak]

Space-Time Magic:

[Haste]

[Storage Magic]

[Warp Point: Entry]

[Warp Point: Exit]

The Light Magic:

[Shine]

[Sanctuary]

Titles:

[The Light]

[Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood]

[Divine Inferno]

[Otherworldly Reincarnator]

[Princess]

A note from AbyssRaven

Gearing Time!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 12 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 118: Equipment Talk.

A note from AbyssRaven

Happy new Years!

Corrosive Iron Obsidian

A dark purplish glass created as a result of rapidly heating [Corrosive Fire], followed by cooling it down within a short time period, crystallizing the toxins into glass. A large amount of high-quality mana and iron was injected into this obsidian, removing the brittleness of this glass; instead, it’s hardy and strong. If melted into sludge and used as a toxin, the obsidian will inflict its target with a large amount of arcane corruption: Toxin included:   [Moderate Arcane Corruption Venom]

There had been something that I noticed during our stay at the mansion, specifically concerning gardening. As Ellaine explained, plants and crops grown in soil with high mana concentration not only grow faster, but also they possess a higher quality than plants grown without mana. The downside that prevents nobles from injecting their mana into their farmlands is that it can cause monsters to spawn. Areas with too much mana have a chance to spawn dangerous monsters.

So, instead of waiting for months for our plants and herbs to grow up to harvest them, I increased the mana concentration in the soil with my own Mana. Subsequently, we are now producing fulinoe leaves and fragassa strawberries at a decent rate, though not enough for me to indulge in them every day. A fragassa cake is still a luxury for me.

Anyway, we also tried it with Saori’s and Tasianna’s mana, as I was sometimes too lazy to inject mana into the soil. The difference was pretty staggering. While plants with Saori’s and Tasianna’s mana grew at almost the same rate, those with my mana grew faster.

The same thing with the mana water from macula plants. The sports drink I made for Ellaine that I named “dragorade” requires mana water as one of the ingredients, as it helps mana regeneration, an essential part of the drink. When I was inventing the drink at first, I used the macula plant water that absorbed the mana that I created during my concert, producing multiple drinks with my “high-quality mana.”

When I noticed the difference in the growth rate of our plants, I wondered if my mana also affected the drinks. Was my mana the main reason why the drink was so effective? Compared to when Ellaine drank my fulinoe tea to recover her arcane corruption, dragorade worked much better. So, what happened when I used the macula plant water that absorbed Saori’s or Tasianna’s mana? The drink not only tasted more like coffee, but Ellaine recovered at a slower rate during training.Yes, this can’t be called a scientific experiment, since our sample size was too low, but it was enough for me to be convinced.

And then I had the idea to make this new type of obsidian. My [Corrosive Fire] allows me to choose the type of toxin that my fire emitted, so I thought, “Why not make it more like an ore or mineral? What if I put more iron into the obsidian, what would happen then? What if I inject my ‘pure’ mana into the obsidian after it’s created?” Well, this is the result.

“Obsidian? You mean that lava glass? Wait, let me identify this thing first.” Ogni, the dwarf, focused on the obsidian, raising his brows the longer he looked at it. He then placed the hand-size obsidian on the counter and then looked at me directly, more serious than before. “You…Where did you get this thing? [Corrosive Fire]? This thing is filled with mana like arcanuit, but it doesn’t seem to absorb my mana like pure euorinium. This mineral is something I’ve never even heard of before. Where did you get this?”

“It’s a secret, sorry.” I shook my head.

Ogni frowned at me for a moment, but then grumbled, “Ha, whatever, no problem. Shame I can’t learn the secret of this thing. Forget about it; tell me what you want to make. I’m actually motivated to know what this thing can do, so just tell me already so I can start forging!”

Saori stepped forward, putting a wooden board filled with diagrams on the table. “I would like a dagger… like this. I am not sure if there is enough ore for it, but I would also like some claw protectors.”

“Hmmm…Is that a tanto?” Ogni frowned as he looked at the clumsily drawn illustrations.

“You know about it?”

“Yeah, of course. Every dwarf lad and lass learns about the Revolution Queen. Once you start becoming a blacksmith, you also learn about some of her less popular weapon ideas. Uhm, I think one of them was called a ‘katana’ or something? Ha, the Queen was a genius of her era, but not everything that came out of her mouth is perfect. No dwarf would want something as thin as a katana. It’s too fragile for extended battles, doesn’t have enough weight to cut through proper armor, and it can’t exert the full power of a dwarf.”

We already knew about the fact that the Revolution Queen was an otherworlder like us. Whether she came from our Earth was a different question. Saori has looked up the history of the Queen, but we couldn’t learn that much from the library of House Helvas.

One thing we do know was the fact that she was the ruling Ankoran Queen, the dwarven version of a high-queen or empress, of all Kings and Queens of the dwarven strongholds during the era of the “War for the Faefolk.” In addition, we also learned that the war started in the year 2431 and ended in 2445, roughly 200 years since the end of the war.

“Excuse me, but before we continue,” I interrupted, unable to hold back my curiosity. “We read about the Revolution Queen before, but we barely have information on her. As dwarves, you two must know more about her, right? Could you tell us her name?”

I wanted to know her nationality and how she influenced the dwarven mountains. Ogni knew about katanas and tantos, and the dwarves seem to use chopsticks when they eat according to Barathan. Of course, in modern Earth the effects of the Internet has made the world “smaller,” spreading a country’s culture to another with ease. This might also be the case with the dwarves.

Kraftja, Ogni’s wife, nodded and began explaining, “Sure, lass. We call her the Revolution Queen because it’s her honorable title. We dwarves rarely speak of her divine name, so not many people actually know it.”

Divine name?

Without giving me time to think about that nugget of information, she continued, “In her mortal life, she was the Ankoran Queen called Dravlia Kongun. A member of the Kongun clan. She was favored by Goddess Crustacia and is, as most people know, an otherworlder.” And then she dropped the bomb. “And now she rules over us as the Goddess of Change, Ingenuity, and Ambition called Chihiro. I think her divine name came from the otherworld country she was born in.”

“…”

“…”

Speechless. That’s all that could be said. Tasianna didn’t receive as much of a shock, unlike Saori and me, probably ‘cause she was a Peolyncian. However, Saori and I knew how important the name “Chihiro” was. At this point, we knew for a fact that this Revolution Queen definitely was from Earth. With Aurena informing me that Crustacia was the one who first summoned an otherworlder to Peolynca, there can’t be any doubts anymore.

Honestly, it really sounds like a Japanese light novel, no? As this Queen had a dwarven name, it was likely that she was reincarnated as a dwarf. She became a Queen and was involved in the “War for the Faefolk” and helped end it in favor of the faefolk. She then died and ascended to divinity. There is also the fact that she was probably Japanese, too! Surreal.

I really want to know more about her. To see what her legacy was for Peolynca. I want to experience it for myself.

It’s settled. I have to go to the capital of Artorias, Griffonpeak, and meet with Aurena for the next part of her “Quest.” There is also the chance that I could ask a member of the Morgiana Duchy to fix my mana paths so I can fly again, at least according to Ellaine. There are a lot of things I still need to do in Artorias, but once I’m done here, I want to go and visit the dwarves. I am sure Saori would agree too.

Thinking that we had no more questions left, Ogni brought us back to the original intent of our visit. “I don’t like making these flimsy weapons, but I’ll give it a try if you have the proper materials. I don’t know how hard this obsidian really is, so I’ll need to test it. For the materials, I’ll need leather for the handle. Bones or claws to strengthen the blade. Preferably, everything should be D-rank at least, so the tanto can achieve harmony concerning its mana flows. The same thing applies to your claw protectors.”

Hehe, this is why we saved up the C rank materials! Huzzah!

Sorting through various monster materials I saved up from my days in the Belzac Forest, I took out all the ones I got from C rank monsters. The three wyverns, the rock-skinned horned grizzly, the various Belzac chameleons, and the panguanas. I was only missing the materials from the garm matriarch as I left them behind. I wanted to show her respect for defending the new-born Saori to her last breath.

“W-Wha-Wha-Wha-Ahahahahahh! This is brilliant! Praise Bleidla! Praise the God of Blacksmiths for bringing you three here to me! Wyvern scales, this thick stone-fur, and these long claws. Fantastic.”

I was thinking of showing him some of my shed scales, but it seems the wyvern scales have caught his eyes. Yes, I’ve been picking up my scales. No, it isn’t weird ‘cause it’s being resourceful. I am a B rank dragon. My defenses aren’t the best, but just imagine the weapons or armor that can be made with them. The best part — I don’t have to die to have them made.

“Hold onto them for me, lass. I need to first see if I can melt this obsidian first. Don’t want to ruin the materials, eh?”

I then told him to also be careful with the obsidian as it was the only chunk I could get my calws on. Technically, I could’ve made more but the problem was making it with enough iron to make it hard enough for a weapon. After all, [Corrosive Fire] uses up the minerals and resources from my body to create the toxins. In other words, it drains the iron from my body whenever I want to make this chunk of obsidian.

As iron is important for our body to keep our blood healthy, not to mention that my claws and fangs needed iron as well, I had to stop the production once I felt ill. It could be called self-destructive, but I consider creating the ore an investment. If I can help make some strong weapons for Saori, our party’s overall strength will increase, meaning we will be more prepared for future dangers.

Ogni then headed to the back of the shop, while I asked Kraftja if she could help me pick out a weapon. She smiled and nodded.

“Hmm, come to think about it, lass. Aren’t you a priestess of Aurena? You look fit from a System standpoint, but I don’t think you have the body type for a paladin or templar. Stats don’t affect your overall weight, so a light-weight like you would be tossed around by a larger opponent,” Kraftja scrutinized me as we walked over to the weapons.

“It’s to increase my offense when I have to fight in melee,” I answered. “I’m an elemental mage, but I have high Strength and Agility. Only my defense is lacking, but I have skills and spells to cover for them, although not perfectly. A normal mage is vulnerable if a warrior gets to them, but I have no problem fighting against them, as long as they don’t overpower me. That’s why I want a weapon.”

“What’s your weapon and unarmed levels? What are your magic skills?”

“Sword and spear techniques are level one while unarmed is eight. For magic, I have sacred at six, terra at three, storm—”

“That’s enough for me,” Kraftja raised her eyebrow for a moment before scoffing, “You know, I might just be a dwarf without much info on magic, but even I know the advanced form of earth magic is terra magic. Crustacia is the patron goddess of us dwarves. Hestia, isn’t it better to channel your strength through a magic tool than to focus on close combat? A mage should avoid it in the first place.”

“I know, I also have spells to prevent people from coming close to me, however, I also know my limitations. My Strength stat isn’t as high as my Intelligence, but it’s decent enough to punch through a tree. Shouldn’t using a weapon be able to help me improve more?” I was thinking of martial art movies at this point. I wasn’t planning on becoming a jack of all trades, master of none, but diversifying my attack plan isn’t a problem, right?

“Learn how to use your magic better, then. That should be obvious for a mage.”

Wow, she’s stubborn. She even gave out the same answer the guild master told me.

It was disappointing, to say the least. Farron mentioned, during my spars with him, that I strictly didn’t need to learn how to use a spear or sword. A master of the arcane should be able to overwhelm an enemy and a whole army simply with their spells alone. The reason why I wasn’t able to defeat him in a spar was a matter of stats, experience, and equipment. I was only able to persuade him to teach me after I gave him the puppy eyes.

And now a blacksmith’s wife was saying the same thing? It’s disheartening.

As the atmosphere became awkward, Tasianna interjected herself into the conversation, “Mrs. Kraftja, aren’t you managing a smithy? Would it really be bothersome for you to sell a spear or sword to Lady Hestia? She simply wants to train to become stronger.”

“I’m telling this to her because I believe she should focus more on her magic. I’ve seen enough adventurers make this opinion. Magic swordsman, magic knight, spellsword; yeah, I can see the thrill behind combining magic and martial arts, but you’re only gimping yourself. A high concentration is needed to use both spells and your weapon, and many of the more powerful spells can’t be used since you’ll be collateral.”

“I combine magic with my combat style,” Saori argued in my support. “Compared to Lady Hestia, I have to rely on my spells to deal proper damage to enemies. Also, isn’t the hunter’s guild master a swordsman and a wind mage?”

“…You’re a dark mage, right?”

“Guk!” Saori flinched. “H-How did you know that?”

“Simple deduction skills. You’re still holding that steel dagger and you commissioned a tanto, a weapon for rogues. Rogues have great synergy with dark magic since it allows them to further strengthen their ability to dodge and scare their targets. As an arcane trickster, you have to cover the weak offensive power of dark magic with your weapon so it’s more a necessity for you, Miss Saori,” Kraftja shrugged, explaining it as if it’s common sense. “The guild master, on the other hand, doesn’t rely on wind magic during his fight. You know his moniker, ‘The Wing Ripper’? It’s because he’s used to fighting aerial monsters. Wind magic is a support tool, like a potion that becomes a necessity in niche situations. In any case, he relies primarily on his runes to fight, rather than magic. His Job is closer to a runeslayer than a magic swordsman.”

Ok, now I have to admit it; this dwarf knows her stuff. She’s been denying me a weapon, but I can’t help but feel wonderment and admiration for her. She’s an expert in her field, after all.

“Amazing. You know a lot about the guild master, Mrs. Kraftja,” I said, eyes sparkling with respect.

Kraftja snorted but she smiled slightly. “Of course I would. He and the mercenary guild master use our smithy exclusively to maintain their weapons and armor. Ha, once you get used to the skills of a dwarf, you’ll never want to visit a human-run smithy ever again! Tch, well, I understand why not everybody wants to come over here. For good service, we have to ask for a fair price and not everyone can afford it.”

The reason why Kraftja’s and Ogni’s smithy isn’t filled with customers despite how passionate they were for their work is thanks to the way the other smithies and equipment shops are run. Due to the skills of the Firwood blacksmiths, most of them couldn’t compete with the Ogni’s skill and took various measures to keep their shops alive. So, they not only reduced the prices of their products, but also offered free repairs for an adventurer’s equipment, so long as the smithy was that adventurer’s preferred shop.

“You know, there is a saying that only a dwarf’s wife can stop their bull-headedness. The saying is practically true. However, even I couldn’t persuade my husband to drop the fees for repairs. ‘Quality work deserves proper payment,’ he said, and I had to shut up once I heard it.” Kraftja sighed in exasperation but looked pretty unfazed by the measures of the other smithies.

The reason Ogni’s smithy wasn’t truly threatened by the local competitors is the loyalty of a few specific customers. They were able to keep their shop ‘cause Ogni could guarantee quality work due to his mindset to “always feel proud about his work.” Bleidla is the God of Blacksmithing, and is a dwarf according to what I heard from Tasianna, so as a blacksmith and dwarf, Ogni probably didn’t want to anger, or even disappoint, his god. He corrected his attitude quite quickly when we first met after his wife mentioned the god.

Ogni’s smithy didn’t provide free repairs, but they would always produce high-quality work and he would pour his full attention into any commissions. The reason why no armor was sold in the shop was because of Ogni’s belief that armor should be made specifically for a person to make it more comfortable to wear and increase their combat effectiveness. He would feel proud if his armor could save the life of his customers.

“Armor is there to protect yourself, so faulty or loose pieces can lead to death. My husband doesn’t want to learn that his customers died because his works failed them, so he always makes the ideal armor for each of his customers. Weapons, on the other hand, are for him to experiment and improve his skills. All the weapons you can find in the store were made in his spare time using his own pocket money,” Kraftja explained with pride, pointing at the myriads of weapons. “However, that also means everything we sell is expensive in order to recuperate the costs.”

Wow, that is the spirit of a craftsman, huh?

“You know what, now that I said it out loud, I can’t deny you a weapon anymore. Sorry about that; I was so heated up that I couldn’t think straight. Come, let me help search out a weapon for you. You too, wolfkin lass! That dagger ain’t for you!”

Without warning, Kraftja grabbed Saori’s and my wrist, dragging us in front of a weapon rack. She swiped the steel dagger from Saori’s hand and placed it back on a table, before searching and picking up two new daggers.

“You’re a rogue, so we have to maximize your attack power and status application.” She handed Saori two daggers and gave us her ring of identification to look at them. As we already had [Identify], we gave her the ring back.

Frog Fang Andurium Dagger

A dagger made from light andurium metal to increase the nimbleness, and steel to increase the durability of the weapon. Toxic-Fiend Toad oil coats the fang of Ambush Frog, as it was applied during the crafting process, increasing the penetration of the weapon and the effectiveness of abnormal status afflictions

Skill

[Increase Abnormal Status Affliction Lv. 4]
[Piercing Enhancement Lv. 3]

[Durability Loss Reduction Lv. 1]

[Dagger Mastery Lv. 1]

[Agility Enforcement Lv. 3]

Assassin’s Eoriant Dagger

A dagger made from the alloy eoriant, giving it the mana absorption ability of euorinium along with the sturdiness of steel. Able to leech a small amount of mana to regenerate the wielder’s Mana, due to a lack of foreign materials in the alloy. The dagger’s form allows it to deal more damage when it strikes a weak spot

Skill

[Mana Conductor Lv. 1]
[Mana Efficiency Lv. 1]

[Critical Damage Enhancement Lv. 2]

[Dagger Mastery Lv. 1]

The power of items!

Our stares of wonderment were enough of a reward for Kraftja as she burst into laughter. The smile she was showing carried the pride she had for her husband’s craftsmanship, showing no reluctance to boast about him. They seemed rowdy at first, but her affection for him was no lie.

“T-These are amazing. And you said Mr. Ogni made these because he was bored? I can only wonder what he can do if he crafts it to a person’s liking.” Saori was the one who was the most baffled. She clutched onto them as if they were her most precious toys but frowned as she realized something. “Urgh, the reason why I wanted to buy the steel dagger is to reduce the cost. Once the commission is done, I wanted to switch over to my new weapon.”

Saori’s argument stemmed from her desire to reduce our party’s expenditure. We weren’t rich yet. However, Kraftja could only scold her for her cheap attitude. “Weapons protect you as you can kill those who threaten you. If you die because of your cheap attitude, what will you say then? You can always resell the daggers back to me after you got your new blades, but think about your life here. No matter how strong you are, is money really worth having if you don’t spend it on something you need to protect your friends with?”

Saori gulped as she realized this. She looked over at Tasianna and me and couldn’t help but sigh.

As I understood her struggle, I patted her back to support her, “Saori, don’t forget the money we got from Ellaine. Stop thinking about it and let’s just use the money for now. You always told me to be careful and not take too many risks. Buying these daggers will reduce potential risks on the Quest.”

A favor for a favor. Ellaine anticipated we wouldn’t have enough money to spend on weapons and equipment, so she lent us some of hers. Our protection was important to her and her House. In return, Saori had to make a dress completely made from mana threads to her preference. As she missed her debut to noble society ’cause of me, she wanted something eye-catching for her second chance to debut. And nothing says “I am rich” like a dress made from expensive mana threads.

Saori agreed the moment I used her own argument against her, so she accepted the daggers. Sure enough, Ellaine was right. We would have bankrupted ourselves if we hadn’t accepted Ellaine’s offer as these two daggers cost more than 10,000 Davi.

Once Kraftja was happy with Saori’s answer, Kraftja then told me it would be better for me to use a spear than a sword. “You are still growing, probably, but your current height will be a disadvantage for you if you face a taller enemy. Their weapon will reach you before yours can reach them. A spear will alleviate this problem. Hmm, let me see, one fit for a beginner to wield…”

As she was searching through all the weapons, I took this chance to ask her about identifying strong weapons. How do I know how much damage a weapon will deal? How do I identify the quality of the skills and the weapon itself? The first step to not being ignorant anymore is to ask questions. Acquire more knowledge as Master Kush said.

Kraftja scratched the rock-like hide on her ears as she answered, “Yeah, I get those questions a lot from newbies. Honestly, you’re a dragonewt, so you must have come from Loatryx and that’s a long travel. My husband told me you three are strong, so why don’t you know the basics of weapons? Sigh, sorry, you must have your own circumstances as a void-touched.”

“Void-touched?”

“Those who have [Space-Time Magic]. The only way for people to learn them is a complete mystery. Most scholars say they were blessed by the Gods, but that changed once the Revolution Queen revealed she was an otherworlder and had [Space-Time Magic]. Those called void-touched are those who experienced something from outside Peolynca,” she then stared at Saori and me. “I saw you two use [Storage Magic]. I won’t ask for your past, don’t worry. You’re here as customers and I will respect your privacy.”

Was it possible that Kraftja noticed that we were otherworlders? Master Kush told us that space-time mages were extremely rare, so we stood out since we used space magic quite a lot. He probably never heard the term “void-touched,” as he was relatively new to Altrust, the continent we were on. Still, that explains why Tasianna couldn’t learn [Space-Time Magic] from her SP shop while Saori and I could.

But that just created another question.

“Wait, wasn’t Chihiro a dwarf? I know dwarves can’t use magic, so how could she use [Space-Time Magic]?” I asked Kraftja.

“No idea, I didn’t live in her time. As you correctly said, dwarves cannot use magic since our body doesn’t allow mana to flow outside our body for too long. However, that doesn’t mean we have little magic. In fact, the opposite is true.” Kraftja took an iron rod from behind the counter and started bending it with ease. “We dwarves have high Mana capacities compared to humans and beastmen, but we can only use it to strengthen our bodies and the weapons we wield.” She then straightened the rod and used it to break another iron rod by striking at it. “That’s why us dwarves are known as the best blacksmiths and runesmiths in all of Altrust. We temper our hammers with our strong mana. Ha, we also accumulate arcane corruption slower than other races, too, hahahahah!”

Her laughter sounds like she’s really saying,“dwarves are the best race.”

“Anyway, I see you like derailing discussions. Here, let me show you how to identify good weapons. Take these two spears and examine them.”

Golem Steel Spear

A spear made from steel. It is simple and durable, enhanced by the craftsmanship of an experienced blacksmith. Instead of normal steel, it was made using steel from a dungeon golem

Skill

[Decrease Durability Loss Lv. 4]

Wolf Fang Steel Spear

A spear made from steel and dire wolf fangs. The sharpness of the blade is enhanced due to the strength of the wolf fangs, increasing serration damage

Skill

[Sundering Enhancement Lv. 2]
[Bleeding Enhancement Lv. 2]

[Strength Enforcement Lv. 1]

At first glance the wolf fang spear should be stronger. It had more offensive skills, unlike the golem spear which only reduced the durability loss of the weapon. If I think about it, wouldn’t a weapon that chipped less be more useful for extended fights as you don’t have to maintain it all the time? Plus, not every fighter is a good blacksmith. However, I personally lean more on the wolf fang spear as it would enable me to deal more damage, ending a fight faster.

However…shouldn’t this be an easy question? It’s too obvious if she’s asking me specifically to determine which weapon was stronger, I thought for a second, before remembering something. Wait! Didn’t they say that weapons made with monster materials high in mana were stronger and showed their effects more? Maybe the answer isn’t to look at the skills but at the weapon itself?

…Can’t I use [Mana Eyes]? Mana Eyes!

Description has been updated due to the individual’s actions. Additional information will be added when the requirements are fulfilled

Using my [Mana Eyes], my suspicion was confirmed as I gazed at the two weapons. The wolf fang spear had mana concentrated in the blade of the weapon. It was evenly spread around the edges while the rest of the spear tip was filled with thick mana that looked like a bright blue light. On the other hand, its steel shaft had some mana, but it wasn’t worth mentioning.

Turning my eyes to the golem spear, my eyes widened as the whole spear turned blue. From the bottom of the shaft to the tip of the spear, it was pure blue. However, compared to the wolf fang spear, the light wasn’t very bright, in fact, it was easier on my brain to look at it than the wolf fang spear.

As I noticed the System saying something, another suspicion rose and I examined the spear once again, this time with [Identify] and [Mana Eyes] active.

Golem Steel Spear

A spear made from steel. It is simple and durable, enhanced by the craftsmanship of an experienced blacksmith. Instead of normal steel, it was made using steel from a dungeon golem

Attack Power: 291

Skill

[Decrease Durability Loss Lv. 4]

Wolf Fang Steel Spear

A spear made from steel and dire wolf fangs. The sharpness of the blade is enhanced due to the strength of the wolf fangs, increasing serration damage

Attack Power: 231

Skill

[Sundering Enhancement Lv. 2]
[Bleeding Enhancement Lv. 2]

[Strength Enforcement Lv. 1]

[Mana Eyes] has adapted to individual [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s usage and wish. [Identify Lv. 10] merged into [Mana Eyes Lv. 3]

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Mana Eyes Lv. 3] evolved into [Mana Eyes Lv. 4]

Mana Eyes

A skill that allows the user to perceive the flow of mana in the air. Allows the identification of items and creatures, revealing their description or profile. Requires tremendous cognitive abilities to process properly. The Skills combined are:   [Identify Lv. 10] [Blacksmith’s Appraisal (Incomplete) Lv. 1]

…!

“This one.” Holding up the [Golem Steel Spear], I declared with confidence. “This spear is stronger. I can deal more damage with this one.”

“Oho? Why?” Kraftja asked with an interested smile.

I nodded. “I feel there is more mana infused into this weapon than the other. The wolf fang spear has more mana concentrated at the tip of the spear, but the golem spear has its mana spread throughout it. It’s more stable and has more weight behind it, allowing me to put more strength into it.”

“Oho? Do you perhaps pray to Bleidla, little dragonewt whelp? The skill [Blacksmith’s Appraisal] is the only skill I know that allows you to fully understand the attack power of a weapon, but you can only get it if you are a true follower of the God of Blacksmithing. Most people would say the wolf fang spear would deal more damage.” Kraftja’s eyes widened in greed as she looked at me, similar to how Ogni looked at my scales. A chill went down my spine as if I was being dissected by her eyes.

Was it a mistake to answer like that?! Scheiße, did I make a mistake?

I was worried.

“However, your answer is wrong. No, the golem spear is weaker.”

…And my worries lasted for only a second.

“Huh?! W-Why?! Didn’t Ogni say that objects with more mana infused into them from monster materials were naturally stronger?”

“Yeah, he did. It isn’t wrong. The golem spear has 291 attack power while the wolf fang spear has 231. Objectively, the golem spear is more powerful… but that is purely because of the metal. The real strength of a weapon comes from the skills. It’s the obvious answer, I wanted you to say it so I can have a proper segue,” Kraftja laughed at me as she slapped my shoulder. “Ahaha, don’t think too much about it, lass. I loved your answer. If the question was ‘which weapon had more attack power’ then you would have aced it. Honestly, I feel interested, and a bit threatened, by you. Equipment appraisal is a good revenue source for us blacksmiths, so a mage who knows what weapon is stronger could ruin our business. You might get reprimanded by the blacksmith guild, ha ha!”

“…”

Ignoring how I felt about the situation, Kraftja began explaining the attributes of a strong weapon in detail. In general, an adventurer would ask the blacksmith about the attack power of a weapon in advance before buying it. The “Attack Power” of a weapon increases the effective Strength of an owner when it’s wielded. It was a base power increase that made wielding a weapon more valuable than using your fists.

However, because of skills and abilities, people who fought with their fists alone weren’t weak; in fact, some were very strong. Take for example my [Hellblade Dragon] racial skill or Saori’s [Lupine Claws]. Both skills increase the damage we can do if we use our body’s natural weapons to attack with. A monster had to have these skills, O, otherwise a human with a weapon would just be flat out better and overpower them. The reason why I was so confident in my ability to fight in close combat is due to [Hellblade Dragon] making my claws and tail into lethal weapons.

That’s where weapon skills and runes come into play. Skills like [Strength Enforcement] increase the Strength of a person by a set amount once it’s acquired. Unfortunately, it doesn’t apply its effect retroactively to the stats the person got before they got the skill. However, weapons and armor are different. They apply a boost according to a percentage of our current stat.

The [Strength Enforcement Lv. 1] on the wolf fang spear would increase my current Strength by 5%, and it adds another 5% with every new level. [Sundering Enhancement] increased the damage of all cutting attacks by 1% per level, working similar to the profile version one.

“Whatever trick you’re using to guess the attack power of the weapon, don’t rely on it. My husband and I can use [Blacksmith’s Appraisal] to see the ‘attack power’ and ‘defense power’ but we also judge the weapon by its skills. Of course, our assessment is situational. A person with 1000 Strength will benefit more from the wolf fang spear than a person with 100 Strength,” Kraftja continued.

Oh yeah, I might as well examine Saori’s daggers.

Frog Fang Andurium Dagger

A dagger made from light andurium metal to increase the nimbleness, and steel to increase the durability of the weapon. Toxic-Fiend Toad oil coated the fang of Ambush Frog as it was applied during the crafting process, increasing the penetration of the weapon and the effectiveness of abnormal status afflictions

Attack Power: 386

Skill

[Increase Abnormal Status Affliction Lv. 4]
[Piercing Enhancement Lv. 3]

[Durability Loss Reduction Lv. 1]

[Dagger Mastery Lv. 1]

[Agility Enforcement Lv. 3]

Assassin’s Eoriant Dagger

A dagger made from the alloy eoriant, giving it the mana absorption ability of euorinium and the sturdiness of steel. Able to leech a small amount of mana to regenerate the wielder’s Mana, due to a lack of foreign materials. The dagger’s form allows it to deal more damage when it strikes a weak spot

Attack Power: 441

Skill

[Mana Conductor Lv. 1]
[Mana Efficiency Lv. 1]

[Critical Damage Enhancement Lv. 2]

[Dagger Mastery Lv. 2]

Daggers beating spears in damage. Wow, the steel dagger Saori picked out at first must have been trash tier compared to these ones.

…Still, wouldn’t my tail be stronger, still? No, no! Don’t think that way. The advantage of a weapon is the skills and runes it can have. Don’t look at the attack power alone.

As Kraftja’s explanation ended, Ogni returned from the back of the shop. Surprisingly, he was wearing a mask.

“Ha ha ha! Where the hell did you find that piece of obsidian?! The furnace had to burn hot enough for a taz before the glass started melting!” Ogni exclaimed after removing the mask. “Phew, the smell was terrible. I thought I was breathing in poison!”

Ogni quickly explained to us what happened in the smithy. His excitement was easy to detect. “The [Corrosive Iron Obsidian] is truly great! It’s malleable and didn’t break even after I tried folding it. It’s durable enough to handle my hammering, so it should be usable as a weapon. However, I can’t be 100% sure. I personally think putting in some steel or eoriant would be the best for the first test run.”

According to Ogni, eoriant was an alloy made with euorinium and steel.

Euorinium is a metal with an incredible mana absorption rate that would suck up the mana from the environment until it was full. However, the problem with the metal is that it was incredibly brittle if there wasn’t any mana in it, and would even shatter even all its mana was used up in a short time period. Due to this trait, it was ill-advised to make a weapon purely out of euorinium.

This fact changes if steel was mixed into it. A mixture of 80% steel and 20% euorinium would create an alloy that was able to absorb the mana from monster materials with ease while having the ability to hold runes and enhancements without breaking. All the disadvantages of euorinium would disappear. That was the wonder alloy eoriant.

Aside from the corrosive obsidian, we also gave him some wyvern and panguana claws, grizzly hide, and Belzac chameleon scales for Saori’s tanto and claw protectors. “The obsidian itself isn’t enough for everything, but if eoriant is included, everything should be fine. I don’t know how long this will take, but a week is the maximum. By then, I promise you that I will make your investment worth it.”

For my new spear, Saori’s two daggers, and Saori’s commissioned weapons, the money Ellaine gave us was just enough to pay for everything. Saori will most likely have to create a dress fit for a princess for Ellaine to repay everything. I will make sure to feed Ellaine tons of cake to try and see if she somehow forgets it, but that is probably just wishful thinking on my part.

“Ah, oh right. Don’t you need armor, too?” Kraftja commented as we were about to leave. “Hey, Hestia, have you remembered to pick up your scales?”

“Yes?”

“Good! Once you got enough, bring them to us and Ogni will make you some mail.”

Using my dragon scales to make armor would be smart, but…

“I have a skill that protects me from attacks and I’m also creating a custom spell that allows me to fortify my defense even further. I don’t think I’ll need armor.”

“Nonsense, lass. Mage or not, you’re still a dragonewt. Making armor from dragonewt pieces has a positive effect on you, so you should take us up on our offer. Looking at your pink thighs, your scales probably don’t cover up your whole body. Take precautions so you don’t regret it later. Scalemail would be a great help to you.”

With that final advice, we said our goodbyes to the dwarf couple and made our way to the gate. On the way, I explained to Saori and Tasianna that my [Mana Eyes] somehow merged with [Identify] and gained the benefits of [Blacksmith’s Appraisal (Incomplete)].

“I am becoming a bit envious, but it is nice to see us becoming stronger. It is a good feeling.”

“My Lady is extraordinary, indeed.”

Those were responses.

As we left the gate of Firwood and gazed at the snow-filled entrance, I couldn’t help but smile. It’s been a while since we left for an adventure. Staying in town was nice, but that wasn’t our goal. Saori wished to learn more about this world and I wanted to become stronger. Our goals required us to get back to work as adventurers.

“The ruins were there before this kingdom was founded. My fur is tingling from excitement,” Saori exclaimed with a smile.

I nodded, agreeing with her statement. I activated my party bracelet, set our party up, and set the experience distribution to one-third each, before checking the name of the Quest one more time. “C rank Quest, ‘Investigate the ruins close to Rashan Village and subjugate all threats to the villagers.’”

*********************

In the depths of a cold, dark ruin, the wailing of numerous creatures could be heard. None were pleasant to hear. Growls of anger and screeches of pain flooded the halls and room as their footsteps tapped onto the stony floor. Their eyes glowed red as their deteriorating flesh was patched up by a strange living shadow.

“Vvvvvveeeengeeeeence…taaaaaaaaakkkke…maaaannaaaaaa. Giiiiive meeeeeee…maaaanaaaaaa. Liiiiiiveeeeee…”

An eerie voice echoed through the ruins, none could ignore it as the snarling of the beasts intensified. Four shadows rose. Exposed bones, foul stench, flesh hanging loosely as only a veil of shadow was keeping the creature together. Their four legs tapped on the floor in front of an army.

“Awrooooooooooooooooooooooooooh!”

The howls vibrated through the air like a war horn. It was a call to battle. The pain-filled cries exploded as a wave of creatures ran through the halls. Their destination?

“Huuuummmaaaaaans! Veeeeengenceeeeee! Giiiiiveeeeee…meeeeee….yyyyyyyour…maaaaannaaaaaa!”

The damned do not forget.

A note from AbyssRaven

Happy new Years to everybody! Let's make the next years a good year!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 119: On the Road, far from Home.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Another month of thank yous to everybody who is supporting me. Also, for everybody who has supported me in 2020, I thank you all wholeheartedly. If you guys hadn't stuck around and continued reading, I don't know if I had gotten this far. Thank you very much for reading Dragon Idol!

There once existed a human kingdom in the western regions of the continent of Altrust, one under the name of the Leosfalt Kingdom. Although nowhere as massive as the Folschreck Empire, the Leosfalt Kingdom could proudly call themselves one of the largest human countries. Due to their geographical location, they not only had access to the ocean, but also the Belzac Forest, Saelariel Forest, and the Ankoran mountain ranges.

However, due to the influence of the wise elves from Saelariel and the industrious dwarves ruled by the Ankoran King, the north of the Leosfalt Kingdom slowly changed from the rest of the kingdom. A rift formed between the ideals of the noble lords of the north and those of their southern brethren.

The first king of the Leosfalt Kingdom spent his entire life fighting and fending off beasts, developing a deep-seated disgust and fear of those born with the heritage of a beast and human as a result. Their extraordinary natural physical abilities reminded him too much of the monstrous creatures he had fought against in order to establish his country. Even though beastmen and humans had lived amongst each other ever since the descent of the Origin Gods, the king couldn’t suppress his hatred.

However, eradicating all beastmen would be a fool’s errand. Not only would it be impossible to track every beastman on the continent, but he would also anger the Goddess of Light. Humans prayed to the divine Mother for her protection and love. The first king was no exception. Many beastmen prayed to Aurena as well; slaughtering them would deprive his beloved Goddess of followers. If their deaths couldn’t satisfy this man’s hatred…then bondage would.

“These poor beings are humans, too! Make them work for the future of the Leosfalt Kingdom and amend their ancestor’s sins!”

His charisma hid his cruelty in front of his subjects. In the Leosfalt Kingdom, beastmen had no rights and anybody who would mate with them or a beast would have their rights as humans taken away. Slavery would serve as their penance.

Although the other countries had the concept of slavery, none were as harsh as the Leosfalt Kingdom; however, no one denounced this decision. Although cruel to beasts and beastmen, he was kind and wise to humans. His kingdom grew under his rule.

His descendants, the Leosfalt royal family, ruled with the teaching of the first king as their mantra, so the changes in the north couldn’t be tolerated. The elves of Saelariel were allies with the children of the oceans and the ancient dragons, while the dwarves had contact with the beastman alliance in the east. The humans of the north choose to adapt in order to gain what they could from the elves’ and dwarves’ friendship.

This displeased the royal family, but the northerners’ contributions helped the kingdom. The first king may have hated the beastmen, but the later generations of royalty didn’t. They saw the beastmen only as pitiful pups and kittens whenever they brought a glass of wine. Unlike the elves, humans forget.

…However, that uneasy balance changed once the Empire called for the hunting of faefolk. As a vassal country, the Leosfalt Kingdom had to obey. Even if it were optional, none of the nobles could ignore the potential of the endless mana source of the faefolk. Most of the northern nobles participated in the capture of fairies and sprites, so as to harness the faefolk mana to strengthen themselves.

However, not all nobles agreed to do this. The ancestors of the Morgiana and Myrddin houses stayed neutral due to their friendship with the elves, while the Groushias prevented anybody from capturing the faefolk in their lands due to the dwarves. A divide in the country due to different ideals began to manifest.

As the kingdom closest to the elves of Saelariel, the Leosfalt Kingdom was quickly decimated under the power of the elven forces. In the aftermath of the “War for the Faefolk,” the king and queen died. The power struggle between the remaining royal families and relatives began.

That was when another claimant to the throne appeared. A young man with white and black wings, eagle-like eyes, and sharp talon-like claws on his feet called out, “The crown is my birthright!”

He might have been an arvisian, but his claim was legitimate through the possession of the [Prince] title. His grandmother, a princess of the Leosfalt royal family, had been thought to have been kidnapped and killed by the ruler of Griffonpeak, but the truth was different. A bond between a young woman and a griffon was made, and the result was the young man’s mother. His words were true. He was a royal, even if he was a beastman.

Almost all of the nobles wanted to deny him, put him into a cage. A prince, no matter how noble, was weak without any support. He had the support of his grandfather, but a kingdom ruled by griffons and arvisians would face hardship with their low numbers.

“Marquess Morgiana will support your claim! The fae have suffered enough of human greed!”

“Arcaliess Myrddin will right the wrong with your guidance, my Prince!”

“House Groushia will trample the fools from the south! We will support your claim!”

Morgiana, Myrddin and Groushia, however, wished for peace with the elves and the dwarves. To them, the prince was a welcome surprise.

“My father was a fool! Greenveil’s bow will shoot down your enemies, my Prince!”

“Equevanna seeks the best outcome of this situation. Our treasury is yours to use, my Prince.”

The hope for the desolated Greenveil, which stood no chance against the power of the elves, and an opportunity for the Count of Equevanna, who suffered the most from elven and dwarven trade sanctions.

“I have come to repay my debt to you, my friend. Lecartiglio will storm the land with your hippogryph knights!”

Even the usually beastman-hating House Lecartiglio couldn’t deny the young man, for he brought peace between the land of Lecartiglio and the predators of Avitor Peak.

A civil war erupted among the lands, but as Morgiana, Myrddin, and Groushia had barely taken any damage from the “War for the Faefolk,” the south lacked the power to put down the new avisian prince’s forces. The difference in ideals finally divided the land officially, splitting the Leosfalt Kingdom, with its longstanding history, into the Artorias Kingdom and Atadoro Kingdom. The arvisian with the blood of royalty and a Griffon ruled the young Artorias, while a member of the royal family’s branch family ruled the south as the new king. Although a ceasefire has been established amongst the two kingdoms, the hostility wouldn’t die any time soon.

The civil war ended in 2493. This was the fall of the Kingdom of Leosfalt.

*****************************

“That is what I learned about the kingdom’s history. Apparently, the ruins have been here since before the Leosfalt Kingdom!” Saori informed us with a bright smile, fully enjoying sharing the knowledge she learned.

“Ahh, so that’s the reason. Ellaine did surprise me when she said the royal family wasn’t human. I found it weird to imagine a couple of arvisians founding a country with mostly humans,” I commented. “Hmm, so I would guess Artorias might have intentions to reform the political ties with the elves? Morgiana and Myrrdin supported the young prince for that reason, probably.”

“Hmph! That is wishful thinking. Similar to how the elves still remember how they fought alongside the dwarves during the war, they won’t be easily swayed by a simple change in leadership. Even if they are beastmen,” Tasianna stated with derision. Her own disdain for humans probably got roused by the story.

“Tasianna, are you still not okay around humans? To be honest, I thought your anger had subsided during our stay at Ellaine’s. You even work well with Svena.” I wasn’t intending on chiding her; rather, I was actually curious about her current opinion on humans. We’ve been living among humans for a while, so I was opportunistic that it helped cool her hatred for a bit.

“Lady Hestia, I can control myself better because of your and Miss Saori’s support, but that doesn’t mean I have forgiven the human race as a whole. I can now distinguish between a kingdom and an individual because of you, although tolerating any of them is annoying,” Tasianna explained with a troubled face, before shyly scratching her head. “Also, I can see from Manuela’s behavior how much she wants to repent, but it isn’t her fault. The fault lies with her ancestors. She feels uncomfortable around me and I feel uncomfortable around her. I just can’t fully embrace the humans around me, but that doesn’t mean I would let that disrupt my duty to you. As long as you must work with humans, I must, too.”

Great! That’s definitely some progress!

After leaving Firwood, we literally sprinted in the direction Saori told us to go, using the map we got from the hunter’s guild as a guide. A normal person would’ve had to hire a carriage to travel, which would take at least three days to reach our destination, Rashan Village. However, being stuck in Firwood for a week without doing any Quests made us want to just run and stretch our legs. After Tasianna transformed back into her fairy form, Saori and I ran as much as we could.

We planned to camp outside for today and reach the village tomorrow. With our travel speed, we could do it. The reason why we were walking and talking about history right now is due to Saori’s Stamina. Unlike me, who can replenish my Stamina as long as the sun is up, Saori needed rest as running nonstop was tiring.

“So, what do you expect from the ruins, Saori?” I asked while munching on some jerky.

Saori shrugged at my question, pulling out the commission paper for our current Quest. “I’m a bit uneasy, to tell you the truth. I don’t know what to expect from the sound of this Quest. I hope nothing happens to the village until we arrive.”

The details of our Quest are as follows:

Rank: C

Reward: Experience, 2 C Rank points, 40000 Davi

Description: The mana concentration has increased around Rashan village’s land and the nearby forest, significantly increasing the spawning of monsters. According to an investigation made by the soldiers of Baron Teullon, they have designated the ruins nearby to be the source of the mana increase, although a clear cause hasn’t been determined yet, as the soldiers must mind their safety. The baron will take care of the excessive mana in the area; the task requires you to delve into the ruin and find the source of mana. Threats to the village must be eliminated. Ask the village chief for further details.

Objective: Investigate Rashan Ruins and find the source of mana flooding the land. Ensure the safety of Rashan Village and its villagers. Ensure the safety of Baron Teullon’s demesne

Slain Monsters: 0

Quest: Investigate the ruins close to Rashan Village and subjugate all threats to the villagers

The Quest sounded like a bona fide adventure to me, making my blood rush in excitement. I’m a bit apprehensive of going into the ruins, as I personally hate caves and any underground spaces, but I honestly should get rid of this fear. Dungeons, like the one in Cedaraille, would probably be the same as a cave, and I wanted to go into one whenour party gets the chance. My [The Light] title makes me feel weak and claustrophobic inside caves, but I need to learn to endure it.

Regardless, Melia did warn us about the Quest before we took it. She was the one who recommended it to us, as she couldn’t find any other adventurers to take the Quest, so she wanted us to know what we are about to tackle.

“This Quest was actually stamped as D rank when it first got commissioned. Ten D rankers took it, but I haven’t heard back from them in a while. The reports we received from the village chief indicate that they entered the ruins but haven’t come back out. The guild is presuming the worst.”

The Quest was kept up on the bulletin board, but its rank had recently increased due to another report from the elder. The area around the village had become more dangerous and there had been sightings of D rank monsters. In addition, the soldiers and guards noticed strange, black figures moving through the forest during the night, killing monsters and dragging them somewhere. No villagers or guards were hurt, but the guild had to take the issue seriously now that D rank monsters have appeared.

Apparently, when the guild gives out Quests, the rank is usually determined by the danger of the monsters. “A party of five D rankers can take on a D rank monster,” is an example of a rough estimation of a Quest’s difficulty. Of course, this wasn’t absolute. That’s why the hunter’s guild recommends hunters to take on Quest one rank below them for safety’s sake.

Between the monsters with a D rank appearing in the area and the confirmation of an unknown enemy inside the ruin, the guild had to increase the rank of the Quest.

A hunter’s first job is to take care of their safety, so not many hunters were interested in the job once it got its rank increased. Firwood might be close to Belzac Forest, but not many strong adventurers came to town after the failed Fenrir hunt a few years ago. The reputation loss seriously damaged their image.

That’s why we were chosen. The Quest was urgent, and the danger couldn’t be estimated properly. The Saori I knew a few months ago would have rejected it, as she wanted to stay on the safe side, but this time she readily accepted it. I was a bit confused. Was the history nerd inside her overwhelming her rational side? Was the 40000 Davi reward enticing her? No, we’re talking about Saori here. If she’s this confident about our success, then I shouldn’t refuse to go.

Besides, I know our party’s strength. If the problem of the Quest lies in massive amounts of monsters, then we will have no problems. Tasianna is specialized in defense and her ice magic can slow large waves of enemies. My firepower as a mage is perfect for eliminating a large quantity of weaker enemies. And Saori had two skills perfect for the occasion.

Bloodlust

A skill that transforms the user’s natural bloodlust into a skill. Boosts the user’s abilities in a life or death battle by a certain amount, depending on the level of this skill

Lifetaker

This skill is given to those that have slain many enemies in a short amount of time or those that have committed themselves on a path of blood. Temporarily increases the user’s stats for every kill they perform. The degree to which this effect can activate depends on the level of this skill, increasing its maximum effect each level

She got this skill after she evolved into a [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo]. Her current [Lifetaker] was level three, so after killing three enemies, she’s pretty much at full power, and the effect of the skill was very good. If I continuously played [The Will to Fight and Survive], I was sure she could eradicate a room filled with weak fodder-type enemies more efficiently than I could. The [Idol] skill with its ability to create new songs has made our party so much more powerful.

…However, the problem lay somewhere else. We were uneasy for an entirely different reason.

“I can understand what you mean, Saori. Hopefully, the soldiers and guards can take care of the monsters surrounding the village,” I agreed to her feelings. “Oh yeah, what do you think about Melia’s words? They sounded freaky to me.”

After we accepted the guild, Melia told us a weird gossip, “You know, I don’t want to talk too much about it, but I heard the guild master cursing the guild master of the alchemist guild when he heard the update on the situation. That’s when I remembered that one of the adventurers took an escort Quest from the alchemist guild a year ago. The destination was Rashan Village.”

Could it be a coincidence? Maybe. However, why would the guild master of the alchemist guild threaten the safety of a small village?

“It is probably just a coincidence. Or maybe Melia heard wrong. She did not look very convinced about it when she told it to us in the first place, easily brushing it off and telling us to forget about it.” Saori had a skeptical look at the situation. “I mean, why would he do it in the first place? What has the guild master to gain from hurting a barony? A baron is a low ranked noble, but he is still a noble while the guild master is a commoner. Probably. The village is also close to Belzac forest and its villagers collect nearby herbs and materials, which the alchemists probably need.”

I nodded. The logic makes sense. I asked Saori if her Stamina was full, but ended up pulling out a block of wood after she told me she still needed a bit longer. I was planning to level up my [Handicraft] and [Woodworking] skills. There is no time to waste!

“Oh right, Lady Hestia, how are you progressing with your custom spells?” Tasianna asked.

I answered without glancing away from the wood I was cutting, “Not so good. My second [White Flames] spell is progressing well, but that’s because I’m using [Imperial Hellfire] as my reference. However, the one I had in mind for [Corrosive Fire] isn’t doing too hot. I wish Master Kush was here to help me with it. No matter how I structure the chant, it fizzles out every time.”

The chant of a spell determines how your mana will construct your spell. There’s some leeway with [Fluid Cast] that lets you change the spell’s form and allow additional mana to strengthen and enlarge the spell, but usually a spell does exactly what the description says. [Minor Heal], [Moderate Heal], and [Major Heal] all heal your injuries at different strengths, while [Cure] only removes status afflictions. That is the importance of a chant.

Master Kush already stressed that my chant should envision my spell perfectly and that I have to write it down into the magic circle. If the chant cannot replicate what I want the spell to do, it just fails and fizzles out. A good example would be my [Imperial Hellfire].

The tips Master Kush gave me for [Imperial Hellfire] were still noted down on a wooden board, so I’ve been using it as a reference for a [White Fire] spell. On the other hand, I wanted [Corrosive Flames] to conjure armor of corrosive flames for me, similar to Saori’s [Shadow Armament]. However, I’m making no progress there.

I’ve even researched books on custom spells. I thought looking up spells like [Stoneskin] or [Flame Veil] would help me figure something out, but I’m just stuck. Ellaine, Barathan, and Manuela haven’t created any custom spells, so they weren’t much of a help. Ellaine asked if I wanted to talk with her mother, but I thought I’d have figured it out by then.

I feel like when I first started using magic. Master Kush, where are you?

Magic is hard.

“Stop.”

“Hmm?”

“We got company.”

As always, Saori’s scouting abilities were top-notch. My senses still haven’t found an enemy, but Saori’s had. As I was about to stop carving, Saori pulled out two daggers, holding a silver one in her right hand and a fang-like one with her left. The red mist in her eyes told me she was ready to go hunt.

“Tasianna, stay with Hestia. I want to test these two out first. 441 Attack power with the assassin dagger, while the frog fang has 386. I wonder how much my damage will increase.” Her eager eyes told me she wouldn’t take no for an answer. I wanted to test out my new spear too, but there would be another chance once we arrived at the village.

“Raaaarrrgh.”

As Saori entered the woods, twirling her daggers with exceptional dexterity, growls came from behind multiple trees. As eight of them came out, I noticed their appearances. They were large, white-furred monsters that looked similar to a rabbit. They had two thick antlers like a stag on their heads, four large incisors in front of small sharp teeth, claws on their front legs, and thick hind legs like a kangaroo.

Loopridae were rabbit beastmen that lived in Firwood. If beastmen were born between humans and monsters, then what kinda giant rabbit created those loopridaes? Well, these things were large enough for the task.

Mana Eyes.

Loopriszar

A loopabit that has survived its vulnerable early evolutions and has evolved into a true predator. Although equipped with large antlers and steel-like teeth, loopriszars inherited the cautiousness of their early evolution, knowing when to quit if they face a strong enemy. Their strong legs allow them a strong forward jump. Rank D

Because [Identify] merged into [Mana Eyes], I am now forced to use this mind-numbing skill whenever I want to identify something. It still hurt when I activated this skill, all the mana in the surrounding entering my vision and taxing my brain as it tries to deal with the sensory overload. I would’ve complained about it more if [Mana Eyes] hadn’t gained the [Blacksmith’s Appraisal (Incomplete)] skill.

“Rank D! It is leveling time!” Saori was a bit too excited in my opinion.

The loopriszars’ eyes focused on our party as saliva was dripping from their mouth. It was winter, so it was likely that these monsters were starving.

As I was thinking that, one of them rushed at Saori with its mouth open.

“Slow.”

“Rabbit stew, Lady Hestia?”

As if she responded to our words, Saori sidestepped the attack and stabbed her silver dagger into the rabbit’s arm before submerging into its shadow while pulling its arm with her. Instead of diving into the shadow with Saori, the rabbit screamed in pain as its arm was stuck in the shadow.

Saori then jumped out from a tree’s shadow. At the same moment, the rest of the loopriszars charged at her, shrieking an ear-piercing sound. Unlike the danger that was heading her way, Saori’s expression was calm and serene. She knew what to do.

Using [Air Walk], Saori kicked the air and dodged the attack. Simultaneously, black tendrils erupted from the tree’s shadow and tangled around two of the rabbit’s legs, holding them back from attacking.

“Shadow Pierce.” Falling from the air, Saori blackened her silver dagger and perfectly pierced the back of the first rabbit’s head, instantly killing it.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Job [Cleric] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 3]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Three at once? Damn.

Without batting an eye, Saori pulled her dagger out of the dead rabbit’s head, blood flowing out like a sprinkler. With one dead and two struggling to free themselves from her [Dark Tendrils], Saori only had to deal with five more. She bent her knees, lowering her body, and raised her daggers as she faced the monsters.

Dodge and stab and it repeated itself four more times. Saori’s movements were powerful and graceful, flowing through the combined attacks of the rabbit, as her daggers precisely stabbed once before continuing with the next loopriszars. There were no wasted movements, her daggers hit the neck of each rabbit every single time. Death followed.

“R-Reeeee!”

The two captured rabbits suddenly freed themselves from Saori’s tendrils and were about to flee from the battle. They knew they had lost. However, Saori’s focus was already on them. With two quick flicks, her daggers flew through the air and hit the rabbits. Once again, they hit the loopriszars’ necks.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Job [Cleric] has risen from [Level 3] to [Level 5]

Max level of Job   [Cleric] has been reached

Attributes have increased due to level up

Awesome, the first day of the Quest and I already max leveled my Job. Imagine if we have to kill more monsters, what a waste that would be, right?

I dismantled the loopriszars, since I had the highest level in [Dismantle]. While I was doing that, I learned Saori and Tasianna leveled up once. Saori was now level 20, or 70 as a wolfkin, and Tasianna was at level 51. It was a very exciting day for them, as we hadn’t leveled up in a very long time. What a shame that I couldn’t join in the fun.

“Oh yeah, how did you hit them all in the neck? You were so precise. Kill in one shot, wow,” I praised her. Even I wasn’t as precise with my attacks.

“I found a teacher in Firwood. Tasianna and I have been training with him, much like you’re been training with the guild master.”

That was why she was always so ruffled up whenever we returned to the mansion. I never asked her about it as I never was that curious. As usual, Saori and Tasianna were always diligent. I wonder what they thought about me when I was lazing around all the time. I really don’t dare to ask them that.

After I’d dismantled all the rabbits, our party sprinted toward our destination until the sky went dark. We made camp and made some stew with what Saori had hunted today. Rabbit stew, delicious!

As we were enjoying our dinner, Saori once again noticed a presence, making me wonder if this was the Belzac Forest. As Saori was about to head out again, she suddenly frowned and instead shouted out, “Stop!”

“Please, travelers, I come in peace. I mean no harm!”

The voice that responded sounded like a woman’s voice, soft and clear. As her silhouette became clearer as she approached, Tasianna stood up. She was currently in her elven form. “Saelari!” she cried out with a face filled with not just surprise but also happiness as she smiled.

Saelari?

The woman then removed her hood once she felt the heat of the campfire. “Saelari?! Seolu sifla Saelariel famno isschata kelg?!”

Her flowing lime hair illuminated the dark while her fair face was beautiful like a master painter’s magnum opus. Her ears were round and had two elegant earrings. Just as I started to wonder at Tasianna happily greeting a human, the woman removed her earrings, and her ears suddenly became long and sharply pointed.

Elf?

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Chapter 120: The Faemancer.

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“Thank you very much for sharing your camp with me. May the Origin Gods bless you.”

“It is a pleasure. You should warm yourself up a bit before we speak, Miss Elf.”

Meeting a dwarf for the first time and now a real elf? My fantasy sensors are satisfied today~

“Oh, where are my manners? My name is Silva, a Saelari eir Zephira; or, in Common tongue, I am a wind elf from the forest of Saelariel.” She gave a graceful bow as she smiled at us. Saori and I introduced ourselves plainly.

On the other hand, Tasianna couldn’t help but start speaking in whatever language the elves and fairies speak. “Binsel ir Tasianna Marina Silverpond. Seub eir Aifli, isschata eir Zephira.”

“Aifli? Tiluoan Tasianna, saha eir Saelari eir Zephira.” Silva the elf pressed her hands together as she looked at Tasianna with an apologetic smile. “Hitti binselk ‘Silverpond,’ falahir votum roy Iggdrasyl? Zut [Elvenize] fie? Valfar gisch fie?”

[“Do you understand what they’re saying, Saori?”] As it seems like Tasianna and Silva have entered their own world, I could help but ask Saori this rather redundant question. I wasn’t sure if I should interrupt them.

[“It is a bit rude to us, but Tasianna has not seen an elf or fairy in a while. I believe she must be making up for the lost time. You know, it is like meeting an American when you are visiting Japan or another country in your case, I believe. A kind of ‘kinship.’”] Saori’s words made sense, now that I think about it.

Wouldn’t I feel nostalgic if I were to meet a person from Earth on Peolynca? In fact, didn’t I feel thrilled when I first met Saori and discovered she was Japanese when I first spoke with her? Tasianna might have exiled herself from her home, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t feel homesick. She might not have shown it to me, but I bet she has some lingering feelings for her village, despite resenting the lifestyle of a fairy.

“Ahh, Lady Hestia, I apologize! How rude of me to leave you out of the conversation,” realizing I was also around, Tasianna apologized to me, before looking over to Silva. “Sister Silva, this is Lady Hestia, my current mistress. She and Miss Saori do not understand Andurenian, so could we speak in Common?” Andurenian is the official name of the Elven language.

With a nod, she complied. “It is a great honor to meet a spawn of Kargryxmor and Belzac. I apologize for being rude. I was too surprised to meet your fairy friend here.”

Ahh, that’s the reason…Wait, what?!

Upon hearing she called us “spawns of Kargryxmor and Belzac,” Saori and I became wary. I guess she knew Tasianna was a fairy from their discussion, but nobody told her our real identities! We’re in our beastman forms; it should be impossible for her to know we’re a dragon and cadejo unless we either tell her or show her our IDs with that information revealed!

“Lady Hestia, Miss Saori, please, don’t be too alarmed. There is a reason for this!” Reading our minds, Tasianna stepped in front of Silva and waved her hands. “Sister Silva understands your identities due to the spirits. She spoke to them.”

“‘She spoke to them?’”

“Yes, she’s one of the more traditional mages among the elves. She’s a faemancer, a speaker to the faefolk.”

A faemancer?

Apparently, faemancers are people who have the ability to commune with all the different faefolk in the world. Think of it like an anime exorcist who can speak with ghosts. Silva was able to discern our identities due to the spirits surrounding us.

Now, it might seem weird to call her a faefolk whisperer as fairies should be able to speak, yes? Well, fairies are only one type of faefolk, not unlike how wolfkin and katzune were both beastmen sub-races.

“The spirits can be sorted into three categories: the lesser fae, fairies, and elementals,” Silva began to explain. “Lesser fae include beings like spirits, small mana beings that like to wander around like children, and spriggans, woodland faefolk that dwell among plants. There are of course many more. Similar to how the many creatures of our world adapt to different climates and environments, the faefolk might even be more numerous than beastmen. As they are a gathering of concentrated mana, their forms and traits are determined by the land they are born in.”

I remember hearing from Tasianna that she wasn’t born like a human, but that her consciousness just ‘appeared’ one day, and she was alive. Like what Silva just said, Tasianna was also born from an accumulation of mana and suddenly came to life. The only fairies that I heard could give proper birth were the royal family of the fairies, Iggdrasyl.

“You should know about fairies, as Sister Tasianna is one. To be clear, fairies are faefolk who were born with intelligence like other humanoid beings and can enjoy the perks of one. There are many mischievous ones, so meeting somebody as polite as Sister Tasianna is surprising,” Silva continued. “The last category are elementals. They range from minor elementals to the elemental kings. I heard from the elders that before the Origin Gods came to our world, elven mages would contract with free elementals to support their spell casting. Of course, this was before the Wind Mother gave birth to us wind elves.”

In exchange for supplying the elemental with experience and mana to grow, an elemental helps a mage by supporting their mana control. Mages in the days before the Origin Gods were able to create elemental spells like fire and water, but without an elemental, it was infinitely harder as they had to do most of the work alone.

Back then, elementals helped change the spell’s element purely by being with the mage, meaning that one step of the magic casting process was already down. Nowadays, people have the Divine System and skills. The Origin Gods’ system spells allow normal people to use elemental spells without an elemental, and having an elemental skill allows people to cast elemental spells with ease. However…

“I have a question. Doesn’t that mean that the usage of elementals is, uhm, uhh…”

How do I say this politely?!

Giggling as she understood my struggles, Silva told me it was alright. “Yes, the usage of elementals is outdated with the grace of the Origin Gods. It is easier for people to study and gain skills than to contract an elemental; however, I did both. Nobody said doing both is not allowed, right?” Silva then revealed a small wooden cage under her robes. She opened it up and knocked twice on it with her staff, gently saying, “Wake up, little one.”

A small light came out of the cage, looking very similar to my [Shine] or the holy spell [Light]. It looked energetic as it greeted Silva by circling around her thrice. It then suddenly stopped, before flying over to me and doing the same thing. However, unlike Silva, it wouldn’t stop circling around me.

“Oh my, as you are a spawn of Kargryxmor, you must be a princess from Kargryx, yes? Princess Hestia, it seems you aren’t an ordinary holy mage. Little Igniclus is a light elemental and he shows fondness towards priests of Aurena, but none have made Igniclus this excited before. The blessing of Goddess Aurena must be very powerful with you,” she said, smiling like a little girl. Despite being around Saori’s size and probably a few decades older than us, it made her look cute.

I wanted to continue eating my stew while it’s still warm, but playing with the elemental wouldn’t take long. I cast [Shine] on my finger and waved at the light elemental to lure him over. Like a cat chasing after a red dot, the elemental couldn’t help but follow my finger.

“Hehe, he’s pretty cute. Miss Silva, didn’t you say there are different types of elementals? Which one is this?” I asked, running around as I played with the little guy.

“He’s a minor elemental. The lowest grade. Like every wind elf, I was born with the ability to cast wind magic, so I am a wind mage. I have contracted with Igniclus, as learning holy magic is practically impossible without joining the church of Aurena. I can cast small healing and supportive spells with Igniclus’s help,” Silva answered. “I am currently traveling to help Igniculus grow. Similar to a tamer’s monsters, elementals can gain experience and evolve into their superior forms. He is practically a child, so he must be excited to meet you and your amulet.”

My amulet? Ahh, that’s right.

Amulet of Aurena

A detailed amulet dedicated to the worship of Aurena, the Goddess of Light

Skill

[Holy Resistance Lv. 5]
[Health Recovery Lv. 5]

[Mana Recovery Lv. 5]

[Holy Amp [Holy Magic Efficiency]

The amulet I have gotten from the temple. I hadn’t been wearing it inside Firwood, as I simply forgot to do it. My white robe was enough of an indicator that I was a holy mage, so there never was a need to equip the amulet. However, as Saori and Tasianna have been wearing their amulets, I thought it was about time to wear it now that I was going out to do a Quest. Aurena’s religion is the national religion of Artorias, so looking like a priestess might help me gain the trust of people more easily.

Naturally, I am not a big fan of using my status to control a situation. I just don’t like it. However, Aurena did tell me to act like her priestess, so I guess I should try it out. There wasn’t a need to use my princess title anyway, and if we do get into trouble, I still have that super scary document from the lord of Firwood.

“Ahh, that reminds me, what were the two of you talking about before?” Saori pointed at Tasianna and Silva.

In essence, Tasianna introduced herself to Silva and told her she was a fairy who was using [Elvenize] to look like a wind elf. Silva, having understood this, apologized as she thought she was a “sister.” As Zephira was the mother of all wind elves, wind elves seem to treat each other like siblings if they are friendly. The Goddess of Wind was also the patron goddess of fairies, it seems the two of them were calling each other “sisters” as they consider their deity the same.

Although, Tasianna was praying more to Plesia nowadays.

“As a faemancer, I can detect the presence of faefolk. I felt a fairy, so I approached you,” Silva admitted. “Still, while serving a dragon princess must be an honor... Sister Tasianna, why are you here? Why aren’t you serving the royal family as a Silverpond?”

That hit a soft spot. Silva couldn’t have known about it, but it did cause me to twitch my eye a bit. Tasianna immediately frowned as she was questioned, staying silent.

“Uhhh, d-did I say something wrong?” Silva asked nervously.

“No, no, it’s not your fault…,” Tasianna managed to eke out. “It’s just that…I-I’m not serving the royal family because I exiled myself. This is my atonement for the incompetence I’ve shown in my service for the royal family.”

Tasianna began to retell her time with her previous mistress, Princess Schuri, and also the tragedy that followed after they were captured by human fae hunters, which resulted in Schuri’s death. She explained why she exiled herself from her village, how she got captured by trolls and then went into my “service” after Saori and I rescued her. The only thing she didn’t tell was her desire to get revenge on the person that hired those fairy hunters.

“I see, so that is why you are so far away from our forest, Sister Tasianna. When I heard a member of the Iggdrasyl died due to humans, it felt like a thorn was driven into my heart. It is as the elders have said, humans are a short-living race, so they always forget their mistakes. Their greed overwhelms the compassion they should be feeling as fellow humanoids.” The warmth she’d shown us was completely gone from her eyes as she said that.

My impression of the entirety of the human race is worsening the more I hear about the “War for the Faefolk” or something like the history of the Leosfalt Kingdom. Saori would probably tell me to not take every fact at face value, considering history is written by the victors, but how should I explain the hostility these two are feelings? Tasianna is someone who experienced an extreme tragedy, so her hatred was understandable, but what about Silva?

From the way she spoke, she probably wasn’t old enough to have experienced the war and naturally build up hatred for humans. She mentioned her elders told her about the war and humans, so it was likely her opinion was biased.

Well, my human side is still a part of me, so I cannot share their hatred for humans. Besides, even if the majority are dislikable, that doesn’t mean I couldn’t befriend an individual. Lorena and Ellaine are examples of this.

“However, Sister Tasianna, this might be a rude question — I apologize in advance to you too, Princess Hestia, but how is serving a princess from a distant land atonement? Wouldn’t dedicating your life to our Wind Mother or the royal family be more suitable?” Silva questioned as she recalled Igniculus back to his cage.

“Huh? Uh, I…” Tasianna paused to think over her words. “Lady Hestia is my saving light. She was the one to save me from my time in distress, so isn’t it proper for me to serve her? I wish to become stronger, more reliable. I couldn’t protect Princess Schuri — I was a failure, whose mind was so clouded by anger and fear that I neglected my mistress. I don’t want that to happen again. I grew up to become a retainer by my adopted family, so shouldn’t I be serving to atone?”

“Your words make sense, but your wish is entirely selfish, no? You are projecting Princess Schuri onto Princess Hestia, treating her as a way to forget your past mistakes. It is emotional atonement that you seek. You wish to see if your past self could’ve been as strong as your current self if you had trained more.”

“Miss Silva, we are already aware of it. Tasianna acknowledged this when we first met.” I knew this was something Tasianna had to answer herself, but as a friend, I had to step in for her. “Saori and I accepted her as a party member knowing exactly why she wanted to become my retainer. However, she’s grown into our friend and a person we can rely on.”

“I apologize if I insulted you, Princess Hestia, but I do not intend to disparage her reasons. Maybe I do not understand the whole situation well enough, but fairies do not act like this. They are whimsical, yes, but wouldn’t serving and asking the Wind Mother for forgiveness be more efficient? Wandering away from our forests and endangering herself is nothing but foolishness.”

Wind Mother this, Wind Mother that, urgh, she’s getting on my nerves. I wanted to rebuke her. She was acting so patronizingly, even though we were practically strangers.

“Sister Silva, my place is not with the fairies nor with Goddess Zephira, my place is with Lady Hestia. I cannot go back to being like the other fairies, it is impossible. I cannot live that life anymore. Goddess Zephira’s teachings do not fit me anymore.” Tasianna then pulled out the amulet of Plesia from underneath her clothes, displaying it clearly before Silva.

Silva frowned. “You endanger your life, Sister Tasianna. You may be able to conceal your form from the humans, but their greed will find you someday. Return to Saelariel.” She then looked at us and continued speaking, “Miss Saori, humans are the enemy of the Belzac wolves. They will hunt you if they find out your origins, similar to what they did a few years ago or with the original Belzac.”

“I will manage, thank you,” Saori answered with an aloof expression, the one I was used to during our days in the Belzac Forest before she softened up.

“Princess Hestia, you are probably on your ‘Adulthood Ceremonial Pilgrimage,’ but you shouldn’t linger too much in human lands. I would ask you to visit our forest. The elves are allies with the dragons of Kargryx and dragonewts of Loatryx. If you wish to witness the world, then we can provide you with knowledge and wisdom from our wisest elders. The humans will covet a dragon’s scales and fangs for their weapons of slaughter.”

I dunno if she was actually worried about Saori and me, or if this is to indirectly bring Tasianna back to Saelariel, but it sounds so pretentious. Maybe it was kindness, but it sounded more like arrogance to me. Who is she to say that I should go to her home and “learn” about the “world” from her people?

If my fantasy knowledge could be counted on, then the elves should be the arrogant and isolationist types. Sure, I can understand her dislike for humans, but she doesn’t know me. I still plan to travel the world. Man, am I glad I was forced to go to Artorias now. For once, thank you Astalos and Grandpapa Kargryxmor.

I wanted to ask her if she would be able to fix my mana paths, considering she was an elf, but now I won’t. I can’t be indebted to someone who would probably want to drag our party to Saelariel to “protect” us.

“You don’t need to worry about us, I can protect the people around me,” I stated confidently. It was a bit of a bluff, considering there were people stronger than me, even in my true form, but I knew having too little self-esteem would just drag me down into a pit of irrelevance. There was so much potential to uncover with my unique skills that I was sure I will become stronger if I work on them. In other words, it isn’t a bluff if I can keep it up in the future.

…Wait a minute, why is she here in human lands despite hating humans so much?

“Excuse me, Miss Silva, never mind what was said before, can you first explain why you are in Artorias? We shared our reason, so why are you here?” Ellaine and all her head attendants said that Artorias had a bad relationship with the elves, and the kingdom’s history confirms that, so I was more curious for her reason to be here.

“Oh, have I not explained that? My apologies, I should explain, no?” she nodded. “I have traveled here for my duty as a faemancer. Speaking with them and bringing them peace is part of my journey. Due to the problems caused by the ‘War for the Faefolk,’ beings called ‘Onnikais’ were born into these lands. They are faefolk who have lost their innocent personalities while their mischievousness has been intensified through negative emotions.”

According to Silva, an “Onnikai” is a type faefolk that started appearing during the “War for the Faefolk” due to the suffering the faefolk had to endure. Similar to how faefolk adapt to their environments, these beings were born due to the negative emotions surrounding the untimely and cruel deaths of faefolk. Instead of playing in moderation, onnikais do not possess limiters to control them, meaning they can cause widespread mischief and terrorize people without care.

“They were hurt, and they do not know how to get rid of their pain. They will cause wanton chaos until they are satisfied, but that is hard to gauge. While you can argue that the humans reaped what they sow, the problem lies with the fact that onnikais spread their negative emotions and proliferate at a worrying rate. It is my duty to bring them peace.”

“I understand, but why are you here exactly?” I questioned further.

“That is because I sensed onnikais to the north of my current standpoint. I was traveling there until I met Princess Hestia, Miss Saori, and Sister Tasianna.”

North? Isn’t Rashan Village to the north?

“While I detest human contact, I must travel through the country to save the poor faefolk in the Wind Mother’s name. The spirits and spriggans know much about the land but their information network isn’t as good as those of the guilds. I brought these earrings that have been enchanted by illusion mages to hide my ears. No doubt, humans would harass me if they knew I was an elf. I pity you, Sister Tasianna.”

“Pardon me, you said you were going north?” Saori suddenly asked.

“Saori…” Something was telling me she was up to something. I was planning to interrupt her, but she quickly sent me a telepathic message to “Trust in me,” so I kept silent for the moment.

“Have you heard about a village called Rashan Village located north from here? We were actually on our way there to fulfill a hunter’s guild Quest, one concerning a monster problem and an increase in mana in the local soil. Could the presence of onnikais be a cause for it?”

“Hmm, yes. Yes, that is possible. Causing monster spawning due to the mana accumulation in the ground is a way for the onnikais to create chaos. Do you know how many monsters are spawning? If it’s in a large quantity, then there is the possibility for a large gathering of them.”

“Our handler told us monsters up to rank D have been sighted. Two D rank parties accepted the Quest and are presumed deceased. The guild requested us to handle it due to our party’s abilities.”

“Hmm, naturally, descendants of Kargryxmor and Belzac would have no problems with this Quest. Princess Hestia is a royal on her pilgrimage so she must be a B rank dragon. I can understand why the guild would rely on you,” Silva nodded with a smile. “Ah, I understand what you mean, Miss Saori. My destination was, in fact, this village. If the onnikais are close to the human village, then our goals are aligned. Very well, I would be honored to aid the three of you. This meeting must be ordained by the Origin Gods, so how could I refuse?”

But, but, I don’t want to hang around with you… I complained to myself, knowing I couldn’t just say that. I then looked at Saori while pouting.

She smiled back, wryly. [“I know what you are thinking, but consider the situation with a calm mind. She is a faemancer and the possibility of these onnikais being the main culprits for the Quest is high. Our job is to protect the village and solve the problem, so it is better to ask for the support of an expert. Bear with it, please.”]

[“Yeah, I know, I know, already. She’s a wind mage and knows some healing spells so she probably will be useful to us as a companion. I’m just worried that she’ll make Tasianna feel awkward.”]

[“You do not have to worry about me, Lady Hestia,”] Tasianna interjected. [“I know full well that my reason to join you initially was selfish. She’s also right to say that I am not seeking to atone for my sin but to find…closure. I didn’t tell Sister Silva about my desire to get revenge on the person that brought Princess Schuri’s death, because I believe it would become more complicated. Please trust in me, Lady Hestia. You can rely on me to help you finish this Quest. It is my duty as your retainer and friend.”]

I sighed in exasperation as my two companions convinced me to go along with Silva. I then spoke to Silva; I had to make sure of something. “Miss Silva, can you keep a secret?”

“Oh, don’t worry, Princess Hestia. I understand what you are saying. Of course, I will not tell anybody about your party’s true identities. We elves are allies to Kargryx, so harming one of their princesses would dishonor this long-lasting bond. Protecting Sister Tasianna is obvious enough, and I wouldn’t dare bring harm to Belzac’s descendants. We failed too often, we cannot do it again.”

“What do you mean by that, Miss Silva?” Saori asked, showing genuine curiosity.

“Seven years ago, the detestable humans brought harm to the forest of Belzac again. Similar to how they slew Belzac himself for being a ‘threat.’ He was a defender, a just protector of the forest, but he was deemed a problem by the humans. It repeated once again when they hunted down the A rank child of Belzac,” Silva told Saori. “We had sentries in the forest but they had to retreat during the hunt. They were chased away by the fenrirs themselves. Now, I believe you are one of the only fenrir left, Miss Saori.”

A sentry? I did find an elven shack close to the garm matriarch’s nest. I even salvaged some books from it. Thankfully, I forget any slimy event that happened there.

“I see, thank you very much for informing me about that,” Saori said with a faint smile. Despite not wanting to have anything to do with her garm family, I think Saori is a bit curious about the history of the Belzac wolves.

“It is my pleasure,” she bowed before revealing a bracelet from under her robe. “Princess Hestia, I would like to ask you for the honor of joining your party. Will you accept?”

Silva Fleurette Breezeflower wishes to join your party

Accept Decline

Accept.

Party Leader

Name:   Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor

Level: 80

Job: Cleric

Health:   4821/4821

Mana:   17191/17191

Stamina:   2881/2881

Effects:

[Damaged Mana Path [Left Wing] (Minor)] [Humanized (Moderate)]

Name:   Saori Segawa

Level: 70

Job: Fighter

Health:   3066/3066

Mana:   1349/1349

Stamina:   2281/2281

Effects:

[Humanized (Moderate)][/b]

Name:   Tasianna Marina Silverpond

Level: 51

Job: Torrent Mage

Health:   1661/1661

Mana:   4503/4503

Stamina:   1209/1209

Effects:

[Elvenized (Major)]

Name:   Silva Fleurette Breezeflower

Level: 54

Job: Light Elementalist

Health:   1813/1813

Mana:   3512/3512

Stamina:   851/851

“O-Oh, by the Origin Gods!” Silva exclaimed with her eyes widened like a goldfish, as she looked at the blue screen projected from her party bracelet. Once I accepted her party invite, the party member list probably was shown to Silva. “I-I shouldn’t have been so surprised. As expected of a dragon descendant of the mighty Kargryxmor. [Humanized] should halve all your stats but seeing 17891 Mana is…shocking.”

As I knew she would be able to see my abnormal effects with the party system, I used my ID’s special feature to hide certain information from people. In this case, I hid the fact that I had [Damaged Mana Paths [Left Wings] (Minor)]. If she could repair my mana paths, then I don’t want to owe her a favor. I don’t want her to ask me to bring Tasianna back to Saelariel. It isn’t time yet to visit the elves.

As Silva showed no suspicion, the hiding function of the ID must have worked. Ha, it was truly worth having made contact with Count Helvas. With this, I can hide most of my information from people, staying completely incognito. I should thank Count Helvas for this.

“Miss Silva, I know you might have many more things to ask, but we should rest for the night. It is late. Please, if you are hungry, we have some stew.” Saori, probably expecting Silva to continue the discussion we had before, perfectly distracted her with some of the nice-smelling food. As if she hadn’t eaten for the whole day, Silva was fully focused on the food, so we barely had a chance to speak with her.

Once the next day came, Saori immediately told Silva that we had to hurry. She explained that we planned to reach Rashan Village before lunch.

“Hmm, yes, that would be smart. However, how will that be possible—Wuahh?! Miss Saori?!” Without letting her speak another word, Saori picked Silva up in a princess carry. Tasianna transformed back into a fairy for me and our party began the sprint towards Rashan Village. Silva’s cries of surprise echoed through the woods…kinda.

The moment we reached the outskirts of the village, Tasianna transformed back into an elf while Saori set down Silva. Saori truly had everything planned. There was no chance for us to return to that awkward talk if there was no time or opportunity to continue it. A masterful display, yep.

“Ahhhhhhhh, HELP ME!”

As we were laughing with the mentally fatigued Silva, who wasn’t able to adapt to the high-speed run, we suddenly heard somebody shout for help. After giving Silva a bottle of dragorade to help her recover, the three of us ran towards the scream.

There we were presented with the sight of black creatures similar to loopriszars chasing after villagers and fighting against armored humans, probably soldiers or guards. At the gate of the village, a horde of zombie-like beings were being held back by guards and a few villagers. The appearance of these “zombies” varied from the typical human zombies to the monster zombies. Decaying skorrs, loopabits, and wolves were a few examples that joined the human and beastman zombies in the attack.

“Please, help, HELP. SOMEBODY!”

“Baby, you need to move faster! Honey! Where are you?!”

“Dammit! Steady men, steady! We need to hold on until the damn soldiers from the baron’s castle arrive! Somebody get the chief out of here, now!”

I wasn’t sure what was happening, but we could ask questions after we dealt with the immediate problem.

“Saori, Tasianna. Protect the villagers!” I shouted as magic circles began to materialize around me.

“Hai, Hestia Oujo-sama! (Yes, Princess Hestia!)”

“By your will, Lady Hestia!”

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Chapter 121: Rashan Village.

A note from AbyssRaven

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To the inhabitants of Rashan Village in the Teullon Barony, monster attacks weren’t a common occurrence, but neither was it rare for a daring carnivore to sneak into the village and snatch away a chocochuckle or a gheeper. For that reason, the guards and soldiers patrolling around the village were used to fighting monsters. Although not as experienced or proficient as veteran adventurers, they were more proficient than daring and reckless newbies.

The guardsmen of Rashan Village were a fair bit stronger than those of Carine Village. It wasn’t due to a difference in training or equipment, but due to the environment that the Rashan guards were living in. The Belzac Forest, a famous monster-infested area, wasn’t far away. It wouldn’t be ridiculous to assume that a D rank monster could potentially migrate out and attack the village, so the soldiers were trained to thwart these attacks.

While the soldiers of the Teullon Barony could fight back against a single D rank monster, they would likely suffer numerous casualties in the process of taking it down. So, it wasn’t surprising for the village chief to plead to the Teullon Barony’s seneschal to commission a Quest to the hunter’s guild when the number and strength of monsters appearing around the village increased.

Usually, this wouldn’t be too much of a problem for a noble’s soldiers to take care of, but the problem lay with the fact that these strong monsters were spawning near the village, rather than wandering into the Barony after being spawned or (like Rajah) born in the Belzac forest. Planting macula plants to drain the area of mana was an option, but the source of the abnormal ambient mana in the area was somewhere within the old ruins close to the village, predating the founding of the Kingdom of Leosfalt, let alone the Kingdom of Artorias.

With his lord in the capital of the kingdom and threat of D rank monsters roaming around the area, the seneschal had no choice but to accept the village chief’s wish and commission a quest to the hunter’s guild. Little could he have known that the threat was even greater than the village chief had claimed. The first group that came was made up of ten D rank adventurers.

They arrived one evening and camped outside the village walls. The next morning, they spoke to the village chief and headed toward the ruins, never to be heard from them again. Once it became clear that the adventurers weren’t coming back, the quest was upgraded to C rank, along with the reward. The village chief was informed that the quest had been accepted again, but he knew it would be too late for the next party of adventurers to arrive. It was winter, after all.

The enemy came after dawn. It was silent, without warning.

“Ruarrrrrrgh!”

“Krrrrriierkta!”

The sound of a bell ringing from a watchtower was loud enough to wake up anybody still groggy from last night’s ale. Guards shouted to fortify the village gates, while peasant men gathered whatever weapons they could find to join the militia. Everybody had to hold on until the soldiers from the castle arrived.

Despite the villagers efforts to quickly arm themselves and join the guards, the monsters hopelessly outclassed them. The wooden spiked walls were high enough to block most of the monsters’ paths into the village, but not all of them. Loopriszars, stained with black ooze and open wounds on their bodies, easily jumped over the walls and began their assault. Although it looked like they should be dead, these D rank monsters were still nimble as always, easily fending off serfs who had only the strength of G or F rank adventurers.

The situation at the front gate wasn’t much better. Humans with decaying faces and sticky black slime holding their falling bones and rotting flesh together began to attack the guards, assisted by weak, coarse-looking monsters. Despite being weaker than the loopriszars, this large group of monstrous beings broke through the gates and slowly invaded the village.

With guards having to protect the villagers from loopriszars on one end and defend the village from a frightening wave of monsters at the other end, it honestly looked like the village wouldn’t survive until the soldiers arrived.

“Fu-Fuck you! Simon, get your family out of here! Sh-Kuarrgh!”

“Damnit, Glenn, no!”

It was futile. The difference between taking on a D rank monster with a group of guards or soldiers and taking on one with two or three guards was massive. Bravery alone couldn’t stop these death bunnies.

“Shit, shit, shit! N-No, stay back you damn monster, stay back!”

The end of this village was quickly approaching.

“Shadow Pierce.”

“W-Wha?!”

Before the loopriszar attacked, a woman with a fluffy wolf tail jumped out of a shadow, her two daggers coated in a shadow-like substance. The loopriszar turned its head towards the woman but its reaction was too late against her speed. A dagger precisely struck the back of the rabbit’s head while the woman held her other dagger at its throat. With one swift motion, the loopriszar’s head flew up in the air.

“‘Aim for the head’…Hopefully Hestia’s tip works. I never was a fan of horror movies.” The woman flicked the blood off her daggers and turned towards the villagers. A chill ran down their spines as they looked at the red mist coming from the woman’s eyes. “My name is Saori, a hunter. My companions and I are here to help, so please get to safety as we clean this problem up.”

Saori didn’t let the villagers respond. She glanced at the dead bodies of the guards for a moment and frowned, before diving back into a shadow. No loopriszar escaped her “claws.”

Meanwhile, floating ice spears began killing off any monster who came too close, defending the villagers. A girl in a maid’s outfit moved through the village like a swift breeze, creating ice shields and spears to heed her orders to drive back the scourge of the village.

Loud music could be heard booming in front of the gate, attracting the attention of numerous decaying humans like the “taunt” ability.

“Let me sing you a requiem, Mr. Zombie ♫”

Holy spells and fiery explosions quickly sent the moaning “zombies” back into their graves. The girl singing the song was smiling and dancing joyfully in startling contrast to both the flurry of powerful spells she was slinging and the dire moods of the guards who'd watched their companions die one by one in the monster attack. Whether out of gratitude or shock, they didn’t complain.

A large circle of holy light appeared around the gate, enveloping every single guard. It healed those with minor injuries while bringing back anybody at death’s door. It was a miracle, the white grace! Some might question why the girl was singing and dancing on the battlefield but everybody understood why she was here. Her white and red robe fluttered through the air and an amulet of the Goddess of Light hung from her neck.

“The Goddess! We are saved!”

With the timely arrival of a trio of heroines, the village survived the attack.

**********************

Proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Mental Stability Lv. 7] [Benevolent Aura Lv. 3] gained

“Thank you, thank you for saving us! We cannot express our gratitude enough, Lady Priestess. We cannot repay this debt, oh, not even constant prayer to the Goddess will be enough! May the Goddess bless your kind souls!”

“Praise the Goddess! Praise the adventurers!”

Merriment after nearly dying, huh? Well, I guess I would celebrate too before looking at the aftermath.

We weren’t able to save everybody. A couple of guards and a few villagers were killed before we arrived, but I guess the casualties would’ve been worse if we hadn’t. Saori made sure to stress to me that this was the best we could have done for them, and I had to accept it. I’m not a hero and I shouldn’t blame myself for something outside of my control.

Though…it still stings to see those I couldn’t help.

Saori and Tasianna are receiving their fair share of thanks, too. They were more active within the village and protected the villagers personally, after all. Hehe, Tasianna seems so uncomfortable.

“Please, don’t worry about repaying us. We only did what was right,” I told the village chief, to calm him down before he began genuflecting. He was an elderly man; I didn’t want him to strain his knees. “We came from the hunter’s guild and accepted your Quest to investigate the ruins. If it’s possible, could I ask you a few questions?”

“Oooh, thank you, thank you so very much for accepting the Quest. I am so glad that the guild has sent very capable young ladies to help us. Of course, I’ll answer everything you need to complete the Quest. Our village’s survival depends on it.”

Gathering information on the situation was important right now, and I wouldn’t be able to find a better source than the village chief. As Silva was resting in the forest, I also had to ask questions Silva would probably want to know, as the probability this attack coincided with her faemancer duties was significant. We were currently in a party, so I knew she was safe as neither her Health nor Mana was lowered in any way. Now that I think about it, I probably should’ve turned her experience share to 0% so my party could’ve hoarded all the experience. Unfortunately, the experience share range was huge, meaning none of us managed to gain a level from this.

“First question, the zomb-monsters in front of the gate, have you seen them before? I mean, they obviously look like humans, and some of them were even beastmen.” The village chief found it hard to answer my question, so he called over the captain of the guard. The guard captain seemed pretty friendly when he introduced himself to me, showing obvious gratitude for my party’s timely arrival. He suggested to the chief and me that we go to the gate and inspect them together. I had Saori and Tasianna follow me to make the inspection go faster.

Maybe I shouldn’t have scorched them with fire and holy spells…

The smell was atrocious. Their faces and bodies were nauseating and gave me the creeps. What an authentic zombie movie experience! Okay, jokes aside, these things really look like zombies. Some of them still looked fresh, as if they’d just died a few hours ago while others were barely more than skeletons. However, what all these zombies had in common, including the loopriszars, was a sticky black slime on their bodies.

Still reminded of the discussion about onnikais I had with Silva, I activated my [Mana Eyes]. Onnikais were faefolk, meaning they were made of mana. When I’d heard that Silva knew my identity due to spirits flying around me, I had tried to remember if I’d seen any of them with [Mana Eyes] before, but I couldn’t remember. I’ll have to be more vigilant in the future.

With the skill activated, my world turned blue. I instinctively took out a macula plant seed and planted it in the ground, and to my surprise, the plant grew as fast as when I cleaned up the area after my first concert. The area was extremely rich with mana.

I picked up the plant and looked around me, looking for any “floating mana balls.” When I inspected myself, I noticed some weird glowing particles attaching themselves around my tail and shoulder. I tried to touch them, but it seems like they avoided my finger, moving slightly away from it. Were those spirits?

I shouldn’t waste too much time if they don’t want to interact with me. I’ll just ask Silva about it later. I directed my eyes to the field of corpses. Even with all my parallel minds processing the information, it was still hard for me to keep this up for long. The place was filled with mana — it was blue color overload. It’s too taxing on my brain to keep this up.

Human Corpse

The corpse of a human

Beastman Corpse

The corpse of a beastman

Wolf Corpse

The corpse of a wolf

Loopabit Corpse

The corpse of a loopabit

?

That’s it? That’s all the information I can get from them? This feels like having [Identify Lv. 1], again.

Regardless, I couldn’t find any “floating mana balls” or anything that looked similar to the “spirits” on my back. However, the mana in the corpses made me curious. If I compared the zombies with people like the guard captain or the different guards, these former zombies had too much mana accumulated in their bodies.

Some of them had simple clothing like farmers or townspeople but they had more mana than trained guards. Of course, they could’ve been mages, but it was weird that all the corpses had large amounts of mana in them. Even the beastman and animal-like monster corpses had more mana in them than the guards, and most beastmen and low-ranking monsters were known to have less mana than their human counterparts.

This can’t be a coincidence, right?

Hmm, what is this?

As I focused on one corpse, I noticed a weird black sticky slime thing on it, holding together the flesh and bones like some sort of glue. Funny thing was that there was a large quantity of mana in it. At this point, I had to deactivate [Mana Eyes]; the pain was getting to me now.

I touched the slime. It was soft to the touch but still firm, similar to a tongue. I wanted to pick it up, but it was stuck on the corpse like a piece of dried old gum stuck under a table. Even with my claws I had trouble scratching some of it off. It honestly felt like a slime.

…Well, if it really was a slime, then magic should be the answer. And black must mean dark elemental, right? Well, it’s just a guess but I’ll try using [White Flames] on it first.

With white fire enveloping my hand like a glove, I easily cut off the black slime, confirming my theory. However, as I was praising myself for my deduction skills, the slime began to quiver and struggle; it attempted to escape from me!

Not on my watch, little guy! Air Shield!

A ball of wind surrounded the black slime, capturing it like a pokeball. It still moved erratically inside it, shaking the ball of wind as it wiggled and waggled around until it finally stopped, as though it had realized it was futile.

Got’cha~ Huh? Oh, fuck!

Suddenly the black slimes on the other corpses convulsed into bloated balls and simultaneously exploded. The guard captain immediately ran in front of the chief and shielded him with his shield, while Saori and Tasianna used their spells to protect themselves. I was distracted with the captured slime so I reacted a bit too slowly with a defensive [Air Shield], but everything that bypassed my shield was blocked by my [Draconic Barrier]. I received no damage, but I did confirm another thing.

That explosion was dark elemental. It actually tickled me…

“Hail! The soldiers of Lord Baron Teullon are here!”

I wanted to speak with Saori and Tasianna about what had happened, but a group of armored men who looked like soldiers appeared out of nowhere. Were they the reinforcements? Weren’t they a bit too late? Nevertheless, I’ll talk with my party afterward, this has to be handled first. I hid the slime under my robe, as my [Storage Magic] didn’t accept it; meaning that slime was most likely alive.

“Captain Zik!” the guard captain responded to a man on an equerochs, and saluted him. “Guard captain Dan, reporting to the soldiers of Lord Baron Teullon! We thank you for coming in our time of need!”

“Easy, soldier…explain, what happened here?” The man named Zik climbed off his mount and spoke with the captain and village chief. He was quickly briefed on everything that happened and was then directed to us. “As the captain of the army under Lord Baron Teullon, I thank you three for protecting our village. We cannot thank the hunter’s guild enough for sending in capable adventurers! May the Goddess bless you soul, Lady Priestess.”

“Don’t worry, protecting the village is part of the Quest. Besides, we couldn’t leave them to their fate.” I was gonna be mad if he acted condescending in any way. Considering how the village looked upon my party’s arrival, it was very likely that the village would have been overrun by monsters by the time he arrived. I don’t know why he was so late, but this could be considered a failure on his part.

“I heard about it from the elder, but are you three the only one who came?” I confirmed his question, to which he frowned a bit. “May I be allowed to see your IDs, Lady Priestess?”

I was a bit wary at his reaction, but there was nothing that I could do. As long as we were here, we were the representatives of the hunter’s guild and our actions affected the guild. The guild master sparred with me in his free time, so I wanted to help him a bit to improve the guild’s reputation in return.

The three of us showed the captain our IDs. He probably only wanted to see our hunter ranks so we changed the emblem on our IDs to the hunter’s guild one. “What?! Your three are only rank D?! What is this nonsense?!”

As expected…

“The guild already sent two parties of D rankers already but they failed! They never left the ruins! The Quest should’ve been raised to C grade with the extra payment, so shouldn’t C rankers accept this Quest? Please, tell me more people are coming!” he was sweating despite it being winter when he questioned us.

“Captain, please, calm yourself. You are speaking with a white-robed priestess,” the village chief intervened. “She and her companions destroyed the beasts and the undead without any problem, in fact, were it not for them, the village wouldn’t have been there when you arrived. We cannot thank them enough for saving us.”

“Captain Zik, I can confirm the elder’s words. The Priestess saved many of my men with her white grace, and I also heard the wolfkin and elf rescued and defended the villagers against those loopriszars. Everybody in the village is praising them.” The rewards for being a good person. The captain seemed to be shaken by everybody’s words.

And Saori pushed the dagger even further in. “Captain Zik, please, take a look at our levels.”

“Huh?” We showed our IDs to him once again, pointing his eyes in the right section. Naturally, I was hiding my surname from him. “Lady Hestia Atsuko…Level 80?!” His eyes widened like a cartoon character, looking up at me and then back to my ID, repeating it a couple more times before inspecting Saori’s and Tasianna’s. “Level 71?! What in the— Oh wait, not everybody is so high level. She’s level 51…but her class is [Torrent Sorcerer]?! Wait, you’re an advanced water mage?!”

All the dignity of a captain disappeared the moment he uttered, “Two B rankers and a high C ranker at most.” After that, he started acting real supportive. The question I still wanted to ask the village chief was answered by everyone present. Considering we were going into the ruins blind, I was thankful to get some information from this.

So, what my party learned is that except for one person, none of the zombies were acquaintances. The one person they recognized as one of the ten adventurers who first accepted the Quest, confirming that the two parties were most likely all dead at this point. I took his ID, remembering that Melia wanted me to confirm their status.

Rest in peace…We’ll make sure to finish the Quest in your place.

There was the option of taking his body with my [Storage Magic], but what good would that do?

Hey, let me just take this guy’s body and stuff it into my magical pocket dimension? Nothing suspicious here. Hey, Melia, I brought the dead guy’s body. He’s dead, unfortunately. Yo, that’s morbid and creepy as hell! There is no reason for me to do it.

Anyway, we also learned that the villagers and the soldiers already knew about the high mana concentration in the ground due to the macula plants. They attempted to get rid of it when they noticed monsters spawning around the village, but everytime they would drain the ground dry of mana, it would return a few days later. Eventually, the villagers simply kept the area around the village safe while leaving the woods a breeding ground for monsters. They weren’t getting paid, as the lord took all the macula plants, so they ended up relying on the hunter’s guild.

Most of the villagers and soldiers were tired so it was up to us to temporary cleanse the area. As Saori would say, “It’s money” so our party took out bags of macula plant seeds and planted them in the ground to harvest their fully grown versions, all while we were still stuck talking with the chief and captains.

Hey, Saori was right. We need money. Give us some slack.

“…Ahem, the ruins are a bit north from here. They are quite close to Belzac Forest, but a canyon divides us from it. Most of the sightings of D rank monsters came from the vicinity of the ruins, but they weren’t too feral, so we thought reinforcing the village’s garrison was enough,” Captain Zik answered. “Although it isn’t certain, we believe our problems began when monsters began appearing around the ruins. That’s when we received reports that the macula plants planted by the villagers began to grow at a fast rate.”

“You still plant the seeds, even in winter?” Saori asked.

Instead of the captain, the chief responded, “Yes, as we are practically at the frontier, the villagers know the importance of controlling the mana in the ground. Although we cannot farm, we still make sure that the mana leaking from the Belzac Forest doesn’t cause sudden monster spawning. Lord Baron Teullon promised us we could earn winter rations if we delivered the macula water to him.”

“And where is Lord Baron Teullon now?” I was the one to ask. Ellaine already taught me that commoners address nobles with “lord” and then their noble ranks. There was no need to complicate my relationship with the village chief and the captains, right now. For now, I’m just a normal adventurer.

“He, like most nobles, has traveled to the capital and is staying there at his winter residence with his family. Although he wasn’t present when we first commissioned the Quest, so the Lord Baron probably only knows whatever our seneschal has told him through letters,” the Captain answered.

He probably went to the capital for the “God Thanking Festival,” so the sightings must have been happening for at least a month. Yesterday was the 25th, so I was ten months old now, so it’s possible the sightings may have been happening for two months. Melia didn’t exactly specify when the Quest was commissioned.

We thanked the chief and captain for their time and told them we would be heading for the ruins. It wasn’t lunchtime yet, so we still had a lot of time to investigate. After moving away from the vicinity of the village, Silva appeared before us.

“Lady Hestia, I saw you picking up one of those black slimes, yes? Please, hand it over to me!” Elves belong in the woods. Like an expert, Silva continuously observed us from afar while staying hidden from the soldiers’ detection.

I handed her the slime, which was still inside the air shield, and she bit her lips. “This… This is an onnikai. No, the fae is surrounding itself in this black goo to protect itself. I can hear it mumbling, ‘Go away, monster, monster. Give me mana.’” Her usually rosy face turned pale as she stared at it. It was a look of horror.

“Tasianna, you did not know?” Saori asked.

“I may be a faefolk, Miss Saori, but that doesn’t give me the ability to speak with another fae. Can a wolfkin speak with other wolves? I can detect them, though, like the spirits on Lady Hestia’s tail or back. However, I’ve never seen an onnikai before, so I’m sorry for not saying anything,” Tasianna apologized. She realized that spirits have been following us, but she didn’t expect to meet Silva, so she hadn’t mentioned it. They were harmless to us.

“I-I can’t speak with them. They don’t want to speak with me,” Silva said, trembling. “The onnikais I met before were similar to black or red mists floating around and causing problems. I’ve never seen one creating this ooze…or that was this hateful. It wants our mana for some reason.”

“…So, are you telling me these onnikais were possessing the bodies of those dead loopriszars and people?” I asked.

“Y-Yes. They acted similar to undead, possessing the corpse like a necromancer’s mana. While a naturally born or necromancer controlled undead is held together by mana or other ritualistic methods, these onnikais controlled the bodies of the dead with this black ooze or using their own mana. I am not sure about the last part,” Silva answered with a grim expression. “If I could investigate the bodies, I could give a more satisfying answer, but I saw the oozes remove themselves from the bodies. I believe they were scared of you, Lady Hestia. I think this little one here is scared of your white flames’ holy element.”

She’s astute. She noticed my white flames immediately.

“Hmm, this means our main problems with the Quest are the onnikais,” Saori stated. “Miss Silva, can we rely on your help? I believe the help of an expert is now paramount.”

“Of course, Miss Saori. This is my duty and I will aid you as much as possible. Please, let me give this poor fae its well-earned rest…”

She released Igniculus from his cage and asked me to dispel the air shield. Once it was gone, the light elemental rotated around the black slime, preventing it from moving. Meanwhile, Silva shook her wooden staff and chanted something in Elvish, or Andurenian as it’s called here, like it’s a ritual. Mana began to channel in her staff and once she was done, she lightly tapped the black slime.

The energy spread through the slime, removing it until a small black mist-like creature was revealed. It convulsed for a moment before it turned to white and disappeared.

“…‘Thank you. Please, free the others,’ it said. By my faith in the Wind Mother, I swear to you that I will free everybody. Sister Tasianna, it also has a message for you,” Silva looked at Tasianna and repeated the words of the fae. “‘Don’t let anger consume you,’ it said.”

A single tear fell from Tasianna’s eyes. She trembled for a second and recovered herself with a deep breath. “Lady Hestia. Miss Saori. Please, I beg you. Please, help me free them.”

“Naturally.”

“Of course, you don’t even need to ask!”

With everybody committed to the course, we traveled to the ruins, cutting down any monster foolish enough to approach us. We didn’t earn any levels from them, despite how numerous they were, but they were plentiful in meat. Aside from the reward money, this Quest has been a jackpot for our meat rations.

We eventually arrived at the ruins. To Saori’s disappointment, the ruins were pretty simple with only a few broken buildings that were now covered in moss and other plants. At the far end of the ruins stood an entrance to a staircase leading underground. A chill ran down my spine as we approached it.

“Okay, one last check on our resources. Lady Hestia, please bring out our potions.” In an effort to prepare ourselves properly, Saori bought some potions for us to use. From what I heard, the health potions weren’t too pricey but the mana potions were quite expensive.

For 100 Davi, we could buy one minor health potion, while 1500 Davi would get us a minor mana potion. Naturally, as we were three mages, our party needed Mana potions more. I was also a healer, so health potions weren’t our priority. However, Saori still bought a cautious amount due to my weakness. I couldn’t properly use all my powers while underground.

The biggest advantage of being a sunfang dragon was my ability to regenerate my Health, Mana, and Stamina at an insane rate while the sun was shining on me. My sun core could transform solar energy into energy and nutrients, meaning I was practically an immovable tank and resourceless mage. It was certainly overpowered.

However, it was also a double-edged sword. Sunfang dragons became hungry quickly and the resources I had to use for my draconic abilities like [Draconic Barrier] and my scale-dust was crippling. There was also the skill [Gluttonous]. If I could keep my Stamina at 100% all the time, the skill was an amazing buff that drastically increased my stats, but if it suddenly fell to 0% or if I received the [Starvation (Minor)] status affliction, a terrible debuff would affect me.

I was still strong even considering these problems, but I wasn’t overpowered anymore. I am a conditional powerhouse. I also had to be careful to not use too many explosions, otherwise, I might cause a cave-in.

For this reason, I hated caves. Thankfully, I still have my holy spells. With the addition of multiplier skills like [Venerated Saintess] and [Idol], my amulet of Aurena that possesses [Holy Amp], my holy spells were actually on-par with my fire attacks now. My [Solar Core] unique skill also strengthened my holy spells but only if the sun was shining on me or my sun core was at 100% solar energy.

I was also confident in my terra, storm, and lightning spells, so I should be able to contribute a lot. For that reason, Saori brought mana potions.

“I bought five minor mana potions and two moderate health potions, just in case. The mana potions won’t regenerate a lot, but it would be sufficient in an emergency. Tasianna, you take three. Lady Hestia and I will take one mana and health potion each,” Saori concluded.

As a fairy, Tasianna’s mana was her “Health Bar.” Her need for mana potions was more important. I wanted to question why Saori bought moderate health potions, which cost 2500 Davi each, but I stayed silent. I’d spent enough time with her and I know how finicky she was with money. Regardless, her cautiousness for our safety overpowered it. She was simply concerned for us, even if it meant spending a large amount of money.

To be more specific, we had 20,067 Davi before the potions. Now, we had 7567. I hate to admit this but, on Earth, I had my Papa’s credit card to pay for most of my expenses, so I never had an issue with money. Now, looking at our low funds was making me nervous.

“I have two minor health potions and four minor mana potions, in addition to a minor agility elixir,” Silva answered.

We nodded to each other and composed ourselves. Silva let Igniculus out of his cage once again and began guiding us as we descended into the abyss of this ruin. The tiny light elemental was our only light source. Whatever lies beneath all these problems, I sure hope it won’t be too problematic.

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Onnikai. Zombies. Yes.

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Chapter 122: Into the Abyss.

A note from AbyssRaven

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[Insatiable Glutton] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Daggers digging deep into flesh, spells rending bones and black slime, and a single spear flying through the battlefield with a trail of white flames.

The moment we entered the first chamber of the Rashan Ruins, a horde of onnikai-possessed corpses attacked us. Among them were a few humanoids, but most of them were the bodies of low ranking monsters, ranging from E to G rank. Did the onnikai army play their best cards on the village assault?

That’s a possibility, and if you look at the situation like a game, then you can rationalize it. The raid is like a special event where the difficulty was set high to fight back against the soldiers and guards, while this chamber was literally the first one. You don’t place the hardest foes right at the beginning. However, I know this thinking was a bit naïve. This wasn’t a game, it was reality.

Regardless of what the truth was, the first chamber only had fodder. Saori blitzed through the enemy with a storm of claws and steel, keeping her [Lifetaker] buff at its maximum efficiency the whole time. Silva and Tasianna kept the enemies under control using their wind and ice spells respectively, making a fine support team. I, on the other hand, took the opportunity to train up my spear skills and [Hellblade Dragon].

Bonepecker Bladeclaw Spear

A spear made with light andurium metal to increase the nimbleness and steel to increase the durability of the weapon. Multiple small Bonepeckers’ beaks were added into the blade to increase penetration effect against flesh and bone. Claws from a Blade Cougar increase the edge’s sundering power. Quality wood was used in the making of the shaft, improving throwing power and accuracy

Attack Power: 591

Skill

[Piercing Enhancement Lv. 3]
[Sundering Enhancement Lv. 3]

[Durability Loss Reduction Lv. 1]

[Spear Mastery Lv. 2]

[Agility Enhancement Lv. 1]

[Throwing Accuracy Correction Lv. 2]

[Throwing Mastery Lv. 1]

The spear was a bit taller than me. Despite the description saying that it was made with andurium, a lightweight metal that I hadn’t asked the blacksmiths about yet, it had a nice weight behind it, making it comfortable to wield for me. Due to my high Strength, I wanted a weapon that made me feel like I could do damage with it, instead of a spear that felt like a plastic toy that would break with one hit.

While munching on a piece of fruit or sandwich in order to maintain the [Insatiable Glutton] stat-boosting effect, from my [Gluttonous] skill, I was throwing the spear around the chamber aiming at zombies, before catching up with it and tearing the spear out from their bodies. Meanwhile, I had my tail coated in [White Flames]. I was able to grind my tail on the floor to create my distinctive crimson and my purple corrosive flames, so I thought I should be able to do the same to make holy fire. I did it with my claws, after all.

Fundamentally, it is just another application of the [Hellblade Edge] dragon ability — by grinding and igniting my scale-dust, I could envelop my tail in a coat of fire. I just needed to change the fire with [White Flames] and I basically got [Hellblade Edge] with the holy element.

After retrieving my spear, I usually swung my tail in an arc to cleave any nearby zombie. The onnikais’ fear of the holy element was valid, since any zombie that was hit by my tail quickly slumped down like a broken marionette. After creating some space between me and the zombies, I assumed the stance the guild master taught me and began wielding the spear normally.

I wouldn’t call myself trained yet. I was still having trouble adapting to using the spear, as I was more used to using my usual combat style of combining my spell casting with my dragon abilities. Mixing my different offensive abilities was smart — it allowed me to stay flexible and be hard to predict. However, this divide in focus meant my spear proficiency wasn’t rising very quickly, evident as I had neither leveled up [Spear Technique] yet nor gained [Spear Mastery]. All the enemies were fodder and great practice dummies, so this was an opportunity to get some actual combat practice with a spear. Unfortunately, I wasn’t using it well.

I blame my other attack options for being more efficient and powerful. White flames and [Sacred Smite] handled anything mid range while my tail and claws could handle close range. It’s a habit.

After a couple more minutes, the room was filled with corpses. Saori went wild and was the one with the highest kill count, far surpassing my killing speed and the support duo. Well, I wasn’t using any AOE spells like [Banishment Beam] or [Omnictus] for fear of the ruin collapsing, so whatever.

After confirming that nobody had leveled up, I cast [Sanctuary].

A few onnikais escaped from their possessed corpses during the battle but those who didn’t were now captured inside my barrier of light.

“Wow, my Mana is regenerating at an insane rate. This ruin is overflowing with mana; no wonder so many monsters were spawning outside of it,” I mentioned.

Mana regeneration consists of your body’s natural regeneration, similar to how your body can produce blood, plus the mana that your body absorbs from the surroundings, which enters your body through mana paths. I noticed the high mana concentrations around Rashan Village and in the woods close to the ruins, but they couldn’t compare to the ruins themselves. The mana was “thick” like smoke in here to the point that I couldn’t even use [Mana Eyes] for more than a second or two.

“Miss Silva, could the onnikai have purposefully flooded the surroundings with mana and caused monster spawnings in order to possess them?” Saori asked, pointing at one of the fresher corpses. There were large holes in its throat and neck but no signs of other wounds.

“Possibly. These onnikais are simulating the creation of undead, but without actually transforming the corpses into true undead. Truthfully, if they were real undead and considered monsters, the human and beastman ones would be more problematic,” Silva answered. “From the look of it, this thick slime is actively regenerating any wounds or other injuries. Look, I noticed a few corpses that were hit by Miss Saori and Princess Hestia. The bodies hit by holy spells were abandoned by the onnikai while those slain by Miss Saori still have them.”

Saori’s strikes were precise and effective, aiming to kill with one hit or deal serious damage. Looking at some of the bodies closely, black slime was surrounding stab and slash wounds. If the onnikais were actively regenerating the bodies, then that would explain why some of the more weathered and damaged corpses could still move around.

While I found two more of the missing D rank adventurers, Silva performed the ritual dance to purify the onnikais. Mana gathered at the top of her staff, where the alchemical stone of her catalyst was placed, and began touching each slime individually. The onnikais turned white and then disappeared like fading ghosts.

Thinking it was finished, I dispelled my [Sanctuary]. Silva, for some reason, frowned and mumbled, “This is not good…”

When I asked her to clarify, she answered with worry, “Princess Hestia, every onnikai that I’ve purified successfully turned into a spirit, but they just told me it would be dangerous for all of us if we delved even deeper into the ruins. The moment you deactivated your barrier, instead of flying up to the surface, they went through that entryway. I presume it’s the way down.”

They are going down? Are they being lured by something or what is happening?

Silva’s words gave me a bit of a fright of the unknown. We had no information of what was dwelling under all these corpses, while it was possible that the enemy already knew all about us. I could see perfectly fine in this darkness even without a light source, but I still felt scared. It’s like imagining a vampire or ghost invading your home, even though you know for sure they don’t exist and that your home is secure. The possibilities are the frightening part.

Steadying my breath and my heart, I recovered my resolve. We had a task so we wouldn’t chicken out just yet. Moving back into formation, we ventured through the entryway and continued our spelunking.

Our formation was pretty simple but it wasn’t actually super effective from an RPG standpoint. We were essentially three mages and a rogue-mage, which meant we had no “tank” or warrior to stand in the front. Although my Job and equipment didn’t reflect it, I had to act as the frontliner for our party due to my high stats and pseudo-tanking with my healing spells, barrier skill and natural regeneration.

In that sense, I was leading the group in the front, Silva moved behind me with Igniculus lighting our way, Tasianna was the third in the formation, and Saori was the last, who was leaving behind a trail of mana threads so we could find our way out.

The ruin itself looked and smelled old, if you ignored the obvious scent of death. There were cracks in the floor from which grass and plants grew, there was moss on the walls and ceiling, and the musty air smelled “pleasant” compared to the stench of decaying and rotting flesh. There were signs of battle — blood and scratch marks littered the hallways and empty side chambers.

While traversing this foul reeking place, the occasional enemies or monster room blocked our path forward. The deeper we went with every stairway, the stronger the enemies became. The quantity of E ranking monsters increased while D ranks, like the loopriszars that attacked the village, began to appear.

The funny thing about these bodies was the “freshness” or “liveliness” about them. They almost looked alive. The moment they noticed us, their expressions contorted in anger, roaring and screaming while they charged at us. There were also a few humans and beastmen among them who were able to shout “Hey!” or “There!” They were simple; so simple that a chill went down my spine. If it weren’t for the black slime covering their bodies like a parasite, I would honestly believe they were alive.

Proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Spear Technique Lv. 2] [Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 6] [Fear Resistance Lv. 4] gained

“Killers-Are…Here.”

“Kill! Mana! Kuuuurrraraggghieeuuuukkk!”

“Die-Die! Give! Mana!”

“Verdammt! Why are there so many of these things?! Lightning Bolt! Tornado Bullet! Sacred Smite!”

“Eeek! I can’t stop them from coming closer, Lady Hestia! Air Shield! Frozen Shield! Aqua Prison! Icicle Gust!”

“They are overwhelming us with numbers at this point! Tasianna, Miss Silva, get behind me! Claws of Darkness! Umbral Pendulum! Shadow Pack! Shadow Clones!”

“Thank you, Miss Saori! Sister Tasianna I will trust in your defensive spells! Igniculus get ready, Smite! May the Goddess of Wind blow away my sorrows, Wind Blast!”

At the third floor, the amount of enemies just increased and increased the deeper we went. The whole place was a miserable labyrinth filled with nothing but enemies. Without a map, we didn’t know which paths to avoid, so our travel speed was slow. Neither the villagers nor the guard captain were able to tell us anything, so we got ourselves into this mess due to a lack of information. I couldn’t blame it on anybody, but I really wanted to.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 1]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 650 skill points

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Unarmed Mastery Lv. 1] evolved into [Unarmed Mastery Lv. 2]

After going down the fourth staircase, only D rank monster zombies and humanoids with the strength of E and D rank adventurers began appearing. They weren’t particularly strong, especially with how clumsy the onnikais were at controlling the bodies, but the fighting started to become a battle of attrition. “Quantity has a quality all its own,” and it was wearing us down.

It was tiring. We had already had to take three separate breaks as mental fatigue slowly caught up to us. The horrible smell, the sight of blood and corpses, the dull looking environment, everything you could hate during a ruin dive was there to sap our concentration. The hordes of zombies, even though they were cannon fodder, were stressing everybody out.

Imagine having a moment of respite just to hear the screeching sounds of “kiueeerrrrrrrkGiiiiiiiiiieeeee” from around the corner, announcing the next group of onnikais. There was a limit to how often you could hear these sounds before going crazy. I wanted to tear my hair out and blow up the place at this point.

Of course, music made with my air instrument was playing to fill in the eerie atmosphere of the ruin, but it wasn’t loud enough to drown the zombies’ shrieks. I thought turning everything into a battle from a game would be good for everybody, to elevate everybody’s morale, but in reality it wasn’t so easy. There was a difference between a zombie pouncing at your literal face than watching a character get attacked by zombies. Instincts just drive up your anxiousness.

How long — how long have they been gathering all these corpses?! was the only thing I could think as we settled down for another break.

“Urgh, everywhere I walk, there is some puddle of blood, or shit, or fuck knows what. I feel gross, I smell disgusting and my body is itching this whole time, and I don’t know why! Fuck, I wish we could just teleport to the damn last floor already!” I complained as I took a bite from a sandwich. Our food tasted slightly sour from the stench of corpses. “I hate underground ruins…”

“The whole place feels like it’s producing an endless supply of enemies. Well, let us look on the bright side; we are gaining a lot of experience with the hordes of enemies.” Saori was right. Despite sharing experience among four people, everybody in this party had leveled up at least once. For the first time in three months, I’d managed to gain a level. Saori and Tasianna became level 73 and 55, respectively. Considering we’d had an experience drought since leaving the Belzac Forest and fighting the bandits, this Quest was actually quite the blessing for the three of us.

I really wanted to be happy about this opportunity, but…

“This is too difficult for a C rank Quest,” Tasianna mumbled with a pale face. “If it wasn’t for Lady Hestia and Miss Saori culling the enemies and the dragorade we are drinking to restore our Mana and Stamina, Sister Silva and I wouldn’t be fit for this Quest. The enemies are far too numerous.”

Neither Silva nor Tasianna were capable of melee combat, so they needed to use spells to fight and support. While Tasianna was able to fend for herself with her ice and torrent spells, Silva only had access to wind spells, which focused more on casting speed than damage, and the holy spells her light elemental could use. These ruins were too hard for them.

Saori and I were doing fine with fighting the enemies while protecting those two after we switched over from weapons to spells. If we weren’t so deep in the ruins, I would have started using stuff like [Omnictus] or [Banishment Beam] to quickly take out the hordes, but the destructive power of these two spells would be too much for the ruins to handle. Honestly, [Battle Frenzy] might not have appeared, but I was ready to blow this whole place up to vent my frustration.

Saori could deal with the enemies with her two daggers easily, but their killing speed couldn’t compare to her [Claws of Darkness] and [Umbral Pendulum] spells that cleaved multiple units at once. After Saori summoned a giant shadow cadejo and a clone of herself, the number of people able to kill dozens of enemies at once increased our clearing speed. In a tight area with plenty of shadows, Saori was in her element.

I’ll be honest, I have no idea how long we had been in these ruins. Seeing as how we had three breaks, a couple of hours should have passed already, right? It was too bad that our party bracelets didn’t have any clocks. Knowing the time might actually calm me down a bit.

Regardless, our mental fatigue was too crippling for us to continue the travel down. With a unanimous agreement, our party decided to take this peaceful time to just rest and sleep in rotation. We couldn’t afford to get ambushed while sleeping.

Saori and Tasianna would sleep first as they were the most exhausted, while I would keep watch with Silva. It was just logical to keep at least one B rank rated adventurer awake.

I wanted to ask Silva about some fun topics while we stayed up together, to get my mind away from our nasty surroundings, but I couldn’t think of anything. I was too focused on the enemy that I began talking about them with Silva. “Do you know how the onnikais are able to regenerate the corpses’ wounds and decayed parts? I thought only holy spells and the torrent elemental spell [Ocean Healing] could do it.”

“I am not so sure about it, Princess Hestia, I-”

“Please, I am a bit too tired to keep up formalities. Could we talk casually, please?”

Silva’s refined appearance when we first met her was nowhere to be seen. We were able to wash our faces with Tasianna’s [Create Water], but the blood and gore on her clothes couldn’t be washed off so easily. Like everyone else present, her hair was messy and drenched in sweat despite winter decreasing the temperature inside the ruins. I had to increase my body’s temperature, simulating a heater, to prevent anybody from getting frostbite

Silva pondered it for a moment before nodding. “…Well, if you allow me to, then I will accept your offer, Hestia. Anyways, I can only give a hypothesis. Do you know how necromancers regenerate their undead?”

I admitted that I had no idea, so Silva explained everything in detail for me to understand.

“In the myths, the three daughters of the God of Darkness and the Goddess of Monsters and Fertility gave birth to three new races: the dark elves, the vampires, and the grimgarians. However, due to the existence of Ilsaphone, the Goddess of Death and Necromancy, the art of ‘good’ necromancy began to spread,” Silva explained. “In the past, before her birth, necromancy involved preventing the soul of the deceased from escaping their bodies and putting them in thralldom with a spell. Of course, many elves found it repulsive — an insult to the natural life and death cycle. However, modern necromancy is different.”

“Souls weren’t the domain of mortals but of Ilsaphone,” was what Silva said. After gaining control over her powers, Ilsaphone began her work as the Goddess of Death by taking over full control of all the souls of the world, freeing any enthralled souls from their undead bodies. To this day, it was absolutely impossible for people to create an undead by turning a soul into a thrall, as Ilsaphone would free them immediately.

However, this caused the necromancers to be dissatisfied and destroy her statues and undermine her attempts to gain followers. Ilsaphone wasn’t liked by most mortals ’cause she was a symbol of death, but everybody had to tolerate her. After all, if they wanted to pray that their deceased loved ones would gain peace after death, they still had to pray to Ilsaphone. This coincided with what I read about the Goddess of Death.

Naturally, the Goddess of Death being hated by necromancers was ironic. To Ilsaphone, it was unpleasant. That was when her sister Vivachel, the Goddess of Vampires, suggested that she create a new process of necromancy. As gods, they had to find ways to gain followers and this was a ripe opportunity.

“The new art of necromancy is using mana to control a body like blood. By injecting mana into an undead’s body, they effectively take them over, like these onnikais do using their black slime. Necromancers are able to heal their undead using their mana, so I believe these ‘undead’ are functioning with this method.”

So, Ilsaphone can collect souls but she cannot modify them yet. Aurena did say that Ilsaphone wasn’t the person who modified and changed my soul’s memories, nor was she involved in my rebirth.

Aurena could be lying to me, but for now, I want to give her the benefit of the doubts until proven otherwise. She did say that she wouldn’t lie to me. Silva’s explanation on the topic is a myth, so I should take the details with a grain of salt. The gist of the story should be true, though.

“What I want to point out is that these onnikais might be reproducing something similar to undead, however, without turning them into actual undead monsters. None of the purified onnikais could answer my question so this will stay a hypothesis, unfortunately,” Silva said with a sigh. “Nevertheless, it worries me that so many onnikais are in the area. I have never seen so many in one place.”

“Could there be something similar to a brood mother in the depths?” I asked.

Silva massaged her temple in exasperation as she considered my idea. “It’s a possibility? Maybe; we do not know much about onnikais yet, unlike the other faefolk. If there is an extremely vengeful onnikai, then the faefolk born around it will adapt to its wish and become similar to soldiers. Fairies are similar in a way. They are all playful and mischievous, but none are born with a hatred for the royal family Iggdrasil.”

True. Tasianna doesn’t like the nature of a fairy but she never once mentioned anything bad about the royal family.

“However, what concerns me is something else. Do you remember the purified spirits flying deeper into the ruins?” I nodded to her question. “I haven’t seen a single one of them yet. The spirits surrounding your body and Saori’s aren’t there anymore. I usually rely on the information of spirits and spriggans to avoid danger, so not being able to talk to any of them is unnerving…Wait. No.”

Looking at her widened eyes, I think we came to the same idea.

“…You also think it’s possible, right? ‘Faefolk adapt to their surroundings when born,’ that’s what you said, right? Well, isn’t being purified similar to being reborn for these onnikai-turned-spirits?” I commented.

If Silva, a faemancer, couldn’t see any spirits around, then where could they have gone? The ones she purified went deeper into the ruins, but she hadn’t seen them once yet. It was only an assumption, but it made sense for me.

“…This is not good,” Silva gulped. “Whether they leave the bodies by themselves or I purify them, the onnikai numbers won’t decrease unless we free the onnikai ‘leader.’ By the Gods. With how much mana is contaminating the ruin, it wouldn’t be surprising to me if the moment a monster is spawned, it’s killed and possessed by a free onnikai. This ruin is too similar to a dungeon with its endless creation of monsters.”

Another chill ran down my spine as cold sweat moistened my face. If we couldn’t deal with the problem now, then the onnikais would continue spawning more monsters. I had managed to collect the IDs of all the missing D rank adventurers, so one sub-task was finished. Now, I only had the main task left.

After Saori and Tasianna woke up, we brought them up to speed with what we thought up and then took our chance to rest. I don’t know how long I slept, but it wasn’t enough for me. Still, my mental state was reset. That was all that I could wish for.

We carved our way through the last few chambers of the fourth underground floor and went down another set of stairs. Similar to the other floors, we first entered a hallway and followed it to a chamber. The mana in the air felt so tangible that it could strangle me anytime now; actually, maybe that wasn’t an exaggeration.

My [Danger Perception] and [Detection Sensor] were beeping like crazy. Whatever was in this chamber, the hostility it was sending out was suffocating.

I should put some insurance down, just in case… This is obviously a boss room.

Whatever was controlling all these onnikais, it probably wouldn’t be an easy fight, so we had to create as many advantages as possible. For the first time since we entered these ruins, I cast all my buffing spells on myself as well as [Sanctified Blaze] and [Prayer] on my party members. I also didn’t forget to activate some suitable music to activate [Idol]’s buff sharing effect, while also reminding my parallel minds to get ready to play [The Will to Fight and Survive] or [Dragon Fire] if needed. This was no time to hold back anything.

[Music Resonation (Minor)] [Blessing of the Goddess of Light (Moderate)] [Sanctified Blaze ] [Various Spell Buffs] [Insatiable Glutton] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Of course, Saori and Tasianna didn’t slack with their contribution. Summoning her [Shadow Pack] wolf and [Shadow Clone], she also coated everybody in a veil of her [Shadow Armament] to increase our dark resistance and enable us to join her [Shadow Dash]. Tasianna increased our Wisdom, so our resistance against magic and our mana regeneration rates, with [Protective Water]. She also had [Glacial Protection] to increase our physical defense, but the cold stung our bodies, hurting us in the process, so unfortunately,] she was the only one who could use it.

[Shadow Armament (Minor)] [Protective Water] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Silva didn’t have any buffing spells left that didn’t overlap with our buffs, so she couldn’t do much there. However, with Igniculus her light elemental, she was able to temporarily imbue Saori’s daggers with the holy element. I didn’t need it, as I could “coat” my spear in [White Flames]. I just used [Pyrokinesis] to keep it around the spear, nothing complicated.

Once we were ready, we entered the room. Inside, we noticed a single pedestal at the end of the room, holding up a hand-sized, stygian crystal ball with black slime. Behind it was a massive, closed gate. As we approached it, the ball suddenly vibrated.

“Weeellllllcoooome!”

““““Eeek!”””” All four of us cried out as assumed a combat stance. We were fully focused on the source of the eerie voice: the black ball.

“Faaiiiirrrrryyy. Eeeleeemeentaal. Sourrrcees ooff Maanaaaa! Maaanaaaaa!”

It was too late for us to notice when the shadows moved.

““““Awroooooooooooooooooo!””””

Next to the ball, four large raven-black wolves appeared, all looking frighteningly similar to Saori’s [Shadow Pack] wolf, only they were larger. Instead of being formed of shadows, their bodies were a mix of rotting flesh, black slime and their skeleton. However, their menacing aura reminded me of somebody I knew too well.

“Garms!”

“Grriiaarrrck! Grrrrrrrrrrrrr!” Without warning, Saori’s eyes blazed in red as she snarled at the group of wolves, showing off her fangs. Her face contorted into a demon’s as her growling wouldn’t stop.

[“Saori, calm down!”] I tried to soothe her but to no avail. The four wolves and Saori glared at each other, seemingly dueling each other as their bloodthirst was clashing together in an attempt to dominate the others, or otherwise show who was the alpha.

“The shadows! Things are coming out from them!” this time, Silva shouted.

With one move, the whole room was filled with zomb-monsters. No humans or beastmen were here anymore. As expected, the onnikais controlled every monster that spawned.

“Yeeeees! Feeaarrrrr uss! Feaaaarr the daaaamned! Deessstroyy!”

“Please, listen to me!” In an attempt to diffuse the situation, Silva stepped forward. “I am a daughter of Goddess Zephira, the Origin Goddess of Wind! I am here to free you and bring you back to safety! Our wind mother has tasked me to help you! Please, these are my companions, we aren’t here to harm you!”

“Zeeeephhiirrrraa? Zeeeeepphhhirra?! Whhyyyy?! Whhhhhhyyy?!”

The black slime of the ball started to convulse as its voice shrieked in pain.

“Whhyyy?! Haaveee yoouuuuuu foorrrrgootttten uuuuuus?! Whyyyyyyy!”

The voice shifted from anger to sorrow, over and over again as the cries began influencing the wolves and zombies. Their shrieks were deafening like cries of banshees. It felt like a sonic attack as their combined voices echoed through the chamber.

“Illlllssaappphhhhoneeeeee! Forrrrrgiveeeeen usssss. Zeeeepppppphhiirrrrrra! Fooorrggottteen ussssss! Kiiiiilllllll!”

Scheiße! Silva!

Acting on what my [Foresight] showed me, I pounced at Silva and pulled her out of the way of a spear-like shadow suddenly coming out of a shadow. As I was asking if Silva was alright, the shadow began to move.

“W-What is that?!”

Large hands with sharp claws came out of the shadow, pushing itself out. A large dog-like head with sharp black teeth growing out of the edges of its mouth came out, pulling out a monstrous body with a height that could rival a dinosaur. It stood on three legs with a large tail completing its appearance. Its whole body was devoid of details — only shadows and black slime was covering it.

“Maaaannnnnnnaaaa!” A deep growl similar to the ball’s voice was released from the shadow beast.

Arck! M-My mana?!

“Urgh! I-It’s draining our mana! It’s draining our mana!!!” Tasianna cried out in a panic, her face paled as she slumped on the floor and screamed. Not in pain, but in fear. “Aieeeeeeeeeeeee!!!”

“Igniculus! Quickly into your cage. Into your cage now!” Silva cried out to the weakening light elemental, even grabbing him and forcefully putting him back into his wooden cage when he couldn’t respond.

Warning

System Voice?!

The area designated as [Ruins of the Fenrir’s Eclipse] has exceeded the maximum safe mana threshold. To safeguard the surroundings from further monster spawnings, the area will be forcibly transformed into a dungeon

It is advised for all occupants to leave the area [Ruins of the Fenrir’s Eclipse] until the transformation is finished. To stop the transformation, reduce the mana concentration to below the maximum safe mana threshold before the transformation finishes

“What the fucking fuck! Verdammte Scheiße, what the hell is this shit?!”

“Grrrrrrack!” As I was confused by the sudden System messages, a blue mist emitted from Saori’s body. Once it dissipated, Saori’s body was covered in full fur and her head resembled a wolf’s. She turned into her [Humanized (Minor)] form!

Without warning, she and her shadow cadejo and clone sprung at the horde of zombies in the direction of the four zombie garms. The red mist coming off from her eyes made her look like a berserker as she charged in fearlessly.

“Saori! Get back here!” I screamed. She was not acting normal.

Scheiße! The onnikai blocked our way out and they’re even charging at us now!

“Tasianna, Silva! Get up! Get up! We need to fight!” I couldn’t help Saori while Tasianna and Silva were being consumed with fear. I had to drag them on their feet and shout at them to bring their focus back to our current predicament. “Stay in my barrier, and get ready to fight! Sanctuary!”

This is no time to hold anything back! Please, let this work! Don’t cave us in!

Remembering how I fortified the walls I made for Carine Village, I activated [Terra Wall] and used [Fluid Cast] to have it fortify the chamber instead of creating new earthen constructs.

Humanize!

Mana mist covered my whole body as wings sprouted out of my body and my body’s skeleton adapted to my new form. All my pink skin changed color to a crimson red as scales protruded out of my body. My fangs became sharper, my claws even longer, and my tail’s carapace turned thicker.

[Humanized (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Strength filled my body as the song [The Will to Fight and Survive] filled the room with peppy music. Nine magic circles appeared around my body as a veil of scale-dust surrounded Tasianna, Silva, and me like a protective coat.

As I was ready to fight, another System message appeared before me.

I  ndividual [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has been offered a Divine Champion Quest. Please, confirm the Quest details before you accept

Will you accept?

“Kuuurrrrraaaaaccccck! Giiiiiiveeeee! Maaaaannaaaaaaaa!”

Wat?

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Chapter 123: Adventurers Vs. Onnikais.

A note from AbyssRaven

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[Music Resonation (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

You know, when I first came into this world and learned the meaning behind my two titles [The Light] and [Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood], I was extremely hesitant about actually meeting Aurena and Kargryxmor. Gods in stories were usually depicted as either unsympathetic or benevolent towards humans, and it would be a coin toss until you find their true personality out.

Now, I knew from the start that those two gods had something planned for me, I mean, it was obvious with how they transferred me to their world after my death on Earth. I really wanted to avoid them. I had my own dream and plans, and I had no intention of being caught up with all those divine Quests and duties that I would probably consider too much of a hassle. It would especially tear me apart if it conflicted with my idol life.

So, it was understandable for me to feel some fear of them after I somehow usurped control over their titles. Like, how did I do that with my abilities back then? I don’t think I could have avoided the gods forever — it would be wishful thinking to believe I could do so when the Origin Gods call themselves the Primary Administrator of Peolynca.

That changed a bit when Aurena sent me her missive. Regardless of my doubts about her, it can’t be argued that she did, in fact, grant me an unquantifiable favor in the form of my second life. Yes, she did want to erase most of my memories, and the current “Hestia Atsuko” wouldn’t have existed if she had her way. I do feel some resentment towards Aurena and Kargryxmor, as the loss of most of my memories, aside from my idol aspiration, would mean a proper death for “the Earthen girl that I once was.” However, that didn’t happen — my lucky stars prevented the worst outcome, and I’ve already come to terms with putting aside the useless parts of my past so I can walk forward with my head held high. I don’t want to become an edgy, revenge-filled psychopath.

To some, like Saori, my decision to become Aurena’s official champion might seem too reckless. Any plans she made would now be set in motion with my acceptance, and it will undoubtedly plunge me into some massive political and religious problems; just look at my current task of somehow reforming the highly-influential religion of the patron goddess of the humans, probably the most populated race on Peolynca. Saori wasn’t wrong to question me about it. Plus, I didn’t need to join Aurena’s faction, I could have joined Plesia or maybe Crustacia, who already had experience working with an otherworlder. I was also aware that any of the Origin Gods, aside from Shiterno probably, could have fulfilled my wish to visit my parents again on the condition I become their champion.

However, the reason why I chose Aurena specifically was purely ‘cause of my debt to her. Ignoring my memory problem, I was able to fulfill my long-lasting promise to my parents and finally become a real idol. I witnessed the happy faces of people watching me perform on my very own concert stage, cheering me on and encouraging me to continue singing despite breaking in tears not even one song into the show. The baggage of my past just fell off on that day. It felt good.

Of course, indebted or not, I still made sure to get a good enough reading on Aurena. I didn’t want to help an abusive goddess. Aurena still seems a bit fishy to me, but not dangerous. I think she genuinely cares about her church a lot - like a lot, a lot. She said it herself, as a goddess, she could have just waited for the collapse and eventual reconstruction of her church, so why does she need me? There might be a hidden agenda, but I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt for now.

Anyway, after I accepted to become her champion, I didn’t think my first task was to simply get to know Peolynca better. What a weird first “divine Quest,” right? Well, it seems like the time for my first official divine Quest as a champion of Aurena has finally come… Well, I didn’t expect to get two at once.

...And one of them is a request from another Origin Goddess.

Divine Quest Option #1: Destroy the Onnikai Leader residing inside the Ruins of the Fenrir’s Eclipse and purify the remaining onnikais

Quest Giver: Origin Goddess of Light, Healing, Miracles and Kinship, Aurena

Description: Aurena here, just to inform you, Hestia, you will receive two divine Quest and you may choose which one you will fulfil. So, I would ask you to read the Quests’ details properly before you accept, alright?

....

Divine Quest Option #2: Aid Silva Fleurette Breezeflower in performing the Rite of the Fading Winds on the Onnikai Leader residing inside the Ruins of the Fenrir’s Eclipse and free the onnikais from their torment

Quest Giver: Origin Goddess of Winds, Celebrations and Travels, Zephira

Description: Good Morning, Champion of Aurena and Otherwordly Reincarnator to our World, Hestia Atsuko. It is thrilling to finally meet you, although, through text. My name is Zephira and I am currently sending you this Quest with Goddess Aurena’s help.

....

I wasn’t actually able to read most of the Quests’ descriptions, but from the sound of the Quest titles, I was able to kinda understand the meaning and intentions behind them. Regardless, I had to concentrate on the situation on hand.

Ahh, fuck, I don’t have time for this! I get the gist, so let me answer it later, System voice! Horrible timing! Sending it to me now, Aurena, Zephira! Fucking hell!

[“Tasianna, go into your shop and upgrade [Mana Leak Resistance] to the maximum now! You’ve leveled up enough!”] My first priority was to reassemble my party and get our teamwork back in order; otherwise, this might be too chaotic to do on my own. Through [Telepathy], I told Tasianna what to do, since I couldn’t speak in my current form.

“Hueck! Y-Yes, by your will, Lady Hestia!” Tasianna gritted her teeth, her eyes shook as she glanced at the giant onnikai beast, then her hands went into action as two cyan-colored magic circles appeared around her hands. “I bought it! I bought it! It’s at maximum level!”

[Proficiency requirement fulfilled. [Mana Leak Resistance Lv. 2] evolved into [Mana Leak Resistance Lv. 10]. 4550 SP remaining

Urgh, wait, are you serious?! My Mana is still getting depleted?!

It was a good choice to save up my SP for a situation like these. If I had bought or upgraded a skill beforehand then I wouldn’t have had enough SP to upgrade this skill up to level ten, even after leveling up. The amount of experience I needed to level up since I evolved was staggering.

However, despite my investment, my Mana was still getting drained? Why? Was it ‘cause the skill was only level ten and not something explicit like [Abnormal Status Nullification] that tells you directly with its name that you’re immune? Then again, didn’t [Physical Resistance] evolve into [Physical Super-Resistance] instead of giving me immunity to physical damage?

My Mana was getting drained but at a slower rate. Considering how much Mana I have in the first place, isn’t worrying about this redundant?

Wrong.

“Princess Hestia! We can’t stay here and fight! The more mana a faefolk loses, the weaker they become! It is life threatening for Sister Tasianna and Igniculus to stay here for any longer!” Silva shouted as she blew a zombie away from the barrier of light.

The fact that [Mana Leak Resistance Lv. 10] wasn’t a full 100% immunity against mana being stolen from your body was the worst for Tasianna and Silva’s light elemental Igniculus. As faefolk, their bodies were made completely out of mana and lived by a different rule compared to beings of flesh and blood. If her Health sank to zero, she would fall unconscious; however, not only does her stats decrease in proportion to how much Mana she loses, she will die if it reaches zero.

I don’t know how this giant shadow onnikai thing was able to absorb the mana from people around it, but it wouldn’t be good to drag this battle out for too long. We only have a limited amount of dragorade and mana potions, after all.

“Sister Tasianna, I shall assist you by giving you my mana!” Seemingly realizing that Tasianna’s ice magic was more suitable in controlling the horde of zombies that was rushing over to us, Silva held her shoulders and began sharing her mana with her.

Understanding her intent, Tasianna nodded and spoke to me, “Lady Hestia, we will keep the onnikai at bay from the rear. Please, you must calm Miss Saori! Her status in the party menu doesn’t look good!”

Part-Oh right!

Party Leader

Name: Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor

Level: 81

Job: Cleric

Health:   4981/4981

Mana:   14411/17891

Stamina:   3412/2931

Effects:

[Humanized (Minor)] [Music Resonation (Moderate)] [Blessing of the Goddess of Light (Moderate)] [Sanctified Blaze] [Various Spell Buffs] [Insatiable Glutton] [Shadow Armament (Minor)]

Name:   Saori Segawa

Level: 73

Job: Fighter

Health: 3  151/3513

Mana:   1089/1571

Stamina:   1981/2655

Effects:

[Humanized (Minor)] [Music Resonation (Moderate)] [Blessing of the Goddess of Light (Moderate)] [Sanctified Blaze] [Various Spell Buffs] [Lifetaker (23 Kills)] [Shadow Armament (Full Body)] [Mental Attack (Major)]

Name:   Tasianna Marina Silverpond

Level: 55

Job: Torrent Sorcerer

Health:   1741/1741

Mana:   4041/4671

Stamina:   1290/1370

Effects:

[Elvenized (Major)] [Music Resonation (Moderate)] [Blessing of the Goddess of Light (Moderate)] [Sanctified Blaze] [Various Spell Buffs] [Shadow Armament (Minor)] [Glacial Protection]

Name:   Silva Fleurette Breezeflower

Level: 56

Job: Light Elementalist

Health:   1896/1896

Mana:   2561/3709

Stamina:   831/901

Effects:

[Music Resonation (Moderate)] [Blessing of the Goddess of Light (Moderate)] [Sanctified Blaze] [Various Spell Buffs] [Shadow Armament (Minor)]

Saori’s Health was doing just fine. Considering how agile she was, dodging slow onnikai zombies must be easy for her, although her Stamina was taking a bit of a hit and it seemed she couldn't dodge every single scratch from the horde of zombies. Nevertheless, with [The Will to Fight and Survive] playing, nobody’s Stamina could reach zero. What concerned me was her Mana. It dropped too much. It would be problematic if she doesn’t buy [Mana Leak Resistance] soon.

Wait? What is that? [Mental Attack (Major)]? Where did I hear that before?

…Oh! Shit, I remember!

Wargs and garms are born with the [Telepathy] skill, and they use it not only to communicate with each other but also to debilitate prey by using telepathic attacks. I don’t know what was making Saori so reckless but I have to get her to us first.

‘One of you parallel minds, go help Saori once we’re close enough!

“Maaaaannnaaaa!” The onnikai boss was still screeching the same thing. Does it really want our mana that much, when it already had enough mana to overflow the ruin to the point it was about to transform into a dungeon?

There was the need to stop the dungeon transformation for the village’s safety, but I couldn’t care about that right now. I glanced at Tasianna and Silva for one last time, confirmed they were doing alright, and stepped out of the barrier.

The sight of onnikais noticing and charging at me made it impossible for me to get to Saori on foot. Using wind magic to fly over was an option but I can’t leave Tasianna and Silva back to handle the zombies, as my [Sanctuary]’s barrier strength wasn’t infinite. I must thin the horde down before I go.

With my claws and tail wrapped in white flames, I flapped my wings and spread out the scale-dust. I’ve already put my spear back into my storage. I wasn’t proficient enough with it and I think a situation like this will need more fireworks!

The Will to Fight and Survive

A song created by the Idol   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]. Through images of being a force of destruction and inspiration, this song will rally any allies in the vicinity while demoralizing enemies. All allies affected by [Music Resonation] will receive these effects: Recover from [Exhaustion (Minor)]. Stamina cannot drop to zero. Stamina regeneration will increase while Stamina usage will decrease. Increase Fire and Holy elemental attacks by 10% each. All enemies affected by [Music Resonation] will receive these effects: Become more vulnerable to [Fear] and [Terror] status afflictions. Decrease Wisdom stat by 5%

My song was playing right beside me with [Aerokinesis], drowning out the cries and screams of the zombies. If it weren’t for the dire situation, I would probably sing along with it, as the exhilarating music was filling me with power and energy.

Like in a video game, once the music of a battle starts, I always felt something creep up from the depth of my soul. It made me feel…

…like I was a hero.

“Gaching!” The prelude began with a simple gnash of my fangs.

“Kiiuuueurrck!”

“Kuuuuurrraaaack!”

Explosions. Ear-splitting explosions spread around the surrounding of the barrier, burying anything foolish enough to even come close to the thousands of scale-dust floating around in the air. As the dust cloud hadn’t dissipated yet, my parallel minds began casting spells as I jumped up in the air. Weaving multiple spells all at once, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that I was the center of attention now.

[Stage Fever (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Beams of holy light crashed onto the solidified floor, the spell [Banishment Beam] annihilated anything it touched. [Bedrock Blades] created from the earth hugging this chamber penetrated through the chamber’s ceiling and walls, piercing and sundering zombies into bits and pieces. Lava and lightning bolts flew through the room, scorching and melting the bodies of monsters.

As my parallel minds were fully dedicated to using spells and playing my air instruments, I gathered the white flames around my arms with [Pyrokinesis] and landed back on the ground, smashing the ball of holy fire on it to create a mighty sea of flames.

“““KuuuKiarrack!”””

Death cries and screams of panic — it would seem like the onnikais knew fear. The effects of my song seemed to work as some of the onnikais trembled in terror as their charge slowed down. I didn’t give them any chance to rest. I had to break through and reach Saori!

“Arwoooh! Araf!”

“Kiiiilllllll!”

At two sets of locations, large monsters were attacking. The four zombie garms pounced at Saori while a horde of zombie fodder gathered around her, making it hard to move around. Surprisingly, Saori wasn’t using her spells nor items to their fullest effects. Where was [Shadow Dash], [Umbral Pendulum], [Dark Tendrils], my toxins, or her mana threads?! She was fighting like a brute — like an animal!

On the other hand, I didn’t have the opportunity to go over to her as the onnikai boss dug its hand into the ground, no, more specifically it was a shadow. The next moment, my [Foresight] and [Danger Perception] warned me of an attack coming from behind me.

I sidestepped and a large hand reached out from a shadow created by my white flames from where I stood. Like a persistent snake it swirled around and tried to grab me but I counterattacked with a spray of white fire. The hand shriveled up a bit before retreating back into the shadow. At the same moment, the onnikai beast jumped at me.

“Hooooolllyyyyyy! Graaaaaa!”

Get out of my way!

Grinding my fangs once again, a searing heat was forming at the back of my throat, growing larger the more mana I gave it. Once I felt it had grown enough, I opened up my mouth and released a concentrated laser-like [Hellflame Breath] melded with [White Flames]. If I am able to coat my body with my three types of fire, then I can also do it with my breath attacks.

Before it could land, the dragon breath collided against the onnikai, sending it tumbling onto the ground as it tried to push the beam back. However, that wasn’t a smart choice. If a mere spray of fire was enough to make its hand quiver, then a beam of concentrated power would do more than that.

“Graaaaaagh!” It screamed as a large hole in its stomach was created by my breath attack.

Raising my head, the beam followed and sliced the onnikai beast into two. To finish it off, I closed my mouth to interrupt the ray of white fire and changed the flame’s effect before opening my mouth once again — this time, it was a wide-area flame breath reminiscent of a flame thrower, the usual dragon breath attack in fantasy shows.

The flame not only scorched the giant onnikai beast but also any zombie surrounding it. Nothing but ash was left behind.

Boss? Hmph! That was too easy!

Before I ran over to Saori, I noticed a large crack in the wall from behind the spot the beast just stood as the residue flames were lighting the whole chamber up. There was a large hole and the cracks were slowly spreading up.

Shit! Terra Wall!

My offense was stronger than my defense — this held true since the day I chose to evolve into a [Young Spark Fire Dragon]. While the fortified walls might have survived [Tornado Bullet], my explosions and beams of fire were far too strong, especially with all my stat boost and damage multipliers. Once again, I fortified the whole chamber, sealing up any damage my spells or explosions did to it.

As the onnikai beast was defeated, I ran over to Saori. Her battlefield was riddled with the corpses of decaying monsters, either clawed to death or crushed by the giant shadow cadejo. At first, I thought it was going well, but looking at how fully enveloped she was in my white flames, made by my [Sanctified Blaze], it seemed the tables were turned on her.

The more you were injured while [Sanctified Blaze] was active on you, the more white flames would be created. It not only heals your injuries automatically, but also attacks any aggressors nearby. As long as the mana I put into the magic circle remained in it, it would stay active. So, seeing how the flames are enveloping Saori, I have to question how much trouble she was having.

[“Saori, wake up!”] I called for her, but she didn’t respond; instead, I was greeted by something thrown at me, prompting me to dodge sideways.

Turning around, I saw Saori’s [Shadow Pack]-created cadejo slowly dissipating into thin air. At the same time, I could hear something that sounded like the growling of two wolves fighting over the same prey. In fact, that was exactly the case. The shadow clone of Saori’s had bits of it torn away and it was currently the “rope” in a tug of war between two of the zombie garms. It was being treated like a dog toy before it vanished from the damage.

Shit!

I fought myself through the hordes of onnikai zombies, blasting, and slicing them. Two of the four zombie garms were currently overwhelming Saori, shooting out tendrils and spikes of shadows at her. I know she was currently in her beastman form, so she didn’t have all her stats, but she still was able to fight back against all the D rank monsters up until now. So, why was she losing?

Mana Eyes!

Darkness Garm Corpse Possessed by an Onnikai

The corpse of a Darkness Garm that was reanimated by an onnikai using a special tangible mana fluid created by an especially tainted onnikai. The mana fluid is an extension of the onnikai’s mana. The anger and rage left behind in this corpse is slowly corrupting the onnikai, transforming it

Argh!

That was such a stupid move! The ruin was filled with mana, so what would happen if I activated a skill that allowed me to look at it? Headache! A massive, giant headache! It was an information overload, stinging my brain like with a sharp metal spike. I couldn’t even look at its profile before having to deactivate the skill for my mind’s safety.

However, that was enough information. I now knew why Saori was losing now. Now, an adult [Garm] were D rank monsters while a [Darkness Garm] was C rank. The garm matriarch was one of them and she gave me a lot of trouble despite being on death’s door when we fought.

Not only was she fighting against four C ranks at once, but she wasn’t even fighting with a calm mind. This isn’t the Saori I remembered giving me a hard time during our sparring sessions!

[“Saori!”] Shooting myself forward with [Wind Blast], I shoulder tackled one of the zombie garms that was fighting Saori, sending him crashing into the wall. I then activated another [Sanctuary] and grabbed Saori by her shoulders, holding her back as she struggled to free herself. [“Parallel minds, get to it! Begin the telepathic war and get Saori back!”]

‘You got it, boss!’ parallel mind #1 answered.

Name:    Saori Segawa

Level:   73

Job: Fighter

Health:   2016/3513

Mana:   521/1571

Stamina:   1481/2655

Effects:

[Humanized (Minor)] [Music Resonation (Moderate)] [Blessing of the Goddess of Light (Moderate)] [Various Spell Buffs] [Lifetaker (71 Kills)] [Shadow Armament (Full Body)] [Mental Attack (Major)]

[Sanctified Blaze] was exhausted and her mana was getting sapped throughout the whole fight. I healed her up with [Major Heal], seeing as I couldn’t do anything before the parallel minds were done with their job. As I sent all my parallel minds for the telepathic fight, the speed of my spell casting was slowed.

The barrier is holding everything back. I’ll just delay cast a few of them and once Saori is back up-NO! I can’t waste time like this, I need to get back to Tasianna and Silva!

As I was about to drag Saori’s flailing body out of the barrier, a bone-chilling cry echoed through the room, “Griiiiiaaarrccccck! Maaaanaaaaa!”

Ah, Scheiße. Of course, that was too easy.

The onnikai boss returned, but this time, it seemed to have gained an upgrade. It was walking on four legs this time instead of three, while its shadowy body was protected by sharp carapace and armor. Two arms erupted from its torso, making the giant beast look like a centaur. Screaming once again with its dinosaur-like head, it looked through the room and stopped its eyes at me. With a shriek, it ran towards me, quaking the ground.

You want round two, bitch? Come at me then!

Fortunately, this time another surprise came up; rain suddenly fell from the ceiling and attacked the beast like small needles, slowing it down as it charged at me. The water on its drenched body then turned into ice, freezing the beast in place.

[“Lady Hestia, bring Miss Saori to us! We need to flee, now!”] Tasianna, the source of the [Torrential Rain] spells and freezing the beast, shouted through telepathy.

[“Flee? What do you mean about escaping, Tasianna?! We can fulfill the Quest now!”] Whether it was ‘cause of adrenaline or something else, but I had to question what she just said. We have to take care of the situation now before the onnikais attack the village again.

[“Lady Hestia, please! Sister Silva told us that the giant beast will continue regenerating as long as the onnikai controlling it lives! Plus, when the ruin turns into a dungeon, the layout of the whole place will change, and there will be a risk that we will be separated in the process. Please, I beg you, we need to retreat!”]

I didn’t know very much about dungeons in Peolynca, so if Tasianna or Silva told me that it was dangerous to be inside a place that was turning into a dungeon then I really, really should listen. The safety of my party had to be prioritized. Also, I can’t believe I forgot about this, but wasn’t this whole situation scary for Tasianna? She lost Princess Schuri to an accident like this, so she might have been projecting it to Saori and me.

The realization of how selfish it was of me to end this fight now instead of worrying about my party’s health was baffling to me. It calmed down my mind. I shouldn’t be this hot-headed.

[“Alright! Hang on for a few more seconds, Tasianna! I’ll prevent this ruin from turning before we go!”] While I heard a dungeon brought riches to a town, I believe having a dungeon spawn next to the village was not ideal. Our Quest was to destroy all the enemy in the ruin and assure the safety of the Rashan Village. For that, I needed to stop this ruin from turning into a dungeon.

It was a bit of a gamble, but I had to try it. Whether it succeeded or not wasn’t important, really. I just want to make sure I tried every single method, leaving no stone unturned.

I took out a ball of mana threads that I had in my storage and wrapped Saori up in it. Although she was still flailing like a madwoman, I could now carry her around with one arm. Urck, I groaned as her [Shadow Armament] claws were scratching my [Draconic Barrier]. I’ll have to endure the pain and heal through it for now. Hopefully, my parallel minds will be finished soon.

Jumping out of my barrier, holy fire spewed out of my mouth, clearing the way from any zombie and keeping the zombie garms at bay. I wanted to kill them now for what they did to Saori, but letting my anger control me wasn’t the answer.

“Noooo! Staaayyy aaawaay!” Probably realizing I was running towards it, the orb on the pedestal began talking again. The beast frozen by Tasianna’s [Cryokinesis] was breaking through so I had to hurry up. The zombies and garm surrounding me were trying to prevent me from coming closer to the orb but I used my scale-dust to create a minefield of explosions.

[“Hey, onnikai, you better say your thanks to Zephira and Tasianna for making me spare you, otherwise, you’ll already be toast. Until I return, I’ll take away some of that mana of yours!”] Taking out a bag of macula plant seeds, I quickly stuffed each seed into the black slime that was surrounding the pedestal with the orb like a tree.

When I used my [Mana Eyes] I caught a quick glimpse of an immense concentration around this area, to be more specific, the orb and black slime. This was the boss, after all, right? It probably was the reason for the giant shadow beast and the dozen of onnikais. I could destroy it now, I was close enough to strap scale-dust onto it like dynamite, after all. However, due to a certain benevolent Goddess, I chose not to.

As expected, the dozen macula plant seeds matured so quickly I couldn’t keep up with them. It was payday, to say the least. Once a macula plant matured, I stuffed them into my storage and placed another seed in its place. Meanwhile, I could hear Tasianna freezing everything while my explosions handled the garms.

“Arck! Ahhhhhh, kuso! Ano kuso yarō-domo! Sentō sutairu ga mechakuchada!” (Arck! Ahhhh, shit! Those fucking bastards! That’s such a messed up fighting style!)

“…”

Midway, Saori woke up. I naturally undid the mana threads but I was left speechless as Saori began cursing quite intensely with bloodshot eyes, cradling her head with a pained expression. Also, since when was she able to talk in her beastman form?

“Hestia! Stop looking at me like that and give me that bag! Argh! Kuso, kono yaro! (Fuck, you bastard!)” Like a crazed berserker, she began shoving seeds into the black slime at a frightening rate. The orb was actively shrieking in desperation; the garms suddenly teleported to our shadows in the short moment I was baffled by Saori’s sudden behavior change.

With Saori concentrating on draining the orb from its mana, I protected her back with my parallel minds that returned. I was aware of the debris falling from the ceiling and the cracking floor and walls, but we were gonna escape out of this place anyway.

The total mana inside the area [Ruins of the Fenrir’s Eclipse] has been lowered under the maximum safe mana threshold. The dungeon transformation has been forcibly canceled

Good!

““Eeeek!””

“Graaaaa!Killl!”

The moment I got that System message, a loud glass shattering into pieces could be heard as two familiar shrieks escaped from that direction. Saori and I turned around to see the onnikai beast roaring after destroying my [Sanctuary], as a horde of zombie began to approach the frightened Tasianna and Silva in a crazed run.

Saori immediately grabbed me and pushed me into her shadows. Knowing what she was planning without saying anything, I channeled a dragon breath and unleashed it once light reentered my eye. Glaring at the onnikai beast, the white dragon fire exploded in its face and shot it crashing to the wall. Saori then moved my body like a flamethrower and countless zombies began to turn into ash.

As we finally reunited with Tasianna and Silva, a loud banshee-like screech echoed through the room, originating from the onnikai beast. Its black slime convulsed in rage, influencing the onnikai beast to quickly regenerate from its wounds. It roared and its form became more detailed. Fine muscles appeared on its body, its claws and fangs grew, and a lilac glow could be seen growing from underneath its black body.

“The beast is adapting to its situation!” Silva shouted.

“The path to the exit is being blocked by the garms! Lady Hestia, we need to fight through them!” Tasianna stated.

True. It didn’t matter if we could fly over the horde of zombies when the entrance was guarded by the zombie garms. No matter how strong I was, they were still C rank monsters. They could still delay us until the giant onnikai beast caught up. However, I had a different plan.

[“Warp Point: Exit!”]

It was my insurance that I set up before we entered the room. It was one of the three ways to use this portal spell — an emergency escape path — and I placed it right next to the stairs. As the hallway between the stairway to the boss chamber was pretty long, I knew if we had to escape that this would give us some distance between us and our pursuers.

A large amount of mana escaped my body, a sign that the spell was successful. A crevice opened up in the air, showing a staircase leading up. I pushed our party into the portal and deactivated it immediately so no zombie could enter.

“I completely forgot about that!” Tasianna expressed before quickly turning back into her fairy form and holding onto my clothes. Silva quickly understood what was going on and leaped onto Saori’s back.

Without worrying about anything else, Saori and I sprinted up the stairs once we found the mana thread she left behind to lead us back out. The hordes of zombies naturally followed us, but what surprised me was the onnikai beast and garms.

The garms were far too large to fit through the entrances — the reason why we didn’t transform back into our true forms. However, they managed to follow us by slipping into shadows and teleporting. The onnikai beast, on the other hand, didn’t need the shadows as it simply changed its form like water, thinning its body into something snake-like.

As the zombies who fought us during our descent weren’t there anymore, our run was left uninterrupted, if you ignored the onnikais chasing us. We managed to reach the third floor before the floor suddenly cracked open.

“Graaaaa! Giiiivee! Maaanaaaa, baaaack!” The onnikai beast transformed back into its centaur form and broke through the floor to intercept us. I thought it was an angry mindless beast, but it seems to have some semblance of intelligence.

I blasted the beast back down with [Hellflame Breath] and began creating [Terra Walls] to stop the garms from attacking us. Were we becoming slower, or were they becoming faster? Nevertheless, I didn’t let that thought dawdle as I pushed Saori forward.

After what felt like a marathon, we finally reached the ruin’s exit. The light of the sun wasn’t as intensive as expected — it looked like it was dawn. Whatever time it was, we didn’t care. We ran away from the ruins and into the forest, but we could still hear the onnikai’s screams. At the same time, Saori collapsed onto the ground.

Saori!

Name:    Saori Segawa

Level:   73

Job: Fighter

Health:   3216/3513

Mana:   0/1571

Stamina:   649/2655

Effects:

[Humanized (Minor)] [Music Resonation (Moderate)] [Mana Stress (Minor)]

Tsk.

[“It’s mana stress!”] I told Silva and Tasianna. [“You two, get Saori out of here and treat her! I’ll make sure the onnikais don’t follow us.”]

[Humanized (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

My [Humanized (Minor)] dragonewt form might be stronger and superior to my moderate form, but I felt more comfortable and “normal” in my moderate form. I wasn’t planning to fight the onnikais, I was simply planning to scare them away.

As the onnikais ran at me, I walked slowly towards them. “You know, this would be a great time to baptize [Imperial Hellfire]’s successor, but I haven’t finished the spell yet. It would be pretty embarrassing to fizzle the spell now. So, let me show you something even more frightening. Purple Flash.”

When I last used [Purple Flash], it was during my fight with the guild master. It was an extremely powerful spell that allowed me to cast any spell that required a long casting time to be cast instantly; however, this ablity came with the price of thrice the base mana cost. When I fought Farron, I used this spell on the two warp point spells, but underestimated the mana cost and the feeling of losing a lot of mana within a second. I left an opening from the surprise.

For that reason, I tested out every single spell with [Purple Flash] for the pure intention of being able to anticipate the mana cost. I won’t let myself get caught off-guard again.

“Omnictus!”

A massive white circle around the size of a baseball field immediately appeared in the sky. It shined for a moment before a gigantic beam of holy fury crashed onto the ground where the approaching onnikais stood. If I were to compare the size and intensity of the spell to something similar, then I think the Death Star from “Star Wars” would fit. Of course, it didn’t destroy the whole planet, but the power of this terrifying death ray coming down to smite my enemies gave off a similar feeling.

If I remembered correctly, the level six lightning spell was called [Ramuh], right? Astalos, the lightning wyvern, activated the spell on a group of grimgarians and a large crater was left behind after the cast. Honestly, if the other level six advanced-magic System spells were similar to [Omnictus] and [Ramuh], then wouldn’t a mage turn into a tactical nuke or something?

“Urgh…The mana cost is no joke…,” I complained as I checked my depleting mana. My sun core was regenerating this lost mana instantly, but it didn’t feel good to lose so much... Additionally, [Omnictus] cost more mana to keep active. No matter how much my core was producing mana, I shouldn’t be using this spell for too long.

[Omnictus] was able to eradicate every single thing that was under it, leaving neither corpses nor onnikais behind. However, compared to [Ramuh], the destructive power of this spell was rather lackluster. The grass on the ground was singed and a few insects looked like they were barbecued, but the earth itself was left unharmed.

Omnictus

A mighty beam of the sacred fury will descend onto the ground, exterminating any fauna. This spell’s magic circle can only be created in the sky and can only release the spell down. This spell cannot damage non-organic objects. Creatures caught in the beam will be separated into friendly, neutral, and enemy. Damage against friendlies will be reduced tremendously, neutrals received suppressed damage, enemies will received the full damage of the spell

I felt a bit bad for the onnikais, as I knew their backstory and that it wasn’t their fault for feeling resentment, but I’ve long accepted my new life in Peolynca. Death was everywhere in Peolynca and to become stronger, I needed to kill. If I could, I wish to protect those dear to me without resorting to killing, but that would be too naïve, even for me.

Zombies or not, your fault for fighting against me.

In this case, I had to send a message to the onnikai beast.

“…You,” I called at the frightened centaur-dinosaur. “I’ll come back for round three next time. We will end it then. Until then, you can either get stronger and come to me or await your purification like a good boy. I know the pains that you and the onnikais have faced, but this anger of yours will only be your downfall. It won’t bring you happiness.”

With those words, I went back to my party. Seeing as I couldn’t hear footsteps approaching me, I think the onnikais must’ve retreated back into the ruins. Reunited again, I took out a bottle of dragorade and handed it over to Tasianna who was taking care of Saori.

“…Princess Hestia, what are we supposed to do?” Silva asked me. Her intentions were clear to me.

“Don’t worry, I fully promised to free the onnikais as I said. I’m just sorry that we can’t free all of them, now.”

Silva, having read between the lines, shook her head. Her eyes were devoid of anger or disapproval, they looked only sad. “Please, that isn’t necessary. I’ve experienced for myself how destructive these onnikais have become. Even if it isn’t a proper purification, I am sure they won’t bear any grudge towards you. That spell of Goddess Aurena probably gave them a swift, painless death. It is mercy.”

I nodded my head, accepting Silva’s words. She was right.

We waited in the forest until Saori woke up. Before we returned to the village, I stopped them as I had something important to announce.

“I want to talk to you guys about something. I received two Divine Quests from Goddess Aurena and Zephira, and I have to choose one of them.”

A note from AbyssRaven

Courtesy of Nuraproject for creating the last of the three girls. Follow her twitter: Link

Hestia, Tasianna, and Saori are finally finished. Now, I wonder what is next, art-wise?

Thank you guys for your continued support! Oh yeah, I kind of forgot this part, but the anniversary of Dragon Idol was last week on the 9th! I totally forgot about it!

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Chapter 124: Momentary Respite.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Divine Quest Option #1: Destroy the Onnikai Leader residing inside the Ruins of the Fenrir’s Eclipse and purify the remaining onnikais

Quest Giver: Origin Goddess of Light, Healing, Miracles and Kinship, Aurena

Description: Aurena here, just to inform you, Hestia, you will receive two divine Quest and you may choose which one you will fulfil. So, I would ask you to read the Quest details properly before you accept, alright?

Anyway, so my Divine Quest will revolve around the destruction of the onnikai inside that alchemical tool, or catalyst, on the pedestal. Although I have nothing against the onnikai, I do consider it too much of a threat to the surrounding regions with its potential to become a dungeon core. Hestia, you haven’t experienced seeing an actual dungeon core yet, so I won’t overwhelm you with this information now. This isn’t the intention of this Quest description, after all.

So, your task is easy — break the orb and destroy the onnikai inside of it at all costs. Through the destruction of their leader, all the other onnikai can be easily purified and turned back into spirits with your companion’s help. This should secure the safety of the ruin and the village nearby, although the problem of the high mana concentration in the surrounding area must be solved separately.

Rewards: +1 additional [Idol] song slot, [Venerated Saintess] proficiency gain, +1 level

Divine Quest Option #2: Aid Silva Fleurette Breezeflower in performing the Rite of the Fading Winds on the Onnikai Leader residing inside the Ruins of the Fenrir’s Eclipse and free the onnikais from their torment

Quest Giver: Origin Goddess of Winds, Celebrations and Travels, Zephira

Description: Good Morning, Champion of Aurena and Otherwordler Reincarnator to our World, Hestia Atsuko. It is thrilling to finally meet you, although, through text. My name is Zephira and I am currently sending you this Quest through Goddess Aurena’s help. I would like you to consider my proposal.

I have witnessed most of what was said through Silva’s and Tasianna’s eyes, so I have a general understanding of what is going on. I wish to give these onnikais a proper rest through the Rite of the Fading Winds. Silva, as a faemancer and wind elf, should know more about it. Through this process, the onnikai inside the ruins can find peace from the suffering they have felt.

Please, Hestia, allow me to give these fallen faefolk some peace and rest.

Reward: A catalyst filled with both the concentrated mana of an onnikai and the blessing of Goddess of Winds

Once we took a short break after escaping the ruins, I gave Saori, Tasianna and Silva a rundown of the two divine Quests that I received from Aurena and Zephira. As the content of one of the Quests did involve Silva’s participation, I had to inform her about it and subsequently about my status as a champion of Aurena. How else was I supposed to tell her I got a divine Quest from Aurena and Zephira, huh? Nevertheless, I did leave the whole otherworlder part out. No need to divulge that and make it even more complicated.

“It is a great honor to meet a champion of an Origin Goddess. Princess Hestia, it is an honor,” Silva bowed.

“…You don’t have to act this formal. Even your current way of speaking to me is a bit tiresome.”

“Of course, I understand, but I am simply acting appropriately in front of a person granted with a royalty and champion status. Please, forgive me.”

From how Silva has been treating me up until now, I guess it’s just part of her personality, similar to her rather high pride in her country, Saelariel. If she doesn’t want to change her way of speaking aside from that one moment in the ruins, then let’s just leave it alone. Even Ellaine and Tasianna found it too inappropriate to drop the “lady” part when they addressed me.

“So, which of the Quests will you take? Goddess Aurena’s seems very, very tempting by increasing two of your unique skills and increasing your level by one, which is extremely beneficial for you,” Saori commented, still massaging her head from the migraine.

Well, it can’t be said that I wasn’t inclined to take Aurena’s Quest. Honestly, anything that can give me another [Idol] song slot would be reward enough. [Exhaustion] is a very debilitating debuff that can cripple you in the worst moment during a fight; however, with the power of [The Will to Fight and Survive], the risk was gone.

If one of my [Idol] songs could produce such a powerful effect, then wouldn’t it be better to gain more slots? That way I can tailor songs to different situations to grant advantages to myself and my allies. In addition, this is an additional slot that gets added to my maximum. It’s a freebie.

Although they probably weren’t doing it on purpose, Tasianna’s and Silva’s expectant eyes were drilling holes into me as they waited for my answer. “No need to worry, Tasianna. You know I keep my promises. There will be no deviation to the plan — we will prioritize the purification of the onnikai. I will take Goddess Zephira’s divine Quest.”

You have chosen [Divine Quest Option #2]. With the blessing of your championed God, may you be successful in your Quest!

It was the obvious choice here. Yes, it is a shame about the Quest rewards from Aurena, but promises must be kept no matter what, and I always keep my promises.

Naturally, as it was the correct choice to do, everyone nodded their heads in acknowledgment. Saori might have pointed at the better rewards of the first Quest option but her smile was telling me I madethe right choice. Tasianna’s and Silva’s elation was obvious enough.

With that settled, I also took this chance to ask Silva about the “Rite of the Fading Winds.” “Hmm, I can understand what the Wind Mother is speaking about. The ‘Rite of the Fading Winds’ is a ritual where the faemancer or priest becomes a medium for the Wind Mother to commune with us mortals. Usually, it is reserved for the passing of one of her more prominent followers, like a famous faemancer, a high-ranking clergyman, or fairy royal. The ritual is meant to give peace to their soul.”

“May your soul rest in peace, Princess Schuri,” I heard Tasianna silently mumbling as she held her hands together in prayer. I feigned ignorance.

The rest of us gave Tasianna a moment before Silva continued. “I will be honest, I am not proficient with this specific rite. The ‘Rite of Calming’ I use to purify the onnikai is easy for a novice like me, but I will most likely require an extended time to fully channel the ‘Rite of the Fading Winds.’ I will require everybody’s support to perform it.”

Well, that is a bummer. With the fact that the giant, ethereal onnikai beast will continually regenerate throughout the battle, that’ll just turn the battle into an endurance fest, where our mana will be constantly drained despite having [Mana Leak Resistance Lv. 10]. Not to mention, those four darkness garm zombies will probably have regenerated by now and be ready for our next confrontation.

The battle we had today was relatively easy, although it still caused quite a stir from what happened to Saori. I was able to defeat the onnikai beast and Tasianna also had a moment where she kept it at bay. Now, the problem with a future confrontation will be the onnikai’s ability to adapt to what they experienced today and use it against us the next time we fight. The beast did show a glimpse of intelligence today.

Speaking of those beasts…

“Oh yeah, Saori, what was that anyway?” I asked her. “I experienced a mental attack from wargs and their pack leader garm before, but what made you go almost suicidal back there? It was like you unlocked a hidden berserker skill or something.”

Saori couldn’t help but scowl a bit as she answered the question, almost as she would’ve preferred not to. “Urgh, great…well, the first thing that happened when I saw those garms was just some weird images flooding inside my head. Flames, swords, and blood first appeared — that is when my headache began. Then some giant people appeared and a feeling of feebleness assaulted me. I felt so weak at that moment, and then it was all replaced with anger.”

Saori’s explanation was probably the thoughts and feelings the garms sent to her. In the mental attack that I experienced a few months ago, it was just a bunch of mumble-jumbled words and loud shouts and screams that worked pretty well as a “taunt-like” skill. The skill [Telepathy] can send visible images to the recipient, as my party has been doing with [Identify] information.

What Saori described was probably the memories from the onnikai before they died and transformed into their new forms. If an onnikai is born from the anger it felt at its death, causing it to be reborn into such a hatred-filled faefolk, then wouldn’t it make sense to provoke somebody with those memories?

However, what could those “flames, swords, and blood” specific memories be? Well, who knows what those onnikai experienced back then? It isn’t worth dwelling too much on them.

“Honestly, I want to get revenge on them,” Saori suddenly admitted. “I do not know why, but something is pushing me towards this idea. It is like an irresistible itch.”

“Ha, maybe it’s because of your [Belzac’s Successor] title? You know, because they are garms, so maybe you’re feeling some sort of competitiveness against them?” I joked to lighten up the mood, but for some reason, everybody else went silent.

“…Lady Hestia, I think that is precisely why Miss Saori is feeling that way,” Tasianna stated, leaving me slightly dumbfounded. “According to stories, Belzac was known as a prideful fenrir. Miss Saori is basically the successor of this prideful wolf-type monster, inheriting a title that practically screams ‘I am the alpha.’”

“Wait, Tasianna, are you telling me that this is like an animalistic instinct?” Saori asked with an incredulous expression. “No, no, I have been able to suppress it until now. I will not believe that something this random would cause me to feel this way. There has to be another answer.”

“Miss Saori, while I do not know what your circumstances are, you shouldn’t reject your fenrir nature. I mean, Belzac was known as an S rank monster with power that could make any adversary cower before him. It is a prestigious bloodline, no?” Silva said.

While I was becoming more curious about Belzac, I think Saori is feeling more annoyed about all this information on the wolf monster. She has already stated that she didn’t want anything to do with her monster side’s history and past, as she doesn’t consider it part of herself. She accepted the fact that she was reincarnated as a wolf in Peolynca, but she didn’t want to be associated with it at all.

Now that I think about it, where did these garm corpses come from? The only [Darkness Garm] that I knew was the garm matriarch, but there were four of them inside the ruins. There was the Belzac wolves subjugation Quest that happened seven years ago according to Farron, the hunter’s guild master, but wouldn’t the bodies be more skeletal than zombie-like? I dunno. This whole situation was just weird.

Our party then decided to move back to Rashan Village for the day. We had to report to the village chief what exactly happened in the ruins as well as our plans to rechallenge it. Silva, as she didn’t like humans at all, decided to stay around the vicinity of the ruins and keep watch, intending to send Igniculus or another spirit to inform us if something weird were to happen.

As we approached the village, the sun slowly began to appear high in the sky. It should be noon soon, I believe. To me, it was quite surprising to find out that we were stuck inside those ruins for a whole day, but I guess we did sleep inside. I should take this moment and get used to the whole dungeoneer part of being an adventurer if I want to have “fun” in the future dungeon trips our party will partake in.

Once we reached the village’s gates, the guards seemingly recognized us and called the guard captain to us. He greeted us with a wide smile and stated that he was relieved to see us, afraid the worst would have happened to us, similar to the past adventures.

“Please, tell me the problem is gone,” the guard captain begged bluntly.

However, pouring water over his head, I shook my head. “We know what the problem is, and we intend to solve it, however, we need some time to rest if possible. Could you lead us to the village chief? I’ll give you our report with him.”

He quickly apologized for not realizing our current condition and quickly led us through the gates and into the village. Inside, the village seemed to have regained some normality of life again as the villagers, well, continued with life. The attack from yesterday wasn’t very destructive when it came to buildings or furniture, as the onnikai probably were more focused on the humans, so there probably was little reconstruction duty.

“I do not see any of the soldiers,” Saori mumbled, which seemed to have landed in the guard captain’s ears.

He wryly laughed as he answered, “Well, they are our lord’s soldiers. The seneschal said the castle might get attacked if we leave too many soldiers around the village, so he declined the chief’s wish. Well, we still have a lot of able-bodied militia and guardsmen thanks to the Lady Priestess’ white grace, so I don’t think we should complain that much.”

Considering you guys were having trouble with that “small” raid group, I think you should be more assertive with getting reinforcement! I kept this thought to myself, as saying it would probably do nothing for the village’s situation.

Once we reached the village chief’s house, he invited us inside. After his wife offered us some juice and fresh bread, our party gave the guard captain and the village chief a summary of what happened inside the ruins and what we still have to do. Unprepared, the guard captain and village chief paled as they listened to how large the horde of enemies was that we found as we ventured down into the ruins. They never would have guessed it would be this many.

Whether it was natural or not, the two also didn’t have much of an idea of what an onnikai was, so we had to explain to them why these faefolk were attacking the village specifically.

“But that doesn’t make sense. Our village respects nature, as it is part of our life. We-We don’t even have any access to any mana-fueled items, so how could we do anything to these creatures? We did them no harm!” The village chief was clearly frustrated when he heard the onnikai were attacking the village on the sole premise of revenge on humans.

Considering he wasn’t present during the “War for the Faefolk,” I guess I could understand why he would consider this situation unreasonable. For the normal person, this attack would look more like a one-sided aggression from the onnikai’s side. They lost neighbors and guardsmen due to the attack and they didn’t do anything to provoke this ire.

“Sir, I have a question,” Saori began. “There was a rumor that we heard before we accepted the Quest, that the alchemy guild had something to do with the ruins about a year ago. Could you give us some information on that time? Maybe it has something to do with what is happening to the village now.”

“A year ago?” the village chief raised a brow as he contemplated, before remembering. “Ahh, that’s correct! A year ago, the guild master of the alchemy guild led an expedition into the depths of the ruins, but they never really said for what reason. I didn’t think much about it at that time, since our Lord gave his permission and the alchemy guild has been buying off the herbs and mushrooms our lasses have been gathering nearby the giant forest. Young miss, you aren’t saying that this might have something to do with them, right?”

“Ah, I apologize if I made you worried. It was just a consideration due to the timing of this whole event. The alchemy guild did something inside the ruins and now an enraged onnikai is seeking to topple the village. It is simple speculation without any proof.” Although she didn’t have any evidence for her guess, those words still placed a seed of distrust within the guard captain and village chief.

Honestly, I want to believe Saori’s speculation. That orb on the pedestal is too suspicious to me that I have to question who placed it there.

“Ahh, Lady Priestess, that reminds me. Could I possibly ask you to give our village a sermon, in consideration of what just happened yesterday? We were beyond grateful for your timely rescue that saved many of our neighbors and brave guardsmen, but a few families still had to grieve for their lost relatives,” the village chief said. “I am sure these few families would be eternally grateful if you could bring the Goddess’s blessing on these dire times. Of course, if it isn’t too much work.”

Ahh, yes, my duty as a “priestess” of Aurena. Wait, I am an actual priestess now! This is kinda my duty…right? Ahh, whatever, casting a [Prayer] is as easy as snapping my fingers and my Mana has been regenerating since I exited the ruins, so this isn’t too much of a problem.

I agreed to the joyous village chief’s wish. The guard captain, having received orders from the village chief, excused himself and began alerting the village about the upcoming sermon. As my party hasn’t had any breakfast yet, the village chief’s sweet wife gladly prepared some slices of smoked game, cheese, and other farming goods as thanks for our help. As I had a feeling she wouldn’t take no for an answer, I just shut my mouth and enjoyed the free food.

After a while, the sermon started in an open area. Unlike Carine Village, which had a whole area reserved for religious worship, Rashan Village was smaller, so we had to take whatever area was large enough to accommodate all the villagers.

Looking at the villager’s faces, some were smiling like surprised kids as they were already in a praying pose, while others looked more serious and were praying more fervently. Some even cried.

As I understood that everybody came here for [Prayer], I immediately began without any short talk. I didn’t know anything about how to properly give out a sermon, as I never attended one of the temple’s during my whole time in Firwood, but I don’t think anybody can complain that I’m doing this wrong. They asked me to do one, so I’ll give them a Hestia’s special.

Unlike the [Prayer] that I performed in the ruins, this one was completely stylized. The spell is supposed to invoke religious favor during prayer, so singing the lyrics and having the villagers follow my words during the whole sermon was part of the play. It’s supposed to soothe people’s minds, so skipping this probably wouldn’t please anybody in attendance.

Once the giant white magic circle was filled with mana and the song was done, I cast [Prayer].

[Blessing of the Goddess of Light (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

The villagers erupted into cheer after it was done, praising Aurena and thanking her for sending me to them in their time of need. You know, religious stuff. I quickly excused myself from them and asked the village chief if my party could borrow a room for the night, as we wished to have some time to clean up and plan for tomorrow’s ruin delve. As most houses were occupied, he could only offer us a house that belonged to one of the perished guardsmen. We accepted.

The house was small, as it was only for a single person, but it was still large enough for all three of us to settle down and take a shower after what happened inside the ruin. Until dinner time, we took this chance just to rest and chill, while occasionally talking about the fight ahead and what we needed to prepare, tool-wise.

As Silva didn’t send us any messages, we just figured that tonight would be a quiet evening and went to sleep, right up until we were woken up in the middle of the night by Igniculous. We immediately got ready and sneaked out of the village under the guise of the night as the little light elemental guided us to Silva.

There, she showed us numerous onnikais wandering outside the ruins, roaming in groups as they gathered close to the village. The giant onnikai beast was nowhere to be seen, so they probably weren’t planning to attack now, but it still was ominous to watch them just linger around like the zombies they were.

“Tsk, they’ll endanger the village at this point even after we enter the ruins. We need to do something about this first.”

The second phase of this Quest begins now.

A note from AbyssRaven

Phase 2.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 12 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 125: Second Phase, Start!

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Not every noble demesne is the same, huh? House Helvas’s is literally a mansion with walls around it while Baron Teullon’s home is a castle.

While I wasn’t an expert on the homes of nobles, I have experienced a few of them, or more specifically, three. House Helvas’s mansions near Carine Village, Firwood, and that one home that House Helvas’s Viscount neighbor. As you can see, I am an expert. No joke, of course.

Jokes aside, this was my first encounter with a noble’s castle, and honestly, it fitted more with my image of how a noble would live outside a city or town. A defensive structure situated amid the wild, designed for the pure protection of both fief and home. Not only a bulwark for the noble’s family, but also a symbol of conflict for his enemies.

It scratches another fantasy itch, you know. I was aware I could’ve seen a lot of castles if I were to just tour around Europe; for example, “Edinburgh Castle” in Scotland is super famous. But, well, that option is kinda impossible now. So, watching the lonely, grey castle towering over me from inside these snow-white covered woods instead was just great. Sure, I’ve been saying that my “fantasy itch” has been scratched a lot, but can you blame me if I keep experiencing new stuff in this world?

Then, it kinda does peeve me that none of the people from this castle were doing exactly what I figured a noble should be doing: protecting their land and people. Ellaine always kept reiterating that nobles should serve as protectors of their lands honorary given to them by their masters, so I guess that impression must have been imprinted in my head. How funny that I was being influenced by Ellaine here.

“Who goes there?”

As my party was approaching the massive gates of Baron Teullon’s castle, a single soldier watching over the walls called out to us. He looked at my party for a moment before directing his eyes behind us — to the gathering of Rashan villagers who followed us up here.

“I greet you on this auspicious WindDay, Mister Soldier. Please, open the gates!” I shouted in response, so he could hear me.

“Huh?” flabbergasted at my sudden remark, the soldier took a moment to recompose himself. “This is the castle and demesne of Lord Baron Teullon! The gates will stay closed until orders are given to open them! Even the servant of the Goddess does not have the authority to order the opening of the gates!”

Well, ok, they recognize me at least.

I shrugged and continued speaking, “If you, Mister, cannot open up the gates, then I request you send for Captain Zik of Baron Teullon’s garrison.”

“Captain Zik? Well, he’s-”

“Are you rejecting my request? I can understand why opening the gates might be too much, I don’t wish to cause you any problems, but surely calling the captain of the army is the minimum courtesy you can afford. It is early in the morning on this winter day, and I have come here despite the cold. Will you send away a priestess of the Goddess when she wishes to speak?”

My insistence seemed to have persuaded the soldier, who nodded his head and literally ran away as he asked me to be patient.

After he was gone, I heaved a deep sigh as I complained to the person next to me. “…Urgh, speaking like this is so annoying. It really doesn’t suit me.”

“Hang on, Hestia. You are doing a fine impression as a noble. Just remember that we are doing this for the villagers.” Saori, whom I was complaining to, gave me an encouraging pat on the back.

“Yeah, I will. Straighten the back, chest out, and speak confidently while maintaining eye contact. Imitating Ellaine on this was the correct choice.” I scratched my head with a wry smile as I remembered the image of Ellaine giving out orders to her servants and retainers. I then walked over to the village chief who was standing a bit further behind me with the other Rashan villagers. “Mister Jorgen, how are you and the others faring?”

“Thank you, Lady Priestess. The cold isn’t good for me, but I’m pretty sure the others should be doing better than me and my wife, ha ha ha!” the elderly village chief joyfully answered. “However, is this really necessary? We can protect ourselves in the village, there is no need to get yourself in trouble for us, Lady Priestess. Even the Goddess wouldn’t want you to do this much for us when you’re about to head in a battle to protect our village.”

“Don’t be like that,” I bluntly denied his words. “Didn’t you hear what we said? The onnikai will lead another horde into the village and attack you while we are gone. Sure, we can get rid of this current horde, but the ruin is very deep. If we go to the bottom floor and some onnikai sneak past us and into the village, then can you really say that the guards are enough? You need to fight inside the castle with the soldiers, otherwise you’ll just be overwhelmed. This has nothing to do with Goddess Aurena.”

To begin the second phase of this Quest, our first objective was to get the villagers to safety, or at least get them to an environment where the chances of surviving is the highest. With the possibility of onnikais sneaking out while our party fought in the depths of the ruin, leaving the villagers inside their village would be too risky. We learned about the existence of Baron Teullon’s castle when we overheard the conversation between the guard and army captain, so that’s why we’re here.

Persuading the villagers themselves to move wasn’t much of a challenge, as most see me as a priestess of the church of Aurena after my sermon. I feel like a pastor who’s using their authority as a religious figure to move people purely through faith alone. It’s certainly an experience, and it’s certainly good that it happened now.

A few of the villagers were reluctant to go, even with my word, but that quickly dissipated once I informed them that the onnikai wasn’t interested in destroying their homes and belongings, but their cattle and lives. It was a “weather the storm” kinda moment for them. There were a few with some annoying reason that made them want to stay, but we handled it somewhat. I can calmly say that every single villager and guard was with us right now.

We waited for a while until Captain Zik appeared on the walls. Surprisingly, a man in a fine suit also showed himself.

“Lady Priestess?” Captain Zik said before noticing the village chief and Dan, the guard captain.

“I hope the winds of Goddess Zephira have found you well on this beautiful WindDay, Captain Zik. I have but a simple request for you: Please, open the gates and allow the villagers from Rashan village to enter and stay inside Baron Teullon’s castle while my party enters the ruins and eliminates the problem plaguing your Lord’s fief,” I stated in my noblest tone and conduct.

However, instead of Captain Zik responding, the man next to him moved forward and spoke, “Ah, a grandiose WindDay to you too, Lady Priestess of the Church of the Goddess. I am Evalk, the seneschal of the Teullon Barony. While I admire you for showing so much concern for our dear serfs, as the seneschal of Lord Baron Teullon, I cannot allow the gates to be open.”

Ahhh, so he’s the seneschal. Well, this will speed things up nicely.

“Ahh, the illustrious seneschal of Baron Teullon, it is a pleasure to meet you. This will expedite the process,” I said with genuine joy at this welcomed surprise. “Please, can you open the gates to let the villagers in? Our party will fulfill the Quest the moment they are safe.”

He raised a brow, looked at me for a moment, before widening his smile. “My Lady Priestess, I believe my voice is not powerful enough to deliver my words to you while this wall stands between us. Perhaps speaking over some tea will be more pleasant for you. However, my previous words still stand. I cannot open the gates.”

…He just called me deaf, huh? Hie, fair enough. I did just ignore what he said.

Placing my hand on my cheeks, I continued my current persona. “You cannot? Oh, may I know why?”

“Why, my Lady Priestess, isn’t it obvious? As the representative of Lord Baron Teullon in these lands, I cannot afford to risk his lordship’s home. I have heard a very clear report from Captain Zik, and news of the previous adventurer group has appeared, which makes me worry for my Lord’s land. As the seneschal, I must choose the correct choice to protect his possessions.”

“Oh, then what about the villagers? Isn’t their safety important, too?” Directing my hand behind me, I presented the mass of villagers standing before the castle walls. Their eyes bore through at the seneschal.

He acknowledged them for a second, but the next moment he began stroking his beard as if he wasn’t affected by it. “I heard the reports from the village chief about what you told everybody. A horde of these ‘onnikais’ was inside the ruins, yes? Truly terrifying. I will make sure to send a few soldiers to reinforce the garrison of the village while your Ladyship fixes the problem at its roots. It sounds like a plan, no?”

The seneschal looked so smug when he said that. He was about to say goodbye to me, but…

“Huh? Are you possibly deaf or just forgetful?” The seneschal froze in place, his expression began to harden as his eye twitched for a split-second. “Didn’t I say that I will fulfill the Quest the moment the villagers are guaranteed their safety? Do you believe I would simply have brought the villagers to the castle in the first place without considering other options? Does Baron Teullon have so little care for his subjects, or are you the problem here, Seneschal?”

“…Hmph! Impudent!” the seneschal responded. “How rude of you to think so little of my Lord, Lady Priestess! There is courtesy to be shown to a servant of the Goddess, but you are exceeding my patience! Lady Priestess, mind I remind you that you are an adventurer who has accepted our Lord’s Quest as a representative of the hunter’s guild? Why are you threatening me that you will not fulfill the Quest if we do not fulfill your demands? There is a limit to a Priestess’ authority, especially from a foreign one!”

Sure, there is a limit to a priestess’ words. I’m just a “priestess” now, and a foreigner to boot. It wouldn’t make sense for my words to have the same authority that a clergyman from Firwood would have.

However, I am not just a priestess.

“Saori, your turn.”

With that simple command, Saori activated [Air Walk] and quickly ascended to eye level with Captain Zik and the Seneschal Evalk. She then pulled out a parchment hidden inside her jacket, rolled it open, and began reading from it.

“‘With this official document signed by me, Marquess Lambhart Richard Sirius, I attest to the identity of the person holding it. Under my authority as the Lord of Firwood and an advisor to Lord Duke Isaac Albreaus Greenveil, I hereby grant full ownership of this document to Hestia Atsuko. Under the authority given to me by Lord Duke Isaac Albreaus Greenveil and His Royal Majesty, King Artorias — the noble, Hestia Atsuko, from the Dragonewt Country, Loatryx, will be granted the privilege of a temporary Greifnoble of the Kingdom of Artorias while she remains in the Duchy of Greenveil and the lands of His Royal Majesty, The King. This magic contract was signed under the scrutiny of all involved Lords and the eyes of the Goddess!’”

A smile crept on my face. “Captain Zik, you have seen my name on my ID, the day before yesterday. What is my name?!”

Shocked at what just transpired, Captain Zik gulped before bowing his head slightly. “Lady Hestia Atsuko! Captain Zik of Lord Baron Teullon’s army, welcomes you to the Teullon Barony!”

In general, a member of the church would usually have a higher social standing than a schwertnoble, which includes barons and baronets, but would be lower than a magnoble and greifnoble. However, as not every white-robed priest and priestess is a noble, commoner-born clergy would rarely ever be treated better than even a baron. There is a certain amount of respect that must be given as a servant of Aurena, but that was all.

Villagers like the people from Carine and Rashan Village have been taught to treat every white-robed clergy as a noble, so the respect I got from them was already ingrained in them. However, people from the city or with a decent education knew better. Not every priest is a noble, and you can differentiate a noble from a commoner from the design of their white robes.

Mine was decently decorated thanks to Saori and I have been recognized as a noble quite often, but I also was able to see how a real noble-born priest’s white robe would look like. From my visit to the temple in Firwood, I was able to see the robes of shrine maidens, priests, priestesses, and also the high bishop to get an impression of how they were supposed to look like. Compared to most of them, mine was a bit minimalistic. Which went contrary to the noble’s mindset of maximalism.

I don’t know if his tone was due to me being a dragonewt, and therefore a foreigner, or ‘cause he thought I was a commoner. Now, I don’t like using my status to change how people treat me, but this was necessary for today. If the seneschal had complied, I would have kept my identity hidden.

But that is not how it went. Using the super scary document from Marquess Sirius, I had planned to strongarm the situation and just brute force myself to a favorable situation. You know, I didn’t learn about the fact that the King actually gave me the rights of a greifnoble until I read the document.

When Ellaine told her servants to treat me like a greifnoble, I thought it was just her consideration to me, but I was wrong. They had to treat me like a greifnoble, it wasn’t even an option not to. Those guards we scared off with this document — yeah, I felt bad for them already, but now I feel even worse. This document truly is the scariest thing I ever held in my hands!

“Seneschal Evalk, do tell me where Baron Teullon is. Where is your Lord, and why isn’t he here to protect his land, honorably given to him by Lord Duke Greenveil?” I demanded to know. I thought addressing a duke properly should be something I should do in this situation to show I care about status.

“Uh, uhm,” he stuttered while forming his words. “H-He and his family are currently at t-the capital. They attended the Origdiviel Arashan balls held by His Royal Majesty, the King.” Unlike his previous attitude, the seneschal’s current one was pretty meek.

“The capital? Excuse me, but it is already WinterSun! The new year! This Quest has been up for more than a month and your Lord has not made it back to his fief to take care of the situation? I heard the nobles of the Kingdom of Artorias are supposed to be the elite and protector of the land. Your Lord was given this fief by a Duke, but he cannot even find the time to protect his subjects? This is embarrassing,” with no will to stop driving in the dagger, I continued knocking the seneschal down from his high horse. “I am here as an adventurer to solve the Quest, not as a priestess nor a noble. However, while my Job is to secure the safety of the villagers, I am sure I didn’t have to persuade them to come to their Lord’s castle and then ask refuge for them, right? Isn’t this the duty of Baron Teullon?”

I continued. “Is Baron Teullon incompetent? A foreign noble is taking care of his subject for him, while he is frolicking in court? Does he have no respect for Lord Duke Greenveil, or why is he managing the fief given to him so poorly? Meanwhile, his seneschal, his representative, not only rudely insults this very same noble as deaf, but also actively goes against any attempts to properly protect his Lord’s subjects. What have you to say of yourself, Seneschal Evalk?”

Still standing in the air, Saori spoke in her aloof tone, “You stand before Lady Hestia Atsuko.”

“…Open the gates, now!”

He certainly expedited the process.

Once the gates were open, I told the guard captain and village chief to lead the villagers inside. They were visibly surprised to hear what was written on the document, but they quickly adapted to it. To them, a greifnoble and a schwertnoble was practically the same thing. It was likely comparing super spicy with super-hot spicy for somebody who couldn’t eat any spicy food in the first place.

Inside, the army captain Zik and seneschal Evalk walked up to me and bowed themselves before excusing themselves for their previous behavior. I told them to stand up and make sure the villagers would be safe while my party was away dealing with the problem inside the ruins. They accepted it immediately.

After the seneschal slithered away, Captain Zik once again bowed his head to thank me, “Lady Hestia, I would like to thank you for persuading the seneschal. As the captain of the army, I will make sure to protect everybody.”

“Don’t worry about it. I did it for the sake of the Quest, nothing else really. I don’t really deserve any praise for something this obvious,” I responded. I then took out a bag and gave it to Zik. “Here you go. We won’t be able to help and I don’t know how many of the onnikais will attack the castle, so consider this insurance on my part. They are consumable items that I created that should prove useful once a siege begins.”

Captain Zik accepted the bag and took out one of its content. It was a round rock with a pin attached to its top, while its side had a large “W” painted on the side. “What is this?” He asked, frowning in confusion.

“This is a ‘bomb.’ They are tools I created using my magic. Once you pull off this pin, immediately throw the bomb into a horde of onnikai. Once a few seconds pass, the bomb will create a giant explosion,” I explained, causing the captain to pale. “Don’t worry, it's relatively safe if you follow my instructions correctly. I suggest only you or somebody you trust should use them, as they can cause accidents if you don’t listen to my words. I made two versions: one with normal fire marked with a giant ‘C’ for crimson, and ‘W’ for white. Think of the C bombs as dragon fire bombs made by a dragonewt and the W bombs as the holy flames of Goddess Aurena.”

“…I understand. Thank you very much, I swear I will return them to you if we are lucky enough to not use them,” he bowed once again before turning to the guard captain Dan. “Dan! Bring the guards and militia to the armory! Lead the women and children into the basement of the castle, and any able man should register at the armory. We will get them ready to protect our land!”

“Good luck. Also, when you see the forest turn into a sea of fire, that’s me fighting, so don’t come close.” With that last message, I left the two captains.

After we said goodbye to the villagers and soldiers, our party returned to the woods where Silva was waiting for us. As we will depart soon, we once again redistributed the potions and tools around.

“Okay, from the five minor mana potions that Saori brought, Tasianna used one in our previous battle. Good choice, safety is the top priority, after all,” I said to calm Tasianna down from blaming herself. “With Silva’s portion, we have eight minor mana potions, two minor health potions, and two moderate health potions. There is also a minor agility potion. You three take them all and don’t be stingy about them.”

They nodded.

“Here are a few bombs and also all the dragorade I still have in reserve. Use them and stay alive, alright? I won’t be able to help.”

Saori scoffed at my worry and smiled wryly. “Yes, but your role will be the most stressful. It isn’t noon just yet, but it is winter so dusk will come sooner. You need to hold on until we solve everything on our side. Jeez, this plan is too dangerous.”

“Miss Saori, this is the plan that we all agreed on. We are all strong. We will save the onnikai and finish the battle before the sun goes down,” Tasianna adamantly stated.

“Don’t worry, Saori. Don’t forget, a sunfang dragon never loses when the sun is up. While I can keep my sun core at 100% while going all out, I am a powerhouse.” I reassured the worried Saori. Still, my statement was never actually put to the test so I guess this will be the first time. Hopefully, I’m not a braggart.

“Yes, yes, I do worry too much sometimes. I have to trust in our party’s strength,” Saori said, before turning to Silva. “Miss Silva, are you sure that the onnikai beast won’t interrupt us once the battle begins?”

“Yes,” Silva answered. “Since the onnikai beast is an accumulation of the onnikai’s mana, it won’t be able to disrupt us once it’s led away. It’s like a fairy once its mana solidifies. Of course, this is assuming that the onnikai will focus all its mana into the beast to strengthen it and then send it to fight us.”

[Music Resonation (Minor)] [Blessing of the Goddess of Light (Moderate)] [Sanctified Blaze ] [Various Spell Buffs] [Insatiable Glutton] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

With our preparations finished, Saori, Tasianna, and Silva hid behind some ruins while I entered the ruin entrance.

“Good luck, guys!”

“Stay safe, Hestia!”

I charged into the ruins. My destination? The depths. I was thinking of simply breaking through the floor and descending down that way, but I’m still scared that the ruins would simply break and cave in. Finding the entrance while leaving behind a trail of mana thread was the safest way for me to do this.

Any zombies that stood in my way would be obliterated on sight. I couldn’t afford to be slowed down as the plan our party was currently running was heavily constricted by time. Whether it was Mana or Stamina, I used up my resources liberally. I don’t know how long it took me, but once I reached the third floor with the giant hole caused by the onnikai beast, I knew I was close to my goal.

I jumped down the hole and made my way to the last floor. There, in the last chamber, a giant beast stood with its army of onnikai zombies and four wolf guardians. The form of the onnikai beast has changed once again.

It still had the body of a centaur, but its body looked like it was completely covered up with black armor while it held onto a large shadowy warhammer. The onnikai beast looked a bit like a knight riding on a horse in this form. Certainly, due to its giant size and menacing-looking black form, the onnikai beast looked the part of a boss now.

“Yooooouuuuu! Haaaaveee reeeetuuurrrned! Giiivvveeee meeeeee-” the voice of the boss resounded through the chamber but was interrupted before it could finish its monologue.

A ray of white flames burst out of my mouth and shot into the army of onnikai, incinerating a portion of them. “Look here, you useless hikkokomori, all your mana is inside these plants! If you want it, then catch me you piece of shit! Bye, sucker!” Provoking them with the macula plants I made yesterday using the onnikai’s mana, I dashed out of the room as fast as I entered it.

“…Gurooooaaawhhhhh! Kiiiiiiillllllll!”

A thundering roar chased behind me as bellowing footsteps became clearer and clearer. Looking behind me, a horde of zombies were hot on my tail while the onnikai beast gave chase by contorting its body to fit through the hallways. Weirdly, the garms didn’t chase me.

Following the path I took to descend down, I ascended through the ruins in a mad rush without worrying about anything else. The onnikai beast would occasionally shoot out black projectiles or other attacks to slow me down, but using my spells to protect myself was easy enough with my defensive skills warning me about the attacks.

After a while, I exited the ruins while the onnikai beast kept screaming and screaming non-stop. Following the plan, I led the onnikai beast away from the ruins and into the forest. Meanwhile, music began to play.

Loud electric violins and guitars began playing, accompanying me and the onnikai horde in our chase. Once the drums began to play, I felt like I was attending an electronicore band’s concert, as the heavy sounds of the percussion fused with the shrill electric music.

.

“In my purgatory, I make the devil cry ♫

In Hellfire ♫

All you hear are his screams, begging to be released ♫

It’s Music ♫”

.

A blue mist exited my body and two long, crimson scaled wings spread. The music continued playing as I entered even deeper into the woods. It had to be as far away as the ruins as possible.

Once enough distance was made, I took off my party bracelet and amulet of Aurena and put them inside my storage. I stopped and my voice resounded through the woods once again.

“I descend on Earth with Wings of Death! ♫”

The surrounding trees burst into flames. No plant, no stone, no insect was left untouched as the whole woods turned into a sea of fire with the snap of my finger, scorching this place like hell on Earth. A wall of flames marked the edge of this purgatory, incinerating anything attempting to escape outside this arena.

[Music Resonation (Moderate)] [Stage Fever (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

.

“A Storm of Fury ♫

Creating Ash and Dust ♫

I am the Incarnation of the Sun ♫

I shine so brightly, I bring your death ♫

My lineage belongs to the God of Dragons! ♫”

.

Blue mist once again covered me, but this time, it blocked my whole body like a veil. My limbs grew larger, my muscles began to expand, and my bone spikes erupted from my body. My whole body wasn’t just being armored with scales, but the scales grew to a size that could serve any human as a decent small shield.

Once the mana mist disappeared, my eyes locked with the onnikai beast’s. A low rumbling could be heard exiting from my mouth, while the ground beneath me was crushed under my weight.

I am a dragon.

[“So, how do you like the present? I made sure to find a proper stage for our battle and music to make this a legendary encounter. You know, I haven’t gone wild for a looooong time!”]

Fire appeared from the ground, not due to my scale-dust, but through the power of my second [Idol] song [Dragon Fire]. It was the first “damage” based song that I created and it had the special ability to not only imprison anybody to wander inside my arena but also independently produce flames to attack my enemies. It was a boss stage creating song.

[“We’ll be spending some time together, so hopefully you’ve become stronger as I told you to be! You will receive the privilege to fight me in my true form!”]

“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, maaaanaaaaaa! Youuuu! Eneeeeemyyyy! Kiiillllll!”

Suddenly, the onnikai beast form changed once again. Its head grew in size as a purple-black aura began forming around its body before it traveled to the front of its mouth. [Danger Perception] and [Foresight] were warning me like crazy as they told me to dodge the attacks at all cost. In my dragon form, my [Draconic Barrier] was supported with my higher Vitality and Wisdom stat, so tanking a couple attacks was the easiest in my true form, so hearing my skills tell me I can’t take this attack was a bit frightening.

I have come this far by listening to my instincts and skills, so I didn’t even hesitate the use pounce to the side like a lion. My dragon body looked pretty cumbersome with all my spikes and carapace making me look like a tank, but I still had an agile, serpent-like body designed to stay mobile since my days as a [Young Spark Fire Dragon].

After dodging, the onnikai beast released a giant ball from its mouth, shooting and landing at the location where I used to stand. A massive black explosion erupted from the spot, scorching the location in a liliac light and leaving a crater behind. It then looked at me for a moment, changed its body back to a centaur but keeping its eldritch-like head with spikes as teeth.

Ok, ok, you got stronger. Definitely creepier, though.

With the noon sun glaring down on me, I activated [Purple Flash] and quick-cast [Symphony des Feuergottes] as I think using my whole power would be the best choice now. A massive red magic circle appeared in the sky and a rain of fire poured down onto me for a second, erasing a massive amount of onnikai zombies that got locked inside the arena while they were chasing me.

[Symphonie des Feuergottes Movement (Allegro)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Flames began surrounding me like moths attracted to light, rotating around my body in a defensive formation. The music of [Dragon Fire] was booming through without any signs of stopping, accompanying this battle like inside a video game.

“Scales of steel, claws of destruction ♫

The Dragon Fire will scorch the lands ♫

The Idol will never fall ♫

She will bring Absolution! ♫”

My voice was being accurately replayed through [Aerokinesis], making this whole song feel like battle music. It empowered me.

[“Welcome to my stage. Let’s rock ‘n roll.”]

A note from AbyssRaven

Bet you didn't expect that, huh? A real boss must have an arena!

Today's song belongs to "Bury the Light" from Devil May Cry 5! Or otherwise known as "I AM THE STORM THAT IS APPROACHING!"

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 12 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 126: Unquenchable Fire Vs. Undying Beast.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“I descend on Earth with Wings of Death! ♫

A Storm of Fury ♫

Creating Ash and Dust ♫

I am the Incarnation of the Sun ♫

I shine so brightly, I bring your death ♫

My lineage belongs to the God of Dragons! ♫

.

Scales of steel, claws of destruction ♫

The Dragon Fire will scorch the lands ♫

The Idol will never fall ♫

She will bring Absolution! ♫”

.

“GRAWRRRRRRRRR!”

“KRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!”

Accompanied by a buffet of ear-shattering roars, white flames erupted out of my draconic mouth and engulfed the area in front of me. Having already felt the sting of my [White Flames] in our previous bout, the onnikai beast wasted no time and immediately dodged to the side and launched its counterattack.

Using the shadow cast by my flames, the onnikai beast drove its arms into them, causing large black spikes to erupt from the ground. Instead of avoiding them, I ground my tail on the ground to set it on fire, then turned the crimson fire into holy flames. Seeing as I was about the size of a larger elephant with scales harder than conventional armor covering my whole body, simply brute forcing through attacks and then healing myself would save me from doing unnecessary moves.

I still remember how the guild master would tank a few attacks to create a more advantageous situation for himself. To win battles, I should learn when to dodge and when to tank attacks. A fight is settled not by who took the most damage, but by who is standing at the end of it all.

With my tail covered in white flames, I slashed at the shadowy spikes with it like a sword. Meanwhile, I turned my head towards the onnikai with my breath attack still active, the flames chasing after the beast. The beast, realizing that its large size was becoming disadvantageous, contorted its form into something smaller and more agile. It abandoned the hands it had in the shadow, disabling the spikes attacking me, and deftly moved to avoid my flames. As it was a being of mana like Silva explained, its hand quickly regenerated from the surrounding’s mana…and mine as well.

Even with [Mana Leak Resistance Lv. 10], my mana was still being siphoned by the beast right now. As it seemed like the beast is the cause for the siphoning mana, my party’s plan was for me to become bait and prevent the beast from protecting its core, the onnikai inside the orb. While I was buying time by fighting this thing, my party would sneak into the ruin and fulfill the Quest.

Silva explained that, as this onnikai beast was a concentration of mana, the orb would lose a ton of its accumulated mana if this thing were to separate from its core. It could probably protect itself with some attacks and control the surrounding onnikais, but the boss onnikai wouldn’t be able to create another onnikai beast while the first was away.

That’s why my job was to stall this thing as the one with infinite regeneration under the sun. A sustain tank vs. a sustained tank. With the beast’s ability to suck the mana from my fire and from me, wasn’t it bad for me if this fight took too long? Well, yeah, but what can you do? I have to trust in Saori and the rest to finish their battle as soon as possible while I keep this thing pre-occupied.

I know I got myself into this but now that I think about it, isn’t this guy an infinitely regenerating opponent bent on killing me? Urgh, why me…

With my inner turmoil still on-going, my parallel minds immediately went to work and began casting spells — distorting the ground with earth spells, distracting the enemy with wind spells, shooting out pain with holy spells and controlling the white flames surrounding me and the area with [Pyrokinesis]. Although they weren’t a threat to me and I wasn’t targeting them, the remaining onnikai zombies were getting decimated through the collateral damage caused by my attacks. Whether the onnikai themselves survived, I didn’t think about it.

The onnikai beast, having adapted to the situation, decided its more imposing form was just a hindrance to it and began moving around by contorting its form. Its limbs would grow in numbers and turn into spider legs whenever it needed to move or jump, its torso would transform into a snake-like form to slither through my attacks, and it would conjure up shadowy spikes or hands from shadows to attack me. In a way, this beast was acting extremely similar to a slime, using its special physiology to its advantage.

“Kraaaaaaaaahhhh!”

My roar resonated with my music and a blast of loud sounds pushed the beast back even as it tried to cut me with hands shaped into mantis-like claws. The push back worked, but the damage part wasn’t as effective. For one thing, I don’t think it had eardrums. Secondly, the damage caused by the sonic vibrations was quickly healed up as it sucked in mana from the area.

Honestly, seeing it do that made me annoyed. I still remember the evolution option of becoming a mana dragon and gaining a mana body like this beast. I don’t know why I was feeling like this right now, but I felt a bit envious. “Verdammt, couldn’t my tanking ability be like this beast’s if I had chosen that option back then?” I thought, but I shook it off completely the next moment. I had no time to think about spilled milk.

The continuous shadow spike attacks repeated once again, but this time, I controlled the flames surrounding me from [Symphonie des Feuergottes] and used them as a shield against the spikes. Coating my tail and using it to get rid of this attack was viable, but I felt I would be wasting time.

Deciding Farron’s tips during our spars weren’t working for me right now, I forwent with a proper magician’s battle style of keeping a distance and temporarily returned to my normal battle style. I was a dragon right now, not a mage.

Using the flames of the Symphonie as armor, I rushed into close combat with the beast. With my tail still covered in white flames, I twisted my body and slammed my blade-like tail down in an arc. [Hellblade Edge] was fully online. The onnikai sidestepped the attack, but it seemed it forgot about my scale-dust. Once my tail touched the ground, a scale-dust explosion ignited, spreading some of the white flames around with it. The beast staggered from the damage.

A chance! Exactly how he did it!

Imitating Farron’s [Storm Devastation], I swiped my tail back and twisted my body and jumped, turning my body around to slam my tail onto the onnikai once again in a quick motion. This time, my aim was true and sliced a few of its spider-like limbs off. Without wasting another second, the third slash of my imitated [Storm Devastation] continued with another twist and jump. I somersaulted and slammed my tail for the third hit like a hammer onto the ground, carving not only a large chunk of the onnikai’s body but also the ground.

Split apart — due to my experience with my past opponents, it should be my win — but the onnikai beast wasn’t exactly restricted to the concept of “dying when your Health reaches zero.” As long as it had mana, it would always come back, just like it did when I “destroyed” it in our previous fight. That was the advantage of being a mana-based creature.

The beast’s split body enlarged into an opened giant mouth with long tusks and fangs just large enough to swallow me whole. It attempted to crunch me like an oreo, but by using [Wind Blast] on my wings, I made a quick escape from its attack.

Once I gained some distance, spells began flying toward the onnikai. It shapeshifted back into a more maneuverable form and avoided them, but I didn’t let it get away from me. Like a jaguar, I pounced at the beast and used my tail once again to cut away some of its regenerated spider legs; however, I additionally used this chance to grind my teeth, setting off another scale-dust explosion.

Mangled, the onnikai beast reappeared out of the shade from a nearby tree, having probably escaped through a shadow.

“Kuruuuoooooh!”

Its mouth transformed back into that weird cone-shaped face it had when it shot that lilac exploding shot. That very same dark aura began accumulating around its body, signaling it was about to shoot out that attack once again. However, I was prepared for it this time.

Instead of letting it shoot the attack, I used [Rumbling Might], causing the very earth to shake violently like an earthquake. To add to the disruption, [Bedrock Blades] erupted from the ground. The combined power of these two spells stopped the shot’s build up and created an opening that I very gladly took advantage of.

I blasted the beast with more spells to weaken it, then used [Earthen Shackles] to wrapped it up in vines of rock, restricting it from moving despite having regenerated its limbs from my spell barrage. Then, with [Pyrokinesis], the white flames forming my armor separated from me and surrounded the beast in them, continuously dealing damage and forcing it to regenerate. Meanwhile, [Dragon Fire] was still playing and creating new flames to erupt from the ground, supporting me by dealing even more damage to the onnikai beast.

Continuously fighting the beast would prove too much, even for me. The sun might be helping my regeneration, but the constant action would drain my mental fatigue. I mean, dealing with a constantly regenerating monster is plainly no fun and just annoying. Instead of fighting it, I decided that capturing it should be far easier.

The onnikai was struggling inside its shackles and I’ve already checked with [Detection Sensor] that all the remaining zombies inside my [Dragon Fire]’s arena were defeated already. It was only the beast and me inside this area now. I’ll just keep this thing down and hope my team will deal with this situation soon.

While I was taking a breather, seeing as the situation seemed to be in control, my [Foresight] and [Danger Perception] strangely began to warn me about multiple attacks coming from many different directions. My skills were telling me I was surrounded by attacks, but my parallel minds and I were just confused. What attacks? I couldn’t see anything coming from the ground. There was nothing.

“Krikrikrikrikri! Onniiiikaaaiiii, neeeevvveeer aloooonnneee!” A creaky voice came from the beast, sending a chill down my spine when I suddenly noticed a few black veils of mist appearing around me. From thin air, the mists materialized and became thicker, before a black goo-like material was formed and turned into several cone-like heads with opened mouths.

“Onnnikkkaaaaiiiii reeeeeeveeeengeeee! Paaaiiiiiiin toooo huuumaaaanssss! Kiiilllll iinnnnteeeeerrlopeeerrrrr! Feeeeeellll! Ouuurrrr! Paaaiiiiiiiiiiin!”

I didn’t have a defensive spell on hold and a dark aura was already surrounding the floating heads. I recalled the white flames surrounding the onnikai beast and used them to reform my armor in the little time I had before the heads opened their mouths. Unfortunately, I wasn’t fast enough. The flames didn’t make it time and I had to use my wings to defend myself.

Balls of dark energy began to bombard me. They were less in intensity compared to the onnikai beast’s, evident from the lack of urgency that my [Danger Perception] sounded the alarm with, but the attacks still stung me, penetrating [Draconic Barrier] due to being a dark element. I was caught off-guard, I didn’t even think the onnikai beast was able to give its mana to the surrounding onnikai without its core.

Honestly, how did the onnikai controlling the zombies survive in the first place? I thought I destroyed them, but they were appearing around me like flies. I also don’t know how the beast was able to give these onnikais mana to form that dark slime, but who cares right now. I needed to get out of this predicament.

The moment my white flames began blocking some of the attacks, I activated [Dreadflare Aura] for a moment and sent the flames at the floating heads with a heat explosion, causing them to disappear. Once freed from their attacks, [Sanctified Blaze] and [White Flames] began to automatically heal me, while I materialized two [Molten Guard] to protect me.

This lava spell was similar to Tasianna’s [Frozen Shield], as it formed a shield-like construct. It couldn’t float on its own, similar to [Frozen Shield]; however, with [Pyrokinesis] and [Cryokinesis], Tasianna and I could control our respective spells and have them hover around us defensively. The only problem was that mine was only able to move slowly, as lava was a combination of fire and earth, and I couldn’t control earth as I didn’t have the associated “-kinesis” skill for it.

Focused on protecting myself, the beast freed itself from its binding and began attacking me once again with shadow spikes and its numerous growing claws. In addition, the smaller onnikais supported it by forming coneheads to shoot at me with their dark balls. The onnikai was adapting more and more the longer we fought.

While it had the ability to continuously suck mana and adapt to its body to suit a new situation, it still had the same flaw it had since day one: it lacked fighting experience.

I didn’t exactly know how high level it was, as I didn’t want to activate [Mana Eyes] to look at its profile. My brain always began hurting when I activated the skill in a mana filled area. However, I do think I have an upper hand when it comes to pure stats due to all my buffs and skills, in addition to the fighting experience I gathered until now.

The onnikai beast, on the other hand, didn’t seem very capable up until now. Sure, it was adapting and using new strategies to fight against me, seeing as it did catch me off-guard just now, but that was it. Even now, with all the abilities it was showing and with the help of the numerous onnikai in the surrounding, I wasn’t feeling very pressured.

[Symphonie des Feuergottes Movement (Adagio)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

With spells and dragon abilities, I kept the numerous floating heads at bay and adapted to any changes and moves the beast did. Whether it assumed a new form to fight me and gave the weaker onnikais more mana and new forms, I countered them and always dealt some damage to the beast.

This ping-pong match continued and continued. Time wasn’t even a thought for me at this point. The only reason why I was keeping an eye on how long this battle has lasted is due to my buffs. Until now, I had to renew my whole buff line-up twice. Something like more than an hour should have passed already.

There was also the case of my [Symphonie des Feuergottess] having switched to the next movement: adagio. In a normal musical symphony, the first movement is usually either a sonata or allegro. In simple terms, allegro and adagio are terms used to determine the tempo of the music played. Allegro means fast and bright, while adagio is a slow movement.

Symphonie des Feuergottes Movement (Allegro)

Flames burning as fast as flashfire, increasing the caster’s Agility by half of the base amount. All fire elemental attacks increase in strength

Symphonie des Feuergottes Movement (Adagio)

Flames burning slowly with powerful notes, increasing the caster’s Strength and Intelligence by half of the base amount. Mana consumption of all spells is reduced by 50%

These were their effects created through [Symphonie des Feuergottes]. I can shit-talk Shiterno as much as I wanted, but I must admit he did well to properly represent the different movements of a symphony in a spell’s effect. It worked similar to a boss’ multi-stage battles.

Allegro made me super fast and strong, increasing all my fire attacks greatly. It rewarded me for pushing myself to end a battle as soon as possible, like a blitzkrieg. Adagio on the other wants me to fight slower, increasing the damage from my attacks while also decreasing the mana costs of all my spells. It was the perfect stage for a more mage-like battle plan.

But that wasn’t the point, the point I wanted to make is that a ton of time has gone by already. And the attrition was wearying me down.

I was doing fine with my Mana as the sun was still blazing, and as I burned down the portion of the woods inside [Dragon Fire]’s arena, nothing was blocking me from absorbing solar rays. The beast hadn’t noticed my reliance on the sun yet, but it did try to attack my core once or twice. After blocking those attempts, I shielded my precious core with [Corrosive Fire]’s purple obsidian armor.

However, while Mana wasn’t a problem, Stamina was. My racial unique skill [Solar Core], which enabled me to transform solar energy into Health, Mana, or Stamina, could only turn the sun rays into one of the three resources at a time, not all at once. [Insatiable Glutton] was gone and I was feeling a bit winded.

Through stuff like the adagio stage, [True Draconic Lineage], and my many mana cost reduction skills, the costs of my spells, dragon abilities, and keeping up my song active, wasn’t a problem for me. In fact, I felt so amazing that I was able to use these many attacks for the fraction of their actual mana costs. The magic slinger dream was becoming true with my skill set.

So, it’s just a bit annoying that I couldn’t exactly afford to switch from transforming solar energy into Stamina to feed me. I was still using mana like crazy, and that was becoming a detriment to my Stamina. The attrition battle was making me tired.

I eventually decided to stop putting all my focus on Mana. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, right? In the time adagio was active, I should take care of my Stamina. I wasn’t doing this battle correctly. I shouldn’t be fighting crazily, I should be taking it slowly and prioritize sustainability. This battle was a good lesson for me to learn how to fight slower, instead, of my usual rush down tactic.

After another rotation of buffing spells, the onnikai suddenly stopped moving and directed its head towards a location. It shrieked for a moment and ran off in that direction.

Is that the ruins? Ah! It has to be! You guys!

Were they fighting the onnikai boss right now and putting it in a corner, or did they reach the chambers right now? I didn’t know what they were doing right now, as we had no way to communicate. Have they been fighting the onnikai up until now or were they starting it now? I had no clue.

But what I did know was they just caused the onnikai beast to panic. Whatever they were doing, this single act was enough to relight my motivation. The fatigue inside my muscles and mind vanished without a trace. I was fired up and ready to rock!

Smirking, I watched as the beast and lower onnikai rushed desperately to the edge of the arena, slowly following them as I knew what would happen. Once there, I saw the onnikais storm at the large inferno wall roaring, as if the flames were singing along to [Dragon Fire]’s lyrics. Expectantly, the onnikai couldn’t break through the wall.

It is for one reason only.

Dragon Fire

A song created by the Idol   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]. Through the image of becoming the epitome of challenge and opposition, clad in the fiery inferno of a dragon’s lair, this song will create a stage fit for an idol dragon to fight. Through the power of song and fire, enemies must fight against the ruler of this hellfire as the spotlight is shined on this battle between fates. An arena of fire is created while this song is active, preventing every entity from exiting the arena. All enemies affected by [Music Resonation] will receive these effects: Become the target for periodic fire attacks created by this song. Receive 10% more damage from all fire and dragon attacks and abilities. All entities affected by [Music Resonation] will receive these effects: All water spells and abilities will lose 50% of their effectiveness. All ice spells and abilities will lose 50% of their effectiveness

[Dragon Fire] didn’t have as powerful of an effect as [The Will to Fight and Survive] in my opinion; but I couldn’t say it was weak. It was powerful, as expected of a song created through my unique skill [Idol]. Honestly, it took me a while to realize that a more metal song would fit pretty well with a damage-based song. The additional effects, like making water and ice spell practically useless inside the area and creating an inescapable arena were awesome add-ons, though.

[The Will to Fight and Survive] is a great boss song to make me and my allies more powerful, but I have to admit that [Dragon Fire] was the more fitting boss battle theme. It even created a debuffing aura to weaken my enemies while creating my fire arena. I couldn’t be more proud of the song, I must say.

For this reason, the onnikai beast couldn’t escape. No matter what it tried, the flames rejected the beast and floating heads, keeping them inside. It was similar to those irritating invisible walls that game developers put inside games to annoy players.

[“I descend on Earth with Wings of Death! ♫

A Storm of Fury ♫

Creating Ash and Dust ♫

I am the Incarnation of the Sun ♫

I shine so brightly, I bring your death ♫

My lineage belongs to the God of Dragons! ♫

Scales of steel, claws of destruction ♫

The Dragon Fire will scorch the lands ♫

The Idol will never fall ♫

She will bring Absolution! ♫”]

I sang while transmitting it telepathically to the onnikai beast, literally taunting it.

[“Sorry, sorry, but you aren’t going anywhere. My party will finish your core. You will lose this fight,”] I told the onnikai. [“Until then, let’s continue dancing together, alright, partner~”]

“Kraaaaaaaahhhhhh! Freeeeeee meeeeeeeeee!”

Unfortunately, I refuse.

Saori, Tasianna, Silva, you guys can do it! I believe in you guys! Until we meet up again, I will do my part.

With the music booming in the background, our fight continued.

**************************************

You have bought   [Mind Protection Lv. 1] [Mental Corruption Resistance Lv. 1] [Mana Leak Resistance Lv. 1]. Your current SP is 3200

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Mind Protection Lv. 5] [Mental Corruption Resistance Lv. 5] [Mana Leak Resistance Lv. 10] gained Your current SP is 250

[Lifetaker (41 Kills)] [Sanctified Blaze] [Shadow Armament (Full Body)] [Various Spell Buffs] inflicted on [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa]

“All buffs are up, but we lost Hestia’s buffs aside of [Sanctified Blaze]. Maybe something like thirty minutes has passed? I am not sure,” I told Tasianna and Silva as we finally reached the last floor of the ruins.

“Sister Tasianna, you should take most of the mana potions to keep yourself safe and at full power. Miss Saori and I should take one mana potion each and divide the rest of the Health potion amongst us,” Silva stated. “My offensive power is the weakest, so I will take care of healing and support. Once a path to the core is made, I will begin the rite. Igniculus will support in my stead, but I cannot support with wind magic once I begin. Please, protect me.”

Tasianna nodded and attached all the mana potions to her belt. “You may count on us, Sister Silva. Ice magic is a defensive element. As Lady Hestia’s retainer and maid, I swear I will protect you. We will free the onnikai and aid Goddess Zephira in her task!”

I had no idea how long it took us to reach the last floor. Hestia did a fantastic job by clearing and luring the zombies up to the surface, which made our way down easy. There were a few zombies that we had to fight our way through, but otherwise, we did our best to rush down the ruins as fast as we could. This was a time-based battle, after all.

I didn’t know how long it had been; was Hestia still luring the onnikai beast to a spot she deemed suitable, or was she fighting against it right now? I had no idea about the timing of everything. All I knew is that our part of the fight will begin soon.

And we had to hurry. Hestia was strong, but we had to finish this before the sun set.

Once we made sure our preparations were done, we entered the room. Unlike the previous time we visited it, the room had four imposing giant zombie wolves guarding the pedestal where our goal laid.

“H-Hooowwwww?! Whyyyyy arreeee youuuu. Heeerreeee?! Fiiiight?! Whyyyyyyy?!”

The onnikai boss seemed distressed when it saw us. Concurrently, the zombie garms assumed a combat stance and began growling, their eyes glared at me with ferocity. At that moment, strange thoughts began to enter my mind, sounding something like “HIieeeerhaaaaaZZuddaasNNNddas” or something gibberish. I felt not only some slight pain but also anger and sadness from those thoughts, but unlike last time they did it to me, I endured.

It was the right choice to buy [Mental Corruption Resistance] and [Mind Protection] like Hestia recommended in addition to leveling them up a bit through SP. I also bought and fully leveled [Mana Leak Resistance] for safety’s sake. My Mana reached zero last time due to not having this skill back then, and I really wanted to be sure that nothing would cause that again. Even if the onnikai beast was the primary cause for the mana drain, I wanted to be sure and cover all my weaknesses.

Unfortunately for me, despite having those two new mental protection skills, I still felt this desperate desire to prove myself before these four garms. I don’t know why I was feeling it and I didn’t want to feel it. It was like a terrible itch that I needed to scratch. I hated to admit it, but maybe Tasianna and Silva were right. Maybe my instincts as a wolf or as [Belzac’s Successor] were the cause for this.

In any case, we had to fight anyway. Unlike Hestia, who has embraced her draconic life with pleasure, I didn’t like being a pawn to my instincts. I hated being covered in fur, so I barely showed any skin with my outfit. I hated being bloodthirsty and a battle junkie, so I tried to be more aloof than how I was on Earth.

It’s funny how my students sometimes called me scary when I was strict with them. How would they react to how I act now? Well, I guess they would comment about the fact that I looked younger than when I was their homeroom teacher, but, well, whatever.

Concentrate, Saori. We need to fight.

With [Multi-Cast], I invoked both [Shadow Clones] and [Shadow Pack]. With a shadow clone of my cadejo form and a shadowy giant wolf, this battle party was now a six-man, including Silva’s Igniculus.

[Humanized (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa]

With my two shadow wolves flanking my sides, I pulled out my two daggers and transformed into my werewolf-like form. I was thinking of assuming my cadejo form, but I wanted to test the waters first with my two daggers. Could good equipment cover the difference in stats or will my additional stats and size from my true form be more useful?

Let us put this hypothesis to the test.

For what you four did to me in our last meeting, let me reward you by giving you a personal lecture!

A note from AbyssRaven

Rumble.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 127: Wolf Hunting.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Grrrrrrrrrrrr! Gra!”

““““Awroooooooh!””””

Like two rival packs of wolves readying themselves for a fight, we growled and howled in an effort to threaten and intimidate the other party. With a loud howl from one of the garms, all four zombie garms jumped into their shadows and reappeared a few feet away from me. Having anticipated something like this would happen from our last encounter, Silva and Tasianna had already completed their own preparations.

“May the Goddess of Wind bless me with her winds of protection, Air Shield!” Silva cast, creating and then expanding the protective dome of air around our party.

“Freeze, Icicle Gust.” Tasianna’s spell created a cold wind with ice spikes, but instead of shooting them at the garms, she controlled the wind and ice with [Cryokinesis] and froze the front part of Silva’s [Air Shield]. This materialized a thick half dome of ice, blocking the garms’ attack. After Tasianna did her part, Silva also dispelled her spell to allow us outside.

With my two shadow wolves, I rushed to the right side of the ice dome and produced a [Claws of Darkness] to cleave at the garms perfectly standing in a line for me. However, thanks to their natural agility as garms, they avoided my attack by splitting their group up, dividing them. This gave my wolves and me a chance to target one of them and hunt them down.

Of course, this was risky as it would leave Silva and Tasianna to fend off the other three garms alone, but we already talked this over before the battle. According to Hestia, Tasianna was able to delay the onnikai beast for a couple of minutes by freezing it. Hestia was confident Tasianna could buy me some time to take down a garm.

As expected, once the other zombie garms saw my group attack their isolated member, they targeted Tasianna and Silva. Casting [Droplet Torrent], Tasianna shot a barrage of water bullets out of her magic circle and clashed against the [Dark Bolt]s the garms cast, nullifying each other. A garm managed to bypass the storm of [Droplet Torrent] and the giant ice dome with a [Shadow Dash], but it was quickly deterred by Silva’s light elemental, Igniculus, who shot out a [Holy Smite].

Meanwhile, on my side, I was having a bit of trouble pinning the garm down. [Identify] still considered the garm as a corpse in its inspection, preventing me from looking at its stats, so all I could say was that it probably had stats worthy of a rank C monster. Whether [Dark Tendrils] or my mana threads, the garm dodged them well.

I was a C rank too, but my stats were currently not on par with a C rank due to my humanization, while my two shadow wolves were undoubtedly weaker than it purely because they were constructed using magic. They were made using my Intelligence stat, and I know I couldn’t make them as strong as my actual form.

So, the fight itself felt like a duel between me and this zombie garm, where I had the support of two of my summoned wolves. We exchanged dark spells against each other, shooting [Dark Bolt]s and [Dark Slash]s in an attempt to create an opening to attack.

Once we realized that we both had the same idea on how to fight, we began using [Shadow Dash] more aggressively, slipping through projectiles and slashes to launch back or surprise attacks. With everybody either having their bodies covered in shadows or being made from it, this fight looked like a ferocious clash between shadows.

“Guck!” The first to draw blood was the zombie garm.

Kuso! (Shit / Damn) The other onnikais seemed too unskilled, so why are these garms able to push me back? It was the same thing when I fought them for the first time, but I thought it was due to my berserk status.

I haven’t given Hestia a detailed explanation of what sort of training I was given by the vice guild master of the hunter’s guild, Gael. The reason was that Gael wasn’t too enthusiastic about it. I asked him to train me, as I wasn’t used to using daggers fully yet, and he reluctantly agreed only after I bribed him with some alcoholic drink.

The only problem with the arrangement was that he wanted alcohol as payment for every training session, and he eventually got fed up with the normal stuff. He wanted something from Earth if I wanted him to continue training me.

I didn’t have any knowledge of making alcohol, nor was I a bartender with drink mixing skills. So, yeah, it should be obvious that I haven’t been able to get him to train me for a while. I didn’t want to tell Hestia something this embarrassing. Besides, none of the sessions were as intensive as the ones I had with Grazlahta and Krim-Slak, the saurians. I wasn’t missing them terribly.

Until now. The little amount of daggers skills that I was able to learn from Gael were effective, and my movements have improved after he pointed out my flaws. It was helpful, admittedly, but we never sparred against each other like Hestia and Farron. That meant, I still haven’t had any experience fighting with a fast rogue type like me.

Hestia was fast; the monsters we fought in Belzac forest were fast, but their fighting style didn’t rely so much on trickery and speed. Hestia could be crafty by leading you with spells and attacks to land a critical hit, but she was “honest” compared to how I fight. To fight with dark spells, you needed to be unfair.

So, I was surprised to see how well these garms were fighting. They outmaneuvered me, despite our difference in tools and skills, in our first encounter, and this one was proving itself against me again. The damage was neglectable, as it was quickly healed by Hestia’s [Sanctified Blaze], but my pride was hurt once again. And with my hurt pride, that damn itch appeared again.

Calm down, calm down. Think! How can I stop its movements?

I commanded my wolves to attack the garm while I cast [Umbral Pendulum] to summon a giant double-edged scythe from the ceiling. It swung, nearly cleaving the zombie garm into two. Simultaneously, I dived into the shadow world with [Shadow Dash] and reappeared behind it, and launched an attack with one of my daggers.

The garm anticipated the attack and summoned [Dark Tendrils] to block my movements, but I countered it with my tendrils. Using my skill [Shadow Armament]’s ability to control and distort my dark element spells, I turned the ends of my numerous tendrils into sharp spears and had them pierce a way through the swarm of hostile tendrils. I dashed through the open path with my dagger eyeing the back of the garm’s head.

“Shadow Pierce!” I called out, coating my dagger in shadows.

Twisting its body, the garm narrowly avoided the strike to its head and returned the gesture by opening its jaws and baring its fangs at me, at which point, I slammed my leg at it to use the momentum to dodge backward.

“Catch!” I shouted and threw a few white mana threads at my wolves, who caught the ball of threads with their mouths. As we were connected through our bond as master and familiars, they quickly understood what they had to do and began to execute it.

Once again, the umbral pendulum swung at the garm, causing it to back off once again. My wolves and I used this opportunity to strike a coordinate attack on the garm, using the white mana threads to constrict the garm. It tried to escape into the shadow world, but before its body completely submerged into its shadow, I caught its leg with a mana thread lasso, pulling it out.

Flustered by being caught, the garm’s reaction time was slowed, allowing my wolves to fully constrict the garm in the white threads. Letting my mana flow into them, a shining light began to emit, searing through the black slime on the garm’s body like fire melting butter. The garm struggled wildly, but it was all in vain.

Taking out a bottle of Hestia’s new venom from my storage, which was a viscous liquid made from her [Corrosive Fire], I drenched my frog fang andurium dagger in it and used [Shadow Pierce] as I aimed at the now captured garm with focused hostility. The garm tried to defend itself by summoning [Dark Tendrils], but I avoided them by using [Just Blink]. Vanishing from the garm’s vision for a split second, which caused it to hesitate, I reappeared behind it and stabbed my venom-coated dagger into its head.

As expected of a zombie, or more specifically an onnikai controlled corpse, the garm didn’t howl in pain. It reacted to my attack by turning its head, but I held it in place by stabbing my assassin’s eoriant dagger into its head. My wolves also stopped its flailing body by biting into its limbs, giving me the chance to break its neck with the eoriant dagger. I coated this dagger with the vial of venom on my belt and inserted it deep into its chest where its heart was. As a wolf monster myself, I knew exactly where our hearts were and I was confident I hit it, except in the case it lost and couldn’t regenerate it.

“Noooooooooooooooo!” the onnikai from the orb screamed. “Cooooommeeeee baaaacccck! Suppoooorrrttttt!”

Opening large holes with my two daggers, one at its head and chest, I left the now motionless zombie garm drop to the ground. I didn’t harm the onnikai itself, but even if it could regenerate the garm’s body with that black slime, it would take too long. The corpse’s wounds were severe, and Hestia’s venom was probably tormenting it by now.

This wasn’t a normal paralyzing or blood-clotting venom, like you see in Earthen snakes or spiders, but a mana disturbing one. It probably wouldn’t be useful on the bodiless onnikai beast, but on a corpse? The venom will undoubtedly disturb its flow of mana and prevent the onnikai from healing the body. This was our strategy to win!

As I turned my head towards Tasianna and Silva, two cries entered my ear.

“Arrrrgh! Uragghhh! Gahhhhh!”

“Sister Tasianna! Urk! Gaha!”

Party Leader

Name: Saori Segawa

Level: 73

Job: Fighter

Health: 3431/3431

Mana: 1182/1606

Stamina: 2229/2848

Effects:

[Humanized (Minor)] [Lifetaker (41 Kills)] [Sanctified Blaze] [Shadow Armament (Full Body)] [Various Spell Buffs]

Name: Tasianna Marina Silverpond

Level: 55

Job: Torrent Sorcerer

Health: 1223/2289

Mana: 2512/5703

Stamina: 1051/1724

Effects:

[Elvenized (Major)] [Sanctified Blaze] [Shadow Armament (Minor)] [Various Spell Buffs]

Name: Silva Fleurette Breezeflower

Level: 55

Job: Light Elementalist

Health: 541/1921

Mana: 2051/3674

Stamina: 515/910

Effects:

[Sanctified Blaze] [Shadow Armament (Minor)] [Various Spell Buffs] [Bleeding (Minor)]

Kuso! (Shit / Damn)

I took too long. Tasianna’s ice dome was destroyed and shards of ice, remnants of her [Frozen Shield], were lying on the floor. Tasianna herself didn’t look anywhere close to being fine, having been flung through the air after finishing my garm opponent.

Faefolk do not bleed, so there weren’t any patches of red on her body, but two large holes and multiple large scratch marks littered her body, while her dress was ripped and messy. She had a pained expression as she gulped down a mana potion to heal herself.

Silva still had Igniculus to support her, but she was coughing up blood as the light elemental slowly healed her wounds. However, compared to Tasianna, her situation was dire — two of the three garms were ganging up against her as she had her backs against a broken piece of the ice dome.

“Haaaa! Kuck! Wind Blast!” As she was about to empty her mana potion, Tasianna was ambushed by the third garm, who knocked the glass vial to the ground, spilling the contents but the bottle didn’t break.

No, no! Damnit, leave them alone!

“Go! Go! Help Tasianna!” I ordered my wolves, before delving into my shadows and reappearing before Silva to block the attacks of the garms with my spells and daggers.

“Miss Saori!” she yelled out with an elated face, her elven beauty still shining despite the wounds and blood on her face.

Humanization!

Storing everything not made from mana threads into my storage, which included my party bracelet, I activated [Humanization] and transformed back into a cadejo. Without wasting any time, I picked up Silva on my back, who already retrieved Igniculus after I communicated with her telepathically, and dashed towards Tasianna.

The two garms gave chase through [Shadow Dash], but with my stats having returned back to that of an upper C rank wolf, I easily jumped over them and then used [Air Walk] to escape through the air. Simultaneously, I cast [Umbral Pendulum] and [Claws of Darkness] to delay the two garms.

During this run, my shadow wolves were valiantly protecting Tasianna, helping her regenerate a good chunk of her lost mana by letting her drink two additional mana potions. She then took one of Hestia’s holy flame bombs from her belt and threw it at the remaining garm while it was preoccupied with my wolves. It was a direct hit, burning through the black slime on its body.

“Graaaaaaa!” I pounced at the burning garm and bit its neck with my fangs. I managed to pierce through the fur and muscles of the garm but, seeing as I was a “young” cadejo, I was far smaller than my adult counterparts. I punctured its defenses, but my fangs couldn’t reach its neck like my daggers.

Tch, just a bit deeper, damnit!

Although I probably wasn’t taking as much damage, being this close to the garm while the bomb’s flames were still alive was damaging me little despite my shadow armor. They were Hestia’s flames, after all. The garm quickly shook me off, able to ignore my bite due to its complete pain resistance as a corpse. Using [Air Walk], I reunited with Tasianna, our party back together.

[“Tasianna, are you alright?”] I asked as I let Silva off me.

Now drinking Hestia’s dragorade, Tasianna answered with a distorted face, “Y-Yes, but I apologize for not being able to hold on for longer. I’m sorry, I am always being saved…”

[“No! Do not say that, Tasianna. You were exemplary!”] I praised her, noticing her morale dropping. [“You held on long enough for me to take down the first garm. You and Silva did amazingly. 100%! I give you 100% for your efforts! So, stand up straight and continue fighting with me, Tasianna! I cannot win without your help!”]

Still showing some doubt in her abilities, Tasianna nodded after taking a deep breath. She began casting a spell, but it didn’t look like she was very confident right now. However, our party had no time to mull over it as the garms continued their assault recklessly.

“Whyyyyyyyy?! Wheeereeeeeee?! Suppoooorrrtttt!” the onnikai from the orb screamed. The zombies were probably attacking the baron’s castle right now and the beast was fighting Hestia. No reinforcement will come.

We too won’t get any help, and I have a feeling that the same trick won’t work again with these garms. Especially when Tasianna and Silva were now wounded.

Covering for Tasianna and Silva to heal themselves with potions and dragorade, my wolves and I engaged the garms. Pouncing at each other, each garm became preoccupied with one of us. “Use those threads!” I told them as the fight intensified.

There was the option of summoning more [Shadow Clones], but the problem was that I had to control my clones while fighting and casting spells. More than one clone was impossible for me to handle, especially when I’m so focused on spell casting. [Shadow Pack] had the advantage that I didn’t have to control their actions, as they can operate independently from me, but the downside was that I could only summon one of them.

I wanted my wolves to have more support, as they were clearly getting overwhelmed by the garms, but my priority was to take this garm before me down first. We needed to thin their numbers, and I can always resummon the shadow wolves when they die.

As I was thinking about it, the first shadow clone dispersed. I resummoned it and sent it back to the same garm that killed it, but I wasn’t hoping for it to buy me a lot of time. I will have to save some mana to resummon my familiars now.

Just Blink!

Using one of my unarmed abilities, I vanished from my opponent's sight and reappeared right at its face. I lunged forward and bit at its throat.

“Graaaa!” It gasped.

It tried to attack me with its claws, but I held it back with [Dark Tendrils] before having two [Shadow Snakes] emerge from my shadow armor to take up strands of holy element mana threads and wrap them around the garms body.

I was crushing the garm’s windpipe, but as it was a zombie, it didn’t need oxygen. So, my only choice was to get a good hit with the venom, and I needed some time to apply them on my claws and fangs. Due to my venom immunity, I didn’t have to fear Hestia’s toxic creations anymore.

However, while I was taking the vial out of my storage, another garm tackled me off from my garm opponent and gouged out a piece of my flesh.

Urgh!

The wound was healed up with [Sanctified Blaze] but it, unfortunately, disrupted my venom application. Noticing it was my [Shadow Pack] that died, I resummoned it and shot a [Claws of Darkness] at the interfering garm. My shadow snakes managed to wrap some of the white mana threads around the first garm, so I activated them to unleash some holy damage on it in order to prevent it from breaking out from the threads and my tendrils.

However, when I planned to hook it closer to me, the third garm attempted a surprise attack. This time, my attention wasn’t drawn away, so my [Foresight]’s and [Danger Perception]’s came in time for me to dodge it. Spending some mana, I activated [Foresight]’s secondary effect to have it predict the future movements of the garms.

Using this knowledge, I decided to not resummon the [Shadow Clones] wolf, and instead growled. “Kriiigraaaaaaaaaa!” I let out from the top of my lungs, activating my [Bloodlust] skill. This immediately attracted the attention of all the garms — they looked at me as if I just insulted and challenged them to a duel. Maybe it was garm-ish for something, but I had no idea.

The second garm bodychecked my shadow wolf away to run directly at me, while the third quickly began the assault by shadow dashing to me to launch an attack with close-range [Dark Slash]es. The first garm was, of course, still struggling to free itself.

Using my smaller size, I slipped past the garm’s attacks and summoned another [Umbral Pendulum] before diving into a shadow. Once I came out of the shadow world, I saw that the pendulum dropped down from the ceiling while the third garm easily dodged it, however, once I reappeared from the pendulum, as the whole thing was a shadow, the garm was too surprised to react.

Similar to the first garm, I bit its throat, and then pushed it down onto the floor. Meanwhile, the first garm managed to break out of the dark tendrils, ignoring the white mana threads as they weren’t active right now. In a synchronized attack, the first and second garm pounced at me and bit my legs.

Damnit, [Foresight] didn’t show this!

[Foresight] only showed information a few seconds into the future depending on the level of the skill, and while it helped me take down the third garm, I reacted too slowly to the remaining agile garm. I groaned mentally as they pulled me off their companion. [Sanctified Blaze] was aggressively defending me by attacking the two garms, but they ignored the flames and bit even deeper into my hind legs.

Kuso, kuso! I need to control the pendulum to attack these two!

I panicked once the third garm stood back up and was about to take advantage of the fact that I was immobilized. However, that was when something fortunate happened.

“Miss Saori!”

With a noise that sounded like a grenade being released, something flew through the air before crashing onto the garms attacking my hind legs and covering them up in white flames. They abruptly let go of me as they attempted to kill the flames attacking the black slimes covering their body.

Thank you! I thanked the owner of the voice, realizing that two of Hestia’s holy bombs just saved me. I endured through the flames and narrowly dodged a lethal bite to my throat. Extending the claws on my front legs, I slashed at the third garm’s face and blinded its eyes.

It flinched backward, giving me enough time to pull out a vial of venom, break the wooden bootle, and then coat my claws and fangs with the spilled content. The garm escaped through a shadow, which made me direct my attack on the garm closest to me: the second one.

Using [Just Blink] to make sure none of them can anticipate my attack, I escaped their vision and senses for a split-second before drilling my claws right into the garm’s head. Like a frenzy beast, I ravaged its heads into a gory mess with my claws, inflicting as much venom damage as possible before leaving its motionless body on the ground to react to the third garm’s attack.

However, I didn’t have to. A torrential rain suddenly fell down from the sky, pushing the garm back with sharp, bullet-like water droplets. The rain then stopped and the water began turning into white ice, freezing the garm in place for me to sink my claws into it. Similar to the second garm, I didn’t give the garm a chance to recover itself at all, destroying its head and chest with my venom-coated claws.

As I turned my eyes to the last remaining garm, something surprising came into my view. My [Shadow Pack] wolf, who I thought perished from the second garm’s attack, was on the first garm’s back. It was pulling the remaining white mana threads with its mouth, choking the last garm, and then decapitating its head with the threads.

It then looked at me and howled — its body dispersing in the white flames, as it had fulfilled its duty. I was honestly confused at this point. [Shadow Pack] created wolves that can act independently from me, but they weren’t sentient. They weren’t like Hestia’s parallel minds that sounded and acted like clones of Hestia.

So, why did I feel like it was trying to communicate with me? Why did I feel proud for a spell created familiar? I mean, isn’t this like feeling proud of a vacuum cleaner for doing its job well?

Forget it, just forget it. I don’t want to think about this. It’ll only confuse me…

“Arrrrrrghhhh! Noooooooo!!!” A shrill voice woke me up from my delusion. “Noooooo!!! Nooo! Staaaaaandddd! Fiiiiighhhhtttt! Fiiiighttttt! Ouuuurrrrr reveeeeegeeene!”

It was like the cry of a despairing child. It’s panic-filled voice echoed through the chambers as it helplessly screamed and screamed for help, telling the garms to stand up and fight. It desperately tried to call for the onnikai beast’s support, asking where it was and why it hasn’t returned yet.

I looked at the onnikai inside the orb, motionless and still. Only the black slime covering the pedestal it was sitting on was vibrating, but, otherwise, it looked calm, completely contrasting the voice it was giving out.

…How…pitiful.

It was like a prison. The onnikai was screaming and obviously seemed like it wanted to fight us; however, it couldn’t. It was imprisoned inside the orb like a beast in a cage. It relied on its army of onnikai zombies and the mana-created beast to protect and fulfill its orders.

But now it was alone.

[Humanization (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa]

I turned back into my wolfkin form as it seemed we won the fight. I looked through the battlefield and at the motionless wolves. The only one still spasming about was the one my shadow wolf decapitated, so I quickly injected a dose of venom and pierced its heart with my dagger, completely silencing it.

…Kuso…The itch is finally gone. Tch, I can’t believe beating them really solved this damn itch.

The garms couldn’t move anymore — they were no threat anymore. Our only opponent left was the boss.

“Sister Silva,” Tasianna called. Looking at her belt, she only had two vials of mana potions left.

“Yes, I will now perform the Rite of the Fading Winds.” Silva’s belt was empty. It seemed she used up the health and mana potions.

Thankfully, I didn’t need to use my potions thanks to Hestia’s [Sanctified Blaze]. Too bad it ran out just now. My legs haven’t fully healed up yet, but it would be a waste to use a potion now…I really am too stingy, haaaaaaaaa.

I hesitated for a moment, but finally decided to not use the health potion. The battle was over, taking it now to relieve the little bit of pain would be a waste. I’ll just endure it and let my regeneration do the rest until Hestia comes. The onnikai beast should be destroyed the moment the rite is finished.

Silva stood before the pedestal. Seeing as the slime looked dangerous in our eyes, I took out the holy element mana threads and used their effect to melt away the slime. Once that was done, Silva held her staff up and began the rite.

In the elven tongue, she chanted something I couldn’t understand. Tasianna offered to translate it for me, but I rejected the offer because something about Silva’s voice was mesmerizing. I had no knowledge of the elven language, but I wanted to continue listening to her voice. It wasn’t as attractive as Hestia’s singing voice, but it had a different kind of effect. Hearing a translation would probably break this…illusion?

“Senmial, Jischulla Zephira!”

And then a clear voice, so similar to a calm breeze, escaped Silva’s mouth.

A note from AbyssRaven

The second proper interaction with an origin God, as Danterno doesn't count.

The fifth-ranked Origin God, the Goddess of Winds, Zephira!~

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Side Story 22: The Battle at Castle Teullon.

A note from AbyssRaven

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The wind around Silva began to stir, transforming itself into numerous four-winged butterflies, floating around Silva as her eyes began to glow like a rainbow. Tasianna looked at the wind elf and bowed like a devout believer, her head kept low as if she was reluctant to gaze up. Saori, on the other hand, gave a short bow in wonderment as she sat down on the cold ruin floor due to the damage she received to her legs in her fight with the garms.

However,…this isn’t today’s story.

Let us turn time back, before the defeat of the onnikai garms by the hands of Saori, Tasianna, and Silva. Will we follow Hestia’s endurance battle against the onnikai beast — a destructive deathmatch between two mammoth-sized monsters combatting each other like a certain monster-killing video game on Earth? Also, no.

The reason was that another battlefield was being held during this day. On this one, neither side possessed a dragon idol blessed by multiple gods, a beast created through the condensed mana of a wrath-filled onnikai, a descendant of a legendary wolf monster leading a pack of shadow monsters.

“Fire! Fire! There is a fire in the forest!” A sentry shouted from a watchtower of a noble’s castle. He was one of the soldiers of Baron Teullon’s army that saw Hestia bring the villagers from Rashan Village to the castle for their safety. By the order of the army captain, Zik, the sentries of the castle were to report any unusual activities.

…That is truly a large fire…She wasn’t exaggerating when she called it a ‘Sea of Fire.’

Zik saw the results of Hestia’s [Dragon Fire] song firsthand. Her flames might not have scorched the whole woods down due to its arena creating effect, but it was large enough for people from the castle to see it, despite how far away it was from Rashan Village and Baron Teullon’s castle. Zik couldn’t help but gulped as he witnessed the power of a mage.

Although Zik was the commanding officer of a noble’s army, he hasn’t had much experience with mages on Hestia’s level. Baron Teullon was a noble, but he was of the second-lowest rank. A noble’s rank usually was affected by a noble’s merits and pedigree, which was indirectly affected by their combat prowess. For a Baron, being able to cause the damage that Hestia just did to the forest would be a dream.

Despite being distraught at the rising fire and smoke coming from that patch of the woods, Zik remained composed outwardly. He remembered Hestia’s words and ordered his men to keep a lookout for any enemies, explaining that “the Lady Priestess is fighting the foe.”

W-What is she fighting to use this much power?

I-Isn’t she a priestess of the Goddess?! How can she create this much fire?

S-Shouldn’t we try to run?! That fire will spread to us soon enough!

The soldiers witnessing the fire weren’t able to fully accept Zik’s words. Some were frightful as they imagined the small noble girl they saw today fight against an enemy so powerful that she had to use such a huge spell. Some couldn’t understand how a priestess of Aurena was able to create such a massive spectacle when it was usually the fire mages of Danterno’s area of expertise. Some were even afraid of the fire itself, believing an inferno of this intensity would reach the castle in no-time.

Whatever it was they thought of the situation, all of them felt the same emotion. Fear. Fear for the amount of power that was shown.

Humans, whether it was on Earth or Peolynca, always feared the unknown. The inability to explain a concept resulted in being unsure of what actions they should perform next. If a might surpassing them by a landslide were to show up, a human couldn’t stop but retreat to their natural instincts of fight-and-flight. To preserve their own lives — this fear was rational.

They didn’t know Hestia. They weren’t aware of her abilities, and only knew she was a noble of a greifnoble’s level and an adventurer from the hunter’s guild. These soldiers weren’t part of a greifnoble’s army nor the royal army, so their knowledge of mages was mostly restricted to Baron Teullon’s family and hired mages from the mage’s guild. They were like frogs inside a well, peering up to only see a part of the wide sky.

The only soldiers who were able to remain relatively composed were the guards and militia led by guard captain Dan. That wasn’t to say they weren’t alarmed. They witnessed Hestia, Saori, and Tasianna fight to protect their village, but it was only a glimpse of their abilities, so seeing the firestorm before them was still surprising.

However, these people have already witnessed the attack from the onnikai and they were also aware of what the girls told them before they were brought to the castle. While the soldiers from the army slowly descended in chaos, the guards and militias kept careful watch of the surroundings as their thoughts repeatedly wavered between the casualties from the onnikai attack and their loved ones hiding inside the basement of the castle.

And this cautiousness rewarded them.

“M-Monsters! They’ve come!”

“B-Bell! Somebody ring the bell!”

As if it was coordinated, the large pyre was like a flag signaling the arrival of dozens of onnikai zombies. As most of the corpses were destroyed during the initial attack of the girls, most f the zombies today were those made from monsters. Due to the high concentration of mana surrounding the ruins, to the point, it nearly transformed into a dungeon, many weak and strong monsters were born due to monster spawnings.

These monsters were then slaughtered by the combined power of the remaining onnikais and their corpses were quickly possessed by free onnikai, effectively regrowing the army to a fearsome size. It hasn’t reached its former glory, but for an attack on a human village, the size was just about enough.

Shit! The attack actually came! Damn that bitch!

Hearing the ringing bell, the seneschal Evalk rushed to the balcony of his office. His eyes widened as he saw the zombies approaching the castle. His expression was a mix of irritation, nervousness, and fear. However, it wasn’t towards the onnikai.

He was confident the zombies wouldn’t be able to breach the castle — knowing this, he wasn’t afraid for his life. However, what he was worried about was the fact that his lord, Baron Teullon, ordered him before he left for Artorias’ capital that he wouldn’t tolerate any damage to the castle. This included the walls and gate.

Like many living beings, Evalk feared for the safety of his life. Baron Teullon’s eyes and voice still sent a shiver down his spine, and this fear caused him to object against Hestia’s request before he learned of her identity. Like many commoners under the rule of a noble, he knew about the dangers of angering one. He couldn’t reject Hestia’s words once it came to light that she was backed by a Marquess, a Duke, and even his King, but that didn’t mean he could excuse himself if he went against his Lord’s commands.

Would Hestia come to his rescue if Baron Teullon ordered his execution for failing his responsibility as a seneschal? Would Duke Greenveil chastise Baron Teullon’s actions? Why, Duke Greenveil probably doesn’t even know Evalk existed. Would the King personally pardon him, if he told him his story? It would probably be impossible from the confines of the prison if he were lucky. If luck wasn’t on his side, he would be cut down the moment the execution order was given.

Evalk knew Hestia only thought of the safety of the villagers, especially after he reviewed the content of the Quest descriptions, he personally issued to the hunter’s guild. However, he could only think of her as the villain in this instance. Her actions were threatening his life. To him, it was a noble abusing her privileges to create a favorable situation for her alone.

“Captain Zik, protect the castle at once! Use every force necessary!” Evalk ordered from the top of his balcony. “Use all the arrows, take the healing potions from my room, burn them with oil and fire! I don’t care what you use, just protect the castle and its walls! Soldiers and subjects, for your home and our Lord, Lord Baron Teullon, we must fight and repel this threat! For the Goddess’s priestess has blessed us today!”

Please, Goddess, please, I beg you to spare me today. Please, I beg you to grant us your protection!

It was a plea of desperation, but for the unknowing soldiers, it was a call to action. The seneschal, the representative of their noble lord, ordered them to fight and allowed them the free use of any resource inside the castle to fight back. The threat was made clear to them, and although it was unnerving to hear how dangerous the enemy was, they couldn’t help but yell in fervor. This fervor also infected the less trained and more agitated village guardsmen and militia.

The only one, outside of a few castle staff members, who knew this was a plea was Zik. He knew the seneschal’s true personality and also the words he received from Baron Teullon. It was a selfish plea to protect his life, but he kept this information to himself. Evalk gave a good motivational speech, and for Zik, that was enough.

It wouldn’t do anybody good if I were to speak back to him. In the first place, I am a soldier. The order is given, and I will fulfill them to protect my home!

“Archers! Arrow!” Zik, using his bellowing deep voice, shouted as he raised his sword like a flag. The archers diligently took out an arrow from their quiver and held it on their bowstrings. “Hold! …Fire!”

Once the frenzied onnikai reached a certain point in their mad rush, Zik lowered his sword in a slash motion, signaling the archers to release their arrows in a volley, raining down onto the horde of zombies. Even if a single archer wasn’t very proficient with the arrow, as long as they could shoot it upwards and land it somewhere nearby to a group of enemies, they will hit something. In a siege, any enemy slain before they reach the walls would increase the advantage for the defenders.

However, these weren’t normal enemies. Devoid of the corpses of humanoids, the onnikai army composed entirely out of monster bodies. Some were Rank G and F who was instantly killed by a single arrow, but the few who possessed the bodies of E and D rank monsters could shrug off the arrows using their bodies’ physical features and skills.

“Guwraaaaah!”

“Mehehehehhe!”

Some of these were undead equerochs. Normally, these monsters could be simply called animals as they were mostly used as animals of burden. Tamed ones had the personalities and attitudes of a grazing cow or easygoing horse, even the bulls were generally easy to handle. However, wild and feral ones were a different subject.

Due to their sturdy bodies and high stamina, humans used them as carriage horses and farm animals, so what would happen if you were to use these animals as beasts of war? Like a ram, these zombie equerochs ignored any arrows with their muscles and fat, galloping like a horse through the field to ram the wall gates with their ox-like horns, leaving holes behind.

Shit! No, no, we can repair the gate. It’s just wood. After this is done, I’ll just order the villagers to fix it, it’s no problem even if the whole gate is torn down. I’ll just say I paid for an improvement.

Zik, seeing this charge, delegated his current role to one of his commanders, and rushed over to another part of the castle. He was shouting orders non-stop, leaving no soldiers to idle

“Spearmen, shield up, poke through the holes once those equerochs finish their charge!”

“Faster! Bring the animal fat faster! Lass, it is hard, I know, but if you don’t want to join the frontlines, then you better move faster!”

“Stop shaking soldier! You are a brave soldier, right now! Not a kid — you are a man! Any hesitation on the battlefield will mean your death. If you want to protect your family and your life, hold your shield and spear up no matter what!”

Aside from the soldiers he has trained up since he took up his post as the army captain, Zik also had to deal with the guardsmen and militia. Dan was a competent guards captain in Zik’s opinion, but they couldn’t be compared to the resources invested in the training of his soldiers. Still, they were more competent than the hastily conscripted militia.

Among them weren’t just laborers and farmers, but also young men who have just reached adulthood. Although child soldiers were frowned upon on Earth, Artorias only had laws to prevent children who haven’t reached the age of 15 to be forcefully conscripted. Even if you just reached adulthood, for the defense of their home, these young boys had to fight today.

Due to the Divine System, technically, women were also allowed to join a noble’s army but couldn’t be forcefully conscripted due to being viewed as household caregivers in Artorias. However, the few women who were fighting today did so willingly.

While the soldiers and villagers fulfilled whatever order was given to them by their superiors, a shout suddenly echoed through the castle. “More enemies! More enemies are coming!” resounded from one of the archers.

While monster spawning wasn’t common enough to be produced like a factory, it was still numerous enough when one viewed how large the ruins and their surrounding area was. Monsters spawned inside the ruins and inside the woods. They would be killed by the onnikai and the corpses would then be given to their bodiless comrades.

The onnikais who stayed behind to hunt monsters and those who weren’t imprisoned by Hestia’s fire arena went to the castle as their primary goal was always to take revenge on humans and take over their bodies. As Hestia and the girls planned, they ignored the empty village and congregated towards the castle.

We’ll run out of arrows at this pace-huh? Shit!

As Zik was looking at the army of onnikai, he suddenly noticed the sight of a couple of D rank monsters he didn’t want to see. It had large, thick hind legs designed to jump, long ears like a rabbit, and a long sharp horn like a unicorn on its forehead. They were looprizsars.

Aside from these jumping terrors, there were also D rank monsters with hiding thick enough to ward off swords, those who could spit venoms like a projectile, and giant insects with sharp sickles like mantises, to name a few. Grimgarians, due to their status as monsters and humanoids, were also among the horde. Zombie kobolds, goblins, and D rank orcs spawned from the mana concentration in the area were attacking.

Zik paled as he looked at the army. He couldn’t help but believe today would be the day he would die. For the average human, G and F rank monsters were doable and easy enough to slay due to the stat difference between them. E ranks, on the other hand, required training and combat skills to defeat, while a D rank was a threat only defeatable for a soldier if he ganged upon it with others. That is, only if the D rank was alone.

Due to the number of monsters, the archers couldn’t keep up with the rising number of monsters and they eventually reached the castle gate. Monsters able to climb began to scale the walls while those with powerful jumps completely avoided the blockage. Whether it was at the gates, at the sides, or the back of the castle, the onnikai attacked the walls at all sides. Chaos began to ensue from these monsters.

The soldiers, trained to deal with D rank monsters, were able to respond correctly and ganged up against any invader. Even if they individually had no chance, by combining weapons and shields together, they were able to challenge these fearsome zombies. However, that couldn’t be said about the guardsmen and militia.

While the guards could fight decently under the command of guard captain Dan, they were generally weaker than the soldiers who not only had better skills but also higher levels. The militia had an even harder time as they barely had any experience in fighting monsters of this level, especially when they were relentless, unfeeling moving corpses.

“Gaaaaaaaaaaaah! Kyak, ahhh…”

“Kyahhhhhhhhhhh, kyak, kya, arrrrrgh! D-Daddy!”

“Arrrrrgrhhhhh! My arm, my arm is broken! No! Stay the fuck away y-you monster!”

The combatants on the wall were decreasing slowly, but any casualty here would be detrimental once the gates break. The onnikai attacked and fought indiscriminately, tearing and tackling any human would blood-red eyes and wrath-filled roars.

At this point, were the onnikais redeemable despite all the pain and suffering they were causing due to their hatred? Their lives ended horribly due to the cruelty of the humans in the “War for the Faefolk,” but weren’t the people fighting today of another generation? If a certain person were to cause harm or even traumatize you, was it correct to despise their whole community or race just because of that one person? Was it right to punish innocents for the sins of a single person?

For these onnikais, the answer would be “yes.” They were born from anger and hatred created during their previous form’s death, and they were now releasing this rage. This was their lives’ purpose. Whether they were redeemable was for the people involved in this accident to decide.

“Pour down the fat and water!” Zik and his commanders shouted.

In medieval Europe, castle defenders used to pour hot animal fat, water, or sand, to name a few examples, on invaders as it could effectively burn not only the skin of shabby armored conscripted farmers but also enter through the armor of knights to boil or scald them to death, using this tactic. It was one of the earlier thermal weapons.

Mass of boiling water and liquid animal fat was poured down from the top of the walls onto the hordes of zombies. While the heat couldn’t destroy the corpses outright, some of the weaker zombies still fell motionless as the black slime had to begin healing their possessed bodies.

This created a chain effect where the weaker monster became incapacitate but the stronger ones didn’t. Regardless if they were allies or not, the onnikai didn’t hesitate to trample on their allies to reach the gates. This would further delay the resuscitation of the corpses.

“Now, men! Like Lady Hestia instructed, pull the pin from these bombs and immediately throw them into the hordes! These tools were blessed by a Priestess of the Goddess, so handle them well! For victory!” Zik yelled out as he threw one of Hestia’s holy flame bombs.

Oh, Goddess, I pray to you, grant me the strength to fulfill my duty!

As the balls crashed into the horde, multiple massive explosions rocked the walls of the castle, creating cracks on it like a flimsy sword. Unfortunately for the seneschal, when Hestia made these bombs, she didn’t have the word “moderation” in mind. Although, for the defense of the castle, it was a blessing.

White flames burst from the bombs and began incinerating the animal fat. The zombies at the epicenter of the explosion were blown to bits while any not killed by the bombs were quickly set on fire by the burning animal fat. The flames grew and grew, turning corpses into ashes and destroying black slimes, however, the castle gate was torn into pieces.

Shit! That was too powerful!

“Gates! Soldiers, get down from the walls and into the courtyard, now! Gather at the courtyard!” Zik shouted.

The explosions might have slain numerous zombies, but it wasn’t all of them. Still, no onnikai, not even the rank Ds were a match for bombs created with Hestia’s fire. They were scorched, easing the lives of the castle defenders, but the fight wasn’t over yet.

Due to the looprizsars and other castle scaling monsters, the soldiers retreated from the castle under the protection of Zik and his commanders, who were able to hold back the rank Ds for a couple of seconds by their lonesome. They wouldn’t be able to defeat a Rank D by themselves, but they could delay them for longer than a normal soldier.

“Uarrrrgh! Ahhhhhhh!”

“F-Fuck! Get away from him, you bastard!”

“Arrrragahah! Help, help! Arghhhhh! H-Help, I don’t want to die!”

They thinned out the horde, but the monsters on the walls wouldn’t give up. Defenders were kicked and dropped off the walls, while some were ravaged and lost limbs if they survived. The few militias responsible for the healing using potions and first aid were overwhelmed due to the chaos and cries inside the castle. Even if they weren’t in the frontlines, the cries tormented them as they witnessed the puddles of blood staining the white snow of winter today.

“Shit, forget the wall! Take this you scum!” Zik, took out another bomb from his belt. This one, marked with the letter “C” was thrown at the monsters invading the walls. Due to the explosion from before, Zik calculated the distance he had to retreat and ran away after all the defenders evacuated the walls.

However, these bombs were Hestia’s crimson fire. The holy bombs had some scale-dust to create the explosion, but the other half of the bomb was kept empty so the [Sanctified Blaze] magic circle imprinted onto the bomb with [Trap Creation] could turn the flames into holy element. The crimson bombs were filled to the brim with scale-dust and a single [Ignite] magic circle.

The result was catastrophic. Not only for the onnikais and the walls, but also Captain Zik.

“Guraaarrgrhhhh!”

The wall exploded and was blown to bits, sending the Zik flying off from the walls as he was descending a stair. One half of his body was scorched by the explosion while his other arm was crushed from the fall damage. Luckily, his armor was destroyed and didn’t melt into his flesh, protecting him from severe burns, while his sacrificed arm meant he could still move around the battlefield. He managed to protect his head, but it seemed his organs and ribs didn’t fully survive the fall.

“Gryak! Gack! Gack! Gack!”

“Captain Zik!”

He coughed up blood, the world was shaking for him, and a dreadful pain could be felt from his chest. His stomach stirred as nausea began to build up, but Zik kept his composure. He sighed internally that he could still move his legs, but the damage from the fall made it impossible for him to stand up without puking. His soldiers had to drag him away from the fight.

Although the flames at the front gate were still active, some of the more stubborn zombies still forced their bodies through it, ignoring the flames as they planned to sacrifice their bodies in an attempt to deal as much damage to the defenders as possible. Equerochs and orcs, and the other sturdy monsters, charged through the inferno without hesitation. It was truly the mindset of an undead.

Like berserkers, the monsters tore through the terrified soldiers and militias without any problem. Some were held up but the reckless fighting style they had made it hard for the soldiers to hold the monsters back for long. Although, they injured a few soldiers and villagers, the white flames burned the black slimes easily and once it was gone, the corpses turned back into corpses. The onnikais had to abandon them to survive.

The gate, the only entrance inside the castle was unpassable, meaning the only way for the onnikai was over the walls. Although the wall was destroyed by Zik’s thrown bomb, it was still too high for many of the onnikai to scale over. Only those able to climb or jump over made it pass.

The attacking force was reduced to these monsters alone as the onnikai horde didn’t have something able to destroy the walls like the onnikai beast. The defenders were finally able to see a light behind this darkness. Slowly but surely, the winner was decided.

“They are retreating!”

As if something was calling them, the onnikai frantically turned their backs to the castle and rushed back into the woods, seemingly having decided they lost today’s battle. Naturally, no one could guess it was due to the onnikai inside the ruins recalling them back to protect it. For the soldiers, it was a merry moment…even if it came at a price.

Torn to shreds, crushed, sliced up, venom stopping their hearts — however, it happened, soldiers and villagers lost their lives today. Even with healing potions, some were unlucky and couldn’t receive healing in time and bled out. Some were heartbroken as they gazed at their dead friends and family. Although some cheered, this fight has robbed many people of their joy.

Victory…I thank you, Goddess Aurena. Thank you for your blessing today…Thank you, Lady Hestia…

A smile appeared on Zik’s face as he closed his eyes the fatigued, he gained from his tired and pained body. Despite the flame burning so brightly outside the castle, heating the area, Zik couldn’t help but feel cold like the snow covering the castle today.

“…We won…I must flee…,” Evalk, the seneschal whispered as cold sweat formed on his face. “The gate is gone, a large chunk of the wall is destroyed, and quite a few soldiers have died. Captain Zik…he doesn’t look good. I must flee. I must flee now!”

His eyes then turned towards one of the attendants of the castle. He was around Evalk’s height, had about the same body type, and his skin color was close to his.

…Nobles are despicable.

A note from AbyssRaven

While I couldn't celebrate the RR anniversary because I forgot about it, I would like to announce that the anniversary of my Patreon was two days ago. As a present, I increased the available chapters for every tier.

Tier 3/4 get 3 more chapters, tier 2 get 2 more chapters, and tier 1 get one more chapter.

Aside from the usual attachment to each chapter to promote my Patreon, I haven't done many actual promotions, so I would like to do it here. The story currently has over 1700 followers, and the lowest tier only costs 2$. Please, don't feel like you have to give any money as the story is free to read, but any amount would help me quite a lot. We the current state of the world, it's a bit annoying, and I can understand if you cannot afford to pledge anything to my patreon. I will be thankful for anybody who wishes to do so, though.

Ok, promotion is over. That was a bit cringey to do. Anyways, I hope you guys liked this side story since it was written at a more grounded premise.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 15 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 128: Advent: Zephira.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #3 her to promote our Patreon. 15 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 15 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until March!

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There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

Acquisition requirement fulfilled. [Dagger Mastery Lv. 1] gained

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Mana Efficiency Lv. 9] [Unarmed Mastery Lv. 5] [Dagger Technique Lv. 4] [Lupine Fangs Lv. 3] [Air Walk Lv. 2] [Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 4] [Bloodlust Lv. 3] [Battle Mind Lv. 6] [Humanize Lv. 8] gained

How beautiful.

A four-winged, rainbow butterfly. That was the insignia engraved on the party bracelet Tasianna possessed in her fairy form. It was the symbol most would associate with the Origin Goddess of Wind and Patron Goddess of the Fairies, Zephira. Made with elven craftsmanship, the emblem enchanted me when I first saw it on Tasianna’s bracelet.

So, what about the real-life version? Well, she was, without a doubt, breathtaking. Numerous little butterflies flew inside a small, weak twister, flapping their radiant wings around as they swarmed around a lime green haired elven woman. Igniculus, the small light elemental, playfully followed these butterflies like a duckling following its mother.

Silva, the woman in question, currently had rainbow glowing eyes and her hair shined like a small torch. Her clothes might be in tatters and blood smeared on her face and hands, but, at this moment, she looked as graceful as a blooming flower.

“Findul-silik, Silva,” Silva spoke, no, the person possessing Silva spoke. “Findul-silik, Tasianna irre Saori. Thank you very much, Tasianna, Saori. It is a shame that I cannot show my thanks to Hestia personally too. However, I do not have a lot of time to speak.”

The voice was unquestionably Silva’s, but the aura and charisma radiating from her was somebody else’s. After defeating the zombie garms, Silva performed the “Rite of the Fading Winds” and permitted Zephira to use her body as a vessel in order to descend to the mortal plane. Which meant, the person addressing us right now was the Goddess of Wind, Zephira.

When the rite was performed, Tasianna quickly bowed when the butterflies began to manifest, while I gave a respectful bow before sitting down, the wounds in my thighs causing me too much pain to remain on my feet. Tasianna was bowing still, making Zephira smile wryly before placing her hand on Tasianna’s chin, raising the fairy’s head to reveal the tears dropping from her face.

“I-I am so sorry. I am so sorry,” Tasianna apologized, anguish clear on her face. “I couldn’t protect her, hic, it was my fault for being a failure of an attendant. I could have been stricter, I could have stopped her from going, I could have given her more comfort and care when we were imprisoned. I could have done something; I know I could have. Neither protected nor attended. I am a failure.”

Tasianna was breaking down emotionally. Although the subject of Princess Schuri, Tasianna’s previous mistress, has been brought up a lot since we started traveling together, she never cried this much until now. This sudden meeting with Zephira probably reopened her past wounds. The floodgates wouldn’t close.

“I gave up on you. I gave up on my race. I ran away from all of it because I lost faith…and hated myself,” Tasianna confessed. “…Why did it happen that day; what did we do to deserve it? It should have been me! Princess Schuri didn’t deserve to die. Somebody as young as she was shouldn’t have lost her life there…”

No, don’t say that! Saying any of that will only shame the memories of your loved one. Live. Live for them and continue their memories in their stead, I wanted to shout out, but stopped when Silva’s mouth let out Zephira’s words.

“I apologize,” she said, a sorrowful expression clear to be seen. “By the laws we Origin Gods set for ourselves and our subordinate gods, I am not allowed to personally intervene in any mortal matters. Whether it was the event you all call the ‘War for the Faefolk,’ your plight…or even theirs.” Zephira turned her head around to the lonesome orb sitting on its pedestal for a moment before turning back to Tasianna. “As a patron Goddess, I have failed you and the fairies. The followers who needed my help have suffered, and now seek to stir chaos and hatred to those around them. Tasianna, your pain is due to my incompetence.”

“No, no! Goddess Zephira, the Wind Mother, is not at fault. It was my actions alone that caused everything to collapse. I could have said ‘no’ to Princess Schuri’s request to go out of the castle, I could have brought her home earlier, I could have been more vigilant and called for escorts, I could have taken care of her instead of letting out my anger on the situation. So many mistakes. Goddess Plesia would have been able to see it all.”

Was it considered rude to name Plesia in this situation? Definitely. It was like comparing your current boss with your previous one. Nobody liked having their flaws pointed out and criticized, especially when you then compare them with somebody more competent and able. Zephira was a Goddess, so I expected her pride as one would be scratched.

However, Zephira stayed silent and listened to Tasianna’s confession intently.

“I despise how fairies always hide their negative emotions away by ignoring the evils in the world — staying inside their little fairy tale, like every day is just a festival. I despise it so much. I hate being part of their race,” she admitted with a disgusted face. “How could they forget Princess Schuri so easily. How could they forgive me so easily? How can they not be angry at me? Do I not deserve punishment for what I did? I wish one of them would just say, ‘Princess Schuri should have lived, instead of you.’”

“Now that is enough!” Unable to hold it in anymore, I stood up despite the pain in my legs and walked over to Tasianna. “I know you believe your life is less valuable than your previous mistress, but you are wrong, Tasianna! Never, ever say that you wish to die in front of me, ever again! Your words not only hurt me, but they will crush Hestia if she ever finds out about it.”

“Miss Saori…”

“Every life is precious, Tasianna. It’s a tragedy about Princess Schuri, and I can relate to the loss you felt for losing somebody precious to you. Every pain is different, I know, but it doesn’t mean we can’t sympathize with each other,” I said, holding my hand against my chest as I remembered my father and mother. “However, cherish your life, Tasianna. Neither your previous nor your current mistress would enjoy seeing you so crushed by all this baggage. Do you understand?”

“B-But-” Tears continued to flow from her eyes, but I ignored them. I couldn’t help but speak my mind.

“The people you leave behind are the ones suffering the most!” I bluntly expressed. “You know this too well, right? So do I. So does Hestia. We miss our lives on Earth. If you were to disappear too, we would 100% cry for you. So, stop hating yourself, Tasianna. Relearn to love yourself, just like how Hestia and I can do it. We might have only known each other for less than a year, but we are a close-knit group of friends, right? Like a family.”

“M-Miss Saori?! Sa-Saori! Waaaaaaaaaah!” Burying her face on my chest, Tasianna’s wailing was ceaseless. It felt like a river of tears was flowing down, soaking my clothes. Similar to Hestia, Tasianna is also a child with issues, huh? Wait, she’s over 80 years old, I shouldn’t be treating her like a child despite her mental age.

Petting her head, I smiled as I let her cry out her sorrow.

“…You have found happiness, I see. Thank you for caring for this young fairy, Saori,” Zephira smiled as she looked at us, before turning her back to us. “…I couldn’t help this young one, but you, I will help.”

“Staaaaaayyy baaaacckkk!” For the first time since we fought, the onnikai boss spoke. How considerate of it.

“I cannot. It is either I free you from your anger and turn you back into a sprite, or Aurena’s champion will destroy you. You will still live if I finish the ‘Rite of the Fading Winds.’ As a small fragment of myself has been summoned here by Faemancer Silva, her wish to purify you will be upheld,” Zephira declared. “Ever since I created this rite and bequeathed my knowledge of it to mortals, I have always intended to support my followers with it. It is one of the few ways for a god to personally interact with her people without angering Plesia.”

Admittedly, as the patron goddess of fairies, I always imagined Zephira to be more the fun-loving, carefree type, similar to how Tasianna described fairies. It made sense for me that a god would be similar to their supported race, especially if I took the saurian, Mister Kushlek’zar, as an example.

Maybe she was more whimsical in private, and she was merely putting up the façade of a serious and competent goddess due to the situation. Hestia and I have two personas for our private and professional lives, after all. Most people do.

“Youuuuuu! Haaaaveeee abaaaaadonneedddd usss. Fooorssaaakeeeened! Usss damnnneedddd! Haaateeeeee…” the onnikai continued speaking in defiance. “Gooddeeeesss Illsssaaaaaphooneee gaaveee usss neeeeewww liveesss. Poooweeerrr! Hoooopeeee! Weee can geet veeeeengeaaaance. Goooddeessss Zeeeeephiraaaa…leeeftt usss…”

Without being swayed by its words, Zephira raised Silva’s staff, commanding her butterflies to swarm around the orb containing the onnikai. “…It is true. I didn’t do enough. For somebody of my status…not being able to protect the few faefolk intelligent enough to revere me is…embarrassing. So, allow me now to rectify that mistake.”

The wind began to move. Like a smooth breeze, it moved past us, merely touching my hair for a moment, before it accelerated around Zephira. A green aura surrounded Silva’s staff, probably due to Zephira empowering the wind around her. The aura then flowed towards the orb and attached itself to the butterflies like a banner.

The onnikai kept shrieking and crying out in desperation for Zephira to stop, but she didn’t blink an eye as she continued her using her powers. The butterflies then shined like a rainbow as the wind began to turn into a small vortex. The black slime surrounding the pedestal slowly disappeared and a dark-red haze slowly escaped the orb, clearing it from its previous black color.

It lasted for a couple of seconds more until the green wind-dispersed and gathered around the zombie garms like flies. It was quick compared to the onnikai boss, but the wind eventually moved away from the garms to escape the room. With my sensitive hearing, I heard the wind rushing through the hallway and up to the stairs. It was like an echo. “Where was it going?” I thought.

The onnikai, on the other hand, slowly lost its hazy form. The black tint disappeared and, similar to how Silva purified the onnikais, the onnikai boss vanished for a moment before returning in a yellow form. This was unlike the other onnikais who were invisible to my eyes.

“With the purification of the leading onnikai, I have also sent my wind to the others. Every living onnikai will be turned back into a spirit,” Zephira said.

At this moment, Tasianna had already stopped crying and watched the whole event first-hand. She saw the former onnikai boss in its new form. Compared to its mist-like form from before, it now looked like a ball with wings attached to it. I wasn’t sure how to describe it outside of that.

“…Thank you,” it let out to Zephira. I was a bit flabbergasted to hear it speak, though. “I…I feel light-headed…in a good sense. It’s like…I can think properly again. Thank you…Goddess Zephira. Thank you for saving us.”

Zephira gave a small smile before speaking. “I am glad…however, you have changed, no? I can feel it. Your form, your senses, your intelligence. You have the form of a spirit, but you feel more like an elemental. A question for you: What do you desire right now?”

“…Vengeance.”

Huh?!

“I…I still feel hatred towards humans. The anger and uncontrollable rage inside me are gone. I don’t want to destroy everything anymore, but I cannot get rid of this feeling of seeing the one who did this to me — who did this to us — pay! I need vengeance before I can find peace,” the former onnikai boss admitted.

“I see, so you have adapted your wants and feelings to a new form. Haaaaa, is this what Aurena and Crustacia feel whenever their race evolves? The faefolk’s ability to adapt to their environment is fascinating,” Zephira said with a wry smile. “So…what about them?”

Zephira then turned her gaze back to us, no, she wasn’t looking at us but at something behind us. Curiously, Tasianna and I did the same, just to witness the four zombie garms approaching us. Their bodies were still in terrible shape from my attacks, as their wounds haven’t healed yet. The black slime was gone, so how could they move?

“This is Goddess Ilsaphone’s gift to us. The ability to solidify our mana into an ooze to control a body similar to humanoids and beasts. It allows us to repair the corpses and make the body our own,” it explained. “…Ahhh, I can feel it disappearing. My condensed mana dispersed. We onnikai have lost it seems.”

Aside from the onnikai beast, I bet she also mentioned the rest of the zombies. I was sure Hestia would be alright, but I can’t help but be worried about here.

Noticing me looking up, Zephira spoke to ease my worries, “There is nothing to worry about, Saori. I’ve already sent Hestia a message to inform her that the Divine Quest has been fulfilled and that you three are safe. From what I can currently see through the faefolk in the forest, she rushed to the human castle instead of the ruins. She is probably worried about the humans.”

“Hie hie,” I giggled. “That girl is such a hero.”

I wonder how the castle is holding up. They should be alright with Hestia’s bombs, and once she arrives, her healing, too…Huh?

[“Pack…Le…ader.”]

By the divine System, individual [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa] is granted the title: [Pack Leader]

Pack Leader

A title given to the designated Alpha of a group of beasts or beastmen. While fighting with the Alpha, the pack members’ Strength and Intelligence will gain 5% of the Alpha’s current Strength and Intelligence. The Alpha will unconditionally gain 25% of all received experience from its pack members. A list of members can be seen with this title

WHAT?!

[“P…ack Le…ader.”]

[“Anc…estor’s…Success…or.”]

[“F…enrir. Pack…Leade…r.”]

“W-What is happening?” I stepped back from the approaching garms, confused at the sudden System and telepathic messages.

“Ahhh, Ilsaphone, that girl has been active it seems. Creating a patron race like her sisters, I see. A bit unconventional but creative. I wonder, have I indirectly helped her finalize her spell’s formula? Hie hie, that girl is far too cute, sometimes~” Zephira muttered.

“Goddess Zephira what is going on here? I wondered this when we fought, but how are these onnikai-I mean, spirits able to use the [Telepathy] from these dead garms?” I asked, still flustered from the voices in my head.

Zephira began explaining the special circumstance concerning these onnikais. ‘Faefolk adapt to their surroundings’ was what Silva had originally explained to me, and supposedly, Ilsaphone, the Goddess of Death, put this theory to the test by granting the onnikai here with a bit of her power. Similar to how a dragon can use breath attacks or how a faefolk cannot accumulate arcane corruption, these onnikais can solidify their mana as a natural ability.

With this slime, they can heal their possessed body and even control it like a nervous system. However, according to Zephira, Ilsaphone wanted these onnikai to completely take over the corpses. By staying inside a body, these onnikai were supposed to adapt to their body and “acquire the body’s memories through their soul,” or whatever that meant.

“I am not familiar with how souls work, so I cannot give you a more detailed explanation. Aurena knows more on the subject, so have Hestia ask her,” Zephira nonchalantly stated. “Plainly said, the onnikai were supposed to become the corpse’s new ‘soul’ and acquire the body’s skills and abilities. Ilsaphone wanted to create a new race. And before you stand four of these members…but...”

[“P…ack Le…ader.”]

[“W…e…follow, Alpha.”]

“They are imperfect,” the former onnikai boss answered in Zephira’s stead.

Due to what I did to them — with my ruthless attacks and Hestia’s venom — the bodies of the onnikai were severely damaged and, as Zephira turned these onnikai back into spirits, they lost their ability to produce the black slime. This meant the garms couldn’t heal their bodies without Hestia’s healing magic.

“No, even with little Hestia’s spells, these bodies should be abandoned entirely. It is already a feat for these onnikai to have salvaged this mess. They are far too old, which makes them incompatible to be used anymore,” Zephira said.

“We found these garms’ bodies as skeletons close to the Belzac forest after I, and few other onnikai, were imprisoned here…is what I can still remember. According to what I heard from the onnikais possessing them, these corpses are seven years old and were withering away when we found them. It took us ten months to bring them to this state.”

And they still looked more like zombies than living beings. Flesh and fur were missing, and I could see their bones. With my actions, I’ve set their efforts back nearly a year.

Seven years old, huh? That can’t be a coincidence that it aligned with the garm subjugation Quest, right?

“Please, wait, that does not make sense. Hestia can heal them. Even if they are as old as seven years, could we not give these faefolk a new life?” I pleaded with Zephira.

“Miss Saori, it isn’t that simple,” Tasianna stepped in to clear up my misunderstanding. “Faefolk adapt, yes, but Goddess Ilsaphone’s targets were onnikais, faefolk most familiar with the concept of death. They were born from the negative emotions of when they perished, so they made great vessels for her powers as the Goddess of Death and Souls. Even if Lady Hestia were to heal the bodies, they wouldn’t be able to adapt to them anymore without Goddess Ilsaphone’s blessing.”

Hmmm, this is really a foreign concept for me.

From what I could surmise, the onnikais were supposed to become a “soul” by turning into spirits before repairing their bodies; the onnikais in their new state couldn’t fit the bodies anymore if Hestia were to heal them. It was like a key with its keyhole, I believe.

Besides, as the bodies were corpses, Zephira worried that they would continue decaying without healing magic now that they couldn’t use the black slime anymore. As the bodies were seven years old, she also believed they would decompose even faster.

Through the process Ilsaphone worked on to create a new race, the onnikais “inherited” the dead garm’s skills and spells. That was why they were able to use spells and [Telepathy] during our fight. This process also brought the onnikai closer to their garm body’s memories, and they were slowly influenced to believe they were the garm’s original “soul,” which explained why they were acting like I was a pack leader or something.

This also explained why my wolf side went wild when they shamed me. The pride of being [Belzac’s Successor] made me angry at them…even if it was against my will.

“Then what should we do for them?” I asked, worried that these onnikai might have wasted all their efforts due to me. The damage was warranted as we were fighting, but I felt a bit saddened, as I valued hard work leading to well-earned rewards.

That was when the garms spoke up.

[“P…ack Leader.”]

[“You…r spe…ll. Vessel…for us.”]

[“We…follow Alpha…everywhere.”]

[“We…hunt together. Ancestor’s descendants hunt…together.”]

The garms then struck a pose as if they were howling, but whether they were missing a head or had their lungs and windpipe destroyed by me, no voice escaped. They were energetic despite being…well, zombies.

“Hmm, that is a workaround,” Zephira commented. “Similar to how they possessed these corpses, these ‘new’ onnikai or spirits may be able to possess that shadow wolf I saw through Silva’s eyes, Saori. That familiar is made completely out of your mana, correct? It might work, although I cannot give a precise answer. Haha, and mortals believe the gods are omniscient. Cute and funny, they are.”

…I think her true personality just shined there.

“Would you like to try, Saori?” Zephira asked. At that moment, everybody’s eyes focused on me. Well, real and imaginary eyes.

…

Truth be told, I didn’t like the idea. Until now, I’ve been trying to reject anything to do with my bloodline as a wolf. Yes, I was a child of a garm, but I didn’t want it to influence my life. And now, a quartet of garms was asking to follow me around as their “Alpha.” It was beyond crazy.

I felt if I accepted and they succeeded somehow to possess my [Shadow Pack], then they would be the catalyst to drive me to learn more about Belzac and what happened seven years ago. My intuition was telling me this. I don’t want to know anything about my garm mother, father, siblings, and family. Nothing! I wanted to deny Belzac…

How embarrassing of me, huh? I am a grown woman, but I was currently fighting over something so…insignificant. However, I wanted to be selfish and childish. I am fucking zero years old! I have the right to throw a tantrum.

…But I didn’t. Whether it was because of Hestia’s disposition influencing me or my wish to see their efforts see fruit, or maybe I was seeing my students in these garms, I considered Zephira’s words. That was what a “good” person should be doing, right?

“…On one condition,” I stated. “Before I can even answer this request, I want to know more about you. Onnikai, why are you here, and who placed you inside these ruins? For what reason are you in this place?”

And that was when the past of this group of onnikai was revealed and the plot behind their existence.

A note from AbyssRaven

The chill Goddess, who tries to act like a Goddess. Remember her POV during that one God chapter?

Also, Saori, the one who wanted to avoid her garm lineage, accidentally becomes a Pack Leader. What will happen to those onnikai garms, I wonder?

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Chapter 129: The Onnikai’s Revelation.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“It was like a haze,” the former onnikai boss began. “I wandered through the years without a real goal. All I could think about was the anger and pain I felt during its death. I never thought I would turn into what you call ‘onnikai.’”

The reborn spirit explained the memories of its time during the “War for the Faefolk” were mostly gone, having either degraded through all its time as an onnikai or from self-preservation to slightly quell its rampaging emotion. It confessed that it has lashed out at anything in its surroundings, as inflicting pain on others made it feel happy. Once it experienced this sadistic tendency for the first time, it knew from instinct that it had to continue to calm down its raging heart.

However, it never went to the extent of the attack on Rashan Village. It attacked both monsters and humanoids, but was rarely able to slay them as a single onnikai was weak on its own. However, its instincts told it to spread pain, not to kill, so it felt satisfaction either way.

It wasn’t a happy life, it admitted, but it was all it could do. A spirit was a simple thinking fae — like a small animal — and it inherited this trait once it transformed into an onnikai.

The spirit continued, “I have no idea when but, eventually, the haze suddenly disappeared when a human captured me with a net. From my memory, I believe they mentioned that it was a mana-woven net.”

If I remember correctly, Tasianna and Princess Schuri were captured in a mana-woven net, too. That means those nets are a standard tool for fae hunters, then.

“The mist in my mind was cleared up by…more pain and anguish,” the yellow light of the spirit began to flicker like a broken light bulb. “I detected many more of my kind. I was put inside that orb! I felt my life sucked away to the point it awakened my repressed memories of that time! B-But it was nothing but the memory of my death! Aaaarghhhh! My DEATH! My deeeaaaaaathhhhh! Argghhhhh!”

The spirit began to darkened and a red hue started taking over its yellow body. The flickering also started becoming more aggressive like a firecracker, sparkling so bright that it was blinding me slightly.

Zephira noticed this and immediately acted on it. She held up Silva’s staff and her rainbow-colored butterflies swarmed around the spirit. The light dulled around the spirit and all the red disappeared.

“Well, I knew this would happen. Thank goodness I decided to stay around for the story instead of just watching it back in my realm,” Zephira remarked after stopping the spirit from, supposedly, rampaging. “It would be problematic if it were to turn back into an onnikai. What a headache.” Zephira pursed her lips a bit, before stopping once she remembered people were watching her intently. I believe her true self wants to break out.

“I-I’m sorry. I can’t control it; I can’t control it. I don’t want to remember…,” the spirit meekly uttered, squeezing my heart a bit as I saw it.

Was it right of me to demand somebody to remember and then reveal the pain of their past? No, it wasn’t. It was selfish of me to do it to the spirit when it was just released from its onnikai self. However, what should I do then? For the safety of my party, I had to know about the onnikai before even considering bringing these garms with me. They clearly wanted it, so I had to at least think about it.

And without any information on the subject, how can I make an educated choice? After receiving a confirmation that my guess that the spirit nearly rampaged was correct, knowing more about its past was paramount. And, honestly, I was becoming dreadfully curious the longer I was denied the truth.

Seemingly figuring out what I was thinking, Tasianna grabbed my shoulder and looked at me with a “let me handle” look before transforming back into her fairy form. She then flew over to the spirit. “Sievulei, although it might not compare to yours, I have felt a similar pain to what was afflicted to you. Those humans…did they watch you with those greed-filled eyes as they ridiculed you?”

Oi, what is she planning?!

“G-Greed…he he he hik hik hik hik ha ha ha!” similar to what happened before, the spirit’s body began to flicker after it burst into laughter. I was nervous it would turn back into an onnikai but Zephira stood still. “They laughed! They laughed at me! Ha ha ha hik hik hik hik! Their words, ‘We’re getting paid a bagful just for throwing a net! This is the easiest job ever!’ I can remember! I remember their words, aarrrrrghhhh!”

The color of the spirit was now a mix of black, red, and yellow. My eyes were wavering, eyeing Zephira, and Tasianna in a rotation. I could feel my tail hair standing up as I looked at the glow the spirit was emanating, and I could only wonder why Zephira wasn’t doing anything. She would act if something were to go out of hand, right? Right?

As the light of the spirit began to look like a haze, it suddenly calmed down. “…But you felt the same anguish. You lost somebody. How? How are you so calm? You cried, you cried, you crieeeddd; I saw. I heard. I feel displeasure and sadness, but where is the anger? I can’t turn you like the others, fairy.”

Before the spirit actually told us its past, it explained to us how it was able to control the onnikai around it. Somehow, the orb it stayed in amplified its intelligence and power to the point it was able to overwhelm the other onnikai through its mana alone.

However, instead of controlling the others through force, the spirit was able to attract the other onnikai by feeding them mana to help them grow stronger. Most of the onnikai were driven by a desire to inflict pain or obtain revenge, so a source of “nutrients” was important for them. Besides, as these onnikai were all victims of the same cruelty, they most likely could relate to each other and realized that it was better to further their goals by working together.

Due to this mana, the boss spirit was able to attract not only onnikais, but also turn faefolk that shared any intense emotions with it. Due to this reason, any onnikai Silva purified were immediately turned back into an enemy as the emotions and memories it had couldn’t be erased, so they were easy pickings for the spirit to turn back. The purification was simply a way for the onnikai to gain its sanity and rationality back.

If this was the Tasianna from when Hestia and I first met her, would there be a chance for her to transform into an onnikai or something similar? The sheer disgust she had for humans was suffocating back then.

“…Let it out, sievulei.” Tasianna answered. “I do not know if this will help you, but it helped me. My hatred for humans was like a fire before I met my current mistress. It became more bearable the more I allowed myself to share my burden with them, and they reciprocated it with kindness. Share with us your suffering, sievulei. Do not let your anger control yourself when you finally have a chance to break free.”

Although hues of black and red were still visible on the spirit’s body, the flickering dimmed. The onnikai stayed silent for a while until it finally spoke, “…I gained consciousness once I felt the same sensation as when I died. The draining. My mana leaving my body as I was stuck in a dark place. I felt so weak, so meek, so lonely. Drain, rest, drain, rest, drain, rest, the cycle continued, continued with no sight of the end.”

Every time the spirit was able to rest and regenerate its mana, it managed to take a glimpse of many other onnikai and faefolk in the room it stayed. It would always notice around person giving orders to others, telling them to follow the drain cycle properly otherwise their “fuel” would die. The spirit could remember most of what happened as it was around the time it gained its current status.

In that room, it met most of the onnikai we fought. The four spirits possessing the garms were also among them. Apparently, the ones inhabiting the garms’ bodies also gained more advanced intelligence after they adapted to their new bodies due to their influence. Hestia did mention the garms she fought were incredibly intelligent, being able to communicate with her and forming strategies mid-fight.

“And then it happened. The cycle ended but, instead of freeing me, they placed me inside that orb. The sensation was…great. I felt mana flowing into me like never before and I adapted to it. I learned the language of men, the Common tongue. Any new memories I formed weren't hazy, and I can recall them even now. It was clarity,” the spirit told us as its tiny wings flapped in elation. “…I remembered the monster. I remember him…roots, plants, claws, fangs, liquids, all of nature’s gifts. Staffs, orbs, glass vials, scrolls, all tools of humanoids. Thaaaaatttt one, on the Wind Mother’s and fairy’s belt. I remember theeeeemmm!”

The spirit then flew towards one of the mana potions on Tasianna’s belt, erratically moving around it like a hungry fly.

It then continued while flying around it, “Yes, yes! Potion seller, alchemist, I remember their words! They spoke, they spoke, they spoke! I learned, I learned, I learned! They used us! Stuffed us into boxes to drain our mana! They looked at us and the creations they made with greed. ‘Money, money, money, davi, davi, davi,’ they said! They brought us heeeeere!”

‘Brought,’ huh? Could it be?

The spirit didn’t mention a time or date, so it still wasn’t 100% confirmed…but I’m beginning to become extremely suspicious of Melia’s words. It was 90% or something. I just need a name or something to identify the culprit of this situation, and then I can ask Gael for some information.

“The orb amplified my power! My mana could solidify and create my ‘hands’. I could mold it and the orb gave my mana the ability to drain power for me to grow,” the spirit explained how it was able to form the onnikai beast. “He told me. He told me. ‘Steal mana. Become stronger. Become stronger. Gather all the mana and grow it all,’ he said, he said. Davison. Davison. I must kiiiiiiiiill him. Revenge! Reeeeeveeeeenge! They called him Davison!”

‘Davison,’ noted.

“Where was the Wind Mother. We cried, we cried for help. I cried for help,” the spirit stopped flying around Tasianna and turned to Zephira in Silva’s body. Zephira could only close her eyes as she was stared at. “…But Goddess Ilsaphone came. Our Goddess arrived when we needed her the most. She spoke to me, she gave me a new power. My solid mana could grant life to my kin. Like me, they can gain ‘hands.’ With these hands…we aimed for vengeance. Davison. Davison. He and all the humans! They will know our paaaiiiiiiinnnnnnn!”

It then turned back to Tasianna, “Fairy…you know our pain. You understand our suffering. Our anger is true. We lingered here for so long, but our…MY wish is now impossible. I have lost Goddess Ilsaphone’s blessing and regained the Wind Mother’s soft breeze. I want revenge. I want Davison to die! I want the human race to rot! Heeeeellllppppppp meeeeeeeeeeee. Aiddd usss forsaaaken.”

“Enough!” I shouted, glaring not only at the spirit but also the garms. “I see, so following me is a convenient excuse so you may borrow my powers. I am not your pawn! Do you truly believe any of us would agree to your request when we came here specifically to foil your continued attack on the people above? I reject. I reject becoming your alpha; I am not your pack leader!”

“Miss Saori…”

“Tasianna, before you say anything, think about this carefully. Even if we were to ignore your oath to Hesta for a moment, it is not the right action to accept these faefolk’s request. Hestia and I cannot and will not be able to accept it, you know this. Not only is Hestia dreaming to become an idol, but the friends she has made are also humans. I cannot help these faefolk because I seek a happy and fulfilling life, not one where I am the bloodhound of these psychopaths!”

Despite raising my voice, Tasianna looked at me with a calm façade, undeterred at all at the fact a red mist was emitting from my eyes. “Of course, I would never betray Lady Hestia’s and your trust at this point. I wouldn’t dare do this to my…family. However…I still wish to aid this spirit. Just once.”

“W-What?!”

“Please, hear me out, Miss Saori,” Tasianna stated before I started scolding her. “I am not driven by my dislike for humans, I swear to you this. What I actually want is to bring the man behind all of this to justice. You have realized it, no? The man behind all of this — the alchemy guild’s guild master. He came to these ruins a year ago and, according to the description from this spirit, it seems like it was put here by someone involved with alchemists and potion sellers.”

She was right. At this point, if I were to call it a coincidence any longer, I would just be in denial. 90% is enough to be suspicious of somebody and the connection was too clear to ignore. It wasn’t 100% yet purely because I had no idea what the Alchemy Guild’s leader’s goal was. Why did he put the onnikai here? Were the ruins nearly turning into a dungeon part of his plan? What about Baron Teullon? Did he know anything about this, or was he innocent in this whole plot?

Our party needed answers, and I bet Farron will too.

Tasianna then glanced at the spirit before returning her gaze to me. “I will not follow the spirit’s revenge plot. My loyalty is Lady Hestia’s and yours alone. Even if I cannot like the human race, I do not seek their destruction anymore. Not after all that I have learned from my journey with you. After all…I do not think Princess Schuri nor Princess Hestia would approve if I were to let my anger out. I have learned that I hate killing because of this anger of mine…”

So, she finally admits it.

“I see…so you did slay those bandits back then, right?” I asked.

“…Yes. I am sorry, I should have followed the plan. I admit that my anger got the better of me and I killed them purely because of my hate. I apologize for neglecting your words,” Tasianna said with a bow.

While it was obvious to Hestia and me after we saw Tasianna’s status after the battle, we weren’t willing to bring up the subject when the person most affected by it hadn’t said anything. Tasianna was smart, so she must have considered us knowing through her leveling up after killing the bandits she lured away from the camp.

The original plan was to simply lure them away so the saurians could storm the camp to allow Hestia to rescue the imprisoned villagers from Carine village. Tasianna would use Hestia’s bombs to cause a distraction and simply allow them to return to the camp where the saurians and Hestia would take care of them. As Tasianna wasn’t very proficient in combat yet, she shouldn’t have fought them.

However, she did, and she slew them. Her level and a few of her skills rose after she returned to us. While I was glad that she came back safe and showed promise in battle, I was afraid it might have affected her mentality. Unlike Hestia and I, she wasn’t a monster. Her mind wasn’t affected by bestial instincts, so I was worried when she started acting meeker than usual.

“Well, I’m glad you finally shared this with me. Thank you,” I said to reassure her I wasn’t angry. “So, can I assume you will not follow this onnikai’s path?”

“Yes, I swear on my name that I will not. I have come to learn to not condemn a whole race just because of a few black sheep. When the time comes, I will only direct my anger at the ones responsible for Princess Schuri’s death, and no one else. I wish to do the same for this spirit,” Tasianna told me with conviction in her eyes. “Draining faefolk for their mana is not only outlawed, but it will undoubtedly cause diplomatic problems for Artorias if Saelariel were to learn about this.”

“Ahh, I see, that is smart.” I nodded my head. “However, there isn’t any evidence for Davison’s crimes yet. That orb doesn’t seem to have any, at least. Davison is also supported by an arcanuess, if I remember correctly. We could have Hestia ask for help from the royal family with her status…you know what, this is a national problem for the kingdom, and I am not a politics expert despite my history knowledge. Let us speak with Ellaine about this before we make a move. We should inform Hestia before we go on with this, though, as this is a party decision.”

After the spirit overheard what we said, it couldn’t help but scoff at our decision, but still showed its thanks as we were still willing to help it get its revenge on the one who caused this whole event. I then turned my head to the garms.

“Do you four understand what was said? If you wish to come with me, then you will listen to me. I do not care what your opinions on humans are at all. You will not attack any of them, otherwise, we will have an issue,” I told them.

[“Pack…Leader’s orders are absolute.”]

[“We follow, Alpha…Belzac’s successor’s words are law.”]

[“Pack will listen. Enemies of…Alpha are our enemies. Allies of Alpha a….re our allies.”]

[“Pack…will live for Alpha. Our…lives are yours.”]

…This is creepy, urgh.

I then summoned a wolf familiar using [Shadow Pack] and allowed the onnikai to possess it. I was expecting it to fail, honestly, but it seems Zephira’s guess was correct. The onnikai successfully left the crumbling garm corpses and entered my shadow wolf. To my surprise, something else happened.

[Belzac Successor]’s [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa] has obtained her first pack member, activating the effects of [Pack Leader]

Acquisition requirement fulfilled. Unique Skill [Shadow Pack Lv. 1] gained

Custom Spell [Shadow Pack] has merged into Unique Skill [Shadow Pack]. Unique Skill [Shadow Pack] has inherited Custom Spell [Shadow Pack]’s effect

Acquisition requirement fulfilled. [Monster Tamer Lv. 1] gained

Shadow Pack

A unique skill made through the custom spell [Shadow Pack], which this skill has inherited its function and effect. The owner of this skill is allowed to store shadow beasts and unleash them through the owner’s shadow. The shadow beast will be considered a [Monster] and obtain a monster’s status profile and evolution options. Shadow beasts will be considered tamed monsters and will be affected by tamer and companion related skills and effects. The maximum storable shadow beasts: [Shadow Pack Lv. X] * 3

Two words: fuck off. That was my very first custom spell! Kuso! (Shit!)

Never would I have thought that I would join Hestia in the “those who lost their custom spells” club. I can finally understand how Hestia felt when she lost [Imperial Hellfire]. The very first custom spell that I put so much effort into was gone…

“…I can’t bring more than three with me,” I said after mourning the loss of [Shadow Pack].

[“Please, take us three first…we can feel Alpha’s skill [Shadow Pack].”]

[“I will follow…Alpha as a spirit until then. I shall follow…Alpha.”]

Your Pack has grown by three individuals. New pack members will require time to assimilate into their new bodies to form a proper shape. Assimilation: 0% Individuals: Darkness Garm, Darkness Garm, Darkness Garm

It seems I can look at their profile without needing to use [Identify]. I’ll put that for later. I should get out of here first.

“I see this is the path you have chosen. Thank you, Saori and Tasianna,” Zephira said after everything was resolved. “Then, let me fulfill my end of the bargain. I have to reward you for your hard work.”

Zephira then turned towards the orb, raising Silva’s staff as she directed her butterflies at it. It took only a moment before the color of the orb turned into a clear blue. “This catalyst not only had to contain a powerful onnikai for an extended time, but it now also has my blessing. Equipment blessed by an Origin God is rather rare to find, as we barely interact with the mortal realm that much. I believe this is an appropriate reward for Hestia, as she can benefit from it as a mage.”

Zephira handed me the orb before looking at Tasianna to reveal a sweet smile. “Tasianna, if I remember correctly, you wanted to be punished, correct?”

“Uck!” Tasianna flinched back as she remembered what she told Zephira.

“Well, I am not like my fellow Origin Goddesses when it comes to punishment, as I dislike it, especially when you did nothing wrong in my opinion. However, if you wish, then as your Patron Goddess, I should oblige.” Cold sweat began to form on Tasianna’s face as she closed her eyes. “Your punishment is…follow Hestia and Saori.”

“Huuuuh?” A high-pitched voice escaped Tasianna’s flabbergasted face.

“Aurena has something planned for the young girl, so her adventures will most likely be riddled with danger. As your punishment, I want you to aid her and Saori. Never leave them, never betray them, never break your oath to your new mistress. Serve her well. Eventually, return to your village with your party and find forgiveness for yourself, Tasianna. Do you understand?”

Tasianna was dumbstruck for a moment before wiping her sweat away to kneel. “Yes! I, Tasianna Marina Silverpond, have heard the Wind Mother’s words! …Although, isn’t this more like a reward, than a punishment? Hie hie.”

After returning the spirit’s color to pure yellow, Zephira told us to be careful if we wanted to continue exploring the ruins before the goddess left Silva’s body. Due to the energy needed to have Zephira stay in her body, Silva immediately lost consciousness, so I had to carry her to the surface on my back.

The spirit, telling us it would “lend us its power,” entered the orb as a safe space, including the one garm spirit who couldn’t become my shadow beast. While they were inside the orb, we could accumulate their mana and also allow them to materialize magic circles if we wanted to. In other words, they would act like Hestia’s parallel minds when it comes to spelling casting.

We rushed to the exit of the ruins, as we had recovered our stamina during the whole talk. My legs still hurt a bit, but the wounds were pretty shallow now. I should ask Hestia to heal them before they turn into scars.

As we approached the castle, we noticed some smoke coming from it. Once we were there, we noticed the terrible state the castle was in. The front walls were cracked and a part even collapsed as if an explosion caused it. The front gate was broken down and the field before it was filled with the bodies of monsters, with some of them having turned into charcoal from fire.

Once we hailed the overly cautious sentry, we entered the castle grounds and noticed the solemn atmosphere. Blood pools and debris littered the grounds, soldiers and villagers crying for their loved ones, and guardsmen looking through the broken-down wall parts for people.

“M-My goodness. T-This is-” Tasianna stuttered as she watched a female soldier crying over the corpse of her father.

“Hmph, it seems we failed miserably. We couldn’t even kill all the humans,” the spirit callously stated.

“…” I stayed silent while looking at the fallen. I gave them a small prayer, wishing them a peaceful rest, before looking for Hestia.

I don’t like that spirit…

After locating what looked like an impromptu infirmary, we finally found our dragoness. With her hair tied together in a ponytail, she was realigning the bones of a wailing soldier before healing him with a spell.

“Realign their bones, cut off any burned or rotting flesh, and keep them hydrated until I can personally take care of them! I stopped them from dying, but that doesn’t mean they are alright!” Hestia ordered the people looking like medics. “Huh? Ahh! Saori! Tasianna! I’m really glad to see you two, but I can’t hug you guys just yet! A lot of these soldiers have stones and other stuff in their body. I need to take care of them first! Good work! Oh, you can put Silva over there, I’ll take care of her as soon as possible.”

According to Hestia, after the onnikai beast dissipated when Zephira purified the onnikai boss and sent her a message, she immediately left for the castle. There, she noticed the tragedy that happened with the soldiers and the militia.

Apparently, she found out that Zik, the captain of the Baron Teullon’s army, nearly died after an explosion appeared on the walls, crumbling it and sending the captain flying down from it. He received a broken arm and back, and was on death’s door when Hestia arrived. He would have died if she had come any later.

Considering Hestia’s personality, she probably was so serious about being a healer because of that accident. It wasn’t her fault, and she did give Zik instructions on how to use it properly, but I think she probably felt some guilt. I wanted to say something, but I don’t think it would do her any good at this moment. Healing the injured will probably help her relieve some of her distress.

After evening came, Hestia was done taking care of all the injured. Most of them were easily taken care of with her healing spells, but many of the more serious cases needed surgery of some kind. Stones and claws buried deep in their flesh, necrotic flesh due to poison, healed broken bones aligned weirdly, there were many reasons for Hestia to personally take care of them instead of using [Sanctified Blaze].

Her healing spells regenerated the bodies of the people back to normal and restored their health, but it didn’t get rid of objects stuck in their bodies or strange affliction too damaging to heal with. Hestia was diligent when she could have done it more lackadaisical.

Rejoined with Hestia, we explained that the problem was solved and the ruins were free of enemies to Dan, the guard captain, and the village chief, the two of them taking charge of the place since the seneschal suddenly disappeared and Zik was still unconscious. They felt relieved about the situation and promised to give us the paper of confirmation for a Quest well-done, but they couldn’t do it now due to the situation of the castle.

Due to Hestia’s status as a noble, the servants of the castle gave us a room to stay in for the night, but couldn’t serve us any proper meals as they needed to feed the soldiers and villagers, too. We, of course, didn’t mind as we had our own food. Instead, the servants gave us the seneschal’s personal liquor storage, as it seemed they believed he ran away.

Well, it was whatever for me. Inside the room, we laid Silva on a free bed and gave Hestia the whole story while eating our dinner.

“Ah, I see, well, I’m just thankful that everybody is alright. Saori, you should really be less stingy about stuff. Those wounds would have turned into scars in no time,” Hestia scolded me, before turning her eyes to the orb, specifically the spirit. “So, you were our enemy, huh? I’ll say it now, so we won’t have a misunderstanding in the future. We will help you get revenge on the person who did this to you, but that will be it. You will not harm any humans while journeying with us, you will stay inside that orb, and you will keep your honeyed words to yourself. Do you understand?”

“…Yes, Champion of Aurena,” the spirit uttered.

“Good. Tasianna, the orb is yours. Good job today, I’m proud of you,” as if she had a switch, Hestia’s facial expression changed drastically the moment she turned to Tasianna. She glared like a predator down at the spirit, pressuring it with her [Tyrant’s Aura], but she gave a girlish smile towards Tasianna.

“The orb! No, no, Lady Hestia, this is your reward from the Wind Mother, so I shouldn’t-” she wanted to decline but it was ignored by Hestia.

“Nah, no chance. You deserve this more than any of us. I’m honestly glad to hear about what happened at the bandit attack, and I’m proud to hear you finally start to like humans.”

“Wait, Lady Hestia, I still do not like humans at all. It is only a couple of humans that I can tolerate. A stranger still irritates me.”

“Good! That’s better than nothing at all, Tasianna. Besides, that orb actually will benefit you more than me. I do need a catalyst, but you need it more, I bet. Read its description later because it seems the orb can still solidify mana. Use it with your wind or ice magic and you can make a wind drill or ice sword, or whatever. It will help your [Cryokinesis] without a doubt.”

Unable to argue back, Tasianna bowed and thanked Hestia, “Thank you, Lady Hestia. I promise I will return your trust with power. I will become stronger so I can protect you from everything, even yourself.”

After I started drinking the free wine, Hestia and Tasianna went to sleep. I was left alone, but I didn’t exactly feel like it. I was happy. Happy that we survived this Quest and that we could spend more time with each other.

…It also taught me that I needed to become stronger. Random Quests turning into a life-and-death battle if we were unlucky like this time can happen again and again. It was the life of adventurers, after all. Hestia’s idol dream and my dream to explore this world will demand strength.

…I need to evolve, as soon as possible!

I needed to train and level up.

Once the bottle of wine was empty, I fell asleep. After dawn came and Silva woke up, we went back to the ruins. This time it wasn’t to fight, but to explore.

‘Ruins of the Fenrir’s Eclipse’ was the name, correct? I have my apprehension, but that sadly can’t stop my history-loving side.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 130: The Murals of an Artist.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“The last time I checked the gate, it was closed shut without a way to open it,” the spirit stated. “I could not find a key or any other methods of opening it. It is futile.”

I looked up at the giant double-doored gate at the end of the chamber where we fought the onnikai boss. It easily towered over my entire party and it seemed like it was designed to allow something rather massive in. If I were to compare its size, it would be large enough to allow my dragon form in without any problems. I was about the size of a mammoth as a dragon, so it made me wonder who the owner of this gate was.

“I would not say that just yet, Kiiro,” Saori responded to the yellow spirit sitting inside the floating ice-covered blue orb. “Goddess Zephira mentioned we should be ‘careful’ if we wanted to explore this area of the ruins. She would not have even brought it up if we had no chance of opening it.”

“Kiiro” was the name we gave the spirit, as calling it “onnikai boss” or “spirit” all the time was annoying. Taken from Japanese, its name simply meant “yellow.” Simple and easy. Even Kiiro itself didn’t complain about the name,as it called the appellation fitting after we explained its meaning. Of course, we didn’t tell Silva or Kiiro where we learned the name.

Speaking of names, Saori hadn’t given her doggos - I mean, her garms - names yet. The three that transformed into shadow beasts have been dormant since she accepted them as her “shadow pack,” while the fourth residing inside the orb with Kiiro mentioned it didn’t need a name. Saori answered that she would give it a name after all four garm spirits were awake.

“Hmm, but Kiiro’s observation is correct. I cannot find a keyhole or any other contraption to open it. Kiiro, have you explored the rest of the ruins yet? Maybe there is a switch or something?” Silva commented.

The orb containing Kiiro glowed yellow for a moment as it responded, “This has been my home for long enough. Even if I hadn’t explored it, the rest of the onnikais had. They have found nothing of that sort.”

[“I…attest…We have found…nothing,”] supporting Kiiro’s statement, the garm spirit uttered.

“It is a gate, so there must be a way to open it. If you wished to seal off an area, you create a wall, not a possible entryway,” Tasianna said, to which I agreed. If there is a gate, then the creator of it clearly wanted it to be opened, otherwise, the entryway could be blocked with a different method. Make a wall, cause rubble to block it, anything was better than a gate.

Tasianna continued, “Have you tried using force yet, Kiiro?”

“Of course. The garms have tried but failed. I have given up on it ever since.”

But you didn’t mention using your onnikai beast. Maybe you needed to reach a strength threshold?

Telling everybody I had an idea, I asked everybody to step away from me as a mana mist began expelling from my body. Turning back into a dragon, I put my front legs on the giant gate, standing up on my hind legs only. Putting all my weight forward, I pushed the gate with all my strength but it wouldn’t budge.

A shame.

[Humanization (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Welp, and here I thought you had to fulfill a Strength requirement for it to open. Maybe Goddess Zephira was wrong?” I remarked.

“The Wind Mother wouldn’t say unnecessary things,” Silva rebuked me. Her faith towards Zephria has risen after she performed the Rite of the Fading Winds.

After thinking about it for a bit longer, and searching every nook and cranny inside the chamber, we finally gave up. Maybe it's like a revisable area, you know. In video games, not all the secrets of a place would be revealed on the first visit, as you needed to obtain an item somewhere else.

These were ruins. It wouldn’t be surprising that the alchemy guild’s master took the opening mechanic away, or that the key to open this gate was stored in another ruin. It was a shame for Saori, as she was the one most excited about this trip. I mean, the only reason why we took this Quest in the first place was ‘cause she wanted to explore these ruins.

“…Hold on, I think I have a clue,” before we began leaving, Saori declared as she glared at the gate. “Garm, when you four touched the gate, nothing happened correct?”

[“Yes, Alpha. I would not lie to the Alpha.”]

“However, if I remember correctly, these ruins were named ‘Ruins of the Fenrir’s Eclipse’ by the Divine System, yes? ‘Fenrir.’ Who comes into your mind if you think of a fenrir?”

“Belzac!” Silva responded.

[“Ancestor!”] the garm spirit added.

“Yes…how annoying,” Saori sighed, walked towards the gate, and touched it with one of her hands. That was when a noise came from the gate. “The ‘key’ isn’t a physical object. It is my title [Belzac’s Successor].”

As expected from something this ancient-looking, the giant gate made a loud rumbling sound as it slowly opened up to us. As the two doors of the gate moved, they ground on the floor and ceiling, shooting out dust and small rocks into the air. Saori stepped back from the dust cloud.

Once the door finished moving, I kinda expected torches to magical light up, revealing our way forward like a scene from a video game, but, alas, that wasn’t the case. The pathway would be pitch-black if it wasn’t for Silva’s trusty light elemental, Igniculus.

[Music Resonation (Minor)] [Blessing of the Goddess of Light (Moderate)] [Sanctified Blaze ] [Various Spell Buffs] [Insatiable Glutton] [Shadow Armament (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

For safety’s sake, we readied ourselves with buffs before venturing into the pathway. My [Detection Sensor] didn’t actually notice any enemies, but who knows, right?

As we walked, we suddenly found something on the wall. It was a mural, although it looked more like the doodling of a caveman, due to how simple it looked. Black colored stickmen, symbolizing a human I guess, were painted on the wall in a setting similar to a village. Houses, crops, hunters with game. It was simple, but it was understandable.

“Hmm, this is my first time witnessing an actual mural made with…charcoal, animal fat, and some iron-like ore. I believe that is how you make simple paint coloring, if my memory serves me correctly,” Saori expressed, looking as excited as a kid at a carnival. “A closed area protected from the elements, well preserved to this day. A musty smell you could only find in abandoned places like these. This is…like a dream come true.”

Not to ruin your fun, but I personally am not a fan of the old basement smell. Sorry, Saori, I thought, keeping the sass to myself.

“Here is a village so similar to any other village you may find. Oh! Look over here! This mural depicts the life of the people inside these ruins!” With unrivaled enthusiasm, Saori darted off before Igniculus could follow her. Considering her [Night Vision], she didn’t need light to see clearly, although it helped with details. “Look at this, everybody! The same art style is plastered along this wall. Considering the appearance of these stickmen, I assume they must be humans. No long ears, no beards, no animalistic features.”

This mural depicted people fleeing from their village, trying to avoid conscription for a large war, and, during their flight, they found this abandoned ruin on their travels. Back then, the ruin was just as empty as today, without any treasures or items of interest to be found above. However, the villagers’ interests weren’t the same as adventurers’, but rather their priority was to find a proper place to settle down. And they found it.

They were able to grow crops as the ground was fertile and a source of water was nearby, the monsters around were weak and easy to hunt, and the ruins were large enough to accommodate all the villagers. In fact, the ruins were so massive that the mural showed the villagers didn’t explore any further than the second underground floor.

“Ahh, now I understand,” as we found another mural, Silva finally spoke out, pointing at what looked like a bearded person with a hammer and tongs sitting on an anvil. “This was a dwarven underground hold. No wonder a ruin this deep would be in human lands. While I have no knowledge of how advanced these humans were or from which age they came, no human would build such deep buildings.”

“Dwarves? Is this their emblem?” I asked.

“No, not exactly. The dwarves are not only capable artisans but also strong warriors and drinkers. They take excessive pride in the fact that no other humanoid race is as specialized in living under mountains as they are. And the pride of a dwarf might actually be stronger than us elves when it comes to their crafts. Their royal emblem would include all these characteristics,” Silva explained. “This is the symbol of the church of the Blacksmith God, Bleidla. A dwarven hold is usually diverse when it comes to their craftsmanship, but this hold was most likely focused on mining and smithing alone.”

You could say, the dwarves dwarfed the elves in pride! Aha!

“Then why couldn’t we find any of these symbols when we ventured down?” Tasianna questioned Silva.

“Sister Tasianna, it is just as I said, dwarves are excessively prideful when it comes to being an artisan. That is especially the case with Bleidla, who is known for being one of the most active subordinate gods in the pantheon.”

The God of Blacksmithing and Searing Volcanoes, Bleidla, was currently a subordinate god for Crustacia and the patron god of all blacksmiths. However, according to Silva, when he was given the choice to become a god, it wasn’t Crustacia’s pantheon that he chose to enter, but Danterno’s. This was way back when the Origin Gods first came to this world, so I guess Crustacia didn’t have a proper foothold back then.

Believing that the inferno produced by the Origin God of Fire would help him craft anything in the world, Bleidla worked under Danterno with this plan. Unfortunately, this alliance didn’t last long,as the two gods began to quarrel, which ended with Danterno casting Bleidla out of his pantheon. That was when Crustacia picked him up and he became a god under her, and indirectly, a god for the whole dwarven race.

“At least, that is all I could read. All this information was written down by the Church of Bleidla,” Silva mentioned, making me a bit suspicious if all this information was true if it only came from a single source. “Anyway, back to the topic. As Bleidla personally watches over the world’s blacksmith guilds, he holds them to a certain degree of capability. It is said that Bleidla blesses those he favors with increased Strength and fire resistance to help them improve as blacksmiths, but it also means he expects something from them. If they disappoint him, Bleidla could explode like an inferno.”

“…I presume, the dwarves of this hold angered Bleidla, which led to the removal of all of Bleidla’s emblem aside from the ones inside this pathway?” Saori deducted.

“Yes, I believe so. The dwarves most likely took everything and then abandoned this fort where the humans eventually settled in. However, the question is, why did the dwarves build a colony here?”

Further inspection of the murals, the humans eventually found the courage to explore the rest of the ruins. As there were no enemies or obstacles, unlike our trip, they made it to the depths with relative ease, where they found the gate blocking this pathway open. They found Bleidla’s emblem and a few parchments concerning blacksmithing when they first came.

As they continued exploring, they eventually reached the end of the pathway, to a door. The door was shown to be cracked and dented, almost as if somebody kept pounding on it from the inside.

Most of the villagers wanted to leave it alone, but a single villager was too curious. It was only a touch, but the moment his finger pressed on the handle, wounds opened up on his arm. There was a painting showing him cry in pain, wailing around alone in the darkness, realizing his mistake. Blood flowed like a river, but instead of resting on the cold ground, it moved towards the door and seeped through its small openings.

With a cracking, a black figure burst out from the door. Its appearance seemed grotesque, considering the artist changed their art style when they drew this black figure. The figure had claws so large it could flatten the human, a ribcage-like armor that looked like it formed from its wings, and bones growing out from its body.

Strangely, in the next painting, this figure was gone, and it was replaced by a human stickman with horns on its head, two bat-like wings, and a long, slim tail.

“Is that a dragonewt?” I blurted out, surprised at what was shown.

“Perhaps,” Silva answered. “However, most dragonewts would be shown with a dragon head, no? That is, after all, the most commonly seen type of dragonewts, if you hadn’t known that, Princess Hestia. Human-like dragonewts and levianewts are rarer, as the dragon blood flowing through most of them overpower their human blood, causing their appearance to resemble their dragon side more. It is no shame to not know this, as [Humanization] breaks this rule.”

Silva then continued, “While your idea is plausible, Princess Hestia, I believe that, due to the artist’s child-like painting aptitude, the artist wanted to depict a demonkin…or in the worst case, a demon.”

Demons and demonkin. The former were otherworldly enemies of the Origin Gods and Peolynca, while the latter were the spawns of demons created through procreation with Peolyncian residents. Aurena told me she couldn’t do much about the demonkin, as they were considered native Peolyncians, and so were protected against the gods’ direct influence; therefore, the gods were forced to use indirect options, like appointing champions, to fight against them.

Aurena mentioned something concerning the demonkin when I visited her home in her divine realm, but didn’t specify anything more than that. I can hazard a guess that they were probably doing something against her church, but who knows at this point.

“Demon…,” Tasianna uttered after gulping. “…Evils who came from the Origin Gods’ world. They terrorized Peolynca and brought chaos and destruction before the gods slew them all. How could a demon be alive and be found here of all places?”

Nobody had an answer, so we continued the trail of murals.

In the next one, the black figure was shown escaping the ruins after killing a few villagers for their blood. When it reached the surface, the moon shined down on it, as a group of villagers cowered before it.

That was when another figure appeared. It howled as it first saw the black figure, revealing itself as a four-legged monster with an appearance similar to a wolf. On its forehead, it had a third eye.

“Belzac…the S rank [Three-Eyed Fenrir],” Silva said with disbelief. “I think I have confirmed when these paintings were made. Around the first 500 years after the Origin Gods arrived in our world, Belzac suddenly appeared in the world, reaching the heights of an S rank monster. These humans must have lived around that time.”

Jeez, doesn’t that mean it’s been a millennia and a half since this event happened? Wow.

The murals then depicted Belzac and the black figure fighting. There was no text or any other information for why Belzac was away from his home in the Belzac forest, so I was a bit confused how this could have happened. This place was far away from the Belzac forest, we weren’t even close to the canyon that separated Artorias from the forest, so why was Belzac fighting the black figure?

My question was quickly answered with the next mural - a painting of an area that suddenly collapsed and turned into a canyon. The power of Belzac and the black figure clashed against each other and caused damage in the forest where they fought.

“How huge was the Belzac forest?” Saori asked Silva without taking her eyes away from the wall.

“Massive. According to the elders, we elves do not originate from this continent, Altrust, but actually come from an island bordering Kargryx. Before my ancestors founded Saelariel, the Belzac forest seemed to have encompassed some of the Kingdom of Artorias and the forest of Saelariel. However, it seemed my ancestors colonized before Belzac was born.”

As the only border between the elven kingdom and the Belzac forest was a gap between two mountain ranges, it made sense why it would be that large. If the reason for the creation of that canyon was ‘cause of this battle, then it also made sense why Belzac itself was that huge. I mean, this place was a forest, too.

The murals continued. Belzac seemed to have eventually defeated the black figure and brought it back to the ruins, where I presumed it was laid to rest, although the paintings didn’t depict it. Belzac left the villagers and moved back to his home, but it seemed it was injured in its battle against the black figure.

“What?! This can’t be!” Silva exclaimed at the next painting.

Without batting an eye, Saori analyzed the mural and spoke out loud, “A lonesome wolf on one side and multiple humanoid stickmen on the other. Some looked like the villagers but equipped with armor and weapons, but some also had long…ears. Uhm, Miss Silva.”

It was a battle. The stickmen drew their spears and bows at the wolf, barraging it with arrows and weapons as the wolf defended itself with a large wound drawn on its body. The wolf fought valiantly but the wound it received from the black figure proved to be fatal, putting it in a disadvantageous situation against the humans and elves.

Belzac was depicted in the next mural gloriously. It could be seen that the art ability of the artist developed with each sequential painting. Although still using black painting, I could feel the energy the artist wanted to express with it. Belzac stood proudly as it howled under the moonshine. The artist must have liked the wolf, it seems.

No wonder it was called ‘Fenrir’s Eclipse.’ This was where the end of his life began.

Silva shook her head in rejection, before stuttering up sentences, “T-This isn’t what I read about Belzac. We were taught that only the humans fought against it due to their fear of its growing powers! No, no, wait, this was made by a human so-”

“Miss Silva,” Saori grabbed her shoulder to calm her down. “Do not panic. This is only one source of what happened back then. When it comes to examining history, a historian has to find and observe as many sources as possible before coming to a conclusion. Until enough resources are found, we, as the observers, must look at the information with a grain of salt, in other words, we must be critical. Maybe this is the truth, maybe not. However, you shouldn’t reject it just yet.”

Silva stared at Saori for a moment before uttering something with widened eyes, “…Wisdom. Wisdom, truly, your words are very wise, Miss Saori. I feel embarrassed for being lectured by someone far younger than me, however I must thank you. This is information about Belzac I have never read before, so isn’t this joyous? …Even if it puts us elves in such a scandalous light.”

Regaining her bearing, we continued through the pathway. At this point, there weren’t many murals left, as it seemed we were coming to the end. The villagers eventually left the ruins after Belzac perished, holding onto an amulet as they traveled to a new land. The only one who stayed back was the artist.

Surprisingly, it was the same person who first released the black figure. With a removed arm, the artist stayed inside the inner chamber where he used the information inside the scrolls left behind by the dwarves and Bleidla to tinker with the door at the chamber, the one we just opened. Somehow, he eventually succeeded in closing the door, with the only way to open it was by holding the title of [Belzac’s Successor].

So, the size of the door didn’t have anything to do with Belzac? It was massive just to be massive??? Holy shit, what were the dwarves thinking when they made this?

The remaining murals depicted the artist drawing and living their life inside the pathway. Strangely, their arms eventually grew back but in a deformed shape and appearance, almost like a monster’s, but it seemed like they didn’t care. After all the murals were down, he laid themselves to rest at the end of the pathway, where they placed the black figure.

…And that is where we found his remains.

“A skeleton. Although I am not 100% sure, I believe he is male. I learned you can analyze the gender through their hips,” Saori explained before picking up a broken off skeleton arm. “Oops!” she exclaimed as it crumbled to dust.

“It seems like the paintings weren’t exaggerating when his arm looked weird, cause that looks weird,” I pointed at his right arm which had bone spikes growing from it like a porcupine.

I then noticed a stone plate placed on the ground and picked it up, revealing an amulet placed under it. However, only bits of the string and amulet were left behind, as time probably destroyed it.

Looking at the stone plate, there was paint on it. “Huh, is this a memento or something? Last words? ‘I falcum tho dijandit ouf Belzac,’ ok, I give up, I can’t read this,” I said after attempting to read the letter.

Once Silva had a look over it, she mentioned it was an ancient form of the current Common tongue. Similar to how languages on Earth developed through the years, so did Common. Silva’s knowledge of the language wasn’t very good and it was a long time since she last had a scripture with it so her translation should be taken with a grain of salt.

“‘I welcome the descendant of Belzac, his successor. I do not know for what reason you came here, but I ask you to turn back. I know you cannot read these words, but I hope my feelings were transmitted to you through my paintings. Please, do not venture any further than this point and turn back. May Marsven, the father of darkness, protect you and your brave lineage. Signed — a Sinner.’”

“So I guess this amulet belonged to Marsven and presumably the ones the villagers held up were his, too. Strange to see humans favoring Marsven this much in this kingdom, but I guess it was a different time,” I commented.

Rest in peace.

Although concerned by his last words, our party was too curious to give up now. The door behind the artist’s remains was broken down just as the murals showed, so we raised our awareness and walked through it.

Inside, the room was covered in claws andholes, scrawled in every single spot of this tiny room. If Belzac had placed the corpse of the black figure here, then it should be somewhere in this room, but we couldn’t see it. The room was so small without any furniture that it was impossible to miss anything.

The only thing inside the room was a single black ball.

Mana Eyes.

Zazail Orb of Sealed Shadows

A black orb that can absorb a tremendous amount of mana for future usage. As a catalyst, it would prove to be an inefficient tool as it cannot aid the magician in their spell cast, however, as a source of mana, it is an ideal tool. The true power of this orb was sealed by the God of Darkness, Marsven, preventing anybody from releasing its true power, so it is safe to use

Mana Capacity: 0/10000

“Woah! Ahaha, how amazing, two catalysts for the price of one Quest! Amazing!” I shouted. “I mean, it doesn’t seem to have any skills for combat but it can store 10k mana! Isn’t this like a mana battery? Wow! Wait, couldn’t this be useful for my concerts? I don’t have to spend so much mana to maintain all the special effects!”

My mind was already thinking of the ways to use this orb, that I completely forgot that we found it in this place. In this place where that black figure once was and where its body should’ve been placed.

“Hestia,” drawing me back to reality, Saori voiced her concerns. “Leave it alone. Have you already forgotten where we found this thing? Literally just now in this…ominous place. Have you asked yourself why there are no remains of that black figure…of that possible demon? Why is this orb here instead and why does it mention Marsven? Why does the artist have a Marsven amulet?”

And it clicked. The puzzle pieces were slowly being placed together until my mind realized the truth. Belzac brought the body back to this place, where Marsven probably helped seal the black figure into this black orb, which probably made the villager and the artist believe Belzac was sent here by Marsven himself, winning him a few new believers. Actually, maybe Belzac was a supporter of Marsven in the first place and came to fight the black figure due to his orders!

There was no 100% confirmation, but the evidence just tied together too well. It was too much of a coincidence, but I already took it as the truth. Fearing what was inside that ball, I stepped back.

“Y-Yeah, let’s just leave it here. Goodbye, whoever you are, please just stay here and…well, be forgotten or something! Farewell, bye-bye!” as I turned around and was about to leave, Silva grabbed my arm.

“Princess Hestia, although I know this might be hard, I don’t believe you can leave this place without the orb,” she stated with a frown.

“What?! Didn’t you listen to what Saori said?! Evil, that orb is probably evil! I don’t want it! Why should I want it after knowing how dangerous it is!”

Unable to challenge my higher Strength, Silva had to grab me with both hands to keep her balance while speaking, “Oof! Please, listen to me! It is precisely because of the threat of this orb that you, as Goddess Aurena’s champion, should take it away! What will you do if somebody else were to take it?”

“What do you mean?! Close the door and be done with it!”

“And how will you close the door? Did you see any of those scrolls the artist learned this information from? The gate is a dwarven construction! The mechanism behind them is not simple, while it is likely that the parchments have degraded over the years. We have no way to learn how to close the door, or are you so willing to stay here and tinker with the door until you can?”

Urgh…verdammt.

“As you are a champion of Aurena, she probably knows about this orb by now through your connection with her.” She was speaking of Aurena’s ability to look through my eyes if I personally allowed her too, which she could right now. “You have a duty! Please, take the orb and keep it safe. God Marsven sealed it, so it must be safe for now, so please safeguard it until you can hand it over to Goddess Aurena. It is the right thing to do; otherwise, who knows who would wander into this place?”

As I was starting to become persuaded, Saori spoke up, “I admit, this is our fault. Zephira did warn us to be careful, which probably was her way to tell us to stay away. Didn’t Goddess Aurena warn you through your divine Quest? Let us take responsibility and bring the orb with us to Firwood. You can ask Aurena to purify it at the temple.”

“I agree,” Tasianna also spoke up. “If the gate cannot be closed, then we should take the orb with us for now. The alchemy guild’s guild master was the reason why we are here and it wouldn’t be impossible for him to come back to the ruin to check on the results. Do we really want to risk that madman obtaining this orb?”

“Yes! Evil, he is evil!” Kiiro chimed in. “Do not give that human any more power! That orb can store mana, you say? More reason for him to hunt faefolk to drain their mana. Take it. Take it! We have wasted enough time here. Go! We must hunt Davison!”

After everybody, even Saori, the most cautious person amongst us, urged me to take it, I reluctantly agreed and threw the damn thing inside my [Storage Magic]. If time stopped inside it, hopefully it will also work on this orb.

Please, don’t break. Please, don’t break.

After looking around just in case we missed something, we agreed that it was time to go back to the surface. And that was where we also would say our goodbyes. Silva only came to the ruins due to the onnikai, so her goals were fulfilled, as were ours. Due to what she saw in the ruins, she wanted to go back to the elven kingdom and double-check the facts written in the history books.

“If you three ever visit the elven capitol, please don’t be shy about meeting me. It would be nice to catch up and I can give you a tour if you need one,” she said before we gave our goodbyes.

We returned to the castle where the villagers were staying until everybody recovered. The village chief already had the confirmation letter for our Quest ready, so we thanked him for it and said our goodbyes. As a farewell gift, I decided to use [Prayer] to give everybody some mental hope by acting as a priestess.

Their thanks and tears really hit home, and I wonder if it had been better if I had stayed at the castle to protect them. I was easily able to take care of the onnikai beast by myself, so shouldn’t it have been alright for me to stick with the castle defenders?

Knowing it would bother Saori and Tasianna if I were to worry this much, I shook that thought away and our party began our way back to Firwood. Once we reached Firwood on the next day, we immediately visited the guild to hand in the finished Quest to get our reward.

And that was where we finally registered our party’s name.

A note from AbyssRaven

A bit of history lesson today.

Also, just to inform everybody,  the art for Dragon Hestia is finally done! it will become available to view for the public in a month but you can view it now if you join my patreon. It is available for any stage. ^^

Also, fun fact, when I was about to release this chapter, I bumped my small toe on a wall. What have I done to deserve this...

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 15 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 131: “Aurora” Rises!

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #2 her to promote our Patreon. 15 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 15 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until March!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

“You want us to register our party’s name?” I asked, sitting on the guild master’s sofa in his office.

“Yes,” Farron, the hunter’s guild’s guild master answered. “First, it makes logistics easier as our clients can address your entire party specifically for Quests, instead of your individual members, allowing guild branches in other kingdoms and countries to process information faster. The adventurer guilds are an international operation, after all. Secondly, a single name is easier to remember than multiple ones until each member starts increasing their own reputation. Information like your ‘fulfilled Quests’ and ‘average member’s ranks’ also makes it easier for foreign guild branches to gauge your capabilities better, making them trust you more. Don’t forget, we are a business at the end of the day, so we have to ensure our reputation by giving appropriate Quests to our hunters. First impressions matter, kiddo.”

Once we arrived back in Firwood, we headed to the hunter’s guild in order to hand in the Quest with the onnikai to get our money. We spent a bit for the Quest’s prep, so we kinda needed the cash. Anyways, after Melia congratulated and thanked us for our hard work, she told us we needed to hand in a report to get our money. As we already expected this from the guild’s rules, we had her bring us to the guild master’s room, as the information we had was confidential.

Of course, I ignored the gazes everybody in the guildhall gave me. Considering how often I’ve visited the guild master for our spars, I thought people got used to it, but it seems like I was wrong. Adventurers are naturally curious.

Once in his office, we gave the guild master a detailed retelling of everything that happened, since I felt he was trustworthy. He fell into silence at the end of it and told us he would give his opinion on the situation after we finished guild-related subjects first. One of them included our party’s name.

Honestly, Saori has mentioned it once or twice for a few days after we registered as adventurers, but our party just kinda, well, lost track of it. Our usual activities in the guild consisted of choosing what Quests to take on, handing completed Quests in, or my spars with Farron. Melia didn’t push the subject, so we just…forgot.

Ignoring Tasianna’s icy glare caused by him calling me “kiddo,” Farron continued, “Don’t think too hard on it. What name resounds with your three ladies the best? It will stick with you forever, but I don’t think you should lose sleep over it. Talk it over.” He then tapped at his head, signaling we could use [Telepathy] if we wanted.

Tokyo Ghou-Girls…Ok, nah.

Shrugging at his suggestion, I began the conversation, “So, you two have a suggestion?”

The only ones inside this room were people who already knew our party’s secrets. Farron, the guild master responsible for our ID issuing, and Melia, who was our Quest handler during our stay in Firwood, already took a peek at our profile, so hiding was unnecessary. It seemed like Saori and Tasianna read my mind.

“I will take any of your suggestions, Lady Hestia,” Tasianna answered.

“If we have to name ourselves, then maybe something memorable? Something cool- or cute-sounding would be good enough for me, as I personally am not very good at picking names,” Saori responded, giving me some ideas to work with. “Oh yeah, nothing K-pop or J-pop related, please. You can call your future girl group in that style if you wish, but not our party, alright? Tasianna and I are not idols, after all.”

True, it would be selfish of me to take such a name if Tasianna and Saori barely do any idol-activities. Although, what are K-pop and J-pop names, anyway? It’s not like western bands and boys/girls groups are any better. I really should inform this music-deprived wolf more on the wonders of music, I thought before flinging out suggestions at Tasianna and Saori.

After some time, we finally settled on something everybody could accept, even Tasianna gave her heartfelt approval of it instead of just playing the part of the maid yes-woman.

“‘Aurora,’ that’s the name we’ll be going with,” I replied to Farron with a smile.

“Aurora,” was actually Saori’s suggestion as it seemed she had the best naming sense amongst the three of us. “Aurora” was the name of the Roman Goddess of Dawn, similar to the Greek Goddess of Dawn, Eos. As you can see, Saori’s interest in mythology has shown its influence again.

While the word “Aurora” was usually referred to as the Aurora Borealis, the polar lights, in modern times, Saori took its old meaning of “dawn” to signify what our party was. “The Dawn of a New Era” or “The Dawn of a New Day.” Both symbolized the start of something new, fitting our party perfectly as the three of us were forced or accepted into a new life.

Saori and I were reborn into Peolynca, while Tasianna exiled herself from her old life and willingly joined us to start her new life as my maid friend. We did consider “Novus Aurora,” since it literally meant “New Dawn,” but we rejected it in the end.

It was a bit of a pleonasm since “new” and “dawn” was a tautology. Also, after saying it out loud a couple of times, everybody agreed it was just too wordy, so we simply went with “Aurora.”

Besides, that word came from Earth, so who cares. Nobody will understand it unless we explain it to them, like the concept of “Idols.” I personally find it funny that Saori likes naming stuff after Roman or Latin Goddesses. I mean, who was the person who named me “Hestia,” huh?

Farron nodded his head, telling Melia to register our party’s name and to give our reward money for the fulfilled Quest once this discussion was over. He then glanced at the orb floating around Tasianna and then back to us, frowning. “Sorry, I can’t help.”

“““Huh?””” A collective show of surprise came from our side.

“Don’t get me wrong; I don’t like that bastard Davison and I already thought he was a slimy, little shit the moment he took over the position as guild master, despite only having immigrated to Firwood ten years ago. Human alchemy guilds are strict with the people in the higher position to ensure they aren’t influenced by nobles,” Farron stated.

He sighed, before continuing, “However, if you haven’t heard about it yet, Davison is supported by Arcanuess Chezaic, a mednoble. That makes it hard for commoners to touch him, you understand?”

“We are not asking you to throw yourself at the alchemy guild, Mr. Farron,” Saori stepped in. “We are simply asking for your support. I would not be able to get Gael to help us, but you should be able to, right?”

Farron shook his head at her suggestion. “Gael is a lost cause. He’s my vice because he’s an old friend and is capable when he wants to, but he’s finicky. Too much of an alcoholic, too. Sober? He can probably do something to make your plot easier, but it won’t happen. You should know how he acts at this point, Saori.”

Frowning and cringing, Saori couldn’t help but agree.

Before I could speak up, Farron kept on speaking, “Look it through my perspective, kiddo. I am the guild master of the hunter’s guild, a guild specialized in hunting monsters, not humans. Furthermore, you have no evidence aside from a single statement from this revenge-filled faefolk and some circumstantial deduction that will inevitably be shot down by Davison’s supporters. Don’t underestimate the influence and connection of a mednoble just because they aren’t a greifnoble, kiddo. All your witnesses can be erased before you can present them officially to Marquess Sirius, and I’m talking about the witnesses in Rashan Village.”

“…” I stayed silent, listening to what Farron had to say.

“Before you have any solid evidence, I cannot help you aside from advice or rumors I heard. Your best bet is to go to Lady Ellaine and work with her. Plotting is part of being a noble, and I am sure House Helvas will profit plenty with House Chezaic losing influence and standing, especially when it comes out that Davison is involved with a political scandal like draining faefolk for mana. Duke Greenveil will have to intervene if you can prove it.”

He then pointed up one of his fingers, looking grimmer than before, “And don’t forget, you three told me you aren’t here to cause trouble for the town. Remember? Don’t even think about storming the alchemy guild without approval from Marquess Sirius, otherwise this will be a major diplomatic problem. Kiddo, you are a foreign dignitary, regardless of the fact you weren’t born in Kargryx or Loatryx, and you were given the same rights and authority of a greifnoble during your stay in Artorias according to His Majesty. If you cause trouble, you will inconvenience the royal family, as nobles from other dukedoms will judge you as a threat. I think you’re smart enough to understand that my kingdom wishes to form a friendly relationship with you, right? That won’t work if the dukes denounce you.”

Without anything else to say, Farron dismissed us after praising us for our work. Oh yeah, it might seem a bit strange that Kiiro didn’t burst out in anger, but the reason for that was it was asleep. It went into hibernation the moment we reached Firwood, as it knew it wouldn’t be able to hold in its bloodthirst.

Once we were back at the hunter’s guild’s counter, Melia registered our party. “Thank you for waiting, here are your IDs back. I have officially registered all three of you under the party name ‘Aurora’ A new section should be open under your ‘party creation’ where you can view your registered party’s information.”

“Aurora” Overview

Party’s Guild Affiliation: Hunter’s Guild

Party Leader: Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor

Party Members: Saori Segawa, Tasianna Marina Silverpond

Number of Members: 3 Average Adventurer Rank of Members: D

You're the leader since we are technically your ‘retainers,’ Saori told me when I was registered as the leader. I mean, sure, but meh.

“You may register additional members and they will be able to contribute to the total sum of completed Quests. Guild officials will be able to see your completed Quests through crystals, and you are permitted to inspect them at any time without question,” Melia explained.

“May I ask something?” Saori began. “Similar to the ‘Quest List’ function in our party bracelets, couldn’t we take a look at our completed Quests there?”

It was a fair question.

“I apologize but manatechnicians haven’t been able to add this function into party bracelets due to information overload, I heard. Veteran guild members will surely have an extensive list of Quests, which includes even G rank Quests, so the implementation is currently halted by our technology. I hope that answered your question,” Melia responded with her cat ears drooping a bit. “Oh right, please, do not forget to form a party with the mercenary guild if you wish. It will be the same procedure, so please rest assured.”

We also received our sweet reward money of 40k Davi for completing the Rashan Village quests, making Saori grin. With money in our pockets, we immediately used up 3000 Davi to change our Jobs, as the three of us capped our Job levels after fighting the onnikais.

Weekly Job Change Limit: 3/3

Previous Jobs: [Caster] [Mage] [Fighter]

Main Job: [Cleric]

[Freelancer] [Pyromancer] [Earth Mage] [Aeromancer] [Wind Mage] [Holy Mage] [Space-Time Mage] [Magus] [Healer] [Priestess] [Shrine Maiden] [Synergist] [Warrior Priestess] [Brawler] [Aggravator] [Ravager] [Hellblade] [Bard] [Scout] [Worker] [Academic] [Noble] [Scale-Dust User] [White Pyromancer] [Corrosive Pyromancer] [Usurper] [Champion of Aurena] [Crimson Saintess] [Idol]

Available Jobs

Job: Hellblade

Requirements: [Hellblade Dragon]

Acquirement Benefits: Health increase, Strength increase, Vitality increase, Agility Increase, Stamina increase, [Hellblade Dragon] proficiency

Main Job Benefits: [Instant Heat Ignition], [Inferno Coating]

Job: Scale-Dust User

Requirements: [Dreadflame Dragon]

Acquirement Benefits: Strength increase, Intelligence increase, Agility Increase, Stamina increase, [Dreadflame Dragon] proficiency

Main Job Benefits: [Scale-Dust Size Increase], [Fire Abnormality Effect: Dread]

In my previous Job changing sessions, I actually didn’t put too much thought into the Jobs later in the list, as they could be called “superior” Jobs simply ‘cause they were unlocked through one of my unique skills or gods’ influences.

“Save the good stuff for last” was my thought process when I picked up the smaller Jobs. Beginner and intermediate jobs require fewer levels and less experience to max out, so I could cycle through them more efficiently if I went out hunting more often. They also unlocked more Jobs for me to choose from, and more Jobs meant more stats. The grind was real.

However, after fighting the onnikai beast, I was thinking of finding some ways to improve my draconic skills. After not being able to rampage as a dragon for a while, I’ve fallen in love with how awesome it feels to be a dragon again. Weird, since I am, one so it should feel normal.

Anyway, what I wanted to say is that I wanted to increase my draconic abilities outside of simply leveling the skills up. I wanted a power-boost, and I honestly can’t wait to become an “adult” to get them. Call it instinct when I looked at these two Jobs.

I wanted to look at [White Pyromancer] and [Corrosive Pyromancer], but I’m leaving that for the latter. Too many goals and my schedule will just be packed full without room for flexibility, and honestly, I’m forgetful. Concentrating on one of two things at a time is better for me.

Instant Heat Ignition

Activate the heat inside you, igniting the scale-dust inside your scales to explode without grinding them. Even in a situation where grinding or igniting the scale-dust is impossible, the user can use their body to do it

Inferno Coating

Increase the intensity of fire enveloping your body. Once ignited, flames covering the user cannot be extinguished without their consent. A flames special property cannot be nullified while increasing their effects even further

The hellblade dragon skill seems like they focus more on the grinding and flame envelopment of your body. Up until now, I always had to grind my claws or tail against something to cover it up in fire. The scale-dust, instead of leaving my body, stays inside my scales, and continuously burns until I’m tired or when they're doused by water.

Scale-Dust Size Increase

Increase the size of scale-dust expelled from the owner’s body. Increase explosion size

Fire Abnormality Effect: Dread

Adds an effect to all fire produced by the owner through magic or abilities, called [Dread Burn]. [Dread Burn] nullifies all source of Health regeneration on an afflicted target and decrease their fire resistance by 30%

As expected, Dreadflame Dragon abilities increase the power of my flames and scale-dust. Larger explosions meant dodging out of them was harder and the damage I could inflict was higher, too. [Dread Burn] seemed like a debuff only a boss or hidden boss would inflict on others, so I wondered why it was this strong. Nullifying healing meant I would hard-counter Aurena’s priests and holy mages, no?

In any case, the two Job skills I would gain from taking either Job as my Main Job was clear, and it fitted what my image of the two dragons was. Hellblade was melee-focused with a tail specialized to act as a spear and sword, while dreadflame concentrated on literal firepower. The problem was figuring out how to get all four.

You know the SP system, right? I thought I could buy [Clerics]’s Main Job skill [Healing Amp] with SP, but the System didn’t allow me to buy these skills from either the shop or my profile, dashing my hopes away. However, with the revelation that skills related to my dragon evolution existed, I was determined to find a way to gain them. There has to be a way. It doesn’t make sense that my dragon form can’t get access to them when my dragonewt form can through the Main Job.

Maybe I can gain those skills by training in certain ways? Heat up my body to the point my tail just combusts in flames?

Until I find another roadblock, I’ll pick a different Job to level up. [Brawler] is the next best choice to improve my melee abilities. I won’t accept Farron’s advice to avoid close-combat when I did so well against the onnikai as a dragon. I have the potential, I just have to believe and put in the hard work.

Individual [Sunfang Dragonewt, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has switched her Main Job to [Brawler]

Main Job benefits have been updated due to Job change

Brawler Level: 0/5

Proficiency requirement fulfilled. [Unarmed Mastery Lv. 2] evolved into [Unarmed Mastery Lv. 3]

Sparring and small weapon training lessons are fine, but I want Farron to actually teach me properly, just like Krim-Slak and Grazlahta taught Saori.

With Saori taking [Dagger Fighter] and Tasianna taking [Cryomancer], we departed from the hunter’s guild and returned to Ellaine’s mansion. Clearly happy to see us, Ellaine rushed at us while we were still walking through the hallway of her mansion, dragging my whole party into her room. Not having to worry about her public image, she hugged me and told me how glad she was to see us all back safe and sound. Cute.

Just like with Farron, we gave Ellaine a detailed retelling of everything that happened in the Quest, including the information we got from Kiiro and its revenge plan. To tell the truth, Barathan, Manuela, and Ellaine looked mortified, as if somebody just died.

“I see…that is very, very, very grave news. If that elf were to inform this to the-” before Ellaine could continue, I interrupted her.

“Don’t worry, she’ll keep quiet about the situation, under the assumption that we deal with it soon. As we have promised the spirit residing in Tasianna’s catalyst, we will have to bring this Davison to justice,” I told her.

Silva trusted us to deal with the situation, so she promised to not say anything to her elders and officials to prevent diplomatic problems with Saelariel and Artorias. Seeing as how the war created a rift between the two countries, I don’t think either country would want another war to be started.

“That is good news. Thank you for taking care of the Kingdom of Artorias, Lady Hestia. As a noble of the Kingdom, I cannot thank you enough for stopping this information from leaking,” Ellaine thanked me, bowing her head a bit. “Still, this situation is not good, not good for a moment. This Davison needs to be dealt with immediately!”

“My Lady, may I have a word?” Barathan intervened to quell Ellaine’s anger. “As we know, Lord Arcanuess Chezaic is currently providing support to the alchemy guild, so any offensive we lead against the guild master will be blocked by House Chezaic. Even with Lord Marquess Sirius’ support, he cannot damage noble ‘property’ without proper evidence. Greifnoble or not, there are laws made to ensure peaceful coexistence between nobles, after all.”

“Farron, the hunter’s guild’s master, said the same,” Saori added. “The statement from Kiiro will not be accepted, I presume, as they were the main reason for the near destruction of the Teullon Barony. Any witness statements will be considered hearsay against a noble, if the villagers from Rashan Village were to be questioned. Our only option is to find and secure the evidence by ourselves. Thankfully, Davison lives in Firwood.”

“I would also suggest we investigate House Chezaic as well,” Manuela suggested with a deep frown on her face. Considering how guilty she felt towards Tasianna for something her ancestors did, I guess this must be like a thorn on her side. “In the first place, I do not understand why a mednoble would support a commoner alchemist this much, to the point the mages guild left due to their plotting. Is he supporting this Davison despite knowing his work, or not? Especially, I wish us to look into his second wife, Lady Annabella. From what I heard when I still attended court, she was considered a notorious sweet talker and opportunist in her home duchy, the Duchy of Equevanna.”

“Barathan, Manuela, I thank you whole-heartedly for your counsel,” Ellaine smiled. “Lady Hestia, I have an idea. A rather unpleasant one, but I believe enduring it will be for the better of my kingdom. However, first, we require support.”

Ellaine then took the small manatech bird from her office desk and spoke into it, “Excuse me for interrupting you, My Lord. This is Ellaine Helvas, daughter of Lord Count Helvas. I wish to ask of you for the honor of a meeting for the sake of your valuable counsel. Thank you for your time and I hope we may meet soon.” She then released the bird outside her window, and it flew away like a hummingbird.

After a couple of minutes, it returned to Ellaine’s side, releasing a man’s voice, “I hope the day has found you well. I am currently at work; however, I have made some time for your requested meeting in my schedule. You may come to my home and we shall talk once I am done. I wish you safe travels.”

Huh? Why does it sound so familiar?

Wasting no time after putting the bird back on her desk, Ellaine ordered Manuela to prepare her gargoyle and told my party to follow her to the entrance. Once outside, both Ellaine and Manuela poured mana into a brown figurine they took from their rooms, and then placed them on the ground. The figures then grew in size, until they were large enough for people to ride on.

“Ahh, gargoyles!” I exclaimed.

“Oh, you have seen one before, Lady Hestia?” Ellaine asked with genuine confusion. After all, she and her family were my first encounter with nobles and manatech gargoyles were mostly noble-exclusive, so it was weird that I could recognize one.

“Uhh, yes, I saw your father, mother, and brother leave on them towards the capital. It was easy to remember when yours is a griffon, too,” I admitted.

After we said our goodbyes to Barathan, Svena, and Josine, our party departed riding on Ellaine’s and Manuela’s gargoyles. To describe the feeling of sitting on them, it felt quite soft and comfortable despite it not having a saddle. The gargoyles looked so hard from afar, so it surprised me when sitting on it was similar to a soft leather sofa.

“Where are we going?” I asked Ellaine as I was sitting with her. She pointed her finger at something like the answer. “That building over there. Do you recognize it?”

The building was large, pompous, and imposing, and I could imagine how much I would have to bend my neck to see the whole thing if I were walking on the ground right now. Looking at its tall walls and the fantasy mansion inside of it, I couldn’t help but see it as a castle. However, unlike Baron Teullon’s castle, this tower truly showed off the maximalism mentality of a noble with the many finer details on the towers and walls. Instead of brown cinder blocks or grey rock, everything about the mansion was colored in white and blue, making it eye candy.

Compared to the mansions in the noble district, this one was, without a question, the largest. Like the other mansions, it was devoid of snow and, once we flew close enough, warmth began to replace the cold of winter, confirming they had a weather controller.

“That is the home of Firwood’s lord, Lord Marquess Sirius. We will be going there for our strategy meeting. Since this is such a serious matter involving politics, I presumed it would be better to consult with somebody more proficient with politics. As my parents aren’t here, I didn’t have many options to trust,” Ellaine explained.

“Wait?! We are meeting Marquess Sirius?!” I uttered in surprise.

“No.”

With that blunt answer, we arrived at the entrance of the castle, where Ellaine had to identify herself to one of the castle guards. Once they confirmed she had a reservation, they let us in, and we landed in the courtyard.

A soldier in fine armor greeted us with a bow, showing respect to Ellaine and me, although it seemed he didn’t know my name. He then escorted us inside the castle. Aside from how more sparkly it looked, it was very similar to what I’ve come to get used to with Ellaine’s home. The only difference really was the castle had more decorations and more quality works to show. Born in luxury, you get used to luxury.

The soldier asked us to stay in a waiting room until he came back, informing us “His Lordship” needed a few more minutes to prepare. Once the time was over, the soldier brought us to an office room, where a maid rang a bell in the soldier’s stead. The door was opened and there sat a purple-haired man…who I think I already met!

Wait, what the fuck?!

The man had medium-long purple hair combed and styled back like a businessman while a single strand of hair fell on his face. His lilac eyes were sharp, looking like they could pierce your soul, even though they were slightly tired looking. The bags under his eyes showed he lacked sleep, and if he was wearing glasses, he could totally look like the handsome overworked intellectual you would find in most animes.

“Theodore Samuel Sirius, it is a pleasure to finally meet you in an official setting, Lady Hestia Atsuko. May Goddess Aurena, the Origin Goddess of Light, bless us on this auspicious day. Lady Ellaine, for allowing us to meet, you have my gratitude. The sofa is here. Please, ladies, I wish you all to sit, and let us discuss what you all came here for,” the man responded with a well-mannered greeting.

“The High Bishop!” I exclaimed, unable to control my surprise.

“Yes,” Ellaine said casually, ignoring my current expression. “Lord Theodore is the youngest child of the previous Lord Marquess Sirius, which makes him the younger brother of the current Lord of Firwood, Lord Marquess Lambhart Richard Sirius.”

D-Did…Ellaine just bamboozle me to get a laugh?! This girl!

A note from AbyssRaven

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 15 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 132: “Anti-Davison” Coalition.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #3 her to promote our Patreon. 15 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 15 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until March!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

“‘Princess Hestia,’ ‘Lady Hestia,’ or would you prefer ‘Champion of Goddess Aurena, Hestia?’” Theodore asked me as everybody sat down on the sofa inside his office. The door was closed and the only ones inside the room were privy to my party’s secrets.

“…Just ‘Hestia’ is fine,” I replied, still feeling a bit befuddled to have learned the High Bishop from the temple was the brother of the Lord of Firwood.

Looking like he understood, he nodded. “‘Lady Hestia’ it is, then. How interesting that somebody of your prestigious status would be this casual, but I suppose the differences between our worlds is something I cannot fathom. I give thanks to Goddess Aurena and God Istari for granting me this chance today.”

“Uhm, would it be inappropriate if I asked you a question, High Bishop Theodore?” meekly, Saori raised her hand like a student.

“Of course. Also, you do not need to care for etiquette, Madam Saori. The moment I joined the clergy, I lost most of my privileges as the ‘Son of a Marquess.’ Technically, if we were to follow the hierarchy rules strictly, Lady Ellaine would outrank me also,” Theodore responded, sipping tea made by Tasianna and Manuela.

Saori bowed slightly in thanks. “Thank you, High Bishop. My question will be blunt, so please excuse me if it is considered rude. As the brother of Lord Marquess Sirius, it seems you were made aware of our presence and identities, correct? That is why you gave Lady Hestia her current amulet. So, why did you not mention this when we first met? It would have certainly dampened this surprise.”

“Fair question, I shall answer it,” Theodore agreed. “The answer is simply because I was ‘High Bishop Theodore’ when we first met, and that the discussion would be inside the temple. It would go against good judgment to risk leaking Lady Hestia’s identity as an otherworlder and champion. I do have a safe room with sound-proof runes inside the temple, but I felt any discussion should be held here when I am acting as Lord Marquess Sirius’ aide and brother. There should be a separation between work and private life, no?”

Theodore explained that, despite being the High Bishop, he also frequents his family’s castle a lot due to his work as his brother’s aide. Thanks to this role, he was made aware of my party’s profiles and my role as Aurena’s champion, which prompted him to give me an amulet made for white-robed priests, priestesses, and shrine maidens instead of the amulet meant for laity like Tasianna.

“Lady Hestia, this does not have anything to do with the discussion for today, but, although I act as my brother’s aide today, I do wish to invite you to the temple as the High Bishop. How is your knowledge of the Church of Aurena?” he asked me.

“Oh, is that so? Well, funnily enough, Goddess Aurena has asked me to learn more about her Church to fulfill my role as her champion, so I would appreciate it if you could show me around a bit,” I told him, believing this might be a good chance to get some more information on the Church of Aurena. Until now, I’ve only had an outsider’s view on them or received second-hand information from their believers.

“Wonderful. We shall share knowledge then, yours from your world, and I shall offer you a most extensive schedule on how the church functions. Madam Saori, I have heard much from Lady Ellaine about how you were an educator in your previous life? Perhaps we can exchange notes? My brother has two sons and I wish to provide a proper education for them,” Theodore responded with a charismatic smile.

Honestly, was it just me, or was the High Bishop in “networking mode?” Not only did he manage to rope me in to visit the church with him, but he also piqued Saori’s interest. I guess this was the experience and capability of a high-ranking noble. How frightening.

“However, let us delay these commitments for later. I currently do not have the time to spare, since my duties as the High Bishop and my brother’s aide requires me to work through a mountain of papers. WinterMoon is upon us, which means the temple must prepare for spring prayer and Spring’s Blessing, not to mention that nobles will be returning to their Firwood demesnes from the capital,” Theodore stated at the end of it. “In any case, it wouldn’t be good for Lady Hestia to visit the temple before spring’s blessing.”

“Why?” I tilted my head.

“Well,” he frowned, pausing for a moment before continuing with a sighing. “The temple has recently heard from three commoner white-robed priests that a shrine maiden created a commotion in the hunter’s guild. According to their testament, the shrine maiden had an outfit befitting of a noble lady’s or a rich merchant’s daughter, a red-scaled tail, horns on the side of her head, and blazing crimson hair. She was a talented singer and also displayed the ability to cast [Sacred Field] without a chant…Does that sound familiar, My Lady?”

“…Oh.”

Well, that is kinda bad. What am I supposed to do with this black orb in my inventory then? Argh, please don’t do anything until I can give it to Aurena.

“When questioned, a few grey-robed priests and priestesses have testified that they have seen you in the church, as did I. They were displeased and complained I should have introduced you to them. They even ordered the three commoner priests to search for you and made the grey-priests inform them the moment you came to the temple.”

After sipping his tea again, Theodore surprisingly showed a smug face, “Well, it certainly was fun to silence them. ‘She has prayed to the Goddess’ shrine and given her respect to me, the High Bishop. The wandering priestess showed proper etiquette,’ was enough to shut most of them up. Still, a few loud voices make it impossible for me to enjoy a simple book during my breaks. Clergymen or not, complaining is in a noble’s blood.”

…You’re complaining, right here, right now. You’re complaining about people complaining to you ‘cause I…complained…to a rude guy who complained about me…This is some next level complainception here.

Theodore explained that the priests weren’t able to find me in the last two weeks, so they’ve begun to think I left the town, but the High Bishop still believes I should stay away from the church for now. Coincidentally, doesn’t this coincide with the time I stayed in Ellaine’s mansion to train her and with the Quest in Rashan Village? I met those priests in the hunter’s guild on the 17th and today was the 30th of WinterSun. It has been nearly two weeks, huh?

“I think this is enough small talk. When I said I didn’t have much time, I meant it. Let us begin, shall we, Lady Ellaine, Lady Hestia?”

First things first, we gave Theodore all the details about what happened in Rashana Village and also my current promise to Kiiro to bring Davison to justice for what he did to all those faefolk. Or find the truth of who controlled him to do it.

“I will be honest, House Helvas would benefit from the fall of House Chezaic, as we can take control of their enterprises and businesses. However, that would be the main motivator for my brother and father. I am here as a favor for Lady Hestia,” Ellaine admitted. “I apologize if this disappoints you, Lord Theodore.”

Nobles are supposed to act as the elite leaders and protectors of the Kingdom of Artorias; however, since House Helvas was motivated by private matters, their motives clashed with this ideology, especially since Davison was committing such a huge diplomatic scandal. A noble should do their best to stop him purely for patriotic reasons.

“Don’t worry, I do not mind it. Results over intentions. Not everybody can be motivated by patriotism alone. What matters is that we deal with this problem immediately. The King and the Dukes are currently in the process of mending their relationship with the dwarves and elves, so having this information leak would be disastrous,” Theodore said.

“Please, hold on,” holding her hand up, Tasianna interjected herself. “You h- Uhm, the Kingdom of Artorias is attempting friendly relationships? I, admittedly, haven’t heard about this.” There was visible skepticism in her eyes as she asked.

Theodore nodded. “Yes, Lady Fairy. The north and east are lands owned by non-humans, so the wisest choice for this kingdom’s future is to work on what our founders fought for - to mend the mistakes of the past and to reform our bonds with the dwarves and elves. Dwarven artisans and traders have begun coming to Artorias again, so our efforts are slowly being rewarded.”

Honestly, the only dwarves I’ve seen inside Firwood had been Kraftja and Ogni, the two owners of the small blacksmith we visited. Then again, Firwood was far away from where the Dwarven Kingdom was, so it was understandable that not many can be found here.

“That is why this commoner, Davison, and the support House Chezaic has given him are a threat. However, as you mentioned, my brother and I cannot openly go against Arcanuess Chezaic due to a lack of evidence, and even I am, admittedly, a bit skeptical. Scandals like these can ruin an entire noble house, so I must be prudent with which side I support. They are messy to deal with,” shaking his head, Theodore gave his dislike of the situation.

“I understand, Lord Theodore, but this warrants an investigation at least, no? If Lady Hestia’s words are true, then House Helvas will expect House Sirius’ aid in subduing Davison and to deal appropriate judgment to those involved,” Ellaine stated firmly. “Regardless of your support, I’ve already decided on uncovering the truth. Still, I will wholeheartedly accept any aid with gratitude.”

Theodore looked in Ellaine’s eyes for a moment before picking up his teacup. He closed his eyes and smelled its warm fragrance, probably using this time to think before speaking, “From my own investigations, supporters of House Chezaic and the alchemy guild can be found inside the temple. House Sirius cannot help you with the investigation; however, I, the High Bishop, can help you weaken their faction to lure them out, creating opportunities for them to slip up and expose themselves.”

According to Theodore, the priests and priestesses supporting House Chezaic and Davison are being provided with quality potions and elixirs for them to use during leveling sessions, or other projects that their families or relatives are doing. Not every noble house has access to talented alchemists, and most of the people inside the temple were weaker nobles from low-tier houses. All they needed to do was to grant a few religious favors.

They were allowed to become stronger and help their families, so it was obvious they would take it in exchange for a few IOUs. If I was in their shoes, I would probably agree too.

“I see, so that is why the alchemy guild pushed the mage’s guild outside Firwood. Once they obtained the privilege to gather all the materials from the Belzac forest, they would be able to create not only high-quality Health and Mana potions, but also distill them into massive quantities of low-tier ones for mass production. This amount can train up multiple garrisons and small armies from the viscounts and schwertnobles,” Manuela commented “Lady Hestia, herbs like your fulinoe leaves and Belzac herbs are potent ingredients for potion-making. I am not an alchemist myself, but I believe you should be able to distill a major Health potion made with Belzac herbs into ten or 15 minor ones. Perfect for a soldier-in-training.”

“There is also the benefit of having the favor of a white-robed priest. The spring’s blessing is an annual event where the church blesses the land of farming villages with mana to increase soil quality. We nobles can do the same, but something about the mana the church grants is more special. It makes the church invaluable and hard to antagonize,” Ellaine added.

“It is because of the vessels we hold the mana in. Mana from us white-robed clergymen are donated into grails and catalysts all year round, and we then use this mana to bless the land. Unfortunately, even I do not know how they were made, as its secrets are held securely in the Holy Capital, Aureolis, where the pope is seated. I almost broke one when I tinkered with it in the past. Such a shame,” he said with what looked like a pout, mumbling that “the goddess probably blessed them” at the end.

Holy Mana, maybe? Interesting.

“So, how am I supposed to do that? You told me to stay away from the temple, so how am I supposed to weaken or even outright kick out those clergymen?” I asked Theodore.

“Simple, draw the attention of the temple’s visitors and white grace recipients,” he replied. “The temple finances itself in two ways, through donations and granting the white grace. We technically also sell grey-robes as attendants, but we record it under donations in the book.”

It sounded a bit like slavery to me, but Theodore assured me it wasn’t the case. Slavery was banned in Artorias, and the grey-robed priest and priestesses are allowed to reject these offers, even from nobles. The rules state that requests to buy a grey-robed could only be fulfilled if they were approved by the High Bishop himself, and Theodore has only made this exchange with noble houses he could trust.

Still, selling and exchanging ownership is so similar to what I consider slavery. I don’t know. I guess if those people are still treated humanely and given the freedom to do stuff in moderation, I shouldn’t be complaining. Touchy topic, really.

“You cannot influence donations, as it is shared fairly amongst the clergy and is usually used to maintain or improve the temple. This money comes from noble houses and the Marquess, so you won’t be able to influence it,” he told me. “However, the money given to a clergyman through a white grace treatment belongs to that person alone. In other words, if you were a talented white mage, you will be asked for your service by more wealthy individuals. The base price of a white grace is simply a minimum for our service, but most merchants or nobles asking for healing pay more to promote our growth and develop a relationship.”

The money gained from a white grace was either used to improve a clergyman’s life in the temple or used for combat enhancements. Other possibilities included mana potions to increase magic training session time, equipment like runes for their robes or catalysts, and even to hire adventurers to help them level up. Peolynca was Peolynca, at the end of the day. It was similar to Earth, but everybody in this world would strive for improvements in their stats if given the option.

“Bottom feeders” would treat poor and middle-income commoners only, while talented individuals would treat Counts and Arcanuesses. The High Bishop held the role as the personal healer of the Sirius household, not ‘cause of nepotism, but ‘cause of his skill.

“I lost against my brother for the right to become Marquess Sirius, but I am a greifnoble still. If I didn’t have the ability, my brother’s first wife, Lady Marquess Sirius, would have forbidden me from coming to the castle outside of special events. That woman despises me and is only enduring my presence in her home simply because I am capable. Capable enough that my brother’s efficiency as a fief lord would decrease if I left.”

I agreed. The small glimpse I felt during the Binding Festival, where he invoked [Prayer] was proof enough for me. There was a single person who provided most of the mana and they stood in the center, right where the High Bishop was.

“Most of the clergymen who support House Chezaic and Davison belong to the weaker faction. They treat the residents of the town and a few merchants Davison introduced them to. With your capabilities, you should be able to outperform them, Lady Hestia. This will attract the attention of Davison without question. However, I have heard reports that you aren’t taking white grace money, so I would ask you to do so in the future.”

Healing for free; for most people, getting something for free was far more desirable than having to pay. It was the same thing for the white grace.

“While I bow to you for your generosity, with your ability to heal people, you could heal the entire town for free if you wanted. However, what will the temple do then? While I can survive by offering free white graces of any tier, those below me cannot. They will rely on donations and the money their family sends to them, slowing down their growth.”

“Besides, Lady Hestia, we need the money. You’ve seen how much we spent on our equipment and potions. Think of it as a source of side-income — you do not have to overcharge them even,” Saori agreed.

Urgh, this doesn’t feel like the right thing, but if everybody in this world is doing it, then shouldn’t I adapt? If I tell everybody I’m using [Minor Heal], I can set the price to 500 Davi only. That’s enough, I guess.

Giving up, I agreed. It wasn’t philanthropic, but it wouldn’t be right for me to destabilize other people’s income.

“Thank you. You do not have to fulfill it, but it would help you nonetheless,” Theodore said.

“Then it is my time to speak,” with the High Bishop’s idea done, Ellaine spoke up. “Lady Hestia, in a few days, nobles without further business at the capital will slowly return to their demesnes to prepare for spring, which includes nobles like my brother and myself. Most of these nobles will be students of the royal academy, as the school year begins on the first day of SpringSun. Two of those students will be Lord Arcanuess Chezaic’s daughters.”

“Lady Ellaine, you aren’t intending to attend their tea party?!” Manuela burst out, anxiousness and panic seeping from her voice.

“Manuela, we are before Lord Theodore,” Ellaine reprimanded Manuela before continuing. “Yes, Manuela, I am. Lady Hestia, the tea party is annually hosted by the Chezaic twins for all noble daughters still attending the academy in Firwood. I used to attend the tea party before I relinquished my right to become my house’s heir. I want you to accept their invitation and bring Miss Saori as your attendant in order to allow her to search House Chezaic’s mansion for evidence. I shall accompany you, as you lack experience in this setting.”

Having nothing to disagree with, I accepted her proposal. I was a bit worried why Manuela raised her voice, but Ellaine herself didn’t want to say,so I let it go for now. Although, I had a bad feeling.

“Lord Theodore-” Ellaine wanted to say but she was interrupted by the High Bishop who read her mind.

“I understand, I can support you with that. Rumors must align, so send your spymaster over to me once he is free. I will make sure the entire noble district will learn of Lady Hestia’s presence.”

Since I will reveal my identity anyway with Theodore’s task, making my name known amongst the nobles won’t be a detriment. And, honestly, I will inevitably make mine and my party’s name known once we begin Saori’s restaurant and begin taking more Quests. An idol shouldn’t shy away from making her name known.

As we all took some time to finalize the plan and what my party will be doing, Theodore said something surprising, “Good, once you have the evidence, send them to me. Not only will my brother support your decision, but also Lord Duke Greenveil. House Chezaic, no matter how many supporters they have, will be unable to defend themselves once the Duke himself orders for their detainment.”

“Duke Greenveil? Jeez, Marquess family or not, but is House Sirius that influential that you can bring the Lord of this Dukedom into action that easily? Shouldn’t he be busy with his fief or his discussion with the royal family?” I said, flabbergasted at how casually he said it. I mean, a duke was like a king inside his dukedom, so calling him for something House Sirius can handle by themselves was just weird. I mean, it wasn’t a war or something.

“Of course, we can. The first wife of Lord Duke Greenveil is the second child of my parents. She’s my older sister.” Theodore dropped that bomb with such a perfect poker face, I actually thought he was joking for a moment.

“…What?”

“We have a blood bond with House Greenveil; as well, there is the fact that we are considered one of House Greenveil’s arms. Marquess houses often have deep ties to the ducal houses, similar to how the royal family has deep ties with ducal houses. Nothing is surprising about it, Lady Hestia. It is a result of our father’s efforts to improve our house’s prestige.”

This guy is just a bundle of surprises, huh? What the hell is this day?

And so, the “Anti-Davison” alliance was formed.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 133: That would mean less Dragorade for us, right?

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“You’ve asked him for his address?” I asked Saori, who was leading us through the streets of the middle district of the town.

It was the day after we returned to Firwood and had a talk with Ellaine and the High Bishop about our plans to expose the guild master of the alchemy guild for what he did to Kiiro and the other faefolk. After listing out what each side had to do, both publicly and behind the stage, everybody began executing our plans. That was our party’s reason for being here.

Usually, I would help out Ellaine with her training, which she has continued even in my absence, or spar with the guild master followed by working on my spells in the evening, but it’s time to be serious.

“Yes, I had a feeling it would be good for us to keep in contact. He mentioned he was an alchemist, right? After we were rejected by the alchemy guild, I thought it would do us good if Tasianna could learn about alchemy outside the guild,” Saori explained.

Tasianna nodded in agreement. “Once we finished his dish, he widened his eyes and couldn’t help but thank us. Whoever he will give the dish to must be important to him, since Miss Saori mentioned he looked like a man in love. Asking which inn he was staying at while in town was easy enough, and I believe he shouldn’t have left Firwood just yet. He mentioned needing to make some money.”

“…Just for your information, I compared him to a love-struck boy from a love drama. You know, they are quite dramatic sometimes. It reminded me of all the shows I could not finish watching…haaaaaa.” Saori’s sigh was deep, as if a part of her soul flew out of her mouth. It made me wonder how many shows I have been missing, not to mention all the weekly novel and manga updates.

The person we were talking about was Cernust, the ox beastman who “saved” us from a bunch of “thugs.” I believe we met him during the evening of the Binding festival, where he introduced himself to us as an adventurer and alchemist. As a favor for “saving” us, Saori agreed to cook something good for him, which he mentioned was for his female friend.

Saori asked him where he was staying and we were visiting him today. Saori wanted Tasianna to learn how to concoct potions from a professional, seeing as none of the members of the Helvas family knew how to. Their library had the recipes we needed as well as some tips for beginners, but we wanted to know if there were any advanced techniques or easy to make mistakes.

Come to think about it, didn’t Saori and Tasianna mention they met Gael, the vice guild master of the hunter’s guild, on that day? Kinda creepy that we were stalked ever since we left the hunter’s guild…or maybe since we entered Firwood? After all, Farron knew we were coming.

Putting that idea aside, we eventually made it to the inn where Cernust supposedly was staying at. Looking from the outside, it seemed pretty normal, like most buildings in the middle district. There was some snow still on the wooden roof of the inn, but it seems like it was slowly melting away, similar to the rest of Firwood. There were still two months of “winter” left, according to how Peolyncians named their months, but it was snowing less and less each day even if it was still cold.

As we entered the inn, we saw the innkeeper and other staff members either cleaning or taking care of their customers. It was still early in the day, but the breakfast period should be over already. Still, a few patrons were being served steaming food.

“Welcome, ladies! How may I…A priestess?! Excuse me for my manners, Lady Priestess! I do hope RestDay has found you well!” the innkeeper greeted us in a panic.

RestDay, a day of rest. That was the reason why a few patrons were having late breakfast, as most adventurers or financially successful residents would take this day to relax and unwind themselves. Considering an inn was the most useful for travelers, most of their guests should fall into this category.

The commotion caused by the innkeeper seemed to have garnered the attention of everybody, so I hastily attempted to diffuse it. “Ah, no, no, it’s okay. Please, don’t bow, Mister. I’m not here on anything special really. May the Goddess bless you and your buzzling establishment. Please, stand up straight. It’s really not…comforting,” a wry smile formed on my face as I couldn’t help but regret coming here with my robes. It’s warm and I’ve gotten so used to wearing it at this point that I consider it part of my attire, regardless of which outfit I’m wearing under it.

The innkeeper’s eyes darted between Saori and Tasianna, looking like he was asking them for approval or something. Once they both nodded, the innkeeper raised his head and sighed silently.

“I-I apologize, Lady Priestess. Uhm, how may I help you?” he uttered, panic still clear to be seen in his eyes.

“We will not stay for too long, Mister Innkeeper, since we do not want to inconvenience your business. We apologize for that,” Saori responded. “We are here for an acquaintance of ours. Is a bovline, an ox beastman, under the name of Cernust around? He told us to find him here if we needed him.”

“Bovline? Horns like a bull, feet like an equerochs? A massive man with green hair? Yeah, he’s been staying here for a while with his lady friend. He hasn’t come down yet, so he should still be upstairs,” he answered, having calmed down a bit after Saori and I bowed slightly to apologized. “Uhm, normally, it should be alright for you to go up, but he told me he didn’t want any guests. He would ‘pummel me up’ if I were to go into his room without him.”

“It’s alright,” I said, with a smile. “If you would be so kind, could you call him down? We will wait downstairs, and there is no need to rush.”

“He should respond to ‘Saori,’ so please tell him that we are waiting.”

He gave a quick node and ascended to the next floor with the stairs. After a couple of minutes, he came back with a green-haired, tall man following right behind him.

Hmm, it’s that sweet smell again. Is he wearing perfume or something?

“Ahh, it really is you girls! I’ll be honest, I didn’t think we would meet again, but look at that. Miss Saori and Miss Tasianna, right? My friend absolutely loved your dish, and I’m willing to pay for another one if you wouldn’t mind,” the tall man, Cernust, greeted us with a welcoming smile, waving his hand as if he was meeting an old friend. “Hmm? Wait…that smell. Hold on, if my memory serves me right, you didn’t have any horns or a tail the last time we met, Little Miss…Nor a white robe, Miss Priestess of Goddess Aurena.”

Ahh! I guess we did meet when I was a human without my robes on. Hmm, there really isn’t any excuse I can give, huh? Well, might as well.

“Ahh, that’s right. Sorry about last time. I went to the temple incognito and didn’t want people to recognize me. This is my real form. I’m a dragonewt that learned [Humanize], so I sometimes slip into being a human,” I explained, only lying a bit.

The anti-Davison plan required me to draw people’s attention, so hiding being a priestess or a dragonewt wasn’t necessary anymore. Even as a human, people can recognize me since my hair was pretty conspicuous, despite the majority of people having colored hair in Peolynca.

“Dragonewt? I see…you’re an adult, right, Miss? You don’t see too many, actually you don’t see dragonewts in Artorias at all. Long way from your home,” Cernust mentioned, eyeing me a bit suspiciously.

Huh, why is he looking at me like that? My excuse should be plausible, or was he being a creep again like last time when he tried to smell me?

Noticing the weird atmosphere, Saori coughed to get Cernust’s attention. He apologized for being rude and turned to Saori, who explained we wanted him to teach Tasianna about alchemy.

“Alchemy? Yeah, sure, I can do that. I guess Tasianna had problems joining the local guild, huh? I tried to sell a few of my potions, but the stores partnered with them wouldn’t accept them, telling me they weren’t ‘quality-proofed’ for some shit reason. ‘Then do it here,’ I told them, but they said they didn’t have the time for a novice. A ‘novice?!’ Me?! Ha, I may look like a brute, but I can concoct better pots than the crap they sell in their stores. I even heard they get ingredients from the Belzac forest,” Cernust ranted passionately, only calming down after he unloaded his complaints.

After he was down, he scratched his green hair for a moment before bringing up a question for us, “If you pay for the ingredients, I can show how it is done. Let’s use my equipment so you can learn how to properly take care of them. Although…aren’t you an elf? Shouldn’t you be learning this in your forest instead of in human lands?”

We told him she didn’t learn it when she left the forest and joined us, and it would be too far away for us to do it now. Since we needed to earn some money, we thought it would be perfect if somebody could show her the ropes. Gaining experience and leveling the [Alchemy] skill was important to become a professional.

He nodded in understanding and asked us if we knew a place where we could work, explaining that his traveling partner wouldn’t like unannounced visitors. She was shy, according to him. Fortunately, we wanted to bring him to a separate location for Tasianna’s lessons anyways, since we also wanted to ask him more questions.

He went upstairs to get his equipment and we departed from the inn once he was ready. After walking a bit, we ended up at our destination: the store managed by Zeather, the foxian.

“Zeather welcomes dear customers back to the store,” the well-mannered orange-haired foxian welcomed us with a short bow. “Is this the person dear customers talked about? You may use Zeather’s office in the back of the shop; I will come in a moment. Quini, Zeather will leave the door open, so call me if customers enter the shop.”

Once we were inside Zeather’s office, Cernust began unpacking his tools. A stone mortar with a pestle, two wooden hand-sized pots, multiple long glass vials held up by a tube rack, a beaker, a few chemistry-class-looking flasks, and a flask stand with a small candle under the holder. Everything was packed inside his large backpack, and each came out of it without a crack.

“Take care of your equipment,” he mentioned after he gently placed everything on an empty table. Considering he looked like one of those tall MMA fighters with his verdant-green scaled gauntlets, this is some serious gap moe. Never judge a person by their appearance, yeah?

“Buying the vials is the most expensive part, while also being the most fragile,” Cernust complained while taking out a couple of potion vials. “You girls know about fairnite? The white stone those human nobles love to use for all their homes? Yeah, potion vials are made from that stone to help prevent leaking mana. It also makes potion vials sturdier than normal glass, but I still wouldn’t recommend using them to hit a drunk.”

It seemed most alchemists buy vials from stores belonging to local alchemy guilds, seeing as the formula for potion vials was a trade secret. Since the average adventurer and soldier didn’t know the worth of a potion vial, most would sell them back to potion vendors at a lower price than what the guild would ask for, increasing their profits. I mean, what would a normal person do with it? So I can understand why getting any amount of money was better than sitting on a “junk”vial.

I don’t know if he was doing it intentionally or not, but wasn’t he giving us insider info on his profession? I mean, I’m thankful since we’ll be keeping the potions we bought from the vendor, but wouldn’t this hurt him?

Zeather then entered the room and we began to discuss the real reason that we came here for.

“Zeather welcomes everybody in my office. Honored Lady Hestia, why did you call for this favor today?” he asked me immediately.

As Zeather’s shop was closer to the gate to the noble district, we visited him first to ask him for a room where we could talk. He agreed and here we are.

After introducing Cernust and Zeather to each other, I began speaking, “I would like to learn yours and Cernust’s opinion on the alchemy guild. Obviously, we don’t come from Firwood, and I haven’t been spending a lot of time in the commoner district to know much about it. So, please, give us your honest opinions from you two experts.”

“Hmm, you’re not in the commoner district? You’re…a noble, Lady Priestess? Not a commoner white-robe?” Cernust asked, to which I said yes and told him I was living with a noble right now. He frowned for a moment, before questioning me about it, “You’ve exposed yourself? Why? Wouldn’t you have more freedom if you stayed in a random town inn?”

“It just happened,” I answered. “I didn’t want it, but it happened. After that, I simply rode with it, since I could gain more benefits from this. Plus, the bed is pretty comfortable, so, yeah, sleep is good.”

“Ha, if I had a mug of ale, I would drink to that. The inn I stay in is pretty good, but the beds still are pretty hard. Hear! Hear!” raising his invisible mug, he replied. Although, I think I heard him mumble, “Dragonewt and noble, huh?” but he mumbled too much to understand the rest, even for my [Idol]-enhanced hearing.

After Saori and Zeather asked us to return to the main subject, Cernust gave his opinion on Firwood’s alchemy guild. “Not traveler friendly. I am a member of the guild, so I can still sell my potions without getting into any trouble, but appearances matter, yeah? I tell potential customers that my [Alchemy] level is six, but nobody would believe me. It doesn’t help that I’m selling my potions on the streets without a stall. Things would be so much easier if I could sell to an approved potion vendor, but they rejected my potions.”

Zeather then spoke, “Hmm, Zeather’s shop mostly handles food and crops, so Zeather has more experience with the chef’s guild; however, certain herbs and spices are used in alchemy. The few times Zeather interacted with the alchemy guild, Zeather considered them able merchants. They negotiated well and handled the contract properly, which would make Mercurias happy. Zeather knows of their business practices, but that is none of Zeather’s concern, since Zeather is a supplier of raw ingredients. We do not have a conflict of interest.”

Cernust was frustrated at the alchemy guild from the perspective of a foreign alchemist, while Zeather was looking at them through the lens of a merchant. Without a conflict in interest, Zeather diddn’t have a reason to dislike them.

“Then would you mind if we talked about selling potions made by Tasianna to intentionally anger the alchemy guild?”

“No, Zeather will not mind. If there is a way for Zeather to benefit from this, Zeather would be cooperative, even.”

Well, that was easy.

After we got the thumbs up from Zeather, I looked at Cernust. He looked apprehensive about it, so I continued, “We will have a proper place to sell them. If we take your comment about appearances, then wouldn’t three cute girls be better than a macho like you? I can even use my singing to attract customers, as you should know from when you visited our stall during the binding festival, right? As an idol, my job also includes goods promotions, after all.”

“Hmm, yeah, I do remember your singing,” he said with a smile. “Pretty good, although I don’t know much about it. If you do that, I’m pretty sure you will get people’s attention. However, what I’m concerned about is that you’ll get in trouble with the guild. Guilds aren’t happy when independents conflict with their interests, so they usually stomp them out of business. You know, either through words or fists.”

“You don’t have to worry about the fist part, we can take care of ourselves. I’m pretty sure the only people that can be a threat to us won’t help the alchemy guild at all, and, even then, we have connections and allies,” I told him bluntly, causing him to widen his eyes in surprise. “About the words, well, we have a plan for that part, too. Mister Zeather, Saori ordered certain items from you, right? Do you have them?”

“Yes,” he bowed slightly. “Zeather has all the items you will need to open up your eatery, uhm, Zeather means your restaurant. Ingredients, cooking tools, and furniture. Zeather had them made with quality in mind, to assure none will be stolen. If honored Lady Hestia was to stay around the restaurant, then no would-be-thief would think about stealing any utensils, tools, or objects. Stealing from a noble is a crime punishable by death, which will dissuade the smarter and more capable thieves.”

“Good. Saori, I know you’re already stressed out enough with Ellaine’s dress and everything else, but please add some more details to my robe. The more, the better, right?” I told Saori.

“Yeah, that is right. Your current robe is too similar to a ‘rich merchant’s daughter’ in the number of details, so it would be best if we added more. The more noble-like you look, the better for our plan,” she replied.

This was an idea from Theodore, the high bishop. His robe and the noble priest’s were filled with details like their family emblem, fief’s trade goods, and religious symbols to fill up blank spaces. The more additions on a robe, the more likely the white-robe was a noble, since even poor and rich commoners could join the clergy.

It would cause more scenes like the one we had at the inn, but we needed it for the anti-Davison plan. Anyways, Saori had already made a replacement robe for me with its current design, so it’s whatever.

I then took out a few herbs from my storage and showed them to Zeather. “Here is your benefit. We were in the Belzac forest - deep inside it, like the Belzac mountains. While we were there, we harvested quite a lot of fruits and herbs, and we’ve been growing them in our personal garden ever since. We cannot supply you with a lot, since we were only growing it for ourselves; however, we have enough surplus to help you create interest. You know, exclusivity and supply and demand.”

Herbs like the medicinal [Belzac Herb], the anti-toxin and aromatic basil look-alike [Parshkey], and the mana corruption reducing [Fulinoe Leaves] to name a few. There were a few items like the fragassa fruit that were already grown in Firwood that we couldn’t present, but the items we showed were either low in stock or sold out completely. If Zeather could gain exclusivity on a supply route, which was us, couldn’t he earn a lot of money?

As expected, he took the bait.

With greedy eyes, Zeather carefully analyzed the herbs before a menacing smile formed on his fox head. “Fulinoe leaves…these are beloved by nobles and mages alike but suffer from a low supply. Bloom flower petals are added to baths for the aroma; popular amongst noble ladies as they could be used for tea, too. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Praise God Mercurias for granting me this chance today! Zeather can make many connections with a handful, but a jar filled with herbs would mean a lot of profit. Honored Lady Hestia, let us make the contract and your ordered goods will be free.”

Despite having gained a lot of money through our recent Quest, Saori didn’t want to lose all of it again. We ordered a ton of stuff from Zeather before we left for the Quest, so it was quite expensive. A few herbs we could regrow anytime we wanted were worth trading for our order. We just have to make sure that any future trades will earn us some money.

Still, with those greed-filled eyes and widened mouth, he really looked scary. Foxes are usually cute, but not when they were taller than you.

“Cernust, our original plan was for us to open a restaurant where we could sell our personal recipes while I performed as an idol there. However, recently we’ve decided to add my priestess duties to it and also a few other businesses. One of them is potion selling with these alchemical herbs,” pointing at a Belzac herb, I smiled smugly as I said it.

Cernust picked up one of the Belzac herbs and quivered a bit. “High-quality Belzac herbs can only be found in the Belzac forest due to the temperature and high mana concentration of a monster-infested area. It has a wondrous medicinal effect if combined with sour fruit juices and mana water from a macula plant. This herb is filled with mana. One high-quality major Health potion, or multiple distilled and watered-down minor ones. Either way, quite a lot of profit.”

“We cannot open the alchemy shop until our restaurant and Hestia’s idol reputation grows, but we will be able to sell your potions if you want,” Saori added to my explanation.

“…Question, you’ve been mentioning this the whole time but is an ‘idol?’” he asked.

Smiling, I activated [Aerokinesis] and played a tune before beginning to sing the song to the end. Instead of answering this question over and over again, showing them an example sounded more efficient. Plus, it was fun.

Understanding what I meant now, Cernust agreed to the plan, telling me he would give as much knowledge to Tasianna as possible to help us succeed since he needed money. Doing Quests was alright for Cernust, but he couldn’t go out of town for too long due to his companion. Most of the high reward Quests would take an extended time, like the one we had with Rashan Village.

We continued speaking with Zeather a bit more, while Cernust began his lessons with Tasianna, but soon Saori and I left the shop. Saori’s weapons should be finished by now, so it was time to pick them up.

Although, I kinda did want to stick around to see how Tasianna’s alchemy lesson was going. It sounded interesting.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 134: Blade and Shield of Ice.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“…Does this not smell a bit…putrid?” Miss Saori asked me as I was stirring the potion base in a beaker.

“Hmmm,” considering what she said, I reread the information I wrote down on a wooden slate from Cernust’s lesson. “Maybe I put in too much of the fragassa juice? ‘Medicinal herb(crushed and juices extracted), mana water(the higher quality the better), alcohol(weaker beverages like fruit wine or mead are sufficient), salt, sweet-sour tasting liquid(fragassa), bone marrow(Minimum E rank for the best results)’ are the ingredients. I have everything.”

I then took out the slate with the instructions of the process. “‘Crush herbs with the mortar, add it in a pot and fill a pot with mana water, stir until the color changes to green, add a pinch of salt and let it rest. Mix sweet-sour liquid, salt, and alcohol into another pot, pour it into a beaker and heat it until it boils. Add herbs and bone marrow, mix until the color changes to red or pink. If pink, add own mana to facilitate additional alchemic reactions.’ That is what I wrote down, and I followed the whole process as we did yesterday. Hmm, strange.”

The color of the liquid was a dark red, similar to blood. I could agree that the smell of the potion was off, unlike the one I made yesterday, but I wasn’t sure where I went wrong.

From what Cernust told me, the medicinal herbs and bone marrow must be used generously, as they work together to create the healing effect of a health potion. Mana water increases these two effects even further, alcohol was there as a base to bind the ingredients together, salt to prevent infections and the sweet-sour liquid for the taste and color. The fragassa juice was important, otherwise the Health potion would taste horrendous.

The one Cernust made as an example was without fruit juices. The taste really was horrendous and nauseating. Brrr, argh.

While I was wondering if I used too little fragassa juices, Miss Saori picked up the bottle of fruit wine to inspect it. “Tasianna, did you get this from inside the mansion?”

“Yes, I asked Svena to bring some, as I needed it for practice. She was quite helpful,” I answered.

Svena was serving Lady Hestia only temporarily, but it still made her a part of my mistress’ staff. I had to be friendlier towards her so we could Lady Hestia better. It was kind of her to take over my duties so I might practice alchemy more. I still have not gained [Alchemy], after all.

“I see,” Saori nodded with an enlightened expression. “Tasianna, the fruit wine you used yesterday was the wine Cernust bought from his inn. They might have the same name, but the wine of a noble cannot be compared to a commoner’s. Nobles strive for quality beverages when they serve a drink to themselves or their guests, while commoners are more interested in how much they must pay. Depending on your vendor, the alcohol content of wines can be completely different.”

“…Oh, was this wine too strong? Is that the reason?”

Miss Saori seemed like an alcohol connoisseur, considering how much she enjoyed drinking ale and wine, so taking her word was appropriate. I do not have much experience with alcoholic beverages, as I disliked the taste of it, so it was hard for me to differentiate between the fruit wine I used yesterday and the one today. Both smelled horrible, despite being “fruity.”

As I was complaining about having to throw away and waste this batch of potions, Miss Saori stopped me and told me to add more mana water into the beaker to dilute it. “Watering down” the alcohol content would probably get rid of the awful smell and wrong color, she guessed.

I believed it would also lower the quality of the resulting potion, but it was better than wasting a whole batch. I grew the Belzac herbs for our party’s uses, so wasting it was a no-no for me.

After adding more mana water and heating it while stirring, the color changed from dark red to a normal red. The smell also changed to something neutral instead of the fruity smell of fragassa I had yesterday. Diluting the wine also diluted the fragassa juices, I see.

Moderate Health Potion

A Health potion with above-average regeneration increasing effects. This potion was concocted with high-quality Belzac herbs and the bone marrow of an E rank Skorr-type monster. This potion not only increases wound and Health regeneration, but also increases blood creation and clotting, nullifying most [Bleeding] effects

From our battle against the onnikais, our party used up eight potions. Amongst them was also the ones Sister Silva had, who graciously gave the empty bottles to us, as she didn’t need them to weigh her down. As we haven’t sold them back to the potion seller, I was able to fill four of these eight empty vials with this Health potion. It wasn’t perfect, but I finally managed to make another batch.

Acquisition requirement fulfilled.   [Alchemy Lv. 1] acquired

Good!

Lady Hestia’s increased skill proficiency gain effect has been useful once again. I made two batches yesterday under Cernust’s care using his spare empty vials to sell to Zeather for some alchemic ingredients. Including this one, three batches were needed for me to gain this skill.

Alchemy

A skill revolving around the creation of alchemical substances ranging from potion making to catalyst synthesizing, mana tool production, and many more. Supports the alchemist by giving them information on the temperature, quality of alchemical ingredients, mana concentration, and more as the skill level increases

Ahh, so it is similar to my [Brewing] skill.

[Brewing] allowed me to learn the perfect temperature and preparation method for specific tea leaves to create something suitable for Lady Hestia’s and Miss Saori’s taste. If I were to dabble in the other pursuits of being an alchemist, I believe that having a high-level [Alchemy] skill will be a great boon. However, for now, I think I will stick to potion-making.

“Thank you very much, Miss Saori,” I thanked her for her help.

“No need, Tasianna. I would suggest you learn more about alcohol if what Cernust said was correct. Alcohol is the base for the majority of potions, so it would be wise for you to know the difference between beer and spirits like sake,” she stated. “Wait a moment, I think I just had an epiphany. Your [Brewing] skill, could it not be used to make alcohol? There is a concept called ‘mixology’ on Earth where practitioners mix liquors called ‘cocktails.’ They mix different beverages with alcohol as its base to create new tasteful drinks. Have you tried using your skill with alcohol?”

“…Miss Saori, you aren’t suggesting this to me because you like alcohol, right?” I said with a plain expression, knowing full well of the “izakaya” and “disco” culture on Earth.

“N-No, no, no, no! That was not my intention, I swear.” Her flustered face made me believe it was one of her secondary goals. “I just thought it would be great if your skill could branch out from tea brewing, considering how [Alchemy] has such a wide range. Your skill is called ‘brewing’ and not ‘tea brewing,’ right? Restaurants on Earth can serve liquors to patrons, so I thought it would help our endeavors.”

“Hmm, well, if it will benefit our establishment, then I shall practice. Could you teach me?” I asked, to which Miss Saori answered that she would ask Lady Hestia. Apparently, Lady Hestia read about it from their “internet,” this giant information network created from “digital” and “electrical” means. They have explained it to me, but it still confuses me. I do not know how to imagine it, but it sounded amazing.

“Ah, Hestia and Ellaine should already be in the forest by now, considering the travel speed of Ellaine’s gargoyle. I shall be leaving, too. I need to do some research on eateries and street food.”

With that, Miss Saori left.

Before the human nobles returned to Firwood, Lady Ellaine wanted to train with Lady Hestia a bit more. A “training arc” is what Lady Hestia called it and decided they should travel to the forest after we managed to talk Zeather and Cernust into our plans. They were to hunt monsters and help Lady Ellaine to not only gain skills but also levels.

Miss Saori mentioned she hadn’t formed a menu yet for our restaurant, so she wished to witness what Firwood’s street food could offer and figure out what we could create as a niche for our restaurant. Apparently, the food we served to Lady Ellaine might be alright for serving to nobles and rich merchants, but they weren’t appropriate for wageworkers like the ones in the middle and lower districts of the commoner half of the town. Street food had to be fast, efficient, and delicious according to Miss Saori.

After Miss Saori left, I ended my alchemy practice for now. We needed more vials first and Miss Saori was keeping our party’s budget with her, so I had no access to our money. Besides, I don’t think I had the courage to speak with a vendor, nor do I have the patience if it were a human.

So, I decided to do something else. This was one of the rare moments where I wasn’t accompanying Lady Hestia or Miss Saori, so I believe this would be a great chance to finally learn more about Kiiro, specifically, the orb it was residing in.

I left my room after tending to my garden and moved to the training room under the Helvas mansion.

Identify.

Catalyst of the Blessed Gale Storm

An alchemical orb blessed by Zephira, Goddess of Winds, and drenched in the mana of a rage-filled onnikai. If mana is registered to this catalyst, it will levitate and float around the owner using stored mana. If this catalyst is used as a support for the owner’s spells, the mana used in the process will be thicker, increasing the durability and damage of spells. Due to this process, casting speed and mana cost will increase.

Zephira’s Blessing: Casting speed and spell strength will increase for wind elemental related spells, improved [Air Shield] can be cast, [Aerokinesis] for all wind elemental spells cast through this catalyst, [Storm Resistance Lv. 5]

Owner: [Tasianna Marina Silverpond]

Skill

[Mana Cost Increase Lv. 3]
[Liquid Mana]

[Zephira’s Blessing]

[Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 8]

[Chant Revocation Lv. 8]

[Death Aura Lv. 1]

Liquid Mana

Any mana sent through this catalyst will become thick, like a liquid or slime. The mana can be solidified even further or kept as a liquid. It can be turned back into thte mana’s normal state either by being separated by the orb for a period of time or by the owner’s will

Death Aura

The death aura associated with the Goddess of Death and Necromancy, Ilsaphone. It is a weakened version but it will still affect the undead and those close to death. Undead will be more willing to listen to you. Those close to death will fear you more, making inflicting [Terror] and [Fear] more likely

A gift from Goddess Ilsaphone. This is proof that the Goddess aided the onnikai.

“Kiiro, can you hear me?” I spoke to the orb after identifying it.

It was silent for a moment until a small, child-like voice responded to my question, “…I am awake now, Tasianna. There are no humans here? The Champion isn’t here, also?”

Instead of me answering it, another voice escaped from the orb. It was deeper, similar to an adult male. “The Alpha and Mistress Hestia have left for their duties. Miss Tasianna is alone with us.”

That was the voice of one of the four onnikais who controlled the four undead garms. The other three were being transformed into Miss Saori’s shadow beasts, but this one had to stay inside my orb due to the limitations of Miss Saori’s [Shadow Pack]. It could only hold three shadow beasts for now. This one was waiting inside the orb for the skill level, and its capacity, to increase, but it seemed to have regenerated its speech, probably from the mana that I was supplying it.

“I see,” Kiiro mumbled. “Then, why have you woken me up, Tasianna? There is no need to call for me until we fight against Davison. My life’s goal is his death only.”

The chilly tone of its voice was frightening, feeling a bit too nostalgic to me. I could sympathize well with Kiiro, as we both experienced the cruelty of greedy humans, but I wouldn’t dare say it out loud. Not only was Kiiro multiple centuries older than me, but it also had to live this time as a mindless, rage-driven onnikai. I could never understand all its pain, although I hoped our experience with humans was the same.

Kiiro reminded me too much of myself when I was caught by those fairy hunters. My emotions went wild and everything else was just a blur for me. It made me neglectful of my original duty as Princess Schuri’s retainer. This memory was like a needle piercing my heart.

“I want you to teach me how to use the [Liquid Mana] of the catalyst. Considering you created and controlled that onnikai beast, you are the best teacher for me,” I replied to Kiiro’s question.

“…Will it help with killing Davison?” Kiiro uttered with its bloodthirst seeping out.

I nodded immediately and answered, “Of course. If I can fight better, I can participate more in the upcoming battles. I will be less afraid of being a liability to Lady Hestia and Miss Saori. ‘Aurora’ requires me to be stronger.”

“…Then let me teaaaacccch youuuuuu. I will make you into an instrument of power, Tasianna. Channel your rage, let it flow through your mana, and cast a spell!”

Ignoring how the spirit said it, I did what Kiiro told me. Similar to how Lady Hestia would channel her mana into me to heal me, I controlled my mana and let some of it flow into the orb. Thinking of Lady Hestia’s words of a “wind drill or ice sword,” I cast [Icicle Spike]. A light blue magic circle appeared before the catalyst and a sharp icicle shot out, which I stopped with [Cryokinesis].

“…It doesn’t look any different?” I said.

“Wind becomes like a strong shield, water becomes a wall, fire turns into a sword of power, but the earth is sturdy already. How will it benefit an element that is already solid, to begin with?” Kiiro told me. “Tasianna, the power of [Liquid Mana] is flexibility. It is a slime, a mold to be controlled like a puppet. Mana can become strings. Mana can become weapons. Mana can become beasts. Observe. Grant me mana and I shall show you.”

Using the mana inside the orb, Kiiro shined yellow inside it, before a blue material began to grow around the orb like a mold. The more seconds passed, it started to resemble the slime the onnikai used to control their possessed corpses, albeit it wasn’t black. Then, two droplets formed, dripping down from the orb before they solidified.

“Remove them for me,” it ordered and I obliged, however, what happened afterward surprised me.

“They are levitating?!” I exclaimed.

“Yes! It moves through my will! The beast, my creation, it moved through this orb! Without this orb, it wouldn’t have been possible. However, know this, once the mana is solidified, it will be restricted to the rules of any solid creation. My beast…it couldn’t defend if it cannot reach me,” Kiiro stated, explaining why Lady Hestia was able to trap and restrict the onnikai beast from leaving. “The solid mana will inherit characteristics from the element you used to create it, which means, if you make an ice elemental slime, it will be weak to fire. Similar to how our dark mana was weak to the champion’s white fire and holy spells.”

Understanding from Kiiro’s example, I attempted using [Liquid Mana] again. Channeling [Ice Spike], instead of casting the spell, I used the mana stored inside the magic circle to create the slime. The idea was similar to Miss Saori’s [Elemental Mana Weave], and I was able to understand how Kiiro was able to use the skill without channeling a spell.

Cyan-colored slime was slowly being formed around the slime. Instead of letting the slime cover the orb, I began to morph it through my image of Lady Hestia’s spear. A sharp spearhead was formed around the orb like a core while a long handle came from its bottom. Once I had the form, Kiiro told me to will the slime to solidify, similar to what it did with the onnikai beast.

The slime hardened. The cyan colored surface of it transformed into the pristine appearance of my ice spells. A white mist of cold could be seen surrounding the spear, and I felt a small chill as I grasped it for the first time. Was this the feeling of frostbite? I never had an issue with my ice spells before.

“Good! Wield it like a humanoid weapon, or have it float around you. Better yet, create more of it and let them defend you. Why must you use [Cryokinesis] to have them float if you can use this catalyst? Mana will not be consumed, but you will still need to control them individually,” Kiiro said.

“Is there an easier way? The issue I have with [Cryokinesis] is the difficulty of controlling multiple ice creations at once, as I cannot think of orders fast enough. It would be possible if I were to stand in the backline; however, I want to fight with Miss Saori and Lady Hestia side-by-side.”

My role as a maid should be with my mistress, not being the one defended. I cannot assert the same power as Lady Hestia can; I am no dragon. However, if I cannot smite her enemies, then I can at least defend her. Miss Saori can destroy foes before they reach Lady Hestia, so I must be the last line of defense. I want to be that defensive shield.

Unfortunately, not every wooden shield can prove useful for long. One day, a strong sword will pierce it…so I must become stronger. Temper myself. I must make this new power my own.

“…Allow me to help you then.”

Using [Cryokinesis], I tore off two pieces of the spear’s handle and threw them up in the air. They began to levitate and transformed into arrowheads. I threw the spear into the air and Kiiro began to move not only the spear but also the icicle arrowheads. They were moving fluidly through the air, while I was free to cast more spells.

[Frozen Shield], [Icicle Gust], [Water Wall], [Wind Blast]. I could activate spell after spell and it didn’t slow down the attack speed of Kiiro and my floating ice weapons. I even increased the number of pieces and Kiiro was able to move them all by his lonesome. It was amazing. Even if one of them broke, as long as I had the catalyst, I could produce more. I wasn’t even limited to arrows. Spears, swords, hammers, anything I could think of.

However, while I was ecstatic at my new ability, I also realized something.

I cannot allow Kiiro to control them forever. It will leave us one day and…it’s too unstable.

I recalled the catalyst and dispelled all the weapons. I then turned the spear surrounding the orb into a sword. For now, I shall learn how to use both [Cryokinesis] and the catalyst without Kiiro’s support. That meant having it attack at the same time whenever I cast a spell. I must challenge myself.

After returning to Firwood, I had changed my Main Job to [Cryomancer], as I wanted to become better at using this skill. It didn’t improve [Cryokinesis] itself, but it allowed me to gain a good amount of stats while granting me this skill [Frozen Body Lv. 1].

Frozen Body

A skill available to beings with a mana body, as they are less affected by temperatures. Hardens mana inside the body into ice, increasing defense but significantly decreasing fire resistance. Can spread the cold through touch and breath

[Elvenization (Moderate)] inflicted on [Fairy, Tasianna Marina Silverpond]

I transformed into a form where I could still keep my heightened stats as a larger being while also regaining my fairy wings. I flew up into the air and began using the orb to deal damage from afar onto an ice statue I created as a training dummy.

While I was at it, I also tested out Goddess Zephira’s blessing. Any wind spell I cast I could control it perfectly with the added [Aerokinesis] ability, although seeing as wind spells were already flexible to begin with, I didn’t really appreciate it a lot. It should be more useful when I finally get [Storm Magic], as the spells lose their adaptability for power.

[Air Shield] has become nicer to use, though. I can control what can go in and out.

[Air Shield] was a spell that allowed you to protect yourself from sound-based and gaseous attacks. If the shield was strong enough, it could even completely nullify Lady Hestia’s [Dragon Roar]. However, the problem was that air couldn’t enter the bubble. “Oxygen” was contained in the air and it was needed to breathe and live. With this improved [Air Shield] I can control what can go in and out without any restrictions. I can eavesdrop on others while they cannot hear what I say, and vice versa, if I so wanted.

After continuing for multiple hours, I finally reached my goal.

Proficiency requirement fulfilled. [Wind Magic Lv. 9] evolved into [Wind Magic Lv. 10]

Skill requirement fulfilled:   [Storm Magic Lv. 1] gained

Magic gained:   [Aerial Blitz] [Tornado Bullet]

Finally!

[Elvenization (Major)] inflicted on [Fairy, Tasianna Marina Silverpond]

Sweating and feeling fulfilled, I left the training room and returned to my room to clean myself. After taking a shower, I wondered if Miss Saori was home or not, but none of the servants saw her return. I wonder where she was?

It’s Miss Saori. There is nothing to worry about.

Lady Hestia was on a trip with Lady Ellaine and Miss Saori was probably using her time efficiently, too. I should do my part. After drinking and eating something, I continued my alchemy training by preparing ingredients.

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Chapter 135: Bottles.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Thank you for your patronage…Uhm, will you be alright with all those potions, Miss?”

“Yes, there will be no problem,” I answered the vendor while putting potion vials into a leather bag. “The bottles should be sturdy, right? They should not break if I put them into the bag.”

“Uhm, yes, they shouldn’t break even with some rattling, but…I mean, will you be able to carry them all?” the potion vendor asked me with a worried face, believing I wouldn’t be able to carry all of them.

After picking the stuffed bag up without any problems, the vendor threw his worries away and wished me farewell. As I left the potion shop with 43 minor health potions and 40 minor abnormal status curatives of various types, I couldn’t help but sigh. Not due to the weight of the bag full of potions, oh no, it’s not even a hassle for me. I was more concerned with spending more than 20k Davi.

It’s all an investment, Saori. It’s like buying preparation materials for your lessons, or research books for your paper. This is for us to make money with Tasianna’s alchemy skills, so don’t worry.

After leaving the Helvas mansion, I first went to a potion shop in the upper district of the commoner side of Firwood, also simply known as the merchant district by the people in the middle district. Since we only had a few of the empty potion vials and bottles that we needed for Tasianna’s concoctions, I needed to buy more.

According to Cernust when he taught Tasianna, potions needed to be stored in these special vials. Due to the materials added to its production, like fairnite dust, a potion bottle prevented mana from leaking from any liquid stored inside. If we were to store the potion in any other manner, the quality of the potion would degrade over time, eventually turning the liquid into, well, colored water with barely noticeable effects.

Storing the liquid inside Hestia’s and my [Storage Magic] was out of the question. We were trying to sell them to patrons, and no one would buy potions from a wooden container. They wouldn’t use them immediately so it will be a waste after some time.

Minor health potions cost 100 Davi and I bought 43. 16 minor anti-toxins for 5600 Davi. 12 minor anti-paralyzation for 5400 Davi. 10 minor blood clotting increasing potions for 3500 Davi. In total, that cost me 18800 Davi, I recalled the amount I spent, putting the bag into my storage after I made sure nobody was looking.

The potion shop I just visited was well decorated, unlike the one I visited in the middle district, which fit the location where they are doing business. It appealed to the rich merchants and patrons of the merchant district.

My goal was to buy as many cheap vials and bottles as possible, which proved easy as they had a wide range of catalogues. There was even an anti-hangover potion available, which I bought two of for 1000 Davi. I mean, that did mean I spent 19800 Davi in total, but we had some spending money now after the last Quest. Our party funds still have 24,767 Davi left, so it wasn’t a problem.

Now, buying finished potions was more expensive than empty vials, but just buying empty bottles was impossible without being a member of the alchemy guild. Cernust warned me I would attract attention if I were to ask a potion seller or the guild to sell me the empty vials, so buying potions was my only option. I mean, the vendor just now was suspicious of why I needed 83 potions, so, yeah.

Hmm, this coincides with the potion prices in the middle district. If I remember correctly, guilds are responsible for regulating market prices within their operating town or city. However, usually, prices would vary depending on the shop regardless if both shop owners were members of the same guild. Production and location differences can affect prices. How regulated are the different potion shops?

Shrugging off this thought, as it didn’t matter, I entered the middle district. It was currently around noon, and a couple of workers had begun taking their lunch breaks, either eating their own pre-prepared food or buying from the numerous street vendors or eateries. With the snow almost gone, the amount of people selling goods and food has increased since I came here a week ago, especially in the marketplace.

“Grilled meat! Grilled meat! Come get your grilled meat! No goblins or kobolds here! Only rabbit and pork!”

“Cheese on veggies! Cheese on veggies! Cheese from fresh milk and freshly harvested wild veggies! First of the coming spring! You can’t get it fresher!”

“Come on, come on! Winter is still around, so how about some warm, good soup? Meat, mushrooms, vegges! Warm yourself up, just 10 Davi for a whole bowl! Cheap but good!”

Wooden skewers and wooden bowls. They look like Hestia’s earlier works or, in other words, very crude DIY.

Cooking on the streets was done on small portable grills, which looked like metal boxes with an open roof for the grates, where they would place food or pots on. Crackling could be heard inside the grills, where a fire was made using sticks and tree barks, causing smoke to rise. Appearance-wise, the grills were crude, as if an apprentice smith made it using spare ores for practice. Despite the grills having weird indentations from mistakes, they did their jobs well.

As we couldn’t use Hestia as a grill or steam cooker, we asked Zeather to order us a few cooking appliances and restaurant furniture. We knew it would be expensive, so we had planned to trade for the ordered items and ingredients supply with the herbs from the Belzac forest. If it hadn’t worked, well, we would have owed Ellaine another favor.

Hestia’s self-made wooden cutlery looked good. She did a fine job whittling, I thought as I compared the works from professional carpenters to Hestia’s. She couldn’t make furniture correctly yet, but forks and spoons were easy enough for her.

“One of your grilled meat salads, please,” I told a vendor.

“Comin’ right up, Miss! Ya wanna some sauce in it, too? Makes tha meat much better.” I nodded to his offer.

For ten Davi, I was given a bowl of grilled vegetables and meat that looked like stir-fried vegetables with beef. A white sauce was added, seemingly melting with the juices of the meat. There were tables placed in front of the food stall, intended for customers to sit and eat at, but most of them were filled with hungry patrons. Choosing one of the free spots, I sat down, where I was greeted by two men already at the table.

“Wooo, nice to meet you, Miss,” one of them, a human, welcomed me. He smiled, making eye contact before moving them down to ogle my breasts. “Say, I know this nice tavern with some good ale and mead. Wanna come with me after I finish-”

“I apologize, not interested,” I refused immediately. Instead, I pulled out one of Hestia’s forks and began using it to eat.

As the crunchy vegetables and slightly stinky meat, probably goblin meat, entered my mouth, I had to admit it was delicious. The meat was likely from a goblin, but the white condiment, which seems to be a sauce made from milk and vinegar, hid most of the smell. I wouldn’t have noticed the scent if it wasn’t it for my improved senses. Goblin and kobold meat was cheaper and stinkier than other types, so the chef did a wonderful job to make something like that delicious.

As I was immersed in my lunch, the flirter laughed off my refusal as he gave up, while the katzune next to him patted him on his back. The katzune then looked at me and seemed to want to continue socializing, “Sorry, sorry, about my friend. Say, you’re a traveler, right?”

“Yeah, obvious from my clothes, right? You guys are workers from around here, huh?” I said absentmindedly, not taking my eyes away from my meal. “Sir, can I have another-no, please give me three more bowls, please,” I ordered from my seat, having nearly finished my first bowl.

“Got it! Three more for the young Miss!”

Whether it was because I ignored them in favor of the food or because they were stunned by how much I ordered, the two workers stopped speaking with me and moved away once they were down with their food. I too left after paying for my finished meal. However, I wasn’t full yet.

Today was just me experiencing the cuisine of Firwood. Hestia was usually the glutton of our party, but I also had a large appetite. The problem of being a giant wolf.

As I moved through the marketplace, wandering from one food stall to the next, I noticed that most of them only served one or two dishes and that was it, unlike the eateries and inns. It reminded me of how food stalls did the same in Japan. Serving one or two dishes was easier and faster, as you could concentrate on those alone instead of dividing your focus on multiple complicated dishes.

As I would be the sole chef of our party’s restaurant, I had to do the same. I only have two hands, after all.

I think I know what to make now. Something fast and easy to make. Something easy to eat and cheap for the workers and wandering adventurers.

Satisfied, I began moving towards a location in the lower district, the slums. As I did so, I used this time to check out the three garms slumbering inside my shadow.

Darkness Garm: Assimilation progress: 21%

Darkness Garm: Assimilation progress: 24%

Darkness Garm: Assimilation progress: 15%

It has been three days, I believe, since I gained the unique skill [Shadow Pack] and these faefolk as my shadow beasts. They were still assimilating, unable to move or respond. Peering into my shadow, it seemed like a body in the form of a wolf was being made for the three spirits to assume their new identities as garms.

Profile:

Name: *

Level: 0

Race: Darkness Garm

Age: 240 Years Months

Status:

Health:

3000/3000

Mana:

1800/1800

Strength:

1300

Intelligence:

1000

Vitality:

800

Wisdom:

800

Agility:

1200

Stamina:

1500

Looking at their profiles, all three were slightly weaker than C rank monsters, but I can attribute that to their previous failing bodies. If these garms were 100% obedient, they would be a great addition to our party. Having more members would make our job easier.

Still, I wonder how I would fight with them? Were their bodies perishable like a normal garm’s, or were they similar to my shadow clones? If they were the former, then I will need to adjust my use for them. I couldn’t use them as meat walls, now could I?

“Oh, lookie here, the pretty girl is back. Wondered where ya went for the week. Woulda be a shame if it were a gutter.”

Frowning from the sight of the homeless-looking man, I pinched my nose to block the foul stench coming from his body. “Nice to see you again, too…”

“Haha, first thing ya do is close your nose? Rude, as always, to poor ol’ Bo?” With tattered clothes and a haggard face, the man named Bo laughed, displaying his rotting teeth to the world. He didn’t look malnourished, but he was disgusting, to say the least. I couldn’t hold in my disgust for him after learning that the people in the slums clean themselves every day with well water, like any self-respecting person.

Squinting, I spoke to him bluntly, “Is Gael home? Actually, don’t answer. As if he ever goes out during the mornings.”

“Ha, ya know him too well, pretty girl. He shared a drop with ol’ Bo this morning. Should still be drinkin’ by himself until nighttime,” after answering, he grabbed a half-eaten bread and smeared some butter on it with his grimy hands. I got goosebumps just looking at him.

Walking up the stairs to the last floor of this building, I knocked on the only door there. After not getting a response, I pulled out a wine bottle I received from the castle staff of Castle Teullon and opened it. “Hey, Gael, come out already! It’s me, Saori! I know you’re there! I have a bottle of good wine here!” I shouted, abandoning formal speech, as I couldn’t be bothered to use it here.

Immediately as I said it, a clink could be heard behind the door and it opened, revealing a tall man with dark brown hair. Unlike Bo, who is Gael’s roommate for some unknown reason, Gael kept his appearance rather neat and tidy. He was shaved and had a proper haircut that was slightly messy. The only thing unappealing about him was the strong alcohol smell.

Looking at the ground behind him, I could see a trail made from his shoes. “You ran to the door? Is alcohol the only thing motivating you to do anything in this world?”

He scoffed, “Hey, is that the first thing you say after leaving the town for a week? Heard you came back safely, so I thought your greeting would be warmer. You should smile more, Saori. Women are the prettiest when they smile or laugh; it makes my heart flutter.” Although, annoyingly, he kept up his smile.

“You know well enough why I’m not fond of your behavior. You might name yourself a B rank adventurer, but your lazy attitude makes me not respect you. Even children are more motivated with learning than you are with anything outside of drinking,” I told him flatly to his face. “I can enjoy a drink, trust me, but you take it too far. At this rate, you’ll drink yourself into a coma.”

He shrugged, looking like he didn’t care about my worry. “Whatever. Life is life. You only live it once, and then the Goddess of Death snatches it away mercilessly, disregarding any of your feelings. It could happen in a single peaceful night and boom. Gone. Instead of worrying about everything, a bit of hedonism can really spice up your life. Come on, my offer still stands. Have a drink with me. I saved up some dwarven sake, the authentic one. The type your ‘kind’ would very much enjoy, if you catch my drift.”

From what I gathered, Gael is a spy who was used by Farron to gather information. As a B rank adventurer, I suspected him to be a rather capable fighter, which was why I asked him to train me in the first place. He had some good dagger abilities and was also able to use dark magic like me, making me believe he was more an assassin. I haven’t seen his profile yet, sadly. It would be a great benchmark.

“Like I said last time, no means no,” I rejected his offer. I then dangled the opened wine bottle in front of his face. “Train me.”

Taking a sniff, he nodded with satisfaction. It looked like he was about to agree. “No.”

Tch, as expected. Lazy asshole.

“You know, this is the wine from a seneschal of a noble. I had a taste of one of the bottles and I can attest to its quality. You will like it, or are you only into watered-down ale and mead, just so you can drink more of them?”

“Ha, don’t be like that. I can down the hard stuff and enjoy the finer glasses without any problems. And I agree, this is some fine stuff. The seneschal has some fine taste, although I believe he was a Baron’s seneschal, right? I don’t remember that Barathan fellow would buy wine bottles for personal usage, and the only one you could have gotten this from is your previous Quest,” his answer was as if he could see right through me. “No, I said that cuz it wasn’t part of our deal. I would only continue your training if you brought me some actual authentic stuff. Not the one from the dwarves or anywhere I could go myself. You’re a drinker, too, so I trust your opinion.”

“I’m not an alcoholic,” I declared.

I wasn’t, ok? I enjoy drinking after work hours to destress. I wouldn’t drink them all the time.

“Suit yourself, but the deal still stands. I can buy this bottle myself. What I can’t buy is the stuff in your memories. I want to taste them.”

I guess this was an example of someone only interested in keeping contact with an otherworlder purely for their knowledge. Gael was kind enough to train me at the beginning for a free drink, but now he was just being obnoxious. Just because I enjoy sake doesn’t mean I knew how to make it. I had no idea how to make any of the spirits he wanted.

“You know, this is exactly why I cannot stand you. I told you, I don’t know how to make them. You are being stubborn and unreasonable at this point!” Taking a deep breath to calm myself down before I exploded, I spoke to him in a more controlled fashion. “Please, hear me out. I want to become stronger. I don’t know if this was your intention in the first place or not, but I’ve learned that I cannot become stronger with my usual training sessions.”

While training with Hestia and Tasianna was a good way to practice the basics and innovate with older strategies, it wasn’t a good way to learn new forms of fighting styles. We were only fighting with each other all the time. The benefit might have been great in the beginning, but as time went on without us branching outside our comfort zone, the efficiency would decrease and decrease until it became unproductive. We could only learn so much from repeating the same moves.

Hestia still had room to grow with her different fire types and scale-dust, while Tasianna gained a new ability with her catalyst; however, all I had were my shadows and mana threads. I gained [Shadow Pack], but I couldn’t practice with them until they assimilated into their new bodies, while Hestia’s toxin was technically her ability. I didn’t want this time to go to waste. Learning to use daggers was my way to expand.

But I wanted more.

I continued, “As a B rank adventurer, you should have traveled a lot. At least, you must have done a good amount of Quests. I haven’t mastered using a dagger yet. Plus, I want to learn how to fight in my cadejo form better.”

“Jeez, come on, we might be in my home, but we haven’t even entered my room yet. Information can leak,” he said. “Still, personally saying, you’ve caught the gist of how to use a dagger and your aim is good due to being a wolf. One critical hit is all you need. Even showing my usage with dark magic is tricky. You’re a full-fledged arcane trickster who only lacks experience and stats. That’s all.”

“You’ve barely trained me at all. You told me how to hold a dagger and where to stab it. That is all. Even if it was just ale, out of principle, I don’t think your lessons were worth the price. Even when I practiced by myself, you would just sit in your chair and comment on stuff. That was the extent of your ‘training.’ Of course I would be unsatisfied,” I replied to his excuse. “Whether I showed you my spells or how I combined my skills, you were never surprised at how I did them. Call it a woman’s intuition, or whatever, but I have a feeling you are hiding more than you can show. You simply do not want to show them to me. Instead of telling me bluntly, you’re using this excuse of a deal to shoo me away. Admit it.”

Was I being forceful? Yes. It annoyed me how much he was trying to avoid doing something simply because he was too lazy or scared. He was an adult. He should know better to keep excuses like these to himself, instead of communicating the problem.

If he didn’t want to train me, then fine. I couldn’t force him. However, instead of hiding the truth behind this veil of a “lazy, good-for-nothing alcoholic”, I would prefer him to just tell me his dissatisfaction. Of course, I would like him to continue training me as it would take longer without his help, but...

This attitude irritates me so, so much.

It…reminded me of somebody. Actually, it used to be two people — the first was Hestia before she regained her confidence in her talent and hard-work. She’s doing extremely well nowadays, but back in the forest, it got a bit annoying if I’m to be honest. I’m not too proud of myself for that.

The other person is one of my students. “Hanazawa Asaka” was her name. A self-proclaimed delinquent who always caused trouble by breaking school rules to evade having to take on any responsibilities. How ironic that it only garnered her more attention.

Hanazawa-san always annoyed me…but I felt bad for how strict her parents were.

“…Sorry, I just have nothing to teach you. You’re good enough even without my help. Anything else will cost you a very valuable bottle of otherworld booze since it’s from my special repertoire of skills,” he responded, showing no intentions of saying or doing anything else.

Before he closed the door, I grabbed his arm with my left arm, showing off my new shiny, black claws. “How about this idea? Fight me. If you can take me down or if I give up, you can have this bottle of wine for free. If you’re good enough, then you shouldn’t need to show your special ‘repertoire’ at all. How about it? It should be in your favor…right?”

“…Hmph, you’re trying to egg me on, huh, Saori? Ha, nice try but…you got more?!”

It seemed he couldn’t hide his surprise once I took out a whole crate filled with the seneschal’s wine. It seemed like both the quantity and the quality is what hooked him in. “Every time you beat me, you get a bottle. I will stand up every time. Don’t worry.”

As I heard him gulp, I placed the wine bottle back inside my storage and then… “Deal!” he shouted, before grabbing my left arm, intending to push me to the ground. Unfortunately for him, I came prepared.

Injecting some mana into my black claws, a dark purple liquid suddenly covered their tips, forcing Gael to let go of me. “Tch, that’s a toxin, right? Not one I’m familiar with, though…”

Obsidian Wolfen Claws

A set of claw protectors crafted using dwarven ingenuity using the corrosive obsidian from an [Obsidian Blaze Dragon]. Using eoriant as a foundation for the obsidian to cover, these claw protectors are not only durable but also fortify the attack power of the claws. A small space was added to allow toxins to be stored, which can be opened with the injection of mana.

Skill

[Mana Conductor Lv. 3]
[Unarmed Mastery Lv. 5]

[Durability Loss Reduction Lv. 5]

[Piercing Enhancement Lv. 5]

[Sundering Enhancement Lv. 5]

[Increased Strength Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Increase Agility Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Corrosive Obsidian: Moderate Arcane Corruption Venom]

These were the part of the order I received from Ogni, the dwarven blacksmith. The other was this:

Obsidian Wyvern Tanto

A tanto crafted by a dwarven blacksmith using the corrosive obsidian from an [Obsidian Blade Dragon]. Using eoriant as a foundation for the obsidian to cover, the tanto is sturdier than the mass-produced versions. Wyvern scales and claws were added to the creation of the weapon, further improving its durability and the offensive ability of its sting. A good amount of corrosive obsidian was used in its creation, making it well suited to use in conjunction with liquid corrosive obsidian.

Skill

[Mana Conductor Lv. 5]

[Dagger Mastery Lv. 5]

[Durability Loss Reduction Lv. 7]

[Piercing Enhancement Lv. 6]

[Sundering Enhancement Lv. 3]

[Increased Strength Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Increase Agility Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Corrosive Obsidian: Moderate Arcane Corruption Venom]

[Increase Corrosive Obsidian Effectiveness]

From out of my storage, a black dagger reminiscent of shinobi, or ninja, movies appeared. Its edge gleamed with a deadly purple like a cobra’s fangs ready to snatch its prey. Pointing the blade at Gael, he complained he wanted a “knife” but I didn’t give him a chance to get one.

[Shadow Armament (Full Body)] [Haste] inflicted on [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa]

[Dark Tendrils] erupted from Gael’s shadow, ready to capture him, but he stepped backward. “Fuck, I forgot you don’t need to chant your spells!” he exclaimed.

I then threw a couple of [Dark Bolt]s at him for distraction before rushing to his face. I used [Shadow Pierce] with my new dagger, but Gael redirected my arm away with his bare hand. As my body was already turning around, I used this chance to land a roundhouse kick onto his forearm.

“Urgh!” he groaned. “Shit!”

Noticing his predicament, Gael grabbed my leg and pushed me off him into the air. As I was doing a somersault to land on my feet, Gael suddenly grabbed my arm with my dagger and somehow disarmed me effortlessly.

“Shameless Pickpocket…if you wanted to know the name of the ability,” he said with a conflicted expression.

“See, I knew it. You had tricks like these up your sleeve,” I said smugly while taking out the other two daggers I had from my storage.

Without saying another word, a black magic circle appeared on his hand and a black bolt was shot at me, however, with [Foresight] and [Danger Perception] active, it was not hard to dodge. At this point, I confirmed he was a dark mage, but not a very proficient one. Compared to me, I could not only use all my spells without a chant, but also use two spells simultaneously.

“Dark Slash! Claws of Darkness!” were activated back-to-back.

Gael sidestepped the spells, complaining that I was ruining his house. At this time, I attached one of my daggers to the tip of my mana threads and used my claw protectors to maneuver the threads like a whip. It was made with my mana, so it had no special effects, but Gael had difficulties dodging it.

We weren’t fighting in a wide space, like the empty chamber ruins of the onnikai, but inside a small apartment-like room with furniture and other objects. Gael was deft, but even that had its limits if I attacked him aggressively. This allowed me to set a trap with [Dark Tendrils].

Once the tendrils erupted from the ground to grab him, he flinched for a moment. Taking advantage of it, I used [Just Blink], disappearing from his vision and senses for a single second, before reappearing with two daggers aiming at his arms.

Daggers clashed. My dagger that he was using and the one I had right now collided against each other, blocking any attacks, however…

“Fuck!” he shouted, echoing through his room.

My left dagger didn’t hit its mark, his bicep, but he wasn’t able to grab it properly. The dagger dug into his open palm like a bee sting, causing him to bleed. While this amount of pain wouldn’t make him curse this loudly, the fact that I was able to grab his arm with my left hand was a problem. For this hand had my claw protectors, with a venom leaking from them.

“You don’t have a very good poker face, huh? I didn’t know if you were immune to a certain status effect, so I was ready to continue this fight, but…you are afraid of what toxin I am using, right? That bead of cold sweat is enough evidence. I won.” Letting go of his arm, I took my daggers back. “Honestly, I expected more. You accepted my deal and suddenly attacked me. You had the moment of surprise in your favor, but you still messed it up. You’re rusty, Gael. Or maybe you just weren’t worthy of being a B rank adventurer in the first place?”

As if I hit a sweet spot, Gael’s expression distorted. It was a combination of sadness, frustration, and fear. Whatever caused him to end up in this sorry state probably resurfaced. Staying silent, Gael slumped down onto the ground. It looked like he was holding back his tears.

“…I understand a bit about grief. If you need somebody to talk to, tell Farron to contact me. Don’t stalk us, please.” With that said, I left him back in his apartment after saying goodbye. I hope I didn’t just do something terrible.

After that, a week passed. Tasianna and I would train together to test out our new weapons, while also planning for our restaurant. I finalized the menu while Tasianna was able to fill up multiple potion vials with her potions. As to how we got empty potion vials, we traded the filled ones with an adequate amount of empty vials from Barathen and Manuela. The Helvas staff members used up potions to treat injuries or sickness, so they had gathered up some empty vials which they haven’t returned to the alchemy guild yet. It was free potions for them, so they gladly accepted them.

I also managed to gather a good amount of normal clothing threads to create, well, normal clothes. Using my tailor guild membership, I asked a few of my senpais, so older members, for a few contacts who would want mana clothing. There, in exchange for mana dresses worthy of a noble which the merchants planned to gift to their wives, I gained a ton of wool and silk threads. These will be used for normal clothing.

During this week, I also noticed numerous gargoyles appearing in the sky. The nobles of Firwood and the surrounding fiefs were returning from the capital of Artorias, just like the High Bishop and Ellaine said. Once Manuela mentioned members of House Chezaic had returned, she and I mounted her gargoyle and flew to the forest where Hestia and Ellaine were training.

There, we witnessed the two girls in messy outfits dismantling a skorr, while two of Ellaine’s knight retainers were grilling some fish. It was like a scene from a survivor drama show. None of them would look like nobles in their clothes if it weren’t for their otherwise clean appearance. They likely washed in a nearby lake.

From what I heard, Ellaine managed to level up ten times during their stay there, while Hestia, as expected, didn’t even notice her experience gain. She eventually redirected all the experience gained towards Ellaine and the knights with her party bracelet in order to not waste it on herself.

Once we returned the four survivalists to Firwood, we cleaned them up. The invitations for the Chezaic party then arrived for us in two days, informing us that the party would begin in three days. Once that time passed, Ellaine and Hestia boarded a carriage in dresses so beautiful that even I, the tailor, cried tears of joy.

Let me admit something I would never tell Hestia or Tasianna. I personally wanted to wear a dress too, instead of this retainer tuxedo. Hmph!

A note from AbyssRaven

I just wanted to say thank you to everybody who stuck with the story up until now! Thank you so very much for all the support!

If I may ask you guys something — how did you guys think of the earlier chapters? Specifically, the parallel minds. Nowadays, they're gone but I know that quite a lot of people disliked them, which is especially the case for those who haven't read until this point since they dropped it either because of the parallel minds or the kids.

If I were to rewrite those chapters, what would you guys suggest I do? Any response would be really appreciated! Thank you guys!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 15 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 136: Chezaic Tea Party.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #3 her to promote our Patreon. 15 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 15 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until April!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

“Haaaaa, deep breaths in. Haaaa, deep breaths out.” Doing a breathing exercise, I calmed myself down. My heart was pounding from anxiousness.

“I am surprised something mundane as a tea party would unsettle you this much, Lady Hestia. You walk into a battle against E rank monsters without a care in the world, but a simple meeting between young noblewomen has you this distressed,” Ellaine said with a smile, sitting in front of me with her attendant Josine. It was not out of mockery, but due to genuine surprise.

Understanding what she meant, I couldn’t help but frown at that fact. “…I cannot help it. After living in the wilds for so long, fighting has just become natural. On the other hand, speaking with a group of nobles seems daunting. The etiquette lesson you and Manuela gave me is a good example of this, as you would always scrutinize my wordings and phrases in an attempt to polish them. Now, I am thrown into a den of strangers with this exact mindset. That thought scares me.”

Although, I don’t think you’re qualified to say that to me, Ellaine. You are shaking, too, I thought after seeing her hands tremble for a second. She was good at hiding her feelings, but not good enough to hide the fact she was afraid of going to this tea party.

It reminded me of when Manuela suddenly raised her voice when Ellaine first suggested this plan. It made me curious back then, but now I was convinced why she hadn’t participated in these events after she relinquished her inheritance rights.

Barathan and Manuela once mentioned a noble giving up their right to inherit their house’s title was usually ridiculed as a coward. When Ellaine did this, not only did she lose most of her retainers, but it seems she lost most of her “friends.” The last part was a guess since I never heard her mention anybody close to her, nor her time at the royal academy.

Even in the one week where we spent the time together in a forest for “Ellaine’s training arc,” we barely talked about her social life. We ventured into a monster-infested forest northeast of Firwood for the specific reason of allowing Ellaine to level up and train her skills under my watch, so all we’ve discussed was her growth as a mage and swordswoman.

Yeah, swordswoman. Apparently, her father was an accomplished knight of the Greenveil duchy knight’s order, and her brother was expected to join him after he graduated. Ellaine learned some swordsmanship from her father when she was younger, but gave up on it once her inferiority complex settled in. As both her physical abilities and stamina have grown from all the cardio I suggested, she took it back up again with the help of her two knights.

“While I do sympathize, I cannot compare it to being put in a life-or-death situation,” Ellaine replied in return. “I still cannot believe you would prevent my knights from fighting with me just so you could force me to face a monster alone. I am still in the academy if you remembered.”

“And? That isn’t an excuse when adventurers around our age must fight wildlife for a living. I will reiterate what I said last week — your royal academy seems more like a social club focusing on building connections instead of developing the elites of the future,” I responded, remembering the heated discussion I had with Ellaine and her knights. “Magic research, land management, economics are subjects I find interesting and agree are important for your growth as an intellectual, but when your only combat experience is either theoretical or sparring in a safe environment, then you will lack the initiative in real combat. A moment’s hesitation is a second too long.”

I then formed a mini wind gun and twirled it in front of me. “Besides, you were always safe. You might have received a scare or a wound, but I would have intervened if your life was in danger. If you ask me, doesn’t it sound similar to what you experience at the academy? Only with a higher difficulty. After all, I am not a cruel person.”

“…Well, it involves more menial work, I guess. The dismantling is usually reserved for attendants.”

Ahh, so pure and innocent…just like me when I first began! Although, she had less reservation than I had when she killed her first loopabit; well, she used a sword and I had to break its neck with my fangs.

“Ahem, while I enjoy seeing you two bond, I believe we should use this time to discuss the plan?” Interrupting our small talks was Saori, who was sitting next to me in her own tailored butler outfit. There was a maid outfit in her size available, but she refused to wear it.

“Miss Saori is correct, Lady Ellaine. Lady Hestia,” agreeing with my “attendant,” Josine spoke up in support to push us in a proper discussion. “It would be helpful for Lady Hestia’s sake to repeat what she learned during her training. This is her debut tea party, and I remember how nervous My Lady was during her first. Speaking of debuts, this will be your social debut as an adult, My Lady, so you must be prudent too.”

“Ah, my debut…right. I forgot I had that also. Since Lord Theodore had diligently spread the rumor among the nobles, I should also correct my story, so my mother isn’t seen as a liar.”

Since Lord Helvas, Ellaine’s father, ordered Ellaine to stick with me as my lady-in-waiting, without my consent I might add, she had to skip her social debut as an adult during the God Thanking Festival Ball in the kingdom’s capital. As Ellaine’s mother didn’t want people to think of her negatively, she told people she was sick and had to stay behind to manage the fief after the bandit attack.

This tea party we were using as a way for Saori to find evidence and information on House Chezaic’s involvement in Davison’s fairy hunting was also Ellaine’s official debut event. She was supposed to socialize and become friendly with her future allies and “friends,” but we were currently doing something illegal…kinda.

“Well, that is my issue, so let us push that back for now,” she refocused with a deep breath. “Miss Saori, as you will be Lady Hestia’s attendant today, you will have free roam from the garden to the kitchen in order to fulfil your duties. In this moveable area, the security will be lax, and it will give you enough room and time for you to move around with your dark magic. Josine, Miss Saori will need aid to fit in perfectly with the other attendants, so please give her your support.”

“Of course, Lady Ellaine. Miss Saori, I am confident in our success,” Josine bowed slightly, calm as a peaceful lake.

“I am in your care, Miss Josine.”

Ellaine nodded at cooperation between those two and then looked at me. “Lady Hestia, as Manuela and I have taught you as much as we could on how to conduct yourself as a Lady in the one week we had, I believe you should do fine. It helped that your foundation was already admirable, and any deviation can be excused as a difference in culture. Aside from that, Lord Theodore has spread the rumor that you are a greifnoble tier aristocrat from Loatryx, so none of the ladies in attendance would dare provoke you for something insignificant as a speaking habit. They will not be as fastidious as Manuela was, so you may rest your worries.”

A short version of the rumor the High Bishop and Ellaine spread around was that I was a traveling greifnoble from Loatryx, using my adventurer role to wander freely in Artorias as a sight-seeing tour. I was then found out by House Helvas. They invited me to their home and have been acting as my host ever since.

Lord Sirius and the High Bishop were informed of my presence and wished me to stay within their castle for my safety, but I refused as I found it too bothersome to move residence. As they relented to my request, they ordered House Helvas to take care of me, which forced Ellaine to become my lady-in-waiting. Since my goal was to not be detected and have freedom in my travels, I opted to not reveal my presence at the God Thanking Festival. This forced Ellaine to stay in Firwood and her mother gave an excuse to hide me.

High Bishop Theodore mentioned that my identity as a priestess wasn’t included in the rumors and that I should reveal it after the tea party. In his words, “baffle society, your Highness.” I should leave a big mark in the party’s attendants’ memories to help the rumor grow even more, to the point it reaches the temple and the returning priests and priestesses.

Once Davison’s and House Chezaic’s supporters hear that “the High Bishop has already met the dragonewt greifnoble priestess” they will want answers and request that I meet them. When that happens, the High Bishop will attempt to extract as much insider information as possible. I needed to give out my white grace services as whimsically as possible in order to attract these priests’ customers and make the priests desperate.

Aside from a few changes, the rumor was pretty much spot on. Once we gathered enough information from today’s event or afterward, the High Bishop would have Lord Sirius launch an investigation party to House Chezaic while another party would storm Davison and apprehend him, after all his supporters would be gone.

I thought it was a bit too much planning, considering they were nobles contesting against a commoner, but Theodore wanted to deal with this situation as meticulously as possible. The act of fairy hunting was a sensitive topic that could destroy any attempts the Kingdom of Artorias had on rekindling their relationship with the elves. The fewer witnesses during this attack, the better.

If we didn’t snuff out the roots concerning Davison’s noble supports, then leaks could happen with the disgruntled nobles. We didn’t even know exactly why House Chezaic was supporting Davison in the first place. As the Kingdom of Artorias had an enemy with the kingdom of Atadoro in the south, Theodore didn’t want to risk dissatisfied nobles selling information to their enemy and then defecting. Execution, assassination, nor exile could be used against these nobles without proper evidence, since that would cause House Sirius to lose a ton of respect and prestige.

So, yeah, we had a lot to do before we could take care of this situation like proper and civilized humans. Honestly, it was a hassle when Saori could just sneak into Davison’s basement, but it seems like Theodore and Ellaine had ulterior motives concerning the nobles. I’ll ride their wave for now.

After a while, the carriage stopped. We had to wait a few moments as our driver presented our invitation before the gate guards let us in. The moment the cold disappeared, I knew we were inside the demesne of a noble house. The carriage moved a bit further until it stopped again, but this time, there was a knock on the carriage door.

Without another word, Josine stood up and opened the door, descending the stairs. The noise could be heard from outside — men and women mentioning presents and gifts and wanting to unpack them, while the happy voices of young women were overlapping with each other making it hard to decipher what they were saying individually.

Saori followed, guiding Ellaine down next. Wearing the mana dress Saori made for her, as we owed her for paying for our equipment, Ellaine seemed to have garnered people’s attention, seeing as I could hear people’s collective gasps. Her outfit was a combination of a white frilly knee-long dress and a yellow-green coat, held together with a corset.

Since this was a semi-formal occasion, Ellaine’s dress was casual but made to impress. Some extra frills and ribbons were added to raise her feminine appeal, while a verdant green brooch, matching her eyes, was placed on her jacket to flaunt her wealth. The last detail added was her House’s emblem sewn on the chest part of the jacket. Seeing as how Manuela, Svena, Josine, and the other seamstresses of House Helvas influenced the dress, it was an exemplary combination of 21st century Earth’s fashion styles and medieval Peolyncian noble tastes.

Ellaine stopped in front of the door. She kept a proper smile as she looked to the right, where I could see her eyes wavering a bit, reminding me of a shy kitty. Upon Saori’s urging, Ellaine continued down the stairs without further issues.

“Lady Hestia.” That was my cue.

Taking a final deep breath, I stood up and gently walked to the door, where I saw Saori offer her hand to guide me down. Keeping my head up and without looking down, I took her hand and revealed myself to Artorias’s noble society for the first time. My legs were shaking a bit, but I was an entertainer by heart. “Baffle society,” High Bishop Theodore’s words remained in my head as I ground my fangs, hiding this action behind a smile.

“Oh my, is that the rumored dragonewt? What a mesmerizing dress!”

“House Helvas’s emblem is on the carriage. So, the rumors were truthful. My dearest mother mentioned it before I left, asking me to confirm it if possible.”

“Mine also. Truly a dazzling first entrance, no? I wonder if Lady Francesca and Lady Iracela will monopolize her attention? Shame.”

“I heard she was a greifnoble from the rumors. It might be hard for us schwertnoble, especially if Lady Ellaine were to shadow her.”

From what I could hear, my appearance seems like a success. I used a bit of my scale-dust to create a light fiery haze around me, making it seem like I was casting an aura after revealing myself. From what I remembered when I practiced it, it made me look a bit more charming, more mature, with my dress, which I liked.

My dress, unlike Ellaine’s, was more inspired by modern cocktail dresses with a bit of Victorian-era influence so I wouldn’t stand out too much compared to the other attendees. It was a tea party, a semi-casual semi-formal occasion, so I thought “why not?” According to Ellaine, nobles are supposed to impress with innovative ideas, right? Well, fashion is a good point to begin with.

You know, it’s funny how I’m talking about fashion when I never was that interested in it on Earth. I blame Saori and her insistence on making her designs fabulous. And this dress certainly does that.

My mana dress was light blue reaching down to my knees. Now, my dress couldn’t be too revealing, as a noble society valued modesty quite a bit; in addition, the more fabric that was used, the better it would be received. The ends of my skirt were flared with multiple layers of pleats to give the illusion of more fabric used. Saori added some extra detail to them to make them look similar to dragon scales, to fit my legs.

My chest and shoulders were covered, of course, and a red ribbon was tied around my waist. Frills were added to the ends of my shoulders, and I was wearing white sleeves and thigh-high sheer stockings to make my scales less visible. You could still see them — I wanted them to know I was a dragonewt — but they weren’t the focus of my outfit. To finish it all off, I had a hairpin with mana threaded flowers, a flower adornment on my right horn, and a cute ribbon on the ends of my tail.

We left out the emblem, as I didn’t want it seeing as I would just use Kargryxmor’s, and we didn’t add any jewelry, as none of the pieces at hand fit me. If I were to add jewels to my outfit, then it would be something made with my corrosive obsidian. I really like the dark purple hue.

“Do not overdo it with the fire, Lady Hestia,” Saori warned me with a whisper. I allowed the haze to fade away naturally as I walked down the stairs.

Instead of a mansion’s entrance, I was greeted by the sight of a massive garden, filled with young ladies in elegant dresses and white covered tables. There were other carriages on the road, where attendants were packing out boxes and handing them over to other attendants, the former of which I presumed worked for House Chezaic, as they all had the same emblem on their chests.

As I smiled at a group of young women who gossiped about me, who quickly turned away and hid their reactions with fans, two similar-looking girls around my age appeared. Both wore very fabric and color-rich dresses, making them stick out among most of the other attendees.

Both pinched the ends of their dresses and curtsied. The girl with yellow eyes spoke first, “Lady Ellaine, it has been a long time, no? We missed you so dearly at the God Thanking Festival.”

The girl with red eyes then continued in her stead, “My, when we heard from your mother that you were sick, we were so worried for you. Winter is a dangerous time where you must watch your health the most, Lady Ellaine. We are gladdened to see you attending another of our tea parties, again.”

With a waning smile, Ellaine curtsied in return. “Thank you for inviting me, Lady Francesca and Lady Iracela. I apologize that I couldn’t join last year’s tea party. I was sadly preoccupied which, unfortunately, made me unavailable.”

“That is understandable. Life is full of surprises, yes? Our schedule cannot always be free…Also, I recently heard a very interesting rumor. My sister and I are very glad to see that it was true.” The yellow-eyed girl then turned to me, curtsying deeply with her sister. “My name is Francesca Eulalia Chezaic, the second child of Lord Arcanuess Chezaic. May the Goddess bless our meeting today.”

“I am Iracela Wilma Chezaic, youngest child of Lord Arcanuess Chezaic and the younger twin sister of Lady Francesca. May the Goddess bless our meeting today, My Lady. Lady Ellaine, would it be possible for you to introduce us?”

As if they were waiting for it, all the noblewomen attending today’s tea party became quiet and looked in our direction intently.

“Yes, this is Lady Hestia Atsuko, a noble of the Dragonewt Country Loatryx.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you two, and I thank you for inviting me to your tea party from the depth of my heart. I initially didn’t want to join, as I am a foreigner, but I couldn’t help myself after how much Lady Ellaine described it. My curiosity for an Artorian social event had to be sated.”

Holy shit, what am I saying?

“It is our honor to be your hosts, Lady Hestia. On behalf of the noble ladies of Firwood and the surrounding fiefs, we sisters would like to welcome you to the Kingdom of Artorias. Please, enjoy your time with us,” Francesca announced, causing everybody in the surrounding to clap. “Lady Ellaine, I cannot thank you enough for persuading Lady Hestia. You are an invaluable friend.”

Friend?

After that, the twins showed us to our seats and told us that tea would be ready in a bit and that we should use this time to get to know the others. As it was a custom to give presents to the host Elaine and I presented boxes filled with…

“Since I remembered Artorias had a problem with yeast, I had my retainers bake some confections for us. I promise they are spongy and soft as clouds, aside from being too delicious to resist,” I said, as Josine and Saori opened two boxes to show a cake and a bunch of cupcakes.

Truthfully, I didn’t know how Artorias was so dependent on the elven kingdom for yeast. I mean, the taverns serve beer, ale, and mead. Last time I checked, yeast was made during the processing of beer, so how could they not know of yeast’s existence? Well, whatever the reason was, this fact was a major boon for today’s event.

“C-Cake, amazing! How many layers were added, Lady Hestia? The one I tasted was smaller than yours.”

“They are so colorful. L-Lady Hestia, would it be alright for us to taste them today? Th-They must be unimaginably expensive.”

“Lady Ellaine sponsored the raw ingredients? Why, if House Helvas had a hand in this, then the quality of the individual products must be great. Lady Hestia. Lady Ellaine. We cannot thank you enough for treating us to something this wonderful.”

The daughters of barons and baronets were visibly flustered by what I was showing, unsure if the Chezaic twins or I would allow them to taste my confections since they called it a “luxury even for nobles.” It seems they thought they weren’t worthy or rich enough to taste it.

On the other hand, the mednobles looked like they wanted to devour the cake on the spot. They mentioned the confections they could buy were smaller and less decorative. Sugar wasn’t a problem, since Artorias grews sugar beets, but without yeast, the confections had to be kept small, otherwise they would turn into sugary rocks.

As everybody thanked me profusely for our presents, I couldn’t help but feel good about myself. The constant praise was making my soul flourish. I also checked on Ellaine, as I believed she should be enjoying it too, but she wasn’t smiling as much as I thought. She kept a reserved smile as she responded to everybody.

Shouldn’t she feel more hyped about this? Hmmm, I thought, wondering what was bothering Ellaine. I haven’t asked why she was nervous about joining this tea party, as I thought she would do it eventually. Maybe I should speak to her, afterward.

Saori and Josine were then led by a butler to the kitchen to prepare the confections. I was wishing them luck that they could find something damning.

The party then continued for a while until the tea arrived. We were seated and enjoyed a relaxing session of tea and snacks as we spoke to each other. Apparently, the tables were divided up among schwertnobles and mednobles, according to Ellaine, to ensure “ease of socializing” for everybody.

Wasn’t it a bit rude? Making people remember their ranks in a social gathering. I mean, I would be happy to talk to anybody here, but maybe it was harder for the nobles? They were obsessed with rankings and tiers, after all.

Well, anyways, after Francesca and Iracela gave a speech about welcoming the new year with new and renewed bonds, they wish us to continue enjoying the party as long as we wished. From there, the intro was done and acquaintances were made; we were now allowed to wander the whole garden or stay at the table to continue snacking or sipping tea.

“While I wouldn’t want to speak ill of our neighbours, I have heard some rather unsettling rumors from the Lecartiglio duchy, so I wouldn’t recommend traveling there for now, Lady Hestia. Uhm, I am not belittling your abilities, I swear. I just wish to warn you as I heard the youngest daughter of House Moreschi was kidnapped from her house. Cedaraille or Griffonpeak would be great traveling points, and then you could visit the Morgiana duchy.”

“Oh, absolutely! Lady Hestia, you must come to the capital if you have the time. Although I might not be able to boast to a scion of dragons, I would like to mention that a royal academy is a wonderful place for the educated. The university and the mage’s guild there are being led by the dukes of Morgiana and Myrddin. Our premier magic talents. They might interest you,” the daughter of House Cathrina said.

“Oh, this might also interest you, Lady Hestia. At the end of last year, the heir of House Morgiana was made the principal of the academy. Lady Thyra Nimue Morgiana. A talented magician who has reached the advanced tier of magic, who also was allowed to join the capitol basilica of the Holy State Aureolis to learn holy magic! In addition, she is only a few years older than us!” the daughter of House Venierus told me. “It would delight us if we could meet again at the academy, Lady Hestia.”

“I understand, I understand, however, I was intending to travel the kingdom at my pace. I do not know when I will reach the capital, so I cannot make any promises,” I told them, overwhelmed by how many people were talking to me. I will have to visit Griffonpeak one day for Aurena, but I don’t think I will visit the academy…for now.

Seeing as I was the new kid in the neighborhood, everybody was naturally curious about me, especially after the rumors about me were confirmed. They were asking about my magic abilities, how Loatryx was, or my general interests.

Concerning the questions about Loatryx, it really made me regret not asking Agni, Kraftja, or maybe even the guild master about it. Loatryx was north of the dwarven lands and Farron seemed to know a lot about dragons and dragonewt, so it made sense to try asking them. I would’ve been able to answer everybody’s questions if I had more knowledge of Loatryx instead of dodging the question.

Huh? Where is Ellaine? I wondered. After the greetings, Ellaine and I were kinda dragged away by a group of girls to continue where we left off before the Cheziac twins gave their speech.

I asked the group of girls if they saw Elaine go somewhere, and only one of them could tell me she went back to the tables. The others didn’t seem to know, but I guess they were too engrossed in our small talk. As I went over, I saw that a couple of girls were standing before Ellaine with rather smug smiles while she held her head down.

“Ah, Lady Ellaine, what luck. The noble who unceremoniously gave up her inheritance rights and all the retainers her mother gave her was once again given a chance to succeed in life. Meeting a greifnoble of Loatryx, of all countries. How lucky can one person be, right? Sister?”

“True, Sister, I agree. Instead of funneling this chance to their more talented and obviously more worthy son, House Helvas still intends to support their underperforming and outright embarrassing daughter. What a lovely family, although, not the wisest action, I must say.”

““Hie hie hie hie hie hie hie!””

“Oh, imagine if the Kingdom could form a diplomatic relationship with Loatryx due to Lady Hestia. What a reward House Helvas would gain. What a reward Lady Ellaine would gain. Wouldn’t they rank up to Arcanuess, Lady Francesca?”

“Luck is part of success, too, but Lady Ellaine would be an ill fit candidate for a reward. A noble who isn’t even confident enough to even attempt the inheritance battle is not a noble the kingdom should be promoting. It would only sully the reputation of our more qualified candidates, right? Lady Iracela?”

““Hie hie hie hie ha ha ha ha ha!””

…Are you kidding me? What is this? A fucking otome game?! What is this shit!

“Hey!” my loud voice resounded through the party, drawing the attention of the bullies standing before Ellaine. “I will now ask you to politely walk away from my friend, otherwise, I shall show you what I do with scum!”

One of my veins probably popped as an unpleasant memory resurfaced.

A note from AbyssRaven

Yeahhhhh, uhm ,Hestia, chill.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 15 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 137: Rumors are scary.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #4 her to promote our Patreon. 15 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 15 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until April!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

‘Jeez, the teacher is always giving you the most attention. Did your daddy and mommy bribe him or something? Cuz, we also want him to help us.’

‘Yes, yes, we know you can sing well; you don’t need to show it off so much. Not everybody is talented enough to be a singer…some of us are only good enough for background dancers…’

‘Ooooh, she got rejected from another audition? Can’t always win on the first try, right? And then she failed the second. The third. The fourth. The fifth. Not so special from us, huh? I wonder if her parents are regretting the money they put into her, but Little Miss Rich Girl probably has no problem with money, ha ha ha!’

Why is it coming back now? Go away! Fuck off!

‘You know, I know it’s your dream and wish and so on, but…aren’t you putting a bit too much time on it? Like, you’re obsessed! When was the last time we just hung-out? You don’t even call us that often, too.’

‘You know, if you ever have time, we could go to bucks or to that boba shop you like so much. Cool down a bit. It might help you not take those auditions so seriously every time. It isn’t fun seeing you depressed all the time.’

‘…Oh HEY, sorry, we don’t have any time today! Huh? Another one? That’s too bad, but you’ll get it next time! For sure! Let’s hang out when we’re all free, ok? Bye! Wooo, I love this song-----’

…I-I really don’t want to remember this…why…why does it sound so different from what I remembered? What I…thought I remembered?

Memories of the bullies from my dance lessons and the bitches who stopped being my friends because I didn’t fit in with them. Were they all wrong? Could I believe these memories? Were Aurena’s words correct when she said my memories would come back to me slowly? Well, if that’s true, then she was right to say…this would hurt. ‘Cause, it hurts.

I remembered the bullies being envious and talking down to me due to my parent’s money, but was that the only reason? When I blew up on them — how did it happen and why did I do it in the first place? My friends from school, why exactly did we lose contact? Was it ‘cause they couldn’t accept how much I was changing, or ‘cause I couldn’t compromise with anything else outside my idol training?

I don’t know. These memories are so confusing. Just thinking about them is painful.

…And with pain, comes anger.

“Wha-L-Lady Hestia, pardon, what did you say?” Francesca, the older of the Chezaic twins asked with a flustered face. She probably didn’t expect me to shout from a few tables away.

“Did I stutter? Lady Francesca. Lady Iracela. Back away from Lady Ellaine this instance! I won’t tolerate you badmouthing my friend, even if this is your party.” Barely able to control my aura skills from rampaging and frightening everybody in attendance, I stormed over to them, forgoing the more elegant slow walk.

“B-Badmouthing?! How ludicrous, as if we would do something that uncouth during our own tea party! Ladies, you were close to us, you did not hear anything, correct? We were just performing small talk!” Iracela, the younger twin, turned to her groupies, using them to undermine what I just stated. They hesitated a bit before they nodded, agreeing that what I said was completely wrong. “See? Lady Hestia, greifnoble or not, such random and unwarranted claims are unacceptable! This is a social occasion where bonds are made and maintained, not an event for lies and plotting! To think you would do this when we are welcoming you to our realm, Lady Hestia.”

Whispers began running rampant in the garden, the other girls were speaking about it intently, as expected. Some took the twin’s side, as they found it inappropriate of me to speak up like this during a public event, while others were murmuring that I was creating a fuss for nothing.

The rest, on the other hand, had entirely different reactions. Some stayed quiet, worried to say anything and breathing as if they were nervous. Those who heard me mention my magic skill levels were nervous as they pondered if my words were real and if I would create a mess. And then there were those mentioned, “The twins are doing this again.”

My ears heard them all. A perk of having a high [Enhanced Audio Sense].

“Don’t you dare lie to me after getting caught red-handed! Lady Iracela, did you forget that I’m a dragonewt? Did my horns or tail or scales not tip you off, or do you need glasses, huh? My hearing is far better than a human’s,” I then pointed at a group of noblewomen who were the furthest away from us. “I apologize, Lady Oleanna, I did not intend to eavesdrop; however, did you not speak about your studies at the royal academy? That you were worried about the next semester and the combat practices? Lady Clementine, you mentioned your [Wind Magic] has been improving slowly recently? Lastly, Lady Kiara, didn’t you say your father has been putting you and your brothers through more strenuous knight training?”

After I said everything, I once again apologized to them as I noticed their faces becoming redder. I hope they were simply flustered that I heard them and weren’t too embarrassed. I really didn’t want to make them uncomfortable, however I had to use somebody as an example to bring my point across. The moment these bitches successfully denounce me, then Ellaine and I will have lost.

“Have I proven myself enough? You and your little followers were snickering about Ellaine, speaking ill about her simply because she and I have become friends? You two invited me here through Ellaine and you do something like this? I will repeat myself. You. Two. Are. SCUM!!!” Maybe that last part came out more aggressive than I planned. Maybe I shouldn’t have called them “scum.” Well, it couldn’t be helped when my throat just wanted to explode.

…Also looking at the twins and their three cronies’ expressions, I guess I accidentally released my [Draconic Aura] a bit.

As I was staring those five down, Ellaine moved her head a bit for her to see me, although she still kept her head down in front of the twins, “Lady Hestia…”

A noble should never bow her head except in front of their lord or those of a higher rank. As daughters, Ellaine and the twins weren’t nobles per se. Per definition, nobles are the people who currently hold a noble rank and possess the privilege of one, while an aristocrat was simply a person of a higher rank than a commoner. The upper class. That meant, all nobles were aristocrats, but not all aristocrats were nobles.

Calling all these young women “noblewomen” was technically false, but it was easier to use and it reminded everybody of their statuses. The twins didn’t outrank Ellaine, but their parents did. That influence would trickle down to their relatives and was the reason why nobles loved mentioning family members with noble ranks. It gave them more authority, as a family was tight among the nobility, from what the few nobles I’ve come to know have told me.

If I used that logic, it made sense for Ellaine to bow her head, as the twins’ father was an Arcanuess while hers was a Count. They were both mednoble ranks, but an Arcanuess was higher in the hierarchy. It made sense for her to bow. Seeing it through a noble’s eyes.

But I was here.

“Lady Ellaine, why are you bowing your head? The last time I checked, we had already finished introductions and greetings, correct? Everybody saw us in the front of the garden curtsy.” People began whispering again as they hid their mouths with fans, thinking they could stop my eavesdropping with that. Well, I can fine-tune my senses enough to ignore stuff, so I’ll do just that. But, in general, everybody was wondering what I was saying with this. What was my purpose to bring this up?

As I was about to continue, one of the girls behind me spoke, “Pardon me, but has Lady Hestia accepted Lady Ellaine as her retainer?!” she said in surprise, loud enough for everybody to hear.

And that was all that was needed to create a chain reaction.

“What?! But she’s a foreign nobility, and a dragonewt!”

“A greifnoble of Loatryx making a noble of our kingdom her retainer. Wouldn’t somebody of a higher rank be more suitable? Like another greifnoble. So, why Lady Ellaine?”

“Don’t forget that Lord Marquess Sirius knows about this. Maybe this is part of a plan to reconnect with the dragonewts of Loatryx? Similar to how we’re improving relationships with the dwarves?”

The rumor of Ellaine becoming one of my retainers has begun to take shape and, like a floodgate, once the girls began to consider it to be true, they couldn’t stop gossiping about it and spreading it to everybody around them. Even the retainers and guards couldn’t help but be curious.

However…I didn’t plan anything like this!

W-Wait, what is this?! I was about to say that Ellaine shouldn’t be bowing ‘cause I’d leave if it continued! I was planning to tell them off for bullying Ellaine, so how the hell did this rumor begin?! Wadafuk?!!?!?

I looked at the situation with exasperation, but I couldn’t say anything as it got worse and worse.

“Oh, that does make sense. Lady Ellaine must have become Lady Hestia’s lady-in-waiting to travel with her to Loatryx. Wouldn’t she have more opportunities there without anybody knowing how she gave up her birthright?”

“And it would give our kingdom a link to the north. An ambassador. I heard that Loatryx was a cold place, so trade would flourish between us, as we can provide different goods. The Marquess and Lord Duke Greenveil must have planned this! How brilliant!”

“According to reports, the one-sided trade between the Dukedom of Lecartiglio and the Republic of Caedhul still brings in a lot of money. I learned Caedhul and Loatryx were allies. If we can establish some sort of connection to Loatryx, our whole Kingdom might benefit! Lady Ellaine, what a selfless sacrifice to leave her home kingdom. I cannot help but admire her.”

…Greenveil nobles act more like merchants, huh?

The majority of the conversations were about the economic value of Ellaine becoming my retainer; however, the gossip began to turn more into “how can I benefit from this.” The original reason for my outrage began to fade from everybody’s memories as they started mumbling about how their houses would benefit from this, and how they should act with this new information. It wasn’t super obvious, but the ravenous eyes of these young ladies were directed at Ellaine and me. The gentle, elegant, and cute first impressions I had were gone, replaced by the opportunistic and greedy nature of noblewomen.

““W-We sincerely apologize! We are at fault!”” the twins exclaimed loudly, bowing their heads so deeply I thought they would fall down.

“““W-We stepped out of line. We did not mean what we said!””” As their two leaders faltered, so did their three followers.

Although I didn’t plan for it to happen like this, it just…kinda worked. I didn’t even admit to anything, everybody was already making some random suggestions and one of them stuck around, becoming believable enough by itself without any further evidence. Crazy, but “never look a gift horse in the mouth,” right?

“W-Wait, everybody-” Ellaine was about to say something that would ruin this moment, so I quickly activated [Telepathy] to speak with her.

[“Ellaine, Ellaine, don’t say anything. Let’s just pretend we didn’t hear anything, okay? They were covering up their mouths, so it would make ‘sense’ for us to not eavesdrop, right? We didn’t admit to anything, the rumors were created outside our control, so let’s use it for now. I really want to make these bitches pay for what they did.”]

“L-Lady Hestia tha-! Ahem.” Maybe using the word “bitches” wasn’t the correct choice, but Ellaine quickly regained her composure. “I-I did not take any offense. Please, be at ease Lady Francesca and Lady Iracela.”

It was a pretty meek response, but I guess this was more Ellaine’s personality. Outside of her prideful nature as a noble and the spoiled daughter of a wealthy family, she was pretty kind and considerate. She knew where to hold up appearances and use her authority, seeing at how she managed the mansion and the many staff members.

Personally, I wanted to confront them more on their bullshit. They reawakened those annoying memories in me and I wasn’t done letting my anger out. I barely had a chance, but this wasn’t my bully incident, but Ellaine’s. Being petty here when I somehow garnered people’s respect from a false rumor would be kinda idiotic.

So, I let those five off with a simple warning, using [Royal Presence] to pressure them into accepting it without question. Seeing as how it was practically a charisma skill, it also helped everybody accept me more. It was similar to my first meeting with House Helvas, where I accidentally let out my aura from [Princess] title. I was controlling it here, but the little bit I leaked really showed its worth.

“Lady Ellaine, we had a few arguments in the past, but let us bury it for the sake of our houses? If you could forgive me, I would be honored to have our houses support each other. I will speak with my mother to make it true.”

“Lady Hestia, your aura was astounding. We weren’t able to assess your mana levels, but your aura skill must be high, no? Certainly impressive. Would you be kind enough to divulge your training schedule? After all, you have overheard our concerns, so it is just right.”

“Lady Hestia, if you are free, my house is holding a tea party soon before we students must go back to the academy for the new semester. Would you be interested in coming with Lady Ellaine?”

The highlight of this tea party was meant for the twins to increase their reputations, but, due to a certain rumor, Ellaine and I had taken the spotlight. I was already in everybody’s focus, but it got to the point that nobody would stay away from us for an extended period. Nobody would even talk with the twins anymore.

From the corner of my eyes, I could see the twins ball their hands into fists. They trembled as they glared at Ellaine and me, hiding their teeth-clenching mouths behind their fans. They were mad, they were so mad. I bet they were cursing us at this very moment.

Ahh, schadenfreude.

On the other hand, Ellaine was smiling. It was an uneasy, uncomfortable smile as she understood everybody was being nice to her due to the rumors, but at least it wasn’t the gloomy one she had before. I could hear others admitting that their opinion of her deteriorated since she gave up her inheritance rights, but that they wish to amend it now.

It reminded me of how fickle nobles could be. Honestly, noble society was scary with how they could ping-pong from hating to loving you just ‘cause of a single story. It was the definition of false friends, but I guess nobles see each other more like rivals. Friendships and alliances were only made for benefits. After all, my friendship with Ellaine started ‘cause of her father’s selfish wish.

The party continued until Saori and Josine came back, whispering that they were done. After that, we said our goodbyes and thanked the Chezaic twins, although insincerely on my end, for inviting us to this wonderful party. It made me smile internally when the twins’ smile quivered a bit when they looked at Ellaine.

When we entered the carriage, Saori and Josine wanted to sit outside to get some fresh air. They looked a bit exhausted and exasperated as they did so, but neither Ellaine nor I questioned them. Any discussion concerning the investigation had to be avoided before we’re in a more secure location.

While I sat with Ellaine, she began to speak, “…Those twins will despise me now. They made fun of me before without any real ill will, but I believe House Helvas and House Chezaic will become enemies, if I were to anticipate their mother’s actions.”

“Is she that bad?” I questioned, remembering the twins’ mother was Annabella Chezaic, the second wife of Arcanuess Chezaic. “Manuela mentioned she was a schemer, but don’t all nobles do that? Even the ladies at the party, some of whom aren’t even adults yet, were speaking to us with the intentions of becoming closer.”

“Yes, she is. A horrible woman. Manuela spoke correctly when she said Lady Annabella was an opportunist. When Lord Chezaic’s first wife died, Lady Annabella immediately courted the mourning man at his most vulnerable moment. My mother had nothing good to say about her in the letter I received,” she explained, telling me that she contacted her parents. “Father also told me to use this moment well for the benefit of our House. He believes if everything goes well with the investigation and my brother can graduate in the top rankings, he could be named an Arcanuess. Ambitious, right?”

“Well, it certainly fits your dad. We’re doing the pawn work while he will benefit from the results. Lame,” I complained, frowning at my first impression of Andre Helvas. I then took in a deep breath to calm myself down completely. “…Also, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry I blew up like that. After all the training and time you spent on helping me become a proper lady, I was pretty emotional.”

Now that I had time to think about it, all of it could have gone terribly. Not only did I accuse the twins at their own party, but I did it so loudly that I considered myself to have acted like a kid throwing a tantrum. I was unable to hold my emotions at bay at all. The situation could have been solved without me shouting.

After all, presenting myself like that was a bad first impression, right? If the rumor about Ellaine being my retainer hadn’t spread, who knows what the other girls would have thought. While I didn’t care, Ellaine was still part of noble society. If I was gone, what would she do about all her bad reputation after I ruined it? The current situation wasn’t perfect either, since the moment I leave Artorias, people will question it.

“I didn’t admit anything about the rumors, but I also didn’t stop them. I’m sorry, I probably caused you huge amounts of problems for the future. I’m really sorry, Ellaine…” I bowed. I felt bad that I was being a bad friend. The past memories that I regained today were making my guilt even worse, as I couldn’t help but consider myself a horrible friend even on Earth.

Ellaine listened to what I had said before placing her hands on my cheeks, raising my head in the process, “Lady Hestia, I am not angry, if you thought that. In fact, I felt…relieved. Happy. After I became a social outcast due to my actions, I only received words of comfort, but nobody really supported me through this time. Josine did, but she couldn’t do much about the people badmouthing me. Nobody would talk to her seriously, after all. In fact, if she spoke up, I would be the one that would be shamed. That is how noble society works.”

She continued, showing her first genuine smile since the party, “So I was happy to hear you step up for me. ‘Friends,’ yes. You risked receiving social stigma for me. I cannot thank you enough for…becoming my friend, Lady Hestia. I am honored. And blessed. Whether Goddess Aurena planned this or not, I do not know, but I cannot help but thank her for allowing us to meet. Ever since I heard your idol concert, I couldn’t help but feel you’ve been supporting me. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.”

“…Urgh, I can’t take it anymore, come here!” Her speech was so sweet, so sweet that it was diabetes worthy. Without her consent, I hugged her for the first time to release my pent-up emotions.

Ellaine was surprised for a moment, unsure what to do with her arms, before accepting my embrace by caressing my back. “Such dramatic physical contact is actually frowned upon when done in public, Lady Hestia, hie hie. Your warmth is…nice, albeit a bit too hot for me. You are truly making me question the rules of noble society with all your random behaviors, Lady Hesta. You’ve shown yourself to be graceful.”

Understanding what she meant, I couldn’t help but frown at that fact as I let her go from my hug. “…I cannot help it. I haven’t mentioned this to you, right? I am like this because I wanted to act less like a ‘rich’ or ‘noble’ girl, so I could fit in more with the normal’ girls. It’s what I consider the true me, as you probably guessed. If it weren’t for Saori and Tasianna, my speech would be far cruder, like a commoner’s. How I speak to you and how I think are completely different.”

“For what reason did you want to fit in as a ‘commoner’ girl? There is pride in being graceful.”

Come to think about it, we never really talked about ourselves, huh? I mean, about what happened before we met, like my life on Earth and her life as a noble girl. I guess we had to catch up a bit.

“When I practiced my dancing and singing, I had ‘commoner’ girls train with me. Didn’t I tell you? Feudalism was abolished long ago, and the concept of ‘nobles’ and ‘commoners’ did not exist anymore during the time I lived on Earth. I was the only one who spoke extremely formal among this group, like, excessively for the city I lived in.” Even for Manhattan, I was a bit too formal due to my etiquette teacher. “Unfortunately, that failed. I was technically the social pariah in that training group, and I guess what happened to you today brought that memory back from the depths of my head. That pain was one of the reasons why I exploded.”

“Oh, then shouldn’t I apologize? I was the main reason for that event!” she exclaimed, covering her mouth with her hand.

“Don’t, please. We’ll just bounce ‘I’m sorry’ at that point. Let’s not do that, hie hie,” we both chuckled. “…If you could, would it be alright for you to help me control my emotions? Due to some of my natural characteristics, for example, my ancestor’s blood, I can become quite heated sometimes. It would help me avoid embarrassing situations like today.”

Thankfully, [Battle Frenzy] hasn’t appeared in a long time. Evolving into a sunfang dragon was the correct choice, even if my emotional dragon side was still pretty intense. Although, at this point, I think being a dragon was the most fitting thing I could reincarnate into. Maybe.

“Of course, it would be my honor, Lady Hestia. This time, I will give you the full course to help you grow! Also, I think I have become curious about your past social life, so please tell me more. I would love to learn more.” Ellaine asked with an innocent interest. “Considering how you carried yourself during our first meeting, I assumed your charisma must have attracted a lot of people. That was my first impression. Well, also your huge appetite. Most ladies are light eaters if they aren’t children of knights.”

“Did you really have to emphasize the last part? I know I’m a glutton, but having it pointed out is rather embarrassing.”

If the memories I regained today were true, then I should aim to change myself a bit. A bit more mature, so I wouldn’t cause trouble for everybody. That included Saori and Tasianna.

“Well, I do hope our little ‘lie’ won’t affect you much. Sorry that I didn’t tell everybody you’re not my retainer, he he.”

“Y-Yes, I’m not your retainer…but, I don’t think it will be a problem. Once I do something about the ‘lie,’” she mentioned with a joking giggle, before looking out of the window.

Huh? Was she becoming flustered? For what reason? Ah, whatever.

Once we returned to the mansion, we immediately began a meeting to allow Saori and Josine to speak about their findings. What they learned today was pretty bad…for House Chezaic.

“Lord Chezaic’s study was protected by runes, so I couldn’t sneak in without alerting the guards. However, his bedroom was being cleaned when I sneaked in, and one of the documents mentioned his financial backing for one of the alchemy guild’s projects. It was kept vague, but a large amount of Davi was invested into an unnamed project,” Saori handed a document to Ellaine. “Here are also his activities concerning the alchemy guild, which mostly includes bribes and authority abuse. Here is one where he convinced multiple nobles to support the alchemy guild instead of the mage’s guild, and here is where he bribed mage’s guild officials to redirect supplies to the alchemy guild. These are only the old documents, as the more recent ones are probably in his study, unfortunately.”

“Well, we now have evidence that he went against the mage’s guild, which caused them to shut down their branch in Firwood. The mage’s guild is now allowed to demand an investigation on House Chezaic to pursue corruption charges,” Ellaine said, after analyzing the information. “However, as we wish to keep this under us, we have to deal with this issue instead of informing the mage’s guild. With the testament of the spirit and your recommendation, Lady Hestia, Lord Sirius is now forced to aid you in this investigation.”

Ellaine continued, "Good, thank you, Miss Saori. With this, Lord Theodore will have enough reason to send in his own spies to investigate what Lord Chezaic has been doing recently. Since he will be missing these documents, he will be on guard, which will probably prolong our search for something damning enough for something other than indefinite house arrest,” she nodded. “Lady Hestia, please proceed with the second part of the plan.”

“Okay. Time to make a few priests and priestesses angry, huh? White Mage Hestia is ready to work,” I saluted like an overly dramatic anime character before suddenly realizing something. “Oh… speaking of priestess, I forgot to mention I was one during the party, right? … Oh well, the High Bishop won’t like that.”

“Oh, true.” Ellaine clapped her hands in surprise. It seemed the both of us were too consumed by the experience.

I was too occupied with the twins and helping Ellaine’s reputation afterward to remember to improve my own! Well, nothing we could do about it, but considering how more experienced all the nobles in this plan were, they probably could handle it. I mean, for certain, I made a name for myself with my performance today. Surely, I would become the talk of the town!

“Well, I am sure it wouldn’t be an issue.” Ellaine comforted me and I nodded.

“Well, I guess.” I sighed slightly in exasperation before noticing Saori and Josine looking at us seriously. “Was there anything else, Saori? You and Josine still look like you need to say something.”

There was a small shadow under Saori’s and Josine’s eyes. Saori sighed in exasperation before she spoke, “…Lord Chezaic’s firstborn son is imprisoned in his bed due to a chronic illness. A maid was serving him food when I saw him. Documents I found in the room suggest he is receiving special elixirs from the alchemy guild to prolong his life. Apparently, the white grace has been unsuccessful.”

Wait, healing magic didn’t work?

Well, it wasn’t the first time that I heard that healing magic didn’t do its job properly. My damaged mana paths were a testament to this. However, an illness, a status ailment in this world? Well, that I didn’t know.

But it seems I wasn’t the only one who was surprised.

““He has a son?!”” Ellaine and Manuela exclaimed.

It seems like the existence of Lord Chezaic’s son was never made public.

A note from AbyssRaven

Ayyyyyeee, new memories! Actually, isn't this like a trauma being reawakened? Well, Hestia at least got herself out of that situation by rolling some 20s with her charisma skill. Couldn't get the check to have Ellaine fight those two girls, though.

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Chapter 138: Restaurant “Aurora.”

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Irasshaimase! Welcome, we will bring your food to your seat. What would you like to order?” giving a bow to two men who stood still to smell the pleasant aroma lingering around the area, Tasianna spoke to them and directed their attention to the table with seats.

“Order? Oh, right; you sell food, right. What exactly?” As he asked, his and his companion’s stomach growled. They shrugged and sat down.

Tasianna, keeping a professional and reserved smile, answered their question, “We serve two dishes plentiful enough for the daily hard worker. The first is curry rice — a stew-like dish with meat, vegetables, and spices added to a generous amount of brown rice. The second is stir-fried rice.”

“‘Curry rice?’‘Stir-fried rice?’ What are those?” they asked.

Firwood, and I presume the Duchy of Greenveil as a whole, had multiple ways to prepare rice that resembled Mediterranean dishes, so Italian or Spanish. There were even rice soup and rice crackers that Saori managed to find when she wandered around the town.

“The mother of invention is a necessity.” Rice was a staple food for the dwarves, but as time went by and with the dwarves bordering Artorias to the north, the use of rice as another grain eventually trickled down to the south, to Firwood and the surrounding villages. With another food type, people became inventive and began creating dishes with it.

Sure, some dishes wouldn’t be known to them like curry rice, which was more a levianewt food according to Master Kush and the saurians. The dish “stir-fried rice” wasn’t known as a word, but Saori mentioned locals sauteing food, though it was mostly reserved for more expensive taverns and inns where chefs could afford the good oils — vegetable, olive, sunflower — whereas the everyday worker had to compromise by using stinky monster fat or old butter to fry, so most tended to avoid sauteing and stir-frying.

However, if we ignore dishes requiring ingredients of higher quality, making some good food with cheap stuff was simple enough. You just need one hungry person to experiment a bit and boom. It would be more realistic to assume Firwood would have dishes I’ve never seen before than them not inventing anything at all.

Tasianna, understanding their confusion, directed their eyes to the massive wooden stall standing in front of the group of tables and seats. From that direction, a stew-like dish was bubbling in a massive metal pot while a black-haired wolfkin woman dressed in a white work outfit reminiscent of a sushi chef was stir-frying some rice in a pan. It was the source of all the mouth-watering smells.

Behind the wolfkin was a dragonewt girl cutting vegetables and chunks of meat with a knife, the ingredients for the stew. I mean, curry. And yes, I am that dragonewt girl, and the wolfkin is Saori, of course.

Man, that would have been a good promotion video if we had a camera. I can envision it already, hmmu hmmu.

Jokes aside, team “Aurora” was currently preparing our weekday job, or city job, as I would like to call it. Which was our food stall with other services. Saori was the chef, Tasianna was our only waitress in a cute waitress outfit, and I was the, well, star of the show, kinda.

“Ok, I think I added everything, Saori. I’ll be starting the show now,” I told her, going outside the kitchen. Our kitchen was actually our stall, a simple construction made out of four wooden beams and a tent to protect us from rain. A table for the cooking wares and an oven was added for Saori to use. As you would expect, everything was transported here with my storage.

This was a mobile store, after all. Zeather understood what we described when we ordered everything from him. He kept the pieces easy to build up and transport, as size mattered for the mana consumption of my [Storage Magic], and besides, we had to rebuild our store every single day, so the easier it was to put down, the better. This included the tables and seats.

As I left the tent, I saw the drooling faces of the workers, all too focused on the food to acknowledge me. Tasianna, taking their hungry faces as confirmation, told them the prices. “Curry Rice would be 40 Davi, or four medium copper coins, which includes a lot of vegetables, meat, and a mouth-watering experience. Stir-fried rice is 10 Davi, or one medium copper coin, which includes all that I said before. Also, included are complimentary additions.”

“F-Four mid coppers?! What da hell, why is it so expensive!? I can get myself multiple meat skewers and ale for that price!” one of them blurted out, standing up from his seat.

“True, true. Also, one mid copper for some cooked rice? A bag full of rice grains is seven small coppers and it’ll be enough to feed my whole family for a week. Why should I pay 10 smalls for a single meal?” He looked like he was about to leave.

As we all expected, there was a commotion. Our restaurant-slash-food stall was located in the middle district closest to the merchant district, as our targeted demographic weren’t wage workers who had to live off paycheck every day, but rather locals who could live relatively comfortably compared to those in the slums. They had proper professions involved with the craftsman guild or were working for a merchant, which meant they had some money to splurge to improve their lives.

It was pretty hard to get this spot until the chef’s guild received a notice from the church, specifically the High Bishop in his role as the brother of Firwood’s lord. With what I presume was a bribe, the guild permitted us to open our stall here. Legally. I think the High Bishop could have coerced them through authority alone, but I think he understood that using “appropriate” methods was less tyrannical. Although, is a bribe actually ok? Dunno, don’t care.

Still, even if the people around this area could pay more for food, it didn’t mean they wanted to. So, we needed to show them exactly why we were charging them for more money. We didn’t announce our shop’s opening beforehand, so the first impression had to be perfect. It was lunchtime, workers were coming out in dozens.

Taking out my borrowed geigler, a Peolyncian violin, I sat down on my fancy chair and put on my white mage robe. Closing it to look like a priestess, I began bowing my instrument to produce music.

““Huh?”” the two let out, baffled to hear music suddenly playing. When they saw me, they were initially surprised to see me, asking why a priestess of Aurena was here, but that blew away once both sound and smell overwhelmed their senses.

People were already gathering due to the outburst from before, but even more, people surrounded our stall the moment I started playing music. Like the Pied Piper, I was gathering all the hungry little humans and beastmen with the allure of my music.

It’s just a simple harmony. I haven’t even played anything complicated yet, but people are just coming. Nice!

“Sir, that is one of the complimentary additions. Our Mistress has allowed us to serve these dishes, so I can assure you of the quality. You will feel full and satisfied before returning to work. May I ask again which dishes you wish to order?” Tasianna took advantage of the situation.

With the smell of curry wafting through the air and my music to accompany it, the two workers swallowed and sat back down again. “Let’s treat ourselves” and “Smells better than the skewers at the marketplace,” they said as they caved in and ordered the curry with a mix of hope and worry.

Once Saori received the order, she began making the two dishes. Meanwhile, Tasianna brought the two workers ice water and steaming hot bread each. They were flustered as they thought they had to pay for them also, but Tasianna calmed them down after telling them this was also part of the complementary additions. Cold water made with Tasianna’s magic and bread right from the oven using yeast to give it a nice spongy texture.

Once Tasianna returned to the table with two bowls of curry rice, she couldn’t help but let go of her professionalism for a split second as she scowled in disgust at our two customers. They were devouring the bread as if it was the first thing they’ve eaten for months, exclaiming how sweet, soft, and delicious it was with their mouths full to Tasianna. Once they were finished, they hesitated a bit about drinking the water, but after confirming how clear it was, they wetted their throats with it. They were impressed, just as we anticipated.

Firwood didn’t have a proper irrigation nor a water purification system, so the only way for commoners to drink water was to either boil it or through fruit ale heavily diluted with water. It was not only for safety reasons but also because the well water wasn’t the cleanest. However, that wasn’t the case if you had a water mage who could produce pure water with the flick of a finger. Of course, these people weren’t adventurers, they were simple yeomen, so they probably didn’t know about this fact.

“Woah, jeez, what’s with this bowl. The portion is huge,” one of them said.

“True enough. We also got free spoons?! Damn!” the other pointed out.

However, to stop them from thinking it was theirs, Tasianna spoke up, “Please, take a look at the insignia. We are lending you the bowls and utensils, so please leave them on the table once you finish. Also, please do not bother our Lady. She is here to give a pleasant experience for everybody and that is all.”

Directed by Tasianna’s finger, the workers saw the “H” insignia at the spoon’s and bowl’s bottom, realizing that both belonged to me, the person in question. With the many embroideries on my white cloak and my insignia on my tools, they quickly realized what Tasianna meant with it. They had thought I was just a priestess before, but now they figured out I was a noble.

They sweated, began using more appropriate speech, as they tried to excuse themselves from their tables. The onlookers also looked like they were about to leave also, however…

.

“Come, follow my voice ♫

The dark, scares you, too. ♫

I’ll be your guide ♫

Oh, I won’t leave you alone. ♫

Come, sing with me ♫

Collide our voices ♫

To break through this silence, ♫

Till morning arrives. ♫”

.

[Music Resonation (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

I sang “Till Morning Arrives” and played the tune on my violin with closed eyes. If there is one thing that I’ve gotten proud of, its that I can draw people in with my singing. It was always gonna be harder to attract normal workers, as most were either scared of nobles or uncomfortable around them, but we needed to make my name spread. Not only for the High Bishop but also in general.

After what I did at the tea party, there is exactly 0% chance that I will not be known among the nobility now, at least in Greenveil. I experienced how much the girls gossiped and most of them were there intending to get to know me for their parents. Hiding wasn’t an option anymore, and I was slowly even considering divulging the fact that I’m a dragon, but Saori and Ellaine stopped me. Supposedly, dragon slayers were not only a profession, but also a System Job among some members of the hunter’s guild. Yeah, I didn’t want them to know about me just yet.

With my song calming everybody, the two workers shrugged and picked up their spoons, saying, “Our wives would smack us if they knew we were wasting food” before digging in.

“...Mhmm! Damn! This is good! How many spices were added to this!” he commented while gobbling the curry rice down.

“Hey, hey, hey, have you eaten the meat?! So soft and juicy, I can’t get enough of them. Hey, you eating that one?” the other stated with a mischievous smile, eyeing at a piece of meat in his friend’s bowl.

And that was all that was needed to get people to be brave enough to join in, meaning Tasianna and Saori were about to experience our first rush hour on our first day. Onlookers slowly asked Tasianna for tables and what the dishes were before ordering either curry or fried rice with reluctant expressions. I guess the price might be too steep, even for this area.

Yes, we could have reduced the price a bit more, but we needed to profit from this business, as this will be one of our sources of money in the future. The only ingredients expensive in this whole cooking process were the spices we added to the curry to make it delicious and fragrant. We couldn’t neglect quality here to get our shop going.

Rice and wheat were cheap, eggs could be gotten anywhere in the market since most have chocochuckles at home to produce eggs, our yeast was made en masse beforehand, and I could always make more, and foraged veggies from the woods were sold at a good price. The only part where we neglected quality a bit to save on money was the meat.

The curry meat was actually cheap goblin meat, but Saori managed to disguise the stinky smell and texture with spices and that weird preparation method she learned from the lizardmen we met in the Belzac forest. Somehow boiling it with mud made the flesh softer. Wild, huh? Then we covered the taste and smell with curry and voila. Only the meat in the fried rice was skorr meat, as it wasn’t possible to use lesser meat there.

It was deceptive, yes, but the meat actually tasted good now. I never minded the smell, but I wouldn’t say goblin meat was ever tasty. Seeing as how a whole chunk of goblin meat was cheap and we could use the meat for multiple dishes at once, we were making a decent amount of profit from this whole operation without actually risking our lives.

But, I guess the best part about this job was the creative fulfillment.

“Say those words, my Fireheart. ♫ Wow, it sure sticks in your head, huh? You don’t hear from many women bards, so her singing was a real treat. Whew, I’m stuffed!”

“Ahh, the price is pretty high, but the curry sure hits the spot. Would be better to sell it to merchants, though, but whatever. I’m just happy to get to taste something else than street food the whole time.”

“The noble sure didn’t do anything else than sing and play her instrument, huh? With all the singing I kinda forgot she was a noble for a bit, ha. Still, I don’t think I can afford this meal every day.”

“Too bad for the food, but at least you can listen to her sing while walking to other vendors. Makes the boring walking more enjoyable, especially with those high-speed songs.”

It was feedback without us having to ask them. Hearing from customers was important, after all.

Once lunchtime was over, Saori and Tasianna took a moment to take a breather. The reason why we only had two dishes to offer was to make it more manageable for them. We could prepare those two dishes before we opened and serving it all was quick and easy, meaning we wouldn’t make a mistake.

Saori had her speed and stamina to cook and bake bread as fast as possible, while Tasianna was a good maid if you ignored her lackluster attitude towards humans she didn’t know. They were immaculate considering we had to endure a rush hour on our first day at work, and it showed on their faces.

“You two did amazing. Good work, good work!” I told them in encouragement inside the kitchen. Saori was slightly winded while Tasianna frowned in annoyance, having had to endure some of the more annoying guests. In contrast, I sat on my little throne and did what I loved without a care for the downside of the restaurant business.

“Do not worry about it, Hestia. Admittedly, I did not expect to work like this on the first day, but I already heard how crazy the kitchen can be from one of my students. Her parents own a Michelin star restaurant, and their daughter loved talking about them,” Saori stated, taking a sip of water to rehydrate. “Gastronomy is not an easy industry, neither for the chefs nor the waiters. However, we managed to go through a whole pot of curry and a half, while the amount of fried rice bowls we need to clean is a statement by itself. I need to do the accounting later to confirm, but I think we might be in the plus for today if the afternoon hours work well.”

“While that is nice to hear, Miss Saori, can we actually continue this on subsequent days?” Tasianna asked, having finished her sandwich. “The customers were satisfied with the food, even praising it as the best on the streets, but most complained about the price. Maybe it is a bit too expensive? If they can’t pay, then they won’t return.”

“Well, we have to worry about that, definitely. Honestly, if our clientele were the merchants it probably wouldn’t be a problem, but to do that, we would need a proper building. I don’t think they would like to sit on the street, even if a noble endorses it,” I said, before standing up. It was my turn to work.

Putting some calm music on with [Aerokinesis] I took a deep breath and spoke loudly to the people on the streets, “Beloved denizens of Firwood, may the Goddess bless all of you on this calm RestDay. I wish you had a productive or restful day. My name is Hestia, and I am a Priestess of the Goddess. I am here to provide my services. For the price of 200 Davi, or two large copper coins, I will heal any of your ailments. Whether it is a sickness, a broken leg, or even an itching on your back. In her benevolence’s name, allow me to help you with the white grace.”

I sat down with a smile and watched everybody whispering from afar. We already gathered some attention from passersby from the lunch service, and most should be aware I was a noble at this point. They were keeping a safe distance, but when I announced I was offering my services, most of them began whispering and looked at me with anticipation. Eventually, a young man in his early twenties moved forwards.

“Uhm, Miss Priestess, uh, I ask of ya-you for the blessing of the Goddess,” he asked me, bowing down a bit. It seems he knew how to speak properly before a noble but his accent was still showing. Well, I didn’t care about that stuff but I guess the priests from the temple might?

“I don’t mind how you speak, so you can speak as freely as possible if it makes you comfortable. Can you tell me what is hurting you so I can know what to heal?” I replied, not wanting to use [Mana Eyes] to look at his profile.

He stuttered a bit, but seems to be relieved that he could stop speaking like an idiot. “O-oh, is dat so? Then thanks very much, Miss Priestess. Uhm, durin’ work, I got meself a wound on me hand. The others told me that it happens sometimes and time will heal it all up and nicely, but it’s startin’ to hurt and slow down me work. However, me boss told me it would cost a small silver and 5 large to heal it up at the temple. Uhm, I don’t have much money, but is it true that you can heal it for only 2 large?”

1 small silvite and 5 large copper coins, means it costs 1500 Davi for this white grace. [Medium Heal] would be used.

“Yes, even if you had a large bleeding wound, I will only charge 2 large coppers. On my honor and my faith for the Goddess, this I swear to you with a promise.”

The young looked relieved about it and told me he would come back with the money for my services. Once he returned, a tall man with a beard accompanied him and paid for his healing in his stead. The man was his boss and he was lending money from his workshop to pay me. The bearded man came along to make sure he wasn’t wasting money, but I think he was also curious about me.

Once he pointed at the spot where it hurt, I touched his slightly dirty wrist and checked on it. The boss was simply surprised to see me touch his employee while the young man flinches in pain. “Major Heal” I called out, casting my healing magic after my checkup.

The young man looked in wonder as he tested out his wrist, noting in excitement that he couldn’t feel any pain and that it was moving properly. He then prostrated himself and thanked me profusely, only stopping after his boss pulled him up. “Please, excuse this young man’s behavior. He usually doesn’t interact with many nobles or merchants,” the bearded man told me before leaving with his employee.

And with that simple interaction, I was 200 Davi richer, yay. Well, to be more specific, I was richer by quite a few more Davi, since people saw this and viewed me as an authentic healer. People with the money to pay started to come over to me. I only stopped my services after the afternoon rush began.

After today’s work, the week progressed. Every day, until DarkDay, we would work at our restaurant. As Tasianna expected, our number of customers decreased, but the word on the streets seemed to have spread as merchants and adventurers with more disposable income came over to try out our food. Some were people our party even met at the hunter’s guild, so they were pretty comfortable to see us instead of a random noble. My daily training sessions with the guild master made me known among the guild members.

Outside of our cooking sessions, my priestess services have also been booming with merchants and adventurers interested in it. According to them, my reputation seems to be growing as people called me “The Generous Priestess” or “The Angel-Voice Noble,” and associated me with our food stall. Eventually, even the merchants from the upper district came, aiming for quick and cheap white graces.

“Thank you for your compassion, Lady Priestess. The Church of Aurena could use more talented, beautiful, and generous clergymen like you. I am sure the Goddess Aurena and Goddess Andira smile warmly on you and the people you have helped,” one of the merchants told me to butter me up, but I thanked him with a simple smile, causing him to go away.

Goddess Andira, hmm, that is a subordinate goddess of Aurena, if I remember correctly. The Goddess of Equality and Fairness, I think.

As our business began to stabilize with fewer rush and more calm hours, we also took this time to sell some of our potions, including the ones we got from Cernust. After we sold them, we gave him his cut.

After Saori added up our revenue and subtracted our costs and spending, which included taxes to the chef’s guild and merchants’ guild, our total profit from this whole week was a comfortable 30,870 Davi, which was more than what we earned for the Rashan Village Quest. While it was more money, the amount of experience we gained this whole week was zero.

We couldn’t level up our Jobs for a higher stat boost and Saori wanted to evolve soon, so doing business wasn’t the best. Also, I noticed the number of people who came for my services began to dwindle the more people I healed. It made sense, and it would affect our total earnings per day in the future. After all, healing people for 200 Davi for virtually zero costs made us a ton of money, and nobody could tax it from us. Not the Lord of Firwood, not the guilds, not a single person.

We sold a lot of curry and fried rice, including a few potions, but as they had to be taxed by the chefs and merchants guild, we earned less from them than we wanted. Still, it filled out our coffers and it made us hopeful that we could pay for armor or maybe my catalyst in the future. The better we were equipped, the less risk we would face in the future.

On our day of break on DarkDay, Ellaine suddenly told me something.

“Lady Hestia, Lord Theodore wishes to meet you. It seems he wants you to accompany him to the Chezaic household in order to heal the eldest child of Lord Chezaic.”

Proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Venerated Saintess Lv. 2] [Silent Casting Lv. 9] [Fluid Cast Lv. 3][Foresight Lv. 2] [Enhanced Vision Lv. 8] [Instruction Lv. 2] gained

Custom Spell gained:   [Panzer]

A note from AbyssRaven

Restaurant Aurora, or atleast that's how the girls call it for now, is finally opened. You know, this would mean that the girls turn into RPG bartenders, right? Hearing all the juicy rumors. Reminds me of something.

And yes, I ate curry when I made this chapter.

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Chapter 139: The Pale Child.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Bring this with you for today. Kouji Wada's Butter Fly: Rawr

“Good morning, High Bishop Theodore. Uhm, I hope this auspicious RestDay has found you well. It is an honor to meet you once again in the Goddess’ blessed land.'' Standing inside the temple’s altar room, I was surrounded on all sides by men and women dressed in glamorous white robes. In front of me stood the High Bishop himself, along with a man and woman behind him. I did not know their identities but, seeing as they were the only ones on the altar with him, I guess they must assume important positions inside the temple.

Yesterday’s message from the High Bishop suggested that we meet inside the temple in order to “appease the angered priests and priestesses,” especially since it was my “duty” to bless and be blessed by all the priests in the Goddess’ name. Or, as Ellaine interpreted what was being said in between the lines, they were jealous that the High Bishop and the attendees at the tea party knew me more than the humble servants of the Goddess. I accepted my role as an impromptu priestess, so their excuse kinda makes sense.

The High Bishop did mention that clergymen still act in favor of their families, so it wouldn’t be surprising if these priests and priestesses wanted to meet me due to the rumors floating around Firwood. Both inside the noble and commoner districts of the town.

After showing a curtsy, the High Bishop bowed slightly in response. “I welcome you back to this humble temple dedicated to the holy Goddess, Priestess Hestia Atsuko. I pray your stay in Firwood has been a memorable one?”

“Yes, I thank you for asking, High Bishop Theodore. House Helvas has been a wonderful host, accommodating me and my retainers with whatever my heart desired. I could comfortably and freely perform my duties as a humble priestess in Firwood, and for that, I thank you, Lord Sirius, and the Goddess for this opportunity,” I responded, using the rehearsed lines I learned from Manuela.

“‘Lord Sirius?’ Does the priestess know of Artorian etiquette?”

“If she does, then...By the Goddess.”

There were a few short whispers after what I said, but most of the priests and priestess were disciplined and stayed quiet. Ellaine told me the High Bishop wanted me to flaunt my status but, at this point, it might be more efficient to plainly say my “family” name — Kargryxmor. Thankfully, everybody who knew my secret wasn’t interested in revealing I was a dragon, and we were simply taking advantage of the fact that the majority of nobles had zero information on dragonewt society. The isolationism of Loatryx worked in my favor.

After that, the High Bishop gave me a [Prayer] to officially welcome me here as a guest and pilgrim. The priests, priestesses, and shrine maidens sang the [Prayer] song in unison, and I was basked in light as the spell was cast.

Once that was finished, Theodore announced to everybody in attendance that he and I were to leave together for priest duties. All but the shrine maidens frowned as they heard this. It was to be expected when your chance to network with somebody important was being snatched away from you by your boss. They were clearly displeased with Theodore, but he ignored it without blinking an eye and showed me to his carriage. Theodore’s grey-robed attendant boarded the carriage from the outside bench, and once it began to move, he spoke.

“Thank you for playing along, Lady Hestia. That should be enough to appease most of the white robes,” the High Bishop said so casually after making everybody angry.

Unable to understand how the showing was supposed to “appease” anybody, I asked him to clarify.

“When they requested me to invite you to the temple, they said, ‘We wish to meet the dragonewt priestess.’ That I have fulfilled, yes? They might have meant ‘meeting’ as in “getting to know you better,” but that is none of my concern when I never gave them my word. Our task today is more important than the ‘she has no obligation to come’ reply I gave them.” In other words, he was being pedantic about it. He continued, “Besides, Lady Hestia, did you not ask me to give you a tour around the church? They will have plenty of opportunities to speak with you then. For now, let us concentrate on the plot.”

“Plot” is such a bad way to address the plan. I would like to call it “bringing the villains to justice.”

Shrugging, I asked him about something that was concerning me since I read the letter he sent me. “Okay, then I have a question. How and why are we doing this? Wouldn’t Lord Chezaic be wary if you suddenly found out about his son and forbade you from coming to his home? As a noble with a high rank, he has enough reason to deny you access if he really wanted to. This is a private matter.”

Theodore nodded, understanding my question. “It is true, there is no obligation for a noble to reveal one of their offsprings to the public if they so wished. Also, as the only way for you to be remembered is to attend social gatherings, it made sense why even I wasn’t aware that Lord Chezaic hid his eldest child. It is an anomaly but an understandable one due to the child’s sickness. If I were to question Lord Chezaic about it now, after nearly 18 years, he would undoubtedly be cautious.”

I expected a “but” here and a “but” I received. “But that would only happen if I were to do it directly. When I heard from the reports that Lord Chezaic asked a priest to heal his son, I was naturally curious, as I wasn’t part of the church back then. After some searching through my father’s files, I found out he did not ask the Firwood temple, but actually went to the holy capital for aid. The blessing of well-organized documents.”

The priest in question was an elderly man who managed to unlock [Major Heal] just like me. For reference, [Major Heal] was the level five spell of [Sacred Magic], which meant this old priest was an especially skilled one. When Lord Chezaic went to the Holy Capital Aureolis, which was the south-west neighbor of the Kingdom of Artorias, he asked this priest to heal his son.

However, it didn’t work out. According to Theodore, the condition was a “birth curse,” an abnormal status effect that didn’t show itself in the profile. Healing magic accelerated the regeneration speed of a person with mana, returning their injured form to their uninjured form — a concept I managed to understand by my lonesome. There were also debilitating effects that hindered healing — for example, Farron’s mysterious [Crystallized(Lungs)] and my [Dread Burn] if I were to use the [Scale-Dust User] Job — so it wasn’t surprising to find out that there were other restrictions to healing magic.

“The priest in question is a kind and compassionate one. Nonetheless, from the way he wrote in his letter, he seemed to have been wary of me when I initially asked him. Still, in the end, I managed to persuade him to help us when I told him I might have a way to heal Lord Chezaic’s son. He sent a letter of introduction to Lord Chezaic and I received an invitation a few days ago to heal his son.”

“And that solution is supposed to be me? Let me make it clear to you now, High Bishop, but my healing isn’t anywhere as special as you think it would be. I might heal faster and more efficiently, but I’m still restricted by the Divine System’s rules. Although, saying it now might be too late but that is all your fault for not asking me first,” I stated with a frown.

I thought I gave a pretty convincing argument, but the High Bishop simply shook his head. “Please, do not act so modestly, Lady Hestia. I was able to analyze your profile, do you remember? Besides, I also learned that you were blessed by two origin gods and one subordinate god, making you far more powerful than an ordinary person.”

He then leaned forward, resting his head on his hands, bringing his lilac eyes closer to view. “Lady Hestia, I bid you to try it at the very least. If you are successful, then I am sure Lord Chezaic will be willing to confess everything without causing any trouble. Even if you aren’t successful, the amount of information I received from the priests you annoyed with your presence in the commoner district should be enough to confine Lord and Lady Chezaic long enough for your party to infiltrate the alchemy guild and allow Davison an ‘audience with her holiness.’ As my brother’s substitute, I wish to try every method out before we enact the plan. As one of the Goddess’ champions, I believe you should, too.”

I had little confidence that I could heal the son when another priest with [Major Heal] already failed. The thing is, my healing wasn’t anything special, my flames were. [White Flames] and [Corrosive Fire] had special properties that I could use to create spells others wouldn’t be able to copy, since they were my unique skills, but that didn’t apply to any of my healing methods. If I couldn’t heal my damaged mana paths, then how could you expect me to heal somebody else of an unhealable condition?

Still reluctant, I kept complaining about it to Theodore, but he simply waved my concerns away. He wasn’t interested in hearing what I had to say, implying sometimes we had to clench our teeth and do what was right. Since I began calling myself a priestess of Aurena, I had to take responsibility for that action and do my duty.

B-But I really can’t do it.

Whether I was afraid of embarrassing myself or failing in general, I didn’t want to go in, tell him I was a priestess of Aurena and that I would heal him. What kinda fucked up hope-giving situation is that. Why is the High Bishop pulling me into this mess? I wanted to scream into his face and bust out of the carriage door, but I was only barely able to hold in this desire. I knew it was immature.

After a while, we arrived at House Chezaic’s mansion and were invited in by the house’s staff. Inside I managed to meet up with the Chezaic twins again, but they simply greeted me before walking away, stating they had an “appointment.” Considering the frantic look on their faces, they probably weren’t so thrilled to see me.

“Lord Amadeus’ room is under the mansion. Please, follow me,” a female wolfkin servant said, before opening a door and descending a staircase with us behind her. The basement of the mansion was as fancy and well-decorated as above, contrary to House Helvas’ more simple design of their basement and training room. Since the first child of an Arcanuess is living here, the hallways had to look like the upper floors, correct?

We stopped at a single door, but before we went in, the servant spoke softly, “High Bishop Theodore. Lady Priestess Hestia. Lord Amadeus’ hearing is very sensitive so I would like to humbly ask you to speak in whispers.”

We nodded and the door was opened for us by the servant. Once inside, we were greeted with a soft, “I thank the Goddess for this meeting. It is an honor to be visited by the High Bishop of Firwood himself and his esteemed companion.”

Sitting in the middle of a king-sized bed, a young man showed us a warm smile, showing no hint of an illness or weakness. However, when my eyes moved up a bit, I came to understand why he was living inside the basement. His skin was pale like a ghost, his eyes red as blood, and his medium-long hair was as white and devoid of color as a senior citizen. He had albinism.

“Hie hie, did I scare you, my Lady? I apologize profusely for not warning you. Lily, you should have warned them,” the feminine looking boy chided his servant.

With her dog-like ears slumped like a sad puppy, she bowed in forgiveness to us and her master, “I apologize. I have sinned as a servant. Lord Amadeus’ state has become so normal to me that I forgot to mention it to visitors.”

“NO, no! Oh, I apologize for raising my voice...and also for my rude behavior,” I replied, covering my mouth in the process.

Amadeus, the boy in the bed, then laughed, making me feel a bit flustered at the situation. Theodore then coughed to break the moment and allow us to return to reality. “Lord Amadeus, may the Goddess bless our meeting on this auspicious RestDay. I hope you have had a peaceful day. As you have already guessed, I am Theodore Samuel Sirius, the High Bishop of Firwood’s temple.”

He then moved his arm to the side to introduce me, prompting me to curtsy. “This is Lady Hestia Atsuko, a dragonewt noble from Loatryx. As mentioned in the letter, she will be your healer for today.”

“She is? Please excuse me for doubting you, Lord High Bishop, but will she be able to heal me? My last healer was able to cast [Major Heal] and even he wasn’t able to,” the boy asked.

“Lady Hestia also can cast [Major Heal]; in addition, she seems to be favored by the Goddess. She possesses increased healing powers and a special custom spell,” Theodore stated with a blank face, completely ignoring the fact that I was trembling at him hyping me up like this.

When Amadeus inspected me to see if Theodore’s words were true, I immediately recomposed myself and gave him a forced smile. When the smiling boy agreed to let me try, my heart couldn’t help but feel like it was burning, pounding so hard against my chest that it wanted to burst open to tell the young man the truth. The hope he was showing me made my head heavy, as I was being stricken with guilt.

“I understand. If it is the High Bishop’s words, then I would like to accept Lady Hestia’s hospitality. It would only be right- AHURGH! Kack, gurgh, gurgh, ahack!” He suddenly started to cough up blood like crazy.

The first to respond was his maid, who rushed to his side with a loud “Lord Amadeus!” She then opened the drawer next to him and took out a pink potion before helping him drink it. She then wiped away the blood on his face and bedsheets before running out the room, asking us to watch him while she got water.

“I-I apologize, it seems like I couldn’t hold it in. I got a bit too excited and my mana went rampant,” he told us.

‘Too excited?’ I-Is it ‘cause of me?

“Can I do it?” and “I must do it” were floating inside my mind, agitating me to the point I couldn’t move forwards. I was scared, overwhelmed that I couldn’t be the saving light for this bed-ridden boy.

When the High Bishop saw me like this, he patted me on the back and spoke to his attendant, who came with us, to pull two chairs to the side of the bed. He showed me to my seat and then went onto the other side where he continued speaking.

“If you are having trouble with mana, can I presume you were born with an unbearably large amount, Lord Amadeus?” Theodore asked.

“Yes, unfortunately. Not only was I born with the ‘Pale Blight’ but also a fragile body with immense mana. The sun burns my skin without any protection and I am too weak to move around for too long, in addition, any emotional increase will cause my mana to rampage inside me.”

The “Pale Blight'' was the name Peolyncians gave albinism, while Amadeus’ second issue was called “Raffarson’s Debilitation.” Named after an archmage who suffered it, the disease was caused by a weakening of his mana paths, where they became too fragile to transport mana correctly through your body, making them prone to exploding. Coupled with the fact that he was born with a noble’s amount of mana, it made it hard for him to do anything related to mana out of fear of injuries like before.

Not only that but he also admitted he was born with a naturally weak body. In other words, it was like the universe looked at him and said “fuck you” before giving him all the debilitations it could to ruin his life. He had to be careful of the sun, had a weak body, and his mana was out to kill him. Talk about a terrible life.

“I see,” the High Bishop frowned. I guess he didn’t expect it to be this bad. “Lady Hestia, I will prepare the holy water and inspect where you will target your healing spell. In the meantime, please, give Lord Amadeus some social experience. It will take some time.”

Was the High Bishop being considerate or was this his plan all along? In any case, I was glad to have some time to think about it. But...talk with him? What exactly?

“Uhm, Lord Amadeus?” I drew his attention, but I think a few seconds of finger twiddling to figure out a conversation topic. “Uhm, your servant, Lily, said something about your hearing? That it was sensitive? Were you also born with it?”

“Oh, yes, that is correct. However, it isn’t as terrible with the help of mana tools.” He pointed at the drawer next to his bed and asked me if I could help him. I pulled out a pair of earbuds and gave them to him. “These are sound blocking mana tools that allow me to dampen the sounds around me. Whispers become inaudible but I don’t have to inconvenience people around me anymore, as I won’t receive a headache when they speak loudly. However, they require my mana to be used, so it is a bit of a double-edged sword.”

He was about to put them on to demonstrate, but I stopped him by saying that it wasn’t a problem.

“Hie hie, thank you very much for your consideration Lady Hestia,” he giggled. “However, with how sensitive my hearing is, it makes it far easier to recognize each note when playing an instrument.”

“Oh, you play?”

With a self-deprecating laugh, he answered, “Well, which self-respecting noble doesn’t? I cannot fight, I cannot create magic tools nor spells, and making potions is too strenuous. I can play different instruments on my bed and I guess it has become a valuable hobby. Do you play, Lady Hestia?”

“The geigler and I guess...uhm, the ‘piano?’ I am not sure what you Artorians call it.” Maybe there was a harpsichord version in Peolynca, but I haven’t asked Ellaine about it. “Oh, and I also enjoy singing. You could say that music is part of my life and that I live for it.”

“Is that true? Then, would you like to play with me?” he asked. I was worried it would put too much pressure on his hearing but he assured me his hearing was alright if I played correctly. “I don’t know why, but if it comes to perfect tunes, I can endure it even if it’s ear-splitting for others. However, the moment a tune goes offbeat, I can feel a piercing headache. That’s how I can tell if somebody is playing correctly or not.”

He then continued, giving me his version of the puppy eyes, “Please, Lady Hestia. I do not have many chances to play with others. Lily is tone-deaf, my half-sisters rarely visit me, and my father is, well, occupied and I don’t want to bother him. I know it’s selfish, but I would like to request to hear your music.” Considering how excited he looked, the memory of before came back to mind, so I told him to calm down if I were to accept it. I couldn’t have my patient bleed out in front of me.

Once I agreed, the High Bishop told his grey-robed attendant to bring us the two instruments sitting in the corner. A geigler and something that looked like a harp guitar with enough strings to rival a zither. It was called the “Zentier.”

He asked once he had his instrument in hand, “Lady Hestia, if I may ask, what is your [Musician] level?” to which I answered that I had a unique skill which it merged into. He was surprised to hear this but smiled pleasantly, before saying he couldn’t help waiting anymore.

And then, we let our instruments do the talking for us. First I played, then he played, then I played, and then it was him again. I used my bow to create music while he plucked each string to create an assortment of tunes. Once we got a feel of each other, we stopped soloing and began a duo. Nobles were taught how to play instruments to facilitate their education, but it astounds me how good they were. That reminded me, I should probably do this with Ellaine, too.

.

“As I walk on the ground now ♫

Striding through lands of lush greens♫

How can I forget ♫

I used to see it, from up there. ♫

Feel the wind stream around me♫

Like a butterfly riding on high winds ♫

But now I’m down here♫

Looking up, longing for my fleeting past. ♫

Why was it like, wow wow wow wow wow? ♫

Stranded down here, all my hopes are crushed. ♫

However, wow wow wow wow wow ♫

Must I really accept this unfair world, or not? ♫

Don’t let your light flicker and dim. ♫

Put up a smile and never give up. ♫

Hope will not die this soon. ♫

Remember that this is the life that you have chosen! ♫

My broken wings, set yourself free. ♫

Rise from the ground, oh, so I plea. ♫

So, our dreams can be true. ♫

To reach the stars! ♫”

.

I instinctively began singing. Nobody prompted me. I just sang as I was carried away by the notes. Meanwhile, Amadeus’ maid returned with a tray — on it was a flask of water, his lunch, and also another pink potion.

Once we stopped, Amadeus showed a beaming smile, “Thank you very much, Lady Hestia. That was extremely refreshing, so refreshing that I wished to join in, but...I believe if I did so, I would displease my ears, ha ha.”

As he smiled, a question flew into my ears, “Lord Amadeus, if I may ask, have you tried leveling up yet if your body was so weak? To improve your Strength or Vitality would be helpful, no?”

It was a genuine question, as I knew the System improved your durability by a lot the more your increase your stats. This was reality but the world was still governed by a game-like System. However, I was met with a frown by the High Bishop in return.

“Lady Hestia, when you level, you should know that your Mana capacity increases, yes? While Lord Amadeus might reinforce his body’s durability through increases in his Strength, Vitality, and Wisdom, it won’t change the fact that his body is ill-adapted to his mana in the first place. If he had the base amount of mana of a commoner, then your idea would work, but his base amount is too high.”

“Then why not temporarily drain his mana with a mana battery?”

“No, it won’t work. We already tried it,” Amadeus answered himself. “My mana paths are also a problem, not just my body. Draining too much, too quickly will make them burst. Drain it too slowly and my natural regeneration would hinder the process. Besides, I would have to continue it indefinitely until my body finds the equilibrium, and during that time, I cannot have my Mana reach its full capacity. In that case, arcane corruption would be my worst enemy.”

He then picked up the bottle standing on his nightstand and showed it to me. “These potions my father has been receiving from the alchemy guild have helped me relieve problems concerning my mana paths. They slow down the mana flow inside my body and slowly strengthen the mana paths with the excess.”

I felt like an idiot. It should be easy enough for me to understand that and not ask him a redundant question like that, but I was being rash. Urgh, what am I doing?

“Lady Hestia, the water is ready. I will need your help now, please, come over,” the High Bishop told me, to which I complied immediately. “Please, put a drop of your blood into the water and then your mana once I am finished with my part.”

“A drop of my blood?” I thought he was weird to ask me about it, but he should have a plan, so I followed his orders. As no conventional knife could pierce the scales on my hands, I had to use my claws for the job. A drop of red touched the water and began spreading around it as white flames closed the small cut on my finger.

The High Bishop then took out a vial of white liquid, the same he had on the day of the Binding Festival, and poured a small amount into the water. I then let my mana flow into the mixture and the water began shining a brilliant white, while the red blood disappeared completely without leaving any traces behind.

“Lord Amadeus, Lady Hestia’s blood is related to the dragonkins, and is blessed by heightened regeneration and a high mana concentration. It should aid in your body’s growth and also improve the quality of your mana before the healing,” Theodore said, worrying Amadeus’ maid. “Please, calm down, I have brought a vial of ‘Removal Decoction’ with me to remove any potion effects in the case he were to experience side effects. However, I theorize only beneficial effects will happen.”

“Please, allow them, Lily. Father invited them here, so they must be alright,” Amadeus said to cool his maid down.

Once she agreed, she took the glass of “holy water” and helped Amadeus drink it. He flinched back and his face contorted into pain. Lily wanted to snatch the white potion in the High Bishop’s hand, but her master stopped her before she could, telling her with a strained face that he was feeling uncomfortable due to the heat.

It lasted a whole minute, where Amadeus sweated enough to drench his bedsheets, but he eventually recovered. He expressed he was feeling warmer, but he wasn’t sure if the potion actually helped his condition.

At this point, my curiosity got the better of me. The reason why I was reluctant to use [Mana Eyes] until now was cause it absorbed [Identify], turning the skill into my primary System inspection skill. Meaning, while being able to see the mana flow of a person, I must also see their profile. Due to those [Identify]-sensing manatech Ellaine showed me, I was scared to cause a problem.

However, while I was playing with him, I noticed he wasn’t wearing any accessories like most nobles would. Even the High Bishop was, although, it was his amulet of Aurena. Maybe he was wearing the manatech somewhere else, but I want to risk it to see his issue.

Profile:

Name:   Amadeus Viego Chezaic

Level: 0

Race: Human

Age: 18 Years

Job: None

Status:

Health:

147/147

Mana:

821/821

Strength:

74

Intelligence:

101

Vitality:

41

Wisdom:

34

Agility:

51

Stamina:

81/81

Effects:

None

Skill:

Magic skills and related:

[Mana Control Lv. 1]

Senses and movement skills:

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 6]

Resistances:

[Arcane Corruption Resistance Lv. 2]

Others:

[Singing Lv. 1]

[Musician Lv. 8]

[Noble Aura Lv. 1]

[Royal Etiquette Lv. 4]

[Scholar Lv. 2]

[Calligraphy Lv. 1]

None?! How are all these issues a ‘none?!’

From what I understood of the “Effects” field, it displayed any buffs or debuffs affecting the body or mind, which includes spell effects, diseases, injuries, and mental attacks, among others. So why was his albinism and fragile mana paths not something displayed on by the System? Was it cause he was born with them and the System considered it “normal” for him?

I guess that does mean the value of doctors, alchemists, and other medical professions wouldn’t die out in a world where healing magic existed. Theodore explained that holy magic had no effect on his body while potions from the alchemy guild did. Even the “holy water” we were giving him right now was just a glorified potion. I mean, where did the High Bishop get that vial of white liquid, huh?

Now speaking of Amadeus’ mana paths, they were actually pretty fucked up. Compared to mine, which looked like a bunch of arteries, his were more like straws. Thin and small, but not more numerous. They weren’t similar to capillaries — tiny but high in numbers — but more like very feeble arteries — small numbers despite being small enough to include more of them.

A few spots were especially blue, however, those were also the spots where I could see mana dispersing outside his body. They looked like the spots that burst. They were slowly healing up by an external mana source, which I conclude was the holy water’s work, since Amadeus explained he felt heat from these spots he was pointing at.

The High Bishop then nodded to Amadeus’ statement, before pulling out what looked like a monocle. He put it on and began inspecting Amadeus, before pointing at the spots I should be healing him, exactly the same spots my [Mana Eyes] were telling me were damaged. Wondering if this was similar to my skill, I asked the High Bishop for his permission to wear them and he obliged.

Looking through the monocle, I could confirm it was an inferior version of [Mana Eyes]. Unlike my skill, this manatech monocle could only see faint hints of areas where mana was concentrated at. It was like having heat vision, but only being able to see temperatures above 100 celsius(212 fahrenheit). My [Mana Eyes] skill was similar to perfect heat vision, like a snake’s, but for mana. I could see mana everywhere in the room, not just on Amadeus’ body, while the monocle didn’t fill my vision with blue from the stray mana.

After handing him the monocle back, my curiosity satisfied, I began using both [Major Heal] and [Sanctified Blaze] to heal Amadeus’ wounds. I just hope that I could help him…

“...Thank you, I think it might have helped...but I don’t feel that much stronger than before,” he admitted, but it seems Theodore wasn’t surprised about it at all. When I looked into Amadeus’s eyes, I couldn’t help but sense that the light in it was gone. Did I bring up his hopes and then throw it out of the window? If that is so, then why did I agree to do this today?

“Uhm, I have a skill that allows me to see your mana in more detail,” I gave a basic explanation of [Mana Eyes] without revealing too much about it: just enough for him to understand me. “The pot - holy water seemed to have helped you, too.”

“But did it help my already small mana paths? Was the holy water or your healing able to expand them to allow me to use magic or prevent my emotions from causing them go wild? Or is this just a temporary solution? Lady Hestia, if you are able to see my mana paths, can you tell me they are becoming better?”

I gulped. “T-They are-” The paths have healed up, thankfully, meaning there wasn’t a leak anymore, but that was about it. The external mana I saw simply entered his mana paths and that was it. No extra actions happened. I couldn’t say anything.

...Damnit. Why couldn’t I have a cheat for my healing, too? This sucks…

For the first time since I became her champion, I prayed to Aurena. I prayed that she would grant me this cheat-like healing ability to help Amadeus or a clue to solve this illness, but I didn’t receive an answer. I mean, she could currently see through my eyes so she should know what is going on here. I mean, she’s a fucking goddess for goodness sake, she can totally do it if she wanted.

But then I remembered, “Gods aren’t supposed to intervene in mortal problems directly.” I honestly didn’t expect her to give me a super spell at this point without earning it, since it would probably be showing too much favor for me. However, I did expect at least some clue to help him. What was she planning with staying silent? I know she could send missives to me.

Understanding my silence, Amadeus let out a slow sigh. “...If I may, could I speak to you...in private?”

When he looked over to his maid, she nodded with a pained expression and asked Theodore’s grey-robed priest to wait with her outside. Once Theodore gave the ok, he complied. After the door was closed, he showed us the rune hidden on the wall behind his bed — an anti-noise leaking rune.

“I will be forthright, were you the ones who came down to the basement a week ago? When my half-sisters held their annual tea party?” he stated with confidence.

I was flabbergasted, but seeing as he went the extra mile to show that nobody could hear us inside this room, I kinda admitted to it with a question, “How did you know?”

“Ah, so I was correct. I guess it wouldn’t be a surprise to expect a beautiful noblewoman like you would attend a tea party, hie hie,” he giggled, making me blush. I couldn’t understand why he was flirting with me right now. “My sensitive hearing was the reason. It was faint, but I managed to hear somebody entering the basement after Lily brought my medicine. I wasn’t able to hear anything else after that, so I thought it was my imagination. But, when Lily mentioned a dragonewt noble attended the party and that the High Bishop would come to heal me with a guest of his, I was naturally curious. I pieced the puzzle together and figured that something big was happening. Until this day, my father hasn’t told anybody who didn’t need to know about my existence. This day cannot be a coincidence.”

“I see, if pretenses aren’t needed anymore, then it would be better if we left,” Theodore immediately said, standing up from his seat.

“Please, wait! Urgh! Ack, if the High Bishop is involving himself in this matter, then it must be important, correct? Why else would a greifnoble involve himself this much in the affairs of an arcanuess? Arcanuess houses rise and fall all the time, and you can simply delegate this task to another Arcanuess or even a Count if you desired so. I have a question, are you here because of my father and step-mother’s involvement with the alchemy guild.”

“Wait, you know about that?!” I blurted out.

“So it is about that?! It is about what they did with the agreement they had with the alchemy guild’s guild master?! Then let me - ACK! Arck, urgh!” as Amadeus was talking passionately, he once again began coughing blood. I took the pink potion and helped him drink it, stabilizing him.

He thanked me and wanted to continue speaking, but the High Bishop stopped him. “Lord Amadeus, I suggest you say no more. You seem to be knowledgeable despite being contained down here in your House’s mansion for nearly your whole life, so I presume you must understand what you are doing. Forget about it, we have enough evidence. Silence yourself, for you have nothing more to say.”

“Then tell me, Lord High Bishop, do you have evidence for my step-mother’s involvement?” he shouted, flinching each time he raised his voice from the headache he was feeling.

“Yes, we have enough to detain her, if that is what you ask.”

“Is it only enough to convict her as a supporter, as a financial source for the alchemy guild, like my father? Will her punishment only be to take the vow? To join the church?”

“...Lord Amadeus, I insist you keep yourself silent. Do not say anything anymore.” Like a final plea, Theodore gave Amadeus a sullen look to dissuade him from talking.

“No, I understand it already. My mother, my father’s first wife, died because of that temptress! She only married into house Chezaic in an attempt to strengthen her own house in the Equevanna Duchy. She is a traitor to the Greenveil Duchy!” Amadeus slammed his fist on his bed. “I don’t want her sent to the church to remove her from noble society; no, I want her gone. To feel the same terror my mother felt! I was too young to remember her clearly when she died. My wish for a mother died because of that fiend, and I was left alone in this basement because of her. To make people forget about me, so her daughters can inherit the House.”

Amadeus then pointed at the spot where we got his instruments and spoke, “The documents are in the inside of my instrument box. I managed to copy a few documents inside my father’s study while he wasn’t looking. I accidentally learned of the truth of these potions. What was used to make them…” His face then contorted as if he was in pain again, but it looked more like he was frustrated. “I-I wanted to see the outside world, I wanted to walk and...live. I also didn’t want my father to be convicted, I didn’t want the last member of my family to be gone. I apologize for my negligence, Lord Theodore.”

Theodore looked at the downcast eyes of the young albino boy and sighed, “...You managed to copy this? When you cannot even move?”

“...Yes. Please. Also, my sisters didn’t know anything about this. They had no idea about my father’s or step-mother’s dealings, nor what my step-mother actually did. They are innocent in all of this,” Amadeus declared. “...I really thought I could go outside. Drink the potion and then let a surgeon fix my mana paths once they grew thick enough. My father was so hopeful...and he looked so depressed whenever he talked about it. I wonder if he ever realized his new wife was the cause of all his suffering...”

...Why do I feel like this was an omen? This should just be a usual ‘beat the bad guy and bring happiness to everybody’ move just like in those movies and shows. Why am I feeling like something bad will happen?

“Also, please be careful when you arrest the people from the alchemy guild. The experiments that were done there also mentioned something about combining catalysts with monsters, but I couldn’t understand all the technical details and words.”

With those words, the High Bishop bid me to the door. We were leaving.

“Lady Hestia...if you had the time...could you write down the notes for the song you sang? ‘My broken wings, set yourself free.’ I love this sentence.”

We weren’t friends. We were only acquaintances with an affinity for music. I would love a musically inclined friend to jam with, but I guess the current plan held precedent. I needed to fulfill my promise to Kiiro, after all. However, as fellow musicians, I accepted his request.

“Sure, I’ll have it ready for the next time we meet.”

With those last words, we left the mansion. Inside the carriage, the High Bishop looked through the document we got from Amadeus. Unlike the ones Saori found, which mostly showed how Lord Chezaic supported the Alchemy guild and where his bribe money went to, the one we got today detailed his agreement to the fae hunts.

One was a contract that obligated Davison to supply Lord Chezaic with potions to help his son’s life and also a final curative to fully heal Amadeus. In return, he would provide tools and money and tools to Davison, including his influence as a noble, to help pave his way forward. There was also mention of Lady Chezaic, who invited Davison to Firwood in an attempt to help her take over House Chezaic and also build a platform for her family to receive ingredients from the Belzac forest for a reduced price.

It seemed Lady Chezaic wasn’t directly involved in the fae hunt like her husband, but it mentioned she knew about it. There was also the fact that a foreign noble was willing to bring down a house of the Greenveil Duchy to strengthen her own. It was not unusual for this to happen, but her intention to let Amadeus die with the last curative was a crime. The murder of other nobles was strictly forbidden if a proper cause wasn’t there.

“This is a casus belli…,” Theodore murmured. “Casus belli” translated into “cause for war.”

He then continued, “It was unfortunate that we couldn’t heal Amadeus, but we received a lot in return. I will need to inform my brother and Lord Greenveil about this, so be prepared to act at any time, Lady Hestia...Lady Hestia?”

“Oh, I’m sorry...I’m just a bit overwhelmed. I never had this happen to me before. I had a feeling I couldn’t heal him but...it felt bad when the light in his eyes just vanished and he admitted to everything. Lord Theodore...was that...was that like the confession of a criminal? W-Will he be-” I attempted to say but Theodore laid his hand on my shoulder to calm me down.

“Don’t think too much about it now, Lady Hestia. Think of what is the right thing to do. Everything has been set into motion, so you must steel yourself,” he said gently. “This was also a lesson for you, that any hopeful priestess must learn one day. Lady Aurena, the Origin Goddess of Light, has given us mortals her miraculous power, but we are human still. The domain of miracles belongs to the Goddess herself and her chosen champions and saints. We cannot heal everybody, and this is something we must accept. Most nobles join the church knowing this, but commoners are different. You are a noble, but your attitude reminds me of white-robed commoners — hopeful and naive. I wanted to make you aware of this.”

“...To drive me forward?”

He nodded, “I said I will teach you everything about the church, correct? To make you understand the Goddess and your role as her champion better. Your dragon blood is blessed by Kargyrxmor, and dragon blood potions are extremely potent, although sacrilegious among dragonewts. Your white flames also astounded me how they easily healed your finger. You have the potential to step into the domain of miracles like many other saints and champions.”

“...Thank you.”

Was Aurena thinking the same thing? That praying to the gods every single time you had a problem won’t solve your problems? If that’s so, then doesn’t it kinda validate the fact that I wasn’t interested in praying to gods until now? Regardless, whatever she was planning, it would be better for me to continue developing my own abilities and not focus on stuff like this. If she doesn’t want to cuddle me, then she achieved it alright.

“It is a pleasure. I understand what it feels like to be forced to learn to adapt to your new situation. I cannot teach you everything in Firwood, but you mentioned you needed to go to the capital, correct? The cathedral in Griffonpeak will reveal more information about the Church of Aurena.”

After we talked a bit more, I managed to persuade Theodore to put the attack on hold until LightDay, which is in five days. This was to solve the second problem that Amadeus mentioned, the one with the monsters.

At first, Theodore said my plan was a waste of money, but eventually, he caved in as I could promise him that the town’s people could be kept safe. Commoners were commoners to the nobles, but without an able workforce, the town couldn’t keep flourishing. Somebody had to lure people away from the alchemy guild.

And for that reason, I was here.

My second concert. This LightDay will become a festival for the people to celebrate.

Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor the Idol is ready to perform.

A note from AbyssRaven

So, this chapter once again points out the flaws of healing magic, as it isn't perfect enough to heal every single disease and illness, especially congenital. It isn't miracle or god-like tier for Hestia.

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Chapter 140: Firwood Concert.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Enjoy the moment...breath in the air...listen to all the voices. They are waiting for you!

The sky was orange, slowly turning black. A crowd of people was gathered in the plaza where numerous food stalls were selling food to the festive residents of Firwood’s commoner district. I wasn’t among them. I was currently standing behind a huge construct — my concert stage.

It was the very same I used at my first concert, the one I held in Carine Village. You know, the one made with earth magic. Sure, we had the money to order some proper wooden pillars and maybe a metal truss and roof, but we didn’t have the time. This was kinda a concert scheduled out of nowhere, after all.

I wasn’t thinking much about another concert until now, since we had a money problem at first and then these problems with Kiiro and the alchemist guild. Practicing and keeping in shape was normal, but I never prepared extensively to perform this concert. I didn't focus on a song list nor how I should present myself during the dances. Time was an issue, so the earth stage had to come back.

The clean up for today will be so much of a hassle. Mana draining and the trash removal.

Four days of promotions. It took our party four days to promote this concert in addition to the help the High Bishop gave us by hiring criers to promote the newly planned festival. He didn’t even need a good reason to persuade the residents. It seemed like any reason to celebrate and drink until dawn was enough for people to accept it and join in.

The few people who knew about our restaurant and my singing wondered why we were doing it, but they were still excited about it nonetheless. As the roads to Firwood were free of snow now, traveling merchants, traders, and adventurers have been pouring into town. Merchants and traders especially were happy as festivals were effectively money bags ready to be earned.

Using the same idea during my first concert, we lured in people through food, booze, and fun. Concert tickets weren’t sold, as it just doesn't make sense to do it since normal workers, who would otherwise comprise the majority of my audience, simply cannot afford it. Our restaurant noticed the drop in customers belonging to this category even as more merchants and adventurers began visiting us.

This event was pure entertainment — it wasn’t necessary for survival. If we scare everybody away at the beginning, then we can’t make money. Saori thought of something to help us earn back the money we needed to prepare for today’s event, and it was pretty good.

Also, this was my chance to finally get some fucking followers for my [The Light] title. Like, after Rashan Village and the priestess duties I’ve been performing, I thought I would be able to get some people to increase my counter, but nobody has joined. None at all.

While I could understand Rashan Village, as they were in mourning, I thought the people I helped in town would be more likely. I guess they probably thought my duties were more dedicated to Aurena, so their faith in her was reinforced, not to me. Kinda awkward, right? She wants me to gather people for my title, but I can’t earn any since she’s in the way.

So, I’m gonna have to rely on the one thing that helped me earn a huge amount of followers in a single night. I will dazzle, I will impress, and then I will make all of them my “fans.” ‘Cause you know what? I want that dark weakness nullification that was my reward for my next milestone.

“Hestia, we will be going now,” Saori said to me as I was pumping myself up. “Mhmm, you look so cute in that outfit. So colorful and so many frills, hie hie.”

“Oh, I know...since you were the one who made them. Praising your own work, I see? Ha ha,” I remarked, finding it funny she would say that, but I guess it was part of Saori. She has always commented how good I looked in the clothes she made specifically for me.

The outfit for my first song was cutesy and colorful, filled with frills and string to make me look like a doll. It wasn’t my style, admittedly, but it fit the first song so perfectly that I couldn’t say no. An outfit is as important to the show as the special effects and sound quality. Everything an idol brings to the stage was important to give the audience a good experience.

As Saori and I were laughing, Tasianna peeked at the number of people gathered before the stage, commenting, “There are more than in Carine Village.”

“Of course. Comparing the population of a single village to a large town like Firwood would be foolish,” neither Saori nor I said that, but Manuela did. “Lady Hestia, Barathan, and I have given our instructions to the servants. They should be ready.”

While the stage was the old one, the crew and equipment weren’t. We weren’t a skeleton crew anymore, where I had to control most of the mana intensive jobs - I now had Ellaine’s support and that of her staff members.

Aside from the temperature regulator that we used last time, they also brought light and sound amplifying manatech. I mean, I could still use [Aerokinesis] to increase the volume of my voice, but it was surprising for me to see Peolynca already had something similar to a microphone.

The microphone was a long staff with an orb catalyst at its tip. Using wind magic and the mana battery inside the staff, my voice can be transmitted far-and-wide. However, since [Aerokinesis] was still more powerful than the manatech, instead I decided to use them like loudspeakers. Four were placed on the stage, and they would increase the volume at a lesser mana cost for me.

For the lighting, they were similar to the manatech Ellaine had in her mansion, but they couldn’t be used as spotlights, so we added them onto the sides of the stage for illumination. The colored and white spotlights were still controlled by my parallel minds, but I prefered it this way as I had full control of what I want.

So, what did Ellaine’s servants and attendants do? Well, there were a ton of wires to manage and infuse mana into for the lighting and loudspeakers to continue working, I also needed somebody to help me change out of my outfits and into new ones, there was also a need for special effects using magic, and also a very special task. The one Saori planned. We also needed guards to keep everybody safe, in the case of ruffians, but we used Theodore’s authority to borrow soldiers for my audience and knights for the staff members.

I rejected Ellaine’s proposal to be guarded by knights, but at the end of the day, I still had to use them. Come to think about it, I haven’t had a lot of interactions with the Knight’s Order, huh?

“Thank you, Manuela,” I thanked her for helping me out this past week. The stage was well decorated with Saori’s and Manuela’s help, making it look too good considering its base appearance. It made me giddy like a little girl whenever I looked at it.

“It is no problem, Lady Hestia. As Lady Ellaine’s benefactor, I cannot allow anything but the highest quality. Miss Saori, Miss Tasianna. Svena, the other maids, and I are ready and have prepared the dresses for Lady Hestia,” Manuela informed the two. “We wish you luck. May the Goddess be with you as you bring justice to that abominable fiend.”

“We will, you can rely on us, Miss Manuela.” Growls could be heard from Saori’s shadow, as it contorted a bit in agitation.

“He will die.” Tasianna’s eyes flared up as a cold mist began to surround her clenched fist. The orb rotating around her was trembling in anger, ready to direct its powers at its mortal enemy.

“We managed to bribe everybody living close to the alchemy guild to come to my concert, so you should be fine to go wild,” I told them. “However, be careful. You won’t get a lot of reinforcements.”

The concert was a great excuse, as it didn’t create any suspicion. It was a noble girl who was willing to pay people to come to her concert to have them listen, giving them a good reason to not go to sleep to prepare for tomorrow’s work. As this festival was announced throughout the town, even the workshop owners and merchant bosses couldn’t chide their employees too much for enjoying themselves. Theodore might call it a waste of money since we weren’t selling tickets, but it solved the problem he wanted to avoid — leaks.

This was a sensitive topic, so we didn’t want people to know about it. Outside of specific people, nobody was allowed to join the raid to capture or kill Davison. Theodore should have secured House Chezaic’s mansion by now to confiscate more evidence, including Lord and Lady Chezaic at their fief. I also heard Duke Greenveil and the royal family were arresting Baron Teullon, the lord of Rashan Village, for questioning, as well as a few other nobles associated with Lord Chezaic.

But the political stuff wasn’t our concern. Party “Aurora” had our jobs to do and bring this shit to an end.

I gave Saori and Tasianna all my available buffs while they equipped themselves with potions, dragorades, and bombs. Once that was done, we wished each other luck and they departed. After I took in a deep breath, I slowly walked onto the stage.

How funny that my friends will be fighting for their lives while I am having fun here...However, aside from my flames, isn’t my music also a part of my repertoire? Time to make some fans and level [Idol] up!

It was dark on the concert stage. The curtains were down and no the lights weren’t on. I psyched my parallel minds up and calmed myself down. Barathan, who was looking at me from the stage, saw my thumbs up and began unrolling the curtains. As a sliver of light shined into my eyes, I activated [Aerokinesis], took in a deep breath, and sang.

.

“Se no ♫

Demo sonnan ja dame ♫

Mou sonnan ja hora ♫

Kokoro wa shinka suru yo ♫

Motto motto ♫”

.

As I could feel my mana draining from using my remote spotlights, created using [Delayed Cast], [Continous Cast], and [Trap Creation] on [Shine] spells, the stage was brightened with dazzling lights of various colors. The more colorful it was, the more it attracted the attention of the festival attendees.

As the instrumental part of the song began, I used this time to introduce myself, “Mina-san, konnichi wa! Atsuko Hestia-desu!” First my Japanese greeting, ‘cause I wanted to, and then came my Peolyncian greeting. “Good evening, everybody! My name is Hestia Atsuko, an aspiring Idol. You would also know me as the party leader of D-rank adventurer party ‘Aurora’ and co-owner of Restaurant ‘Aurora!’ Thank you very much for coming to celebrate today’s LightDay with me! Let’s all have FUN!”

.

“Kotoba ni sureba kiechau kankei nara ♫

Kotoba wo keseba ii ya tte ♫

Omotteta? Osoreteta? ♫

Dakedo are? Nanka chigau kamo ♫

Senri no michi mo ippo kara! ♫

Ishi no you ni katai sonna ishi de ♫

Chiri mo tsumoreba Yamato Nadeshiko? ♫

"Shi" nuki de iya shinu ki de! ♫

Fuwa fuwari fuwa fuwaru ♫

Anata ga namae wo yobu ♫

Sore dake de chuu e ukabu ♫

Fuwa fuwaru fuwa fuwari ♫

Anata ga waratte iru ♫

Sore dake de egao ni naru ♫

Kami-sama, arigatou ♫

Unmei no itazura demo ♫

Meguriaeta koto ga ♫

Shiawase na no ♫

Demo sonnan ja dame ♫

Mou sonnan ja hora ♫

Kokoro wa shinka suru yo ♫

Motto motto ♫

Sou sonnan ja ya da ♫

Nee sonnan ja mada ♫

Watashi no koto mitete ne ♫

Zutto zutto ♫”

.

Blegh, this song is sooo fast… I hate rapping.

For the introduction of the concert, I wanted to use a song I knew from Earth. It was peppy and cheery and was in my opinion good as a show opening as it conveyed the energy the show was supposed to give people.

Looking at the audience, the song didn’t land too well with most of the older men, but the women and children seemed to like it a lot. Especially the kids, who were also enamored by the lights. It was as expected. Even if they couldn’t understand what I was singing, music didn’t care about language barriers, as rhythm and beat transcend it all. This song was catchy, so it was perfect.

That was on the people whose faces I never saw and probably never heard me sing before, but those who knew me already anticipated I would sing since I announced it to them. The bards and hunters who knew me since I sang at the hunter’s guild were already calling me out with stuff like, “Wooo, the Lady Priestess is singing again!” and “When are you coming back to the guild? I’ve had it with dudes singing, Lady Priestess!”

Oi, those guys can sing pretty well, so just be happy with them!

Once I’d had time to take a breather, I spoke once again, “I hope my first song was to your liking! It is in my own language, so I’m sorry if you couldn’t understand it. I promise the rest will be understandable so I ask everybody to be patient. Also, as this is the day of the Goddess, I thought it would be appropriate if we included another song into the mix, right? You should all know what I’m talking about.”

Prayer.

Once the spell materialized on my hand, I then sent the white magic circle into the air. As the circle grew larger and larger, my audience began to understand what was about to happen. Mothers hastily telling their small children to hold their hands together, young adults panicking and calling their inebriated friends to begin praying, and middle-aged men gathering around their families to pray together. To “cast” the custom spell [Prayer], a song was needed, and they all knew it.

“The Goddess watches over us ♫

In her name, we pray, we sing, we love ♫

For her merciful light, protects us all ♫

Purify the ground, wherever her feathers touches ♫” I sang.

At this point, the amount of mana I invested into this spell had made the magic circle large enough to encompass the whole plaza, no, I think it was even reaching those outside the plaza — those in the alleyways and streets. Those who were still praying had their eyes closed, so they couldn’t see the magnitude of the spell, but the few people who could were overwhelmed with religious fervor.

“I told you, brothers and sisters. I told you, she is a saintess!”

“We had the honor of receiving her blessing and sacred white grace, and now we are receiving it again. What an honor!”

“Is this the reason why the white-robed nobles wanted to speak to her this much? The High Bishop received a wondrous guest.”

“Isn’t another priest helping her with the cast? I-Is the Lady Shrine Maiden holding onto this spell all by her lonesome?! E-Everybody, we must support the Lady Shrine Maiden with our Mana now!”

Oh, aren’t those the white-robes I met at the hunter’s guild? They also brought more friends with themb although, weren't they there when I met the High Bishop at the temple? Huh?

3 humans have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total follower of [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 134

...Huh. It seems like making pious clergymen like them into my followers is the easiest.

While I was thrilled to see the number go up, I couldn’t stop the spell now. Once enough mana was infused into the magic circle, which was mostly mine, I activated the spell, “Oh, Goddess of Light, Aurena. I bid you, hear our prayers of gratitude and ardent worship so it may empower you evermore in your duties of overseeing us. I beg of you to hear us and grant upon us your blessing of light, Prayer!”

[Blessing of the Goddess of Light (Major)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Urgh…,” I groaned before smiling again. “The next song will happen in just a second! Please wait for me!”

I quickly descended the stairs where Svena was waiting for me with a glass of dragorade. I thanked her and chugged it down my throat to begin regenerating my Mana. The sky was almost pitch black, so any solar energy I had now was all that would be left for the rest of the night.

“Lady Hestia, please be careful. While a major blessing is good to demonstrate your power, it will be problematic if you were to contract arcane corruption now,” Svena said with worry.

“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind. I went a bit overboard with all the excitement...” I admitted with a sigh. Once I had another glass of dragorade, Svena and the other maid quickly began undressing me to put me in the next outfit. This one was less girly and childish, as it gave me the professional idol look I wanted.

As I stepped back onto the stage, I was greeted with people already looking my way and noticing me. They were as quiet as you could be during a festival, but it made me smile. At my first concert, I cried my heart out, but at my second, I couldn’t help but feel pride. I finally have the confidence to face this crowd with a wide smile.

And then the music began.

.

“If you asked me if I remembered that day ♫

I would say, yes, for it was the day that we met ♫

The hope and warmth that I felt, the memories that we made ♫

So I smiled. Together. ♫”

.

As the instrumentals continued, my eye wandered a bit to see a young woman in a fine dress guarded by multiple knights and attended by a single maid. They were sitting at a bench reserved only for them, where they could watch me sing without any problems.

So, the corners of my lips curved even more.

.

“With every day that passed, I just want to wonder ♫

Will this all last ♫

The peace we have is so fleeting ♫

I worry about what could happen, I don’t want all to be gone ♫

But you smiled. ♫

You say, “Don’t worry, so don’t stop moving” ♫

“Life is all about cherishing the present” ♫

So, I kept my head up and moved forward ♫

Even if you aren’t there ♫

I can’t stop now, stop now, I will grasp my chance ♫

Leaving behind my sad SELF now ♫

No way, no way, no way, I will not become that weak me again ♫

Stand proud, stand proud, to live my life to the fullest ♫

There is so much that I’ve given up ♫

No way, no way, no way, those memories give me strength ♫”

.

Thankfully, as I continued the song, the audience began to become addicted to the chorus. The energetic beat seemed to have fully captured people as some began humming the rhythm alongside me. Some, fitting for a festival, also used this chance to dance with their loved ones or those they fancy, bringing life to the dance floor.

Usually, the audience should be celebrating and maybe swinging fluorescent rods around in support of the idol, but that wasn’t the case for Peolynca. They had a different culture, and I wasn’t willing to correct them one bit. As the first idol on Peolynca, it was my job to spread the idol culture around while adapting it to inhabitants.

Besides, what is the most important part of being an idol? Bringing a smile to everybody! Although, I really should consider recreating fluorescent sticks. I do miss seeing them in the dark.

.

“I can’t stop now, stop now, I will grasp my chance ♫

Leaving behind my sad SELF now ♫

No way, no way, no way, I will not become that weak me again ♫

Stand proud, stand proud, to live my life to the fullest ♫

There is so much that I’ve given up ♫

No way, no way, no waaaaaaaaaaAAAaaaaaay ♫

I can’t stop now, stop now, I will grasp my chaaaaaaaAaaaaance ♫

Stand proud, stand proud, to live my life to the fulleeeeeeeeeeeeeest ♫

For blessed memories ♫”

.

“That was the song ‘Memories!’ I hope you all enjoyed it!”

Facing Ellaine’s direction once again, I gave her a short wink before excusing myself from the stage. She showed herself clapping and smiled at me, making me believe that she understood the intentions of the song. I hope it will help her grow and not go back to her past self.

While the first song didn’t get as many cheers and claps, I could feel my ears deafen from how intensely they were applauding me. It made it impossible to hear anything they were saying, even with my improved hearing.

As I drank another dragorade handed to me by Svena, a System message suddenly appeared.

1 human have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 135

Oh, I wonder who could that be?

Another follower in the bag. There was still a lot of people in the crowd to impress, so I couldn’t stop now. I had planned on singing more songs this time simply ‘cause I didn’t need to spend all my mana to manage everything myself. From my song list, I sang “Promise,” “Till Morning Arrives,” “Fireheart,” and “The Will to Fight and Survive.”

Each song was used to cater to a specific target group so I can fully pull everybody into my performance. Some disliked cutesy songs while others loved high-tempo ones. Everybody was different and, thankfully, I had some good songs to appease these people. And my efforts were rewarded.

9 humans have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 144

26 humans and beastmen have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 170

48 humans and beastmen have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 218

81 humans and beastmen have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 299

98 humans and beastmen have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 397

After each song, the number of “fans” I had increased. I needed 2500 followers to reach the next milestone, so we weren’t anywhere close yet, but I was hopeful with the progress I was making. Slow and steady, right? Not everybody will like my songs, so it was a given that I would just reach the next milestone just like so without a real hurdle. I needed to work harder and give more concerts.

As I was taking a break after finishing the last song, I couldn’t help but notice some smoke in the sky coming from the direction of the alchemy guild. I knew I should trust in them, but I couldn’t help but feel nervous.

Unable to hold in my curiosity, I looked at the party screen of my party bracelet. I then checked on the raiding party.

A note from AbyssRaven

Songs for today were Renai Circulation from the anime Bakemonogatari, and Charles from the singer Balloon

The reason for the first song was because I wanted Hestia to sing a cutsey Japanese song and I thought it would fit her personality since she wants to spread idol culture. Instead of making up new lyrics, using the Japanese lyrics would hit better as it gives Peolynca a taste of Japan, and, since nobody can understand it, Hestia can jsut say it comes from her home country or something.

Charles was a more serious song which had an addictive tone as a vocaloid song. Vocaloid songs are part of Japanese idol culture, which makes the song even more fitting for the lyrics I used in Hestia's version of the song. It was meant to be directed at Ellaine, so I needed the serious tone for the message while an addictive chorus to be popular for the crowd.

Well, I hope you guys enjoyed Hestia's second concert. She didn't cry this time, yay! Progress~!

Best of all, the concert acts like an arc ender, right? Well, please enjoy the remaining chapters for this arc, everyone. Hopefully it will be fun for everybody!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 15 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 141: Raider: Saori.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #4 her to promote our Patreon. 15 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 15 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until April!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

[Sanctified Blaze] [Shadow Armament (Full Body)] [Various Spell Buffs] inflicted on [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa]

Custom spell gained: [Smoky Haze]

“Well, it has been a while since we last came here. Right, Tasianna?”

“True, but this time we won’t be chased away at the reception.”

After separating from Hestia at her concert stage, Tasianna and I moved to the alchemy guild in order to capture Davison. We weren’t being accompanied by anybody, as this operation was supposed to be secretive due to the fear of leaks. Fae hunting was a serious issue for the Kingdom of Artorias, as it could threaten their relationship with the elves to deteriorate even further, so party Aurora would handle apprehending Davison.

It’s just a simple alchemist, so it shouldn't be too hard, even if he has guards protecting him.

We opened the door of the guild and entered its still-brightened interior. There, at the reception, we saw a man in a robe similar to the ones the alchemists from the different potion stores wore. He was pulling out wooden slates and pieces of parchment from the desk and putting them inside a bag in a hurry, looking anxious as he did so.

“Excuse me, where is the guild master?” Walking up to him, I drew his attention with a question.

“Wh-Where-Who are you?! Arrrrgh! Monster! Leave me alone!” he cried out, his eyes were shaking like a scared kid despite looking like someone in his late 20s. I guess wearing my pitch-black [Shadow Armament] does make me look pretty scary. Still, that was pretty rude.

As he didn’t answer my question, Tasianna stepped forward and pierced the desk with an ice spike. “Are you deaf, human?! Where is that fiend, Davison? And where is the way to the basement? Answer them, now!” Her eyes were calm, but showed an icy amount of hostility towards the man. They weren’t out of hatred, but out of impatience.

“Eiiieeek!” he squealed. “U-Up! Up! He’s still working in his office! P-Please, don’t hurt me!”

“And where is the basement?! I told you to answer both questions!”

“Eiiiiaaaaaaaaaa! There are stairs next to to the storage room with all the potions! It’s next to the workstation room. P-Please, please, leave me alone!” he yelled, shrinking into a fetus as he laid on the ground to hide from Tasianna’s sight.

Without another word, Tasianna and I moved away from him since we had what we needed. If it was possible, collateral damage should be avoided. Although, I wonder. The promotion should have been transmitted to the whole block, so shouldn’t he be aware of it? A bit sad that he has to work this late when a festival was going on, but I presume the alchemy guild is a bit like a black company. It’s what we Japanese call an exploitative, sweat-shop corporation.

Now that I think about it, although we were selling potions without the alchemy guild, nobody disturbed us when we did so. We didn’t receive any complaints nor representatives trying to recruit us. Could they have not noticed us? No, that was too naive to think. Guilds want more guild members for the revenue cut they would get from each member, as I had to pay money to both the chefs guild and merchants guild, although I wasn’t an official member yet for the latter.

“Guild Master, they’re here! They’re here!” Just when I was beginning to become suspicious of the situation, the alchemist shouted. When we turned around, he was yelling into a manatech similar to the one in Ellaine’s training room, the one that worked like an intercom.

I guess they knew we were coming. Lord Chezaic might have warned them…

Once the alchemist saw our glares, he dropped the manatech and was about to grab a bottle of green liquid from his pouch. That was when [Foresight] warned me of an attack.

However, I didn’t move.

“Grrrrrraaaaawrr!”

“Wh-ARRRRGRHHHHH, MY ARRRRRRM, ARGHHHH!”

From my shadow, a raven-black furred wolf leaped out and pounced at the alchemist’s arm, tearing and ripping it from skin and flesh to the point I could see bone. My shadow pack was provoked.

[“Uno, do not kill him. Instead, break his limbs so he cannot escape.”]

[“Yes, Alpha!”]

The three garms have successfully turned themselves into [Shadow Garms] using my unique skill [Shadow Pack].

Shadow Garm

A darkness garm whose soul was mutated with the mana of the Goddess of Death and then given a new body through the unique skill [Shadow Pack]. This garm has become one with its master’s shadow, being able to live inside it without any consequences. Although it doesn’t possess a mana body, this garm can control shadows as proficiently as its master, but suffers a debilitating weakness against holy element attacks. On the other hand, it can absorb dark elemental attacks and heal both Health and Mana with it. Rank C [Smoky Haze]

It took a while for the three faefolk spirits to assimilate into their new bodies, but it finished a week ago. I’m not sure why the System description called them darkness garm souls, but the spirits did mention they believe they are the garms now, and that nothing else actually mattered for them.

The fourth garm, the one still residing in Tasianna’s catalyst, couldn’t join its brethren, as I didn’t have enough SP to level up [Shadow Pack] to add additional spots for it. A shame, but I couldn’t do much about it since I haven’t been hunting recently due to the restaurant and this whole mess.

Regardless, my wolves were ready to hunt.

“AARRRRRRGH!” the alchemist screamed with blood gushing out of his broken limbs, but we ignored it.

“Miss Saori, we’ll go into the basement. You should go up to catch that demon,” Tasianna suggested after we found the way down.

I was confused why she would do that since it wasn’t just her that wanted to get revenge on Davison. However, that other person spoke to explain their thoughts to me, “I waaaantttt reeeeveeengeee! Buuuuut I can hear their voices! I can sense fae in anguish. ‘Humans are underneath,’ they cry. The fairy and I will kill them! You capture Davison. Bring him before me. Then, I will make him hear his screams as he suffocates in terror for all that he did!”

Kiiro’s onnikai side showed a bit throughout its bloodthirsty speech. They weren’t willing to give up on Davison, but they wanted to save the remaining faefolk inside the basement while also taking out anybody who was involved with them.

“Ok...I understand. However, Tasianna, keep a cool head, alright? Do not let yourself be consumed by Kiiro’s words. The conviction you showed Zephira and me: do not go back on it Do you understand? When we reunite, I want the Tasianna that swore loyalty to Hestia and me to come back, the one who has learned to tolerate humans,” I said, anxious that Kiiro might be infecting her mind with his revenge spiel.

“Yes, I know. Once again, my loyalty belongs to party Aurora alone. And Kiiro isn’t part of it…,” Tasianna said, glancing at the disgruntled spirit. “However, if I will have to kill anybody...please, forgive me.”

“Do not worry about it. I only care that you will make it back alive, so if they force your hand, do what Hestia and I would.” And with those words, we separated. She went downstairs to the basement, while I went up to the 2nd floor.

As I stepped foot on the last floor, [Foresight] and [Danger Sense] triggered, warning me to stop moving. When I did as I was told, an arrow zoomed past my face, penetrating the wall to my side.

“Shit, the intruder has high detection skills, Chief. Should be tougher than the run-of-a-mill soldier or guardsman.”

“Haha, really? Works best for me. Earning the dough without some action is boring.”

“Fuck, if it’s a noble knight or mage, then wouldn’t we be fucked? Chief, you sure the fat sack paid us enough?”

“Shut it, you two.”

Turning around, before me stood five men, all fully equipped with armor and weapons. They all had rough expressions with scars covering their faces as they leered at me with clear murderous intent.

There was a bowman in the back aiming an arrow at me and at his side was a dual dagger wielder. In front of them was a sword-wielding panther-looking beastman, a massive bear beastman martial artist, and a muscle-freak human in heavy armor wielding a massive shield and morningstar.

“Hey, wolfkin lass,” the armored human spoke, who most likely was the leader of this band since people referred to him as “Chief.” “You don’t look like a soldier or knight with that weird black armor. You a merc? Came here alone, cause my archer can’t sense anybody else, eh? Well, then do me a favor and fuck off if you know what’s good for you. You step any further and we’ll have to put you into the ground.”

Are they also mercenaries? He didn’t say “too” and my intuition is saying otherwise. Whoever they are, they are blocking my way to Davison.

“...Who are you?” I asked cautiously, needing to assess them a bit.

“Huh? Askin’ a question when we tol’ya to scram? Stupid bitch. Chief, we slice her up, paint the halls with her blood and make a nice rug out of her skin. Ehek ehek ehek ehek.” That laugh from the dagger wielder is chilling, honestly.

“We might have to when she’s trying to stall. Shoot!”

Immediately agitated, the battle began with the bowman shooting another arrow at me. I clicked my tongue as they didn’t give me enough time to use [Idenitfy], but went into action without a seconds delay. Whoever they were, they were out for blood.

I stepped to the side and my vision began being slightly blurred by a blood mist coming from my eyes, the natural response for a shadowstalker cadejo whenever a fight begins. The first action I took was to conjure up two [Dark Bolt]s and to shoot them at the two manatech light bulbs on the walls.

With the sound of broken glass, they broke and the light vanished in the first part of the hallway. There were still two bulbs at the other end which I needed to break to turn everything into darkness. I was outnumbered currently, so any advantage I can make for myself would be good.

“Shit, she’s a fucking dark mage. I can’t aim when it’s pitch black!” the archer announced to his comrades before shooting another arrow. He wasn’t wasting any second even if he was complaining.

“Hmph! You humans and your weak eyes,” the panther beastman mocked, before aiming his sword at me and charged. “Swift Pierce!”

Pulling my black tanto from my belt, I parried his sword and shot my left hand at his body. The corrosive obsidian claws were ready to maim this guy, but it wasn’t to be. With the movements of an acrobat, the panther beastman twisted his body and swung his sword like a roundhouse kick.

Naturally, I wasn’t a slowpoke and managed to block the attack with my tanto, but either it was because of the beastman’s Strength stat or just physics, I was pushed back a bit from the recoil. To prevent myself from tripping, I used my [Shadow Armament’s] suit to ground my feet into the floor and to elongate my tanto to give me more leeway to push the sword away from me.

The beastman didn’t expect me to do that, so his decision making slowed down for a moment, giving me a large opening to drive my tanto and claws into him. However, while my attack would have worked if he was alone...

“Charge!”

“Shield Slam!”

“Charged Shot!”

Tch!

As my feet were stuck on the floor, I had no other way but to dive into my shadow to avoid those three attacks. Using [Shadow Dash], I reappeared out of the shadow of the bowman, aiming to take him down first to get rid of the annoying ranged attacks, but, once again, my attack was hindered by something.

“Come ‘ere and bleed, ya bitch!” It was the foul-mouthed dagger wielder. “Ya think some dark mage is better than a pure dagger wielder?! Ya bet! I’mma hang your corpse over my-”

“Shut up. Wolf hunt.”

[“““Yes, Alpha!”””]

“Ahwroo! Garrrrrrrrrak!”

From my shadow, three abyss-black garms emerged with their teeth bared at the dagger wielder. He cursed as he saw that and tried to retreat, but I held his legs in place using my [Dark Tendrils]. With nowhere to go, the man was helpless as two of my wolves mauled his arms. He managed to stab his daggers into them, but their fur was similar to my [Shadow Armament]. They were sturdier than they looked.

“Shit! A tamer!” the armored person shouted, but I ignored him. I left my third wolf and my [Shadow Clone] to deal with him, while I threw corrosive sludge at the bowman’s eyes.

“Argh! Fuck, my arm,” he cried out as some of the purple sludge landed on his arm.

The obsidian claw protectors had a small socket where I could add toxin into them for easy toxin injection. Activated with a mana injection, I can control whenever to use this toxin, so I wouldn’t accidentally inject somebody into my everyday life. The toxin I used was one of Hestia’s, and you know that will bring in trouble.

“Arrrgh, w-what the fuck is this?! I-It’s melting!” The name Corrosive Obsidian wasn’t just for show as the sludge slowly melted through the bowman’s arm bracers and seeped into his body through his skin. The little bit of skin that was shown through the melted hole revealed it was turning purple. It was his right arm, so he can’t pull back his bowstring anymore.

I gave him a swift kick, knocking him against the wall, and ended his life with a stab into his head

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa] has risen from [Level 23] to [Level 24]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 600 skill points

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa]’s Job [Dagger Fighter] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 5]

Max level of Job   [Dagger Fighter] has been reached

Attributes have increased due to level up

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Lupine Claws Lv. 3] [Dagger Mastery Lv. 4] [Wisdom Growth Enhancement Lv. 5] gained

“Fuck, Tulson is down! Get off him, you mutt!” the bear beastman shouted, before slinging one of my wolves away like a rag doll, displaying how much Strength he must have. He then tried to pry the dagger wielder out of my tendrils, but it was all in vain. They were too tough.

Instead, I commanded the tendrils to grow and grab his beary arms. I then dashed into the fight with my wolves.

“Song, duck!” I ordered the second garm, making her dodge the panther’s sword slice and allowing me to use her as a platform to launch myself at the panther.

Not letting himself get surprised again, he reacted well and reciprocated my attacks in kind. A graceful dance of blades was exchanged as we tried to incapacitate each other or land a killing blow. Even to me, I found his deftness and skill quite impressive as he managed to react to each of my high-speed attacks. If he wasn’t flustered, he was the real deal.

“Morning Smash!” the chief wanted to intervene in our duel, probably recognizing it was better to take me down first,but...

“Song. Sarasa. Guard.”

[““Protect the Alpha!””]

Uno, Song, Sarasa. Those were the names I gave the wolves according to the different ways numbers were called in different languages. I wanted to give them proper names, but they didn’t have any personalities when I interacted with them, so it was hard to think of an elaborate one — the only thing they told me was the gender of their garm corpses. Numbers were the most appropriate that I could think of and I spiced it up by using different languages. Just to note, the fourth garm will be called “Quatre.”

The armored human’s attack was stopped as one of my garms used dark magic to pin his leg down with [Dark Bolt]. My garms’ skills were reset when they turned into shadow garms, meaning I had to teach them how to use dark magic again. I actually intentionally stopped Hestia from granting them the [Hestia’s Retainer] title since I still couldn’t trust them, so their growth was still slow. Their [Dark Magic] was still level one.

Everybody was preoccupied with their battles, unnerving me a bit as I wasn’t able to take care of this panther guy in front of me. Despite using magic and my tanto, I wasn’t able to best him. He was good, he was good...meaning I have to take out all my tools.

Activating [Storage Magic], I pulled out my two remaining daggers and threw them at the panther. He dodged, just as I anticipated he would, so I used [Dark Tendrils] to catch them mid-flight to then strike him at his back.

“Hey, Lain, watch it!” the bear beastman warned him, giving the panther enough time to respond. He should have [Danger Sense] or [Prediction], so it shouldn’t have been necessary, I think.

As he bent his body, I took out some red mana threads and bound them on a [Shadow Snake] before slicing my tanto at him. He responded and we continued our little dance before I saw a good opening to shoot out that snake from my [Shadow Armament]. It landed on his body and slithered around, wrapping the threads on him. I then poured mana into the red mana strings and fire burst out from them, scorching the panther’s gambeson.

“Argh! Fuck, she can create fire, too?!”

“Damnit, this isn’t worth the fuckin’ pay! Chief, call Boss Kaian already!”

“Fuck this shit! You damn bitch will pay for angering Yanderu Elusuess!” the armored human shouted, flinging Sarasa away with his shield, before taking out what looked like a catalyst. “Boss Kaian, they hired some B ranker! Tulson, dead. Black Blades, screaming. We need reinforcements!”

The moment he said that, the door where I thought Davison would be opened up, revealing a tall black panther beastman with a long spear. Behind him were a female mage loopridae, a rabbit beastman, and a crossbow-wielding arvisian, a bird beastman.

W-What?! How?! I know I checked for others and I couldn’t sense anybody behind that door.

And then I remembered the runes in Farron’s office. If there are sound-proof runes, then shouldn’t there be other kinds of sensing-prevention runes? At that moment, I also managed to find another person inside that room. He was in a back room, so it has to be the person of interest. Davison was there!

“Oooh, look at the party! And here I thought you said you could handle it by yourself? Who knew letting the whole group fight together was the smarter idea, instead of letting it become an ego trip? It’s not like the client hired the eight of us, right? Poor Tulson, ha ha ha!” the panther with the spear laughed out loud.

“Doesn’t matter, higher pay cut for the rest, Kaian,” the loopridae mage callously said before preparing a spell to shoot at me.

“Fucking hell! Tulson was my favorite from these bunch of vults. Bitch, you gonna pay for killing my drinking buddy!” the glint in the arvisian’s eye was chilling, as the bolt in his crossbow aimed at me.

Kuso! (Shit!)

There were six, and if they somehow were able to rescue the dagger wielder, then there will be seven. I was already outnumbered, but now even more people are coming. This was bad!

But the worst part was the spear wielder. My senses were telling me that he was the most dangerous. “Welp, time to earn our pay. Yo, wolfkin, show me a good time, eh? Spear on dagger, let’s go!”

A fire spell and a crossbow bolt were shot at me while the panther, Kaian was what they called him, dashed at me like a bullet.

Fuck! Shadow Dash!

The moment I melted into my shadow and Kaian’s spear nearly touched my nose, a dagger came out of my shadow.

A loud “Clang!” could be heard as the panther’s spear bounced back from the dagger. I didn’t see anything else of the fight, as I was fully enveloped in my shadow, except there, I saw somebody I thought I wouldn’t ever see again.

We emerged from the shadow next to the panther I wrapped around in my mana thread. Behind me, the wall was set on fire by the mage’s fire magic. I used this moment to end the panther duelist’s life, taking another person out of the equation.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa] has risen from [Level 24] to [Level 25]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 600 skill points

“Wow, that was a nice and clean strike. Huh, I told you that you didn’t need my help, pretty lady.” His smooth-talking was really irritating.

“Gael?”

To my surprise, the drunkard I knew in the slums was standing next to me with a long, well-crafted red dagger ready in his hand. Why was he here? The last time I saw him was after our little duel.

“Haha, yeah, Farron brought me to my feet with a favor. Also...trying to return another favor, and it also helps that I can meet up with some old friends,” he answered.

Once he was finished, the dagger-wielding man suddenly jumped up — his arms were in tatters, unable to pick up a dagger — and began shouting, “G-Gael?! Gael?! Gael! You fuckin’ twat! You fuckin’ traitor!”

“Ooooh, nice to see you again, Black Blades. Still using that stupid name?” Gael responded sarcastically.

“You fuckin’ bastard! Fuckin’ die!” the man charged at Gael with bloodshot eyes, completely ignoring everything around him, even the fact he didn’t have a weapon. Gael showed him a smug grin before using his dagger to quickly stab the Black Blades thrice, once in his stomach, then his solar plexus, and then into the middle of his forehead. Like a stringless doll, Black Blades fell down, lifeless.

“Critical Triple.”

“...And I knew you were hiding stuff from me. Also, your naming sense is terrible.” It was a slight jab, but it seemed Gael took it hard.

“Oooh, Gael? Ha, long time no see, man. Damn, can’t believe I get’ta see you at this time, on the other side even,” as I was bantering with Gael, the spear-wielding panther spoke. “When I joined Yanderu, I thought I get’ta work with you. Didn’t know you left the organization. Well, color me surprised.”

“Oh, Kaian? Wow, my information network didn’t tell me you were working with my old buddies now.”

“Ahh, yeah, you know, this is my first job. Had to hide for a while, you see. Those damn birds are annoying, as you should know.”

“Ahh, yeah, I guess you had to hide. Old band got wiped, right?” Gael then turned to me. “I wasn’t supposed to say this, but your new friends hired me, Saori. That man there, he was once part of the bandit group your party destroyed. The one with the rhinoncerum.”

“Oi, oi, oi, oi, you kidding me? That wolfkin brought down that fucking mountain Narube? What about Macklemor and Jaspar? Ohhh, now I’m less interested in you, Gael. The wolfkin got my attention now. In my opinion, that musclehead should've snapped the girl like a twig, but I guess you can never know what a rogue has under her sleeves, huh?” His eyes were like that of a battle junkie…

Gael smiled, then turned back to me, “When he was still part of the band, he had the honor of fighting against some holy knights of Aureolis. The Knights of Aurena, you see. During that raid, the knights were joined by some special guests — otherworlders.”

“Wha-What?”

This was the first news in nearly a month. The last time Ellaine mentioned the otherworlders, she said that her family at the capital couldn’t find any information on them since the church was hiding it. I wasn’t expecting anything after such a long radio silence.

“Yo, Kaian, you fought against some noble kids during the Knights of Aurena raid, right? Can’t believe my luck that you’re here, so mind telling us?” Gael asked.

However, the loopridae next to Kaian stepped forward to interrupt, “Kaian, stop speaking, can we just get to-”

“SHUT UP!”

“Wh-What?!”

“Kaian, what did they look like. Those noble kids. What did they look like?!” I was the one who shouted. Finally, some information on the otherworlders. Aurena’s words have been lingering inside me for so long that I was beginning to dream who they could be. Why did Hestia say that Aurena mentioned specifically that I would be glad to hear about it? Why?

“...Ohoho, that is some gusto. You know, that sorta stuff awakens the beast inside us, right? You’ll probably rip something out of me if I don’t answer, I can see it in your eyes,” he readied his spear. “Those kids looked pretty nice and well-fed, like you would expect from nobles. Weird thing is that nine of the ten had black or dark brown hair. Kinda rare to see such monotone hair colors, right? Could be siblings. The only one who didn’t was a white-robed with blue and black hair.”

He smiled for a second before continuing, “I forgot those kids’ names, you know, after I sent an army of desperate farmers-turned-bandits at them. Last time I checked, most of them were on their last legs. However, I do remember one of them. The one who I wanted my spear to pierce the most. A little spear-wielding berserker created a pile of corpses after his friend got shanked. Ehak hak hak hak...you wanna hear it?” His spear pointed at me.

Mana mist covered my body and my vision blurred even more with red mist.

[Humanization (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa]

I took my stance. “Keep your word after I take your limbs.”

My shadow erupted in rage.

A note from AbyssRaven

Saori is here to teach you how to act like a badass.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 142: Saori vs. Kaian.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Since people have asked me to do this. Today's Perspective: Saori

Profile:

Name:   Kaian Klei’dal

Level: 69

Race:   Pantherae

Age: 32 Years

Job:   Relentless Gale

Status:

Health:

3689/3689

Mana:

623/623

Strength:

1541

Intelligence:

421

Vitality:

1342

Wisdom:

804

Agility:

2161

Stamina:

2612/2612

Effects:

[Strengthening Flame]

Skill:

Magic skills and related:

[Mana Control Lv. 1]

Physical skills and related:

[Unarmed Technique Lv. 8] [Unarmed Mastery Lv. 9]

[True Spear Technique Lv. 1] [True Spear Mastery Lv. 1]

[Stamina Strike Lv. 6] [Sundering Enhancement Lv. 7]

[Piercing Enhancement Lv. 8] [Crushing Enhancement Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Claws Lv. 7] [Enhanced Fangs Lv. 3]

[Klei’dal Clan Spearmanship Lv. 5]

Senses and movement skills:

[Stealth Lv. 8] [Accuracy Correction Lv. 9]

[Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 7] [Concentration Lv. 6] [Prediction Lv. 7]

[Probability Correction Lv. 7] [Danger Perception Lv. 10]

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 7] [Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 6] [Tracking Lv. 9]

[Night Vision Lv. 10] [Presence Killer Lv. 7]

[Evasion Lv. 10] [Acrobatic Lv. 10] [Air Walk Lv. 1]

[Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 8]

Resistance:

[Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 2] [Absolute Pain Tolerance]

[Mental Corruption Resistance Lv. 1] [Bleed Resistance Lv. 4]

[Poison Resistance Lv. 6]

[Paralyzation Resistance Lv. 5] [Torpor Resistance Lv. 1]

[Fear Resistance Lv. 5]

[Holy Resistance Lv. 2] [Fire Resistance Lv. 5]

[Water Resistance Lv. 4] [Earth Resistance Lv. 4]

[Wind Resistance Lv. 5] [Dark Resistance Lv. 6]

Stat growth and related:

[Health Recovery Lv. 6] [Stamina Recovery Lv. 7]

[Enhanced Health Growth Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Agility Enforcement Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Stamina Capacity Lv. 3]

Others:

[Handicraft Lv. 2] [Dismantle Lv. 10] [Terror Aura Lv. 5] [Bloodlust]

[Starvation Lv. 8]

Job Skill:

[Spear Mastery Lv. 8] [Wind Pressure Resistance Lv. 5] [Gale Stride]

[Infuse Weapon: Wind]

Ability List:

Unarmed abilities:

[Gale Steps] [Gale Kick] [Firm Stance]

Klei’dal Spear abilities:

[Bladespider’s Strike] [Eight Folding-Strikes] [pantherae Pounce]

[Hunter’s Javelin] [Ambush Charge]

The stalemate caused by Gael’s appearance ended and the battle flared into action again. Uno, Song, Sarasa and my clone reengaged with the armored human and the bear beastman. Gael and I, on the other hand, attacked Kaian the panther beastman, the rabbit beastman, and the bird beastman. Nobody went ahead and said it aloud, we just knew who we had to fight and focus on.

As we were both Dark Mages, Gael and I planned to use [Shadow Dash] to close the distance to the two backliners, the loopridae mage and arvisan crossbowman. However, as Gael had to chant his spell, I decided to just clad him in my [Shadow Armament] and forcibly pulled him into my shadow instead of waiting for him to finish chanting.

Once we traveled to my spell’s destination through the shadow world, I threw Gael out of my shadow to use him as a decoy. As I informed him about it telepathically, he managed to adapt to the situation and narrowly dodge the incoming fire spell and crossbow bolt. After those variables were gone, I emerged from my shadow, but, instead of finding my targets’ undefended flanks, I discovered Kaian’s spear rushing to greet me.

Kuso! (Shit!) I cursed as I blocked his attack with my tanto.

“Hey, hey, how about we let our weapons talk?” he declared with a smug grin.

Stat-wise, Kaian and I were quite close if I ignored Hestia’s and Tasianna’s buffs. If I were to compare him to a previous enemy, then he would be considered the more agile version of Narube, that bandit leader our party fought against to free those Carine villagers. Honestly, I would have forgotten his name already if it wasn’t for Gael and Kaian mentioning him.

Anyway, with how close our stats were, it made it hard for me to not use [Humanization] to increase my stats and create an advantage for myself. My whole face was covered in my [Shadow Armament], so it wasn’t possible for them to notice that I’d gotten furrier than before. Still, I wasn’t planning on letting any of these mercenaries leave without being in chains or in a grave.

Especially not this pantherae in front of me!

Using my [Shadow Armament], I directed two of my [Dark Tendrils] to pull the daggers attached to them towards Kaian’s back, planning to stab him with them. He, instead of dodging them, gave me a swift kick to my chest to create some distance between us before turning around to knock the daggers down with his spear. He then stomped his left leg into the ground and shouted “Ambush Charge” to dash at me with incredible speed.

“Saori!” Gael shouted out, but I didn’t need his warnings to react to this attack. With [Foresight], reacting to this attack was a given.

While I was recoiling from the attack, I had already taken out one of Hestia’s newer contraptions. I infused some mana into it and threw it into Kaian’s face before shielding my eyes. With a small delay, the ball of rock split apart and a glaring light exploded from it. If Hestia can make spotlights, then she can also make flash bombs.

“Grk?! Fuck!” Kaian cursed as his attack missed, unable to react to my dodge.

[“Uno, Song. Now!”] In the time while I was dodging, I called my wolves to use [Dark Bolt] to destroy the two last light sources of the hallway, completely turning it dark save for the fire at the stairs. The more shadows and darkness, the more I can use my spells to their fullest potential.

I aimed my tanto at Kaian and dashed to stab him with it. Kaian used [Gale Steps] in combination with [Enhanced Enemy Sense] to side step all of them, despite his temporary blindness. I was preparing to use my own weapon ability to counteract his movements, but a sudden crossbow bolt stopped me from advancing for a single second, giving Kaian enough time to launch a counter.

“Bladespider’s Strike!” Like the swing of a scythe, he swung his spear at me to dissuade me from coming close long enough for him to recover his sight.

“Gael!” I called out, but when I looked over, he was not only preoccupied with the mage, but the bear brawler managed to join the fight. The armored human was keeping my wolves at bay and already destroyed my shadow clone, meaning less manpower was needed for his front.

My wolves might have been reborn as C rank monsters, but they only had the bare minimum of skills that a garm would be born with, including the [Dark Magic] that I taught them. Stats were important, but skills decide battles on equal grounds. I wasn’t sure how these mercenaries took down one of my shadow clones, but I guess their teamwork was decent enough to overcome that hurdle.

Still, Gael wasn’t in trouble. His face was calm and stoic, and his movements were precise and focused. He was dodging each strike from the brawler by a hair’s breadth while leaving small cuts on him in return. The mage was trying to help, but without getting a clear shot, she wasn’t shooting any more spells. Considering I’ve been fighting with a fire mage for literally my whole life, I can safely presume she was worried the building would collapse if she carelessly fought.

“Hey, where are you looking at?! I am over here!”

With a sharp “clank” sound, my head turned to the chatty feline. “Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten you! Just Blink!”

Kaian flinched backwards as I disappeared from his sight for a single second, and in this time, I somersaulted and elongated my leg with [Shadow Armament]. “Shadow Descent!”

Kaian dodged out of it in time, but my kick still left a small hole in the floor. I didn’t let him recover through, as I threw some toxic sludge in his direction. As expected, he dodged the poison, but that left him without the momentum to dodge a larger attack in the next few seconds.

“Dark Tendrils! Claws of Darkness!”

Two black magic circles appeared — one prevented him from moving, while the other summoned a large claws of darkness, ripping a chunk away from his chest armor. First blood belonged to me.

“Good! Good! You’re good! You’re fuckin’ amazin’! Pantherae Pounce!” with a maniacal laugh, he destroyed the tendrils and leaped into the air like a jaguar, before boosting it further with [Air Walk]. Even with [Foresight] and [Danger Perception] warning me, I couldn’t prevent him from pinning me onto the ground.

“Grck!” I groaned, narrowly redirecting his spear away from my head with my tanto.

“Eight Folding-Strikes,” he continued with his attack, but, as the room was dark enough to hinder everybody without [Night Vision], I had a way out of this. With [Shadow Dash], I escaped from both his pin and his devastating spear strikes.

As I reappeared, Kaian already aimed his spear at the shadow I moved to, having already prepared another [Eight Folding-Strikes], but that was when I began using the darkness of the room to its fullest. As everything was now covered in viable “shadows,” I could unleash all my spells having to aim all the time.

“Dark Tendrils!” Black appendages emerged from my [Shadow Armament] suit and grabbed onto the ceiling, pulling me up. With [Multi-Cast], [Continuous Cast], and [Delay Cast], I began slowly littering the room with additional black magic circles for [Dark Tendrils], all ready to activate at my signal. It was my take on Hestia’s spotlights system.

With each magic circle activated, tendrils appeared and pulled me to them before returning back into their magic circle. And I repeated it over and over again, jumping to one circle then to the next without stop. Like a cricket, I switched my position at a blinding speed, giving Kaian no chance to predict my position as I was alternating to whichever I felt like.

[“Uno, Song, Sarasa. Return!”]

[“““Yes, Alpha! We hunt!”””]

Similar to how I could use the darkness to my advantage, so could my wolves. They might not have [Shadow Dash] just yet, but as shadow garms, they could still enter shadows and move through the shadow world. They overcame the armored human by avoiding him completely to return back to my shadow. And once I had a good angle, I threw them out.

“““Arooooowwww!”””” they howled as they pounced out of my shadow and onto Kaian. He cursed and used his weapon abilities; however, my wolves weren’t there to attack, but to distract.

Daggers coated, I thought, using my claw protectors as a substitute for Hestia’s sludge vials. I didn’t need to take the vials out when I could simply coat all three of my daggers with a drop of slime and instantly prepare them.

With all my position swapping with my tendrils, I’ve gained a pretty impressive speed that anybody would love to unleash. And unleash it I did. Holding onto my tanto and one dagger with my hands and then another with [Shadow Armament], I pinpointed my target and shot my body at him, all while spinning around like a cyclone of blades.

“Tyler!” the armored human cried out, but it was already too late.

Gael, having noticed my aim, took something that looked like sand out of his pouch, and threw it into the bear beastman’s eyes, causing him to recoil back. He was now vulnerable, unable to dodge anything. And his nape was conveniently unprotected.

“Hyaaak!” I roared as my daggers carved a huge chunk of his nape, sending it twisting around from how I cut it. I clicked my tongue, disappointed that I couldn’t decapitate him, but I guess his fur was similar to that one stone-fur grizzly I met in Belzac forest. Stone-hard.

“Eyarrghhhh!” he cried out, clutching onto his nape while thrashing on the ground. Even if he survived the attack, the toxic slime was already corroding his body, turning his flesh necrotic.

But, Gael wasn’t patient enough to wait out his death. The loopridae mage noticed his intention, releasing a powerful [Flame Spear] at him while the arvisian crossbowman shot another bolt at Gael, trying to defend their weakened ally. However, Gael was just like my wolves and me. A dark mage was the most powerful in full darkness.

With a huge, smug smile of his own, he jumped on to the ground like a soldier, where he stabbed his dagger into the bearman’s neck and slammed him onto the ground with one of those American wrestling moves — the DDT, I think. While doing that, his finished [Shadow Dash] activated and he melted into the darkness, avoiding the fire spell and bolt entirely. The [Flame Spear] slammed against the wall and created a huge hole, letting fresh air enter the hallway.

Tch, kill stealer. That was my level up. As much as I wanted to complain to Gael’s face, my body was already melting back into another shadow to reappear behind Kaian, who was still dancing around with my garms. Unlike my [Shadow Clones] amd [Shadow Pack] spell, it was an advantage for me that these garms can think independently. I meant, I didn’t need to direct them and they could perform the right actions to preserve themselves. They executed my orders perfectly!

As the twisting tornado that was me came out of the shadows, Kaian simply frowned and used [Bladespider’s Strike] to slice at me. As I already considered this possibility, a tendril was already extending from my [Shadow Armament] to pull me away. I thought I could dodge it, but somehow Kaian managed to slice my leg.

“Arck!” I groaned, before being pulled away to a wall like a spider. I looked down at my leg to see a large bleeding wound and that a chunk of my Health was missing. [Sanctified Blaze] was already healing it up for me, but I didn’t expect to be hit like that. I thought I timed it correctly.

Gale Stride

By spending both Mana and Stamina, the user gains an unstoppable burst of speed for a single second. The user’s next attack ignores all defensive skills and spells

Ahh, damnit. That’s my fault for being careless for a second.

Kaian probably wanted to continue his attack, but my wolves were already pre-occupying him to defend me. And honestly? I needed it. I only checked now but, with how often I used [Dark Tendrils] and [Shadow Dash] this fight, my Mana was running low while I think I could feel a small tingling in my arms. I pulled out a mana potion and drank it.

My [Arcane Corruption] was level ten, so I don’t believe I would have trouble with it anytime soon, but I should be careful with using too many spells in the future. I wasn’t Hestia. I didn’t have a near infinite amount of Mana to spend whenever and however I wanted. I needed to be more frugal.

“Kyaaaaak!”

After I was done drinking my second Mana potion, a loud shrill directed my attention to Gael’s side of the battle, where he managed to injure the mage at her arm. It was bleeding a lot and, knowing Gael, he probably had poison applied. I mean, he threw sand at a person’s eyes; having that personality while being a rogue made tricky moves like poison daggers an obvious answer.

“Oooh, better have that treated soon, lass; otherwise, you might lose an arm,” he joked.

“Arck! F-fuck you, traitor!” As expected of a rabbit beastman, the mage used her well-developed legs to kick at Gael, but as she only had the stats of a mage, it was futile. Gael had no trouble dodging it, but any further attacks from him were stopped due to the armored human and crossbowman.

“Fuck! Dammit! Gale Steps!” Kaian, seeing what happened, using [Gale Stride] in combination with [Gale Steps] to avoid all my garms and move towards his injured comrade. “Enough! We can’t lose anymore! Forget the contract!”

Then he swiftly picked up the loopridae mage in a princess carry before running towards the hole in the building the mage made with [Flame Javelin]. The crossbowman and armored human nodded, each taking out a ball and tossing it onto the ground, covering the hallway in smoke.

“Wait!” I cried out. I was not done with Kaian yet!

Gael tried to stop the armored human, but as he was completely armored and had a shield, it was impossible for him to do it even with [Dark Tendrils], as the giant tank simply steamrolled out of the building.

I wanted to stop Kaian from running away, but the mage used [Petal Flames] to cause the ceiling to collapse before me. She also kept a flame lit above herself to prevent me from using nearby shadows to [Shadow Dash] towards.

“Hey, wolfkin!” he shouted. “‘Never owe a debt.’ The next time we fight, I’ll make sure to pay you back for today! I will remember you, Saori!”

He then leaped out of the building with his companion and shouted, “The kid’s name was ‘Tatsuya!’ He screamed his friend’s name, ‘Kyouuuuuuuuyaaaaaaaaaa’ as he watched that big human’s body drop to the ground, bleeding! Ha ha ha ha ha!” And then he escaped.

Kaian landed gracefully like a cat, the armored human cracked the ground, while the arvisian crossbowman simply flew with his winged arms. We managed to take down a couple of them, but those mercenaries still escaped in the end. The two leaders were among the escapees, too.

But that wasn’t important. Memories began clouding my mind. The four years that I spent at Shirako High School when I was still a teacher on Earth. My first year was as an assistant teacher to learn how to teach, which I somehow managed to pass despite how strict the homeroom teacher was. The kids also weren’t the easiest to handle, as they expected a lot from you.

Then, when my second year began and I became a proper teacher, I was somehow assigned to becoming a homeroom teacher instead of only a history teacher. It wasn’t what I wanted, but what could I do when I had no other chance? Using the experience my senpais gave me, I had to adopt a new personality to teach my class.

That was when I met the students that I guided for the next three years. High School 1st Grade, 2nd classroom. It was like a package of colorful chocolate, as each of my students had different personalities. One was what people would call an antisocial chunnibyou with teacher pet tendencies, while another was a hard-working classroom “idol” with an overly ambitious nature. And then there was that one boy who was the son of the top prosecutor of the country.

That classroom was my second home for the last three years of my life on Earth. We spent time together in the classroom, on school trips, during school assemblies, and more. I didn’t become a teacher because I wanted to, but because of the money for my mother’s medicine. But… I guess along the way, I began to love it, just because of the kids.

Would I return to being a teacher? I don’t know. I love my current life.

But… a teacher is responsible for her student’s well-being. It is my duty to keep them safe and to help them become good adults... Even if I have died… Even if it is in a new world.

But most importantly, I want to see them again. My last tie to my life on Earth was on Peolynca!

They hadn’t even graduated yet, but they were imprisoned on Peolynca due to Aurena or whatever, I didn’t care how or why. These kids weren’t my responsibility anymore, but I want to help them one last time.

“Shit, seems like they got away,” Gael said at my side.

I nodded in agreement before heading towards my garms. “Uno, Song, Sarasa. Good work, you did a fine job. Good boy. Good girls.”

[“““Our lives are yours, Alpha.”””]

I smiled. “Sorry that you could not get the kills for the experience, but I promise I will train you up. Let us all evolve together.”

As I was having my moment with them, Gael approached us and gave me a questioning look before speaking, “Huh? You haven’t registered yourself as a tamer at the hunter’s guild, yet? You know they have something similar to a party bracelet for tamers and tamed monsters, right? You can even order the latest model with the Princess’ request.”

...Huh.

I guess that would exist in a game world like this. Tasianna and Hestia didn’t say anything and I had no idea it was even a possibility. Well, the more you know…

As I was reflecting on my ignorance, an explosion from below the building happened, where a horde of monsters with weird orbs and slimes attached to them ran out. According to the reports we gathered, these were probably the experimental monsters. Was Tasianna having a problem? No, checking on my party bracelet, Tasianna’s Mana was slowly recovering, so she should be fine.

I wanted to jump down to take care of those monsters, but Gael stopped me, saying, “The cleanup unit is already on it,” and then pointed at the opened door at the end of the hall. He was right, we needed to take care of our primary objective first.

Davison.

Now that I think about it, wasn’t this the sort of recklessness I wanted Hestia to stop doing? Wow, I just became a hypocrite, huh?

Even now, I was learning and maturing. Not only as a person, but also a teacher.

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Tenebrous Magic Lv. 2] [Foresight Lv. 2] [Danger Perception Lv. 10] [Terror Aura Lv. 5] gained

Spell gained:   [Abyssal Bomb]

Profile:

Name: Saori Segawa

Level: 25

Race:   Young Shadowstalker Cadejo

Age: 7 Months

Status:

Health:

7752/7752

Mana:

3076/3076

Strength:

4310

Intelligence:

1640

Vitality:

3176

Wisdom:

3112

Agility:

6744

Stamina:

5018/5018

Effects:

None

Skill Points:

1450 (-1200)

Unique Skill:

[Shadow Armament Lv. 7] (+1) [Shadow Pack Lv. 1] (New)

Skill:

Magic skills and related:

[Mana Efficiency Lv. 10] (+2) [Arcane Mind Lv. 10] (+1)

[Mana Control Lv. 10] [Dark Magic Lv. 10] [Dark Amp]

[Dark Magic Efficiency]

[Tenebrous Magic Lv. 2] (+1) [Space-Time Magic Lv. 3]

[Space-Time Efficiency] [Chant Revocation Lv. 10]

[Mental Stability Lv. 7] (+1) [Mental Warfare Lv. 7] (+1)

[Silent Casting Lv. 10] [Fluid Cast Lv. 2]

[Multi-Cast Lv. 1] [Continuous Cast Lv. 1] (New) [Delayed Cast Lv. 1] (New)

Physical skills and related:

[Unarmed Technique Lv. 9] [Unarmed Mastery Lv. 5] (+1)

[Dagger Technique Lv. 5] (+2) [Dagger Mastery Lv. 4] (New)

[Sundering Enhancement Lv. 8]

[Piercing Enhancement Lv. 7] (+1) [Crushing Enhancement Lv. 4] (+1)

[Lupine Claws Lv. 3] (+1) [Lupine Fangs Lv. 3] (+1)

Senses and movement skills:

[Primal Senses] [Silence Lv. 1] [Foresight Lv. 2] (+1)

[Concentration Lv. 7] (+1)

[Detection Sensor Lv. 2] (+1) [Danger Perception Lv. 10] (+1)

[Tracking Lv. 6] [Heat Vision Lv. 3]

[Night Vision Lv. 8] [Odorless Lv. 1] [Evasion Lv. 10]

[Acrobatic Lv. 10] [Air Walk Lv. 3] (+2) [Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 7] (+1)

Resistances:

[Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 4] (+1) [Absolute Pain Tolerance]

[Abnormal Status Nullification] [Fear Resistance Lv. 1]

[Arcane Corruption Resistance Lv. 10] [Ice Resistance Lv. 4] (+1)

[Lightning Resistance Lv. 2] [Holy Resistance Lv. 8] (+2)

[Inferno Resistance Lv. 1] (New)

[Earth Resistance Lv. 7] [Water Resistance Lv. 6] (+1)

[Wind Resistance Lv. 6] [Dark Resistance Lv. 7]

Stat growths and related:

[Health Recovery Lv. 6] (+1)

[Mana Recovery Lv. 4] [Stamina Recovery Lv. 6] (+1)

[Enhanced Health Growth Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Mana Growth Lv.´4]

[Enhanced Mana Capacity Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Intelligence Growth Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Intelligence Enforcement Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 5] (+1)

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 5] (+1)

[Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Agility Enforcement Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Stamina Capacity Lv. 5]

Others:

[Dancing Lv. 2] (+1) [Mathematician Lv. 3] (+1) [Merchant Lv. 1] (New)

[Accounting Lv. 1] (New) [Monster Tamer Lv. 1] (New)

[Identify Blocker Lv. 10]

[Identify Lv. 10] [Terror Aura Lv. 5] (+1) [Bloodlust Lv. 4] (+2)

[Battle Mind Lv. 6] (+1) [Lifetaker Lv. 3] [Mana Weave Lv. 10]

[Sewing Lv. 10] [Elemental Mana Weave Lv. 6] (+1)

[Royal Etiquette Lv. 4] (+1) [Cooking Lv. 10] [Dismantle Lv. 8] (+2)

[Humanize Lv. 8] (+1) [Telepathy]

Ability List:

Unarmed abilities:

[Just Blink]

[Shadow Descent]

Dagger abilities:

[Shadow Pierce]

Spell List:

Custom Spells:

[Create Water] [Smoky Haze]

Dark Spells:

[Dark Bolt] [Dark Tendrils] [Shadow Dash] [Dark Slash] [Shadow Clones]

[Shadow Snake] [Enfeebling Winds] [Claws of Darkness]

[Umbral Pendulum] [Abyssal Bomb]

Space-Time Spells:

[Haste] [Storage Magic]

Titles:

[Belzac’s Successor] [Otherworldly Reincarnator] [Hestia’s Retainer]

[Pack Leader]

A note from AbyssRaven

A month has passed so here we go, Dragon Hestia! A stark contrast compared to her human form, right? Well, that was pretty much the goal since the beginning. Hestia as a dragonewt is cute, while her original form is supposed to shower people with terror, fitting for somebody descendent of the black tyrant dragon, Kargryxmor.

Thank you to my patreons for all the support, and also a thank you to my RR readers for supporting this story with all your reading.

Special thank you to Irenbee for helping me realize this dragon! Follow her on her Deviantart page or Twitter!

Considering this is a Saori chapter, it is a bit unfitting but who cares!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 15 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 143: Raider:Tasianna

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #2 her to promote our Patreon. 15 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 15 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until April!

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There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

Tasianna chapter.

[Sanctified Blaze] [Various Spell Buffs] inflicted on [Fairy, Tasianna Marina Silverpond]

“Frozen Shield!”

“Hurry! Bring out the weapon! It’s only one elf!”

“It’s only one elf! Use all the bombs and your mana! We can’t get caught here!”

To think that so many humans would be involved… even a few beastmen.

After separating from Miss Saori, I went down the stairs into the basement. According to the reports Lady Hestia got and from what Kiiro could remember, I was expecting to find two or three alchemists working on this fiendish project. I expected those human alchemists to resist since our arrival was announced by the receptionist. After all, this was a crime worthy of death to the Artorian nobles.

However, what I found was baffling. The moment I stepped foot in the basement, my [Prediction] warned me something was thrown at me. Embarrassingly, I have to admit I didn’t expect to be attacked this soon, so my reaction time to bring up my [Frozen Shield] was pathetically slow for a member of Aurora. Kiiro, inside my catalyst, flew into the thrown object's trajectory to block it, causing it to crash into the orb and shatter like glass, spilling its content on me. This small delay was enough for me to reflexively activate [Frozen Body] and turn my mana body into ice, preventing some of the damage.

As I assessed the attack, [Identify] informed me the attack was from a flask of acid. The sizzling of flesh wasn’t present, thankfully, as Lady Hestia’s [Sanctified Blaze] considered it a threat to me and began aggressively burning the acid off me. Still, I could feel some of my mana being lost from the attack. It seems that my body of ice cannot protect me from acid. I had to reflect on this mistake.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t do it on the spot, as the alchemists began their attack on me. Some were mages and could use spells while others simply threw acid flasks or bombs, all of which lacked the oomph of Lady Hestia’s creations. Regardless, as I said before, I wasn’t surprised to see resistance. I was more surprised to see the number of attackers as well as that quite a few of them were beastmen.

Honestly, I didn’t know why I was so fixated on that last part. Evil wasn’t restricted to humans alone. Lady Hestia and Miss Saori made sure to make me understand that point. However, I guess I still felt more prejudice towards humans than I claimed, still thinking that they’re the only ones depraved enough to torture the fae like this.

Nevertheless, I focused on the fight, accepting that I still needed time to rid myself of all my animosity towards the human race. These fiends were simply greedy enough to commit the same mistake they did 200 years ago. Miss Saori said history was written down and taught to others so past crimes can be avoided in the future, so I guess these criminals were part of the more foolish stock.

More importantly, however, I wasn’t the most furious person in the room.

“Diiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeee! Fooooooorrrrr theeeee forssaaaakeeen! Rot in your foolishness!” Kiiro, the supposedly cured onnikai-turned-spirit, was speaking in their onnikai voice even as they were aiding me in controlling the two floating ice swords.

By using this catalyst’s function — which the Goddess Zephira herself blessed — to turn my mana into a moldable slime, I was able to form two swords to act as my offensive power. Currently, I was outnumbered by over ten people and it was more efficient for me to stay on the defense with my spells. Thankfully, [Ice Magic] was exceptionally well suited to defensive strategies, similar to earth magic, although it lacked durability in exchange for being as flexible as water and wind magics.

“ARRGH!!!”

“H-How is a mage so fast?! W-What are those swords?!”

“She’s only one person! I call for the ocea-What?! ARGH!”

With [Frozen Shield] active, I was going from one cover to the next as I closed the distance between each alchemist and guard using [Wind Blast] to accelerate myself. The basement was a collection of large rooms, and in each of them were tables, shelves, and large boxes that could be used as cover. As I was defending myself, I would use the sword to block attacks while also attacking anybody from afar.

My enemies weren’t just alchemists, but what I presumed were mercenaries, as they were acting the part of guards and all members of a group named Yanderu Eluseuss. There were around seven low-level alchemists whereas the mercenaries numbered up to thirteen, I believe. They also weren’t much of a threat as a single high-leveled person, but the problem lay with their numbers. I wasn’t sturdy, nor did I have a reliable mana healing method to be able to just ignore these people and their attacks.

Their attack strategy was simple but effective. The leader of the mercenaries, a man they called Helmut, was ordering the alchemists and his mercenaries around like a puppeteer. Telling them how to attack and when to execute it, which meant that I was being pinned down most of the time. Although staying on the defensive would lead me nowhere, I couldn’t attack carelessly.

Helmut was a mage, an earth and fire mage to be more precise. Whenever I was stuck in a single place for too long, he would use a fire spell to melt down my shield, making me prone for further attacks if I didn’t respond fast enough. If he missed and hit a wall or a piece of furniture, he would use [Reduce Heat] to stop the fire or use earth spells to quench it.

“How funny it is to have a mage of Plesia fight me today! Is this a sign from God? Is this a trial he designed just for me to help me grow? Gloria!” His zealousness was to be expected from a Danterno faithful. “Now, hurry up and bring out that damn weapon! It’s only a single elf and you imbeciles are having so much trouble with her!”

The alchemists would throw flasks of acid and bombs at me, while archers would shoot arrows whenever my shield moved. Swordsmen and axe fighters closed in to apply pressure on me until Helmut destroyed my shield. This whole situation would repeat itself as I re-materialized my shield. It would have been a stalemate if it wasn’t for my dwindling Mana reserves.

As a fairy, if my mana was reduced to zero, it would mean death for me. I was drinking mana potions to regenerate my energy; it was fortunate that my enemies didn’t know about this weakness. If they did, then I believe they would begin draining my mana using whatever devilish machines they used to torture the faefolk they captured here.

“Tasianna, what are you doing?!” Kiiro raised his voice while I cast another [Frozen Shield]. “This is unacceptable! Why are you so meek with so much power? The power of the orb can overwhelm all these fools! Kill them already! Stop holding yourself back and slaaaaaaaayyyyy them!”

While I could understand Kiiro’s anxiousness, I didn’t know how to proceed with this battle outside of defending while waiting for an opening. I was able to deal damage by combining my floating swords and spells like [Ice Spike] and [Icicle Gale], but none of them have died yet. My attacks weren’t lethal enough.

“I don’t have enough mana to fight as aggressively as you want me to!” I told Kiiro bluntly. “I only have a limited amount of potions on my belt and I can’t risk taking damage. Kiiro, we must retreat and call for Miss Saori’s support.”

It was the smartest decision. I can’t fight as I did during the bandit raid because I didn’t have the element of surprise. The moment I entered the basement, I was at a disadvantage. The basement was also too small for me to assume my [Elvenized (Moderate)] form and use my wings.

As the sounds of broken glass and explosions continued behind my shield, the elated voice of Helmut brought me back into the fight. “Ahhh, good! Finally, the mana cannon! Put the battery in already!”

Peeking around my shield, I saw some mercenaries bringing out a large cannon from another room. If my memories served me right, it looked like a smaller version of the “Warhammer Mana Cannon” the dwarves could engineer. It was small enough to pass through the storage room with some trouble, but I presume the strength must still be great considering it's a cannon.

Upon Helmut’s orders, an alchemist opened up the battery compartment of the cannon and put a metal cylinder in it. The moment the cannon was activated, Kiiro began to tremble.

“Arghh! Th-They are draining my brethren right in front of me?! Kiiilllll! Veeeeegeaaaancceeee!” With a loud cry, Kiiro used the orb to produce blue slime, reminiscent of what he could do as an onnikai. However, unlike his previous mana slime, this one couldn’t be transformed into the onnikai beast that he used to combat us. He needed my mana.

“Don’t do a full charge. Use it when it has enough!” Helmut commanded.

“Bad! Kiiro we must leave-Urgh!” I groaned as a mercenary bashed a hammer against my shield, which slammed on me due to the recoil. The hit pushed me back, creating a distance between me and the floating orb. As the orb could store mana, it was also another source of mana regeneration for me, so having it not to my side wasn’t affordable for me. It should float back to me due to its function, but it wasn’t.

“Ha ha, isn’t this your catalyst, elf? He he, this will probably fetch a good price,” the hammer-bashing merc laughed with derision before grabbing my catalyst. However, what happened afterward was what drew my attention. “Huh, what is this shit? Huh?! Argh?! W-What the fuck is this?! Fuck off!”

The slime surrounding the orb suddenly latched onto the mercenary’s arm, and it was slowly growing in the size the longer it stayed on him while he was screaming. Kiiro screamed, “Maaaannaaaaa! Giiiiveeee iiiiiit toooooo meeeeee, huuumaaaaan!” while this was happening.

Is Kiiro draining mana? I thought, as that shouldn’t be possible. When I read the orb’s description, it didn’t mention that it could siphon mana away from others; however, now that I think about it, shouldn’t there be a reason why the onnikai beast was able to drain mana? Not only was it problematic for a faefolk like me, it also caused Miss Saori issues. Nevertheless, our party never questioned why it was able to do that. Wouldn’t it make sense for Kiiro to be the reason?

Goddess Ilsaphone’s blessing allowed the onnikai to reanimate corpses and heal themselves using the black slime, and some of them, like the garms in Miss Saori’s possession, were even able to fuse entirely with their bodies. They couldn’t drain mana from others. Only the onnikai beast and onnikai boss, Kiiro, could. I don’t know how this was happening, but it was good for me. I just wish Kiiro had said this earlier.

But this joy only lasted for a couple of seconds, as my [Prediction] and [Danger Sense] exploded into action, ringing so loudly in my head that I could get a migraine. Regardless, I didn’t allow myself to complain, as I knew something was about to happen if those two skills were this aggressive.

“Fire!” Like a reaper’s scythe, the doom those words sent down my spine was indescribable. My body stiffened when I sensed a large amount of mana gathering in a single spot, and I drew my head not towards it but to my side. I needed to dodge.

“No!”

With a huge explosion, the mana cannon fired a ball of condensed mana. Whether it was tables or my [Frozen Shield], anything that stood in this destructive attack’s way was decimated and reduced into scraps and fragments. Callous of their own, the mana ball also hit the mercenary who grabbed my orb, turning his body into nothing but minced meat and viscera, before finally crashing into the wall. Nothing was there aside from dust and blood.

I wasn’t standing there anymore either.

“Whew, definitely not the same power as a normal warhammer cannon. The ceiling didn’t drop at all, but I guess it did the trick. Haha, good to see mana batteries using faefolk are just as efficient as the normal, dwarven-made ones,” Helmut cheered as he looked at his handiwork. “Alright, time to return to work! The knights and soldiers will probably storm the building once they hear those mercenaries are dead. I need to regroup with the others, so you all start packing everything up to be transported out of the emergency door.”

Helmut turned his back to the crater left on the wall, confident of his win, as he couldn’t see me. Unfortunately, for him, I was a bit too resilient to ignore just yet.

“AARGH?!?!”

“Wh-BUFUUU!!!”

“UGWAHHHH!”

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Fairy, Tasianna Marina Silverpond]’s Job [Cryomancer] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 2]

Attributes have increased due to level up

None of them give a lot of experience…

A single longsword of ice was floating around, holding a blue orb where its crossguard should be. Around it, multiple small shards of ice levitated with it and would attack anything the sword directed its blade at. Looking a bit closer, a small girl with a set of blue wings was grabbing onto the sword’s protruding ice spikes to ride it like a mount.

It was me of course, and as I said, I wasn’t standing.

“What the fuck, the floating sword still exists?! Shit, hiyarrrrr!” a mercenary with a sword and shield exclaimed. He attempted to fend off my sword, but as it wasn’t constricted to the arm of a person, it was as maneuverable as a fly, with the sting of a bee — a very large bee. On the blade, I used [Wind Blast] to propel myself forward, piercing the mercenary’s heart.

“Kiiro, now drain it! I need mana!” I commanded, feeling a bit ill after having to create this sword and the numerous ice spikes after transforming back into my fairy form to avoid the cannon blast. The less mana I had, the more my stats would decrease. My wind elf form had higher stats due to its larger body, so the demerits weren’t as bad.

The human began to scream in agony as the blue of my catalyst grew more azure. I quickly used this moment to drain the stored mana to regenerate myself, to the point I was feeling as good as new. Feeling satisfied with my safety, I launched the ice shards at my surroundings, buffeting any enemy hit. Like the shrapnel of Lady Hestia’s bombs, the ice shards lodged into their bodies, draining them of their body heat. Unlike normal ice made using my magic, the shards from the orb wouldn’t melt so easily due to it being “thick slime.”

With the movements of my arm, I pulled the shards out of their body, consequently bringing them closer to me. Which also meant they were in slashing range.

I won’t attempt to be what I am not. I wasn’t a swordswoman, nor have I learned how to use a sword as skillfully as Lady Ellaine. So, instead, I used the orb’s functions to control any slime I created with it and used the floating sword to slice anybody close enough in an arc. Although the damage wasn’t lethal due to my inexperience in handling the floating sword accurately after all my training, Kiiro managed to drain some mana from them, which I used to once again drill the ice shards into their bodies. The second time, all of the shards hit the alchemists’ and mercenaries’ heads, killing them.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Fairy, Tasianna Marina Silverpond] has risen from [Level 55] to [Level 56]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 600 skill points

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Fairy, Tasianna Marina Silverpond]’s Job [Cryomancer] has risen from [Level 2] to [Level 4]

Attributes have increased due to level up

“Why didn’t you mention this?! I wouldn’t have so much trouble if you had told me about your ability to drain mana!” I chided Kiiro, angry that he would reveal this ability now.

“I had assumed you would have deduced it after reading the description of the orb. Did I not mention that Davison wanted me to absorb the surrounding mana to have me grow? The orb amplified my abilities, giving me the power to use the mana slime created by it to drain mana from others. My mana became my hands, and it eventually grew into the beast you fought,” he finally explained it clearly. “If you do not ask, you shall not receive. I believed you didn’t need my power or that you would use it when the time comes.”

“W-Wait, you were serious when you said ‘my power’ when you told us your memories? You actually have the ability to drain mana?!”

“A reward for my survival. My death may have turned me into an onnikai, but it also gave me the power to drain mana. I became the same as that human’s vile creation. My brethren were not as blessed, and for that, Davison placed me in that ruin,” he continued.

Baffled, I did regret not asking more about Kiiro itself, but I couldn’t exactly question it now, especially not while a fireball was being shot at me. I constructed a [Frozen Shield] to delay it as I flew a bit further away to dodge. A blue mist came out of my body.

[Elvenized (Moderate)] inflicted on [Fairy, Tasianna Marina Silverpond]

“What the fuck?! You’re a fairy?! Hahaha, what a surprise, what a surprise. How fitting for you to come here to free your fae friends,” Helmut laughed, already having finished his next fire spell. “She’s back in her normal form! Melee, get into her face. Use shields or whatever to defend yourself!”

Knowing the same situation could happen again, I had to use this moment to its fullest. I had taken down a couple of enemies and thinned the room out, but there were still enough of them for me to feel threatened. I had the power of both Goddess Plesia and Goddess Zephira on my side, so I couldn’t afford to lose here! No, in the name of my party, Aurora, I will not lose!

The room was small, making flying hard, but I still had to rely on it for now. The extra movement was needed.

Wind Blast!

With my ice sword in hand, I used [Wind Blast] to propel myself forward to one of the alchemists and archers. Helmut threw another fireball at me, but I doused it with [Water Bolt]. Zigzagging through the air to avoid any attacks the alchemists did, I controlled my ice shards and buffeted them like a hailstorm, leaving behind only bloody and cold corpses.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Fairy, Tasianna Marina Silverpond]’s Job [Cryomancer] has risen from [Level 4] to [Level 7]

Attributes have increased due to level up

“Flame Spear!” With a frown, Helmut shot a massive spear of fire, ignoring the fact his allies had to jump out of its trajectory.

“Aqua Beam!” To counter Helmut’s spell, a beam of condensed water was shot out, dispersing the fire spell and piercing through the wall as if it was butter. I then used this chance to eliminate the melee combatants who were off-balanced from the fire attack.

I first pierced the chest of one of the mercenaries with my sword and then sent the hail of ice shards forward, increasing their lethality with [Wind Blast]. The barrage gravely wounded them, but they didn’t die. However, I pulled the shards out and then redid the same thing again, this time killing them.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Fairy, Tasianna Marina Silverpond]’s Job [Cryomancer] has risen from [Level 7] to [Level 10]

Attributes have increased due to level up

“Tornado Bullet!” I shouted, aiming the bullet at Helmut. He was chanting while I did so and had to stop his spell to avoid it, otherwise, his stomach would have the same hole the wall currently had.

“Fuck this shit! I didn’t sign that contract just to die here! Hey, get out of my way!” Helmut then shoved an alchemist towards me, forcing me to cut him down. In the meantime, Helmut picked up a bomb and threw it at a door.

After it exploded, numerous roars suddenly appeared. A dust cloud blocked my sight, preventing me from seeing them, but my [Enhanced Enemy Sense] couldn’t be fooled. I immediately cast a [Frozen Shield].

“Petal Flames!” Helmut cast, turning the ground and ceiling on fire, before running to the back of the basement.

“S-Sir Helmut! Argh!” The alchemist and remaining archers screamed before crying out in pain as four-legged monsters appeared from the exploded doorway and jumped on them, rending flesh and bone asunder. Peeking from my shield, I could see monsters of various types. All of them had orbs lodged into their chest or back as a blue slime covered up their wounds and body. Their eyes looked like those of a feral animal.

Seeing as the humans and beastmen were a lost cause, I used a custom spell I learned called [Ocean’s Blast] — a spell Priest Kushlek’zar wrote down a wooden slate for me to learn — to douse the flames inside the basement. I then quickly froze it into a protective shell of ice. It separated me from the monsters, and also the cries for help that the alchemists and mercenaries were sending me. Something in me was telling me to save them… but the crime of being associated with fae hunting was death. Even if I saved them now, they would die later on.

Let their suffering cleanse them of their sins. May their souls all rest in peace in Goddess Ilsaphone’s embrace.

The moment was melancholic for sure. Similar to last time during the bandit raid, it seems like ending the lives of humans and beastmen was uncomfortable for me. How funny, when you consider my lack of apprehension when hunting monsters for Lady Hestia’s meals. Still, I felt less conflicted than after my first human kill.

Kiiro, on the other hand…well, I had to use [Air Shield] to stop hearing his insane laughter.

I did not follow Helmut, for I had no reason to. It wasn’t my mission to kill all these criminals. Instead, I went to the mana cannon. I located the fuel compartment and took out the mana battery before opening it to free the faefolk inside. As it didn’t fly out, I looked inside to see a weakened small spirit.

Even with [Telepathy], I couldn’t speak to spirits like Kiiro or Sister Silva. I never really considered speaking to those following Lady Hestia in the woods, so I had little experience of what to say to them.

I touched the spirit and let my mana enter its body, helping it regenerate. I turned to my orb and said, “Kiiro, please, ask it where the rest are.” Kiiro agreed and told the spirit to lead the way to the room with the imprisoned fae after it regained its strength.

Inside, the room was mostly filled with lesser fae, like spirits and spriggans, but there were also a few minor elementals. All of them looked feeble inside their cages while others were being drained inside batteries. Some batteries only had remnants of mana… which I presumed belonged to those who stayed too long inside these insidious creations. Kiiro couldn’t help but shout out in pain when it saw this.

I shared my mana with them and allowed them to regenerate. After I freed them, Kiiro translated to me that they were thankful. Kiiro didn’t say anything more afterward, which caught my suspicion. It was too little for what happened inside here; however, I didn’t pressure Kiiro to speak. I had a feeling ignorance was better for my sanity.

Princess Schuri… it was as if I was seeing Princess Schuri inside these cages. Weak and fragile, so desperately looking for affection and warmth. The cruelty she faced wasn’t what she deserved. The suffering and death inside this room made me want to puke, so I went outside.

I dispelled the ice shield to the main basement room. The beasts were no longer there — only puddles of blood and chunks of human and beastman remains were left. I guessed the beasts probably escaped the guild building, but I wasn’t too worried about it. After all, we had a clean-up unit.

“Davison,” I mumbled.

“Davison…” Kiiro replied in agreement. “KIIIIIILLLLLLLLL!”

“…Yes.”

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Silent Casting Lv. 7] [Accuracy Correction Lv. 6] [Presence Killer Lv. 6] [Battle Mind Lv. 4] gained

Profile:

Name:   Tasianna Marina Silverpond

Level: 56

Race: Wind Elf

Age: 88 Years

Job:   Cryomancer Level: 10/15

Status:

Health:

2118/2118 (+574)

Mana:

5509/5509 (+1265)

Strength:

631 (+225)

Intelligence:

2371 (+851)

Vitality:

693 (+195)

Wisdom:

1889 (+544)

Agility:

2178 (+717)

Stamina:

1478/1478 (+378)

Effects:

[Elvenized (Major)]

Skill Points:

2050 (+2060) (Spent 1550 SP)

Skill:

Magic skills and related:

[Fairy Magic] [Arcane Mind Lv. 10] [Ice Magic Lv. 4]

[Water Magic Lv. 10] [Torrent Magic Lv. 1] [Water Amp]

[Water Magic Efficiency] [Wind Magic Lv. 10] (+1) [Wind Amp]

[Wind Magic Efficiency] [Storm Magic Lv. 1] (+1)

[Synergist’s Oath Lv. 3] (+1)

[Chant Revocation Lv. 10] [Silent Casting Lv. 7] (+1)

[Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 3] (+1) [Mental Stability Lv. 3] (+1)

[Mental Warfare Lv. 5] (+1) [Fluid Cast Lv. 1]

[Continuous Cast Lv. 1] [Delayed Cast Lv. 1] (New) [Multi-Cast Lv. 1] (New)

Senses and movement skills:

[Silence Lv. 1] (New) [Accuracy Correction Lv. 6] (+2)

[Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 7] (+1) [Prediction Lv. 6] (+1)

[Danger Perception Lv. 6] (+1) [Enhanced Vision Lv. 5] (+1)

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 5] (+2)

[Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 7] (+1)

[Night Vision Lv. 6] [Tracking Lv. 1] [Presence Killer Lv. 6] (+2)

[Evasion Lv. 8] (+2) [Acrobatic Lv. 7] (+1) [Flight Acceleration Lv. 6] (+1)

[Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 5] (+2) [Concentration Lv. 8] (+1)

[Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 1] (New)

Resistance:

[Physical Resistance Lv. 9] (+1) [Pain Resistance Lv. 9] (+2)

[Poison Resistance Lv. 8] (+1) [Paralyzation Resistance Lv. 6]

[Torpor Resistance Lv. 6] [Mana Leak Resistance Lv. 10] (+9)

[Ice Resistance Lv. 2] (New) [Lightning Resistance Lv. 1] (New)

[Holy Resistance Lv. 7] (+2) [Fire Resistance Lv. 9] (+1)

[Water Resistance Lv. 8] (+1) [Earth Resistance Lv. 6] (+1)

[Storm Resistance Lv. 1] (New) [Dark Resistance Lv. 6] (+2)

Stat growth and related:

[Stamina Recovery Lv. 3] (+1)

[Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Mana Growth Lv. 7] (+1)

[Enhanced Mana Capacity Lv. 6] (+1)

[Enhanced Intelligence Growth Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Intelligence Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 2] (+1)

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 2] (+1)

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 6] (+1)

[Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 3] (+1)

[Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Agility Enforcement Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Stamina Enforcement Lv. 2]

Others:

[Singing Lv. 5] (+1) [Dancing Lv. 3] [Identify Blocker Lv. 10]

[Identify Lv. 8] (+2) [Cooking Lv. 8] (+2) [Dismantle Lv. 5] (+2)

[Herbalist Lv. 6] (+2) [Alchemy Lv. 1] (New) [Brewing Lv. 5] (+1)

[Sewing Lv. 2] (New) [Battle Mind Lv. 4] (+2)

[Terror Aura Lv. 1] [Royal Etiquette Lv. 6] (+1) [Elvenize Lv. 10]

[Frost Body Lv. 1] (New) [Cryokinesis] [Telepathy]

Job Skills:

[Water Magic Efficiency] [Wind Magic Efficiency] [Ice Magic Efficiency]

[Low-Temperature Resistance Lv. 8] [Ice Resistance Lv. 5]

Spell List:

Custom spells:

[Create Water] [Greater Create Water] [Marine Lungs] [Ocean’s Blast]

Ice spells:

[Ice Spike] [Frozen Shield] [Icicle Gust] [Glacial Protection]

Water spells:

[Water Ball] [Water Wall] [Water Bolt] [Cleanse] [Protective Water]

[Droplet Torrent] [Aqua Prison] [Aqua Beam] [Torrential Rain]

Wind spells:

[Wind Bullet] [Wind Cutter] [Air Shield] [Air Shield] [Wind Slash]

[Swift Winds] [Wind Blast] [Featherfall] [Aerial Blitz] [Tornado Bullet]

Titles:

[Hestia’s Retainer]

A note from AbyssRaven

Oh, if you guys were to look at Tasianna's age, then....

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 15 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Side Story 23: Outside the Raid.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #3 her to promote our Patreon. 15 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 15 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until April!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

Loud and bustling.

Those would be the words to describe the middle district of Firwood, an area where most of Firwood’s populace would gather. Adventurers commuting to either the hunter’s or mercenary’s guild for their next Quest, merchants and street chefs selling their wares at the town’s marketplace, artisans managing their workshops as the sounds of forges and looms echoed through the streets. The middle district was indisputably the heart of Firwood.

However, tonight it was eerily quiet. Even after the moon has risen and most daytime workers fall asleep, the nightlife of Firwood should still be active among the more nocturnal residents. However, the most active area in Firwood wasn’t in the middle district of the slums — the lower district — today, but the upper district, also known as the merchant’s district.

The reason why this district got its name was the concentration of rich merchants in the area. Like a haven for the rich and elite on Earth, this area was dedicated to merchants with developed networks who could even interact with nobles and do business with them. Nobles in the Greenveil duchy are known as merchants by other duchies, but even merchants require subordinates to coordinate areas beneath their station.

So, this was the area where these merchants would do business and live since it was located just outside the noble district’s gateway. Although there were reputable inns, Peolynca’s version of middle to high-class hotels, there weren’t many of them. The nightlife in this area was lacking, unlike the other commoner districts, and any nightly dealings would be kept quiet anyway. So, why was this the most active area tonight?

“Clothing! Clothing! Purchase clothing to support Lady Hestia! Purchase clothing to support ‘Aurora!’”

It was because this world’s second idol concert was being held in the merchant’s district plaza. This first and only idol of Peolynca was performing today.

“Ooh, this skirt is quite cute. Although, isn’t it a bit short? Hmm, but Lady Hestia’s name is on it. Mother. Father. What do you think?”

“This art is...new. Lady Hestia was already beautiful when she sang and danced, but this version of hers is different from normal art. Still, it looks well made and adorable. The seamstress must be excellent, wouldn’t you say, Dear?”

“Agreed, Dear. I heard a new seamstress at the tailor guild was gaining traction recently. She has been making mana clothing in exchange for wool and silk thread instead of money. I believe Lady Hestia’s seamstress must be her, as it would make sense for a foreign noble to bring their own retainers.”

This was Aurora’s plan to acquire funds. Saori, using the many wool threads she acquired, made the idol merchandise that was now being sold here at Hestia’s concert by the servants of House Helvas. These clothes would vary in appearance, as some had cute chibi versions of Hestia while others had her name and party’s name in stylized writing. Idol merchandise was there for a fan to support their idol while also showing people who they liked. Naturally, these clothes had to be adapted to the local fashion sense.

While the normal wage worker wouldn’t be able to afford them, merchants or rich individuals could. It was especially successful if these merchants had either young daughters or wives, who wouldn’t shy away from these vibrant colored clothes. As Saori accounted for this fact thanks to feedback from running Aurora’s restaurant, she didn’t tailor many in order to create an artificial scarcity, attracting young women who want to “stay in fashion.”

Commoners want to look and act like nobles. Whether it was on Earth or here on Peolynca, this fact remained true. “Clothing maketh the man.” As Hestia’s status and name have been spreading in the commoner district due to her music and priestly duties, no respectable merchant wouldn’t know about the “white-robed noble lady playing music on the streets” and how she was only charging 200 Davi for any healing services. Merchants knew her identity and were assessing her worth with the restaurant and concert. It also helped that the rumors spread by Ellaine and High Bishop Theodore were leaking, too.

Impressed by her singing and being able to entertain the raucous crowd of Firwood, the idol merchandise was soon sold out, whether because the buyers had become Hestia’s “followers” or purely due to fashion. Clothing supported by a noble was being sold to them, commoners, so no young women could resist. It also meant that those unable to buy anything were left disappointed and angry.

“W-What do you mean there is nothing left?! You must have planned the stock would be sold out in minutes! T-This can’t be!”

“Please, there must be a dress that you forgot in storage, right? Could I ask you to look for it? My father would surely repay you for your hard work.”

“This is outrageous! An artificial scarcity for something any respectable merchant would be able to predict would sell out in seconds is unbelievable! You should have expected this and made more!”

However, those complaints and pleas went into one ear and then out.

“Honored madams and Sirs.” Fitting to the theme of nobles delegating merchant jobs to commoner merchants, it wasn’t Barathan or Manuela who greeted the disgruntled customers, but a foxian by the name of Zeather.

This stall was owned by party Aurora after all, not House Helvas. Ellaine might have lent Hestia her servants to help her with the concert and stall, but it was Hestia who could choose who to manage it in her stead while she was singing. Zeather might have little experience in the clothing industry, but being able to manage a stall and sell goods is different from knowing how quality outfits are made. As Saori can guarantee the quality of her work, Zeather only needed to be there and sell.

This was part of the deal Saori made with Zeather so they could borrow the items needed to open restaurant “Aurora.” He would make his name more noticeable amongst other merchants, including the money he was making through the supply of Belzac herbs from Tasianna’s garden. Helping out with ordering ingredients, furniture, and helping out here for free was worth all of the benefits he was receiving.

The merchant who did business with Lady Hestia Atsuko.

“These clothes were made by Lady Hestia’s personal seamstresses. As she did not hire additional support, her small retinue had to create all this merchandise in time for this event. The reason for the low stock is because Lady Hestia values quality over quantity, unable to bring herself to sell anything that wouldn’t suit her own taste,” Zeather reasoned with the displeased merchants with a wide, professional smile. He was very much accustomed to unpleasant customers. “Lady Hestia wishes everybody could acquire a piece to remember her by, however, time was a constraint for her. This shortage wasn’t intentional, Zeather assures you, dear customers. Even with an exceptional seamstress, quality work requires time, no?”

The power of a merchant was their tongue — the ability to persuade with words. While the more influential merchants were able to speak their mind freely in front of a noble when it came to the economy — in moderation, of course — they had to stop once a good enough reason was given. Hestia was still a noble in their minds, and a very high-ranking one if the rumors were to be believed. A noble striving for quality instead of quantity wasn’t a flaw they could argue against.

While tonight’s avenue of nightly action was the upper district, the unusually quiet middle district also wasn’t completely silent. This was where the alchemy guild was located. Fortunately for the event today, the residents living around the area of the alchemy guild were bribed by Saori and High Bishop Theodore to spend time at Hestia’s concert until it was over, resulting in this lack of activity. For the working yeoman, a good amount of Davi for not sleeping for a while was well worth it, irresistible even.

So, that removed the non-participants for the raid on the alchemy guild. Without any worries about onlookers, the apprehension of Davison should result in no witnesses except the ones who were already involved in it. And to ensure that, two people were hired by Lord Sirius himself to make sure of that.

“Groohhh! Griack!”

“Gruuwack?!”

“Gale Steps.”

There was a lone figure in the streets, fending off multiple monsters at once. How did these monsters invade Firwood and from where? These monsters were the results of the alchemy guild implanting catalysts into monsters to strengthen them, in an effort to create new equipment for tamers and their tamed monsters. Coincidentally, these catalysts had the very same slime function as Tasianna’s, albeit at a lesser quality, to aid the monster’s regeneration.

The only problem was they were rampaging in a crazed frenzy.

“Honestly, what self-respecting tamer would give their companions something this broken? Defective junk.” The man cutting the monsters down was none other than the hunter’s guild master, Farron Nordor. Even after retirement, his blade was sharp and his movements efficient, unrelenting against a force a normal D rank party would suffer losses against.

Damn, that Gael! We are hunters, not mercenaries or assassins anymore. We do what the contract says, and our job is to eliminate any monster threats. You should know that, you drunkard.

Farron and his vice guild master Gael were the adventurers Lord Sirius hired as the “clean-up unit” to support Aurora. Their job was to prevent any resident from coming into the vicinity of the alchemy guild while the raid was active and, if the evidence from Amadeus Chezaic could be trusted, stop any monsters from fleeing into the town and cause chaos.

However, Gael, ignoring Farron, entered the alchemy guild’s building and began supporting Saori in her fight against the mercenaries of Yanderu Eluseuss. That left an annoyed Farron alone to deal with what they were actually hired for.

With his feathered swordspear, Farron cleaved through the monsters with ease. Blood splashed onto the cold pavement as more bodies piled up on the street. Eventually, Farron let out a sigh. His [Detection Sensor] wasn’t informing him of any more threats, which meant his job was done for now.

He wiped the blood off his weapon, looked in a direction, and waved while saying, “I’m done.” Men clad in black exited the shadows of the alley, they saluted to Farron — who winced — and immediately began cleaning up the streets. These were the subordinates of House Sirius, and they were doing what was needed to hide all the clues. Body removal and blood cleaning.

After they were done, they left without a trace. Farron then found a nearby bench and sat down, letting out another sigh. “…Hope Priscilla is enjoying herself. She looked so sad when I told her I had to leave…”

After fighting all those monsters, the family man Farron couldn’t help but think of his daughter. After witnessing Hestia’s first song with Priscilla, he had to leave the concert to fulfill his Quest. Although he knew it couldn’t be helped, Farron wished he was there, as experiencing something like “another world’s music” was sure to be a good memory for him and his daughter.

“Well...it is my duty as the guild master. Can’t get around it when the job description says that I’m needed to protect the town the guild is stationed in the case of a monster attack. Got myself into it, so I better fulfill my end of the deal,” Farron reasoned to quell his inner turmoil. As much as he wanted to complain, Farron was a professional. “A normal hunter doesn’t have any obligation to sacrifice their life for the guild or town, but the guild master does. Even after leaving the military, I still can’t get away from responsibilities.”

Farron, melancholic now, began caressing the feathers on his swordspear, looking at them wistfully like a veteran remembering the faces of his fallen army brothers. They were uneven, like scars on the weapon after experiencing many battles, but they were kept clean and pretty, alluding to the fact that Farron was keeping his weapon’s long, brown feathers in a good state. He made sure to clean any blood drops off of them before sheathing his weapon again with a deep sigh. He was done reminiscing about his past.

“The big fella would be disappointed if he saw me now. Not exactly the strong and proud master he came to know,” he said with a faint smile. That was when his thoughts drifted back to his daughter singing and dancing along to Hestia’s song, and also to another person he deeply cared for. “…Come to think of it, shouldn’t she be around? I wonder if she can come visit Priscilla, but I guess her job should be keeping her busy. Poor lass deserves less busy parents, honestly.”

It was a self-deprecating comment. As the guild master of the hunter’s guild, Farron was swarmed with documents of fulfilled Quests and potential work from nobles, meaning he had little time for leisure outside his work hours. Fortunately for him, his daughter decided to work as a chef for the tavern adjacent to the guild, so he wasn’t always alone.

Nevertheless, as a father, Farron wished he could spend more time with his daughter. He also wished his wife were here with him.

“Haaaa, whatever,” he said, before hearing and seeing something surprising in the direction of the concert. Loud explosions rang out in the sky and giant light flowers could be seen there, amazing Farron as he never witnessed a firework before. At first, he thought it was an attack on the town but he couldn’t sense any danger around, so he eventually calmed down although he kept his guard up.

But then another loud sound happened. This time from the alchemy guild’s building.

“Shite...should I help them out?” Farron pondered as he looked at the burning guild house, clutching his swordspear, ready to fight. However, he knew how to keep a cool head and instead looked at this party bracelet. “…But neither Saori nor Tasianna are looking like they are in danger, but…I can feel something is up. What the hell is Davison doing?”

Before the raid happened, Aurora already knew Farron would help them, so Hestia had him join the party so everybody could keep tabs on each other’s status. Gael was the only one who wasn’t part of the party since no one in Aurora knew he would participate.

Farron frowned as he was contemplating on what to do. The building was burning and the loud sound came from the collapsed 2nd floor, where Davison’s office was supposed to be. The building was in shambles; its previous more refined appearance built upon all the wealth and work the previous alchemy guild masters had accrued was gone. It was no longer a place of alchemy and ingenuity for catalysts, but a battlefield.

Farron sighed, “I promised Priscilla not to risk my health as much as possible...this damn curse is making it so hard to fight properly. My scars and age are catching up to me.” Farron clutched his chest, slowly breathing but he couldn’t help but wheeze and sigh deeply. The [Crystallized Lungs] curse turned his lungs hard and insufferable to live with, which Farron was only suppressing with medicinal potions and low physical work.

His fight with the monsters and his spars with Hestia wasn’t too taxing on his body, but he was afraid of battles where he could receive damage. As an A rank adventurer, Farron’s intuition was astute and he knew what he would be getting himself into wouldn’t be a cakewalk. He didn’t know why he was so worried about Davison, but this lingering bad feeling he had of him since the moment they met was gnawing on him.

Duty or family. That was his choice here.

“...Blind acceptance of your duty is a flaw.”

In the end, he decided to step aside, as he knew why he took up the mantle of the guild master of the hunter’s guild. His job as a hunter was to hunt monsters, nothing else. Instead, he did something else. Something that would actually help the raid.

Activating [Gale Steps] once again, Farron sprinted away towards the direction of the lights.

A note from AbyssRaven

Short chapter today.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 15 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 144: Raid Battle: Davison.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #4 her to promote our Patreon. 15 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 15 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until April!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

“Ahh, were those overpriced fools slain, or did they run away like craven thieves?” Standing inside the small hidden room filled with alchemical tools and manatech components, a chubby man was scowling at Gael and me. He wore a richly designed garment, reminiscent of a noble, and he held a long metal staff with a large orb attached to its top. On his hip, a belt equipped with numerous glass vials filled with red, green, purple, and yellow liquids could be seen, giving me the impression he was ready for a battle. There was also an ominous black elixir, which sent a chill down my spine.

After the battle in the hallway, I had my wolves retreat back in my shadow while I psyched myself up with Gael. As a hunter, he wasn’t exactly supposed to be here since hunters were supposed to only hunt monsters, not humans. I didn’t even know that he was planning on participating in this Quest, as we expected that the only outside help we would get would come from Farron, and he was the clean-up unit. Still, any help was appreciated, even if it came from a drunkard.

After we entered Davison’s office, I noticed that Davison wasn’t inside it, but instead was in a side room. The door was open and it revealed Davison frantically stuffing his bag with various items I couldn’t identify, but I knew they had to be important for whatever he did. Regardless, we confronted him.

“...Are you Davison? Guild master of the alchemy guild?” I asked cautiously, trying to buy time in order to analyze the room.

“Ignorance! You come here without even knowing who I am, bitch? You ruined all my plans, took away my support and funding for my experiments, and destroyed my reputation as a guild master, and you have the gall to say to my face that you don’t know who I am?! Insolence!” His face was red like a tomato. He was already angry when we came in, but his rage seemed to have multiplied by the thousands.

I wonder if he called me ‘bitch’ because I was still in my [Humanization (Minor)] form, making me look like a werewolf, or because he just wanted to insult me. Not that it matters.

“Saori, the fatfuck is Davison. Slimy, greasy, Davison, always drinking the finest wine and wearing the finest mana clothes in an attempt to look and act like a noble, despite his ‘lowly’ birth,” Gael answered sarcastically, prompting Davison to grit his teeth.

However, he didn’t let it get to him for too long as he began flaunting himself, bragging like a cartoon villain totally consumed in his own narcissism. “I am Davison. Illustrious senior alchemist and inventor. I was prepared to grant the world technological advancements, but as I expected, the local fief lord is too short-sighted to understand my worth. Fools like him do not deserve the boons from my work.”

“Boon? Have you become deranged?” I replied sarcastically? “What good can you bring when all your experiments revolve around the hunting of fae? It is a crime and an international issue for the Kingdom of Artorias. Have you not heard your ‘experiments’ nearly ravaged an innocent village?”

“Ahhhh, I see, so you were the ones who stopped the invasion of those onnikais and stopped a new dungeon from forming. Wealth of monster materials and ingredients could have been mine, but I see you have a fondness for angering me,” Davison reproached my involvement in the Rashan Village Quest, but his expression seemed to relax as he asked me a question in a more composed tone. “Answer me this, wolf wench. Was the door on the lowest floor open when you destroyed that onnikai? Answer me!”

Did he just ignore the fact he could have caused another war between Artorias and the elves?

Although I was unnerved by his callousness, I still answered to stall time to form a plan of attack. “Do you mean the massive metal gate? Yes, I saw it was open after my party confronted the onnikai army. Now you answer my question, was Baron Teullon complicit in your plan?”

Baron Teullon should be interrogated by the nobles involved with High Bishop Theodore by now, so asking this question wasn’t really needed. I simply said it to buy time. Still it was unfortunate that Davison didn’t take the bait; instead, he began laughing so maniacally it was comical. “Kehehehehe! Good! Good! Brilliant! Hahahahaha! Consider yourself fortunate! Make way, and I shall leave you both alive!”

What?! What is this mood swing? is what I thought when he said that, unable to understand why he was so elated about a door being open. The dwarven gate was an old construction made 2000 years ago and it was used to imprison the remains of a demon or whatever the murals at the ruins were actually depicting. Not even Silva, an elf who had access to the wisdom and knowledge of her long-living kinsmen, knew about this, so how could a human like Davison know anything?

...But what if he does know about this? Does he know about the remains, too? Should I tell him about the fact that Aurora carries those very remains — that black orb — with us in our storage? If he does know about it, what was he planning to do with it?

On second thought, revealing any more information to an enemy was stupid. Saying anything more was just idiotic. However, on the assumption that he did know something about the orb, it would be better to apprehend him already.

“Yeah, sorry, fatsack,” while I was contemplating the meaning for Davison’s improved mood, Gael readied his dagger and scoffed at Davison’s “offer.” “Your whole existence is now a thorn in the eyes of the nobles. Whether you get out of this or not, the Kingdom of Artorias will hunt you down with their ‘birds.’ I may not be a merc anymore, and a hunter isn’t supposed to ‘hunt’ humans and beastmen, but I wouldn’t mind getting some favors for this job. In other words, your head is pretty valuable, fatass.”

Gael was right, we couldn’t let him escape, but the way he worded it was a bit too much for me. “...You need to be brought to justice one way or another. Somebody I know wants to meet you very, very badly.”

And that was when the talking stopped. Davison scoffed at our remarks and immediately took out a vial of dark red liquid. The last time somebody drank a potion right in front of my face, he healed up most of his wounds and was ready to fight again; that person was that rhinoceros-looking bandit chief berserker. It was better to stop any beneficial effects for my enemy.

I dashed forward, dagger ready to interrupt him. “Saori, wait!” Gael shouted, but it was already too late when I heard the cry. Before my dagger pierced Davison’s hand holding the potion, he showed a big, smug smirk as a blue translucent wall appeared and reflected my attack. However, I didn’t sense any danger from it, so I kept my aggression up.

I dived into my shadow and used [Shadow Dash] to reappear from the ceiling. I extended the shadow armament around my feet and used [Shadow Descent], a heavy downward kick.

“Pest! Auracoil!” As if it was voice commanded, a yellow spot on Davison’s clothes visibly shined as a yellow sphere appeared around him. My leg crashed against the shield, but no visible damage could be seen, except for a dent that disappeared the moment I jumped backwards, landing on the table of alchemical tools. I could hear the sound of dropping metal tools and shattering glass vials.

“Tch! Even willing to destroy my belongings, huh? Barbaric beastman,” Davison chided me before pouring the red potion down his throat. He spasmed for a second before his body transformed.

His arteries bloated up in size, to the point I could them protruding from his clothes. His skin began to blacken, turning his white skin into a slate grey, all while his muscle grew in size. He still retained a chubby belly but he now resembled more a mix between a sumo wrestler and a boxer. After his sclera turned black-red, he gave off a haughty laugh, shouting, “The elixir worked! Ahahaha!”

“Let’s test this body out! Die!” Davison then pulled out a cartridge-like object glowing a brilliant blue from inside his robes and began crushing it in his hand.

“Shit! Saori, into your shadow!” Gael, having prepared a [Shadow Dash] in advance, immediately dove into his shadow.

I wasn’t sure what was happening, but the mount of distress in Gael’s voice was enough to override any hesitation I had. As I submerged into the dark, a loud crack resounded above me but I couldn’t see what happened. I traveled through the shadow world to my goal and exited out of my targeted shadow, only to discover that I was free falling. Davison’s office was gone!

What in the-?!

As I had [Air Walk], the danger of falling down wasn’t so prominent anymore but suddenly losing the ground I was standing on was a real shocker. As I looked around in the air, I noticed Gael waving at me — also using [Air Walk] — and then pointing at my surrounding. There was a large hole in the roof where the hidden room was and the floor of the entire 2nd floor seemed to have collapsed, destroying the 1st floor in addition.

There was already a small fire caused by that fire mage loopridae in the hallway, but the roof had caught on fire now too. I had no idea what just happened, but whatever it was, it had to be Davison’s work.

“He crushed an industrial mana battery, the ones dwarves make for their machines. Compared to the standard market stuff, if you break them, the sudden release of all that mana can cause a pretty big explosion. Davison, that suicidal asshole, probably blew himself up into chunks of meat,” Gael words made sense to me, evident of the surrounding. “He probably thought the runes on his clothes would save him, but I don’t think even high-quality runes like [Auracoil] can protect you from something like a large explosion at point-blank.”

So that was a rune. Was that blue shield also a rune?

Hestia did mention Farron using runes in their sparring rounds, but I personally never witnessed it happening, so I was ignorant of how runes actually worked in practice. How interesting that small symbols fueled by mana could create such magical effects… well, that is how spells work, now that I think about it.

“Ahahahaha!” in the midst of this ruined building, a maniacal laugh pierced through the dust clouds, reaching my ears and bringing me back to reality. “Excellent! Excellent! I have overcome human limitations!”

Before, Davison had the appearance of a rich, refined, and cultured man, despite being overweight. Now, similar to his guild building, his appearance was in tatters, completely unrecognizable from before. His clothes were ripped and singed apart, revealing his chest and stomach. There, an orb was lodged into his chest with a marine-blue slime keeping it in place, slowly growing over it. He wasn’t holding his staff anymore and his left forearm, the one holding the mana battery, was blown up into a bloody mess.

“Regeneration-rate is astounding. Pain reception is numbed to tolerable levels even after removing my heart. Arm is regenerating to its former form, overcoming the limitations of the pathetic ‘white grace’ of that imcompetant Aurena. Kehehehek, holy magic belongs in the past. Alchemy is truly superior! It is the future!” he roared to the sky, as if he was announcing the results of his actions. “The Law of Equivalent Exchange. For the acquisition of such power, something must be given in exchange. Sacrifices must be made, otherwise, stagnation will occur. The human race cannot accept being content with being the weakest of the humanoids. Relying only on the System isn’t enough!”

He then pointed his finger at us and declared, “For ruining my plans and not accepting my good graces, I shall return the favor. An eye for an eye. You two shall be the test for how powerful this potion and catalyst combination is! Hardened earth, pierce my opposition! Earthen Spears!”

Earth Mage!

Magic circles appeared on the ground floor of the building and, the moment they activated, the wooden floor splintered into fragments as giant rock spears flew at me. Gael and I dodge them as if we were dancing, causing Davison to launch another set of spells. Seeing as he could only use one spell at a time, he shouldn’t have [Multi-Cast]; however, he was launching spells as if he had no issues with mana.

“Hey, Saori,” Gael called me out as a spear flew by his face. “Don’t know about you, but I don’t have the mana pool of a mage, so I can’t keep this up. You have a plan?”

To be honest, after the battle from before, I was afraid of arcane corruption, so I wanted to avoid more flashy attacks like the one before. Still, we were sitting ducks if we stayed up here. [Air Walk], although useful, still consumed annoying amounts of mana and stamina when kept up. We had to stop now, otherwise we would run ourselves dry.

“Here!” taking out one of Hestia’s holy bombs, I threw it with full force at Davison. He simply smiled and accepted the attack as if it was nothing, being burned under a coat of white flames after the bomb exploded.

“Argh! Ahhh, I can feel the pain! Ahahaha, who is the creator of such a powerful bomb? I must learn more of it, dissect its function!” Davison howled, not stopping his assault despite it looking like his body was melting.

I clicked my tongue and began using [Just Blink] as I avoided his attacks. The slight delay where he could acknowledge my presence was enough for him to ruin his aim. Dashing through the air by stomping on it, I eventually reached Davison’s burnt face and slashed with my shadow covered tanto. The feeling of lacerating flesh and sliced bone shook in my hand while my ears heard the sound of cut spongy muscles. I was sure of my aim.

“Huh?!” Suddenly, my [Foresight] warned me of Davison grabbing me, but, before I could dodge away, he somehow managed to catch me.

As I turned my head around, I saw Davison gurgling blood while there were shards of glass inside his mouth and a green liquid was dripping from his mouth. His right hand was holding his throat. It was finely divided and missing two fingers, while his throat had a bleeding deep gash. “Gurgh, dead-gurgh-ly slash. Regene-garghg-ration won’t work if I di-grack-e in one hit. I should have dran-gurgurgh-k that agility potion earlier. I am strong-gruck-er now, but I still possess the feeble flesh of a human. I do not have the fur and feathers of beastmen, nor the stoneskin of dwarves. What is your Strength that you are able to pierce my improved Vitality? I need to know.”

His body was slumped, about to fall down, but he seemed to have stopped his fall while using that chance to grab my leg with his barely re-grown left hand. It was hard to hear through his gurgles, but I believe he mentioned he drank an agility potion? When did that happen? Was his increased speed because of that potion? Still, the distance between him and me was close enough that any increase of speed would work.

Davison then pulled on my leg, tripping me, and began dragging me on the rough floor. My Strength and Vitality didn’t translate into weight, meaning the difference in our build made it easy for him to haul me around like a ragdoll. He then raised me up and was about to swing me down onto the ground, but that is when my shadow churned.

“““Grack!!!””” Three massive garms, all with fury in their eyes, jumped out of my shadow and began tearing Davison’s newly regrown arm. He still held onto me well, but with the help of my garms, I was able to start hacking onto his arm with my dagger.

“Miss Saori! Duck!” a female voice called out to me, which I obeyed without delay.

Out of nowhere, a beautiful ice sword pierced Davison’s arm, severing it and freeing me. For a split second, I managed to see Tasianna in her fairy form sitting on the sword and shooting shrapnel-sized ice spikes at Davison’s face, sending him reeling back.

“Daviiiiiiiiissooooooooon!” Kiiro, who was inside Tasianna’s orb, screeched out as Tasianna retreated back with me.

“Thank you, Tasianna,” I thanked Tasianna who transformed back into her elven-fairy hybrid, the form with her fairy wings.

[“Alpha, call us sooner, next time!”]

[“Alpha’s safety comes first.”]

Uno and Song chastised my action of telling them telepathically to hold back while Davison was dragging my body around, saying that they should attack when the moment was right. I was thankful they were worried about me, but being too overprotective was an issue. The minor scratches on my face were already gone the moment Hestia’s [Sanctified Blaze] activated.

[“Enough! Focus on the fight. Do you three not remember how well I fought against you? Do not patronize me!”] I silenced their remarks.

“Daaaaaviiiiisoooon!Youuuuuu wiiillll paaaaay! Youuuu willll paayy with yourrr life! Die! Die!!” Kiiro once again shouted hysterically, and when I looked at Tasianna’s determined eyes, I could already guess that what they found in the basement wasn’t pleasant.

They immediately began attacking without speaking anymore with me. Tasianna threw her ice sword in the air and touched the bright blue orb where its crossguard was supposed to be. With a single touch, cyan colored mana began to crystalize into ice as she created another sword with it, all while using [Torrential Rain] to barrage Davison’s damaged body with water projectiles, slowly freezing him with the help of her floating ice spikes.

“Argh, such a shame, my arm is severed once again,” Davison spoke calmly, despite his bloody appearance. He then took out a yellow potion before crushing the glass vial in his mouth, completely abandoning drinking it to gain the potion’s effect. “Protect me, oh, Mother of Earth. I ask of you a safeguard of rocks, your blessing to your faithful. Stone Armor.!”

As Davison’s insane regeneration was kicking in, the earth began covering up his body as the stone fragments quickly hardened and grew in size, eventually transforming into sturdy armor. He honestly looked like a golem monster now.

Davison’s armor was thick enough that Tasianna’s ice spike and [Torrential Rain] had no effect on it, prompting the fairy to use [Aqua Beam], a water beam similar to a high-pressure water cutter. As expected, the attack managed to drill a hole into Davison’s body, but only after a period of resistance; however, she couldn’t continue her attack when Davison launched another earth spell at us.

While Tasianna was chugging down a mana potion, I began to enact my plan. I wasn’t idling while watching my friend fight, after all. As Davison was ready to shoot his next spell at us, I touched my shadow and a magic circle appeared.

“Smoky Haze.” My shadow exploded, not in fire, but in smoke, covering Tasianna, my garms, and me in it. It obstructed all sources of light, preventing anybody from seeing us inside.

Smoky Haze

Conjure up the shadow of the user to create a veil of black fog that rejects any sources of light, internal and external. While in effect, the user will stay shadowless until the fog is recalled back into their shadow. The fog can be used as an alternative to a shadow for the use of dark elemental spells. The fog is weak to holy elemental magic and allows holy elemental light sources to shine inside it. While shadowless, the user will become extremely susceptible to holy elemental attacks

I felt pretty annoyed after losing my first custom spell [Shadow Pack], so I decided to work on a new custom spell during my free time, which admittedly was sparse. Like a shinobi’s smoke bomb, I wanted a spell that enabled me to hide from somebody’s vision, allowing me either to launch a surprise attack or escape when I needed to. Additionally, as this was Peolynca, I wanted it to compliment my spells, skills, and newly gained garms.

As a result, I used my shadow to create an area where no light can pass through. At first, I thought it wouldn’t work, since it made no sense from a physics standpoint, but then I remembered I was a history teacher reborn into the body of a wolf in a world filled with magic and I threw that idea out of the window. If I could imagine it, then it will work.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get rid of the increased holy weakness from using the spell, as I didn’t understand why losing my shadow temporarily would cause such a side-effect. Still, it worked and it synergized well with my garms. In an area where I couldn’t get rid of all light sources, this spell was my ace-in-the-hole.

Heat Vision activate.

Sensory skills other than sight could still detect me inside this cloud if I was careless, so having both advanced stealth skills — [Silence] and [Odorless] — was necessary to use this spell well. As I too was robbed of my vision, I needed to use [Detection Sensor] to pinpoint the location of my enemy while using [Heat Vision] to attack at critical spots. As Davison was already engulfed by the fog, having those two skills helped tremendously.

“Robbing my sight? Well, I believe that is how assassins and arcane tricksters fight, so I cannot blame you too much. You wouldn’t mind if I made some fire, no?” Davison shouted in the pitch-black, too lax for somebody in this situation. Two explosions could be heard, both probably caused by bombs. My vision was able to detect heat sources similar in size to fire, so I wasn’t confused by this attack.

“Huh?! What in the? Why is there no light after my fire bombs exploded? Damnit, is this a spell?! Tch, would a wisdom or a vision potion work in this situation?” he mumbled before becoming silent, probably aware I could hear him. Unfortunately for him, I didn’t need sound to attack.

Silence.

Silence.

Silence so deafening.

“Grwoooh!” And then the wolves hunt.

“Huh? What?!” Davison cried out as Uno and Song grabbed onto his right arm from within the shadow fog, pulling and unbalancing him. Sarasa then used this moment to tie his body, binding and immobilizing the alchemist, despite the increase in strength from his transformation. As long as mana flowed through those threads, they cannot be ripped apart that easily. And my wolves know that.

“Argh! I can’t tear off these bindings?! What are they made of, I wonder?! Argh, Strength potion, no, two Strengths!” Davison’s arm was still severed and hasn’t regenerated yet but he didn’t need it, as the orb lodged into his chest began creating that familiar slime to to replace his arm, helping him grab two potions to throw into his mouth. “Ahhhh! Power! Now, I will-Urgh!!! What?! What is this?!”

Yes, maybe if my garms were still grabbing on them he would be able to fling them with his strength alone. However, what if he was in a tug-of-war with somebody with higher Strength where weight didn’t matter that much? The small peak I took of his status board convinced me that Davison is simply a normal middle-aged mage-alchemist. In other words, outside his transformation and potions, his stats were still mediocre compared to mine. He needed potions to close the gap.

Still, it wasn’t enough.

Holding onto my threads, I kept Davison in a bind while my wolves continued wrapping my threads on him. Whenever he tried to use his spells, my garms used their [Telepathy] to attack him mentally in order to interrupt his focus and ability to cast spells. It was a trick Hestia told me that garms and wargs used during hunts, an experience she gained after fighting my garm family.

Eventually, he couldn’t move anymore, and that was when I activated my [Telepathy].

[“I can see you. Take him down, Tasianna!”] I declared, able to see Tasianna flying above.

[“Thank you.”] she replied quietly, before I dispersed my [Smoky Haze], bringing back the light and revealing a small army of ice daggers, all descending down onto Davison.

For the first time since we fought, he had an expression of distress. The daggers tore through his armor of rocks, piercing his limbs, organs, and finally the orb in his chest. Davison was screaming loudly, not in pain, but in rage, insulting us as he noticed that, while he could break through the frozen daggers, more would simply pierce him after one was removed.

His body turned into a pincushion before he fell onto his knees, unable to resist anymore. Tasianna, taking this as a sign of our victory, grabbed her ice sword with her orb and landed before walking towards Davison.

“I saw everything in the basement. You scum, bastard, devil! How could a sentient being like you be so devoid of any sense of empathy for other lifeforms! How can you keep those fae in those cages, only to torture them again an again in a cycle where only death can break it!” Tasianna screamed, punching Davison in his face, causing him to fall over. The punch seemed to have hurt her fist, as it trembled a bit, but it was all ignored in her fury. “I have heard enough from Miss Saori. That orb in your chest? Junk. Destroyed. The faefolk inside is free. Your potion you were so proud of? Defeated. Your monstrous form is useless before my swords. Before you depart to Goddess Ilsaphone, I hope you will etch this into your soul: Your life was worthless and meaningless.”

She then let her sword melt and took a hold of her catalyst. “Kiiro, it’s your turn. The fiend isn’t dead yet. Do what you wanted to do.”

“Kiehiehiehiehie...thank you.” Kiiro’s laugh was reminiscent of his onnikai days, but those last words were strangely calm, as if he was at peace. However, that immediately disappeared as blue slime grew out of the orb, forming into a dagger. “...You have no idea how long I have waited for this, human. All that time inside that basement. Then the one year you gave me to mull over how I would like to cripple you, crush you, eviscerate you. Your death was all I could think of, Davison! So, how would you imagine me taking revenge now that I heard you cannot feel any pain?”

The orb trembled for a moment before continuing, “...I want to rip you apart, but my current strength does not allow me so. Still, before you die, I will somehow inflict you great pain. Your devil’s project means the world to you? Then I will do what I must to cause your to scream in agony. I will find my catharsis.”

Should I feel bad for him? The old Saori would, but cadejo Saori couldn’t care less. It is a weird conundrum which I am not happy about.

While I was sighing at my own trivial problems, Kiiro neared Davison.

And that was when Davison raised his head. The vial with the pitch-black liquid was inside his mouth.

A crack.

And the horror was born.

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Chapter 145: The Terror of Firwood.

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“KiiiiiiiiiARRRRRGRHHHHH!!!!”

“Wh-What is happening?!” Tasianna cried out, stepping back as she instinctively raised her hands towards the scream of pain.

A chill went down my spine; it felt like time was slowing down as my mind was overwhelmed by the sheer pressure emitting from Davison’s wailing body. The ice daggers stuck in his body were starting to shatter, cracking under the unnatural twitching. “Tasianna! Kill him! Kill him already!”

Kiiro and Tasianna wanted to gloat. Their emotions were running wild and they wanted to see Davison suffer as much as possible.

I should have said something. The events in the basement probably shook Tasianna too much. Her behavioral change is exactly what I was afraid of seeing, but I didn’t respond to it well enough!

“Tch, Kiiro! Back!” With one hand Tasianna recalled her catalyst like a puppeteer, while with the other, she raised it up and then slammed it down like a blade. Like a hail of arrows, daggers of ice descended onto Davison’s blackening body, battering his bloodied body and tearing chunks of flesh off.

However, none of that mattered. Davison, with the voice of a beast, cast [Earth Wall] and erected a tall wall of hardened rock, buying Davison’s body enough time to break off the daggers stuck in him and let his flesh regenerate at an astounding rate. It was as if healing magic was cast on him.

He didn’t stay on the defensive for long though, as spears of rocks and earthen balls fended the daggers away while also forcing Tasianna, my wolves, and I to back off. I threw some bombs at him, but an earth wall appeared immediately as if he was anticipating my attack. That was when his assault became more fierce.

“All my daggers are gone,” Tasianna announced with a frown, chugging down a dragorade to recover her expended mana before touching her sword, probably to take the mana stored in her catalyst. She then cast [Frozen Shield] to block the incoming attacks.

At this time, I left Tasianna behind and entered a shadow for [Shadow Dash]. Dark magic had a weakness where a majority of its spells required me to visually confirm a targeted shadow to use it for any spells, even [Shadow Dash]. Using [Shadow Snake], which allowed me to look through its eyes, allows me to use spells remotely, although if the distance between the shadow and me was too long, I couldn’t use [Shadow Dash] on it.

As Davison was blocking my sight with those [Earth Wall]s, I had to dash to his flanks with my wolves. And that is when I saw his disfigured form.

If his appearance was distinguishable before, then now it was as if Davison was an entirely different person. His body was completely black-red, with no hint of his formerly white skin. Not only did he grow in height, but the other aspects of his body also transformed.His muscles became as thick as a boxer in the heavier weight classes.

His hair, formerly yellow-brown, was now black while bone-like horns grew out of the side of his face, framing it. At his waist, tentacle-like appendages grew out until they formed something similar to a half-skirt, while his legs grew carapace armor similar to a knight’s. His upper body was still bare, leaving the bloated belly as the only thing recognizable from the former Davison.

“RaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrARRRRGHHH!” His roar, similar to a wind blast, forced me to retreat back into my shadow, my instincts telling me to back off at any cost. Despite not giving them any orders, it seemed that my wolves also felt the pressure from Davison’s roar, as they backed off, too and returned to Tasianna with me.

While I wiped the cold sweat from my forehead, another massive roar thundered. The air felt hard to breathe, taking multiple tries to fill my lungs up with oxygen, straining my nerves and mind. My mouth felt dry, but I couldn’t stop myself from swallowing what little saliva I had.

I squeezed my daggers as a System message confirmed my suspicion.

[Fear (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa]

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Fear Resistance Lv. 1] evolved into [Fear Resistance Lv. 2]

I’m scared.

“Kehehehek.” Cackling from a deep, hoarse voice encroached my ears like insects, causing my hairs to stand up.

A hand so large it could wrap around my head touched the top of the [Earth Wall] before a horned head appeared — Davison’s. He managed to break out of my mana threads and stood up, nearly as tall as a lamp post. His mouth contorted into a grin, baring deformed teeth and canines a dentist would recommend removing as soon as possible. “How blissful. This power. Surging through my veins. How tragic. To use it. Here before the dogs of Greenveil.”

Davison’s second makeover didn’t stop there. His hands were now protected by bone-like gauntlets while the orb lodged in his chest was now covered up in red slime, pulsating like a heart.

“Creators of problems. You are. To my plans and pride. Insignificant. You are. Before the plans of my master,” Davison spoke in cut-out sentences. “You will die. I announce. Stop the loopabits before they evolve into loopriszars.” Then he threw a chunk of wall at us.

Tasianna and I separated, dodging in opposite directions. My [Foresight] was warning me of another projectile, to which I responded by using [Dark Tendrils] to deflect the massive wall chunk to the side. It flew past me, bouncing on the floor before tearing another piece of the guild building’s wall away.

Magic circles began appearing again, this time with a higher intensity, as it looked like the [Earthen Spear]s were larger. Those giant spears pierced through the air, drilling through the ground as if they were butter, stopping only after stopping only after burying half their length in the ground.

Tasianna and I returned fire with our own ranged spells, but even though all of them hit Davison, none of them seemed to have fazed him. As if his every cell was multiplying each second, his wounds would simply disappear and his body would grow back the damaged flesh, leaving not even a scar behind. His strong bones with his heightened Vitality meant Tasianna’s ice daggers couldn’t cut his limbs off now. Davison laughed at our feeble attempts before charging towards Tasianna.

His Strength, Intelligence, Vitality, Wisdom, and now even his Agility improved?!

Using his massive bone gauntlets, Davison smashed the grounds while chanting a spell. The ground exploded in tiny fragments — wooden and stone — pushing Tasianna into the air to avoid the shockwave. A stone spear shot out from the crater, tearing through her [Frozen Shield] before Davison followed up with a fast-moving [Rock Bullet].

“Arghk!” Tasianna screamed as the bullet penetrated deep into her leg; however, even injured she didn’t give up the chance for a counter. Her ice sword flew and pierced his left arm, twisting it in the process before leaving by cutting downward. Davison’s arm wasn’t severed, but it looked unusable.

“Useless,” he commented, bending his knees a bit before jumping up and grabbing Tasianna by her leg. “Ahhh, I heard fairies can use transformation skills too. What a powerful fairy you must be. Perhaps? You will be the one to finalize my potion? Huh?”

White flames erupted from Tasianna’s wound, not to heal it since a stone was still stuck inside, but to attack Davison. “Argh!” he screamed, letting go of Tasianna as if he touched a hot pan. “You can use that white flame?! How? Were you the one who created those white flame bombs? You have made me more interested in you, fae! Argh!”

Davison began struggling, moving his arms behind his back to squash the source of his distress — me. After coating my tanto with one of the corrosive toxins, I sneaked behind Davison and pierced his nape. I continued hanging onto him to continue applying the toxin using my claw guards, stabbing him over and over again. Using the toxin that damaged the mana paths, the same I used on the onnikai garms, I intended to debilitate and slow Davison down.

I noticed when I attacked him just now, but his Vitality truly did increase significantly after this transformation. My tanto couldn’t cut through his neck completely, making me unsure if I had enough Strength to decapitate him. This was while I was in my [Humanization (Minor)] form.

[“Uno, Song, Sarasa. Now!”] I commanded my wolves, who jumped out of Davison’s shadow. Song and Sarasa bit his heel while Uno targeted his, ahem, more vulnerable and soft spot.

“Ihieuck!” Davison groaned, stunning him for a second as he moved his knees a bit closer together. Song and Sarasa held onto his heels but, due to the carapace covering his legs, they were having trouble biting through it. I saw them wince the moment blood came from their gums. Meanwhile, Uno, who had Davison’s, uh, precious under control, was scratching his legs to apply the toxin coating his claws.

I let go of my tanto, activated my [Mana Weave] skill, and used the newly produced threads to wrap them around Davison’s throat. I stepped on his back and began pulling the threads, all while the toxic slime was oozing down from my claws, soaking my threads and, as a consequence, his throat.

“Arghhhh! What is this poison!?” he shouted while trying to catch me, but I was able to stay nimble and used his larger size by tip-toeing around his shoulders and arms. It also helped that his left arm still hadn’t regenerated yet, so I only had to deal with evading one hand. “Fuck! Hardened earth, pierce my opposition! Earthen-Guarck!”

As he was about to cast another spell, Davison coughed up some blood, interrupting his cast. Him using any spells while the toxin was inside his body really helped me.

“Kehek. A mana venom. I see. It ravages my body, but I will heal. I will live,” Davison said, staring at me from the corner of his eye while showing his unnatural teeth.

Keuk! That’s not good for my heart

“No magic. But, magic isn’t needed. This body isn’t restricted. To that concept anymore.” Davison then began bending his body backward, making it hard for me to keep standing firmly on him. As I was repositioning my feet, his tentacle half-skirt suddenly split themselves back into individual appendages and attacked my garms.

Two tentacles wrapped around Song’s and Sarasa’s neck, another two attacked me, and the last four caught Uno, prying him off Davison. And then he caught me with his hand. “Got you,” he said in his eerie voice before removing me from his back and slamming me face-first on the ground.

Instead of continuing his attack on me, he focused on Uno. He punched the poor garm onto the ground and then slapped him across the battlefield. Song and Sarasa were being choked by Davison’s tentacles and were easily removed from his legs. I couldn’t let him continue doing this to my garms.

[Uno! Rest for now!]

Through [Shadow Pack] I was able to confirm Uno’s survival. I wasn’t able to see his exact Health, but since the number of my shadow beasts didn’t decrease, I knew he wasn’t dead. It was just inconvenient that I couldn’t see how much damage he accrued.

As white flames began healing me, I slipped back into the shadow world and jumped out of Davison’s shadow, but he anticipated my move. I narrowly managed to sidestep his attacks thanks to my skills, but it was still a close call. As I was about to step back to recover my posture, an ice sword flew in to intervene against Davison’s next attack.

“Annoying fly!” The sword aimed for the patch of red slime on his chest, but couldn’t pierce it as he swerved his body. This gave me the chance to cast [Dark Tendrils] underneath Davison, which I used to close the distance between me and my garms. Using my tanto and one of my daggers, I severed the two tentacles holding my garms and had them flee back into a shadow.

“Umbral Pendulum! Claws of Darkness!” Three claws materialized from shadows and raked into Davison’s stomach while a black bladed pendulum swung down from the half-destroyed ceiling. Davison clicked his tongue when he noticed Tasianna’s ice sword was coming at him once again. An ice sword was aiming for his chest while a giant raven-black construct aimed to rend him in half.

Davison couldn’t move much with the [Claws of Darkness] stuck in his stomach, but he could move enough so that the pendulum could only hack off his already destroyed left arm, saving the rest of his body. Then, before the sword could stab him, he grabbed it perfectly around the orb.

“Daaaaavisssssonnnn!” Kiiro screamed, struggling in vain to break free of Davison’s grip.

“Ahhhh, I remember you. This catalyst. Fae help fae, huh? A shame to break. A good orb...and mana source.” Davison’s muscles grew in size as he strained his hand; however, he couldn’t fully commit to it as Tasianna sent a barrage of ice daggers at him. The slime of his chest suddenly moved, multiplying itself around his left shoulder to grow a temporary slime arm, which he used to absorb the daggers. They stuck on him but, as it wasn’t actual flesh, he ignored them and turned his attention back to Kiiro.

“Damn you, Daaaavison!” Kiiro screamed as Davison tightened his grip. The ice sword had broken and Kiiro was desperately trying to form something using its own mana, but it was too late for that.

Whatever my opinion of Kiiro was, it wasn’t important at this moment. The catalyst he currently resides in is Tasianna’s; not only that, but it was also blessed by Zephira herself. Such a precious tool was irreplaceable, especially when something inside of it was mine. Quatre, the fourth onnikai garm, was waiting for me to level up [Shadow Pack] so he could join me. I had to stop Davison from destroying it.

After evading Davison’s tentacles, I dived into a shadow and reappeared in front of him, tanto and knives ready. But, I wasn’t fast enough. I could hear a crack...and then a wind storm exploded.

“Griiiiargh!”

“What?! Argh!”

“Urgh!”

The moment cracks appeared around the orb, Kiiro screamed and a wind explosion happened, pushing everything in the orb’s vicinity away. As I was recovering from the pushback, I quickly understood that it had to be due to Zephira’s blessing.

“Kiiro!” Tasianna, as the only one who wasn’t affected by the gale wind, swooped in and picked her catalyst before retreating. “Kiiro! Answer me!”

“Quatre! Are you alright?!”

“Urgh,” before we could get an answer from the spirit, Davison stood back up. “Surprises. Surprises. Always something new. I cannot deal a clean. Blow. Cheating death.” The slime in Davison’s left shoulder retreated back to his chest, revealing that his left arm was slowly regrowing. He held onto it, groaned and strained it, and the regeneration spiked where the arm instantly regrew back to its former form.

…What is this crap…

He did some arm exercises with his new arm before tearing a piece of the slime on his chest, throwing it away like a piece of wet cloth. “Filtering. There was a lot of that toxin. Deadly for a normal person. Would corrode my heart and mana paths. Hmm. Yes, a very deadly anti-mage toxin.” He then invoked a magic circle but immediately canceled it, looking disappointed. “Damage is very severe. Must study it later. How different it is. To other toxins.”

His focus wasn’t on the fight right now, he was looking at the surroundings with the eye of an alchemist — a scientist. Inspecting his body, the corrosive toxin, and the slime on his chest. The curiosity of an intellectual had overtaken him.

His mouth curved into a crescent moon. “Anger and annoyance. You brought me. New Experience. You brought me, too. Proper dissection and dismantling. Is a must. Now, what surprises will I find.”

“How about an explosive surprise?”

Huh? That voice?

From underneath Davison’s shadow, a man suddenly jumped out. He slapped both of Davison’s legs before returning back into his shadow. The spots where he touched them turned red before they exploded in a fiery burst, causing Davison to fall down.

“Aurgh!” Davison groaned.

“How about another?! Gale Steps!” The man jumped out of another shadow, accelerated his steps before slapping Davison’s chest and head, and then retreated. The exact same thing happened again, the spots grew red and they exploded.

“Gael?!” I called the man out as he appeared before us.

“Sorry, sorry, I thought bringing some hard-hitting stuff would be better than my measly spells and daggers. Sorry for leaving the heavy-lifting to you two ladies,” he said with a wink.

The last time I saw Gael was after Davison used his first potion to transform into his less radical form. We were standing in the air with [Air Walk] after he detonated a bomb, causing the whole building to collapse. I did wonder where he was during the whole fight, but I didn’t give it too much thought after the fight intensified and took my full attention.

“Tch, hope you girls had enough time to rest from that. Cause I don’t think those explosion runes actually did enough to kill that fatass.” Gael said before producing some bombs from his pouch.

Davison’s figure appeared from the pyre, walking towards us slowly. Once his appearance was revealed, the damage caused by the runes was shown. The carapace on his legs was broken, most of the slime was gone and a cracked orb, which was caused by Tasianna before his current iteration, was shown lodged in his chest, and cracked horns were framing a now scarred face. However, the swagger that he was walking with showed he didn’t care too much about it.

“Damnit! Torrential Rain!” A hail of water droplets barraged Davison’s body, slowing his advance only by a little. Tasianna then followed it up with [Icicle Gust], slicing his body with ice shards while freezing the water on his body. “Miss Saori!”

“Right.” I took in a deep breath before sprinting towards Davison. “Humanization!”

Mana mist escaped from my body and in the next moment, I found myself standing on four legs. A loud “Awroooooo” escaped my mouth and I cast [Dark Tendrils] on my shadow armor, producing three appendages to grab my tanto and two daggers, holding them around me. Once I closed the distance between Davison and me, [Smoky Haze] was cast once more, turning my shadow into a fog of darkness, consuming the both of us.

[“Uno, Song, Sarasa. Wolf Hunt!”] After some time for them to recover, my garms once again joined the battle. Uno was still unsteady from the previous blow, but it seems adrenaline and his hunting fervor were keeping him on his feet. The title [Pack Leader] gave my garms a 5% increase in their Strength and Intelligence, but it sadly doesn’t provide them with any defensive stats or additional Health.

In the shadow of my fog, Davison’s body was slowly freezing, giving me one last chance to end this. As my garms and I circled around Davison like the pack of wolves we were, I threw various mana threads to my garms. While I did so, I noticed two bombs entered my fog and exploded on Davison’s head, causing him to fall on his knees.

With a commanding “Awrooo,” my garms went into action. Like a storm, my wolves used the fog to its maximum potential by using [Shadow Dash], attacking and tearing pieces of Davison from every angle conceivable, all while wrapping mana threads around him and activating the elemental threads. Fire, wind, water, ice, holy, lava, lightning, dark. Every element we had thread for was used to ravage through Davison’s body.

I then went into action. Similar to my previous stunt, I was using [Shadow Dash] freely and turned myself into a speedster in the progress. The tendrils holding onto my daggers and tanto twirled in a frenzy, cutting through Davison’s flesh and armor with ebony blades. If somebody could see this scene, they would describe it as multiple black shadows dashing around while two streaks of red mist streamed around like a tornado.

Davison was turning into mincemeat, a bloody pile of mangled bones. The toxin he removed before was being reinjected into him, to the point that his bloodstream was probably more corrosive toxin than blood at this point.

He will not live.

I then used his body as a springboard, jumping up into the air for my final attack.

Abyssal Bomb.

<Abyssal Bomb: A chaotic bomb of dark mana, concentrated into a too-small vessel. This chaotic power seeks to destroy anything standing before the user, dealing only a minuscule amount of damage to the user, but the full brunt to anybody caught in the explosion. The power of darkness will ignore all mana-based and runic-based shields, dealing additional damage towards holy elemental beings and constructs>

A ball of pressurized tenebrous mana was forming inside my mouth. The moment it was done charging, [Dark Tendrils] grew from the ground and pulled me towards Davison. I placed the bomb inside his chest before retreating with my garms to a safe distance. At my signal, the bomb detonated.

A black explosion appeared, eclipsing my entire [Smoky Haze] in size and taking a big chunk out of the final wall support for the guild, causing the whole building to collapse.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa] has risen from [Level 25] to [Level 27]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 1200 skill points

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Shadow Pack Lv. 2] [Enhanced Mana Capacity Lv. 3] [Enhanced Intelligence Enforcement Lv. 3] [Lifetaker Lv. 4] gained

[Exhaustion (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa]

[Humanization (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa]

Urgh! Damnit…

Leveling up recovered Health and Mana but, unfortunately, it didn’t restore Stamina. It seems like I mismanaged my resources and now I was out of Stamina. What a mistake. However, I couldn’t dwell too much on it, as I needed to do something else. Something important.

“Quatre! I accept you as my shadow beast! Come and join my pack!”

Your Pack has grown by one individual. New pack member was accepted while in a terrible condition. The assimilation period will be prolonged to recover damage and assimilate them into a new body for a proper shape. Assimilation: -30% Individual: Darkness Garm

He was damaged! Then what does that mean for Kiiro?

My [Smoky Haze] deactivated after the bomb was detonated, revealing the now scorched body of Davison. His body was black as charcoal and a gaping hole could be seen where his heart and orb should have been. He was motionless, showing no movements. He was dead, as the System confirmed with my level up.

Relieved to see that, I wanted to walk over towards Tasianna, who was speaking with her orb frantically; however, I stumbled on the way over.

“Woah, there!” Gael caught me, surprised to see me nearly fall. “Stamina? Yeah, I can understand that. Here, lean on my shoulders for now.”

“Thank you...but you aren’t breathing any better. And you hardly participated in this fight,” I said, pointing out his ragged breathing in a joking manner.

“Come on, give me a break. I honestly haven’t fought in a long time, you know. Muscle memory helps a lot, yeah, but drinking and sitting on a couch while listening to little birds chirping doesn’t do much for your Stamina,” he said with a self-deprecating chuckle before showing me a wink.

When we reached Tasianna, she looked mournful as she inspected the orb. “Kiiro is not answering, Miss Saori…It is not even taking my mana to recover. Kiiro, can you hear me? Davison is dead. The madman is dead. Your vengeance was fulfilled...” She didn’t shed any tears, but her sad expression told me she could at any time. Was she holding her tears in since Kiiro was practically a stranger to us, never revealing any more of its history and life before it met Davison? The alliance we formed to defeat Davison was over, so it should find peace.

However, were we too late? The cracking of Tasianna’s catalyst damaged Quatre, so how much was Kiiro affected? It wouldn’t speak.

“...Alive.”

“GooooooOOOOOOONNNNNN!!!!” It was a bestial cry, feral and mad, devoid of any humanity or semblance of reason. The sound quaked our very earth.

I hesitated but I turned my head anyway.

The mangled carcass rose. His arms and legs had regrown, but now they were so deformed that I couldn’t find a reason for their existence. They bloated up into eldritch-like forms as tentacles around his hips grew or shrunk in size, wiggling around as if they had a life of their own. The horns on his head grew in size despite the fact his skull fell apart, revealing a burnt brain. His eyes were abyss black, no more showing any signs of life or intelligence.

Davison rose.

“GoooOOOOOOOONNNNNN!!!”

He rose back up as a creature of nightmares. A creature of eldritch fantasy. A creature… that I remembered seeing before.

The troll shaman!

“You have to be kidding me!” I shouted, exhausted. I have had enough.

“You tell me! Why the fuck is that fatfuck still alive! We blew his brain and heart out! Fucking undead!” Gael cried out. “Shit! We need a priest! We need to bring a priest over here and purify that fucking undead!”

“Daaa....aaaaviii...ssooooooonnnnn! Ugargh…,” Kiiro screamed as it noticed Davison’s rising body, however, Tasianna pulled it back. Not letting go as she looked at me.

“Miss Saori, we need to go! We can’t fight while you’re in this state! Your skin is too purple for you to fight!”

The moment Tasianna said that, a piercing headache appeared. I moaned in pain as I looked at my arms, noticing a lack of healthy pink. They were mostly purple, or blue, a sign that arcane corruption was almost at its peak. Thankfully, I could keep up my [Humanization], as I finally could maintain it without draining my mana every second, but using any other spell was dangerous.

With [Exhaustion] and [Arcane Corruption] right over the corner, continuing this fight was irresponsible. Davison was technically dead, even if his mindless, shambling corpse still remained. My role was done. I’m not willing to continue fighting this creature anymore, especially with my memories of that troll shaman intact in my head.

And that was when I heard music.

“In my purgatory, I make the devil cry ♫

In Hellfire ♫

All you hear are his screams, begging to be released ♫

It’s Music ♫”

[Music Resonation (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa]

I turned around.

A girl in a colorful dress, so unsuitable for the battlefield, was walking towards us. She was singing with closed eyes as her crimson scales were flaring up in flames. Her chest, a bright yellow-red shone like a flashlight.

“...We’ll leave the rest to you, Hestia. Send him to hell.”

She stopped singing for a moment, opened her eyes, and showed us a thumbs up, before speaking optimistically, “Leave it to me! Get a well-earned rest, you three! It is time for the finale of the night.”

“GooooooOOONNNN!!!” Davison cried out and charged at us; however, the earth rumbled and began trapping him, holding him back as he struggled to destroy the ever-growing stone constructs.

We left the area and the moment we did, the music began anew. An arena of fire took shape, trapping the corpse in a cage with the dragon.

From outside, I could see Hestia’s scales and hair flare-up, switching from their iconic crimson to a bright yellow-red similar to the bright solar core in her chest. Her eyes radiated with power, shining through the darkness of the night like torches.

“Solar Beam.”

The flames erupted, every scales’ gap had flames coming out of them, making it look like Hestia was set on fire. It only took a few seconds before their color changed to white. That was when a beam of pure white fire shot out of Hestia’s mouth and clashed against Davison. It was blinding, as if I was looking at the sun, but I could still see what was happening by straining my eyes a bit.

Davison’s flesh was melting, no, even the surrounding rubble was melting. The rock constructs, the rubble, the broken manatech. Everything that was close to Davison couldn’t withstand the heat and was slowly turning into puddles.

The beam eventually ended with an explosion, releasing what seemed to be a massive amount of scale-dust into the area. Hestia’s body grew blinding white, with hints of crimson from her scale-dust.

Solar Beam

Utilize the stored solar energy of the solar core to release a focused beam at the enemy. After activation, the solar core will go into overdrive if the dragon wills it, boosting the effectiveness of the solar core and the dragon’s Strength, Intelligence, and Agility. The dragon may release the concentrated energy anytime in an explosion or blast of solar energy

That was the description of her [Solar Beam] draconic ability. Considering the rest of her abilities, it wasn’t the most unique ability, but it surely was the strongest. Two bunker-destroying abilities with stat buffing during the “Solar” phase.

It surprised me she was keeping the phase active, but I then noticed Davison’s corpse. Its head and arms had melted down into nothingness but it simply regrew tentacles and eyes as substitutes. It truly was a stubborn eldritch being.

And it charged forward. Hestia simply stood still, looking down at the mindless beast. Her body then flared purple before turning into a full suit of purple armor she called “Dragoon Armor” from that fantasy game she liked talking about, created using her new custom spell [Panzer].

Panzer

Wrap the user’s body in corrosive fire before crystallization. The suit of armor will instantly regrow the moment any piece is broken while also applying the corrosive obsidian’s toxic effect upon contact to enemies

It was her version of the ability [Dracobody], something Farron used in their spars. Also, since buying armor cost a lot of money, she also wanted to relieve our purse until Tasianna and I got our equipment first.

Davison’s corpse punched Hestia, but she simply blocked it with her armor and [Draconic Barrier], nullifying even the knockback. She then casually pierced her claws into his arm and tore it off without any issues before proceeding to remove the remaining limbs one-by-one, leaving only the torso behind.

Davison’s body tried to regenerate its lost flesh, but all its attempts were stopped by Hestia’s scale-dust, exploding and incinerating the limbs before they could grow in size. If she had taken the [Scale-Dust User] Job, she probably could have stopped his regeneration altogether.

Hestia would continue fighting against Davison’s mangled, deformed corpse, however, she was buying time for something big. Looking at the sky, two massive magic circles were materializing in the sky as they fought, one red and the other white. The more powerful a spell, the longer it needed to fully form its magic circle. Even if we didn’t need to chant due to [Chant Revocation], there was still a preparation time until we could unleash the spell. Without chanting, it was just lessened.

Hestia had the lightning spell [Purple Flash] which helped her cast these large spells instantly by materializing the magic circles in seconds, but the issue was it would consume triple the amount of mana she would have needed to cast those spells normally. Since she held her concert during the night, there wasn’t a sun to help her regenerate mana so she must have tired herself out. She would use up her remaining reserves if she were hasty about it.

It only took a bit longer in the scorching flames for the two circles to be complete.

“Symphonie des Feurergottes. Omnictus,” she said before grabbing onto the limbless torso of the corpse. “Release. Solar Flare!”

The fire on Hestia’s body flared up in size before erupting like a volcano upwards. That was when both [Symphonie des Feuergottes] and [Omnictus] released, pouring rays of light and waves of inferno onto the Hestia and Davison.

The heat and pressure were so intense it forced us to move back even more, as staying closer was enough to risk our clothes and hair catching fire. The sea of fire released by Hestia didn’t move any further than the area created by her Idol song [Dragon Fire], preventing further collateral damage to the neighborhood. She was isolating everything into a single area.

Like a star, the night was brightened by her white flames.

Once it ended, the residual heat was still too much for us to approach. Tasianna had to apply [Glacial Protection] and cool the surrounding temperature for us to even get close to Hestia. There we could only see a crater. The alchemy guild’s building was completely vaporized, leaving nothing behind. Speaking about vaporization, so was Davison’s body. There was nothing in the crater except a collapsed dragonewt girl.

The heat at ground zero was the most fearsome, requiring Tasianna to cool down everything with her ice and water magic. Once we could traverse it safely, we approached Hestia. Her breathing was ragged and she was sweating profusely, something she rarely ever did as a fire dragon.

She noticed us and opened her eyes, before showing us another thumbs up.

“Can I get some food, please?”

...Unbelievable.

A note from AbyssRaven

Well, that was the Alchemist Arc. Only thing left to do is the clean-up. I hope you guys enjoyed it.

Actually, I wanted to ask you guys something and since we haven't done a poll in a long time, I guess the time is ripe. The question I wish to ask is: What do you guys think of the pacing of this arc?

I know my story is not the fastest and I only recently increased the tempo of my releases, so that's why I wanted to know everybody's opinion on the pacing. It would help, as I can adjust future arcs to your feedback. Actually, feedback in general would be nice.

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Chapter 146: Aftermath of the Alchemist Raid.

A note from AbyssRaven

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[Starving Weakling (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Job [Brawler] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 4]

Attributes have increased due to level up

“Mrmm. Mhmmm. Mamph. Mrmmm. Mhmm. Mamph.”

Ahhh, filling my belly. Heavenly. Holy hell, I am starving!!!

“Mramph! Mramph! Mhmm! Mhmmmmm~”

“...Lady Hestia, you really were famished,” Tasianna commented as she filled another bowl full of curry rice and grilled meat.

Nodding, I swallowed and drank some water to help clear my mouth before replying, “I haven’t eaten anything since the concert started and when I ran over here, I forgot to eat anything for my buffs. I was too worried to even remember to do so. Then using [Solar Beam] was just too much for my body to handle, literally draining all my energy to nothing and causing this annoying debuff. Urgh! Mramph!”

“...Did you really have to use [Solar Beam]?” Saori asked after having finished her fourth bottle of dragorade and third bowl of curry. “Looking at your arsenal of attacks, wouldn’t ‘Symphony’ and [Omnictus] be enough.”

“Who knows,” I shrugged, feeling a bit fidgety as I stopped eating again. “You know what I was thinking when I saw that thing? That eldritch creature we found in that troll cave. Same tentacles. Same eyes. Same creepy body. No half measures, if you ask me. Throw the thing into the sun and watch it atomize.”

The moment I finished what I wanted to say, my hands immediately returned to shuffling food into my mouth. You could say I was pigging out, but, really, what I could do but eat right now? I wasn’t exaggerating when I told everybody I was hungry, ‘cause I was starving. Literally.

Sunfang dragons are voracious, something I realized the moment I evolved into one. I’ve been eating and eating large quantities of food to satisfy myself and prevent this insane moment from happening, a conclusion I reached from studying my instincts that prompted me to eat whenever I was a bit hungry. The problem also lied with the [Starving Weakling] debuff, something that can only happen with my skill [Gluttonous].

Gluttonous

A skill given to those with a voracious appetite, insatiable even after consuming large quantities of consumables. Increases Stamina regeneration from all sources. The skill   [Starvation] cannot be received while this skill is in the owner’s profile. If the owner consumes food while Stamina is at maximum capacity, [Insatiable Glutton] is inflicted. If the owner would receive the status effects [Starvation] or [Exhaustion], they are instead inflicted with [Starving Weakling]. The skills combined are: [Prime Vigor Lv. 10], [Unyielding Endurance Lv. 10]

Insatiable Glutton

A status effect inflicted by the skill [Gluttonous]. While this status affliction is under effect, increase all parameters and stamina consumption by 20%. Stamina can overflow over the maximum capacity, by the amount consumed. This effect ends once Stamina is less than 100%

Starving Weakling

A status effect inflicted by the skill [Gluttonous]. While this status affliction is under effect, decrease all parameters by 50% but increase Stamina regeneration from all sources by 20%. The effects of [Starvation] and [Exhaustion] would activate too. This effect ends once Stamina is more than 0%

Dangerous. That’s all I could say about it. 50% loss in stats was horrible, and I could feel my body being more feeble than before I used [Solar Beam]. If I were to fight anybody while I had this debuff then it would be like activating [Humanization (Moderate)] all over again, while being in my dragonewt form! My body knew this, so it was forcing me to gorge as much as I could in the least amount of time. “Eat food” was ringing inside my mind like an alarm watch, reminding me that I wasn’t full yet.

While I was downing my tenth bowl of curry rice, the guild master and vice-guild master of the hunter’s guild came into view, both looking befuddled while scratching the back of their heads. “Gone. Nothing could be salvaged.” The red-haired middle-aged man, Farron, complained with a deep sigh.

“See? Told you we could spare us the trouble after what her Highness did,” Gael, the “cool uncle” looking guy, replied, rolling his eyes while shaking his head. “I got everybody who was breathing out of the building before the big event began. There was no need for a rescue. I was there when Saori and Tasianna picked her Highness up, so I saw with my own two eyes that anything that could be used as evidence would be gone. Listen to the birds chirping, mate.”

“Shut it, drunk,” Farron spat out but didn’t respond in any way to Gael’s reasoning, probably knowing he was in the wrong.

As I was watching the two middle-aged men argue, I noticed Saori’s eyes widening, mumbling, “Oh right, we forgot about the receptionist.” Tasianna then explained to me they broke all four limbs of a complicit alchemist they met at the reception and kinda forgot about him during the battle. They thought he was vaporized with the entire building after what I did, but it seemed like Gael rescued him beforehand.

Welp, a bit irresponsible from those two. Thank goodness for Gael.

Farron gave out another sigh before he turned his attention to us, finally done squabbling with his vice. “Well, outside of a ruined plot of good land, I guess the operation is a success. I’m pretty sure the nobles would have wished to interrogate Davison before executing him, but considering what you three had to face, I can understand preferring to subjugate that thing.”

“Would the lack of evidence be a problem for apprehending Lord Chezaic for his crimes?” Saori asked after finish eating.

“Nah, don’t worry about it,” Gael answered in Farron’s stead. “Any evidence we could get from the guild would be a bonus, but it doesn’t matter at this point. Getting the Lord of Firwood and the High Bishop involved is one thing, but getting one of the seven Dukes and the royal family to support this plan? Anything they find will stick 100%.”

“Correct,” Farron nodded before adding. “What I wanted to find out was the cause for the dramatic description you all gave me. Davison drinking two black potions and his appearance changed drastically to the point his regeneration and Stats reached monster level? Yeah, I want to know what the hell that was to warrant the light show.”

Noticing Farron giving me the “did you have to do that” look, I quickly swallowed what I had in my mouth, wiped it clean, and said, “Hey, it’s not my fault. Who said, ‘any damage to the guild building doesn’t matter’ huh? Guild master, when you told me to stop my show prematurely to come help, you even mentioned I needed to go a bit wild according to your gut feeling. I agreed when I saw Davison. He’s ashes now, and no longer a threat. I made sure to control my fire so I wouldn’t set the town on fire accidentally.”

“She is right, you cannot blame her for what happened. She went overboard with her attack, but her decision to turn Davison to ashes is something I have to agree with. Besides, Hestia used to burn entire sections of the Belzac forest down, so having enough control to prevent any wildfires from happening within the town’s perimeter is worth complimenting,” Saori said in my defense, pointing out my ability to hold back flames with [Pyrokinesis].

Farron frowned, but eventually shrugged, not wanting to continue chastising me. “Well, everything is done, so we’ll be saying goodbye for tonight. If you want to see the aftermath of everything, the nobles should still be at House Chezaic’s mansion, searching through piles of paper. Oh, and that was a great show while it lasted, kiddo. Priscilla loved it.” With a thumbs up and a smile, Farron said his goodbyes, waving at us as he walked back to the concert/festival plaza.

“Well, I’ll be seeing you ladies another time, too. Hmm?” Gael was about to leave but stopped when I presented my hand for a handshake. He tilted his head, looking confused what he was supposed to do.

“Gael, well, I should be calling you Mister Gael, to be honest, but I guess you would prefer it if we weren’t too formal, right? Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for helping Saori and Tasianna out; plus, we haven’t met yet so the handshake is a greeting.” Gael still stared at me as if I was crazy, reluctant to shake my hand for a reason. it was reason enough to feel offended by but I kinda had an idea what the cause was. “Oh, come on, since you’re so familiar with us, you should know about our pasts by now. I’m keeping the princess and noble act up since people expect me to do so in public. Where I grew up, a handshake is how you greet others, instead of curtsying or bowing, you know.”

Gael placed his hands on his hips, looked at Saori wearily before shrugging and grabbing my open palm. “Well, never would have thought I would shake hands with an actual princess. Never met one, too. Life truly is a box full of mysteries.”

“Gael, one question before you leave,” Saori said in a gentle voice, almost a whisper. “That band of black mercs or however you called them. Will they be a problem for us?”

“Yanderu Eluseuss? Mhmm, maybe, but not ‘cause of today. Merc business of any kind is dangerous and you’ll have to face other mercs while on the job, sometimes even former allies, so most members prefer not to build close bonds; at least, that was true when I was still a part of them. Upper management has no policy for retaliation jobs if it isn’t personal,” Gael spoke about the people who attacked Saori and Tasianna, a group Gael seemed to have a past with. “However, if a bounty is placed on your heads or you poke the hornet’s nest, then expect them to come. The Quests the merc guild considers illegal, like assassination and trafficking, are what black merc corps specialize in. Like the fae hunting here. An individual member might attack you for killing a ‘friend,’ but I wouldn’t bet on it. No money, no support. No support, not worth the risk.”

“Anybody who could pose a problem?”

“Sure,” Gael confirmed. “I may have rusted, but I’m still a B rank adventurer, yeah? Yanderu Eluseuss is also just a sister group active in the western part of the continent, while the main branch works in the Empire. The Folschreck Empire, if you haven’t heard its name yet. I never met the leader of the company, but I worked with one of their under bosses, and he should be trickier than Kaian but weaker than Farron. Definitely weaker if Farron was in his prime and not affected by that crystal curse basilisk’s poison.”

“Poison?” I raised my brow.

“Yeah, he got it when we traveled together. But do me a favor and don’t bring it up. I can’t tell you the exact reason why, but it’s something Farron can’t forgive himself for, so I’d rather you not open up a wound. Besides, the curse needs a specific antidote and healing spells ain’t gonna do it,” Gael looked serious as he released my hand. “Anyway, don’t mess with the hornet’s nest and you should be alright. Regardless, getting involved in anything shady will probably bring you face to face with the criminal underworld anyways. For example, what happened today.”

And with that last warning, he headed home.

After we digested what Gael just said, Saori opened her mouth to break the silence, “Should you not hurry back to your concert?”

“Nah, don’t worry. The concert was a success and I ended it well, so there isn’t a need to go back. I couldn’t give an encore but priorities, right? I saw a lot of people smile and have fun, plus, I got a few new fans but sadly not enough to reach the next milestone.”

“That is good, that is good. It is a shame that Tasianna and I missed it,” Saori responded with a defeated sigh, proceeding to complain how difficult the task was.

I nodded. After taking my last bite, the [Starvation (Minor)] and [Starving Weakling] debuffs were finally gone from my status board, so I clapped my hands together and thanked Saori and Tasianna for the food. “Thank you for the food… Tasianna… how is Kiiro?”

Tasianna took my empty bowl and placed it orderly into a pile with the others, before picking up her catalyst, the orb where Kiiro the former onnikai was residing. It had multiple large cracks flowing across its surface. “Kiiro is… fading.”

“Dying, Fairy,” Kiiro’s voice resounded, correcting Tasianna for her word choice. “Release, if you wish to call it. Release from this cruel world. We faefolk are so fragile that any loss in mana weakens us drastically.”

“Then take my mana…” Tasianna’s voice was small, pleading even.

“My will to live is gone. Davison is gone for good. The humans who ‘helped’ me become an onnikai are long gone, too. My final wrath, something that not even Goddess Zephira could get rid off, has been fulfilled and I can feel… tranquility. Clearness of mind. I wish to die.”

“Suicide is the coward’s way out,” I spoke out, ignoring Tasianna’s uneasy look. “Considering what you did — pulling those villagers into a one-side war — you really don’t deserve to rest now. Even now, I don’t think the whole fae hunting stuff has fully ended yet. I mean, we don’t even know if Davison was the reason for Tasianna’s and Princess Schuri’s capture. That means there might be another criminal lurking somewhere. Will you leave those fae to their fate?”

“Are you asking me to live without conviction? Champion of Aurena, I have lived for too long. In all that time, all I had in me was anger, rage, and a wish to cause pain on others. And then vengeance consumed me. Will you deny me this mercy? Are you that cruel, Champion?” Kiiro replied by guilt tripping me, successfully stinging my heart. “Always seeking to help others will create nothing but a burden for yourself. I do not wish for my brethren’s suffering but when will this all end? The greed of humans will always pave the way for more fae hunting. I do not wish to survive for an eternity. That is torture.”

And who are we to deny it that? was what I thought, but it also felt wrong to just let Kiiro die like this. Sure, Kiiro’s army of onnikai killed people. Adventurers and some of the villagers and soldiers in the Teullon barony. Those who had nothing to do with what happened during the War for the Faefolk. It simply let its anger for humans consume it, which led to a problem we had to solve.

We aren’t some court or justice department responsible for punishing people. Besides, if there was a court for monsters, I would be in big trouble myself, so who am I to speak? Even if we brought Kiiro to the nobles of Artorias, since Rashan Village was part of the kingdom, I don’t think anybody would convict Kiiro.

Was Kiiro getting off too easily? It’s not my place to judge.

“Your reward for helping.” Kiiro’s voice was weakening as a yellow light flew out of the orb. “My last remaining mana. I will infuse it in the orb. Make it complete. I hope the orb will inherit my power, so consider this my support. Good...luck...Tasianna.”

And the light dimmed until there was nothing more but a cracked blue orb.

I turned to Tasianna, who was holding the orb in her open palms. Her expression told me the tears would stream out soon, but during these seconds of silence, they didn’t. Her eyes never looked wet.

She closed her eyes, nodded for a moment, before grasping the orb. She then stood up and handed me the orb. “Lady Hestia, could you keep my catalyst until we can fix it? I can still levitate it, but it seems like its primary function to create that mana slime is disabled.”

“Are you...” I wanted to ask if she was alright but, seeing her wry smile, I could guess that she was digesting the situation her own way, so I kept my mouth shut. “...Let’s go back to the noble district. I want to see how this all concludes.”

And in silence we walked. There was no need to rush for us, as we had all the time in the world right now. Aurora’s work and goal has been fulfilled tonight, now it’s time to see how the nobles will end their problem.

We went through a different street to reach the gates in the merchant district since I wanted to avoid the plaza, thinking a few merchants would want to speak with me about the concert. Once we were at the gate, I noticed there were more knights guarding it, unlike the usual two our group usually encounters. They noticed us and saluted. We’d come to know the gatekeepers during our time in Firwood. We showed them our IDs, due to security, and they let us in, where a carriage was waiting.

We entered the carriage and it began to move.

I wanted to say something, but both Saori and Tasianna were looking outside the window as if they were pondering something. What happened during the raid, I wonder? I wish they would speak up, say something to me, but everybody deserves time by themselves to work on their own issues. It was kinda funny. Saori used to say I should speak up about my feelings and opinion more, but look at what she’s doing.

However, I’m not angry at her. Some quiet after our hectic night was a welcome respite.

Still feels weird that I was having fun while those two were fighting for their lives. Really awkward. Hmmm.

After a while, the carriage stopped and the coachman opened the door for us. Barathan was already there, ready to escort us. We went through the front door of the Chezaic mansion, the same one I went through with the High Bishop, and entered the dining room.

There, kneeling on the floor were four people in fine outfits. Two of them were the twins, Francesca and Iracela, crying profusely as they shivered like scared kittens. The other two were a middle-aged man with a healthy physique and a woman in very conspicuous clothing; the former looked as if he had given up on life while the latter looked desperate, swinging her eyes to each corner as she was looking for glimmers of hope. To the side, sitting on a chair, was a pale young man, so frail looking that he could be called a girl and I wouldn’t doubt it for a second. He was the only one who showed no emotions.

All five had white, bulky shackles holding their arms together. They were the members of House Chezaic.

“Evidence number 13: Documents stating monetary payment towards a handler named ‘Owl’ for the hunt of faefolk. This package would then be smuggled to the alchemy guild of Firwood. A mana contract has been found, confirming the authenticity of the before mentioned documents. What do you plea, Lord Robert Chezaic?”

The dining table was placed to one end of the room, where two liliac-haired men were sitting, flanked by multiple knights who were equipped with armor far more distinguishable than any I’ve seen yet. They had the emblem of a bow and arrow on their surcoat. Were they high-ranking knights?

“I plead...” the middle-aged man on the floor was about to answer, only to be interrupted by the woman next to him.

“Robert! By the Goddess, if there is even a hint of your fatherhood, I beg you, stop this insanity! You are condemning your children! You-! Arck!” The woman wanted to speak more, but a knight guarding the Chezaics walked up to her and smacked her on the cheek, causing her to fall on the grounds.

“M-Mother-hick!” Francesca, the yellow-eyed if the twins, quivered as she saw her mother get hit. On the other hand, the young twin, the red-eyed Iracela looked as if she wanted to curl herself into a ball to escape the reality before her.

“Silence before Lord Marquess Sirius. You may only speak if you are given permission to do so,” the one who spoke before, who I now identified as Theodore, the High Bishop, warned sternly. “Lord Chezaic, your answer?”

Lord Chezaic, the person we believed at the beginning to be the mastermind of this whole affair, looked at his wife and daughters with eyes tired of stress, before returning them to Theodore. “...I plead...guilty.”

“Damn you, Robert!”

The moment that was said, Theodore and the man next to him turned his gaze to me. I was befuddled at the situation, nevertheless, I curtsied while Saori and Tasianna bowed. I instinctively had to gulp to calm myself down.

Theodore then spoke, “Lady Hestia, this impromptu court is currently in progress. You may sit next to Lord Marquess Sirius if you wish, or next to the other nobles. The choice is yours.”

I turned my head around, finally noticing multiple men equipped in armor sitting next to each other. The only one who stood out was a young woman with blue hair — Ellaine.

Everybody’s eyes were turned to me. What irony that I was feeling anxious, considering I just came back from having over hundreds of people watch me perform. “...I will join the others,” I meekly said.

Coincidentally, there was a free seat next to Ellaine, among all these old looking knights. As I approached them, I noticed the emblems on their surcoats. Some shared the bow and arrows of the knights guarding the Sirius brothers, while others had emblems of griffins and hippogryphs. I still haven’t asked Ellaine about any knight orders in Artorias, so I wouldn’t know to which they belonged.

As I sat down, with Saori and Tasianna flanking me, Ellaine, flanked in turn by Manuela and Barathan, spoke, “I am gladdened to see you three safe and sound.”

“...Shouldn’t your father be here?” I asked her in a whisper.

“He and mother are currently with the royal family, probably elated about everything. I am here as his representative to act as witness to this court hearing… unfortunately.” Her eyes wandered towards the twins, looking conflicted at the sight of them crying. The bullied and her bullies.

A few more accusations were then read out before the Chezaics, to which Lord Chezaic pleaded guilty to all of them while Lady Chezaic denied them all. Their answers couldn’t be more different. Eventually, they came to the topic of Davison and the alchemy guild, where Lord Sirius himself spoke to me.

“Lady Hestia, it is a pleasure to finally meet you. Please forgive me for this unacceptable setting,” he greeted me, supporting his leaning head with his arms. “If you are here, then may I presume you have dealt with our ‘pest?’”

The eyes of House Chezaic were looking at me. The twins looked frightening and in disbelief while Lady Chezaic had a quizzical look. Lord Chezaic looked defeated while Amadeus, the pale first son of House Chezaic, looked at me with a smile. It was as if he was encouraging me.

I then answered, standing up. “Y-Yes, guild master of the alchemy guild, Davison, has been subjugated. However, we couldn’t capture him, if you were meaning to ask that.”

“I see. It is a shame, but I understand you must have your reason,” he nodded with closed eyes, before opening them again and staring at me with his lilac eyes, piercing through me like a hawk. “May I ask if you have found any further evidence?”

When he said that, I couldn’t help but stutter, “W-Well, uhm, uhhh, any documents or devices you could call evidence was, well, vaporized with the building. Uhm, however, one of my retainers managed to enter the basement. If you were to accept eye witnesses, then she may say more.”

Hearing the word “vaporized,” not only Ellaine, but also Lord Sirius and Theodore frowned at what I said. Seeing as these three were the only nobles in the room who knew about my secret, I think they could guess what I did. On the other hand, the nobles unacquainted with me had their eyebrows raised, whether it was due to curiosity or doubt.

Lord Sirius nodded, and waved his arm that he accepted my proposal. Tasianna then stepped forward, pushed her hair back to better show her long elven ears, and spoke what she saw in the basement.

She recalled meeting mercenaries belonging to the Yanderu Eluseuss group and a couple of alchemists inside the basement, which she mentioned were hostile and attacked her immediately. She eventually managed to overwhelm them and move forward, where she found a room full of fae trapped in cages and mana batteries; some dead and some alive. As I destroyed everything, Tasianna ended her statement there.

“I see, thank you very much for your answer, Miss Wind Elf. Since you are Lady Hestia’s retainer, I shall take your word as true. Theodore, have you-” Lord Sirius was about to speak with his brother, but Lady Chezaic suddenly sprung up.

“Objection! She is clearly a foreigner! How could you possibly involve a foreigner to an Artorian affair! I demand- Arck!” Similar to before, she was quickly silenced. A guard pushed her to the ground and then placed something looking like a green rune on her mouth. Despite being able to open her mouth, no sound escaped from it.

“Lady Chezaic, you have violated this court’s laws once again. That is the third strike. You have lost your right to defend yourself before Lord Marquess Sirius and any further plea will be instead judged and answered by the jury in your stead,” Theodore declared, not even looking at her while he was sorting through the stack of documents before him.

As Lady Chezaic kept struggling without any signs of stopping, Lord Chezaic turned to her, looking down at his pitiful wife, “Annabella, just give it up already. Justice has finally caught up to us. We shall go meet the Goddess of Death soon. Just be happy that you were able to avoid taking responsibility for poisoning my wife until now.”

Lady Chezaic's eyes went wide like a goldfish, staring at her husband with disbelief. Theodore looked at them for a moment before closing his eyes, showing no further emotions as he pulled out a piece of parchment. “Lord Marquess Sirius, this document mentions a certain mercenary party named Yanderu Eluseuss. However, there was no evidence for their involvement with House Chezaic.”

“Hmm, I understand. Attribute it to the commoner, then,” Lord Sirius gave a swift answer.

The discussion then continued for a while until they ran out of evidence and judgement was handed down. “By my name as Lord Marquess Lambhart Richard Sirius, I shall hereby announce my judgement with the authority given to me by Lord Duke Greenveil. I declare the Arcanuess, Robert Gregory Chezaic, guilty of the crimes of fae hunting, fae trafficking, treason against the entire Kingdom of Artorias, and collusion with the Rank B criminal named ‘Davison.’ Your sentence is death through execution. I declare the Arcaliess, Annabella Adeleide Chezaic, guilty of the crimes of fae hunting, fae trafficking, treason against the entire Kingdom of Artorias, the murder of an Arcaliess, and the collusion with the Rank B criminial named ‘Davison.’ Under the laws of the Greenveil Duchy, you are sentenced to death through execution.”

The reactions couldn’t be more different. Lord Cehzaic quietly accepted his fate while Lady Chezaic was flailing around, eventually being pinned down by the guards in her wild rage. I expected her to use magic, but nothing happened. Was this the doing of those shackles?

Mana Eyes.

Eoriant Fairnite Mana Suppression Shackles

Shackles made with the metals Eoriant and Fairnite, both possessing mana absorption attributes. Mana is absorbed by the shackles whenever a high concentration is being formed, and then diffused into the air

Anti-mage gear!

I guess that would be obvious since Peolynca is filled with mages. It would be stupid if they didn’t have a way to stop mages from rampaging whenever they were captured.

Lord Sirius continued handing judgment, this time to the twins, “I declare aristocrats, Francesca Eulalia Chezaic and Iracela Wilma Chezaic, not guilty of any crimes. However, under the orders of Lord Duke Greenveil, House Chezaic will be abolished resulting in the loss of inheritable titles and land. They will be returned to Lord Duke Greenveil due to the crimes of House Chezaic’s head. Francesca Eulalia Chezaic and Iracela Wilma Chezaic will become wards under their maternal family, House Aberdeen.”

The twins stopped crying for a moment as they heard this, baffled as they seemed to have believed they would receive a harsher punishment for some reason, but continued crying once they remembered their parent’s sentences.

“Lastly.” And then there was only one left. “I declare aristocrat, Amadeus Viego Chezaic, guilty of the crimes of collusion with Arcanuess Chezaic. You will be stripped of all your privileges as an aristocrat and will be sentenced to taking the grey vow at the cathedral in the Holy Capital, Aureolis. You will be banished for life from the Kingdom of Artorias.”

HUH?! Grey Vow? Grey Priest?! With his body! Exile?!

“Hold it!” I slammed the table, standing up as I raised my objection. “Amadeus was sick, and up until now, nobody outside of House Chezaic knew about his existence! How can you find him guilty for collusion when he has no chance to do anything about it!”

The nobles sitting with me, outside of Ellaine, were showing their disapproval, voicing out that I should sit down and show more respect for Lord Sirius and Theodore, however, I ignored them completely. My glare was directed, not at Lord Sirius himself, but at Theodore. He came with me to visit Amadeus, he knew the situation, so why is Amadeus receiving a sentence at all?

“Lady Hestia,” Theodore spoke calmly, showing no signs of distress or surprise. “As you witnessed yourself, Lord Amadeus, admitted himself that he kept valuable information from us. Very conclusive evidence, which could have settled this affair long before we reached this point. He also admitted he would have kept this information to himself if the holy water had healed him. This admittance alone is enough to warrant treason if it weren’t it for the quality of information he gave us.”

“He was desperate! His life was literally hanging on the line. You know exactly what his issues are, but you are still condemning him to something like taking the vow? To become a grey-robed priest?! He would not survive as one!”

From what I remembered, grey-robed priests were essentially servants for white-robes. They were expected to do physically intensive jobs for their masters, meaning somebody like Amadeus who had a feeble body, wouldn’t be able to do anything before dropping from exhaustion. It was crazy to give him something like that as a punishment, especially when he doesn’t even deserve one in the first place!

“My Lady, I would suggest-” One of the nobles wanted to scold me for my behavior, but Lord Sirius raised his hand, signaling to let me speak. I currently was wearing my idol outfit without my white mage robes, so I guess they weren’t seeing me as a priestess. Or anything, as a matter of fact. They were probably assuming I was a foreign noble but that was about it, which explains why they didn’t know my relationship with Theodore.

Ignoring them, Theodore responded to me, “I am aware of that, Lady Hestia. That is why I gave Lord Amadeus the chance to not reveal this information and instead send the files through another source. However, as you should know yourself, he declined this offer and revealed everything to us in a suicidal pursuit. He has made himself guilty. The Goddess of Justice and subordinate Goddess, Lamreeta, watches over this trial, meaning judgement shall be delivered fairly.”

I know that Amadeus admitted to our faces he hid the information, I also knew I had a bad feeling when all of that happened. I knew after we left the mansion that there was a chance that Amadeus just convicted himself. I had that terrible feeling but I still wanted to say no to that. It just made no sense to me, despite understanding that if Amadeus had said anything earlier, less fae would have been captured.

I wanted to defend Amadeus, just cause he doesn’t deserve this after having to suffer his shitty situation. “Still, isn’t this-”

“You may stop, Lady Hestia,” unexpectedly, Amadeus spoke up. “I, Amadeus Viego Chezaic, accept my sentence. Thank you for your mercy, Lord Marquess Sirius.”

“Amadeus? Why wouldn’t you-?” Lord Chezaic suddenly spoke incredulously. The only moment where it looked like he was about to say something emotional was when Amadeus was sentenced.

“It is alright, father. I will be alright. Thank you...for trying all these years. I know I’ve been a plague for you,” Amadeus said with a smile before looking at Lady Chezaic. He scoffed at her and belittled her with, “May Goddess Ilsaphone burn your soul, you witch,” causing her to lash out, however, due to the rune, nobody could hear her words.

His sisters looked as if they were about to fly in rage, too, but seeing a couple guards come into their view seemed to have been enough to pacify them. Their tears dried up.

And from there, everything was over. Lord and Lady Chezaic were transported to the dungeon under Castle Sirius, while the twins and Amadeus were placed under house arrest by House Sirius. They will be sent to their respective destinations once it becomes convenient.

Visitors were forbidden. The reason? Treason against the Kingdom.

“From the bottom of my soul, I thanked you very much for what you have done for Firwood and the Kingdom of Artorias, Lady Kargryxmor,” once we were in private, Lord Sirius bowed to me in thanks inside his office at his castle. “House Sirius owes you a mighty debt, so please, whenever you need it, you may call on us. My sister, too, would be fully willing to aid you in your time in need, which, fortunately, also includes Lord Duke Greenveil. Resolving tonight’s affair was instrumental for the future of our Kingdom.”

Grant me the chance to meet Amadeus, I wanted to say but didn’t. As I said before, he wasn’t a friend. We only met once and he was technically still a stranger to me. On the other hand, having a pretty high ranking Artoriasian noble in my debt was amazing, which will prove beneficial in the future for sure. I couldn’t just squander it...for a stranger, even it hurts having to say that.

I hated myself for doing that...but Kiiro’s last words kinda had an effect on me. I can’t be so naive to believe that I could save everybody. My magic couldn’t heal Amadeus, nor is it possible to help Farron. I wasn’t able to rescue everybody who had to fight against the onnikai army since I was preoccupied with something else.

Today, I fulfilled my job as an Idol by making my audience happy and keeping them safe from the raid, so maybe believing I was a hero too was too much. After all, even heroes can’t save everybody.

They weren’t gods.

After leaving the Sirius castle, declining participating in a future feast they planned for today, I was about to climb up on Ellaine’s gargoyle to go back home when suddenly, a wolfkin approached us. She bowed before us and showed me a letter.

“Lord Amadeus wishes you to have this, Lady Hestia!”

“You are...Lily, correct? Lord Amadeus’ maid?”

Maid/Spy, if I understood the undertones from back then. She was the one who managed to bring Amadeus all the files from his father’s office, despite him explaining that he did it himself. He couldn’t with his body, so he had to have had help. He told Theodore that Lily wasn’t involved in anything, probably sparing her from an execution. Considering how Lord Sirius said commoner so casually when he mentioned Davison, a simple servant would probably receive a harsher punishment than a noble.

Saori took the letter from Lily and gave it to me while making sure there wasn’t any poison or traps attached to it, not like it mattered with my resistances. The person who wrote the letter was none other than Amadeus.

“Dear Fair Lady Hestia,

If you have received this letter, then it must mean that everything worked. Annabella, the witch, was judged and her execution will come.

After our meeting, I told my father everything. That I had revealed and given the documents to Lord Theodore, admitting the crimes House Chezaic has done. My father, a patriot after he was a father, accepted his fate, knowing this entire problem must stop soon. I pray for my father’s soul that, in his next life, he will have a better, less useless son, as he deserved one after having to suffer the pest that was me. It truly saddened me that I couldn’t spend more time with him, become the heir he wanted, especially after being born with my talent in magic.

By now, I also should have been judged, although I don’t know what I received. I judge taking the vow since that is the most likely after all the documents I gave the High Bishop. Regardless, what it will be, it would be an early death for me due to the strain and stress…

...If it were a week ago. I do not know how to say this, but I thank you, Lady Hestia. That holy water, no, that dragonewt blood potion seemed to have provided me the miracle I needed all these years ago. I cannot thank you enough.

Recently, I have been feeling more energetic and, despite the elation I felt, I did not feel ill. Focusing my mana is still impossible and the sun still glares on me, burning me, but I could move. I could play with my instruments freely without feeling fatigue after a few minutes. When I realized this, I regret I couldn’t have told my father about this in time, so I hope I would have the chance once our judgement was handed to us.

It is bitter sweet, if I may be honest. My father wanted a healthy son, and I wanted a proper life. My father will not be able to experience this, while I will have to live with the consequence of my gambit. If I could, I wish I had prayed to the Goddess to have you come earlier, before all of this.

However, please know that you have blessed me, Lady Hestia.

I do not know what will happen, but with this new strength, I hope I will have the chance to experience more of life, regardless of the trial before me. I truly feel bad for condemning my father and I wished I hadn’t handed the documents over at this point… but this wouldn’t be correct. He would scold me to no ends after everything happened. He has sacrificed far too much for me to disobey him.

If we ever meet again, I sure hope we can play some melodies together. Until then, please, stay safe.

Amadeus”

...A sad end.

It wasn’t the happy ending I wanted to see, but I guess it was better than nothing. Amadeus had time to find closure with his father and we managed to bring the people behind today’s event to justice, either behind bars or into a grave. I do wonder, did Aurena know that my blood could help him? Geez, why didn’t you say that sooner, Miss Goddess?

Truthfully, I still wanted to know how Davison was able to get that same potion the troll shaman used…

...Wait? Haven’t we all forgotten something?

Something suddenly came to my mind that I believed I had forgotten about until this point, but I can take care of it later. I took out a sheet of parchment and placed it with the letter back into the envelope, and then gave it back to Lily. “Please, tell Amadeus to stay safe, alright?”

“Of course, I will make sure to protect him.” Lily took the letter and vanished into the night. While I understood what she said, that wasn’t exactly what I said. I just wished him good fortune.

Once we were back at Ellaine’s mansion, Saori pulled me aside to speak with me about something.

“Hestia, I heard news about those heroes,” Saori began, releasing a bombshell only a few seconds later. “They are my students, transported here to Peolynca.”

...We can’t have some peace and quiet, huh?

A note from AbyssRaven

The arc is now officially over. The end, like Hestia said, wasn't the most happiest one despite all the work they did but that was also Hestia's first introduciton into noble culture. Now, how will the nobles deal with the aftermath of this event?

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 15 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 147: Talks over Curry.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #2 her to promote our Patreon. 15 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 15 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until May!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

“Hey, did you hear? My coworker just told me a plot of land just up and vanished overnight. All that’s left is a massive crater.”

“You, too? Yeah, heard the alchemist guild was located there, so most of the alchemists are currently wondering what the hell to do. The guild master has also gone missing.”

“Huh? Yo, you ain’t heard the word on the streets? During the festival, some massive white circle appeared suddenly and a great light was shot down. Boom! Heard the top Bishop was there and that only he could do that giant magic stuff.”

“What? Why the hell would a noble be so deep in the middle? All they need are the merchants anyways. Whoever you heard that from probably is wasted from last night. Hmm. Should probably sober yourself up too, mate.”

Huh, one of the perks of having a restaurant. Rumors fly into our ears without any effort,just like an RPG’s bar.

It was the day after the raid, and restaurant Aurora had opened up again as if nothing happened. Saori and Tasianna declined to take the day off to process what they experienced yesterday, arguing that work would be more productive than mulling over something they couldn’t change right now. So, that’s why we were all working today, despite having to do some pretty heavy lifting yesterday.

Rumors had already begun circulating about what happened yesterday. Thankfully, nobody suspected us. Of course, most of the patrons today were more interested in me ‘cause of the performance yesterday, and were requesting repeats of the songs I did yesterday, as if I was a jukebox. Unfortunately for them, this was a restaurant and not a stage. I was simply creating the atmosphere.

Besides, I wanted to “rest” my voice — although, with healing magic that wasn’t necessary — so I was either humming or not singing at all while simply playing my geigler. Tasianna scared anybody who wouldn’t take the no.

“Two bowls of curry rice for table four!” Saori announced as she finished an order, prompting Tasianna to pick them up and deliver them to the designated table before returning to serving another table. Despite what happened, those two were still working at a steady tempo.

“Tasianna! Can we get ‘nother bowl, each? Cold water, too!” a table called out as if we were a tavern, ordered our newest addition to our menu — a tankard full of cold, clear water made with Tasianna’s magic for one davi. Some still wanted us to serve beer or ale but, with no options available other than the healthy and responsible alternative, they still ordered water to quench their thirst.

Considering the standard drink is a diluted ale for most of the working class, since ale was considered safer to drink than well or river water, I guess I couldn’t blame them for asking for something they were used to. Of course, the merchants, on the other hand, were happy with water.

“Ahh, keeps the head clearer than mead, right?” a well-groomed merchant spoke to his table partner, complimenting the water he just drank. “Really makes you feel like a noble here, huh? The food is filled with spices, music is played by an authentic noble who wants to keep everything relaxed, and the tableware is refined and polished.”

His companion, a merchant in more travel-appropriate clothing, finished taking a bite of curry rice, placed his spoon down before taking a sip of water. “It’s amazingly good. It’s not one of the cities but new stuff still comes up in Firwood, huh? It’s a street vendor, but we’re not eating with our hands or from a trencher, which is rare. This curry is also much better than the one in Port Annencia; the flavor just works better, as if it comes directly from Caedhul.”

“Haha! Well, the proprietress is a dragonewt, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s true. Her chef can probably cook more exotic dishes, so I wish their menu would have more than two. Eateries and taverns serve more, after all.”

We are earning enough that adding a third dish wouldn’t hurt our finances or supply, especially with my healing services, but without Tasianna or me helping Saori out with the cooking, I can’t exactly allow Saori to stress herself out.

The complaints are mild currently, so there was no need for a change right now. There was always the option to switch up the menu while keeping it to two dishes to give our restaurant some variety.

As I ended my current song, I took a short break with some water, at which point I noticed a group of kids around eight to ten years old watching me from afar. They were wearing working outfits, probably given to them by their workplace, and looked as if they were taking a lunch break with the stale-looking bread and meat skewer in their hands.

While child labor was frowned upon on modern Earth, it was considered normal for children here on Peolynca to work and help their families out financially. I even saw kids from merchants appear once in a while with their guardians to eat here, so this rule applies to every commoner kid. I’ve no idea about nobles, though.

I waved at them and showed them a heart sign, as it seemed they enjoyed my music. Most of them flinched back and looked flustered when I noticed them, acting as if they were looking elsewhere. I kinda wanted to play a fun song right now, but I didn’t really want to ruin the atmosphere for our restaurant’s customers.

So, I gave in and played one of the songs from my concert. I didn’t know if they watched me perform yesterday, however, I did notice a few familiar faces among them. Sure, pushy adults couldn’t influence me, but cute little kids could.

“Is this the fated battle, the light shines ♫

It’s blinding my sight ♫

But I’ve gotta hold on, the stage calls ♫

The cries of a thousand, the flames of war will descend ♫”

“Woooh! Let’s go!” One of the patrons jumped up, clapping wildly as he vibed with the song. This seemed to have attracted some of the other patrons — mostly workers — to join in, too. Thankfully, they had the decency to not go completely wild with dancing and cheering, interrupting those who simply wanted to eat and relax.

After I finished my song, I had to return to playing simple instrumental music to keep up the atmosphere. It would be best if I kept my idol songs to my concerts only after performing them on stage in a town or city, just to avoid the fanfare associated with them.

I wonder, do other idols also have to deal with this? How do they deal with their fans when they're this close to you every day? My fans in Firwood probably aren’t as wild due to the concept of idols not existing in this world yet, and they were simply cheering me on like some local celebrity. Well, this is what happens when all I’ve learned is how to entertain as an idol, and not how to interact with fans as an idol during my trainee phase.

To be honest, it’s been sooooo long since I watched a video or any clips of any idols, Japanese or Korean. With how much this world has preoccupied me, remembering any of the smaller details is so hard.

Speaking of Earth…

“Hey, good afternoon, Tasianna.” As I was thinking of something else, somebody familiar seemed to have come.

“Oh, Guild Master Farron? Welcome,” Tasianna greeted a tall red-haired middle-aged man. “Oh, and Miss Priscilla, correct?”

Behind the muscular man, a white-haired Scandinavian-looking girl peaked out with a playful smile. If it weren’t for her red eyes — which resembled her father greatly — I wouldn’t have believed those two were related.

Huh? They are eating out today instead of from the guild’s kitchen?

Priscilla, Farron’s daughter, was one of the chefs working in the hunter’s guild’s kitchen, which served both the main building and the inn adjacent to it. Usually, whenever I visited the guild to train with Farron, Priscilla would bring his lunch to the training field or to his office, depending on where he was. I never saw them eating out before.

“What to order? Hmm, well, there are only two dishes…,” Farron contemplated before ordering both the curry and fried rice twice for himself.

On the other hand, his daughter gave a clear answer, “I would like to order both, too. Oh, but only one of each for me, please. I’ve heard quite a lot from the adventurers about your eatery, so I want to get to know the taste of both dishes.”

...Hmm, come to think about it, I could use a break...kinda. Okay, not really. But, I do have something to talk to them about.

I waved at Saori and signaled towards the duo. Saori raised her brow as she saw them, but gave me the “okay” with a nod. Playing music was my part of the job, so she had the right to speak up and say no to my request.

I placed my geigler back into my storage and walked over to Farron’s and Priscilla’s table. “Good morning, Guild Master. Priscilla. Would you two mind if I joined you?”

“Ahh, Hestia! Yes, sure, please.” Priscilla stood up and offered me a seat. “Well, this is your eatery, so it would be rude to reject, hie hie.”

“And you are my customers. Besides, I wouldn’t want to be rude and impose myself if you didn’t want to,” I responded casually, seeing as Priscilla was just joking.

It’s her perfume, again. Nice as always.

“I don’t see you come out to eat very often, guild master. What’s the occasion?” I asked.

Farron looked at me and gave a deep sigh. “Work. As always.” The answer wasn’t very clear so I asked him to explain it further. “Some mednoble from the White Talon Order visited me.” As I gave him a look that I still had no idea what he meant, he nodded in understanding and began explaining everything as detailed as possible.

“A mana blood-”

“Father!”

“Oops, sorry. That guy got to me.”

Mana blood was a derogatory term used by commoners against nobles, since nobles are known to have a higher potential to become mages due to their higher innate mana capacity. It was similar to how nobles were called blue-bloods on Earth. Farron knew I didn’t care about my noble birth, but I guess Priscilla either didn’t know about it, or she just didn’t approve of him cursing like that — either way, he got reprimanded.

Farron cleared his throat and explained the situation in a more kids-friendly tone, “A noble from the Lecartiglio Duchy, the son of a viscount, visited me today for something. He is a knight from the White Talon Order, a knight’s order specialized in riding hippogryphs instead of griffons or gargoyles. With the royal family’s Order of the Lionheart, these two orders form the upper echelon of our kingdom’s military. This person was very stressful.”

Priscilla continued for him, “The knight sounded very pushy when he entered the guild, demanding a meeting with father without prior notice. As the hunter’s guild isn’t obligated to follow noble orders, especially from someone from another duchy, Father could have rejected the knight’s demands, but he let him in his office anyways. The knight still looked annoyed after he left and father just seemed stressed out.”

“He demanded I tell him about some bovline adventurer; however, the guild has no obligation to tell him anything about our members if they weren’t criminals. Surprisingly, the bovline seemed to have kidnapped his sister or something, but still, it happened in another duchy and Lord Marquess Sirius or Lord Duke Greenveil haven’t put a bounty on him yet. Plus, I wasn’t in the mood to look through the files for him,” Farron said. “If he wanted to track somebody down, I told him to go get a merc or something. Hunters hunt monsters, not other hunters or adventurers. He was obviously furious, even threatened to report me to the Lord Marquess Sirius himself. The knight ruined my mood, so Priscilla suggested leaving work and coming here. Besides, I couldn’t experience the whole concert with her yesterday, so I owe her this.”

Bovline? Could it be?

“Speaking about concerts, I really loved your singing and dancing, Hestia! Especially your first song. Uhm, Fuja uwuri fuja uwuru ♫'' she tried to sing Renai Circulation’s pre-chorus, but butchered the pronunciation.

“Fuwa fuwari fuwa fuwaru ♫ When you sing this part, let your voice do the signing. Don’t strain it too much, just let it out like a calm river,” I corrected her, explaining how to pronounce the words since she couldn’t understand Japanese.

“Ahhh, alright, alright, thank you very much! Your singing is soooo very good!” she gave a childish smile, looking so happy to meet me. “Hmmm, father, do you think that knight will come again?”

As the discussion changed, Farron's fatherly look returned to his previous annoyed expression. “Yes, probably. Priscilla, if that noble annoys you or the staff in any way, warn him that I will make him regret it. Tell him I don’t care if he uses his influence to do something, as I will crush it, alright?”

“Yes, I understand, father!” Priscilla showed a very clear lack of fear of nobles, unlike most commoner children. Children were taught to avoid nobles ’cause nobles could, and sometimes did, abuse their authority without fear of any significant consequences, as I heard from Lorena and Ruld.

The food arrived just as we finished talking, as expected of restaurant Aurora! Wolf hunts, wolf feeds — delicious and fast at Aurora… I should probably practice my jingle writing skill a bit. This sounds like a fast food joint… And now I want a burger with fries. Sigh.

Speaking of food, Tasianna also brought me a curry while she was at it, ‘cause it would be awkward if I were the only person who wasn’t eating. It was very considerate of her. Farron and Priscilla then offered a prayer, and we three then began eating after that.

“Mhmm! What is this?!” Priscilla exclaimed after tasting her first curry rice. “There are so many different spices within this brown sauce! So many spices, wow! There is a hint of zestiness, but it is otherwise mellow and sweet.”

“The sauce is called curry and it’s placed over some rice — thus, the name ‘curry rice.’ The dish originates from Caedhul, where the levianewts and merfolk live; do you remember when I told you that, Priscilla? Although, it’s been a while since I’ve been there, I believe this curry sauce is an original recipe,” Farron explained, showing off his worldly experience.

“Oohhh? This is Miss Saori’s own recipe?! Wah, that’s so good. All the recipes I’ve learned have been from the other chefs and the nice ladies from the neighborhood! Making a new recipe sounds fun.” Priscilla’s eyes sparkled with a strong interest in her craft, befitting a hardworking young girl like she was. Seeing her like this reminded me when I was twelve, well, if you ignored how exhausted I was with failing auditions.

During our party’s many visits to the hunter’s guild, whether they were for Quests or my spars, Priscilla and most of the hunter’s guild had gotten to know us better over time. We weren’t full-time hunters like the others, but we’d become regulars to them. It also helped that our restaurant attracted adventurers to come to eat. Priscilla even dropped the “Lady” part for my name after I asked her to!

“Oh, yes, the Republic of the Aquapolis. The center of Goddess Plesia’s faith, correct?” Priscilla answered, looking proud of herself when her father nodded with a smile. “Ah, but, it is a bit unfair. Father knows so much about the world, but I still only know Firwood. Caedhul must be fun if they can think of this ‘curry.’”

“I know you don’t like it, you say it all the time, but I can’t exactly leave my position. You have enough time in your life to experience the world one day, Pricilla. I promise,” he replied, patting the pouting girl on her head. “I’m pretty sure when your mother comes back home, she’ll have more stories to tell you.”

“Oh? Your mother isn’t here in Firwood?” I asked, having heard this for the first time.

“Oh, right! My mother and father used to travel around the world as adventurers before father had to retire due to his injury. Mother can’t stay in Firwood for too long since she’s always preoccupied, but whenever she comes back to Firwood, she always comes back with tons of stories.” She then looked at Farron, giving him a very weird look. “...They’re also very loud whenever they meet. I can’t sleep in the first few days.”

“PHFFF!!! WHA-!” That comment caused Farron to spit out the water he was drinking, causing people around him to look at him with disgust. Some of the worst gazes were from fellow hunters who knew the duo. “Priscilla! Don’t say that out loud! You are a lady!”

...She might not be as pure as I thought. She was so sweet until now, ahhh, how fun.

“It’s true, father. Even the neighbors complain about it. Just not in front of you or mother,” she revealed, causing Farron to flinch back.

Appearance aside, her personality is very much like Farron’s. Or maybe it’s more like her mother’s?

“Hie hie,” I chuckled as I witnessed this healthy father-daughter relationship. It felt like something was squeezing my heart a bit. “It must be tough having your mother be an adventurer. You must be worried all the time.”

“Rarely.” Farron blurted out without a thought, before drinking some water.

Huh?

“Oh, father meant that mother is really, really strong. She’s an A rank adventurer like him, but she rarely takes on any difficult Quests since she doesn’t want to worry us. Mhmm, in adventurer terms, she doesn’t accept Quests that would take her deep into the wildness, and she sticks to handling problems that affect villages and towns directly.”

That meant she didn’t adventure a lot into ruins or deep into mountains for rare or strong monsters. She was more a protector, a local guardian kinda. She would take on Quests to subjugate a local goblin infestation or a strong monster wandering into the vicinity of a village or town. It meant she wouldn’t risk her life as much, as she would have guaranteed support and reinforcement if she needed it.

“Hmm, come to think of it, Hestia, aren’t your parents worried?” Priscilla suddenly mentioned. “You might have your retainers, but being an adventurer isn’t the safest profession. I heard that rank C Quest you took was quite difficult.”

Her eyes told me she already knew what the high mortality rate of a hunter and mercenary was — she wasn’t ignorant of the truth of being an adventurer. She said her mother was strong, but could it be that she was hiding the fact she was worried for her? Until now, I’ve only been able to get a glimpse of her personality from the surface, where I believed she was a papa’s girl. We mostly talked about the small stuff and work; it wasn’t the same deep discussions I had with Saori, Tasianna, or even Ellaine and Lorena.

“Come now, Priscilla. We brought up your mother, so Hestia’s interest was warranted. We shouldn’t bring up topics she might not want to talk about,” Farron came to my defense. Honestly, I appreciated his support, but his argument wasn’t very convincing, seeing as Priscilla had all right to ask me about my parents if I asked her about her mother.

She wasn’t in the wrong here, but she apologized nevertheless. I waved my hand to stop her, “No, no, it’s ok. If you share stuff about yourself, it should be appropriate for me to do the same. Just… I know my parents are worried. And that’s really all I know.”

I frowned and cast an [Air Shield] around us to block any eavesdropping. “Uhm, this is hard to say, but I’ll have to say it sooner or later anyway. We will be leaving soon.”

“Huh?” Priscilla looked surprised as my statement came out of nowhere, while Farron simply raised an eyebrow.

“Well, my party’s original plan was to stay in Firwood for the winter, and winter is almost over. Even the snow is gone already. Also, Saori has to do something very, very important, so we have business outside Firwood.” Farron seemed to have understood what I meant and nodded, wishing me luck on my travels.

Priscilla looked quite sullen, saying it was hard to lose a friend after just getting to know me, but I quickly soothed her by saying we weren’t leaving just yet. Our party had a few issues left to solve before we could go, but go we must eventually.

As I was almost finished with my curry, I told Farron something I remembered yesterday. “Oh right, I would like to say sorry, as I forgot about it until now.” I looked at Priscilla for a moment, to which Farron signaled it was alright for me to say it. I could trust Farron with this information, however, I wasn’t sure if Priscilla should hear it too. “Well, it’s about the alchemy guild’s master. Davison and what he did yesterday.”

“Hmm?! Wait, Hestia, do you know something about what happened with the building?!”

Farron placed a hand on his agitated daughter’s head to calm her. “Priscilla, please, I will explain everything later. Let her speak first.” She nodded obediently.

“Well, his transformation with those potions, well, I think I’ve seen it somewhere before. When I was traveling through the Belzac forest, I had to fight against a group of trolls. They had a camp set up in the depths of a mountain where they used a Warhammer Mana Cannon to fight against us, and when we finally thought we had defeated the troll shaman, he drank a potion and then stood back up as a scary eldritch monster. I believe it looked similar to Davison’s transformation.” Farron was obviously perturbed by this, not ’cause of the potion, but rather due to the cannon.

So, I continued, “I… I don’t know if this is 100% true, but we managed to meet a group of lizardmen in the forest’s swamp area. According to them, they were slaves captured and brought here through a maritime connection to be used as free labor for a grimgarian army in the southwest. Uhm, over the Avitor mountain range,” I recalled. “We also had an encounter with a bunch of grimgarians, among them goblins, kobolds, orcs, and some ogres, that shot multiple Warhammer mana cannons at us. They were also the reason why we were forced to come to Artorias.”

Farron’s face did not look good. There was a shadow looming over his eyes as he kept silent, staring at me as if I just did something unbelievable. He placed his elbows on the table and began massaging his nose with closed eyes and a deep sigh — telling me he was currently working through the information I gave him.

“This… is bad.” He said after a while.

Priscilla looked at her father with worry, unable to understand what was going on. “F-Father?”

He patted his daughter on the head, forcing a smile as he told her everything was alright. He then returned his focus to me, speaking in a serious tone, “This information was very valuable, to the point I wish you had mentioned it earlier, Hestia. I can finally make sense of the sudden spike in grimgarian related Quests despite it being winter. Priscilla, I’m sorry, but could you pack up the food and bring it to my office? I need to get back to work.”

And just like that, he left as soon as I’d dispelled the [Air Shield]. “I’m… I’m sorry, Priscilla. I didn’t mean to ruin your day with your dad.”

“It’s okay,” she said with a stifled smile. “Father has important work to do as a guild master. He can’t spend much time with me, but I’m just happy that he’s around all the time. Home is never lonely with him. When mother comes back, it’s so loud that I can’t sleep, but I feel so happy that we’re reunited.”

“Ohhhhh myyyyyy jeeeeezzz! You’re so precious!” I couldn’t help myself but give her a big hug. The smell of her perfume intensified. “I am sorry! I’ll make up for this, alright? I’ll visit the guild more often to visit you. I can teach you a few of my own recipes or even a song. Okay?”

“Hie hie, that sounds like fun, Hestia! Yes, please!”

After lunch service was over, I reflected on my unrefined behavior...not. As if I would. It’s not like Manuela or my etiquette teacher was here to scold me, right?

Anyways, after lunch service was over, our party went our separate ways for the rest of the day. Saori and Tasianna were planning on going to the hunter’s guild to change their Main Jobs, then heading over to visit Gael; Saori needed more information about her students, the reason for why we needed to leave soon rather than later. I, on the other hand, went to the temple.

It was about time I gave Aurena another visit, especially now that I had this weird orb I found after the onnikai Quest.

A note from AbyssRaven

Relaxing chapter to set up a few things but most importantly, to calm down.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 15 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 148: A Normal Temple Visit.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #3 her to promote our Patreon. 15 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 15 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until May!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

“I welcome you with the Goddess’ blessing to the temple, Lady Hestia. I hope your DarkDay has been fulfilling,” after being guided into the High Bishop’s room by one of the grey priests at the entrance, Theodore Sirius greeted me with his usual sleep-deprived eyes. As I curtsied and returned the greeting, he signaled for his attendant as well as the priest who guided me here to leave the room, before revealing a rune hiding behind the curtains. It was a sound leaking prevention rune.

Jeez, everybody has one, huh?

“I do hope you have had a restful sleep, Lady Hestia, despite the disagreement we had yesterday,” he said as we both took a seat at his desk.

“Well, I calmed down, if that is what you were asking. I reminded myself that Artorias isn't exactly my home, so I really shouldn’t involve myself in your politics.”

“Hmm, it seems I cannot argue against that,” he nodded. “Lord Sirius has asked me to invite you to the feast in the case I find you in a more pleasant mood. House Sirius wishes to build our relationship with you, if I may be so direct about our reason.”

“Please, spare me, High Bishop,” I rejected it immediately. “I barely feel comfortable at a tea party. I mean, the idea of having to interact with plotting nobles — who are most likely all strangers to me — and being exposed to an environment where everybody would be curious about my supposed ‘home country’ is so, so, so thrilling, right? Not.”

Some might say my performance at the tea party the Chezaic twins hosted was a success — and, from a noble’s perspective, it was — but I just wasn’t a fan of noble parties. The young noble ladies were really only interested in me ‘cause of the rumors and my race, and I guess they eventually became interested in my magic abilities as well. I was like a foreign exchange student in high school, and I didn’t want to have to repeat that experience with a bunch of adults.

“I see, well, my brother will most likely be very sad, but so be it. Let’s forget about him for now. For what reason have you come to visit me today, Lady Hestia? Your sudden appearance surprised me.”

Knowing he was quite the workaholic and probably wanted to get through the stack of papers on his desk, I apologized for coming without a warning, especially since this action was considered extremely inappropriate. I cut to the chase, saying, “I want to pray in the shrine room.”

“Then please do. As a priestess of the Goddess, that is actually one of your duties. In fact, there are no restrictions for the shrine room, since worshipping the Origin Gods is normal,” he replied; however, once I explained that I needed some time undisturbed inside the room and away from everybody’s eyes, he agreed.

Sure, it might make it more suspicious, but whatever at this point. I needed to speak with Aurena without having to show people my supposed white hair that Saori and Tasianna mentioned I had the last time I spoke to her. Pray to the Light Goddess and your hair suddenly turns white? Weird.

Theodore touched the rune on the wall and caused it to dim, then he rang the bell, summoning his attendant back into the room. He gave the grey priest attendant a wooden slate along with the order to escort me to the shrine room and block anybody from coming in until I left, explaining that the grey-robed is to show anybody who complains the slate.

After leaving the High Bishop’s office, his assistant led me to a familiar room with six shrines, each dedicated to one of the six Origin Gods. The grey priest closed the door behind me, bidding me to call him if I needed anything.

Now alone in the shrine room, I wondered if I should take out the black orb now,or if I should wait until after I spoke with Aurena. In the end, considering something might go wrong, I decided on the latter option, since Aurena should already know why I came today thanks to her ability to see through my eyes and she would know what to do even without me showing her the orb. At least, I think so.

Kneeling down before Aurena’s shrine — an immaculately maintained altar with plenty of offerings — I closed my eyes, kept my hands together in a praying pose, and began holding the image of her white statue sitting on top of the shrine inside my mind. As her angel-like wings began to flutter to me, I opened my eyes, revealing I wasn’t in the temple anymore. I was in Aurena’s realm.

“Welcome, my Champion,” a serene voice tickled my ears from behind me. I knew my physical body wasn’t here, and that this was my soul, but all five senses still felt like they were there. “Oh, your soul seems to have gotten scalier since the last time we met. It stills is a bit too transparent, but I guess that is to be expected with how little time has passed.”

I turned towards the voice, abandoning the pure white cloudy view I just had to be introduced to a small pristine room fit for a noble lady. An enchanting woman with white feathered wings sat there, sipping tea — inviting me to the table by pointing at my seat. I accepted it and sat down.

“Thank you for allowing me to visit you again, Goddess Aurena,” I said.

“Oh come now, you barely ever addressed me as ‘Goddess Aurena’ in private, but you would maintain it while you are here?” she teased me with a smile.

Although I could still feel pressure being emitted from her, I still felt more relaxed than the last time I came here. Maybe it’s ‘cause my soul didn’t almost dissolve accidentally this time. “I can’t help it, I’m sorry. I wasn’t exactly religious back on Earth, so mentioning ‘god’ outside of exclamations wasn’t a thing for me. Addressing you with ‘goddess’ now is similar to me using ‘mister’ or ‘lord.’ It’s good manners. I don’t mean any disrespect.”

“Is that so? Well, it doesn’t matter too much at the end of the day,” she responded before conjuring up some tea for me, bidding me to try it. Surprisingly, the tea was normal, causing Aurena to giggle when she saw my reaction. “Hie hie, were you expecting something like ambrosia or other godly fantasy items Earth literature likes to invent? Admittedly, I prefer the sampling of Peolyncian culinary advances whenever I can, so I conjure up the offerings my followers give me. The tastes created by so many minds, regardless if they are mortals, keeps an eternal life very exciting, you see. Besides, I do not have the skills of our Goddess of Cooking, Aniuqa, so whatever I produce will not be able to fulfill my standards.”

...I guess even gods have weaknesses, huh? I thought as the fragrance of the tea swirled around my nose.

“Ok, before we actually begin with what you came here for, let me congratulate you on your first successful Champion Quest. Yay!” Light Sparkles were sprayed around us like confetti, as Aurena jokingly raised her arms like a mother celebrating her child’s success.

Despite the jolly mood she wanted to create, I was feeling awkward. “...Uhm, but it was for Goddess Zephira. Not you...”

“Oh, forget about that. I would be mad if you accepted a Divine Quest from a god who hasn’t asked me for permission, but Elder Zephira did. I am not above helping another Origin God or Subordinate God if they simply asked me for my help,” Aurena announced, probably alluding to a certain very irresponsible god. “Divine Quests are issued to test our champions and saints, giving them a trial so we can see how they have improved. They are our mortal extensions, after all, and each god has expectations for them, so these Quests are needed for us Gods to assess them. Logically, a God of Smithing would grant different Quests compared to a Goddess of Hunting, no?”

I nodded, prompting Aurena to continue. “We Origin Gods have a duty to keep the world in balance, prevent it from falling apart… which is information that I was not supposed to share with mortals, regardless if they are my champions or reincarnators. I apologize. Anyways, Elder Zephira and I wanted you to prevent the dungeonfication of that ruin, as our System considered it a bad choice. Much like one of your video games — if it makes it easier for you to understand — our System controls the creation of Dungeons and the spawning of monsters in order to create a proper balance. That ruin would have upset the balance, so we intervened through you.”

“While I do know that the Gods aren’t allowed to influence the world directly, why is that so? Is there a reason for this rule? You didn’t elaborate this whenever you told me about it last time” I asked.

“Well, for one thing, Elder Plesia doesn’t want us Origin Gods fighting amongst ourselves. That rule was made when we first came to this world so we wouldn’t come into conflict. Secondly, if two gods did act with conflicting goals, wouldn’t that just cause terrible damage to the surroundings? On the other hand, the damage mortals may do is far weaker and it maintains something Elder Plesia treasures a lot — balance and order. We gods are watchers, guides for our followers. Peolynca is made for Peolyncians, and they have the right to influence it, for good or ill. We cannot help all results lead into fortune, right?”

“...Similar to how an idol shouldn’t prefer one fan over another, I assume? They should love them all equally and treat them with that same idea,” I commented after thinking about what she said.

“Hmm, yes, that would fit. Mortals would look upon us and presume we will fulfill all their needs if we intervened too much. That would bring progress in Peolynca to a standstill. We cannot have that. Through champions and saints, we give mortals a reason to strive to become better followers, more ardent worshippers. Or simply motivate them to become better persons. This Divine Quest has given you a chance to develop certain skills and also experience more about human noble culture, correct?”

“All I know now is that the fantasies they created on Earth were mostly untrue. Nobles are scary as hell. The medieval era is scary.”

“Hmm, good. That is why we issue Divine Quests. Now, to yours. As I said, I allowed Elder Zephira to issue you one, as the final objective of the Quest didn’t change. Stop the dungeonfication through the removal of that onnikai from the ruin, either through violence or diplomacy. You and your party fulfilled it. I cannot complain. So congratulations are appropriate. Yay!”

Once again, light sparks erupted around us like confetti and Aurena rose her arms like a joking mother.

“Now…,” Her wide smile waned as her eyes focused against something besides me. “...I can see Elder Marsven’s influence on the item you hold. I didn’t know about this.”

I didn’t know how she could see it, as my soul was in the divine realm right now, but I guess she was a Goddess after all. I spoke meekly, as I understood we were speaking about the reason for my visit, “Uhm, does the orb contain a-”

“A demon? Yes. An enemy of us Origin Gods and Peolynca as a whole in a very weakened and vulnerable state,” Aurean interjected, scowling. Her hands were trembling in rage. “Ahhh, I really want to- Well, even if I wanted to, I can’t. Elder Marsven has put his mark on it and I need his help to unseal it.”

“Huh?! Wait, what do you mean you need to ask God Marsven? Can’t you just unseal it and, you know, banish the demon back to where it comes from?”

Aurena showed me a small smile before her expression returned to a frown. “Oh, believe me when I say that I want nothing more than to take that filthy thing out of your storage and crush it in my hands right now; however, a pretty strong seal was used on the orb. As expected of Elder Marsven. To avoid any complications, I need Elder Marsven’s help to unseal it, and then we can get rid of the demon for good.”

“Then why didn’t God Marsven eliminate it back then, instead of sealing it into an orb. I think I allowed you to look through my eyes back in the ruins, so you should have seen the murals, correct?” I wondered, still unsure why Marsven would want to seal a weakened demon into an orb instead of just destroying it. “If I remember correctly, those demons come from another world, right? They aren’t Peolyncians like their progeny, the demonkin. Shouldn’t you be able to just bam-bam it?”

“By ‘bam-bam,’ you mean to destroy it? Then, yes, that is part of the exceptions,” Aurena’s raised an eyebrow at my weird word usage. “Unfortunately, I have no idea why Elder Marsven would do this. I will need to ask him myself later on.”

It wasn’t very satisfying to be kept in the dark like this, but whatever. If I can get rid of the orb now, reducing any risk of this orb rampaging out of control, then I’m happy.

Too bad the world wouldn’t let me.

“Please, deliver this orb to my shrine in Griffonpeak.”

“Huh?! What?! Why?!” I exclaimed. “I-I don’t want to continue carrying something that is a confirmed demon! Belzac, that S-rank monster wolf, couldn’t defeat it without injuring himself. How the hell am I supposed to do it if it suddenly awakens?!”

“Oh, don’t worry. The seal around the orb is very powerful, and even if the demon were to escape, it seems so weak and insignificant that handling it should be easy.”

By ‘easy,’ do you mean easy for a goddess, or easy for Belzac?! Elaborate, please!

“Oh, don’t give me that look,” Aurena waved with a pout, wanting me to stop looking as if I was breaking down from stress. “The reason is simple, Hestia. The shrine for Elder Marsven is pitiful in Firwood. He barely has any influence in your area.”

Gods gained power through their followers, so does that mean the followers also affect the gods’ shrines?

Aurena continued explaining, “The method of communing with me right now is through my shrine in the temple. It acts as a conduit to guide a piece of your soul to my divine realm, tethering it with the rest of your soul inside your body. While I could invite God Marsven into my divine realm, having two Origin Gods in a single area would cause a pressure overload. Our auras would conflict and affect our surroundings, which includes you.”

I immediately thought of my first meeting with Aurena and I shivered.

“The easiest and safest method would be if you had a connection to Elder Marsven’s world, and that requires a properly maintained and prosperous shrine. I might be able to access your [Storage Magic] while in my divine realm, but taking items out and bringing it to another realm wouldn’t be possible. It isn’t physically here, as it is bound to your soul.”

“Then, how about I place it on your shrine. Just beam it up to your realm and you can handle it, right?”

“Hestia, this tea is a copy of my offerings. I do not grab the object from the mortal planes and pull it to my home, I analyze it and use my powers as an administrator to summon a copy of it to enjoy it. Please, just bring it to Griffonpeak and we can deal with it there.”

My answer didn’t come out immediately as I didn’t want to accept the Quest. Just the thought of the orb exploding and revealing a mean demon was already ingrained in my thought. After what happened with our wyvern escort and our Quest at Rashan Village, I would like to think that our chance to encounter dangerous situations was pretty high. For a daredevil, it might be the best luck ever, but I would prefer not to have to deal with a demon while I’m not an A rank yet.

If I were an A rank, I might have the power to do something, just ‘cause I knew each evolution was a humongous power boost. Sadly, my next evolution will only happen in five years time thanks to this stupid age restriction.

“If it makes you feel better, how about I add on an additional seal? I cannot remove Elder Marsven’s seal, but I can add to it.” The moment I nodded, Aurena summoned her administrator window and began working on it. After a while, she closed it and smiled at me. “Alright, I added a magic seal on it. You can appraise it later if you do not trust me.”

“Thank you,” I replied with relief. “Uhm, before I go, may I ask you something, Goddess Aurena?”

She nodded, permitting me to do so. “I wanted to ask this for a while, but you don’t seem to be on bad terms with God Marsven, despite what I heard from God Marsven’s followers and yours.”

It was the understanding that the lizardmen gave me as well as the knowledge of how worship of Marsven was generally frowned upon in Carine Village and Firwood. To an extent, anyways, as there was still a Marsven shrine in the Firwood temple, but I presumed it was there simply for appearance’s sake, since the shrine wasn’t very well maintained.

“Hmm, well, that has been an issue for a very long while now, mostly because none of my followers truly understand what I mean when I say, ‘Elder Marsven and I are on friendly terms.’ Not even my saints understand it properly.” Aurena placed a hand on her cheek, before giving a defeated sigh.

They are on friendly terms? First time that I heard that.

I raised an eyebrow. “Okay, I don’t understand what you mean by that. How can they misunderstand that statement?”

Aurena sighed once again. “They believe I am simply saying that due to the image they have of me. Of the benevolent Goddess who would never condemn her fellow Origin Gods, no matter how much our followers have been in conflict. Although, while this misunderstanding does put me in a better light to my followers — increasing their religious fervor — it also means my more fanatical followers continued hating Elder Marsven’s followers.”

My eyes went wide. “Hold on, what do you mean by that?! If that is the case, then shouldn’t you do better?! I met a group of Marsven followers who literally hated you and were scared of your priests! Goddess Aurena, this is something you should really clear up!”

“Hestia, it isn’t as if I haven’t tried to do so, but my worshippers simply think otherwise. Elder Marsven also hasn’t done a good job with it; actually, I don’t know if he has attempted to clear it up once yet. He’s lazy, you see.” An expression containing both annoyance and defeat contorted her face as she continued. “Sometimes, even we gods have no idea what our followers are thinking. Take for example, Elder Plesia and Elder Danterno. They are siblings, but from what I’ve heard, Elder Danterno’s followers despise Elder Plesia as if she was some kind of pest, while Elder Plesia’s worshippers simply tolerate their opposition but prefer to avoid them as much as possible. The only ‘rival’ religions who aren’t hating each other are Elder Zephira’s and Elder Crustacia’s.”

“Wow,” I exclaimed, not expecting I would hear this much about religious politics. “Uhm, is the sibling part confidential? Okay, wow, I didn’t expect a water goddess would have a fire god brother. I mean, darkness and light are usually eternal enemies in most stories on Earth so seeing you admit you and God Marsven aren’t in a bad relationship is a major surprise!”

“It is strange in a way, I guess, for you, but we simply consider it normal. Elder Plesia has spread this knowledge to all her worshippers — it is public knowledge — but mortals seem to possess a liking in creating their own opinions on certain religious facts. I personally don’t understand how you would think a Goddess of Light and God of Darkness would hate each other, and I am that Goddess.”

I scratched my head as I pondered on her words and then shrugged, agreeing that stereotypes might have influenced my opinion on the subject. “The more you learn, huh? Secondhand information isn’t always as reliable as firsthand experiences. I guess I should keep a more open-mind on this stuff.”

After that discussion, my time in Aurena’s divine realm was over. I was still apprehensive about having to deliver the ball to Griffonpeak, but, since it was our next destination anyway, I guess I just needed to suck it up. As Aurena promised, the description with Aurena’s seal was on the orb.

I left the shrine room and walked back to the High Bishop’s room with his attendant. He seemed grouchier than before, but I guess the stack of unfinished paperwork was the reason. He asked me if my prayer was well received, and I told him “kinda.”

“Oh, before I forget about it, High Bishop. We will be leaving soon for Griffonpeak, so I would like to thank you in advance, in case we don’t meet each other on my last day in Firwood. Thank you very much for all your help,” I gave a short bow, before trying to leave, but was stopped at the last second.

“Oh, please, wait.” He took something from his desk and walked towards me. “I wish to keep my promise to teach you more about the Goddess’ religion; however, between your departure and the spring prayer that will happen soon, it would be impossible to do so in Firwood. I will be in Griffonpeak in late spring to late summer, so if you need my services, please come to House Sirius mansion in Griffonpeak.” He then handed me a token with his house’s emblem on it.

“Thank you very much, High Bishop Theodore. When I have the chance, I will rely on you to show me around that unknown place. Until then, may the Goddess bless your soul and health.”

“May the Goddess light your path forward, Lady Hestia. Thank you very much for all you have done for Firwood.”

Once I left the temple, I sprinted back to Ellaine’s mansion. There was something important that I have neglected for a long time.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 149: To Life.

A note from AbyssRaven

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You have bought [Enhanced Mana Capacity Lv. 3] [Enhanced Intelligence Enforcement Lv. 3]. Your current SP is 1250

Individual   [Wolfkin, Saori Segawa] has switched her Main Job to [Mage]

Main Job benefits have been updated due to Job change

Mage Level: 0/5

Shame, they didn’t level up after taking the Job. Well, it’s to be expected since I just bought those two skills.

“And, Miss Tasianna is now a [Wind Mage]. Thank you very much, and I hope your new Main Jobs will serve you well,” Melia, the katzune receptionist of the hunter’s guild stated after we were done switching our Main Jobs. She then took out my ID from that printer-like machine attached to the guild’s [Crystal of the Divine System] and handed it to me. “Miss Saori, here is your ID back. You are now a registered tamer of the hunter’s guild. Please have your tamed garms wear these collars whenever you bring them into a town or city, otherwise you might receive problems with the local hunter’s guild.”

“Thank you, Melia. The experience sharing should be similar to the party system, correct?” I replied.

“Yes, you will be able to see their Health, Mana, and Stamina while also being to divide the experience amongst yourselves.”

After listening to Gael, I registered myself as a tamer at the hunter’s guild and got myself four collars for my garms as well as an ID update. Now I was able to open the tamer menu and system through my party bracelet, meaning I can finally train my garms properly now! The registration was free of charge, but the collars weren’t, sadly.

I took out some silver coins from my money pouch and handed them over to her, paying the fees for the Job change and collars, “Here are two small silvites for Tasianna’s and my Job change. And twelve large coppers for the collars. Thank you for your help.”

“Yes, thank you very much for your continued support, Miss Melia,” Tasianna bowed slightly in thanks.

It is a shame that destroying Davison’s rampaging corpse didn’t yield enough experience for Hestia’s Job to reach maximum level, but I guess having her go out and hunt some skorr for the restaurant should be sufficient. In fact, assuming that she had some spare time after her church trip, I asked her to go to the hunting grounds anyways, since we were running a bit low on pork.

Now that the business side of our meeting was over, Melia smiled as she looked behind us, realizing there wasn’t a line. She leaned forward and began to gossip, “Have you two heard what happened with the alchemy guild?”

“Yes, that was the number one topic our restaurant customers spoke about during lunch,” I replied, remembering how everybody had their own wild theory about the destruction of the alchemy guild’s guild building.

“Restau- Oh, your street eatery! Oh, that does remind me that I should visit it one of these days. But, if I recall correctly, it’s quite expensive,” Melia voiced her worry.

Probably because of their enhanced hearing, some hunters began to interject themselves into the conversation. “More expensive than what you get from the kitchen, but you would be missing out if you didn’t try it once, Melia. Something new to eat, ya know.”

“Definitely worth the money. Some new food really works wonders after a hard-earned pay. What a great treat after a bunch of dried meat and tasteless soup for a week.”

“Oi, shut up. You try to cook with only salt and dried ingredients to create something an inn would serve. Next time you want something good to eat, go away from camp and hunt some monster or something.”

It was past lunchtime, however the hunters who are currently working outside Firwood shouldn’t be back yet. That meant the ones sitting around in the guild were those who haven’t accepted a Quest today or were those who just returned from a Quest. It was easy to distinguish the latter from the former from how fresh their wounds and bandages are.

Although, if I could say something to the latter group, I wish they would learn some cooking. Being able to know what berries and mushrooms were safe to eat was important for somebody with a low [Poison Resistance], and a well-made meal elevated not only morale but also your body’s efficiency. Proper nutritional intake is not only the ally of hard-working students but brave adventurers, too.

However, I wasn't about to do that. I wasn’t their mother nor teacher, and I would feel a bit awkward to offer them something like that. They were strangers to me.

“If you want, I could deliver you some curry and fried rice after closing time. Normal price, but you wouldn’t have to walk over. I will even pack it up to make it easy to deliver home,” I offered Melia, seeing as she’s done quite a lot for us as our handler. To be honest, we haven’t used her services enough considering we’ve been in Firwood for a while.

Our financial situation had stabilized thanks to our restaurant and the additional revenue through the fanwear sold at Hestia’s concert — which I was so very glad it sold out as I was a bit nervous it wouldn’t fit Peolyncian’s taste. Our party probably should probably strive for rank C after we get our equipment boosts.

With Tasianna’s orb and the weapons we bought from the blacksmith, our offensive options have increased. Now that I had a taste of how runes worked in battle, I believe it is about time we added them to our mana-weaved clothes. Armor not created through mana threads would probably break whenever Hestia or I transform back into our original forms, so we should increase our defense through runes, similar to how Davison did it.

The question is, should I begin learning how to make runes or should we commission someone to do so? Honestly, I wish we could have one permanent party member who could deal with blacksmithing and runesmithing duties, so we wouldn’t have any problems on the road. I wonder if Ogni and Kraftja would like some adventure? Hie hie.

Returning back to reality, Melia answered with wonder-filled eyes, “Oooh, that does sound enticing. Uhm, only the curry would be good. I’m a small eater and I heard more praises coming from your curry.”

“Yeah, good choice! The curry rice is something to experience. Heard it comes from the levianewt place, uhm, Caedhul or something.”

“Ha ha, you can try the lesser version from Port Annencia! Those Lecartiglio people are missing out on some authentic, or at least, good curry. Ha ha! Heeek!”

Just as the guild was beginning to become rowdier, it suddenly turned silent. Noticing Melia’s uncomfortable expression, I followed where her eyes were staring at, making me turn around to see a young man covered in armor standing at the entrance of the building.

He had sleek, clean dark red hair and looked around his late teens, although he seemed to exude an air of maturity and responsibility through his trained body belying his physical age. His knight-like armor had minor signs of being used in battles; however, compared to the knights from yesterday who oversaw the trial of House Chezaic as eyewitnesses, his armor lacked the dents and scratches that proved a long military service. An emblem of an eagle surrounded by large wings and talons could be seen on his chest, in addition to feathered adornments decorating his armor.

The young man walked towards the counter with a perfect pose, exemplary even. He gave Melia a short bow before announcing why he was here with a professional smile. “Madam Melia, it is good to see you again. May I ask if the guild master is available? I would like to continue our discussion from this morning.”

Melia seemed meek before the knight. “Uhm, Sir Antonio, I am already preoccupied with customers.” She nudged her eyes towards us, leading the knight to look at us with surprise, and bowed dramatically.

“Ah, I apologize for my horrible manners, my dear dames. How unchivalrous of me to ignore two beautiful...uhh, wolfkin and...elf,” his flamboyant guise quickly faded the moment he noticed our ears, and his face seemed to twitch as he stuttered. Noticing his own reaction, he quickly composed himself and recovered his former posture. “I apologize for my intrusion in this discussion but I must ask you to step aside. I have something important to discuss with the guild master and I must ask for an meeting.”

How he said it was rude, but he’s polite enough to ask for a meeting? How weird.

[“Miss Saori, this human is making it hard for me to stop disliking his kind. Could we leave so I can cast my memory of him into the abyss of my consciousness?”]

[“Tasianna, you do not have to be like that… although, I would prefer to not meet this person again if I could either.”]

Melia obviously wanted us to do something about this person, but what exactly was she planning for us to say? So, I just recalled how Hestia’s first spar with Farron began, “Sir Antonio?”

“That is my name, yes.”

“Well, Miss Melia is currently answering a few questions concerning our party, so I would like to ask you to wait in line. Which is not long, mind you. Within an adventurer guild, you do not have the authority of a noble to aid you in forcing your agenda. Please, have patience.”

I was expecting the noble to flip out and shout at me, considering how everybody in the guild was reacting to him, but he didn’t display any agitation, only displeasure. I didn’t feel like he was someone I couldn’t handle and any noble-related consequences could be taken care of using our party’s own noble connections.

“Then so be it, I shall wait. However, I ask you to make haste for my concerns have something to do with the kidnapping of a noblewoman. As a knight, you must understand that I must see to her safe return,” he stated as he stepped behind me.

“Kidnapping?” I wondered aloud.

“Yes, my sister, Severa Victori Moreschi,” he answered before directing his voice to the rest of the guild. “House Moreschi will reward any brave and just adventurer if they possess any information on the kidnapping of Severa Victori Moreschi! She was kidnapped by a green-haired, muscular bovline who calls himself an alchemist. He should have brought my dear sister to Firwood! House Moreschi will be in your debt if you can bring her back safely back to our home in the Lecartiglio Duchy!”

Green-haired?

[“Miss Saori, is he talking about Cernust?!”] Tasianna inquired through [Telepathy], as she didn’t want this to be overheard by anybody.

I grabbed her shoulder and pushed her to face the counter. [“Not now, Tasianna. Act normal. We will discuss this later.”]

The knight didn’t go away as Melia wanted, so we had to fake the lie that I gave him. After I was finished, Melia led the knight upstairs to Farron’s office.

The moment we thought he was out of earshot, one of the beastmen in the guild finally spoke out. “Damnit, that mana blood just doesn’t get a hint. Nobody wants him here, urgh.”

“Poor guild master, getting annoyed by that mana blood a second time in a single day. Gets sent away and just comes back. Hate them.”

“Hmm? Wait, are you not keen on nobles? Then why are you being so polite to my Lady?” I asked amid the guild as I overheard this, pondering why they would admit this now.

“Huh? What? We’re not talking about your dragonewt mistress, Saori. The girl is fine, not even remotely similar to those mana bloods from Lecartiglio!”

“You guys aren’t from here so listen up. Don’t go to Lecartiglio or the Atadoro Kingdom south of here. Beastmen hating places. Well, all except avisians. Lecartiglio nobles have a fondness for them cuz they’re hippogryph and griffon lovers.”

From my discussion with Zeather and his sister Quini, I’ve already heard that the Lecartiglio Duchy and the Atadoro Kingdom are best avoided if we want to avoid dealing with racism. This was supported by the history of the Kingdom of Artorias and Atadoro, as the latter was the remnant of a beastman hating Kingdom. Lecartiglio was supposedly better, but I guess bordering Atadoro must have influenced their nobles.

At this point, one of the other receptionists came closer to clear things up for us, explaining what happened this morning with the Farron. Considering Farron was at our restaurant this morning, speaking with Hestia, it was probably the same info Hestia got. “In addition, the hunter’s guild does not handle bounty hunting, although it isn’t forbidden. However, the reason why everybody is so anxious is that most parties have one or two beastmen, so any Quest related to a Lecartiglio noble isn’t very popular with them.”

“Nah, dealing with Lecartiglio nobles is, in general, a pain,” this time, a human spoke up. “Most of them are military and part of the knight’s order, so they’re always stuck up. Little respect for even mercs. They hand adventurers the shit work that none of their soldiers want to do, or any Quest likely to cause casualties. If you’re a full-time soldier, you’ll have it good. You a merc, though? Then get your ass out of any noble dealings. Simple.”

“Nobles and merchants in Greenveil are full of shit and condescending, but at least they pay you well for any Quest you do. Well-earned for the difficulty, you get me? They treat us as expendables, but not like shit under their boots. Any veteran merc over at the merc guild is probably saying the same thing to newbies. We work in Greenveil ‘cause we don’t want to deal with other duchies’ nobles.”

Adventurers were travelers and vagabonds, so they were able to go around and pick their base of operations — experienced ones, at least. So, it would make sense that they didn’t want to do work for another duchy’s noble if they preferred their current one.

I’m a bit worried about Cernust…

We left the hunter’s guild after saying goodbye and went over to the inn Cernust was staying at. Unfortunately, he wasn’t there; according to the innkeeper, apparently he was moving to another inn to “experience the rest of the town,” but didn’t say to which one. As we couldn’t do anything for now, we left and went to someone who could probably track Cernust down.

We owed Cernust our thanks, as he taught Tasianna alchemy, so it was only the right thing for us to help him out if he needed this. Besides, if he really did kidnap a noblewoman, then it would be better if we got to him first before that Sir Antonio.

“Ahh! Saori, Saori! Glada see you again. Ooh, ya brought a pretty friend with ya today!” Bo, Gael’s acquaintance once again greeted us in front of his apartment. And once again, a stink cloud was covering his entire body.

“Hello...Bo,” I forced myself to say while pinching my nose to block the foul stench.

“Oi! Ya closing your nose again before poor ol’ Bo. These things hurt this ol’ man, ha ha ha!” his joyful laugh was completely devoid of anything resembling shame or hatred. He was just having fun.

“Please, take a bath then.”

“Please, stay away from me.”

Tasianna and I ascended the stairs to Gael’s apartment, where I took out one of the wine bottles I received after the Rashan Village Quest. I knocked on the door and called for Gael. As always, Gael didn’t respond immediately so I had to start banging on the door again. After the fifth loud knock, the door opened up suddenly.

“Haha, yo, Saori! And Tasianna, too! Ahaha...I didn’t think you would come so soon...” Gael’s hair was disheveled, probably bed hair. Did he just wake up?

“Did we wake you up?” I stared at him, awaiting his answer.

He flinched back, twitching a bit. He quickly groomed his hair as best as he could and tried to act cool about it. “Uhm, nah, nah. I just forget about taking care of myself since I wasn’t expecting a visit. You know, after what happened yesterday. I wanted to just stay at home, he he.”

“There is still sleep dust under your eyes, Mister Gael. Have you also forgotten to wash your face or blink?” Tasianna pointed out, making his excuse pretty unbelievable at this point.

A fact he understood as he threw his facade away. “Alright, alright. I was still sleeping until now, okay? Give me a break, ladies. I’m getting old and rusty, and last night’s battle was my first in, like, ever — not including the little squabble we had or the random thugs on the streets or roads. I was completely cold. Didn’t even drink.”

Well, he did help us quite a bit… especially helping that alchemist we accidentally left to die.

I sighed at his excuse, shrugging to show that we should just forget about it. Gael then invited us in after presenting him the bottle of wine. It was our payment for the information we wanted.

“Those heroes? Yeah. I have more information on them, but it won’t be a lot compared to what House Helvas has dug up. If you want the rest, you might need to wait until the Count or Countess return,” Gael stated before digging into some curry. “Mhmm! Oh shit, this really is fucking good. You know, it might actually be better than the one I had in Caedhul, but then again, that was a couple of years ago, so maybe my taste buds have just forgotten about it. Worth the coins, here.”

And we were 40 Davi richer.

“That is good to hear, but I really cannot wait for more information. Please, tell me more,” I urged him.

He stared at my face for a moment, probably noticing how impatient I was about it. “Hmm, in negotiations or information brokering, try your best not to look desperate before paying the price. A bottle of wine wouldn’t be enough to pay me normally. Somebody in my profession would tease you with bits of info to lure you in, then overcharge you as much as your desperation is willing to pay. Look professional, stoic, like how you always act when you visit me.”

While chewing, he stood up and picked out a sheet of parchment from a drawer, laying it before me. “The information I have was to supplement the one House Helvas has found themselves. It isn’t conclusive. Mostly ‘cause of the church hiding them like dirty laundry.”

Looking through the paper, their names were written in Common tongue, but they didn’t resemble any of the names of my students. At this point, I’d assume they were working under a pseudonym to hide their real names for some reason or to make it easier for people to pronounce them. For example, people have mentioned sometimes that my name was pretty exotic.

The description of their appearances and personality was what sealed it for me, as they were very detailed. Hair, skin, and eye color were a given, but this paper also noted their jaw shape, how they spoke extremely formally, were prone to bow during greetings and appreciations, and also their approximate height… wich also included the approximate three sizes of the girls.

Whoever did this report is scum.

Nevertheless, the information sheet only registered ten heroes. There was also some public knowledge from the church, declaring that each hero possessed unique skills granted to them by Goddess Aurena. One of them was even a saint candidate… something I cannot fathom if it’s the same girl I knew back on Earth. The church was even nice enough to grant these heroes each a title according to their unique skills just so people could remember them better.

Rush Hour, Ardent Defender, Foxian Slyness, Kamikaze, and Saint’s Wrath. Those five belong to the party “Misfits.” It isn’t a good name and I should scold the person who would name themselves like that…

Enchanter’s Oath, Sovereign of the Elements, Samurai Distinction: Yumi, Tricky Kitty, and Dwarven Runeslayer composed the second party, “The Magical Biscuits.” As you would expect, the information on their unique skill was unavailable and any attempt to appraise them would be futile, I presume. The existence of those Identification Rings which could block outside [Identify] and counter with the manatech’s own [Identify] was a threat.

Samurai Distinction: Yumi? Kawano-san, is that you? You were the only one in my class who was part of the archer club.

If it wasn’t obvious enough at this point, then this skill was the nail in the coffin. Of course, due to the Revolution Queen’s influence on dwarven culture, they might have something similar to a yumi or even the bushido code. This might be a red herring,but the description of these heroes was too similar.

They are definitely my students!

“The church blocked a lot of information, and my informants weren’t able to dive any deeper without risking the ire of the church. If you want more, wait for House Helvas to say something.”

“Thank you very much, Gael. Honestly, I hate to say this but I am in your debt for this. This information is extremely valuable to me.”

“Don’t sweat it, I was paid to do this. However, if you want to repay me, mind telling me why you’re so interested in these kids? I know they probably come from the same world as you and the princess, but what exactly is your relationship?”

“He, I expected you to ask for more,” I snickered, knowing he could have tried to dig up some blackmail or even ask for information on Earth. Anything would be more valuable than what he just wanted. “Those heroes...they are-were my students back when I was still a teacher on Earth. I have no idea how they were transported to Peolynca. I actually don’t have a duty to find out about them nor meet them… but I guess I cannot cut out the memories I made with them. I want to know if they are safe.”

“Hmm, is that so? Admirable. The teachers I had in my life all either backstabbed me or abandoned me when they found something more lucrative to do than working with some dirty kid from the streets.” Gael then opened the wine bottle and poured the red liquid into three metal cups. “A bit early, but how about we taste this bottle? Let’s celebrate.”

“I don’t drink,” Tasianna stated, looking befuddled at the wine cup. “Also, what is there really to celebrate?”

“Well, for one thing, we are all alive after what happened yesterday, right? That’s worth celebrating. Also, ‘cause we are alive, we can complain about stuff like my terrible mentors, Saori’s elusive students, and I guess your hatred for humans, Miss fairy. Especially if you lost somebody in your life, sometimes it’s better to just enjoy yourself to stave off the sadness, and something tells me that the three of us could use some fun. Now, to life!”

“To life,” I exclaimed, summoning my three garms, causing Gael to flinch. They deserve to celebrate with us, although, I guess they made Gael’s apartment very full. I used this time to put the collar on my garms, holding onto the last one for when Quartre finishes his transformation.

The garms weren’t happy about the collars, but they couldn’t defy me. It was for their growth, so they had to relent.

Tasianna hesitated for a moment, looking at her cracked catalyst. She let out a small sigh, clapped her cheeks, and picked up the cup of wine, clanging it against ours. “To life!”

After finishing our cup of wine, I went ahead and asked him if he knew if any more of my students were summoned to Peolynca, but he couldn’t confirm anything. If Kaian or even those bandits from back then were here, maybe they could’ve added something, but that wasn’t possible. I had to wait for House Helvas’s information.

Regardless, with the knowledge that my students were in Peolynca, we had another goal to fulfill, although we didn’t know where they exactly were. Were they still in Griffonpeak, I wonder? Thankfully, Hestia’s goal was in Griffonpeak, so we had to go there anyway.

Hestia was already supportive of my plans when I told her about it yesterday, but I wonder if her curiosity will grow even further once I can confirm they are 100% my students. She already wanted to know more about me as a teacher, so maybe it’s time I tell her more about everybody from my homeroom.

I also had Gael look for Cernust for me, paying him two bottles of wine for it. In addition, I asked him to teach me something.

“Saori, what I said last time wasn’t an excuse, you’re already good. Sure, I have some personal abilities, but you’re already better than me as an arcane trickster with your magic skills.”

I nodded, “That might be the case.However, that does not mean that you have nothing to teach me. There has to be something.”

“Hmm, I guess there is something. When I saw your profile when your IDs were being made, I saw you didn’t have [Gale Steps]. You need it — it’s one of the basics.” I do remember the saurians, Grazlahta, and Krim’Slak having it; however, they couldn’t teach it to me due to time constraints. “Come back tomorrow. I guess you’ll be going soon now that you have this info, so think of it as my farewell gift. However, stop asking about more tutoring, ‘cause my pride is too fragile to teach somebody better than me, ha ha!”

Tasianna also asked Gael if he knew somebody who could fix her orb. He told us that we should simply wait for Countess Helvas to come back, as she would probably fix it for us for free simply because Tasianna was a fairy. The Countess was a former noble of the Morgiana duchy after all, similar to Manuella. Otherwise, the alchemy guild was our other option, but then we would have to pay, and I would like to avoid paying if possible. We needed the money for equipment and Hestia’s concert stage!

“So...Miss Fairy,” after another toast, Gael looked at Tasianna with a rather serious expression and spoke. “Not to spoil the good mood but...You asked me something, so it should be fine to ask you, right?”

Tasianna raised a brown as she heard this. “...What do you want?” she said suspiciously.

“Nothing important really, it’s just...you know, the whole affair. Davison. Fae hunting. Onnikais. You know the Kingdom wants to keep this all a big secret, correct? Artorias has been working very hard to repair their relationship with the elves, and this whole event could become the catalyst for it to break apart and dissolve.” The nobles we have met until now have all shown how wary they were with Davison’s actions, even stating that it had to be kept secret at all costs.

From the standpoint of a noble of Artorias, I could understand why they wouldn’t want this to come out. It would be bad for diplomacy if other races knew that Artorias allowed Davison’s fae hunting to fester for so long despite advocating to become the elves’ allies, again. Any goodwill would simply die out.

When we told this to Ellaine, she looked mortified when the possibility was available with Silva knowing the truth after Kiiro explained everything. Theodore didn’t give his opinion on the situation but I was confident he must have worried about it, and even informed those who needed to know it.

“Gael, we did not come here to be blackmailed or threatened, do you understand?” I warned Gael as I had a feeling the nobles would feel threatened by Tasianna and her origin. It would make sense for a fairy to despise humans even more after what she saw in the cellar.

“Hey, hey, you seem to misunderstand. I don’t exactly care if the kingdom becomes friendly with the elves or not. If it doesn’t lead into a war, I could care less,” he responded quickly to diffuse the situation. “It’s like I said, I just wanted to know Tasianna’s stance on everything. Curiosity. Gotta cool down, Saori. Even your Princess seems calmer than you, and she was the one to scorch the land around the alchemy guild.”

You wouldn’t know her much, Gael. You only saw one side of her personality. She can be sweet at one moment and then ballistic the next.

“Well, Mister Gael, regardless if you tell the truth or not, you may rest assured that I won’t tell anybody about what happened. This isn’t even influenced by my Lady or Miss Saori, but my own choice,” Tasianna stated. “...Not all humans are evil. I am not very familiar with politics, but if the alliance between Saelariel and Artorias can benefit both kingdoms then....I do not want to be the one to destroy it. I would instead expect Artorias to reveal this truth one day — as naive as it sounds — so their alliance can be formed under trust, similar to how Saelariel trusted the Morgiana Duchy before the war.”

“I see...well, here’s to hope that the royal family doesn’t fuck around. If you wanted, you always have the princess and fairy card to play, Tasianna,” Gael then raised his cup after he was done talking. “Let’s finish this cup. To life!”

““To life!””

After another cup of wine, we left his apartment and went back to Ellaine’s mansion. Once we made it back, Manuella and Svena guided us through the mansion, acting as if Tasianna and I were a noble. Tasianna was baffled at what was happening, but the moment the door to the dining room opened, her eyes widened in surprise.

“Happy Birthday, Tasianna! Congratulations on becoming 88 years old!” Standing on top of a chair was Hestia, creating sparkles as she congratulated Tasianna on her birthday.

“Wha-What?!”

“Sorry for being so late, Tasianna,” I told her. “It’s past the actual date, but I hope we can still celebrate it, hie hie. Surprise!”

Tasianna’s birthday was on the 8th of WinterBloom — the 8th of February — however, due to our preparation to raid Davison, we completely forgot about it. This was the first time we would celebrate a birthday with her, but it still didn’t excuse the fact that we forgot about it.

“I-I don’t know what to say. I-I mean, fairies can live forever so we really don’t care after the first few years of our life. If it weren’t for the System, I believe many fairies would simply forget their ages. Oh by Plesia, I didn't expect this,” Tasianna’s astonishment was clear to understand, as she considered herself more a maid and retainer to Hestia, however, the moment she became part of our party, she became our friend. And friends celebrate birthdays with each other.

“Come on, just like what Gael just said,” I nudged her forward as Manuella and Svena moved to present the cake Hestia and I made for Tasianna.

“Celebrate… for living. To life?” she said meekly.

I winked. “For life. Come on!” I took her arm and pulled her into the room. “Lady Hestia, did you manage to hunt some skorrs while you had the time?”

“What? Saori is that really the first thing you say?! Why not praise for how well I decorated everything with the maids and butlers! I had to redo everything twice to make it just right, you know?” Hestia pouted. “And yes, I got us some skorr. I even changed my Job, so all the chores are done for today. Are you happy?”

“Very much so!”

The party lasted until midnight, where Tasianna’s loud “Thank you very much everybody!” was the perfect closure to everything. When morning came, Tasianna’s wish to repair her catalyst came.

...And also a duel between siblings was about to begin.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 150: A Helvas Reunion.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Acquisition requirement fulfilled. [Spear Mastery Lv. 1] acquired

Proficiency requirement fulfilled. [Spear Technique Lv. 2] evolved into [Spear Technique Lv. 3]

Individual [Sunfang Dragonewt, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has switched her Main Job to [Spearman]

Main Job benefits have been updated due to Job change

Spearman Level: 0/5

Proficiency requirement fulfilled. [Spear Technique Lv. 3] evolved into [Spear Technique Lv. 4]

“Ahh, Ellaine, my lovely daughter. I hope you have been well, dear, and haven’t been too lonely.” Just having arrived this morning on her gargoyle, Ellaine’s mother, Marianne, greeted her daughter and gave her a big hug. “I’ve heard from Manuela that you finally joined a tea party. Fabulous! I am so glad you have begun to open up again, dear.”

“Mother, the tea party was hosted by the Chezaic twins. It was business. If it weren’t for Lady Hestia, I wouldn’t have joined it at all,” Ellaine eked out as a reply, releasing herself from the hug. Her expression seemed more than a bit tense.

“Don’t belittle your actions, dear. Nobles join balls and tea parties for business and social reasons all the time. I was afraid you would have to make your coming-of-age debut when you reached 16, so I am glad that you managed to join a social event without me urging you,” Marianne’s words were strict, but they seemed like they were influenced by her familial love. The proud smile she was showing Ellaine made the latter blush a bit.

“Sister, it’s good to see you in good health after so long.” Aside from the knights who accompanied them, Ellaine’s brother Jonathan also arrived with his mother. Unlike Countess Marianne who wore a fancy rider’s outfit, Jonathan had on something called a gambeson with metal gauntlets and leg armor.

Saori had previously mentioned that gambesons were more common to see as an armor type than chainmail or the metal armor you see on knights, since it was far lighter and more flexible. It was supposedly padded and good against cuts, but I couldn’t see how. It looked just like fancy leather or wool armor to me. I guess combining them with chainmail and other kinds of metal armor would increase your defensive stat by a ton, though.

It does look quite comfy and warm, hmm.

“Oh, Jonathan! Good to see you in good health, too. I see you’ve been working out while you were at the capital,” Ellaine noted from her brother’s appearance, something I couldn’t personally tell since I hardly knew him.

“You noticed? Yes, knights of Lionheart and White Talon were there, so I couldn’t help but ask for some sparing with the others. Haha, it was impossible for any of us to even land a clean hit, despite ganging up 8 to 1,” Jonathan replied along with an energetic laugh.

Ellaine eyes widened in wonderment, before she continued speaking highly of her brother. “Your last year in the academy will be something to be applauded, then. I will make sure to cheer you on at the tournament.”

“And I will make sure to make you, father, and mother proud when I’m there.” Jonathan’s face was curving by quite a bit from his little sister’s words. Ellaine had mentioned that they had a good relationship, but I thought it would be a bit more strained from the inferiority complex she developed ‘cause of him. I guess I was wrong.

After they were done greeting Ellaine, they turned to me and were about to bow before I stopped them. “Hold on! Hold on! Please, don’t make this awkward for me. I’m fine with a casual greeting. Nothing dramatic.” Ellaine had warned me that her family might treat me more like a princess than just, well, me, similar to Lord Sirius, so I already anticipated this would happen. I curtsied normally, showing that I wanted them to relax a bit.

The Countess and her son voiced it would be inappropriate, but I quickly dissuaded them. The whole House Helvas family knew about my party’s profiles, so they knew I was from another world. However, since I was born as a princess of Kargryx in Peolynca, they wanted to treat me as one. It didn’t matter if I was a nobody on Earth.

Some would like it. Me? I would rather you treat me as Hestia and ignore that princess stuff, since even my “home country” didn’t even know if I was alive.

After we were done with the greetings, Marianne led us to the garden for talks. She wanted to know more about what happened during her absence, since the information she received from Ellaine’s and Manuela’s letters wasn’t sufficient for her. And she especially wanted to hear how Tasianna was doing.

“Hmm, I see,” she sighed deeply, looking mortified at what Tasianna recalled from the basement. “I must apologize profusely for what happened, Madam Tasianna. I can assure you that Artorias as a whole is planning to right the wrong our ancestors have done. Something as abhorrent as this incident should have never happened under our watch — something we from the Morgiana Duchy can never excuse nor forgive ourselves for.”

Just like Manuela, another noble from the Morgiana duchy bordering the Elven Kingdom Saelariel, Marianne was once from that duchy before she married into House Helvas. Born into an arcanuess house, she was fervent about rekindling the broken bonds between Artorias and Saelariel, which meant she was apologetic towards Tasianna for everything that happened in the past. She didn’t genuflect like Manuela, but she was bowing at a 90-degree angle when she apologized to Tasianna.

“Lady Marianne, it is fine. The incident has been taken care of and the perpetrators have been caught. Please, you do not need to apologize, only strive to prevent soemthing like this from ever happening again.” Surprisingly, Tasianna’s response was pretty mature and calm. I had a feeling seeing the basement with captured fae and the death of Kiiro had affected her a lot, but maybe last night’s birthday party helped her find some peace? If it did, then working on all of the decorations was totally worth it.

“Yes, that we must. Thank you for your kind words, Madam Tasianna. Artorias must be more vigilant.”

The discussion then turned towards Ellaine’s training. “Ellaine, dear, you mentioned something about training in your letters. Do not tell me that you have finally taken your studies more seriously? If so, that’s wonderful to hear.”

“Oh, no, you misunderstand, mother. I wasn’t talking about the assignments and mana circulation training the academy has been giving us. When I spoke of training, I meant physical training, similar to the knight’s course. Of course, I have been keeping up with my magic studies, but I believe I have been doing more jogging and stamina-related exercises recently.”

“You have?” Instead of Manuela, Jonathan spoke up after his sister described her activities, looking and sounding surprised. “Ellaine, you are in the magician course, though. Wouldn’t it be better for you to increase your mana and level up your elemental spells?”

At this point, I couldn’t understand what they were exactly talking about. I mean, stuff like “knight’s course” and “magician’s course” gave me an idea of what they meant, but I needed more clarification. “Uhm, could I ask what you are discussing?”

“Oh, my apologies, Lady Hestia. That was very rude of me,” Jonathan answered for all of them. “When we mentioned studies and courses, we were talking about the schedule and training regiment the academy gives to us students to help the development of our stats and skills. They aren’t mandatory, but act as a suggestion whenever we are on leave. Vacation, noble dealings, such examples.”

Ellaine continued the explanation. “The academy is divided into knights and magicians; specifically, on what we wish to focus on. The development of our physical or mana-related abilities. My brother Jonathan joined the knight’s course as he plans to become a knight after he graduates this year, while I have chosen the magician’s… Well, you should be able to guess my reasons, Lady Hestia.”

Since her father stopped helping her with her sword training. Yeah, I remember she mentioned that.

Realizing what was being discussed, I elaborated on why Ellaine’s training had become more physical. “The reason for Lady Ellaine’s new schedule is because of me. Since she asked me specifically for some training tips, I had her go through what I did when I was still developing my abilities, albeit without risking my life against hungry monsters. This includes building up stamina, combat practice, and how to deal with melee combatant as a mage.”

I then signaled for Saori to come forward. She pulled out the schedule we developed for Ellaine, “Of course, since Ellaine is a mage, I didn’t neglect her magical training, as you can see where I still included them here. However, I personally believe the schedule the academy has been teaching her isn’t very useful for real-life applications, as you develop certain skills faster when you are being pressured. Casting spells under enemy fire, for example. Also, leveling. Ellaine just reached level 23 after our hunting trip. I know nobles don’t go out very often, but Ellaine didn’t even know how to dismantle a skorr before I taught her, even if her knights did.”

“Wha-?! Lady Hestia, I know you are a very powerful magician, but isn’t that a bit too much? She hasn’t graduated yet, so aren’t prolonged hunting trips a bit too much, even for leveling? Also, while I know that sparring against others is good, Ellaine does not possess much experience fighting others, so isn’t it too harsh? And, and, dismantling? She’s a magician, and a lady, that doesn’t seem very appropriate!”

Ahh, I see, so he’s the overprotective brother type, huh? I wonder if he’s also a siscon?

While I was amused at what he said, as I was the one training Ellaine, Marianne suddenly burst into laughter even as she attempted to hide it behind her fan. “Oh, dear, you too have much to learn. Hie hie, even noblewomen must learn how to dismantle a monster for their flesh when they become knights or adventurers. To think otherwise would be silly; otherwise, you would become dead weight.”

“Mother?! This is Ellaine we are talking about.”

“I know, Jonathan, but that is why I am so very proud. Ellaine, my treasure, you have finally grown out of your shell. I mean, I would have prefered it if you had concentrated on your magical studies alone and doubled your efforts, as I believe you would be able to surpass your brother in that field eventually. Your talents aren’t as inferior as you believe, my love,” Ellaine’s mother praised her, looking radiant after she stopped laughing. “Now I understand. Barathan. Manuela. You two could have specified this more in the letter, no?”

All the prominent retainers and attendants were here.

“My apologies, my Lady. I shall do so next time,” Barathan replied with a smile.

“Lady Marianne, I believed that you would have been happier if you heard it yourself,” Manuela answered with a dutiful bow.

Upon request from Marianne, I began to describe what happened after they left. About my shaky start with Ellaine, about my concert, my time in Firwood, how Ellaine and I bonded through dragorade and jogging, about the whole onnikai and Davison affair, and then the annoying trial. Ellaine was flustered throughout the whole discussion, even hiding her face when I mentioned that she took up the sword again. Her brother was quite surprised to hear that, even asking if Ellaine was planning to become a knight.

I am so glad that this meeting has been more pleasant than I initially thought. I mean, I still had our first meeting in my head and how Ellaine has described her family. She spoke highly of them, but, I mean, she was a noble. As if she would speak ill of them, even if we had become friends.

“I would like to thank you so very much for your support, Lady Hestia. As a mother, not as a noble. After she gave up her succession rights when she was twelve, I was devastated to witness the prime of her life cut short from the stigma of giving up her succession rights. She continued falling into a hole I couldn’t help her climb out of, and I thought it was over when my husband told me Ellaine would miss her debut to become your lady-in-waiting.” If it wasn’t for the tone of her voice, I wouldn’t have noticed that she was stopping herself from crying. “Ahh, I wish my adventurer days had granted me more wisdom. Maybe then I wouldn’t have to rely this much on you, Lady Hestia. Thank you, once again.”

“Mother… I must apologize. I wouldn’t have troubled you and father this much if I had just put more effort into my training. Realizing that after Lady Hestia’s concert wasn’t ideal at all,” Ellaine admitted to her mother, looking disappointed in herself.

“No, no, as the eldest, I should have noticed this sooner.” Even Jonathan was apologizing. “Instead of treating my younger sister as somebody I must protect, I should have done more to help her, instead of focusing on my own abilities.”

Holy cow, this is soooo wholesome. I feel so fluffy!

Marianne chuckled once more, before snapping her fingers. That was when one of her knights came over and handed her some folded parchment, followed by Marianne casting an [Air Shield] around us to block any sound from going out. “Please, consider this House Helvas’s token of appreciation. As requested, we have done some investigation on those ‘Goddess’ Chosen.’”

Finally, after so much waiting, an answer came. Saori did explain that Gael gave her a lot of information yesterday on the subject, even confirming that those heroes absolutely were Saori’s students. It also meant that we had to find them, just so Saori could meet them again. If I were in her position, I’d also be trying to find them at all cost, just cause they were people I knew before coming over here.

Gael kept the parchment containing the information he had, but it seemed like we may keep the one Marianne gave us. Reading through it with Saori and Tasianna, most of the information was already something we knew from Gael and the little incident with that pantherean, Kaian. That they were summoned to this world and then tasked to hunt down some bandits — which was the group Macklemor belonged to — before they made it to the Griffonpeak to announce the existence of “Aurena’s Chosen.”

There was also new information, of course, which Marianne explained came from the royal family. Aside from wanting to befriend me, as I was royalty, they also helped out due to my involvement in the Davison affair. Informing Ellaine and Theodore about it was the right move.

“I see,” Saori sighed. “These ten are part of a whole group which split apart, huh? That means that the possibility that all my students had come to this world is very real. Lady Countess Marianne, was there any information on this statement? Did the church reveal how many heroes were summoned?”

Marianne shook her head. “I apologize, but, no. The church was quite secretive according to His Royal Majesty, despite wanting to use those heroes as propaganda to raise their influence in our Kingdom. After all, aside from you and Lady Hestia, this is the first appearance of otherworldly visitors to Peolynca since the Revolution Queen. As you might expect from my husband’s greed for the yeast recipe, His Royal Majesty was very much interested in the knowledge of those heroes.”

“And I guess this means it would be the same for the other kingdoms and countries, correct?” Everybody nodded to my remark.

“Similar to your role as a champion of the Goddess, Lady Hestia, being summoned here to Peolynca by the Goddess makes them as influential as a champion or saintess. Even more so, since the pope is directly promoting them. Aside from the Olivus Duchy, the remaining six duchies do not allow the church to affect political matters nor how their fiefs are ruled. The church wishes to change that with the heroes.”

Should I tell her that Aurena admitted that they weren’t summoned by her? No, that would be stupid. I’m here to help Saori, not make it harder on her students.

“My students… used as religious pawns? I guess I should have assumed this,” Saori commented with a frown, looking conflicted at the matter.

“No, that wasn’t the only reason. As you might know, Madam Saori, the human race has a terrible relationship with the demonkins because of the legacy of their progenitors, the demons. The Church of the Goddess isn’t a religion restricted to Artorias, after all; it also affects the Folschreck Empire — to whom we are vassals — and they are currently in a war with the demonkin. The church wishes to direct the Goddess’s Chosen against the ruler of the demonkin in order to end the conflict and bring peace. As I can see that you know them, I presume this isn’t good news.”

Saori closed her eyes, before speaking out a question, “May I ask, do you know where they currently are?”

“Unfortunately, not even our King was notified when they left our capital. We do know that they were supposed to do good and spread the Goddess’ words around the kingdom before departing to another country. Which duchy they currently are in, we cannot say.”

“I see,” she nodded and then looked at Tasianna and me. “Lady Hestia. Tasianna. I would like our next destination to still be Griffonpeak. Without any information, it would be best if we personally asked the cathedral for more information. Maybe your influence can sway them to divulge more information, Lady Hestia.”

“Good idea. I have to visit them anyway, so this would coincide with our goals.”

“If this could bring you some solace, the heroes are being escorted by two paladins of the Church’s paladin order. One was quite young but seemed promising enough in order to be assigned to your students, while the other one is one of their strongest knights. The ‘White Winged Dragoon’ is her epitaph, and her abilities are around A rank if I were to compare with an adventurer’s ranking. While they are with her, they will stay safe from most common threats.”

Saori let out a sigh of relief and thanked Marianne for the information. Saori also asked if her students had shown their abilities to anybody when they were in the capital; however, it seemed like the church didn’t want anybody to witness it.

Was it just me, or was the church very uncooperative? I wonder, was this what Aurena mentioned when her church was being corroded? No, I shouldn’t make this assumption before actually meeting them. I have to keep a clear mind.

“Lady Hestia, might I presume you will be leaving Firwood soon?” Ellaine asked, to which I confirmed her assumption. “Then I guess we will meet in Griffonpeak. Brother, we must leave soon for the academy, yes?”

“Today is the 28th, correct? WinterMoon is tomorrow, so we must prepare for our departure soon. Ready our attendants, register at the academy, and make sure our equipment and tools are ready,” Jonathan answered after some thinking.

“Lady Hestia, the academy begins on the first day of SpringBloom; however, we must prepare to depart for Griffonpeak soon. Unfortunately, that does mean that I will miss your birthday…,”Ellaine voiced out her regrets. I guess she was right that next month was my birthday… verdammt, I can’t believe I’ve been in this world for nearly a year now.

“...Which means I should finally make up my mind,” as I was contemplating my existence in this world and how wild it is that I would become a year old soon, Ellaine stood up. She breathed in deeply before looking at her brother with eyes of conviction. “Brother. Jonathan, I would like to ask you for a spar. Will you accept?”

...What?!

Ellaine’s request came out of nowhere. Nobody expected it, not even Josine, Ellaine’s attendant. Her mother was left speechless while Jonathan looked like he couldn’t understand the situation. “S-Sister, what is the meaning of this?! Are you requesting a duel to succeed our House!?”

“Pardon?! No, what are you thinking, brother! I already gave it up, so why would I want it? I asked you for a spar, a FRIENDLY spar. I wish to test my training against you.” The misunderstanding caused Ellaine to turn red as she had to explain her intentions to her brother.

After everybody calmed down, Jonathan still seemed hesitant to fight his younger sister, especially considering she was far more of a defeatist two months ago. He was apprehensive for a good reason. He only accepted once Marianne spoke up, saying that it would be best if siblings fought against each other once in a while to know each other’s strength, since they will be working together in the future.

From how Marianne said it, I could guess that she must have fought with her siblings quite a lot. Ellaine did say that her mother had quite a few siblings and that she was the youngest. As a single child, I had no idea about sibling rivalry. Did siblings actually fight each other that often, or was that just a TV troupe?

Now dressed in a gambeson and more appropriate training wear, Ellaine and Jonathan met up at the training field of the Helvas mansion, where the guards and knights sparred. Marianne came forward and gave them each a bracelet to wear. It wasn’t a party bracelet, that’s for sure.

“Lady Hestia, this is a manatech we use for official duels and sparring matches during festivals or tournaments. Of course, we nobles have multiples of these in the case that our children wish to spar against each other or their tutors. It is for safety reasons, so we can monitor their Health and call off the spar if necessary,” Marianne explained after I asked her.

Referee Sparring Card

The referee must register the sparring bracelet onto this card, before equipping it to a party bracelet. Health of all participants can be monitored and victory conditions can be set. If a participant fulfills a losing condition, protective runes will act to protect the participants. If the victory conditions is fulfilled, protective runes will activate on all participants

It was like a MMO’s dueling system, designed to prevent death, albeit from a video game that also included death penalties like EXP loss, during friendly duels and spars. Since it would undoubtedly cause friction between noble houses if someone were to die accidentally, regardless if it was an honorable duel or not, having such an item seemed pretty convenient. Smart.

“I have set the losing condition to 60% of your current Health or if either of you are unable to continue the fight. A healing and mana wall rune will activate upon the conclusion of this spar. Ellaine. Jonathan. Will both of you accept these conditions?

““Yes, mother.””

Ellaine and Jonathan both resumed a stance. Ellaine had been learning from her knights how to hold a sword, but compared to Jonathan, who received personal training from their father, Ellaine’s could only be described as lacking. I wasn’t an expert on weapon fighting just yet, but, I have been able to experience fighting against a veteran fighter thanks to Guild Master Farron.

In my opinion, Jonathan’s stance was firm, showing he had been practicing it a lot, but it didn’t give me the same indomitable warrior feeling Farron’s had. That said, Ellaine’s unsteady balance and anxiousness made it seem like Jonathan would win without question. A mere two months cannot catch up to years upon years of training.

I’m worried…

“You can do it, Ellaine!” I cheered for her against the odds. These were moments where it was time for me to act like a proper friend and believe in her!

The siblings’ swords glimmered under the sun.

“...Begin!”

And they clashed.

A note from AbyssRaven

I'm sorry, the Granblue grind has been very intensive. My crew/guild didn't make it to Tier A. :(

Anyway, speaking of the chapter now. Ellaine sparring and proving herself to her brother, the source of her complex, did seem like something that had to be done. Now, let's see what she can do after Hestia put her through an infernal training.

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Chapter 151: Ellaine.

A note from AbyssRaven

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The match began with the sound of sharp steps dashing on the ground as Jonathan initiated the battle with the unarmed ability [Gale Steps]. With a firm gaze, he quickly closed the distance between him and his sister, his sword held firmly within his two hands.

Ellaine flinched for a moment, but, seeing as her mouth was moving and her hazel and emerald ring was shining brightly on her left hand, I had no doubts she had already anticipated this action. It was only a whisper, but I managed to make out that it was the shortened chant of [Earth Wall].

As Jonathan was about to strike Ellaine’s sword arm, disarming her in the process, a brown magic circle appeared below his sister’s feet, where a wall of earth immediately grew. It pushed Ellaine up, not only dodging Jonathan’s attack but also creating some distance between the two. She didn’t stop though, reaching her left arm forward as a green magic circle materialized, blasting Ellaine and Jonathan further apart. It was [Wind Blast] and she was using it exactly how I would.

Nice! Don’t let him get close to you, Ellaine! Use your spells not only as attacks and feints but also for movements and displacements!

As Jonathan was recovering from a point-blank blast of wind, which should have dazed him from just the force even if it hadn’t done any actual damage, Ellaine’s twin-gem ring shone brightly once again. Using [Multi-Cast], two magic circles — one brown, one green — appeared on her body and cast [Sturdy Earth] and [Swift Winds], buffing herself up.

“Good. Applying stat-increasing spells is a challenge for most apprentice mages, regardless of whether they face a knight, a fellow mage, or a beast. Battles are always hectic in the beginning and most overly-excited casters simply forget or even abstain from using them. For that reason, catalyst and alchemical stones were created, my dears,” Marianne was monologuing, commenting on the battle from her seat. As it was loud enough for everybody close by to listen to, which included some guards and her personal knights, I had a feeling she was secretly a shoutcaster. “Lady Hestia, my daughter does not know how to fight. Did you perhaps teach her these tactics?”

O-Oi, what the hell was that blunt statement! I complained in my head as I flinched from Marianne’s sudden remark, which showed her strict side as she gave her opinion on her Ellaine.

“W-Well, yes, I did give her some advice on how to fight, especially close-combatants; however, aren’t you being a bit too harsh, Lady Marianne? When we first sparred, she seemed competent enough, considering she barely has experience fighting against stronger mages.”

However, Marianne shook her head in disagreement. “You are being too kind. Let us continue watching the spar for now.”

The moment she said that Ellaine landed on the ground, being forced to roll, letting the ground absorb her momentum. It wasn’t anywhere close to being elegant or lady-like, as I opted to have her learn the more practical and efficient parkour roll I learned from movies and parkour videos. I used it and she copied me without a question… although, it did receive a ton of complaints from Josine and Manuela.

At the same time, Jonathan was already back on his feet and used [Gale Steps] once again. Due to the need for chanting, spells used without [Chant Revocation] were always slower than weapon or unarmed abilities since the abilities could be used immediately or with just a small wind-up. It was my first time fully witnessing the struggles a mage would have against a frontliner.

Ellaine raised her left hand, looking like she was about to ready a spell, but after a split second reflection, she quickly put it on her sword and raised that up instead, blocking her brother’s incoming attack. Their blades collided for the first time, the sound of dull steel echoed through the training field.

“Urgh!” Ellaine groaned. She was holding her stance well, but, seeing as her brother was not only taller, but also physically stronger thanks to a strenuous training regimen over the years, Ellaine couldn’t defeat her brother in a Strength match-up. Despite managing to level up ten times during our hunting trip, she has only been receiving my training for a little over a month and, unfortunately, she wasn’t blessed with a dragon’s or garm’s evolution paths and natural growth rates.

She couldn’t overpower or outspeed her better-trained brother, regardless of what their level difference was. Ellaine knew this. She bent her knees, letting her brother’s sword slide down her blade to the side, before launching her own sword attack. Jonathan easily blocked it.

At this position, Jonathan had a good shot to kick Ellaine’s chest, creating some distance while also knocking the air out of her lungs. I guess he was going easy on her, since that would be what I would do if I was in his shoes. Or, he’s honorable and hasn’t learned how to fight dirty yet.

Nevertheless, Jonathan’s swordplay was filled with confidence and strength, blowing away Ellaine’s strike with a push before launching numerous flurry of strikes. Against this barrage, Ellaine’s lacking sword skill couldn’t keep up with her brother’s, letting a few strikes hit her. The swords were dull, but they were still made from steel. They were able to do some serious damage to your limbs and organs.

“[Sturdy Earth] and [Swift Winds] are working well, otherwise Ellaine wouldn’t be able to keep fighting like this,” Marianne commented, pointing at Ellaine’s increased Vitality and Agility. “However, how will she get out of this predicament, I wonder? Jonathan can’t fight either, but he still has more experience sparring with others than Ellaine does.”

At this point, I understood why she thought her children couldn’t fight, as she was projecting her standards as a seasoned mage and adventurer on them. I agreed that the quality of this fight wasn’t something to talk about, but Jonathan was moving around pretty well, which proved that he had been training hard up until this day.

So, wasn’t it unfa-

“Huh?”

“Oh my?”

“Wha-?!”

For some reason, Ellaine suddenly let go of her sword. No, she threw it at Jonathan’s face. With remarkable reflex, Jonathan swirled his body to the side and swung his sword like a baseball bat, sending Ellaine’s blade flying away. He was supposed to recover from this action, but he suddenly began to fall to the ground, baffling not only Jonathan but everybody else.

The reason could be seen from a glance at Ellaine’s ring, both gems shining their respective colors but the hazel-brown light had suddenly stopped growing. Under Jonathan’s feet, a small [Earth Wall] had been constructed, tiny enough that nobody was focused on it during the sword clashing but high enough to trip Jonathan.

A green magic circle appeared on Ellaine’s hand before it activated, “I beseech your strength, Goddess of Wind! Wind Slash!”

“Kuek! I call upon your winds of protection! Air- ARGH!” Jonathan also had a catalyst of his own, an emerald ring similar to Ellaine’s on his left hand. It shone green as he was trying to cast a spell, but Ellaine’s spell activated first, tearing the left side of his gambeson around his stomach. “-Shield!”

Bearing through the pain, Jonathan managed to cast a shield of wind around him, preventing Ellaine’s second [Wind Slash] from landing. Still, the first one managed to draw blood.

Don’t slow down! Continue casting, Ellaine! Bombard him with spells!

As if she was able to read my mind, her rings glowed once again. Multiple small [Wind Cutter]s shot out from Ellaine’s hand, forcing Jonathan to dodge them to prevent his shield from going down, all while spikes erupted from underneath him from Ellaine’s[Earth Strike]. “Use fast spells to lead your enemy, then hard-hitting spells to damage them. Nice, Ellaine.”

“Ahh, good, she has the basics down with using different magic elements,” Marianne praised with a smile.

“Hmm? Did the academy not teach this to her, Lady Marianne?” Ellaine already knew this concept before I trained her, but it was sloppier and slower back then. The strategy couldn’t work if your opponent wasn’t fazed by it or was able to react in time.

“Oh no, the royal academy isn’t incompetent, Lady Hestia. Experienced mages and trained knights act as tutors there, so the academy does teach the basics of fighting. In addition, my husband and I tutored them, so if you were to question Ellaine’s prior training, I would feel quite sad, since it would point to my flaws as a teacher,” Marianne stated with a wry smile.

“Then why did you say Ellaine and Jonathan cannot fight? If you asked me, they are fully able to fight something like a lower-tier E rank monster by themselves; Jonathan especially with his sword prowess. Aren’t you being a bit too demanding, Lady Marianne?”

“Lady Hestia, it isn’t that Lady Marianne is strict because she has to be as a noble, but rather because she wishes for the best for both the young lord and lady,” Barathan voiced his opinion in defense of his mistress.

“The idea behind the royal academy is to act as a place for students to meet each other and build up relationships for the future. For masters to find competent retainers. For knights and mages to find comrades. Unfortunately, that also means that proper combat training comes after graduation,” Manuela added, revealing what I already had guessed from how Ellaine described it. I guess the girls from the tea party really just wanted to socialize.

“You are not too surprised, I see, Lady Hestia,” Marianne noticed from my expression, then turned her head towards Saori. “Madam Saori, you mentioned you had students, no? Are you perhaps an educator or instructor? If you could, may I hear your opinion on your preferred teaching method? What would you do to reveal the potential of your students?”

Oh, that’s right, Saori was a teacher. I haven’t heard much about that so this might be interesting, I turned my focus from the match to Saori, after Marianne said that, not revealing the heroes were her students.

Saori placed a hand on her chin, frowned, and looked to the side. It was obvious that she was thinking. “Hmm, I do not believe I have much to offer, really. I have only been a teacher for four years, and I would say I was still learning the intricacies of being an educator for young minds. If there was something that I learned that worked, then it would be to put on a stricter facade than usual during class, as students would challenge the authority of teachers if they see them as incompetent. The moment you lose their respect, that is when everything will descend in chaos.”

“That does sound wise, no? That is especially the case for us nobles, where your birth and parents count towards your influence. A mednoble might teach the child of a greifnoble, and even if the academy is a place where your social rank does not affect your evaluation, that doesn’t mean that it didn’t matter. Commoners aren’t too welcomed by certain nobles, or greifnoble children would blackmail lower-ranking teachers. Being strict to prevent your children from becoming spoiled has been a goal for my husband and me, and we will continue having high standards so our children will always have a goal to strive for, even if it isn’t their current one.”

“However, building a bond with your children is important, which also includes finding what they are interested in. In the country that I taught in, teachers were also like life counselors for our students. We would help them find what they wish to do in the future or try to settle problems for them whenever we could, however, intruding too much into a student’s life was frowned upon,” Saori continued. “At the end of the day, students are young and impressionable. Being a teacher, there was a need to balance what you needed to teach them and what you should be teaching them. A school might have a curriculum for what subjects students need for the future, but a student does not suddenly become wiser after they graduate. Teachers and parents are also responsible for teaching them about life.”

Parents, too, huh? I wonder what my parents thought about me after disobeying them for so long?

“I see, thank you very much for this insight, Madam Saori,” Marianne then turned back to the duel. Ellaine was pinning Jonathan down with magic; even though he was firing back his own spells, they weren’t as frequent as Ellaine’s. The training field had been transformed through [Earthen Wall]s and [Earth Strike]s, which the siblings were using as cover. “She’s so much better with magic, so why the sword?” Marianne mumbled.

She then turned to me. “Lady Hestia, were you the one who told my daughter to pick up the sword again?”

“No,” I replied. “I personally think that mages should train their Stamina and physical abilities as it directly impacts their fighting capabilities. My situation is special, so I can focus on close-quarter combat in addition to magic, but that doesn’t apply to Ellaine, so I would not suggest for her to train her swordsmanship.”

“I can attest to this, Lady Marianne,” Barathan interjecting himself into the discussion. “Manuela and I have overseen Lady Ellaine’s training and it was the young lady herself who wanted to learn how to wield the sword from her knights. She alone made the choice, and we accommodated her.”

“...I see. Maybe there is a bit too much of you in her, Andre. Maybe our daughter would have grown up differently if you had kept training her?” We all could hear her muttering, but nobody spoke up about it. We simply stayed silent as it was polite.

“Earth Spears,” Ellaine shot out her level six earth spell, piercing through a wall, causing dust to spread. Jonathan’s figure was obscured by the brown fog, and it seemed like Ellaine couldn’t pinpoint him.

“If only we had opened our eyes. After all, both of our children are talented.”

The fog dispersed, caused by a single [Wind Slash] slicing through the air towards Ellaine. The distance was far enough for her to respond to it, dodging to the side while preparing her next spell, but Ellaine suddenly tripped. It was revenge. A brown magic circle for [Earthen Wall] was located under her; Jonathan made her take her own medicine.

With [Gale Steps] Jonathan finally found an opening to close the distance, dashing through the fields. Ellaine quickly stood up and activated [Wind Blast] to push both fighters back; however, another [Earth Wall] appeared behind Ellaine, stopping her from moving any further.

Jonathan’s brown ring glimmered again and another [Earthen Wall] was cast; this time, it was underneath him. Using this platform, he stomped on it and jumped, flying through the sky with his sword held up high. Ellaine dodged sideways.

Verdammt! He’s copying what you showed him!

Was this the difference in combat experience? I think so, as Jonathan quickly understood what his sister was doing, using spells to disorient and displace as much as possible. He wasn’t focusing on offensive spells now, but using whatever he could to bring his sister closer to him. He couldn’t win from afar, so he forwent the ranged offensive completely.

Since those two had different fighting abilities and both knew they couldn’t compete with their counterpart in their preferred field, they were trying very hard to keep their advantages. Ellaine wanted to stay away and continue chucking spells at Jonathan, while Jonathan needed to come closer to attack.

“Arck! Urgh, Air Shield!” Jonathan was receiving damage, trying to bring Ellaine close to his sword. It reminded me of my first spar with Farron and how he would tank my spells.

The two danced around as more earthen constructs were erected. Ellaine sweated as she had to continue running around, kiting her brother as best she could, but looking at how heavily she was breathing, her Stamina must be close to empty. And seeing how many spells she was using, either arcane corruption or mana stress was just around the corner. I couldn’t help but clench my teeth.

“It is over,” Marianne stated, knowing the battle would end soon.

So did I. “Come on, Ellaine! Just one more decisive hit!” I stood up from my seat and shouted to cheer for my friend. I could see the Health difference between the two, so I knew she just needed one more clean hit.

However, that chance never came. As Ellaine was about to launch another spell, the cast fizzled as she flinched in pain, clutching her head. Her skin was slowly becoming a light purple-blue, the first symptoms of arcane corruption. Marianne asked me to get my healing spells ready in the worst case, something I already knew.

The fight continued for a few more seconds before Ellaine’s offense died down completely. Her catalyst rings stopped shining and she was massaging her temples to ward off the headaches caused by arcane corruption. Jonathan didn’t let this go, and quickly closed the distance between them.

Ellaine’s long blue hair fluttered in the air as she dodged her brother’s attacks with ragged breath. She then ducked under a sword swing, to launch her own sword attack. Ellaine, in her desperation, had led the battle to the very spot her sword landed when it was initially blasted away. Without any other attacks, Ellaine had to rely on her swordsmanship.

Unfortunately, her brother wouldn’t allow her to do so. Jonathan blocked Ellaine’s attack, and then kicked her back, causing her to recover her empty lungs. He quickly disarmed Ellaine and pushed her face down onto the dirty ground. Jonathan won.

So, he can fight dirty.

“Stop! The battle is over! Jonathan is the winner,” Marianne announced, causing the bracelets on the siblings’ arm to activate the runes on them. Josine quickly ran towards her mistress, a dragorade ready in her hand, courtesy of Saori.

“Good fight, sister! You… really surprised me,” Jonathan praised his sister while offering her a hand to stand up, like a chivalrous knight from a fairy tale. Unlike Ellaine who was breathing heavily, Jonathan only seemed slightly winded despite having to run the whole match long. His Stamina must be fearsome.

“That was a wonderful duel, my children. You cannot believe how proud you have made me,” Marianne spoke through a smile, despite complaining that her children weren’t showing the quality of fighting she was used to. Parents, right? “It is great to see your progress, Jonathan. You still have one more year before you may join a knight’s order, so keep up your training, otherwise, the squire training might be too challenging. Keep this up and I can see you doing well in the tournament this summer.”

“Thank you, mother! I will do my best to bring honor to our house!” Jonathan smiled like a happy puppy after being praised. “I cannot slack now. This was not a good showing after all my training. I adapted too slowly and nearly lost the duel.” He was so close to 60% Health that I was sure if Ellaine hadn’t gotten that headache, he would have lost.

Marianne nodded in agreement. “You underestimated your sister. Do not make this mistake in a real battle, Jonathan. Ellaine hasn’t reached the advanced elements yet — and neither have you — so she has not reached the heights of an experienced mage that can devastate a battlefield. I would advise you to redouble your magic training, Jonathan. Manuela, look over his schedule and adjust it for me.”

“Yes, Lady Marianne!”

“And Ellaine, my dear daughter.” Ellaine was standing thanks to Jonathan, but it seemed she needed Josine to support her while she drank her dragorade. “I see you have reached level six with both wind and earth magic while I was gone. I am so proud of you; if you keep up your new-found dedication, then you will most likely reach your advanced elements next year.”

Ellaine formed a wry smile as she saw her mother’s joyous attitude, “Actually, Mother… I have already reached level seven with both. I have [Wind Amp] and [Earth Amp]. Ehe ehe…”

The surprise of hearing this news made Marianne’s eyes go wide, even forcing her to hide her agape mouth with her fan. “Impossible. Leveling so fast after only two months? No, you have only trained for around a month, no? Arcane corruption, mana issues, and stress should prevent you from improving this fast.”

It was true, arcane corruption and mana supply were the main bottleneck for mages. The higher your [Arcane Corruption Resistance] and Mana capacity, the longer you could train, which made leveling skills up far easier and faster. If only there was a way for mages to reduce their arcane corruption with a special drink, right?

Seeing as Marianne didn’t know about my dragorade, does that mean that Ellaine hadn’t told her about it? Wow, that’s Ellaine for you! Keeping the secrets of your friend!

“Well, it is Lady Hestia’s doing, so if you wish to learn more, please ask her,” she praised me with an innocent smile. However, it wasn’t! Marianne’s eyes flashed like a beast as she stared at me, but only for a moment as her gaze returned to Ellaine.

“Jests aside, I am very proud that you have made this much progress, Ellaine. Truly. You have settled some concerns in my heart with your display today. From never being able to challenge Jonathan, to a valiant defeat. Ellaine, I can assure you, if you show this growth at the academy, the ridicule will stop and you can return to noble society with your head held up high.”

I guess the scene at the tea party was only one of many examples of Ellaine’s current situation. The consequences of her action, but I just thought it was too harsh. Well, what can I say? If my returned memories were true, then it meant that I had also caused my friends trouble with my selfishness back on Earth. My old friends had good reason to distance themselves from me. I don’t know enough about Ellaine’s former friends to say much about it.

Ellaine looked at her mother with a smile before excusing herself to come to me. Josine let go of her. “How did I do, Lady Hestia?”

I raised my thumbs up and winked, showing I was happy to see her fight well. “Fantastic. I’m sorry I couldn’t help you get the win though. However, it was definitely a better spar than the one we had at the beginning. Right? Saori? Tasianna?”

“It was a great performance. I am glad that your restructured schedule and training regiment could help you,” Saori answered.

Tasianna showed a thumbs up like I did, but didn’t say anything. She kept up a smile, though!

“I am very glad to hear that. Very glad to not have disappointed you, Lady Hestia. Then it means I have proven myself…,” Ellaine then suddenly bent her legs and kneeled, holding her head down. “Lady Hestia Atsuko! I, Ellaine Fiero Helvas, wish to go under you as your retainer and knight!”

Huh? …Ehhhhhh?!

“Wha-Wha- Ellaine?!”

“My abilities are nowhere close enough to be able to fight by your side yet, Lady Hestia. However, if you would accept me, then I promise from today onwards that I will undergo whatever trial you hand me. Sword and magic. They will be formed according to your wishes, Lady Hestia!”

Everybody was stunned, especially Marianne and Jonathan. The girl with the inferiority complex wishes to become my retainer?! I mean, she was still degrading herself for some fucking reason, but she was still offering to become my retainer, yo! Yo, this crazy!

“Ellaine, dear, what is the meaning of this?” Marianne asked with a surprised expression.

“Mother, I have thought over this idea for a long time, but I wish to serve somebody after I graduate. I know my place as the daughter of a noble house is to be married off to another family, especially after I dishonored myself so much by giving up my birthright, but I cannot accept it anymore. Not after meeting Lady Hestia,” Ellaine voiced out her inner desires. “Lady Hestia, I admit, your songs moved me. Both ‘Promise’ and ‘Memories.’ They made my soul…happy. I felt like I was wasting my life with how I always kept comparing myself to others, and then being disappointed that I couldn’t live up to anybody’s expectations. I-I don’t understand how I wasn’t able to realize this until now. So, I wish to improve myself as much as possible now, and I believe it can only be by your side, Lady Hestia.”

She then raised her head, showing a face full of conviction. “I am not a knight yet, but I wish to become yours. I want to become somebody that can serve you, Lady Hestia!”

As I was listening to her words, two telepathic messages entered my head. The first was from Saori. [“I think we should accept her, Hestia. Did she not mention she knew basic enchantments and also was able to work on manatech? That alone makes her valuable.”]

Tasianna then gave her opinion, [“From watching her work, she is a capable manager of the estate, Lady Hestia. Miss Saori desperately requires somebody to take some of her work load off, especially when it comes to our finances and trade deals. Lady Ellaine is trained as a merchant thanks to her noble upbringing.”]

[“Tasianna, I can work just fine, why, thank you. I am healthy and stress-free.”]

[“Yes, but you still work far too much. I admire it wholeheartedly, but please allow someone else to help so that you may get more sleep, Miss Saori.”]

[“Tasianna, I-”]

[“Tasianna has a point, Saori. You are a workaholic. I mean, it’s not my place to say that since I haven’t volunteered to ease your burdens yet, but facts are facts. That alone makes Ellaine invaluable.”]

The discussion only lasted for a few seconds, and the moment it was over, I spoke, “Ellaine… our travels will be arduous. I mean it. It will also mean you might leave the kingdom for an extended period, since we are planning to leave Artorias no matter what. Are you sure you wish to join me, despite all of this?”

“Yes, Lady Hestia. If trials await me, then I will train and prepare for them. I will not cower any longer, so please, allow me to serve you,” Ellaine answered. “I wish to finish my year at the academy, first, if possible. I want to say goodbye to certain people. After that, I, Ellaine Fiero Helvas, will dedicate her life in your name, Lady Hestia!”

I sighed but smiled in the end. “So, be it. Barathan. Manuela. Josine. Svena. Lord Jonathan. Lady Marianne. I am sorry to say this, but I will be selfish and accept Ellaine into my party. I hope all of you could forgive me for this!” My declaration didn’t cause anybody to shout out in anger. The moment I saw Marianne smile wryly, I knew I had her best wishes. “From today onwards, I, Hestia Atsuko, graciously welcome you into our midst. I foretell that our travels will shine ever so brightly and bring us joyous memories in the future.”

[Human, Ellaine Fiero Helvas] has received the title [Hestia’s Retainer]

Huh? She didn’t become my follower. Oh wait, does that mean she’s already one of my fans?

In addition to becoming one of my followers — as evident from Saori and Tasianna when I accepted them — Ellaine confirmed to me that the SP system was unlocked in her profile, although she had zero SP. She has to start grinding up, especially with me sharing my experience increase.

Ellaine couldn’t formally join the party yet, since she still had matters to complete at school, but Aurora just gained our fourth member. A bit of a surprise, since even the human-hating Tasianna gave her approval.

Guess I need to do another bus soon~

A note from AbyssRaven

Granblue grinding event is over and I am so exhausted. Too much grinding, ouch. Anyway, with that done, the schedule should go back to normal. After all, I have a writhalon to keep up with.

And, Aurora now has four party members! Also, race diversity is still a thing for the party, having a dragon, a garm, a fairy, and human now.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 15 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 152: The Mystery of Yeast...kinda.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #3 her to promote our Patreon. 15 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 15 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until May!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

“We need to prepare several things before you leave, my dear. Protective equipment and catalysts — function over form, especially. I must also commission some mana robes for you and enchant them. Oh! Madam Saori, I remember you made that lightning cloth for my husband, correct? Would you consider some work?”

“My Lady, Miss Saori has already finished a brilliant dress out of mana threads for the young lady. The quality is of no concern.”

“Fabulous, Manuela. Josine, set it out for me to see it later.”

“Of course, Madam.”

“Mother… why must you say all of this in front of Lady Hestia…”

Welp, parents embarrassing their children is universal, huh?

After Ellaine’s spar with her brother Jonathan, their mother Marianne guided us into her workplace, a room equipped for Marianne to perform her work as an enchanter and artificer. Jonathan left us to get a shower after Marianne gave us a tour through the room. She was now in the process of repairing Tasianna’s catalyst, the orb Kiiro once resided in.

Ignoring Ellaine’s flustered face, Saori responded to Marianne’s offer, “Of course I will. Since Lady Ellaine will be joining us, preparing appropriate equipment for everybody is essential.”

“Fantastic. Let us do this once everybody arrives in Griffonpeak, since Ellaine must focus on her preparation to return to the academy. I do not know what excuse I will give the academy’s administration to grant Ellaine leave from her studies yet, but I will think of something. Foremost, she must return to school before she may join you,” Marianne stated.

Despite recruiting Ellaine to Aurora, she couldn’t join us on our journey just yet, as she had a responsibility to at least show up at the academy and announce her departure. Just imagine what rumors would end up starting if Ellaine were to suddenly disappear? I mean, the stigma of giving up your succession rights without a fight was already causing her trouble, the last thing I wanted to do was to cause people to think she was also an academy dropout.

So, it was decided that Ellaine would go to Griffonpeak with her brother before officially joining Aurora. As we didn’t have any more plans in Firwood, outside of saying our goodbyes to Lorena, Zeather, and the dwarven blacksmiths, it was also time for us to leave Firwood, too. Ellaine had a ton to catch-up on, and the engine of my EXP carry bus is ready to roll.

“Alright, this will take a while. Manuela. Josine. My daughter requires a bath after playing outside, so please be so kind and help her clean herself up.” Marianne was right that Ellaine sweated quite a bit during the spar, and she hadn’t changed out of her gambeson yet. She was quickly escorted back to her room.

As they were about to leave, Tasianna and Svena returned from the kitchen with a cart full of snacks and tea, much to Ellaine’s dismay. Her forlorn gaze, as she watched all the snacks and tea move away from her, was a sad sight, but I quickly recovered once I caught a whiff of the assortment of snacks, causing the glutton inside me to be awakened.

“Lady Hestia, we have returned. Which tea would you like to drink today?” Svena asked me as she opened the tea box. After I chose mine, Svena served Marianne, in the meantime, Tasianna placed some snacks on a table beside Marianne’s workstation.

“Oh, what a treat! Lady Hestia, have I already mentioned how much I loved the pastry you presented to us during our first meeting? Absolutely scrumptious,” Marianne sang praises for the snacks laid before her, before taking a bite of some cake. “Mhmm, this is just enticing me to eat more! Thank you, Lady Hestia, and compliments to the pastry chefs for this creation. I would like to continue enjoying this, but I should get back to work.”

Marianne then took out a monocle from her drawer, which looked similar to the one the High Bishop had, and put it on. She then picked up Tasianna’s orb and began analyzing it, inspecting the crack in detail and the overall form. Since making catalysts and other magic tools was a specialty for alchemists, I didn’t expect Marianne to offer to help, since I Ellaine said her mother wasn’t an alchemist.

“My elder sister is my family's [Alchemy] specialist, and I managed to learn how to repair catalysts from her, since having an alchemist repair anything would be expensive. Andre was elated to hear that when I told him, since none of his relatives are alchemists. Speaking of, I heard that Miss Tasianna began working on creating potions just recently. How was your experience, Miss Fairy?” Marianne asked while her eyes were glued on the catalyst.

“Hard work,” she replied immediately before elaborating on it. “Grinding ingredients, making sure the flame is at an appropriate temperature and also having the correct alcohol for the tonic. It also takes patience until the mixture finishes brewing, similar to cooking or tea making, but failure during alchemy can result in an explosion, or so I’ve heard.”

“That is right. My sister described alchemy similarly.” Marianne then placed the blue catalyst down and directed us to her enchanting table. “Meanwhile, enchanting requires less labor. Inscribing enchanting formulae and then implanting them onto mana clothing with mana is less arduous. Due to the hard work, alchemy, runesmithing, and manatech creation are less popular amongst us nobles. Even amongst Morgiana and Myrddin nobles, enchanting and custom spell creation is considered the ‘fairer’ practice.”

“Elves practice alchemy a lot,” Tasianna remarked.

Marianne nodded with a wide smile, holding back a chuckle with skill. “What irony, correct? We wish to be similar to elves, but our culture still developed differently despite bordering Saelariel. ‘Alchemy is a commoner practice,’ is sadly a common attitude among the lazy and the martial nobles. Thank goodness I became an artificer like my father and learned some alchemy, otherwise the expenses for manatech and catalyst repairs would give Andre a headache.”

I can kinda imagine Marianne putting on a technician’s outfit and just going around the mansion repairing stuff, he he.

“Alright, let us begin,” Marianne then pulled out an alembic and a pot before she began grinding some white rock in a mortar. “The composition of a catalyst requires some fairnite to prevent mana from escaping the orb outside of the mage’s control. We then mix in arcanuit, the most essential mineral component of a mana battery to store the mana. Most arcane ores can absorb mana, but they cannot store it for a prolonged time or in large quantities since they would just explode. Even eoriant, the dwarven alloy between steel and euorinium, isn’t suitable for a mana battery, but it’s a better material for weapons and armor since it far exceeds arcanuit in toughness.”

“How tough?” I asked.

“If you crack a mana battery, the escaping mana alone causes the alloy to shatter and explode. That’s how fragile arcanuit is, unfortunately. But they have such a long shelf-life that prevents them from degrading like eoriant when they store mana. If the dwarves could prevent mana batteries from exploding from just a crack, then it would be revolutionary,” Marianne lectured us while she was diligently grinding all the materials — which included monster and plant materials — needed to repair the orb. “Oh my, oh my. Goddess Zephira has blessed this orb. This is such an honor for somebody like me to repair it. I should make sure this doesn’t break.”

She then placed the ground materials into the alembic, added some “potion-making” alcohol into it, gave it a good shake, and lit up the bunsen burner. “Alright, the gel requires some time to make, so in the meantime… Lady Hestia, the payment, please~”

Regardless if I was royalty or not, good work deserves payment, especially when it required Marianne to use up her alchemical ingredients. Thankfully, it was a pretty easy deal to fulfill for me.

I took off my white mage robe and activated [Humanization]. Instead of transforming back into a dragon or my minor form, I simply brought out my wings. Glistening crimson red, it was good to see my wings healthy and strong despite not using them as often as I wanted.

“Oh my, they are quite large!” Marianne exclaimed, worried I would knock something over with the sudden appearance of my wings. Still, she stopped worrying the moment she inspected the scales on my wings. “…So this is [Humanization]. I heard that the strength and durability of a dragon’s scales were a testament to their strength and age. Logical, since Vitality and Wisdom exists, but it’s also because of their tremendous mana.”

My body was literally a tank full of concentrated mana that was strong enough to affect plant growth and also produced strong potions through my blood. It really wouldn’t surprise me if my scales were drenched in mana, especially since most monster parts retained mana after harvesting them off a monster corpse.

Speaking of my wings, I should also ask Marianne about it, even if she couldn’t do it. “Lady Marianne, would it be possible for you to repair my mana paths?”

Unfortunately, she shook her head. “Sadly, I do not have the credentials of a surgeon, neither do I have the tools to begin such an operation. I do remember from your ID copy that the mana paths around your wings were injured? If you wish, I can ask Lady Duchess Morgiana to heal you. She might not consider herself as talented as the elves, but she is still a capable mana surgeon.”

“Really?! That would be fantastic! Another reason to go to Griffonpeak on top of all the other reasons.” In a good mood, I pulled out some of my shedded scales from my storage and handed them over to Marianne. “Here you go, Lady Marianne. They are younger scales, but they are mine nonetheless.”

The payment for Tasianna’s catalyst repair was some of my scales. I shed them a while ago and basically treated them like fallen hair, so I didn’t really care about them.

“Thank you very much, Lady Hestia. They aren’t enough for scale mail or a weapon, but I bet they will be good enough for alchemical stones,” Marianne commented, noting that she wanted to present them to her children as presents. One for Jonathan’s graduation and the other for Ellaine’s departure. “Oooh, they grow up too fast. Haaaaaaaaaaa...” It was a deep sigh.

We then spent some time enjoying some tea and pastries while we waited for the alchemical mixture to finish. Once it was done, Marianne poured the content into a beaker, then added the catalyst. She asked Tasianna to pour her mana into the beaker, mentioning that since the orb was made with faefolk mana initially, the magic of a strong fae like Tasianna could further strengthen the catalyst’s durability.

Tasianna frowned for a second, probably remembering how Davison placed Kiiro inside this orb while it was still an onnikai. Was that why the description of the orb mentioned it was “drenched in the mana of a rage-filled onnikai?” It would make sense. Regardless, Tasianna didn’t let that thought stop her as she pressed her hand on the beaker, pouring some of her mana into the gel covering her catalyst.

The gel suddenly began glowing blue. Marianne assured us this was the correct reaction and asked us to continue having patience. “That reminds me, Andre asked me to buy the yeast recipe from you, Lady Hestia.”

“Hmm? Your husband, Lord Helvas?” And I instantly frowned as I remembered Andres Helvas, Ellaine’s father. His first impression wasn’t good.

“Lady Hestia,” Svena nudged me, reminding me that I was inside his house and living here for the moment.

“Ohoho, there is no need to worry, Svena. I can agree that my husband’s behavior was a bit rough for Lady Hestia during our first meeting. He truly only had the mind of a merchant when he saw poor Miss Tasianna. Even forgetting how thorny our relationship is with the elves and fairies. He only had eyes on your yeast,” Marianne excused her husband’s behavior during the dinner a few months ago. “Nevertheless, I would ask you to forgive him for the moment, if you would please. This deal would benefit House Helvas as a whole, since yeast is desired by all nobles and wealthy merchants to be a scarce luxury until we can re-establish our relationship with the elves. Even then, Artorias wishes to be able to produce yeast independently if possible.”

“Yeah, I understand. I reflected on that day, and I really have to say that Lord Helvas was greedy. Considering he wanted Tasianna so much, even to the point of risking angering me, a dragonewt noble, the value of yeast must be immense.” I still couldn’t understand how Artorias had to rely on the elves for yeast since it was right in front of their noses.

“Yes, as an otherworlder, your knowledge is unique. A value cannot be placed on you or Madam Saori purely for this reason. Please, I ask you to sell us your information on yeast.”

I nodded and pointed at Saori. It was time for her to do her thing. “Lady Marianne, if I may ask, how valuable are enchantments?” If there was something to gain from this deal, then Saori would know it better than me.

“Do you mean the cost? Quite a bit, since enchantments are more flexible than armor. It can be worn without armor, prioritizing appearances, or it can further improve defenses and apply stat increasing effects while you are wearing armor. Since enchanting requires training and it’s more exclusive than blacksmithing, enchanters can demand higher prices,” Marianne explained. “Hmm, can I assume you are interested in enchanting your clothing, Madam Saori?”

“Yes, we require it for all three of us. Lady Hestia also requires a catalyst.”

“Hmm, that is acceptable. I can do that for you, yes. Also, if you require enchantments so much, I believe it would be best if I accelerated Ellaine’s enchanter and artificer training before she leaves. At least to the point that she’s competent and reliable. She can improve on her own if her base is solid.”

The basics are the most important. This woman gets it.

Usually, such a deal required a mana contract, binding both parties to fulfill their part of the deal, but Marianne said it wasn’t necessary. House Helvas owed me after the Chezaic affair, since it increased their house’s standing, and I didn’t really care about spreading yeast around Peolynca. I also wanted Ellaine’s house to grow so she wouldn’t have to worry about it during our travels.

“Ok, the deal is made… So, it’s finally time for me to ask. Lady Marianne, you do know that yeast has been right in front of your nose this whole time, right?” Having had to hold it in for this long since it was a good bargaining chip, my curiosity could finally be sated.

“Pardon?” Marianne responded with questioning eyes.

Instead of me, Saori stepped in to explain, “Yeast is made through the cultivation of small organisms, which is then used to allow the dough to grow air pockets, which creates the sponginess in our pastries here. To cultivate, yeast requires nutrients. Fruits, wheat, toffels, anything that contains carbohydrates, uhm, sugar — in any of its various forms — is an ideal source.”

I then pulled out my bottle of cultivated yeast from my storage and showed it to Marianne. “Here you go, this is the yeast that Saori and Tasianna used for our cake. It’s made with fragassa, so it has a very fruity taste. There are two versions of yeasts used in bread, the fruity yeast in this jar and something called ‘sourdough,’ which is made with wheat and some salt. As you would expect, the bread would then have a slightly sour taste if we used the latter.”

Saori continued, “Simply leaving some dough in water in an enclosed jar is enough to begin yeast cultivation. Beer also utilizes yeast in its creation.”

“This is yeast?” Marianne asked with doubts filling her voice. “This… I apologize if this sounds rude, Lady Hestia, but this cannot be yeast.”

“What do you mean?” Now I was tilting my head.

“We sometimes receive yeast through less legal sources, and what we receive are small, dry granules that are pinkish in color. It even has a very gem-like appearance. Your ‘yeast’ does not fulfill any of those conditions, and is rather foamy. I cannot help but question this, Lady Hestia,” Marianne looked as if she didn’t know what to do. Her expression was a mix of doubt and confusion.

Ahh, so this is the reason why Artorias still haven’t figured out that yeast was in front of them the whole time! The elves have been supplying them dry, portable yeast this whole time, leading them to have a different idea of how yeast should look!

Although, that does beg the question — how has a baker or any commoner not figured this stuff out yet? You just need one lazy or forgetful baker to leave the dough on the table and boom. ‘Revolutionary!’

“Lady Hestia? Is something on your mind?” Saori asked me. I explained to her what I just thought, causing her to question the situation too. “In Earth’s history, yeast was used even by the Egyptians, but they believed it was something like a miracle from the gods as they could not understand the fermentation process. Men then began baking bread with beer foam, as they didn’t know about the existence of yeast, but knew beer foam would make bread more delicious.”

“Holy crap! You actually had this in your memory?!” I was astounded that Saori would remember something this obscure and uninteresting.

“My professor during university loved traveling, and he knew how dull history can be, so he tried making the seminars more interesting with trivia facts like these. Most Japanese don’t travel a lot like you Hestia, so it was quite fun for me. Some stuck in my head, and some were forgotten. All this talk about yeast simply made me remember this piece of trivia.”

Seeing as my parallel minds can dig up any info I forgot from certain subjects like physics and chemistry in the depths of my mind, Saori’s reasoning did make sense.

“Anyway, that still does not explain how Artorias has not discovered it yet. Hmm, that does make me think. We have not tried making sourdough, right, Lady Hestia? Maybe the wheat in Peolynca is different from Earth’s?” The question was directed at Marianne and Barathan, but they couldn’t say anything since it wasn’t like they knew anything about Earth’s wheat in the first place.

“Well, theorizing here won’t make us wiser. Lady Marianne, please trust me on this. As you can see, we manage to make these pastries, and I can assure you that if you try this yeast yourself, you will gain similar results. This fragassa was grown with my mana, but I am sure normal fragassa would also work, and we just used water created through Tasianna’s water magic.”

“Understood. I will trust you, Lady Hestia. You have no reason to lie to us. If you could show Barathan the cultivation process, I would be very thankful. In addition, if your remarks are correct, then it would be best for Artorias if I began experimenting with your theory. It would certainly be an eye-opener if yeast was this easy to make when we had been considering it a luxury up until now. What an embarrassment it would be.”

After performing the cultivation process in front of Barathan, I gave him a set of instructions and the recipe for both sourdough and fruit yeast for future reference. By then, Tasianna’s catalyst repair was finished, the gel hardened and showed no signs of any previous damage. Thankfully, Kiiro’s last gift remained — the orb could absorb mana from others through the mana slime.

Catalyst of the Blessed Gale Storm

An alchemical orb blessed by Zephira, Goddess of Winds, and drenched in the mana of a rage-filled onnikai. If mana is registered to this catalyst, it will levitate and float around the owner using stored mana. If this catalyst is used as a support for the owner’s spells, the mana used in the process will be thicker, increasing the durability and damage of spells. Due to this process, casting speed and mana cost will increase.

Zephira’s Blessing: Casting speed and spell strength will increase for wind elemental spells, improved [Air Shield] can be cast, [Aerokinesis] for all wind elemental spells cast through this catalyst, [Storm Resistance Lv. 5]

Owner: [Tasianna Marina Silverpond]

Skill: [Mana Cost Increase Lv. 3] [Liquid Mana] [Zephira’s Blessing] [Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 8] [Chant Revocation Lv. 8] [Death Aura Lv. 1] [Arcane Mana Leech Lv. 8]

Arcane Mana Leech

A certain amount of Mana can be absorbed by spells and mana-related attacks from the target

We ate some lunch and then went to the market to open our restaurant until it was time to go back and sleep. On the next day, we began saying goodbyes to all the different people we met during our stay in Firwood. Lorena and Ruld, the villagers I met at Carine Village, were surprised to hear I was leaving and a bit sad. Lorena’s belly has grown to the point that it was obvious that she was pregnant.

We then said our goodbyes to Zeather and the dwarven blacksmiths, thanking them for everything they had done for us. We wanted to say goodbye to Cernust too, but we couldn’t find him at his inn, so we had to delay it for a different day. We weren’t leaving Firwood just yet.

Our last stop before opening our restaurant was the hunter’s guild.

“The vice guild master left this note for you, Saori,” Melia mentioned, handing us a piece of parchment.

The moment we read it, we rushed out of the hunter’s guild and entered the mercenary guild. We greeted Rachael, one of the guild’s receptionists, and asked her about a certain Quest. It was a recently commissioned Quest and carried a good reward, but every single merc avoided it like the plague, at least according to Rachael.

The reason was clear.

Quest: Aid in the rescue of a Viscount’s daughter

Rank: D

Reward: 1 D Rank Point, a total of 10000 Davi

Description: I require the aid of a tracker to track down a green-haired bovline, who calls himself an alchemist and arcane brawler. He was sighted to be in the company of a robed woman. This woman is the daughter of House Moreschi, a noble house of the Lecartiglio Duchy, and she was kidnapped by this criminal. I have come to know their destination, so I only require the aid of a tracker. As a knight of the Lecartiglio Duchy, you may leave combat to my hippogryph and I, however, you must still be competent enough to protect yourself after the fulfillment of this Quest.

Objective: The safe return of Severa Victori Moreschi

Quest Giver: Antonio Agazi Moreschi, Knight of the Order of the White Talon, Heir of House Moreschi

Our departure would have to be delayed.

A note from AbyssRaven

Just for reminder, Cernust was the guy who taught Tasianna Alchemy.

f you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 15 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 153: Tracking the Bull.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #4 her to promote our Patreon. 15 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 15 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until May!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

“I do apologize, Lady Shrine Maiden, that I cannot allow you to ride with me. My partner is a little bit, uhm, finicky with whom he allows to ride him,” Sir Antonio, riding on his proud hippogryph, spoke to me while we were walking on a road north of Firwood. His white-feathered armor glistened under the sun, matching in color with his white-brown mount.

“You do not have to mince your words with me, Sir Antonio. I can feel that your hippogryph does not like me on an instinctive level,” I replied, focusing on the glare the hippogryph was giving me with its right eye. The fire burning inside it was being projected to me with pure animalistic hostility, as if the beast was looking at a rival. Admittedly, my own instinct was being roused; not ‘cause of my [Danger Perception], but ‘cause of something a bit deeper inside me. I wasn’t so sure what the reason for this feeling was, although I think it’s some kind of dragon instinct.

Antonio’s expression contorted, showing how uncomfortable and awkward he was feeling when I spoke the truth. “Usually my chivalrous partner here would allow any fine ladies to ride him, but… i-it is true that hippogryphs despise wyverns, and consequently any dragonkin in general, including dragonewts. Please forgive me, my Goddess, for I have sinned against one of your shrine maidens.”

Lucky us that he’s so religious; otherwise, we would have had to go with Saori’s plan and tail him.

Cernust was our benefactor, since he was the one who taught Tasianna alchemy, something that has been benefiting us financially. So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that we would try to help him, or at least find out if he truly was a kidnapper or not. Which meant we needed to either accept the Quest that Antonio had posted in the mercenary guild or tail him after he departed.

Fortunately and unfortunately, nobody in the merc guild wanted to accept it due to something Saori told me about — the mercenaries in Firwood despise taking Quests from Lecartiglio nobles like Antonio. Nobody wanted the Quest, so we didn’t have to tail him, but another issue appeared. Our mercenary guild rank was only F, since we had done barely any merc Quests.

As an adventurer guild, the merc guild allowed their members to take Quests one rank above their own if they could prove their competence to the Quest giver; however, that didn’t apply to people two ranks lower. Which we were. Rachael, one of the merc guild’s receptionists, had to follow the rules and reject our application.

Certainly, if I were a normal person, I would have given up here and relied on tailing the knight, but I had connections. No, I did not call in any favors from House Helvas or House Sirius. I wouldn't want to be known as someone who abuses her status as a noble to get priority on quests. Instead, I remembered my discussion with Farron when he visited my restaurant, where he complained about a Lecartiglio noble that was annoying him. Saori and Tasianna even confirmed that Antonio was this person.

So, I had Farron write a recommendation for us. Quests could also be given to adventurers by referral, either through the Quest giver or guild master. He wasn’t the guild master of the merc guild, but Antonio did ask him to help him in his search for Cernust. So, we were going for the client’s referral, just like how Carine Village’s head, Colwyn, gave us our first Quest, the bandit subjugation one.

Since Antonio’s house didn’t have a home in Firwood nor was he willing to stay over at a noble’s mansion, he had rented a room at a fancy inn in the merchant’s district, which was close enough to a hotel, quality-wise. Saori mentioned he was uncomfortable around, and possibly even racist against, beastmen and elves, so I was expecting issues, but it went well enough. I mean, he still scowled when he saw us, proving Saori’s words.

What made him calm down were my robes. Once again, looking like a priestess of Aurena was a boon, despite this being a white mage’s robe and not a priestess’s robe. Yes, I was being pedantic, but who cares? Anyway, as I was a priestess and looked the part of a shrine maiden, Antonio warmed up to me quickly, as he was apparently quite religious. The moment I showed him Farron’s letter? That was when he turned completely friendly to us.

“A letter from Sir Farron?!” he exclaimed, looking very pleased, although I wasn’t sure why he called Farron “Sir.” Wasn’t that reserved for knights or something? Then again, Antonio showed he could be very polite and courteous when he wanted to be, so maybe this was his way to show respect to an A rank adventurer.

In the letter, Farron explained that we were the help he requested since we were mercenaries in addition to hunters, albeit with low ranks from our recent arrival and registration in Firwood. Furthermore, the letter also specified that Saori was a B rank tracker and combatant, and that she was part of the newcomer party Aurora, so Tasianna and I were included in the package. After Saori proved her qualifications by showing her profile to Antonio through her ID — which meant we could hide certain information from him — he readily accepted us.

We went back to the mercenary guild with Antonio where he referred us, which allowed us to take his Quest despite our low rank. He then went back to his inn, telling us that we would depart the next day. After he left, most of the mercs warned us we were making a mistake, but we told them not to worry. When we didn’t budge, most of them wished us luck and bid us to come back safely, although I suspect that they did that simply ‘cause some of them were regulars at our restaurant.

The curry had them trapped…or maybe was my singing? I like to think it was that.

Unfortunately, since we were taking on this Quest, we would probably miss Ellaine’s departure to Griffonpeak, depending on how long this Quest would take. We had to say goodbye in case that happened, but we also made plans to meet up at House Helvas’s mansion when we reached the capital.

So, that’s how we ended up here. We immediately left the town at the break of dawn, where we met Antonio’s hippogryph Bornelli, a white-brown feathered eagle-lion-horse hybrid monster. It had the head, wings, and forelegs of an eagle, the torso of a lion, and the hindlegs and tail of a horse. There was a mix of armor and horse gear equipped on the hippogryph, making it look as battle-ready as Antonio, who was sitting on the giant bird-horse in his armor.

Just like in various fantasy novels, the hippogryph was a relative to the griffon. However, unlike Lord Helvas’s griffon, Antonio’s hippogryph was only around the size of a horse compared to the griffon’s elephant-like size. If I were in my proper form, I would outsize this arrogant little pipsqueak, hmph!

“Sir Antonio, we are used to the road. You do not need to slow yourself down for our sake,” Saori stated, leading us from the front. “Considering it is your sister, should we not hurry?”

“Well, I am very worried for my sister, but I cannot possibly ask the Lady Shrine Maiden to run. As her guard, should you not be more considerate of her health? Even walking like this is already a sin, ohhh, woe to my honor! How could you allow this to happen, Bornelli?” Antonio complained like a drama queen.

“Kiyyaaaaahhhh!” somehow understanding him, Bornelli began to flap his wings wildly, looking like he wanted to knock his rider off; however, Antonio kept himself mounted like an expert bull rider. After he noticed that he couldn’t do anything to his rider, Bornelli turned his head towards me and screeched “Kiyaaaaahhhhh!” at me. Was he venting his anger at me?

“I do apologize for this shameful behavior that I am showing to a visitor from Loatryx,” Antonio apologized. “Hippogryphs are naturally more aggressive and feral than griffons. Even after breaking him when he hatched and raising him as properly as any honorable knight of the White Talon order should, I still have not gained his full respect yet. On my honor, I promise to raise you to become as valiant as your parents, Bornelli!”

Mana Eyes.

Hippogryph

A savage feathered monster with the body parts of a majestic eagle, prideful lion, and stubborn equerochs. Hippogryphs possess a ruthless and terrestrial nature that makes them into powerful dogfighters and terrestrial hunters. Unlike the older and evolved adults, Younger hippogryphs compensate for their smaller size with savagery to intimidate and break potential enemies and prey. Rank D

I was expecting the hippogryph to be rank C, based on my memory of Lord Helvas’s B rank griffon, but I guess that wasn’t the case in the end. I wonder if this hippogryph had just reached maturity?

Since Antonio had some sense of chivalry to protect a “fragile maiden” like me from marching like a common soldier, even though his sister was currently missing, I couldn’t help but sigh. Were his religious beliefs and knight’s honor that much more important than the safety of his sibling? I couldn’t say, but what I do know is my impatience.

Saori, reading my mood, signaled for Tasianna to get on her back. The moment that happened, Saori sprinted forwards, leaving Antonio and me behind. The knight, exclaiming “What in the world?!” in surprise, turned to me, to which I answered by running ahead of him, leaving dust in his mouth.

“Your sister is in danger — a noble at that, too — and you are worrying for me?” I then cast both [Haste] and [Swift Winds] on myself, drastically increasing my Agility even further. “That is patronizing me, Sir Antonio. Fleur Mushroom Forest, correct? I know that place, so I bid you hurry up.”

The Fleur Mushroom Forest was the hunting location I went to with Ellaine, a place filled with mushrooms and, consequently, fungi-loving monsters and animals like skorrs, the Peolyncian version of pigs. Antonio told us that Cernust was planning to bring his sister to the elven kingdom north of Firwood.

They would have to go through this forest, which borders the Belzac mountain, and then cross a river to the edge of Saelariel. According to Antonio’s sources, Cernust escaped Firwood on the same day Antonio arrived in Firwood, so they couldn’t have made it to Saelariel yet; however, that didn’t mean we should slow down so much for something as ridiculous as worrying about my Stamina. A sunfang dragon doesn’t care while it’s still morning!

“Kyiyiyiyi,” the hippogryph turned its long neck to its rider, making sounds to make its intent clear.

“Tch, Bornelli, we ride!” Understanding his mount, Antonio picked up the reins and shouted with a loud “Hiyaahh!” before Bornelli galloped at a breathtaking pace. I was holding myself back but it was still impressive to see the hippogryph’s top speed.

If we flew, we would have reached the forest before lunchtime; however, since my party couldn’t really use our top speed due to the hippogryph, it took us until the afternoon. We would have probably needed a day if we went at the same pace we used to travel to Rashan Village. Then again, we departed from Firwood during lunchtime back then, not at dawn like today.

“Unbelievable, I didn’t think we would reach the forest in less than a day without riding Bornelli and some equerochs,” Antonio stated with disbelief as he checked on his heavy-breathing hippogryph. It seemed like it had strained itself to keep up with our pace, but it was doing its best to not show any weakness. Prideful, indeed.

To allow him to recover, Antonio dismounted and unsheathed his sword and shield, saying he would handle any threats as he was a knight. Honestly, that’s the first time that I heard somebody say this to me after I reincarnated as a dragon. Most of the time, I had the privilege to say something cool and dashing like that.

Nevertheless, I didn’t say anything. Antonio didn’t accept a party invite and most of the monsters in this forest weren’t worth the experience for my party anyway, so having him fight and do the hard work was fine in my book. I also wasn’t in any danger of [Battle Frenzy] since I had just unleashed a full explosion on Davison a few days ago.

“Most of the tracks are skorrs, loopabits, and other monsters,” Saori noted as she analyzed the ground for tracks, commenting and pointing at any footprint she could find. “Sir Antonio, would you possibly have anything belonging to the kidnapper or your sister for me to track them with? The forest has too many tracks on the ground that it would be quicker to use my nose.”

Saori was a wolf, after all.

Antonio nodded, agreeing her plan sounded more efficient. He then opened up one of the satchels strapped on Bornelli and took out a handkerchief with an emblem on it. “This handkerchief is Severa’s. It has the emblem of our house on it, and from what I remember, she always brought it with her wherever she went. After she suddenly left our mansion, the maids noticed she left this behind in addition to her rings. What a coward, kidnapping a fair maiden while she is inside her home.”

Huh, that does sound like a kidnapping. Cernust, what the hell did you do?

Saori sniffed on the handkerchief, noticing a slight perfume smell. “I can see that you kept it washed and clean. Any traceable smell is long gone. Could I try the rings?” While the handkerchief was a dud, the rings seemed to have retained the noblewoman’s smell. Saori began moving towards the smell’s direction while inspecting the ground for tracks.

[“Saori, don’t lead him directly to Cernust. We need to get his part of the story first,”] I told Saori through [Telepathy]. Whether Cernust actually was a kidnapper or not should be determined after we talked with him, and hopefully without Antonio being with us.

Saori didn’t look back as she responded, [“Yeah, I understand. I have a feeling that it wouldn’t end well if those two were to meet, especially with that hippogryph. It’s like it is waiting for any hostility from us, any reason for it to pounce on us.”]

As we started to move, curiosity finally got the better of me. “Sir Antonio, if it isn’t awfully rude to ask, how was your sister kidnapped?”

He shook his head, saying it wasn’t a problem, as his family had already asked the gods for forgiveness for this failure. He cleared up his throat and began recalling what he knew. “When it happened, I was actually at the Order, so all this information came from my lord father and eldest brother. Severa, the fourth child of our parents, one day seemed to have met this criminal in our fief while he was doing some work. I do not know what beastman trick he used, but my sister somehow was infatuated by that brute. Oh, I do not mean any insult, Lady Shrine Maiden.”

“None taken. Please, continue.” I couldn’t help but believe he was a racist by now.

“Thank you for your graciousness. It purifies my soul.” He gave a quick prayer, thanking Aurena for sending her shrine maidens to him today before he continued his story. “After we forbade him from seeing her, even resorting to a forceful removal, they somehow met in Gransromus and Cedaraille again and again. And then one day, she just disappeared while she was at our home. Simply vanished. Without any warning except for a letter which had ‘I will leave’ written on it! Outrageous! How dare that vagrant take my youngest sister away from her house!”

After allowing him to calm down a bit, I asked him what Gransromus was, to which he answered that it was the capital of the Lecartiglio duchy. Well, my party had no plans to visit that place, but knowing its name was fine, I guess.

“Barely a scent and I can’t find a single human or beastman track in the smell’s direction.” Saori, despite her naturally strong nose from [Primal Senses], was having trouble finding our path through this place.

“That coward is an earth mage, or so I’ve heard. Maybe he covered up his tracks?” Antonio suggested, to which I agreed it was a possibility. In a custom spell book I read, there was a spell designed for agriculture called [Soil Moving], which could probably be used for this exact purpose.

Time went by with us talking. I say “us,” but it was only Antonio and I speaking, as he wasn’t willing to be sociable with either Saori or Tasianna, preferring me simply ‘cause I was a priestess. Nevertheless, he didn’t let his guard down once since we arrived in the forest, despite his rather lackadaisical attitude towards the current situation. It would have been a bit concerning if it weren’t for the fact that all the monsters and animals were frightened away by Bornelli.

I made a mental note to be careful if I ever entered a hippogryph-infested area. The amount of screeching would be intolerable and probably cause tinnitus.

Saori scratched her nose, looking irritated. “I apologize for the slow progress. The smell of flowers and animals is overpowering my nose, covering up the scent of your sister and forcing me to double-check once in a while.”

Now that she said it, the forest did smell more aromatic than the last time I was here. Then again, that was like two weeks ago, so maybe Spring was in full bloom now?

[“Saori, good job stalling. How far ahead is Cernust?”] I asked, wondering where she was leading us.

[“Hestia, when I said I could not trace them properly, I really meant it. Smells, tracks, heat signatures. I cannot find a single good clue to continue on with except for the scent from those rings.”] It was a real surprise to hear Saori admit that when I expected she had a plan or something. [“It is as if the entire forest was working against me. It honestly feels as if nobody here wants me to find them, and is erasing their whole presence throughout this whole forest… it is… exhilarating?”]

[“Saori?”]

[“Ahh, forget what I just said. I think I’ve become a bit too competitive since my tracking skills have not been challenged in months now. [Primal Senses] is not perfect, huh?”]

It took us until the sky turned slightly orange that Saori finally told us “Stop!” Looking at the hippogryph, I felt that, if she had taken any longer, it might have gone hunting to relieve its boredom, but luckily, that didn’t come to pass.

“I managed to find some tracks. Not footprints, but crumbs of bread,” she announced, causing Antonio to exclaim his excitement, mentioning he cannot see them. As he was impressed by Saori, she telepathically told me to begin listening intently while she kept the knight and bird occupied.

My hearing might not be as powerful as Saori’s, but as a musician, I had my own pride. Straining my ears, I managed to detect voices in the direction opposite of where Saori was.

“-in danger. My brother might have called for help, which might even be from my father or eldest brother! If the White Talon knights were to pursue us, they would catch up with us before we can escape. Please, I beg you, leave the kingdom, Cernust!” The voice was far away but it was definitely audible enough for me to make out that it was feminine.

“As if! Severa, don’t compare me to some common earth mage. I have been manipulating the earth and plants as we walked through the forest, covering up our tracks and using flower pollen to erase our smell. Let them send their hounds, they won’t find us,” someone with a mildly deep voice that I recognized said. “Even if they search from the sky with their mounts while we are in this forest, the tree leaves will cover us from their sight wherever we go. The only danger will be when we reach the river, but we will simply have to be patient. The moment we reach the elves, no human can enter their woods without risking the wrath of their border scouts.”

“W-will we be okay?” the feminine voice asked.

“Don’t worry, Severa. By my tail, I swear I will protect you. I will be able to talk them down, no worries, ha ha ha ha ha!” That laugh was the final straw. It belonged to none other than Cernust!

[“Saori, it’s Cernust, definitely. There is a woman’s voice as well, which I presume belongs to Antonio’s sister Severa. How should we handle this?”] I asked Saori after confirming the voices.

[“Wait until night time. I’ll sneak out and handle it. However, first, we need to lead Antonio away at all cost; no, we need to warn Cernust first. I have an idea, Hestia. Call for a bathroom break.”]

Ahhh, I gotcha. Such a gentleman wouldn’t question that at all… at the cost of my dignity. Hold on, I got used to walking around naked when I was first born, who cares about shame!

“Sir Antonio, I know the urgency of our trip, however, could I possibly ask to pick some flowers?” I asked as innocently as possible, remembering how Manuela did it.

“Flowers? Oh, today is a wonderful day for flowers, yes. Your guard would probably need a bit longer so it would be a waste if we didn’t take a break here. I will be looking this way,” he turned around, showing a lack of suspicion for our actions.

Good! Now, I just need to sneak away with Tasianna and warn-

“IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR THEM TO HAVE MADE IT THIS FAR! SEE, I CAN SHOUT AS LOUD AS I WANT AND WE ARE STILL SAFE! NO TRACKER WOULD HELP THEM, SO NO WAY CAN THEY TRACK US! TRUST ME, HA HA HA HA HA!”

-Cernust…

“Kiyahkiyah!” Bornelli growled, agitated by the shout.

“What is it, partner?” While the bird managed to hear those two, it seemed like Antonio hadn’t with his inferior hearing. Before my party could say anything, Bornelli flung Antonio onto his saddle and galloped towards the direction of the shout.

Uh oh.

It didn’t take long for the excited bird-horse to reach the location while we had to chase after them from behind. Any chance of warning Cernust and hearing his part of the story was out the window. I honestly had to wonder how this went downhill so fast, all Cernust had to do was be silent, that musclehead.

“Kiyaaaaaaahhhhh!”

“Severa!”

“B-Brother Antonio?!”

“What in the hell?! Shit! How the hell did you find us in these woods?!”

You shouted, you idiot! You boisterous dumbo!

“Fiend! How dare you hide my sister away from me! Unhand her and accept your righteous judgment, filthy beast!”

To one side, a tall beastman of ox ancestry stood in front of a young woman with strawberry-colored hair, in contrast to Antonio’s dark red hair. The bovline’s hair was green and he was wearing padded leather armor, form-fitting enough that you could deduce his muscular physique his clothes were hiding. He wore a backpack filled stuffed full of food, herbs, and other travel essentials while a belt full of potions hung around his waist. Lastly, the most interesting point of his equipment was undoubtedly the green-scaled gauntlets around his arms, looking as if they could deal a mean wallop.

To the other side, there was Antonio in his white-feathered armor, brandishing a longsword and shield like a knight from storybooks. He was mounted on his loyal hippogryph, a beast of feathered savagery with the look of a hunter having found its prey. If I had been suffering from [Battle Frenzy] right now, I would probably give off that same look.

“Pah! Whatever you did, beast mage, it was nothing against the guard of a priestess of the Goddess of Light! You did not believe you could abduct a member of House Moreschi without any consequences now, did you? Hear me, the Goddess stands with me! Stand down and surrender now. Otherwise, I will be forced to wield my blade on you, beast!”

“Haha! A ‘beast?’ You know, if I hadn’t come to Artorias and met up with those beastmen of Lecartiglio, I would have never really bothered with humans calling me a ‘beast.’ In fact, I would even consider it a boast! Still think it’s praise, but I now know you’re fucking insulting me here, human!” Cernust returned an arrogant boast.

“Cernust, please! Please, I beg you, don’t fight!” the woman behind him, Severa, shouted in vain. “Brother, please, I-I will come back. I just beg you to let Cernust free. Th-This. All of this was my selfish wish to become free! I asked him to take me away!”

“I see his beastman trickery still has you under his sway, my dear sister. No more! If this beast does not give up, then I will show him the fury of a knight of the White Talon!” Antonio pointed his blade at Cernust, glaring down at him with burning fury.

“Sir Antonio, please, stop-” I wanted to stop him but he simply shouted over me.

“Stand back, Lady Shrine Maiden! Your duty is to lead me here, not help me capture this criminal! As a knight of the Kingdom of Artorias and the Lecartiglio duchy, I shall bring this beastman to justice! Goddess Lamreeta, I pray to you, grant me the strength to bring this knave to justice in your name! Goddess Aurena, I pray to you, grant me your strength and protection to defeat this fiend!”

Hold on, the Quest objective was to bring your sister back safely! This is part of the job!

Antonio’s words finally caused Cernust to look our way, showing an expression of surprise. It hurt my heart as it looked like we betrayed his trust by bringing Antonio here.

“Cernust, we-”

“Shut the fuck up!” he shouted, clenching his fist. “Work is work as a merc, right? Do me a favor, will ya? Stand the fuck away from this fight and let me break this pretty-boy’s face, yeah? Afterward, we will talk, yeah? Since we’re kinda the same and I don’t wanna hit my pretty acquaintances if I can help it. Yeah, you three got that?”

Cernust stepped forward, causing the hippogryph to shriek like a banshee, causing the many birds surrounding us to fly away at the cry. Cernust was undaunted as he looked up at the angry four-legged bird, doing simple stretches and warm-ups as he prepared for battle. Then, two brown magic circles appeared around his arms; one caused his skin to transform into stone while the other did something far out of my imagination.

The trees, the roots, the grass, the flowers.

They all began to move.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 154: Bull vs. Hippogryph Knight.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Nature, RISE to my call!” With a booming war cry from Cernust, tree roots began to grow in size and move like the tentacles of an octopus.

“What is this?!” Antonio exclaimed as these roots advanced towards him in an attempt to entangle him; however, the hippogryph Bornelli was fast as he was flexible. He had no problems jumping and sidestepping to avoid them.

What is this?!

Moving roots? I was expecting some rocks being thrown and shot by Cernust, but never did I imagine that I would see plants moving. At this point, I wasn’t sure if Cernust was controlling them through some unique skill he had or if this was some kinda custom earth magic — or maybe it’s even an empty vessel-like skill like my [White Flames] and [Corrosive Fire] — but I did know that his mana was flowing through them.

Like a plant himself, I was able to confirm a network similar to a root system with my [Mana Eyes] originating from Cernust completely composed out of mana. Now, I had no details of his skills, so I couldn’t be sure of how it worked unless I looked at his profile. Mana was everywhere — in the land and the air — so he could also be using the mana from the environment to control the plants for all I know.

Appraising an enemy’s profile without their knowledge was alright. After all, all is fair in love and war, right? However, what about a friend or a good acquaintance? You know, for this reason, people create principles. That’s why I won’t check Cernust’s profile even if I was sure that he wasn’t wealthy enough to buy one of those identify bracelets the nobles have.

The trees around Aurora showed movement, bending their branches and trunks to block Severa’s and our way into the fighting and turn the area between Cernust and Antonio into a dueling field. Unfortunately for the knight and mount duo, this arena was far too small for the hippogryph to take full advantage of its size, its wings in danger of being entangled by the animated roots.

Cernust raised his arms like a boxer, activated [Gale Steps], and dashed forward. He entered within melee range of the pair, initiating the battle’s first attack with a right hook, aiming to knock out the hippogryph; however, the beast wasn’t fazed by the surprise attack and ducked out of the way. Normally, Cernust might have been able to link another punch if he were a competent boxer or monk-style fighter, but Antonio wouldn’t let that happen.

“Swift Strike!” Bending his body forward, Antonio slashed down at Cernust with remarkable speed with his blade.

Footwork! Cernust dodged the attack by pivoting his body to the side before swinging it back into its former location and launching an uppercut with the full momentum of the move, sending Bornelli recoiling upwards. Antonio, understanding his partner was in a vulnerable position after that attack, immediately dismounted and charged at Cernust with his shield.

Switching to the defensive, Cernust stomped at Antonio’s shield to throw himself back, creating some distance for himself. “Shield Charge!” Antonio roared, once again activating a weapon ability, one that allowed the knight to simultaneously ignore the knockback of the Cernust’s kick as well as charge forward like a bull.

“I call upon the earth’s protection, Earth Wall.” Instead of attacking, Cernust created a wall to fully block Antonio’s advance, forcing the oncoming swordsman to stop himself and move around the side of the wall. That was a mistake on Antonio’s part.

Cernust took advantage of the concealment in order to ambush Antonio. He grabbed Antonio’s arm, knocked his sword away with his gauntlet, then threw the knight over his shoulder. Antonio landed on his back, causing the air to escape his lungs and his weapon to go flying from the impact. He didn’t cushion his fall properly.

“Brother!” Severa cried out the moment she saw this, covering her wide mouth out of worry for her brother.

“Severa, I won’t hurt him badly, I promise! Woah-Shit!” Once again, Cernust’s loud mouth backfired on him as the hippogryph began a flurry of attacks to defend his master. “Damn! I fucking hate these shitty birds!”

The savagery described in the hippogryph’s System analysis came into effect. Slashing with his front claws, biting with his sturdy beak, and swiping with those large feathered wings. Bornelli attacked with every body part he could use to fight, forcing Cernust into the defensive entirely, the bovline unable to retaliate against the larger foe.

Unlike before, he didn’t have the time to focus on a spell, showing he wasn’t as experienced with magic as I had initially thought. Antonio had called him an “Arcane Brawler” or something, so I presumed he had augmented his fighting style with magic, similar to Saori whom Ellaine had described as an “Arcane Trickster.”

“Fuck! Can’t help it, urgh,” Cernust frowned deeply as he realized his situation, even noticing that Antonio had already recovered. While keeping his footwork steady, he quickly grabbed something from his backpack and threw the contents at Bornelli.

“Grow!” That something he threw turned out to be a bunch of seeds, plant seeds!

What the hell is he trying to do?! I wanted to shout out but I stopped myself the moment those seeds shook mid-air, roots burst out from them before they even hit the ground. Bornelli screeched out in surprise at this sudden attack, but the bloodthirsty hippogryph couldn’t be intimidated that easily, as it immediately started ripping apart the seeds and their roots.

I thought that was it for Cernust’s “attack,” but my mind was quickly changed as a larger white cloud burst from the ravaged seeds, engulfing Bornelli’s eyes for a good moment. The hippogryph released another ear-splitting shriek in surprise; however, this time, it flinched back as its sight was blocked. The bird-horse may have been on guard for enemies, but all it did at the moment was simply turn his head from side to side, completely contrary to his aggressive nature from earlier.

Its behavior now was baffling, and we didn’t have anybody knowledgeable on hippogryphs to comment on what was happening to Bornelli.

“Thankfully those damn birds react more on sight than their other senses,” Cernust said as he quickly gulped down a green potion, which I presume is an agility potion.

Well, thank you very much for the info, Mister Commentator. It’s as if you heard my prayers.

“Wind Bullet!” Antonio, having recovered his sword and bearing, shot out a long-chanted wind spell at Cernust, blasting the white smoke away around Bornelli’s head. Cernust reacted to it by blocking the spell with his gauntlets, nullifying the attack, and then took out a pouch from his backpack before throwing the latter on the ground, freeing his movements a bit more.

Cernust pulled out seeds from this pouch and spread them before him like a farmer, where a brown magic circle appeared. Even as Bornelli gave a great “Kiyahhhhhh!” as its vision cleared up, Cernust’s spell activated.

“Nature’s blessing upon you, the bounty of the earth Goddess. Flourish, live and grow, for I call for your aid, my brethren. Accelerated Growth!” The seeds rattled like popcorn as cracks appeared on them and roots sprouted out. Unlike before, where I presume he only poured mana into those seeds, this was an actual showcase of his magic similar to how he had controlled the trees in the beginning.

Bornelli wanted to continue his attack on Cernust, and Antonio had nearly returned to the fight, but the seeds had experienced a supernatural growth where the plants grew to maturity in a matter of seconds. The moment those roots burst out, they grew in size, transforming into massive trees with thin trunks that would make the ones in this forest envious.

The trees quickly entangled their branches around Bornelli’s wings and legs, preventing him from doing anything as he was attempting to break through them. Despite having a bird brain, the Strength of a D rank monster like a hippogryph couldn’t be underestimated as he broke apart these wooden restraints, clawing and breaking through the wooden trunk of the tree in pursuit of Cernust.

However, Cernust remained steadfast, simply pulling out more seeds and spreading them before him. If I remembered correctly, Cernust had a ton of herbs and alchemical ingredients in his backpack, and if he also had the ability to rapidly grow plants, then shouldn’t there be more lethal plants in his arsenal?

Whether he understood this or not, Antonio quickly cried out to his mount. “Bornelli, to me! Don’t forget our training, partner!” That was all that was needed for the ferocious murder bird to finally calm down and dodge backward, and not a moment too soon, as another batch of trees grew up in size right where the hippogryph had been. Seeing as Cernust clicked his tongue, he probably was aiming to fully constrict and immobilize the hippogryph, removing him from the fight altogether.

“Yo, mate, I suggest you give up. You can’t win while we’re in my turf,” Cernust called out to Antonio in an attempt to settle this situation without more fighting, but the prideful knight wouldn’t accept it.

“Silence, beast! As if a knight of the White Talon would give up now!” he declared, mounting his hippogryph. “Even if it costs my life, you will pay for kidnapping my youngest sister! Beast!”

Cernust couldn’t help but cradle his head as he kept hearing the same sorta answer from the honor-bound knight. “By the Six, does that helmet of yours stop your hearing or— fuck! Move, now!” Whatever he wanted to say was interrupted as Antonio charged forwards, forcing Cernust to control his trees to move their branches in an attempt to block it.

However, unlike their individual actions taken earlier, together the duo were far more competent. Under Antonio’s control, Bornelli slipped through the slow-moving branches, showcasing deft movements, unlike how straightforward it was fighting alone.

Cernust dodged the first attack the duo launched, assuming his boxer stance once again. With the combination of savage and precise attacks coming from the respective fighters, Cernust finally had to block attacks with his gauntlet instead of dodging. The reach difference between the combatants finally showed itself, as Bornelli’s claws and Antonio’s sword kept Cernust from closing in enough for another sucker punch.

“Yop!” Cernust then dodged the next attack by sliding under the hippogryph. Instead of a counterattack, Cernust stood back up and sprinted towards his trees. Bornelli flapped its wings, fluttering slightly off the ground where it could twist its body and use the momentum to glide towards Cernust like a bird of prey.

Another brown magic circle appeared on the ground while this all happened. “Nutrients and mana I pour into you, so grow to hide me in my sleep! Overgreen!” The moment the spell finished, the grass surrounding the fighting ground grew in size, hiding Cernust from Bornelli’s view.

Antonio clicked his tongue and pulled the reins on Bornelli, ordering him to land on the branch of one of the trees, as it wasn’t moving currently. I honestly thought it would have difficulties standing on a branch like a bird as his hind legs had hooves like a horse, but it turned out that I was wrong. It clutched onto the branch with its avian front claws while balancing itself on one hind leg.

Peering down like an eagle hunting down a mouse hiding in high grass, Bornelli analyzed the surroundings. The battle slowed down as it turned into a detection vs. stealth battle, but that soon changed as Bornell screeched in a direction. The moment that happened, the trees began moving again, forcing the hippogryph to take flight, coasting around the battlefield while dodging the branches trying to swat him out of the sky.

Seeing as his trees weren’t doing too well, Cernust shot out a few [Rock Bullet]s aimed at the hippogryph’s wings; however, it was futile against somebody so used to flying. The bird-horse anticipated these attacks and glided through everything Cernust had sent at him before diving towards the beastman. Looking at Antonio and Bornelli, I couldn’t help but think of them as cool at this moment. I mean, a knight on a giant hippogryph is just cool, right?

The grass moved; Cernust had to dodge away as Bornelli’s peck and claw attacks drove the brawler away from the area where he stood, destroying earth and plants alike with the attack. As he wasn’t able to catch Cernust, Bornelli didn’t dawdle for a second on land, soaring back into the sky to hunt down its enemy.

As the hippogryph dove once again to strike, Cernust once again cast [Accelerated Growth].However, this time it wasn’t a tree, but something entirely different.

“To the side, Bornelli!” Antonio called out as a massive venus fly trap-like plant erupted from the ground, baring its green needle-like teeth at the bird. Luckily, the duo managed to dodge the side, but that wasn’t the end of their trial.

“Accelerated Growth!” This time, a massive red sunflower-like plant grew and began rotating its flowerhead, shooting its seeds like missiles at them.

“Bornelli!” Antonio shouted and was answered by the bird’s shriek. Instead of dodging around, the bird threw its rider onto one of the surrounding trees where Antonio activated another ability. “Taunt!”

Taunt! It exists!

Antonio banged on his shield with his sword before shouting the name of his ability. The moment he did that, both the sunflower and venus fly trap began attacking the knight while leaving Bornelli free to attack Cernust.

Unfortunately for the knight and hippogryph duo, it seemed as if Cernust’s repertoire of plants was truly versatile. With another [Accelerated Growth] a giant white mushroom grew from the ground, blocking Bornell’s attack by trapping his claws in the sticky mushroom’s cap. Cernust then jumped out from the bird’s flank and used [Gale Steps], closing the distance between them to land a charged up right hook at the beast’s stomach.

“Focused Punch!”

“Kiyaaaaaaaaarrrrrh!!!” It was a direct hit, causing the hippogryph to fall off the mushroom and tumble to the ground. As he was recovering from the attack, roots began to entangle the bird, trapping him on the ground.

“Damn, I hate flyers! Why couldn’t I grow wings?!” Cernust complained

However, that victory was short-lived.

“Bornelli, get away!” Antonio cried out from the side for a very good reason — the tree, no, the trees around him were falling them at Bornelli and Cernust. The giant sunflower and venus fly trap, without Cernust to guide them, accidentally destroyed the trunks of the trees.

“Nooo!” Severa cried out.

“Shit! Nature’s blessing upon you, the bounty of th-fuck!” Seeing the trees crashing down on him, Cernust attempted to cast another [Accelerated Growth] to stop them, but his casting was too long with to his chant. He looked at Bornelli, who was still trapped by roots and was struggling desperately to free himself, and back at the falling tree; in the end, he stopped trying to cast the spell and ordered the roots to free Bornelli.

He then approached the hippogryph, helped it onto its feet and kicked it away from the area where the trees would fall. Saori, Tasianna, and I were confident that Cernust would be able to get out in time according to what we saw of his abilities, so we didn’t respond in time when the unexpected actually happened. Cernust tripped on his own trees’ roots.

“Saori!” I called out to get her to rescue Cernust, but it was already too late.

“Cernust!” Severa cried out from the bottom of her lungs as the trees crashed onto Cernust.

I clicked my tongue and ripped through the roots blocking my path like butter, running over to where Cernust was. I dispersed the dust with [Aerokinesis] to see where Cernust was, hoping his muscles helped him cushion the crash. I really, really hoped so.

“Urgh...help.” And thankfully, his luck was no more mediocre than his Strength. Cernust was struggling, but he was safe, holding up one of his trees while lying on the ground. Honestly, if he hadn’t made the trees so damn big, I am pretty sure he could have freed himself alone.

“You…,” Antonio also noticed Cernust holding up the tree. In this position, Antonio had all the tools to arrest Cernust without worry, but he was hesitating for a reason. Was it cause he saw Cernust help his mount?

“Sir Antonio, please, this is enough,” I finally said, having enough of this feud. “As you can see, this person doesn’t mean your sister any harm. He did not take her hostage like an actual bandit, nor did he leave your Bornelli to be crushed under those trees, although he had every reason to, considering your hostility.”

“Lady Shrine Maiden, Lamreeta, the Goddess of Justice, would not agree with this statement. If we were to let every thief free simply because they are feeding their family, then our society will fall. They must learn how to work properly, become a contributing part to our proud kingdom,” Antonio argued, but I wouldn’t let him persuade me with some religious stuff. I was the priestess here, mate, and I read a bloody book on the gods!

“If you are bringing subordinate gods into this argument, then let me remind you of the subordinate gods under our goddess’s command. Goddess of Nobility and Wealth, Erithia, would not consider what you are doing noble, especially after he risked his life for Bornelli. Goddess of Fairness and Equality, Andira, would condemn your action here; instead of listening to what he has to say, you declared him a criminal before he could dispute it. God of Knighthood, Bravery, and Loyalty, Yeostar, should be someone you understand better, am I not correct, Sir Antonio?”

With the help of Tasianna’s theology lessons and the books I read in Firwood, my knowledge of the different gods of Peolynca had grown. Honestly, there were too many to wrap my head around. About Yeostar, I actually heard about him from Ellaine and Jonathan themselves, as they mentioned the latter had to learn a rite in the god’s name before he became a squire in a knights’ order. Yeostar watched over all knights’ orders according to them, so this rite was there so he could become aware of a new squire’s existence.

Antonio, thankfully, shuddered as he couldn’t find another word to argue back. Now, if Cernust wasn’t actually a bad guy, this whole situation would probably be resolved. I mean, I saw Cernust enter Firwood with Severa in the middle of winter, so it’s been two months since then. In all that time, you have to wonder why Severa was still here despite being “kidnapped.” It can’t be caused by Stockholm syndrome right?

I mean, even now, Severa was-

“Miss Severa watch out, behind you!” Tasianna shouted as I was about to look over at our Quest’s “objective.”

“Hu-Kiyaaaaaa!” a scream of pure fear and surprise entered my ears, causing my eyes to widen as my [Detection Sensor] informed me that four presences had appeared near Severa. They jumped out of the bush, revealing a massive grizzly and three wargs.

Scheiße!

None of my skills had warned me about this threat, since they weren’t directing their hostility or killing intent at me or my teammates. [Detection Sensor] could tell me where the enemy was, but I couldn’t say how strong they were from it. To me, everything in this forest was like a mouse.

“Severa!” Antonio shouted in despair, running towards his sister with all he could. Bornelli, sensing the danger, ignored Cernust and shot into a gallop to save his master’s sister.

Tasianna shot out some ice spikes, Saori jumped into her shadow, while my purple magic circle was materializing at this very moment. We had to make it time, we just had to!

“SEVERA!”

But none of us saved her…because the loudest amongst us did.

A blue mist exuded from Cernust’s body. The cracking of wood could be heard as the mist grew evermore in size, even pushing Tasianna and me away. For some reason, at this very moment, my senses became clearer all of a sudden. My nose recognized an extremely sweet smell, a feeling of extreme competitiveness grew inside me, igniting a fire as I looked towards Cernust’s direction.

The trees around Severa suddenly shivered before branches and roots grew in size and length in a matter of seconds, so fast it put Cernust’s previous actions to shame. The roots constricted the grizzly and wargs before the branches turned into spears, piercing their chests with numerous tree branches. It consequently destroyed their chests, probably leaving nothing but a large gaping hole behind.

Just as I saw Saori emerge next to Severa, it finally hit me what had happened. I used [Aerokinesis], dispelling all the mana mist away to reveal what was hidden behind all of this.

It wasn’t the bovline Cernust.

No.

With the form of a komodo dragon, a wood-like carapace armor could be seen on the back of this emerald-green scaled beast. Moss could be seen growing out of the carapace and under its chin, like frills. Two antler-like horns were attached to the head of this komodo dragon, however, it didn’t possess any wings. Size-wise, it was around the size of my dragon form.

“C-Cernust?” Severa stumbled on her words, almost falling on her butt from the earth-quaking steps of the giant beast. She shivered in fear, but stopped when she noticed how it was gently turning its head to her, almost as if it was asking for acceptance.

It wasn’t a dragon, no. Dragon’s could fly and had wings, but I could feel it. I knew instinctively that the monster in front of me was nothing else but a dragonkin. A wingless, land-locked dragon.

A drake.

“KRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!” I instinctively roared out, causing Tasianna to block her ears. My scale-dust ignited around me as if I was preparing to fight.

The drake, having heard this, turned his head towards me…and roared. “KRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK!”

Something was telling me I just greeted him with a “Nice to meet you.”

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Chapter 155: Cernust and Severa.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Woodland Drake

A drake whose main habitats are forests and woods. These drakes possess the ability to control the vegetation around them through their mana, aiding in their growth and nurturing them when damaged; in return, vegetation will listen to their commands, fighting alongside their protector against the forest’s foes. The wood and moss growing off the body is actually its shell and loose-hanging scales respectively, giving this physically hardy dragonkin even higher defenses. Rank C

My eyes burnt and a sense of competition awoke inside my soul as I eyed the giant emerald-scaled komodo dragon-shaped monster, towering over me at around the size of a mammoth with a lizard’s length adjusted to its extra size. If I were to compare it to my own dragon form, then I would be only slightly shorter, since I was a dragon and he a drake

The biggest difference between a dragon and a drake, according to the evolution descriptions I read when I had the option to evolve during my earliest days in Belzac Forest, was the fact that drakes were built entirely for land traversal due to a lack of wings. Using the drake in front of me as a reference, I could conclude that a drake had a sturdier, bulkier frame compared to my more lean, serpent-like form. Of course, this might not be true for future encounters.

Nevertheless, seeing this drake, no, Cernust evoked a desire to test my strength against him, to see who was the apex predator in this area. Thoughts like “this is my territory,” or arrogant ones like “why haven’t you lowered your head” were circling inside my head without any reason. My reasonable side had no idea where all of this was coming from. It was as if my instincts were going haywire again.

And the worst part about all of this was this creeping feeling of [Battle Frenzy] rearing its head. I wanted to fight, I wanted to fight Cernust right now, right here. To unleash flames upon anybody who hasn’t bowed their head or tucked their tails between their legs yet. It was suffocating and somehow, I had a feeling Cernust understood this.

“Kr-Krauuuuuu?!” Without checking on how Severa was, Cernust not only reciprocated my roar but was now in a pose suggesting he was wary of me. His antlers were directed at me like a buck.

“Krriiihaaaaaaaaaa…,” I hissed at him for some reason.

At this point, I was sure that my body was taking over my actions once again, and I wasn’t even sure why. Cernust clearly wasn’t showing any hostility towards me, so it couldn’t be self-defense, right? The last time this happened was after Shiterno’s stupid decision to “bless” me with his title, and, if I could count it, was when my [Battle Frenzy] reached the moderate phase.

It was partly because of those two events that I decided upon the sunfang dragon as my evolution choice since it was described as a relatively calm, albeit prideful, dragon in the description. So why was I acting up like a bitch having a hissy fit?

“Lady Hestia.” Something cold suddenly touched my shoulder, cooling down my fired-up body. Ever since I was reborn as a dragon, I haven’t exactly been a big fan of the cold; cold water and our attempts to make ice cream may have tasted good, but I still preferred warm food. So, normally the cold would have been annoying, but this felt comforting, like putting the AC on the lowest temperature after a warm, summer school day. “Please, calm down. It’s alright, it’s alright.” The whispers were like a melody.

Yeah, yeah, calm down. Cool it down. Nothing is wrong. I won’t let my body go berserk again, and hurt everybody.

I slammed shut my eyelids and slapped my cheeks until they felt like they were burning, preventing this aggressive feeling from growing any further, before roaring into the sky to release all this negative feeling. I don’t know how long I screamed, but once I was finished, my throat felt sore and dry, a sign that I strained my voice far too carelessly.

As I huff-puffed to fill up my lungs again, a finger tapped my shoulder, making me turn my head towards the person. It was Tasianna, who was holding a cyan-colored cup filled with water. She was the one who calmed me down.

“Thank you,” I told her before accepting the cup of water made using her new catalyst. “I’m sorry for the scream.”

“There is no need, my Lady. I am here to serve you. Besides, I managed to activate [Air Shield] in time so my ears didn’t explode. Hie hie.” Hearing Tasianna giggle was like music to my ears.

Once I was done drinking, I handed her the cup back and turned to Cernust, who looked like he was confused at what was happening. Somehow, I was able to understand his expressions despite the clear lack of facial movements on his dragon head.

“Cernust, sorry for that, uhm, I-We can handle this matter later. How about you check on your girlfriend first?” The situation was too awkward for me. Never would I have thought I’d meet a drake here and now. It would be better if I had my dragon-to-dragon talk later.

However, before this would be possible, there was something that I had to resolve first. A young man in armor covered with dirt was shaking in his boots as he pointed his sword at the beast standing before him. His eyes showed a fire to fight back his opposition, but his trembling arms weren’t fully complying to his wish.

“Sir Antonio, stand down!” I called him out.

“S-Stand down?! A d-dragon has sneaked into Artorias! Lady Shrine Maiden, even if you are a servant of the Goddess, I do not care for what you have to say! T-This is not Loatryx! We do not revere these beasts here!” Antonio snapped at me. It was likely that fear was controlling his actions right now.

Honestly, if I were a normal person and suddenly a giant lizard were to appear right in front of me, towering over me by quite a few heads, then I would probably also act unreasonably. I couldn’t blame him for what he was saying. However, what I could do was calm him down.

I activated [Benevolent Aura]. It was still at a low level, but it was better than nothing.

Benevolent Aura

An aura that sends out the user’s inner nature in the form of an aura. People affected by the aura are soothed by the user’s good-natured spirit, calming them down from mental and emotional burdens. Higher levels increase the efficiency of curing mental and emotional status ailments

“Sir Antonio, please, this isn’t me trying to preach to you about Loatryxian culture or anything. In fact, I couldn’t care less if Cernust were a drake or not. Please, calm down, and think of this more reasonably. As a knight, you have a duty to assess situations with a clear mind, correct?” It was the same argument we had before but, this time, I really had to convince him to drop his sword. “Why did Cernust reveal his secret here? Wasn’t it to rescue your sister who was in danger of being attacked by four wild monsters? You can see tree branches having slain them over there, the handiwork of Cernust here.”

I pointed at the grizzly and three wargs hanging off in the corner, even showing that Saori was guarding Severa at this moment before continuing. “If Cernust actually was a kidnapper, then why did he save your sister? He had a good opportunity to flee when we all moved to save your sister. Even now, in his current form, why isn’t he rampaging? With the ability to control and accelerate the growth rate of vegetation, it would be desirable for him to keep fighting here, as you should be aware from your earlier battle with him.”

“Then explain to me why did he run away with my sister, my Lady?!” Antonio shouted. “I gave him the opportunity to surrender! Yes, I might have acted too impulsive as a knight, but it still does not change the fact he kidnapped a noblewoman! I will ask forgiveness from Goddess Erithia and Sir Yeostar later in church; however, I do not believe I acted unfairly here! This ma-drake is a criminal!”

“He is not a criminal!” That shout wasn’t from me, but from someone who could explain this situation better than me. Severa, supported by Saori as it seemed that she injured her leg, came forward to reason with her brother. “He did not take me away by force, brother Antonio. The decision was mine alone, I wanted to run away from home. Cernust was my opportunity to free myself from… everything.”

“Severa?!”

“I-I will explain everything, so please, sheathe your blade. Look, even Bornelli isn’t willing to fight.” She was right, the aggressive hippogryph was still glaring daggers at Cernust but was showing none of the bloodthirst from before. Honestly, hippogryphs must really hate dragonkins if it wasn’t scared or shivering before Cernust, despite being a rank below him.

Thankfully, after that, Antonio reluctantly sheathed his sword and calmed down. He gave Cernust a look of wariness as he stared at his drake form, but stopped as he wanted to help his sister. Cernust nodded his head at me and a blue mist appeared from his body.

The mist started to disperse, revealing Cernust’s form, however, it was different from the form I’d seen before. All his bull features were now completely gone as traits of his drake form took over. Instead of bull horns, he had antlers. Green scales covered his arms and legs, and he had thick, sharp claws on his fingers and toes. A moss-like fur was growing from his neck down to his shoulder, although, if the description of his drake form was correct, this moss should be part of his scales too. He also had a long, lizard tail now instead of his bovine one. He wasn’t a bovline anymore; he was a dragonewt.

… It seems he only had his pants on. Considering our situation, I would hazard a guess that only his pants were made from mana threads, while the rest of his equipment probably exploded after he transformed. It’s a shame about the gauntlets, honestly.

As he came closer, Cernust suddenly kowtowed and tucked his tail between his legs, before speaking in a subservient tone, “I apologize for not recognizing your scent earlier, your highn-UHWARGHHHHHHHHHHH!”

For some reason, Cernust was sent flying into the distance.

“KYAAAHHHH! SHUT UP!” Oh, that’s right, it’s cause I kicked him.

“Lady Hestia?!?!?!”

“Ahhhh! Verdammt, I’m sorry, Cernust!”

Still, how did he know?

He wasn’t able to end his sentence before I kicked him away, but I was sure he was about to say something about royalty or something, and I just instinctively kicked him to stop him from saying that. My gut told me to do it, I swear.

After apologizing to Cernust about what happened, I whispered to him to keep quiet for now about everything. After I healed Severa’s sprained ankle, Antonio found a place for them to sit. Meanwhile, my party was inspecting the monsters who attacked Severa when we noticed that they had collars and some scrap armor equipped on them. Since Saori had just become a tamer, she presumed they were some tamer’s monsters, which meant we might face some problems later on. Then again, we acted in self-defense, so whatever, not our problem.

We then settled down and gathered around Severa, where she told us the truth behind this whole affair. In short, Severa left the house ‘cause she fell in love with Cernust.

“What! Absurd! How can a Lecartiglio noble have feelings for this-this dragonkin!” Antonio exclaimed. “Beside, Severa, as a noble you cannot just mix your blood with a commoner! There is a place for everything, but this action will not benefit our House at all! What will Father and Mother say when they hear this.” Antonio slapped his forehead, looking anxious as he contemplated his parent’s reactions to the news.

“See! This is why I left home, for this exact reason! How is it taboo for a Lecartiglio noble to marry a beastman, excluding arvisians, simply because they are the descendants of beasts? I knew you would not agree and neither would Father and Mother. That is why disappearing from your life was the best way for this to resolve peacefully for our lives!” Severa screamed at her judgemental brother. “I would leave Artorias behind and move to Loatryx with Cernust, where we would live our lives in peace. Where all the stress of becoming a better mage just to uphold our house’s honor would be gone.”

Antonio winced. “I-I understand you would feel distressed considering our bloodline’s lackluster mana growth, but that still doesn’t mean you can disappear without saying anything to your family! Have you no idea how worried Father and our eldest brother were? Not to mention Mother and our sister! You cannot just run away like this just to marry some commoner dragonkin from Loatryx after only knowing him for a few months!”

“Sorry for chiming in, but I’m actually from Kargryx and, while we don’t have an actual feudal society with a class system, all true dragonkins like dragons, drakes, leviathans, and adamantoises are considered like nobility by the lesser dragonkins, dragonewts, and levianewts,” Cernust explained. “Oh yeah, I haven’t introduced myself properly, right? I am Cernust Gaia Kurnistus. I am a drake and my ancestor was the forest guardian, Kurnistus. In terms you humans would understand better, my family would be similar to a schwertnoble.”

“What?” Antonio let out with widened eyes.

“That is beside the point, brother Antonio. Even if Cernust was an actual dragonewt or bovline, I wouldn’t have cared and gone with him anyways!” Severa vehemently made her stance clear. “This isn’t some maiden fancy as you would like to believe! Cernust might have a rough speaking habit, but that is because he only learned Common after he left his home two years ago. He isn’t some vagabond who sweeps in to steal away hearts, but an actual good man!”

Antonio’s story on how his sister met Cernust was true, confirmed by Severa herself. The only differences were the details needed to actually make sense of the story. Severa met Cernust during a routine outing around House Moreschi’s fief to inspect the land and its serfs. Cernust was there to fulfill a Quest from the hunter’s guild to hunt down some mole-type monsters infesting the local farmland.

Severa stumbled upon him and saw his earth magic, causing her to feel envious as her own magical abilities were subpar, a common trait among schwertnobles, but not for viscount houses. House Moreschi was on the border between a viscount and baron when it comes to magic potential, which has been a constant reason for stress for each of their House Heads.

According to Severa, nobles in the military-focused Lecartiglio had to provide something — be it magical or martial — to help a house gain more fame. She explained to us that since the Lecartiglio duchy was the home of the White Talon Knight’s Order, having tamed a hippogryph and making them a mount was considered a norm for martial houses and potential knights of this duchy.

While that was the case for her two older brothers, Severa had to either train her magic abilities or become a marriage tool for a house alliance. It was very similar to Ellaine’s situation in a way. So, as Severa couldn’t accept this, she wanted Cernust to teach her in secret, thinking it would be good to improve her earth magic outside the royal academy.

But, that was when her family learned about Cernust and forbade him from staying in their territory. The two would continue meeting each other coincidentally in Cedarraile and Gransromus, and from there they bonded with each other.

“Flowers?” I asked.

Cernust nodded. “Yeah, herbology. As a woodland drake and alchemist, I need to collect herbs and seeds for my own usage, which means my backpack is always full with them. I was planting some herbs to grow for personal usage when Severa snuck up on me. She said she used to like managing the rose garden in her estate, but couldn’t personally plant seeds and fertilizer since she was a noble, so she was interested in what I was doing and we talked for quite a bit on that day. Honestly, she would make a better alchemist or herbalist than a mage, ha ha!”

“Insolence! My younger sister is capable enough to become a powerful mage, instead of a lowly alchemist!” Antonio snapped. “And it is ‘Lady Severa’ for yo-”

“Sir Antonio, don’t ruin this,” I spoke up to silence him for his unhealthy expectations. I won’t scold him for having a positive opinion of his sister but expecting too much from somebody was just bad.

Severa thanked me and continued, “So, although it might be true that Cernust did steal my heart away, it isn’t true that he is a kidnapper! It was my idea the whole time, Cernust merely aided me!”

Antonio frowned as he heard this, swiping his hand over his face to calm himself down. “That still does not mean you can just leave like this, Severa. You might be an adult, but this does not mean you are allowed to drop all your responsibilities as a daughter of a viscount and go away just because of your heart!”

“Then tell me, would you accept Cernust after what he revealed? He is a drake, a C rank drake at that, and his family is considered similar to a baron family by dragonewts? Or, is the mere idea of me choosing my own partner, a drake at that, so abhorrent for you?” Severa questioned her brother, unafraid of him.

Here was where I raised my hand. “Pardon me, but it would be nice if I could get some information. I know the Lecartiglio duchy isn’t very receptive of beastmen-”

“Pah!” Cernust scoffed.

“...As I was saying, beastmen, in general, aren’t liked in the Lecartiglio duchy, but I heard arvisians are very well-liked due to being related to griffons and hippogryphs. Does that mean arvisians can be accepted into a noble house?”

“Yes, that is the case. Since our royal family are arvisians, specifically born from griffons, the Lecartiglio duchy treats arvisians like any other human,” Severa stated. “Otherwise, our duchy has been unwilling to adapt like the other duchies have, unable to shed the culture of our past when we were still part of the Leosfalt Kingdom. Most nobles think beastmen are below humans, still. Elves aren’t welcomed either, while dwarves are only accepted if they are either blacksmiths or adventurers.”

In other words, a bunch of racists. Glad to hear this from an actual inhabitant of Lecartiglio, this time. She is very critical of her own home.

It was unpleasant for me to hear, especially after knowing how Greenveil worked, but it did give me an idea on how to solve this problem of theirs, “Then…Cernust, you have something like [Beastialize] correct?” I pointed out, merely guessing.

When he nodded, I continued, “Then wouldn’t it be alright for you to change your beastman form to an arvisian?”

He looked at me confused and tilted his head, showing he didn’t understand my question. “Don’t you know, Pr-Hestia. You decide which beastman sub-race the moment you activate [Beastialize] for the first time. The System sends you a notice showing all the options.”

“O-Oh, really?” My innocent and well-crafted plan was just destroyed. Nevertheless, I became a bit curious at what he said. “Then why did you choose a bovline?”

“When I decided to leave home ‘cause I was bored, my parents had me decide on which humanoid form transforming skill I wanted, and I chose beastman. I wanted a form that was strong in hand-to-hand combat, but that wasn’t as slow as a rhinocerum or hairy like an ursine. If I’m not in my dragonewt form, a beastman’s weak magical abilities was a problem, but I prefer being a pugilist anyways.”

That would explain why his plant growing abilities were slower when he fought as a bovline than when he transformed into a dragon.

“Hold on, are you telling me that more dragonkins are hiding among us?” Antonio asked with a face of horror.

“Huh? Nah, don’t worry. Dragons and drakes are so uncaring of the outside world and would prefer just staying in Kargryx rather than going outside. I just went out when I was considered an adult at nineteen since it was boring there. Wanted to sightsee around the world,” Cernust laughed without a care of the world.

So, does this mean I am a teen or adolescent when I reach five? Or that dragons consider each other adults when they are nineteen? I don’t know. However, considering that he didn’t mention this adulthood pilgrimage dragons did to ‘gather knowledge on the world outside’ that Farron mentioned, should I presume this stuff is actually top-secret knowledge? Would make sense to prevent dragons from getting hunted.

“Damn you! Stop laughing! Urgh, so my commanders were right when they said dragons were nothing more than lazy, arrogant beasts sitting on the laurels earned by their dragon god.” Honestly, what the hell were they doing in Lecartiglio, indoctrinating people like this. I mean, dragons couldn’t be that bad, right?

“Hey,” Antonio suddenly looked at Cernust, this time with an expression unrelated to anger or hatred. “You said you came to sightsee. What is your opinion on our kingdom as a whole?”

“As a whole? Pretty fun, really. Better than a bunch of sleeping dragons guarding treasures or whatever they are hoarding, honestly. Nothing bad about my ancestry and family, but guarding a forest for my entire life sounds like a bore. You only see the same plants every day, I want to see and meet more! More seeds!” Cernust said with great enthusiasm, looking jovial as he showed the many seeds inside his pouches.

Were they warming up, I wonder?

“Hey, are you interested in returning to Kargryx?” Antonio asked, still not willing to use Cernust’s name.

Unfazed by this, he answered, “Nah, definitely not right now. Drakes are long-living, so I want to experience as much as I can before becoming bored and going back. However…” He then looked at Severa. “I don’t think I will have my fill of fun for a while.”

“I see,” Antonio nodded before looking at Severa. “Sister, regardless of the situation, you still should go back to father and mother. We have been your family for seventeen years now, so at the very least, you owe them a proper goodbye.”

“Return to be imprisoned the moment I enter our house’s fief? Forget it, I am not naive,” Severa rejected her brother’s suggestion without contemplating it. “The moment I return and you give a report, Cernust will become hunted in our duchy. I would rather make a new life for myself.”

“Please, trust me that I will speak with Father and our brother. I have a plan,” he approached Severa and whispered into her ears, telling her whatever he had planned.

She initially looked annoyed, but her expression slowly became less strained as she looked more intrigued. After Antonio was done, she spoke, “I honestly think you are a selfish and conniving person to think of something like that. Cernust wouldn’t want that, even if it becomes possible.”

“How about you speak to him about it?” Antonio replied.

Jeez, I can’t believe we got ourselves in a family squabble.

As Severa was about to explain what her brother told her to Cernust, a loud scream came from the woods. Saori, quick to determine the source of the scream, pointed and directed our eyes northwest from our current location.

“-----p. Help us! Someone! Adventurers! Guards! Monsters! Anybody, please!” It was a young woman’s voice, filled with not only desperation but also fear.

As I peered into the distance, a young woman in a magician’s robe was running through the woods while carrying somebody unconscious over her shoulder. She lacked a catalyst of any kind, no staff, orb, or rings, and her appearance looked terrible. It was as if she had to crawl herself out of a cave or something, seeing as how ripped and dirty her robe was.

Wait, that red hair… doesn’t it look a bit like a rooster head?

The person she was carrying had red hair styled similarly to a rooster, reminding me of somebody. The girl also reminded me of something with her green hair, sticking on her sweat- and tear-drenched face.

Hold on, wasn’t there a green-haired girl with a magician’s hat in the hunter’s guild? There was one who looked two or three years older than me… Wait! Hold on!

“Roosterhead?!” I shouted out as I had an epiphany. I couldn’t remember the girl’s name, but there was no way in hell I would forget a boy with dark-red hair so wild, it looked like a rooster’s head. I mean, I don’t remember his name, but still.

What are they doing here of all places?!

That was when my [Detection Sensor] warned me of more approaching signals. A horde.

Kobolds and goblins. Armed with armor and weapons, riding on wargs, chasing down the girl as she cried out for help so desperately.

“Saori! Tasianna!”

“By your will, Lady Hestia!” Ice daggers began to materialize from Tasianna’s catalyst, levitating around her as she began to cast spells.

“Hai, Hestia Oujo-sama! (Yes, Princess Hestia!)” Saori pulled out her daggers and tanto before cladding herself in a robe of shadows. Her shadow stirred, causing her to melt into it while her eyes emitted a red mist.

I think we found those tamers.

A note from AbyssRaven

Just a reminder, Roosterhead was the young adventurer who didn't like Hestia since he thought she got special treatment compared to the rest of the hunter's. Nobles shouldn't be treated better was a rule, so he didn't like she was made D rank.

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Chapter 156: A Dilemma.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Thinking back to the last time I saw a goblin or kobold, I could only remember them as simple-minded monsters, reminding me how they were usually the first enemies you would fight in video games. They were treated as training dummies for beginners to ease them into the game’s fighting system.

When I first came to Peolynca, my opinion on kobolds were pretty much like training dummies, if you ignored how I almost died against them twice, but my outlook on them has changed ever since. From what I heard from fellow adventurers gossiping over some curry or beer, most new hunters — specifically young, inexperienced members joining due to their fantasies of monster hunting — reminisced how badly their first Quests were if they involved goblins or kobolds. Some even stated they lost some partners from a goblin ambush.

Goblins and kobolds were grimgarians, a kind of demi-human. They were a mix of monsters and humanoids, meaning they possessed a simple intelligence even if they were mostly feral after being born from a monster spawning. They were able to use weapon and craft armor while having the cunning to ambush with traps and poisoned weapons — poison which primarily came from their ‘flower gathering.’

I learned from my time in the Belzac mountains, where I was reborn in this world, of how kobolds could act if they weren’t trying to turn me into dinner. They celebrated over a successful hunt and partied with each other. It humanized them for me.

However, it also made me wary of them. With the potential to become as shrewd as a garm or dragon, plus the power of evolution, there was a chance of a formidable goblin or kobold lord appearing. At the very least, goblins and kobolds who are able to prove how dangerous they truly were certainly existed.

Hobgoblin

A greater goblin, fortunate enough to have built up a strong body to use for battles. They are still simple in mind, but their base strength and endurance are higher than a human’s. Rank E

Echikobold

A greater kobold, showing potential to become master tamers. While their overall strength and endurance have not increased, their intelligence and deftness are far more advanced than a normal kobold. Echikobolds are never alone, either more are nearby or a pack of tamed monsters will shadow their master. Rank E

There were a few F rank goblins and kobolds among this horde, but the majority were evolved grimgarians. The hobgoblins looked like they were almost human-sized, making them look like lankier and less savage-looking versions of orcs. The echikobolds had their dog faces replaced with a wolf-like face, with wild fur imitating human hair or a lion’s mane; fortunately, they weren’t much taller than a normal kobold.

“Gruuu,” an echikobold, positioned in front of the rest of the horde, raised his bow while on his warg and aimed at the fleeing mage girl. Even from this distance, I could feel the confidence in its action, contrary to the more cowardly G and F rank kobolds.

Faster, parallel minds!

Saori hadn’t completely submerged in her shadow yet, nor would Tasianna’s ice daggers hit him in time. The green-haired magician girl carrying Roosterhead wasn’t walking very fast, probably due to having to carry her armored companion despite only being a mage. She was an easy target for a competent archer!

“Lightning Bolt!” The element type with the fastest attacks, even faster than wind spells, was definitely [Lightning Magic], although the casting time was a bit longer. A purple magic circle appeared before my hand as I stared down my arm, aiming at the moving kobold.

And I fired.

The roar of thunder echoed through the forest. A bright purple beam shot through the trees, piercing through the air, before striking the head of the warg the echikobold was riding on. With the loud cry of a pained wolf, the warg fell face down, tumbling like a ragdoll across the ground.

The kobold, having lost its mount, was launched off the warg’s saddle. Surprised, it let go of the bowstring, releasing the arrow before it could be pulled back fully. Unfortunately, the arrow didn’t hit the ground, but rather still managed to pierce the girl’s leg.

“Kyaaargh!” she screamed out, dropping the unconscious Roosterhead on the ground as she fell on her knees. She clutched her leg in pain, before looking back and seeing the imminent danger she was in. “Hiiiiiieeeeee! H-HEIIIIILP!!!”

Her shrieking was filled with fear and hysteria, perfectly showing how consumed with terror she was. But with a cry of help, comes also the helping hand.

Saori sprang out of her shadow, whispered something calming to the girl before grabbing her around the waist and the red-haired boy’s arm and swinging it over her shoulder. She then dived into her shadow, just in time to dodge more incoming arrows, which met nothing but the ground.

“Tasianna, let’s do it!” I shouted, having already constructed an air rifle using [Aerokinesis]. I loaded the gun barrel with small earth pellets, filled with a small amount of my scale-dust. Compared to my normal bombs, these little guys still produced an explosion, but were significantly smaller in size in order to prevent forest fires and such. I shall deny my destiny of burning down every forest I enter with this invention!

“Yes, my Lady! Icicle Gust!” Tasianna, with her fully repaired catalyst, shot out not only her ice daggers but also the spell [Icicle Gust] at the stampeding horde of grimgarians. At the same time, the sound of exploding winds could be heard from me as I shot out each pellet with [Wind Blast].

“Guuuuraggh!!”

“Shariyk! Gurrraaagahhh!”

“Gizamp! Gizampa run!”

Including the first echikobold, the front row of warg riders was buffeted by our ranged attacks, falling down after receiving one or two hits. Noticing the danger, the kobolds in the mid and rear end of the horde began to swerve to the sides, using the trees as protection from our shots.

“Hey, you two, help out!” I called out to Cernust and Antonio who were standing still, not moving.

“Tch! I apologize for reacting slowly! Bornelli, we ride!” Antonio quickly mounted his hippogryph and was about to ride into the battle before ordering Cernust. “You, drake, stand and protect my sister! If you dare run away, I will make sure to hunt you down with an army next time!”

I thought Antonio seemed to have mellowed down a bit after hearing what happened with Cernust and Severa, but it still seems like he couldn’t trust him fully yet. Cernust seemed to think the same, “You can’t order me around! I am an adventurer from a different country, I do what I will! If you can’t trust me, then stay back and defend Severa! As if I can allow Lady Hestia and the ladies to handle everything while I’m here!”

“Imbecile! You are slower than my Bornelli! You will be made a fool against these warg riders, so allow a Knight of the White Talon order to handle this! Accept the situation, for I can aid the Lady Shrine Maiden better!” Antonio replied with an equally prideful statement.

What the hell are they doing? I wondered, flabbergasted.

That was when Saori jumped out of the shadows with the rescued adventurers. “Lady Hestia, she needs treatment. You, whatever you do, do not leave my Lady’s side, alright? You will be safe here.”

With a trembling voice, the girl nodded and said, “O-Ok.” Saori then turned to Cernust and Antonio, who were still arguing at this point. “You two! What are you doing arguing on the battlefield?! You two should be ashamed for acting like this when you are facing the enemy! Start moving and participate; Lady Hestia and Tasianna are proficient enough to defend everybody else here!” With that harsh criticism, Saori dove back into her shadow and reappeared from the shadow of a tree, taking down a hobgoblin rider and summoning her three garms.

“““Whrooooooooooh!”””

“Hunt them down!” Saori commanded the now collared garms, each moving in different directions to challenge a warg. Whether it was due to being the superior version of their race or something else, the wargs seemed to hesitate as they saw the garms appear, panicking even, as they seemed to not listen to their riders. It was even more evident when none of them wanted to even get close to Saori, the pack leader.

“You two, leave this to me!” I reassured the two worried men. “Do not underestimate me or my friends!” To demonstrate, I produced multiple magic circles at once and shot them out at some targets.

“A-Alright, thank you, Lady Shrine Maiden. Bornelli, we ride!” Antonio shouted, which was reciprocated by a loud shriek of an eagle.

“Please, Lady Hestia,” Cernust simply said, before charging into the fight while commanding the trees to stop blocking Tasianna’s attacks.

With Saori, Cernust, and Antonio joining the offensive on the east side, I told Tasianna to start shooting the enemies on the west. I put down my rifle, ordered my parallel minds to use [Detection Sensor] to shoot spells in my stead while I treated the arrow in the girl’s leg. I had to make sure it wasn’t poisoned.

“Eiiiiieeek!” she cried out through clenched teeth, tears flowed down her face, as I pulled the arrow out of her leg. From a closer inspection, her blue robes were tattered and had signs of dirt and blood, mostly on the shoulder area. She didn’t have any wounds there, though.

“Please, hang on,” I told her before readying a spell. With the information I heard from adventurers, I smelled the arrowhead, noticing a putrid stench only shit and urine could produce. The arrow was poisoned, it needed to be purged! “This is my custom spell, so please don’t be alarmed. It’ll get rid of the venom and heal your wounds. Sanctified Blaze.”

Since she was a mage, she should understand what I just said. I placed a white magic circle on her skin, which immediately produced white flames which entered her wound. She screamed out in surprise but I held her down and told her to calm down, mentioning the fire was a custom spell.

As my spell was treating her leg wound and the many scratches across her body, I could hear Tasianna tell me that the horde was retreating. Through my [Detection Sensor], I confirmed her statement as multiple signals were moving away from where we were standing. Even if they were a small army, getting ambushed like this would dissuade anybody from continuing the charge.

I asked Tasianna to apply some ice on the patient’s leg once I dispelled [Sanctified Blaze], now that we were out of danger.

“T-Thank you very much, Lady Priestess,” the green-haired girl told me. “U-Uhm, I know, this might be very rude to ask of you after what happened, but I beg you in the Goddess name, please save Leif!”

It took me a while for me to remember her, but it didn’t take a second for her to realize who I was. I guess I left an impression. I nodded, telling her the past wasn’t very important when life was in danger, causing her face to brighten up.

Using [Mana Eyes], I checked on Roosterhead. His profile was not worth mentioning, since it was probably the norm for an F or E rank adventurer. On the other hand, his Health was dropping from [Bleeding (Minor)] and [Poisoned (Minor)], and his Stamina was zero. “What happened to them,” I couldn’t help but wonder.

I identified the blood spots on Roosterhead’s clothes, each sliced open with some blade or something, and was bleeding quite a bit. I quickly applied [Sanctified Blaze] to handle any wounds I missed and used [Major Heal] on the ones I could see. During this treatment, my ears picked up his strained breathing.

The armor!

Brigandine armor, what I originally thought of as leather armor but Saori later informed me of its real name. I wouldn’t be surprise if the armor was the cause of his troubled breathing, seeing as how tight it looked. I called Tasianna over to help me pull it off him. We first unequipped his brigandine, then the chainmail underneath it, and lastly the gambeson. Layering armor to improve defenses seemed to be smarter than what fantasy games do, where your character could usually wear only one layer.

I pulled up his shirt to reveal his bare stomach and chest, where I noticed my flames healing an area quite aggressively. It was a large purple spot, probably caused by blunt trauma. Were his ribs broken? Regardless, nothing [Major Heal] couldn’t handle now that I knew what was causing his breathing problem.

With his body now healed, I pulled his shirt down again and let him rest until he woke up. That was when Cernust, Antonio, and Saori returned. Saori spoke up first, “Uno, Song, and Sarasa are handling the clean-up of any stragglers or survivors. Each of them leveled up once.” Saori was showing a rather pleased smile, probably happy to see her garms getting stronger.

Or, she’s just happy that our meat stock got another refill. Goblin meat, kobold meat? Bit stinky, but edible with spices.

“Was this forest always a goblin and kobold lair?” Antonio complained, short in breath.

“Not at all. That grizzly shouldn’t even be here, since this is an F rank monster-infested area. No way would the adventurer guild mark it as such when hobgoblins and echikobolds walk around, making it unsafe for gatherers or newbie hunters,” Cernust explained, showing he had done his research before coming here.

“I agree,” I said in support of his statement since I had been here before with Ellaine. “The last time I ventured here, there were only animal-level monsters. Skorrs, loopabits, fowls. Nothing that would pose such a problem.”

“They retreated, no?” Severa chimed in, looking anxious as she looked where the warg riders fled to. “W-We should go, yes? I-I trust in your strength Cernust, and in your party, Lady Hestia, but I do not wish to be here when they come back to retaliate.”

“She speaks the truth. It would be safer if we left the forest for now to assess the situation,” Antonio agreed to his sister’s suggestion. “Even with Lady Shrine Maiden’s white grace, we still have two exhausted, injured adventurers and Severa is a non-combatant. Let us not risk anything.”

Saori nodded. “It is getting dark, anyways. We should not be fighting in the dark without knowing the full strength of the enemy.”

As everybody agreed it would be wise to leave the forest for now before night came, we were about to move but the green-haired girl stopped us. “Please, don’t leave! Mister Raian, Wulf, and Verdiena were captured by those monsters!”

“Who?” I turned around to the frantic mage girl.

“Lady Priestess, I-I don’t know if you still remember us, but they are part of our party.” She pointed at Roosterhead and then back to her. She then bowed her head, prostrating before me. “Please, please, save them. By the Goddess, I beg of you! I-I still remember what Miss Melia said about your high level, so please, you should be able to do it! Please!”

She was obviously asking me to do something about her missing party members, but I had no idea what she was talking about with her voice nearly breaking under stress. I held up my hand and told her to calm down first, “Hold on, breathe in, breathe out. What are you saying exactly?”

Her name was Lucia, a mage working at the hunter’s guild. She and her party recently took on a Quest to hunt down some kobolds sighted in this forest by some adventurers. Once they arrived, they managed to find an echikobold riding a warg commanding a hunting group of kobolds and goblins. They successfully took down all the goblins and kobolds, but the echikobold escaped.

“Leif and Wulf wanted to pursue it since it was part of the Quest. Mister Raian and Verdiena, on the other hand, thought it would be dangerous, but eventually agreed that we had to scout out if there was a camp nearby,” Lucia explained.

“Hmm, yeah, sounds fishy when goblins and kobolds work together. Kobolds can be cooperative when desperate, but goblins are just slimy, little shits filled with hatred and jealousy. They would never ally up with other goblin tribes or grimgarian races, except when they are being dominated by stronger beings,” Cernust added.

“Grimgarian?” Severa tilted her head, just like Antonio and Lucia. Didn’t they know what the race name of kobolds and goblins were?

“Ahh, I forgot, you humans don’t call them like that. Forget what I said. Just continue, but I’m guessing that your little scouting trip didn’t end too well,” Cernust urged Lucia to continue.

Looking as if she was about to tear up again, she endured and continued, speaking as fast as she could while making it understandable. “A cave; the tracks led into a cave. M-Mister Raian made sure we understood what we had to do before we entered the cave, making sure we had the preparations the guild would suggest before entering a cave. W-We prepared for only a few more goblins or kobolds — maybe some wargs, too — but-but there were too many.”

The horde we saw just now was just a fraction of an army hidden inside a cave. Wargs, a grizzly, and other tamed monsters. Hobgoblins, echikobolds, and orcs were roaming inside that place, all armed with iron or steel weapons and armor. It was like a war camp.

Has the grimgarian army come? I thought as I looked at Saori and Tasianna, sharing my thoughts as they nodded.

“They found us. Mister Raian sacrificed himself to allow us to escape, but then Wulf and Verdiena got separated from us. Leif and I somehow made it outside. We tried to hide, but Leif lost consciousness from the bleeding, which was enough for the wargs to find us. I-I’m only here because I heard that loud roar, and I was desperate enough for any help I could get. Even if it was from a giant monster.”

With all the roaring Cernust and I did, I guess being loud has its perks.

“If that horde was only a hunting party, then this might be more problematic for Greenveil than I thought. We should leave and report this to Lord Marquess Sirus immediately,” Antonio suggested after hearing all that.

“W-Wha-?!” Lucia trembled.

“Brother?!” Severa turned around, not understanding what her brother was saying.

“Severa, don’t be naive. This is an army we are talking about, and we are only a pitiful number. We will also need to fight inside a cave, and hippogryphs will never, ever enter a place they cannot escape from. Are you suggesting we throw our lives away, even the life of a holy servant of the Goddess?” Antonio replied with a pretty convincing argument from a realistic standpoint. “Also, I might be a knight, but I am a knight of the Lecartiglio Duchy. This is an issue the Greenveil duchy must tackle themselves, including asking for reinforcements.”

I don’t know what to think about that last statement, but the bright, heroic knight in shining armor image I had of him was slowly dying.

“Saori?” I turned to Saori, since I knew she would complain if I said anything without consulting her. My fight with her inside the Belzac Forest was still vivid to me.

“Hestia, you know what I think about this. I really do not want us to get into this much danger. Even the one we had in Rashan Village was a bit too much for me,” Saori sighed loudly. “If those adventurers were not inside the cave, then I would say it should be easy enough for you to detonate and destroy the cave with your bombs and spells, but we need to enter and rescue them… it would require stealth.”

“Yes,” Tasianna nodded. “Lady Hestia, your power means nothing if you were to cause a cave-in while we are fighting inside the cave. You would need to reinforce the walls and ground again, but the last time you did this, it was inside a dwarven ruin. The stone might have withered through time, but their craftsmanship was indisputable still. We cannot say the same for a normal cave.”

“So, you two suggest we should give this up?” I asked, hesitating a bit since they were clearly pointing out their disagreement with the plan. Lucia looked like the world was ending.

“Hestia, please, do not give me that look. I do not want to have the same argument with you again that we had with the lizardmen. I didn’t say anything in Rashan Village, since it was my fault for being so excited and taking that Quest in the first place, but this one? This is a request we should deny for our safety.” She then activated [Telepathy]. [“Do you remember those mana cannons? If those trolls had them, then this group might have some, too. We saw what an army with those could do to a certain B rank wyvern.”]

Just the mention of those [Warhammer Mana Cannon]s made me shiver a bit. I barely blocked the projectile and it shredded my arms to the point I couldn’t use them. Thankfully, I was able to heal them with my magic, so I was spared from becoming a cripple. Saori was right…

Also, it’s a cave… I hate caves. No sun.

“Please,” Lucia begged once more. “I know this is selfish, b-but you should be able to do something, right? Advanced elements, level 80, and the guidance of the Goddess. Please, I don’t want to lose them all.”

I could hear the other three whisper “Level 80?!” but I ignored that for the moment.

While I could sympathize with her, helping her would mean either I go in alone or endanger Saori and Tasianna. In either case, it was simply impossible. I would worry them with the former and I would feel bad with the latter. There was no winning in this situation. I mean, in the first place, we don’t even know if her companions were alive.

This was a conundrum, and I was about to rip my hair out as I didn’t know how to answer Lucia. I wasn’t a hero, but I know the right thing to do was to help her. However, I don’t want to worry my friends who are vehemently against taking large risks like these. What am I to do? What am I to do?

“You know, Lady Hestia?” As I was working out this inner dilemma, Cernust poked my shoulder. “You know, a Kargryxmor wouldn’t be thinking this long on an issue, you know? The black tyrant doesn’t exactly care for whatever is standing before him, only that it needs to go. It’s not my place to say as a descendant of Kurnistus, since we are supposed to be passive and peaceful and all that, but, you know, maybe it’s time to burn stuff?”

“Cernust, you don’t exactly understand what my problem is, but it isn’t about fighting or not fighting. We don’t know what they-”

“Hold on, hold on, hold on! ‘Burn something…,’” Saori interrupted me, looking as if she had the idea of the century. “Lady Hestia, tell me, can you make a hole as silently as possible? Drilling a hole through stone quietly, I mean.”

“Huh? Uhm, I don’t think I can do that without tearing pieces of the mountain down with spells, but maybe that might be too loud. Oh, [Rumbling Might] can cause a minor earthquake,” I threw out ideas at Saori’s question.

Cernust then stepped in. “I am not the best digger, but I have claws adapted to digging. I can probably tear through rock if it’s weakened first, but I haven’t leveled up my Earth magic that high yet. My [Floral Magic] is my specialty.”

Saori nodded before a smile appeared on her face. She then looked at me, “Lady Hestia, do you want to help Lucia? I still do not approve of this, but I think I have a plan where we could get rid of the unknown factors and threat of ambush inside a cave.”

I nodded.

She then turned to Lucia, “We will do our best.”

I have no idea what she thought off, but she is more or less the brains of the party. It probably will work… hopefully.

A note from AbyssRaven

So, if you guys opened the spoiler box then you would have noticed something special. Yeah, the official art for Dragon idol is finally done. I'll be releasing it on RR soonish, but if you guys can't wait, then there is also the patreon option, where you can see it in full!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 15 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 157: The Grimgarian Battalion.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #4 her to promote our Patreon. 15 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 15 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until May!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

Narrator Time.

“Tugnuk blak! In, in, monster humans-prisoners! Kehehehehehek!”

“Dnasti! Dnasti! Dnasti! Kehehehek!”

“Dnasti! Dnasti! Dnasti! Kahiiaaaaaahhhekehekehek!”

Revolting. Or maybe mortifying? Regardless of what words could be used to describe this group of cackling, green creatures, it was undoubtedly unpleasant to look at. This would, after all, be exactly what the typical adventurer would think the moment they met numerous goblins and hobgoblins howling out in laughter, waving their simple iron weapons in the air as they celebrated their victory.

However, unlike a common encounter with most goblins, these green fiends weren’t wearing shabby, low-quality equipment looted from unsuspecting caravans or unfortunate adventurers, but rather high quality gear made by their own blacksmiths. Orcish blacksmiths. The quality was incomparable to dwarven-made weapons and armor and the finesse was missing unlike the elves, however, these weapons were made to be brutish and to accomodate grimgarian body types.

“Grrrrrrrr! Grarrrr! Don’t look at her like that, you green shits! I’ll rip your eyes out and- ARGH!” In the middle of this rambunctious goblin group were a wolfkin and arvisian, both shoved into a makeshift prison cage by their capturers. Noticing the vile, lascivious gazes the grimgarian males were sending towards his companion, the wolfkin adventurer lashed out at his captors, but was immediately stabbed in the leg by a laughing goblin guard for his efforts.

“Kahahek!” Watching these helpless adventurers struggle gave the surrounding goblins endless joy, for they were sadistic beings. Greedy for power, conniving enough to backstab comrades they fought with, and filled with envy against those stronger or more influential than them. This is what makes a goblin a goblin.

“Wulf… stop it. You know they’re enjoying this, and you’re just encouraging them,” sitting in a corner, the green-feathered arvisian woman was scolding her male companion. The feathers on her arms were mostly ripped off and she was looking rather pale, probably due to blood loss from the wounds all over her body.

“Diena…,” Wulf couldn’t help but look at his companion pitifully, as she gave him a weak stare. However, this only lasted for a moment as the goblins’ hysterical laughter brought him back to the reality of his situation.

“Keheheheh! Die-die, you die-die! We feast-eat your bodies! Kehehehek!” Driving their victims in despair and watching them suffer, those were the goblins’ intention as they continued to mock the adventurers. For them, it was like watching animals through a zoo’s glass panel.

“Silence!” It was then that a booming voice interrupted the gleeful laughter of the goblins, forcing them to turn to the source of it. “Shaman here. Move!”

Two massive grey-skinned orcs clad in heavy armor and armed with large axes pushed through the group of goblins, making way for a blue-skinned hobgoblin female in shamanic robes. With a bone staff in her hands, she signaled the orc guards standing behind her to move forward, dragging with them a large man.

“Yubnri’en! Gliedda yuf vernohn blieck, Marsven!” The numerous goblins and hobgoblins prostrated before the hobgoblin shaman, repeating the same sentence in honor of their chosen deity — the God of Darkness, Marsven.

Although goblins in general are devious, untrustworthy, and prone to violence, the one member they would never betray in their own race would be the blue-skin ones — goblins born with the aptitude to become mages or shamans. This is primarily because these goblins were unable to betray the two beings they held in esteem over even their ruling lord or ruler: the gods Marsven and Edna, also known as the Night Father and Mother in the Black Tongue, the language of grimgarians. For if they were to betray these two deities, then Kronnaz, third daughter of Marsven and the Goddess of Grudges and Grimgarian, would strike them down.

Marine blue resembling the night — most grimgarians believe that those of their race with the option to evolve into a blue variant were personally blessed by Edna to become shamans and mages, meaning they were as respected as white-robed priests for Aurena followers. While blue-skinned goblins can be as devious as their normal brethren, they were less likely to be consumed by greed and envy from both their superior intellect and the fact they already wield power over hordes of goblins.

The orcs carrying the wounded man opened the prison cell and tossed him in without consideration for the wounds on his body. Wulf quickly approached the man, calling out “Raian,” before pulling the injured man up just to notice the terrible state his arms were in and a bloody rag covering his right eye. Wulf spat out insults at his captors, but the shaman’s entourage just ignored them.

The blue-skinned hobgoblin then approached the cage. She was slightly shorter than a human female but still taller than a dwarven woman, with black hair flowing down her back, the most obvious signs she was an evolved goblin, unlike her shorter and bald relatives. Her nose was small and curved upwards, large eyes adapted for life inside a cave, and sharp ears almost the size of her head with an appearance resembling the elves.

“We speak later. You will tell us the location of your home and its defenses,” the shaman demanded from the adventurers. “Numbers of soldiers, adventurers, walls, knights, mages. All, you will give us, all-all.”

Ending her sentence with the goblin’s iconic speech impediment, Wulf couldn’t help but click his tongue, scowling at her with rage-filled eyes. “You think we will say anything, you goblin scum?! Don’t underestimate us, you monsters! You attack us, we will wipe you all out!” Wulf’s threat, however? None of the goblins took it seriously, laughing maniacally at the futility of his threat.

The only goblin who didn’t laugh was the shaman. “You will speak. Or we continue breaking the warrior. Another eye for our elixir. You will be sacrificed to honor the Night Father and Mother; however, your death will be filled with pain if you don’t speak. You speak and die in flames, honorably. Or we feast on you while you still live. Death as prey. Not warrior!”

With the words of their shaman, the goblins’ ravenous stares returned, eying both adventurers while licking their lips with greed. Some of the goblin’s sadistic desires even awoke at how frail and fragile the female arvisian looked with her injured arms, jumping and taunting her with glee.

“Graaaaaaaaaaaaa! Mine-mine! Mine!”

“Mine! Gliedda yuf vitriolr blieck! Me strongest!”

A horde of ravenous predators were rattled. The orc guards couldn’t help but scowl at the repulsive sight of their lesser brethren, unable to understand how feeble goblins were this depraved, while the kobold tamers at the back of the room scoffed at them. The adventurers, on the other hand, couldn’t help but feel dread in this situation, trembling at what fate they were awaiting.

All hope was gone.

Once silence was restored, the shaman informed them that they would be interrogated the next day, and then left them. A short while later, the adrenaline wore off and fatigue finally caught up to them.. Not only did these three hunters fight against a scouting party of goblins and kobolds, they also ventured into this cave to hunt down their supposedly lonely target.

They entered filled with determination and strength, having prepared as best they could for the pursuit; however, they found nothing but trials and tribulations awaiting them. Mind and body were tested as they were ambushed by sentries and driven deeper into the cave before they found an opening to flee. Unfortunately, to allow the youngest of them to flee, these crestfallen three had to sacrifice themselves, and, in doing so, were left to face the ultimate price.

“…What a way to go,” Wulf, the wolfkin, lamented as he leaned on the wall beside Verdiena. He was the least injured among the three, but with only his clothes left after being captured, there was nothing he could do against the horde of enemies waiting outside this small chamber.

However, his companion did not reply. Wulf sighed as a response to her silence. “Sorry, I should have rejected the idea in the first place. I know you hate caves.”

“All arvisians hate places where they can’t fly. It is an instinctual thing,” Verdiena opened her mouth to correct her companion. She didn’t raise her eyes, keeping them glued to the cold, grey ground.

“…Do you think I made the right choice?” Wulf eked out after a long wait.

“Which one?”

“Letting those brats go. If I had kicked them aside instead of blowing up that barrel of alcohol, we would have been the ones outside right now.”

“Do you think you regret it? Choosing them over us?” Verdiena raised her head and faced Wulf. Her eyes stared into his, waiting for an answer.

“Ha, I asked you first…,” Wulf scoffed, but then turned to look at the ceiling. He responded after thinking about the question. “Considering what we planned to do after leaving Lecartiglio, I can’t help but say it wasn’t worth it at all. I mean, we are about to die. To a bunch of goblins and kobolds, for fuck’s sake. Not what I would call a good end.”

Verdiena shrugged and placed her head on his shoulder, letting themselves enjoy what they could of the last night of their lives. They heard Raian’s pained breathing, his lungs working hard to provide him oxygen. They heard a commotion from outside the chamber, tensing up as they couldn’t help but imagine the worst, but as time went by and nobody entered the prison chamber, they let out a deep sigh.

The kids weren’t captured, hopefully.

Leif. Lucia. May the Goddess bless you.

Whether they were lucky or because the guards weren’t allowed to bother them, nobody entered the chamber, leaving Wulf and Verdiena to slip into sleep as their mental and physical exhaustion caught up to them. In truth, though, the reason was because of something they wouldn’t have expected: a warg rider group of the grimgarian army had returned severely damaged.

Specifically, this battalion from the grimgarian army was sent to traverse through a cave inside the eastern Belzac mountain range and enter the Greenveil duchy from the north. And this battalion recently received word that an unknown force had ambushed a warg squadron meant to hunt down the fleeing adventurers Leif and Lucia. Not only did the outriders lose a large number of trained wargs, but numerous hobgoblin and echikobold riders, including the leader of the squadron.

Losing a few goblins or kobolds wasn’t worth mentioning for a grimgarian army, since they were treated as cannon fodder anyway; on the other hand, losing tamed monsters was a different issue. Wargs were ferocious beasts large enough to serve as mounts for goblins and kobolds, but they were feral and required intensive care to break in, even when young. They also lost a large grizzly almost ready to evolve into its C rank form.

Due to this fact, the battalion sent out scouting parties to hunt down the interlopers. Goblins and kobolds too weak to challenge a grown adult man were sent out in the dozens to search the forest, since the battalion didn’t want to incur more attention than they already had. Their existence was to be kept a secret until the fateful day came for them to bring down the fury of the grimgarians on the humans of Artorias.

Since the shamans and orcs would probably punish any frolicking goblin, the adventurer trio was able to enjoy a small moment of respite. How long would it last? It wasn’t clear, but all good things must end sooner or later.

“Nothing?! You found nothing?!” Outside the cave’s entrance, an orc warrior shouted at the cowering goblins and kobolds scouts. “Have you no idea what this means?!”

“We-We could not find them-pinks,” a goblin in the front forced himself to say, seeing as the rest of the scouts chose him as the sacrifice for the orc’s rage. We-We couldn’t find any corpses-bodies of the riders. Gone-Gone. Just like pinks.”

“The bodies of our warg riders disappeared?! If this is a gobbo jest, then I ain’t laughing midget,” the orc snorted before picking the screaming goblin up and sniffing him. Even without the nose of a pig or beast, these orcs have a refined sense of smell due to their love for food. A strong body requires sufficient nutrients.

After he was done sniffing the goblin, he chucked him on the ground like a used-up toy. “I can smell fear and exhaustion. Your sweat doesn’t smell like that of a liar, midget. Hmph, the commander will not like to hear this.”

Humans who knew of the battalion’s position fled the forest, meaning they were now a risk factor since they could inform the hunter’s guild of their position. In the orc’s mind, he knew the commander of this battalion would not be happy to hear this. In fact, it was very likely he would be angered enough to lash out at his subordinate for ruining the plan. The fear of this happening was far worse than caring about the disappearing bodies of the warg riders.

The scouts were recalled back to the cave and nobody was allowed to leave the cave until the commander had decided on their next actions. That was their order and not even the shamans could ignore it. So, every grimgarian delved deeper into the mountain, where this military unit was stationed, leaving the entrance unguarded. Now, if someone were to enter, they would enter the grimgarian’s playing field and suffer the same fate the unfortunate adventurers did.

As time went by, with the noon sun blazing brightly in the sky, black smoke suddenly entered the cave. It wasn’t unusual, as there were troll warriors roasting meat and brewing stew for the ever-hungry battalion, especially the ravenous orcs and their endless appetite. Some smoke and coughing here and there was to be expected inside a cave.

However, what made it worrying for the grimgarians was when the smoke continued to gather at the cave’s ceiling like a cloud, never dispersing. The halls filled with the echoes of coughs, eventually forcing the orc guards to drag goblin mages from the depths of the mountain to the front to order them to ventilate the cave with wind spells. Unfortunately, despite their best efforts, the clouds would simply return inside, even larger and darker.

At the same time, the temperature inside the cave steadily rose until it became too warm for the grimgarians to handle, sweating and coughing uncontrollably. No matter how disciplined a grimgarian could become, the terrible situation inside the cave drove the goblins, kobolds, orcs, and trolls into a frenzy, provoking them to rush out of the cave.

In all this chaos, nobody cared for the adventurers.

As the grimgarians rushed to the cave’s entrance — desperate for clean air and cool winds — their ears were suddenly filled with the sound of a female voice accompanied by musical instruments the grimgarians had never heard before. But, no matter what it was, their legs would not stop as long as they were drenched in sweat and crying from a lack of oxygen.

Once the light of the outside came into view, hope filled the grimgarians’ hearts… It was just unfortunate that such hope was quickly burned to ashes.

The orcs leading the way forward flinched in pain, stepping back as blazing heat singed their faces. Their eyes watered as a response as they gazed at the red pyres standing outside the cave. An inferno encircled the entrance, having already killed any vegetation inside it. As their eyes were recovering from the sight, their hearing was once again stimulated by a serene voice. Their eyes wandered to the source.

A single person stood alone in front of them, unperturbed by the rising heat. She had her arms crossed while her white robes were fluttering amidst intense winds created through her magic, pushing the black smoke created by the inferno into the cave. Most would see her as a normal human girl if it wasn’t for her twin horns, scaled arms and legs, and a long tail flowing out of her skirt.

“In my purgatory, I make the devil cry ♫

In Hellfire ♫

All you hear are his screams, begging to be released ♫

It’s Music ♫”

Music was booming next to her, with the wind imitating a girl’s voice and instruments through magic alone. The girl, having noticed the grimgarians, opened up her eyes, revealing two sharp predatory irises. “This is your first and only chance. Return the three adventurers you captured and get out of Artorian lands this instance! What is your answer to this ultimatum?”

The mere sound of her words was heavy on the grimgarian’s minds and body. They felt an instinctual fear and terror from the girl while their minds were telling them to obey her every words, as if she was their lord and master. Like a tyrant gazing down on her unworthy subjects.

No answers came out but the girl waited patiently, as if the grimgarians’ every action was worth before her. That was when a blue-skinned goblin moved forward. “Breubon Iblis! Aurena! She is a priestess of the Bright Scourge!”

The shout from the hobgoblin shaman was like a wake-up call, dispelling the fear inside the different grimarians and stirring them to a frenzy. Anger rose and dyed their eyes red. They raised their weapons and gave the girl their answer.

“GUARGGGGGHHHHHH!”

“…Hmph. Just like my first encounter with orcs.” The girl sighed as the grimgarians rushed forward, shouting war cries as the heat and smoke destroyed any semblance of battle discipline they learned. The girl’s eyes sharpened, glaring at the approaching horde with frustration and annoyance.

She raised her hand and snapped her claws.

The cries of numerous grimgarians were then buried under a mighty explosion.

A note from AbyssRaven

Gawr.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 15 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 158: Prelude to Grim.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #1 her to promote our Patreon. 15 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 15 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until May!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

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Once again, thank you to everybody for your support for another amazing month.

[Music Resonation (Moderate)] [Blessing of the Goddess of Light (Moderate)] [Sanctified Blaze] [Stage Fever (Moderate)] [Various Spell Buffs] [Insatiable Glutton] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Scattered around the entrance of the cave, my scale-dust was ready to detonate at any time, especially with the flames roaring from [Dragon Fire]’s fire arena effect so close to the scale-dust. Preventing the dust from exploding prematurely required me to spend mana on [Aerokinesis] and [Pyrokinesis] to keep the heat from detonating it.

But, the result was quite worth it, almost as if I had a demolition fetish. The moment any peaceful option was off the table, I snapped my fingers and caused all my scale-dust to go boom. The shrill cries of goblins and kobolds echoed at first but were quickly muffled by how intense the explosion was. Making the grimgarian choose either to suffocate or to retreat back from where they came from was a pretty aggressive idea, but better than nothing.

Smoking them out in the first place was a pretty good plan from Saori, something that I should have thought of myself, but didn’t. It drew them out from their cave, so I didn’t need to fight them inside their territory where they had the advantage with ambushes, traps, and other devious shenanigans, and brought them into my playing field — outside where the sun shone.

Strange, I still feel quite a lot of signals. Did my blast not hit them?

Honestly, it was hard to believe that any of those goblins, kobolds, or orcs could survive my scale-dust explosion without fireproof armor or something. Even then, I don’t think it should be sturdy enough to survive a point-blank explosion.

And my doubts were immediately answered as the smoke faded away. Two giant trolls with shamanic accessories and clothing appeared, both holding their staves and hands up in the air. A wall of water stood before the grimgarians, shielding them from my explosion, even as the water was boiling and evaporating away.

““GRAAAARRGHHH!”” the two trolls screamed out in agony, dropping their staves as they stared at their carbonized hands.

[Dragon Fire] had the effect of reducing all water and ice spells’ effectiveness by 50%, a trait literally created to counter my weakness to those elements. Sure, the trolls might have protected their companions, but it didn’t mean my attack didn’t affect them at all. A few goblins and kobolds did burn to death, while some orcs had pieces of armor melted into their skin. [Water Wall] wasn’t a hard counter to my firepower anymore.

Tch, of all the things to find, trolls? And two troll shamans?

The last time I met a troll shaman was when Saori and I rescued Tasianna. He was able to use both earth and water magic in order to protect himself against fire, the element trolls were the weakest against since it hampered their natural regeneration power, the source of their superior endurance.

Back then, I was only a C rank and had only recently gotten used to fighting with my dragonewt body and scale-dust. With how I am now, I could beat the past me easily. Still, I didn’t like the fact that two C rank troll shamans were here, supporting the grimgarian army like this. The last time I had to fight one, it was guarded by five troll warriors and it was able to do some really annoying things, including shooting me with a mana cannon.

Saori was right, jumping into this rescue mission without any information would have been idiotic. It would have sucked so much if I had to fight these things inside the cave where my explosions could just suddenly create a cave-in. In a way, Saori’s plan stopped me from making the most basic of mistakes most novice adventurers make — entering a monster’s cave.

Yeah, fuck caves! The last time we entered a troll’s lair, the mountain caved in!

“Ggugniak! Attack!” a blue hobgoblin shaman shouted once the explosion died down. It was the same one who woke up all the grimgarian from my [Draconic Aura].

The first ones to charge forwards were an E rank hobgoblin and a number of echikobold spearmen. The G and F rank goblins and kobolds were cowering behind them and trying to sneak back into the cave to avoid fighting, but they were found by their taller companions and pushed forwards to their death. I wasn’t exaggerating with that point.

[Dragon Fire]’s automatic flame attack targeted any of my enemies within the flame arena and scorched numerous grimgarians as they rushed towards me. Any who didn’t die to my song’s effect were mowed down with [Wind Cutter]. A level two wind spell with my stats was enough to slice their heads off. Quick to cast and deadly. They stood no chance before my non-stop casting.

In the back, I could see an orc warrior and hobgoblin shaman shouting commands in whatever language they were using before ending it with a“Ggugniak!” Before the explosion, the orc warriors as well as the more seasoned hobgoblins and echikobolds looked like savages as they rushed at me in rage, but now all of them seemed to have recovered their bearings. The trolls’ [Water Wall] gave them a chance to get back their focus and catch a second wind, huh?

With renewed discipline, the grimgarians used the time gained by the fodder they sent out first to act as a distraction to enter into formation and advance. Tall, brawny orc warriors clad in armor any newbie warrior from the adventurer guild would be jealous of held their shields up to form a shield wall as they moved, protecting the more vulnerable members from my arena’s flames.

The troll shamans’ hands had recovered to the point where they could carry their staves again, as well as taking out talismans from their belt. With two catalysts, they began reciting what seems to be a fire-warding spell. Meanwhile, a couple of hobgoblin shamans led by that same female hobgoblin shaman from the start began reciting dark elemental spells.

They sent out [Dark Bolt] and [Dark Slash] attacks at me to catch my attention while using a custom spell called [Black Wall] to block any attacks targeting the flank of the unit. They were organized, and it showed when they blocked and outmaneuvered my attacks.

Flinging a few weak wind and earth spells at them did nothing as the orcs’ shields and the shamans’ magic walls kept them at bay. The moment I realized this, I decided to switch over to my more impactful spells.

“Lightning Bolt! Lava Ball! Banishment Beam!” Lightning, lava, and holy clashed against the shields of the orcs. Pain coursed through their bodies as the lightning was conducted through their metal armor, the heat of the lava melted through their shield and gauntlets, and the laser beam of light pierced through the [Dark Wall] and bored a hole through their armor and flesh alike.

As I bombarded them with multiple spells, the frontline began to falter as their members died. Although there were more orc warriors behind the ones who died, the grimgarians did not advance forward with this same strategy. No, the reason for that was ‘cause their reinforcement had finally arrived.

“Wrooooo!” The howl of wolves escaped the cave’s entrance, and numerous wargs riders emerged. The cave entrance itself was quite wide, even if it was barely tall enough to let a troll enter without having to duck through.

“Ggugniak!” Aside from the warg riders, more grimgarians appeared, as well.

I did not know how many of these grimgarians were stationed inside this cave, but regardless of how many could come out, my [Dragon Fire] arena made it quite cramped for my enemies. Nevertheless, whether they were sweating while trying to circle around along the edge of the flames or by forcing their way through their comrades, they did not hesitate to charge forward with religious zeal, shouting something about Marsven and Aurena.

With the help of the warg riders and the reinforcements, the shield wall dissolved and their members spread apart to reduce the number of casualties my spells could cause. As I bombarded one target with spells, a warg rider or orc barbarian would rush at me when I had my back to them. However, with skills like [Detection Sensor] and [Foresight], these tactics couldn’t work.

Either through [Terra Wall] to obstruct their attacks or simply by dodging them, I always came out of them unscathed, but that was when the echikobold archers and the spellcasters initiated their set of attacks. Arrows and spells shot me, among which were water and dark elemental spells.

“Panzer!” A brown magic circle appeared on my body as I saw the incoming attacks before purple flames erupted around my body. My custom spell [Panzer] was made with [Corrosive Fire] as the spell base, which meant the flames had the same properties as an earth spell when they cooled down and formed a crystal. And this crystal was obsidian.

“Clink” and “Dum” were the sounds of arrows and spells being blocked by an obsidian armor covering my entire body. The appearance of the armor was designed similarly to the dragoon armor from the same game my white mage robes came from, and it gave me an entirely different vibe now that my adventurer outfit and crimson scales weren’t visible. Only my robe, part of my hair, the underside of my tail, my claws, and my mouth were visible.

My [Draconic Barrier] could block most conventional attacks easily, including arrows; however, due to my natural weakness to water and dark caused by [Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] and [The Light] respectively, it made my barrier unable to fully block spells or attacks infused with those elements. That’s where [Panzer] came into play. Named after the German word for “shell” and inspired by the tank of the same name, this armor was made to complement my defenses when I was wearing my robes or idol outfit.

As I was retaliating against the archers and mages, an orc barbarian and berserker pair came charging at me, holding their axes high in an attempt to cleave me in half. They might have looked imposing, but their movements were too slow to catch me.

Twisting my body around, I took out my [Bonepecker Bladeclaw Spear] from my storage and pinned the barbarian’s leg into the ground with it before jumping on the berserker’s back. Leaving the spear below, I dug my left set of claws deep into his shoulder to stabilize myself to then rip his skull in half with my right. As blood was spraying from his exposed head, I instantly used my tail to decapitate the barbarian.

The extremely gory display seemed to have scared the hobgoblins and echikobolds, causing their morale to wane. Noticing this, I jumped off the tall orc’s back and pulled out my spear before throwing it into the head of a warg, killing it instantly and sending it tumbling on the ground with its rider. I then used [Wind Blast] to close the distance between us before ending the warg rider with his own spear.

“Time to end this. Purple Flash!”

[Dragon Fire]’s strength lay in imprisoning enemies in an arena, preventing their escape and reducing the effectiveness of all water and ice elemental attacks, not in the random flames attacking those trapped in the arena. So, with everybody stuck in a single area, what was the best course of action then? Of course, a large AoE — area-of-effect — attack.

“Symphonie des Feuergottes!” A huge red magic circle immediately materialized in the sky, attracting the attention of all my enemies. The threat of an incoming grand spell was clear to all the mages and seasoned grimgarians.

“Tusul!” as my spell was about to be unleashed, the hobgoblin shaman from the start suddenly called over the rest of the hobgoblin and goblin shamans to her. With a single command, each shaman raised their hand to the sky, an onyx ring shining on each of their ring fingers.

My intuition was telling me something was off, as using [Mana Eyes] showed me they were concentrating their mana into those rings. Using [Pyrokinesis], I commanded the flames produced by the arena to target them while also conjuring up some [White Fire] to interrupt whatever they wanted to do.

Unfortunately, it seemed I underestimated the sheer religious fervor of the grimgarians as orcs, goblins, kobolds, and trolls suicide jumping in between my fire and the shamans. It protected the shamans even as it was also the last action of their lives.

In the meantime, my spell circle glowed bright red for a second, before an inferno cascade fell upon us. However, that was when the rings on the shaman’s hands cracked and a large amount of shadow or whatever black thing it was came flowing out of them, shooting itself into the air to form a massive black shield.

The black shield and my spell clashed against each other, where the inferno sea leaked from the side of it; unfortunately, it went completely outside the arena and began burning down the forest.

Oi, I planned not to set a wildfire again! Verdammt!

Clicking my tongue, I turned my gaze over to the leading hobgoblin shaman and materialized a brown magic circle under her; the spell [Terra Wall] burst from the ground and sent the shaman into the air and over to me. She shrieked as she flew through the air at first, but then clapped her hand together and began reciting or praying. As a purple magic circle formed in front of my hand, our eyes crossed each other.

She was the one who triggered her grimgarian brethren to attack me simply ‘cause I had my white robe, and I could kinda understand it due to the fear the lizardmen had for Aurena. Humans didn’t see grimgarians as people, but monsters… well, I treat them the same way, although I know the truth. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume these grimgarians were fighting me simply ‘cause they hated Aurena.

Enemy or not, the moment I saw the sheer fear she had in her eyes, instead of her religious hate, was when it felt like something tugged on my heartstrings. The memory of the kobolds and orcs I’d encountered in the Belzac mountain came rushing back into my head, reminding me what I did back then.

However, hesitating before somebody who would not show me the same courtesy would be foolish. I stomped out the empathy I would have had and shot out my spell. Lightening appeared before my fingertips and roared towards the hobgoblin, shocking her mid-flight. Her screams of agony eventually died out as she crashed onto the ground next to me, tumbling lifelessly further away from me like some fallen debris.

As that happened, the black shield above me seemed to tremble a bit, breaking apart to let my flames through. It would seem that removing that one shaman from the group made the spell unstable. However, despite what happened, my [Symphonie des Feuergottes] did not reach the ground. And so, I did not get my spell’s buff.

Are you kidding me?! I wasted all my mana for nothing?!

I guess this experience did teach me that my custom spell wouldn’t provide me its valuable buff if the inferno sea couldn’t reach me. I’d have to be more careful in the future, but how should I have expected that those shamans could create that black shield or that it was strong enough to block my spell?

However, for the price of being able to conjure that spell, the skin of those hobgoblin shamans seemed to have changed from blue to purple. Was it arcane corruption? They dropped their staves and collapsed on the ground like stringless marionettes, breathing heavily as they struggled to push themselves back up, but, unfortunately for them, their bodies wouldn’t let them. In exchange for protecting the army, they sacrificed themselves.

I should take them out.

Conjuring up multiple [Terra Wall]s under the shamans, I attempted to fling them into the sky for an easy kill, but it seems the grimgarians caught up to my plan as the trolls picked the shamans up before my walls materialized. Without further ado, the army once again let out a rumbling war cry, invigorated to see my [Symphonie des Feuergottes] fizzling out against the shamans’ black shield, and they charged forwards once again.

I need to check out those rings. How did they do that?

With spells, claws, tail, and my spear, I began to massacre any grimgarians who came forward to fight me. Honestly, even with my [Draconic Aura] activated the whole time, only the impish goblins and kobolds would cower from a physical confrontation, instead, preferring to fight me with bows, rocks, or whatever they could find. The orcs and trolls, on the other hand, fought even more brazenly.

Despite the small arena, the trolls and orcs fought without care of anybody in their way. A troll shaman would bash an orc with its staff, shooting it like a baseball off to the side, but the orc would then return back into the fight showing no signs of damage due to their high defense and armor. With the orcs and trolls rampaging, it made sense for the warg riders, hobgoblins, and echikobolds to focus on ranged attacks if only to avoid getting in the way.

I was slowly and efficiently getting rid of all my enemies, receiving very little damage thanks to my [Panzer] armor, as I presumed there should be a boss-commander leading this army. Sure, I was surrounded and outnumbered, but I really didn’t want to build up my arcane corruption before the boss fight. Under the sun, I could recover my Mana and Stamina tirelessly, but arcane corruption couldn’t be erased quickly once it was built up, even with my dragorade.

The orcs and trolls were defending well against my spells using their armor and counterspells, but the number of orcs was still dwindling the longer we fought. I then took a sip of dragorade to slow down the accumulation of arcane corruption, before noticing that they were trying to trap me with a shield wall now in order to stop my dodging.

As a troll shaman swung his giant staff at me, I used [Wind Blast] to propel myself like a rocket into the air before staying up there with [Air Walk]. Arrows and water spells were shot at me, but my barrier and armor took care of it. I was tanking them, in other words.

Remembering how Faron did it, I held my spear just like he did and stomped the air, shooting myself towards a troll shaman. With gravity on my side, I pierced the troll’s eye with my spear before using its flappy skin to rebound back into the air, where I snapped my claws together to have my hand catch on fire. I then turned the flames into purple and slammed my fist into the ground, where the flames exploded and blasted every orc and troll around me away.

Purple flames were burning brightly on their skin as its fumes entered their noses. The troll shamans quickly cast a water spell to douse the orcs, but the corrosiveness of my flames already affected them. Although the flames died out, the orcs began to cough and tremble before falling onto the ground

Their green skin began to turn purple while their eyes cried blood. It was as if a virus was corroding their bodies, killing them from the inside. The troll shaman panicked as their spells couldn’t stop the agony the orcs were feeling until they stopped moving entirely.

Slow and efficient… I really am turning into the villain, huh?

The rest of the grimgarian army cried out in fear as they saw the tall, massive orcs die in one quick swoop. The trolls finally showed fear as they looked at me, mumbling “Marsven” and “Night Father” all the time. I expected the toxic fumes from my [Corrosive Flames] would also take them down, but maybe the dosage was too low? Fumes were more dangerous if I failed to control the spread with [Aerokinesis] compared to its fire and liquid form, so I just used a minor toxin to prevent killing off nature.

As I was preparing to end this whole fight for real, the sound of a horn suddenly came from the cave.

You have to be kidding me…

The stomping of steel boots, the rattling of armor, the grunts of excited warriors. All of this was accompanied by the sound of a war horn, causing the discouraged goblins and kobolds to cheer in joy. That was when the next wave of enemies came out.

High Orc

The superior evolution form of the orc. A green beast of muscles and power, strengthened by constant training and a lifestyle of brutality. Able to wield an assortment of weapons with the intelligence of a humanoid, these demi-humans can act not only as warriors but also as commanders and tacticians with enough aptitude. Rank C

Orcs wearing bulky armor as thick as steel plates came out of the cave’s entrance, banging their long halberds on their tower shields. If I had to compare the armor from these orcs with the ones I had just killed, then it was like comparing a knight to a common footsoldier. Instead of shining like Antonio’s armor, the orcs’ were black and spiky, to the point they looked like edgy dark knights or something.

Once these high orc knights came out, another set of high orcs showed themselves; however, these were roaring as loud as they could, as if they were trying to flaunt their prowess before they fought. Helmetless, these orcs had their scarred faces fully displayed while holding their axes and dual swords into the air, cheering like gladiators.

Bleak Hobgoblin

A hobgoblin whose skin changed into grey to hide in the darkness better. With a body similar to humans, these hobgoblins had their mischievousness and nimbleness increased even further while now possessing an intelligence similar to blue-skinned goblins, although they have significantly inferior mana pools. Rank D

Druidic Echikobold

An echikobold with scutes growing on their skin, in addition to their normal fur. Although smaller than other demi-humans, echikobolds are more attuned to nature compared to their brethren, making them fantastic monster tamers. This evolved version of the echikobold possesses the ability to temporarily gain the power of any monster blood they consume. Rank D

Archers. More hobgoblin and echikobold archers, but unlike the ones I’d fought up until now, their armor and weapons looked like they had monster parts added to them instead of solely metal. Hidden from view with the help of the high orcs, it was like these guys weren’t even there.

“Black Orc Knights!” one of the orc knights shouted.

“““Orc Scar-Champions! Haruh! Haruh! Haruh!””” multiple helmetless high orcs cheered simultaneously.

“Deadeye Night Goblins-Gobbos…ehek ehek ehek ehek…,” with a disgusting, skin-crawling cackle, the presence of those hobgoblins began to disappear.

“““Night Mother Druids!””” the echikobolds roared before drinking a red liquid from a wooden bottle, which I presumed was blood. “KriiiiiKRAAAAHHH!” Their shrieks sounded feral.

However, that wasn’t all. My [Detection Sensor] noticed more signals approaching.

“Bluuuuuuuuuuerrrrrghhhhhhh!” towering over all of these elite grimgarians were trolls wielding two humongous hammers. Instead of armor, two massive poles were stuck on their backs, each holding flags. “Troll Carnage-Bearers! Gruuuuarghhh!”

“Haruh! Haruh! Haruh! Haruh!”

“Ggugniak! Ggugniak! Ggugniak!”

…Urgh. Scheiße…

I had my parallel minds stop playing [Dragon Fire] and instead had them turn on [The Will to Fight and Survive]. In my head, the arena was far too small now for me to actually gain the advantage, especially now that I had to deal with a brunch of elite grimgarians and a few troll shamans. I needed the space and a song to increase the power of my fire attacks. There was no need for an arena now.

Humanization.

[Humanized (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

I also needed more firepower.

Also, there is a very good reason why I had to stop creating heat and smoke. Except for the boss of this army, I think I lured out everybody Saori had scouted with her [Shadow Snake] spell. She didn’t mention how strong they were, so I was a bit surprised to see this many elite fighters.

So, with nobody to lure out anymore, it would be best to stop flooding the cave with smoke; otherwise, Saori, Tasianna, Cernust, and Antonio might suffocate. It was also a signal for them to hurry the fuck up.

I bought enough time for you guys, no? You guys better have saved those three!

In the meantime, let’s hope these guys can give me the next level up!

“KriiiiiAAAARRGHHHH!”

“““NIAKASH BAAL’AK! HARUUUUUUUUUUUH!”””

*************************************************************

“M-Miss Saori, what should we do?”

“This is the worst outcome...”

“F-For honor… I cannot sully my house’s honor with my death!”

“…”

The earth quaked with his every step. Towering above even the massive trolls, the beast standing before us had the form of a giant man. A chiseled body even by Greek standards, this massive beast slowly strode forward from the darkness, equipped with not only intimidating armor but also a giant axe. On his head, he had blue hair long enough to reach his shoulders while two small horns adorned his head like a Japanese oni.

With his four large tusks, his mouth opened and he spoke, “Champion of the Ogre King. High Ogre Commander of this Grimgarian Battalion. In honor of our Night Father, God Marsven, and Night Mother, Goddess Edna, I declare a battle for your freedom. In service of our Progenitor, Goddess Kronnaz, I shall swing my axe upon Goddess Aurena’s followers.”

“…I assume we cannot talk this out, Sir?”

“Vul’grim Beastslaughterer. Fight for your freedom, wolfkin. Niakash baal’ak.”

Oh…………....Kuso…

High Ogre

An evolved form of the mighty ogre, one of the many children borne by the Goddess Kronnaz. Although lacking the power of a subordinate goddess, these ogres were blessed by this evolution due to their power and strength, incomparable to the already brutish ogre. Now able to incorporate more sophisticated battle techniques in their already savage fighting style, these ogres are the perfect example of brains and brawn combined into one body. Rank B

A note from AbyssRaven

I apologize to everybody for the late release. I had to take a break for health reason as two days ago, my hands and shoulder began to feel numb while writing, which I believed was due to me writing a bit too much without stretching enough.

This chapter should have come out two days ago but I had to stop midway through and I then took the next day off to rest. My hands still felt numb today so I took more breaks than I usually do in between sessions, that's why it took so long.

Anyways, hopefully you guys enjoy the chapter!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 159: The Beastslaughterer.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Profile:

Name:   Vul’grim Beastslaughterer

Level: 25

Race:   High Ogre

Age: 62 Years

Job:   Black Axe Master

Status:

Health:

13821/13821

Mana:

2845/2845

Strength:

6621

Intelligence:

1712

Vitality:

6214

Wisdom:

4561

Agility:

3559

Stamina:

10820/10820

Effects:

None

Skill:

Magic skills and related:

[Mana Efficiency Lv. 5] [Mana Control Lv. 3]

Physical skills and related:

[True Unarmed Technique Lv. 4] [True Unarmed Mastery Lv. 4]

[True Axe Technique Lv. 4] [True Axe Mastery Lv. 3]

[Mana Strike Lv. 8] [Stamina Strike Lv. 10]

[All Damage Enhancement Lv. 2]

[Slaughter Blade Techniques Lv. 10]

Senses and movement skills:

[Stealth Lv. 3] [Accuracy Correction Lv. 8]

[Detection Sensor Lv. 3] [Concentration Lv. 10] [Foresight Lv. 1]

[Probability Correction Lv. 9] [Danger Perception Lv. 10]

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 5] [Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 6] [Tracking Lv. 9]

[Night Vision Lv. 10] [Presence Killer Lv. 3]

[Evasion Lv. 10] [Acrobatic Lv. 8]

[Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 7]

Resistance:

[Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 8] [Absolute Pain Tolerance]

[Mental Corruption Resistance Lv. 2] [Abnormal Status Nullification]

[Mind Protection Lv. 1] [Advance Abnormal Status Resistance Lv. 1]

[Fear Resistance Lv. 8] [Arcane Corruption Resistance Lv. 1]

[Lightning Resistance Lv. 3]

[Holy Resistance Lv. 7] [Inferno Resistance Lv. 2]

[Water Resistance Lv. 6] [Terra Resistance Lv. 1]

[Storm Resistance Lv. 1] [Tenebrous Resistance Lv. 5]

Stat growth and related:

[Health Recovery Lv. 10] [Mana Recovery Lv. 1] [Stamina Recovery Lv. 9]

[Enhanced Health Growth Lv. 7]

[Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 5]

[Herculean Power Lv. 2]

[Indomitable Bulwark Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Agility Enforcement Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 7]

[Enhanced Stamina Capacity Lv. 5]

Others:

[Handicraft Lv. 7] [Woodworking Lv. 6] [Identity Blocker Lv. 3]

[Dismantle Lv. 10] [Terror Aura Lv. 7] [Starvation Lv. 6]

[Instruction Lv. 5] [Commander’s Aura]

Job:

[Berserker Soul] [True Axe Mastery Lv. 1] [Ravager’s Regeneration]

[Berserker’s Enmity] [Axe Technique Efficiency]

[Axe Technique Acceleration]

Ability List:

Unarmed abilities:

[Steadfast Stance] [Gale Steps] [Crush Fist] [Spine Breaker]

Slaughter Blade abilities:

[Carnage Axe] [Decapitate] [Limb Slash] [Mana Bisecter] [Enmity Axe]

[Blood-Scar Axe]

Titles:

[Ogre King’s Black Guard]

[Sanctified Blaze] [Shadow Armament (Full Body)] [Blessing of the Goddess of Light (Moderate)] [Various Spell Buffs] inflicted on [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa]

The plan was easy. Instead of fighting inside a cave where Hestia, our strongest member, would be at a disadvantage, we chose to lure the grimgarians out of the cave where Hestia would have the constant resource regeneration of the sun on her side and wouldn’t have to worry about causing a cave-in. With how her scale-dust and attacks worked, especially her high damage options in the form of [Symphonie des Feuergottes], [Omnictus], and [Solar Beam], we had to avoid confrontations inside the cave.

Now, as this was a rescue mission, we also needed a way to enter the cave. Smoke and heat will cause the grimgarians to continuously flee outside to escape the terrible environment inside the cave, so entering from the same way was not possible. However, what if we could dig our way into the inner sanctum? I had no idea if this cave was similar to the one we used to enter Artorias or if it only had one entrance, but for sure it had to be large enough to accommodate all the grimgarians inside it.

While goblins and kobolds can fit in smaller caverns, Lucia mentioned there were orcs too. After I snuck in a [Shadow Snake] to scout out the cave, I was confident we could make our own entrance into the cave, avoiding the chaos Hestia would create as our distraction.

True to his word, Cernust was a capable digger in his dragon form. His draconic skill [Floral Overgrowth] and his beastman form’s empty vessel magic skill [Floral Magic] had a way to soften up soil and rock to make room for plants to grow, which we used to dig our way through the side of the mountain. It took us nearly a whole night to dig ourselves through it, but Cernust was able to handle it.

We had Hestia stay at the entrance where she could go wild as much as she wanted to while luring out all the enemies from inside the cave, and, once it got too hot for her, she could always fly away to escape if she needed to. Meanwhile, I would lead a party through the new side entrance and rescue Lucia’s party members, whom I luckily managed to locate with my initial scouting. We left Severa, Lucia, and the red-haired boy with Bornelli while we ventured inside with wet cloths covering our mouths and noses from the smoke Hestia was blowing inside the cave.

We entered the prison chamber and got the three adventurers out of their cages, giving the wolfkin Wulf and arvisian Verdiena some potions to help them recover their wounds afterwards. The human, on the other hand, required professional treatment since Tasianna diluted all our moderate potions to make more minors for selling. Unfortunate.

As we were about to extract, the worst possible encounter appeared right before our exit. A high ogre, as tall as a house and wielding a massive axe, showed himself. “How did he find us?” I asked myself, but then I saw smoke leaving through the exit Cernust had dug for us, and immediately wondered if the ogre saw this and stayed next to the exit to ambush us. However he did it, it didn’t matter now, as we had already been discovered.

Sadly for us, this guy was no joke from what his profile showed me. Sure, I was able to outmaneuver him, but he had higher stats in all other categories. This is without adding to the fact that he had a full set of armor and an axe, meaning his profile probably wasn’t an accurate representation of his full power. If he also had runes, then the disparity was even worse.

We couldn’t fight him, we couldn’t defeat him. We needed to escape!

“Run!” I shouted, swinging both Wulf and Verdiena onto my shoulders. Cernust, who was carrying the human Raian, as well as Tasianna and Antonio all nodded and turned around.

“Craven… Carnage Axe.” The ogre, dissatisfied with our choice to run, scoffed at us before raising his axe. Putting his right leg before his body, he swung his axe downwards with both hands, cleaving the ground clean.

The shockwave of the ogre’s attack sent the four of us crashing to a wall. Wulf and Verdiena both fell from my back as I groaned, having to refill my empty lungs. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much time to recover, as both [Danger Perception] and [Foresight] told me death was looming over my head.

Without even giving a glance upwards, I stomped the ground to dodge to the side, tackling Wulf and Verdiena. A massive explosion happened once again, this time it came from behind me, sending the three of us flying away. Thankfully, I was able to react to this attack by using [Air Walk] to keep from crashing into another wall while carrying the two beastmen.

Dammit! How the hell am I supposed to get out?!

[Shadow Dash] required line-of-sight and I had to be close enough to the shadow I wanted to exit from for the spell to work. While I could see through [Shadow Snake]’s eyes when I scouted the cave, I wasn’t able to use it to rescue those three adventurers without being close enough that I risked being discovered by the grimgarians when leaving my shadow. And now, those limitations of [Shadow Dash] were biting me on my tail. It was a terrible problem.

“Umbral Pendulum! Enfeebling Winds!” I materialized two magic circles at once, one summoned a giant pendulum from the ceiling while another simply latched onto the ogre’s body, slowly draining his Health and sending it to me like a leech.

“Feeble magics. Mana Bisecter!” The ogre’s muscles tensed up as he faced my tenebrous element spell, and then swung his axe, now clad in a blue aura. My pendulum and his axe clashed against each other, causing a loud boom to echo through the cave. Both blades were pushing against each other, attempting to shove the other to the side; however, I could just make out the blade of my pendulum dissipating against the ogre’s attack.

“Accelerated Growth!”

“Torrential Rain! Icicle Gust!”

As if on command, multiple grey vines burst from the ground, entwining themselves around the ogre’s legs and waist, before water bullets and ice spikes showered from the ceiling, buffeting the ogre’s unprotected face.

“Grrrurgh!!!” The ogre winced as his face was slowly being frozen, but then gave out a warcry and punched my pendulum to the side. The black construct swerved to the side and crashed into the wall, slicing into it like butter.

“Tasianna! The ogre has a middling [Water Resistance] and no [Ice Resistance]! Continue your attacks!” I shouted, informing her of the information I got from [Identity].

“Understood!” she responded before shooting her floating ice blades at him.

“Severa’s brother! Carry this guy!” Cernust after taking out another set of seeds threw the unconscious Raian over to Antonio, who barely was able to catch the muscular man.

“Arck! Wha-?!” He was baffled and showed anger as he realized what Cernust meant with that gesture. “I am a knight! As if you-”

“Shut up, you stubborn fool! What can you provide to this fight other than your puny sword and weak wind magic?! You don’t even have that bird! Some people can actually contribute to this fight so do us a favor and help unload our burdens!” Cernust threw his seeds onto the ground before pointing at me, or more specifically, the two groaning beastmen I was carrying. After he said his piece, Cernust put his entire focus on the next spell.

Antonio clicked his tongue but sheathed his sword nevertheless, running over to me. Wulf and Verdiena quickly understood what was happening and demanded me to throw them onto the ground and concentrate on the fight.

“The potion worked. I can’t fly, but I can run, Miss Saori!” Verdiena reassured me, looking determined to not be more of a burden.

“We got ourselves in this mess! Don’t hold back on our account, sister!” Wulf cried out.

“I am not your sister, idiot!” Somehow, him calling me sister annoyed me a bit. We weren’t siblings, just to clarify. Regardless, I threw them as hard as I could over to Antonio. Verdiena quickly placed Raian’s arm over her shoulder, while Wulf picked up his legs. The four of them quickly moved to our self-made exit.

“Just run! Activate Plan B!” I called out before activating another spell. “Smokey Haze!”

My shadow exploded into a black cloud, enveloping the ogre and me in it. I then called out my garms to join the fight. [“Uno, Song, Sarasa, I order you to not die! Skirmish, but do not go for risky attacks! Quatre is waiting for you three!”]

[“““Yes, Alpha!”””] They shouted before commencing their attacks.

I then used this time to quickly send out the party’s next actions to Tasianna and Cernust, [“We are going with Plan B! Follow the smoke!”]

[“Plan B?! Understood, Miss Saori”] Tasianna responded before my ears picked up another set of ice spells bombarding the ogre.

Cernust didn’t answer, but I also explained to him how my [Smokey Haze] worked last night when we were preparing for this attack. My custom spell prevented anybody from seeing inside it, though sound and smell weren’t affected.

While I didn’t plan for the commander to attack us, I wasn’t careless enough to go into this without a backup plan nor did I neglect to inform Cernust and Antonio about my abilities. Cernust could be trusted, especially after he showed some deference towards Hestia, and we could always use a portion of our favor to have House Sirius demand Antonio to stay silent.

“Mhmm? Mhmm!” The ogre sniffed and seemed to have found somebody. The sound of breaking ice and plants could be heard from afar, meaning the giant was breaking through his bindings. Clanging metal also echoed, which I presume was from the ogre using his weapon as a shield against Tasianna’s attacks.

That was when I activated [Heat Vision]. From the red silhouettes I could see, I believe Cernust grew that venus flytrap and sunflower plant for this fight; unfortunately, the ogre made quick work of them with his axe, cleaving them into compost.

To escape, we really needed to buy some time, and for that, I dashed forward. Gale Steps, I thought as I activated the ability. Although I was practically sweating when I returned to the mansion that day, I had somehow managed to learn [Gale Steps] in a single day with Gael’s help, who kept his word and finally taught me something useful. It was just in time, as we had to leave on our current Quest the very next day.

With my Agility boosting buffs and [Gale Steps], I closed the distance between the ogre and myself in a matter of seconds. I took out multiple mana threads from my storage and threw a few of them onto the ground, where my garms picked them up with their mouths. Summoning multiple [Dark Tendrils], I activated [Humanization] and readied myself to trap this giant in a spiderweb.

[Humanized (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa]

“Ha ha ha ha! Yes! Battle! I couldn’t help but feel disappointed when you ran! However, this thrill is what I sought. Now, show me if my excitement was warranted or if my expectations were too high! Ha ha ha!” The ogre burst into a fit of mad laughter, enjoying himself despite being attacked without being able to respond. With a single move, he crushed another vine and tore it off like some ragged piece of clothing.

Without another word, my garms and I began replacing the removed vines with mana threads and [Dark Tendrils], entwining him until he began to look like a Christmas tree with how colorful he was. After it was done, I poured mana into a blue string, activating all my threads as tons of elemental effects collided with each other around the ogre’s body, creating a rainbow of sparks.

[“Run! Now!”] I commanded, retreating out of my shadow cloud with my garms. Cernust and Tasianna both nodded and moved away from the exit, running deeper into the cave to find the other exit.

“Not so fast.” As I left the cloud, a chill ran down my spines as my defensive skills warned me to dodge. However, the information they gave me — where the safe spot was — caused my eyes to widen as I realized I couldn’t make it there in time. The time for me to cast a spell and dodge away from the attack was impossible, there was no way for me to use [Dark Tendrils] or [Shadow Dash] to dodge.

I turned my head around to see a massive axe descending down on me with an aura of blood.

“Blood-Scar Axe”

Ku-!

[Terror (Moderate)] [Fear (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa]

Acquisition requirement fulfilled. [Terror Resistance Lv. 1] acquired

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Fear Resistance Lv. 2] evolved into [Fear Resistance Lv. 3]

[“Alpha!”]

My mind went blank. I didn’t know how my body moved, but it moved. Not through my legs, but it felt as if a truck just slammed against me with full force, sending me flying away as the axe crashed against the ground. Although the blade didn’t touch me, a massive red explosion still appeared from the crash site.

“Kyaaaaarghhh!” I screamed as it felt like a tsunami dragged me away. “KuARRRRRGHHHHH!” I groaned as the sound of splintering rocks flooded my ears.

[Bleeding (Minor)] [Fractured Ribs (6)] [Broken Left Arm (Moderate)] [Broken Right Leg (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa]

The moment my mind became clear again, pain surged through my body like never before. The aching wouldn’t stop even as I saw white flames consuming my whole body. I tried to move but it felt as if something was blocking my limbs from moving until I somehow struggled through it. That is when I felt light-headed and collapsed forward.

The wind flew through my hair and ears as the sight of the ground came closer and closer. And then a thud.

“KYAAAAAAAAARRGHHHHHHH! ARGHHHHKRRRRIIIII!” My thigh. A piercing pain exploded from my right thigh as I clutched it with my right arm, unable to move my left arm at all. Blood was gushing out of a large wound there, for a sharp piece of rock was protruding out of my leg. I screamed and screamed, even though [Absolute Pain Tolerance] was working properly.

[Adrenaline (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa]

I had no ideas. My mind was empty of reason and logic. Although, maybe that’s why my body suddenly felt more powerful as adrenaline flowed through my blood, awakening my instincts. Clenching my mouth to stop screaming, I pulled out of the rock, revealing a huge hole there. I felt sickened, ready to puke. I wanted to deny that the small hint of white was my bone.

“Hiieen. Whiiieeen…,” a weak whimper drew my focus. I turned my head up, powering through my weakened body to see a giant wolf lying in its own blood. A bloody scar ran through its face, blocking my sight of its right eye.

“U-Uno…,” a ripped collar was lying on the bloody ground. The name “Uno” was stitched on it with red threads.

[““Alpha!””] the voice of Song and Sarasa entered my head as I felt a giant shadow look over me. Something then picked up gently around my waist and I was then flung through the air before landing on a soft, furry surface.

“N-No…wait, Uno!” The one who threw me on her back was Song, who turned away from her dying sibling. I tried to reach out to him, but Song reprimanded me.

[“We protect the Alpha! Secure the descendant of Belzac! Uno knew this!”]

My eyes widened.

Can’t I even protect my garms?! What the hell have I been doing this whole time?! Training?! To lose like this?!

[“Uno, this is an order! Stand up! Move with us!”]

But nothing happened. Only the shaking of the ground could be heard as the ogre was closing in on Uno. The scythe of death was looming over him.

Am I losing somebody again?! Dying because they decided to protect somebody else?! Deciding that somebody else’s life is more important than their own?!

It felt like something inside my heart fell. Memories of my father flooded through my brain as I looked at Uno’s twitching body, unable to respond even telepathically. A vision of my mother weeping over a coffin as her eyes lost color over all her tears. And then there was me, sitting on a table with dried tears, looking over a travel plan my father planned for our family’s first trip outside Japan.

Am I cursed to lose somebody every time I get too comfortable?

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa] has risen from [Level 27] to [Level 28]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 600 skill points

Wah?

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa]’s Job [Mage] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 5]

Max level of Job   [Mage] has been reached

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquisition requirement fulfilled.   [Monster Synergy Lv. 1] acquired

“Krriiiiiiiiiarghhhhhhh!” A deep cry of a giant beast echoed through the cave. The ground rumbled afterward, as numerous trees and vines sprouted out of the earth, assaulting the ogre and pushing him away from Uno.

“Away with you, grimgarian!” A shrill shout, filled with urgency and desperation was accompanied by a massive frozen sword, shooting through the air and crashing against the ogre’s axe.

I turned towards the voices. There, a giant green komodo dragon with antlers on its head and moss and wood growing on its back, and an elf with fairy wings flapping in the air came into my view. Tasianna and Cernust.

“Sarasa, get Uno! We’re buying time!” Tasianna shouted at a shadow, where a giant wolf jumped out and swooped in to carry Uno.

E-Everybody?!

“Kriiiiarrghhhhh!” Cernust cried out in his dragon form, summoning more plants to assist us.

Tasianna, forced to take out a mana potion from her belt from using too much mana, looked at me with a tense expression and shouted, “Miss Saori, leave this to us!”

I…

Taking care of my distressed mother alone after my father died. Forced to shoulder all our bills since my mother couldn’t work with her medical situation. Only relying on my co-workers for tips, but having to do my lesson planning alone. Sure, this wasn’t exactly a unique situation, I’d wager. Maybe I was a workaholic, like Hestia said, but working as efficiently and effectively as possible was simply how I ran my life before Peolynca.

When I had just been born, being a burden to Hestia was just the worst. I had to become stronger so I could stop being dead weight, but the more she evolved, the more the power gap between us widened. I was frustrated when I fought her in Carine Village. I thought I had gotten better after training with the saurians, but… this fight just showed me what I was lacking.

A pack.

I was a garm, not a dragon. Humans and wolves are social animals, regardless of the few outliers. Uno saved me because of his sense of duty as a pack member, since wolves instinctively knew to protect the alpha male and female from harm. On the other hand, as the alpha, my job was to protect and nurture my pack.

And I failed here… but my pack and I were saved by my other “pack.” I looked at my party bracelet, realizing why I suddenly leveled up like this.

Hestia. Tasianna. Thank you.

I was glad that I wasn’t alone anymore.

Humanize!

Leveling up meant a full recovery for your Health and Mana, although it didn’t affect status effects. Fortunately, Hestia’s [Sacred Blaze] kept healing my broken ribs and bones, and, although I haven’t recovered fully, my leg and arms were functional enough.

As a blue mist exuded from my body, I turned back to my real form and jumped off Song’s back, before throwing three bottles of dragorade for her to catch. I then activated [Telepathy] and spoke. [“Cernust, return to dragonewt form, now! Sarasa, run with Song and get Uno out of here! Song, have Uno drink the dragorade using the tendrils! Tasianna, onto me!”]

“Wroooohhhh!”

Umbral Pendulum!

Vines, trees, ice sword, and now a giant black pendulum pushed the ogre back. “Gahahahahahha! This will not stop me! Resist more, beasts! On my name ‘Beastslaughterer,’ I shall slay you and present your bodies to my King! I shall grant my King a set of armor made from a dragonkin!”

[“We might not be able to… but good luck with our Plan B.”] I immediately turned around and picked up Tasianna and Cernust before sprinting away from the ogre. With perfect timing, an explosion erupted from the entrance we’d made and water began flooding into the cave.

“What?! Guraaaaaghhh!!” the ogre exclaimed before being consumed by the waves.

Enduring the pain in my body, I used the smoke as our crumb trail to rush through the tunnel with Song and Sarasa. The only thoughts I had were to get the fuck out of here as fast as possible since the sound of rushing water was echoing through the cave.

“Earth Wall!” Cernust sitting on my back materialized a wall.

“Frozen Shield!” Tasianna supported Cernust, attempting to slow down the flood as much as possible.

“Shit! Did we put too much water into that hole?!” Cernust anxiously cried out.

I did mention digging the hole took us nearly the whole night, right? Well, the rest of the time until the start of this rescue mission was us preparing our Plan B: Flooding the cave. Digging an entirely different hole into the mountain, located next to our entrance, we had Tasianna flood the hole full with water, to the point it overflowed.

Before we entered the cave completely, I managed to plant one of Hestia’s bombs at the location of the water tunnel and attached a mana thread long enough to reach outside. Plan B was for Severa and Lucia, who were outside, to light the mana thread up, but we had to rely on Antonio since he left first. Honestly, after the ogre hit me with his attack, I actually thought I would die, either from the ogre or the flood. It was risky, but thank my luck, everything good aligned for us.

“Shit, I was really worried there, Saori,” Cernust sighed in relief before smacking me on the back. “Still, never did I think you were a beast too! I also didn’t expect Tasianna to have fairy wings! Are you a morpher too?”

[“Cernust, can you keep this a secret? Well, you are keeping Hestia’s secret, so can I presume you will?”] I asked him.

“Well, I have to say that I can’t keep secrets very well, since, you know, I like to party. Dragons and drakes don’t take alcohol so kindly, but I can’t stop loving the drunk feeling, hahahaha!” Cernust laughed out loud. He was loud. “But… well, I don’t know why a Kargryxmor is in Artorias but I can’t exactly say no to a cute girl, eh? I am neither a patriot nor a big religion guy, but I can keep my mouth shut for a buncha good acquaintances.”

“Please, keep it a secret, Mister Cernust. We are not at the phase to reveal it to everybody yet,” Tasianna sighed while massaging her temples.

Our progress through the cave was steady as Tasianna and Cernust kept blocking the flood from filling our escape tunnel, although the water quickly broke through the earth and ice through sheer pressure. Thankfully, Uno seemed to have stabilized with the dragorade and the few potions we had him drink. However, until Hestia treats him, I will keep worrying about him.

As the light of the entrance came into view and the sound of water eventually stopped, we thought we were finally out of danger. That was when we saw the outside.

“Kriiiiiiiiaaaarrghhhhh!”

Blood, ashes, and corpses. Those three words were enough to describe the scene outside. A giant troll with two flags attached to its back was hanging around on three earthen spikes piercing through its head, chest, and stomach. The charred bodies of goblins and kobolds were scattered everywhere on the ground. Mangled corpses of orcs, so gory I didn’t even want to describe them, were lying in growing pools of their own blood.

D-Did she go crazy again?!

[Battle Frenzy (Moderate)]. One of Hestia’s biggest fears was being consumed by that status effect once again, where she would go berserk and destroy anything she found. Last time, we couldn’t stop her when it happened, and I wasn’t sure if we could do it now either.

[“WHAT TOOK YOU GUYS SO LONG?!”]

However, it seemed I was mistaken.

[“HELP ME!!!”] Standing on air with [Air Walk] was a girl in a full suit of [Panzer], although, looking at how damaged the armor was, it seemed as if whatever opposition she had to fight wasn’t easy.

That was Hestia. White flames were covering her body, regenerating any damage she had, while purple flames were repairing her damaged [Panzer] armor as fast as it could. It also seemed like she’d had to transform back into [Humanize (Minor)] to combat her enemies.

“Taunt!” As I was assessing the situation, an orc in a suit of black armor cried out into the sky with his shield held up high. Hestia screamed for a second as if she was surprised by something before roaring at the orc with pure hostility, shooting a [Lightning Bolt] at them. The orc defended against the bolt with his shield, showing no signs of damage except for his shivering arm.

Meanwhile, multiple arrows were shot from the trees into the sky where Hestia was floating. She cast a barrier of light, [Sanctuary], to protect her from the incoming volley of arrows, but large bolts of darkness broke through the barrier, cast by a troll shaman and a group of echikobold mages in green robes.

Two of those echikobolds suddenly took out a vial of blood each and ingested them. Their bodies suddenly morphed, growing not only in size but began to show the distinctive features of monsters while the kobolds screamed out in pain. Once the transformation stopped, one kobold jumped on the other’s arms and was immediately thrown into the sky as the rain of arrows stopped.

Hestia’s tail caught fire as she saw the approaching oversized kobold before piercing them with it. She frowned and clicked her tongue at the fact her tail didn’t perforate the kobold but kept her cool and used [Wind Blast] to shoot herself to the ground as more arrows and spells were shot at her.

Once on the ground, the kobold punched at Hestia, which she blocked, but then it managed to grab her arm. She opened up her mouth as it did this and scorched the kobold to a charred corpse with a crimson dragon breath. As she removed the kobold’s crumbling arm, another orc shouted “Taunt!” at her, drawing her attention towards him momentarily as another orc in black armor slammed her with his shield from the back.

As she was sent flying towards another orc, she stopped mid-flight with [Air Walk] and swung her tail at said orc, piercing through his shield and into his shoulder. Using her claws, she ripped the shield apart and disarmed the orc of his weapon, forcing the orc onto his knees with a small spark explosion in front of the orc’s armored head.

[“Damn, that [Taunt] penalty!”] she cursed as a helmetless orc slammed his axe into Hestia, something she only managed to block at the last moment. As she crashed to the ground, the helmetless orc grabbed the armored orc and ran away from Hestia, looking worried and terrified.

Rightfully so and not a second too soon, because in the next moment, an aura of extreme heat exploded from Hestia’s location.

Dreadflare Aura!

“Kriiiiarghhhh!!!!!!!” Hestia roared as she stood back up and slapped her cheeks. A white magic circle quickly healed her up. [‘“STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE IDIOTS AND HELP ME ALREADY! HELP ME FUCK UP THESE FUCKING TAUNT SPAMMERS!”]

“Taunt!” A different orc knight shouted.

[“FUCKING HELL! Stop using that damn ability to shout in my ears you green asshole! I’ll kick your ass, mince you into ground pork, and turn you into cinders!”]

“Miss Saori, we need to help immediately!”

[“O-Oh, yes! You are right! Cernust, help us out!”]

“Yeah, yeah, I hear you. Fuck, I hate [Taunt] rotations. That damn loud voice ringing in your brain is just unbearable.”

I had no idea what was happening, but Hestia was clearly having trouble fighting off her enemies. Regardless of what happened, it was better to suck it up and help her since we needed to leav-

“Did you really think you could stop me?”

…

Rocks and wood had broken through his armor and were now protruding from his body, there was a large gaping wound on his right shoulder, and his left arm was now missing. That was the appearance of the ogre commander. However, despite all of his wounds, the smile he had sent a chill down my spine. He pointed his axe at us.

He s-survived?!

[“Hestia! Transform back into a dragon right now! RUN!”]

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Chapter 160: The Enmity Berserker.

A note from AbyssRaven

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[Taunted (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Would you like to know what ability I considered the most annoying? If you do, then I would answer [Taunt]. Not ‘cause it could do damage — it was an ability that did no damage — but ‘cause it was able to redirect my aggression onto somebody else.

In video games, [Taunt], or sometimes called “Provoke,” had the function to draw the aggro, or aggression, towards a single person. Usually, this was used by defensive-oriented players to protect their squishy damage dealers from an enemy’s powerful attack, since the former was expected to endure and resist the attack with their high defenses. The Peolyncian incarnation was more a “suggestion to attack the [Taunt] user,” but it was equally annoying.

If I had to describe the feeling of being affected by this ability, then it would be as if somebody were to walk up to me and shout into my ears, “HIT ME, SCUM!” while I was focused on something else, frightening me for a moment. Afterwards, whispers of “Attack this person” would invade my head as the [Taunt] user’s outline would be colored red.

Now, [Taunt] was, as I said, a “suggestive” ability, not a “force me to attack” kind. I was still allowed to attack everybody else except for the [Taunt] user, but I noticed my attacks were dealing less damage to everybody else, on the other hand, damage I dealt to the taunter would be increased to the point I could one-shot these tanky orc knights if I could bypass their shields and armor. It made for a good tanking ability, even if it wasn’t as overpowered as the video game version, and that’s why it was annoying.

Thankfully, the ability wouldn’t always have an effect on me and, even if it did, it was always either moderate or minor. [Mind Protection] helped me resist the ability and, I think over time, I’d have built up a natural resistance against it. The only problem is that the damn loud shout and whispers won’t stop.

Taunt

A loud provocative cry, which angers and muddles the ability of the target to think clearly. To successfully use it, the foe must be able to hear and see the [Taunt] user. If successful, the status effect [Taunted] will be applied on the target. The strength of the [Taunt] effect is determined by the [Taunt] user’s Intelligence and the [Taunt] target’s Wisdom. Continuous usage of [Taunt] in a short period will significantly increase Stamina cost

Taunt

An abnormal status effect caused by the ability [Taunt]. Increases damage towards the [Taunt] user while decreasing damage caused to other targets unless the [Taunt] user is hit by the same attack. [Taunted]’s effectiveness is determined by the stage [Minor/Moderate/Major] of the effect

Regardless, this dragged out the fight and gave me time to train up some skills.

Proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Mental Stability Lv. 8] [Concentration Lv. 7] [Danger Perception Lv. 6] [Mind Protection Lv. 5] [Battle Mind Lv. 8] [Thought Acceleration Lv. 4] [Multi-Thought Processing Lv. 2] gained

[Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] was the title that gave me my increased skill gain, on the condition I was fighting or training, meaning it could only work on combat focused skills. That sounds kind of restrictive until you realize that nearly all skills outside the “Others” category were made for combat.

While those Black Orc Knights, or whatever they called themselves, kept using [Taunt] on me and their comrades kept bashing me with attacks, most of my mental related skills increased in levels, leading to me being more resistant to [Taunt]. Just, it wasn’t consistent… especially when there were multiple of these knights continuously using [Taunt] until one landed.

However, until that happened again, I ravaged through the ranks of these elite grimgarian fighters, even managing to kill the giant Troll Carnage-Bearer or whatever. As you would expect from these elites, not only did they have superior equipment, but they were also better trained and disciplined.

The Deadeye Night Goblins would hide until [Taunt] affected me. The Night Mother Druid kobolds would either drink a monster’s blood, morphing their bodies to gain certain stats, which they used to disrupt my attacks or support the raid party with supportive magic. The Orc Scar-Champions would land devastating attacks while I was being taunted. Finally, the Black Orc Knights focused completely on defense, able to withstand my spells and scale-dust explosions with their shield and armor.

In this war of attrition, both sides were taking damage. The grimgarians lost members while I struggled to defeat them decisively. My [Panzer] armor was getting destroyed and hacked into pieces before regenerating afterwards, over and over again. The remaining shamans they had were damaging me with their water and dark spells while being protected by the steadfast knights.

It was honestly embarrassing and I hated it. The only consistent way I’ve found to combat this “taunt rotation” was to use AOE attacks like my scale-dust explosion as attacks, which not only hit the [Taunt] user but also would not decrease the damage done to but everyone else around us, as well. Considering I’ve experienced this while playing video games, I should have at least thought of the possibility of this strategy on Peolynca.

Still, that could wait for later. A major problem demanded my attention and focus.

[“Hestia! Transform back into a dragon right now! RUN!”]

I could feel the presence of somebody strong. Actually strong. These elite grimgarians were competent and well-trained, but if they were as strong as me, I would have been done a long time ago. This enemy, on the other hand, gave me the same vibes the B rank wyvern Astalos gave me. A bestial power, trained over years of conflict and trials, only existing today ‘cause he was stronger than anything he faced.

I had just been taunted, but the status effect disappeared the instant that monster appeared. I instinctively used [Humanization] to transform back into a dragon. I knew I wouldn’t be able to contest against this force in my half-baked form.

Hellflame Breath!

As the mana mist dissipated, I stretched my long neck out of it, revealing my head and roaring at the same time. I locked onto the tall figure hiding inside the cave’s shadows and shot out a stream of flames. Saori and her wolves saw me opening my fire-filled mouth and quickly dodged to the sides, scattering away from the cave as my breath attack consumed the silhouette.

It’s still alive! my skills were yelling to me. I couldn’t appraise my target, but it didn’t matter so long as the hostility emitted from them wasn’t gone yet.

“Taunt!”

“Taunt!”

“Taunt!”

The orc knights were relentless when it came to taunt spamming, continuing to use that ability after I had turned into a dragon. Had they no fear? Regardless of why they were doing this, I could feel [Taunt] having a slight effect on me, meaning I had to get rid of them already. Flapping my wings, I scattered scale-dust into my surroundings, gathering it around me like a mist. With a simple swipe of my tail on the ground, the dust erupted into an explosion, enveloping the orcs, leaving them screaming in pai.

The extra firepower I had in my dragon form compared to my dragonewt form was all I needed to pierce through the orcs’ armor. Some died, and even those who survived my blast had their armor melting into their skin. It does make it weird that I didn’t transform before, but I didn’t want to hog all the experience from fighting these grimgarians, since my leveling was stunted. I had my party bracelet on, which I used to funnel some of the experience towards Saori and Tasianna, since they couldn’t fight anybody. Efficiency, right?

Anyway, with them gone, I should direct my focus back to-

[“Hestia, we need to run! That is a B rank high ogre! He is the commander of this battalion!”] Saori shouted into my head.

[“Saori, I’m taking care of him! I’ll reduce him-Wait, what happened to Uno?!”] from the corner of my eye, I noticed two garms taking care of a bloodied one. [“Hold on, was this the reason you guys took so long? Now that I think about it, where are the adventurers? Where is Antonio?”]

[“Lady Hestia, we had to trigger plan B! Sir Antonio escaped with Lucia’s companions through our entrance while we bought them time; however, Miss Saori and Uno were severely injured in the process,”] Tasianna answered in Saori’s stead.

[“I only survived due to our party bracelets. The shared experience function allowed me to level up in time,”] Saori answered. [“Hestia, our goal was achieved. That ogre might look injured, but if he is still wielding his axe, then we cannot underestimate him! Please, we need to retreat. Uno and one of the adventurers require your healing, now!”]

Tch, dammit.

[“Ok, got it.”] Saving a life should take priority. However, if this ogre really was as strong as my instincts were telling me, then I really didn’t think we should let him go free. I couldn’t imagine letting this guy terrorize some random village while we escaped, knowing it was our fault for setting him free.

Still, the garms were our party members, so I had to be more worried about their lives first.

As I was concentrating my mana to erect a [Terra Wall] to block the cave entrance, trapping the ogre before fleeing, my skills were warning me to dodge to the side. I had no idea what it was, but it was bone-chilling how intense the warning was, to the point my heart beat accelerated suddenly.

I slammed shut my mouth and moved my legs, jumping to the side the moment a black energy sickle divided my flame breath in half and exploded on the ground. As the dust settled, a clear scar could be seen deeply engraved into the earth. No idea if I could have tanked that, even with my [Panzer] covering my dragon body.

“Hahahahaha! Never would I have thought I would find two dragons in the same area. You two are quite tall, but then again, I heard dragons would be almost as large as giants or titans.” A mighty ogre with two horns on his forehead appeared from the cave. His armor was scorched and the blade of his axe was red hot, having withstood blocking my flame breath. “By losing an arm, I have become too weak to serve my King. However, at the very least, I shall bring him dragon scales and bones for his fine armor. Even with this beaten body, I shall elevate my King for the glory of the Night Father and the grimgarians!”

Cernust was larger than me in his dragon form, both in height and body size. If the two of us were about as tall as a giant mammoth, then this ogre would be roughly the size of an elephant, making him larger than the trolls I have been fighting even if he was smaller than Cernust and I.

“Grimgarians! Do not let the intruders escape! The battalion has failed now that we have lost the majority of our forces and also all of the provisions and gear inside the cave. The only way for us to regain our honor is to bring our King the heads of those dragons! Niakash Baal’ak!”

“““Haruh! Haruh! Haruh! GGUGNIAK!””” The ogre’s speech quickly motivated the battered grimgarians, causing them to raise their weapons once more and raise their voices in a chorus.

The few remaining orc knights clenched onto their halberds and shields, stood back up despite the fact their armor was still sizzling their skin, and moved behind me. The kobolds’ bodies enlarged as they ingested vials of blood, turning almost as large as orcs even though it made them cough up blood, while the orc champions roared at me as if they were challenging me.

What were they trying to do? I could escape through the air or simply jump over them, and that was exactly what I did. Saori and her garms understood this and were already sneaking past the grimgarians’ attention, while I cast [Wind Blast] on my wings, to blast me into the air where I used [Air Walk] to escape.

Unfortunately, the ogre didn’t seem to want me to go just yet. “Enmity Axe,” he calmly said before dark energy gathered around his axe. With only one arm, he heaved the giant axe over his shoulders, aimed at me, and swung it like a baseball bat, shooting another black sickle at me with great accuracy.

Once again, [Danger Perception] and [Foresight] activated, warning me to dodge at all cost. The moment I stepped aside, the grimgarians acted.

“Taunt!” the orc knights shouted from the bottom of their lungs while raising their shields, drawing my attention away for a split second as my instincts were influenced by that nasty ability. Luckily, the dark sickle passed by me as I locked eyes with a dying orc knight, but that was all the grimgarians needed to attack me. The lone troll shaman mumbled something as his staff glowed black, before the glow split into pieces and scattered into the forest. The troll dropped his staff and fell face-first on the ground. He did not stand back up.

As the glow faded, the grey-skinned goblins revealed themselves and simultaneously shot arrows coated in that same glow at me.

I couldn’t defend against them. [Taunt]’s whispers were annoying the heck out of me and I decided to kill the orc who used it on me with a [Hellflame Breath] and then spread the flames onto the other orc knights. Finally, the source of [Taunt]s was gone for good, but it wasn’t worth it as the goblins’ arrows pierced through my [Draconic Barrier] and [Panzer] armor. The sharp pain I always felt whenever I got attacked by either a water or dark elemental attack stabbed into my body. I believe some of the arrows even managed to break a number of scales since my [White Flames] was healing me.

As I clenched my teeth, another [Enmity Axe] was shot at me. I planned to dodge it, but my skills warned me another attack was coming… one which I couldn’t evade.

“Blood-Scar Axe!” The Ogre drenched his axe blade in his own blood, causing it to glow a dangerous red. He threw his weapon over his head before swinging it like a golf club, launching a massive red blast.

According to [Foresight], [Wind Blast] couldn’t propel me far enough, while I just didn’t have the time to cast both [Warp Point] exit and entry. My best bet was to avoid the [Enmity Axe] and endure the [Blood-Scar Axe] with [Panzer]. I disliked my lack of options and wanted to complain how absurd it was that he could use three threatening attacks in quick succession, but the urgency of the situation demanded me to bite my tongue.

I jumped over [Enmity Axe] using [Air Walk] and blasted myself further away from [Blood-Scar Axe] with [Wind Blast]. Considering the speed it was traveling, I really couldn’t get away from it, but it allowed me to buy enough time to multicast [Panzer], [Air Shield], and [Molten Guard], fortifying my defenses, while using [Bedrock Blades] and [Terra Wall] to hopefully weaken the attack before it hit me.

As the red blast broke through all my earthen constructs, I simply closed my eyes and clenched my teeth, awaiting the attack and hoping it won’t hurt as much. I was wrong. [Absolute Pain Tolerance] might prevent me from going into shock, but the pain didn’t magically disappear.

Kriiiiiyaaahhhh!

I screamed eternally. My body was twirling around like a carousel, freefalling as I didn’t have the power to stabilize myself nor use [Air Walk] until I hit the first tree. The crunch and cracking of wood came from my back, but my fall did not decelerate. These sounds were all I could hear as I crashed into every single tree, sometimes even face-first. It eventually stopped, but landing on the ground wasn’t any less painful as I tumbled like a ragdoll before my body smacked against a large rock, finally stopping me.

[Broken Bones [Left Wing](Minor)] [Broken Bones [Right Wing](Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargrxmor]

“Kruuuurghhhhh…” As I opened my eyes, a deep groan escaped my mouth. I could see my purple armor crumbling into dust while my [Air Shield] and [Molten Guard] disappeared completely. My scales and carapace around my legs were cracked and I could feel the bones in my wings broken.

My white flames and parallel minds were already hard at work healing me from that attack, but nothing could help the dizziness I was feeling. The ringing in my ears, my shaky vision, and my shaking legs. I felt like puking as I slowly pulled myself up. I wanted to rest so very much, but my [Detection Sensor] warned me of hostile signals. One of them was coming towards me at a frightening speed.

“Gale Steps! Enmity Axe!”

Panzer. Terra Wall. Molten Guar-Kyarghhh!

[Bleeding (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargrxmor]

“Kraarrrrrrghhhh!” I screamed out in pain. [Panzer] managed to manifest in time but my other spells materialized too slowly since my parallel minds were too occupied with healing me. I once again crashed against the boulder as I could feel a large gash ripped open my side. Dazed from having my head hit the boulder again, I was barely able to react to what my skills were warning me next.

“Decapitate!” A loud booming voice caused my heart to skip a beat.

[Adrenaline (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargrxmor]

Somehow, I managed to dodge the attack by raising my head. The attack came down vertically after all. Sadly, I wasn’t out of the woods at all, now that the ogre made it close enough for his axe to reach me. He let go of his axe and grabbed my throat with his sole arm. He might be smaller than me, but his strength was indisputable.

He slammed my head onto the ground and viciously stomped on it, holding me down for a clean cut. It was then that the adrenaline finally kicked in my head, clearing it up from the immense headache I was feeling. I was calm, despite being in a very dangerous position, and used my tail to pierce through the ogre’s battered stomach armor.

“UuuuuARRGHHHHH!” he bellowed, giving me the chance to stab his leg with my left claws. Similar to how I can manage my body temperature, I turned up the heat around my tail and claws, singeing the wound and causing him to curse in pain.

“Arrghhhh! G-Glory to you, dragon! You are strong, and deserve a warrior’s death! I will pray that our Night Father’s daughter of death, Ilsaphone, will honor your soul for eternity!” I could hear his hand grab his axe.

You don’t tell me to die, ASSHOLE! Dreadflare Aura! Scale-Dust Veil!

My body exploded like a heat bomb, scorching everything around me with complete impunity. With a blast that could melt even boulders, the ogre’s axe flew from his hand as his body was being cooked alive the longer he stayed around me, while his armor and skin turned to ashes from the explosion caused by continuous scale-dust explosions.

“KUUUURAAGHHHH! I WILL HAVE THIS VICTORY FOR MY KING! SPINE BREAKER!” He howled like a crazed gorilla, but his mouth didn’t spout out empty words. I could see his fingers melting from my [Dreadflame Aura] but he didn’t budge away, raising the amount of weight and strength he was putting on my head.

He’s aiming for a level up!

Leveling up meant a full Health regeneration. He could survive all his wounds if he killed me!

Parallel minds, blast him with spells, now!!!

I applied pressure on my tail and claws stuck inside his body but he didn’t move. How fucking high was his Strength?!

[Bedrock Blades] pierced his body, [Banishment Beam] drilled into his skin, and [Lava Stream] turned his skin into liquid. But none of them could do anything. Why not use [Purple Flash] into an [Omnictus] I asked one of my parallel minds, but they answered they couldn’t concentrate long enough since my head was literally getting squashed at this very moment.

[“Hestia, disable your aura, now!”] A voice entered my head. Instincts told me to not obey, as without the aura, the ogre would have killed me already, but my heart knew what to do.

Concentrate on healing and defense now, parallel minds!

[Major Heal], [Sanctified Blaze], and constant regenerating [Panzer] around my head were being cast as my [Dreadflame Aura] died out. The moment the pressure of the heat stopped, the ogre put all his weight into his foot. I could feel air escape my lungs as the cracking of scales and bones echoed into my skull.

Luckily, the pain only lasted for a few seconds, and it wasn’t ‘cause my head popped open.

“Just Blink! Abyssal Bomb!” A giant black ball double the size of the ogre’s head suddenly jumped out from my shadow before disappearing from existence for a single second. As the next second came, it reappeared right in front of the ogre and exploded.

This point-blank dark blast knocked the ogre back as if a hammer had smacked his face, stumbling as he roared in pain, clutching onto his disfigured face. Nevertheless, my neck finally could relax as my recovery spells and natural regeneration healed me up.

Saori! Thank goodness!

As I was elated for the nice support, my attention finally caught onto the dozen of signals encircling me. I was completely distracted by the ogre that I didn’t notice the enemies around me.

“Kwek!” a grey-skinned hobgoblin yelled the moment he revealed himself along with several of his comrades, loosening their bowstrings to launch a rain of black-glowing arrows in every direction.

In my current state, I couldn’t dodge and letting this hit me was not what I wanted. As I was preparing spells, numerous trees erupted from the ground and grew immensely in size, blocking the rain of arrows about to attack me. As I was baffled at the sight, the sounds of confused goblins were replaced by shrills of agony.

“Ggugniak!” Peeking out of the holes of the tree wall, I saw the remaining orc champions and kobold druids shouting the moment their goblin comrades died, fighting against the source of their death, but three shadows ripped them apart as an ethereal blue blade soared through the forest with a retinue of ice daggers, buffeted their faces.

While these numerous weakened elite grimgarians were taken out when they were the most exhausted, one of the shadows suddenly stopped in the spot to release a powerful howl, echoing through the woods. In my dragon form, wearing my party bracelet was impossible, so I couldn’t see what happened, but I think something good just happened to Saori.

Saori! Tasianna! Cernust!

“NIAKASH BAAL’AK! BLOOD-SCAR AXE!” Like a massive horn, the bellowing roar of the ogre overshadowed everything else as he coated his axe with the blood leaking out of the side of his stomach, the place where I had pierced him with my tail. Once again, my skills were warning me to move it already, otherwise it might end very badly for me.

Fuck, I can’t move! Dammit, take him down!

Struggling to stand on my feet, I knew I wouldn’t last long even if I launched my body away with [Wind Blast] and [Terra Wall]. I had to stop him now or never. Otherwise, this fucking berserker would just turn it all around again! Invoking a brown magic circle, I was betting everything on my [Bedrock Blades] to tear him apart.

As desperation and stress overwhelmed me, roots and vines burst from the earth with ruthless speed. Roots pierced his only arm, interrupting his attack motion, while the vines grabbed his legs and rooted him into place, preventing him from putting his foot forward to shoot the attack. This disturbance allowed my [Bedrock Blade] to pierce his chest as well as his abdomen, but narrowly miss his head as he swerved it to the side.

“NIKASH BAAL’AK. FOR MY KING! FOR THE PROSPERITY OF THE GRIMGARIANS! FOR MY TRIBE! BLOOD-SCAR AXE!” The ogre tore through the roots with sheer arm strength and immediately resumed his stance, despite his melting flesh, broken bones, deformed face, and fatal stab wounds. The sheer tenacity he had made me admire him for a split second before reminding myself that he was an enemy.

As he was about to throw his attack, a giant, green komodo dragon burst from the underground and attacked the ogre. The ogre showed an expression of surprise but, even then, his body did not relent and the deadliest attack in his arsenal was unleashed.

Cernust!

Cernust swiped at the ogre’s chest before clashing his horns against the ogre’s bloodied axe. It was a valiant attempt, but the Strength difference between a C rank monster and a B rank was far too high, and Cernust was blown away. Blood seeped down from his skull as his right horn-antler was slashed off, but fortunately, the attack was thwarted and his axe somehow entangled itself on Cernust’s remaining antler.

As the giant green drake crashed on the ground, two garm suddenly appeared in front and behind the ogre respectively with mana threads in their mouths. As the ogre tried to recover from all the damage he suffered, the garms danced around him, immobilizing him with the threads.

“DO YOU THINK YOU CAN STO-GYAK!” The moment the ogre wanted to say something, a garm clad in shadow armor appeared behind him and bit into his neck, pulling his head back. Then, two large ice swords shot down and pierced into his eyes as a girl with fairy wings landed on the garm’s back and telekinetically pulled the ice swords towards herself, fully bending the ogre’s head back.

[“Hestia, END IT!”] Saori demanded.

[“Lady Hestia, FIGHT!”] Tasianna shouted.

“Kroooooooaaaggggggghhhh!” Cernust roared.

Clenching my teeth, I forced my body to stand up before using [Wind Blast] to blast myself forward. “Kriiiiiiiiiiiaaarghhhhh!” I shouted before stabbing the ogre’s jaw, jerking his mouth open. I then slammed my fangs against each, creating a spark to develop a flame inside my mouth.

My chest suddenly was filled with power as my core began to shine iridescently like a sun, energizing every single cell inside my body. It made my body feel warm, far warmer than what [Symphonie des Feuergottes] ever did. The scale-dust under my scales exploded into fire, making it seem like every scale was a single rocket booster.

Solar Beam!!!

With the heat of the sun, I opened my mouth and unleashed a sun breath into the ogre’s mouth. The smell of melting flesh was especially harsh as it also included the ogre’s bowels but I endured it. So did Saori and Tasianna, who were only able to maintain their hold on the ogre in the midst of the volcanic temperature thanks to Tasianna’s ice and water magic.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has risen from [Level 1] to [Level 3]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 1300 skill points

Proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Solar Core Lv. 2] [Continuous Cast Lv. 2] [Sundering Enhancement Lv. 6] [Piercing Enhancement Lv. 6] [Foresight Lv. 3] [Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 5] [Fear Resistance Lv. 5] [Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 6] [Parallel Thoughts Lv. 10] gained

“Kriiiiiiarghhhhh!” I closed my mouth for a moment as the System notification appeared, and shot the remaining energy of [Solar Beam] into the sky until my core was fully empty. Once I was done, my body simply collapsed on the ground. My wounds might have healed up, but I was just tired, mentally and physically.

At least I wasn’t the only one to collapse; the ogre’s slightly molten body did as well.

[“…Thankfully he did not ingest any of that black liquid like the troll shaman from back then,”] Saori commented, also collapsing from exhaustion once she made sure the ogre wouldn’t stand up as a zombie. I mean, the beam went out the other way, drilling him, it would be kinda bad if he did, you know.

[“…This wasn’t a pleasant surprise at all…You were right, Saori. Again,”] I admitted, remembering the last time she warned me not to be so reckless. Last time it was the tendril of a leviathan and this time it was a high ogre.

[“You do not have to say that, Hestia. I don’t care if I’m right or not, I just want you to be less reckless and think about potential risks. Besides, I ran ahead of you before you could escape from the ogre, so your injuries are partially my fault,”] Saori responded.

[“It was mine as well, Lady Hestia. I still haven’t reached level 60 yet, and I still require more training with this catalyst,”] Tasianna gave a humble reply.

[“Yeah…,”] I answered, exhausted. [“So, what was that loud howl for anyways, Saori?”]

[“I can evolve now.”] It was a quick reply and I was feeling really happy for her, but I was honestly just too tired to find the motivation and energy to do so. So, I congratulated her and said we could do it after all of this was done.

I then turned my head to Cernust, who was also lying down lazily. [“You ok, elder-scale?”]

“Kruuuaghh. Krieyyyrukkkk.”

[“…I don’t understand you, sorry.”] Maybe I was mistaken when I thought I understood what he was talking about when I saw his dragon form for the first time. I just couldn’t understand his growls.

“Kruuu…”

Yeah, sorry…

Still, despite feeling too exhausted to even celebrate, I was still happy that we had won a tough battle against a B rank monster. The last time we fought against a B rank monster, it was Astalos and his companion wyverns, and although we defeated the recently evolved ice wyverns, we still were easily defeated by Astalos, a level 44 B rank monster. Sure, this ogre was weakened, but we survived and won. We might not have progressed far enough to win these fights immediately, but progress was progress.

We needed to train and grow even further, but I was proud of Aurora’s continued growth. And, soon, we were about to gain a major improvement in Saori’s evolution.

Once we could stand again, we transformed back to our humanoid forms and returned to where we left Antonio and the others. It was about time to finish this Quest and, in doing so, our time in Firwood.

Profile:

Name:   Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor

Level: 3

Race: Young Sunfang Dragon

Age: 11 Months

Job: Spearman 5/5

Status:

Health:

10286 (+766)

Mana:

35023 (+1035)

Strength:

5320 (+425)

Intelligence:

8678 (+643)

Vitality:

3021 (+223)

Wisdom:

4320 (+320)

Agility:

8681 (+503)

Stamina:

6086 (+444)

Effects:

[Damaged Mana Path [Left Wing] (Minor)]

Skill Points:

5860

Unique Skill:

[Dreadflame Dragon Lv. 2] [Hellblade Dragon Lv. 2]

[Solar Core Lv. 2] (+1) [Venerated Saintess Lv. 2] (+1) [Idol Lv. 1]

Skill:

Magic skills and related:

[Lava Magic Lv. 3] [Lightning Magic Lv. 2]

[White Flames Lv. 2]

[Corrosive Fire Lv. 2] [Sacred Magic Lv. 6] [Earth Magic Lv. 10]

[Earth Amp] [Earth Magic Efficiency] [Terra Magic Lv. 3]

[Wind Magic Lv. 10] [Wind Amp] [Wind Magic Efficiency]

[Storm Magic Lv. 2] [Space-Time Magic Lv. 5]

[Space-Time Magic Efficiency] [True Draconic Lineage]

[Draconic Barrier Lv. 6]

[Silent Casting Lv. 9] (+1) [Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 7]

[Long-Range Spell Enhancement Lv. 2]

[Mental Stability Lv. 8] (+2) [Mental Warfare Lv. 4] [Fluid Cast Lv. 3] (+1)

[Delayed Cast Lv. 1] [Continuous Cast Lv. 2] (+1) [Mana Eyes Lv. 4] (+1)

Physical skills and related:

[Unarmed Technique Lv. 8] [Unarmed Mastery Lv. 3] (+2)

[Sword Technique Lv. 1] [Spear Technique Lv. 4] (+3)

[Spear Mastery Lv. 1] (New)

[Draconic Roar Lv. 4] [Sundering Enhancement Lv. 6] (+1)

[Piercing Enhancement Lv. 6] (+1) [Crushing Enhancement Lv. 3]

Senses and movement skills:

[Silence Lv. 1] [Accuracy Correction Lv. 7]

[Concentration Lv. 7] (+2) [Foresight Lv. 3] (+2)

[Danger Perception Lv. 6] (+1) [Probability Correction Lv. 5]

[Detection Sensor Lv. 3] [Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 6] (+1)

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 8] (+2) [Tracking Lv. 3] [Night Vision Lv. 8]

[Odorless Lv. 1] [Evasion Lv. 10] [Acrobatic Lv. 10]

[Air Walk Lv. 4] [Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 5]

[Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 2]

Resistances:

[Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 5] (+1) [Absolute Pain Tolerance]

[Mental Corruption Resistance Lv. 3] [Mind Protection Lv. 5] (+2)

[Mana Leak Resistance Lv. 10] (+7) [Abnormal Status Nullification]

[Fear Resistance Lv. 5] (+2) [Lava Resistance Lv. 2]

[Lightning Resistance Lv. 2]

[Holy Resistance Lv. 8] [Inferno Resistance Lv. 3]

[Terra Resistance Lv. 1] [Wind Resistance Lv. 7]

[Water Resistance Lv. 2] [Dark Resistance Lv. 1]

Stat growths and related:

[Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 6] (+1)

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Speed of Sound Lv. 1]

Others:

[Stage Fever Lv. 3] [Handicraft Lv. 4] [Woodworking Lv. 5]

[Stonecrafting Lv. 1]

[Trap Creation Lv. 8] [Instruction Lv. 2] (+1) [Identity Blocker Lv. 10]

[Battle Mind Lv. 8] (+1) [Cooking Lv. 7] [Benevolent Aura Lv. 3] (+1)

[Draconic Aura Lv. 1] [Royal Presence Lv. 1]

[Dismantle Lv. 7] [Gluttonous] [Thought Acceleration Lv. 4] (+1)

[High-Speed Calculation Lv. 1] [Multi-Thought Processing Lv. 2] (+1)

[Parallel Thoughts Lv. 10] (+1) [Core Regulation]

[Humanize Lv. 10] [Pyrokinesis] [Aerokinesis] [Telepathy]

Ability List:

[Dreadflare Aura] [Hellblade Edge] [Scale-Dust Veil] [Hellflame Breath]

[Solar Beam]

Spell List:

Custom Magic:

[Symphonie des Feuergottes] [Prayer] [Sanctified Blaze] [Ignite] [Panzer]

Custom Magic Song:

[The Will to Fight and Survive] [Dragon Fire]

Lightning Magic:

[Lightning Bolt] [Purple Flash]

Lava Magic:

[Lava Ball] [Lava Stream] [Molten Guard]

Holy Magic:

[Sacred Smite] [Sacred Veil] [Sacred Field] [Banishment Beam]

[Major Heal] [Omnictus]

Earth Magic

[Earth Wall] [Rock Blast] [Earth Strike] [Rock Bullet] [Sturdy Earth]

[Earth Spears] [Earth Crash] [Earthen Shackles] [Terra Wall]

[Bedrock Blades] [Rumbling Might]

Wind Magic:

[Wind Bullet] [Wind Cutter] [Air Shield] [Wind Slash]

[Swift Winds] [Wind Blast] [Featherfall] [Aerial Blitz]

[Tornado Bullet] [Slyphid’s Cloak]

Space-Time Magic:

[Haste] [Storage Magic] [Warp Point: Entry] [Warp Point: Exit]

The Light Magic:

[Shine] [Sanctuary]

Titles:

[The Light] [Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] [Divine Inferno]

[Otherworldly Reincarnator] [Princess]

A note from AbyssRaven

Well, that was hairy. I could hear this guy LOK'TAR OGAR-ing.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 15 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 161: Draconic Lineage.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #4 her to promote our Patreon. 15 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 15 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until May!

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“Then, we will be going first,” Antonio informed us while he was sitting on the back of his hippogryph, riding Bornelli with his sister Severa. “Lady Shrine Maiden, on my honor as a Knight of Artorias, I must thank you wholeheartedly for the aid you and your retainers have given me in protecting our land. I was unfit for this duty, too weak to have done anything worthwhile.” Antonio bowed his head, having seen the corpse of the high ogre commander when he came over to investigate the [Solar Beam], the same one I shot into the sky to prevent my core from going into overdrive.

Thankfully, Antonio didn’t see me in my dragon form, otherwise I would have had to explain why he should stay quiet about it. That would have been a drag. Plus, him not seeing me in my dragon form was actually beneficial, not just for us but for Cernust, too.

“Cernust, I shall be waiting with Severa at the Sparrowhusk Inn in the merchant district of Firwood. Once you have returned and rested, I bid you to join us there for some time, since we need to speak a bit further about your, uh, acquaintanceship with my sister,” Antonio said bashfully, looking uncomfortable admitting Severa and Cernust are in a relationship.

“I shall wait for you, my Love!” Severa declared loudly in contrast to her brother, waving the smug-looking Cernust goodbye with an impish smile.

“And I will come, my Spring Sakura!” Since he lost one of his horns in the fight with the ogre, Cernust’s dragonewt form didn’t have that antler anymore, making him look asymmetrical. Still, he was loud as always.

That was a cute nickname for somebody with pink hair… Wait, did he say “Sakura?”

“Ahem!” Antonio cleared his voice, not sure what to do with the two lovebirds. “W-Well, Lady Shrine Maiden, please visit me for your Quest clearance mark. Until then, I wish you and everybody safe travels.”

Beating his wings, Bornelli galloped forwards before jumping into the air and taking flight, eventually disappearing into the horizon. The reason why he had to go before us was ‘cause he had to inform the nobles of the Greenveil duchy of this grimgarian battalion, which had been situated just north of Firwood.

As a knight of a different duchy, technically Antonio didn’t have a duty to warn anybody in the Greenveil duchy about it; however, he wasn’t some schemer or something. Lawful stupid as he was, he was still an honorable man that cared for others. A knight and noble of the Kingdom of Artorias at the end of the day, he understood being underhanded here wasn’t to anyone’s benefit.

And Aurora was here. Since I had already informed Farron about the grimgarian army we had encountered in the Belzac forest, I kinda had the duty as a hunter to inform him about it as well. And then he would have to inform Lord Sirius about it, since the hunter’s guild branch was responsible for the defense of the city against monsters. So, yeah, Antonio had no choice regardless.

Also, the reason why Severa was leaving with him is ‘cause of Antonio’s improved opinion of Cernust. Severa was in love with Cernust, and she needed somebody to help her convince her beastmen-hating parents. However, Cernust had to stay behind, as there was something important I had to speak with him about.

“Thank you very much for staying, Lady Priestess.” After seeing Antonio and Severa off, we returned to our camp where Lucia, Wulf, and Verdiena were recovering. It took us a whole night to prepare our plan, giving Lucia some time to sleep and rest, on the other hand, Wulf and Verdiena looked exhausted and ready to collapse from their restless sleep.

“May the goddess bless you, Lady Priestess and your retainers. We would have died if it weren’t for you,” the green-feathered arvisian Verdiena said prayerfully. I had healed her wounds and managed to regrow some of her feathers, kind of like [Major Heal] can with hair, but it would still take some time for her to completely recover her strength.

“Yeah, I can’t help but thank you all for the rescue. The last thing I wanted to die from was against a bunch of green-skins,” Wulf nodded, looking like he attempted to bow for a moment. He then looked over to the unconscious Roosterhead and smacked him on the shoulder. “I’ll also make sure this little shit here will thank you properly the moment he wakes up. Considering how much trouble he caused you last time, the least he could do is grovel before you.”

“Wulf! Please, don’t hit Leif like that! He’s still injured!” Lucia exclaimed.

“Yes, please, don’t break a bone or something. Otherwise, I will have to do more work,” I agreed in a sense. Sighing, I then wandered over to where Raian, the tall human mercenary, and Uno were resting, each having a large scar over one of their eyes. “I managed to rescue Uno’s eye, although the scar will stay, due to the potion's lackluster healing. Still… I can’t save something that’s completely missing. Healing magic has its limits, sorry.”

Uno’s eye was damaged during the rescue mission and he received a healing potion from Saori before I could treat him, causing the wound around his eye to not heal properly and leaving the scar behind. Still, since the eye was there, I managed to prevent him from going blind in one eye.

Raian, sadly, lost his eye completely. According to Wulf and Verdiena, a hobgoblin shaman took it and used it as an alchemical ingredient. Healing magic healed your body by improving your natural regeneration, but it wasn’t very useful for regrowing lost limbs or organs if you weren’t something like a troll.

I need to do something about my healing magic. Once again, it’s showing its limits for something that people consider so ‘miraculous.’

“Please, do not be so harsh on yourself, Lady Priestess. You being here must be what the Goddess wills. We could not blame you for rescuing us,” Lucia reassured me, but I couldn’t help but be dissatisfied with myself. It was time to admit it.

My healing spells aren’t enough. I need to do something about it, either by gaining a new skill or by doing what a magician should do in the first place: Create a new custom spell.

After setting some things up for Saori and Tasianna to begin cooking, I announced that Cernust and I needed to talk in private about something. Saori and Tasianna already knew what was up, but I was surprised to see the adventurers not saying anything. How polite.

Cernust and I walked over to the spot where we had defeated the high ogre. The area was terribly scorched from my [Dreadflare Aura] and a couple of trees had burned down in the process; still, Cernust’s ability as a woodland drake managed to help grow back some of the vegetation. For now, the soil was rich in nutrients, so this spot would eventually grow back, stronger than ever.

At least, that’s what Cernust said.

As I inspected the vines and trees he grew when we fought the high ogre together, Cernust suddenly burst into laughter. “Shit, seeing this reminds me that it will take a while for my head to feel balanced again. I will look like an idiot with different sized antlers, ha ha ha!”

Cernust found his severed antler, picking it up before handing it over to me. When I looked at him weirdly, he explained his action, “That ogre’s axe. That’s some really good metal if it could withstand that volcanic drake-type heat. Wooo, I felt it when I was all the way underground; thought I was getting cooked.”

The winner gets the spoils. While dismantling the grimgarians for meat didn’t yield a lot, since my toxin and fire destroyed most of the edible parts, we were able to scavenge certain sellable pieces as well as their armor and weapons. This included the rings from the shamans, the armor from those orc knights, and, of course, the boss weapon. A boss battle without some good loot wasn’t acceptable, right?

The ogre was a very powerful foe, someone I don’t think we could have beaten had he not been wounded from the cave flood. Anyways, a victory was a victory, and we earned his axe. Unfortunately, my [Dreadflare Aura] had done more harm to it than I initially thought, as we noticed the wooden handle crumbling into dust while the edge of the axe head had melted. It was a sorry sight for such an imposing weapon, but our party was determined to not let it become complete trash. That’s why blacksmiths existed, right?

“A woodland drake’s antlers are both sturdy and light, and something I personally used to construct my gauntlets. I had to cut off half of them, ha ha!” Cernust showed off his emerald-scaled gauntlets, which I presume were made with his body parts. “Dunno why you want to keep that axe, since none of you ladies are axe fighters, but whatever. Call this a tribute to you, your Highness.”

Air Shield.

After creating a bubble of air around us to prevent anybody from eavesdropping, I inhaled deeply, preparing myself for our discussion in just a second. “…How did you know I was a dragon?” was my first question.

“Huh?” Cernust raised an eyebrow. “Is that a joke, your Highness?”

Oh shit, is this smell I’m constantly smelling from him really the damn hint?

“No…” I said a bit flustered, knowing how incredibly ignorant I was about anything draconic. “Also, for now, please just call me Hestia. It’s shorter and I really don’t want to be called that way, especially from an acquaintance.”

Cernust shrugged but nodded nevertheless. “Got it, Hestia. Well, to answer your easy question, I met you first as a human, then found out you were a dragonewt. Actual dragonewts tend to be too damn proud of their heritage to abandon their draconic features for the inferior human’s, while true dragonkin like the two of us need [Humanization] or [Beastalization] to enter humanoid society.”

“Oh, that’s why you acted so weird back then.” When we asked him to teach Tasianna alchemy, Cernust did look at me weirdly.

“Yeah, but I knew not to speak up about it in front of others. I wondered why you didn’t find out about me since we could smell each other’s scent well. Now that I think about it, your scent does remind me of when I first entered Firwood,” Cernust reminisced the day I saw him enter Firwood with Severa. “Anyway, I thought you were some normal dragonkin until now, since I had never met a Kargryxmor before. Then when you roared and, fucking hell, my scales stiffened up so much I thought I froze on the spot. Instincts, you know. That’s when I knew you were a Kargryxmor.”

Well, I guess that does make sense. I didn’t know that sweet smell was that. Verdammt!

“…So, how long have you been on your adulthood pilgrimage, Hestia?” Cernust suddenly asked. “Severa already told you how long I was away from Kargryx, so no need to ask me.”

“Oh, yeah, I thought so. It did sound weird that you would just leave because you were bored.”

“Huh? Oh, no, I really was bored. Come on, you gotta agree, there’s no semblance of society in the Kargryx part of Miononbolax. When I learned [Beastialization], holy shit, I entered the Loatryx part immediately and I was hooked by the concept of society ever since. I came a year late to my adulthood ceremony, just ‘cause I lost track of time while I was partying with a few dragonewts and levianewts. Oh yeah, beats sitting and sleeping inside caves and mountains.”

Being late by a whole year isn’t ‘losing track of time!’ That’s some major procrastination!

But being the straight man in this situation wasn’t really important, as I had a different question in mind. “What’s ‘Miononbolax?’”

“…You tugging on my tail now, right? As if you don’t know the name of the continent we were born in. Come on, you probably want to say something serious, so stay serious for a moment. Let me be the fucking jester here. Come on, I’ll stop joking around, just tell me how long you’ve been on your pilgrimage and then it’s your turn.” Cernust looked more confused than irritated, scratching the spot where his severed horn should be.

I mean, I have to reveal it somehow…

Furthering this discussion without revealing a bit to Cernust was impossible. I could have played dumb as much as I wanted, but I had zero information on Kargryx and dragon culture; I couldn’t even speak Draconic, my supposedly mother tongue. It probably would have been revealed even sooner if Cernust had enough sense to put two by two together.

So, I revealed my origins. Of course, not the part about my reincarnation and Aurena. That was absolutely not needed to explain any of it, but where I was born, when I was born, and that I was completely alone just about a year ago.

Cernust was baffled at first, unable to understand how I was able to survive long enough without any help, even as a dragon whelp. Now, I was sure he would ask even further if I revealed I was born a G rank newborn and that I made it to B rank in less than a year, so I had to gloss over that part unless I wanted to baffle the poor guy even further. Although, he did tell me that, as a Kargryxmor, I should have been born as a C rank [Young Black-Wrath] dragon.

It did pose the question of why I was a G rank whelp when I was born, but I guess Aurena did mention I was born a bit earlier than she expected. I guess you could say, I wasn’t fully developed by then… Damn, that just makes everything worse.

“Holy shit, honestly, I can’t imagine being alone like that. I can’t remember shit when I was born, but you are still not a year old yet?!” Cernust exclaimed with widened eyes.

“Well, I have my birthday on the 25th this month, so yeah, not even a year old just yet.”

“Jeez, but then again, even as a whelp, you are a Kargryxmor, your bloodline is stronger than mine, so I can’t be so surprised. Although, I do wonder why you’re so patient though. Dragonkin whelps aren’t known for being very quiet or selfless,” Cernust said it while trembling a bit. What did he experience?

“Just saying, I do have my special moments, so you’re not completely off base,” I agreed, since the incidents with [Battle Frenzy] and Shiterno’s interference happened. I mean, if it weren’t for my past memories, I was sure I would be far more arrogant. “Anyway, now that you know… that should explain why I have no idea about anything, right? I had no idea about this smell thing, your roars, or even about dragonkin culture. Nothing.”

Cernust nodded out of pity. “Mhmm, that is a shitty situation. Still, you are alive. That is all that counts. You somehow also learned some basic dragon stuff like our lineage name and the adulthood ceremony, so don’t beat yourself up too much, Hestia.”

He then scratched his head for a moment as he seemed to have remembered something. “You know, all Kargryxmor’s descendants are born with black scales and are bipedal, or so I heard from my parents. Your red scales, so similar to a fire dragon’s, coupled with the fact you walk on all fours really didn’t help me figure it out. Your aura and roar, on the other hand, gave me the sense to kneel. If you want to hide from other dragonkin, then I suggest you hide those parts, since you can’t hide our distinctive smell with stuff like perfume or mud.”

“You can’t? What is that smell anyway? Saori and Tasianna mentioned they couldn’t smell it.”

“Yeah, those pheromones only work on true dragonkin, and some dragonewts and levianewts. It’s especially effective on those who haven’t met another dragonkin in a long time. When I met you in that alley, I’m pretty sure the ‘sweet’ smell should have been almost overwhelming, yeah?” I nodded to his assertion.

“When you smell it, then it’s either a true dragonkin, or a dragonewt or levianewt with an especially strong bloodline. It’s very hard to hide from other dragonkin, you see,” Cernust explained. “Wow, you know, explaining this sorta stuff makes me feel so old. Damnit, I am just 21!”

“Well, sorry, I can’t help the fact that I am so young. Still, thank you for explaining all of this. I do have more questions, if you don’t mind answering them,” I asked carefully. I really wanted to learn more.

Thankfully, Cernust nodded. Ok, so first things first, the Dragon Empire, Kargryx, was located on the continent Miononbolax, just west of Altrust, the continent we are currently on. Kargryx was mostly devoid of any sorta civilization, as dragons and drakes simply flew around and slept in the mountains and fields of the region. There was also an ice island just north where ice dragons and drakes lived.

Now, since the history of beastmen also applied to dragons, they had offsprings in the form of dragonewts, which meant there had to be a place where they could live. Since dragonewts preferred living in a society due to their humanoid heritage — whether human, dwarven, or elven — a vassal country in the form of the Dragonewt Country, Loatryx, was founded by multiple tribes of dragonewts who one day realized they had to band together, otherwise, they would never be able to move forwards.

“That’s what my parents and the dragonewts I met taught me. Each dragonewt tribe was made out of those with a similar heritage, like fire dragonewts banding with others of their kind, while despising forest drakes like me, for example. Eventually, a dragonewt with Kargryxmor’s bloodline came up and suggested a country where they could strengthen themselves instead of warring against each other, all so they could serve their ancestors and the Dragon God better.”

“Was it met with opposition?” I asked Cernust. It was the most sensible question after what he said.

“Of course, that person wasn’t Kargryxmor or a dragon. Just a beastman with dragon and elven blood. Just saying, dragonkin are prideful, and so are dragonewts. They only worship dragons. Even today, if the Dragon God wasn’t Goddess Aurena’s subordinate, most of them wouldn’t even shed a scale for her.” Cernust then picked off a loose scale and handed it to me, calling it another tribute since I was his princess.

When I declined, he waved his finger to the sides. “Dragons take pride in their strong scales. This is a gesture of respect and trust, since I am making myself more vulnerable by removing a scale.”

After accepting it, he continued his story. After the diplomatic suggestion from the dragonewt was rejected, an age of war began as tribes warred to become the leading faction. The tribes didn’t decline the Kargryxmor dragonewt’s idea for a united country, but refused to accept him as their ruler since they hated the fact he wanted to be the leader purely due to his bloodline. They found him unworthy.

“When you imagine the Dragon God, you imagine a black tyrant who has conquered the skies. ‘If you cannot make us kneel, you do not deserve our respect.’ It was a challenge.”

All of this happened before the Origin Gods came to Peolynca, meaning Kargryxmor was very much alive during this period, ruling over all dragons. The dragonewts wanted to see if his descendant could do the very same thing. But, even with all his strength, the dragonewt was slain in battle.

When the war continued, grieving children and parents demanding retribution for their slain kin, Kargryxmor eventually had to intervene as the population of dragonewts and shore-living levianewts was dwindling. With a loud roar that shattered the very earth they stood on, Kargryxmor not only conquered the dragons but also the dragonewts. And that was all that was needed to found another country in his name.

“Loatryx was founded on our home continent and eventually spread to Altrust through the levianewts and elves. A colony is just up north and has grown strong with the influence of the levianewts and dwarves. When I was there, I couldn’t help but think it was an entirely different country compared to the one on Miononbolax. The dwarves with their Revolution Queen, or whatever she was called, changed their culture by quite a bit. Ahh, when I stayed there for Spring, damn, was I glad to experience the Sakura petal rain.”

“Do you have any of their seeds? Seeing as you like collecting seeds so much.” I was curious, and, as I expected, Cernust had some of the sakura seeds in his backpack. He was quite reluctant to part with even one, compared to how easily he gave me his scale and antler.

That was a small insight into my dragon heritage. Learning about its history will make Saori quite happy after I retell it.

“Honestly, how Loatryx struggled in the first few years despite Kargryxmor’s command to form a country was pretty wild, but I can’t recall enough of it to tell you a good enough story. Even its origin was hard to recall, since I’m not a big reader. If you want to learn more, then I suggest you visit it yourself, since you’ll be returning to Kargryx anyways.”

“…”

“…Hestia?”

Going to Kargryx… do I really want to do that? I mean, I have no reason to. Right?

“Hey, hey, I know I made Kargryx sound boring, but you gotta at least visit your mother,” Cernust insisted with a serious expression.

“My mother?” I tilted my head.

“You know, now that I think about it, I heard, before leaving Kargryx, that your old man, the current Emperor, fancied some silver dragon. Remember how I said ‘dragonewts worship dragons’? Yeah, Loatryx is ruled like a republic, but they honor the Kargryxmor’s dragons a lot, and the birth of a Kargryxmor is like a festival for them. It might have just been a rumor, but you are living proof of its authenticity.”

My head was still tilted as he hasn’t answered my question yet. “Ok, but what does that have to do with my ‘mother’?”

“Well, the last child of Emperor Kargryxmor left on her adulthood pilgrimage a while ago — that would be your elder sister, or half-sister I suppose — before I left on mine. Which means, you are the youngest of the royal family. However, before I left Kargryx and Loatryx for the dwarves and humans, nobody mentioned about your egg hatching, since you were just born last year,” Cernust began. “Now, I have no idea how you landed in Belzac forest, but I expect it happened when your egg were presented to the elven rulers of Saelariel. When a Kargryxmor egg is laid, introducing it to Kargryx’s allies is a tradition to help with your adulthood pilgrimage. The pilgrimage is intended to help dragons get to know the world before they return home, so it helps when foreign rulers know who to teach.”

“Ok… that might explain why I was in Belzac in the first place. It doesn’t explain how it happened but… what is your point?”

“My point is that people are searching for you. Silver dragons walk on all four legs, just like you do, and while it is unusual for you to not be black-scaled, it could be explained that you inherited your mother’s lighter scale-color. The Dragon God was a fire dragon at his base, but with black scales instead of the usual red. It makes sense,” Cernust pointed out. “The elves would help the search, the levianewts would help, the dragonewts would help. Now, as I said, dragonewts can be quite zealous.”

“…They wouldn’t, right? They don’t even know where I am, as if they would just attack wantonly!” I exclaimed in disbelief.

“Sure, but the moment they hear you are here? The elves don’t like humans and the dragonewts trust the elves. Do you understand now? There will be a misunderstanding, and boom, this kingdom won’t like it at all.” I gulped the moment he mentioned this possibility. Considering how much the elves distrust humans ever since the “War for the Fae,” they might think I was imprisoned here.

Although, that begs the question of why people like Silva or Master Kush hadn’t mentioned anything. Then again, all of them told me they have been traveling for a while, so it could be they haven’t heard any news from home. The saurians travel the world to dispense justice, while Silva wanted to free onnikais and was traveling incognito through human land.

“Unfortunately, the worst part is still coming. Mother dragons are very possessive of their children, especially since the birth rate among dragons isn't very high. My own mother despised the fact she had to let me go, ranting I could die at any time and that she wanted to travel with me. Your mother lost you when you were an egg, the moment when you were the most vulnerable. Nothing has happened yet, as I presume she must be wailing and waiting for news of you, but the moment her patience runs out… ”

“She will take flight,” I answered with a trembling voice.

“Yeah,” Cernust nodded with gloom over his face. “No idea how strong she is, but she’s got to be S rank at the very least. Young scales like the two of us are nothing against the elder scales sleeping inside their nests for years and years. And elder scales know each other well. Your mother must have some friends and she could also bring her family down to Altrust. Dragonewts from her bloodline will also move with her. Dragonfire and dragoon knights… that won’t be a pretty sight.”

“Urgh… no, it won’t. I can’t believe I can envision it.” I cradled my head as the thought of Carine Village and Firwood burning down. I had to do something about this possibility… but I really didn’t want to go to Kargryx, either. If what Cernust said was true, then I really don’t want a possessive, helicopter “mother.” My idol dream would be impossible if I could only perform there.

I had to do something, and I think the answer was obvious enough. Speak with Kargryxmor. Aurena mentioned I had to speak with him in Griffonpeak, so this just gave me a real reason to do so. I have to tell him to inform my mother, otherwise… the worst could happen.

Still, there has to be an immediate solution, or at least a band-aid. My party had its own plans, and rushing wasn’t exactly part of it. In other words, I had to rely on somebody who I believed, but wasn’t sure, had a connection with Kargryx.

“Cernust, I don’t presume you are going back anytime soon, right?” I asked, but I already knew the answer.

“Argh, you are putting me on the spot here, princess. I would get in trouble if I didn’t, but I can’t just leave Severa now when there is a chance we could have a life together. I heard humans are quite fickle with their partners and can just switch to another if their previous ones just disappear one day. I really, really, don’t want that to happen,” Cernust begged.

I nodded, not disappointed at all. “It’s ok. If somebody asks me, I’ll just say I don’t know you.”

“Thanks.”

After that, Cernust gave me some pointers on how dragons spoke. As we dragons mostly communicate with growls and sound intonations, we need to learn the Common language, and scale-kin speech from the dragonewts. Since I already learned the latter from the lizardmen and further improved it with the saurians, there was nothing Cernust could teach me there. However…

“If you want, this elder scale can teach you the meanings and how to intone your voice, although we really don’t have much time, depending on when Antonio wants to leave,” Cernust offered.

Well, I had no reason to decline. Even if I won’t use dragon speech for a long time, I will eventually. Better now than never. I agreed to his offer, but told him we would do it later since I need to see something first. We left the bubble for now and returned to camp. My discussion with Cernust lasted so long that Saori and Tasianna were done preparing dinner.

As I sat down to a warm stew, I spoke to Saori telepathically, [“Have you chosen yet, Saori? Your evolution.”]

Evolution

[Young Fenrir]

[Young Umbralblade Cadejo]

[Young Abysswalker Cadejo]

[Young Blackroar Cadejo]

Saori’s choices were less numerous compared to mine, and all of them were concentrated on her shadow powers. It really came to which fighting style she preferred with the choices. [Young Fenrir] seemed to be based around using their wolven senses to the fullest during a hunt, while each of the three Cadejo evolutions seemed to emphasize a different aspect of the original C-rank evolution - the [Shadow Armaments] ability, enhanced [Stealth] skills, and that scary [Bloodlust] trait.

[“No, I have not. Actually, there was something I wanted to try before I made my choice. Hestia… would mind letting me drink some of your blood?”]

[“…Come again?”]

[“I know, it sounds crazy, but I wanted to see what would happen if I did that. As you can see, my choices are pretty barebones and I really want to open up a better option. Sadly, the skill shop didn’t give me a lot of ideas, so I wondered ‘what would ingesting some dragon blood do?’ You can decline since this is a creepy demand, but how about it?”]

[“Creepy, yes. Worth a try? Sure.”]

With that decided we left the camp once more and moved deeper into the forest where I constructed an earthen dome for Saori to safely evolve in. Cernust also helped by constructing some trees to hide our position. I momentarily transformed back into my original form and opened a wound. As the blood filled up a wooden vial, Saori took it and drank it in one go, requesting some water afterward.

When I asked her if anything changed, she simply smiled and said, “Just wait for the surprise~” before activating her evolution. I had no idea what she chose, but at the very least, I knew our party finally had another B rank combatant.

Stronger. Aurora must become stronger.

A note from AbyssRaven

A bit late since Mother's Day was yesterday, but, hey, mention of Hestia's helicopter dragon mom! Yay!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 162: Stygian.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“How are your arms doing? Can you move them? Rotate your shoulders? Stretch? They were pretty messed up, to the point I had to cut into your left arm and realign your bones for them to properly heal. Well, [Major Heal] could have probably done it regardless, but I wanted to be sure, so sorry for cutting into you, Mister Raian.” After watching over Saori’s “sleeping” spot with Cernust over the night, I returned to our camp since Tasianna informed me that the grizzled, mercenary Raian had woken up.

Listening to me, Raian slowly began doing a rudimentary warm-up practice to test out how healthy his arms were. Despite losing one of his eyes, he hadn’t complained much about it. “They are good to go. Thank you, M’lady Priestess. Don’t worry about the cutting part. If it helped me get better, then I have no right to complain, especially when I got myself into that mess in the first place.”

“Well, that’s good to hear but… aren’t you fazed at all about your eye? I mean, you lost it…” I tilted my head in wonderment. Looking worried that he was currently experiencing something I couldn’t imagine.

“Ah, yeah, that’s right.” Raian touched the impromptu bandage we wrapped around his eye like an eyepatch. He sighed before continuing, “Funny thing is, I nearly lost my eyes once before on a job. Becoming completely blind would be the end for me, but with at least one eye, I can still fight thanks to my skills. [Prediction] and [Danger Perception] allow me to anticipate attacks and I’ve managed to train myself to fight using one eye in case this ever happened. If my eye got plucked out and can’t be restored anymore, then complaining about it to you would be pathetic. I’d rather get used to my circumstance.”

Wow… as expected of an adult. Mature and sensible. Respect.

“Raian has been working as a mercenary for years before we started,” Wulf explained. “He only made it to C-rank but he’s got enough experience behind his belt to teach newcomers like us a thing or two. Even taught Roosterhead over there how to wield a sword properly.”

Oh jeez, now he is using that nickname too? Too bad, Roosterhead.

“All that experience didn’t matter in the end. Still nearly caused the whole party to wipe, haaaaaaaa…” It was a deep sigh, filled with regrets and guilt. I wanted to say something, but it felt awkward for a teenager like me to say something uplifting to an adult like him. I didn’t want to patronize him, especially if he were to think I was some snot-nosed kid who didn’t know what she was saying.

Still… wasn’t it the role of a doctor to also help a patient mentally? When I was a kid, my family doctor would calm me down before an injection… Ok, maybe that wasn’t a very apt comparison.

“But you are alive. You all are alive,” I started, attempting to bring his spirit back with [Benevolent Aura]. “You didn’t lose anybody. Sure, you made a mistake, but it all worked out in the end, right?”

… OMG, it might have just been better if I had said nothing at all. Silence is golden, ahhhhhhhhh!

“Ahahahahaha!” Suddenly, Raian just burst out in laughter. With how awkward and cringy everything I said was, I can’t even feel upset that he did! “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to force you to make me feel better, M’lady Priestess. Don’t worry about me. Shit happens. You’re right that I should be happy that everybody made it out alive — thank the goddess — but that doesn’t mean I can’t reflect back on this mistake of mine.”

“Mister Raian, please, if anybody has themselves to blame, then it was me. Mine was the deciding vote. You did what you could in a situation where we were simply outmatched and outnumbered,” Lucia chimed in as she brought Raian a wet towel.

“She’s right, mate. You and Diena were the only ones who said no to the plan, while I was stupid enough to think wandering into a goblin cave was a good idea. Arck, I really thought the worst that could happen was a hobgoblin champ or shaman,” Wulf added.

Saori’s evolution began at some point during the afternoon before the sky completely turned orange, while the current time should be a bit before lunchtime. With no access to a clock, knowing the exact time was hard. Anyway, as an evolution always takes a whole 24 hour day to finish, I didn’t have anything else to do other than to listen to this adventurer party.

Still, despite how melancholic it could be sometimes with Raian or Verdiena assessing the situation, it could have been far worse. They weren’t pondering in silence and were already discussing their next moves. I guess this is what you could call the mark of adults, or, at least, the mark of veteran adventurers who know how to bounce back from a relatively small setback.

“Thankfully, we didn’t lose Lucia’s catalyst, otherwise that would have drastically lowered our magical influence. Leif also still has his equipment; we only need to repair it. The problem is that the three of us have no armor or weapons.” Although I thought that they would have needed more time to digest their situation, especially after coming out of the predicament by the skin of their teeth, Raian was already speaking with his other four party members about equipment and money.

“True, we didn’t lose life or limb thanks to ‘Aurora,’ Cernust and Sir Antonio, but without any weapons or armor, we’ll have to do some low-rank Quests to amass the funds for replacements. Thankfully, Lucia’s merchant account has our party’s funds saved up, so we don’t have to start from absolutely nothing, even though it probably won’t be enough. You’ll probably have to deal with a normal longsword, Raian,” Wulf assessed their situation.

Oh yeah, Saori mentioned her merchant’s guild membership also included a bank-like system.

With Saori’s and my [Storage Magic], we aren’t in any need to store our money in a bank, as we can carry it around without any risks. I heard the bank functioned through our IDs and that the merchant’s guild is international to the point that we could deposit and withdraw our money in any associated guild building. Saori also mentioned that, unlike modern banks that give you interest for storing money, Peolynca’s banks were more like the ones in medieval Europe, where you basically had to pay money for them to store it. At least with the guild, that charge was covered by the membership fee.

However, there was no need for them to actually go to town and buy the stuff, right? “There should be no problem with that. Please, just take some of the weapons we salvaged from the field,” Tasianna interjected with raised brows.

“O-Oh, we wouldn’t dare! Lady Hestia and your party defeated those monsters, so we have no right to take your spoils. Right, everybody?” Lucia replied sheepishly.

“It wouldn’t be right, yes. We were rescued, and we shouldn’t take something a priestess has earned, herself,” Verdiena nodded in confirmation. They were being too modest, no?

“Oh, I don’t think my Lady minds it too much. Isn’t that correct, Lady Hestia?”

“Yeah,” I then took out the loot we salvaged from the battlefield. “We’ll have plenty to sell anyway, so just pick something and go with it.”

While Lucia was admiring my [Storage Magic] — as a “void-touched,” I was a rare magician to her — Raian looked at the weapons displayed in front of him. “M’lady Priestess, this might be rude to hear, but even as a priestess, I can’t help but be suspicious of people who give out free stuff. All the [Major Heal]s you used were ‘free’ and now you are giving us what we needed for ‘free.’ If I hadn’t heard you selling your healing for only 500 Davi at your eatery, I would be very suspicious right now.”

“Mister Raian!” Lucia cried out, but I waved my hand to calm her down.

“A [Major Heal] costs 2500 Davi each, and I used up quite a few to make absolutely sure you’d keep full use of your arm, Mister Raian. I don’t want your money, as I am not a career magician or priestess. If I could, I wouldn’t even ask for a price during my normal work hours, but I know it isn’t proper to do so. Besides, could your party afford all the [Major Heal]s I cast to help your arms recover?” I tilted my head as I questioned him, causing him to sigh and shake his head.

“Point taken. I would be even more of a burden for the kids if I had to use party funds for that. Still-”

But before Raian could end his sentence, Wulf leaned forward and blocked Raian from my sight. “Beggars can’t be choosers. There is no need for your pride here, Raian, nor any religious whatever, Diena, Lucia. You know, I trust Lady Hestia. Let’s just take the gear and kick Roosterhead’s ass for the problems he caused her last time.”

“Hmph, and here I thought you weren’t a big fan of the church,” Verdiena mumbled as she picked up a bow we got from an echikobold archer. “This is good wood. Whoever made this is a good bowyer.”

As the four adventurers were looking through the weapons, I began eating Tasianna’s cooking. She learned from the best and the quality showed. After I was done eating, I told them I was going out to “scout” again, denying anybody from joining me while placing Tasianna as a guard.

In truth, I actually returned to Cernust, who was guarding Saori in a fort of trees and roots. I handed him a bowl of Tasianna’s breakfast stew and we continued my Draconic tongue practice after he was full. Learning the language was weird, honestly. At least compared to Common tongue, I mean.

The main way to communicate as a dragon was not through words but through roars and growls. As dragonewts, we were perfectly able to practice in this form without returning to our original forms, thankfully. Cernust didn’t have [Telepathy], so being able to understand his instructions was important, as I was having a lot of trouble understanding the differences between the various roars and growls.

“No, no, it’s not ‘Krauhhh’ it’s ‘Krauuhh’ if you want to say ‘I am hungry,’” Cernust growled.

“…You have to intone your voice again? Jeez, ‘krauuhh’ hrarrrghhhh kryyuuuu?” I spat out as I was getting frustrated by how annoying it was to learn how to speak with other dragons.

“‘Why is ‘I am hungry’ also so hard to remember?’ Hey, awesome, that’s a proper sentence! See? As I said, us dragons have an internal library in our heads to identify our vocal sounds. It might seem daunting at first, but we were made to learn how to understand others to survive. The last thing a whelp wants is to accidentally wander into an elder scale’s territory and not understand them.”

I was able to learn all of this so fast thanks to [Idol] giving me a near-pitch-perfect hearing. The skill is supposed to help me write songs better, but I can’t believe I would be using it for this.

As we continued, time flew by, rushing through lunchtime and right into late afternoon. After a few more rounds of growling and roaring, my sense suddenly picked up movements inside the tree fort. Cernust controlled the trees to free our way, and there she was.

A mighty wolf.

***********************************************************

Skill requirement fulfilled. [Primal Sense], [Heat Vision Lv. 3], [Danger Perception Lv. 10], [Night Vision Lv. 8] merged intoskill [True Wolven Instincts]

Skill requirement fulfilled. [Terror Aura Lv. 5], [Bloodlust Lv. 4], [Lifetaker Lv. 4] merged into skill [True Wolven Bloodlust]

Skill requirement fulfilled.   [Silence Lv. 1], [Tracking Lv 6], [Odorless Lv. 1], [Evasion Lv. 10], [Acrobatic Lv. 10], [Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 7], [Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 6], [Enhanced Agility Enforcement Lv. 5] merged into skill [Night’s Caress Lv. 1]

Skill requirement fulfilled.   [Unarmed Technique Lv. 9], [Unarmed Mastery Lv. 5], [Lupine Claws Lv. 3], [Lupine Fangs Lv. 3], [Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 6], [Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 5], [Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 6], [Enhanced Stamina Capacity Lv. 5] merged into uniqueskill [Stygian Blades Lv. 1]

Skill requirement fulfilled.   [Tenebrous Magic Lv. 2], [Enhanced Mana Growth Lv. 4], [Enhanced Mana Capacity Lv. 3], [Enhanced Intelligence Growth Lv. 4], [Enhanced Intelligence Enforcement Lv. 3] merged into unique skill [Stygian Voltage Lv. 1]

Magic Lost:   [Umbral Pendulum] [Abyssal Bomb]

Abilities gained:   [Stygian Lightning]

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Shadow Armament Lv. 8] [Multi-Cast Lv. 2] [Continuous Cast Lv. 2] [Sundering Enhancement Lv. 9] [Piercing Enhancement Lv. 8] [Crushing Enhancement Lv. 6] [Concentration Lv. 8] [Air Walk Lv. 4] [Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 5] [Dark Resistance Lv. 10] [Health Recovery Lv. 8] [Mana Recovery Lv. 6] [Stamina Recovery Lv. 8] [Enhanced Health Growth Lv. 7] [Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 5] [Enhanced Vitality Capacity Lv. 6] [Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 6] [Elemental Mana Weave Lv. 7] [Dismantle Lv. 9] [Humanize Lv. 9] gained

Skill requirement fulfilled.   [Dark Resistance Lv. 10] evolved into skill [Tenebrous Resistance Lv. 1]

By the divine System, individual   [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa] is granted the title: [Watched by Edna]

Individual   [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa] has reached Rank B through evolution. Congratulations, you have reached the maximum Rank achievable for a [Young] monster. Bonus: 300 in all stats, 3000 Skill Points

Due to becoming Rank B, individual   [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa] will receive reduced experience gain until maturation requirement is achieved. Evolution is blocked until maturation requirement is fulfilled. Maturation requirement: Age: 3 Years, [Shadow Armament Lv. 10], [Stygian Voltage Lv. 10], [Monster Tamer Lv. 10], [Monster Synergy Lv. 10]

Darkness. It was pitch-black. Not while I was sleeping, but when I woke up, there was just no light at all.

But, somehow, I was still able to identify that I was inside a wooden orb made by intertwined trees and roots. Cernust, a woodland drake, was the only one I knew who could create something like this, so I assumed he helped out with protecting me while I was evolving.

[““Alpha””] were the first voices I heard after waking up.

I still felt a bit stiff from sleeping, but as I took in breaths, it felt as if power was coursing through my body like a stream of lightning. As I looked down, I saw both Song and Sarasa bowing to me. Uno and Quatre were missing, but since both of them were recovering from their injuries, that was to be expected. Still, knowing they weren’t here made my chest tighten a bit… and then a weird sound appeared.

Streaks of black lines zigzagged around my body, creating lightning-like sounds as they echoed slightly in this wooden dome. My eyes widened as this happened and I couldn’t help but clumsily stomp my feet on the ground in a panic, tripping myself as my legs suddenly felt far heavier than I was used to.

[““Alpha?!””] Both of my garms cried out, but I stopped them with a quick answer.

[“No! Everything is alright. I have not become accustomed to my new body yet.”] I recovered from my fall and stood back up, now inspecting some of my new features. As I did so, the trees and roots around me suddenly moved.

As light filled the dome, pushing the darkness away, a cheery voice penetrated through the silence and brought me back to reality. “W-Wow… Saori, you look so fucking cool!”

Hestia!

The crimson-haired dragonewt girl was jumping up and up in a cheery mood, smiling brightly as she inspected my body. With the light revealing my true form, I finally could see what Hestia’s blood gave me.

The black-furred body I was so used to was still there, but now I had a few patches of white fur around my shoulders, flowing down my back and front legs. The reason why my legs felt so heavy was from a change I anticipated from the description of my new race, and that was the inclusion of scales as armor around my front and back feet.

Similar to gauntlets, black carapaces were gathered around my legs as long sickle-like claws replaced my previous set; they were similar to Hestia’s, although they seemed thicker than hers, probably so I could still dig. As I practiced using them, I could fully feel the weight behind each step, making me believe I didn’t have to rely on bites anymore and could finally use my legs in a real fight.

My tail also got a bit thicker, but not enough to be compared to Hestia’s. Black scales covered the skin there, with fur growing out of the gaps in between the scales, thick enough that it didn’t look any different from before unless you parted the fur and looked closely.

Compared to all these changes, my face was relatively normal except for red “eyeliners” having been added around my eyes. However, what I think the biggest change in my appearance was? It was also the biggest prize of this evolution.

“Woah, Saori, your new form looks completely different from your old form. Kinda intimidating, even for monster standards,” Cernust commented, looking a bit concerned.

“Woah! What the hell is that?! Black lightning?! Oh! The red marks around your eyes are flaring up, Saori, and now the mist is back!” Hestia’s excitement over seeing my evolution made her speech a bit hectic.

However, I guess it was an accurate representation of what I was feeling.

A-Amazing!

Black lightning channeled around my right gauntlet-like front leg, gathering in one spot until my hair began to stand up from the electricity. I told Hestia, Cernust, and my garms to stand back for a moment as I raised my leg and slammed it on the ground. A loud thud rumbled out as the sensation of ramming my foot into the ground was transmitted to my brain by neurons, but in the next second, my ears and eyes were stimulated as a black lightning blast erupted from my toes.

[Shadow Armament (Full Body)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

My shadows clad my entire form, enveloping my new scales and white fur. Now looking over my body, I felt that I had become a bit bulkier than before, although I still looked lean enough to slip around shadows and attacks. It was the growth that I wanted to see my cadejo-I mean, fenrir body to experience.

Profile.

Profile:

Name:   Saori Segawa

Level: 0

Race:   Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir

Age:   7 Months

Job:   Mage Level: 5/5

Status:

Health:

10325/10325 (+2573)

Mana:

7895/7895 (+4819)

Strength:

6230 (+1920)

Intelligence:

2731 (+1091)

Vitality:

4420 (+1244)

Wisdom:

4320 (+1208)

Agility:

8262 (+1588)

Stamina:

7420/7420 (+2402)

Effects:

None

Skill Points:

9850 (+8400)

Unique Skill:

[Shadow Armament Lv. 8] (+1) [Shadow Pack Lv. 2] (+1)

[Stygian Blades Lv. 1] (New) [Stygian Voltage Lv. 1] (New)

Skill:

Magic skills and related:

[Mana Efficiency Lv. 10] (+2) [Arcane Mind Lv. 10] (+1)

[Mana Control Lv. 10] [Dark Magic Lv. 10] [Dark Amp]

[Dark Magic Efficiency] [Space-Time Magic Lv. 3]

[Space-Time Efficiency] [Chant Revocation Lv. 10]

[Mental Stability Lv. 7] (+1) [Mental Warfare Lv. 7] (+1)

[Silent Casting Lv. 10] [Fluid Cast Lv. 2]

[Multi-Cast Lv. 2] (+1) [Continuous Cast Lv. 2] (+1)

[Delayed Cast Lv. 1]

Physical skills and related:

[Dagger Technique Lv. 5] (+2) [Dagger Mastery Lv. 4] (New)

[Sundering Enhancement Lv. 9] (+1)

[Piercing Enhancement Lv. 8] (+1) [Crushing Enhancement Lv. 6] (+2)

Senses and movement skills:

[True Wolven Instincts] (New) [Night’s Caress Lv. 1] (New)

[Foresight Lv. 2] [Concentration Lv. 8] (+1)

[Detection Sensor Lv. 2] [Air Walk Lv. 4] (+1)

Resistances:

[Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 5] (+1) [Absolute Pain Tolerance]

[Abnormal Status Nullification] [Terror Resistance Lv. 1] (New)

[Fear Resistance Lv. 3] (+2)

[Arcane Corruption Resistance Lv. 10] [Ice Resistance Lv. 4] (+1)

[Lightning Resistance Lv. 2] [Holy Resistance Lv. 8] (+2)

[Inferno Resistance Lv. 1] (New)

[Earth Resistance Lv. 7] [Water Resistance Lv. 6] (+1)

[Wind Resistance Lv. 6] [Tenebrous Resistance Lv. 1] (New)

Stat growths and related:

[Health Recovery Lv. 8] (+2)

[Mana Recovery Lv. 2] (+2) [Stamina Recovery Lv. 8] (+2)

[Enhanced Health Growth Lv. 7] (+2)

[Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 5] (+1)

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 6] (+1)

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 6] (+1)

[Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 4]

Others:

[Dancing Lv. 2] [Mathematician Lv. 3] [Merchant Lv. 1]

[Accounting Lv. 1] [Monster Tamer Lv. 1] [Monster Synergist Lv. 1] (New)

[Identify Blocker Lv. 10] [Identify Lv. 10] [Battle Mind Lv. 6]

[True Wolven Bloodlust] (New) [Mana Weave Lv. 10]

[Sewing Lv. 10] [Elemental Mana Weave Lv. 7] (+1)

[Royal Etiquette Lv. 4] [Cooking Lv. 10] [Dismantle Lv. 9] (+1)

[Humanize Lv. 9] (+1) [Telepathy]

Ability List:

Stygian abilities:

[Stygian Lightning]

Unarmed abilities:

[Just Blink] [Shadow Descent]

Dagger abilities:

[Shadow Pierce]

Spell List:

Custom Spells:

[Create Water] [Smoky Haze]

Dark Spells:

[Dark Bolt] [Dark Tendrils] [Shadow Dash] [Dark Slash] [Shadow Clones]

[Shadow Snake] [Enfeebling Winds] [Claws of Darkness]

Space-Time Spells:

[Haste] [Storage Magic]

Titles:

[Belzac’s Successor] [Otherworldly Reincarnator] [Hestia’s Retainer]

[Pack Leader] [Watched by Edna] (New)

Argh, what a shame! [Tenebrous Magic] was used up!

Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir

An immature fenrir who evolved while digesting the blood of a descendant of the Dragon God Kargryxmor, causing its body to mutate after the blood was consumed. Scales grow around the fenrir’s body, increasing not only its defense but also its magical capabilities, benefitting the fenrir’s main ability: Stygian thunderbolts. Created using their innate high affinity to dark elements and stored inside their fur as static electricity, this fenrir is a force of nature only weakened by its immature age. Rank B

The thought of black thunderbolts coming from my hands sounded amazing, especially after what Hestia could do with hers. Unfortunately, I did not expect to lose [Tenebrous Magic] because of that, although, it was better than losing [Dark Magic] and all its associated skills. I’ve been using [Dark Tendrils], [Shadow Dash], [Shadow Clone], and [Shadow Snake] often enough to the point they became a core part of my fighting style. They kept me safe and nimble.

On the other hand, [Tenebrous Magic] only offered me offensive spells currently, which I have to admit was something I missed. Still, if I could harness the power of my new evolution’s abilities and replace the old Tenebrous powers with my own custom spells, then I was sure I could become stronger than before. I guess it was similar to how Hestia had to deal with losing all her fire spells.

After all, reading the descriptions of these new skills made me just too happy to feel saddened by my loss.

True Wolven Instincts

A fenrir’s keen senses turned into a skill. Multiple skills were combined to provide the fenrir with skills to adapt to any situation, increasing their awareness of their surroundings. The skills combined are: [Primal Senses], [Heat Vision Lv. 10], [Danger Perception Lv. 10], [Night Vision Lv. 10]

True Wolven Bloodlust

A fenrir’s bloodlust represented by a skill, warning any who dares face it of its endless hunger for prey and savage cunning. The power of this aura will increase further the more the fenrir slays in a short time, increasing Mana Recovery as well as every stat. The skills combined are: [Tyrant’s Aura Lv. 10], [Bloodlust Lv. 10], [Lifetaker Lv. 10]

Night’s Caress

An assassin’s most trusted skill, fully realizing their infiltration abilities under the cloak of night. When the sun is gone and darkness has clouded the sky, all stealth and maneuvering skills have their efficiency increased. The skills combined are: [Silence Lv. 10], [Odorless Lv. 10], [Tracking Lv. 10], [Evasion Lv. 10], [Acrobatic Lv. 10], [Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 10], [Speed of Sound Lv. 10]

Stygian Blades

The Stygian-Scaled Fenrir’s ability to increase the damage of all dark or tenebrous elemental attacks, benefitting sundering and piercing type damage the most. Health damage caused by shadow-based attacks will be transferred to the fenrir at 25% efficiency. The skills combined are: [True Unarmed Technique Lv. 1], [True Unarmed Mastery Lv. 1], [Herculean Strength Lv. 1], [Unyielding Endurance Lv. 1]. Skill level will increase with main skill

Stygian Voltage

The Stygian-Scaled Fenrir’s ability where dark elemental mana is stored inside their white fur and turned into static electricity. All lightning-based attacks are attuned to the tenebrous element instead of the lightning element. The fenrir themself is completely immune to their own lightning. Mana can be consumed to create more electricity, further increasing the voltage of attacks. The skills combined are: [Arcane Conduit Lv. 1], [Sorcerer’s Power Lv. 1]. Skill level will increase with main skill

“Jeez, your stats in general have shot up like crazy. You outmatch me in Strength by so much now!” Hestia complained after I sent her my profile information, including the description of my race and new skills.

[“Sure, but who has over 38000 Mana and near 8000 Intelligence? I have higher stats in one category and so do you. We shouldn’t be comparing each other when our roles and primary fighting styles are different,”] I argued, knowing that even with my increase in Mana and Intelligence, I wouldn’t be able to keep up with Hestia in spell casting. Hestia was formidable in her own right, and I wanted to make sure she understood that no matter what.

Hestia shrugged but then nodded in the end. “Well, I guess. Anyway, I am interested in seeing more of your new lightning ability, but how about we go back for now? That Wulf has been asking where you were the whole time. ‘Where is Sister? Where is Sister?’ he kept saying.”

[“Wha-?! I already told him I wasn’t his sister, that it was impossible! Is that wolfkin stupid in the head?”] I shook my head at the headache. I hoped from the depths of my heart that he wasn’t another Gael.

“Ahh, about that. I asked him about it since I was curious, and he explained he understood you weren’t siblings and that it was a friendly way to speak with other wolfkins, you know. You are a wolfkin in your humanoid form,” Hestia explained before using [Telepathy]. [“Think of it like people calling each other ‘bro,’ or delinquent groups calling their male leaders ‘aniki’ and female leaders ‘anego.’ It is out of respect as Wulf sees you as a stronger wolfkin. Honestly, it fits wolves, right? ‘Betas’ being subservient to ‘Alphas,’ like with you and your garms.”]

An apt analogy there, Hestia.

As I was nodding to her statement, Hestia suddenly frowned. [“So…Uhhh, what is that [Watched by Edna] title?”]

…

Watched by Edna

A title given by the Goddess of Monsters and Fertility, Edna. This title has no special effect outside of informing the owner they are watched by the Goddess

…

Hestia and I were both speechless, unable to understand why a subordinate goddess was watching me, and a Marsven pantheon goddess at that. Didn’t we just murder a whole battalion full of their followers?

[“Well, I do remember that Edna was a tamer when she was a mortal. The best tamer in the world, I believe. The one who managed to tame the most powerful and tyrannical monsters you could think of, if that lore book could be believed,”] Hestia pointed out, referencing that one book she found in from the elven ranger's shed in the Belzac Forest which described the creation of the dark elves. [“You are a Belzac descendant, which means you’re a monster wolf. It makes sense since she’s the goddess of monsters. Or, you impressed her with your newfound tamer skills… maybe, that’s less believable. Or, she’s interested in the fact you’re mutated monster type like me.”]

[“So why have you not gotten that title yet?”]

[“It was just a guess, Saori. Hmm, maybe it’s because I’m already associated with Aurena and Kargryxmor? Dragons are specifically ruled over by the Dragon God, so maybe she’s less interested in me? And Belzac was one of Marzven’s followers, so maybe she sees you as more fair game?”]

It was all speculation at the end of the day. I had no idea why she was keeping an eye on me, but that could wait for another time. If we couldn’t figure it out now, we’d look into it later when we had a chance.

Humanize.

[Humanized (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

Thank goodness, I am still a wolfkin.

Drinking Hestia’s blood was just a spur of the moment decision, as I remembered Hestia mentioning something about two light novels she’d read, one about a slime and the other about a spider. I have no idea what they were about, but I did remember how those two would eat monsters to gain skills and abilities.

That brought me to an epiphany. What did those echikobold druids do during the fight? Drink the blood of monsters to gain strength and morph their bodies to fight us. While I knew I wasn’t a druid, the possibility of drinking blood and having it transform my body was a sensible idea on Peolynca. I would be called mad if this were Earth, but we weren’t on Earth anymore.

Since my evolution choices were sparse and lackluster, I just wanted to try it out, and to my surprise, it worked. It does make me question what secret lay in Hestia’s blood, but we could figure it out another day. Going back to my evolution, when I saw the new evolution choice, I was extremely excited about the lightning part, but I was a bit reluctant to turn into a dragonewt. I got so used to my new body that the possibility of having my race change another time made me a bit apprehensive.

In a way, I am admitting that I’ve accepted my fenrir background with this insecurity but… Okay, there was no but. I didn’t want to disappoint my garms nor did I want to deal with any dragonewt related stuff when I still had to find my students and support Aurora.

After we returned to the camp, I made everybody dinner with Tasianna’s help and went to sleep. In that time, I also tried to ignore Wulf’s constant “sister” remarks despite knowing what he actually meant with it. He honestly acted like a puppy when he talked to me, making me question how he was in a relationship with Verdiena.

I also heard Lucia and Tasianna already drained the excess mana from the battle grounds, although we couldn’t enter the cave. This forest was already inhabited by monsters, but considering how much mana Hestia and the shamans used during their battle, I don’t think having too powerful monster spawnings in this relatively low ranked area would be the smartest idea. Lucia kept the macula plants she’d harvested with her seeds while we kept ours, meaning we had a mana water refill.

In the morning of the next day, the kid Hestia kept calling “Roosterhead,” whose actual name was Leif, woke up confused about what happened. When his companions explained everything to him, he was shocked to learn that our party rescued them, especially Hestia. He quickly apologized to Hestia for their previous fight… after Wulf and Lucia both figuratively and literally kicked his butt.

Now with everybody able to move, we began to make our way back to Firwood. As the adventurers were still quite weakened from their experience, we didn’t want to simply leave them like this in case another grimgarian battalion was around. It wouldn’t be a surprise if another scouting group or something came to investigate what happened to the previous group, after all.

We had to spend a night on the roads as a result, but we finally made it back to Firwood the next day. We said goodbye to the adventurers and then went with Cernust to meet up with Severa and Antonio. Cernust stayed behind with them while we said our goodbyes the moment we received our Quest confirmation notice, heading over to the mercenary guild to hand it in right away. And with that, not only did we make some good money, but we also finished another Quest.

Now, most adventurers probably would have relaxed and hung around in an inn for a while but… we had other plans. We had to depart towards Griffonpeak as soon as possible, not just because of Hestia’s duty as a champion of Aurena, but so that I could look for my students. Gael and Marianne couldn’t tell me whether they had left the capital, as the church was being rather secretive about them, but that wouldn’t stop me from looking deeper into it. I’d evolved and become stronger for a reason, and with this power, I wouldn’t stop until I made sure they were healthy and fine.

That was my last responsibility as their teacher.

A few things happened since we needed to say goodbye to everybody in Firwood, but thankfully, nothing serious enough to delay our departure again. Although, there was one surprise — something we hadn’t expected to happen this early.

“Lady Hestia! Miss Saori! Miss Tasianna! Ellaine Fiero Helvas, ready to join!”

Ellaine hadn’t gone with her mother and brother to Griffonpeak.

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Chapter 163: Goodbye, Firwood.

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"I’ve already received a report from Marquess Sirius and Antonio about what happened but, haaaa… hearing this from you, kiddo, makes it even more problematic. A B rank High Ogre. That means the King or Lord of this army must be an A rank at the very least.” Inside his office, Farron massaged his temples, frowning as worry and anxiousness clouded his face.

“Wait, Lady Hestia, is that really what happened?!” Ellaine exclaimed in disbelief.

According to the original plan, Ellaine was supposed to join her mother and brother in their travel to the Kingdom of Artorias’s capital, Griffonpeak, to help her family form an excuse for her to leave the royal academy and join me. However, Ellaine had decided to stay behind against her mother’s wishes. For somebody like Ellaine who had always meekly followed along with her house’s decisions, even if they were to use her as a political tool like when they had her become my lady-in-waiting, imagining her being rebellious was something else.

She’d informed her mother that a rumor was circulating amongst the young noble ladies that Ellaine was already considered my retainer, and that she was becoming something like an ambassador for Artorias as she traveled with me. She would speak with foreign dignitaries under my guidance and establish friendly contact with the other races west and north of the Kingdom.

Regardless of whether it was true or not, people were already speaking about it. Ellaine’s mother was proficient enough in politicking that she understood rumors like these were a double-edged sword. The prestige of House Helvas had risen since the Chezaic tea party, but if Ellaine were to return to the academy without me, people would second guess the rumors. That could be detrimental for their house, regardless of what people thought of me.

Her mother still tried to argue against it, but Ellaine remained steadfast, not accepting anything else but to join me earlier. She even explained the skill system to her mother, informing her that it would be better for Ellaine to train earlier and level up with me. The moment she showed up at the academy with me and her newly acquired strength? That moment would be far more beneficial for both her House’s reputation and her own than if she arrived separate from me.

So, that’s how Ellaine got her mother’s permission to stay behind and join me earlier than expected. Naturally, I was surprised. Ellaine didn’t seem like somebody to defy her parents, but it happened, didn’t it? I guess she regained some confidence after everything that happened; either that, or she was just that invested into traveling with us as a friend.

Either way, Aurora was a four woman party from now on, and we immediately integrated her into our party and everything we did.

As we also had to report what happened during the Quest to Farron, we thought it was the perfect time to bring Ellaine with us for her inauguration into party Aurora. Technically, we had to inform the merc guild of this stuff, as our fight against the grimgarians happened during a merc Quest, but our handler there told us to inform the hunter’s guild about it instead. It worked out in the end.

Melia was currently doing the necessary stuff to make Ellaine into an adventurer downstairs while we were talking with Farron. Interestingly enough, this was also our first chance to help Ellaine adapt to our party’s culture. And that was being casual and not sweating the formal stuff.

“Uh, yeah, that big guy nearly crushed my neck. I heard it loudly crack after I was helped out by Saori and Tasianna. Oof, B ranks are scary.” I say that knowing full well that Saori and I were also B ranks, especially since I would have turned that ogre into a puddle of melted flesh if he hadn't been wearing his now destroyed armor.

“This was your second fight with a B rank, right? Glad you three made it out in one piece,” Farron praised us to comfort us from what happened. “Random encounters like these can happen all the time while you’re out there. You met the onnikais this way too, right? Have confidence in your strength, but always remember to curb your recklessness; otherwise, you might end up like me, kiddo.”

Urgh, now his lecture sounds like Saori’s.

“I agree,” Saori nodded her head in affirmation. “I should have done a better job scouting ahead before we entered the cave. It also taught me I should have put more trust into my teammates instead of demanding from myself to do actions despite it not being the most advantageous.”

Similar to when I evolved into a B rank, Saori’s wolfkin appearance hasn’t changed much except for a few additions. Just as my dragon form’s core also appeared in the middle of my chest, Saori’s arms had streaks of white fur ending at her hands, used to store her black electricity while she was a wolfkin. If she were to become a full human, I was sure she would lose her ability to use [Stygian Voltage] altogether, since it was a racial skill linked to her white fur.

“Well, it is true that the high ogre was a tough opponent. Actually, I’m pretty sure we just got lucky with the cave flood we created; if he hadn’t been severely injured by that, I don’t think we would have won. Well, here’s hoping that Saori’s evolution will help our party’s strength,” I sighed at the thought of even more crazy B ranks.

I’ve fought four B ranks before, though three of them were the wyverns. The two snow-type wyverns, thankfully, had only evolved recently and were extremely weak to my fire magic, which gave me enough of a chance to defeat both of them with Saori and Tasianna despite only being an upper C rank back then.

However, this high ogre and Astalos back then were at a completely different level from me and the snow wyverns. The ogre had powerful weapon abilities, giving his already high stats a boost with gear, while Astalos was just a very old B rank, on the edge of evolving into an A rank. They were dangerous and it proved we had a long way to go.

I think it was about time we had a proper grinding phase again. We needed to grind up Job and skill levels. Evolving was impossible until I matured and increasing my level when I had a soft cap imposed on me was too hard, which meant going through our Job list should be our next goal.

“Lady Hestia has already mentioned the grimgarian army, yes? If a battalion was hiding like this in your land, then please be aware more could be scattered around in the other duchies. It is a possibility,” Tasianna pushed the subject even further, reminding everybody of an impending grimgarian army.

Farron sighed and nodded, aware of the preparations he had to do. Ellaine was unexpectedly really quiet despite it involving her own kingdom, which made me think she didn’t know what to say.

The first thing Ellaine had to do as our teammate was to adapt to our party’s culture and also the crazy stuff happening around us, which included something like this. The other part was speaking habits and staying casual with others, something Ellaine was slowly getting used to but still found it weird that commoners like Farron weren’t addressing nobles like Lord Sirius with their full titles in private.

In any case, we informed Farron of what happened, so our business here with him was over. He also said we shouldn’t worry too much about it since we weren’t from Artorias.

“Oh, before we go, ahem, kriiiaugh kriiiiekk kreukkka?” I growled, causing Farron’s left eyebrow to be raised suddenly. Did he understand me? “Uhm, well you see, I learned a few things during the Quest and also an important fact about my lineage. Uhh, hope you understood that ‘cause I really need your help with that. You should have contacts right?”

Farron nodded. “Yeah, understood. Your growls are still pretty hard to understand, though. Still, I’ll try to do something about your ‘fire problem.’”

I breathed a sigh of relief, hopeful that Farron could do something about my dragon mother’s potential rampage. Once that was done, curiosity appeared and I couldn’t help but ask him, “Well, I suddenly have a question. It confused me back then, but I think I understand it now. Is Priscilla’s perfume ‘authentic?’”

I did not mention that Cernust was a dragon, as he’d asked me to keep quiet about his identity. Dragons and drakes didn’t want to attract too much attention during their adulthood pilgrimage, since dragon slayers could be hiding in plain sight as adventurers. Cernust told me dragon hunters and slayers did not care if you were an intelligent dragonkin or not, as most hunted dragons for either the power, fortune or a personal agenda. And here I thought I was being too paranoid about it.

“Hmm, I see, well I’m glad you had an epiphany,” Farron replied, understanding the message in between the lines. “Priscilla’s perfume is partly authentic, like her mother’s. I didn’t mean to keep it a secret from you, but I just wanted to keep her safe. Do me a favor, though, keep it a secret alright?”

I nodded. Ellaine looked a bit confused, as I hadn’t had the time to explain the dragon stuff to her yet.

“Of course, I will. Then… I know this is a sensitive subject for you, but just let me help you alright? Don’t decline as you’ve done so much for us. Your ailment, how do we cure it?” For everything Farron had done for us, from giving us tips and to sparring with me, I really wanted to help him in order to return the favor. Also, as I knew he would probably have to defend his home from the grimgarian army in the future, so I wanted him to be in peak condition; he probably wouldn’t survive the upcoming war with his bad lungs.

Farron sighed, telling me I didn’t owe him anything, but he still handed me a piece of parchment with a list of ingredients for the medicine he needed. “The crystal lungs were caused by a basilisk. Nasty creatures that can slowly turn your flesh into stone with their venom, and the one I met was especially nasty. Don’t risk your life for this old man, alright?”

After saying our farewells to Farron, we went back down to pick up Ellaine’s ID where we informed Melia about our departure.

“Oh, really? Ahh, that is a shame but do know that I will be rooting for you three and, of course, your new member. Lady Ellaine, please, here is your ID back,” Melia said in her usual smile.

“Oh my,” Ellaine gulped as she stared at the G on her ID, marked with the emblem of the hunter’s guild. ‘Cause of her low level, exceptions couldn’t be made for Ellaine to be promoted to our party rank, meaning we had to start grinding Quests to raise her rank, too.

“Party members of a lower rank than the average of your party are allowed to participate in any Quest you may take, Lady Hestia. However, please be aware that they will not be able to take any rank point credits, as the guild assumes that your stronger members are completing the quests instead of the new members. To acquire rank points, Lady Ellaine must take Quests appropriate for her rank,” Melia gave us her last piece of advice. We were about to move to another city, which meant she would no longer be our personal handler anymore.

Saying goodbyes is so painful…

“Wha-?! You are about to leave?” Priscilla overheard us speak while she was carrying a tray of food for her father.

I already told Priscilla we would be leaving soon, but it seems the young girl still didn’t like the idea. I smiled and took out a shirt and dress from my storage. “I heard you couldn’t buy my concert merchandise from your father. So, here.”

The white-haired girl was flustered, having not expected me to suddenly bring up this subject. “Wha-?! But I-”

“Hey, you can’t reject it, alright? Farron did a lot for us, especially with all the sparring we did. Please, accept this as a way for me to thank him for his help and also the fact you are one of my big fans!” I winked. “Also, your perfume is nice but, if we get to meet again, I hope to see the real you~”

“Oh, uhh… Mhmm! That sounds really good, elder scale! I am pretty sure mother would love meeting you too!” And with that, I got Priscilla’s confirmation of her identity. Farron confirmed she was only “half-authentic,” which meant she was a dragonewt, not a dragon. It was a shame that I couldn’t speak more with Priscilla, but I guess we would have to save that for when I visited Firwood, again.

I gave her a quick hug before leaving the hunter’s guild, waving farewell to everybody inside.

“Hey, we’re all nomadic so I hope to see you again, Hestia! I’ll pray to the goddess that your next concert will be held where I’m going!”

“Damn! Gonna miss your food, Saori! You keep yourself safe, alright? Keep those kids under control before they rampage around recklessly, ahahaha!”

“Ahhh, I’m gonna miss Tasianna’s cold stares and harsh words. Thawing from that always made my heart rush~”

…Y-Yeah, let’s just forget the last group.

After the hunter’s guild, we went back to the mercenary guild for Ellaine’s registration. Having Ellaine with us meant she also brought some money into our party funds, so she paid her registration by herself. Once that was all done, Ellaine was officially a hunter and mercenary, a complete adventurer.

The rest of our day was used to say goodbye to everybody we knew in Firwood. Lorena and Ruld, the new married couple from Carine Village, were also saddened to see us go, telling us how much they owed me for everything we did for them. We’d only met Kraftja and Ogni twice, but they were the people we bought and ordered our first weapons from. Zeather and Quini were extremely helpful, as they kept our restaurant’s supply of ingredients and spices up.

“Thank you so very much for everything, Hestia. I owe my life to you and my current happiness,” Lorena said as she stroked her pregnant belly. “Me, Ruld, and Carine Village will always welcome you, so if you ever need to rest, please visit us!”

“Hmm, I see, the life of adventurers, right? Ogni, the old fool, is already grumbling for missing out on a chance to make dragonewt scaled armor, hahahaha! Tell you what. Here, have this token,” Kraftja, the dwarf woman, presented me with a small iron token with the symbol of an anvil and hammer etched on it. “Travelling dwarves like us forge these small tokens as a symbol of friendship. Since the males like my grumbling husband are always hard to speak with from how stubborn and prideful they are, these tokens can help you get closer to a dwarven blacksmith if you find one on your travels. Ogni made it out of boredom after he got a chance to work with your obsidian, ahahha!”

“Oi, woman! Shut your damn trap! Guh! Hey, girls! Don’t buy your gear from those bumbling humans! Get the real stuff from us dwarven blacksmiths and runesmiths!” Ogni demanded of us while covering up his embarrassment. It made Ellaine a bit uncomfortable, but she has to get used to it.

Lastly, Zeather had something to say, too, “Our master’s company is located in Cedaraille. If honored customers require anything, please, visit him. I am sure he will see the value in our continued relationship.” The foxian then handed us a piece of parchment after he finished writing his recommendation on it.

After this, we all went back to Ellaine’s home, as we had to prepare for tomorrow. We would have had to prepare Ellaine a set of gear too, if not for the fact her mother had already prepared something. Armor. The first member of our party to wear a set of armor was Ellaine.

It wasn’t like Antonio’s full metal armor, but consisted of a set of traveling clothes made out of monster leather, metal gauntlets, steel leg armor, and chainmail under it all.

Since Ellaine had suddenly decided to stay back, her armor wasn’t of the quality her mother wanted it to be, but Ellaine said it was alright as she wanted to earn her armor and weapon with her own efforts; in other words, she was ready to go hunt for monster materials to forge equipment from like a real-life monster hunter.

“You do know we can simply give you my scales or Saori’s fur, right? We shed them all the time,” I pointed out the fact.

“…”

Well, there goes her motivation, I guess.

However, while it was possible to make some good armor with our shed scales and fur, her weapons and catalysts would require us to hunt monsters as bones, organs, and valuable body parts were great blacksmithing and catalyst ingredients.

“How did your mother react to your wish?” I asked Ellaine.

“Not too well,” Ellaine admitted. “She was happy that I’d found enough courage to become your retainer but she still thinks I should have gone to the academy first and trained more before leaving. However, because of this, uhm, skill point shop? Well, I now have access to the skill point System, just like you three, so I thought it would be better to enter action immediately. Thanks to Lady Hestia giving me a title, I can increase my skills and level faster, so I determined training under you would be far better than staying at the academy.”

“What about your reputation?”

“I do not care about it anymore. I haven’t joined many social events after relinquishing my inheritance rights, making me more or less a pariah in the eyes of others. Until I am able to reveal that I will leave to serve you, nothing really will change with my academy life. Besides, the Chezaic twins will most likely continue attending the academy, and with what happened to their parents, I do not wish to meet them any time soon. They would probably use my separation from Lady Hestia as fuel to destroy what little reputation I gained from the tea party anyways.”

The Chezaic twins were the only ones who didn’t receive a direct punishment after the fairy affair. They lost their house and their parents were given the death penalty, but they kept their freedom, aristocratic status from their extended family, and lives. They would go live with their distant relatives and would attend the royal academy come spring.

“Hmm, if the social bullying will not stop, then joining us earlier than planned would be the better alternative,” Saori agreed. “Lady- Actually, now that we are teammates, we should begin talking more casually with each other. Of course, only in private, as I believe keeping it up in public would benefit us more. Would that be acceptable, Ellaine?”

Ellaine frowned for a bit, thinking, but ending up nodding in the end. “Yes, comradeship should be built upon trust and friendship. I am Lad-Hestia’s retainer, just like you two. If I must adapt to the party’s culture then I will. I must. Although, if that is the case, then why does Tasianna keep addressing everybody so formally?”

“It is her wish,” Saori answered.

“She’s stubborn,” I replied.

“Because Lady Hestia is my princess and I have the utmost respect for Miss Saori. At the end of the day, my role as a maid is my actual occupation and I believe it would be best to address others correctly so as to not sully my Lady’s name. I am sure Miss Josine and Miss Svena can agree with this,” Tasianna explained her actions.

““We agree.”” Svena and Josine simultaneously said.

The rest of the evening was spent making sure we had everything we needed for the trip to Griffonpeak. Once the next day came, we went outside with Ellaine to be met with a carriage outside the door. Apparently, Ellaine’s mother Marianne wanted her daughter to at least take the carriage to arrive at Griffonpeak, as she wanted to make sure we would be safe.

However, I rejected the carriage ride, since I believe having Ellaine get used to camping outside and journeying, in general, was more important. That’s why I told her we couldn’t fly over to Griffonpeak with her gargoyle as well, since she needed to build up stamina by walking. The moment she joined Aurora, I was ready to have her go through trials and trials to boost up her stats.

Sure, Marianne would probably be angry at me, but she didn’t think I would send a friend into an actual fight by spoiling her, right? I have always believed that strengthening your foundation was the best way to improve ever since I began my idol training, and what I will help Ellaine with will inevitably improve hers. Our party’s grinding session had to begin.

It was sad to tell Josine and Svena goodbye, but they, unfortunately, weren’t combatants. They weren’t like Tasianna, who could fully participate with Saori and me in a battle.

“Lady Hestia, thank you very much for giving me the honor to serve you temporarily. I am saddened that I cannot help you any further, but I will pray to the goddess for your safety,” Svena bowed at the gate.

“And I would like to thank you for helping me adapt to living inside a noble’s mansion. Thank you so very much for all your help, Svena. I will miss you,” I smiled, hiding the sadness that was growing stronger and stronger on this day.

Ellaine also said goodbye to Josine, giving her a large hug as tears began to flow down her eyes. “T-thank you so very much for all these years, Josine. Thank you so very much for everything. Without you, I don’t know how I would have survived these past years.”

“Please, be strong, my Lady. You mustn’t cry,” Josine tried to comfort Ellaine but couldn’t hide her own watery eyes. “Please, stay safe, my Lady. The moment you return, I can assure you I will immediately run to your side. So, please, come back stronger and braver, Lady Ellaine.”

Goodbyes are the worst…

With Barathan and Manuela also saying goodbye, Ellaine had to force herself to leave despite her heavy heart. There was still the possibility that we would meet all of them again in Griffonpeak, but just saying goodbye right now already seemed like it was final. For three months, Saori, Tasianna, and I had been living inside this mansion, making memories with the staff members and Ellaine. We were about to say goodbye.

Not only the mansion but everything about Firwood. Three months was a long time, especially if you spent every day going around the town, where we made a ton of memories. Becoming adventurers, buying our first weapons, opening our restaurant, and also my second concert. Then there were also the people we met.

And some of them were standing at the gate just now.

Farron, Priscilla, Gael, Zeather, Lorena, Ruld, a few of our restaurant’s regulars, and also some of the kids I saw watching me sing.

.

““““Se no ♫

Demo sonnan ja dame ♫

Mou sonnan ja hora ♫

Kokoro wa shinka suru yo ♫

Motto motto ♫””””

.

I honestly didn’t know how the kids learned that I was leaving. We told our regulars we would be leaving, but I never told them when we were leaving. It also surprised me that the kids even managed to learn the song despite not understanding a single word. I gave them the lyrics, but it was still baffling that they managed to do it in time.

[“Sneaky Gael. Look at his smug face, Hestia. He’s the reason,”] Saori told me with an “I can’t believe he would do that” expression, pointing at Gael who was leaning on a wall with a big grin. When I looked over to him, he winked, confirming Saori’s assumption for me.

Wow...but I should answer the kids’ hard work.

.

“Kotoba ni sureba kiechau kankei nara ♫

Kotoba wo keseba ii ya tte ♫

Omotteta? Osoreteta? ♫

Dakedo are? Nanka chigau kamo ♫

Senri no michi mo ippo kara! ♫

Ishi no you ni katai sonna ishi de ♫

Chiri mo tsumoreba Yamato Nadeshiko? ♫

"Shi" nuki de iya shinu ki de! ♫

Fuwa fuwari fuwa fuwaru ♫

Anata ga namae wo yobu ♫

Sore dake de chuu e ukabu ♫

Fuwa fuwaru fuwa fuwari ♫

Anata ga waratte iru ♫

Sore dake de egao ni naru ♫

Kami-sama, arigatou ♫

Unmei no itazura demo ♫

Meguriaeta koto ga ♫

Shiawase na no ♫”

.

Their blindingly bright smiles. That was exactly what I wanted to do the moment my dream was set. Bringing happiness and smiles to the faces of kids, teens, and adults. That is my first priority as an Idol. Sure, fame and money were nice, but nothing made my soul quiver with happiness nor made me weep tears of joy as much as seeing people singing my songs with elation.

Papa. Mama. This is the life I wanted so dearly.

It was rude to say, but I couldn’t stop myself from saying it.

As we said goodbye to all of them, I also noticed a boy with red hair standing close by with his party. Roosterhead. Lucia, Wulf, and Verdiena waved us goodbye energetically, while Raian nodded stoically. Roosterhead was frowning the whole time, but eventually slapped himself and bowed, shouting “May the fair goddess protect you and reveal your path forward, Lady Hestia! Thank you for saving me!” before running away with a reddened face.

What an awkward kid. Ehe, cute.

And then we were off. Firwood stood behind us as we walked east, towards Griffonpeak.

Sadly, we weren’t able to encounter any strong monsters on the road, but all the walking has made it clear that Ellaine’s legs weren’t used to traveling far distances, since she would use her gargoyle or a carriage for this purpose. She would tire easily despite how much she has increased her Stamina since I helped her out.

On the other hand, she was mildly competent when it came to camping and hunting. After all, I spent a whole week with her inside a forest where her knights and I were able to teach her how to survive.

Still, this did mean our travel time took longer than we expected. It allowed us to get closer, especially Tasianna and Ellaine, but it did mean we had to get Ellaine more fit if we wanted to travel.

It took us a whole week to make it to our first stop on our trip to Griffonpeak. The capital of the Greenveil Duchy, Cedaraille, a large city with access to a dungeon.

And what does a dungeon mean? Grinding time.

A note from AbyssRaven

Well, that was it, the Firwood Arc is finally behind us and the group starts moving to their next location. I wonder what they will experience next on that dungeon trip, eh?

Also, I would like to announce that my patreon's third milestone was reached and I've added additional chapters for Tier 2 and Tier3/Tier4. One more chapter and two more chapters respectively, in fact, for a total of 9 forward chapters for Tier 2 Patrons and 17 chapters for Tier 3 and Tier 4 Patrons.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Side Story 24: Firwood.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #2 her to promote our Patreon. 17 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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“So, this is Firwood.” A town named after the numerous fir trees in its surroundings, Firwood was almost large enough to be classified as a city by the Kingdom of Artorias’s standards. Considering that Firwood was able to protect itself with walls and had enough space to separate itself into several neighborhoods, including a commoner’s and noble’s district, it was more or less a city to me.

“Hey, why are you looking so doom and gloom? We finally made it to Firwood, the town closest to the Belzac forest. You know, the place where your coffee substitute is. Come on, smile more, Tatsuya,” a young man equipped in full armor with a sword and shield combo tried to comfort me, but I couldn’t help but look at it pessimistically.

A whole year and four months. We have been in this world for more than a whole year now.

My name is Tatsuya Nagata, a Japanese guy who was summoned to the medieval-like world named Peolynca about a year ago. In this time, I have been taken in by a church who called themselves worshippers of the Goddess of Light, Aurena, and was tasked by them, the very ones who were the ones responsible for summoning me to this world, in other words, my kidnappers, to defeat some king or lord from a race called the demonkin as a “Hero of Aurena”. In other words, I was to fight and kill the demon lord.

Now, most edgy, cringey high schoolers would probably believe this was an amazing idea straight out of a fantasy book, but when a religious faction was constantly breathing down your neck, you will feel quite stressed from the constant pressure. Aside from the fact that they were forcing me into life-threatening situations where I had to fight against monsters or people, they also thought it was smart to use me as part of a religious propaganda campaign to convert more ruling nobles and royals to the church, increasing the church’s wealth, power and influence.

How fun does it sound when you know you were just a pawn and all the “influence” you had as a “Hero” was merely some propaganda spread by the church? I was even made aware that they could denounce me at any time, robbing me of the one reason why I was helping them in the first place. To get a fucking ticket back home to Earth.

Yeah, brilliant, right? A dream come true…

“I guess that’s true,” I absent-mindedly replied to Kyouya’s, my best friend’s, comforting words. “We need to grind some levels and get some monster materials. Belzac forest is considered a C rank monster area in its depths, right? We can use the perimeter to grind. Stock up on Tamae-san’s potions and curatives, and we should be able to last for a couple of days before needing to return.”

Well, at least planning grinding sessions is similar to that fantasy MMO I loved to play.

As I was sighing at our current situation, a woman in white armor waved at us to come closer. Her overall appearance was similar to that of a Scandinavian woman I saw on the internet with her silver-white hair and sky-blue eyes. Wielding a long white ivory spear, she exuded an aura of confidence hidden behind a veil of laxness.

“Oh my, oh my. Tatsuya and Kyouka. Always the two last to arrive. Ok, enough teasing, hahahaha!” she chortled, pointing out my habit of admiring the buildings of any new city or town our group would arrive at, and how Kyouka would always bring me back to reality. “Anyways, welcome to Firwood, everybody. Home of the Kingdom of Artorias’s exotic spices and product farms, usually exclusive to the Belzac and Saelariel forest. Enjoy the food and don’t worry, the street vendors cover up the gamey taste of the goblin meat well with spices.”

That was one of our guardians assigned to us by the church, a commander of the Knights of Aurena. Her name was Yorshka, an incredibly strong dragoon. Unlike most of the knights I’d met, who were more stoic and hard to approach, she oozed friendliness with a habit of teasing most people for a good laugh.

“As I mentioned before, I have some business at the local hunter’s guild, so please go to the temple without me. Tamae-chan, please follow the instructions on the map I gave you and bring Asaka-chan to meet the High Bishop, alright? Sir Elrick, make sure they stay safe and out of trouble. After presenting Asaka as a legitimate candidate, you may all do whatever you want. Accept Quests, do some shopping, enjoy the local cuisine. Just make sure to meet up at this inn again, alright?” Yorshka gave her orders to everybody.

We had just arrived at Firwood today after a five-day carriage ride from the Lecartiglio duchy. The reason why we came to this town was once again related to our duties as the “Heroes of Aurena,” and that was to present one of the two saintess candidates among our group to the local temples and churches. We were “Heroes” after all, and a saint or saintess was considered like the mortal representation of a god in this world.

Amongst our group, consisting solely of my classmates, two girls were selected as [Saint Candidates], and, since this world had a game-like system, they were attached as titles on their profiles. Those two girls were Aiko Hasebe — a friend of mine who was traveling with her party in a location I currently didn’t know about — and my party member, Asaka Hanazawa, a blue-haired delinquent girl with severe motivational issues.

Speaking of colored hair, it was one of the characteristics I noticed the people of this world had. Thanks to the existence of mana in the air, people could be born with various hair colors ranging from purple, green, and so on; this little fact that made our little group rather conspicuous.

A church party comprised five classmates and one knight guardian, who acted as the leader of the party. Due to some circumstances I created during my time at the church, my party was traveling with another, resulting in a large group of dark-haired adolescents. So, in order to not stand out even more than we already were, Yorshka suggested having our hair color changed with some hair product she bought for us.

I used to have black hair, but I was walking around with dark green hair now.

After Yorshka left for her own business, a young man named Elrick came forward. His blond hair combined with brilliant white his armor gave off the model example of a knight in shining armor; with his forthright attitude, Elrick made a good guardian for our party. “Everybody, the temple is close by, located at the gate leading into the noble district. Miss Tamae, would you please lead us there?”

Wearing a magician’s robe, the purple-haired girl that Elrick addressed was not only our ex-class representative, but also our parties’ enchanter and alchemist. With a nod, Tamae replied with a swift, “Yes! Everybody, let us go.”

This phase always feels like a school trip…

Leaving our inn, one that felt like a mid-ranged hotel on Earth, we noticed a beastman conversing with two people — a girl and a young man. The beastman was a green-haired bovline, an ox beastman, and he was laughing merrily with a pink-haired girl and a young man in shining armor, presumably a knight.

“Thank you very much, Antonio! I really hope everything works out with your parents, Severa!”

“Yes, thank you, brother! Cernust will do his best, and I will make sure to learn much from him!”

“Don’t be so overjoyed just yet, you two. The hardest challenge still lies before us.”

Wow, so casual. In the Lecartiglio duchy, racism against beastman was pretty rampant, but here in Firwood? People are interacting with beastmen so normally. At least that’s what it looked like so far in this town.

Walking east, we eventually stopped at a large gate. Elrick announced our arrival with a scroll stamped with the seal of the church of Aurena in the Holy State Aureolis, causing the two guards to scramble as they quickly bowed and let us in. We were reverently greeted by a group of bowing white-robed priests inside the temple, all of them already alerted to our arrival over a week ago.

Entering the ceremonial room, a lilac-haired man in a set of decorated white robes stood at the altar, greeting us with his name, Theodore Sirius. After praying with the priests, which was the standard greeting for church members, Asaka moved forward without commenting too much about it. When we first started, she would always complain about how annoying it was until she realized complaining about it all the time was more annoying.

“Saintess candidate Asaka Hanazawa, first we would like to welcome you to our world Peolynca. As the High Bishop of Firwood, I acknowledge your status and would ask you to visit two villages in the vicinity of the Sirius March,” Theodore began. The duty of a saint was to bring the word of their god to the people, which meant a saint candidate had to do the same thing. “Last year, a tragedy happened in Carine Village where a group of bandits burned down the village and kidnapped a few of the villagers.”

“That is terrible to hear! Are the remaining villagers alright?” Kazumi, one of the girls from Tamae-san’s party spoke up, showing genuine worry.

Theodore nodded. “Yes, two brave adventurer parties successfully handled the issue, managing to bring back all the kidnapped villagers safely and subjugating the bandits. However, due to the fire, the village’s church was burned down. The temple is planning to rebuild it, so we humbly ask the Heroes and the Saint Candidate to bless the area in the Goddess’s name and to soothe the villager’s worries.”

“I understand. We will make that one of our goals. What is the issue with the second village?” Asaka asked.

“Rashan Village, to the northwest of Firwood. Just a month ago, the village and the local lord’s castle were besieged by a large horde of what was reported as undead, nearly wiping out all the villagers and soldiers. Two adventurer parties attempted to save the villagers from their plight but, unfortunately, further tragedy struck when they met their end in the ruins near the village. The local hunter’s guild had to increase the rank of the Quest to C rank,” Theodore explained, causing me to frown a bit as I was worried he was sending us to fight something even two parties of adventures couldn’t handle. However, this worry quickly disappeared with his next words. “Please, be at ease, a brave party of adventurers managed to fight the menace back and purify the area. The young lady leading this party was also a priestess of Aurena.”

Commotion. My classmates were baffled that a single adventurer party was able to appear tha quickly to solve the issue where multiple other parties could not. Some were relieved everything was well again, some like me — were happy we didn’t have to enter a dangerous battle, while a single person scoffed that the Quest couldn’t have been that hard.

“I see, that is wonderful to hear,” Elrick praised. “Pray, High Bishop Theodore, is there a chance we could meet this priestess? Lady Asaka is still mastering the teachings of our Goddess, and I believed it would be a great boon for her to learn from a traveling priestess. Capable and world-wise. So rare are they, no?”

By “teachings,” Elrick meant Asaka’s [Holy Magic], which was two levels away from evolving into [Sacred Magic], an advanced element. Honestly, I was quite curious about the party in general, as it was rare for us to speak with another capable adventurer party. Even if we were to hide our identities as heroes, hunters and mercenaries aren’t very fond of nobles or church members in general. We might not be actual nobles, but we look like ones with how we dress.

In our travels, most of our support and aid came from the church, and while that was helpful, it meant we had a severe lack of freedom and different perspectives. I wanted to learn how an adventurer priestess, someone who was spending most of her time on the field and away from her fellow clergy thought of the church. After they kidnapped us to this world, I couldn’t help but feel distrustful of the church, and I honestly wanted to know if I could trust them or not. Some concrete information would stop this annoying conflict inside me.

However, it wasn’t meant to be.

“Sadly, the priestess has already left for Griffonpeak about a week ago, I heard.”

Griffonpeak…Yeah, we were there during winter. Outside of training, we were always forced to attend those stupid balls with all those fake-smiling nobles and plotting clergymen. I don’t want to go there again if I can help it. Shame.

“If you wish to learn more about the party, you may ask the local adventurer guild for the party name ‘Aurora,’” Theodore seemingly read my mind, causing me to gulp. “Back to the topic on hand. Rashan Village requires a lot of moral and religious support in their dire time. Please help them, Lady Asaka.”

After Asaka accepted their second request, we were about to leave the church when Bishop Theodore suddenly intercepted us at the entrance. A carriage was waiting for him there. Was he leaving for somewhere?

“Ahh, excuse me if they may sound rude, but I have a question I would like to ask of you, heroes,” he began. “I heard from an acquaintance of mine at the capital that you all are students? From an academy?”

“A school, but I believe an academy like the royal academy is an apt comparison,” our second ex-class representative — who has an obvious crush on Tamae-san — Nishio answered in our stead.

“Ahh, thank you. I am quite interested in how education is handled in your world. If I may ask, did your educator also join you in your summoning?”

Why is he suddenly asking about Segawa-sensei? I thought suspiciously, a sentiment that Nishio seemed to share.

“No, they did not,” Nishio answered, giving no further information than was necessary to answer the question.

“I see, well, then I must bid you farewell. Due to the Spring Blessings, I must depart.” And with that, the High Bishop left on his carriage. I guess we will be talking with the assistant bishop from here on out.

Now, with our primary goal done, our party was finally allowed some freedom. Tamae-san’s group went off to visit the local marketplace and buy our supplies, while Daichi, the only person who was rude enough to scoff at what Theodore had to say, returned to the inn for his fire magic training. With Kyouya, Asaka, Elrick, and the youngest member of our party, Haruka, we also departed to find something interesting to do.

“Every single time. Visit this village, do our job here, do our job there. They can’t be more annoying, right?” Asaka let out her frustration, finally away from the temple. This was her real personality. “Great, I’m a candidate. But that doesn’t mean you can ‘request’ me to do all your jobs, especially when I can’t even say no to them.”

“Asa-chan, you are being very loud, ehehe,” Haruka, being the shyest amongst all of us, felt the most uncomfortable of all the curious eyes. Asaka, being a saint candidate, was wearing the white robe all white-robed priestesses needed to wear.

“Oh, sorry about that,” Asaka waved her hand as an apology. “But, even if I weren’t shouting, I’m carrying a large mace on my waist. A white-robed with such a weapon would attract attention either way. Hmph.” She shrugged.

Well, she wasn’t wrong. We were attracting eyes.

Moving away from the merchant district, where the temple and our inn were located, we entered the middle district and visited the marketplace. That was when my nose suddenly picked something up. My sense of smell might not be as strong as a beastman’s, but thanks to the system, my senses were becoming more superhuman the more I leveled them up. Lured in by the interesting smell, our little group ended up in a small shop manned by a foxian.

“Welcome, honored guest, how may this Zeather…Wait, is a fellow foxian amongst the honored guests?” the foxian suddenly asked, swerving his head around until he ended at Haruka. “O-Oh, please, forgive me. Zeather was mistaken. Zeather thought he found a brethren.”

“O-Oh, there is no issue. I’ve heard foxians say that about me a few times already, ehehe,” Haruka laughed awkwardly.

After arriving in this world, we heroes all received a personal unique skill fitting our personalities or any other details. Haruka received the [Foxian Slyness] skill, giving her not only the abilities and senses of a foxian, but also their smell. Because of this skill, she made a fantastic tracker and scout, but she couldn't be a combatant due to her personality.

Ignoring that, I began perusing the store and ended up at a small batch of tea leaves. The delectable smell they exuded invigorated my nose and body, stimulating my brain with energy. It was different, yes, but it was close enough for me to believe it was what I came to Firwood for: Coffee.

“Excuse me, do you regularly restock these fulinoe leaves?!” I snapped my head to the shop owner, looking at him like an addict who found his next fix. I probably wouldn’t have admitted it when I first arrived on Peolynca, but going nearly a whole year without coffee made me realize how much I missed and loved that stuff. It didn’t help that my mother could make a pretty good brew.

As I was looking at the foxian with anticipation, he frowned and shook his head, causing me to click my tongue. “Zeather’s supplier for the fulinoe leaves has recently left Firwood. Zeather does not know when they will return or if they will continue supplying our humble shop in the future, that is a question for Zeather’s master to discuss with them. Would honored customer wish to buy some leaves?”

Well, at least I can finally drink some. Damn! I really have to get into the Belzac forest for some seeds or something to grow on my own, since the shop only sold the leaves.

I nodded immediately. The foxian smiled greedily as if he just hooked in a fish and told us his price, “Five small silvites, please. 5000 Davi.”

“Deal!” I answered without thinking about it.

“Wha-HOLD UP!” But before I could shake hands with him to seal the deal, Haruko jumped in front of me and pushed me back with her tiny frame. “Are you an idiot or deaf?! 5000 Davi! That’s enough to buy a moderate mana potion, or two moderate health potions, or five class changes. We can’t spend that much money on a batch of those tea leaves, Tatsuya-kun!”

“Oh, there is a misunderstanding, honored customers. The price is per fulinoe leaf, not for the whole batch,” like a devil, the foxian swooped in causing Haruka’s face to pale even more.

“A-A single leaf?! For 5000 Davi?! This is insane!” she exclaimed.

“Sir Shopkeeper, these are the chu-” as Elrick was about to intervene by telling the foxian our identities, pushing our influence in that sense, Asaka grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

Looking at him with a chilly gaze, she ordered him to stand down, “Stop trying to bring the church into everything, Elrick. Dammit. People have trouble staying comfortable around us because of that exact reason.”

“Thank you, Lady Priestess,” Zeather thanked Asaka. “Mercurias wouldn’t have wanted Zeather to reduce a price simply for religious reasons in either case. Due to a lack of a supplier, the scarcity of these fulinoe leaves means, I must increase the price.”

“But 5000 Davi is ludicrous, far above what you may reasonably pay!” Haruka continued to argue. She might not be a capable combatant, but she was like a human calculator with how fast she was able to do calculations without a calculator. Due to this fact, she became the one responsible for our finances and would usually go with the shopping team to barter at the marketplace.

“That might be true, but this is a luxury product, no? You do not require it to survive and it is difficult to acquire in the first place, meaning the price must be adjusted to compensate for these facts. Indeed, Zeather even made sure these were high-quality leaves when Zeather bought them from Zeather’s supplier, as Zeather acknowledges how important it is,” the foxian argued.

“Yes, I do understand, but you are demanding five small silvites for a single leaf. Making tea with a single leaf will simply make it tasteless and watered down. Surely, you must understand this as a merchant, correct?”

“Zeather does, but that is why you must buy more leaves, honored customers. Zeather has sold these leaves to wealthier merchants and even a few nobles, which means Zeather does not lack potential customers. The small batch is evidence.” The foxian was actually quite brazen now that my head had cleared up from the fogginess of addiction. He was hiding behind a mask of courtesy, but his sense of money was ruthless.

However, Haruka was equally competitive. She might be a shy person but when passion hits, she just explodes in action, speaking faster and faster to fend off any arguments the opposing merchant would give to defend their prices. She aimed to get us the best price to reduce our need to ask the church for money.

However, even she couldn’t muster a good enough counter-argument to break the foxian’s sly smile. Eventually, Haruka managed to reduce the price down to 4000 Davi, but it was more or less a pity offer, since she was sure the merchant was still overcharging us by a mile. He complied with his customers and made them “happy” while still making a large profit, meaning he won by quite a bit.

For 12000 Davi, we got three fulinoe leaves, enough for a pot to share amongst everybody. I honestly wanted it for myself, but what could I do when the money belonged to the party. Our personal funds were quite low.

I thanked Haruka but couldn’t help but pout as we walked around the central marketplace. Since the snow was gone, the market was quite lively. Numerous people filled the area, bartering with merchants or eating from street vendors. Agitated customers, people savoring their meals, merchants advertising their goods, and so many others were trapped in a chaotic maelstrom of sounds, ringing inside my ear.

“- fuwa fuwaru ♫

Anata ga namae wo yobu ♫

Sore dake de chuu e ukabu ♫”

That was when my ears suddenly picked something up. I turned my head towards the location, noticing it led into an alleyway. Whether it was ‘cause of my curiosity or my foggy head, I left my group for a moment and chased after the sounds. It was a dead end, with a few young kids playing around. A few of them were singing.

A very familiar song, actually.

“Kami-sama, arigatou ♫

Unmei no itazura demo ♫

Meguriaeta koto ga ♫

Shiawase na no ♫”

Their pronunciation was atrocious, but if I focused enough, I was sure I was hearing Japanese. After being sent to Peolynca, we heroes had received a title called [Otherworldly Visitor], which had the effect of auto-translating any language to make it understandable for us; however, I was sure my title wasn’t working here because of how much these kids were botching the pronunciation of each word.

Renai Circulation?!

“Hey, hey, kids, Can I ask you where you learned that song?” I suddenly approached the kids, causing a few to look at me suspiciously. “Oh, sorry, probably shouldn’t have come here with my spear. I don’t mean to do anything to you. See?” I raised my arms up to make them feel safer. “I just wanted to know where you learned this song.”

“Who wants to know, huh? You weren’t there when it happened?” the tallest of them spat out, showing no signs of trusting me.

“Well, somebody who thinks you kids can’t sing it properly nor pronounce the words correctly,” I replied truthfully since I was a bit annoyed by the brat’s attitude.

“W-What?! No! My singing voice is good!” a small girl shouted back.

“Yeah! Yeah! You have no idea how Miss Hestia sang it! You can’t tell what is-OUCH!” It seemed my offhand remark caused the kids to feel offended, but before the kid could finish speaking, the tallest bonked him on the head.

Miss Hestia?

“Shut up, you idiot! Master told us to never reveal information unless we get paid! Don’t say her name to some stranger, either!” the kid scolded the younger one. “Go away, mister! Stop trying to bully orphans int-HEY, BEHIND YOU!”

The kid seemed to want to warn me of something; however, my skills [Danger Perception] and [Prediction] had already sounded the alarms a couple of seconds ago. I already knew somebody had followed me into the alley.

As my skills’ warnings were at their peak, I slipped past the wooden cudgel aiming at my head and dodged backward. As I assessed who just tried to attack me, three filthy men came into view, all bearing crude weapons like some second-class thugs.

“Fukin’ hell, how’d you miss dat, ya idiot?!” a guy from the back complained to the one who tried to hit me with a cudgel

“Shut up, those damn kids warned the brat. Fuckin’ hell, we gotta do this da hard’ay.” The one with the cudgel then turned towards me, pointing his crude wooden weapon at me. “‘and over ya stuff, rich boy, otherwise we’ll see you bleeding on the ground. Strip yourself naked, keheheheh.”

The other two unsheathed their weapons. One had a broken sword while the other had the only functional-looking weapon, even if it was just a kitchen knife. What is this cliche? Going into an alley to get mugged by some countryside muggers? It wasn’t even dark yet, this was a daylight robbery!

“Go away,” I gave the idiots a warning as I wasn’t in the mood for this.

“Huh? Look at this idiot, mate, he thinks-” However, idiots stayed idiots.

Gale Steps.

Without letting him say another word, I activated the unarmed ability [Gale Steps] in order to close the distance to my still-laughing, would-be muggers. I dashed forward, readied my spear and attacked. Of course, while I wasn’t intending to murder them, knocking them down or breaking some bones was a different matter.

Using my spear’s handle like a staff, I struck the cudgel goon’s shin with a clean hit, knocking him screaming to the ground as he grabbed his leg. From the sound of the impact, I probably shattered it. As they saw their friend falling down, the other two cursed at me and began moving. I did the same.

Knowing the knife-wielder was more of a “threat” I stepped to the side and aimed my spear handle. As he was about to swing his knife, I thrust the thrust the butt of my spear against his throat, causing him to drop his weapon and cough uncontrollably. I then brought my spear up and swung it down onto his back. A loud thud could be heard as he crashed on the ground, coughing and groaning at the same time.

When I turned my head to the last goon, his shivering hands dropped his broken sword before he ran away screaming hysterically. I could have chased him down with [Gale Steps], but I really wasn’t in the mood for it. Sighing, I turned back to the kids before noticing the kitchen knife-wielding guy had dropped his ID.

Mercenary guild… damn, what happened to these guys?

To earn money and build our confidence in battle, Elrick and Yorshka have been pushing us to grind up our hunter and mercenary ranks. Currently, my party and Tamae-san’s party had everybody at D rank for the mercenary and hunters guilds, meaning we had our fair share of both monster and human battles. Taking down robbers or bandits was just normal for me now… something a Japanese teen shouldn’t really experience honestly. Fighting has become natural… killing, on the other hand…

Everything to go back. By all means.

Regardless, just as we needed to earn money, I guess these muggers needed money, too. So did the robbers and bandits I fought. All of them were just farmers or former serfs who were forced into banditry ‘cause of their situation. It was a shame, but even on Earth that issue hasn’t been resolved yet.

I kicked the guy whose shin I broke unconscious and told the kids to run away before they woke up. Without saying goodbye, they rushed behind me and scattered. As I was walking out of the alley, a tall man with dark brown hair had his feet on top of the one mugger who ran away from me. Was this their boss?

“Yo, kid, hope you didn’t get hurt,” the man said, causing me to grip my spear harder. “Woah, no need to be so agitated. I’m not with these guys.”

“What do you want,” I skipped the pleasantries.

“Blunt, nice. Reminds me of someone, you know,” the man smiled as he remembered something good. “Anyway, do you know somebody by the name ‘Saori?’”

“Huh…What?! Hey, where did you hear that name?!” I demanded from him. However, he suddenly dashed out of the alley. “Fuck! Stop!”

When I turned the corner, the man was melting into the ground, no, it was a shadow. “See you later, Tatsuya! Stay healthy, you hear?” he shouted before disappearing completely.

What the fuck just happened?!

Questions were flying around in my head as I was digesting the situation. Did he really say “Saori?” Wasn’t that Segawa-sensei’s first name? How did he know Segawa-sensei’s name?! Wait, was he even talking about, there? Could there be somebody else with the same name in Peolynca? Wait, how did he know my name?! Didn’t he say “Tatsuya”?! Who was he?! How did he know all of this? Was he just mocking me?! What the hell is going on?!

All of these questions made my head spin, feeling slightly nauseous at the implications of the situation. I began massaging my head, as it felt like a headache was forming, and noticed that my head was covered in cold sweat.

“Tatsuya!”

I darted my head towards the sound, unsheathing my spear before pointing it forward.

“Oi, oi, stop, Tatsuya, it’s me!” as the red in my eyes subsided, the sight of Kyouya came into view. My eyes widened as I lowered my weapon, questioning myself what I was doing.

“K-Kyouya? You said my name?” I asked, feeling lightheaded.

“Yeah, dude. Oi, why are you sweating?”

As he asked me that, the rest of my party arrived. Asaka saw how I was holding my spear and asked if I was okay, “Are you that addicted to caffeine that you need your fix now?! Wow, Haruka, I think you should’ve tried a bit more about the price. Tatsuya needs his coffee.” She looked at me worried.

“I-I think so, too. I’m sorry Tatsuya-kun,” Haruka bowed in an apology.

W-Wait, why am I causing everybody so much trouble, again?! Dammit. Calm down, Tatsuya. You must have misheard. You must have. Segawa-sensei? She couldn’t have possibly been summoned to Peolynca — the church hadn’t summoned any other heroes besides my class.

Still, how did he know my name? Does he know the names of everybody else?

I decided to keep this information to myself for now. I didn’t want to cause everybody even more problems. I was the reason for why Tamae-san’s party had to stick with us, I was the reason why we even went to Firwood and why we had to pay a large amount for some simple tea leaves. I can’t afford to cause them even more problems. It would be better to talk about this stuff with Elrick and Yorshka later on.

After I made sure that I was alright in my friends’ eyes, we walked back to our inn where we waited for everybody else. Sometime during the afternoon, Tamae-san’s party came back with bags of ingredients and supplies, all bought so she could cook them. Even a noble’s chef wouldn’t be able to compete with Tamae-san’s cooking.

“You couldn’t get any potion ingredients?” Asaka asked Tamae-san.

“No, no, no, I did,” Tamae-san replied. When she unpacked the grocery, she complained she couldn’t get certain alchemical ingredients for her potion-making. “I got the common components from small potion shops, but usually when I want to get the high-quality ingredients I need to order them from the alchemical guild. As an alchemy guild member endorsed by the church, I have some priority over certain items if I can afford them, but I still need to visit the local guild for that. However, the one in Firwood is now a crater! Even the guild master died on the same night it happened, or so I heard, which is delaying the reconstruction. Lady Yorshka mentioned there isn’t a mage’s guild in Firwood either, so I can’t make our buffing potions.”

No buffing potions meant no Strength or Agility boosters. Our mages had buffing spells, but potions were easier to use.

“There should be some shops that sell what I need. Otherwise, we can ask the church. In any case, our preparations will require some more time.”

It was unfortunate, but stuff like this happened sometimes. Well, maybe a guild building turning into a giant crater wasn’t common. Actually, how did that happen? Did some giant laser shoot down from the heavens and scorch it? Haha, as if, that’s crazy.

After having dinner, Yorshka finally returned, looking far more relaxed than usual. She had a wide smile and, looking at her hair, she seemed to have taken a bath. I wonder what she did? Enter the local bathhouse?

“Okay, everybody~! I hope all of you had a good day in Firwood. Now, let me ask you, does anybody want to go to Cedaraille?” she suddenly posed that question to us after we just arrived in Firwood today.

“Commander Yorshka, why are you asking this now?” Elrick had a brow raised.

“Oh, because there is a dungeon in Cedaraille. I thought all of you liked the one in Griffonpeak, so I wanted to ask. Also, I noticed the local alchemy guild was destroyed somehow, so I wondered if Tamae-chan had a shortage of alchemy ingredients. Do you?” she asked innocently.

“Well, yes, I couldn’t buy certain ingredients.”

Yorshka nodded. “I see, then it might be better if we delayed our trip into the Belzac forest. The whole forest is infested with monsters that can inflict abnormal status ailments, meaning we need to be prepared. After all, you all are to train yourselves, and me helping out would go against that idea.”

She continued after sitting down, “So, I suggest we visit Cedaraille. It is about four or five days by carriage and has a bountiful assortment of alchemical ingredients since it is the capital of the Greenveil duchy. What does everyone say?”

And so it was decided. Tamae-san’s party would travel to Cedaraille to refill our stock of potions while my party would fulfill the temple’s requests with Asaka. It meant we had to split up, but it was temporary as always. I was sure nothing eventful would happen to either party, so there was nothing to worry about.

Well, except for the fact that my name was somehow known by a stranger. And also that a Japanese song was sung by some street kids. Honestly, this “simple” day was already giving me a large headache.

I need my coffee…

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Chapter 164: Cedaraille.

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“Wait, are you kidding me, there is a dungeon in Griffonpeak, too?” I asked Ellaine with an incredulous face.

“Yes, a B rank one. The Knights of the Lionheart Order, our Kingdom’s griffon knights, use it as a training ground for their veteran members. However, because the difficulty of the dungeon is rather high, it isn’t very popular with the average adventurer,” Ellaine explained, mildly blowing away the excitement I felt for the dungeon in Cedaraille. “On the other hand, as Cedaraille’s is ranked as D but possesses floors with varying degrees of difficulties, it’s far more popular with beginners. Mother said the first few floors are easy enough for F Rank adventurers while the depths can be too hard for B rank adventurers. In certain parts, I believe.”

“You’ve never been in a dungeon, Ellaine?”

Ellaine gave a wry smile at my question. “You’ve seen how inexperienced I was during our first hunt together, La- Hestia. I apologize, it’s still hard to get used to it all the time.”

“No need to worry, Ellaine. Even if Griffonpeak has a dungeon, I believe we should stay here for a bit just to experience a dungeon as well as raising our levels up. Although I really do want to continue our trip to the capital of the kingdom, I do not think rushing forward is a wise decision,” Saori comforted Ellaine before stating our party’s current goals.

Tasianna nodded, adding why we couldn’t stay here for too long, “Of course, we cannot stay here as long as in Firwood. Lady Hestia still needs to visit the cathedral in the capital, Miss Saori needs information on her own Quest, and Lady Ellaine needs to formally ask for time off from the royal academy. We will leave once SpringSun arrives.”

We had just arrived in Cedaraille a little while ago. As you would expect from a city, Cedaraille was big, far bigger than Firwood when it came to the wall surrounding the city as well as how crowded the streets were. Of course, it was nowhere close to how crowded New York was, but if I were to stretch my arm forward, I would definitely hit somebody, unlike in Firwood.

Technology-wise, it was around the same level of Firwood, where manatech was nowhere to be seen in the lower commoner district, rare in the merchant district, and abundant in the noble district. In other words, the basic layout of Firwood was similar to how the districts were divided here in Cedaraille. Evidence that Firwood took some notes from the duchy’s capital city before being built, according to Ellaine.

However, architecturally, there was a clear difference.

“The smell here isn’t that bad,” Saori pointed out, which I agreed with. The middle district of Firwood reeked of rubbish and toilet stuff, and most of the inhabitants would have too if they weren’t cleaning themselves in the local bathhouses or at home.

That’s when Ellaine was forced to answer our questioning stares, “Uhm, the local mage’s guild is responsible for the sewage system of Cedaraille.”

“Hold on, Peolynca already knows about sewers?” I raised a brow at what Ellaine just said.

“Do not be so surprised, Hestia. Even with where we come from, some cities managed to fund a sewer system to stop the horrible smells within their walls while others couldn’t, all during the same era,” Saori explained. Of course, she was speaking about Earth during the middle ages, keeping certain parts vague for the sake of any prying ears while we were still out in public.

Ellaine nodded, also understanding what Saori said. “Yes, that is the case. A sewer was actually under construction in Firwood; however, due to a problem with the slimes, it was delayed for a long time for lack of funds. Earth mages had problems constructing the system, as the architects were unable to design a working blueprint with Firwood’s geology. Then, water mages were needed to maintain the sewer water, but with Davison forcing the mage’s guild out of Firwood, the plans had to stop completely.”

Ahhh, in other words, a series of shitty problems… No pun intended.

“Slimes?” Saori questioned.

“Yes, do you three remember the slimes in the bathrooms of my mansion? Those slimes would be used to clean up the sewage canals. Of course, in an environment where they have access to large quantities of ‘food,’ the slimes needed to be regularly culled; otherwise they would grow far too large and numerous. Usually, this would be the water mages’ duties buuuuut… nobody respectable enough would want to do that.”

“You are implying hunter’s Quests, correct, Lady Ellaine?” Tasianna replied.

“Yes, work for adventurers. Sometimes other monsters enter the sewers, so a sewer usually turns into an undesirable training ground for beginners, or so I’ve heard from father and mother. Uh, I beg of you, please do not misunderstand and send me into the sewer, everybody. I beg of you, please, no,” Ellaine pleaded, looking for all the world like a scared kitten, terrified of being sent to train in the sewers.

Laughing it off, I now understood why she didn’t complain as much about the smell as our time in Firwood. “Ahh, so that’s why you didn’t mention anything about the noble district. I honestly thought you would want us to enter through the noble district’s gate, Ellaine. Well, it does smell rather nice here.”

Ellaine’s family had another mansion here as well. One in Helvas County, another in Firwood, a third in Cedaraille, and a final one in Griffonpeak. As nobles were expected to show up to balls during social seasons, they sometimes had to leave their fiefs or primary homes and travel to another city or town, requiring them to find accommodation. The most efficient way would be to build another home if you had to travel to certain locations a lot.

“Well, aside from the smell, I also knew you wouldn’t agree to it, Hestia. Hmmm, to be honest, I hope our inn will have proper beds instead of those thin mattresses over hard slabs of wood I’ve heard commoners have to sleep on. Sleeping on forest floors is just not good for my back or fatigue,” Ellaine complained, revealing how much she’d struggled with our travels this past week.

“Well, I guess we might have been a bit too harsh with your training.” As part of her training, I had used [The Will to Fight and Survive] to make Ellaine have infinite Stamina so that she could strain her muscles to the limit. Building up stats and overall Stamina was important for her.

As we walked through the middle district of Cedaraille, the big city atmosphere became more and more pronounced. People on the street calling people out to buy some suspicious stuff, adventurers manning monster material stalls, and areas on the street that were taken over by street food vendors. These were all things that also happened in Firwood, but not the sheer number of people crowding around the stalls for the simple pleasure of shopping.

Saori showed some interest in grocery shopping at the local marketplace, but finding an inn before noon should be our priority. The last thing we needed was to settle for sleeping outside or in some sketchy, rundown inn. And, with how many merchants were walking around on the streets and the large line in front of the city gates, we needed to hurry before the goods ones were all booked up.

[“Saori,”] I called Saori out using [Telepathy].

She replied immediately, [“Yeah, I know.”]

“Huh? Excuse me?” Ellaine looked confused as she questioned what we were talking about.

It’s a habit for me to use [Telepathy] on everybody in Aurora, however, since we haven’t gotten Ellaine to level up yet, she hasn’t earned any SP since she unlocked the SP shop to buy [Telepathy] from her shop, meaning she needed to speak to communicate until then. Her sensory skills weren’t high enough, either.

Without answering Ellaine’s question, Saori turned around and quickly swiped Ellaine’s pouch from her belt. While Ellaine was flustered, Saori loosened the strap on it and revealed the contents, or, rather, the lack of contents, to the sneaky little pickpocket before he could attempt it himself.

“Wrong targets, pickpocket,” Saori scowled at a young fox-eared boy in dirty clothes. A bolt of black lightning wrapped itself around her arm as she tied Ellaine’s pouch closed. “It is empty. Run along now, otherwise you might get into trouble.”

The young foxian’s eyes widened, looking terrified as he quickly nodded and merged back into the crowd without anybody’s knowledge. Ellaine shouted “Impertinent!” and questioned why Saori let him go, despite almost committing a crime against a noble; however, Saori held her back before she could chase after him.

“I do not like pickpockets either, but chasing after him now would be a waste of time. He looked agile and he knows the alleyways of his home better,” Saori reasoned with Ellaine, but she wouldn’t have it.

“With all due respect, Saori, letting a thief go without punishing him will only cause trouble for everybody else. He will not learn from this, and as a noble, it is also my duty to enforce the laws of my kingdom,” Ellaine stubbornly refused. If there is one thing her inferiority complex hadn’t dulled, it was her sense of duty as a noble.

As people were starting to notice us, I grabbed Ellaine’s shoulder and “ordered” her to stand down and to find an inn first before we do anything. She was reluctant, but as a noble, she couldn’t refuse the words of the one she deemed her mistress now. It was uncomfortable to do and caused some awkwardness between us, but I had to intervene. This is why we had to help her adapt to our party’s culture fast.

Also, there is the topic about the impending grimgarian war I have to talk with Ellaine about. I don’t feel it’s time yet…

After entering the merchant district, Saori picked out a decent-looking inn in the area. Not the best, since she wanted to save on money, but not the worst, either, as she thinks our party deserved some luxury after our trip here.

“Woooo, this is soooooooft. My poor legs.” Immediately after checking in, Ellaine tested the beds in our room before crashing on one like an exhausted athlete. She embraced her pillow and tried to reposition her posture until she reached the right spot. “Even this lowly bed is far better than the ground. I could just fall asleep now… Oh! Lady Hestia! My apologies.”

The moment her senses returned, Ellaine opened her eyes wide like an owl and jumped off her bed, snapping her legs straight as she tried to find an excuse for her behavior. Her bright red face combined with her flailing arms was adorable, causing me to chuckle a bit. Despite how often we’d been alone in a room together, she still hasn’t become comfortable enough to just let herself chill.

“Ellaine, let me just say this again, but I don’t care about our ‘Mistress and Retainer’ roles, alright? If you want to be serious about it, then by all means; however, you are my friend and party member first. That is Aurora,” I attempted to calm her down, worrying her tomato-colored face would overheat her head.

“Y-Yes, I know. I do apologize that we had to repeat this discussion again, but to repay you for accepting my selfish wish to come with you, I should be more competent, no?” Ellaine argued, feeling a bit impatient to prove herself despite the fact we have only been together for a week.

“And we are about to do some training to help you get to that phase. One thing I learned from my dance trainer during my idol trainee phase was to always solidify your foundation. However, how will you be able to train effectively if you never relax, Ellaine? You’ll stress yourself out,” I then tested my bed and jumped on it, relaxing immediately. “So, take some time to rest. A nap even. Until Saori and Tasianna come back from grocery shopping, no food to eat.”

We arrived just a bit before lunchtime, so Saori and Tasianna wanted to fill everybody’s belly before we stormed the dungeon of Cedaraille. After all, the trip from Firwood to Cedaraille was quite far — we even had to travel over a bridge built over the same river the barracudas travelled down during winter.

After Ellaine laid back on her bed, she quickly fell asleep, the exhaustion of a week of straight traveling weighing her eyelids shut. Our trip probably would have taken longer for an ordinary group traveling on foot, since it supposedly would take the same amount of time as we took to travel from Firwood to Cedaraille by carriage. We could have ridden Saori’s garms if it wasn’t to help Ellaine train.

It honestly felt as if she was trying to prove herself to somebody. Was it me or to herself? Well, whomever it was, I hope she’ll be able to feel more comfortable with us after the dungeon training.

A while later, Saori and Tasianna returned with some freshly-made meals they made in the inn’s kitchen, which they were able to borrow with the innkeeper’s permission. After we devoured everything, I took out the wooden bathtub I made in our travels for Ellaine, who felt uncomfortable bathing in the wilderness. Tasianna filled it up with water and I heated it up, which we used in a rotation to clean ourselves up. At least Ellaine wasn’t afraid of being naked in front of other girls.

Belly filled and refreshed, we departed from our inn after informing the innkeeper we would go to the dungeon. He didn’t say anything about it, but his worried face betrayed his real feelings about it.

“Don’t worry. The Goddess is on our side.” I snapped my finger before having my parallel minds show off ten spell circles at once. With level ten of [Parallel Thoughts], I finally maxed that skill, although now I have ten other minds speaking inside my head.

Our first destination was the hunter’s guild. We hadn’t been very active in Firwood concerning Quests, due in no small part to running our restaurant and taking care of Davison, so we had to begin climbing the ranks. A higher rank meant better Quests and recognition, after all.

After asking adventurers on the street, we eventually made it to the guild. As we were about to enter, a giant suddenly came out of the guild.

“Hmph!” he huffed the moment he saw us, looking irritated as we were blocking his way out. “Move.”

Giant wasn’t quite the right word for him, as he wasn’t significantly taller than me, however, I thought of him like that ‘cause his frame was far larger than mine. Muscles so thick they looked like rocks, slightly tanned skin with soot covering parts of it, a weird stone-hide covering his ears, and a massive orange beard and long oily hair accompanied by two ram-like horns on his head. Was he a ram beastman?

“Bladdarg! Move!” he bellowed out, making me quickly step to the side, letting him leave. He was huffing around as he stomped away in a bad mood. Did I cause that?

“Wow, I didn’t expect to meet a taz dwarf outside the mountains,” Tasianna suddenly said.

Dwarf?

As I asked her about it, she quickly began explaining, “Do you remember Kraftja and Ogni, Lady Hestia? They mentioned they were inko dwarves, correct? ‘Tazong’ is the word for ‘dwarf’ in the dwarven language, Inkong-gul, better known as the Undermountain Speech. An ‘Inko’ is known as a surface dwarf, those who dwell in the upper crust of the earth or mountain, seldom leaving to the surface.”

Now that I think about it, Kraftja did call herself an inko dwarf.

Tasianna continued, “Now, a ‘taz’ is known as an undermountain dwarf, those who dwell so deep in the earth that some might have never seen the sun before. They are bulkier than the surface-dwelling dwarves but are considerably shorter to help them fit inside their tunnels. While I do not know how it happened, taz dwarves are known as firebreathers. They are able to expel flames without needing to use mana, although it’s considerably weaker than a dragon’s.”

That is a dwarf?! Well, I can see it with his long beard, but I honestly thought he was a demon for a second with his horns.

“Pardon, Tasianna, but wasn’t he almost as tall as Hestia?” Ellaine questioned.

“She is right. Ogni was as tall as Hestia and so was that taz. I cannot call that shorter,” Saori agreed with Ellaine’s point.

However, Tasianna didn’t have an answer for that. As she shook her head, we decided to ignore this for now and head into the guild. The guild hall in Cedaraille was far larger than the one in Firwood’s branch, and even had a mezzanine, a second floor that acted like a balcony overlooking the first floor. The building was packed, including the mandatory installations like the training hall in the back, the guild tavern next door linked through a door, the questboard where all the Quests were posted, and, of course, the handler counter.

As it was past lunchtime, the liveliness inside was similar to Firwood, as most adventurers were out for work. Consequently, there was barely a line in front of the receptionists.

“Greetings on this wonderful LightDay, Miss,” I greeted the handler once it was our turn, doing my priestess impression.

“Thank you very much, Lady Shrine Maiden. May the Goddess bless you, too. My name is Cleo; how may the guild help you today,” a human woman in her late twenties bowed slightly, greeting us with a professional smile.

“Yes, my party Aurora wishes to enter the local dungeon managed by the guild. I heard that you require a stamp from the guild hall to enter,” I recalled from Ellaine’s explanation. We four then handed the handler our IDs.

She accepted them graciously and began inspecting them, raising an eyebrow as she looked at Ellaine’s, the only ID of the four with a different design. “Excuse me, but isn’t this person G rank? The dungeon is ranked as D, meaning the guild cannot grant this person permission to enter for their safety.”

Ellaine’s eyes twitched as she heard this, smiling wryly as she knew this would happen. I patted her shoulder, telling her she was far stronger than G rank and returned my gaze back to the receptionist to clear up the misunderstanding, “Miss, please look at the remaining IDs. Our party is designated as E rank and we will be bringing the G rank with us for training. That should be allowed, correct?”

As she returned to her inspection, she quickly apologized for what she said before, confirming we could request permission if our party’s rank was adequate. A party’s rank was determined by the average between all members and while Ellaine’s G rank brought us down to E rank, we were still high enough due to Saori’s, Tasianna’s, and my rank. Luckily, Farron was nice enough to make us D rank. It was another reason why we should start grinding adventurer rank.

“Lady Ellaine Fiero Helvas, Miss Tasianna Marina Silverpond, Miss Saori Segawa, Lady Hestia Atsuko…Oh! Lady Shrine Maiden, did you perhaps just arrive in Cedaraille from Firwood?” Cleo suddenly asked me.

After I confirmed it, she nodded and informed us why she knew about it, “The guild master for this branch of the hunter’s guild has received a message from the guild master from the Firwood branch to look out for you and Aurora. I apologize for not recognizing you earlier. With the recommendation of Farron Nordor, Guild Master of Firwood’s hunter’s guild, permission may be granted. Please, wait a moment for me to imprint your permission on your ID.”

Farron? Jeez, old man. Worrying about us enough that you would inform another branch? Well, now I really have to help you out with your ailment… although, considering the ingredients, we will need to wait until we reach Griffonpeak to begin.

After we took back our IDs, we went over to the Questboard to pick up some Quests to help out Ellaine. In order for her to rank up, she needed to accumulate ten G rank points — usually equalling ten G rank Quests — however, she could also rank up by taking F rank Quests. Each F rank point was worth two G rank points. Fortunately, all of them were monster material collection Quests that fit into Ellaine’s power leveling goal.

Of course, we took more than just five F ranks; we took 20. Why? 15 F rank points were needed to rank up to E rank. As we planned to enter the local dungeon, we only took Quests which specifically mentioned monsters that spawned inside it.

When we showed our Quest choices to Cleo, she looked flabbergasted at the amount presented but nonetheless registered them all to our name. Once they were all under our name, we finally took this chance to change our Jobs, something we forgot to do in Firwood in our excitement to leave.

Job: Aggravator

Requirements: 1000 Health, 400 Intelligence, 500 Vitality, 500 Wisdom, [Fighter]

Acquirement Benefits: Health increase, Vitality increase, Wisdom Increase, Stamina increase, [Enhanced Health Growth] proficiency

Main Job Benefits: [Taunt]

Individual [Sunfang Dragonewt, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has switched her Main Job to [Aggravator]

Main Job benefits have been updated due to Job change

Aggravator Level: 0/5

Job Ability gained: [Taunt]

Oh yeah!

It was an obvious choice, an improved version of our party’s “Concert Farming” strategy. As Ellaine wasn’t the strongest currently, me being able to completely direct a monster’s attention away from Ellaine was important to keep her safe while also giving me a chance to lure monsters closer to me for quicker kills.

The requirement was quite steep for a beginner-class Job, since you need stats around a D rank adventurer to get [Aggravator], but I guess it made sense for a tank to be strong. However, what fighter would reach 400 Intelligence easily?

Back to the Job changes, Ellaine was the only one who couldn’t change her Job as she switched from her [Magic Tinkerer] to [Fighter] after the hunt we did together, and without being able to level up, she would have to wait to change her Job until after we were done. Saori and Tasianna switched to [Dark Mage] and [Storm Sorcerer] respectively.

As we were about to leave the guild, I heard some people whispering about our party. Most of them were baffled by what they had heard the receptionist say about Farron’s recommendation and our twenty accepted Quests. The rest, however, were a bit less confused.

“Are they the same people who spied on us when we entered the city?” I asked Saori as our party was on our way outside the city towards the dungeon, covering us all with an [Air Shield] to prevent people from eavesdropping.

Saori nodded, so I gave her another question, “Did you look into them while you were outside shopping for ingredients?”

“Uno did. He spied on them for a bit and relayed the information through [Telepathy] to me. They belong to a noble, but I am not sure from which house,” Saori informed us all.

Ellaine listened, thought it through for a moment, before giving a possibility, “It could be Lord Duke Greenveil’s. In addition Lord Marquess Sirius and His Majesty, Lord Duke Greenveil was also given your information, as you stayed in his duchy.”

I frowned, shaking my head in frustration, unable to help but think of the worst possibility. “If that is the case, then I really hope he doesn’t drag us into his problems. We are staying here for a bit and then we will leave, nothing more. No noble’s scheme, please.”

Please, please.

A note from AbyssRaven

If you guys haven't seen it yet...here you go:

That's right! Dragon Idol's cover art! Say goodbye to the adult dragoness with the spear, now you guys get the teen dragoness with a microphone! Technically, Hestia doesn't have her microphone yet, but well, I wanted the art to show her singing.

Anyways, thank you guys so very much for all the support. We've gotten Hestia, Saori, and Tasianna as art already and now the story has a cover! Honestly, it's incredible how far the story has gotten. With the addition of Ellaine, we do need her in art form now. Can't wait for that to happen!

All the support you guys have given me, whether it's reading on RR or pledging money on Patreon, all of it helped me achieve this success today.

Special thanks to dinal06 over in Fiverr for helping me create this. Head over to his profile with this link if you guys need some art: Link

And with that, welcome to the new arc! I'm sure we will have a fiery good time...no pun intended.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 17 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 165: “Emerald-Flare Forest” Dungeon.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #1 her to promote our Patreon. 17 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 17 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until June!

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Party Leader

Name: Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor Level: 83 Job: Aggravator

Health: 5143/5143 Mana: 17511/17511 Stamina: 3043/3043

Effects: [Humanized (Moderate)][Damaged Mana Path [Left Wing] (Minor)]

Name: Saori Segawa Level: 80 Job: Dark Mage

Health: 5162/5162 Mana: 3947/3947 Stamina: 3710/3710

Effects: [Humanized (Moderate)]

Name: Tasianna Marina Silverpond Level: 58 Job: Storm Sorcerer

Health: 2208/2208 Mana: 5971/5971 Stamina: 1521/1521

Effects: [Elvenized (Major)]

Name: Ellaine Fiero Helvas Level: 23 Job: Fighter

Health: 539/539 Mana: 781/781 Stamina: 691/691

“I’ve set the experience share to 20% for Saori, Tasianna, and me while you, Ellaine, will receive the remaining 40%. That should be fair,” I stated after closing the party screen displayed on my party bracelet.

“Fair would be 25% each, Hestia,” Ellaine remarked before shrugging in exasperation. She knew she got the higher share only ‘cause of her significantly lower level.

After showing our IDs and the dungeon permission from the guild to the gatekeepers, we were allowed to enter Cedaraille’s dungeon “Emerald-Flare Forest.” Currently, we were descending a set of stone stairs into the depths of the dungeon’s cave entrance. Numerous adventurers were walking past us, either accompanying us down or returning to the surface for a well-earned break. Just like the city itself, the dungeon was equally crowded and lively.

“I’ll be honest, Ellaine, when you mentioned that the two adventurer guilds were responsible for the dungeon, I didn’t think they would own everything. The gatekeepers were hired adventurers instead of soldiers and the entrance hall was built by the guild. Since the dungeon is in the land of Cedaraille, shouldn’t it belong to Duke Greenveil?” I asked Ellaine as we were walking down, confused why the duke wasn’t taking care of a dungeon, a veritable gold mine of monster materials and resources.

Ellaine nodded, understanding my confusion, and answered, “The dungeon does belong to Lord Duke Greenveil.”

“It does?”

“Yes. The right of ownership belongs to House Greenveil since the dungeon is in their fief. The reason why the adventurer guilds are operating it is simply because House Greenveil leases the operational rights,” Ellaine continued explaining. “The main users of a dungeon are obviously adventurers, right? While maintaining full control over the dungeon would be the more financially lucrative method, it would mean that House Greenveil would have to dispatch their soldiers and knights to protect the dungeon and handle the rowdy adventurers as well as appoint administrators and tax collectors to oversee everything. Adventures know their own the best. With this deal, Lord Duke Greenveil will have his dungeon maintained without spending resources on it, while on the other hand, the adventure guilds can benefit from the influx of money from a dungeon. A win-win.”

“Ahh, I see. With benefits, do you mean all the Quests concerning material gathering for the hunter’s guild while the mercenary guild can hire mercenaries to guard the dungeon and use them to calm down any problematic ruffians?” Saori added, leading to Ellaine confirming it.

Ahh, so that’s why there were so many combined subjugation and delivery Quest types at the questboard.

Quest List

[Kobold Meat Delivery]

[I require 15 venom stingers from Gaspar Wasps]

[The Alchemy Guild requests the Hearts of Seven Dire Wolves]

[15 Skorr tusk pairs Delivery to Hevarson’s Workshop]

[…]

The four Quests I was currently looking at were from a set of 20 F rank Quests we accepted from the hunters guild. Each of them involved hunting a certain type of monster, however, the real objective was to dismantle the monster corpses, harvest the requested parts, and then deliver them to the guild. It was recommended that we hand the corpses to the guild if we weren’t confident enough in our [Dismantle] level for them to do it without destroying the materials, although that would come at a cost. Luckily, we didn’t need it.

While we did only accept this type of Quest — it involved monster-hunting, so it didn’t matter what the objective of the Quest was in the end — there were a few ordinary Quests at the guild involving fieldwork. A monster problem around farms, a nest that needs to be exterminated, an issue in the Cedaraille’s sewer concerning giant rats and slimes, there was plenty to choose from. We chose our current Quests simply ‘cause we were intending to enter the dungeon anyways.

After some time walking, a bright light appeared at the end of this tunnel. Going through it, my vision was filled with green, brown, and a blue sky.

A forest?

“So a dungeon can create a forest, too?” Tasianna asked in bafflement, inspecting a nearby tree. “Yes, this is real. Although, I cannot sense any fae like spriggans around. I guess the dungeon can only spawn monsters or environments.”

Tasianna and Ellaine had never entered a dungeon before, similar to Saori and me. This was our first outing inside one, and all we had on dungeon information was what the former two had read in books or heard from people.

From what I understood, a dungeon was managed by a dungeon core and manned by a dungeon master, the one who would control the core to do their bidding. It was like a contract, where only the dungeon master had control over the core, and only once they perished would the ownership of the core become available to take.

Wild dungeons do exist and may appear randomly in the world or, in very rare cases like the one in the Ruins of the Fenrir’s Eclipse, be created through extreme mana concentrations. The one we were in was obviously owned by Duke Greenveil and he probably had somebody become its dungeon master, if he wasn’t the dungeon master himself.

“Dungeon cores can simulate monster spawnings using the mana inside them. While it happens randomly outside a dungeon, monsters can be created instantly or naturally over time,” Ellaine explained what a dungeon core could do. “Mana is essential for a dungeon, as everything it does is controlled by mana. Unfortunately, the only way for a dungeon to acquire mana is through spellcasters inside it, the death of a monster, or-”

“The death of a visitor, specifically, adventurers,” I finished her sentence.

Ellaine nodded and continued while we were walking through this dungeon forest, “The dungeon consumes any lifeless, or soulless for Ilsaphone followers, remains or items left behind in the dungeon at a certain point. This is how it acquires mana. I heard the adventurer guild would donate high amounts of mana filled materials to the dungeon if its mana were to drop to a certain point.”

“In other words, by going crazy with our mana usage, we can help maintain the dungeon,” Saori reasoned.

“Yes, that is why a high visitor count is important for the guild. Dungeons with lesser difficulties are the most popular since the risk of dying is lower, which gives the Cedaraille dungeon more traffic than the Griffonpeak one,” Ellaine finished.

Then an idea came into my mind as she finished her sentence. “What happens to a dungeon that is too hard? Would it be financially worthwhile to maintain it if only a small group can handle it?”

“It depends,” Ellaine started, pondering on the question herself. “The dungeon in Griffonpeak is only kept as it is since it serves as a great training ground for our royal knights. But, the materials they may acquire from the dungeon are valued highly due to the average monster ranks inside. A source of money and equipment for the royal family and their knight’s order.”

She then snapped her fingers, seemingly remembering something. “Father mentioned this one time when he himself entered a wild dungeon with mother and their party. After defeating the dungeon master, there was a decision to either turn this dungeon over to the adventurer guild or destroy the dungeon core.”

“Destroy? Why?”

“The simplest answer is to remove a dungeon, but that’s only partially true, since the shards left behind from a core could be used for the creation of manatech. For example, the ‘Orbs of the Divine System’ used inside guildhalls are made using these shards, which is one of the reasons why they are so expensive to buy and hard to acquire. Uhm, those dueling bracelets that my brother and I used during our duel were also made using these shards.”

So the reason why the orb was able to do all those System-related stuff was due to the material they were made from?

“However! Please, remember this, as what I have to say next is extremely important. You should never, ever break a dungeon core while it is still blue, indicating that it still has mana remaining.” Ellaine’s eyes widened, looking at us seriously as her words carried weight behind them.

Tasianna moved to Ellaine’s side and nodded, carrying the same aura Ellaine was exuding. “This is not a joke, Lady Hestia, Miss Saori. A dungeon core filled with mana is similar to a… what did you call it, atomic bomb? Yes, that’s correct! If a dungeon core were to crack while it still had mana inside it, it could completely destroy the area, leaving a mana fallout so devastating that monsters would spawn uncontrollably around it.”

The fact Tasianna had to use the word “atomic bomb” made Saori and me realize how important this information was, as she was trying to paint us a better image of what could happen. And the next sentence really sealed the deal for us how dangerous the core could be.

“A divine mandate was presented to us by the Origin Gods, demanding from us to never destroy a dungeon core unless it was completely dry of mana.”

Considering we just wanted to get some fresh air and do some hunting inside a dungeon, the discussion got pretty serious. However, I guess knowing this sorta information was the norm for people since an ignorant adventurer could cause massive devastation if they didn’t know about this.

Although, that does make me question why the Origin Gods would put a divine mandate on this type of stuff. Tasianna also explained that dungeons didn’t exist before the Origin Gods came to Peolynca, meaning this whole place was somehow created by them coming to this world and setting up the System. Is it created by their System to keep an infinite source of experience for the inhabitants, I wonder? Although, why didn’t they put a safety net on the core in case people accidentally crack it?

Well, thinking too much about this subject would be pointless. We heard the info. Got warned to not do something. So, it’s time to rock ‘n roll.

Music on!

[Music Resonation (Moderate)] [Various Spell Buffs] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Wha-?!” Ellaine exclaimed out of surprise as she wasn’t expecting music to suddenly play around me.

While my parallel minds began buffing me up with anything I had, I began explaining to Ellaine why I was suddenly blasting my music with [Aerokinesis], “The main reason is to make this grinding session less dull. To me, music is life and a means to keep your spirits up. Oh, and it grants you [Music Resonation], which shares all my positive spell effects with you — which our party calls ‘buffs.’”

And we were off.

“Yahoo, little ones~ Taunt!” I shouted at a nearby swarm of [Gasper Wasps], agitating them and luring a few drones towards me.

Taunt

A loud provocative cry, which angers and muddles the ability of the target to think clearly. To successfully use it, the foe must be able to hear and see the [Taunt] user. If successful, the status effect [Taunted] will be applied on the target. The strength of the [Taunt] effect is determined by the [Taunt] user’s Intelligence and the [Taunt] target’s Wisdom. Continuous usage of [Taunt] in a short period will significantly increase Stamina cost

Taunted

An abnormal status effect caused by the ability [Taunt]. Increases damage towards the [Taunt] user while decreasing damage caused to other targets unless the [Taunt] user is hit by the same attack. [Taunted]’s effectiveness is determined by the stage [Minor/Moderate/Major] of the effect

Back during the grimgarian fight against all those elite units, the ability [Taunt] was the lynchpin of their whole battle strategy, where the black orc knights would taunt me to reduce the overall damage towards everybody else except for them. In fact, it was actually quite easy for me to take a knight down after he taunted me, but before I could land the final blow, I would just be taunted again and my damage towards the downed knight would drop to the point it would have been better to just incapicitate him by breaking a limb or so.

Concerning how the [Taunt] ability from my main Job [Aggravator] worked, the description is pretty much spot on. It traveled through sound, meaning I could technically AOE taunt using [Aerokinesis]. Multiple taunted targets are possible, but I would then be attacked by all of them at once, and with the increased damage they could inflict on me, using it on anything my [Draconic Barrier] or [Panzer] couldn’t fend off easily would be suicide.

Luckily, F rank monsters like these drones weren’t worth batting an eye at.

“Oh jeez, they look even scarier from up close! Sanctuary!” Raising my arm up, I materialized a barrier of light around me. It was smaller than usual — unfit to fight inside — but the barrier’s strength was enough to defend me from the giant wasps’ stingers.

Gaspar Wasp Drone

A monster wasp at the size of a loopabit. These mindless insects follow the commands of the larger soldiers without question, mentally unable to disobey their Queen. Although far slower and more fragile than a soldier, these wasps can deal substantial damage with their venomous stingers. Rank F

I can’t detect a soldier among them. No nest, no queen.

“Ok, let’s do this everybody! Tasianna! Ellaine! Your turn!” And my call was reciprocated by a rain of ice daggers. Hiding on the branches of a nearby tree, Tasianna was hawking the area, cleaning up countless wasps with every dagger.

“Wind Slash,” on the other side, also hiding behind a tree, was Ellaine, shooting one wind spell at a time. It couldn’t compare to Tasianna’s killing power; at best, it killed two wasps with one spell cast, but that wasn’t what we were aiming for.

[“Ok, Ellaine, don’t forget to try to delay your spell cast and maintain a magic circle after the spell is cast. We need you to earn [Delay Cast] and [Continuous Cast] as soon as possible,”] I instructed her. She would level up anyways with us around, so the best training would be to help her train her skills, saving up on skill points later on for the important buys.

As the two were cutting down wasps, I noticed some of them stopped trying to stab me with their stingers and began flying around erratically. This seemed to cause a chain reaction as the swarm of wasps stopped attacking me and fled.

[“Saori, you’re up.”]

[“Got it. Uno, Song, Sarasa, Quatre! You four are up! Chase them down!”]

And four giant garms appeared from the shadows, running the wasps down like rabbits. The swarm of flying experience was successfully taken down and the dismantling phase began.

“Urgh…ewwww,” Ellaine expressed, frowning as she carefully removed the stinger from the wasp. “This is even more disgusting than dismantling the loopabits we hunted.”

“I’m not a fan of this either…,” Tasianna agreed.

On the other hand, Saori and I were accustomed to dismantling any type of monster in the Belzac forest… except for frogs and toads. Fuck them.

“Can Uno see through his scarred eye?” I asked Saori, who had Uno sit next to her for me. [“How is your eye, boy?”]

[“My eye was not compromised. Thank you for your concern, Alpha’s Master,”] the scarred black garm answered with a stoic-sounding voice. Getting called “Alpha’s Master” was really weird, but it was good to see that our wounds from that grimgarian army encounter healed up, even giving Uno here a good-looking scar and Saori an evolution.

While the Quest only requested 15 stingers, Tasianna had the great idea of asking what these materials were used for, so we harvested more than necessary. In the case they weren’t useful, we could always sell them or throw them away. It didn’t matter.

Once the dismantling was done, all four of us hopped onto Saori’s garms. With Quatre done with his transforming into a shadow garm, we had enough garms to carry each Aurora member. The dungeon was quite huge and we had a long list of monsters to hunt down, so it beats maneuvering through this forest on foot.

“Ahhhhh, shit!”

“Ahhhhh, help! A GARM!”

“Monster break! Monster break! Call for help!”

Unfortunately, these giant garms were pretty conspicuous if they weren’t actively trying to remain hidden. Despite the fact all four had collars on to inform people they were tamed, everybody’s first reaction was to shout and cry for help. Considering the equipment they were wearing and that they were fighting on the first floor of the dungeon, something considered easy for G and F rank adventurers, we couldn’t blame them.

I found the garms pretty fluffy and cute, but to anybody who didn’t know them, they were pretty frightening with their pitch-black fur and giant fangs.

“Wait, wait! Stop! Hey, look up here,” Saori called the adventurer party out before they could disappear completely. Unfortunately, they couldn’t hear her voice over their cries of panic, forcing Saori to jump into their path and call them out there.

Seeing a wolfkin on top of the garm seemed to have surprised them but once she jumped down and told Uno to sit, they calmed down. We managed to settle the misunderstanding, laughing it off thankfully. Nevertheless, it meant we had to settle with staying on foot and only using the garms when we needed them to hunt.

Our day in the dungeon went really well. The monsters in the forest were nothing to us and Ellaine leveled up to 25 as we finished the last Quest we could do on this floor. Also, while we were exploring the interior of the first dungeon floor, we noticed a few interesting signals. One seemed to belong to the nest of the gaspar wasps while another was in the depth of a dire wolf den.

The forest wasn’t as massive as the Belzac Forest, but it was still as large as the Fleur Mushroom Forest we tracked Cernust and Severa into. There were a couple of feral monsters walking around, but it seems like some monsters had begun turning this floor of the dungeon into their own home. With a wasp queen building a nest and dire wolf packs wandering around, it felt lively.

Even the adventurers hunting inside this floor seemed like they fit into the environment, just like when our party was in Firwood. Beginners learning how to build traps, fighting against skorrs in a group, and some even ran away from a swarm of wasps. If we could help, we did, otherwise, we left them alone.

And once we finally found the set of stairs to the next floor, we left the 1st floor behind.

“We should have bought the map they offered,” I complained.

“““Agreed.””” It was unanimous. I handed Ellaine a wooden tablet as she wanted to map out the next floor. She wasn’t proficient in it — none of us were — but somebody had to do it and she raised up that point first.

At the end of the stairs, the sight of the 2nd floor came into view. Trees hid the dungeon’s walls as they led us to the entrance of a cave. Looking inside, it looked pretty similar to any other caverns our party has entered already, imitating the dusty cave smell and the moist air flowing inside.

“Great, the 1st floor had an artificial sky that somehow lit up everything without a sun and the 2nd floor is just a stinky cave. Awesome…” I wasn’t kidding when I said the 1st floor had no sun. It didn’t and my core was all I needed to confirm that theory, as I could not charge it up even a bit despite it dropping down from 100% solar energy.

As I expected, being inside a dungeon nullified the biggest advantage I had as a sunfang dragon. Without the sun, I had to be extra careful without my infinite regeneration source.

Although Saori and I could see perfectly in the dark, Tasianna still had some troubles and Ellaine was just blind. Snapping my fingers together, a spark appeared before a hand-sized fire was created. Using [Pyrokinesis], I had it fly next in front of our party to light up our path.

With Saori and Tasianna leading the charge, and Ellaine and me in the back, we ventured inside.

“Ellaine, have you gotten it to work yet?” I asked while keeping my eyes glued in front of me.

[“Uhm, hello. Ahhhh, hello, Hestia!!! Can you hear me!”] she sounded pretty excited.

[“Yes, I can. How do you like using your newly acquired 750 SP to buy a skill instead of earning it through the Job system or leveling up?”]

[“It’s… AMAZING! I mean, it is not fair at all to those who cannot access it, but being able to buy [Telepathy], a skill even Mother or my grandparents haven’t received yet feels unbelievable. I mean, I can send my thoughts to you, Saori, and Tasianna without anybody intercepting it. It is perfect for safely talking about sensitive information where other might be listening.”] Ellaine jumped up like an overly excited fangirl when she said her “AMAZING,” speaking so fast that I could feel her enthusiasm first-hand. She then looked down at her hands and asked me what I could see through the information she’s sending me.

[“…You have wasp meat residue under your fingernails.”]

Her eyes widened and she looked at me with amazement, completely ignoring the fact she should clean her nails before they start to stink. [“…Incredible. I didn’t even say a single word, but you knew exactly what I thought. I-I have to inspect my skill shop! There must be so many wondrous skills inside it!”]

I didn’t expect a Peolyncian inhabitant to be this excited about the skill shop. Even Tasianna wasn’t this excited.

The look on her eyes told me she was serious about it. It seems like she’s addicted to the shop and really wanted to look through her skill list. I couldn’t help but smile wryly and sigh.

“Quatre.”

“Grrouuhhhh!” With a single command, Quatre, the fourth garm of the pack, sprang out of Ellaine’s shadow like a bolt and opened his gaping jaw, crunching into a giant bat-like monster that was about to attack Ellaine.

“Kyaaaaaaahkkk!” The sudden roar of Quatre caused Ellaine to quickly unsheathe her sword with a girlish scream, but she fell onto her butt as she lost her balance while turning around. As she looked at Quatre with frightened eyes, holding her sword up, the giant garm gave the bat monster another crunch, causing numerous cracking bone sounds, before letting it fall onto the ground as a corpse.

Stalactite Felwing

A large bat-like monster who inhabits dark caves, hanging off the ceiling. Due to a mineral inside their long fur, stalactites formed on its back hide, acting as a camouflage for the felwing to ambush inattentive prey. Rank F

That’s one of the Quest targets.

“Quatre caught one, guys,” I told Saori and Tasianna, petted Quatre for a good job, before ripping the stalactites on its back off. Supposedly, it was useful for blacksmithing, or so I read.

After putting the bat and the harvested material into my storage, I pulled Ellaine up and gave her a lecture, “Ellaine, you got a bit too comfortable around us.”

“Pardon?” She looked baffled at what I said.

“I don’t mean it in a mean way. What I mean is that you shouldn’t have let your guard down by scrolling through your skill shop while inside enemy territory,” I explained. “Yes, we will protect you; however, as a member of Aurora you need to be able to protect yourself, too. You were completely oblivious of this monster’s existence despite having read the Quest information. You weren’t actively trying to seek out monsters to train up your [Enemy Detection Sensor] or keeping your presence hidden with [Stealth] and [Presence Killer]. Ellaine, we might seem carefree, but your training began the moment we entered this dungeon.”

“I… I apologize. I was careless,” she looked down to the floor with that response.

“Hey, it’s alright. You made a mistake. Don’t dwell too much on it, alright? This whole cave is a perfect opportunity for you to train up your sensory skills. There is something I told Saori when we first began our lives in this world and that is to not rely on the Divine System, but on your own abilities. Your own trained skills.”

“My own skills and abilities?”

“Yup,” I nodded vigorously, smiling widely to signify the lecture was over. “Sometimes the enemy’s skills will beat yours, that’s when you need to become creative and use your other abilities to beat them. Their [Stealth] is too high? Track their scent, footprints, breathing. Look for irregularities in the environment. That is also how you level up your skills faster — by using them in a way that the System will reward you even more for your effort. Do you understand?”

“…Uhm, I think so?”

“Good! Now, tell me, will you wallow in this small setback, or will you learn from your mistake and take up your sword to improve? You rebelled against your mother, went against her wishes to join us earlier than planned. Are you brave enough to stand back up, look forward, and charge forward with clenched teeth?”

Ellaine’s eyes widened for a second before jolting her head up and down. “Yes!” was her war cry.

With our formation resumed and Ellaine’s motivation at its peak, we continued forward. Felwings and weird, fat mole-like creatures appeared in our way, all targets of our Quest, so we took some time to hunt them down and push Ellaine up to level 27 while my Job levelled up.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Job [Aggravator] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 5]

Max level of Job   [Aggravator] has been reached

Attributes have increased due to level up

Saori’s [Dark Mage] should be maxed too, while I wasn’t sure about Tasianna’s [Storm Sorcerer]. Regardless, our trip inside this dungeon was going well. We even found a loot box, a treasure chest the dungeon creates to reward adventurers. Similar to everything else in this place, it was made using mana, meaning that equipment can just appear out of thin air. I honestly question how the weapon and armor shops work with these circulating.

But that wasn’t really our issue. What was our problem is the content of the box:

Iron Wolf Dagger

An iron dagger made in the shape of a wolf’s fang with a serrated blade. Enables easy attacks on unarmored opponents, increasing both piercing and sundering damage, but breaks easily from the thin edge

Attack Power: 58

Skills: [Piercing Enhancement Lv. 1] [Increased Durability Loss Lv. 2]

For a beginner, this weapon was probably worth more than what they could buy from some random blacksmith in the city, but for us four, the item was trash. Well, it would fit Ellaine, but she already had a dagger as a backup weapon in case she ever lost her sword, and that one was given to her by her father.

Trash to sell later. It’s standard for spelunking.

As we moved forward a bit more, Saori suddenly raised her hand, stopping us. She and Tasianna groaned for a moment before turning around with a conflicted expression, telling Ellaine to be prepared. They made it sound pretty dramatic, but I guess what was placed in the way would creep out quite a lot of people, even making them puke if they weren’t already used to the sight.

“B-By the G-Goddess!” Ellaine flinched backward, covering her mouth up as her eyes shook at what she saw.

Three corpses. Humans. Two males, one female. All three had blood oozing down their necks and numerous gashes all over their bodies, wild-looking, as if something had slashed at them in a frenzy. The culprits were obviously the creatures feeding on these adventurer’s corpses right now.

Mana Eyes.

Blood-Gnawing Land-Bat

A giant bat with front legs as wings, enabling them to both walk on the ground and stay aerial. Due to being far larger than most bat-type monsters, these land-bats are more adapted to combat instead of ambushes. The saliva in their circular mouth prevents wounds from clotting, causing victims to bleed out unless healing magic or special herbs are used in the recovery. Rank E

Around the size of a doberman, these monsters were easily the height of an echikobold, another Rank E monster, with a face not even a mother could love. They had large, glassy eyes like a fish with a leech-like mouth that just screamed nightmare-fuel. Their muscular front legs also served as wings, reminding me a little bit of wyverns.

I didn’t know who those adventures were, but looking at the three land-bats, they probably got overwhelmed. It’s too bad, but that’s the adventurer business. I had my fair share of close calls and I’ve seen people, humans, die often enough now that my monster nature got used to it. Whether bandits, farmers, or soldiers, I’ve seen enough to not be overwhelmed.

Ellaine, on the other hand…

“Grmpphh!!!” Ellaine jolted her body forward, covering her mouth up with her hand. Blood was everywhere and was showing; I couldn’t blame Ellaine for feeling disgusted. “I’m alright. I’m alright. I-I think…”

Ellaine had killed monsters and also dissected them, but I guess seeing a human corpse in that state for the first time was too much for her. As I patted her shoulder for enduring it, the land-bats seemed to have noticed us. The four of us didn’t move, as Saori, Tasianna, and I were more worried about Ellaine. After all, we had bodyguards.

“Groooowwwwhh!!!” Uno howled a war cry, signalling the other three garms to appear with him before the land-bats, exuding their murderous auras. The land-bats cowered and attempted to flee, but shadowy tendrils erupted from their shadows and snatched at them, wrapping them up for the looming garms. What happened afterwards didn’t need any explanations.

Only G and F rank monsters have appeared around here. I didn’t expect E ranks, but I guess that’s the randomness of a dungeon at work.

Rest in peace, you three. We’ll make sure that at least your IDs make it back to the surface.

Having fulfilled over half of the Quests we’d accepted from the hunter’s guild, we continued deeper into the 2nd floor and eventually found the cave. With Ellaine’s map, we knew the path back to the 1st floor for later.

As we descended down the set of stairs, the scenery wasn’t any different, as we were still in a cave. The third floor was where we finished most of the remaining Quests, as we ended up with just two left after a lot of work. We weren’t sure how long we’d been inside the dungeon, as time flew by for us without any warning or clock, but the moment Ellaine began to inform us that she couldn’t move anymore, we decided to take a break.

As we were searching for a place to rest, we luckily found the exit to the next floor. There, we saw a wide area with numerous adventurers making camp and preparing meals. We could see the stairs behind all of them. Our party shrugged and made camp, deciding to sleep inside the dungeon.

As usual, camping for us was to make it as comfortable as possible. I pulled out chairs and tables from our restaurant and placed them on the ground and then brought out Saori’s kitchen. Ingredients and utensils were also included and Saori and Tasianna began cooking. Unfortunately, mostly for Ellaine, we did not have any beds or bedrolls prepared, so we had to sleep on the cold stone floor, well, at least it was cold until I heated it.

Naturally, this caught the other adventurers’ attention. They had to sit on the floor and were cooking with a small pot, while Saori had a whole kitchen fueled with my flames to work with. Despite knowing that void-touched like Saori and I were rare magicians, there wasn’t a reason to really hide it. Master Kush explained Peolyncians could become space-time magicians, too.

“Uno, Song, Sarasa, Quatre. Dinner time~” I called out to Saori’s four garms. They were part of the party now, too. As I was handing them a skorr each to dine on, an idea suddenly came to me. “Hey, Saori, do you remember Rajah, my former virigress cub? He was able to become my fan after he left me to return to his mother. Do you think your garms could become my ‘retainers’ so they can reap the benefits, too?”

“Hmm? Well, it’s worth a try. Uno, Song, Sarasa, Quatre. Would your four want to become Hestia’s retainer? It will give you access to everything we have to become stronger,” Saori asked her garms, however, they declined.

[“We are the Alpha’s pack! Nobody else’s. We shall not bow to anybody but the Alpha and descendant of Belzac,”] Uno answered as the leader of the four. Saori kept asking them, presenting them the benefits, but it seemed they were too stubbornly loyal to her.

“Just saying but you aren’t exactly my retainers. It’s just a title which I don’t really care about,” I urged them to reconsider but it did not affect them.

[“We will not, Alpha’s Master. The Alpha can serve anybody she wishes, but we will only serve the Alpha.”] Uno’s deep voice really sealed the delivery of that sentence.

[Hestia’s Retainer]’s and [The Light]’s only worked if they willingly accepted me but, seeing as they didn’t, we couldn’t force them into a situation they didn’t want. It was a shame but there was nothing we could do.

Forgetting about this topic for now, even though it seemed that Saori wanted to return to it another day, we focused on our dinner. Ellaine had never cooked anything before, not even a roast, so she was having some trouble helping out, even with cutting ingredients. Well, a noble didn’t need to learn how to cook when their servants could do it, but as a member of Aurora she’d better learn, otherwise no food!

As the smell of the stew and curry began to fill the area, a few of the adventurers eyed us with curiosity and greed. Some began standing up and moved towards us. Were they trying to rob us? Numbers wouldn’t help and the four garms devouring their skorrs should be enough of a deterrent.

As I had an eyebrow raised at the approaching adventurers, they showed their empty wooden bowls and said, “Uhm, could we have some?”

“Welcome!” Saori exclaimed excitedly, almost as if she planned this.

Restaurant Aurora was in business?

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Chapter 166: Illusionist.

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“This skorr and mushroom, uhhhh, what did you call it again?”

“Curry,” I answered the mercenary’s question as he put another spoon full of curry rice in his mouth.

“Yes, yes! Good stuff you got there. So, this skorr and mushroom curry reminded me of an adventurer I met three years ago. A great skorr slayer. Some would even call him the skorr slayer, a legend around Cedaraille,” the adventurer began recalling a story after I served him his curry. “Vali the Skorr Slayer, was his name. Not the largest guy, but you don’t need to be big to kill skorrs. Just fast enough to dodge those nasty tusks. You’re like a good example, M’Lady Priestess.”

“Mhmm,” I nodded before grabbing another dish from Saori’s kitchen and serving it to another table.

“So, his reputation was pretty great, to the point somebody personally requested him to take on a Quest to kill a giant skorr. A C rank threat! Vali, never frightened to fight skorrs, accepted it immediately. He prepared for the hunt with so many tools that the weight of his backpack forced him to bend forward to stay balanced,” the man continued. “Alone and in the dark, Vali entered the skorr’s territory while it was sleeping. Smeared in its shit to hide his smell, Vali took three nights to place all his traps before giving the beast a rude awakening on the fourth night! Undaunted by the giant skorr’s rage, Vali led it through all the traps like a fool. Spikes, stones, poison, pitfalls, you name it. In the end, Vali was once again victorious! Hahahahaha!”

His laugh was pretty infectious, causing our other patrons to join in on the fun. Instead of tankards full of mead or cider, they banged their cups of water together and downed them in one go. Considering we were inside a dungeon right now, they were quite merry.

After having his fun, the storyteller’s mood suddenly turned sour, looking more saddened than cheerful. “Still, every legend has to end sometime and even Vali couldn’t escape this fate. Those three days of living in the shit of the skorr, unable to eat or drink much to avoid creating noise, and being so focused on the task that he forgot how long it took him to execute his plan. Poor guy ate the wrong mushrooms and, with how dehydrated and exhausted he was from the hunt, he didn’t last long. Made it to our city’s gates but, before he could enter, he just fell over. Dead.”

I honestly thought he was spouting some mostly fictitious tavern story, so I barely paid him any attention. However, hearing what this Vali guy did to fulfill the Quest and then die, almost making it back home in one piece, was kinda heartbreaking. I knew the adventurer lifestyle was dangerous, but I didn’t think someone would go out like this. Really goes to show that anything can kill you, regardless of how prepared you are.

“Sorry, about your loss. He must have been a good friend,” I tried to comfort him.

But that was when one of the storyteller’s eyebrows rose and he gave me a look of confusion. “Huh? Ahh, sorry, M’Lady Priestess. He wasn’t my friend; in fact, I only saw him once or twice at the tavern. I only ever spoke to him once, when he was on his way back from that last Quest!”

“???”

“Yeah, damn, I only heard his story after the guild read his journal and I asked Cleo about it. Vali the Skorr Slayer could read and write, did you know that? Honestly, he gave me a pretty bad first impression since he was covered in shit when I ran into him on the way back to town. Damn, I had to rush to the bathhouse the moment I got into town to get rid of that horrendous smell. Phew!”

What the hell was the punchline then?! Hey, give me back my life lesson moment!

I shook my head at what actually happened, but it seemed like the adventurers didn’t care about how the storyteller knew this Vali, only that the story was good. I rejoined Saori in her kitchen with a frown. “Did we really have to open our restaurant in the middle of the dungeon?”

“Why not?” Saori said with a shrug while continuing to stir the stew pot. “They brought their Davi with them and we had enough to sell. There wasn’t a lot of them, some even declined, joining the others at our table with their own dinner. With the four of us, the preparations went by quickly, wouldn’t you say?” Saori pointed at Ellaine who looked exhausted as she ate her dinner, struggling to keep up with etiquette with her sore body. The cuts she made were uneven and too large, as she’d never had to cook before, but the extra hands meant the rest of us had to do less.

“Sure, but doesn’t this feel weird? Look at them eating so peacefully while right around the corner is a cave full of deadly monsters, like that land-bat thing. Even for Peolyncian standards, this seems so strange.”

Saori gave me a quizzical face as she replied, “Oh, really? I believed this should have been something you would have read before in one of your light novels or seen in a video game. Well, since it's so easy to take our restaurant anywhere we go using your storage, we can open for business anywhere we're allowed to, so why not even a dungeon? Uno and the others are guarding the entrance, while we four are enough to serve everybody. You could also play some music if you wanted to, Lady Hestia.”

I sighed, accepting her reasoning. “Sorry, I’m not in the mood to sing. I was prepared for a meal with some music and then bed.”

I love singing, but that didn’t mean I wanted to sing everywhere and anytime. If I’m not in the mood, I’m not in the mood.

After we earned some money with the restaurant, the adventurers thanked us for sharing a warm meal with them before going back to their respective camps, meaning our party could finally have our own dinner. We reviewed what happened today and then went to sleep.

Once we were all awake, we reentered the third floor’s cave and hunted down the remaining targets for our Quests, fulfilling all 20 Quests in two days. With our primary task done, going back to the surface to hand in the Quest and switch our Jobs out would be the more efficient choice. Since our Job levels were maxed out, Saori, Tasianna, and I couldn’t benefit much from the experience gain.

Nevertheless, all of us decided to move onto the next floor. It wasn’t about efficiency, okay? It was about satisfying our curiosity and experiencing the dungeon our way. Plus, Ellaine mentioned that the deeper we went, the more likely we were to find loot boxes.

Now, I wasn’t a gambler but the chance of gaining an awesome weapon or catalyst from these boxes quickened my heartbeat. How often had it happened to me while playing an RPG game, where I would buy gear from an NPC’s shop but then acquire a far stronger weapon or armor as loot later on? It was infuriating and exciting at the same time.

“According to the adventurers, floor four and lower are where the difficulty starts to spike. Fewer Rank Gs and Fs while Rank Es are more common. Dungeon breaks can also happen, so we should be careful of D rank monsters since Ellaine can’t handle them yet,” I informed everybody before we went down the stairs. “Let’s stay on floor four for a bit and then retreat. Alright?”

“““Agreed.”””

Rumors and general gossip were already a great benefit that our restaurant gave us, something taverns and inns enjoy quite a lot. It made us similar to a bartender in a video game, who was able to give information to the player. In this case, we learned that this dungeon had 20 floors and that the floors were divided into difficulties.

Floor one to four were the beginner stages for newbies. Five to nine would spawn only rank Es and Ds, ten upwards to 14 would only spawn Ds, while floor 15 and beyond was only a place for strong adventurers since rank Cs spawn there regularly and you could be overwhelmed by them quite fast. Floor 20 was the home of the dungeon boss and core.

It made me question how a dungeon master was supposed to reach the core, but then I figured there has to be a safe way to do that. No dungeon master would be stupid enough to not have a hidden staircase or a teleport device built for these instances, especially with the aid of the adventurer guilds and a duke.

Regardless, another thing the adventurers informed us about is a “dungeon break,” the event where a monster from a lower floor enters the ones above it. Monsters have a set floor they spawned on but the dungeon itself could become a bit aggressive sometimes, creating entirely new entrances meant for monsters or adventurers to skip entire floors with, leading to some very dangerous monsters entering areas where the average adventurers there cannot handle them.

That was why the garms caused such a ruckus on the first floor since everybody believed they were part of a dungeon break. If an event like this were to happen, the only correct answer was to run away and inform adventurers suited for the task to come to the rescue. With how dangerous a dungeon could be, as the guilds expect you to be able to handle yourselves if you hadn’t hired a mercenary bodyguard, an anomaly like a dungeon break could be the difference between life and death.

With our newly acquired knowledge, we delved into the fourth floor, which looked more like a labyrinth than a random cave. To Saori, Tasianna, and me, there wasn’t much of a difference even if there were more E ranks, but for Ellaine it was the perfect training spot.

“I beg for the Earth’s protection! Earth Wall!” Ellaine cast while her brown gemstone ring shone brightly, blocking the bite of a [Blood-Gnawing Land-Bat]. She then turned around the corner and shot a [Wind Slash] at the baffled monster, causing it to flinch back in pain.

Instead of charging into the beast, getting in range of the bat’s long fangs, Ellaine cast [Earth Strike], boring a sharp rock through the bat’s feet, pinning it down. Using another [Wind Slash] to scar its face, Ellaine lunged in and dug her sword’s tip into the creature’s throat before decapitating it.

“Nice!” I exclaimed with a thumbs up. “Seems like [Chant Recovation Lv. 5] is helping out. Now you just need 1350 more SP and you can upgrade it up to level 10.”

“It feels awesome,” Ellaine replied with an elated smile as she wiped the blood away from her sword. “[Chant Revocation Lv. 1] barely did anything, but with level 5, it reduces the length of the chant by half. The instructors in the academy told us about this, but leveling [Chant Revocation] up was always a tall order, and none of the instructors had leveled it all the way to 10. I am very envious of the fact that you three have this skill at level 10.”

Ellaine’s enthusiasm for the skill point System was almost at the level of a theory crafter. She had a chance to look through her whole skill list before we went to sleep and decided to finish leveling up her [Chant Revocation] before buying or upgrading other skills, explaining that being able to cast fast was essential to complement her sword fighting.

She came to the same conclusion Saori and I had. I mean, it’s not the most complicated idea ever. Casting takes a lot of time and focus, so speeding it up means you don’t need to deal with one of the usual issues of a spellcaster. Plus, it increases your overall damage dealt.

I changed the experience share to only include Ellaine, meaning she was receiving 100% of the kill experience, except in a situation where the garms killed something. They weren’t included in our party, they were in a separate “party” with Saori, at least according to the System, so they could still earn experience by hunting independently.

We continued onwards with this setup where Saori, Tasianna, and I would isolate targets and lead them towards Ellaine for her to fight against, honing her skills and battle senses in a controlled environment. The [Taunt] skill was especially useful for this method.

As we were traveling through floor four’s cavern, Saori and Tasianna went ahead of us to find new targets for Ellaine. While Ellaine and I were waiting for them to return, I suddenly noticed something in the corner of my eye.

“Is that a chest?” I mumbled, drawing Ellaine’s attention. As we didn’t have much to do, we shrugged and decided to open the chest, already giggling in anticipation for what was inside.

Second time’s the charm, righ-

“Griguk.”

Eh?

“Griguk.”

Eh?!

[Terror (Minor)] [Fear (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Ah! Hestia, a monster is guarding it. Could you identify what type of toad monster that thing is?”

Toad? Toad?

…Toad?! EEEHHHHH!?!?

“EIIIIIIIEEEEEEKKKKHHHHHH!”

“Hestia?!”

“DIEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!”

An immense heat surged from my chest into my right arm as purple flames flared up with a snap of my fingers. Without cooling down, the heat got to the point where the purple color changed to yellowish-purple and the fire grew larger and larger. Without looking at the target of my rage, fear, and anxiety, I shot the super-heated [Corrosive Fire] at the creature of my nightmares without worrying about the destructiveness of the attack.

With a loud kaboom that could deafen anybody, the area exploded like a bomb, engulfing both the monster and the treasure chest with it. Unlike the last time this happened, I was still able to think properly; the moment I shot out that attack, I shielded Ellaine with my body while casting [Sanctuary]. As it exploded, I ran away carrying Ellaine in a princess carry.

As the flames and dust settled down, I let go of Ellaine and we both inspected the damage I caused. The flames had died down already, leaving small corrosive obsidian chunks behind in a huge crater where the chest and beast used to stand. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that a huge chunk of the wall, floor, and ceiling were missing.

“L-Lady H-Hestia, what was that?!” Ellaine asked with a trembling voice, while her eyes gave me a clear sign of the terror she was feeling from me.

I couldn’t help but hit myself in shame, clearing my head up as I explained to her what happened, “I-I have a phobia of amphibians; frogs and toads specifically, due to an event in my childhood. Looking at them scares me, seeing them jump around with their ugly mugs frightens me, and their gross tongues just terrify me. I’m sorry… for putting you in danger like that…”

Ellaine frowned as she heard this and turned her head back to the result of my carnage. She patted my shoulder timidly before saying, “It’s alright. I am fine. Thank you for sharing that information… although, if I had known prior, I would have been able to help you-Why is the thing still alive?!”

Ellaine’s calming words were interrupted by her stepping back, pointing my eyes to the fact that the damn, freakish, terrible toad somehow survived my attack! And it was floating?!?!?

“Griguk.”

There are flying toads in this hellish place?! Why! Why!

As I was frozen in place by this fact, a group of people suddenly appeared on the other side of the crater. “What the fuck was that?! Oi, Talon, what the hell did you do?! You only needed to distract them and we’d swoop in for the chest!”

“Shut it, I just cast a spell to frighten them. Whatever happened, it wasn’t my fault that those girls…” A robed man came into view, carrying a long black staff with him. His entire body was covered up, showing no skin except for the left side of his face as a half-mask was covering his right. “Fire…” He shivered as he saw the result of my work and gave me a look of fear and anger.

His staff suddenly lit up and a black magic circle appeared on it. “My mind is my power, my imagination, my creation. Hide in images, the light is the illusion! Mirror Image!”

Like the sound of cracking glass, the sight of the man and the group behind him cracked into pieces like a mirror before it re-assembled into an image without them in sight. Coincidentally, the toad also vanished into thin air.

““What?!””

The both of us exclaimed. Our eyes were fooling us, making it seem like nobody was there, but my sensory skills told me exactly that wasn’t the case. I cast and threw a [Rock Blast] in the area, causing another shattering glass sound before the image of an empty labyrinth path shattered in light particles.

They ran away. I wasn’t entirely sure that that robed man was the cause of the toad, but if my gut was correct, then he had to be it. An illusionist. A mage who could create illusions to disorientate people and monsters, causing them to drop their guard or allowing him to sneak past. I didn’t expect to find one around this area, really.

As I was considering chasing after them, Saori and Tasianna came running over to us, worry showing on their expressions. I quickly explained to them what happened to calm them down, making them understand why I did something that excessive.

“Traumas shouldn’t be joked about,” Saori shook her head.

“A human causing my Lady trouble, what else is new,” Tasianna said sarcastically.

However, my “feel pity for me” moment was interrupted by a horde of monsters congregating around us, attracted by the explosion sound. Luring them away wasn’t possible, so we had to clean them up. With the four of us and the garms, taking care of some E ranks was child’s play.

Especially with Saori’s new ability.

“Stygian Lightning!” the roar of black lightning echoed through the tunnel, electrocuting anything in its way. Compared to my racial skill in my scale-dust, Saori’s stygian voltage was less destructive, but still possessed massive attack power. She streamed through the battlefield with daggers clad in her lightning, shocking anything she touched in a flash. Ever behind her were her garms, following their master and mowing down anything she left behind. Scary.

After killing all the monsters that appeared, we finally finished up the day after dismantling them and decided to return to the surface. Sadly, we couldn’t find any more loot boxes, but that’s whatever. Just saying, but with how many monster materials we harvested, we made quite a lot of money.

And that showed once we handed everything over to the hunter’s guild. The Quests paid decently and Ellaine made it to E rank, while our party profited from our long stay. The sun was shining brightly in the sky when we exited the dungeon, meaning we earned enough money to feed us for a week. Well, most of it will go into our equipment funds and restaurant costs, so it’s whatever.

“Astounding. being able to transport this many monster parts from the dungeon is quite rare, even with professional carriers,” Cleo, one of the receptionists of the guild, said with amazement.

A loot carrier was exactly what the name implied, a person who follows a party with the job to dismantle monsters and carry them for everyone else. Since adventurers couldn’t afford to be weighed down during a fight with heavy materials, the carriers are there to harvest stuff in their stead to help adventurers fight as optimally as possible. Since it didn’t require a person to know how to fight, being a carrier is a very popular side work for the poor or weak, despite the risks of entering a dungeon in the first place.

Individual [Sunfang Dragonewt, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has switched her Main Job to [Taunter]

Main Job benefits have been updated due to Job change

Taunter Level: 0/10

Job Ability gained: [Taunt]

As you would expect, [Taunter] gave the same ability as [Aggravator], since they were from the same Job line, but the former belonged to the next tier. Once again, I tried to buy the ability with SP but it didn’t work, sadly.

Still, that didn’t dissuade me from leveling more Jobs as the four of us agreed to re-enter the dungeon in two days. While leveling was important, it was also imperative for our growth to fit ourselves up with armor, meaning we would use tomorrow to find a blacksmith for Ellaine. A capable one if we could. Saori and I had shed a little bit, meaning it was time to outfit Ellaine up in some cool new armor.

Naturally, the blacksmith we’re looking for should be able to smelt my scales, obsidian, or weave Saori’s fur into armor. Asking the blacksmith guild was the best choice, but first, let’s ask their customers — the adventurers inside the hunter’s guild.

“There is a dungeon next to the city, so it’s obvious that blacksmiths capable of creating better stuff than the dungeon produces should be around. Hmm, try the ‘Black Spear,’ they can make some good weapons,” an adventurer informed me. It made sense, if the dungeon could produce lower-tier weapons and armor through loot boxes on the early floors, then the blacksmiths of Cedaraille should be better than those in Firwood.

“An armorer? Well, the ‘Tunging Hammer’ has a blacksmith trained up north in the Groushia duchy, you know, the duchy closest to the dwarves. Try them, I got some armor from them and it saved me quite a few times already,” another told us.

We then decided to go to the second floor since that was available. As we were about to ask another hunter for information, I suddenly noticed a person sitting in the corner of the room. A robed man with a half-mask eating some meat slices with a knife and fork, being conspicuous among the crowd since he was the only one eating slowly and with style.

The illusionist? Well, duh, he should have been an adventurer or something.

I didn’t want to cause a ruckus, but I still wanted to know about that floating toad. Moving over to him, I greeted him, “Hi. Could we talk about what happened before? Uhm, no hard feelings or anything, really.”

He looked at me, both his uncovered eye and the one peeking through his mask showed a hint of hesitation as he thought over my question. Similar to his robe, his mask covered up his whole face, hiding everything behind it. “I’ll be blunt. I don’t have much to say about before. I’m also not fond of Aurena’s priestesses and I hate pyromaniacs like you. Don’t come here and preach to me, Danterno Follower.”

… Damn, this guy is rude!

Profile:

Name:   Ellaine Fiero Helvas

Level: 30

Race: Human

Age: 15 Years

Job:    Swordswoman Level: 0/5

Status:

Health:

1035/1035

Mana:

1214/1214

Strength:

401

Intelligence:

686

Vitality:

346

Wisdom:

489

Agility:

436

Stamina:

941/941

Effects:

None

Skill Points:

800

Skill:

Magic skills and related:

[Mana Efficiency Lv. 8] (+2) [Mana Control Lv. 7] (+2)

[Arcane Mind Lv. 5] (+1)

[Earth Magic Lv. 8] (+3) [Earth Amp] (New) [Earth Magic Efficiency] (New)

[Wind Magic Lv. 8] (+3) [Wind Amp] (New) [Wind Magic Efficiency] (New)

[Synergist’s Oath Lv. 2] (+1) [Silent Casting Lv. 3] (+1)

[Chant Revocation Lv. 5] (+4) [Mental Warfare Lv. 2] (+1)

[Fluid Cast Lv. 1] [Multi-Cast Lv. 1] [Continuous Cast Lv. 1] (New)

Physical skills and related:

[Sword Technique Lv. 3] (+2) [Sword Mastery Lv. 1]

[Sundering Enhancement Lv. 1] (New) [Piercing Enhancement Lv. 1] (New)

Senses and movement skills:

[Stealth Lv. 2] (+1) [Accuracy Correction Lv. 4] (+2)

[Concentration Lv. 5] (+1) [Prediction Lv. 3] (+2)

[Danger Perception Lv. 4] (+1) [Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 5] (+3)

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 2] (+1) [Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 7] (+1)

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 2] (+1) [Night Vision Lv. 2] (New)

[Presence Killer Lv. 1] (New) [Evasion Lv. 3] (+1) [Acrobatic Lv. 3] (+1)

[Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 1] (New)

Resistances:

[Physical Resistance Lv. 5] (+3) [Pain Resistance Lv. 4] (+3)

[Holy Resistance Lv. 3] (+1)

[Fire Resistance Lv. 6] [Water Resistance Lv. 6]

[Earth Resistance Lv. 5] [Wind Resistance Lv. 5]

[Arcane Corruption Resistance Lv. 7] (+3)

Stat growth and related:

[Health Recovery Lv.1 ] (New) [Mana Recovery Lv. 3]

[Stamina Recovery Lv. 1] (New)

[Enhanced Health Growth Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Mana Growth Lv.´4]

[Enhanced Mana Capacity Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 1] (New)

[Enhanced Intelligence Growth Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Intelligence Enforcement Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 1]

Others:

[Singing Lv. 5] (+1) [Dancing Lv. 5] [Musician Lv. 6] [Merchant Lv. 1] (New)

[Handicraft Lv. 1] [Enchanting Lv. 4] [Artificer Lv. 1]

[Identify Lv. 1] [Identity Blocker Lv. 3] [Noble Aura Lv. 3]

[Royal Etiquette Lv. 7] (+1) [Riding Lv. 3] (+1) [Scholar Lv. 2]

[Calligraphy Lv. 6] [Mathematician Lv. 6] [Telepathy] (New)

Spell List:

Custom Spells:

[Create Crack] [Wind Gust]

Earth Magic:

[Earth Wall] [Rock Blast] [Earth Strike] [Rock Bullet] [Sturdy Earth] [Earthen Spears]

Wind Magic:

[Wind Bullet] [Wind Cutter] [Air Shield] [Wind Slash] [Swift Winds] [Wind Blast]

Titles:

[Hestia’s Retainer]

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 167: The Magic Tinkerer-in-Training.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“I see…Sorry for that. I didn’t mean to call you like those damn fire-slinger,” the half-masked man apologized after I explained everything to him; about my nonexistent service to the church of Aurena, my dislike for Shiterno, and also the fact he summoned a giant toad which horrified me. “Talon. Adventurer. Dungeon Guide. Treasure Hunter. If you have the Davi, I can get you through the dungeon safely for the first couple of floors.”

“You’re a treasure hunter?” I tilted my head.

“The dungeon spawns loot boxes and random treasure. I find and then hand them over to clients, for a price. Dark elemental magic is useful for this job, but my empty vessel magic is better suited,” Talon stated, prompting me to remember what he did back in the dungeon.

“Would that be the floating toad and the mirror-like wall you created?” Ellaine asked. Our whole party was sitting at the same table with Talon right now, listening to what he had to say.

“[Illusion Magic]. Despite being a compound element of light and dark, you cannot acquire it by increasing both skills to level 10, but are required to learn it from a practitioner or through instructions. As it’s my empty vessel skill, I would prefer it if you didn’t ask for further details,” Talon said in a deadpan voice. “However, sorry for opening an old wound. I didn’t know toads or frogs would cause that reaction from you. Traumas are hard to learn before I use my spells, but I rather not cause others that much fear.”

He sounded rude but he doesn’t seem like a bad guy. Well, he did mention that he wanted to swipe the treasure chest away from under our noses so I don’t know if I could call him selfless or something. It was his job to acquire chests for his clients, but it didn’t mean I should like it as I was a victim of his illusions.

While he was speaking, I began to feel more curious about his half-mask as it was covering the entire right side of his face. The moment he noticed my stare, I apologized to him since staring was kinda rude of me. “And just leave it be. You have your own issues, I do, too. Now, if you four aren’t here to hire me for my spells, then I would suggest you leave. I would like to eat in peace.”

Talon began to eat the moment he said that, ignoring us as if we’ve already left. Rude as it was, he had no reason to stay polite after the misunderstanding was resolved. Still, I had some questions for him, “Do you know any good blacksmiths in the city?”

“I’m not an information broker.”

He was being stubborn but I kept speaking, “I know, but you should have been in Cedaraille longer than us, right? As an adventurer wouldn’t you know any competent blacksmiths in the area?”

“I’m a mage. For my gear, I visit the alchemy guild, the tailor guild, and the mage’s guild. If you want information on blacksmiths, ask the blacksmith guild,” was Talon’s answer. It honestly didn’t look like he wanted to speak at all, so I had to give up entirely.

Jeez, does he really hate white robes that much, or is it ‘cause he doesn’t trust my word that I wasn’t a Danterno follower? Shiterno, you inconvenienced us once again!

After asking a bit more inside the hunter’s guild for information on a blacksmith, we returned to our lodging, deciding to postpone our trip until tomorrow. Once we were back at the inn, Ellaine let out a sigh and complained about what had happened today, “There were quite a lot of rude and insensitive people today, even if you ignored those who boldly showed their lecherous gazes at us. I never expected all these commoners to show their true feelings so publicly.”

Including Talon, there were quite a lot of hunters and mercenaries who didn’t care much about what we wanted to ask, shooing us away if they were preoccupied with something else, either talking with their own party or enjoying their lunch break. Of course, some were helpful and gave us some tips, including the guild staff, but there were also cases of creeps and perverts.

I raised a brow when she said this, remembering the tea party we attended in Firwood, “I presume nobles are less conspicuous about it? Hiding everything behind a mask like when we first met, Ellaine? The Chezaic twin’s tea party demonstrated that there are plenty of rude people even in high society. I should know, I had to experience them on Earth, too, at my school.”

Saori concurred, “Wealth and influence alone do not make a better man or woman in any society, it is the values they learn from birth into adulthood that comprise their personality and conduct. Despite the advantages of being born into wealthy families, some students at the school I worked at would behave less than acceptably. On the other hand, those with fewer opportunities can turn out good through their humble beginnings. People can end up rough around the edges either way, though, although the latter group probably knows how to hide it better.”

“I see…you two experienced your aristocrat-like society on Earth in different ways, yes? As you would expect, learning how to hide your true feelings and motives is something I learned very early on from my mother. Saori would be a perfect fit with her stoic exterior, but Hestia would be too emotional to handle putting on a mask.” She wasn’t wrong, I’m still impulsive even after all Manuela taught me how to act more like a lady. “I know that not all commoners are as rude as those adventurers we met. Josine is the perfect example for this, and the other servants also were very kind. Still, seeing them all act like that was not pleasant for me.”

“That is why you should start learning how to chill out more, Ellaine. This is the life we have to handle regardless of whether we like some of the people or not,” I shrugged, displaying how indifferent she should act when some people annoy her. Defending yourself when somebody wrongs you is fine, but acting on every single provocation or mistake will just tire you out.

“Chill out?” Ellaine gave me a look of confusion.

“Yeah. Try not to let everything trigger you since the world won’t change to fit your ideal in this case.” With that discussion down, I took out some of Ellaine’s belongings and a small orb from my storage. “Here you go, your artificer equipment and also the [Season Regulator]. We’ll probably make the innkeeper angry if we make too much of a mess so please be careful while you handle them, Ellaine.”

“Of course, Hestia.”

Sitting at a table in one of our rooms, Ellaine first put on a thin glove with sharp metal claws and a rune on the palm side. As she was checking if it was properly on her left hand, I asked her what the glove was. “This is a Mana Breaker Glove. They allow artificers to grab manatech safely by protecting their hands from arcane corruption. As you should know, Hestia, arcane corruption is caused by mana which attacks our bodies like a toxin if the concentration is too high.”

In simple terms, arcane corruption was like CO2, a leftover after your body uses oxygen. CO2 was toxic to the body but it would be expelled from the body through the respiratory system where we breathe it out. Arcane corruption was similar, where our body removes mana from our body through mana paths before it starts to affect our body, however, since magicians used magic like crazy, building that stuff up inside our body was quite easy. Other than medicinal herbs like fulinoe leaves or spells like [Sacred Veil], which reduced the creation of arcane corruption outright, only the skill [Arcane Corruption Resistance] could increase our tolerance for it, delaying any harmful side effects and the status ailment [Arcane Corruption].

Ellaine continued, “This same principle happens with manatech. The glove is for my protection as I hold onto the item, as a manatech’s mana battery can radiate arcane corruption and accumulate it into our bodies through touch. I am not sure why it only happens with manatech and not other magic tools, but mother mentioned it is due to materials used to make a battery.”

“Marianne doesn’t know?” I repeated.

“My mother is at best a journeyman-level artificer, capable enough to save our house money by repairing our manatech but not proficient enough to create new inventions out of thin air. She is not the most knowledgable in this field,” Ellaine explained. “Regardless, the most important fact is that I can protect myself while adjusting this [Season Regulator].”

The glove had eoriant claws designed like sharp spikes to hold onto the manetech as comfortably as possible, which causes the mana to collect in the claws and pass back into the item in a perpetual circle, preventing the eoriant claws from overloading with mana and the manatech from releasing any arcane corruption from inside it.

The rune on the palm side was a rune of magic protection, meant to be used as a circuit breaker. If a mana related issue were to happen, the rune would protect the artificer’s hand, although it had to be reapplied every time it was used up.

Ellaine’s second artificer tool was a wand she called [Tinkerer’s Wand]. It was essentially a mage’s staff with an alchemical stone at the tip, the only difference was its specialization in artificer work. It was entirely useless for helping a mage cast spells and was barely a self-defense tool.

Nevertheless, it wasn’t made to cast spells but to repair and invent. Using her mana, the wand was able to release a small spark of mana or act as a magnet for mana-filled wires or components to drag them around. She was even able to refill mana batteries with mana using her wand without having to remove it or replace it.

“What are the goggles for?” I question the last item of her equipment.

“Obviously, to protect my eyes,” Ellaine answered nonchalantly.

“That’s it? Nothing fancy like being able to look at mana paths or so?”

Ellaine’s expression turned into an “ahh” with a gaping mouth. “That would be a [Monocle of Mana Sight]. Mother has one but I do not. She mentioned buying one for me before I joined Aurora but, well, I guess I’ll have to pick it up at Griffonpeak now. Anyway, let us start.”

Ellaine’s ability as an artificer was still beginner level, demonstrated by her [Artificer Lv. 1] skill. While I accepted Ellaine simply ‘cause she was a friend and wanted to join us — the more the merrier for me — she was also an able financial and fief manager trained by her noble parents with some ability in enchanting and magic tinkering. She wasn’t confident in her enchanting abilities and mentioned she needed more practice, but she was good enough as an artificer to repair whole manatechs, which included the [Season Regulator] she brought with her, our IDs, and our party bracelets.

The [Season Regulator] was a device that created a bubble in which it controlled and regulated the temperature to match its settings. Since our party managed a garden to grow products like fragassa and fulinoe leaves, being able to manage the temperature for them was essential for them to grow, as the humidity could be controlled with Tasianna’s water magic. This was the same manatech the nobles used to control the environment in and around their homes, preventing rain and snow from ruining their perfect gardens.

This [Season Regulator] wasn’t broken but its mana battery was almost drained. Additionally, Ellaine wanted to tweak a few functions to better fit our usage of it as a temperature regulator for our garden, since the bubble created by it could overflow into a room next to ours. We didn’t want to inconvenience others.

“According to mother’s instructions, this wire here and here are responsible for mana conduction. I can adjust these wires here to shrink the temperature bubble, and I believe the mana battery is hidden over here.” After opening a hatch under the ball, the inside of the manatech was revealed, showing wires and components I couldn’t name at all. Before Ellaine began working, she read through the instructions her mother wrote on parchment, identifying the intricacies and inscribing these details into her memory. As I said, she was still not experienced enough so she was taking it slow.

She grabbed the ball with her glove’s claws and held it up to look into the inside. I cast [Shine] to create a lamplight for Ellaine to better see by, while Tasianna constructed an [Air Shield] around her for additional protection in case she messed something up and the manatech exploded. She warned us of it, so it could be a possibility if she was that nervous about it.

Since Tasianna’s catalyst was blessed by Zephira herself, Tasianna’s [Air Shield] was stronger than mine and was able to allow oxygen into the shield, unlike mine. Even with [Aerokinesis], opening small holes into the shield would render it fragile and weak, although, it allowed oxygen in and sound to come out and in.

Anxious she would make a mistake, Ellaine worked slowly, unlike her mother when she repaired Tasianna’s catalyst. It was as if time slowed down for her as even managing the wires was done at a snail’s pace. Saori, Tasianna, and I weren’t bored by it though, since this was our first time watching somebody tinker with a manatech as much as Ellaine.

She was our party’s artificer now, responsible for repairing our manatech and maybe creating some of her own creations in the future. As friends, the very least we could do was to watch and support her as much as possible.

I’m not part of the “PC Master Race” team but I heard those who built their own PC for the first time would be extremely nervous, since the parts were expensive and hard to get by. The good stuff, I heard. Maybe this is what Ellaine is feeling?

After what felt like an hour, Ellaine finished rearranging the wires and refilling the manatech with her mana. She closed the hatch and handed it over to Tasianna, asking her to test it out. We took our garden out and placed it next to the window, prompting Tasianna to fiddle with the regulator as she always did at Ellaine’s home in Firwood.

Pressing a button, a translucent field was emitted by the ball before turning transparent at the edge of the room. Since the bubble could only form as an oval or ball, the field seemed to overlap into the walls and floor of the room but not enough to enter our neighbors’. It was a success!

Ellaine let out a sigh in relief, happy that she didn’t ruin anything, while the rest of us patted her on the back for a job well done. After setting up our garden and harvesting any ready product, we had lunch and decided to rest for the rest of the day. Saori and Tasianna left our rented room to sightsee the city a bit, to find where the local guilds were, leaving Ellaine and me behind.

I look out of the window, noticing a couple of signals on my [Detection Sensor] which have been stationary since we arrived in the inn. You know, since people walk around all the time and wouldn’t stay in one spot for an extended period outside of sleeping, it made me quite suspicious. Whether I was right or not really didn’t matter, honestly, since nobody would care if I was wrong.

I opened up the window, looked in the direction of the signals and waved at them. I even stuck my tongue out as if I was mocking them. After smiling smugly for a couple of seconds, all these stagnant signals began to move for the first time ever. How funny.

“Hestia?” Ellaine questioned me with a worried face, looking at me as if I’ve gone crazy.

Oops, she doesn’t have [Detection Sensor] yet. Oopsie~

“Spies,” was what I needed to say as Ellaine immediately caught onto the meaning and said “oooohhh.”

“If they were the same spies Uno found, meaning they belonged to Duke Greenveil, then they should be aware of Saori’s tracking abilities, right?”

Ellaine nodded but continued to explain the situation from a noble’s perspective, “While being detected is a failure on the spies’ side which could hurt Lord Duke Greenveil’s reputation if it were to be found out — a powerful noble must have competent retainers. I would say not keeping reconnaissance on a mighty dragonewt like you, Lady Hestia, would be more detrimental.”

“How so? He should know from reports that I’m rather peaceful. Spying on where we go is something I can understand but sitting around, looking at us eat or sleep is a bit annoying, in my opinion,” I replied.

Ellaine nodded once again, understanding what I meant but her own view on the situation gave me more insight into how Duke Greenveil thought, “While in Firwood, House Helvas and I kept watch over your actions. We were essentially House Sirius’s ‘spies’ in this case. You must be more aware of how venerable your status is, Lady Hestia, and how much of a force you are as a magician, not to mention your true lineage. Especially after you explained to me what you told Sir Farron, the kingdom’s priority should be to take care of your safety, otherwise, we will experience dragon fire, ehehehe.” Her laughter was filled with dread. I could understand, having my dragon mother swoop in would be bad news. I hope Farron got somebody to send a message to Kargryx before it becomes worse.

As I was thinking of that, an annoying feeling suddenly appeared. I didn’t want to consider it but being around nobles had made me a bit too wary of their kind. “Ellaine, can I ask you a serious question?”

“Of course.”

I then created an [Air Shield] around us to stop eavesdropping, “Then, it is time for me to be more truthful. Ellaine, this happened before you officially joined and concerns the grimgarian army. Saori, Tasianna, and I have unanimously decided to not interfere with the impending war.”

“W-What?” she stumbled in surprise.

“We three aren’t strong enough yet and we don’t know if we can become strong enough whenever the army attacks. After fighting against that lone B rank High Ogre, I do not think Aurora should participate in a war we aren’t affiliated with…until you actually joined. I wanted to inform you this when we met again in Griffonpeak but you suddenly joining, well, I couldn’t find the moment to tell you about it,” I forced myself to say all of that, waiting for Ellaine to speak up. “Well…I’m telling you this since I trust you. I trust you as a friend. Not as your liege or something else. Saori and the garms have been guarding us against spies and you kept your promise of not leaking the information on my dragon mother.”

Nobles were crafty and with the resources they had; they could do whatever they wanted, really. Theodore was able to craft a whole string of rumors to help Ellaine and me during the Chezaic tea party while also getting the evidence to incarcerate House Chezaic. They proved themselves competent, so it wouldn’t surprise me if they somehow talked Ellaine or House Helvas into informing them about everything, even the stuff Ellaine learned after she joined us.

However, she didn’t. No external contact during our travels nor when we reached Cedaraille. Sure, there was the chance that she could do this later on but that would be paranoid at that point.

“Uhm, well, what I want to say is what would you like to do, Ellaine? You are a member now so we have to take your opinion seriously. If the grimgarians were to attack the Kingdom of Artorias, what would you do?”

However, unexpectedly, Ellaine’s firmed up and she kneeled down, speaking clearly, “Lady Hestia, I have sworn my fealty to you and only you. While it would pain me to see my kingdom attacked while I stay out of it, it isn’t as if my participation will help anybody. I know my limits, I know I am too weak to be even a fraction of a factor in any war. However, I cannot force you, Miss Saori, or Miss Tasianna to risk your lives for my kingdom. As a friend, I couldn’t do that. In the first place, I don’t think of myself as somebody special enough to decide on such an important decision.”

I was surprised to hear her downplay herself this much before me. What am I doing?!

“Until the day I met you, I had only lived by the rules and decisions of my parents and brother. The failure of a noble that I am did not deserve to decide on what I wanted to do…and even after all that I learned from you, I don’t think I do now.”

“But you rebelled against your mother to join us earlier. If you ask me, that was a significant decision to change your life around,” I argued.

“Well, I guess allowing myself to be selfish for a moment was nice…but if I hadn’t experienced your stubbornness nor your will to be free, I wouldn’t have dared to do so. But, enough of that, Lady Hestia, my decision to your question is that I will follow yours. However, I do so hope that you could change your mind one day, Lady Hestia. As you said, I love my kingdom.”

Why are serious talks always this serious? So annoying…

After calming down, I changed the subject to Ellaine’s magical training. It was something to help both of us get our minds away from the heavy topic of before. Fortunately, it actually helped as Ellaine finally mastered the last of the four advanced casting methods — [Delayed Cast]. We cheered together as the talk we had just disappeared into the evening. Once Saori and Tasianna came back, we had dinner and then went to sleep on a very large bed suited for five people to sleep on. Our inn was decent, but it wasn’t the most expensive one in town — the House Helvas mansion in this city was.

Once morning came, we visited the blacksmith guild, asking them for any competent blacksmiths who could fulfill our orders. Similar to the other guilds, well-groomed men and women manned the reception despite the number of sweaty, muscled men in their late thirties who were waiting in a line.

Once our chance came, Saori asked the beastman receptionist, “A blacksmith who can work with dragonewt scales? Yours, I presume, Lady Priestess?”

I nodded. “That would be correct, Sir. My scales are quite thick and resistant to fire so it should be somebody who is used to high temperatures. Maybe a dwarf?”

However, instead of the receptionist, a man from the line suddenly started laughing boisterously, “Hahaha! The only dwarf in the city is somebody who is abandoned by Bleidla! Imagine that, a dwarven blacksmith abandoned by his racial god! What a jest! Lady Priestess, if you need armor or weapons, come over to the ‘Tunging Hammer!’ My master will serve you well!”

“Ahh, shut it, Marcel! Trying to hype everything up when you’re only an apprentice handling errands. My Lady Priestess, come over to the ‘Iron Crevasse’ for all your equipment needs! We’ve worked with C rank monster materials before, and I can bet you we will turn your scales into the prettiest thing ever!”

My scales are B ranked...and are from a fire dragon. You need some hardcore fire to melt that.

As the guildhall became so loud it was hard to hear anybody, the receptionist quickly gave us a list of the most renowned blacksmiths in the city including the one dwarf they had mentioned before. Since I still had a good experience with Kraftja and Ogni, including their token of respect, I decided to visit the dwarf blacksmith first before scouring the others.

Saori handed me some of our party’s funds, mentioning that she wanted to visit this merchant corporation Zeather mentioned. As Ellaine would be responsible for our future dealings, she was to accompany her while Tasianna would come with me in case I needed to know about some dwarven custom.

Strangely, the address wasn’t in the middle district, it actually was in the slums! You could imagine our surprise when a respectable dwarven blacksmith would be relegated to the backdrop of the city. Merchants and adventurers rarely visited the slums if it wasn’t their home already, so how could the dwarf pay for anything if the clientele was so meager?

But then I realized how shallow my thinking was. It doesn’t matter if you only received a few customers when all of them are high-paying ones! Similar to how Kraftja and Ogni handled their store. Highest prices among the blacksmiths and also the least popular location in the middle district, but regulars came regardless.

That has to be it!

However, what we saw wasn’t a cool-looking shop but some weird caravan that looked like some recreational vehicle, an RV. There wasn’t even a sign to tell people this was a shop and even Tasianna and I would have been confused by it were it not for the receptionist’s instructions.

We knocked on the door, waited for the moment until somebody’s quaking footsteps approached us. The wide door opened up and a very familiar face appeared before us again.

“What in Crustacia’s name are you waking me up in the fucking morning?! Bladdarg! Who the hell are you?”

It’s the taz.

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Chapter 168: The Dishonored Dwarf.

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"And? What do you want, lasses?” the taz dwarf, or undermountain dwarf in Common, grumbled in a gruff voice at us. His orange hair and beard were wild and unkempt, looking like he had just woken up. “Come on, speak up already. Do you have any idea how damn early it is?! Dammit, go away.”

“W-Wait, wait! Hold on, please!” I shouted out as he was about to close the door. He huffed as he stopped and looked at us. “We are here for blacksmith business.”

“No rock hair. I’m not working.” And with those words, he slammed the door shut in front of our face.

… It isn’t that early, come on.

I knocked on his door once again, but he didn’t answer it this time. After trying it once again to no avail, I sighed and looked over to Tasianna. “What did he mean by ‘no rock hair,’” I wondered aloud about his last words to us.

“I am not acquainted with the details, but do you possibly remember the rock-like parts in Kraftja’s and Ogni’s beard and hair? Also the rock-hide on every dwarf’s ears?” I nodded to Tasianna’s question. “Well, according to something I read in a book, dwarves were born inside the depths of the earth and mountains. Legends written down by dwarves say that they were molded from rock and given flesh and blood from ancient earth elementals, meant to act as representatives for them to commune with the other sentient races of Peolynca. Although, from what I heard, dwarves have changed their worship from these elementals to Goddess Crustacia after the Earth Goddess’s descent to this world.”

“Is that why they have those rock-like features on their bodies?” I asked.

“At least it would explain the ears, I believe, although you might want to take this legend with a grain of salt, Lady Hestia. However, what he meant by rock hair was the fact he is missing rock-like hair in his beard and hair, a sign of having been cast out and shamed by a god in Goddess Crustacia’s pantheon,” Tasianna continued by reminding me what we heard in the blacksmith guild, specifically when they mentioned he was abandoned by Bleidla, the Blacksmith God. “It is a custom for dwarves to turn their beards and hair into stone using some mixture, depending on their influence in Goddess Crustacia’s or her subordinate gods’ churches. In fact, Goddess Crustacia has turned the beards and hair of her saints and champions into stone as a sign of her favor, which led to the dwarves adopting this idea.”

“And when he mentioned ‘no rock hair’…”

“He confirmed the rumors that Bleidla or some other god was not looking at him favorably.”

I scratched my head, feeling a bit down at this news. “Well, that is a bummer. It makes him seem less credible as a blacksmith. Still, he is a dwarf, right? We should give him a chance at least.”

“Lady Hestia, you are stereotyping him. Not all dwarves are good blacksmiths. Taz dwarves can be great miners and tazlok wheat farmers instead of being blacksmiths.”

…Yeah, now that she mentioned it, I am letting fantasy culture influence me a bit… Still, we need a blacksmith.

I took out the token Kraftja and Ogni gave to me, showed it to Tasianna to ask if it would work, since it was made by two inko dwarves. Tasianna mentioned tazics and inkos do not get along when it comes to artisan opinions, but since all blacksmiths served Bleidla one way or another, our stubborn blacksmith here should at least give us a chance.

So, I knocked on his door again, calling out that we had a dwarven token of trust with us. After trying it once more, shouting even louder this time, I finally gave up and complained that we had to go to another blacksmith on the list since this one was a dead end.

As we were about to leave, the door of the RV-like wagon opened and a stocky man with two ram-like horns showed himself. His expression looked a bit stressed as he peeked his head out. “Dammit, if you came all the way to not have to deal with human steel, then come in already. Just watch out for the door slamming.”

… Is he a tsundere?

Tasianna and I shrugged. Since it was our reason for coming over to the slum district in the first place, refusing wasn’t something we considered as we entered his carriage. Also, with how much of a tsundere he was, I really wondered what he was about to show us.

The inside of the dwarf’s carriage was quite spacious, naturally, since the taz was extremely stocky and needed more room to move around and do stuff. As I said before, the carriage was similar to an RV — the outside had wheels for transportation, although there were no equerochs, while the inside was like a one-room apartment.

There was an open storage room with his rations and crafting materials, a table with scraps of food, an empty tankard, no kitchen in sight, a large king-sized bed in the very back, and a working station with what seemed like manatech on it were the most notable. However, for a blacksmith, there was a severe lack of a smelter or forge in his RV. There was an anvil, a welding wheel, a utility belt with tongs and hammers, and barrels full of different weapons, so that gave it the weapon shop vibe I’d hoped for.

It could probably fit five people inside, and if he were to expand it a bit more, it might be able to carry more than five people.

However, how was he supposed to forge weapons or armor without a place to smelt ores and metals?

And the confusion on my face was quickly noticed by the owner of the RV. “What is that face for, huh? Looks less appealing than a human’s? Of course, we tazongs let our work do the talking, not the unnecessary glamour or decorative ‘weapons.’ Hmph.”

“Oh, sorry about that, Mister. I do have a question though. How do you smelt stuff without a forge or foundry?” I asked.

The taz raised an eyebrow at me, stroking his beard as he wondered what I meant by that. “You, a dragonewt, have never seen a taz hammer before? Hmph. Guess you’ve only visited inkos.” Instead of disappointed, he sounded sad as he scoffed at my lack of worldly experience. While shaking his head, he went over to his smithing area, picked a random sword from his weapon barrels and went over to the anvil.

He sat down on a chair and held his sword up. “Move to my side,” he told us while waving his hand to the left. Once we were no longer in front of him, the taz took a deep breath before exhaling; however, instead of air, what came out of his mouth was a stream of flames.

Oh! That’s right, Tasianna did mention tazics were flame breathers!

His flame breath was like a small stream, quickly disappearing after it touched the sword. I wasn’t sure how well a taz could control their fire, but seeing him having no issues with it, I could imagine him working like this for hours and hours. The flame was also pretty hot, being able to melt the sword after a minute or so.

Smart. Using your own flame breath to heat up your metal will save you the hassle of having to get a forge working. It also makes sense for an RV not to have something that heavy to continue being mobile.

The moment the taz was done showing off, he threw the molten sword on the ground like some trash, not even bothering to cool the metal down. Thankfully, the floor was made out of metal as well, so the RV probably wouldn’t burn down, but it was still a shame to see him care so little for something he made.

When I voiced this out to him, he scoffed at me once more before grumbling, “Better as molten metal than in the shape of a weapon. That junk won’t impress anybody, and if it can’t even impress some milk-drinking adventurer, then Bleidla will just continue laughing at me. Hmpf.”

It looked sturdy enough.

The taz then scruffed his hair before turning over to us, looking a bit annoyed about something. “Anyway, why are you two lasses here, huh? Even the fact a wind elf and dragonewt are so deep in human territory is weird, but who am I speak? Come on, spit out your business and let’s get it done with.”

“No need to be so hasty, Sir Dwarf,” Tasianna answered. “We are here to inquire if you could inspect some equipment for us and if you can smelt a special material.”

“Hmpf. Imagine asking if a tanzong can smelt something or not. Hear me, wind elf; taz or inko, the both of us can endure higher temperatures than what any human can take. Come, throw your stuff on the table. A bladdarg human will make you pay for a simple blacksmith’s evaluation but a tazong won’t.”

He certainly had the gusto and confidence of a blacksmith, reminding me how Ogni used to speak in that deep, Scottish-like accent to inspect my obsidian. When I took out a couple pieces of equipment from my storage, the taz looked at me with full-blown surprise, widening his eyes like a goldfish.

“You’re a… void-touched?” he said after pausing for a moment. “Level two at least with that [Storage Magic]. Can you do anything else? Level 5 portals? Level-Ahem. My apologies.”

The moment he began to act eccentric with his fascination of my [Space-Time Magic], Tasianna and I had to step back while giving him a look that showed we were a bit weirded out by the sudden outburst. He quickly took ahold of himself and apologized, saying we should forget what just happened. Which we did.

“Hmm, voldunna metal. Stuff comes from the south, where the Human Empire is located,” the taz said after inspecting the black orc knight’s armor we salvaged from the grimgarian battalion. Blacksmiths blessed by Bleidla the Blacksmith God received a skill called [Blacksmith's Appraisal], which acts like [Identify] for equipment. “Not any good as a metal for manatech, as it only has below-average mana conductivity and insulation, but on the other hand, it’s sturdier than any of the raw mana minerals. Heard it’s cheap in the south but costs a bit here in the north. Eoriant is a good replacement alloy.”

So far so good.

“How well can it resist fire?”

“Great. It’s mined from inside mountains and volcanos located in a desert, and the closer it is to those volcanoes, the better the quality. If you were to turn this into armor, it’ll at least get skills to resist fire and earth elements,” he smacked the armor as he said that. “Still isn’t strong enough to resist some good heat though, ahahaha!”

He then went through the rest of the stuff we got from that battle, including the weapons and catalysts. While it wasn’t exactly his field of work, he still did what he said he would, although with a lot of grumbling, “Hmph. Catalysts, huh? Might be better to ask an enchanter or whatever. Marsven’s symbol on the ring, probably some cultist or grimgarian. There seems to be a broken enchantment attached to the inside of the ring, looks like it doesn’t work anymore. The description has it recorded though.”

He was right.

Ring of the Shadow Guardian

A ring made to gain favor with the God of Darkness, Marsven. An alchemical stone was attached designed to channel a dark mage’s mana to cast spells faster. A protective charm was enchanted on this ring, caused by a shamanic ritual in the worship of Marsven by granting a sliver of his goldy power as a shield of shadow. Drains 90% of the caster’s maximum mana as a cost and can only be used once. It resonates with any other [Ring of the Shadow Guardian], amplifying the strength of the shield.

Skill: [Dark Magic Efficiency Lv. 5] [Mana Efficiency Lv. 8] [Dark Amp] [Dark Resistance Lv. 5] [Ring of the Shadow Guardian (Broken)]

I guess if it really is a gift from Marsven, then it would make sense why my [Symphonie des Feuergottes] failed to break through it. For the cost of nearly killing themselves by draining all their mana away, the grimgarians’ spell better have a strong effect, otherwise I would call it a waste of time. No seriously, if this enchantment actually used up 90% of your maximum Mana while you’ve already spent a bit already, you could kill yourself with [Mana Stress] or [Arcane Corruption] and blow your limbs off from it. I still remember how that happened to the garm matriarch.

And the effect did show back then. The shamans were weakened to the point they couldn’t move, where I would have had a good chance to end them if not for the timely arrival of the battalion’s elite units. I wonder if [Omnictus] could have broken through that massive shield?

Back to reality, while I was glad to hear the taz was able to look at the equipment, confirming everything I’d already seen myself, but something still piqued my interest though. “Mister Dwarf?”

“Grimnir. Use that from now on,” he grumbled.

“Hestia is my name. This is Tasianna,” I introduced us in return. “Anyway, Mister Grimnir, while you mentioned the material and description of the gear impeccably, you still haven’t mentioned any attack and defense values.”

“…”

One of the advantages of [Blacksmiths Appraisal] over [Identify] is its ability to show the attack and defense power of a piece of weapon or armor like what you see in video games. Somehow, my [Identify Lv. 10] not only merged into my [Mana Eyes] — making it my appraisal skill now — but I also gained a lesser version of the [Blacksmith’s Appraisal]. I have literally no idea how it happened, it was so random and there wasn’t even an explanation for it. It was in an incomplete form, which I guess must mean that Bleidla hasn’t blessed me yet.

As that was an important ability for a blacksmith while crafting their works, enabling them to also charge a fee during an appraisal, so it wouldn’t be a proper appraising session without some numbers. And with how much his eyes were darting around, my curiosity turned into suspicion.

I pointed toward the orc knight armor. He finally said, “…Vitality value is 571 and Wisdom value is 401.”

…

Voldunna Black Full-Plated Armor

A thick armor made from voldunna ore, granting the wearer resistances against sundering, fire, and earth. The armor grants moderate heat resistance but will cool down the wearer too much in cold temperatures

Vitality Power: 541

Wisdom Power: 399

Skill: [Sundering Resistance Lv. 5] [Piercing Resistance Lv. 2] [Fire Resistance Lv. 7] [Earth Resistance Lv. 5] [Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 2] [Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 2]

That proves it. He doesn’t have [Blacksmith’s Appraisal].

A blacksmith without [Blacksmith’s Appraisal] meant he wasn’t blessed by Bleidla himself. The lack of rock hair and his own admittance that Bleidla was “laughing at him” were already a dead giveaway, but still, if those actually were guesses then they were surprisingly accurate. Daaaaamn.

Should I say anything?

As I was contemplating whether I should say anything about this or not, Grimnir suddenly huffed, “Hmph. Enough, put all of this back into your inventory and show me what you wanted me to smelt. While you do that, don’t mind me getting a drink.” The bravado he showed until now was all gone as he walked over to a mead barrel and poured its alcoholic content into the empty tankard on the table.

Once the foam was overflowing, he brought the tankard to his mouth and chugged everything in one go, swallowing and swallowing with no stops. Once it was empty, he slammed the tankard on the table and burped loudly, unconcerned of the eyes looking at him right now. “What? A tazong works the best after a drink. Now, where are th-burp-the things you wanted me to smelt? Show them already.”

As I placed a piece of my scales, a tuft of Saori’s white fur, and some of my obsidian on Grimnir’s desk, he nodded approvingly and wiped the mead foam from his beard away before giving a look at what was on the table. He licked, smelled, and pressed onto them with his fingers, all to test out whatever he was doing.

As he was doing that, Tasianna suddenly noticed something on the workstation a bit further away from us. She walked over there while Grimnir was preoccupied and questioned him after seeing what was there.

“Sir Grimnir, are you possibly also an artificer?”

His attention taken away from the monster materials before him, he grumbled at Tasianna, “Hmph. Tried. Taz hands are too large and not dextrous enough compared to those from inkos. I have ideas, but everything I make just turns out wrong. At least runesmithing and blacksmithing don’t require me to be that precise.”

Artificer, runesmithing, and blacksmithing? The guy has quite the set of skills. I wonder, can Ellaine learn something from him? After all, what is his definition of only ‘trying?’

“Are these scales yours, lass?” he asked me, prompting me to nod. “Hmph, you got me here. There is something under them, some sorta flammable dust, which means these scales have to be hard and fire-resistant enough to endure that. Dragonewt scales. Didn’t expect you to show them to me, but I guess dragonewts love making their armor from their own scales.”

I waved my hands in front of me, showing him that wasn’t the case. “Ah, no, you misunderstand. These scales are for armor for a friend. Since we are adventurers, she will need more protection, and I thought my scales are the best for the job.”

“Hmph. Well, regardless, my flames can’t smelt these. The tuft of wolf hair can probably be used for something, but the dark mana flowing through it makes it unlikely that anything except dark elemental equipment could be produced. This purple glass mineral, though, is some solid mineral. Where did you find this? I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

His reaction was exactly like Ogni’s, something I expected since I was the only one who could create this corrosive obsidian right now. Unlike my scales, he didn’t mention anything about not being able to melt it, which led me to believe he would be able to produce some gear with it.

“Sorry, that’s a secret for another time,” I decided to hold back from telling him anything yet. “How about we finally speak business? Would you be able to make some gear with them? We might not have enough materials with us right now, I think, but there is a dungeon nearby so we can probably get them.”

However, he snorted and gave a short “Can’t” as the reply. When I asked him to explain why he couldn’t, he groaned, scratching his oily hair in frustration as he spoke, “Don’t get me wrong. That’s some good stuff. If we melt the armor and weapons you just showed me and combine them with monster materials, then we can probably produce something marvelous. Something Bleidla would smile at… But, if you want any of that, go to some other tazong to make them for you.”

“There are only humans in this city, Mister Grimnir,” Tasianna answered, causing him to frown.

“Tch, I rather my pride take a hit than cause Bleidla to scorn me again. If I take your request and botch it, then everything I’ve done to gain back his favor will be gone. And you know why? Cause I stole the chance from somebody more promising in his eyes,” Grimnir slammed his hand on the table.

“So?” I looked at him with a quizzical face. “Even if all those rumors were true and that you were abandoned by Bleidla, does it really matter? I mean, you’re obviously experienced, Mister Grimnir, so why should it matter if Bleidla likes you or not? We can always acquire more of the materials we’d planned to use, and try again, so we won’t be that angry, at least, if you aren’t charging us for it. Your [Blacksmithing] skill should be high, and that’s all we really are looking out for. The gods don’t control our lives, so why don’t you try our request out?”

Although, people might think me crazy for saying that with a white robe, it is the truth, right? Sure, Aurena did reincarnate me and was initially planning to use me however she wanted, but I managed to gain my autonomy and the freedom to say these sorta things. I have not been smited yet. Aurena herself even said that the gods can watch and guide mortals, but they were never allowed to fully intervene in our lives.

Giving people skills or offering Divine Quests was their way to guide us, even installing someone as a saint or champion was a way for the gods to offer people a different way of life. However, any of this could only happen if we first accepted it. At the end of the day, we were the drivers of our own fate and only our skills mattered in the grand scheme of living.

Even without [Blacksmith’s Appraisal], it couldn’t take away how many years Grimnir had as a blacksmith. Tasianna mentioned dwarves also had an extended lifespan, similar to the other long-living humanoid races like the elves, dragonewts, and fairies. Who knows how old this guy was?

“Hmph. I don’t need a lass lecturing me on how to live my life. Hmph!” he grumbled once again, but seemed to have calmed down. “… Even if I wanted to, the piece of gear I can make won’t amount to anything you might expect, lass. A hammer is a blacksmith’s most valuable tool — the most important part of bending metal and to bash the impurities away and add any monster materials.”

“Then make one. You are a blacksmith, after all, Mister Grimnir,” Tasianna said rather bluntly.

He shrugged and smacked his hand on his knees, looking at us while shaking his head. “I have one, look over there.” He pointed at the utility belt I saw before, holding onto two hammers. “But they are made of some normal metal and steel. Not even out of eoriant. A blacksmith’s hammer has to be made out of superior metal, and I had gotten too used to mine. Another jest of Bleidla, cursing me to get a laugh out of it. He knows the value of my hammer but didn’t do anything when I lost it forever in a damn gulch.”

“Better hammers make better equipment?” I wondered aloud.

He nodded. “Yeah, simply put. The right tools for the right job, and I need a good hammer that doesn’t melt or bend when I increase the heat. I’ve been requesting from the hunter’s guild for one of their people to hunt a material down for me inside the dungeon. I came to this place ‘cause I heard a monster in the depths had it around. The name ‘Emerald-Flare Forest’ sounds like a jest if you only visited the upper floors, but once you make it past floor ten, you’ll know why they gave it that name. A molten rock that can only be found somewhere beyond floor 15, rumored to not only be extremely heat resistant to the point I can raise the temperature to whatever I want, but also hard enough to resist the toughness of monster materials.”

“Jeez, floor 15? Where adventurers could encounter B rank monsters if they're unlucky? Well, I can’t say I blame the guild for not being able to produce something like that. Does Cedarraille have any B rank hunters right now?”

“A bunch of C ranks, at least. The guild mentioned they have multiple B rank hunters but all of them have banded together to enter the dungeon in Griffonpeak to fulfill some high-ranking, confidential Quest. My guess is a noble,” he explained. “I can fight, sure, but at best I’m a C rank adventurer. Going in there alone would be suicide, no matter how much I crave that rock. Either I stay patient and ask the guild every day whether the hunters have returned or I go around and hire some hunters from some other city. Too bad I’m short on funds from a lack of customers.”

Well, that is true…

While it might be impossible for us to actually bring him more customers, there might be a way for us to help him out anyway. The Aurora way.

“Mister Grimnir, do you have a party bracelet?” Once he confirmed my question, I handed him my ID, only hiding the sensitive parts while displaying the power I had. Seeing his impressed face, I continued. “My party has another B rank level member and Tasianna here is a decent C rank. Our last member is a bit weak right now but I’m planning to train her up until then. What do you say? We will need some equipment from you first though, oh, we can pay of course.”

“… Are you sure? Forgetting the fact I’m gonna ask a bunch of young lasses to help me, probably going down there will be a real task. It’s gonna be dangerous.”

“You’ve seen my Mana and my storage. I have healing spells and combat ones. In an endurance run like dungeon diving, I already have a ton of necessary abilities to lighten our load on the trip,” I pointed out, then I suddenly got an idea to fully convince him. “How about this; you need to meet with whoever you’ll be working with anyways. You’ve met Tasianna and me, but you don’t know our two other teammates. Come with us and let me introduce you to them before we continue anyway. Deal?”

“Gahahahaha!” For the first time since we came into his RV, Grimnir laughed boisterously and loudly similar to Kraftja and Ogni. It seemed I was able to convince him. “Worth a try! Worth a try! I won’t go and abandon Crustacia for Aurena, but bladdarg, if she sent you to try to win me over, I’m honestly tempted here, gahahahahaha! Lead the way, Hestia and Tasianna!”

And so, we accidentally accepted a “Quest” in our training montage.

A note from AbyssRaven

Tazong = Dwarf, Taz = Undermountain dwarf, Grimnir, Inko = Surface dwarf, the ones from Firwood who made Saori's dagger and claw protector

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 17 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 169: The Sarlenzia Trading Company.

A note from AbyssRaven

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POV today is from Saori.

“This looks like it belongs to a noble,” I commented about the building before me. It wasn’t to the same degree as a noble’s mansion or home, but compared to the other buildings I saw in the merchant district, including those in Firwood, this one stood out the most.

“The Sarlenzia Trading Company, one of the Kingdom’s largest trading firms and the most influential merchant company in the Greenveil Duchy. It shouldn’t be a surprise to see them imitating nobles, since that is one of the wishes of wealthy yeomen. Strive to become like your betters, right, Saori?” Walking forward, Ellaine prompted us to enter the building.

When Zeather, the foxian merchant, recommended that I meet his “master” so we could continue our business relationship, I wasn’t expecting the company to be this wealthy. Ellaine mentioned the company did trade with other countries and was one of the main reasons for large amounts of foreign products being imported into the Greenveil duchy while also being responsible for the export of most of their farm products, dungeon loot, and any Belzac goods.

Nobles weren’t required to use the Sarlenzia company’s trading routes, but considering the logistics of exporting everything their farms produced to the other duchies or countries, simply selling their products to the company and letting them deal with it was far easier. Of course, the more ambitious merchants would do otherwise, as they wished for their own companies’ growth. In a way, the Sarlenzia Company was one of the major reasons for the Greenveil duchy’s reputation as a duchy filled with only merchants and farmers.

The outside of the building was well decorated with pristine wooden walls, well-chiseled and maintained. An overhang known as a jetty, if you wanted to be specific, gave the company’s building three additional floors to work within. Aside from being visually pleasing, jettying a building was a technique used to save on land tax while expanding living or working space, something a merchant would undoubtedly do.

The inside of the building, though, really went the extra mile to make everything look splendid. The walls and floors were just wood, but looking at how smooth they were, a high-leveled artisan most likely had a hand in the construction. The ceiling was made out of white stone — fairnite, Ellaine mentioned — making me imagine how opulent the upper floors had to be. Compared to the alchemy guild in Firwood, this was nearly noble levels of luxury, although the usage of manatech seems to have been kept to a minimum.

“Hmm, Zeather wrote a recommendation for me to meet his ‘master,’ his employer, I presume, but maybe he meant a senior employee?” I questioned after seeing the line of merchants standing before the reception. Since the Sarlenzia Trading Company was the most influential merchant firm in the city, their headquarters also doubled as Cedaraille’s merchant guild, meaning the proprietor, Zeather’s employer, was a local guild master.

Even with Zeather’s letter of recommendation, I was beginning to doubt that a lone foxian merchant would be influential enough to grant a meeting with a merchant guild’s master, even if it was just a branch. However, Ellaine disagreed, explaining, “Hestia is part of this recommendation, don’t forget.” before waving her hand to lead me to the waiting line.

“You seem so used to standing in a line, Ellaine,” I noted, noticing she was relatively calm despite having to wait in a line here and at the hunter’s guild. For a noble, I would expect her to be less patient in a commoner’s establishment.

However, I seemed to have misjudged her here. “Waiting in a line is normal, even for a noble. Saori, have you any idea how long you must wait to enter one of Griffonpeak’s more reputable tailor shops or even speak with somebody inside a mage’s guild? Institutions belonging to or partnered with a noble must hold up to the degree of a noble’s artistic and architectural taste while maintaining proper procedures, especially if they are frequently visited by aristocratic patrons. Waving our status in this establishment and getting preferential treatment would be impossible, well, except for royalty or those of a higher rank, of course.”

“So I presume nobles of lower ranks are more used to this?”

Ellaine nodded to my inquisitive remark. “Yes, quite. Schwertnobles are modest in comparison to magnobles and greifnobles, if I may be so critical. After all, some merchant families are far wealthier than most of them.” Ellaine then pointed at a coat of arms placed directly above the reception; a tree and bow were depicted on it.

“House Greenveil?!” I exclaimed without shouting.

“It also helps that this company is partnered with the local ducal house, hie hie. Even if I wanted to, I have no right to complain about standing in line with others,” she said with a shrug.

Well, it seems like we will be indirectly dealing with another noble, Hestia. The Kingdom is managed by them…

After waiting for some time, our turn to speak with the reception finally came. Ellaine told me to hand her the recommendation, which I did, and she handed both the letter and her ID to the receptionist, stating that we wanted a meeting with the guild master at his earliest convenience.

The receptionist confirmed the information in the letter, finishing it with widened eyes, and immediately sent a runner up the stairs. He returned in a minute or two and announced the guild master will be awaiting us now.

???

That was far too quick!

Neither Zeather nor this guild master should know anything about Hestia’s royalty status, only that she’s a high-ranking foreign noble at best, so it was weird to see this appointment made so easily. Shouldn’t the guild master be busier? From what I learned from my students, any corporation’s CEO would be impossible to meet without an appointment.

The receptionist asked the runner to guide us up after we confirmed the meeting invitation. Usually, to enter the upper floors of the merchant guild, it was required of you to be a member, which I already was, so we didn’t need the guide except to show us where the guild master was.

As I expected, the second floor was marvelous. Walls and floors made out of fairnite, giving this room an exclusivity or VIP feeling compared to the ground floor, which was weird to say since the latter was abundantly decorated, too.

Once we were on the fourth floor, our guide announced our arrival to the secretary, who informed the guild master through an intercom-like manatech, giving us a confirmation to enter once a man’s voice exited the speaker. The secretary opened the door after knocking on it, leading us into a rather modest office, compared to the rest of the upper floors.

The room was decorated in fine wood with no hint of fairnite or expensive minerals. Two bookcases filled with books and scrolls were neatly organized on them, showing immaculate care for these important documents. Decorations like a bearskin rug, plants, and expensive-looking furniture, however, made the room feel natural and easy to work in, unlike the marble-like interior outside.

This was the guild master’s office, not a welcoming room for a customer or nobles, designed to meet his specific taste.

“Welcome!” a plump middle-aged man around his 50s greeted us with open arms after standing up from his office desk. “Lady Ellaine, it is so good to see you once again! I pray the Goddess has blessed you with fine health!”

Hmm? He knows Ellaine? I thought, looking over to the latter who answered my confusion with a wry smile and nervous giggle.

She shook her hand, telling me to not worry before turning to the guild master. “Yes, I have been very well, Mister Newt. May the Goddess bless you, too.”

I couldn’t tell if his smile was genuine or not, but the wrinkles it created showed his advanced age. “Wonderful, wonderful! Sit, please. You, too, miss,” he told me while pointing at the sofa with his palm. He moved over and sat down on the couch opposite of ours.

“Lady Ellaine, it has been a while. Are you here in Cedaraille, perhaps, for my granddaughter? She misses you dearly, you must know,” Newt suddenly remarked, causing my eyebrows to curve up. Looking over, I could see Ellaine’s strained expression.

“Uhm, well, I am here actually for business. Uhm, with my new party, you see,” she replied with hesitation, causing the guild master’s mood to drop significantly. He sighed for a moment before turning to me. “Ahem, I apologize for my behavior from before. It was rude. My name is Newt Sarlenzia, and as you know, I am the owner of Sarlenzia Trading Company and also Cedaraille’s merchant guild’s branch master.”

“Saori Segawa, member of the adventurer party Aurora,” I reciprocated his polite introduction.

He nodded before turning over to Ellaine. “Well, it would be rude of me to ask how this happened, but I guess curiosity is just a normal part of being a merchant. Ahaha, I beg for your forgiveness, Lady Ellaine.”

“Not at all,” Ellaine replied with a wry smile. “Well, something happened and I’ve decided to join Aurora as an adventurer. Uhm, to broaden my horizons, you see. It was my choice, since I believe it would be better for me to leave Artorias to better myself.”

The guild master nodded with a smile, although there seemed to be a hint of disappointment in his eyes as he said his next words, “I see… that is good to hear, Lady Ellaine. Young people should seek to be more reckless, for life has much to give. I am glad to hear you’re sounding more cheerful than the last time we met… much more. Oh, hahaha, look at me speaking like that… It would be best if we spoke business, yes?”

… Okay, this is awkward. Very awkward. I feel like a third wheel here. What was going on?

There was history between these two, that was for sure. Although, I had no idea how a middle-aged merchant could have anything to do with Ellaine, a noblewoman who was practically stigmatized by noble society. Who was this granddaughter Newt talked about and what does she have to do with anything? There were so many questions, but this really wasn’t the place to ask them, so I kept my mouth shut.

“Anyways, Miss Saori, right? I have read through the letter of recommendation and I found it surprising to hear so much from my dear Zeather. That sly fox, praise Mercurias, is a pretty conniving merchant and rarely praises people since he gets the better of them in a transaction,” Newt said.

Agreed. He was tough.

The first time went well since he didn’t know about Hestia, which made it possible for me to mention her and use that influence to reduce the price of our grocery by a lot, but all subsequent grocery deliveries went his way, where I was only able to reduce it by an amount he was satisfied with. Reduce it enough to make me “happy” but him richer.

The only time where we didn’t open his mouth to argue a price up or down was after we showed him the fulinoe leaves and Hestia’s concert idea. He was smart enough to understand the value of the propositions, preferring to go with the flow and not anger us in an attempt to make even more money. He knew the way to profit the most was to accept the result as it was, since going to another merchant for an agreeable price was also an option for us.

Newt continued, “Mhmm, my company’s influence in Firwood isn’t the best, since I found it not worth investing into since it was only a small town, but Zeather mentioned in the letter something about a ‘Lady Hestia’ and her ‘concerts?’ Also that your party was able to supply fulinoe leaves and other Belzac forest herbs at a decent pace?”

“Examples that we can provide are Belzac herbs for healing potions and the luxurious elven product, yeast,” Ellaine answered in my stead, something we discussed beforehand through [Telepathy].

We had already told Countess Helvas the recipe for yeast, which she is planning to spread to the nobility one way or another; however, that is when Ellaine herself had an idea. With yeast spreading in the near future in Artorias, why not use this bargaining chip before that happened again? For something the people of this kingdom believed to be an elven-only product, yeast for pastry and soft bread was like a luxury. Nobles loved them so much they would trade with black market dealers for them.

Of course, Ellaine wasn’t only looking out for our party, but was also making a deal as a daughter of House Helvas simultaneously. And, hey, the only thing that mattered was that Aurora gets a share of the cake. No pun, intended.

“Hold on!” Newt’s eyes widened in surprise as he seemed to choke on his spit. One lesson I learned from Zeather was to use your valuable cards right in the beginning, while hiding your ace-in-the-hole in the back until you needed to use it. “Fulinoe leaves are already a valuable necessity for mages-in-training, especially nobles, but you are telling me, this new party of yours, Lady Ellaine, also produces Belzac herbs and knows how to make yeast? I would find that hard to believe if Zeather hadn’t mentioned that this ‘Lady Hestia’ was a dragonewt noble.”

“Lady Hestia is Aurora’s party leader,” I interjected to clear up any confusion. “As Zeather should have mentioned, we did some business with him. Our party was quite satisfied with his professionalism and competence, and as our party still requires a regular supply of spices and other products, we found his suggestion to meet with you, Guild Master Newt, a good opportunity to continue our relationship.”

“Why, that sounds like a fantastic proposition!” Newt exclaimed loudly, his good mood returned but with a glimmer of a predator suddenly showing in his eyes as he stared at us, not as potential business partners, but as prey. “I presume House Helvas already knows about the yeast, Lady Ellaine?”

Ellaine nodded, prompting him to continue. “Mhmm, of course, working with House Helvas would be entirely possible. However, I presume you are selling the right to work with House Helvas in this case, Lady Ellaine? I heard your father is close to becoming an arcanuess after everything that happened in Firwood. The production recipe for yeast would elevate not only Lord Count Helvas’s wealth but also his reputation.”

“That would be correct, Mister Newt,” Ellaine confirmed, beginning to smile. “My house would require a merchant company for the distribution to the other duchies since handling the logistics inside the Greenveil duchy is already a lot of work. As you know, my honorable father is a noble lord and knight, dedicated to the protection of our realm. Delegating important tasks should be normal.”

Newt nodded, looking like he was already used to how nobles structured their sentences to sound not only superior but also in control of the situation. “I see, I see. Yes, using an already established exporting method would be more financially viable than constructing your own, especially with all the competition. The nobles in the Equevanna duchy will glare at him with the eyes of a griffon, but my company is sponsored by Lord Duke Greenveil. Our protection would be superior to your father’s.”

Ellaine made her father sound strong and noble in this situation, but Newt deconstructed the meaning and hit her with the actual meaning of her words. “Very well, that we can do, so let us-” However, before he could finish his sentence, Ellaine raised her hand up to stop him, presenting to him Aurora’s demand.

“Please, do not believe this is all we want, Mister Newt. Yeast is a valuable product you can only acquire through the black market currently, but suddenly, a viable and legal source appeared before you. Sharing a tiny fraction of the profits with you is still too cheap for us.” Ellaine’s last sentence made Newt raise an eyebrow in irritation and confusion, prompting me to enter the discussion.

“House Helvas currently possesses the knowledge of the recipe after making a deal with Aurora. We do not need to share with you anything; neither does Count Helvas,” I stated, omitting to address Count Helvas as “lord” to show our party’s social ranking over him. “There are other merchant companies as large as yours, correct, Guild Master Newt? Without knowing the recipe yourselves, you cannot bargain with them and they do not need to accept any of your demands.”

“Hmph. Lord Count Helvas is a patriot and a loyal retainer, he wouldn’t dare betray the company supported by his fief lord,” Newt countered.

“Oh, but there is a problem in that assessment, right, Ellaine?” I looked over at my partner, who nodded her head vigorously. “You see, Guild Master, you seem to not be aware of a certain new piece of information. Oh, that is something we don’t need to share, unfortunately for you. All you need to know is that Count Helvas has a way to distribute the yeast with another merchant company that is not yours, all with the help of the royal family.”

We were talking about how Count Helvas has been gaining additional favors from people. Not only was their daughter now Hestia’s retainer, who was an imperial princess of the Dragon Empire Kargryx as well as a Champion of Aurena, but they were also a contributing force in the apprehension of Arcanuess Chezaic for his crimes against faefolk. They were in the favor of the royal family and Marquess Sirius, who was considered the right-hand man of Duke Greenveil.

With all of this considered, Duke Greenveil couldn’t afford to not work with Count Helvas. Since House Helvas had favors to work with, Duke Greenveil couldn’t simply bully them into submission, normally something greifnobles could easily do to magnobles. However, he couldn’t afford to anger Count Helvas, as the duke needed to work with the count in order to distribute the yeast around the kingdom with his coat of arms on it. Duke Greenveil had to increase the reputation of his duchy for one goal: To become the Grand Duke of Economic Affairs.

The Royal Family of Artorias was supported by four Grand Dukes and three Dukes. Each Grand Duke was responsible for one aspect of the kingdom’s growth, and in this example, it was the economy. Not only was the title of Grand Duke a prestigious rank to grow your House’s influence and power, but it also meant you could prevent a rival duchy from gaining all these benefits.

The current Grand Duke of Economic Affairs was Duke Equevanna, whose duchy also focused on trade and wealth. Every five years, the four Grand Dukes would be chosen from among the seven dukes by the royal family, and to impress them, the economic-focused duchies had to show the royal family their feats in the last five years or a plan to improve the kingdom’s wealth.

Yeast was Duke Greenveil’s ace-in-the-hole.

Now, Newt was correct that Count Helvas would never betray his liege, but we don’t need to tell him that. We weren’t even allowed to tell him about the affairs concerning Davison, which gave House Helvas all the accolades to rise to the arcanuess rank in the first place, theoretically. He might know about Hestia and the rumors concerning her and House Helvas, but not about that last part. Hide your cards, right?

Newt was, as expected, stumped, not knowing if he could trust us or not; however, when I reminded him about the rumors he should have heard concerning Hestia from his own gossip network or from Zeather’s letter, he sighed in defeat. “What do you want?”

I smiled at the direction of our conversation and unfurled a parchment hanging on my belt and placed it on the table. “Materials for a concert stage. We aren’t sure about the construction yet, but we need to secure the building blocks first.”

I promised to amass funds for Hestia’s performance stage and so I will do it. Honestly, I wasn’t an architect, so I had no idea how much we needed, but what we do need is to secure a supplier. We couldn’t just go around cutting down trees and mining rocks like someone from a video game; we actually had important stuff to do.

We could get an artisan to calculate the amount we needed later, but getting somebody to supply all of it at a cheap price was a problem. When Ellaine proposed doing something with the yeast recipe, I knew I had to use it to solve some of our financial issues. A large trading company like this was just perfect.

As he looked over the plans, Newt asked how much we needed, something I couldn’t answer yet, causing him to huff in annoyance, calling it impossible to make a deal without proper numbers. However, I had something to entice him into this plan. Ellaine, noticing this was the correct moment, took out something from her bag and presented it on the desk.

A piece of Hestia’s fanwear, a dress made to imitate one of Hestia’s idol outfits in Artorian fashion. “Read what Zeather said about ‘concerts.’”

Once he was done, I continued, “You must have heard the rumors, right? A greifnoble-ranked dragonewt noble has appeared in Firwood and is staying with House Helvas. Not only is she a noble, but also a priestess of Aurena who grants white graces for low prices. Our Lady Hestia can prove all of this to you, or you can even ask Ellaine for her statement.”

“Associating with Lady Hestia is the correct choice, Mister Newt,” Ellaine supported my statement, leaving Newt’s mouth slightly agape.

“I am a member of the chef, tailor, and merchant guilds. Deal 1: Aurora will pay for a steady supply of ingredients and spices with fulinoe leaves, Belzac herbs, and other Belzac products, as we need them for our restaurant. Deal 2: I require the Sarlenzia company to buy the clothing I make. I can make them with either normal cotton threads or mana threads, depending on my needs, although these cannot be produced at a steady supply. Deal 3: A promise to finance the materials for this concert stage, no matter what the end amount will become, for the yeast recipe. What say you, Guild Master Newt? All three deals benefit you quite a bit, no?”

Come on, bite!

“Gahahahaha!” Newt suddenly burst out in laughter, surprising not only Ellaine but me, too. “I see what Zeather now meant. Good preparation, ladies, I must admit. I really don’t have much room to discuss, it’s like you two came in and already had me chained to your ideas. Hahaha! I wonder why Zeather didn’t simply send the message to me through a messenger bird so I could prepare more. The amount of information I got was too late and my old mind couldn’t think fast enough, ahahahaha!”

I shrugged. He didn’t owe us a favor, so why didn’t he do that? This probably would have gone less smoothly if Newt had more time to research or even ask Duke Greenveil about everything. Regardless, none of it mattered since we got the deal in the end.

“We’ll talk numbers at a later date. This is something I need more concrete information on, so bring the material amounts you need the next time you come. I’ll also ready a written instruction for any of my company’s branches to deliver you the supplies for what we agreed upon,” Newt said, but it honestly felt like he was trying to delay to get more time. Sly.

So to interrupt his plan, I pulled out the document for our restaurant’s ingredients, our party’s food consumption, and also the prices for Hestia’s fanwear, “I have the numbers here. I do not have the material amount, but we can already finish the contracts for the other deals, yes?” Newt’s complicated expression meant my suspicion was correct~

I did not know how long it took us to iron down all the details, but with Ellaine’s help, the contract for our first two deals was settled as the two of us smiled with elation. Not only would we have a supply of ingredients for our restaurant while we stayed in Artorias, I also had a way to sell my clothing for some extra money. It was a great deal.

Now, we still needed to do something about Tasianna’s potion-making and Ellaine’s artificer training, but that could wait for another day. Our party’s non-adventurer work was growing while we could continue living as adventurers.

“Oh, there is still one more thing I want to see. You said your lady does singing, right? I would like to hear with my own ears what I will invest in. Ha ha! You see, I am an opera lover; I always visit the Griffonpeak’s opera to listen to the heavenly singing there.” With those last words, we said our goodbyes. While it might irritate Hestia a bit, I believe we should finalize deal three before we go and grind in the dungeon, which meant we should open our restaurant for one or two days to please Newt. It would also give us time to work on the concert stage.

After leaving with smiles on our faces, we suddenly noticed Hestia and Tasianna waiting outside the guild with skewered meat and fruits. I wonder how long they were waiting.

“Hey, you two! Looks like it went well,” Hestia greeted us. “You guys can get us to speed later, but first, let us introduce you to our potential blacksmith.”

Hestia and Tasianna quickly walked over to the tavern, hauling an orange-haired dwarf still holding onto a tankard out of it. Tasianna noticed this and snatched his tankard away before returning it to the tavern owner.

“Let me introduce you to Grimnir. A taz dwarf who is not only a blacksmith, but also a runesmith and amateur artificer!”

“Hey-urrrp!”

Why is he drinking before it’s even lunchtime?!

A note from AbyssRaven

Merchant work.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 17 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 170: Training Arc #1...or is this the third?

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #2 her to promote our Patreon. 17 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 17 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until July!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

Take this: Rawr

“You do know I’m a blacksmith and not a metalworker, right lass?” the big tough taz snorted at me after looking at my concert stage plans, shoving it back to my side. He sounded offended for some reason, but I wasn’t sure why.

“I know, I know, but you should be able to make these trusses and pillars, right? If we provide you the necessary materials for them,” I pointed at the metal parts of my concert blueprint.

“Lass, coming to a tazong for all your metal needs ain’t gonna work when the bladdarg tazong’s smithy is smaller than what an apprentice gets to work in. By Crustacia’s twintails, you’ve seen my wagon, that ain’t got enough space to smelt these giant bars,” Grimnir finally explained. “Anyways, the carpentry parts are for an elf. Stone and metal are dwarven specialties, but you ain’t getting me to make something when my tools ain’t gonna cut it.”

Grimnir had been pretty proud when he described how he made his wagon during our first visit, informing us how long it took for each of the multiple iterations until the forge was large enough to his liking. Since he had experience building something like that, I thought it would be smart to let him look over the blueprint for my concert stage. But, I guess I didn’t think about the possible issues very thoroughly.

“I have already asked the merchant guild’s branch master if there are any metalworkers in Cedaraille, but he denied knowing any. Well, that is to be expected without a nearby mine,” Saori sighed as she looked at the blueprints. “Still, I think we should order the raw materials in case we find somebody who can turn them into something usable. I think ordering an obscene amount of ore as the initial suggestion would be best. We can prod Newt if he would accept it or if he will reduce it to something he believes would be manageable. What do you think, Ellaine?”

“I think that would be for the best. Concerning the lumber, we could either have Mister Newt buy whatever amount we believe we need, or we can do it ourselves and cut down trees. Hestia, do you think you can sand the timber smooth enough for you to walk on?”

“Hmm? I thought you were a priestess but you’re also a carpenter?”

Seeing Grimnir’s bafflement, I pulled out a chair and table from my storage, the ones I made for our party’s restaurant. Both pieces of furniture were simple and made out of wood, without any elegant designs or symbols carved into them, since I wasn’t able to translate these ideas into practice yet. Touching my own work, I could feel the smooth surface on my fingers as I rubbed against them.

“Hmm, decent work. Nothing to complain about if you’re not comparing it to elven craftsmanship. Ha, the last thing I thought an Aurena priestess would know is [Handicraft]; usually, you’re too ‘pure’ to consider anything but the artistic pursuits,” Grimnir snorted, giving me an idea of how a dwarf viewed the Church of Aurena. Aurena was the humans’ patron goddess, meaning Artorians like Ellaine who worship her were the majority, making it interesting for me to hear the opinions of other races.

“Well, I’m not your typical white robe,” I shrugged dramatically as I said that, believing it was fine that I wasn’t how people would envision a priestess.

As we were talking, a waitress from the street eatery we were currently visiting finally brought out five full bowls of food to our table. In them, pink rice was glimmering under the noon sun, adorned with scrambled fried egg, pieces of long onion strips, diced ground meat, and plenty of sliced mushrooms. The smell steaming from this bowl was stimulating my nose, causing my mouth to water and my mind to feel invigorated. This was proof of the chef’s hard work.

As I bit into it, the umami-filled rice began to cover my tongue, invoking a smile on my face. The scrumptious pieces of meat and egg mixed well with the rice as a unique sour taste drove my brain to remember it for the future. The crunchiness of the onions and the spongy taste of the mushroom gave this rice bowl the necessary texture to feel pleasing.

Gasper Wasp Rice Bowl

A rice bowl made using Gasper Wasp organs. Any lingering toxicity was eliminated during the cooking phase, where the rice was colored pink after the organs mixed with cepillium

Cepillium was what Peolyncians called onions, which were actually toxic in this world until you cooked them, as raw cepillium could give you a terrible stomach ache. Trust me, I experienced it once. Which makes it sound weird that the people in Cedaraille are actually mixing it with gasper wasp organs.

Yes, gasper wasps, the giant wasps we fought in the dungeon which had venomous stingers. They weren’t part of the local environment per se, but since they could be hunted in the dungeon, people seemed to have gotten creative with them. When we asked the hunter guild for the prices of the gasper wasp meat, they told us they were almost as cheap as kobold and goblin meat.

Well, I won’t complain if they can make eating bugs delicious. Although, it is rather lacking in spices.

“Hahaha! Great! Waitress! Davincz kazan ungari! Give me as much as the bowl can be filled up again, lass!” Grimnir trumpeted to the waitress with an empty bowl.

When the waitress brought him another bowl, Saori couldn’t help but frown at him. “…Why exactly are we treating him to food, Hestia? From the looks of it, his appetite seems to be as terrible as ours…” She was unenthused with the idea of treating Grimnir to more than one bowl of food.

When I explained how long we had to wait for her outside the merchant’s guild, Saori sighed and ignored the fact that Grimnir was ordering more bowls. Well, it wasn’t like Saori and I could stop eating, ourselves; we, too, followed Grimnir’s example.

“Ooooooh? With how scrawny you two looked, I didn’t think you would have such an appetite,” Grimnir noted. I mean, I’m pretty sure I’m more muscular than when I was on Earth, so I don’t know what to say to his remark. “Well, you two eat healthier than those two.”

Saori and I looked over to Tasianna and Ellaine. Tasianna was already done with her bowl but was staying quiet, not ordering anymore since she preferred vegetable dishes over meat. If something Saori cooked was too meaty, Tasianna would usually cook something for herself, only eating meat dishes if she wanted to improve her own cooking skills.

Ellaine on the other hand…

“How is it?” I asked her.

“Uhm, well, it certainly is special. Using such weird monster parts for ingredients… it looks like the… people are being creative. It certainly fits how the duchy’s ancestors lived…” Ellaine looked at the pink rice with suppressed disgust. “It wasn’t terrible… but where are the spices? The cepillium and wasp innards are the only source of taste; it is so one-dimensional, relying purely on those two ingredients. I guess there's some harmony, though?”

“… She’s a human noble, yeah?” Grimnir asked me, to which I nodded.

How often has Ellaine eaten stuff only served to nobles? Pretty much her whole life. How often has she eaten stuff from Saori? Quite often up until now. How often has she eaten simple grilled meat and fish? Once, and that was during our duo hunting week. Now, how often has she eaten street food? This was her first try.

“… I just gained [Poison Resistance Lv. 1] from eating this…” Ellaine’s mortified face seemed to have turned slightly pale from that announcement. Before she actually got sick, we gave her bowl of rice to Grimnir and promised to cook something more “normal” later on.

While giving her [Poison Resistance] might not have been our initial plan, getting Ellaine used to common food was one of the goals. Greenveil nobles are supposedly known as gourmets due to how bountiful the harvest can be in their duchies, which led to most of them becoming extremely picky eaters. Ellaine had her preferences on how her meat should be seared, how the vegetables should be cut, and how the dishes should be garnished.

For somebody who couldn’t cook herself, she had a list of details she wanted before feeling satisfied with her meals. Fortunately, she’s been very lenient concerning Saori’s cooking, which was good but not Michelin professional level, and also what we are selling to people in our restaurant, as we weren’t “serving nobles.”

After a hearty lunch, and giving Ellaine some cake and toffel chips to appease her, we returned to Grimnir’s wagon where I began explaining what our party’s next plans were. As we will stay in Cedaraille until SpringSun — about three weeks from now, as today was the 14th of WinterMoon — I told them I had decided to accept Grimnir’s request to hunt down a molten rock for his hammer.

“We need a blacksmith. If he can provide what we need, then I do not see anything wrong with helping him out. It is simply another step towards our goals,” Saori agreed to my idea. With Ellaine also agreeing, Aurora was unanimous in this decision. “Well, I am still not sure why we are not considering other blacksmiths, but okay.”

“A tazong is fully capable of besting any manling when it comes to smithing, wolfkin,” Grimnir grumbled at Saori’s offhand remark.

Saori waved her hand, not expecting the taz to suddenly feel offended like that, “I am not questioning you, Mister Grimnir, so please calm down. Anyway, are you completely unable to craft equipment? Even leather ones? If you could, I actually have a request that would demand your skills.”

Outside Grimnir’s wagon, Saori called her garms to emerge from her shadow. As if they were wet, the giant wolves shook their fur before staring down at Grimnir. Since people had trouble spotting the garms’ collars back in the dungeon, we had mana threads attached to their collars to act as LEDS once they poured mana into them; otherwise, their black fur would cover the collars up and people would assume that the garms were hostile monsters.

We still had to calm down a few people who saw the four appear, but once it was done, Saori had enough time to explain to Grimnir what she had envisioned. The garms needed more protection from attacks, so we planned to have leather armor made for them from a few C rank hides. Specifically, the hides from the trolls and orcs we’d killed recently.

“Please, take a look,” Saori showed the dwarf her obsidian claw protectors and displayed its ability to store and shoot venom. “This requires us to get a new hammer for you, but would you be able to recreate them for all four?”

Grimnir inspected the claw protectors on Saori’s hand, touching and analyzing the structure. “Ahhh, this was made by a tazong or somebody who can recreate our techniques. Hmm, I can’t remember which clan’s technique it was, but this is undoubtedly from an inko. Tazics have larger hands, more suited for big projects, while inkos can be almost as dextrous as elves when it concerns finer and more detailed work with their human-like hands. Hmph. It’ll be tough, but I can create something like this when it’s for your garms.”

“Woah, you can? From the sound of what you said, it honestly didn’t seem so,” I remarked in surprise from his last sentence.

“Hmph. You’re lucky you met the taz with milk drinking hands, unlike any other,” Grimnir said, eyes softened before patting Saori’s hand lightly. The difference between their hands was obvious from a distance — Saori’s was covered in fur and around the size of a normal woman’s while Grimnir’s were rough and hard like stone, looking larger than the average man’s. It reminded me a bit of Ogni’s, the dwarf who was responsible for our equipment in Firwood.

Did I say something wrong? I wondered as Grimnir’s face looked sullen.

Saori continued by also mentioning tools for her garms to carry her mana threads more easily. Up until now, Saori had to take her threads from her storage and throw them to her pack, which would waste precious time during a battle. Just as we girls needed gear to become stronger, so did our garms need their own gear.

“Hmm, alright, I understand. Think of me making the leather armor and thread holders as your payment for helping me get that rock. Delving that deep into a dungeon without proper preparations is suicide, so if you four need anything, come over and I’ll try to craft it. Just, don’t ask for anything concerning metal weapons or armor,” Grimnir shook his head in annoyance. “I ain’t making something Bleidla can blame me for. The best or nothing at all.”

“Got it. We can take care of provisions and potions,” I patted Saori’s and Tasianna’s shoulders. “Do you mind if we spend some time getting ready in the dungeon? Leveling up, training skills, and getting a feel for the dungeon?”

“Take your time. I ain’t leaving this city until I get that magma rock or I die trying to get it, but I prefer doing the former, you hear? My pride ain’t gonna accept you lasses protecting me during the spelunking, so I’ll get myself ready, too. Don’t dawdle too much, though.” And with that, we said our goodbyes to Grimnir for the day. He was quite rough around the edges with moments of sadness I couldn’t understand, but one of our goals for coming to Cedaraille was set. Now, we just needed to get ready to reach it.

The first thing we needed to do was to fulfill the agreement related to the merchant guild contract Saori got for us, which meant I had to get my voice ready for tomorrow amongst a few other things. Saori went to the Chef’s Guild with Newt Sarlenzia’s letter of recommendation, getting our restaurant a good spot close to the two adventurer guilds and the merchant district to best serve our two main customers: Adventurers and merchants.

With the bureaucratic part dealt with, we now needed to make the rest of our preparations for tomorrow. Once back at the inn, our party rented a spot in the kitchen for ourselves, which the innkeeper gladly allowed after I offered to heal any problems he or his family had. The perks of being a white-robed priestess.

As our party had grown to four people, Saori decided to expand our menu by one or two dishes. Actually, the real reason was Saori’s increased confidence in the kitchen and that Ellaine promised to handle the ledger and numbers afterwards, saving Saori a good amount of energy which she could use to focus on cooking.

Tasianna was also feeling more comfortable around humans and believed she could use her catalyst to help serve our customers. She didn’t need to create ice daggers all the time, she could also mold the mana slime oozed from it to create flying trays to deliver drinks and food to the tables. She didn’t need to rush too much and could focus on customer service while her trays handled the rest.

What was Ellaine’s job in our restaurant? Well, she couldn’t cook, she was slow with cutting vegetables and meat, found washing dishes dull, and wasn’t a professional maid like Tasianna. There wasn’t much she could do except being a manager, taking care of our finances and also our rations, right? Wrong!

“Honestly, I never expected to play an instrument in front of others again,” Ellaine commented while polishing her geigler. “The last time was when I played it in front of you, Hestia, during our first meeting. Father and Mother practically forced me to practice in anticipation of your visit.”

“Oh, so you faked your joy back then. Sorry about that, Ellaine,” I replied, remembering how elated Ellaine had appeared back then, not expecting she was just acting happy and excited. “Well, who knows? After we’re done practicing together, we just might be ready for the opera in the capital.”

“You jest, Hestia. You are good, I am not.”

Color me surprised when I heard Griffonpeak had an opera where nobles performed in front of aristocrats and their associates, which included well-known merchants like Newt or vassal houses. An opera wasn’t a place for an idol, it was home for conductors and musicians like my parents; however, that didn’t mean I wouldn’t want to experience performing at one. I was raised by classical music and plenty of opera and broadway visits, after all.

While Ellaine thought I was joking, I do think Ellaine could be a decent musician with some more practice and confidence. So, performing with me during work hours was my way to help her grow more. She couldn’t do the manual work like Saori and Tasianna, but she was able to be artistic. Live music performances were part of Aurora’s trademark experience.

“Ok, our new menu will include our usual curry rice and stir-fried rice, as they are easy to make, but I will also add reuben sandwiches and tonkatsu rice bowls. Hestia, how is our yeast and rice supply?” Saori asked me.

A reuben sandwich is an American sandwich made out of meat, usually corned beef, grilled cheese, sauerkraut and dressing. I loved me some sauerkraut and I can’t wait to spread the love to Peolynca. Tonkatsu is a Japanese breaded, deep-fried pork Saori loved to eat back on Earth, and something she’s been planning to make again once we had the equipment, seasonings, and a ton of pork. And boy, did we hunt a ton of skorrs in the dungeon.

“We have enough yeast for making sandwiches. We’re fine for rice, too. We’ll have to prepare more sauerkraut though.”

Once our preparation for tomorrow was done, we took a good rest in the inn for tomorrow's workday. After setting the restaurant up, we faced the same challenge we had in Firwood, as people were intimidated by the fact I was a priestess, although this time it only took a few minutes for people to start becoming curious.

“Let the music play, let it enter your soul ♫

Rest your weary body here ♫

To a tune or melody ♫

Listen now, to a soothing remedy ♫

Listen now, let your stress disappear ♫

Let my song reach you, fill your heart with wonder and more ♫

Gaze up to the blue sky ♫

To smile to the light ♫

Listen now, you know what is right ♫

Listen now, don’t need to look so wry ♫”

The strong aroma of the curry, the frying tonkatsu, and the sauerkraut captivated everybody’s noses. Ellaine’s geigler and my singing brought people’s ears to listen to us. While people were looking over at us, nobody was taking the bait yet, so Tasianna approached a few onlookers and filled wooden cups full of water for everybody to see, announcing to everybody, “Restaurant Aurora is open!”

We opened the restaurant a bit before lunchtime, as we needed time to attract the first trailblazers to spread the name of our restaurant to people. Once prime time came during lunch, the people crowding around our restaurant was all the necessary advertisement we needed to bring hungry patrons flooding in.

“Tray 1 to table 2! Tray 2 is filled, to table 5! Tray 3 to table 5! Tasianna, let’s go!” Saori shouted as she filled trays with food before resuming cooking and preparing the next dishes.

“Got it, got it!” Tasianna stated resolutely, sending out multiple trays at once before taking the orders of the next set of guests.

All the while, Ellaine and I were going through our list of songs. All the songs I wrote on Peolynca were used up eventually, so I had to resort to Earth originals, like Renai Circulation, to fill up the time gaps. While I was doing that, Ellaine pointed out a carriage stopping over at the corner of the streets, a carriage with the symbol of the Sarlenzia Trading Company.

Hopefully, we impressed him enough.

After lunchtime was finished, I did some of my priestess duty with my usual 500 Davi fee, attracting quite a few people. As I requested money for my services, even if it was on the cheaper side, the local church hopefully won’t cause any trouble for me.

Once I was done, our party visited the merchant guild to finalize the contract with Newt Sarlenzia. With how much he showered Ellaine and me with flattery, I couldn’t help but feel like his words meant nothing. Maybe he did like my singing, but I didn’t get the feeling he was a fan or anything, more like a two-faced businessman. Well, he was one, so it kinda fits.

Anyways, after much debate, Newt finally agreed to the amount of ore Grimnir estimated should be enough for the truss, the foundation, and the rest of the metal equipment, while the merchant guild would put in an order for wooden floorboards for us. More than what we needed, as we presumed some might get destroyed during use.

The guild master then brought us to the supply room of his company where we exchanged fulinoe leaves, Belzac herbs, and other Belzac products for a hefty supply of ingredients and food. His company didn’t trade ore or metal, so he’d have to have some transported from a southern mining town in the Lecartiglio duchy. We then promised to introduce him House Helvas for the yeast deal.

Before we left, I had something to say to him, “Mister Newt, could you send a message to Lord Duke Greenveil for me? Please, ask him if we could borrow one of his [Crystals of the Divine System] for personal use.”

As it would take far too long to go into the dungeon, train until we maxed out our jobs, and then return to the surface where we could change our jobs again before continuing this cycle, Ellaine suggested asking Duke Greenveil for a crystal we could carry around. There was a crystal at the entrance of the dungeon — rented by the hunter’s guild so we had the 1000 Davi fee applied here, too — but imagine us venturing down to floor eight and then having to go back up. It’s a slog.

Ellaine already made it clear that these crystals were extremely expensive to produce, as it would require the destruction of a dungeon core, and new dungeons pop out rarely. When a dungeon does appear, people would definitely want more, since more [Crystals of the Divine System] weren’t bad to have.

However, if Duke Greenveil had any spares, then Ellaine thought he might be willing to share one with us since, you know, we stopped a diplomatic crisis for him and his kingdom. It was a small request, right?

However, it seemed we were fresh out of luck. “I apologize, Lady Hestia, but I am sure Lord Duke Greenveil does not possess any spares at this moment. He recently granted one to the Lord Marquess Sirius, as I heard the latter wished to rebuild the mages and alchemy guilds. The previous alchemy guild was somehow destroyed, and the [Crystal of the Divine System] loaned to them was destroyed along with it.”

… Why is all our bad luck caused by myself? Just why? Why did I have to blow up that whole place? Just why?

Well, I guess it’s fine that the Marquess didn’t just fine us for it. I probably should be happy he decided to give us an IOU despite what I did. Asking him to borrow a crystal would be the height of shamelessness…

With that idea out of the window due to my overkill, I left the merchant guild building with a downcasted head. We then took the rest of the day off before returning to the dungeon the next morning. That was when our training arc finally began.

For a whole week, we trained the heck out of any Job we acquired, going through them as fast as possible while also training Ellaine’s abilities. We mostly stayed on floor eight — a beautiful, mystical forest — as that was the spot Ellaine could train the best. She had to level up her skill levels independently while Saori, Tasianna, and I roamed the floor hunting down monsters for experience to funnel into our Jobs and Ellaine.

In this entire time, I had [Will to Fight and Survive] on 24/7. It was not only to keep ourselves in tip-top shape to continue hunting monsters down, but it was also to prevent Ellaine and Tasianna from breaking down in exhaustion. Their Stamina was far less than Saori’s and my own, so we had to push them to continue grinding. Even I got kinda sick of hearing my own song after all that time, but grinding wasn’t about being enjoyable, it was being ruthlessly efficient.

Holy shit, fuck grinding arcs! They are terrible! This reminds me of my days in Belzac, verdammt, how did I… Okay, I got kinda soft from living in civilization again.

Saori and I were unlucky when it came to our main level as it wouldn’t budge from the experience, but Tasianna and Ellaine enjoyed all the benefits from the grind. Job, skill, and personal levels all rose up. SP was spent if we needed a boost. The training was pretty rewarding overall, but maybe it was for the best if we chilled out with the next training arc, since I have to say it got dull pretty fast.

After a week of training, everybody decided it would be for the best if we stopped for now and called over Grimnir to venture with him deep into the dungeon. Leveling on floor eight had its limit when Ellaine and Tasianna started having trouble leveling up there. Sure, it meant we couldn’t level up our Jobs anymore, but we could get Ellaine to the necessary skill levels to survive with SP after she begins raising her personal levels again.

Our goal was an area with the possibility of B rank monsters. Ellaine had to be competent enough to survive against C rank monsters at the very least with Saori and me around.

Thanks to buying all the stat growth-boosting skills at the very beginning, she gained a massive boost in strength after all the leveling. Now, it was time we continued with it.

“Well, hope you lasses are ready. It’s gonna be a rough time after floor ten,” Grimnir, equipped with heavy armor thicker than my hand, announced to us after we called him over. In his left hand was a bag of equipment for Saori’s garms, who all managed to level up to five, while his right hand carried a large warhammer with an almost steampunk-like design. “Got your stuff. Leather is at least something I can make without needing a hammer. If there are any monsters I think we can use to upgrade the armor, I’ll tell you. It’s gonna be a trip.”

Time to go dungeon delving.

Party Leader

Name: Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor Level: 83 Job: Crimson-Scaled Dreadgiver

Health: 5573/5573 Mana: 18472/18472 Stamina: 3461/3461

Effects: [Humanized (Moderate)][Damaged Mana Path [Left Wing] (Minor)]

Name: Saori Segawa Level: 80 Job: Shadow Warrior

Health: 5422/5422 Mana: 4317/4317 Stamina: 4789/4789

Effects: [Humanized (Moderate)]

Name: Tasianna Marina Silverpond Level: 61 Job: Fae Whisperer

Health: 2824/2824 Mana: 7845/7845 Stamina: 2778/2778

Effects: [Elvenized (Major)]

Name: Ellaine Fiero Helvas Level: 44 Job: Magus

Health: 1541/1541 Mana: 2035/2035 Stamina: 1261/1261

Name: Grimnir Luedbrumdar Level: 61 Job: Blasthammer Gunner

Health: 5791/5791 Mana: 1109/1109 Stamina: 5471/5471

A note from AbyssRaven

The song for today is something more soothing. Honestly, love this song. "Fly me to the Moon" by Frank Sinatra: Rawr

Female vocals for this song is \[T]/

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 17 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Side Story 25: The Actions of Aurora.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #3 her to promote our Patreon. 17 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 17 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until July!

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Cedaraille did not disappoint! So many new ingredients! So many possibilities~ Taking Lady Yorshka’s suggestion to come here was the correct choice!

If you were to ask an adventurer why a settlement with a dungeon was so popular, then they would reply with “we can hunt monsters without worrying about the hunter’s guild warning us off.” That is because monsters are constantly created inside a dungeon, meaning that adventurers can hunt them for an indefinite amount of time. Monster populations outside of dungeons need to be carefully managed so they neither become a threat nor go extinct in the area, and while it was possible to repopulate these environments through monster spawning, flooding an area with too much mana can be a terrible risk, as that may result in strong monsters spawning.

Both adventurer types — hunters and mercenaries — slay monsters to earn money and create new equipment for themselves. While mercenaries technically specialized in humanoid encounters, it wasn’t rare for a mercenary to also be a member of the hunter’s guild, and vice versa. Adventurers couldn’t be picky about their source of income.

Not like ours, since our party was receiving “donations” from the Church of Aurena.

My name is Tamae Tsuji, or Tsuji Tamae as I would be called if we were in Japan and not in Peolynca. Daughter of two prestigious chefs, ex-class representative of class 3-2, and now the party leader of The Magical Biscuits. I’m also one of those so-called “Heroes of Aurena,” a tag given to me by one of the religious factions in this fantasy world — the Church of Aurena. While my name and those of my classmates were being used as religious propaganda, we actually were kidnapped from Earth to this world through, you guessed it, magic!

Now, the only way for us to return home was to follow the church’s orders, which included risking our lives to defeat some so-called demonkin monarch. While everybody was, unsurprisingly, dissatisfied with the situation, I personally looked at this opportunity with optimism.

Not because I wanted to fight anybody, but because this world was filled with new ingredients to cook with.

“Tama-chan, you’re acting up again…” With a soft shake on my shoulder, the world seemed to have come back into focus for me. The black frame in front of my eyes disappeared and the blur on the edges cleared up, breaking my focus from the object in the middle of my vision.

A giant cave bat. A felwing.

“Oh, sorry about that, Kazumi-chan,” I apologized to Kazumi Hoshino, a good friend and fellow “hero.” “The marketplace is always so packed with goods when a dungeon is nearby, no? Meat is butchered on the street and then immediately sold to a passerby, materials for weapons and armors are sold to vendors by adventurers; all of that without any care for endangering any animal species.”

“Urgh, you aren’t thinking of turning that bat into a meal, right? Spices can block the memory of the monster’s appearance by only so much,” Kohaku Kobayashi commented with disgust from behind me. She was a good friend, too, and, like Kazumi-chan, was a member of The Magical Biscuits. “You can cook well, Tama-chan, but some of your more experimental dishes were pretty weird. We don’t have the taste buds of a monster or anything like that.

I wish I had the taste buds of a monster. I wonder what it’s like to eat like one? Are certain tastes neutral for them?

However, I guess my curiosity belongs more to tasting new ingredients as a whole. I love tasting new dishes, whether it’s gourmet or simple street food, as widening one’s horizons is one of the goals a chef must always pursue. Limiting myself to a small palette would undoubtedly dull my tastes, make me picky, and it’s a life lesson I will always remember, especially after my parents pretty much forced their interests and philosophy on me like that!

So, it was pretty annoying to hear that I couldn’t taste certain animals due to them being endangered, and I understand that fully. A sticker with “one of the last of its kind” on a plastic-wrapped steak does make eating such a thing unappetizing.

So, what a surprise it was for me to witness a monster digging itself free from the ground the moment it was “born” inside a dungeon. Mana was as abundant as air on Peolynca, and as long as there was mana, there would be dungeons producing monsters like a factory. Peolynca already brought a different spin on certain ingredients I was used to on Earth, so I couldn’t be happier when I learned I could cook and taste whatever ingredients I wanted to without worrying about bringing them closer to extinction!

Although, most of the things I could make wouldn’t even be considered a menu option in a fine-dining restaurant. Too radical, too experimental.

“Anyways, I think we have enough for tonight’s dinner. We can stop by at the merchant guild tomorrow to purchase our dungeon rations,” I told Kazumi-chan and Kohaku-chan while we all were carrying bags full of groceries.

My party and I were currently in Cedaraille, the capital of the Greenveil Duchy of the Kingdom of Artorias, not because of any church work, but because we needed to restock on alchemical ingredients. You see, not only was I our party’s main cook, but I was also responsible for brewing our potions and enchanting our equipment, although only at a novice level. The reason for this was my unique supportive skill [Enchanter’s Oath].

Each of us “Heroes of Aurena” received a unique skill when we arrived in Peolynca, and mine was meant for supporting others. Although I still dabbled a bit in magic despite not being the most talented in it, since The Magical Biscuits wouldn’t have a healer if I hadn’t volunteered to become one. “Support mage with a few offensive spells,” would be the perfect way to describe my expertise…

<Enchanter’s Oath: A skill that promotes supportive actions. Improves the effectiveness of stat-boosting spells and enchanted items. Reduces the mana costs of all actions and arcane corruption accumulation>

As the three of us left the central marketplace, we made our way back to our inn in the merchant district. On the way, I caught a whiff of something delectable, drawing my attention towards it.

“…our stress disappear ♫

Let my song reach you, fill your heart with wonder and more ♫

Gaze up to the blue sky ♫

To smile to the light ♫

Listen now, you know what is right ♫

Listen now, don’t need to look so wry ♫”

The sound of a violin, or geigler as the Artorians called it, and the voice of a young woman harmonized perfectly togethe, reached my ears. I felt more at ease, as if an uneasiness tightening my chest was momentarily washed away in this musical wonderland.

A crowd was gathering around the music, blocking my sight. Looking through the gaps, I witnessed the source of that smell I noticed earlier. It was a street food stall, where the chef was cooking inside a wooden cube stall, blocking me from actually seeing the chef from this angle. I could see a waitress serving customers of the stall, but it was just impossible for me to see her face. There wasn’t even a chance to see the musicians either.

Wow, this smells amazing. I want to try it out!

As a mere apprentice chef, I still was very curious about how Peolyncians prepared their meals. What ingredients did they use, their techniques, what influenced them to make it? I’ve been going around whenever I had some spare time to taste street vendors or eateries in every town and city our party has visited, although, if it wasn’t for our party’s constant activities, I probably would have increased my waistline by now.

As I was about to push through the crowd to have a taste of whatever this vendor was cooking, somebody grabbed my arm. Usually, I would be anxious by this, but as neither [Danger Perception] nor [Enhanced Enemy Sense] had warned me, I calmly turned my head around to where two angry girls were glaring at me.

“Don’t make us late again just because you got excited about some dish, Tama-chan!” Kazumi-chan scolded me.

“Right! We can do that tomorrow. We need to get the groceries back and get to cooking,” Kohaku-chan agreed, pulling me out of the crowd and pushing me away from it.

A shame.

Once back at our inn, which was one of the finest in the city, the three of us were greeted by Nishio Kudo and Misaki Kawano, the two remaining members of our party. After renting the inn’s kitchen, we unpacked our ingredients and began cooking; well, I did most of the cooking, although the others helped out with the preparations.

“Hey, everybody, I’m back~”

“Oh! Welcome back, Lady Yorshka!”

That was Commander Yorshka, a high-ranking and incredibly strong knight belonging to the Knights of Aurena, a holy knight order responsible for the protection of the Church of Aurena. As the church wanted to keep us “Heroes” safe until we were ready to fight the demonkin monarch, they assigned a knight to each of our parties. There were five parties with five members each and each party was overseen by one knight.

You would imagine a knight to be more stoic and serious about matters, but Lady Yorshka was quite lax and carefree outside of duty. She acted more like a friend, albeit a very strict friend when it came to training and bettering ourselves to “survive better.”

“So, I know we came here to buy some alchemy ingredients, but does anybody have anything against going to the dungeon?” Lady Yorshka asked while we ate.

“Won’t we be behind schedule?” Nishio-kun asked her with skepticism. Our party was actually paired with another party of our classmates, who were currently waiting around Firwood, going around to fulfill the local temple’s requests.

“I just received a message that Asaka and Elrick are having some troubles with the local wildlife. They’re thinning down the group close to one of the designated villages. In other words, we have some time to spare, and I think the best way would be for training,” Lady Yorshka smiled mischievously, knowing we couldn’t say no since she had already given us a big lecture on being prepared and ready to fight wherever.

‘Do you five have any idea of how many C rank or higher adventurers randomly die to the most unbelievable coincidences? Luck and fortune will never be in your favor and one simple misstep can mean your end, for either heroes or commoners. You can fight goblins on one day, but a giant warrior the next. I am responsible for keeping you five alive, but it is also my duty to make sure you can fend for yourselves, do you all understand? Even I could die, so I would appreciate it if I could put my trust in you to prevent those scenarios from happening since I can’t afford to die, okay?’

Bone-chilling, honestly.

The next day, Lady Yorshka brought us to the hunter’s guild for us to get our dungeon permission and, once we were done, she brought us up to the second floor, looking around the room filled with tables and people eating. She then went to the furthest table with us where a robbed man was sitting.

“Talon Mellor, yes? Do I have the correct person?” Lady Yorshka said, prompting the man to turn his head around, revealing a half-mask hiding the right side of his face.

“Who wants to know? A customer?” he replied in a monotone voice, inspecting Lady Yorshka and us with half-close eyes.

“Something like that. Two questions before we get to business. Have you seen a girl with red hair, horns, and a tail? Dragonewt girl around the age of 15 or 16?” She then pointed at the emblem on her white armor, symbolizing the Knights of Aurena. The masked man understood what she meant and nodded after a few seconds of contemplation. “Good. Do you know where she went? Where was she lodging?”

“Why would I? I just met the girl once and that was it. I don’t have the time to meddle in others’ business,” he then took a swig from his tankard, moistening his throat. “Questions answered. What’s your business with me?”

Lady Yorshka scratched her snow-white hair, swinging her ponytail around as a result, mumbling, “Dammit, Gael. Couldn’t you have your birds follow them better? Causes more problems that he solves, honestly.” She then turned towards us, introducing the man before us, “Talon Mellor, an Illusionist and C rank hunter. He’ll be our dungeon guide to help us reach the lower floors faster. Get used to his pessimism.”

She then turned back to him. “I need your help guiding us down to the lower floors, below ten.”

“No.” It was an immediate rejection.

While the five of us reacted to this answer in our own way, Lady Yorshka didn’t flinch one bit, looking like she knew this would happen. “And why is that?”

“Floor ten is the start leading to the magma chamber, the room of the dungeon boss and core. You can’t pay me enough nor can you coerce me into helping you, church knight. I ain’t ever going there.” The robed man then turned away from us, waving his hand to tell us to leave.

Shame. A guide would be useful.

As the rest of us were about to leave, Lady Yorshka held her hand up to signal us to stop before continuing, despite it looking like the man was ignoring her. “Well, I did hear you had pyrophobia, so I can’t blame you for declining. You have the body to show for it, after all,” which earned Lady Yorshka a scoff from him.

His body?

“Well, you know, the bird chirps also said something about your past. I don’t need to bring it up, right?” The man then turned his head around, staring at Yorshka with irritation and anger. “One name. Keith Svonnweidher.”

“I’m all ears.”

A smirk grew on her face from the robed man’s answer. “I have no idea if you heard this, but Professor Keith was kicked out of the royal academy due to an unfortunate accident, where one of his proteges accidentally killed a noble’s heir. Poor kid, got influenced by a Danterno fanatic. Well, Keith was found out and rightfully kicked out for forgetting to teach his student how to calm his emotions.”

“Skip to the important parts.”

“Okay, okay. Well, a reliable source informed me he recently entered Greenveil Duchy with a bunch of Danterno's other followers. The lower floors are quite fiery, which makes it a perfect place for a pilgrimage, no? They can probably get their hands on some special rocks or minerals to create a powerful alchemical stone.” Yorshka then showed him her ID, displaying her hunter and adventurer rank proudly to him. “We need a guide. Do you need help?”

“R-Rank A…” The man then took his mask off for his right eye to properly see Lady Yorshka’s ID with both eyes. I gasped at the sight of the right side of his face, scarred and completely red, as if he’d experienced a severe burn.

My eye was then drawn to a rune-like tattoo glowing bright blue as if it was there to hide his scars. “It isn’t an illusion,” he spoke aside to me, noticing my gaze on the tattoo, before answering Lady Yorshka. “I know the path down. If the dungeon hasn’t changed the layout since the first time I visited that hellish place, then I should be able to guide you down without any worries.”

“Good. However, before we go, would you mind offering your secondary services to us?” Lady Yorshka then turned to us. “Does anybody want a cool runic tattoo? It’ll hurt, though~”

************************************

“Impossible!”

A voice echoed through the halls of an abandoned dwarven mining hold, once dedicated to the Blacksmith God Bleidla. A lone figure was standing at the end of a hallway located on the deepest floor of the hold, behind a giant dwarven door. He had golden hair and yellow skin with two jagged horns protruding out of his forehead and a long, thin tail extending from a hole in his pants.

He had an expression of disbelief, displaying his small sharp fangs. He then clenched his teeth before storming into a small room, smashing the skeletal remains of a human. The room had nothing inside of it, save for all the dust on the floor.

“T-This can’t be! H-How could this happen?!” the demonkin exclaimed with bafflement instead of anger. “Why? What is going on? Why is everything working against us? The damn grimgarians failed once again, losing a whole battalion and the cave entrance into Greenveil collapsed from a flood. A flood! Inside a mountain?! How was that possible?!”

Rage filled the demonkin, turning his yellow skin slightly reddish, but it stopped before it could dye his whole face. The red flush vanished and the pristine yellow gold appeared once again. The mark of a demonkin of pride.

“Wrath…dammit…I need to calm myself down. I am better than those savages. I am better than those savages. I am better than those savages. I am superior to all the other demonkin, even those others of pride,” the demonkin breathed heavily before his heartbeat calmed down significantly, so slow he could be mistaken for a corpse. “… The progression towards taming sea serpents has been significantly slowed down because of a leviathan evolving into an S rank, causing chaos in the seas. The orb holding a herald of my gods was taken away by somebody, and all the preparations that human made to accommodate the herald were destroyed. The perfect place for its resurrection.”

He then shook his head. “Greenveil knows now, without a doubt; whoever destroyed the battalion would have informed the humans. Artorias will know, and if this war ends in failure, then I cannot call myself superior to those wretches ever again. My pride cannot allow that.”

A creature of darkness suddenly manifested from the demonkin’s mana, morphed into the form of a raven. “It is time I sent this kingdom into chaos. It must be made vulnerable.”

No laughter was heard. The demonkin was poised to act.

“The herald must be found.”

A note from AbyssRaven

Aurora are troublemakers, especially Hestia!!!

___________________________________________

Ok, now that you guys are done with the chapter, I would like to ask you guys to do me a favor. There is a new voting system on Royal Roads, where users can vote for a fiction. More votes means they go up in ranks, which is something I would like to see.

I've already posted a non-chapter today where I promoted the system. At the time when I released this chapter, Dragon Idol should be on the first page of "Hot Fictions!" It'll be hard to get up to the front page with all the heavy hitters, but let's not forget that Dragon Idol is competing with all them despite only having less than 2k followers. All the other competition on the first page have over 3k.

So, come on everybody! Right under the "Next Chapter" buttons, there is the vote buttong. Please, I ask everybody to take a second and press the button! Please, vote. VOTE FOR HESTIA 2021!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 17 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 171: The Magical Number 9.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #4 her to promote our Patreon. 17 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 17 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until July!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

Proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Dreadflame Dragon Lv. 3] [Silent Casting Lv. 10] [Long-Range Spell Enhancement Lv. 3] [Spear Technique Lv. 6] [Spear Mastery Lv. 2] [Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 6] [Draconic Aura Lv. 2] [Dismantle Lv. 8] gained

Max level of Jobs [Taunter], [Freelancer], [Earth Mage], [Wind Mage], [Scale-Dust User] has been reached

Individual   [Sunfang Dragonewt, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has switched her Main Job to [Crimson-Scaled Dreadgiver]

Main Job benefits have been updated due to Job change

Crimson-Scaled Dreadgiver Level: 0/30

Job Skill gained:   [Scale-Dust Size Increase], [Fire Abnormality Effect: Dread]

Jeez, level 30… If leveling it up is going to be as hard as [Scale-Dust User] was, or even harder, then this will take a while. Luckily, we are gonna be gone for a while.

Before leaving for the dungeon, our party decided to stop by the hunter’s guild to change our Main Jobs since we’re about to embark for an extended time without access to a [Crystal of the Divine System]. However, as our dungeon trip wasn’t meant for training, taking a Main Job that provided Job skills or abilities would be more beneficial.

Job: Crimson-Scaled Dreadgiver

Requirements: [Dreadflame Dragon Lv. 3], [Scale-Dust User] Job Lv. 15, 10000 Mana, 2000 Strength, 3000 Intelligence, 3000 Stamina

Acquirement Benefits: Mana Increase, Strength increase, Intelligence increase, Wisdom Increase, Agility Increase, Stamina increase, [Dreadflame Dragon] proficiency

Main Job Benefits: [Scale-Dust Size Increase], [Fire Abnormality Effect: Dread]

Job: Shadow Warrior

Requirements: [Shadow Armament Lv. 5], [Shadow Rogue] Job Lv. 15, [Dark Magic Lv. 10], [Silence Lv. 1], [Odorless Lv. 1], 2000 Mana, 1500 Strength, 3500 Agility, 3500 Stamina

Acquirement Benefits: Mana Increase, Strength increase, Agility Increase, Stamina increase, [Shadow Armament] proficiency

Main Job Benefits: [Shadow Dash Eruption], [Dusk Bombardment], [Penumbral Armament]

Job: Fae Whisperer

Requirements: Able to see/commune with lesser faefolk, 1500 Mana

Acquirement Benefits: Mana Increase, Intelligence Increase, Agility Increase, [Fae Talk] proficiency

In our one week of hardcore training, our party managed to gain quite a lot of levels for Ellaine and our Jobs. Unfortunately, due to the three Jobs per week rule set by the System, the four of us only changed to six Jobs, where I managed to finish the level 15 Job [Scale-Dust User] just yesterday. Seeing as it was one of the Jobs created from my racial skills, it just seemed natural for me to acquire and level [Scale-Dust User] once I had the chance. After all, it increased the proficiency of [Dreadflame Dragon], one of the four skills I had to bring to level 10 in order to be able to evolve to Rank A.

[Crimson-Scaled Dreadgiver] was apparently the next step in this Job line, seeing as it had “[Scale-Dust User] Job Lv. 15” in its requirements. Aside from having a maximum level of 30, it was pretty hard to level up, seeing as how slaying a single Rank E wasn’t enough to bring [Scale-Dust User] up to level one.

Saori had the same idea as I did. [Shadow Warrior] was the 30 level version of [Shadow Rogue], created through the unique skill [Shadow Armament]. Aside from giving her two Job abilities in [Shadow Dash Eruption] — which makes her [Shadow Dash] deal damage upon exiting her shadow — and [Dark Bombardment] — a dark elemental version of [Petal Flames] that shoots out small bombs — it also gave her [Penumbral Armament], a Job skill that gives her [Shadow Armament] more defensive prowess outside of being a dark resistance increaser.

Tasianna, on the other hand, took a Job which was less focused on combative abilities, but more on utility. [Fae Whisperer] was the first Job in the Faemancer line, something we’ve already seen Silva the wind elf have. It only had a maximum of ten levels — she’ll be done with the Job quickly — but it allowed Tasianna to do something nobody else in our party could: Speak with lesser faefolk.

As a fairy, Tasianna was able to see all kinds of fae, but she wasn’t able to communicate with lesser fae and elementals, similar to how a human couldn’t speak with apes and monkeys without teaching them sign language. My [Mana Eyes] allowed me to see the silhouettes of small mana balls, which Tasianna confirmed as spirits, but I couldn’t actually see them, making me ineligible for [Fae Whisperer].

After what happened with Kiiro and the onnikai, Tasianna came to the realization that fairies weren’t the only faefolk suffering in the world outside their havens. Sure, she knew this was the case due to her education, but before she met the onnikais, that realization wasn’t as vivid as it was now. Fae like Kiiro could be everywhere, needing help, but there wouldn’t always be a faemancer like Silva there to solve these problems. Tasianna, however, could do her part to help as Aurora traveled.

She wasn’t planning to become an elementalist like Silva, she just wanted to be able to speak with all the different kinds of faefolk. Learn if they had any troubles. While her altruistic motivation was praiseworthy, being a Faemancer also helped our party as it allows her to gather information through them.

“The average fairy rarely acts seriously, and I’m not sure if that’s the case for lesser fae, too. Hopefully not,” Tasianna mentioned after switching Jobs. She seemed to have mostly gotten over her prejudices against humans, but it seems she’s still a big critic of her own race.

Lastly, Ellaine was the one who gained the most levels from our dungeon trips, rising up a whole 14 levels from 30 to 44. That was 6350 SP earned! With her 800 spare SP, that amounted to quite a stockpile of points… until she used them all up on skill upgrades. You know, when I heard about the whole Job system, I thought using my SP to level up skills was a waste until I realized how hard it really was.

Higher tiers of Jobs required more experience to level up and common Jobs wouldn’t give something universally useful like [Poison Resistance] or [Battle Mind]. We can talk all about being patient and playing the long game all we like, but stuff like the onnikais or the grimgarian battalion appearing during our journeys make that plan less appealing. I’m not saying we should spend all our SP, leaving nothing behind as a failsafe, but some skills were worth spending on.

“Uhm, I know you are aware of the dangers beneath floor 10, but please be very prudent. Skill and strength cannot always get you out of all situations,” Cleo, a hunter’s guild receptionist, warned us before handing us multiple maps for the various floors beneath the 9th. “May the Goddess of the Hunt guide you to your prey. Good fortune!”

We then left the hunter’s guild, poised for our trip into the dungeon. Since we had already made the party, Grimnir was already with us this whole time, brooding without saying anything to us. Of course, we hid the sensitive information from him using our specially-ordered IDs, which also included the information shown in the party screen. He couldn’t see my [Humanized (Moderate)] status, in other words.

As Grimnir was silently following us, we decided there wasn’t a need to talk until we entered the dungeon. Grimnir seemed prepared, after all.

His armor wasn’t decorated in any sparkling gold or silver like a noble knight, preferring to look intimidating with thick, scarred eoriant plates and pauldrons while a long plated chainmail hauberk flowed down to his ankles like a dress. Massive gauntlets hid his large hands and his metal boots made his every step quake the earth like a behemoth. His orange hair and face were protected by a stoic-looking helmet, leaving only his beard “undefended.” Unlike his unkempt appearance from before, his current look made him feel like an ancient tank, which was far more impressive than how I appeared with my [Panzer] spell.

On his back was a large backpack and his weapon. When I asked him what was inside the former, he mentioned his blacksmith kit and a few valuables, since he couldn’t just leave them in his wagon while he was gone. The latter, on the other hand, was far more interesting.

At a first glance, it looked like a polearm-like warhammer — a long, moderately-thin metal handle with a large, thick hammerhead. Looking closer, however, you could see a compartment and other mechanical pieces attached to his weapon, all leading up to the top which had a crevasse dividing the hammer into two heads. In that space, an ornamented cylinder sat. All in all, his hammer looked more steampunk, without the steam, unlike the medieval or magical weapons I’ve seen so far.

The first four floors of the dungeon were, as always, far too easy for our group, since they were made for beginners. Usually, Saori would lead the party since she was our best scout, but Grimnir insisted he should do it, as “armored frontliners are meant to stand in front of everybody.” From an adventurer’s perspective, he was the one with the most experience, and it’s not like he was wrong. Our party was just that weird.

“This is the most normal formation this party has ever used,” Ellaine mumbled, which I acknowledged.

While it wasn’t abnormal for Saori to lead our party, since she is our best tracker and enemy detector, me being our party’s “tank” and frontline was weird. I was mostly a mage with some melee capabilities, but I always guarded the backline against ambushes and was the first one to jump in front of everybody to protect them despite having no “armor” per se.

Ellaine was wearing a chainmail hauberk with a gambeson underneath it while being adept with a sword, however, she was being guarded by Tasianna and me, two mages. Then again, if you looked at our party more strictly under an RPG lens, weren’t we just one dedicated mage, two mages with close-combat options, and a rogue with magic abilities? If we hadn’t been so abnormal, our party would have been wiped in the first session.

Anyway, after passing through the labyrinth-like cavern from floor four, we entered floor five. A significant change in scenery, we went from a cavernous environment back to a forest setting; yet, it was incomparable to the forests we had been to before. The Belzac forest was a grouping of different wood biomes, which included a boreal forest, a temperate woodland, a swamp, and a tropical jungle just to name a few. I guess it wouldn’t be weird, seeing as how big the Belzac forest was, but there was nothing magical about the forest beyond its high Rank. All the trees and plants looked just like you’d expect them to.

Floors five to floor nine, on the other hand, were exactly what you would expect from a fantastical forest. Bright shining dandelions grew around the small lakes and ponds of this place, shining bright colors from an assortment of colors as the wind dragged their pollen through the air, illuminating our surroundings. Despite not being classified as a monster or “treant,” the trees in this area could move independently without a floral magician like Cernust in the area, making me believe floors five to nine were all part of a single organism of sorts.

The monsters in this area fit the theme of the place, with giant colorful bugs flying around, raptor-type dinosaurs using the trees to prowl for prey, and sentient mushroom monsters. All of this happened as the “sky” of these floors was completely shrouded in darkness, never showing a hint of the sun while we were training on floor eight. Unfortunately.

“Fancily bright, sharp-ear forests give me a headache whenever I enter one. Feel at home, Tasianna?” Grimnir grumbled the moment we arrived here.

Tasianna shrugged as she replied, “Well, it beats brown rocks with some lava and gemstones here and there. This forest and Saelariel feel like they’re living and breathing, Sir Dwarf.”

“Hmph. It is precisely the lack of color underground that makes you appreciate the rare shining gems and ores you uncover. It is for this reason that we tazongs consider all our creations as art, worthy to dedicate all of our energy into.”

It was just idle banter; nobody actually got insulted by it. Tasianna was a fairy in the first place, and, unlike in some fantasy stories, the dwarves and elves in Peolynca have a friendly relationship that could be seen as an amicable rivalry.

“Hestia, if what those adventurers mentioned is correct, then I can probably take care of everything until we reach floor 15. Conserve your core’s energy until then,” Saori patted me on the shoulders as Grimnir moved forwards with the map we brought from the guild, leading our party through the shortest path towards the next floor’s staircase.

“Got it. This will be a long trip,” I nodded.

We probably won’t return to the surface unless in an emergency, which meant I wouldn’t be able to refill my solar core during the entirety of this trip, unless the dungeon somehow produced solar rays my core would accept. Without the sun, my regeneration and endurance would take a hit, forcing me to be more prudent with how I used my solar core’s energy.

Thankfully, I had my party to take care of me, meaning I could opt out of most confrontations. Saori had just evolved, Tasianna, with her catalyst, was a force full of potential, and Ellaine recently got access to [Storm Magic Lv. 1] and [Terra Magic Lv. 1]. Not to mention, Grimnir should be able to take my spot as the party’s “tank” temporarily.

While it isn’t necessary, I do not want to seem like dead weight.

[Music Resonation (Moderate)][Various Spell Buffs] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Hmm?” Grimnir turned to me with a question look after I began producing music with [Aerokinesis] to share my buffs.

“I spread my buffs not with [Synergist’s Oath], but with my own unique skill, which involves music. I thought it would be better to inform you about it now instead of later on,” I explained how my [Idol] skill worked.

Grimnir nodded in approval, remembering he saw the skill when he looked at my ID. “Ahhh, so that’s what it does. It’s got a weird name but if you can spread your buffs faster and more efficiently, then I have nothing to say but ‘impressive.’ So, as long as this [Music Resonation] buff is in my profile, I’ll reap the benefits of all your buffs? Good to know, thanks.”

“Anyways, let’s keep mov-” Grimnir was about to turn around when Saori raised her arm up and stated “Stop” before diving into her shadow. Moments later, a black explosion detonated from behind a bush, sending three raptors flying. Saori emerged behind them and promptly sliced their heads off with her daggers.

Venoraptor

A raptor with venom coated front claws, used against larger foes to weaken them before delivering the finishing blow with its sickle claw on its feet. Raptors rarely hunt alone, preferring to hunt in a pack of siblings or with a partner. Rank E

“… Not bad, wolfkin. You’re supposedly hunter rank D too, like Hestia, right? By Crustacia, do some more Quests, that’s the biggest lie I’ve heard recently. Here.” And Grimnir returned Saori the map, conceding the front position to her. With Saori back at the helm, we began our way through the next couple of floors.

I guess we might as well get some wood to repair the ogre’s axe. Not like we need to use Cernust’s antler just yet.

*******************************************************

Dungeons.

A monster-infested area born after the arrival of the Origin Gods to Peolynca, created by the Divine System to enclose a huge amount of mana into a separate area to prevent an excessive amount of monster spawning. This mana is then crystallized into a dungeon core, the “heart” of a dungeon, and the one responsible for the dungeon’s control and longevity.

Remove or destroy the core, and the dungeon will cease to exist, disposed of by the Divine System as its original purpose was now gone. Despite rumors spread by the uneducated, a dungeon isn’t a physical place in the world of Peolynca, but rather it is a separate dimension created through space-time magic and maintained by the Divine System, a separate creation of the Origin Gods.

This was the reason why the ecosystems inside a dungeon, aptly called floors as each area is connected through stairs or holes, could be so diverse compared to its surface. Bountiful forests could flourish inside a dungeon located in the desert, or a perilous magma chamber inside the lands of green, fertile land.

Regardless of what is contained in these dungeons, one thing is for sure: there are monsters and treasures. While dungeon cores aren’t completely sentient, they seemed to be driven by an instinct to survive and grow like a beast, probably from the Divine System’s command. While it was possible for mana to enter its confines through its door like air, this method was nowhere enough to satisfy its drive to expand the number of floors inside it.

For this reason, monsters, and later treasures, were being born by expending the dungeon core’s stored mana. Like a piece of bait, surface beasts would be lured into these areas by the allure of prey. Some survived and learned from this new hunting ground, while others perished, becoming the fertilizer keeping a dungeon alive and strong.

A relatively endless supply of monster materials ready to be gained and harvested, it was to nobody’s surprise that even humanoids were attracted by this phenomenon. With dungeon delvers lured in, people interested in buying these materials off these hunters’ hands, whether it was a blacksmith or a simple chef, would undoubtedly follow them to the dungeon. This was how dungeon settlements were born.

That was how Cedaraille was initially formed during the first years of the Leosfalt Kingdom, the predecessor of Artorias. Despite possessing land perfect for agriculture, the wealth produced by a dungeon would always continue attracting new adventurers and merchants to visit the Greenveil Duchy.

While some adventurers would feast well from a successful day of work, fortune’s mercy cannot touch all.

“Quick! Throw the damn firebomb!”

“This wasn’t supposed to happen, dammit!”

“Fuck! Why are there water slimes today of all days?!”

Today, the dungeon will dine.

“Arghgrhghr!!!”

“No! No! Noooooo!”

“Get a grip, you idiot! Do you want to fucking die?!”

Multiple groups of adventurers, all around E and D rank in strength, were currently running away from a horde of mushroom monsters and water slimes, all led by a single treant-type creature.

Knopbri

A tailed beast with moss and mushrooms growing from its back. Instead of tracking prey through sight, these monsters have adapted to life in darkness by releasing mushroom spores which, once attached to flesh, produce a potent smell only knopbri can smell. While the spores themselves aren’t dangerous in any way, the beasts’ massive jaws and strong tails can deal with most prey around their size. Rank E

River Slime

A bluish slime with a high resistance towards water elemental attack. They mostly live on the edge of a river, consuming algae or moss to sustain themselves. Mostly harmless, they do possess the ability to shoot out a weak concentrated beam of water from their cores. Rank F

Barkwraith Protector

A tree made sapient by being infused with a dying spriggan in soil with high mana; however, instead of retaining its sense of self, a barkwraith is created if the sapient tree becomes feral, becoming a monster through its spawning. Now truly a monster, these aggressive treants will attack any invader foolish enough to enter its forest. This variant possesses an especially durable body. Rank D

Whether it was for greed or fame, adventurers are drawn to challenges with a sense of adventure. The existence of this barkwraith was a known fact by the hunter’s guild, seeing as they are a product of the dungeon’s ability to mimic the monster spawning process, which could recreate any creature the Divine System categorized as a monster.

Designated as a “boss monster” of floor nine, Quests were often issued to hunt these barkwraiths down for their bodies. To lower the risk of death, hunters who accept these Quests would cooperate with other parties. Thankfully, the reward was lucrative enough even for three parties of E or D rank adventurers.

Unfortunately, today was not a casualty-free day.

“We need to run now!”

Knopbries, which were attracted to the large grouping of adventurers, ambushed the three adventurer parties while these parties were preparing to fight the barkwraith. In this chaos, the barkwraith was naturally lured in by the noise of fighting and began using its extendable roots to support the knopbries, resulting in the adventurers relying on firebombs to escape with their lives.

It was just unfortunate that this knopbri group was relaxing at a nearby river, being cleaned by moss-loving river slimes. Without letting these slimes down, the knopbries rushed towards the adventurers with the slimes on their backs, who began shooting down firebombs out of their fear of fire.

It was a recipe for disaster and multiple young adventurers have lost their lives in this seemingly easy task. Either mauled to death by the knopbries or having their organs pierced by the treant.

“Arrghrhhh! Shit, my leg!”

“Naden!”

A young commoner by the name of Naden was caught in the vines of the barkwraith, shrieking like a banshee at the sight of blood streaming from his leg, drenching the grass red. The barkwraith pulled its arm back, dragging Nadan further away from his party and toward the fearsome jaws of the knopbries.

“Arrghhh! Power Slash! No! No! No! Power Slash! No! No! Nooo!!! Power Slash!!!” the young adventurer screamed with tears falling from his eyes, desperately hacking on the barkwraith’s wooden fingers with his sword, however, any hacked piece would quickly grow back without fire to suppress the monster’s regeneration.

Abi! Hailey! Mother! Father! I will make it back! the young man’s mind shouted in denial as the gaping jaws of a knopbries inched closer and closer to his face. He could neither hear the shouts of his friends nor the maniacal laughter of the barkwraith. To him, the world became silent.

Until the roar of thunder appeared.

“KNAKKkkkriiiiiii...”

“Huh?”

Wha-What?! entered Nadan’s mind, unable to understand why the dwarf-sized knopbri suddenly disappeared from his eyes. As he turned his head to the side, the moss-covered mushroom monster was twitching uncontrollable on the grassy ground while a black stream was flowing through its body like electricity.

“Bladdarg! Come at me ya damn mushroom-lovers, think ya can’t handle somebody your own size?! Huh?!” The deep voice of a dwarven warrior echoed through the forest, sending a chill down the knopbries as they collectively turned their head towards their new adversaries. However, the one closest to him couldn’t react fast enough, being slugged by the dwarf’s warhammer like a baseball.

“Stop dreaming, watch out!” a young woman’s voice warned one of Naden’s party members, who was nearly pounced on by a hidden knopbrie. Thanks to the warning, the adventurer was able to react and dodge the monster’s jaw. Before the monster could turn around and continue its attack, a teenage girl suddenly appeared from behind a tree, being flown into battle by a strong wind.

Holding a sword in one hand while an emerald ring glowed brightly on the other, the girl swooped into the battle and slashed the knopbrie’s arm. Jumping over the monster’s back, the girl landed on the ground before casting another [Wind Blast] to speed up her sword swing, helping her decapitate the monster with finesse.

Without giving the shocked adventurer another second of her time, the brown ring on her hand glowed and a wall appeared from the ground, sending her towards the next monster to slay. Mid-flight, a few river slimes suddenly shot out a few jets of water towards the girl. However, before they hit, daggers of ice descended down from the sky, blocking not only the water beam but also destroying the slimes’ cores before freezing them. The dagger rain did not stop, eliminating the remaining river slimes.

With a dwarven warrior and human girl slaughtering the horde of monsters, the adventurers regained their morale, charging back to support their lifesavers. Nadan’s party members, now free to help him, quickly burned the root holding him and dragged him away from the fighting.

As the knopbries were disoriented by the sounds of their fallen kind, the head of a wolfkin woman suddenly appeared from the shadow of one of them, her eyes glowing as a bright red mist flowed from them. Raising her shadow-covered arm, she slammed it on the ground before multiple black tendrils erupted, catching all knopbries and dragging them towards her.

“Hey! Bladdarg, that was mine!” the dwarf shouted as he missed his swing due to the wolfkin’s actions, grumbling at what he saw happened next.

After pulling herself out of the shadow, the wolfkin woman’s hand suddenly was covered in black lightning. She looked at the knopbries, wrapped together by her [Dark Tendrils], struggling to free themselves in futile wailing.

“Stygian Lightning.” With a wolf-like snarl, the thunder shot out of the woman’s arm and struck the gathered knopries.

“““Kriiiiiaagrhrkkkk!!!””” The collective cries of pain all ended in unison by the explosion of lightning, shaking the very air from dark energy.

The barkwraith watched all of this happening, dumbstruck by the sudden intervention of these new enemies. While it tried to support the knopbries, its wooden fingers and root weren’t able to extend any closer to the fighting, suppressed by red dust clouding around it.

While none of them were set on fire, sparks did happen wherever it tried to join the fight. It was confused, it knew fire could stop its regeneration and growth, but small sparks shouldn’t be able to. It was only when it noticed a new notification appear in its head did it understand what was happening.

[Dread Burn] inflicted on [Barkwraith Protector, *]

“Once you have it, you can’t regenerate anymore. Doesn’t matter if you’re the best cleric in the world or the strongest troll. No health regeneration for you.”

Filled with dread, the barkwraith jolted its head towards the voice.

“Yo.”

The sound of cracking wood was the last thing the treant heard as its head tumbled on the ground.

***********************************************

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Job [Crimson-Scaled Dreadgiver] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 1]

Yikes, were it not for Tasianna, we probably would have missed what was happening here. Urgh, out of the 15 adventurers, five got killed.

I guess it was kinda ironic that I was reading a book about what dungeons were, written by some guy from the Folschrek Empire. I thought it would be a good read while we journeyed through this place, but I didn’t expect when I got to the “Quests would be issued for floor boss monsters” part that Tasianna told us a group of adventurers was about to be wiped out by some monsters.

Although they would usually lead us into traps or weird spots, Tasianna has been able to put her [Fae Whisperer] Job to use by being able to speak with spirits and spriggans who wandered into this dungeon. And you heard right, most of the ones Tasianna listened to bamboozled us and caused us more trouble than necessary. When Tasianna mentioned that fae were tricksters, she couldn’t be more right, and Grimnir absolutely hated it.

This warning happened after we decided to make camp on floor nine and go to sleep, so you could understand why nobody would be happy to hear this. Tasianna could be trusted, but the fae she spoke to were a different case. When we finally got Grimnir to move his heavy ass, Saori managed to hear the cries halfway through our sprint. The rest was history.

“Bladdarg. We tazongs ain’t build as sprinters! We got the stamina for marches and long runs, but don’t expect me to go from one spot to the other at the same speed like you lasses with your high Agility. We’re dangerous in short distances,” Grimnir grumbled as he hacked the barkwraith’s body into pieces small enough to carry. It wasn’t the best wood, but the lumber from a treant was still better than from a normal tree.

After we wiped out the horde of monsters and managed to save who we could, our party went to claim the spoils. Saori, Tasianna, and Ellaine were dismantling the knopbries and Grimnir hacked the backwraith with a woodcutter’s axe while I tended to the injured, but alive, adventurers. Some were bleeding excessively and others had broken bones, but nothing I couldn’t solve.

“Thank you very much, M’Lady Priestess,” an adventurer in his twenties named Naden thanked me after I patched himself up, looking elated that his injuries wouldn’t cripple him for the remainder of his life.

“Barkwraith Quest, I guess?” I wondered, having seen a group of adventurers carry this monster’s body a week ago, which led to me wanting its timber after inspecting it. As Naden nodded with a frown, one of his party members patted him on the shoulder, thanking me and my party for helping out in the nick of time.

As they were about to offer me money, I rejected it, pointing their attention towards my other patients. “If I take your money, I have to take theirs, too. You only had one person I had to help out with [Major Heal], but not them. The normal price is 5000 Davi, but even my rate of 500 Davi per person still isn’t exactly cheap, especially after you handed us the body of the barkwraith.”

Inside a dungeon, rules couldn’t be enforced since guild officials weren’t able to wander around on all floors, so adventurers had to form unofficial ones to resolve issues. Even if the guild was to form rules, nobody could actually make sure they were followed if a guild official wasn’t around, so it wasn’t any different from not having rules at all. It was chaotic.

While collaborating parties would settle on a rule before entering the dungeon, it would be more chaotic in the case of a random party helping, or even “kill stealing,” another party’s prey. Some disputes get resolved amicably, but others… can get quite bloody.

“As if! That is our prey! We found it first!” I remembered one of the grieving adventurers shouting at Grimnir when he took out his axe to chop the barkwraith. “We found it, first! You think you can take it just for helping?! YOU DIDN’T EVEN SAVE EVERYBODY! WE DIDN’T ASK FOR YOUR- URGH!”

“Shut your trap, you damn manling! Are you sick of life or what? Should I have left you to turn into fertilizer for the damn dungeon?!” Grimnir bellowed at one of the emotional adventurers, having just punched him in the gut for yelling at him. “Hmph! Ungrateful manling! You want your prize, then raise your hand and fight for it.”

“Mister Grimnir, please, cal-” Saori tried to diffuse the situation but Grimnir quickly snapped at her.

“Your four wanted the damn treant for your weapons and catalysts, and I’m chopping it for the dragonewt lass to carry it. You think what I’m doing is wrong?” Grimnir spat out, reminding us what we told him before. “We helped them and Hestia is healing their injuries. Fair game. Are we supposed to come out of this empty-handed after risking our lives?”

“No, I mean, these people just lost some of their party members. Aren’t you being a bit too harsh, Mister Grimnir? We could share,” Saori suggested, but Grimnir argued back.

“You think they earned any spoils after doing nothing? You did most of the cleanup, Saori, and I’m not even thinking of taking some for myself, despite wanting a branch of two. You work hard, you get rewarded,” Grimnir scoffed. “I feel for the lads and lasses here, but I ain’t coddling some strangers. Death can get you emotional, but if it gets you to spit on your saviors, then I’ll hammer into their heads what Crustacia does to idiots!”

The glare Grimnir gave them afterward made anybody still angry about the results meek. And that is how we landed in this situation.

After I healed everybody’s wounds, some of the grieving adventurers began to bury their former companions, despite knowing what the dungeon would do to them. Our party decided to make camp here, cooking a hot meal for the adventurers before we headed to bed with the monster materials securely in my storage. From the sounds of crying, I guess some of them couldn’t fall asleep.

Once our party woke up, we noticed the grieving adventurers had already left. Only Naden and his party, the only party that hadn’t lost anyone, stayed behind to thank us once again before departing themselves. We continued on a short time later.

Due to the size of this place, it took us a bit to cut our way through the forest, but we eventually found the stairs, ending our days inside the forests of floors five to nine. We had departed from Cedaraille at dawn, but it still took us a whole day, roughly, to reach floor nine.

Once we made it to the bottom of the staircase, there was no longer any sight of a forest.

“Wow, what a huge ravine!” I stated as I stared into the distance, trying to find the end of this huge place. The sky might have been shining blue, but sadly there was no sun in sight.

But my wonderment didn’t last long, for my attention was immediately taken by something flying in the sky.

“Shrieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!”

A bear-sized felwing was coming our way.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 172: The Alpine Felwings.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Felgheist

A felwing who has gained enough experience and power to evolve into a giant felgheist, a beast with fangs and claws strong enough to rip through metal armor. Not only do their longer wingspan increase their flight speed, their long claws allow them to fend off other aerial competitors while making them vicious terrestrial combatants. By consuming the blood of their prey, felgheists are able to increase Health regeneration. Rank D

“Argh, bladdarg! Getting attacked the moment we arrive!” Grimnir shouted, although I wasn’t sure if he was frowning or something under his helmet.

“Griiiiiiiiiiieeeekkkkk!” the felgheist shrieked once more before diving at us with its vampire-like fangs protruding out, ready to snap at us.

Despite the obvious danger of the situation, I shrugged and lazily raised my hand up with a purple magic circle ready to fire. “Lightning Bolt,” I announced, shooting out a yellow streak of lightning at the oversized bat at a speed it didn’t anticipate. Flustered, it managed to barrel roll away from my spell, the electricity barely missing it, but the sudden turn left it unstable, forcing it to slow its descent by spreading its wings.

This small change in speed meant its end. “Stygian Lightning,” Saori called out right next to me, shooting out a similarly fast bolt of black lightning towards the felgheist, but this time it couldn’t evade it. Shrieking in pain from having black electricity zapping its body, the monster quickly began to fall down from a lack of wing beats, but its incapacitated body was caught, or pierced, by Tasianna’s floating daggers, who delivered the monster’s corpse to us before it was lost in the ravine.

“Ahh, shame,” Saori clicked her tongue. “I still need more Intelligence to make my lightning a sure-kill against D ranks. I could kill it with a single dagger stab into a vital spot.”

After some testing, we’ve come to the conclusion that Saori’s [Stygian Lightning] was pretty much similar to electric attacks or [Lightning Magic] spells, only that the electricity itself was composed out of her dark elementally aligned mana. From her recent evolution, Saori’s body was now able to turn her mana into dark mana before storing it as electricity in her white fur, which she could then release as a bolt of lightning, a short-ranged electric blast, or through a punch.

However, it had its limit, though. Just as with [Dark Magic] and [Lightning Magic], the amount of damage it could do was related to her Intelligence stat, which was around 3500 less than her impressive over 6000 Strength. There was also the fact that she could only store the lightning in the white fur located mostly around her shoulders and arms, and it would dissipate relatively fast once she used it for an attack. I’m pretty sure we could still do more with it by making custom spells or creating some tool to synergise with it, but we needed to experiment more.

After storing the monster’s corpse, more shrieks suddenly appeared above us, warning our party of a horde of felgheists. They hadn’t noticed us yet, so Grimnir suggested we avoid them for now and focus on traversing the giant ravine. After inspecting the cliff’s edge, staring down into the groundless chasm and into the landless horizon, I agreed as we moved into a cave opening.

“This is not good. This floor does not fit the design of the map,” Saori stated the moment we decided to move forwards. “Look. There should be a larger area in the start and there is no mention of a cave this close to the entrance. From the looks of it, the cliff path is also different.”

When I was still attending high school, I wouldn’t describe myself as a good student or an avid learner; however, if the theme interested me, I would be motivated enough to open up a book and give the boring read a try. That was why I bought a book about dungeons from the Sarlenzia company.

The book was quite expensive, as it was written by an explorer-scientist from the Empire and exported here, but it was well worth the money spent, since it gave me more insight into how a dungeon worked. More than what Tasianna and Ellaine could tell me off their memories.

In one of its chapters, the author noted that dungeons not manned by their dungeon masters 24/7 would randomly switch up the layout of a floor simply to challenge adventurers more in its pursuit to kill them. It wouldn’t do this too often, as the mana spent to change a floor compared to creating an entirely new floor usually wasn’t worth it, according to a dungeon master the author interviewed.

Also, a dungeon master who seeked to turn the dungeon into a business, similarly to the one we are in right now, was able to restrict the amount of floors a dungeon could create. This would make it more likely for a dungeon to change floor layouts, but due to how many more adventurers visit and then bring out monster materials, the dungeon had to be more reserved with its mana usage. In essence, these floor changes were rare.

With Ellaine back as our cartographer, we began our search for the stairs. During our travels, we learned that the felgheists shrieked a lot, like a lot, a lot. Not ‘cause they found us or anything, but ‘cause they were communicating with each other. Although we knew this, there was no way for us to differentiate between aggressive-talking shrieks and aggressive-attacking shrieks, since when we tried to ignore the former once, my [Detection Sensor] began ringing.

It corrected me. It wasn’t aggressive-talking, it was aggressive-we-have-found-prey-time-to-attack shrieking.

“Pffff.” The moment a group of ten felgheists began to attack us, Saori attempted to whistle but couldn’t since she never practiced it once before. However, her attempt of being cool still triggered her garms to show themselves. “Uno. Song. Sarasa. Quatre! Help us.”

After moving through the cave for a bit, we landed into a large space with a wall opening showing us another part of this giant mountain, although we couldn’t get to it due to the large chasm in our way. That was when these giant bats attacked.

The beasts weren’t the most threatening, but it would be a problem if they ganged up on us here and attacked us. Saori, Tasianna, and I could deal with being caught and thrown out from the opening, but Ellaine and Grimnir would be in dire trouble. Ellaine still hasn’t gained [Air Walk], after all, and no one knew if Grimnir had airborne capabilities.

So, we needed to get away first and assess the situation, which brings us to the garms. With their master’s command, the four giant wolves sprang out from her shadow, now adorned in monster leather armor made by Grimnir. While the armor did reduce their coolness rating, once Saori shrouded them in [Shadow Armament], the shadowy impression you would get from them came back, along with more defenses due to [Penumbral Armament].

“Mister Grimnir, get on!” Tasianna called over the large dwarf, offering her hand to pull him on Sarasa. Grimnir grumbled a bit how he hated riding anything, but relented after seeing more than the initial ten enter the wall opening.

After the five of us mounted one of the Garms, we sprinted towards an open path deeper into the mountain, luring the felgheists with us.

“Lightning Bolt!” I shot out, eliminating one of our pursuers. Using my scale-dust while it was affected by the [Scale-Dust Size Increase] Job skill from [Crimson-Scaled Dreadgiver] would create a far more powerful explosion than what I usually have to deal with, which would undoubtedly blow up parts of the mountain. All my area-attack spells, like [Omnictus], carried a similar risk. I had enough attack options to fight more conservatively without risking an avalanche.

For example, terra spells. “Ellaine, you ready?”

“Yes!”

Once I got the confirmation, I held my hand up while Ellaine raised her hand with her catalyst ring. ““Terra Wall!”” we called out, materializing multiple walls of rock to impede the felgheists. Multiple of them crashed onto the walls, knocking themselves unconscious. Those in the back managed to avoid the same fate and continued the chase.

“Ellaine, don’t block the path in case we need to use it later! Shoot [Earthen Spears]! There is enough rocks around,” I suggested to her while preparing multiple [Lightning Bolt]s with my parallel minds.

“Understood! Although, they’re moving prett-”

“Ellaine! Quatre! Get away from the wall!” Before Ellaine could finish her sentence, Saori shouted a warning to her and her mount, however, before Ellaine could understand what was happening, Quatre jumped to the ceiling the moment the wall right to them splintered into pieces, broken through as if a truck hit it.

“Ghoooooooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrr!” a massive creature with the face of a bat and front legs as developed as a gorilla roared.

Mana Eyes.

Felmight

A giant land-bat whose body has become more developed for land-based movement, having completely abandoned the ability to fly. With its wings turned into muscular arms, the felmight uses them to propel its heavy body forward in pursuit of prey before crushing them. Due to a special muscle in their jaw, they are able to extend it forward to consume the blood of its prey, its main regeneration method. Rank D

Rank D? Pretty sure it’s larger than those felgheists.

“Ghooooorrrrrr!” it roared once again before displaying it’s jaw extension ability against Tasianna and Grimnir, but Sarasa — whom they were riding — deftly dodged it and continued running ahead.

“Quatre!” I called out to the garm Ellaine was riding, extending my hand towards him. Having understood my intention, he cast [Dark Tendrils] from his shadow armor and wrapped them around my arm, which I pulled at with all my strength, dragging his airborne body to my side.

“I guess expecting only one type of monster wasn’t reasonable. Of course this dungeon would continue throwing stuff at us!” Everybody nodded to my statement as we continued running down the path, now with an additional threat chasing after us.

After a few moments, we made it to the end of the tunnel and decided to fight the approaching monsters inside this closed cavern chamber, seeing as there weren’t any hazards we needed to watch out for. Running forever wasn’t an option.

The first to arrive was the felmight, its roar echoed inside the chamber like a bomb. Seeing this challenge, Grimnir shouted from the bottom of his lungs and jumped off Sarasa with his warhammer in hand. Having been informed of his intention beforehand, Tasianna blasted the stout taz with an amplified [Wind Blast], spending far more mana than was needed, to help him reach the giant beast with his hammer held up high.

“Heavy Slam!” Smashing his weapon right at the monster’s skull, both Grimnir’s hammer and the felmight crashed onto the ground, cracking and quaking the ground under them.

“Grouuuuggh,” the felmight groaned, letting go of its broken arms which somehow blocked Grimnir’s attack in time.

Damn thing is still alive? What a tank!

“By Crustacia’s twintails, you dimwit managed to block the attack with your arms?!” Grimnir complained before picking its head up and headbutting the monster with his ram-like horns. With the felmight staggered, Grimnir had enough time to press something on his hammer.

The warhammer’s handle began to glow blue and mechanical parts started to move and twitch. Like a river’s stream, the blue glow began from the place the button was and flowed towards the top of the weapon, causing one of the hammerheads to automatically move up and attach itself to the handle’s tip, closing the gap between the two heads.

Once done, the button snapped out from the handle, forming into what looked like a gun handle… Wait, a gun?

“Volrun, umsleud!” Point-blank, Grimnir’s warhammer shot a shotgun-like mana blast at the felmight’s head, completely destroying it as it fell lifelessly onto the ground.

… I mean, if they can make those mana cannons, then handheld guns or rifles shouldn’t be impossible, right? Makes sense now why his Main Job was called [Blasthammer Gunner].

“Hey, lasses!” Grimnir called us out, breaking my train of thoughts and my wonderment at his weapon. “This thing can only shoot once before overloading. Do something about those fliers!” His weapon then returned to its former form and steam began to rise from the top of his warhammer through the gap between the heads.

The shrieks of the felgheists then became louder, our warning to get ready for the impending battle. Our blood was pumping, adrenaline coursed through our blood as cold sweat drenched our brows wet. The fear of death was settling in… Which probably would be what a normal party would totally feel, but we had two B rank monsters, a fairy with a catalyst blessed by an Origin Goddess, four C rank garms, and a magic swordswoman who… Okay, Ellaine was actually quite scared but she wasn’t running away.

“Banishment Beam!”

“Stygian Lightning!”

“Icicle Gust!”

“Tornado Bullet”

““““Wrooooooooooo!””””

Luring enemies into a chokepoint and then blasting them with attacks, eliminating their ability to dodge since too many projectiles were flying at them at the same time. Using this strategy made things pretty easy. Imagine if the four of us were physical fighters only; that would have been dangerous.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Job [Crimson-Scaled Dreadgiver] has risen from [Level 1] to [Level 2]

D ranks really give far more experience than the rank Es and Fs we fought yesterday. Still, with how the experience is shared among five people and Saori’s garms, we need to kill a lot of these things.

After we mowed down the felgheists in our kill zone, we collected the bodies and checked if everybody was ready to move on.

“That was pretty cool. Sorry for my ignorance, but do all dwarves have guns like that?” I asked Grimnir, interested in his weapon.

“Gun? Ahhh, you’re using the Revolution Queen’s terminology. I guess being able to shoot does qualify it as a gun, but this is a tazongn blasthammer modified to shoot concentrated mana blasts,” Grimnir clarified. “As you should know, we tazongs can’t expel mana from our body, making our race unable to become mages. That’s why we created runes and weapons which we can channel our mana through with skills like [Mana Strike]. This blasthammer ’ere was an attempt by an old friend of mine to modify…”

Grimnir’s mood began to sour the longer he talked. When I tried to ask him what was wrong, he waved his hand and told me to forget it before finishing his explanation. “Those ‘guns’ you mentioned are a failed invention the Queen made a blueprint for but never finished. No exact reason was given why. Cannons, we have plenty, but they are large and hard to transport. This weapon is probably one of the few ‘guns’ that exist on Peolynca. Don’t quote me on that. But…”

Grimnir then opened a small cabinet in the hammer’s handle, taking out what seemed to be a charred mana battery. “Thing’s a failed weapon. One use only, and then you need to replace the battery. The mana blast consumes your mana and its spread is too short-ranged, not viable to use against fliers or targets far away. A bow or crossbow would be better choices, in addition there are no gun related skills created yet. This thing is worthless on a real battlefield except as a one-time surprise attack.”

I shouldn’t prod too much into his past. It’s none of my business.

Continuing our travel through this mountain, our trip could only be described as a rollercoaster. With the floor completely changed from the map’s specification, we had to wander around like headless chickens, having no idea where to go since this place gave us no clues. While it was peaceful at one moment, the next moment would be immediately disrupted by attacks from felgheists and felmights.

While the first two subsequent encounters with these things weren’t special, the third time was where it actually got dicy. Believing we had to pass the chasm to the mountain next to the one we started on, we managed to find a bridge, but a few fliers were already waiting there for us.

“Shadow Armament, now!” Saori called out, wrapping all of us in her [Shadow Armament]. We hadn’t passed the bridge yet, expecting an ambush halfway across the bridge, so Saori suggested teleporting us over with her [Shadow Armament] and [Shadow Dash] combination to avoid having to walk over once all the flyers were gone. No point in splitting the party up only to be attacked.

Just as Saori was about to suggest shooting down the horde of felgheists, I stopped her and stepped in front of everybody. Although my wings couldn’t keep me up without wind magic, I still was familiar enough with flying that I knew that our spells would have trouble hitting them, just like the first one we met was able to dodge my [Lightning Bolt], one of the fastest spells we knew.

Fighting inside a cave was easier for us, unlike fighting outside, where the felgheists could use flying’s omnidirectional movements to dodge our spells freely. If we started blasting spells here, we would only waste our mana, so I had another plan.

Volume up. Focus the sound. [Aerokinesis], record my voice. Draconic Roar!

“KriiiAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” With an ear-shattering roar directed forwards and amplified even further with my [Aerokinesis], I was shattering the felgheists’ eardrums and morale at the same time. Looking at them with [Mana Eyes], I could see that the total damage done wasn’t as bad as I’d hoped, but that didn’t matter considering the results.

“Shriiie…” a few groaned as they lost consciousness, falling like flies into the abyss while others managed to remain composed, fleeing to save their lives. Battles weren’t about defeating the enemy, they were about surviving.

However, this is when a nerve wracking moment happened. One of the felgheists remained stubborn and tried to fly against my soundwave, but fell unconscious during its attempt. Unfortunately for us, it crash landed right next to Ellaine, which wasn’t the problem since she was able to dodge it just fine, but the issue was that the ground crumbled from the monster’s crash, causing Ellaine to lose her balance and fall forward.

Tasianna tried to grab her arm but the suddenness of the situation made it impossible for her to reach in time, while Saori was too far and too late with her [Gale Step] to catch her. ““Ellaine!”” Saori and I shouted before we simultaneously jumped off the cliff, unwilling to lose a friend on this day.

Humanization! I instinctively used. With my wings unfurled, I cast [Wind Blast] on them to capitalize on their ability to capture wind better, outspeeding Saori’s [Air Walk].

As the headwind blasted on my face, it not only slowed down my descent but the drag caused by my dive was also causing my neck to feel uncomfortable. “Ellaine!” I called out, reaching my hand forward.

But her next action caused me to feel befuddled.

“Gargoyle, I release you!” Taking a small statue from her bag, she threw it in front of her before it suddenly grew into the form of a griffon. Ellaine deftly wrapped her arms around the statue’s neck and stopped her descent with the stone griffon’s beating wings, moving despite showing no signs of life.

Oh verdammt, I forgot she brought that thing with her!

Saori and I stopped our falling by using [Air Walk], making us both stand on air besides the gargoyle. Both of us had flustered faces, raising our hands and shrugging in confusion.

Ellaine smiled wryly as she saw our expressions, laughing nervously as she explained herself, “T-The gargoyle can’t fight and it’s rather fragile, ehehehehe…”

Most aristocrats possessed a gargoyle, a flying statue created through alchemy, for their personal use as an alternative transport method in case carriages weren’t ideal. I knew Ellaine had brought hers with her, but I kinda forgot about it after I told her not to use it. Since it was only supposed to be used as a transport method, any combat functionalities it would have were mediocre, too fragile to be used as an alternative mount.

Shaking my head, the three of us returned back to the cliff side. As I was sighing in relief that nothing bad happened, Grimnir suddenly gave me a quizzical look. “Where did those wings come from?”

“Huh? Huh?!” It seemed I forgot to undo [Humanization]. I was stumbling over my words, trying to respond, luckily, I had parallel minds who could think extremely fast with [Thought Acceleration], so thinking of an excuse was a cinch “…What wings?”

I hid them under my robe. Perfection.

“You sure you didn’t drink too much before we departed yesterday, Mister Grimnir? You must be seeing things.” I activated [Benevolent Aura] and [Royal Presence], my charisma-based skills, and spoke with the confidence anybody would fall for!

“…” He was dumbfounded, just as planned. “Your wings are showing underneath your robes… plus, they make you look wider than before.”

“Eh?”

Grimnir shook his head after he pointed those facts out, causing my eyes to widen. “Lass, next time, just leave your wings out if you want to act like a dragonewt.”

…Urgh.

Without saying another word, I slumped my shoulders as I came to the realization of how much I made myself look like an idiot. Tasianna tried to comfort me while Ellaine and Saori patted my shoulders, before the latter began transporting everybody over the gulf now that the felgheists were gone. I was thankful nobody spoke about it any further.

The rest of the trip went relatively smoothly outside of the occasional attacks, but our goal to find the stairs was nowhere in sight. As our bodies accumulated fatigue, we decided we traveled enough for today and made camp, preparing dinner and then going to bed.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Job [Crimson-Scaled Dreadgiver] has risen from [Level 2] to [Level 3]

“You know, I get humans, but you didn’t need to hide the fact you’re a dragon from me,” Grimnir suddenly brought up while waiting for dinner.

“You know, I could just be a dragonewt who has [Humanization] just to mingle with people, right? Being a dragon isn’t a given,” I replied, knowing he probably won’t be persuaded.

“Nah, then you’ll just turn into a human altogether. Why learn [Humanization] as a dragonewt without turning completely into a human to hide yourself? I get your wings might get in the way of things, so I understand the argument, but you do know how most dragonewts revere dragons, yeah? A dragonewt would either be angry or embarrassed from the accusation, I’d wager, but you looked more defeated that your lie didn’t work.”

Cernust did mention how much dragonewts worshipped the dragons, since they originated from a dragon ancestor. He never specified how much, so how should I have known how to react?

After I sighed once again, Grimnir noticed my bad mood and tried to strike up conversion to distract me. “Well, no need to look so gloomy, lass. We tazongs are aware of how dragons wander the worlds for their adulthood pilgrimage, so no need to worry about me keeping my mouth shut. I’ll probably forget about it over a tankard of the bladdarg those humans serve in taverns, anyways, hahahahaha!”

“Yeah, maybe… Now that I think about it, what does ‘bladdarg’ mean anyways? I’m not that familiar with dwarven.” After laughing some more, Grimnir explained to me that this word was simply a substitute for any curse words I could think of. Shit, fuck, damn, poop, and so on and so on. Whatever I could think of.

“Well, it would have been better if you told me you were a dragon, anyways. I haven’t had any experience lately, but tazongs making weapons and armor for dragons ain’t uncommon. We have to sometimes work on dragonewt stuff, anyways, hahahaha!”

I nodded. “How long exactly?”

“Dunno. Forgot to count. It’s been years since I left my clan, Luedbrumdar, after Bleidla practically abandoned me for something as meager as helping a friend. He might be the most active of the Gods, but he's undoubtedly the darndest bastard in the whole world. Bladdarg! I can’t fucking believe he’s a taz. Hmph.”

Well, ignoring what he said about the God of Blacksmithing, I guess I don’t have to worry about him realizing anything about my royal status.

Saori and Tasianna then finished dinner preparations and began to serve it to everybody. Yesterday we had stew made from the meat we hunted during our descent, but today she decided to make something new.

“Ooooh, not bad!” Grimnir exclaimed, enjoying Saori’s sauerkraut casserole. “This would go damn well with some mead.”

“Oh, you think so, too? The sourness of the sauerkraut and rich umami from the meat does give me a craving for some alcohol,” Saori agreed, looking happy Grimnir shared her opinion.

“That can be handled. I brought a small keg with me in case I needed it. Not tazongn, but it’ll do.”

“Ooooh, count me in, then. I actually have some wine in my storage, so I’ll share mine. However, let’s not drink too much.”

They are certainly hitting it off.

On the next day, we continued our travel through the whole floor but only managed to find the staircase the day after. While it took us three days to find the stairs down from floor ten, the floors afterwards were luckily unaltered from the maps we had, so our progress forwards was back to normal.

The areas were still the same mountainous paths like before with small variations, so to save on time, we decided to go all out. Ellaine flew on her gargoyle, Saori used [Air Walk] to move through the air while carrying Grimnir with her, leaving Tasianna in her fairy form and me for the offense. That’s right, despite not having any airplanes in Peolynca, we took to the sky, which made everything super easy.

In under two days we made it all the way to floor 14, where the floor boss was guarding the entrance towards floor 15. It was truly an impressive monster!

Felgheist Nightlord

A felgheist who, instead of turning feral, has embraced the intelligence and dignity of vampires, learning magic in the process. Although able to cast multiple elements of magic, they are primarily a force to be reckoned with due to their charisma attracting other felwing-type monsters to serve under their command. Rank C

The arena was a small area in the middle of a giant mountainous dome, where hordes of felgheists were hanging down, waiting for any would-be-challenger. As you would expect, this area was made to give the guardians the advantage, as there was always the risk of somebody getting dragged away by a felgheists. The nightlord being a mage also equalized any advantage of mages and archers in a party might have.

This was undoubtedly a trial with the sole purpose of testing parties before they entered the treacherous hell of floor 15. Undoubtedly, you will need to prepare extensively for this task. Train your bodies, acquire the correct equipment and tools, develop sophisticated strategies, and of course, the power of teamwork!

…

Or, you can just send me in there in my dragon form, blast the felgeists away with a [Draconic Roar] amplified through [Aerokinesis], then make everything explode with scale-dust.

[Humanize (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Job [Crimson-Scaled Dreadgiver] has risen from [Level 3] to [Level 6]

Cause that was exactly what I did.

“You know, these things wouldn’t exist if you could destroy them so easily,” Grimnir complained at how I massacred everything in sight.

I shrugged.

As we approached the stairs, the sheer heat radiating up through the staircase from the fifteenth floor caused everybody except for Grimnir and me to sweat. It had taken us six days to get here, but our goal — Grimnir’s goal — was close at hand.

A note from AbyssRaven

What an anti-climatic mid-way boss. Hestia had the audacity to hype it up even!

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Chapter 173: The First Year.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“““Happy Birthday!”””

The atmosphere was perfect.

A clear blue sky without any clouds while my hair was fluttering lightly from a cool breeze. Saori, Tasianna, and Ellaine were sitting before me, smiling brightly as they finished their congratulations, only now beginning to sing the “Happy Birthday” song translated into Common. To the right sat Grimnir, helmetless, looking relaxed as he drank some of Saori’s wine, while on my left were the garms, all four napping peacefully.

The cake was perfect.

It was a simple one us girls made using my transportable oven, only covered with pink fragassa frosting and decorated with a large white “1” made from whipped cream. For the majority of Artorians, the normal day-to-day people I see on the streets, this sugary goodness would probably be impossible to get since yeast by itself was still a luxury and sugar was heavily monopolized by the nobility, despite sugar beets being farmed in this kingdom.

Yeah, everything is great. Feels so normal.

…

Well, almost.

“Thank you very much…Oh jeez, the wind is blowing in the blood smell again, urgh.” It was normal until you realized I was celebrating my first year of being in Peolynca in a murderous dungeon, willing to send goons of monsters to kill people for their mana.

But it didn’t bother me too much.

Saori shrugged, agreeing with me as I giggled at the absurdness of the situation. “Well, you reap what you sow. You knew your birthday was coming up and you still chose to help Mister Drunk over there.” She pointed at Grimnir.

Yes, it was my birthday. I finally became one year old, and the way I learned this, despite being in a dungeon and unable to count the passing days, is 'cause of my profile. It recorded how many months has passed since I was born and, two “nights” ago, it informed me my birthday had arrived.

Now, the four of us had decided to delay the celebration — our little party here — until there was a more opportune moment, like after defeating floor 14’s boss. After all, with how frustrating floor ten was, we just wanted to get through this whole place as soon as possible. Floors one to nine were tranquil, since you could see the dungeon was trying to recreate a natural ecosystem.

However, floor ten to 14 really showed the dungeon’s real intentions. There weren’t any traps; nevertheless, all the monster ambushes and the treacherous cliffside, which you could fall down from and probably disappear forever in, made this whole place annoying. I bet, if a normal adventurer party had gone through that place, then they’d have found it even worse.

‘Dungeon Masters, being the assigned master of a dungeon, have the ability to transport themselves to the core without any issues. In addition, monsters created from the dungeon are forced to listen to them while they are inside the dungeon’s premises. For this reason, dungeon masters were able and encouraged to increase defenses to prevent invaders from arriving at the core,’ was something the dungeon book explained.

If the first nine floors were intended to be the money-making floors, then it would make sense why the later floors were just hard. The Adventurer’s Guilds forbad adventurers from stealing a conquered dungeon’s core while the Origin Gods made destroying ones containing mana a sin. However, I could understand why the owner — the duke — still wanted to protect their gold mine, their cash cow, their golden goose.

Then again, despite the danger, our party wanted this sort of training. That is why we stayed in Cedaraille in the first place, so yeah, Saori was right. We reaped what we sowed.

“Now, come on, come on, birthday lass, open up your treasure chest. That’s the only reason I’m even waiting around,” Grimnir slammed his tankard of wine on the table, grumbling once again as if he couldn’t live without complaining. He then picked up a large wooden chest from underneath the table and threw it on the table, almost hitting the uncut cake.

“Hey, my cake! Watch it!” I yelled. My heart nearly skipped a beat.

“Could you please drink your wine quietly?” Saori grumbled to herself.

“Mister Grimnir, we worked hard on this cake. I would like to ask you not to ruin My Lady’s celebration,” Tasianna protested.

“Yes, please,” Ellaine agreed, looking a bit nervous to talk back to the grumpy dwarf.

Chest. That’s right, treasure chests. The dungeon’s way to entice adventurers into facing dangers for the pursuit of rewards, despite not knowing what would be inside of them. They were like surprise easter eggs, just a bit more dangerous to get, and in this case, we found the chest after we defeated the felgheist nightlord.

This was the third one we found. Our first only gave us a simple dagger while the second one I accidentally destroyed when I freaked out from the toad that illusionist created to scare me, so I really hope this one will be good. I mean, this was the chest given to us after we defeated a boss type monster. On our way to floor 14, our party has been incredibly unlucky with finding treasure chests, to the point even Grimnir remarked how unusual it was.

I don’t want to say my luck was bad, ‘cause it couldn’t be. Absolutely not. However, considering we wandered on floor ten for two days without finding a single chest was just baffling to me. Adventurers wouldn’t be adventurers without a chest or super loot here and there to keep them motivated.

After Saori cut a slice of cake for everybody in attendance, including the garms, I clapped my hands together and began praying. Saori tilted her head in confusion while Tasianna and Ellaine followed suit, praying to Plesia, Zephira, and Aurena respectively. Grimnir was the only one who was rubbing his hands, looking impatiently at me to open the chest.

I bet Tasianna and Ellaine were thinking I would pray to Aurena, but, unfortunately for them, they couldn’t be further from the mark. I wouldn’t pray to the Origin Gods for everything like a Peolyncian. No, I prayed to somebody far more powerful than them!

Oh, Gacha Lords and RNGesus, please, hear my prayer! Give me something good, please! Please! I bet Aurena will complain about this later on.

Without any further hesitation, I tore off the lock holding the chest closed and pried it open with my claws. As everybody looked inside, Grimnir nodded with approval at our findings, telling me to take items out since smaller gear could be hidden among the larger ones. After I did, I let Grimnir appraise them.

“Hmm, three large pieces of treant bark. Tougher than the barkwraith we met, so I guess this belongs to a C rank. Can be used to make some good armor or a bow, but I recommend using it as an ingredient for alchemy or runecraft. Some eoriant bars. Nice to have, saves you some money for future blacksmith requests,” Grimnir then set the material loot aside, his beard went up in a smile as he gazed at a shield and a necklace. “Perfect timing. A shield resistant to fire and magma, even has a rune here to create an aura shield to protect you from unbearable heat. Good scales, from flame-spitting slazzanbals. Hmm, this amulet, on the other hand, needs an [Identify] to reveal it’s true ability.”

“Got it.”

Mana Eyes.

Grove Treant’s Magic Bark

A large chunk of bark from a [Grove Defender Treant]’s trunk, which has retained the quality mana of the giant woodland monster. Dismantled from a C rank monster, this bark is extremely durable, not only providing high defence, but also it increases its holder’s Health regeneration proportional to the owner’s Mana

Slazzanbal-scaled Shield of Heat Resistance

A shield created from steel fortified with slazzanbal scales and bones, increasing its fire resistance.

Skill: [Fire Resistance Lv. 8] [Lava Resistance Lv. 1] [Durability Loss Reduction Lv. 2] [Shield Mastery Lv. 3] [Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 3]

Rune: [Defensive Rune: Heat Barrier]

Necklace of Vampiric Undying

A necklace made from a felgheist’s bones and claws, with an alchemical stone created using a C rank felgheist’s heart as a base placed in the middle. An owner can be registered by feeding this necklace some of the owner’s blood, storing it inside the alchemical stone until it is used. Prevents the owner’s Health from being lowered below 1 when worn, healing them proportional to the amount of blood stored inside the alchemical stone. Will break once used

Ooooh my.

“That is not bad,” Ellaine exclaimed once the four of us finished appraising them, explaining it to Grimnir afterwards. “If we were to sell this to any noble, we could negotiate for a considerable price.”

“You could?” I tilted my head. “Couldn’t people just recreate this through alchemy? The description even stated a felgheist’s heart is needed for the alchemical stone, and we just harvested a C rank one from that felgheist nightlord.”

“It isn’t that easy, sadly,” Grimnir chimed in. “Sure, it is theoretically possible for us to make one of these necklaces… but we aren’t vampires.”

Saori raised a brow as she heard this, asking, “What do vampires have to do with this?”

“No idea,” Grimnir shrugged. “All I know is that if the item has a ‘vampiric’ or ‘sanguine’ modifier, then only a vampire can create it. There are enchantments called ‘Life Steal,’ even a rune called ‘Passive Rune: Life Steal,’ based on the Dark spell [Enfeebling Winds]; however, even I have to admit that we runesmiths can’t best a vampire in their own forte. Ha, and good luck getting the Vampire Goddess’ spawns to help you out. Imagine a high elf’s pompousness, magnified by the fact they know they’re better than the high elves. You got yourselves the vampires.”

So this thing is pretty rare.

“What about the dungeon? Considering it just dropped for us, shouldn’t the hunter’s guild get Quests for adventurers to continuously grind floor 14 for this drop?” I wondered.

“I actually never heard this existed until now, neither from my father or mother,” Ellaine answered. “Maybe Lord Duke Greenveil knows all the different drops from the dungeon, but considering how treacherous it’s been these past floors, I do not believe most adventurers would risk their lives for an uncertain treasure chest drop. After all, did the book not state that rewards were random?”

It did. The book did state that treasure chest rewards were one of the few functions the dungeon master could not control, which the author presumes the Divine System had made in place to prevent overabundance of certain items. They could create a treasure chest manually or let the dungeon determine where to spawn it,but the former option would cost more mana to use.

I thought that a dungeon master could just control what resources they wanted the dungeon to produce, like making grinding a certain boss drop easier, but I guess that was a pipedream. Nothing is easy and the Divine System tries to keep some semblance of balance, I presume.

With that answered, I asked Grimnir how runes worked, since this was our party’s first piece of equipment with a rune. Essentially, pouring mana into the rune like a magic circle was all that was needed. If the gear could conduct mana easily, then pouring mana into it anywhere was all that you needed to do, otherwise, a simple touch on the rune was needed. The shield was made out of steel, so it was fortunate that the rune was placed behind it, making it easy to touch.

“Let me show you.” Grimnir stood up and picked up his blasthammer, showing us a single rune underneath one of its heads. He touched it, causing it to glow before creating a defensive barrier around him. “This is [Defensive Rune: Pavise], the physical counterpart of [Defensive Rune: Auracoil], which protects you from magic. To keep it up, you need to keep pouring mana into it.”

“Isn’t it similar to magic? How are dwarves able to use it?” My question was just harmless curiosity, but it seems like Grimnir didn’t like that my common sense was lower than he thought.

“Lass, this isn’t like your fancy spell casting. It’s an adaptation we tazongs made to overcome the fact we can’t become mages. Although we can’t expel mana away from our body, we can circulate it around us or through a conduit, like an eoriant weapon, making it possible for us to use skills like [Mana Strike]. We can also charge mana batteries with the same concept. And with this concept, we made runes, which are essentially mana batteries that cast ‘spell-like’ effects.”

After he finished his explanation, Grimnir told us we could keep the rewards of the chest. When I insisted he should take something, he shook his head and told us his only goal was the magma rock we promised to help him get. I guess Saori influenced me a bit since I happily accepted them and gave the two pieces of equipment to Ellaine.

“Oh, there is no ne-”

“Don’t be modest, Ellaine. Take them. We’ll be rushing into a place with magma and fire soon, so this should help you out.”

Despite having leveled up a lot, I was still worried about Ellaine’s survivability by quite a bit, even more than Tasianna since, unlike our fairy maid, Ellaine didn’t have any way to combat the fire type monsters we were about to fight. I wasn’t willing to lose a friend and, to make sure that didn’t happen, this shield and necklace will come in handy.

Ellaine reluctantly took them after I explained it to her, knowing full well that I only meant well. Grimnir was about to leave to scout what was on floor 15, as we planned to depart after sleeping, but we stopped him since we wanted to give out the preparations we did in the one week of training. Training wasn’t the only thing we did.

“Red capes?” Grimnir asked as Saori gave him a red cloak.

“Fire element mana threads weaved together into a cloak. They aren’t powerful, but I made sure they are resistant to some heat and fire to make our trip easier.” Saori knew the area would be burning hot, and she wanted to make our travel time less harsh to prevent fatigue. Her way to do it was to bring her tailor abilities to show.

“Lady Hestia will be able to provide most of the healing, but please bring these with you for emergencies. Safety first, yes?” Tasianna then handed Grimnir her new [Health Potion (Major)] made from Belzac herbs, undiluted since we wanted to focus on healing potency. Mana Potions, on the other hand, we still had to buy from a potion shop since Cernust only taught her how to make health potions.

“So you lasses have a bar-”

“I’m not a bard. I’m an idol.” My head jerked to Grimnir, instantly correcting him.

“…An idol, then you have a mana thread weaver, an alchemist…and you are, Ellaine?” Grimnir looked over to our newest member.

Looking flustered at being put on the spot, Ellaine shuttered a bit, “Uhm, w-well, I am still a novice, but I am learning how to become an artificer, otherwise, I handle the finances for Aurora.”

“Artificer, you say? Hmm, dainty hands for one, but I guess you are a noblewoman. Hmph. Thank you, I’ll gladly take on your gratitude.” Grimnir strapped his red cloak on his shoulder, fitting him perfectly as it was custom made. He placed multiple Health potions on his belt before giving us three bright red colored potions. “[Inferno Resistance Potion (Moderate)]. A taz like me doesn’t need one and I didn’t think that you were a fire dragonewt, so you would have needed one too. Now, seeing you in that giant dragon form, I gotta say I don’t think I needed to be worried. I’ll be scouting a bit, maybe the rock is right in front of the entrance. You lasses enjoy your time together, alright?”

He can be blunt, but he really is a good person.

Putting his helmet back on, the taz moved down the stairs to floor 15. The moment he left, Ellaine began to speak, “You know, this might have been my first time seeing you in your natural dragon form, Hestia.”

I turned my head toward her; my attention was caught. Looking at her expression, I knew I shouldn’t say anything and instead let her speak her mind first.

She continued, “Mister Grimnir was correct, worrying about you in that form would be foolish. A waste of time. I felt… tiny when I saw you there, destroying the horde of felgheists as if they were nothing to you. You just stood majestically there and nothing could approach you without being burned to ashed. Everybody… allow me to ask, am I deadweight?”

“…Why do you ask that?” I asked, careful with my words.

“I mean, looking at how fast I leveled up. Doesn’t it mean anybody could train up to become C ranked warriors from becoming your retainer, Hestia? I am stronger than my brother now, far stronger, but I don’t feel like it was due to my own efforts. I wonder, if you had taken my brother on as a retainer instead of me, wouldn’t he have progressed more than I did? Grown far more powerful? It really is strange, you know. We were taught becoming as able as a C rank adventurer would be hard at the academy, and that we needed to dedicate our time well. But look at me, an average talent almost made it to level 50… because of you.”

Silence. Tasianna, Saori, and I already expected this would come based on how much Ellaine wanted to prove herself to us, but we didn’t expect it to happen here in the dungeon. I mean, how am I supposed to respond to this?

“I apologize, Hestia. I really shouldn’t have mentioned this when we’re celebrating your birthday. It was rude and inappropriate. I earnestly wish you the best for your next year on Peolynca, and that-”

“I’m glad we became friends, Ellaine.”

“Huh?” Ellaine’s eyes widened, mouth agape at my sudden statement.

“You know, despite having lived a second life, I can barely remember anything concerning my birthdays on Earth. I can envision the events that happened, but the faces of my parents, relatives, and friends are just gone. They don’t exist in my memories anymore, or maybe they’ll come back one day if what Aurena told me was true, uh, Goddess Aurena.” No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t remember anybody’s names. It was sad.

“However, today, with all three of you, the garms, and surprisingly also with Grimnir. I had my ‘first’ birthday memory today. Sure, my physical body might not break that easily, but before I came to Carine Village, you have no idea how much of a wreck I was. I considered just leaving everybody, to keep Saori and Tasianna safe by not being around. With power comes responsibilities, Ellaine, and you can’t tell me your father or Marquess Sirius hasn’t considered the sheer risk my presence brings. Not just as a princess, but also as a dragon.”

Just think about it. If [Battle Frenzy] activated and I went crazy, I could have hurt a lot of people. I couldn’t be more thankful to Master Kush for protecting Saori and Tasianna when Shiterno caused my rampage. Sure, Shiterno tried to make me stronger, but, by causing me to nearly hurt my friends, he indirectly caused the one thing I wanted to avoid at all cost. A trauma I never wanted to think about again. That’s why I couldn’t forgive him.

Just imagine your comic book or movie superheroes. If you think about it, super powered beings like them are just a bad day away from going crazy and joining those they fought in the first place. I promised to defend and make my friends happy, and promises are something I do not break. Ever. Even my soul knows how important they are.

“I asked you if you were prepared when I explained how dangerous our lives are and you still agreed, Ellaine. I know you are second guessing yourself here, but think about it, you’ve only been with us for three weeks at best,” I argued. “Let me make it understandable. Look at Tasianna, it took her one month to cooperate with Saori semi-reliably, but even then, how long did you need to become battle proficient, Tasianna?”

“Until the bandit battle, where I understood how to stand on my own feet instead of being a supportive fighter. Even then, I needed my current catalyst to become useful enough to be a reliable fighter. I still remember being stuck in my fairy form, too nervous to fight,” Tasianna admitted without any shame, knowing she struggled a lot when taking human lives.

Then I pointed to Saori. “Hers was terrible, too. She was born a warg cub, and the first kobold I had her kill to level up made her puke. Actually, you couldn’t even kill your first one, I had to do it.”

“Yes, yes, I was a total failure. But it is not like you were the perfect teacher back then either, Hestia,” Saori gave me a “bruh” look as she shook her head. “Ellaine, in my first month, I was practically useless without Hestia since I was a mere cub. I couldn’t fight and I was too scared to do anything despite desperately wanting to repay Hestia for her kindness. I even nearly died once due to being kidnapped by an enemy. It took me two months to figure out my current fighting style, and even then, I felt so inferior to Hestia that I had her duel me with rules favored towards me. Even then, I couldn’t win against her, despite having Tasianna’s help. You cannot become a capable fighter in less than a month.”

“And since we’re admitting all our faults, then you can’t forget about me, Ellaine. The dragon you saw today is a far cry from the palm-sized lizard that was born a year ago. Just saying, I nearly died twice in the first week of my new existence. I had a ton of near-death experiences where if my luck hadn’t prevailed, we four would probably have never met. Aurora exists simply because luck helped me out a bit, I won’t even deny it. The gods’ blessings would have been useless if I were turned into a grilled lizard on day one,” I recalled. “As morbid as it sounds, it’s the truth. Oh, and let’s not forget about the fact that I was so lonely that I was somehow able to get [Parallel Minds]. I didn’t buy it. Neither can you three. In a way, I was pretty fucked up in the head back then and I’m still normalizing the voices in my head.”

‘You barely talk with us nowadays outside of magic practice, original mind!’

‘Ahhh, can it, manager mind. It’s not like you guys dislike it a bit. If I feel happy, you guys feel happy. That’s always been the case. And, let’s be honest, there are ten minds talking inside my head and trying to tune you guys out is quite hard.’

Shaking my head to ignore my parallel minds for a moment, I returned to what I wanted to tell Ellaine. “What I wanted to say is that all three of us had been deadweights at the start. Just because I have Goddess Aurena’s and Kargryxmor’s blessings doesn’t mean I’m a talented person or something, because I’m not. If I were, then my idol career would have been far better than what I could remember. I’m good at playing instruments and singing. That’s all. Those two are my real talents. The strength you see today came from training, strengthening my base and never accepting the current me.”

I inhaled for a second before finishing my speech, “That’s why, yes, Ellaine, you are deadweight, but so was I. So was Saori. So was Tasianna. But what makes us strong is that we didn’t give up, that we kept our motivation up and continued training. You are still in the phase where you need to get stronger, train more, find out what your style of fighting will be. By joining us at such a low level, you’ll be able to benefit a lot from the skill point system. I respect you very much for going against your mother’s wish to come with us, so don’t give me that attitude of trying to give up, okay?! You’re a member of Aurora now and we three will help you become good enough to prove yourself to whomever you want. Whether it’s your father, your mother, your brother, or those nobles at the academy.”

I held my hand in front of me, prompting Saori to place her palm on mine. Tasianna caught up to what we were doing and placed hers on ours, leaving Ellaine to be the only one left. “Come on, Aurora is made out of four members. We can’t cheer without you.”

“Uhm,” Ellaine hesitated for a second, prompting me to grab her arm and place it on ours. Ellaine inhaled to calm herself down, nodding when she was ready.

I nodded back. “It’ll be hard, but we will all make it back to the surface, alright? An aurora should be shining brightly in the sky, not inside a dungeon! Let’s do this, AURORA!”

“““AURORA!”””

Honestly, for a birthday party, that was too much serious talk. Seriously.

“Great motivational speech, Hestia,” Saori praised me before the party continued.

Time flew by afterwards, to the point we had dinner without Grimnir. Even after finishing dinner, Grimnir did not come back.

“Grimnir seems to have lost some Health but it’s not to the point of being in danger. Still, where is he?” I worried after looking at my party bracelet.

We waited for a bit more but, when he still hadn’t come back, Aurora decided to move out. Waiting any longer would not have been good.

“Uno, Song, Sarasa, Quatre! Help us find Grimnir!” Saori ordered her garms, all four carrying each of us on their backs.

With a loud howl, we descended down into the heat.

****************************************************

“We serve the flame! We serve the FIRE!!!”

“““Fire consumes fire! Fire consumes fire! Fire consumes fire!”””

The sound of humans and beastmen, frolicking in the heat of a magma chamber deep inside a dungeon. Their howls of fervor were made towards the flame, honoring the pantheon of fire.

“Kruuuuu…”

“Grigrighri!”

“Skriiieieeeeekk!!!”

Floor 20 was empty. The boss of the Emerald-Flare Dungeon was gone.

Footsteps. The earth quaked before the feet of three giants.

A four-legged, shark-like creature with skin made from molten rock, exuding magma with its every step, growling as it delved into the molten sea. A bipedal scaled monster with a serpentine body wandered around the floors of this hellish place, slicing anything it sees with blades of fire.

And in the depth of this hellfire, lurked a giant mother. Having broken through her prison, her tiny fire-breathing children dashed forwards, wary of their giant mother’s sickle legs stomping on the ground.

It was a dungeon break.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 174: Ready to Heat up!

A note from AbyssRaven

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[Music Resonation (Moderate)] [Blessing of the Goddess of Light (Moderate)] [Sanctified Blaze] [Various Spell Buffs] [Insatiable Glutton] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Damn, this is blazing hot.”

Floor 15 was, as we expected, a realm of heat and magma. The rocks were colored red and yellow from the glowing streams of magma, flowing like a river to the side of the first chamber. Streaks of flaring rocks radiated like markings on the ground, lightning up for a bit until it turned dim, repeating this ad nauseam. Every breath I took inside this place felt thick from heat, warming my lungs up instead of burning them, like a warm campfire.

I hate to admit it, but I felt right at home here. I wasn’t sweating yet, which meant the temperature wasn’t higher than my tolerance level. I snapped my fingers to create three colored flames, making sure that I could use my three fire types without any issues.

“Ok, Tasianna, cool everything down. Haha, you three are already sweating,” I teased the rest of Aurora. Saori, Tasianna, and Ellaine were sweating hard while the garms couldn’t help but pant loudly. This place wasn’t for them.

“Understood, Lady Hestia,” with a loud confirmation, Tasianna recalled her catalyst to her hand before conjuring up a cyan-colored magic circle above it, its size growing the more she poured her mana into it. She then sent the circle onto the ground, encompassing everybody in it’s ring.

“Custom spell: Aifli eir Vintral!” (Fairy of Winter) The magic circle began glowing, and two butterfly-like wings made out of ice materialized right behind Tasianna, floating around her much like her catalyst. The magic circle began to turn translucent as the inner contents — the magic formula — disappeared completely, leaving behind only a cyan ring.

The heat began to disappear, cooling down to the point that white fog appeared every time I exhaled. I shivered for a moment, noticing the drastic temperature change, before closing my cloak shut. You know, training wasn’t the only thing we did.

Aside from tailoring and potion making, Tasianna also finalized the two custom spells, something she’s been working on ever since she got her catalyst. One of her custom spells, the one she cast, was called [Fairy of Winter], a spell meant to cool down the surrounding temperature in case I ever accidently caused it to increase too much for my allies to stand with [Dreadflare Aura] or [Solar Beam], for example.

Fairy of Winter

Create two fairy-like wings behind the back of the caster made out of ice. During the Activation phase, the caster may determine the sphere of influence by pouring more mana, which is then used to drastically decrease the temperature inside this sphere. All ice-based attacks will increase in potency while all water -based attacks will freeze, transforming into ice

The spell was a Tasianna exclusive spell, or rather, to be more specific, a spell only usable for those with [Cryokinesis] and [Frost Body]. The wings, similar to the mana slime made from her catalyst, couldn’t be moved by conventional means, requiring her to use [Cryokinesis] to make them float and move with her. She could also attach mana slime to them to have her catalyst move them for her.

In any case, the power of this spell was its ability to decrease the surrounding temperature, much like the spell [Reduce Heat] could, but unlike that fire spell, [Fairy of Winter] also increased the potency of all ice spells and attacks within range. After what I did to the alchemist guild’s building in Firwood, literally burning the air, Tasianna imagined she could probably create a spell to make cooling the air down after my rampage easier, which inspired her to begin creating this spell. After we knew we had to enter the magma chamber that was floor 15, she finalized the spell during one week of training with everybody’s help.

She also had a second custom spell finished, but that one was designed entirely for combat.

“Lady Hestia, are you alright? This is unfortunately the warmest I can set my spell, otherwise, the intense heat of the floor would cancel out my spell’s effect,” Tasianna looked apologetic, despite us knowing the limitations of the spell from our initial testing.

However, I shook my head, blowing a fire to warm up my hands, “Don’t worry about it. Did you forget? I can control my body temperature with my core well enough to not freeze; besides, it’s more important you guys keep your stamina up.”

I didn’t need to be inside Tasianna’s spell, after all. I could always leave and enjoy the heat bath to warm myself up. Being a fire dragon is suffering sometimes, especially in the winters where I feel sleepier than usual. Hibernation, ha!

“I cannot sense any of the lesser faefolk or elementals around, just like the last four floors. We need the garms to sniff him out,” Tasianna stated. Since the dungeon couldn’t create faefolk, as they weren’t considered monsters unless under specific conditions, like treants or onnikais, the ones we met until now came from the surface.

Saori then pulled out one of the [Inferno Resistance Potion]s Grimnir gave us, one of the few items he left behind at camp. We didn’t have anything with a more powerful smell for Saori and the garms to track with, since Grimnir carried all his belongings in his backpack. We unfurled the map for floor 15 and began our search for the dwarf.

“He should not have gotten that far, but I still do not like how he has been away for this long,” Saori worriedly stated, leading the party with Uno.

“Kriiiizzzz!” After leaving the tunnel leading from the entrance room, a massive magma chamber came into view with a river of magma, complete with small pockets of rock sticking out of the fiery river like islands. The moment we entered the room, a pack of giant red-scaled salamanders hanging on the walls hissed at us before shooting out balls of fire from their mouths.

Flaming Slazzanbal

A giant slazzanbal adapted to life inside fiery environments, mostly found around volcanoes. Able to climb on rocky walls while possessing scales able to resist strong heat, these slazzanabals rain balls of fire created from their spit and mucus onto intruders. Rank D

Magmaspine Slazzanbal

A flaming slazzanbal who has fully adapted to life inside magma chambers, possessing scales heat-resistant enough to allow it to swim in magma. Possessing a crown-like crest on its back to store energy and heat for emergencies, these serpentine monsters lead packs of slazzanbal hunting groups to hunt stronger monsters. Rank C

“Krriiiiizzzzaaaah!” Fireballs rained at us from the wall climbing salamanders while a one swimming in the lake of magna spat a ball of molten rock at us.

The garms immediately went into evasive maneuvers, sidestepping the fireballs with finesse. Without needing any orders, Ellaine began supporting the team by conjuring [Earthen Wall]s on the walls, knocking each salamander down for Tasianna to pincushion with her ice daggers and [Ice Spike]s.

While those two took down the fodder, Saori and I engaged the magmaspine one hiding inside the magma river like a fish. We could have ignored it after taking down its pack, but the chamber was huge and the river was long enough for the salamander to follow us at a distance, spitting out exploding magma balls at our backs. From this distance, I could see other magmaspines hanging around on islands like relaxing crocodiles, making them a real threat for our continued travel.

“Holy crap, how did Grimnir get through all of this?!” I exclaimed after dismounting Song, using [Wind Blast] and [Air Walk] to “fly over” the magma lake with my wings.

“Who knows. Did his Mana and Stamina amount fluctuate a all on the party screen? He is a runesmith, right? So he should have a few tricks under his sleeve, especially when he was that determined to get that magma rock,” Saori raised a good point. “Hestia, do you think you can dive into the magma river and fish the slazzanbal out?”

“There you go with your risky jokes, again. No, I won’t jump into a magma lake even if I possibly could.” A part of me believes I could jump into the river and survive it, especially if I turned into my minor or dragon form, but the rational side of me was sensible enough to not go with every single one of Saori’s ideas. For example, eating that damn rock when we were still stuck in the Belzac forest was a dumb move.

Besides, why dive into the lake when I can just continue gliding around?

… And drop bombs.

Using [Detection Sensor], I pinpointed the salamander’s movements, throwing one bomb into its path. With a huge explosion, magma splattered into the air like a geyser, sending the slazzanbal flying up as well, probably unaware of the danger I threw into the river. Unfortunately, as per the System description, these monsters had magma-resistant scales, so my scale-dust bomb didn’t do enough damage to kill it in one go.

“Stygian Lightning!” Saori located the monster hidden inside the magma geyser and shot a continuous blast of black lightning at it, making it easy for me to swoop in to decapitate it with a clean tail swipe.

I grabbed both its body and head, threw them into my storage before turning back to the others. “Okay, on to the next! Saori, Tasianna, Ellaine, you guys lead and I’ll fly around to-”

“Lady Hestia!” as I was about to finish giving out our game plan, Tasianna shouted, interrupting me and pointed her finger to the side where multiple slazzanbals began running away. The magmaspines dived into the magma river while the D ranks skittered into the holes of the walls.

… I honestly expected them to be as belligerent as the felgheists, so I was prepared to fight multiple hordes of monsters. That has been how we spent the last four days on floors ten to fourteen. It was a surprise.

“Everybody, look,” Ellaine called us over to the edge of the chamber’s cliff, drawing our eyes to what was at the bottom of this place.

“What in the-'' I exclaimed but stopped before ending the sentence as the picture of a green-glowing, spotted red mushroom forest entered my eye. A small pond of water laid in the grove of giant mushrooms, serving as a watering hole for a pack of ram-horned buffalos.

This bottom area in general looked more organic than where we currently were standing on, with slopes, stalactites, dark brown vines, and red grass growing around in the area. Herbivores like those buffalos and four-legged pachycephalosaurus wandered around in the area while carnivores like those slazzanbals either relaxed next to a stream of magma or prowled the area for prey.

On one side of the spectrum, magma was falling from the walls as lakes of molten rock flowed through the ground and into small caves. On the other hand, there was a mushroom forest in a red grassy area which made a good home for any monster thanks to a water-filled lake. The difference was there, but it seems so natural for all of this to work.

““““Wow,”””” all of us murmured in wonder, having not expected another well-working ecosystem like the ones from floor five to nine. I knew this was a possibility for this dungeon, but how could you guess that an area like this would exist after the felwing-infested place we just fought through?

As the rest of us goggled at the mix of green-glowing mushrooms and yellow-glowing streams, Saori pulled multiple maps out from her storage, inspecting them before her eyes widened. “That is floor 16.”

“““Huh?””” The three of us turned around, unsure of what we’d just heard.

“That’s what the maps say. Now that I look at them properly, starting from floor one until 14, all the floors were connected with staircase-like rooms; however, 15 to 20 is by itself an entire ‘room.’ We could technically jump down from here and we would have made it to floor 16. I thought it was odd that there was no staircase symbol on these maps, but now I know why,” Saori explained, making me wonder if this phenomeon was described anywhere in my dungeon book since I hadn’t finished it yet.

Saori continued, “Grimnir might have known this, since he was responsible for the maps until floor five. He might have inspected them and already knew this was the case.”

That caused my mind to return to our issue on hand. “You aren’t telling me he’s exploring this whole giant place on his own to find that damn rock he wanted, are you?! Scouting is one thing, but going further out alone when he could encounter C or even B rank monsters is suicidal! What is that drunkard thinking?!”

None of us could understand what Grimnir was thinking, even Tasianna who had minimal knowledge on dwarven culture had no way to explain his actions. All we knew was that he hadn't come back yet and we needed to find where he got himself to and reunite this dungeon party. Leaving him to possibly die would just leave a horrible taste in my mouth.

“He could have found a way to enter the next few floors, everybody,” Ellaine stated before hopping onto Quatre. “However, let’s follow the garms’ noses first before we jump to any conclusions about where he could be in this place. It is far too huge for us to wander around without a clue.”

I had no idea why the dungeon created its last few floors like this, but that question could be left for later, after we found Grimnir and lectured his drunken, dwarven ass for being an idiot. Once we remounted the garms, we ran past all the slazzanbals still hiding under the magma river, wary of our party after what we had done to a few of them.

We entered a cavern, diving deeper into it until we found a small cool lake away where a couple of felgheists were sleeping on the ceiling, unaware of us. We weren’t looking to fight, so we snuck into a tunnel on the other side of this lake, where we found a group of fat, four-legged giant iguanas with tough, bony jaws digging into the ground and stuffing their mouths full with ore and rocks. They looked at us for a moment before returning to minding their own businesses, which we reciprocated in turn.

“If you were to tell me this was inside a volcano on the surface, I would believe you without a doubt in my mind. Look at this, the red mushrooms are growing from the rocky soil,” I pointed to a colony of mushrooms.

“Ellaine, you wouldn’t happen to know anything about this place, would you? Did your parents mention this place to you or your brother or talk about trading for any of the materials from here? I would find it hard to imagine the Duke would have no idea about any valuables here, since the hunter’s guild clearly discovered some when they made these maps,” Saori asked as we sprinted through a tunnel.

“Unfortunately, I know very little about this. This dungeon, after all, isn’t in my house’s fief, so it wouldn’t exactly have furthered my education had I known, Saori. I know the forest next to Carine village, our fief, well enough since mother and I would follow father and brother on their hunting trips, but that is the extent of my wildlife or dungeon knowledge,” Ellaine explained, informing us how nobles love hunting animals in their own fiefs despite, or perhaps because of, the fact monsters exist. “Trade, on the other hand, is a different subject, since what we import and export from our land and businesses does affect me. I used to visit the Sarlenzia company quite a bit in my childhood and one thing I do remember, since it wasn’t something the company usually traded in, was a type of ore that came from this dungeon. I can’t remember anything else, though.”

“Would that ore be the one?” Tasianna interjected the moment the garms stopped moving.

We dismounted and moved closer to the area Tasianna was pointing in, noticing that a small opening about my size was dug into the wall. Small black glimmering splinters were littered on the floor as we approached it. Picking one up, I used [Mana Eyes] to appraise them.

Voldunna Ore

A tough black ore created in the depths of a volcano due to streams of molten rock cooling and warming up again. Possesses high fire and earth resistances from to its creation, although it lacks the ability to channel or store mana in high quantity

Did he-?

“I don’t know about Grimnir, but I heard dwarves are supposedly natural miners. As a blacksmith, it wouldn’t be weird for him to bring a pickaxe with him and begin mining the moment he saw this ore vein. It is not like he was especially well-off when we visited his carriage,” Tasianna mentioned, unintentionally burning Grimnir’s financial status.

Since the garms stopped here, we decided to look into the cave. Snapping my fingers, I created a small fire to illuminate the dark opening, revealing that the ground had collapsed a few steps in, creating a hole large enough for a person. Looking down, I figured whoever fell down would have a rocky ride before landing wherever it led.

“It’s large enough for Grimnir to fit into,” I commented, to which everybody nodded. “Damn, well, I don’t think dropping down into a hole leading to unknown lands would be smart.”

“Because it isn’t,” Saori chimed in.

I ignored her, even though I agreed. “However, we have no other choices. Everybody, I’ll go first with [Panzer] activated. With my protective skills and healing spells, I’ll be able to survive whatever ambush is down there. Once I give the signal, you guys can come down.”

With no one objecting, I withdrew my wings with [Humanization] and cast [Panzer] on myself, cladding my skin in a hardened corrosive flame armor before jumping into the hole. As I didn’t want to crash land, I scaled the wall using my claws, hanging onto the rock while sliding down slowly. Smart move, since the trip down was almost like a water park slide, only far harder and extremely bumpy.

The wall looks broken here. And here, too. Here…doesn’t this look like a ram horn imprint? Shit, Grimnir.

The moment light came into view, I knew the exit of this hole was close. Instead of dropping down, I hung on the wall like a lizard, peaking out of the hole’s exit while my body was upside down.

Which floor is this? Floor 16? 17? How deep did our search lead us? Hmm, I should stop thinking of this place like multiple floors, and more like a single floor. Makes it less confusing.

The area under me was a cavern with red-hot rock, literally exuding steam like those rocks those masseurs use in a hot rock massage. Next to it was a medium-sized pond, boiling like a hot spring, while some magma was flowing into the ground of the place, which I guess flowed under the whole pond. A lot of free geothermal energy if somebody wanted to use it like renewable energy. Well, Peolynca uses mana, not electricty, so its not like there’s any turbines to make said energy here.

Casting [Humanization] again to bring my wings back out, I dropped out of the tunnel once I confirmed it was safe. “A hot spring is here, you guys can drop down! It's safe!” I shouted through the tunnel to inform the others before testing the water myself.

“Wooo, nice.” If we weren’t in a hurry, I definitely would like to dip in to relax, but I began a reconnaissance instead. While Saori and the rest slid down the hole, I managed to find the way out of this place, where I conveniently found something hacked into the wall.

“Sorry” was written, uh, carved into the wall. A few drenched pieces of cloth and clothing laid before it with an axe lodged into the ground. The axe was excessively decorated compared to other woodcutter’s axes, with rune-like markings, but it was undoubtedly the axe Grimnir used to chop the barkwraith into pieces.

Was the reason why he couldn’t make it back cause he fell through that hole? It would explain why he never returned for the rest of our party to finish up his fetch quest. Still, doesn’t make it less crazy how deep he went into that tunnel instead of staying where he fell and waiting for us. Maybe he really was trying to find that rock by himself and got himself in this mess.

Argh, enough. I shouldn’t be thinking about these things when I haven’t asked his side of the story. Still, annoying to get us-Oh, shit?!

Name: Grimnir Luedbrumdar Level: 61 Job: Blasthammer Gunner

Health: 1891/5791 Mana: 641/1109 Stamina: 3789/5471

How did he lose such a huge chunk of his Health so quickly ?!

“Song!” The second garm of Saori’s shadow pack had been hiding inside my shadow when I went down the hole first. I called her out and told her we needed to find Grimnir immediately, giving her some of Grimnir’s wet clothes to track with.

[“I understand, Mistress Hestia”]

“Party Screen! Saori, we need to rush!” I shouted as loud as I could before rushing forward into the tunnel with Song. There was a function of the party bracelets which our party hasn't used for a very long time, and that was the ID tracking function, which displayed the direction and distance between each party member if we were close enough. Grimnir’s signal had been too far until now, but it suddenly showed the distance between the two of us.

It unfortunately couldn’t pinpoint the exact location but knowing we were close made me even more nervous, stimulating my imagination as I couldn’t keep myself from visualizing what was could be happening to Grimnir. On the party screen, his Health just went up by a huge chunk — my guess was he used up one of Tasianna’s potions — but it just went down again just as quickly. His Health was fluctuating up and down while his Mana and Stamina were constantly being drained at this moment. He had to be fighting, but against what? A C rank should be something he could handle.

“GriARRRRRRHHHHHH!”

As the meters between us decreased with every second, an ear-pounding echo flooded the tunnel, causing not only Song’s but also my hair to stand up, and I found that it gave me goose-bumps when I inspected my arms. Anxious of what was at the end of this tunnel, I quickly took out stacks of jerky, gorging myself with them to activate [Gluttonous]’s effect. [Insatiable Glutton] was one of my buffing passives and to keep it active, I had to keep my excess Stamina stockpile full, which meant regenerating Stamina above its limit by eating food.

After drinking water to swallow everything down, I refreshed all my buffs with my parallel minds before turning [Aerokinesis] to play one of my spell songs. My instincts told me I had to prepare for the worst, so I’d rather go into this over prepared than underprepared.

“Is this the fated battle, the light shines ♫

It’s blinding my sight ♫

But I’ve gotta hold on, the stage calls ♫

The cries of a thousand, the flames of war will descend ♫”

The Will to Fight and Survive

A song created by the Idol   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]. Through images of being a force of destruction and inspiration, this song will rally any allies in the vicinity while demoralizing enemies. All allies affected by [Music Resonation] will receive these effects: Recover from [Exhaustion (Minor)]. Stamina cannot drop to zero. Stamina regeneration will increase while Stamina usage will decrease. Increase Fire and Holy elemental attacks by 10% each. All enemies affected by [Music Resonation] will receive these effects: Become more vulnerable to [Fear] and [Terror] status afflictions. Decrease Wisdom stat by 5%

“Song, you can smell it, too, right?”

[“Yes… I shall leave to inform the Alpha as soon as possible. Please, be careful on your hunt, Mistress Hestia. The pack will come as soon as possible.”]

“Thank you, Song,” I uttered in thanks after taking a deep breath, eyes glued forward as I could see the party screen on the edge of my vision.

Name: Grimnir Luedbrumdar Level: 61 Job: Blasthammer Gunner

Health: 2391/5791 Mana: 501/1109 Stamina: 2889/5471

Effects: [Broken Right Arm (Right)]

Faster.

Name: Grimnir Luedbrumdar Level: 61 Job: Blasthammer Gunner

Health: 1418/5791 Mana: 489/1109 Stamina: 2051/5471

Effects: [Broken Right Arm (Right) (Minor)] [Burning (Minor)]

Faster!

Name: Grimnir Luedbrumdar Level: 61 Job: Blasthammer Gunner

Health: 773/5791 Mana: 241/1109 Stamina: 1397/5471

Effects: [Broken Right Arm (Moderate)] [Broken Left Arm (Moderate)] [Burning (Minor)]

Faster!!! Wind Blast!

“Umslid kain, kawuk ka-argh! -an, fie Crustacia! Volrun! Umsleud!!!”

“Grigrigrigri! Graaahhh!!!”

Draconic Roar!

[“Hunt well, Mistress!”]

[Adrenaline (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Adrenaline rushed through my veins as [Wind Blast] unmounted me from Song and shot me towards the light at the end of the tunnel, fully aware of the war cries booming behind that exit. “Grra!” Song growled before leaving with [Shadow Dash], melting into her shadow as I adjusted the air in front of my mouth, before blasting it as the first giant thing I saw.

“Grigrigrigri! Griiiiaaaaahhh!”

“KriiiARHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

Holding nothing back, my vocal cords exploded into action as a roar filled with all the emotions I felt up until now was released from my mouth, amplified to the point it caused the air to tremble with my wrath.

“Griiiiiiiiiiiarghghhhhhhh!”

A serpentine monster. Standing on two legs with a long snake tail, the beast’s arms were reinforced in what looked like scaled gauntlets, emitting flaming swords from both arms. The scales covering the back side of its body were a beautiful snow-white while the front was red and orange. It had the head of a dragon, armored with carapace as two devil-like horns adorned it, giving it a rather charismatic look.

As it was about to slam its flame swords down, my roar forced it to flinch and block the sound with its hand. Using its nimble almost human-like legs, it jumped back with the flow of the sonic attack and stepped away from the magically shaped sound waves once it was far enough. Far enough for my eyes to notice a bloodied Grimnir who was set on fire.

Healing was needed here, but I couldn’t ignore the elephant in the room. The serpentine monster braced itself and roared forward, seeing me as a new challenger.

Sacred Field. Wind Blast! Humanization!!!

“Lass?!”

One of my parallel minds cast the healing spell on Grimnir while another blasted my body forward. Blue mist exploded from my body, covering and hiding me as my body metamorphosed. Bones cracked and grew, skin stretched and morphed into scales, hair disappeared replaced with armor-like carapace.

“Kriaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuuuhhhh!” Stomping my legs forward, I pulled my tail on the ground, instantly igniting it in fire and slashed it at the monster.

“The carnage of the blazing sun ♫

Blood rain from swords and claws ♫

As the music drops, our emotions will run wild ♫

Top the world ♫

The strive to pierce the sky ♫

The light that beckons you forth ♫

The promise to stand fast ♫

Family and Friends ♫

The Will to Fight and Survive! ♫”

Kaboom!

An explosion of fire. My attack… was blocked?!?!

“Grigrigrigri!” Two flame swords wrapped around the serpentine’s arms, used to block my attack. My tail, reinforced with [Hellblade Edge], was capable of slicing steel and penetrating the skin of a Rank B High Ogre, but it found its match against this monster. Just like in my spars with Farron!

The giant serpent pushed me back, launching me closer to Grimnir in this humongous magma chamber. The flame swords on its arms disappeared, extinguished by will as the monster began to crackle. Holding one hand on its long neck, it began to loosen up its neck. It cracked its hands, stretched its arms, and slammed its tail on the ground thrice before roaring again.

Was it doing a warm-up?!

“Lass, w-why are you-” Grimnir stuttered as he noticed his arms were being mended, looking up to me in my dragon form.

[“We can talk later! Saori and the rest are coming from the tunnel. Run and get to them!”]

“Hestia, that thing is a-!”

[“I know!”]

Mana Eyes.

Ashwrought Slazzigula

The evolved form of a slazzanbal, tempered even further in the heat of a volcano, gaining the power to fully control any fire it can produce with [Pyrokinesis]. Ridding itself from its red-colored scales, this slazzigula developed white scales instead as a testament of its power and to challenge any challenger it finds worthy enough to fight. The flameblades it produces are reserved for the strong, never will it use them on the weak outside of hunger. The scale-crown from its slazzanbal days lies on its back, laying dormant until broken, for the inferno ruler’s true power is restricted by it. Rank B

Level 8…

It was neither a newly evolved Rank B like those snow wyverns nor was it one too strong like the high ogre or Astalos. It was five levels above me. It was a fairly even fight, especially with all my stat and skill increases from my completed Jobs.

…So, why do I feel so nervous?

Our eyes clashed, matching perfectly. We knew we found an opponent worthy of our power but not too strong to overwhelm us. Neither of us moved a muscle, as we knew the first to move would be the one to be counter attacked.

In this inferno hell, only my music was playing, scaring the silence away. Even to me, I had to question if the music actually fitted.

Who was the boss here, and who was the challenger?

“Marvelous! Brilliant, absolutely brilliant! The gods of the God of Fire have blessed us with this show of the true inferno!”

However, even the sound of my music was broken by this fervor-filled shout. Both the slazzigula and I broke our staring contest to turn towards the sound, eyeing the congregation of humans and beastmen. All of them wore black and red coats over a light red robe, kneeling before the two of us as if they were worshipping the two of us.

“““Fire consumes fire!””” the congregation exploded, simultaneously shouting that one phrase over and over again, fully synced.

“Ahh, oh, Fiery Lord, God Danterno, although you are missing, suppressed by the wicked witch Plesia, you are still strong enough to send us this teaching, to grant us knowledge on how to improve ourselves even further?! Oh, God Danterno, we are unworthy of your inferno!” The one who looked like the leader bellowed out like a madman. “We shall become stronger, bolder, to strengthen your subordinates. Ohhh, to war with the witch and free your of your bondings, let our worship fuel your pantheon! I, Keith Svonnweidher, a lowly inferno mage am no match for the witch, but I shall guide these younglings through these trials, to have them learn of the truth of the fire! Fire consumes fire!”

Now that I think about it, isn’t that amulet Shitterno’s symbol?! Fuck, Danterno worshippers?!

The leading figure pulled out a core-like rock. Streaks of fire and magma flowed inside it, showing them through the rock’s crevices. The figure holding it groaned as it began sizzling his hands. “Ahhhhh, this trial! Let the fire consume the filth inside me, purify my sins, and release my true potential. Fire consumes fire! The cleansing fire brings not only destruction but also life, destroying the old to bring forth the new! Fire consumes fire! We sweat, we burn, we suffer, for the power to bring our God to his rightful power. Fire consumes fire!!!”

“““Fire consumes fire!”””

… What?

Even the slazzigula looked as if it couldn't understand the situation, which it probably couldn’t. The tension between us was broken by Shiterno’s followers.

“That rock!” Grimnir suddenly cried out. “That magma rock! A core of ever-burning voldunna! That rich rock of condense ore is wasted on you banal fire slingers! Hand it over!”

“Ahhh, the follower of the traitor god. Bleidla no longer serves the Fiery Lord, so why must we listen? Even this beast sent by our lord attacked you, punishing you for your god’s sins! Unworthy infidel, this magma ball shall be our strength!” the leading figure blurted out.

What now?

“KEITH!”

You gotta be kidding me.

Both the slazzigula and I turned towards the newest voice, where we saw the air literally shatter like glass, revealing a party of sevan standing there. At its helm was a man in black robes, wearing a half-mask, screaming his lungs out. “KEITH, you fucking bastard, I will KILL YOU!” He then ripped the mask off his face, revealing how disfigured it was from old scars.

Talon, oh shit!

While that caught my attention for a moment, my eyes and my nose turned over to a snow-white haired woman in the very back of the group, wearing white armor fitting her hair, looking pristine and regal in contrast to the surroundings. She was holding a white spear and emitted an aura I couldn’t possibly describe.

Why does she look so familiar… wait, this sweet smell. Hold on, hold on, I know this scent!

As my eyes widened, the woman returned my gaze, her nose twitching the moment she did. I could hear the slazzigula crackling a laugh to the side, possibly at the thought of more people to fight, as I saw the woman raise her hand to hide her gaping mouth while staring back at me..

“P-Prince-”

“Hestia!”

“Lady Hestia!”

“Hestia!”

Saori, Tasianna, Ellaine, and the garms finally caught up, looking battle-ready as they called out for me. Honestly, what was with this situation? It was so chaotic!

…

… However, it seems like the universe didn’t think it was crazy enough for me.

“Shriiiiieeeeeeeekkkk!”

The ground crumbled, a giant spider emerged, pandemonium ensued as everybody began to fall.

“Hestia, keep them safe! Yaaaahhhhhh!”

“P-Princess Hestia, shit, damnit! Kids!”

“KEITH!”

“Oho, Talon, old friend! Join us!”

“My rock!”

“Grigrigrigri Grigaaaaaaaaaa!”

Why couldn’t all of this be simple?

And deeper all of us fell into this troublesome dungeon.

A note from AbyssRaven

Chaos…Chaos! Chaaaaaaoooooosssss!

Also, a very apt description from The Walrus Transcendant:

"This isn't a raid anymore.

This is Alterac Valley with both Lords up."

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Chapter 175: The Students.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“He didn’t come?"

“I’m sorry, honey, but he couldn’t make it here. His father told him that he had to concentrate more on his studies. His high school entry exam is coming up.”

“Yeah? Well, it doesn’t make it any less shit… We should have just celebrated in Japan; this is just crap…”

Huh? Wait? Hold on, is this one of those dreams again?

Three shadowy humans stood in a high-class apartment, having decorated the living room with balloons and other birthday-related things. For a teenager with a rich family, this party setting was pretty dull since they could just afford to rent somewhere else more fun for the party. Having a party inside their own apartment meant they were either too lazy or expecting the party to be smaller and more intimate, for closer friends.

The smallest shadow took off her party hat and threw it on the ground as I analyzed what was happening. “This is cringe anyways. Just pathetic. Giving everybody a personal invitation was just a waste of energy. Nobody came anyways.”

“Schatz…”

“Honey…”

The two larger shadows approached the smaller one, caressing her back to soothe her as she held her head down. No tears came out of her eyes, dry as if she was expecting this outcome.

Jeez, was my fourteen birthday really that depressing? Urgh, I remember not having a lot of friends, but I didn’t expect to have this lit-

And then everything turned black.

******************************************

“-op! Please, stop, you are making a terrible mistake!”

Ellaine?

“Move, I am leaving now!”

“Mister Talon, please, you can’t go alone. We’ve only been making it past the monsters you couldn’t trick with Lady Yorshka’s help.”

“That is correct. Individually, we can’t contest a C rank, but in a group, we at least have a chance.”

“Well, aren’t you the optimist, kid? Here is a tip: the hunter’s guild recommends five C rankers against a single C rank monster for safety reasons. You five aren’t C ranks and I am only responsible for support. Call me a realist, but we ain’t getting out of here alive as a group. If I’m gonna die in this hell, then I’m taking that damn Svonnweidher with me.”

What the hell is happening? Argh, my head. Did I fall asleep? Manager mind?

‘We were only out for a few minutes, I think. Well, long enough for us to have that depressing dream,’ my first parallel mind informed me after my consciousness had enough time to return.

Shit, that dream was depressing. I couldn’t remember how sad it was until now, but I guess my memories are slowly returning somehow. Let’s wake up.

Opening my eyes, I noticed a severe lack of red in the area, confused where we were until I noticed the lake next to us. Wasn’t I just in a magma chamber? I wondered, but then memories of what happened rushed back into my head. I remembered how I almost had to fight against that Slazzigula, but our battle was interrupted by a group of Shiterno worshippers, and then more and more people arrived, until the ground just broke from a giant spider showing up.

Oh, I fell.

“Oooh, oh shit. It woke up!” Was the first thing I heard the moment I opened my eyes from a voice I wasn’t familiar with at all. Of the voices I’ve heard since my consciousness came back, I only recognized Ellaine’s.

Curious about what was going on, I raised my neck up, noticing how heavy it was to lift. I still felt groggy, so that might be the reason, but the heat and mana I could feel coursing through my body was far stronger than what I was used to waking up with. For the first time in a long while, I woke up in my dragon form.

“Krrrrrraaaaaarhhhhhhhhhhh,” I yawned. That unfortunately caused the people before me to cause a ruckus, cursing as they saw my teeth. Now that I think about it, maybe I should have stifled the yawn just to not scare people unnecessarily the moment I realized I wasn’t in my dragonewt form.

What’s done is done, sadly. No reason to hide it.

Looking down, the humans standing before me looked like mice, Ellaine included. Our size difference was just that huge.

“Hestia, I think you should transform back into your dragonewt form,” Ellaine suggested, smiling wryly as she pointed at the four shivering girls and the one anxious boy. Focusing on them, I noticed how they all looked a bit Asian, although none of them had black hair; instead, their heads were as colorful as everybody else on Peolynca.

I should probably listen to Ellaine. Humanization.

[Humanized (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

The mana mist was huge as always whenever I transformed from a dragon into a dragonewt, large enough to look like a cloud, in my opinion. Once the mist dispersed, I took my party bracelet out from my storage and put it back on, making sure that everybody was alright. “Hello~” I greeted them, after confirming that nobody in Aurora or Grimnir was hurt drastically.

Some of them looked confused, baffled even from what happened. The bespectacled young man in a mage’s robe raised a brow, staring at me as he mumbled, “Doesn’t she fit Yorshka’s description?”

“Who’s Yorshka?” I asked the moment I heard this, catching the young man off-guard, as if he didn’t expect a dragon to have better hearing than a human. “Ah, forget it, we can talk about that later. Sorry for surprising you like that. Ellaine, what happened?”

Ellaine gave me a short summary of what happened. In essence, after the massive spider smashed through the ground, causing it to all crumble down, everybody fell deeper into the dungeon. She told me that I rushed forward to save the group before me, which included Talon, the illusionist we had met before, and also herself as she was separated from the others. With rocks falling down, using her gargoyle was impossible and she was more focused on protecting herself from these boulders.

“Some huge chunk of the broken ground knocked me unconscious before I could use [Wind Blast]? Well, that explains the headache I felt. [Draconic Barrier] can protect me from head injuries, but it can only do so much until it lets damage through,” I shrugged after Ellaine explained everything.

“Yes, seeing you unresponsive was a bit nerve-wracking when we fell down. Thankfully, we didn’t land into a magma lake.” I nodded my head furiously when she mentioned that possibility. She continued, “I managed to calm everybody down after we pried ourselves free from your hold, but you can imagine that doing so was quite the task. Seeing a huge dragon up close would make anybody nervous, ehe ehe.”

Even I admit that my dragon form is scary. Cool-looking, but terrifying.

As Ellaine had already introduced herself to them, I waved at them to catch their attention, “Sorry about scaring you guys. I didn’t mean to. How about some introductions? Seeing as how we’re all in the same situation, I think working together to get out of here would be for the best.”

“You want to get out? Of this dungeon?” a purple-haired girl in a magician’s robe spoke on behalf of her group, stepping in front of them to show me who was the leader. Were they thinking I was a monster from this dungeon?

I looked over to Ellaine, who mentioned she hasn’t introduced me yet except for the fact that I was her friend. Understanding the situation now, I replied to the purple-haired young woman, “There is a misunderstanding. I might be a dragon, but I originally came from outside the dungeon. I’m only this deep into the dungeon with my party for a favor. Talon over there can attest to the fact we met before.”

Seeing me mention him, Talon, who had put his half-mask back on again, nodded. “She’s a fire spitter, but at least you can talk with her.”

I frowned at his answer for a moment but was still grateful for speaking up for me. I then showed them my party bracelet and white-robe. “Adventurer and part-time priestess of the Goddess of Light, Aurena. Party Leader of Aurora, Hestia, at your service.”

Something inside was telling me to speak Japanese here, similar to how I would get the itch to speak Japanese with Saori sometimes. However, just ‘cause somebody looked Asian didn’t mean they could speak it, right? I mean, Peolynca might have an Asian-like country somewhere.

There was also the possibility that these people were a specific Hero group transported into this world from Earth, but honestly? How likely is it for me to meet Saori’s students in a place like this. Shouldn’t they be taken care of by the church? Why risk your lives here? My luck wasn’t good enough to suddenly meet them here. No way.

The purple-haired girl looked at her group for a moment before everybody nodded, stepping forward to introduce themselves. “My name is Tamae. I am the leader of The Magical Biscuit, uhm, that is our party’s name. It’s not a joke,” the purple-haired girl introduced herself, holding onto a staff like any normal magician.

… Tamae?

Certain memories began to appear in my mind, all of them concerning the days our party spent on the road from Firwood to Cedaraille. I began to remember what happened. While Tasianna and Ellaine were out hunting, Saori and I were at camp, preparing dinner when I decided to ask her about her students.

“Sorry if this is a bit too personal,” I apologized after I noticed my curiosity getting the better of me.

“You do not need to be. Honestly, considering all of you are helping me with this, I should be more forthright. I will explain everything later during dinner with everybody.” And that Saori did. She began explaining her days as a teacher and how she became the homeroom teacher for a particular bunch of students.

“As you should know, Hestia, I worked at a school called Shirako High School. My first year was an assistant teacher, it was normal for a beginner like me. However, the next year, I somehow became a homeroom teacher for a class in the high school division; apparently, a teacher resigned just before the year began, leaving the spot open. I just wanted to be a history teacher, but they promised to pay me far more than what I would have originally earned, so I couldn’t exactly reject the offer. My family needed the money,” Saori began.

She continued, now describing her students, “One of my first tasks as a teacher was to assign the class representatives. One for the girls and one for the boys. They come to speak with me if the class has any concerns, to make it easier for me to sort these problems out. Those students were Tamae Tsuji and Nishio Kudo.”

What a flashback. Maybe my luck is that good. Considering how often our party gets into trouble, it shouldn’t be.

“Tamae? Pardon, you said that your name is ‘Tamae?’” I asked just to confirm my suspicion.

“Oh, yes, it isn’t a very common name around Artorias. We don’t come from this kingdom,” Tamae replied.

[“Ellaine?”]

[“I have not mentioned it yet since I wanted your opinion on it. You are more familiar with Saori and I think you can speak with them better than I could, Hestia.”]

As we spoke through [Telepathy], nobody exactly knew what Ellaine and I spoke about, but with this confirmation, I decided to steer the introductions in that direction. Best way to gain somebody’s trust is common ground, I think. At least, that’s how Saori and I became friends in the first place.

Before it could become awkward, I raised my hand, stopping the next person from introducing themselves. “Oh, one second, please. Uhm, before we continue, may I call you Tamae-san?”

“Huh?” she let out, looking more confused than surprised that I called her “Tamae-san,” something Japanese would address others in a polite way. Like a Ms. or Mr.

I tilted my head, unsure what went wrong, but I continued, “Ok, let me just get to the point, do you guys know Saori Segawa, or, rather, Segawa Saori? History teacher extraordinaire?”

Loud gasps. Not only Tamae but the others behind her widened their eyes as they heard me mention that name, looking extremely wary at me. The bespectacled young man pointed his mage staff at me while the green-haired ponytail girl unsheathed her giant bow, holding her quiver, ready to nock an arrow and shoot it the moment it got dicey.

Before it could escalate any further, I raised my arm to show I didn’t mean them any harm before explaining, “Please, calm down. Since you, Tamae-san, didn’t react to the fact I called you -san, I had no other way to break the ice, okay? Since this information is pretty sensitive, I need to block Talon from hearing this first.”

Within a fraction of a second, a green magic circle appeared on my tail before materializing a sphere of wind around us, blocking Talon from hearing anything. The students were agitated, especially Tamae and the bespectacled boy. Since they were mages, I guess they must be surprised that I could cast this fast. Seeing as I heard other mages mention I had a high [Chant Revocation], that was my default explanation. Although, how high were their [Chant Revocation] skills when they supposedly were trained by the church, at least according to Gael’s information?

“My name is Hestia Atsuko, or, Atsuko Hestia if you want me to introduce myself as a Japanese. I know this might sound crazy but please hear me out. I come from Earth just like you guys… That honestly sounds like something straight from an isekai light novel, right? Then again, you guys getting summoned here as Heroes for some otherworldly Goddess sounds like some cliche anime show, anyways.”

“Hold on, hold on,” the girl with orange and red hair lights suddenly interrupted me. “Y-You’re right, that does sound like something a mangaka would write, but could you continue what you just said, since I think everybody is a bit overwhelmed with the fact that you called yourself a Japanese and know somebody called Saori Segawa!”

“True, just saying, but we are a bit panicked by the fact that we’re lost without our guardian knight and you, a dragon, mentions something this crazy. Could you please answer this before we go crazy,” the blond girl spoke, shivering when she stated that.

I guess I should hurry up.

I explained to them everything they needed to know now. About Saori, how we met, and that their teacher has been looking for information on them the moment she heard about the possibility that they were her students.

This revelation wouldn’t be easy to digest, I wager, and I was right when everybody began repeating what I said. Most were stumbling on their words when they heard Saori died and reincarnated to Peolynca, having trouble wrapping their heads around it. “What do you mean she died and turned into a wolf?! T-That doesn’t make sense!” and “Hold on! The church only summoned us to this world, not Segawa-sensei! H-How is that possible.”

Before it got any crazier, I suggested to them that they join a platoon temporarily so I could show them my proof of all of this. My party bracelet given to me by Farron was able to create a party consisting of up to 20 people, after all. When I sent them the invitation, none of them hesitated for a second.

“S-Segawa-sensei!”

Tamae Tsuiji, Nishio Kudo, Misaki Kawano, Kazumi Hoshino, Kohaku Kobayashi. All names Saori mentioned.

They cried. Tamae, Misaki, Kazumi, Kohaku, and Nishio all shed tears when they saw their homeroom teacher in the party menu, entirely uninterested in Saori’s level or anybody else on the screen. Tamae, Kazumi, and Kohaku let the floodgates open, tears flowed down their faces as they emotionally cried out to Saori. “I can’t believe you’re here,” they all said.

Misaki and Nishio weeped softly, remarking how they thought they wouldn’t be able to see anybody they knew from Earth in months, no, years considering how “they are progressing in levels and skills.” They walked over to me, looking almost hopeful when they asked if I knew anybody else from Earth was on Peolynca. Other than the Revolution Queen, who they’d heard about already, I told them I didn’t.

“I’m sorry, if there were a way to send a message to her like with Line, I would. Sadly, these bracelets aren’t phones,” I told them, sad that technology in Peolynca hadn’t developed far enough for long-distance messages to be implemented.

“No, that’s all fine. In fact, we should apologize for nearly attacking you. One of our tea- I mean, classmates warned us of some suspicious rogue in Firwood who called out to him about Segawa-sensei. After some experiences where we got ambushed once for trusting too much, we had to be more careful,” Nishio explained their behavior, something I couldn’t blame them for. It was natural and I would act the same way if I was in their shoes.

Rogue? In Firwood? Gael? He is the only rogue there who could know about Saori.

Seeing them all cry really made me sympathize with them. I won’t say that I understood perfectly how they all felt, but it made me remember how I first met Saori. The confusion and relief that I wasn’t the only one from Earth in this strange new world really made me emotional. I might have used the garm matriarch’s wish as an excuse, but protecting Saori was my way to not be alone.

I couldn’t imagine what Saori was feeling on her side. I knew, though, that I had to make sure she would be able to meet her students again, safe and sound. For everything she did for me, that’s the least I could do. I can’t protect everybody nor could I save everybody, but I would sure as hell protect these guys.

After everybody calmed down, I dispelled the [Air Shield] and told Ellaine what I was planning to do. Without any further objections, we made it Aurora’s objective to get them to Saori no matter what. Since we knew Saori was safe for the moment, I told The Magical Biscuits that we need to make camp now. I might not act like it, but I was still quite drowsy.

In the corner of my eye, I also noticed Talon slowly drifting away from the group. Before he could leave, I walked up to him and said, “It’s been a while, Mister Illusionist. I didn’t expect you to be here.”

He glared at me for a few seconds before turning around, speaking rougher than usual, “… Neither did I. Can I presume you weren’t a member of that congregation?”

I nodded, “Like I said, I’m not a worshipper of that bastard Shiterno — oops, slip of my tongue.”

“Hehehe,” he chuckled, smiling for the first time I saw him. “Good to hear… I heard you wanted to escort those kids out; if that is the case, then it is for the best that we part here.”

“Our goals don’t align, you mean? I heard you screaming at that congregation’s leader. You know him?”

“Pah! Of course I know that fire slinger. Damn bastard spewed crap about the ‘wonders’ and ‘miracles’ of a destructive cult of the most ostracized Origin God in Peolynca. All he does in his path is destroy lives and bring them to ruin, and all just for him to garner more followers somehow.” Talon clenched his teeth tightly, shaking in anger as he described the person he called Keith. “…Heh, he’s dying by my hand today, so farewell.”

“Hold on!” I grabbed his arm. “There are B ranks wandering around. There’s that slazzigula from before and the giant spider that broke the floor is most likely one, too. I can imagine what you could do with your illusion magic but one unlucky step and you won’t get out of here alive. You’ve seen my dragon form, so let’s work together.”

“And, like you said, our goals don’t align.”

However, I refuted him, saying, “Not exactly. Our blacksmith friend needs something from him and we need equipment from the blacksmith. I made a promise to get the stone, so that ‘Keith’ or whatever will be somebody our party needs to track down. I would prefer it if you wouldn’t kill him and instead just dragged him to an official or something, but we can help you get to him at least. But like I said, I would prefer it if you didn’t kill him.”

“Heh, naive aren’t you?” He replied with derision.

“Oh, believe me, I’m not naive enough to think killing is always unnecessary. If somebody threatens my party or my life, then I will break them to the point they wished they were never born. If that doesn’t help, then I’ll rip them apart. You believe a dragon, Mister Talon?” Returning his glare with my own, I then posed another question to him, “What made you want to kill him in the first place?”

“You’re poking in somebody’s private information again, lass, we went through this already.” He was right, he did reject my attempt to learn more about him but it seemed he was more open enough this time to explain his motives. “He tricked me. Gave me a defective tool to make the worst mistake in my life. A dark mage seeking to become strong with fire magic, heh, what a joke. These scars are the medals for my incompetence.” He took off his mask, revealing the burn scars underneath it.

He continued, “I have known him since my childhood. While I had to run and become an adventurer to survive, he became a professor for fire magic at the royal academy. Ehehehehehe, but he made a mistake, took on the wrong student and it all blew up in his face. I feel bad for that poor Talsyn kid for getting to know the worst of scums, but that ended up making it possible for me to get revenge on that bastard without getting into trouble with the nobles!”

Talsyn? Wait, where have I heard that name before? Oh!

“Wait, are you talking about Macklemor Talysn?” I remembered the first Shiterno mage I met, whose name and appearance was firmly lodged into my memory due to the fact Shiterno hijacked me that same night.

“No idea. You know him? What happened to him?” Talon asked, although a bit uninterested.

“He became a bandit. We met when I took on a bandit subjugation Quest to hunt down his bandit group and rescue the villagers they’d kidnapped. I had to kill him in the end. He was a fire mage,” I informed Talon.

“Hmph. Was it with fire? If you did, then I guess you fulfilled one of the wishes of a Danterno fanatic. They believe cremating your body after death would bring you closer to their god, since the fire burning you will make Danterno entranced by its beauty, bringing the dead’s soul to join him in his realm. Bullshit,” Talon then pulled out an undulating knife with the emblem of Plesia, the Goddess of Water. “A ritual knife I bought from a Plesia worshipper. They use these to gut fish meant as offering for the Water Goddess. Hahaha, the irony when I open his stomach with this.”

He had a maniacal grin on his face when he said that, creeping me the hell out. It only lasted for a moment before he sheathed it. “I’ll try not to think about it, but I will beat the shit out of him. Heh, hope you keep the Aurena side of yours, lass. Her followers might act pompous and self-righteously, but I know some noble priests who are genuinely good people. Far more sane than Danterno’s.”

Without another word, Talon moved to our makeshift camp. It seems I managed to persuade him for now, I think.

Saori, just you wait, I’ll bring them to you!

*************************************************

“Hic,” I hiccuped, still recovering from the tears I’d shed.

I can’t believe it. They really are here.

As a teacher, I had a responsibility to my students to make sure they turned into productive adults, but that ended the moment I died and was transported to Peolynca. So, why did I feel so compelled to find them after learning they were in this world? Sure, we made memories together, but it’s not like I was their parent. I was just a high school teacher they will forget after they graduate university or start working. And to me, they were part of my work to earn a paycheck.

So, why did I cry when I saw their names appear on my party screen?

Tsuji-chan, Kudo-kun, Kawano-san, Hoshino-san, Kobayashi-san. It’s just you five, but I can't stop crying.

I need to find them.

“Miss Saori,” Tasianna called out to me. She was using [Fairy of Winter], which was the only reason we weren't sweating buckets in the middle of this lava lake. “Mister Grimnir looks pretty tired after all the fighting. We should take a rest.”

“Sorry, sleep seems to have gotten me,” Grimnir apologized, looking dreadful in his broken armor. Every piece had dents and was broken in some way, looking far less impressive than when he first appeared in it.

After the three of us fell from that sudden spider’s appearance, we landed on a small island in the middle of a magma lake. The moment we regained our bearings, we were immediately attacked by magma sharks. Yes, sharks with rocky skins swam in this lake, jumping out of the water to spit magma balls at us and trying to bite into and crunch something.

All of them were C ranks like those slazzanbals, but the three of us managed to fend them off with no problem. Grimnir was already tired but he still was sturdy, making good bait. Tasianna, I and three of my garms had enough firepower to overwhelm the torrent of sharks even without Hestia. Becoming a B rank and gaining these new lightning powers really made me stronger.

“We can’t sleep here. It’s too dangerous. I can see land over there, but it’s quite a distance away. Mister Grimnir, can you push yourself?”

“Yeah, I will.”

I wish I had Hestia’s [Will to Fight and Survive] for its infinite Stamina, but we had to do without it. Thankfully, my new skills helped me regenerate my Health and Mana — [True Wolven Bloodlust] for mana and [Stygian Blades] for Health.

We should hurry.

My senses were tingling from my [True Wolven Instincts]. I could sense something lurking in the depths of this place and it made me shiver. Whatever it was, it was a shadow I did not want to meet.

A note from AbyssRaven

Twice I have made them miss each other, but not a third time. Seperated by a year, the teacher and her students of 3 years reunited, sorta.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 17 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

If you can spare a second, please do not forget to give the story a vote! Every vote helps the story stay visible for others. The vote button is just under the chapter buttons.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 176: The Volchark.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #4 her to promote our Patreon. 17 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 17 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until July!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

[Shadow Armament] [Lifetaker (13 kills)][Various Spell Buffs] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]’s Job [Shadow Warrior] has risen from [Level 6] to [Level 11]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquisition requirement fulfilled.   [Lava Resistance Lv. 1] gained

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Concentration Lv. 9] [Inferno Resistance Lv. 2] [Lava Resistance Lv. 2] [Mana Recovery Lv. 7] [Monster Synergist Lv. 2] gained

“Here you go, eat up.” I offered the helmetless Grimnir a bowl of meat and vegetable stew. It was easy and fast to make, especially with the help of these red-hot rocks, heated from staying close to that magma lake.

“You have my thanks, Saori… I apologize for all of this. It is my fault,” Grimnir confessed, looking down with regret from what happened. “Never would I have expected to misjudge the stability of the ground. I haven’t mined in ages, and my own bladdarg overconfidence forced you to come to my rescue.”

“For scouting, you moved far too far away, Mister Grimnir. I am glad Hestia got there before that monster killed you, but… let us stop blaming people, alright? I am not in the mood, and I do not think you are, either,” I shook my head, to get rid of my urge to complain in his face. He explained to us how he got into that predicament in the first place, naming his greed for the voldunna ore as the reason.

Grimnir nodded, accepting the bowl of stew. “Yes, I understand. Still, my life was saved, that is unquestionable. A tazong is honorbound to repay his savior in any way or shape if it doesn’t dishonor their clan, so once this is over, name whatever you want, I will make it with my honor as a blacksmith on the line. If I fail, I shall lay down my hammer.”

After giving Grimnir his bowl, I went over to Tasianna to check on her, “How are you holding up? Will the igloo be able to last?”

“Not with this heat. If I don’t keep pouring mana into it, the mana slime will melt eventually.”

We managed to make it out of the magma lake with only a few more fights, and fortunately, nothing came of that bad feeling I’d had. However, we had to leave the volchark corpses behind since we didn’t have Hestia around, and my storage couldn’t handle this many bodies with my meager Mana capacity. It really makes you appreciate how much her [Storage Magic] can carry.

After entering the cave, Tasianna created an igloo out of mana slime for us to rest in. We were deep in the tunnel, but the heat from outside was blazing, making it quite uncomfortable to rest in. Tasianna couldn’t have [Fairy of Winter] active all the time, since it drained mana, so she made an igloo when I described it. Unfortunately, due to the heat, that plan isn’t working too well.

“Forget it. It’ll cool the air long enough for us to eat and then go to sleep. It is more important for you to rest and regain your mana, Tasianna.”

After everybody ate their fill, Tasianna and Grimnir immediately fell asleep while I kept watch. I also took this time to sort through our potion stocks, Health and Mana. Without Hestia around, the only spell we had to heal our wounds would be Tasianna’s [Ocean Healing], which she recieved from leveling [Torrent Magic] to level two, so we had to rely more on potions for now.

I need to prepare. This can be considered an emergency.

Acquisition requirements fulfilled. [Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 1] [Mounted Fighter Lv. 1] [Rider Lv. 1] gained. 8100 SP remaining

Multiple proficiency requirement fulfilled. [Multi-Cast Lv. 5] [Delayed Cast Lv. 3] [Sundering Enhancement Lv. 10] [Piercing Enhancement Lv. 10] [Crushing Enhancement Lv. 10] [Air Walk Lv. 7] [Inferno Resistance Lv. 5] [Lava Resistance Lv. 5] [Mana Recovery Lv. 8]. 2250 SP remaining

Skill requirement fulfilled.   [Sundering Enhancement Lv. 10] [Piercing Enhancement Lv. 10] [Crushing Enhancement Lv. 10] merged into skill [All Damage Enhancement Lv. 1]

Ok, finished. Thank you very much for all the SP. I should not spend everything, keep some in reserve just in case. This should be good enough to help me handle whatever.

After losing [Tenebrous Magic] to create [Stygian Voltage], someone might think that casting spells shouldn’t become my focus anymore, as most of my offensive power now came from my black lightning, garm pack, and dagger skills. However, that's not how I saw it. Two spells I do use quite often would be [Shadow Dash] and [Dark Tendrils], and the more I could cast them simultaneously, the better. Furthermore, I have a couple skills that directly improve the power of my dark magics, so there’s a ton of room for growth as well.

That’s why [Multi-Cast] should be one of my first priorities, along with [Delayed Cast]. The latter allowed me to create the magic circles for five [Shadow Dash] casts and delay the execution of them until I needed to use them, making my “teleportation” faster and more seamless. I wouldn’t have to deal with the magic materialization process, after all.

I already knew about [All Damage Enhancement] from Gael, so increasing my overall damage isn’t a bad investment. [Air Walk], [Inferno Resistance], and [Lava Resistance] are there to help me fight better in this place as well as allowing me to maneuver and tank better. And [Mana Recovery] is generally just good, especially with my new focus on stygian lightning.

Mid-way through the “night,” the garms woke up from their sleep and we switched watch duty. Uno, Song, and Sarasa were with us, while I believe Quatre should be with Ellaine right now. My sleep quality was pretty bad; I was sweating to the point I had to put my coat into my storage, and I even considered taking off my shirt, no matter how indecent it was.

When I woke up, my fur was just drenched in my sweat and the humidty from the last of the melted igloo. It did make me learn that I could continue producing black electricity with my white fur no matter how wet I got. Good to know if I ever needed to fight underwater.

Before we departed, Tasianna used her magic to give everybody a refreshing cold shower, getting rid of yesterday's fatigue and the sticky feeling after our sleep. After a quick sandwich breakfast, we were off, journeying through the tunnel until we found a herd of those four-legged pachycephalosaurus monsters.

Rock-Breaker Rachycephalarus

A rachycephalarus with thin fur and the ability to store water inside special organs to cool down the body internally and keep it hydrated on long journeys. Adapted to live inside volcanoes, these fire-resistant beasts have a rock-breaking skull smash to dissuade any would be hunters. Rank D

They were initially wary of us but, after we showed we had no intentions to attack them, the herd simply ignored us and began to move away. Grimnir, knowing life inside tunnels and caves better than us, suggested we follow them since the monsters inside this place should know the surroundings better than us. As the maps we had of this place didn’t depict every single tunnel and we just had no idea where we were on the maps, this idea was better than nothing.

After one of the monsters growled at us for following them, we decided to stay further back from them. With how labyrinthine this tunnel system was, choosing to follow them was the best choice we had, since they helped us find the exit eventually. The only unfortunate part was that it was by another magma lake, only passable through leapfrogging across a series of islands or by going completely around it.

I really wanted to reunite with Hestia and Ellaine as well as my students as soon as possible, but my [Detection Sensor] confirmed that a few signals were inside the lake. If those volcharks continued attacking us, it would only slow us down and possibly endanger us. Rushing wasn’t good, even though I really wanted to do it right now.

Magma Belcher Volchark

A four-legged volchark whose main diet consists of consuming rocks, able to deconstruct it into valuable nutrients. Able to survive in rivers of extreme heat, these creatures gorge upon large amounts of magma and rocks in their expandable stomachs, to either consume or use as a projectile against aggressors. Evolution has given them the ability to walk on land. Rank C

Tasianna quickly casted [Fairy of Winter] to cool us down and surround us in an [Air Shield] to prevent the gases from knocking us out. Tazics like Grimnir were highly resistant against volcanic gases but breathing clean air was still preferred.

As we followed the herd of rachychephalarus around the magma lake, my [Detection Sensor] suddenly caught something interesting in the depths of the lake. It isn’t moving much, but that bad feeling from before seems to have crept back up. I called for my garms, telling Tasianna and Grimnir we should ride on them for the rest of the trip, the signal worrying me a bit.

“Argh, a tazong should not be riding a damn mount. By Crustacia’s twintails, how do you tall people even keep yourself balanced on them, guh,” Grimnir grumbled, finding it uncomfortable to stay on Sarasa since dwarves have trouble staying on them due to a balancing problem.

“Stop complaining, Mister Grimnir. Let us just get this do-”

“Gueeeeeeeeeeeehhhhh!” The loud, pained cry of one of the herd’s youngs interrupted my sentence, echoing through this whole place. Looking over to them, it looked like some magma popped, sending a large amount of the molten rock onto the rachychephalarus young. The herd seemed agitated, trying to scrape off the magma and calm down their young at the same time, even pushing it forward as multiple members of the herd began to run.

Huh? What is-oh no!

The signal from the depths, it was coming closer and closer to us, causing my [Danger Perception] from [True Wolven Instincts] to ring even louder and louder, to the point ignoring it was impossible. As Grimnir and Tasianna were about to move forward, I ordered my garms not to move any further but to retreat instead.

Because we were in trouble.

“Slarrrghhhhhhhh!” A high-pitched motor-like sound erupted the moment magma exploded into a geyser, rocks breaking as the panicked cries of the herd of rachycephalarus pierced through all the other noises. As the dust and smoke settled, the silhouette of a giant beast became visible, having broken through the ground while its large jaw was lodged into the wall next to it.

With one swift movement, the creature closed its mouth shut, crunching through the wall before storing it all in its elastic-like stomach. There was blood smeared on its lips and teeth, the remains of the herds.

“Mheeehhhhhh!” However, some of the rachycephalarus seemed to have survived, crying desperately in vain for their lost members. This however, just attracted the humongous shark’s attention, snapping its head around in a split second.

Identify!

Volcano Furnace Volchark

An overgrown volchark whose body has turned into a portable volcano from overconsumption of ores and minerals. Able to sustain a high body temperature from consuming voldunna ore, these volchark ooze magma and lethal fumes from their pores to defend against attackers. Their hide is made from a shell of sturdy rock, able to contain the flames burning inside. Rank B

Shadow Armament!

With the threat on hand, I immediately activated [Shadow Armament], wrapping not only my garms but also Tasianna and Grimnir with it, shouting that we had to retreat as fast as possible. The volchark jumped and crashed onto the fleeing remains of the herd, sending them deep into the lava lake to be consumed by this horror.

While running away, my skills were warning me of the approaching monster. “Tasianna, ice spike!” I shouted to her. Understanding what I meant, she shot three human-sized [Ice Spike]s forward, perfect for me to use as movement tools. My garms each cast [Dark Tendrils], attaching them to one of the ice spikes, helping them fly through the air the moment Tasianna blasted us all forward with [Wind Blast].

However, even that wasn’t enough to outrun that terror. Cleaving through the magma with its dorsal fin, I couldn’t help but frown, before dropping my jaw when the school bus-sized shark jumped out of the magma lake, showing off its jagged teeth and razor-sharp claws on its four legs. With a gaping mouth, it dived at us with intentions to devour.

Bad!

[“Sarasa, let go!”] Grimnir on Sarasa were the ones farthest behind and looking from the trajectory, I had the feeling they wouldn’t be able to dodge it. So, I ordered her to cancel her [Dark Tendrils] so Tasianna could blast her backwards with [Wind Blast].

When the giant shark landed, it crashed against the pathway, destroying everything in its way and blasting Tasianna and me away with the subsequent explosion. We were only protected by the shower of magma when Tasianna cast the level four [Torrent Magic] spell [Sapphire Membrane], something she gained by spending her SP after we woke up.

Looking through the blue translucent barrier of flowing water, I heaved a sigh of relief that both Sarasa and Grimnir were fine. Since Grimnir was armored in my [Shadow Armament], Sarasa was able to bring him along with her [Shadow Dash], appearing from my shadow.

Smoky Haze will distract it only for a moment but not long enough for it to be worth it. We should just run!

Reorganized, we rushed towards the cave entrance, intending to avoid this whole battle entirely since we were at a disadvantage in this environment, but before we could enter it, the volchark acted. It shot a bomb-like ball of magma that exploded in our path, blocking off our best way out, leaving us only two more options.

A chill went down my spine when the volchark began to leisurely swim inside the magma lake, as if it understood we didn’t have any other choice but to cross the lake for the cave entrance on the other side. However, how are we supposed to cross the lake when this thing will pursue us? Even if we made it, couldn’t it just close the entrance with one of its magma spit?

The stress will give me grey hair at this point…

“Tasianna. Grimnir.”

“Miss Saori, you aren’t expecting us to fight this monster, right?! The two of us can handle it from the skies but what about Mister Grimnir? Even the environment is bad for us. Lady Hestia might be able to survive in it, but if we drop into the lake, we are dead!” Tasianna replied grimly when I gave her a “we have no other choice” stare.

“What would you suggest we do? There doesn’t seem to be another way out. The ceiling is blocked, there is no cliff or waterfall for us to jump off from and hope for the best. We are inside a magma chamber, trapped in here with that damn thing,” I then pulled out one of Hestia’s bombs. “We have two choices, either somebody distracts that monster so we can blow up the entrance to escape through — which is not even guaranteed if the shark reacts well enough — or, hear me out, we fight and kill that Rank B, Tasianna.”

“What?! But those choices are-”

“Pretty much the same, I know! The only difference is that we either run the moment there is an opportunity or we press on,” I cut Tasianna short. “However, think about it, if Hestia were here, wouldn’t we be more brave? The moment she says we should fight it, I bet you would feel more confident in yourself and follow her. However, this was the exact same issue we had with that High Ogre! We ran the moment we knew we were outmatched, but we fought when Hestia was in trouble. What is this? I evolved into a B rank and you’ve gotten far stronger, but all we’re doing is run away. Run away from every hard encounter. What pride do we have as members of Aurora?!”

I was elated when Hestia decided to rely on us for the Davison raid, trusting in our strength that we could handle it. We did a good job wiping out those mercenaries and bringing Davison to his last breath, only needing Hestia to take out his mangled corpse for us. I was happy with our overall performance, but I did not like what happened during the Grimgarian battalion encounter.

Near death experience is part of our occupation and lifestyle, but all it proved to me was that Aurora wasn’t strong enough. Hestia couldn’t defeat the high ogre alone and Tasianna and I were basically little better than fodder until we got lucky and wounded him when we flooded the cave. When I evolved, I thought I could boost Aurora’s strength by a lot.

But instead of pride, rage and anger was filling my chest. Anger that this bastard was blocking me from advancing forwards, risking my meeting with my students. Rage that escaping was the more appropriate choice for us, since we had literally zero advantage in this fight. I needed complete darkness to fight in my best while Tasianna’s ice was melting from the heat.

I could feel the electricity coursing through my body, jolting my cells into action from the emotions I was feeling. It didn’t hurt, but it was uncomfortable. How would it feel if electricity were to flow through your body so naturally like blood? I haven’t gotten used to it yet.

“With a body like that, it would have a heart perfect for a catalyst,” Grimnir suddenly voiced out.

““Huh?”” Tasianna and I exclaimed.

“It needs a body fit to sustain itself in that lava, which means its organs need to be strong, attuned to the elements. I’m not an alchemist, but I know my monster materials. The heart is the strongest muscle in our body, and it needs to be strong enough to survive our lifestyle. The lass needs a catalyst, right? A catalyst made from that monster’s heart would be the perfect alchemical stone to fuel fire-elemental spells.”

“… We have not gotten Hestia a birthday present, yet,” I stated, desire of want and need came into my mind as I eyed the volchark, imagining wrapping its heart in a present box. My lightning crackled on my arms, influenced by my thoughts.

“...I wanted to make a catalyst for Lady Hestia,” Tasianna blurted out without thinking about it, eyes widened in greed as she gazed at the volchark. White mists escaped her gaping mouth, the temperature around her cooled down significantly to the point I felt like shivering even with my fur. Did Grimnir just give her a reason to fight?

She then snapped her head to me, a look of determination was on her face, “Miss Saori! That Volchark is level four, nowhere as strong as that high ogre! Can you detect the other volcharks in the lake?”

I grinned with her, “No, they ran away the moment that one appeared. Mister Grimnir?”

Putting his helmet on and taking out his blasthammer, he replaced the mana battery on it with a new one, making it able to use its blast function, “I’ve said it already, I owe you lasses. If I can help get all of you geared up, then I will do it with my honor and life on the line!”

Call me a hypocrite if you want, because I am. I admit it. For somebody who minds risks so much, I’ve been bringing my party into more and more dangers. In this situation, where we had no time to plan, I still took out my daggers, prepared to exterminate the threat lying before us.

I’m sorry for all the times I did this to you, Hestia, but watch me now! This is where the brilliance of Aurora will truly shine!

“Spread out!”

Stygian-scaled fenrir, ice fairy, and stubborn taz are moving out.

A note from AbyssRaven

A!

Shaaarrrrrrrrk!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 17 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 177: The Fenrir, the Fairy, and the Dwarf.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #1 her to promote our Patreon. 17 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 17 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until July!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

[Shadow Armament] [Inferno Resistance Potion (Moderate)] [Various Spell Buffs] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

[“Buffs applied!”] Tasianna announced the recast of her buffing spells.

[“Fire and lava threads, everyone. Create an opening for us to deal decisive blows!”] I gave my garms their orders, who took out their mana threads from the satchels Grimnir made for them to hold their tools with. Situations like these, ones where I can’t prepare properly, are exactly why giving my garms a preset loadout is valuable.

“My hammer is ready! I won’t fall to another beast of this shitehole! Umslid kain, kawuk kaan, fie Crustacia!” Myriad runes on Grimnir’s armor blazed in action, shining brightly as an aura of mana wrapped around his skin. According to Grimnir, the runes engraved in his armor were primarily there to boost his stats as well as his ability to act as a bulwark.

With his horns and my [Shadow Armament] covering his body, Grimnir already looked pretty frightening but, from the looks of it, his runes seemed to have caused his body to temporarily bulk up. He spat out some fire once the process ended, shouting a warcry loud enough that the volchark stopped moving in the magma lake.

And for good reason, since it’s time we make it pay for toying with us, as if we were its next snack. As for the payment, how about Hestia’s birthday present: its heart!

Dismounting Song, Tasianna returned to her [Elvinized (Moderate)] form, revealing her butterfly-like wings. With both her [Fairy of Winter] wings and her natural fairy wing flapping wildly, she flew up into the air, floating above the volchark and the lake before materializing two blue-colored magic circles.

Water formed around them, shaping into giant tentacles of the level five [Torrent Magic] spell [Kraken’s Destruction]. At her command, Tasianna had these watery appendages slam into the lake, releasing an explosion of steam to cover up the small segment of the lake in front of us. Although everything was blinding white when I used [True Wolven Instinct]’s [Heat Vision], the flailing I could see made it obvious where the shark was. However, similar to how Hestia sometimes got overwhelmed using her [Mana Eyes], I couldn’t keep the heat vision up for too long due to a headache.

Thankfully, I didn’t need to. Provoked, the volchark once again did one of its giant jumps out of the lake, mouth wide open to snatch Tasianna from the air like a bird. Without blinking, she used [Wind Blast] on herself to dodge the attack, shooting a few ice daggers at it with her catalyst. Unfortunately, they melted upon contact.

Without wasting another second, I went into action, Diving into Uno’s larger shadow, I used [Shadow Dash] to reappear on the ceiling — the shadow the volchark cast, caused by the bright glowing magma. When it slammed its jaw shut, failing to catch Tasianna, it snapped its head over to me, probably noticing my appearance with its [Enhanced Enemy Sense].

[Humanization (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

Shadow Dash Eruption.

Having transformed back into my werewolf-like form for the higher stats, I activated one of the Job abilities I received from my [Shadow Warrior] Main Job, as half of my body was still stuck inside the shadow. Only usable in tandem with [Shadow Dash], [Shadow Dash Eruption] created a small black eruption at the location I teleported to, not only damaging everybody adjacent to it but also shooting my body forward like a missle.

Upon channeling mana into my arms, black lightning crackled as it wrapped around my daggers. Further empowered with [Shadow Armament], I used [Shadow Pierce], aiming for the volchark’s left eye. With high Strength and Agility, my dagger sliced through the air as if there was barely any friction, flying towards the volchark’s eyes as the monster released a small grunt in surprise.

However, the shark reacted in time, closing its rocky eyelid to protect a squishy weak spot. Yet, for the member with the highest Strength, before buffing spells, the shark’s high defence wasn’t durable enough to block all the damage. The crust on its eyelid cracked, splintering in the process.

The lightning can’t flow like this. I need a better hit.

Aiming to stab the monster with my second dagger, I grabbed onto the shark and was prepared to attack again; however, I stopped and kicked off the moment my [Foresight] warned me of an attack. In the next second, the volchark’s pores stopped oozing magma to discharge clouds of volcanic gases, hot enough to burn skin.

Tasianna’s [Air Shield] was still active around me and my [Inferno Resistance] prevented any damage, but the push back was unexpected. Unable to stop myself with [Air Walk], the gases slammed me into a wall, leaving me hanging there in my own indention. I groaned for a moment before jolting my head up, noticing that the shark’s elastic belly bloated, a sign of its magma spit attack.

I was barely able to push myself out of the wall in time before the volchark’s magma ball exploded against the wall. “Arrgh!” I let out a cry, having been caught by the attack’s shockwave.

[“Miss Saori!”] Tasianna called for me the moment one of her [Frozen Shield]s flew to catch me before I could fall into the magma. Groaning, I looked at my right arm where some magma had splashed onto me. Although I wouldn’t call it an experiment, seeing it unable to drain my Health as it sat there, I concluded that having [Magma Resistance Lv. 5] and [Shadow Warrior]’s [Penumbral Armament], increasing [Shadow Armamnet]’s natural defenses, made it possible for me to fully resist some form of magma and fire damage.

However, let’s not be stupid and jump into the lake willingly or stand in front of that B rank shark’s attacks. I can’t heal tank like Hestia.

Cleaning off the magma spit on the ice shield, I witnessed the volchark landing back into the lake, sending molten rocks splashing around like a fountain. Unperturbed by it, I could see Grimnir shouting at the monster as he began walking on the lava lake. Literally. I’m not joking.

Two red runes on his boots glimmered in action, shrouding them in a red mana veil, enabling him to walk on the lava, or so I presume. The rune [Defensive Rune: Pavise] on his hammer shined as well, constructing a barrier around him, blocking any magma while he advanced forward to a pocket of ground, acting like an island in this lake.

Damn, I should have asked Grimnir more about his runes. Seeing him demonstrate pavise for the first time, I should’ve expected him to have runes on his armor, just like Davison had on his robe.

Information was key to fighting together, and while I knew about my teammates’ capabilities, I knew little about Grimnir’s fighting abilities outside his axe and tanking abilities. He called himself a runesmith. Now he was demonstrating the full power of those runes.

“Come at me, you piece of shit! I’ll show you what these tazong arms and legs will do to a filthy disrupter! Nobody disrupts a taz while he’s inside a bladdarg mine!” Grimnir suddenly shouted from the top of his lungs, such that even the lake’s eruption was nothing against the power of his voice.

Why is he shout-Oooohhhh! Its attention!

The second the volchark turned away from me towards Grimnir, his intentions dawned on me. It’s hearing. When the shark closed its eyelids, they were as hard as a shell. If it even considered closing its eyes, then they must not be as resistant as the rest of its body. Even now, from the shaking waves, I could see that it must have kept its eyes closed, that it was tracking its prey through sound alone. That’s how we got into this situation in the first place, from that crying rachychephalarus.

Even without the [Taunt] ability, Grimnir was acting like our party’s tank. Drawing the aggression towards him and away from Tasianna and me.

“Mana battery bomb out!” Grimnir shouted, taking out a mana battery from his backpack and throwing it towards the shark. At the moment of contact, the battery exploded, causing a similar destructive blast like the one Davison did.

While it didn’t crack the shark’s rocky skin, it did cause the volchark to flinch, enabling Grimnir to reach the first island. “Tasianna! Water, now!” he shouted to the sky. Tasianna’s look of confusion only lasted for a second as she figured out his intention, calling down a storm of [Torrential Rain] onto the lake, creating a never ending steam wave.

The volchark recovered from Grimnir’s attack and charged forward, far faster than its size should allow it. Grimnir reached his hand towards the pathway, where multiple black tendrils wrapped around his arm and pulled him away from the shark’s attack. Sarasa, standing on the edge of the lake, was the one who cast it.

Her tendrils dissipated mid-flight before Grimnir was caught by Song’s [Dark Tendrils], who, similarly to me, was floating on one of Tasianna’s [Frozen Shield]. Supported by the momentum, Grimnir jumped into the air, aimed his blasthammer into the air before swinging it down onto the volchark’s head, echoing the cracking of rock throughout the room.

The volchark attempted to retaliate, but Uno jumped out of a shadow on an island, throwing a number of Hestia’s white flame bombs at the shark, wrapping it in fire strong enough to cause it to panic a bit. The Health damage was minimal, but the shark seemed shocked that the white fire was able to harm it at all.

[“Miss Saori, Mister Grimnir suggested a plan, although I didn’t understand it from the single-word sentence he shouted. However, I believe he wants to keep the monster’s attention on him while we continue buffeting it with damage!”] Tasianna informed me through [Telepathy].

[“Understood!”] I simply said, quickly thinking of an idea while Grimnir and my garms fought in unison. [“Tasianna, how is your mana?”]

Chugging a mana potion, Tasianna then replied, [“I have enough potions left. My catalyst is still full with mana, so I have enough reserves.”]

[“Good! Please, support my garms with more [Frozen Shield]s or even just floating platforms. That way we can keep them mobile. Tasianna, prepare to fully unleash your new custom spell’s potential! I will get it into position!”]

As Tasianna and I were consolidating an attack plan, Grimnir and the garms suddenly cried out. The volchark, having enough of everybody, released magma from its pores at an explosive rate, creating something like a miniature volcanic eruption. Standing with its four legs on Tasianna’s self-made island, the volchark made it impossible for anybody to approach it without getting damaged by its magma.

Grimnir could endure magma well enough as a taz, but both Uno and Song were mildly burned by that attack, the magma burning through their [Shadow Armament] and singeing their fur before Tasianna extinguished it and healed them with [Ocean Healing].

Jeez, getting anywhere close to that thing will just prompt it to use its gas or this eruption.

Close-ranged or long-ranged, the volchark had a solution for anything, but it's not like it was impossible to fight against it. My strongest method of attack was being up close and aiming for weak points for critical damage, but I still had ranged options.

[“Tasianna, leave this to us.”] I then jumped off from the ice shield and used [Air Walk] to relocate myself around to the volchark’s magma spewing mouth. An obsidian ring on my left hand back began glowing, agitated by my mana. Although I couldn’t use its special function anymore, this ring we looted from those grimgarian shamans would serve me well as a temporary catalyst to boost my abilities.

Ring of the Shadow Guardian

A ring made to gain favor with the God of Darkness, Marsven. An alchemical stone was attached designed to channel a dark mage’s mana to cast spells faster. A protective charm was enchanted on this ring, caused by a shamanic ritual in the worship of Marsven by granting a sliver of his goldy power as a shield of shadow. Drains 90% of the caster’s maximum mana as a cost and can only be used once. It resonates with any other [Ring of the Shadow Guardian], amplifying the strength of the shield.

Skill: [Dark Magic Efficiency Lv. 5] [Mana Efficiency Lv. 8] [Dark Amp] [Dark Resistance Lv. 5] [Ring of the Shadow Guardian (Broken)]

Once again channeling mana through my arms, my white fur stood up from static shock as black lightning jumped from hair to hair, loading into my hand like a battery. Forming my hand into a spear, I pulled my arm back and then threw it in front of me, sending a stream of electricity into the shark’s mouth.

Stygian Lightning!

Its skin might be tough as hardened rock, but that didn’t include its mouth, eyes, or internals. The volchark stopped exuding magma rivers from its body, instead, it was recoiling from my attack, struggling to numb the electric pain it was feeling inside its mouth. That was an opening.

Dusk Bombardment! Dusk Bombardment!

[Shadow Warrior]’s Job spell [Dusk Bombardment] first materialized a black magic circle before releasing enough small black bombs to carpet bomb the area around the shark into a smokey haze. “SlarrrrghhhHHhh!!!” Its cries resounded throughout the area like a shrill engine, proving that my attacks were doing damage.

As I was preparing my next set of spells, Grimnir came flying in with Sarasa’s help, slamming his hammer onto the shark’s head once again, fearing nothing of what happened before. “I can handle it, keep shooting! Hahahaha!” he shouted with a hearty laugh. Acknowledging his bravery, I continued my assault with [Stygian Lightning] and [Dusk Bombardment]. Even my garms began shooting [Dark Slash] at the volchark.

“SlaaaaaaarghhhHHHHhh!!!” it cried out even more. Our attacks were proving successful, as I could identify spots on its rocky hide cracking and crumbling, revealing the red skin beneath this behemoth.

“Sgarlagh! SglaaaaarrrrrrghhhhHHHHh!!!” Another volcanic eruption came from the volchark’s pores, but before I could once again stun it with a lightning bolt, the shark shook off its pain and dived into the lake. Seeing how my [Detection Sensor] informed me its signal was going further away, I clicked my tongue, thinking that it seemed to have escaped, but that was naive to think.

The cry it did wasn’t out of pain… it was out of anger.

Like a torpedo, the signal rushed closer and closer, causing my [Foresight] and [True Wolven Instincts] to ring louder and louder to the point I flinched from the mental pain. However, I was still capable enough to kick the air with [Air Walk] shooting myself out of the trajectory of the attack. However, the ringing didn’t stop.

The volchark shot out of the lake like a rocket, its belly fully inflated, making it look morbidly obese like a frog who forgot to deflate its air sac. Confused at what it was planning to do, the moment it opened its mouth, I understood.

The volchark released a beam of magma, blasting it at me with extreme speed, which I was just barely able to dodge using [Dark Tendrils] to jump around like a web-slinging spider. However, that wasn’t the end of the attack. With its mouth still open, the volchark went crazy; not mentally, per se, but from the fact that it was flying around the room like a deflating balloon.

Streams of magma burst out from this giant shark’s belly, burning the ceiling, the wall, the islands, the pathway, everything that got in its way. The attack was entirely scattershot, as the blast of the attack caused the shark to blast in every direction from the recoil, bouncing off the walls, lake, and ceiling like an elastic ball. Although it might have looked comical, this chaos was exactly why it was so dangerous.

“Guarrrrghhhh!”

This was what Hestia would call a bullet-hell. Streams of the volchark’s beam, fountain sprays of magma, and rocks falling from the ceiling covered the whole area, buffeting everything in its wake. The only way to dodge all of this was to stay unpredictable ourselves.

Without how many shadows that were cast in the area due to the shark’s attack, it allowed my garms and me to fully use [Dark Tendrils]’s and [Shadow Dash]’s movement capabilities to swing and teleport around the room as we dodged through everything. Tasianna was a fairy and quite a fast one at that, so by returning to her smaller form and buzzing around like a fly, she kept herself safe from the attacks.

Unfortunately, Grimnir was a different case.

“Grimnir!” I shouted as I caught his charred body from falling into the magma lake, the red mana thread cape I gave him was in tatters. The volchark had managed to hit him head on with a full blast of the beam.

While it was possible for Grimnir to join my garms or me into the shadow world with [Shadow Dash], his inability to use [Dark Magic] to keep up with us made it a weakness. And, as he mentioned before, dwarves weren’t able to fully keep their balance on a mount and this issue led to him not being able to keep up with the swinging momentum and getting battered by a glob of molten rock.

“Bl-Bladdarg, urgh,” he groaned. His armor seemed to have blocked the majority of the attack, but its durability had come to an end. It was falling apart from the sheer heat, destroying the runes Grimnir had meticulously engraved on each piece. “Bladdarg, s-shite. C-Can’t believ-ve it finall-urghhHAAArgh-finally broke.”

Carrying the heavy Grimnir around wasn’t a problem with my Strength; however, what was a problem is that his body was nowhere as aerodynamic as mine. Dodging the volchark’s attack turned from mildly exhausting into stressful, where a few close calls actually led to my shadow armor breaking and inflicting small amounts of damage on me.

Kuso! The beam coming from the shark’s mouth is so much hotter than the magma from the lake!

Eventually, the shark’s belly emptied and it crashed into the lake like a deflated balloon. It was huffing roughly as it laid on top of the lake’s surface, recovering from its attack. Without any hesitation, I trusted my garms to attack the downed volchark while I began pouring my [Health Potion (Major)] into Grimnir’s mouth. I had to save him first.

“Mister Grimnir!” Tasianna finally arrived, once again in her moderate form.

“He’s still conscious, but he’s in pain. The potion should help, but you need to cool his wounds down and heal him, Tasianna!”

“Miss Saori, wait, your legs!”

“It’s just a burn, later!” I threw a mug of water onto the burn marks on my legs before handing Grimnir to Tasianna. Accepting my stubbornness, she began healing our injured comrade while I dashed forward to join my garms.

Although still huffing loudly, the shark forced its body up the moment it saw me approach, diving back into the lake before jumping out from it, charging full-ahead towards me.

It’s still not trying to run?!

I easily dodged the charging attack, but my instincts still told me another attack was coming and, when I saw one of its large pores glow red, I kicked the air to side step the magma shot.

[“Uno, Song, Sarasa. Wrap this thing up, now!”]

It was about time to finish this. I know how to kill you now.

“““Grrrrrak!””” the three growled before preparing the mana threads as they dashed around the new islands the volchark so kindly made for us. Its magma beam might have exhausted us a bit, but it also caused boulders from the ceiling to fall into the lake, creating footholds for us to end this battle.

As the volchark landed back into the magma, before it could initiate its next attack, I threw a mana battery I had just snatched from Grimnir’s backpack, knowing we needed this explosion to settle this. Just like before, the moment the battery touched the lake, it blew up right in front of the shark face, stunning it long enough for my garms to surround it and begin tying mana threads around it.

In the meantime, I took out one of my favorite Hestia-made tools: a bottle full of her corrosive slime. With its mouth wide open this time, no magma or fire spewing out, I threw the open container into the monster, forcing it to consume the toxin in full. It began to jerk around, spasming from the effects of the purple liquid. It vomited a mouthful of molten rocks from its mouth, gasping for air in vain.

However, looking at the maximum Health of the thing, it’ll probably level up its resistances before the poison will kill it. Thankfully, that wasn’t my plan.

Stygian Lightning!

My actions bought enough time for my garms to restrain the volchark’s legs and tail in Hestia’s magma elemental mana threads, which are proving themselves to be greatly resistant to the magma lake as long as the garms were holding and pouring mana into them. With the shark held on land by my garms while it spasmed, it was time for me to do some work with my new skills.

The shark instinctively kept its mouth shut despite struggling for air and it had its eyes shut to protect itself from any attacks, but those weren’t my targets in the first place. Looking into the pores of this “Volcano Furnace” volchark, I unloaded streams of lightning into the body of the shark through this one weakness.

Seeing it shaking violently from the dark-elemental electricity zapping every single of its fiber, I nodded in relief that the idea worked out. This wasn’t a monster to crack from the outside, this was a monster you had to crack from the inside! Lightning raged around my arms as I eyed the volchark’s other pores. With it too paralyzed to counter attack, I was eager to make it regret not swimming away the moment it could.

In fact, the shark was practically a punch bag at this point. The scale carapace around my legs I had in my fenrir form was non-existent in my moderate wolfkin form — only my white fur was there. However, I did have those scale gauntlets while in [Humanized (Minor)] form.

I am the one with the highest Strength. I am!

With lightning wrapped around my arms, I stepped back, assumed a boxer stance Hestia had shown me, and punched the volchark’s shell.A loud crack rang out; the volchark’s rock hide was nothing against my power. Punching two more holes into its body, I dug my daggers into its exposed flesh and channeled my black lightning through them. [Shadow Armament] appendages allowed my stygian electricity to flow through my shadows as if they were wires.

The roars of thunder continued, not stopping even for a second as I unloaded everything I had. Not only was it spasming from Hestia’s slime, but a current of black lightning was also flowing through its entire body, electrifying its internals. Using [Identify] on it, I could see its Health dropping, but this thing was built to endure any sorts of attacks.

However, I was happy. The damage I was dealing and the new moves and styles of fighting I could create from this experience using my new evolution made my brain go into overdrive; my imagination was going crazy with ideas. Intelligence was still a bottleneck for my overall damage, even with the grimgarian shaman’s catalyst. Regardless, I’ll overcome that with some creativity later on.

For now, though, let’s finish this monster and get some levels and that heart!

[“Tasianna, your turn! Go!”] With everything set up, it was time for the cryomancer’s turn to shine.

[“I understand…”]

An enormous cyan-colored magic circle appeared on the ground, even comparable to Hestia’s [Symphonie des Feuergottes] in size. The different parts of the magic circle began to move, a warning for my garms and me to get out of the spell’s range, otherwise, it could end very badly for us.

Tasianna was flying above us all with her two pairs of wings, having just finished healing Grimnir up. Like a winter angel gazing down in the land, her glare pierced the volchark mere seconds before she uttered the name of her second custom spell.

[“Tor Eiclere’s Finulaflei.”] (Ice Age’s Paradise)

And with those words, the ice age began.

“SlllaaauurrrrgrhhhhHHHaaagslieeeeeekkk!”

The temperature instantly dropped inside the area of influence, cooling the magma lake inside of it so fast that even the steam was instantly frozen in the process, dropping small icicles on the now solid floor. A blizzard encased in this spell was raging on, buffeting the poor volchark as pure instincts finally kicked in for it. The cold was freezing it, its body was desperately fighting for life as it began to consume the ground around it to fuel the engine inside it.

Cold rocks entered the body of the shark, all used to create the life-essential magma it needed to survive in this frozen hell. It might have lived inside a flaming hell all its life, but its life will now come to end in the winter angel’s paradise.

However, that wasn’t all the spell could do. With a swift hand movement, the air began to freeze at the edge of the spell circle, turning everything into sharp daggers, swords, and spears all aimed at the monster. With one click of her fingers, an unlimited ice storm descended into the Emerald-Flare dungeon.

“Sliiiaarrrrughhhhh!!!” Poison ravaging its internals, black lightning sizzling its cells, the cold freezing its blood and fire, and thousands of infinitely regenerating blades cracked open its rocky shell, revealing how its red raw skin was slowly turning blue.

“Urgh!” Tasianna groaned as her spell continued, chugging down not only mana potions but also dragorade to keep herself going. She was even using up her catalyst’s reserved mana.

This was Tasianna’s finishing move. Just like how Hestia had [Symphonie des Feuergottes] and [Solar Beam] to end foes, Tasianna wished to create an attack to compensate for a non-destructive spell list. From her training and from spending some SP, she managed to gain [Torrent Magic Lv. 5] for both [Azure Blade] and [Kraken’s Destruction], but neither of those spells could compare to this perilous spell.

However, it came with a cost, of course. Since faefolk survived with their Mana instead of Health, the more she kept the spell active, the less Mana she had and the weaker she would become. The spell also had a distinctively long preparation time, comparable to [Omnictus] or [Prayer], requiring somebody to protect her while she finished the casting time. While she didn’t need to chant, spells just needed time to materialize.

However, even this hadn’t killed the volchark yet. Clinging onto life, the shark desperately began to crawl its way out of the spell, slowly making it to the edge. When my garms noticed this, they were about to move, but I stopped them. After all, somebody else wanted revenge more.

“You piece of shit!”

“Sluierk?”

A naked dwarf stood in front of the volchark, his clothes were burned off and parts of his orange hair and beard were gone, but thankfully, the scars left from his burns seemed to have healed well, although they would require Hestia’s healing to fully disappear. He glared at the giant monster with rage-filled eyes and, in his hand, his blasthammer was in gun mode.

Oh jeez, I can’t believe this is my first time seeing that! I haven’t even gotten a boyfriend yet…

“That armor was the last piece of memory I had from my clan and my dear friend. I spent months making it!” Grimnir shouted before pronouncing one single word in a murmur, sealing the volchark’s fate. “Die.”

“SliSLARRRRRRRGHHHHHRHRHH!!!”

The blasthammer erupted into action, shooting a mana blast right into the volchark’s gaping mouth, blasting off a piece of its skull. Somehow, still not quite dead, the volchark stumbled backwards, falling right onto its back before its struggles finally ceased. The unlimited ice storm and the freezing blizzard claimed its first victim.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 2]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 1300 skill points

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]’s Job [Shadow Warrior] has risen from [Level 11] to [Level 27]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquisition requirement fulfilled. [Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 1] gained

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Mental Stability Lv. 8] [Mental Warfare Lv. 8] [Health Recovery Lv. 9] [Stamina Recovery Lv. 9] [Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 5] [Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 5] [Monster Tamer Lv. 2] gained

… We did it.

As the storm dissipated, I walked over to the normal quiet corpse of the volchark, it’s eyes frozen solid into two ice balls. When I noticed somebody next to me, I turned my head around to see Tasianna, gazing at the monster similar to me. She also raised her head once she confirmed it was dead.

“We did it,” I said, baffled at the results.

“Yes, we did it…” Tasianna murmured, nodding in agreement. “We did it…W-We DID IT!”

“WE DID IT! TASIANNA, WE DID IT!”

Joy. Elation, like never before. The euphoria running through my veins made me unintentionally jump up in the air multiple times, something Tasianna copied without any hesitation. ““WE DID IT!”” we simultaneously shouted as we embraced each other, our bodies refusing to stop jumping even as we stuck together.

“Tasianna, we did it!”

“Miss Saori, we did it without Lady Hestia! We did it!”

“Damn, I can’t believe I was so scared! Ahhh, the rush~”

“‘Don’t be arrogant, everybody,’ is something you would normally say here, but… Ahh, who cares, we did it! We won!”

“Hmph. Youngsters… urgh,”

As crazy as it sounds, in this magma chamber, Tasianna and I were dancing around as if we’d just invented the cure for all the world’s problems. We were that happy that we finally toppled our first B rank monsters without Hestia. We did it.

It goes without saying that it took us a while to notice that Grimnir fell unconscious from the pain he felt. Wrapping a towel around his bare body, Tasianna began to nurse him back to health while I began dismantling the volchark. Luckily, the extreme cold hadn’t damaged the heart far too much; in fact, the moment the cold stopped, the heart began glowing like it was on fire. The beating had stopped, but otherwise it honestly still looked like it was alive.

[Humanized (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

Regardless, to the victor goes the spoils, and our rewards were extraordinary. The elation even made me ignore my students, even if it was only for a single moment. After all, we couldn’t dawdle too much. The moment Grimnir woke up, we strapped him to Sarasa’s back and continued on our trip to reunite with Hestia and my students. Of course, the volchark’s dismantled corpse was inside my storage.

Just as we were about to leave this damnable magma lake room, a roar echoed through the room.

“Guooooooooooooonn!”

Magma Golem

A golem made from earth and rocks, held together with magma. Able to sling balls of fire at targets, these monsters can become a threat both in close-range and long-range. Rank C

Really? Another monster. Give me a break.

We were exhausted from that last battle and too annoyed to want to actually fight something else. While I would rather avoid it, considering how it was blocking our path, it would probably be best if we go-

“Norder Style: White Dragon’s Descent.”

An explosion, neither from us nor the golem. Instead of lightning, ice, or magma, a cloud of dust was now covering our path where the golem had stood. As Tasianna blew the dust cloud away with her wind magic, a new silhouette suddenly appeared.

Instead of a golem, it was a person. A woman, in fact. Armored in armor so white it could blind you, a woman around her late twenties with hair similar to a Scandinavian stood before us. In her hand was an iridescent, ivory spear adorned in silver scales too beautiful for this world, stuck in the ground.

Pulling it out as if it was butter, she skillfully twisted it so fast it produced a vacuum, sending all the dust around her away, leaving only the sight of the women standing in the remains of that magma golem. Brushing her long hair to the side, she opened her eyes.

“Princess Hestia, it is my honor to-Hold on, you aren't my young aunt,” the woman in a knight’s armor suddenly blurted out.

Aunt?

She tilted her head for a moment before retrieving a book from her belt, turning pages until she landed on the one she wanted. She pointed at one area before looking at me, then back at the book, then back at me. “… Uhm, perchance, are you perhaps, Miss Saori Segawa?”

“… Yes, that is my name.” I was so befuddled by the situation that I answered without thinking.

“… Oooh, so you’re the kids’, ooohhh… Why do you smell like Princess Hestia, Segawa-Sensei?”

Huh?

…

“Hold on, the lass is a dragon PRINCESS?!” Grimnir shouted in disbelief.

… What?

Profile:

Name:   Tasianna Marina Silverpon

Level: 66

Race: Wind Elf

Age: 88 Years

Job:   Fae Whisperer Level: 15/15

Status:

Health:

13191/3191 (+1073)

Mana:

9404/9404 (+3895)

Strength:

895 (+264)

Intelligence:

3457 (+1086)

Vitality:

993 (+300)

Wisdom:

2530 (+641)

Agility:

3108 (+930)

Stamina:

3289/3289 (+1811)

Effects:

[Elvenized (Major)]

Skill Points:

3650

Skill:

Magic skills and related:

[Fairy Magic] [Arcane Mind Lv. 10] [Ice Magic Lv. 5] (+1)

[Water Magic Lv. 10] [Torrent Magic Lv. 5] (+4) [Water Amp]

[Water Magic Efficiency] [Wind Magic Lv. 10] [Wind Amp]

[Wind Magic Efficiency] [Storm Magic Lv. 4] (+3)

[Synergist’s Oath Lv. 6] (+3)

[Chant Revocation Lv. 10] [Silent Casting Lv. 9] (+2)

[Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 5] (+2) [Mental Stability Lv. 3] (+1)

[Mental Warfare Lv. 5] [Fluid Cast Lv. 2] (+1)

[Continuous Cast Lv. 2] (+1) [Delayed Cast Lv. 1] [Multi-Cast Lv. 5] (+4)

Senses and movement skills:

[Silence Lv. 2] (+1) [Accuracy Correction Lv. 8] (+2)

[Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 8] (+1) [Prediction Lv. 7] (+1)

[Danger Perception Lv. 7] (+1) [Enhanced Vision Lv. 7] (+2)

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 6] (+1)

[Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 8] (+1)

[Night Vision Lv. 6] [Tracking Lv. 3] (+2) [Presence Killer Lv. 6]

[Evasion Lv. 10] (+2) [Acrobatic Lv. 9] (+2) [Flight Acceleration Lv. 8] (+2)

[Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 7] (+2) [Concentration Lv. 10] (+2)

[Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 3] (+2)

Resistance:

[Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 1] (New) [Absolute Pain Tolerance] (New)

[Abnormal Status Nullification] (New)[Mana Leak Resistance Lv. 10]

[Ice Resistance Lv. 6] (+4) [Lightning Resistance Lv. 2] (+1)

[Lava Resistance Lv. 5] (New)

[Holy Resistance Lv. 8] (+1) [Inferno Resistance Lv. 5] (New)

[Torrent Resistance Lv. 1] (New) [Earth Resistance Lv. 7] (+1)

[Storm Resistance Lv. 2] (+1) [Dark Resistance Lv. 7] (+1)

Stat growth and related:

[Health Recovery Lv. 1] (New) [Stamina Recovery Lv. 5] (+2)

[Enhanced Health Growth Lv. 1] (New)

[Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 2] (+1)

[Enhanced Mana Growth Lv. 9] (+2)

[Enhanced Mana Capacity Lv. 8] (+2)

[Enhanced Intelligence Growth Lv. 8] (+2)

[Enhanced Intelligence Enforcement Lv. 6] (+2)

[Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 1] (New)

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv.7] (+1)

[Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 4] (+1)

[Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 7] (+2)

[Enhanced Agility Enforcement Lv. 4] (+1)

[Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 4] (+1)

[Enhanced Stamina Enforcement Lv. 2]

Others:

[Singing Lv. 5] [Dancing Lv. 3] [Identify Blocker Lv. 10]

[Identify Lv. 10] (+2) [Cooking Lv. 9] (+1) [Dismantle Lv. 8] (+3)

[Herbalist Lv. 7] (+1) [Alchemy Lv. 2] (+1) [Brewing Lv. 7] (+2)

[Sewing Lv. 3] (+1) [Battle Mind Lv. 6] (+2)

[Terror Aura Lv. 3] (+2) [Fae Talk Lv. 1] (New) [Royal Etiquette Lv. 7] (+1)

[Elvenize Lv. 10] [Frost Body Lv. 2] (+1) [Cryokinesis] [Telepathy]

Spell List:

Custom spells:

[Create Water] [Greater Create Water] [Marine Lungs] [Ocean’s Blast]

[Aifli eir Vintral (Fairy of Winter)]

[Tor Eiclere’s Finulaflei (Ice Age’s Paradise)]

Ice spells:

[Ice Spike] [Frozen Shield] [Icicle Gust] [Glacial Protection]

[Winter’s Golem]

Water spells:

[Water Ball] [Water Wall] [Water Bolt] [Cleanse] [Protective Water]

[Droplet Torrent] [Aqua Prison] [Aqua Beam] [Torrential Rain]

[Ocean Healing] [Azure Blade] [Sapphire Membrane]

[Kraken’s Destruction]

Wind spells:

[Wind Bullet] [Wind Cutter] [Air Shield] [Wind Slash]

[Swift Winds] [Wind Blast] [Featherfall] [Aerial Blitz] [Tornado Bullet]

[Sylphid’s Cloak] [Tailwind] [Cyclone Madness]

Titles:

[Hestia’s Retainer]

A note from AbyssRaven

Welp, Saori just saw that. Poor fenrir.

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Chapter 178: Student Discussion.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has risen from [Level 3] to [Level 4]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 650 skill points

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Job [Crimson-Scaled Dreadgiver] has risen from [Level 6] to [Level 10]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Lightning Magic Lv. 3] [Storm Magic Lv. 3] [Long-Range Enhancement Lv. 4] [Mental Warfare Lv. 5] [Lava Resistance Lv. 3] [Inferno Resistance Lv. 4] gained

Magic gained:   [Levin Core] [Tailwind]

“Levin Core,” I murmured. A purple magic circle materialized in the middle of slazzanbals, invoking a giant ball of contained electricity. At first, the ball only floated above those salamanders, doing nothing, but after a small delay, electricity began to arc from it, attacking anything close to the core as lightning chained from one monster unto the other.

The damage wasn’t the highest, but it attacked automatically like a tower defense game, so it had its use. Although this did give the salamanders a chance to shoot their magma spit at my current party and me, I sent them back at the salamanders with a few accurate [Wind Blast]s.

“U-Unbelievable, how fast can you cast? That was seven simultaneous casts all at once, accurate and powerful enough to shoot those magma balls back and it didn’t even look like you had any troubles with the casting lag,” one of Saori’s students, Nishio the bespectacled mage, watched me with bafflement, commenting on how I dispatched the group of slazzanbals. He then attached my ID on his party bracelet, inspecting my whole profile in the process. “Honestly, I can’t help but feel a bit envious. In one year, you’ve made far more progress than we did. Even Sensei is at a far higher level. You said you two were only D ranks? How are your Quest points?”

“Yeah, uhm, our total was something like four D points, one E, 24 Fs, and three Gs,” I recounted the number of Quests points our party accumulated. Now that I think about it, maybe we should have taken a few Quests during our training week. Aurora really is lazy about doing Quests since our main financial sources were the herbs from Tasianna’s garden and the restaurant. “That should a be a total of-”

“Ten Ds, one E, and three Gs, if we convert the F points into Ds at a rate of four-to-one. To get to C rank, you need 40 D points, so if we look at how to get to that goal in the most efficient way, then gaining 30 Es and 58 F points would be for the best since F and E rank Quests are far more common. Es can be converted into Ds at a two-to-one ratio, so cut down at the total F rank Quests you need to do by supplementing it with Es. With your strength, I think you should be able to ‘farm’ that up quickly enough,” Nishio concluded, informing me of, in his opinion, the most optimal ranking strategy.

Aside from getting Ellaine up to E rank as fast as possible, we haven’t actually dabbled too much into Questing. We said we would rank up to C as fast as possible, but I guess we kinda slacked on the homework.

“Would that be the best way?” I questioned at first, but then I wondered how fast he made those calculations. “Actually, do you have a calculator with you, or how did you come to that conclusion that fast, Nishio-san? On the spot, even.”

Instead of the person on hand, Tamae-chan, the leader of The Magical Biscuits, answered for him as she clapped his back. “Do you remember the second party we mentioned? Well, Nishio-kun and a girl called Haruka-chan control our finances as well as our Quest progression. The two top scorers in our last midterm’s math section made sure we wouldn’t have any issues with our numbers game.”

Instead of smiling, Nishio simply shrugged his shoulders at Tamae’s praises. “That was when I needed to learn complicated equations and formulas to enter the university my parents chose for me. This is just simple math and then assessing the time investment and risk factors, nothing special. Even our two game addicts came to the same conclusions.”

Nishio then pointed at the blue screen projected from his party bracelets, pointing at my stats and skills to Tamae. “If you want to be a merchant in this world, then math is important, but our job is to do whatever the church wants us to do. What we instead need is this profile Hestia-san was able to accumulate in a single year. Just look at how fast she handled those C rank slazzanbals. We needed the five of us to deal with one, while she handled all of them by herself. The last group, too. And the one before. She has been destroying anything in our path since we broke camp.”

That was the shortest summary of what we’ve been doing for, oh, I don’t know how many hours. When we woke up this morning, I noticed Saori, Tasianna, and Grimnir losing Health over the party screen. I panicked a bit when Grimnir began losing a good amount of his Health, telling everybody we needed to move. I especially panicked when I saw Grimnir’s health at 10% with [Burned (Moderate)].

In my rush to find them, I was just killing anything that came into our path as quickly as possible while Ellaine led Talon and Saori’s students in the rear with Quatre. That was how I managed to finally level up after two weeks of grinding. I eventually slowed down when Tamae noticed Saori’s, Tasianna’s, and Grimnir’s levels going up, meaning they made it through whatever they were fighting. I couldn’t describe how relieved we all were.

Speaking of levels, Saori’s students hadn't been idle during their time on Peolynca…

Name: Tamae Tsuji Level: 45 Job: Holy Priestess

Health: 1390/1390 Mana: 3095/3095 Stamina: 970/970

Name: Nishio Kudo Level: 53 Job: Six-Elemental Sorcerer

Health: 1556/1556 Mana: 4512/4512 Stamina: 1140/1140

Name: Misaki Kawano Level: 52 Job: Sniper

Health: 1705/1705 Mana: 1564/1564 Stamina: 2021/2021

Name: Kazumi Hoshino Level: 47 Job: Dagger Rogue

Health: 2091/2091 Mana: 1109/1109 Stamina: 1911/1911

Name: Kohaku Kobayashi Level: 50 Job: Water-Elemental Runeslayer

Health: 2447/2447 Mana: 1989/1989 Stamina: 2355/2355

In general, all of them were around Ellaine’s level, but their stats were higher since they cheated, like Saori and I did, by buying the stat growth and enforcement skills ever since they were level one. That’s right, since they were all otherworldly visitors, they were able to not only get access to the SP system but also an auto-translator from their [Otherworldly Visitor] title. That meant they didn’t need to learn Common outside of writing.

Last night, Ellaine, the students, and I pretty much talked about everything we experienced, blocking Talon from hearing anything with a [Air Shield]. While they were fascinated and horrified by my [Dragon Hatchling] and [Young Dragon] life in the Belzac forest and Ellaine was interested in Earthen culture, I was more curious about what happened to them in the Holy Capital of the Church of Aurena, Aureolis.

“They practically imprisoned us,” Nishio stated bluntly after I asked him to go into more detail about what they told me yesterday. “You said you read manga and light novels, right, Hestia-san? While I’m not a fiction reader, Kohaku-san, who has a mangaka as a father, explained to me everything I needed to know. The tropes, at least. Well, we were supposedly summoned here by the church under the authority of the Goddess of Light, Aurena, and trained specifically to defeat the lord or king of the demonkins.”

“And I told you guys that Aurena told me she had nothing to do with that. That’s why I’m not only curious but also a bit wary of what the church is hiding from you guys.” Not only did I tell the heroes about my experiences in this world, I also informed them of how I got to Peolynca in the first place and why I became a dragon. We had a few laughs until I mentioned my previous talks about Aurena, and how she was only responsible for my summoning, not theirs. As I expected when I told them this, they were not thrilled.

I continued, “This ‘Yorshka,’ she’s a knight of the church, right? I remember seeing her and… well, I guess she seemed okay on first impressions? Do you trust her?”

Speaking about Yorshka, I do remember a white-haired woman among them when I first saw the students. I even detected some sweet smell coming from their way, and since none of the students nor Talon had that smell on them, I could only conclude it was that woman. The only times where this smell had appeared before were with the dragonewt Priscilla and the drake Cernust. No other time. Not even Farron — who supposedly is married to a dragonkin of some sort — had that smell on him.

Well, it’s just a guess. Two examples is a pretty small sample size so I’d rather not spread wrong information to Tamae or Nishio when I myself am not sure about them. Besides, if she was a dragonkin, then it was for the best that I keep quiet. Cernust didn’t mention if it was a rule or not, but he did make it sound like a custom. And I get it. If a dragonkin wishes to hide themselves among other races using a transformation skill, then I should respect it, like I expect people to do the same for me.

Although, there was another reason. According to the student’s description and the couple of seconds of memory I had of her, she did remind me of Priscilla. Not to generalize since they both had the same hair color, but I’m pretty sure their chins and noses looked the same. There was also the case that she was supposedly an A rank adventurer and a dragoon like Farron. If this Yorshka is Farron’s wife and Priscilla’s mom, then I need to keep my mouth shut since I promised them I’d keep quiet about them.

“Well, when Lady Yorshka hired Talon-san, she did describe you in detail and that she was looking for you. In fact, I am even starting to wonder why she brought us to Cedaraille in the first place. But… I find it hard to believe that she would be involved in this church’s conspiracy with how she acted around us. She’s been practically training us by herself, pushing us to survive so we can go back home. She’s even been learning our interest, asking about Earth,” Tamae said sweetly.

Home, huh…

While I was thinking about this possibility, Specs spoke his suspicions out, “If Aurena didn’t summon us, then who did? We should worry about this fact now, Tamae-san. We five are the only ones from our class who know this critical information. While I understand Yorshka has been good to us — and I’m grateful for her guidance — we need to look out more for our own interests, and that means being wary of our benefactors. If she is involved, then I can’t imagine what she will do about it. Hestia-san, are you sure that Aurena said what you told us?”

Making sure Talon wasn’t around us, that he was still scouting around with his illusion magic, I replied, “Aurena admitted to summoning me to Peolynca so I could fix and rebuild her church. Meaning, something is wrong enough that it makes Aurena not like the people leading Aureolis, such as the pope. There are two possibilities. Either Aurena doesn’t have her followers’ best interests in mind and is having me do something morally wrong, or the church is corrupt to the point that their goddess resorts to summoning a poor dead girl’s soul to do her bidding.”

“Honestly, both options sound terrible…” Tamae looked at me with pity. Not only was she taller but also older, making me feel a bit embarrassed I said that. At this point in time, she was 19, only three years older if we counted my current dragonewt age, which was 16.

While I currently believed Aurena meant well, I couldn’t fully trust her. It’s just natural; I don’t know anything about Aurena except for the persona she’s been using during our talks.

“Well, it’s not that bad if you look at it positively. I got the chance for a second life, I got to meet Saori, and I’m also the first and only idol of Peolynca. Always look on the bright side of life, wheuh, wheuh, wheeuh, wheeuh ♫” Gotta stay positive. Looking at the negatives only would just make you depressed.

“First idol? Hestia-chan, were you a-oh wait! I think I heard your voice before, wait, where was it, oh! When we first arrived in Cedaraille, I think I heard somebody singing with your voice at a street food vendor. Let the music play, let it enter your soul ♫ That song is still stuck in my head, ehehe,” Tamae suddenly mentioned, singing a part of my newest song.

Raising a frown, I couldn’t help but feel baffled at how close she was to meeting us about a week ago. “Are you kidding me? Ahem,

Let the music play, let it enter your soul ♫

Rest your weary body here ♫

To a tune or melody ♫

Listen now, to a soothing remedy ♫

Listen now, let your stress disappear ♫

Let my song reach you, fill your heart with wonder and more ♫

Gaze up to the blue sky ♫

To smile to the light ♫

Listen now, you know what is right ♫

Listen now, don’t need to look so wry ♫”

“Oh, yes, that’s the song I remember! W-Wow, we were that close to meeting Sensei, Ellaine, and you, Hestia-chan.”

“Actually, Hestia-san, didn't you say that you were in Firwood and did some odd Quests there? When we visited the temple there, the High Bishop mentioned a priestess dealing with major issues concerning two nearby villages. Could that priestess have been you?” Nishio raised that point.

The only high bishop I knew was Theodore, which meant our party missed each other about twice until now. You know, I knew our party had bad luck, but could it please stop doing something like this, worrying Saori to death. Fighting giant monsters and then making her miss her students twice, that’s just dumb.

Well, after I confirmed his question, the girls responsible for dismantling the slazzanbals were done. Ellaine, Misaki, Kazumi, and Kohaku came back with the materials. From what I could see, each of the students was able to use [Storage Magic] to store small objects, but their total mana kept them from storing the amounts that I could. After we packed everything together, we continued walking the path Talon pointed out for us.

Ellaine is getting along with them quite well.

To my surprise, Ellaine was getting along with those three aforementioned girls pretty well, almost as if they became friends after a single camping night. Although I was here, Ellaine was constantly asking them about Earth and how they got so strong in their one year being in Peolynca.

Honestly, I felt a bit envious with how casually Ellaine was speaking with them. Like, not about skills or SP, not that stuff. She was talking with them about fashion, technology, customs, even drinks. Didn’t they just meet with each other? How can she talk so casually with them?

“Took you long enough.” At the end of the path, Talon was sitting on a boulder, looking at us impatiently. As an illusionist, most of his combat effectiveness came with his illusions and the occasional dark spell he would shoot out, so he preferred to avoid confrontations as best as he could. “The area ahead is a watering hole for a pack of rachycephalarus. Territorial, but they don’t have a good sense of smell. Let’s just get by without fighting.”

Talon was single-minded when it came to finding that Shiterno priest Keith. In fact, he even informed me that he and the students entered the dungeon later than Aurora, but knew a way to get down to the magma floors if you were brave enough to do so. The method to get down as fast as they did was to use the paths the monsters would use to dungeon break.

From floors one to nine, there were hidden holes for adventurers and monsters to skip floors with, although they weren't documented on the maps since cartographers like Talon preferred to maintain an information advantage for their main profession, such as Talon and his treasure hunting business. Yup, that’s right, Talon was the person who made the maps we’ve been using to get down here.

After you get to floor ten, things would become more difficult due to the felgheists and felmights; however, the way to get down to floor 14 without any issues was to simply jump off the cliffs. Crazy as it sounded, the dungeon allowed monsters to move from floor to floor through the “ground-less” ravine Ellaine nearly fell down into. The only concern with this plan was the fall, which was deep.

Talon mentioned he hated fire, so he had only ventured through these floors once before now to try and overcome his fear. Didn’t work, but he learned a bit about the local fauna.

Now, how did all of them get down here before my party? Well, as Tamae and Nishio already mentioned to me, Yorshka was a dragoon, and supposedly a damn good one to boot. She used [Air Walk] and wind spells to transport them down, meaning they avoided all the troubles we faced. Talk about "knowledge is power," right?

“Mirror Image,” Talon murmured after finishing the chant for his illusion spell, casting a large mirror-like foil before us. Pointing his stick towards the cave on the other side, we began walking over there after Ellaine and Nishio cast [Air Shield] on everybody to dampen our footsteps.

As if some wizard cast a mass-invisibility spell on us, none of the large herbivore monsters noticed us at all, not even turning their heads around. With wind magic stopping sounds from going out and illusion magic preventing them from seeing us, we were able to sneak past them without any effort. We weren’t even using our sneak skills like Saori would have to.

Talon mentioned that this was how he guided adventurer groups through the dungeon, preventing dangerous encounters. Now, illusion magic only tricked the eyes and mind, but the other senses like hearing and smelling were still a problem. That’s why he liked partnering up with wind mages who could cast [Air Shield].

Although, every time he used his illusion spells, he restricted himself to [Mirror Image] and [Myriad Distractions] — a spell to create certain images like that toad he made to scare me. He hadn’t shown any of his other tricks, except for a few [Dark Magic] spells he had as his disposal. And for this reason, he was mostly acting as a scout and guide instead of a combatant.

“I shall leave this to you,” he said humbly. His behavior could be rough, but he knew his manners, at least.

After passing through two areas without any issue, which I used to take a lunch break, our party landed in a wide area, like a steppe, with various creatures just living their lives in this environment. When we tried to sneak past, we accidentally triggered a dormant magma golem who was sleeping under the ground. I didn’t expect there to be golems in this dungeon, so I was being a bit careless.

Talon's first instinct was to run, but when the students volunteered to fight it, he constructed a larger [Mirror Image] to further conceal our location. “Hestia-san, let us fight this please,” Nishio said, mentioning he was feeling as if they were leeching off my efforts for far too long now. With Ellaine joining them, six young adventurers rush towards the magma golem.

“Ahh, Quatre, come here, boy,” I summoned Quatre, who had decided to abstain from participating in this battle with Ellaine.

[“Mistress Hestia, I am far too old to be considered a boy. Both my life as a faefolk and the memories imprinted into my soul by this body’s previous owner tell that I cannot be categorized as a pup.”] Seeing as how he was over 100 years old, maybe calling him a boy was a bit rude. Apologizing, I began massaging the big garm’s back, cuddling him in soft fur in the process. It seemed he didn’t mind that too much.

Play some music, parallel minds. Let’s give them some support.

[Music Resonation (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Is this the fated battle, the light shines ♫

It’s blinding my sight ♫

But I’ve gotta hold on, the stage calls ♫

The cries of a thousand, the flames of war will descend ♫”

“Huh, what is that music?!” the blond-haired rogue girl Kazumi turned around to me, voicing her surprise at my sudden [Aerokinesis] activation.

“That’s Hestia-chan’s [Aerokinesis] and [Idol] skills working in tandem. Depending on the song she’s playing, we receive different buffs!” Ellaine explained.

Hestia-chan? H-Hold on, when did Ellaine learn honorifics?!

“Woooo! Nice!” While I was shocked at hearing Ellaine call me “Hestia-chan,” the energetic swordswoman Kohaku shouted in excitement, pointing a thumbs-up at me. “BGM! Battle music! Ahh, that’s the one thing I’ve been sorely missing to make these fights less tense! You’re an RPG player too, right, Hestia-san? Oh man, hey, isn’t this just broken?! Infinite Stamina?!”

“Hey, we’re about to fight! Get into position already and stop trying to die!” Nishio scolded them in anger.

“Sorry, sorry, Nishio-san. Just take it as me feeling my sword arm twitching in anticipation! Kotodama, time to get to work!” Looking apologetic, Kohaku took out her rune-covered sword before touching one of the runes on it, all in one swift motion. It glowed blue, the same color as a water magic circle, covering the whole sword in a veil of water as the runes on her clothes and skin began to activate in unison. Looking at the amount of buffs she had on the party screen, I remembered why Saori’s students were considered your typical light novel “Heroes.”

Dwarven Runeslayer]

The user is unable to expel mana from outside their body. Enchantments, parameter boosting spells, and runes have improved efficiency and cost less mana to maintain. User is 50% less susceptible to magic damage

Unique skills. Cheats. Call them however you want. When Saori’s students were summoned to this world, each of them were given a unique skill to point at what their innate talents were and what they should focus on. At least, that’s what the church used to justify their training regimens.

Nishio and Tamae, the mages of The Magical Biscuits, began slinging buffs on Kohaku, Kazumi, Misaki, and Ellaine as they took their positions in this battle. As expected of SP users, they were casting chantlessly and using multiple magic circles at once, although they seemed to be delaying each spell instead of casting them simultaneously.

As the C rank magma golem made its first attack by slamming its foot on the approaching Kohaku, I took a look at the tattoo-like rune on her neck. Talon seemed to have noticed and explained it to me. “[Runic Tattoo].”

“Hmm?”

“Runic tattoos, that is what's on the girl’s neck. The precursor to the dwarven weapon and armor runes; they’ve mostly fallen out of favor today, but what can you do if you can’t learn from a runesmith?” Talon then showed me a glowing tattoo on the scarred side of his face. “Cold things help dull the pain, but it’s inconvenient to learn [Ice Magic] or bring lots of ice with you everywhere you go, so I learned this after begging a dwarf to teach me. Human stubbornness can even best a dwarf’s on good days.”

I looked at how Kohaku was fighting and how many runes she was benefiting from, dashing around the field like some anime swordswoman. It was impressive, just like the runes Farron showed me. “What do you mean they went out of favor? That doesn’t seem weak.”

“Yeah, true, that’s why they’re good and help me earn some money when I can. Problem is that they require a lot of ingredients, just like runes used on normal equipment, to make a single functional one, but they break the moment the tattoo gets damaged. You scratch it off with your claws and I would need to reapply it. Runes on armor and weapons are resilient, only breaking if the weapon does too.”

I wonder if Grimnir could apply some tattoos, too? Huh, another point which would make papa and mama freak out.

When I returned to the fight at hand, it looked like it was going well. In general, all six fighters were around the lower bracket of C rank adventurers, and the students especially were showing their experience by turning this C rank into fodder. Ellaine also was fighting better than usual, more confidently and aggressively, using what Saori, Tasianna, and I had taught her to the fullest as she synchronized with the others.

“Yahoooo, magma golem, how about you look AT ME!” Kohaku shouted as she performed a sword ability, knocking the golem onto the ground with multiple powerful strikes from her water-cladded runeblade.

When the golem tried to throw a magma ball at her, Ellaine came to her rescue by quickly casting [Terra Wall] to redirect its aim, causing it to miss the swordswoman by a mile. She then cast [Earthen Shackles], pinning the monster to the floor and providing an opening for the rogue of the group.

Tricky Kitty

User can expend mana to create up to 4 [Dusk Clones] that the user may control the autonomy of, which effectiveness depends on the skill's level. User can avoid death once per day. Increases Agility-based skills and abilities. Ability to identify weak spots through observation and increase own damage to these spots. Gives the user the scent of a feline and some of their improved senses

Five Kazumis began climbing on the golem’s back, jumping over the small magma rivers flowing on its skin. Locating the brittle spots on the golem’s body, she and her four clones sliced into them, marking them before whistling for the next set of attacks.

Enchanter's Oath

A skill that promotes supportive actions. Improves the effectiveness of stat-boosting spells and enchanted items. Reduces the mana costs of all actions and arcane corruption accumulation

Samurai Distinction: Yumi

User can expend mana to create mana arrows of any element they wish. The longer the user readies the bow, the more powerful the shot will become. The user will always ignore 25% of a target's Vitality when the arrow hits

The green-haired Misaki was wielding a large bow in the form of a yumi, a japanese bow, having knocked an arrow made completely from water-elemental mana on it. Tamae and her [Enchanter’s Oath] made synergist-based spells far stronger than usual, and while she usually acted as a healer for the party, she didn’t need to with me around. Not like they needed it in the first place.

After receiving the signal, Misaki shot five arrows with pinpoint precision in less than ten seconds, despite how hard it must be to wield that yumi. Each arrow has the power of a sniper rifle behind them, completely piercing through the golem’s body. With one last shot, she destroyed the magic core holding this monster together.

Nice.

Nishio, as his Main Job stated, managed to learn all six elements and was able to apply these buffs to his allies, but this really wasn’t the place for him to demonstrate his power. I mean, I was already scary with the amount of spells I could cast, so how scary would it be to be able to cast all elements?

Sovereign of the Elements

Mana cost of using spells from the primary tetra-elements, fire, earth, wind, water, are decreased by 30%. User can weaken a target's elemental resistance by hitting them with a corresponding element. Able to cast two spells at once and mix these spells together to improve them at the cost of mana

Since normal magma and fire didn’t do much to me, I volunteered to dig out the shattered core. “Was it necessary to break it like this? I could have easily just pulled it out intact.”

Nishio looked at me with confusion before realizing the meaning of my words. “… Sorry, I forgot about that. A whole golem core would fetch a good price at the mage’s guild, but we’re more used to selling the shards.”

Mages guild? Hmmm, Cedaraille should have a mages guild, right? Hmm, I think I’m forgetting something, something to do with Master Kush… Naaaaah, if it’s something I forgot, then it couldn’t have been important.

After harvesting anything valuable from the golem,Talon suggested we take a break for everybody to rest and eat. I agreed, as did the others. I honestly couldn’t wait to try Tamae’s cooking, which, I find hard to admit, is almost as good as Saori’s, maybe even better.

However, when we were about to take a break, something nasty came crawling.

“Talon! Old friend, I see you are doing fine, and with a group of young fine ladies, too! Danterno has blessed you through the years, I see.” Walking around the steppe all alone, shouting to us the moment he saw us, he rushed over as if he was seeing a good friend for the first time in years. It was none other than Talon’s enemy: Keith Svonnweidher.

“Keith!” Talon almost growled that name out. His eyes flared as they locked onto the smiling Danterno worshipper.

“Ahh, don’t give me that look, old friend. I apologized so dearly for not being with you when you needed it the most; however, know that I prayed for your parents’ and siblings’ souls when I heard of the news. I am sure they are doing just fine in the God of Fire’s embrace, becoming enlightened under his service.” Keith's words almost sounded so genuinely happy for Talon, but the latter became even more agitated as seconds passed. When I saw Talon’s face contort even more, I felt a bit reluctant to stop him, until…

“Ahh, but I guess those prayers won’t reach our God this time, right, Talon? I feel your anger, my friend. I can sympathize! Our reunion must be fate, old friend, for it is time for us to finally take everything in our own hands to rise and grow! To free our God from the devious clutches of the Goddess of Water, Pleisa!”

Free?

“You bastard, shut u-Huh?” As Talon was about to jump on the priest, I grabbed his shoulder, looking at him seriously. “Unhand me, Hestia. I don’t care at this point. Paint me a murderer, paint me a sociopath. I don’t give a fuck. I will get my fucking revenge on this guy!”

Not wanting Keith to hear this, I spoke with him through [Telepathy], [“I know that, but, just trust me, alright? Trust me on this. My instincts are giving me bad vibes from this guy, far more than you think. Just trust me on this, alright. I will give you a chance to cave this guy’s face in, but give me a chance to speak with him first. He couldn’t be here for something simple, right?”]

Looking more calm after I stared at him, with the help of [Benevolent Aura], he gave me a confused but suspicious look. “What are you planning?”

“Just trust me on this, alright? You’re the adult here, so try to control your emotions a bit until I’m done, okay?” I winked before letting his arm go, walking towards Keith.

I can’t believe I’ll be using this for the first time.

Shiterno and his followers have been a thorn in my side for a long time now, and I hate it when people think I’m a Danterno worshipper just because of a fire mage. It hasn’t happened as often as it could thanks to my white robe, but from my conversations with Peolyncians like Ellaine, Tasianna, and Farron, people could make that assumption if I didn’t have it on. Talon, for example, thought me a Shiterno worshipper when we first met.

So, it goes without saying that what I’m about to do is going to be incredibly painful.

Divine Inferno

A title granted to a mortal recognized by the God of Fire, whose control has been usurped by the owner. Boosts proficiency gain of magics based on Fire Element, while also boosting their power. Decreases Water Element proficiency. The possessor of this title will also gain immunity to any fire spell that he/she cast

Taking off my white robe and Aurena necklace to put them inside my storage, I used [Pyrokinesis] to replace them with a fiery robe using my scale-dust, imitating the one Keith is wearing. “The [Divine Inferno]. That is the title God Danterno gave me. Speak, what happened to him?”

“W-What?!”

“Ahhhh, the Crimson Saintess!!!”

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Chapter 179: The Goals of the Church of Danterno.

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Crimson Saintess?

Those blessed by the gods and chosen for a task were usually called either champions or saints. Champions would be responsible for handling Divine Quests for their patron god, similar to how Aurena tasked me to restructure her church, while saints were like preachers, delivering the words of their gods to people around them.

Saints were pretty much like preachers, there to lead causes for the followers of their church or to demonstrate the teachings of the church. Theodore mentioned Aurena’s saints would travel the land or stay inside one church or temple to heal wounds and soothe souls, aiming to convey the benevolence of the Goddess of Light. They were the mortal representatives of their god’s ideal.

So, what exactly does a saint of the God of Fire, Danterno, convey?

“Why are you calling me ‘the Crimson Saintess?’” I asked Keith, baffled when he called me that.

The only time when anybody called me “Crimson Saintess” was when I was still living in Carine Village, and that was ‘cause I was acting as an impromptu priestess for a whole month. I gave out sermons, [Prayers]s, and also healed anybody in need pro bono, well, until Ellaine called me out for it.

Keith’s eyes widened as I said that, making me nervous that he would become hostile, but it was unwarranted. “Oh no, Saintess, do our God’s words not reach you either? Ahh, our faith has declined that much. All our efforts to spread our God's power and words to better people, to purify them from sins and weakness like no other Origin God could. All for nothing, as the witch that is Plesia dares to weaken an opposing Origin God. Oh woe-”

As Keith continued his overdramatic preaching, Talon suddenly grabbed my arm, unperturbed by my robe of fire heating up his arm. I turned those flames momentarily into white flames, so it shouldn’t hurt him, but it seems he couldn’t stop shaking as if he was in pain.

His glare was piercing, as if he couldn’t believe what I just did. “What the hell is the-”

[“I TOLD you to TRUST me.”]

“Guck! Argh!” Recoiling backwards, Talon let go of my arm to hold his head, pain distorting his anger-filled face.

While he was huffing loudly, I continued talking to him through telepathy. [“Just trust me, Talon. Like I warned you, this would be surprising, but still, just trust me on this. If you have an issue with that, then fine, but it’s not like you can do anything right now. Just remember this to calm yourself; I am 100% a priestess of the Goddess Aurena, and I am 100% not a fan of Shiterno or his followers.”]

[Telepathy] wasn’t just a communication ability but it also served as a method to inflict a mental attack. The wargs and garms from Belzac used shouts and weird sounds to discombobulate you, leading into a finishing blow or just to weaken your focus. Talon making a fuss now was expected, so having my parallel minds ready the moment it happened made the process quick and painless… for me.

“-oh, but our faith and growth have always been weak.” I couldn’t hear what Kieth just said with Talon distracting me, but I continued listening now, wanting to learn what happened to Shiterno. “However, we are blessed that the pantheon itself hasn’t been restricted, Lady Saintess. We have heard from Jistrum and the other Gods of Fire that God Danterno has blessed and appointed a new saint to lead our faith. Blessed with new flames, I was informed that we should seek them out. ‘Close. Find. New flame. Crimson Saint-’ was all I could hear before a terrible headache stopped me. Oooh, so short was the message, meaning my faith and power weren’t enough!”

So I got that nickname from Shiterno’s subordinates.

Aurena did mention when she sent that divine message that she couldn’t fit everything she wanted to say in, otherwise my brain would explode. Probably literally. She managed to send me a pretty long one due to connection to her through [The Light], but this guy should just be a normal fire magic practitioner. Although, I do wonder how strong a Subordinate God is compared to an Origin God.

He continued, “There was so little information for us to work with! However, I knew of this dungeon! Just like us, the saint must be drawn to the powerful fire coursing through the veins of this dungeon. I knew I had to bring my disciples here to welcome the new saint, to aid them in their travels, and to create a place fit for training and to enact our faith’s teachings. Ahh, how could I have known it would be a saintess?! Ah, for that, I apologize, Lady Saintess. It is an honor to finally meet someone so auspicious!”

It seemed he hadn't seen me in this form when I saved Grimnir from that Slazzigula. As I could see that Ellaine and the students were confused at what was happening, I had my parallel minds inform them of my intentions.

Ignoring the location of his disciples for now, I directly went into the meat of this matter. “Yes, a great honor, I guess. Anyway, I didn’t receive any information on God Danterno after he gave me… my blessing. I am vastly ignorant of the current state of the mighty God of Fire. So, I ask you, Mister Keith, what has God Danterno’s Subordinate Gods told you.”

“Of course, Lady Saintess, it is my role to do so. However, excuse me for my suspicion, but, would it be possible to see these new flames foretold in the divine message? I ask you, please, bless me with this learning opportunity!” Shrugging, I consented and produced a white and purple flame on each hand with the snap of my fingers. Overly excited at what he is seeing, Keith bellowed out his elation, watching the flickering flame like art. “Beautiful! Such colors. It is kept alive with mana but, even then, the beauty of these flames is entrancing. Oooh, what form and movements would it make if we were to burn something down with it?”

Burn? Burn?! Is that honestly all this idiot can think of how to use them?

“Lady Saintess would it possible to lear-”

“Hold on, were your first thoughts honestly how to use these two flames to burn things?” I asked incredulously, extinguishing the flame immediately to stop him from staring at them like a fanboy.

“Why, no! Of course, not!” he said, calming me down a bit. “My first thought was how beautiful they were as they flickered in the air! My second thought was how magnificent they will appear if used to purify the land of the tainted and sick! The homes of the corrupt and sinners!”

…Well, okaaaaaay. U-Uhm, maybe he worded that a bit too dramatically. Maybe-

“And the lives of the infidels worshipping the water witch! The grand deceiver of the Origin Gods! For giving them her prayers, they are responsible for violating our God’s divine rights! In ashes they shall repent! By fire, they will be purified! May Jistrum and the whole fire pantheon grow in strength with our offerings!”

Okay, forget it, this guy is a complete lunatic! A complete fucking psycho!

“Shut up!”

Argh, scheiße, I know how you feel but-

However, it wasn’t Talon who shouted but one of the students. In fact, none of the five looked even remotely fine with what was said.

“You’re just another bunch of selfish fanatics!” Kazumi, the most energetic of the group, shouted loudly as she pointed her dagger at Keith. “You’re just like every other self-absorbed asshole, trying to justify your actions using somebody else! You don’t know anything about your damn gods, and you’re trying to cause trouble to the people following them? I’ve had enough of this! Sorry, Hestia-chan, but this asshole is a bombshell ready to explode inside some village, killing the people inside, and leaving only tears and ashes behind!”

Kohaku pulled out her sword, her water rune activated with a simple touch of her fingers. “And we’ll be the ones to have to fix things again, ordered by those condescending priests to do their jobs while they reap the rewards after we leave to fix another problem. Whether it’s some minor deity or one of the major gods, it’s just trouble after trouble since we got here.”

“I agree, let’s unroot the problem now,” Misaki agreed, unsheathing her bow and nocking an arrow on it in one quick motion. “We have enough issues we need to deal with already. Bandit raids, monster infestations, a random cult looking for blood offerings. What's another Danterno cultist preaching his crazed teachings? Tama-chan. Nishio-kun. Your orders?”

Scheiße! I did not expect them to be this bloodthirsty. I haven’t even gotten all the information ou-

“Feeble followers of the Church of Aurena! I see your Aurena amulets!” Keith pointed out the amulets the students were wearing, all to share their allegiance towards Aurena’s church, not Aurena herself. They could have taken them off here, but they gave good buffs so it would have been a waste not to.

Keith then spread his arms out, looking even more like a preacher as seconds passed. “Ooooh, you call me, a Danterno faithful, selfish but you do not reflect on yourselves? The Church of Aurena only respects those with money and influence, leaving the common priests and priestesses to scrounge for themselves! Regardless of your faith or talents, without a way to appeal to the high-ranking clergymen, a white-robe commoner can never learn their Goddess’ higher magics! They seek silver and gold for their healing, corrupted by the notion of material goods. They determine for themselves the true religious order of us humans, vying for a kingdom’s and country’s control!”

“You burn people you consider sinners on stakes without even presenting a fair trial or judgement,” Nishio countered, glaring intently at Keith in preparation to fight. “The Church of Aurena might be flawed, but at least some seek to heal and mend, while your church seems to only want to destroy. If you see a sick man, you ‘purify’ them in flames. I didn’t want to generalize, since you fanatics honestly believe you have good intentions, but you are just as mad as the one we met before.”

“Of course our intentions are pure! We are not blinded by physical, perishable concepts! In the beautiful fire of Danterno, fire consumes fire. From trials and tribulations, you shall grow stronger. In flames, your sins and weakness shall be purified, and the person that survives will be granted strength. Weakness is created through stagnation, the lack of progress. Why keep a single old tree in a lone land that never changes, when burning it down to create more life would be better? That is Danterno’s wise teachings. From the ashes, growth will be created for the survivors to reap. Isn’t that right, Talon? Haven’t you grown far stronger than you used to be?”

“…True,” Talon murmured, holding his head down.

“Yes! Your trials have made you wiser, more confident! When your old, crumbling world was destroyed, you were set free from your cage. Your family was set free from this cruel world and must have been granted a spot in the pantheon, to garner strength for their reincarnation. In their ashes, you have risen, Talon! You have found your worth in this world! It is irrelevant if you are a follower of Marsven, my old friend. If you wish to change the world, then come, join me. Help me release God Danterno from his prison!”

Without another word, Talon moved silently towards the overjoyed Keith. “Talon?” I called out for him with eyes widened, but he ignored me.

“Yes, my friend! Hear me, Crimson Saintess — Jistrum, God of War and Carnage, has sent me a divine message! Our fiery God, Danterno, was imprisoned by the witch Plesia, stripped of his almighty power and wisdom for granting us, his followers, knowledge on how to better the world! The Goddess of Deceit, yes, Plesia must pay!” Keith finally spouted what I desperately wanted to hear. “Talon, our meeting must be fate! You have delivered the Crimson Saintess to us, the one the gods have spoken about. The one with flames given to her by our fiery God himself, to aid and teach us lowly practitioners the new power. We shall support her as she leads our faith into a golden age, charging forwards to depose the Goddess of Deceit and to change the world for a better for us fire mages. Talon, joi-”

“FUCKING SHUT UP!” Talon exploded in rage, shouting so loud it caused me goosebumps. Charging towards Keith, the scarred man grabbed the fire priest’s coat and pulled him up, glaring daggers at him with unleashed fury. “You dare speak about my family like that?! You gave me that dysfunctional custom spell, you fucking madman! You gave me a spell to kill myself, thinking I would be thankful to you?! This! THIS! Look at THIS! YOU DID THIS TO ME!”

Talon landed a right hook on Keith’s face, sending him crashing onto the ground as the latter began to spit out blood. Talon stood before the pyromaniac, throwing away the robe he was wearing, unveiling the horrendous burn scars riddled on the right side of his entire body. “You did this to me! It was so bad that only a priest with [Major Heal] could heal me. Even then, I had to live with constant pain to the point I needed to learn runic tattoos just to deaden the pain and have some relief! You BASTARD!”

Without any mercy, Talon stomped on Kieth’s stomach, kicked him in the head, then furiously unleashed punches onto the grounded Keith like a boxer. Talon’s soft, mage hands were unused to the constant physical trauma, the skin on his knuckles splitting apart, bleeding profusely as Talon continued wailing on his old friend. Keith bloated up from the injuries he was sustaining, deforming into a monstrosity.

Talon only stopped when he groaned in pain, falling onto his back as he clutched his hands. The adrenaline might have stopped the pain from reaching his head initially, but it seems like he reached his limit. From the constant attacks, it seemed Talon broke the bones in his hands.

While the students kept their guard up, I rushed forward and began healing Talon. Tears flowed only from his left eye while his right glared at the wheezing Keith with unrestrained anger. Keith then pulled out a potion from under his robe, drank it, and the wounds on his face began to disappear, though not all of them.

“Hopefully that is enough to satisfy you, my old friend. For not helping you, I deserved that,” Keith stated, looking earnest.

“Fuck you.” Once his hands were healed, Talon pulled himself up and unveiled the ritual dagger from its sheath. “You never warned me about that spell. If you had, I wouldn’t have even tried casting it.”

“Ah, that spell… It was my first attempt at a mighty custom spell. It was powerful, no? Hahaha… it seems I have made another mistake in my road to appease my god, to bring the Church of Danterno out of the miserable, declining state it is currently in. Only in death can you forgive me?” Kieth looked at his old friend, almost as if he was asking for forgiveness in this whole matter.

Talon pointed the dagger at Keith, pushing the symbol of Goddess of Water ever closer to his eyes, “No. My revenge won’t stop with only your death. A ritual knife to gut fish to offer to Plesia. I will make sure your soul will reach her first before Ilsaphone. Your death and embarrassment… only then will I feel fulfilled!”

As Talon lunged forward with the knife, [Foresight] warned me of something Keith was hiding under his hand. Without thinking about it, I stepped forward, grabbed Talon around his waist, and pulled him to the side with me. Not a second too soon, as a magic circle emerging from Keith’s hand almost incinerated Talon with a large explosion.

Holding onto Talon like a large chair, I jumped backwards, reuniting with the students, Ellaine, and Quatre, all of them now in combat stances. Keith looked at what was happening, stood back up, slapped the dirt from his robe before addressing me, “Crimson Saintess, come. We have much to do. Leave these infidels to die in this dungeon.”

Baring my teeth for the first time since this meeting, I shoved Talon to the side and stepped forward. My fire robes disappeared as I put my white mage robe back on, finally done with this conversation. “Yeah, how about a no.”

“Saintess?”

“Fuck off, you asshole. Do you think I’ll comply with letting my friend die? In the first place, did you really think I was a Shiterno follower when I was wearing my white mage robe and Amulet of Aurena so brazenly in the open? Yeah, too bad, how about you stop calling me ‘Crimson Saintess’ and how about you tell your stupid gods to fuck off? Shiterno is better off in a cage so he won’t bother me ever again! I am a champion of the Goddess of Light, Aurena!”

“I see…” Keith said solemnly. “… I have lied.”

“Hmm?” I raised an eyebrow.

“I lied when I told you that Jistrum only sent me that small message. For an inferno sorcerer and a priest who has served the Fire pantheon since my childhood, I have a better connection than most. ‘The saint is close. Find the Crimson Saint. Persuade them to join, otherwise, should they rebel, destroy them,’ that was the message,” he answered before pulling out a small red orb. “May your fire serve our strength. Fire consumes FIRE!”

Huh?

In Keith’s right hand, a large magic circle was forming; however, my [Foresight] told me he wasn’t the issue here. [Danger Perception] wasn’t activating, meaning whatever [Foresight] was telling me was of no threat to me, but it might be to everybody else.

“To the side!” Ellaine shouted, pointing her finger at giant fireballs being launched at our location from afar.

“My disciples and I might have been separated during the appearance of that spider, but we found each other soon enough. Jistrum informed us that you were here, so I searched while they hid, ready to act on my command.”

Oh, maybe I should have asked about his followers first before revealing everything. Welp.

“Tamae-san, we need a wisdom buff! Miss Ellaine, we need an earthen dome! I’ll materialize-huh? Hestia-san?” I was impressed that Nishio was able to give out commands almost immediately, but defensive orders weren’t needed right now.

“Nishio-san!” Ellaine, for the love of cringiness, called him to catch his attention. “Let Hestia-chan handle this; we need to prepare for the counter attack!”

Yameroooooo, Ellllllainnnne! (Stop, Ellaine!) You’re Peolyncian, you should not be using Japanese honorifics! You’re destroying my worldview!

“Oh, great pyro in the sky, shining bright upon the world. I call for your aid, to scorch the worlds of my enemies! Scorching Sun!” A miniature sun began to grow above Keith’s staff, growing larger and larger. Before I lost [Inferno Magic], [Scorching Sun] was one of my favorite spells.

The nostalgia.

“Hestia-chan!”

Oh, that’s right.

Stopping myself from continuing looking at Keith’s spell, I flapped my wings, spreading scale-dust around us until it surrounded everybody like a veil. I then cast the spell [Sanctuary] around us, materializing a bright dome of light for everybody’s protection. Saying, “Stay inside until the fire is gone” I then went out of my barrier, worrying those not already familiar with my abilities. There I stood before Keith.

“A custom light spell? I wanted to believe otherwise when I saw your white robe, but maybe I was too optimistic. I wanted to stop making mistakes that harmed my church. Danterno and fire mages deserve more respect! As a fire mage yourself, you should know this, right?”

“…Did you know Macklemor Talsyn?”

“Macklemor? Y-Yes, of course, I would. He… was one of my mistakes. I did not teach him well enough, I did not help him suppress his anger. Oh, the beauty of fire I showed him, but as his professor, his magic master, I failed him. The nobles forced his hand, but I couldn’t stop him in time. With his failure, I have made people’s opinion on fire mages even worse.”

I remember the fire slinging bandit during Aurora’s first Quest. I remembered him despising killing people, although the laugh he had when he burned the wagon down really made me think he was a madman. I didn’t know who Macklemor was during his years at the royal academy, where he supposedly killed a noble with fire magic, but he seemed like a good kid who got himself in the wrong crowd.

He first met Keith, who gave him the power to do the crime, which probably angered the noble kid’s parents. He was probably sentenced to death but made it out, finding his way into that bandit crew. He was an avid Danterno believer, but he seemed like the only “upstanding” bandit among the people he traveled with.

It’s a bit sad.

“I don’t care,” I replied to Keith’s heartful words. “I only know two fire spells, and those are [Ignite] and the custom spell your God ‘helped’ me make. Shiterno stripped me of all my fire spells and I haven’t been able to get the [Fire Mage] Job thanks to that. I am no fire mage. Would you like to know who I actually am? An idol.”

“‘An idol?’”

“Yeah, an idol. A singer and dancer whose job is to entertain people! Even if your intentions are good, you are a threat to the many people I wish would hear my voice, Keith!”

“Tch! Then, become our flame’s sustenance, Priestess of Aurena!”

Keith threw the [Scorching Sun] at me but I didn’t blink. Artillery fire rained on us from every direction, showering the ground in ever burning explosions, destroying the land around us… but I didn’t blink.

As the dust settled, I could audibly hear Keith’s voice of bafflement, stuttering as he saw flames floating above my light barrier, undeterred and sentinel as they guarded Ellaine, the students, Quatre, and Talon from harm. However, I guess his biggest surprise was the fact that I came out of his [Scorching Sun] without a scratch.

After all, a small sun is nothing in front of a sunfang dragon.

With my high Agility, I quickly closed the distance between the both of us and ripped off his left hand holding his staff. “GirraRRRRGHHHHHH!!!” Keith screamed from the top of his lungs, sounding very much like the felgheists I’d fought before. Wanting no more trouble from this guy, I swiped both his staff and the red orb in his right hand and placed them into my storage for now.

When I did that, I also noticed a pouch on his belt, enlarged by the content inside it. After grabbing the bag and opening it up, I found the molten rock Grimnir was looking for. Figuring it can’t count as stealing when this guy tried to kill us, I took it from him and placed it in my storage also.

Mission finished, Grimnir~

“I should kill you for endangering my party and me, but you are somebody else’s target,” I looked at Talon, still gripping onto his dagger as if it was glued onto him.

“Hehehe, maybe… maybe I am to be consumed today to finally atone for everything that I have done in my life. Maybe this is the only way forward… but my plans have been set in place.” Trembling, he then pointed up with his remaining arm. “Urgh… the beautiful spider caged in this dungeon for its entire life, fending off anything that dares to harm the dungeon core, was set free by me.”

“What?”

“A fellow believer, he gave me that orb. An orb to enrage and empower the mighty fire monsters of this dungeon. To release the strongest B rank monster in this dungeon from its prison to aid us in our Quest to destroy Plesia. The ‘Rebellion Orb.’ Although, one side effect I couldn’t foresee this magic tool would caus-”

“GrigrigrigrigriaaAAAAAAHHHHHH!”

Ding! Ding! Ding! Loud warning sounds erupted inside my head. Instinctively, I looked to the side and there I saw an acquaintance. White scales like snow, two carapace scale gauntlets, a slender bipedal form, and the head of a dragon with demonic horns.

“Grigrigrigri!”

The slazzigula!

Laughing as if it was happy to see me, the giant monster stretched its hand in front of it and challenged me with a “come and get me” hand motion.

But before I could respond, a notification appeared in my head, one written by my “boss.”

Hestia, get that orb out of your storage!

A headache. I turned around to see the air rupture apart. The red orb belonging to Keith appeared first, held by a tanned slender arm a female model would have. When the air rupture closed, what came out of my storage wasn’t a woman, but the black orb I got from the onnikai Quest. The one Aurena wanted me to deliver to Griffonpeak.

The one that was supposedly sealed tightly… according to Aurena.

Ah… there is the flag.

A note from AbyssRaven

Hestia uses pickpocket, also, agitate on fire man.

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Chapter 180: The Demon of the Orb.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“W-What is that?!” Keith shouted at the thing that came out from my storage, but I ignored him as I wanted to know the answer to the question myself.

Mana Eyes!

Information not available

W-What?!

Listen to me, Hestia! That creature broke out from her prison! The seal broke! It now counts as ‘living,’ so [Storage Magic] automatically rejected it. You need to-

But before I could finish hearing what Aurena wanted to say, my attention had to handle a different matter entirely first: the orb broke. Specifically, the slender arm coming from the black orb smashed the red orb onto the ground, cracking not only the ground but shattering the orb into a million glass pieces, releasing all the stored energy in a surprisingly powerful red explosion.

“Uwwargh!” Keith shouted as he was blown away while I somehow managed to erect a defensive line through a combination of [Panzer] to protect me from the explosion, [Air Shield] to weaken the wind pressure, and [Molten Guard]s to absorb and divert the majority of the attack. The multiple layered lava shields broke down first, crumbling into pieces before the explosion completely disintegrated the air shield around me.

Pinning my wings into the ground in front of me, the purple armor covering them managed to prevent major damage, but I could feel the pressure placed on them. The explosion eventually subsided but I wasn’t left unscathed.

[Broken Right Wing (Minor)] [Broken Left Wing (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Scheiße!

The purple obsidian armor on it was completely gone in addition to multiple scales. Groaning at the damage I’d sustained, I looked over at the source of the attack while patching my wings up with healing magic, but that only lasted for a few seconds before my sensory skills immediately warned me of something coming from my back. The slazzigula!

“Grigriiiiiaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!” With a flaming javelin in one of its hands, the giant monster roared out and leaped over to me, initiating its attack as I was still recovering from the orb’s explosion.

Fuck, you annoying ass!

Using my parallel minds, I prepared multiple [Wind Blast]s, knowing instinctively I couldn’t contest this attack head-on in my current form. Without the proper stats or enough setup time, my best option was to avoid it entirely.

Before I activated those spells, I looked over to the others at my party. My [Sanctuary] was still standing, thanks to Nishio and Ellaine layering multiple [Sapphire Membrane] and [Terra Wall] over everybody to protect themselves. Deactivating my barrier of light, I dashed towards them, embraced Kazumi, Kohaku, and Misaki while shouting to Nishio, Tamae, Ellaine, and Talon to “Grab on!”

Without thinking about it too hard, those four grabbed onto us while Quatre hid inside our shadow. As the slazzigula was descending dangerously close, I cast [Tailwind] on us and then the ten [Wind Blast] on my wings, blasting us away like an overcharged rocket.

Tailwind

A spell that always provides favorable winds for the caster. Wind will blow in the direction the caster is facing, speeding up all outgoing projectiles and attacks while reducing the damage of incoming attacks

It was a simple spell for [Storm Magic Lv. 3] but it massively improved the effectiveness of [Wind Blast]. In fact, it improved the [Wind Blast]s a bit too much.

“Argh, scheiße, urg!” In my rush, I’d activated too many spells, and lost control and balance mid-flight. As I was about to crash land, I swerved my body around to protect everybody else, colliding against the ground and letting go of the others. Everybody besides Misaki, the archer, was able to react and soften their landing, but thankfully Quatre was able to catch Misaki. Breaking my crash was easy enough with how nimble I’ve become.

“What in the?!” I exclaimed as I saw what happened next. Instead of the slazzigula slamming his giant flaming javelin into the ground, the arm coming out from the black orb suddenly summoned six giant tentacles using the mana stored inside it, assimilating together into a massive tree trunk-size fist.

With the roars of a humanoid salamander and the weird oozing sounds of the giant fist jumping around to create swinging momentum, I couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed at this movie-like scene. As if time for everything else stopped, the two clashed.

“Urgh, da- Sapphire-!”

““Terra Wall””

“-Membrane!”

A fiery explosion was released from the impact, scorching the arm into ashes while knocking the slazzigula backward from the recoil. The explosion also released a flaming shockwave hurtling towards us, forcing Nishio to use use his prepared Sapphire Membrane] to protect us. However, as Ellaine and I couldn’t read his mind, our reflexes already made us construct small, easily-breakable [Terra Wall]s. It dulled the shockwave, making sure Nishio’s defenses held strong.

Like what happened with my [Molten Guard]s when the orb exploded, the rock walls we constructed crumbled easily; however, once the barrier of water appeared before us, the flames simply turned into steam upon contact. The amount of stuff this party had to do in the last few seconds was just nerve-wracking.

““Fire consumes fire!”” When the flames and steam settled, all of us could audibly hear the enthusiastic cries of Shiterno’s followers shouting in the distance, possibly coming closer to our location.

“Those damn fire-humpers are coming closer! We’ll be in trouble once they group up,” Talon stated, to which I had to agree. Not ‘cause of the dangers these cultists could do to me, but what they could do to the group while I was distracted by two troublemakers.

“Grirooooooooooooouuuuuuuu!” Looking over at the small crater the two explosions created, I could see the slazzigula standing up, clutching its head with both arms and crying out in pain. It was wailing around, stumbling without any rest outside of the times it punched the ground. It almost reminded me of the times Saori or I were assaulted by a mental attack.

I was wary of what the slazzigula would do next, but Aurena’s voice suddenly entered my mind again.

Don’t let that thing touch you Hestia!

Huh? Schei-

[Foresight] and [Danger Perception] jolted me backward, narrowly dodging a spear-like tentacle from piercing me. Turning around while shooting a [Lightning Bolt], I saw the arm flip itself and the attached demon-orb over my spell before cleaving the [Sapphire Membrane] with a karate chop. With Aurena’s words stamped into my mind, I used [Terra Wall] to try and launch the arm away from me; still, it was stubborn, grabbing hold of a piece of rock with a hard grip as it was flying away.

Tentacles formed from the black orb using mana and, like an octopus, it began crawling towards me at an agile rabbit’s pace, creeping me the fuck out. As it closed in on me, I returned to the tried and tested, detonating all my released scale-dust to explode around me, aiming to destroy it outright.

The arm tried to block my attack by combining its arm into a shield, but my continuous explosion proved too much. As it laid on the ground, the arm jerking around uncontrollably from the fire damage. The burn wounds ruined the image of the appearance of the tanned arm and, from the looks of it, it seemed it was trying to regenerate the damage I had done, but couldn’t.

That reminded me — after blocking the attack from the slazzigula, the arm reappeared in front of me as beautiful as the first time I saw it, showing literally no signs of having fought anything. If the arm possessed a healing factor faster than [Health Regeneration] or that of a troll, then it would explain what happened. Too bad for the arm, while my Main Job was [Crimson-Scaled Dreadgiver], nothing damaged by my scale-dust flame can heal!

Sever the arm with your flames! Don’t touch it! Put the orb back into your storage the moment you do, I’ll reseal it there!

Understood! Ignite!

Using one of the most basic fire spells, I poured my mana into it, increasing the volume and size of the small flame before using [Pyrokinesis] to turn it into a blade. I was used to using my claws and tail with [Hellblade Edge] for slashing damage, but I still remembered how to turn my flames into different weapons from back when I still had the proper fire spells. Using this impromptu fire blade, I hacked off the arm from the orb, quickly picked the latter up, and threw it into my storage, which once again accepted it.

I’ll be accessing your storage now to reseal that creature back into her prison. Give me your consent, please, Hestia!

Consent given!

Silence. Nothing happened, but my focus was razor-sharp at this point, ignoring anything not concerning that orb and Aurena. When Aurena’s voice finally reappeared, I let out a sigh in relief.

It’s sealed… doubly so, to prevent something like that from happening again.

Thank goodness, that scared me… Anyway, what the hell was supposed to be Aure-Goddess Aurena! [The Light] prevented Aurena from seeing what I could see if I blocked her, but it technically didn’t stop her from reading my mind, she decided not to do it normally simply out of respect for my privacy. I nearly spoke to her as if I was thinking, whoops.

That red orb, that rebellion orb. It’s an annoying catalyst created by the demonkins to agitate dungeons, acting similar to a piece of bait to lure in monsters. Demonkins use these orbs to fight inside dungeons more efficiently.

That doesn’t answer why an arm grew out of the orb; in fact, if you could have done something like reseal the orb like just now, why couldn’t you have destroyed that damn orb earlier?! This wouldn’t have happened if you did!

I apologize, Hestia, but sealing an orb and destroying the thing inside the orb are two entirely different matters. As you remembered, I placed my seal on it when you visited my shrine, correct? The rebellion orb agitated and broke through both Elder Marsven’s and my seals, releasing some of the demon’s mana sealed inside. I fixed Elder Marsven’s seal and mine, in fact, I reinforced them to prevent this from happening again until I meet you. Please trust me when I say that I did not expect a human to get their hand on a rebellion orb like this. I can only assume the demonkins are making faster progress than I thought…

Huh? Demonkins are here?!

This is not the time to speak about this, Hestia. You have other issues to handle first. That rebellion orb seemed to have agitated the fauna in this dungeon. Monsters of the top of the food chain in this ecosystem have become more aggressive than usual, for example, that giant monster before you and the boss monster guarding the dungeon’s core. I’m personally not an expert in dungeons, but if my past logs are correct, that giant Rachonoid is aiming to break out of the dungeon and escape to the surface.

W-What?!

The people on the surface will not be prepared to handle this elderly B rank monster and her spawn. Casualties will happen. Hestia, I want you to handle this. Prevent that monster from destroying the nearby human settlement.

Divine Quest: Molten Core Rachonoid Extermination — Prevent the destruction of Cedaraille and the majority of the population there

Quest Giver: Origin Goddess of Light, Healing, Miracles and Kinship, Aurena

Description: Subjugate the Rachonoid seeking to escape to the surface of the dungeon. You will not make it to the surface in time, so seek to return to the surface and destroy it, Hestia. The rachonoid is an elderly female spider whose lair was filled with her spawn, which are now following their mother. Make your name known as my champion using your and your allies’ powers!

Rewards: +1 additional [Idol] song slot, [Venerated Saintess] proficiency gain, +1 level

Please, accept it, Hestia.

No need to say that. I’m on the job!

You have chosen [Divine Quest: Molten Core Rachonoid Extermination]. With the blessing of your championed God, may you be successful in your Quest!

Ok, now time to find the wa-

“Hestia, wake up! The arm!”

“Huh?!”

The time I needed to speak with Aurena was far faster than what my body perceived. With [High-Speed Calculation Lv. 1] and [Though Acceleration Lv. 4], I could think faster than most people and, with the fact that Aurena’s messages were near instantaneous, only a few seconds probably went by in the real world. And that was the issue. I was too focused.

“Schei-!” Waking up from my thoughts, I noticed how my [Foresight] and [Danger Perception] were ringing inside my head, warning me of the severed arm, which was still moving for some reason. It was too close to me, and I couldn’t avoid it in time. This was bad!

“Hestia!” As I reflexively tried to push my body into action, the sight of the arm leaping up, aiming to touch me, made me remember Aurena’s words “Don’t let that thing touch you Hestia!” over and over again. As cold sweat began to break out across my body, the arm came even closer and closer but my muscles weren’t ready to move yet. I thought I’d fucked up, but a savior came swooping in.

“Ellaine!” Holding onto the shield we received from that treasure chest from floor 14, Ellaine jumped in front of me and the arm, protecting me with her shield. I was elated to see her but that immediately turned into concern for her the moment the shield broke apart from the arm’s attack.

“Ayarck!” Ellaine cried out as she bumped into me from the recoil and seeing the arm grabbing her left hand. With one quick motion, the hand tightened its grip, crushing Ellaine’s hand in the process.

KYAAAAHHHHH!!!“

“Ellaine! ELLAINE!” With rage filling my body now, I took out my spear from my storage and struck the arm with it, freeing Ellaine from its grip and pinning it on the ground. Dreadflame Breath! I expelled flames able to melt a high ogre’s onto the arm at a point-blank distance, cremating this thing before turning back to Ellaine. Fixing her arm was my highest priority.

“Ellaine, why didn’t you use [Terra Wall]?!” I asked her frantically as my parallel minds went to work, repairing Ellaine’s bones and skin, returning the crushed hand back to normal using healing magic.

“I-I apologize, H-Hestia,” she forced out despite the pain. “T-There was no time. You just stood still and I was standing behind you. T-There was no time for me to cast a spell, and my legs moved by themselves.”

Was this my fault?! Verdammt! Aurena! Aurena! Goddess Aurena! The arm touched Ellaine!

Calm down, Hestia. The situation would have been dire if it had touched you, someone whose soul hasn’t fully been repaired yet. You were the most vulnerable from being possessed by that demon. Your human companion Ellaine saved you from that fate. Aside from that broken hand, there should be nothing to worry about.

Nothing to worry about? Are you kidding me?! First, that thing appeared because you didn’t warn me fast enough and then you didn’t tell me it could still move?! Fuck off!

I-I, Hestia, I-I’m… You might think we gods are omnipotent but we aren’t. I-I was preoccupied with another matter, and-and I noticed too late, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I-I didn’t know the race of the demon inside the orb. I-I forgot what they could-

Is that supposed to be an excuse?! Don’t give me that crap! You’re the damn Goddess of Light here! You didn’t fix this issue by destroying the damn orb and now you’re giving me this crap?! You’re the one who should know about demons, not me! Fucking hell!

I-I didn’t mean to-You’re right, I should have done better since I am a goddess… This is my identity. I apologize… I shall leave you alone for now, but please, stop the rachonoid from hurting too many people.

Somebody has to do it.

…I understand. May the light guide you.

And Aurena’s voice stopped. Good riddance, I thought when that happened, but something inside me thought I was being too harsh on her. However, dwelling on this issue would be repeating the same mistake I just did that brought Ellaine in harm’s way. Tamae and the rest rushed over, asking me what just happened.

“We have a problem,” I said, having calmed myself down enough. “That giant spider we saw from before, yeah, that thing is making its way up to the surface! It’s a dungeon break aiming to escape from the dungeon.” I then sent them the Divine Quest I just received from Aurena to inform them of the situation.

“A B rank?!” Tamae exclaimed. “Hestia-chan, we might have been able to take down that C rank easily but that was with teamwork against a single magma golem. A B rank with a bunch of adds is far too strong for us.”

“Tamae-san is right, Hestia-san. We’ve never faced a B rank monster before and, without a strategy, our party won’t be able to function properly,” Nishio reasoned. The students’ party was stronger than the average adventurer group, but they were all still D rank adventurers — both in Quests points and in battle experience — so forcing them into battle wasn’t smart.

“Don’t worry about that, that’s why the Quest was given to me. Aurora can handle this. You guys want to see your Sensei again, right? Well, you guys will be surprised when Big Bad Wolf-Sensei appears,” I told them with a smirk. “We need to reunite with them and Yorshka. Whether she is involved in any of the church’s issues is irrelevant for now. We need the help of an A rank adventurer.”

“Hey, we have some problems of our own,” Talon suddenly came over. He probably overheard everything but that wasn’t a problem for now. “Look.”

Talon pointed at the crowd gathering outside of Nishio’s [Sapphire Membrane], all wearing robes similar to the one Keith had. “Fire consumes fire!” they all shouted before cursing the water barrier Nishio masterialized, calling him out as “The water bitch’s lapdog!” or “Plesia’s servants must burn!”

Amazing…

Seeing the situation, I pulled Ellaine to her feet. “Thank you, Ellaine. I’m pretty sure you saved my life by doing that. Do you think you can fight?”

The pain from her hand was gone, replaced by a smile now. “I’m Aurora’s fourth member. I might not be as strong as you, Saori, or Tasianna, but, regardless, I will help however I can.”

I nodded to her bravery, praising it, “Good! You’ve seen how big that spider was, right? There’ll be a big paycheck for us after we deal with it!”

At the same time I clapped Ellaine’s shoulder, the mob outside the barrier seemed to have gone even more wild, filled with religious fervor as they kept chanting “Fire consumes fire” over and over again while making way for somebody to step forward. There, a one-armed man with a head scarred from fire stood a ruby ring on his left hand shining brightly as he held it over the crowd like a preacher.

“Keith…” Talon murmured.

“Look at me, for I have been scarred! Burned! I have tasted the sublime feeling of being burned alive! A fire strong enough to break my resistances! I have been renewed and become even stronger! Fire consumes fire!” Keith exclaimed, any semblance of sanity long gone from his eyes. “Before us is the Crimson Saintess, named for the crimson hue of her scales and flames! She was denounced as a heretic by the Pantheon of Fire, judged to be executed at our hands by the God of War and Carnage, Jistrum! Among her are the followers of Aurena, Plesia and Marsven, feeble defenders for the traitor saint! To grant our gods more strength, let us perform battle! Cast your fire wildly, my disciples! With every cast and offering we present, we shall become stronger! FIRE CONSUMES FIRE!”

““FIRE CONSUMES FIRE!””

“…You guys think you can handle this?” I asked everybody in front of me.

“Let me show you the real power of illusion magic, not the petty tricks meant for my customers,” Talon announced without hesitation.

“Everybody, please get ready,” Tamae announced to her party. “This is exactly what Lady Yorshka has trained us for! To fight on our own when it matters the most! Our reluctant selves from a year ago have been removed, tempered by all the battles we have faced until now! We must fight them to survive, and survive we will! We will return home!”

““““Yeah!””””

“Quatre!” Ellaine called for Saori’s fourth garm. “You and me, ok, boy. Our hunt begins now.”

“Grrrrra!” Quatre growled in agreement.

Good… Now, it’s time for my fight.

“Thank you very much for waiting for me.” Leaving the [Sapphire Membrane], I approached the quietly staring slazzigula, having waited patiently as I was talking with everybody. The madness it showed before was gone, probably ‘cause of the destruction of the rebellion orb. Honestly, for a monster born inside a dungeon, it showed quite the intelligence.

[“First things first, I don’t want to fight you. I don’t have anything against you. Can we please not have this duel?”] The issue why I couldn’t help the rest with breaking through the congregation of fire mages was due to this fellow here. I could sense that it wanted to fight against me, and I knew it wouldn’t let me go without a fight. If it was intelligent, then I thought I could reason with it.

However, it reciprocated my question by cracking its head and knuckles, readying itself in a combat stance. Every time I try diplomacy, it always breaks down immediately. It kinda sucks.

Humanization.

Mana mist came out of my body, wrapping me in its veil while I transformed back into a dragon. Like an honorable samurai, the slazzigula allowed me to transform back without any issues, despite knowing I was far stronger in this form. Well, it's not like a dragon is supposed to understand some random giant salamander.

Once my transformation was done, I roared to accept his challenge, readying myself for the fight by pointing my razor-sharp tail at it. Height-wise, the slazzigula was slightly taller than me while it stood upright while shorter when it stood on all four legs. It was a battle between two mammoth-sized lizards.

Fighting isn’t the priority here. Once the rest have found a way to get out, I needed to immobilize this thing long enough to escape. Stopping that spider is the mission.

We stared at each other in silence as the battle between Ellaine, the students, and Talon began against the Shiterno followers. I could hear the sounds of magic being cast entering my ears.

Fast now! Purple Flash! Symphonie des Feuergottes!

[Symphonie des Feuergottes Movement (Allegro)] inflictedon [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Let the symphony begin!

A note from AbyssRaven

A lot of problems for Hestia to finish. By a lot, I meant a giant spider who can spit out magma.

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Chapter 181: Dragon vs. Slazzigula.

A note from AbyssRaven

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[Music Resonation (Moderate)] [Sanctified Blaze] [Various Spell Buffs] [Symphonie des Feuergottes Movement (Allegro)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Without any further delay, the fight between two giant fire-spitting lizards began in the most appropriate way possible.

“Kriiiaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!”

“Grigriiiaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!”

Streams of crimson and bright red flames exploded out from our respective mouths like rockets, crashing onto each other, clashing together to form a massive fire wall. This only lasted a moment though, as the tides turned against the slazzigula, the severe difference in magical powers making itself known. My flames overpowered the enemy’s fire breath, pushing it back faster and faster as the seconds ticked down.

The slazzigula, realizing that it couldn’t compete against me in this manner, canceled its breath attack and jumped to the side, avoiding my dragon fire from hitting him. Displaying its nimbleness once again, the giant salamander landed on the tips of its feet and used this momentum to sling its body forwards, flames swords forming around its carapace gauntlets.

Stat difference in our Intelligence. A massive one. It knows it and is going for close-combat, where it believes it excels more. Can’t have that. Firing squad, go!

Nine of my parallel minds went into action, each activating a projectile spell from my spell list and blasting it at the slazzigula. Lightning, terra, storm, lava, sacred; my elemental prowess forced the monster to slow down its advance, jumping side to side in an attempt to dodge my attacks, but even Saori can’t dodge everything without using magic once I’m serious.

Sadly, despite its slender form, the slazzigula was actually quite the bruiser according to its profile. Level eight and a focus on Strength, Vitality, Agility, and Stamina to facilitate roughhousing, and even its Wisdom wasn’t too bad. My spells connected, damaging it considering its groans, but it continued charging forward like a raging bull. Just, instead of pointing its horns forward, its twin swords were directed at me, now ready to spill blood.

Can’t fight here. Too close to the others. Build some walls, we’re luring it away!

Although I wasn’t watching their fight, I could hear spells colliding against each other under me. High-pitched grunts, fury-filled shouts, and blood-curdling screams. I had to take off my party bracelet before transforming, meaning I couldn’t spectate as to what was going on their side. I was worried about them, but I had to concentrate on my fight.

Still, two mammoth-sized monsters rampaging around wasn’t good. A normal-sized human only reached up to my knees, meaning I could stomp someone flat just by just stepping on them. This would disrupt the fight below me. To avoid this, I erected multiple [Terra Walls] to slow the slazzigula down, forcing it to either break through or climb over — considering its physical power and how light-footed it was, it should have no problem with either.

Symphonie des Feuergottes Movement (Allegro)

Flames burning as fast as flashfire, increasing the caster’s Agility by half of the base amount. All fire elemental attacks increase in strength

However, that was all just part of the plan. In [Symphonie des Feuergottes]’s first movement, Allegro, my current Agility was about 50% higher than usual, which, when boosted by wind’s [Swift Winds] Agility buff, made me far faster than this slazzigula. Charging in with my flaming tail, I slashed at the salamander with [Hellblade Edge].

Similar to last time, the slazzigula guarded against it perfectly, not letting me move my tail any further despite the Strength I put into it. Still, that was expected. Sliding my tail down the salamander’s guantlets, I slipped through the slazzigula’s arms and used [Wind Blast] while jumping, pushing me onto one of the rock walls I constructed. While I slithered over them like a lizard, my opponent began destroying them to reach me, effectively enabling me to lead it away from the Ellaine’s, the student’s, and Talon’s fight.

Number eight, nine, and ten, music time. Boss battle time!

“Is this the fated battle, the light shines ♫

It’s blinding my sight ♫

But I’ve gotta hold on, the stage calls ♫

The cries of a thousand, the flames of war will descend ♫”

I didn’t need the arena for this fight when this monster only had eyes for me. The place we were fighting in was like the savannah’s fields, flat and wide. This meant, using [Dragon Fire] wasn’t the best choice here, but [The Will to Fight and Survive]. What I needed was sustain.

[Dragon Fire]’s effect was weakening water and ice attacks, in addition to improving my fire and dragon abilities while dealing random fire damage to my enemies. [The Will to Fight and Survive], on the other hand, not only makes losing Stamina a non-issue, but it also increases the damage I can deal with fire and holy spells and decreases my enemies’ morale and Wisdom by 5%. And that last part was what I was really aiming for.

By increasing the amount of Mana I invest into [Aerokinesis] to play my song spells, it allowed me to support my teammates. They received the positive effects of my song while their enemies received the negatives. I know I should focus on my own fight, but the Wisdom decrease on the slazzigula was important for me, too.

Dedicating two parallel minds to continuous cast [Wind Blast], I jumped off the last [Terra Wall] and kept myself afloat using wind magic. While I couldn’t fly properly yet, raining down dragon fire and spells while floating overhead was no problem. The monster wanted to get close to me, meaning all I needed to do was to fly.

“Grigri!” Like a ninja, the salamander was dodging right and left, seemingly getting used to my shooting patterns. Flames then erupted from its right hand. While using it as a pivot to dodge through my spells, the slazzigula crushed through the ground when it did so, confusing me when nothing happened. “What was it trying to do?” I wondered, continuing shooting out spells.

“Griah!” The slazzigula groaned when a [Bedrock Blades] pierced the monster’s shoulder, tearing through its scales and spilling blood out. The salamander destroyed the rock blade with a flaming punch, roaring in anger afterwards before beginning to simply punch through all the remaining approaching blades.

Enraged! Opening for me to-

Seeing the monster angered by its mistake meant it left an opening for me to focus fire a stronger spell but my plan was interrupted by what happened next. [Foresight] activated, directing my attention to the ground the moment magma erupted from it, breaking through the magma veins beneath the crevasses. Like pillars, jets of molten rock shot right up at me, forcing me to ditch attacking, for now, and focus on maintaining myself in the air.

My reliance on [Wind Blast] to keep myself afloat showed itself here, when volcanic gases followed the pillars, interrupting the winds around me. Sprays of rock made it impossible for my wings to properly flap, making it even harder for me to keep my heavy body up in the air. I knew I had to escape from this predicament and when I did, the slazzigula reacted.

[Danger Perception] exploded once again, warning me to jolt my head to the side. When I did, I could hear the sharp report reminiscent of a gunshot as a flaming spear was thrown at me. “Fast!” was all I could think as my reflexes moved my body without my input, rolling in the air to avoid the brunt of the attack. It was a glancing hit but it still somehow managed to damage me through my [Draconic Barrier], denting my scales as it passed right by me.

As a B rank fighting against another B rank monster, I should 100% expect its attack to do damage when it’s fighting seriously. It was common sense for me. I was confident in my fire resistance, which had to handle my scale-dust explosions all the time, but I shouldn't underestimate its attacks just ‘cause it’s fire-based. Especially when [Danger Perception] activates.

When the skill didn’t activate when the salamander spit out a ball of fire, I knew I could tank the attack but that relief went out of the window the moment the scale-crown on the slazzigula’s back began shooting out fire. “For the inferno ruler’s true power is restricted by it,” was something I remembered from the slazzigula’s description. An accumulation of fire-potent scales from its slazzanbal days, until they’re broken, the crown lays dormant and supposedly restricts the monster’s “true power.”

After spitting the fireball, the slazzigula jumped into the air with its scale-crown serving as a jetpack, propelling the monster up in the sky and towards me. My response to this attack was a boosted [Draconic Roar] but the wind up I needed was broken the moment the slazzigula formed another flame spear with its [Pyrokinesis] and threw it at me, forcing me off-balance to dodge it.

Scheiße, flying is too hard!

My inexperience with flying showed itself at this moment. The advantage I’d thought I had was invalidated at this moment.

With flaming blades forming around the monster’s gauntlets, I assessed the situation, noting that I couldn’t escape with [Wind Blast] while struggling to regain my balance in the air. If I tried to blast myself away, all I would achieve is another crash landing. My only option here was to blast it with spells and then resort to [Hellblade Edge] and [Scale-Dust Veil] the moment it got close. [Dreadflare Aura] would be for Plan B.

Like the bruiser it was, it shielded its vitals using its flame sword while continuing its flight towards me with its flaming jetpack. Clicking my tongue at how well it was wielding its body’s weapons, I placed the sharp, scaled edge of my tail inside my mouth and with one quick swipe, I sharpened and reheated it using my jaw plates. Sparks flew as I snapped my claws against each other, readying myself for a physical fight.

Panzer!

With purple armor protecting my body now, I closed the distance between us with [Wind Blast].

“Kriaaaaaahhh!”

“Grigrigriaaahhh!”

Flames and claws clashed. Scales broke off as flesh was rendered and blood spilled. The slazzigula grew angrier and angrier while white and purple fire began shrouding me more and more. Neither of us even attempted to stay in the sky, knowing this was just a phase of the battle. As we fell ever closer to the ground, neither of us disappointed each other as we dueled like two swordsmen.

The adagio movement made it far easier for me to compete against the slazzigula with my superior Agility, but the monster countered using its skill with its blades. In this match, it was a competition between stats and skill. I had higher stats than the slazzigula while they had to rely on its stronger skill set and ability with its twin blades. None of us could land a decisive blow against the other, but every glancing hit on the salamander meant a step closer to my win while I could heal from the hits I suffered.

Come on! Sustain tank, let’s go!

When the ground came into view, we stomped each other, creating some space to soften our fall.

“Grigri!” the slazzigula seemingly laughed at our clash while I was trying to recover my breathing rhythm. When the slazzigula once again did its “come at me” hand sign, something snapped inside me when confronted against its arrogant personality. Ruthlessly, I ground my teeth against each, creating a small spark in front of me.

… And the scale-dust covering its body blew up like dynamite.

“Griaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!” The salamander cried out in pain.

Fighting up close and personal wasn’t my forte, something this slazzigula rubbed in my face with how skilled it was, but I did mention how [Scale-Dust Veil] was part of my strategy. It always was part of my fighting style. Our struggle in the sky was just a way for me to spread the dust around the slazzigula, lodging them into the monster’s scales.

When we landed, a hail of scale-dust was softly falling down, blanketing our environment. When I snapped my mouth shut, everything around me exploded. I was caught up in the explosion as well, but everything could be solved with some healing. I knew the slazzigula had to be well protected against fire and magma since it grew up in these magma chambers, but it should still show some effect.

It was a shame that my Job skills didn’t transfer into my dragon form, since [Crimson-Scaled Dreadgiver] would’ve made this far easier.

Scale-Dust Size Increase

Increase the size of scale-dust expelled from the owner’s body. Increase explosion size

Fire Abnormality Effect: Dread

Adds an effect to all fire produced by the owner through magic or abilities, called [Dread Burn]. [Dread Burn] nullifies all source of Health regeneration on an afflicted target and decrease their fire resistance by 30%

Those were the Job skills I currently had. Unfortunately, besides grimgarians, monsters could not have an active Job while in monster form. That meant I could not benefit from these two skills. If you asked me, it was kinda unfair. Shouldn’t I, the mutant dragon, have these skills naturally? Honestly, if I could buy them using SP, I would have done it already. Whatever the price, I didn’t care. I wanted them badly!

Let’s act spoiled after this fight ends.

[Symphonie des Feuergottes Movement (Adagio)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Symphonie des Feuergottes Movement (Adagio)

Flames burning slowly with powerful notes, increasing the caster’s Strength and Intelligence by half of the base amount. Mana consumption of all spells is reduced by 50%

Perfectly timed, the movement began, reducing my maximum Agility to increase my Strength and Intelligence in return. Honestly, I preferred adagio for this fight but I couldn’t control when the movements switched. This was my “boss battle phases” gimmick.

“GriAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

Speaking of phase gimmicks, the reason why I called it perfectly timed was ‘cause the slazzigula had its phase change, too.

Standing straight like a human, the slazzigula was tall enough to look down at me, showing off its height. As the dust settled, I could see broken scales, blood, and burn scars covering its body. My explosion definitely did damage, but it also triggered the scale-crown on its back to fully unleash its power.

Six wings of pure flames emitted from its back, making the slazzigula look more like a flaming angel than a dragon. Flames began to form beneath it as it somehow slowly began hovering in the air with its flame wings flapping hard. It roared, and the moment it did, five pillars of flames suddenly formed around it before they rushed towards me.

Looking similar to the [Inferno Magic Lv. 2] spell [Blazing Twister], those tornados approached me. [Danger Perception] didn’t warn me about them, so I think I could safely stay inside them without incurring too much damage, but what did catch its attention was slazzigula itself. Flame blades formed around its gauntlets again, but instead of jumping or running, it flew towards me with those six fire wings.

What the fuck?!

With both swords drawn back, it slashed at me the moment it could, prompting me to dodge. Magic circles began to flicker around me as spells were prepared, but the slazzigula left no time for me to breathe, striking relentlessly at me. This was where not having allegro’s speed buff was an issue, since its current form seems to be stronger and faster. I couldn’t keep up with it!

“Kriargh!” I growled as the monster landed a proper hit on my wings, ripping the membrane apart and piercing through my [Panzer] armor to expose the skin on my limb. My projectile spells were hitting it, but it seemed it was ignoring them, only focusing on attacking me.

“Grigrigrigri!” it crackled a laugh as it suddenly changed its attack pattern. Extinguishing its flame swords, the slazzigula sucker-punched me right in my head before grabbing my neck. Grappling my neck with both arms now, it mounted my back. I had no idea what it was trying to do but fear got to me, not knowing what it was doing made me slightly panic.

Dreadflare Aura!

Scale-dust exploded from inside my scales, creating a super-hot aura that exploded right in front of the slazzigula. Caught unawares, it let go of my neck and was blasted back. Using this chance, I shot multiple [Banishment Beam]s at it, but it dodged them like an insect with its wings.

Materializing another flaming spear, it blasted itself forward with the spear tightly gripped in its hand, slamming the spear down where I’d just been standing. Dodging further away, I noticed the spear exploding into a pillar of flames, sending a small shockwave forward. It seemed this attack required some recovery time, so I managed to counter-attack with a [Hellflame Breath].

It blocked my breath attack in time with its arms, but it still growled as it was being pushed back. I had to press my advantage!

Rumbling Might! Levin Core! Warp Point: Entry!

The ground shook strongly as the slazzigula lost balance. A lightning ball appeared behind the monster, buffeting it with strong lightning bolts, weakening its guard in the process. It roared out in pain as the flames hit its head, melting through its scales as it struggled to keep its legs standing with the earthquake I was creating.

Flame swords erupted from its arms, shielding it from my attack long enough to slip past, storming at me missing half the scales on its face. When I snapped my mouth shut, instead of attacking back, I chose to avoid it.

Warp Point: Exit, now!

After having my parallel minds place a grey magic circle behind the slazzigula, the air suddenly ruptured right in front of me and my opponent. Unable to stop its charge, the slazzigula entered through the portal and reappeared a bit further away; however, instead of facing me, it had its back toward me.

Fuck, this Mana cost is insane! Why must these two shitty spells cost so much Mana every single time?!

My decision to expend more mana than I wanted was ‘cause of my worry of the surface. This slazzigula was tenacious and seeing how it still had over half of its Health left, I wasn’t liking the situation at all. My ears picked up on the sounds on Ellaine’s side, which seemed to be facing some trouble. I wasn’t sure if this was the better choice, but if this slazzigula continuously beats me in melee, then that would prove an issue.

My scale-dust was dealing damage thanks to my song, so it was time to go overdrive.

Solar Beam!

Scale-dust inside my scales exploded into action, flaring up underneath them as my solar core shined with a bright yellow glow. For a whole week, I have been holding onto my solar energy for this very moment. If I couldn’t stop the spider from entering the surface due to all the delays from this fight, then I had to end it now and hope the sun was currently up in the sky to refill later. I was running out of time. “It’s all or nothing, I’m ending this fight right now,” was my thought when I shot out the beam of concentrated heat.

When the slazzigula turned around, it let out a growl of surprise, widening its eyes as it scrambled to dodge the beam. However, I still had enough juice to continue shooting it. Turning my head around, the slazzigula seemed to sense my desperation to end this fight, right now, but it couldn’t capitalize on my rashness, knowing instinctively it would not survive getting hit by my beam directly. Unfortunately for it, I could turn my head around faster than it could dodge. It was beginning to tire.

“GriaaaGGRHHHHHHHHHH!” it howled like a banshee as it blocked my beam with its carapace gauntlets. Sturdy as they were, they began to melt in front of my [Solar Beam]. The slazzigula formed its blade again, allowing it to escape and blast itself into the sky with its wings.

Once my beam was over, the stored solar energy inside my solar core went into this “overdrive” mode I liked to call, causing my body temperature to skyrocket to the point that my scale-dust exploded non-stop. Although its gauntlets were falling apart from the super-heat, the slazzigula only dedicated a small groan as he flew at me to continue the fight, looking even more alive than before.

That was when it dawned at me.

Hold on… couldn’t I do the same? Why do I need wind when I can create my own force with… fire?

Call it stupid, call it crazy, call it a waste of Mana and Stamina. It’s not like I didn’t have a high amount of the former and a near-infinite supply of the latter. When the idea of the slazzigula using its scale-crown as a jetpack entered my mind for a split-second, I wondered, couldn’t I imitate that? Solar core allowed me to control my body heat, [Pyrokinesis] helped me morph and control my fire, and as long as I had scale-dust inside my body, I had fuel.

Oh boy, after this whole shitfest, I’ll be hungry as fuck. Hope your meat or the spider’s tastes good.

Increasing my body heat even further, I could feel more flames blasting out of my scales, tiring me the longer I kept it going. Regardless if I was a fire dragon or not, being in overdrive mode was uncomfortable, outright impossible to relax in since it felt like I was cooking myself from within. I have sweated before in my new life, but I have never felt as if my organs were being grilled before. It burns.

Wha-?!

This pain… it only lasted for a few seconds, replaced immediately by elation the moment it felt like something was pushing me forward. Turning my head around, I thought I was seeing a rocket engine shooting out fire. The thrust created by this action was unbalancing me, fighting against gravity and friction. I could feel my mind “sweating,” but I honestly couldn’t stop smiling.

What the fuck did I just find out?!

[Foresight] and [Danger Perception] activated. I knew what was coming. My only response to these warnings was to let it all out. Flames exploded from my scales, granting me a significant boost in speed as I swerved under the slazzigula’s flame swords, narrowly dodging it.

While it sounded all amazing, I was as much of a beginner with this movement style as my usual “flying” method, using too much power and sending me shooting right past the slazzigula, unable to counterattack like I wanted to. I knew I put in too much energy, used too much Mana and Stamina to grant me that super burst in speed. Mana was needed to fuel my body to increase its temperature while manipulating it with [Pyrokinesis], on the other hand, I needed Stamina to continuously make my body produce scale-dust to keep this up. I’m gonna starve myself before getting [Exhausted].

The slazzigula followed behind me with its wings, while I was trying my best to keep myself balanced. Sadly, at this point, I realized my experimentation went awry quickly. My control over this new ability was as horrendous as when I first started flying or using [Wind Blast] floating. You know how story heroes quickly learn new abilities they gain mid-fight? Well, I’m failing to do so… hard.

Fuck!

“Gri? Griaaah!”

Unable to properly handle this new ability, I once again put too much power into my turbo boost, crashing against the slazzigula, unintentionally body slamming against it. As the both of us grabbed onto each other, the slazzigula managed to support my flight using its wings, balancing us. I could see the slazzigula wanted to slash at me, but the heat I was emitting made it literally burn itself on me.

It kicked me away, and I could see its hands sizzling once it let go. At this point, I had to choose between stopping my overdrive mode to regain my ability to shoot spells or continue this madness. The amount of Mana I was consuming while keeping [Symphonie des Feuergottes] and [Solar Beam]’s overdrive mode active was draining me at a worrying rate. Without a source of Mana regeneration, the smart choice was to stop this insanity now.

Well, speaking of the devil…

[Symphonie des Feuergottes Movement (Minuet)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Symphonie des Feuergottes Movement (Minuet)

Flames burning like a dance, lively as the finale approached, increasing the caster's Vitality and Wisdom by half of the base amount. Health, Mana, and Stamina regeneration from all sources is increased by 50%

Wisdom increased not only your magic resistance but also the natural rate of Mana regeneration. Minuet, usually the third movement of a symphony shared with the scherzo, was the light-hearted dance part following the slow and rhythmic second movement. This was the first time I managed to activate this movement, since I never had the mana or need to keep [Symphonie des Feuergottes] going for this long. I thought it would increase my Agility again, but it seemed to act like a “refresher,” to help you settle down a bit before the final movement.

Not like I would complain. That was exactly what I needed!

While it still wasn’t enough to offset my Mana consumption, it drastically slowed down the rate at which I drained my Mana pool. When I locked eyes with the slazzigula, it made me feel like I could continue this fight. It might be a fight to the death against this thing, but this third phase activation made me feel like I could win this. Yeah, I can win this.

Adjust the power. Parallel minds, help me out a bit more.

I didn’t learn how to fly alone, I had my parallel minds help me in the process. All ten of my parallel minds should have had enough time to adjust and learn how this rocket boosting worked. Learning how to do it in such a short time with one mind was hard, but with ten? Easy!

… Just kidding, I still couldn’t do it.

Waaaaaahhhhhhhh!

As the slazzigula and I approached each other with our respective fire transportation method, I accidentally put too much power in it again and I lost balance while flying. Anxiousness filled my mind as I saw the slazzigula drawing its flaming sword at me while I couldn’t respond properly.

I’m gonna get cut! Scheiße!

As the blade drew closer and closer, the unexpected happened.

“Shriiiiiieeek!”

It was deja vu. Just, instead of appearing underneath us, the ceiling suddenly broke, raining giant spiders. The slazzigula noticed this, canceled its attack as I flew past it like mentos erupting from inside a coke bottle. Comically crash landing on the ground, I quickly reduced my energy consumption to slow myself down, recovering my footing in seconds.

When I jolted my head towards the slazzigula, instead of seeing it attack me, the giant salamander used its flaming swords to pierce an elephant-sized spider’s head, instantly killing it before attacking the next one falling from the ceiling. Like a nightmare, giant spiders fell from a crack in the ceiling.

“Grigrioooooooarrrrrrrrrrrh!” The slazzigula roared in rage after killing the second spider. It gave me a short glance before its fire wings grew in size, helping it fly up and into the hole.

As I was trying to process what just happened, my focus switched from the slazzigula and spiders towards Ellaine and the students.

“Argh! Shit!” I heard an echo curse. Approaching it, the sight of a scorched battlefield came into view. Numerous followers of Shiterno laid on the ground, either dying or dead in a field of fire and broken rocks. In the middle of all of this, six humans and a garm caught my attention.

Oh no!

Nishio was cursing uncontrollably with blue-purple-colored skin, shooting out magic as he screamed in pain. Kazumi, Kohaku, and Ellaine were standing up, stalwart, but parts of their armor were burned black from fire, as well as the body parts it defended. Misaki and Tamae were the only ones looking healthy, but I could already see signs of arcane corruption creeping up, similar to Nishio. Quatre, despite the numerous wounds on him, continued defending everybody behind him, undeterred by the fire its body blocked for everybody.

“Do not give up now! The enemy lies weakened, we must press on to preserve our faith!” The large congregation of Danterno, on the other hand, was drastically thinned down from everybody's efforts. From the spells they shot out, the ones left were the [Inferno Magic] mages.

Heal, I need to heal them! Quick!

This was all I could think of. I pushed my body forward with this single goal. Nothing could stop me.

“This is a trial we must complete! We must do this for our God! With the honor and dedication of all our brothers and sisters who fell on this day, we must persevere! If we cannot pass this trial, how can we free our God Danterno?! Fire mages, we must fight!” Cries of desperation came out from those fire mages but all I heard was the rattling noises of vermin. When I saw them preparing spells to finish off the students, I knew I had to stomp them out.

As I was preparing a flame breath to kill them off, another cracking sound came from the ceiling, however, instead of spiders, four giant wolves came shooting down.

“Graaaaaaahhhhhhh! Graaahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!” The leading wolf, clad in black and white fur, growled with a blood mist emitting from its eyes. Black lightning wrapped around its body for a moment before it shot straight at the leading mage, frying him to death.

Saori!

It was Saori and her garms!

With lightning wrapped around her body, Saori’s landing caused a shockwave of black electricity, stunning all the mages around her. With her powerful arms, every stomp she did with them was like a punch, shaking the ground as she mercilessly smashed men and women alike into pulps of viscera. Once her garms landed with her, this fight turned into a one sided rabbit hunt, as none of the mages could stand against the unwounded wolves crushing their skulls with their bite.

Tasianna! Grimnir! You guys are all safe! Urgh, Sacred Field

With the enemies in front of me gone, I cast [Sacred Field] under Ellaine, the students, and Quatre, healing them of their wounds as my fighting instincts suddenly stopped completely. I felt relief, causing me to unintentionally deactivate [Symphonie des Feuergottes] and let my body cool down; that said, overdrive was still active and I had to release this pent-up energy somewhere. Looking at the horde of giant spiders that dropped down, crawling away when they saw me, I remembered I still had a job to do.

There were two ways to cancel [Solar Beam]’s overdrive mode, and that was either through a supernova explosion or another solar beam. The idea was to drain all the remaining solar energy with this last move. Choosing the latter method, the area where I fought the slazzigula which was now swarmed by spiders became my target.

With a beam hot enough to instantly melt rock, I ensured none of the spiders lived to tell the tale. Once it was all over, my body just slumped on the ground, exhausted. Even my music stopped playing.

[Starvation (Minor)] [Starving Weakling (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Wow, looks like I got too invested in my fight against the slazzigula. That booster rocket was a bad idea…

Before the adrenaline went away completely, I opened up my storage, letting numerous dismantled cuts of felgheist meat drop onto the scorching ground, instantly grilling in the process, even some turning right into charcoal.

“Aifli eir Vintral.” A soothing voice entered my ears, white snow came into view. It was Tasianna’s custom spell. “You did a fine job, Lady Hestia. Allow me to serve you.” While drinking a Mana potion and dragorade simultaneously, she picked up a slab of meat with an ice plate and put it inside my mouth.

Forcing myself to chew it, I could only think about how lacking in spices the meat was… but it was better than nothing. Hunger was a wild thing. It made everything taste better.

“““““S-Sensei?””””” Five voices, almost in tears.

I could hear a mist dispersing as I mindlessly chewed anything Tasianna set inside my mouth. “…I-I…I’m sorry for being late for homeroom. I lost my way here.”

“““““Sensei!”””””

Thank goodness… Huh?

As I tuned out of Saori’s and her student’s heartful reunion, a woman clad in white armor suddenly came into my vision. She had white hair and features resembling a Scandinavian woman in her late twenties or mid-thirties. Tasianna wasn’t reacting to her as she approached me, giving me a short bow before mana mist suddenly was being released from her body.

Her armor made clanking noises as two limbs erupted from her back along with a third appendage from her butt. White scaled wings, an ivory-colored tail, two short beige horns, and marble-like scales covering her face and hands. Her face was still that of a human, but her race certainly wasn’t.

She bowed before me the moment her transformation ended, smiling as she addressed me, “It is an honor to finally meet you, Princess Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor, youngest daughter of the imperial family of Kargryx. My name is Yorshka Nordor and I am your terribly older niece.”

Confusion. Nordor? Yorshka? My mind was still processing what just happened but something was preventing me from connecting the dots together. Sometimes, compassion could become an issue.

Where is Talon?

**********************************************

What is that explosion? Why did the ceiling just crack open? Where did those spiders come from?

My mind was hazy. I couldn’t express my confusion to anybody around me. Pain. The pain was the only thing keeping me awake. For twenty years, I have become accustomed to living with burn scars, tormenting me in the first few years whenever I tried to sleep. No, that wasn’t the pain I was feeling.

Keith?

I looked around. A corpse of a man. His face was burnt and his eyes lifeless. He could not speak anymore. A knife with a wavy blade was stuck in his chest. It was the cause of his death.

The sound of thunder. The crackling entered my ears but I eventually lost the ability to hear. I looked up at the ceiling. Four giant wolves jumped down. My vision became hazier.

Keith. What could our lives have become if we had chosen a different path?

My heart ached. Was this sadness?

See you soon… old friend.

With that last thought, my mind went blank.

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Chapter 182: Aunt and Niece.

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[Humanized (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

May you rest in peace, Talon. I apologize for not being there for you in time.

Death. Death and I had a weird relationship. It is for a fact that I, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor, am currently living a second life with the memories of my past life on Earth, albeit a good amount of those were fragmented during my reincarnation process. My spirit was accordingly still not “whole” and I was told it was currently adapting to my new form, changing as I lived. These lost memories would return to me eventually.

However, have I ever experienced losing somebody through death? I lost my parents and relatives when I died on Earth; I could grieve for the fact that I would never see them again. I even blamed myself for making people important to me sad with my death. Nevertheless, was it similar to seeing somebody you know die in front of you? In both cases, you lose somebody, the only real difference being who died.

‘What if?’ In both cases, I had to ask myself those questions. ‘What if I had done something else?’ or ‘What if I had been faster?’

Philosophers could discuss and argue as much as they wanted, but I personally think that Death is a cruel acquaintance in either case. For somebody who had to surround herself with death ever since she was reborn, the notion of somebody dying hit me the hardest when I personally knew them. Hunting monsters, taking down bandits, or barely escaping from death’s grasp by the skin of my teeth somehow became the norm for me.

I earnestly did not want Saori, Tasianna, or Ellaine to disappear from my life. They were my emotional anchors, after all.But what about the individuals who I only knew a little bit about, and yet died right in front of me?

Macklemor was a bandit and enemy, plain and simple, regardless of whether his death was avoidable or not. Kiiro’s loss, although I felt bad that he died like that, affected Tasianna more than me. So what about Talon? Well, for one thing, he was a party companion.

Opening my eyes after giving out a prayer, I looked down at Talon’s lifeless body, whose clothes and party bracelet were burned to cinders moments before his death. Healing magic still works on a deceased body to repair bones and regenerate skin tissue just seconds or minutes after somebody’s death, but on Peolynca, death was governed by the Health stat. Let it reach zero without some game-breaking trick and your soul will be sent on its way to Ilsaphone, the Goddess of Death. I might have healed Talon’s wounds but my efforts were far too late.

When I transformed back into a dragonewt after Tasianna fed me enough to get rid of [Starvation (Minor)], my first move was to find Talon, hoping he was still alive and just hiding. Sadly, that wasn’t the case. With his body riddled with burns, I found his corpse lying next to a one-armed man with equally horrendous burns. The latter had an undulated dagger with Plesia’s symbol dug deep into his heart.

Talon and Keith. One sought revenge, the other a prosperous church. Old friends, reunited in death.

They were both strangers, but one had become an acquaintance while the other an enemy. It was just another sentence in my story, but that didn’t make me lack compassion for their sad fate. If it were up to me, I would have wanted them to have a better, happy ending.

As a gesture of goodwill, I cleaned and healed Talon’s wounds and newer burns, although his childhood burn scars were far too old to treat. I removed the dagger from Keith’s body, closed the wound, healed his charred skin, and reattached his arm as best I could. Despite knowing the dungeon would consume them anyways, I dug a grave for them using Earth magic.

Kinda sad dying like this… I’ll make sure your ID makes it to the surface, Talon. Rest in peace.

Shiterno’s followers caused enough trouble to people important to me, including Saori’s students and Talon himself. I had no responsibility towards them.

“Watashitachiha… Hito o koroshita, Segawa-Sensei.” (We… murdered people, Teacher Segawa.) Japanese entered my ears the moment I finished my prayer to Talon, turning my head around to a group of students and their teacher. The one who said this was Nishio, lying down to rest due to the arcane corruption.

The others had their wounds treated and were all sitting down before Saori, who had decided to stay in her moderate wolfkin form instead of [Humanize (Major)] with her [Humanization Lv. 9]. She would have lost most of her fenrir features, but she would have looked like a normal human for her students. Still, I would have thought their meeting would’ve been more… upbeat and positive, and it was when they were first reunited, but the mood had since degraded.

“I know it doesn’t matter much in this world, but despite being the class representative, I wasn’t able to keep everybody together, Sensei. Tatsuya-kun, Kyouya-kun, Daichi-san, Haruka-chan, and Asaka-san were the only ones who came with us thanks to the church, however, our other 15 classmates parted ways with us, going to the Folschreck Empire. We were essentially assigned to the western side of Altrust,” Tamae explained to Saori, who was listening intently to everything they told her.

“I noticed all of you were addressing each other with your first name. Tsuji-san, you rarely ever called Kudo-san by his first name. What prompted this?” Saori asked Tamae. Tsuji was Tamae’s surname while Nishio’s was Kudo.

“Takuma-kun, uhm, Akanashi-kun, believed it would have been better for us to use our first names more often and to introduce ourselves as so to Peolyncians. It is to fit in better, at least, that was his reason. After he gained his ‘Hero’ title, he became more insistent in everybody becoming more ‘hero-like,’” she replied.

Hero title? Seriously? Weren’t they all considered heroes by the church, so why was only one of them given the title ‘Hero?’

However, instead of worrying about that, Saori began to giggle, “Hie hie, oh that is the reason? And here I thought Kudo-san finally was brave enough to finally confess his feelings. I was for a moment quite impressed, Nishio-kun, hie hie.”

Wait, what?!

“S-S-Sensei?! Why would you — oh, my head, I’m feeling dizzy.” Baffled and embarrassed at what Saori just revealed, Nishio tried to push his body up to react but fell right back onto the ground, red now replacing the blue coloration on his face. Misaki, Kazumi, and Kohaku followed Saori’s teasing and giggled with her, causing Nishio to hide his face and turn his body away from them.

The only one who was unsure what was happening was Tamae herself. RIP Nishio, you loverboy.

As the laughter resided, Saori’s smile softened, looking at her students sympathetically, “I understand what you said, Kudo-san, wait, Nishio-san. If the whole class decided on it, then it would only be proper for me to oblige also. Tamae-san, Misaki-san, Kazumi-san, Kohaku-san. For you, it’s been over a year, while for me, this new body of mine isn’t even a year old. I can see that all five of you have grown up significantly from the last time I saw you and… I think we have much to catch up with. Would you five indulge your former teacher?”

All five smiled as they nodded to Saori’s request, looking as if they have been desperately waiting for these words for a whole year now. As they began recalling the same story they’d told me, just in a more detailed and enthusiastic manner, somebody suddenly came up to me. Once I noticed her approaching me, I turned around and came face-to-face with a certain dragonewt woman.

While combing her white hair held up in a ponytail, she spoke to me in a joking manner, “You know, standing there and eavesdropping on other people’s conversation isn’t very polite. It makes you stick out like a mountain. Well, I can forgive you for that. You are only a year old, after all.”

With a face resembling Priscilla greatly, I couldn’t help but feel nervous speaking with this woman. After all, she was Farron’s wife. “Ma’am. Do you need something?”

Smirking at what I’d said, she continued speaking in a light-hearted way, “Oh come now, relax a bit more. I can imagine how strange this all is for you, but I am the sorta person who enjoys speaking in a leisurely manner instead of putting the formality stick up your ass. We already have one tail, Princess Hestia.”

“Pff!” Unable to hold down a laugh from that imagery, I let out a chortle, easing up my mind and tension a bit. It was a nice ice-breaker. “I guess staying inside a dungeon for over a week has gotten to me a bit. Or it might be just the hunger, who knows?”

“Well, let’s solve that last one for now. Come, your maid seems to be making good progress on our lunch… or is it dinner? Let’s leave those six to their talks while we have our own, alright? Little Kargrxymor?” she said with a warm smile, one that a loving relative would give you.

“Just Hestia is fine. You did say you want to keep it casual, Yorshka. Or, do you want me to call you ‘Miss Yorshka,’ elder scale?”

“Oh, please, anything but that! Calling me elder scale would force me to act my age instead of having fun.”

We moved away from Talon’s grave, further away so the smell of electrocuted cultists wouldn’t bother our noses. Just a little bit further ahead where Saori was speaking with her students, Tasianna and Ellaine were preparing dinner with Grimnir’s help, who was teaching the two of them about dwarven cuisine.

“Tazongn culture is built upon mining as its foundation, which means most of our dishes were primarily made to satisfy the needs of a miner. It has to be hearty to fill the stomach but also quick to get back to work. This tazlok irvinglay, or rockysteady toffel beef cake in Common, is a dwarven classic. You turn the tazlok flour into dough before stuffing it with herbs, spices, toffels, and meat. Bake and wait,” Grimnir instructed Tasianna, sharing some knowledge from his home.

“I just need to cut this however I want? Even in large chunks? That sounds easy enough,” Ellaine looked relieved, cutting the meat and toffels in whatever way she could. Tasianna had to fix them later for her.

“Like this?” Tasianna then began stuffing the mentioned ingredients into a dough, which will probably turn into an XL family cake once it was done baking. Apparently, tazlok bread was as dry and tough to eat as rocks, making tazlok wheat perfect to hold in all the ingredients stuffed into it.

It reminded me a bit of beef wellington, although the preparation method was similar to stuffing a turkey. It fitted the image I had of dwarves, seeing as they are rough and blunt. This preparation method was quick and easy to do, requiring little finesse but creating something appetizing as a result.

“Oooh, good work, Tasianna. Bladdarg, kinda wish I could eat more of your and Saori’s tazlok noodles. Reminds me of those fast-food stalls I used to frequent, but I guess nothing beats some traditional dishes once in a while. Hahaha, I haven’t eaten anything from home since I left the mountains.” Grimnir smiled as he watched Tasianna put on the finishing touches on the “cake” before putting it in our portable oven. He smiled wistfully.

Leaving them to their own devices, Yorshka and I sat down at a table I pulled from my storage. After a brief, awkward pause, Yorshka began, saying, “Well, we haven’t properly introduced ourselves yet, so let’s start with that. Like I said before, I am Yorshka Sirris Nordor. The beautiful wife of the Hunter’s Guild’s master of the Firwood branch, Farron, and also the loving mother of my precious Priscilla. I met with Farron in Firwood and he gave me a general understanding of the situation. Considering there was another dragonkin in Firwood, I trust you learned about your special situation from them?”

“Huh? What?!” I was baffled. There was supposedly another dragonkin in Firwood? The only one I knew was Cernust, but I made sure not to tell anybody of him, not even to Farron.

“Don’t forget, Farron already confessed, right? Priscilla is a dragonewt, born from my marriage with him. I’m a good mother, mind you, so I made sure to teach Priscilla everything she needed to know about dragonkins and dragonewts, especially the smell we give off. While we aren’t sure who it was, Priscilla mentioned she smelled another dragonkin besides you, Hestia.”

Ok, that explains it. I guess I should have thought of that, although Cernust never mentioned he smelled Priscilla. Maybe he did but just didn’t say anything out of courtesy?

Yorshka continued, “Farron told me pretty much everything. That you are a reincarnator, Goddess Aurena’s champion, and also that you were born a year ago in your current form. Farron understood your growling, meaning you somehow learned Draconic without his help and also the rough situation with your mother, my grandaunt.”

“Grandaunt? You did call me your aunt for some reason. Don’t tell me we’re actually related?” I asked wearily. If what Cernust said was true, that dragonewts were searching for me and would bring me back to my dragon mother at all cost, then this could be problematic.

Noticing my agitation, Yorshka laid her spear on the ground and raised her hands up as if she was surrendering. “You have nothing to fear from me, my Princess. Please, calm down.” After taking a moment to let me do just that, Yorshka continued. “Well, with your reaction, that proves that you had heard something from that other dragonkin. Considering that you are their princess, as they should have noticed from your aura and smell, not bringing you back to Kargryx is pretty much a crime. As your relative, I really should punish them.”

Cold sweat began to form on my forehead. Yorshka’s eyes sharpened as she gave a threatening glare into the distance, looking like a predator who had found her next prey. The aura she was emitting constantly already gave me goosebumps, making me fear her even more than the High Ogre or Garm Matriarch. Priscilla said she was an A rank adventurer; if that were true, then Cernust was in big trouble

“Just kidding, hie hie.” But this woman is a fucking jokester. “I’m not in the mood to hunt some dragonkin anyways. I’m just happy to finally meet you, Hestia.” Her smile felt genuine, but it still unnerved me a bit.

“… How are you related to my dragon mother?” I asked.

“Ahh, finally, the moment of truth. While I would enjoy speaking with you some more, I will leave the meat of the subject for later, after we are done with the current issue, yes?” She was talking about the giant fire spider moving up to the surface. I’d already told Yorshka and Grimnir about it without divulging that it came from Aurena — although Yorshka might be able to deduce that since she knew I was Aurena’s champion and a reincarnator. We were only taking a break right now since everybody needed one, especially me. As urgent as it was, going into battle without being at full power was a very bad idea.

Yorshka then leaned forward, her lips curved into a smile as she said the next words slowly, “Melloxtressa Wisperia Nordor. The matriarch of the Nordor dragon bloodline and the Nordor dragonewt clan. Your mother on Peolynca, Hestia.”

Melloxtressa Wisperia Nordor… Her name does sound dragony.

“In case you didn’t know, dragons and dragonewts take on the name of their ancestral dragon as their last name out of respect, meaning the silver dragon Nordoramsul is your ancestor on your mother’s side, similar to how God Kargryxmor is your father’s ancestor. I am your niece, or grandniece if you want to be more specific.”

“Are you also a dragon?”

Yorshka shook her head, confirming what Farron told me. “I am a dragonewt, just like my daughter. The Nordor dragonewt clan was created through the union of your mother’s brother with an elven woman. I myself was born from two dragonewts, although I don’t remember which generation I belong to. Eh, it doesn’t matter too much to me really. Just know that I’m now family, Hestia.”

Family? I don’t even know you. You don’t know me. I don’t know my dragon mother either, so why should I consider your family? I don’t even know anything about my supposed ‘home’ country.

It was impossible for me to accept. I couldn’t comprehend that this woman before me was supposedly my relative. I mean, we don’t even look alike and I had just met her today. How she called me her aunt and how this grown-ass woman was supposed to be my niece doesn’t make sense at all. The very thought was hard for me to accept, let alone even try to understand it.

Yorshka noticed my reluctance, tilting her head at my silence. “Hmm, Priscilla had described you differently.”

“How so?”

“Well, more jovial. I thought learning about your mother would have made you more curious for information… but it seems you’ve become even warier of me. Did I say something wrong?” She frowned. She was expecting me to be happier to meet her but I found the idea of meeting a stranger and learning they were “family” out of nowhere absurd.

“Not particularly, but you can’t exactly assume I’ll just accept the whole family thing so easily. It’s not that simple.” The only family I have are the ones of Earth and Aurora. “Besides…”

My eyes were glued to the symbol adorning her party bracelet, the figure of an angel-like woman with yellow hair. It was Aurena’s symbol but, more specifically, it belonged to the Church of Aurena. Tamae’s and Nishio’s words became my focus now, of how they were kidnapped and trapped inside Aureolis, the holy capital of Aurena’s faith.

Yorshka seemed confused when I suddenly kept quiet, following my gaze to see what I was looking at. After a couple of seconds of awkwardness, she began playing with her hair before speaking up. “Did the kids tell you about everything? About how they were summoned here, forced to help out with the church’s goals in order to return to their world, and then being put to work as propaganda?”

I contemplated what she said, still reluctant to answer. When I didn’t say anything, Yorshka sighed deeply. “Haaaaaaa, I guess you really are still a child. Hestia, after spending nearly a whole year with Tamae, Nishio, Misaki, Kazumi, and Kohaku, I’ve been able to gain some insight into how your Earth works. An advanced world where even commoners are able to keep contact with friends and family over long distances. It sounded wonderful and made me envious that this technology hasn’t been created yet in Peolynca. It would be nice to see my daughter’s face more often when I’m out working.”

She then stopped playing with her hair and looked me straight in the eye. “I’m not as zealous about dragons compared to the average dragonewt. A life outside of Loatryx has given me a better perspective of life, but I am still very loyal to my clan. And I am loyal to Lady Melloxtressa. Did you know that your disappearance was due to the death of the imperial transporter who was responsible for presenting you to the allies of Kargryx, something important-”

“The adulthood pilgrimage? Yeah, I already know. That dragonkin told me enough to get a general idea. What are you trying to say?” I impatiently skipped over a repeated information dump.

“Well, outside of the fact that nobody knew how or why the courier died, nobody had any idea where your egg ended up. We didn’t have any surveillance and didn’t need to. ‘The unborn imperial dragon princess has gone missing!’ was the most well-known news for the past year in Loatryx, Caedhul, and Saelariel. Beyond that, only the dwarven High-King was informed of your disappearance, in order to keep this information from spreading to human hands. The Nordor clan, loyal to the Matriarch and her brother, have been searching far and wide for you. I heard some wanted to search the Belzac forest, but it seemed you escaped before anybody could find you there.”

She took a deep breath in and out, calming herself down to sound more articulate, “When I said I was happy to meet you, I wasn’t lying. Hestia, even if you can’t accept me as family, it doesn’t mean that your Peolyncian mother won’t see you as hers. A dragon mother values her children more than the world’s safety, a trait inherited by us dragonewts. I ask you to trust me, Hestia, and trust that I am your ally. Although I am a follower of Goddess Aurena, I am so because of God Kargryxmor. The reason why I am a holy knight was simply because of a friend's request.”

“Sounds like nepotism.” I frowned.

“Sure it is, but look at it this way: If a friend asked you for help, wouldn’t you be there for them? Well, it helps that my old friend is the Knight-Commander of the Knights of Aurena, making it easy for me to enter their ranks. And do you know why I’m with the knights? Because my good friend has started to become suspicious of his own church. Shocker, right?”

I opened my mouth in surprise. The Knight-Commander of the knights meant to protect and serve the Church of Aurena was becoming suspicious, to the point he appointed Yorshka? For what?

When I asked her this question, Yorshka’s face seemed to lighten up, looking pleased that she got my attention again. “Mostly to gain a more reliable ally. It was a little bit before the kids got summoned to this world. Just for your information, I’m as clueless as you would expect from a grunt. My old friend needed an ally but wouldn’t share most of the information with me, ordering me to just keep watch over those kids. And, I’ve been doing my best at that ever since. It got a bit hairy on this trip here so I can’t thank you enough for protecting them. Too bad for Talon, though. He was a good guy according to the rumors. I hope he felt some catharsis after getting his revenge on Keith.”

Can she be trusted? was what was going through my head. I didn’t know what to do about it, so the silence continued. Yorshka sighed once again, before sitting on her table quietly, waiting for me to make the first move. While I was still contemplating the issue, somebody stole my attention away.

“We got ourselves in some trouble in Gransromus, the capital of the Lecartiglio Duchy, when Kazumi noticed a few katzunes getting hassled,” Tamae recalled, still telling what the students did in the past year.

“Yeah, the racism against beastmen was pretty intense down there. If you weren’t an adventurer, a soldier, or somebody important, then random beastmen would constantly be harassed by the local residents. Mostly thugs or assholes, but these moments really stood out,” Kazumi continued. “When I first confronted them, they just went away; however, when the five of us wanted to do some Quests by ourselves, those thugs reappeared and tried to mug us for being ‘fur lovers.’ The others managed to subdue their opponents without harming them too much but I… fighting two of them by myself was a bit too much. I went too far. I thought I got used to it from bandit and monster fights, but I guess not having a clear reason to fight them made it hard for me to accept that I killed them.”

Two teardrops fell from Kazumi’s eyes, quickly wiped away as she suppressed herself from crying. Saori came forward and embraced her, caressing her back as she spoke softly, “It’s alright, it’s alright. I know this is heavy on your conscience, but your own health should come before others, especially some thugs acting like bandits. While cities in this world do have guards to maintain the law, don’t forget that they can’t be everywhere in this world. I don’t want to patronize you about it, but you aren’t a murderer. You did the right thing.”

“Sensei, you seem calm about all the fights we told you about,” Misaki suddenly questioned Saori. “I’ve meant to ask this for a while now but, how is it being a fenrir? A wolf? From what I can see, you’ve changed.”

None of the students have asked me about how it was like to be a dragonewt. We were strangers until now, I guess.

Saori scratched her chin as she thought over the question. “Well, being something the System considers a monster is weird, to say the least. I thought if I still kept my memories and also my humanity that I would just be the same person, but I guess I did change quite a bit. For one thing, raw meat doesn’t taste disgusting nor does blood. Also, about killing humans, I’ll be honest, I’ve made myself feel nothing for people I have to fight to the death. ‘Get over it,’ as insensitive it is to say that.”

“How?” Kohaku asked, showing none of the energy from before.

“For one thing, my mind has been altered. No questions asked. The feeling of evolving and gaining levels has erased nearly all the guilt I would feel for ending a life. Sure, I started out pretty pathetically, puking and shaking in fear from my ‘inhumane action.’ Similar to you five. But, that eventually went away after I began thinking of monster-killing as hunting for food or a quest, or how fighting humans or humanoids have turned into self-defense or bring to ‘justice.’ anyway to stop me from thinking too pessimistically,” Saori smiled wryly, remembering her past as she explained her mindset to her students.

“The Sensei I knew from a year ago would probably advise us to stay away from danger. ‘Don’t ruin your life for something stupid,’ you told me once. It makes it hard to believe you're the same Sensei from back then, seeing as how you’re reasoning that our actions are necessary,” Nishio stated with a small smile. “I know it was out of self-defense or some other reason, but the emotional side in me would still call myself a murderer. I know it's for our goal to return home, but sometimes the necessary action isn’t always the right one.”

“Haha, true,” Saori chuckled. “Ahh, in a way, despite all the troubles you had to face this year, it was still fruitful, whether it was good or bad experiences. All of you learned from it and became smarter and stronger young adults. I know the school’s chairman’s PR speech about you all being the Elites of Tomorrow has mostly become a joke among all of you, but I honestly believe it now. The students I saw back then, stressed out by studying, exams, and your families’ expectations are mostly gone. Sure, you cannot run from stress forever, but all five of you seem more energetic compared to the last time I saw you. Tell me, has there been something you enjoyed the most since being transported here?”

“Freedom from my parents and all the entry exams. I can study what I want now instead of preparing myself to become their company’s heir. It’s liberating,” Nishio replied immediately.

“A vast sea of new ingredients, all ready for me to try to cook with. A chance for me to get out of my parents’ shadow and the expectations of their employees,” Tamae enthusiastically stated.

“I want to learn more from this world’s finest archers, and to better myself under them. It is far more enjoyable than being a puppet for my father’s ambition to raise his company’s rank in the conglomerate he’s working for. Also, I personally would like to gather enough materials to make the best bow in this world,” Misaki bashfully said, turning red from embarrassment.

“Adventure and having this experience help me become a better mangaka than my father, or maybe become a streamer. As hard as it can be sometimes, it can also be exhilarating,” Kohaku responded in a dreamy mood.

“Katzunes. I love my cats but seeing cat people living in this world was pretty cute. Sensei, you did mention that there was a skill to transform into katzunes, right?” Kazumi mentioned [Beastialization], which could grant the ability to turn herself into a katzune if she chooses to.

Saori giggled at her students’ responses, prompting Tamae to reciprocate the question to her. When Tamae mentioned that our party opened up a restaurant, Saori started to become nervous. “Oh my, you know that already? Jeez, I don’t think I can compete with what you can produce, seeing as your parents own a Michelin star restaurant, but yes, I have opened a restaurant with Aurora. Honestly, traveling with them has been amazing. Sure, it isn’t always rosy, especially with the fact that I died somehow, but still, I can’t complain.”

“Have you found out why you were reborn in Peolynca, Sensei?” Kazumi asked. “If I remember correctly, the transportation circle was only in our classroom while you were supposedly coming late from the teacher’s room.”

Saori shook her head. “I can’t answer that. To be honest, it isn’t even on my priority list. If it is revealed one day, then so be it, but I won’t stress myself about it.” Her eyes then suddenly turned towards me, causing me to flinch. “Speaking about stress, do me a favor, would you five? Hestia over there barely has any friends around her mental age, especially school friends. She has been my benefactor for this entire time and a friend I can 100% count on. She can be a bit of a tsundere, so be patient, yes?”

Wha-What-What?! What is wrong with this woman?!

I turned my boiling face away from them, ignoring the laughter following Saori’s insensitive words. It’s not like I need or want more friends, ok! Even if it is small, I have a good group of friends that I enjoy staying around with, so why should I want more? Having too many friends would also make it harder to spend time with each of them, and that’s something I don’t want to repeat again.

If my memories of how I actually treated my friends are true, then I don’t want to act like a bad friend again. Meeting those Chezaic twins and seeing them bully Ellaine really opened up an old wound, making me remember the truth of how I drifted apart from my school friends. I called them “bitches” despite being the bitch myself.

… Still, opening up to new people, huh?

“Yorshka?” I turned around to Yorshka, still able to feel the embarrassment on my face.

“Yes?” she responded, looking elated that her patience paid off.

“This is something I need some time to think about… a lot of time, so how about we do this, uhm, ‘family’ thing another time. We can start with being acquaintances first,” I raised my hand forward for a handshake.

Yorshka shrugged at my comment but still nodded with a smile, grabbing my hand and giving it a shake.

She’s strong!

“How about hunting companions? If you ask me, fighting alongside people usually brings them closer one way or another. We have a giant spider to hunt, after all. My spear is yours, Hestia!”

Yorshka then stood up, mana mist exuding from her body. Once it dissipated, the beautiful Scandinavian woman was gone, replaced by a tall, intimidating-looking reptile. Her entire body was covered in silver scales and spikes, reminiscent of my [Humanized (Minor)] form in general appearance. Was this Yorshka’s true dragonewt form?

Looking up to her, it seemed she grew a few inches. Before, she was around the height of Saori, who was 172cm (5’8”) currently, while Yorshka looked around 180cm (5’11”) in her current form. As a reference, I used to be 150cm (4’11”) in the Belzac forest but I managed to grow up to 157cm (5’2”) since I became 16 years old in my current form. I was proud of my growth but this “niece” of mine was towering over me by 23cm (9”). Crazy!

“Holy shit! Lady Yorshka?!” The students exclaimed in surprise. They’d already learned she was a dragonewt but they probably forgot that beastmen with purer monster blood usually looked more monstrous, just like Yorshka here.

“Let’s make preparations for the fight!” Yorshka stated, fully able to speak Common in her full dragonewt form. I still couldn’t.

Another B rank fight awaits us!

A note from AbyssRaven

Reunions and new meetings, but we cannot rest for now. A raid boss is awaiting us.

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Chapter 183: Dungeon Break.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Narrator Time.

“This should be a good place to rest for the night, right?”

“Trunk looks sturdy and there is only one way in. I’ll lay some traps and get this place secure.”

“Got it, thanks. Haaaa, finally some rest after a good day’s work! Come on, Naden, help me out.”

Ecosystems. A biological community of organisms interacting with each other and their environment, all linked together in a cycle of life where energy and nutrients are being transmitted around. Generally starting with the vegetation performing photosynthesis, this energy gained from the sun would then be shared among the fauna before decomposing back into the ground for detritivores and plants to reuse. However, inside a dungeon, ecosystems work a bit differently.

Lacking a sun to keep the organisms inside a dungeon alive, a dungeon instead uses mana to create energy, feeding its inhabitants what they need to survive. In a sense, the dungeon was the energy-recycling-and-creating-plant in this relationship.

So, why does a dungeon need to create habitats for its monsters? Why were certain floors so similar to ecosystems, then? Comfort, that was the reason. Monsters created by a dungeon were similar to natural monster spawnings, which made monsters feral and unintelligent for a certain amount of time after their birth, even if this effect would eventually subside as the monsters gained intelligence. A living organisms’ needs must be fulfilled.

Although a dungeon could imprint certain commands like “Do not attack the dungeon master” or “Protect a certain floor” into these monsters as instincts and priorities, the dungeon and its master still had to care for them as a tamer would. That meant stimulation outside of handing their food on a platter. Leveling up, procreation, hunting, fighting, entertainment, socializing, and other examples. The monsters were all independent-thinking beings, similar to Belzac, at the end of the day, and many would rebel if their needs weren’t fulfilled.

While the dungeon possesses an external source of mana in the form of a dungeon master or other visitors, it could create stronger defenses to protect its heart, the dungeon core, but the downside was that, with stronger monsters, a higher maintenance cost would be incurred.

“Gathered some fruits and got some water from the nearby river. We turning the meat from that raptor into soup tonight?”

“Nice, good job! I’ll get to that in a minute. Woo, good thing that wasn’t another knopbrie raid, right Naden? Haha!”

“Shut it, you idiot! Just make the soup already… not like it’ll taste anywhere near as good as a girl’s…”

Naden, the young adventurer Hestia and Aurora met last week, was once again back inside the dungeon with his usual party, Questing and hunting to earn money and experience. Despite almost dying against the barkwraith protector, all he needed to do to regain his confidence and sense of adventure was a good night out with the boys and a tearful confession of love to his family, all fueled by one or two too many tankards of mead and ale.

Now back to work on floor six, Naden and his party were preparing for a good night’s rest, only, something seemed to be unnerving the young man.

“Oi, what are you shaking your leg for, Naden? Come help us cut down these branches for kindling,” one of Naden’s party members voiced out.

“Ahh, leave the fool alone. Idiot thinks he has a chance with those girls from last time,”

“Hahaha! Oh, you mean the girl that came rushing in like a knight to save your ass? Oh shit, I thought the mead was just making you talk, but you actually are thinking about her? Shit, man.”

“Shut up...” Naden replied to his laughing friends before his mind returned to the young blue-haired woman from a week ago. Equipped with a well-crafted sword, the woman appeared before him, as if she was transported there by the wind itself and slew the beast aiming for his life before confronting the viscous barkwraith and horde of mushroom knopbries with her party members, striking the monstrocity down.

Although Naden was just a commoner who could barely read anything more than a few keywords necessary to live inside a city and to pick out Quests, the concept of a knight in shining armor wasn’t entirely foreign to him. Of course, he didn’t have the financial freedom to buy a book, and even if he did, he lacked the education to read it. Like many other young aspiring adventurers and would-be heroes, tavern talk, adventurer stories, and bards were his main source of fantastical heroism.

Similar to how fairy adventurers from before the War for the Fae would create incredible tales sprinkled with small exaggerations when they returned home, bards and drunk adventurers would do the same. Adventurers rescuing villagers from grimgarians, defending noblewomen from bandit raids, or even slaying a powerful B rank monster. These wild tales wouldn’t even stop when it came to recalling famous adventurer parties and squadrons defeating earth-shattering A ranks.

Some were called out for their lies, easily distinguishable by veteran fighters or worldly travelers, but Naden had been born into a worker family and grew up in the middle district of Cedaraille. He was fascinated by stories of adventurers bringing home fortune from the nearby dungeon or from foriegn countries. With so many people visiting his home city, Naden developed a dream to become just like the tales he’d grown up on, an amazing warrior strong enough to protect his home… and maybe somebody he fancied.

But she was so much more amazing!

In his moment of need, when the barkwraith had severely injured him and the knopbries were about to devour him, it almost seemed that his prayers to Aurena had been answered when Ellaine swooped in to protect him. Like a dashing knight, she appeared with the wind flourishing her well-combed hair around. Armored in quality gambeson and pieces of metal armor, the young woman had enthralled Naden. At that moment, she was his savior, the person he wanted to become one day.

But there was an issue with his fantasies. “Ah, cut it out already, Naden. You’ve seen those girls. I bet all my savings that they were a noble’s party. Not too sure about the priestess or elf woman, but the way the swordswoman carried herself and spoke was exactly how some of those stuck-up noble adventurers do.”

“Yeah, exactly. Besides, have you seen how you look? She’s out of your league, in both social rank and looks. Even if she were willing to speak with you, do you honestly think you can stay calm enough to speak a single word? Ha, as if!” Friends were friends, even if they were trying to dissuade him from thinking about Ellaine in a rather rough way.

Damn, idiots… Still, why haven’t they come back yet?

It has been over a week since he last saw Ellaine and the rest of Aurora. When he heard them mentioning that they were going deeper into the dungeon, he thought they would do some slime felgheist hunting for a Quest and then return to the surface. He understood they were strong, so he wasn’t worried about them. Warning them about the dangers when they probably were experienced enough to know it themselves would be considered rude, something he learned during his first three months as an adventurer.

However, the problem was he hadn’t seen them inside the adventurer guild or anywhere else in the city since. Naden’s infatuation for Ellaine made him want to see her again, so he was constantly looking out for her this past week. When his party decided to venture back into the dungeon two days ago, Naden came along with worry in his heart.

Did they come into danger?! Shit, I heard floor 10 and beyond are just kill zones. You could die if you were careless for even a second.

But these worries vanished the moment multiple explosions blasted off in the distance. The four young men preparing tonight’s camp inside a tree’s trunk jolted their heads up at the sound, witnessing the massive inferno engulfing trees from afar. As the fire spread, one of Naden’s teammates came running back from scouting, cold sweat drenched his face.

“In! Get in!” he shouted, jumping over the traps he laid down himself before pushing his friend into the tree. Pressing his finger on his lips, Naden and the others understood they needed to be quiet.

In Naden's mind, he questioned what was happening. Considering the local monsters on floor six, he couldn’t think of any monster able to spit fire or create flames naturally, meaning it had to be a fire mage or a firebomb. However, when Naden peeked his head out, all he could see were fiery bodies moving past trees like skittering insects. Without batting an eye in any other directions, the horde moved onward.

What the hell are they?! I can’t see-Wait, where are they going?!

His question was quickly answered when the ground began to tremble. As if triggered by his thoughts, the burning trees in the distance began to disappear, no, they were falling down somewhere. As the seconds continued, Naden’s ears finally picked up the screams of people all around him, witnessing the same sight as he did.

What in the-?!

“F-F-Fuck!!! Dungeon break!!!”

“Shriiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeekkkkk!!!”

Trees and rocks flew into the air like a fountain rain, scattering flaming boulders and tree trunks in the surrounding, igniting anything not already on fire. The sound of the earth cracking echoed through the floor as a giant reaper’s scythe-like legs emerged from the dust and chaos. Like a flower opening its petals, eight house-sized spider legs stomped the ground before the beast fully showed itself to all the adventurers. Everybody on the sixth floor could see and witness this creature, no matter where they were.

Armored in a black exoskeleton harder than a crustacean-type monster, flaming spider silk covered this behemoth of a spider-like a ballroom dress, giving it an enchanting appearance from afar. However, from up close, this titan-like monster with a body about as large as a blue whale, was like an active volcano. Heat permeated after her appearance, causing sweat to pour down Naden in mere seconds.

G-Goddess!

Naden thought death was looming for him once again; however, whether it was the prayer he just gave or through his impeccable luck, the giant spider ignored anything before it. The skittering sounds underneath her were her children, all of different sizes and ranks. The only being they would ever listen to was their mother. To them, the dungeon was just a home.

As the spider queen moved forward, her massive legs crushed trees, boulders, and even her own children in her wake. Her eyes were glued to the ceiling and the path her children were taking. Dungeon walls were hard, almost indestructible by common means if the dungeon wished for it. For the spider queen to break through the ceiling and move from one floor to the next, she needed to find areas meant to be destroyed. For example, the holes meant for dungeon breaks.

Escape, prison.

That was her only thought. The [Molten Core Rachonoid] wasn’t a normal monster, but a creature the dungeon had specifically spawned to protect its core. The dungeon boss, the creature serving as the last hurdle before the dungeon room. The most threatening monster you could find. And she was escaping her home, aiming to leave the dungeon for the surface.

Of course, the dungeon itself did not like this. It couldn’t afford to lose its last guardian and all the mana it invested into strengthening it. While the dungeon wasn’t completely sapient, it still acted on its survival instincts. Unfortunately, without its dungeon master, the one responsible for covering the dungeon core’s slow actions, it was unable to stop the rachonoid. Without its master, the dungeon could only helplessly watch its finest creation advance upwards.

“Shrrrriiiiieeek!” With a loud shriek, four mandibles opened up, revealing the inside of the spider’s mouth, glowing yellow from magma. Using its mandibles, the spider tore into the wall above the location her children were taking to escape to the surface, before drilling her way through it with streams of magma.

Her scythe-like legs began digging, quickly enlarging the hole until it was large enough for her to move into. Her progress was fast, the dungeon standing no chance against this natural disaster. For a B rank, the rachonoid wasn’t fully developed yet, but the amount of destruction she could wreak would be far more devastating than what the High Ogre Hestia fought against could do. In addition, she wasn’t alone.

Floors five, four, three, two, one, all floors were no match for the queen of the Emerald-Flare Forest Dungeon. “Dungeon break!” the adventurers all screamed in panic as they witnessed the destruction happening before their eyes. Adventurers like Naden who were lucky enough to avoid the wave of spiders managed to run up the next floor to warn people, but the spider’s rapid advancement couldn’t be stopped.

No one was brave or foolhardy enough to fight against this spider scourge. Naden, as a simple E rank adventurer in his second year, was nowhere near strong enough to intervene. His party members were powerless against this force. The adventurers who witnessed the spider ascent up from floor nine couldn’t do anything but run. Nobody wanted to get in the way of the spiders on the first floor.

All they could do was the one lesson the hunter’s guild and veteran adventurers told them: “Run and call for help.”

On this peaceful night, most adventurers and guards only wanted to go to the tavern, drink and eat until they were full, and return home or to their inn. It was midnight, it was time to rest… Sadly, the spider horde wouldn’t allow it.

“RUN! RUN!”

“Shriiiiieeeeeeeekkkkk!!!”

While the ceiling of floor one was as sturdy as the rest of the dungeon, the problem was the entrance. The dungeon by itself was a realm created through space-time magic by the Divine System. It was kept outside of Peolynca so as to not interfere with whatever location the dungeon spawns into. Entering a dungeon was similar to entering Hestia’s [Storage Magic], a pocket of space the System ruling over Peolynca created.

And that was the issue. Needing something to anchor itself to Peolynca, the entrance into the dungeon was the only location that had to be left unchanged by the dungeon itself. If everything inside a dungeon was like the inside of a person’s body, then the entrance on floor one were the lips. Anything inside the dungeon could be manipulated, but not the outside.

The rachonoid cracked open the entrance, squeezing itself into the staircase before literally crushing through the adventurer guilds’ entryway. The dungeon walls might have been tough for the rachonoid queen, but the mountain the dungeon was situated under was like paper in comparison.

Adventures and guild staff alike had already evacuated, all running towards Cedaraille to warn the populace there. Small manatech birds were already sent to officials inside the city to call for backup, but would they be able to stop this creature?

“Shriiieekkk!” The rachonoid queen gazed into the sky. Her eight eyes caught the attention of the snow-white moon, a sign it was still WinterMoon. She had no way of knowing, but the following night, at midnight, the moon would turn completely green, signifying the coming of SpringSun.

However, that was irrelevant to the queen. The simple thoughts she held before, screaming to her to escape from her prison and reach the surface had finally calmed down. The fog holding her mind back was clearing up as she witnessed a sky she could have never seen from within her home. She did wonder why she would have ever dared to escape from her home, recalling how her goal in life had always been to protect the home she was born into. The spiderweb she created, the eggs she laid, the monsters she defeated. Those were memories now.

“Shriek.” Her gaze then wandered into the distance, to Cederaille. This new world was strange to her, but she knew if she wanted to fully escape the dungeon, she had to make a new home for herself and her children. Instincts drove her forwards; like a flaming Christmas tree, the rachonoid advanced. And with her, her children.

Food!

With their mother finally released from the effects of the rebellion orb amplifying her desire to escape, communication between the queen and her children was stabilized. Her only command was to move with her, leaving them enough freedom to act by themselves. Having moved tirelessly for two days without any rest or food, the Rank C and D rachonoids began to eye the local wildlife.

Including the humans and beastmen.

Battles began around the dungeon entrance and the nearby woods. Hunters and mercenaries alike would fight against the incoming rachonoids, but no matter how skilled they were, they were unable to stand against the number of monsters. While Rank G, F, and E monsters were mostly within their capabilities to slay, lion-sized D ranks and elephant-sized C ranks quickly overwhelmed the numerous, weaker, adventurers around. Unable to hold them back, even the defenseless guild staff were mercilessly devoured by the horde.

Hope seemed lost for Cedaraille.

Naden, who had just barely made it to floor one with his party members, finally succumbed to exhaustion. Running from floor six to floor one as a normal human was even more tiring than running a marathon, especially with the fear of death looming over him. The adrenaline keeping him running wore off and he fell onto the ground, breathing heavily and ready to fall to sleep. Although his friends tried to pull him up, Naden’s consciousness slowly drifted away. Darkness began to cloud his eyes… but it was still clear enough to witness them.

In the burning landscape of floor one, spiders still crawled out of the hole their mother made for them. They were eagerly moving forward, desperately wanting to reunite with their mother. That was when it happened, a loud roar echoed through the hole they were moving through. It wasn’t one made out of anger or rage, it sounded more like somebody panicking and shouting in desperation.

Just seconds after the spiders heard this cry, their consciousnesses vanished. It wasn’t because they fell asleep or fainted; it was because they died. Not burned, sliced, or turned into a pincushion by arrows, no, it was something nobody could expect.

“Kriiahahhahahahhaaaaaahahhhh!”

None of them expected to be squashed by a dragon’s butt.

“Hestia, fly fucking slower! Waaaaaaaaa!” A white dragonewt on the back of a crimson dragon shouted, desperately clinging onto a blue mana thread to hold herself onto the latter.

But the dragon couldn’t. Streams of fire exploded from the dragon’s wings, all coming from scale-dust hidden underneath the wings. A powerful [Tailwind] was assisting the dragon during her flight while two human wind mages, a young man with glasses and a young blue-haired girl, continuously used [Wind Blast] to redirect the dragon’s flight path. The cyan-haired wind elf woman casting [Tailwind] had to momentarily stop her spell to aid the former two, panicking from the dragon’s erratic flight.

While the dragon hadn’t planned this, her inability to control her flying speed caused her to crash land onto the ground, pushing her body forward with her rocket-like wings. She was brute-forcing it. With cries of anxiousness, the dragon made it out of the hole, revealing herself to everybody on the first floor.

The adventurers naturally panicked. While the dragon wasn’t as big as the rachonoid, she still was as large as a mammoth. As his friends dragged Naden away, his eyes were glued to the dragon. Suddenly, a blue magic circle appeared under the dragon before releasing rain upon the burning woods, quenching the fire caused by the spiders.

The moment Naden’s eyes closed, the dragon once again smashed into the ceiling and then crash-landed, eventually making it to the entrance while destroying any spider in her path. Despite how absolutely lackluster this supposedly cinematic sight was, she somehow managed to do what she aimed for.

From the rubble, the surviving humans and beastmen on the surface witnessed the ascent of the dragon, blasting out from the dungeon before spreading her wings in the sky. As the crimson flame from her wings disappeared, white flames replaced them, healing the wounds the dragon had sustained. With a roar loud enough to quake the earth, everybody’s attention was directed to her.

Not because they were scared. At this very moment, the dragon’s features were being hidden by the white flames in the sky, appearing like feathers in the distance. Deluded by the horrors they faced that night, they couldn’t help but kneel and pray.

“Please, Goddess Aurena, we beg you to save us!”

As the white flame-covered dragon began to fall, a translucent dragon appeared next to it. With its wings spread for a second, it quickly descended downward.

“Nordor Style: Silver Dragon’s Skyfall!” With a voice almost as loud as the crimson dragon, the translucent dragon slammed against the rachonoid queen. The impact shattered the trees and ground around them.

“Shrieeeeeeeeekkkk!”

Their prayers were answered.

A note from AbyssRaven

Let the sky fall, when it crumbles, bla, bla, At the Skyfall

Also, we finally reached 2k followers, everybody! Dragon Idol has made it quite far over its 1 year lifespan and I would like to say how amazing it is that my novel actually made it this. Sure, it isn't at the very top but I'm still happy to see a constant increase of new readers, regardless of how slow it is. To all my readers, thank you very much!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 184: Boss Raid: Molten Core Rachonoid.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #4 her to promote our Patreon. 17 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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Prepare yourselves, readers.

[Blessing of the Goddess of Light (Moderate)] [Various Spell Buffs] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

5 humans have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 402

[Human, Tamae Tsuji] [Human, Nishio Kudo] [Human, Masaki Kawano] [Human, Kazumi Hoshino] [Human, Kohaku Kobayashi] have received the title [Hestia’s Retainer]

“Operation: Save Cedaraille from a giant spider” was currently underway now that everybody had some time to recuperate their Mana and Stamina. Seeing as how the spider had an incredible head start to the surface, seeing as some of us got knocked unconcious and fight some cultists and a couple of monsters since the last time we saw it, our party had to hurry the fuck up. Since we needed speed and moving everybody as one unit was faster than going individually, I became everybody’s car since I had the Agility and size to transport ten passengers comfortably, unlike Saori’s fenrir form.

Before we left, I also gave Tamae, Nishio, Misaki, Kazumi, and Kohaku the [Hestia’s Retainer] title. As otherworlders, they already had access to the SP system but none of their titles gave them increased exp nor skill proficiency. Unlike Saori’s garms, who were too prideful, the students accepted my proposal immediately. After giving them a thumbs up and gaining five new more followers, we began ascending.

Moving from floor 19, the deepest you could go into the dungeon before the boss arena, to ten was easy enough to do since all I needed to do was fly up using [Wind Blast]. So, Tasianna, Ellaine, Nishio, and Yorshka supported me with [Tailwind] and [Wind Blast] while I concentrated purely on my flight, needing my parallel minds to stabilize myself during this trip. With how much my size and weight had increased since I last seriously tried to fly, back when I was still a D rank, I guess you could call this relearning how to walk? Not like I was an expert back then either.

The moment we reached floor ten, Yorshka advised me to use the dungeon break paths since flying straight upwards was impossible now, due to the indestructible dungeon ceilings and walls. The only places the titanic spider could move through were the holes the dungeon left for monsters to move from one floor to another, left soft enough for monsters and adventurers to widen in case they didn’t initially fit. A severe mistake by the dungeon.

At this point, I randomly mentioned my scale-dust rocket booster when I complained how slow I was moving, which prompted Ellaine and the students to add how they saw me flying around while they were fighting the cultists. When I told Yorshka I wasn’t sure if I could do that without using [Solar Beam]’s overdrive mode and how I really couldn’t control my flight, the knight suggested concentrating all the heat around my wings while everybody else complemented it with wind spells.

Truthfully, I was sure I could mimic the rocket blasting without being in overdrive, since it only required me to regulate my body heat and pump it higher and higher until it reached the point where my scale-dust exploded from under my scales. I told Yorshka that excuse simply ‘cause of my embarrassment. It wasn’t a lie that I couldn’t control my flight, and when I saw Yorshka able to easily fly in her dragonewt form, I was just reluctant to show my incompetence in front of her and to everybody else I knew.

Nevertheless, the moment Yorshka mentioned a solution to my problem, I had to give it a try. People’s lives were on the line, this wasn’t the time for shame or pride. It goes without saying that it worked. Unfortunately, that didn’t help how bad I was at it. Speeding up and slowing down my flame boosters was just foreign for me at this point, much like when I first practiced driving with my papa.

Not like I was old enough to get my license…

We got through the different floors really fast, like rocket-speed fast with my boosters; the only problem was that I couldn’t control it properly. I would smash into the ceiling, crash land and drag my body against the ground, or cause forest fires from floor nine to five. It astounds me how I always end up causing fires like this, just like all those shitty cultists. How annoying. Thankfully, Tasianna was on top of things and doused everything I set on flames.

From floor three and onwards, we seemed to have caught up the spiders, as we found a trail of them. They were only Rank Gs and Fs though, making me believe the bulk of the force had already made it to the surface. A concern that was confirmed just a few minutes later.

When I emerged out of the dungeon, I was able to witness the behemoth-like queen spider, even looking from up here in the sky. My attention was also drawn upwards, noticing that it was the middle of the night. Being in a dungeon, I couldn’t track the time properly, but I really wished the sun were up for this fight. I was so frustrated that I had to let a roar out.

Core Regulation

A skill that beings with heat cores possess. Automatically regulates the temperature of the core, preventing it from overheating or freezing. Prevents status effect [Overheated] and [Freezing] while the core status is above [0%]

Solar Core

A skill unique to a Solar Dragon, an advanced, mutated fire dragon. Allows the dragon to absorb sunlight and store that energy inside the solar core, which can be used as a source of nutrition and healing for the dragon. This energy can be exchanged into Health, Mana, or Stamina. Increases the dragon’s fire and holy abilities and spells while the sun is up or if the sun core is filled. Sun Core Status: [100%]

At this point, I understood my advantages when I had a full or empty solar core. Emptying my core was not good, it meant I couldn’t fight with all my full power. [Overheated] is a huge problem, as it prevents me from using [Symphonie des Feuergottes] longer than the adagio movement, my second phase. An empty solar core also means no [Solar Beam] and a lack of infinite regeneration.

If I were to fight the spider on my own, it would be impossible for me to last very long against it in my current state. However, that was why I had a party.

[“Everybody, focus on the fodder! Yorshka and I will delay the mother rachonoid as long as we can, so eliminate her children, those skittering giants before they reach the city! We came too late to save everybody, so let’s give it our all to prevent any more deaths. That includes yours, nobody dies today! Let’s do this, Aurora and The Magical Biscuits! Mission commence!”]

“By your will, Lady Hestia! Aifli eir Vintral!” With both her fairy and ice wings, Tasianna descended down first, preparing to soften everybody’s landing.

“Hai, Hestia Oujo-sama! (Yes, Princess Hestia!)” As four garms jumped out of Saori’s shadow, blue mana expelled from her body before revealing a massive fenrir. She jumped down first, leaving her garms behind to allow everybody who couldn’t fly to mount them. [“Nishio-san, work with Tasianna to soften your fall with wind magic. Garms, the hunt begins!”]

[““““Yes, Alpha!””””]

“The Magical Biscuits, let’s save some lives! Let’s show Sensei how much we have grown in this past year!” Tamae announced to everybody before mumbling, “This is so h-high...” in a shaky voice as she mounted Uno with Nishio.

As the garms jumped down, I could hear Tamae’s, Kazumi’s, and Kohaku’s screams of panic, “Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!” It seemed they didn’t brace themselves properly.

“A tazong should not be d-doing this!” It seems Grimnir also was allergic to heights.

“Just saying, but riding a griffon or a manatech gargoyle is far worse, Mister Grimnir.” On the other hand, Ellaine seemed like she was used to heights, looking down without flinching.

As everybody began their fall down, I stopped my scale-dust engine, activating my white flames to heal any damage I sustained from my flight up to the surface. Sure, [Draconic Barrier] prevented the majority of the damage, but a few of the landings were pretty rough. I probably would have broken a bone or two were it not for my barrier.

To reduce the amount of Mana and Stamina I would use during that mad dash to the surface, I also deactivated my [White Flames]’s automatic healing until now. Now was the time for battle.

[“Good luck, Yorshka,”] I told the dragoon as my body was dragged down by gravity.

“Sheesh, that sounds a bit cold for a fire dragon, Hestia. Stay safe, alright.” The white dragoon then jumped off, staying in the air with [Air Walk]. She was in her original form, a full dragonewt with white scales and carapace covering her whole body and her dragon-like head. “Norder Style: Silver Dragon’s Skyfall!”

A translucent dragon, shining like silver, was created by her Mana, cladding Yorshka like a veil. With one movement of her spear, the dragon moved by her command, shooting forward with her as they smashed against the spider’s cephalothorax. Even from up here, I could feel the shockwave from the impact, shaking not only the sky but also the earth. It sent my bones rattling, as I couldn’t fathom just how much damage that caused.

“Shrieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!” the rachonoid queen shrieked like a banshee, struggling to keep herself balanced on her legs, squirming in pain.

Jeez, so this is the power of a dragoon going all-out. I wonder if Farron was like this before his debilitation-huh?

[Stage Fever (Minor)] [Sanctified Blaze] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

38 humans and beastmen have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 440

Eh? How did I just gain followers?

Was it from the survivors from below? The adventurers? I did nothing idol-like at all, so why did I just gain followers? Regardless, I can worry about that later, for now, it was best for me to join the fight.

Wind Blast!

With my white flames fluttering around my body, I blasted myself towards the spider, suddenly noticing black lightning emerging from the ground. “Awraaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” a bone-chilling roar shook the burning woods beneath me, causing my body to tremble as if thunder struck me.

Using [Air Walk], Saori slowed down her descent before dive-bombing a group of spiders about to attack some adventurers, creating an explosion of black lightning as she hit the ground. She glanced at the scared adventurers for only a moment before jumping up and using [Dark Tendrils] to jump around like Spiderman or Tarzan. Her well-developed forelegs gained from her evolution were like sledgehammers covered in white fur; combined with the static lightning they produced, every time Saori slammed her leg down, rachonoids ranked D or below would blow up into pieces.

Thanks to Yorshka’s attack, the rachonoids’ advance had slowed down drastically, reacting to their mother being attacked. When the molten core rachonoid recovered from her damage, her children seemed to have regrouped, eyeing our attacking force. The bear-sized C rank rachonoids, armored in hard exoskeleton and mail of flaming spider silk, immediately engaged Saori simultaneously.

They began targeting Saori with fire breath, silk attacks and leg slashes, however, they were engaging a B rank with skills made for night fights.

True Wolven Bloodlust

A fenrir’s bloodlust represented by a skill, warning any who dares face it of its endless hunger for prey and savage cunning. The power of this aura will increase further the more the fenrir slays in a short time, increasing Mana Recovery as well as every stat. The skills combined are: [Tyrant’s Aura Lv. 10], [Bloodlust Lv. 10], [Lifetaker Lv. 10]

Night’s Caress

An assassin’s most trusted skill, fully realizing their infiltration abilities under the cloak of night. When the sun is gone and darkness has clouded the sky, all stealth and maneuvering skills have their efficiency increased. The skills combined are: [Silence Lv. 10], [Odorless Lv. 10], [Tracking Lv. 10], [Evasion Lv. 10], [Acrobatic Lv. 10], [Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 10], [Speed of Sound Lv. 10]

Stygian Blades

The Stygian-Scaled Fenrir’s ability to increase the damage of all dark or tenebrous elemental attacks, benefitting sundering and piercing type damage the most. Health damage caused by shadow-based attacks will be transferred to the fenrir at 25% efficiency. The skills combined are: [True Unarmed Technique Lv. 1], [True Unarmed Mastery Lv. 1], [Herculean Strength Lv. 1], [Unyielding Endurance Lv. 1]. Skill level will increase with main skill

If you attacked her, she would dodge the strikes with superhuman Agility. Even if you were to hit her, her [Stygian Blades] granted her [Shadow Armament] covered body the ability to leech health and heal any damage, while each kill increased her [Bloodlust] stat booster. The spider queen might have dwarfed Saori’s elephant-sized fenrir form by a mile, but her children stood no chance against this one-woman army.

“Arwooraaaaahhhh!” she roared once again as the fur on her body stood up from the static electricity, surrounding her in black lightning. This wasn’t meant to only intimidate her opponents after she ravaged their ranks, but a war cry for the coming of her support. Ice daggers and water beams flew from the hands of a fairy-winged wind elf, six human adventurers cleaved through anything standing in their way with teamwork, four garms began their hunt, and a single taz was smashing spiders open like pinatas.

Sacred Field! Music on!

[Music Resonation] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Is this the fated battle, the light shines ♫

It’s blinding my sight ♫

But I’ve gotta hold on, the stage calls ♫

The cries of a thousand, the flames of war will descend ♫”

‘Hestia, the spiders will 100% be killing people at this point. Our goal isn’t to risk our lives to stop it at all cost, but to stall it long enough for Cedaraille to react. Trust the Duke of Greenveil,’ Yorshka told me. Well, that suits me. Not like I can fight properly, right now.

Our rest in the depth of the dungeon wasn’t long enough for me to fully recuperate, also, getting here drained my Mana and Stamina. The fight against the slazzigula had tired me out both mentally and physically, although the System didn’t depict it. I’d used up quite a lot of scale-dust, and my body was still in the process of restoring it. I might have gorged down on food like crazy, but I still didn’t feel full.

I need to draw the spider’s attention away from Yorshka. I’ll leave her to deal damage while I control its aggression. As long as I have Mana, I can heal-tank.

“Adventurers of Cedaraille-Ah, shut up you stupid insect,” as Yorshka was about to give a speech to the surviving adventurers, she was interrupted by the struggling spider, prompting her to stab the spider in the head again to shut her up. “I am Yorshka, the White Winged Dragoon! A rank adventurer and a Knight-Captain of the Knights of Aurena, the holy knight order of the Church of Aurena! Hear me, if you wish to defend your home, then I beseech you to fight with me and my companions! Run for your lives if you must, but know that the Goddess is on our side today! Will you fight with me?”

As though she’d timed it deliberately, her speech ended right as magma began to ooze out of the spider’s exoskeleton, ready to explode to get rid of Yorshka. In response, Yorshka bent her knees and jumped high to the sky with a [Dragoon Jump] only seconds before I crashed against the spider with flaming claws.

And the magma exploded around the spider.

Urgh, okay this is hot! But not as hot as my flames!

Any damage dealt to me was quickly healed by white fire as I held onto the giant spider’s body. Most of the spider’s size came from its gigantic abdomen, although the thorax was still large enough for me to stand on. Enduring the magma explosions with the help of [Draconic Barrier] and [Panzer], I dug my tail into the spot Yorshka had stabbed, causing the spider to dance around from the pain it was feeling.

I can’t build enough momentum with the magma around. I can’t land a decisive hit.

As I was hanging onto the spider, the magma explosion slowed down to the point I could loosen my muscles a bit without being thrown off, but in the end, I was still forced to let go as the spider slammed its whale-sized body onto the ground. Before the lava exploded at Yorshka and I, the trees had already been burning, but now the whole place seemed to have turned into a lava lake.

“FIGHT!” As I was floating above the spider after dodging its slam, my ears picked up the war cry of adventurers. Influenced by Yorshka’s speech, the able-bodied adventurers began to group up around Ellaine, Grimnir, and the students. Some looked hopeful, some desperate, but all of them seemed to realize that, until support came from the city, this was the only safe space available. With my [Sacred Field] acting like a lighthouse to draw them in, my plan to group them up was successful.

“Shrriiieeeekkk!” A screech of rage rage rose from the spider’s mouth and, with it, a breath of flames. The breath attack took up enough space to devour me whole, so I opted not to fight against physics with a counter dragon breath and just dodged aside with [Wind Blast]. This thing was the size of a blue whale, towering over every single tree around us, not including its gigantic legs. I’m not dumb enough to fight this thing head-on like I did with the slazzigula.

While I was floating around in the sky, magic circles began to appear around me, blasting the spiders with projectile spells as well as creating [Bedrock Blades] and [Terra Walls] to stall for time. The spider responded by smashing every one of my terra creations with its scythe-like legs while countering my other spells with its own. Fire, earth, and lava magics, the spider was intelligent enough to become as good of a mage as I was.

[Flame Explosion], [Petal Flames], [Inferno Blast], [Blazing Twister], four spells I dearly missed from when I still had [Fire Magic] and [Inferno Magic] were used against me, ravaging the landscape around us as the rachonoid tried to swat me down. My faster spells like [Lightning Bolt] and my wind and storm spells managed to hit the spider, but its exoskeleton protected it from those attacks. To actually deal damage, I needed something stronger, like [Omnictus] or [Solar Beam].

Thankfully, my job wasn’t to be the damage dealer.

“Lookie here, Nordor Style: White Dragon’s Descent!” faster than Yorshka could speak those words, her body crashed onto the spider’s abdomen, breaking through its carapace once again. If I remember correctly, I think I heard a spider’s heart was located at the top of its big butt. If Yorshka managed to hit it, that would deal a lot of damage.

Unfortunately, Yorshka clicked her tongue and jumped up in the sky once again. When the spider’s attention was drawn towards her, I cast [Rumbling Might] to unbalance the rachonoid while blocking its view with [Terra Wall]. Sadly, the rachonoid queen had a high enough level of either [Enhanced Enemy Sensor] or [Detection Sensor] to compensate for that.

Flaming spidersilk shot out from her butt, controlled by her two hind legs. With immaculate skill, the silk turned into something like a projectile weapon, tracking Yorshka as she flew around like a hummingbird. Keeping half of her eight eyes on each of us, the spider queen was able to attack and defend against me with her front legs while preventing Yorshka’s lunges from connecting using her spells and silk. Even if the silk didn’t hit Yorshka herself, the power of the silk was strong enough to slice through my terra walls and could entwine around the spider to build up its defenses.

For a boss-type monster, it was dealing with the two of us well enough. Too well. My normal set of spells weren’t dealing enough damage and I still had too little scale-dust left to create the devastating explosions I could usually do. Yorshka was evading attacks instead of dealing damage ‘cause I couldn’t distract the spider long enough. [The Will to Fight and Survive] was helping us regenerate and we were stalling as planned, but-

“Shrieeeeeekkk!”

-the spider queen began to move forward, undeterred by the two of us.

Missile-like silk tracked Yorshka as she flew in the sky while the spider used flame breaths and her legs to keep me dodging around with [Wind Blast]. Her breath attacks might just not be able to deal damage to me but the sheer force they expelled could shoot me away like a kicked stone while her legs were sharp enough to stab right through me. I didn’t dare try my luck tanking her attacks like her magma explosion.

The trembling of the earth became more frequent as the spider pushed ahead, causing Yorshka to sound more anxious the longer we were in this stalemate. We were flying around, unable to deal more damage. I had to create an opening for Yorshka to attack!

Omnictus? Symphonie? They will take too long to prepare without [Purple Flash], but I can’t use my Mana up as if it’s infinite right now.

As I was contemplating another plan, the spider’s silk projectile suddenly stopped moving, dropping onto the ground like a flaccid tail. Looking over, I noticed multiple black tendrils and mana threads wrapped around the rachonoids hind legs, preventing them from weaving the silk coming from her butt.

[“Need a hand?”] A familiar voice entered my mind. I jolted my head to the spider’s underside, noticing Saori standing upside down from the rachonoid’s abdomen, hanging from the shadow cast under it. She had her [Shadow Armament] on and was also wrapped in cyan and blue-colored mana threads — the ice and water elemental threads respectively — like a pullover to ward off the heat.

I was shocked to hear her voice, responding back the second I heard it, [“Saori?! Hold on, why aren’t you helping the others?! The spiders will run rampant without you to cull them!”]

Saori was our attack party’s third hardest hitters, having the stats and skills to wipe out anything below her league. She made sure the C rank rachonoids were kept off the others.

[“Trust Tasianna, Hestia! You know how strong she has gotten! With Ellaine, Grimnir, my garms, and my students to support her, she’ll make sure those spiders learn why she’s part of Aurora!”] Saori retorted. [“Besides, your Divine Quest is to stop this thing from moving towards Cedaraille? You two aren’t faring too well.”]

“She is right, Hestia! We require more aid!” Yorshka agreed before detecting an opening and kicking the air, shooting her body towards the spider like a shooting star. The sheer force of her third attack pushed the spider to the side, causing it once again to scream out in pain. “Change of plans! Saori-sensei, I leave the distractions to you. Control the legs and use precise electric shocks against the cracks I leave behind! Hestia, use this time to prepare your spells!”

[“Understood!”]

[“Got it!”]

Arguing right now wouldn’t be to anybody’s benefit. Hesitating no more, I began materializing two large white magic circles in the sky.

Two parallel minds were on [Aerokinesis] duty to spread my buffs to everybody fighting the horde, two were preparing [Omnictus], and two more were busy keeping me afloat with [Wind Blast]. Six parallel minds were preoccupied, leaving me with four left and my own, although I was the one responsible for controlling our body.

Six minds couldn’t do anything, but I still had four minds to cast spells to support Saori and Yorshka. Healing spells and terra spells to slow the spider down. With Saori preventing the spider from using her silk using mana threads, dark magic, and stygian lightning, Yorshka was able to dance around the spider like a hornet, cracking more of the exoskeleton as seconds passed.

Underneath us, the situation seemed to be deteriorating. Tasianna’s ice magic could be seen from this far away, but I couldn’t see how they were all faring, worrying me a bit. D ranks and lower rachonoids were still advancing towards the city, though I couldn’t detect any C ranks headed that way. My guess was they were preoccupying Tasianna and the others.

“Shieeeeee!” As I was thinking about the others, the rachonoid queen suddenly stood up with her two sets of hind legs and then rammed her front pairs into the ground, causing rocks to rain on me from below. Using [Molten Guard] to protect myself, I managed to evade this attack outright. However, when I dispelled the spell, I suddenly recoiled a bit as I witnessed the rachonoid queen eating her own children.

Oh, gods!

With her front legs, she picked up several of her C rank children, killing them instantly before throwing a handful of them into her mouth. Her [Cannibal Lv. 2] activated, healing the wounds Yorshka had dealt with her dragoon jumps.

Cannibal

A skill related to consuming flesh from creatures related to the owner’s race. Health and Stamina regenerates immediately by a set amount depending on the amount consumed, however, arcane corruption will be created as Mana is expended to activate this skill

[Cannibal] seemed like a pretty simple skill, but I guess eating your race shouldn’t be rewarded by an even stronger effect. Still, being able to heal your wounds was a pretty scary skill for this boss-type monster. Yorshka, Saori, and I could only watch as her exoskeleton regenerated since, in the next moment, she released another magma explosion.

Crap!

This explosion was even stronger than the last one, probably ‘cause she had some time to charge it up during our assault. Splashes of molten rocks flew around me, forcing me to dodge them like I was in a bullet-hell minigame. That was when my [Foresight] and [Danger Perception] exploded inside my head like a bomb, warning me like a siren for the first time since this fight began. The warnings I had before couldn’t be compared to this one, and I understood why in the next second.

Piercing through the lava wall were six yellow-glowing scythe legs. Like six grim reapers, they swung at me at a frightening speed. Trapped against the sprays of magma, my [Foresight] was calculating at a lightning-speed to help me figure a way out of this without sustaining immense damage. Unfortunately, there were none. The only solution it could think of was to endure the damage.

Panzer, Molten Guard, Terra Wall, Air Shield, Tai-Scheiße! What the hell are you six doing! Focus on defense!

My decision to not cancel the tasks of my six occupied parallel minds meant there was a small lag where they stopped their spell to switch to what I needed to protect me. I spread myself too thin, and those few valuable seconds cost me six spells.

Brace for impact!!! Wind Blast!

The reaper’s claws came slashing in from the sides like a hug. If I couldn’t cast defensive spells to protect myself, well, then let’s gamble that the spider doesn’t have its mouth open.

Blast off!!!

The scale-dust stored inside my wings, having regenerated over time, began to spark under my scales as I increased my body temperature. The explosions increased inside as I cast [Wind Blast] behind myself, pushing me forward. As the scythes inched closer and closer towards me, in my desperation to get out of its attack, I poured even more mana into my body. I began to overheat.

[Overheat (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

In mere seconds, I caused my body to warm up to the point of overheating. My insides felt like they were boiling as I didn’t have enough time to prepare myself. It burnt. I felt trapped in a sauna inside a volcano. However, this heat was worth it all in the end.

“Kriiiiaahhhhh!!!”

My body exploded on fire similar to [Solar Beam]’s overdrive mode as my recently restored scale-dust burst in flames. Like a rocket, I was blasted forward, escaping the death trap as I crashed directly into the rachonoid’s eyes.

“Shriiieeekkkk!!!” It screamed out as I somehow managed to pierced one of its eight eyes with my tail. Due to the recoil of the impact, I was knocked backward, tearing it out of its socket.

“ShiiiiiEERRRRkkkkkkk!!!” An even louder, tinnitus-inducing screech was let out of its mouth.

As nice as this was, the pain my body was feeling from overheating it was causing me to lose control over my body. [Aerokinesis] and [Omnictus] were all canceled in my panic. I had to concentrate on cooling myself down. Unfortunately, it seemed the spider wanted revenge. With its large mandibles exposing its mouth, it lunged forward in an attempt to consume me.

I was unable to respond to its attack.

“GriGRI!” A rough laugh, followed by the sound of a missile, ending with a loud, “Shrikkrraaaaahhhh!” as both the spider and I crashed onto the ground.

Hot! Hot! Hot! Smaller! Smaller! Water!

[Humanized (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Ayaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!” My skin was flaring red like a sunburn, my body felt like it was being cooked inside a stew. It wasn’t to the point I felt as if I was melting, thankfully, but the feeling was the worst I’ve ever felt from [Overheated (Minor)]. The minor stage wasn’t supposed to be this terrible!

I opened up my storage, unleashing all the water stored inside it since my days in that cave with the orcs. Yes, I had carried extra water with me ever since my early days in the Belzac forest as an E rank dragon. As the cold water splashed onto my body like a waterfall, I felt like I was drowning for a moment before it all stopped. The heat finally stopped.

“Haaaa, haaa, haaa, haaa…” I let out heavy breaths. Wet with my sight covered in steam, I took out a dragorade to drink. When my vision cleared up, the crackle of an acquaintance entered my ears.

“Grigrigrigrigri!”

The slazzigula?!

I stood up, swung my wet hair to the side as I noticed a white humanoid serpent clinging onto the giant spider. A burn scar covered one side of its face while six flaming wings kept him mobile in the air, slashing the rachonoid with flaming swords created from its gauntlets. Saori and Yorshka were apparently supporting him. They kept attacking the spider with lightning and dragoon dives respectively. They were ignoring the slazzigula and treating it as an ally.

Why is it here?!

“Time to earn some davi, ya drunk bastards!”

“Fuck, the damn soldiers are coming! Fight faster!”

“Shit, the nobles and the knights! Come on, move deeper, deeper! There seems to be a horde being fought over there!”

“““For the Greenveil duchy!”””

I jolted my head around, noticing a rowdy crowd of humans and beastmen, all equipped in different armor and weapons fighting and pushing hordes of weak rachonoids back. Without glancing at me, they ran past me, avoiding the fight against the mother rachonoid to rush towards the fight happening in the distance, where Tasianna’s ice had already frozen parts of the forest.

When that happened, numerous men and women equipped in identical gear came into view. With either spears or swords, they rushed forward with a wide range of emotions. Some were frightened by the sight of the horde of spiders, others looked exhausted or drunk, while a few looked serious like veteran fighters.

“Lady Priestess, are you alright?” While the adventurers mostly ran past me, mostly ‘cause the ones who looked strong dragged anybody who tried to speak with me away, a few guards seemed to show their worry to me.

I didn’t notice those adventurers during my fight, however, considering the corpses lying on the ground, they must have fought for a while… meaning, oh shit. Don’t tell me they saw me.

… I had a feeling I couldn’t hide it forever but… Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit! Verdammte Scheiße!

Curses flew around in my mind as I realized this predicament of mine. As the guards began to worry about me, the slazzigula suddenly crashed somewhat close to me. Its wings were deactivated as it pushed itself back up, shaking its head from the impact. It looked over to me and growled, “Griiii!”

‘Why aren’t you helping?’ Is that what you just said?!

“S-Shit! Stay behind us, Lady Priestess. The Godde-”

“Yeah, yeah, Goddess will save us all.” I wasn’t sure if I understood the slazzigula correctly or if that was just my imagination, but I slipped past the three guards standing in front of me and advanced towards the giant serpent. [“I’ve no idea why you’re here, but shut up, okay? You just had to fight me and make me tired, and I’ve been fighting that damn thing the whole time while you did fuck all. Don’t come at me like that!”]

It then pointed at its burn marks.

[“…You can actually understand me? Fuck you,”] I then healed the slazzigula of its wounds, including the burn scars. The charred scales were still there but they’ll probably disappear after it molts. [“You’re here to take that spider down, right?”]

It nodded.

[“Allies until it’s dead, then. Go, I’ll help!”]

I had no idea why the slazzigula was helping us. Was it the dungeon commanding it? Was it its own will to beat the boss of the dungeon? I mean, the only way for the slazzigula to make it up here this fast must have been the dungeon’s will at the very least. However, it didn’t matter right now. We needed help to take this rachonoid down, so anything or anybody was an ally.

Speaking of the devil…

“Skyward Arrow!” The sound of another missile appeared, once again piercing the rachonoid. The first time, I believe it was the slazzigula’s flaming spear throw, but this time it was an… an arrow?

“This is my land! I am the Duke of Greenveil! Those who dare desecrate the land my house has been holding for generations will be judged and punished! I will pierce your heart with Everhunter!” High in the sky, riding on top of a majestic armored griffon with the symbol of House Greenveil embed on the breastplate, a man equipped in glamorous green and brown armor shot another arrow at the spider’s head. As it recoiled, the man looked at the incinerated woods, noticing the slazzigula and me. “Lords and ladies of Greenveil duchy, as it is my authority as the ruler of these lands, granted to me by his Majesty, the King, I order you to purge my land of these rachonoids. However, do not dare harm any of our allies here! If I hear you disobey my orders, I shall have you judged and punished! Now, for my honor as Lord Duke Isaac Albreaus Greenveil, fly with me, nobles of Greenveil!”

An army emerged from Cedaraille. Knights and mages riding on griffons, hippogryphs, and gargoyles appeared in the sky, all wearing eye-catching armor or robes with emblems stitched onto them. Mages and archers mounted the walls of Cedaraille, waiting for their respective superiors to give the orders. Meanwhile, the foot soldier had already advanced with the adventurers into the woods.

“Trust in Duke Greenveil,” Yorshka told me. Well, the cavalry certainly has appeared. As the slazzigula jumped back into action while the flying knights and mages began preparing for their assault, I noticed a few white-robed priests appeared from the wall. Seeing as how the archers and mages looked at the priests, and the gazes they returned, I had the feeling they were about to cast [Prayer].

Yeah, sure, after a million years maybe if you have to do that dumb song! The main forces have arrived, time to switch to full support.

I took out a Mana potion and a dragorade, drinking both of them down quickly. I then checked my profile, refreshing any buffs that had timed out in the meantime.

[Music Resonation (Moderate)] [Stage Fever (Moderate)] [Sanctified Blaze] [Various Spell Buffs] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

I then activated [Aerokinesis], checked that I still had [Blessing of the Goddess of Light (Moderate)], and sang.

“Is this the fated battle, the light shines ♫

It’s blinding my sight ♫

But I’ve gotta hold on, the stage calls ♫

The cries of a thousand, the flames of war will descend ♫”

Drove up to the maximum, my voice was being transmitted to everybody in the sky and earth. Nobles riding their flying mounts noticed my singing while anybody acquainted with me ignored it and continued their assault, including the slazzigula which I saw as an ally for now.

“The carnage of the blazing sun ♫

Blood rain from swords and claws ♫

The strive to pierce the sky ♫

The light that beckons you forth ♫”

Instead of surprise, wonderment began to fill their faces as their eyes widened from the effects of [Idol] and [The Will to Fight and Survive]. The knights yelled their war cries as the mages began to bombard the molten core rachonoid with spells.

“I couldn’t just stop now, my heartbeats ♫

The show must go on ♫

You cannot silence my voice now ♫

Be dazzled, be humbled ♫

I’m destined for the stars ♫

Prepare for a beatdown, no mercy ♫

Gonna overwhelm them♫

A chance for the spotlight ♫

Don’t regret getting burned to ash ♫”

“Fire!”

“Spells out!”

As if they took my singing as a command, archers and mages began to shoot projectiles from on top of the wall, destroying any rachonoid child approaching the wall. The foot soldier cheered as they finally received the support they desperately needed, advancing forward towards the next targets. I could feel them praising me as they ran past me. Even the guards who attempted to protect me joined the assault team, thanking me for the blessing of the Goddess.

At this point, the white-robed priests on the wall were glaring at me, the one attracting the most attention next to the spider. My unique skill [Idol] allowed me to share certain buffs with others while I was acting like an idol, and one of those sharable buffs was [Prayer]. Everybody who could hear me had [Blessing of the Goddess (Moderate)] right now. I had no idea what was going on in the priests’ and priestesses' heads, but all I can say is that I had no other choice.

This was the fastest way to give everybody the buffs needed and boost them up.

“The carnage of the blazing sun ♫

Blood rain from swords and claws ♫

As the music drops, our emotions will run wild ♫

Top the world ♫

The strive to pierce the sky ♫

The light that beckons you forth ♫

The promise to stand fast ♫

Family and Friends ♫

The Will to Fight and Survive, yeah! ♫”

I transferred completely to the support role while Saori, Yorshka, the slazzigula, Duke Greenveil, and his army attacked the spider. The boss-type monster was finally facing a raid large enough to challenge it. Preventing casualties was my job now as a healer, so I was casting [Major Heal] and [Sacred Field] like crazy to keep everybody alive as well as using [Terra Walls] and [Molten Guard] to protect people from projectiles and silk attacks.

“Nordor Style: White Dragon’s Descent!”

“Greenveil Style: Failnaught!”

“Ahwroooaahhhhhhhhhh! ARAAAAAHHH!”

“Grigrigrigrigri! Grigraaaaaa!”

Major Heal! Major Heal! Major Heal!

“Lady Hestia!” a clear voice entered my ears. A voice I knew very well.

“Tasianna! Everybody!” My eyes shined when I saw everybody had survived their encounter. Tasianna, Ellaine, Uno, Song, Sarasa, Quatre, Grimnir, Tamae, Nishio, Misaki, Kazumi, and Kohaku; all of them were dirty and their armor was battered and damaged, but none of them looked too terrible.

Well, except for Grimnir, who had his armor destroyed in the dungeon. He was running around in some mana clothing Saori threw together for him.

“We somehow managed to slay all the C rank spiders with Tasianna’s and the garms’ help. The soldiers and adventurers seemed to have it handled after we cleaned things up. Hestia, how is the situation?” Ellaine informed me, looking greatly exhausted but bright and energetic.

As words were unneeded, I showed her what everybody was doing to the giant spider. Looking at it, the numerous nobles, led by the Saori, Yorshka, the Duke, and the slazzigula were decimiating the rachonoid, pushing it right into a corner. Her exoskeleton broke but none of her children were close to her to feast on. Blood began to ooze from her body like lava, while two of her legs seemed to have been damaged too much.

Mana Eyes?

!

[“Saori, get back to the party! Get down here!”] I called over to Saori as she was dancing around on the spider’s body, blasting streams of black lightning into its exposed body. Agreeing to my words, she jumped down from the spider’s body and dove into a shadow, reappearing next to us in her wolfkin form. Once Saori and I equipped our party bracelets and were reinvited into the party, I spoke up.

“[Tor Eiclere’s Finulaflei] and your new custom spell, Saori! Let’s do it!” I told them excitedly.

However, both stared at me and responded with, ““What?””

“Come on, you guys aren’t actually intended to give over that rachonoid’s exp to the Duke or the slazzigula, right? Right? The Duke wants the kill just as much as us, right, Ellaine?

“Well, killing this B rank would bring great prestige, yes. Also, receiving more levels would increase your authority,” she replied immediately.

“Exactly. Let’s not chance it. Yorshka is in our party, we’ll let her deal the last hit. We need to burst the raid boss down with super hard-hitting attacks, lowering its Health to the point where Yorshka can execute it with her ultimate attack! Are you guys in?!” I could feel my mouth curve into a devious smile as I stared at them expectantly.

“As you will, Lady Hestia.”

“Sure.”

That’s what I wanted to hear!

I sent our plan telepathically to Yorshka, who agreed immediately. Saori, Tasianna, and I stood before the spider, readying our spells. Saori’s custom spell was something we’ve been experimenting with, however, we never really finished it, making it whole. That meant, it wasn’t accepted by the System yet. However, we had the details down, she just had to execute it perfectly.

I first produced some fire with my remaining scale-dust, turning it into a spear just like the slazzigula. In my dragonewt form, my Job skills were once again active, meaning I had [Fire Abnormality Effect: Dread] again. I threw the spear with all my might, piercing the spider with it. It might have not done any damage, but I saw that [Dread Burn] was successfully applied.

The three of us drank Mana potions and dragorade, restoring our Mana pool.

Purple Flash. Purple Flash.

Magic coursed through our bodies. Two purple magic circles appeared in my hands, a large black one was in Saori’s, while Tasianna conjured up a cyan one underneath the spider.

“Let’s do this! Omnictus! Symphonie des Feuergottes!”

“Tor Eiclere’s Finulaflei! (Ice Age’s Paradise!)”

A red and white magic circle half the size of the spider suddenly appeared above the spider, sending an incandescent beam of holy energy and a flaming waterfall onto the spider. Weakened by [Dread Burn], the spider’s resistance against fire was partially countered while she had that status effect, making it susceptible to my fire spell.

Tasianna’s field of eternal snow began to buffet the spider, freezing its blood and lava before swords of ice pierced it. Not only the Duke but also his army of nobles and the slazzigula had to retreat from our spells, understanding how they would only turn into friendly fire if they didn’t. The moment they did this, lightning began to crackle around Saori.

Black electricity covered her whole body, sending her hair and fur up in the process. Streaks of red lightning also appeared among the black ones. Although they were red, they felt more like a dye, colored by the red scarf made from my mana she was wearing. As the black magic circle in her hand grew as large as a cannon, she released it.

“Please, work… please. Hadean Dragon Thunder!” Like a howl of a wolf, the giant thunder bolt shot out like a thunder cannon, striking the spider. The spider’s exoskeleton was already being destroyed by Tasianna’s and my spells, exposing its flesh to be turned to ash by Saori’s new custom spell. Fire, holy, ice, and dark. All our main elements completely wrecked the rachonoid’s body.

Once the spell dissipated, the silhouette of the spider could be seen limping inside the smoke. Before anybody could respond, a translucent dragon descended.

“Norder Style: Silver Dragon’s Skyfall!”

The air and earth shook once more, the ground shattered from Yorshka’s dragoon dive as she landed directly onto the spider queen’s head, now entirely exposed. As seconds passed, Yorshka seemed to be struggling to break through the spider’s skull, which made me notice something.

“The carnage of the blazing sun ♫

Blood rain from swords and claws ♫

As the music drops, our emotions will run wild ♫

Top the world ♫

The strive to pierce the sky ♫

The light that beckons you forth ♫

The promise to stand fast ♫

Family and Friends ♫

The Will to Fight and Survive, yeah! ♫”

“HRAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!”

Cracking could be heard the moment I began singing again, buffing Yorshka up with all the buffs I had on me. Nishio and Tamae both began casting spells on me, knowing their knight guardian needed their support. Seconds passed and finally it was over.

“ShrriiiiiiEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKK! GRUUUUUUEEEEEEK!”

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has risen from [Level 4] to [Level 7]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 1950 skill points

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Job [Crimson-Scaled Dreadgiver] has risen from [Level 10] to [Level 30]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Max level of Job   [Crimson-Scaled Dreadgiver] has been reached

Mutation requirements acquired. [Level 30] of Job [Crimson-Scaled Dreadgiver] was achieved. Mutation skills unlocked for acquisition.   [Scale-Dust Size Increase], [Fire Abnormality Effect: Dread] have been added to the SP shop

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Idol Lv. 2] [Sacred Magic Lv. 7] [Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 4] [Lava Resistance Lv. 5] [Inferno Resistance Lv. 6] [Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 7] [Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 5] [Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 7] [Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 5] [Stage Fever Lv. 4] [Draconic Aura Lv. 2] [Royal Presence Lv. 2] gained

Spell gained:   [Gloria Ascendence]

W-What?!

[Divine Quest: Molten Core Rachonoid Extermination — Prevent the destruction of Cedaraille and the majority of the population there] completed. You have done well, Champion, please accept your reward

Proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Venerated Saintess Lv. 3] gained

Experience has reached a breaking point.   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has risen from [Level 7] to [Level 8]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 650 skill points

[Idol] spell song gain: +1

Holy shit! A free level up! Idol song slot! Wow!

There was a lot for me to process, but that could be left for later. First things first, we had to deal with the issues before us, for example, the slazzigula.

The white salamander stood over the rachonoid. It gave me a small glance, growling in disappointment at the fact that we intentionally kill stole. However, the hostility ended there, it picked up some spider silk, took out an organ from the queen’s abdomen before retreating back to the dungeon. Its actions were baffling, but I was thankful we didn’t need to deal with it too. Not like another fight would be smart with all the people around.

Goodness gracious, it’s finally over!

The fight to protect Cedaraille was over.

A note from AbyssRaven

No cliffhangers, no cliffhangers, no cliffhangers! Kill me, this was 8113 words.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 17 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 185: Raid Aftermath.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #1 her to promote our Patreon. 17 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 17 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until August!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

Name: Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor Level: 88 Job: Crimson-Scaled Dreadgiver

Name: Saori Segawa Level: 84 Job: Shadow Warrior

Party Leader

Name: Tasianna Marina Silverpond Level: 70 Job: Fae Whisperer

Name: Ellaine Fiero Helvas Level: 58 Job: Magus

Name: Grimnir Luedbrumdar Level: 65 Job: Blasthammer Gunner

Name: Tamae Tsuji Level: 52 Job: Holy Priestess

Name: Nishio Kudo Level: 60 Job: Six-Elemental Sorcerer

Name: Misaki Kawano Level: 59 Job: Sniper

Name: Name: Kazumi Hoshino Level: 55 Job: Dagger Rogue

Name: Kohaku Kobayashi Level: 58 Job: Water-Elemental Runeslayer

Name: Yorshka Nordor Level: 131 Job: White-Winged Dragoon

Wow, what a huge number of level ups!I can officially say that our ‘training arc’ was a success… Even if we kinda got roped into fighting a raid boss.

The aftermath of the B ranked [Molten Core Rachonoid] raid battle had already commenced. Soldiers and guards brought the injured to white-robed clergymen for healing, setting up a temporary emergency clinic for them. The majority of adventurers celebrated the victory by dismantling the rachonoid corpses, pocketing the rewards for themselves, while the guild officials counted the casualties of their members and staff in addition to documenting compensation for recruiting hunters and mercenaries for this urgent Quest.

The nobles, on the other hand, were far more preoccupied with themselves to care for the destruction in front of them. Sure, the land leading from Cedaraille to the dungeon was scorched and ravaged, but they still prioritised boasting about their achievements during the raid battle to other nobles and the Duke himself.

Speaking about the rachonoid corpses, the bodies of the C ranks and lower were mostly ignored by the nobles, consequently making them a free-for-all and a first-come-first-served for the adventurers and soldiers. I even saw some commoners from the city sneaking out to scavenge materials. On the other hand, the queen spider was completely claimed by the Duke.

Very annoying if you asked me, considering Aurora and The Magical Biscuits did the heavy lifting for the first half of the fight. We literally prevented the spider queen from coming anywhere close to the city. Afterwards, I heard from Tamae and Ellaine that rewards will most likely be shared amongst all the contributors. Meaning, I have to make sure we get our share.

Jeez, I wanted to avoid getting entangled with the nobles, but I guess this was just inevitable. Maybe I should just be happy with the one eye, I complained to myself. The one eye I poked out of the rachonoid queen’s face with my tail was safely kept inside my storage.

“Please, Lady Yorshka, you must allow us to speak with the Heroes for a bit. This is a joyous moment that we must celebrate!” I overheard a knight say out loud, clearly some kind of noble. He was standing in front of Yorshka, who had taken the appearance of a human-like dragonewt with her wings out like my usual form, along with an entourage of other nobles.

“I apologize Lord and Ladies. However, as the guardian knight of this group of Heroes that the Goddess has blessed, I must allow them to rest and recuperate after all the efforts they put into stalling the rachonoid queen before the glorious might of Greenveil’s nobles arrived to finish it off,” Yorshka replied courteous and respectful, a clear difference to how she behaved in private.

“Mhmm, that is understandable,” one of the discontented nobles agreed reluctantly, before noticing Saori, Tasianna, and me. “If a meeting with the heroes isn’t possible, then we would like to request to introduce ourselves to those magically-talented, young lad-”

Yorshka’s wings immediately snapped wide open, looking like a curtain to block their eyes from us. “I would ask you to not try my patience, Sir. Or, are the words of a Knight-Captain of the Knights of Aurena not worth your consideration? Would you like a letter from the Knight-Commander or maybe even the Pope?”

That was the final hit, silencing everybody. Disgruntled, they began to leave, accepting Yorshka’s words.

We were currently resting in a makeshift camp, surrounded by Tasianna’s [Air Shield], which allowed air to enter while stopping sounds from escaping outside. Something only made possible by Zephira’s blessing on her catalyst.

“I still can’t believe Lady Yorshka was a dragonewt all this time,” Tamae suddenly stated, still baffled despite the fact that she had seen the dragonewt form back in the dungeon. “Lady Yorshka would always act as a shield for us whenever the nobles got too aggressive with their networking. I guess seeing the White-Winged Dragoon literally having white wings must have been a real surprise even for them.”

I still remembered Yorshka’s attack [Nordor Style: Silver Dragon’s Skyfall] creating a translucent dragon with her mana. From up close, the aura dragon appeared silvery, befitting the name, but, from afar, it wouldn’t surprise me if people believed it to be white. Her nickname-cum-title fitted her quite well in that case.

“Sorry for not telling you guys about it. I recently learned that exposing a hiding dragonkin was considered extremely rude. I also gave a promise to her family not to say anything, and promises are something I can not and will not break,” I gave an excuse for hiding the truth from them after I noticed Yorshka’s smell.

“Respectable, even if you knew of us from Sensei, we were literally strangers. You had no responsibility to tell us anything. We aren’t angry, Hestia-san,” the quiet Misaki answered for everybody.

“Exactly, not like it did us any harm in the end, right? In fact, what a plot twist!” Kohaku commented on it. “More importantly, I would rather talk how ridiculous your experience buffs are, Hime-sama~”

“Yeah, yeah! The experience was divided between eleven people in our platoon and all of us received a massive level boost! Well, except for Lady Yorshka, who was far over-leveled for this fight in the first place.” Kazumi was speaking about [Hestia’s Retainer] giving all the students my experience boost from [Bearer of Kargrxymor’s Blood]. Saori attested to their personalities, so helping them out didn’t seem like a bad choice. More allies, right?

Since I’d added Yorshka, the one who landed the killing blow on the spider queen, to the party before the raid, all the experience gained from killing the rachonoid went directly to us. Although it had to be shared among eleven people, the amount of exp from a raid boss-type monster was still immense enough to give us all some much-needed levels.

While all of this was rosy and nice, there were a few issues this raid battle had caused us, or, more specifically, to me.

“I’ve sent Uno and the pack to scout out any adventurers or soldiers who might have seen you, Hestia,” Saori came over to me after cleaning her daggers, all drenched with the spider queen’s blood after being used as lightning rods. “Still, I don’t think it will help much even if I went to them and intimidated them into silence. We might be far away from the city, but you can still see it from here. That rachonoid was huge and a flying dragon isn’t exactly inconspicuous.”

It’s not like I had any other choice. Reaching the surface in time and stalling the spider until the support came from the Duke was only possible if Saori and I were at our full potential. We needed to be in our original forms so our racial abilities could be amplified by our higher stats. I also was quite tired after my fight with the slazzigula and using up all my scale-dust for the rocket boosters, so I needed any advantage I could get, especially during the night.

Adventurers saw me soar into the sky and roar in frustration after learning it was nighttime. That was how I somehow got 38 new followers for [The Light] — since the number hasn’t decreased, it meant they did not die after I arrived either, thankfully. The distance between the dungeon to Cedaraille was probably larger than Central Park in New York City, and, although it wasn’t flat anymore thanks to the spider, it wouldn’t surprise me if a noble or two saw me transform back into a dragonewt.

It was a mistake on my end which probably exposed everything.

“Urgh, this might actually be a problem… I really thought the rachonoid’s destruction should have created enough rubble and boulders to block it. Guess burning down the whole wood and replacing it with magma wasn’t ideal. Looks like the queen got her post-mortem revenge on me.” I shook my fist as I dramatically sniffed my nose.

“Well, considering the issue, wouldn’t it be best to ask the Duke and Lady Yorshka to help you?” Nishio suggested. “You can’t keep it a secret anymore unless you wipe the memories of everybody involved. Usually, if a secret like this were to be exposed, your first action as the CEO or president of a company would be to talk this through with your PR team. Not a single word gets out without the approval of the PR team if you’re a high profile, publicly-traded business.”

Misaki added to his advice. “Staying quiet is also an option. This world isn’t like ours, where the media and internet would flock towards any scandal and deconstruct it into atoms. It will probably spread inside a noble’s court, where your connections can help you gain more fame than infamy. It shouldn’t spread around too much among commoners, I think.”

In response to Misaki’s words, Saori shook her head. “You are underestimating how powerful word of mouth is, Misaki-san. Sure, the Kingdom of Artorias might not be advanced enough to possess newspapers or the internet, but merchants and adventurers are powerful tools to spread information around. That is an issue. We heard that we might run into issues with dragonslayers, and if a noble were to confirm any rumors, then Hestia would be in trouble. Hestia, Nishio-san and Misaki-san have some experience with corporate life due to their parents; their advice is good, but you should make your own decision. Aurora stands with you.”

“Correct, my life is yours, Lady Hestia,” Tasianna loyally stated.

“I’ve committed my sword in your service, Hestia. I will aid you in any way I can,” Ellaine agreed with the others.

I then looked at Grimnir. Apparently, Yorshka let it slip that I was a dragon princess in front of Grimnir, accidentally. He then met the students, noticing their relationship with Saori and how they were all speaking Japanese. He knew Saori and I were void-touched, people who could use [Space-Time Magic], so he went up to me and asked if I was an otherworlder, too.

Grimnir waved his hand in denial. “I have enough common sense, as I’ve said before, lass. My lips are sealed about your secrets. Besides, I’m not dumb enough to anger the Dragon Empire. I owe you my life, know that I won’t betray you as long as I have even a single shred of honor as a blacksmith and runesmith.”

Grimnir then sighed, looking depressed. “… Then again, not like my career as a blacksmith will go anywhere without a better hammer. Bladdarg, I can’t believe I forgot to loot that damn rock from that Danterno cultist.”

Oh shit! I completely forgot about that, too!

Ever-Burning Voldunna Core

An accumulation of voldunna core, heated up and compressed enough to form a ball inside a volcano. Unable to break apart or cool down through conventional means, a weapon created with this ore will possess a powerful ever-warm touch, sending sparks of fire with every strike

The moment I pulled it out of my storage and handed it over to Grimnir, his eyes lit up like light bulbs, as if he was finally seeing hope after so many years inside a cave. “You promised us some weapons, so I’ll expect you to return the favor.”

“Yes… on my honor.”

After saying that, I stood up and walked towards the Duke of Greenveil. He was accompanied by a lilac-haired noblewoman in a mage’s robes. Remembering what Theodore, the High Bishop of Firwood’s temple, told me, I was reminded that the Duke of Greenveil had a wife from House Sirius, who was the High Bishop’s and Marquess Sirius’ sister.

“Haaaa,” the Duke gave out a long sigh in front of a young man in his twenties wearing a suit of armor, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration after taking off his helmet. “I heard you say there was nothing to worry about not visiting the dungeon more often. To act as the dungeon master and maintain it. I trusted you back then because your father and family have been loyal to my house since Cedaraille was founded by my ancestors! Answer this, dungeon master, what in the Goddess’s name is this whole mess supposed to be?!”

Ahh, the dungeon master is the Duke’s retainer. Makes sense.

The Duke’s expression was not good. Anger contorted his voice, raising it higher and higher the more he shouted at the cowering young man. From the [Terror Aura] he was exuding, my instincts were roused, telling me not to let my guard down around him. Meanwhile, the lilac-haired mage next to him seemed competent, giving me the same vibes Ellaine’s mother had.

Prior to the raid battle, Yorshka explained how each of the seven Ducal houses possesses artifacts from the era of the Leosfalt Kingdom’s founding, the kingdom preceding Artorias. Made from a B rank treant which once guarded the lands of Cedaraille, the bow “Everhunter '' was capable of creating mana arrows like Misaki’s unique skill while any damage it causes against weak spots would be amplified.

The Duke might be not as strong as Yorshka or Farron, but he wasn’t a slouch since he should be a mage in addition to being an archer.

When I tried to get closer to him, his knights, all nobles equipped with quality armor and weapons, blocked my approach and ordered me to go away. That was when the lilac-haired mage ordered them to “stand down” and “let me through.” The Duke, noticing me, ordered the dungeon master to step aside to greet me.

I curtsied out of respect, bowing my head not too low as Manuella and Ellaine taught me. “Hestia Atsuko,” I greeted them, to which the mage responded with “Theresa Angela Sirius” and the Duke with “Isaac Albreaus Greenveil.”

The mage then began speaking, “I am Duke Greenveil’s first wife. I have heard much about you, Lady Hestia, from my brother, the Marquess of Firwood. Now, I presume you must have something to speak about with my dear husband, so I shall lend him to you, My Lady. Isaac, I shall handle the cleanup.”

And with her consent, the Duke was “lent” to me. Seeing as our discussion would handle some sensitive matters, I suggested to the Duke that we speak inside our camp. His guards wanted to accompany him, but he stopped them and told them to guard his wife. Speaking of her, she took over shouting the dungeon master while also managing the mages inspecting the rachonoid queen’s body. Officials from the adventurer guild were dismantling her corpse, and I can imagine how greedy the mages were for her materials.

I then turned to Duke Isaac. He had short green hair with a three-day-old beard, mostly uncombed as he just wore a helmet. He was slightly sweating, mostly due to how the spider’s body was still exuding a tremendous heatwave, and bags were under his eyes to show he just woke up in the middle of the night.

His bow “Everhunter” was placed inside a bow sheath with a quiver attached to it on his back. His armor, while it looked quite sturdy, seemed more decorative and shiny than practical. Then again, Yorshka’s armor was also an eye-catcher, especially with the silver scales; however, I could believe it possessed a high defense rate. If it wasn’t considered rude, I would have used [Mana Eyes] on their equipment to peek.

“First, I would like to thank you for your indispensable aid, Lady Hestia. It was already deep into the night when I heard the news that that monstrous rachonoid had escaped the dungeon. While I was awake, you can guess that the majority of the nobles, including my wife, were already asleep. It took a while to organize them and the soldiers,” the Duke commended Aurora’s actions.

“Thank you. It was Goddess Aurena’s wish for us to do so, and it would have been a tragedy if we hadn’t participated. I just did what was right,” I replied back, staying humble.

“The Goddess, I see. Then I must give my thanks to her on my next visit to the temple.” The Duke then scratched his beard, thinking for a moment before continuing. “That was a fantastic kill, Lady Hestia. Powerful magic to break through the rachonoid’s sturdy shell before a perfectly-timed attack by the White-Winged Dragoon. I knew from her title that Lady Yorshka was from Loatryx, however, the rumors always talked about how she was a human. Truly, her speed is impeccable, far faster than I could have shot my bow.”

The Duke showed his annoyance with our kill steal as he gave me a short glare, something I picked up on. So, in response, I shrugged. “Yup.”

After entering Tasianna’s air bubble, the Duke suddenly turned towards Ellaine, bowing slightly before greeting her, “Lady Ellaine, I am glad to see you healthy! When I heard from Newt that you were in Cedaraille with Lady Hestia, I couldn’t believe my ears. Your father hadn’t informed me you would, well, not be preparing for the next academy’s semester.”

Hmm? Do they know each other?

Ellaine twitched when she saw the Duke, standing up immediately before curtsying. “L-Lord Duke Greenveil, I hadn’t expected you to speak here with Lady Hestia.” She then gave me a look, looking betrayed for some reason. What did I do? “W-Well, you see, I have decided to become Princess Hestia’s retainer. I-I believe it would benefit our kingdom more if-if, uhm, I went with her. To-To becomes an ambassador, uhm, y-yes.”

“I see, a commendable effort. Ahem, Newt has already mentioned this, but Amelia would like to meet you again, if you have the chance or opportunity. I believe it would mean a lot for her. I would be thankful if you could, not as a Duke, but as a father.”

The Duke then began introducing himself to the students, Grimnir, and the rest of Aurora while Ellaine only nodded to his request, staying meek as he began thanking us for our work. “Who is Amelia,” I wondered, but I kept it to myself for now.

I began speaking with the Duke, explaining to him what had happened during our adventure in the dungeon. Since he already knew I was related to Aurena somehow and how I admitted that “Aurena’s will” guided my action, I thought it was my responsibility to report how some of Shiterno’s cultists caused this whole incident with a rebellion orb.

“A rebellion orb?” I did not bring any of the shards of the shattered orb, fearing it would agitate the demon inside the black orb again. Aurena’s words still left a huge impact on me.

Hey, Goddess Aurena, if you hear me, I apologize for being so harsh back then… Nothing? Well, okay, speak with you later.

“Haaaaa, I know the Church of Danterno can be aggressive, especially with mages not affiliated with the mage’s guild, but I did not expect them to do something this ridiculous. The amount of mana polluting this area is unfathomable! This will cost too much money to repair,” the Duke then placed his hand on his face, massaging his temples in the process. “What was the name of the person leading this congregation? The members? Any further information?”

“Keith Svonnweidher,” I told him, asking in the process to not punish his family if they were innocent if he could. Commoners with last names usually had an established family who served a noble house as a retainer, similar to Talon. Who knows what the Duke would do with this information, but I hoped innocent people won’t be further dragged into this mess.

The Duke, seeming like a good guy, agreed to let the family off if they weren’t involved in Keith’s madness. At this point, I also mentioned the problem I had with my exposed identity, that adventurers and nobles might have seen me. The Duke confirmed that he saw me in my dragon form from afar, which was actually the reason why he ordered everybody to not attack anything but the rachonoids. Some nobles might not have seen me transform into a dragonewt, but he’ll make sure the ones who did will stay silent with the royal family’s authority.

The issues with the adventurers weren’t something he could do anything about except by executing them. Adventurers were nomadic by nature, he couldn’t guarantee them not speaking up in another city or town. The soldiers, guards, and citizens could be controlled by his agents, either through bribes or execution. In any case, he’ll deal with it.

“However, Lady Hestia, this sort of information will leak out even if we enforce restrictions. If you wish to hide your identity this much then it will cost innocent lives, unfortunately. Considering you were that worried about a terrorist’s family, I cannot understand why you would wish to ask me to do this for you. Commoners or not, if they are innocent, then their life shouldn’t be taken that lightly,” the Duke argued, forcing me to flinch and reflect on what I was suggesting.

Wait, am I ordering these people’s death? Everything can be solved with a bribe, right? Hold on, where will this money come from? Urgh…

“Lady Hestia, if I may give you some advice. Considering your age, you would do well to ask Lady Yorshka about your new life’s culture. Instead of hiding your identity, maybe it would be better to simply embrace it openly. Instead of silencing people, simply ignore them and try your best not to fuel the spread of rumors,” the Duke suggested. “I heard the rumors Lord Theodore spread about you. You did nothing to stay inconspicuous during the whole battle with your singing, white grace, and your spell. Your reputation will precede you, My Lady.”

Verdammt.

I looked over at Saori, Tasianna, and Ellaine, all looking worriedly at me. At the end of the day, I called off the Duke’s attempt to silence people. I didn’t want people to get hurt cause of my dumb mistake. If somebody were to pursue our party ‘cause of me, then, well, we would have to fight back.

To fight these threats, I needed to gain more strength. To protect my friends and also myself. Well, not like anything changed ‘cause of this decision. If the nobles start hearing about who I am, then I guess it’s just another day where a foreign royalty visits their kingdom. They’ll probably want to string me into their issues, so I just need to do the one proper thing when they try.

Say no, and kick them in the ass if they won’t accept it.

Afterward, we talked about the rachonoid’s corpse. The Duke wanted to acquire all the pieces from the monster, stating he needs them to improve his armor while also furthering some of his plans to become the next Grand Duke of Economic Affairs. As the slayers and also a huge reason for why his city still stands, he was honor-bound to reward Aurora and The Magical Biscuits for our efforts.

While Saori was eyeing the money from the Duke, The Magical Biscuits and I only had an interest in the rachonoid’s material. A B rank monster’s parts! How could we let it go for money? We needed to equip ourselves, and we would soon have a blacksmith who could make it for us. In the end, I declined. The Duke had already anticipated it but he couldn’t help but feel saddened. He told us to visit him in two days for the reward.

“In fact, I wish to use this chance as a celebration. In two days’ time, you may choose your respective rewards, Lady Hestia. Heroes. Three days afterward, I wish to throw a ball to liven up everybody’s mood after this battle, where I will present to you your reward. As you must have noticed, a few of the nobles seem eager to meet all of you, and it would also improve your reputation. What say you?” The Duke invited us to a noble’s party.

Everybody looked at me, literally everybody. “As we are your retainers now, Hestia-hime-sama, shouldn’t you be the one to give the answers?” All of them said something similar.

Assholes! They’re putting all the responsibilities on me!

However, I guess this was easier. Telling my answer now would avoid all the misunderstandings that will come out of it if everybody gave their individual answers. I looked the Duke right in the eye, smiled, and said…

“No, thank you. We have something more important to do.”

“Huh?” His eyes widened.

“You told me I needed to consult with Lady Yorshka, so I need to do that. It’s your own fault, Duke Greenveil,” my lips curled up, grinning wide like an innocent girl. As the Duke began to hide his face under his palms, I began to feel bad and decided to throw him a bone. “If you wish to save some money and time to regrow your land, I suggest you ask House Moreschi from Lecartiglio Duchy. Ask for Lady Severa or Lord Antonio to handle your plant problem~”

Good luck, Cernust. Get your future parents-in-law to love you!

A note from AbyssRaven

The Cedaraille Arc is finished with this aftermath chapter. I hope eveyrbody liked it and cannot await for the next one. Spoiler: ______---____

Also, somebody had commented they wanted an art gallery to reference all the appearances of the characters. I'll be releasing it tomorrow, no worries, and thank you for pointing that out.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 17 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

If you can spare a second, please do not forget to give the story a vote! Every vote helps the story stay visible for others. The vote button is just under the chapter buttons.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 186: The Blacksmith’s Commitment.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #2 her to promote our Patreon. 17 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 17 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until August!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

“Tch, fuck no! As if!”

It was a new day; well, technically, it was still the 30th of WinterMoon since the battle began after midnight. News of what happened yesterday had already spread around Cedaraille like wildfire.

The majority of the nobles already knew, as they’d fought alongside the Duke of Greenveil against the [Molten Core Rachonoid], and, once morning came, the rest of the people from the noble district would have been informed, I believe. The same thing was also going on in the merchant, middle, and lower districts due to the scavengers, adventurers, and soldiers spreading the story. Even if you hadn’t heard this from the city’s criers or through gossip, the scorched memento right outside the city’s wall was enough evidence.

As somebody staying in an inn in the merchant district, I was well aware of the number one hot topic. The innkeeper, who stayed up late from all the commotion, even asked my party for details, as he knew we were inside the dungeon for over a week. He was quite overjoyed when he learned we were on the frontlines, mumbling how this information would sell well to the merchants. He deduced merchants would line up in front of the noble’s houses for the materials, at least figuratively.

The Sarlenzia Company will benefit a ton from this if the Duke orders them to export the materials. Really helps that they’re so close with each other, maybe even more if what the Duke implied with his daughter…

That was private business between the Duke and Ellaine. I’d probably ask her about it later, but for today, there was something more important.

“I need to forge the rock into my new hammer,” Grimnir greeted me the moment I went down the stairs of the inn I was staying at. It was already noon and it seemed he waited until I was awake. “I’m about to make it and I want you and Aurora to see me create it. If you want your gear, then you should learn how it all starts.”

Saori and Ellaine declined. Saori wanted to meet her students and Ellaine had already seen how blacksmiths work when her father commissioned his armor, so she went with Saori. The students were completely fatigued despite drinking some dragorade, so they decided to rest, while Yorshka told me she had to inform the Nordor Dragonewt clan of my birth, survival, and safety. That meant my dragon “mother” would learn about it… but it was better than what Cernust warned me about — an invasion army of silver-scaled dragonkins.

In the end, only Tasianna and I accompanied Grimnir. He grumbled about our “disinterest in an important staple in an adventurer’s life,” leading the way with a disgruntled expression. I thought we were going to his RV home in the lower district, but we actually ended up in the middle district’s artisan neighborhood. This district consisted of merchants, eateries, workshops, guilds, and generally the middle-income residents in comparison to everybody else.

As an adventurer, this area was where you went for most of your gear, potions, and work. Not only could you find the hunter’s and mercenary guilds here but also the alchemy and blacksmith guilds. The noise of busy workers, loud foremen, and negotiating merchants filled my ears as we slipped through the crowd.

“Grimnir, if you need minerals or metals, we already have a ton from the Sarlenzia Trading Company and we can smelt most of the salvaged voldunna armor. Why are we here?” I asked Grimnir, worried he might have lost his way.

However, Grimnir just looked at me with pity, as if I had no idea what I was talking about. “Lass, here is another lesson as a Peolyncian inhabitant: the hammer is the most important tool for a blacksmith’s success. Endurance and technique won’t get you far if your hammer is of the same quality as an apprentice’s first work. Where we are going is the one place I would have never thought to go to, but honor be damned if I can’t repay a debt.”

I remembered Grimnir mentioning how a hammer would melt and bend during the smelting process if it weren’t resistant enough against higher temperatures. ‘Cause making armor from my scales required incredibly high temperatures, something as hot as my dragon breath, Grimnir required a hammer made from that molten voldunna core that could withstand that heat. I already gave it to him after the spider queen raid, so why isn’t he making one right now? Does he need a bigger forge?

The Tunging Hammer and the Iron Crevasse were considered rivals for the title of the best according to the blacksmith guild, making them the most reputable smithies in town. Conveniently operating directly across the street from each other, the area between them was incredibly busy, primarily ‘cause of all the customers inside the two shops and the workers enjoying lunch at the street vendors. In fact, the members and workers on either side were acting like sports fans, hyping up their faction with too much energy.

Considering the city was nearly destroyed last night, people are going on with their lives normally. Kinda makes the effort we put in to stop the rachonoid totally worth it.

People noticed us. A dragonewt priestess with a decorative white robe, a wind elf in a conspicuous maid dress, and a ram-horned taz dwarf without a beard — which he tragically lost in his fight against a B rank volchark — were traveling together in one group. People were talking about it, wondering if we were customers and which shop we would frequent.

And the one Grimnir chose was… the Tunging Hammer!

“Oh, fuck, yeah! I knew it!”

“Shit! What the fuck!”

People were becoming celebrative and rambunctious at the same time like rowdy fans in a packed football stadium. Smug-looking customers of the Tunging Hammer were slinging slurs at the other lane, calling out how their shop was better just ‘cause a dwarf decided to frequent them. “We are good enough for a dwarf!” they all shouted, causing the Iron Crevasse side to bite their nails and lose some neutral customers.

What was the actual reason?

“Their shop looks less packed,” Grimnir told us under all the shouting and cackles.

The blacksmith workshop was divided into two sections - the shop consisted of half of the first and second floor, while the smithy was right behind the counter in the second half of the first floor, similar to Ogni’s shop in Firwood. In terms of size, Ogni’s small shop was a far cry from how large the Tunging Hammer was. The first floor was like a small 7-Eleven while, after leaving Grimnir at the counter and going up to explore, we found the second floor to be about as large as a medium-sized clothing store. There was an assortment of weapons on the ground floor, but most customers preferred browsing the goods upstairs, leaving those with commissions downstairs.

Listening around, it seems that all the shop’s salesmen were actually blacksmith apprentices, led by a single veteran as their supervisor. While they weren’t charismatic like merchants, the adventurers didn’t seem to mind it too much as the purpose of these apprentices was for them to use and train their [Blacksmith’s Appraisal]. The most important skill for a blacksmith next to [Blacksmithing] and maybe [Metalworking].

Blacksmith’s Appraisal

Allows the identification of any equipment-type item which includes: weapons, armor, mana tools, and manatech. Only given by the God of Blacksmithing, Bleidla, as a blessing to newly initiated blacksmiths, this skill allows the user to learn all the parameters of a weapon while aiding them during the smelting process. A higher level allows more accurate System assistance, granting the user more information

Kraftja was a blacksmith, like her husband, Ogni, but she mostly manned the store’s counter with her [Blacksmith’s Appraisal] skill. Parameters like the Attack Power of a weapon or the Defensive Power of armor were paramount for an adventurer to know before they made a purchase, which was why a blacksmith was needed to act as the salesman for an equipment shop. Since those in this shop were apprentices, it must be part of their training.

“Tch, fuck no! As if!”

And that was how we got here.

As Tasianna pointed out a commotion downstairs, we went down to check it out. There, we saw a group of topless, burly men covered in sweat and metal dust, wearing aprons with pockets full of tools like hammers and chisels as well as a few other implements. Some had crossed their arms while others had their hands on their hips, but all of them were looking at Grimnir with annoyance and dissatisfaction.

Grimnir, looking moody as always, responded by snorting at them, small flickering flames came out from his nose unexpectedly. Grimnir’s armor was completely destroyed during our dungeon dive, so he was back in his blacksmith’s garb, albeit still wearing a shirt as he hasn’t begun working yet.

“The last thing I need is some disgraced blacksmith hammering inside my forge as if it's normal. Damn you dwarf, you came into this city with your shitty attitude, and you expect us to open the doors so you can use our smithy to forge something? Fuck no! I ain’t risking Bleidla’s wrath!” the human blacksmith standing in front of the others spat out, staring Grimnir down with a grimace. Considering he said “my forge,” this was probably the owner of the Tunging Hammer

With their boss trying to shoo Grimnir out, the other smiths began to step up in support. “We’re well aware of tazongn customs, zuekluk. You dishonored yourself, taz. Whatever the fuck you did, your clan found it horrendous enough to cut off all the crust’lock from your beard and hair. Be happy you didn’t lose your ears, too!”

“Zuekluk” meant “Dishonorable dwarf” while “crust’lock” alluded to the rock hair dwarves were supposed to have on their beard and hair, a sign of prestige and their accomplishments, at least according to Tasianna’s conversations with Grimnir while practicing her dwarven. Grimnir, compared to Ogni and Kraftja, only had the rock hide on his ears when we first met him, a racial feature dwarves were born with.

“Ha, let me guess, the reason why your beard is gone is ‘cause it burned off, yeah? How does it feel being careful around a fire like us humans, huh, dwarf? Does your pride still exist after being clean-shaven? Or are you gonna spout how much better you still are, huh?” I already knew there was some animosity between the local blacksmith guild and Grimnir. However, I didn’t think it would be this bad. I anticipated a rivalry, not full-blown hatred.

I wanted Grimnir to defuse this situation, but with his personality, that was a bit wishful. “Hmpf! Of course! My techniques alone are far better than every single smith in this damn city. It’s unquestionable, regardless if Bleidla has abandoned me or not! By Crustacia’s twintails, I ain’t here to squabble with you, I’m here to borrow your hammer so I can forge mine!”

There was a commotion. The loyal customers watching this confrontation couldn’t keep quiet at this challenge to their favorite smithy. They were shouting and spitting insults at Grimnir for coming into the shop and belittling the workshop owner and its employees. Although I was on Grimnir’s side, I couldn’t help but acknowledge their frustration from how he worded it.

Before it escalated again, I stepped up to stop them. “I apologize, but what exactly is the commotion? Mister Grimnir, what is happening?”

Seeing me, a noble priestess of Aurena, speaking up, most of the onlookers became uneasy and the noise dwindled, although I could still hear people whispering their dissatisfaction at Grimnir. Grimnir, himself, didn’t give them a second thought and answered my question, saying, “The reason why we came here, lass. I need to create my hammer and to do that, I need to borrow somebody else’s hammer to do so, preferably a high-quality one.”

“I thought you needed a larger forge? If you need a stronger hammer, we have the funds, we can just buy it for you, no problem. It’s an investment.”

“It’s not that easy, Lady Priestess.” The one to reply wasn’t Grimnir, but the owner of the Tunging Hammer, Johark. He still had a grimace on his face, but it seemed to have softened a bit.

Since my knowledge of blacksmithing was pretty much only surface-level, only knowing that stronger monster materials created better equipment, Johark gave me a short explanation of what Grimnir wanted. In short, when Grimnir said hammers were the most important tools for a blacksmith, he wasn’t just stating the obvious; hammers were primarily responsible for a weapon’s stats and the quality of its skills.

The sturdiness and heat resistance of a hammer weren’t the only things that made a good hammer good, the Attack Power and the skills embedded into it also affected how well gear created with it would come out. A good blacksmith wasn’t just somebody with incredible technique, endurance, and patience, but also someone who has meticulously created numerous hammers. Use a good hammer to create a better hammer, then repeat this cycle until your better-better hammer becomes the best hammer. This was one of the main money-sinks for a blacksmith.

Apprentices usually start off with a crude, skill-less hammer to create their first personal one. Since monster materials and special ores affected the strength of a hammer, blacksmiths had to accumulate money for their next upgrade. Experience was important, but assuring you had the right materials was a major concern for every blacksmith apprentice. Cedaraille having a dungeon wasn’t just a blessing for adventurers, but also for all equipment artisans.

“I ain’t starting from zero. The amount of investment to get a lowly hammer up to what I need would take too long, I ain’t making you wait that long, lass. I heard the Tunging Hammer and the Iron Crevasse were the only smithies in Cedaraille to have hammers made from B rank materials; both belong to the shops’ respective owners,” Grimnir finally explained it to me in detail.

But Johark couldn’t care less of his explanation, rejecting his request entirely. “Pah! You think I’ll just say ‘yes?’ Fuck no! First, I ain’t risking Bleidla’s anger by letting you use it, I ain’t risking my business! Second, you’re here for a favor but all I hear from you is damn scorn — ‘setting your pride’ aside to ask a favor from a human while looking down on us is what makes you dwarven blacksmiths patronizing and arrogant! Get the fuck out of my smithy, you have no friends here!”

He then turned to me, forcing himself to calm down. “Lady Priestess, if you have a request, I can personally show you what a human blacksmith can do. I can turn any B rank material into what you want.”

“Hrmmmk!” Grimnir growled as veins appeared on his thick forehead.

This is problematic.

As I was shaking my head at the heated quarrel between the two of them, Tasianna stepped forward with a nonchalant expression. “May I suggest a competition?”

““Huh?”” Grimnir and Johark let out in surprise, the tension in the shop giving way to confusion.

“My Lady is seeking the highest-quality equipment Cedaraille can produce, regardless of who it comes from. Our companion requires sturdy armor, armor fit to protect My Lady. So, I suggest we decide on the blacksmith with a competition, to see who is fit to work on the commission. The materials we have are all B rank, we cannot risk losing them.”

I looked over at Grimnir, who gave me an affirmative nod. It seems he agreed to Tasianna’s plan. “I am looking for scaled armor, preferably ones made from my own scales. If it’s a competition, I believe it would give me a glimpse of who is more qualified for this work. Considering how many scales you have to add to the armor, this should be a time-intensive procedure, correct?”

“Dragonewts love creating armor using their scales, it’s a status symbol if an armor made from them comes out well. The lass is asking for armor made in the style of her homeland. Can you really do it?” Grimnir's eyes blazed up, challenging Johark with a smirk. Without his beard, the smugness level was going through the roof.

Oi, Grimnir, I’m trying to help you here! Make friends! Stop looking like that!

Johark frowned at Grimnir’s agreement to the challenge, looking slightly anxious. The crowd and his employees were egging him on to join the competition, stating he should show the workshop’s hard work and maintain their honor in front of Grimnir. As Johark continued to hesitate, the crowd suddenly made way for a single person to enter the shop.

“Yo, Johark.” Dressed similarly like a blacksmith, only with a shirt on, the beardless man waved at the owner of the Tunging Hammer.

“Daniel?” Johark responded. According to the crowd, Daniel seemed to be the owner of the Iron Crevasse. “What are you doing here?”

“What else but agreeing to a high-profile customer’s request. Lady Priestess, you’re speaking about a ton of B rank materials, yeah? No jest?”

I nodded.

“That’s all I needed to hear! Makes my blood boil in anticipation of what I can work with. Whatever comes out of that is something Bleidla will definitely acknowledge! If you’re starting a competition for the best blacksmith to make your armor, then the number one forge in all Cedaraille should be the one fighting for the commission!” He then turned back to Johark, smirking similarly as Grimnir. “Come on, Johark, or is speaking all you can do, huh? We’re both apprentices of Master Hreik, the best blacksmith in the whole kingdom. Where is your pride as a blacksmith, huh, or are you gonna throw in the towel against somebody without [Blacksmith’s Appraisal]?”

“Whoooo? Hreik?” Grimnir expressed his interest in this Hreik person, impressed when Daniel mentioned them. “Now that’s a human even a dwarf can respect. Somebody willing to go nights without food just to finish a piece of armor. If you two are his apprentices, then I really did underestimate the blacksmiths in this city… Or you’re just another two who assume working a year under him makes you an apprentice. Ha!”

Those words were the deciding point. Johark returned a stare filled with commitment at Grimnir, accepting his challenge. “If either of us wins, you will bow and apologize for all your hubris. One of us will take the commission and you can wallow somewhere Bleidla can’t see you,” Johark stated, anger leaking into his voice.

“Ha! If I lose, I’ll give up on blacksmithing entirely. However, if I win, you two will loan me your hammers and allow me to use your forge to create my own hammer. No complaints, no crying.”

The rules were simple. D rank slazzanbal scales, iron, and eoriant were the only materials they were able to use to produce a single slazzanbal scalemail for evaluation. We decided on only the scalemail simply ‘cause a full set of scale armor would take far too long. The competitors were only allowed to use an ordinary hammer to smith. This was a competition to test out the blacksmith’s skill, technique, knowledge, and dexterity, after all, and not who had the best gear.

Making the competition fair by removing sources of skill-boosting bonuses was our way to give Grimnir as many advantages as possible. All three blacksmiths must rely on their skill alone to win. Of course, there was still the hurdle of [Blacksmith’s Appraisal] — Grimnir was the only one of the three who didn’t have it — which allowed you to properly assess everything you need to know while forging. The temperature of the fire, the heat of the metal, the locations to hit, how much strength should be placed into every hit, and so many more variables.

The competition was set outside on the streets, where three portable forges, anvils, water buckets, and tools were laid for the three competitors. The competition was set outside under the sunny sky as the workshops’ forges were too small to fit all the onlookers. Johark and Daniel each seemed determined to beat Grimnir and their rival, make their name known as the best blacksmith in Cedaraille, turning this competition into the challenge to determine who the best was, once and for all.

Technically, we weren’t allowed to do this. The streets belonged to the city’s administration and we required a permit to have a forging contest outside the workshops, but I guess I’ll deal with it if we get into trouble. Sometimes knowing the local lord of the city does pay off.

I was a bit worried for Grimnir, since the two others had an advantage with [Blacksmith’s Appraisal], but this was also a proper assessment for him. Up until now, we’ve only been working with Grimnir under the assumption that he was good. He was knowledgeable, but could he forge Ellaine’s armor? Trust was necessary, but Grimnir had to show us if he was worth all the effort.

He nodded back, seemingly understanding my worried stare.

“Sanctuary.” A light barrier surrounded the area around the forges, stunning everybody when I cast it. “No cheating allowed. Please, let us make this a proper competition in the eyes of Goddess Aurena, Goddess Crustacia, and God Bleidla.”

“““Umslid fie Bleidla!””” (Honor to Bleidla!)

Fires burst into action inside all three forges as the blacksmiths shoved split wooden logs into them, increasing the size and temperature of their flames with every push of their bellows. The fires consumed the oxygen, and the crowd was in awe at how fast the flames were growing. [Sanctuary] still let air through its barrier, unlike [Air Shield], so the sound of the crackling wood, the roar of the flames, and the heat produced by this were experienced by the whole crowd.

The blacksmiths handled the flames masterfully, according to the employees of the Tunging Hammer. They explained to me that a blacksmith’s first goal was to build up the fire as hot as they could endure to heat up metal faster. Logically. That was when Daniel and Johark stopped, sweat was covering their faces as they took some of the scales and placed them into a stone mortar, grinding each of them dexterously into dust.

They then transfered the powdered scales into a crucible before placing it into the forge, slowly melting the dust. Up next was the eoriant, heated up until the metal was glowing a bright yellow. Both blacksmiths took out the mortar and eoriant ingot simultaneously before placing it on their anvil. The top of the ingot was then covered in the red dust of the slazzanbal scales, before they picked up their hammer…

… and slammed it down, right onto the ingot.

“OooooOOOHHH!!” The crowd awed once again.

Clang. Clang. Clang. Clang. Clang. The sound of metal being bashed echoed through the street. Johark’s and Daniel’s arms were moving at an incredible pace, pounding the dust into the metal over and over again to the point the sound of metal clashing with each other was being mixed together. Metal flakes were flying around like confetti as the ingot was being shaped into a sheet of eoriant.

Hammer, reheat, hammer, reheat, hammer, reheat, the process was smooth, every motion was made with confidence in their craft and skill. [Mana Eyes] showed me how they were focusing their mana into their hammers like a warrior, strengthening their hits with it. Their focus was glued to their respected station, never wandering for one second to their rivals. They were trapped in their own world, a world where only fire and the ringing of metal could exist.

When I turned to Grimnir to see how he was doing, I noticed he was still fiddling with the flames. Although I wasn’t a professional thermostat, the heat radiating from Daniel’s and Johark’s furnaces seemed similar in temperature, probably warmer than what I experienced on floor 15 and below in the dungeon.

Grimnir’s forge, on the other hand, was going beyond theirs. The onlookers closest to Grimnir had to step back, unable to endure the heat. Tasianna also had to step away from me, as she didn’t want to jeopardize any of the contestants with her ice spells. However, Grimnir wasn’t done yet; once enough logs were inside, the taz took a deep breath before bellowing a stream of fire into the forge.

Undoubtedly, Grimnir’s forge was the hottest amongst all three. When he began to sweat, that was when Grimnir finally smiled. Even I could feel the heat. I wasn’t sweating like Grimnir but the temperature was probably around what I could produce if I was being lazy. Similar to his competitors, he took the scales and began grounding them into a mortar; however, unlike them, he ground all of them before placing the mortar into the furnace.

Watching him work, I could see that the crushed scales were melting at a similar rate, however, instead of putting the bar of eoriant into the furnace, Grimnir picked the ingot with his tongs, placed it on the anvil and blasted a flame breath at it, heating the metal up until it glowed in mere seconds. Without a single delay, he grabbed his hammer, infused mana into it, and swung it!

Clang!

“Shit, that’s when a taz dwarf has the advantage,” one of Daniel’s blacksmith’s commented, entranced at how Grimnir was working.

If Johark’s and Daniel’s hammer swings were as fast as a proficient spear wielder, then Grimnir’s was similar to a master’s. Even without [Blacksmith’s Appraisal], his swings were heavy and accurate, denting the ingot in the right spots. Three hammer swings per second while turning the ingot around with the tongs. The sound of metal rocking on the anvil rang throughout the street nonstop.

As the heat began to fade on the ingot, Grimnir’s mouth opened up and unleashed another flame breath. His arms did not rest though, always swinging to mold the ingot into his ideal form. Three blacksmith masters, all working without a single break, kept swinging their hammers onto the metal. This was a blacksmith ASMR.

“Hey, but isn’t he forgetting the scales?” The onlookers were right. The scales were still melting inside Grimnir’s furnace. The goal was to create scalemail with those slazzanbal scales, not a normal eoriant scalemail.

And Grimnir’s hammer suddenly stopped swinging. Leaving the ingot and his hammer on the anvil, he suddenly picked it up and placed it right in front of the furnace, the heat fluttering the little amount of orange hair still left on Grimnir’s scalp. With his tongs, he took the mortar out of the furnace and with one quick movement, he splashed a small amount of the liquid scales onto the ingot before returning it to the forge and continued hammering.

The technique was different compared to Johark and Daniel, to everybody’s shock. Both artisans’ focus was broken as they looked over at Grimnir’s work, curious about the new technique, before they shook their heads and regained their focus almost immediately. Grimnir, on the other hand, was unperturbed by everything. As he hammered the melted scales into the ingot, he then bent the ingot and placed one half over the other.

Personally, I was quite mesmerized by the blacksmith’s work. The rhythmic hammering was extremely satisfying. Sadly, Tasianna couldn’t share the same excitement for it as I did, deciding to brew me some tea to entertain herself. That was when Grimnir’s hammer broke.

It now became obvious why Grimnir insisted for a better hammer, as his smithing style required one which could withstand his flame breath. The hammering sounds from his station stopped for a moment as he picked up another hammer and continued.

“Bring another hammer for Mister Grimnir, please!” I asked Johark’s blacksmiths, who compiled without arguing. Any animosity they had for Grimnir was gone, replaced by respect and amazement. Similarly to me, they couldn’t keep their eyes from these masters’ performances. Like sponges, they were eagerly absorbing the hours of experience presented before them.

Time flew by and a few of the onlookers had to return to work. A few guards even tried to interrupt the competition, but I simply bluffed my way through it, telling them the Duke of Cedaraille wouldn’t mind it. Ever since Saori added a few more details to my white robes, nobody has second-guessed whether I was a noble. Nothing was interrupting this match on my watch.

Grimnir’s flame breath and speed of hammering meant he was the first to finish using up all the ingots and scales, displaying several shimmering, light red eoriant sheets on his workbench. It was now time to turn them into scales. With every piece Grimnir cut out, he would heat it up and hammer it into its sparkling final form. Grimnir had called his hands too clumsy for artificer work, but that wasn’t the case for blacksmithing. With his flame breath and hammering efficiency, Johark and Daniel couldn’t keep up.

The sky was almost turning orange as the master smiths continued their work. A handful of clattering light red scales was falling from Grimnir’s hands as he finally was done with the sheets of eoriant. He then took the last piece of eoriant ingot and quickly turned it into a thin metal string. He wrapped it around a metal rod while it was red hot and cut all of them into small rings.

When the sky had finished turning completely orange, Grimnir was finally done stringing all the metal scales with the rings, presenting a light scalemail able to cover as much as a T-shirt. Johark and Daniel were done with their works about 30 or so minutes later, and theirs also looked brilliant. Unfortunately, the results the system gave me were different.

“Dammit!”

“Fuck!”

Eoriant slazzanbal scalemail

A scalemail made from scales of a flaming slazzanbal, combined with eoriant to create sturdy metal scales. The scales were fortified magnificently, becoming sturdier and more resistant to heat than they normally would be.

Vitality Power: 243

Wisdom Power: 311

Skill: [Sundering Resistance Lv. 2] [Piercing Resistance Lv. 2] [Fire Resistance Lv. 5] [Heat Resistance Lv. 3] [Physical Resistance Lv. 2]

Eoriant slazzanbal scalemail

A scalemail made from scales of a flaming slazzanbal, combined with eoriant to create sturdy metal scales. The scales were fortified magnificently, becoming sturdier and more resistant to heat than it normally would be.

Vitality Power: 213

Wisdom Power: 291

Skill: [Sundering Resistance Lv. 3] [Piercing Resistance Lv. 3] [Fire Resistance Lv. 4] [Heat Resistance Lv. 3] [Physical Resistance Lv. 2]

Johark’s was the first and Daniel’s was the second. Compared to the armor from those Black Orc Knights I salvaged, the scalemail had around 300 Vitality Power and 100 Wisdom Power less, but that was to be expected, this was just a piece of scalemail compared to the full plated armor the orcs had. There were slight deviations between the two, but the armor was still around the same. It would have been hard for me to judge if those were my only options.

Thankfully, Grimnir did not disappoint.

Eoriant slazzanbal scalemail

A scalemail made from scales of a flaming slazzanbal, combined with eoriant to create sturdy metal scales. The scales were melted completely during the infusion process, fusing perfectly with the eoriant. Heat and physical resistances have been heightened beyond what this armor should have had.

Vitality Power: 379

Wisdom Power: 471

Skill: [Sundering Resistance Lv. 4] [Piercing Resistance Lv. 4] [Fire Resistance Lv. 6] [Heat Resistance Lv. 4] [Physical Resistance Lv. 2]

“This is my token of trust. You placed your trust in me despite everything you heard and saw about me. You risked your life to acquire a piece of rock in the depths of a life-threatening dungeon, where we all could have lost our lives against the monsters there. You even saved my life,” Grimnir handed me the scalemail, bowing to me in respect. “Armor is supposed to be worn. I tried to adjust from sight alone, but it’ll probably still be a bit loose. Please, wear it, Hestia.”

I agreed. I handed Tasianna my robe and had her help me put it on. As Grimnir said, the scalemail was a bit too large for me. It went right past my hips and ended at my thighs, however, the sleeves were a good fit. It felt comfortable; the clinking of the scales wasn’t too loud and instead felt satisfying.

“It’s great,” I smiled.

That was when Grimnir kneeled down. Tasianna, recognizing something was up, quickly cast [Air Shield] around Grimnir and us to block anything from leaving the bubble.

“Dragon Princess Hestia Atsuko Kargrxymor, for saving my life, I, Grimnir from the Luedbrumdar clan of the Ankor-Nazta, the Ankoran Mountain Ranges, am honor-bound to fulfill my promise to you,” Grimnir suddenly stated, surprising me with his actions.

“You already told me, I know that. But why are you kneeling Grimnir. Don’t tell me… Uhm, you technically don’t need to do that to fulfill your promise, you know?” I replied, flabbergasted at what I assumed Grimnir was intending with this.

“Yes, I know. However, the time we have together will probably not be enough for me to feel satisfied with myself. Your original commission was for the lass Ellaine, armor fit to protect her. That I will deliver for you, however, what about for you? What about for Saori? What about for Tasianna? I’ve thought about it since you saved me and when I fought side-by-side with Saori and Tasianna.” Grimnir then turned his head up, looking me straight into my eyes. “To fulfill my promise, I must travel with you.”

“I understand, however, what about yourself? I don’t intend to turn you into a slave or something and dragging you along purely for that reason would be stupid. Mister Grimnir, while I understand your reasoning and I thank you very much for your selflessness, I can’t take you on when you aren’t benefiting from traveling with us.”

“You’re wrong.” Grimnir’s eyes sharpened, focusing on me intently. “I was exiled from my clan and dishonored by losing my crust’locks and [Blacksmith’s Appraisal] because I displeased Bleidla by trying to recreate one of the Revolution Queen’s creations, the gun, with a good friend of mine. Broggi Luedbrumdar, my cousin, was the creator of the blasthammer I wield.”

Bleidla, the God of Blacksmiths and Volcanoes, was one of the most active gods in Peolynca, always watching his blacksmiths hammer away and creating new equipment to inspire him. As such, he is profligate when it comes to spreading his blessing, even honoring blacksmith workshops who catch his attention. Although he was once a subordinate of Shiterno, despite being a dwarf, he switched over to Crustacia when he realized how poorly Shiterno’s ideals and actions aligned with his own.

However, that didn’t mean Bleidla was a fully benevolent god. As he was a taz dwarf when he was a mortal, he could be extremely grumpy with terrible mood swings. He was known as a god who would punish blacksmiths and strip them of his blessing if they ever displeased him. Even going so far as punishing entire guild branches if they ever shamed themselves terribly.

The Revolution Queen, also known as Chihiro, the Goddess of Change, Ingenuity, and Ambition, was the creator of a blueprint for the gun. It was unfinished and it was declared sacrilegious to ever finish it by Bleidla’s will. Grimnir explained that there were testimonials of Chihiro of how she believed being responsible for bringing the gun to Peolynca wasn’t something she wanted, as such, she left the blueprints unfinished.

The Divine System also did not support gun and cannon skills, as Bleidla declared he had forbidden it. While cannons were allowed, guns could not be created, as the former was already in creation during Chihiro’s life. When Grimnir and his cousin, Broggi, tried to finish the gun, they were both dishonored and exiled.

“Bleidla is jealous of Goddess Chihiro, that is what I believe. During the lifetime of the Revolution Queen, many inventions were created, primarily manatech, to the point all dwarven artificers pray to her during their inventions’ first activation. My cousin lost his life last year, when we tried to garner back his trust and blessing. That stubborn bladdarg cursed us!” Grimnir slammed his fist into the ground before calming himself to explain the reason why he actually wants to come with Aurora. “My promise to you would also benefit me. I can create equipment inspired by two otherwordlers, while you would benefit from my skills as a blacksmith and runesmith. When I display these creations for all to see, I wish for Bleidla to feel envious and angry for losing a skilled taz like me! In addition, I want to finish my cousin’s masterpiece, his blasthammer. My hands aren’t like his, I am not an inko like him, so I intend to teach whoever wishes to learn from a master artificer’s documents.”

Ellaine! She’ll have a tutor!

Grimnir then placed his hand on his chest, straightened his back, and spoke in a clear voice, “Princess Hestia, once again, I will make you the offer. Allow me to serve you as your personal blacksmith and runesmith! Allow me to join Aurora as its fifth member!”

“Tasianna?” I looked over at Tasianna to hear her response, to which she smiled and nodded vigorously.

I giggled a bit, before turning back to Grimnir. “Hie hie… you meant the ninth member. We have four garms, don’t forget.” Tasianna then dispelled the air bubble, allowing everybody to hear my next words. “You’re hired!”

[Taz Dwarf, Grimnir Luedbrumdar] has received the title [Hestia’s Retainer] and is now your follower

1 dwarf has become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 441

Things calmed down from thereon, at least, between Grimnir and the blacksmiths of Cedaraille. While Grimnir won in the end, both Johark and Daniel were ecstatic to watch him work, asking if he could show his skills to them more, intending to use him as a way to train up their employees while also bettering themselves. Grimnir accepted it, after all, he still had to make his new hammer.

I handed over some voldunna ore, corrosive obsidian, and some of my scales to Grimnir. He intended to first create a placement hammer with Johark’s hammer and then finish a hammer using the voldunna core I gave him. This took a while. About four days, actually, but what came out was something Grimnir couldn’t help but brag about.

I had already told Ellaine and Saori about Grimnir joining us and that we will most likely renovate his RV to fit all of us. Both agreed to my decision, believing a blacksmith would be a great addition to Aurora. Ellaine was especially ecstatic as she gained an artificer tutor aside from her mother, and also a traveling method that didn’t involve her having to walk.

This girl… I should probably force her to walk next to the damn RV at this rate! She needs to build up Stamina!

After the four days were over, Yorshka also returned from her trip to Firwood. “The Misfits aren’t done yet, we have some more free time people~”

Yorshka had sent a message to her clan to be delivered to my dragon “mother.” The Magical Biscuits decided to spend time with Saori. Me? Well, Tasianna, Ellaine, Grimnir, Yorshka, and I decided to enter the dungeon’s depths again.

It was time for me to finally learn about my draconic heritage.

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Chapter 187: A Pleasant Day with my ‘Niece.’

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Individual [Sunfang Dragonewt, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has switched her Main Job to [Hellblade]

Individual Main Job benefits have been updated due to Job change

Hellblade Level: 0/15

Job Skill gained: [Instant Heat Ignition], [Inferno Coating]

“When I first met Farron? Ahh, those were good times. Like a dashing knight, he swooped in with his griffon Tempestclaw to save me from an ambush against a black merc company. Youth creates confidence and confidence produces arrogance. Back then, I thought too little of humans and other beastmen, so I thought I could handle things by myself,” Yorshka reminisced of her first years as an adventurer. “You see, I was one of the best dragoon trainees in my youth. The kinkyuro, the dragonewt clans born from the most renowned ancient dragons in history, all believed I was a genius and that my future was pretty much set. Mhmm, the elder scales really pampered me, you know. Yup, that genius was nearly caught and enslaved by a bunch of ‘inferior’ humans and beastmen.”

Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer, yikes.

It was the third day of SpringSun, four days after Grimnir began working on his hammer and Yorshka had left for Firwood to send a message to my dragonewt family of my existence. Both of them returned today at dawn, announcing their individual results. Grimnir, Aurora’s newest member, had finished two hammers and was ready to go craft equipment, while Yorshka announced that The Magical Biscuits could stay in Cedaraille for a bit longer.

Saori and her students decided to continue what they’d been doing the last four days — catching up and doing some training. On the other hand, Yorshka, I, and the rest of Aurora decided to follow her to floor 15. She was planning to perform some “elder scale duty” with me, which meant training, while Grimnir took this chance to start working on Ellaine’s armor in an environment suitable for a taz dwarf.

Cedaraille’s dungeon was currently in reconstruction,but people could still visit it. The Duke explained to me two days ago, when I went to him to collect our part of the bounty from slaying the rachonoid queen, that the dungeon master contracted to the dungeon was currently hard at work in the dungeon’s core room. The amount of Mana needed to fix everything the rachonoid caused was immense, and it would take time for the dungeon to collect enough Mana to fix them.

That was why the dungeon was kept open for adventurers, especially for mages. The field before the dungeon was currently being drained of mana with macula plants while any monsters spawned there were being slain and, subsequently, their corpses thrown into the dungeon for mana. On our way to the dungeon, I noticed that the blackened fields were filled with monsters, adventurers, and guards.

The dungeon itself was in an okay-ish state. On the first nine floors, the burned and destroyed trees had been replaced, the cracked ground was fixed, and the monster populations had recuperated. The dungeon break areas, however, had been left open for some reason. Good for us though, since we reached floor ten in no time. Using wind spells, we jumped down into the ravine and safely made it to floor 15 in under a day.

During our trip, Ellaine and I got curious about Yorshka’s and Farron’s past. You know, girl talk. We were interested in how Farron and Yorshka got together, and how Farron took on the Nordor name.

Apparently, Farron was once a knight in his youth! Born in the Republic of Estralia, a country bordering the Kingdom of Artorias in the east, he immigrated into Artorias as an adventurer, making a name for himself in the Greenveil Duchy before being inducted into the Order of the Lionhearts with the recommendation of the current Marquess of Firwood and Duke of Cedaraille. In other words, he was a griffon knight.

A griffon, that was the reason why Farron had tamer-related skills in his profile. As a knight, he made it quite far into the ranks of the knighthood as merits were the only important factor in your advancement, not your social status. During a mission to track down and take down a criminal organization, Farron and Yorshka met.

Yorshka, being called a genius trainee of the dragoon order of Loatryx, was extremely pompous in her youth, well, youth in dragonewt terms. Although the adulthood pilgrimage wasn’t a thing for dragonewts, Yorshka still decided to travel the world to broaden her horizons in a similar fashion. Therefore, she traveled south to the dwarves’ Ankor-Nazta and then entered Artorias.

The name “White-Winged Dragoon” spread throughout the kingdom; the up-and-coming solo adventurer was making her name heard. Her arrogance kept growing, until she was cornered by the aforementioned criminal syndicate in a less-than-ideal situation. A dragoon could only show their true power if they could jump and move around freely, so if they were to be kept down through magic, it could become dicey for them.

Farron and Yorshka had already gotten acquainted when she went to the knight order for more information, having accepted a Quest the Order of Lionheart couldn’t handle. According to Yorshka, “I had the fattest smirk when I first spoke with him. Solving an issue the royal knight’s order couldn’t solve was my way to make it clear how dragonewts are the superior race. Yes, and I told him that straight to his face. By the holy Light, was I a bitch.”

It didn’t go well, as Yorshka admitted. Farron and Gael, who’d recently defected from the Yanderu Eluseuss, the criminal syndicate / black merc company in question, swooped in to Yorshka’s rescue just in time; however, the company’s leaders escaped before they could reach them. Embarrassed by her failure, Yorshka accepted Farron’s request to team up to hunt down the group, in addition to saving Gael’s girlfriend, who’d been kidnapped by the black company, prompting his defection.

“Gael’s girlfriend? Did you three manage to save her?” I asked Yorshka, finding it odd that Gael was so much of a wreck when Saori first met him.

Unfortunately, Yorshka shook her head. “We managed to hunt them down to the Kingdom of Rakatheen, which is located southeast from Artorias, and we brought the leaders to justice, but by the time we found Gael’s companion… well, there is a reason why he turned from a jokester and general nuisance into an alcoholic. Have you met a man named Bo, Hestia? He was the poor girl’s brother. Gael took him in because he had nowhere else to go.”

Gael was born an orphan and became a criminal just to survive. Nowadays, he controlled a spy network made out of street urchins he was taking care of. While you might call it child labor by Earth’s standards, it’s not like the kids really had any choice in the matter in Artorias. It was either work for Gael while receiving a wage, housing, and warm food, or join the local temple and become a grey-robed priest and lose most of your freedom in the process. There were no child services or protection laws currently.

After finally landing on floor 15, I had to ask Yorshka about something important. “What happened to Farron’s griffon?”

“He died protecting Farron when we fought against a crystal basilisk,” Yorshka sighed deeply. “Gael decided to leave our party after what happened. Farron was promoted but decided to continue traveling with me. We visited Loatryx, where I taught him dragoon spearmanship, but it was also where we lost Tempestclaw. Farron and I became A ranks during our time there, hunting down Loatryx’s big monsters for training. Unfortunately, on a quest to hunt down an A rank crystal basilisk, he not only damaged his lungs but also lost Tempestclaw, who was crystallized by the monster’s venomous breath.”

“And you two fell in love, afterward, correct?” Ellaine asked.

“Pretty much. I tried to cheer him up, we spent a lot more time together inside a room than on the battlefield, and it all just happened. We married, he took on my clan’s name as he was a commoner, Priscilla was born, and we settled in Firwood. He became a guild master while I helped hunt down monsters coming out from the Belzac forest. I eventually got recruited by the Knights of Aurena, despite only worshipping Goddess Aurena purely because of God Kargryxmor.”

“So, you’re actually not a real part of the Church of Aurena, huh? It’s just a job for you?” I asked, finally understanding the situation with Yorshka.

“Yup, the money was good and the job came from an old friend. To be honest, I hadn’t read the holy book even once before joining. My friend told me he was dissatisfied with something in the church, but never elaborated further on it. My only job was to take care of the kids and give reports on them,” she shrugged before looking into my eyes. “My true allegiance is towards my family. I’ve overcome the zealous fervor dragonewts have for dragons and God Kargryxmor long ago, and I mostly just care about my clan, Farron, and Priscilla nowadays. Hestia, I really want you to trust me, not ‘cause of any schemes or something, but purely because you’re family to me now. After all, I heard how you befriended my precious Priscilla and how you’re even going the extra mile to help my dear husband. That alone makes you adorable, Hestia.”

Yorshka then began ruffling my hair as if I’m a pet. She seemed to be enjoying it.

If what Yorshka said really was genuine, then maybe it was fine to trust Yorshka more? The students seemed to like her, and she can’t be a bad person if she’s Farron’s and Priscilla’s family, right? Honestly, the whole thought of her being my “niece” was just weird. Not ’cause she was almost old enough to be my grandma, but just in general.

I still can’t accept my new “family.” I just couldn’t. It feels weird to me to call somebody else “mother,” instead of my mama. I can trust Yorshka as a friend, but I don’t think I can just casually call her “niece” or something.

After we all descended to the fields of floor 15 to 19, Grimnir went towards a magma stream and told me to unload his equipment here. Tasianna decided to harvest a few of the mushrooms and plants in the nearby mushroom forest, believing they might become useful as either cooking or alchemy ingredients. Ellaine and I, on the other hand, began some light weapon training with Yorshka.

“Well, as agreed, I’ll help you two a bit with your physical training. Hestia, I heard from Farron that he taught you a bit on how to wield a spear, correct? Ellaine, you should have more formal training from your house, so these training exercises shouldn’t be too hard for you, especially with your higher stats. Okay, let’s begin.”

Although I mentioned light training, Yorshka’s understanding of “light” was nowhere close to what you would expect. Ellaine complained it was similar to mine, which was a total lie, you know. When I trained Ellaine, I actually treated it like a warm-up.

“Move!” Yorshka’s spear pierced the air forward, forcing me to swerve my head to the side. Nonstop, Ellaine and I had to dodge Yorshka’s attack, unable to attack back, as this spar was limited to physical attacks only. Ellaine had to use her sword or kicks to strike Yorshka, while I was restricted to my spear, claws, and tail.

Unfortunately, Yorshka was just too fast. Her spear moved in a way that I thought I was seeing clones of it, causing my senses to mistake feints for attacks. However, as this was a spar, none of the attacks actually carried any killing intent. Yorshka moved her spear masterfully to a degree where it felt as if we were dodging them at the last second, and if we failed, she would pull back the spearhead and smack us with a supersonic bash from her handle.

Still, if I continue only dodging attacks, I would just tire myself out. Being proactive and attacking Yorshka before she hit me would just open me up to a counterattack. I’ll just do what I did when fighting Farron, let her attack me first, dodge it, and use that window of opening to strike back.

But it felt as if Yorshka was reading my mind. I rotated my body around to dodge Yorshka’s next attack to land a roundhouse tail slash, but my attack was quickly blocked.

“Good. When it comes to weapon duels, you can’t force your body to move at 100% every single second. That would just tire you out and weaken your arms and legs and, consequently, also your attack power. Dodge the attacks with an explosion of power with the least amount of movements, then turn that momentum into a counter.”

Of course, she anticipated this!

A beginner like me fighting a master in the spear like Yorshka would result in this one-sided beating, so it would be best if I just clenched my teeth and fought back. I’m attempting to learn the spear to diversify my fighting style, to give me more tricks up my sleeves against a more diverse range of enemies.

Using [Air Walk], I kicked the air to somersault over Yorshka, stabbing at her as I did so. Yorshka smirked, returning my attacks, and blocking everything while I walked in the air. With Yorshka’s focus on me, that left her back open for Ellaine’s attack. Not wasting a single second, Ellaine lunged forward with her sword…

…and it was parried by Yorshka’s tail!

“Hestia, your scale-dust is one of the gifts you inherited from your mother. While Lady Melloxtstressa’s scale-dust cannot explode like yours, the original function of a silver dragon’s silver powder is to reinforce and strengthen your scales, turning every single one of them into a cutting edge. Yours is naturally like a blade, but your scale-dust lost its sharpening function in exchange to becoming like bombs,” Yorshka then shoved each of us away with incredible strength as she continued her explanation. “Metallic-scaled dragons like your mother and uncle are the rarest of all dragons and there is a chance a silver dragon’s hatchlings won’t inherit their scales if the partner isn’t one of the clan themselves. That is why I am a white dragonewt, similar to our relatives, the white dragons. However, as my bloodline belongs to Nordoramsul, my scales can still harden and become sharper any time I wish.”

Yorshka then took her gauntlets off, showing how her scales were morphing, becoming sharp as blades. She then pointed at the small openings on the back of her armor, where her wings were coming out from. “This armor was made using my scales, allowing me to pour mana into them to open slots for my wings and tail to come out from when I transform back into my original form. It’s almost like a kind of manatech. If your new blacksmith is worth anything, he should be able to do a mechanical weapon or armor too.”

Grimnir snorted when he heard this, dropping a voldunna bucket full of magma on the ground. “Shut up, woman! I ain’t gonna let it rest when you belittle me in front of my client and benefactor! Lass, mechanical armor and weapons are the minimum a master blacksmith should be able to do. Trust me, I can make you one!”

By mechanical weapon, Yorshka and Grimnir probably meant something like Farron’s swordspear. During our spars, he was always able to drag the weapon’s handle up and down, switching it from sword to spear form whenever he wanted. As the System registered them as viable weapons, Farron’s weapon was an example of a successful mecha weapon.

“Good to hear, Master Dwarf,” Yorshka gave Grimnir a thumbs up. “Hestia, the volchark heart Saori and Tasianna gave you?That is a great item to be turned into a catalyst. As much as you want to train with the spear, and I salute you for striving to improve yourself, I would still suggest you not to let your potential as an archmage go to waste. Kargryxmors have extremely potent magic, and the amount you can already do as a year-old hatchling is already amazing.”

Saori said something similar when she presented to me a volchark heart as a birthday present, saying it could be made into a great catalyst for me if I let an alchemist work on it. Imagine getting a literal heart for your birthday, and not just emoticons. Considering what Master Kush could do with his catalyst, I’m still itching to turn this into something amazing.

Yorshka continued. “If you want to continue down the path of the spear, make sure it's a mechanical weapon that can hold your catalyst. Turn it into a pseudo-staff. Also, make sure you use hard materials for the catalyst to make it sturdier. It might sound weird to put your catalyst into a melee weapon, but it can amplify your weapon’s power, too.” She then pointed her spear at me. “Let’s continue.”

Proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Spear Technique Lv. 7] [Spear Mastery Lv. 3] gained

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Job [Hellblade] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 5]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Time passed as the three of us trained. Tasianna made it back with baskets full of seeds, mushrooms, roots, and other plants you could find around here. Any monster who was idiotic enough to approach us was either scared away or killed by a spell I randomly shot at them. With how Yorshka wouldn’t let us breathe or rest for a second, both of us cheered when the training stopped.

‘Light training,’ yeah, sure…

“A powerful warrior not only has a trained body but also a strong mind. This should be basic, but being able to analyze your opponent’s fighting style and tactics is one of the most important steps to winning,” Yorshka stated while drinking some cold water from Tasianna, before looking over at us. “You two are lucky, having access to [Identify] through the skill shop gives you an immense advantage over somebody like me, who only has [Identify Lv. 4]. You can level it up faster through skill points. I guess you’ve been using the skill to look into your opponent’s profile, right, Hestia?”

I nodded. “Anybody I consider an enemy. [Identify], or [Mana Eyes] for me, is something I consider intrusive. Earth has something called private information, so I would like to avoid using the skill to spy on every single person.”

Ellaine pretty much had the same response, as she grew up learning it was bad etiquette to use [Identify] on others without their permission. Nobles would have ways to detect the skill, and if they did, it could cause some major drama. Ellaine herself has a [Ring of Identification] to counter [Identify] in her possession.

Yorshka then noticed a slazzanbal, and decided to use it as a training dummy. She jumped up into the air with [Dragoon Jump] and then crashed onto it with extreme speed. When she used this as a segue to ask us why she was moving that fast, Ellaine couldn’t understand how she was supposed to answer that, citing we had no information. I, on the other hand, had an idea since I’d seen it multiple times already.

“It’s [Dragoon Jump] again, right? You jump up first with that ability, then use [Air Walk] to stand up in the air. There was a short delay when you attacked, meaning either you needed to aim your attack or you were casting a spell under your breath,” I responded.

“A spell? Wait, but I didn’t see a magic circle,” Ellaine looked at me, baffled.

“They were hidden behind her wings. Not too large, but enough to push her forward. She then used [Dragoon Jump] again while standing on air, giving her an extreme boost in speed. Shouldn’t that be pretty tiring, though?” I asked Yorshka after explaining everything to Ellaine.

She nodded. Ellaine then let out an awed voice, impressed that I was able to see everything. She then took out a small piece of parchment and a piece of charcoal from her bag, scribbling the information she’d learned on it. Looking through the other pieces of parchment in her bag, I noticed most of that information was about how to use the skill shop and which skills to combine to increase their effectiveness.

When I asked why she did that, she answered that she got the idea from the students. All of them made a lot of notes when they trained under Yorshka, figuring it would be best to write down important information like survival tips and such. Despite leveling up a lot, Ellaine believed making notes and reviewing them would help her find her path as a fighter.

“I’ve checked out my skill shop, and I couldn’t find anything special like you, Saori, or Tasianna did. Nothing seems extraordinary or special. I didn’t want to burden Aurora with this, so I wrote down certain skills that I believe would work best in a combo. Just like [Air Walk] with [Dragoon Jump]. I want to make myself useful, Hestia, and I think this is how I should do it.” Ellaine reasoned that being average was keeping her back in Aurora, similar to how she was keeping House Helvas behind due to her weakness. However, my words seemed to have created a spark in her where she decided she needed to overcome this hurdle through training, just like how she was able to catch up with her brother through my training.

She then continued, “I’ve decided, I want to follow my father’s footprints fully. Although it isn’t allowed due to my age, there are some exceptions where the Order of the Lionheart can accept me as a squire. Hestia, I want to become a griffon knight, so I must prepare for the qualification exam this year.”

Ellaine was glowing with anticipation and ambition, looking almost the same when she first asked me to join Aurora. I couldn’t help but smile for her, congratulating her for finding her drive. However, somehow, it does make me feel a bit conflicted though. The idea of mixing skills, spells, and abilities was something I’ve already figured out, and it was something I’ve shown Ellaine numerous times, but this idea really consolidated into her mind through the students.

In fact, hasn’t she been spending a lot of time with them in general? I mean, in the past four days, we’ve been chilling most of the time but she also spent more time with them than with… me. Even Saori was spending more time with them. I wonder what they were talking about now?

Wait… am I... jealous?

My thoughts were then interrupted by Yorshka and Grimnir. Yorshka was mentioning that she’ll try to help Ellaine get prepared for the exam with training, mentioning she should prepare herself for it. Ellaine agreed to her offer and then went over to Grimnir, who was calling her and Tasianna over. They were taking Ellaine’s measurements for her armor and Grimnir also needed some input from her on how her armor should fit her fighting style.

That meant Yorshka and I finally had some time alone.

She looked over at me and frowned. “What’s with that pout. Something happened?” She was earnestly confused.

“Nothing, really. Ahem,” I shrugged off her question and stood back up, spear in my hand. “Well, uhm, about before, training with the spear, it does sound enticing. I know we need to speak, so how about-”

“Cool with me,” Yorshka immediately agreed. “It makes me smile to hear that I can teach an imperial dragon princess my dragoon techniques. To say the least, I’ve altered it with Farron’s help, so it’s not the standard stuff. This one will actually be light training, alright? You need to be able to speak with me, after all.”

I nodded, fallng into a fighting position.

Yorshka smiled once again, like an aunt happy to see her niece being energetic, “You remind me a bit of Priscilla when she first asked me to teach her magic and the spear. Hestia, dear, we’ll begin with the Nordor clan, after all, so you should know about Loatryx. Then… we’ll speak about your mother, Melloxtressa Wisperia Nordor. The second SS rank dragon of the current age, rivaling even the Dragon Emperor himself.”

Profile:

Name:   Grimnir Luedbrumdar

Level:   65

Race:   Taz Dwarf

Age: 71 Years

Job:   Master Blacksmith Level: 21/35

Status:

Health:

6136/6136

Mana:

1240/1240

Strength:

2190

Intelligence:

567

Vitality:

2671

Wisdom:

3571

Agility:

1532

Stamina:

5902/5902

Effects:

None

Skill Points:

0

Skill:

Magic skills and related:

[Mana Control Lv. 9] [Mana Efficiency Lv. 8] [Mental Stability Lv. 5]

[Body of Earth]

Physical skills and related:

[Unarmed Technique Lv. 6] [Unarmed Mastery Lv. 5]

[Axe Technique Lv. 4] [Axe Mastery Lv. 3] [Hammer Technique Lv. 9]

[Hammer Mastery Lv. 7] [Polearm Technique Lv. 8] [Polearm Mastery Lv. 6]

[Mana Strike Lv. 10] [Stamina Strike Lv. 9]

[Sundering Enhancement Lv. 6] [Piercing Enhancement Lv. 5]

[Crushing Enhancement Lv. 10]

Senses and movement skills:

[Stealth Lv. 5] [Accuracy Correction Lv. 8]

[Concentration Lv. 9] [Prediction Lv. 5]

[Danger Perception Lv. 5] [Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 5]

[Probability Correction Lv. 8]

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 5] [Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 3] [Tracking Lv. 5] [Night Vision Lv. 10]

[Presence Killer Lv. 3] [Evasion Lv. 4] [Acrobatic Lv. 1]

[Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 6]

Resistances:

[Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 1] [Pain Resistance Lv. 9]

[Poison Resistance Lv. 6] [Paralyze Resistance Lv. 4]

[Torpor Resistance Lv. 8] [Fear Resistance Lv. 8] [Terror Resistance Lv. 7]

[Mental Corruption Resistance Lv. 2] [Mind Protection Lv. 1]

[Lava Resistance Lv. 4] [Holy Resistance Lv. 3]

[Inferno Resistance Lv. 3] [Water Resistance Lv. 2]

[Terra Resistance Lv. 2] [Wind Resistance Lv. 6]

[Arcane Corruption Resistance Lv. 8] [Dwarven Magic Resistance]

Stat growth and related:

[Health Recovery Lv. 7] [Stamina Recovery Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Health Growth Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 7]

[Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 7]

[Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Stamina Capacity Lv. 5]

Others:

[Merchant Lv. 3] [Dextrous Hands Lv. 3] [Artificer Lv. 4]

[Woodworking Lv. 8] [Stonecrafting Lv. 9] [Master of Metal Lv. 2]

[Master Blacksmith Lv. 4] [Master Runesmith Lv. 1] [Trap Creation Lv. 4]

[Instruction Lv. 4]

[Identity Blocker Lv. 8] [Terror Aura Lv. 6] [Battle Mind Lv. 4]

[Miner Lv. 8] [Cooking Lv. 1] [Dismantle Lv. 7]

Job:

[Master Blacksmith Lv. 1] [Heat Resistance Lv. 8] [Strong Lung]

Ability List:

Unarmed:

[Stoneskin] [Ram-Horn] [Boulder Smash] [Boulder Throw]

Hammer:

[Smash] [Heavy Slam] [Forge Hammer]

Titles:

[Hestia’s Retainer]

Body of Earth

Created by the first Earth Elemental Emperor, dwarves have sturdy bodies able to withstand anything the land can threaten them with. Unable to expel mana from their body, in return, any usage of mana has its effectiveness increased

Dwarven Magic Resistance

Created inside mountains full of mana minerals, a dwarf’s body can withstand magic attacks far better than any race. Reduces all magic damage inflicted on the user by 50%. Increases resistances against all sources of fire and lava

A note from AbyssRaven

Dragoon Hestia!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 188: Clan Nordoramsul.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #4 her to promote our Patreon. 17 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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Vacation is over, I am back!!!!

“To explain your mother’s history, we should first start with a general overview of both Loatryx and Kargryx.” Yorshka began while correcting my stance. Just like Farron, she was moving my limbs around and giving me tips on how to wield a spear correctly.

Most of the information Yorshka gave me were things I’d already learned from Cernust, like Kargryx being on the continent Miononbolax, that the Loatryx colony on Altrust is quite different due to the Revolution Queen’s influence, and the history of Loatryx in general. In fact, Yorshka told me that the Loatryx on Altrust shared quite a few similarities with Japan.

“The students called them ‘Sakura Trees’ or ‘Cherry Blossom.’ We in Peolynca call them ‘Hermen Petals,’ and dragonewts used to use them purely for meditation oils or fever medicine until the Revolution Queen turned them into a yearly spectacle. In fact, kimonos and yukatas have become the formal dresses for most dragonewts,” Yorshka explained this cultural cross-pollination caused by a single otherworlder.

That reminded me, Cernust did give me a few of those “hermen petal” seeds, and Tasianna has been growing them inside our garden ever since. They haven’t fully sprouted yet, but maybe we can do something with them later on.

If the dwarves inherited the Revolution Queen’s technology and culinary arts, then the dragonewts inherited her culture and aesthetic choices. The dragon knights, or dragoons, were the most popular discipline and knight order in Loatryx, however, the concept of samurais had spread so much that important personages would usually have one or two samurai guard them 24/7.

While the cultures of the two Loatryx, both the one on Miononbolax and the colony on Altrust, were rich and something Yorshka was willing to teach me later, Kargryx was a different story.

“Let me guess, it’s desolate?” I guessed, seeing as Cernust didn’t have too many fond comments about it.

“Pretty much. Loatryx is the civilization and melting pot of personalities and ideas, while the Empire of Dragons is pretty much devoid of everything you could want.”

Loatryx was founded on the idea of civilization, a side effect of dragonewt human, dwarven, and elven ancestry, and grew to fit this new race’s desires and interests. On the other hand, dragons were usually loners, rarely congregating together in groups of more than three — two parents and their child. The land of Kargryx was filled with wildlife and vegetation, meaning it wasn’t lifeless, but for an empire, it was barren.

While their land was mostly left to flourish by themselves until a dragon came swooping in for their dinner, their lairs were something they cared for quite a lot. Decorated with treasures or artifacts they gathered during their adventures, if a dragon wasn’t sleeping or hunting food, they mostly spent their time rearranging their cave or nest, making it more opulent and comfortable for them.

“Hestia, do you know the concept of true dragonkins and lesser dragonkins?”

I nodded to Yorshka’s question, having heard it from Astalos, that wyvern Kargryxmor sent after me. “True dragonkins include dragons, drakes, leviathans, and adamantoises, while I only know wyverns belong to the latter. I personally don’t know why there is a distinction between them, though.”

My answers were correct, of course, but I was still missing a couple of examples. Ryuukoatls were serpentine, feathered true dragons who can be found in Aelozonia, where the saurians came from, and in the far east of Altrust, where the beastmen alliance is situated. Yorshka even confirmed that Xohulotel, the God of Serpents and Saurians, was the strongest ryuukoatl before his apotheosis. For the lesser dragonkins, there were also the ocean serpents, cockatrices, wyrms, and kirins.

The main differences between a true and a lesser dragonkin were the stats, base rank of the offspring, and the power of their blood. While the former two were important to create a distinction in the first place, the last reason was the pivotal one. Lesser dragonkin blood was potent and quite desirable for their effects in alchemy, but a true dragonkin’s blood was worth a fortune for a master alchemist.

Effects like empowering healing potions to an almost insane rate, reinforcement of the mana paths to increase your natural mana growth or mana regeneration, and also the prospects of prolonged life for short-living races like humans. The stronger and older a dragon became, the more their blood would be infused with their extremely refined mana. While all of this sounded great, dragonewt and levianewt culture considered that using true dragonkin blood for anything other than rituals and tributes, was taboo and blasphemy.

“You’re lucky it's your blood you gave to Saori, Hestia. While most dragonkins wouldn’t care for it too much, we dragonewts can become irrational when we see our revered dragon’s gifts being misused. Honestly, I met Saori before you purely ‘cause I mistook her scent for yours!” Yorshka explained. “Honestly, when I heard from Saori what happened, I couldn’t be more baffled. She drank your blood and she then evolved into a form that grew scales and sent out pheromones smelling exactly like yours? Crazy. She honestly sounds just like a kirin, but she doesn’t have a horse form, and I don’t think she could become a drake purely from that alone.”

Hey, Saori and I were quite surprised our little idea even worked out in the end.

Ingesting my blood unlocked the [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir] option for Saori’s B rank evolution was just a random idea Saori had after seeing kobold druids drinking monster blood. We didn’t expect it to actually work, but it somehow did. She grew scales, received the unique skill [Stygian Voltage], and gained a stronger body in general. Apparently, she also smelled the same as me, but neither Saori nor I could confirm this.

Yorshka had a simple explanation for this. I couldn’t smell Saori’s pheromones since they were identical to my own, something which I’d been constantly exposed to since my birth, and then she concluded that Saori’s blood wasn’t pure enough to allow her to smell a dragonkin’s or dragonewt’s pheromones. Dragonewts in general could only smell a dragon’s pheromones if their bloodline was strong enough, which Yorshka and Priscilla’s was. Saori, on the other hand, only drank a pint full of my blood, and her evolution hasn’t turned her completely into a dragonkin yet. Yet.

“Both of you are mutated monsters. There has never been a sunfang dragon nor a stygian-scaled fenrir before, I believe. Actually, I’m absolutely sure with your race, Hestia,” Yorshka nodded in admiration, stating how I’ve fused both my “father’s” and “mother’s” traits to become an entirely new dragon type. “In any case, tell Saori to be careful. There can be some misunderstandings if you aren’t with her if she meets another dragonkin. She fooled my nose, after all.”

While we were talking, my spear training began. Training was mostly focused on how I could fully integrate the spear into my current fighting style, which was a hybrid of magic and close-quarter dragon abilities. Of course, using the spear as my primary weapon wasn’t the goal here, Yorshka told me, mentioning how the spear-catalyst fusion I should get for myself would be the objective.

There was also my scale-dust I had to complement my fighting style. Yorshka’s silver scale-dust was quite different from my own, but my scale-dust was still a derivative of Nordoramsul’s scale-dust at the end of the day. Including giving me suggestions on improving my rocket booster control, she also gave me much-needed aerial combat tips.

“O-Okay, thi-shit! Too much, too much!” I blurted out, struggling to control the explosion rate of my scale-dust under the scales of my wings. “Was flying always this hard?”

“I wouldn’t call this flying, but shouldn’t you be using your [Pyrokinesis] to control the amount of fire?” Yorshka suggested, holding onto my tail to prevent me from flying off.

“It’s not that easy. [Pyrokinesis] isn’t the issue here, I am regulating my body temperature perfectly with my core and the intensity of the flames is manageable, but the problem is the amount of scale-dust explosions is hard to manage.” The issue here was that an explosion from my scale-dust was like a spark, and to reproduce these rocket boosters, I needed a bunch of scale-dust to explode simultaneously and continuously. My problem was that I couldn’t tell how much scale-dust I was causing to explode, and the “feeling” necessary to control it like a master wasn’t there yet for me.

“Ahh, that’s understandable, it’s not like the System gave us a counter or something to keep track of how much powder we are using up. You know, maybe this will help. Whenever I do one of my dives, I usually fortify my scales with powder to make my body sleeker and more aerodynamic. Not only does silver powder make them sharp as a dagger but they also help a silver dragon fly faster,” Yorshka explained the function of her version of the scale-dust before displaying their function for me to inspect. Her white scales seemed to start shining like silver as they hardened up. “Sharp, less friction, and also shinier like silver. During prolonged battles, I usually keep track of my silver powder amount by the glow of my scales. Silver powder would fall off over time, dulling the silvery glow. When my scales start to resemble my hair color, that’s when I know I need to let them regenerate.”

Yorshka’s snow-white hair was practically the same color as her scales, much like it was for me, so using this trick was quite smart. The fact of the matter is that there was too much scale-dust for me to manage, so having something to make this micromanaging easier would be helpful for my situation. Color would be a good indication but it's not like my crimson flames could change to my white or purple flames automatically to tell me when I was running low on scale-dust.

“However, I do have a tip to help you out, though,” Yorshka announced, giving me hope for her next words. “Wind magic, although mana extensive, is your best option until your body matures enough. You luckily have already acquired [Tailwind], so I would follow Tasianna’s example in this matter. Using [Fluid Cast], alter [Tailwind]’s effect of always facing in front of you. You have these weird parallel minds, right, have them control the spell and use the wind to not only slow you down but also accelerate yourself to reduce your total scale-dust usage.”

The idea was similar to my [Wind Blast] option, but I forgot I could be creative with my spell usage. Morphing a spell’s form was [Fluid Cast]’s most important feature, the reason for why custom spells could be made so easily. Considering I was the mage, I should feel embarrassed for not figuring this out earlier, but then again, Yorshka was far older than me. With age comes wisdom.

Moderating my scale-dust usage and keeping it constant, I cast [Tailwind] around me. At first, the wind coming from my back was making me move a bit too fast forward but once a parallel mind began controlling it, I felt stable just hanging up in the air. Since this was the first time we’ve used the spell in this way, I needed the proper “feel” for this new movement ability, which meant a lot of practice. If I added [Wind Blast] to my usage, I’d probably be able to emulate flying.

Still, this uses up a parallel mind. [Aerokinesis] requires two to keep up my music to share my buffs, so if I’m flying and also playing music, that’ll leave me with seven remaining. As the ‘body-controlling mind’ I need to regulate the scale-dust and move my body around.

“Practice, practice, practice. Young dragons and dragonewts usually can’t fly as neither your wings nor their muscles are fully developed yet. You can offset this with mana, but I saw you had injuries with your mana paths on the party screen. Tragic.” Yorshka then let go of my tail, allowing me to fly around a bit and get some practice in. She then followed me up into the air, flapping her wings while moving like a butterfly; it made me a bit envious, I admit, making me imagine how it would feel like soaring through the sky again. “Anyways, while the spear is good and so on, we can’t forget the fact that as a dragon, you have three additional appendages besides your arms and legs. You need to know how to use them properly.”

“I already know how to use my tail, if you’re talking about that, but, my wings? I usually hide them when I’m walking around town, and I don’t see too much use of them as weapons when my claws and tail can do it better,” I responded while balancing myself using the rocket boosters.

“Oh come on, Hestia, your wings are beautiful, it isn’t something you should be hiding. If you use them to wrap yourself like a robe, they can even act as a defensive shield. Anyway, as you should have noticed with your wings, the scales on them are pretty sharp.” I inspected them as Yorshka pointed them out. The scales on them were sturdy and sharp, similar to those on my tail, while the two sharp spikes on the edge of them could be used as spears. “A dragon’s body is a living weapon, a fortress full of scales and cannons spewing fire. With wings and a tail strong enough to act as weapons, why shouldn’t you utilize them to make yourself more unpredictable? Even if you were more focused on your spells, wouldn’t it make you less nervous, knowing even in melee nobody can best you?”

True, that does sound pretty good. That’s why I became a hybrid in the first place, so it won’t hurt to train more.

Training was training, I couldn’t complain about it. As Yorshka went through her tips and it was time for me to train my muscles through repetitive tasks, Yorshka continued her explanation of dragon culture, now it was time to speak about our ancestor.

“Nordor, or his real name, Nordoramsul, was an SS rank silver dragon who lived during the time of Kargryxmor’s reign as the black emperor of the sky, becoming one of the dragon empire’s first vassals. He was over 6000 years old when the origin gods descended to Peolynca, and joined God Kargryxmor as an angel with his apotheosis. To usher in a new age, most heroes and beasts of legends left the mortal realm willingly for an immortal life in the divine realm,” Yorshka scratched her head, trying her best to remember all the details she needed to tell me about this part of our history.

As expected, Yorshka wasn’t old enough to have experienced all of this, neither were her parents. Only the founder of the dragonewt clan of Nordors, my dragon uncle, witnessed his father’s ascent first-hand. He wrote about it in a book for any future generation to learn about the feats and life of Nordoramsul, wanting his father to not be forgotten in time due to not being an SSS rank in his last moments as a mortal.

“Do you remember when I mentioned the ‘kinkyuro?’” I nodded to Yorshka’s question. “The status of a dragonewt clan is determined by the strength of their ancestor, and this hierarchical system, acting like the humans’ caste system, has pretty much dominated Loatryx’s society. The kinkyuro are the clans created by the six SSS rank dragons and drakes before the appearance of the Origin Gods.”

As expected, Kargryxmor’s dragonewt clan was a part of the kinkyuro. If Yorshka was related to me, then the dragonewts from the Kargryxmor clan were relatives, too. However, since Nordoramsul never reached SSS rank during his lifetime, his clan was a tier lower than my father’s side. As Loatryx was a republic, this difference in tier wasn’t too important.

Now, why was Nordoramsul’s name shortened in the first place? Well, apparently, silver dragons seemed to prefer the company of humanoids more than dragons, especially short-lived humans and their fast-paced lifetime. It creates a juxtaposition between the two races; one could sleep for hundreds of years and they wouldn’t feel it while the other would die out before the former woke up. Silver dragons found this interesting.

As such, Nordoramsul had plenty of connections with humans, dwarves, elves, and other beastmen during his life. Although used to the tragedy of losing his human friends, he still kept on living that way as his life would have been far less interesting without them. In honor of all the friends he has lost in his life, Nordoramsul asked his son and daughter to take on his humanoid form’s name: Nordor.

“Now let us speak about your uncle, Odlesstrus Malborous Nordor, and your mother, Melloxtressa Wisperia Nordor.” Yorshka then flapped her wings, sending her flying up a few feet before twirling her body around like a ballerina, sending a shower of silver dust down. It was extremely excessive. “Being 500 years older than her brother, the over 3500 years old Lady Melloxtressa lived before the Origin God came to this world and experienced with her brother the treacherous life of a dragon before before Kargryxmor ascended to godhood and living conditions for dragonkin significantly improved. In this time your mother made one vow: to become strong enough to protect her children.”

In Yorshka’s words, the history books and first-hand retelling from dragons gave dragonewts a good enough overview of how Peolynca looked before the Origin Gods introduced the Divine System to the world. As you would expect, a world without the game-like System was pretty similar to Earth, except that Peolynca still created mana. One part of the System the dragons of today loved was the dungeon system.

Monster spawnings have always been a natural phenomenon in Peolynca, but for a dragon who required immense resources to survive and grow in strength, this process was still extremely slow, especially with multiple competitors prowling the sky for their next meal. Conflict between dragons and sometimes even with other monster races occurred often due to territorial disputes or to fight over a carcass.

My dragon “mother,” despite living inside the dragon empire with her own father and mother, still had to experience fighting against other dragons for food. These harsh times tempered her body and mind, preparing her for the power vacuum left behind with the introduction of the System. Levels, monster ranks, and stats were quickly integrated into Peolynca’s world, where monsters and humanoids were finally able to receive a quick overview of their stats. System-specific skills like [Identify] or stat growth enhancers were, of course, not included, but it still gave the Origin Gods a good idea of who the most powerful beings were.

Several were offered to become subordinate gods, to aid the world’s new gods in shaping the future. Many beings, even those already extremely powerful, had already begun to revere the Origin Gods for their ability to create the Divine System in the first place. When the gods demonstrated their powers to their new followers during the demon wars — an event that led to the creation of the demonkin — the majority of the skeptics were won over.

Regardless, some weren’t so easily impressed. Able to compete with the seven demons’ invasion without the need for the gods’ powers, Kargryxmor was one of the beings of Peolynca able to create a bargain with the Goddess of Light, Aurena. For accepting her proposal to become her subordinate god, Kargryxmor asked in return for a dungeon to feed the creatures of Kargyx, so the conflict inside his empire could finally end.

That was how Kargryxmor became the God of Dragons and Oaths, according to the dragonewts’ history books, for he made an oath to serve Aurena if she could help him. Many of Kargryxmor’s vassals and trusted friends followed him to the divine realm, which consisted of nearly all SSS, SS, and S rank dragons, leaving their children behind to rule the mortal realm as their parents defended the world from the otherworldly threat of demons.

A dungeon aptly named the “Dungeon of Infinite Feasts” was soon created in Kargryx, creating enough game for the new age of dragons to fill their stomachs; however, Kargryxmor overlooked one major thing during his time as the absolute emperor of Kargryx. Food was one major problem, but dragons also enjoyed power. With the strongest dragon emperor leaving his throne behind for his son, a war for the throne began.

This power vacuum was brutal, especially for Melloxtressa and her brother Odlesstruss, who had barely reached A rank before their parents ascended. Luckily, the heir apparent, Eltharion Tyranoid Kargryxmor — my dragon “father” — was a capable and ferocious dragon in his own right, being one of the few S rank dragons who remained in the mortal realm. Allying themselves with him, the Nordor siblings survived through this turbulent time that ended with Eltharion’s victory and coronation.

“The war began during the year 123 after the Origin Gods’ descent to Peolynca and truly ended in the year 319. Your mother, during this time, learned about the harshness of this world and how her father’s choice to leave them behind brought her and her brother great hardship. They had to fight even before this war, but this war tore families apart into different factions. Emperor Eltharion had to slay his siblings for the right to his throne, while families lost their loved ones during this war. Silver dragons weren’t ferocious warmongers, so this affected your mother quite a lot, according to your uncle.” Yorshka and I had already stopped training for the day. I was breathing heavily and, mid-way through her storytelling, I began getting immersed.

She continued, “During the last years of the war, she made a vow. She couldn’t prevent this from happening with others, but she would for her children. To give her children a good and healthy environment, she swore an oath to herself to become strong enough to defend them while seeking out the strongest mate she could find.” Yorshka brows then curved downwards, as she showed me a wry smile. “Little did she know that Eltharion’s rule would be an extremely peaceful one, to the point that Kargryx became rather barren of life, conflict, and progress. The dragons enjoyed their life either by sleeping, decorating their caves, or socializing with Loatryx. It got to the point that dragons simply shut themselves out from anything not happening on Miononbolax and the Ancient Elven Kingdom, Kel’Thun, the original home island of the elves of Saelariel.”

In other words, the dragon empire had begun to become disinterested in the world’s affairs. They had an infinite source of food and fighting in the form of the Dungeon of Infinite Feasts, they had entertainment with their relatives the dragonewt and the leviathans docking on Miononbolax’s land, and most importantly, peace. With how much the world was evolving outside their continent’s shores, they were isolating themselves.

Becoming a world-famous idol would be impossible there…

“Your mother understood her child would be safe in this new world, nevertheless, she had to continue her original pledge. As a follower of God Kargryxmor, the God of Oaths, she had to keep hers. And for that, she trained herself inside the Dungeon of Infinite Feasts, obsessively seeking more and more experience to finally evolve into the world’s second SS rank dragon of the current age,” Yorshka showed her pride as Melloxstressa’ relative at this point, nodding in congratulations for her achievement. “Your father, although once a proud warrior, had, ahem, the emperor has, uhm, become lazier during these peaceful times. Still, a Kargryxmor child was strong, extremely strong purely from their bloodline alone, so your mother became your father’s newest empress despite the backlash of the other, more established empresses. Being the daughters or granddaughters of the five other SSS rank dragons who ascended with God Kargryxmor, they did not appreciate Lady Melloxstressa’s intrusion into the imperial family.”

She trained to become an SS rank, went against a bunch of empresses’ opinions on something, and got into bed with a lazy, once-strong emperor for his genes, just so her kid could become so strong they wouldn’t have to worry about their safety? That’s… actually respectful. Actually pretty badass.

“Please, keep in mind, all of this happened while her brother married an elven woman. Your mother, yearning for a child for herself, saw not only her sister-in-law but also her closest friend become mothers before her. When she finally reached her goal, everybody from clan Nordor celebrated this goal with her. We were all happy for your mother and the newest addition to the family, you, Hestia.”

I kept silent. The feelings inside me were conflicted, one side wanted to admire Melloxstressa while the other wanted to reject her. I-I couldn’t understand what my emotions and thoughts were trying to tell me, struggling to understand the tug-of-war I was going through internally. Even my parallel minds were arguing in my stead, the different pieces of my personalities were unsure how to proceed with all this information. It felt wrong to learn all of this.

“Due to you being the hatchling of the emperor, a ceremony of being transported and presented to all the allies of Kargryx was a traditional undertaking. They had to know of your existence to prepare for your adulthood pilgrimage. This was done a few years after your youngest half-sister had hers, so most countries already had the formalities in place, since the laying of a Kargryxmor egg wouldn’t happen just twenty years after the previous child. After all, your mother broke the usual process,” Yorshka laughed out loud, mentioning how her great-great-whatever-aunt literally broke every rule established by the five dragon empresses. “Unfortunately, that was when misfortune finally hit us. The transporter for this imperial duty was a powerful dragon, who had done his duty since Emperor Eltharion’s first child. After visiting Saelariel, the levianewts reported how they found his corpse washed up on their shores, with no visible wounds. The royal transporter had died and your egg went missing.”

I clenched my hands together.

“Your mother… she did not take this very well. She tried to search for you, but was stopped by the other empresses. Although she was now an empress herself, she couldn’t bypass the ruling of the first empress, the one responsible for keeping the peace in Kargryx’s throne room. The other empresses might have only been S rank, however, they were still the children of SSS ranks. Your mother, on the other hand, had only reached SS rank, she was still nowhere as powerful as the emperor himself.” Yorshka then began messaging her temple, looking distressed as she reminded herself of the past. “That was why an imperial notice was sent to all of our allies: to find your egg. Personally sent by the emperor and all his empresses, apparently. In any case, none of the Nordor clan needed a reason, and we have been searching for a year now. Your uncle, Lord Odlesstruss, scoured the ocean with the levianewts while the elves and clan Nordor searched through the Belzac and Saelariel forests. I had my own responsibilities as the kids’ guardian, but I was praying for your safe return the whole time. How glad I was when I heard how my husband beat everybody else to the job, all while sitting in a chair! How I would marry him all over again if I could, ahaha!”

But her enthusiastic mood did not infect me. I was still trying to work through my emotions. This conflict of trying to be a good person while wanting not to betray my mama was corroding my heart, causing it to ache more and more.

That was when I asked Yorshka something. “That message… my mother would undoubtedly come looking for me now, correct? She’ll come to Artorias and find me through my smell, correct?”

“Huh? Oh yes, however, I made sure to inform her and my clan that you’re in good hands with the Artorians. Plus, your mother is quite friendly to humans, just like her father, so there is no need to worry, Hestia. So…” Yorshka paused, finally noticing the emotional conflict I was feeling. “I’m sorry, I got too enthusiastic about it. Uhm, knowing your situation, I think I can imagine how you might feel about all of this, although, that is because I am calm enough to think through everything. Hestia, I won’t condemn you for whatever you decide to do; however, I ask you to give Lady Melloxstressa a chance. She has been longing for a child for so long, her heart must have broken when she heard your egg was lost. Please, have patience with her.”

“… I’ll try. I’ll try my best.”

“Thank you, Hestia.” Yorshka gave me a warm hug, despite how cold I’d been to her. It was… comfortable and helped me relax a bit.

She was my niece, I was her aunt. Melloxstressa was my mother. Eltharion was my father.

I couldn’t accept any of those statements. Right now, it was impossible.

We then decided to end the day inside the dungeon after noticing a giant white, humanoid salamander walk into the area with an entourage of slazzanbals. It was as I expected, the slazzigula had become the dungeon’s new boss master.

Dungeon Core Guardian

The last bastion of defense for a dungeon’s core, a monster who has received the dungeon’s most valuable resources to become the strongest defender in the dungeon. While in possession of this title, the owner received a 5% increase in all stats and is entirely immune to all psychological effects

It glared at us before continuing its hunt for food. It didn’t seem to be in the mood to fight me like before, and seemed more interested in nurturing its entourage with experience. Maybe the rebellion orb did cause its increase in aggression.

When we returned to the surface, Ellaine and Grimnir were still discussing the different materials she wanted for her armor to include while Grimnir had to plan out what materials he would be using while giving a more reasoned, professional response to her requests. Tasianna finished a snack using the mushroom and small root-like vegetables she found in the depths, which was quite delicious actually, although surprisingly spicy.

We then decided to return to our inn, the one the students and Yorshka were staying at. It was quite expensive and almost looked like a hotel, so if Yorshka hadn’t said “fuck it” and rented us rooms using the Church’s money, we wouldn’t have been staying here. It was really comfortable so it was amazing.

On our way back, I also told Grimnir and Yorshka about everything Aurora and the students already knew, which included all my interactions with Aurena. Yorshka was quite baffled with all of this, but decided to keep all of this a secret from her boss for now in deference to my wariness of the situation. I decided to trust Yorshka now, but not her boss. Grimnir, on the other hand, gave a mild answer, saying he didn’t care if we had to eventually face demonkins or not, saying war was war, whether it was caused by the gods or mortals. He decided to join Aurora knowing he would be dragged into stupid shit like his own request, for example.

Back in the inn, we met up with Saori and her students. Yorshka suddenly asked me to wait, telling me she needed to give me something. Upon her request, Tamae took out what seemed like a talon claw and a root with a ghastly, weird face. She then handed me both of them.

Jabbermight’s Bloodclaw

A mighty jabbermight’s bloodclaw, meticulously harvested without any issue. A gland inside the claw produces a sweet enzyme that breaks down blood, turning into a regenerative jelly the jabbermight uses to regenerate from the most serious wounds. The gland deteriorates over time

Hellscream Mandragora

A mandragora found in the depths of a mana polluted swamp or forest, where this mandragora can grow big and fat. Usually found in areas without any other plants, as this mandragora consumes any competitor. When attempting to harvest, the mandragora releases an ear-busting and mind-destroying scream, preventing most from harvesting it. Useful in making the finest medicine

Hold on! Aren’t these two of the five ingredients I needed?!

I quickly took out a piece of paper from my storage, the list of ingredients Farron needed for a potion to cure his crystal lungs disease.

Ingredients: Crystal Basilisk’s Heart (Of course), Jabbermight’s Bloodclaw (The gland inside it!), Hellscream Mandragora (Rare as fuck, also the worst thing to harvest. Prepare your ears), Evida Oasis Cactus Water (Highest quality with the highest mana content), Draconian Oil Rum (Loatryx exclusive, on the Miononbolax continent. Can even knock out a dwarf!)

I looked back up to Yorshka.

“Don’t give me that look, did you think I’ll leave my husband in that state forever? These two ingredients alone cost us a fortune to get, and if it weren’t for Tamae’s [Storage Magic] I wouldn’t have ordered them over so soon. They degrade over time, yo-” I immediately took them from Yorshka’s hands and placed them in my storage. Yorshka couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh my, you read my mind. Anyways, Farron didn’t want you to take on this request, as I was already doing it, but I think it would be better if you took them, Hestia. Considering what you told me today, I need to figure out how to handle things now, especially what to do with the kids.”

Yorshka let's look at the students behind their room’s door. “However, I believe there is still a need to work with the church for now, while it’s still just the propaganda spreading phase. They still aren’t strong enough for any conflict. This means our movement will be severely restricted while you may travel freely. I will trust you with the last three remaining ingredients, although I ask you to contact the Nordor clan or the Kargryxmor clan for help once you decide to confront the crystal basilisk. That beast is no ordinary monster, and who knows how much it grew over the years.”

I nodded. “Thank you, Yorshka.”

“No, I should be the one to thank you. You’re not giving up despite knowing what the basilisk did to my husband and Tempestclaw. Don’t risk your life for us, alright?” She then ruffled my hair once again. “Alright! Tomorrow, we’ll continue your and Ellaine’s training while I’ll also try to help you with your Draconic. Honestly, you sound like a mumbling idiot with those pronunciations!”

Hey, come on, give me a break. I only had two days to learn it!

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Chapter 189: A Wolf taking her Wolves out for a Walk.

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Custom spell gained: [Hadean Dragon Thunder]

Max level of Jobs [Shadow Warrior], [Worker] has been reached

Individual   [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa] has switched her Main Job to [Cook]

Main Job benefits have been updated due to Job change

Cook Level: 0/5

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]’s Job [Cook] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 5]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Max level of Job   [Cook] has been reached

Acquisition requirement fulfilled.   [Penumbral Armament] gained. 3350 SP remaining

Mutation acquired. Merging   [Penumbral Armament] into unique racial skill [Shadow Armament]

“Are you actually considering transforming into a katzune, Kazumi-san?” I know I’m not their teacher anymore, a technicality due to the fact that I was no longer Segawa Saori the teacher as a result of my previous body’s untimely death, but I couldn’t help but act like I still was their teacher around them. I knew I shouldn’t. “You will need [Beastialization] and then either invest a certain amount of SP into it or spend a large amount of time transformed to level the skill to fully gain all the benefits of being a beastman. It is a substantial investment.”

Whether you’re a teacher or an adventurer, knowing when you needed to take a break was an important skill to possess. While Hestia and Tasianna have criticized me for being a workaholic, it isn’t that I enjoy working so much that I would become stressed out if I wasn’t, but rather I work a lot because I want to make sure we’re not poor. Simply because we have the money now does not mean we will have enough later on.

I’ve also heard from Hestia yesterday that she received two of the listed items for Farron’s medicine from Yorshka. According to the latter, the amount she spent would have turned us bankrupt five times over. The restaurant business is stable and allows us to make money anywhere, but it isn’t overly lucrative. All the alternatives, though, have various disadvantages.

Adventurers’ Quests above C rank have incredible pay, especially from nobles, but they require us to risk our lives against extreme odds. Selling high-ranking monster materials could fill up our wallet, but, as Hestia explained to me, losing out on valuable materials for equipment upgrades would be a shame and weaken our party’s capabilities. Potion brewing could make us more money but Tasianna would need to put in most of her effort into perfecting her craft and the potion ingredients aren’t cheap, either. We already have a trading deal to sell luxury commodities like fulinoe leaves to the Sarlenzia company, but production speed was the bottleneck.

There were also Hestia’s future concerts to consider. In my opinion, that will almost definitely be our biggest source of income, especially if we can market Hestia well enough. The money from the Firwood concert showed that we can’t just rely on the common people, we also need to give concerts for nobles, the big spenders. We need performances for the former to increase Hestia’s follower count and the latter for money. Aurora needs to prepare for this.

Money will always be something I worry about. Farron has been our party’s benefactor, so I also want to repay him in some way. Yorshka doesn’t have the funds now to give them to us for the rest of the items, but she’ll manage it someday. Being a dragonewt, she has the time to earn all the money we’ll need to spend for the mana water and alcohol components of the potion.

However, I can worry about that later. For now, I, Saori Segawa, a fenrir in wolfkin form, am just trying to enjoy my break after having to fight a B rank volchark and rachonoid queen in what felt like a single day.

Five days have passed since that huge raid battle. On floor five of Cedaraille’s Emerald-Flare Forest Dungeon, my garms, my former students, and I were taking it easy. Well, I was taking it easy while everybody else was doing whatever they wanted, whether hunting or playing around.

Since we hadn’t met in nearly a year, or over a year, depending on who’s counting, my former students and I were simply catching up. It felt good hanging out with other Japanese, and with me turning back to an 18-year-old in my wolfkin form, we’re practically the same age now. Well, sort of. All of them already had their birthdays in Peolynca and were 19 now. I was younger than them, both as a fenrir and wolfkin. How ironic.

I was currently speaking with Kazumi, a girl who managed to persuade her parents to adopt three cats that she wanted to take care of. Being the cat lover that she was, she was asking me for advice with the skill [Beastialization]. While it was a transformation skill like [Humanization], there was a rather notable difference: according to the description as well as Cernust, you were able to choose your preferred beastman race.

Beastialization

A morphing-type skill allowing the user to transform themselves into a specific beastman race, including obtaining certain racial features. The beastman race can be specified upon the first usage, however, it will be locked to this race and cannot be changed

“Well, I will not stop you, but you have seen racism against beastman, right, Kazumi-san. My personal experience was rather tame compared to how brazen it was in the Lecartiglio Duchy when you described it,” I admitted to Kazumi. Sure, there were a few villagers in Carine Village who didn’t like beastmen, those very people had a hard time accepting Hestia as a priestess when she gave her first sermon, but none of them resorted to violence, only mumblings. I guess knowing we were nobles and the ones responsible for stopping the bandits also helped.

It did remind me of Zeather’s warning, that the Lecartiglio duchy did not accept any beastman outside of Arvisian. Zeather’s sister, Quini, even received a scar when they were both slaves in the Kingdom of Atadoro, the country south of Artorias which bordered Lecartiglio.

Kazumi played with her hair, twisting it around as she considered my words. “If I remember correctly, the racism was usually directed to the full animalistic beastmen. Those who look like humanoid animals instead of humans with animal features. Human beastmen weren’t liked, but the animal beastmen had it the worst, rarely did anybody show any sympathy for the latter group.”

“Fear of the ‘others.’ The less similar somebody is to you, the less you are willing to put yourself in their place. Also, they are thugs, they pick on anybody vulnerable. Even if beastmen have superior physical stats, if they are not a bear or a rhinoceros, any untrained civilian will lose against a group of fighters.”

At the end of the day, that’s the truth, right? That was how the world worked.

“Still, somebody has to do something, Sensei. Hestia-chan’s job in this world is to reform Goddess Aurena’s church, right? She told us that this very Goddess hadn’t summoned us, that somebody else did, but their intentions are completely foreign to us. We can’t even fully trust that the church will send us back to Earth at this rate.” All five of them were currently thinking this very thought after everything that happened, unsure of what to do next. “At the very least, I want to use this heroic status of mine for something more meaningful than being a propaganda and religious tool. ‘A katzune helping the heroes’ sounds cool.”

Even from an objective view, fighting in a beastman form should change up her stats for the better. Hestia, Tasianna, and I all had our original forms’ stats altered after our transformation, so it should affect Kazumi, too. A human turning into a Katzune most likely will have higher Agility, beneficial for the rogue Kazumi.

I can’t help but feel glad the kids haven’t changed too drastically. It’s a relief.

In the end, Kazumi bought [Beastialization] from the SP shop and tried it out for the first time. Unlike my progression which made me less furry with every level, Kazumi only received sharper nails and canines with her [Beastialization Lv. 1]. Her disappointment was entertaining to watch, to be honest.

“I wanted some cat ears…” I could hear her mumble. She needed to level it up to level three for the skill to change her race to katzune, giving her sound-sensitive cat ears, better night vision, claws, and a tail. She still looked like a cosplayer to me.

After a while of her playing around with her new body, testing out if she became more nimble or not, the others returned from their hunt, all riding on the backs of my garms. Unlike Aurora, The Magical Biscuit was a responsible adventurer party who frequently accepted Quests and fulfilled them for money and guild points.

“We’re back,” Nishio announced as he dismounted Song.

“Riding Uno and the others has been amazing, Sensei!” Tamae proclaimed, ruffling the horse-sized, scarred garm’s fur. Despite being giant wolves, my supposedly “normal” students were acting more comfortable around them than most hunters I met inside this dungeon.

Kohaku, Kazumi’s best friend, also dismounted after expressing her liking of the garms, but immediately burst into laughter when she first saw Kazumi. “Ahahahahahaha! I-I can’t believe you’re actually cosplaying as a katzune inside a dungeon, Kohaku-chan! Ehehe, when did you prepare all of them, where did you put your tail and why is it moving like th-Ooooooh.”

My former students were as lively as always.

Since they finished the Quests they took for today, we decided to have some lunch. Tamae, deciding I should rest up more, began preparations for a dish using the local knopbries as the main ingredient. Having been taught cooking by her two professional chef parents who love traveling to taste a foreign country’s cuisine and inheriting this trait from them, Tamae believed that trying out various different Peolyncian ingredients would help her step out of the shadows of her parents to become a first-rate chef who was standing on her own feet.

Well, I welcomed her offer. Honestly, it feels good to have somebody else cook for me.

Hmm, it’s been a while. Let’s check on the garms’ levels, I thought as I opened up my party bracelet and accessed a new function in it: the tamer menu.

Name: Uno Level: 13 Race: Shadow Garm

Health: 3841/3841 Mana: 1194/1194 Stamina: 2126/2126

Name: Song Level: 12 Race: Shadow Garm

Health: 3663/3663 Mana: 1309/1309 Stamina: 1964/1964

Name: Sarasa Level: 13 Race: Shadow Garm

Health: 4058/4058 Mana: 967/967 Stamina: 2371/2371

Name: Quatre Level: 9 Race: Shadow Garm

Health: 3666/3666 Mana: 1045/1045 Stamina: 2389/2389

The garms, minus Quatre, have been with me ever since our fight against the Alchemist guild branch master, Davison. Quatre joined us after my [Shadow Pack] leveled up, allowing me to turn him into a shadow beast after his faefolk form was injured by Davison.

Of course, their levels seemed quite low after everything we’ve done, defeating three B ranks in the form of the High Ogre, the Volchark, and the Rachonoid Queen. However, it seemed normal to me. It was the unfortunate truth of a C rank monster without Hestia’s or my experience booster; leveling up naturally was hard, making me respect people with high levels even more.

Although the garms called me the Alpha of the pack, as I am a descendant of Belzac the Fenrir, I was also the tamer in our relationship. The tamer’s collars around their neck, white and well-decorated by me to contrast their black fur, weren’t just there to inform city officials and guards that they weren’t feral monsters. They also allowed a party system similar to the party bracelets. I was able to monitor my garms’ Health while also allowing the experience to be shared amongst us.

I’d already experimented with these functions when I first tried it out and already set a good percentage between us. This meant the experience I gained through Aurora was sent to me and then divided amongst my garms, and vice versa, and any experience my garms gained would be sent to me before being divided amongst Aurora. It was, to say the least, pretty confusing at first.

Of course, all of this can only work while I have my party bracelet on; it won’t work while I’m in fenrir form. It does drive my total experience gain down a bit, but my garms were also my strength. Once they evolve into B rank monsters, the amount of power Aurora will have will be massive. My training goal for them was to help them find a unique or mutation evolution like mine.

You’re so lazy, Sarasa, hehe.

Watching the garms using this downtime in whatever way they want really makes me acknowledge these guys aren’t just mindless drones screaming “Alpha!” or “We must protect the Alpha” all the time. I honestly thought they would be that way. That was, after all, my impression of them when I first agreed to take them in.

The garms’ bodies died during the garm massacre seven or eight years ago when Davison commissioned the hunter guild to prepare an assault force against the A rank fenrir named “Grim Messenger.” That was what Farron told me. While it didn’t mean anything to me, it did seem to have affected the garms, or more specifically, the onnikai who possessed their bodies.

After talking with them a bit more, the garms admitted they had no idea of the garm’s fate when they first found them close to the edge of the Belzac forest. They were skeletons and seemed strong to the onnikai. Using Kiiro’s, the leading onnikai in the Rashan Village attack, mana slime, the onnikai were able to regenerate the skeletal remains into zombies. The “lingering malice for humans,” or so they called it, made the bodies near perfect for the vengeful onnikai.

Since I wasn’t a necromancer, I couldn’t explain this malice at all, neither could the garms. They were able to feel it, similar to sensing a fellow onnikai, but they couldn’t understand it. Either way, I personally believed this might be why Ilsaphone’s plan to create a patron race sort of worked with these garms. The onnikais managed to fuse with their bodies’ memories and “become” the body’s previous owners.

Regardless of how they became the garms I had today, it was good to see them developing their personalities.

“Glark haaaaaupk,” Sarasa yawned as she rested her head on my lap. I smiled as I caressed her head before turning my head to the others.

Uno, the leader of the hunting squad, was stoic and vigilant. With a scar across his left eye, Uno seemed imposing and intimidating with how he was watching over everybody else. With everyone else resting and recuperating, Uno still had the focus to watch for ambushers or stalkers.

Song, the playful one, was currently play fighting with Quatre, blasting magic and using skills to have fun. Compared to all the other garms, she was the one most accepting of being a mount and receiving pet-like compliments. In fact, any attention she receives makes her happier than disgruntled.

Sarasa, the lazy fighter, was not only the biggest slacker in the pack but also the most belligerent one. If she wasn’t so loyal to Uno and me, I was sure she would just ignore everybody else and dive into fights without any hesitation. However, outside of fighting and eating, she just lays around like a cat.

Quatre, the most prideful one, is not only the youngest but the most competitive of the bunch. Knowing he was the youngest of the pack due to [Shadow Pack]’s limitation of only being able to hold onto three shadow beasts per level, Quatre loved any chance to raise his skills and levels. Only problem is that he hates being a mount, although he seems quite ok with being either Ellaine’s and my mount option.

During the Davison and High Ogre battle, I was quite annoyed by their mostly robotic responses and their insane drive to “preserve the descendant of Belzac.” While they still showed these traits once in a while, the battle with the volchark really changed my opinion of them. Able to work with strangers like Grimnir, being creative with their attack plan, not to mention, finally expressing themselves more.

“Ahh, you’re a cute one when you’re just being lazy, Sarasa,” I couldn’t help but tease her. Seeing how the kids aren’t done with lunch preparations yet, I called Uno over. I wanted to test something.

Aside from the materials we gained from the rachonoid queen, the second important spoil Hestia and I gained from the raid battle was the fact our Job skills could be bought, or at least, skills marked as “mutations.” Both [Shadow Warrior] and [Crimson-Scaled Dreadgiver] were tier two Jobs created using our unique racial skills. Specifically, [Shadow Armament] for me and [Dreadflame Dragon] for Hestia.

After finishing [Shadow Warrior], I gained the ability to buy both [Shadow Dash Eruption] and [Penumbral Armament] from the skill shop. [Dusk Bombardment], being a Job spell, could not be bought, but I could always copy it into a custom spell if I wanted to. As both cost 1500 SP each, from the two choices, I only bought [Penumbral Armament] as I did not think the former skill was worth the price.

With Uno sitting still before me, I cast my newly improved [Shadow Armament] on him. Shadows began to coat his body, shrouding him like a ghost. Compared to when [Penumbral Armament] was a separate skill, the shadow armor on Uno looked just like how [Shadow Armament] always had, less like armor and more like a living shadow.

However, when I tested the defensive ability of the shroud with a dagger, I found it hard to pierce the shadows despite how flimsy they looked. Even Song and Quatre, who were admittedly still in playing mood, tried to bite Uno, the shadows stopped any lackluster attacks from hurting Uno.

Penumbral Armament

A shadow upgrade for [Shadow Armament], increasing overall Vitality, Wisdom, and dark resistances. The extra hardiness of the shadow will also affect any morphing or change in the shadow armor

Simply put, coating my weapons in shadow armor also made their attacks stronger. [Stygian Voltage] synergized with [Shadow Armament] by being my skill’s source for dark elemental mana, turning the armament into literal electricity. The stronger my shadow coat became, the stronger my overall shadow or dark related skills became.

My first mutation purchase was a huge success. It wasn’t flashy, but it’ll help improve my base defense and overall flexibility of my shadow skills in addition to keeping my garms safer. The knowledge of mutation skills really made me crave for more, and I was aiming my sights on the Jobs created through [Stygian Voltage].

After I was done experimenting, lunch was finished. [Minced Knopbrie Bibimbap] was the name of the dish and it looked and smelled appetizing.

“A bibimbap is a Korean dish, right? A rice bowl with vegetables, meat, and egg served in a hot rock bowl. Hestia made some kimchi but she admitted not knowing how to cook a lot of Korean dishes,” I commented as I noticed how extremely hot the bowl was to hold. Not Hestia-level hot, but in general, it was too hot to comfortably hold.

“Yes, correct, Sensei,” Tamae confirmed with a smile. “There are a lot of mushrooms covering the body of a knopbrie, so I thought the meat would be dry and tough. I had to tenderize the meat for a bit but, to my surprise, it had a lot of fat, making it perfect for rice and a lot of vegetables to enjoy. I thought a bibimbap would be good to keep the meat warm and the fats sizzling. I also made some separate meat and vegetables, so this lunch party should be incredible! Please, enjoy!”

The bibimbap was a party-sized meal, large enough to feed a whole family. As our impromptu table, made from Nishio’s earth magic, was filled with dishes, it honestly felt like we were celebrating something. The garms had their own bowls of food while my former students and I all clapped our hands together.

‘“““““Itadakimasu!”””””” All of us said before digging in.

Delicious. Tamae was still a good chef as always, although I've been enjoying her meals for the past five days.

“Mhmm, the meat is amazing for such an ugly-looking monster,” Kohaku commented, munching onto everything with no reserve. “Mhmm! Now that I think about it, sitting here, eating a hot bowl of meat, vegetables, and rice together really reminds me that we haven’t done this in a while, now. Like, as a class. I-I know we’re not all super close but this has been something we’ve always done during our class trips.”

“Oh my, that is true,” Misaki agreed, placing her chopsticks down to think. “Sensei, you usually organize a large restaurant trip with a lot of food where our whole class would eat together. In the three years together, you’ve done it twice and I can imagine you would have done it again in our last class trip together. Also, you would always push for the most expensive trips. A contrast to your usually stingy nature.”

“Urgh…” I twitched a bit when she said that, making me feel embarrassed for the reason for my actions. “Well, you know, it’s not something I can enjoy every day. I’ve always thought of our class trips more like vacations for myself, even if I had to work with my senpais to organize and plan them. Taking care of the whole class was worth the food and location.”

“Hehe, I guess everybody’s suggestion was correct. Sorry we made fun of your financial situation, Sensei,” Tamae apologized with a wry smile. Whether she was feeling bad for me or not, I had no idea.

“Well, it isn’t a real issue with how the majority of the student body have either well-off or even wealthy parents. The class trips are designed for us students to enjoy them and build bonds together, so if we’re enjoying them, a teacher enjoying themselves isn’t something to be ashamed of, Sensei,” Nishio supported me. “With how large our class trip budget has been the last two years, everybody should have voted to go outside Japan instead of choosing beach and hot spring locations. We could have enjoyed some foreign cultures! Train our English!”

Kazumi, wiggling her cat ears around, sighed and responded to Nishio’s statement, “Oh, come on, Nishio-kun, most of us just wanted to have a good time and enjoy it with our friends. Like in an anime. If we went to the USA, Europe, or Singapore, we'd have to speak English.”

“That’s the point!” Nishio argued back loudly.

“Yeah, that’s exactly the point why nearly everybody just wanted to stay in Japan. Learning English for exams is a bore and I don’t want to embarrass myself in front of a good-looking foreigner by having to think about my sentences every time I want to speak with them. That’s annoying.”

““““Hahaha!””””

It’s good to meet them again. We couldn’t have our last class trip, but I guess Peolynca is kind of a substitute, although a far more annoying one.

When we were almost done with the meal, Nishio suddenly raised a question I’ve been dreading having to answer. “Sensei, will you join us?”

“…” I kept my silence, looking at him with a frown. I was gulping some dry spit as I reluctantly anticipated his next words.

“We… After hearing everything from Hestia-san, we took the time to speak with Yorshka yesterday. It seems Hestia-san entrusted her with all the information she told us, about how we weren’t summoned by the Goddess of Light and that this very Goddess is asking Hestia-san to rebuild her church. Yorshka assured us we were all on the same side now, but we still can’t break away from the church’s influence without getting into a lot of trouble.” Nishio’s statement caused everybody to start looking at each other warily. The situation was unnerving me also, seeing as I don’t want to see them in danger.

Tamae continued for Nishio, “We need to inform Tatsuya-kun, Kyouya-kun, Asaka-san, Haruka-chan, and Daichi-san about all of this. And, while it would help if you could come, Sensei, we mostly just need somebody around us who we could trust. Lady Yorshka might say she’s allied with Hestia-chan, but we don’t know that yet. Although we do believe Hestia-chan, she can’t be sure Lady Yorshka is somebody we can trust for the long term.”

“With all the information we’ve gained during this trip, we can’t be sure we can trust anybody outside our circles at this point, Sensei. Even if you aren’t technically ‘Segawa Saori’ anymore, you still are our sensei to us. You still have the memories we shared together, the personality we all have come to love. Sensei, we need your help.”

All five of them were watching me anxiously, waiting nervously for an answer. I… was torn. These were the students whom I have been creating memories with for the last three years of my Earth life. Although my teaching position was just something to earn money with, I still felt pride as a teacher whenever they did well on an exam. Even watching them now made my heart beat happily.

So it felt horrible to have to seriously consider their question.

“I…”

While being with my students did make me happy… On the other side, there was Aurora, people who I have barely known for more than a year. As much as I liked Hestia, Tasianna, and Ellaine, they were girls who I have known less than the people before me. I made numerous memories together with Aurora, just like I did with my students, but I can’t lie and say the ones I experienced with my students were lesser ones — not as important.

I mean, could you compare these sorts of things? In three years, I came to learn so much about my students. Their interests, ambitions, fears, and also all the drama they caused over the years. High school wasn’t just an experience for the students, but it was also an amazing adventure for the teachers themselves. It helped that I was quite young when I became their teacher, so we could relate to a lot of things.

But… in less than a year, I made memories with Hestia and Tasianna that were extremely precious to me. We laughed and celebrated over victories, having fun through the days and nights. Moments of sadness where we cried and allowed each other to be weak in front of each other, knowing we would allow each other to cry on their shoulders.

I learned about Hestia’s insecurities as an idol, about her weakness to overcome her past, her fear of hurting us and sacrificing her own happiness for others. I learned about Tasianna’s personality-changing trauma, her reluctance to embrace the bloody goals she thought she wanted, and I heard the silent tears she sometimes weeps during the blanket of the night. Although our time has been short, I even learned about Ellaine’s inferiority complex and her jealous drive to either improve herself or silently complain about herself in a corner.

It was hard. It was heart-wrenching when I considered all of this four nights ago. Meeting my students again, I knew this question would eventually come, so I gave myself enough time to think it through. At the end of the day, what would make me happy?

“… I can’t. I’m sorry.” I decided to stay with Aurora.

As I’d expected, my students looked at me with surprise. Even without them needing to ask me, I explained.

“I am no longer your teacher, that was one of the reasons for my answer. I asked myself, ‘Which option would make me happier?’ And the answer made me choose Aurora.”

I explained to them about my dream of traveling the world, something I hadn’t exactly told them about yet. I’d only mentioned wanting to leave the country to visit a foreign one when the class trip was decided by the student body to be in Japan, but never did I reveal my past and the passing of my father to them. They were my students; it would be unprofessional.

Traveling the world and learning about new cultures was my dream. Sure, I’ve only visited Artorias on Peolynca for now, but… how many cultures have I learned of while I was traveling with Aurora? Lizardmen, fae, elven, dwarven, draconic. I learned how an otherworlder managed to introduce soba to a bunch of dwarves and how sakura petals, kimonos, and samurais were a thing in Loatryx. I firmly believe that either Hestia’s idol dream or Aurena’s Divine Quest will allow me to travel through the world.

However, on the other hand, how surely would this happen if I traveled with The Magical Biscuits? They were propaganda tools for the church, which meant their travel radius would be limited unless they broke off from the church. Sure, Loatryx and Saelariel had Aurena’s church, but they weren’t related to the humans’ church of Aurena, according to Yorshka. This was Peolynca; limiting myself to humans alone would be unsatisfying.

However, there was one final reason for my decision.

“I made a promise with Hestia.” That’s right, my first promise in this world. The one which made Hestia and me true partners. “I promised to help Hestia fulfill her dream to become an idol in this world, and in return, she promised to bring me around the world on her tours so we can see the world of Peolynca together. As I told you, she is my benefactor, the reason why I’m here with your five. That wasn’t an exaggeration.”

I couldn’t help but smile, remembering when I first gave Hestia her name. I listened to her insecurities then and I still accepted them, even forced her to make her dream come true by saying I would drag her out from her slumps if I needed to. She was such a sweet, nervous girl.

“I see… that is sad to hear, Sensei…” My heart hurt seeing them disappointed at my answer, but I couldn’t show this weakness here. That was when Tamae stood up, clapped her cheeks, and continued speaking. “Well, that’s too bad but it’s alright, Sensei. We can’t take too much of your time and we are all adults now anyways. Besides, everybody, why are we so sad? Sensei is here with us on Peolynca!”

The four others stared at Tamae, unsure what she was intending to say, so she explained her thoughts. “Well, shouldn’t it be easy to understand? Even if Sensei can’t join us now, it doesn’t mean that’s the end of it. We could also join up with Hestia-chan, Ellaine-chan, and Sensei, after we deal with the church. We can team up and form a coalition or something! Just because we have to separate soon doesn’t mean it’s time to be sad, it's not like we’re leaving each other for good like the time we got kidnapped over here.”

Nishio nodded. “True, with the fact we now know Sensei is in this world, we could always count on her. I still have my reservations about Yorshka, but we have to deal with it for now. We might not be able to trust her intentions, but we can trust that her training will make us strong. Let’s do that for now.”

“True!” Kohaku stood up, excited at what was said. “Think about it, Sensei and Hestia-chan are far too incredibly strong! Like, they can level a whole city if they wanted to with their spells and abilities. The strength of B ranks! If Sensei joined us now, we'll have three people protecting us all the time. Lady Yorshka, Sir Elrick, and also Sensei! Come on guys, we’re supposed to be Heroes but all we’ve been doing is being protected by them against stronger monsters. We need to train up!”

They’ve matured… Good.

We then returned to our inn for the day. Tamae suggested we celebrate their meeting with me with an actual party and proposed to cook a huge meal for everybody. To say the least, it was amazing. Sure, I helped out a bit, but Tamae really knows her way in the kitchen. I managed to pick up a tip or two from her.

When Hestia’s group returned from the dungeon, they informed us Grimnir was staying with the local blacksmiths to craft Ellaine’s armor, and required multiple days with all the materials we gave him to create an “absolute product to make Bleidla rage out in jealousy.” It was sad to not have everybody from Aurora together, but the party was nonetheless still a success, even if it was a bit cramped as we had to celebrate everything in a single room at the inn. This might be similar to a hotel, but it wasn’t as large as Hestia’s room in Firwood.

What a feast. What a day. However, every vacation had to end eventually. It was time for restaurant Aurora to finally open up again.

A note from AbyssRaven

Frienship ended with students, my new best friend is Hestia.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 17 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 190: Sleepover.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #1 her to promote our Patreon. 17 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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“This is certainly an interesting Earth custom. We aristocrats usually sleep in separate rooms even if we’re visiting the homes of others.”

“It sounds like an interesting idea, but… wouldn’t the innkeeper be furious if we simply took the beds out of the individual rooms and placed them inside here?”

There were three rooms betweenAurora and the Magical Biscuits, with two rooms reserved for three of the six Biscuits each while the four members of Aurora shared a single room. Grimnir, as he had his RV, was the only one who slept outside this fancy inn that Yorshka rented for us.

After a pretty huge feast that Saori and Tamae created, I was about to go to sleep when Tamae came over and asked me, “Hestia-chan, would you like to join our slumber party?” I mean, it came out of nowhere, but I thought it would be rude to decline it since she seemed to be making an effort to get to know me more. Besides, after having Yorshka literally scream at me in Draconic for the whole day, I welcomed spending some relaxing time with others.

Putting the beds from the other rooms inside my storage, I placed Tamae’s, Tasianna’s, Ellaine’s, and mine into Misaki’s, Kohaku’s, and Kazumi’s room, placing each bed to fit inside our moderate-sized room. It felt like playing Tetris. There wasn’t much space left to move around in the room, but the plan was to just lay and sit around on the beds anyways.

When Ellaine and Tasianna heard what a slumber party was, they were quite interested in the concept. Tasianna technically had already experienced it in the fairy village, and Aurora usually has a huge slumber party whenever we’re outside in the wild. We talked over a campfire and slept when we felt tired. But I guess we never really did one indoors.

Excluding Grimnir, who was still making Ellaine’s armor, Saori and Yorshka, who were currently out drinking beer or something, and Nishio, well, the poor guy was excluded by his female companions. Sure, it was a girls night, but he seemed like the responsible type of guy, not somebody who would do anything inappropriate. I’m not sure if he stayed in his room or if he went out with Saori and Yorshka.

Dressed in pajamas, the seven of us were ready to rock! Uhm, ready to gossip and go to sleep! Maybe.

“Hestia-chan, you go to sleep with your horns and tail out?” And that was the first thing I heard from the Biscuit girls when I came in. Considering that both Ellaine and Tasianna actually said something notable, I thought everybody would focus on them.

“Uhm, yeah. Pretty much,” I answered, confused why they would ask me something like that.

Apparently, since they knew Saori and I were able to transform back into a completely human form with [Humanization] at levels 9 and 10 respectively, they thought we slept in our human forms. Having tails and large horns pointing out our bodies sounded like it would cause terrible sleeping postures and a host of other problems. And, if this had been a few months ago, I would have agreed.

Kazumi, who’d just gained the ability to transform into a katzune through [Beastialization] complained about these very things. “When I tried to sit down, my tail just got in the way, and it was especially uncomfortable when the chair had a back. I tried lying down after putting on my pajamas and it always felt like there was a bump down below. Also, not to mention the mana drain while keeping the skill active.”

All these issues were something I had to deal with when I first grew up as a dragonewt. Thankfully, the mana drain from [Humanization] wasn’t a real issue due to my naturally high mana regeneration. The other inconveniences were just that: inconveniences. If you grew up as a human, you’ll of course have to first get used to your new assets and find a way to make them comfortable. Same thing here.

“You get used to them,” was my plain answer to Kazumi’s worries before elaborating on it. “The mana is a problem, but you’ll just have to increase your Wisdom and [Mana Regeneration] skill, that’s it. On the other hand, your tail is something you shouldn’t have too much trouble with, unlike with mine. My tail has scales, is bulkier, and longer than what your katzune tail looked like, so it gets in the way most of the time. That said, I still managed to get used to it. You should ask Saori. She figured out how to live with her wolf tail without any issue.”

I then jumped on my bed and laid down on my back, moved it between my thighs and curled it up until it touched my chest. I then grabbed it and held it like a hugging pillow, finishing my sleeping posture demonstration.

“I used to sleep on my stomach, with my tail curled to the side like a lizard. That ended up hurting more in other ways, so I ended up changing my posture to this one. When I curl up around my tail like this, I don’t feel that bump, and my long tail won’t get in the way of others. It’s in a resting position, I’m not straining my tail’s muscles, and it hasn’t caused any troubles yet when I move during deep sleep. The only issue is when I’m sleeping with a blanket, since my claws on my toes and fingers can tear through it easily. Thankfully, I generate a lot of body heat, so I don’t need a blanket.”

The only thing that was still an issue was my horns. They took up a lot of space on my bed, so it’ll get cramped when I’m sleeping with somebody else. Fortunately, this was a minor complaint in exchange for sleeping in my dragonewt form instead of a human. Even if we were inside a city, I didn’t want to let my guard down completely. Assassins, after all.

“Ah, I guess you had over a year to get used to everything, maybe it was a bit too early to complain about everything. But , Kohaku grabbed my tail earlier and the sensation was intense, like wow, I yelped!” A tail was a new body part with all the muscles and nerves coming with it, if somebody suddenly touched it, it would of course feel weird. Over time it’ll feel normal like an arm or leg. “Also, if you’re scared your human form is too weak, Hestia-chan, then why aren’t you in your minor form? Your full dragonewt form?”

“Because I’m still human.”

Since all seven of our twin XL-sized beds were placed right next to each other, it felt as if we were all sleeping on two Alaska king-sized beds. All seven of us had enough room to move around, lay comfortably, and share some bowls of snacks.

Now, according to my memories, the last time I experienced a slumber party was before I was ten years old, excluding the ones I had with my cousins. My idol obsession went wild after my first failed audition and I began dedicating more of my time to it to the detriment of my social life. Considering how a part of my memories came back and revealed how I actually was in my past life, I hope I can be a better friend now as Hestia.

The discussion then switched over to my sun core. The students were quite curious about my draconic features, although it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me seeing as Tasianna and I were the only non-humans among the seven of us. It also happens that the core was bright enough to contrast with my pink PJs.

“It honestly looks like a gemstone.” Aside from how bright it could shine, the scales surrounding it stood out from my human skin. Covering it up wasn’t a problem usually and I was able to control how bright it could shine, but hiding all of it behind some light wear wasn’t ideal. “You do know you look like a boss with that huge, glowing weak spot, right? Isn’t this like a trope? Wouldn’t it be really bad if somebody hit it?”

“Yeah, I know, I know. You already saw me in my dragon form, Kohaku-chan. Although, protecting my core is something I’m pretty worried about, since it is such a big reason why I’m literally undefeatable under the sun! That’s why I made Panzer! Renewable armor made from my obsidian, plus I can also release a hot enough aura to push anything back. On top of that, it’s surprisingly pretty hard.” While tapping my core to demonstrate the hardiness, everybody except for Tasianna asked me if they could feel it, too. I was a bit reluctant with having people touch me like that, even girls, but it’s not like it was too much of a bother.

After that small skinship moment, the discussion then switched to Earth. Ellaine and Tasianna, curious as always when it came to Earthen culture, were bombarding the students with questions I couldn’t answer perfectly due to my memory loss. Also, receiving their perspectives as Japanese students was something new compared to my American experience.

Cultural and social differences between the US and Japan would be the main cause of culture shock for any American traveler, since Japan is a big stickler for conformity. Sure, they won’t be too harsh on obvious foreigners, but if you spoke and looked Japanese, like my previous life, then those harsh glares from strangers could be pretty frightening. “It sounds a bit like Artorias’s noble circles,” Ellaine commented at the end of the students' description of Japanese society.

However, what truly made me curious was when they began speaking about school.

“Sensei was, honestly, super scary in the first year she became our homeroom teacher,” Kohaku explained with an uneasy expression. “Like, I knew she was trying to gain our respect through it, but she was trying extremely hard. When we were in middle school, all we really did was be quiet, copy down the stuff from the teacher, and answer the occasional question they sent towards us. Class was never problematic until it’s like one or two weeks away from the midterms, and the teachers just begin pounding all the information into you.”

“On the other hand, Sensei was always aggressive when it came to teaching us,” Misaki continued. “Her history lessons were, surprisingly, the tamest since she had a huge passion for it. She always made the information easy to digest and plentiful. As a high school history teacher, nobody could complain about her, she was extremely qualified despite only having a bachelor’s. However, when it came to the preparations for the exams, that’s when her eyes began to glow red for the whole class.”

“Sensei was strict when it came to making us learn information. Asking questions to make sure students pay attention wasn’t uncommon, but with Sensei, she would bombard the class with questions. Even with the information she presented a week ago, she would be merciless with us,” Tamae recalled, admitting she failed one of Saori’s questions once and received a harsh scolding from her. “You have to understand, Shirako High was mostly for students with rich parents, and these parents have high expectations. During exam week, the school board would ‘encourage’ homeroom teachers to make sure their students did well on the exams. Sensei admitted she needed the bonus money on our first midterms together, and just overwhelmed us with questions from all subjects. Maths, English, Japanese, Geology; she would constantly reach out to her senpais and revise their material just to question us.”

As if she remembered one of those moments, Kazumi trembled for a second. “Urgh, and she was also pretty bull-headed against the other teachers. Competitive, dedicated, and qualified. My parents couldn’t stop praising Sensei when my grades were steadily increasing because of her boot camp. Haaaa, my parents spoke so often to me during our dinners that it was nauseating. Sensei is such a scary woman.”

Aside from Kazumi’s clear antagonism towards her parents, learning about how Saori was as a teacher was interesting. Saori had said almost nothing about her past as a teacher, preferring to talk about her passion for history. The most she’d said about her life as a teacher was where she taught, her reason for becoming a teacher, and her students’ identities for me to recognize them. She never spoke about how she literally forced her students to learn at a breakneck speed just to earn a bonus from the higher-ups.

Of course, there were some issues Saori faced as a teacher. Saori was only qualified as a history teacher when she first began, having just left her university with a bachelor's degree. She was hired by Shirako High under the assumption she could gain a temporary teacher’s license and work as an assistant teacher for a whole year. When she finished her qualification year and became an official teacher under Shirako High, parents and certain board members weren’t too thrilled.

To become a teacher, a potential educator had to go to college designed for teachers and gain a bachelor’s. Temporary licenses could be given out for substitute teachers, but it was rare for any of them to become full-time teachers, especially for someone who only had a single year of experience. As you could expect, since Shirako High was privately-owned and mostly for students with rich parents or sponsorships, qualified teachers were important.

Saori, however, overcame this hurdle and showed everybody she was not only qualified as a history teacher but as an educator as a whole. It also helped that most of Saori’s students had demanding parents and went to prep schools, and with Saori literally working her ass off to learn what her students needed, her students motivated each other to work more.

“Nobody wanted to be embarrassed,” Kohaku answered. “All those questions, and if you failed one of them, Sensei would point out what you needed to reread, but all of this happened right in front of everybody else. This especially motivated the children of corporate parents, seeing as they knew each other through their parents’ network. The fear of shaming yourselves made everybody enthusiastic.”

“I knew Saori was strict with our finances, but I never knew she was like this as an educator!” Ellaine exclaimed with horror. “T-That is far, far, far stricter than any of the professors at the royal academy. Most of us were there to build up connections and become acquainted with the children of prominent nobles, so the professors rarely scolded us like that. There were even cases where these parents would complain if a professor actually lectured their children. Saori would have been fired the instant she showed this behavior towards a magnoble or greifnoble.”

“Our parents paid very good money for our education, and most expect the school to provide us the education to easily enter any colleges or universities in Japan. Because of this status, talented students with rich families or high sponsorships congregate to Shirako, and, as this is the majority, lazy or delinquent students are unwelcome,” Tamae said with a sigh. “The noble academy is there for nobles to socialize with each other, from what I heard in Griffonpeak, while Shirako High School is there to compete with the best schools in Japan.”

Motivated by money, Saori put all her focus into keeping her new job. Honestly, she sounds like a Korean manhwa protagonist, always motivated by money and achieving her goals in the end.

Kazumi continued, losing her frightened expression in exchange for an excited one. “However, Sensei was pretty relaxed when we were done with anything serious. She congratulated us for passing the midterms, told us to have fun and recuperate during our holidays, and usually made sure we enjoyed our class trips, mostly so she could enjoy them herself, but the intent mattered. The first year was rough, but the later ones became smoother as we got to know Sensei better.”

“Yeeaaaaaahhhhh,” Kohaku let out a long sigh, “It was really nice meeting Sensei again. Maybe she could have kept everybody together, or kept Takuma-san’s and Light-san’s huge egos in check. They were far too much for the class.”

“Who are they, and why did you call this ‘Light-san’ person in English instead of ‘Hikari?’” I asked the students, confused at the random language change.

Tamae raised her hand, answering my question for everybody, “It is because the person in question asked us to call him that. He is a half-foreigner and his name is Fram-Uhm, sorry, I can’t pronounce it too well, let me write it down for you.” Tamae then took out a wooden slate and a piece of charcoal from her storage, writing something on it before handing it over to me.

What was written on it was: “Akabane Franz”

“Franz?” I repeated this person’s first name.

Franz? Franz? Isn’t that German? Franz. Franz. Franz?

“Yup, he’s half German, half Japanese. His father is the most influential prosecutor in all of Japan, and an actual devil according to Misaki’s parents,” Tamae continued to explain while I was still mesmerized by the wooden slate. “After Takuma-kun requested everybody to use their first names so we could be more approachable for the Peolyncians, Akabane-san asked everybody to call him ‘Light’ or use his family name. Both of them are leaders of their respective parties and they went with Yuuko-chan, the leader of the last of our class’s five parties, to the Folschreck Empire to expedite the assault on the demonkin, so we can return home faster. That was the plan until you arrived, Hestia-chan.”

He’s German… I see.

“German? My Lady, weren’t you half German, too, back on Earth?” Tasianna turned to me, prompting everybody else to raise a brow.

“…”

Two half German, half Japanese transmigrators. One of one side of the continent while the other is on the other side. My memory told me nothing, absolutely nothing. Then again, I couldn’t remember anyone's name on Earth. My memories were slowly returning, but I wasn’t sure how to feel about this fact.

“Yeah, I am… the name ‘Franz’ doesn’t mean anything to me, though. It doesn’t even trigger something like a memory return.” I had already told everybody of my fractured memories, they knew about my inability to recall people’s names and faces from Earth. “Then again, just because we’re 50/50 German and Japanese doesn’t mean we’re related. Don’t you think that’s too much of a coincidence?”

“I mean, Sensei somehow made it to Peolynca; if you ask me, that is a pretty huge coincidence, too,” Kohaku argued. “Then again, maybe all this is just a red herring. Misaki-chan, do you know if Akabane had any female relatives?”

“I don’t know him much, Kohaku-chan. Maybe Aiko-san, but I only knew Akabane-san from rumors. I do know that he is an only child, but I’m not sure about cousins.”

What a weird occurrence this has been. Although I say my memories weren’t triggered by this Franz person, most of my memories came back during a nap or when I’m sleeping anyways. Maybe something will be triggered later on.

The discussion then went on towards the students' departure, which will happen in two days, as they figured out the discussion with Franz was making me uncomfortable. They said they were happy they got to meet Saori, Ellaine, Tasianna, and me during their trip, and that they felt bad they mostly spent time with Saori, mentioning when we meet again, we should all have another girl’s night and go shopping or something.

Something inside me was afraid they would reveal that Saori was joining them and leaving Aurora for them, but all of them mentioned they were glad to learn she was here with them in Peolynca, and that their next meeting would include more of their classmates. I let out a deep internal sigh.

Of course, after time went, the discussion just became too engrossing for us to worry about anything, whether it was sleep or any of the previous information. Tasianna described her experience inside the fairy village before any of the tragedies happened to her, sounding relatively happy for a moment before condemning how carefree fairies were.

Ellaine also didn’t have a happy story, revealing everything she experienced as a noble who had lost her will to inherit her House’s rank. The issue of having a talented elder sibling who was impressing others while all she could do was to try not to embarrass her proud parents and enviable brother. When she finally did relinquish her right, something inside her felt relieved and free, but the consequences of her actions caught up to her.

I wonder what happened between Ellaine and the Duke’s daughter? Ellaine hasn’t mentioned anybody’s names yet outside of her family. However, I had a feeling if we were to visit the royal academy, that we would meet with this “Amelia Greenveil.”

If there is one thing a bunch of adolescent girls did well together was to complain. With Tasianna and Ellaine sharing their troubled past, so did the students. They had already hinted at it before but it really made me aware how much these girls were pushed to learn and learn like crazy just to increase their chance to pass a college entrance exam.

Time just flew by as they recalled their experiences and lives. When it was finally my turn, dawn was already lighting up the sky and everybody was beginning to feel tired. I wasn’t particularly tired, but my terrible memory made it hard for me to give them a great story. Still, if everybody was willing to share their struggles, I didn’t want to feel excluded.

While I was explaining about my fourth audition failure, the door suddenly opened up, and a drunk Yorshka and Saori entered the room. They were laughing and holding onto each other like the best of friends as they greeted us. From behind them, Nishio came in looking not too good — his hair was soaked with mead and ale while his clothes were stained with juices and sauces from whatever the three had eaten.

“Hahaha, everybody thought Nishio was our boyfriend! Ahahaha, as if I’d date somebody smaller than me!” Yorshka bellowed out in her drunk ecstasy.

Saori followed up with her hearty declaration, “Hahaha! People kept coming up to us and just glared at him like he was the scum of the world, literally everybody in the tavern did that! Ahahaha, this amazing woman here and I pummeled some of these guys onto the ground for trying to flirt with us while trying to push Nishio out for looking too ‘young!’ Ha, RestDay is amazing for getting out for a dri-Urp! Kuso-Argh! My throat!”

“Hahaha!” Yorshka smacked Saori’s back thrice, laughing like mad. “Saori, you should just let it all out next time. Who cares if you need to vomit! Ahahahaha! Come, Nishio, we shouldn’t disturb the girls too much.”

“…Help me.”

Poor dude…

For the rest of the day, the students slept, along with Saori and Nishio, while Ellaine and I had to train with a semi-drunk Yorshka, who kept drinking Tasianna’s tea to get rid of her hangover.

Ability gained: [Dragoon Jump]

[Dragoon Jump], the most basic of all abilities for a dragoon, was the first ability Yorshka taught us, believing we could handle the rest of our training if she showed examples of her using it. She had to leave with the students tomorrow, so she tried to cram everything in our head before then, bringing to mind the student’s horror stories of Saori the demon teacher. Once tomorrow came, goodbyes had to be said.

“We will be meeting again, Hestia,” Yorshka told me after giving me a hug. “Please, when your mother arrives, give her a warm welcome. She’ll be as unsure as you on how to handle this situation.”

I forced myself to nod. “Yeah, I’ll try.”

“Thank you,” Yorshka responded, letting me go. She then loosened the armor around her neck, opening it up to reveal her white scales before plucking one of them off and handing me one. “Dragons grant those they trust their scales. Dragons take pride in their scales and picking one off means weakening their defense. Yes, I am a bit of a distant relative, but we dragonewts take care of family, just like a dragon would. I will be gladdened to meet you again, Hestia, and if possible, introduce you and Priscilla to our clan in Loatryx.”

I accepted her gesture, remembering Cernust calling this action also a sign of fealty or submission. Trusting everybody wasn’t encouraged, but rejecting a potential ally was idiotic. “Yes, that would sound great. Please, stay safe until then, Yorshka.”

1 beastman have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 441

[White Dragonewt, Yorshka Nordor] have received the title [Hestia’s Retainer]

Yorshka’s eyes widened as she saw this new System notification before giggling and ruffling my hair. “Come now, I didn’t even pledge my oath yet and you made me your retainer? You are mischievous, Hestia.”

“Not like the title means anything to me. You might have trouble gaining the SP needed, but with the title, I’m making sure we meet again, Yorshka.” I have always considered the “retainer” part of the title redundant, I never considered anybody an actual attendant of mine. This was my symbol of trust, my way to say you are my friend.

The aunt and niece relationship we are supposed to have is complicated, but calling each other friends isn’t.

“Sensei, thank you very much!” On Saori’s side, her five students bowed before her, thanking her for her teaching and also for spending time with them. “When we next meet, it will be as ten!”

“Yes, please, take care of yourself, alright?” Saori gave all of them a hug. “Let’s make sure to meet up with the entire class again. If you all find a more reliable way to return to Earth, ask and I’ll make sure to help, otherwise, we can always rely on Hestia helping you out with persuading Aurena.”

And with that, Aurora and The Magical Biscuits ended their first meeting together.

A note from AbyssRaven

Akabane Franz, heh?

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 17 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

If you can spare a second, please do not forget to give the story a vote! Every vote helps the story stay visible for others. The vote button is just under the chapter buttons.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Side Story 26: The Saintess and the Mother.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #2 her to promote our Patreon. 17 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 17 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until September!

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The Folschreck Empire.

The empire of humans goes by many names: The Defenders of the East, The Bulwark of Light, The Eastern Empire, The Home of the Holy Emperor of Light, The Great Evida Empire, and so many more. Having either consolidated or vassalized all the human countries on the continent of Altrust, it goes without saying that the Folschreck Empire is the single greatest human-ruled land in the current era.

Despite being almost on the most western part of the continent, both of the remnants of the Leosfalt Kingdom — the Kingdoms of Artorias and Atadoro — have pledged themselves to the Emperor. As both kingdoms have not been merged completely into the empire just yet, the power to rule over these lands was left autonomous from the empire in exchange for routine tributes and a levy of soldiers for the continuous war against both the beastman alliance Carmaniate and the demonkin kingdom Bole’Taria.

Even for Artorias, a human country ruled by arvisians, the decision to become a vassal was their only logical option. The newly-founded kingdom was still rebuilding after the War for the Faefolk and the civil war which divided the Leosfalt kingdom. Without an alliance with the elves, the dwarves, or the dragonewts, Artorias had no choice but to ally themselves with the other human countries and kingdoms. Otherwise, they’d be left surrounded by enemy and neutral countries.

After all, it would have been too easy for the Kingdom of Atadoro to persuade the Holy Capital Aureolis to denounce the young kingdom of Artorias. Although the arvisian king of Artorias was a [Prince], thus ensuring himself a legitimate claim by divine right, the divine authority of the Pope of the Church of Aurena and military prowess of the Holy Emperor of Light would have stomped Artorias if they hadn’t bent the knee to Folschreck.

Thankfully, Artorias did not need to sacrifice much except for tributes in the form of wealth and soldiers. As the Folschreck Empire couldn’t keep an iron hand over both their own lands and those of their vassals, countries and kingdoms not included in the initial lands conquered by the first and second Emperor were left to their own devices.

However, control and inspections were still needed to prevent sudden insurrections, for a giant like the Empire of Man was more prone to breaking apart internally than against its foes. To maintain the Emperor’s control, an order known as the Lycerepth was founded to send its agents, the Lycerepthors, to flush out potential coup d’etats or rebellions against the empire. Guarded by mighty Lycerittern and trained since their childhoods, Lycerepthors were usually the empire’s representatives in the land of its vassals.

And on this day, another Lycerepthor Judge has arrived in the western lands of Altrust.

The moon had shone snow-white during this night; hours passed and the darkness in the sky was banished by the dawn. Cold winds guided the wings of the seagulls as they flew over the ocean, while underneath them sailed a mighty carrack of the empire, redesigned from the levianewt version for human use.

Constructed with sturdy wood, this ship vessel was similar to an Earthen carrack, although it was longer and had two serpentine wood parts on the port and starboard sides of the ship, flowing from the stern to the figurehead. There was also a magic symbol etched on the port side of the ship’s hull, depicting the tentacles of a kraken swallowing an orb. This was Plesia’s symbol, a mark enchanted by a depth’s priest to ward off sea creatures.

Recreated using Caedhul’s, the Maritime Republic of Plesia’s patron races, technology, this ship was now guided by the figurehead of a scarab, a creature native to the Great Evida desert inside the Folschreck Empire. Without a doubt, this ship belonged to the empire.

“Land ho!” the ship’s lookout cried out as the sight of a port came into view.

Seamen, members of the lowest ranking position in a crew’s hierarchy, were already awake and preparing the necessities to land the vessel. Some only wore simple, ragged clothing with just enough protection against the cold winds to keep them warm and able, while others had a large magic symbol covering their forehead. This symbol was a blue glowing runic tattoo, depicting an eye with a gavel and khopesh inside a cage. The mark of a slave belonging to the Lycerepth.

Regardless if they were freemen or slaves, a seaman was treated the same. With no time to dawdle under the sleepy eyes of the ship’s third mate, the crew was preparing for landing. Although a merchant’s ship, this vessel was not only transporting valuable spices and exotic ingredients, but also three prominent personages were currently preparing themselves for landing.

Knock. Knock. Knock. Three knocks were made against an ornamental door, reserved for rooms dedicated to VIP passengers. No answer was given to a man in an officer’s jacket, however, he stood there patiently, as if he knew what the noises behind the door were meant to be. Eventually, his patience was rewarded. The door opened, revealing a man dressed in an Arabic warrior’s garbs.

His armor shone with a magical aura, brimming with all the enchantments it could handle. An unsheathed khopesh was hanging from his waist, a shield was strapped on his left arm, and a bow with a quiver was strapped across his back. He was holding onto a two-handed scimitar with his face mostly covered up by a cowl, glaring at the officer with brown eyes.

“Yes?” the stoic warrior greeted the man. Nothing more, nothing less.

Gulping from the fighter’s presence, the officer kept his nerves together as he spoke. “We will be making land soon. Please, prepare Saintess Eshe for the arrival.” With a single nod, the warrior confirmed the information and closed the door before the officer after giving his thanks. With the door closed, he turned around towards the two women behind him.

One was a warrior just like him, clad in the same enchanted armor, although she wielded a spear in hand, with a pair of khopeshes sheathed at her sides as well as a bow across her back. Sitting on a chair next to her, the second woman had dark brown skin and was wearing a white-red robe with golden decorations, fit for only a white-robed shrine maiden of Aurena. Wearing both an ornamented amulet of Aurena and a gemstone headpiece with her sleek blond hair, she smiled as she looked at her two guards.

“Saintess Eshe, we will arrive soon. I presume Lady Anivh has finished your preparations?” the male warrior spoke to his mistress.

“Yes, Sir Alikar. I have been anticipating our arrival since yesterday. I would not dare waste anybody’s time,” the woman named Eshe answered graciously, acting pleasantly but with a hint of impatience betraying her true feelings.

“Shall we go to the deck, My Lady?” Anivh, the warrior woman standing next to Eshe suggested.

“Yes, my loyal knights. I wish to speak with the Imperial Alchemist and the Judge before we reach the port. We mustn’t waste our time; our objective is Griffonpeak.”

While the Empire was a wide land, it’s emperor was blessed by Aureolis’s leaders. To protect this land, several orders of the Knights of Aurena were constructed through the land to serve the church’s and, by extension, the empire’s needs. Although the quality of knights guarding a church might differ, the ones guarding a saint or saintess would always be of high quality.

With the ornamented door opening, two knights and a saintess of Aurena departed to the deck. Cold winds greeted them as they witnessed the rising sun, to which Eshe gave a silent prayer. After wishing her goddess a good morning, her knights guided the priestess towards two quarreling men: one was a caucasian with a brown beard while the other had dark grey skin and long, sharp ears.

“Ahh, Saintess Eshe, I wish you a beautiful DarkDay, My Lady. May my honored God, Marsven, guide you through the darkness today, let none of the shadow’s taint blight your white soul.” An elven man in pristine garments greeted the saintess with a flamboyant bow, acting the very aspect of a gentleman in front of the soft smiling woman.

“I wish you a wondrous DarkDay too, Imperial Alchemist Krymdar. May the gods protect us as we step foot on land once again.” A follower of Marsven and a Saintess of Aurena were speaking, but neither of them showed any animosity during their greetings. On the other hand, the brown bearded man could only scoff at the elven man.

“You, dark elf! How can you speak such heresy in front of a saintess of the Goddess! If you weren’t an imperial alchemist, I would have you answer to the Lycerepth! Remember this, elf, your kind is not welcomed in the holy land of the Goddess, so speak less of your misguided god and us Folschrecks might just tolerate your pitiful interference!” He then turned towards Eshe and gave her an extravagant bow. “Saintess Eshe, the Lycerepth shall prepare for your safe travels. Allow us to protect you with the assistance of your knights.”

Eshe gave a short confirmation, accepting the man’s offer, “Thank you, Judge Pestrodus. I have full faith the Lycerepth will guide me through the land safely. The goddess will without a doubt light our path forward.”

Judge Pestrodus of the Lycerepth, having heard the saintess accept his services, bowed once again before bidding his leave. He gave Krymdar one last glare before leaving to command the lycerittern, the knights belonging to the Lycerepth. Krymdar, on the other hand, couldn’t care less whether Pestrodus kept on spouting his harsh words or left for whatever duties he had to do. To the elf, Prestrodus was nothing more than a dull, unimaginative human.

He then turned back to Eshe, a reserved smile on his face as he spoke with one of the saints of Aurena. “How fares the weather, Lady Saintess? This is your first trip outside the desert of Evida, so make sure you are properly dressed for the more temperate climate. Most southerners cannot handle the temperature change.”

“I will survive with the clothes the children made for me, please do not worry about me, Sir Krymdar. Sir Alikar, Lady Anivh, will you two be fine?” Eshe turned her head around to her stoic-looking knights.

Alikar spoke first. “We will have no issue fulfilling our duties, My Lady.”

Followed by Anivh. “We have added the necessary enchantments and runic tattoos to stave off the cold, Saintess Eshe. There is no reason to worry about our combat effectiveness.”

Eshe nodded, happy to hear her companions were as capable as always. She then turned back to Krymdar. “Saelariel is your homeland, correct? It should be close to the Kingdom of Artorias. Do you miss it, Sir Krymdar?”

“Of course, my family is there. Duty calls for me to become an imperial alchemist of the Folschreck Empire to keep watch of human actions, but it does mean I am separated from the beautiful lands of my ancestor for an extended time.” Krymdar then turned around, watching land closing into his view. “As planned, we will first make land in the Kingdom of Rakatheen for Lycerepth and your saintess business. There will be two more countries before we can reach Artorias, so please be aware we won’t make it to Griffonpeak before spring comes. Maybe not even until SpringBloom.”

SpringBloom… hopefully we can make it there before then. I would hate it if I missed Goddess Aurena’s new champion when she visited the capital of the Kingdom of Artorias. Eshe thought, remembering the meeting she had with Goddess Aurena just last month, informing all the saints and champions of the Goddess of Light of the birth of her newest champion, Hestia. Eshe, having already made plans to travel to the western part of Artorias, volunteered to speak with this new champion. To fully represent their goddess, it was paramount that all saints and champions understood each other’s duties.

The Goddess has given me the task to teach her. Hestia Atsuko, a crimson-haired dragonewt, a mighty Kargryxmor in disguise.

Let us meet soon, Lady Hestia. May the Goddess guide our path with her light, so we may meet, Champion.

It was time for the empire to enter the stage.

*************************************************************

Why did I not speak back? Why did I submit?

Foolish. Foolish.

Traditions? Why must I stay away from my egg just to present myself to the other dragons? Most already know, most saw me evolve. Why must I listen to those weaklings, why did I tuck my tail to please Eltharion?

Why did I become complacent at the final step? No matter how strong my child will become, as an egg, my baby would be weak. Fragile. I did the one thing I vowed never to do.

“The courier is a mighty warrior, he had transported all our children safely through land, sky, and sea. Your egg is safe in his claws” Those were the words of the five empresses of the Dragon Emperor Eltharion. Tradition dictated, as established by Eltharion when he had his first egg, that all Kargryxmor eggs should be presented to the allies of the Dragon Empire Kargryx. Once the mother’s mana had created a warm aura around the egg, it was time for the imperial transporter to fulfill his duty.

A dragon as old as Eltharion himself, this transporter had successfully brought every Kargryxmor egg back home ever since Eltharion was crowned emperor. Even in the direst of situations, the transporter had never failed. The words of the empresses weren’t filled with venom nor falsehood, for they were born proud of their strength. Lies were for the weak, pitiful beings beneath their scaly legs.

Melloxtressa bowed to their wishes for this reason alone. Nevertheless, this blind faith had caused her the greatest source of grief ever since the day her father and mother left them for the apotheosis of Kargryxmor. Her unhatched child, her egg, her chance to become a mother was lost during this traditional custom.

The news of the death of the transporter and the loss of her egg crushed Melloxstressa, she raged out against the other empresses as they kept spouting she needed to stay and fulfill her duty as the sixth empress of Kargryx. “Your egg will be found, do not worry,” they kept reassuring her but her instincts had roused. That was when Eltharion himself intervened.

Melloxtressa was the second SS rank dragon of the era, she was far stronger than the other empresses; however, fighting against all five of them together was foolish, even for Melloxtressa. Their bloodlines were potent, and when the aged warrior Eltharion came in to stop Melloxtressa, the silver dragon could do nothing but submit to their power.

It became Melloxtressa’s greatest regret. Her vow, to never give birth to an egg before becoming one of the strongest creatures on Peolynca, was fulfilled, but all she did was dedicate herself to fighting different kinds of monsters inside the largest dungeon in Kargryx. Eltharion, although having become lazy over the years, was still a formidable dragonslayer. He had slain all his siblings with his own hands, never leaving this job to any of his subordinates. Even discounting his brothers and sisters, he had the experience of slaying myriads of other dragons.

To a Kargryxmor, battle was everything. [Battle Frenzy], harnessed to its fullest potential, allowed any Kargryxmor to go beyond what their body would allow. When this nostalgic effect reactivated, Eltharion became the Dreaded Black Destroyer once again, for his mind and body would be resharpened from the memories of his old battles. Melloxtressa was nothing against this monster.

I… am not the strongest. God Kargryxmor, I have broken my oath, I have shamed you… I have failed as a mother.

What meaning is there left for my life? My one goal, my one goal. My child, I am so, so sorry. I robbed you of your chance for a life with my arrogance.

A dragon mother would inject their mana around their egg to prevent minor to moderate damage to their egg. It also included the ability to maintain an optimal temperature for the egg. However, this mana required the mother to refill it. Melloxtressa injected enough mana into her egg to last a while, but without a doubt in her mind, this mana must have dissipated a long time ago.

The egg… did not have enough time to reinforce its shell. Without the aura it would… oooh, my baby…

Melloxtressa cave was once filled with trinkets and decorations she gained from her days outside Kargryx. Following her father’s footprints, she and her brother both traveled the world like the modern era’s dragon adolescents. Although never too conspicuous, they still brought many treasures to her home. Her brother, especially, found the greatest treasure of his life in the form of his wife.

Nowadays, after the news, Melloxtressa’s cold, silvery scales had coated her lair in an icy, thick hide of sparkling ice. Like diamond dust, her home looked like a fortress of winter. Silver dragons were relatives of the more common white and ice dragons, and Melloxtressa inherited this very icy power from her relatives. With her evolution into an SS rank, Melloxtressa was a walking ice age, a natural calamity able to destroy any civilization on Altrust.

It was just unfortunate that in her current state, she was merely crumbling away. A husk of an over 3500-year-old dragon. It almost seemed like this would be her future going for-

[“Empress Melloxtressa!”] Telepathy. Draconic was commonly used by younger dragons to communicate, as it allowed them to fully express their explosive emotions. On the other hand, the majority of aged dragons preferred using [Telepathy], as it was faster and required less energy. In this very moment where Melloxtressa was trapped in a perpetual circle of depression, a telepathic message suddenly broke this monotony.

However, this silver dragon had little left to motivate herself. These words bounced off her. She did not register anybody’s voice.

[“Empress Melloxtressa!”] A white-scaled dragonewt came rushing into the silver dragon’s lair, his wings flapping so rapidly he had trouble controlling his flight. In his hand was a single letter. [“We found her! We found her! The clan has finally found your daughter! The princess was found!”]

Her neck snapped towards the dragonewt with the speed of light, rocking her whole lair like thunder from the sound alone. Mana mist exploded from her body, diffusing into her whole home like a smokescreen. Once all of it disappeared, all that was left was a silver-haired elven woman dressed in a one-piece dress composed solely of her scales. Tears frozen into ice drops were dripping down her silky skin.

“Hic. Hie-hic.” Her eyes were unable to stop the flood of emotions going through her body, now reignited through the words she heard. [“Please, do not lie to me, child.”] She reached her hand forward, begging the young dragonewt that this glimmer of hope was not in vain. When she received the already opened letter, her hands trembled as she slowly took the piece of parchment from its envelope, uninterested that Yorshka was the sender.

‘Dear Lady Melloxtressa, I will jump right to the point, we have found the lost princess. She is safe and healthy in the continent of Altrust, surrounded by friends and allies. Although, there are more difficult details I will reveal later, I wish to reveal something important first. Your daughter, a beautiful mutant fire dragon with scales of crimson and scale powder similar to us Nordors, is alive. In the time she was gone, she has named herself in your stead. Her name is Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor.”

“Hestia!” The wintery layers of diamond dust all shined simultaneously as this single name was uttered from Melloxtressa’s mouth. Without any other command, almost like magic, the powder shot back into Melloxtressa’s body. As if she was absorbing them, the snow in her lair quickly disappeared, revealing the beautiful decorations of her home once again.

Melloxtressa’s skin slowly regained a pinkish color as her scales shined so brightly again like a million polished blades. The ice drops, thawed by the beat of her heart, melted back into tears. “Hestia. Hestia. Hestia,” she kept repeating, causing her eyes to fully open the floodgates. Holding onto the letter, she lost all strength in her knees and collapsed on the ground.

She continued reading through all the tears. She learned of Hestia’s status as a reincarnator, as an otherworldly who retained most of her memories from a previous life. She read how she was more mature than a year-old dragon whelp due to her memories, wishing so desperately she could have been there for Hestia. She learned of the struggles Hestia had to face to become a B rank sunfang dragon, blaming herself for how Hestia had to face these trials despite the oath she made for herself.

I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I should have been there. Your mom should have been there! I should have been there to defend you! This was my duty!

She read through Yorshka’s description of Saori, Tasianna, and Ellaine, and praised them for being there for her child, happy that her daughter had found valuable allies to protect her. She cackled in disappointment at how her daughter was learning how to fly and utilize her scale-dust without her supervision. She was conflicted. All of this was good news, but something in her heart was still yearning for more.

I wanted to be there when you did all of this!

“Hurgh-hic-hic.” Tears slowly created puddles under Melloxtressa, and her voice cracked as she tried to control her elven body’s continuous snot-producing functions. Her elven ears wiggled from joy. She couldn’t remember the last time she was this happy. Was it when she reached S rank’s maximum level? Or was it the day she gave birth to her egg?

It didn’t matter.

When she finished Yorshka’s letter, her tears were wiped away by her dragonewt attendant. [“She is in Artorias. My precious everything is in Artorias. Where is it?”] Nothing was stopping Melloxtressa anymore. No rules. No traditions. Nothing but physics itself.

The dragonewt nodded before giving out a type of call in Draconic. In responce to the call, two snow-white scaled wyverns appeared in her lair. [“They know the way; these wyverns shall lead you, Empress Melloxtressa.”]

Icicle gust created from her silver powder was created by Melloxtressa, helping her stand up. This powder then surrounded her like wings of ice, covering her up like a veil. She looked into the wyvern’s eyes, seeing the anxiety in them before they both bowed their heads. Their mouths opened up, releasing an amalgamation of cries.

‘We failed to bring the Princess back! We fought her and lost! We raised our claws against her! We-We-’ These were the snow wyverns who were once assigned to aid Astalos, the wyvern tasked by the God of Dragon, Kargrxymor, to bring Hestia before Kargrxmor. They were Hestia’s enemies due to a misunderstanding, but they were now tasked to safely bring Yorshka’s letter to the matriarch of the Nordor clan.

“Kriarh krashie kars kra klasha.” (Enough, the trip will be long. Tell me everything during our flight, children.)

Melloxtressa’s emotions were in turmoil, but she was an old dragon of over 3500 years in the body of an elf. She was able to repress her emotions, staying cool-headed as she handled these wyvern children; at least, children relative her own age. She knew the situation with her daughter was special, something she needed a clear mind to deal with.

My daughter… I wanted to name you myself but... Hestia, it is a wonderful name. Please, wait for me.

On that day, the SS rank [Diamond-Powder Fimbulvetr Dragon] unleashed her silvery wings once more for the sky to see. Her destination: The Human Kingdom, Artorias.

*************************************************************

Now, the question is, when did all of this happen?

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 191: Dragoon Princess’s Armor of Crimson Glow.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #3 her to promote our Patreon. 17 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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Acquisition requirement fulfilled. [Scale-Dust Size Increase], [Fire Abnormality Effect: Dread] gained. 6100 SP remaining

Mutation acquired. Merging [Scale-Dust Size Increase], [Fire Abnormality Effect: Dread] into unique racial skill [Dreadflame Dragon]

‘Yeah, gliding is a non-issue, balancing is easy with favorable winds. Although, controlling it to match the power of the boosters, especially during erratic power increases and decreases, is difficult. We’ll probably get used to it over time, with more varied practice.’ An astute analysis came from manager mind — the first of my parallel mind — on the control of my scale-dust boosters and the effects [Tailwind] had on my flying capabilities.

I was currently practicing my flying over a forest while my parallel minds were analyzing my training, learning the “feel” of it so we could fly more efficiently in the future. Of course, just like the last time I did this, I wasn’t trying to act overly smart here, my parallel minds and I were simply getting our body used to flying with boosters and [Tailwind]. It felt nostalgic. The last time I did flying training was in the Belzac forest, almost a year ago.

Now I was practicing it inside the Emerald-Flare Forest Dungeon on its ninth floor. Wind was surrounding my body like an [Air Shield], ejecting wind in whatever direction I wanted as my parallel minds controlled [Tailwind] using [Fluid Cast]. A constant stream of fire was being blasted out from the gaps of my wing’s scales, just strong enough to propel me forward at a decent pace.

With my [Bonepecker Bladeclaw Spear] that I bought from Kraftja and Ogni out and ready, I was flying over the forest of floor nine, eyeing the ground like a drone. With [Detection Sensor], I was able to sense the approach of a group of signals — five dots were running rather orderly in front of a horde erratically moving behind them.

“Shit, they’re getting faster!” When I heard that statement, a group of five young men jumped out from the shade of a group of trees, with a horde of knopbries following hot on their heels. I turned my body around, following the two groups from the sky through the gaps of trees. Clutching my spear, I was biding my time through the constant shouting the boys were doing, completely frightened by the giant mushroom monsters.

That was when we struck.

A crimson flash dashed out of the bushes, a split second after the boys passed it. As they turned their heads around, a brown glow appeared on the flash’s hand, quickly constructing a large diagonal [Terra Wall] to cut off the knopbries’ sight, stalling them. As if they were lemmings, the knopbries collectively rushed towards the left flank of the wall, but that was where she waited for them.

“Wind Slash! Wind Slash!” Two blades of wind shot out from the young woman’s hand, slicing two knopbries’ heads off. As their decapitated corpses were trampled by the horde, the young woman in crimson armor dashed forward, cutting down a third monster with her blade while her blue hair fluttered in the frantic start of this skirmish.

Dragoon Jump.

Stopping my boosters for a moment, I turned my body around, aiming my head towards the ground. Muscles in my legs began to tense up the moment I thought of this new unarmed ability of mine. I bent my knees as I used [Air Walk] to create a platform for my feet to stand on, readying my spear for battle in the process. Like an eagle singling out a target from above, I chose one of the knopbries in the horde as my target.

With a sonic boom, I blasted off, stomping the air with power and scale-dust boosters.

“Knarrrghh!” In the next second, all I could hear were death rattles and the explosion of rocks underneath my spear. Knopbies were sent flying from the shockwave of my landing, making easy targets for my partner-in-crime to cut anything flying over to her.

“Fuck!” But all I could do was curse out in exasperation.

“Hestia?!” the girl in beautiful armor suddenly cried out.

I turned towards the girl, tears figuratively flowing from my eyes. “Ellaine! I broke my spear!”

I was too ambitious. Far too ambitious. In my attempt to mimic Yorshka’s dragoon attack, I thought I was copying every motion she did to a tee — I was even being original by replacing the [Wind Blast] part with my jet engine. Unfortunately, I forgot the most important part: A good spear.

Admittedly, my jump was a bit too strong. My ears were ringing a bit from that sonic boom, my body ached from the sheer physics applied with this attack, and my [Draconic Barrier] had to drain some of my Mana to prevent my body from taking damage upon crashing onto the ground. Nevertheless, I not only had a body sturdy enough to endure this attack but also regenerative powers to heal any damage in seconds. Sadly, my spear had none of these traits.

As I held up my ruined spear, only the half behind my hand was in a fine condition; the rest of the weapon, from the spear tip down to the shaft, everything broke into pieces.

“That’s what happens when you drop down like that. I barely saw you fall. Of course a spear made from normal bones and a lightweight metal like andurium would break under so much pressure!” Ellaine scolded me as she continued her slaughter.

Four days. It took exactly four days, just as Grimnir had said. After Yorshka and Saori’s students left us, our party went to Grimnir working inside the Tunging Hammer’s smithy to check up on him. There, he presented us with a fine set of armor made specifically for Ellaine. Made using a few of the rachonoid queen’s materials, my dragon scales and obsidian, and Saori’s fenrir fur, it was the epitome of what Aurora could currently produce with the materials we had.

As Yorshka not only had experience as a dragoon but also as a lifelong companion to a griffin knight, namely her husband Farron, her suggestions combined with Grimnir’s experience crafting dragonewt armor turned Ellaine’s armor into not only a work of art, but, also a piece of equipment able to elevate her defensive stats far beyond what her body could provide, perfect for her future goals.

Dragoon Princess’s Armor of Crimson Glow

Armor made using [Molten Core Rachonoid], [Young Sunfang Dragon], and [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir] materials, fused together during the blacksmithing process with eoriant and voldunna metal. Blood of a Kargryxmor dragon was used to douse the armor pieces, granting the wearer enhanced combat stats during battle, which lends a crimson glow from the scales. Extremely resistant to any source of fire damage, although weak against water-based elements.

Intelligence Power: 257

Vitality Power: 1245

Wisdom Power: 1098

Skill: [Sundering Resistance Lv. 8] [Piercing Resistance Lv. 6] [Crushing Resistance Lv. 8] [Inferno Resistance Lv. 5] [Lava Resistance Lv. 5] [Terra Resistance Lv. 3] [Dark Resistance Lv. 8] [Water Weakness Lv. 5] [Mana Conductor Lv. 8] [Mana Efficiency Lv. 8] [Aerial Fighter Lv. 8] [Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 8] [Mounted Fighter Lv. 8] [Durability Loss Reduction Lv. 10] [Wind Pressure Nullification] [Explosion Pressure Nullification] [Battle Frenzy] [Silk Claw Bindings] [Sorcerer’s Power Lv. 3] [Prime Vigor Lv. 5] [Sage’s Wisdom Lv. 5]

The armor was designed to fit a flying knight, similar to Sir Antonio’s or Ellaine’s father’s armor, but with a distinct dragoon touch courtesy of Yorshka.

Yorshka, due to her more up-front and personal fighting style, had designed her own armor to fit the image of a fully defensive paladin — conveniently, it made her pass as a knight of Aurena rather than a dragoon knight — and was meant for solo diving into a battle. She had the reflexes and strength to keep the mobility focused battle style of a dragoon despite being in heavier armor, and in combination with her silver powder increasing her defense further, it let her strike like a meteor whenever she dragoon dived an enemy

Since Ellaine was a human, lacking the natural physical stats of a beastman, Grimnir made her armor more similar to a dragoon’s while keeping the Artorian knight appeal. As such, her armor was built lighter in order to allow her to dodge attacks more efficiently while on foot, and to synergize well with her goal of becoming a griffon knight.

As it was a dragoon-inspired armor, my dragon scales were added lavishly onto her suit, giving it that distinctive crimson shine. Similar to using chainmail as the second layer of protection, Grimnir created a more refined scale-mail for Ellaine to wear underneath her armor. The gauntlets and pauldrons especially looked spiky as the scales were added onto them — not fused, like the scale mail Grimnir made during the blacksmith competition, but just layered — while her breastplate had monster materials alloyed with the metal to create it, looking elegant and sleek.

The scale-mail she had flowed down to her thighs, looking a bit like a mini skirt, although Grimnir called it a hauberk. To better protect her legs, a fauld with large scale-looking tassets were added to protect her waist and thighs. Her leg armor also included pants made from troll leather — resilient against slash and striking attacks but flabby enough for elasticity to ease movements — and scale-fused alloy cuisses, greaves, and sabatons which made up her leg armor.

As an additional piece, Ellaine also wished for a cape, explaining her father wore one on his armor. “Capes are cool” was everybody’s consensus on it, well, everybody but Grimnir who shouted “Capes are impractical!” He still relented to Ellaine’s wish at the end of the day, but added a failsafe which could be activated using mana to detach it.

Outside of the elegance and fashion statement the cape brought to Ellaine’s armor, it was mostly made out of Saori’s shed white fur and the rachonoid queen’s spider silk. Unsurprisingly, the silk of a B rank raid boss monster was quite durable and resistant against conventional weapons, and with Saori’s fur, the cape could shield quite effectively against fire and dark elemental attacks.

However, since we had a limited supply of spider silk, repairing the cape was pretty impractical compared to repairing her armor. Corrosive obsidian, voldunna ore, and my scales were readily available. Most likely, we would have to replace the spider silk with Saori’s mana threads eventually, but for now, the cape could act as a shield.

“Hmph. Elven, dragonewt, and human armor always have a certain artistic appeal to them, while we tazongs value each other’s armor by how much metal we can carry around.” Grimnir commented when he handed Ellaine her armor. He sounded grumpy about how much importance dragonewts and humans placed on armor’s appearance, but he had a wide smile on his face when he said it. It helped that his beard hadn’t grown back yet, making it easy to notice.

Now, to the combat specs, it was without a doubt incredible. “Intelligence Power,” “Vitality Power,” and “Wisdom Power'' were far higher than what the Black Orc’s voldunna armor gave, and as they added these stats onto the wearer’s base stats, they boosted Ellaine’s defensive stats to the point that they rivalled Saori’s and my own defensive stats. In our moderately humanized forms, anyway. The power of good equipment.

The skills were probably the most interesting part. Ellaine’s armor was made to support her while she flew around on her griffon in the air, and Grimnir made sure they would work. Ellaine hasn’t gotten her griffon yet, but she was already fully prepared when it happened. Now, aside from these normal skills, there were two among the list which caught my attention: [Battle Frenzy], and [Silk Claw Bindings].

Silk Claw Binding

A skill obtained through the silk glands of a spider-type monster, creating a sticky binding around the claws using mana. Increases grabbing power

Battle Frenzy

The battle will of the Black Tyrant Dragon Kargryxmor coursing through his descendant’s blood, tamed to do the bidding of the blood’s carrier. During battles worthy of the user’s focus, stats and resource regeneration will increase

The [Silk Claw Binding] was a simple feature; it made her gauntlets super sticky if she let her mana flow through them. It made it hard to disarm Ellaine while giving her a better grip on her mount’s reins, preventing her from falling off them while in the sky. Accepting some of the rachonoid’s silk glands was a good choice.

[Battle Frenzy], on the other hand, was a great surprise. Yorshka, who had suggested this idea, reminded me of the power of the blood of a true dragonkin, of how potent it was for alchemy. Since I already gave Saori some of my blood, I might as well double-down and give Ellaine a dragon blood boost, also.

Now, up until now, I thought [Battle Frenzy] was just an annoying piece of shit I had to deal with due to my bloodline — Kargryxmor was called the Black Tyrant of the Skies, after all. However, apparently, part of a Kargryxmor whelp’s education was to learn how to control their blood’s battle tendency and harness it for their strength.

Ever since I evolved into a [Young Sunfang Dragon], I haven’t had any issues with [Battle Frenzy] thanks to the dragon’s calmer nature. While I was able to control [Battle Frenzy] this way, this frustrating tingling never disappeared completely, so I still needed to fight. It was good to know I could turn this dreadful effect to work for me, though.

“Damnit.” I recovered the pieces of my spear and threw them into my storage before snapping my fingers, igniting the small amount of scale-dust ejected from my wings during the landing, flying around the area. Explosions set my surroundings on fire the moment a root spear was shot at me. “You’re not the same barkwraith, but you sure like getting set on fire, just like the other one.”

“Hestia, I’ll take care of the knopbries! Stop the barkwraith from escaping!” Ellaine shouted before swinging her sword to gut something.

I nodded before grabbing the root spear wiggling around trying to extinguish the flames from the scale-dust. I pulled on it, causing a figure to appear behind a tree and fall on the ground. It was the target of our Quest: the barkwraith of floor nine. Now that it was finally in my sight, I let go of its arm.

Pulling it back through the ground, the barkwraith severed its arm off before the flames could spread to the rest of its body. It stared at its shortened arm, unable to hide its confusion. Since barkwraiths had impressive healing, it probably was baffled that it wasn’t able to recover from the damage, but that was ’cause it was affected with [Dread Burn].

Mutations. Similar to how Saori was able to buy the Job skill [Penumbral Armament], I could finally buy [Crimson-Scaled Dreadgiver]’s Job skills from my SP shop as “mutations.” I bought both [Scale-Dust Size Increase] and [Fire Abnormality Effect: Dread] for 1500 SP each, delighted to learn that leveling up certain Jobs allowed me to acquire cool skills for SP. This really made me happy when I decided to be more stingy with it.

Since my scale-dust now could prevent people from healing, I just became a hard counter against healers. With the barkwraith now distracted and distressed from its condition, I jumped over to it and grabbed its neck.

“Yo dayo.” Snap. I crushed its neck.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Job [Hellblade] has risen from [Level 5] to [Level 11]

Attributes have increased due to level up

With the only C rank in this monster horde dead, Ellaine made quick work of the D rank knopbries, especially after she got all those levels from the raid. The young men, the guys we cooperated with for this quest, also entered the battle to help Ellaine, but she was just blitzing through everything before they could take down their first two knopbries.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Job [Hellblade] has risen from [Level 11] to [Level 15]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Max level of Job   [Hellblade] has been reached

Jeez, there were too many of them today.

With the fight over, the dismantling phase began. I threw the barkwraith’s body into my storage, holding onto its lifeless head before prying out the mana core from within. Since treants such as barkwraiths were originally faefolk like spriggans who became monsters by fusing themselves into a tree, they had a similar core to the onnikais I used to fight against. The only difference was an onnikai acted like a parasite controlling their host body, whereas a treant’s core was like a brain, and, once it formed, the original faefolk was gone forever.

The goal of the Quest is to acquire this core. Grimnir gave me the last one we acquired but I forgot to hand it in. It’s supposedly a good alchemical item, but the Quest gives a lot of rank points.

“Lady Ellaine, we can do it. Please, leave it to us!” Once I was done, I turned around to see a young man in simple chain and leather armor scratching the back of his head, smiling as he talked with Ellaine. I believe his name was Naden.

Ellaine looked flabbergasted, opening her mouth for a second before closing it, only speaking after taking a moment to think. “…There are too many bodies. I’m used to dismantling monsters, there is no need for your worry. Nevertheless, I thank you for your consideration.” Ellaine’s tone felt a bit condescending, the attitude she usually took towards strangers or other nobles, contrasting her more worrywart-like personality in private.

“No, no, it’s ok. It’s ok. We’ll gladly do all the work! I mean, you two ladies cleaned up the monsters so it’s just right if we do the dismantling. I mean, we couldn’t have done this Quest without the two of you. Uh, yeah!” At this point, Naden’s companion seemed to eye him anxiously. Fitting, as Ellaine was frowning.

Before the situation exploded, I stepped in to diffuse it. After everything was cleared up, Ellaine and I chose an area with the knopbries and dismantled them together. “You armor is dashing enough to infatuate people. Great job, Ellaine, your first step into becoming a fully-fledged knight.”

“W-Wah?!” Ellaine’s head shot up from my teasing comment, flustered as she responded. “N-Nonsense, Hestia. The armor does look very elegant, but I don’t think I look anywhere as good as my father or brother in their armor. In any case, it sounded more like Naden was belittling my skills as an adventurer. Even my knights were able to dismantle monsters, so I must do the same.”

Cute, I thought of Ellaine’s pout.

Even with seven people, the number of knopbries we had to dismantle took quite some time to finish, but we eventually got through them all. As we were about to leave the floor to hand in the Quest, the rest of Aurora called us. Saori, Tasianna, and Grimnir all looked sweaty and had pieces of wood on their clothing, telling us they managed to cut down a lot of trees.

I showed them a thumbs up, telling them, “Good job cutting down the trees. You guys helped us slay the barkwraith.” I then looked over at Naden and his companions, who all nodded and gave a thumbs up to my statement.

As you might expect, I was just acting. The Quest for the barkwraith core was a continuous Quest in the hunter’s guild, as it was in constant demand by the alchemist guild who needed them to create catalysts. It was a rank C Quest which gave three C rank points and allowed three parties of hunters to participate in it due to the difficulty. As lucrative as it sounded, since the barkwraith was a floor guardian, it only respawned once every week.

Naden, a hunter we saved in the last backwraith attack, met us in the hunter’s guild today and suggested we team up for it, and, as our party needed rank points, we agreed. The issue was that only a single member from Aurora was needed to clear this Quest, and we technically wanted to work on Grimnir’s RV today, so we had to act like everybody in Aurora helped out with the Quest.

There was a guild rule that stated that everybody who accepted the Quest had to participate in it, and any who didn’t, would be disqualified from the rewards. This rule was there to prevent nobles or rich adventurers from hiring people and having them do all the work to artificially increase their adventurer rank. It made sense, but we had to work around it for today.

Without breaking the rules, Saori, Tasianna, and Grimnir began cutting down trees to anger the barkwraith, luring it into a location for us to ambush it. Unfortunately, a group of knopbries seemed to have detected Naden and his friends and lured the barkwraith to them, which caused the whole situation in the first place. I have the feeling Naden’s party had terrible luck just like ours.

Once we handed the Quest in, everybody gave their report about what happened and handed in the two barkwraith cores. The guild, who knew what happened to Naden two weeks ago, believed us and divided the reward among everybody without any issues. With the money divided, Aurora celebrated having acquired 6 C points.

Rank-wise, this helped Ellaine reach Rank D as a hunter while Saori, Tasianna, and I were about halfway through to C rank. We also learned that Grimnir was already C rank and already had 30 C rank points towards becoming a B rank hunter, which required him to have 70 points. Our overall party rank was still D, but it was good to have another C rank hunter like Grimnir in the party.

“Thank you very much for the help, today! Uhm, also, thank you for saving my life the last time we met! I hope we can work together once again!” Naden said all of this to Ellaine, acting like his party’s representative.

“Thank you, but Hestia is our party leader. Please, give her your praises.”

“…”

Poor dude.

Once our adventurer business was dealt with, we returned to Grimnir’s RV and moved it outside the city. Since Grimnir was a member of our party now, he decided he wanted to renovate it to create space for everybody. Given that we already had acquired not only the ore and the logs from the Sarlenzia Trading Company, but we also had the two barkwraith bodies, the trees from floor nine we just cut down earlier, and also the treant wood we acquired after the felgheist nightlord battle, we definitely weren’t lacking in materials.

“I’m not too sure what you lasses want, so give me your ideas. I’ll try to add them into the blueprint.” Grimnir placed the blueprints for his RV on a table in the middle of the forest.

Us girls had simple demands.

“We need a larger sleeping space. I don’t think we can create enough space for individual rooms, but it should be enough for us girls to have some privacy. I think you would agree some breathing room would be nice, too, Grimnir. An RnR room would be great, too.”

“The RV itself is far too small. We can’t make the wagon too wide so let us add another floor. We can use the lower floor as a working area while we can commute upstairs. Could we not make it a bit longer, in addition, technically it is also your smithy, Grimnir. It would be a shame to abandon the shop aspect.”

“We need areas for everybody’s specialties. A kitchen with a bakery, a study, an area for our garden, a tinkering workstation, an alchemy station, oh, we mustn't forget a space for Lady Hestia to practice her singing. I also agree we require some room just to relax more. I would also love a space to store my tea leaves.”

“…This might sound obvious, or not, but am I the only one who believes we must add a proper bathing room? Even a shower would be adequate. If this is supposed to be our home, we require the necessities to live not like commoners. We must make do with what an inn provides us, but not inside our place of rest.”

Normal demands, like I said.

“…Haaaaaa, this will be a lot of work.”

As Grimnir presumed, we had to completely renovate everything. Grimnir’s RV was designed for two dwarf men, so it had very little room left for us four girls. Since Grimnir needed his smithy and runesmith workbench — especially since he hadn’t finished Ellaine’s runes yet — and Ellaine needed the artificer station, our only choice was to expand the RV upwards and make the bottom area larger in general.

The issue, of course, was that we had to make it large enough to fit inside a town and city. Usually, the main streets would be large enough for any wagon to move around, but Saori wanted to turn the wagon into a restaurant, alchemy shop, and a smithy. Saori and Grimnir already belonged to their respective guilds and Tasianna could join the alchemy guild in Griffonpeak, so Saori was confident we could make it work. As permit costs were based on the size of the wagon, we couldn’t make it too large.

On the other side, Tasianna, Ellaine, and I wanted to turn the wagon into a livable and comfortable palace. When we returned home from work, we just wanted to relax. However, since I was an idol, the wagon had to be maneuverable. We needed to make it from one area to the other in a quickish fashion. The more concerts I can perform, the happier I’ll be.

As you would expect from a runesmith, Grimnir had a way to solve this. There was a rune called [Utility Rune: Featherweight] which decreased the weight of an object, allowing the RV to not slow down from its capacity. Only issue was the material costs for this rune.

“Hmph. We need to purchase some equerochs to transport the wagon. Two, at least. That will increase the price,” Griminr determined. Since he couldn’t afford any horses due to his financial situation before he met us, he was stuck inside Cedaraille regardless if he wanted the molten voldunna core or not.

“That is a non-issue.” However, when it came to money, Saori wouldn’t allow excessive spending. She summoned her garm’s, eyeing them mischievously. “Consider this training everyone.”

Her garms, on the other hand, weren’t thrilled. Sure, they might sacrifice their lives for Saori without question, but all four of them had a sense of pride as C rank monsters. They found the very idea of acting like beasts of burden abhorrent, but they couldn’t argue back against Saori after her next argument.

“All five of us have a way to generate income, however, you four do not. Hunting does not count as all five of us can do it ourselves. Combat is not the only duty you have as a member of this pack. Either accept Hestia’s [Hestia’s Retainer] title or work in a rotating shift to move the wagon.”

The garms chose the latter option. I did not feel in any way offended. Not at all.

It took us a whole week to finish the RV. Adding another floor, crafting the furniture and workstations, smithing any metal equipment, decorating, and finally, making sure the plumbing system worked. We still had to remove the waste ourselves, but it beats doing everything in a bush.

As everybody stared proudly at our combined handiwork, I couldn’t help but reminisce about what we did the past week. As the students’ finances were not supporting us anymore, we had to move out from the fancy inn, and ended up deciding to camp next to the RV. All five of us worked until it became night, only taking toilet and meal breaks in between. Everybody wanted to finish the RV, so we gave it our all.

Grimnir wanted to leave Cedaraille since he’d been staying there for months, Ellaine mentioned she was severely late to her first two weeks at the royal academy, Saori wanted to plan out my idol career, Tasianna wanted to set up her garden, while I wanted to reach Griffonpeak to hand Aurena the black orb. Of course, I also needed to apologize to her. She hasn’t answered me back yet, but considering I literally screamed at her, I didn’t exactly expect her to respond.

Then again, she’s a goddess. Some harsh words from me shouldn’t be that hurtful… Right?

As we were about to leave, Tasianna noticed a fae speaking with her. As her expression turned grim, she turned to me, “Dragonslayers! A spirit just informed me that a dragonslayer has reached the hunter’s guild!”

“…”

Thankfully, Tasianna made the amazing choice to become a fae whisperer. Thankfully, the RV was finished.

Goodbye, Cedaraille, goodbye.

************************************************

“Broken horn, green scales, lightning element. It was causing trouble in the Lecartiglio Duchy for a while, and we tracked it down to Greenveil. Have you seen it, Ma’am?” A burly man in scaled armor spoke with a receptionist of the hunter’s guild. Despite his scarred face, he was speaking courteously.

“A dragon?! N-No, I haven’t heard any rumors from the adventurers. Sir, is this dragon a threat?” The receptionist looked at the men before her with anxiousness, cold sweat slowly forming. During the rachonoid raid, she had heard of a dragon appearing and fighting the giant rachonoid queen, but it disappeared quickly after the battle. Some say the dragon transformed into a small girl while others mentioned it returning back into the dungeon. None of the rumors had any weight behind them, but if a dragonslayer had appeared before her, maybe the rumors of the dragon were real.

Dragonslayers were not only ambitious people but also daredevils who were mad enough to challenge dragonkins, living fortresses of scales and mana, and willing to risk the ire of the dragonewts and levianewts. A dragonslayer was a respectful and honorable profession amongst hunters, but it was despised by anybody related to a dragonkin.

“No, no, there is a misunderstanding.” However, these men weren’t dragonslayers. The armor they wore included scales, but none of them were from a dragonkin, whether true or lesser. “We are just normal hunters, even if we are A ranks. Also, it wasn’t a dragon, it was a wyvern. It had some high level in [Identity Blocker], as we couldn’t appraise it, but from the power it displayed, it was definitely a high level B rank or a low A rank.”

The dragonslayers weren’t the ones pursuing Hestia.

An old acquaintance was.

A note from AbyssRaven

Ellaine's suited up in her friend's body parts. Would sound more morbid, if Hestia and Saori weren't alive.

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Chapter 192: Country Roads, Thundering Clouds.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Handicraft Lv. 6] [Woodworking Lv. 7] gained

Individual   [Sunfang Dragonewt, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has switched her Main Job to [Infernal Hellblade]

Main Job benefits have been updated due to Job change

Infernal Hellblade Level: 0/30

Job Skill gained:   [Instant Heat Ignition], [Inferno Coating]

“Ahhhhh, why is making magic circles so difficult? This never gets easier.” With a feather pen in my hand, I dipped its tip into our homemade charcoal ink and continued writing on a wooden slate. Since ink was already widely spread around Altrust, Ellaine and Grimnir were quickly able to make a ton of jars full of it using charcoal, vinegar, and cornstarch. Plain charcoal was easier and more flexible to write with, but sitting at a table and using ink to write just felt… more civilized.

“Lady Hestia, here is your tea. The roots from the mushrooms on floor 15 are rather spicy, so I added some honey and lemons to balance the taste. Please, have a try and enjoy. Any feedback would be great.” After placing an aromatic tea on my table with some freshly baked biscuits, Tasianna bowed and returned to our garden.

I took a bite from the biscuit, enjoying its sugary sweetness before sipping the tea. As Tasianna warned, the spiciness of the tea was quite prominent, barely contained by the honey and sour lemons. “Beet sugar might be better for the sweetness than honey, Tasianna. Jeez, these mushroom tree roots are spicy. Might be better in a curry than tea.”

Life was good. The RV was finally finished and able to drive on the road well enough without shaking around too much, a testament to Grimnir’s abilities. He might say that carpentry isn’t his forte, but he certainly had the skill to make all of this stable enough without the aid of a dedicated professional. Adding springs to wagons and carriages was already a thing in Peolynca thankfully, so Saori and I didn’t have to explain the concept to Grimnir.

After living for multiple months in the Belzac forest, walking has become more or less a normal activity for me. Unlike Ellaine, I enjoyed walking. However, being able to do things like creating custom spells, taking a nap whenever, or working on Saori’s tools was made infinitely more comfortable now that we had a vehicle. We could do whatever we wanted without having to pause our travel.

Speaking of custom spells, I was currently working on a few. While reviewing my tablets with Master Kush’s tips and instructions, I was experimenting and thinking of new ways to use my two empty vessel magics. [White Flames] had the ability to not only heal and cause holy elemental damage but these flames also allowed me to cool them down to the point they wouldn’t hurt people. [Corrosive Fire], on the other hand, produced purple flames which replaced my ability to produce toxins with the additional ability to solidify into a toxic slime and sturdy obsidian, though it had the side effect of creating poisonous fumes as well.

[Sanctified Blaze] and [Panzer] were made using these two skills; however, I haven’t made any new ones recently. Mostly ’cause most of my ideas were redundant with System spells I already had. A powerful white fire laser scorching the ground from the sky was already covered by [Omnictus] and [Symphonie des Feuergottes]. Powerful blades of obsidian slicing into my enemies were already a thing with [Bedrock Blades] and [Earthen Spear].

It was difficult trying to think of something completely new. “Saori and Tasianna had it kinda easy,” was something I always thought when I was stuck and unable to think of a new spell idea. Of course, that wasn't really the case. Even with all my System magic, spell creation was limited by a mage’s imagination. Honestly, if I had the internet right now, I would just steal some OP spell concepts and be done with it.

But I couldn’t. So, I was writing down spell ideas, testing them out, creating the chant and magic circles for spells I liked. It was mentally tiring.

Halo of Consecration and Unheilige Engel. At least, my naming sense has improved, I think.

After finishing my tea, my body and mind began to ache, telling me to move my body around. When I began to stretch, I remembered how we weren’t done decorating the RV with certain furniture and workplaces just yet. Unable to figure out what we were missing, I stood up to inspect our new home once again.

First things first, I was currently on the second floor of Grimnir’s RV, the one we added after we pointed out the space issue. Aside from making the entire RV larger and more spacious, we also reinforced the wooden walls with the sturdy timber we had on us. This included the grove treant from the felgheist nightlord loot box, the barkwraiths’ bodies, tree logs from floor nine, and also conventional lumber we got from the Sarlenzia Trading Company.

Since the RV was about as large as a house at this point, we had to focus on keeping it sturdy in case we ever got attacked. Starting with an eoriant and voldunna metal skeleton, we then added the logs, adding a coating of voldunna paint on it afterward to act as a fire retardant. Since both the grove treant and barkwraith materials could regenerate themselves using mana, we also had a way to restore any damage so long as the whole RV didn’t disappear completely.

The grey voldunna paint gave the RV a pretty approachable outer shell, while the inside felt rustic. We haven’t added any colors yet, so it was still the same brown wood color everywhere. With no rugs, posters, or whatever, our home did feel a bit barren. Simple.

On the second floor, four single-person beds were gathered together in the furthest corner from the stairs. This was Aurora’s female quarters, equipped with a bath and toilet hidden behind some curtains enchanted with a noise-canceling rune. Aside from obvious stuff like a drawer, some chairs, and a table, there was also a bookshelf for Saori’s books, a desk to work on spells and songs, our garden, Tasianna’s alchemist bench, and a clean stand for Ellaine’s armor. There were also three windows. It made our rooms a bit cramped, but we still had enough space to move around freely.

Going downstairs, I saw Ellaine who was currently being trained by Grimnir to become an artificer while Saori was cooking our lunch by an open window. As the news of those dragonslayers appearing in Cedaraille was so sudden, we hadn’t had any time to eat when we departed. Technically, we hadn’t said goodbye to either the duke, the hunter’s guild, or to Newt Sarlenzia, so I felt a bit bad if they suddenly were worried about us.

Anyways, the first floor was where Aurora’s major facilities were. We had a small kitchen with a counter for everybody to eat to enjoy their meals, Ellaine’s artificer workstation, and Grimnir’s smithy for his blacksmithing and runesmithing duty, the last of which took up the most space occupying the whole back of the RV.

To prevent fires, the walls and floors surrounding his smithy were covered with rocks he mined on floor 15. We initially wanted to add a wall there; however, had we done it, the whole floor would’ve been too cramped. We were already lacking in space. We wanted to make the RV even longer to solve this, but it just wasn’t practical. For example, if we wanted to bake something, I had to take it out of my storage and do it outside, since it couldn’t fit inside the RV.

There was also the issue with Grimnir’s bed. He was currently sleeping inside his smithy, with all his ores stashed inside a single large barrel and a bath right next to it, linked with the one upstairs. There was also limited space for him to place his future creations, after all, Grimnir did show some interest in opening up an armor and weapon shop for the public. We wanted to commit to this idea. After all, this RV was originally his shop also.

At this point, I don’t know how often I’ve mentioned how little space we still had left. We could still move around comfortably, thankfully. Considering further improvements, excluding adding more space, we also had to add some decorations to liven up the place in addition to adding certain manatechs.

We still had to get rid of toilet waste manually and Tasianna had to fill up our baths with water by herself. We planned to copy the bath Ellaine’s mansion in Firwood had, which meant some slimes for the toilet and a manatech which created water using mana for anybody to use. We also needed manatech light bulbs to replace our candles. Since the cost for all of this was quite high, Saori was hoping Ellaine could produce some of them on her own so we could save money.

In any case, that was our RV’s interior. On the first floor, we also had two doors: one in the back leading out from Grimnir’s smithy and one next to Ellaine’s workbench to the right. I opened the latter, jumping out and spreading my wings and used [Tailwind]. Closing the door, I then flew up to the roof of the RV, looking down to watch the four garms moving everything.

Of course, despite me calling it an RV, it was still a wagon. It had no motor and had to be drawn by equerochs, Peolynca’s horse and bull hybrid, or by another pack animal. In our case, it was the garms.

Initially very reluctant to do so, as it was beneath them, the garms seemed to have warmed up to the idea in the short time we were outside. We had only just left Cedaraille, so it was a quick opinion change. The reason was they actually had a reason to stay outside Saori’s shadow. Since the garms were [Shadow Garm]s, they practically could stay inside Saori’s shadow forever, outside of eating and going to the toilet. Only two wolves were needed to drag the wagon, but all four were enjoying the fresh air.

Wolves love going outside. It shouldn’t have been that much of a surprise.

I then looked into the distance, and then behind me. Only the road, the forest, and the sky were in sight. Small animals and critters scrambled around us, living their lives as we peacefully moved down the streets. My [Detection Sensor] wasn’t picking up any larger targets, nor could I smell any humans or beastmen. Luckily, it seemed as if the dragonslayers weren't pursuing us just yet.

We’ve been moving for a while now, evident as no civilization was in sight. Cedaraille was hidden behind all the trees and our destination, Griffonpeak, was still a few days away. Considering I could technically fly now, I wondered how long it would take me from here to Griffonpeak on my own as I stared into the sky.

Considering Yorshka’s suggestion, I’ve decided to stay in my [Humanization Lv. 6] form. In short, it meant I would leave my wings out for everybody to see. Honestly, I was unable to hide my excitement of finally being able to fly again, albeit, my enthusiasm was scuffed since I needed my scale-dust and [Tailwind] to do it. Still, who cares, I can fly!

Deciding to play with the garms, I settled on the coachman seat and spent my time there until Saori was finished with lunch. We then parked the RV at an open area beside the road and began to find a spot for a picnic. Ellaine and Grimnir, who were still focused on artificer stuff, told us to go on before them, deciding they wanted to finish their current task before eating.

Considering they were using Grimnir’s blasthammer mana batteries as practice material, repairing them back into a usable condition, I guess the work was causing them to tunnel vision. Seeing Ellaine so dedicated to her work really motivated me to continue writing some more songs when we finally reached Griffonpeak. The capital city of Artorias not only had a dungeon, but also an opera. It was the perfect place for Aurora to spend some time while Ellaine solved her academy problem and went through the griffon knight initiation process.

Our RV might have been impossible to move without the aid of some strong pack animals, but we still haven’t added any security measures against bandits or thieves stealing our stuff. We moved away from the RV, but not too far so we couldn’t see it anymore.

This reminded me a bit of a certain death march light novel. No harem lord here, though.

Fire Mushroom Curry with Slazzanbal Meat

A spicy dish made using [Amoorash Mushroom]s and the meat of a slazzanbal type monster. Toffels and milk was added into this dish, making the spiciness milder, but still very strong

“This curry can give Indian and Thai curries a run for their money. The roots are spicy and the mushrooms themselves are super spicy. These are stronger than normal peppers, but milder than those with higher scoville,” Saori commented on her curry. Strangely, everybody in Aurora enjoyed spicy food.

The pain caused by spicy food was enjoyable for Saori and me, Tasianna, an ice mage, liked it as it warmed her body up, Ellaine’s gourmet, noble palette could be satisfied if the food was well made, and Grimnir enjoyed eating it with alcohol. As we brought a whole keg with us to this picnic, he should be happy.

Of course, there were other dishes, but this was Saori’s newest creation. An addition to Aurora’s menu for the spice lovers. Eating the curry with some rice really made me happy. What’s more, nothing bad has happened for over two weeks now. I mean, we spent two weeks without any issues or conflicts. Usually, with our party’s luck, we would usually have run into some trouble by now.

I mean, in Firwood, we spent about two months there, but in that time, we always had to deal with something serious. Cedaraille was peaceful for some time before a giant fire-breathing spider broke through a cave and tried to destroy it. Rather ironic, since so many people on Earth want to burn spiders just cause they look scary. Jokes on them, in Peolynca, the spiders set you on fire.

So, it really was awesome that we can just enjoy a meal like this witho—

“Huh?” [Detection Sensor] was acting weirdly, informing me something was approaching us at an incredible speed, like, breathtakingly fast. What could—

“Spread out!” Saori shouted, throwing the bowl she had in her hands on the ground. Without questioning her command for even a second, Tasianna, her four garms, and I listened and jumped far away from our picnic spot, only to see a massive electric stake ram into the area and explode.

The crackling of lightning reverberated inside our ears as all of this happened, only ending once the dust cloud was hanging around. Not only was that attack so fast we barely were able to react to it, but it had the destructive power of one of my explosions. Not only our lunch, but also the trees and grass vaporized into black ash.

[“No flames, no misleading scent from your scale powder. It was an easy find this time…”]

This scent!

My nose was agitated. Memories of something happening a few months back rushed through my head, a reaction caused purely by this familiar scent. Last time, I wasn’t able to fully register it, since my head was more occupied with just surviving and living through it. However, this scent did not have that “sweetness” Cernust, Priscilla, or Yorshka had. It unnerved me greatly.

“Shit!”

From behind the dust cloud, a green-haired dragonewt man with a broken horn appeared before us, wearing a neat emerald-scaled suit. His appearance was that of a clean-shaven man in his early thirties. His emerald eyes were glaring only at me, sending a chill down my spine as I took a step back.

[“Hmm, the smell has gotten even more prominent than before. Hmm, the smell is coming from that wolfkin? Interesting.”] He stared at Saori for a split second before returning his gaze back to me. It was at this moment when Saori and Tasianna sent their own telepathic message to me, asking if he was speaking to me.

This behavior!

[“Astalos?”] My eyes widened when I made that realization, causing the dragonewt man before me to grin.

[“You remembered me, Princess Hestia Atsuko, no, Princess Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor. What an honor.”] Every word entering my head through this telepathic link was terrifying, as if some creeping dread was slowly corrupting my mind. I could feel… anger. [“God Kargryxmor…he has rescinded my Divine Quest. He has revoked my duty to escort you to him.”]

Mana Eyes!

Profile:

Name: Astalos

Level: 123

Race:   Lightning Dragonewt

Age: 154 Years

Job: None

Status:

Health:

10649/10649

Mana:

4612/4612

Strength:

3760

Intelligence:

3567

Vitality:

3311

Wisdom:

3270

Agility:

4977

Stamina:

7457/7457

Effects:

[Damaged Mana Path [Horn] (Moderate)] [Humanization (Moderate)]

Unique Skill:

[Lightning Revolt Lv. 10] [Lightning Rod] [Boltreaving Blade Lv. 4]

[Electromagnetic Barrier Lv. 3]

Skill:

Magic skills and related:

[Mana Control Lv. 9] [Arcane Mind Lv. 6] [Mana Efficiency Lv. 8]

[Fire Magic Lv. 10] [Fire Amp] [Fire Magic Efficiency]

[Inferno Magic Lv. 2]

[Wind Magic Lv. 10] [Wind Amp] [Wind Magic Efficiency]

[Storm Magic Lv. 7] [Lightning Magic Lv. 8]

[Silent Casting Lv. 1] [Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 2]

[Mental Stability Lv. 6] [Mental Warfare Lv. 7]

Physical skills and related:

[Dragonkin Claws Lv. 6] [Dragonkin Fangs Lv. 7]

[Toxic Claws Lv. 6] [Sundering Enhancement Lv. 9]

[Piercing Enhancement Lv. 5] [Crushing Enhancement Lv. 7]

Senses and movement skills:

[Stealth Lv. 3] [Accuracy Correction Lv. 7]

[Concentration Lv. 6]

[Foresight Lv. 3] [Danger Perception Lv. 8]

[Probability Correction Lv. 6] [Detection Sensor Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 7] [Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 8]

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 10] [Tracking Lv. 8] [Night Vision Lv. 10]

[Presence Killer Lv. 3] [Evasion Lv. 10] [Acrobatic Lv. 10]

[Air Walk Lv. 4] [High-Speed Aerial Tempo Lv. 4]

[High-Wind Maneuvering Specialist Lv. 5]

[Superior Aerial Fighter Lv. 2]

Resistances:

[Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 4] [Absolute Pain Tolerance]

[Bleeding Resistance Lv. 10] [Poison Resistance Lv. 6]

[Paralyzation Resistance Lv. 9] [Torpor Resistance Lv. 7]

[Arcane Corruption Resistance Lv. 7]

[Fear Resistance Lv. 5] [Lightning Resistance Lv. 9] [Fire Resistance Lv. 8]

[Earth Resistance Lv. 3] [Storm Resistance Lv. 4]

[Water Resistance Lv. 7] [Dark Resistance Lv. 3]

Stat growths and related:

[Health Recovery Lv. 6] [Mana Recovery Lv. 7] [Stamina Recovery Lv. 9]

[Enhanced Health Growth Lv. 8]

[Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Mana Growth Lv. 9]

[Enhanced Mana Capacity Lv. 7]

[Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 8]

[Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Intelligence Growth Lv. 7]

[Enhanced Intelligence Enforcement Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 3]

[Speed of Sound Lv. 3]

[Steadfast Endurance Lv. 1]

Others:

[Profile Protection Lv. 2] [Eye of the System Lv. 2]

[Noble Aura Lv. 1] [Terror Aura Lv. 8] [Warrior’s Mind Lv. 2]

[Leadership Lv. 2] [Starvation Lv. 10] [Thought Acceleration Lv. 2]

[Body Temperature Control Lv. 7] [Humanize Lv. 10] [Telepathy]

Information Blocked

Shit, it’s still blocked!

Astalos, the [Boltreaver Wyvern], was a B rank wyvern who was tasked by God Kargryxmor to escort me out of the Belzac forest and lead me to him. That was Astalos’s and his two companions’ duty. However, when they were about to fulfill this Quest, a group from the grimgarian army attacked us, shooting Astalos down with a mana cannon and giving Saori, Tasianna, and I an opening for us to escape to Artorias.

I knew we would meet someday again, but I did not expect it to be like this. When the time came, I wanted to be far stronger than I currently was to make this into a cakewalk. However, apparently, by commenting on our peaceful time, I set up this flag. Scheiße.

After hearing what Astalos had to say, I wanted to respond to him, but I was keeping my guard up so much I couldn’t speak.

Astalos, without waiting on me, continued speaking using [Telepathy], not even attempting to use his dragonewt mouth to speak. [“…A level up. I am missing two levels to become an A rank. I have been waiting for so long. The Divine Quest was to give me those needed levels, levels to make me worthy compared to a true dragon. To have our God recognize me as somebody worthy!”]

[“Hestia, this guy… he has the eyes of a madman!”] Saori informed me after I sent her what Astalos told me.

[“I will fulfill this Quest. To Avitor Peaks. Princess Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor, you will come with me to meet God Kargryxmor!”]

I had expected that kinda response so I replied to him to soothe him a little bit, to prevent this situation from escalating. [“Astalos, I apologize for running away last time. The situation was just very hectic.”] It wasn’t an actual lie, but our group did run away with the intention of escaping from him. [“However, I have received information from Goddess Aurena that I should go to Griffonpeak, a human city very close to here. There I will speak with God Kargryxmor. If possible, if you could escort us—”]

[“Lies!”] However, Astalos interrupted me before I could finish my sentence. [“Lies! You tell me lies! You hold me for a fool! To lure me into the lair of those lowly beings, to then ambush me when I am at my most vulnerable. Those damn greenskins… my precious horn! That detestable ogre! It dared to attack me and break my horn! No! No! You will not bring me into another situation like that, trickster!”]

His [Terror Aura] began to grow, kicking my instincts into action. I had a bad feeling, and it grew to its peak with his next words.

[“I know. I know. Everything fell apart because of them. These two lowly beings! They tricked you, urged you to rebel against our God’s orders. You are but a whelp, albeit a strong whelp fitting for a true dragon with the blood of God Kargryxmor himself. You are destined for greatness, but are held back by these unworthy beings. You tried to trick me. They influenced your naive mind.”] Electricity began surging from Astalos’ body, and his eyes snapped towards Saori, showing her his full focus. [“They lured me into that trap. They broke my precious horn. They shall become my experience.”]

Die!

[Humanized (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko]

Flames exploded from my wings like a bazooka, shooting me straight towards Astalos and dispelling the mana mist which transformed me back into my lizardman-like dragonewt form. Using [Infernal Hellblade]’s Job skill [Instant Heat Ignition], my tail burst into searing fire without needing to sharpen it on anything. Like a swirling tornado, my body twisted mid-air before it fully stopped as my tail sliced right into Astalos’ forearm, breaking his scales and digging itself deep into it.

“Arrrrghhhh!” Astalos screamed, but that was when the electricity surrounding his body began to attack me like [Sanctified Blaze]’s automatic attack feature. His unique skill, [Electromagnetic Barrier] was at fault, but I simply glanced over it, relying on my [Draconic Barrier] and [White Flames] to keep my topped up in Health.

By the black wings of dread, created by corrupting flames

Sear into their flesh, sunder their bones, turn their blood into noxious filth

Melt their bodies with purple flames, crystalize their remains in stygian obsidian

Make way for the angel of blight, let it hear your cries for mercy!

Unheilige Engel!

Custom spell gained: [Unheilige Engel]

A brown magic circle appeared at the edge of my eyes, quickly materializing a floating purple slime about the size of my body, all while Astalos’ expression was turning from crazy to confused. Without giving him a second to think, the purple slime solidified itself into a pair of skeleton-like obsidian wings, and dove into Astalos.

This attack wasn’t able to penetrate the electric barrier around him, however, I was able to free my tail blade from his arm, pushing him away from me. I quickly used [Panzer] to fortify my body before using [Dragoon Jump] with [Air Walk] to catapult myself forward, bypassing Astalos’ delayed reaction from my surprise attack, and striking another deep gash into his body, this time on his collarbone.

“Arrrrghhhh!!!” My surprise attack was a success, buying me enough time to deal some critical damage on Astalos’ body before he could react, but nothing good can last forever. When Astalos’ instincts finally activated, the lightning current surrounding his body became stronger, to the point I could feel the pricking on my scales just from standing near him.

Using [Wind Blast], [Tailwind], and my rocket boosters, I blasted myself out of harm’s way before the electric explosion could harm me. In the air, I quickly removed my party bracelet and placed it into my storage. This was not a battle I could allow myself to hold back.

When I landed, Astalos’s face contorted like an enraged beast’s as he glared at me. [“Y-You dare set another ambush on me?! You cowardly little skink!”]

[“Fuck you, too. You call what I did cowardly, I call it a necessity for survival. I had to survive on surprise attacks up until I became strong enough to confront enemies head on. Hmph, thankfully, I never forgot about it.”] It didn't matter if Astalos’s stats were high, I was still a bit of a glass cannon with a lot of skills to boost my attack instead of my defenses. [“Also, this is your problem. Just like last time, you wanted to separate me from my friends — my family — so much you triggered me! Last time, I didn’t have the strength to confront you, but now… I have Aurora.”]

[“You-HUH?!”]

Without a single warning, from Astalos’s right side, a different sorta lightning crackling could be heard before it exploded into a wolf’s howl, tearing through the ground as Saori’s [Hadean Dragon Thunder] consumed Astalos’ whole body in a black colored railgun beam. The sound of the wyvern’s cries only lasted for a second before a sword of electricity shot out from the stream of stygian lightning, splitting it apart and dissipating it.

[“E-Electricity damaged me?! Me?! A monster created to dominate the thunder?! H-How?!”] Astalos was baffled, unable to understand that Saori’s attack dealt dark elemental damage, not lightning. With his puny [Dark Resistance Lv. 3], he was highly susceptible.

As he was recovering from the black lightning conflicting with his own, a cyan-colored magic circle suddenly appeared under his feet before a magical blizzard began ravaging Astalos. The cold air inside the magic circle froze into sharp spears, launching themselves at Astalos. They broke apart, unable to pierce Astalos’s barrier, but the cold was definitely having an effect on him as he quickly cast the inferno spell [Blazing Twister] to surround himself like a protective veil.

Tasianna’s custom spell [Ice Age’s Paradise], however, did not appreciate this flaming tornado. Instantly, ice and fire clashed, causing steam to rise from the circle. It eventually got to the point the whole area was surrounded by a smokescreen.

The three of us knew; a battle was incoming.

Humanization.

Mana mist escaped my body, transforming me back into my dragon form. To my sides, Saori was flanking my left in her fenrir form with her garms while Tasianna flew next to me with two pairs of wings, one was her fairy wings while the other was made from ice using the spells [Fairy of Winter]. Using her newly acquired ice spell, she also constructed a golem made from ice with [Winter’s Golem].

As Tasianna’s [Ice Age’s Paradise] dissipated, Astalos revealed himself from the steam, finally back in his wyvern form. His dragonewt form had already reminded me of him, but in his original form, it made me remember my embarassing loss.

[“I have had enough! Blast you, you skink! I will drag your body back to God Kargryxmor, even if I have to do it with—”] Once again, before Astalos could finish speaking, something interrupted him. This time, it was a small blue cube. The moment it touched Astalos’ electric barrier, it exploded, leaving another scar on the ground.

“I apologize for being late! I had to equip my armor.” Ellaine appeared, shining brightly in her crimson armor, pointing her upgraded sword in Astalos’ direction. “This enemy… urgh, it feels strong.”

“Enough with the trepidation, lass. We have battle to do.” Grimnir, appearing last, smacked Ellaine’s back to encourage her before swinging his blasthammer over his shoulder. The loss of his previous armor in his fight with the volchark forced Grimnir to use a spare set of armor he had in reserve.

After asking me for permission, he used some of the remaining scales, fur, and spider material to reforge the armor, upgrading it in the process. Unfortunately, it did not have as many powerful skills as Ellaine’s armor; however, Grimnir’s new set of armor was designed to increase his defense to the point he could act as the party’s tank.

Dragon, fenrir, fairy, human, and dwarf.

Hestia, Saori, Tasianna, Ellaine, and Grimnir.

This was Aurora.

“Grrrrr.” As you would expect, Astalos didn’t receive any damage from that attack, but it seemed to have angered him even more. The time for talk was over.

What a huge difference.

Last time, Astalos was aided by two snow wyverns while I only had Saori and Tasianna. At that time, when I was trying to turn my [Imperial Hellfire] into a spell, it fizzled out and failed as a spell.

However, how was the situation looking now?

By the sanctified blaze, I call upon the heaven’s aid

Sacred is the fire which burns the tainted and heals the wounded

In this inferno, righteousness shall reign supreme, enchanting goddess’s army with pure blades

Strike forth, for the saintess is on your side. In the light of faith, burn the blight from the world!

Sanctified Blaze: Halo of Consecration!

Custom spell gained: [Sanctified Blaze: Halo of Consecration]

A pure white, flaming halo appeared on my head as the white magic circle disappeared after my chant. The area around me began to emanate a holy aura, displaying its outer ring with white flames. Flames suddenly enveloped Ellaine’s and Grimnir’s weapons like a paladin’s enchantment, burning on them like purifying light. Magic circles for [Sanctified Blaze] began appearing on everybody’s bodies, removing my need to cast it on them separately.

My allies have grown while yours are gone. None of my new spells fizzled out, they’re working just as I wanted them to.

[Music Resonation (Moderate)] [Sanctified Blaze] [Various Spell Buffs] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

[The Will to Fight and Survive] began to play, signaling the countdown to the second round of this revenge match. My wings of obsidian transformed back into a formless slime while small flames blasted from my real wings.

[“Aurora! It is time to shine!”]

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 193: Boltreaver’s Revenge.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Lightning Revolt

The racial skill of the [Boltreaving Dragon], enabling the owner to turn mana into electric currents. This electricity is stored inside their scales before being released. A huge amount of mana may transform into electricity at once, supercharging the electric organ inside the [Boltreaving Dragon] and transforming the green lightning into blue, increasing all stats

Lightning Rod

Lightning from any source is attracted to the user, streaming towards them by themselves and through the user’s mana. If the user’s [Lightning Resistance] is superior compared to the lightning source, they will transform this electricity into Health, Mana, and Stamina

Boltreaving Blade

A skill that grants the ability to channel mana into potent electricity around their bodies, forming them into any shape they wish. The power for this skill is determined by a combination of [Lightning Magic]’s and [Boltreaving Blade]’s levels

Electromagnetic Barrier

The scales of the user allow the smooth flow of electricity without losing much energy, granting them a magnetic push. This electromagnetic barrier can only be deployed around areas of surging lightning

Notable features: Sharp wings with claws on them, probably can be used for slicing and smashing, although flimsy. A pincer-like tail, can grab things probably. His horn-like crest is broken, but looking at how he tore through Saori’s Dragon Thunder, he can probably still use it well enough. Dangerous. Very Dangerous.

Let’s go! Hellflame Breath! Corrosive Fire!

Without letting another second fly past, I ground my teeth together to create a spark, igniting a fire inside my mouth. Using mana to enlarge it, I then unleashed this flame at Astalos. [Corrosive Fire] had already changed my crimson fire into purple; in a sense, this was a toxic breath attack.

Now completely focused, unlike during my surprise attack, Astalos was no longer underestimating us. He roared at me before coating his legs and wings with electricity, before flapping the latter to send him into the air, avoiding my breath attack.

In response, my scale-dust exploded under the scales of my wings, launching me forward to bodycheck Astalos into multiple trees, snapping them into pieces as I drove him deeper into the woods. “Get him away from the RV,” was part of the reason for this action, but I also wanted to give the rest of my party enough time to prepare and maybe form a plan to take this monster down. Unfortunately, the moment we left the ground was when Astalos could take advantage of his smaller size.

I used to be shorter than Astalos when I was still a [Young Spark Inferno Dragon]. Now, however? After evolving, I was far larger than him. This old scale was around the size of a taller elephant — he was slightly taller than Saori as a reference — while I was about the size of a mammoth. Dragging him along by using my size advantage was effective, but my plan had a small hitch - my larger size didn’t change the fact that Astalos was the better dogfighter.

As I was feeling electricity around his body bombarding me, Astalos smacked his left wing right at my right shoulder, causing an electric explosion that disrupted my balance in the air. This enabled Astalos to free himself before using his pincer-like tail to grab my right wing and slam it on the ground, causing me to completely lose my ability to fly and crash land on the ground.

[Mana Eyes] already gave me an idea of how proficient he was as a flyer, so I knew that it would do me no good to fight him in the air. This was the power of information. Sadly, the same applied to Astalos, who had an improved version of [Identify] in the form of [Eye of the System]. It would be prudent to fight as if he already knew my abilities.

Krak!

As my body was still flailing about on the ground, large amounts of electric crackling resounded from above me. I couldn’t see what was happening, but both my [Perception] and [Danger Perception] were warning me about an impending attack. I did not react for now, simply letting [Sanctified Blaze: Halo of Consecration] heal my scratches as I continued listening to the sounds of lightning.

Krak!!

Krak!!!

Now! Dreadflare Aura!

The moment I recovered from the fall and jumped back on my feet, extreme heat exploded from my body, detonating some of my scale-dust to release an aura of deadly fire. Looking in the direction of the crackling, I could see Astalos covered in green lightning, stopping himself before the aura reached him. As he hovered around at the perimeter of how far I wanted [Dreadflare Aura] to go, I activated my halo’s secondary effect.

Sanctified Blaze: Halo of Consecration

A [Sanctified Blaze] variant spell, using the fire of [White Flames] as its base. Creates a halo above the caster, acting as a signal fire to lure allies into an aura of beneficial flames. Automatically cast [Sanctified Blaze] and coats their weapons in [White Flames] on all allies. Additionally, the caster may intensify the halo’s flames, sending waves of consecrated flares at enemies, ignoring all allies

Inspired by the fact [Omnictus] would inflict different amounts of damage depending on if a friend or foe was caught in it, I believed I could do something similar with my [White Flames]. They could become cool enough to not hurt anybody, and if my song spells could differentiate between allies and enemies, I could do the same for my custom spells.

The moment the flames on my halo grew, I deactivated my [Dreadflare Aura] and white flames began spewing around me endlessly like a fountain. Astalos, not anticipating this attack, was blasted by sacred flames piercing through his barrier. Unlike my [Draconic Barrier], intangible attacks made using mana, like fire or holy spells, was something I believed should have worked on him. Fortunately, my assumption was correct.

Panzer!

Recasting [Panzer] to cover my dragon body in purple armor and ignoring the fact I set another forest on fire, I used [Unheilige Engel] to launch the offense. The purple slime hovering behind me like a pair of sludge wings once again solidified into jagged obsidian wings, before morphing into three long spiky tendrils.

Like a gatling gun, the three long spikes began to send a barrage of attacks at Astalos, pushing him back as he struggled to get rid of the white flames. Now that I could inflict [Dread Burn] after buying [Fire Abnormality Effect: Dread], any flame damage I inflicted prevented Astalos from healing his wounds, meaning the two gashes I landed on him while he was a dragonewt were still there. Now, I needed to weaken him with my toxins.

Now, with [Poison Resistance Lv. 6], he was decently resistant against moderate toxins. [Panzer] could poison you with touch, but when I sliced into his shoulder with a [Panzer]-covered tail slash, he didn’t get poisoned, sadly. [Unheilige Engel], on the other hand, was a stubborn, semi-manual spell my parallel minds could give a command to and it would follow it through until a new one was issued, kind of like a poison slime-golem. Astalos’ barrier was blocking the spikes from landing, but this opened up an opportunity for me.

Using the burning ground to sharpen and heat my tail through friction, I activated my boosters and sent myself flying up in a spiral. Astalos immediately dodged this attack, enduring through waves of white flames erupting from my halo. I then sensed another attack. This time, it came from Astalos’s tail.

The pincer widened and revealed a group of emerald scales filled with electricity, firing a small scale as if shot from electric railgun. The speed of this attack was near-instantaneous, making it impossible for me to dodge the attack in my current position. As the laser broke through my armor and shaved some scales from my sides, I regretted not dodging the second I saw his tail move.

Like before, this attack sent my [Tailwind] out of control, unbalancing me. Astalos, noticing this, cast his own [Tailwind] and began to speed up his flight around the area. As I dropped back down to the ground, I was able to see Astalos’s horn grow larger and crackle with more electricity. [Danger Perception] and [Prediction] were warning me he was about to attack, but neither of these two skills could tell me from which direction.

As I anxiously snapped my neck around, trying my very best to follow up with Astalos’ movements with all my current buffing spells. When he appeared more or less like a flash of thunder zapping around, I began to understand how problematic fighting against a speedster was. The only move I had was to activate [Dreadflare Aura] and surround the area with [Scale-Dust Veil], relying on the fiery field to dissuade Astalos from attacking.

By the time I finally was able to pinpoint his location, it was already too late.

At the very edge of my eyes, a massive spear of thunder was thrown at me, detonating all my scale-dust on its way. Although the explosions shrouded the javelin, the speed it was moving was just impossible to react to.

“Kraaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!” I cried out in pain.

It huuurts!

[Dreadflare Aura], [Panzer], [Draconic Barrier]; none of these defensive measures were able to stop this attack. Blood was dripping from the wound as the spear lodged inside my stomach. I could feel my organs being ravaged by my [Dreadflare Aura], begging intensely for me to stop boiling them alive. When I did what my pain receptors were telling me, the lightning spear disappeared and white flames and healing spells began to heal the hole in my body up, but this left me vulnerable.

Without another sound, a shadow appeared above me, accompanied by the very same crackling of lightning from before. When I looked up, I saw Astalos flapping his wings. On his head was a massive blade of thunder.

And he swung it at me like an executioner.

[Bleeding (Minor)] [Broken Right Wing (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Krraaaaaaaaahhh!!!”

“Kriiieeghhhh!!!”

Two roars erupted in the woods. One was mine as none of my previously mentioned defensive options could not protect me from this attack; fortunately, as I had anticipated an attack like this, my legs were already moving. Still, it was far too close. Just a millisecond longer and I would have probably lost my entire right wing. It was fortunate I managed to escape with only a broken wing and part of my back sliced up

Now, the second roar came from Astalos himself. No, I did not injure him with a counterattack, it was impossible for me to set something up after what happened. It wasn’t even a physical or magical attack; instead, it was mental.

“Kriiieeghhhh!!!” Astalos continued to struggle, holding his head with his two wings.

From the corners of this area, four “Wrooooooh!!!”s echoed around the area, following with five groups of [Dark Tendrils] bursting from under the wyvern’s shadow, grabbing his feet and pulling him back onto the ground. A giant ice golem jumped out from the woods, on top of it was an elven woman in a maid’s outfit, cooling down the flaming trees to allow the golem to slam Astalos on the ground.

[“Grk! W-What took you guys so long?”] I forced myself to send that telepathic message towards a group of five giant wolves and an elven woman with two pairs of wings.

[“Figuring out a plan in the first place.”] That voice was from none other than Saori, fully clad in her [Shadow Armament] while stygian lightning was surging around her fenrir form. [“Ellaine, Grimnir, now!”]

A human girl and a dwarven man armored in crimson armor revealed themself from behind trees, materializing giant [Bedrock Blades] to crash into Astalos after the golem moved away and throwing a few of my firebombs at him, respectively.

“Kriiaaghh!” Astalos cried out again, whether it was from the damage the two were inflicting or due to what the garms were doing to him.

Mental overload using [Telepathy] was a basic hunting tactic the wargs and garms of Belzac used to hunt down larger prey. It was essentially a psychological attack by flooding your brain with junk telepathic messages, ranging from shouts to incomprehensible gibberish or even to threats. This was the same move these garms used on Saori when they were still onnikais. [Absolute Pain Tolerance] may make physical pain tolerable, but it did nothing to help with mental anguish.

“Ueehhh!” However, suddenly all four garms yelped out loud, showing pained expressions.

[“Intolerable little insects!”] Astalos wings spread out, cladding them in green lightning before using them to slice Ellaine’s [Bedrock Blades] like swords. A purple magic circle then appeared behind him, casting the [Lightning Magic Lv. 5] spell [Overload].

Overload

Supercharges the caster’s body with magical electricity, significantly increasing the caster’s Intelligence, Agility, and Mana Regeneration at the cost of Health while this spell was active

Astalos was shining brightly like a bulb, roaring haughtily as the spell activated, before he stopped and stood still like a statue, eyes widening in astonishment. [“M-My healing?! Why am I not healing?! My wounds aren’t closing!”]

Got’cha!

[Lightning Rod], one of Astalos’ unique skills prevented him from being damaged by lightning; instead, that element healed him. Due to this effect, it synergized perfectly with [Overload], nullifying the spell’s health drain while still benefitting from its buffs in addition to healing him due to the spell. However, [Dread Burn] was the ace here. Nobody besides my allies and I were allowed to “heal tank” while I was around.

I might have mentioned Astalos could have seen my profile; unfortunately for him, without something like parallel minds or accelerated thinking, looking at a super long profile with so many different skills, abilities, spells, and titles was a nightmare in a fast-paced battle like this. Even the descriptions of my skills were as long as an established trading card game’s effect details! Picking out the effects of Dread Burn when it had been merged into another skill? Might as well be looking for a needle in a haystack.

Smirking as he fell for this simple mistake, I increased my halo’s effective range while continuing shooting out the consecrated flames. It buffeted Astalos while keeping [Dread Burn] active on him while helping out my allies.

[“Hestia, the plan is simple. You and Grimnir will be the frontline. Whatever you do, stall him and prevent him from attacking either Tasianna or me. We will provide the damage. No complaints, hopefully?”] I agreed. [“Ellaine will provide support using earth and wind spells with the help of the garms. Displacements, crowd control, protection. You and Grimnir need to go all out with holding the line.”]

I was honestly a bit worried that Saori was putting Grimnir in a perilous position here. Astalos was actually a tough opponent, actually High Ogre tier of dangerous. No, the difference in stats and levels was too much between them, and Astalos was even faster than me. Maybe he was even stronger?

I need to get my shit together. Purple Flash! Symphonie des Feuergottes!

After some time with [Major Heal] and my halo’s healing, my wounds closed up and my wing was fixed, I dashed back into the fight, signaling the second round of this battle.

Astalos, having regained his composure, activated his lightning around his feet, destroying the [Dark Tendrils] Saori and her garm cast on him. Before he could do anything though, a blue magic circle under his feet, materializing a giant ball of water around him and imprisoning him in the [Water Magic Lv. 9] spell [Aqua Prison]. Water might be tangible, but it took a while for his [Electromagnetic Barrier] to counter it; Saori and Tasianna had already caught onto this fact.

Astalos struggled inside this sphere, using his thunder to blast pieces of the ball away to liberate himself. The moment he was free again, white flames crashed onto his body again, blocking his sight of me.

Now, of course, I knew he could still sense me with [Detection Sensor] and [Prediction]. However, that was okay.

Unheilige Engel, it is time!

There were three states [Unheilige Engel] could be in: solid obsidian, purple slime, and… corrosive liquid.

Unheilige Engel

The venomous wings of the unholy angel descend upon the foes of the owner of [Corrosive Fire], carrying with them a virulent purple flame. A spell able to morph itself into three states: obsidian, sludge, and viscous liquid. The composition of toxins inside this spell may be changed using [Corrosive Fire]’s effect, lighting these purple wings on fire. Can be controlled by the user remotely, however, mana cost will increase the further away it is

The features of my [Corrosive Fire] were obvious to me by now. If I heated my purple flames high enough before cooling them down, they start to turn into a slime before finally transforming into obsidian if the purple flames suddenly turn yellow. Since the loss of my [Toxin Secretion], Saori has been using the sludge version of this fire to complement her attack strategy. However, there was one form I’ve been neglecting ever since: its liquid form created whenever I’m sweating.

“Unheilige Engel,” German for “Unholy Angel,” was my idea to easily use the different forms of [Corrosive Fire] without having to do the necessary heating and cooling to produce the different states. In addition, I also thought the idea of swamping my enemies in a bath of toxic purple water was a pretty boss-like move. Also, a bit heinous of me, to be fair.

The obsidian tendrils I left my [Unheilige Engel] in quickly transformed into a thick, deathly-looking, violet liquid, before coating my whole tail in it. I somersaulted into the air, swinging my tail down similar to how Astalos did it. As you might expect, Astalos was able to react to it in time, having already moved away from me slightly with his wings flapping. With how I was moving, I would not be able to hit him…

…well, not fairly at least.

Shine!

One of my first spells; an intensely bright light suddenly erupted from the tip of my wing, blinding everybody in the area, which included my allies and Astalos. Only I, with my head hidden behind my body, wasn't blinded by it.

Astalos roared out, flinching and increasing the intensity of his lightning to improve [Electromagnetic Barrier]’s effect. In for a penny, in for a pound! Small amounts of damage were irrelevant to me with all my healing and while I’m under the sun.

I was a sunfang dragon!

When his green lightning began to sizzle my scales, I clenched my teeth and used [Wind Blast] to further increase the striking power of my tail slash. When I made contact, Astalos’ defenses could not withstand my attack.

“KRIAAAAAghhhh!” He damaged my wing, I cut his off. Like a curtain to my attack, [Symphonie des Feuergottes] finally activated, blasting a waterfall of flames onto me and Astalos. I managed to prevent it from flooding the whole area, endangering everybody else from Aurora, leaving only Astalos and myself to enjoy the inferno.

[Symphonie des Feuergottes (Allegro)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Solar Beam!

Using [Detection Sensor], I blasted a concentrated beam of solar energy at my enemy. Sadly, he somehow managed to dodge it and escaped from my flaming waterfall. The scale-dust under my scales still exploded from [Solar Beam], putting me into my overdrive mode. The moment the inferno ended, however? What came into view was Astalos struggling to defend himself from the assault from my teammates.

With Ellaine’s help, the garms had thrown a black mana thread net over him, enabling Saori to send streams of black lightning to ravage Astalos’s body. Ice blades and beams of metal-piercing water commanded by Tasianna kept Astalos inside the net, preventing him from getting out of it. Grimnir, using my halo’s effect of enchanting weapons with white fire, swung his hammer around, shooting blasts of fire at Astalos like projectiles. I didn’t even know that was possible!

When I leered at him with nearly all my buffs activated, Astalos’ eyes turned blood red, channeling green lightning around his body under the constant barrage of attacks. As if he was mimicking me, his body went into its own version of overdrive, causing his scales to protrude like miniature lightning rods as a constraint stream of blue lightning had turned his emerald scales into aquamarine.

A blue lightning blade on his horn sliced the net like a master chef, shredding it before Astalos freed himself and charged at me. Slamming his tail and only remaining wing on the ground, electric explosions destroyed the ground. Despite his higher starting Agility, I finally had [Symphonie des Feuergottes (Allegro)] active on me. At this point, our Agility was nearly equal. Dodging his attacks was still hard, but not impossible anymore.

Krak!

“Kriiu!” As Astalos swiped at me with his blue lightning blade, Saori shot out another [Hadean Dragon Thunder], pushing him back before he sliced it up again. As if he was on a rampage, Astalos’ eyes made contact with Saori’s and he charged towards her.

Not on my watch!

Using my tail, I slammed the blunt side of it at Astalos’ head, sending him reeling back. When he retaliated, he suddenly coughed out purple blood, leaving him open for another tail slash. This time, I wasn’t able to cut off another of his limbs, but the toxic liquid coating my tail kept seeping into any wounds I caused him. When I saw him coughing more blood, I couldn’t help but smirk that [Unheilige Engel] finally found its sting.

“Kriiiiiiiiiaaaaahhhh!!!” Astalos roared before jumping into the air, somehow flying with only a single wing using [Tailwind]. When a single purple magic circle appeared on his head before disappearing and summoning a massive [Omnictus]-level spell, I gulped.

[Purple Flash] into… [Ramuh]!

I remembered the spell [Ramuh]. I wasn’t sure at which level you received it, but I knew very well what destruction this spell could cause. When the grimgarians attacked us back when he was escorting us to Avitor Peaks, Astalos used this spell to completely vaporize a whole section of the Belzac forest in addition to all the goblins, kobolds, or orcs that attacked us.

[“Spread out!”] There was no answer to this spell. [Omnictus] could compete with [Ramah] in terms of power, but it only shot downwards, never up. The same applied with [Symphonie des Feuergottes]. Saori’s [Hadean Dragon Thunder] was her strongest spell, but she was still restricted with moderate Intelligence, making it unable to compete with stronger spells at this point.

However, Saori had a different idea.

[“We can’t let this chance go. He’s vulnerable in the air. Ellaine, Tasianna. You two move away with the garms. Grimnir, you come with me. Hestia, go up there and distract Astalos for me.”]

[“Hey, are you trying to send me into a suicide mission?! I can’t block that with a counterspell. I’ll be blasted away!”] I responded, baffled at what Saori suggested.

But that was when I remembered.

I do have a way to counter that spell!

Turning my head to the sky, I made my parallel minds focus on using [Tailwind] while I blasted up in the air with my rocket boosters. As Astalos’ purple magic circle separated into three, lightning pillars appeared from them, sending streams of lightning into a single point, growing larger and larger in size. And when it shot at me, I used [Sacred Magic Lv. 7]’s newest spell

Gloria Ascendence!

Gloria Ascendence

A miracle of the Goddess of Light surrounds the caster in an impenetrable ball, defending them against mortal attacks. No attack may leave or enter through this heavenly shield. The ball turns any damage taken into Health, first healing the caster before buffing their Strength and Wisdom

A divine barrier encapsulated my body, shielding me from the devastating lightning blast. All I could hear inside the stream was the thundering of a storm. Although [Gloria Ascendence] was defending me from [Ramuh], I was still being pushed back, forcing me to fully dial up my boosters just to push back against the spell. Still, I wasn’t able to move an inch forward. In fact, Astalos’ spell was pushing me slowly back despite all the power I was putting into my flying.

Seconds passed and I could hear the divine shield breaking, not ’cause it soaked up too much damage, but ’cause it was about to expire. The moment it broke, that was when [Ramuh] would devastate me. However, as if my prayers were answered, I could feel [Ramuh]’s power waning. Timed perfectly, both my shield and the large-scale lightning spell ended together.

[Gloria Ascendence] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

As I let out a sigh of worry, I turned my head around to locate Astalos, but the sky was empty. Confusion, then worry, then fear filled my chest and head as I frantically tried to locate Astalos using [Detection Sensor]. I looked down at the ground, only to find the trees under me were completely gone. Only a large, scorched gash was there, devoid of any life.

[“I have fought for far longer than you, Princess.”]

And then in a split second, dread appeared.

[“I cannot slay you, for I serve God Kargryxmor. Allow yourself some rest…”]

While I was hovering in the sky, a blue flash appeared right underneath my chest. Instincts made me attempt to use [Dreadflare Aura] but it was too late. This time, Astalos delivered his counterattack.

How is he—!!!

[“I apologize if this might hurt, but you are sturdy enough, I presume?”]

The lightning crackled. All channeled into a wing before it touched my chest. And this was when my world was rocked.

“KRRRRRRRRIAIAAHGAGAGHAHHAHHAHAHHA!!!”

[Nerve Paralyzation (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Proficiency requirement fulfilled. [Lightning Resistance Lv. 2] evolved into [Lightning Resistance Lv. 5]

I blacked out for a second. Everything went dark. In the next moment, the light came back into my eyes,but all I saw was a never-ending rotating world. I could not move my body. They did not respond.

Was Astalos not there just a second ago? I thought, confused at what was happening.

[“Hestia!”]

“Lass!”

My ears and mind registered voices but I could not make out who they belonged to. My brain hurt whenever I tried to think. My parallel minds weren’t responding. The only actual stimuli I could feel was the fact I crash-landed on the ground, tumbling around on the blackened ground. When I came to a standstill, I saw my fingers twitching uncontrollably. Every time I tried to move them, they wouldn’t.

“Umsleud! Araaghhh!” Sounds came from the sky. Thankfully, I could still move my eyes.

When I peered up, I saw something similar to a large frozen platform hovering up there. A man in crimson armor transformed his hammer-looking weapon into a shotgun, blasting one half of a blue-glowing wyvern’s face scales off. As it roared in pain, a large shadowy wolf smacked it with an electric stomp, sending it crashing onto the ground, causing the ground to explode.

[“Hestia!”] Another message came. I did not know who this telepathic message belonged to, but I knew I had to respond.

[“Worry about… the wyvern.”] Whatever was happening to my body, I could feel my white flames were healing me. It would take a while, but I’ll get back on my feet eventually. The wolf in the sky nodded, swinging the freefalling man on its back before dashing back onto the ground.

[Nerve Paralyzation (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Seconds felt like an eternity as I was trapped in this sleep-paralyzed state. When I could finally move myself, I crawled closer to all the sounds I was hearing using my head to drag me close. Wings, legs, and tail. I couldn’t move them nor could I cast a spell. My brain was in so much constant pain, I just couldn’t concentrate.

Still, my brain wasn’t the only thing hurting; my body also complained. The twitching became milder but it wasn’t stopping, especially around my chest area. I don’t think my heart or lungs were damaged too much, but they were aching nonstop. That was when I realized, it wasn’t my heart hurting, it was my sun core!

Scheiße! Did something damage my sun core?

I hadn’t noticed it until now, but both [Symphonie des Feuergottes] and [Solar Beam]’s overdrive were deactivated. I could feel my sun core working on absorbing sun rays, but it was far slower than usual. I stopped moving for a second and looked down. Fortunately, there were no cracks on it, but it kept glowing and dimming the whole time for some reason.

Right, [Unheilige Engel]. I can use the slimes as limbs.

I could still feel some liquid around my tail, most likely it was the liquid form of [Unhelige Engel]. Forcing myself through the headache, I transformed the liquid into two large sickles. I attached them around my wings and controlled them to drag my body forward. When I finally got myself out of the blackened area, I heaved a sigh when I saw grass and trees again.

“Dragoon Jump! Haarrrghh! I got its wing pinned!”

“Bladdarg, you foolish girl! Don’t attack like that! Get out of there, now!”

I followed the sounds echoing from the woods, peering into them to see the glow of blue and black clashing against each other. When I finally made it close enough, I saw the green grass scorched back from black and blue lightning, the trees frozen from ice, the ground burning due to bombs, and a pack of four garms shooting out [Dark Bolt] with mana threads attached to them.

In the middle of all of this, a blue glowing wyvern was struggling to fight against all of these threats. His scales were cracked, frozen, and burned. His face was torn openand bones were showing. The giant, shadowy wolf was pounding onto the wyvern with her electrified front legs while a dwarf rode on her and slammed his hammer at the wyvern’s head.

As the damage accumulated, the wyvern puked out a bucket full of purple-colored blood bile, reminding me of what sorta toxin I made [Unheilige Engel] with. Mana path blocking, cell necrosis, and protein deconstruction. They were pretty much ideas I still had from all those discovery shows I watched, since snakes frequently appeared on episodes. I’m still trying to replicate a nerve toxin, but to no success.

When I began remembering my rather mad scientist-like experiments with my toxins, my mind began to clear up, helping me to finally realize who the people were before me. I was able to fully identify Aurora fighting against Astalos.

“The white flames are back! The lass is still alive!” Grimnir suddenly shouted as his hammer strike was blocked by Astalos’s lightning blast. He then swung his weapon in the air, shooting out a projectile of fire.

“Ahhh, the healing is back, too. Tasianna you don’t need to focus on healing anymore!” Ellaine, who was riding a garm, was elated as white flames began to heal her wounds.

Telepathic messages also arrived. [“Lady Hestia, I am so glad you are alright! Please, forgive me, I wanted to come to your side, but Miss Saori insisted otherwise!”] Tasianna sounded very worried. It made me really happy to hear her worry.

[“Hestia, you still do not look so good. Sit back. We just need you to play your music and keep your halo active. Sorry for putting you in a supportive position!”] Saori didn’t glance at me, fully focused on fighting Astalos. With the toxin affecting his body, it seems Saori was able to fully keep up with him.

However, earlier in the fight I had thought I was able to keep up with him for a moment, before he suddenly disappeared from my sight and abruptly appeared before me to deliver a devastating attack. I was able to remember now. It was as if he teleported, then used his wing to electrocute me right at my sun core. I didn’t fully understand my own anatomy yet, so I had no idea what he did to my core.

When I was trying to remember what Astalos did, a purple magic circle materialized on his body. When his spell cast, purple lightning covered his body before he suddenly disappeared from everybody’s sight.

Oh no! What spell is that?!

Looking at my [Detection Sensor], a single signal was dashing from one corner to the next without taking a break. It was most likely Astalos, but none of us could see him.

I wanted to move, but my body still couldn’t due to [Nerve Paralyzation], something my white flames were actively trying to heal. My parallel minds had come back when my mind became lucid again, and was actively trying to track down Astalos since [Major Heal] couldn’t heal my current affliction.

Sanctuary!

Astalos admitted he wasn’t here to kill me, but to drag me off somewhere. However, considering his personality and what the collective of Aurora has done to him, I didn’t think he would let my friends live if he won this fight. My priority had to be to overcome my current predicament and protect them. I wasn’t able to move, but I was a mage, so I could cast spells.

[Sanctuary] surrounded everybody in a light barrier which allowed no threats from coming in. I don’t think the barrier could stop him, but it should be able to give everybody a warning before his attack comes, hopefully. And, in the unlikely case he actually tried to drag me away without finishing the others, I was already ready to fucking explode with heat hot enough to fucking melt the bones of a B rank High Ogre.

Seconds passed, everybody was readying themselves for an attack while my body still hadn't recovered. Our [Detection Sensor] was acting erratically but it was completely silent. More seconds passed. Even more seconds passed. My fingers stopped twitching and I could finally move and stretch them. More seconds passed and my muscles regained their strength, allowing me to slowly push myself up.

Eventually, [Nerve Paralyzation] was finally gone and I struggled to stand up. For a moment, I wondered if Astalos just made a run for it, seeing at how dreadfully injured he was. It was false hope.

Kaklang!

[Sanctuary] broke and my head snapped up, only to see a blue flash crash into Saori. She was driven back by a significant margin, but she prevented herself from flying away using her [Dark Tendrils]. They wrapped themselves around her legs with the ends coming from the shadows of the others.

The one who pushed Saori back like that was none other than Astalos, who had his blue lightning horn stuck inside Saori’s shoulder. She was holding him back with her forelegs and was using stygian voltage to damage him, but suddenly, he disappeared from our view again, before reappearing behind her.

Channeling electricity around his wing once again, he struck Saori in a flurry, sending electric explosions to buffet her. I cast [Sacred Field] around her, betting on my white flames and the healing spell to keep her healthy while I was limping towards them for support.

The [Dark Tendrils] around her feet dissipated and Saori was finally launched towards me. I managed to catch her, confirming she was still alive but gravely injured from all the burns she received from Astalos’s attack. When I healed her wounds, I noticed she also lost consciousness from that attack.

Although I was still worried, I was more worried for the others. When I snapped my head up to see how the others were faring, I saw Tasianna, Ellaine, Grimnir, and the garms glaring at a wheezing Astalos. That was when I noticed the state of his body: burned scales, some spots on his body that were stripped of scales entirely, and the stump left after I cut off his left wing had already undergone necrosis, rotting due to my toxin. Whatever spell he used to attack Saori and me with super speed, it apparently did his body no good.

Regardless, his exhaustion did not mean he had given up on the fight, dashing forward to attack the others. Grimnir intervened, slamming his hammer at him but missed. Astalos jumped over him, ignoring Grimnir to focus on Tasianna. Her ice golem began punching at the wyvern, with the support of her myriad ice blades. I could see the very air slowly freezing as Tasianna was preparing another spell.

It was easy to guess that the golem stood no chance, being sliced in two by the boltreaver’s blue thunder blade. Tasianna managed to cast [Ice Age’s Paradise] once again, freezing his body even further, to the point some of his scales broke off completely. Thunder erupted from his body once again and he brute-forced himself out of the spell, escaping it only to be confronted by Ellaine.

The catalysts on Ellaine’s rings activated, summoning massive [Bedrock Blades] and fast-moving [Tornado Bullets] to push Astalos back. She was keeping her distance, knowing she couldn’t land a proper hit without anyone else supporting her. If she could push him back into Tasianna’s spell, she would be able to contribute more.

Kaboom!

A concentrated blast of mana exploded on the scarred right side of Astalos’ face, removing the remaining scales and skin. I looked to the side, learning Grimnir had shot the wyvern at the same spot once again. This attack sent Astalos reeling backward, right back into [Ice Age’s Paradise]’s field of effect. The combination of ice blades and freezing temperature cracked his pincer-like tail, breaking it.

“Kriiiiaaghhh!” Astalos roared once again, blasting himself out Tasianna’s spell with [Wind Blast] to swing his tail at Ellaine. Ellaine’s Agility was still too slow for her to fully react to this attack, bearing the brunt of the attack and being sent flying at a tree.

“Krraaaa!” I called out for Ellaine. I softly let Saori’s body down and began to rush towards Ellaine, but my still weakened legs made it difficult.

“Ughhh arghhh!” Thankfully, the armor Grimnir made for Ellaine protected her from the attack; however, it did not leave her unharmed. As she was stumbling to stand back up with white flames healing her, Astalos suddenly stood over her, lightning blade formed on his head.

“Ellaine!”

“Lass!”

“Ruff!”

[“H-Hey, stop! Ellaine!”]

“Eh?”

“Kriah!!!”

Tasianna had been sending her blades at Astalos, the garms were materializing their magic circles, and Grimnir moved his short legs as fast as he could to save Ellaine. My parallel minds had already finished the materializing of my spells, and I was about to release them, but time was not on my side. Ellaine’s hand was trying to cast [Wind Blast] while her legs began to move, but…

Krak!

… Astalos was faster.

Ellaiiiiinnnneee!!!

Boom!

An explosion, and my mind went blank. The only stimulus I could feel was an intense heat being ignited inside me like a volcano, bursting up with so much power I was sure I would explode. This inferno turned into anger, rage, wrath, or whatever you wanted to call it. I was angry, battle thirsty, and I wanted to kill something so badly every single fiber in my soul was urging me to do so.

My hearing came back to me. “Kriagh!” I could hear the cries of pain from somebody accompanied by a fiery slicing sound. Like a twister, the slashing sounds just wouldn’t stop, clashing against something like electricity. “Kriaaagaghhhhahhhhahh!!!” When the screams reached their highest, something like an explosion happened.

Light entered my eyes again and I could see the sky, with the clouds drawing closer and closer. Regardless, this sensation lasted for less than a second, as the inferno rage inside me consumed my mind. I snapped my head down and activated another explosion. This time, it was my [Dreadflare Aura]

[“I will fucking kill you! I will fucking kill you! I will FUCKING KILL YOU!”]

I coated my body in [Unheilige Engel]’s liquid from the moment my scales exploded. Instead of crimson, my infernal aura was colored a deadly purple. Astalos roared in agony, tried to force me to release him by activating his electric barrier, but I did not care about my safety at this moment.

With my claws, I dug them deeper into his body to keep him from escaping and bit his throat. As I could feel blood flowing into my mouth, I further intensified the power of my aura. Astalos’s body was melting and corroding at the same pace, but the damage he was doing to me was inconsequential against my white flame.

My current skill set was made from four dragon types. My [Dreadflare Aura] from the dreadflame dragon, power claws and bites from the hellblade dragon, white flames and a sun core to absorb sunlight from the sunfang dragon, and a noxious toxin from the obsidian blade dragon. With these powers, I was fully, 100% committed to killing Astalos.

I could feel the air blasting past me as I felt like a rocket flying in the air like an airplane. The heat was becoming unbearable even for me, but as long as my sun core was above 0% energy, I could not [Overheat].

[“I-I salute you for a magnificent battle—”]

[“SHUT UP!”]

[“—Dragon Princess Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor. Only in a few months, your growth has transcended mine. In a single year, you have become stronger than me. I bow my tail in the power of your bloodline, marveling the power of a true dragon.”]

[“SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!”] I did not want to hear anything Astalos was saying. I was too angry, I wanted to do nothing else but to kill Astalos. I wanted it so bad, I could feel my jaw crunching his windpipe.

[“It was an honor to fight you. May my life essence become your strength. May my death serve God Kargryxmor even as my soul reaches Goddess Ilsaphone. I—”]

Die.

I turned my body towards the ground, and released all the scale-dust I had left in my scales and shot the both of us down. With an explosion similar to a missile's impact, our crash land rocked the very earth, turning the surrounding flora and fauna into complete devastation.

Only I was left standing upon the grave of the [Boltreaver Dragon].

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has risen from [Level 8] to [Level 15]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 4850 skill points

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Dreadflame Dragon Lv. 4] [Hellblade Dragon Lv. 3] [Solar Core Lv. 3] [White Flames Lv. 3] [Corrosive Fire Lv. 3] [Stage Fever Lv. 5] [Draconic Aura Lv. 3] [Royal Presence Lv. 3] [Battle Mind Lv. 10] gained

Skill requirement fulfilled. [Battle Mind Lv. 10] evolved into [Tranquil Mind Lv. 1]

[Humanized (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

All the anger dissipated the moment these messages entered my head, and I just felt… empty. My mind wandered back to what happened back then. Astalos channeled a blade of thunder, using it to strike at Ellaine who was trying to flee. At that moment, all Ellaine could do was look at the descending blade, all while the rest of Aurora was helpless to prevent it from reaching her.

E-Ellaine.

I dropped to my knees, memories of my days with Ellaine came back as flashbacks. About our first meeting, about how rude I was to her after the dinner party, about how I lived with her in Firwood, when she joined Aurora, and when I fought side-by-side with her. Our chill interactions together were my fondest memories, and how could I forget about the fact I wrote an entire song just for her.

“Memories.” Her song’s name was to remind her of the time she spent with me but…

I could feel tears running down my face. My mouth twitched. I hiccuped. My legs felt the dropping teardrops. I lost—

<Hestia, stop this at once! Get back to her, now! Now!>

Aurena?

“Lass!”

Grimnir?

With my emotions still in turmoil, Grimnir suddenly came running at me while riding on Uno. Without letting me ask what he wanted, he grabbed my shoulder effortlessly and threw me, in my winged moderate form, onto Uno’s back, carrying me like a sack of potatoes. In my confusion, I could not but yelp, all while Uno ran like the wind.

“W-Wha—?!”

“Shut up! Ellaine is alive!”

Huh?!

I was astounded, almost in disbelief. I knew what I saw. “T-That can’t be! I saw Astalos slash at her. Even with your armor, there was no way she could survive an attack able to pierce Saori’s or my body!”

“Shut up! Bladdarg, lass! She’s alive like I said, drill that in your head! We ain’t got the time to chatter, get your wings ready and fly to her. Something is happening with her body. It feels demonic!” When Grimnir said those last words, I jumped off from Uno’s back and tried to activate my rocket boosters, however, the amount of scale-dust I had left was not enough.

Fuck! Wind Blast! Tailwind! No rest now, parallel minds!

I once again brute-forced my flying, shooting through the woods towards a group of signals. When I finally arrived at the location, I saw Saori still unconscious on the ground with the other three garms surrounding her. Tasianna, on the other hand, was seemingly fighting something!

What the fuck?!

A wing made from a ribcage, claws as long as daggers, bones protruding from flesh, and tentacles wiggling around as if they are a mind of their own. But the most unsightly parts were the eyes. Two eyes were moving in the gems of two rings while the others were living inside the bleeding arm of a young girl. All of this was happening on the body of this very girl: Ellaine.

“Eeeeek! Arrghhhhh!!!” Desperate calls of agony came from Ellaine’s mouth. Her right hand was clutching her left shoulder. The armor on her left arm was broken and those eldritch-like things were coming from there.

Hestia, listen to me. You need to bring Ellaine directly to my altar in Griffonpeak at once. If you wish to save this girl, then you cannot dawdle any longer!

Aurena?! Aurena’s voice came back again, but she was not letting me respond just yet.

Demon of Lust. That is the wretch Elder Marsven trapped in the orb. A species from my homeworld, which is able to regenerate its form if all its cells aren’t destroyed at once. Ellaine is not affected just yet, however, you must use [Shine] right now to push back the infection. If you do not, then—

I ignored the rest of the method and dashed forward into action.

“Tasianna, close Ellaine’s eyes!” Tasianna looked at me in bafflement but she nodded immediately and did what I ordered. “Song, make sure none of you or Saori open your eyes. Understood! Tasianna close your eyes, too!”

Ten parallel minds and my own.

“Shine!”

Eleven simultaneous casts of [Shine] created a blinding glare. It was so bright, I thought my eyes were being burned despite having them closed. Fortunately, what Aurena said was working. Ellaine’s cries were becoming milder and milder while I could hear something breaking apart like clay.

When Ellaine stopped screaming, I stopped my cast and opened my eyes, only to see Ellaine’s bleeding arm, devoid of all the eldritch features. I quickly healed her up, happy to hear her strained breathing. Ellaine’s left arm was sadly now covered in a lightning scar, but that was a small price to pay for her survival. When I asked Tasianna how she survived, I couldn’t believe what she said.

“My Lady, when you began attacking Astalos with your tail, the dust settled and I saw that huge bone wing, which protected Ellaine. When you left us, I tried to treat her wound with [Ocean Healing], but those grotesque things grew out of her arm. I sent Mister Grimnir after you, as I couldn’t come close enough to heal Ellaine.”

Bone wing?!

If I hadn’t seen it for myself, I wouldn’t have believed her. While I was feeling baffled, Aurena began speaking again.

Hestia, I know you’re happy enough to cry now that you know your friend is alive, but this isn’t over yet. Elder Marsven has given me enough information on the issue. You must hurry and bring me that black orb. I must destroy it and finish the job, which will also allow me to remove the demon’s mana trapped inside Ellaine’s spell rings.

Ring? Oh!

I remembered. During the fight against Keith, the rebellion orb he used to cause the dungeon break of the rachonoid queen caused the dark orb inside my storage to activate. The demon, one of the enemies of the origin gods, managed to break through the seal, even if it was only an arm. I managed to destroy it, but it did touch Ellaine’s left arm after destroying her newly acquired shield.

Aurena told me not to let the demon touch me, so was the same thing happening to Ellaine?

I told you already. Ellaine is not infected. The demon cannot take over a Peolyncian whose soul is complete. You are endangered due to your fractured soul, but the being inside the spell rings isn’t the demon. Enough talk, bring her to Griffonpeak already! Hurry!

It was decided. When Grimnir arrived, I informed both Tasianna and Grimnir about my plan before carrying the unconscious Ellaine in a princess carry.

“Got it, lass. We’ll handle the rest. You get the girl to Aurena immediately,” Grimnir nodded.

“We will take care of the wagon and Saori, Lady Hestia. You have my word! I still have everything needed to enter the noble district and House Helvas’ mansion in Griffonpeak. Let us rendezvous there.”

It was decided. I morphed my [Unhelige Engel] into a hand and used it to pull out food from my storage. My sun core was still having trouble absorbing solar energy, so I had to supplement my Stamina and scale-dust regeneration through food. As I blasted off into the air, I had my [Unheilige Engel] feed me as I directed myself towards Griffonpeak’s temple.

Goddess Aurena, I just wanted to—

We may talk about everything when we meet face-to-face. Focus. I shall grant you the knowledge of Griffonpeak’s location, so do you best to fly.

Yes!

Hang on, Ellaine!

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 194: Faust.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Uurrgh.”

“Damn. Shine.” Iridescent light shined from my fingers, calming Ellaine’s twitching left arm. I knew this spell could damage dark elemental monsters, but I did not know it was also a demon pacifier.

Night had come, and it was probably quite late in the night right now, based on looking at the position of the green glowing moon. Under Aurena’s directions, I have been flying through the air using my rocket boosters after confirming Ellaine was alive but infected by something demonic. At first, due to the fact the sun was up, I was able to fly at a pretty decent pace, but once the sky darkened, fatigue began to take over.

I cannot stress enough how much scale-dust I was using to maintain my flying. During the afternoon sun, I was able to balance my scale-dust regeneration with my usage using solar energy and eating as much as I could with [Unheilige Engel]’s help. However, now that it was night, I had to slow down considerably, otherwise I would probably crash land from an empty stomach. The number of calories I was burning with this, jeez.

Also, I didn’t want to call her fat, but carrying her while she had her armor on was pretty tiring. My shoulders felt so stiff. She was still unconscious and the random twitching didn’t happen too often, but carrying her around would have been a drag if this wasn’t an emergency.

As for the twitching itself, Aurena had informed me the demon’s mana had infected her rings, staying inside them in a dormant state until it had gathered enough mana to rebuild a consciousness. I wanted to remove the rings, but they wouldn’t budge. The demon did not allow it. Outside of cutting Ellaine’s fingers off, having Aurena fix her up was the only solution.

So far away…

Just a bit more, Hestia. Enough complaining.

Haaaaaaaa… You know, considering you’ve been giving me directions this whole time, it really devalued the time you couldn’t speak with me. Honestly, this feels like an administrator speaking with a player in an MMO, more like a ‘divine whisper’ than telepathy, I spoke with Aurena, commenting on how often I’ve heard her voice through the system messages lately.

Us able to speak like this is not through telepathy, but through our Divine System. Call it like that if you wish, Hestia, just know most Peolyncians simply call it ‘words from the gods’. Usually, only the most faithful should be able to hear me speak this clearly, making you more or less an anomaly

Because these sorts of messages overload people’s souls, right? I remembered you telling me about that in your first message to me.

Correct. Faith is like a link to us gods, making your soul more compatible with us. Those able to hear our words are the most devout, and rarely do people joke around when they speak with us. Technically, this is the most I have personally spoken to a mortal outside an audience to my divine realm. Be honored, Hestia, I am granting you far too many privileges.

Not my fault. You need to get rid of this demon, and I want to get rid of it also. I wish you had just— Sorry, I don’t want to start this up again. How far are we?

While I was regretting that I almost started complaining again, Aurena overlooked it and focused on my question.

Close enough. You should be able to see the large mountain protruding from the woods by now.

The moment she pointed it out, I actually was able to see something standing out on the horizon. As I didn’t want to attract too much attention I was flying low, near to the trees, but now I was ascending closer to the clouds to get a better view.

What I saw was a large, snow-blanketed mountain so steep the peak looked like an eagle’s talon. The fact it looked like it was kind of unnatural, making me question how this type of mountain formation was created in the first place. It was as large as the Avitor Peaks, but it was definitely weirder looking.

However, while the top seemed strange, what lay below it returned to normalcy. Gone was the small amount of snow on the top, as grass and trees covered the rest of the mountain, up until I saw a majestic looking castle embedded into it. In the serene moonlight, the white palace gleamed a pristine white befitting the opulent lives of the Artorian noble society. Most likely, the whole castle palace was made from fairnite, not only for the looks, but to protect it from magic.

Griffonpeak, the capital city of the Kingdom of Artorias. That has to be the home of the royal family.

Long white towers peering into the sky connected through walled bridges to the main palace. The palace itself was decorated extensively, as if it was like the crowning achievement of the wealth and history of Artorias and its predecessor, Leosfalt. Walls protected the palace’s entrance with a gate leading to two additional layers of the whole castle.

On the second layer, a military-looking building, probably a garrison, and an impressive-looking building with a griffon knight statue built before it was located. I could see a large empty field placed in the corner of the layer in addition to a horse stall and… a building-like nest? There was also a mansion built in this layer.

On the bottom layer, multiple smaller houses far less decorated than the other layers stood. They weren’t shabby, but they didn’t look too special compared to the former. Common sense told me those belonged to servants and other personnel. I was happy to see the royal family weren’t treating their servants like trash, at least.

Of course, while the castle was admittedly splendid-looking, the scars of war were still there. At the entrance of the lowest layer, the end of a fairnite bridge could be seen, but the middle of it was completely missing, almost as if it was destroyed. The broken edges were cut off and polished, looking as if it was intentionally left in such a broken condition. I knew the elves during the War for the Faefolk left Griffonpeak in a terrible state, but the reconstruction seemed to have not included the bridge. How were people supposed to visit the palace?

Oh, right, the answer is obvious. Gargoyles, griffons, and hippogryphs.

The Kingdom of Griffons. It would make sense if they used these companions and constructs to land at the castle entrance, especially the royal family who were arvisans. I also heard from Ellaine of how the Lecartiglio Duchy introduced a griffon and hippogryph carriage service to the kingdom. The image of griffons carrying carriages was funny to think about.

The temple is over there. Close to the inner walls.

That said, Griffonpeak was still a city, at the end of the day. While Firwood and Cedaraille had a pretty similar architecture where the home of the lord of the city was placed in the middle surrounded by the noble district, Griffonpeak looked a bit different to me. Aside from a few landmarks, like a giant colosseum, a university-sized area which most likely was the royal academy, a giant gothic-style church, a statue of an arvisian man, and a large, fine building, it was kind of hard to describe the rest of the city.

As I approached the city, I was able to distinguish the noble district and commoner district from appearance alone, but I wasn’t able to see the entire city. Regardless, it wasn’t important to me. If you asked me, the castle was already mesmerizing enough under the moonlight, so marvelous that it outshined the rest of the city. It was like looking at a masterpiece beside some well-made but mundane art.

I have made the necessary preparations. Immediately enter the temple and move to the altar room, Hestia. You know what to do afterward.

Got it. Last sprint, Ellaine, hold on!

I knew I was kinda breaking the law by bypassing the gate and sneaking into the city, but this was an emergency and Aurena herself told me to do so. Still, the commotion it would cause if somebody saw me. Using my sneaking skills, I flew higher to avoid people seeing me around the outer and inner walls. Once I was close to the temple, I slowed down my scale-dust boosters, landing in an area obscure from any guard’s or grey-robe’s sight.

“Urgh, haaaaa, haaaa…” Once I was back on the ground, My legs lost their strength and I dropped to my knees. I was feeling a little bit light-headed and it felt like my muscles didn’t want to move at all. “Tch, I want to sleep and just rest already. Flying long distances is too much.”

I have still not recovered from fighting Astalos. My body was drained, my mind fatigued from worrying for Ellaine, and I could feel my stomach growling. Fortunately, neither [Exhausted] or [Starving] has appeared yet, but I was not in good shape. I was too tired to march right in and act pompous.

Using [Detection Sensor] and [Silence], I might not have been as good as Saori when it came to sneaking around, but it still felt easy to bypass any guard’s wandering eyes. Only problem was, Aurena was not telling me where to go. The Griffonpeak temple of the Church of Aurena was far larger than the Firwood one, and although it still had a simple interior design, I had no idea where the altar room was. There just wasn’t a map.

Hey, Goddess Aurena, whe— Huh?! A signal!

A signal suddenly appeared out of nowhere on my [Detection Sensor] from thin air. From my experience sparring with Saori, I knew very well how [Silence] and [Odorless] allowed you to disappear from a detection skill’s power. A skill would neutralize a rival one if its level was similar or higher. If this signal appeared out of nowhere, a rogue or assassin was trailing me.

But inside a temple!? Urgh, as if, whether they were priests or not, most of the top brass belong to the nobility. Just like Theodore, the High Bishop of Firwood, having spies and similar was normal!

Fuck. Somebody with a high detection skill to detect me and enough high-level stealth ones to trail behind me.

Currently, I was in a corridor and the signal came from a room behind me. Hiding anymore would probably cause me some issues. At the end of the day, the church and I weren’t enemies… yet. Until Aurena’s plan fully began, I should probably play nice with them.

With Ellaine in my arms, I calmly walked towards the signal, which was currently standing still. After a few more steps, a woman’s voice suddenly came from behind the corridor’s door. “Champion Hestia, pardon me.”

My eyes widened. The voice had a very distinctive accent, it was definitely not an Artorian from the Greenveil Duchy. Furthermore, it was neither dwarven nor elven as well. When I was wondering who the person was, the door opened up and a figure in a full set of brown and black armor appeared. Two black khopeshes were hanging sheathed on their hips while a spear and bow were being carried on the figure’s back.

In my opinion, the style of armor and clothing looked a bit similar to a middle eastern medieval warrior, giving me a good idea why the voice’s accent was so foreign to me. I could see the symbol of Aurena on the figure’s chest, similar to the emblem Yorshka had. Was this person a knight?

I looked into their eyes before speaking. Their head was covered with a helmet and their mouth was hidden behind a sash, but the window between them allowed me to see their frowning brown eyes and… black mascara? At this point, I believed this person was a woman and the owner of the voice, mostly due to her body figure and the small part of her face I could see.

Annoyed that I detected you? Yeah, me, too. She wasn’t frowning a lot, but I could see she was a bit baffled that I was able to detect her.

She gave me a deep bow before beginning to speak, “I apologize for trailing you without introducing myself, Champion Hestia. I am Anivh, a Knight of Aurena. Saintess Eshe was made aware of your arrival, so my lady had sent me to greet you.”

“I-I see…” I wanted to comment on how she did a terrible job greeting me, seeing as how I had to sneak into the church, but that could wait for later. After all, I was more shocked to hear about her mistress.

A saintess?! Here?! Also, they know I was a champion!? That was when I remembered Aurena mentioning she made some preparations, but I thought those preparations were about destroying the demon infecting Ellaine.

“Uuurgh!” Suddenly, Ellaine began to groan again. Her arm wasn’t twitching yet, but it was a sign the damn infection was coming back up.

“I am not sure what is happening, but seeing as you are a knight, you must be a guard for this Saintess Eshe, correct? The greetings can wait for later. This is an emergency. Please, could you tell me the way to the temple’s altar room? I need to get there immediately!” I raised my voice a bit in a panic, asking desperately for some directions from the lady knight.

She bowed once again. “The Goddess has already informed Lady Eshe. Please, follow me.” Anivh spread her arms forward, gesturing to me to hand Ellaine over. However, I declined. I’m not allowing anybody to hold Ellaine until we have this problem sorted.

Following the lady knight through the candle-lit corridors felt really awkward as neither of us talked, leaving the church completely silent except for our footsteps. We did pass a few church guards on their night shift, who gave me confused stares, but Anivh shut them up with an icy glare. After entering through another door, we finally reached a room filled with the six altars of the Origin Gods.

Furthermore, there were three other people in the room.

“High Bishop?!” Ignoring the other two, I was firstly focused on an ever sleepy-looking, lilac-haired man in the white robes of a priest of Aurena. This man was none other than the High Bishop of Firwood’s temple and the brother of the lord of that town.

“It is a pleasure, Lady Hestia. I had thought you would arrive here by the beginning of SpringSun, but you are about two weeks late.” There was no warm smile, just a sleep-deprived head nod in acknowledgement.

“Why are you still awake? It’s in the middle of the night.”

“I was working on documents.” Even after leaving Firwood’s temple, he still had to work during these ungodly hours?! “However, I did have some company, though. According to decorum, whether under noble or church etiquette rules, it would have been more appropriate for you to speak with this young lady first, Lady Hestia.”

Theodore stretched his hand out, directing my eyes to the two other individuals. The first was a large man in the same outfit as Anivh, although he had a single khopesh, a shield on his left arm, a bow, and a two-handed scimitar. The other person was a brown-skinned woman in her late twenties wearing a brilliant white robe with red flower embroidements. Anivh stood behind her.

Is she?

She curtsied. “Champion Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor, newest champion of the Goddess of Light, Dragon Princess of Kargryx, and otherworlder like the Heroes of Aurena, I am the most recently appointed saintess of Goddess Aurena, Eshe. It is an honor to finally meet you, Lady Hestia.”

“I-It is my pleasure.” Never would I have thought to meet one of Aurena’s saints here, as I heard nothing about this from anybody, not even the Goddess herself. This was somebody who embodied Aurena’s tenets enough to become a saintess, not a champion, and was trusted enough to learn of the fact I was not only a dragon and a princess, but also an otherworlder.

She then clapped her hands, pointing me towards the brilliant altar made from fairnite in the middle of the room. “I have heard the word of our Goddess about your predicament. Please, Goddess Aurena awaits you, we mustn't delay your meeting for a second more. High Bishop Theodore, my knights, and I shall await you outside, Champion. We shall let nobody disrupt this divine meeting.”

The room was cleared. Manatech light bulbs were lighting up the whole room as moonlight gushed through the stained windows. While the situation with this saintess was worth thinking about, the first thing I had to deal with was Ellaine’s situation. The twitching hadn’t stopped and I could see her pained expression.

I set her down before Aurena’s altar, activated [Shine] once more to calm her arm down, and then clapped my hands together. As my mind envisioned Aurena, praying to her for an audience, I closed my eyes. As my mind drifted away, somebody suddenly tugged on my arm, causing me to open my eyes to a cloudy world of white. This was Aurena’s divine realm.

“H-Hestia?” I turned around, only to be greeted by a translucent figure of a girl with blue hair and face I very much knew. “P-Pardon, but are you Hestia?”

“Ellaine!” In the realm of the Gods, only our souls could visit them. As it was the manifestation of ourselves in our physical bodies, certain features were retained, for example, Ellaine’s face and blue hair.

In my excitement to see her soul not being tarnished by that malevolent evil, I hugged her. As I experienced when I first visited Aurena’s realm, there was still a “physical” sense of touch in this place. “S-So, you are Hestia? I’m so glad, I thought you were somebody else.”

It was to be expected. As I let Ellaine go from my embrace, I looked down at my soul once again. An aura of fire was wrapped around my ghostly figure, forming into draconic scales all around my body. Last time, my soul was filled with holes and lost fragments, the manifestation of my fractured memories, but this time, more holes were filled with scales and my soul even had a tail this time.

‘Souls adapted to their corporeal vessels,’ Aurena had told me. Ha, in other words, I was becoming less human and more dragon.

While I was wondering about the growth of my soul, Ellaine asked, “Where are we, Hestia. And why do you look so different? Why are we also naked?”

“The answer is simple, Ellaine, you two are in my realm.” The clouds underneath us moved, turning us around to face a blond-haired woman in an opulently decorated room. Her white feathered wings shuffled a bit as she greeted us and asked us to join her at her table.

“Who—Wait… WAIT! Hold on, hold on, hold on, a-are y-you-” Ellaine’s teeth jittered as she spoke, stumbling over her words as she stared at the angelic woman with widened eyes. In complete disbelief, it almost looked like she was about to faint.

“Yes, my dear, I am the Patron Goddess of the humans, Aurena. I welcome you, child, to my realm.”

“Ahhhh! Goddess Aurena, I am eternally thankful!” Dropping down on her knees, Ellaine smacked her hands together and began praying extremely loudly, fully expressing how much of a follower she was of Aurena.

“Ahh, so that’s why she could enter your realm so easily.”

The divine realm of a god was only reserved for their followers, as the followers’ souls needed enough built-up faith to not compete with their godly aura, otherwise their souls would be erased. After Aurena calmed Ellaine down and had our sit down, she began explaining the situation to Ellaine, as my friend apparently had no idea.

“A-A demon?!” Ellaine looked at her arm in terror.

“Exactly, a devious, slimy, tricky, annoying, pitiful, malicious, deceitful, destructive, lecherous —” As Aurena kept on shooting out insults over insults, Ellaine’s arm suddenly twitched a bit, reminding me of what happened today. Ellaine wasn’t groaning or in pain, but it still made me stand up. “Haaaaa, enough you damn pest. Show yourself already! I know you can, Klea’Hatma!”

“Ooooh, you are too forceful sometimes, dear.” As if Aurena’s word was a chant, a black gas suddenly came out from Ellaine’s arm, forming into a ball with tentacles and eyes. Without a mouth, words entered my mind. “Come now, such a harsh greeting for us two acquaintances. Why not allow me to massage your stiff shoulders to make this talk more comfortable, E’—”

“I am Aurena!” The divine realm shook like an Earthquake with Aurena’s demanding shout, rocking Ellaine and my soul, making us groan from the sheer force she was exuding. As the clouds were about to open up, revealing something shining underneath them, Aurena suddenly calmed down and mended the pain we felt. “I apologize, Ellaine, Hestia. This nuisance does not know her place despite only being a demi-god. Klea’Hatma, I am a Goddess of Peolynca now. I am Aurena! I do not care what relationship we had in the past, in this world, you shall address me with that name!”

““A demi-god?!”” Ellaine and I blurted out the moment we recovered, staring at the ball with different feelings. While Ellaine looked at it with fear, all I was feeling for this monster was anger.

As if it noticed my emotions, it began to cackle. “Hiehiehahaha! Come now, what is that sort of expression, little girl? Is that how you thank the savior of your weak friend over here? Tch, tch, tch, I thought the two of you would be thanking me. Come on, sprinkle me with praises, Ellaine, Hestia. I want to hear your admiration for me.”

“W-What?! How do you know our names?!” I demanded while Ellaine stayed quiet.

“What do you mean? Of course, I learned it from you. I mean, I’ve been living with you two for a while now, ever since our little encounter in that hell hole. It would have been dreadfully rude of me to not know your names by name, especially when your party kept on talking. Oooh, when your five were having fun, I wanted to jump out and just enjoy myself for a moment.” The black ball’s eyes looked excited, making me able to imagine the smirk it must have right now. “I mean, I deserve to enjoy a piece of the fun, right? I saved your life, Ellaine. Admittedly, it was to save my own life, but that doesn’t change the fact you wouldn’t be here with us if I hadn’t used my ability to shield you from that attack.”

“Urgh!” Ellaine flinched, grasping her head as she began to groan. “I-I remember it now. I remember it now! Your voice! I heard your voice at that moment!”

The demon’s tentacles wiggled in joy. “Correct, dear.”

“When that blade was coming down at me, I heard you speak in my head. Y-You came when I asked for somebody to save me. You appeared and accepted my plea, you made t-that thing come out of my arm!”

“Correct, dear. At their most desperate, mortals wish for the most tempting offers, disregarding all the consequences laying before them. Don’t cower so much, it was—”

“SHUT UP, YOU BITCH!” Unable to endure Ellaine’s fear for any longer, I smacked the black ball quiet and moved in front of Ellaine. “Don’t think you’re getting off scot-free, you fucking freak!”

Anger. The same wrath I felt for Astalos crept up again, this time, it was directed at this shitty demon. I wanted to continue hitting the demon until it finally disappeared but I knew from the feeling I had when I touched it, that it did nothing. Momentarily, I remembered Aurena’s words, of how I shouldn’t be touching it, but I then remembered it couldn’t do anything to me in its current state.

When my wish to kill it grew, somebody’s voice answered it.

“She is right. Also, don’t compliment yourself too much Klea’Hatma. As if your existence would have saved the girl’s life when I am here.” It was Aurena. “Hestia. Ellaine. Do not let this feeble creature’s words rile you, for have you forgotten the necklace you received from the felgheist nightlord?

Huh? …Oh shit!

The [Necklace of Vampiric Undying]! A necklace with the ability to save your life the moment your Health was about to reach zero if you offer it some of your blood. It was a necklace we earned from the dungeon and it was also something I gave Ellaine.

“Ellaine, your necklace didn’t break!” I informed Ellaine, who had also remembered the necklace by touching the area around her neck. The necklace would have become useless once it activated but aside from saving Ellaine’s life, it would have also given her some precious Health equal to the amount of blood she offered.

As the demon stayed quiet, Aurena continued, “There you have it. Nothing to be so proud about nor feel indebted to. It is about time I finished what Elder Marsven so haphazardly left behind.”

Space suddenly opened up for Aurena’s hand to enter and to bring out a familiar-looking black orb. Although the last time I saw it was when it had a hand coming out from it, this was, without question, the same orb this demon came out from. Aurena simply glanced at the orb, then back to the demon before crushing the orb right in front of it.

Dark energy released through the shattered orb began to spread as the shards dropped on the ground, worrying me for a moment, but thankfully this was Aurena’s realm. The clouds underneath it began to shine like small suns, forcing the dark energy back. Like a fearful mosue, it tried to fight back against the light, but it was futile, for Aurena’s power was far too much. Like a dying flame, the darkness was snuffed out, leaving not a trace behind.

“…” The demon was deadly silent. “…W-Well, I didn’t think you would be this forceful, Goddess Aurena. I mean, I just awakened after a long sleep, we need to go slow first-Urgh!” White energy surrounded the demon, bringing it closer to Aurena where she could look at it eye-to-eye.

“I still question how you survived this long. All the other sins were destroyed, and I thought all of you demis were gone, but you live. Well, lived. With your main body destroyed, even for your race, you are practically dead. The vessels your mana is currently inhabiting are close enough to my altar that I can crush them right now and eradicate you.”

Yes! Do it, Goddess Aurena! I was actively cheering for her to destroy the last remnants of that fiend. Sure, the demon did save Ellaine; that was, unfortunately, fact. However, I didn’t plan on being grateful for someone whose only interest was to infect Ellaine, hurting her in the process.

“Well… six weakened gods versus seven of us demons. We were lucky all six of you were weakened after you came to this world. Too bad the others didn’t survive for as long as I did, but it sure was a climax to mess with you six. I might not be as strong as my main body was, but this bit of mana can still become a threat for others. Ooooh, it would be a tragedy for me to die, but so be it.” The demon’s eyes curved upwards as if it was smiling. Was it taunting us or did it feel nothing for its impending death? Regardless, the results were the same.

“Cleansing a speck of dirt from our new home… especially those from the past. Farewell, Klea’—”

“WAIT!”

Huh?

“What if… What if we used the demon’s power to fulfill your goals, oh, Goddess Aurena?” The unexpected happened; Ellaine spoke up for the demon.

Aurena stopped her destruction of the demon, looking at Ellaine with a quizzical expression. “… What foolishness are you speaking, Ellaine.”

“Yeah! Ellaine, that is a stupid idea. That thing is a demon!” I agreed.

However, Ellaine continued to argue back for some reason. “Yes, I know but… Hestia did you not say that Goddess Aurena informed you of how the demon could not do anything anymore as just an assortment of mana? Isn’t she practically just a faefolk, uhm, like that onnikai you brought back with Tasianna.”

“Ellaine, that was different. Kiiro might have been a bad influence, but this demon is a demon! Kiiro at least could be negotiated with, but we have no idea what this thing will do with our heads! Kiiro was motivated by revenge and anger, this demon is something we have no understanding of. We can’t trust it, let alone rely on it to help us defeat its descendants!” Was Ellaine going mad, cause I was slowly thinking this demon actually did something with her head. She was acting erratically, completely against her personality.

“Hey, kid, don’t stereotype people like that. I can be quite a good influence if you ask me; besides, it's not like I care very much for any of the halflings I bore. I simply gave myself over to those who lusted for me and simply enjoyed myself. Maybe you should tr—”

“Shut the fuck up, you slut!” I interrupted the demon’s slutty talk before turning back to Ellaine. “Do you hear that crap?! How can you actively want to talk with that thing all the time, Ellaine! We can’t even be sure we can control it. Who would even want to babysit her, because I know nobody in Aurora would.”

“I will.”

“Huh?”

What?!

Ellaine pressed her hand on her chest and looked at me with a serious gaze, looking as if she had enough of being scared.“The demon is already stuck inside my spell rings, it is the easiest way forward. I can harness her power and then use them to be more useful for Aurora. Think about it, Hestia! Her bone wing was sturdy enough to divert most of the damage from that wyvern’s attack, leaving me with only a wound, right? Also, I know her attempt wasn’t needed due to my necklace, but I can’t just be unthankful, right?”

“Ellaine, you’re going crazy! Should you be grateful towards a cult leader or criminal for saving your life, just to fuck you up later on when you’re thanking them?”

“All I know is that I’m still living. I’m not just another reckless noble who wandered out in the wilderness just to turn into a pretty corpse. I’m alive, Hestia.” She clutched my hands.

Tch!

“And… I’ll continue to be that problem. Hestia, even with some well-crafted armor, I’m useless. Master Grimnir did far better than me in that battle.”

“But, you want to become a griffon knight. If you can get—”

“A griffon won’t change a thing. I need to groom it from birth, and that means it will begin as a chick, making it unfit for battle for a whole year. Hestia, I would rather stop this farce and return to my worthless life as a noble than to continuously disappoint and worry you. I have already disappointed my family with my defeatist personality, I don’t want you, my friend, to feel the same for me.”

Ellaine…

“You lust for power, Ellaine.” As I was troubled by Ellaine’s confession, Aurena spoke up. “The Demon of Lust, that is Klea’Hatma. Although lust isn’t the worst sin, it still urges your most inner desires out. I can feel the envy you have for your brother, your mother, your fellow nobles, and, most intensely, for Aurora’s powers. Klea’Hatma’s words bring this out and further magnifies it. Without a doubt, she is affecting your mind, Ellaine.”

“But, Goddess Aurena, it should be without question that the power of a demi-god would serve your goals, correct? If I can control this power, then I can become an asset for Hestia. As your worshipper, my life can be used in your service!” Ellaine was adamant, stubborn to a fault right now.

“And? There is no need to risk it when Hestia still has the potential to grow. Peolyncian, you do not know anything about the people from our world, and you never should while us Origin Gods shield your. Klea’Hatma is one of the less detestable, but she still is an embodiment of lust. If she wishes to free herself from your control, she will, and she will do it in the most subtle way possible.”

“But Hestia can control her, no? The magic you gave her! [Shine] stopped the infection, just as you told me! What if she makes a more potent spell to pacify the demon, or make a song with it!” Ellaine then snapped back to me, a glimmer of hope in her eyes. “Hestia, you still have three empty slots left to make spell songs, correct? We’ve seen what both [The Will to Fight and Survive] and [Dragon Fire] can do. Shouldn’t you be able to create something to help me control the demon’s influence?”

I reluctantly turned my head over to Aurena. She sighed. “…Both [Shine] and [Sanctuary] that you received from [The Light] are unique spells I made just for you Hestia, and more awaits you as you fulfill the milestones. However, [The Light] is a title, not an empty vessel like [White Flames]. You cannot create spells with it… however, I made [Idol] compatible with the special holy magic of [The Light]. It was meant to aid you in fighting against demonkins, as they are weak against it due to their demonic heritage.”

“You can’t be serious, I can make songs to create something similar to [Sanctuary]?”

“Yes, it was my intent.” Aurena placed a hand on her head, sighing in exasperation once again. “You can theoretically create a song which directly weakens demonkins and demons. Reduce the effect of their bloodline on their personality and also in general, make them more susceptible to you. That is [The Light]’s main function.”

Not only does [The Light] grant me powerful bonuses but also potentially OP spells, but it also made fighting against demonkins easier? I mean, I haven’t fought a demonkin yet, but it sounded like something I could use to make my Divine Quest easier. It sounded like a good idea to do, only…

“Ellaine…” I did not want Ellaine to take on this demon.

“Hestia, I told you already, there are no special skills in my SP shop. The only way for me to catch up with you, Saori, Tasianna, and Master Grimnir is through effort and training. I know that I need to train more. That is obvious enough. But, I-I also feel like I can’t contribute enough as I am currently. I want to prove myself, not only to you, but I want to prove I can do this. Please.”

You want to feel special, Ellaine. You wish for this power so you may stand out more… Still, how can I not know how you felt?

…

“There is a saying from Earth. What you are about to make is a ‘Faustian Bargain.’ In exchange for gaining something you wanted, you must give up something of importance to you… or even your soul. You know giving this demon a chance to live on is wrong, but only by doing so may you gain its powers. Ellaine, you are making a pact with the devil.”

Fuck school and Papa for trying to make me read Goethe’s Faust. Fuck them, that book was so hard to read.

Ellaine grabbed both of my hands and placed hers against them. Although I could not feel her warmth, I believed I could feel her emotions surging through her soul. “Not if you are there to support me, Hestia. As long as I have you, Saori, Tasianna, and Master Grimnir by my side. As long as Aurora is there for me to feel at home will I give up my soul to the demon. I promise. Will you make this promise to me, too?”

What an anime cliché. The power of friendship?

… Well, of course, that is the most fitting, right?

“… I see you two have made a decision. Foolishness, if you were to ask me.” Aurena shook her head as I was persuaded by Ellaine’s determination. “Then, allow me to continue to aid you once more, my Champion.”

Aurena pulled up her administrator window as she flung the demon away from her like a dirty tissue. After pressing on a few buttons, she turned back to us. “Congratulations, Klea’Hatma, you may live for a bit longer until Elder Plesia gives her opinion on this decision. Hestia. Ellaine.”

““Yes, Goddess Aurena.””

“I have sealed the rings from unleashing the demon’s full power. This should not restrict your ability to learn and make Klea’Hatma’s abilities your own; however, it is there to prevent the pest from breaking out and escaping. To further strengthen the seal, I would ask you to visit the other Origin Gods using an altar strongly dedicated to them. Use this chance to make friends with my elders, Hestia.”

““Thank you, Goddess Aurena. We will!””

“Don’t be so carefree just yet. Hestia, create that song immediately to aid Ellaine.” She then swooped her hand to the side and the demon disappeared completely from her realm. Did she just destroy it?! “Klea’Hatma should not be able to hear anything else. Ellaine, she will learn about this sooner or later by deduction alone, but never accept anything the demon offers, alright? By accepting a deal with it, it will be able to absorb some of your mana directly, strengthening it and allowing it to grow. With enough mana, it will be able to reconstruct its body outside the ring in whatever perverse way she can think of.”

We gulped but acknowledged Aurena’s advice.

“Good. Ellaine, I have cleansed the rings to the point you may remove them. Of course, only you should be able to use them as a catalyst, but under no circumstances should you allow others to equip it. If you do, the demon might try to entice them.” Suddenly, light particles began to surround Ellaine, but, before we panicked, Aurena explained. “Ellaine, I must ask you to leave for now. There is something important I must finally explain to Hestia.”

The reason why I am here. My Divine Quest as a champion will finally be fully revealed.

A note from AbyssRaven

This was a pretty important chapter for Ellaine's character since it involves the first real demon of the story. What will these two experinced, and what is Klea'Hatma planning to do? What powers will Ellaine receive?

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Chapter 195: A Champion’s Divine Quest.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“I am sorry. I shouldn’t have raised my voice like that, regardless of the situation. Venting my anger at you like that was just childish and inconsiderate, especially when you made the effort to warn me of the danger. Also, thank you very much for helping Ellaine and for accepting our rather selfish and, honestly, risky idea.” The first thing I did after the piece of Ellaine’s spirit had left Aurena’s divine realm and rejoined her body was to apologize to her personally for my rude outburst and thank her for helping Ellaine’s demon problem.

“If you’re mad about it, I can understand. Although, uhm, I pray you’re not that super angry at me…”

However, Aurena dismissively waved her hand as if there was nothing to apologize for and continued speaking with her smiling poker face. “There is no need to worry about it, Hestia. I wasn’t exactly angered, more surprised, as this is the first time any mortal spoke so roughly to me. Sure, sometimes the prayers to me do have unpleasant topics attached to them, but my angels usually remove them before I read them.”

“Urgh…” Was she a sheltered goddess or was I just overthinking this? Then again, considering how she handled the demon and viciously destroyed Lust’s original body right in front of us, maybe my complaints weren’t worth minding, like a kid letting out a tantrum in front of an adult.

Regardless of the reason, getting away scot-free for shouting at a goddess is good enough. Gives me the chills to imagine her being more hot-headed, urgh.

With that out of the way, it was time to finally talk business. Sure, Aurena’s relationship with the demon was interesting to me, as well as the fact that the demon was pretty much a demigod, but… I was seeing flashbacks of Aurena being actually angry the moment the demon mentioned something about her. She obviously did not want to talk about it, so let’s leave it be.

“In any case, it should be I who should apologize, Hestia. Despite the circumstances, I pretty much did forget about Klea’Hatma’s racial abilities, which left you in a precarious situation and led to your friend’s rings to be infected by Lust’s mana,” Aurena reciprocated my apology with her own, reminding me of how the demon’s arm erupted from its prison and attacked me.

I shook my hands, forcing a wry smile to show it was water under a bridge. “It’s alright, I hate to admit it, but the demon was right, it did save Ellaine’s life in the fight. Haa, I wish Kargrxymor had just told Astalos to call off the escort business. We wouldn’t have gotten in this situation if he had just said something.”

Astalos was a wyvern and a follower of Kargryxmor. If Aurena’s statement also applied to subordinate gods, that the gods could see through the eyes of their followers, then couldn’t Kargryxmor have said something to stop him from trying to kill everybody? It wouldn’t have caused that near wipe in our fight against the Boltreaver Wyvern.

As I was sighing at how negligent my “grandpa” was, Aurena's smile suddenly disappeared and she looked at me with serious eyes. “No, the blame does not belong with Kargryxmor in this case. The one responsible for the wyvern continuing his pursuit was none other than me.”

“Huh?” My eyes widened.

“This was a test and a valuable source of experience for you now that you had reached rank B before your maturation. Kargryxmor wanted to call it off, but I decided you needed this challenge. You have been growing magnificently, but even with all your allies, the road before you is not without shadows.” Aurena’s gaze was entirely devoid of kindness and warmth, bringing the uncomfortable belief that she wasn’t an entirely kindhearted goddess. Considering she came from the same place as that demon of lust, I should’ve been more on my guard.

“T-Then Ellaine—”

“Banish that thought, Hestia. This was officially a divine test; thankfully, Elder Plesia gave me permission for it, allowing me to intervene. Kargryxmor and I were already prepared to stop the fight and protect every member of Aurora if it was necessary. Your journey has just begun, after all, and I was not willing to set you back so much under my own terms. Although, you had faced enough close calls in your one year of Peolyncian life, challenges which I was not allowed to do anything about, unfortunately.” She had adopted an apologetic look but I was still unnerved by everything.

“T-Then Astalos was sent against me just to act as an experience bag? He died just for that?!” I was baffled at what Aurena had revealed, showing a side of her personality that was a far cry from how she acted during the previous two discussions I had with her.

“In the first place, it was the wyvern’s choice. Kargryxmor had already annulled the Divine Quest, but Astalos had continued on despite that, desperately wishing for power. This is no excuse. Hestia, let me reiterate this once more for you to understand, for becoming my champion and agreeing to help me reform my church, I told you I would aid you in every way I could,” Aurena sighed deeply, her eyes looking tired. “As much as I want to act compassionate and kind exactly as my followers imagine me to be, mercy without strength or influence is nothing more than a wasted dream. If this side of me scares you, Hestia, then I apologize once more, but with your future enemies, you cannot allow yourself to let your guard down.”

It was scary. What a god thought of their mortal followers was incomprehensible to me, although sometimes I imagined it would be similar to humans looking at our pet dogs while enemies would be similar to ants to somebody like Aurena. Astalos’s life was fuel for me, Aurena’s champion, to become stronger, just a trial to overcome and grow from.

Aurena’s switch from a smiling to a serious expression and then to her currently exhausted look made me wonder what was going through her head. Is Aurena hiding her ruthless side behind a poker face or was this just another layer of Aurena’s true personality? Something she was not comfortable sharing with her normal worshippers?

“It’s fine.” In the end, I decided to stay calm about it. The last thing I want to do is another childish fit. “If you can keep your promise of being truthful to me and sending me to visit Earth once more, then I’m alright with it. Scary as it was, I expected it a little bit from a god. Just, please, could you not endanger my party again? We already cause ourselves enough trouble.”

“I can’t promise that, but I’ll try.”

After Aurena sipped her tea, smiling once again, she projected a screen on the table, showing a map. From how much I’ve educated myself of this world, I knew this was Peolynca. A red spot kept blinking, glowing and dimming over time, on the far west of the continent Altrust. From its position, north of it was a mountain range and to the west was a giant forest area. This was the Kingdom of Artorias.

“As you should know, this is the map of this world. The red dot is where your soul is right now — the Kingdom of Artorias. Have you perhaps learned where the Holy State Aureolis is? The capital of my church’s faith?” I nodded and pointed at a small country southwest of Artorias, surrounded by five others including Artorias. Like a wall, this place seemed important as it began to light up after I pointed at it.

“Correct. Aureolis, a country made in my honor after the old faith of this world clashed against the new, brought about a large increase of faith to me. As you might expect, I did not start out as the patron goddess of the humans; it happened over time as more and more humans favored my magic over those of my elders. The human religions most fitting to mine merged into one, forming the current Church of Aurena.”

Aurena had also told me of how not every human in the world revered her as their patron goddess. Some preferred other origin gods, others only prayed to her subordinate gods, and a minority were either godless, those who did not pray to any of the established gods or pantheons, or preferred to pray to the old “gods.”

“Peolynca actually had gods before the Origin Gods came? I thought you six were called that way because you were the first actual gods to appear before the Peolyncians,” I asked, wondering about this inconsistency.

“Oh, we are the first. When I mentioned ‘old gods,’ I meant what the Peolyncians used to worship before we came. None of them were technically gods, but were in the process of apotheosis due to all the faith they garnered. Once we arrived, the only way for them to ascend was to become our subordinates,” Aurena explained. “To become a god, the amount of faith you require is extremely vast, but the moment your followers are gone, all of that progress would disappear like that,” she explained with a snap of her fingers.

I wonder how many would-be gods were crushed after the Origin Gods appeared and stole everybody away with the Divine System. Well, it’s not my problem, but it’s hard to hear of so many ambitions crushed like this.

As I was wondering about what I just learned of the world before the Origin Gods appeared, Aurena then pointed at a huge landmass in the east of Altrust. “The Folschreck Empire,” I answered, to which she nodded.

“Do you know about ‘The Home of the Holy Emperor of Light’ yet?” Aurena asked, but I shook my head. I only knew it was the country where I could get one of the ingredients for Farron’s medicine as well as the place that 15 members of Saori’s students went to.

Aurena nodded, “Have Eshe explain to you about the details of the Folschreck Empire. Also, I asked her to teach you about the intricacies of my church. This should also be a good way for the two of you to bond a bit, seeing as you two are my latest champion and saint respectively.”

So, Aurena did send her to Artorias for this reason.

“However, for the purpose of our discussion, at the very least you must know that the Holy Emperor of Light is the title of the emperor of the Folschreck Empire, given to him by my church’s previous pope. As a result, the Folschreck Empire and their vassals are an extension of my church’s will,” Aurena explained. “This arrangement is the reason why, from a faith standpoint, I am the second most influential Origin God, behind Elder Plesia.”

The ocean vs. the land. If Plesia had leviathans praying to her, it was no wonder she was the head honcho.

“So the situation is like the Holy Roman Empire?” I wondered out loud. After I gave Aurena a general explanation of what it was to Earth’s history, Aurena confirmed my assumption, causing my face to contort in dread. “Urgh, if that is the case then, well, y-you aren’t implying what I’m thinking about, right?”

“Rebuilding my church also involves confronting the empire in a way, yes, but I’m not asking you to go to war against them. Now, before we continue, I want to ask your opinion on my church. Do you remember, I asked you to learn more about my church by experiencing it through an unbiased perspective?” Aurena said, reminding me why I was supposed to go to Griffonpeak before the whole demon fiasco.

Demon fiasco? I should ask about it later on.

I explained to Aurena about what I learned. I told her how I found the white-robed and grey-robed system too similar to a noble and slave relationship, as I didn’t recall Theodore or Barathan — House Helvas’s seneschal for their fief — explaining to me how they were paid outside of food and accommodations.

While I liked the priest and shrine maiden system, I did not like the divide between the noble and commoner white-robes. The commoner white-robes I met in Firwood’s hunter’s guild were acting so subservient towards me, believing I should be treated differently ’cause of the social status I inherited. Even farmers and the townspeople understood to not anger a white-robe, as they could risk angering a noble. Not a priest of Aurena.

I also did not like the whole “payment for healing” part. However, I came to realize it was due to my special situation. I still haven’t obtained a Peolycian’s common sense yet, where mages were paid for services, due to my obscene mana pool. Healing somebody was like snapping my fingers for me; not a lot of effort was needed. However, normal mages had to learn magic the hard way, not through the SP system, and then needed to spend mana, of which they regenerated only so much each day and risked Arcane Corruption, to cast a spell.

I learned how naive it was to think a professional mage wouldn’t request money for their services. I still wanted to keep my rates at 500 Davi, but I now understood why this system was implemented. Aurena’s spells were a “miracle” but the people casting them weren’t only saints or gods. Theodore even mentioned how nobles would ask favors in return for healing, something he and I tried to do to resolve the Chezaic situation, so condemning compensation wasn’t okay for me anymore.

However, what caught my attention the most was the fact the church literally kidnapped Saori’s students from Earth. They weren’t dead like Saori or me; the students were just living their lives. They went to school, were waiting for class to begin, and were then transported to Peolynca. From what I heard from Tamae and Nishio, Saori most likely died during the summoning and her soul was transported to Peolynca. In other words, the church was also responsible for Saori’s death on Earth.

With Aurena confirming she wasn’t the one who did it, all the blame was placed on the church. They forced Tamae and the others to work for them, to fight the demonkin king like a generic anime trope in exchange for being allowed to return to Earth. Imagine getting kidnapped and doing something risky like that. Even with cheats, I would despise this situation.

Technically, Aurena and Kargryxmor were doing the same thing with me, but I was already dead. I had no choice in the matter if I wanted to continue “living.” If they had erased my memories as planned, this would have been a non-issue in the first place, as morbid as it sounded.

There was more I wanted to say but those details were minor. Aurena sipped her tea once I was done, starting to speak again only after putting the cup down. “Hmm, I guess only Firwood’s temple as reference isn’t enough. You should be able to form a better opinion after you learn more about Griffonpeak’s.”

True. Theodore seemed like a competent bishop, so Firwood’s shouldn’t be—

And then Aurena dropped a bomb. “The demonkins summoned my supposed ‘heroes.’”

…

“WHAT?!” This wasn’t just a bomb, it was a nuke.

Aurena calmed me down, asking me to sit before continuing. “I do not know what the demonkin’s goals are with this act, but I know for a fact a god from my previous homeworld helped them in this task. You were still growing inside your egg when we Origin Gods sensed something penetrate the barrier we maintain to defend against our old acquaintances. The demonkins, who mostly worship the gods the demons used to serve, somehow managed to achieve this feat through the current seven demonkin princes of sins.”

Faith allowed the Origin Gods to grow stronger and achieve near-complete control over all their subordinate gods, which also seemed to also apply to the gods of their previous world. In a ritual, the princes of sins — the demonkins with the highest compatibility with their demon bloodlines’ sins — managed to commune with these alien gods and had them summon the students to this world.

It was fucking crazy. I thought I was dealing with Peolyncian threats, but now there were alien powers, too?

“As you know, I can only see through the eyes of those faithful to me. The previous pope, the one who blessed the current Holy Emperor of Light, was supposedly still active but I was not able to see through his vision for a long time. After a while, I reached out to Ilsaphone, who confirmed that this pope had died and his soul had reached her, which led me to find out the current pope is a demonkin of envy using the previous pope's appearance to disguise himself and rule my church.”

It was getting wilder and wilder. Revelations were dropping on me like a landfall as I wondered what the hell I was supposed to do to fix this problem. I’m just a normal girl who wanted to become an idol, for crying out loud.

“A-And you have no idea what they are trying to do with Tamae-san and the rest? What about those alien gods, will they interfere? How am I supposed to do all of this, Goddess Aurena? This seems… impossible for me to fix. I know I made a promise, but this… y-you didn’t even reveal all the details before. OMG, why did I agree to it?!” My heart sank, I was feeling a mix of dread and fear for the grand nature of the task. I didn’t even know the demonkins were this deep into all this political and religious fuckery.

“To collapse an empire, the most efficient way was by corrupting the core. The demonkins have hated me ever since the humans began to worship me excessively, who in turn used me as an excuse to ‘purge the corruption of the world.’ One of my biggest mistakes for why my church is collapsing, was not stopping these zealous followers of mine.” Aurena massaged her temples in exasperation, looking troubled at the situation of the map, showing black color spreading through the Folschreck Empire and a large island landmass in the south like a plague.

She continued. “While I did say the demonkins worshipped the gods from my homeworld, some still pray to us Origin Gods. We came from the same world, after all. Although, I am the only one they universally detest. Some also dislike Elder Plesia for a past event, but not to the point that they would try to massacre the levianewts.” Aurena then pointed at an area west of the Avitor mountains, the location of the grimgarian army. “The demonkin created this army, provoking the grimgarians’ hatred for humans and beastmen. The rebellion orb and the black transformation potion were also demonkin plots.”

… I-I want to go back into my bed. I just want to sleep and wake up, forgetting I learned all of this…

“However, fortunately, you were there. You caused a series of setbacks in their plans.” Aurena leaned forward, smirking as she rested her head on an arm. “The grimgarian army were stopped twice by you — first you destroyed their main way into Artorias by rescuing Tasianna and secondly, you stopped a battalion and flooded their second entrance into Artorias. Now, the grimgarians are locked in their camp with no other available ways to infiltrate the human lands. The seas are blocked due to the sudden S rank evolution of a leviathan, someone you already know, according to Elder Zephira’s footage of Tasianna’s vision. The western oceans are a maelstrom of waves and monsters right now, making it impossible for the grimgarians to either launch an attack or request for supplies.”

Leviathan? Does she mean the one from Belzac forest. I remember him mentioning he was about to evolve into an S rank.

Aurena continued, “You stopped a foolish human’s gambit to help the demonkins by stealing away Lust’s prison ball and stopped an onnikai’s invasion which should have acted as a diversion for the grimgarian battalion to enter the kingdom. The rebellion orb did cause some damage, but nothing significant. Cedaraille did not fall, meaning Artorias’s source of food won’t be depleted and they won’t face a famine any time soon. Sabotages in the other duchies are in motion, but you can simply share this information here to those responsible, once you believe you can trust them.”

Points of interest appeared on the map. I carefully memorized each one so I could inform whoever was interested in this. Aurena mentioned I did not need to go there personally, but I could if I wanted experience or adventure.

However, I still had my doubts. “But aren’t all of these just small events in the grand scheme of things? Don’t get me wrong, I am happy nothing terrible happened to Greenveil. I have enough friends I didn’t want to get hurt, but this doesn’t seem like it will change anything. Goddess Aurena, t-this is overwhelming.”

Aurena nodded, fully understanding the scope of everything. That was why her next words surprised me. “I wanted to let you know how much you are already doing without a real plan. Pure coincidence. However, this isn’t just a local problem; this is a worldwide issue. This is why your next objective isn’t to march into Aureolis and denounce the pope, but to go and make allies.”

“Allies?”

“Do you understand why you were born as a dragon princess? Why I thought working with Kargryxmor was the correct choice? Can you guess, Dragon Princess Hestia Atsuko Kargrxymor? The youngest of a prestigious line and the daughter of the only two living SS rank dragons?” Aurena winked, assuming I had already something in mind.

I said the first word I thought of. “Connections.”

It was the most obvious answer ever but Aurena smiled.

“I have two extremely powerful parents, parents able to level a whole country if they wanted to. I have a whole dragonewt clan on my mother's side willing to become my ally, if my niece is to be believed. If I can rally Kargryx, Loatryx will rally, too. The levianewts, elves, and dwarves all are allies with Kargryx, so they might consider my words more carefully since I am a dragon princess.”

“Your goal right now is to gain allies and reach maturity. You need to reach A rank, or possibly even S rank, in order to become a real threat to the demonkins. You need to bring the dwarves, elves, dragonewts, and levianewts to care about humanity again. Considering how much the demonkins are preparing to cause the downfall of the empire, you need to prepare your own faction, too,” Aurena gave me more concise instructions. “In addition, the rest of Aurora must become stronger as well. They may go down their current road or they may ask for the help of my elders. The other Origin Gods cannot help me with my issue without a champion willing to fight for this cause. I won’t force your friends to do so, after all, I would like to believe you are enough.”

Of course, all of this sounded like a bunch of politics and diplomacy, something I wasn't anywhere good at. I could cast spells, fight well, bake, and do idol stuff. Politics? I barely followed them when I was still in the US. I get nervous whenever I speak with a noble and I just feel uncomfortable inside an etiquette-focused environment.

It was good news that Aurena did not expect me to do this all alone, but this was still crazy. How am I supposed to do this? I can’t speak with foreign dignitaries like an orator, and I don’t think anyone else in my party could do it perfectly, either. There was no way for me to-

Wait!

“Ahh, it seems you’re starting to understand, dear. Hestia, I did not choose an idol for nothing,” Aurena’s smirk almost seemed like it was laughing at me for being so slow.

I was reminded of how I became suspicious of how [Idol] and [The Light] fitted together perfectly. I remembered how Aurena didn’t fully explain why she needed an idol exactly, outside of rebuilding her church. When the reason dawned on me, I finally understood.

“To rebuild my church, it does not require you to be a spiritual leader. An entertainer, a celebrity can bring people from different backgrounds together just by having them enjoy your content. That is what I learned from Earth’s culture after doing my research. Cultural and political barriers can be crossed using a medium of entertainment — in this case, music,” Aurena explained.

“I might not be able to fully get away from doing diplomacy, but in order to get the elves, dwarves, levianewts, and dragonewts to want to help the humans in the first place, there has to be something to bind them together.” I then went through all the background benefits Aurena handed to me. “My social status is required to initiate diplomacy with open minds, while my musical skills are there to help people bond together. If the demonkins do not threaten anybody besides the humans, the other races can simply ignore the problem, since they’re still carrying a grudge over the past events during the War for the Faefolk. I am the glue.”

“Your singing is not only a religious tool to help you garner followers under your banner, but it is also there to soothe relationships. A person able to rally the populace can not be ignored by a country’s leader. This was the case when my religion became larger, the people in power had to take notice.” With me finally understanding what I had to do, Aurena clapped her hands. “I believe you need some time to think this over. This talk has gone lon-”

“Wait a minute!” I raised my hand before this discussion ended. “I had this question for a while, but I remembered how you said you couldn’t take physical objects from the mortal realm. Only copy them. How did you destroy the demon’s body like that? I thought you also needed God Marsven to unlock his seal.”

“Oh, I didn’t pull your orb from your storage, Hestia.” I tilted my head in confusion. “I had already gotten permission to unlock Elder Marsven’s seal. When I opened that crack in space, I used his seal to unlock the orb and I then took out the demon’s soul. The ‘main body’ was Klea’Hatma’s soul. The only way for Klea’Hatma’s race to die is to either vaporize every single cell or to destroy their soul.”

“Then why was it in the form of an orb?”

“Elder Marsven’s seal stuffed the demon’s soul into the orb, and the demon needed mana to regenerate its body. If you ask why he did not destroy it, then blame his slothfulness. He most likely would have become the God of Sloths if he wasn’t considered someone on par with Elder Plesia in our previous world. At this current moment, Elder Plesia and his wife, Goddess Edna, are most likely scolding him.” Aurena then placed her hand on her forehead, sighing so deeply it felt like she was exasperated. “The ball Klea’Hatma used to be imprisoned in is still in your storage, but it is just a normal gemstone now. Also, there is no need to worry about Klea’Hatma in her current form. Even if you touch the rings or her body parts, nothing will happen. Just don’t allow her to corrupt Ellaine’s soul.”

I’m just gonna pull this flag out of the ground. Nothing will happen to Ellaine while a member of Aurora is around.

Aurena then clapped her hands together, finishing this discussion. “My part is done, now it is time for the second part.”

“Second part?”

“Yes. I shall take my leave now. Have fun with your grandfather, dear.” Waving me goodbye, Aurena’s body turned into light particles and shot up in the sky like a pillar. As I was flabbergasted at the situation, a dark particle cloud suddenly appeared in a vast, empty area. It began growing and growing, to the point it almost seemed like a mountain to me.

“Greetings.” An older man’s voice suddenly filled Aurena’s divine realm, booming inside my mind as my jaw dropped the moment the particles formed a body.

Black wings, black scales, and a humanoid body standing on two legs. Imposing and intimidating, this giant had his arms crossed together as his full appearance appeared before me.

Kargrxymor?!

“Hestia.” His red eyes glared down at me and I could feel my soul quivering in response. My fight-or-flight instincts were activated but I couldn’t move a single muscle — every bit of my soul was paralyzed in fear. As I looked up at the mountainous monster, I couldn’t utter a single word.

Oh no, oh no, what is he gonna do?! I ignored him so often he has to be so fucking mad! So fucking mad!

As the silence continued with nobody speaking, Kargryxmor opened his mouth once more, “It is great to finally meet and speak with you, my cute granddaughter… Hold on.” Kargryxmor’s neck snapped his head to the side as his scales began to form a frown on his face.

What?! Huh?! What did he just call me?!

He turned his head back to me, mimicking the intimidating glare he had before. “It is great to finally meet and speak with you, my descendant. You have left me waiting.”

Did this old man just call me “cute?!”

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Chapter 196: Kargryxmor and Hestia.

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‘Cute granddaughter’ I dunno, it honestly sounded a bit too weird coming from a giant, intimidating, arm-crossing dragon. The contrast between his appearance and what he said was so gap moe, it makes it hard for me to understand what his personality is supposed to be.

Kargryxmor, the Black Tyrant of the Sky. According to Yorshka, Kargryxmor was the strongest and one of the oldest dragons to have ever lived in Peolynca, ruling over the skies over Miononbolax and the surrounding ocean. Having made the other dragons of legends — the ancestors of the five kinkyuro dragonewt clans and the five empresses of the current dragon emperor, excluding my mother — bow to him through strength, he founded Kargryx as a country in order to rule over all dragons.

This very legend was now standing before me as the God of Dragons and Oaths. Despite being a fire dragon, his scales were colored jet black with small accents of dark red on the edges, making it look like cooled lava. The scales on his stomach were of a lighter color, grey, while his spikes and horns glistened like radiant obsidian.

As a two-legged dragon, my “grandfather” stood before me with his well-proportioned arms crossed, looking like a stern, well-built old man. His tail was thick around his butt, but became slimmer the further away it was from his body, looking nowhere close to my dragon form’s tail though it did have some similarity to my dragonewt tail, just missing the tail spikes.

As I continued looking at him, my eyes couldn’t stop taking a look at his massive wings. They were far longer and larger than his main body, complete with red-glowing webbings and pitch-black scales, looking like actual limbs with the four claws at the end of them. As he noticed me staring at them, he had his wing-hands grab each other and fold close, making his wings look like a long cape. It gave me some overlord emperor vibes.

“Child.” Kargryxmor’s voice wasn’t as deep as I imagined, it sounded average, like an ordinary older man. Of course, despite opening his mouth whenever he spoke, his voice was transmitted through some sorta telepathy and it was booming inside my mind.

“Y-Yes, God Kargryxmor.” As I was shivering down here from his sheer presence, Kargryxmor nodded his head for some reason, before his body transformed into black particles. Condensed into a smaller body, Kargryxmor reappeared, looking a bit like a dragonewt, although it really was just a smaller version of himself.

“Control your fear, little whelp. You stand not before a predator, but your ancestor. I wish not for you to tremble before me on our first meeting, a meeting I have been awaiting for far too long now. Come, we speak. This piece of your soul must return soon, so time is of the essence.” His voice did not invoke fear, on the contrary, it was rather soothing. Not as comforting as Aurena’s, but his voice has the sorta familial charm, as if this God of Dragons was speaking to his own child. Well, in my case, I technically am his granddaughter.

And here I thought I was his great-great-great-great-great-whatever amount-granddaughter, at first.

I took in a deep breath, controlling my shaking soul until I could move it again. I closed my mouth, gulped down some spit, and began massaging my hands to calm myself. I then looked up into the Dragon God’s eyes, nodded at him, and stood up from my chair.

“Good. Fear is no shame, as it is the quintessential ingredient for the birth of courage. I will make my intentions for this meeting clear. First, I must talk with you about the current situation in Kargryx. Second, Goddess Aurena has asked me to give you some advice for your travels,” Kargryxmor stated, looking aloof after praising me. “However, I believe we must first settle some other concerns first. Hestia, my descendant, I believe you have questions. Allow me to hear them.”

“You aren’t mad?” The first thing that came out of my mouth was a confused remark. I remembered how I wanted to separate myself from Kargryxmor, how I complained about him and Aurena leaving me alone in the Belzac forest, and how I went against his wish and rejected the escort he sent over to me.

I was sure he was angry. I was anticipating it the whole time.

Kargryxmor’s left wing let go of his right wing, using it to scratch his jaw like a wizard touching his beard to think. “Anger? Anger at you? Little, not worth mentioning. Why do you ask?”

Huh?

“I mean, aren’t you angry at me for, you know, not meeting you earlier? I could have been speaking with you far earlier if I had not killed your first set of escorts and then fled the second one. I mean, Astalos was an ardent follower of yours, and I killed him. Sure, I guess you planned this with Aurena, but I thought you would be more irritated,” I explained, but Kargryxmor didn’t react much to it.

“Why should I worry about you slaying some wyverns? I was more angered when I saw them failing to fulfill my Quest. Incompetence. If I still had some sway over the lacking dragon youths of this age, I would have sent them to pick you up, but, alas, their lack of faith in me forced me to rely on lesser dragonkins,” Kargryxmor’s expression contorted into disgust as he thought of the wyverns he sent me, showing the anger I thought would be directed toward me. “On the contrary, you have made me proud; elated to see your growth. You survived alone as a G rank whelp inside a forest filled with nothing but enemies, struggling to reach the same rank that a Kargryxmor normally should have been born into. You ask if I would denigrate your efforts? Preposterous.”

Kargryxmor hatchlings were meant to be born as C ranks, but I was an early birth. Without all the blessings and the fact I had my mind from my past life, it would have been impossible for me to survive as a G rank in the Belzac forest. The first day alone was already a close call. I did feel a bit happy to hear Kargryxmor shower me in praises, but I did not feel safe to thank him just yet.

“Yes, we could have met sooner, but a year is nothing to either a god or a dragon. I also would have liked you to fully embrace your bloodline by taking a black dragon evolution, but your mutations have turned you into a magnificent dragon with shimmering scales and abilities worthy to hold my blood. Astalos might have just been a wyvern, but he was formidable in his own right. You did well enough against someone far above you in levels and combat experience.” Kargryxmor’s mouth curved into a smile. “Those wyverns did well to allow you to demonstrate to me your abilities. They might have failed their original task but they have made me confident you will be able to fulfill the goal I set for you.”

“…You don’t seem to hold those wyverns in a good light. Weren’t they your followers? They died for you but it sounds like… it sounds like you couldn’t care less about them.” It was unnerving for me to hear this from him. Aurena seemed to at least care about her followers even if she had her ruthless moments.

“Wyverns are lesser dragonkin, beings who cannot stand up against us dragons. To me, a lesser dragonkin is nothing. To me, a wyvern is similar to a human or an ant.” I gulped. “I only respect the strong. If a wyvern or human manages to contest against me, then I will give them the respect they deserve. To me, even the true dragonkin and the dragonewts bearing our blood are uninteresting if they cannot prove themselves.”

“But—” I knew speaking against a god wasn’t the wisest idea, especially if it isn’t someone like Aurena. However, my gut told me I could and I should speak up against the way Kargryxmor was thinking. My sentence was interrupted, but he didn’t seem annoyed.

“Do not try, Hestia. I do not care what opinion you have on this topic, and I would dislike it if you tried to change my mindset, as if yours is the righteous choice. When you have lived as long as I have, all you can do is look down on others. Respect can only be earned.” Kargryxmor’s wings formed back into a cape. “Enough about this topic. Is there anything else you wanted to ask?”

“Yes,” I replied. It was a question I’ve been asking myself since the beginning. “Why me? Why did you choose me to be reincarnated? I’m just one of many, someone not even worth mentioning back on Earth.”

As depressing as it sounded, it was the truth. Aurena already explained that she chose me due to my dream to become an idol, that she felt I would be the best one for the job as this dream could motivate me to help Aurena. Even with my past memories erased, it would still drive me forward. The only question is, why exactly me? I bet other boys and girls would have had the same unfulfilled dream.

Kargryxmor, understanding the meaning of my question, allowed himself to think. For a couple of moments, the realm was silent, only to be broken by the Dragon God’s voice. “I despise oath breakers. I have always hated them. Lies are for the weak, subterfuge is for those who cannot confront others head-on. This mentality sounds inflexible but it is far from it. I understand that sometimes fighting must be avoided, that combat is not the only way to resolve a situation. An emperor who cannot use both diplomacy and violence to open the way forward is a failure. I was forced to learn this lesson to uphold my oath to Kargryx and my followers.”

He continued after pausing, “It is true that your soul wasn’t anything special, Hestia. Goddess Aurena wanted somebody to gather followers better and I needed somebody who will never go back on their oaths, their promises. You might not have been special, but you were the choice the two of us agreed on.”

I had a dream I wanted to fulfill desperately, to the point I swore not to cry until I became one. Although I couldn’t keep this promise after coming to Peolynca, my dedication to it made me a candidate for Aurena. The fact I even made this promise in the first place and kept it ongoing until Saori gave me that speech, impressed Kargryxmor. These two parts of my past self were what should have been left in me after I was reborn and had my memories wiped.

“Don’t second-guess yourself, Hestia. You were our first attempt and you have vastly surpassed our expectations. Your birth is not important, what makes you valuable and special is what you decide to do with your life. Even I had to shed blood and sweat to become even a footnote for the scholars.” Kargryxmor’s tail moved, patting me softly on the head. “There is still much I want you to do, but you have already impressed me, my Granddaughter.”

‘You are my ‘Schatz.’ My treasure in German. ‘I love you, **k***’

‘Your Papa and Mama will always support you. Your dream is our dream, **k***’

Fuck… Papa. Mama.

Memories hidden inside the cracks of my soul emerged, causing me to remember certain memories of my past. I could hear it. I could hear something similar to a name as my soul felt like weeping. Saori and Tasianna had already told me several times that I was special, that I was unique. I already felt special just from having friends like them. Kargryxmor was a stranger to me, so why did I feel this same urge to cry?

Dammit. I haven’t even accepted you as my grandfather yet, don’t make me want to cry…

After calming myself down, I told Kargryxmor I was ready to hear why he wanted to summon an otherworlder to Peolynca. And the reason was…

“I need you to kick my lazy descendants and subjects back into action. Their complete disregard for the world and their true task is causing my faith and Goddess Aurena’s trust in me to waver.”

…

…It was practically the same reason as Aurena’s. “Fix my faith” somehow.

Kargryxmor seeing my confusion, quickly began explaining, “I am one of two members of Goddess Aurena’s patheon who did not become her subordinate god because of faith. Including the God of Knowledge and Magic, Istari, we joined Aurena for personal reasons.”

I was further confused. I was sure Aurena told me only those faithful to her could enter her realm, so why was Kargryxmor able to become a subordinate god in the first place? That was when I remembered Yorshka’s words.

“Oooh, I remember hearing you accepted her apotheosis due to a deal. You would join her in exchange for the Dungeon of Infinite Feasts, right?” I told him what Yorshka already told me.

“Correct. You remembered the dragonewt’s words,” he nodded. “Most of Goddess Aurena’s subordinate gods became part of her pantheon due to their faith in her, that she was the one true god among all the Origin Gods. Most of these subordinates are consequently human. On the other hand, Istari joined due to the mystery of the Origin God’s homeworld, wishing to learn it while in Goddess Aurena’s presence. I wanted to alleviate the dragons’ famine issues.”

It didn’t take me long to connect the dots. “Ahh, our hunger. I’m already a glutton, so I can imagine beings far larger than me having even more problems. The dungeon is there to solve this problem, right? The name is pretty much a dead giveaway.”

“We dragons can sustain ourselves using Mana, or in your case, from the sun. We rarely need food while we hibernate, but, once we awaken, the tastelessness of mana is enough of a motivation to hunt for flesh and blood. Hunting grounds were contested for this reason, making it impossible for Miononbolax to sustain a higher dragon population without bloodshed between the hunters. As the strongest dragon, I wanted this to end.”

“So you, someone who could go against demons, literal demi-gods, became Goddess Aurena’s subordinate for the future of your race? That is pretty admirable.” It was the lofty aspirations of the first founder of a country that made it so likable. “So why are you losing Goddess Aurena’s trust? I’m not sure why you are losing faith, but at least I can understand what you mean by that.”

Also, it doesn’t help that you allowed some of your followers to die, old man!

“I made an oath to Goddess Aurena in exchange for my apotheosis and the dungeon,” Kargryxmor stated. “To become her subordinate and turn the dragons into the world’s defenders, following what many of my followers and I did during the Demon War. Of course, I do not expect all dragons and drakes to do so, but at the very least, my son should have been more competent. Eltharion… Your father is a foolish procrastinator, Hestia.”

“Come on, don’t tell me that, that’s a low blow to him. Besides, I haven’t accepted the fact that I have a new family in this world yet, so I don’t know what to say to that.” It honestly felt like a grandfather complaining to his grandchildren about his own son. You’re putting me in a weird position, old man.

Kargryxmor shrugged and continued. “Hmph, unfortunately, I expect you to do so. You must have heard enough from that dragonewt, Yorshka, about the situation with Kargryx. While the dragonewts haven’t lost faith in me yet, most dragons rarely, if ever, pray to me. The children and some grandchildren from dragons of my era have become so lazy in their advanced age, that most only stay inside their lairs. Only the whelps journey the world, but they are in a similar situation to yours, Hestia. They aren’t strong enough.”

In other words, buncha boomers.

“Then, how am I supposed to do this? The current task Goddess Aurena gave me is already forcing me to journey around to make allies to rebuild her church and, I guess, get rid of the threatening demonkins.” I was expecting Kargryxmor to tell me to kick Emperor Eltharion’s ass, to make him move to his father’s whims.

“I will reveal more once you reach Kargryx,” Kargryxmor told me, explaining his plan for now. “I suggest you become stronger first, Hestia. Your mother… most likely will come for you, but if she asks you to come back with her to Kargryx, then decline her request.”

“Why?”

“Because once you arrive in Kargryx, you may not leave until your adulthood pilgrimage. Hmph. A pathetic law Eltharion’s scale-mates established to protect the empire’s children. Truly, the females of our race are far too overprotective,” Kargryxmor scoffed, looking annoyed.

Hey, I’m a female of our race over here.

“If that is the case, then it’ll delay Aurena’s plans,” I replied. “Still, I’m pretty sure she said your plans have advanced far more than you expected due to my circumstances. Wouldn’t waiting a few years just bring me back into the original plan?” I didn’t exactly want to go to Kargryx, but I was just stating questions out of curiosity.

“Simple, why must you restrict yourself to that single continent? Altrust is far larger than Miononbolax and far richer in culture and experience. In addition, once you meet your mother, you will understand why I call females overprotective. A low fertility rate causes dragon mothers to be rabid when it comes to protecting their whelps. Do you want her flying over you for everything?”

“No, Sir…” Cernust already made me aware of how dragon mothers could be. Having a helicopter mother keep watch of every single one of my actions was not possible for me.

“I will not advise you on how to handle your mother, but you mustn’t go to Kargryx with her. Once you reach A rank, your pilgrimage would be ‘finished,’ so you may visit and leave Miononbolax as you wish. To grow stronger, you need more autonomy,” Kargryxmor paused for a moment before continuing. “Which leads me to our second discussion point. Hestia, I disagree with your human companion’s choice to accept the demon’s powers. They are not to be underestimated. Etch this advice into your mind so you may prevent Klea’Hatma from corrupting your companion’s and, through her, your mind.”

I nodded, steeling my will to not give the demon one inch. I will protect Ellaine and help her conquer her demons, literally and figuratively.

“Good. Remember, you will not be able to befriend or win over a demon. They will always strive to fulfill their sin, especially Lust, the most hedonistic of all Demon of Sins. If you wish to keep her in check, awaken her curiosity and make her want to stay with you. This will allow your companion to use a demon’s powers.” For Kargryxmor’s goal to come true, he needed Aurora and me to become stronger. “‘Survive against more ordeals,’ is all I can say to help you and your companions to become stronger. Just as I once did. Now, concerning what you learned from Goddess Aurena today, I suggest you withhold this information from the saintess and anybody not already your ‘retainer.’”

“Wait, what?! Aurena— I mean, Goddess Aurena hasn’t told Saintess Eshe about the fact a demonkin is impersonating the pope of the church yet?! What is she thinking?!”

Considering Aurena just told me all of this information to fulfill her Divine Quest, I thought she had already told her saints and champions about it, since, you know, this concerned the sanctity of her church! Why did she tell me about it but not her other followers?

“You do not need to hold up etiquette with me, Hestia. Istari and I are the only subordinate gods who Goddess Aurena allows herself to reveal her true personality to since we aren’t actually her worshippers. I am formally addressing her since I respect her strength.”

Kargryxmor explained that Aurena’s followers had a clear image of her personality and conduct, spread and told through the church of Aurena’s bible. The serene, angel-like Goddess of Light was what everybody thought of her, so she forced herself to keep that persona on whenever she spoke with any of her fervent followers, especially her current subordinate gods.

In fact, the only ones she could trust right now were Istari and Kargryxmor, who didn’t care about her facade. The other members of her pantheon weren’t actively working against Aurena; in fact, most of them were trying their best to spread her religion to help her overthrow Plesia as the number one most influential Origin God. The issue was, most of them believed they knew what Aurena wanted.

She did show her full personality if it was somebody she could trust. While she was thankful for her subordinate’s aid, she also finds it hard to share everything with them. If she did, they might do something she had not planned. She could tell people her plans, but she worried she could risk breaking the illusion they had of her, turning their zealous faith against her.

Wow, this reminds me of a certain skeleton sorcerer king. Amazing, as expected from Goddess Aurena’s ability to turn faithful worshippers into gods.

Hold on, she showed her true personality to me. What does that mean?!

Speechless at Aurena’s situation, I continued listening to Kargryxmor without replying to anything. “Goddess Aurena has not told you what to do with your newly acquired knowledge, as she expects you to figure it out yourself. That is why I am here. I suggest you tell none of this information to any clergymen, champion, or saint. This will just cause chaos amongst the ranks, distrust in your ability to ‘interpret’ the Goddess’ words, and it will alert the demonkins fully to your existence.”

The last part did make sense. Currently, none of the demonkins should know I knew demonkins had infiltrated the church and the empire of man, but if they did, they would probably send people to kill me off. I could also imagine some people ridiculing me for believing the pope was killed and replaced by a duplicate, since the pope is one of the most important members of the church. Even if they did, how would they solve the whole demonkin problem then?

Still, why would they think I was interpreting Aurena’s words?

Noticing my confusion, Kargryxmor continued. “Aurena cannot interfere, as this is a worldly issue. Yes, the summoning of the heroes was something we gods could interfere with, but the interfering foreign power is gone now. The demonkins, themselves, did not summon the heroes, they simply petitioned the gods who did. Not punishable.”

Kargryxmor then summoned his admin window and showed me my profile, pointing at my age. “Hestia, the reason why I said you had a limited amount of time in the divine realm was due to the risk of overloading your soul with words. Goddess Aurena should have informed you already. The Demon of Lust currently has some of her mana mixed into Ellaine’s soul, making her able to visit the divine realm since the demon is a demi-god, but not as long as you. No champion or saint of Aurena’s can do this.”

“I can understand Ellaine, but why am I an exception? Also, why not send the champions and saints a System message?” I asked since this was something I needed to know.

“A mortal’s soul isn’t the strongest, and yours wasn’t either. However, since your soul had no vessel when you died, we took our time to allow your soul to attune itself to a god’s aura. [The Light] is a result of this, something we gods cannot replicate on living followers since their bodies would just explode. You had to accept Aurena first for the title to begin working.”

So when I prayed to Aurena to keep Rajah and his family safe, that was when I accepted Aurena as a goddess?

Kagryxmor then sighed after his explanation. “As to why we can’t rely on system messages, it is because the message rarely ever reaches them intact. Do you understand why I used the word ‘interpret?’ If the message isn’t pitifully easy to understand, our followers would try to analyze every detail of the message. As zealous as Goddess Aurena’s followers are, they would not accept the fact the youngest and newest champion understood the words of their goddess better than they could.”

… So many issues.

“So, what do you want me to do with this information?” I wondered.

“Tell this to your party, tell this to the heroes. Make these allies of yours stronger. The people you can trust. According to what Goddess Aurena showed me, I believe the best excuse you can give people about your Divine Quest is to say, ‘I am supposed to bring union between all Peolyncian races.’ Humans do not consider grimgarians or demonkins Peolyncians, and it keeps your goal vague while fitting Goddess Aurena’s teachings,” Kargryxmor gave a good reply, something I could agree with.

However…

“Isn’t this lying? I thought dragons didn’t lie?”

“… M-My sweet granddaughter, sometimes not revealing the whole truth is acceptable. Technically, Goddess Aurena wants you to unite the humans with the dwarves, elves, dragonewts, and levianewts to form a coalition against the demonkin princes of sins, right?”

Hmph. Nice come back, old man.

I accepted Kargryxmor’s suggestion, believing information should be controlled. I also did not want the demonkins to take notice of me just yet, although, if they had agents in Artorias already, it might be hard to conceal it.

“Good. This is all. Time is soon over.” Kargryxmor closed his eyes and nodded, returning to his aloofness.

“Thank you very much, God Kargryxmor. I’ll try my best to fulfill what you and Goddess Aurena have tasked me with.” Kargryxmor nodded, smiling. He was probably expecting me to leave now, but I want to ask him something else. “One last question, I heard you call me ‘my cute granddaughter.’ Did you really say that? Did you?”

“… Go now, otherwise your soul might explode.”

Hehe, old man.

Having my chuckle, I closed my eyes, saying goodbye and returning back to the altar room inside the temple of Griffonpeak. When I opened my eyes to check the surroundings, I noticed something wet flowing down my face. When I touched it, I realized I actually cried a bit.

… Verdammt. What am I supposed to do with this whole dragon family thing? Haaaaa, I don’t know what the correct answer is…

There was also something else I noticed: the tips of my hair were white.

Saori and Tasianna did mention my hair turned white when I prayed. Is it ’cause I’m talking to Aurena? Maybe I should ask this the next time I meet her.

As the white tips disappeared the moment I noticed them, I shook my head and shoved these two issues to the back of my mind, picked up Ellaine’s unconscious body and looked into my storage for the demon orb. As Aurena mentioned, it was broken, but I still needed to confirm something.

“Lust?”

Two eyes revealed themselves on Ellaine’s two rings, staring at me in anticipation. A voice entered my mind. [“Yes, dear?”]

“…Don’t try to corrupt Ellaine. I can destroy you at any time,” I gulped a bit. I knew [Shine] worked on it, so I imagined I could probably destroy the rings in their current state, but I still felt some fear for the demon.

[“Of course, dear. I will be a sweet, good girl just for you and little Ellaine. <3 Oh, you may call me by my name, Klea’Hatma, or just ‘Klea’ is fine if you wish us to be closer. Maybe even intimate? Hie hie hie hie…”] With an eerie giggle, the eyes closed and the rings returned to normal, showing no signs of any demonic powers. Only the lightning scar on her arm showed the struggles Ellaine faced during the Astalos battle.

Goosebumps, urgh.

With my business done, I decided to leave the church and find a place to stay at, probably Ellaine’s family. The moment I opened the door, several men and women in silver armor with blue and green tints stood in front of the door. As they stared at me, I couldn’t help but widen my eyes.

W-What is going on?!

“I apologize, Lady Hestia,” the one to answer my question was High Bishop Theodore. “Apparently, the magic field surrounding Griffonpeak had detected an unidentifiable visitor. Someone who had not registered themselves at the gates…”

My jaw dropped, instantly incriminating me. One of the armored men took off his helmet and bowed to me. “Lady Priestess, as members of the Knight of the Lionheart, we must ask you to come with us for questioning. Unlawful entry into our kingdom’s capital must be taken seriously, even if you are a priestess of the Goddess.”

Theodore nodded, urging me to be civilized. “Lady Hestia, I suggest you accompany them. Everything will be alright once dawn comes, I can promise you this.”

I had no other option.

“… May I have a lawyer?”

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Chapter 197: Time to meet the King.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Whether it was in my past life or my life now in Peolynca, I can for sure say that I’ve never been arrested by a law official before. Sure, I caused some trouble and got scolded by my parents, and now Saori, but I never explicitly broke the law. At least, I didn’t do so intentionally.

Well, unfortunately, the knights who escorted me to the knight’s order building in the noble district for an interrogation weren’t of the same opinion, and they weren’t too thrilled to do this during the middle of the night. They accused me of two crimes. First, unlawful entry into Griffonpeak without prior registration by a gatekeeper, which applied to commoners, nobles, and foreign priestesses. Pretty much everybody had to do it if they didn’t have a proper permit.

And, my second crime… was not being a part of the mages guild while possessing custom spells they’d never heard of. They even made me explain what they did to make sure.

I knew I had forgotten something! This is why you shouldn’t speak without your lawyer! Verdammt!

The “lawyer” occupation wasn’t a thing; you would receive a representative if you were a noble, but there weren’t any available in the middle of the night. Well, and I also forgot how to handle these interrogations like someone from one of those crime shows would. I was pretty nervous since this was my first time being arrested. I was a good girl, I was not a criminal, I could just imagine how much I’ll get scolded for this!

Anyway, so what exactly happened after the knights brought me in to interrogate me? Well, first they took Ellaine to the infirmary after I told them her identity. Since Ellaine’s ID was destroyed during the fight with Astalos, much like Grimnir’s when he fought the volchark, they had to confirm my words with her parents. Speaking of ID, Grimnir got a new one from the hunter’s guild, although it was simple, so I figured I could get them the same one Saori, Tasianna, and I had for later. You know, matching IDs.

After I gave them my ID, I made sure to just let them see what was needed, none of the stuff I wanted to keep secret. That was when they cited the crimes I committed. I told them I knew I was sneaking into Griffonpeak unannounced, but it was an emergency since Ellaine was injured. I even used my priestess status to tell them “it is my duty as a priestess to aid somebody who aided me, for I would sin in front of the Goddess, if I hadn’t.” It got them to loosen up a bit… until the person who was looking at my ID told everybody about my custom spells.

Now, I hadn’t thought this would have been problematic, at first. I hide my dragon skills while leaving [White Flames] and [Corrosive Fire] open to see, since they didn’t implicate me as a follower of Danterno. Even for my spells, I had good excuses, in my opinion.

[Unheilige Engel] and [Symphonie des Feuergottes] were German translated into Common, and since Tasianna’s custom spells were written in Elven, I thought I could just say I made them in Loatryx. [Sanctified Blaze] and its derivative, [Halo of Consecration], were holy spells, the Goddess’s miracles, you can say. If I learned these spells from my homeland, it shouldn’t be a problem. They couldn’t incriminate me with this.

Well… I’m pretty sure the old man would scold me for lying, although it was necessary here, but what made me actually worry was the fact the knights weren’t very impressed. “I apologize, Lady Priestess, but while you are in lands owned by us humans, you must register yourself as a mage at a mages guild branch. Aleistunum, the Magical Capital, handles everything related to magic through their guilds. The Kingdom of Artorias follows their regulations to prevent mages from causing trouble. Any custom spells, regardless if they are legal in your homeland, must be registered at the mages guild.”

That was when the words of my mage master, Master Kushlek’zar came back like a hammer swing.

‘And do not forget, once you get the chance to register at a mages guild, do it promptly! Register yourself as a mage and display your spells, which will not only increase your prestige but ‘legalize’ your spells.’

… Oh crap, I forgot.

They saw that I was registered at the hunter’s, mercenary’s, and baker’s guild. Without being a member of the mages guild, I had no way to talk myself out of this except to say that I forgot about it. Thankfully, they seemed to believe me when I apologized profusely for forgetting, but I still wouldn’t come out of this without some punishment. Unlawful entry into the King’s city and in possession of unregistered spells. I shuddered.

And that was when a guardian angel arrived.

“I am Count Andre Helvas, knight alumni of the Order of the Lionheart. This is High Bishop Theodore from the Firwood temple. We have come to escort Lady Hestia Atsuko and my daughter, Ellaine Fiero Helvas, to his Majesty’s palace.” It was none other than Ellaine’s father.

With his and Theodore’s help, I was let go without facing any criminal charges. “Greetings, Lady Hestia, it has been a while.” Count Helvas, who looked as if he just woke up, greeted me and asked me what happened to Ellaine. Excluding the demon stuff, my explanation caused the count to sigh deeply.

“Dammit, I knew this could have happened. As a father, I should have come over the moment I heard Marianne tell me that Ellaine wanted to become an adventurer,” Count Helvas expressed his concerns for Ellaine, showing his fatherly love by telling me he had been worrying about her when Aurora hadn’t arrived two weeks ago. He knew how hard an adventurer’s life was, and he was not sure his daughter would be ready for it.

“I apologize, Ellaine getting hurt was my fault. The wyvern was an old enemy of mine, who chased me this deep into Artorias. I wasn’t strong enough to fully defend her.” My mood dropped once I remembered what happened during the fight. I should have been Aurora’s top combatant. I should have done more instead of being stunned by Astalos. Ellaine’s near-death experience could have been avoided if I had fought better.

“Did she fight well? Has my daughter’s fighting ability improved?”

Ellaine’s presence in the Astalos was minimal, she couldn’t do much since her weapon couldn’t penetrate his scales if they hadn’t been corroded by my [Unheilige Engel]. However, she fought bravely and she definitely improved under Yorshka’s short tutelage. “Yes. Yes, she did.”

Count Helvas nodded after picking his daughter up from the infirmary. “… That is good to hear, thank you.” I could then hear him whisper, “I’m sorry for not giving you more of my attention, my little girl,” into Ellaine’s ears. I turned away.

We then left the order building, mounting on Count Helvas’s griffon. When I greeted the B rank monster, I swore its eyes were telling me he had already recognized me from back then. Considering I was hiding behind a bush when I saw Count Helvas leave his fief, this griffon must have had really good eyesight.

“Let us meet at the temple again, Lady Hestia. I pray it will be without any disturbances.” Theodore returned back to the temple after seeing us off, our destination was the Artorian King’s palace.

Apparently, the reason why I got out away scot-free was due to Theodore sending a manatech bird to inform the people at the palace about my arrest, since he guessed I wouldn’t want to show my [Princess] title to anybody who wasn’t already in on it. He then made his way over to Count Helvas, knowing he was once a knight trained by the Order of the Lionheart.

There, Bishop Theodore woke the Count up before a knight came to ask them about Ellaine’s identity. After confirming her identity, Theodore and Count Helvas flew over to the building with the griffon. They also got a missive just in time from the palace, pardoning me from my charges. Still, I did feel bad for everybody who got themselves involved. Apologizing to everybody, to every single knight who was involved, just made me feel embarrassed.

I really should go to the mages guild with Ellaine and Saori soon…

Once at the palace, a butler greeted us there and led us to a room, saying it would be best if I took a rest for the night. Ellaine couldn’t go home with Count Helvas yet, as the palace ordered him to let her stay here since the bureaucratic process wasn’t over just yet. Tucked into a room right next to mine, I told Count Helvas goodbye and was about to go to bed when an older maid entered the room.

“Lady Hestia, my name is Vianna, head caretaker of the royal children. Allow me to serve you while you remain here in Artorias’s wonderful Griffonpeak.” Her skin and hair were showing signs of age, but the energy she showed with her smile and eyes was a far cry from what an elderly woman should show.

After I finished my introduction in response, she clapped her hands and three maids entered the room. “Now, Lady Hestia, the night is nearly over but you must still enjoy a good night’s rest. For that, we must cleanse you from the dust and sweat of your journey here.”

Working together like a well-oiled machine, the three women undressed me and took me into the bath without a single delay. Water and heating were handled by two of the maids — mages, I presumed, from how casting those spells were a non-issue for them. They first allowed me to go to the toilet to empty my bladder and bowels, then shoved me into the shower, before finishing it all with a bath.

Honestly, I felt like I was in a spa. My skin felt cleaner, my scales shiner, my tail and wings were relaxed as the maids massaged them, and my hair was untangled and straightened. These women were professionals!

After tucked my wings away using [Humanization], I took out my pajamas from my storage and the four helped me into it. Nearly everything I did was handled by the maids. I was already used to it from my stay at Ellaine’s home in Firwood, but I actually felt pampered now. As expected from the royal family’s attendants.

The moment I lay on the bed, the soft pillows just took me directly into dreamland. The physical exhaustion of flying over to Griffonpeak without a single break and the mental fatigue of worrying about Ellaine had taken their toll. When I woke up, it was already noon.

Cling.

A bell rocked outside my doors, waiting for me to answer. It was Vianna. “Lady Hestia, good afternoon and a wonderful WaterDay to you. May Goddess Plesia bless us with good waters. Lady Ellaine has already woken up and is waiting for you in the dining room for your lunch. Allow us to wash your drowsiness away before we leave.”

With my face washed, hair groomed, and now wearing one of my finer outfits, I was escorted to the dining room. Like the room I slept in and the hallway, this room was richly decorated with ornamented furniture, white and golden manatech chandeliers and lamps, and velvet rugs and chairs. Portraits of formal-looking arvisians, artworks of griffons, and paintings of families were hanging on the wall, finishing the regal appearance I expected from a palace.

I only took a glance at the portraits before Vianna led me to a seat across Ellaine, who was wearing a dress. After Vianna left, I began talking. “How are you doing, Ellaine? Any pains?”

“Thank you for your concern, Lady Hestia, but your white grace has healed any wounds and aches.” Since we were back in noble society, Ellaine returned to a more appropriate way to address me. When I questioned her dress, she showed a wry smile. “I had heard from the maids that Father and Mother had visited me this morning. Unfortunately, I was still asleep. They left me one of my dresses and took my armor back home. Hopefully they do not begin repairing it before Grimnir arrives; if they do, I can imagine his fury.”

True. He was extremely proud of Ellaine’s armor, and I don’t think he would agree to have somebody less skilled than him repair it. Then again, only the armor’s left arm was destroyed, while the rest only showed small dents. There shouldn’t be much to repair.

“Uhm, Lady Hestia… that ‘dream.’ Did it really happen?” I presumed she spoke about our meeting with Aurena, so I nodded. “Oh, by the Goddess, I can’t believe that actually happened to me.” Ellaine began massaging her temples before putting her hands together to pray for a moment.

Once she finished, her eyes opened and she continued, “First, thank you so very much for all your help, Lady Hestia. Thank you very much for believing in me, despite how outlandish my request was, so I promise to not disappoint you once again.” She then grabbed something from under the table and showed it on the table — they were her two mana rings. [“The maids informed me they couldn’t pull my casting rings from my fingers, where I learned only I am able to do so. I can feel… that presence from them, but it’s quiet.”]

“Of course, I’m glad to help; however, do be careful,” I warned her before switching over to telepathy, so this wouldn’t look weird to any onlookers. [“I’ll get the song ready, but, before then, please don’t try to train without anybody from Aurora, alright? We can’t risk it.”] Ellaine nodded at my assertion, also sharing how nervous she is with this new power of hers.

Lunch then came in. I’ve noticed this already, but the Artorian nobles didn’t serve their meals in courses, but presented everything at once. “Please, eat it while it is still warm,” Vianna said before giving us some space to eat. I was wondering in my head if it would be better to serve nobles in courses or with something similar to a Korean stone bowl to keep everything warm if Saori actually wanted to proceed with her noble restaurant idea.

In any case, it was a fantastic meal. We had a warm vegetable-chicken soup, cooked venison slices, a quiche-like custard pie, and scented fried rice. I’ve already noticed it with the meals I had when I was Ellaine’s guest, but Artorian meals weren’t bad. Street food was unique since commoners couldn’t be picky with their ingredients, whereas the nobles used an assortment of spices to elevate their culinary mastery.

This isn’t enough to fill me up. I guess I’ll just wait to eat myself fat later on.

There was also some bread and condiments like butter and dried spices on the table for us to use to enrich our experience. When I picked up the bread and tore a piece from it, I commented how yeast wasn’t used to make this. When Vianna apologized for this since it was a rare and expensive luxury in Artorias, I told her it wasn’t a problem.

An arrogant princess would probably speak ill about it, but I was a good girl who didn’t want to cause even more problems for people. “There is no problem; however, when yeast begins to circulate around Artorias, I hope you will enjoy some yeast-made bread~” When Vianna looked at me confused, Ellaine and I just smiled.

During the meal, I noted how the current royal family of Artorias looked in one of the portraits. They were all arvisians, but they had six limbs instead of four, counting their wings attached on their backs, similar to mine. There were seven members: the king, the queen, a young man in his mid-twenties who was the heir presumptive, two younger princes, a princess around the heir’s age, and a second princess around our age. Apparently, the youngest prince and princess were still attending the royal academy.

Once we were done with our meal, Vianna informed us the king was awaiting a meeting with us and asked me if I wanted to speak with him now. Ellaine whispered in my ears to accept the invitation. It was optional, but denying an audience from the king of the kingdom while I, a foreign royal, was enjoying his hospitality, would probably sour our relationship.

“That’s why you’re my lady-in-waiting, Ellaine.” After joking about it, the two of us followed Vianna. After a lengthy walk through this grand palace, we ended before an ornamental door. Vianna rang a bell and waited for the confirming voice of a man before opening the door for us.

“Your Majesty, I present to you your guest, Lady Hestia Atsuko, and her lady-in-waiting, Ellaine Fiero Helvas.” The room inside wasn’t as spectacular as the dining room, instead decorated more reservedly as it was the office of the king. A long table was placed before us with multiple chairs, intended for a gathering of people to speak at. To my right was a small office table where a winged man was sitting in a regal garment with two human men flanking him.

The two men standing next to him like retainers had grizzled, grey hair, showing their age similar to Vianna. They weren’t exactly oppressive, but I could sense a hint of [Terror Aura] exuding from both of them, as if to dissuade any would-be assassin.

One was clean-shaven with the muscular body of a warrior, proudly displaying three large claw scars on the right side of his head like a medal. His hair wasn’t extremely long, but with three braided strands of hair accompanying the scars, I guess he allowed the right side to grow in length. Standing upright like a general, he glared at us to assess our threat level, while placing his sheathed greatsword in our focus. It allowed me to catch a glimpse of his metal runic gloves.

On the other hand, his companion on the right, looked more elderly, like an old sorcerer. His beard was trimmed and kept short and, while he was wearing a suit I would expect a politician to wear, he still seemed more like a mage to me. He didn’t have a conspicuous catalyst like a staff, spell rings, or an amulet, but I knew instinctively he was around Master Kush’s level. Strangely, he had an eyepatch.

“Thank you, Vianna.” Between these two sat an arvisian with white-blue feathered wings on his back, instead of on his arms like the ones I’ve seen up until now. Beastmen like arvisian showed animalistic traits if their blood was closer to their monster parent, and, in this case, this man was more similar to my dragonewt form than Yorshka’s proper appearance.

Aside from his wings, his hands had sharp talons similar to an eagle’s, and his legs looked a lot like a lion’s, complete with paws. He had a mane of feathers on his neck, however, it was well-groomed, maintained to perfectly fit his suit. Still, he still had more human features than beastial; he did not look like a humanoid griffon, the way Yorshka looked like a humanoid dragon. His lion-like eyes and tail were the only other bestial features I could see.

Unlike the two men standing next to him, his outfit looked more casual. Still, regardless if it was less formal or not, the fine threads used to create this garment including the plumage around his collar, mimicking fur. Instead of a cape, his wings formed something like a coat as their singular talons clutched together.

His head.

To finish this outfit, to give it the regal aura it needed, there was a metal, feathered crown. It wasn’t anywhere similar to an Aztec or other Native American headpiece, instead, it was a medieval crown using feathers as accessories. As I noticed this splendid headgear, an aura emitted from him, telling me exactly who he was. This person was a titleholder — none other than the [King] title.

This man then stood up. “You may leave Princess Hestia in our care. I shall inform you once this discussion is done.” I shivered for a moment here, feeling the weight of my [Princess] title for the first time after the king of a whole kingdom addressed me as so.

“Of course, your Majesty,” Vianna bowed, as if learning the fact that I was a Princess was normal. I guess she had already been informed about it. “Lord Ulquint, hold in your curiosity. Staring at a lady is just uncouth.”

“Ahem, of course, my sincerest apology, your Highness,” the bearded man bowed to me slightly as an apology.

Once Vianna left and the door was shut tight, the king gestured over to the long table, saying, “The formalities may wait once this is an official occasion, my Ladies. Lord Ulquint, my advisor, had suggested that I cannot make too much room in my schedule, so the small talk must be saved for a later time. I apologize from the depths of my heart.”

Roundabout way to say that my arrival was a sudden surprise, bringing his schedule out of balance. Urgh, another person I’ve disrupted.

We took our seats at the table. Ellaine was trembling a lot, looking meek as she tried to avert her eyes from the three men. I was nervous, too, but I guess I couldn’t compare to how Ellaine was feeling. I told her with [Telepathy] to calm down, since I figured introductions still had to be done.

Spreading his arms out in welcome, the king introduced himself, “Firstly, I welcome you to the Kingdom of Griffons, Artorias, my lady. I am its king, Drangleic var Artorias. I hope your time in my kingdom has been worthwhile.” “Var” could be translated into “from,” so it should be “Drangleic from Artorias.”

As neither King Drangleic nor the two gentlemen continued the introductions, I took this as my cue to speak. “Thank you very much for your hospitality, King Drangleic. Yes, I have very much enjoyed myself here, all thanks to the courtesy of Duke Greenveil, Marquess Sirius, and Count Helvas. I apologize for my delayed visit. My name is He… Princess Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor, youngest child of Emperor Eltharion of Kargryx.”

It felt weird to call myself like that, but I felt it was appropriate for me to make my introduction as long as King Drangleic. Make myself seem more important since the first impression was important.

I then turned to Ellaine, “This is my lady-in-waiting, Ellaine Fiero Helvas. As she is an aristocrat of Artorias, I cannot give any less than my utmost praises, your Majesty. Lady Ellaine has been invaluable for my stay in your kingdom, educating me in your customs and culture. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you very much.”

“I-It is an honor to meet you, Your Majesty, King Drangleic. I-I am but only the second child of Count Helvas, a magnoble of the Duchy of Greenveil. I thank you so very much for allowing me to see you. May the Goddess bless this meeting.” I could hear Ellaine yelp a bit, having trouble controlling her fast-paced speaking. As her heart raced, King Drangleic laughed and smiled.

“Haha! Yes, I have heard how much your father has done for me, Lady Ellaine. It goes without saying that House Helvas has been instrumental in keeping Princess Hestia entertained in Artorias. I am planning to reward your family for their service. If you wish something from me, I shall allow it. Within reason, of course.”

“I-I would not dare. It is already an honor to speak with you, your Majesty.”

“Haha! Well, if you change your mind, inquire with your father.” King Drangleic then gestured to the two gentlemen next to him. First, it was the bearded man. “This is my political advisor, Lord Ulquint Fresierre Myrrdin. And this is Marshal Armado Donatello Lifcio, my military advisor.”

“Marshal? Oh, Lord Armado is the general of your kingdom’s army, your Majesty?” I wondered, but apparently, my presumption was wrong.

“Lady Hestia, that is incorrect.” The one to correct me wasn’t the three gentlemen, but a frantic Ellaine. “As a reminder, the current Grand Duke of Military Affairs is Lord Duke Lecartiglio and he is de facto, the grand marshal of the kingdom’s armies. The marshal, on the other hand, is the grand marshal’s subordinate, and is more responsible for the king’s military within the perimeter of Griffonpeak.”

She then switched over to telepathy. [“Also, as you might have noticed by their house names, these men are quite important, so please, mind how you speak with them, Lady Hestia. Please. Lord Ulquint is the former Duke Myrrdin, the father of the current duke, while Lord Armado was once Arcanuess Lifcio, the right-hand man of Duke Lecartiglio. This is too much for me, Lady Hestia!”]

“Gahahaha!” While Ellaine was worrying excessively, the muscular man broke out in a hearty laugh. “Enough, Lady Ellaine. I am far too old for excessive etiquette. However, she was right with what my role is, Princess Hestia. Which brings us to the main point of discussion, correct, my King?”

“Correct, Lord Armado,” he nodded before turning back to me. “Princess Hestia, I would like to personally thank you for what you have done for the kingdom. For preventing a diplomatic disaster with the elves of Saelariel and for the successful defense of my kingdom’s borders. Although you are a foreign dignitary, you have done something remarkable, and for that, you have my gratitude.

“Are you possibly speaking about the Davison and grimgarian incidents?”

“That is correct,” Lord Ulquint replied in his king’s stead in a raspy voice. “As the kingdom’s political advisor, you have prevented something which could have destroyed years upon years of work. As you must know, I belong to House Myrrdin and was the head before I handed it over to my son. House Morgianna and my house have been serving the kingdom by rekindling our relationship with the elves of Saelariel. If you had not stopped that damnable alchemist, all the work my House had done would have burned into ashes.”

Lord Armado then continued, “You have also done an immaculate job in fending off a battalion of grimgarians, Princess Hestia. According to your reports, a grimgarian army is situated on the other side of the Avitor peaks, something our scouts have confirmed. In fact, it isn’t just an army, it seems the beasts are constructing a whole civilization there.”

Now that was surprising to hear. I knew the grimgarians were building something, at least according to the lizardmen I met in the Belzac forest, but I didn’t think it would be an entire civilization. Aside from their desire to destroy humans, I guess they did just want to create a place for themselves.

“That is the case, Princess Hestia. As a sign of gratitude, I have already commissioned Duchess Morgiana to repair your mana paths; I presume they still haven’t healed yet?” the king asked me.

“They have not, thank you for your consideration,” I couldn’t help but smile as I responded, imagining how amazing it would be to fly again without my rocket boosters. “When will this appointment be?”

“In two weeks, on the first of SpringBloom. There will be a ball dedicated to welcoming our guests from the Folschreck Empire. According to the reports I read today, you should have already met Saintess Eshe?”

“Saintess Eshe? Yes, as fellow followers of Aurena, we have met for the first time today, this mor… Oh, which means you should have already learned what I’ve done. I am sorry! I didn’t mean to break any laws, your Majesty.” It wasn’t as if following the law was my highest priority, as circumventing them sometimes for a good cause is something I preferred. The king forgave me, but then something else came into mind. “Hold on, if you are mentioning a ball, then are you possibly—”

“Yes, this is an invitation to partake in the ball, Princess Hestia. Everybody in this room and certain individuals have already made themselves aware of your existence for separate reasons. This would include all my dukes since they are the foundation of my kingdom,” King Drangleic informed me. He might be hinting at the stunt I did in Cedaraille, regardless if they knew me as a dragon or as a powerful mage. “However, I am not forcing you. This is a ball for Saintess Eshe and my guests from the Folschreck Empire, so you are not socially obligated to join us. Nevertheless, it would be a great opportunity for you to meet the other nobles of my kingdom. You may even hide your actual identity if you wish. I heard Loatryx had a caste system, too, so you must be able to think of something.”

“In a way, yes. Loatryx honors and respects dragonewts with bloodlines belonging to strong dragons. The kinkyuro would be something similar to your greifnobles, but it’s more of a republic at the end of the day,” spewing out all this information I learned from Yorshka, I hoped I said everything correctly. “Although, about the ball, I am not so sure yet if I wish to join.”

“Lady Hestia,” Ellaine looked at me questionably, but King Drangleic simply waved his hand.

“There is no issue. If you wish to join, then I would be overjoyed. I wish to give you a good time before we begin a serious discussion. I know you aren’t a politician, but I still wish to speak with you about a certain proposal, Princess Hestia.” The king then placed his hands on the table and pushed himself up. “That would be all I have to say, Princess Hestia. As I said, we do not have too much time to speak. I presume you would like to leave my palace? If you have nowhere to go, I would love to accommodate you with all the hospitality I am able to give.”

I declined his proposal, saying I would be staying with Ellaine’s family. However, my business wasn’t done just yet. “One more moment of your time, please. I actually have something important to give you. Your Majesty, could you lend me a map of your kingdom?”

Accepting my proposal, Lord Ulquint went over to a bookshelf and pulled out an A1 sized piece of parchment. Unfurling it, he presented to me a map of Artorias. Reaching down into my mind to bring out the memory of the map Aurena showed me, displaying Artorias with various points of interests. These were apparently locations for certain demonkin actions.

After pointing at those exact locations, Lord Ulquint noted it down for me, showing King Drangleic the map with those locations marked. “I don’t want to cause everybody to panic by telling you exactly what the issue is, but I think it would be very important for you to monitor or even check these locations out. The information should be reliable.” I then pointed upwards. Aside from knowing my identity as a dragon, they also knew me as Aurena’s Champion I believe, if Marquess Sirius or High Bishop Theodore had informed them in time.

King Drnagleic understood what I meant, gave the map a quick glance before handing it over to Lord Armado. “You have our benefit of the doubt, Princess Hestia, after we confirmed your info on those grimgarians. I’ll inform the Grand Marshal and the responsible dukes. Problems need to be nipped by their buds before they blossom.” The merciless, no-nonsense glare he gave the map after responding to me made it clear this person wasn’t somebody to anger when it came to the safety of his home kingdom. I should probably respect this.

After saying our goodbyes, Vianna entered the room again and escorted us outside. Ellaine and I couldn’t stop ourselves from sighing, finally free of the tense atmosphere inside the room. Vianna gave us a comforting laugh, saying we should give ourselves a good rest after just arriving in Griffonpeak this morning. We then left the palace, where a griffon carriage was waiting for us.

Saying our goodbyes to Vianna, we entered the carriage and set to the sky. While I relaxed and ruined my sitting posture to sigh dramatically, Ellaine suddenly asked me something.

“Hestia, would it be ok with you if I gave you a tour of the city?”

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Chapter 198: Griffonpeak.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Pardon me, would it be possible for you to fly around the city for a tour?” Ellaine opened a small window in front of the carriage, asking the coachman for a sudden change in plans.

“A tour? Madam, the palace has ordered us to fly the carriage directly to the instructed address. Changing it would be inconvenient, especially for the griffon.”

Our carriage wasn’t driving on the ground, on the contrary, we were flying through the sky inside it while a griffon was carrying it through the sky. At first, I thought it would be a bit too heavy for a griffon to carry around, no matter how strong they were, but I vastly underestimated them. The ride was as stable as flying in an airplane.

Two people were driving the carriage — the coachman was responsible for relaying the wishes of the passengers to the griffon rider. Griffons were supposedly intelligent enough to act without a rider, but since having a rider prevented any incident of the griffon panicking and dropping the carriage, riders were a necessity. Speaking of intelligence, I think the griffon also gave me the stink eye when it saw me, similar to how Count Helvas’s griffon and Sir Antonio’s hippogryph had behaved. These birdbrains don’t like dragonewts, apparently, well, I guess they wouldn’t like all types of dragonkin.

After Ellaine gave the excuse that I was a VIP foreign noble, the coachman relented and moved according to Ellaine’s plan. Considering how pushy she was, I wondered if she was alright or not. Before we talked, she activated what seemed to be a silence rune, meant to prevent sounds from escaping.

“Jeez, I thought runes were just a dwarven thing. It’s everywhere.” I heard enchantments and alchemy were more Artorias’s forte since they weren’t as specialized in runecraft, unlike the dwarves. Ellaine had a simple explanation for my question.

“It is, Hestia. I believe it is incredibly rare to find a human as proficient with runes as dwarves like Master Grimnir. Master Grimnir told me dwarves in general aren’t very fond of sharing their craftsmanship secrets to the other races, and if they did, they would only teach enough for you to have a basic understanding. I am honestly lucky to have a dwarven master teach me to become a mana engineer, although his notes belong to his deceased cousin…” Ellaine gave a small prayer to Aurena and Ilsaphone. “Due to their history, the blacksmiths in the Groushia Duchy could learn under the tutelage of a dwarven master, although the runes they could create are more focused on utility than combat. Better than nothing, right?”

Progress can’t be made overnight. While Artorias is at its core still a medieval kingdom, signs of technological advancement are evident with the amount of manatech in use, the sewage systems in Cedaraille and, presumably, Griffonpeak, and their educational level amongst the nobility. The noble districts were usually clean and modern while their mansions and palaces, at least for the wealthy nobles, were well equipped and decorated.

Unfortunately, the rest of the city was neglected in favor of the nobles. Even now, looking out of the carriage’s window, I could see a stark difference between the noble and commoner sides. The difference was like night and day. Still, the general layout of Griffonpeak was different from Firwood and Cedaraille, and I would need more time to actually see the intricacies.

I was wondering why Ellaine suddenly asked to give me a tour, but I’ll enjoy it first before questioning her. I was interested in sightseeing in Griffonpeak, since it seemed far more interesting to me than Firwood and Cedaraille.

The first destination seemed to be the entrance to the commoner district. First of all, the walls of Griffonpeak were huge, something I’d noticed when I first flew over them. Both Firwood’s and Cedaraille’s stone walls were nice to see but they were mostly what you would expect from a medieval civilization. Griffonpeak’s were larger and thicker, with round plaza areas where hippogryphs and griffons were resting. Monuments of griffons and arvisian warriors were spread around the wall, boasting to the world of their architectural feats.

Some farms and smaller villages could be seen placed outside Griffonpeak, where I saw people commuting from their homes into the city. The walls did tower over the houses by a bit, but that didn’t mean the residential houses of the citizens inside the walls were small. In fact, it looked cramped down there.

The streets were filled with people but wide enough to accommodate carriages. According to Ellaine, most of Griffonpeak was considered the “middle district,” as the slums were placed outside the city where the villages and farms were, to prevent refugees from the Atadoro Kingdom from entering the city.

“Refugees?” I asked. There weren’t any wars going on, so I wondered where these refugees came from, but I forgot wars weren't the only reason for immigrants.

“The Kingdoms of Atadoro and Artorias are like two sides of a coin when it comes to two certain policies — treatment of beastmen and slavery. Those unhappy in Atadoro and freed slaves usually make their way into the Duchy of Lecartiglio first. If they are unhappy there, they move to Griffonpeak, since it’s similar to a white ray of hope for the refugees. At least, that is what I learned from the academy.” Ellaine then pointed at the snow-covered tip Griffonpeak’s mountain and the white citadel of the royal family. I was already enamored by it under the moonlight, but the city’s beauty shined even under the sun.

“Shouldn’t there be a slum inside the city? Look, that area over there looks more decrepit than the rest of the city.” Where there is wealth, there are also those less fortunate. The nobles segregated themselves from the commoners by walling off their district from the rest of the city, and the same case applied for well-off commoners and criminally-inclined ones, except they just moved away from those areas instead of walling it off.

“That’s…” Expressing disgust, Ellaine paused before forcing herself to speak the rest of her sentence. “I believe that is the red-light district. I haven’t visited that area yet; if I had to visit the lower city, I usually stayed around the merchant district. I heard criminals and those who want to leech off our capital live there. I admit law-breakers exist in every facet of society, but these people are… urgh.”

Setting aside Ellaine’s own sense of justice, I do believe we would do best to avoid that area of the city. Hopefully we won’t have to go there, but I also didn’t know of any reason that could make us go there. Still, for a red-light district, it was smaller than I would have expected, making me wonder if there was an underground area or not. Considering Ellaine confirmed Griffonpeak had a sewage system for the lower city, it would make sense for there to be people living in the sewers.

Without stopping, the griffon carriage continued the tour, moving us closer to the merchant district. That was when I noticed the biggest difference between the last cities I visited and Griffonpeak. While Firwood and Cedaraille split the noble and commoner districts in two, meaning they had an outside entrance for both, Griffonpeak’s layout made it so that the noble district was centered around the palace.

Since Griffonpeak’s citadel was built on the mountain, numerous other noble-related facilities were built on the mountain as well, although on a lower level. For this reason, the noble district was elevated from the lower city, making it literally the upper city walled off from the rest of the city, with only a single pathway connecting the two parts.

Still, the lower city’s merchant district was nothing to scoff at. Even Ellaine, a noble, admitted to visiting it with her former friends and acquaintances, as it was the point of commerce and culture for many of Griffonpeak’s citizens. The upper district was a place for relaxation, education, and home for the nobles while they used the merchant district for shopping, visiting the opera, and temple visits. Since the children of merchants and wealthy commoners hanged around here, nobles began to call visiting the lower city “flying down to mingle.”

“‘Flying down to mingle?’ That’s so pretentious!” I called the statement out.

“Y-Yeah, I can agree on that. The royal academy is built on the mountain, above the noble district. Since the grand bridge was broken during the war, we students could only use the flying carriages or our gargoyles to move around the city. ‘Why not fly down for the day?’ is slang for visiting the lower city,” Ellaine explained. “But I suggest we visit the merchant district once we have settled down, Hestia. Unlike Cedaraille or Firwood, it is an area a princess wouldn’t need to worry about her safety.”

Due to the area becoming the ‘downtown’ for nobles, an order building for the Knights of the Lionheart was built there to act as security. Guards and knights patrolled around the area, making it probably the fourth most secure area in Griffonpeak.

As I said before, this was also where the temple was situated. Right next to the path leading to the upper city, the temple had two entrances meant for nobles and commoners respectively. Designed like a gothic temple and a large enough interior to fit in a lot of worshippers, the temple stood out quite a lot compared to the aesthetic choice of the rest of the merchant district.

“Wait, is that a colosseum?” I pointed at a large stone arena placed a bit away from the merchant district. Although it was maintained well, a few parts of the colosseum were a different color, as if somebody switched the rocks with new ones. “Why are people putting banners and other festive decorations on it? Ellaine, I didn’t know Artorias was into blood sport!”

I had seen it before during my first inspection of the city, but I gave it little attention since I was searching for the temple at that time. Ellaine’s safety was all I could think about back then. Now that I saw the colosseum again, I was surprised to see Artorias liking gladiators and blood sports.

Noticing my incredulous tone, Ellaine began waving her hands rapidly, as if she was trying to protect Artorias’ reputation. “No, no, no, no, Hestia! You misunderstand. The colosseum is simply a remnant of our past. It was built during the time of the Leosfalt kingdom.”

Back when the Atadoro and Artorias Kingdom were still part of the Leosfalt Kingdom, it would be an understatement to say they just hated beastmen. The reason why slavery was forbidden in Artorias today was in no small part thanks to their predecessor’s willingness to enslave any beastmen in the name of the Goddess, thinking they might cure their “unholy” bloodline.

According to Ellaine, during their reign, the Leosfalt Kingdom was a vassal kingdom of the Folschreck Empire and constructed the colosseum as a way to entertain their empire guests, who loved spectating warriors. Beastmen slaves were turned into gladiators, forced to fight each other for nothing but their lives. It also became a prime source of entertainment for the common folk.

After the War of the Fae, the colosseum was devastated by the elven invaders. When Artorias was formed, plans were made to remove the colosseum, but due to objections from commoners rioting to prevent the destruction of more “historic buildings,” the royal family and seven dukes vetoed the idea. As Artorias had to remain a vassal of the empire to prevent retaliation, the colosseum was renewed to entertain their guests.

“Ah, I just remembered this, but in three weeks, on the fifth of SpringBloom, the kingdom’s founding will be celebrated! They must be preparing for the festivities,” Ellaine informed me, reminding me of what the king said.

“Wasn’t there supposed to be a ball on the 1st of SpringBloom? To celebrate Saintess Eshe and the other empire visitors? Will there be another ball or feast on the fifth?”

“Yes, most likely. However, if I could hazard a guess, I believe the king wishes to use the celebration of our kingdom’s founding to welcome our guests from the empire. The celebration usually lasts a whole week with various festivities like a colosseum battle, an opera, and whatever the commoners decide to do,” Ellaine then paused for a moment to think before continuing. “The academy also celebrates this founding by having a ball specifically for the students to join. The whole week will be just a huge week of socializing. Social season has opened up again, urgh.”

Opera, huh? Really want to join that. Still, what is happening at the colosseum?

After I asked Ellaine about it, she replied, “Nowadays, our colosseum is used to celebrate certain events. Like the kingdom’s founding, the announcement of the grand dukes, or to provide an outlet for the rivalry between the knight’s school and mage’s university. Tournaments are hosted to witness powerful warriors and mages fight, jousting events, and competitions between the mages and knights. Hopefully, without casualties, of course.”

“There is a rivalry between the knight’s and mage’s divisions?” I asked.

“Yes, but it isn’t too important, really. There are even rivalries inside the two factions since they are split up between the duchies responsible for them. Groushia and Lecartiglio for the knight’s school, and Morgiana and Myrrdin for the mage’s university. These two factions belong to the royal academy and it’s a part of our education. Well, that was the short summary, but I don’t think I need to explain more since we won’t be involving ourselves with them,” Ellaine said.

She will be leaving the academy soon and I don’t think anything interesting will happen there, so I won’t have any reason to visit it.

After we passed the opera and royal academy, I began to wonder why Ellaine was doing this. I then asked Ellaine a question, now that we had spent some time on the tour. “Is everything alright, Ellaine? I agreed to the tour, but why did you suddenly suggest it? Shouldn’t your parents be worried about you at this very moment?”

With how much concern her father showed when Ellaine was unconscious, I thought it would be better to quell his worries. Her parents even visited the palace to bring her some clean clothes.

“…” Ellaine’s expression distorting, looking conflicted at what to say. “I think… I wanted to collect my thoughts for a moment before I met my father and mother again. You still know I wish to become a griffon knight, correct?”

I nodded.

“You told me father carried me to the palace, correct? After you were arrested? Well, after seeing me in that feeble state, I don’t think my father would agree to become my sponsor. Without a sponsor, becoming a squire at any knight’s order before I graduate from the royal academy would be a faint dream,” Ellaine contemplated her situation. “I… need to find a way to convince him first before I confront him.”

“Have you?” We had spent quite some time on this tour.

“I mean… I gave it some thoughts b-but, uhm. Well, I think I have something but I’m not so sure. You know, to persuade him, I-I need to show him something, to make him believe that I’m compet-”

[“Why not demonstrate to him your new-found powers, dear?”]

A chill rushed down our spines as we trembled for a split second. Ellaine’s hand snapped upwards, showing us the two eyes occupying the gemstones of her spell rings. It was our newest, but unwanted, party member, the Demon of Lust, Klea’Hatma.

“What do you want?” I scoffed at the demon’s sudden remark, showing how irritated I was at her speaking out.

[“Come now, Hestia, nobody can hear what I’m saying. This is all kept private, after all. No need to be shy~”] The constant innuendos are making me want to puke. Still, it is true if we kept the telepathic link between us, nobody could hear the demon. [“All I am suggesting is to have Ellaine show her dear father what she can do now. Simple.”]

“I will not use you before our preparations are finished, demon,” Ellaine spat out. “The Goddess has given us clear instructions. You will not tempt me.”

At least, Ellaine is cautiously hostile and not actually corrupted by that thing.

[“Come now, you two, I do like it rough but constant rejections do hurt eventually. We are a team, no? Shouldn’t we be more friendly towards each other?”]

“No, why should we?” I replied harshly.

“I have no reason other than to use your powers, demon.” Ellaine made her intentions clear.

[“…Certainly, the youth these days. Hmph.”] Klea’Hatma pouted. [“Anyways, do what you wish. I simply wanted to give little Ellaine a confidence booster. You have a new strength, dear, so be more decisive and show it to your daddy.”]

“And I already told you I am not interested in using your powers before Hestia is finished with the preparations. Do not think you can tempt me to use your powers, demon.” Ellaine was steadfast, rebuking anything Klea’Hatma wanted to do, not letting the demon’s honeyed words move her. But what the demon said next caused her to be speechless.

[“I am not speaking about my powers, obviously. Letting something inside your body without protection is just being a fool, child. Instead of complaining about me all the time or delaying the inevitable, how about you just go to your father and show him your progress? How long have you been traveling with dear Hestia? I don’t know. Regardless, you should have learned something if you were even remotely interested in proving your worth to people. Anything is better than nothing. Goodbye~”]

…

We didn’t expect to be lectured by a demon. Speechless. We were both keeping our mouths shut as the carriage continued moving through the skies before eventually landing at Ellaine’s home in Griffonpeak. Marianne, Ellaine’s mother, immediately charged out of the mansion’s entrance and gave Ellaine a hug as soon as we’d left the carriage, giving me little attention except for a courtesy greeting. I hope she isn’t super angry at me.

“Svena?!” As we were escorting into the mansion, I suddenly noticed a familiar face. Svena, the temporary maid House Helvas assigned to me when I was staying in Firwood.

“I welcome you to Griffonpeak, Lady Hestia. It is good to see you in great health,” she curtsied. “House Helvas has assigned me once again as your maid, if you would accept me, of course.”

I could not reject her. Having somebody familiar was wonderful, especially somebody who knew what I liked. Speaking of maids, somebody else was diligently waiting for Ellaine.

“Josine!” Ellaine called out after she was released from her mother’s embrace.

Holding back tears to appear professional, Josine, Ellaine’s personal attendant, bowed to her mistress. “It is good to see you, My Lady. I am very gladdend to see you unharmed and healthy. Welcome back home, Lady Ellaine.” It was very likely that Josine had heard news about Ellaine’s arrival and injuries from Count Helvas. I could only imagine how worried she was.

Reunited with our maids, Ellaine and I were escorted by Marianne and the maids into the mansion. While we walked, I asked Svena if Barathan or Manuella were around but she informed me they had to remain in Helvas County and the Helvas mansion in Firwood, respectively.

We were led into an office room where Count Helvas was waiting for us. After all the butlers and maids, including Svena, left the room, I immediately went ahead and apologized to both the count and countess.

“I am sorry! As the leader of Aurora, I had a responsibility to keep my party members safe, including Ellaine. I’m very sorry for worrying you, Ellaine’s parents, so much due to my incompetence!” I bowed deeply, surprising the two older nobles of my sincerity.

“Lady Hestia, please, there is no need to bow!” Marianne expressed her opinion loudly.

When I stopped bowing, the two explained that they weren’t angry at me, as becoming an adventurer was Ellaine’s choice. Rebelling and joining me before Ellaine’s officially took a break from the academy, which had caused a ton of rumors to be created, annoying her brother Jonathan as a result. The fact Ellaine did not arrive in Griffonpeak at the beginning of the month did make them angry, but their focus was directed at Ellaine alone.

“Ellaine, dear, maybe joining Lady Hestia now is too early?” her mother stated with a wry smile, causing Ellaine to frown, looking conflicted like a little sheep. “There is still time, right? You haven’t graduated yet, and if you would allow me, I could help you with your magic. Educate you on how to be a proper adventurer.”

“Fighting monsters is completely different from fighting other humanoids,” Count Helvas began to speak. “Learning how to duel another human or beastman is something you’ll learn well as an alumnus, whether as a knight or mage. However, one issue with the academy is that they do not teach you how to fight against monsters. Monsters come in far more different forms and sizes than beastmen. The amount you need to prepare as a normal human being to adapt to every single threat is maddening. That is why adventurers above C are worthy of praise, as they have years of experience under their belt.”

He then bent his body forward, telling Ellaine to look him in the eyes before continuing, “I admit, I trust Princess Hestia to keep you safe, regardless of what happened before, but you will keep worrying everybody around you if you cannot see your own limits. You insult our house’s name and your own, Ellaine. You would do best to—”

“I wish to become a griffon knight!” Ellaine finally let her thoughts out, shocking her parents like a thunderstorm.

“…Why?” Count Helvas looked at his daughter incredulously, speaking in an irritated tone.

“I-I am not useless, father. I-I have found a master who will train me into becoming a proper artificer. I have reached D rank as a hunter. I-I met an experienced fighter and asked them to teach me the sword. I even reached level 58,” Ellaine tried to persuade her father with every feat she could think of, but her father remained unimpressed.

“And? What does this have anything to do with you becoming a griffon knight? Ellaine, the Order of the Lionheart is a prestigious Knight’s Order for those strong of will and body to tame a griffon. You know the initiation process. Do you think you can survive alone on Avitor Peaks? Without Lady Hestia or her companions? I think not,” Count Helvas harsh words stung Ellaine, causing her to waver. “Besides, you are naming all of these as if they are your own feats. If I had to guess, they are not. While I am surprised to hear you are level 58, what does a level have anything to do with this? Your level is irrelevant if your skill is below average.”

Skills and training over stats. It’s always been the case.

“You cannot persuade me with these lukewarm arguments, Ellaine. You are a daughter of House Helvas, an aristocrat. As a retainer, you will not shame yourself in front of your mistress!”

I wanted to say something, but I had enough common sense to read the atmosphere. There wasn’t any way for me to speak my opinions without making it awkward. This was Ellaine’s battle. If I had spoken up, I would have proven Count Helvas’s point.

Ellaine needed to stand and fight.

“Then let me show you my progress, father.” Although she looked nervous, Ellaine’s trembling eyes looked directly into her father’s as she spoke.

“How? Are you suggesting a spar?”

Ellaine nodded. “I want to show you my conviction. I want to show you my wish to become a griffon knight just like you. I want to experience the same tales you told me when I was still small, I want to fly as high as you and mother. I want to become somebody you can be proud of, just like my brother. I want to finally become a person who can proudly call herself an Artorian, somebody who doesn’t continuously shame her house with every single breath! I want to stop feeling only bad for myself, father!”

Count Helvas took in a deep breath before speaking his next words, “… Very well. Come with me to the sparring grounds, we will use a sword there.”

“Andre?!” Marianne looked at her husband in horror, but he simply waved his hand in dismissal.

“I will not hear your complaints, Marianne. Our daughter has picked up the sword, and, as her father, how can I refuse her challenge? I will see for myself why Lady Hestia praised her fighting ability.” When he walked past Ellaine, he continued speaking to her. “Shiver any more and you will lose your chance, Ellaine. If you wish to prove yourself, then show me the courage you have gained through your small-time traveling. Come in a gambeson. Your armor is a gift from Lady Hestia, it will not truly prove your new strength.”

Hope and determination were filling Ellaine’s every step as we walked to the sparring grounds. Ellaine’s father wasn’t wearing his armor, only a gambeson like his daughter. The moment they locked eyes, Ellaine gulped and began to shiver again. The thought of fighting her father caused her to remember when he stopped her sword training, telling her it would be better to pick up magic.

“Don’t worry. You fought against giant spiders and lizards. You can do it, Ellaine.” With one final push, Ellaine clutched her sword and the fight began.

At first, due to Ellaine’s levels and using SP to buy stat growth skills, Ellaine was able to keep up with her father. Marianne gasped as she saw her daughter keep up with her husband’s movements, and Count Helvas even praised Ellaine for training well. Ellaine was able to show her father what she learned from Yorshka, showing a more unorthodox sword-fighting technique using magic and [Dragoon Jump]. Well, unorthodox compared to her father’s prim-and-proper sword fighting.

Count Helvas wasn’t a strong mage, something Ellaine told me once. When he defeated his brother for the mantle of Count Helvas, he defeated him not with magic and the sword, but the sword alone. Her time sparring with Yorshka wasn’t much, but she was able to improve her footwork and stance to the point it wasn’t amateurish. Still, what kept this fighting on the edge was Ellaine’s use of her superior magic.

“She has already reached the advanced skills for wind and earth magic?” Marianne showed a faint smile, clearly proud but baffled at what was happening. She then turned to me. “Is this part of your gift to my daughter, Lady Hestia? And truly chantless casting is beyond what a normal mage should be able to do. [Chant Revocation Lv. 10] is reserved for the most committed archmages.”

I nodded, causing Marianne to sigh deeply. Considering how long she must have spent training her arcane powers, I could guess she was a bit envious.

As Ellaine’s wind and earth spells devastated the sparring grounds, the tides finally turned the moment Count Helvas used his first ability. “Gale Steps,” the same footwork ability Saori learned from Gael, accelerating the user’s speed for a short burst; with this ability, Count Helvas slipped through Ellaine’s spells like the wind.

As her father advanced forward, Ellaine found it hard to weave her spells without a skill like my [Parallel Thoughts] nor an especially high level in [Concentration]. Count Helvas’s sword swings forced Ellaine to dodge around, making it harder for her to keep shooting out spells. As she tried to escape with [Dragoon Jump], the count used [Calling Winds].

Just like the time that Farron used it on me, Count Helvas swung his sword downwards in an arc, causing the winds before him to get sucked towards him. Ellaine, surprised at this move, was pulled right back into close combat. The Count, now completely serious, did not allow Ellaine a single opening. Without showing leniency, Count Helvas aggressively continued his barrage of attacks, ending this battle after unarming Ellaine.

Count Helvas’s ability to chain his sword abilities over and over again was too much for Ellaine’s still blooming sword skill. She was able to give a good enough fight at the beginning, but Ellaine was still a mage at the end of the day.

“Do you understand now? You need more training, Ellaine. No dream can be achieved without the strength to push yourself beyond your current state! You may have a higher level than the average aristocrat of your age, but you do not have the strength to do so. Do not be arrogant, daughter.” Harsh words spewed out of his mouth like fire after brutally putting Ellaine in her place.

Biting her lips in frustration, Ellaine nodded. “Yes, father.”

“You will go back to the academy to dismiss those crass rumors created in your two weeks’ absence, yes?”

“Yes, father…”

“Good, then we are in agreement. Tomorrow we shall continue your training. Prepare yourself, for even if you are my daughter, I will train you as if you were a normal squire.”

At the unexpected statement, Ellaine snapped her head up, looking at her father with a quizzical face. Her father, however, simply stayed stoic. “You made your vow already to become Lady Hestia’s retainer. Will you break this vow and dishonor yourself even more, Ellaine? Do you remember what God Kargryxmor represents? He is the God of Dragons and Oaths. I hope you didn’t even think of breaking this oath with one of the dragonkin, especially Lady Hestia. I cannot stop you from going, but I will make sure you will leave the nest with the strength to achieve your ambitions.”

Reaching his hand out to help Ellaine up, the Count finished his speech, “It took me too long to understand my role as your father, Ellaine. You have proven yourself to me, a knight alumnus of the Order of the Lionheart, so I will sponsor your initiation once you have finished my training. As your father, I ask for your forgiveness, Ellaine. Allow me to rectify my neglect for your training, simply because I underestimated your determination.”

Speechless at what her father said, Ellaine clutched her hands into fists, grabbed her father’s arm and stood back up. With a resolute, “Yes, father! I won’t fail you!” It seemed our time in Griffonpeak would take longer than expected.

After everybody took a shower, we all went to the dinning room for dinner and supper, where the Count and Countess informed Ellaine and me about the Sarlenzia Trading Company suddenly receiving a large supply of fulinoe leaves, Belzac herbs, and other Belzac plants or herbs.

They complained that they weren’t able to purchase anything since they were sold out immediately. Marianne’s family in the Morgiana Duchy managed to buy a few, even gifting some leaves and herbs to her, but the Helvas couple were still distraught at missing this golden moment. They even became silent after we told them we were the suppliers for the Sarlenzia company.

After dinner was done, Count Helvas suggested to Ellaine to reenter the academy next week, in four days’ time. This was the time needed for her to catch up on the materials and homework she had to do.

As all students of the academy lived in the institution’s dorms, Ellaine’s brother Jonathan hadn’t made it back home yet. The count suggested to surprise him the moment Ellaine could make it back, telling her to make it as explosive as possible, although I didn’t understand how. The countess could only sigh as Ellaine’s training began.

We also took this time to share the demon secret with her parents, considering this was something they had to know. They were mortified at first but slightly calmed down after I told them Aurena agreed to it. It went without saying that once they had a discussion with Lust, all they could muster was a disgusted face with all her innuendos.

Three days. It took three days for Saori, Tasianna, and Grimnir to make it to Griffonpeak and Helvas mansion at the highest speed the garms could drag the RV.

During this time, I was finally able to finish my newest song-spell. After explaining everything to Saori, Tasianna, and Grimnir what happened when we were gone, the tests could officially begin. Inside the basement, Ellaine’s parents and Aurora were waiting for the debut of my newest song and the unveiling of Lust.

Custom spell song gained: [My Darkest Thoughts]

Custom spell song [My Darkest Thoughts] has been perfectly integrated into the System

Profile:

Name:   Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor

Level: 15

Race:   Young Sunfang Dragon

Age: 1 Year

Job:   Infernal Hellblade Level 0/30

Status:

Health:

15482 (+5196)

Mana:

42153 (+7130)

Strength:

7683 (+2363)

Intelligence:

12003 (+3325)

Vitality:

4236 (+1215)

Wisdom:

5890 (+1570)

Agility:

11365 (+2684)

Stamina:

8065 (+1979)

Effects:

[Damaged Mana Path [Left Wing] (Minor)]

Skill Points:

10950

Unique Skill:

[Dreadflame Dragon Lv. 4] (+2) [Hellblade Dragon Lv. 3] (+1)

[Solar Core Lv. 3] (+1) [Venerated Saintess Lv. 3] (+1) [Idol Lv. 2] (+1)

Skill:

Magic skills and related:

[Lava Magic Lv. 3] [Lightning Magic Lv. 3] (+1)

[White Flames Lv. 3] (+1)

[Corrosive Fire Lv. 3] (+1) [Sacred Magic Lv. 7] (+1) [Earth Magic Lv. 10]

[Earth Amp] [Earth Magic Efficiency] [Terra Magic Lv. 3]

[Wind Magic Lv. 10] [Wind Amp] [Wind Magic Efficiency]

[Storm Magic Lv. 3] (+1) [Space-Time Magic Lv. 5]

[Space-Time Magic Efficiency] [True Draconic Lineage]

[Draconic Barrier Lv. 6]

[Silent Casting Lv. 10] (+1) [Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 7]

[Long-Range Spell Enhancement Lv. 4] (+2)

[Mental Stability Lv. 8] [Mental Warfare Lv. 5] (+1) [Fluid Cast Lv. 3]

[Delayed Cast Lv. 1] [Continuous Cast Lv. 2] [Mana Eyes Lv. 4]

Physical skills and related:

[Unarmed Technique Lv. 8] [Unarmed Mastery Lv. 3]

[Sword Technique Lv. 1] [Spear Technique Lv. 7] (+3)

[Spear Mastery Lv. 3] (+2)

[Draconic Roar Lv. 4] [Sundering Enhancement Lv. 6]

[Piercing Enhancement Lv. 6] [Crushing Enhancement Lv. 3]

Senses and movement skills:

[Silence Lv. 1] [Accuracy Correction Lv. 7]

[Concentration Lv. 7] [Foresight Lv. 3]

[Danger Perception Lv. 6] [Probability Correction Lv. 5]

[Detection Sensor Lv. 3] [Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 8] [Tracking Lv. 3] [Night Vision Lv. 8]

[Odorless Lv. 1] [Evasion Lv. 10] [Acrobatic Lv. 10]

[Air Walk Lv. 4] [Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 6] (+1)

[Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 4] (+2)

Resistances:

[Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 5] [Absolute Pain Tolerance]

[Mental Corruption Resistance Lv. 3] [Mind Protection Lv. 5]

[Mana Leak Resistance Lv. 10] [Abnormal Status Nullification]

[Fear Resistance Lv. 5] [Lava Resistance Lv. 5] (+3)

[Lightning Resistance Lv. 2]

[Holy Resistance Lv. 8] [Inferno Resistance Lv. 6] (+3)

[Terra Resistance Lv. 1] [Wind Resistance Lv. 7]

[Water Resistance Lv. 2] [Dark Resistance Lv. 1]

Stat growths and related:

[Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 7] (+1)

[Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 5] (+1)

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 7] (+1)

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 5] (+1)

[Speed of Sound Lv. 1]

Others:

[Stage Fever Lv. 5] (+2) [Handicraft Lv. 6] (+2) [Woodworking Lv. 7] (+2)

[Stonecrafting Lv. 1]

[Trap Creation Lv. 8] [Instruction Lv. 2] [Identity Blocker Lv. 10]

[Tranquil Mind Lv. 1] (New) [Cooking Lv. 7] [Benevolent Aura Lv. 3] (+1)

[Draconic Aura Lv. 3] (+2) [Royal Presence Lv. 3] (+2)

[Dismantle Lv. 8] (+1) [Gluttonous] [Thought Acceleration Lv. 4]

[High-Speed Calculation Lv. 1] [Multi-Thought Processing Lv. 2]

[Parallel Thoughts Lv. 10] [Core Regulation]

[Humanize Lv. 10] [Pyrokinesis] [Aerokinesis] [Telepathy]

Job:

[Instant Heat Ignition] [Inferno Coating]

Ability List:

Dragon:

[Dreadflare Aura] [Hellblade Edge] [Scale-Dust Veil] [Hellflame Breath]

[Solar Beam]

Unarmed:

[Dragoon Jump]

Spell List:

Custom Magic:

[Symphonie des Feuergottes] [Prayer] [Sanctified Blaze]

[Sanctified Blaze: Halo of Consecration][Ignite] [Panzer] [Unheilge Engel]

Custom Spell Song:

[The Will to Fight and Survive] [Dragon Fire] [My Darkest Thoughts]

Lightning Magic:

[Lightning Bolt] [Purple Flash] [Levin Core]

Lava Magic:

[Lava Ball] [Lava Stream] [Molten Guard]

Holy Magic:

[Sacred Smite] [Sacred Veil] [Sacred Field] [Banishment Beam]

[Major Heal] [Omnictus] [Gloria Ascendence]

Earth Magic

[Earth Wall] [Rock Blast] [Earth Strike] [Rock Bullet] [Sturdy Earth]

[Earth Spears] [Earth Crash] [Earthen Shackles] [Terra Wall]

[Bedrock Blades] [Rumbling Might]

Wind Magic:

[Wind Bullet] [Wind Cutter] [Air Shield] [Wind Slash]

[Swift Winds] [Wind Blast] [Featherfall] [Aerial Blitz]

[Tornado Bullet] [Slyphid’s Cloak] [Tailwind]

Space-Time Magic:

[Haste] [Storage Magic] [Warp Point: Entry] [Warp Point: Exit]

The Light Magic:

[Shine] [Sanctuary]

Titles:

[The Light] [Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] [Divine Inferno]

[Otherworldly Reincarnator] [Princess]

A note from AbyssRaven

Father and daughter bonding time, yay! Hestia, the girl who brings families together!

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Chapter 199: Eldritch Warrior, Ellaine.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“You guys managed to harvest his organs?” Saori, Tasianna and Grimnar had just arrived at the entrance of the city, having sent a certain manatech bird ahead with a letter informing Ellaine and me of their arrival. This bird was Ellaine’s, which we had conveniently left behind in the RV during the mad rush to the temple, meaning Saori and the others didn’t have to deal with the guards at the upper city’s entrance.

Since the RV stuck out like a sore thumb among the other carriages in the noble district, Grimnir decided it would be best for him to park it in the lower city. Well, he also didn’t feel comfortable around all the nobles, so he told us to stay here in the mansion while he slept where he could hammer throughout the night.

According to Tasianna, while they were making their way to Griffonpeak after me, Grimnir had holed himself up in his forge, grumbling about how he had to fix himself up. The fight with Astalos seemed to have pushed him to work on something.

Anyway, while Grimnir was repairing Ellaine’s armor in a corner of the basement underneath Helvas’s mansion, Saori pulled out a yellow crystalized organ of some kind. It was absorbing mana through the air, turning it into electric currents.

“Ouch!” Saori yelped, stuffing the organ right back into her [Storage Magic]. Even when he was dead, Astalos was still causing our party trouble.

Instead of Saori, Tasianna explained, “After we made sure Miss Saori wasn’t in danger, we left her with her garms as Mister Grimnir and I dismantled what remained of Astalos’s mangled body. After that battle, there wasn’t much worth taking from the surface of his body. Even his organs were mostly rotting and turning black from your toxin, Lady Hestia, so we only managed to extract a few organs from him. One of them was his thunder sac, the organ Astalos used to generate the electricity inside his body using mana.”

“I am planning to use it as an ingredient for my catalyst. The ring we got from the hobgoblin shaman is still usable, but I want something more significant,” Saori stated, explaining how Grimnir believed it could be turned into a mana tool, like the volchark heart in my inventory.

“Good to hear you guys got something out of that fight after I hoarded all the experience for myself.” I gained seven levels from killing Astalos without having my party bracelet on. I felt a bit bad for not sharing the experience with everybody, but nobody really minded it. To them, they were just happy we got out of that fight alive in the first place.

While it was great to hear Saori having an equipment upgrade planned, we still couldn’t do much with the volchark heart or Astalos’s gland since Tasianna hadn't learned how to make catalysts yet. That was when Countess Marianne spoke up. “That shouldn’t be a problem, Lady Hestia. Aside from the people in the alchemist guild, there are also a few alchemists working under Duchess Morgiana and Duke Myrrdin that you can ask to tutor Miss Tasianna.”

Tasianna nodded to Marianne’s advice. “I see… I believe it would be better to finally learn more about alchemy. Cernust had only taught me the basics, and, with Lady Hestia deciding to stay in Griffonpeak for an extended time, I should use this opportunity to learn.” With determined eyes, Tasianna began making plans on what to do during our stay in Griffonpeak. While I was talking with them, somebody’s loud voice interrupted us.

“Alright, Ellaine, let us begin!” It was Count Helvas, announcing the beginning of today’s test. It was time for Ellaine to conquer her demon, literally.

“Klea’Hatma?” Ellaine called out for the demon inside her rings, looking nervously at it. As the eyes appeared, a voice entered our head.

[“Come on, darling, you may call me Klea. Klea’Hatma is such a long name, longer than you should be using when we’re this close, right?”] Every time I heard that voice, I couldn’t help but shiver. Although I explained the situation to the rest of Aurora, they couldn’t help but complain at Ellaine’s and my decision to keep Klea’Hatma “alive.”

“Urgh, this demon will probably cause us nothing but trouble, Hestia. Even if this was Ellaine’s decision, you really should not have accepted this risk,” Saori declared her disagreement while shaking her head in exasperation. “This is honestly, without a doubt, the most idiotic decision you two could have chosen. I will not lie, I do not like this one bit.”

“Lady Hestia, I really cannot support your choice in this matter. These demons came to Peolynca to destroy us, and now we are harboring one to use its power? This will make us even likelier to attract the attention of the demonkins,” Tasianna stated. While Klea’Hatma did say she wouldn’t expose herself to anybody without Ellaine’s approval, and was fully capable of hiding herself from even her demonkin descendants, there was no reason for us to trust her words.

“Bladdarg, a stupid decision, lasses. Let Crustacia be my witness, I would crush that demon right now just so I could stop hearing her voice,” Grimnir grumbled before returning to his work. Both the Count and Countess agreed, but they knew Aurena had given us the green light, so they directed their focus on helping their daughter control this new power.

“Hestia?” Ellaine looked at me. With determined eyes, she nodded, telling me she was ready. “Please, begin.”

I nodded back.

Breathing. Voice check. Music.

My Darkest Thoughts.

[Music Resonation (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Staring out the window while it rains ♫

No one here to talk, silence is all I have ♫

So I delved into my thoughts and wondered, “What if?”♫

The laughing kid stomping loudly upstairs ♫

The damn lovebirds flirting on the streets ♫

Those rich asses living in their golden bubbles♫

I just wish they would all just disappear ♫

Those are my honest thoughts, something I wish to hide from them ♫

My life is stagnating, nothing I do brings me forth ♫

All I can do is sing, drowning my sorrows while it rains ♫

Every step I take just brings me back, to a rundown apartment room ♫

Turn away, close my eyes, lock these wishes far away ♫

Not again, not again…or I’ll cry until the end ♫

All of my darkest thoughts ♫

Will serve me as my muse ♫

So, I’ll sing, I’ll sing, I’ll sing, I’ll sing! ♫

As I fade from your thoughts ♫”

My Darkest Thoughts

A song created by the Idol   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]. Through the image of a hopeful person walking a path of ruin, seeking happiness in the most wishful ways, only to find contentment in their own self and the little happiness they bring to others before fading away. Through the power of song and the holy powers of the Goddess of Light, the darkness will not corrupt those under the beacon’s light. All allies affected by [Music Resonation] will receive these effects: Become immune to mental and psychological attacks and influences from all sources. [Fear] and [Terror] can never rise above the [Minor] stage. All Holy and Sacred elemental attacks will be affected by [The Light]. All enemies influenced by demonic powers affected by [Music Resonation] will receive these effects: Seven Sin-based powers will be reduced drastically, limiting their influence over the entity’s soul and emotions. 20% reduction in stats

What I feared most about Klea’Hatma’s was the potential risk it could have on Ellaine’s soul and personality. As such, I wanted to make sure any mental or psychological effects wouldn’t affect Ellaine or anybody around them. This also applied to the demonkins.

Of course, the demonkins and Klea’Hatma weren’t our only threat. We also had to worry about people who consumed that weird black potion. I don’t know how the troll shaman or Davison got their hands on that potion, but it was clear enough to us that it was something demonic. If we had to face the power of that potion again, I wanted to destroy them as fast as possible. So, turning my [White Fire] into something demonkins couldn’t handle was a good option.

Klea’Hatma couldn’t access the Divine System and, as such, was unable to benefit from it, but on the other hand, she was immune to stuff like [Identify]. However, spells weren’t an attack that relied on being connected to the Divine System. When I first tested my song on her, I was able to more-or-less pacify her. Instead of throwing innuendos out to annoy us, she sounded drunk.

[My Darkest Thoughts] wasn’t a cheerful song, but to create the effect I needed, I had to be more melancholic with the lyrics. On the other hand, I gave the music a mix of hopefulness and heartbreak, imitating how Korean and Japanese drama shows made their songs for downhearted scenes.

This was my song to combat against the demons and demonkins. And it worked once again.

[“Oooooh, this song… such a lullaby,”] Klea’Hatma expressed, sounding sleepy. [“Dear, you have no idea how I hate going back to sleep. Not a, awwuaaaaaaahhh- a good feeling. So, sleepy, but there is so much to do. Come on Ellaine, let’s begin so Hestia can stop singing me to sleep.”]

“The song is pretty sad, Hestia. But… I feel like I can do it.” Ellaine took a deep breath. “Klea’Hatma, how do I use your power?”

[“Of course, dear. Listen well. First, pour your mana into your rings. Similar to how you always used your spell rings before.” As Ellaine did so, the green and brown eyes on her rings shone as if she was about to use a spell. “Good. Yeah, I can feel your mana. Now, to use my power, you may either grant me control over it or you can use it yourself. When I saved your life, you allowed me control, so I was able to use your mana to create those appendages from your skin. Pull up your sleeve, and leave your left arm exposed. Let us begin with the easiest first — claws.”]

Of course, Aurena told us to never accept Klea’Hatma’s direct help again. Giving her access to her abilities was a no-no, since it allowed her to steal Ellaine’s mana for herself.

After Ellaine pulled her gambeson’s sleeve up, revealing her slightly trained arm, the demon began her description. [“Imagine five long, one-sided blades glimmering like metal. Imagine Hestia’s claws in her dragon form, those long sickles ready to reap the flesh of a person. Imagine these claws attached to your hand, not like a gauntlet or gloves, but as flesh intertwining with each other like a web of vines. Your flesh, skin, muscles, and bones fusing to your imagination. Now, use your mana to form them like an earth spell!”]

Ellaine closed her eyes to picture the image Klea’Hatma described to her, groaning the longer it lasted. “Urgh!” she moaned, grabbing her left arm as her rings continued shining. “Ellaine!” Ellaine’s mother, Marianne, called out to her but was stopped from moving closer by Saori. As sweat beads began to form on her forehead, the skin on Ellaine’s left arm began to shiver as black spots appeared on her white skin.

[“The pain is normal. Endure. It is a new sensation all members of my race must experience before they can form their additional appendages. Our turbulent blood runs through our veins, escaping our body through the gaps in our skin, forming these new body parts. You are using mana to access my ability, you must allow this mana to escape your body through, uhm, your mana paths? Do you understand?”] Klea’Hatma continued her coaching.

The moment Ellaine nodded, she let out a sudden yelp and shot her eyes wide open. As she clenched her teeth, the black spots quickly grew into long fleshy threads, attaching themselves onto her arm. The tendrils continued to form and move as her pained voice escaped through her gritting teeth.

Once it was over, Ellaine huffed and puffed, looking down at her enlarged hand. Not only had it grown in size but her fingers were completely replaced by five long razor blades. While her upper arm was still normal-looking, her entire forearm was covered in fleshy tendrils, like an eldritch monster.

“Urp! Oh jeezus — Turn away, close my eyes, lock these wishes far away ♫

Not again, not again…or I’ll cry until the end ♫

All of my darkest thoughts ♫

Will serve me as my muse ♫

So, I’ll sing, I’ll sing, I’ll sing, I’ll sing! ♫

As I fade from your thoughts ♫” My singing was interrupted for a moment by my gag reflex.

“Ellaine! Are you alright?!” Count Helvas ran over to his daughter, clearly worried but keeping a safe distance from the sight of her new “claw.”

“Y-Yes, the pain isn’t that terrible,” Ellaine wiped the sweat from her face before forcing herself to smile through the pain. “A skill. I-I have a new skill!”

What?!

[“Good work, dear. Apparently, Aurena has received Elder Plesia’s permission to create a new skill based on my powers. Oh, it even has my race’s name translated into Common! How thoughtful of little Aurena.”] Although she sounded pretty sleepy, her sassiness still showed when she spoke about Aurena. As a result, Ellaine’s parents weren’t so thrilled, glaring at Klea’Hatma instead of complaining, knowing it would simply go in and out the other ear.

“P-Please, peace. Here, I’ll send the information of the skills to everybody.” Information of Ellaine’s new skill entered our minds through [Telepathy].

And it was a shocker.

Okl’Luther’s Power

A unique power of an otherworldly creature, cleansed through the power of the Goddess of Light, stored into a skill. Allows the user to become more accustomed to using the Okl’Luthier’s regenerative and flesh growth abilities, allowing them to use them almost as effectively as the original. Requires the mana of an Okl’Luthier to use. More abilities will unlock as the level of this skill increases. The death of the owner results in the death of the tethered Okl’Luthier. Tethered Okl’Luthier: Klea’Hatma. You cannot use SP to increase this skill, Ellaine

[“Ahhhh, hahaha, smart of her. So this is how she will restrict my powers. Oh my, Ellaine, it seems I need to rely on your growth before I can even attempt to escape, hiehiehie.”]

[Okl’Luthier’s Power Lv. 1] was the skill Ellaine just received after using Klea’Hatma’s powers for the first time. An “Okl’Luthier” ability section was added to her profile, where she was able to see which abilities she had unlocked, and this skill could only be seen by others if Ellaine allowed it, preventing leaks.

Seeing this skill caused everybody inside the basement to let out a sigh of relief, understanding Aurena didn’t just accept Ellaine’s proposal without plan B. It also helped that Ellaine was testing her new ability with a wide grin and eyes filled with wonderment. Sure, it looked grotesque to us, and Ellaine agreed that it was, but she seemed happy to have a new ability. Like a kid getting a new toy.

“There are two abilities — claws and whiplash. What is whiplash? What is that, Klea’Hatma? Also, the skill mentioned regenerative abilities. What is that?” Questions poured out from Ellaine’s inquisitive mouth. Honestly, this is the most excited I had ever seen Ellaine. Her mother even told me she used to act like this when she was younger, during the beginning of her magical education.

[“Oooh, lusting for power, dear? So early?”] Those words shut Ellaine up, feeling slightly unnerved at what she’d said. [“Hehehe, such innocence. In any case, I just checked myself and it seemed Aurena had sealed my abilities. Hahaha! I can’t even try anything, even if I tried. Like a beast trapped inside a cage, doing the biddings of my master, all while her fangs bare themselves dangerously close to my neck. No hope to escape, no hope for a future, eternal torment. Ohoho, how you have grown…”]

A chill ran down my spine, and from looking at everybody’s reaction, only Saori and Ellaine seemed to have similarly noticed the dreadful aura emanating from those spell rings the demon was inhabiting. It felt as if thousands of small roaches were crawling up your skin, a sickening feeling of nausea and fear.

But at the very next moment, a second aura appeared, this time it came from Ellaine. One that was warmer and more calming, although, it still felt like something we didn’t want to know about. It clashed against the aura from the rings and repelled it back, stuffing this power back where it came from as if it was trash destined for the can.

Aurena’s backup plan is this skill. It seems she’s not playing any games with Klea’Hatma.

The most proper way for all of this to end was if Aurena had simply destroyed Klea’Hatma forever, but that would have meant Ellaine would have lost the ability to benefit from this power. Still, it was reassuring that Aurena had planted a booby trap on Klea’Hatma, ready to kill her with the flick of a finger. That thought calmed me down and allowed me to continue singing, expelling any lingering animosity from the demon.

Sighing deeply as if was feeling lethargic and exhausted, Klea’Hatma continued the explanation with an even more lackadaisical voice, [“Well, whatever, if you can’t change stuff, it would be better to just enjoy the present. Where was I? Ah, right, what skill you can use. Pretty much everything except for those two basic abilities, are sealed. Once the skill believes your body has become accustomed enough, it will unlock the next set of powers. Train hard, dear.”]

Trainer Klea’Hatma continued her explanation, going into more detail of what her power actually was, [“My regenerative abilities focus on consumption and regrowth. Instead of mana, you must consume something to allow my abilities to heal you. Unfortunately, it is sealed. The ability to morph claws and a long tendril is all you can do right now. Shame. You would have benefitted from my bone wings. In any case, human, put up a training dummy, your daughter needs something to use whiplash on.”]

“…For someone of your advanced age, have you not learned the basics of simple politeness? You know my name… demon, ” Count Helvas spoke back, irritated to high-heavens.

[“Yeah, yeah, human. You do not have an eternity to complain, how about you continue moving instead of boring me.”] Considering how the demon was acting, I was really questioning if my song was having an effect, so I increased the volume.

While Count Helvas was picking up a straw dummy for Ellaine to train on, Klea’Hatma suddenly called Saori over, telling her she wanted to test Ellaine’s flesh claws on a weapon. As Ellaine was neither a pugilist nor was she left-handed, Saori used her daggers more as a durability test against Ellaine’s claws.

“I can feel the impact but I am not losing any health,” Ellaine said after Saori slashed at her claws. Since the attack didn’t cause her serious harm, Saori clad her daggers in lightning and used [Shadow Pierce] to attack, severing the tips of one of her claws. “Oh wow! I knew you wouldn’t hit me, Saori, but that still scared me.”

“I apologize,” Saori said before witnessing Ellaine regrow her severed claw with mana. “Y-Yeah, this reminds me too much of Davison. He did not have any claws, but his body had a terribly strong regenerative power. He was able to regrow an entire arm back.”

Ellaine was able to keep regrowing her appendages as long as she had mana and she could remove them by turning the extra flesh back into mana, causing it to literally evaporate into blue particles. [“I have defensive options, no fret. Aside from bone appendages, you may envelop your whole body in the fleshy tendrils to protect yourself, hardening it to create armor. I believe it would be easier to imagine it like Hestia’s [Panzer].”]

“Uhm, can I morph the bone appendages into something like a shield?” Ellaine asked.

[“Certainly. I have a single bone wing which I always used as a shield. You may literally turn this wing into a shield. For example, you aren’t required to create all five ‘claws,’ you may focus all your strength on a single blade. Like an arm sword. Considering you use a sword and magic to fight, I suggest you use my powers to adapt to different situations. The faster you can manifest the flesh weapons, the better. For example, you can conjure up the claws when a man is too close for you to swing your sword, giving him a taste of his own medicine and his final climax, arhhhhhhaaa!”]

… Why is she making lewd jokes? [My Darkest Thoughts] work, please!

Once Count Helvas was done, Klea’Hatma transitioned into Ellaine’s second new ability. [“Alright, you had a taste of the ‘claws,’ now we will test ‘whiplash,’ which I also call ‘whipfist.’ Imagine a long [Dark Tendril] with four claws on the tip of it, shooting out from your arm. Imagine it like an extension of your limb and that you are extending it by using mana to continuously produce the flesh. Be careful. It is a ranged attack allowing you to either kill or catch your target, but the longer you extend the whipfist, the more mana your will use.”]

“That doesn’t sound good. Unlike Hestia and Tasianna, I haven’t trained my mana enough to use it constantly. I need to drink as many dragorades as Saori.” The more you cast spells or use your mana in general, the more your Mana capacity will grow naturally. Leveling wasn’t the only way to gain mana, but it was definitely one of the best.

Groaning and moaning through the pain, the flesh threads reappeared on her arm, transforming it not into five sword-sized claws, but four knife-sized blades.

[“Try to morph it into a kle’— uh, wait, I don’t know what it’s called in Common. Hmm, imagine the claws as mandibles. Widen the flesh into something like a claw. Make it into something you can grab an item from range with.”] As Ellaine listened, the “whiplash” transformed into something similar to an alien predator’s mouth. She then tried out the extension part of the ability, throwing her arm around like a whip.

When she tried to throw it at the dummy at Klea’Hatma’s command, she missed the target by a mile. The whiplash could extend itself but, since it required momentum like a whip, it was extremely difficult to hit something from range. With her being right-handed and unaccustomed to using whips, Ellaine’s subsequent uses of the ability’s long-range grab function were a total whiff.

“I can’t continue, this takes too much mana,” Ellaine stated, retracting the claw as she breathed heavily. Seeing her like this, Tasianna came over to bring her a mana potion. This reminded me of Ellaine’s personal attendant, Josine, who couldn’t come down to the basement since Ellaine’s parents called this experiment top secret.

“Ellaine, using it with your left hand might be too much, especially with an unfamiliar weapon type. Try it with your right hand. Pull it back and swing it down,” Count Helvas tried to give Ellaine some suggestions. Ellaine was able to use Klea’Hatma’s power on either arm, but she had to be wearing one of the rings on the preferred arm.

“That would mean I can’t use the sword, father. I’ve been training with you from morning to evening these past three days. The moment I’m able to learn it from you, you are suggesting I give it up again? No. Never. Not this time,” an obstinate answer escaped Ellaine’s mouth. She took pride in the fact her father was spending more time with her, training her after such a long time, so she didn’t care if she was putting more effort into her sword training than her body could take in a single day.

“Miss Klea’Hatma,” Tasianna addressed the demon politely. “If I remember correctly, weren’t the wings you conjured back then floating on Ellaien’s back? Couldn’t she control your appendages like my ice blades?”

[“Good idea, Miss Fairy,”] the demon praised Tasianna’s idea but rejected it still. [“Sadly, the ability to grow appendages from thin air is restricted to one of the unique skill’s later levels. Ellaine will need to train the skill more. Hmm, and here I thought my abilities would benefit her. Hmm, this is certainly unsatisfying, I’m not content with this idiotic failure! Come now, Peolyncians, brainstorm a bit more.”]

As everybody began to contemplate how Ellaine could best use her new abilities in combat, Marianne suddenly spoke up, “Demon, is your flesh able to wrap itself around weapons? Ellaine isn’t particularly proficient in hand-to-hand combat, so throwing the whipfist with a punching motion would be awkward for her to do. Using the ability with a tool might help her control the swinging motion better.”

[“Yes, that is possible. Ellaine, from checking what I can do in this sorry state, I’ve noticed that I feel the strongest when both rings are close together. Most likely, my power will be split and weakened if you wore a ring on each hand. Try using one ring on your right arm and materialize whiplash on your sword.”]

As Ellaine listened to Klea’Hatma’s instructions, we were able to confirm her guess. The number of flesh threads erupting from Ellaine’s arm was less if she only had one ring on her hand, showing her white skin through gaps. As the tendrils attached themselves onto her sword, turning it into some bio-metal weapon, four claws were formed on the blunt sides of her blade.

As she swung her sword, the whiplash extended itself with the sword’s help. With the proper sword training she received from her father, Ellaine’s sword swings were precise and elegant, but the whip was thrown around more like a fishing rod than what I imagined. Ellaine could make the claws contract and grab things, but the accuracy was still subpar.

“Hmm, the impact caused by these swings isn’t to be underestimated.” Count Helvas inspected the damage the whiplash’s strike did on the dummy. “However, the swings do not flow well and it delays your recovery. This would probably not help you much, Ellaine.”

[“Hmm, I have enough experience using the whiplash to teach her. Training might solve her problem.”]

“It might, yes, however? Maneuvering the blade is difficult.” Ellaine gave her feedback. “I have to angle my wrist all the time, swinging to create momentum, and there is also the mana problem. I can’t extend and retract it all the time.”

Count Helvas nodded to his daughter’s practice result. “The sword is too rigid and short. Maybe if Ellaine used a whip and whiplash in combination, she wouldn’t have to continuously use her mana to extend and retract. The tendrils can stay the same length all the time, moving with the whip while increasing its threat.”

A whip? Well, that probably won’t be something Ellaine would do. That would mean giving up the sword for a whip, something she hasn’t learned yet… Hold on a minute. Wasn’t there a fantasy weapon like-

“A whipsword!” I clapped my hands together as the music continued without me singing. “On Earth, there was numerous fiction and media of protagonists using the whip as a weapon. This idea evolved to the point where creators imagined something called a whipsword. A sword which could separate itself into smaller blades to be swung like a whip, but it could come together again to be used as a sword.”

As I blurted my idea out, Saori touched her chin and remembered something. “That reminds me, Grimnir, weren’t you mentioning something about an extendable weapon while we were on our way to Griffonpeak? You used my mana threads for it.”

As he was called out, Grimnir grumbled and stopped repairing Ellaine’s armor. “Yeah, something I thought I should try making after that battle with the wyvern. Figured I needed to fix two of our party’s problems.”

“Problems?” I wondered.

Grimnir then pointed at Ellaine and then himself. “Us two. Our position within Aurora’s fighting style hasn’t been fully established yet. You, Saori, and Tasianna have been fighting for a long time together, and it shows, making it hard for the two of us to work within this system.”

In Grimnir’s opinion, he couldn’t act as the frontline as well as he wanted due to Saori and me being better thanks to our monster forms, while Ellaine didn’t have enough offensive power because of her lackluster stats compared to the rest of us. It was an issue Grimnir noticed when he went dungeon diving with us, and it showed again in the battle against Astalos.

Grimnir’s largest contributions to the fight were his two blasthammer shots while Ellaine couldn’t do as much since she didn’t have a weapon strong enough to pierce Astalos’ scales. Grimnir, being a blacksmith, only knew one way to fix something and that was to hammer on his anvil and create a better replacement or upgrade it. In this case, he was trying to make a prototype for Ellaine.

He ran back upstairs, picking something from the RV, before returning to the basement. “While hunting in the sea, the Caedhulens created tools to help them hunt. The trident, the harpoonbow, and this… the tridenthooker.”

What Grimnir unveiled was exactly what I just explained. With six grooves or slits, it looked like a blade split into seven smaller blades — it was exactly how I envisioned the whipsword.

As I questioned Grimnir about it, he continued his explanation, “The tridenthooker is a weapon merfolks use to catch certain underwater prey and capture them with threads, in addition, it was a great self-defense tool against multiple enemies at once. Originally, the tridenthooker has three tips like a trident, but each one of them could extend like the whiplash. Since Ellaine knew how to use a sword, I turned the concept into a sword. With this, I reckoned she would be able to deal damage from afar, in the sky or on her mount effectively”

As Grimnir handed Ellaine the weapon, Ellaine couldn’t help but look at him in bafflement. “Y-You made this for me, Master Grimnir? B-But you already made me armor! A beautiful armor that helped me fight well enough against the wyvern. Y-You don— Father?”

As Ellaine was worrying about the gesture, Count Helvas placed his hand on her shoulder, looking at Grimnir as he spoke, “I have not thanked you enough for what you made for my daughter, Master Dwarf. It was, honestly, one of the best sets of armor I’ve ever laid eyes on. I understand the armor was Lady Hestia’s gift to my daughter, so please, allow me to pay you back for the full completion of this weapon.”

“Hmph.” Grimnir waved his hand, stroking his chin as if he still had a beard. “I do what is needed to help my party, nothing more, Count. Besides, this is a prototype. If it can’t help Ellaine, then I won’t finish it; instead, I’ll tinker with something else. Lass, give it a try, will you?”

Urged by her artificer and sword teacher, Ellaine couldn’t disagree. She cladded the sword in tendrils, materializing four blades on the tip of the sword. Under Grimnir’s instructions, she poured mana into the sword, causing the grooves to glow blue. As she swung it, the sword separated into seven blades, held together by a thick blue mana thread.

With Klea’Hatma helping Ellaine’s form, she was able to swing its blades around like a whip. While there were a few close calls where she almost hit one of us, she was able to use whiplash for the longest time ever. With how she could extend the sword using the mana threads Grimnir had built into it, Ellaine only had to expend mana to maintain the whip function, which was far less than what she needed to use before. She was expanding and retracting the sword as she continued practicing, finally stopping when she was able to grab the dummy’s head with the whipfist.

“Stop, this should be enough for now, Ellaine. Arcane corruption is building up inside you,” Marianne told her daughter, pointing at Ellaine’s bluish skin color.

As she dispelled the tendrils, Ellaine ran over to Grimnir, handing him the weapon back. A grin was showing on her face, causing Grimnir to cough in embarrassment. Although Grimnir was still sweaty and dirty, Ellaine didn’t mind it one bit, hugging him as a sign of thanks. Marianne questioned me if this was our influence over her daughter. “Maybe,” I told her.

[“Huh, looks like we solved the issue. Mhmm, happy to see my powers being useful, ahahaha!”]

Ellaine’s new weapon wasn’t anywhere close to being done yet. Grimnir still believed he could improve on his prototype to also include Klea’Hatma’s powers. However, for the final weapon, we chose to finally use the High Ogre’s axehead and Cernust’s horn antler as the main materials. Saori’s mana threads were another important component and Grimnir was considering whether he could add my shed claw pieces and spikes to the smithing process.

As this would take time, we decided to stop today’s training since Ellaine was decently exhausted. After a delicious dinner, Aurora called it a night. As Grimnir was about to move his RV to the lower city, he was stopped by the Count informing him he could stay. While our RV did stand out, it wasn’t an eyesore due to the craftsmanship and paint.

However, Grimnir wasn’t used to the whole prim-and-proper human noble aesthetic of Artorias. Dwarven culture was more carefree where it was perfectly acceptable for a dwarven hold lord to come down to a local tavern and drink himself asleep with a miner or boot polisher. Artorian nobles would mingle with their soldiers during a war campaign, but it would be considered inappropriate if they shared a drink with a commoner in a rundown tavern in the middle district. Grimnir wanted to drink himself merrily into the night.

Nevertheless, the count was stubborn. He was willing to find a spot where Grimnir could be as rowdy as he wanted without disturbing anybody and even offered him work — to repair the armor and weapons of his guards and soldiers. There was also the fact it would be easier to gain Ellaine’s feedback if he stayed with us here.

In the end, Grimnir relented. He stopped the garms from moving the RV, opened up a small ale cask and offered it to the Count. “If you offer work to a tazong, you drink with him to seal the deal,” Grimnir said. I did ask him why he hadn’t offered me anything to drink, considering I hired him first, but I was told he did and that only Saori drank with him on the day we accepted his dungeon-delving request. Since he hadn’t known about my true identity back then, he thought I knew some dwarven customs.

To rectify this, I poured a tankard with the ale and toasted with the Count, Grimnir, and, well, Saori who just wanted to drink.

“Arck! Why is it so bitter!” I gagged, unable to drink anymore.

“This is so watered down, it is dreadful,” Saori complained but continued drinking until the tankard was empty.

“… This is what I expect to find inside a commoner’s tavern.” Frowning, the Count sighed before finishing it, too.

“What you would expect from a manling drink. Saori. Tasianna. How about we actually make some proper beer together? We can serve it to the restaurant’s customers, too.” Grimnir was a dwarf, after all. Guess he wasn’t content with the random ale casks we bought from taverns, so he’s pulling Saori and Tasianna into the mix.

Well, I’m just happy everybody is sticking together.

Once the next day came, it was time for Ellaine to return to the academy. As Ellaine and Josine were ready to board a flying carriage, the rest of us gathered and saw them off, wishing them good luck. While Saori wanted to buy groceries and Grimnir was preoccupied inside his smithy, Tasianna and I decided on our destination for today.

The temple of Griffonpeak. It was time to properly meet one of Aurena’s saintesses.

Profile:

Name:   Ellaine Fiero Helvas

Level: 58

Race: Human

Age: 15 Years

Job:   Rogue Level: 0/5

Status:

Health:

2802/2803 (+1767)

Mana:

3741/3741 (+2527)

Strength:

1265 (+864)

Intelligence:

1741 (+1055)

Vitality:

1098 (+752)

Wisdom:

1309 (+820)

Agility:

1213 (+777)

Stamina:

2256/2256 (+1315)

Effects:

None

Skill Points:

200 (Had 800 at lv. 30. Lv. 30 -> 58 = 14200. SP spent: 14800)

Unique Skill:

[Okl’Luthier’s Powers Lv. 1] (New)

Skill:

Magic skills and related:

[Mana Efficiency Lv. 10] (+2) [Mana Control Lv. 9] (+2)

[Arcane Mind Lv. 7] (+2)

[Earth Magic Lv. 10] (+2) [Earth Amp] [Earth Magic Efficiency]

[Terra Magic Lv. 2] (New) [Wind Magic Lv. 10] (+2) [Wind Amp]

[Wind Magic Efficiency] [Storm Magic Lv. 1] (New)

[Synergist’s Oath Lv. 3] (+1) [Silent Casting Lv. 5] (+2)

[Chant Revocation Lv. 10] (+5) [Mental Warfare Lv. 3] (+1)

[Fluid Cast Lv. 1] [Multi-Cast Lv. 1] [Continuous Cast Lv. 1]

[Delayed Cast Lv. 1] (New)

Physical skills and related:

[Unarmed Technique Lv. 1] (New) [Sword Technique Lv. 6] (+3)

[Sword Mastery Lv. 3] (+2)

[Sundering Enhancement Lv. 3] (+2) [Piercing Enhancement Lv. 2] (+1)

[Crushing Enhancement Lv. 1] (New) [Mana Strike Lv. 1] (New)

[Stamina Strike Lv. 1] (New)

Senses and movement skills:

[Stealth Lv. 5] (+3) [Accuracy Correction Lv. 6] (+2)

[Concentration Lv. 6] (+1) [Prediction Lv. 6] (+3)

[Danger Perception Lv. 6] (+2) [Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 7] (+2)

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 4] (+2) [Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 8] (+1)

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 4] (+2) [Night Vision Lv. 3] (+1)

[Presence Killer Lv. 3] (+2) [Evasion Lv. 6] (+3) [Acrobatic Lv. 6] (+3)

[Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 1]

Resistances:

[Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 1] (New) [Absolute Pain Tolerance] (New)

[Lava Resistance Lv. 4] (New) [Holy Resistance Lv. 3]

[Inferno Resistance Lv. 4] (New) [Poison Resistance Lv. 1] (New)

[Water Resistance Lv. 6]

[Terra Resistance Lv. 4] (New) [Wind Resistance Lv. 5]

[Arcane Corruption Resistance Lv. 10] (+3)

Stat growth and related:

[Health Recovery Lv. 3] (+2) [Mana Recovery Lv. 5] (+2)

[Stamina Recovery Lv. 3] (+2)

[Enhanced Health Growth Lv. 4] (+3)

[Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 1] (New)

[Enhanced Mana Growth Lv. 5] (+1)

[Enhanced Mana Capacity Lv. 4] (+1)

[Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 2] (+1)

[Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 1] (New)

[Enhanced Intelligence Growth Lv. 4] (+1)

[Enhanced Intelligence Enforcement Lv. 4] (+2)

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 1] (New)

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 1] (New)

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 2] (+1)

[Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 2] (+1)

[Enhanced Agility Enforcement Lv. 1] (New)

[Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 1] (New)

[Enhanced Stamina Capacity Lv. 1] (New)

Others:

[Singing Lv. 6] (+1) [Dancing Lv. 5] [Musician Lv. 7] (+1)

[Merchant Lv. 2] (+1) [Handicraft Lv. 3] (+2) [Woodworking Lv. 1] (New)

[Enchanting Lv. 4] [Artificer Lv. 2] (+1) [Identify Lv. 5] (+4)

[Identity Blocker Lv. 9] (+6) [Terror Aura Lv. 1] (New)

[Battle Mind Lv. 3] (New) [Noble Aura Lv. 4] (+1)

[Royal Etiquette Lv. 8] (+1) [Riding Lv. 5] (+2) [Scholar Lv. 2]

[Cooking Lv. 1] (New) [Dismantle Lv. 4] (New)

[Calligraphy Lv. 6] [Mathematician Lv. 7] (+1) [Telepathy]

Ability List:

Unarmed:

[Dragoon Jump]

Okl’Luthier

[Claw] [Whiplash]

Sword:

[Power Slash]

Spell List:

Custom Spells:

[Create Crack] [Wind Gust]

Earth Magic:

[Earth Wall] [Rock Blast] [Earth Strike] [Rock Bullet] [Sturdy Earth]

[Earthen Spears] [Earthen Shackles] [Terra Wall] [Bedrock Blades]

Wind Magic:

[Wind Bullet] [Wind Cutter] [Air Shield] [Wind Slash] [Swift Winds]

[Wind Blast] [Featherfall] [Aerial Blitz] [Tornado Bullet]

Titles:

[Hestia’s Retainer]

A note from AbyssRaven

Song for today is from "Dry Flowers" from Yuuri: Rawr

If you think about it, this is kinda like Aurena giving Ellaine her own blessing. A unqiue skill that also acts like a surveillance system to keep tabs.

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Chapter 200: Religious Teachings.

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“For a city designed with nobles traveling around on flying mounts, I guess having flying guards was to be expected. Good thing Svena warned us about it before I caused another incident.”

“True, Lady Hestia. Regardless of your status, breaking the law constantly would create animosity with the local law enforcement, which could cause us trouble in the future. You must use your new ability to fly with care.”

As I looked around in the sky, the sight of various people riding on griffons, hippogryphs, gargoyles, and flying carriages came into view, either traversing the upper part of the city built on the mountain or landing in the lower city’s merchant district. In Artorias, flying mounts were plentiful, so Griffonpeak was built with this very thought in mind. Compared to Firwood and Cedaraille, the fantasy of a flying society was the most prominent in the kingdom’s capital.

As a consequence, law enforcers were needed for this flying traffic. Similar to how guards patrolled the ground or guarded gates for inspections, knights were also keeping the peace in the sky. It sounded weird for knights to do guard duty, but as most of the people flying around were nobles, being stopped by a knight, most of whom were nobles themselves, was more acceptable than being stopped by a “lowly guard.”

As I wanted to go to the temple today to speak with Saintess Eshe, Tasianna came along with me. Since she didn’t want to expose her fairy wings, I took to the skies while carrying her with [Unheilige Engel]. After using this spell to feed myself while I flew through the skies while carrying Ellaine to Griffonpeak, I realized how incredibly flexible this spell was.

While [Unheilige Engel]’s normal form was a pair of purple slime wings, I could morph their shape and turn them into solid obsidian or a viscous liquid. As a result, I turned the spell into a chair for Tasianna to sit on, using its levitating ability to carry Tasianna around as I flew with my scale-dust boosters and [Tailwind].

While we were leaving the noble district, a few knights stopped me at the gates. Knowing what was happening, Tasianna and I handed them our IDs to confirm our identities. This district was the home of a bunch of nobles, so security had to be tight. While we were waiting, I noticed that one of the knights was somebody I’d met four days ago, back when I was arrested for trespassing Griffonpeak. When our eyes met, I couldn’t help but apologize again for disturbing their night.

“Ah, there is no need for an apology, Lady Shrine Maiden. We were simply doing our duty, haha,” the knight responded with a nervous laugh. I guess having Count Helvas barge in with a letter from the royal palace to release me without any consequence must have left quite an impression on him.

Anyways, after we got past the checkpoint, Tasianna and I landed a bit away from the temple, choosing to walk the remaining distance. There were two entrances to the temple, one for the nobles and the other was for commoners. Since the nobles entered theirs with carriages, we opted for the commoner entrance. It was too embarrassing to be the only one to stand out.

After arriving at the gate, Tasianna reminded me of something, “Lady Hestia, do not forget that Count Helvas planned to bring everybody from Aurora to the knight’s order’s building to register our IDs’ mana signal today. This should prevent any more issues flying in and out of the city, so please do not take too long. We also have to meet up with Miss Saori and register at the mage’s guild.”

Scheduling, scheduling. During last night’s party meeting, I informed everybody about what I learned from Aurena and Kargryxmor. As I thought, Kargryxmor’s advice was good, so I decided to not inform anybody else outside the party about the demonkins hiding inside the church and temple. Ellaine wanted to tell her parents about it, but even she understood they would be obligated to inform the king about it, so she agreed to keep quiet for now.

As you would expect, nobody was thrilled to hear who our enemies were or what they were up to. Saori herself couldn’t help but tremble at the idea that her students were working for the enemy, and what they were planning to do with them. Why did the demonkins summon her students to Peolynca? Neither Aurena nor Kargryxmor could answer this question, they only knew that the demonkins did it with the help of their otherworldly gods — the Origin Gods’ former acquaintances.

When they heard what I had to say about Kargryxmor, all four agreed with his advice. Currently, Aurora was just five people and four garms, that was it. Saori’s students and Yorshka were occupied with something else and, although we could inform them about everything, increasing our numbers by a couple more wouldn’t help our goals. We needed more allies, or if we couldn’t get more people, we needed to become so strong nothing could stand in our way. You know, the Kargryxmor style.

But this issue can be handled in the future. First, we needed to sort out a few priorities on our checklist today. One of them was my meeting with the Saintess.

As we passed relatively easily through the commoner entrance, I asked one of the grey-robed priests where the Saintess was. As he was stumbling on his words, looking anxious about answering my question, I instead asked him where High Bishop Theodore was, as I had a meeting with him. Thankfully, this seemed to be something the grey-robe could answer.

Making our way around the church with the grey-robe’s help, we did meet a few white-robes on our way. Considering I only needed to give them a generic greeting by praising Aurena and informing them that I came from Loatryx on a “pilgrimage” before they let me go, any rumors coming from Firwood or Cedaraille probably haven't made it to Griffonpeak yet. Thankfully.

After stopping at a door, the grey-robe rang a bell and informed whoever was behind the door about us. Without a single delay, we were let in and I gave my thanks to the grey-priest. Inside, the sight of a lilac-haired white-robe working on documents behind an office desk felt nostalgic.

Without dropping his mana pen, a manatech which used mana like ink, High Bishop Theodore greeted us. “Lady Hestia, I welcome you Griffonpeak’s cathedral once again. I apologize but I did not expect you to arrive today. Please, enjoy some tea and allow me some time to finish these documents.”

Overworked as always. The bags under his eyes are worrying.

His grey-robed attendant guided Tasianna and me to the couch before offering us a look into his tea leaf box. Tasianna, who knew my taste well, gave the attendant the instructions he needed, even informing him of how many spoonfuls of honey I wanted, how long the tea leaves should be boiled, and how much mana should be poured in without ruining the taste. It was baffling to hear how meticulously Tasianna made my tea, but I guess that was why it tasted so uniquely good to me.

“You have a refined taste, Lady Hestia. A tea connoisseur behind that fiery visage, I see,” Theodore praised me, although I had little to no input in how Tasianna made my tea. I thought I should speak up about it, but Tasianna stopped me with a proud smile.

Well, if Tasianna is happy about it, then there is no need to do anything.

The tea was acceptable. Although it was made by another person, Tasianna’s detailed instructions during the tea-making process made sure it perfectly suited my tastes. My fairy maid is incredible, and even Theodore’s attendant was greedy for more knowledge. As expected of Tasianna, a holder of the illustrious [Brewing] skill!

“Mhmm, how pleasant.” Also wanting to taste Tasianna’s brewing skills, Theodore requested that I ask Tasianna to make some tea for him also. Noble culture was full of small, annoying details like this, since asking another noble’s attendant for requests was considered rude. Still, I was happy to hear Theodore liking Tasianna’s craftsmanship.

Once Theodore was finished with his work, he walked over to me and asked me to pray with him. “Good morning, Lady Hestia. May this auspicious RestDay bless you with brilliant light, illuminating your path forward. On these sanctified grounds of the Goddess, allow me to pray with you in our Goddess honor.”

It was the standard greeting I have been giving to all the priests I met on my way here, even doing the whole praying part until I was sick of it. I’m glad I learned the prayers from Manuela to fit in better with all these priests.

After we were done, Theodore bid his attendant leave so we could speak in private, and asked me if I had read the church of Aurena’s holy book, or just the bible, before. I told him I had read one when I stayed in Carine village, given to me by the local village chief. Giving me a nod, he then took out a book from his desk drawer and handed it over to me. It was another holy book, it was just thicker in size.

“There are two variants — the commercial one and the one given to the clergy. While the commercial book is intended to allow those outside the clergy to learn the Goddess’s tenets and the tales of her subordinate gods, the ones given to the clergy also acts as a grimoire,” Theodore then opened the book for me, pointing at a familiar-looking paragraph. “A newly welcomed white-robed is taught holy magic through this book. Similar to ordinary mages, a new white-robed must learn one of the easiest custom holy spells — [Apply Light]. After gaining the [Holy Magic] skill, they will learn—”

“This is the incantation for [Prayer] right? I already learned it with the other book when I first got to Artorias back then.”

“… Pardon?” When I explained how I managed to decipher the meaning of the paragraph into the incantation of [Prayer] with the help of Master Kush, Theodore was baffled. His exhausted lilac eyes widened so much it honestly looked like he was angry at me. “… Well, your magic master is a depth priest, correct? He is a man of faith dedicated to Goddess Plesia, so it would make sense if he understood it. Ahem, but I find it fascinating you were able to decipher it through intuition. Did your world incorporate magic incantation into their holy text?”

“High Bishop, Earth did not have magic or mana. Also, I wasn’t much into religion since I was more preoccupied with my idol training than anything else, to the point it was more an obsession really,” I explained. “The reason why I thought it was an incantation was because the wording was conspicuous. Too magicky, not religious enough. If there were any other spells in the commercial holy book, then I haven’t found them yet.”

“I see… I saw that you had already learned [Prayer] when I looked at your profile, but… I had thought you learned it from another priest. Have you been using the spell all this time alone with your incredible mana pool?” I nodded. Using [Prayer], a mana-hungry spell, was a non-issue when I could afford using [Purple Flash] to instantly cast any of my large-scale spells. “Haaaa, incredible. There shouldn’t be enough information for people to learn any of the church’s spells from the commercial books. I should send in a notice to inform the cardinal.”

“The cardinal?” I asked, prodding for more information.

“Do you know how the church hierarchy works, Lady Hestia? As a faith ruled primarily through human nobles, the system should be easy to understand if you are aware of the aristocracy.” Theodore then placed his hand on his chin, pausing, before continuing to speak, “Lady Hestia, I had promised to teach you about the church of the Goddess. Pray, tell me, would you have time to spare today?”

I explained what business I had with him, that I wanted to meet Saintess Eshe today. Since it was still early in the morning, Theodore agreed to bring me to her later on, as she was currently not inside the cathedral. As such, I brought out a wooden slate and prepared myself to write information down like a good student.

First things first, the clergy system and the hierarchy of the church.

As I had already learned, the church was split between two types of priests — the grey-robes and the white-robes. Grey-robes were commoners or disgraced nobles who joined the clergy either by their own will or as a permanent punishment from their country, acting as servants or attendants for the white-robes. Even if a grey-robe showed promise as a mage, they were forbidden to learn holy magic, as their grey robes signified a sinned soul, unworthy of Aurena’s miracles.

White-robed priests and shrine maidens were the core of any temple or church. While Theodore mentioned the church of Aurena was mostly managed by pious aristocrats; it was actually common for magically talented commoners to join their local temple for teachings. From lowly laborers to wealthy merchants, the church welcomed commoners and allowed them to take a more managerial role in the temple.

“Really? I’m pretty sure these white-robed commoners were mostly excluded by their noble clergymen. I met quite a few white-robed priests who became adventurers, and most of them were far more subservient than I expected,” I told Theodore my experience on this matter.

“It is a possibility inside this system for commoners to rise up through the ranks, unlike in a kingdom where becoming a noble is an extremely rare occurrence. Yes, I do understand nobles would rather exclude a commoner from their circles, something my temple in Firwood is guilty of,” Theodore responded. “However, it is not as if white-robed commoners are redundant. Nobles dislike mingling with farmers or joining sweaty, rowdy adventurers even after joining the clergy. Commoners are less squeamish and without them, there would be far fewer healers working with parties of hunters and mercenaries. Meanwhile, the reverse is also true. Even after joining the clergy and learning the appropriate etiquette, commoner priests often remain uncomfortable around nobles.”

Within the white-robed circles, there was also another division between the politically-minded priests and priestesses and the managerial shrine maidens. As shrine maidens have made the decision to remove themselves from their temple’s political sphere, the only rank above a shrine maiden was the head shrine maiden. Priests, on the other hand, could become bishops, high bishops or archbishops, cardinals, cardinal imperii, cardinal vicar, and possibly even the pope.

“I’ve been meaning to ask this for a while now, but are there any male shrine, uhm, ‘maidens?’ I think it would be weird that only women would be apprehensive of politics,” I asked, prompting the High Bishop to nod.

“There are, of course. Shrine priests, you can identify them by the red patterns on their white-robes just as normal shrine maidens.”

“Then why do you call them only shrine maidens without mentioning the priests?”

“Simply because they are rarer. You must understand, Lady Hestia, although joining the priesthood does mean you must abandon your titles and land, a noble does not abandon their blood. Men are simply pushed more by their families to attain a more prestigious rank inside the clergy, ignoring the individual’s own wants. There are female priests as you are aware” Theodore then ignored any decorum and drank his tea in one large chug, emptying it.

It honestly feels like I should not have asked him about this. Then again, have I ever asked him why he joined the clergy in the first place? Hmm, let’s just let this sleep.

Moving forward, Theodore opened the holy book again to skip any more discussions of the previous topic. After he was done turning pages, he turned the book around and showed me three sentences. These were the Church of Aurena’s doctrines.

First — there is only one Chief amongst the Origin Gods, and that is the Goddess of Light, Miracles, Healing, and Kinship, Aurena.

Second — all subordinate gods of the Pantheon of Light are part of the Goddess of Light’s powers, as such, worshippers of one subordinate god must not diminish the faith of the others.

Third — the miracles of the Goddess must be shared with those with a gift for magic and the faith to support it. Unless a sinner, the white grace must be taught to others, for this is to honor the majesty of the Goddess.

Simple and understandable.

“The doctrines were written down and spread by the first apostles during the descent of the Origin Gods to our world. There, the Goddess’s whispers breathed new life into our world’s religious teachings, bringing together those of a similar mindset into a union we call today the Church of Aurena,” Theodore preached. “Her white graces and miracles gave us hope in those heretical times, for the demons had descended upon our world to shatter what happiness the Origin Gods brought. However, we have persevered with her teachings and these three doctrines.”

“I believe ‘whispers’ and ‘teachings’ must be the symbolism in her System spells, correct? Your ability to teach new followers magic without the need of elementals, correct?” Tasianna questioned Theodore.

“That is correct, Tasianna. Elementals were known before the advent of the Origin Gods as the most common way to learn how to channel the mana inside and outside our bodies. However, with the Divine System, we mortals are now able to harness the power of magic through simpler training. Is it not wonderful?” Theodore confirmed Tasianna’s question, answering it with the mixed attitude of a teacher and priest. However, this seemingly only caused Tasianna to scowl at him.

“High Bishop Theodore… Goddess Aurena is not the chief Origin Goddess. That is the Goddess of Water, Plesia.” Tasianna raised her head up, displaying her amulet of Plesia with pride. “Even when I was still a follower of Goddess Zephira, it was widely known among the elves and fairies that Goddess Plesia is the true chief of the Origin Gods.”

“Ah, I understand, Tasianna,” Theodore nodded understandingly. “I forgot both the Church of Plesia and the Church of Danterno both named their revered Origin God the one true leader, and for that, I must apologize. The doctrines of our churches aren’t always similar.”

“What? No, that’s not what I meant, High Bishop!” Tasianna raised her voice without standing up. “It is a fact, Goddess Aurena isn’t the chief goddess purely because Goddess Plesia’s power and influence is so widespread around the world, to the point the favors and prayers she received far outweighs what Goddess Aurena receives. The oceans are far larger than the land!”

“However, how many of these followers actively pray and fight in their patron Goddess’ honor? While Goddess Plesia is widely prayed to daily by the people of Caedhul and any city or town with a port, Goddess Aurena is prayed to from here in Artorias to the far east of the empire. Even if Goddess Plesia has the most followers, the sheer dedication we show to ours far outweighs something like numbers. Quality over quantity, Tasianna.”

Tasianna clicked her tongue, irritation was covering her whole face like makeup. “Tch, you humans especially should not underestimate the power of numbers—”

“Oi, oi, oi, oi, Tasianna! That’s enough, okay. High Bishop, I apologize for that, but let us please stop talking about all this right now, okay?” Seeing as Tasianna was about to blow up, I forcibly intervened in the discussion before it exploded. For an ice mage, Tasianna sure could be hot-blooded at times. “L-Let’s stop talking about this for today, High Bishop. I just heard the church bells ring, your lecture has been quite long and informative. How about we continue this tomorrow or whenever it suits you?”

“As you wish, Lady Hestia,” he said before standing up. “Before I make the schedule for your continued religious education, we should first go and speak with Lady Eshe. Allow me to call for a carriage.”

“Carriage? Oh, if it’s possible, how about I carry you over there?”

“?”

Waiting for some carriage to come over and then drive us to the saintess would have been comfy but, even after getting used to carriage seats, I still preferred walking or, in this case, flying. Grimnir’s RV was excluded since it felt more like a car than a medieval carriage.

While I had my wings out the whole time inside the church, hiding them inside my robe, Theodore hadn’t mentioned them although they were conspicuous as fuck. I mean, I was keeping my wings together similar to how Kargryxmor did his, by intertwining the spikes on the end to make a cape, so they made my silhouette bulkier than usual. When I finally pointed to the fact I could fly, Theodore finally understood my intentions but believed it inappropriate for me, a girl, to carry him, a man. I personally believe he was just embarrassed to be carried around in a princess carry, ha!

After casting [Unheilige Engel] and showing my ability to turn it into two chairs, Theodore finally accepted my proposal. With Tasianna and Theodore sitting comfortably in them, I flew off using [Tailwind] and my boosters.

While Theodore was giving me directions, I also noticed this was the limit to how many people I could carry with this spell. I wasn’t sure why but using [Unheilige Engel] to carry those two made it “heavier” for me to keep the spell levitating. Who knew spells had an encumbrance limit, right?

After some time observing people riding flying mounts and arvisians flying around the city, we finally arrived at a church-like building close to the entrance of the city, which was quite far away from the cathedral. Surrounding the building was a medium-sized garden and backyard enclosed by wooden gates where kids of various ages were playing around while others were helping out grey-robed priestesses with chores.

While observing them from the sky, I asked the High Bishop what this was. “Lady Hestia, this is Griffonpeak’s orphanage, funded and maintained by the cathedral. Shrine maidens and grey-robes are stationed here to aid those parentless children who have chosen to put their future in the Goddess instead of living on the streets. Saintess Eshe is currently residing with the personnel of this small church-turned-orphanage.”

“Huh? ‘Residing?’ Why isn’t she staying at the cathedral like everybody else?”

“That is because Saintess Eshe wished for it personally. A commoner with plenty of talent as a mage who chose the life of a white-robed priestess and, unfortunately, had to take up the robe of a shrine maiden due to some temple drama in her home city, Sarkafiina. The ‘Saintess of Orphans,’ that is her title,” Theodore explained as we landed.

When the eyes of a few kids caught us, I decided to use [Humanization] to put away my wings, just to be sure I wouldn’t scare some of them. There were those below kindergarten age amongst them, after all.

“Hey, hey, look, a priest, a shrine maiden, and a pointy-ears are coming. Come on, make way, we shouldn’t disturb them.”

“Ooh, another shrine maiden? Is she joining Mother and the Sisters? Why does she have a tail and horns?”

“What’ya think they are? She’s a beastman, not a human, are you blind? You see us every day.”

“Enough, come on, show some more respect, guys. If one of them is a noble, we’ll cause Mother and the Sisters a lot of trouble.”

The squabbling of the kids was made through whispers but even whispers became audible for the human ear if everybody did it, let alone my [Idol]-enhanced hearing. Aside from their ages, there were also different types of beastman kids standing around. Well, there seemed like a nearly equal split between beastmen and humans on the way over here, so I guess it shouldn’t be weird to see these beastmen kids here.

After giving them a hand wave and handing one of them a bowl of honey-glazed toffel chips, telling him to share, our group entered the orphanage. There, Saintess Eshe’s male guard was waiting at the entrance like a watchdog. Seeing me, he quickly understood what our purpose was and led us into the kitchen, where a brown-skinned woman wearing a white-red robe was cooking something with a few other shrine maidens.

It was Saintess Eshe.

“Oh, Lady Hestia! High Bishop Theodore!” Eshe noticed us after her knight, Alikar, I believe his name was, addressed her. As a result, the shrine maidens working with her had to curtsy to greet the High Bishop. “I wish you two well on this auspicious RestDay. I hope it has allowed you to recuperate from your weary labors.”

Theodore bowed to Eshe’s curtsy before speaking on my behalf. “Thank you, Lady Eshe, I would say this day has found me well,” Theodore said with baggy eyes. “May the Goddess’s light bless your path forward on this peaceful day. Pray, would it be fine if we had some of your time now? I believe you and Lady Hestia must talk?”

After delegating her cooking duties to the other shrine maidens, Saintess Eshe led us to her room while Sir Alikar returned to his post while Dame Anivh, Eshe’s second knight, followed us. Once inside, Eshe asked if we wanted any tea but we declined as we didn’t want to take up too much of her time.

Eshe’s room wasn’t in any way grandiose; in fact, it was kept pretty simple with the bare necessities. Unlike the High Bishop’s office, which was filled with books and manatech, Eshe’s room reminded me of the vow of poverty monks and nuns used to take during the medieval time.

Once we were seated, I talked first. “First, thank you very much for your help four days ago, Saintess Eshe.”

“Oh, there is no need, Champion Hestia. I did what the Goddess instructed me to do, so you must give your thanks to her for guiding us on that fateful night,” she responded, causing me to smile wryly.

Well, she wasn’t wrong. Aurena did give me direct instructions and expedited Ellaine’s recovery.

“If it isn’t rude to ask, may I learn what you spoke about with Goddess Aurena on that night?” she continued.

Hmm, I should probably listen to Kargryxmor. I shouldn’t reveal about the demonkins for now, so let’s give some white lies.

Excluding any information Aurena or Kargryxmor told me about the actions of the demonkin, I began telling Eshe a gist of what I did in Aurena’s heavenly domain. That she managed to help Ellaine with her problem, while not mentioning Klea’Hatma, that Aurena had ordered Eshe to come over to Artorias to support me in my Quest, and to reiterate my Divine Quest.

Once I was finished with my retelling of the events, both Eshe and Theodore looked at me in wonder. Eshe’s azure blue eyes closed as she smiled, looking ecstatic as she gave a small prayer. “Oh, Goddess Aurena, I thank you for your kind words. I shall do my utmost to support Lady Hestia.”

Once her eyes opened, she asked me with youthful curiosity what my Divine Quest was. Since I was following Kargryxmor’s advice on this matter, I was wondering what I should say but the answer was already on the tip of my tongue. “Being her first idol.”

Eshe’s curiosity quickly turned into confusion at my remark, looking over at Theodore to see if he knew what I was speaking about. Fortunately for her, he already knew. “… Lady Hestia, are you possibly speaking about that singing idea you spoke to me about?”

“Ah, High Bishop Theodore, it’s not just singing, it’s also dancing!” I then asked Eshe if the room was soundproof, which she denied. I was a bit worried somebody might have eavesdropped on us when I spoke about my meeting with Aurena, so I asked Tasianna to cast an [Air Shield] around us after getting Lady Anivh’s permission. “An idol! You two already know I’m an otherworlder, right? That I was reincarnated to Peolynca by Goddess Aurena to become her champion, right?”

They nodded.

“My dream on Earth was to become an idol, an entertainer who sang and danced in front of millions of people through our world’s technology. Goddess Aurena’s quest for me was to act on this ambition of mine, to travel around the world and perform idol concerts to garner followers and to reinforce the Church of Aurena!” With how Aurena told me to garner more followers, this was one objective I had to fulfill.

I gave the confused Eshe and bewildered Theodore a quick summary of what idols did on Earth, telling them of the fantastic shows I managed to experience live. Once they got a good enough picture of what I meant, I proceeded to ask them for help. I have only performed two concerts in Peolynca, which wasn’t nearly enough if you asked me. As a result, my follower count was stagnating.

Now, Saori and I have been talking about this topic for a while now. There were two goals we wanted to fulfill while we were in Griffonpeak — first, it was to get some support from the church to promote these concerts since I was a champion, and, secondly, it was to perform in front of nobles. Performing before commoners was nice and so on, but if we really wanted to spread the word, we also needed nobles attending my concerts.

I had an idea how to solve the second issue, but for the first one, I needed Theodore and Eshe.

“That sounds wonderful, Lady Hestia. You would have my support.” Gaining Eshe’s support was easy but Theodore frowned as he thought about it.

As I was worried he would decline, he had something entirely different to say, “Lady Hestia, I don’t see any issues with supporting your idea but this will probably take some time to sort out, especially since the cardinal overlooking the cathedral and the church of Aurena inside Artorias is a hard man to ask favors for.”

“If he isn’t willing to support the idea then it’ll be annoying, but it’s not like he can stop me from performing, right? I am a champion and even Lady Eshe is supporting me. He can’t say much.”

However, my bold statement didn’t sway Theodore very much, who was still looking conflicted on the issue. “I will try my best to persuade him.”

After we were finished with this discussion, I was about to thank them for their time and say my goodbyes, but Theodore stopped me. He informed Lady Eshe that I had little information on how the church worked and asked her to work with him in educating me. Eshe was reminded at this moment that Aurena had asked her to teach me about the Empire, since I would need a more complete picture of how the human world functioned outside Artorias.

After spending some time working out a schedule, it was agreed upon that I should find some time every day up to the royal ball in two weeks so they could pound all the information into my head as soon and fast as possible. This would ensure I would learn the most important parts.

After leaving the orphanage, Tasianna and I moved to the mage’s guild with the help of a few guards, where we found Saori waiting for us.

Master Kush, I will make sure to register this time.

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Chapter 201: The Mage’s Guild.

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Skyell

Once again, thank you everybody for your continued support of the novel. From my Patrons and RR readers, I thank you both for reading Dragon Idol for another month. I hope we can continue having fun together!

“How much did the Sarlenzia company want?!” After meeting up with Saori in front of the mage’s guild, Tasianna and I asked her how her grocery shopping went. Due to a deal we made with the company’s president, we were able to secure a large amount of food and spices for our Belzac plants and herbs, all grown inside our garden.

Saori and Ellaine knew the serious demand for Belzac products like fulinoe leaves and Belzac herbs, to the point we were able to broker a great deal in our favor. Well, we had an idea of how high the demand was, just not how well the Sarlenzia Trading Company would promote them.

“The representative of the branch told me he wanted us to deliver double the amount we agreed upon as soon as possible, even admitting that President Sarlenzia wanted four to five times what we originally offered if we had that amount on hand,” Saori informed us with an expression mixed between excitement and disappointment. “The mage’s guild, the alchemist guild, the nobility, even certain merchants were craving these products like locusts. After we handed them the first batch and they released their promotion, everything was sold out instantly. Hehe, the representative was telling me President Sarlenzia was fuming that he couldn’t contact us when we were inside the dungeon and when we left for Griffonpeak!”

“But weren’t we resting in Cedaraille for a whole week after our dungeon diving? Couldn’t they have sent a messenger to us then?” Tasianna asked, only to receive a shrug from Saori.

“Yes, they had enough time, but it seemed Duke Greenveil told them to leave us alone. If you ask me, they were probably using this time to create hype around the next supply. The representative went quiet for a moment when I asked him how many people were reserving them.” A grin formed on Saori’s face, elated to see she was able to fish out this information.

Come to think about it, Ellaine’s parents did mention they couldn’t buy any of the leaves since it was sold out. Damn, didn’t think the craze was this much. I guess they probably pre-ordered a few, considering they hadn’t asked to buy some off me.

“Then why do you look so disappointed, Saori?” I asked out of curiosity.

“Ack, it is because Ellaine and I underestimated how well they marketed their products. Do you still remember Zeather? The foxian in Firwood?” I nodded to Saori’s question. “Well, he used the amount we gave him to build the foundation for this whole craze. The representative in Griffonpeak called it ‘piquing people’s interest’ and Zeather made sure to sell the leaves in small batches, increasing the price every ‘resupply’ cycle. The nobles and mages went wild.”

When I told her I still couldn’t understand her chagrin, Saori said it as bluntly as she could, “They got us, Hestia. ‘Mine a copper vein only to find gold,’ or whatever Grimnir likes to say. Ellaine and I thought we got the better end of the deal, but we were sorely embarrassed. Newt Sarlenzia and Duke Greenveil used their time well and managed to increase the price even more.”

Saori had been quite proud about the deal she made with the president, but I guess this is a lesson for us — the sellers always win, the suppliers get only a dime. Still, it wasn’t all gloom and doom. “However, they made one mistake. Their customers got too impatient, and I noticed this on the representative. When I told him we did not have a large harvest, even stating supplying double the amount would be hard, the man’s poker face broke.”

“But, Miss Saori, our harvest was extremely good. We have more fully-grown fulinoe plants than ever before,” Tasianna responded only to prompt Saori to smirk.

“I know, Tasianna. Four or five times might be too much, but we could supply them triple the amount if we didn’t care about our dragorade stock. Supplying double the amount was easy, but I did not have to tell him that, right?” Realizing what she did, I couldn’t help but smile at her. “I managed to increase our pay. More food, spices, and we will now receive a chunk of the pie — a percentage of their sales. The deal will be finalized tomorrow, once President Sarlenzia arrives in Griffonpeak with a flying carriage. Hiehiehie! How dare you try to run away with our hard work, Newt!”

I showed her a thumbs up, proud of her achievement. “Nice work, Saori. Well, how fitting that we would visit the mage’s guild now.”

Located on the north side of Griffonpeak’s mountain — which the locals call “Wintertalon,” as there is snow on the tip of this crooked mountain throughout the year — the whole guild was built around the same elevation as the noble district, where you could either fly over there with a flying carriage or mount, or use the streets to enter it. It was part of the upper city with roads connecting it with the noble and merchant districts.

This guild was far larger than the alchemist guild or either of the adventurer guilds, built upon a platform granting them a large amount of space. Mages from whatever social status were walking around it, entering buildings within this area, making it feel like a university. In fact, Ellaine had explained to me that the mage’s guild was actually a university for alumni of the royal academy seeking to perfect their arcane powers.

As such, there were multiple buildings in this area, as mentioned before. Since the area was far too large for us to start looking for the registration area, Saori asked a woman in her late twenties wearing a magician’s outfit for directions.

“A beastman looking to register as a mage?” As she frowned at Saori for some reason, she suddenly noticed Tasianna and me before tapping her staff on the ground as if she understood something. “Oooh, a lizardman shrine maiden and an elf, uh, wind elf? Understood. The guild building is easy to miss with the university in the way, but you just need to follow the path. There is a training area protected by a mana barrier, so if you notice it, turn to your right and voila.”

“Thank you for your help,” Saori stated with a normal smile, unperturbed by the woman’s comment, before moving forward according to the directions we received.

“Saori?” The slight disgust the woman showed Saori was easy to hear, but I was baffled to see her so calm. As I followed her, I spoke up about it, “Saori, didn’t you notice what she just said to you? She just looked at you as if you were trash or something. She even called me a lizard!”

I was currently hiding my wings inside my robes. If King Drangleic’s words were to be believed, rumors of a powerful dragonewt mage should have already spread. I mean, I’m glad to hear she saw me as a lizardman without seeing my [Humanize (Minor)]’s full lizard appearance, but I still couldn’t help but be annoyed at people calling me a lizard or gecko.

While I felt insulted at how that mage woman acted towards Saori, she waved her hands dismissively. “Who cares, Hestia. I have read enough books of how certain beastman races are less proficient in magic, to the point these books mentioned there was a myth that these specific races can’t cast spells, like dwarves. One member of this group is wolfkins, so the Miss from before was probably stereotyping. Nothing awful. Actions speak louder than words, anyway.”

I guess that is true…

While following the woman’s directions, we noticed a few mages sparring or testing their spells on a flat training area. Spells were being slung around the area carelessly, making me worried one of them would hit a bypasser, but my concern proved unwarranted. Each wayward spell was blocked by a translucent mana barrier when it reached the edge of the area. I wondered if this was similar to the one surrounding the entirety of Griffonpeak.

In any case, as the woman told us, the moment we turned right after the training field, we ended up at the entrance to a building. Moving inside, the interior of the building reminded me of the reception of a fancy four or five-star hotel. As you would expect from a noble-controlled organization, the room was well decorated with fine furniture, manatechs, and paintings.

As the two women behind the counters were occupied, we checked for a line, only to be informed by one of the seated mages to register our ID using the [Crystal of the Divine System] next to the receptionists to be called up. When Saori asked if only one person was enough, he confirmed that it was.

As such, Saori pulled out her ID and registered for the three of us. Finding a seat to pass time, I recognized a small altar placed before a bust of a male elf. Looking at the altar, it had the emblem of a giant owl wearing a set of glasses while carrying a half-filled grail and a long scroll flowing around the owl’s head, forming a perfect circle. According to my theology lessons, this was the religious symbol of the God of Knowledge and Magic, Istari.

“The half-filled grail symbolizes God Istari’s unending desire for knowledge, always in the pursuit for the unknown, but unable to fill his grail as he gluttonously consumes any new experience. The scroll, on the other hand, marks his promise to document everything he learns, even using his own skin if he runs short on parchment.” Tasianna gave me a satisfied nod after I remembered her theology lessons. At this point, I have learned more about religion from Tasianna than Theodore, huh?

There was also the symbolism of the owl, which appears to be similar to Earth. The owl is there to show wisdom, secrets, and the unknown. Istari was the patron god of all mages and spellcasters while also being the Subordinate God of Aurena. Considering how many mages were in this world, Aurena and Istari must be enjoying the amount of faith they must be generating, which makes it even more incredible that Plesia is the Chief of the Origin Gods.

After some time passed, we were finally called up to the reception, where Saori told her we wanted to register at the mage’s guild.

“A mage associate registration, of course. Would this include all three of you, Madam?” Saori nodded. “Understood. To inform you, to become members of the guild, you must first pass a written and practical exam, or present to us a certificate of your arcane abilities. Would you wish to schedule one?”

“Wait, you require us to pass exams?” Nobody had told us about this, but then again, it should have been obvious enough considering this place was made for practitioners of magic, not novices who had only recently read a magic book.

“Yes, Madam. However, we won’t be able to schedule the exam for any earlier than this evening. The examiners are currently preoccupied at the royal academy and the guild’s university.” Since we had to become mages to not cause any issues, we agreed to take an exam after confirming we could retake them if we had failed beforehand. I was confident I could pass it with Master Kush’s teachings, but who knew, right? “Thank you. May I have your IDs, please? I will need to register your names and ages.”

“Would you be looking at our entire profile?”

“No, of course not, Madam. We value your privacy. Only your name and age will be projected on the crystal during this section of the registration, but once we finalize your membership, we will ask again if we may look at your entire profile. You may refuse. However we must at the very least see your level, status, and magic skills to determine your ranking within the guild.” The receptionist pulled the Divine System Crystal from the top of the counter and placed it behind her desk, asking for our IDs now.

After we handed it to her, she began speaking our names and ages to confirm them. “Tasianna Marina Silverpond. Age 88. Saori Segawa. Age 18. Hestia… Atsuko. Age 16.” She then raised her head, looked at me as if she was analyzing something on me before standing up. “I apologize but I must ask for your patience. I will be back very soon.”

This does not bode well…

As the three of us agreed something was up, our first instinct was to run away from the mage’s guild but, since we absolutely needed to become members, it was not like we could ignore the guild forever. After some time passed, the receptionist came back, guiding a woman in a Gothic-era business dress to us. With blue-tinted blond hair and sparkling azure eyes, the woman stood out quite a lot.

Showing me a curtsy, the woman introduced herself. “Greetings and may the Goddess bless our meeting, Lady Hestia Atsuko. I am Maverina von Dareinburgh, the guild master of the mage’s guild branch in Griffonpeak.”

Although I responded with a curtsy of my own, I couldn’t help but be confused about this situation. “‘Von’?”

“Yes, Lady Hestia, I am an aristocrat of the Empire, a vassal of his Holy Majesty, the Emperor of Light. I am also a professor affiliated with the Magical Capital, Aleistunum, which, as you should know, the founding location of the mage’s guild spread far and wide amongst human civilization,” the guild master stated with pride, unfurling her gemstone-encrusted fan to appear haughty.

“Okay, then why are you here?”

“For you, of course, Lady Hestia.” As the three of us expected, something was up, but I still had to tilt my head as I looked at Guild Master Maverina with confusion. “Oh, there is no need to make such a face, Lady Hestia, you are ruining your pretty face. Your name has been spreading around in Firwood and all the notable noble mages in Cedaraille have mentioned a crimson red-scaled dragonewt shrine maiden of the Goddess performing amazing acts of arcane wonders during a dungeon break event. Also, rumors of you have been going around the hunter’s guild in Firwood and Cedaraille.”

Considering that I told Duke Greenveil not to ‘silence’ people to stop them from spreading what they saw during the rachonoid queen raid in Cedaraille, it shouldn’t have been so surprising to hear people talking about me. The nobles saw me shoot out [Omnictus] and [Symphonie des Feuergottes] and the adventurers most likely saw me transform from a dragon into my dragonewt form. I mean, I gained followers because they saw me in my dragon form.

“It doesn’t take a genius to link these information points together. There were also reports of a … dragon?” Immediately, Tasianna invoked [Air Shield] around us, preventing information from leaking out. Maverina, instead of being shocked by this, was marveling at Tasianna’s spell cast. “Marvelous. Such a fast cast of a wind spell, as expected of a wind elf, a descendant of Goddess Zephira.” She then returned her attention to me. “Well, as I said, rumors about a dragon have been going around. A high-ranking dragonewt noble was reported by many nobles in Firwood, so it surely made me curious who this ‘Hestia Atsuko’ was. But… what makes me more interested is your magical abilities. Would you like to skip the written exam and move on directly to the practical one?”

“What is the catch?” Saori asked without leaving anybody time to think.

“Oh, nothing serious… Madam Saori Segawa.” Maverina asked the receptionist Saori’s identity. “As you would be registering as a guild member of the mage’s guild, you also have a responsibility to register your custom spells. The guild’s role in the kingdoms and countries we are stationed at is to manage the local mages and to prevent them from causing any trouble for the local populace. We do not wish any deviants ruining the image of an Aleistunum mage, a noble seeker of knowledge of God Istari.”

Saori, Tasianna, and I agreed to the proposal. We had to do this anyway, according to Master Kush, to legalize our custom spells, so why not use it to skip an unnecessary step? I would rather present my magic skills than do a writing exam. Also, I hate taking surprise tests.

After the three of us handed in our IDs and showed them the “custom spell” category on our profile, Maverina began to smile at us devilishly. And what she said next sent a chill down our spine. “While I can understand why you haven’t registered yourself in Firwood, it is inexcusable to not have done your registrations at the mage’s guild in Cedaraille. I apologize, but the guild must fine you — Lady Hestia, Madama Tasianna, and Madam Saori — for this transgression.”

“““Huh? … WHAT?!”””

We are getting fined?! For what?!

“Wait, what are you talking about?!” I spoke up, placing my hands on the counter in astoundment. “How are we getting fined?! We are registering ourselves right now!”

“But couldn’t you have done this in Cedaraille? There was a mage’s guild there. You could have asked any mage in the hunter’s guild or even use your noble connections, Lady Hestia. Regardless if you are a noble from another country, every mage must register themselves while they are within the guild’s jurisdiction.” Maverina did not budge a bit, causing me to finally understand where this was going.

“You have no proof,” Saori argued back. “We could have invented these custom spells while we were on our way to Griffonpeak. You somehow knew we were in Firwood and Cedaraille, but it’s impossible for you to confirm this defense.”

“That is true, Madam Saori. Some eyewitnesses stated you and Madam Tasianna had used lightning and ice spells, but none of them were knowledgeable enough in these fields to recognize your spells. We cannot use this against you; however, there is still no reason for you to not register at Cedaraille’s mage’s guild, right? Can I confirm you stayed in that city for a whole month?”

Since it seemed nobody suspected my [Symphonie des Feuergottes] — thank goodness fire mages were so unpopular — and it appeared that Maverina couldn’t refute Saori’s argument, the guild master simply went back to the original accusation.

“Lady Maverina, Lady Hestia and Miss Saori have just arrived in this kingdom this year. I, too, am new to a human civilization,” Tasianna began. “While it might be true that we broke a regulation, could you not look the other way? We didn’t mean to purposely postpone our registrations.”

“I will give you the benefit of the doubt, but a crime is a crime, Madam Tasianna. The mage’s guild does not care if you are a noble or commoner. As long as I, an Aleistunum representative, am the guild master, I must treat you the same as I do others. If every foreigner were to break our rules, then what? Should I give all of them clemency?”

“You can’t be serious! This is unfair!” I complained like a child. “You do know we don’t have to register as members, right? You can only fine us when we are members, right?” I was attempting a long shot, but anger and irritation at the fact she tricked us into revealing our custom spells and was playing some kind of power game made me irrational.

To my surprise, my argument seemed to have landed. “That is true, the fine can only be issued if you are members.” I was about to regain hope before it was stomped back down. “However, the Kingdom of Artorias has the obligation to enforce our guild’s rules due to our agreement. The mage’s guild is an international guild like the two adventurer guilds, and if they do not follow our rules, we are able to leave and refuse them service. You might not be fined by us, but you could be tried as a criminal by the Kingdom, Lady Hestia.”

“Guck!” It felt like she stabbed me with the blade of debating.

“In addition, it would be a waste for mages of your caliber to not acquire some of the guild’s support. Aleistunum is the country for magical studies, even rivaling the elusive and secretive elves. It was founded by God Istari himself, after all. We are a neutral force, not bound by the Empire, but we still have our connections and resources.” Maverina began to lure us in with honeyed words. “If you require catalysts, we can commission our master alchemists to help you, for a fee, of course. Magical ingredients to help your studies in alchemy or enchanting. Books and references for even more custom spells. Archmages and Supreme Sorcerers to act as your masters. Even entry into the magical capital, itself. If there is a branch of the mage’s guild in the land you visit, you may always call for our services. Doesn’t it sound wonderful?”

Pushed to a corner, the three of us had a telepathic discussion. Sadly, there wasn’t much to talk about, since becoming criminals was an issue if we wanted to stay inside Artorias borders for a while. Sure, we could restart our travels and go to the dwarves, but we all agreed to allow Ellaine to spend some time with her parents. It would be a long trip. Who knew when we would return to Artorias?

With no other options, we gave in to her demands. To our horror, the fine amounted to 68% of our total savings, breaking Saori’s heart. Her crestfallen yelp she gave after she saw the number was a sound I have never heard her make; the three of us were just filled with storming emotions.

After reluctantly paying the fine, the receptionist went over to the door and opened it up for us. “Thank you very much for your understanding. I must inform the necessary examiners first, but let us first go to the training area so you may warm up, yes?”

Looking out the door as my mood began to drop, my parallel minds, affected by my emotional state, went wild, shouting around at how unfair the situation was. It was then when manager mind explained a very devious plan. The depression was gone, replaced by anger and wickedness.

“How about we speed this up. A shortcut, if I may?” I told Maverina without looking at her.

“What do you mean by a shor—’

“Warp Point: Entry. Warp Point: Exit.” Two portals immediately opened up — one right before me and the other outside the building. “Come on, I want our visit to be as short as possible.”

“Wha-?! [Space-Time Magic]?!” As I stepped into the portal, I did not give Maverina any more of my attention. When Saori and Tasianna came over to the other side with me while the guild master was still shocked at what I did, I told them of my plan through telepathy.

[“Saori. Tasianna. Are you two mad, too?”]

[“Of course, Lady Hestia.”]

[“…I’m listening, Hestia.”]

[“Good, well, during this practical display, I’m not sure if they will ask us to perform our custom spells or not. Whether they will is irrelevant, okay? Give them a show, alright? We have three empty vessel magics to show them.”]

“T-This is the two [Warp Point] spells, correct?! I heard they drain an immense amount of Mana every second they are left open, and it would become worse the further away the portals are. H-How are you able to keep it up for this long?!” Maverina spoke up, baffled at the situation, but I did not answer her question.

“Where are the examiners?” I curtly demanded, exuding [Draconic Aura] and [Royal Presence] to intimidate her.

Flinching back, finally understanding my anger, Maverina spoke as clearly as could, enduring the aura surrounding us. “T-The three examiners I have in mind are currently working at the royal academy. I was intending to bring them over, but they have a class at the university right now, so we cannot—”

“Got it. Hang on. Humanization.” Understanding the situation I was in with how the rumors were going around, they would eventually implode as Duke Greenveil told me. King Drangelic told me I could hide my identity, but if the mage’s guild already knew, it would just be annoying to hide anymore.

Spreading my wings and loosening my robe, I cast [Warp Point: Entry] and exit once again after dispelling the previous one. This time, the exit was placed further up on the mountain. Once I made sure the portals were open, I grabbed Maverina around her waist and dragged her with me into the portal.

“L-Lady Hestia, what is th— kyaaaaahhhh!” Once I was on the other side, I jumped off the mountain and activated my scale-dust boosters and [Tailwind]. Closing the portals, I then focused on flying over to the academy as fast as possible, using my tour around the city as reference.

“There is the academy, where are the examiners, Lady Maverina?” I asked, hovering over the royal academy.

“L-Lady Hestia this is absurd and absolutely-eeeek!” I glared at her to shut up. “T-The first examiner should be in that building over—”

“Got it. Warp Point: Entry. Warp Exit: Exit!”

“How do you have so much Mana?! This is insane!”

With a portal opened in the sky and one cast through the window of a building, I was able to see a slightly overweight noble speaking in front of his class, flinching backward as he saw us through the portal.

“W-What in the Goddess’s name?! Hold on, Lady M-Maverina?! Why are you—”

“Is he the examiner?” Maverina nodded without hesitation. “Good. First spell, Unheilige Engel!” Purple wings spread from behind me, levitating around before they morphed into two large arms. As the professor was baffled at what he was seeing, I sent one arm through the portal and grabbed him out of his classroom.

“W-What is this?! Help! I’m being abducted!” Telling Maverina to calm him down so he wouldn’t attack me, I then cast two more sets of portals with her directions, pulling the second out of their classroom with the second wing and then the last with my tail.

“Sorry, everybody, class is canceled for today. Please, tell the other students of these two professors for me, so I don’t get into trouble. Thank you, bye-bye ~” Giving every student who saw me kidnapping the third professor a brilliant smile, I used my rocket boosters to fly out of the classroom before teleporting us back to the mage’s guild.

After I released the professors, the three of them were about to complain before I shut them up with my auras. I could tell that Maverina and the professors were able magicians just from looking at how much mana they had in their bodies through [Mana Eyes], but I don’t think they were extremely high leveled. They were good scholars and magicians, but not exactly the best of fighters.

After Maverina explained the situation to them, they quickly agreed to the sudden request after I told them I would transport them back to the royal academy through my portals. Fitting for followers of Istari, all three were instantly won over once I offered them some study time with my [Space-Time Magic]. Thank goodness, this skill was rare.

One we’d made it back to the training area, Maverina explained to us what we had to do. Usually, it would be okay to simply show our mastery of the arcane arts by casting our highest leveled spells as proficiently as possible, but in our case, we had to show our custom spells. Since it was part of the registration process, they would judge our abilities through them. If we couldn’t impress them, we would default back to the normal test.

First up was Tasianna. As a set of ice wings sprout from her back with [Aifli eir Vintral], the professors were impressed at her ability to cool down the area through ice magic alone. They could feel the cold, mentioning this spell would counter water and fire mages well. If they were already impressed by Tasianna’s “Fairy of Winter,” then I wondered how they would react with the others.

My question was answered immediately.

“Tor Eiclere Finulaflei!” Tasianna made sure to follow my plan, materializing a magic circle almost as large as the whole training area. The ground immediately turned frozen solid, shattering into ice the moment the wind was turned into icicle swords, destroying anything inside in the middle.

Tasianna’s spell didn’t just affect the area inside her spell but also the surrounding, causing the professors to shiver. Maverina and the examiners cast [Air Shield] around themselves, only to notice they had to increase the strength of the shield far more than they had planned. Once they stopped shivering, I shouted for Tasianna to stop. Yes, I was feeling quite vengeful, right now.

After repairing the training area with earth magic, a crowd was beginning to build around us. The mages training in the other training areas stopped and came over to spectate. Some even shivered for some reason. Were they afraid of the intensity of the spell, I wondered.

[Stage Fever (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

When Saori and Tasianna switched places, the examiners and Maverina were discussing what Tasianna had shown, blown away, causing them not to notice Saori coming in front. Saori looked at them and shrugged before stretching a bit. I was also able to hear the mages gossiping outside the barrier.

“A wolfkin? No way will she be able to trump what that elf could do.”

“Damnit, I knew elves were the best magicians out there but this is insane. Shouldn’t the magic barrier protect us from spell effects?! By the Goddess, I thought I was about to freeze up and die!”

“Yeah, look, the guild master and professors. This has to be an exam. Look, the elf is bowing to the shrine maiden lizard girl, wait, are those wings?! Hey, hey, isn’t that the dragonewt your cousin was talking about in Firwood?!”

People are noisy… but if some random mage already knew the rumors, then it’ll only be harder to hide my secret at this point.

People weren’t paying Saori a lot of attention, more interested in Tasianna and me. But, I guess she will surprise people the most then.

“Griigragh! Smokey Haze!” The moment the magic circle under her appeared, Saori’s shadow exploded into a giant black fog, masking her and a large chunk of the field. “Can anybody use [Detection Sensor]? Try to find me.” With those words, the fog also consumed the examiners and Maverina. Tasianna and I stepped outside the barrier.

“W-Wait, why can’t I see anything?! Why can’t I blow this fog away?!”

“Professors, we must stay calm! Nothing will happen to us, this is just an exam.” Maverina’s reassuring voice escaped the fog.

Silence. Silence. Silence…before it was broken by the shriek of a male examiner.

“Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!”

“GrriiGRAAA!!!” And it was quickly drowned out by the growl of a giant wolf.

“Aaaaaahhhh!!!”

“Kyaaaaahhhh!!!”

“Ahh! Stop, this is enough, Madam Saori!”

As the scared sounds of the examiners was heard by the mages, they suddenly questioned us why we weren’t doing anything. Tasianna and I told them, “Don’t worry. They are safe. We’re trying to become guild members.” A few seemed to believe us but others jumped into the fog.

“What the fuck?! Why can’t I see anything? My staff’s light isn’t working! What is this?!”

“Where is everybody! What is this damn fog?! Why can’t I blow it aw-EEIIIKKKKKKK!!!”

It was pandemonium inside the fenrir's domain. After some time passed, the fog shrunk and reformed back into Saori’s shadow. Her four garms were seated next to her, howling one last time before going back into her shadow. “Actions speak louder than words, am I not correct, Professors? Lady Maverina?”

“…” Everybody was silent. While the garms weren’t part of the spell, anybody with a shred of combat experience would have understood the practical applications of Saori’s [Smokey Haze]. It wasn’t as flashy as Tasianna’s spells, but it synergized well with Saori’s skill set. However, if you wanted a flashy spell, well, Saori also had that.

She instructed everybody to leave the magic barrier, hinting that her next spell would be a bit too powerful. Nobody was underestimating Saori anymore, but once her hands began to flicker with black lightning, the rowdiness returned.

Using an electric explosion to send her flying up, Saori jumped the rest of the way with [Air Walk], before she was high enough for a taste. A large black magic circle appeared before her, reminding me a bit of Astalos’s [Ramuh], but without the triple magic circle. As her stygian lightning began to leak from the circles, Saori only needed to say one last thing.

“Hadean Dragon Thunder!” Like a railgun, the electric laser shot right into the ground, shattering the magic barrier as if it was nothing. Realizing it would be bad if somebody was hurt, I cast [Sanctuary] around everybody while Saori’s performance was ongoing.

“Wh-Is that an empty vessel magic?! A newly discovered one?!” one of the examiners shouted from the top of his lungs.

Once Saori’s spell ended, the dust gathering around us, like smoke was blasted away by the mages with wind spells, revealing a large, scorched dent into the earth. Showing Saori a thumbs, I cast the warp portals again, switching places with Saori. As I was gliding down like an angel descending from heaven, I repaired the area using earth magic once again.

Without letting anybody take a breather, I took my turn. “Sanctified Blaze: Halo of Consecration.” A halo of white flames appeared above my head as the magic circles of [Sanctified Blaze] appeared on the onlooker’s bodies, healing any wounds they had on them.

At first, they were worried I was attacking them, so I spoke up before everybody panicked. “This is a free white grace. On the house, because Guild Master Maverina asked me.”

People calmed down afterwards, even surprised to see that I also had an empty vessel like Saori. However, I could hear people begin to compare my spell to hers, saying how mine was less impressive than [Hadean Dragon Thunder]. Apparently, they had not seen Tasianna’s first spell.

They were thankful for the healing but I couldn’t help but try to impress them, so I activated the consecration part. White flames flared around me, sizzling the ground around me. When I provoked people to come closer to experience this flame, people began casting [Earth Wall] inside my area of influence, only to see their spells crumble the moment they materialized.

Content, I moved to my next spell. As [Sanctified Blaze] was the base form of [Halo of Consecration], I decided not to show it, instead, preferring to explain it to them later on. I, instead, cast [Unheilige Engel].

“She has two empty vessel spells?! Come on, I want one, too!”

My custom spells were admittedly not super flashy, as I focused more on their utility. With my scale-dust, I wasn’t lacking in fire power. Still, it wasn’t as if [Unheilige Engel] was bad, I mean, I could morph the spell into a giant purple drill, destroying the field once again and spreading the corrosive liquid around. The spectators and examiners flinched when they saw the ground literally melt.

[Panzer] didn’t impress the younger mages, but the examiners and those with combat experience noted how practical it was to conjure armor. When I showed its ability to regrow broken parts of it, the examiners told me they were happy to see a relatively normal custom spell with great utility. Simplicity is best, I guess.

Well, unfortunately for them, my last spell wasn’t anything like this. [Symphonie des Feuergottes]. With a giant fire circle levitating in the area, everybody under it began to cry out in panic as it kept growing bigger and bigger, to the point it covered up the entire mage’s guild, a chunk of the merchant district under us.

“Lady Hestia, this is enough! We are already impressed, you do not have to do it anymore!” Maverina informed me, but I wasn’t done just yet.

I did want to have the spell grow larger and larger, cackling like a mad scientist, but after seeing everybody amazed at Aurora’s performance, I agreed to stop. Shrinking the spell, I then cast it, sending down a inferno waterfall onto me. People were shouting that I was committing suicide, angered at Saori and Tasianna for not doing anything. Some mages were even nice enough to cast water spells to douse me, though it was too bad none of their spells were strong enough.

[Stage Fever (Moderate)] [Symphonie des Feuergottes (Allegro)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Dispelling the spell’s effects, I presented my unharmed self for everybody to see. Once again, they were wondering what my spells did, but I kept quiet about it. I cast another warp portal, helping Saori, Tasianna, Maverina, the examiners, and myself get through the crowd of mages and back into the building.

It was unanimous.

“Lady Hestia, you and your companions can also register your masters if you have any. They would be able to gain some prestige amongst us if they are already members,” Maverina informed us as she was finalizing the last step. “Or, you can accept one he—”

“My master is Master Kushlek’zar. Depth priest of Goddess Plesia, raptorsilian of the continent Aelozonia, and the party leader of the ‘Depth’s Serpents.’ I have no other master than him. He should already be a member.”

“Priest Kushlek’zar is my master, also.”

“For me, also.” Master Kush actually didn’t teach Saori any magic as she was more occupied with learning melee combat from Krim’Slak and Grazlahta. Still, it was better to avoid any complications and give Master Kush all the praises!

After finally becoming members of the mage’s guild, I returned the professors back to the academy, hoping there aren’t any hard feelings between us. As we were about to leave the guild, Maverina offered to help us if we had any arcane-related needs, mentioning that the guild’s facilities and connections were available to us. The mage’s guild had a ranking system, but I wasn’t really interested in it, regardless of Maverina’s attitude towards me now.

After all, I was still a bit irritated at how she took most of our money.

“Lady Maverina, have you heard of the recent fulinoe leaves shortage? The Sarlenzia company were selling them a few weeks ago, right?” I asked her offhandedly before leaving the guild’s grounds.

“Oh yes, I managed to acquire a few before they ran out of stock. It is such a valuable plant for us mages, but they are so fragile, making it hard to grow them outside the Belzac forest.” Thinking she’d finally found something our party wanted, Maverina quickly pounced the apparent opportunity to garner our favor. “Would you wish for some? Once the next supply comes in, I would be willing to include your order. With our guild’s reputation, it would be no issue whatsoever!”

Suppressing my urge to laugh, I kept up the ruse. “No, no, we aren’t anywhere close to depleting our stock. With so many mages willing to buy fulinoe leaves, I guess a few notable people inside Aleistunum are also in need of them, right?”

“Well, yes, of course. Lady Hestia, what are intending to sa—”

A devilish smirk contorted my expression as I heard that little juicy information. “Over two thirds of our savings, you fined us. Well, hopefully, the Sarlenzia company doesn’t just raise the prices for your guild, huh? It would be a shame if this Davi you took from us were to disappear~”

“Huh, what ar—”

“Well, anyway, bye-bye~ Warp point: Entry. Warp Point: Exit!” Without letting Maverina speak another word, I conjured up a portal and Saori, Tasianna, and I ran straight into it to leave the mage’s guild immediately.

Proficiency requirement fulfilled. [Space-Time Magic Lv. 5] evolved into [Space-Time Magic Lv. 6]

Magic acquired:   [Room]

Room

A space-time spell able to conjure up an area separate from the world’s reality using the System’s assistance. The creator can designate an anchoring area where a space outside of the current world’s confinement can be created and maintained, requiring increasingly larger amounts of mana to create. The size limit of this spell is determined by the caster’s Mana Capacity. If the anchoring area is destroyed, everything inside the area will return back to the current reality

Hold on, isn’t this kinda similar to creating a dungeon area? Since it’s also a separate world within Peolynca? Ha, this solves our RV’s space problems!

While sprinting down the stairs leading to the merchant district, I couldn’t help but burst out in laughter at acquiring this new spell. Saori and Tasianna interpreted my joy differently, however.

“Should I mention what you’re mischievously planning in tomorrow’s meeting, Hestia?” Saori asked, smiling as if she was anticipating a clear confirmation. Well, I wouldn’t want to burst her bubble now, right?

“Of course! As if we should let them take all our money! We worked hard for it!”

“Societies with a monetary system are truly so vastly different from how it works in my village,” Tasianna sighed before beginning to cheer. “Miss Saori, please have the Sarlenzia company return every coin the guild stole from us!”

Would I feel bad if Maverina got into trouble for this? Absolutely not! As if the mage’s guild would be so strapped for money that they would have issues if the Sarlenzia company raised the prices of fulinoe leaves only for them. If these leaves were a luxury even in Aleistunum and the Empire, then nobody could complain to her about it. In fact, getting them at a semi-consistent rate should make any wand-wielding old man happy.

With our business at the mage’s guild finished, we returned ‘home.’ After returning to the mansion, Count Helvas took us over to the knight’s building and had us register our mana signatures for the magic barrier surrounding Griffonpeak.

There, I heard some knights gossiping. “Hey, did you hear, three professors at the royal academy were suddenly kidnapped only to reappear the moment the knights arrived. They told everybody nothing bad happened. Some students mentioned a girl did it or something.”

… Welp. Troubles always seek me out, hehehe.

Of course, we did plan on going to the adventurer guild to get our permission to enter Griffonpeak’s dungeon, but we could do that later on. Instead, we decided to use the time until the royal ball by working at our restaurant. I was able to sing to spread news of my concert, Saori made money with her new menu and delivery services using her garms, Grimnir was able to work as a blacksmith, and Tasianna was able to cause a bunch of masochists to climax with her cold and disgusted glares. Weirdos, I say.

Ellaine didn’t participate in our restaurant work since she was more focused on her training. For some reason, she was even more motivated after returning from school. When I asked her about that, she said, “I hate being there. The lessons are far less interesting than what I could do with Aurora or my father. I just want to train and work on controlling Klea’Hatma after school.” There was also seemingly some tension between Ellaine and her brother Jonathan, but I wasn’t interested enough to meddle in family business.

After five days of training, restaurant work, and theology lessons with Theodore and Eshe, Grimnir came storming inside the mansion with his boisterous laughter. Ellaine’s armor was repaired and her sword was finally done.

In addition, it was time for us to see a runesmith at work.

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Hestia's Mindset: If they dare to fine us, then we will make sure to increase the prices to the point we make the money back and more!

Chaotic. Very chaotic.

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Chapter 202: Runesmith.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Let’s try it out! Pour mana in… and shoot!” Outside in the training field of House Helvas’s mansion, Ellaine, wearing her repaired dragoon armor, was concentrating her mana into her sword before swinging it. Six blue glowing lines suddenly lit up on the sword, before the sword’s blade split into seven individual shards, all held together by one single, thick mana thread.

In awe at the blade shards dancing in the air, Ellaine kept swinging her new sword around, testing how long the thread could extend. The mansion’s guards began to take notice, watching Ellaine play with her new “toy” before being called out by the Count. Once the spectators were gone, Ellaine’s father returned his attention back to his daughter.

[“Oooh, the blacksmith did a fine job with your blade, dear. The extension of the weapon is controlled by how much mana you pour into the weapon, and you can retract it whenever you want by decreasing the flow of mana. Easy to control,”] Klea’Hatma, without revealing her eyes, spoke to us through her telepathy. [“Hmm, how about releasing my powers to see how it works with them?”]

“Please, take care not to startle my guards, ‘Ellaine,’” the Count warned, not to his daughter but indirectly at the demon since he couldn’t say her name out loud.

Ellaine’s whipblade was finally finished. The blade was made using the metal of the High Ogre’s axeblade, which was able to withstand my [Dreaflare Aura] at point-blank range, a handle and crossguard made from Cernust’s broken antler-horn, and a few of my old, shed layers of my claws and carapace spikes. Just from the materials used, most adventurers would immediately recognize this as a high-tier weapon.

In addition to those, the weapon itself had a mechanism inside its rather large crossguard. Under Grimnir’s instructions, Ellaine managed to contribute to her own weapon by implementing the mechanism needed to control the whip part of the weapon by how much mana she was pouring into it. With this mechanism, Ellaine could control the length of the mana thread released and extend or contract the blade’s reach. Grimnir did mention it could use some more tweaking, but Ellaine could do this herself once she became better at tinkering.

“Woah!” Once done with the tests, Ellaine stopped pouring mana into her weapon and it snapped back into a sword, causing Ellaine to fly backwards as the recoil of the retraction was unexpected for her. “Ouch!” she groaned before I helped her up, chuckling at her mistake.

Her father sighed as he saw this, scratching his head. “Your training will have to increase if you wish to learn this weapon, Ellaine. Don’t forget to come back home the moment your classes are over.”

“Well, if you could help me skip a few lectures, I would be able to train more. Right, Father?” Ellaine’s mischievous comment only earned her a fierce scolding from her father, who was trying to inject more discipline into Ellaine’s character, similar to how he would train a soldier or a squire. Ellaine has been training with her father daily since we arrived in Griffonpeak, and it seemed their relationship has improved a bit. I mean, Ellaine was acting more relaxed around him, in my opinion.

Speaking of school, Ellaine just came back from the academy just a few moments ago. When she learned Grimnir had finished both making her new weapon and repairing her armor, she instantly changed out of her academy uniform and jumped right into her armor. Poor Josine had no experience armoring a knight up, so Count Helvas had to teach Ellaine’s maid how to do it.

When her father told her to name her sword, as it was customary for a knight, I couldn’t help but think of Farron’s weapon, back in Firwood. “Caliarus” was its name. I guess I should have figured it out back then when I saw his profile and that he had “Artorian Lionheart Sword abilities,” that Farron was a former Knight of the Lionheart.

However, Ellaine decided to hold off on naming her weapon for now, since she wanted to do it after she passed the knight’s exam. Still, this was her weapon’s stats.

Dragonclaw Whipblade

A finesse weapon made using the claws of a sunfang dragon and the horn of a forest drake, bound together with white voldunna alloy. Forged using the flames of a high-rank dragon, the mana of the dragon was infused into the weapon’s metal, increasing the blade’s mana accumulation. A combination of high-quality materials and artificer work, this unorthodox weapon acts not only as a sword but also as a powerful whip

Attack Power: 1877

Skill: [Mana Conductor Lv. 5] [Mana Efficiency Lv. 4] [True Sword Mastery Lv.1] [Decreased Weight Lv. 5] [All Damage Enhancement Lv. 1] [Herculean Power Lv. 1] [Speed of Sound Lv. 1] [Aerial Fighter Lv. 8] [Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 5] [Mind’s Eye Lv. 1] [Durability Loss Reduction Lv. 10] [Improved Abnormal Status Infliction Lv. 6]

Still a bit weaker than Farron’s weapon, but Grimnir mentioned he could reforge it stronger and better as we gained better materials. Still, it would serve her good enough for now.

“Hmm?” After helping Ellaine up, I noticed somebody leaving the mansion. With blond hair similar to Marianne’s, I realized it was Ellaine’s elder brother, Jonathan. “Hey, Jonathan, welcome back. Are you leaving for training again?” I waved at him before he left on his gargoyle, prompting him to turn around to respond.

“Ah, Lady Hestia, good day! Yes, I am currently leaving to train with the other squires,” he waved back at me.

“Dedicated, amazing. Oh, would you have some free time before then? Ellaine just received a new weapon. Would you like to see her wield it?”

“My sister’s? Uhm, I apologize, haha, but I must take my leave right now. Maybe next time, Lady Hestia!” Suddenly breaking his gentleman-like behavior, Jonathan’s brows frowned a bit when he saw Ellaine before jumping onto his gargoyle and flying off into the orange sky.

Ellaine looked dejected while Count Helvas sighed deeply as they saw Jonathan leave. Jonathan has been acting weird around Ellaine since they met up at the academy again, and I also heard they had a meeting with their parents the day before. It's their family business, so I didn’t want to pry, but I felt it sucked that they were acting like this.

However, my thoughts didn’t last long as somebody suddenly interrupted them.

“By Crustacia’s twin locks, are you lasses trying to have me burn the wagon down! I told you to come over here now if you want to see a runesmith at work!” It was Grimnir, peeking his head out of the RV, shouting at us with a red face. He only had stubble for now, but his hair and beard were slowly growing back.

With Ellaine’s sword and armor finished, Grimnir decided it was finally time for him to begin working as a runesmith again, which means he wanted to rune up Ellaine’s equipment. He had been preparing for it since midnight, apparently, and he was frantic enough to shout at us to hurry the fuck up.

As we didn’t want to anger him, we all went over to the RV, including the Count. Unfortunately for him, Grimnir wouldn’t have it.

“I did not invite you, ankong,” Grimnir called out Count Helvas, calling him “human” in dwarven. “Sorry, Count, but runesmithing isn’t for everybody to see. I might have been dishonored and exiled from the Ankor-Nazta, but I still ain’t letting any outsiders watch my craft. You ain’t a runesmith, you ain’t learning!”

“Then why are you inviting my daughter and the others then? Aren’t they onlookers just like me?” the Count asserted, seemingly unsatisfied that he couldn’t see something in his own yard.

“You want me to kick the lasses out every time I want to work on some runes? The wagon only has so much space until I figure out how to turn the lass’s [Room] into a rune,” Grimnir argued back. “Enough arguing! The damn furnace has been on since damn midnight! You four, get in here now, or I’ll shut the door!”

Saori, Tasianna, Ellaine, and I immediately did what Grimnir said, leaving the Count behind as we entered the RV. Suffice to say, when Grimnir mentioned he might burn the RV down, he wasn’t kidding.

“Ack! What is this heat!” Saori complained as we closed the RV’s door shut. As I looked at Grimnir’s forge, I could see the flames flaring like a beast.

“Urgh, it’s still bearable but why can I feel the heat despite my armor’s skills? Just how warm is it, Master Grimnir?!” Ellaine questioned the dwarven smith, barely sweating since her dragoon armor was made using my scales. I wasn’t sweating, but I could feel the heat creating a veil around me. “Tasianna, could you—”

“No!” Grimnir interrupted Ellaine with a shout. “Don’t change the damn temperature, bladdarg! Do you know how long I had to keep the damn flames going, waiting for you to come back home?! Fucking enough, I’m sweating! Here, look!” Grimnir pointed at his slightly damp forehead.

Still not understanding the situation, I had to finally pose a question, “You said you’ve been preparing for this since midnight. Are you kidding me, you’ve been keeping your furnace on since then?! Why?!”

“Runesmithing,” Grimnir grumbled before pulling a cloth, revealing an anvil underneath it with multiple shining runes. “Do me a favor, Tasianna. Cast [Air Shield] around us. You should be able to control it perfectly with your Goddess’ blessing, right?”

Tasianna did exactly that. When she cast [Air Shield] with her catalyst blessed by Zephira, she could control the spell to let air in and out whenever she wanted. Normally, when casting using either a normal catalyst or no catalyst, [Air Shield] blocked air from coming in and going out, so it didn’t just block sound but also kept oxygen and carbon dioxide from crossing the barrier, so you had to dispel it before it suffocated you. Tasianna’s didn’t have this problem.

Once the spell was up, Grimnir continued, “To tell you the truth, I was lying to your father, Ellaine. Technically, I’m not even supposed to show you lasses any of what I’m doing. The runesmithing guild is a dwarven-only guild, and, as with every other tazongn craft, we don’t like letting others learn our trade secrets. We especially don’t like sharing our craft with the other races. The runesmithing guild, though, is especially stubborn. It’s an exclusive art for only dwarven runesmiths and their apprentices.”

“I have heard about that, Master Dwarf,” Tasianna stated. “This jealous possessiveness of their runecraft is linked to the dwarves’ lives before the Origin Gods’ advent in Peolynca. I heard that runecraft was made to alleviate the dwarves’ inability to cast magic, and, as such, your people are unwilling to share their crafts with others. You are telling us to keep this a secret, correct, Grimnir?”

“Aye, correct, fiflei,” Grimnir nodded, calling Tasianna “fairy” in dwarven. “I can’t lie to the God of Runesmithing, but I can still trick the other runesmiths. I don’t care about the guild’s rules anymore, but I still agree I shouldn’t be sharing our race’s proud craftsmanship with outsiders. Can I have your word on this, to not share any knowledge I impart on you? Close your lips under the God of Oath’s eyes?”

Seeing as Kargryxmor is looking down at us, breaking a promise like this would be kinda awkward. Still, I don’t intend on betraying Grimnir’s trust.

All four of us nodded, swearing we won’t share any runecrafting secrets to calm the anxious Grimnir down. Grimnir glanced at the demon, prompting her to answer, too, [“Not like it will interest me, so speak away.”]

Grimnir scoffed at Klea’Hatma’s response but accepted it regardless. “Then, let’s get started. Lass, your sword. I need to add a fail-proof to it.” Grimnir glanced at his newest creation with pride, looking up into the ceiling of the RV. He then placed it on a workbench and pulled out a couple of iron ingots.

“Listen well, for a runesmith never repeats this lesson to their apprentices,” Grimnir said as he placed the iron into his forge. Once it started glowing orange, he pulled it out and began hammering the impurities away from it. “Rune magic, as we runesmiths call it, is our race’s attempt to even the battlefield between you magicians and us magic-less. In the words our shrine maidens of Crustacia say, who have learned of the reason for our inability to use magic, it is both a curse and blessing that our original creators gave us on our birth.”

Dwarves weren’t like the other races, for while the others were always born with flesh and blood, the dwarves originated from the ores of the world. When Crustacia arrived and became the dwarves’ patron Goddess, the dwarves’ shrine maidens began talking to the Goddess of Earth to learn more about the reason why they couldn’t cast magic, why they couldn’t use their Goddess’s gifts like the other races.

“We aren’t able to commune with elementals like the other races, even though we were made by the original ruler of the Earth element, an Earth Elemental Emperor. Neither can we use conventional catalysts like staves, spell rings, and such. Without elementals and catalysts, we couldn’t produce mages before the Divine System. I was told my race was hopeful when Goddess Crustacia accepted us, so we felt deeply betrayed when we couldn’t cast any Earth spells even then.”

Crustacia was able to change the biological make-up of a dwarf to allow them to become mages, but Grimnir told us this was a sacred ritual, so rarely done that only a handful of dwarven mages existed. If you asked me, I would guess that Plesia probably had a say in it. If you think about it, changing a whole race’s DNA would be considered “impactful.”

Still, Crustacia revealed the reason for their inability to the dwarves. The Earth Elemental Emperor, one of the old “gods” of Peolynca, who controlled the world’s Earth elements as its primarch, was the creator of the dwarves. Using ores and rocks to create their form, which they then turned into flesh and blood, the Emperor was able to bring the dwarves to life. The elemental’s reason for creating the dwarves in this way was unknown even to Crustacia.

I wonder if this is the truth, but then again, why would Crustacia lie? The dwarves were furious that they couldn’t cast the spells of their own patron Goddess, so if she lied, it wouldn’t have ended so well. Well, I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt, since Aurena had nothing bad to say about her.

“Still, it’s not like us tazongs would be content with this. Before the Origin Gods came to our world, we created the first runic tattoo.”

From what I heard from Talon, the illusionist from Cedaraille, I knew he was a runic tattooist and that the craft came from the dwarves. Grimnir explained runic tattoos were made to resemble magic circles, however, they used the dwarven language and their culture’s engravings. Conventional catalysts made using alchemy were useless for a dwarf, so they came up with a version they could use.

Dwarves weren’t able to expel mana from their bodies, so it was simply impossible for them to combine it with the elements and mold it. For example, if mana was mixed with one of the six elements or the composite elements, its color would change corresponding to them. That’s why the magic circles were colored according to the element of the spell.

Dwarves could only channel their mana through objects related to the earth — rocks, metal, wood, plants, and blood were primarily examples. They could still empower their fists and weapons with mana to cause massive damage, while their body was protected by their “stubborn” mana, reducing any incoming magical damage, as mentioned in the dwarven racial skills [Body of Earth] and [Dwarven Magic Resistance].

“Blood is our catalyst. The main material used in runic tattoos is blood. A runic tattooist traps mana inside these blood tattoos using special equipment, while chanting like a magician, to grant them power. This means that runic tattoos could act like spells for us,” Grimnir explained after finishing hammering the impurities out of the iron ingot. He then placed it back in the forge and began melting it. “It all changed when the Origin Gods came to our world. That was when our ancestor, the father of runesmithing, made his way to the top. Etch this into your minds, lassess, for his mortal name is Dhuinn Gleiubnekkar. The God of Runesmithing, Dhuinn.”

Dhuinn Gleiubnekkar was an ordinary inko blacksmith before he created runesmithing. Unwilling to accept the fact his race couldn’t understand and use the spells of his patron Goddess, Dhuinn dropped his hammer and anvil to pursue the answer for this question, sorting through some of the last notes of the God of Magic, Istari, before he ascended to godhood.

Despite reading and trying to understand it with the help of the mages of Aleistunum, Dhuinn got nowhere. As he slowly slipped into insanity, Dhuinn resorted to the only skill he learned during his lifetime and that was his smithing. Going back inside a forge, Dhuinn began smithing, dedicating all his new works to Crustacia instead of the God of Smithing, Bleidla.

During this time, Bleidla was still the subordinate god of Danterno and, as such, the faith Danterno should have received went over to Crustacia. During his time with the Aleistunum mages, he made some friends amongst them, who helped him create phenomenal artifacts. With a mindless obsession of praying to Crustacia for answers, after five years of smithing works just for her, she finally gave him the knowledge he needed to create runesmithing.

“It sounds like Goddess Crustacia also has a hand with runesmithing,” Saori mentioned. “So shouldn’t she get the credit for creating it?”

“Guess so, but either way, the result of this dedication was runesmithing. There are four rules we runesmiths must always follow, and the fourth one is the ‘Rule of Work.’ Always show your respects to your seniors, for they have sacrificed their time on Peolynca for your success,” Grimnir said before taking a wooden bottle from his workbench, opening the lid to reveal it filled with blood. “Number one, Rule of Blood. Blood is the most essential part of runesmithing, for it binds mana to create rune magic. Three runes may be placed on any item, and two additional slots open up for every rank above D. That wyvern was a B rank monster, so using his blood allows me to place up to seven runes on any weapon or certain pieces of armor.”

“This includes Saori’s and mine, right?” I asked, to which Grimnir nodded. Farron’s Caliarus had seven runes, if I remember correctly, so I wondered whose blood he used.

“Runesmithing isn’t easy and it's more akin to a ritual than actual smithing.” Grimnir then threw more charcoal into his furnace, stroking the flames as the ingot kept melting into liquid metal. “There are two phases, the first is the preparation. Let the fire of the forge roar when the moon stands up in the sky, and allow it to live until dawn comes. Splatter the forge fire with the same blood as your runes, for the fire will enhance the mana of the metal. Heat iron ingots until they glow orange and hammer the impurities away. Allow the purified ingot to melt and rest until the rune forging begins.”

He then turned around, staring at us as we gulped from anticipation. He picked up Ellaine’s sword and removed the blade from the mana thread, picking blade shards up and placing them next to his runic anvil. “This is my runic anvil; it aids in the mana binding and allows me to create certain runes more easily with the assistance of my [Master Runesmith] skill. Lasses, I need your help as my assistants. My cousin and my former apprentices used to do it for me, but I only got you four now. Mind lending this fool of a dwarf a hand?”

““““Of course!””””

“Alright, then let’s begin. Don’t get overwhelmed now…” Grimnir took in a deep breath before his lung released his bellowing voice. “Ellaine, get a cloth and make sure not a single drop of sweat gets on the rune! Tasianna, pour some of the beer in that cask into a bucket and get water ready for everybody to drink! Hestia, feed the fire charcoal as necessary to keep it going as hot as it is now! Saori, once I say so, quench the shard in the bucket of ale and clean it off with this hair cloth! Umslid fie Dhuinn!” (Honor to Dhuinn!)

The four of us jolted into action, preparing what we needed to do while Grimnir began to take the first step of the second phase. He told me to take out the bowl with the liquid iron from the furnace, since I was the most heat-resistant person in our party, and to bring it over to him as fast as possible. He picked up a hand-sized metal stick, dipped it into the liquid metal before beginning to use it like a pen, carefully drawing a magic circle with accuracy and deftness.

“Ellaine, a spoonful of blood! While Bleidla’s heat singes my beard!” Grimnir shouted, ordering Ellaine to splash some blood onto the iron drawing the moment he finished. “Time is of the essence!” Picking up his ever-molten voldunna hammer, he imbued it with mana before striking the first shard of Ellaine’s sword.

The massive metal clang resounded around us, causing our bodies to shiver at the impact this master blacksmith could produce. “Saori, hold the tongs like this! Don’t let it go otherwise my strikes won’t have the impact needed, alright?!” High Strength was needed to hold onto the tongs as Grimnir continuously struck the blade shard three times every second with the power of a veteran warrior. Thankfully, Saori had the second highest strength in our party, staying unperturbed by rattling shockwaves sent through her arms.

“Uuuuuuuh, huuuuuaaaaaandaaaa vieeeeeeeee.” Unexpectedly, Grimnir stopped shouting commands and began singing. Grimnir’s bass was incredibly deep, causing me to snap my head around and smile. “Saaaaaarlooooontaaaaa fieeee uuuuumsliiiid! Feeeeelknuuuuln lasaaa mahoooooj’ku ruuuuunek daaaaaahbu, Cruuuuustacia.”

[“I think this is a song dedicated to Crustacia, Lady Hestia. I’m not sure, but this might be related to the ‘ritual’ like Grimnir mentioned?”] Tasianna informed me. Regardless of what it was, we girls didn’t let this stop our part of the work.

His voice really has a good bass. Yeah!

As Grimnir continued the song three more times, his forehead began to form sweat beads, which were quickly cleared away by Ellaine. Tasianna finished pouring beer into a wooden bucket and was beginning to hand everybody a mug of water to drink. The moment Grimnir stopped his song, Tasianna poured his share down his throat as he kept on swinging.

With his throat parched, Grimnir transitioned to something similar to chanting. I couldn’t understand the Dwarven tongue yet, but the structure of the chant made it obvious enough for me; it transcended the language barriers for me. After the chant was done, he once again began to sing Crustacia’s song until the rune suddenly began to glow blue.

“Saori!” Grimnir commanded and Saori quenched the shard in the bucket of beer. Steam exploded from the bucket, filling the room with a sickening alcoholic smell. After it settled and Saori wiped it clean with the cloth she was given, she gave Grimnir the blade shard back and he inspected it.

He poured mana through the shard, and the rune once again glowed blue. “Excellent. I hope everybody has the stamina because we still need to do this seven more times. One on each shard and one on the handle. I will not stop until this is finished, so you lasses better not give up!”

““““Got it!””””

Seven times. We had to repeat the same process six times. While our response was filled with vigor, by the time the third rune had to be applied, Tasianna began to feel dizzy from the heat. With Ellaine too focused on wiping Grimnir’s sweat away like a surgeon’s assistance, I had to take over Tasianna's role for the moment until she recovered.

By the fifth rune, Saori’s arm started to ache from the constant ringing Grimnir’s hammer caused. Once Tasianna was back inside, we had to shuffle people’s roles around. I held onto Grimnir’s tongs, Ellaine kept the furnace’s fire up, Saori poured water, and Tasianna wiped Grimnir’s waterfall forehead.

During all this chaos, Grimnir never stopped working once. His hammering and singing filled the smithy with sound, never leaving it silent for a second. Although he was dehydrating himself from the constant sweating and breaking his voice, Grimnir kept working.

Once all shards had a rune, it was time for the very last rune on the handle. Far smaller than the rest of the shards, this last rune required the most concentration and accuracy from Grimnir. Not only was the rune on the handle different compared to the other seven on the shards, but so was the chant Grimnir spoke. Everything else, however, was the same, and when the last rune glowed blue and received a beer bath, Grimnir let out a deep sigh and fell onto the ground, exhausted.

“Grimnir!” I called out, healing him in case he was hurt.

“I’m good, I’m good, lass,” Grimnir said through bated breath. He pulled himself up and picked up the shards and handle. He opened up the door and called us out, before throwing the shards on the ground. “Give me a dragorade, lass. I actually feel like I’m building up too much arcane corruption. I used up too much mana while I was working.”

Every hammer strike was filled with mana, filling the rune with it. After eight runes, Grimnir must have been exhausted physically, mentally, and magically. I looked up in the sky after I gave him a dragorade to drink, realizing we’ve been working until the moon was at its highest point. Grimnir set his furnace on fire last midnight and it was kept alive for a whole day.

Damn.

“This is the fruit of our labors,” Grimnir said after finishing his drink.

The blade shards of the whipsword were on the ground and Grimnir was holding onto its handle. He poured mana into the sword, activating the rune and like a domino effect, the runes on the shards lit up, too. They shook wildly before flying over to the handle, perfectly aligned.

Ahh, a retrieving function in case the mana threads snap!

“[Utility Rune: Retrieval], that is the name of this rune. A very popular rune for throwing axes amongst us tazongs. I etched the number of the shards, making sure when the shards reformed into the sword, they would fit.” Grimnir then swung the sword, now attached to the mana thread again. After whipping the blade around, he deactivated the blade’s mechanism, retracting the mana thread without the shards. As the blade pieces began to fall to the ground, Grimnir activated the rune again, the pieces flew back to the handle and it was back to normal.

Grimnir then turned to Ellaine, handing her sword back. “The Rule of Blood is non-negotiable. More runes than what the weapon can handle and it will break. Thankfully, the retrieval rune and its connector runes count as one single rune on an item.”

“You mean?!” Ellaine’s eyes widened.

“Yeah, we still have six slots left for your sword. Sadly, we used up all the blood, so we have to stop today. Ahhhhhh, seven runes, not good for anybody’s health with how us tazongs aren’t immune to arcane corruption. You fairies have it good, Tasianna.”

Tasianna shrugged. “Sure, but we make good mana battery fuel as a result, right?”

“Haha, true, true! Sorry about that, lass, I misspoke, haha!” Grimnir laughed with the giggling Tasianna. “Well, let’s take a break for now. We took a day off from work today, so we need to continue this another time. Don’t wanna work like this and create something like those ‘runes’ those humans can make for ya, hahaha!”

“Huh, what do you mean by that, Master Grimnir?!” Ellaine asked bewildered.

“What do you think, lass? Do you think a runesmith would teach a human anything more than a basic tattoo rune? I’ll make sure you learn what a [Passive Rune: Silence] actually looks like!”

Time went by again but we didn’t let this time go to waste. We still kept doing what we usually did — restaurant, white grace work, singing, smithing and potion selling now that Tasianna was an alchemy guild member. Nevertheless, as we broadened our horizons within Griffonpeak, we also had other activities ready for us.

The mage’s guild was a perfect place for us to test new custom spells and train our skills. The magic barrier around the training area meant we could sling spells as much as we wanted, so we were able to train our resistance and magic skills at a safe location inside a city. Tasianna also asked Maverina if she could find a talented alchemist teacher for her. Sure, we could have asked the alchemy guild, but we figured somebody from the empire would have more contacts for us to work with.

Also, about the fulinoe leaves, well, Maverina seemed to have figured out something and is acting suspiciously around us after Saori had President Sarlenzia raise the prices of fulinoe leaves specifically for the mage’s guild. Maverina wanted them so badly, she couldn’t say no to the price. She took 68% of our Davi, so we’ll just take it back the legal way, right?

After some more theology lessons, I felt I was filling my head with too much info from the holy book to the point I got sick of it.

In any case, time went by peacefully as we lived our life and got used to Griffonpeak. Once the first of SpringBloom arrived, it was time for us to prepare for King Drangleic’s ball.

It was time for the idol to enchant Artorian noble society.

A note from AbyssRaven

Hope you guys enjoyed that very craftsman chapter. Runesmithing rules has to be established since Grimnir gotta work the metal.

Also, next chapter, oh my. Will the nobles be able to endure Hestia's radiance?

Edit: I posted a version before I fixed most of the typos, leaving a ton in. Oops, they should be fixed now, at least, most of them.

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Chapter 203: The Artorian Ball Begins.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Long-Range Spell Enhancement Lv. 5] [Delayed Cast Lv. 2] [Spear Mastery Lv. 5] [Piercing Enhancement Lv. 7] [Probability Correction Lv. 7] [Air Walk Lv. 5] [Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 5] [Lightning Resistance Lv. 6] [Holy Resistance Lv. 10] [Wind Resistance Lv. 9] [Water Resistance Lv. 3] [Dark Resistance Lv. 2] gained

Skill requirement fulfilled. [Holy Resistance Lv. 10] evolved into [Sacred Resistance Lv. 1]

Ability gained:   [Gale Steps]

“Wow, I really look pretty mature in this ball dress.” Looking at what I was wearing with Tasianna’s ice mirror, I had to suppress my urge to gawk at the beautiful dress I had on.

Although I was initially reluctant to accept King Drangleic’s invitation to his ball, at the end of the day, I accepted it as a personal request, which the King fortunately accepted. As such, I had to fit in with the aristocrats. Also, with how Papa and Mama always went to their concerts in the best suit and dress they had, respectively, I should do the same as their daughter.

The gown I was wearing was colored red and black, fitting perfectly with my hair and horns. The length of the dress’s flared skirt, which flowed down to the ground, was enough to completely hide my tail, and I had also decided to attend without my wings out to steal the attention from my dress.

The dress had an off-the-shoulder neckline, leaving my shoulders and collarbones exposed but hiding my solar core completely. I was showing off my scaled forearms with the dress, using them similarly to sleeves. Black mana threads were used for the top of the gown, slowly transitioning over to a rose red skirt. With my hair groomed and combed back, exposing some of my forehead, I felt that it made me look more like an adult than I had expected.

The most prominent design of the dress had to be the metal sequins Grimnir made for me. Saori stitched these black voldunna sequins onto my dress, forming them into flower petals that sparkled under light almost as if they were bits of flickering flame. Elegant and beautiful. Of course, since they were made from metal while my dress was sewn using mana threads, if I were to transform while wearing this dress, the sequins would break apart.

Twirling on the spot like a ballerina to see my dress’s skirt whirl around, I couldn’t help but smile. “How do I look, Svena? Awesome, right?”

Svena, my temporary maid, clapped in response, looking at me with glittering eyes. “It is immaculate, Lady Hestia. You are enthralling and I am sure any nobleman would be enamored by your appearance.”

“I agree without a single doubt, Lady Hestia.” Turning around, I saw Tasianna imitating Svena’s clapping, now wearing a colorful blue and green dress with a laced butterfly-motive skirt instead of her usual maid outfit. “I am really glad you like it, Lady Hestia. Miss Saori was quite worried you wouldn’t like it as she was trying something new.”

“I mean, that is true. I’m used to cute and casual clothing. Just asking, but couldn’t I have worn the dress I used for that tea party two months ago?” As I asked my innocent question, somebody’s voice suddenly ringed in my ear.

“You dress for the occasion, Hestia, come on! I thought I managed to make you appreciate fashion more, made you understand the value of clothing for social events.” It was Saori, looking at me with a hint of disappointment. “You have been invited to a formal ball by the King of Artorias which numerous nobles from all over his kingdom will attend. The dress I made for you was for a tea party, not a ball. If you wore that dress again, I bet you would feel awkward and underdressed, especially considering your personality.”

I sighed but still agreed to Saori’s opinion, “Haaaaa, yeah, that’s true. Plus, it’s not like I hate this gown. In fact, I love it! Svena and Tasianna made my hair, and I’m wearing a pretty dress. Even if I’m not intending to socialize a lot, I still think I’ll make an amazing first impression!”

Saori, just like Tasianna and I, was coming along to the ball in formal wear. Using [Humanization Lv. 8]’s form so that she only had fur around her tail, ears, and forearms, Saori designed her dress to be strapless with a flared skirt that went to herankle like mine. Using a lighter tone of black, the dress contrasted well with her pink skin and the arm sleeves she used to slightly cover the white fur. Finishing the outfit off by tying her long hair into a ponytail, Saori exuded the beauty of a mature woman.

“While I do understand Lady Hestia and Miss Saori appearing in dresses, why must I wear one too? I am only your maid, Lady Hestia,” Tasianna wondered, looking a bit conflicted about being in such a stunning dress.

At first, King Drangleic had only invited me to the ball, since Ellaine was obviously already invited as she was an aristocrat of Artorias. However, going to the ball with only the Helvas family was kinda lonely, even if I had Ellaine with me, so I sent the King a message requesting permission to bring Saori, Tasianna, and Grimnir with me. They were my retainers, after all.

“Why, obviously, you may, Lady Hestia. A lady should not appear without her attendants,” was the message I got back. It helps that I’m the king’s official guest now, but I’m also lucky he was willing to answer at all. Ellaine, later on, did mention I could have just asked her or anybody among her family and I would have received the same answer. I guess my noble common sense wasn’t there just yet.

Now, the rest of Aurora, barring Ellaine, weren’t required to attend the ball like I was, but we each had a reason to be there. Saori wanted to attend the discussion between Count Helvas and Duke Greenveil about the spread of yeast and Maverina informed Tasianna her alchemist teacher would be attending the ball. Only Grimnir had no reason to accompany us, sadly, so he declined my invitation.

After assuring Tasianna she was coming with me as a friend rather than a maid, since there should be enough people serving at the ball, the four of us left my room and went over to Ellaine’s. After Svena rang the bell and somebody let us in, we were greeted by the sight of Ellaine cradling her new sword, protecting it from her mother.

“Ellaine, leave your sword at home! I will not allow you to attend the ball with it!” Marianne, dressed in a brilliant yellow and green noble gown made of mana threads, ordered her daughter with a stern voice. Her usual dresses were all quite beautiful, but the one she was wearing now really gave her that medieval noblewoman appearance, coupled with the authoritative tone she was speaking in.

Ellaine, also wearing a blue and white mana thread dress Saori designed for her, was clutching onto her whip sword as if it was her one-and-only treasure, looking reluctant to hand it over to her mother. “Mother, please, you said this sword is heirloom-quality, right? Father even expressed his desire for it! Considering I missed my social debut at the Origdiviel Arashan ball, wouldn’t appearing with this sword create awe? I mean, it isn’t uncommon for noble ladies to bring decorative swords?”

“They are military women, Ellaine. Commanders, captains,” Marianne rebuked. “You’re not even a squire yet, let alone a knight, so I expect you to act like a lady for now. If you wish to bring something for self-defense, your spell rings will have to suffice.”

Josine, Ellaine’s maid, looked anxiously between the two, finally noticed us entering the room and tipped off Marianne to our presence. “Oh, everyone, my apologies. Lady Hestia, Madam Saori, Madam Tasianna, you all look enchanting. Now, if you may, please, tell your party member here to leave her sword behind.”

Don’t say no to a mother’s wrath.

After a few more words, Ellaine gave me her sword to keep in my storage, which everyone thought was the best compromise. We then left Ellaine’s room with all us ladies dressed up and ready, heading to the living room to wait for Jonathan and the Count. After sipping some tea and tasting some of house Helvas’s bread - now made with yeast! - the men finally appeared.

“Marianne! Marianne, how do I look?” Count Helvas rushed into the room wearing a colored suit with numerous emblems and military awards decorating his chest, giving him a very distinctive military commander look with the sword around his waist. Draped across his chest was a purple sash made of the purple mana cloth I’d given him during our first meeting.

Meticulously adjusting his clothes, the Count was showing an anxious expression as he asked his wife. Marianne, contrary to her husband’s emotional state, chuckled at him and showed him a teasing smile. “Oh, you look fantastic, dear. Lord Duke Greenveil will be very impressed, especially with that sash.”

“Marianne, I mustn’t look ‘fantastic,’ but respectable. We are meeting and discussing with our lord about a lucrative economic prospect. This will change our house! Father, mother, and brother will be singing the Goddess’s praises once I’m done with this deal, but I cannot do it if I appear shabby!” He then turned around to Saori after his wife adjusted his sash for him, looking at my wolfkin friend with excitement. “Madam Saori! You look marvelous in that dress. May I assume you have all the treats and taste samples ready in your [Storage Magic]?”

“Yes, I do. Please, you must calm down, Lord Helvas.” Saori chuckled softly, before pointing the Count’s attention behind himself. “However, while the discussion with Lord Greenveil will be interesting, I believe you should worry more about your second half, Lord Helvas.”

Letting out an “Eh?” the Count turned around, only to flinch when he saw his wife looked at him with a terrifying smile.

“Andre, now, while I understand treating Madam Saori, our guest, with courtesy is not a sin, I believe you have forgotten something, no? I mean, your wife and daughter are both dressed beautifully… right?”

Showing a twitching smile, Count Andre desperately began to apologize to his wife and began praising everybody’s dresses.

Considering how stern he acts whenever he trained Ellaine — even when he helped me learn [Gale Steps] — he sure can bend quickly when his wife is ordering him around.

“Lady Hestia. Lady Tasianna. It is a privilege to see you two in such dresses.” As enchanting as ever, Ellaine’s brother, Jonathan, came over while his mother scolded his father, bowing and flattering us. Unlike his father, Jonathan was only a squire and had no reason to wear a military man’s suit, so he wasn’t bringing a sword with him nor was his outfit filled with medals.

After Tasianna and I thanked him for his words, he turned around and simply mentioned Ellaine looked good and that their house was about to reach new heights on this day before turning silent. Ellaine too only gave a simple response.

What is going on between those two?! When I saw them together in Firwood, they were acting so close together! Ellaine looked as if she was a brocon!

I wanted to ask them, I really did, but I kept the question to myself. Neither Ellaine nor Jonathan really seemed to want to talk about it.

Everybody attending the ball left the mansion, where we saw Grimnir taking a break outside his RV, covered in sweat. I still asked the stubborn dwarf if he still wanted to come. “I don’t like repeating myself, lass. This whole ball thing ain’t for me. I’m a craftsman, I’d rather dedicate my time on making myself a new armor, draw the blueprints for a new weapon, and figure out how to turn your [Room] into a rune.”

Early tests of the space-time spell [Room] went great, as the size of the resulting room was only limited by how much mana I was willing to spend. We were able to transport objects in and out, similar to [Storage Magic], making it possible for us to live inside it. Unlike my storage, however, living things could go into this room and the time wouldn’t freeze, so we could expand the interior of the RV without needing to expand its exterior.

Having heard Grimnir’s rejection once again, I wished him luck and everybody, aside from Count Helvas, boarded a flying carriage. Making our way to the royal palace, I noticed crowds of people celebrating on the streets in the afternoon. Considering everybody in Griffonpeak would be celebrating the kingdom’s founding for an entire week, it was only to be expected.

Speaking of events, Ellaine had invited everybody to come to the royal academy tomorrow, since the students were preparing shows to show off to their parents. Ellaine herself would be participating in an event planned by the mage’s course of the academy. Apparently, her appearance with me during the Chezaic twins’ tea party really catapulted Ellaine’s reputation by a great deal among the Greenveil students.

Which reminded me of something Ellaine mentioned about her brother. “Oh, Jonathan, I heard you will be doing something during the academy festivities, correct? Well, aside from the ball, of course.”

“Ah, yes, that is true, Lady Hestia,” Jonathan said with a brilliant smile. “As you know, I’m a squire for my father, training under him at home and I’m going to attend practice at the Order of the Lionheart’s training field, where I’ll spar with the other squires. As such, we will be holding a miniature tournament amongst us squires, demonstrating Artorias’s future prospects.’”

“The tournament is mostly held for the senior year students, as this will be their chance to show off the fruits of their training from their time at the academy,” Marianne continued the explanation. “It also serves as an appetizer for the coliseum fights in three days, where nobles and commoners, knights or mages, may participate to find glory. As it is bloodless and the rewards include both honor and Davi, adventurers and nobles from around Artorias come to join this coliseum tournament.”

A tournament, huh? Too many shows have tournament arcs on Earth, but maybe I’ll understand why people like tournaments so much by experiencing it myself.

As we flew up the mountain, numerous other flying carriages, griffons, and hippogryphs were flying up with us. Knights riding their mounts were coordinating the traffic, making sure none of the griffons and hippogryphs suddenly broke into aerial fights. Just the thought of a griffon dropping a carriage was pretty scary to me; thankfully, everything went by smoothly.

Once at the citadel, the aristocrats riding on their griffons and hippogryphs, like Count Helvas, began flying away from the carriages. Marianne explained that the griffons and hippogryphs were having their own “ball '' inside the dungeon of Griffonpeak, where they will be meeting the Griffon king — the beastial ancestor of the Artorian royalty.

The citadel was split up into three layers — the lowest was like a small town where the families of the servants and attendants lived, the middle was where the garrison and the Order of the Lionheart’s headquarters were stationed, and the top belonged to the king’s palace alone. We landed in a wide, open area next to the palace’s massive garden.

Looking out the window, countless griffon carriages were landing and flying off once their passengers disembarked. The sight of men in fine suits and women wearing gorgeous dresses was all I could see. The vast majority were humans, but there were a few arvisians mixed into the crowd as well.

Marianne explained these were mostly Lecartiglio aristocrats, as despite the duchy’s general dislike for beastmen, they still considered arvisians a “pure” race like humans. Mostly due to their relationship with the Artorian royalty, Lecartiglio nobles would scorn you for having a wolfkin or katzune concubine but would be accepting if it was an arvisian.

That duchy is so weird.

Due to this being a noble event, when we wanted to leave the carriage, we had to exit it by rank and gender according to Marianne. Jonathan left first to “help” us ladies out, guiding Saori, Tasianna, Ellaine, and his mother down the steps. Once it was my turn, I pinched the skirt of my dress and held it up, making sure I wouldn’t trip on it.

As I came out of the carriage, I let my tail appear from under my skirt and cast [Shine] on it, creating a bright background, attracting people’s attention. Creating some sparks with my scale-dust, I simulated the camera lights of the paparazzi, making my entrance similar to a pop star. It was a bit excessive, something Jonathan seemed to agree on considering his facial expression, but I wasn’t attending this ball just as a noble.

“Father, father, it’s her! She changed her hairstyle but those horns are too conspicuous.”

“Is she not the same young lady we saw in Cedaraille, my love? The rumors say she’s a greifnoble ranked noble from Loatryx.”

“Hold on, isn’t she that girl who kidnapped Professor Richard? Why is she here attending the ball? Who is she anyway?”

Noise and gossip. It was exactly what I wanted, even if the stares were a bit uncomfortable right now. Still, against all the eyes, our group continued into the garden and finally made it to the palace. The reception welcomed us wholeheartedly with wine glasses, handing them to all attendees. When I jokingly wondered if they would even give it to children, Ellaine interrupted my thoughts.

“Only adults are allowed to attend a royal ball, Lady Hestia. So, only those who are at least 15 years old.” As you would expect from being in the presence of the royal family, every attendee had to have mastered being a noble before they would be invited. When I asked Ellaine what if a 14-year-old already knew how to act properly, Ellaine simply shook her head. “A 14-year-old is still a ‘child,’ nobody expects children to behave properly in front of others. However, the moment you become an adult at 15, your social debut is supposed to showcase your ability to interact and fit in. Adults are expected to have mastered proper etiquette. Even the royal family isn’t above this rule, and if any of their children were under 15, they would not have been invited.”

This was a social event, after all, where nobles would compete against each other in favor of their own interests, whether it was through politicking or by courting. In this environment, people would just want to have fun and further their agenda without noisy brats running around causing problems. It made sense now that I thought about it. I have nothing against kids, but there is a difference when you know everybody is well-behaved compared to the chance somebody could just scream like a banshee just because somebody took away their toy.

As we watched groups of nobles go even deeper into the palace, Count Helvas finally reunited with us. After we showed a butler our IDs to confirm our identities, he had another servant lead us through a hallway. At the end of it, a tall door was kept open, inviting us inside.

Once inside, my eyes widened once again at the opulence of the noble’s culture of maximalism. The small glimpse I received when I ate in one of the palace’s dining rooms was already pretty impressive, but the royal family was really flaunting their wealth and status with this ball.

The room was large and spacious, wide enough to allow hundreds of nobles to move around. Made with fairnite, the floor and walls resemble marble, shining brightly under the light of the chandeliers, accentuating the decorations hanging on the walls.

Speaking of the size of the ballroom, there was actually another room right next to it, where long tables with white table cloths were placed with large banquets filled with food, dessert, and lots and lots of alcohol ranging from ale, spirits, to wine. In both rooms, musicians were playing, livening the festivities up.

According to Saori, a ball without food and drinks was a pretty dull affair, something the nobles in our group agreed with. We expected to be guided to our designated tables in the banquet room, where we would eat, drink, and socialize merrily while the ballroom was dedicated for the dances later on. Even the most stoic nobles would be more talkative after a glass of wine and a filled belly.

“Come, let us first go to our table. I wish to know who we are to be seated with,” Count Helvas suggested, leading our group to the dining room. Due to the vast number of nobles attending this ball, it wasn’t possible to provide every single house a table for themselves. As such, they would share it with people of the same rank within their duchy. It was also a good way to make connections or strengthen bonds, so nobody disliked it.

Only nobles and knights were invited to this event, so everyone present was either knighted or held the rank of baronet or higher. Or, like Saori and Tasianna, were attendants for said knights and nobles. Due to the caste system, you would only sit with those inside your rank. Schwertnobles, the lowest tier, sat with other barons and baronets, for example. As House Helvas had the rank of Count, they would normally be seated with viscounts, other counts, and arcanuesses.

However, something surprising happened. “Excuse me, but we are to be seated with the Greenveil greifnobles?!” Count Helvas raised his voice a bit when a butler informed us of our seats.

“Yes, My Lord, Lord Duke Greenveil had ordered House Helvas to be seated with him and the other marquesses and honorary guests. Would I have your permission to guide you there?” After Count Helvas agreed to the butler’s suggestion, we were actually led to a table where we met up with Marquess Sirius and his brother High Bishop Theodore.

“L-Lord Marquess Sirius! It is an honor!” Count Helvas bowed, followed by Jonathan and curtseys from Marianne and Ellaine.

“Ah, it is good to meet you once again, Lord Helvas. Lady Marianne, you look charming. May I assume these are your children? Lord Jonathan and Lady Ellaine, it is a fine meeting you. May I introduce my wife, children, and brother?” The two noble houses began to give their introductions, greeting each other as if it was totally normal. The anxiousness the members of House Helvas showed at the beginning quickly faded, but I still noticed small signs they weren’t completely comfortable.

After the greetings were over, he prompted everybody to sit down. “Now, now, let us sit down and enjoy some of the feast. Marquess Westfalls and Lord Duke Greenveil should arrive soon enough, and we won’t have time to enjoy ourselves when the talks begin, right? Hahahaha!” After showing a hearty laugh, he then turned around to Saori, Tasianna, and me. “My most earnest apologies, Lady Hestia. I hope you may forgive me for not introducing myself to you first. I hope the ball has been to your liking so far.”

I’ve barely just arrived, dude! However, I kept that comment to myself. Instead, I introduced myself and my friends to Marquess Sirius, mentioning it was nice to meet him once again after all that happened in Firwood. I was also introduced to his family and made small talk with them all before deciding I wanted to check out the banquet.

As much as I wanted to hold it in, I was hungry. Not ’cause I actually was hungry, but my gluttonous desire to eat while not under the sun had awakened when I saw all the food on the banquet table. With Saori and Tasianna, I left the nobles to their talks. Ellaine couldn’t come with us as it seemed her mother wouldn’t allow her to miss out on socializing.

“Ooh, this is a bit overwhelming,” I admitted to my companions, to which they nodded.

“I thought wearing this dress would make me feel as if I fitted in, but this is even worse than when I was teaching at Shirako High. I feel so out of place, Hestia,” Saori stated, frowning a bit. She might have a strong side to her, but even Saori has insecurities.

“I believe you two will become accustomed to the nature of a feast quite promptly,” Tasianna encouraged us. “Maybe filling our stomachs would allow us to settle in better. I may not be a maid today, but please allow me to serve you two.”

Butlers and maids were wandering around the dining hall with plates of food and wine, presenting them to hungry nobles sitting at their tables. The banquet tables were also manned by servants, serving the food the nobles chose on plates before bringing them to their tables. Tasianna declined their help and instead brought out her catalyst to create two floating ice plates.

As we went through the banquet, placing more food onto our plates as Saori and I were gluttons, to be honest, we began attracting more attention. I mean, since I was a dragonewt, Saori a wolfkin, and Tasianna was a wind elf with our [Humanization] activated, we already stood out quite a lot. We were just attracting even more eyes than before.

Despite doing our best to ignore everything, eventually somebody did approach us. And it was somebody we already knew.

“Lady Hestia, Madam Saori, Madam Tasianna! Isn’t it a fine day to meet you here, and I can see you three have large appetites.” We stopped placing food on our plates and turned around, only to meet Maverina, the guild master of the local mage’s guild.

“Lady Maverina? What are you doing here?” I wondered.

Maverina waved her hand, looking as if the answer was obvious. “I’m a representative of the Empire. Of course I would come to a ball dedicated to my fellow guests. It wouldn’t do me good if I simply ignored them, no?” She then pointed at our dresses, winking. “Hmm, your three have amazing tastes. I presume all of them are made from mana threads? Pray, would you inform me of the tailor who made these beautiful dresses?”

“That would be me, Lady Maverina. I am happy to hear you like my work. Are you interested in one yourself?” Saori moved forward, showing a devilish smile, causing Maverina to flinch.

“O-Oh, you are, well, I think I very much like my own seamstress? Uhm, well, I have been able to find out that you three are responsible for the… recent luxuries, correct? Well, the fines are a product of rules the Magical Capitel set up, ladies, so I will not apologize for it. Still, the fulinoe leaves are well worth the raised price, so I thank you,” Maverina gave us a friendly smile. “Now, Tasianna, if you have the time. I would like to introduce you to the alchemist I had in mind. Lady Hestia. Miss Saori. I would love it if you would come, too.”

With nothing else to do, we walked with Maverina through the dining room, ending at a small table for four people, where a white-haired, dark-grey skinned man was sitting by his lonesome, eating his meal quietly. The moment he noticed us, he gave us a wink and stood up.

“Lady Hestia. Madama Saori. Madam Tasianna. May I introduce you to one of the Folschreck Empire’s imperial alchemists, Sir Krymdar. Sir Krymdar, these are the lovely ladies I told you about,” Maverina introduced us.

The well-dressed man bowed, revealing two long, pointy ears underneath his messy hair. “It is a pleasure to meet all of you today on this DarkDay. May God Marsven chase the shadow’s taint away for us. My name is Krymdar Anyxi Blackshroud and, as I think you might have already presumed, a dark elf.”

Pausing for a moment, he then suddenly walked up to me, bowed deeply before kneeling. Instead of words, a telepathic voice entered Saori’s, Tasianna’s, and my minds. [“It is a great honor to meet the illustrious lost princess of Kargryx, Lady Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor.”]

… You try keeping a secret and people just begin figuring it out as if it’s nothing!

A note from AbyssRaven

No prom for Hestia, but at least she is going to some other ball… in a new whole world.

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Chapter 204: Idol of Aurena.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Oh, to be your alchemist tutor, Miss Tasianna? Sure, I was planning to spend my vacation in Saelariel but I can take some time for you.” After introducing ourselves, Krymdar the dark elf ordered a servant to bring another chair to his table and offered for us to sit at his table while we discussed things.

“Oh, that would be fantastic Sir Krymdar, but… aren’t you here with the human empire’s entourage? Won’t you be missed? You are an imperial alchemist, after all,” Tasianna asked, looking over at a group of men in military outfits decorated with a weird symbol of a gavel with an eye. According to Maverina, those were people from her home, the Empire of Folschreck.

Eshe isn’t with them, hmmm.

Tasianna’s alchemy abilities had stagnated — Cernust had only shown her the basics after all — so her only options to improve her skills were to either buy an alchemy book from the alchemy guild or to go under a tutor and absorb his knowledge. Tasianna, having learned the importance of money somewhat, decided on finding a master to save on money and to acquire a more “quality” education than learning by her lonesome.

When Maverina introduced us to Krymdar, a dark elf and an imperial alchemist of the Folschreck Empire, we were all a bit surprised. It got even weirder when he suddenly mentioned the fact he knew I was a princess of Kargryx, the one who went missing as an egg. Before he could explain anything, Maverina interrupted us, admitting her confusion at why the dark elf was kneeling before me, and we all sat down.

After Maverina explained the situation to Krymdar, he quickly accepted Tasianna’s proposal. Although fortunate, his answer came quite suddenly. He barely took any time to think about it despite being part of the empire’s representatives sent to Artorias, who would most likely leave and return to the empire once their business is done here.

“Don’t worry about it,” Krymdar waved his hand dismissively. “I can return whenever I want. I might be an imperial alchemist, but in truth it’s just a position for me to keep watch of the humans. Make sure they don’t cause any more trouble for my homeland and the people living in Saelariel.”

Saori and I stopped eating the food on our plates, widening our eyes at what we just heard. Is he a spy?! I thought, wondering if I misunderstood what he just said or not. Having understood our confusion, Tasianna asked, “Uhm, is this something you should be saying, Sir Krymdar?” before looking over at Maverina, leisurely drinking her tea.

“It’s an open secret,” Krymdar stated, pointing out that pretty much everybody in the empire already knew this, even mentioning how unpopular elves and half-elves were in the empire’s big cities. “It was part of the peace agreement our alliance demanded of the empire at the end of the War for the Faefolk. The levianewts, dragonewts, and dwarves didn’t want to do the whole spying thing, so we elves volunteered. We have to make sure that the atrocities that led to those wars won’t be started again, right? Miss Tasianna, as a wind elf shouldn’t you already know these things?”

If Tasianna had been a real wind elf, she would probably know this just by being around other elves, but, given that Tasianna was a fairy who was mostly isolated from the affairs of the world until that accident happened, it's not like she ever had the chance to learn this part of history. All she knew about the world was through history books, the occasional elf visitor, and the stories fairy adventurers left behind in her village.

Krymdar shrugged it off, but it was likely he was suspicious of Tasianna now. Nevertheless, he still explained that there were other agents within the empire who could take over his duties. Although it might not even be needed, he could probably find some excuse to send to his superiors to allow him to stay around to help Tasianna.

At that moment, a servant came over to Maverina, informing her that the dukes had arrived and that Duchess Morgiana wanted to speak with her about something. Once she left us, Krymdar immediately continued the telepathic discussion we had before.

[“Well, I think the best excuse for Muraina would be to just tell the truth. I’m pretty sure she won’t have anything against me helping our dear Dragon Princess’s companion, right?”]

I narrowed my eyes, looking at Krymdar’s smirk with irritation. [“First, how do you know this? Second, who is this Muraina? Third, how do you know this!?”] The fact that every new stranger somehow knew my secret was starting to get on my nerves, even though I knew there had to be a reasonable explanation for all of this. It also didn’t help that he was a spy.

Noticing my annoyance, he waved both of his hands in front of him before responding. [“Nothing serious, I might be a spy but I just arrived here with the others; as if I had the time to go around and eavesdrop for information on a girl. No, it’s actually quite simple. Muraina is the Hunter’s Guild’s master and she recently received a report from the branch master of Firwood. ‘The princess has hatched and is safe,’ was all she needed to know.”]

Farron?

I was stunned to hear this but there was still more Krymdar wanted to say. [“I applaud you for your cautiousness, but do not worry, Princess Hestia, the Saelari aren’t your enemies. In fact, I know you weren’t informed of this yet, but your father, Emperor Eltharion, and your mother, Sixth Empress Melloxstressa, have asked Kargryx’s allies to—”]

[“I already know.”]

[““We already know.””]

All three of us interrupted Krymdar’s monologuing, causing him to comedically flinch back as if somebody shot at him. With the biggest “Ehhhhhh?!” expression to break his smug gentlemen exterior, we began explaining to him how we had already learned about the situation with the Dragon Empire’s allies from others, never mentioning Yorshka or Cernust, as I was still unsure if I wanted to trust this spy.

Clearly surprised, Krymdar began prodding me for answers but I simply kept quiet about it, stating he should do some “spy work.” Tasianna was a bit worried that my rude tone would anger Krymdar, but the man himself seemed to respect my privacy.

“Women are allowed to have secrets. Seems like Muraina hid some information from me to turn me into a jester. By the six, this is what happens when you’re away from home for so long,” he said, scratching his hair and stopping the telepathic link. “Regardless, I guess my flamboyance didn’t matter in the presentation. Forget about it, will you three? With that out of the way, Muraina asked me if I were to meet you to direct you to her office at the Hunter’s Guild. If you understand the situation, you should be able to guess what we Saelari wish to discuss, Lady Hestia. She would like to confirm your safety herself.”

At this point, it was a hundred percent clear to me that this Muraina was either an elf or a half-elf, purely ‘cause Krymdar called her a Saelari. According to Tasianna, this was how the elves living inside Saelariel called themselves. With how Yorshka made my disappearance sound, and the chaos it caused the dragonewts, I do wonder how the elves would react since Silva hadn’t known of my disappearance despite knowing of my identity.

As our party was intending to visit the hunter’s guild to continue questing for money and experience, especially Grimnir who was complaining about having zero SP, it wouldn’t harm us to meet with this Muraina. We also needed to gain permission for entering the dungeon in Griffonpeak, so there was that too.

Krymdar then asked Tasianna why she wanted to learn alchemy, mentioning it would help him understand what he needs to focus on. When Tasianna mentioned she wanted to create catalysts for us out of B ranked monster organs, Krymdar couldn’t help but look worried.

“That’s… honestly, making manatools is one of the harder procedures for an alchemist, simply because it’s completely different from making potions and elixirs. You literally have to keep pouring mana into the catalyst during the entire process to keep the mixture from exploding, and that means arcane corruption risks,” Krymdar explained but Tasianna could only smile, unnerving the dark elf. He did not know that she was a faefolk, a being completely immune to arcane corruption.

Krymdar and Tasianna then spoke about alchemy, with the latter explaining what she had already learned. Meanwhile, Saori and I just continued eating the meal we got from the banquet, waiting for the main event of this ball. As the two of us contemplated on ordering some more from the butlers and maid walking around the dining room, trumpet sounds suddenly erupted inside the ballroom.

Hmm?

Taking it as a signal, the nobles around us dropped what they were doing and immediately moved towards the ballroom with everybody else. Ellaine was among this group with her family.

“Oooh, the dukes are ready to present themselves,” Krymdar stated, explaining the situation to me. Considering how the dukes of the seven duchies were literally the most important people in their respective lands just below the royal family, it would probably be considered immensely rude if their vassals didn’t greet them. Like middle management not welcoming the CEO of a company level rude.

Technically, I probably should go over there just to see who the dukes were but… I’m naturally gluttonous without the sun up and I can’t control myself when the food at the banquet smelled so good. Thankfully, my senses were superhuman with all my skills, especially my hearing.

Trumpets were blasting inside the ballroom, eventually replaced by the serene sounds of harps and geiglers. As a butler was about to announce the first ducal attendee, the combined clapping of the aristocrats began to overtake the voice of the single announcer. However, suddenly, his voice became far more audible, piercing through the clapping.

“That is a voice amplification rod,” Krymdar answered my confusion. “It is a piece of manatech used for announcements. Using wind magic, it allows people to speak louder than usual.”

In other words, it was a practical application of my [Aerokinesis] into a tool for mass use. Krymdar did mention it had a hard limit to how loud it could make the sounds, since the user would be exposed to it also, meaning my [Aerokinesis] microphone and “stereo system” was still better. I didn’t have to deal with tinnitus when I controlled the wind.

As the duke’s introduction progressed, I made sure to remember each of their names, just so I wouldn’t accidentally anger one of them.

Geoffrey Wyllt Myrrdin, Venitius Siero Lecartiglio, Mazarin Colbert Equevanna, Joseph Liam Olivus, Isaac Albreaus Greenveil, Morheim Gregor Groushia, Morgana Diana Morgiana. In this order, so it should end — Wait, is that Eshe?!

“With great honor, the royal family would now present the most recently blessed saintess. A woman of the empire who grew up in one of the most prosperous cities inside the Great Evida Desert. Please, grant this illustrious guest of ours a warm welcome. Saintess Eshe of Sarkafiina!”

Cheers erupted once again inside the ballroom, greeting a brown-skinned woman wearing a white and red robe beaming a warm smile at everybody. Two guards flanked her from the sides behind her, Eshe’s knights, but nobody gave them any attention. Eshe stopped moving in front of the crowd, causing them to stop and listen to her next words.

“May the Goddess’s light bless everybody in this kingdom, banishing the shadows lingering over it. My name is Eshe, a simple shrine maiden who was granted the holy honor of being the newest saintess of the Goddess herself. Please, excuse me for my dreary attire in the face of everybody’s efforts today,” Eshe curtsied, earning an applause by everybody, especially from any noble belonging to the Olivus duchy. “Tonight, the Goddess has something planned for us, so please, await it.”

As Eshe moved from the entrance to the ballroom, the nobles began to gossip about what she said but that was quickly drowned out when a group of young noble ladies suddenly made a ton of noise.

“Look, look, it’s Lord Charleslyt! He’s talking with people now! Come now, let’s go over to him.”

“Handsome as always. Honestly, I do wonder why Lord Grand Duke Equevanna made Lord Fillion his heir when Lord Charleslyt is a B rank adventurer at such a young age. That duchy always baffles me.”

“You speak from the experience of someone from Lecartiglio who values strength and military experience over everything. Lord Fillion is the more proficient entrepreneur and merchant, something the Grand Duke must prioritize to keep the ‘Grand Duke of Economic Affairs’ title within their house. I hear Lord Duke Greenveil had been planning something.”

B rank isn’t abnormal for nobles, honestly. Count and Countess Helvas are qualified B rank hunters, after all. I did spar and receive some training from the Count to get [Gale Steps], but I can definitely see him being inferior to Master Kush, Farron, and Yorshka.

From the sound of it, this Charleslyt seemed to be quite young, as the younger noblewomen were crowding around him while the older or married ones were merely gossiping. Sadly, the crowd made it impossible for me to see this person, but whatever.

“Most likely the king and the royal family will be announced next,” Krymdar stated. “Ooh, seems like the ball will actually begin in a moment.”

“Truly? Well, that means we should finish our food soon, Lady Hestia,” Saori said before looking over to Tasianna. “We’ll let Lady Hestia do her thing while we focus on ou—”

At that moment, a large number of footsteps entered the dining room. A crowd of nobles suddenly began walking towards our table, led by four women. When I turned around, prompted by Saori pausing mid-way her sentence, I identified Maverina and Eshe among the group. The last two were obviously related, a mature lady wearing a fine dress with a young woman following behind her, looking at us with suppressed anticipation.

When the four stopped, the crowd of nobles stopped also and began looking at us with curiosity. When the name “Lady Duchess Morgiana” escaped their gossiping mouths, I finally understood why this woman stood before me. I wiped my mouth clean and stood up, which Eshe took as a sign to begin the greetings.

“Lady Hestia, Madam Saori, Madam Tasianna. It is good to see you three again,” Eshe curtsied. Saori had wanted to meet Eshe when I first mentioned her, so I had them introduced during the first theology lessons I had with Eshe. “Oh, Sir Krymdar, it is good to meet you here. I did not think you would be seated with Lady Hestia and her companions.”

Krymdar shook his head at her statement, still sitting down. “I’m not, Saintess Eshe. We simply became acquaintances just now through a favor, and as we continued speaking, the Lady Dragonewt began eating with me for some reason, hahaha!”

Come to think of it, I’m supposed to sit with Ellaine and her family at Duke Greenveil’s table, I remembered before looking over to the table in question. Count Helvas and Duke Greenveil are speaking now. Hmm, who is that young woman next to Duke Greenveil? Why is she and Ellaine avoiding eye contact?

Thinking about it when I had no idea about the situation wouldn’t be fruitful, so I brought my attention back to Eshe. “I didn’t know you would be presented with the dukes. I was wondering why you weren’t with the other members of the empire.” I pointed at the group of men with a gavel and eye symbol on their suits.

“Oh, I thought so too, but Lycerepthor Judge Pestrodus told me I should present myself more since I am a saintess, although,” Eshe gestured me to come closer so she could whisper into my ear. “I do feel a bit anxious attending this ball. I admit, I would rather stay at the orphanage right now than be presented like this.”

At the end of the day, Eshe was a commoner by birth and she has expressed her dislike of being surrounded by nobles whenever I asked her why she very rarely visited the cathedral. While she learned the mannerisms of a noble when she was an apprentice priestess in the past, she eventually became a shrine maiden to manage the orphanage in her city.

Theodore mentioned that there was some kinda drama that happened between Eshe and the nobles from the city she came from, but I didn’t think it would be good to ask about it, since it had nothing to do with me. Eshe clearly wasn’t a big fan of nobles, but prying into people's past was just plain out rude.

“Oh, but let us continue speaking at a different occasion. I just wanted to greet you today, Lady Hestia, but I shouldn’t take up the time of these noble ladies.” After handing the floor over to Maverina, Eshe then left towards the empire’s representatives.

“Lady Hestia, may I present to you Lady Duchess Morgiana. An illustrious member of the mage’s guild who possesses the rank of Master. In addition, with Lord Duke Myrrdin, she is one of my two vice guild masters,” Maverina introduced me to the woman next to her.

While I haven’t familiarized myself with the hierarchy of the mage’s guild just yet, I knew my rank was that of an Arcanist, the rank below Master. From what I understood, Arcanists were experienced mages who have the abilities of a rank C adventurer but weren’t as experienced as a Master; reaching Master rank also required a substantial amount of contributions to the guild.

I knew that Houses Morgiana and Myrrdin were the magic-focused ducal houses of Artorias and were rivals when it came to claiming the distinguished title of Grand Duke of Arcane Affairs. Looking at Duchess Morgiana, she had long dark pink hair kept together in an updo, revealing sharp, almost elvish long ears. In addition, I was also fascinated by her peculiar irises, which had a large, thick blue ring around the pupil in each of her green eyes.

The Duchess curtsied. “Lady Hestia, it is a pleasure to finally meet you. I am Duchess Morgana Diana Morgiana, one of the seven dukes of His Majesty, King Drangleic.”

I replied by copying her curtsy. “Y-Yes, it is a great honor, Lady Morgana. I am Hestia Atsuko, a guest of King Drangleic from one of Loatryx’s kinkyuro clans. I have been waiting to meet you for a long time for my surgery.”

As my mana paths connecting my left wing to my body were severed during my battle with the garm matriarch, it has become impossible for me to fly without relying on either wind spells or my rocket boosters. Ever since I had met Ellaine, I have heard that the Duchess of the Morgiana House was one of the kingdom’s few mana surgeons, and possibly the most skilled one.

I felt a bit anxious since my goal to fix my wing damage was so close in hand, but the nobles around us weren’t interested in this part. They were more focused on the rest of my introduction.

“Guest? What? I heard there was a supposedly a dragonewt noble visiting Greenveil as a guest of Duke Greenveil, but His Majesty is sponsoring her too?!”

“That’s the young lady, right? The one that the professors at the academy have been discussing. How is she speaking so casually with Lady Duchess Morgiana? What is this kinkyuro?”

Annoyed at the background fuzz, I opened up my mouth again to hopefully silence everybody’s gossiping, asking, “If this isn’t rude to ask, Lady Morgana, are you possibly a half-elf?” I pointed out her sharp ears, wondering why nobody had mentioned them to me.

Duchess Morgiana reacted to my question by looking over to Tasianna and Krymdar, frowning a bit. The nobles behind her also began to look uneasy, causing me to wonder if what I asked was taboo.

She then returned her focus back to me to speak, “Let me just say, House Morgiana does have elven ancestry, that is true — as evidenced by our ears and extended lifespan. However…I am human…and so are my children.” She then turned around and bowed deeply towards Krymdar and Tasianna. Krymdar didn’t show much of a reaction, looking at the Duchess with a lack of emotions, while Tasinna returned a bow out of respect.

Noticing this, the rest of the nobles also bowed out of respect, almost reminding me of Manuela when she first learned Tasianna was a fairy. The duchy of Morgiana used to have a very amicable relationship with the elves and fairies until the War of the Faefolk. While the people of Morgiana were regretful and apologetic for staying neutral during the war, many elves became antagonistic towards their old allies. While Tasianna forgave humanity, Krymdar seemingly hadn't yet.

The Duchess then clapped her hands together. “About the surgery, Lady Hestia, it had been arranged and prepared for. If you wish, we could perform it tonight after the ball. I will restrain myself from the wine if you so desire.” I nodded to her offer, too happy to decline. “Perfect, then let me please introduce you to the surgeon who will perform your treatment.”

“It isn’t you, Lady Morgana?”

“I will be the main surgeon’s assistant, to make sure everything works out. However, I wish to give a promising surgeon some experience if you would allow it.” The Duchess then pushed the young lady from behind her forward and introduced her. “This is my heir and only daughter among my four children. A magic prodigy even for her age.”

This purple-haired young woman was slightly taller than me, shared the same ears and eyes as the Duchess, and beamed an enthusiastic smile at me before forming her hands into two peace signs and holding them in front of her face. “Konbanwa, Atsuko-oujo-sama! Thyra Nimue Morgiana-desu!” (Good evening, Princess Hestia. I am Thyra Nimue Morgiana!)

“Oh, konbanwa, Thyra-san-Wait what?! Ehhhhhhhhh!!!”

“Huuuuuuuuh?!”

Saori and I were dumbfounded, flinching back dramatically, speechless as we kept our mouths wide open. I knew if Manuella were here, she would scold me just like how my etiquette teacher used to, but I was still preoccupied with what this girl just said to me. If my ears weren’t mishearing anything, then the Duchess’s daughter just spoke—

Japanese?!?!? How?!

When we didn’t say anything in response, Thyra slowly lowered her hands, looking worriedly at us. “Uhm, d-did I pronounce the words wrong? I apologize, the last time I had Aiko-san teach me was almost a year ago, so I might have forgotten how to say it properly.”

Instead of me, Saori came forward, more shocked than ever. “‘Aiko-san?’ Lady Thyra, where did you hear that name?”

Aiko Hasebe, one of Saori’s students, was one of the two students assigned as saint candidates by the church when they were first kidnapped to Peolynca. Tamae and the others had told me a bit about her.

“Uhm, you are the ‘sensei,’ right, Segawa Saori-Sensei?” I immediately cast [Air Shield] around us, blocking anybody from listening in this discussion. Thyra and the Duchess were startled by it, but it seemed they understood the reason for it immediately.

“I apologize so very much for my daughter’s behavior, Princess Hestia. Madam Saori. Madam Tasianna.” the Duchess said before flicking her daughter’s forehead. “As you three are surely aware, His Majesty had already informed us seven dukes about your presence here in Artorias, Princess Hestia. We were allowed to share this information with our heirs, and that is why Thyra knew about you three.”

The two explained that Thyra used to be a shrine maiden at Aureolis’s church to learn holy magic and had only recently come back to Artorias to continue her training as the heir of House Morgiana. There, she met and became the lady-in-waiting for one of Saori’s students, the aforementioned Aiko Hasebe.

“Lady Aiko had taught me some Nihongo upon my selfish wish and, during one of those lessons, she mentioned her high school teacher from her world. You, Saori-san. Hiehie, I thought it would be funny to introduce myself like this, since I knew you two would understand me.” Thyra looked at Saori and me, clearly showing no regret for stunning us like that.

“You are a fool, daughter,” her mother denounced her behavior. “You may act however you wish at home, but please at the very least act like a proper noblewoman while in public! This information is supposed to be kept secret under His Majesty’s orders!!”

“Come now, Mother, as if anybody would have understood it. Barely anybody unimportant spoke with Asaka-san and the others when they visited Griffonpeak. Lord Duke Olivus and the church made sure nobody could speak with them except for the dukes and His Majesty. A little bit of nihongo wouldn’t hurt to make Lady Hestia feel more comfortable around me.”

If I were to be truthful, I felt as if I could trust Thyra a bit, not ’cause of her Japanese, but ’cause of her rather carefree personality. She has this aura of a proper noble lady hiding a fun-loving nature. I think I like her.

Of course, since we just learned how Thyra had met Saori’s students, we did want to know more about what happened, but this wasn’t the time or place to do so. As such, we decided to push this matter back. Returning to the subject of my surgery, I was still nervous that Thyra would be doing this since the King commissioned the Duchess to do so, but I still agreed after the Duchess vouched for my safety.

The moment we dispelled the [Air Shield], the nobles’ gossiping around us was becoming more and more intense until the Duchess asked everybody to leave with her. Some still looked back at us but left us alone.

“Pffuuh,” Krymdar whistled. “I guess the dukes were informed all about this, huh?”

With nobody else coming up to us to talk, Saori and I focused on finishing off our food. Just in time, too, as another commotion began again in the ballroom for the king and the rest of the royal family’s grand entrance. This time, it was impossible for our group to miss it, so we said our goodbyes to Krymdar and followed the rest of the nobles into the next room.

The ballroom had two sets of stairs leading up to an elevated platform where somebody could look down at the people dancing beneath them. There, a door opened and a swarm of doves was released out into the ballroom, filling the room with flapping wings as they escaped through multiple opened windows.

“It is with great honor that I may present to the illustrious lords and ladies of the Kingdom of Artorias, your one true king of this majestic Kingdom of the Griffons,” a butler announced through that microphone-like manatech. “May I present, the Patriarch of House Artorias, Greifmarshal of the Kingdom, our Majesty, the Griffon King, Drangelic var Artorias!”

Compared to the Dukes’ and Eshe’s entrance, the applause King Dranleic received felt more reserved, as if they were showing him respect. It might not have been as loud but everywhere I looked, people had genuine smiles as they looked up at the figures above them. Holding a beautiful human woman in his arms and surrounded by five arvisians, the King of Artorias smiled at everybody.

Woah.

Every royal had a title given to them by the Divine System to prove the authenticity of their lineage, allowing them to exude a powerful aura in return. This royal aura wasn’t exactly a skill like [Noble Aura] or [Royal Presence], but it was quite similar in function to the latter. I felt awe as I looked at him.

“Lords and ladies of my Kingdom,” King Drangleic started as he spread his wings out. “It fills me with joy to see all of you here to celebrate with me the visit of our sovereign liege’s representative. Lycerpthor Judge Pestrodus, a renowned lycerepth member. Imperial Alchemist Krymdar, a dark elf with immense skill. And, not to mention, our Goddess’s most recently blessed saintess, Lady Eshe of Sarkafiina, the Saintess of Orphans.”

Another round of clapping erupted.

“As such, this day is not dedicated to me but to our guests. A wonderful day to bond, I must say,” the King paused before noticing where I was and giving me a meaningful look. “As such, I wouldn’t like to dally any further. Today is be one to be enjoyed, so let us begin with a dance.”

The elated voices of young men and women could be heard everywhere. Men were making sure they were wearing their suits properly while the women looked around in anticipation, wondering who they wanted to dance with. Those already married looked at their second half passionately.

“I would like to announce another guest within our fold, somebody I had only informed a select few about. Tonight, this young lady would like to enrich our night with her wonderful voice.” He then looked at me once again. “Lady Hestia Atsuko, dragonewt noble of the kinkyuro clans, the highest powers inside the republic of Loatryx. Please.”

I took a deep breath with my eyes closed. Calmed my heart down. I opened my eyes and moved forward, as the crowd divided in two for me. Those from the Greenveil duchy had already heard about me due to the rumors, those following Duchess Morgiana learned who I was, and anybody who hadn’t already were flabbergasted at their King’s announcement.

I moved to the platform where the musicians used to play. There, alone and without any instruments, I amplified my voice through [Aerokinesis]. I wanted to say something but everybody’s questioning stares weren’t helping me calm down. There was an awkward silence, but I welcomed it. Any seconds to calm my heart down were precious to me.

“… My name is Hestia Atsuko, a dragonewt from the kinkyuro clans of Loatryx. As you might have heard, the kinkyuro is the highest power of the republic, the beastkin children of the six strongest ancient dragons of history. An example would be Dragon God Kargryxmor, God of Oaths and Dragonkin, and a Subordinate God of Goddess Aurena.”

Commotion, but it was something I expected. From speaking with Aurora, I came to the decision to use my pseudo-status as a member of the Kargryxmor clan to present myself here, without specifying it. Kargryxmor’s advice was to keep a lowish profile until I became stronger. Presenting myself as a high-tier noble was better than telling everybody I was a dragon and a princess.

Getting some attention was unavoidable if I wanted to come forth and perform before the nobles, but it was important to not attract too much. Aurena hadn’t specified whether there were demonkin agents in Griffonpeak, so I had to stay safe. A random noble who liked to sing wouldn’t be a huge threat, after all.

“I have come to Artorias as a simple traveler, but I was invited today by His Majesty, King Drangleic, to perform before everybody. To present you with my music.” Once again, I used [Aerokinesis] to imitate an instrument. It wasn’t the violin, for I have Ellaine’s spare geigler. No, for the song that I will perform, I needed my father’s specialty.

Papa, guide my hands.

The piano.

“Ooh, what is this sound? Where is it coming from?”

“Is she manipulating the winds to create these sounds? What masterful control!”

[Music Resonation (Minor)] [Stage Fever (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Every note resonated through the ballroom, stunning the nobles. During my stay in Artorias, I very much enjoyed the music the nobles and musicians of Artorias were able to make, however, I still very much missed the acoustic sound of the piano. Not even a harpsichord or a Peolyncian version existed.

While I couldn’t remember the exact buildup of a piano, I was able to simulate its notes. Every key was something I remembered and I could force the air to make that exact sound. My mama loved the violin while my papa played the piano. Tonight, I will perform the latter.

“I wish to give everybody a wonderful night today. As I understand it, Artorian balls start with a free dancing phase where anybody may dance with anybody; however, for the first song, I wish for pairs. If you have a partner you wish to share a dance with, a dance where you may enjoy each other’s company as if you were the only ones in the world. If you have a loved one, I believe this will be a song you will enjoy.”

Husbands and wives and fiancees immediately understood what I meant, grabbing each other’s hands as they moved to the middle of the dance floor. The young men and women who didn’t have an exact partner grumbled a bit at what was happening but were forced to move away from the middle. Some looked around to find a partner, but most were unsure if they were supposed to ask a random dance partner or not.

In their hesitation, it was already decided. Those who understood what I said acted immediately. As such, my music began. I had not started singing yet but the pairs were already dancing, guessing the mood correctly.

I looked around. I noticed some familiar faces. Count and Countess Helvas. Marquess and marchioness Sirius. Duke and Duchess Greenveil. Duchess and Duke Morgiana. As I continued, more familiar faces came.

Antonio?

Antonio, Severa’s brother, a hippogryph knight, and potentially Cernust’s brother-in-law, was dancing on the dance floor with his partner, though I couldn’t see the aforementioned Cernust and Severa anywhere. When I was worried something happened to them, Antonio noticed me and shook his head and nodded with a smile. His eyes then drew me over to the crowd, where Severa was stranding with a wry smile, showing me a ring with a verdant green scale.

‘Dragons give their scales to those they trust,’ I probably have to ask them about it later on, but I guess this was good news? Nice job, Cernust!

There were also a few other faces that I personally didn’t want to see. These were the Chezaic twins. During the Davison accident, I was one of the reasons why their parents were executed for conspiring with that mad alchemist. They were sent to their relatives in Equevanna, but from the look they gave me, I don’t think they could forgive me. I mean, I understood them. If I were in their position, I would not forgive myself either.

They went away… Focus on the song, Hestia. You are an idol!

“Listen to the winds of the night, the tranquility of the shining, bright moonlight ♫

I am here to see the waxing and waning of the four seasons throughout the year ♫

You are here for me, dancing linked with the rhythm of our hearts ♫”

Slow and steady. “My Light’s Blessing” was not a waltz song as I wrote it as a ballad for my concerts, but I thought that, if I suppressed the intensity of my voice and focused on singing it calmly without raising my voice too much, I could turn it into something people could dance together with.

“At this moment now, we are the focus of our small world ♫

Hold me tightly, my love, your warmth calms me so, let this last for eternity ♫

I feel the heaven’s eyes on us, for you are my light’s blessing ♫

Let us forget reality for this small moment of silence under the moon ♫”

The chorus of the song was something I intended to raise my voice to a soprano, the highest singing voice a female voice can perform, to show off how high I could go. It was to impress people, perfect for a concert. However, this was a dance, a slow dance even. I had to adapt the song and keep my voice in the middle, a mezzo-soprano.

I couldn’t help my smile once I opened my eyes during the end of this chorus to lead into the second verse. The pairs were dancing slowly together, staring into each other’s eyes or embracing each other. The spectators were enthralled by the dancing and music, some even complained they wanted to join mid-way.

The piano music and my singing continued to fill the room until my first song was over. Clapping, no cheering or whistling, just clapping and the appreciation for the artist. It reminded me of how the audience would show their respect to the music my father conducted. It motivated me to continue.

As it would be boring to only perform slow songs, I changed to more happy ballads for the next few songs, mentioning people may dance with anybody they wanted. The noblewomen clamored to acquire the hand of the most attractive men while some noblemen asked their partner in a most gentlemanly way. Regardless, this was where partners were exchanged amongst each other.

Amid my singing, I also noticed Ellaine and Jonathan enjoying some dances with their partners. They were nobles, I know, so this was just making connections but I was glad to see them having fun. As the night continued and my songs dwindled until I had nothing left, my performance had to stop.

“Thank you very much, Lady Hestia! A fine musical showing from Loatryx!”

“Wonderful music, My Lady! Would you be willing to share a dance with us now?”

I curtsied to the applause, accepting all the claps for myself. This was the moment where I had to hand the stage back to the music crew, but I still had one final announcement.

“Thank you everybody for your warm welcome. It was a great honor to perform here today before such an impeccable audience!” I said through my [Aerokinesis]. “However, before I leave, I would like to inform everybody of something…” As I pause, a halo of white flames appeared above my head after I silently cast [Halo of Consecration]. “I am Hestia Atsuko, a priestess of the Goddess and blessed to be her first Idol.”

Another bomb. I was sure if the nobles of Artorias received another bomb tonight, some of them would probably have heart attacks. While they had only just enjoyed my singing, they were now questioning what an idol was and why I called myself “blessed by the Goddess.” But all these questions were about to be answered the moment Eshe stood next to me at the stage.

“I can confirm this, lords and ladies of Artorias, for the reason why I have come to Artorias was due to a message from the Goddess herself. She had ordered me to greet her newest blessed, Lady Hestia,” Eshe stated with a warm smile to everybody, vouching for me.

“The saintess’s words are true, my vassals,” King Drangleic spoke up for me. “I have already confirmed the authenticity of Lady Hestia’s words. She has a blessing bequeathed to her by the Goddess of Light.”

The saintess and their king spoke up for me, confirming my words. As if a switch was flipped, everybody’s opinion of me was turned around. They were finding excuses upon excuses to understand the situation in their own ways. Many understood the reason why I performed today wasn’t ’cause I was a Loatryx noble, but ’cause I was an idol.

However, there were a few people who seemed annoyed, but that was something Theodore had already informed me. Amongst the crowd were also a few priests. Similar to Theodore who attended the ball today, white-robed priests may not inherit any land or titles, but they could still be part of noble society if they wanted. These people were not informed about this, and it seemed many of them didn’t take this information too well.

Now, why did I present myself as an idol? Well, obviously, it was to distract people from the idea that I was a champion of Aurena. A champion was somebody who performed Divine Quests for their gods, so the demonkin would probably become wary if they knew me as a champion. However, the first-ever idol was born on Peolynca. They probably couldn’t understand the concept of an idol immediately and would probably think of it as another variation of a saint.

“If you wish to understand what an idol is, then please think of my performance today. In addition, if you truly wish to understand what an idol does, then I would like to invite all of you to my concert on the sixth of SpringBloom, to celebrate the founding of Artorias, in the lower city’s merchant district,” I informed everybody. “However, I would also like to show my appreciation for everybody’s hospitality, as such, my adventuring party shall sell everybody attending the concert yeast-leavened bread and pastries!”

“What!” The numerous nobles did not shout this; in fact, it was only Duke Greenveil. He looked over to Count Helvas, who could only bow his head and show him a wry smile. The rest of the guests were of course flabbergasted, as they just heard the “luxurious” yeast was being sold.

I snapped my fingers, signaling Saori and Tasianna at the banquet table to reveal trays full of donuts, cake, muffins, and other yeast treats to the audience. “I would like everybody to try them, although I would ask everybody to remain fair and not hoard everything for yourselves. It took my handful of retainers much sweat and effort to make the yeast and bake everything. As such, I must apologize for my inability to make more in such a short time.”

“Make them feel bad about it, that way, nobody is allowed to complain,” Count Helvas told me when I presented them. Nobles were greedy, especially Greenveil nobles who were gourmets. Yeast-baked goods being shared freely would be an instant success, so to prevent people from taking too much, I had to make sure everybody understood how hard it was to make. Yeast was still considered a luxury, so people would consider me as a very caring person as such.

“If you enjoy the treats today, then please, I will sell more on the sixth. In addition, through my retainer, Ellaine Fiero Helvas, I have made an agreement with her family House Helvas and House Greenveil to produce yeast within Artorian borders. Loatryx wishes to share our wealth under my name, Hestia Atsuko. As an idol of Aurena, this is another duty of mine.”

Clappings erupted once again in the audience. I have successfully stolen everybody’s focus.

213 humans and beastmen have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total follower of [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 654

Build up, build up, build up, ready the nuke… and drop another bomb! I need 2500 followers for the next milestone but with how much I’ve been promoting myself through the restaurant and now here, I will reach it!

Of course, not everybody was super thrilled about this. Duke Greenveil, for example, was flanked by a devilishly smirking Saori and a wryly smiling Count Helvas, both pushing the Duke into speaking about their deal together. Saori made the Sarlenzia company want our fulinoe leaves even more, and now we will force the Duke to need our yeast recipe even more.

Smart choice to not share the recipe, just that we will have them work with us to spread the yeast. Jeez, so devilish.

As I left the stage, people were obviously trying to speak to me now, but I told them to give me some space to drink water after all the singing. Krymdar then came over to me, asking me with a smirk why I decided to share the yeast around, something the elves used to spread to Artorias.

“This is not your yeast, Sir Krymdar~” I said, causing Krymdar to grow even more curious but he did not pursue it more. He kneeled once again before leaving the ball entirely. As I wondered if I was being a bit too bratty somebody else came over to speak with me.

And this was somebody the nobles around me did not appreciate.

“Greetings, Lady Idol, may the Goddess’s light shine upon you. My name is Pestrodus von Spitzwald. I am a Judge of the Lycerpth, the international police force of the empire of humans. I would like to speak with you.”

… Why have I only gotten in trouble with the law since I came over to Griffonpeak?

A note from AbyssRaven

The quickest way to a person's heart is through song, food, and maybe a cute girl. I think.

Today's song comes from "Ai no Chiisana uta" from Moona Hoshinova: Rawr

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Chapter 205: Drama is the Spice of Life.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Imagine an idol getting arrested right after performing at a concert. Embarrassing…

Pestrodus von Spitzwald, man of the Folschreck Empire and one of the representatives Eshe spoke about before. He had a lean, muscular body hidden behind a military outfit decorated with medals and an emblem of a gavel with an eye. He had a long, brown beard trimmed to have a french mustache and he wore a monocle, from which I could feel some magical capabilities. My guess, the monocle had an enchantment of some kind on it.

Calling himself a judge of the Lycerepth, this man was staring at me menacingly.

“Lady Hestia Atsuko, is that your full name?” After asking me to follow him into the balcony behind the dining room, which overlooked the courtyard of the palace, and checking to make sure that no other servants or nobles were around, Pestrodus began to speak with me.

“…” I stayed silent, thinking of what to say. I looked into the dining room, trying to see if any of my friends were there. Saori was nowhere to be seen, having probably dragged Duke Greenveil into a separate room to negotiate the yeast contract with him. Ellaine probably had to follow them since House Helvas was involved in this deal as our main contractor. Tasianna was most likely inside the kitchen with the chefs and servants, as I asked her to make sure our pastries would be served to the nobles as an advertising tool.

This man caught me when nobody from my party was around. Thankfully, once he saw Pestrodus approach me, King Drangleic sent a few servants to follow us. They were waiting inside the room, watching us intently through the windows like watchdogs. I could also see Duchess Morgiana and her family glaring at Pestrodus from their tables, as if they were ready for a fight the moment he tried to do something.

When I turned back to Pestrodus, his eyes were still looking at me, showing no signs of unrest. His wrinkles made me think he was in his late thirties. “No, that is not my full name, but I will not tell you the rest of it, if you are here to ask about it. The identity of our clan, and by extension our draconic lineage, is related to a dragonewt’s last name, Lord Pestrodus.”

“Just Pestrodus is fine.” The man’s thick accent became more noticeable when he spoke his name, making me realize he pronounced his name “Pierstruudus.” “Alright, then I would like to know if you have any knowledge of the Lycerepth before I begin.”

About the Lycerepth, I knew that they were a police order created by the Folschreck Empire to seek out and expunge threats within itself, which usually involved coup d’etats or rebellions. According to Eshe, the lycerepthors, the agents, usually traveled around the empire’s lands and visited its vassals to maintain peace and order. Guarded by the Lycerepth’s own knight order, the Lycerittern, these order agents would wander anywhere needing “justice” and “righteousness.”

“And you, sir, are a Lycerepth judge, correct? Something similar to a commander within your order, right?” I asked after telling him what Eshe told about me about his order.

“Correct. I am judge, jury, and executioner; this is a most prestigious right given by the holy emperor to all agents worthy in spirit and strength to uphold the empire’s laws. In addition, we are also responsible in aiding the church of the Goddess, for that is every empire citizen’s duty,” he explained, stroking his beard and looking satisfied with himself.

‘The demonkins have infiltrated not only the church but also the empire.’ Aurena’s words entered my mind once again. Eshe, although from the Empire, was on Aurena’s side as one of her saintesses who already knew about me through the latter. However, Maverina and Pestrodus were different, there was no guarantee I could trust them.

As I was unsure how to feel about this, I kept my silence and Pestrodus took it as a sign of my wariness. “First, I would like to congratulate you for your blessing as a fellow ardent follower of the Goddess of Light. We can never have enough brave men and women doing work in the Goddess’s name. Still, I must ask your reason for not divulging this grandiose information to the local cathedral. The cardinal’s and the priest’s expressions were enough for me to believe you hadn’t informed anybody.”

I probably shouldn’t mention that Theodore is aware of my secret. The High Bishop can probably think of some excuse if I make sure not to implicate him.

“I wasn’t aware I had to inform anybody about it. All I am aware of is that the Goddess had given me the divine honor to serve her. As such, Saintess Eshe is fully aware of my role and goals. The Goddess sent her to help and educate me, so I placed my trust in her. Why are you being so inquisitive after she vouched for me?” I tilted my head a bit, looking up at the tall man.

He raised an eyebrow at my question. “That is my profession, Lady Hestia. I am still an agent because I ask questions. If I wasn’t continuously inquisitive I wouldn’t be standing before you, right now.”

… Ok, that was stupid of me to say. He’s literally an inquisitor.

“However, I do not wish to be rude, so I shall answer your question in turn. I do trust Lady Eshe and you are right, no laws or rules are forcing you to inform people; on the contrary, you just did it now. I have no complaints and applaud you for that magnificent performance, if I may add my own opinion,” Pestrodus said without a hint of a smile. “However, I must ask for your forgiveness, but trust should be rarely dispensed without reason. Especially if you are someone not part of the Empire, Lady Hestia.”

If I remember correctly, all the human kingdoms and countries on Altrust have either become vassal nations to the empire or joined it outright. It was still incredible to hear that the Folschreck Empire was able to achieve this momentous feat, considering no one on Earth managed to do it.

From the map Aurena showed me, the Empire’s land was humongous, controlling the entire eastern part of the continent except for the northeast. This was where the beastman alliance, Carmaniate, stood steadfast against the empire of man. War waged between these two factions in the north while in the south, the Empire fought the demonkins of Bole’Taria.

As such, if this guy doesn’t trust anybody “not part of the Empire,” then he meant he was extremely suspicious of non-humans.

He continued, saying, “Your patron god is Kargryxmor, a member of the Goddess’s pantheon, in addition, you are a… ‘idol?’ As such, I will currently believe you have nothing evil intended for our church, despite your rather lackluster conduct. However.” He raised his voice, putting more weight into his next words. “I am in Artorias not only to escort the saintess, but because I have heard some troubling news. Corruption, My Lady, hidden among white stones. I fear a kingdom’s loyalty is wavering. I sense the cesspool underneath this ‘city.’”

Pestrodus then adjusted his monocle, looking at the crowd of people inside the dining hall. “Sometimes the duty of the Lycerepth involves purging a once beautiful home. All for the glory of the Empire. All for the stability of the church.” He then turned back to me. “All so the Holy Emperor may keep mankind safe and prosperous.”

Somehow my body felt heavier and my mind became foggier for some reason. It wasn’t to the point it got annoying, but my parallel minds were telling me something definitely was trying to influence my mind at this point. With all my mind protection skills, it was hard for people to influence me, but it seemed I wasn’t completely immune.

Using my [Mana Eyes] for a moment, I noticed mana channeling around Pestrodus’s monocle, implying he was using it for something, although I wasn’t sure what. Well, good thing this skill also functioned as my [Identify].

Truth-Seeking Monocle

A catalyst used to amplify spells or skills applied through eye contact. The effects of the catalyst may only be activated by peering through the monocle’s glass.

Enchantments: [Truth-Seeker] [Coercion Effectiveness Increase]

… So it’s like a truth serum or something, just turned into a manatool?

The mana inside the monocle suddenly decreased significantly and the lethargic feeling from before disappeared. I assumed Pestrodus noticed his catalyst wasn’t working on me, deactivating it. During this entire process, his poker face did not break once. For sure, this man was not here to make friends.

The competitive side of me was telling me to retaliate but there was no need. The Empire per se was not my enemy.

Without getting provoked, I kept staring into his eyes. “An ‘Idol’ is a new blessing the Goddess herself innovated. I am the first, even among the other Origin Gods’ blessed. Would you like to hear what my duty is as an idol?”

He nodded. “I would. I admit, I crave this knowledge as a fellow Istari follower.”

“My duty is to bring people together through my songs,” I stated, causing Pestrodus’s stern face to break in confusion. Placing my hand on my chest, I smiled as I spoke truthfully from the bottom of my heart. “‘Music is the art of touching the souls of thousands to empower and heal them.’ That is my motto, Mister Pestrodus. There are many ways for people of different cultures to come together. Food, the pursuit of knowledge, money. However, for me, the best is music.”

I paused, taking a breath. “I have no idea what you are investigating me for, but know this, my most important goal is to become a truly respectful idol. I wish for people to smile, for their lives to be brightened as they look at me shining like a star on my stage. The Goddess asked me to bring people together with my singing, but all I wish for is an audience to listen to me.”

Even if only a single person could hear me, I couldn’t fail them for they are my audience. I closed my eyes, my goal is to win him over.

“As I stare into the sky, I wonder what happened that day ♫

It was bright, so bright, my dazzling dreams; It pains me, to think of them ♫

I sealed my tears, sadness into a mask, how could I be so blind to theirs ♫

Oh, by chance, I wish a second try, but now, that chance is gone. ♫

Instead, everything was changed ♫

I could have cast my past into flames ♫

But my memories remained, I couldn’t fail; their hopes for me, I will hold to my heart! ♫

Like a soaring star, I will fly ♫

Through this darkness, my light will never fade ♫

Even in the darkest hours, this smile will always stay ♫

This promise etched into my eternal soul! ♫

As if reality can break my wings ♫

Defy all, keep your eyes on the prize ♫

For this single chance in life, I will stand tall and proud ♫

Let the world hear my voice! ♫”

[Music Resonation (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Snapping my eyes open, I smacked my chest once again. “I may be young, I may still make mistakes as a priestess of the church of the Goddess, but I am committed to my goal and my goal to serve the Goddess.” I pointed into the sky. “You are welcome to attend my concert on the sixth, Mister Pestrodus. Maybe my performance can get rid of some of that grimness around you~”

No follower message, huh? Guess I failed to win him over.

Pestrodus adjusted his monocle, his poker face restored. “My Lady, I did say I did not doubt your piousness, correct?”

Urgh! I guess he did say that… Argh, this hurts so much, soooo embarrassing!

Ignoring my reddening face, the Lycerepth Judge continued, “However, maybe I was a bit too harsh today. Pardon me, Lady Hestia. Have a nice rest of the evening.” And just like that, Pestrodus bowed and made his way back into the dining room, turning back as he opened the door. “I would ask you to not spend too much time with King Drangleic nor the seven dukes, Lady Hestia. I would ask you to leave human matters to us humans. The Folschreck Empire does not wish to anger the dragons nor the dragonewts, but we shall not capitulate without a fight, My Lady. Please, do not underestimate what we humans can do in the pursuit for power.”

… Say that once you meet daddy dearest and mommy mearest, Sir. Well, not like I want others to fight my own fights.

I honestly had no idea what Pestrodus was speaking about the whole corruption or kingdom losing loyalty part. What did he even mean about this “cesspool” underneath the city? I mean, there is a sewer in the lower city so it doesn’t stink up the place, but can you really call that a cesspool?

Once I entered the dining room again, a few nobles inside the room stared at Pestrodus and me, looking a bit anxious. Stuff like “Imagine questioning a blessed of the Goddess and one of our kingdom’s honored guests. Only a Judge would!” and “Imperial envoys just spit on everything His Majesty and the Dukes strive to do. Just leave your slaves in the Empire, don’t sully our streets with their filth.”

Slaves?

“Lady Hestia.” I turned around to a familiar voice. It was Eshe. “I saw Judge Pestrodus taking you outside to the balcony. I apologize for not being able to support you. I can only imagine what he wanted to discuss with you.”

If I remember correctly, Eshe was trying to come out to the dining room but her two knights stopped her. I don’t know for what reason but I had to agree with their decision. Eshe interjecting herself to the discussion probably wouldn’t have been beneficial since Pestrodus distrusted me as a person, not as a priestess.

“It’s alright. No harm done, really,” I said with a smile to calm her down. “Actually, I wanted to ask you about this. Does the Empire have slavery?”

“Slav-Uhm.” Eshe’s eyes shut close, twitching a bit as she kept quiet. Her reaction was enough for me to confirm the words of the gossiping nobles. “S-Sadly, I must confirm it. Yes, the Folschreck Empire does buy and sell slaves of any race, status, and… age.”

Artorias was a kingdom where slavery was forbidden by the crown, making it illegal for people to do business involving the slave trade or own them outright. It was a deviation from their predecessor, the Leosfalt Kingdom, as well as their southern neighbors, the Atadoro Kingdom. Apparently, the Empire wasn't shy about having slavery and it was practically normal for even a minor noble to possess one.

“If you don’t know about it yet, you may identify a slave by the blue runic tattoo somewhere on their body. The emblem of the slave’s owner will be engraved on their skin, locked behind a cage to signify they are an owned slave.” Eshe looked ashamed about it. I thought that, as a citizen of the Empire, she would be more forward with this sort of information, you know, cause it’s part of her home’s culture. I wouldn’t have judged her… harshly.

It was relieving to hear her so upset over the issue, to be honest, but I was questioning why she was having such a strong reaction.

“The Empire is supposed to be an ally of the church, that’s what you told me, Lady Eshe. From what I learned, Goddess Aurena doesn’t seem to be someone who would support slavery. The holy book might not condemn slavery per se, from what I read, but that doesn’t mean taking a person’s autonomy away is right,” I told her. I didn’t want to blame her for any of this but my moral compass couldn’t keep still.

“I couldn’t agree more, still…” As Eshe’s silence began to extend, I clapped my hands to interrupt her thoughts.

“It’s alright, sorry for making you feel uncomfortable. Uhm, I won’t be able to attend your lessons in the next two days, since I wish to wander around the festival, but I’ll come on the fourth. One last meeting before the concert to make sure everything goes right.” The concert on the sixth wasn’t sponsored by the church, it will be planned and paid for by Aurora and a few others.

As much as I wanted to say five people were enough to plan and keep the concert going, I couldn’t. We needed more staff. Thankfully, Count Helvas was willing to loan us most of his servants and attendants, as he owed us big time for a lot of things. Theodore and Eshe were there to help us with the decorations and promotion, since I was an “Idol of Aurena,” and giving it a more religious feel should help give the concert more clout.

The first step was done — getting nobles to be interested and attend the concert. The next steps will have to be done in the next three days.

After Eshe agreed to my idea, I excused myself, as I had to find Tasianna. When I left, Eshe did look less cheery than usual, but I guessed she was a bit perturbed with how I reacted to the slavery. As someone from the 20th century Earth, I was taught to think of salvery as morally black, and I still did.

Still, this was a discussion for another day. This was still a ball, a public event where keeping up appearances was important. Calling her out here would be inconsiderate of me, and it would be better to understand what Eshe’s stance was to slavery at a later date.

Urgh, mental note, don’t let one person anger you and then blow up at a good acquaintance.

Speaking about deals, I wanted to see how the deal was going so I went over to Marquess Sirius to ask him where Duke Greenveil, Count Helvas, Ellaine, and Saori went. After getting introduced to Marquess Westfalls, who along with Marquess Sirius acted as Duke Greenveil’s right and left hand men, the two marquesses called over a butler and told him to guide me to a specific room.

After walking through a hallway, my guide and I stopped when we noticed the people I was looking for. After greeting them, Saori gave me the gist of everything. Apparently, everything worked out in Count Helvas’s favor.

The fact we presented the yeast-made pastries in today’s ball caught the noble’s full attention as they stormed into the dining room. If I remember correctly, nobles were still crowding around the banquet tables when I left the ballroom. Even Marquess Sirus and his family had plates with slices of sponge cake or muffins. After announcing how Count Helvas and Duke Greenveil would be in charge of spreading it throughout the kingdom, the Duke had to cave in to some of the Count’s demands.

We agreed to share with Duke Greenveil and the Sarlenzia company’s president Newt the yeast recipe, but with the introduction of the pastry recipes I taught the Count’s chefs, the deal had to be changed a bit. You can sell dry yeast to nobles all you want, but the real gold mine is the sweets.

After my guide left us, Duke Greenveil spoke up, “With their dedication to progress, which all nobles must strive for, and the commitment to bettering our Kingdom, I, Duke Isaac Albreaus Greenveil, hereby shall honor Count Andre Orlean Helvas with the rank of Arcanuess. The official declaration shall be done on another date, but House Helvas has done enough to earn such an honor.”

Coun-, I mean, Arcanuess Helvas smiled as he continued, “In addition, our county shall be elevated to an arcanarch with our House’s new title. I was able to negotiate an increase in the size of my fief, as such, I plan to invest in the improvement of Carine village. The yeast production is currently being done in Firwood, but I wish to move everything to my fief once Lord Duke Greenveil is able to set up his facilities.”

“There is more, Lady Hestia,” Saori said with a grin. “I was able to keep the ownership of your pastry recipes, loaning them to these two fine men for a continued share. In addition, the honorable Duchess Greenveil and Arcaliess Helvas were enticed by the rice sweets. Soon, Artorias will sell mochi, dango, and rice cake! Splendid, isn’t it? We do not have to make them ourselves anymore!”

Artorias craved the softer bread and the pastries you could make from yeast, artificially turning it into a luxury product since Saelariel was the only provider of yeast for Artorias. For some reason, our yeast was made differently from the elves’, but they did the same job. We knew the donuts and other pastries would sell well — nobles love “exotic” food — but we weren’t sure about rice treats.

According to Grimnir, the Revolution Queen, Chihiro, shared Japanese rice sweets with the dwarves. Since it came from one of their most successful High Queens, the dwarves kept the recipes for these treats behind a locked door similar to any other craft. Meaning, Artorians knew about them, which we learned after Saori and I tried to make some mochi.

With super strength and speed, mochi making was super easy!

“The sweets were absolutely scrumptious, Madam Saori. Lady Hestia. Our husbands knew the value of yeast but they had never tasted any confections from the Ankor-Nazta before. It also didn’t help that they don’t have a sweet tooth. Right, Lady Theresa?” Marianne giggled slightly as she giggled with the woman on Saori’s right.

“Absolutely, dear, the samples were delectable. Such a fine addition to a tea party, especially if it can be made with our Duchy’s abundance of rice. Madam Saori, I cannot wait for you to teach our chefs about the recipes. We will make sure this business deal will be fruitful for you,” Theresa, Duke Greenveil’s wife, spoke highly of the taste sample Saori brought to the meeting. And then all three laughed in unison.

If you look at these three, you would probably believe all three were nobles and the best of friends. At that moment, Saori looked more like a noble than me, hehe.

From the back, I saw Jonathan speaking with the children of Duke Greenveil. He was reserved and shy when he spoke, due to the rank difference, but it seemed he was making friends. When I asked him where Ellaine was, as she wasn’t following the whole group, he told me she wanted to stay back with Duke Greenveil’s youngest daughter.

“My sister and Lady Amelia are—” Jonathan was about to say something before being interrupted by his mother.

“Jonathan, this is Ellaine’s and Lady Amelia’s business. Something they should sort out for themselves.”

Theresa nodded in agreement, ending the discussion. I was asked to follow them back into the ballroom but I decided to wait for Ellaine. I wouldn’t eavesdrop. From what the mothers were implying and how Duke Greenveil mentioned this “Amelia” when we first met, I guess there has to be some drama between her and Ellaine.

I waited in the hallway, letting the silence continue. Eventually, the sound of somebody quietly weeping came from further into the hallway. A girl with green hair and lilac highlights was walking alone, wiping the tears from her eyes. When she noticed me, she curtsied and walked over to me.

“L-Lady Hestia, correct?” She stuttered a bit, having not fully suppressed her tears. “I am Amelia Olive Greenveil, youngest daughter of Duke Greenveil and his second wife. I have heard from father and grandfather that you are the reason for most of our Duchy’s recent blessings. For that, I thank you very much as the heir of the Sarlenzia trading company.”

Huh?

“Wait, you are the heir? Then, does that mean—”

“Yes, Newt Sarlenzia is my grandfather. In addition, I am also the purveyor of the sweets company ‘Olive’s Garden’ which my father has made the primary shop to distribute your wonderful pastries and rice sweets, Lady Hestia. I was blown away by them. Even the recent fulinoe supply has seemingly made my grandfather look younger and more energetic. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.”

That explains the “heir” part but I was also quite interested in what Duke Greenveil said before, mentioning how this girl wanted to speak with Ellaine about something. That was when my parallel minds reminded me that Newt was a commoner, and if that was the case then Amelia’s mother had to be a commoner too, I think. Which begged the question — where was this second wife?

…

But I didn’t let my curiosity get me. I didn’t see a second woman walking next to Duke Greenveil. There were myriads of questions. Something like commoners not being allowed to attend the ball would already be enough to make things awkward. Whatever the reason was, I didn’t want to feel inconsiderate twice on a single night.

Amelia continued before I could respond. “Uhm, Ellaine is still back there. I- … I wish you—” Amelia stopped once again, pausing as she bit her lips. Looking into her reluctant eyes I could see anger and envy.

“I hope Ellaine will be a better friend to you.” And with that, she left.

…

I walked silently through the hallway, only increasing my speed once I heard somebody crying. There, Ellaine was slumped on the ground, leaning on the wall as she allowed herself to cry her eyes red. Without another word, I embraced her, stroking the back of her head to soothe her.

I didn’t care about the ball anymore. My friend needed me.

In the silence of the hallway, Ellaine eventually explained the situation to me. Amelia and Ellaine were childhood friends, who first met during a tea party. As I guessed, Amelia’s mother was a commoner who married into the Duke’s house, as he wanted the Sarlenzia company to be part of his household. It was a business marriage at first, until Amelia’s mother died during childbirth.

A heart attack. Amelia’s mother was known to have a feeble body, something her daughter inherited, so Duke Greenveil made sure she had the best medical care. The priests managed to prevent it with healing magic and potions, but Amelia’s mother still died due to her weak body. When all of it failed right before his eyes, Duke Greenveil swore to honor his wife’s last words — to keep their daughter safe at all cost.

In noble society, a child born from a noble and commoner was placed under harsher scrutiny due to their “impure” blood. Duke Greenveil made sure Amelia bonded well with Theresa’s children, but she needed allies outside her house, so the duke arranged for a tea party to expose his daughter to other noble girls her age. Ellaine attended this party, as her father understood the political value of having an ally within a ducal house.

At first, they didn’t get along too well, as Amelia knew all the girls attending her party were there for father, not her. Strangely, they eventually bonded when they randomly met in Griffonpeak’s merchant district. It was a tantrum, Amelia ran away from her guards when she had visited her grandfather. Ellaine noticed Amelia running alone, remembering her hair, and ran after her.

“My brother was furious when he noticed I left him,” Ellaine admitted. “As much as everybody wanted to say that the merchant district was secure and safe for nobles to wander, sometimes a few rogues do appear. Kidnappers. ‘If you can abduct a noble and ransom them without getting caught, you will be well off,’ is apparently a common saying amongst certain types. Father explained that to me after I rescued Lady Amelia from one of them.”

Lost and alone, Amelia was perfect prey for any shady person who wanted a quick payday. Noticing how she was threatened by one, Ellaine somehow found the courage by imagining herself as her father and brother. Of the knights flying in the sky. Instead of shouting for help, Ellaine threw a rock at the kidnapper’s head and shot a wind spell to trip him. Quickly she swooped in and they both escaped.

“We were good friends, after that day. We would spend so much time together after the academy, studying and talking about this business she planned to do. Our relationship began with a glimmer of bravery from me… and it ended when I allowed myself to be a coward.” Ellaine’s expression contorted once again.

After willingly giving up her inheritance rights, believing her brother was just plain out superior to her, Ellaine lost a lot of her former friends and retainers. Believing she shouldn’t plague her best friend with her mistake, Ellaine “selfishly drifted away” from Amelia. Amelia, who did not have a single real friend except for Ellaine, felt betrayed.

Amelia just now admitted she did not understand what Ellaine was feeling and why she left her. But the damage was done, Amelia only understood her best friend had left without a single reason, and it got even worse when she learned Ellaine had joined Aurora. To her, their friendship had died, but she still had to keep a professional relationship with Ellaine due to their families.

… I didn’t say anything about it. I didn’t judge nor did I give any advice, for I knew for myself now how terrible of a friend I was on Earth, if my memories are to be believed. I swore to become a better one as “Hestia,” but I still didn’t know what to say in this situation. All I knew was that I wanted to stay with Ellaine until she felt better.

Time passed with us sympathizing with each other with the friendships we made prior to our meeting. I mean, Saori and Tasianna were amazing friends but I had that emotional moment where I wanted to push them away due to [Battle Frenzy]. I still felt ashamed ’cause of that. It was good that [Battle Frenzy] hadn’t caused any more trouble since.

When Saori and Tasianna came over, looking for us, they informed us that the ball was closing. The nobles were returning home and Duchess Morgiana was calling for me.

Surgery time.

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Chapter 206: On Wings of Crimson.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Hmmm, these are certainly the wings of a dragonewt. They are incredibly wide but you still can’t use them to fly, Lady Hestia?”

“Unfortunately, no. I can glide with them without issue, but my problem is maintaining a continuous flight. I can't stop myself from descending,” I explained, demonstrating my wing flaps to Thyra. “The muscles in my wings haven’t fully developed yet, and, like a dragon, I need stronger muscles to produce enough lift to stay afloat. By using mana, I can obviously strengthen my muscles to increase my wing beat. I tried it before I injured my mana paths. Sadly, this limitation also applies in both of my forms.”

After the ball ended, Duchess Morgiana had invited Saori, Tasianna, Ellaine, and me to come to her mansion in Griffonpeak. My surgery was to be done underneath the mansion, in its basement. After changing out of my dress into a custom-made hospital gown to accommodate my wings, Thyra began looking at them with the curiosity of a scientist.

After asking me for permission, she began touching the webbing, spikes, scales, and even felt my wing’s musculature. When she touched my back, she began commenting as if she could see my mana paths. When I questioned her about it, she pointed at her elven heritage.

“My family’s ears and extended lifespan aren’t the only things we’ve inherited from our elven ancestors. It isn’t as effective as an actual elf’s, but our eyes are more attuned to the mana of the world than humans.”

Thyra then went silent before posing a question to me. “Do you remember how my mother told you that she, my siblings, and I were humans?” I nodded to Thyra’s question. “Well, that was a lie. According to the Divine System, we are still half-elves but, due to my ancestors’ mistake during the War for the Faefolk where they decided to stay neutral during the whole war, the Saelari sealed our racial skills. We are, in a way, only humans now.”

I slowly turned my head around after hearing that, baffled that this was House Morgiana’s punishment for not supporting the elves in the past. Before I could ask her about it, Tasianna spoke up. “Your eyes, I noticed this during the ball, but the lines on your eyes mark the seal, correct? I know the elves’ ‘old sorceries’ also involved using seals as well as working with elementals.”

Tasianna reminded me of how most mages had to use elementals to cast spells before the introduction of the Divine System. This “old sorcery,” as the elves liked to call it, was the most common method to cast magic. Another method Tasianna knew of was seals, a precursor of today’s catalysts and enchantments.

While elementals helped the magician mold their mana into the former’s respective element and morph it into a spell, a seal was like a “save data” of a spell. After inscribing the seal on something, magicians of old would carry them around as a quick backup spell, from which they could shoot spells out by simply pouring their mana into it. In a way, it sounded a bit like runic tattoos.

“I can show you an example, Lady Hestia.” Thyra stated after noticing my confusion at how it worked. She went out of the room and came back a moment later with a book and parchment in hand. “They’re redundant in today’s time due to our advancement in enchantments, catalysts, and runes, but you still see non-mage adventurers buy them from the mage’s guild from time to time, just to have some magic attack options.”

The first thing she showed Saori and me was the scroll, unfurling it to reveal a blue magic circle. Tasianna instantly recognized it. “It’s [Aqua Prison],” she said, to which Thyra nodded. She then poured her mana into the scroll and demonstrated the seal being activated and casting the water spell. After using it, the seal on the scroll disappeared.

Ahhhhh, they’re magic scrolls!

“One time used only, that is why these ‘magic scrolls’ are a good side income source for less talented mages. You can cast spells faster without needing to be trained, so non-mages love buying them, and us mages can set the price high,” Thrya explained before opening a grimoire full of these seals. “If a mage brought a grimoire with them, it most likely isn’t a magic book but a book full of seals, even though it’s generally frowned upon by trained mages or sorcerers nowadays. Casting faster and more often through your own abilities is the mark of a powerful mage, rather than having the dedication to inscribe seals on hundreds of pages.”

“Then what does Tasianna mean with the seal in your eyes? Is that really a seal? Unlike the scrolls and the grimoire, yours are just two thick blue lines on each eye,” I commented, looking deeper into the girl’s green eyes.

“The scrolls work by sealing a spell in stasis, and adding mana to this particular kind of seal actually causes the seal to break and release the spell.,” Tasianna mentioned, reminding me what Thyra said in the beginning.

Thyra nodded. “A skill-restriction seal based on your blood, aimed at the racial skills given to us by our elven ancestry. Elves are probably the humanoid race with the best magical potential, something their racial abilities and higher magic growth support. Instead of making my House go extinct, our punishment for not siding with the elves during the war was this seal. We still have our extended lifespan and higher magical potential as half-elves but, honestly, it’s as if we used [Elvenize], hiehie,” she giggled before giving a sigh and showing a frown.

[Humanize], [Elvenize], and other similar skills did not grant the user any of the racial skills associated with the race they transform into. Your stats and abilities adapted to your new form, that was why my stats had to be halved in my dragonewt form and I was unable to use my draconic abilities while in human form. Tasianna, for example, didn’t have any elven racial skills but her physical stats were increased as an elven body was physically stronger than her original, fairy form.

When I looked at Thyra with sympathy, she waved her hand as if it didn’t bother her. “It’s not that terrible, Lady Hestia. Better than never being born, right? It’s a bit unfair that I have to apply this seal on my children’s eyes one day, but, well, the idiocy of my ancestors, right?” She showed a strained smile before telling me it was time.

Inside the room, Thyra opened up another door and asked me to go in while Tasianna should leave through the door she used to get the grimoire. Walking through this sparsely decorated fairnite hallway, I ended up at another door and opened it.

What was behind it was a room with a single operating table in it. There wasn't any machinery in there like in a modern-day surgery room, but instead, it gave off that fantasy physician feel with all the books and the alchemy table filled with potions. A set of tools was placed neatly on a clean table and the room was dark except for a single large, adjustable lamp.

“Lady Hestia, come in, please.” Standing next to the alchemic table was a woman in scrubs, pouring some liquid into a potion bottle before closing it. It was the Duchess. “Here you go. Please, drink it.”

“What is this?” I asked, looking at the bottle of broccoli-colored liquid she gave me.

“A potion of herculean pain tolerance,” Duchess Morgiana answered. “During the surgery, measures have to be made to prevent a patient’s natural regeneration from healing the cuts we make. In addition, the patient’s pain resistance has to be increased to ensure they won’t spasm and complicate the surgery. We use potions for that, especially for healing in case something goes wrong, but because of your skills, I had to make a special potion just for you.”

Potion of Herculean Pain Tolerance

A potion that grants after consumption full pain nullification and heightened defensive capabilities. Helps relax muscles during stress-free situations, enhancing resting effectiveness. Severely reduces natural regeneration or healing from skills

The Duchess mentioned my [Abnormal Status Nullification] being an issue for the surgery and made a potion to counter its effect. The potion was there to act like laughing gas, to numb my sense of pain, while also stopping my regeneration from healing the cuts made during my surgery.

Duchess Morgiana mentioned how difficult this potion was to brew, that a normal surgery required less expensive tonics. Since my passive skill [Abnormal Status Nullification] would prevent the individual effects of numbness and natural regeneration decrease, she had to make a potion which “buffed” me. This potion was made by the elves to find a loophole in the system.

“Mana surgery is primarily an elven craft. My House still has the books needed to continuously train more surgeons, so any mana surgeon you meet in Artorias will most likely have been trained by us.”

At my questioning, Duchess Morgiana confirmed that healing spells and health potions could override the regeneration reduction and that Saori, Tasianna, and Ellaine were watching my surgery through a large glass window. This was her way to show she didn’t have any malicious intent and wasn’t gonna dissect me after the potion turned me numb.

After Thyra entered the room in her scrubs, the mother and daughter duo told me to lay on the table after drinking the potions they’d laid out on the alchemy table. As they disinfected their hands, I shrugged and drank the potion. The disgusting medicinal taste was incredibly prominent and I felt the need to puke. After sticking my tongue out and showing a thumbs up to my friends staring from outside the room, I went to the operating table and laid down on my stomach.

While the Duchess gave Thyra a last-minute pep talk and instructions on how to lead the surgery, I started to feel the potion’s effects in full force.

[Potion of Herculean Pain Tolerance] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Gosh, I could go to sleep.

“Okay, Lady Hestia, are you ready? Has the potion settled in, yet?” Thyra asked, to which I attempted to say “yes,” but the numbness had already spread to my mouth. I said “desch” and Thyra nodded, satisfied.

The Duchess continued, “If you wish to stay awake during the whole operation then please nod, Lady Hestia.” I did as she said. “Alright. Usually, a surgery would require more pairs of hands than two. I had revealed your information to my husband and sons, but I assumed that you might have gained some new abilities in the time since we received your profile almost four months ago. The feats you have done have not gone unnoticed.”

“Sank suu—” I paused, annoyed at my inability to speak and turned on my [Telapathy]. [“Okay, this is annoying, I’ll communicate with you two through a telepathic link. Anyway, I wanted to say — thank you for being considerate, but I don’t think I’ve changed that much since WinterSun aside from a bunch of levels and spells. Speaking of change, could you look at this core before we start?”]

My inability to speak didn’t mean I couldn’t move at all. I felt lethargic and my muscles were definitely weaker than usual, but pushing myself up to flip myself over wasn’t too hard. The hard part was moving my wings.

Note to self, use [Tailwind] after getting laughing gassed.

Pulling the neckline of my gown down to reveal my solar core, both Duchess Morgiana and Thyra both look as if their eyes were about to pop out of their heads.

… Please, don’t dissect me.

“So, this is what your profile meant with [Solar Core], Lady Hestia? A large amount of mana is concentrated in this single area of your chest,” the Duchess said. Considering how much my sun core is responsible for my resource regeneration, it would have been weird if it wasn’t in the top two locations for my mana to congregate in.

I explained to them how I had little idea how my body worked from an anatomical level. I knew how to use my physical abilities, but I had no idea how my scale-dust was produced, for example. What was it made of? Even if I used [Mana Eyes] on my body parts, the answer was vague and didn’t give me much information.

I told the mother and daughter duo that I trusted them to keep this information to themselves, and that I wanted them to analyze it for me. I still remembered how Astalos was able to literally paralyze me for an extended time after he sent a thundershock around my chest. My being unable to continue fighting nearly cost Ellaine her life.

Now, I know it wasn’t 100% my fault, but being in that helpless state was embarrassing. Reflecting on fights is how I managed to survive up until now, and looking back on it, how much did I know about my body? I couldn’t exactly dissect myself in case I accidentally did something irreversible, so I wanted to ask professionals about it.

Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be getting this information today.

“Uhm, we should probably not do that, Lady Hestia,” Thyra said. “Our training books do have information on dragonewt biology, courtesy of the Saelari dissecting dragonewt corpses, but I have never seen anything like your sun core in any of those books. How about you, mother?”

Duchess Morgiana shook her head. “Sadly, I haven’t. It would be best to not risk this, Lady Hestia. We were confident in solving your problem because we know how the musculature and mana paths work around your wings. I do not know if I can solve your problem until I see it for myself.”

Tsk, damnit. Guess I just have to make do with just having my wings healed…

The surgery by itself went by smoothly. Although I knew they did it for themselves, I found it nice that they were commenting on everything they were doing. It was nice to know what they were doing with my body but it proved I have become far less squeamish than when I first started out. Obviously.

“Mother, there are more crystals here. They are restricting her muscles here and here,” Thyra said before a loud metal clanking sound echoed. She dropped something into the metal bowl.

I turned my head around, seeing Thyra wearing blue-shimmering glasses. She explained before that these glasses were there to help her and her mother identify the mana paths in my body. There was a monocle version, something I think Theodore possesses.

[“What are those crystals?”] I asked, as if I still felt casual enough to speak.

“Crystallization of mana, to put it simply. Mana apparently spilled out of the mana paths into your muscles and flesh, turning solid as they somehow have been trapped inside your body without a way out. Over time, the mana crystallized bits of your flesh, turning them into these small blue-red stones.” Thyra then picked another one from my back and showed it to me. It was minuscule, almost as big as a grain of sand grain. Blood or flesh was inside the blue outer layer of this object.

“These things were blocking your mana paths from connecting properly. Lady Hestia, have you maybe visited a mana surgeon before coming to us?” I shook my head to the Duchess’s question. “Peculiar. This is one of the risks of a failed surgery, usually. I can’t see this to have been done by a toxin, there are no traces. How did this happen to you, Lady Hestia?”

I explained to them my battle with the garm matriarch, about how I healed myself after she slashed my back with some poison attack. She mentioned I shouldn’t have healed myself after she attacked me, but listening to an opponent, especially while I was pumped up with adrenaline, just wasn’t an option.

“It’s hard to imagine the white grace being responsible for the damage,” Duchess Morgiana admitted.

[“I healed my wounds based on my knowledge of the human body, not my dragon body. Healing spells vastly increase the regeneration speed of your body through mana, it doesn’t turn your body back to zero. When I healed my body back then, I probably forgot to account for my wings.”]

“True. The church of the Goddess calls it a miracle, but the [Identify] description explains it better. Mother, I told you it was a good idea for me to learn holy magic, even if I had to spend two years of my life as a shrine maiden.”

Speaking of anatomy, I suddenly had a realization. [“I have a question. Why are there only ‘mana surgeons’ and not just normal surgeons? You know, people who heal your organ problems? Help you alleviate diseases. You mentioned that the elves have anatomy knowledge, so shouldn’t it be possible?”]

However, my innocent question caused both Thyra and the Duchess to pause for a moment and look over at me, confused and baffled. Did I say something wrong?

“Lady Hestia, you are the Goddess’s blessed, right? An ‘idol’ as you call it?” The Duchess questioned me with a frown. “The answer should be obvious — use healing spells or potions. The white grace is enough to heal most wounds and physical maladies.”

“The accelerated regeneration of a spell like [Major Heal] is incredible, something I have to admit when I saw the high bishops in Aureolis cast it. Mana paths are something you cannot heal with the white grace, making a mana surgeon a valuable profession for mages. The church of the Goddess and alchemists heal your bodily ailments while a surgeon makes sure you can perform as a mage.”

My mindset was completely out of tune with theirs. While I understood the good a doctor or surgeon could do for a magic-less world like Earth, I forgot how ingrained the idea of magical healing was on Peolynca.

Peolyncians had potions that could bring them back from the brink of death and healing magic able to regrow damaged organs. They didn’t need to rest for months to heal a broken limb since you could pay a priest to do it in minutes. They didn’t need an organ transplant if an organ can be healed back to normal. And then there is the Divine System, a game-like feature able to significantly increase a person’s endurance.

If I looked at it from that perspective, Peolynca didn’t need any “normal” surgeons. Considering how difficult organ transplants are, just using healing magic seemed so much easier. Then again, I wasn’t a surgeon. I had little knowledge of medicine, so even if I wanted to speak back, I couldn’t form good enough arguments for it.

Well, at least I asked.

As time passed and the clanking of metal became less frequent, my back felt lighter and lighter, as if something burdening me was finally pulled out. When Thyra told me they were finished and that I could use spells to heal myself, I activated [White Flames] and allowed the fire to heal my back.

The moment I closed the cut, a surge of power exploded around my body.

Woah! Arrrgh! My wings!

The mana inside my body was rushing around my body at an exhilarating rate. The numbness was slowly disappearing, replaced by an euphoria of power. My groaning caused Thyra and Duchess Morgiana to worry about me, but I simply told them, “I’m fine.” Still in my gown, I struggled to get off the operating table from the numbness before I began empowering my muscles with mana, enabling me to move at a normal, although clumsy, pace.

I charged out of the room, causing Saori and the others to call out to me, but I ignored them and rushed up the stairs. Once I was outside the mansion, my body instinctively filled my wings and legs with the rampaging mana. I stretch my wings wide…

…and jumped.

“Wooooooah!!!”

Once in the air, the energy concentrated into my wings caused them to flap at a speed I never was able to achieve before. The wind was buffeting my face and streaming past me with every wing flap. The drunkenness caused by the potion was

“Yeaaaaah! Woooohooooo!” Under the light of the moon, I felt as if I was set free once again. Once I activated [Tailwind] and my scale-dust thrusters, I was doing barrel rolls and zigzags mid-air nonstop. The fresh air above the city further increased this incredible experience.

Acquisition requirement fulfilled. [Aerial Fighter Lv. 1] acquired

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 5] evolved into [Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 6]

“Thsis isch amazing!” My tongue was still numb but my excitement was real. Even my body knew how much I longed to be up here, flying like a normal dragon instead of my stranded on the ground like a drake. My thrusters were a great substitute, but nothing beat the feeling of flapping my wings.

Then again, it’s not like the thrusters have lost all their functions. To reach mach speed, I need my rocket boosters.

“A beautiful night, right, Lady Hestia?” In my excitement, I forwent the use of my [Detection Sensor], not noticing that a signal was right behind me. Snapping around with my guard up, my eyes widened when I saw who it was.

“King Drangleic?” It was Artorias’s king, flapping his feathery wings.

“For a night flight, I presume?” he smiled before turning around again. “This sight never tries me out. Peaceful. All under a radiant moonlight.”

I turned around, following his sight, and it was none other than the view of Griffonpeak from up in the sky. The moonlight shining down on Wintertalon and the royal family’s citadel. It was mesmerizing. I had already seen it when I first arrived but I didn’t have time to focus on it as I was more worried about Ellaine’s safety. How glad I was to witness this sight once again.

King Drangleic and I stayed afloat in silence, taking in the city’s beauty. Eventually, the silence was broken by the King himself. “Would you be so kind and erect an [Air Shield] around us, Lady Hestia? Chanting would take a bit longer if I did it, haha.”

Does he want to speak with me? I thought before preparing to cast the wind spell, but stopped and decided on something else. I cast [Unheilige Engel], deciding it would be better to use my newest space-time spell. “[Room].”

A grey magic circle appeared on one of the wings of [Unheilige Engel] before a bubble materialized on it. In only a few seconds, my vision was enveloped by this bubble and replaced with a white cube world. As King Drangleic looked bewildered at this new scenery, I took out two chairs and a table and placed them in front of us.

“This is a [Space-Time Magic] spell called [Room]. It creates a separate room outside of the normal world. I can change the size of the room however I want without affecting the real world. Nobody can enter this place without my permission, King Drangelic.” I smiled at him politely and sat down, prompting him to do the same.

“I applaud you for understanding what I meant.” He gestured his thanks with his hand before taking off his crown and putting it on the table. A king taking off his crown wasn’t something I expected, so I couldn’t help myself and look at him weirdly. “‘The weight of a crown is more than what a metal circlet suggests,’ is something my father used to tell me in preparation for my coronation. In my opinion, he should have probably told me how tight it is to wear it for a whole day.”

“Hehehe,” I gave him a giggle, imagining how red his head must be for wearing his feather crown all day. However, I then looked at him seriously; it would be stupid to think he wasn’t here as “King Drangleic” despite not wearing his crown.

Seeing me get serious, he nodded. “We have confirmed the information you gave us, Lady Hestia. While not every location yielded any substantial result, we were still able to find evidence of subterfuge. Plans to cause chaos within those duchies.”

He closed his eyes to pause before continuing, “Most of the perpetrators were foreigners, however, they were all commoners. These people attracted a following which resulted in various plans for rebellion or sabotage of local guilds and workshops. I can’t say what exactly they were intending, but Lord Ulquint believed they were trying to attract the attention of nobles, specifically, the fief lords.”

“How did he come to that conclusion?”

King Drangelic explained the issues ranged from terrible to irritating. In the Morgiana and Groushia duchies, if those problems had exploded before any intervention, they would have most likely affected the relationship of Artorias to their neighbors, the elves and dwarves respectively. With the nobles absent at the royal ball, the plans would have likely been successfully executed if it weren’t for the information I gave to him.

Greenveil had no issues but that was mostly ’cause I had to stop them myself. The Davison incident was comparable to what was happening in the Morgiana and Groushia dukedoms. The King managed to keep the issues a secret for now, but he was still contemplating if he should at least share this information with the respective factions.

In the other duchies, luckily, the problems weren’t as serious. In the Myrrdin duchy, the everyday workers were protesting against the mage’s guild, causing some serious animosity between the two sides. In Lecartiglio, beastmen were being kidnapped at a higher rate than usual, being sent to Atadoro to be sold as slaves. While criminal activities weren't uncommon, the amount of kidnapping had made the beastmen in Lecartiglio even more paranoid of any human they met.

In comparison, lesser problems occurred in the Equevanna and Olivus duchies. The information I gave of these areas was less reliable and provided only small issues. King Drangleic and his advisors showed their relief, but I was less impressed.

Aurena wouldn’t lie about this, would she? Still, why wasn’t more found there?

My thoughts were then interrupted by the King. “If this information came from the Goddess, then I cannot thank you enough for what you did for us. There is still more we need to do to exterminate the rats, but that is simply my duty to keep my kingdom safe and flourishing… Which brings me to the main reason why I wanted to speak with you, Lady Hestia.”

Here it is.

“Lady Hestia… I would like to ask for your help in repairing our relationship with our northern and western neighbours.”

I tilted my head when he said that, not expecting it.

“As you might have already learned from your stay in Greenveil, Artorias as a kingdom seeks to rekindle our diplomatic relationship with the elves of Saelariel and the dwarves of the Ankor-Nazta. The scars of wars have pervaded this kingdom for too long, and it has always been the mission of House Artorias to fix the mistakes of the Leosfalt Kingdom,” King Drangleic spoke. “There is something I wish to divulge with you — it is time for our kingdom to finally separate itself from the Empire.”

I narrowed my eyes, grimacing at the information I just heard. “… Why?” was all I could say as my head was still trying to make sense of what was happening.

“For simple reasons — House Artorias’s views do not coincide with the Empire’s any longer. Of my seven dukes, I have the full support of four who wish to break our vassalage with the Empire and reignite our alliance with our neighbouring races. From our diplomatic attempts, the dwarves will only accept our alliance if we distance ourselves from the Folschreck Empire, and, indirectly, abandon the Holy Capital.”

“Because the Folschreck Empire is the seat of the Holy Emperor, correct? If you break your vassalage, then it would mean rebellion, which will force the empire to act… correct? And if you go against the Holy Emperor, then you will also go against Aureolis.”

“Correct, I am surprised you were able to understand it this far. Count Helvas’s report assumed you were ‘politically inept.’”

Wow, thank you very much for calling me that, Count Helvas. I mean, ahem, Arcanuess Helvas.

“Pestrodus of the Lycerepth made me aware of what the Empire would do to rebels. Also, it now makes me understand what he meant by a ‘kingdom’s waning loyalty.’ He knows, King Drangleic.” If this statement was correct, then Pestrodus’s other points might have some truth behind them. Then, was there something like a cesspool underneath this kingdom? What is Griffonpeak hiding beneath its white mountain.

“I see. Well, I had already planned for the Empire to interfere. Without an ally, it would be suicide to fight against the Empire at this state; that is why I have come here to ask for your help, Lady Hestia. I need your title of [Princess] to help me in my gambit!”

“… You want me to be your diplomat, right? To speak on your behalf to create this alliance you so dearly wish for?” I understood what the King wanted, but this was something I couldn’t accept. I was not a politician. “King Drangleic, first things first, I am not your subject. You know that. Second, it is true, I am not very versed in politics at all. I can’t go around and be your diplomat if I have no idea what to do.”

Yes, I know King Drangelic’s plan coincided with Aurena’s, but I couldn’t just accept his proposal out of principle. I was working for Aurena ’cause I owe her for giving me a second chance and since she had the ability to send me back to Earth for me to meet my parents one last time. However, considering King Drangleic was asking me to do something this momentous for him, what is he offering me for my effort?

I was an idol and an adventurer, not one of his nobles here.

“I understand you might be more averse to my plan, but that is why I have come here in person to tell you about it. Artorias cannot develop any further without breaking off from the Empire, that is something I believe in. With your support, even if you aren’t a direct diplomat, I believe it is possible for elvenkind and humankind to once again work together.”

King Drangleic then pushed himself up. He had come and said what he wanted to me. After dispelling [Room] and saying “good night” to him, I heaved a deep sigh, annoyed at everything that was happening around me. I then looked in the direction Ellaine called “the red-light district.”

If there is a place to understand this ‘cesspool,’ then it has to be there. Maybe it’s time for Aurora to do some investigations again. And the best place for that would be the hunter’s guild.

But that was an issue for later. For now, I should be more concerned about myself.

My wings are fixed but I still have no idea about my core. I need to find a better way to protect it. Still, heads up, Hestia, we have a concert to perform at. And I still need to help Ellaine and Tasianna with their training too.

I headed back to the Morgianas’ mansion, saying my thanks to them for all I did. Once that was done, Saori, Tasianna, Ellaine, and I went back to House Helvas’s home. There, we checked in on Grimnir who still had the lights on in the RV. Checking in, we were greeted by a big smile.

“Lass, get your tailed ass in here already! We have a wagon to expand!”

Grimnir came out and closed the door before opening it up again. When we went inside, all we could see was an empty wooden room. Smiling, I poured mana into the wall, and it expanded with my control.

“I guess we need to decorate the inside again.”

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 207: The [Room].

A note from AbyssRaven

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“I swear on my horns, making these runes was a real chore. I don’t know if it’s ‘cause of the fact this is a space-time spell or ‘cause [Room] is just hard to turn into a magic rune, but this was a real bladdarg job, ha! Still, it’s nothing a true runesmith can’t do. Here.” Showing me one of his proudest smiles, Grimnir tossed two metal objects at me. When I caught them, the weight of them surprised me.

After walking out of the RV again, Grimnir turned around and once again opened the door to reveal his smithy; the wooden room from before was gone. He then picked up those metal objects from the bottom of the walls. Now with them in my hands, I inspected them.

The objects had cylinder-like tops with a hexagon bottom, perfectly fitting into the slots Grimnir took them out from. A grey rune was on the top of it, shining small letters. When I asked Grimnir about them, he explained those were dwarven words. As runes took inspiration from magic circles, which have their chants inscribed onto them, this should not have come as a surprise to me like it did.

“I made them extra durable. Best ingots I could find from our stockpile and I fused them with your shed carapace, lass. Unlike runic tattoos, a scratch or crack won’t destroy the rune, but if a piece were to break apart, it’s gone.” Grimnir then took the objects back and showed me what resembled a number on the runes. “Similar to the runes on Ellaine’s whipsword, these runes are connected with each other. You just need to activate two of these runes to activate the [Room] spell.”

“So that really is Lady Hestia’s [Room]. Amazing,” Tasianna expressed her admiration. “[Room] should work differently from [Storage Magic], correct? Time won’t stop if we enter it?”

I nodded to her question. “[Room], just like [Storage Magic], creates a subspace where items can be placed inside, however, as you suspect, the spell doesn’t exactly stop time outside of this bubble. Time moves normally inside it, it’s just that we can’t perceive it well since sunlight can’t enter it. From testing it myself, [Room] apparently creates a breathable and liveable space as I was able to stay inside it from lunchtime until dinner.”

“You are also the only one who can allow others to enter it, correct, Hestia?” I confirmed Saori’s assumption. “Grimnir, does the rune version work the same way?”

“Aye, that it does, Saori. [Magic Runes] are created by imprinting a magic circle during the inscribing phase, where I draw the rune with the liquid iron. This action makes sure the spells will activate once you pour your mana into them.” Grimnir then placed the metal objects back into their slots and picked up another one from his workbench and handed it over to me. “Well, all three of them were made with the lass’s help, so she would know best. You remember what I told you?”

“Yeah,” I nodded, remembering my discussion with Grimnir after he showed us how runecrafting worked. After I suggested the idea of turning the inside of our RV into a [Room] to add some space, he decided it would be better if we turned the spell into a rune for better safekeeping and to move our “mobile base” around.

I turned around to face Saori, Tasianna, and Ellaine. All three were still in their ball dresses but they had the look of curious adventurers. “We made three runes, each made using my blood as we had no idea how mana intensive [Room] would be. Each rune is connected to the others and marked with a number. As Grimnir said, to access the [Room], two of the three runes must be active for the bubble to form and you will need my permission. Obviously, you guys, Grimnir, and the garms have full access even if I’m not around.”

“Woof!” A bark suddenly came from Saori’s shadow. Considering how the garms got used to staying outside and Saori had been keeping them inside her shadow for the entire evening, she reluctantly gave them the okay to come out. “Woof!”

“You four are unbelievable,” Saori said with a smile, caressing her garms as if they were actual pets.

As if she didn’t want to be left out, Klea’Hatma spoke up, too, [“And, what about moi~?”]

“Yeeeees, of course, you have permission too, but only if Ellaine or anybody else from Aurora is carrying you in, Klea’Hatma. Otherwise, no.” Klea’Hatma gave a sour “boooooo” once she heard that, but I wouldn’t give somebody I didn’t trust access to our safe space. I still am aware of who she actually was.

Ignoring her pouting, I stuffed one of the runes into my storage before continuing the explanation. “Each rune holds the ‘save data’ of our [Room]. Even if two of the three were to be destroyed, the [Room] will stay intact in the last one and we can always recreate another rune to access the subspace. I’m keeping the third with me.”

Ellaine then raised her hand. “Why did you not make more? If Saori can keep another one, wouldn’t it be even safer? Also, would it be possible to open multiple access points with additional runes? For example, if we had four runes, couldn’t you open one here and Saori another one from the gates? Would we all enter the same space?”

I shrugged. “Grimnir and I thought of that possibility but we kept it at three for this initial testing. Grimnir’s time is precious since he is also responsible for your sword’s runes, his armor, and also the weapons he was planning for Saori and me. Considering he took two weeks for these three runes…”

“It’s hard work, that’s for sure. I think I can speed it up for additional ones, but I would rather spend time on other projects that can increase our overall strength instead of focusing on just this one thing. Without a proper armor set, I am only useful to our party as a craftsman. For now, let's furnish the subspace with these three.”

Everybody agreed. We could test Ellaine’s idea out another day, but for now, we had to get things sorted.

“One more thing, if all runes were to be destroyed, our items won’t be lost or something. The [Room] will simply disappear and all items we had inside it will just pop back into this reality. Imagine it as a bomb, just with a bunch of furniture.” I then activated the runes and we exited the RV once again. After I opened it up again, the empty wooden space was there once again, including the small changes I made to it.

“You can get into the subspace through the two doors leading into Grimnir’s smithy. If you aren’t somebody I gave permission to enter, you will only see an empty room, never noticing there was a subspace within it,” I stated after everybody entered the [Room].

“What if somebody were to take those runes, Hestia? Would that not be a problem? What happens if those runes were destroyed and we were still inside?” Saori worriedly questioned me, making everybody imagine that disaster scenario.

Thank you for asking, hehe.

Having waited for somebody to ask this unsettling question, the edges of my mouth jolted upwards, unnerving everybody at the sight of my bared fangs. “Thank you for asking, Saori. This was an issue Grimnir and I were worried about ourselves; as such, we devised a very easy solution for this. I shall make a [Room] to hold those [Room] runes! A [Room] within a [Room]! A [Room]ception, ahaha!”

The idea was to put the runes inside a [Room] cast. The fundamental difference between me casting a [Room] spell and Grimnir’s [Room] runes was their transportability and storage ability.

Normally, the spell version would just stick onto whatever surface I placed the magic circle on and stay there until I dispel it. Although, if you were to destroy its surface, it would disappear. While it was possible to transport it around if I placed the spell on a carriable object, it didn’t have the “save data” function of Grimnir’s runes.

Another issue with the spell version of [Room] was that the moment the spell disappeared, the room would be destroyed and the objects would reappear in the world. The “save data” solves this problem, giving the [Room] multiple “save files.” Only if all the runes were gone would the spell truly disappear for Grimnir’s method.

“That doesn’t explain what your idea does, Hestia,” Saori stated and I completely agreed. This was just an explanation of what the two methods did.

“[Room], whether in spell or rune form, is something only I can control. There are three layers — reality, [Room] spell, and [Room] rune. Within the later two layers, I can decide whether you can enter the first or second, or even outright forbid you from entering either of them altogether, leaving you in the first layer, reality,” I explained, trying my best to make this easy to understand. “In the first layer, I will cast [Room] and hide the magic circle somewhere hard to find. In the second layer, I will place the runes where our ‘mobile base’ will be, ensuring that you guys won’t be trapped inside the subspace when I’m not around. If I am, I can just allow you guys to come out, since it’s my spell.”

“Ahh, so that is why you are holding onto the third rune, Lady Hestia! In case something happens with the other two runes, you can use the third to rescue us.” Tasianna clapped her hands, understanding what I was saying. “And, if somebody were to find the spell version of [Room], it wouldn’t trap us inside the subspace but transport the two runes back to reality. Would you be able to notice if your spell would be destroyed, Lady Hestia?”

“Sadly, I can’t.” I shook my head. “[Room] doesn’t work with [Delayed Cast] or [Continuous Cast], since it’s permanently active even without me needing to spend mana on its upkeep. I can’t form a mana connection with it. But, I can do this.”

I then pointed everybody’s attention to the door we used to enter this [Room], highlighting it before pointing at the wall directly opposite of it. There, a door magically formed with the same appearance as the former. Finally, I then created two windows next to each door. With that, I began explaining how the entry and exit system of this subspace worked.

In essence, regardless of which door you leave through in the third layer, you may choose which layer you want to move to. You are also able to choose which door you want to exit from in the reality layer, which means, even if I made a hundred more doors in the third layer, each door allowed you to either exit the RV through Grimnir’s smithy or enter the RV into Saori’s kitchen.

And then we have the windows, my solution to Saori’s problem. As I said before, nothing enters the subspace without my permission, or the permission of somebody I entrust this responsibility to. As such, even sound, light, and air cannot enter the [Room] if I don’t give them the “ok.” For that reason, I made these windows. They would allow sound inside the room, giving everybody a warning in case the second layer was destroyed by an intruder.

“As the subspaces are created through the Divine System, you are still connected to it even within the subspace. However, you are technically separated from the reality layer while within it. Keep the windows open. I’ll give you guys permission to allow people inside, right now.”

System voice, change the name to ‘Aurora’s Mobile Base.’

[Room] name changed to [Aurora’s Mobile Base]

[Aurora’s Mobile Base] entry and restricted modification permission granted to Party [Aurora]

Hmm, wait, Klea’Hatma isn’t connected to the System. Ahh, so even if I wanted to grant her permission, I wouldn’t be able to. I thought it would be fine for now, but it seems like the Divine System has no intention to do so.

Saori’s garms were connected to her as she registered them to her tamer license through a Divine System Crystal, but Klea’Hatma wasn’t acknowledged by the Divine System. As I gave her this news, she sighed so deeply it began to sound slutty, but quickly recovered. While she was stuck with Ellaine, the demoness could still come in as a “possession,” so it didn’t matter to her.

With the explanation done, it was finally time to expand this whole place. Taking out some dragorade, I touched the wall and imagined the room becoming larger. The more I changed the room, the more mana left my body, forcing me to sip the dragorade. I then erected some walls to create five rooms, one for each member of Aurora. After adding some windows and doors, I then created a communal room from which we could enter our rooms.

“Privacy, nice,” Saori nodded. Even if the rooms were small now, we could also adjust them to each person’s preference. “Hestia, could you make the door to my room larger? The garms have to turn into shadows to enter subspace in the first place, but I would prefer if they didn’t have to be inside here.”

You better go on many walks with them, Saori. No dog poop inside our base! Hmm, speaking about poop…

I then turned to Ellaine, wanting to ask her about a previously discussed topic. “Ellaine, would you be able to help us acquire some of those toilet slimes? We need a better method to get rid of the waste. We can probably install a water system to give everybody a warm shower and bath — oh, wait, wouldn’t a hot spring be possible? Anyway, getting rid of our bathroom business could become pretty nasty within this subspace if we don’t do something about it.”

She nodded, showing some curiosity when I mentioned the hot spring, but kept it restrained. “I can, of course, which reminds me of something. Saori, would it be alright for you to turn a slime into one of your shadow beasts? The slime we buy from the shop is small and cannot multiply, but I heard slimes of a higher rank can multiply into smaller bits, which would help us save money.”

Oh, that is true. Saori being a tamer could help the slime level up and evolve… but then it will turn into an eldritch monster. Urgh, just gotta deal with it, Hestia…

After Saori agreed to do so, above the objections of the garms who were less thrilled to share their Alpha with a slime, Tasianna came forward with a question. “Lady Hestia, what about our garden? How much light can enter into the [Room] through the windows?”

Oh, that is a problem.

While it was relatively easy to allow light inside for plants to use for photosynthesis, we had to adjust the reality layer for it to work. This meant we had to add more windows onto the RV to let more light in. It wasn’t a problem when we had our garden on the second floor of the RV, but it would prove to be a problem now since Grimnir’s smithy was pretty small. There were only so many windows we could add onto it until it became more or less a safety hazard.

“That’s fine, then I’ll just keep the garden up on the second floor. With everybody moving into the [Room] to sleep, I can simply expand our entire garden. I’ll make sure to grow the produce we require the most, like fulinoe leaves and Belzac herbs.” Tasianna’s idea was great. Considering we already transformed Grimnir's wagon once already, it would have been a shame to leave the upper floor empty.

I then turned to Grimnir. “Grimnir, do you know how to make glass? If we can make some sturdy glass like, uh, bulletproof glass, we can turn the upper floor into a greenhouse.”

“What's ‘bulletproof glass’ or a ‘greenhouse?’ Lass, could you not use your world’s language without explaining what it is?” I apologized and explained it to him after getting chastised. “Ahhh, I see. Well, to be honest, glassmaking is something the elves specialize in. Well, it’s still a craft involving fire so we tazongs ain’t lacking in ability, but I only know the basics of how to perform glassblowing. I never did it myself, so I can’t even start on something Peolynca hasn’t even invented yet like this bulletproof glass.”

But Grimnir’s expression didn’t match his words and tone. His eyes sparkled at the idea of inventing something Peolyncians haven’t yet. He was a true craftsman.

After Ellaine left us to go to bed, as the academy fair was tomorrow, the rest of us began unloading our stuff from the RV and putting them inside our subspace. Since this would be our actual living space, we made sure to add everything you would want in a normal house first, like toilets, a kitchen that doubled as a bakery, and a library for magical experimentations.

Since the subspace’s doors worked similarly to portals to move around the subspace, we figured we could go wild with the possibilities. A hot spring made using manatech to create water and then to heat it up, a fancy restaurant to serve nobles or rich merchants, and a whole adventurer shop with a blacksmith for Grimnir. Of course, we didn’t have all the furniture and equipment just yet, but we could work on it over time.

“Is this your armor, Grimnir?” I asked him as our party was packing his entire smithy into the subspace. Since his old set was destroyed, he had to make an entire new one using my scales.

“Aye, it is. It still needs runes to fully function, but it’s a good piece of craftsmanship if I say so myself. Should allow me to tank more, ahahaha!” I took Grimnir’s boisterous laugh at face value and didn’t appraise it. However, that was when something came to mind.

Isn’t he a bit small?

I told him how I was a bit concerned his tanking abilities wouldn’t work too well when I’m in my dragon form. Sure, while Saori and I were in our humanoid forms, Grimnir would be able to properly act as the frontline, but I questioned how he would do this if we were to fight against giant monsters or transform into giant monsters ourselves. Which brought me to my idea.

“Have you ever thought of making a suit of armor that makes you even larger and taller than you currently are? Like a robotic suit or maybe a gundam, oh shit, or a power armor would be a better description.” I then mimicked the pose of somebody holding a minigun and began shooting with it. “A paladin of steel or a chainsaw sword-wielding marine. Earth had a ton of weapons involving long-range firepower and explosions! If you could have a mana-based power armor, you could strut around being an absolute boss on the battlefield. Aaaand…” I showed him a smug. “From your look, you have no idea what it is. Don’t you want to make Bleidla furious with envy, Grimnir?”

“… Once Ellaine is back, you will tell me everything, lass. If it’s mechanical, I’ll need Ellaine’s help with the mana wiring.” Grimnir huffed out fire from the edge of his mouth, looking inspired to create what I just told him about it. I then wondered if I’d said too much.

Regardless, the decorating of our mobile base continued throughout the night. None of us wanted to go to sleep. Sleep truly was for the weak. Yes, we probably would have to go shopping for more furniture or even make it ourselves, as we just didn’t have enough to completely decorate everything. But, we could still plan ahead for everything.

After all, with this new feature of our RV, we were able to make Grimnir an entire shop and Saori a restaurant. Our number one problem wasn’t just the furniture, but our manpower. But, I guess with some creativity and resourcefulness, we could probably make do with only us five. I mean, who would want to join us in the near future, right? No normal person would want to constantly risk their lives with our terrible luck.

Once morning came, Ellaine had to forcefully drag us all out as we had agreed to come with her to the royal academy. While Saori, Tasianna, Grimnir, and I didn’t need to sleep for different reasons, we did feel like vampires when the morning sun blared at us. Yes, even I flinched back. The sunfang dragon flinched back from the sun like a basement-dwelling gamer.

The royal academy fair was decent. After what I did at the ball, people naturally noticed me and wanted to speak with me, but with Tasianna blocking their path with her icy attitude, they simply kept themselves at a distance. I also met the three professors I kidnapped during my mage guild entrance exam.

Experienced mages themselves, we made small talk about magical theory, but aside from the practical stuff I learned from Master Kush, I couldn’t really keep up with their theoretical knowledge. Like, how mana formed in Peolynca or how empty vessel magic was invented. It made me aware of how lacking my formal magical education was compared to a normal mage.

Moving along, we separated from Ellaine and Josine, who had come with her mistress, after we reached the area where the magic-focused students were to perform. Ellaine, having become one of the more capable mages after traveling with us, was to perform some of her magic with the others as her duty as a student. As such, the rest of us roamed around to check out the other venues. Strangely enough, if you took away the student uniforms from the boys and girls, this whole place felt pretty similar to a normal school fest.

Students from the Greenveil and Equevanna duchies were competing amongst each other on how much their faction could earn in total, manning stands to sell food and promote small magic games.

Lecartiglio and Groushia students were holding knightly competitions like jousting, sword fights, and sport events with their magical version of rugby or american football.

Those from the Morgiana and Myrrdin duchies were responsible for the magical events, one of which Ellaine would perform in. From this, I understood the overall factions were hosting these events, but students from any duchy were allowed to participate in them.

The two “factions” who didn’t hold any of their own events were those from the Olivus duchy and those from a commoner background. The Olivus duchy didn’t really have a rival to compete against, and, as a commoner required a sponsor to join the royal academy, most of them would support their sponsor’s or friend’s side in this whole event, which made it questionable if the commoners should be considered a faction in the first place.

“Well, I would rather spend my time inside the smithy but this ain’t too bad. Youngsters deserve time to enjoy themselves, even if they are a bunch of spoiled noble akongs.” Grimnir said while holding onto plates upon plates of food he bought from the stalls. He was in a festive mood, it seems.

“Well, Master Dwarf, are you a man of your word? If you weren’t stuffing your mouth full with food, I would believe you so much more. Hiehiehie, I pray to Goddess Zephira to allow us to make some good memories today,” Tasianna prayed to the Goddess of Wind, Celebrations, and Travel after teasing Grimnir.

“Oh, how I missed visiting festivals. Once we visit the opera and coliseum tomorrow, let us stroll around the middle district a bit. I bet the festive air will be even better there,” Saori exclaimed with a wide smile before pointing at one of the magic game stalls and pushing us to play with her.

It was a ball-throwing game where you had to accurately throw small balls into specific holes in a random order according to a lighting machine. The difficulty in this game was due to the distance to the targets, making it hard as you had to control your throws well. Still, with our skills and stats, we easily trivialized the challenge and won with everybody participating.

It was so easy it shouldn’t have been fun but we still laughed merrily as we celebrated everybody’s success. The prizes weren’t bad either, since all of this was catered towards nobles. With parents and family attending to enjoy themselves, the prizes couldn’t be bad. With four complete wins, we earned ourselves four small mana batteries, perfect for our new base.

After we spent even more time in the fair’s ground, somebody suddenly came running to us. It was Josine.

Completely out of breath, she forced herself to speak, “Lady Hestia, please, you must come quickly! M-My Lady, she was forced into accepting a magic duel by the Chezaic House’s twin daughters!”

What now?

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Chapter 208: The Bullied fights back.

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The magic performance of the academy’s fair was dedicated to showing the students’ progress as mages, scribes, artificers, and all the other magical professions. Since this fair was held annually during the kingdom’s founding anniversary week, which was about a month into the academy’s first semester of the year, what will be shown will mostly involve the efforts the students made last year.

Nobles and commoners alike, regardless if they’re from a respectful position or just the parents of one of the students, were invited to the fair and these magical performances. The Mage’s Guild’s guild master, as well as all the other Aleistunum mages, would use this chance to scout out potential students to invite to the Magical Capital’s university. Although Griffonpeak’s university was well managed, at least according to Ellaine’s mother, it couldn’t compare to the best human-run university in Aleistunum.

Ellaine invited everybody from Aurora to her performance, since she originally had something planned with her classmates before she joined our party. This changed, however, after she gained a ton of levels and trained her magical abilities during our dungeon dive in Cedaraille. Instead of doing what she had planned before joining Aurora, which she had since described as pitiful, she had been invited by the Morgiana faction for something else.

Similar to how the Greenveil and Equevanna students were competing in which faction could earn the most during the fair, the Morgiana and Myrrdin students were trying to one-up each other during the magic performance, even recruiting students from other duchies for their cause. Some school rivalry isn’t bad. It motivates students.

It gets a little problematic when you publicly challenge another student to a duel, though.

“Ellaine!” Arriving at the venue, I looked around it, noticing aristocrats sitting on bleachers that bore a striking similarity to an opera’s or cinema’s cushioned chairs, surrounding a platform like a baseball match. Looking at a couple of young men and women’s white and blue uniforms, I noticed that a few students were sitting with their relatives and acquaintances.

White and blue are the national colors of Artorias, reflecting the color of feathers King Drangleic and his children had. With a blue jacket over a white shirt and a skirt going down to the knees, the female uniform was pretty similar to the male one, only switching out the long pants for a skirt. Fitting for a royal academy, every uniform, whether you were noble or commoner, had white embroidery and a custom-made emblem of their House’s coat of arms, if they had one.

The students were allowed to customize their uniforms as long as they didn’t completely replace the base clothing pieces or cover them up. As such, these students were wearing thigh-high socks, sashes, or even capes with their academy outfits.

Ignoring them for now, though, I turned my attention to the platform in the middle, noticing a few young men and women wearing robes suited for mages. All of them were glaring at the three people in the middle with a mix of slight irritation and anxiousness.

I focused on those three people, noticing a blue-haired girl in a white and blue uniform. It was Ellaine; she had not changed out of her uniform into a robe. I then looked over at the two people standing opposite of her, two girls whose faces I remembered seeing at the ball.

It really is the Chezaic twins!

Josine, Ellaine’s maid, had called me here, telling me that Ellaine had accepted to duel against the twins. Knowing this, everybody from Aurora immediately rushed over here. As we saw Ellaine calming her breathing while the twins glared at Ellaine with deadpan eyes, showing their suppressed animosity through the twitching of their lips and eyelids, we couldn’t help but call out to her.

“Ellai—!”

… but we were immediately interrupted by someone.

“Ah, Lady Hestia! Welcome to the academy. I hope you are enjoying your second visit. Miss Saori, Miss Tasianna, I welcome you two as well.” We turned around once we heard this voice, only to see Thyra of all people standing before us, along with an attendant walking behind her. She raised her hand slightly, gesturing her greeting before turning to Grimnir. “Master Dwarf, I presume you are part of Lady Hestia’s entourage? After all, it is rare for any tazong to participate in anything us nobles host.”

Still holding onto his plates of food, Grimnir gave me an awkward look before looking back at Thyra and nodding. “Aye, I am, lass. I’m the personal blacksmith of Aurora. I’m only here for, uh, to see Ellaine’s performance.”

People’s attention was drawn to us due to Thyra, staring at the plates he held with slight disgust. Grimnir scoffed at them but before this situation could escalate, Thyra proposed that we sit down. “I have already given my consent for this duel. Please, let us sit down and allow Lady Ellaine to solve her problem by herself.”

‘Consent?’

Thyra led us to the seats at the top of one of the bleachers. The seats in this row were the most unique among all the others, as if they were reserved for the finest guests. As we sat down, I asked Thyra why she was here, considering that I had learned she was 20 and had already graduated from the academy, and what she meant with “giving her consent?”

“Huh? I thought you knew, Lady Hestia. I am the academy’s principal.” Thyra’s shocked face of my ignorance made me widen my eyes, clearing my mind to the point I remembered hearing a girl at the Chezaic twin’s tea party mention this very fact. I had moved it back into my memory since I thought it was just irrelevant gossip.

“Lady Hestia, I am very much qualified. I did not receive this position simply because my mother was the previous principal, but through my own merits. Just like you, I am an advanced elements practitioner. Inferno, torrent, storm, and terra. The compositional elements of ice, lava, lightning, and mud. I haven’t learned dark yet, and I only just learned holy magic so it hasn’t evolved into [Sacred Magic] yet.”

Seeing my surprise, Thyra seemed to have misunderstood it for me not understanding why she was the principal, instead of not remembering she was the principal. When I cleared it up, she simply responded with an “Oh” and shrugged it off, as if she wanted us to forget about it.

Still, hearing how she was able to learn five of the six elemental magics was pretty amazing. I didn’t know about other mages but from the few I’ve seen, most of them focused on one or two elements to master. Thyra and Nishio have been the only mages I’ve known who have learned more basic elements than I did, and I had difficulty learning [Water Magic] and [Dark Magic] due to my titles.

When Thyra mentioned she was an arcanist just like Saori, Tasianna, and me, I asked how her mother made it to the rank of “Master” at the mage’s guild. Master Kush was also an arcanist, but that was ‘cause he rarely interacted with the mage’s guild according to reports, so I was wondering if Thyra’s mother was an even better mage than my Master. Why was she only a vice guild master instead of the guild’s master?

“The guild master of a mage’s guild branch doesn’t need to be the strongest, Lady Hestia. They simply need to be competent with managing the guild. Lady Maverina might not be the most powerful mage, but she is knowledgeable and reliable. Mother is a duchess, she is busy enough, so having to deal with the business of managing a whole guild branch on top of managing the duchy would be too burdensome,” Thyra responded before pointing at the platform with Ellaine and the twins.

All three of them attached bracelets around their wrist and activated them. From what I remembered, these were sparring bracelets. A referee then came over and registered them onto a manatech card before running over to Thyra. As he did that, I used this chance to ask Josine what exactly happened.

To summarize, the twins were still bullies and Ellaine stepped in to protect the bully-victim. In more detail, the bully-victim was Amelia.

After having to move into their maternal grandparents’ home in the Equevanna duchy after the Davison incident, the twins were allowed to continue to act as aristocrats despite what their parents participated in. Since Marquess Sirius, under the authority of Duke Greenveil had ordered the execution of their parents due to their treasonous actions, it wouldn’t be impossible to believe the twins harbored a grudge.

“I heard enough reports of how the twins actively antagonized students belonging to the Greenveil duchy. Their parents were of the arcanuess rank when they still lived in Greenveil, I heard. Well, their mother belonged to an arcanuess house in Equevanna, too,” Thyra explained their actions when they came back to the academy.

“You knew but you haven’t done anything?” I questioned Thyra, criticizing her role as the principal.

“Yes, I did, since the rivalry between the Equevanna and Greenveil duchies is a known fact. Berating those twins won’t stop the other students from acting out. As annoying as it is to say, the royal academy is more an institution for nobles to socialize with each other instead of a haven for learning. The ‘training grounds’ before they entered high-society.” The parents of a few students turned around as they heard this, giving Thyra looks of disapproval before turning around again once they saw my glares.

Rivalry between the duchies was considered a positive to drive the progress and innovation of the whole kingdom, especially when it could lead to their respective duke becoming a grand duke. The pros of this could be seen with how students were competing fiercely with each other during this fair.

Sadly, some students took this too far. While noble students needed to act as aristocrats inside the school, nothing said you couldn’t bully each other if you kept it “civil.” Anything that didn’t lead to ruining your reputation was considered fair game and part of a noble’s “education.” These elusive bullies were the most dangerous.

On the other hand, you had the twins. Thyra mentioned she was only made the principal this year after spending two years at the basilica in Aureolis, but she had heard from last year’s report that they have always acted like bullies, they were just part of the former group. After their parents died, they became more brazen.

With how the student body knew about their House’s disestablishment, but not of the truth behind their parent’s execution, most preferred to stay away from them, in order to avoid being associated with the relatives of potential traitors.

“Being a noble also means knowing how to manipulate others, Lady Hestia.” She winked with a wry smile. Although she hadn’t said it directly, from what she told me up until now, I was assuming the twins were being used by the Equevanna faction as scapegoats. Sent out to terrorize Greenveil students.

Amelia, being the only child of Duke Greenveil who was still attending the academy, didn’t have her siblings around to protect her, and with her being the child of a commoner woman, she wasn’t too popular among the more close-minded nobles. Even now, her parents and siblings were currently working with Ellaine’s parents to begin mass yeast production; as such, none of them could attend today’s fair.

Amelia was apparently quite popular among the Greenveil students for being a great merchant, but she wasn’t the most assertive person. With a weaker constitution, she couldn’t deal with stress too well, especially if people began bullying her. Ellaine intervened when she saw this and the rest was history.

I wonder if those twins planned all of this, I thought before noticing Amelia sitting at a seat, biting her fingernails while surrounded by other Greenveil students. She was staring at Ellaine intently.

After Thyra set the victory conditions for the duel, a mana barrier encapsulated the platform, protecting the viewers from harm. A few people were gossiping about how it was unfair for two people to gang up on a single person, but everybody from Aurora knew better.

Higher level, higher base stats, more quality skills. Ellaine’s got this. There was no need to worry about her… but, something inside me was telling me it wouldn’t be that simple. There should be students who have heard about Ellaine getting stronger, and even if those twins haven’t, they wouldn’t just accept a duel without preparation, right? I mean, shouldn’t they at least become wary the moment Ellaine accepted to duel both of them?

It was then when the twins unveiled two books from underneath their jackets. A collective “Grimoires?” came from the students wearing mage robes, and I confirmed the twins weren’t carrying normal books through my [Mana Eyes]. Ellaine tensed up a bit as she saw this. From the spell rings on the twin’s fingers, most spectators probably believed their weapons would be those, so those grimoires came as a surprise to everybody.

Without delaying the battle any longer, the referee called for Ellaine and the twins to get in place.

“This shall be an exhibition duel as part of the fair, not a magician duel, by the orders of Principle Thyra Nimue Morgiana. This match shall end the moment a participant’s Health reaches or goes below 25% or if somebody leaves the mana barrier. With that, please, ready yourself!” The referee then pointed the card he held up to the sky and paused. After a couple of seconds, he pressed it. “Match, begin!”

The first to make a move was none other than Ellaine. Wary of what the twins, Francesca and Iracela, were planning, she shot out two chantless [Wind Slash]es. She could have cast [Tornado Bullet], but I guess she didn’t want to kill them.

The elder of the two, Francesca, winced as she saw the two air blades shoot right at her and her sister, but jumped right in front of her younger sibling and opened her grimoire. The book opened, with its pages fluttering as though blasted open with wind. The movement only stopped once Francesca touched a page, causing it to lighten up.

“Earth Wall!” she called out and a wall of dense earth shot up from the ground, barely blocking Ellaine’s spells in time.

“Seals!” multiple onlookers scoffed and clicked their tongues as they saw the twins utilize a spell bound into a seal to duel Ellaine. I turned over to Thyra and she nodded, making me remember what Thyra said yesterday.

Most mages believe using seals devalues your abilities as a mage. It is something non-mages use. That was what I understood when Thyra mentioned the stigma around seals among mages. I personally disagreed with that opinion the moment I saw Francesca cast a spell without needing to chant for it. It still consumed mana and you still needed to know when to use them, showing skill and effort.

Going back to the fight, the younger of the twins, Iracela, opened her grimoire and began casting multiple spells in consecutive order. [Strengthening Flames], [Protective Water], [Swift Winds], [Sturdy Earth], [Holy Protection], and [Holy Strength]; the buffing spells you would receive through the Divine System began enveloping Iracela’s body.

Ellaine, unable to see the twins, naturally cast [Sturdy Earth] and [Swift Winds] on herself before continuing her assault. The moment she finished, Iracela jumped from their cover and shot a [Flame Spear] at Ellaine. Ellaine’s eyes widened and she clicked her tongue, dodging the spell by blasting herself out of the way with [Wind Blast].

Iracela continued shooting out spells, giving her elder sister enough time to buff herself up, too. Once she was done, a barrage of spells rained down upon Ellaine, forcing her to desperately dodge all the attacks by the slimmest margin. Her uniform was slowly getting ruined over time, causing her to frown.

“Oh, by the Light! This is far too one-sided?! Why are Lady Iracela and Lady Francesa using such dangerous spells for a simple exhibition duel?!”

“I guess that’s what seals enable you to do. She and Lady Francesca are earth mages, from what I remember. They do not train much but have innately good potential due to their lineage. Casting so many spells at once still consumes a lot of mana.”

“Truly? And they are ganging up against a count’s daughter while using all these seals? That’s deplorable! Even if Lady Ellaine has improved and can cast chantlessly now, that’s still too unfair!”

Why is everybody overreacting like this? This is actually annoying at this point.

Thyra, noticing Aurora’s lack of reaction, turned around and spoke, “I see you four have the fullest trust in Lady Ellaine. From my reports, Lady Ellaine only trained her earth and wind magic up to level five and wasn’t very proficient in a mage’s duel, well, before she joined your party, of course.”

“Ehhh, this is whatever,” Grimnir was the first to speak on Ellaine’s behalf. “The lass nearly fell to her death during our dungeon dive. Whether getting mauled by beasts or getting blasted by spells, she’s dealt with worse living the typical life of an adventurer.”

“Wh-What?! Lady Ellaine didn’t tell me about this!” It was Josine who burst out in a panic, hinting at how Ellaine left some information out when she retold her adventure to her maid. Before she got a heart attack, Tasianna stood up and calmed Josine down.

“It’s alright, Josine. It’s alright. It’s alright to worry but you should have more faith in your mistress, especially after you saw how much she’s progressed. She’s receiving training from her father because she was able to impress him. Have faith, Josine.”

Saori nodded, looking rather bored. “Exactly, and these are not opponents you need to worry about, Josine. As long as she has those ‘rings,’ I do not think she will lose to two amateurs.” Saori then pointed at the twins and the barrage of spells they were shooting out. “If Tasianna, Saori, or Lady Hestia were dueling her right now instead of those girls, we would only need a handful of spells to lock Ellaine down and defeat her. But those twins are demonstrating that they have zero knowledge on how to efficiently use their spells, just slinging them around with the belief they have enough to sustain themselves for the rest of the duel. They thought they could just come into this duel without any practice or training and defeat a member of Aurora. Hmph!”

A few nobles turned around again, giving Saori some looks of disapproval. Annoyed, I exuded my auras and the nobles jolted their heads away from me, sweating now despite the cool air of spring.

“Haha, true! Ellaine’s game plan is to get them to expand all their spells and make them regret challenging her. You can just look at the twins’ expressions. Slightly purple, so arcane corruption is creeping in. They are frowning despite their supposed ‘advantage,’ clouding their accuracy even further. In proper hands, I think seals are a useful tool, but I guess this is what you alluded to, right, Thyra?” I turned over to the principal of the academy, a smile on my face.

“True, if you have no knowledge on how to cast spells, seals are simply wasted on you. I have seen E-rank adventurers more capable at using seals than these two. Maybe I’ll use this example to lobby for more practical fighting training, especially with the number of nobles watching this match. An underperforming count’s daughter has become more proficient in battle than the twin daughters of a disestablished arcanuess house. That is not acceptable.”

We weren’t speaking so loudly without a reason. Unlike a normal sport match, the nobles had the decency to speak less loudly, making the venue pretty quiet and less hype. Everybody around us could hear us and this naturally caused people to speak.

“Hey, hey, that’s the one of the Goddess blessed, right? The one who sang yesterday at the ball? Lady Ellaine is part of her party?! Such a ragtag group of different races, but… Lady Ellaine hasn’t been hurt yet. What did they do to train her?”

“Oh, that’s Lady Hestia! My parents mentioned they fought with her when Cedaraille was attacked by that giant spider. She and her party were the ones to deal the deciding blow and ‘steal’ Duke Greenveil’s prey. I still remember how she clearly said Lady Ellaine was her retainer at the tea party.”

“Tch! Everybody, don’t listen to the principal! Lady Iracela and Francesca are two mages with high potential. As fellow vassals of Duke Equevanna, we should be suppo- HUH?!”

“No, I’m out of fire spells!” It was Francesca’s voice, screaming out how she used up a set of her attacks. Turning the pages of her grimoire to find a spell as sweat began to drop on the book’s paper, the rapid attacks of the twins died down for a moment.

But this was exactly what Ellaine was waiting for.

Iracela clicked her tongue and prepared to shoot out another fire spell but…

“Petal Flame-KYAAAA!” The moment she called out the spell’s name, an earthen wall sprang out from the ground in front of her, causing her spell to crash against it and explode point-blank in front of her, hitting herself with the splashback.

“Try not to scream your attacks,” Ellaine casually said, her brown spell ring just finished glowing.

“Iracela! Uhm, Water Ball! Moderate Heal!” Francesca doused the fire burning her younger sister and healed up the wounds she sustained from her own attack. I am sure that if a priest were to see this, they probably would have been enraged with a non-church member casting a white grace on somebody. The expressions of the spectators were enough to suggest that.

“Ellaine, you damn bitch! How dare you-huh?! Where are you?!” With rage-filled eyes, Francesca turned around to confront Ellaine, only to be met with silence and emptiness. Ellaine was nowhere to be seen… for her.

“Lady Francesca, look up!” Ellaine’s sneaky trick would have worked if people wouldn’t cheat… but, even that was already too late for the twins.

Watch out for upskirt moments, Ellaine~

Francesca jolted her head up, finally noticing Ellaine had used [Dragoon Jump] to jump into the air and was using [Wind Blast] to move herself up there. Having found her target again, Francesca grinned as she prepared another spell, only for another [Earth Wall] to ruin her plans. The wall shot upright beneath her and shot her into the air.

“Ahhhhhhhhh!!!” Screaming, Francesca rotated in the air before slamming her face upon landing on the ground, breaking her nose. The combined gasp of the Equevanna students echoes throughout the venue only to be immediately replaced by screams of despair.

“Good fight, Lady Francesca. Lady Iracela.” Having created her own opening through the usage of “low-tier” spells, she swooped back on the ground and blasted both twins out of the mana barrier with [Wind Blast], granting her the win in the end through ring out.

As I thought, she frowned ‘cause her uniform was ruined from not dodging those spells properly.

“The winner of this duel has been decided! Through ring out, Lady Ellaine has won this duel! Runes will be activated to heal your injuries!” the referee announced before activating the sparring card in his hand, switching on the runes etched into the sparring bracelets.

Cheers erupted from the Greenveil students’ side, clapping and praising Ellaine for her success. Thyra then stood up and requested for me to amplify her voice with [Aerokinesis].

“Lady Ellaine, would you be willing to show us your strongest spells from your repertoire? Storm and Terra, if you may?” Thyra spoke to Ellaine from atop the bleacher, somehow guessing Ellaine’s magic skills correctly. With no reason to decline, she cast both [Storm Magic Lv. 1]’s [Tornado Bullet] and [Terra Magic Lv. 2]’s [Bedrock Blades], stunning the people in the audience.

Thyra smirked and began a speech, “Dear, students of the royal academy of Griffonpeak, as you could see, two daughters of an arcanuess were simply defeated by a count’s daughter through the effective usage of [Wind Blast] and [Earth Wall]. This is not to belittle seals or magic scrolls, but a testament to a mage’s ability to overcome perilous threats through ingenuity and experience. Without knowing how to use your spells properly, how can you expect to become a proper mage?”

Thyra then stretched her hand out, as if inviting everybody to something. “This is my first year as your principal, my dear students, but I have the ambition to change our academy to a haven of education. The additional courses that I will introduce to the curriculum will focus more on the practical usage of your abilities as mages and knights. How can you call yourself the elites of the kingdom if simple adventurers surpass your combat abilities? Are you not more interested in being combat effective before graduating? Thank you for your attention.”

… So she allowed the duel to happen just to give out this speech? Hehe, sly noble.

The students were naturally confused at what Thyra just said but a few of them seemed to have been won over. Those from the Morgiana duchy were immediately won over, mostly ‘cause of their patriotic feelings, but the Greenveil students who saw Ellaine beat the twins were surprisingly also on board, despite being mostly “merchants.”

As parents and students began to make noise over Thyra’s speech, I narrowed my ears as I noticed the twins speaking to Ellaine.

“This isn’t over, Ellaine! This isn’t over, you hear me! We will make you regret what you did to our father and mother! Even if it means taking your house down!” Francesca declared with reddened eyes and blood on her face.

Ellaine frowned as she saw the two girls struggling to suppress the aches around their bodies and the tears about to burst from their eyes. With a stern glare, she spoke back, “Both your father and mother are traitors of the kingdom. You can try if you want, but remember that I will fight this time. I will fight back, no matter what!”

The rest of the event went by smoothly. Josine helped Ellaine change out of her tattered uniform into a new one and we reunited back at the seats. She then left us again to perform with her group, and honestly, it wasn’t the most impressive thing really, even after switching to the Morgiana group. It was mostly theoretical stuff about making spells from [Wind Magic], so I wasn’t very interested in it.

But that didn’t matter. Ellaine seemed to have fun doing it so I still had to be there for her. Speaking of friends, the moment the duel ended, I saw Amelia leave the venue, not even congratulating Ellaine on a good fight. I know she severed their friendship, but still…

Regardless, the event continued. Students specialized in the six elements, except for the fire mages, began performing their shows one by one. When the magic performance ended without any fire mages, it suddenly reminded me of something. “Ah, Lady Thyra, would you happen to know about a family called the ‘Talsyn?’ I heard they were retainers for your family.”

She nodded so I continued, “Well, uhm, could you please tell them that Macklemor is dead?”

“Huuu, you know about Mister Macklemor, Lady Hestia?” To quell Thyra’s curiosity, I explained to her how I met him during my first Quest to stop the bandit group he belonged to, having to kill him after an accident. “Ahh, I see… that is a shame. Well, I never met him personally since we were of different standing, but the Talsyns are part of the Morgiana House, even if they are our retainers. I heard something had happened with the previous fire professor, but I hadn’t looked into it too much. I didn’t even know Macklemor was once his student… damn.”

“Lady Thrya,” Thyra’s attendant called her out for cursing, and Thyra nodded.

“Thank you very much for informing me about this. As the heir, I have a responsibility to take care of my retainers. I cannot do anything anymore for Mister Macklemor, but I will make sure his family knows about this… I will assume you do not wish me to mention you as the source, Lady Hestia?” I nodded and Thyra complied. She sighed deeply. “Haaaaaaa, why does drama always follow the fire mages? I cannot even install a professor for fire magic because of that incident with Professor Svonnweidher.”

“Well, not to speak ill of the dead, but Keith had it coming. He was leading a fanatical sect of fire mages around.”

“… So Professor Svonnweidher is dead also? I presume you… nevermind. The amount of complaints I’m receiving from the students who wish to pursue fire magic is causing me a headache already. I don’t want to speak about it to you, Lady Hestia.” She paused for a moment before coming closer to whisper something to me. “Although, since you’re part of him through that title, couldn’t you do something? You are a fire mage after all.”

I shook my head and declined. I’m not involving myself with Shiterno.

We then visited the knight competition hosted by the Groushia and Lecartiglio students. Because of Ellaine’s duel and her performance with the magic venue, we missed Jonathan’s participation in it since it coincided with Ellaine’s. We missed quite a large part of the competition but came in time to witness some knight getting fangirled by a bunch of female students.

“Kyaaaahhhh, Lord Charleslyt, you are so cool! We will be rooting for you when you make it to Rank A with your party!”

“You are the perfect paladin, Lord Charleslyt! You are amazing!”

… Too much fangirling, urgh.

Without giving him another look, we left the venue and returned to Ellaine’s mansion. The ball held at the academy did not interest Ellaine, who was only focused on her own training, especially motivated after the duel today. Even without her father, Klea’Hatma was a good enough coach for sword fighting just ’cause Ellaine’s sword was a whipsword.

But…

Peace wouldn’t last too long for Ellaine and House Helvas. With everything working so well for the family, it wouldn’t have been too naive to think it would last a bit longer, right?

Well… sadly, this wouldn’t be the case. Jonathan did not return to the mansion that day.

The only thing we found was a letter.

“Father, Mother, Ellaine. Forgive me for my selfishness. For my own training, I shall be leaving on a journey. I renounce my title as heir and I wish you to grant it to Ellaine. Please, do not look for me, I will be in good company.”

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Chapter 209: Support to Find a Brother.

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“Everybody, is this really what we should be pursuing next? Couldn’t my brother have simply moved somewhere into the town? If he was kidnapped, then shouldn’t we make haste? Or, we haven’t even looked outside the gates yet, in the forest or even at the riverbank. Urgh, I just think this a waste of time.”

“By Crustacia’s twin locks, calm down already, lass. Haste ain’t gonna magically bring your brother back when we have no clues.”

“Grimnir is right, Ellaine. My garms have already searched the academy’s grounds, around the noble district, and inside the merchant district. Look around you, the middle district is in full uproar from the festival. Griffonpeak is far too large for us to search without any leads. That is why we are going to the hunter’s guild.”

It was the morning after Ellaine and her parents received Jonathan’s letter, informing them he was running away from home on a journey to strengthen himself. Renouncing his birthright as the heir of House Helvas to Ellaine, he disappeared completely.

After the initial panic, the servant who delivered the letter to us explained that somebody in full armor had come to deliver the letter, saying that “Lord Jonathan wouldn’t be able to come home, so he wrote this letter.” The servant admitted the man was wearing a helmet, obstructing his face, and that they didn’t give her the chance to ask any further questions as he jumped on a gargoyle and flew off.

Understandably, the first thing Arcanuess and Arcaliess Helvas thought was that their son had been kidnapped. It seemed too fishy and they thought all of this would lead to them paying a ransom for Jonathan, but neither the stranger nor the letter said anything about it. It was probably almost midnight when we received this terrible news, but everybody still ventured out to look for Ellaine’s brother.

Count and Countess Helvas immediately took off on their flying mounts to track down the stranger, asking us to look at the academy, the last place Jonathan should have been. Since the academy was hosting a ball for the students, it was still filled with people, giving us a chance to ask a few people there.

“Jonathan Helvas? Well, the last time I saw him was during the tournament we knight students held. He did pretty well, although he didn’t make it to the finals. Hmm, about the tournament itself? Well, just like every other year, the final prize was a one-on-one duel against a knight to gain tips and experience. We were lucky enough to persuade Lord Charleslyt to appear this year!”

“Lord Jonathan? I apologize but I haven’t seen him anywhere at the ball. Then again, you too only came now when it’s almost over, Lady Ellaine. I heard your brother does not have a fiance yet, so maybe he dashed away with a fair lady into the night? Hiehie.”

“Oh, Lady Hestia, I did not expect you to— Uhm, I-I’m sorry, Lady Thyra? Well, the young principal has already retired back home to rest. We professors, agreed to stay and supervise the students to make sure they conduct themselves as proper nobles. Hmm, Jonathan Helvas? I apologize, but I do not believe I have seen him. If you wish, I shall ask the other professors to help in your inquiry.”

Nothing.

Ellaine told us that Jonathan had been planning to go to the ball since this was his last year at the academy. Since his duty as heir also involved finding a fiance, he was planning on using this ball to find a potential wife for himself before asking his parents for help. However, according to everybody we asked, he didn’t even attend.

Without any other clues, we had Saori search around the academy’s premises with her garms. As much as they hated being called bloodhounds, they were fantastic trackers second only to Saori. They managed to sniff out Jonathan’s lingering smell, but the trail led us to the sky, and, unfortunately, the wind had already blown everything away.

We were once again left dry without a lead, only learning that Jonathan moved to somewhere in the lower city. Due to the sheer size of Griffonpeak and the fact that it was the middle of the night, we had to call the search off and return to the mansion, where Ellaine’s parents welcomed us back. They too couldn’t find any leads.

Once morning came, Arcanuess Helvas explained that he had sent his spies out to look for Jonathan and that he wanted Ellaine to continue the search as well. He and his wife were needed to support Duke Greenveil with the yeast deal and help train the servants and workers to produce yeast and pastries, all the while ensuring the production methods of this “new” yeast stayed in our possession.

Considering that Jonathan was potentially kidnapped, it appeared that he was rather unconcerned about the situation, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth. Unable to calm down, he wasn’t able to fall asleep, much like his wife and daughter. He was restlessly tapping his feet even as he spoke to us.

In the end, he was sending more qualified people out to track his son down, which included us. He still had to fulfill his duty as the head of the house, to make sure his rank would rise up to arcanuess for his house’s prosperity. There was also the fact that he and the duke were responsible for providing the pastries on my concert day, using it to promote this new product to the kingdom.

He did mention that he would ask his elder brother and Duke Greenveil to help out if we couldn’t do something. Honestly, I would have preferred if he would help out as well, since the concert was less important than Jonathan’s safety. But… I can understand he has his duty as a noble and probably wants to distract himself with work since he really can’t directly help with the search.

As such, we skipped the opera and coliseum today, despite how much I really wanted to go to the opera. We searched around the noble district for clues; maybe he was staying at another noble’s home, and the merchant district, since there was the possibility he did meet up with a girl or so. Nothing again, so we gave up on the search and went to get help.

And our help wouldn’t come from the Mercenary Guild, but from the Hunter’s Guild.

Upon entering the guild, we noticed how it was filled with the festive mood of the city. Instead of working, many of the hunters simply met up inside the guild and were celebrating together as a whole group. I could hear the inn next to the guild being filled to the brim with shouts, cheers, and belches.

Looking around, I saw the receptionists cheering along with the adventurers while staying behind the counter. Even in Griffonpeak, the guild staff was as professional as ever. Ignoring the partying crowd, and those who tried to hit on us before getting scared off by Grimnir, we went over to the reception, where I noticed the quest board filled with Quest papers, like, it was overflowing.

Wow, does Griffonpeak have that much work? I guess it has a dungeon here, but even Cedaraille didn’t have such a full quest board.

Since nobody was lining up, we didn’t need to wait on anybody. Once we were at the counter, I began speaking. “Hello, my name is Hestia, leader of the D rank party Aurora. May I ask if the guild leader is around today and if she has the time to speak with us?”

The receptionist, a female foxian, greeted us but looked a bit bewildered. “I apologize but the guild master currently has a guest. Uhm, would you possibly have an appointment with her, Lady Shrine Maiden?” I raised an eyebrow. Since Krymdar mentioned the guild master of the hunter’s guild branch in Griffonpeak, Muraina or something, wanted to speak with us, she should have informed her staff about me. Apparently, she hadn’t.

While I was thinking for a reason, Saori moved in front of me. “Guild Master Muraina’s acquaintance, Sir Krymdar, had told us two days ago at the royal ball that she wanted to speak with our party leader. We have a witness, even.” Saori then called for Ellaine.

In her repaired dragoon armor, Ellaine stuck out the most amongst our group and looked the most “knight-like.” She sighed and pointed at the crest on her armor, the coat of arms of House Helvas. “I am Ellaine Fiero Helvas, the second child of Count Helvas of Greenveil. I apologize for using my status here, but I can attest to my party member’s words that they met a dark elven man at the royal ball two days ago. Please, would it be possible for you to ask the guild master if she has time now? Please?”

Whether it was ’cause of Ellaine’s double usage of “please” or her impatient look, the receptionist nodded and accepted our request. Going up the stairs, it lasted only one or two minutes for her to come back and state, “The guild master would like to see you now, please,” before leading us upstairs.

As we walked up the stairs, Grimnir spoke to me, “Two more of us need to reach C rank for our party to average out to C rank, lass. The higher your rank, the more the guild will be willing to hear you out for even the most mundane bladdarg.”

It is a matter of rank again. Considering how much we’ve been neglecting actually doing Quests, this was simply the consequence of our laziness. I would love to stop complaining about this, but with how many things have been happening around us, we really didn’t have time to just chill and do some more Quests.

On the second floor, we were led to an elven woman in a green dress, working as a secretary. She excused the foxian receptionist and bowed to us, greeting me with, “On behalf of the Saerlari, I am gladdened to see you well, Lady Hestia. Please, enter. You are amongst allies.”

Why does this feel as if I’m joining some weird cult? Ah, whatever.

The room we entered was a middle-sized office where you would expect an executive of a company would work. It was well decorated, not like a noble’s mansion with its shiny and silky furniture and trinkets to show off the owner’s wealth and status, no, it would be more accurate to call it harmonic, more focused on being “breathable.”

Aside from the necessary manatech like lamps and mana pens, the entire room was made and decorated with only wooden furniture and plants growing in pots. From an artistic perspective, everything was gorgeous. Artisan-made wooden chairs, tables, bookshelves, and so on, had engravings and features added to them that would make the ones inside Ellaine’s father’s mansion embarrassed.

There was this perfection I couldn’t exactly describe properly. Just by being inside this room for a mere few seconds, I felt more relaxed and calm. Was there an enchantment or rune creating this serene atmosphere, or was it just a simple illusion from this nature-aligned room?

“Welcome, Meoschaera roy Sheothrudra.”

Meo-what now?

My focus was then directed away from the room and to the person standing behind a wooden desk. Strangely, my attention wasn’t on the person itself but on the mysterious creature perched on their slim, pristine white shoulder.

It was a wooden creature in the form of a bird with two large wings acting like shields for the person it was resting on. Something green was glowing from the crevices of its treant-like body and multiple arrows were stuck on its back, or rather, they were growing from its back. Its two large yellow shining eyes were staring at us, assessing if we were a threat or not, I think.

“Haha, don’t worry about Whisperia. It might look scary in its treant body, but it simply has the curiosity of a lesser fae.” The same womanly voice appeared again, bringing my eyes to a woman stroking the treant bird. With long sharp ears and an incredibly flat chest despite her hourglass form, it reminded me too much of Silva and Tasianna in her elven form.

Once the elven secretary closed the door, the elven woman once again spoke, “I welcome you, Aurora, this time in common tongue. ‘Meoshaera roy Sheothrudra,’ or, Princess of Dragons in common. Princess Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor, on behalf of the children of Saelariel, the Saelari, I, Muraina Yvetta Groveshield, welcome you to our world. Please, sit.”

She gestured with her hand to a set of sofas before pointing our attention to a person leaning his back on a wall, somebody I have already met. “I believe you have already acquainted yourself with this gentleman?”

“Lady Hestia, Miss Saori, Miss Tasianna. It is good to meet you once again.” It was none other than Krymdar, the dark elven alchemist who had accepted Tasianna as his student. He was the guest the foxian receptionist mentioned.

After Grimnir and Ellaine introduced themselves, all seven of us sat down on the sofas. Considering how much I heard about elves not liking humans, I thought Krymdar or Muraina would be a bit more wary with Ellaine here, but I guess that worry was only in Ellaine’s and my heads.

“Foremost, I must ask for your forgiveness, Princess Hestia. Kargryx had called for Saelariel’s aid in finding your egg and returning you to your parents, but we failed. I have received an extensively detailed report from Sir Farron of your exploits in the Belzac forest along with what you had experienced there. As such, you having to face those dangers is due to our incompetence.” Muraina, the guild master of the hunter’s guild of Griffonpeak, after introducing herself, bowed and asked for forgiveness.

I was bewildered. It felt weird to have somebody I had just met bow before me as if she had just committed a capital crime. If you think about it, even if the collective whole of Saelariel did feel guilty, why was she, a single person, being so dramatic about it? Even then, it wasn’t as if I was blaming anybody for me being stuck inside the Belzac forest… actually, now that I thought about it, I did blame my parents and the gods when I first started out.

However, I had since matured enough to know better. “Please, stop, it’s alright. You don’t need to apologize for it. I’m not blaming anybody for my stay in Belzac, so please raise your head.” When Muraina did, I continued. “Also, I know Krymdar asked me to come here, but I’m not here as a ‘Princess of Kargryx’ but just as ‘Hestia,’ so let us not speak too much about it. Let’s keep this casual if possible. Uhm, you just mentioned Farron, and Krymdar said you got your information from him. What is your relationship with him?”

Looking relieved for a moment, Muraina let out a sigh before suddenly switching her expression away from her previous demeanor. “Nothing serious, really. We are simply friends who met when Farron was still an active adventurer knight. When Marquiss Sirius requested a new guild leader for the branch in Firwood, I recommended Farron. I’m also good friends with Yorshka. I have also received Farron’s report after Yorshka met up with you.”

“Yuuuup, thank you very much for not informing me about that. It helped me make such a good impression on the Meoshaera.” Krymdar gave a sarcastic remark to Muraina for withholding information on him, just to be attacked by the treant bird of hers. “Ugh, gick, damn thing!”

Okaaaaaaaaay.

Speaking of Yorshka, if she had sent that message over to her clan, shouldn’t their goal be to deliver the missive to my dragon mother? I’ve been anticipating her to swoop to Griffonpeak at any time now, but she hasn’t yet. I mean, I wasn’t trying to meet her, but considering she’s an SS rank dragon, shouldn’t her flight speed be super quick? I couldn’t help but wonder why there was almost a month’s worth of a delay.

“Anyway, I shall keep my conduct casual, as you wish, Lady Hestia. Yorshka should have informed you about everything already, so I won’t bore you with the details from the elven side. Since Farron knew the circumstances, he sent your profile to us, just like with the King. We are aware of your status as a reincarnator and champion of Aurena, Lady Hestia. This also includes the secrets of your companions, Miss Saori and Miss Tasianna the aifli. Be assured, we will keep your secret.”

I guess it’s better than speaking around it awkwardly.

After making that clear, Muraina bluntly asked for the reason of our visit. “Speak freely. Why have you come to meet me today?”

“Ah, right. It’s because of my friend here, Ellaine.” I then pushed her to ask for her favor. Since Muraina considered Farron a friend, she probably didn’t dislike humans as much as Silva or Krymdar.

Welcoming her response with a polite smile, Muraina listened to Ellaine’s request, “Thank you for listening, Guild Master Muraina. I— Actually, I wanted to ask Mister Krymdar for a favor, as Hestia had mentioned he was an elven spy outside his duty as an imperial alchemist. Uhm, yesterday, my brother, my house’s heir, seemingly ran away from home after leaving a letter for my parents and me. We presume he was kidnapped and I am here to ask if you may help me.”

“Letter?” Krymdar stroked his chin before gesturing to us for the letter. Ellaine took it out from her pouch and handed it over to him.

With his black eyes moving intently, Krymdar took his time to read the letter. When he finished it, he snapped his head up. “Are you sure your brother was kidnapped?”

Huh?

Question marks appeared over everybody’s head, aside from Saori and Grimnir, prompting Ellaine to question Krymdar what he meant with that question. “Look at the way the letter is written. When a person is kidnapped and a letter is sent, there is one question you must ask yourself first. Who was the person who wrote this letter? It was either one of the kidnappers or the kidnapped, and if we included a forger in this presumption, we should be even more cautious. Have you checked if this is your brother’s writing style?”

Ellaine nodded. Jonathan’s attendant and mother checked to make sure it was his.

“Alright, then, if we excluded the chance of a forger writing this, then our next move would be to analyze the writing itself.”

Krymdar explained how a letter always had small details you could pick out from the way you wrote a letter. This method was most effective if the person had a tidy calligraphy but Krymdar boasted how he could do the same even if the writing was messy. As the letter was written in ink, instead of with mana, there were even more clues he could dig out.

If you wrote it in a rush, there would be small ink smears dragged along by the speed of the pen. Stressed people write more sloppily and are prone to mistakes. If you stopped writing to think in between, the ink’s dryness was another clue if the letter was sent early enough. There were more but he didn’t want to list it out here.

“Let us presume your brother is able to keep his calm in this situation and he’s simply copying the words from another parchment. Even then, this letter is still too tidy and deliberate. I will assume your brother is competent considering he’s your family’s heir, which means he should be intelligent enough to use this small ‘reprieve’ to devise a way to escape. While you write a letter, there should be enough openings for you to think,” Krymdar explained. “This letter is perfect, nothing suspicious about it.”

“Hmph, I had a feeling that would be the case, but you are working with assumptions like me, dflei. How can you be so sure about your statement, or is this just the usual bravado of a dflei?” Grimnir remarked, earning him a laugh from Krymdar. “Dflei” was the dwarven word for dark elf if I remember correctly.

Wait, Grimnir had a feeling Jonathan wasn’t kidnapped?

“Good one, Master Mundari. I won’t argue that we dark elves exude more confidence than our high and wind elves brethren,” Krymdar smirked as he leaned on the sofa, causing Grimnir to scoff. “Regardless, like you said, this was all just guesswork from me, I have no evidence. However, consider it; what if your brother really is in ‘good company, girl?’ If he wasn’t kidnapped then this was his own choice, right?”

That threw a wrench into our plans. Turning around, Ellaine’s expression was a mix between baffled and confused. It sounded absurd, honestly. Why would Jonathan want to suddenly leave his home and family?

As if she wanted to know this herself, Saori spoke up instead of me, “Ellaine, I did not want to bring this point up, since I was not sure about it. In addition, this is your family’s problem. As your friends, this is also our problem, but if we are to continue, I believe we need to make everything clear.”

Grimnir nodded, agreeing with Saori. “True, lass. A person does not run away from their safe haven without a concrete reason. If the whole heir stuff was too stressful for him, he should have talked this over with your parents. Act like a responsible young man. You and your brother are on bad terms, at least from what I’ve seen since meeting you. Care to elaborate?”

Speaking up can be cathartic, a way to free yourself. I’ve noticed how Ellaine and Jonathan have been avoiding each other more, contradicting what I learned about them in Firwood. When Ellaine met up with Jonathan in Firwood, I thought Ellaine was a brocon. Ever since they reunite in Griffonpeak, however, none of that warmth could be seen.

“… He couldn’t accept me being trained to become a griffon knight.” Ellaine eventually forced herself to say. “When we met back at the academy, everything was still normal. Actually, he seemed even brighter. He told me after our spar, he was training even more fiercely, accepting that he hadn’t been giving his utmost to improve. It was truly inspirational…”

She then paused, and continued, “It was during the first day since I returned. Father and Mother told the professors I was training, that was why I couldn’t attend classes. When I was to show the fruits of my training, I wanted to show off as much as I could. I guess… when Jonathan learned about it, I think it was then that we began to drift apart.”

Jonathan objected to Arcanuess Helvas’s decision to sponsor Ellaine’s squire initiation, unable to accept Ellaine’s crazy amount of progress in little more than nearly three months after meeting me. He hid it behind softer words like “Ellaine isn’t ready yet” and “Shouldn’t we give her more time to train her body?” but Ellaine was able to understand her brother’s jealousy.

While Jonathan couldn’t accept being weaker than his sister, Ellaine couldn’t accept her brother’s cold attitude towards her progress. The siblings weren’t able to remedy this despite their parents’ interjection. While Jonathan was able to act as if everything was normal, never making it awkward in public, Ellaine and Jonathan haven’t had a good chat in a long time.

“In other words, like brother, like sister?” Tasianna bluntly summarized everything after Ellaine’s explanation.

[“100% true, dear. As much as I liked drama, having to hear Ellaine confess all of this to me and her maid Josine was not fun. How liberating it is that the obvious is finally unveiled. I didn’t need to be a Demon of Envy to notice the clear jealous aura around him,”] Klea’Hatma suddenly said to us telepathically.

In the end, the most likely reason for Jonathan’s disappearance wasn’t a kidnapping but running away of his own free will, driven by his own envy and hurt pride. Saori and Grimnir managed to notice this immediately, despite how obvious it should have been. Am I still a bit too naive, I wonder?

After letting out a sigh, Ellaine looked back at Krymdar. It seemed speaking her mind did actually help her. “Please, Mister Krymdar. Even if my brother wasn’t kidnapped, the fact he told us not to look for him is something I can’t accept. I can’t even accept him relinquishing his right as the heir without going through the proper procedures! Please, I need to at least know if he’s safe and what his goal is.”

Krymdar stroked his chin once again, contemplating Ellaine’s request only to be interrupted by Muraina, “I apologize, but Krymdar currently doesn’t have the time. There is something we need to do at our elven outpost close to Griffonpeak.”

“What is an elven outpost?” I asked.

“North of Griffonpeak is a large solitary forest deemed a monster-infested area. As a safety procedure to keep a check on the humans, to prevent them from doing anything as unforgiving as what they did during the Faefolk War, we Saelari from the Enforcer faction took over this forest to monitor the humans in that area. King Drangleic gave us permission for our stay here,” Muraina explained, although she didn’t go into detail about what this Enforcer faction was.

“However, thanks to a sudden outburst of monsters starting from a week ago around the Greenveil and Griffonpeak border, the guild has been overflowing with subjugation Quests, as you could see on our Questboard. I even recently received information that a B rank monster had appeared inside of a cave in the same forest. The elves at the outpost are younglings in elven terms, unused to battle outside a forest.”

Border?

“Ah, shit, you’re right,” Krymdar gave himself a facepalm for forgetting. “Muraina and I are supposed to go and help those younglings, well, more like I should accompany Muraina to support her with my magic and potions. By the Night father, curse that damn wyvern for rampaging around in that area! This was supposed to be my vacation! I’m not here to clean up a monster outbreak.”

… A wyvern?

Saori, Tasianna, Ellaine, and I suddenly stiffened up at Krymdar’s words. Noticing this, Muraina leaned forward and asked what was wrong with us, even beginning to look suspicious.

“Nice poker faces,” Grimnir complained, shaking his head at our mistake. “Come on, leader, we should take proper responsibility for our actions.”

Urged by Grimnir, I gulped and spoke the truth about this wyvern they spoke about. I explained how this wyvern, Astalos, was pursuing us since my stay in the Belzac forest, ordered by Kargryxmor to help me escape. After an incident, we met again on our way to Griffonpeak, where I was forced to fight him to protect my party.

“As you could expect from an experienced and old B rank wyvern, he was a difficult foe. None of us could hold back. A-And, well, let’s just say that I created an explosion that pretty much devastated that part of the area,” I reluctantly retold the encounter, stuttering at how to describe my dive bomb.

“Ellaine was heavily injured during the battle, uhm, something which required help from Goddess Aurena,” Tasianna continued. “Lady Hestia had to focus on transporting Ellaine to Griffonpeak while Miss Saori was knocked unconscious during the fight. We didn’t have any macula seeds on us after we harvested some blood and organs from the wyvern.”

“Excuses, Tasianna,” Grimnir shook his head. “We forgot about it. I could have said something, but I simply forgot about the situation after we barely got out of it alive. Even then, I didn’t notify anybody about it. Considering I’ve been C rank for a while, I should have known better. By the rock hide on my ears, this is my mistake, guild master. I apologize.”

Muraina had her eyes shut and was pinching the bridge of her nose. Krymdar noted, “Ah, so that was why the reports mentioned a large part of the woods being burned down.” After letting Muraina contemplate, she raised her pointing finger and reprimanded us with her eyes shut.

“This is a warning, Aurora.” She disregarded my imperial status, following my previous wish to treat me as “Hestia.” “Your negligence could have cost people their lives. Sure, an outbreak of monsters could mean more work for hunters, but it brings nothing but problems for the leaders of that area. This was a huge one. Next time, if you cannot drain the mana from the area, NOTIFY SOMEBODY!” Muraina slammed her hand on the table before us.

“Mage guild members are required to clean up after they cast magic. The mana contaminating the area above a certain limit can cause B rank monsters to spawn, that should be something you all should understand!” She raised her finger up again, making us focus on the one she held up. “You could be expelled from both the hunter’s and mage’s guild for this, so reflect on your mistake here. The problems this monster spawning caused were quite severe.”

“““““Yes, ma’am,””””” everybody said.

“I will not inform the mage’s guild nor apply a penalty on your party. However! As compensation, I will require your help on this matter, yes? You’ll be taking over for Krymdar, you’ll be cleaning up your own mess. This will be your punishment. Understood?”

Urgh, we don’t have a real choice if we don’t want to lose our memberships… Gotta stay positive. This is a chance to get some experience, right?

We accepted. I did tell her about my concert in the end, though. Sure, it was rather brazen of me, but we have been planning it for a while now and I couldn’t afford to cancel it, especially since this was my job as a champion.

“Haaaaa, it would be a problem if I went against one of the Origin Gods.” Thankfully, Muraina was reasonable. “The seventh, the day after your concert, alright?”

I nodded. It would be a bit too soon after the concert, but we could rest in the RV on our way there.

“Good. Krymdar, you are free now, I have some willing hunters to help.” I was later told only those Muraina trusted may enter the outpost, so this Quest was never an official one, at least until now.

Krymdar shrugged his shoulders, accepting Ellaine’s request casually. As Ellaine was thanking him, Krymdar suddenly stood up and knocked on a door in the back of the room.

“I’m not too familiar with the undercity of Griffonpeak. I’ll call for help.”

When it opened, another acquaintance appeared.

“Yo, ladies! Great to see you again!”

It was Gael.

A note from AbyssRaven

More work for Aurora, although, in this case, it's more like cleaning up the mess they made. Still, more EXP!

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Chapter 210: More Plans on my Schedule.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“So, you actually stopped drinking until you black out and went out to train?” Saori was the first to speak after Gael revealed himself to be Muraina’s actual mystery guest and we had to introduce him to Ellaine and Grimnir.

Gael nodded, relaxing on the sofa. “Well, I was kinda lying low before that whole incident we experienced together in Firwood, but that isn’t the case anymore. At the very least, I thought I should be fit enough to defend myself from the bottom feeders of my old crews. Plus, I need some money right now, so I need to work more.”

“Then shouldn’t you be working for Farron? You are his vice,” I argued. I hadn’t interacted with him as much as Saori or Tasianna, so I only knew him as an arcane trickster who acted as Farron’s shadow.

“Lady Hestia, I am his spymaster. As long as I keep sending him interesting tidbits of information, it doesn’t matter if I’m sleeping on my couch, haha!” He was certainly casual as always. After having a good laugh, he then turned around to Krymdar. “Anyway, why did you guys bring me out? I thought you wanted me not to be seen?”

During the entirety of our discussion with the two elves, we hadn’t noticed Gael hiding inside Muraina’s safe room, despite how effective Saori was at acting as an anti-stalker machine. Muraina explained that she had her entire safe room enchanted to block nearly everything from outside the room, to the point that not even air could enter it. It was her panic room, in a way.

The elves, after learning our party wanted to speak with them, shoved Gael into the room for some reason they didn’t want to discuss. Apparently, Gael was also another of Muraina’s acquaintances from when he first started traveling with Farron and Yorshka. Considering how young Muraina looked, it seemed that the ageless beauty of the elves was as true as ever.

Then again, I know too many people who looked younger than what their age would suggest. Tasianna is a prime example.

“Gael, could I ask you to help Krymdar with a request in the undercity? It’s to find a noble boy named Jonathan, the brother of Ellaine Helvas over here.” Once again, they mentioned something about an undercity without further elaborating on it.

When Gael murmured, “The undercity, huh?” I couldn’t keep my mouth shut anymore and asked them about it. Gael turned around, scratching his head. “Well, you can say it’s a constant reminder of Artorias’s past, no matter how much the royal family would like to get rid of it. A cage made for slaves turned into a sewer and then turned into what we locals now call ‘Shaturein.’ Or, how I liked to call it, ‘home.’”

Cage?

“Wait, a moment, could you elaborate on that! What do you mean there is an undercity in the sewers?!” Ellaine exclaimed, looking at Gael with doubt. “I know there is a slum around the red light district, but it would be impossible for an entire city to be constructed underground!”

“What do you mean ‘impossible,’ lass?” Grimnir spoke up. “We tazongs build all our cities in the embrace of Crustacia. Our entire civilization is pretty much always under the surface or next to mountains!”

“Hmm, true, there was that ancient dwarven hold close to Rashan Village. Remember when we told you about that one, Ellaine?” Saori agreed.

Ellaine looked flabbergasted when she was corrected, deciding to stay silent to allow Gael and Krymdar to finish explaining.

“Don’t be too harsh on yourself, Lady Ellaine. As I said, the royal family wishes to forget about that part of the city. Some of the upper nobles know about it, but I can guess that nobody wishes to teach you about it. If you don’t visit the slums once in a while, you would never know that it exists.” Gael then patted Krymdar on his shoulder, earning the rogue a stern look. However, the elf then sighed and proceeded to explain the undercity’s history to us.

“During the Leosfalt Kingdom’s reign, the slavery of beastmen was just as rampant here as in most other human kingdoms during that time. The ‘undercity’ was a prominent slave market used by the nobility to buy slaves of any race those insidious merchants were able to acquire. Well, until us Saelari arrived to stomp the kingdom into dust.” Krymdar clenched his hands into fists and bumped them together, before miming an explosion. “Many of the slaves were freed during the war when we invaded the city, killing their previous masters and destroying anything related to slavery. Like rats, they established their homes there while scavenging whatever they could from the ruined city.”

“You’re speaking as if you were there yourself, Krymdar,” I stated, only to have it confirmed by Muraina.

“Krymdar lived through the war, but he only read the reports on the invasion. I, on the other hand, was one of the invaders. The blood of countless human soldiers is on my hands and Whisperia’s arrows.” Muraina then turned her head around to Ellaine, causing her to flinch. The elf then smiled pleasantly. “Not to worry, it’s been over 200 years now. My attitude towards humans has… relaxed. Although you sometimes do act similarly, the humans of today aren’t the same ones I fought back then.”

It was a bit chilling to hear an actual war veteran who witnessed the War for the Faefolk, an event that caused such a major shift in Artorias’s and Saelariel’s past. From how she seemed more comfortable around humans compared to Krymdar, and how she was friends with Farron and Gael, I would have never thought her past would be like that. Also, she’s fucking old!

Urgh! A chill ran down my spine as Muraina suddenly glared at me. Is she a damn mind reader, too?!

“Anyways,” Krymdar changed the subject back to the founding of “Shaturein.” “After House Artorias took over the northern part of the defunct Leosfalt Kingdom, they forbad the act of slavery, even forcefully freeing any slaves still in any noble’s or commoner’s hands. To hide the old undercity, the newly crowned king finally committed to the previous king’s promise to build a sewer, using the plans they got from the Empire.”

“But, the people who took over the slave market didn’t take too kindly to that,” Gael continued instead of Krymdar. “I heard they began ambushing the builders and guards, since, you know, they knew the place better than anybody else. Hippogryphs and griffons hate caves, so the knights couldn’t help. Soldiers were worthless when they couldn’t pinpoint a leader. It got to the point where the King had to strike a deal with those ‘rebels,’ promising that the royal family would leave them to their own business. As such, the sewer was built in the end, but it also made for the perfect place to build a whole ass town.”

It now made sense. Prestrodus, the Lycerepth judge I met at the ball, mentioned something about this “cesspool” underneath Griffonpeak. As I had no idea about this undercity, I couldn’t piece everything together. Gael then mentioned how this place was currently ruled by a bunch of criminal syndicates and gangs, turning this into Griffonpeak’s black market.

If this place was a haven for criminals, it would make sense why a Lycerepth judge would go there to “purge” people. If somebody from there were to kidnap Jonathan and take him somewhere, it would be there. However, if Jonathan truly did wander off on his own, then he would have no better place to hide than in Shaturein. If he had left the city or was hiding in the lower city, his family would have found him eventually.

Ellaine bit her lips, having understood this possibility. If Krymdar and Gael were to start searching anywhere, it would have to be the underworld of Griffonpeak while leaving the skies and the surface to Arcanuess Helvas. It also was surprising to hear Gael being born there, although, at the same time, it wasn’t since Yorshka told me he grew up as a criminal. From our current allies, he would be the best one to lead this search party.

Gael clapped his legs, standing up. “There is actually a base of the Yanderu Elusuess down there. They are actually one of the major syndicates in Shaturein. Do me a favor and don’t make yourself too conspicuous, alright? The boss ruling that place is somebody you don’t want to mess with, and I personally know how strong you three girls are.”

“That is probably going to be impossible,” Saori retorted, earning Gael a hearty laugh.

“Haha, I guess you’re right, Saori. My little birds have already heard about your concert, Lady Hestia. You pretty much promoted it to everybody through your restaurant, so I wouldn’t doubt that my old gang is interested in your party. Especially after what Saori and Tasianna did.” Gael hinted at the Davison accident, where Saori and Tasianna fought against and killed a few members of that black mercenary company.

One of them even met and fought Saori’s students. I even heard the Yanderu were responsible for supplying Davison with the faefolk for his experiments. I turned to Saori and Tasianna, noticing how they both had sharp glints in their eyes. There was apparently still a grudge.

In the end, Gael accepted Ellaine’s request to find Jonathan since he was planning to go down to Shaturein anyways. As Krymdar was leaving with him for work, he told Tasianna to come over to the guild tomorrow, mentioned that he would put her through an alchemist boot camp and warned her he was a strict teacher.

“Alright,” Tasianna answered casually, earning her a laugh from Krymdar. “Until tomorrow, Miss Aifli,” he said. He also suggested that she bring the materials for Saori’s and my catalysts tomorrow, as he would create them for us with Tasianna’s help. Taking advantage of this, Saori handed Krymdar a wooden slate from her storage, asking if he could try to create what was written on it. He left the room with an interested smile.

Since we came and said what we wanted, our party was about to leave when Muraina stopped us. She asked us for a bit more of her time. “Now that we are alone… Lady Hestia, Miss Saori, Miss Tasianna, would any one of you be so nice to inform me what happened in Firwood?”

“… Shouldn’t you know through Farron or Gael?” I replied. Muraina suddenly asking about Firwood couldn’t be a coincidence, she should know about the whole Davison incident from start to finish.

Yes, we continued talking about Firwood during our stay here, but we never outright mentioned Davison or the faefolk he captured. Only Gael mentioned something about the Yanderu Elusuess, but that wasn’t a reason to ask us about it, since Gael could probably give a better explanation.

Muraina didn’t mention Ellaine, despite her being a noble from the Greenveil duchy, living close to the Sirus march. Muraina didn’t even need to specify Saori, Tasianna, or me, since she could have simply asked the whole of Aurora. She specified us three since she knew Grimnir wasn’t there in Firwood and that Ellaine couldn’t speak about the Davison incident since she had her kingdom’s own interest in mind.

Saori and Tasianna had the same idea, keeping their mouths shut since we didn’t know if we should confirm what she wanted to know. Muraina raised a brow and leaned back on the sofa. “Tasianna, even if I hadn’t known that you had [Elvenization], I would have still known that you were a fairy. Can you guess why?”

Tasianna, hesitating a bit, responded after scratching her neck nervously. “Because you are a faemancer, Miss Muraina. Whisperia, the treant on your shoulder, is actually a spriggan inhabiting a ‘fruit’ of Saelariel, correct?”

I did think that treant was weird, but it was actually a spriggan inhabiting a tree bird?

The last faemancer that I met was Silva, a wind elf who helped us with calming the onnikais in the ruins outside of Firwood. Since Tasianna hasn’t given Muraina the same greeting as she did Silva, as wind elves and fairies were the patron races of Zephira, Muraina had to be a high elf, the first of the three elven races. Silva promised not to say anything about Davison and the onnikai but could she have gone back on her word?

“That is correct, Tasianna. Not a fully initiated one since I cannot perform any of Goddess Zephira’s rituals, but I am able to see all the spirits who followed you into my office.” Tasianna then pointed at specific spots on her body, although all we could see was air. “Yup, exactly. Anyways, in Farron’s report, he kept the details of Firwood itself minimal, so when I inquired about it, he remained vague and told me to investigate it myself.”

Muraina paused and went over to her desk and pulled out some parchment, placing it on the desk for us to see. “Well, when I went to Rashan village after looking into the situation, the lesser fae I met there were suspiciously reluctant to speak with me about something. It was as if somebody told them to stay quiet. Since you acknowledged the spirits around your body, Tasianna, you must have the [Fae Talk] skill, correct?”

There were three types of faefolk — lesser fae, fairies, and elementals. Although Tasianna was a faefolk, she was one born with more intelligence than the other two. Similar to how a human and an ape couldn’t directly communicate, Tasianna couldn’t do the same with her “cousins.” She couldn’t even see most lesser fae like spirits or spriggans who were too weak.

As such, she acquired the [Fae Whisperer] to learn [Fae Talk], enabling her to see and speak with lesser fae. Most of them were unreliable and were not worth talking to; they were like mischievous children according to Tasianna, so we had to treat their assistance like so. Sometimes false, sometimes true.

If Muraina couldn’t receive any information from the spirits around Rashan village, and most of them were former onnikai purified by Zephira, then Silva actually helped us! Why the hell did I mistrust her? Damn!

Muraina continued, “Farron was once a knight of the Lionheart order, and he has patriotic tendencies for his adopted nation, so I was sure he was hiding something that wouldn’t benefit Artorias if I knew about it. Gael can’t speak because of Farron. I could ask King Drangleic about this, but I don’t trust that man, unlike his father.”

“You don’t? He seemed nice enough.” It was a bit surprising to me. King Drangleic seemed like an upstanding man to me.

Muraina shook her head. “I am not speaking about his personality, in this case, I would describe him as a good and competent king who has the future of his kingdom and people in mind. But that is exactly why I cannot trust him to be truthful. As an arvisian with griffon blood, his family can live longer, a fact that everybody knows since his grandfather was the founder of Artorias. Due to an incident involving the isolationist faction in Saelariel and his father, King Drangleic only wishes to reform the relationship between our nations for his father’s sake, but has been wary of us elves ever since.”

“That cannot be true, Lady Muraina!” Ellaine objected. “His Majesty has supported every measure Duchess Morgiana and Duke Myrrdin suggested to mend our bond with your people from Saelariel.” Ellaine might be part of Aurora, but she was a patriot with a sense of justice, so hearing somebody badmouth her king must have not felt good.

“As I said, King Drangleic is a good king who has the benefit of his kingdom in mind. If there is an opportunity which will aid his kingdom, he will grasp and run with it.”

Muraina’s words made me understand why King Drangleic appeared before me after the ball, even admitting how he wanted to break his vassalage with the Empire to restore diplomatic relations with the dwarves and the elves. He even asked me to help him form a coalition between the northwestern nations, knowing full well what my status as a princess of Kargryx could provide him.

Muraina leaned forward, forming a peace sign with her right hand. “There are currently two factions involved in Saelariel’s foreign diplomacy with the humans — the isolationists and enforcers.”

Muraina gave us a quick breakdown of what the two factions represented. The isolationists were the elves who preferred to cut off all connections with the human kingdoms and the beastmen coalition in the fast east. On the other hand, the enforcers wished to keep up trading and other interactions to prevent the humans from doing anything insidious to the elves or the faefolk once again.

Krymdar and Muraina were both members of the latter group. Krymdar acted as an “honorable guest” for the Empire, using his station as an imperial alchemist to keep the scheming of the Empire against the elves and their allies under control. Muraina, on the other hand, became the hunter’s guild master for Griffonpeak to aid half-elven and elven adventurers during their stay in Artorias, while being there to act as an elven representative for the king to speak with.

“I am of the personal opinion that this relationship can never function without full trust between both parties. King Drangleic does not trust us Saelari, and vice versa. Without this trust, it won’t get anywhere diplomatically, especially if this secret is damning. I must know, so I can assess the situation.” We then looked over to Ellaine, the one person who cared the most about this situation. As none of us tried to convince her, Ellaine remained unsure. We knew Muraina and Krymdar were helping us with Jonathan, but the information we have will be problematic since King Drangleic is actively keeping it behind doors.

With no progress, Muraina sighed. “I see… Well, then let me ask you another question. Actually, I want to ask Tasianna about this.”

“Huh?”

“Tasianna, how do you feel about humans? As you could guess, the death of the late Princess Schuri of the fairy’s royal family was also a tragedy for us Saelari. I might have learned about it while I was in Artorias, but I too mourned for her. When your family name ‘Silverpond’ came up, I was able to piece the puzzle together. Tasianna, you were Princess Schuri’s maid, correct?”

Fairies, outside of the royal family, weren’t born through the conventional means like a human, but were born by the concentration of mana. Meaning, none of them were related to each other. As such, in the fairy village Tasianna came from, newly born fairies were adopted into families, and the Silverpond was one of them. If you were in any way familiar with Tasianna’s village, you would be able to figure things out.

Still, Muraina digging up Tasianna’s past made me annoyed with her, especially since this was a pretty touchy subject for Tasianna. I knew she blamed herself for being unable to prevent Princess Schuri’s death, and that this guilt caused her to develop a severe hatred for humans. She even tried to kill the first human we met when we came to Artorias, Lorena, a friend I made in Carine village.

However, Tasianna was stronger than I thought. Her mouth did slouch downwards, but she didn’t break down. “… I can understand what you mean, Miss Murana. I… did despise humans, very much so. But, after traveling with Lady Hestia and Miss Saori, I came to understand how my hatred was aimed at the wrong people. Despising a whole race simply because of the action of a few and their terrible history with us faefolk, while dismissing the good in those deserving friendliness… I saw the absurdity in that.”

She then took a deep breath, most probably to steel herself for what she would say next. “However, that doesn’t mean that I have forgotten Princess Schuri’s death. As Goddess Kronnaz is my witness, I will track down the person involved in Princess Schuri’s death. Fae hunters are not allowed to exi…” She paused for a moment. “They are not allowed to exist. The atrocities done to us faefolk as a whole cannot be allowed to continue.”

She then looked over to Saori and me, showing us her fired-up spirit. Saori taught her how revenge could consume you in its rage, but it seemed Tasianna was directing her anger at a more righteous goal. We knew she wouldn’t forget her grudge and we were willing to help her with it. What she said didn’t change, but the way she said it made Saori and me unconsciously smile.

She grew.

“How interesting,” Muraina interrupted our thoughts. “Most fairies are rather uninterested in most matters, since they are a carefree race. Even fairy adventurers are only a bit more serious, in fairy terms. On the other hand, Tasianna, you are certainly different. I wonder how many of the isolationists who used you fairies as an argument would change their mind if they ever met you?”

Tasianna turned around to Ellaine. Although Tasianna still found it hard to warm up with humans instantly, through our travels together, she and Ellaine have befriended each other. In the past, she probably wouldn’t have taken a human’s opinion, but now, she knew this was something important to Ellaine.

“Ellaine, I know your feelings about this, but I believe Miss Muraina’s decision is correct. Trust cannot be created if even one side holds animosity towards the other. I wouldn’t be like this if Lady Hestia and Miss Saori hadn’t helped me warm up to you humans. Please, allow me,” Tasianna pleaded.

Ellaine gulped. As a noble, she had to think about the safety of her house, and if she were to give Tasianna permission, she would have essentially betrayed her own kingdom. From her indecision, I guess she understood the importance of her next words.

“… Not here. I cannot agree to this if we speak about it here… but, I do agree, the truth must be spoken. However, I cannot agree to it behind His Majesty’s back. My family has enough to deal with, I do not wish them to stress out because of me as well.”

Tasianna nodded, having anticipated Ellaine’s answer. “Miss Muraina, as such, I would suggest we speak with King Drangleic personally. If you speak of how trust must be created, then the first thing we have to form is trust between you and the King. To speak about it here, when he was so gracious enough to keep Lady Hestia’s secret would be us breaking his trust.”

I clapped my hands, smiling at how smart Tasianna’s idea was. “That is true! It would do you no good if you learned this new information from us, Muraina. King Drangleic would be furious, and that will do nobody any good, especially us. I can make the appointment after we come back from your job, right?”

“Good enough, Lady Hestia,” Muraina showed us a content smile. “As long as I finally learn this secret, I can allow my curiosity to wait a bit longer. So be it.”

And with that, another plan was made. It was part of doing my job as Aurena’s champion, so it fitted our goals.

After saying our goodbyes to Muraina, we left her office and went down the stairs. To our surprise, instead of cheers and laughter, the guildhall was filled with people cursing and complaining.

“Damn, those fuckers! Fuckin’ pricks, all of them!”

“Oh, look at me, I’mma fancy fuckin’ manablood adorsed by the cathedral. I bought out some adventurers and had them form a party with me and now I’mma B ranker. Fuckin’ hell! Why is the damn guild master not doing anything about them?!”

“Ah, shut yer trap, man. Sure, the four guys the manablood hired were former wyvern slayers, but you should have seen the manablood perform during the C rank test. He ain’t dead weight, he actually got some skills.”

Confused by the uproar and, as the person in question wasn’t around, Saori went over to some calmer hunters and asked them about them. “Ooh, wait, aren’t you guys the ones from that weird restaurant? Wow, shit, been missing your food! When are you opening up again?”

However, he was thinking through his stomach.

Saori, however, ignored it and acted professionally. “Soon, I promise; however, if you want some good food and entertainment, please, come to Lady Hesia’s concert on the sixth. I promise you some good food. Anyhow, what is everybody complaining about?”

Excited at what he just heard about the concert, the hunter’s mouth opened up and spilled what we wanted to know. “Some manablood, Charleslyt, or something. He came in to do something at the reception, but he also fuckin’ began to prance around with his party about how they will make it to A rank soon and that we should bow to him. He shouted he wanted to kick out the guild master! Ha, arrogant whoreson. Muraina will send an arrow through his eyes before he can even come close to someone like her.”

Having heard enough, we then left the guild and went back to Ellaine’s home. On the way back, we also learned that this “Charleslyt” was the second son of Duke Equevanna, and that he was currently something similar to a rockstar among the nobles. As a B rank adventurer who was given armor blessed by the cathedral’s cardinal, he was on his way to make it to A rank.

Huh, so that was why all those noble girls at the academy were so excited about him. Can’t remember if I met him, though.

After making it back to the mansion, we directly went over to where Ellaine’s parents were and told them everything we learned today. At first, Marianne was outraged at the very notion that Jonathan might have left willingly, but Arcanuess Helvas quickly stopped her from shouting. Along with Saori and Grimnir, he seemed to have had his own suspicions when he read the letter, but didn’t want to admit it.

Both parents were incredibly proud of Jonathan and had the highest opinion of him. Doing something this excessive was the greatest surprise since they found out Ellaine wanted to join Aurora.

“I will send my own spies down to Shaturein. The more ears, the more we can finally find Jonathan. I will also leave some around the entrance in the red light district, to make sure he isn’t hiding somewhere in the lower city.” Arcanuess Helvas then turned to his daughter. “I apologize, Ellaine. This information is something we parents shouldn’t be telling our children. A blight on the prestige of Griffonpeak should not become common knowledge.”

“It is alright, father. The knowledge of this information has only reassured me that Brother can be found, allowing me to calm down a bit. I know I shouldn’t be too complacent, so I will put this time until Brother is found to good use.”

“Well said, Ellaine,” the Arcanuess nodded, smiling. “There is still much we need to do until Lady Hesta’s concert. Too much, actually. There is also your training, you still need to become stronger to control that creature.”

[“It will be fun to meet you in private once again, human. Hope your wife doesn’t mind.”]

“… Goddess, please, keep my son safe in your light.” Arcaliess Helvas prayed, ignoring the demon.

What a family.

A note from AbyssRaven

Trouble brewing inside Ellaine's family, Aurora got a new job, and Hestia is about to become a matchmaker for Artorias and the elves. Full schedule.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 17 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

If you can spare a second, please do not forget to give the story a vote! Every vote helps the story stay visible for others. The vote button is just under the chapter buttons.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 211: The Saintess of Orphans

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #3 her to promote our Patreon. 17 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 17 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until October!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

“Oh, so this Evidian curry. I’ll be honest, Lady Eshe, when I first came to Peolynca, I was surprised to hear that the levianewts have already invented something similar to the curry I know from Earth. At least, that is what I heard from the people who tasted Saori’s curry.”

It was lunchtime the day after I had my meeting with the hunter’s guild master Muraina and the imperial alchemist Krymdar. There were two days left until my concert. On this day, I went over to the church’s orphanage in the lower city in order to meet up with Eshe so we could rehearse the “idol of Aurena” part of the performance.

Although I had advertised myself as one of Aurena’s blessed before the nobles, and not just as an idol, there wasn’t a real reason for me to do more than to cast [Prayer] unassisted to impress them. However, Saintess Eshe and High Bishop Theodore persuaded me to do more, as it would be a good practice to act more priestess-like. In addition, I also had to impress the clergy and the more religious concert attendees.

During my two weeks of theological lessons, Theodore pretty much stuffed as much as he could from the books he had into my head. From how certain rituals worked like Spring’s Blessing, where priests and shrine maidens were sent out to farms and villages to bless the soil with “holy mana water”-filled chalices, to how the church’s bureaucracy worked, which actually was just Theodore rambling about the cathedral’s cardinal.

Some of the lessons were just a repeat of things I already knew, for example the subordinate gods of Aurena’s pantheon and what feats they had accomplished that earned the Origin Gods’ attention and earned apotheosis. I’d already learned this part from Tasianna, but the information on how they were being worshipped today was new to me.

As much as the different parts of the Church of Aurena wanted to act as if they were completely united, most cathedrals and temples usually worshipped Aurena in addition to one of her subordinate gods. This was usually a matter of doctrine and ideology, since all gods represented something, usually related to their godly title; for example, the old man Kargryxmor — actually, maybe “Kramps” would be a better nickname for him — was the God of Dragons and Oaths and Istari was the God of Magic and Knowledge.

Among Aurena’s pantheon, some gods had conflicting ideals — one example were the sister gods Andira, the Goddess of Fairness and Equality, and Erithia, Goddess of Nobility and Wealth. Two goddesses both well loved by humans, but who rarely ever shared the same followers for obvious reasons. Firwood’s temple used to worship Andira when it was still just a small town, but once it grew, Erithia became more popular.

When I commented on how this seemed like they were breaking the second dogmatic doctrine — to not diminish the faith of other subordinate gods as they all serve Aurena equally — Theodore responded with, “Siblings quarrel all the time. As long as they don’t cross the line of acceptability, some friendly rivalry is not forbidden.” It felt as if he spoke from experience.

In any case, that was how I spent my time with Theodore. Eshe, on the other hand, was more focused on teaching me the culture of the Empire and the duties of the saints and champions of Aurena. Eshe mostly spoke about the former, since her home was in the Great Evida Desert.

And what was a better way to introduce your culture than through food, right?

Breaking off a small piece of bread, I dipped the still-warm chunk into the orange curry and scooped both the soup and some meat into my mouth. Unlike Saori’s curry, which was sweeter and used fewer spices in the recipe, Eshe’s curry was like a spice explosion, assaulting my tongue with intense spiciness, fulfilling savoriness, and enticing sourness.

I instinctively sucked in the saliva inside my mouth into my throat and let out a sigh, as if the spiciness had affected me. This was probably the second spiciest dish I’d ever tasted since I was reborn, just behind the spicy mushroom roots Tasianna found in the Cedaraille dungeon’s depth.

When I told Eshe my thoughts, she seemed pretty interested in the mushroom, having believed that the Evida desert had the spiciest ingredients in the Empire. She was also interested in Saori’s curry since she only knew about the one her homeland made. “Evidian curry began as a seafarer food, specifically from the levianewts who used to live on the seaside, since it was not only easy to make with whatever ingredient they had but they also easily filled the bellies of the sailors.”

With the levianewts sharing the recipe with the human sailors, it began to spread among seamen since the spices and ingredients used for the dish could either be stored dry for long trips or procured on the sea. Merchants and returning sailors then spread the dish to the various towns and cities inside the desert and it eventually became a national dish.

Usually, this curry would be served with something similar to naan bread, but we couldn’t procure that in Peolynca nor could Eshe or her knights bake it. Honestly, the more I learned about the Evida desert, the more it reminded me of a fusion between India and Arabia. The parallels between Earth and Peolynca were strange yet interesting at the same time.

Since Theodore couldn’t come today, as he was supervising the construction of the concert stage with Grimnir, I was only eating lunch with Eshe and her knights. Saori was teaching bakers how to make pastries and rice sweets, Tasianna was studying under Krymdar to become a better alchemist, and Ellaine was helping out her parents by estimating prices and creating a place for the nobles to sit, leaving me to go visit Eshe alone.

Still no news of Jonathan. I can only imagine that Ellaine and her parents want to go out and search for him.

While enjoying the food Eshe made for us, I reopened the discussion we had before, “So, are all the saints and champions of Goddess Aurena known within the Empire? Every single one of them?”

“I believe that must be the case, Lady Hestia. She usually says, ‘I greet my Saints and Champions at this meeting’ through God's voice, so she should be conversing with all of us. It wouldn’t do to simply exclude one of us, when we all serve the Goddess with all our being. I might not have met them personally, but all known saints and champions are recorded in every temple. After all, every pious person must know and celebrate our Goddess’s representatives!” Saints were treated like religious leaders while champions were revered like heroes; at least, that was how it was in the Empire.

Eshe continued. “Since we saints and saintesses were chosen to preach and promote a certain aspect the Goddess wishes her followers to know, it goes without saying that our word carries quite a lot of weight. However, we also have a responsibility to lead our fellow followers well, for they cannot hear the Goddess’s words as clearly as we do.”

“Oh? Is that so? Which reminds me, what is the relationship between Goddess Aurena and the other saints and champions. I do wonder what you would talk about with her, or is it purely business?”

Although my three meetings with Aurena were rather short, from what I learned from Kramps, she was supposedly acting more relaxed around me compared to her meetings with her other blessed, similar to how she would have this demeanor around Kramps and Istari but not the other gods in her pantheon. This was her way to express her trust in me.

As such, I did wonder how she acted with the other blessed, since I was curious at what Kargryxmor meant when he said, “Aurena has to live up to her religious image,” or something like that. It would also give me a better idea of how to act around those saints and champions whenever I met them.

“Talk?” However, my question was met with confusion by not only Eshe but her two knights. Having taken off their scarves to eat, I was fully able to see the slight bafflement on Sir Alikar’s and Dame Anivh’s expressions. “Well, as her pious servant, doing something so casually as ‘talking,’ wouldn’t that be too inappropriate to do in the limited time we have with the Goddess? Shouldn’t you know this, Lady Hestia, our souls aren’t strong enough to enter her divine realm and the messages we receive are often indecipherable, although, maybe your messages are more coherent than ours since your blessing is stronger?”

“O-Oh, that’s right. Y-Yeah. I forgot about that, I apologize.” A chill ran down my spine as I forgot what Kargryxmor had told me, that normally, saints and champions weren’t able to enter a god’s divine realm unlike me and Ellaine. Gods usually communicated with their blessed through System messages and couldn’t invite them to their divine realms since mortal souls couldn’t endure the pressure there.

I knew Kargryxmor mentioned at the end of our meeting how my soul would explode if I stayed too long, but I thought he was joking, not telling the truth. I was considering if I should tell her about my meeting with Aurena in her realm, but I decided against it. It would just spook her and provide nothing substantial.

“It’s alright, but you must remember it since it’s the most important part. The Goddess might have mentioned it, but mortal souls like ours cannot withstand being the radiance of an Origin God,” Eshe scolded me.

She then continued after calming down with a renewed smile, “However, to answer your question properly, I believe only the most pious are able to discuss with Goddess Aurena longer than a few words. As such, we blessed have a responsibility to guide our brothers and sisters of cloth, as they cannot accurately interpret her words. I have the duty of reinforcing my faith to the Goddess, so I may be blessed with more of her wisdom.”

“You’re talking about missing words or hard to decipher sentences through ‘the word of the gods’, right?” Eshe nodded to my question. Aurena had mentioned that this was one problem the Origin Gods had with communicating with their followers, since they had to reduce the length of the divine message to not accidentally overload the recipient’s soul.

As such, if you were less faithful to that specific god, the divine messages, or “word of the gods,” were less clear in their context. This led to people misunderstanding the original intentions of the messages. You couldn’t even have a proper conversation with them, unlike when I joked around with Aurena during my emergency flight to Griffonpeak.

If you looked at it that way, it made sense why saints and champions were so popular. Although, I did question why they were so popular that possibly all of them were known to the public. Wouldn’t it be problematic if someone were to attack them specifically ‘cause of that reason? Then again, it might be hard to do so in the Folschreck Empire.

“Come to think of it,” I suddenly realized something. “Lady Eshe, you don’t do many sermons, right? Actually, I haven’t seen you giving one since I first met you. For a saintess, who, as you said, is responsible for guiding her fellow followers, you usually only stay inside the orphanage. Yes, you are a shrine maiden, but still, it feels odd to me.”

“Lad—” Anivh wanted to speak out suddenly, but Eshe quickly stopped her by raising her hand.

“Lady Hestia, I am the Saintess of Orphans; my role as the Goddess’s servant is to make sure that orphaned children are given a warm place to grow and learn the beauty of Her Holiness. To make sure they may enjoy a good childhood without fearing the real world until they reach maturity,” Eshe spoke with passion and zeal, asserting herself even more than usual. Her eyes had a strong influence on the impact of her words, imprinting them into your memory with ease.

She continued, “I am not much use as a preacher, for what do adults have to learn from me? Commoners have their own situations, so preaching to them about the woes of some random street urchin would be arrogant of me. Nobles? Why would they be interested in such a sermon? It isn’t much, but I prefer doing my duty by helping these children find a safe home here.”

Huh, that does make more sense. There seem to be more children around, I think.

Eshe also explained how her role as a saintess was better used to gather donations from the pious and to help out at the local orphanages, using her influence to improve it and help create lasting benefits even after she left. She explained how the orphanages in many cities inside the Empire were usually understaffed or underfunded, and that the older children usually had to act as caretakers with the shrine maidens for the young ones. The one in Eshe’s home city used to be like this.

It was admirable, no questions asked. I felt ashamed for not being able to think of this by myself, feeling the answer was so obvious after Eshe explained it. If you think about it, children were one of the most important “resources” of a city or country, since they would become the ones to lead the world’s future.

Orphans or not, it didn’t matter. Eshe’s efforts to give more children shelter, warm food, and a family made me respect her even more. It was so amazing to hear that it made me even more curious why Theodore told me that Eshe switched from a priestess into a shrine maiden. Even if nobles disliked commoners, nothing bad could be said about a person who actively helps children, right?

Since we were having lunch together, I thought it would be alright to ask. We’ve known each other long enough. “If it isn’t rude of me to ask, could you tell me if those rumors are true? About how you were involved in some drama with the noble white robes in Sarkafiina?”

Anivh and Alikar looked at each other with slightly furrowed brows while Eshe’s smile broke for a couple of moments. Their reactions were a clear indicator that I touched on something thorny, and that the rumors were most likely true. As I panicked and apologized, saying she didn’t need to say anything if it made her uncomfortable, Eshe said she didn’t mind it.

“You shared your struggles before coming to Peolynca. I was able to learn what drove you into becoming an ‘idol.’ It is only right for me to share my story, too.” Pretty much every Peolyncian that knows that I am a reincarnator has been extremely curious of Earth, and Eshe was no exception.

Eshe breathed in deeply, held it for a second, and let it all out before beginning to speak, “As you know, I am a commoner. Born with enough magical potential that both the mage’s guild and church wanted to buy me off from my parents in order to indoctrinate me from a young age. Naturally, as I was given this potential by the Goddess, I of course chose to go with the church, where they raised me into becoming a white robe.”

Eshe was pious, very pious in fact. At least, I could sense the joy in her voice whenever she spoke about Aurena specifically. During her explanation, she emphasized the greatness of Aurena a great deal, believing most of her decisions and gifts, like her high mana growth despite being a commoner human, were all influenced by Aurena. I would have been cringing at the conversation if this had happened two weeks ago, but I got used to it somewhat.

In summary, Eshe was turned into a white robe priestess when she joined the clergy after they bought her off from her family when she was still a young child. She was educated to become either a secretary or a lady-in-waiting for the noble white robes in the cathedral in her home city, while also serving the duties of a white robe to alleviate the workload of the nobles, whatever that actually meant. But, as expected, she had little to no political influence despite being a priestess and not a shrine maiden.

While sent out on official church duty to a nearby village, she was expected to only grant [Prayer], heal any injuries or illnesses, and maybe wed people if there was a need; however, that was where the drama began.

“I… I did something I thought was rightful and proper as a priestess, but the consequences of that action brought nothing but problems. Not only to me, but also to the people I wanted to help.” Eshe hesitated in revealing the origin of the rumors, but decided to keep it to herself, simply stating that her actions did not reflect the good she wanted to do. She then trembled as if a cold wind had just wafted in, prompting Anivh to stand up and make a new cup of tea for her.

Once she recovered, she explained how the church was dissatisfied with her after learning of the results of her action, punishing her by stripping any privileges she still had and turning her into a shrine maiden. She was then sent to the orphanage as its new director, a duty usually given to grey robes in her city.

This new role was meant to break her, since white robes, regardless of whether they were commoners or nobles, lived a less taxing and more privileged life than she would have experienced growing up in the slums with her old family. However, it had the opposite effect. Eshe thrived in performing her new duty, as taking care of the young children reminded her of her more simpler days in the slums.

As the director of the orphanage, Eshe was finally outside the scrutiny of the nobles and was able to move more freely. Through this, she was able to become one of the most popular clergy members in Sarkarfiina, to the point people treated her as a potential saint candidate with her philanthropic work in the slums and her care for orphans.

Her knights described it as an aura of light appearing behind her, which they attributed to her [Saintly Aura], the advanced version of [Benevolent Aura]. From what I learned of Eshe’s spells and skills, she sounded exactly like the typical supportive saint class, with only supportive custom spells and little to no combative skills. Well, for that, she had her knights Anivh and Alikar for combat encounters.

“And you actually were blessed four years into your role as the orphanage director? Wow, how did those noble white robes react?” I asked. Considering her story and personality, I fully understood now why she was made into a saintess. She fit the stereotype perfectly.

“Well, they acted friendly—” Eshe was saying when she was suddenly interrupted by her knight, Anivh.

“They hid their true emotions behind their masks of expressions, congratulating and praising Lady Eshe in public while speaking of her as a tool from behind. Members of the clergy or not, for disrespecting a chosen representative of the Goddess… unforgivable.” Anivh and Alikar rarely spoke, staying silent whenever I came over for some reason. When she spoke, however, it was serious.

After finishing lunch, a shrine maiden knocked on the door and informed us that somebody who knew Eshe was waiting outside the orphanage. Although she was unsure who the visitor was, Eshe decided to go out and greet them anyway. I followed her since I had nothing else to do but wait.

When we came out, a young man in a familiar outfit stood there, saluting Eshe the moment she appeared out of the door. I noticed the crest he had on his outfit, noticing the gavel with the eye symbol, the mark of the Lycerepth. It wasn’t surprising to see one of their members here, since the Lycerepth were also responsible for protecting Eshe, but what baffled me were the two men behind him.

While their clothes weren’t in tatters or ragged, they still looked old and used, as if little effort was put into cleaning the sweat, food, or dirt stains off the fabric. It looked gross even after the clothes had been washed. Like pack mules, the men were carrying full backpacks, which looked like they were filled to the brim with groceries and tools, heavy enough that they were standing on their feet with crooked backs and their hands bowed.

Both men raised their heads when the young, energetic Lycerepthor saluted and shouted, “Desert winds fly forth! May the Goddess bless your day with bountiful light, Saintess Eshe!” At this point, I was able to see a blue runic tattoo etched onto their foreheads. Looking closer, it showed the image of an eyed gavel inside a cage.

Wait, where did I see— no, I don’t think I’ve seen this before but I think I heard about that symbol somewhere.

Uhm, a cage symbol with something ins- Oh!

“A-Are they slaves…?” But my question was answered by nobody. Only Eshe’s frowning face turned around a bit to me without answering, deciding to move over to the young man with Alikar.

As Eshe spoke with the young man, I barely listened to them as I was more focused on the two men standing still behind them. They weren’t attempting to set their backpacks down despite their shaking legs. In Artorias, selling or owning slaves was forbidden, but here we were, in broad daylight, and a guest from the Empire was openly dragging his slaves around Griffonpeak.

I remembered how the Artorian nobles at the ball complained about the slaves the Empire brought with them, and I couldn’t help but agree.

“Dame Anivh, they have that runic tattoo Lady Eshe explained to me. Are they—?”

“Yes, Lady Hestia. The Empire has a flourishing slave economy. Please, be reassured, they most likely have runic tattoos to increase their Strength and Stamina to carry those heavy burdens,” the knight informed me, showing a lack of emotions now that she was back on duty.

“No, that’s not what I… Whatever.” I remembered Eshe not liking slaves, so I don’t think complaining about those slaves to her knights would do any good. I would just be barking up the wrong tree.

After some time, Eshe’s discussion with the man ended and she briefly went over to the two men and prayed for them, earning Eshe their rapid thanks. She then returned to me and informed me Pestrodus wanted to discuss some matter with her, so she apologized to me for a short meeting today. I told her it was alright, and that we will meet up again at the concert. She agreed, telling me to practice the rehearsed text she and Theodore wrote for me as an opening act to create the “correct mood.”

As Eshe had to pick up something from inside the orphanage, I left first. I said goodbye to the kids and also gave the two slaves a small prayer just like Eshe. Seeing my white robe, they also thanked me, but their words only made me pity them even more. There was nothing good to feel about all of this.

“Empire’s blessing to you, Lady Shrine Maiden! May the Goddess bless you on this bright day!” The young man had medium-long, dark yellow hair groomed to show his forehead. As I looked into his eyes, I noticed how it was colored yellow and red, split equally right in the middle.

“May this EarthDay find you well, Lycerepthor. May the Goddess bless the grounds you walk on, banishing the shadows on your path.”

As a girl from modern Earth, my opinion of the Folschreck Empire deteriorated even more today.

Regardless, I slapped my cheeks as I walked back to the mansion. There, I found House Helvas’s servants and attendants rushing out and into our RV, carrying boxes that were either empty or filled with either rice or wheat flour.

Room.

I entered through the back entrance of our RV, stepping a room far too wide for it to fit into our small RV. It was our subspace dimension created through my [Room] spell turned into runes. I smiled at the number of fully decorated tables inside it, noting how beautiful and refined it looked, so similar to a greifnoble’s dining room. It wasn’t huge, as our aim for it was to serve a small handful of patrons; after all, it was Saori’s noble restaurant.

Entering through the kitchen, I then moved into a room next to it, where the white floor and walls were replaced by earthy colors. The heat was noticeable but I ignored it entirely for the incredible smell of fresh bread and the sound of hammers pounding onto something soft and squishy — it was our pastry room.

There, I saw Saori, Marianne and Theresa, Duke Greenveil’s wife, ordering attendants around as they pulled out piping hot sponge cakes from the dozens of stone ovens I made using earth magic. Pastries like milk bread, cream puffs, and croissants were being pulled from the ovens en masse and placed on a table, where they were being placed into presentable boxes.

In another corner, people were pounding wet and softened rice into mochi while others dried them into sweetened rice crackers. From inside the kitchen, I could hear people frying something, so I went out, seeing them making a bunch of fried rice balls and coating them with honey or edible seeds.

This is amazing.

Yeast was being made in a separate facility to avoid people learning the recipe for it while Saori was teaching workers inside our RV’s [Room] how to create the pastries and rice sweets we were planning to sell at my concert. Later on, they would establish their own bakery according to our standards to sell them throughout Artorias through the Sarlenzia company and Amelia’s sweet shop.

Artorias, prepare yourself for a pastry and confection revolution!

Two more days. I cannot wait to see my new concert stage.

A note from AbyssRaven

Concert is coming up, soon. But for now, please, enjoy this.

Map of Artorias

Made using Inkarnate, it took a while for me to finish this one since the crew hadn't reached Griffonpeak yet. After we arrived, I decided to finish it up and here we have it. The Olivus and Groushia Duchy are missing some parts, but that is due to how large I could make this map. They will be updated in future maps.

Now, usually, maps like these would be kept on Patreon since they are Patreon exclusive, but since it might get more confusing if the world gets even larger, I thought it would be good to post it on RR. I got my Patreon's permission to do so. if you guys want to see the World Map, or the sketch of it, or if you want to support me, then please consider Patreon pledges. More money means I can focus more on the story instead of other things like working, sleeping, and eating. Also, you guys can read 17 advance chapters, so that is a plus, too.

Oh yeah, this Map will most likely get updated some times when I add locations from the story to it. I will post them in the Art Library, if you want to check them out.

Also, since a lot of people already asked me about it on Patreon: Yes, you may use this for your DnD sessions but please give appropriate credits and also promote the story to your friends, alright? More followers for Hestia's cult! More followers for Dragon Idol so we can rise up the ranks!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 17 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

If you can spare a second, please do not forget to give the story a vote! Every vote helps the story stay visible for others. The vote button is just under the chapter buttons.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 212: Griffonpeak Concert.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #4 her to promote our Patreon. 17 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 17 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until October!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

Take these two! It is dangerous without! Rawr Song 1 and Rawr Song 2

Now, enjoy.

“What a beautiful afternoon.”

The summer sun was about to disappear below the horizon, painting the sky a brilliant orange that was slowly turning dark with every second. It was the second last day of the one-week festival dedicated to the founding of the Kingdom of Artorias. As expected, nobody wanted to stop enjoying the festive nature, the streets were still crowded with cheerful people after nearly a whole week.

In an open plaza area in the merchant district, in the section closest to the middle district usually used by wandering merchants to sell their wares, something huge had been constructed there. Made out of a wooden platform with metal pillars holding up a truss, it looked large enough for 20 people to move freely around it. A curtain was hiding something curious behind it; after all, no need to spoil the surprise of my concert stage.

It’s… This feels amazing, I thought as I touched the well-made wooden floor. I could feel my heart pounding the longer I stayed inside the darkened interior of my stage, once again experiencing awe with how far I’ve gotten in my second life. On Earth, I only stood on these stages as the daughter of the show’s conductor, but today, once again, I was standing here as the main performer.

However, this wasn’t my [Earth Magic]-made stage from back in Carine Village, it was my newly made one. The one Grimnir, Saori, Tasianna, Ellaine, and I dedicated our sweat and time to fully construct; a version made using wood and metal to give people the impression that everything was authentic and professional. Every fiber of my being was excited at the prospect of me performing on it.

I left the stage and entered the backstage, where Tasianna and Svena were waiting for me. “Have the Count, the Countess, and Ellaine come back yet?” I asked them.

Svena responded to my question by shaking her head. “My Lord, My Lady, and the Young Mistress are most likely still looking around the area, Lady Hestia. His Majesty’s domain isn’t as large as the Duke’s, but it is still large enough to have several villages.”

As I expected, but it’s still a shame.

It’s been three days since we sent Gael and Krymdar out to find Jonathan in the undercity, but they haven’t found anything yet. It got to the point where Ellaine and her parents couldn’t hold it in anymore and wanted to charge into the undercity, only to be stopped by Saori who told them the obvious, “If somebody like Gael cannot find him, then all that the three of you will do is warn Jonathan and come out empty-handed.”

As a compromise, they decided to fly out and search Griffonpeak’s surrounding area this morning. Since the preparations for my concert were done and the whole yeast and pastry business could be handled by the Duke and Arcanuess Helvas’ representative, those three decided to use their newly-acquired free time to look for Jonathan.

Ellaine was expected to come back tomorrow to rejoin our party in helping Muraina’s problem, since she wanted to commit to her duty as a member of Aurora, especially after I decided to accept her wish for strength by letting Klea’Hatma live. Speaking of the demon, the spell rings that her mana inhabited were currently in my possession.

Despite Aurena’s blessing in the skill [Okl’ Luthier’s Power] that was able to kill Klea’Hatma whenever, I still decided it would be best if Ellaine didn’t have this parasite with her while I’m not around to sing [My Darkest Thoughts]. She accepted my proposal, showing her confidence in the sword skills her father taught her. The rest of our party was visibly relieved Ellaine wasn’t totally relying on her borrowed demon’s power.

Currently, the rings were inside my storage since Klea’Hatma’s mana didn’t count as a living being. As such, she was affected by [Storage Magic]’s time-stopping function and froze inside it, unable to act. Even if she did, I removed anything that could give her an advantage, for example, I left the orb she had been imprisoned in, in Saori’s care. In fact, that was part of our nightly routine whenever Ellaine went to sleep, after all, you couldn’t be more cautious around this “bomb.”

I was still in my normal everyday outfit, and Tasianna and Svena wanted to change me into my first performance outfit as soon as possible, but I delayed it a bit to look around the corner. There, I witnessed a large number of festive people gathering before my concert stage along with guards loaned to us by Duke Greenveil keeping order around.

“Come, come! The show is about to start, so come and get your snacks before it begins!” Saori’s voice echoed through the area, using one of those voice amplification rods since I couldn’t be with her right now. She was standing behind counters filled with pastries and snacks with our RV behind her.

“Come on, akong, if you want to enjoy the show, come over here and get one of these glow bulbs to enjoy the show correctly!” Grimnir was also there, holding up small balls made out of leaves. As a blacksmith, Grimnir wasn’t unfamiliar with promoting his products, even if he didn’t have to do it very often. “Don’t activate them yet, if you want the best result, do it when we do it. Our young lady’s wish.”

Crowds of men, women, and children were huddling around Saori as they stared at the piping hot pastries on the stand, waiting for the clerks to sell them to them. They sold out so fast that it was hard for the Helvas servants to keep up with the restocking, having to constantly run into the RV and back out again to bring out the next batches.

The loud cries of the excitement of people tasting the donuts, cupcakes, and croissants were filled with energy that made me envious, making me wish for some of the pastries for myself. Some servants were even selling mead and clean water to the celebrating crowd, to quench their thirst. I was expecting a large crowd, but it feels like more people have come today than I thought.

Word of mouth, it was smart of us to start constructing everything so conspicuously. Even with the restaurant’s promotion, the only way for it to spread throughout the city was through the people.

“Lady Hestia.” I turned around when I heard somebody call me, noticing Amelia, Duke Greenveil’s youngest daughter, standing there with a familiar man standing behind her. It was Barathan, Arcanuess Helvas’s seneschal.

“Ah, Lady Amelia. Barathan. How are the nobles faring?”

“Good, they haven’t complained except about the loud noises coming from the commoners and the unsightly display of their festiveness. However, the pastries we are selling and their comfortable seats were enough for them to endure it,” Amelia answered.

Amelia Greenveil, the heir of the Sarlenzia company and the main distributor for our pastries in the future, wasn’t here without reason. She was here to work with Saori and Barathan, the latter of whom specifically came to Griffonpeak from the Helvas arcanarch to act as the overseer for the yeast production as well as to manage and sell the pastries we all made in the past few days.

As her grandfather’s heir, Amelia also was able to use her family company’s influence to promote today’s concert to all the prominent merchants and a few minor ones, who acted as our secondary promotion tool. In addition, while Saori handled the commoner side of the business, Amelia and Barathan were in charge of taking care of the illustrious nobles who came to attend my concert.

“I am honored to serve you once again, Lady Hestia,” Barathan bowed, stating how this was the second time he helped me with my concert. “Our attendants are presenting menus to the lords and ladies as you wished, Lady Hestia. The aristocrats will be ordering through them and we will serve the pastries and rice sweets directly to their seats. Up until now, it has worked without any issues.”

Looking over to where the nobles should be seated, I saw multiple large bleachers. Knights hired from the Lionheart order were guarding the area around the nobles, preventing anybody who wasn’t a noble from entering. We also had an area for the rich merchants next to it, since the nobles who planned this whole event with me all agreed that nobles would despise sharing “exclusive” seats even with the most refined of commoners.

Just watching the noble ladies enjoying sponge cakes while sipping tea with satisfied expressions was a great sign, but it got even better when I heard the men were ordering Berliners, German doughnuts without a hole, with wine jelly fillings. Seeing a bunch of sweet stuff was great since women and children were our primary demographic, but pleasing our male buyers didn’t hurt; in fact, it gave us more reason to have more variety in our stock.

I was pleased to hear that everything was working out and thanked Amelia and Barathan for their work. With how much money we spent on furnishing our RV’s subspace and getting the decorations for the concert, we had to make sure we could make a profit today. In order to attract as many people as possible, we had decided that admission to this concert would be free.

We wouldn’t become bankrupt even if we couldn’t sell everything, but it made me smile to see our plan to revolutionize Artorias’s pastry and confectionery market going off without a hitch. With their stomachs and taste buds satisfied, it was about time I also conquered their hearts and ears.

I entered a small tent where Tasianna and Svena changed me into my first outfit — a colorful short dress. With one final “good luck” from Tasianna and Svena, I clapped my cheeks to psych myself up and walked back on the stage. Now back in the dark, I took one last deep breath before giving a thumbs up to one of the stage crew.

As light entered through the crack of the curtain, the sound of my crew working became quieter and quieter for me, drowned out by the ecstatic attendees. I knew, right now, that their minds weren’t currently focused on me, but at the food before them.

That was why…

Let’s do this, parallel minds!

… I had to give them a show they wouldn’t forget!

“Tonight, I’m really feeling the heat surging inside me ♫

I’m about to explode ♫

And this night, won’t end until we’re done ♫

Satisfied from the our fun and games ♫

So, (Blaze it all night) ♫

(I won’t be stopped) ♫

‘Cause this night is still young, far too young! ♫”

[Music Resonation (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

As the curtains began to draw back more and more, I expedited the process by using wind magic to shove the curtains to the sides and poured my mana into the wood to activate Grimnir’s and Ellaine’s newly-made manatech spotlights, shining light throughout the audience.

However, I did not stop it just there. As I activated [Aerokinesis] to play my music and to amplify my singing, I created a few sparks and grew the fire into a flower, making it look like fireworks exploding behind me. By controlling its power, I was able to attract everybody’s collective eyes without burning down my newly made stage.

[Stage Fever (Major)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“I’m a burning star ready to explode ♫

To bring my light down to rock your entire existence ♫

I move like flash fire, bringing your night an incredible WOW! ♫

I’m gonna go, go, go ♫

Don’t you stop now! ♫

Ooooooooh, we’re burning through the night, yeah! ♫

Turn the music up! ♫

Are we gonna let this party end?! ♫

Are we ready to greet the sun?! ♫

No! Since this is just the bloody start! ♫”

With every note more into my song, the rowdiness of the crowd was directed away from the food and towards me. With their bellies full of food and alcohol, music was just the perfect stimuli to turn the ecstasy up a notch. I wasn’t too bothered with the fact they were enjoying my performance as an accompaniment to the food and alcohol, since this was just the opener.

“No! This festival ain’t stopping yet”

“No, this night is not gonna end now!”

“Wooooo, come on, let’s go!”

I’m having such a good night ♫

Fun of my life ♫

(Don’t let this end) ♫

One chance to enjoy our life, so don’t you dare stop! ♫

(Blaze it all night) ♫

Cause this is the time of our life ♫

(Blaze it all night) ♫

Yeah, it ain’t time to end it ♫

So do you guys want it to stop?! ♫”

“No!”

This song was aimed at the commoners only, I wasn’t expecting any of the nobles to like it too much. However, it wouldn’t be good if I lost their interest immediately. As such, Ellaine suggested that I perform magic during this time, to show off my magical skills as much as possible to keep people interested.

I did impress a lot of them during the ball, but I was a professional entertainer; I had no intention of resting on my laurels like that. Even if they didn't like my song, I was fully intending to fascinate them with my magical abilities. With my control over fire, lightning, wind, and light, I was able to create a wide range of special effects, wowing the nobles. Even Tasianna was helping me out with some cold mist and snowflakes. The concert was, without a doubt, an eye-catching display of artistry.

As the song entered into its guitar solo, I took this time to gather a ton of mana to my hand and raised it up into the sky. As I expanded my mana capacity more and more, the draining feeling that using a lot of mana at once had on me became less pronounced, regardless of whether I used a large-scale spell or not. I noticed that the nobles and a few mage-looking adventurers caught on to what I was doing, and were growing suspicious.

But I simply showed them a brilliant, wide smile.

“Prayer!”

A huge white magic circle appeared in the sky, probably my largest activation of [Prayer]. There were a lot of people around in the crowd and I didn’t want to leave even one of them out of the fun. By the time that people noticed the circle, my spell had already been cast.

[Blessing of the Goddess of Light (Major)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Synchronized with the end of the spell and the look of wonderment of the crowd, the guitar solo ended and I continued to sing.

“Ooooooooh, we’re burning through the night, yeah! ♫

Turn the music up! ♫

Are we gonna let this party end?! ♫

Are we ready to greet the sun?! ♫

No! Since this is just the bloody start! ♫

I’m having such a good night ♫

Fun of my life ♫

(Don’t let this end) ♫

One chance to enjoy our life, so don’t you dare stop! ♫

(Blaze it all night) ♫

Cause this is the time of our life ♫

(Blaze it all night) ♫

Yeah, it ain’t time to end it ♫

I don’t want it all to stop?! ♫

Lala-lada-lala-lala ♫“

As the music and my singing stopped, I bowed before the crowd in the middle of the spotlight. I then snapped my back up and postured myself correctly, raising my arm up and waving at everybody. “Good evening, Griffonpeak! My name is Hestia, and I thank everybody for coming to my concert today! I dearly hope everybody has had the chance to taste the pastries and sweets my party Aurora, Duke Greenveil, and Count Helvas were able to produce. Courtesy of me, please, enjoy the wonders of yeast and rice sweets~”

People were clapping everywhere as I announced this news to everybody standing there. The people standing before were cheering as they learned where the food came from, even if they had to pay for it. The merchants were ecstatic to learn this important piece of information, knowing now where the origins of the pastries and sweets they ate and where they could procure more.

The nobles, on the other hand, were still clapping with the rest of the crowd, but some of them were simply doing it out of respect while looking visibly concerned. From what I heard from Ellaine’s father, he did mention that the moment we made yeast a common product in Artorias, that its value as a luxury product would probably decrease. A ridiculous notion, even to Duke Greenveil and Arcanuess Helvas, since nobles were supposed to be the “elites who will push the development of the kingdom.”

Also, even if yeast is cheap, the other ingredients and how you prepare it can make any cake into something incredibly expensive. Caviar cake, for example, urgh.

I continued my speech after the clapping and cheering settled down, “As you might have noticed, I have cast [Prayer] on everybody. Please, allow yourself to feel the power seeping into every pore of your body. This power comes from the Goddess above, a glorious energy.”

I paused to breathe in deeply and then exhaled, which prompted most of the crowd to follow along. Once again having everybody’s attention, I spoke the lines that Theodore and Eshe wanted me to announce during my concert. “I would like to properly introduce myself now. I am Hestia, a priestess of Goddess Aurena and also her first ‘Idol.’ What is an idol, you ask? Well, as you could witness, an idol is an entertainer who brings people’s souls together in unison to enjoy the wonders of music and dancing. Whether it is from the voice of an angel or through awe-provoking body movements.”

The silent gossiping of “An idol?” spread to everybody in the audience, looking confused to hear the sound of it. Some of the people who spent time at our restaurant already heard me explain it to them, so they seemed less confused about it. It wasn’t hard to notice who was who.

“By the benevolence of the Goddess, may this prayer guide you into a wonderful tomorrow. May this be another gift to the Kingdom of Artorias, and may this concert seal it truly.” I then activated [Halo of Consecration], conjuring a white flaming halo above my head. “This concert is blessed and watched by the Goddess, so please, allow yourself to relax and have fun. Allow me to mend your soul with my melody!”

24 humans have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total follower of [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 678

Wait, what, so early?! And this many just after the first song?

From looking at the crowd before me, I noticed that a few white robes amongst them were looking at me with sparkling eyes, holding their hands in prayer as their mouths were left agape. Similar to my second concert, my first fans came from the already pious.

I giggled a bit. “Then, I ask everybody for your patience. The show shall continue at a moment’s notice.”

The curtains were shut close and I could hear my audience talk about what just happened. I wanted to continue listening to them, but I ignored the voices and rushed off the stage and into the tent behind it, where Svena and another maid were waiting for me with my second dress. It was the dress I wore for the ball.

After putting it on and rushing back to the stage, there, in the darkness, somebody’s voice entered my ears. “I am ready, Lady Hestia,” I heard in a whisper. It was very familiar to me. As I held her outstretched hand, I felt her soft skin touch mine and how it trembled slightly. Whispering “You got this, we trained for this,” to her, I then gestured to the stage crew to open the curtains.

“Listen to the winds of the night, the tranquility of the shining, bright moonlight ♫

I am here to see the waxing and waning of the four seasons throughout the year ♫”

The piano began playing calmly as an icy mist surrounding the stage, giving it that mysterious feeling. As my voice began to sing “My Light’s Blessing” again, I wasn’t alone this time, for this song wasn’t a solo.

“You are here for me, dancing linked with the rhythm of our hearts ♫” As I released my hand from my partner’s, we began to move to execute our stage choreography, singing in harmony with each other. There, I saw her — Tasianna, in her blue ball dress.

“At this moment now, we are the focus of our small world ♫” She sang.

“Hold me tightly, my love, your warmth calms me so, let this last for eternity ♫” I sang.

“I feel the heaven’s eyes on us, for you are my light’s blessing ♫

Let us forget reality for this small moment of silence under the moon ♫” And once again, we sang in unison, letting our voices mix together to empower each other even more. We held each other’s hands again, moving our feet like in waltz but keeping our hands against each other’s, as if we were touching a mirror.

It was only for a moment though, since an entertainer’s job was to look at their audience.

“Alright, release them.” Suddenly, from below the stage, Grimnir tapped the shoulder of one of the store attendants. He then picked up one of the glow bulbs and touched the top, before releasing it into the sky. As the attendant mimicked his action, those leaf balls slowly floated in the sky before releasing a colorful glow ranging from red, orange, yellow, and green.

As the crowd saw them do this, the ones who bought a glow bulb looked at it and touched the tip of it, noticing the ball unfurling and revealing the glowing inside content. Releasing it into the sky, they illuminated the night sky like sky lanturns. I noticed the nobles and wealthy merchants being curious at the beautiful lights and requesting to buy some of the bulbs.

It was Saori’s secondary request to Krymdar when we met him at the guild. The original idea was to create glow sticks since I wanted them for the authentic idol experience, but Krymdar later explained how wasteful it was to make them, even if we replaced the plastic sticks with wood or something. The cost to make them would be too high to make any profit from them, and the cleanup would be disastrous.

As such, we settled with sky lanturn like glow bulbs. Krymdar created a one-time glow similar to a firefly and wrapped it up with leaves. To activate them, water had to be added beforehand and you then needed to touch the tip of the bulb for the balls to work. It would then suck in air from around it and float up until it was full, creating this alchemical glow effect.

Seeing these lights floating in front of us, I was glad we managed to emulate the glow sticks somewhat. You could say, this is how Peolyncian idol concerts worked, right? With Tasianna and my motivation renewed from this sight, we continued singing with even more energy.

“With each step that we take together, my heart aches for it knows it well, that our time will end soon ♫

I’m so lost in thoughts of what I should do later for our moment will not last ♫” Tasianna’s voice was clear and in tune, an experience she gained from her time in the fairy village singing along with her fellow fairies. It wasn’t hard to work with her as a result, and we were able to build the rapport necessary to blow this performance away.

“But if that is the case, then I shall cherish this memory ♫” With harmony, we lead into the chorus once again.

“At this moment now, we are the focus of our small world ♫” I sang.

“Hold me tightly, my love, your warmth calms me so, let this last for eternity ♫” Then she sang.

“I feel the heaven’s eyes on us, for you are my light’s blessing ♫

Let us forget reality for this small moment of silence under the moon ♫” We both combined our voices once again, going for the high notes to show off our voice’s strength.

149   humans and beastmen have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total follower of [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 827

It was probably the most followers I’d ever gotten after a single song. I was proud of myself. I was proud to stand here with Tasianna, one of my best friends. I was proud to share a song with her.

When our song ended, the glow bulbs started to dim and fall onto the ground, now only a pile of leaves. They would be easy to dispose of later on. Some were still floating and the applause coming from the merchants and nobles was deafening. I felt an incredible sense of pride at the response to our duet, and I could see Tasianna agree with her wide smile.

“This is my friend and party member, Tasianna. Thank you very much for listening to our song.” We bowed and the curtains closed. And the cycle began anew with me switching out of a dress into the next, performing on the stage and then receiving applause before the curtains closed.

198 humans and beastmen have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total follower of [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 1025

205   humans and beastmen have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total follower of [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 1230

368 humans and beastmen have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total follower of [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 1598

512 humans, beastmen, and half-elves have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total follower of [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 2110

449 humans and beastmen have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total follower of [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 2559

Follower amount requirement fulfilled.   [The Light] proficiency requirement fulfilled

Milestone reward gained: Skill [Dark Weakness Removal]. Next Milestone unlocked: 10000: [Miraculous Grace]

[Dark Weakness Removal] merged into [The Light]

It was amazing, as more time went by, the crowd became larger and larger; however, due to the size of the plaza, it became harder for people to see me, even if they could hear my voice. If there were additional bleachers or if the location was more suited for huge crowds, I probably would have been able to gather more people.

Nevertheless, I was satisfied. Every song was able to impress more and more people.

Of course, every group had a different taste in music. While the crowd was alright with all songs, they still preferred the high-energy songs. The merchants loved the more romantic songs, probably since it was as if they could enjoy the fantasy of them, Lastly, I gained the most fans from the nobles when I sang my two ballads, “Promise” and “Memories,” which I guess was due to how they were more focused on telling a story and delivering a message. They were “more” artistic, you could say.

“Thank you very much, everybody. That was my last song, huuuh,” I let out a sigh in the end. My voice was exhausted from all the singing, straining my voice as much as possible while dancing on stage. “I hope everybody was able to get an idea of what an Idol of Goddess Aurena is supposed to do, and I hope you will wait in anticipation for my next concert!”

“Yeeeaaaaaaaaaaah!!!” The crowd exploded in cheers, drowning out the applause from the merchants and nobles.

“My party and I will be traveling around, performing whenever we can, in any village, town, or city we can. If you are there, please, I ask you to come and hear me sing once more! Let us all feel more connected to the Goddess and the Origin Gods through songs!” I then pointed at our RV where Saori was standing, having replaced the pastries with clothing. “For now, if you wish, there will be clothing you may buy. I apologize for announcing that the clothing is all made from either mana threads or expensive fabric, so the prices will be quite high. However, there should still be some—”

As I was about to announce that they could still continue buying pastries and sweets from the RV, Saori began to furiously shake her head. Even without a telepathic message, I understood her clearly enough.

Holy scheiße, they sold out?

“—Thank you very much for your attention and cheers! I loved it all! Until next time, may the Goddess guide you on your path forward! May your path be forever bright!” And that was when the curtain closed for the final time this night. Svena and Tasianna congratulated me for a work well done, praising me for my endurance.

As the tent was already taken down, I was led back to the RV to change out of my clothes there. As I was on my way, a chubby man in fine clothes suddenly came over; actually, it was more accurate to describe it as him stumbling over here like a drunken man.

Was he a noble or a merchant? It was hard to distinguish them purely from clothes alone since the difference between a rice merchant’s and a noble’s outfit wasn’t too huge. If the man had a crest, I probably could have asked Svena if she knew it, but the man didn’t have it on his clothes. Two men were flanking him, probably his guards.

Regardless, he probably was a fan coming over to speak with me. I wonder how he made it past security.

… But I don’t want to deal with drunks— No, I shouldn’t think like that! That is a bad attitude, Hestia! Still, I should get out of this outfit, first, and maybe clean myself up. I’m not presentable.

“Lady Hestia, I am Cardi—”

“I apologize,” I bowed slightly. “Please, allow me to change out of my clothes and I will be free to speak. Please, I will be back soon!”

Without saying another word, the man stood still, which I took as a sign that he accepted my proposal. I didn’t get a look at his expression properly, but I probably shouldn’t keep a fan standing for too long. After slipping into the RV while the crowd was cheering my name, Svena and Tasianna transported me to our communal room and gave me a quick bath and clean up.

After I was freshened up, I left the RV in a hurry and went back where I saw the chubby man, but he was no longer there. I began to look around but couldn’t find him, so I asked one of the guards, who informed me that he had left.

Why? I freshened myself up as fast as possible… Mhm, verdammt.

It seems that I still have to properly learn how to appease fans. It is the duty of an idol to— huh?

2 human followers lost

Total follower count updated. Total follower of [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 2557

W-Wah?! I can lose followers?!

This was the first time my follower update went down instead of up. I’d only been gaining fans all this time that I forget you could lose them. It was obvious, but since it had never happened before, I hadn’t worried about it.

I still have so much more to grow.

Singing and dancing weren't the only things an idol must do. Since having fans is so important, I have to learn how to treat them better. Every person was different, and I have to do my best to keep their smile up. If I can’t, like with that man and his guards… well, then it was better to not get too depressed. Idols lost fans all the time, even on Earth.

At least one of them is still a follower. Now, let’s make sure I don’t lose even more!

The night was exhausting, not just ‘cause of my performance, but also ‘cause of the after events. Fan meetings were harsh and mentally taxing. So many people wanted to greet me and then there were the nobles and merchants who wanted to make closer connections. Well, I should take this as a lesson — I needed better social skills. Extroverted or not, there was still so much I needed to learn.

On the next day, Ellaine arrived back at the mansion, looking gloomy from the complete lack of results on their search. We comforted her the best we could, telling her that he would be found soon, and I gave her Klea’Hatma back. We then went back to the concert area and quickly packed everything into my subspace. Since it was made to be easily taken down and built back up, we were quickly able to store everything in record time.

We then went over to the hunter’s guild. Muraina was awaiting us, ready to go with us to the elven outpost.

“Be happy, everybody. The urgent Quest is B rank.”

Fun and games first, and now back to work, I guess.

A note from AbyssRaven

No more dark weakness! Yippe! Okay, oh no, how did Hestia lose two followers D:

Now, to the mentions today. First things first, Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now." Rawr

Second song was the same one from during the ball, but this time Hestia sang it with her voice's full potential. Moona Hoshinova's "Ai no Chiisana Uta." Rawr

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 17 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

If you can spare a second, please do not forget to give the story a vote! Every vote helps the story stay visible for others. The vote button is just under the chapter buttons.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 213: Aurora RV, New and Improved.

A note from AbyssRaven

I would like to start giving shout-outs to certain novels which I like. Mostly since I felt it was necessary for the smaller stories and I because I want to see them grow. If you are interested, please give them a read!

"Orc Lord" by docemoon145: An isekai story with a female MC is reborn into the body of a pig-faced Orc, like from most Japanese anime. LitRPG and also a city builder around chapter 100. The novel is in a Haitus right now but the story is still pretty good, which coincidentally was the story which brought me to Royal Road in the first place.

"The Blue Path: Step 1" by CoolDragonZae: A VRMMORPG story set in a dystopic world where the MC is trapped inside a place called "Haven." The MC's character is a vain gunslinging who prioritized style over effectiveness, like most other people. While Chapter 1 was okayish, what really hooked me were the two subsequent chapters. Despite only have 125 followers, the story has a good enough quality that I believe it deserved more than that. As a fellow author, I believe this one deserves more interest.

"Whisperers of A Dead Empire" by Isolde: A isekai dungeon core story with a female lead that turns into a kingdom builder later on. The writing could use a bit more formatting, which could be jarring, but the atmosphere and the system of the world pretty much brings you in at chapter three. For only 326 followers, it feels like a diamond in the rough like "The Blue Path."

“Wow, for a medium-sized wagon, this room surely is a bit too large,” Muraina expressed her surprise at the sight of our communal room, noticing how spacious it was and filled with furniture for rest and recuperation. She then noted the five rooms and our bathroom inside the corridor next to it, now completely confused at the situation. “… This is space-time magic, correct?”

I gave my thumbs up. Considering what I’d heard from Tasianna, that the elves were a race who worshipped all Origin Gods equally and put a lot of value in magical knowledge, it shouldn’t be weird for Muraina to identify [Space-Time Magic] spells. I explained to her what [Room] did and how it worked.

“I see… it is extremely rare for anybody to learn [Space-Time Magic], since the condition to receive it is so difficult to fulfill. And then there is the fact that the spells are so mana-intensive to use, and how long it takes to level up the skill. Ah, you and Saori certainly are lucky, Lady Hestia.”

I then gave Muraina a tour around the different rooms of our subspace, showing her our restaurant, the kitchen, Grimnir’s smithy and shop, Ellaine’s artificer room, and lastly the sauna and artificial hot spring. I suppose that, since the sauna and hot spring were next to our communal room, I could have shown it to her earlier, but I thought it would be the best one to end with.

“Everything took so much money to furnish. Without Count Helvas’s staff, we probably would not have finished it all in one week, and even then, there are still some things that we need to work on,” Saori informed Muraina as she followed us. She then snapped her fingers, having remembered something. “Which reminds me. Shoyi, come out.”

At her command, something black suddenly oozed out from her shadow, wobbling around like jelly as it slowly formed into an oval, squishy creature. It crawled up Saori’s leg like a snail, prompting her to pick it up and give it a gentle tap on its body before caressing it like a cat.

Eeek! It’s a slime, urgh…

“Hestia, let me introduce you to the answer to our plumbing system, Shoyi! My fifth shadow beast, a [Lesser Shadow Slime]!” The slime’s skin suddenly moved up and down like a wave, responding to Saori’s excited voice with something similar to elation.

I gulped and forced myself to look at the small slime, still slightly afraid of them from my past experience with a larger variant. “I know Ellaine suggested that we buy one of them, since noble houses use these aromatic slimes to eat toilet waste and keep bathrooms smelling good, but does it still work as one after you made it into a shadow beast? Also, ‘Shoyi?’ Did you really name it after ‘shoyu?’ Soy sauce?!”

The black slime did remind me a bit of soy sauce, but it felt weird calling it after a condiment. Somehow, Saori disagreed.

“Nonsense, Shoyi is an acceptable name, Hestia.” She was adamant about it and stroked the slime again, who reciprocated Saori’s affection by slightly moving its body. How did these two get so familiar so soon? “And, yes, you do not have to worry about it. My [Shadow Pack] skill does change my tamed beasts’ races, but it does not change their skill sets. [Lesser Aromatic Slimes] like Shoyi have a racial skill called [Detritus Aromatic], which helps them process waste better and create a pleasant aroma. In the wild, they use this smell to attract more animals towards them, leading to more ‘food’ for them.”

When I asked Saori how Shoyi was seemingly reacting to her words, she explained how sensitive slimes were to external stimuli, as they lacked the ability to see and hear. Slimes weren’t intelligent, which included Shoyi even after it turned into a G rank [Lesser Shadow Slime], so they couldn’t react to Saori’s words. However, it could feel her warmth and gentleness whenever she touched it.

“[Shadow Pack] creates a link between me and my shadow beasts, and it’s probably an improved version of the normal tamer system, similar to how your [Idol] is an improved version of the bardic system. Shoyi still isn’t sapient enough to think or make its own decisions. It still acts through instincts alone, and, even if I ordered it to, it would not be able to become your retainer just yet, Hestia.” In other words, the slime had to evolve. “I asked the other tamers at the hunter’s guild for tips, and they told me that I can control the evolution of my monsters through the tamer system, although they have to be loyal enough. Uno, Song, Sarasa, and Quatre shouldn’t have a problem with that, and I am now making sure Shoyi won’t either.”

Shoyi also was too small to multiply itself into individual blobs until it evolved into something able to control them from a distance. Saori was hoping that she could have some time at the elven outpost to hunt some monsters to power level her garms and Shoyi. Speaking of the garms, they were still too stubborn to accept my [Hestia’s Retainer] title.

As Saori continued playing with Shoyi, Song suddenly poked her head out from Saori’s shadow and began wimping at her alpha. Feeling bad, Saori allowed the garm to exit her shadow and began playing with her giant dog. You know, Saori really was like those people who didn’t want a pet but would turn into pet lovers the moment they got one. Nobody would believe Saori didn’t want to take the garms in at first.

“This is fascinating. If I remember correctly, [Shadow Pack] should be one of your custom spells, Saori? I don’t remember the details anymore, but are you constantly summoning them, right now?” Muraina asked, having started stroking her spriggan Whisperia’s treant body due to Saori.

“Not exactly; in fact, for some reason, my custom spell turned into a unique skill. I still have no idea what triggered that event, but I am happy with the results. Still… Muraina, do you possibly know why Edna would suddenly keep watch of somebody?” Saori explained to the elf how she got the [Watched by Edna] title after evolving into a B rank, omitting what monster she evolved into to keep some secrets. She forgot dark elves like Krymdar worshipped Marsven and Edna, since they were their race’s progenitor, so she never posed him this question.

Muraina nodded and thought about it as we continued the RV tour outside the [Room]. “Hmm, well, Edna is the Goddess of Monsters and Fertility, and was renowned as one of the best tamers when she was still a mortal elf. When we high elves were still considered the only elven race. I don’t think you’ve given birth yet, correct, Saori?” Saori vehemently shook her head. She admitted to being a virgin, even in her past life. “Then it has to be due to your [Shadow Pack] skill, the monster race you evolved into, your blood connection with Belzac, or some combination thereof. Those are the only possibilities I can think of. If you really want to know more, I would probably ask Krymdar or pray at one of her altars and hope Goddess Edna responds.”

“Where would one of these altars be?” Saori replied.

“There is one in Saelariel’s capital, Caindha, in the temple dedicated to Marsven.” Saori initially wanted to ignore the title, but it seems that she wasn’t able to entirely. With nothing happening with it for a whole month now, she probably got impatient. Similar to myself when I had to come to Firwood and Griffonpeak for Aurena, she’s now on a pilgrimage to an altar for Edna.

When we exited the subspace, we returned to the living room of our RV. Even if we mostly lived inside the subspace now, we still had to make space for receiving guests that we couldn’t trust letting into our [Room], so we kept most of the furniture intact here. It also was a good place to rest before we left for a Quest, so we kept the kitchen here for small snacks as well.

There we saw Ellaine slouching on the counter stool, slowly eating her breakfast as she attempted to keep her eyes open. When she noticed us, she waved her hand and looked at me. “Hestia, I forgot to apologize for not attending your concert. I’m also sorry I couldn’t sing the third song with you, despite how much we practiced together. I can’t believe I forgot about that when I came back.”

Ellaine and her parents didn’t sleep at all yesterday while they were searching for Jonathan, so when Ellaine came back to the mansion, she looked terrible. She complained how they couldn’t find Jonathan and that her parents couldn’t stop looking, despite how tired and stressed they were already from all the work they put in for the concert and yeast deal. When Barathan heard this, he shook his head and murmured, “They haven’t changed since we traveled together” and flew out on his gargoyle to fetch them.

From what I remembered, Barathan was the attendant who traveled with the Arcanuess and Arcaliess when they became adventurers, so he probably was extremely close to them. Considering how he was entrusted to take care of so many important operations like managing the arcanarch and the yeast production, it seemed that he was a reliable person.

“It’s alright, Ellaine. If I was in your position, I would do the same. Family is everything; I can always reschedule a concert, after all.” I then gave her spell rings with Klea’Hatma in them back, which she accepted with a strong nod.

She then turned over to Saori and asked her about how well the pastries and sweets sold. Showing a proud smile, Saori responded, “We sold out. The mountains we managed to bake sold out before Hestia could even finish the concert. Lady Amelia received some complaints from the nobles about how we shouldn’t have sold so many to the ‘masses’ if we couldn’t keep enough stock for them. We profited immensely and managed to recuperate a majority of our investments.”

Ellaine clapped. “Amazing, hiehie. They will complain now but Amelia will somehow deal with it; after all, we will be the only merchants with the products they want. Ahhhh, this will 100% guarantee that father will ascend to the Arcanuess rank without any complaints from the other nobles in our duchy. Lord Duke Greenveil will most likely perform the ceremony once father and mother arrive back in Griffonpeak and legitimize their new ranks during our trip. Wow… I am the daughter of an arcanuess now.”

I clapped her shoulder and told her to finish her breakfast before Saori, Muraina, and I moved upstairs, where we noticed Tasianna tending to our garden while making some mana potions. After we expanded the garden during the renovations with the [Room] runes, Tasianna was able to include more herbs as well as various other plants which could benefit our potion-making. We even left a bed inside this “greenhouse” in case Tasianna had to stay here and sleep.

“Oh, which reminds me of something… here, everybody. Your catalysts are finished!” Putting her bow down, Muraina then opened up her travel bag and pulled out a head-sized red orb and two palm-sized dark green balls from them. Handing them over, Tasianna gleefully asked us to [Identify] them.

Mana Eyes.

Heart of the Volcano Catalyst

An alchemical orb created using the volcanic heart of a Volcano Furnace Volchark. If mana is registered to this catalyst, it will levitate and float around the owner using stored mana. An aura is emitted from this catalyst, reducing any fire or lava element damage by 50% against the owner. This reduced damage will be turned into Health for the owner. Significantly reduces Health, Mana, or Stamina cost of any fire elemental attacks and its compound elements.

Owner: None

Skill: [Resource Efficiency Lv. 8] [Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 8] [Chant Revocation Lv. 10] [Flame Furnace Aura] [Cast Activation Speed Increase Lv. 7] [Inferno Amp] [Lava Amp] [Artillery Spell Enhancement Lv. 1] [Explosion Spell Enhancement Lv. 1]

Flame Furnace Aura

An aura of heat envelops the area around this skill’s owner. Allies within this aura will have their fire and lava elemental resistances increased by 30%. Explosion resistance increased by 30%

Draconic Thunder Cores

Twin alchemical orbs created using the electric sac of a [Boltreaving Wyvern]. If mana is registered to these catalysts, they will levitate and float around the owner using stored mana. Connected by an electrical current, the function of a single orb will deteriorate if the distance between the twins is too far apart. Electrical current may be stored inside this orb as a replacement for mana. Even as a catalyst, the wyvern’s heart pulsates with power.

Owner: None

Skill: [Lightning Revolt (Limited)] [Boltreaving Blade (Limited)] [Mana Efficiency Lv. 8] [Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 10] [Chant Revocation Lv. 10] [Cast Activation Speed Increase Lv. 8] [Lightning Amp] [Artillery Spell Enhancement Lv. 1] [Critical Spot Damage Increase Lv. 8]

Lightning Revolt (Limited)

The racial skill of the [Boltreaving Wyvern] enabled through a specialized organ sac, now turned into an alchemical catalyst for further usage. While the heart’s power still pulsates with life somewhat, its powers are now reduced in their new form. Electricity of any kind may be stored inside this catalyst for future usage. Once at maximum capacity, the owner may supercharge the catalyst, increasing lightning-based attacks and enabling to owner to cast one additional [Multi-Cast]

[/tbody][/table]

Boltreaving Blade (Limited)

The racial skill of the [Boltreaving Wyvern] enabling it to use [Electrokinesis] close to its body. In its Limited form, the control distance is reduced to around the catalyst and the amount of voltage controllable is also reduced. Electricity may still be shaped into any form possible

From just the first glance, doesn’t it seem like my catalyst is more catered towards a supportive role? Then again, it makes sense that Saori’s catalyst is more powerful since they were made from Astalos.

When Tasianna noticed my sullen look, she spoke to me. “Lady Hestia, when Master Krymdar made your catalyst, I was allowed to give him my opinion on what you and Miss Saori preferred. From a combat standpoint, do you really require more methods of attack, Lady Hestia?”

Tasianna was right. Concerning my offense, I had so many tools under my belt that I haven’t fully mastered yet. While adding more wouldn’t hurt, and I was always looking on creating more custom spells and toxins, there comes a point where having too many options would become detrimental.

Moderation is important. If there were ways for me to improve my existing toolkit by empowering those options, then I would become stronger while allowing me more chances to perfect my attack plan. After just receiving [Unheilige Engel] and [Halo of Consecration], there were now more things I had to incorporate into my fighting style.

While thinking deeply on this subject, Tasianna continued, “The skills on Miss Saori’s catalyst were chosen to improve her new abilities, strengthening her offensive and defensive abilities even further. For you, Lady Hestia, I believe more defensive options would be better, no?”

“Am I not already pretty resilient against anything fire related?” I responded.

“Resilient, yes, but… how about immune? Impossible to defeat?” Tasianna’s ideas were becoming more enticing to me. “In the case you aren’t happy with your current catalysts, Master Krymdar has shown me how to create them twice, so I can always produce more and repair them. Even without Master Krymdar around, the stacks of text and books he gave me may keep me occupied with learning.” She then pointed at the stacks of books next to her alchemy bench. We should add a bookshelf for her later.

Tasianna then urged Saori and me to register our mana into them, finalizing the progress. After filling the catalysts with our mana, the orbs glowed their respective colors and our name appeared in the “Owner” area. When mine activated, a warm aura began emanating from it as it floated around me. It reminded me of a mobile heater.

“We can finally ask Grimnir to start producing weapons and equipment suitable for our catalyst, Saori.”

Speaking of Grimnir, he should be driving the carriage at this moment.

Looking out the windows of the second floor, we confirmed our RV was about to reach the gates. Our trip would normally take two days with a wagon, but since two of Saori’s garms would always drag the RV forward, we probably could reach the elven outpost a bit earlier, assuming there weren't any disturbances.

Since we didn’t have anything else to do for now, Muraina, Saori, and I decided to help Tasianna harvest some of the produce. Since I always made sure to continue pouring my mana into the soil to accelerate their growth rate, we would always have boxes filled with fragassa, fulinoe leaves, cooking vegetables, and alchemical ingredients ready at hand. Tasianna is a treasure for loving garden work.

As we were in the middle of harvesting today’s produce, we felt the RV halting still. We probably were waiting in the line for the gate inspection before leaving. As the line moved forward, the RV would move and then slow to a stop every other minute like clockwork, but for some reason, while it was moving forward, it came to a suddenly halt, shaking the RV a bit and unbalancing us.

That was when we heard Grimnir shouting.

“Bladdarg, you stupid akongs! What in Crustacia’s name are you doing, jumping in front of a wagon for, huh?! You got a date with Ilsaphone?!” A commotion. There were other people speaking around the RV but Grimnir’s voice stuck out the most, causing us to worry especially after we heard somebody else speak.

“We, suicidal? You got it the wrong way, dwarf. We’re just doing our duty as hunter’s by confronting these giant wolves you got here, I mean, you gotta be dull to not have noticed how uncomfortable they’re making things for the common people around us, right?” A man’s voice was heard.

“Yeah, look at that scarred one. If you don’t know it yet, we have a festival in the city right now and youse are making it pretty bad for everyone if these wolves suddenly start to rampage around.” Another stranger spoke up, supporting the man from before.

“So? Those garms ain’t doing anybody any harm, they aren’t even growling at you four idiots. I’m currently leaving the city, so how about you four move your asses out of my way and stop blocking the DAMN LINE!”

“AH, SHUT UP, ALREADY! The boss is hiring us to get some good leather for him, so let’s just kill these things already and be done with it! I ain’t going all the way over to the Olivus Duchy for that C rank quest.” Somebody with a deep voice declared with clear hostility in his voice, making a metallic sound similar to unsheathing a weapon.

The moment she heard this, Saori shouted “The nerve!” and jumped out of the window on the second floor and rushed over to the front of the RV with [Air Walk]. Unable to see what was happening from that one, we opened the small window in the front of the room to look down at the scene of Grimnir and Saori staring down a four-man group of fully armored men.

Yellow and brown glossy scales were shimmering on the four men’s armor, looking like hardened carapace with spikes attached to them, as if some edgy teen designed them with the sole purpose of looking cool and intimidating. They weren’t wearing their helmets right now, as they were being carried under their arms.

Weapon-wise, they were quite balanced. I could see a bow, a spear and shield, a greataxe, and a massive hammer divided amongst them. It didn’t seem like those four were magicians as they didn’t have any visible catalysts on them, but I could be wrong.

“I am a registered tamer at the hunter’s guild and these garms are mine!” Saori pulled out her ID and showed it off to the men without coming any closer, glaring at them down as red mist exuded from her blood-red eyes. Seeing her protect them, Uno and Quartre, the ones who were dragging the RV along, suppressed their growls to act like disciplined wolves before the crowd.

But that didn’t seem to have impressed the men.

“You’re a tamer, beauty? Well, then we have somebody reasonable to talk with, instead of a drunk dwarf,” the one with the bow declared, insulting Grimnir in the end. He pulled out two gold coins from his pouch, showing them off to Saori. “Two small goldites for both of them. Good price, aye?”

Two?! That’s 100k Davi per coin! That’s enough money to pay Krymdar the 80k Davi we owed him for the catalysts while still having enough left over for two more commissions!

Saori as a person valued money extremely, due to her experience having to take care of her ailing mother after her father died at work. She wasn’t greedy, per se, but she knew how important money was and always strived to make sure our coffers were full. If it weren’t for her, Aurora would probably have had more money issues due to our rather crazy spending.

However, even she wasn’t that shameful enough to accept money for the lives of her garms. Her pack. “Money? Sounds like a good deal, but I have a better suggestion for you four. How about you go fuck yourself and leave my garms alone before we call the guards on you.”

“GUARDS! Hahahaha! This girl doesn’t know who we are, brother! Listen here, you wolf bitch, we are the B rank adventurer party Sky’s Oblivion. We are an upcoming A rank party made out of four wyvernslayers and a Champion Candidate of the Goddess of Light. You think we’re afraid of some fucking city guards? Ha!” the guy with the hammer spat out, looking like your typical gangster as he spat on the ground. However, it seemed like he was smart enough to understand how bragging without proof was just making him look like someone who was all bark but no bite, so he began exuding a [Terror Aura] around, emphasizing his point by scaring the surrounding people.

“S-Shit, it’s those guys! I remember! Those guys have a noble as a party member. L-Let’s get the fuck away.”

“Shit! Who cares about this, let’s just ignore them.”

Everybody was starting to inch further away from the commotion happening in front of our RV. Even the guards standing at the gates weren’t making a single move, looking away as if nothing was happening. The smirks the men had on their face as they saw Saori standing still, doing nothing but stare at them, was causing me to feel frustrated.

“Fuck this! Enough negotiations, let’s just ignore the bitch and kill the monster. The pay we get for getting the boss some C rank wolf fur should be enough to bribe the guards.” All four men agreed with the greataxe user, acting smug as they all unsheathed their weapons.

Unfortunately, that was a mistake.

“Let’s do this bro- Urgh!” As the spear user was about to announce the start of the battle, all four men suddenly froze in spot as an incredible bloodthirst was being exuded from underneath our window. Looking down, there I saw black lightning coursing through Saori’s body as the red mist around her eyes intensified. Uno and Quatre had begun growling again as Song and Sarasa revealed themselves from Saori’s shadow.

Grimnir flipped the four men off and grabbed his hammer, jumping down as he prepared to join Saori’s menacing march forward. The four men calmed themselves from Saori’s aura and began smiling like a bunch of battle junkies, readying their weapons to engage Saori and Grimnir. I turned to Tasianna and we both nodded. If somebody threatened a member of Aurora, then they better be prepared for retaliation.

But, before we stormed down, we were shocked to notice Muraina wasn’t with us anymore.

“Hoooot!” The shrill cry of an owl suddenly appeared from outside the window, pulling our attention back out, only to see Whisperia shooting down four of its arrows into the ground, piercing the stone streets deeply.

“You know, I’m alright with guild members settling their disputes by themselves, as long as they don’t end up killing each other. So how about stopping this before anything happens?” Walking casually into the scene with her hands on her hips, it was Muraina. She was still smiling as she spoke but her eyes looked dissatisfied with the situation. “Sky’s Oblivion, the wolfkin woman and her garms haven’t caused any issues for anybody since they came to Griffonpeak. I heard the middle district had even gotten used to those giant wolves. Move aside and stop provoking quarrels, or I’ll make sure your A rank exam will be delayed even more.”

The mood changed. The auras from the men and Saori dimmed down and they began staring at Muraina. As if to break this awkward mood, the bow wielder suddenly broke out in laughter.

“True, true, Guild Master Muraina. The boss wouldn’t want us to delay his A rank upgrade anymore than we’ve already done. Come on lads, let’s get out of here. We have work to do in the Olivus Duchy.” And, just like that, everything ended. The three men clicked their tongues in frustration but listened to their leader anyways. They cut in front of the line, leaving Griffonpeak through the gates.

Jeez. I let out a sigh. A tense situation was about to happen while we were about to leave the city. It was unreal.

Our group was the next to leave the city like the others in the line insisted we left first, probably so they could avoid meeting up with those goons. After we had left the city, Muraina gestured for us to come down. When Tasianna and I ran down the stairs, we noticed Ellaine had fallen asleep on the counter, realizing that was why she hadn’t reacted to anything.

The two of us giggled. We decided to leave Ellaine there and explain everything to her later on.

In essence, that was the adventurer party we’ve been hearing around about. The one belonging to that noble called Charleslyt or something. When Muraina brought him up, I was reminded of the information Ellaine told us. Of how he was the second son of Duke Equevanna and was now considered a star among the younger nobles due to being a B rank adventurer and somebody sponsored by the cathedral’s cardinal.

“He is a problematic person who hired those B rank adventurers from before as his ‘party members’ after they made themselves known as a group of wyvernslayers. His rank has been steadily going up from there on, and, with his rank, his influence grew,” Muraina explained.

From how Muraina explained him to us, this Charleslyt didn’t seem to be a good person at all and it seemed his current hunter rank was effectively bought. Which raised the question why he was made a B rank in the first place.

In the hunter’s guild, nobles had no privileges at all and were to be treated by the personnel and their fellow hunter colleges as any other adventurer. After all, helping Muraina out was our party’s punishment for causing a monster outbreak when we forgot to cleanse the area of mana after our fight with Astalos. I wasn’t getting out of this, even if I was a princess.

However, the issue was more complicated than I thought.

“When he joined the hunter’s guild, he did so in Equevanna. According to the ‘reports’ from the guild master there, this nobleman hasn’t cheated and is rightfully a B rank. At least, his profile proved it to me. With no evidence of any illegal actions, I can’t do much, since I’m just another ‘branch master,’” Muraina explained. “When I did my own research, I learned how Charleslyt has an extensive history of bribing people with his father’s money. There are even rumors to implicate him as a member of the Artorias’s underworld, that he has connections in Shaturein. Nothing proven, of course.”

“And now his party is using this reputation and influence to their advantage to coerce people into things? How is this allowed? Shouldn’t nobles be held to a higher degree of responsibility, especially from a duke’s second son?” Saori complained, still livid at what just occurred.

“It’s exactly what you said, he’s a duke’s son. Trouble has no consequences if he and his party aren’t actively committing crimes under a guard’s ‘dutiful watch.’ And I have heard that some witnesses became richer right after meeting them. All I can do is veto their party’s A rank exam application by persuading the other branch masters to prevent a majority vote, but that party is going around currying favor, so I don't know how long that will last.”

Now I understand why Rooster Head acted like that. If I heard something stupid like this, I would be livid, too!

We forgot about the situation for now, as we didn’t want to ruin our trip. Muraina took over Grimnir’s spot as the RV’s driver and the rest of us returned inside. I then entered the subspace and created a guest room for Muraina to sleep in for later that night, furnishing it with the essentials.

The day then moved by normally without anything happening. With the garms intimidating monsters and bandits alike, nothing disturbed our trip as we traveled to the elven outpost. While acting as the driver, Muraina even hunted down some deer and brought them back to the RV for Saori to butcher. Elves weren’t all vegetarian like my fantasy books had led me to expect.

After we parked the RV at a safe spot for the night, our entire group ate a hearty meal in the communal room. When we were about to go take a bath and get ready for bed, Grimnir told us to go ahead while he returned to the smithy. Our hot spring was split into genders, so it didn’t matter if he wanted to bathe at the same time as us.

“Ooh, a hot spring. I haven’t been to one since I visited the dwarves and Loatryx.” Muraina was well acquainted with hot springs it seemed. As such, Saori and I only had to explain what to do with them to Ellaine and Tasianna. Sure, we built it together but they had only heard a quick breakdown of what it was.

This was our hot spring’s maiden usage. Tasianna filled the tanks with water while I created a calm flame to warm everything up. We then added some minerals into the water to simulate the healthy effects of a hot spring. Doing it this way is the reason why we called this an artificial hot spring.

Once everything was done, we moved into the changing room. “First, please, take off your clothes and put on these towels to hide your skin.” Saori, Muraina, and I were already used to open-air hot springs so we knew we would go into it naked with other women, but both Tasianna and Ellaine were surprised to hear it was done like that.

Tasianna naturally shrugged it off as she was kinda used to seeing others naked from our time in the Belzac forest, where she had to act like a shower head for us. On the other hand, Ellaine was red as a tomato, unwilling to go into the hot spring with other naked women. Sure, she was used to her maids seeing her naked, but she didn’t like the idea of seeing others naked.

“Trust me, it will be fine. I don’t think anybody will stare at you. You wanted to learn more about Earthly culture, well, this is just one part of it.” Ellaine acquiesced in the end.

“““““Waaah””””” we all let out softly after entering the hot spring itself. The steamy air of an indoor hot spring was entering our lungs and pores, helping us relax as we continued into the washing spot. There, Saori summoned Song, Sarasa, and Shoyi and noted how she left Uno and Quatre outside.

“Certainly very considerate in making this place this large. Those large garms fit in without a problem.” Muraina commented on how much space the garms were taking up, but with how we built the hot spring with them in mind, there were no issues at all. She then stroked her familiar. “Well, Whisperia, let’s clean your body.”

A full ladies’ night with a genderless slime and spriggan. Nice!

After we washed the dirt and sweat we accumulated today, all of us stepped foot into the hot spring. I felt the warm water on my feet, and noticed that it was slightly too hot for other people to use. I mentally made a note to properly test the ideal hot spring temperature later on.

“““““Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah””””” We all moaned as we settled into the hot water.

““Ruuuuuuuuuuh…”” The garms did, too, looking like they were enjoying the calm and relaxed atmosphere.

“Boing.” I questioned how Shoyi was able to make any sounds at all. Maybe it’s from its jelly-like body?

We didn’t hear anything from Klea’Hatma, probably ’cause Ellaine told her not to speak up with Muraina around. It was for the best. It was rude to think that way, yes, but I don’t feel comfortable with the demon speaking with us anyways. I wanted some peace and quiet.

This is just the best. Our party really made it far…

As fun as the hot spring was, staying inside for too long wasn’t good. I could stay longer since I didn’t get dizzy from the heat, but we came in as a group so we had to leave as a group. After drinking some cold fragassa milk, our bodies were refreshed and healed from stress. Sleep came naturally.

As Muraina expected, it took us another day on the road for us to reach the outpost. Once we were there, the large forest came into view.

“I can see our welcoming party, everybody. Prepare yourselves. After I check in for the latest news, we’ll be moving to the field immediately.”

Another day, another battle stage for Aurora.

A note from AbyssRaven

Yes, the girls made a hot spring. Yes, hot spring scene, I understand the anime tropes well! Also, fuck those guys for trying to hurt the garms!

Also, about the shout-out. I think I did one previously, but after thinking about, I think I would like to make it a more common occurence since I want to help out other authors. Instead of jumping straight into the larger stories I read on this site, I believe beginning with the smaller ones would be better.

I won't be able to able to do this too often since I am a slow reader. I read slowly so I won't be able to give a shout-out every time. Still, if you guys need more webnovels, please give the ones I've already read a try. You might like them.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 17 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

If you can spare a second, please do not forget to give the story a vote! Every vote helps the story stay visible for others. The vote button is just under the chapter buttons.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 214: Elven Outpost Mission.

A note from AbyssRaven

Today's shoutout:

"Salvos" from MelasD. Nothing much to say, seeing as it is one of RR's most successful novels. Female Demon MC in a LitRPG. Good quality stuff with more monstrous MCs is a good thing, so check it out, if you somehow haven't done it yet.

“Vilsom, Haitiri. Welcome.” The moment we left the RV, a group of blond and green-haired men and women with long, sharp ears climbed down from the top of the trees at the edge of the forest. Equipped with bows, daggers, and magic rings while wearing similar-looking green linen clothes with chitin and bark armor covered up in a leaf cloak, this five-man group looked not only organized but also intimidating.

With Whisperia on her shoulders, Muraina greeted the saluting elves by waving at them. This casual response contrasted with her current outfit, exuding authority and experience as it reminded me of a ranger general.

Wearing dark green chitin armor over her green clothes, her black cloak would give her a rogue-ish aura if she were to wear the hood up. With a short blade and dagger sheathed on her hips, a green magic ring on her right hand, and an enchanted bow with a blue shimmering bow thread, Muraina looked pretty cool right now.

“Hail, younglings, may spring bequeath your groves with new life.”

As Murina spoke with the elves, I asked Tasianna for a translation, “‘Vilsom, Haitiri?’”

“‘Welcome, Stalker of Phantoms,’ I believe, Lady Hestia. ‘Haitiri,’ should be Miss Muraina’s nickname, similar to Dame Yorshka’s ‘White Winged Dragoon’ moniker.” She then pointed at the group of elves in front of us. “It is elven wordplay on the Saelari’s ranger faction, the Haireti — the Forest Phantoms.”

I knew Muraina was an archer, considering that Whisperia could grow arrows from its treant body and that the former showed her bow when we departed together. I had a feeling she was pretty capable from how quiet her steps were and the rumors the other hunters gossiped about her, so this shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me. It wouldn’t be weird to assume that she was, at the very least, an A rank like Farron and Yorshka just based on how old she was.

Only I, Saori, Tasianna and Ellaine chose to leave the RV, since Grimnir, for some reason, wanted to stay inside his smithy until we departed for the hunt. Once we knew where to go, we could call him.

As we approached the elves, though, their eyes flicked from Muraina to our group, specifically Ellaine. It felt awkward and our group stopped for a second before the elves returned their glares to Muraina, who seemed to have noticed it.

“Don’t act so cold, you five. Like I said in my letter, Krymdar won’t be coming and I will bring in more ‘appropriate allies’ to help.”

“But, Lady Muriana, the hu—” One of the elves wanted to say but Muraina interrupted him by wagging her finger.

“Is one of the retainers of the missing Kargryx Meoschaera, Lady Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor, who was recently ‘found.’ Do I need to say anything more?”

The revelation struck the elves hard. Their stone-cold poker faces broke as their eyes widened and they let out an audible gasp before turning around and bowing before me. “We apologize for our indiscretion!” they shouted. They would have kept kneeling like that if Muraina hadn’t prompted me to forgive them.

Once Muraina asked them to lead us to the outpost, she told Saori to hide the RV somewhere at the edge of the forest, since the path forward would be too rough for it to traverse. As such, we took the [Room] runes with us, taking advantage of our newly made mobile base.

As we were following the elven rangers, I asked Muraina a question. “I wanted to ask this before, but why are you and these, uhm, Haireti showing so much favor towards me? I know the elves are allies with Kargryx and Loatryx, but they shouldn’t be bowing that deeply to anybody but their own monarch, right?”

“Allies forged through blood, Lady Hestia,” Muraina answered. “All elven ancestry traces back to our homeland, the Island of Anduriol where the Ancient Elven Kingdom, Kel’thun, is located. Since Miononbolax is located northwest from our home, as you might guess, dragons and elves have a history of falling in love and marrying each other in no small part thanks to how extremely long our respective lifespans are. Due to this relationship, many ancient dragons decided on becoming elves for their humanoid form.”

“Does this mean that the elves of today have draconic blood?”

“No, of course, not. But many dragonewts were born from this union, and, since we elves live so long, we have a culture of worshipping our elders similar to your ‘young scales’ with your ‘elder scales.’ We elves might not be Kargryx’s vassals, but our alliance is deeply rooted, similar to our bonds with the levianewts and dwarves.”

If some of these pairings were still alive today — for example, my dragon uncle’s marriage with his elven wife — then it would make sense that there would be such a friendship between the two races. It still felt weird that they would kneel immediately instead of just bowing, but it was whatever at this point.

As we went deeper into the woods, Saori suddenly mentioned that she could smell a variety of monsters lurking in this forest and asked the elven guides if she was allowed to hunt some of them for her garms and Shoyi. After they acquiesced on the condition she wouldn’t hunt the forest empty, she disappeared into her shadow with her garms.

Jeez, and here I thought I was the one with [Battle Frenzy]…

We eventually reached the elven outpost. I looked up, noticing the numerous tree houses with elven archers looking down at us, their hands holding onto their bow and an arrow each, ready to shoot at any time. As I looked closer, I realized that there were hard to notice vines hanging from one tree to the other, which the elves used to traverse through the trees faster.

There wasn’t any trick or labyrinth which protected this place — probably why the elven guide gave Saori permission to hunt — but with how the elves could move around with ease and set up ambushes, this place would be hard to invade without resorting to fires. Considering how obvious this weakness was, I wondered if the elves had any measures against forest fires.

“You three may leave as well, if you wish. The discussion won’t just be about the Quest itself, since these rangers are part of my spy network. It will be pretty dry,” Muraina stated.

“Spies? Oh wait, now that I think about it, weren’t there half-elves in Griffonpeak? You didn’t come to my concert, but did you send people to spy on it?” I asked, remembering how I gained a few half-elven fans during my last few songs.

Muraina’s face made a “not bad” expression, visibly surprised that I’d found that out. “Wow, impressive. They should have been able to camouflage perfectly into the crowd.” She praised me. “To answer your question, they were some of the half-elves who live in the elven quarter of Griffonpeak. My neighborhood, and one I bought for visiting elves to stay at as well as any half-elves or any one of my people who wish to live in that city. They were there to inform me if you had any enemies.”

“Do I?”

She shrugged. “The fat drunk. You’ll learn soon enough.” After clapping my shoulders, Muraina left. I was a bit flabbergasted how that one guy was supposed to be an “enemy” when I simply wanted to delay the fan meeting after I cleaned up.

Wait, a moment, could that guy be a potential stalker?! Wait, am I gonna get my first stalker?! Uhm… why do I feel like this is a success?

I shook my head to get rid of that idea. It sounded weird to be happy about getting a stalker when stalkers are a problem for every idol on Earth. I hoped this wouldn’t cause me any trouble and that Muraina’s words were without substance.

As we now had some downtime, Tasianna and Elaine suggested for us to look around for any herbs or alchemical ingredients inside the forest. I declined, since I wanted to enjoy the feeling of walking through a forest in solitude. I was driven by some nostalgia here, since I haven’t done this ever since I met Saori in the Belzac forest.

After I left them, I suddenly craved something.

I feel like flying a bit.

Activating [Humanization], I pulled out my wings and poured some mana into them. Using [Air Walk] to help me soar up, I flapped my wings and flew up to the tops of the tree and through the leaf bed. Looking up at the sky and sea of leaves, I took a deep breath and enjoyed the sunlight touching my crimson scales.

“A sea of trees ♫. Haaaaaaaaaaaaa, yeah, this feels so much better. Flying really is the best.” I flapped my wings once again and enjoyed flying for a bit longer, until I realized how small this forest was compared to the Belzac forest. It might have been my unwilling home, but that doesn’t change the fact that it still was my home for quite a bit.

Rajah, how are you doing? Are you doing fine with your mother and siblings? Caszcur, how are you and the other lizardmen doing? Have you made it to Caedhul yet?

Memories of the friends I made in the Belzac forest came back to me. Caszcur, the lizardmen carpenter, became one of my fans and I haven’t gotten a notification of losing a beastman fan just yet. There was no guarantee, but I wanted to believe that he’s happy and doing well with the levianewts.

Same thing with Rajah, the virigress cub that I adopted before releasing him back to the wild so he could stay with his mother and siblings. He was blessed by Aurena and also became my “follower,” so he shouldn’t be in too much trouble either.

How on, aren’t Yorshka and Tamae going to the Belzac forest to train?! Oh shit, I forgot to mention Rajah to them! Please, don’t meet— Oh wait, Goddess Aurena, could you possibly give Rajah some way to communicate or show he isn’t a threat to them?

…

No answer.

Scheiße, she’s busy.

At this point, I could only hope they wouldn’t hurt each other if they were to meet. Actually, it might be better if they wouldn’t meet at all. In any case, I hope to see those two again one day. It’s likely that I will meet the lizardmen again once I visit Caedhul myself, but that’s a long way off, since we still need to visit the dwarves and dragonewts before then. We aren’t even finished in Griffonpeak just yet either.

Which reminds me. I haven’t checked out the new milestone yet.

[The Light] was the blessing Aurena gave me to signify to the world that I was her champion. As a title, aside from giving me increased holy proficiency gain to level up [Holy Magic] faster, it also provided me with special holy spells and a severe weakness to dark elemental attacks. Compared to [Bearer of Kargrxymor’s Blood] or Saori’s [Belzac’s Successor], it seemed a bit too weak.

However, that was until I found out about the [Faithful Function], or the Fan System as I called it now. By gaining followers and reaching certain milestones, I could gain new skills, spells, or benefits. After the concert in Griffonpeak, I was able to reach the 2500 milestone for [Dark Weakness Removal].

I landed on the ground, took out some of Saori's black mana threads, and wrapped it around my arm. I then poured mana through it and I was just barely able to feel something tingling on my skin.

Nice!

The reason why I was excited about this was ‘cause [Draconic Barrier] was able to protect me from the small dark elemental attack that the thread generated. Previously, due to my weakness to dark, water, and ice — the latter two came from Kargryxmor’s title — my [Draconic Barrier] wasn’t able to protect me from those attacks and they pierced through my defensive barrier. As I couldn’t feel any pain right now, I knew that my barrier was blocking the damage and the milestone had been successfully implemented.

Mana Eyes.

The Light

A title granted to a mortal recognized by the Goddess of Light, whose control has been usurped by the owner. Boosts proficiency gain of magics based on Holy Element. As a Champion of Aurena, the holder of this title may use the [Fans Overview] function to gain special benefits. This title also applies: [System Neutrality] [Dark Weakness Removal]

[The Light] used to mention how I was weak to dark magics and attacks and how I would feel uneasy inside caves or anywhere dark, but with the inclusion of [Dark Weakness Removal], those points were gone. I also had my parallel minds check on the upgrading [Dark Resistance] and how much it would cost, and they confirmed, it no longer requires obscene amounts of SP to level up anymore.

Seems like resistance training is back on the menu. I should ask Saori to shoot me and slice me with her dark spells now to level up [Dark Resistance]… I sound so much like a masochist.

This brings me to the next milestone. Requiring 10000 fans to unlock, I really hoped this [Miraculous Grace] is worth the effort, otherwise I’ll question what Aurena was trying to have me do.

Miraculous Grace

Bring down the Goddess of Light’s power onto the mortal realm, enabling the caster to heal wounds of any kind depending on how much mana is invested. The more mana is spent, the more the healing power will resemble the miracles of the Goddess of Light, even allowing the regrowth of missing body parts. A true mark of an acknowledged Saint of Aurena

Wha—! Hold on, t-that wording, doesn’t that mean— Mana Eyes!

Major Heal

A spell that majorly accelerates the healing process of a wound. Mana will be used as a fuel instead of the body’s nutrients for the healing process. Cannot heal mental damage

Sanctified Blaze

A holy-fire mixed elemental spell using white flames to protect its recipient. Continuously heals Health and cures status affliction while it is in effect. White flames will also attempt to shield its recipient from attacks, depending on the will of the user. The power and effectiveness of this spell does not increase through increasing the Mana cost but through the skill [White Flames] and Intelligence stat of the caster

Here it was. The improved healing spell I was hoping for so much. [Major Heal] and [Sanctified Blaze] were currently the healing spells I used most often to heal others. [Minor Heal], [Moderate Heal], and [Major Heal] were System spells given through [Holy Magic] and [Sacred Magic], which worked by speeding up your natural recovery speed.

[Sanctified Blaze], on the other hand, healed damage related to your Health, not your entire body. It was my answer to one of [Major Heal]'s weaknesses, that it couldn’t produce blood, so even if it healed someone’s body, they could still die from blood loss. [Sanctified Blaze] prevented that part, but it still shared that one huge issue with [Major Heal].

This spell still couldn’t regenerate lost or missing body parts. I could repair your heart if there were still pieces left or I could reattach your leg, but I couldn’t make entirely new ones. The spells also only healed as much as “needed,” meaning they never would be able to heal genetic or birth defects. Once your body found something “normal” or “natural,” the spells couldn’t do anything.

This brings me to this new spell. [Miraculous Grace] might just be the answer to most of these problems. I don’t think I could bring people back from death through this, since Aurena mentioned that was the domain of Ilsaphone. I also don’t think I could rescue someone if their brain were to blow up into thousands of pieces, since, you know, Theseus’s Ship.

However, didn’t Aurena mention that a person’s memories are also imprinted on their soul? Similar to Saori’s and my case? The moment your Health drops to zero, your soul gets sent to Ilsaphone. However, if I prevented this and healed their brain in time, would they still retain their memories? Urgh, this is just giving me a major headache.

I chose not to think too much about it. I’ll just have to avoid attacks aiming for my head in the future, and once I have this new spell, attacks to my torso probably won’t be life-threatening anymore.

Need sugar for my own brain now.

After taking out some fragassa, I began munching on them, uninterested in whatever was around me now. With no threats on my [Detection Sensor] to notice, I casually walked through the forest, enjoying the remaining time before the hunt… until I heard something.

“…ribbit.”

“Kueck!” My body froze up, taking no further movements. My eyes slowly moved over to the direction of the sound, and that is where I saw it.

A plump, brown creature with disgusting-looking skin and warts stood in the middle of the grass. The sac underneath their mouth expanded each time it croaked, releasing its terrifying roar of intimidation. Its slit eyes stared at my fragassa and me its their unnaturally long mouth readied to attack.

“Ribbit.” It cried out once more before it jumped forward, revealing its long hind legs. It was only about the size of my feet, but I knew I was out of my league here.

“KYAAAAAH!” Holding my fragassa tightly to my chest, I flapped my wings and sped away from the horrendous toad after blasting it away with [Wind Blast]. To retreat is to live, to live is to win. Primal instincts compelled me to flee!

After making some distance from that creature, I stopped flying and my body trembled as a chill ran down my spine. “Why…why do all these damn frogs and toads always try to eat my stuff! Argh, why do they always have to look so fucking terrifying! Ahhhh, why am I like this? A giant dragon like me, afraid of those small things. Why? Haaaaaa…”

I threw a fragassa into my mouth to soothe myself, intending to fully ignore the situation from before to reset my mindset. I couldn’t allow myself to feel like this. [Detection Sensor] could tell me of the signals around me, but unless it's a threat, most of the time I would ignore them. It was a necessity. I could detect the ants underneath my feet, so taking all these signals seriously would just give me a headache, even with my parallel minds.

“Haaaa…”

“Ribbit.”

“—Euck!” I thought I could take a break from the situation but fate wouldn’t have me. Scared to bits this time, I snapped my head around the moment I heard that sound, anticipating another fucking toad to be there.

But, before I could, a shadow snatched the creature away and pushed it into a nearby brush. With a death cry similar to scratching a blackboard for me, I then noticed how one of the signals inside the bush disappeared. This new signal wasn’t a threat.

Flabbergasted, I stood there, waiting for whatever killed that toad to appear. To my surprise, it was a spider. A green and black jumper spider around the size of my hand appeared out of the bush, looking at me with its big cute eyes. Long ivies were wrapped around its body like camouflage, hiding its small furry body.

Huh?

As we locked eyes, it suddenly moved its front legs up, gesturing like a priest giving a zealous sermon or a homeless man begging for food. Confused at what it was trying to do, I randomly pointed at the fraggasa I had on hand and its hand suddenly wiggled as if it confirmed my guess.

Well, if you want it, then sure. You did save me from having to see another ugly toad again.

As I watched the little spider happily eat the fragassa, I suddenly noticed a signal coming closer and closer to me. Jumping down a tree, the signal revealed itself as an elf.

“Princess Hestia, are you alright?!” the man said with a trembling voice, breathing heavily as if he had just finished running a marathon.

Oh shit, he must have followed me after I left the outpost. Flying so fast around probably forced the guy to run a marathon, huh? Oops.

I apologized to him after noticing what happened but the elven man didn’t blame me for anything, instead, he asked me why I screamed so loudly. “Were you attacked!? The monster has been attracting others of its kind recently and those monsters usually roam out of their cave for food! Did you find one of them?!”

… This is embarrassing.

As I contemplated if I should tell him the truth, my silence seemed to cause him more panic, so I decided to just say something. “T-There is no need to worry. I dealt with the problem, so there isn’t an issue anymore. I screamed because, uhm, it knocked down o-one of the fragassa that I was eating.”

O-Ok, that was stupid, he can’t possibly believe me—

“Unbelievable! B-But, I heard from Lady Muraina that you were just born last year! Being able to take down a C rank monster all by yourself without any help or support while so young! Incredible! A scion of Emperor Eltharion and a descendant of Kargryxmor, as expected of you, Lady Hestia!” he exclaimed with amazement. “I apologize for assuming you needed my support, Lady Hestia! This is my first year of service outside Saelariel, so I apologize for being so naive!”

What…?

Deciding to leave him to think about whatever misunderstanding he wanted, I changed the topic by pointing at the small spider under me, still eating the fragassa despite all the noise. “Uhm, is it normal for spiders to ask for fruit from any people that are around?”

He nodded, beginning his explanation, “Ah, yes, Lady Hestia! We Saelari have a deep bond with the animals inside this fores. From what I heard, we have cultivated this friendship with certain monster species where we rewarded them for helping us. Most likely, this spider learned that we would give out food if it helped us.”

“I see…” I turned around and showed my open palm to the spider. It understood that I was not a threat to it and climbed onto my palm, where I gave it another fragassa, which it ate gluttonously.

Mana Eyes.

Ivy Jumper Spider

A spider with dextrous legs able to leap from tree to tree with ease. A spider adept in caring for plants, dressing in ivies to camouflage itself while looking out for fruit or smaller prey. If the ivies on its body are well kept, they will not need to replace them for its entire lifespan

“Ahh, I see, so you like fruit, huh? Well, thank you very much, little guy. Here you go, some more.” I placed the spider back on the ground and gave it my remaining fragassa before saying goodbye to it.

After I returned to the outpost, I saw Saori, Tasianna, Ellaine, and Muraina already waiting for me. Muraina told me to call over Grimnir, so I activated the [Room] runes and opened up the portal into our subspace. Without needing me to enter or inform him, Grimnir left the [Room] by himself, fully equipped in his armor with his hammer over his shoulder. The most striking part was the gauntlets he was wearing now.

“Ellaine isn’t ready to make that ‘power armor’ concept of yours, so we worked on something else,” he told us after we questioned his new piece of equipment. He showed off his gauntlets, impressing us with their size, given that they were larger than my face. “Power gauntlets. The thought just fascinated me. Gauntlets fueled by mana like manatech in addition to runes to support it. Just like this blasthammer.”

He then went back into the subspace and pulled out a tower shield. With his hammer in his right hand and the shield in the other, he looked like a stout fortress. “It normally doesn’t matter if you can carry a hammer with one hand since you can cause more damage by two-handing it. However, with these gauntlets, I can boost my striking speed in a single moment, increasing the impact. They even help me endure the recoil of the blastgun. I can even carry this giant shield with me without slowing myself down too much. Ha, that was a genius idea, lass!”

Grimnir’s praise was great to hear, making me feel proud I still remembered about power armor.

After our party finished with our preparations, some elves guided Muraina and my party towards the target. On the way, Muraina explained how the new information made her have to increase the reward we would receive for this job, mentioning how it will give out 5 B rank points and a good chunk of Davi. While it was good to hear that our reward increased, it also meant our Quest just got harder.

At the front of the cave where the monsters were supposed to live, the elves explained that it was occupied by a pack of C rank heat-seeking [Bolushzu] led by a B rank [Earth-Caller Bolushzu]. Those C ranks were around the size of our garms while the Bolushzu was similar to a medium-sized wyvern.

“They are completely blind and deaf but they can sense heat and tremors well. They have a giant worm’s head and neck attached to the body of a felmight, able to cause some serious damage. We’re lucky there aren’t any [Titan Worms], but a few of us were injured when we investigated the cave for more information.” The elven guide said.

“Okay, alright, everybody. Please, stay here and shoot down any enemies escaping into the forest. I can assure you there shouldn’t be any problems with Lady Hestia’s party and me around, so—”

“Muraina,” I interrupted her speech. “Would it be okay if my party could go in alone?”

“What?”

A note from AbyssRaven

Our little spider is actually a character designed by Skyell, one of my patreons. Now Tasianna has a spider to take care of all the bugs!

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Chapter 215: Whipsword and Hammer Duet.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Alright, I’m not ignorant enough to underestimate your party’s powers, Hestia. But, may I have the reason why you want me to stay out of this? Do you want all the experience for yourself?” Muraina raised an eyebrow at my request, leaning her bow on her shoulder as if to show she was itching for some action.

“Well, that is one reason, but we just don’t want to show our abilities to others, if possible.” I was speaking of Klea’Hatma. Even if Aurena and Plesia allowed Ellaine to use her demonic powers, considering how people reacted to Ellaine’s and my decision to keep her alive, we didn’t want this information to spread.

“If that is the case, then I could just stand at the side, no? I don’t need to participate in the fight. And, like I said before, you do know you can trust me with a secret, right?” Muraina wasn’t showing any disappointment or anger at my request, looking at me with a deadpan expression as if she was used to being distrusted. Weirdly enough, a lack of emotion made me feel guiltier.

“No, no, that’s not what I meant. It’s just that—” As I was thinking of an excuse, Muraina interrupted me with a simple wave of her hand and a smile.

“No need to explain. It’s alright, I’ll be staying outside, so shout when you need backup.” Muraina then activated [Air Walk] and jumped into the air before speaking a bit more. “Just a tip, adventurers shouldn’t be afraid of asking for support.” She jumped onto the branch of a tree and told us “good luck.” The 23 high elven, wind elven, and dark elven Haireti gave us a salute before climbing up the trees as well, disappearing in the canopy and hiding their presence with stealth skills.

Jeez, that’s scary. I can still detect most of them, but Muraina is completely gone. Before my very eyes!

Once I returned my attention back to my party, Tasianna was ready to activate measures to avoid those bolushzi’s senses. Information was king; knowing that they were blind and deaf but could detect their prey by heat and tremor sense, we knew what to do. Muraina did interrupt before we were able to learn how they attacked and so on, but we could learn that on the field. My healing and buffs would leave us room for a few mistakes.

I moved over to Ellaine and Grimnir and clapped their shoulders. “Alright, have fun you two!”

Multiple acquisition requirements fulfilled. [Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 1] [Mental Stability Lv. 1] [Long-Range Spell Enhancement Lv. 1] [Whip Technique Lv. 1] [Whip Mastery Lv. 1] [Tracking Lv. 1] [Mounted Fighter Lv. 1] [Paralyzation Resistance Lv. 1] [Torpor Resistance Lv. 1] [Bleeding Resistance Lv. 1] [Fear Resistance Lv. 1] gained

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Mana Control Lv. 10] [Arcane Mind Lv. 8] [Synergist’s Oath Lv. 4] [Silent Casting Lv. 7] [Mental Warfare Lv. 6] [Mental Stability Lv. 3] [Unarmed Technique Lv. 3] [Sword Technique Lv. 7] [Sword Mastery Lv. 4] [Whip Technique Lv. 3] [Whip Mastery Lv. 2] [Sundering Enhancement Lv. 4] [Mana Strike Lv. 3] [Stamina Strike Lv. 3] [Stealth Lv. 6] [Concentration Lv. 7] [Prediction Lv. 8] [Danger Perception Lv. 7] [Presence Killer Lv. 4][Evasion Lv. 8] [Acrobatic Lv. 7] [Poison Resistance Lv. 5] [Paralyzation Resistance Lv. 5] [Torpor Resistance Lv. 5] [Bleeding Resistance Lv. 8] [Artificer Lv. 4] [Identify Lv. 8] [Identity Blocker Lv. 10] [Riding Lv. 6] gained

Ability gained:   [Gale Steps] [Piercing Shot]

[Blessing of the Goddess of Light (Moderate)] inflicted on [Human, Ellaine Fiero Helvas]

[“Ahahaha, finally, some action! I lust for battle, Ellaine! Ahhhh, nothing would be better than to quench this need after a good long nap!”]

Noisy. You are always so noisy…

It was dark inside this cave. Hestia lit up a torch to light the way for me, since I was the only one among Saori, Tasianna, Master Grimnir, and Hestia who couldn’t see in pitch-black darkness yet. My [Night Vision] was still only level three.

Considering our enemies — a pack of bolushzi — could detect heat, it sounded like a horrendous plan to bring a lit torch with us. If we were normal adventurers, taking on a Quest to slay tremor and heat-sensing monsters inside a cave should have been an instant rejection. It would be foolish.

However, we weren’t a normal party. We were Aurora. We had a B rank [Young Sunfang Dragon] with the blood of the Dragon God Kargryxmor as our leader. Our second-in-command was a B rank [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir] descended from the legendary fenrir, Belzac. In addition, both of them were reincarnators and had the attention of gods on them.

Aside from them, we also had an incredibly powerful ice mage fairy with a catalyst blessed by Goddess Zephira and a master taz blacksmith and runesmith who was slowly building up multiple new innovations in manatech armaments and armor. And then there was me, Ellaine Fiero Helvas, an ordinary noble girl who was crazy enough to join this ridiculous party.

What could I do?

[“I sense two in front of us. They aren’t moving, so they probably haven’t found us yet,”] Saori’s voice entered my mind through [Telepathy]. The monsters were deaf, but we didn’t want to risk our voices causing any tremors.

If they haven’t found us yet despite our torch, then there should be a good amount of distance between us. As expected of Saori, she is an incredible scout!

I turned around to Saori, only to see her inside a transparent, floating ice ball with Hestia and Tasianna. This was a creation of Tasianna’s [Cryokinesis], a skill that allowed her to control her ice perfectly. [“Alright, we’ll be engaging them now. Master Grimnir, are you ready?”]

He showed me a thumbs up. Taz and Inko dwarves couldn’t expel mana out of their body except through a medium, which meant Master Grimnir couldn’t buy the skill [Telepathy] from the skill shop like I had. He could still hear us, though.

Also, the reason why Aurora’s three powerhouses were currently floating inside that ice crystal was for them to hide away from the monsters. Hestia’s body temperature was higher than any conventional fire and she would be easy to detect if it weren’t for the [Air Shield] and ice ball around her.

Normally, Hestia and Master Grimnir would be standing in front like knights to lure enemies towards them, while Saori, Tasiana, and I thinned the foes down. However, for today’s Quest, until we met the B rank bolushzu alpha, Master Grimnir and I would work together to take down as many C rank as possible. This was our request. My own selfishness to test out my new abilities.

[“Klea’Hatma?”]

[“Always, dear. Let this world witness the power of a true okl’luthier once again! Come on, climax with me.”]

In my two weeks of training with Father, Hestia, Saori, and sometimes Mother, I was unsuccessful in gaining enough proficiency to reach level two in [Okl’Luthier’s Power]. According to [Identify], that can only mean that my body hasn’t adapted enough to Klea’Hatma’s power yet.

However, I did familiarise myself with using [Claw] and [Whiplash]. And, not to forget, my whipsword. I can’t compare to a normal knight just yet, but I sure will increase my training to make Father and Mother proud. And… hopefully, Brother too. Until then, I need to steel my body and mind, and become someone able to control this demonic power on my hand.

Taking my earth-attuned spell ring from my left hand, I placed it on my right and drew my sword. Whiplash, I whispered inside my mind and used my mana to begin manifesting Klea’Hatma’s powers. My skin tingled uncomfortably. It felt as if insects were crawling on it as pain surged through my arms. This was a side effect of materializing flesh using your mana, according to Klea’Hatma.

I threw the torch into the air, where Hestia kept the fire floating with [Pyrokinesis], leaving the torch stick to fall to the ground, causing a wooden sound to echo through the tunnel. [“They reacted,”] Saori commented as I cast [Swift Winds] and [Sturdy Earth] on myself, sprinting forward with the rest following behind.

Stay calm, steady your heart. Rely on your senses and skills to detect any ambush… focus… found them!

My skin prickled in pain once again as pink flesh tendrils seeped through the openings of my gauntlets and splattered themselves onto my whipsword like goo, before hardening themself into sickles and muscles. On the tip of my sword, a four-fanged claw formed, like a beast’s mouth.

Claw!

Vine-like tentacles covered my left arm like armor before forming claws on my fingers. Due to dividing my rings between my two hands, the flesh manifestation was weakened since the rings needed to be close to work at their full power. This meant neither [Whiplash] nor [Claw] was fully powered, but it gave me something more crucial — flexibility.

[“Don’t forget, two ahead. Hit and run, first. With your current skills, use earth and wind magic liberally while attempting to wrap them in my whiplash. Wait for the dwarf man, then ravage them! Draw their blood, Ellaine!”]

Proficiency requirement fulfilled. [Night Vision Lv. 3] evolved into [Night Vision Lv. 4]

My eyes still needed to adjust more to fully see in this low light, but I could sense the bolushzi with [Enhanced Enemy Sense]. They were approaching me. First, they walked, then they stopped, noticing my footsteps. Now they were running.

[Prediction] and [Danger Perception] activated, warning me of an incoming attack. When I turned the corner, there they were — the enemy. Two monsters around the size of Saori’s garms, moving on all fours with a long bony tail. Their skin was furless and flabby, revealing veins of blood under its pale pinkness, making it easy for me to detect them. Their neck and head, as expected, were similar to a worm’s.

Blind and deaf, they could only detect me through my footsteps. And with that knowledge, they raised their necks up like snakes before their round mouths protruded and revealed a beak-like jaw, shooting out some green goo at me with frightening accuracy. However, I wasn’t alarmed and my mind was calm; I’ve fought enough monsters with Aurora to know not to panic!

Wind Blast! I blasted myself away from the first acid spit before extending my sword into its whip form, shooting it forward at the wall to pull myself towards it like Saori’s shadow tendrils, avoiding the shot of the second bolushzu.

There are only two. I’ve fought against multiple fire mages at once, avoiding each of their spells! I can do this!

Using my claws, I hung on the wall like a cat before causing the flesh on my left hand to tremble. I jumped off the wall to avoid the next acid spit and activated [Whiplash] once again, this time on my left arm. I winded it back and then shot the amalgamation of tendrils at the ceiling, swinging myself forward.

Boosting my aerial movements with another [Wind Blast], I closed the distance between me and the two monsters with ease before preparing my counterattack. Aiming at the bolushzu behind the front one, I activated my newly learned whip ability, [Piercing Shot]. Some of my stamina disappeared and information streamed into my head on how to execute the attack.

The blue “eye” on the crossguard of my sword lit up; the mana threads inside it lit up as I poured mana into my sword. The flesh on the sword quivered, as if it was excited for what was about to happen. I shot the shards of my whipsword forward. The four-fanged claw on the tip widened into a bite, crunching into the beast’s flabby skin and penetrating its flesh with the blade.

It screamed painfully loud and I quickly cast [Air Shield] to protect myself from the sound. With my blade acting like an anchor, I pulled myself towards the monster while shooting out multiple [Tornado Bullets] at its head, dazing it. Landing on its body, I pulled out my sword, ripping a large chunk of meat from it. Looking at it, it felt as if the four-fanged claw was eating it.

[“Ohoho! Good, Ellaine! Good! You exceeded my expectations, dear! But don’t celebrate just yet, this one still has a buddy.”] At Klea’Hatma’s warning, the other bolushzu turned around and spat goo at me again, apparently not caring that it would hit its ally.

Terra Wall! Bedrock Blades!

Multi-casting, I first blocked its spit with a sturdy wall and then used [Bedrock Blades] to send giant rock blades at it, pushing it further away from the one I was standing on. These monsters were C rank, while I currently have the level and stats of a C rank human adventurer. I was standing up against them not with fear, but with confidence that I could succeed.

It was then that I heard some sound, no, it was music to my ears!

[Music Resonation (Moderate)] [My Darkest Thoughts] [Sanctified Blaze: Halo of Consecration] [Battle Frenzy (Limited)] [Various Spell Buffs] inflicted on [Human, Ellaine Fiero Helvas]

My armor’s [Battle Frenzy] function finally activated as the pounding of my heart became audible to me. Forged for me using Hestia’s blood, if I was fighting in a difficult battle, it would grant me additional stats and resource regeneration. Adding onto [Idol]’s buff-sharing function, I was far stronger than I had been a few seconds ago.

Looking down to my sword, I saw a white flame flickering on the bottom of my blade before they covered the entire weapon in Hestia’s [White Flames]. It was cool to my touch, but the bolushzu quivered in pain as the flames scorched its back.

“Don’t hog all the action to yourself like a battle fanatic, lass! I’m here to test my stuff, too!” In the next moment, the sound of rocks cracking and breaking reverberated through the air. The howl of the other bolushzu entered my ears after I dispelled my [Air Shield]. “Bladdarg! These things are resistant against blunt damage! Gotta hit harder then!”

As I began to hear the sounds of cogs moving, the bolushzu I was standing on began to rampage, trying to throw me off its back. Although I wanted to produce claws on my sabatons to hang on, I had to use my left hand to grab hold to prevent myself from falling off.

Currently, the reason for why I couldn’t do this was due to [Okl’Luthier’s Power]. According to the demoness herself, she explained the Goddess’s power imbued in that skill was acting as a safeguard, purifying the demonic mana depending on my body’s tolerance for it. I couldn’t manifest the flesh tendrils any further than my shoulders, as the skill deemed I wasn’t ready for it, yet.

It was disappointing, but I respected this decision. I would be a ticking bomb if I didn’t restrain my need for power and follow Hestia’s and the Goddess’s opinions on this matter. They acquiesced to my selfish request, so the least I could do was handle these new powers responsibly!

As I was hanging onto the bolushzu, there was again a sound of earth cracking, prompting me to look in that direction. The [Terra Wall] I’d materialized was broken through and the second bolushzu flew through it, shrieking. A mechanical sound echoed through the cave again, drawing my gaze towards a horned man in full dragon scale armor slamming his tower shield at the beast I was riding on.

“Time to slay them, Ellaine!” Master Grimnir shouted through his full-face helmet, which now had a beard guard. I nodded to his order and jumped off, after wrapping my whip around the beast’s head and neck.

“Kwreeeeeeh!” it shrieked as the flames burned its skin. Once I landed, I pulled onto my sword, tightening the hold onto the beast, enabling the blade shards to dig deeper into its skin.

“‘Attack Rune: Blood Bane,’ activate!” The moment I saw blood seep out from those wounds, I activated one of the runes on my sword. As it lit up red, the blue mana threads holding my sword shards together lit up and caused the blood seeping from the wounds to explode, causing the bolushzu even more damage.

Nice!

Dragonclaw Whipblade

A finesse weapon made using the claws of a sunfang dragon and the horn of a forest drake, bound together with white voldunna alloy. This weapon was forged in the flames of a high-rank dragon, infusing the dragon’s mana into the nature of the weapon and increasing the amount of mana in the blade. A combination of high-quality materials and artificer work, this unorthodox weapon acts not only as a sword but also as a powerful whip

Attack Power: 1877

Skill: [Mana Conductor Lv. 5] [Mana Efficiency Lv. 4] [True Sword Mastery Lv.1] [Decreased Weight Lv. 5] [All Damage Enhancement Lv. 1] [Herculean Power Lv. 1] [Speed of Sound Lv. 1] [Aerial Fighter Lv. 8] [Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 5] [Mind’s Eye Lv. 1] [Durability Loss Reduction Lv. 10] [Improved Abnormal Status Infliction Lv. 6]

Runes: [Utility Rune: Retrieval] [Defense Rune: Pavise] [Defense Rune: Auracoil] [Passive Rune: Life Steal] [Passive Rune: Clean Blade] [Attack Rune: Blood Bane] [Attack Rune: Defense Ripper]

This was my weapon after Master Grimnir added all the runes onto it. There were Pavise and Auracoil, which would be useful defensive measures until I got the bone wing, Retrieval so I wouldn’t lose my sword’s shards, Life Steal to heal myself upon inflicting damage.

The three remaining ones were there to synergize with my whipsword. Clean Blade to ensure gore and blood wouldn’t stick onto the blade shards and mana threads, sabotaging the weapon during a fight. Blood Bane and Defense Ripper were there to enhance the whip part of my weapon. Even if I only landed a glancing blow, the moment I hit an enemy, I could temporarily reduce their total Vitality. If I drew blood, then even the tiniest droplet of blood could cause even more damage with the blood bane rune.

With Master Grimnir in front of me acting as my guard, I could fully concentrate on attacking. I drew my sword back, pulling the shards back to me, leaving long gashes behind on the bolushzu’s neck for blood bane to activate once again, causing them to explode and damage the monster even further.

From a distance, I swung my whip around, slicing and opening more wounds on the monster's body. Even though it tried to close the distance, it couldn’t with Master Grimnir keep it far away from me. Activating [Attack Rune: Blood Bane] once again, the monster staggered from the explosion, leaving it open for me to wrap my whipsword around its neck again.

I then poured mana through the fleshy tendrils around my blade, manipulating the four-fanged claw to extend itself and dig into the monster’s neck, slowly gouging meat out until it finally breathed its last.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Human, Ellaine Fiero Helvas] has risen from [Level 58] to [Level 59]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 600 skill points

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Human, Ellaine Fiero Helvas]’s Job [Rogue] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 5]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Max level of Job   [Rogue] has been reached

Such a shame! Maybe I should’ve reminded everybody to change their Jobs before we departed… talk about wasted experience.

As I announced to Grimnir how the monster was dead, my [Prediction] rang inside my head warning me of an attack coming from behind its corpse. As if he felt it also, Master Grimnir jumped in front of me, activated [Defense Rune: Pavise] to conjure up a large mana shield to block the attack from a long beak.

As the dust settled, it became clear that the perpetrator of this attack was the other bolushzu. Not only was it able to shoot out acid spit but also extend its beak-like tongue to attack us. I whipped the air as I saw this as a good test for my new whip abilities.

[“Klea’Hatma?”]

[“Yeah, yeah, I hear you. Let’s just get this over with, quickly. Hestia’s song is just turning me off, urgh,”] the demon complained about [My Darkest Thoughts] playing in the background, created by Hestia’s [Idol] and [Aerokinesis].

I wanted to thank Hestia for helping me control this demon once again, but there was little time to do so as I began to notice more entities coming our way. “Master Grimnir, we need to speed this up! More incoming!”

“Aye, got it, lass. You better make a good showing with that weapon, ‘cause I made it, you hear? Hahaha! Umslid kain, kawuk kaan, fie Crustacia!” Master Grimnir then charged forward with his shield held up, shouting “Honor lost, in death regained, for Crustacia” in dwarven. It was a popular dwarven war cry.

The two of us moved forward. Master Grimnir would block attacks and counter whenever he could, while I focused on hitting the monster. Even if he couldn’t block some of the tongue attacks, I was agile enough with [Wind Blast] and [Whiplash] to dart around this enclosed tunnel.

Once an opening appeared, I activated [Stamina Strike] and [Mana Strike] and slashed off its tongue. While it was dazed, I used [Piercing Shot] to attach the four-fanged claw to the monster’s neck. Holding onto the thread, I manipulated the whip to wrap itself around its front legs, immobilizing it.

Urgh! Heavy!

The beast struggled, of course. My Strength was barely enough to hold onto the threads without being flung towards it, but the actual reason why I wasn’t pulled in was due to my right gauntlet. With the spider threads added onto the fingertips, it greatly improved my grip. Master Grimnir truly blessed me with this magnificent armor.

Pouring mana into the flesh again, I used this chance to kill the monster in the same way as the other. This cave’s floor was drenched in gore once it was over.

[“Good job, you two!”] A cheerful voice entered my mind. It was Hestia’s. [“However, don’t celebrate just yet. More are coming. You guys need help?”]

“Haaaa— No, thank you!”

“Haha, as if! Just a buncha C ranks!”

[“You two can do it, yaaaay, or whatever. Hurry up and get to the boss, yes?”]

With [Sanctified Blaze: Halo of Consecration] and the bottles of dragorade and mana potion we brought with us, we didn’t need to worry about our Health and Mana. If our Stamina dropped, Hestia could switch to [The Will to Fight and Survive] to help us restore it. This was an incredibly harsh training moment, but Master Grimnir and I took it with excitement. We needed levels.

Although we were sharing the experience with Hestia, Saori, and Tasianna, they were only taking enough to level up their Jobs. We would get the lion’s share until those three entered the battle. We had to work hard.

“““Kwreeeeh!””” The shrieks intensified and Master Grimnir and I stiffened. We knew through our [Enhanced Enemy Sense] that there were more than just two bolushzi. Even if we were stronger now, taking on all of these C ranks head-on would be foolish. As such, we used this time until then to place bombs, mana threads, and other traps.

The moment one of them triggered a trap, a chain reaction happened. Master Grimnir and I performed a “Blitzkrieg” as Hestia described it later on. Using his blashammer and my whiplash, we unleashed our attacks on any trapped bolushzi while we used our shield and spell respectively to push away the others, effectively dividing the forces.

Blood Bane exploded and showed its full potential in this mess, as it also affected the monster’s allies. The offensive power of Klea’Hatma’s powers was at full display here. The power was savage and ferocious, but I felt compelled to use it more strategically, as the individual attacks weren’t as destructive as Hestia’s powers. I couldn’t rush forward and break through any opposition like a rampaging herd of equerochs.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Human, Ellaine Fiero Helvas] has risen from [Level 59] to [Level 61]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 1300 skill points

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Okl’Luthier’s Power Lv. 2] [Mental Stability Lv. 4] [Whip Technique Lv. 5] [Whip Mastery Lv. 3] [Sundering Enhancement Lv. 5] [Piercing Enhancement Lv. 3] [Mana Strike Lv. 4] [Stamina Strike Lv. 4] [Prediction Lv. 9] [Danger Perception Lv. 8] [Acrobatic Lv. 8] gained

Abilities gained:   [Musclemass]

“Haaaaa, haaaaaa.” I huffed and puffed, filling my tired lungs with bloody-smelling air. Defeating these many C ranks was already too much for me. I have reached my limit.

“Oh man, all of these bolushzi were only around level zero or one. They are all newly spawned monsters! No wonder we got so little experience, they were all so weak!” Hestia cried out in annoyance.

“…” I could only look in disbelief as I heard this. If I remember correctly, some low-level C ranks can be considered about as strong as a high leveled D rank, depending on the race. You could say Master Grimnir and I didn’t fight true C ranks.

… There is still much for me to improve. I need more power— Oof! As I was contemplating what I was still lacking, I suddenly received a strong smack on my back, nearly knocking me down. I snapped my head around, looking at the person with a pout.

“You look too down after that amazing fight, lass. Smile, hahahaha!” It was Master Grimnir, who had taken off his helmet. He burst into laughter as if he wasn’t exhausted at all after that battle. “No need to take the princess’s words too seriously, Ellaine. Your whipsword skills did not disappoint. After all, we took those things down with only the two of us.”

“I guess, but why did you have to hit me that hard on my back? You’re always so rough on me, especially during my artisan training, Master Grimnir! I’m not a dwarven boy doing his blacksmith training!” I responded, puffing my cheeks even more.

“Hahaha!” he unleashed another laugh before looking at me with a serious expression, although it looked a little off since his beard hasn’t regrown yet. It made me gulp instinctively. “As long as you are inside my smithy, I’m gonna harden you up, lass. We’ll make an adventurer out of you yet!”

“MASTER GRIMNIR!!!”

After we finished dismantling the corpses, we moved deeper into the cave. During this time, I had Klea’Hatma teach me about my new [Musclemass] ability. Essentially, it increases my physical abilities in that area.

[“Stronger arms to throw boulders, legs able to run up walls, or fingers able to pinch off bone chunks. However, you still are limited to your shoulders, so you can’t wall-run just yet. It makes you a bit bulkier, but this is my ability you see, so you don’t need to worry about looking like a mountain of muscles. You will still be attractive, in a fit way.”]

Manifesting the ability, I confirmed Klea’Hatma’s statement. Compared to the first two abilities, [Musclemass] looked relatively normal, since it only gave my arms more pronounced muscles. Otherwise, the pink skin was smooth. Then again, I looked a bit too bulky for my liking.

Now that I think about it, I have become bulkier in general since I accepted father’s training. Jeeeeeez.

We eventually found the end of the tunnel, entering it to see a large bolushzu sleeping soundly in the middle of it. It was a little bit smaller than Astalos, but otherwise, it matched the limited description we’d received of the alpha of this pack. The moment I stepped into the room, the bolushzu moved, turning his head over to us.

“Hmm, I think we need your help now, you three,” Master Grimnir announced not a moment into this encounter. As I looked at him with confusion, he explained his reasoning to me, “You barely had enough time to rest, lass. Your breathing might have recovered, but your Stamina hasn’t, right? Leveling up recovered your Health and Mana, but not your Stamina. We trained enough, let’s do this as a team.”

I couldn’t disagree. Looking at my profile, my Stamina had barely recovered a quarter. This was a difficult challenge now, since the hunter’s guild recommended five B rankers to fight against a single B rank monster. I knew exactly what a B rank could do after I fought Astalos. Even with my new abilities, I wasn’t arrogant enough to believe myself able to fight this beast.

“Alright, let’s get this over with. Catalysts out, people.” After the ice ball was dispelled, Hestia warmed her arms up and activated her catalyst, producing a pretty warm aura from it. “Oh, how nice, isn’t this like a ZONE! Hmm, maybe I actually can do something with this.”

“Kwreeee!” The [Earth-Caller Bolushzu] roared out, cracking the earth around it. Earth formed at its call, creating giant spears to attack the invaders of its nest — Aurora. Its first action would intimidate any new hunter.

…

But it was coincidentally also its last attack.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Human, Ellaine Fiero Helvas] has risen from [Level 61] to [Level 63]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 1300 skill points

I stared in bafflement at the three ladies and the four garms standing next to the now-deceased bolushzu alpha. The smell of charred rocks and flesh entered my nose as I looked around the area, noticing burnt marks caused by explosions and black thunder. Ice spears had pinned the limbs and tail of the bolushzu down and you could see numerous wounds having exploded open from the blood bane rune.

Looking at the body a little bit more, I could make out what Saori had called Lichtenberg scars running from its head to tail, evidence that somebody had electrocuted it significantly. There was a large hole in the middle of its chest, and I could see Master Grimnir replacing the mana battery in his hammer. However, the most grisly part was the fact the monster was decapitated, while the tail edge of a certain dragonewt priestess was awfully bloody, dripping the red liquid onto the ground.

… Isn’t this as anti-climatic as the one in the Cedaraille dungeon? Where Hestia killed a whole group of felgheist and their C rank alpha?

There was a difference that I should finally understand. There were the newly born B ranks like this bolushzu, who hadn’t fully figured out its abilities yet. Then there were the experienced B rank monsters like Astalos, the slazzigula, and the rachonoid queen. And, finally, there were the mutated B rank monsters like Hestia, Saori, and to a certain extent, Tasianna.

“More training. I will become a worthy Aurora member,” I murmured to myself.

[“Ambition is good, it always gives you a reason to move forward in life. The moment you have nothing left, that is when you things becomes unbearably boring.”] I nodded to Klea’Hatma’s advice. She might be a demon, but that doesn't mean I shouldn’t accept appropriate wisdom.

The dismantling work took a while due to how large the monster was but after we were done, we decided to explore the cave a bit, seeing as there might be the possibility of treasure. Considering how fast we slayed the alpha, we could afford it.

Following down another tunnel, we found a few holes on the way, large enough for a single bolushzu to fit in. Up until now, we hadn’t managed to find any valuables but the mystery of where these bolushzi came from intrigued us, pushing us to explore even more.

When we finally found a hole large enough to fit the alpha bolushzu, Saori and Grimnir joked about how there might be something good down there. “The most mysterious places would usually have something of value,” they said, but it was quickly rejected by Hestia.

“Argh, scheiße, what a waste of time. Okay, everybody, let’s get out of this plac—Huh?!” The floor began to tremble under us, interrupting Hestia. My [Enhanced Enemy Sense] felt something approaching us, no, multiple signals were approaching us at the same time.

“Evade it!” Saori shouted, prompting everybody to move out of the way of the signals. In the next moment, the earth erupted, sending rocks and dirt into the air.

“““Skuch. Skuch.””” Weird sounds came from the dust cloud, causing us to raise our guards. When it dissipated, the silhouette of the monster became clearer.

It was a bug-type monster with a carapace torso and spiked shell abdomen as its “tail.” It had six limbs; four of them were long, around the size of the torso and abdomen, with three sharp talons while the two front legs had an elongated sickle as the middle finger. The third pair were shorter and located under its body, which it used to hold onto a ball of dirt. With the head of a beetle, three of these monsters looked at us with their mandibles bared open.

But before any of us could do anything, an arrow shot past us and penetrated the head of the monster, causing it to explode from the impact.

“What in the six is going on in our forest?! Why are these things here?!”

It was Muraina and Whisperia.

A note from AbyssRaven

The first POV for Ellaine. Only Grimnir missing, but when will that happen I wonder?

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 216: Geisenlarg Infestation.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Shoutouts!

Classmancer - A MOBA Esport Story by DarkClaymore. Since LOL World is going on, I thought it would be fitting. Anyway, entertaining story if you guys like King's Avatar.

Breaker of Horizons by NoDragons. A story about an alien MC arriving on Earth for an invasion which gave it a system. It's a reversal of the usual System-Invasion apocalyse like Solo Leveling.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Job [Infernal Hellblade] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 18]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Unarmed Mastery Lv. 4] [Crushing Enhancement Lv. 4] gained

““Skrreeeee!”” The sight of their companion’s head exploding into tiny bits right in front of them naturally angered the three giant bugs in the back. Clicking my tongue, I used the Job skill [Instant Heat Ignition] from [Infernal Hellblade] to instantly heat up my tail without needing to grind it on something.

I readied to kill the remaining bugs, but paused when I noticed something moving behind them.

“A bloody nest, there is a bloody nest under here! Falakash!” I heard the elven word for “shit” from behind me, spoken with some serious anger. In the next moment, I felt mana concentrating behind me and noticed an arrow moving behind the bugs before five green air arrows appeared around it.

In the next second, the remaining bugs lost their heads, too. As their green blood gushed out their bodies, the wooden arrow shot over us, returning to its owner. Turning around, I saw a certain familiar blond-haired elven woman with a wooden bird on her shoulder. When she caught the arrow, she gave it back to her treant, who swallowed it whole, but what actually piqued my interest was the two green magic circles, one floating on her bow and the other on her bird respectively.

Custom spell, right? Delayed and continuous cast to keep it working like that, multi-cast to cast more. Not only is she a trained mage, but she’s also stealthy enough to sneak up to me without Saori or her garms noticing her.

‘Stalker of Phantoms.’ ‘Haitiri.’ This woman is scary… And she’s looking at us with a pretty angry expression.

“D-Did you follow us, uhm, Ma’am?” I meekly asked as an ice breaker.

“I entered the cave to check on you after I heard that loud cry from the depths,” she stated before walking up close to us, not softening her sharp eyes. “Just for your information, these are geisenlarg soldiers. They primarily inhabit the eastern parts of Altrust, where the beastman alliance is situated, not here in Artorias. Like ants and bees, they build colonies around a single geisenlarg queen and, due to how large these soldiers are, the nest could be massive.”

Muraina then inhaled deeply and continued her explanation, her tirade slipping into a full blown rant, “Queen geisenlargs always breed soldier drones first due to how competitive their natural habitat is, as they can serve as both competent fighters, since they are born at D rank, and workers until it's safe enough to breed the smaller, but more numerous, worker drones. The fact that a colony is being built under our feet is from the monster spawning you five caused with your fight with that wyvern! Normally, nature balances everything out, especially in naturally-made monster-infested areas. Remember this, clean the areas out if you use spells! We are cleaning this cave after we are done, alright? Ahhhhargh, rant finished! I was so worried you five got hurt, haaaa.”

After taking multiple breaths, Muraina calmed down and dispelled her two magic circles. Letting out a deep sigh, she scratched her hair while we looked at her, astonished.

“I’m issuing another urgent quest for you, Aurora. C rank. If those were worker drones, I would probably have to issue a B rank just because of how large a colony would have become at that point. I can’t risk a ‘king’ being born.”

“Why is that?” I asked her, noticing she was back to her normal demeanor. She understood how to switch from one mood to the next, although I was sure she was a hot-head.

“‘Kings’ are the main ways geisenlarg colonies expand. They are the powerhouses that colonies spawn to beat down rival colonies. Depending on how much the queen is fed, the king can be born as an A rank, an absolute boon for them and a disaster for everyone else. Luckily, they cannot live for longer than a week due to a quirk of how they are born.” She then pointed at the hole. “I won’t force you, but will you help me? With compensation, of course. We are professionals.”

“We are already here, so we might as well clean up this mess, right?” I turned around to the others. Nobody objected.

She nodded with a smile. “Good. Saori, keep a lookout for any sounds or smells approaching from the holes. Everybody, take a small rest and freshen up. We’ll venture out once you are fit to continue.”

Ellaine does need a rest to recover her Stamina. Gotta play [The Will to Fight and Survive]. But… we have a small problem.

As I was thinking of an issue, Ellaine walked over to Muraina and asked her about it herself. “Muraina, uhm, d-did you see?” Her left arm was bare again, the [Claw] she had on dispelled.

We were worried she might have seen Ellaine using demonic powers. If this were some dark fantasy anime, we probably would have said something like “If she saw something, we might have to kill her” but that was not only cringey but also probably dumb. I hadn’t checked her profile yet, but she most likely was pretty powerful.

“Like I said, you can trust me. I won’t divulge anything. Even then, I have no idea what it was I saw you use, Ellaine, so I can’t do much with that information until I ask you personally or use [Identify].” Thankfully, Muraina respected our privacy. She assured Ellaine and then went over to Saori.

I took out the [Room] runes and placed them on the ground, opening the subspace for Tasianna to grab some drinks and snacks for us. Our mobile base truly was the best. After I handed Elaine some fulinoe tea and white bread sandwiches, I went over to Grimnir to give him his portion.

“Oh, thanks for the meal, lass.” The dwarf took the tankard of mead and plate of sandwiches with gratitude before lowering the beard guard of his new helmet, revealing a round hole for him to eat and drink with.

“Huh, and here I thought it was only added to protect your still-growing beard. You made sure to add a way to eat stuff with your helmet on, nice~”

“Hmph,” he grumbled at my comment. Never talk ill of a dwarf’s beard, right? “Normal dwarven helmets don’t have these things; we usually don’t need to, since we use a special mixture to harden the tips of our beard into rockhair, as a gesture of respect to Crustacia. A taz’s beard is resistant to fire to a certain extent, like the rest of our bodies, but it can’t withstand stuff like your scale-dust, aye? I had to think of something to protect my face if I was going to keep fighting alongside you, lass.”

“Innovation through necessity,” would be an apt way to describe the addition of this beard guard. While Grimnir chugged down his mead, I pulled out one of the leftover hamburgers our party had made yesterday for dinner and sat down next to him to eat it.

“Pah!” Grimnir slammed his empty tankard on the ground. “Still tastes like pisswater. I hope the barrel Tasianna helped me make comes out better.”

While I ate, I looked over to where Saori was speaking with Muraina about something. “How did you do that? I did not notice you following us at all, nor did my garms. No smell, no presence, no footsteps. Your [Silence] and [Odorless] must be extremely high leveled.”

“Evolved skills, of course, created through the merging of lesser skills into one superior one,” Muraina spoke as if it was the obvious answer.

“Hmm, I should have been able to guess that. Still, I have my own evolved skills to help my detection and stealth abilities. Yours circumvented both of them.” Saori was speaking about [True Wolven Instincts] and [Night’s Caress] respectively. They were both still level one, so I couldn’t blame Saori for not detecting Muraina.

“Really? Amazing, then you must have made a lot of progress since the profile you sent to King Drangleic. Monster evolution, I presume?” Saori nodded to Muraina’s guess. “We Haireti train to become like ethereal phantoms, similar to lesser fae, when we move through our forests and woods, and I have been training for a while now. I heard Gael trained you a bit, but would you be up with some Haireti training? I can teach you this interesting custom spell.”

A small green magic circle appeared on Muraina’s hand before she flicked it with her finger. It vibrated a bit but nothing really happened. Saori looked at it in confusion, but a few seconds later, the magic circle trembled again and some words on it lit up slightly.

“‘One. Moving. Large.’ That was the information I got from this spell called [Manalocation]. How are your [Detection Sensor] and nose, Saori? What do they tell you?” Muraina asked.

“Hmm, multiple targets. Most of them are small, probably insects, while the others might be rodents or moles, maybe. I can hear something moving in the hole but nothing loud enough. No smell, except for dirt. Wait! A signal my skill recognizes as a threat appeared. It’s moving. Do you mean that one?” Saori returned her head to Muraina who flicked the magic circle again, nodding her head after it shook again.

“[Manalocation] is a custom spell created by an empty vessel mage who used sounds as his spells, much like Princess Hestia over there with her songs. It’s a wind-affinity spell, giving the circle its green color, but you can learn it without needing to learn the empty vessel or [Wind Magic].”

Muraina explained the original spell was changed to send out mana, instead of wind or soundwaves, and acted similar to a bat’s echolocation. The mana would be sent out by touching the magic circle — Muraina flicked it — and it would return eventually, where the Divine System would give the caster scouting information.

“Metamagics are amazing, right? [Fluid Cast] to repurpose the original spell into something non-wind mages can use. [Delayed Cast] to keep it in a limbo between ‘Activation’ and ‘Release’, to prevent it from dispelling. Finally, [Continuous Cast] allows me to flick it as often as I wish,” Muraina explained the functionality of the spell, intriguing me as I realized I’d never made use of both [Delayed Cast] and [Continuous Cast] in the same custom spell.

[Symphonie des Feuergottes], [Sanctified Blaze], and [Panzer] are single-usage spells where they cast their ability and that was it, similar to most System spells. [Halo of Consecration] and [Unheilige Engel] work on the principle of [Continuous Cast], where as long you continuously pour mana into a spell’s magic circle, you could cast the spell as often as you liked and even use [Fluid Cast] to change their function if you wanted to.

In spell casting, the four stages of casting were the base of all spells — Invocation, Incantation, Activation, and Release. Without the meta-magics, or advanced spell casting techniques, of [Fluid Cast], [Multi-Cast], [Delayed Cast], and [Continuous Cast], you couldn’t change this sequence.

Seeing Muraina use her [Manalocation] spell prompted me to ponder on some more spell ideas. Thinking of new and creative ways to cast spells was tricky to do, so when inspiration hit, it just dragged me into my own world where I could experiment with theories in my head. While I was imagining the effects of a test spell, somebody suddenly shook my shoulders hard, bringing my attention back to reality.

It was Tasianna. She told me everybody had finished resting and we would depart soon. I looked down at my plate and saw that I still had half my quadruple-patty burger left. Sighing, I put the burger back into my storage to eat later and drank enough water for the upcoming extermination.

A moment later, we all jumped down into the hole, landing safely with Tasianna’s wind magic. For our formation, Grimnir and I were in the frontline. Then came Ellaine, Tasianna, and Muraina for the middle, while Saori was our rearguard. Both Muraina and Saori were responsible for scouting and ensuring we wouldn’t get ambushed, which reassured the rest of us as we explored the tunnel.

“Lady Hestia, please, remember not to overuse your fire. I don’t exactly want to suffocate to death today,” Muraina joked as we walked through this dank tunnel.

I nodded to her request, agreeing to rely more on martial arts and non-fire spells. “Oh yeah, Muraina, do you want to join the party? My party bracelet has the platoon function.” This function was an addition to our expensive party bracelet Farron gave us, which allowed us to invite twenty people to a single party.

However, instead of an immediate answer, Muraina made some disagreeable noises before answering, “I apologize, but I’m a bit of a, uhm, I don’t like sharing my kills with others. I’m at a level where slaying D ranks would give too little experience for me to care about, but every bit counts, right?”

It could be said that she wasn’t very cooperative, but I could definitely understand where she came from. Experience was important, but now I was worried that she would hog all the experience!

After walking a bit more, we encountered the soldier drone Saori and Muraina had detected before.

Mana Eyes.

Geisenlarg Soldier

Attributes have increased due to level up

A giant beetle with a hard carapace and six limbs which it uses to protect and develop the colony of its mother, the [Geisenlarg Queen]. Possesses a mild nerve venom on the sickle on its front legs, which it uses to slow down the movement of its prey before it lands the deciding blow with its mandibles. D rank

Nerve toxin, huh? Might help me make my own.

To make sure it wouldn’t call for reinforcements, I snuck behind it while it was digging to expand the tunnel and jumped. Using [Air Walk] and my wings, I maneuvered my body over the soldier’s and pierced its head with my tail, instantly killing the thing. Unfortunately, it gave less experience than the C rank bolushzi.

All of these monsters are too young. They didn’t have enough time to gain levels.

As dismantling the corpse would take up too much time, we left the dead geisenlarg behind until we found the queen. Muraina and Saori both noted that multiple signals were moving around alone, probably expanding the tunnel network of this colony. On the other hand, there was a large gathering of signals in the depths of this place, which we all assumed must be the heart of the colony.

Deciding that hunting down the individual geisenlargs would be too much work, we moved deeper towards the nest. We evaded what patrols happened to come near us and made sure to remain undetected. Muraina explained how a colony would collapse and die off if the queen and all of the princesses were killed. Any soldier or worker drones we left alive wouldn’t be a big threat.

“Jeez, this place is huge.” After evading the attention of as many beetles as possible, we ended up in a tunnel leading into a huge cavern about double the size of the Sydney opera house. Beetles were crawling around in an organized fashion through the multiple bridges they’d built across the place to connect from one hole to another.

At the very bottom of this cavern, there were stockpiles of building materials like rocks, wood and leaves, and next to them was a pile of mangled bodies. There were corpses of monsters of various sizes but, thankfully, Saori didn’t see any human, beastman, or elven bodies there. They belonged to only monsters and animals.

“Hestia, could you harden the interior of the cavern? Like when we fought Kiiro's mana beast?” Saori suggested.

“Harden? So we are going into this without a plan like a bunch of rampaging equerochs? Otherwise, I cannot imagine why we should fortify the walls to prevent it from breaking down if we are going into this with stealth,” Muraina asked Saori, who wobbled her hand as if Muraina was half-correct.

“Just in case, right? If we were to be detected, we would not want to waste time doing it afterward. Considering the size of those geisenlargs, we probably cannot afford to hold back if we get surrounded, even if they are only D ranks.”

Muraina nodded. “Plan B, alright. Then, as for Plan A… well, I haven’t participated in a geisenlarg extermination before, but the number one advice I’ve gotten from reading those reports has been to target them with ice. Their carapace protects them from the cold as they live underground, but extreme cold causes them to break and significantly reduces their movement speed.”

We turned to Tasianna. She understood what we wanted from her and she gave her opinion on it, “I can do that with [Aifli eir Vintral], yes. I can reduce the surroundings down to the freezing point without any problem since a mana-based body is less susceptible to the cold. Lady Hestia, you should probably use your catalyst’s heat field, since using your core to regulate your body temperature might waste solar energy.”

“Good point, Tasianna. I have enough in my core to keep myself warm if I don’t use [Solar Beam], but it might be better to test this orb out for today.” Muraina had already seen my core when we bathed together in the hot spring. There was no need to hide it at this point.

“Should we blitz them then, everybody?” Ellaine suggested. “[Musclemass] gives me enough Strength to deal some serious damage through a sneak attack. Hestia and I can handle the ones taking care of their stockpile, while Saori and Muraina have the range and maneuverability to quickly and silently dispatch the ones moving on the bridges.”

“My aim is true. I can handle it. Saori?” Muraina looked at Saori as though she were issuing a challenge.

Saori agreed with a smirk. “Enclosed room, a lot of shadows once Hestia uses her rocket boosters, and plenty of places to strike from. This should be no problem.”

Why are they trying to compete right now?

As I was baffled at those two, Grimnir spoke up, stroking his growing beard while deep in thought. “Hmm, we might be detected if you do strengthen everything up with [Terra Wall], lass. If this were a tazongn tunnel, we'd notice when something is happening with our home. We know it best.”

Grimnir brought up a good point against Saori’s plan B, causing us all to think over it. Grimnir continued, “There are too many ways for the beetles to enter the cavern, and they could always rely on creating more at any time. We will get surrounded too quickly, and I can only protect everybody from one front.”

“Saori and I can always rely on our original forms if it gets dicey,” I argued, but Grimnir seemed unconvinced.

“True, with you two and the yflei on your back shooting down arrows, those beetles won’t have a chance. But what about the queen? Don’t forget, our primary goal is to hunt that royal down. If we waste too much time, the queen might escape. How about it, yflei, can the queen move fast enough to flee?” Grimnir spoke with Muraina. “Yflei” was dwarven for high elf.

“The queen is B rank. A large behemoth with a hardened shell like a giant crab and a long stinger like a scorpion. Not only can she produce hundreds of soldiers and workers in a timely manner, she should also be a capable combatant. There will be guards protecting her and she will engage if she thinks she can protect her colony. If she thinks otherwise, she will try to escape instead,” Muraina explained, before beginning to scold herself, “Hmm, I was being a bit too bloodthirsty. Haven’t gone hunting for a while.”

“Aye, I thought so. Wisdom doesn't come with age for your elves, huh? Ha!” The dwarven man acted smugly. “However, I like Ellaine’s idea. We should blitz the ones below us, and then have somebody scout out the queen’s hideout. The moment we find it, that’s when Hestia and Tasianna should act. Fortify the interior so it doesn’t break down and have Tasianna weaken them with the cold. We then move towards our target. I’ll handle the charge, you five and the garms handle the killing.”

Since the eggs were supposedly also stored either in the same cavern with the queen or one next to it, everybody accepted Grimnir’s strategy. It was time to execute everything.

Ellaine used [Whiplash] to transform her left arm and used it to attach herself to my arm. It felt pretty fleshy at first, but without the claws, it felt like a bunch of sausages were grabbing my arm. As we needed to sneak up to the monsters, I couldn’t play any music for now.

[“Hmm, what an interesting place. Like a hive. So many creatures working mindlessly and tirelessly for a single monarch, their mother. And now, they are about to perish for our power. The strong rule over the weak, an interdimensional fact, hiehiehie,”] Klea’Hatma spoke before breaking in a maniacal laugh. Ellaine and I both ignored her, while I had one of my parallel minds ready to cast [Shine] in case she tried something.

With my wings repaired, I was finally able to fly and glide properly without needing to rely on wind spells or my rocket boosters. I would probably need [Tailwind] for the best maneuvering control or to race another flier, but I was satisfied I could use flying now as part of my repertoire.

As Ellaine and I hovered behind a piece of rock, we observed the diligent geisenlargs. Once we found a good moment, we decided on our targets and snuck over to them, killing them simutanously like two assassins.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Job [Infernal Hellblade] has risen from [Level 18] to [Level 19]

Attributes have increased due to level up

I quickly broke the beetles we killed into smaller chunks and shoved them into my storage to hide them from the other geisenlargs. We then hid once again and repeated the process. When I had some time, I looked above us, witnessing Saori and Muraina efficiently and quietly taking down beetles upon beetles. It was honestly scary seeing them killing them so fast while Ellaine and I were taking it slower.

Over time, we noticed fewer beetles coming out from tunnels and putting stuff onto the stockpile. That was when I gave Tasianna and Grimnir the signal for them to rejoin us at the bottom.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Job [Infernal Hellblade] has risen from [Level 19] to [Level 20]

Attributes have increased due to level up

After some more kills, Saori and Muraina came over, informing us they might have found the queen. As with echolocation, [Manalocation] generally couldn’t see through obstructions and it was soft countered by mana barriers like pavise and my [Draconic Barrier], but if it worked, it could tell you the size of the target it had tagged.

Muraina used that spell within the different tunnels and managed to find one which gave her the most promising result. As such, I cast [Terra Wall] with [Fluid Cast] to strengthen the earth around us instead of creating a wall.

Jeez, this is so easy. Everything is working as we planned. Going into things with a plan is seriously the be—

“Skruuuuuuuuuuuch!”

What?!

“You have to be kidding me! The queen of this colony already managed to make a flying soldier drone! Tch, just how long have they been down here?! Damnit, C ranks, everybody!” Muraina shouted, pointing upwards.

There I saw a giant beetle around the size of an elephant flying above us. Compared to its companions, its body was slimmer while its two pairs of front legs were long and thicker, with sharper, more sickle-like claws. Two large wings were beating rapidly, giving it the ability to move in any direction like a hummingbird.

“Skrruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch!”

Guess Grimnir was right, super right.

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Chapter 217: A Royal Extermination.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Mana Eyes.

Flying Geisenlarg Soldier

A geisenlarg soldier born as a shock unit, trading the standard soldier’s bulky body for one fit for aerial combat. With two pairs of long front legs with venomous sickle claws on each, this soldier drone can launch flurries of attacks from any direction. Hunts in packs with the other soldiers to take down larger prey and predators. C rank

“I know this isn’t the time, but you said this was supposed to be a C rank Quest, right? You sure about that?” I then pointed at the horde of beetles coming out from the numerous tunnels above. With my enhanced hearing, I could also hear a crawling coming from the tunnels from the bottom of the cavern.

“Alright, I’ll compensate you properly for this later. First, let’s finish the quest and get out of here alive! Whisperia!” In the span a person could blink their eyes, Muraina pulled an arrow from her bird treant’s wing and nocked it on her bow. Two green magic circles appeared simultaneously on her bow and bird respectively, showing her ability to multicast without any chants.

The moment she let her arrow loose, four ethereal ones made from wind appeared around it, following the original one like fanatical fans chasing after a pop star. The flying beetle, noticing the incoming arrows, dodged them.

However, these arrows from Muraina weren’t your typical ones. Instead of flying straight, they swerved around and tracked the beetle like heat-seeking missiles. As it was about to be turned into a pincushion, a normal soldier drone jumped up and sacrificed its life for the flyer, bursting into pieces from the impact of the arrows.

“Flying soldiers require more energy from the queen to breed. The hive mind strives for efficiency here, so that was to be expected.” As Muraina nocked another arrow on her bow, I noticed how the treant’s eyes were moving around and, with [Mana Eyes], confirmed my suspicion that it was the one controlling the magic circle next to it. I shouldn’t forget; Whisperia is a lesser fae, a spriggan. The teamwork they just displayed must have been nurtured over years.

Seeing the waves of monsters coming, Grimnir clicked his tongue, displeased at the situation before shouting at me, “Lass, close up the tunnel entrances at the bottom floor and fortify it with your magic! Don’t let anything come from the bottom or the side, got it? Tasianna, send me up to that enclosed area there and summon some ice golems for me. I’ll do my job as the frontline and keep you lasses alive to fight. On Crustacia’s temper, I swear that!”

While I closed the lower entrances with [Terra Wall], Tasianna sent Grimnir flying up with a floating ice platform. She then finished casting [Aifli eir Vintral] to send the cavern’s temperature below the freezing point of water, which forced me to use my catalyst’s heat aura to warm myself up.

As I did so, Saori finished forming a plan. “Hestia. Muraina, my garms, and I will clear the way up to the tunnel leading towards the queen. I can hear some more wing beats coming from the other tunnels, so I will need you and Ellaine to deal with them. Do you think you can do that?”

“Y-Yes, Saori. We will!” Ellaine answered back, a bit daunted at the situation but able to keep her cool.

“Some flying practice, sure. Sounds better than mowing down waves of insects.” Going all out with my scale-dust and fire attacks would be too reckless while we were inside this cavern, and I already told Muraina I wouldn’t overuse it in fear that my flames would use up all the oxygen down here.

“Skrrruuuuuch!” As the flying geisenlarg noticed Muraina changing her targets to its brethren, it screeched once again and began to dart over to her for a head on attack. I released my [Draconic Aura] as it did so, stopping it mid-flight and causing it to panic as it locked eyes with me.

Dragoon Jump! Wind Blast!

Blasting off like a rocket, I used [Instant Heat Ignition] on my claws and readied to ravage the geinsenlarg’s body. However, whether it was instinctive or a conscious reaction to my attack, the beetle swerved its body slightly to the side at the last moment, avoiding instant death by the thinnest margin.

But, it wasn’t enough to avoid being severely wounded.

“Skrreeeeeeh!” Its scream echoed through the cavern as it looked down, realizing it had lost all three limbs on its right side and a good chunk of carapace. In my hands, I held its two arms while its leg, which I had sliced off with my tail, fell to the ground. The bug lived through my attack, but it had only delayed the inevitable.

I flapped my wings, turning my body around. Seeing the beetle panicking from the pain, I didn’t dally any longer and readied the finishing blow. While I stood on air with [Air Walk] in preparation to use [Dragoon Jump], my eyes were locked onto the geisenlarg, but my focus was broken by [Prediction]. Instead of attacking, I chose to dodge. Two giant bugs flew right by me as I did so.

““Skruuuch!!”” The two new flyers appeared before me, screeching while baring their claws. Four more appeared from the other tunnels, resulting in me being surrounded by these six and the injured seventh.

Jeez, no wonder they appeared so quickly after I used [Terra Wall] to solidify the walls. They have a lot of innate Strength and Agility growth, but compromise on Vitality and Wisdom. I then looked at the claws I held in my hands before throwing them away. Reminds me a bit of me!

Buff on. [The Will to Fight and Survive]. Music time, girls.

[Music Resonation (Moderate)] [Various Spell Buffs] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Using flame attacks and scale-dust explosions would probably consume the oxygen inside this cavern too quickly, so I can’t use [Sanctified Blaze] and [Halo of Consecration] to heal or deal damage. A dungeon produced its own oxygen, but this cavern’s only source would be the holes the beetles made.

However, if I kept my flame usage in moderation, then it wouldn’t be too bad if I used a spell here or there. I could have probably given myself a handicap here, but with the lives of my friends on the line, there was no need to be arrogant.

Noticing I wasn’t doing anything, the beetles screeched once more and made their move, while the injured one attempted to flee, flying slowly to slow down its bleeding. Once the six were in formation, two of them charged at me with their large mandibles.

“Panzer. Unheilge Engel.” Two brown magic circles appeared, conjuring up both purple flames on my body and a purple slime behind me. When I dodged the beetles’ attacks, I could hear the slipstream they created, but my focus was instantly redirected by my [Prediction] towards the next two beetles rushing at me.

The flame on my body hardened into dark purple armor while the slime transformed into obsidian wings. Sharpening my eyes, I performed an aerial barrel roll over the beetles’ attack and slammed the sharp ends of my obsidian wings into the back of one of them, gouging out some flesh and blood.

I accelerated forward with [Wind Blast], caught up with the injured beetle and grabbed its leg. Using [Tailwind] and my Strength to tug on it, I instantly decelerated the bug’s speed back to zero, causing it to groan in pain before I used [Banishment Beam] to shoot its head off its body.

I then redirected the beam, shooting it at the approaching beetles, prompting them to evade it. I then blasted them away with [Wind Blast] and turned my head around, already noticing the injured geisenlarg from the beginning was attempting to launch a sneak attack on me. As our eyes met again, it became flustered, but before I could kill it, somebody’s voice entered my head.

[“Hestia, keep your eyes on the proper threat!”] Somebody’s familiar voice scolded me before a fleshy tendril with claws on it grabbed on the injured bug’s leg. As the tendril wobbled, Ellaine came flying in with it, readying her blue glowing whipsword.

She slashed at the geisenlarg with the momentum she gained from being pulled before wrapping her whip around it, cutting its wings off and causing it to crash on a bridge. Using [Musclemass] to increase her arm Strength, she pulled on her sword and cut the beetle’s body to pieces.

Whew, gnarly. Nice job, Ellaine. Oh, oops, too much distraction~

I bent my back as my [Prediction] alerted me of an incoming attack. Air rushed by my head in the wake of the strike I’d dodged. To counter, I morphed my obsidian wings into a jaw with which I bit down on the arms of the beetle that had attacked me, holding it back from escaping. As it squirmed and screamed, I kicked the air and somersaulted, striking the beetle with my wings before dropkicking it, sending it crashing onto the ground like a meteor.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Job [Infernal Hellblade] has risen from [Level 20] to [Level 21]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Three down.

“Hestia!” As I watched the remaining four beetles zoom around, waiting for a chance to attack me, I heard Ellaine call out for me and in the next moment, a flesh tendril grabbed my feet. “Let’s fly?”

“Got it, hang on!”

With Ellaine holding onto my hip with her left arm, I used [Gale Steps] with [Air Walk], dashing forward to gain enough acceleration to chase down the beetles before they could engage me. While Ellaine kept herself safe with an [Air Shield], I moved around like a dragonfly, chasing down any beetles and dodging their attacks before I struck. If I couldn’t reach them, Ellaine swung her sword, disabling them by cutting their wings and making them an easy kill.

The two of us blitzed the remaining geisenlarg flyers, sending their dead bodies falling to the ground. At the same moment we finished, a loud yell rocked the cavern. “Taunt!!!” somebody shouted, dragging the attention of all the geisenlargs over to them.

I turned around, noticing the source to be Grimnir, who was hiding behind a wall of Tasianna’s [Winter’s Golem]s. Ellaine and I were confused about how Grimnir had [Taunt], considering our party hadn’t changed our Jobs at a crystal yet, but then again, he and Saori were the ones who had visited the lower city the most from our party. He probably took some time to change to a Job with [Taunt] as a Job skill.

“Come at me ya damn umsleuds! Fight a taz if you dare!” Grimnir activated [Defensive Rune: Pavise] and shouted rambunctiously, drawing the beetles to attack him. As he began slamming the beetles with his hammer, Tasianna’s golems moved to attack anything that came close to them.

“Hestia, the queen is through that tunnel! Move!” Saori pointed at a tunnel underneath me after killing off three beetles at once with her stygian lightning.

“Tor Eiclere’s Finulaflei!” With how many targets were gathering around Grimnir, it was the perfect moment for us to unleash our area-of-effects attack on them and eliminate multiple enemies at once.

Also recognizing this opportunity, Muraina nocked all four of Whisperia’s arrows on her bow before aiming upwards. “Whisperia, aim. Fly, Auidb’s Finulflei.” Propelled upwards with wind magic to gain that stunning speed Muraina has been shooting her arrows with, the four wooden arrows pulled themselves together, forming a single large green-glowing arrow before exploding next to the ceiling.

Like fireworks, the sparks formed into a distinctive shape — that of a bird of prey, in this case. As beautiful of a spectacle this was, in the next moment, these sparks shot out like laser arrows, falling down from the ceiling like rain. Ellaine and I both panicked briefly at the prospect of getting hit by friendly fire, but we quickly realized that [Danger Perception] hadn’t responded at all to this attack, meaning it was not a threat to us. And we guessed correctly.

“““Skruuuch!!!””” At the bottom, Tasianna’s ice spell was already showing its power. The shells of numerous beetles cracked open, spilling their green blood only for it to be immediately frozen by the hazardous temperature. As Tasianna’s ice swords began piercing through the beetles’ bodies, Muraina’s rain of arrows descended, destroying anything it touched.

Jeez! What a destructive attack! And with perfect accuracy, too.

Now I understood what those two magic circles Muraina kept active were doing. Even without [Mana Eyes], I could hazard a guess.

First, I was sure her enchanted bow was the reason for the flight speed of the arrows, enchanting them with wind magic to fly faster. Second, the magic circle next to the bow was responsible for the conjured wind arrows and the fireworks, even if this [Auidb’s Finulflei] — Hawk’s Paradise in elven — was a bow ability instead of a spell. It probably needed that magic circle to work. Third, and lastly, the magic circle next to her treant was responsible for the arrow’s homing function, which I attributed to the treant who acted like a controller.

The only thing I still haven’t had a clue about were the arrows the treant’s produced. I was able to guess Muraina’s abilities from watching her fight, but I still needed [Mana Eyes] to properly understand them. In other words, I knew what she could do, but I had no idea what her weaknesses were. Not even accounting for what she still had in her arsenal, since I couldn’t imagine this being her ultimate attack, something similar to Yorshka with her [Nordor Style: Silver Dragon’s Skyfall].

Jeez, if she only allowed us to make a party. Verdammt. All that experience, lost!

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Job [Infernal Hellblade] has risen from [Level 21] to [Level 22]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Thankfully, Tasianna is doing a good job.

With a good chunk of the beetles dead and the remaining ones focused on Grimnir, I flew over to where Saori was while Ellaine continued hanging onto my waist. As Tasianna, Saori’s garms, and Muraina finally rendezvoused with us, I looked over in Grimnir’s direction, noticing he was stuck behind the mountain of corpses and army of beetles.

Clicking my tongue at Grimnir’s reckless action, I climbed up the wall next to the tunnel entrance, high enough to see behind him. Warp Point: Entry! I cast the entry point behind him before slipping back into the tunnel and opening the [Warp Point: Exit]. As the air opened up, revealing Grimnir behind it, roaring and swinging his hammer around, I grabbed his shoulder and pulled the armored taz through the portal before closing it.

My [Prediction] warned me to turn around, where I noticed the bugs shifting their bodies around to rush towards us. Grimnir’s [Taunt] was still in effect, luring all of them towards us.

Verdammt, gotta close the tunnel.

“I’ll handle this! You guys get to the queen and clean this up!” Nobody disagreed with my suggestion. They knew exactly what I could do, even if it sounded like a flag.

After Saori led the group deeper into the dark tunnel, I turned my head around and activated [Aerokinesis]. Breathing in deeply, I filled my lungs with enough oxygen to make me feel lightheaded, before releasing a massive “KriAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!” roar at them.

The ones leading the army were immediately crushed by the sheer force of my [Draconic Roar], blown away like ragdolls. The waves of beetles were pushed back, being forced to look at alternative ways to bypass this chokepoint I was holding on my own. I sent out my [Unheilge Engel] as sharp obsidian spears to strike at the stragglers. While our Quest was to kill the geisenlarg queen, I didn’t want to completely disregard the opportunity to farm experience.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Job [Infernal Hellblade] has risen from [Level 22] to [Level 24]

Attributes have increased due to level up

“Argh, verdammt, my throat.” One thing my vocal coach always told me to do was to stop the moment my throat began to hurt and give it a rest, otherwise I would risk damaging the most valuable asset a vocalist can have. Singing for an hour or two at the concert wasn’t a problem, but I guess roaring for this long was.

I took a moment to drink some water to moisten my vocal cords, which the beetles mistook as an opening. They attacked, only to be cut down by my [Unhelige Engel] before they could even reach me. As I pondered which spell to use next, I suddenly heard something approaching from behind me, in the tunnel Saori and the others ran into.

Oh, nice, they finished that quickly. Sadly no exp for me, was what I thought when I saw the silhouettes of Saori, Tasianna, Ellaine, Grimnir, and Muraina riding on the backs of the garms. But the closer they came, the more I was confused at their panicking expressions and how the garms were sprinting.

“Move, Hestia!” As Saori shouted, the walls of the tunnel began to tremble as a deep, booming “Skrouuuuuuuch!” erupted from the darkness in the back. As I looked closer, I saw the tunnel breaking, making way for the rampage of something huge.

As we all jumped back into the cavern, the tunnel exploded into dust and rocks before another “Skrouuuuuuch!” rumbled around us. From the cloak of dust, a giant dark green stinger shot at us with scary accuracy, destroying the ground we were standing in.

“Kuso.” Jumping off from Uno, Saori’s body exuded a blue mana mist, hiding her body from everybody’s eyes. In the next second, from above, a giant black lightning-clad wolf jumped out from the shadow of a bridge. With lightning concentrating around one of her front paws, she landed on the creature in the dust and smashed her paw into it, causing an explosion of black lightning, blowing away all the dust and smoke.

“Skrreeeeuuuuch!!!”

“““Skruuuuch!!!”””

Standing on four giant, gauntlet-like legs with a pair of small front legs acting like a shield for its face, the creature standing before me screamed in pain. Saori’s attack had penetrated its shell. The geisenlarg soldiers screeched as they saw this tank-like monster howl in agony. To get fenrir Saori off its back, it tried to sting her with the giant scorpion-like stinger on its tail, but she dodged away just in time.

As that happened, Murainamaneuvered up into the air with [Air Walk] and shot an arrow into each of its four legs, piercing them before they invoked another of Muraina’s tricks. Chains made from air sprang out from the arrows and anchored themselves in the ground, preventing the monster from moving its legs. Once that spell was finished, the arrows dug themselves out from the legs and returned to Muraina, where she nocked another arrow on her bow to shoot.

“Tasianna?!” I turned to her as those two were keeping the monster preoccupied.

“It’s the queen, Lady Hestia. When we were walking through the tunnel, Miss Saori and Miss Muraina suddenly told us to turn back,” she explained what happened in my absence. With the queen suddenly appearing before us, it seemed our battle had to happen inside this cavern, where the other beetles were gathered.

The geisenlarg soldiers rushed over and attacked Muraina and Saori, stopping their assault on their queen. Some then dug out the ground Muraina’s chain spell was attached to, freeing the geisenlarg queen before two climbed on on her back. With another “Skrrouuuuch!” the queen postured itself to attack.

With the situation as it is, we needed to somehow land a decisive blow on the queen while bypassing all the soldiers supporting her. To penetrate a fortress like her, we had to get rid of the defenders first, then we could scale its body whenever we wanted. “Grimnir, use [Taunt]! We’ll clean the rest up.”

“Lass, I can’t use another [Taunt]. Taunting the queen with all her soldiers around is too dangerous for me to do!” [Taunt] allowed Grimnir to attract the attention of all the monsters around, but it also increased the damage they could do to him while decreasing the amount we would suffer. His armor is made out of my scales and has runes attached to them, but it would be too dangerous if he took all the damage just like that…

…if I wasn’t around.

“What are you talking about, Grimnir?! Don’t forget, I’m a healer! I can heal you up!”

“Huh?” Even with his helmet hiding his expression, I somehow was able to imagine his eyes widening up like two fish eyes. “O-Oh, that’s right. I kinda forgot that you aren’t just a flame spitter and pyromaniac.”

“Wait wha—!” I was about to complain but Ellaine suddenly grabbed me and pulled me onto Song’s back, helping me dodge the queen’s ramming attack. Once the coast was clear, I thanked Ellaine and called Grimnir. “Come on, you can trust me! I bloody saved your life in the nick of time against that slazzigula, did you forget?”

“Grrr, hmph! Bladdarg, I hear you, lass! I put my life in your care, so let’s do this already.” He then jumped off Sarasa’s back and held his shield high. The moment the queen jumped up to turn around, Grimnir slammed his shield down and roared! “Taunt! Pavise!”

As the soldiers and their queen charged forward, Grimnir stood his ground with me standing behind him, ready to support him in any way I could. Meanwhile, the others began their final assault.

“Skrrrouuuuuch!” Like a giant tank, the queen’s legs stomped on the ground as she charged forwards with full intent to kill.

“Urgh, this reminds me too much of the mandatory military training I had to do in the Ankor-Nazta. Shield wall. Hold the line. Bladdarg,” Grimnir complained to hide his anxiety of seeing a mammoth-sized four-legged tank charging at him like this. Runes activated around his body, empowering him with stats and bonuses.

I tapped on his shoulder to calm him down. “Buuuut, I bet you didn’t have a champion of Aurena on your side back then, right? Don’t worry, you’re part of Aurora now, I won’t let you down, Grimnir! Sanctified Blaze: Halo of Consecration. Sanctuary!” Our goal was right in front of us, I decided it was now alright to use my fire attacks to end this quickly. As my white flames began healing his wounds and enchanting his hammer, a dome of holy mana surrounded us.

“Yeah. Tazongs always stand firm with their shields up. Rune activate, Holdwall.” The [Defensive Rune: Pavise] in front of us grew up to match the size of the queen, bracing for impact. “Pour some mana into me, lass. Activating all these runes takes a toll on my Mana.”

“Got it.”

As the sound of the stomps blasted in my ears, the queen roared once more before she shattered my barrier and rammed into the mana wall created through [Defensive Rune: Pavise].

“Urgh!”

“Grruk!”

While supporting Grimnir’s back, the impact of the queen’s charge rocked my body with an incredible shockwave. As I moaned from us being pushed back, Grimnir clenched his teeth and growled at the giant beetle with spite, holding his feet on the ground, ignoring the fact they were being slowly dug into the ground. The [Geisenlarg Queen] might be a newly spawned B rank like the bolushzu alpha, but it seemed she’d actually managed to gain some levels, unlike the latter.

“Grrrargh! Shield Slam!” Moving his feet forward, Grimnir confronted the queen’s charge without fear, attempting to push it back once the charge wore off. The queen did not slack off either, shooting her stinger forward to try to break through Grimnir’s shield. It was a stalemate, but that was where the geisenlarg soldiers and I battled each other.

“Get away!” I released my [Draconic Aura] and a wave of holy fire from [Halo of Consecration], scaring and burning a few of them back. However, at this stage, these things were almost feral, charging right through the flames to attack Grimnir, ramming against his shield.

[Defensive Rune: Pavise] was similar to the [Defensive Rune: Auracoil] that Farron used in my spar with him, except that the former protected the user from physical attacks while the latter was exclusively for mana-based attacks. It could soak up a lot of attacks provided that Grimnir kept pouring mana into the rune, but unlike auracoil, it only projected a mana wall, not a mana barrier.

While I was able to keep the beetles from attacking us from behind using spells, the beetles managed to land some hits on Grimnir from the side with boulders and rocks. [Taunt] not only increased the damage done to Grimnir, it also increased how much Stamina he needed to use for each consecutive [Taunt] usage.

However, as I kept healing him and warding anything from attacking his back, it bought us just enough time for the others to prepare their finishing blow.

“Pinning legs down now! Ellaine, go!”

“Got it! Musclemass!”

“Skruch!”

As Grimnir and I held the line, I managed to look over his shoulder while my parallel minds handled the enemies from behind. I saw Muraina pinning the legs of the queen to the ground once again, trapping her and preventing her from pushing Grimnir forward.

As the queen squirmed from this, Ellaine appeared wearing both spell rings on her left arm. Using [Musclemass], flesh tendrils materialized on her arm, altering its appearance into some grisly mutant bodybuilder’s. Using [Piercing Shot], her whipsword made from the high ogre’s axe pierced onto one of the queen’s hind legs, where she pulled herself towards it before delivering a massive uppercut to the inside of the ankle.

Screaming, the queen involuntarily bent her leg forward, causing her to lose balance. As Ellaine did it to its second hind leg, Grimnir took this opportunity to use [Shield Slam] once again, finally toppling the monster into a position it couldn’t stand up from. With all the beetles focusing on Grimnir due to [Taunt], none of them could help her escape this predicament.

With no one to rely on, the queen desperately attempted to use her tail to push her up, but that was when the garms jumped on from the shadows and used their mana threads to restrain and immobilize it. With Ellaine using her whipsword to lower the monster’s defense, it was in an incredibly vulnerable position.

Good! Wait, where are Saori and Tasianna?! As I wondered where the last two were, Muraina suddenly pointed upwards. There, I saw a massive ice spike dangling from the ceiling. Looking closer, I saw Tasianna using her catalyst to keep it growing.

She clapped her hands, and black electricity crackled around the top edge of the icicle. It separated from the ceiling and started to fall. With a loud howl from nowhere, lightning exploded once again from the backside of the giant icicle, accelerating its descent.

“Oh shit! Warp Point: Entry. Warp Point: Exit!” With the final attack descending, I opened a portal and dragged Grimnir with me through it, appearing inside the tunnel the queen made. Without Grimnir pushing her back anymore, the queen attempted to stand up, but it was too late.

With Muraina and everybody from Aurora watching from a safe distance, the icicle crashed right through the queen’s body. Ice was the geisenlargs’ weakness, so their extra tough shells were no match for Tasianna’s attack. As the queen screamed from the agony, I noticed somebody falling from the sky.

It was Saori.

“Voltage Impact!” With her twin catalyst in her hands, the electrical power exploded in Saori’s palms as she crashed them against the icicle, causing a black thunder explosion. With the extra force, it completely went through the queen’s body.

Appearing next to me through [Shadow Dash], Saori howled in victory, “Awhroooooooooooooooh!”

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Job [Infernal Hellblade] has risen from [Level 24] to [Level 30]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Max level of Job   [Infernal Hellblade] has been reached

Mutation requirements acquired. [Level 30] of Job [Infernal Hellblade] was achieved. Mutation skills unlocked for acquisition.   [Instant Heat Ignition], [Infernal Coating] have been added to the SP shop

Yes!

“Krawooooooooooooooh!” I joined the howling. It was a shame that I couldn’t get another level up from killing the queen, but from how much I’d already gained from the rachonoid queen and Astalos, I guess a newly spawned B rank wouldn’t be enough for me after the party experience split. Still, finally finishing [Infernal Hellblade] and unlocking two new mutation skills made this trip absolutely worth it.

As the dust began to settle, I turned around to Saori. “New spell?”

“Not really. I want to turn it into an ability, but you know, you need to perform it 100 times to learn it. Doing 100 [Gale Steps] is easy, but this? Jeez. This was just a freestyle attack, where I concentrated all my electrical mana into my catalyst and used my racial skill [Stygian Voltage] and my Job skill [Rampaging Thunder] to create that.”

“Hold on, you switched Jobs?!” I looked at Saori with bafflement, only to have Grimnir answer my question.

“The two of us went to the guild to change our jobs while you were visiting the orphanage. We had to go to the middle district, so we thought, ‘why not?’”

“My racial Job created through [Stygian Voltage], [Howling Lightning]. I switched from [Chef], since I thought this would be a great way to level it up for my mutations. I managed to max it out before killing the Queen, but I gained a level instead!” As I congratulated Saori for her accomplishment, the screeching of the beetles suddenly erupted anew, drawing our attention.

With their queen dead, the beetles were making noise randomly to show their confusion. As I wondered what to do with them, another firework suddenly exploded in the ceiling, sending another rain of wind arrows down at all the geisenlargs. Muraina cleaning everything up.

“One last clean-up, and the Quest will be completed. Come on, people.” Under Muraina’s orders, we went deeper into the tunnel the queen appeared from, finding her lair and eggs. The geisenlarg larvae were currently being fed by a buncha mindless geisenlarg soldiers, unaware that their queen was dead.

“By the six, we fought that many soldier drones on our way here but this colony hadn’t produced a single worker yet? That shouldn’t be possible. Breeding soldier drones costs so much energy and time. Haaaaa, two B rank urgent Quests in one day.” After shaking her head, Muraina turned around to me, looking at me with with a serious expression. “Hestia.”

“Are you sure you want me to burn this whole place down? Didn’t you say without the queen, the colony would be doomed?” I asked, since I felt bad having to kill these remaining geisenlargs like this.

“You don’t need to target the soldiers or the larvae who will turn into soldiers and workers if you wish. However, we need to kill the ones destined to become princesses, otherwise, they will be nurtured into more queens to create their own colonies. It is a necessity.”

Sighing, I understood what she meant. I told the others to leave before releasing my scale-dust into the room. If these geisenlargs had grown into a complete colony, they could have overwhelmed a city without a doubt. It would be another bug problem for Artorias if that happened. My action was ruthless, but I didn’t want to have to deal with these things again.

It also wouldn’t be good if Artorias fell into chaos as they were planning to mend relationships with the other races. This was one of my objectives as Aurena’s champion.

“Gzzk!” Once I had spread enough scale-dust, I gnashed my fangs together and set the whole room on fire. With my catalyst’s heat aura, I came out of it completely unharmed, aside from breathing in some smoke, despite taking it head-on.

Saori and Muraina then scoured the room, checking for any nooks and crannies to make sure we didn’t leave any loose threads behind. With the room completely black with charred bodies and nothing else, our Quest was fulfilled. After we dismantled the queen, we returned to the surface.

There, the Haireti congratulated and thanked us all for our help. As a sign of gratitude, they handed us packages full of berries, fruits, mushrooms, and herbs from the forest, having spoken with Tasianna about what we would very much like after we helped them. It also doubled as a “tribute of friendship,” as they called it, to me.

They urged me to accept even more from them, but I felt uncomfortable taking any more, even after Saori told me it was alright. A “tribute” just didn’t sit well with me. It made me feel too much like a tyrant or something, even though I’d learned from Tasianna that this was just considered a “royal welcoming package.” Hospitality for foreign royalty and ambassadors.

With the Haireti responsible for draining the ground of mana, to prevent any more high-rank monsters from spawning, and taking care of all the geisenlarg corpses, our group took a rest. Well, we did rest, but Saori took this chance to learn of the taste buds of the elves by cooking for them.

Since Muraina mentioned that elves had no cultural or religious food preferences, it was quite easy to cook for them. However, we did learn that all the elves in attendance disliked the extremely oily and fatty foods, unlike Grimnir and our usual guests. They preferred dishes that gave them a fresher feeling in their mouth, rather than fried ones.

However, we couldn’t stay here for the night, unfortunately. As today was Sunday, and the academy was closed on the weekends, Ellaine was allowed to come out today, but tomorrow she had to return. She could ride the rest of the way with her gargoyle, but she needed to rest for today at the very least.

As such, we returned to the RV and slowly departed back to Griffonpeak. What a wild ride it was with all those insects, but I guess the life of a hunter was also that of an exterminator. Well, it could have been worse.

Footsteps. The movements of mandibles digging through earth. All of these sounds were being made in an underground tunnel. A monster the size of a large dog with the form of a beetle was digging through piles of dirt and rocks while carrying something pulsating on its sticky back. Meat and plants were attached to this monster like a backpack, but it didn’t care, it continued digging while making sure the objects on its back were safe.

Mindless, no, rather, it was simply following the last order its mother gave it. “Protect my child,” it understood through the special connection a queen had to its drone. Many of its siblings were larger and far stronger than it, but it wasn’t born to fight. It was born to work, to carry, to dig, to build a colony.

It was the first and last of its kind within its family. It was a geisenlarg worker. And what was on its back?

An egg.

A note from AbyssRaven

You know how when you hire an exterminator but they forget that one lass bug and its egg. Yeah, def. didn't happen to me.

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Chapter 218: Hotspring

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Waaaaaaah… Nothing beats a warm bath after a hard day of work. I feel like I’m melting.” A refreshing shower to scrub off the dirt and blood on my skin and scales. The damp air that warmed your body with every breath, and the festive atmosphere of laughing girls and panting garms. It all came together when we allowed our bodies to rest in the rejuvenating hot spring inside our [Room].

I then breathed in, holding my breath before submerging my head underwater. With my face fully covered in scalding water and the sound of moving water entering my ears, I relaxed there and simply enjoyed the tranquil silence. After probably ten seconds, I raised my head out of the spring, wiped the water from my face, and then combed my hair back with my hands.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaah…” I sighed with a wide smile.

“Hestia, do not do that, it is not healthy for you to overheat inside a hot spring,” Saori suddenly began to scold me, but I simply laughed it off.

“Yeah, as if. You know full well I can’t overheat myself while my sun core is active. Considering that I’m the one responsible for heating the water for our hot spring, I know better than anybody how hot it can become.”

Since our hot spring was artificially made — which really made it more of a giant bath than a hot spring — and didn’t have a proper heating system in place, we needed someone to heat the water up before a bath. Ever since we departed from Griffonpeak, I’ve been managing it by lighting a fire to warm everything up, but today, I was testing to see if my catalyst could take over that job.

I still need to test some other things out. This isn’t perfect, yet.

“Fair enough,” Saori responded with a shrug before returning to leaning against the pool’s edge.

Looking down, I noticed that her skin was bare from her shoulders down to her feet. In her [Huminization Lv. 8] form, Saori’s body was mostly pink skin aside from her wolf ears, forearms, forelegs, and tail, which were all covered in black and white fur. She didn’t like having her body covered in fur outside of those areas, so she was perpetually in her level eight form, unlike me, who was comfortable with level seven.

Looking down at my own body, I was just as naked as Saori. The only difference was that my racial features showed more than hers. Scales were more prominent on my body. My arms, from the hands to my shoulders; from my feet to my knees; from my back down to my waist, only leaving my chest and stomach bare; and finally my tail and wings. Crimson scales covered them all.

Now, even if this wasn’t technically an onsen — a hot spring — I was too used to the rules of one to not follow it. It did take me a couple of visits to get used to it, but Mama and my Japanese relatives did try their best for me to get used to the customs.

Nowadays, I barely feel any shame in going around naked, thanks to my experience in the Belzac forest. Of course, I had enough common sense to wear clothes in public, especially since it made me feel cuter, but it no longer bothered me to go without. Besides, while I was in my dragon form, I technically was naked, right? Nothing to feel weird about.

I then looked around, noticing Tasianna tying Ellaine’s long hair up so they wouldn’t get soaked in the water. Unlike Tasianna who was used to showing nude, Ellaine was wearing a towel to cover most of her torso and hips. Sure, towels might not be allowed in a Japanese hot spring, but we didn’t care here. If it made her more comfortable, so be it.

We had others joining us, of course. Song and Sarasa, the two female garms of the pack, were soaking one half of their bodies while keeping the others on the edge of the pool, looking content with their eyes closed. Muraina looked like she was at peace with Whisperia grooming her hair, unconcerned that she was naked since the hot springs managed by the dwarves and dragonewts apparently had similar rules to the Japanese ones, most likely due to the Revolution Queen’s influence.

But that wasn’t all. We also had one more companion, a companion floating on a wooden bowl as its body was covered by a cocoon made from mana. It was Shoyi, Saori’s slime.

“Have you planned out an evolution path for Shoyi yet, Saori?” I poked at its mana cocoon. When a monster evolves, mana from their body is dissipated to form a cocoon to protect them from attacks with its sturdiness determined by how much mana they have. That’s why evolving usually leaves you hungry afterward, since your body needs to use up nutrients to restore the lost mana.

“Not really. The tamer system does not have an evolution chart or something similar available as a reference, sadly. I can suggest an evolution when they evolve, but since Shoyi only had a single option with that lackluster skillset of his, there wasn’t much I could do.” Saori frowned as she explained that to me. “Its next form will be an F rank [Shadow Slime]. The ‘lesser’ prefix will be gone, but it will not change anything else.”

“Don’t worry about it, Saori. When I evolved into my F rank form, the two choices I got were either to become a drake or a dragon. Dull choices, even when I had [Holy Magic] and [Fire Magic]. Now, when I evolved into my E rank form, that was when I got the mutation which allowed me to get my current skill set.” I was speaking of my [Young Spark Fire Dragon] evolution.

I continued, “You’ll have ten levels to train Shoyi up, so it should give you some time to help it level up skills not related to waste removal. Like a skill that helps it control its individual globules, if it exists and isn’t just a racial feature. Hmm, too bad I didn’t take the time to appraise that slime in Belzac in detail.” My body shook as I remembered that eldritch-like slime I met occupying an elven hunter’s shack.

As Saori and I talked about Shoyi’s future prospects, Muraina suddenly interjected herself in the discussion. “Hold on, now that I think about it… If Shoyi is evolving now and requires a whole day to evolve, what about the toilets? You aren’t using a sewage system, since this is a subspace, so you are relying on the slime to clean everything, right?”

That was when the full picture of the situation dawned on us. Tasianna, Ellaine, and I widened our eyes as we looked at Saori for answers, to which she shrugged. “Go outside and find a bush.”

It was a simple answer, but devastating for Ellaine.

“N-No, why?! And here I thought I don’t have to go out and go ‘flower picking,’ again. Incredible…” Ellaine looked disheartened at the idea of doing her business outside in the forest, again. If you thought about it, since Saori, Tasianna, and I weren't too apprehensive of that idea, living in a forest truly had rid us of a lot of our more delicate and civilized hangups.

That said, comparing Saori and Ellaine with Tasianna and Muraina is pretty easy, huh? I never expected elves and fairies to be so flat.

As asking about such a thing was probably a bit rude, I just forgot about it and accepted this fact. However, in the next moment, a chill went down my spine as a voice appeared in my head.

[“Hey, Muraina, do you mind telling me how a person with your curves is so lacking in the chest area? What a bit of a waste, if you ask dear ol me, hikhikhik.”] A lustful laugh, the kind that could send your hairs standing up just by hearing it. I turned over to the source of this laughter — Klea’Hatma.

“Ahh, I see, so this is the demon of lust the lore books spoke about, hm? Without a doubt, I can feel some sort of desire seeping out from those rings. Very intriguing, even for my age.” As Muraina looked at the two spell rings placed behind a mini barrier of [Sanctuary], her eyes sparkled. The demon, on the other hand, retorted with a clear “You like what you see, dear?”

Keeping secrets wasn’t anything new for Aurora, considering how I still wasn’t completely truthful to the public of my dragon origins. Saori and Tasianna, too, hadn’t divulged their true identities to the vast majority of the people we’ve met on our journey. With the inclusion of Ellaine and Klea’Hatma, it was clear we would add an additional secret to our list.

But, on the first day of Ellaine using her newly acquired powers, it was found out by somebody outside Ellaine’s friends or our immediate circle of trust. Muraina was still only an acquaintance, after all. We tried to hide it, but she found out when she followed us from the shadows, and while she wasn’t making an effort to find out about it, Ellaine didn’t want to lie.

Apparently, Muraina’s speech about “alliances cannot be made on top piles of deception” really affected Ellaine. We’d already told some people outside our party about it — Ellaine’s parents — and, with how Ellaine was trying to act more and more like the ideal knight she had in mind, she thought it would be best to come clean and hope Muraina could be trusted. A bit naive, but I respected that in her.

Well, there hasn’t been any reason for us to completely distrust her. Gael is acquainted with her, and apparently Farron and Yorshka, too. If Muraina was a problem, Yorshka would have undoubtedly warned me about her, if I understood my niece’s disposition to me properly.

“Hmm, well to answer your question, it’s just part of an elven woman’s biology, like how our ears are sharper than the human’s,” Muraina stated, answering Klea’Hatma’s question. “The breast of a human and some types of beastmen women develop during their adolescence from what I understand. On the other hand, for us elves, our chest enlarges only if we are pregnant and will lessen with every breastfeeding until they become ‘flat’ again. This trait is also inherited to beastmen with predominantly elven blood.”

[“Truly?! Hmm, and here I thought having breasts was the way to go to seduce men and women alike. Why, when I still had my humanoid form, I made sure to morph it into something attractive to as many people as possible. Interesting to learn that there are different kinds of fetishes in this world.”] Klea’Hatma was beginning to talk the way you would expect from a lust demon, acting pretty similar to a succubus. [“Then, why is Tasianna’s chest so small in her fairy form as well?”]

“Why are you asking something like that?!” Tasianna shouted, flustered at the question. “Urgh, Lady Hestia, it was a mistake bringing her with us. Even if we all are naked, there is no reason to talk about everything. Besides, we fairies cannot give birth so why would breasts be needed in the first place? Miss Muraina, being flat is not shameful, right?”

“Oh, having a smaller chest does make archery far easier. Nothing to block the bowstring.”

“See! There is nothing to be ashamed about!” Tasianna went over to Muraina and patted her on her shoulder. Klea’Hatma’s “Oooooh, I see~” sounded as if she found a target to tease.

Honestly, why are we speaking about breasts all of a sudden? Couldn’t we have just enjoyed a peaceful bath?

However, this wasn’t where it ended. Klea’Hatma wasn’t afraid or ashamed of expressing her interest in all of this, considering this was the first time we allowed her to accompany us into the bath instead of placing her in my storage. I was beginning to regret it, but I guess it did make everything livelier.

But then, a loud shout came from over the wooden wall separating the women's section of the hot spring from the men’s area.

“BY CRUSTACIA, CAN YOU WOMEN SHUT UP AND JUST ENJOY THE HOT SPRING?!” It was Grimnir’s voice. “I’m trying to relax here. I don’t want to constantly hear you lasses talk about BREASTS and your SIZES! Do you have any idea how uncomfortable that makes me? Next time, I should add a sound barrier rune!”

“““…””” Everybody was quiet.

[“Booo, what a bore.”] But the demon didn’t say anything else, finally silenced with the awkwardness in the air.

We weren't bathing alone. We should have been more considerate. Grimnir, Uno, and Quatre were bathing with us, just that we were separated by a single wall. You were supposed to be quiet and respectful in a hot spring, so it made sense why he had to shout.

As everything cooled down, Muraina suddenly wanted to inform us about the Quest rewards. “After assessing the situation with my own eyes, I’ve decided it would be proper to qualify the last Quest as A rank. The number of enemies we had to fight would have devastated any normal B rank party without a doubt. Congratulations, Aurora just earned an A rank point and four Bs.”

“Huh, seriously? You aren’t doing this to garner our favor, right?” I asked, doubting her intentions for a bit.

Muraina shook her head, though. “Even if you were my princess and the Elven King had ordered me to do so, I would not have granted you any such favors. The hunter’s guild is independent of the monarch and leaders of all countries. Compare the bolushzu Quest with the geisenlarg infestation, would you have given the same rewards for the both?”

I shook my head. A single B rank party would have probably dealt with the bolushzi, but no way could they kill that many geisenlarg soldiers while fighting that queen. For the best results, the hunter’s guild suggests an A rank party undertake experienced B rank monsters. Of course, this was only a suggestion. Hunters weren’t supposed to accept Quest with only a single five-man party, but were encouraged to form a group of parties since it increased life expectancy.

Even with Muraina, we were still just a single party. Sure, we might be abnormal, but still, we were easily surrounded if I reflected on the fight. After seeing how exhausted Ellaine and Grimnir were after that battle in that colony, it wouldn’t be correct to grade the geisenlarg fight as B rank.

As I explained this thought to Muraina, Ellaine suddenly had a realization. “Hold on a second, if I do the math correctly, the bolushzi Quest should be enough for Hestia, Saori, and Tasianna to rank up to C rank with nine C rank points in, correct? Master Grimnir would gain 18 C points, due to the conversion from B points to C, totaling to 54 C points from the 70 needed. While I would… have 36D ranks. Four away from making it to C rank. Uhm, how much is the conversion rate from A to D, Muraina?”

Calculator head!

“Unfortunately, you cannot convert A rank quests to lower rank points,” Muraina said, prompting an inquisitive “Why?” from us all. “A rank is like a badge of honor of sorts. To rank up from B to A, you are required to gain 50 B rank points and a minimum of ten A rank points. As you cannot convert B rank points to A, the only way to gain A rank points is through doing Quests. It is the guild’s method of ensuring that only the best are promoted to A rank.”

Muraina explained how it would be impossible for the A and S ranks to gain a certain amount of prestige when you could just gain lower ranked points and convert them into A rank. This was something the hunter guild learned years after it was founded when somebody was tenacious enough to mostly farm out C rank Quests to make it to A rank.

Rules and requirements were set to ensure that the acquisition of A rank was a privilege only the best of the best could achieve. B ranks were pretty common, unlike the A and especially the S ranks. In other words, if you wanted to rank up to A rank, you had to take on Quests like the geisenlarg one. You had to prove yourself worthy.

“Well, it wouldn’t have been a problem if you couldn’t solve the issue. I heard that a wandering A rank party was recently in Cedaraille, so I probably could have called for them. Even then, I could have just done it myself, haha!” she laughed after boasting of her own abilities. “Hmm, from the reports, the rachonoid would have probably been considered an A rank Quest if there was enough time to issue it formally. Sadly, it wasn’t, so please be content with ranking up to C rank and gaining an A point for your future opportunities.”

We did celebrate and informed Grimnir about it over the wall, but he simply scolded us for being loud again. From the tone of his voice, Saori guessed he was tipsy from drinking in the hot spring.

“Hmm, that is fine and all, but you probably wanted to say something else, right? You could have told us all this when we came back to Griffonpeak,” Saori assumed, to which Muraina nodded.

“True. Urgent Quests can be issued to anybody regardless of rank, but that isn’t the case for normal ones. Your little mistake after fighting that wyvern caused a bunch of monster spawnings, so I wanted to ask you if you wanted to undertake some of them for me? The hunter’s guild is occupied with work, but there are a few monsters I want experts to tackle.”

“Our range of work?”

“Greenveil, Lecartiglio, Olivus, and Morgiana. The Griffonpeak area is secured with all the knights and hunters around.”

“Hmm, wouldn't that be perfect for your ‘tour,’ Lady Hestia? You and Miss Saori were talking about moving around Artorias to perform more concerts,” Tasianna brought up, causing us to agree. To gain more fans for [The Light]’s milestones, I had to be more active.

However, there was something we had to solve.

“Ellaine, would it be okay for you to take time off from the academy to join us?” We didn’t want too much of a rank disparity between all of us, so Saori preferred it if we all worked together on these Quests. With Ellaine only needing four more D ranks to join us in C rank, it was also a perfect time for us to farm up Job levels, again.

“Probably not, Hestia. Father probably wouldn’t like it, so he won’t support it, and without his approval, I cannot even ask the professors to give me a break.”

Oh, right. Her father wants her to attend school, huh? Stupid good parenting!

But then, an idea sprang into my mind. “Then, why don’t we speak with Lady Thyra herself? The principal of the royal academy. I can probably get us an appointment by using my status.”

“… You really are getting used to your role, huh, Hestia?” I couldn’t disagree with Saori’s remark. It was true, especially since I’d also recently arranged for Muraina and me to meet with the king the moment we returned to Griffonpeak.

After having dinner together, where Muraina, Saori, and Grimnir got absolutely drunk, we went to bed for the night. The next morning, Ellaine, Muraina, and I left the RV, leaving the rest of Aurora to drive back by themselves, I cast [Unheilge Engel] and created two seats for my two passengers to sit on.

With Ellaine having to get back to Griffonpeak for classes, I activated my rocket boosters and made Ellaine and Muraina regret flying with Hestia Airlines. The best flying service to cause you to puke!

A note from AbyssRaven

Mandatory hotspring scene just without the horny boys or accidental nude meetup. Grimnir and the male garms are gentlemen, after all, and I don't think they are brave enough to incur the wrath of a bunch of monster killers.

Makes me wonder, what would happen with Saori's student meet up? Classic anime hotspring scene?

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Side Story 27: Training in the Belzac Forest.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“So, have you two asked Yorshka why we’re still going into this forest? If you ask me, the first thing we should be doing is reuniting with Sensei. From a survival aspect, if Sensei really did get reincarnated like in a power fantasy isekai novel, we should be staying around her to stay safe.”

“Shush! Shut up, idiot,” I tried to quiet Daichi with a whisper, but his constant complaints ended up making me speak louder than I wanted. We were currently inside the Belzac forest where invisible giant chameleons could ambush you; the last thing we needed was to have our positions exposed so easily. “We aren’t your errand boys, Daichi. You want more details, you ask her yourself.”

“Huh? You aren’t even a little bit curious, Tatsuya? Come on, Tamae-san and the others just got back from their trip to Cederaille, and what was the first thing they did when they returned? They dropped the second information nuke on us since that bastard of a Pope summoned us to this world.”

Damn this fucking whiner!

Unable to keep my cool, my head snapped around and I pressed my finger on my lips, shushing at him while narrowing my eyes into a glare. Daichi was our party’s mage, who dressed accordingly to a standard mage with his travel robes and catalyst. As the two of us were about to argue, somebody grabbed our shoulders and pulled us away from each other.

“Haruka-chan is scouting ahead, the least we can do is keep quiet. Leave this argument for when we’re in a friendly environment, deal?” It was my best friend Kyouya, clad in full armor of C rank materials that we’d farmed back in Lecartiglio Duchy.

“Tch, sure, got it, Kyouya-kun.” Daichi agreed. He always seemed more diplomatic when Kyouya spoke with him.

With the issue settled, I sighed and went back to my post to keep a watch out for any enemies. Leaning my spear on my shoulder, I took out a leaf from my pouch and held it close to my nose before inhaling its aroma.

Oooh, it isn’t as aromatic as coffee beans, but it is undoubtedly similar.

Tatsuya “Coffee Boy” Nagata. Ever since I’d finally managed to buy a bag of fulinoe leaves from a vendor in Firwood, everybody from my party has started to call me that, simply because they thought I was addicted to coffee. Sure, it’s been over a year since I last had a cup of that brown ambrosia, but I managed to hold the trembling in until I’d acquired these leaves. An addict wouldn’t be able to do that.

Fulinoe leaves were primarily used to help mages alleviate symptoms of arcane corruption. To a spearman like me, it was rather wasteful for me to drink them all the time, but the taste of a fulinoe tea was too similar to coffee. How glad I was when Tamae and the Magical Biscuits came back and brought a pile of those leaves just for me.

I really could have fallen for our class prez at that moment, but… Nishio probably would have burned me alive if I tried. Still… it's not like that information was the most important part.

The “information nuke” Daichi mentioned was something I never would have guessed — our high school homeroom teacher Saori Segawa had been transported into this world. In addition, everyone in my party, the Misfits, learned that Segawa-Sensei somehow died on Earth and was reborn into this world as a garm, a wolf-type monster, and that she was currently a B rank [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir].

“Sensei declined to join us, because she is currently traveling with her benefactor. Don’t freak out; her name is Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor, and she’s not only a dragon princess of Kargryx but also another reincarnator from Earth,” Tamae informed us all. It came as a shock to Kyouya, Haruka, Daichi, and me when we heard not only that was Sensei here, but also that she wasn’t coming to see us.

Dame Yorshka, the Magical Biscuits’ guardian knight assigned to them by the church who kidnapped us to Peolynca, also revealed she was a dragonewt and that she was the “niece” of this Hestia. Seeing her human body transform into a winged lizardman was a real eye-opener of how much she’s been hiding from us.

Since we’ve been harboring a mistrust for the church of Aurena, something Yorshka was aware of, she made an effort to build what she called “a healthy trust” with us by revealing some of her past and her actual reason for joining the Knights of Aurena, the church’s knight order. “I also made a drunken promise with Saori to protect you all when we were out drinking together with Nishio,” she said with a hearty laugh.

Also, that guy who appeared in that alleyway that time was apparently Yorshka’s acquaintance. That guy is an absolute troll for mentioning Sensei’s name without explaining himself.

After learning this, Yorshka still insisted on following our previous plan to enter the Belzac forest instead of meeting up with Sensei. Sensei said she couldn’t accompany us, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t meet up with her. Considering that Yorshka had informed us that the Goddess of Light, Aurena, hadn’t summoned us to this world, contrary to what her church had said, we needed to be with people we could trust.

As I continued sniffing the fulinoe leaf, something suddenly slapped the arm. Surprised to see somebody slipping through my detection skills, I went into a combat pose and was about to ready my pose, only to be surprised to see who tapped me. “H-Haruka-chan? Why did you have to surprise me like that?”

Standing before me was a petite girl with dark brown hair mostly hidden under a hood. She pulled it down, revealing two fox-like ears before smiling mischievously, showing off her two fangs. “Sorry, Tatsuya-kun, I was too excited. My [Stealth] and [Presence Killer] both just reached level ten! They evolved into [Silence] and [Odorless], respectively! If you couldn’t detect me despite how close I was, then I supposed they worked out pretty well!”

Haruka Sakamoto, our party’s scout. She was also from Earth and my classmate but… after Kazumi, a member of Tamae’s party, returned cosplayer-like cat ears and a tail, she prompted Haruka to follow the animal ear trend. By buying [Beastialization], you could transform yourself into a beastman or even a monster outright.

Since [Beastialization] gave the user the features and abilities of the associated beastman form, Haruka bought it with SP without hesitation. With how excited she was with upgrading her skills, her twitching fox ears really made her cute. Too cute, in fact.

D-Dammit, kemonomimi! Remember the bro code, Nagata Tatsuya! Kyouya, don’t you worry, man!

“Okay, anyway. There are a couple of monsters on the way. A lot of them were stealthy monsters, but I guess that is what you would expect from a forest full of experienced hunters. Only a few were the brute force kind. C rank.” Haruka was mostly a pacifist, as strange as that was to say considering our predicament in this world. She vehemently disliked the feeling of guilt after ending the life of something; on the other hand, her stealth skills have gotten good enough for her to seem like a ninja.

After going to Kyouya and Daichi and repeating what she had just told me, Haruka looked around in confusion. “Where are Asa-chan and Sir Elrick? Shouldn't we be sticking together to scout out the place until the others are ready?”

“Asaka? Well, she and Elrick went to—”

“Hey, hey, I’m back! You don’t need to tell her stuff, dude!” Interrupting me from saying anything, Asaka suddenly sprinted over to us, waving her hand around in a panic. With an uneasy smile, she greeted Haruka. “Haruka-chan, I hope the scouting trip went well.”

“Lady Asaka!” somebody shouted from the direction Asaka ran from. Looking over, a knight in full armor was running over to us in a fluster — it was our party’s guardian knight, Elrick. “Lady Asaka, please, don’t run ahead from me! This forest is filled with threats! I cannot do my duty to protect you if you leave my side like that!”

“Elrick, it was just a short distance. We were so close, we could have called for help if necessary. Besides, you know full well that I can protect myself, so stop being so restrictive,” Asaka retorted. She wasn’t the most patient.

After letting those two calm down, our party moved back to camp, where we met up with our five other classmates — the Magical Biscuits. Yorshka was there too, telling our alchemist Tamae about the local flora. She was in her fully human form ’cause of Elrick, since we still had no idea if we could trust him with the information Sensei and her companions had given us.

After Haruka gave her the scouting report, Yorshka nodded to us and informed us we would be going deeper into the forest after our group had hunted down a few of the local monsters. She told us to divide into our respective parties and that she and Elrick wouldn’t be helping us.

“Why?” Daichi suddenly asked. It seemed like he’d taken my advice to heart.

“What do you mean, ‘Why?’” Yorshka responded.

“I mean, why are we still inside this forest? If you have already forgotten, Dame Yorshka, we’ve fought tons of monsters while you were away with Tamae-san and the others. We’ve been training a lot. In fact, the only reason why we even decided to go to the Belzac forest in the first place was because of Coffee Boy here, who couldn’t get rid of his addiction to fulinoe leaves. But, now we have a ton!” Daichi usually was a serious asskisser, but he also had an extremely fiery temper, making it rather fitting that he became a fire mage after we came to Peolynca.

Asaka nodded, agreeing with him. “Not like I want to agree with the fire slinger, and just casually hunting is far better than doing the shitty saint candidate work in town, but do we really need to stay around here, Dame Yorshka? I mean, after all, shouldn’t we be joining up with you know who? Like our classmates and other people we can trust, I guess?”

My party was obviously more inclined than the Magical Biscuits to ask this question of Yorshka, since we hadn’t met Segawa-sensei yet. It was surprising to hear this from Asaka, though, since she was the only one of the ten of us who hated Sensei. While us Misfits wanted Yorshka to explain herself, the Magical Biscuits were smiling wryly.

“Because you five still need practice. You all suck as a party,” Yorshka said bluntly, causing me to flinch back. I didn’t agree with her statement. “Don’t look at me like that Tatsuya, I am not talking about your individual skills. You are a good spearman, and you even learned [Dragoon Jump] from me, but the five of you have no idea how to fight alongside each other as a party.”

She then stretched out her left hand, showing us her five outstretched fingers, and began pointing at us Misfits. “Tatsuya, you can only work well with Kyouya, but you rarely match your attacks with the other three. Haruka, you are a good scout but your fear of blood and fighting makes you a liability in battle, even against animals and monsters. Lady Asaka, you panic under pressure far too often, even though I must admit that some of it is from how disorderly your teammates are in combat; still, you need to adapt to it. Daichi… OOoooh, Daichi. I know a girl far younger than you who can produce stronger flames while keeping them under control without causing collateral damage. Kyouya… you’re good.”

Her criticism came out of nowhere. A part of me wanted to rebuke her, but another part, the part that had been fighting with these guys for almost a year now, doesn’t. Our party did not meet on common ground at the start and even after we agreed to work together, we haven’t exactly gotten better with the whole teamwork part.

Individually, I thought we were pretty good, but actions speak louder than words. Whenever Tamae or Nishio took command, our parties were a well-oiled machine built over a year of rapport. If the Misfits worked alone, Daichi and I would only squabble, and Asaka would ignore us.

“I originally thought of doing this training session in a dungeon, but I was planning to investigate the Belzac forest for a bit. Sir Elrick had already agreed to my plan, and since we are responsible for teaching you how to survive until you have fulfilled the church’s orders and can return home, I would ask for your understanding. I am doing this for your own benefit.”

And with that, we departed. Divided into our two teams, we ventured deeper into the forest. We didn’t move too far from each other and Yorshka made sure to keep a telepathic connection with us through [Telepathy]. We were just far enough from each other to fight our own battles.

Because of a title this Hestia person gave to them, Tamae and her party could level their skills faster and gain more experience. It sounded a bit broken to me, especially when they outleveled us by quite a bit.

Speaking of fighting and leveling, our own party was having some trouble with it.

“Hey, don’t attack it when I’m ready to cast my spell, you dumbass! Do you want me to cause a forest fire?!” Daichi shouted at me as I pierced a [Rock-Skin Horned Grizzly] tough fur. As blood sprayed out of the wound as I retracted my spear, I shouted back at the annoying fire slinger.

“Yeah?! Then how about you cast your spells faster! I told you, Kyouya and I will keep the bear from coming closer while you just shoot it down with fire spells! However, we can’t fucking hold it back for that long without hitting it!” I shouted back.

“Fuck you. I’m trying to aim here, or do you wish to turn into BBQ, huh?!”

“Shut up! Sacred Smite!” A shot of white light slammed against the bear’s face, dazing it long enough for Daichi to scorch its fur away with an [Inferno Blast]. With its defensive coat mostly gone, Kyouya slashed its throat with his sword while I activated [Dragoon Jump] and [Heartpiercer], drilling the bear’s heart out from its body.

This grizzly was a C rank monster while our party was technically D rank. The hunter’s guild wouldn’t recommend us to fight against this thing, but we weren’t ordinary adventurers. Since we were [Otherworldly Visitor]s, we had access to the SP system, which really accelerated our growth. Plus, we were trained by the A rank adventurer, the “White-Winged Dragoon,” Yorshka.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Human, Tatsuya Nagata] has risen from [Level 49] to [Level 50]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 600 skill points

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Human, Tatsuya Nagata]’s Job [Berserker Spearman] has risen from [Level 17] to [Level 20]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Max level of Job [Berserker Spearman] has been reached

We couldn’t work well together but at least we weren’t incompetent.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Human, Tatsuya Nagata] has risen from [Level 50] to [Level 51]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 600 skill points

We spent a week in the forest, moving further and further away from civilization. Although we did find lakes on our way, we had to rely on Nishio’s water magic to keep up with our hygiene since spring and Amazon-like forests weren't the best combination. With how often we had to fight, body odor and toiletries were quickly becoming a problem.

“Eh?! Are you kidding me, this Hestia girl is that good of a mage?!” Daichi said with a surprised face. “Ah, then again, she’s been reborn as a dragon, right? Damn, what a cheat. Gets reincarnated as a dragon and has all these EXP boosters from her divine blessings. Shouldn’t we be the damn main protagonists?”

Yorshka and Elrick were out discussing something while we ten stayed at camp, cozying around the campfire to ward off the cold night. While having dinner, my party asked about Sensei and her companions, since we were too surprised to ask about it when they returned.

“You know this isn’t another light novel story, right, Daichi-san? With what she told us, Hestia-san and Sensei experienced near-death fights quite a few times before they returned from the Belzac forest. Reality isn’t nearly as kind as most feel-good novels,” Nishio replied, adjusting his eyeglasses, reflecting the fire’s light with it.

As we contemplated this fact compared to our own situation, Haruka suddenly mentioned something, “Come to think about it, Dame Yorshka wanted to investigate something in the Belzac forest, right? This place is Hestia-san’s birthplace. Maybe… are we going to go where she was born?”

It was a plausible guess, since Yorshka seemed pretty happy whenever we mentioned anything Hestia-related. However, Kohaku from Tamae’s party shook her head. “Nah, Hesti-chan was born somewhere in the mountains. Uhm, I think it should be in the northwest of the Belzac forest, if I can still remember the map. We aren’t getting closer to the northern swamp, so we must be going southwest.”

“Hmm, then where is Dame Yorshka bringing us then? If she isn’t going to where Hesti-chan’s egg was lost, then where are we going nyow?” Kazumi’s cat ears twitched as she mimicked a cat’s meow. She really was acting more and more like a catgirl… Not that I minded it too much.

Still, that question stayed with me as my mind melted into the night.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Human, Tatsuya Nagata] has risen from [Level 51] to [Level 52]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 600 skill points

After four more days, we came upon an area with less densely packed trees and shrubs. Looking around, we found a mid-sized nest with a couple of bones inside it but no hints of any monsters recently inhabiting it. The bones were too old.

As I wondered about this, I was reminded of the number of monsters we've been meeting since we entered this forest. Considering that Sensei and her companions were moving through this place for the first few months of their lives, they probably contaminated the whole area with a lot of their mana. Monster-infested areas like the Belzac forest usually regulated the mana inside with their plants, but a higher rate of monster spawning could happen if a single monster went wild.

Which really made it weird to me how not a single monster was in the vicinity. I could detect any with my [Enhanced Enemy Sense]. What was this place? I asked myself. Regardless, since it was so quiet, we took a break here and made sure Tamae’s party was still around.

“This should be enough of a break. Captain Yorshka is still moving, so we should keep up,” Elrick decided, prompting us all to continue moving after we finished our snacks.

This rather peaceful area was pretty calming, unlike how stressful some of our fights up until now could have been. Getting ambushed by a bunch of giant chameleons and insects really gave me a heartache. Still, considering how even Haruka couldn’t detect any monsters, it somehow made the situation even eerier.

Daichi clicked his tongues, acting a bit too paranoid. “Dammit, why is it so fucking quiet around here? I would rather shoot som—”

[“Humans. No come here. Bad. Go away.”] We instantly assumed battle stance and formation. Elrick was hanging around in the back, intending to avoid fighting and let us get all the experience, but even he unsheathed his sword. This was not Yorshka's voice.

[“Bad. Bad. Humans. No go. Bad. Hide!”] It sounded like a young kid who still had trouble speaking. The voice sounded scared to me, but, considering that we had no idea where it came from, we were more unsettled by it.

“Haruka?” I spoke, omitting the honorifics for now.

She nodded and pointed in a direction. “Three signals coming from around there, but I can’t pinpoint them accurately. They are moving and they have decent enough stealth skills to overcome my [Detection Sensor]!”

“We gotta move in!” Daichi made the split-second decision to move forward, towards the target. Due to the lack of information, we didn’t know if we could trust this voice or not. Were they sending us into a trap by telling us to go away, or were they really warning us from something? If this voice actually was scared and not hostile, we needed to confirm it.

… However, to me, his idea just sounded irrational.

“Are you crazy?! Why should we charge towards the enemy when we don’t have a clue who they are! We need to take it slow and assess the situation, dumbass!” Our party was not harmonious enough to decide on these moment-to-moment decisions efficiently. I did not trust Daichi’s orders.

“Can't you hear it, Tatsuya?! That isn’t the voice of a confident hunter! Even then, think about it, if we hide or retreat for now, what if the enemy is trying to encircle us at this very instance! If this is the worst-case scenario, then we need to move beforehand and pierce through! I’ll prepare the signal flare spell just in case we need Dame Yorshka’s help!”

“Shut up! You are leading us into a trap! Do you want to get us killed just because you haven’t gotten any action for the last hour or whatever?! We are retreating, Daichi!”

This was our party. Without somebody to act as the leader, Daichi and I were the loudest voices in our party. Our tendency to shotcall while playing video games in Japan was affecting us, in addition to the fact that we hated each other’s guts.

“Shut up!” The only way for this discussion to end was for somebody to step in. And the one to do so was The Misfit’s official leader. “We have no idea what’s about to happen but can’t the two of you stop arguing for once?! Are you two mentally retarded or just so in love with each other that you can’t stop hearing each other’s voices, huh?! Dumbasses, we are retreating, now!”

I was relieved to hear Asaka understood reason, but unfortunately, Daichi didn’t.“What?! Are you fucking with me, Asaka! You handed over your right to lead the party when we made that deal! I thought you fucking hated having responsibilities but when the moment comes, you’re gonna side with Tatsuya like that? Get the hell out of here!”

“Shut it, you slimy snail! I am intruding into this because you two are too incompetent to fucking decide on anyth—”

As this discussion saw no end to it, the sudden appearance of a white bolt crashing onto the ground, agitated everybody to focus on the issue at hand. Without anybody ordering us, we quickly resumed our combat position.

“That’s [Smite]!” Asaka shouted to inform us the moment three shadows descended from the trees, revealing three large green jaguars with white stripes on them. The one in the middle had a large crescent moon-like marking on it. As they roared out to intimidate us, the childish voice appeared once again.

[“Danger! Bad! Bad! Humans, go away! Hide!”]

Wait, did the [Telepathy] come from them?! Were they who shot that holy spell at us?

“Wait, are you—” As I was about to ask it, my [Prediction] roared for me to dodge. “Windwheel!” I spun my spear around like a windwheel, shooting out a gust of wind to blow everybody behind me backward, while I ducked the incoming attack. An arrow shot right above me, cutting off some of my hair before sticking onto the tree to my side.

“Signals! A lot of them are coming!” Haruka, preoccupied with these jaguars, wasn't able to detect the third party in time. As she pointed in their direction, a pack of kobolds, no, echikobolds appeared on the back of wargs. As they stood in front of us with their bows aimed at us, a group of hobgoblin spearmen and armored orcs appeared from behind.

Shit!

[“Warning! Danger! Humans! Run, now!”] As the voice warned us, a magic circle appeared in front of the jaguar’s head and shot out a blinding light at the grimgarians. While they groaned in pain from being blinded, the echikobolds still shot their arrows at us, however, Kyouya stood in front of us and activated his [Defensive Rune: Pavise] to protect us from them.

“Lord Daichi!” Elrick shouted as we began to run away.

“I got it!” A spell appeared on his staff before he aimed it upwards, shooting out a flare-like spell up the air where it exploded. This was our signal to call over help from the others.

While running towards the last location we heard Yorshka’s voice, we noticed the green jaguars following us. [“Danger! Human, no listen? Why?”] The childlike voice was like a kick into my gut as I reflected on the embarrassing argument I had with Daichi. I might hate him, but I forgot how Yorshka always emphasized for us to focus on the bigger picture in enemy territory. Dammit!

“Everybody! We are outnumbered here! Allow me to protect you!” Elrick announced as he began buffing himself, preparing for the fight to come. After all, it was impossible to avoid it now.

“Shariyk! Ggugniak!” the echikobolds shouted. They had caught up to us on their warg mounts.

“Begone damnable monsters! You face a knight of the Goddess! I pray to the light, may my faith in the Goddess protect me from the darkness! Smite! Shield Charge!” Shooting out a light spell and charging into the fight, Elrick intercepted two echikobold riders, knocking both of them off their mounts. “Run! Get Captain Yorshka!”

With how many enemies the grimgarians probably had, it would be foolish to face them head-on, but having Elrick defend our retreat path was just stupid! It was suicidal. As Daichi was about to run away, I wanted to tell him to charge in with me, to protect Elrick. Even if he was the church’s pawn, he still was our ally.

But while I was hesitating and looking at Kyouya and Haruka, Asaka ran forward and shot a [Sacred Smite] at the warg who was about to attack Elrick’s flank. “Idiot! As your saint candidate, I order you to follow us now!”

“Lady Asaka, your life is more valuable! I can endure some hits. You must rendezvous with Captain Yorshka!” Elrick rebuked after cutting the warg in front of him down.

“She will get here in time! She’s fast! However, you aren’t unstoppable! Daichi, you bastard, get over here and set the forest on fire! We need to es—” As Asaka suddenly felt the urge to act as the leader, my [Prediction] suddenly activated once again, telling me another arrow was coming. But this time, it wasn’t for me, it was for Asaka.

Proficiency requirement fulfilled. [Prediction Lv. 9] evolved into [Prediction Lv. 10]

Skill requirement fulfilled. [Prediction Lv. 10] evolved into [Foresight Lv. 1]

As she was about to end her sentence, I dashed over and leaped towards her. Pushing her body with my momentum, I managed to shove her to the side, but a sudden feeling of something stinging my back appeared before it sliced across it and I could feel my blood spray out.

[Poisoned (Moderate)] inflicted on [Human, Tatsuya Nagata]

I-It pierced through my brigandine and chainmail?!

“Argh!” As I groaned, Asaka and I crashed against a tree. When I assumed we would land on the hard ground, my expectations were broken when the ground suddenly caved in, causing the two of us to fall down a deep hole. Air was knocked out from our lungs as we crashed against the tough earth.

After a long trip down, we finally crashed onto the end of the hole. As my body was adapting to the pain, the soft feeling my face was feeling suddenly caused a stream of memories of the ton of otaku media I’ve experienced in my life. My eyes shot right open and I pushed my hands on the ground to pull my head away, having some trouble seeing anything in the dusk. When my eyes adapted to the darkness, I sighed in relief that I’d only landed on her stomach.

Whew, thankfully it wasn’t a cliche moment where I landed on her brea- ARGH!

“ARGH!” A terrible pain spread from my back throughout my body, making me feel sickly and weak.

“Urgh,” Asaka groaned as she clutched her head, opening her eyes as I squirmed in front of her. “What is th— Huh, Tatsuya! I ask for the Goddess’s light, for it to shine on the world before me! Light!” A bright iridescent light illuminated the darkness, revealing we were inside a cave. However, due to the pain surging through my body, I couldn’t take a good look.

“W-What’s wrong with you?!” Asaka asked me, worry clearly to see on her sweaty and dirty face. As she was about to check her party bracelet for my problem, I expedited it by telling her myself.

“P-Poison! That arrow was poisoned! Moderate!” I told her, suppressing my urge to punch something right now.

“Moderate? Oh, shit, you had me worried.” The worry quickly dissipated from her face, looking as if it wasn’t a problem at all. Oi, I was hurting here, woman! “By the light, I call upon the Goddess’s mercy. Heal the sickness of the world, Cure! Ack! I call upon the Goddess’s mercy, Minor Heal.”

After getting rid of the poison in my body, Asaka groaned a bit and touched the back of her side. Seeing blood there, she quickly patched herself up with a healing spell. After I checked myself, I told her I was fine and the both of us stood up.

“Damn, we fell down pretty deeply. I can’t even see the light up there, but I can still hear some action. It looks like the others are still fighting. Fuck! Asaka, we should— huh?” I was about to suggest we try to find a way back up, but I saw Asaka scratching the back of her head with a bright red face.

Huh, is she still hur— No wait! Did she see me land on her stomach, or, even worse! Did I accidentally touch her boobs while we were falling like in a harem or fan-service manga! Dammit, any girl, just not Asaka!

“Uhm.” I stood up straight, my body froze as I was anticipating a lecture from this blue-haired girl. “T-Thank you, Tatsuya. I saw that arrow at the last moment there. Uhm, well, for saving my life I mean. Yeah.”

Huh? She’s bashful? Since when can this punk look cute?

As I continued staring at her with disbelief, her timidness broke and she scowled at me, flicking my forehead. “Dammit, stop looking at me like that, you ass! Yes, I can say thank you, wow, amazing! I said it a ton of times already. I can be thankful, despite how I usually act! I’m not a complete dickhead. Now, how about we find a way up before our party has to dig us up?”

She was in no rush. She walked slowly forward as she kept her hand up, to continue lighting the way with [Light]. As I rushed over to her, I frantically asked her, “Hey, hey, shouldn’t we hurry up? The others are missing two of their members and need to fight that whole party of those things!”

“Oh, shush, Tatsuya. Not like we can do anything down here. Or, do you want us to climb up that hole? It was quite steep and I don’t know how to climb, so are you gonna push my butt up with your hands?” I shook my head. “Yeah, exactly. Not to mention, as long as Yorshka is true to her promise of protecting us, then the others should be safe. Not like most monsters can face an A rank adventurer like her. Hmph. The first good thing that bitch did for me.” The last part was a murmur but, with my ears, it was no problem to hear. That “bitch” she referred to was most likely Sensei, since the two of them had a terrible relationship.

Moving forward, an awkward silence was created between us. As I was conscious of that fact, I slowly turned my head around, only to see Asaka barely annoyed by it. It almost seemed like she was used to it.

“Bones,” she mentioned as she pointed at a pile of large bones. It had a canine skull, so I guessed those were wargs or garms.

As we continued, the tunnel felt as if it was getting darker and darker. Even after Asaka cast another [Light], the darkness wouldn’t disappear. We were suspicious but we had no way to go but forward, so we had to move forward with caution.

“Can you feel it?” Asaka asked me, uneasiness in her voice.

I nodded. “Yeah. A presence, but I can’t detect the signal. It’s almost as if they want us to notice them. Stay closer to me, Asaka.”

“Got it. I’ll prepare some spells.”

Upon reaching the end of the tunnel, we entered a medium-sized cavern. The room was so dark, it was impossible to illuminate with any light source, leading us to assume that it had been created with dark magic. As we looked around for an exit, the darkness suddenly retreated back towards the middle of the room.

There were skeletons of humans and beastmen sitting on the ground, as though they’d died in that pose. A few of the skeletons in the middle looked like they were praying, and from what I could see, each and every one of them had an amulet of Marsven around their neck. Once the darkness was completely gone, we saw it forming the shadow underneath a giant statue of a wolf with three eyes. Before it lay the skeletal remains of a large wolf, far larger than England's double-decker busses.

And then, we heard a voice.

[“You enter my shrine, children of men, linked in fate with my true descendant.”] Our bodies shivered at the voice of this creature, unwilling to listen to our orders. It felt as if an invisible pressure was surrounding our bodies.

W-What is this?!

[“I will make my introduction, children. Listen. I am the former ruler of this forest. I am the Harbinger of Grim, named by the elven children, Belzac.”]

At that moment, I remembered. Sensei was also reincarnated in the Belzac forest.

“My name is An’ghum Wallbreaker! I am the nephew of my honorable uncle, Vul’grim Beastslaughterer! I have come to this land to seek vengeance in the name of our God Mother, Kronnaz, on the one who slew my kin! Bring him out! Bring that filth out and let me break their bones!”

A towering beast clad full in armor, wielding a giant hammer. Behind him stood a small platoon of orcs, hobgoblins, and echikobolds. Using [Identify], I could see that this monster was a B rank High Ogre. A monster at the same rank as the rachonoid queen my party fought in Cedaraille.

“Tama-chan! We need to move!” Kohaku spoke to me, rustling my arm. “Yorshka gave us the order to retreat and take out the other grimgarians. We need to get far away before the battle begins!”

“Y-Yeah, got it, but what about Yorshka?” I asked. As the leader of the Magical Biscuits, I had to know before I could coordinate everybody.

“What do you think? Of course, boss killing!”

As I called over to the remaining members of the Misfits, I noticed four green big cats helping us out. Three of them looked like jaguars while the one who’d accompanied us here resembled a large tiger. I suppose I should feel threatened by them, but somehow, there was a bond I could feel between us. As if we could trust each other.

As I was giving people orders, my attention was quickly pulled over by the clashing auras of the two battle titans.

“I know, you want to know who it was, An’ghum?” A white-haired human woman in white scaled armor stood before the ogre calmly, who towered over her three times her height.

He pointed his warhammer at her, and his voice shook the air around him. “Then speak, wench. My vengeance does not include you. Speak and I shall show mercy to you and your companions, otherwise—”

“Otherwise, what? You will kill us? Hahahahaha!” she roared out in laughter, showing no signs of fear of the monster’s threats. “Well, sadly, you will have to kill me if you want the answer. After all…” She twirled her spear around, assuming a combat pose. “I know what you grimgarians are planning. You cannot be satisfied with simply living in the lands neither humans nor levianewts wish to inhabit. The cliffs are too high for levianewts and the area is too perilous for humans. It is perfect for a warrior race like you grimgarians.”

The ogre readied his hammer, understanding where all of this was leading. A terrifying aura began exuding from the woman, causing the ogre to take a step backward.

“My name is Yorshka Nordor, and my home is the human kingdom Artorias. I am not the perfect knight nor am I a good housewife for my dear family. However,”—her body tensed—“I have heard you grimgarians are trying to invade my home kingdom. You are threatening my poor stressed-out husband, my little girl, and my young aunt. I work to support my family, and while I am still alive, you will not threaten any of them! Your appointment with Ilsaphone is due, ogre!”

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Side Story 28: The Three-Eyed Fenrir, Belzac.

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[“I am Belzac and my soul has awakened from its slumber in this shrine of mine. I can feel my bloodline waning but, at the same time, I can feel my descendant growing in power. I have been informed by the Goddess of Monsters, Edna, that you human pups know them.”]

The telepathic voice was deep and growly, a bit like an older man. From my experience with Yorshka’s [Telepathy], a person’s voice would usually be transmitted and could be heard by the recipient, as using telepathy was similar to speaking inside your mind. You were speaking your thoughts out loud, literally in this case.

Still, this voice wouldn’t have been so imposing wasn’t it coming from the skeletal remains of a giant wolf with three eye sockets. Belzac, the S rank [Three-Eyed Fenrir]. That was the being that was speaking with me and Asaka. After learning that Segawa-Sensei was reborn as one of this monster’s descendants, our parties looked up as much information about him as we could find in Firwood.

Little did I expect that Asaka and I would meet this thing on this day. As such, neither of us knew what to reply to.

[“… Your silence is unacceptable. I wish you to learn more about my descendant. I awake every time a new [Belzac’s Successor] evolves into a fenrir of any kind. It should not have been special as it is likely for opposition to grow and slay them; however, this time, Goddess Edna spoke with me. She told me it was time for me to act.”]

A tingling sensation spread around our skin, causing goosebumps. As Asaka and I looked at each other, we noticed two pathways — one behind the statue of the fenrir and another to the side, where a row of human skeletons was seated. Even without speaking, I could guess Asaka’s intention and readied myself to pick her up and run for it.

[Terror (Moderate)] inflicted on [Human, Tatsuya Nagata]

However, in the next instance, the pressure increased even more and our limbs felt paralyzed, unable to act. [“Your motives are clear. I can smell your fear and desire for flight. However, you shall not leave until I have said my piece and you have accepted my proposal.”]

The statue suddenly rumbled as if it was alive, revealing a small compartment on the front of the statue’s stone stand. From here, I could not see what was hidden there.

[“Boy, come, pick it up.”] The pressure around me subsided, causing me to fall on my knees, sweating and breathing heavily. I clenched my teeth as the [Terror (Moderate)] subsided, strengthening my will to resist it next time. With my hands clenched into fists, I stood up and obeyed the monster, taking out a small wooden vial from the compartment.

“What is this?” I asked, opening it up only to see some red viscous liquid inside it.

[“That is most likely the last remaining amount of my blood in this world. After I was slain by the combined might of the elves and humans, my pack and my worshippers quickly retrieved my corpse. These humans you see here entombed me inside this place, to keep my body safe while building a shrine for my soul to rest in,”] Belzac explained, only to make me question how he was able to do that. Peolynca had gods, and one of those gods was the Goddess of Death and Necromancy, Ilsaphone, who ruled over the souls of the deceased.

Noticing this, Belzac continued, [“It was my plea to her, who was gracious enough to grant me mercy for an agreement. My soul was transformed into an onnikai, bound to this statue to prevent me from going feral. Over the two millennia, I have waited for a worthy successor, but none of them have ever reached S rank, dying before they could. However, now, the second-highest authority of the Marsven pantheon has spoken to me, telling me it was time.”]

“Urgh!” I turned around to Asaka’s groan, falling to the ground just like I had. Brushing the sweat on her forehead with a hand away, her eyes narrowed in rage as she looked at the statue. “Asshole!”

Oi! Your loud mouth will get us killed, Asaka!

However, the wolf spirit did not give much attention to Asaka at all, as if everything before him was beneath his interests. [“As per my agreement with Goddess Ilsaphone, I am to help her create a patron race for her with the help of the onnikai. To do so, I must meet with my descendant.”]

“And you want us to do that? Bring that wolf here?” I knew he was talking about Sensei here, but I would rather not trouble her with this kind of nonsense. Call me paranoid or what, but I had a bad feeling about this Belzac.

[“Goddess Edna has informed me that you are connected to my descendant by fate. As such, you two shall act as my messengers. Swear to bring my descendant to me, and you may leave this place with your life.”] Suddenly, the blood vial in my hand shivered, causing me to flinch back. The amount of weird stuff today was insane! [“To ensure your survival until then, I shall grant you two a measure of my power. For the boy, my blood was blessed by Goddess Ilsaphone. You shall become a druid who can channel the might of my blood without needing to consume more of it, it shall be one with you. A glimpse of the power of an S rank will be wielded by you.”]

What?!

I eyed the vial of blood in my hand. I could feel something stirring inside me that I hadn’t felt since I first learned you could wield magic in this world. An excitement. An exhilarating rush at the idea of more power and abilities. The gamer’s sense for progression as a new ability was dangled right in front of them like a carrot.

Honestly, what was OP about my profile? Outside of my [Rush Hour] unique skill that I gained when I came to this world, what other “goodies” have I gained since I came over here? Sure, I was trained by one of the best spear wielders you could find, but honestly, I couldn’t consider myself OP yet. Competent, sure, but not “one-shot, galaxy spear” type of overpowered.

From what I’d heard from Tamae about Sensei’s abilities, I really was a bit envious of how broad her repertoire was. Black lightning, summoning giant wolves, mana threads, and the abilities of an assassin all combined into the body of a B rank fenrir. On the other hand, all I had were the spear techniques Yorshka had trained me to wield.

What could I gain from this blood?

I gulped. Curiosity was enticing me to accept Belzac’s offer, especially since this deal also included getting out of here.

[“For the girl, I shall grant you the power of my deceased pack.”] Small clouds of black smoke appeared from all three tunnels, which included the one we came into this room from. Four of them congregated around the statue, swirling around in the air. [“The souls of four of my pack members turned into onnikai by Goddess Ilsaphone. Although they sadly lost their egos through the two millennia, they can still serve as guards, keeping you safe and granting you the ability to control these powerful A rank souls. Now, accept my gifts and bring my—”]

“Yeah, fuck no, asshole. As if we would agree to something shitty like that!”

“Asaka?!” I snapped my head around with my eyes widened in shock. I rushed over to her and grabbed her shoulders. “Hey, hey, are you an idiot, Asaka?! Didn’t you hear what he just said? We can’t leave this place alive if we don’t accept his proposal! You felt it for yourself, right? His [Terror Aura], or whatever intimidating skill he had, could paralyze us as we stood!”

Asaka clicked her tongue at my words, pushing my hands off her shoulder and glared right back at me. “Me? An idiot? Stupid! How about you think for yourself for a bit instead of getting tunnel vision at the bait dangling right in front of you! Did playing all those video games really rot your mind when we still went to school together?”

She then pushed me aside, took her mace in her arm before casting a spell. “Divine power of the heavens, bless my mind and body with holy strength. To smite the enemy in the Goddess’s way, and to become a beacon for the faithful. To protect the light in your incandescent sight! Holy Eminence!”

As Asaka raised her mace up in the air, the spell was activated and shrouded her whole body in holy light like a light bulb. This light grew, creating a protective aura around her. Once it was finished, she used [Synergist’s Oath] to transfer the spell effect to me before casting it again on herself.

[Holy Eminence] inflicted on [Human, Tatsuya Nagata]

Holy Eminence

A holy spell passed down the leading order of the Church of Aurena. A spell that casts a protective shroud around the caster, vastly increasing holy and dark resistance within the influence of the aura. Strength and Intelligence is increased by 10% of the base value while also attuning all physical attacks with the holy element

[Holy Eminence] was a spell only cardinal-ranked clergymen or above could learn from the holy scriptures within the library of Aureolis’s basilica, the headquarters of the church of Aurena. Since Asaka was a saint candidate, she was allowed to learn custom spells that only the high-ranked clergy were privy to. Even if she was just recently appointed, it was still her right, apparently.

The spell is primarily a defensive spell to protect yourself and those around you, however, considering how Asaka was more a battlemage with decent Strength, the spell was mostly used to help her smack things better. In this case, though, she really was only using it defensively.

“Don’t forget what we learned in Rashan village, Tatsuya. Onnikais are born from dead lesser fae whose rage or anger caused them to be reborn. If these four were blessed by the Goddess of Death, then they would be weak against holy spells.” Asaka’s reminder made sense. Even if Belzac was still this powerful as an onnikai, he couldn’t be powerful enough to resist Asaka’s magic.

Still, I had to question her actions. “But, what are you trying to do by antagonizing him? Two power boosts are right in front of us, but you’re rejecting them? We could use more power, Asaka.”

“Yeah, and I agree, obviously. But you have to be a dumbass to accept the proposal of some random ancient being. This isn’t a game, Tatsuya. Aren’t you even one bit suspicious at the fact he wants you to drink his blood? What about those spirits, huh? He says they are egoless, but how am I supposed to know that? Don’t you think he wants to control us?” Asaka’s assumptions hit me like thunder. Without a doubt, I had just allowed the gamer side of me out, and was about to accept the wolf’s proposal without doubting it enough. After all, he barely gave me any details on how all of this worked.

Asaka continued, “Besides, I’m willing to meet up with that bitch again, but I’m not doing any favors for her. Even if you turn out to be an asshole of a villain who tries to take over her body to be reborn, as if I would tell you anything after you tried to threaten me.” Her petty side was giving her a reason to decline the fenrir’s deal. Looking at her with bafflement probably was the appropriate action.

“Thirdly, and lastly.” She raised her arm, pointing at the statue. “I know this is a bluff. If you could just kill us, then why didn’t you speak with us while we were above ground, huh? Why are you speaking with us now only after we fell? It’s like you said, you are trapped here. Your area of influence is small. You cannot afford to just leave us here to die, otherwise your little descendant will never find you. If you kill us here, then forget ever fulfilling your plan, because the moment the others come here to find us, they will beat your ass for what you did.”

Wait, was Asaka always this cunning?! I was seeing a new side of this “yankee,” a term we Japanese use for adolescent delinquents.

“Besides, I have enough on my plate with how I still have to work for the church just so they don’t get suspicious. And then, of course, I have to take care of these idiots. And now you want to give me more responsibilities?! As if. Fuck that! I’ve had enough of working for others, dammit.”

… As much as she’d surprised me with her intelligent side, it dawned on me that it was all wasted with how shitty her work ethics was. Still, regardless of her second and, unofficial, fourth reason, she was bringing up a bunch of stuff I’d overlooked. About to drink some super old blood wasn’t the most sensible idea I’ve ever gotten.

As Belzac stayed quiet, Asaka gave out a smug “Hmph” before telling me to throw the blood vial away and follow her into one of those tunnels. But before we could, the pressure of Belzac’s [Terror Aura] assaulted us once again. However, with us prepared for it, Asaka’s and my mental resistance skills activated perfectly, helping us resist the tension, although we still felt slightly unwell as we continued moving forward.

Oof, if I didn’t have Asaka with me, damn, I probably wouldn’t have made it through.

But that relief was quickly dispelled as the two of us could only look in shock at what Belzac did next. The shadow from underneath the statue moved, shrouding the onnikais in it like an armor of shadows. They moved into Asaka’s [Holy Eminence], unperturbed as the holy attack singed the shadow armor.

As I was prepared to fight back, the shadows grew into skulls and shrieked like banshees, dispelling the holy aura around us into particles. We both stepped back, readying our weapons as we realized we had sorely underestimated this monster. Even if it was dead, it was once an S rank monster.

[“Female, you are too feisty for your own good; Indeed, you speak the truth, my powers are restricted to this shrine of mine. I am but a shadow of my former glory. However, I did not lie when I told you cannot leave this place alive. Covered in the enchantments of these human worshippers of mine, I can control who may enter and who may leave. There are no exits to find or create while I am unsatisfied.”]

W-What?! Then, the guy really wasn’t bluffing!

[“Do not misunderstand my intentions, humans. The blood and onnikais are not an extension of my will, but they are, as I said, a gift to help you survive. Now, what is the incentive for you to fulfill this duty, you may ask? My answer is the favor of Goddess Edna, the wife of Origin God of Darkness, Marsven,”] Belzac stated.

“Huh, you do know the church of Aurena preaches that worshippers of Marsvens are misguided followers at best and unforgivable heathens at worst, right? Why should we trust you?” Asaka responded with a forced smile.

[“The origin gods are the only ones you may believe in if it comes to the preservation of this world, for mortals only seek for power, regardless of whether it would harm this world or not. My descendant has caught the attention of Goddess Edna, but cannot commune with her. If you seek a way to your true home, then I would suggest you work for those who have this world’s good in mind.”]

Wait, does he know the truth of who summoned us to this world?!

“Hold on, you know we are visitors from another world?!” I shouted.

[“Indeed.”]

“Then tell us, who was it? If it wasn’t Goddess Aurena, then tell us who it was! Who brought us to this world!?” I demanded, but it seemed Belzac couldn’t care less about my worries.

[“If you wish for knowledge, then you must work for it. You have gained none of my goodwill during this discussion, so I shall not bequeath you with what you seek. Go, find my descendant and bring them to me!”]

Frowning, I looked above me to the ceiling and bent my knees. I activated [Dragoon Jump] and jumped upwards, thrusting my spear forward, drilling the tip of my spear into the earth. When I repeated this action and attacked the same hole I made just a second ago, I noticed how it wouldn’t go any deeper. I tried it two more times before giving up. There really was something stopping me from going forward.

“Asaka…” I looked over to her, seeing her biting her lips as she tried to contemplate a plan. When she opened her eyes, she gave out a defeated sigh.

“Using my brain only to fail. Every fucking time,” she murmured, before stepping forward and picking the blood vial I had thrown on the ground. I had closed it earlier so the content wouldn’t spill, believing that wasting any of the blood probably would have enraged the wolf even more. “You don’t mind us checking the tunnels, right?”

[“There is no issue. Go, please your curiosity.”]

Asaka placed the vial of blood on the statue and called me over to help her explore the tunnels to make sure the fenrir wasn’t lying to us.

After making it far into the tunnel, the awkward silence from before continued. This time, however, I had something to say to her. “Asaka, that argument you made… well, it was pretty cool, you know. Didn’t know you could debate that well when we went to school. Then again, with how often you argued with people in Aureolis, I should have guessed it.”

“Well, not like you or any of the other students at Shirako High wanted to learn anything about me. Congratulations for learning that the mind-numbing education my parents imposed on me wasn't wasted.”

“Your parents are politicians, right?” It wasn’t a secret that Asaka’s constant delinquency was usually swept under the rug by her parents. With how she was known for dyeing her hair blue and painting graffiti in alleyways, if her parents hadn’t been influential, she probably would have been kicked out of school at some point. “With how successful your parents are in the political sphere, and with how you actually aren’t just another idiot, I have to ask — why did you become so rebellious? My father feeds me with a silver spoon, so I know how people like us are set for life if they just study and work hard enough.”

“Pah, shut up,” she scoffed at me, her eyes flaring up in anger. Crossing her arms and looking the other way to hide her expression, I now had a feeling that it was something family-related at this point. “You don’t know shit about my parents. Sure, in public, they are doing well and all, but you can’t say the same about their private life. Pfft, absolutely no affection, a household with a constant business atmosphere, disregarding anything that doesn’t suit their plan. You would suffocate if you were in my shoes.”

“…” I stayed silent. There was no way to stop her rant at this point, and it would be better for her to unleash it all.

“Do you want to know what they told me when I asked them why they were being so strict to Onii-chan and me? They told me, ‘This marriage is a business venture between our families. We need to make it work, so do your part, Asaka.’ There was no love between those two when they agreed to get married, there never was. The only reason they got together and gave birth to two children was to continue their families’ influence in politics.”

She then turned around, eyes filled with tears now. “My big brother was supposed to inherit everything since he was eight years older than me, you know. He was groomed since he was small to become their heir, and they admitted right in my face that they only wanted me because my mother’s family needed somebody to inherit something. Do you know how fucked up all of this was for me when I grew up! My life has been a constant rollercoaster of drama!”

“I-I’m so—” I wanted to apologize for opening her wound, but she did not allow me to speak.

“And then big brother died when I was still in middle school! Do you know how much I cried when I heard that the only person who ever showed a hint of love and warmth to me had died two days earlier just because my parents were selfish enough to ‘grieve’ by themselves because they didn’t want to hear me wail like a dying monkey?! Just saying, they used this ‘grieving’ moment to recreate my education program before leaving for work as I cried alone in my house!”

With her bare fist, she struck the wall cracking it slightly as the tears dropping on the ground echoed throughout the tunnel. Breaking down onto her knees, she finished her story, “I learned a year later by eavesdropping on a conversation between my tutor and parents that brother died from stress. My tutor complained that they were pushing me forward on the same path, having learned nothing of what they did…”

“… I-I am sorry,” was all I could say.

“Don’t be. Whew! Weirdly enough, revealing everything the second time really does wonders. I didn’t feel so good when I told Haruka-chan all of this,” Asaka stated, clapping her cheeks.

“Hold on, Haruka-chan knows everything already?”

“Yeah, why do you think we got along so well despite hating each other’s guts for the first couple of months? You know, my parents forbade me from visiting a therapist since they feared I would spill everything and that it could be used as blackmail on them, but I probably wouldn’t have ended this way if I could speak my mind. At least, that’s what I read on the internet.”

“… So the reason why you hate taking on responsibilities is because—”

“Of my parents, yeah,” Asaka answered before I could finish asking. “They were demanding and without love. Anything I could do to harm them was like candy for me. Even seeing them erupting in rage was more enjoyable than the constant poker face they kept up, even at home. When they scolded me after I took up graffiti, that was probably the most parenting I ever experienced from them, hahaha!”

Asaka then stood up, murmuring, “I wonder how they are feeling now? Did they replace me with one of my cousins?” before gesturing for me to continue walking.

As she wiped the tears from her face, I sighed.

I really didn’t know much about you, Asaka. Never even tried to get to know your situation.

Our exploration yielded nothing. Belzac hadn’t been lying when he told us there was no exit. After I tried digging a path up and saw that it was protected by a black sheet of some kind, we gave up and ran back to Belzac. Considering our friends were still fighting against the grimgarians, we really didn’t have any more time to waste, so we reluctantly agreed to Belzac’s proposal.

“Just to be sure, this blood won’t corrupt me or something, right? It won’t turn me into a werewolf, right?” I asked, scared of drinking the blood after everything Asaka mentioned.

[“A druid is a warrior mage who is attuned to nature, able to bring out the power of a monster’s blood by drinking it. This blood is special, though. You will not need the natural disposition to nature as other druids, but you will have a harder time taming the power. On the other hand, you won’t need to drink more blood to wield my power, a definite boon.”]

I glanced at Asaka; she was prepared to cast healing magic in case this would hurt. I gulped some spit and breathed in deeply. Closing my eyes and nose, I chugged the red liquid down my throat in one gulp. The metallic taste spread around my tongue as I sucked every bit of blood down into my stomach.

For a bit, nothing happened to me. No System messages nor any strong feeling. As I felt I was overreacting too much, I slowly opened my eyes in relief…

… only to be assaulted by a gut-wrenching pain, as if something was twisting my organs up and squeezing everything from them.

“ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

“Tatsuya!”

A note from AbyssRaven

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Side Story 29: Grimgarian Ambush Battle.

A note from AbyssRaven

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First POV is Tamae, the party leader of The Magical Biscuit. Second is obvious.

“Nordor Style: Silver Dust Slant!”

“Siegebreaker!”

The air rumbled as a massive silver crescent slash sundered everything before it and a boulder destroying slam shook the very earth we stood upon, causing a miniature earthquake. Our party of nine was barely able to keep ourselves on our feet, but luckily, the impact of Dame Yorshka’s battle with the high ogre was also affecting the grimgarians.

“Don’t fall! Nishio-kun!” I, Tamae Tsuji, looked over to my party’s main mage, hoping he could think of a way to help us out of this situation.

The first to recover were Kyouya, Sir Elrick, and the orc knights who had dug their shields into the ground to stabilize themselves before activating their protective shield skills. As the echikobolds were thrown from their warg mounts, Nishio slammed his staff on the ground and cast [Terra Wall] on the ground, momentarily stopping the quaking.

“Now! Drink your potions and buff yourself up! We need to get ready!” he commanded. Nishio was less proficient than Hestia at altering the effects of System spells with [Fluid Cast], mostly because it drained too much mana to be efficient. The ground was stable for now, but it didn’t escape my notice that the edges of this stabilized platform were cracking under the pressure.

“There are multiple hobgoblin archers hiding behind the trees and shrubbery! They can’t aim yet!” Haruka shouted out to us. She might not be able to fight, due to her fear of blood, but she was invaluable as our main scout with her [Foxian Slyness].

After hearing all of this, everybody began following Nishio’s orders, taking the potions I’d made for them out of [Storage Magic] and drinking them while Nishio, Daichi, and I began strengthening everybody with spells. Meanwhile, Kyouya and Sir Elrick were holding their shields up, protecting us from a few arrows which managed to be shot.

[Various Spell Buffs] [Various Potion Buffs] inflicted on [Human, Tamae Tsuji]

“Where are Tatsuya-kun and Asaka-san?!” I demanded of the three remaining Misfit members, to which they replied that the two had fallen into a hole together. “Huh, they fell into a hole?! Uhm, Haruka, can you speak with them with your [Telepathy] or find their location with your skills?”

We sadly did not have the platoon function in our party bracelets like Hestia and Sensei did, so I had to rely on Kyouya, Haruka, and Daichi for information on their safety. As Haruka was also the only one among us who could use [Telepathy] — due to her low combat potential as a fighter, she bought that skill from the SP shop to provide intel and analysis during a fight — I had to rely on her to find Tatsuya and Asaka before this impending battle.

“I can’t, they are outside the area I can activate my [Telepathy] on.” However, her answer was less than desirable — it meant Tatsuya and Asaka had fallen somewhere deep.

I guess that’s that. We need to take care of the current situation first!

“Kohaku-chan! Kazumi-chan!” I called out.

Both responded with a vigorous, ““Got it!”” before unsheathing their weapons. With her runesword in her hand, Kohaku touched the red rune on it, causing the blade to wrap itself in flames, while Kazumi activated her unique skill [Tricky Kitty] and summoned four shadow clones of herself from pieces of her shadow.

As the earthquake began to subside, the grimgarians quickly returned to formation with the black-armored orcs as the vanguard, the hobgoblin spearmen behind them, the hobgoblin archers in the back, with the echikobolds waiting on their mounts on the side.

We too formed ours, with Kyouya and Sir Elrick leading the frontline while Kohaku and Kazumi would follow from behind. For our rearguard, Nishio, Misaki, Haruka, and I would support everybody in the front with magic, ranged attacks, or intel. Tatsuya always served as our vanguard, while Asaka was our main healer. Without them, the rest of us had to handle more duties.

Misaki managed to nock a mana arrow onto her yumi-like bow before releasing it flying straight at an orc knight, signalling the start of the fight. As he held his shield up and fortified his defenses, most would believe the arrow would simply deflect or get stuck in the black metal shield, but not when Misaki had the unique skill [Samurai Distinction: Yumi].

Samurai Distinction: Yumi

The user can expend mana to create mana arrows of any type they wish. The longer the user readies the bow, the more powerful the shot will become. The user will always ignore 25% of a target's Vitality when the arrow hits

The arrow shot right through not only the shield but also the orc’s armor, piercing his heart. He fell to the ground, struggling as he attempted to take the arrow out of his body, all while his companions coldly watched his movements dull down. The orc’s high Health only delayed his death.

“I can’t sense any mages or shamans! Be careful!” Haruka informed us after using her detection skills again.

“Thank you very much, Lady Haruka! Lady Tamae, allow me to lead this battle in the front!” I had nothing to argue about. Sir Elrick was a proper holy knight, it would be better if he instructed us instead of risking me panicking when something went wrong. “Move closer to the trees, we need to use them as obstructions! Nishio, [Terra Wall] our flanks to create a choke point; not too high to obstruct our sight! Move! Move!”

The battle had begun. The frontline of the grimgarians charged at us with frightening roars as the echikobold riders began to surround us, shooting arrows as we fled closer to the trees. Kyouya and Sir Elrick were able to deflect them since all the riders were still in front of us, however, a few of the arrows had far more momentum than those they’d blocked before, which startled them.

“Curse these monsters! Those hobgoblin archers are a problem!” We had met a few hobgoblin archers at the beginning of our adventures when we were tasked to exterminate a few goblin dens, so we knew how strong they could be despite not having formal training. Unfortunately for us, it was clear that this group of goblins, kobolds, and orcs were trained, so we had to be even more careful.

After our protective wall was built and we secured an area of defense, Daichi shot out an [Inferno Blast] at the approaching orc knights, only to be stunned that their shields easily blocked it.

“What?!” he cried out.

“That’s voldunna metal! From the Empire’s desert! They are extremely resistant against fire!” Sir Elrick informed Daichi.

“What?! Are you kidding me! Dammit, but I don’t think they can block all of this!” Daichi held his staff high, and the red crystal orb on top of it shone red and began rotating as a magic circle appeared on it. As if it was sucking in the heat around it, the air began to feel slightly colder, before the Daichi unleashed a powered-up [Flame Explosion].

The explosion destroyed the scorched earth before us, sending the orc knights in the middle of the formation reeling. The hobgoblin spearmen screeched and fled the flames. After the smoke settled, we confirmed that, while Daichi’s fire attack certainly caused chaos amongst their ranks, it had not killed anybody.

“Dammit! Give me a better shot! Tsk, Reduce Heat.” The flames burning the grass stopped spreading, staying still as if they were content. [Reduce Heat] was an obligatory spell for fire mages as it was the only way for them to control their fire without [Pyrokinesis].

“Control yourself, Daichi! Concentrate on disrupting their formati— Urgh, curses, those archers are too annoying!” Elrick cursed out as he blocked an arrow aiming at Daichi. “Lady Kazumi, send your clones out to scout for their locations! We need to find their location for Lady Misaki to snipe them!”

“Understood!” The four Kazumi clones jumped out from our point of defense and dived into the shadows with [Shadow Dash]. As the church of Aurena only tolerated the usage of [Dark Magic], Kazumi did not have an instructor at the church to teach her until we reunited with Sensei. With how limited SP was, she hadn’t wanted to spend it on something she wasn’t familiar with before, but thanks to [Hestia’s Retainer], she’s been able to train that skill up at an accelerated rate without having to spend her precious SP.

“Nishio, Daichi, disruptive spells! Lady Haruka, stay safe and make sure to warn us if the hobgoblin archers or echikobolds flank us. Lady Misaki, snipe important targets. Lady Tamae, healing and protection. Lady Kohaku and Sir Kyouya, the three of us must hold this position! We cannot allow them through if we wish to survive!”

“We have to stall until Lady Yorshka comes back,” he meant to say but didn’t. It was too demoralizing to hear something like that after we had trained so much. For now, we had to stay focused and survive this. We can do this.

The battle could only be called chaotic from that point onwards. The orc knights rushed right to the entrance, assaulting Sir Elrick, Kyouya, and Kohaku without fear, taking advantage of their thick armor and natural strength to try and shatter our front guards. With their superior numbers, they kept smashing into Kyouya’s and Sir Elrick’s defenses until Nishio equalized everything with his magic.

Using earth and wind spells, he pushed the enemies back while relying on Daichi’s fire magic to scare off the echikobolds flanking our backside, which unfortunately set the trees aflame, but we didn’t have the luxury of being careful. Kazumi’s proficiency with her dark spells wasn’t comparable to Sensei’s but the occasional [Dark Tendrils] still helped immobilize a few orcs and allowed Kohaku to land killing blows with her runesword.

As I was healing Kyouya’s wounds from the initial attack, my [Prediction] warned me to dodge to the side. Out of reflex, I shoved Kyouya forward as I dodged backwards, narrowly reacting to the arrow in time, but, unfortunately, I could not dodge entirely as it lodged itself into my shoulder.

“Argh!” I screamed.

[Poisoned (Moderate)] [Adrenaline (Minor)] inflicted on [Human, Tamae Tsuji]

“Tamae-san!” Nishio shouted before shooting out a fire spell in the direction of the arrow, which was at the top of a tree. As the leaves and branches were set on fire, it forced a hobgoblin archer to jump out, only to be shot dead by Misaki.

“I’m so sorry, Tama-chan! I’m so sorry, I didn’t notice that in time. I’m so sorry!” Haruka apologized with a grim expression, looking like she was about to cry. I calmed her down, telling her everything was alright before looking over at the wound on my shoulder.

Biting the sleeve of my robes, I pulled the arrow from my shoulder while Nishio constructed an earthen dome over us. Screaming once again from the pain, I instantly got rid of the poison with [Cure] and healed myself with [Moderate Heal].

“Nishio-kun, Misaki can’t shoot with the dome over us!” I called out, pointing out how this defensive structure would impede our attacks.

“We have to! I can’t focus on protecting the frontline and the rearguard! We need to sacrifice—” Nishio was about to argue but a part of the dome suddenly cracked open by the hammer of an orc following an arrow shot. Nobody was hurt by it, but we realized the predicament of our situation. Meeting this group of grimgarians in the open woods was a mistake.

“We need to go down! Strengthen the top, dig a hole down!” Elrick commanded and Nishio followed. The dome was repaired and fortified to resist multiple hammer swings as he shot out large [Earth Spears] at the orc knights. [Terra Magic Lv.1] and [Earth Magic Lv. 10] did not have system spells that could directly dig a hole, as such, but you could be creative and use spells that morphed or modified the earth.

Although, this all meant it was harder for Misaki to land a killing shot. With how frantic the frontline was, her rate of fire went down drastically. With the orcs understanding her arrows were killing blows, they were aware they also had to dodge. Misaki killed a couple hobgoblin spearmen and orcs before the dome came up, but now it was too risky to shoot. Thankfully, the same could be said about the hobgoblin archers.

“Another strong clash of attacks is coming!” Haruka warned us just a few seconds before the earth began to quake again. Dame Yorshka’s battle with the high ogre must be fierce.

That earthquake gave us a much-needed break from the constant attacks the orc knights were sending us, but it also caused the dome to crack and begin to crumble. Nothing we were doing was going our way at all, to the point we had to forgo this plan and break out of it.

Daichi, using his [Inferno Blast], shot right through the dome without any problems. As we crawled back to the surface, Haruka warned us of multiple incoming arrows, giving Nishio enough time to block everything with [Terra Wall]. With wobbling legs, he opened a path through his walls for us to escape through.

“I’ve had it! My magic is made for ultimate power!” The first to move out was Daichi, looking as if was about to explode. Ignoring the seismic action, he concentrated his mana into his staff, draining the heat around him before unleashing multiple [Petal Flames], burning down the top of all the trees around us. It was truly a forest fire.

Although it was a bit frightening to see, it did mean the hobgoblin archers were forced out of their hiding spots. Misaki managed to shoot down one of them but the vast majority managed to slip back into the darkness. Daichi did not stop though; seeing fresh targets for his fire spells, he went on a rampage.

Bushes and tree trunks were burned down, and, although most of the hobgoblins managed to flee, they were immediately cornered by Kazumi’s shadow clones and killed off. In this time, the earthquake stopped and the orc knights and hobgoblin spearmen made it around the dome. As we were trying to retreat back into it, the orcs used their hammers to break in, creating a two front battle.

With Sir Elrick on our left and Kyouya and Kohaku on our right protecting the rest of the rearguard and me, we were about to continue this battle of attrition until something threw a wrench into that plan.

“NIAKASH BAAL’AK! Taunt!”

[Taunted (Minor)] inflicted on [Human, Tamae Tsuji]

“Wai- Noooo!” I was caught in a taunt, no, all of us were caught in it.

My head snapped towards the singular orc, holding his shield high up as if he knew it was about to happen. Influenced by the taunt, we unleashed our attacks on the orc, instantly killing it after Misaki shot her arrow at its head. While this action did dispel the [Taunt], the taunt had caused Sir Elrick to move away from his position, leaving one of us very vulnerable.

“Hahaha! How do you like that you ugly gree— FUCK! URGH!” An echikobold rider charged right through our formation, almost drilling a hole into Daichi’s head, but instead, rammed into him with the warg. As Daichi struggled to get up, the warg almost pounced on him, but was held back by Sir Elrick, who cut it down along with its echikobold rider.

As I was about to run over to provide healing, the remaining echikobold riders charged in, knocking Kyouya, Kohaku, and Kazumi out of the way. Their spears were aimed at Daichi who was still on the ground after the initial attack. With how Nishio and I needed to prepare our spells, it was almost painful to admit that we didn’t have enough time to help him.

“Daichi-san, STAND UP!” I shouted from the top of my lungs.

“F-Fuck! F-Fire—” It was just not enough time. As the horror of seeing my classmate in mortal danger slowed down my perception of time, I somehow managed to see a shadow rustling the trees above us, before it pounced at the front running cavalry.

“Grrrah!” It was the green tiger! “Griiak!”

“Kiiiieeeeyaakkk- Ark! …”

The pounce not only dismounted the ride from its warg, the weight of the tiger unbalanced the wolf and caused it to crash on the ground, frightening the other wolves. With a growl, it held the kobold in its jaw and crushed its skull.

With the wargs and echikobolds disoriented, three green jaguars jumped from the trees to assasinated three more kobolds, before shooting light spells at the others. With the tiger leading them, the four large cats began to eliminate the remaining riders, erasing the threat for us.

Where did they come from?!

I still remembered seeing the four at the beginning of the fight, but somehow, in the middle of the chaos, I lost track of them. Did they come back to help us?

“Tamae-san, help Daichi!” Nishio woke me up from my thoughts as he shot a rock spear at an orc.

I looked over to Kazumi and Kohaku, who were drinking my health potions with their thumbs up, showing me they were okay. “Y-Yes, sorry!” With the threats against our backline gone, I resumed running over to Daichi, only to hear the roar of another orc, sending a chill down my spine.

“NIAKASH BAAL’AK! Tau—”

“Taunt!” But it was interrupted by somebody else. Looking over to the source, I noticed Kyouya activating the same ability, throwing away the potion he had drunk a moment before. I could faintly see hints of red liquid on his lips.

Is he crazy?! That would mean—

The charge had sent Kyouya flying away from the formation, but he was now far away from his landing area. He most likely distanced himself further for this plan of his. As he held his shield up, although I couldn’t see his face through his faceguard, I could somehow imagine the desperate expression he had on him.

[Taunt] was an amazing ability to attract and control the attention of an enemy, but it had the double edge of attracting everybody who could hear him and it also increased the damage he would receive, while reducing what we would receive. It was suicide to use it here, just like what that orc knight did.

As the grimgarians charged at him, everybody quickly sent their attacks flying, knowing if we didn’t thin this horde down first, Kyouya would certainly die from this reckless action.

“Dammit! I had enough of this shit!” Daichi shouted after I finished healing him. “KAMIKAZE ACTIVATED!”

A powerful shockwave exploded from Daichi’s body, sending me falling on my back. As I looked up, I noticed Daichi’s medium-long hair standing up as a visible aura of red mana was surrounding his body. His eyes shone a bright yellow as he held up his staff, about to unleash two fire spells.

“Let the flames of destruction crush what obstacles stand before me, lay them to ruin in their arrogance. Fire Explosion!” Two massive explosions shattered the very ground the orc knight was running on, instantly killing off any hobgoblin spearmen who were unlucky enough. These two fire spells of Daichi’s were frighteningly powerful. Powerful enough, in fact, to crack the orcs’ armor.

“Dammit! That’s all I can do with this shit?! As if! How about you—” But before he could continue his speech, Haruka suddenly called out an attack, prompting me to ram Daichi out of the attack’s trajectory just in time. The arrow stuck right into the ruined earth dome. “Fucking hell, you damn goblins! With flame in my hand, I shall pierce all the walls in the name of Danterno! Flame Spear!”

[Kamikaze] was Daichi’s unique skill, enabling him to shoot out spells as long as he still had Mana. With it activated, he couldn’t be affected by the [Arcane Corruption] debuff and his spells would be strengthened; however, once it was over, all that accumulated arcane corruption would immediately affect him.

It also had the unfortunate side-effect of increasing Daichi’s natural hotheadedness.

“Grrraah!” The tiger roared at us before leading the three jaguars away from the fire and the fight. Daichi chased them away!

“Daichi, we need to kill the orcs! You need to aim for the orcs!” I tried to reason with him, but it was futile.

“I’m fucking killing those archers and kobolds! How dare they try to harm me! Burn them all!” The forest fire intensified, reflecting Daichi’s current mood.

Looking at Kyouya’s situation, the echikobold riders had already reached him, smacking at him and slowly chipping away at his splendid-looking armor. Arrows flew right into his back, piercing him and infecting him with poison.

Even with Misaki free firing, her draw speed was slowed down due to her using a yumi instead of a shortbow. Nishio, Kohaku, Kazumi and Sir Elrick tried their best to slaughter whatever came towards them, but they simply weren’t fast enough. With more and more orc knights attacking Kyouya, dread filled my head.

“““Kyouya-kun!””” We all screamed out as we could see his smiling face through his cracked helmet. Time slowed down for me and my senses were only focused on him, holding my hand out to cast a heal spell.

Healing magic! I need to cast a healing spell! [Moderate Heal], quick! Oh, Goddess, grant me—

“Dammit, I guess I have no choice!” Sir Elrick suddenly took off his gauntlet and sliced his left hand with his sword. “I thought I could hide all of this… But, I need to protect them! I need to survive and find Lady Asaka! Blood Con—”

In this singular moment where everything slowed down, I thought I saw two shadows suddenly shoot right out of the shadow of a tree, striking the area around Kyouya and sending every orc knight and echikobold rider flying. As arrows were shot, they were immediately blocked by a translucent barrier held up by four floating will-o’-wisp type of spirits.

As the smoke settled, what I saw standing behind the barrier caused the dread I felt to disappear.

“Ahwrroooooooooooooooo! Death to all you maggots!” A young man with a furred hand with long claws and the face of a wolfkin howled in the air, swinging his spear around as if he was boasting.

“Shut up with the chunni shit, idiot! Go kill them already.” Behind him was a young woman with blue hair in a white robes’ priestly outfit, supporting Kyouya’s back as he coughed out blood. A white magic circle appeared on her hand as she began healing his wounds, meanwhile, the four will-o’-wisps returned to her, surrounding her like floating tomoe — a comma-shaped figure.

“Tatsuya-kun! Asaka-san!”

They came back just in time.

[Druidification (Belzac)] [Berserk (Minor)] inflicted on [Human, Tatsuya Nagata]

Pain. Just a fuckton of pain. It felt as if my veins were burning me alive while my heart's response to this was to pump even faster, causing this effect to worsen like an allergy. It hurt so much that my [Berserker] skill from my [Berserker Spearman] Job activated automatically without me taking any damage. There was synergy, sure, but goddamn, it hurt like a bitch.

“Kyouya?” I turned my head around, noticing how my best friend was shivering on the ground with his armor and shield dented and broken. Asaka was healing him, so he wasn’t about to die, but it really caused a deep pain in my chest, even more than what Belzac’s blood was doing to me. “Why the dafuk are you always trying to kill yourself, man!”

I was talking about our first church-issued Quest, the one where we had to hunt down some bandits. Just like today, he had almost died trying to protect somebody. This guy is just impossible to handle.

“Y-Yeah, sorry…” he apologized as he coughed up even more blood. “But, that’s my job as the ‘tank,’ right? Gotta keep the healers and damage dealers safe, right— Yeowch!”

“Alright, I thought you were smart but you, too, are an idiot, huh, Kyouya? Dammit, but you did manage to stall long enough for us to come back just in the nick of time. So I’ll let you off today with a flick on the head,” Asaka scolded Kyouya before ordering one of the onnikai spirits to create a mana barrier around Kyouya. As she stood up, she held her staff up with three onnikais floating on her back. “These things are draining my mana rapidly. We need to end this quickly, Tatsuya.”

I swept my spear in front of me, causing dust to fly. “Got it, my blood is fucking killing me and draining my Stamina even more quickly than [Rush Hour]. Let’s blitz them! Rush Hour!”

[Rush Hour] inflicted on [Human, Tatsuya Nagata]

Incredible power invigorated my body, making it feel so incredibly light that I thought I could run a mile a minute.

“Dragoon Jump!” Jumping forward, I used the power of the Belzac’s blood to cleanly slice off the head of an orc knight before jumping over to the next, killing it before targeting another enemy. I could hear not only my heartbeat but also my muscles and bones cracking under the strain of this incredible power boost.

Meanwhile, Asaka cast [Holy Eminence] on herself and constructed a floating mana barrier with the onnikai to block the arrows of the hobgoblin archers. She hadn’t had any more time to practice with her new power than I had, and it showed. She had no idea how to control the onnikais properly since they had no egos or intelligence, wheras the blood I’d drunk was straining my body to the point that it was just torture.

“Everybody, we need to help them!” As I was resting my aching legs after killing off nine of the orc knights, I noticed Tamae suddenly shouting something. “We can win this! Go!”

“““Yeah!””” With this motivating call-out, Nishio, Kohaku, and Kazumi charged right into the mix with Elrick lagging slightly behind. Misaki in the back continued sniping out any archer Haruka or Kazumi’s shadow clones detected, showing off how frightening a competitive archer’s accuracy was.

“Fuck you, Tatsuya! Coming in late like that! You won’t beat me in KILLS!” Daichi for some reason shouted despite how wounded and drained he looked.

Apparently my and Asaka’s arrivals were the deciding factor, because this battle that had driven our friends to the brink quickly ended in our victory.

[Starvation (Minor)] inflicted on [Human, Tatsuya Nagata]

After I dispelled both [Rush Hour] and my new unique skill [Bloodline Awakening], I fell onto my knees with my stomach growling in hunger. [Rush Hour] would be a great skill if not for the fact that I could guarantee a [Starvation (Minor)] everytime after I used it, even if I’d only activated it for a few seconds.

Damn, no level up, huh? I guess I did just get to 52.

As I was about to take a breather, Haruka shouted a warning and the earth shook, waking me from my slight stupor. “Dame Yorshka is still fighting!” Haruka called out, making me regret dispelling my buffs so early.

After Nishio and Daichi stopped the forest fire, we rushed over to the origin of that earthquake, noticing how the forest was even more devastated than where we had fought. The ground was cracked open, deep enough to be classified as holes, and the tree was shattered into bits as if a bulldozer rolled over.

As we continued, we noticed silvery dust floating around the area, a thick layer clinging onto trees like glue. As none of us could hear any weapons clashing, our worry intensified.

But, it was all for naught.

“Haaaaa, haaaaa, dammit, you kids are already done? Fuck, I’m still too young to slow down like this. A slower lifestyle does make you weaker, huh?” There she was, my spear master — Yorshka. Underneath her feet was the mutilated headless body of a giant ogre whose head was impaled on Yorshka’s spear like meat on a skewer.

As she threw the head on the ground, she hopped down from the corpse, making me realize her armor was broken and her undershirt ripped apart, showing off her underclothes, though there was barely any skin to see, as silvery scales hid it. To my surprise, silver wings moved on her back while a tail swung around her rear. Fangs could be seen in her mouth as she panted. Her ears were almost as sharp as an elf’s while two horns crowned her head.

I knew she was a dragonewt, but… wow, dragonewt women. Wow.

“C-Captain Yorshka?!” Elrick looked at her with astonishment. We hadn’t told him about everything, so he shouldn’t have known about her dragonewt origin.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that, Elrick. I know the secrets of the Karstein, and now you know mine. Let’s just blackmail each other to stay quiet, alright? I’m too tired to explain everything now, so let me do it later.” She then tied her long white hair into a ponytail and ripped off the last remaining piece of her ruined armor. “Ahhh, I know the Knight-Commander made this armor for me to fit in like a Knight of Aurena, but, wow, could it withstand some hits. Whew, no wonder my little aunt and her friends had so much trouble even with an already injured one. These high ogres are far stronger than the ones I’ve fought in the past.”

“D-Dame Yorshka?!” Tamae ran over to her, taking her coat off and handing it over to Yorshka, who accepted it.

“Thank you very much, Tamae. A wardrobe malfunction would have been pretty bad at this point, huh? Haaaaa, guess I’ll need to bring out my old armor once we return to Firwood,” Yorshka sighed. With the threat over, Asaka and I fell onto the ground, the strain of Belzac’s “gifts” too much for our bodies to handle.

After a short break, we were questioned about what happened to us after we fell into that hole together, so we explained to them how we met the spirit of the legendary S rank fenrir Belzac, and how he wanted us to give Sensei a message.

“Wait, so you two got lucky enough to gain some new powers?! Are you kidding me! Why didn’t I shove Asaka down that hole!” Daichi complained, earning him a sharp kick to his shin by the very same person.

“Shut up, asshole. Beside, the wolf explained how the blood was only available to people with strong bodies to endure the [Bloodline Awakening]. If you didn’t you would just explode or something like that.”

“She’s right. I can feel the pain even now.” My wolfkin features were gone after I dispelled the druidification, but everybody still had that werewolf-like image of me in their heads.

Bloodline Awakening

A superior druidification created by the Goddess of Fertility and Monsters, Edna. Allows the user to draw out the true power of the blood of a monster from a prominent family. Temporarily transforms the user to that blood’s respective beastman form, ensuring they can endure the strain of the blood’s might. More abilities can be drawn out at higher levels of the skill

Asaka continued after I gave them the description of my skill. “And these four onnikais were only given to me because he thought I could control them. Talked about how I had an affinity with them, for some reason. I dunno. All I know is that they drain my mana whenever I use them, and it isn’t by a small amount.”

“Well, I’m glad Asa-chan and Tatsuya-kun weren’t hurt. I’m glad you two came back,” Haruka said sweetly. “But… do you really have to eat this much food?”

With how this power was affecting us, Asaka and I were devouring food in amounts that normally only monsters could devour. We had to restore our lost calories.

As we did so, Asaka suddenly looked over at Elrick. “Hmm, what is it Elrick? Does the thought of us having accepted powers from Edna and Ilsaphone sound that unappealing to a knight of Aurena like you? Does that mean my saint candidacy is null and void and will you cut me down, now?”

Everybody’s head turned to Elrick, looking at him anxiously.

“No, uhm, well… It is true that you took on the powers of two members of the Marsven pantheon. If the church knew this, they would most likely ostracize you, even send out inquisitors to hunt you down, maybe. But, I, uhm,” Elrick hesitated to say anything further, causing everybody to stay on their guard.

That was until Yorshka interjected herself, “Well, shouldn’t you be somebody who can sympathize with the kids, Elrick? I mean, is it fair to judge somebody differently just because they have some disliked power?”

“They had a choice on this matter, Captain Yorska!” Elrick rebuked her.

“Yeah, a ‘choice.’ A choice to either take the power and live, or die down there. Very understandable choices, and don’t give me some stupid reasoning like ‘they are the Goddess’s Heroes so they shouldn’t take on the power of the dark god’ bullshit. They don’t come from this world, they have a different perspective. You shouldn’t force your philosophies on them, especially considering how the church kidnapped them to this world.”

“Lady Yorshka! That is blasphemy! The Goddess summoned them to our world to prot—”

“They were kidnapped here and forced to do the bidding of the church. Otherwise, they cannot return to their own world. That was a choice, too, right? Reject the church and be set adrift, never to return home, or accept their demands and survive. The choices they were given were the same in nature. Instead of thinking like a knight, how about you judge this situation as somebody who was brought out from their world and forced to adapt to their new situation, Elrick?”

Yorshka’s speech reminded me of how it was sort of impossible for us to rely on the church to send us back home, since Aurena wasn’t the one who had made the promise in the first place. Our only way was through Sensei and her friend Hestia, who was a champion of Aurena.

After that, Yorshka explained what the true goal of this trip was. Having heard that a grimagarian army had almost attacked Firwood, only prevented by Sensei’s actions, Yorshka wanted to scout out the entrance in the Avitor mountains which would lead to the grimgarian’s headquarters. Apparently, this information came from Hestia and Sensei who learned it from some fleeing lizardmen.

“I apologize for endangering you, I had not thought we would meet a platoon out here,” Yorshka bowed deeply in a dogeza before raising her head. “I am glad you all survived, but it was still reckless of me. Considering our wounds, it would be better for us to return to Firwood. I will get Lord Sirius to check this out for himself.”

As we all agreed to her plan, especially since it would probably bring us back to Sensei, Yorshka suddenly noticed something and looked up. Following her gaze, we noticed two white wyverns flying above us, releasing roars at us.

As my classmates and Elrick anxiously wanted to flee, Yorshka stood there, looking flabbergasted. “What?! Are you kidding me, the messenger caravan was killed?! Kriashi zlaarash mavree slaah!” Yorshka then pointed in a direction before roaring out once more, causing the wyverns to begin flying.

Facepalming, herself, she just groaned we questioned her about what just happened. “Well, I was sending a message to my family in Loatryx through a messenger caravan, but somehow, it got killed along the way by a group of great eagles. Those wyverns coincidentally hunted them down two days ago and found my message in their nest, and were about to return to their home in Avitor Peaks. They noticed my smell on the message and asked me about it, so I told them to take it to Loatryx.”

“Huh, and those roars were?” Nishio asked.

“Draconic; since true and lesser dragonkins cannot articulate common, we roar in our own language. Haaaaa, I cannot believe this. Why is nothing good happening for me after I met my aunt? This will delay the message to our Matriarch, just great…”

This Matriarch was supposedly Hestia's dragon mother, right? Welp, Hestia will get in trouble for that late message.

As we were about to move away from this location to form a proper camp, a telepathic message suddenly entered our mind.

[“Master’s aura. You have. Ours from Goddess. Where she? We ask, lead us to Master.”]

Four giant green cats descended from the trees. Two jaguars and a tiger stood still as a single green jaguar moved carefully forward. As I was was about to ready my weapon, Tamae suddenly stopped us, informing us these cats were the ones who not only tried to warn us from the grimgarians but also helped them fight them off after Asaka and I fell into that hole.

[“Me, Rajah. Master, Hestia. Healthy?”]

Little did we know that our party would increase by four as our next goal was settled — reuniting with Sensei and her party to discuss our future plans.

A note from AbyssRaven

That should explain why mama hasn't appeared yet. Complications. But, don't worry, Hestia's mama won't stand still untill she meets her little one!

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Chapter 219: Hestia, Unwilling Mediator.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“I know I mentioned I would help you get an appointment, but I didn’t say I would participate in this, Muraina! I have no interest in politics!” Pouting, the energy in my body slipped out of me and I slumped onto the table I was sitting at, having lost all interest in keeping up with any decorum despite being in a place where I had to. My anxiousness to keep it up was gone.

Sighing deeply, I forced myself up to see Muraina and Krymdar sitting on one side and King Drangleic and his two advisors — Ulquint Myrrdin and Armado Lifcio. I was sitting all alone to the side, sitting besides none of them as if I was some uninvolved third party. In fact, for today, I was exactly that.

A mediator.

“Gahaha, if somebody young doesn’t want to talk politics, then most of the time it is better if we leave them be. Without passion, it would just be a waste of time,” Lord Armado expressed, causing me to feel something akin to a kinship for this old, muscular man. He was putting my thoughts into words so clearly, as if he knew them personally!

What a wonderful old man. I wish Kramps could also be this understanding.

… But, from looking at the eyes of these adults in this room… I don’t think I was allowed to be absent.

“I apologize, Princess Hestia. However, I believe it would be best if this discussion would have you around as the third party. In politics, it’s not unusual for a neutral faction or the leading party, like an emperor or their children and ministers, to help resolve the disputes between the debating participants, and you are the closest thing to a neutral party we have,” Muraina explained to me with a smile.

King Drangleic, with his feathery crown on his head, nodded, looking stoic today save for the glare he gave Muraina and Krymdar. “I agree. In a diplomatic discussion, the goal for the representatives is to strive towards the main goals of their country. What we seek out from speaking with each other. These discussions can become heated, so having somebody presiding over it is a must.”

Seeing Lord Ulquint and Lord Armado nod to King Drangleic’s statement made me believe this has happened often enough between the nobles, especially the dukes. As king, his duty was to keep the kingdom united. Making sure the dukes didn’t accidentally argue themselves into wars probably is a necessity, especially if what I learned from watching the rivalry inside the royal academy could be used for the real world politics of the kingdom.

There is certainly a strong rivalry, but I haven’t read about any large-scale wars between the dukedoms. Things probably happen in the shadows, but… Actually, let’s not think too much about that topic. I don’t want to deal with it.

“But, it’s not like I have any experience in this. I haven’t done anything like this before in either life.” If the King and Muraina needed a mediator for their discussion, then there wouldn’t be a better person for the job than me due to my royal status. On the other hand, it was not like I was the most assertive person out there, and I was now responsible for making sure these two factions would come to a good conclusion.

“The princess may be mentally 16 years old, but biologically she is only a year old. Having to involve her with this farce wouldn’t have been needed if you Artorians hadn’t been complicit in the Folschreck Empire’s atrocities,” Krymdar spat out poison at the three humans sitting across the table, looking unamused.

“Krymdar!” Muraina called out his name with a stern voice before snapping at his forehead.

“No, it is fine, Lady Muraina,” the King stated. I let out a silent sigh when I heard this but my fears were reawakened when I saw his expression. “I am well aware of the Saelari’s hatred for my people and kingdom; after all, I understood your message very well when you shot my father and his griffon down while he was on his way for a diplomatic mission. I only consented to this farce simply because I owe Princess Hestia for protecting my people and land.”

“Your Majesty!” Lord Ulquint raised his voice at King Drangleic. “Your father was very adamant in his wish to rekindle our bonds with the Saelari. Please, as your advisor, suppress your emotions for the kingdom’s future.”

… Oh boy.

A headache was already brooding and my stomach felt troubled by the idea of having to take care of this. I was really questioning my decision to keep my promise to Muraina after leaving Ellaine at the academy.

After the King and Muraina moistened their throats with some water, Muraina wanted to say something before the discussion opened. “King Drangleic, first of all, I would like to strongly apologize to you for what happened in the past. As we mentioned in the letter that our Majesty, King Elutis Anduriol of Saelariel, sent to Artorias, the ambush on your father, King Vendrick var Artorias, was made by an insurrectionist faction who wished to dethrone King Elutis because of his dealings with the royal family of Artorias. It was a misunderstanding and we dealt swiftly with those despicable kingslayers.”

“Yes, I am aware of that.” King Drangleic’s expression had calmed down after drinking that water, looking regal as he spoke with Muraina. If that scene from before hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t be worried about him exploding again. “However, you must understand that, as the current King of Artorias, I cannot trust those words so lightly. His assassination happened while we were escorting him through your forest. Even if our own security measures could be questioned, the number of elves who ambushed us would have overwhelmed most reasonable convoys. Your inability to prevent such a large force from gathering casts significant doubt on the elves’ goodwill, Lady Muraina.”

It sounds like King Drangleic witnessed it all happen. Honestly, the idea of Papa’s death is just something I don't want to ever think about. I can’t even begin to imagine what King Drangleic had to deal with after that day; at least, I can understand his rage now.

As I clenched my hands together at that thought, King Drangleic continued, “However, as King, I have a responsibility towards my kingdom to see it flourish. As his son, I have a responsibility to see my father’s and grandfather’s ambitions come to fruition. With how much Duchess Morgiana and Duke Myrrdin have toiled to rebuild the trust we lost, I will, at the very least, see this discussion through without letting my emotions interfere.”

“Thank you very much, Your Majesty.” Muraina nodded, followed by a disgruntled Krymdar.

As both King Drangleic and Muraina kept silent for longer than needed, I took this as a sign for me to participate in this discussion. To figure out how to drive this meeting forwards, I guess. “U-Uhm, well, as I mentioned before, I wanted to organize this meeting for the reasons of fulfilling King Drangleic’s and Lady Muraina’s requests of me.”

After I left Ellaine at the academy, Muraina told me to pick up Krymdar at his house before bringing them directly to the castle, as I had already made this appointment before I’d left the city for that Quest. I had thought it would take a while to set up, but it seemed the king had enough time today since he only needed to work on documents today.

Now, since this was an official diplomatic talk between two ruling forces, the Saelari and the Artorians, the atmosphere was more formal than most talks I’ve had in the past with either King Drangleic or Muraina. As such, people were addressing me as “Princess Hestia” since I was officially here as a neutral party from Kargryx. Kinda. Not like I wanted to be.

Nobody had told me beforehand about being the mediator for this discussion, so I had no idea what I was supposed to say after this. I had no choice, it was [Telepathy] time. [“Muraina, help!”]

[“Sorry about this. Okay, listen. As a mediator, your job is to make sure that both parties reach the goal they’ve settled on reaching, as I said before. In this case, I want to know what happened in Firwood while Artorias wishes for an alliance, or so I presume. Open by telling us what we both want, set the debate rules, and then allow us to give our opening statement.”]

I did exactly as Muraina instructed. When King Drangleic frowned when he heard Muraina was suspicious of the incident in Firwood, I added the “trust cannot be created with mistrust” argument Muraina told me during our meeting at the guild, which seemed to have appeased him.

Since King Drangleic and Krymdar seemed to be the most explosive — although I shouldn’t underestimate what Lord Ulquint and Lord Armado might feel about their previous king being assassinated — I asked everybody to only speak when asked and to not interrupt each other. Obvious enough, but I’m a nervous dragon trying to do something I had no idea about, so why not.

“Then, please, allow me to begin,” Muraina requested, to which King Drangleic agreed. “Through rumors I’ve recently heard from traders and merchants who had visited Firwood, there was a recent accident where the local alchemy guild was destroyed, and, when I asked a few contacts on the matter, they only told me to investigate the matter myself. As such, I went over to Firwood and managed to piece together that something also happened in Rashan village, as saint candidate Asaka was sent there to help.”

Asaka? One of Saori’s students, right?

“As you should know, I am a fae whisperer, King Drangleic; I am able to speak with the lesser fae and elementals. Unfortunately, none of the spirits there would tell me what had happened, as though they’d been told to stay quiet. As such, I am here today to ask you about this information. King Drangleic, if this is information my correspondents are actively hiding from me, then I would naturally become curious.”

“Was the person Sir Farron Nordor?” he asked without waiting for an answer from Muraina. She didn’t answer him but it felt like he already knew from his content nod. I hope that didn’t mean Farron was in trouble.

Krymdar raised his arm, looking as if he wanted to add something, so I gave him permission to speak. “From my own investigations on the subject, I’ve learned that members of the Yanderu Elusuess had recently visited Firwood for a job. Davison, or something like that, was the employer, but I wasn’t able to learn what they were doing there. Last time I checked, Davison was the alchemy guild master of Firwood, and I also learned he wasn’t the most ethical alchemist, having been banned from the alchemy guild in Estralia for modifying monsters into grotesque, deranged abominations.”

King Drangleic then turned to me. His bad mood was hidden behind a stoic mask. “Princess Hestia, you have not told them?”

Yikes. Come on, Hestia, show some confidence. You’re a dragon! It doesn’t matter if it’s politics or battle.

“Disregarding the political ties between Kargryx and Saelariel, as you know, King Drangleic, I am not a politician nor do I have many patriotic feelings for my ‘home empire.’ In addition to this being Ellaine’s decision, I believe I should show more favoritism towards the kingdom I’ve been a guest in for more than seven months,” I explained, gaining a glint of a smile from the arvisian king. “Also, you kept my secret and didn’t spread it around too much. That by itself meant I shouldn’t say anything without your consent but… King Drangleic, if I may, if you wish to pursue your kingdom’s goals, I believe this is a perfect time to explain everything.”

“Noted. Thank you for your honesty, Your Highness.” The king then turned back to Muraina and Krymdar. “Princess Hestia, could I ask you to encase us in your [Room]?”

I nodded, understanding what he meant by this. Conjuring up a grey magic circle on the wall of the room, I activated the spell and expanded the room to encompass the whole table with everybody in attendance, sending us all into my subspace.

Lord Ulquint, Lord Armado, and Krymdar showed their bafflement at the situation, but King Drangleic and Muraina were already used to it. They stared at each other until King Drangleic decided to continue after everything calmed down.

“As Princess Hestia mentioned before, Artorias’s goal is to rekindle our diplomatic relationship with the elves and hopefully build our relationship up into an alliance. This is also our goal for the dwarves, however,” he paused for a moment, creating some suspense. “However, to do this, the dwarven kingdom has set forth a single condition - abandoning our vassalage to the Empire and fully align ourselves with the western alliance. Among my seven dukes, the majority have agreed to this proposal.”

Considering how the elves, dwarves, levianewts, dragonewts, and dragons were all allied with each other, you really could call it a great western alliance.

Hearing this, not only Muraina, but also Krymdar seemed to be baffled by what they had just heard. As Muraina seemed to be reassessing the situation, considering her silence, Krymdar was instantly aiming for the details. “You do know that is a death sentence, since you are a majority human kingdom, correct? Even if you are an arvisian, King Drangleic, we elves will not forget that your roots lie with the Leosfalt Kingdom, and my people will never agree to sacrificing their lives for you humans.”

There was obviously venom attached to every word Krymdar said to the king. His hostility towards humans was obvious enough. However, the king stayed professional. “I do. After all, this would mean abandoning the holy capital and the holy emperor. It would make us a pariah in the eyes of the other human countries, and an obvious target for a crusade. However, I don't plan on endangering my people before preparations are finished.”

“Aside from the past, you also wish this alliance with us for our protection, correct?” Muraina stated, to which Lord Ulquint nodded.

“We have spoken with the dwarves of the Ankor-Nazta; at best, they will grant us shelter from the wars to come if we abandon the empire. Their stubbornness, pride and loyalty to the Saelari and the people of Loatryx prevent them from asking you for aid, and we understand the dwarves cannot continuously defend our borders. Within their holds, though, that is another question.”

“Hmph! If you ask me, isn’t that too despicable? Dwarven lives will perish for your kingdom’s survival, for your selfish wish to break your vassalage,” Krymdar interjected himself almost forcefully, something that I couldn’t overlook. It was as if he wasn’t even interested in forming bonds, despite not being part of the isolationist faction.

“Krymdar, please, settle do—” I wanted to say but somebody’s deep voice drowned my voice out.

“Hmph! Your Majesty, and this is why Lord Duke Lecartiglio did not vote in favor of your decision to abandon our vassalage. We lose young men and women every year in the Empire’s conscription, but we would lose even more if we were to break off from them.” It was Lord Armado. His rage-filled expression was further accentuated by the scars on his face. “The elves are too prideful, too arrogant to regard us humans as anything more than children. With their long lifespan comes an inability to change. Your Majesty, I speak as the former Marquess Lifcio that Lecartiglio’s nobles will not abandon our land, even if it means death.”

“HEY!” I let my voice heighten, knocking on the table to catch everybody's attention. “I don’t like getting interrupted like that. Krymdar and Lord Armado, stay on topic here. If you want to continue spitting venom on each other like a bunch of snakes, then please leave this subspace. It’s annoying, and prolongs everything.”

Muraina nodded. “She’s right, Krymdar. I brought you here since you wanted to learn the details of the Firwood incident, but if you continue on like this, then you’ll only be wasting everybody's time.”

“Lord Armado, I understand your anger, but as my advisor, I ask you not to interrupt our kingdom’s honorable guest. Princess Hestia is not used to being a mediator, so let us act like adults and not burden our juniors too much,” King Drangleic agreed.

“I apologize for my discourteous behavior, Princess Hestia. May Marsven punish me for this transgression.”

“I too must ask for your forgiveness, Princess. This was an unsightly display of myself.”

Jeez.

After that was settled, King Drangleic agreed upon revealing what actually happened in Firwood to Muraina and Krymdar, having taken my words about trust and mistrust to heart. To nobody’s surprise, Muraina and Krymdar were shocked, disgusted, and displeased at all this information. Learning how all of this would have continued happening if I hadn’t been there to help caused them to be even more conflicted.

“This is not good, King Drangleic,” Muraina stated while massaging her temples. “This is not good at all. The death of Fairy Princess Schuri two years ago was already good enough ammunition for the isolationists to stop any actions we from the enforcers wanted to do to open our borders to Artorias. Even without evidence, there were already scores of elves ready to hunt down humans within the Morgiana duchy; there would have been a bloodbath if we hadn’t stopped them.”

Krymdar continued for Muraina. “And now this? An onnikai beast? Hundreds of onnikais possessing the bodies of deceased adventurers to attack a village? Princess Hestia, could you please elaborate on this? This is something I’ve never heard about.”

I explained to them how the onnikai we named “Kiiro” was granted a blessing by the Goddess of Death, Ilsaphone, where it was able to help its fellow fae in controlling the bodies of the deceased. Using the mana slime created by the catalyst it was imprisoned in, this gel allowed the awakening of “zombies” without necromancy.

Normally, undead would count as monsters and have access to the System. These zombies, however, were like puppets controlled by their onnikai master using that slime. Ilsaphone had planned to create her own patron race through this method. Through this slime, the onnikai would reform the corpse’s body and experience its memories, finally becoming a copy of the body's former owner.

The first four successful beings became Saori’s garms: Uno, Song, Sarasa, and Quatre. They inherited the bodies and memories of the garms who died a few years ago, even recognizing Saori as [Belzac’s Successor] and Alpha, instinctively.

“Ancestor Goddess Ilsaphone is planning this?! This is… This is truly a concerning situation for us all. We dark elves trace our lineage back to her and the Goddess of Vampires, Vivachel. Why does Ancestor Goddess Ilsaphone not consider us as one of her patron races?” Krymdar looked uneasy at what I told him, only to return back to the subject at hand, angrier than before. “King Drangleic, what do you have to say about this Firwood incident? Why were you planning on hiding this information?!”

“I also wish to know this, King Drangleic,” Muraina agreed. “This is a blatant disregard of any potential trust we Saelari may form, considering how problematic this is. If our opposition was to find out that the King of Artorias was hiding this from us elves, even King Elutis could not excuse it any longer.”

“You say it as if King Elutis cares about us, Lady Muraina,” King Drangleic responded.

“He is one of the leaders of the enforcer faction, King Drangleic. He wishes to mend our wounds with Artorias, but this… If you cannot be truthful with us, then how will you expect any elf to be able to let bygones be bygones?”

“Through their prolonged life and pursuit to record information down in the name of Istari, elves rarely forget or forgive. I understand that,” King Drangleic replied. “However, how could you expect me to be truthful after what happened in the past? My father and I trusted the Saelari that their forest would welcome us, but what did we gain from this trust? Death, agony, and pain. When I considered my options, making sure the Saelari wouldn’t have a reason to further detest us was my highest priority in this matter.”

“But you risked worsening the situation. If any elf outside of us two, had learned about this, the interpretation would have been too easy for the isolationists. ‘The King of Artorias hid this fact from us as he was personally responsible for it.’”

“Lady Muraina, House Artorias would never!” Lord Ulquint rebuked. “Artorias was founded on the agreement to reject the decision of the Leosfalt Kingdom. We Myrrdins and House Morgiana have done much to assure to the Saelari that this was the case.”

Krymdar sighed at his statement. “Only to those who have already converted to the enforcers, Lord Ulquint. But there are enough ‘arrogant’ Saelari who experienced the War for the Fae firsthand who are not willing to change after what we’ve seen. They spread their vitrol to the younglings, the most impressionable of us all, those who have not left the forest for the last 200 years. All you need is a little spark to create a giant fire, uncontrollable for even our wise King Elutis.”

Silva would be a good example of this. Her hatred for the humans mostly came from books and word of mouth alone, and this prejudice has caused her to avoid human contact as much as possible. She would be the sort who was easily swayed, at least that’s what I understood from our interaction together.

Krymdar leaned on his chair, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Muraina, what is your opinion?”

“What is my opinion? It is still the same, Krymdar; nothing has changed. I still aim to repair this bond between our kingdoms, despite hearing this travesty.”

“Really? Well, even if it wasn’t caused by King Drangleic, nobles of Artorias still participated in this absurdity. Criminals or some random alchemist from another country causing issues could be excused, but a house of nobles? An arcanuess, at that? You are fighting an uphill battle, Muraina.”

Seeing as this discussion was going nowhere, I decided to speak, “But what about me? King Drangleic mentioned making me some sort of diplomat or ambassador to maybe tie in the diplomatic talks. If I could use my status and experience while inside Artorias, wouldn’t it help?”

“What?!” Krymdar fixed his sitting posture. “King Drangleic, are you jesting?! You tried turning Princess Hestia into your diplomat?! And your subject called me arrogant?! She is a dragon, the grandchild of God Kargryxmor if you look at her family tree. Heh heh, haha, this must be a jest. What is this nonsense from this bird brain?”

Oh shi—

“Dark elf!” The instant I felt bloodthirst, my head snapped around to Lord Armado. Crossing his arms, his eyes glared at Krymdar with the intensity of a beast, showering his surroundings with his hostile full aura. “Do not think you can insult my King without repercussions while I am in his presence. Even without my blade, I will make you regret this decision!”

“Lord Armado!” King Drangleic scolded his right-hand man.

“I refuse, my King! I’ve had enough of this arrogant elf’s mouth, laced with poison. We from the Lecartiglio know full well what we must do with this trickster of an alchemist!”

“Ohoho? Do not think of me as just an alchemist, you muscle head. Elven spies are trained to engage in battle whenever and wherever they are stationed. I am not a simple potion maker to be taken advantage of!”

“Krymdar!” Muraina’s [Terror Aura] activated to subdue her companion, but it was futile when blood was pumping.

“Muraina stay out of this! Humans cannot change! The Empire is showing barely any signs of changing their ways, and they are only further diving into the abyss with every year they continue to exist. If there is opposition, humans will always strive to overcome them. They never learn from the past, of the years of failures their ancestors created, as they continuously reenact past events in their insanity.”

Chairs were kicked down as Krymdar and Lord Armado stood up, unable to be stopped by Muraina or King Drangleic respectively. Lord Armado jumped onto the table, winding up a punch, while Krymdar readied a dark magic spell. At this very moment, all I could think of was how right Muraina was to bring me here.

Damn, with how much venom they are spitting, I’m honestly questioning the fact if I really am the only poisonous creature here!

Blue mist expelled from my body as I activated [Humanization]. After a few seconds of nobody noticing me, as if I was air, my hands slammed onto the table and I shouted loud enough that it could only be called a roar. “SHUT UUUUUUUUUUUUP!”

Turns out, I had accidentally activated my [Draconic Roar].

“Urgh!”

“Kwack!”

Krymdar and Lord Armado were blown off the table from my loud shout, crashing onto their ground as they were unable to brace themselves from my magic. Muraina, Lord Ulquint, and King Drangleic, having noticed my transformation into [Humanization Lv. 5], had quickly erected a shield of wind with [Air Shield], protecting themselves from my ear-splitting shout and knockback.

Jumping off my own chair, I flapped my wings to quickly make it over to them. As they squirmed, holding onto their bleeding ears, I healed them with [Major Heal] before picking them up by their shirts like two children. After throwing them back on their chairs, I settled back into mine and returned back to my level seven form.

[Humanize (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Okay, I didn’t think I would need to repeat myself here, so please excuse my manner of speech after this point, because what the hell are you two bloody doing?!” I scolded Krymdar and Lord Armado. “This is supposed to be a discussion about rebuilding trust between each other, not to wage war on the other like a pair of lunatics! Do you just go around punching people, huh? Like some kids? Last time I checked, I am the only one inside this room who is even allowed to throw a tantrum since I’m biologically a damn toddler. Aren’t you two embarrassed at getting scolded by somebody who could be your fucking granddaughter?!”

Uneasy frowns formed on their faces as they looked at me, their eyes never wandering away from me as I continued. “I understand, the history between Saelariel and Artorias is complicated. I won’t even try to say that I fully understand it, since I don’t. The animosity between elves and humans? I also don’t understand it well enough, and this is why I didn’t want to be here. However, from what I’ve seen today, I now 100%, completely agree about the importance of my presence here. Your two factions need a target for your anger to unite!”

“A ‘target?’ What do you mean by that, Princess Hestia?” Muraina asked.

Urgh, I really didn’t want to say this since Kramps told me not to, but if the situation is this bad, I need to reveal my ace in the hole.

“There is one thing I have been hiding from all of you about the Davison situation, since this was something old man Kramps told me to not divulge. Even Saori and the others were in agreement that I shouldn’t be telling this to you, that I should be more cautious about who I share this information with. But, I don’t think this can continue with me following Aurena’s advice.”

“‘Kramps?’” King Drangleic looked at me with bewilderment. I also think he was baffled with me improperly addressing Aurena, but I couldn’t care less about that now.

“Kargryxmor. Gramps. Easy nickname, right?” I shrugged. “But that is not the point. What I wanted to say is that you are directing your anger at the wrong people here. Yes, Arcanuess Chezaic and his wife did support Davison in his scheme, but the real reason for that incident wasn’t 'cause of the actions of a human… but those of a demonkin.”

The sounds of ten eyes audibly widening up in shock echoed throughout the room. They stared at me as if I was crazy.

“Princess Hestia, please, elaborate,” Lord Ulquint urged me.

“Aureolis is currently controlled by a demonkin prince. The Prince of Envy killed the pope and took his form, his identity, and his position as the supreme pontifex. Demonkin agents are sent throughout the empire to spy and disrupt Empire activities. And these very demonkin have reached Artorias, too.”

I told them everything that Aurena had told me of this situation, mentioning how the information I gave King Drangleic during our first meeting was caused by demonkin interference. I told them how the grimgarian army was provoked into its invasion by the demonkin, and how the Rashan village’s ruins were a crypt for the sealed Demon of Lust, Klea’Hatma.

I did leave some stuff unrevealed, though. That Saori’s students weren’t summoned here by Aurena, since I didn’t want Tamae and the others to potentially get ostracized. I also did not tell King Drangleic, his advisors, and Krymdar that Klea’Hatma was in Ellaine’s possession. Muraina understood my silence on this matter, so she complied and did not speak up about it. She really was somebody I could trust, it seemed.

King Drangleic covered his mouth with his hand, closing his eyes as he meditated on the information. Lord Ulquint, looking nervous at what was revealed, was continuously pestering his King on what they should do. Once King Drangleic made up his mind, he spoke.

“Princess Hestia, once again, you brought us information our kingdom verily needed.”

“You trust me that easily?” I replied, raising an eyebrow. This was a crazy-tier of information, and I wouldn’t blame anybody for doubting me.

“I do, yes. Do I really need to elaborate on it after all you have done so much for me and my kingdom? In addition, it would also explain some of the strange decrees Aureolis has recently issued. Even Duke Olivus has shown his confusion on this matter.”

The number of things I did was quite long to list out… but I don’t mind him stroking my ego a bit, really.

“Lady Muraina.” King Drangleic turned to Muraina. “I cannot forget the death of my father and I still have not fully forgiven the Saelari for it; however, I would be nothing but petty if I allowed that to cloud my mind any further. I do not wish to go down into history as the king whose pride meant the downfall of his kingdom.”

Muraina nodded. “This is information the elders and council will have to discuss. I do not know what they will decide upon, but it will give you a reason for why the Firwood incident happened like that. It would be enough of a reason for me to arrange a summit. Krymdar, your opinion?”

“Haaaaaa,” Krymdar sighed. “The majority of the demonkins aren’t exactly our enemy, but the ones behind Davison are. You should not forget, your nobles did participate in this scheme, and while I will admit the demonkins had manipulated them…”

“You…” Lord Armado glared at Krymdar but cleared his voice after King Drangleic looked at him. “We understand. Princess Hestia, the information you gave us last time, we will make sure to check on it once again, to make sure we do not waste this boon from the Goddess.”

“Yes, that would be best. Allow me to help. Their sabotage has caused too much interference in the kingdom,” Lord Ulquint supported the decision.

“Good, then what should we do now?” Krymdar agreed with Muraina’s words before asking for the way forward.

This was now time for me to add my opinion, “King Drangleic, about your favor, I hereby decline it. As I am neither your subject nor am I knowledgeable in all this politicking, I am not a suitable candidate. If I may, for this summit, it would be best if you were to personally attend it. I may help as a mediator at best, but you will need to lead your kingdom’s future by yourself.”

“I understand, I apologize for giving you such an unreasonable request. However, about this summit, I am not so sure it can be arranged that easily.”

“Pray, tell me, King Drangleic,” Muraina urged him.

“Neither King Elutis nor I would want to visit the other’s kingdom after everything that happened. I do not wish my sons and daughters to experience the same tragedy as I did with my father, and King Elutis will have too many people who will be against him visiting us. It would be impossible to arrange a summit in either Saelariel or Artorias. In addition, it would just attract unwanted attention.”

“True, if the Empire were to find out about it, they may essentially take this as further evidence of your disloyalty. Hmm, I do wonder how you did it the last time, though.”

As Murain and the others were discussing what to do about this, I suddenly had a brilliant idea. “Why not the dwarves?”

“““Hmm?””” Everybody looked at me.

“The dwarves of Ankor-Nazta. A perfect neutral zone since they are the allies of the elves and are currently in talks with allying themselves with Artorias. They will have enough reason to mediate between the Saelari and Artorians, if you asked me. Why not include another party in this summit to make sure this alliance is composed of three countries instead of two?” I suggested.

Muraina smirked, “Don’t you mean four? Kargryx does not care about the world, but you could persuade Loatryx to also attend this summit, Princess Hestia. You are one of their princesses.”

Well, adding another faction could probably be good. Why not?

“Could you do it, Muraina? Yorshka’s letter should have already arrived in Loatryx, so they should know of my existence. Tell them that I will be visiting the dwarves for this summit. At the very least, I should be able to attract Clan Nordor and Kargryxmor to come.”

“Haha, now that's what I’m talking about. I will make sure the kinkyuro will know about this. Even if they don’t immediately accept the summit invitation, you could always persuade the envoy on site, Princess Hestia. The levianewts will be harder to summon, but I will try to invite them as well.”

It was a plan.

It was a good thing that this discussion ended in such a manner, but I had to admit it was pretty scary once or twice. Speaking of scary, I also informed everybody that one elf besides Muraina and Krymdar already knew about the Rashan incident — a wind elf by the name of Silva Fleurette Breezeflower.

“She’s the faemancer who asked the purified spirits to keep silent about what happened. She promised to keep the event at Rashan village and inside the ruins a secret.”

“Hmm, I see. I’ll make sure to contact her and persuade her to keep silent,” Muraina replied.

“… That was ominous. Please, she helped out a lot so don’t harm her, Muraina.” Muraina couldn’t believe that I thought her to be a violent woman. Well, better safe than sorry, right?

In the end, after we ironed out the details, Muraina suggested a mana contract between everybody but me. It was insurance that this information wouldn’t suddenly slip out. Nobody argued back; everybody understood this was just a sensible precaution when dealing with such sensitive information.

After the meeting ended, I returned to the guest room I’d used on the first night in Griffonpeak, where I expressed my fatigue to Madam Vianna, the head caretaker, who listened intently with a wide smile. I didn’t spill any details, of course, but shared that just that everything went well.

The reason why I was still in the castle after the meeting was 'cause of Artorias' social rules, where a lady shouldn’t be going out without a companion. King Drangleic was also worried that I would somehow get into trouble or hurt myself without anybody around me, but honestly, how much trouble do I cause? Then again, the room service I received was comfortable enough for me until I picked Ellaine up at school.

“Oh yeah, Lady Hestia.” It was Krymdar speaking, who, along with Muraina, was having tea with me right now. Since the meeting was over, we didn’t need to keep up with the formality. “I’ve managed to find Ellaine’s brother and his location.”

“What?! You did?” I expressed my shock.

“Yeah, I’ve already told this information to her parents, so you will probably learn everything there… Do you want to know about it, now?” I nodded my head vigorously. “… Well, Jonathan Helvas is safe and healthy. He’s currently staying at Duke Equevanna’s second son’s manor, where he and his party live. I heard Jonathan was made a member of their party and is currently training alongside this so-called ‘Champion candidate.’”

What?! Are you serious?!

When the time to pick up Ellaine finally came, I immediately rushed out of my room, to Vianna’s chagrin, and immediately went outside. Spreading my wings, I jumped into the air and activated my rocket boosters. Once I’d arrived at the royal academy, students began to clamor when they saw me, pointing at me as if I was a weird flying girl.

Once I’d located Ellaine, I picked her up with [Unheilige Engel] and rushed us back to the mansion. Once back at home, we rushed towards Arcanuess Helvas’s office. Once Arcaliess Helvas also joined in, we spoke about Jonathan.

“After speaking with Jonathan, I have decided it would be best for him to do what he feels he must.” After the arcanuess informed Ellaine about what I’d already heard, he told us that he and his wife had gone to visit Jonathan and talked to him. After some discussion about Jonathan’s goals, they decided to take a step back.

“What!? But, but, Father!” Ellaine wanted to complain, but she wasn’t sure what to say exactly. However, her father knew exactly what to respond to.

“Your brother is just like you, Ellaine. He has found a drive to become stronger, to better himself for his future. As his father, if I agreed to your decision to join Lady Hestia, I cannot reject his wish.”

“Father, I know Lord Charleslyt is a powerful warrior, but I’ve heard some unreasonable rumors about his participation in the underworld. Besides, the people he composed his party with cannot be people Brother would willingly work with. If Brother wishes to become stronger, then why not join Aurora? Right, Lady Hestia?” Ellaine looked at me with desperate eyes.

“I have nothing against it. The more the merrier, but only if Jonathan really wants to,” I replied, knowing it would only soothe Ellaine for a moment.

“See, father. Please, persuade him to join us!”

But her father shook his head. “Your brother decided on this journey because he envies your growth, Ellaine. This is the reason why he wanted to make you the heir of our House. However, I managed to persuade him into another idea. I suggested another duel to decide the heir, as you, my daughter, surrendered your birthright before you could fight for it.”

“… A-And he accepted?”

He nodded. “Your brother wants to see how you and he will measure up to each other after your journey of strength. Ellaine, in your childhood, you became envious of your brother’s talents and growth. Now, in your adolescence, the roles have swapped — Jonathan is now envious of your hard work and new life. Now, he wants to experience it for himself.”

“S-So, this means that… Brother will become an adventurer. But… what if… what if he… dies?” Ellaine forced those words from her mouth, looking terrified at that idea.

Ellaine’s mother answered this question, “That is our eternal worry, Ellaine. For you, too. But every chick must depart from its nest one day to experience the world. It is the hardest duty for every parent, but all we can do is wish you two the Goddess’s mercy and blessing. Your father and I worried our parents also, and now it's yours and your brother’s turn.”

Lord Helvas nodded his head to his wife’s statement. “You just went on a trip to fulfill a B rank Quest, that is what you informed us. Ellaine, do you have any idea how much you worried us?”

“…” Ellaine stayed silent, realizing what he meant.

“I trust Lady Hestia and Miss Saori with your safety, but as your father and mother, we cannot help but keep praying that you will return to us with your bright smile. This would have happened even if you hadn’t decided to become an adventurer, and would have lived your life as a noble daughter and gotten married. It is the parent’s duty to see you off with a smile, but our hearts are more fragile than the mask we put on every day.”

“… I understand, father, mother. Thank you for your love and support.”

Ellaine and I left her father’s office. After walking silently to my room, Ellaine suddenly stopped and looked up at me. “Lady Hestia, when is our next adventure?” Her smile wasn’t the brightest, but a fire seemed to have been lit in her eyes. A new flame. As if the path before her had become brighter and clearer.

I chuckled. “Well, let’s not copy Jonathan and leave the academy without notice, right? Let’s go see Lady Thyra tomorrow.”

A note from AbyssRaven

Now that was a real politics chapter. The Dragon Idol Summit is not planned for the future!

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Chapter 220: No School for You and Me!

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Hey, look, isn’t that the young dragonewt lady? Why is she here at the academy during our recess?”

“W-What?! She's His Majesty’s honored g-guest?! So, all the nobles who attended the ball already knew her before that singing performance?”

“Her appearance at the ball and concert really made me believe she couldn’t be the one who kidnapped the professors. But in that outfit, yeah, definitely the same person… She’s beautiful, right?”

Even in another world, school is filled with gossip, huh? Whether nobles or commoners, teenagers talk about anything and everything.

The number of times I’ve visited and walked inside the royal academy’s grounds could really only be counted as one. My first “visit,” which was “kidnapping” some professors for my magic guild initiation, was only me flying around and using warp points to teleport around. Aside from when I came for the festival, all of the other visits were just me escorting Ellaine, nothing more.

I only checked the outside last time, but now, I was able to check out the inside of the academy’s building. I was walking through the halls with Ellaine as my escort. Technically, this was Ellaine’s time off from class, so unfortunately I didn’t exactly have the time to explore to my heart’s content. As we needed to speak with Thyra Morgiana about Ellaine’s school attendance, I decided it would be best to come over when Ellaine had the longest break to speak with her, which was lunchtime.

Compared to students on Earth, nobles get far longer breaks in between classes. It’s supposed to aid in socializing, the main skill for most nobles.

Ignoring the gossiping students who had started whispering the moment I entered the academy, I took in the exterior and interior of this place. To start from the top, the academy was similar to the magic guild’s area, as both could be compared to a university setup — multiple buildings in an area to which you had to walk between.

The royal academy was divided up into four buildings — one for managerial and social skills, one for physical training and tactics, one for magical training and studies, and, lastly, a new building that was currently being constructed by earth mages; sadly, Ellaine didn’t know what disciplines the new building would be used for. The current buildings were divided this way based on the size and requirements that each of the three subjects had for their students. You required an area to train socializing and debating skills, a training ground for physical education, and a magic practice area protected by magical wards to name a few.

Thyra, as the principal of the royal academy, had her office in the managerial and social-focused building. This was also the place for the board of directors to gather, who managed and made sure the principal would do her job well. Since the education of future nobles was a very important aspect of the academy, this council was only composed of experienced and noteworthy aristocrats.

As I walked through the halls of this building, it honestly reminded me too much of an aristocrat’s mansion. I knew this was made for nobles, including royalty, to attend, but it still was surprising. If I were to compare this to the private school I attended on Earth, then I would be insulting this place. This place was absolutely gorgeous.

The same blue and white uniforms from the festival? Noble children have crests with white outlines on theirs, while commoners with prominent families only have a simple crest. Those without a notable family have no crest at all. Easy to distinguish, easy to discriminate, I guess.

After satisfying my curiosity, I turned to Ellaine. Her strained expression exposed how uncomfortable she was feeling.

“… Ellaine.”

“I understand, Lady Hestia. Less nervous, more confident,” she responded to me.

“You wanted to participate on stage with me; remember how I helped you train and warned you about stage fright. Hold your head high, some eyes shouldn’t unnerve you,” I said, while remembering very well how nervous I was when I had my first concert.

It would be too awkward if we don’t talk about something. She’ll only get more nervous.

“Since you’re from Greenveil, you should mostly have classes in this building, right?” I asked, trying to clear the awkwardness away.

“Yes, that is the case, Lady Hestia. For a Greenveil noble, being able to take care of their fief is one of the highest priorities. Even if I were to be married off, my husband would have expected me to have the knowledge and skills to make our fief flourish, so that is why I attend these classes.”

At the start of a semester, students were allowed to send in their preferences for certain classes, which the academy uses to construct the overall curriculum for that semester. It sounded overwhelming, but, as this academy was the only educational institution in this kingdom, it was a must in order to appease all the different nobles.

I nodded, but then looked at the two spell rings on her left hand. “Then what about now? I heard from your father that you would be able to change your classes at the beginning of a semester if you didn’t like your current ones. Shouldn’t you fill your schedule with more magical- and physical-oriented training?”

Much like on Earth, each class would be held in a certain time slot. In the first two weeks, students were able to change their schedules if they were unsatisfied with either the time, the lecturer, or whatever reason they could think about. Within reason, of course. You couldn’t order them to completely change when these lessons would happen, even if you were the crown prince or princess.

As I was wondering why Ellaine hadn’t changed the classes she would attend, her mouth twitched a bit and she began whispering into my ear, “The semester was already two weeks in when we arrived in Griffonpeak.”

“…” It seemed that I had forgotten about that fact. We spent about two weeks of SpringBloom in Cedaraille.

“Anyway, even if I could, I wouldn’t. Well, with father, mother, and everybody from Aurora helping me train in their own ways, why would I want to fill my academy day with less effective training? I mean, the moment I come home, I usually either train or do my homework.” That was true. If Ellaine wasn’t spending leisure time with me and the others, she would usually be busy with mastering Klea’Hatma’s powers. “Besides, I’m the one responsible for our finances and any future mercantile deals, like with the Sarlenzia company, so it would be better if I knew how to cut better deals.”

Our financial situation has pretty much stabilized with the deals we made with the Sarlenzia company and with Duke Greenveil. Mages were buying our fulinoe leaves in abundance and I had heard noble ladies and merchant wives were pre-ordering pastries and rice sweets for their tea parties.

However, between Grimnir’s projects and my concert costs, we probably would face some trouble after we leave Artorias. Saori’s merchant guild membership allowed her to withdraw the money owed to us, but only from within Artorias, since the merchant guild’s bank option only worked inside this kingdom’s vicinity.

We probably won’t have any problems if we continuously do some B rank Quests, but the money won’t come in as easily anymore. Or, we could rely on serving rich merchants and nobles through our restaurant, but we haven’t tried doing that yet. We should do it soon.

Thyra’s office was on the third floor of the building. On the way, we overheard people sharing various rumors, but there were some substantial ones among the superficial.

“Hey, I read in a book that dragons learn how to change into humans and elves whenever they come down, since, you know, they are quite big. My father and mother told me they saw a red dragon at the Cedaraille battle.”

“Huh? You aren’t meaning to say that His Majesty’s honored guest is that very dragon?! That would be absurd, shouldn’t she be a visitor from Loatryx… Wait, could that be the case? Lady Ellaine’s father was recently elevated from the rank of Count to an Arcanuess, too.”

“I’m just saying. It’s known in our duchy that House Helvas have been providing lodging for Lady Hestia for a while now, and then suddenly they introduce yeast to our Kingdom through Lady Amelia’s confectionary shop. We really shoul— Actually, our parents are too low rank for this. My sister told me the rumors said she was a greifnoble ranked guest.”

Rumors cannot be stopped, it seems.

After we made it to the front of Thyra’s office, I spoke with the secretary for an appointment. Funnily enough, she seemed to have recognized me, not needing to ask for my name before knocking on the office door and going inside. At this point, Ellaine wanted to leave since she needed to prepare for her next class. However, that wouldn’t happen.

“Huh?! Principal Morgiana wants me to come in too?!” After all, she would be coming with me.

“Lady Hestia, welcome to the royal academy once again. Please, have a seat.” Thyra, the heir of House Morgiana, stood up from the sofa, showing off a formal but fashionable dress. Her sharp ears made me remember that she and her family were all half-elves.

I greeted her with a curtsy before doing the same for the woman sitting next to her. “I apologize if I interrupted your discussion with Lady Maverina, Lady Thyra. I probably should have sent a letter instead of coming unannounced.”

Maverina von Dareinburgh, the guild master of the mage’s guild of Griffonpeak and a noble from the Folschreck Empire, reciprocated my greeting, “May the Earth Goddess, Crustacia, bless you on this fine EarthDay, Lady Hestia. Please, be at ease. Lady Thyra and I were only speaking about trivial subjects, you did not interrupt us.”

I nodded and headed over to the sofa, only to wonder why Ellaine was standing still. She expressed how she wasn’t sure why she had to join this discussion, to which Thyra explained that she also wanted to speak about her coming too late to classes yesterday and the two weeks she missed at the start of the semester.

Since that was why Ellaine was called in, I thought it would be best to skip the small talk and get straight to business. “Lady Thyra, I want to ask you if there is a way for Ellaine to skip the next few weeks of classes.”

“Declined.” It was an immediate answer! “Lady Hestia, it is common for students or professors to miss classes due to their duties to their families. However, only if they have a reasonable justification. Lady Ellaine, your parents recently informed us that your brother, Lord Jonathan, will be on an indefinite break due to his own wish to ‘better himself.’ I can’t force him to come, but this will absolutely affect his chance to graduate this year.”

Since Jonathan was now only focused on his adventurer work to become stronger, he had decided to stay away from his family as well as the noble circles. He was in a single-minded pursuit for power.

“Lady Ellaine, I can already guess that your reason will be related to Aurora. That's your party name, right?” She looked over to Maverina, who nodded, and then back to me. “There are five days of lectures each week. You may do whatever you wish on the weekends, even doing some Quests. I am an advocate for my students to hunt more in their free time, but you shouldn’t miss class for that.”

“Even if the classes aren’t teaching her much?” Thyra frowned at what I said. Maverina let out an “Oh my” while Ellaine looked a bit panicky. “I apologize if I sound a bit rude, but I remember you saying something similar at the festival. That the lessons aren’t practical enough. Maybe I don’t have the full picture in mind since I’ve never attended the academy, but Ellaine requires more than theoretical classes to better herself and her skills.”

I kinda sound like Ellaine’s sister in this case, but I’m only doing this so we can keep Aurora working together.

Thyra thought my words through as she sipped her tea. She continued speaking after turning to Ellaine. “Lady Ellaine, I think you are aware that if you miss too many classes that I cannot allow you to advance to the next year, delaying your graduation. These are Aleistunum rules; I cannot change them.”

“That is correct,” Maverina agreed. “As the representative of the Magical Capital, Aleistunum, I am a member of the board of directors and responsible for most of the rules, since Griffonpeak’s academy and university are built using Aleistunum as their role models. I will allow changes to accommodate the country, but not for an individual.”

Thyra nodded. “It is as you heard. However, I still want to ask you personally, why do you wish to miss out on classes? If the subject matter is too basic for you, you may ask the professors for additional materials. I am also attempting to introduce new classes to accommodate people with your interest.”

That was probably the goal for the new building.

“Well, my main reason is to continue working as an adventurer. Lady Hestia and the others from Aurora are planning to increase our party’s rank and do some favors for the hunter’s guild’s master. I also would like to train and test out my skills outside of practice, in the field, and since I can’t improve on them with the current lessons the academy offers,” Ellaine stated, hiding the fact that the abilities come from Klea’Hatma. “But, the thing is, I also wish to continue going to the academy. I see enough reasons to attend the managerial classes.”

Thyra began tapping a finger on her cheek, looking perturbed, before turning over to Maverina and asking for her opinion. She thought over the question before turning to me. “Lady Hestia, as a void-touched, how high is your [Space-Time Magic]? Since you can use warp point, you should be level five at the very least.”

“I am level six. I have access to [Room].”

“Oh, really? That is a shame, since you are an [Otherworldly Reincarnator] I thought you could spend skill points to level it up.”

“I can, but the cost of each upgrade of [Space-Time Magic] is so substantial that I don’t want to was— Ehhh?!” Seeing how out-of-nowhere Maverina’s comment came from, my reaction was severely delayed until my parallel minds reminded me that I had not told her my secret. “H-How do you know that?!”

Ellaine’s surprise was anticipated, but Thyra was giving Maverina an equally questioning look, making me believe the former did not tell the latter anything.

“Are you asking me how I know you are an otherworlder or why I knew you were a ‘reincarnator’ and not a ‘visitor?’”

“Both.”

“Ah, for two reasons. One — I am almost completely convinced you are the rumored red dragon who showed up at Cedaraille. Your scale color matches the reports and you participated in the rachonoid battle after the dragon disappeared. King Drangleic did call you his honored guest, meaning you have diplomatic immunity, but that doesn’t prove anything, only that you are a special dragonewt.”

That first reason was already pretty convincing for most people. Why did the dragon disappear at the Cedaraille battle? Where was its corpse if it died? Why did we not see it fly off? Those questions were reasonable, and then you realize that I was participating in the battle. Why did I start healing people so late? Why did I not shoot my spells earlier?

Maverina continued. “Second reason — I have no idea of which draconic bloodline you belong to, but I do know ‘Atsuko’ is either an unknown dragon or it’s your middle name. Strangely, it sounds pretty similar to Miss Saori’s and the names of the heroes, from my research. Atsuko, hmm, Atsuko. Lady Thyra, could you repeat the names of the heroes once again.”

The names of Saori’s students sounded pretty normal to me, since I was used to how Japanese words and names sounded. However, to Ellaine, Thyra, and Maverina, they sounded pretty out of place. The European sound of most names in Artorias and the nearby human lands would have made me stand out like Saori were it not for my first name “Hestia.”

So, Maverina figured it all out herself.

“Haaaa, yeah, I guess there’s no need to hide it anymore.” I slumped into my sofa. If she is that convinced, denying it when I don’t have a good excuse ready would just make me more suspicious.

“As I thought. My deduction was correct, hohoho! Which means that y—”

“You asked for my full name, right? It’s Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor, the youngest daughter of Emperor Eltharion and Sixth Empress Melloxtressa. I am an otherworlder who was reincarnated in Peolynca as a dragon whelp. I became one-year-old this year.”

“…” Maverina was petrified, looking at me with two lifeless eyes, as if somebody had taken her soul away and frozen her in place. When Thyra shook her shoulder, Maverina did not respond, only rebooting her mind after a few moments or so. “I APOLOGIZE!” She jumped on the ground and kowtowed.

“May Goddess Plesia has mercy on my soul for following the rules, BUT I APOLOGIZE FOR PUTTING YOU IN SUCH AN EMBARRASSING SITUATION, LADY HESTIA!” I wasn’t the sort of person who very much enjoyed people bowing before me. Sure, I loved admiration, but looking at somebody on all fours begging for forgiveness was an embarrassing feeling.

“Dammit, stand up, please!” I said with a warm face.

After calming her down, I explained how I felt about everything, which included the fine I got from mage’s guild during the day I wanted to join them. I personally wasn’t very angry at the ruling itself. Let’s be honest, rules were made to avoid past mistakes and disasters, and I could imagine how the “new custom spells must be registered and documented” rule was created.

What I was annoyed about was the huge fine we had to pay. We weren’t rich, and it was a pretty huge hit to our finances. If we hadn’t gotten that deal with the Sarlenzia company going, we probably would have had to work a lot of Quests to even get the concert up and going. Or, even worse, take out a loan!

Maverina was a stickler for rules. As such, she didn’t apologize for fining me in general, but did apologize for acting so smug when she did so. Since she had a feeling I was that red dragon in Cedaraille, she admitted to wanting to put me in a situation where I would owe the mage’s guild.

Since Aleistunum hadn’t had a chance to gain any new information about dragons in a long time, Maverina thought she could make a breakthrough if she could study the innate magical potential of a dragon more. I would be a good candidate, for example. I dunno why she didn’t just ask me upfront, but I guess that’s how nobles handled stuff. Too bad she didn’t know my actual identity and that I was under the protection of the king.

With all of that behind us, I asked a now calm Maverina why she had asked about my [Space-Time Magic] level. “That is because if you had [Space-Time Magic Lv. 10], you would have gotten the spell [Spatial Portal].”

From level six onwards, these were the spell I would receive if I leveled up [Space-Time Magic] — [Spatial Rend] for level seven, [Time Control: Acceleration] for eight, [Time Control: Deceleration] for nine, and, finally, [Spatial Portal] for level ten. There was no advanced version. All of this information came from the books left behind by Istari, from when he was still a mortal.

A portal, huh? Damn. It would be enticing, but that amount of SP…

2000 SP to upgrade my [Space-Time Magic] to level seven. It would be obscene even if I had over 10k SP to spend. The reason I wouldn’t be doing that is that I could obtain new skills from the mutation system.

[Crimson-Scaled Dreadgiver] and [Infernal Hellblade] were two Jobs I’ve gotten through my draconic racial skills that I’ve mastered. Each Job allowed me to unlock two new racial abilities called mutations which I could buy to improve my existing skills; however, each mutation cost 1500 skill points. I haven’t even bought the mutations I unlocked from [Infernal Hellblade] yet, and who knows how many unique skills I could buy in the future.

As such, I had to be conservative with my SP. If it’s a skill that I can train up by using it often enough, then it would be a waste of SP to upgrade it if the situation isn’t an emergency. It might be greedy of me, but I think I deserved to be greedier now that I wasn’t fighting alone and inside a place like the Belzac forest anymore.

“If you had [Spatial Portal], you would be able to teleport Lady Ellaine from one place to the other. You could work as adventurers one day and be back in the city on the next,” Maverina explained her thoughts.

Now that Maverina mentioned a portal, I couldn’t help but wonder if I could use the [Room] runes to do something similar? Since they were all connected to each other, I could theoretically access the same subspace as the one inside the RV with one of the runes. The unfortunate part was that we couldn’t test it out yet, since I only had one rune on me, and to open up the subspace a pair was needed.

I could use this rune and open the subspace anyways, even without a pair since I was the original caster of the spell, but I would like to test this theory out in a safer environment with a fourth rune first. Also if those three were inside the subspace when I used the rune… I don’t want to accidentally cause any potential complications.

“What if I could somehow solve this problem? Would you be able to give Ellaine permission then?” I offered. “Some portal to help Ellaine come from the fields to the academy. If I can do that, could you give Ellaine permission to potentially come late to her classes?”

“If you could do that without [Spatial Portal], you would earn awards for such a discovery, Lady Hestia. You would also be desired greatly by certain individuals due to the sheer utility of that ability. Due to how extremely rare void-touched are, little to no progress can be made studying [Space-Time Magic], you see.” However, although Maverin was excited, she still let out a sigh with a sad frown. “However… I apologize, but coming too late too often is still not a good thing, Lady Hestia. Even if you are creating a magical revolution, I can’t be that flexible, I’m sorry.”

Dammit, Maverina, come on! Why are you being so difficult!

As I was at my wit’s end, Thyra suddenly interjected with a lifeline. “Then, how about a deal?”

““A deal?”” Maverina and I looked at Thyra.

“Yes. Lady Maverina, didn't you say that the university had to let go of their master tier fire professor? Since he had to return home? Well, the academy hasn’t found any prospective fire mage professors due to our strict background checks yet. Why not have Lady Hestia become the professor of both institutions and allow Ellaine to come just a bit later to classes?”

Maverina opened her mouth, elated at the sound of that idea. “Oooh, that would be marvelous! God Kargryxmor wasn’t known as the strongest fire dragon in history for nothing. I have seen her custom spells and they were not only unique but also quite powerful! Lady Hestia, what do you say? I would be—”

“Absolutely not! I’ve said it already, I won’t dabble in Shiterno’s shit!” I shouted, and made an “X” sign with my arms, showing them the sheer disgust I felt for this idea.

“B-But why?! This would be something Lady Maverina could agree on. And, also, ‘Shiterno?!’ Lady Hestia, you shouldn’t be so foul-mouthed when speaking about an Origin God,” Thyra argued but I was vehemently against it.

“Please, let me explain. If I may, Hestia?” Growling a bit, I permitted Ellaine to tell Thyra and Maverina my history with Shiterno and why I disliked him. Sure, he gave me a bunch of new cool skills, but the fact he made me endanger Saori’s, Tasianna’s, Master Kush’s and the other saurian’s lives with my rampage was something I would never forgive him for. I didn’t care what the stigma surrounding fire mages was, I just didn’t want to help Danterno out.

“Ooooh, so that is the story behind your [Divine Inferno] title. I had thought that, since you were blessed by God Danterno, you would not only be an amazing fire mage but also someone the God of Fire respects. You were an amazing professor candidate in my mind.” Thyra looked apologetic, realizing she opened up a terrible memory.

However, Maverina still was insistent on it. “Lady Hestia, while I do understand why you do not care about God Danterno, this isn’t a church. We do not expect you to preach to them about the values of the church of Danterno. Not at all, I swear on my honor as the mage’s guild master. However, what we are asking is that you teach these students how to improve and control their fire spells.”

What Thyra and Maverina wanted out of this professor candidate was somebody sane and not zealous. Due to what happened with Keith and the general stigma surrounding fire mages, the academy and university had to tighten their requirements and background checks on potential candidates.

The university, being more prestigious as an institution of learning instead of an institution devoted to teaching nobles how to be nobles and commoners how to be upstanding citizens like the royal academy, didn’t have any problem hiring more people. With Maverina’s connections, they could hire professors from all over the empire. However, the academy had been having trouble finding people for their position.

Since fire magic was an extremely powerful war-focused element, Artorias wanted to nurture and train a certain number of fire mages, especially those within the nobility. However, those who were qualified to teach already had jobs or were busy with something else, like their fief. Without a professor, the fire mages at the academy have sent loads of complaints at Thyra for their slow learning pace as they had to self-study and practice alone.

“[Fluid Cast] is the most important meta magic for us mages, since it allows us to create custom spells and control our spells better. These students, from what I’ve heard, have been having trouble conserving mana when using [Fluid Cast] on their spells, and they seem to have hit a ‘plateau’ at leveling their [Fire Magic] up. Without proper mastery, spells will fizzle and fail,” Thyra explained. “I myself am a fire mage and I could teach them, but as I only recently became the principal, I am swamped in work. In addition, the new classes that I must organize take up too much time.”

“You say you are swamped in work, but my schedule isn’t much better, Lady Thyra.” I had my concert practice and I also wanted to go on a tour soon and perform more to gain more followers. I had my own magical practice to do, I needed to become more familiar with the spear, and I had to train my draconic abilities, and that was on top of adventurer work. I didn’t have the time to train people outside of Aurora.

“Yes, but I am not expecting you to be a permanent professor, Lady Hestia. We just need you here for some time until we can hire a new professor using Lady Maverina’s connections.”

Nodding to Thyra’s plea, Maverina also added bait on top of it. “How about this. If you accept this position, I can not only allow Ellaine the privilege of coming late to classes but I will also call my contacts to create for your whole party battle-ready catalysts. I will assure you, they will of the highest—”

“We already got some,” I answered, interrupting her.

“Huh?”

“The imperial alchemist, Sir Krymdar. Saori and I gave him the parts of two B rank monsters and he was able to create some seriously good catalysts with them. Here, for example.” I took out my catalyst from my storage and showed it off. “Besides, even if you two call me a fire mage, I seriously only have two fire spells after what Shiterno did to me. [Ignite] and my personal custom spell, [Symphonie des Feuergottes]. [White Flames] and [Corrosive Fire] wouldn’t count, I think.”

“They would, without a doubt,” Maverina assured me. “At the very least, you should have experience with fire magic, right? You could always learn more custom fire spells if you needed to. It should be a cinch, right?”

Hmm, she is right… which reminds me!

“Lady Thyra, do you have a book about the System spells associated with [Inferno Magic]?”

She went over to her bookshelf and took a book out to hand it over to me. “Yes, I do. What do you wish to do with it?”

“Something that I have wanted to do for a while now but forgot.” I flipped over to the page with the associated spell and went out to the balcony of the office. There, I began my chant. “Observe, for the sky’s light comes from the flames of life. The burning energy it spreads to our land is a gift from the gods. So in his name, I ask of you, oh pure flame, turn my enemies into ash! Scorching Sun!”

Custom Spell gained: [Scorching Sun]

A nostalgic feeling surged through my right arm as the mana I poured into the red magic circle began to form a small ball of fireIn less than five seconds, it grew to the size of a boulder. However, the mana I’d invested in the spell hadn’t been used up just yet, as the inferno ball grew and grew, finally towering over people like the tallest trees in the Redwood National Park in California.

Good to have you back, my old friend.

System spells, in general, were easier to cast than custom spells due to the fact that System spells were supported by the Divine System. You didn’t need to remember the chant of a System spell as the System would stream the circle and chant into your head, while for a custom spell, a mage had to do everything. The magic circle, the chant, and the ability to control it.

However, that didn’t mean you couldn’t learn certain System spells as custom spells. It was something Master Kush explained to me to brighten my mood after I lost my fire and inferno spells. Technically, I had no need for them anymore since I could recreate something similar with [Pyrokinesis], but [Scorching Sun] was one of my favorite spells to use. Not just ‘cause it had “sun” in its name, but ‘cause of how devastating it was.

To demonstrate my control over it, I had the ball of fire twirling on my finger like a basketball without setting anything on fire. Satisfied with the results, I used the magic circle to release the mana inside the fire ball. As I used [Delay Cast], the spell never really activated so I could cancel it easily without having to throw it away.

“… See, I told you so, Lady Hestia. You are a qualified fire mage.” Thyra noted, showing a wry smile at my sudden display. “However, could you not have warned me? I can hear my students and professors panicking.”

I turned around and twitched my ear, suddenly aware of the panicked voices of the people who’d seen my [Scorching Sun]. “… Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” She sighed.

As I settled down back on the sofa, I quickly apologized to Ellaine as I couldn’t help her out. I just didn’t have the time to teach people. “It’s fine, Lady Hestia. I promised my father to attend the academy, so I’ll have to sit the concert tour out, I’m sorry.”

As Ellaine and I were about to excuse ourselves, Maverina stopped us once again. She was really stubborn! “Lady Hestia, I can offer to enchant your catalyst if you accept the offer. For free.”

As I looked at her with some confusion, she elaborated on it. “Enchanting is similar to runecrafting as it grants active and passive abilities, but the difference is that enchantments can only be performed on objects with high mana conductivity, like magical ore, magical paper, or mana threads. Runecrafting, on the other hand, cannot be applied to mana threads or catalysts since they aren’t ‘earth-related.’”

“For example?” I asked what enchantments could do.

“Well, let’s take your catalyst as an example. I could imagine abilities to help you control the temperature, further increase your spell damage, help you cast more spells over your [Multi-Cast] limit, and so on. Runesmithing is the art of controlling mana to strengthen and better something while enchanting is the art of weaving mana into crazy and fantastical effects.”

“Fantastical, huh?” I contemplated the idea, since it wouldn’t be wise to reject something this amazing, if it’s for free. Which also made me remember something I completely forgot. “Ellaine, didn’t you have [Enchanting Lv. 4] in your profile?”

“… Oh, I do.”

What is that surprise supposed to mean?!

“I mean, yes, I do. I learned it from my mother, but, well, I sort of forgot about it after I joined up with Aurora and met Master Grimnir. I mean, I enjoy artificer work more than enchanting, and with Master Grimnir working me to the bone, I really haven’t had the time nor the enthusiasm to relearn enchanting.” Considering the projects Grimnir wanted to do with Ellaine, it might be better for her to concentrate on that for now. Power armors and guns are just a few of the things Grimnir is dreaming of, and, without Ellaine, he wouldn’t be able to fulfill this ambition of his.

I continued contemplating on the subject. It was really enticing but, looking at my schedule once again, I just couldn’t find the time to do it. Saori, being a school teacher, probably knew how hard it is to be a teacher with all the preparations she had to do for her classes. I didn’t have that time, I’m not a workaholic. Even if it is to help prevent more people like Macklemor, I had no time.

Sometimes it was best to decline a job offer instead of delivering a subpar show.

I relayed this to Maverina, who finally gave up on offering me the professor position. If this offer wasn’t enough to make me interested enough to find another excuse, then I couldn’t be persuaded with other means.

“However, we will still issue a request for enchantments, if possible. We will pay of course,” I requested from her. “Also, would it be possible for you to acquire some Evida Desert Cactus Water? Of the highest quality?”

The last one was for Farron’s elixir.

She showed me a wry smile but still accepted my offer. “Of course, since you are members of the mage’s guild, you have every right to use the guild’s resources for a price. Please, come to the guild with your catalysts and I will have everything sorted, Princess Hestia! And, about the cactus water; that will be harder to get, since it is extremely expensive. If you have the funds, I can acquire it for you, but please be prepared when you come to the guild.”

And with that, I left the academy, leaving Ellaine to join her class. Since our initial plan to gain permission didn’t work, it meant that I had to create that teleportation method somehow with [Room]. For that, I had to wait for Grimnir and the others to return.

For some reason, instead of arriving that same day, like I expected, they didn’t make it back until the next day. Once they were back, I gave all of Aurora a general overview of what happened at the discussion the king had with Muraina and what our future plans will be.

“That is a good plan, Hestia. Good work. If we can help Artorias form an alliance with the dwarves, elves, and dragonewts, we will at the very least have allies for our future battle with the demonkin princes. However, if possible, I would like to visit and get to know the demonkins before then,” Saori stated with a serious face.

I agree. Krymdar's words did make me curious why he mentioned how “demonkins weren’t our enemies” despite what I’d told him. He clarified that the ones who are causing trouble in Artorias and in the Empire were the problem. Aurena didn’t have a good relationship with the demonkins thanks to her followers, but that didn’t mean every single one of them needed to be our enemy.

It was worth the visit, I think. Besides, since it’s Saori’s dream to travel throughout Peolynca, we will have to visit the demonkin kingdom one way or another, but I personally wanted it to be a peaceful visit.

I also wanted to ask Grimnir about the [Room] rune sooner rather than later, but first, we had to switch our Jobs and get our Quest rewards.

C rank, here I come!

A note from AbyssRaven

Remember everybody, go back to school if you aren't a giant dragon who can shift around in space and breathe fire.

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Chapter 221: Rank C Promotion.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Acquisition requirement fulfilled. [Instant Heat Ignition], [Inferno Coating] gained. 7950 SP remaining

Mutation acquired. Merging [Instant Heat Ignition], [Inferno Coating] into unique racial skill [Hellblade Dragon]

“Congratulations, you have earned enough rank points to take on an advancement trial for rank C. The test is to show the guild that your abilities are genuine, where you will face a registered examiner of an appropriate rank — in this case, C rank hunters.” That was the first thing our group heard after we handed in the two B rank Quests we had done for Muraina. The monetary rewards were impressive, but what our group wanted was the rank up points.

Apparently, this exam was included as a way to weed out adventurers unworthy of advancing beyond D rank. The official reason for this rule was to give the guild a way to test the adventurers’ abilities before advancing, since higher ranked Quests were naturally more difficult. Since the mercenary and hunter’s guilds needed to maintain the trust of their clients, the guilds had to be sure their members would be up for the task. Too many failed Quests would be unacceptable.

But from what Muraina told Ellaine and me on our way back to Griffonpeak, it was to stop the rich and influential from advancing up the guild through their resources and connections rather than their proficiency and reliability. Aristocrats and rich merchant children were known to hire people to help them complete Quests, and, while cooperation was normally something the guilds encouraged, it could become a problem if not managed.

This was why there were these exams. We accepted the exams, of course, and it seemed Muraina had already prepared everything in advance once she heard Saori, Tasianna, and Grimnir made it back to Griffonpeak.

Hunters trusted by a local branch were allowed to register themselves as potential examiners. For every exam they finish, they would be allowed to request suitable compensation, usually money. Otherwise, they may have the guild acquire a certain item for them if it didn’t exceed the examiner's pay. A give-and-take relationship.

“I shall be your examiner, ladies!” A well-built man in his late twenties appeared before us and stated that with full confidence. We asked where the other two examiners were, but he answered he would be enough.

Normally, only a single examiner would be needed if the guild wanted to test an aspiring D rank party. Experienced C rankers were people who could go toe-to-toe against orcs and young garms, and would be able to slay trolls with their party. Comparing the scars on his face and hardened biceps to my rather slim build would probably make spectators worry for me.

Well, the issue was? They would be only looking at the cover.

“The rules are simple. Impress me and don’t try to get yourself hurt too much, kid.” On the training ground behind the guild, the same man stood in front of me with his sword drawn, holding it leisurely. On the other hand, all I had was my catalyst. “Okay, so let’s begi— WAAHHHH!”

And the fight ended in less than two seconds, since I dashed in front of him before he could react. Swiping his sword hand to the side, I tripped one of his legs and put some pressure on his chest, pushing him effortlessly onto the ground before snapping my finger to ignite a fire. Holding the flame in my hand, I crouched down and asked him, “Want to give up?”

“U-Uh, I-I… Yeah, congrats…” After hearing that, I grinned and helped him back up before showing a thumbs up at the others.

“Good work, Hestia!” Ellaine clapped with an elated face.

On the other hand, Grimnir looked grim, shaking his head. “Poor fool.”

Needless to say, Grimnir’s words were like an omen for the poor guy. When it was Saori’s turn, the man tensed up, looking as if he wasn’t fooling around anymore. Saori’s more mature face and professional outfit intimidated him immediately.

When Saori’s exam began, the man attempted to close the distance between them, but, just like with mine, Saori’s exam ended in less than two seconds. Imitating the same moves I used, she ended her trial in the same exact way, even copying what I said while holding a black spark between her fingers! “Want to give up?”

“…”

Saori, the poor guy…

At this point, I had the feeling we were just bullying him, but I didn’t expect what Tasainna would do with him. Agreeing to test Tasianna, too, since he’d “promised the Guild Master” that he would be enough, he couldn’t back down. I had the feeling Muraina was bullying this guy as well.

When our examiner and Tasianna faced each other, the man was sweating at this point, tensed to the point it looked like he gained a few more wrinkles. Tasianna gave the poor guy a bow a moment before the air around her started to plummet in temperature. A magic circle appeared behind her, summoning a giant [Ice Spike]. Using her [Cryomancy], the giant spike slowly inched towards his face, stopping right before the poor examiner, where Tasianna pressured him with, “Want to give up?”

“…”

“Mister?”

“…”

After a few seconds of his silence, another adventurer to the side checked on him, informing us that he had frozen in place out of stress and fear.

… Did we just give this guy a trauma?

“H-Holy shit, I didn’t think Saori and her crew would be this strong. Damn, Brandon should have listened to us when we warned him they’d just handed in two B ranked urgent Quests.”

“And he talked so smack about showing those girls what real adventurers are. Jeez, and I heard Hestia and Saori were mages, too.”

Hmm, maybe we attracted too much attention. Whatever.

Anyways, with that miscellaneous quest done, we returned to the receptionist desk where Saori, Tasianna, and I were promoted to C rank. Woohoo. After that, we also took the time to use the guild’s free Job change privilege. For every rank we advance in the guild, we get a free Job change.

Weekly Job Change Limit: 3/3

Previous Jobs: [Caster], [Mage], [Fighter], [Cleric], [Brawler], [Spearman], [Aggravator], [Taunter], [Freelancer], [Earth Mage], [Wind Mage], [Scale-Dust User], [Crimson-Scaled Dreadgiver], [Hellblade]

Main Job: [Infernal Hellblade]

Available Jobs

[Adventurer] [Spearwielder] [Pyromancer] [Terra Sorcerer] [Aeromancer] [Storm Sorcerer] [Lava Mage] [Lightning Mage] [Holy Mage] [Space-Time Mage] [Magus] [Healer] [Priestess] [Shrine Maiden] [Synergist] [Warrior Priestess] [Mage Guild Initiate] [Toxic Blader] [Pugilist] [Ravager] [Flying Fighter] [Bard] [Scout] [Worker] [Academic] [Noble] [White Pyromancer] [Corrosive Pyromancer] [Usurper] [Champion of Aurena] [Crimson Saintess] [Idol]

Hmm, let’s see what’s new since the last time I checked my list in detail. The new Jobs include — [Adventurer], [Spearwielder], [Terra Sorcerer], [Storm Sorcerer], [Lava Mage], [Lightning Mage], [Mage Guild Initiate], [Toxic Blader], [Pugilist], and [Flying Fighter].

The upgraded versions for [Crimson-Scaled Dreadgiver] and [Infernal Hellblade] aren’t there yet. I thought leveling [Infernal Hellblade] would do the trick, but it doesn’t look like it. Do I have to level [White Pyromancer] and [Corrosive Pyromancer], too? Well, I would have to do them eventually anyways.

There was still a large backlog of Jobs that I still had to take on, and each of them would not only increase my stats but also increase the proficiency of my skills, potentially leveling them up. The issue was there were a lot, and I could only change Jobs three times per week.

There was also the additional problem that our party didn’t have a [Crystal of the Divine System] of our own. We had to return to the city each time we’d finished leveling our current Main Jobs, which wasted time, and the more advanced Jobs required more experience for each level and also had a higher level cap. Without tough enemies, it would be impossible to level them up in a single week.

“Hmmm, Hestia? What is wrong?” Saori called out to me, wondering why I was frowning.

“Oh, nothing much. I was just thinking how, since we will be touring soon, that it would be nice to have a crystal in the RV so we don’t have to return to a city or town every time.”

Having listened to us speaking, Ellaine interjected herself into the discussion while shaking her hand. “No, no, don’t say something silly like that, Hestia. Don’t you remember how much you need to pay to borrow them from somebody? The monthly fee to keep it with us is far too much for us to afford. We need that money for other stuff, like the enchantments for our catalysts and Sir Farron’s medicine.”

Well, there goes that idea out of the window. I forgot borrowing them is already a huge hassle since only the largest guilds can afford the deposit and rental fees.

Noticing my sigh, the foxian receptionist smiled and attempted to cheer me up with a tip, “If buying or borrowing a crystal is too difficult, there is always the option of gaining the materials to make one, Lady Priestess.”

“Ah, right, there was that option,” Grimnir exclaimed. “But, isn’t that a bit too mischievous of an idea, lass? Dungeon destruction Quests are extremely rare since the adventurer guilds wish to control them. Even then, those Quests are usually pretty competitive, dangerously so.”

“Hmm, you know about it, Grimnir?” I asked.

“Yeah, but I’ve never experienced one myself. Think of it as you braving a mostly unknown dungeon without any prior information to destroy the dungeon core. The issue is that most of the time, the guilds wish to monopolize the dungeon instead of destroying, so dungeon conquering Quests are more common.”

I still remembered that [Crystals of the Divine System] were made using the shards of drained dungeon cores through alchemy. These crystals were so hard to acquire for the reason Grimnir had just mentioned. Why would you want to destroy a dungeon, a moneymaker, just to create one single, mostly utility-based, crystal?

Aside from that, you also had to be careful of how you destroyed the dungeon cores. If they were shattered without first being properly drained, they would explode like nukes, leaving some devastating fallout behind. It was a heavenly taboo, quite literally. The adventurer guilds and the gods; not good options for people to make enemies with.

Maybe there will be an opportunity in the future, but for now, let’s concentrate on something more important. My Jobs, for example.

Job: White Pyromancer

Requirements: [White Flames]

Acquisition Benefits: Mana increase, Intelligence increase, Agility Increase, [Holy Magic] proficiency, [White Flame] proficiency

Main Job Benefits: [Flames of Purification]

Huh? Only one benefit? Mana Eyes.

Flames of Purification

A skill that enhances the white flames of the sky, enabling it to purify even the vilest of corruptions and viruses. Enables the [White Flames] to heal abnormal status effects above the Major stage. The strength of the [Flames of Purification] is determined by the user’s own knowledge of the ailment and the level of [Corrosive Fire], for rejuvenation and decomposition are but two sides of a single coin

Hmm?! What is this?!

Was this the first skill that was affected by the level of another skill? Technically speaking, it was, though you could make the argument that the [X Amp] and [X Magic Efficiency] skills only functioned as support for their respective elemental magic skill. However, [Flames of Purification] directly required another skill to be leveled up to function better.

But what interests me the most is this point — ‘vilest of corruptions and viruses.’

Those words reminded me of Amadeus Chezaic — the eldest son of House Chezaic, who not only had albinism but also a genetic disease that hindered the healthy growth of his mana paths, a severe detriment to him since he was born with innate mana potential worthy of a noble. With how his mana paths would burst open, damaging his body, whenever he became excited or strained himself, it was a bane to his ability to live a proper life.

Theodore somehow managed to help him using an elixir made with some of my blood to alleviate some of the symptoms, but since he was deported to the church in Aureolis after the Davison incident, I have no idea how he’s doing. Hopefully well.

However, after finding out that my healing spells weren’t enough to help him, I’ve been wanting to gain a spell or ability which allows me to heal things like birth defects. Aurena isn't called the Goddess of Miracle without a reason. With [Miraculous Grace] through [The Light] and now this, it seemed my progress as a healer would soon continue.

Jeez, Shiterno, actually, I should probably call him Danterno this one time. This is a pretty nice gift. Hmm, but what about [Corrosive Pyromancer] then?

Job: Corrosive Pyromancer

Requirements: [Corrosive Fire]

Acquisition Benefits: Mana increase, Vitality increase, Wisdom Increase, [Earth Magic] proficiency, [Corrosive Fire] proficiency

Main Job Benefits: [Virulent Corrosion]

… Mana Eyes.

Virulent Corrosion

Grants [Corrosive Fire] a piercing attribute towards abnormal status resistances, granting the flames the characteristic to ignore status resistances against its toxic attribute. This toxin will have a lowered effectiveness as such. The effectiveness of the pierce attribute is determined by [Corrosive Fire]’s level. Also allows the toxin of [Corrosive Fire] to spread at the wish of the user

It was fitting, no? Only one potential mutation skill from each of the two non-unique [White Flames] and [Corrosive Fire] skills and both were focused on improving those individual traits. It was similar to [Fire Abnormal Effect: Dread] and [Inferno Coating] from my last two draconic Jobs. They improved the effects of my fire in some way.

While [Flames of Purification] made sure that I could cure everybody if I accidentally poisoned somebody with my venom, [Virulent Corrosion] enabled me to infect anybody with it, even if they had [Poison Resistance Lv. 10]. Honestly, am I turning into a blight or plague princess or something?

Taking that, definitely.

Individual [Sunfang Dragonewt, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has switched her Main Job to [White Pyromancer]

Main Job benefits have been updated due to Job change

White Pyromancer Level: 0/15

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [White Flames Lv. 3] evolved into [White Flames Lv. 4]

Now, why did I do that? After all, until I finish this portal system to help Ellaine get out of school, our party will have some trouble touring. Leveling weaker Jobs would be better since I could just go out of the city for an hour or so and hunt some wolves or goblins.

Still, I wanted this Job now, since Ellaine and Tasianna still needed to level up their abnormal status resistances. With [Flames of Purification], I wouldn’t have to worry about accidentally infecting them with something I couldn’t cure. Also, you were allowed to change your Main Job to a previously purchased one for free, so it’s whatever.

After me, Tasianna, Ellaine, and Grimnir took their new Jobs before finally time came for Saori to get hers. While looking over her options, Saori began frowning. When I asked her what was wrong, she sighed and told me, “It would be better if I just showed you it. Here,” and showed me her Jobs.

Weekly Job Change Limit: 3/3

Previous Jobs: Scout, Rogue, Caster, Fighter, Dagger Fighter, Mage, Dark Mage, Freelancer, Brawler, Ravager, Academic, Worker, Cook, Chef, Ranger, Tamer, Shadow Rogue, Shadow Warrior

Main Job: [Howling Lightning]

Available Jobs

[Adventurer] [Space-Time Mage] [Magus] [Mage Guild Initiate] [Warrior] [Duelist] [Pugilist] [Bloodthirster] [Spy] [Executioner] [Hunter] [Shadow Ranger] [Bladedancer] [Acrobat] [Monster Master] [Wolf Tamer] [Slime Tamer] [Trader] [Restaurateur] [Teacher] [Scribe] [Shadow Alpha] [Blood Shadow] [Shadow Assassin] [Stygian Thunder] [Grim Herald]

Jeez, Saori, why do your Jobs always sound so edgy and brutal! Damn, it’s metal.

Each of the Job options listed after [Scribe] were similar to mine, revolving around Saori’s unique skills and titles. [Shadow Alpha] came from her being [Belzac’s Successor] and having the [Shadow pack] skill, [Blood Shadow] came from [Stygian Blades], [Shadow Armament] created [Shadow Assassin], and lastly, [Stygian Thunder] was the evolved version of [Howling Lightning] and came from [Stygian Voltage].

However, what made Saori worried was one of her newest Jobs — [Grim Herald].

“It was not there back when I was in Firwood or Cedaraille. This is the first time I’ve seen it in my available list,” she recalled. “I wonder what caused it to appear? I have not gotten a new skill or anything like that.”

“Maybe it has something to do with your title? You know which one,” I suggested, staying vague due to being in public.

“Then why is it only showing up now? Was it because I leveled [Howling Lightning] up? The description does not give any further information, outside that it improved all my unique skills,” she contemplated but ended up shruging after a few seconds. “Whatever. Not important for now, I will think about it another time. Hmm, I will take [Monster Master] for now.”

With our new Main Jobs selected, we decided to take a look at the Quest board. Since Griffonpeak had a dungeon, maybe accepting some Quests there would be nice for some levels, although we wouldn’t be going in deeply. As we walked over to the board to take a look, however, the guild’s front door suddenly opened up with a loud thud, as if somebody kicked it and slammed it open.

“Argh, shit. Here they come, again.”

“Dammit, why couldn’t they have just died in their Quest?”

“Not like it matters with that manablood. I didn’t see him go with the four others.”

With all the commotion, it naturally attracted our attention, and when we did, our mood just turned extremely sour.

“Yo, bottom feeders, we’re back. Hope you didn’t miss us too much after leaving for another glorious Quest; after all, who could forget about our leader’s glorious magnificence?”

Four men, alternatively in full leather or metal armor with scales attached to them, barged into the guild, acting and showing off as if they were the greatest pop stars in the world. Their pompousness surely tried to persuade me to think so. Their behavior really reminded me of the four ruffians who tried to kill Uno and the other garms for a stupid quest. Actually, wait. These were the same exact bastards.

“What are you fuckers looking at, huh? You want me to show you where your place is, huh?”

“Hey, Agram, how about youse stop that for now. Boss and Jonathan are coming in. Can’t rile the people up to cause a fuss. Get yous’elf in trouble with the guild master, again,” two of those idiots discussed. The former was loud and rambunctious while the latter seemed to be calmer but showed a rather punchable smirk as he looked at the other adventurers.

“Huh?! ‘Jonathan’?!” However, what surprised us the most was the name the latter man suddenly uttered. “Jonathan,” that was the name of Ellaine’s brother.

“Quiet. Get in your position. Gotta greet the boss correctly.” As if they’d rehearsed this multiple times until perfect, all four straightened their posture, placed their feet together, and moved their hands to their back.

““““We greet the Goddess’s proud new champion! Lord Charleslyt!””””

With that announcement, two white magic circles appeared at the top of the door, casting the [Light] spell to illuminate not only the four adventurers below them but also everything else in the vicinity. It reminded me of my initial attempts to create a spotlight.

Under this light, two men in full-plated silver armor walked through the door. The difference in quality of armor between the two, however, was quite drastic, it must be said. The man in the front, hailed as this “boss,” was wearing armor fully engraved with golden attachments. It was stylized to look imposing with its wing-like pauldrons and eagle-head gauntlets, but it still retained that holy knight appearance.

Behind him, the silver armor he was wearing was less decorated and looked more practical and less “fantasy” like the former. It reminded me of the knights Marquess Sirius had around him, as they looked more like medieval knights with their simple armor design and tabards. This young man’s armor looked similar to them, only missing the tabard and crest.

With a sword on his hip, a wide kite shield on his left arm, and his helmet under his right, he walked into the guild with the confidence and strut of an “I am the best” attitude. With the wide smile a superhero would wear, he brushed his light green hair back before ordering everybody to walk over to the reception.

He pulled out a piece of parchment from his belt and handed it to the receptionist, speaking sweet words as he did so, acting courteous and flirtatious. After it was done, he received a pouch of money and handed it to the leader of the four idiots before moving to the Quest board… And that is where we first met face-to-face.

“Ooh, hold on. Crimson hair, horns, predatory eyes, scales, and a tail? My, my, excuse me for not noticing you earlier, Lady Hestia.” As if he was plenty used to it, he bowed slightly and held his hand forward, gesturing to me for a “kiss on my hand.”

“…”

“…”

But the problem was that I wasn’t here as a princess or lady, I was currently outside frolicking as a normal girl. I might have given him my hand if we were at an official event, but right now, all I could see was somebody making the mood awkward.

“A-Ahem, I apologize for making you uncomfortable, My Lady. This Charleslyt has sinned against our Kingdom’s honored guest. May I receive your forgiveness?”

I was flabbergasted, I had no idea how to handle this guy right now, so I said whatever I could to dispel this situation. “… Not like there is a need to forgive anything. Please, you don’t need to act like that, uhm—”

“Charleslyt. Charleslyt Louis Equevanna, second son of Duke Equevanna, but for today, I am only the adventurer Charleslyt.” Even after my cold reception, this guy did not drop his politeness. “I also attended the royal ball, but I sadly did not have the opportunity to speak with you. My father asked me not to approach you for some reason, but I have no idea why. Please, forgive me. I would have been honored if I had the chance to dance with you.”

From what I heard from King Drangleic, outside of certain people like Farron, Ellaine, and Muraina, he informed me how he had to tell my secret to his seven dukes and that they were allowed to reveal my secrets to their heirs. From what Ellaine had told me before, Charleslyt was not the Equevanna heir, rather, it was his elder brother. Meaning, he probably doesn’t know much outside of what happened at the ball.

“I also attended your musical performance, and I must say, it was brilliant. I even found the light you created fascinating, so I imitated it with the [Light] at the entrance, haha,” he laughed. “I also see your dance companion during the second song here. My Ladies, it was a joy to listen to you sing and watch you dance,” he looked and mentioned Tasianna, reminding me of the duet I had with her at the concert.

Oh, he’s pretty cool. Is he a fan?

As if my mood improved, my neutral smile slightly curved up, acting a bit warmer. “Oh, is that true? Well, thank you very much, Lord Charleslyt.” I curtsied. I had to agree with Ellaine now, he really was a smooth talker.

But that moment ended pretty quickly when I suddenly noticed the glares the four idiots gave. They weren’t aimed at me, but at Saori and Grimnir.

“…Hmm?” Charleslyt looked confused when I frowned, following my eyes to his companions, which led him to Saori’s. “Is… something the matter? Do you four know this fine woman?”

“We—” They wanted to reply but they were quickly interrupted by Saori herself.

“No, I apologize if I acted rudely, My Lord. We do not know each other, but they were leering at me a bit too much, making me uncomfortable,” she answered.

“Oh, is that so?” Charleslyt looked surprised, quickly turning around to his party members. “Now, my friends, as my fine knights and party members, we should make sure not to cause the fairer sex so many issues, for we are gentlemen. As a champion candidate for the merciful Goddess, I must make sure to conduct myself properly.”

Going from glaring, to surprised, and finally to a wide, proper smile, the man acting as the leader was very capable of switching his expressions up. “Ah, you are too right, Boss. Haha, our commoner background showed itself, and for that, we apologize. Madam, we apologize.” Without any complaints, all four bowed in apology.

“As should I, I apologize to you four fine ladies for our rude behaviors.” Charleslyt bowed. “Now, as I can see, you four are all adventurers, right? Are you here for the Quests?”

As I understood what Saori was doing, I shook my head as a response. “No, no, we have already finished our business here. We weren’t interested in any of the Quests on the board, since most of them will take too long for us to do. I wish you luck, Lord Charleslyt. It was a pleasure to meet you, may the Goddess bless your path with light.”

“Haha, the pleasure was mine. Our Kingdom will benefit greatly if you can put a good word to Loatryx for us, Lady Hestia. May the Goddess banish the shadows away from your beauty.”

And with that, our two parties passed each other. It didn’t go unnoticed to me that the young man in the very back had put his helmet on his head the moment he noticed us. The blond hair similar to his mother, Arcaliess Marianne Helvas, was a dead giveaway — it was Jonathan.

Once we were outside, I spoke with Saori, “Was it really okay not to confront them about it?”

“It would have been bothersome, Hestia. In that situation, it would have just been better to give up on it and let it pass,” Saori replied with a sigh. “Also, what about you? Your attitude made a sudden 180, huh?”

“Oh, jeez, give me a break. He was a fan, and as an idol, I should be polite to him. Although, I did find his behavior a bit over the top. He was a bit too polite and his entrance was just filled with the gusto of a proud noble. Ah, whatever, hopefully, I won’t have to meet that flirt again.” After letting out a deep sigh, I turned towards Ellaine, who was being comforted by Tasianna at this moment. “Ellaine? How are you?”

“… I’m fine. That was Brother, right?”

I nodded.

“Haaaaa, not even a greeting. Did he really have to hide his face from me with that helmet?” A frown formed on Ellaine’s face, clutching her hands in frustration. “Dammit, Brother never acted that way to me before last month. I knew he was avoiding me at the academy and at home, but it seemed like he isn’t even acknowledging my existence…”

“Hmm, but at the very least, we know the lad is safe, right?” Grimnir interjected himself, stroking his beard as he tried to comfort his apprentice. “The armor he wore is new, it hasn’t been used yet. Not only that, but it seemed it was made with some proper blacksmithing techniques, probably made in the Groushia duchy. Those four fucktards also weren’t treating him too badly, so it doesn’t seem like he’s a pack mule or something.”

[“True. You want to know what the boy was feeling, dear?”] Klea’Hatma added, making her ability to feel emotions known again. Ellaine nodded to her offer after thinking about it for a few seconds. [“Regret. Envy. Jealousy. Obvious enough since we made that clear before, but his regret really intensified when he saw you, dear. I could feel some elation, happiness, to see you, but it was drowned out when he put that helmet on. Take this information as you will.”]

Tasianna placed her hand on Ellaine’s shoulder, shaking her a bit. “Don’t worry about Jonathan, Ellaine. Don’t forget your father’s words, ‘the two of you changed positions.’ I am sure he is very much aware of you, but he can’t show it yet.”

“… Yeah, you’re right.” Ellaine placed a hand on her forehead, sighing deeply with closed eyes. She then clutched her whipsword tightly, and then nodded. “Alright, thank you, everybody. I know I act too much like a child, and that I should worry less, so thank you very much for being patient.” Seeing her warm smile, I was glad that Ellaine was slowly strengthening her will.

“Good!” I clapped… before my smile disappeared. “Okay, let’s take care of some rats, everybody.”

Our group then rushed forward, dodging people as we traversed through the crowd of the middle district until we found an alleyway. Darting into it, Saori clad us all in her [Shadow Armament] and used [Shadow Dash] to transport us into the shadow world.

[Shadow Armament (Full Body)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

After a few moments inside the shadow realm, Saori began pointing out footsteps. They weren’t exactly clear to us yet, but the moment three men showed themselves in the alleyway, looking around frantically to find us, Saori pushed us all out of the shadow.

“What?! Arck!” Grimnir grabbed the first, disarming him before smashing him onto the ground.

“Shit! Ru-Argh!” And the second was captured using Ellaine’s whipsword, entangling him in her whip.

“Wha-?!” Finally, the third was rushed down by Saori the same way she handled our examiner, only this time, she wrapped him up in her mana threads.

After we captured all three and had them immobile in mana threads, we threw them next to the wall. Tasianna then cast [Air Shield] around us while Grimnir and Saori scared away any potential witnesses.

“Well, Mister Rats, whose spies are you?”

A note from AbyssRaven

I'm a bit braindead right now so I don't know what to write in the author notes. Too tired.

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Chapter 222: Imagine getting a Morality Check from a Demon.

Three men were sitting on the ground before us in this alleyway, tied up in Saori’s mana threads, unable to break free. Tasianna had already cast [Air Shield] around us, preventing any sound from escaping, while I had blocked the alleyway with [Terra Wall]. People could still see us from above, but I wasn’t really worried about people witnessing this, I just wanted enough time to interrogate these three.

Not like misunderstandings can happen with how we’re dressed.

The three men's clothes were pretty plain and dirty while their black cloaks made them look sketchy as hell. It was a good combination for not standing out, camouflaging well enough inside a crowd. Well, too bad these spies couldn’t hold up against somebody of Saori’s caliber.

“I’ll ask again, who sent you three? Answer,” I demanded from the three men, but they stayed silent and kept their heads looking at the ground. Sighing, I bent my knees to crouch, looking into the middle man’s eyes. “Come on, you three were daring enough to spy on a group of youn— Huh? What are y—”

Suddenly, I noticed the man’s eyes and mouth twitching a bit, causing me to grow suspicious at what was happening. Their expression didn’t change much, it was practically neutral, but then my memories of watching spy flicks came surging in, reminding me how spies would usually have a poison pill or something inside their mouths to commit suicide in the event that they get caught.

It can’t be?! Mana Eyes!

Effect: [Poisoned (Moderate)]

Damn!

“Mouths!” I shouted before grabbing the man’s jaw and forcing his mouth open, despite his struggle to keep it shut. Looking into his mouth, I noticed a broken tooth oozing a purple liquid into his throat. “Poison!”

At that, Saori and Grimnir shook away their surprise and pried open the mouths of the two other men, reporting purple liquid was flowing into their throats as well. Clicking my tongue, I snapped my claws together to produce a crimson spark, before turning it into white flame. Spraying the fire in front of me, the white flames enveloped the men’s faces before entering their mouths and down their throats.

“““Grk?!””” They flinched at the process, expecting the heat to settle in and burn them from the inside out, but after a few seconds of nothing happening, their eyes widened in complete confusion.

“That’s a pretty strong but slow working poison, right? I didn’t want to risk it turning into ‘Major’ and having you guys dying on me, so I had my flames eliminate the poison already inside you guys and the leftovers in your teeth,” I explained. “Don’t worry, those flames don’t hurt when I command it not to. They should have dissipated by now.”

My [White Flames] had the ability of [Cure], allowing it to eliminate abnormal effects like poison, paralyzation, bleeding, and others if they were either minor or moderate in potency. After taking [White Pyromancer], my Job skill [Flames of Purification] could also eliminate even worse afflictions.

However, I didn’t need to give this information to these guys. Most healers could use [Cure], so this shouldn’t be too weird.

“Anyways, you don't have a way out anymore. Mind speaking?” I tilted my head, keeping up a poker face.

“…” There wasn’t even a mumble.

“Hmm, well, since these spies were about to kill themselves with poison, I think they were ready to die to keep themselves from giving up any secrets, lass,” Grimnir mentioned. “We won’t be able to get this information out of them with simple words.”

“Are you suggesting we torture them, Grimnir?” Saori asked, looking a bit apprehensive about the idea. Saori was ready to kill our enemies without hesitation, but it wasn’t as if she had completely lost her sense of morality. Tasianna, Ellaine, and I felt the same as we looked at Grimnir with anxiousness.

“Just say if you want to know it or not. You don’t need to look, I can do it myself.” Grimnir deftly took out the tongs on his belt and used it to pinch the nose of the man on the left, before pulling his head forcefully to face him, breaking his nose as a consequence.

“Urgh!” The man groaned as he began to bleed from his nose.

Grimnir seemed used to this… I thought he was only a blacksmith and runesmith?

“… Well, speaking pragmatically, we should do what we can to get the information out of them,” Saori argued to herself. “Did I not already mention that I noticed people trailing us the moment we returned to the city? If we do not handle this now, these ‘rats’ will continue coming.”

When Ellaine and I returned to Griffonpeak, I didn’t notice any people following us at all, nor that there were people spying on the Helvas mansion. When Saori mentioned it after coming back yesterday, I was a bit skeptical as I had no idea who could have the motivation to do so.

Gael, Krymdar, or Muraina? I don’t think so. If they wanted to keep track of us, they would have done it themselves since anybody below their abilities would have been found out by Saori. Besides, these three were adult humans. Krymdar and Muraina would have used elves or half-elves, while I heard from Muraina that Gael’s spy network was composed of the children that he was taking care of.

“Haaaa, damnit, that is true,” I cursed. “They know us well enough that they won’t come to the upper city, but the moment we stepped foot into the merchant district, I noticed them following us. I’ll give you three one last chance to speak without us having to force you; if you don’t, then we really have to do this the rough way.”

“…” They wouldn’t budge.

I sighed. “Haaaaaa, anybody who doesn’t want to look at this, please leave the air bubble.” I opened up a path through the [Terra Wall] for anybody to leave.

“W-Wait, Hestia, this isn’t the way. Couldn’t we just have the knights handle this? Or the guards? I’m fine with cutting people down if they threaten us, but torture? On people who can’t even defend themselves? I-I really don’t like this at all.” Ellaine probably was the only one among us who was still thinking through the eyes of a normal, good person.

After reincarnating into the bodies of a monster wolf and lizard respectively, Saori and I gained the mentality of our new bodies. We adapted quickly to killing other living beings and our bloodthirst could overwhelm our senses sometimes, as evident through my [Battle Frenzy].

Tasianna and Grimnir, on the other hand, didn’t have that excuse, but it wasn’t as if they were still squeamish. Tasianna still had some animosity for humans and she had already steeled her mind after we fought those bandits, while Grimnir seemed to have seen a lot of shit. He wasn’t a veteran for nothing.

“Lass.” Grimnir tapped Ellaine’s shoulder. “Whether we hand them into the city guards or we do it ourselves, the result will be the same. You aspire to be a knight, your image of a knight, but even they will have to do something to extract information from prisoners if they are uncooperative. If you ask me, the moment they have this information, these three will be executed for stalking a noblewoman of Artorias and the king’s guest.”

Without a doubt, everybody in Artorias’ upper society should know about me after everything that happened at the ball. Knights wouldn’t be an exception nor would the guards, since these reports will land in the hands of people who would be in the know. After all, I was under the king’s protection.

“But, still…” Ellaine was still reluctant. It would be hard to persuade her.

As we were unsure of what to do, the three men suddenly opened their mouths and bit off their tongues, gushing blood out of their mouths like a fountain.

“Shit! Major Heal! Major Heal! Major Heal!” Grimnir and Saori pried their mouths open again, giving me the chance to reattach their tongues. Preventing them from dying from blood loss or drowning themselves in their blood was good and all, but it still left a bad taste in my mouth at how willing they were to commit suicide.

Verdammt, this doesn’t feel good at all. We really need to do something.

These spies should know I was a holy mage, so trying to kill themselves was futile. Still, they tried it anyway. At this point, I just wanted to accept Grimnir’s suggestion and extract information forcefully, but I stopped when somebody’s voice entered my mind.

[“Don’t do it with force, that’s too barbaric. Do it by appealing to their interests, everybody.”] It was Klea’Hatma. [“Torture isn’t the only way to make people speak. Pain and fear are great motivators, but an even better method is to make them feel safe.”]

[“ ‘Safe?’ Are you talking about playing nice with them?”] Saori asked through [Telepathy].

[“Through hostility all you will gain is resistance and lies. That has always been the case. Take Aurena and the other Origin Gods for example. In our home world, the gods control their followers mostly through their ability to totally annihilate any opposition, but this will always create foolhardy people who worship upstart deities to bring these tyrants down. Plesia and Marsven know this very, very well, trust me.”] Klea’Hatma spoke with confidence as if she had personally experienced what she just stated, something we five had to believe since she came from the Origin God’s world.

Pausing for a moment to let our imagination run wild, she continued after a bit, [“However, for some reason, Peolynca is governed completely differently. In fact, when my six other companions and I came to this world, we pretty much belittled how they ruled it. Instead of fear, more people loved them. They worship them through all the gifts they received, such as the Divine System. As the demonic embodiment of the Sin of Lust, I understood their reasoning too well. If a person is kept safe and satisfied, they would do anything to keep it, no?”]

That is true… Verdammt. Imagine getting a lecture on morals from a fucking demon. Urgh.

[“… Is everybody alright with this?”] I asked everybody. Everybody nodded while Grimnir gave a nonchalant shrug, showing he didn’t care how we did it. [“Ellaine, since you’re so stubborn about the laws and so on, are you okay if we let these thieves go?”]

[“Huh?!”] Ellaine flinched. [“W-Well, stalking by itself isn’t exactly outlawed. Disrespecting a noble would if you were a commoner, and, technically, a noble could determine this as being rude to us, Hestia. I mean, they should be handed to the city guard, in my opinion… but, that probably won’t open their mouths, right?”]

[“As Mister Grimnir said, they will be tortured and then executed,”] Tasianna reminded Ellaine.

[“Then… I’m alright with it. I apologize for making this all too difficult for us.”]

Speaking about morals and what the correct decision was will never not be difficult. It’ll get even harder the more people that were involved in the decision.

Saori crouched down, taking over the interrogation. “Alright, we have decided on releasing you three. We will not hand you to the guards.”

“…” They looked at each other, questioning our decision. “Declined.”

Hmm? They finally spoke but why are they declining it?

It was a surprising answer but it seemed Saori had anticipated it as she continued speaking, “You already have an idea why we are letting you three go, right? Are you worried that you would be killed anyways if you spoke about your client? Then let me offer you a way to survive this.”

She then pulled out a wooden vial filled with my toxin from her belt, having placed it there for emergencies. “We can refill that hollow tooth with this poison. Our priestess can heal your wounds. We can make it so that you had never faced any issues, even pretending to walk out of this alley as if we had no idea. I might have detected you three, but you are professionals, right? Are you three members of a gang from Shaturein?”

Shaturein, the undercity of Griffonpeak, located beneath the city in its sewers. It wouldn’t be outlandish to imagine they were recruited there, or at least, somewhere in the slums or red light district.

“…” Saori’s offer did tempt the three spies for a second, but they continued their silence despite what she said.

“It is your choice. If you tell us exactly who your client is — we don’t need to know which gang you belong to — then we will let you leave. We will act ignorant, but we request that you stop this. Inform your gang that we nearly found you out. You have our word that we won’t go back on this deal.” Saori’s actions were right out of a police drama, where the investigators would attempt to bribe potential convicts with deals to fish out the larger prey.

“I don’t go back on a promise, I never will,” I added, activating [Benevolent Aura] and [Royal Presence], my charisma skills. “These aren't the words from a priestess of Goddess Aurena, but as my own person. Please, let us deal with this situation without having to resort to blood.”

“… The cathedral.”

It worked! The man in the middle spoke!

“Our client didn’t say much about who our client was, but that we should get information from you five, especially you, priestess.”

Me?

“Since the rumors of your party, Aurora, have been spreading down in the Shaturein, we already kinda had a feeling who you were, Crimson Saintess. Kinda hard to not ignore the word on the street, so we made a background check on the messenger. They came from the cathedral, more specifically, from the cardinal himself.”

Cardinal?! Wait, did I accidentally anger the church somehow? How? Wait, maybe my stunt at the ball was the cause?

“Why?” Saori questioned.

“The nobility don’t do business with Shaturein if they don’t trust us. Our boss broke a taboo by researching the background of our client, and we are breaking another unspoken rule right now by speaking with you,” the man insisted. “We answered your question. Let us go.”

Saori looked at me, and I gave her a nod. They did exactly what we wanted. Asking any more would be going back on the deal. As agreed, I healed their wounds and any signs of them getting captured, while also filling their poison tooth with some toxic sludge before placing it back in. Saori then summoned Shoyi from her shadow, who had evolved into an E rank. Apparently, the reason why they took three days to come back was ’cause Saori went hunting with the slime to level it up.

As a E rank [Shadow Devourer Slime], Shoyi was like a black hole of consumption, able to eat everything while still exuding an aromatic smell. It was even able to divide itself now. Saori chose this evolution for it since it could also devour and dissolve a whole human body. She was honestly scary with her assassin cosplay.

Shoyi, slightly famished since it hadn’t eaten any breakfast, swiftly cleaned up the blood on the ground and the stains on the spies’ clothes. After we untied them, Saori once again reiterated that they should inform the cardinal what they had learned, but that they should break off the contract. She warned that we wouldn’t be so nice a second time.

After they left, we released the [Air Shield] and deconstructed the [Terra Wall]. Saori then summoned Uno from her shadow and told him to follow the spies. We told them we would act ignorant, but we didn’t promise that we wouldn’t follow and spy on them in turn. Turnabout is fair play.

Saori had good ears, she could listen to their heartbeats and determine if they were lying, but this trick wouldn’t work if they knew how to control their heart rates. As such, we were making sure they gave us the correct information. We didn’t care about their gang, though. We didn’t want to risk sending Uno to Shaturein.

After leaving the alley as if nothing had happened, we decided to finish some grocery shopping and moved to the marketplace. Once there, I noticed a familiar group in the midst of bartering with a farmer. The person who was speaking with the farmerm was a woman in a white robe flanked by two armored knights and surrounded by a group of noisy children who were being supervised by a couple of grey-robed priestesses.

Eshe!

As I walked over to greet her, I overheard the discussion she was having with the farmer.

“Oh, thank ye, thank ye very much, M’Lady Shrine Maiden. Thank ye. Please, take these fresh eggs and milk! It is the least I can do to repay you for healing my children’s illness!” the farmer gushed to Eshe, showing his gratitude through gifting some of his dairy products.

Eshe looked thankful, however she humbly shook her hand, declining the offer. “Oh no, it is alright. This is my duty to the Goddess. The donation for the white grace is all I can accept, so please, allow me to buy your products. Your hard work deserves proper compensation.”

“Oooh, may the Goddess bless you, M’lady! May your generosity be blessed!”

After they finished the transaction, I greeted Eshe. “Lady Eshe, I didn’t expect you to be here! How are you?”

“Oh, Lady Hestia! How wonderful it is to meet you today, may Goddess Plesia bless you on this wonderful WaterDay. We’re here to buy some groceries. How was your trip?” We made small talk before the rest of Aurora caught up, where I introduced Eshe to Ellaine and Grimnir, who hadn’t met her yet. As our talks went on, the kids from the orphanage finally noticed me, beaming bright smiles as they ran up to greet me.

“Lady Hestia, Lady Hestia! Where were you? Lady Eshe told us you went on a trip but you didn’t tell us anything.”

“Yeah, yeah! We were planning a game to play with you when you came over. Something that we can win! We were so excited but you didn’t come back, Big Sis!”

“Hey, you two! You know you shouldn’t act like this around Lady Hestia, at least, not when we’re outside the orphanage! Come on, apologize to her for your behavior!”

““We’re sorry, Lady Hestia.””

Jeez, these guys are adorable!

Visiting the orphanage for Eshe’s theology lessons also gave me the chance to get quite close to the kids there, since there wasn’t much to do during the breaks. With how the orphanage tried to instill good manners into them, since the primary goal of the place was to produce either new grey-robed priests or pious, working adults, it was pretty easy to get along with them. They even liked my singing, so I naturally adored them.

Since they were basically a large family, the orphans naturally were close to each other, including the grey-robed priestesses. The younger kids were still learning how to act properly, actively adapting to their new situation, while the older kids tried to take care of them according to how they were treated when they were their age.

“It’s alright, nothing wrong happened,” I said to let the young kids off. A couple of people were watching, but most of the surrounding folk were more interested in their own lives than ours. “Sorry, I was out with my friends doing some adventurer stuff. I’ll tell you guys all about it the next time I visit, alright?”

“Yay! Awesome, more stories! How about today? We’re going back after buying some stuff!”

“Sorry, but I can’t. I have something to do today and tomorrow. However, I promise I will come over when I’m done with my business, alright?”

“Oooooh,” the young kids pouted, but quickly accepted it. “It can’t be helped. Please, finish your business fast, Big Sis!”

Hiehie. ‘Big Sis’ has a good sound to it.

Since we also had to buy groceries too, my party followed Eshe. Since the kids had never seen a dwarf before, they were super excited as they spoke with Grimnir. The old grumbler, though, was less delighted about it, but looking at his bashful expressions, it seemed like he didn’t hate it. Such a tsundere.

Once we were done at the marketplace, we separated and went back to our respective homes. Back at the mansion, I asked Grimnir to prioritize making some more [Room] runes after I explained to him what I learned when I went to the royal academy. Grimnir agreed, thinking my teleportation idea was interesting, but he required a whole night to prepare everything.

By the next day, with everything prepared, we all managed to make three more [Room] runes using the geisenlarg queen’s blood we harvested. We didn’t make more as Grimnir wanted to take a break, having worked on his projects on the trip back to Griffonpeak. Before I began working on this portal, our party headed to the mage’s guild and handed Maverina Saori’s and my catalysts for enchanting before returning home.

Now, it was time to create something revolutionary.

“Hmm, so the geisenlarg nest and queen were exterminated. The elves have cleaned up the mess, and only this egg is left, huh?” A man determined after inspecting the scorched remains of the geisenlarg’s colony, holding onto a large egg. The geisenlarg worker who once carried it was nowhere to be seen.

“Hmm, there goes the original attack plan. Guess I’ll have to report this to the Prince of Pride. Hmm, still… Ah, I have an idea.” The being’s eyes turned to the egg in his arm, showing an impish smile as a grand plan appeared in his mind. He held the egg up, whispering enticing words at it. “How about this, Your Majesty? Your army, your colony, your prestige. All gone, destroyed by some elven woman’s pawns. Do you seek revenge?”

The being inside the egg hadn’t fully developed yet. It still needed time to grow. It couldn’t have understood anything, but somehow, it was able to. The egg pulsated. If Klea’Hatma were here, the anger the egg displayed would have been audible as a raging roar.

The man licked his lips, showing off a set of fangs. “I can provide you with an army to lead. Will you serve my request?”

The egg pulsated even louder. The being inside the egg was actively ramming itself against the shell.

“We have a contract.” The face of a demon appeared. He pulled a vial of black liquid from his pocket, flaunting it in front of the egg. “Drink and survive, King of the Geiseinlarg. Grow and become strong. Allow us to bring down the griffon.”

The presence of the man disappeared. In the darkness, nothing could be seen, as if the presence from before had been a ghost. No clues or tricks were left behind.

An omen of disaster was approaching.

A note from AbyssRaven

Demon Seducer knows best how to make people speak, what a surprise.

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Chapter 223: The Power of Fast Travel!

A note from AbyssRaven

Happy Halloween! Boooooooo! Have a scary dragon girl!

“Alright, let’s do this! Let’s revolutionize Peolynca with the power of portals! Let’s invent ‘Fast Travel!’”

““Wooooooo!””

“… I’ll be in the forge, working. Don’t make too much of a fuss, lasses.”

That’s right, it was finally time. Given its popularity in most modern open-world video games, the term “Fast Travel” should not be unfamiliar to my fellow gamers. This was a game mechanic that allowed players to teleport themselves to a previously visited location, cutting down on the necessary game-time needed to get there on foot.

In our case, recreating this ability in real life would be our way to significantly cut down the necessary travel time we had to do to return back to Griffonpeak. Peolynca, despite having a game-like system supporting it, had no practical way to fast travel, unfortunately. The only method I could think of was to ask Aurena to use her space-time powers, but the gods were forbidden from interfering with mortals too much, so this idea was impossible.

Nevertheless, I wasn’t one to sit by and let this injustice continue. In her current situation, Ellaine had to either give up on coming with us on Quests or give up her academy semester like her brother had, since it was impossible to do both at the same time… At least, it would be as long as we didn’t have the means for Ellaine to fast travel from one location to the next in a matter of seconds.

Speaking of Ellaine, she should be coming home soon, since it was the afternoon after we finished the runes with Grimnir. Making the first three was quite a hurdle, but once we understood what to do to create them, making more was just a matter of time and effort.

‘Necessity is the mother of invention.’ Such an inspiring proverb.

As such, this was the plan for today.

Taking out two of my four remaining [Room] runes from my storage, I began explaining what I planned to do. “Alright, so the idea is simple. Saori, you’ll stay with Grimnir inside the RV’s subspace, while Tasianna and I will open another subspace entrance outside the city. We need to test if these two subspaces will be connected with each other and if we can interact with each other.”

“Got it.” Saori nodded. “However, make sure to abort the plan if a bug, or glitch, or something similar were to happen.”

That was Saori’s cautious side speaking, since we had little to no documentation of a previous [Space-Time Magic] user having ever tried anything like this. At least, none that Grimnir and Maverina were aware of.. As such, issues with the subspace might crop up. Being careful wouldn’t cost us anything.

After explaining to Tasianna what “bugs” and “glitches” meant in a system (heh) environment, we initiated the testing phase. With Saori and Grimnir inside the RV to check, Tasianna and I flew out of the city and settled in the forest surrounding Griffonpeak. I placed the rune pair on the ground and activated them, opening the portal.

“Okay, I’ll call you in once it looks good enough, Tasianna,” I said, leaving Tasianna outside to watch over the portal while I entered the subspace by myself.

Please, work. Please, work. Please, work! With that single thought, I closed my eyes and moved my legs. The cool wind and the warm sun in the forest slowly disappeared around me as it was replaced by silence and cool air, reminiscent of an air-conditioned room.

After confirming my surroundings by opening one of my eyes, my mouth curved up in a smile at the feeling of success in my chest. I raised my right arm and curled my hand into a fist, before shaking it vigorously. “Yes! That works, at least!”

Looking around the room I found myself in, I noticed well-made wooden chairs, decorated tables, and enough ornaments and manatech to make this room appear like the dining hall of a noble. Without a doubt, I was inside the first room that my party and I had built — it was Saori’s still unused restaurant.

Upon hearing some noise in the kitchen, I walked through the kitchen door, also confirming everything that should be inside it was here. A spotless workplace for a small to medium size team of chefs, while I could see our bakery through a door to the right of the room.

“Oh, it seemed like it worked.” The noise from the kitchen came from Saori, who was preparing a few sandwiches. Since nothing bad had happened to me when I entered this subspace and I was able to meet others inside the subspace, I was elated to see that [Room] could be used as a mobile base even if our party was separated.

After I made sure that I could access the other rooms, like Grimnir’s forge and our living area, I went outside the portal and invited Tasianna to come in with me. Once Tasianna and I were inside the subspace, Tasianna let out a small gasp.

“Hmm, what is it?” I asked.

“Lady Hestia, did you not feel your mana leave your body?” Tasianna then called up her profile, confirming her suspicion by noting she was currently regaining the mana she lost a few seconds ago. When I did the same, nothing seemed wrong with my profile.

Of course, since I had a faster regeneration speed than Tasianna, I could have just recovered any lost mana by now, but this feeling of losing mana Tasianna spoke about wasn’t something I remember feeling just now. “Could you have lost the mana from going through the portal? But, that hasn’t happened before.”

“Maybe it’s because of the distance? Since this portal is connected to the main [Room] at House Helvas’s mansion? This could be something similar to your warp point portal, Lady Hestia. The distance might determine how much mana you have to spend to enter the subspace,” Tasianna suggested.

“Then why didn’t I feel my mana leaving my body?”

Tasianna placed her hand on her chin, giving my question a thought before answering, “Maybe… is it because you are the caster? How about we confirm this theory by going further away?”

I agreed, and we left the subspace, returning to where we started. For our next destination, I chose to go to Griffonpeak’s pier, built upon the Sallorn River, the same one that flowed through Carine village and Cedaraille. After watching cargo boats moving into the pier and away, Tasianna and I moved into the nearby forest and opened the portal again.

With Tasianna remembering the amount of mana she lost last time while I had my profile open to watch if I would lose any, we entered the subspace once again.

“Yes, I lost more than last time, Lady Hestia. It is something to worry about for me, but it seemed my theory was correct,” Tasianna stated. “How about you?”

I shook my head. “Nope. Not even an inch. Guess this is the privilege of being the master of this place.”

With this initial test over, Tasianna and I munched on Saori’s sandwiches while telling her and Grimnir about what we learned. Hearing about the mana cost of entering the [Room] from a distance caused Grimnir to feel worried, since he was the only one in our party with a Mana capacity of less than 2000.

“Hmm, I might have to buy some of those mana boosting skills. I had been thinking of getting some more mana since those power gauntlets cost mana to use effectively. The whole suit is going to require even more!”

After eating up the sandwiches, I decided to focus on creating the fast travel function now. As the master of this subspace, I had full control over who could enter it and how to construct the different areas, all at the cost of some mana. Since this was something that I could do, it shouldn’t be weird for me to create a door that allowed me to teleport from one place to the other.

In other words, if I could turn this subspace into a nexus that combined all the [Room] runes, I’d have created a means for fast travel. It would be limited, since you needed access to this subspace, but it would be better than nothing else.

I went to our living area with everybody except Grimnir, who decided to return to his smithy. There, I created a new door and decided on making this our “Nexus Door.” Technically, I could turn any door into a teleporter, but for this test, I wanted to use a single one to control any possible variables.

Pouring some more mana into it, I designated the location I wanted to teleport to. “[Room] rune pair number one’s portal,” I said aloud. Feeling confident that it would work fine after my mana was spent, I opened the door and moved through it.

“Huh?” I could feel cool winds and the warm sun touching my skin and hair once again, meaning I was outside again. However, not only did I see a ton of trees before me, but I could hear the loud noises of water moving and men moving cargo off a boat. “Damnit, why am I still in this forest?!”

For some reason, the teleportation did not work. Exiting through the door only brought me back to the place I entered the subspace initially. I was disappointed that I didn’t solve the problem on the first try, but I concluded I probably did something wrong, turning around and walking through the door back to the living area. This time, instead of only declaring my teleport location, I tried making it into an order.

“My teleportation destination will be at House Helvas’s mansion. The [Room] portal created by rune one and two, placed inside our RV. Teleport me there now!” I opened the door and walked through, only to end up at the same location outside the city’s walls, next to the river.

“???” I was confused. This was the second try, sure, but I still was baffled that [Room] wouldn’t let me do what I wanted. Not discouraged, I decided on trying it one more time, but this time, I poured in some more mana into the rune to test something out. When that didn’t work either, I finally realized where my mistake was.

[Room] allows me to control stuff inside of it. Permitting who could enter or leave was similar to putting people on a white or black list for a house party. I could control who I wanted to invite and see inside my home, but there was no way for me to forbid people from looking inside my property when they were outside.

It was one of the basic rules for [Room], but I forgot about it by imagining a too lofty goal. Still, that didn’t mean that I would give up now. I found it rather interesting that [Room] was able to keep the information from which entrance a person came from, since it wasn’t mixing up which portal I should exit from, I also tried the test out with a third portal, just to make sure this was the case.

And, that was totally the case. Even after Tasianna and I repeated going in and out about ten times each, we never exited through the wrong portal. As the master of this subspace, I was fully aware of whoever was inside my subspace. Even if you were a ninja like Saori, this detection functioned through the Divine System. I wasn’t informed which portal they came out from, but the subspace most definitely should have it noted down.

“Hestia, come back to the mansion for now. Continue testing there,” Saori prompted me to continue the tests at home. After collecting the runes with Tasianna, we flew back to the mansion, just in time to meet up with Ellaine who had just come back home from the academy. After explaining to her all about what I was doing, she simply wished me good luck before returning to her room to take a shower before meeting up with her father for training. What a buzz-kill!

Since it would probably distract people if they saw the portals, I decided on continuing the tests from inside my room in the mansion, telling Svena that nobody could come inside while I was testing out some spells.

“Good luck on the testing, Hestia. I will be going out for a bit,” Saori told me once Tasianna and I returned to the subspace. “I need to do more research on how eateries that cater to richer merchants and travelers work, for the success and prosperity of our restaurant!”

Saori was a good chef who could produce a ton of good dishes, but her experience as a gastronome was limited. Maybe she should have asked Tamae more about how her parents managed their Michelin star restaurant.

With Tasianna as my assistant, I continued working on the fast travel idea. Firstly, I came to a solid conclusion after the initial tests.

“It is impossible for [Room] to allow us to fast travel from one portal to the next, since teleportation isn’t one of its functions,” I declared.

“Then, what do you wish to do, Lady Hestia?” As if she already understood the answer to this question, Tasianna began pouring tea for me.

“Obviously, there were two solutions for this problem. Either get [Space-Time Magic Lv.10] and hope [Spatial Portal] allows people to come with me, or create an entirely new spell which allows people to teleport around even without me around,” I announced. “The former is impossible for now since the SP needed to upgrade my [Space-Time Magic] up to level ten would be too expensive. As such, we are going to go with the second route. I shall create my first custom [Space-Time Magic] spell!”

The second point that I understood from the testing was that each person had to be assigned a tag the moment they entered the subspace, which informed the [Room] which portal they entered from. That was why there was never a mix-up. Since I couldn’t change this tag despite how much I begged the subspace, it probably just wasn’t normally possible.

As such, the only option left for me was to invent a spell that changed this tag to another portal, enabling me and everybody else to teleport. [Spatial Portal] probably worked without this tag function, but it probably would be too hard for me to create this spell on my own. I couldn’t imagine what the chant would be.

This brought me to the third point. As I was returning to the mansion, I reminded myself that every System spell must have a chant. The only reason why I didn’t have to chant was due to [True Draconic Lineage] granting me [Chant Revocation Lv. 10]. While I didn’t have to chant, the System still would still give me the chant whenever I wanted to cast a System spell.

And [Room]’s chant was as follows: “Open a path into the fourth existence of the dimension, controlling the fifth law of space and time control. Create a dimensional area within a designated sub-area in the current dimension, connected to a circle of enhanced control of energy and substance in the current reality. Access to the pocket dimension shall be granted to the caster, allowing them free entry and exit and the ability to alter the boundaries within. The laws of space and time of the current dimension and reality shall be applied to the sub-area. All physical objects of the three first dimensions and all boundaries shall be connected to this created sub-area through the control of energy of some kind. If the circle of enhanced control of energy and substance connected to this sub-area was to be removed from the reality it is applied in, sever the existence of this pocket dimension and recall all physical objects of the three first dimensions back to the current dimension and reality.”

What now? was my reaction when I first saw this, and it still was a big, fat “What now?” after my parallel minds had a look at it as well. Obviously, this chant was completely different from the ones I knew and made up until now, given that it had no mention of the Origin Gods and a lot of technical details instead.

Since System Spells in Peolynca were made by the Origin Gods to promote piety, most of them sound like religious texts. Custom spells didn’t have that restriction, but sometimes mentioning something godly or divine would help invoke a better image of what the spell should do. At the end of the day, however, spell chants were just texts for us to properly imagine the spells we wanted to cast.

That said, [Room]’s chant was just weird. When I read it, it felt as if I was reading some high-level physics or science book without any prior knowledge, since the more I had my parallel minds read it, the more they felt frustrated at their inability to understand it. Our inability to understand it. The chant honestly felt like a set of instructions from an IKEA manual.

That was why I gave up on trying to learn [Spatial Portal] the way I had relearned [Scorching Sun]. It would be impossible for me to imagine it, since there was no mention of the chants for the upper-tier [Space-Time Magic] spells. Istari apparently knew the names of each and every one of the System spells, but he, for some reason, did not deign to write the chants down.

It was daunting to imagine me creating a spell like this, but I wouldn’t let it go without trying it at least once! That was my pride as a mage! I didn’t want people to think of me as a one-trick pony who could only create fire-based spells. Sure, [Space-Time Magic] sounded extremely physics-based, but it was just a set of instructions at the end of the day, right?

It shouldn’t be that hard, right?!

I mean, I was the granddaughter of the mighty God of Dragons, Kargryxmor. I was a member of a race of giant beasts with huge amounts of mana and magical firepower. Even my racial skill [True Draconic Lineage] praised my impeccable natural magical abilities. It shouldn’t be hard for me, right?!?!

I mean, I was also the chosen champion of Aurena, the Goddess of Light of Peolynca and a former Goddess of another world, and Kargryxmor. It shouldn’t be that much trouble to create a spell to allow me to fast travel, right?!?!?!

…

“IT’S TOO FUCKING HARD!!!” In a fit of despair and frustration, I flipped the table I was working on over onto the ground, sending the pile of wooden slates tumbling in the air.

“Ah, Lady Hestia!” Tasianna cried out in a panic as she narrowly caught the teacups and snack plates. “What’s wrong, Lady Hestia?!”

“Argh! I can’t do it! This is too fucking hard!” It had been two days since I started trying to create this spell. Normally, two days of work shouldn’t be enough to frustrate me this much, especially since my previous custom spells all required multiple days of work and testing to be finalized; however, the difference with this task was from how hard it was to think of the chant.

To me, chants were like writing verses for a song. It came out as naturally to me as writing a new song. Usually, I would have a finished chant after a few hours, from which I would begin my tests, making sure the spell comes out exactly how I wanted it. That was how I created [Unheilige Engel], [Panzer], and [Halo of Consecration].

Unfortunately, this method of creating chants simply did not work for [Space-Time Magic]. Despite writing up piles upon piles of thrown away chants, none of them worked even once. None of them created any effect. On the first day of work, I understood that the chant had to have extremely precise instructions.

But, over the course of the next two days, I just couldn’t come up with a proper chant. Creating instructions was literally impossible when I still wasn’t completely sure what [Room]’s chant even was trying to tell me. I had ten parallel minds — that meant eleven brains — but I still wasn’t able to make any kind of meaningful progress.

At this point, I really cursed myself for being only interested in idol stuff when I attended school on Earth. I really shouldn’t continue calling myself dumb or idiot, since that wasn’t healthy, but I really felt like a dumbass at this point.

“Muuuuuuuu, argh…” The strength in my legs vanished, causing me to collapse on the ground like a marionette. I felt like crawling onto my bed and hiding under my blanket.

“L-Lady Hestia, maybe a break would do you some good? I mean, you have been working on this project nonstop. You haven’t even done your daily training regimen.” Tasianna’s worried expression was another hit towards my motivation, piercing it like a sharp blade. Instead of feeling encouraged by her words, I felt more compelled to just go to sleep and forget about today.

“Lady Hestia, please! Stand up!” Unable to watch me like this any further, Tasianna stopped acting courteously and forcefully pulled me up. With a stern frown, she began to give me a lecture. “Lady Hestia, you should no longer be at the stage of drowning in your own self-pity! You should have plenty of confidence in your abilities to not let this be a setback! It is only one spell. The creation of your previous custom spells have always followed the way Priest Kushlek’zar taught you, so of course the moment you couldn’t bring it back into practice, you would hit a hurdle.”

“Urgh…” I groaned. I had no way to argue with Tasianna, since it was all the truth.

“Every person has a natural affinity towards a specific elemental type, which helps them not only level that respective elemental skill faster, but it also makes creating custom spells based on them far easier. After all, spells fizzling out or miscasting is the norm for most mages, something which you haven’t faced since [Imperial Hellfire],” Tasianna explained. “As you know, it took me a while to create my own custom spell while My Lady and Miss Saori created yours within a week or two. You are not only naturally more attuned to your elements as monsters with strong bloodlines, but your creativity was also increased by experiencing this World Wide Web thing you told me about.”

“… You’re… You’re right, Tasianna!” I shouted as I smacked my cheeks, jumping out from Tasianna’s arms. “You’re right! Absolutely right! I was acting like a whiny bitch, again, wasn’t I?”

“Well, that would be something I would never ever describe you as, but you were complaining a bit too much, even for my taste, Lady Hestia. I am your faithful servant, so I only wish the best for you.”

Stimulated by Tasianna’s words, I organized the mess I made with the table before calling for one of the Shoyi’s many blob copies. As the black slime slowly crept over from its small house Saori made for it, I asked it to clean up the tea spill and the snacks on the ground. Excited, the surface of its skin shook before it diligently cleaned up everything.

I took this time to leave the living area and enter Grimnir’s shop. Saori was out again, but from the sound of pounding metal and the constant argument of a girl and a man, I knew I could spend my break with these guys.

“Lass, don’t connect the small copper wire with the conductor! You’re gonna bust the thing up from how little the wire can transmit the mana throughout the mechanism! Connect the wire with the thread controller, since the output requires less mana to work,” a man with a deep voice instructed before the banging of metal continued.

“Master Grimnir, I need to also increase the speed of the threads. If I unwind the whip, I need it to be faster. Speed and flexibility are my whipsword’s greatest strength,” a girl argued.

“You still need the damn conductor to work! If you want more speed, add another large copper wire for both the thread controller and the conductor.”

“There isn’t much space left! Where am I supposed to put the extra wire?”

Those two seem energetic as always, haha.

Entering the back of the shop, I was welcomed into Grimnir’s smithy by the comforting heat of his forge. I saw Grimnir crafting a bladed weapon with the flame of his forge blazing next to him, while on the other side of the room, Ellaine was sitting at a workbench. Having equipped her artificer gear, she seemed to be working on her whipsword along with Grimnir’s power gauntlet.

“Hmm, lass? What are you two doing here?” Grimnir asked the moment Tasianna and I entered the room.

“What? Can’t I just visit the smithy to spend my leisure time? I mean, you’re making my spear from the queen’s materials, right? Can’t I come look at it once in a while?” I replied back sarcastically.

Since my catalyst was finished and I already told Maverina which enchantments I wanted on it, Grimnir had begun creating a spear worthy for me to use. Using the materials gained from the geisenlarg queen and some of my claws, I was expecting a masterwork.

Noticing my sarcasm, Grimnir told me to get to the point in a grumble. “Nothing much, really. I’m just taking a break because I can’t seem to figure out the chant. You know, reset my mind.”

“If it’s this hard, then you don’t have to keep trying to make it just for me, Hestia.” From the other side, Ellaine placed her tools down and spoke with me. “I’ll somehow work it out with the academy. If it can’t work, then I’ll talk with father. It’ll probably cost me my chance to become a Knight of the Lionheart, but I would rather continue my travels with Aurora than giving it up.”

“You know, you shouldn’t say that since you and your brother have a duel to settle the heirship in the future. Becoming a knight would probably help you a ton,” I replied, worried that Ellaine was throwing her future away for us.

“Don’t be like that. I already made my path clear when I first asked you to make me your retainer. I won’t go back on my word, Hestia. Even if I’m not officially a knight, I will keep my oath like one.” Ellaine bumped her chest in salute. “Beside, if I left you, then who am I supposed to continue my artificer training with?! Finding a capable teacher like Master Grimnir is hard, you know? Also, as if I’ll give up now after accepting Klea’Hatma’s powers! I don’t want to disappoint you and the Goddess.”

[“Hey, I heard that. It’s not very nice to say that when I’m around to listen, dear! Pah, treating me like an object… Well, it’s not like this is the first time, hiehie~”] I was questioning what Klea’Hatma meant by being “treated like an object.” Better not ask.

Ignoring the demon, I went back and answered Ellaine’s worry, “If that is the case, Ellaine, then I can’t actually fail, right? Besides, the invention of fast travel sounds too good to give up on. Such a challenge wouldn’t be worth doing if it wasn’t hard, right?”

After Ellaine and I had a laugh, she resumed her maintenance work. While looking over her shoulder, I asked Grimnir something concerning his power armor project. “Hey, Grimnir, how are you progressing with the armor?”

Instead of Grimnir, Ellaine was the one to answer my question, “Not well, sadly. It’s mostly my own skills that need to be improved before we continue creating the different components for the armor itself. Making the power gauntlets was a real reality check for me. There are so many smaller parts that I need to know how to create better.”

“Aye, the lass is correct,” Grimnir agreed with Ellaine. “The gauntlets did their job well enough, but after putting them through the stress test during the geisenlarg extermination, I learned that prolonged use caused too much heat from all that mana coursing through the machinery and pistons. We need a proper way to cool the gauntlets down, and in the future, the armor, otherwise I’ll cook myself alive.”

Picking the gauntlets up, I noticed three runes on both of them. “Are these runes only used for passive power boosts?”

“Aye, lass.”

“Then how about increasing the amount of power within the machinery instead of relying on the runes? Sure, it will create more heat, but then you could just use an ice rune to cool everything down. We have Tasianna to help.”

Grimnir nodded to my suggestion, acknowledging it, but it seemed he had already considered it from his lack of surprise. “Ellaine and I already talked about it, but that ain’t gonna work. Sure, we can add stronger blood like yours on them to add more runes, but the machinery would drain too much mana in that case. I might need more mana in general, but if it isn’t somebody like you, lass, nobody could use the armor.”

So it isn’t just a problem with the heat but it also is a question of mana. There has to be a system that allows Grimnir to not overuse his mana while also keeping himself cooled while inside the suit. Hmmm. He needs some kinda ventilation and also heat insulation, preferably heat retardant if possible.

Hmm… Oh?

“Grimnir, how advanced is dwarven technology? Have you heard of steam energy or a steam engine from the Revolution Queen?” I asked a question that spontaneously came into mind.

“What in Crustacia’s name is steam energy or a steam engine?” That reply was all I needed to begin explaining the concept of steampunk and steam machinery to Tasianna, Ellaine, and Grimnir. Since Peolynca’s technological advancement only focused on mana, electricity and steam have been severely neglected.

By itself, it wasn’t much of a problem, since I considered mana a far cleaner energy alternative than the latter two, but it wouldn’t hurt to maybe suggest combining the two as a different method to solve the problem, right?

“If one of your issues is the amount of mana you’re using to maintain the armor, then why not make that mana resource less of a concern while you are fighting? Reduce the amount of mana used, by using a different energy source to empower your armor.”

“And you are suggesting that steam is this alternative power source? Steam? Hot vapors created from warming up water? You want to boil me, lass?” Grimnir looked at me as if I was crazy.

“No, of course not, but think about it, Grimnir. My weapon and the catalyst; do you remember one of the enchantments I’m planning to put on it? It always made me wonder, but why aren’t dwarves using catalysts as a substitute for mana batteries? They are pretty much the same, right?” I pointed out.

“The reason is ‘cause we dwarves aren’t alchemists, lass. That’s the whole damn reason why we focus on crafts like artificing and runesmithing. We can’t imbue mana into alchemy like the other races. I know catalysts are the same, but we dwarves have improved on the design of the battery over the centuries. It became the norm and has proven itself far superior and more efficient than catalysts for fueling manatech.”

“But in the end, you acquiesced to my idea of combining my catalyst with my weapon,” I looked at him smugly.

“Mgrhm,” he grumbled. “That’s ‘cause you have a good affinity, that’s why I accept it! Besides, catalysts only become good with enchantments. We dwarves don’t use them. We have our own pride in our runesmithing, so using enchantments in our creation? Pah! I would cut the rockhide on my ears before I do something like that!”

“Oh really? Then do it now, if you’re earnest with that statement.” I turned serious, seeing as I wasn’t getting to Grimnir. “  ‘Think outside the box,’ Grimnir. Hear me out — a catalyst to be used as the core of your armor, which we add enchantments on to help against your heat problem. Which gives us this option to use a steam powered function to boost your power! Use a rune to produce water to further cool your suit, then use your flame breath or a fire rune to turn this water into steam. The steam will drive the machinery and pistons, giving you an immense power boost!”

“And if we use a ventilator, we can get rid of this excess heat. Even more options to get rid of heat. If we add some padding, even further heat insulation,” Ellaine caught up to my idea. “But, then, wouldn’t Master Grimnir not need my help, Hestia? It doesn’t seem like an artificer is needed.”

Ellaine sounded worried that her contributions might disappear with this idea, but I had no plan to kick her out with it.

“Absolutely not, Ellaine. The armor still needs machinery to function, and you need to make it suited for mana and steam. You know, since the catalyst will act as the mana battery substitute,” I mentioned. “Then, don’t forget about the weapons. Armor is good, but what use is it if you can’t defend yourself. Your training will be used on that also, Ellaine.”

“Weapons and shields shouldn’t skimp on the offensive and defensive runes!” she noted in realization. “It will take three runes at minimum to drive the armor, and we’ll probably need to apply stronger blood for more slots. On the other hand, the weapons Master Grimnir wanted were the ones you suggested, right? That ‘minigun’ and ‘rocket launcher,’ yes? They need to be controlled using mana, since steam wouldn’t work properly.”

Like Grimnir’s blasthammer, the ranged weapons I suggested to Grimnir would all use mana as ammunition instead of actual bullets or rockets. For his melee weapons, I was thinking of going with a fusion of manatech and sci-fi, which required mana to be properly used.

“Hmm,” Grimnir stroked his growing beard at what he heard. It seemed he was thinking about how to make all of this work.

“Grimnir, pride is not something you can afford, right? You mentioned how you want to tell Bleidla to suck your blasthammer, right?” I gave two middle fingers to drive that point forward. “You won’t show him up, if you can’t accept innovations! Don’t act like a dwarf right now, act like an inventor!”

“… You know, lass, ever since I met you, all you’ve been doing is impressing me with your crazy ideas. By the six Origin Gods, I have to admit that while I appreciate them, I am getting majorly overwhelmed by the things you and Saori have been telling me of Earth’s technology.”

“And?” I grinned, imitating the one Grimnir had on his face, showing off his teeth like a madman.

“And by Crustacia’s twin locks, I love them all! You showed this old dwarf, lass, hahahaha! Bladdarg, I don’t fucking care if I have to go back on my pride and accept enchantments and alchemy! I don’t care if you idea won’t work out in the end! I’m gonna try them out anyways and if they do work out, then I’ll shove these things in Bleidla’s stinking face! Ellaine, are you with me?”

“Yes, Master Grimnir!” Ellaine cheered. “However, let’s first finish with maintenance and Hestia’s spear, yes?”

“… Lass, you really know how to put a damper on stuff, you know? Just for that trait of yours, you get the title as my worst apprentice, yet!”

“Hey! That is unfair, Master Grimnir, you have no right to say that after all your whining! How can you say that when I’m being realistic and responsible! You can drag me into your maddening projects after we perform what needs to be done!”

Seeing them getting over an issue really made me happy, reinvigorating me with the motivation to continue my work.

“That was a real case of thinking outside the box, right, Lady Hestia?” Tasianna praised me.

“Yup. Sometimes you just need some outside stimulus to really push your brain to work, right? Not every answer can be found in a single book, so it would be better to widen your horizon and continue looking outside… outside…” I then looked up to the ceiling of the room, noting how Grimnir’s newly made smithy was similar to a box. “Outside the box… outside the box. Widen your horizon… Oh shit! Why didn’t I think of that before!”

As if the hamsters in my brain finally began moving the cogs around, a sudden brain blast prompted me to think of an idea. Running out of Grimnir’s smithy, I pulled Tasianna out of the subspace before pushing her into the front of the RV. I then took out two pairs of [Room] runes and activated the portals for each, telling Tasianna to enter the left while I went through the right.

Once we were back inside the subspace after going through two different portals, I activated my [Mana Eyes] and looked at the entrance we went through, noticing three different colors of mana flowing around the entrance. I turned to another entrance and noticed the same thing.

When I turned to Tasianna, I noticed a small glimmer of mana that didn’t fit with the rest of Tasianna’s body, noting how it looked similar to one of the colors around the entrance. When I looked down at my body, I noticed the same thing.

‘All physical objects of the three first dimensions and all boundaries shall be connected to this created sub-area through the control of energy of some kind.’ was one part of the [Room] chant. Energy that could be better described as mana.

My jaw dropped.

I-I don’t have to create a space-time spell to do this! The ‘tag’ [Room] uses to assign people to different portals is imprinted through our mana! I just need to change that through a buff or something!

I ran back inside Grimnir’s smithy and dragged a complaining Ellaine from the smithy, telling her it was time for her to help me test a theory. After we all left the subspace, I asked Tasianna and Ellaine to wait outside while I went inside the subspace to throw something out. I needed them to watch and tell me from which portal it came out.

I entered portal one, the one we usually used for our RV. There, I took out a fur pelt and looked at it with [Mana Eyes].

There are three colors: red for portal one, green for two, and blue for three. The fur has a glimmer of red on it.

I couldn’t change this tag on the fur, since I had no idea how, but what I could change was everything in this [Room]’s “boundaries,” and that included the mana surrounding the door. I went back to the “nexus door” and poured my mana into it, pushing away the red and green “tags” away, isolating the blue, signifying portal three. It was a success.

Taking in a deep breath, I grit my teeth and threw the fur through the door and jumped out right after it.

As the wooden walls of our RV came back in sight, my elation was quickly replaced by something else. Pain.

“He-Waaaghhh!”

“Wauuugh!”

I bumped into Ellaine. As we cried out in surprise, my momentum caused me to push Ellaine onto the ground. With Ellaine lying on the floor, my body came hurling at her, with my face dangerously coming closer and closer to Ellaine’s, only for me to stop my descent at the very last second.

“…Uhhhh.” I could feel Ellaine letting our heavy breaths right in front of my face, as it became redder and redder. Pushing myself up, I pulled Ellaine up before apologizing for what just happened. “S-Sorry about that, Ellaine. But why did you just stand in the way like that? You knew I would throw something through the portal.”

“Wha-Wha?! I was, Hestia! I stood far away from the portal you went through! I’m not that scatterbrained of a girl!” Ellaine argued back. Hearing her say this somehow made my face feel even warmer than before.

However, this misunderstanding didn’t last for much longer as Tasianna called us to look at what she was pointing at. My eyes followed her finger, noticing a fur pelt lying a few feet away from me. It was right next to the entrance of portal one.

As I widened my eyes, I looked down where I was, turning around to find a portal right next to me. Looking at the runes which opened it up, I could confirm this was the third portal I opened up.

“D-Did I just—?”

Description has been updated due to the individual’s actions. Additional information will be added when the requirements are fulfilled

[Mana Eyes] has adapted to individual [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s usage. [Mana Eyes Lv. 4] evolved into [Mana Eyes Lv. 5]

Mana Eyes

A skill that allows the user to perceive the flow of mana in the air. Allows the identification of items and creatures, revealing their description or profile. Allows the isolation of mana signatures, making it possible to follow mana trails and links between mana sources. Requires tremendous cognitive abilities to process properly. The Skills combined are: [Identify Lv. 10] [Blacksmith’s Appraisal (Incomplete) Lv. 1]

“T-Tasianna! Ellaine! I’m flying out of town!” I announced after picking up the runes for portal two and three, sprinting out of the RV.

“Wait, Lady Hestia! Ellaine, come with me! We need to see this!”

“Y-Yes!”

The three of us quickly made it outside the city, going into the nearby forest. There I activated a portal and we all went inside. After going to the “Nexus Door,” I activated [Mana Eyes] again and noticed only two colors surrounding the door, since only two portals were open. After I isolated the red from the green, I noticed how green mana trails were leading from the door to the mana within me. This new trail probably came from [Mana Eyes] upgrade.

With the green mana tag isolated, I told everybody to enter through the door. To our collective surprise, once we walked through, we were back at the RV. We had just teleported from outside the city back into it. As the three of us looked around with open mouths, Tasianna and Ellaine noted how they felt something leaving their bodies. After looking at their profiles, we noticed some of our mana was gone.

“I-It seemed that not only entering the subspace from a different location but also using the teleportation function would cost mana. The longer the distance, the more we use up,” Tasianna stated.

“But I’m immune to it. I guess because I’m the owner of the subspace?” I wondered.

“This probably won’t be very popular with Master Grimnir,” Ellaine commented, which I agreed with. He wouldn’t have the mana to do this from a long distance.

However, that didn’t matter to me anymore. After all, the fatigue of three days of hard work finally paid off.

“OH YEAH, FAST TRAVEL, BITCHES!”

A note from AbyssRaven

Fast travel! Well, kinda, fast travel, but still it can be considered fast travel!

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Chapter 224: Big Sis Hestia.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Mako

Daniel Lo

Martin Sandre

Windicator

Nickolas

That_guy

Saliven

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ShadeByTheSea

Dragon Idol

Fadzanatas

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Maximilian Hoheneder

Torge Riggers

Streya

Orr404

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John

Comiak

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The Shining Light

Wintera

Niklas Gadgaard

Gordon Freeman

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Aclys

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Xeelee

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Erik R

Kale Daley

Telpion

Ryan Teschke

Oliver Wolfe

Demalos

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And once again, thank you all for another month of support. I'm currently joining the writhalon, so more chapters will come as a result. If you guys want to support me in my endeavor, come check my Patreon. Thank you once again for reading this novel!

“Hahaha, go, run, run, everybody! Hahaha!”

“Go, go, Big Sis is gonna catch us if we don’t.”

“Come on, she can’t find us when we hide in the dark! Don’t break things or the Sisters will take our dinner away! Hiehie!”

Jeez, tuning their voices out is harder than I thought. Can’t believe I’m being competitive in hide-and-seek against little kids.

“Ten! Hiding or not, get ready to get caught~” How long has it been since I last played hide-and-seek, in the harmless, playful way and not in my usual hunting sprees? It was kinda hard to answer my own question since it has been so long, but I could just barely remember doing it with my cousins and kindergarten friends.

Anyways, if it hasn’t been obvious enough yet, I’m at the orphanage. After that fast travel debacle I had in the last three days, I just wanted to take a break from everything and make good on the promise I had with the orphans. Play with them and tell them a story about what happened at the elven outpost.

Besides, concerning the fast travel stuff, there wasn’t much more I could do until Grimnir figured out what I meant by “mana coded tags,” since he didn’t have access to [Mana Eyes]. Right now, fast travel seemed to be possible for our party, but only if I’m around to control the nexus door. The next objective would be to create something that allowed anybody to teleport when I’m not around, but that can be left for a later date.

In any case, I didn’t want to think about my physics homework while playing a game.

Of course, using my improved senses and skills during this game of hide-and-seek would just be unfair for the orphans; as such, I agreed to suppress most of my senses to that of a normal human. Unfortunately, I still cheated. I heard them saying where they would go.

Still, I didn’t want to end the game just like that. There were still a few kids who didn’t go to the same place as the three I heard speaking, so it was about time I moved out and found them.

“If you let some of the vegetables and bones sit in the water, the broth will become more flavorful and nutritious. Instead of throwing it away, use it to make a soup or thicken it for a stew.” For my first stop, I head over to the kitchen by following the sounds of Tasianna’s voice. Looking inside, I saw her speaking with a few of the grey-robed priestesses, who acted as the orphanage’s caretakers.

“Wouldn’t we have too much food, though? The boys can be large eaters, but the girls and we grey-robes don’t need too much to feel sated,” one of the priestesses raised her worry, pointing at the three full cauldrons. Since I visited the orphanage often, I also made a few donations to make the caretakers’ and kids’ lives better, for example, more cauldrons, various foods and ingredients, and some furniture that I made myself.

Tasianna shook her head to dispel the caretaker’s worry, willing to educate them. “No worries, the two cauldrons full of broth can be left overnight. Let the taste settle in. Once tomorrow comes, you can remove the bones and mushy vegetables and use the broth to create something new. The third cauldron, the one filled with curry, we will serve that with the rice today for lunch and dinner. Oh, how is the rice? Can somebody check?”

“The rice needs more time. The water hasn’t been fully absorbed yet, Miss Tasianna.” Multiple clay pots were placed on top of the stone cookers, boiling the japonica rice Artorias likes to produce. It was at this moment that everybody noticed me. “Oh, Lady Hestia, is there something you require from us?”

“Oh no, there is nothing. I’m just playing hide-and-seek with the little kids, so I’m just going around looking for them. Please, don’t let me distract you, after all…” I jolted my head to the pile of barrels of ingredients and darted over there, giving the small kid hiding there a gentle tap on the head. “You’re out! Get back in the room!”

“Mhmgrrr! I thought that would be a good hiding spot,” the young boy pouted before running out of the kitchen dejectedly. With my goal done here, I left Tasianna to continue working with the grey-robes as I started looking for the next kids.

Slowly walking through the orphanage, I kept repeating “Hide as much as you want, little ones, the dragon will still find you~” to keep the game tense for the kids. After I failed to find any of them in the hallways, I began looking through the different rooms, eventually ending up in the orphanage director’s office.

“Please, if you are doing the calculations, do them on a wooden slate or with the abacus. Don’t be prideful about it since your employers will expect due diligence. You need to learn how to use the abacus fast and efficiently.” I could hear Ellaine’s stern voice behind the door, followed by the collective acknowledgment of two kids. Looking through the door’s slit, I saw the orphanage director, Eshe and her knights, and Ellaine giving work to two boys around eight years old.

“Lady Ellaine, I thank you for your help. I cannot express how thankful I am that you are willing to help these two young boys with their future. May the Goddess bless your kind soul,” the director expressed her gratitude to Ellaine.

“There is no need, Director. Helping orphans find a place after they become adults is part of my duty as an aristocrat. Still, I am simply offering them a place through my connections, but they will have to impress their employers themselves.” Ellaine then turned to the two kids. “Do you understand? Your trial period will begin in a few months, so until then, you must learn how to read, write, and calculate at an adult’s level.”

““Yes, Lady Ellaine!””

When Ellaine isn’t being too self-conscious or working with Grimnir, she really can exude a noble’s aura.

Today was RestDay — Sunday in Earth terms. As such, Ellaine was free for the day and asked me if she could come to the orphanage along with me and the others from Aurora. After getting acquainted with the kids and how the orphanage operated, Ellaine offered to help with some paperwork, to which the director and Eshe agreed.

From what I had overheard, it seemed Ellaine offered those two kids a potential working place at the Sarlenzia company through her connection with Amelia Greenveil. Last I heard, their relationship hasn’t mended yet, but Amelia and Ellaine were both professional enough to keep their past from affecting their houses’ businesses.

With the introduction of yeast and a ton of pastries and rice sweets, it was very likely that Duke Greenveil would become the next Grand Duke of Economic Affairs in three years while Arcanuess Helvas would most likely take on an important position at that point. It wouldn’t do the girls any good if they couldn’t act like adults.

Now, speaking about Ellaine giving two orphans a job at a high-profile merchant company, it probably would be hard for them but, if they could succeed in becoming merchants, they probably would be able to live rather okayish. Since they were orphans, an opportunity like this was extremely rare.

Normally, from what I heard, orphans from the church-managed orphanages generally had only two options to choose between before they became adults. Either they join the church as grey-robed priests and potentially remain at the orphanage working as caretakers, or leave to live the rest of their lives as normal commoners. At the age of seven, children were lawfully allowed to work, so it was normal for orphans who reach this age to find work as apprentices to prepare for their future if they weren’t planning on joining the church.

Now that I think about it, since I’m technically an underage child. Am I not breaking Artorian law? Wow, I didn’t think of myself as such a rule breaker.

When I peered more into the room, I noticed the two boys were actually beastmen — one was a wolfkin and the other was an arvisian. Which reminded me how rare white-robed beastmen priests were, unlike the grey-robes variant. Considering that most beastmen have a slower mana growth than even humans, it was probably hard for them to master the necessary holy magic. Or it could just be racism.

I left Ellaine to finish her teaching, continuing my search for the kids, managing to find two more kids within the rooms. After having searched every room, I went over to the prayer chapel and dining hall of the orphanage. There I saw a group of young kids gathered around Saori and a grey-robe.

“This is the entire alphabet. You should have already learned some of your letters by now, so the caretakers want to help you learn how to form them into the words you speak every day. Before we start, is anybody here still unsure with their letters?” Saori asked the kids, but none of them raised their arms. As Saori looked around, she noticed a few kids who seemed a bit uncomfortable. “There is no shame in learning, everybody. If there is something you do not understand, then you should not be embarrassed to say so. After all, it would be a sin to the God of Knowledge, Istari, if you did not try to learn.”

Looking around warily, the kids Saori looked at raised their arms shyly, prompting Saori to smile and nod at them, praising them for their bravery. She then told the grey-robed next to her to help the kids learn their alphabet and that they could always rejoin the group once they were more confident.

So Saori is the type of teacher who makes sure all the students are at an adequate level, huh? It’s probably the correct move, but it could make some students feel left out.

Still, watching Saori actually teaching was nice to see. Aside from helping Tasianna learn how to cook and sew properly, Saori hasn’t done any teaching since she came to Peolynca. I’ve learned about Saori’s time as a teacher from Tamae and the others, but I was still curious how Saori acted as an educator.

I couldn’t watch her for too long, but seeing her patiently teaching the students, helping to clear up any confusion by answering their questions in as much detail as possible, and making sure the children enjoyed learning says more of her experience as a teacher than what she’s been telling me. It’s not like I didn’t believe her, but it was just that her actions spoke louder than words.

You know, Saori told me if she had a choice of becoming a teacher again or becoming a restaurateur, she would choose the latter ten times out of ten. She argued that being a teacher didn’t fulfill her as much as being a chef, despite how stressful both jobs were. Saori’s wish to travel the world complimented her cooking as she could produce more dishes, after all.

Nevertheless, looking at her content expression right now, I did question what would happen if that “ten times out of ten” was put to the test.

After snatching the last few kids above on the ground floor of the orphanage, I decided it was time to end this game and went back to the kitchen area, heading through a door that led me down to the basement.

From counting them, it seemed only a single kid was missing. I thought three entered the basement, so two of them probably ran out before I came here.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are~” I sing-songed as I strutted down the stairs, lighting up the darkness by snapping up a flame. As my every step echoed through the basement, not a peep escaped the last kid’s mouth. Still, it wasn’t like I couldn’t feel her anxiousness, I could smell it… figuratively.

“Hiehiehiehie,” I let out a creepy laugh, enhancing the atmosphere of the predator hunting down her prey. “Come out, come out, otherwise the light goes out. Can you run from a dragonewt’s eyes, little one?” I dulled my steps and extinguished the flame in my hand, moving forward as silently as a ninja, sneaking up behind my unexpected target. “Booooo!”

“KYYYYYAAAAAAAAH!!!” The kid’s voice erupted in such a loud cry that it made me slightly guilty, but I didn’t let this chance go as I gave the little girl a huge hug.

“Hiehie, looks like you got caught, Abi~ Come here, you know you shouldn’t go down the basement otherwise, the director will ground you hard.” I showed the little girl a wide smug smile. As I continued my embrace, I noticed that her arms were a bit cold and decided to increase my body temperature to heat her up. “Wow, it’s cold down here. How about this, is it warmer now?”

“Urgh, thank you, Big Sis,” the girl thanked me with an embarrassed face before hitting my arms, pouting. “But why did you have to scare me like that? Ahhh, I was about to cry!”

“Hiehie, but you didn’t, right? You’re brave enough to go down in the darkness and wait here while you two other friends ran up.” I wiped the tears from the girl’s eyes and patted her hair, messing it up a bit before lighting up another flame. “Still, don’t do this, again, alright? If you aren’t a beastman with good eyes or have [Night Vision], don’t go down here in the dark. It’s dangerous and you could hurt yourself badly. Always come here with an adult or one of your older siblings, okay?”

“Yes, Big Sis…”

Putting her on my shoulders, I let her grab my horns like a steering wheel as I brought her upstairs. When I opened the door, one of the caretakers was already waiting there, smiling at us, but it was clear enough that she wasn’t in the best of mood. The poor little girl and her two other friends would be in quite a lot of trouble today, hehe.

After seeing the three rule-breaking kids off, the hide-and-seek was over with my overwhelming victory, as expected. After getting everybody some nice, cool water from Tasianna, I brought the kids I played with outside, where I saw Grimnir surrounded by kids looking at him with wondrous eyes.

While Saori was acting like a teacher, Grimnir seemed like an old grandpa or veteran as he retold stories of his adventurers to them. As I brought the kids over, I greeted Grimnir who was stroking his growing beard with pride as he saw the kids marveling at his tales.

“You seem to be happy for someone who didn’t want to leave his smithy,” I gave the dwarf a teasing smile.

Grimnir scoffed at my comment, raising his head up to show off his horns. “Pah! And I could have been more productive if I were in my smithy, but if I’m being forced to come, I ain’t gonna waste my time by whining about it. You complaining that I shouldn’t teach these kids how the world is outside this city’s walls, lass?”

I shook my head. “Nah, as if, old man. You just do you, Mister Tsundere~”

“Huh? What in Crustacia’s name is that word, huh, lass? Hey, Hestia! Come back here!”

Time went by quite fast as we had fun. The day in Griffonpeak usually began at something like seven am, an hour later than in villages, I think, so there was quite some time for us to play with the kids. When lunchtime came, Eshe and her knights had some of the curry made using Saori’s recipe, praising it for being good despite how different it was to theirs. The kids, though, loved it since it was sweeter than Eshe’s curry.

During that time, Eshe and her knights had to excuse themselves, as it seemed the Lycerepth called on them and the other Empire representatives for a meeting. It concerned the date for their return to the Empire, since it’s been almost a month since they got here. Eshe told me it was sooner than she thought, since she heard Pestrodus, the Lycerepth Judge responsible for this trip, hasn’t finished his investigation yet.

It was a bit saddening to hear Eshe would be leaving soon. I didn’t like saying goodbye, but it wasn’t like we wouldn’t meet again. One day, I will have to visit the Empire, so I’ll be meeting up with her when that time came. Yup, gotta stay positive!

After lunch was over, Saori, Ellaine, and Grimnir took this time to help the older kids learn some essential skills. Aside from reading, writing, calculations, and bartering with people, after a few kids asked if they could learn some survival and adventurer skills, those were taught as well. Whatever the kids wanted to do after they left the orphanage was at their discretion.

The caretakers and the director didn’t like the idea of some of them becoming adventurers, but they acknowledged it had happened in the past. The majority of the caretakers were once orphans from this very orphanage, and they have experienced their siblings becoming hunters or mercenaries and disappearing from their lives. They wouldn’t encourage it, but they acknowledged having people like us teach them some basics would help them prepare if it did happen.

While Tasianna and I were playing with the kids, two caretakers took a few kids to go shopping. Apparently, the curry we served today was so delicious that the kids ate more rice than expected. They wanted to fill up the rice stores before it potentially empties out at dinner tonight.

43 humans and beastmen have become your fans

Total fan count updated. Total fans of [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 2600

“Big Sis, you’re an incredible singer!”

“Our Big Brothers and Big Sisters told me you had a consuuart where you sang a ton of your songs! I’m sorry we couldn’t come! We had to go to sleep, the Sisters told us.”

“Yes, so please sing more! Your voice is like a gift from the Goddess!”

I heard Eshe brought the older kids and a few caretakers with her when she came to my concert. She didn’t take up one of the VIP seats due to the kids, but they were apparently still protected by an entourage of lycerepth members. Also, Pestrodus didn’t come, despite my personal invitation. Disaaaaaaappointing, yo.

As such, I had managed to turn Eshe, those kids, and the caretakers into my fans but not the younger ones. I knew the orphanage was large from the number of kids I could see, but seeing 43 of them becoming my fans at once came to me as a bit of a shock. I was just at my first song!

Okay, I gotta add this one.

“Okay, kids, this is a song in a language I used to speak in my home country. You guys probably won’t be able to understand it, but I’m sure you will like it. Are you ready?”

““““Yeah!””””

Breathe in, breathe out.

“I wanna be the very best ♫

Like no one ever was ♫

To catch them is my real test ♫

To train them is my cause ♫

I will travel across the land ♫

Searching far and wide ♫

Each Pokemon to understand ♫

The power that's inside ♫

Pokemon! ♫

Gotta catch 'em all ♫

It's you and me ♫

I know it's my destiny ♫

Pokemon! ♫

Oh, you're my best friend ♫

In a world we must defend! ♫”

If you grew up in a musically gifted household with a mother who is pretty much an otaku, learning random anime songs was pretty much a childhood memory. Papa never really liked them, but it wasn’t as if he could just complain when Mama and I were having fun.

As such, my gifts to Peolynca were songs normal citizens will never, ever fully understand. RIP my pocket monster master dream, but now you will be known by these kids.

“Pokemon! ♫”

“““Puukimuun!”””

I was a bit worried that we were being a bit too loud for the neighbor’s taste, but none of them came to complain. I wondered if it was ‘cause of me. Regardless, worry didn’t stop me from giving these kids an amazing mini concert just for them.

As we reached the last few songs, my throat began to feel a bit tired. Healing the soreness using magic was a non-issue, but I still preferred letting it heal by itself. Still, I didn’t want to stop singing just yet so I used some healing to patch myself up. After I stretched a bit, I began the next song…

… until I heard a kid shouting for help.

“HELP! HELP! SISTERS! BIG SIS!”

Huh?! Isn’t that—!

My singing stopped and I snapped my head around, straining my ears and eyes to detect the source. None of the kids nor Tasianna were aware of the sounds, but I trusted my ears. Activating my [Detection Sensor], my eyes focused on the signal running towards the orphanage, with two others following right behind it. When a small girl sprang out of the corner of a house, I saw who it was.

Abi?!

“BIG SIS HESTIA! BIG SIS TASI! HELP!”

As Abi cried out for help, two tall, intimidating men jumped out of the corner she came out from. The two men looked like menacing gangsters and it baffled me why the hell they were chasing after Abi. After all, Abi should have followed the caretakers to the market to help them with the grocery as a punishment. Where were the others?!

Move!

As Abi ran out of the alleyway, she almost tripped over a broken tankard, but that action caused her to stumble and lose speed. This gave the two men a chance to catch up to the small girl, easily closing the distance between them. Seeing this, the fire inside of me exploded, flaring my wings up into action.

As the men were about to grab Abi, my legs and wings moved. I jumped over the fence and charged forward with [Gale Steps] and [Air Steps], dashing through the air to grab Abi right out of the clutches of the men and blowing them away. As I retreated closer to the orphanage with Abi, the men recovered from their fall, standing back up.

“What the HELL are you two assholes trying to do?!” I shouted with a crying Abi in my arms.

The men didn’t answer, clicking their tongues at their prey getting swiped away. As they weren’t about to answer, Abi forced herself to speak through her fear and tears. “Sthe-Sniff! They stook away Yeffon, Danny, and the others! They hurt the Sisters when they tried to protect us, Big Sis. They hurt them and Yeffon when they helped me escape. They took everybody away!”

Abi’s red face filled with snot and tear streams was causing a burning rage to swell inside me, something that I haven’t felt in a while now, an anger that only appeared when my friends or loved ones were hurt by somebody. I could feel myself nearly exploding at this very moment, but my parallel minds suppressed me, reasoning that I needed to control myself to keep from unleashing [Draconic Aura] on Abi and the other kids.

They were right, but not ‘cause of my [Draconic Aura]. I knew I could control that aura, what I couldn’t was how badly I would mutilate these two pieces of filth. Scaring the kids with something as traumatizing as how much blood I would squeeze out of their bodies was something I have no intention of doing.

“You two fuckers dare?! Where are they?! Where are the two grey-robed priestesses and where are the kids?! Answer me!” I roared out.

“S-Shit, run! There is more merchandise on the streets!”

“F-Fuck, can’t believe we getting in this much trouble for a coin of a dozen!”

What?!

“Who allowed you to run!” As I saw these men sprinting away without hesitation, I held Abi even tighter to my chest and was about to activate [Gale Steps] again for the fast footwork, but my efforts were stopped before I could act, as two women suddenly jumped out of a building’s shadow.

“Oof! ARRRRRRRRHHHHHHH!”

“Urgh! ARRRRRRRGHHHHHHH!”

It was Saori and her shadow clone. They jumped out of the shadow and sucker-punched the thugs before using black lightning to temporarily stun them. An immense disappointment crept into my brain. It felt as if Saori just “stole” my prey.

When her shadow clone dissipated, she gave me a look. As I could understand what she wanted to say through her eyes alone, I clicked my tongue and loosened my embrace around Abi. With the commotion, the caretakers ran out of the orphanage.

I explained to them what Abi told me, assuring them that I would get to the bottom of this. After I asked Abi where she last saw the caretakers, I told everybody from Aurora that we will be departing to save them. Nobody argued back.

“B-Big Sis.” Abi came over to me, still crying.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get them back, alright? Trust your Big Sis, I’ll get them back healthy and safe.” I reassured her, to which she nodded and prayed for my and the other’s safety. After I patted her head, we departed, taking the two unconscious bastards with us.

“Thanks for stopping me, Saori,” I thanked Saori as we made our way to the marketplace.

“No need. It probably would have caused us even more problems if we couldn’t properly interrogate them,” Saori replied, but I knew instinctively that Saori was barely able to suppress her own killing intent. When I saw the red mist exuding from her eyes, the dragon inside me felt as if a rival hunter had taken away the prize we both wanted.

Once we were in the marketplace, Saori managed to track the grey-robed priestesses down in an alleyway, lying on the ground all bruised and bloody. From the looks of it, they were just beaten. It looked like they were treated like punching bags, then left there to die.

After I healed them, it took a few minutes for them to regain consciousness. Saori gave them some water to quench their thirst, and they began to retell everything that happened in an extremely fearful tone.

In essence, they were attacked by slave hunters. Child slavers, to be more exact. While most of the group kidnapped the kids, the few remaining ones began boasting about everything as they continually let their sadistic side out by hurting the two. They weren’t sure where the kids were taken to, as they lost consciousness after a while.

“Tasianna. Ellaine. Please, bring these two back to the orphanage for us.” My tone of voice and the expression I gave them were enough for them to interpret what I was planning to do. They nodded, agreeing to my plan. “Don’t worry, as a Champion of Goddess Aurena, I promise you that I will bring those kids back safe and sound!”

After they left, I raised a [Terra Wall] to block line of sight from the rest of the marketplace and covered everything around us with an [Air Shield]. After I splashed some cold water onto the two thugs’ faces, they woke up.

“Wha-What?! What happened?!”

“Argh, sheit, my jaw! Argh, how the fuck—”

“Silence.” Silent [Draconic Aura] exuded from my body as I gave out my order to these ants, instilling the primal fear of an overwhelming force back into their bodies. Stunned by my presence, sweat drenched their faces as they looked at me with quivering eyes. “Tell me where you brought those kids.”

“K-Kids?! W-Why do you wan— YARRRRRRRRRRGHHHHH AAAAGHHHH!” His blabbering mouth was quickly shut up by the chill-sending crack of his leg. As I raised my foot, the man grabbed his leg, crying out as the bone stuck out and blood sprayed on the ground.

“Last warning.” I pried his hands away from his legs before realigning it with a [Major Heal], healing it back to normal. “Answer my question, or I will continue this tenfold. Endless pain and you cannot die since I’ll be healing you. Speak, or you will beg me for sweet death.”

Saori’s black lightning could be heard crackling next to me, ready to send their muscles and brain spasming. Grimnir took out his hammer while he slowly let out a fire breath. None of us three were willing to do this the civilized way. Persuade through favors? Aurora does not deal with child molesting pieces of scum.

We hunt them down like the beasts they are.

The men didn’t last for too long. The intimidation technique was so effective that they emptied their shit midway through their confession. After Saori and Grimnir knocked them out again, I lowered the wall and the [Air Shield]. We brought them out of the alleyway and were looking for a guard to hand them in. The place where we were going, we couldn’t just rush in blindly.

“Lady Hestia?”

“Lady Eshe?” While going out, we coincidentally met Eshe. When I asked her why she was here, she told me she was on her way back from the meeting.

“Uhm, who are those two men? What are you doing with them?” she asked me, causing me to frown.

“They are child kidnappers. Slavers.” My words instantly made not only Eshe but the usually stoic Sir Alikar and Dame Anivh react. Even without me explaining things, from the look in Saori’s, Grimnir’s, and my face, they were able to deduce what happened. When I explained it to them, the face darkened even more.

“I’m getting them back, I promise this to you, Lady Eshe. Could you please handle these two and bring them to the guards?”

“…” Eshe stayed silent at my request, closing her eyes as she contemplated what I said. When she opened them, a rage similar to the one I felt a few moments ago could be seen in her eyes, contrasting her usual demeanor. “Allow me to help.”

There was no need to argue.

“Sure. Get ready, we’re going to Shaturein.”

A note from AbyssRaven

Two chapters ago, Klea'Hatma suggested to go easy on them. Two chapters later, broken bones about to make people scream those answeres out. Aggressive diplomacy, if you will.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 225: Shaturein.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“  ‘You can figure it out yourself, I trust in you Saori~’ What did Muraina mean by that, Saori?”

“Oh, that? Well, in the past three days, I have been considering Muraina’s offer to help me train. You know, more practice would not hurt me, and it seems like Muraina’s confidence in me is high enough to the point that she thinks I can find the entrance to an underworld city that changes every week. Well, she’s not wrong.”

After interrogating those two child-kidnapping bastards and handing them over to a few guards, our party’s and Eshe’s next goal was to head into the undercity of Griffonpeak, Shaturein. However, although we knew that it was somewhere in the red light district, we didn’t exactly know where the entrance actually was.

To expedite the process and not trigger my impatience to save the kids, we decided to ask someone for help. Since we didn’t want to cause Ellaine’s parents too many problems, after we picked Tasianna and Ellaine up once they brought the injured caretakers back to the orphanage, we rushed over to the hunter’s guild. We needed to ask Krymdar or Gael for help.

Unfortunately, neither of them were there. Krymdar was still at that Lycerepth meeting and Gael was currently in Shaturein. We thought we could maybe ask Muraina for help instead, since she was a spy too, but she had no idea.

“I apologize, but the entrance to Shaturein changes every week with the help of their earth mages. It’s to protect themselves from the guards and knights, you see. Usually, you would learn the next location and its password if you’re a frequent visitor of Shaturein or, in Gael’s case, you can use your connections and know-how to learn where the entrance is whenever. I sadly did not ask Krymdar or Gael about the entrance’s next appearance. I apologize, everybody.” I remembered what Muraina said. She did point us to a couple of possible places, but we had to do the footwork ourselves.

So, since we didn’t know the way forward, we decided to start searching in the red light district. The entire situation made it seem as if Muraina was testing Saori or something. Since we knew Aurora was known in the underworld from those spies who followed us, we decided it would be best if everybody wore long, inconspicuous robes with cowls covering our faces and head. Of course, this plan had a teensy-little issue with me being the very definition of conspicuous.

You see, having large horns and a very long tail as my physical traits made it very hard to not get noticed. Sure, I could hide my wings no problem, but the problem was that I could only get rid of the former two was to enter my [Humanization Lv. 9] or Lv. 10 form. I couldn’t risk it. It meant becoming mostly or completely human respectively, reducing my maximum stats by two-thirds and having no access to any of my draconic abilities.

Ever since I tried it out the first time against those bandits, I’ve begun to feel uncomfortable without my dragon abilities. Crazy, sure, but I didn’t like feeling weak. And being human without my wings, fire breath, tail, scales, claws, and sun core felt awful. At [Humanization Lv. 10] I felt like a squishy meatbag.

Thankfully, ever since I met Cernust, I’ve been aware of bovlines. If I wrapped my tail around my legs, I would be able to hide my tail, but it did obstruct my movements. As long as I kept my scaly hands, legs and feet hidden, and they didn’t look too close at my vertical pupils I could pass off as a literal cowgirl.

“Oh yeah, how is Uno? Have you heard from him?” I asked Saori. Despite it being suspicious, we were all moving in a large group since Saori seemed to have a plan to find the entrance to Shaturein.

“Nope, he has not come back from when I sent him off to follow those spies five days ago. He should be alright, though, since he hasn’t disappeared from my shadow beast count,” Saori explained. “Still, to find the entrance, we will need Uno. He should be around somewhere, so I will recall him here.”

“ Since those spies Uno was following probably went back to Shaturein, he’ll be able to lead us to the entrance??” Ellaine asked, to which Saori confirmed with a nod.

“Well, better make it quick, Saori. There’s people watching us,” Grimnir pointed out.

He was right. The moment we entered the red light district with our cloaks on, we instantly attracted the attention of a few thuggish-looking people hanging around on the streets. It was like entering a thieves' den, or walking through the home district of a crime syndicate.

Sir Alikar and Dame Anivh informed us we could leave the flanks to them, that we should prioritize moving forward and protecting Eshe. Eshe, as a holy mage, had some powerful supportive and defensive spells, but on the other hand, her offensive ones were only so-so. Regrettably, her level was still only 23, vastly below everybody else. At least we could count on her knights in a battle since they were formally trained and level 69 and 57 respectively.

As we rushed to a place where there weren’t any prying eyes, Saori kneeled on the ground and touched her shadow. As she kept that pose, a few minutes passed when the shadow suddenly began to spasm, revealing a wolf’s head underneath it.

“Uno. Report?” Saori demanded.

Without sending the information to Eshe and her knights, Uno began to speak with us telepathically. [“The information was correct. The church issued the request to those spies, but the person who issued it was a fat pig they called a cardinal. Based on how the others treated him, he was the leader.”]

“Any information from those spies? Where did they come from?” We promised not to ask them about their organization, but nothing was said about us doing our homework on them; turnabout is fair play, after all. Uno was confident he wouldn’t get caught, so Saori ordered him to track them.

[“The alpha of the pack decided to stop spying on you, Alpha. They called themselves an information broker or something.”] It was a good thing that the garms were intelligent enough to understand us similar to other beastmen. [“I can smell you wish to know more, Alpha. Ask, I shall answer.”]

After Saori told him we needed a way into Shaturein, he agreed to show us the way, as he had just left through it. The entrance he used to enter the undercity seemed to have disappeared today, and he had to trail a group of people to leave Shaturein through the new one. Uno, apparently, survived the stakeout by stealing food and water from the merchants down there, which he described as a common practice.

Is Shaturein that much of a cutthroat place? How has it not descended to anarchy if stealing is such a common occurrence down there?

“Good work, Uno. Inform Song about everything and give yourself a good break, alright?” Saori then pulled out a fresh, bloody steak from her storage and gave it to Uno. Twitching his ears, he grabbed the meat with his mouth before disappearing with it into the shadows. After a moment, Song’s head appeared from the shadow in his place, ready to lead us to the undercity.

When we arrived at the location, we saw a group of raggedly-dressed people crowding around a run-down house, enjoying some simple street food made out of rice dough, a sauce, and whatever meat they could get, at least from the looks of it. The street food stall seemed quite popular and we questioned if this really was the place we were looking for, only for Uno to confirm the entrance was inside the building.

As we looked around a bit more, we noticed a few shady-looking people hanging around, either staying to themselves or by joining into the food craze. Unlike the clearly impoverished patrons, these people had better-maintained clothing and weapons close on hand.

“Hestia, we’re taking the peaceful way in. No need to get into trouble.” I agreed with Saori’s plan. The food vendor and those thugs were clearly guards for the entrance, and, since Shaturein was a whole independent city controlled by various shady guilds, it probably wouldn’t be good to antagonize them now. Well, unless they picked the fight themselves, like those slavers did.

Before we left the guild, Muraina also informed us that the “bouncers” would be dismissive to any attempts of us asking for a way into Shaturein, acting like normal citizens to dissuade strangers from entering their home. Even bribing wouldn’t work. You either knew the weekly password to enter or knew somebody who knew it.

Knowing we were in a hurry to save the kids, Muraina told us to mention a specific phrase to the entrance keeper. As such, Saori walked over to the food vendor alone to speak to him. “How much?”

“Eight davi. Return the bowl.” Saori handed him eight davi and received a bowl of food.

Wait, is that the phrase?!

As Saori took a bite from the flour dough with the pieces of meat, Saori nodded her head in contentment as she put the fork back on the plate. “Lady Grengar offers us her heartful dance.” At the mention of that quote, the food vendor instantly turned his head towards Saori and gave her a nod, before knocking his head backward, towards the door. With the bowl of food in her hand, she returned to us while eating it.

“We can enter.”

“ ‘Lady Grengar offers us her heartful dance’? Was that the phrase?” I asked, to which Saori nodded. Muraina did not specify who this “Lady Grengar” was, though. “And was ordering food also a necessary part?”

“Yeah, since you do not ask a tavern owner for rumors if you have not ordered anything. The same courtesy applies here. Call it a fee for newcomers.” Saori took her last bite of the food, commenting that the dough was old and the meat dry. It didn’t suit her taste.

I personally would prefer if she took this a bit more seriously, but Saori sure does hate wasting food. Patience, Hestia. If the kids are somewhere in Shaturein, I will turn that place upside down to find them.

After Saori handed the bowl back to the vendor, a thug at the door opened the house door for us and whispered, “Black pieces on the table move at the commands of the Hold. Remember it next time.” If I could hazard a guess, it probably was the password for entering Shaturein for the week.

Once inside, we noticed nobody was inside the ramshackle house; in fact, the place looked even more run down from the inside, with mold destroying the wooden floor and walls. With no other entrance except a single door, we moved through it and descended the stairs into the basement. Going through a door made from fortified earth, we finally made our way into Shaturein.

“Urgh, the smell!” Saori and I pinched our noses. Our heightened olfactory sense was working against us again, the smell of sewage overwhelming us. After Tasianna cast an enhanced [Air Shield] around us, we continued onwards.

“Lady Eshe, please do not move away from the middle,” Sir Alikar spoke in his thick accent, as he and Dame Anivh rested their hands on their weapons, ready to engage at any time. The same applied to us Aurora members with our own guards raised.

Looking at the way this tunnel was made, it definitely wasn’t made to look good. Still, it’s sturdy without any wooden support. Earth mages definitely made this. I analyzed the tunnel. The only way for Shaturein to be able to change their entrance every week would be with earth mages.

After a certain point, though, the structure of the tunnel changed, looking better built and less hastily excavated. It felt more comfortable to walk through, and had torches to light the way. Walking for maybe over ten minutes, we finally made it down to Griffonpeak’s shadow, the city underneath the Griffon — Shaturein.

“W-Well, this isn’t exactly what I imagined,” Ellaine blurted out, a statement I could agree fully with.

The underground city was, at its core, a place for criminals and the impoverished, those who could not survive a life on the surface; at least, that is what Arcanuess Helvas told me. From the looks of it, he wasn’t too off the mark. My first impression of this place was that it was filthy.

Now, it wasn’t garbage dump-tier of disgusting but wherever we walked? There was trash and dirty puddles just lying on the streets. It seemed as if there was a waste disposal service of some kind, as it wasn’t filled with that stuff, but this place did look a bit like the third-world countries I’d seen on TV.

Looking further away, I saw canals flowing through this place, making it look a bit like mini Venice. Shaturein, being built next to Griffonpeak’s sewer, which was constructed using the river next to it, probably would utilize these canals for something outside of waste disposal, right?

However, while seeing this was unexpected, I was really surprised to see quite a bit of manatech around.

Yes, there was light down here. Not from the sun but rather through artificial light created through manatech lamps, each marked with a certain insignia on them, probably to warn off any thieves from taking them. Unlike the red light district or slums, this place seemed to have more manatech than above despite its rough appearance. The streets and general architecture looked unhygienic and badly maintained, which contrasted starkly with the modern-looking manatech.

As we analyzed one of the manatech lamps, Saori went over to a lollygagger and asked him about it. “Huh? What’sit to you?” Saori threw a medium copper coin at the person, instantly making his mouth open. “Youse don’t know who’at belonged to? Ya new? Blackreach Guild. Member o’the four gangs of Shatu. Serioully, the founder, me heard. Youse find them in’ner center, with’er other three gangs.”

Jeez, this is fucking hard to understand! Come on, dude, I only learned this language almost a year ago!

Regardless of how difficult his accent was to understand, we still had a way to start. Without a proper guide, we had no way to find anybody, so the best way to do this was to go to the center. Since Shaturein was governed by gangs and guilds, the best way to start this investigation was to find these “four gangs.” Information, that is what we needed first.

When we asked Saori if she could guide us using the scent from the lamp, she shook her head. The smell was even worse down in the city and neither Saori nor her garms were willing to expose their noses to it, preferring to stay inside the [Air Shield]. Uno described his experience down here as hell, and if it wasn’t Saori’s order to track those spies down, he probably would never have stayed down here.

“Should we go ask those spies for help?” Tasianna suggested, but Saori shook her head.

“We agreed not to get involved with each other, and I think appearing before their doorsteps would count as that. Then again, I don’t think we need them, really. Hestia, would you be able to do something?”

Saori was talking about [Mana Eyes]’s new ability after I made it possible for our group to fast travel.

Mana Eyes

A skill that allows the user to perceive the flow of mana in the air. Allows the identification of items and creatures, revealing their description or profile. Allows the isolation of mana signatures, making it possible to follow mana trails and links between mana sources. Requires tremendous cognitive abilities to process properly. The Skills combined are:   [Identify Lv. 10] [Blacksmith’s Appraisal (Incomplete) Lv. 1]

“Allows the isolation of mana signatures, making it possible to follow mana trails and links between mana sources,” was the ability that I was talking about. If I concentrated, I could activate my skill’s ability to track a singular mana source and create a trail to something related to the mana.

In the case of the lamp, a mana battery had to be placed inside for it to work, and I could use that mana to track down the person who filled it up. It might not lead us directly to this Blackreach Guild, but might lead us to the person who worked for them.

Mana Eyes!

I could see the mana source inside the lamp with a trail leading—

“Arck!” I immediately regretted activating the effect.

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [High-Speed Calculation Lv. 2] [Multi-Thought Processing Lv. 3] gained

“”Lady Hestia!”” Tasianna and Eshe exclaimed as my head shot backward, flinching from the sheer amount of pain my eyes and mind felt from looking at the trail. I clenched my teeth, grinding them to relieve the pain as much as possible. This pain even ignored my [Absolute Pain Tolerance]!

“Urgh! Ark!” It felt as if a needle penetrated my eyes and injected a serum of pain into my brain, ravaging my nerves like flames. My white flames activated from this, beginning to heal me, erasing the pain as I slowly recovered. When I removed my hands from my eyes, I felt something wet drip from my eyes.

“Shit! Hestia, are you okay?!” Saori expressed her worry for me with shocked, widened eyes. Eshe pulled out a handkerchief, cleaning the wet tear up before showing it to me.

R-Red?! Blood?!

It seemed blood had started to flow from my eye, the backlash from all the information I tried to process causing the veins in my eyes to rupture. At that moment when I looked at the trail of mana, I managed to locate the source of it, but due to the sheer size of it, it caused some serious strain on my eyes and mind. It was too much information in too short of a time.

I’ve gotten better with using [Mana Eyes], able to hold it active for longer than ten seconds with my parallel minds’ help without suffering any pain. In an environment where mana is less convoluted like my subspace, I could probably handle it for longer, but the mana in Shaturein was a mess. This place was filled with mana, to the point I was worried monsters would appear out of nowhere.

“Shit! Help! Monster spawning!” Speaking of the devil…

Before I could inform everybody where the mana battery’s trail led to, shouts for help exploded from over the corner as men, women, and children ran for their lives away from that direction. A sharp “Kruuuuuk!” resounded, followed by a loud cry of helplessness.

Deciding to check it out, our group ran over towards the sounds, only to find a blood-sucking bat draining the already deceased body of a man dry. [Blood-Gnawing Land-Bat], I think it was called. We encountered a few of them in the dungeon in Cedaraille, and the sight of a pair feeding on three defeated adventurers especially stuck with me. With the mana so thick down here, I guess monsters randomly spawning around was an actual possibility.

The moment the land-bat was finished with its meal, it turned towards us and roared, before fleeing. Saori moved to draw her dagger at it, but stayed her hand, pointing out that somebody was coming from the rooftop. In the next second, a group of people appeared from the rooftops and smashed the land-bat into pieces.

“Wooo! Another for the count!” A young man with wild, unkempt black hair shouted as cleaned the blood off from his bone cudgel. His clothes, made from the pieces of monsters, didn’t give me the same impression as the people we first saw entering Shaturein. Looking closer, he and the two men behind him seemed to have the same emblem we saw on the map.

Blackreach Guild?

“Shut it, fucker! If you’ve got time to gloat, you got’cha some time to kill more!” A man behind the cudgel guy grabbed him and dragged him to the next battlefield. Following them from the streets, we ended up in an area with a bunch of thugs or delinquent looking people hunting monsters from an outbreak of felwings and land-bats

I had no idea if they were adventurers or the local militia, but they certainly were dealing with the problems decently enough. Since those felwings and land-bats were only rank E, they could only be taken out by people with some knowledge of fighting. They were hardly doing it flawlessly, many of them were hurt and some barely escaped a fatal blow, but the monsters were being culled.

“W-We should help Lady Hestia!” Eshe exclaimed. She wasn’t a saintess for nothing with her intention to heal the wounded, but she was quickly stopped by Anivh.

“Lady Eshe, we should wait. This is not our battle to participate in. Our priority should be your protection and to find and save the children, My Lady.” Eshe reluctantly agreed to that statement. In this chaos those people called fighting, it wouldn’t be weird for Eshe to get attacked if we weren’t careful. No need to risk fighting if we could avoid it.

Even Anivh is serious about finding those kids, huh? The Saintess of Orphans and her knights. What a fitting combination. Still, I do wonder if it would be best to heal them after the fight, since it wouldn’t do us good to get attention. Any case, not like the threat warranted it. It’s only a bunch of E ranks…Huh?

One second I was watching the pseudo-adventurers cleaning the bats up, in the next second, the ground began to break away, and numerous jaguar-sized land-bats appeared from below the ground.

Mana Eyes.

Acidic Blood Land-Bat

A giant bat monster with wings adapted to land travel. With a huge appetite for mana-rich blood, these monsters roam caves and forests, using their acidic blood spit to blind or incapacitate both prey and predator. Rank D

Me and my loud mouth…

“S-Shit! Those things again! Hey, hey, get fucking help! Run!” The thugs shouted as they stopped attacking the bats and instantly ran away without any hesitation. Seeing their attackers running away, the bats shrieked in victory, preparing to roam the streets to find their next meal.

Scheiße! We better take care of this now. Sorry kids, please, hand a bit longer. Your Big Sis has to help out.

Seeing me prepare a lightning spell, Ellaine nodded her head vigorously and unsheathed her sword. Saori sighed, leaving us to engage the foes as she and the others stayed behind to protect Eshe. As Ellaine and I engaged the first couple of land-bats, my [Detection Sensor] suddenly felt something appearing out of nowhere. Looking over, I saw a familiar man jumping out of a shadow.

“Dark Tendrils!” Black vines shot out of the shadow underneath one of the D ranks, constricting it long enough for the man to dash in and slay it with his daggers. “Home sweet home, there is always fucking action down here! I just want to sleep in peace!”

Gael?

What a place to find the very man we were looking for. Farron’s vice and his spymaster, Gael.

“Gael!” I shouted as I blasted a D rank bat out of the way.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Job [White Pyromancer] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 1]

Attributes have increased due to level up

“Huh?! Lady Hestia?!” Gael recognized me instantly despite the cloak hiding my face. Did he remember my voice? “What are you doing here?!”

“Talk later, how about I give you a hand first?” I shot out another [Lightning Bolt] before cleaning up a few E ranks with [Wind Slash]. Ellaine wasn’t slacking off either, slicing up the bats at a faster rate than I was with her mid-ranged whipsword. It wasn’t long until only the D ranks were left.

Suffice to say, we didn’t have much trouble. After the battle was over, Gael came over to us and pulled the cowl slightly back, revealing my face up to my forehead.

“Oooh, it really is you, Your Highness. And here I thought I turned crazy when I heard your voice so suddenly down here,” Geal said, flabbergasted to see me in Shaturein.

Showing him a wry smile, I couldn’t help but understand him. “Well, it’s not like I expected to go down here. I thought about it, but you know, this place stinks too much for my nose. Anyways, how did you recognize me from before when I’m dressed like this? My voice?”

“Come on, did you think I would forget? Like the voice of an angel, My Lady.” With an over-the-top bow you would only see from nobles’ sons, Gael bowed before me in the showiest way possible. He then raised his head and sang his next sentence. “So, My Lady, why are you here, in the den of the rats~”

Nice rhythm, but he can’t control his voice super well. Good enough to swoon most girls, though.

“Well, for one, I was looking for you for help, Gael.” As I said that, Eshe and the others approached us, followed by the rag-tag group from before. Before I could finish my next sentence, the rag-tag group shouted in fervor.

“Woooo, big haul for today, guys! We eating good tonight, I say!”

“Break out the fire! Grill that shit up, boys!”

“Bro! Nice work, today! Thanks for the help as always! Huh? … Who’s the tiny?” The last comment came from the same cudgel guy from before.

Tiny? Really?

I personally knew I wasn’t the tallest, but saying that to somebody’s face isn’t very nice. I mean, what if I had a complex about it like a certain blond alchemist from that anime I watched? Regardless, it wasn’t something I needed to answer. I wanted to get down to business now.

Gael looked at my lack of reactions and sighed, before smacking the young cudgel man in the head.

“Yeowch! Bro, what gives?!” he shouted in confusion.

“Don’t ‘Bro’ me, you pup! Damnit, get your ass up and clean this fucking mess! Tell the residents everything is fine and then prepare the meat for storage. Call the mages to clean this mess up. Oh, and one more thing, the next time you speak with somebody, fucking learn who you talking to first!” Gael grabbed his head and pulled it over to me. My cowl was hiding my face again, although not my horns. “Learn some respect, kid. These are my guests. Apologize to the young lady.”

“Ehh?!” The young man was confused as hell, but Gael did not give him much time to react, pushing his head down into a deep bow. “I-I’m sorry, My Lady!”

“You sorry for what, huh?!”

“I’m sorry for calling you ‘tiny,’ My Lady! I won’t do this again!” Considering he knew what was rude without anybody telling him, he sure was a quick thinker.

Gael then pulled the guy’s head up, closer to his face to give him a face-to-face lecture, “Remember this, kid, if you want to rise through the ranks inside the guild, you analyze who you are talking to and keep your foul mouth to yourself, alright? If you were to anger the guests of Mister Vangrim, even if by accident, he ain’t gonna let you keep your tongue. The guilds are the bosses here in Shatu, not some greenhorn kid thinking he is the biggest shit in the whole world! You hear?!”

“Yes, Bro! I’m sorry!”

“Good! Now scram! Learn some manners and get some training! Eat some meat to pack some more muscles, kid. You fucking brats, too! Fuck off, now, I got business to deal with.” After sending those young men away, Gael sighed and scratched his neck.

W-Wow, did Gael just do that for me? Wow… Somehow, I feel like I’m somebody important.

“… You certainly changed from our meeting in Firwood, Gael.” It was Saori. She had a smile on her face.

Recognizing her, Gael gave out a small chuckle. “Nah, this is how I deal with these rambunctious kids these days. Had to learn these things the hard way, so I’m just doing my best to act as a mentor. Shaturein isn’t kind to anybody if you don’t know how to fit in. Even the ones out in the slums probably have it better than here. Anyways, where were we? What are you ladies doing down here?”

“We—” Once again, I was interrupted.

“Erm, excuse me.” But this time, it was from Eshe. “Could you allow me to heal the wounded, first?”

“… Saintess Eshe?” Gael looked mortified. “My stomach is acting up again. Are you ladies about to drag me into more trouble?”

It was only once, but he already knew us as well as if we were besties.

A note from AbyssRaven

I just noticed the voting system was gone. RIP. Living under a rock.

And now, we are inside the undercity. Time to hunt some slave hunters.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 17 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 226: Even Criminals can make decent enough Allies.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #3 her to promote our Patreon. 17 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 17 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until December!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

“Thank you, thank you, Priestess! Uh, praise the winged woman, uh, Goddess! Yeah, the Goddess! Praise the Goddess, thanks!”

Whether you’re a rich merchant or a street thug, when you have a serious wound leaking precious blood as your skin turns pale and sickly, having a healer bring you back from the brink of death was something that just about anyone would be thankful for. At least, the people I’ve met so far have felt grateful for the white grace.

After Eshe and I finished healing the wounded thugs — with help from Ellaine, Alikar, and Anivh glaring at the ones with dicks for brains — Gael dragged us away from the group, intending to take us to a different, unspecified location. As we walked through the streets, avoiding certain locations by going through alleyways, Gael suddenly spoke up after a ton of silence.

“One tip, Miss Eshe.” Eshe’s knights began to glare daggers at Gael as he wrongly addressed their mistress, despite knowing her title, but the man in question ignored it all. “I won’t say there aren’t any people down here without a good heart, because there are quite a lot of them, but most of the time you will only find greedy cutthroats. If they see a priestess naive enough to heal others without asking for a fee, all they will see is a potential payday instead of a samaritan.”

He was right. It was obvious to me when I was healing those thugs that most of them couldn’t stop themselves from looking at us with either lecherous eyes or those of an opportunistic hunter. I didn’t feel the need to take care of them with Gael around. It seemed they feared this alcoholic enough not to make a move.

Even then, if they had heard Gael addressing Eshe as a saintess, they probably wouldn’t have stopped with just looking. If crime movies have taught me anything, then it would be that the criminal underworld had enough eyes and ears around every corner and inside every shadow. You had to be super-duper cautious down here.

Seemingly understanding what he wanted to say, Eshe nodded, but she still felt the need to argue back, “I understand, and thank you, Mister Gael. However, I have a duty to heal the wounded. They protected the innocent bystanders. It is only righteous and proper for me to aid them as a humble servant of the Goddess.”

If her willingness to help orphans hadn’t proven it yet, then this should be another argument for how much of a textbook saintess Eshe was. The world could use more good.

“They helped the inhabitants, sure, but it’s all about upholding a deal, Miss. The representative of this district signed a protection contract with the Blackreach Guild, so protection they will get. As long as the money is paid, the guild will make sure the district won’t get turned into ruins by the spawning monsters.” We ended up at the dead end of an alleyway, where Gael climbed up the wall blocking the end of the alley to vault over to the other side. Once we helped Eshe climb over, we continued following Gael.

“What is this Blackreach Guild, anyways, Gael? We heard about it from one of the inhabitants, but we have not done any deep research into Shaturein,” Saori asked.

“The Blackreach Guild. One of the four pillars in Shaturein that control this place. Outside of being the gang the original founders of this place formed, they are also the representative of Shaturein whenever they need to discuss stuff with the royal palace. You might say that they are the top dogs of this place.”

Gael explained that each of these four guilds controlled different aspects which kept Shaturein running well. Since they were the pillars, their foundations were made upon the numerous gangs, organizations, and businesses inside this place. As such, Shaturein was governed as an oligarchy, where every law and decision was handled by the pillars.

Gael showed four fingers, pulling them back to his palm while mentioning each of the pillars. “Blackreach Guild, managed by Vangrim Blackreach. Honorable, well, as honorable as a merc can be. International Desires, the boss is Hamil Czesics. Businessman. Probably responsible for or at least involved with most of the organized crime in Artorias. Sewer Maintenance, pfff, ahem, led by the uncreative four-eyes Rafka Qus. They are responsible for maintaining the whole place and the sewer, making them the primary contractor for mages. Also, the main producer of the street drug ‘Swain,’ urgh, nasty shit. Don’t even try it if you’re offered some, it would make your nose melt right off.”

“I thank you for warning us from not taking a drug, but maybe not mention it exists in the first place. I am pretty sure all of us are fully aware not to take random drugs,” Saori protested, looking slightly annoyed. Her responsible adult side was speaking.

“Well, lass, sometimes it is good to give warnings.” And the person to baffle Saori even more was Grimnir, who scratched his hair in embarrassment. “Ahem, I-I’m just saying, Saori. Warnings never hurt, especially since most of you girls are young and inexperienced.”

Saori couldn’t stop glaring at Grimnir judgmentally. If he hadn’t mentioned anything, we probably wouldn’t have been this suspicious of whatever Grimnir was hiding.

Gael coughed, bringing people’s attention back to him. “Ahem, to continue… the last guild would be ‘The Heartful Dance.’ They are controlled by Jenghil Grengar, the mistress of a kingdom of brothels within Artorias and the countries surrounding us. Probably one of the best information brokers concerning human and dwarven activities, since her girls and boys are everywhere. No brothel in any of the cities or towns she has her fingers in is allowed to operate without her ‘blessing.’”

“‘Grengar?’” I spoke that name out loud, remembering what I heard at the entrance. “Saori, isn’t that the person you mentioned to that food vendor?”

“Oh, so that’s how you got inside.” Gael turned around, walking forward with his back facing us. “I see Muraina took a good liking to all of you, but I guess I should have figured it since the Young Miss is around. Your status alone can loosen her lips, you know.”

Gael probably spoke about my royal lineage, since that was the only thing I could think of which Muraina would probably respect without a question.

“Well, to answer your questioning look, yes, Muraina knows Lady Grenger. In fact, she’s her mentor, haha,” Gael laughed as he said that but hearing him call a prostitute madam the apprentice of Muraina was a bit shocking to me. “Haha, kinda makes me jealous how lucky she is to get trained by Muraina. That old elf flatly rejected me when I asked her, saying I was too lazy. Haaaaa, man, that really killed my motivation to train.”

“Haha…” Saori let out a pitying chuckle, but in truth, I think she was feeling awkward since Muraina had offered to train Saori. It would be best if we didn’t mention that.

“You seem to know a lot about these guilds, Mister Gael,” Ellaine commented, looking impressed.

“Well, since I’m an information broker, I kinda have to keep tabs on the competition. You can’t compete with people like Lady Grenger or Muraina if you’re sitting on your ass, drinking stale mead all the time, right? They have impressive spy networks, but if you meet and stay with the correct people, you can learn things even they couldn’t learn about, right?” Gael winked at Saori, Tasianna, Ellaine, and me. He probably was speaking about the Davison situation Muraina had no idea about.

“… I feel left out,” Grimnir mumbled.

After some walking around through this weird place, I began to notice the increase in mana in the surrounding area. Even without using [Mana Eyes], I could feel the same air, thick with mana like in the Belzac forest or inside a dungeon. This felt like the entire place was infested with monsters.

“… This is a hazard,” Tasianna spoke, frowning as she probably had the same thoughts. “Why is nobody taking care of all this mana? Aren’t you too careless with how monster spawning seems to be a normality here?”

“That’s life in Shaturein, Tasianna,” Gael answered. “But when you’re forced to live in a lawless place filled with risks of all kinds, you have to have something to attract mages down here, right? Down here, mages can do whatever the fuck they want, free from the guild’s rules. On the other hand, the mage’s guild doesn’t care about the shit down here if it isn’t catastrophic, since Shaturein and Griffonpeak are separated by a thick layer of fairnite. That’s why monsters don’t spawn up there.”

Fairnite was Peolynca’s version of a magic-resistant mineral, able to absorb and protect yourself from offensive magic. This beautiful white ore, which looked a bit like marble, you usually find in the homes of nobles was supposedly built above Shaturein to protect Griffonpeak from the mana down here. Just like the basements the nobles had underneath their homes.

This then made me question why the entrance of Shaturein would change every week, since I found it weird with the fairnite layer. Gael explained that, during the founding of Shaturein, the first king of Artorias built the fairnite layer around the original entrance to Shaturein, and that this half of the tunnel to enter the undercity had never changed. The mages simply changed the entrance above the fairnite, never the tunnel leading to the undercity.

“That’s why the entrance can only be found in the red light district.” Gael pointed out. “But whatever, back to the question. The mages down here rarely take care of their messes, but we still make sure to keep the mana accumulation below the spawning of B ranks. On the other hand, since all the mages work in the center of Shaturein where the pillars are, mercs and hunters naturally flock there to hunt everything down, making this into Shaturein’s own little, although more dangerous, dungeon.”

‘I’m gonna make my own dungeon, with blackjack and hookers,’ — probably the crazy guys managing this place.

“So, you are telling me they let their mages go wild down here, endangering people with all the monster spawning, and then demand those same people pay protection money for a problem the guilds allowed to foster? Not to mention the crimes?” Saori listed out in horror, shaking her head as a result.

Gael shrugged with a wry smile.

“This hellhole beyond the Goddess’s gaze can give Sarkafiina’s slums a narrow save from a scorpion’s sting.” I wasn’t sure exactly what Anivh meant by that idiom, but I felt like I could understand it. This place would give most cities in the U.S. a run for their money in how awful it was. This was far beyond the petty thefts I heard could happen in Manhatten, fuck me.

Well, whatever. This was the place. This has to be the place I saw with my eyes. Note to self, don’t use [Mana Eyes] in such a place again for longer than a second to appraise.

After Gael stopped moving, I raised my cowl slightly to look around us, noticing how much cleaner it was around here. Even the water canal was pretty clean, although I still wouldn’t attempt to drink it. It was a far cry from the neighborhood at the entrance; it would be similar to comparing the slums with the merchant district.

If I had to guess, this had to be Shaturein’s center, where the main guilds were headquartered. It had to be clean. After letting us look around a bit, Gael urged us inside what looked like an apartment complex. Walking to the top floor, we entered a medium-sized apartment.

Inside, we found a few young kids playing something. “Alright, alright. Out, kids. I got business to deal with, so out,” Gael demanded. The kids let out sighs of disappointment when they heard this but quickly obeyed, going out after taking a glance at us.

Gael then pointed to a set of decently clean couches for us to sit down in. In fact, this whole apartment was liveable enough, in my opinion. The change in neighborhoods also changes the quality of life; it should be some time I was very much aware of. “Well, make yourself at home, everybody.”

“Gael, were those kids your ‘little birds?’” Saori asked as she took off her cowl.

“Yeah. Kids I picked up from the streets. They only need to listen to street gossip and in return they get food, money, and homes they can live in. Still harsh, street life is never easy, but better than cold and starving, right?” Gael replied, earning him a smile from Eshe. “Now, you ladies and two gentlemen aren’t here to hear about my spy networks, right? How about we get down to business? I’ve already got a bad feeling about it, so spit it out before I get indigestion from worry.”

I nodded and told him pretty much everything that happened from the moment I saw Abi nearly getting kidnapped by a few thugs. As Eshe listened to everything again, I noticed her closing her eyes, frowning as she prayed for the safety of the kids who were kidnapped. Gael, too, wasn’t exactly pleased by it.

“Fuck me, are you serious? Slavers? Pah! If there is one good thing about Shaturein, it’s that they at least follow the ban on slaves the crown issued. It isn’t popular at all down here, thanks to our history, but that doesn’t stop some fuckers from doing shit like this,” Gael spat out in anger, looking disgusted as he heard the ending.

I nodded, approving the rage he felt. My feelings bounced off from him, reconfirming that I was reacting correctly. “Yes, and that is why we came down here immediately. We need your help, Gael. Please, you must know this place better than us, right?”

“Of course! Who do you think I am, huh? Farron ain’t keeping me on his payroll for being useless. Just to make it clear, did you kill those two bastards, Little Miss?” I shook my head. I told him I handed him to the guards. “Yeah, shit decision. They probably will get out once they mention who they are working for. Argh, fuck! That scum of the world, Hamil, is doing this shit, again!”

“That’s the boss of International Desires, right?” Saori said.

“Yeah. They mostly handle illegal imports and exports, being the primary players of the black market in the kingdom. They serve everyone from lowly beggars to even the most influential nobles. That’s why they are Shaturein’s main flow of money, and they ain’t stupid enough to not use this influence.” Gael paused for a moment before continuing. “But it seems like, among their illegal exports, they’re moving human slaves as part of their business.”

My feet stomped on the ground, instantly standing up and jumping over the couch. As I was making my way over to the door, Saori grabbed my shoulders and stopped me. “Hestia, don’t.”

Rolling my head in annoyance, I turned around to reply, saying, “Saori, I promise I won’t cause a giant fuss. I know that! If the Blackreach Guild, a pillar, has their emblems on everything they own, then this prideful Hamil would, too. I’ll catch somebody with their emblem and get the information out of them. I then go to the place with the kids, and bust them out. Easy.”

“Hestia, think rationally. You know this isn’t the correct way to do this.”

“Saori! Mhmm!” I stopped myself from shouting. “I know you are worried but this isn’t the time to stop me! I was cool up to this point, even patient, but with the kids right over the corner, I’m not stopping now! I can handle this. Lady Eshe, you want to save the children now, right? Please, support me!”

As I looked over at Eshe for support, Saori placed her head in front of my vision, blocking me from looking at Eshe. “Hestia, I know you can handle yourself. Not like most people can stop us if we actually go wild, right?”

I was surprised. Looking at how Saori usually treated things like this, I thought she would try to argue with me to not go since it was too dangerous to go in without information. She was the worrywart of our party, and I could understand and respect that. She was right about it most of the time.

“Then why are you stopping me?”

“Because I am worried about the social repercussions after we do this. Don’t you think breaking into the stronghold of one of the pillars of Shaturein would be as easy as dragging the kids out? If the three other guilds were to support International Desires, we will be making a ton of enemies all at once. Living in Artorias will be hell for us, if their influence even reaches nobles.”

“I agree with Saori, lass,” Grimnir interjected himself into our discussion. “This isn’t gonna stop with just this. If we kick the hornet’s nest, then they will sting us. These people don’t need to resort to assassinating us, you know, they can ruin you through other means. Sabotaging your businesses, like the one Ellaine’s father has right now. Supporting your rivals to let them do the deed. Or destroying your reputation in any way possible. Even the most reputable person can fall down a cliff if they have too many enemies. You understand what we mean, now?”

I clenched my teeth. If I thought about it, Saori was acting just like normal, it was just that she was pointing out things I hadn't really considered. Now that I thought about it, if “The Heartful Dance” is one of the best information brokers in Artorias, then Shaturein will find out about me even if I hide my identity. This wouldn’t be the last time we would have to confront them.

… I nearly let my hot-headedness get the better of me again. I’m notexactly opposed to mass murder, since I was doing it all the time to get experience, but slaughtering a bunch of humans and beastmen might go over the line I set for myself when I became an E rank.

“Actually, that won’t be necessary.” As if he was throwing me a rescue line, Gael’s next words brought back my moxie. “None of the pillars will come to the aid of Hamil when it’s just a ‘slave break out.’”

“Hmm, what do you mean with that, lad? Doesn’t sound like that to me with the way you described the guilds,” Grimnir argued, but Gael shook his head.

“The pillars are invaluable and will protect each other if they must… but not when it comes to something every other pillar disagreed with. And slavery is something none of the other three would back International Desires up for,” Gael sneered at our target. “Be careful not to kill Hamil or bring his business down, and you can walk out of this without a problem. Besides, you have allies of your own in this, people.”

“Yeah, you. What about it?” I responded.

“Argh, not just me! Damnit, that hurts, you know, Lady Hestia!” After he composed himself, Gael continued his explanation. “What I mean is that even without that slavery bit, two of the other guilds will probably even help you. First, the Blackreach Guild absolutely despises International Desires. Not only because of the slavery stuff, but Hamil has been tip-toeing into the black mercenary business lately and this is Mister Vangrim’s area. Nobody controls the black merc companies in Shaturein but Blackreach.”

If a criminal went into another’s territory, one of them would die. If a syndicate did the same thing to another criminal organization, there would be war.

“Call us a proxy to this problem.” Gael’s expertise of Shaturein was showing. Boy, was I glad I met up with him so early. “Next, The Heartful Dance. You already know that Muraina supports you and, as such, Lady Grengar will too. If you didn’t know already, Lady Grenger is not only a half-elf, but also a bastard child of the House Morgiana.”

“““What?!””” The responses from Saori, Ellaine, and I were expected. This was one hell of an information bomb.

“Well, the bastard child of Duchess Morgiana’s brother. Apparently from what I heard, he got drunk one day and the former boss of the guild, Lady Grengar’s mother, used this chance to conceive a child from him. Using blackmail on House Morgiana and the brother, she protected the child growing inside her.” In other words, this Jenghil Grengar was Thyra’s cousin. “Her eyes prove it. They have the same seal as any other Morgiana, since it was that or the death of the child, no arguments. She has no right to inherit, but I’m sure Lady Grengar would do anything to get in the good graces of House Morgiana, such as, for example, helping a very, very important personage, like you, Little Miss.”

The information about me being a dragon princess should be nonexistent in the underworld, hopefully, but there might have been some rumors about how friendly I was to Thyra and her mother at the ball. There was also that time I went to meet up with Thyra at the academy. I can probably work with that to persuade the Madam to help me.

Gael then clapped his legs after saying all that, standing up and walking over to the door. “What are you people waiting for? If there are slaves, there are auctions. We don’t know how much time the kids have left, so come on!”

“Where to?” I asked.

“To somebody who will most likely know where the slaves are held. You don’t get dicey information like this from goons, Little Miss.”

“Urgh.” It felt like a jab at my plan to interrogate a random goon to find the kids.

Leaving the center, we went to the other neighborhood. Even walking just a bit outside, the situation was nowhere close to the center. It was like all the money was invested there, and the rest of the place was just left to fend for itself.

In the center, fewer people were lollygagging around on the streets, as most of them spent their time at nearby taverns or hangout spots. Here, it was like at the entrance. People were crowding the streets as they returned from work for the day, the corners were filled with people using it as temporary housing like the homeless in New York.

In this mess, pickpockets were rampant and fights broke out everywhere as they tried to settle things with their fists. In some alleys, brawls were happening and blood was pooled on the ground here and there. I thanked Tasianna once again for her [Air Shield]. If it weren’t for her, the smell would have tormented me just like the sight of everything was.

I never want to be in this situation. Saori was right, I need to take care of my money. I need to make more, so I can live a comfortable enough life. I don’t think I could live like… somebody desperate enough to kill others for bread crumbs.

… Says the one who had to do this very thing in the first week of being reborn.

As I shook this idea out of my head, we finally ended up at our destination. Urging us to enter, Gael told us to mind ourselves within. The first thing that came to my mind when we entered was a sense of deja vu, as kids frolicked around as they ran through the house. The building wasn’t super large, but it probably would be enough for a small suburban family.

However, there were a lot of kids down here, from humans to various types of beastmen. It almost felt like an orphanage with how the kids were allowed to just play around. Actually, a kindergarten might have been a better description. Unlike Gael’s spy kids, these children were truly acting like kids.

“Woah! Peeps! Hey, hey, hey, we got intruders!”

“Call for Big Sis! Run!”

“Run! Run! We need to hide!”

Are we that scary?

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME!” somebody shouted as the kids fled the moment they saw us. Feet stomping on the wooden floor came running towards us and I could feel my [Foresight] warning me for danger. Over the corner of a door, a woman with floppy bunny ears and long legs, holding a red magic circle on her clawed hand. “I don’t fucking care who you are! Get the hell out of my house, or I’ll fucking send you to the taxidermist!”

Fire mage!

As I was about to ready myself for battle, Gael forced himself through all of his, holding his hands high as he began speaking with the loopridae, “Hey, hey, Friell, it’s me! It’s me, lass! Don’t shoot!”

The rabbit girl, called Friell, contorted her face into disgust as she saw Gael, unwilling to drop her antagonism. “Yeah, and why shouldn’t I shoot you, huh? Traitorous son of a bitch, even if the new boss forgave you, do you think you can waltz into my house like this?! None of the other members are willing to forgive you for abandoning us like that either!”

Despite how dangerous the situation was, since we actually did enter a house without announcing our arrival first, Gael still continued trying to diffuse it. “Hey, come on. I left before you joined the group, I thought I made that clear to you. I didn’t know who you were back then, and I already apologized for hurting you. You know being in Yanderu Elusuess means thinking about yourself first and foremost. If you were in the same situation as I was in, you would have done the same thing, kid!”

“Y-You! Gael, dammit, GET OUT OF MY—” As the loopridae’s eyes flared up, Saori stepped in front of them.

Unveiling her face underneath her cloak, Saori spoke with concern on her face, “We are only here to talk. We aren’t here to fight, so can we please talk?”

“Huek?!” The moment she noticed Saori, she flinched, and the magic circle fizzled out. She quickly took two steps back and started to shiver slightly. “W-Why are you here?! G-Gael, what are you doing bringing this wolfkin here?!”

Gael sighed, seeing as the situation seemed to have diffused somewhat. He stepped forward. “Friell, this is Saori. You two should be acquainted, I guess.” Neither Saori nor Friell responded. “As she said, we aren’t here for anything bad. We need some information, and I think you’d be interested in what we have to say too.”

“And what would that be? Gael, I don’t take any jobs that don't come from the boss or the company. I have enough to do outside of barely doing the minimum to keep myself and everybody else afloat.” Looking at the kids slowly creeping up to the young woman, using her as a shield, I could imagine what she meant.

Gael nodded and went directly to the point. “Slavers. Kids from the church’s orphanage were kidnapped. International Desires is up to something again. Are you still up to date on them?”

“Huuek!” At the sound of “slavers,” the rabbit girl began to take in deeper breaths before starting to grind her teeth in pure anger. Gael, looking at her with pity, did not speak any further, giving her time to calm down.

“Big Sis? Are you alright?” a kid behind her tugged at her clothes, looking scared at the situation. “A-Are they here to hurt us?”

Considering all of us were wearing cloaks, I guess it did make sense if they thought we were suspicious.

“N-No, I don’t think so,” the rabbit girl answered, looking at the kids. “I think I have work to do, kids. Call Kaian for me, alright?”

“Mhmm!” All of them nodded as they rushed further into the house. After a few seconds, a well-built panther beastman appeared, resting his long spear over his shoulder as he waltzed into the room, looking intimidating.

“Hey, you bastards! You fucking dare enter my Friell’s house?! Are you fucking courting death or wha— Hold on, you are that wolfkin. Saori?!” The pantherae expressed his shock, opening his jaw wide open before clenching his teeth together into a wide smile.

“… I am not here to fight.” And that was all that was needed for the panther man’s bloodthirsty smile and posture to slump like a flaccid dick.

Gael sighed once again, and turned back to us. “Well, I hope you can get along. I introduce to you two members of the infamous Yanderu Eluseuss, Friell and Kaian. They will be all the help we need to track down the slave auction.”

Saori really knows the weirdest people. They are either criminals or former ones.

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Chapter 227: The Young Mistress Hates Slave Auctions.

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“…”

“…”

This is awkward… and a colossal waste of time.

After we managed to brush off the pretty tense introductions, the loopridae girl, Friell, moved us to the living room. Unlike Gael’s decent housing, the home of the rabbit girl was more fitting with the neighborhood she was living in. It wasn’t filthy, per se, but it looked a bit too dilapidated for my taste.

The sofas we sat on had stains on them, but from the warmth I was feeling from it, it seemed it was just washed and dried with something hot — fire magic for example. Still, I was kinda jealous of Tasianna, Alikar, and Anivh, who chose to stand out of respect for their respective mistresses. It was ‘cause of my tail — I still had it wrapped around my legs to hide my identity, but it made it hard to sit down.

After everybody sat down, Friell chanted the spell [Ignite] and lit up a candle on a table stand. With Tasianna’s [Air Shield] down, since it would cause a mess, I could smell the suffocating smell of burning animal fat. Still, it was like perfume compared to the smell outside.

“If you made them yourself, you could add some herbs or flowers to it. The scent would hide the stench,” I said out loud, accidentally.

The loopridae looked at me. Except for Saori, the rest of us had not removed our cowl nor did we give them our names. “… I’ll scrounge some up, thanks.” Friell seemed polite to me.

But that was all before we descended down into awkwardness once again. Gael had to step out to do something quickly, but that meant he left us in this situation where nobody wanted to talk. I mean, these were two Yanderu Eluseuss members, people from a black mercenary company. Pretty much a criminal syndicate.

We let this situation stew for too long for my taste until Gael finally came back, blowing the awkwardness out of the door.

“Alright, got somebody to deliver a message to Mister Vangrim and Lady Grengar. Things should be clarified with them, and I wouldn’t bet on Sewer Maintenance caring one copper about what we’re about to do,” Gael stated, motivating me even more. If there wouldn’t be any consequences for my actions if I kept it to just freeing the kids and ruining the slave auction, then I won’t need to hold back my anger.

“Mister Gael, I know this might be a bit late to ask, but who exactly are you? I thought you were simply the spymaster for Sir Farron,” Ellaine asked.

It was a reasonable question; it seemed weird that Gael not only was so chummy with the Blackreach Guild thugs, but also the animosity between him and the Yanderu Elusuess seemed to have kinda dissipated. I thought he was on a hitlist or something.

“He didn’t reveal much to you, either, huh?” Friell responded instead of Gael. “Typical. Keeps secrets even from the people he should care for.” There was obviously some history between those two; it was evident enough from the way she glared daggers at him.

The pantherae, on the other hand, seemed to be less disturbed by it. “This guy used to be a pretty big deal when he was still sleeping and eating with us rats, you know? Got awfully friendly with Blackreach, to the point he became one of their Trusted, you know? Means he was valued by the boss of a top guild. Down here, loyalty and trust are golden, worth more than a vault full of actual gold… or at least, that’s what I heard, haha!”

I remember. Saori told me this guy was once a bandit and he fought against her students. A former member of that bandit group we had fought to rescue the villagers from Carine village.

Saori growled in a low tone, loud enough for Kaian to shut his mouth and glare at Saori, clutching his spear in caution. Seeing this, Gale sighed.

“Well, it’s like they’ve said, ladies and sir. I then joined Yanderu Eluseuss and tried to make my way up as an executive for Blackreach, before, well, I ran away with Farron and Yorshka. Pretty much was exiled after that, but things cooled down and I’m here now just as a ‘friend’ of Mister Vangrim. This brings me to the main topic.” Gael took a seat on the only rocking chair. “We are busting Hamil’s slaves out, the kids they kidnapped from the orphanage upstairs specifically. Friell, we need help.”

The rabbit girl groaned at Gael’s demands, looking unwilling to help. “Yeah, I know. Of course, you would do that. No need for pay. Of course, I keep an eye on them. Valelor can’t forgive those slavers anymore than I can, and he’s been putting the skills you taught him to good use. There is an auction about to happen tonight at midnight, over in the Stinkfish District. Too large for us to hit, though.”

“How many enforcers? Any executives? Mercs?”

“Enough enforcers to make everybody else scared. One of them is that fucker Helmut — he left the company after the new boss settled in — and, without a water mage, I’m not fighting against that fire fanatic.”

Aren’t you a fire mage, yourself? I thought but I kept it to myself for now. I didn’t want to interrupt.

Friell continued, “One executive, thankfully he’s a bookwizer, uhm, a scribe for you surface dwellers. Not a threat, probably just there to make sure things work since our sabotages have hindered past auctions. As for mercenaries, though, they hired a lot. One of them is supposedly a pretty famous C rank merc, but I’ve never heard of him before. Anyways, they probably have a big haul, which I guess is all coming from Lecartiglio or Atadoro.”

“Excuse me.” Ellaine raised her arm to speak, causing both Friell and Kaian to squint and Gael to smile wryly. Did she do something wrong? “Considering it’s forbidden to possess slaves within Artorias, who would be mad enough to disobey the King?”

“… Gael, how many manabloods did you bring down here?” Friell looked at Gael in annoyance from guessing our hidden identities. [“Did I do something wrong?”] Ellaine asked us through telepathy, but even we couldn’t say.

Scratching his forehead, Gael shook his hand in dismissal. “Don’t ask, Friell. You don’t want to know. Just stick to answering for now, since some of my guests are a bit too impatient to get those kids back.”

Friell nodded without hesitation. When you’re in this business, you learn how to shut your mouth, I guess?

“To answer your question, missy, yes, some nobles of our ‘illustrious’ kingdom do buy slaves. They just keep them hidden and the slave tattoos hard to find.” I could see Ellaine clenching her fists at the answer, but she didn’t interrupt. “Of course, people from other countries come to Shaturein, as well. Pedophiles and perverts, all of them. Incognito, of course, but still a bunch of rich merchants and manabloods crowding in the same place.”

“And I suppose you do this every once in a while?” Saori was the one to ask this time. “Why?”

“Personal reasons, wolfkin. Just know that I’m willing to burn any slave traders I meet, especially pedophiles.”

“There is also the small detail that the Blackreach Guild approached Friell and a few others personally since they know how much they hate Hamil’s ‘entrepreneurship,’” Gael added. “You aren’t working with Yanderus right now, if you’re worried about that. Just a few beastman kids scarred from experiencing the real world.”

Friell scowled, sneering at Gael, “Fuck off, Gael. Mind your own business. We aren’t people you need to care about anymore.”

Yuuuuup, definitely history… we wasted too much time. Midnight or not, we’re doing it now.

Having heard enough, I leaned forward. “So, how are we doing this? Front gates?”

“Huh? Didn’t you listen, girlie, we ain’t doing the raid. It’s too dangerous to go with the direct approach.” Friell addressing me as “girlie” felt a bit weird, as if she was treating me like a kid. At 157cm tall, I might be shorter than the rabbit girl with her long legs, but it wasn’t like I was tiny. I was just average!

“Then how are you planning on doing this? I don’t think you need to be scared with us around the front gates. We’ll just punch through.”

“ ‘Punch through?!’ Are you seriously thinking about fighting all of them despite all that I said? That’s insane! Honestly, you sound just like a destructive Danterno fanatic. Always dealing with problems by destroying or killing stuff!” It was surprising to me that a fire mage like her wasn’t a follower of Shiterno, but that still didn’t give her any right to call me one. Being compared to Keith and his cultists was insulting and demeaning.

“Don’t call me a fucking Shiterno worshipper! I am not one of them nor will I ever be one! I am doing all of this for one single goal — the kids. I made a promise to their siblings that I would rescue them and I. Never. Go. Back. On. My. Promises!”

Irritation and hostility were filling the air. With me letting out my pent-up anger which I had suppressed up until now and Friell’s annoyance at my stubbornness, the discussion seemed to be going nowhere.

“… You two lasses are fighting over nothing right now, so how about you both cool down your fiery tempers, huh? Bladdarg, fire slingers, seriously,” Grimnir expressed his displeasure. The atmosphere got to him, too, it seemed.

“He is right, let us calm down. You, too.” Saori grabbed my shoulders, pushing my back onto the sofas. “If I’m reading your intentions correctly, you are intending a stealth operation, right, Miss Friell?”

“Friell is fine. I don’t care about formalities.” Friell had calmed down, crossing her hands as she leaned back. “And yes, my plan is for you and Gael to sneak inside. I can’t risk my own for this, the danger is just too high, but if you want to do it yourselves, I can help.”

“I thought so,” Gael exclaimed. “Going through this method would be the smoothest. We can sneak into the facility and extract the kids with our dark magic.”

“What about the other slaves?” Ellaine asked.

Friell shook her head. “Too risky, the security is too tough. International Desires hunts a lot of slaves and they will try to sell them all in a single night, since having a back catalogue would be risky. It attracts unwanted attention from the other pillars.”

“On the other hand, child slaves are kept in a separate space, less secure since kids aren’t strong enough to break out by themselves,” Gael continued for Friell. “The target audience for this group is… let’s say they are finicky with the purity of the kids. Virginity. Slavers don’t risk such a ‘marketable’ feature by putting them with desperate men and women. Even with the slave tattoos on, you don’t know what can happen before the slavers activate them.”

A chill ran down my spine. Some people really were like dirt.

“…” Ellaine stayed silent as she heard this. Her question was answered.

It left a sour taste in my mouth. I didn’t consider myself a hero, but choosing to not help people kinda went against what I wanted to do. Sure, being less greedy would make this mission a cinch, but I would regret not doing something I had the power to do so.

“Come on, girls and Master Dwarf. You need to decide. Are we going with this decision?” Gael demanded an answer. Time was running out.

There should only be one answer to this, right?

“If I may, I would like to decline this idea.” However, the one to speak these thoughts out was neither me nor my party. It came from Eshe, who unfurled her cowl, revealing her face. “As the Goddess is my witness, and by my title as one of Her blessed, I will not allow these slavers to persist. This world can use one or ten fewer slavers.”

The fury in her eyes was all I needed to know I was about to make the correct decision. I stood up, revealing my face to Friell and Kaian. “I don’t need to be from Artorias to hate slavers, and in my opinion, they brought this on themselves. They endangered my friends, and for that, they will pay. Hamil provoked the wrong people.”

Everybody from my party stood up from the couch. The party leader had made her decision.

[“Hedonism might be a sin, but it is not a crime, Hestia. Go, make me want you even more!”] The wailing of a demon was a strong motivator.

Friell facepalmed and was about to shout at us, only to be held back by Kaian. “Haha, now that's what I wanted to hear from you, Saori! Friell, put a sack on it. If you want to rumble some uptight fuckers, you need to take it away from them with force! What’s the plan, lizard girl?”

I smirked. “Get ready. We’re about to make International Desires and Hamil pay for becoming our enemies.”

[Humanize (Major)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Despite it not being in the center, the streets around here were clean. No puddles of blood nor piles of ripped-off fingers. Trusted enforcers, the gang’s made men specialized in being muscles, were patrolling the streets around here, kicking out any normal Shaturein citizen. By force, if necessary.

Aside from those people, there was currently a line of masked men and women in front of a building furnished with dazzling lights and decorations, totally conspicuous despite the fact that this was supposed to be a “hush-hush” kinda event. It reminded me of a disco. With no sun looming over Shaturein, it was honestly hard to say if it was time to party, but I was pretty sure it was midnight right now.

I walked down the streets. My heels were producing audible knocks against the stone pavement, echoing throughout. Three others were walking behind me. Two of them were knights dressed in traditional Sarkafiina armor — Alikar and Anivh. The last person was an enchanting brown-skinned woman in a beautiful cocktail dress, slightly bashful at how much more skin it showed than her usual robes — Eshe.

I was the person leading them forward. Only the four of us. I, too, was in a dress, the same ballroom dress I had at the ball. Dressed up like this made me feel like my entire balance was off; my head felt lighter and I couldn’t feel anything dragging itself from my behind. The reason was simple; I’d decided to go forward as a [Humanization Lv. 10] human.

Urgh, thankfully I still have [White Flames] and [Corrosive Fire]. My poor dress, though…

The enforcers naturally stared at us, but they didn’t do anything. They knew exactly from the way I was exuding my confidence that annoying us would give them nothing but trouble. The mercs I saw a few steps further ahead also glossed over us. They weren’t paid enough to annoy nobles — their client’s potential customers.

In my holier-than-thou attitude, which I’d learned from my etiquette teacher, I gave the line in front of us a quick glance before letting out a loud “Hmph!” and walked past it. The people waiting showered us with confusion and furious whispers of “How impertinent!” I could feel Eshe was not used to all of this, but I told her telepathically that she had to keep it up. The plan was about to unfurl.

“Hold it.” As we approached the doors of the auction house, two bouncers blocked our way, looking less than enthusiastic about us cutting the line and trying to enter the auction without a security check. “Guests, please line up starting at the back of the line. We will ask for your invitation once your time has come.” They kept up appearances, though.

Naturally, events like these were too prestigious to not have any invitations, right? Of course, neither Gael nor Friell had any invitations for us to use, and getting a forged one would take too long to get. Nevertheless, we had an alternative. Something these guards cannot speak back to.

An obnoxious, pompous noble.

“Tch, must I really answer to common rabble like you? I see that Hamil barely took his time to educate his servants, or is the welfare of his guests such a meager consideration? Prizes himself as a businessman, but he is nothing but a rat in the end. Move it, peasant.” My mind cringed at what I said, but my mouth knew exactly what I had to say, so I allowed it, even if it was tearing my soul apart.

“P-P-Peasant?!” I could see anger contorting the faces of these two bouncers, but it seemed they were trained well enough to not suddenly blow up in my face. It seemed I made my point clear that I was noble, I think. “Young Mistress, even if you are a nobl—”

“‘Your Highness.’ Learn your place, peon, or I will have the Lycerepth uproot your master’s little business.” I stretched my hand backward to Eshe, gesturing to her to give me that. Taking the item out of her purse, Eshe handed me a golden badge of the Lycerepth Order. “Did your master not tell you anything about this? By the Goddess, an empire entourage has been in Griffonpeak for a month now, and you still dare stand in my way still?!”

The businessmen and nobles in the line were restless as they saw this golden badge, surprised at the sudden appearance of an Empire representative. Seeing them act this way, the bouncers began to realize what was going on, looking at me with horror and dread.

Suffice to say, I wasn’t really one, but the badge was as real as it got. This was Eshe’s badge meant to be used when she got separated from the rest of the Lycerepth. It was to ensure her safety and identification to anybody who would dare harm her, as showing it was like flaunting the might and authority of the Folschreck Empire.

I look back at the line, noticing three masked men among them. While I couldn’t remember nor was I sure if I had met them before, I did notice their expressions underneath their masks — they showed a stronger fear than anybody else. While the others worried and were surprised to see me, these people knew if I recognized them, it would be the end for them in this kingdom.

They knew my real identity, even without my draconic features. My face was pretty famous, I gotta say!

[“I give you one chance, leave this place and never, ever come back to Shaturein. In the Goddess’s name, if you do not use this chance to better yourselves, prepare for his Majesty to know all about our encounter here. Now, leave and repent!”]

Their heads nodded like those wobbling head toys before they sneaked away from the line with their bodyguards. Friell was correct. There were nobles and merchants in Artorias who skirt around the king’s laws. Hopefully, they will change, but it’s not like I knew their names. I forgot to appraise them!

I turned back to the bouncers after handing Eshe her badge back. “Move,” I ordered.

“Y-Your Highness, please, have mercy. We can’t just go disobey our orders,” the two bouncers begged. It was weird to see these large, muscular men cower before a girl like me.

“I do not care what your orders are. Do you believe your lives are worth more than my growing impatience or that of your uncaring masters, huh?” I began to exude my [Draconic Aura] while Alikar and Anivh placed their hands on their weapons. Thankfully, my auras were unaffected by my transformation. “Make way!”

“Yes!” Their bodies moved instinctively, standing still like stick figures. The moment we walked past them and into the building, a man with a clean suit walked towards us and bowed, telling us he would lead us to the auction and our seats. From the way he was sweating, he seemed to have heard everything.

I detected that those two bouncers also entered the building, but that they ran in the complete opposite direction. After a while, a man in a fine suit led a group of muscular men toward us, kneeling down the moment they saw us.

“We from International Desires apologize for our tardy actions! My name is Estas, and I am the humble auctioneer of this event. Please, forgive me and allow us to present to you the finest that our Master Hamil Czecsics can provide you, Lady—?” They were trying to get my name, but revealing myself now wasn’t good.

“Do you not see a mask on my face or my lady-in-waiting? What idiocy do you ask of me to reveal my name in an anonymous auction? Is this what you call ‘finest’? Or was this whole apology just bark?”

“N-No, I would never disrespect you like this, Your Highness! It-It’s just that we require a form of address so we can safely assign a number to you. We also need this for accounting, so please, allow us one pseudonym.” He bowed his head deeply.

Hmm, I shouldn’t antagonize them too much. Hmm, this should give me a good reason to ask even more. But, what could be a good nickname? Hmmmmm.

“Licht. You shall now address me as Lady Licht, do you hear?” The German word for light was “Licht.” I thought it was fitting, since I had a title called [The Light]. “Now, if you wish to show penitence for your servants’ actions, then bring me to a room where I can enjoy this auction to its fullest. Send enough people to ward off the needless squabble these lesser nobles and wealthy peasants will present to me. I wish to enjoy my time.”

“Yes, of course, Lady Licht. Please, this way. The auction will only start when everything is up to your standards, Your Highness.”

Good.

As I saw this Estas ordering a few enforcers to call for reinforcement, I looked down at my shadow.

[“Sarasa. Quatre. Follow them.”]

[““Yes, Alpha’s Master!””] Unbeknownst to everybody, two shadow garms were currently stalking in the shadows, beginning their mission to scout out the grounds now that we had made our way in. To rescue all the slaves, we will need all the information we can get.

The room we were led into was the VIP room, previously reserved by another person but, unfortunately for them, they wouldn’t be able to enjoy their time today. As I made myself comfortable on a seat with Eshe, Estas unfurled the curtains, revealing a brilliant view of the whole auction.

“These are the buttons, Your Highness. The right is for you to bid while the left is there for you to call for room service. Your lady-in-waiting has the same options on her seat, if she wishes to participate.” These were most likely manatech of some sort.

“I understand. Now, you have presented me with a room, where are my additional guards?”

“I have stationed them all around the room, Your Highness. Only those our guild trusts are here. In other words, our Trusted will be protecting you. The mercenaries we hired have been stationed elsewhere, and they will not be allowed to disturb you in any way.”

That wasn’t ideal. I could feel a ton of signals surrounding the outside of the room, to the point I believed they sent the majority to patrol and stand guard for me. This should help the others out but I could guess the mercenaries took over the positions with the slaves. Still, I managed to narrow down their numbers.

Part one done. Now to wait for the garms and the auction to begin.

“If there is anything you may need, please do not be shy with buzzing in our room service. I shall be acting as the auctioneer, Lady Licht, so I must bid you goodbye until the end.” Estas bowed, waiting for me to relieve him. He definitely had experience working for nobles.

“I am satisfied. Procure me something to drink. Anything you consider is worth my status, Estas.” I gestured my hand in dismissal.

“You humble us, Your Highness. Please, excuse me.”

[“Song, did you hear that? Off to Saori now.”] I gave my order to the last garm which followed me inside.

[“Of course, Master Hestia.”] And with that, we were alone. I was surprised that Song would, unlike her siblings, address me as “Master,” but I guess I’ve spent the most time with her.

With the coast clear, I slumped into my seat, melting from all the stress. “… I hate doing thiiiiiis.”

“Hiehie,” Eshe giggled. “But you did a fine impersonation of an Empire noble, Lady Hestia. I only needed to describe them once, and you fully assumed the role.”

“Haaaa, you may thank my etiquette teacher, and all those movies I watched. Making a persona when you already know how it works is easy.” Acting what was shown on film and youtube is something anybody could do, since it’s just imitation. “Haa, tell me, Lady Eshe. Was rescuing those children as hard when you first did it the first time?”

“I would like to say ‘yes’ since I did it before the Goddess granted me her blessing, but this is a far larger organization. Then again, it was only Sir Alikar, Dame Anivh, and me back then. My knights were only simple guards back then. However, today I have the help of you and the rest of Aurora, Lady Hestia.” A genuine smile formed on Eshe’s pleasant face, most likely it would have enchanted any man who saw it. The fire in her eyes, though, was that of somebody who couldn’t hide her anger for this place.

Eshe’s title as the “Saintess of Orphans” was fitting, but not just ‘cause she had a soft spot for orphans but because of how she lost her position as a priestess. While most of her story that people heard was true, there was something most retellings left out. It was the fact that Eshe freed orphan children from the clutches of slavers.

From what she told me when I explained my plan to her, in that village she was sent to perform her duties, Eshe noticed the villagers selling the orphans of dead hunters and warriors. Seeing as feeding them would harm the village, the chief decided it would be best to sell them to slavers. In the Empire, slavery was rampant and entirely normalized like in ancient Rome.

Although Eshe knew this, she still disliked the mindset of the chief. Eshe herself was practically sold off like a slave to the church, but at least her family had the decency to ask Eshe where she wanted to go. Her family had no choice but to give her away, but at least she was able to go somewhere she wanted. These kids, on the other hand, wouldn’t.

Something sparked in Eshe on that day, causing her to convince her guards at that time — her current knights — to aid her. By their hands, the slavers were slain and the children freed. She managed to bring the children to Sarkafiina’s orphanage, but a week later, Eshe learned that the village she’d rescued the orphans from had been burned down by these slavers.

Apparently, these slavers thought the villagers were hiding the children after taking the money and slaying their comrades. With no children or answers, the village was destroyed and everybody else there was enslaved. When the church heard about this, they stripped her of her rank and standing, having guessed it had to be her. There was no trial, for she was a commoner by birth.

Until this day, Eshe did not regret her decision to help those orphans, but she did feel guilty that she couldn’t save the villagers. She had a kind heart. Her love for the Goddess grew while her fear and hatred for the nobility increased. I did wonder if what she told me was an exaggeration of how the nobles in the Empire acted.

Am I glad Artorias is laxer in that sense.

After waiting for a bit, the knock came from the door accompanied by a loud, “Refreshments!” I allowed them inside, only for me to see a thin katzune woman walking in. She was wearing ragged clothes that showed too much skin from all the tears. No chains were around her legs or hand but a large blue glowing tattoo could be seen on her bosom.

That was the mark of a slave tattoo.

“Your wine and treats, Your Highness— eh?” As the woman was about to serve us, she suddenly froze in place, looking at me with absolute bafflement. “A-Are you possibly, Lady Hestia?”

In a single second, Alikar and Anivh drew their weapons, causing the katzune woman to shriek, nearly dropping the tray. With my reflexes, I managed to catch it before it dropped, instantly raising my hand to stop the agitated knights.

“Lady Licht?! Is everything alri—” A guard was about to open the door but I immediately raised my voice to stop them.

“Who allowed you to enter this room!” The door shut as I could hear the sounds of somebody apologizing behind it. “I am a noblewoman. You do not enter a lady’s room without her explicit permission saying you may, or do you wish me to cleave your head for such a rude gesture? How dare you make me raise my voice like this!”

“I-I apologize, Your Highness.” I could still hear the voice from outside. “I-It is just that we are responsible for your safety. We must know what is going on.”

“The servant was scared of who she was serving. Make me raise my voice once more to lecture through the door and I will personally take your head, worm.” I then cast [Air Shield] around us and laid the tray on the side table. I helped the katzune woman up and asked how she knew me.

“I-I was at your music festival, My Lady. Even without your lizardmen features, your face is still the same. I saw your performance with my brothers,” she answered. “We very much enjoyed it. It was like a gift from the heavens when we were allowed to eat those delicious bread and pastries while enjoying the music. It was wonderful.”

I see, so she is one of my fans, I guess? Still, how did she end up here?

When I brought it up, the woman’s eyes squinted and tears began to form. “I-I was captured on that night. My brothers tried to defend me but they were — huek — were killed by some thugs. They dragged me and some other girls down here and gave us this tattoo. We-We were told we were going to be sold.”

Killed?! Wait, hold on, then on that day, when I lost those two fans, those that mean—?! Goddess Aurena, answer me, can I lose living followers?!

My question lingered for a while, unanswered. While acting like I was waiting for the woman to calm down, Aurena gave me her answer.

Hestia, if they become your fans once, as long as they live, their souls will count towards your follower total. Once they die, however, their souls will be cleansed, and they will no longer serve as followers for [The Light]. Be careful, if you lose too many, you will also lose milestone rewards. I apologize for the delay, I am busy right now.

That answered it.

After the katzune finished crying, I asked her one simple question. “What is your name?”

“Haati, M’Lady.”

“Haati, I cannot do much for your brothers right now. I apologize. However, in the name of the Goddess, I can do something for you now. Do you wish to be freed?” I looked her directly in the eyes, urging her to answer truthfully.

“Yes. Yes! I do, M’Lady! Please, help me.” I pressed her hands before releasing them. I pulled out a chair from my storage and told her to sit down, handing her the wine and treats to strengthen herself.

“Then sit, and enjoy the show. Tonight, you and every other slave here shall be freed, Haati. Stay with us for now, and watch.” I then turned to Eshe. “I shall begin appraising the guests, getting their names for later. Are your knights ready, Lady Eshe?”

Eshe closed her eyes for a moment, opening them only to reveal them glowing with holy light. “I pray for the souls who will depart for today, for in the Goddess’s name, I shall bring righteousness to our world.”

Holding their khopeshes on their chests, Alikar and Anivh copied what Eshe said. Their weapons and armor shone with a bright light. ““We pray for the souls who will depart for today, for in the Goddess’s name, we shall bring righteousness to our world!””

“Ladies and Gentlemen! I humbly welcome you to the slave auction hosted by Hamil Czecsics of International Desires!”

You angered the wrong people, Hamil.

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Chapter 228: Human Trafficking Prevention Mission.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Fluid Cast Lv. 3] [Dagger Technique Lv. 6] [Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 2] [Lightning Resistance Lv. 4] [Holy Resistance Lv. 9] [Earth Resistance Lv. 9] [Water Resistance Lv. 8] [Wind Resistance Lv. 8] [Tenebrous Resistance Lv. 2] [Merchant Lv. 2] [Accounting Lv. 2] [Royal Etiquette Lv. 5] [Humanization Lv. 10] gained

[“Thank you Sarasa. Quatre. Be ready to fight.”]

I stood up, peering from my perch on the rooftop down at the other buildings. The sight of a shining building standing conspicuously in this dark realm could be seen. Like fireflies, the path to our destination was clear, with lamps lightning up the streets like a guide. But we would not take that path. For shadows approach, not for us, but for those who harmed the ones under our protection.

“Mhmmmmmmmmmmm…”

Blades and strings are in my hand, shadows and lightning ready to sunder metal and leather stir in my blood, and garms salivating for blood and flesh prowl beside me. I peer forward. With the information on hand from my fiery friend and my pack, I knew it was time to strike. In the basement lie those who require my help, and, as their teacher-for-a-day, I shall make sure to escort them home.

“Mhmmmmmmmmmmm…”

“… What?” My thoughts were interrupted, I looked down at the source of the noise. It was a dwarf, fully clad in armor with two large gauntlets looking out of place with his outfit.

“I know that look, Saori. Knew someone with a vivid imagination who stared into the distance. Nothing could interrupt their fantasizing except for a good whack on the head to get back to work.” The dwarf — Grimnir — stroked his growing beard, looking curiously at how I would respond.

My face felt hotter, I was sure it reddened as I couldn’t help but reflect on what I had just been thinking. I just felt a bit poetic right now. “D-Do not mind me. Ahem, anyway, I have the information. Let us begin.”

I turned around, looking at the people behind me. Aside from most of Aurora, sans Hestia doing her part inside the auction house, there was also Gael, Friell, Kaian, and a few others Friell had brought with her. It seems that these beastmen were former slaves who had a history with Gael, seeing as they glared at him much like Friell did.

While the latter few were people I wouldn’t exactly call friends, especially since they were criminals, I wasn’t in the position to reject their assistance. Based on the information that Sarasa and Quatre just brought back to me, there wasn’t just the orphanage kids but rather there was a whole crowd of slaves in the basement, all huddled in cages.

This was a raid to get all those people out while also looking for a way to dispel the slave marks tattooed on their bodies. From what Eshe told me, removing a slave mark like that was expensive if you didn’t want to fry up your mana paths and potential to use mana. Outside of the costly option, the best method would be to “persuade” the current owners to release them.

As such, we needed all the help we could get. Fighting and protecting at the same time wasn’t easy, and I had no intentions of letting strangers, even those we saved, into our party’s [Room] subspace. The orphans were a different matter, but getting them out was never the problem.

I hoped Friell wouldn’t double-cross us in the end, but she and her crew seemed reliable for now. They hated slavers just as much as Eshe seemed to, and they were especially motivated seeing as there were beastman slaves to save. There seemed to be some beastman solidarity I wasn’t aware of.

“Ready?” I asked everybody. All of them nodded. “Good. We are going as planned, alright? Leave the fighting to us from Aurora as well as Kaian. We will be your distraction. Friell, you and your crew get the kids and the other slaves free. Hestia and Eshe will be causing a ruckus from within, and, once the auction itself is under lockdown, Gael you swoop in and get that Executive named Estas.”

Gael nodded. “Estas, huh? Yeah, I know his face from around here. He used to work as a majordomo for a noble or something.”

“Hope you guys can stay alive. I’d hate to inform those kids their saviors died in all of this,” Friell wished us luck in her own way. It was fine. If the information we’ve gotten is up to date and accurate, nothing should go wrong.

I activated [Shadow Armament] and shrouded everybody accompanying me with it, helping them blend into the dusky city of Shaturein. Using the wooden planks connecting each rooftop like bridges, we traversed from one building to the next, trying to avoid getting seen by the enforcers patrolling the streets.

After jumping over a few roofs, we descended into the back alley, seeing as how the light of the bright auction house could reveal us if we came too close. Instead of approaching the back entrance of the auction house, I ordered everybody to enter a house a bit further away. According to my garm’s information, there was a secret entrance here that the slaves would be moved through.

After Gael unlocked the door, we sneaked into the place, making sure nobody was around. We entered a small room on the ground floor, a rather empty one if it weren’t for a pile of broken-down debris from the upper floor. Sweeping it aside, we uncovered a trap door.

“Whew,” Gael gave a silent whistle. “Your garms are pretty good. Traveling through shadows makes them better dark mages than us arcane tricksters, Saori. I should maybe become a tamer, too.”

“I do not believe you can find a monster anywhere as competent as mine, Gael,” I stated with full confidence, before giving my praises to my garms. [“Good work, Song. Sarasa. Quatre. You three did amazing.”]

[“““Your praise is reward enough, Alpha!”””] They were adorable.

[“…”] However, poor Uno was brooding silently. I had not sent him out since I wanted him to take a rest after spending five days following those spies, but it seemed he was dissatisfied with being left out. Since Uno considered himself my Beta, my second-in-command, he might dislike not being relied on. I should remember this.

Although our way into the auction house was right in front of us, everybody on Friell’s side was waiting for me to do something. It seemed they were used to working with dark mages.

While my garms did bring the information about this secret entrance, they only heard it through gossip. They were fast scouts, but they didn’t have enough time to look everywhere. As such, I was not sure if there were traps inside or not. I couldn’t hear anybody, but I needed to see if there were traps myself.

Sending in a [Shadow Snake], I looked through its eyes as it slithered to the end of this tunnel. Once I was satisfied there was nothing dangerous, I told everybody the coast was clear and we made our way through it, ending up in a dusty room inside the basement of the auction house. After inquiring with the garms where we were, they told us we should be close to the wine room.

Since the auction house constantly moved around to not arouse too much attention, only a few rooms would be furnished. Of course, the wine room would be a priority. I wondered if stealing from criminals would be considered a crime, in this case. They probably wouldn’t realize a bottle or three would be missing after the chaos we’ll leave this place at.

No time to waste. Our time to prepare for the ambush won’t last long.

I perked my ears, hearing noises coming from above ground. The auction should have begun.

“The auction has started. They will probably begin sending slaves above ground. Friell, how does it work? Which group gets sent out first?” I turned towards the loopridae fire mage.

“Strong start, average middle, and the best for last. Former adventurers or soldiers would fetch a good price, while wage workers and such aren’t as popular. Beastmen are great at menial work and popular outside of Artorias, in particular, to torture. The kids, however, might be presented first, so we should hurry.”

I nodded and sent Song out to investigate to keep a watch on Hestia, Eshe, and the auction for us. I then followed my question with another one. “Are there any mana barriers we have to be aware of?”

“The usual climate control one. The ones nobles like to use around their mansions,” Gael answered.

“Alright, let’s go. Ellaine. Grimnir. Prepare that.”

I activated [Detection Sensor], creating a map of signals to warn me of any targets in the vicinity. With this clairvoyance, I ordered everybody to dash out of the room. Ellaine, Grimnir, and Gael separated from us to do their parts, while the rest of us moved towards the slave pens.

If we found any mercenary or gang member, dispatching them was our first reaction. While Tasianna and I were alright with just knocking them out till next week, Kaian was a different case. He showed no mercy as he skillfully decapitated anybody he got his hand on. Complaining wouldn’t change that bandit’s mind; after all, that guy was actually somebody willing to kill for nothing.

Although, staying silent about it might not be the best. These people are our enemies so kil— Actually, I have no idea if they deserve it or not. With no information, shocking them with electricity until they black out is good enough for me.

After moving a bit further in, I noticed a large gathering of signals. Either they were a garrison or some slaves, so we had to check it out. I sent Sarasa and Quatre through the shadow of the door. When their telepathic message arrived, I stomped the door open and located the two guards.

Gale Steps!

Dashing forward with proper footwork, my speed increased to the point my sudden appearance stunned them long enough for me to subdue one of them while my garms handled the other. As I choked one guard unconscious, I began to notice how all the guards we met up until now had tanned or brown skin, similar to Eshe’s and her knights. Did they come from the east?

“Miss Saori!” It wasn’t Tasianna’s voice. I turned my head to the source after throwing the unconscious body of the guard away like a ragdoll, only to see sobbing children holding onto metal bars, reaching their hands out as they called for my help. “Y-You’re here! You’re here! Miss Saori! Big Sis Tasi! The Goddess heard us— muwhaaaaaaaaaaa!”

Tasianna encased the cages with her [Air Shield], preventing more sound from escaping the room after Friell closed the door. It was just in time, as the two orphan kids couldn’t help themselves from crying, bawling their eyes out as they saw Tasianna and me. After I cut the cage open with my daggers, those kids ran into my embrace.

Aside from Abi, Yeffon and Danny were the only young kids who accompanied the caretakers for shopping. The rest were the older ones, around nine to eleven.

The kids in the orphanage came from a wide range of backgrounds. Some were street kids the orphanage took in, some came in as abandoned newborns, and some, I heard, were the children of the grey-robed priests. Information like that was not to be talked about. While white-robes were allowed to marry and have children, grey-robes weren’t, since their dedication to the Goddess was supposedly the only love they were allowed to have.

‘Orphans.’

“Shhhh, it’s alright. We’re here to bring you back home,” I soothed the two crying kids, before raising my heads to the remaining orphanage kids, the ones in their early adolescence. “Is everybody together? Have they taken any of you yet?”

“N-No, Miss Saori. After we were imprisoned, they only put us here with some guards to watch us. They haven’t applied that stupid slave mark on us yet, though… that’s cuz we just got caught.” The kids looked back at the cages, where I saw frightened children of various ages and races wearing rags. Shadows lingered under their eyes, their bodies looked malnourished, and a bright blue tattoo could be seen on their chests.

This auction supposedly would sell all their goods, so these kids were probably delivered here by wandering slave traders. Some looked almost fifteen, some were still kindergartners.

“Ah, wait, Miss Saori, how are the Sisters?!”

“Yeah! Are they alright! Those damn assholes beat them up when they tried to defend us!”

“Please, tell us they’re alive!”

“Shhh, calm down. They are alright. For now…” I stood back up, telling the older kids to keep the two young ones close. I turned to Friell. “We will begin the extraction now. Can you manage the kids for now?”

“That was always our objective.” The rabbit girl nodded. “However, you need to get the auctioneer’s party bracelet, you hear? Or get him to free all of them through a command. Whichever it is, we need it to free the rest of the slaves, you hear?”

“You heard the briefing. We are not leaving without sending International Desires a message.” I took off my gloves, letting the white fur on my hands begin generating more black electricity while Tasianna readied herself by taking her catalyst out.

[“Sarasa, go inform Ellaine and Grimnir that we are ready.”] I spoke telepathically.

[“Yes, Alpha!”]

With Tasianna, Kaian, and two of Friell’s comrades, we dashed out of the room and headed towards where the rest of the slaves were held. While enroute, Song returned and informed us that Eshe was ready to unleash her powers. They only needed the signal.

When we finally arrived at the location, I told everybody to hide. As my garms had told me, the slave pens were heavily guarded. The child slaves might not be able to defend themselves when most of them were young kids, but an army of desperate adults might cause problems.

We waited. We waited. There was no need to be impatient. I perked my ear up, I could hear clapping and cheers echoing through the ground. A few minutes later, a group of guards came over and picked out the next set of slaves to bring up. Still, it wasn’t time to hunt just yet.

And then it happened—

Boooom! A loud explosion ruptured through the basement, the heat and shockwave sending the guards instantly into alarm mode. With their minds preoccupied with the threat, none of them spared a thought for the slaves. As the number of guards dwindled, so did the difficulty of the mission.

Time for phase two. Good work on the bombs, Ellaine. Grimnir. Smokey Haze!

My shadow exploded into a giant cloud of black darkness, filling the hallway completely before it seeped into the slave room. Using [Telepathy], I began giving directions to my squad, as it was literally impossible to see inside this shadow smoke. You could only feel where everything was.

“Haha! Fuck that, as if I would fall for this spell twice! Riaarrghhhh!” With a loud war cry, Kaian dashed forward, ignoring my commands as he began causing splatters of blood and cries of dying men.

[Smokey Haze] was a custom spell I devised to simulate the smoke bombs of ninjas, which I intended to synergize with my stealth and dark magic. If you didn’t have these abilities and your opponent had [Enhanced Enemy Sense], then the spell was useless for you.

I can’t control this beast.

Leaving Kaian to do whatever he wanted to do, Tasianna and the rest followed me into the room. Panic and chaos were created through my smoke and the early explosion, disorientating both guards and slaves. In this confusion, it was practically child’s play for my garms, Tasianna, and me to knock every threat unconscious.

Dispelling the smoke, I counted 31 unconscious mercenaries. None of them were that C rank one we’d been warned of. With Kaian still rampaging around, we took this time to free all the slaves from their cages. As we did so, I suddenly felt my fur stand up, causing me to look up at the ceiling in the direction of a sudden appearance of power.

In the next second, rumbling from above could be felt. If I had to guess, that had to be the effects of Eshe’s unique skill given to her by Aurena after becoming a saintess. With Alikar and Anivh on her side, she said she could cause “trouble.” She never specified what that trouble was, though.

Speaking about trouble—

Booom! Another explosion, however, this time, it was scarily done right next to the walls of this room. Neither [Foresight] nor [True Wolven Instinct] warned me about it, which meant I was never in danger of getting hurt, but it surely made my heart skip a beat. Looking at everyone else in the room, I guess they felt the same shock.

“Are you two crazy?! You nearly blew a person up with that explosion!” It was a guard, but still. I just wanted to complain.

“Pah, I told you we should have dug more to the right, lass! You have mana to spare!”

“And I told you if you had put the bomb a bit more to the left, we wouldn’t be in this trouble!”

Seeing a human girl and a dwarven man getting out of the hole after the dust settled, arguing with each other as if they were a married couple made me want to laugh, but it would be a bit inappropriate right now. Ellaine and Grimnir, our distraction crew, returned.

“Haaaaa,” I sighed. “I hope you two were not hurt. How was it?”

Grimnir showed me a thumbs up. “Worked like a charm. Hestia’s bombs worked like always and caused a massive explosion, probably destroying the street in front of the auction. Sarasa told me the lasses will begin their work upstairs.”

The plan I had for those two was to create a massive distraction with Hestia’s bombs, drawing as many people as possible away from the slaves. While we began saving them, Ellaine and Grimnir were to dig themselves to us using Ellaine’s magic, where we would rendezvous with the slaves.

Ready to begin their extraction. With Ellaine and Grimnir guiding the slaves out, anybody standing in their way wouldn’t stand a chance. Once they began escorting the slaves to the secret entrance, Tasianna and I turned our attention to Kaian’s direction. Since one explosion had drawn everybody’s attention, another should do the same.

And the horde came.

“Shit! Da’fuking slaves are escaping! Get them!”

“Fuck, we got bumfucked! Move! Move! The boss will kill us if we fuck up the request!”

“Shit!” Kaian cursed. It seemed numbers were about to overwhelm him.

I called for my partner, “Tasianna!”

“Got it! Let’s go!” Her catalyst glowed, creating a cyan mana slime that crystallized into a solid ice blade. Flying forward, it sliced the jugulars of two men who were about to hit Kaian.

“Woo, nice support!”

It was time to take off our gloves. Sneak attacks made sparring lives easy, but in a chaotic fight like this, it was all about self-defense. We knew when it was time to get serious, and this was one of them.

Black lightning crackled on my hands, before I drew my daggers and slipped into the fray using [Gale Steps]. With every strike, flesh parted and blood spilt, painting the hallway red with guts. Whenever someone was about to hit me, my reflexes and skills activated and I moved to intercept and counter.

“Luuuuarkka!”

“Aieeeeee! My arm! My ar-egigigiigigiigigi! Gaaaaaaa…”

“No! Wai— Furk!”

Lightning flew, stunning mercenaires for a precise killing blow. My blades morphed with my [Shadow Armament], extending my reach and making it even harder to get closer to me. The moment anyone came too close, I slipped into my shadow and appeared out of the horde.

Having been gathered up, they were easy prey for Tasianna’s storm of ice spikes, piercing those in front of it. The remaining survivors were forced to use their dead comrades’ bodies as shields to survive the remaining projectiles, but once that stopped, Kaian handled the rest.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]’s Job [Monster Master] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 6]

Attributes have increased due to level up

[Lifetaker (28 Kills)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

They were good enough for normal fighters, but they lacked the stats and equipment to fight me. Rest in peace— huh?

“Tasianna, water shield!” [True Wolven Instinct] suddenly sensed an incoming attack, prompting me to shout a command. Without questioning it, Tasianna cast [Sapphire Membrane] around us, perfectly blocking an incoming giant fireball. No real damage was done to the barrier of water; only sizzling steam was left behind.

“Helmut!” The water barrier crashed onto the ground, mixing with the blood and flooding the hallway. A mage in red robes appeared from behind the corner, his face was full of worry as he looked at who he had to deal with.

“Ooooooh, Helmut! Damn, fire slinger, I heard you were here but I didn’t think you would actually appear before us, haha!” Like a maniac, Kaian gave out a crazed laugh before calming himself, reassuming his stance. “You girls sense them?”

““Yeah.””

Helmut clicked his tongue, walking over to the side, making way for our two new guests. The first to appear was a brown-skinned man with a jewel-encrusted scimitar. As he touched the green one in the middle of his crossguard, wind began to twirl around it like a tornado.

“Hmmm.” He stroked his long beard before cracking his neck and stretching his arms. “Westerners, I ask you to move aside now. You have killed our men, but we need those slaves back in their cages. You do that, I promise on my honor that we will leave your corpses in peace.”

“Rejected!” Tasianna was the first to answer. The bloody water froze around her. “That fire mage. We have unfinished business.”

“Shiuek!” The mage grimaced. “Damn you, fairy girl! You won’t leave this place as anything but another piece for my experiments! Masalim, Hamil won’t forgive us for this mess if we don’t at least bring their heads to him! Shut up and fight!”

So, this Helmut was involved in the fae kidnapping during the Davison situation. Friell and Kaian participated in defending the mad alchemist back then, and we had no idea if they hunted fae themselves. But, for now, they were our allies. Halmut was a different subject — he was Tasianna’s prey.

“The wind blows heavily tonight…” The Arabian-looking swordsman bent his knees, assuming his stance as he stared at us. From his aura, I guess he had to be this C rank mercenary Friell had warned us about. “Engarde! Face the Goddess of Death!”

It seemed the fight was about to start; however, I could feel instinctively that the last combatant hadn’t made his appearance just yet. When Tasianna and Kaian showed no intentions of moving, having the same realization as I did, I used [Identify] on a weird-looking shadow in the middle between our enemies, only for it to move around like a slime.

And in the next second, the corpses around us began twitching, as if something was moving them. Tasianna, Kaian, and I dodged backwards, just in time to witness the bodies of the mercenaries we fought rising up.

Blood still gushed out from their paling bodies as they picked up anything they could get their hands on for a weapon. Whether it was a blade, a shield, or even a severed arm. Long, senseless moans came out of their mouths.

Identify.

Human, Raised: A human corpse arisen from the ground through mana formed with the Goddess of Death’s magic. A simple undead whose body has only recently died, but the binding is lackluster, meaning the body cannot produce the strength it once held amongst the living. Rank E

They were zombies.

“Kiek kiek kiek kiek!” Like the rattling of a beetle’s mandibles, an eerie laugh accompanied the appearance of a person rising up from a shadow. With a ragged, black robe, this dark mage stomped their bone staff on the bloodied floor, showing off the monster skull on top of it.

“Master Fulsura, we will need to recruit more people tomorrow,” the swordsman commented to the mage.

“Kiek kiek! Such a shame really, but that is what my company is known for, right? High mortality, sure, but I never run out of minions, kiek kiek!” While laughing creepily, the mage raised her head, revealing a brown-skinned woman with necrosis on the left side of her face.

She then pointed directly at me. “I feel our Dearest Mother Goddess in you, fellow dark mage. Have you piqued her interest? I am so enviiious! Ooooh, if he had only specified it more, I would have come to the west earlier! A battle to gain Goddess Death’s attention!”

‘He?’ Who is she talking about?

“Now!” With a raise of her staff, the zombies let out shrieks of agony, sounding like a choir of banshees. “Fight, my dear departed ‘Death Defiers!’ Let your bodies serve me here, while your souls nourish the Goddess of Death! I, Fulsura, will become a Champion candidate tonight!”

Hestia… where are you when we need you, priestess? The plan is facing a hurdle!

“Blergh! Why is this wine so— Achieee! Huh? Did I catch a cold? But how?” I scratched my crimson hair, having no idea if I could get sick right now. Regardless, I ignored my possible condition and poured the wine back into its bottle. “Haaaa, Haati, do you wish to drink the rest? I can’t drink this dry liquid thing.”

The katzune shook her head rapidly, looking terrified as she turned her head back towards the entrance— or at least, what remained of it.

“Lady Hestia, are you sure you can be so casual? Sir Alikar and Dame Anivh are fighting right now.” I turned my head to my right, staring at Eshe as she had her eyes closed. Bright light could be seen escaping her eyelids.

“Nah, not really, but I don’t think I need to do anything. Everything seems fine. The explosions happened, your knights turned into giants and now they are mowing down everything you deem an enemy. All I need to do is protect you two, right?”

“Muuuuuuuuuuuun!”

Speaking of the devil, I snapped my head back to the entrance, noticing in the next second how parts of the wall were being destroyed. With slow, heavy steps, a bulky giant in heavy metal armor appeared before me, dual wielding a giant khopesh and greatsword.

In the next moment, the right side of our room also broke down, revealing a four-armed, lanky giant clad in armor and a dress. In its front arms it dual wielded two khopeshes while the hind ones held a bow and spear respectively.

““Theeeee enemiessss areee vanquisheeed.”” A metallic bass followed their voices out of their helmets, hard to listen to but not too difficult to understand.

“Thank you my knights, however, we have much more to do. I can see through your eyes… more enemies are coming. Please, be ready.” Eshe held her hands in prayer before two magic circle appeared on the giant’s bodies, healing them of any wounds. Holy light then surrounded their bodies like an aura, before they resumed their fighting.

Champions and Saints — blessed of the gods — all received some sorta boon from their sworn deity. You may call them cheats, in a way, but it was important for the gods to reward their servants, handing them something they could protect themselves with.

Mine was the unique skill [Idol].

In Eshe’s case…

“In the holy Goddess’s iridescent light, walk forward and protect me—” Eshe kept her shining eyes shut, preparing herself to cast the next spell through her unique skill. “— My Sworn Knights!”

[Honored, Sworn Knight], that was her unique!

A note from AbyssRaven

Oh, look at her, Saori is finding all the trouble while Hestia sips on wine.

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Chapter 229: The Necromancer.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Charge! Fight for me with your new lives!”

Like a mob, the moving corpses of the mercenaries we’d killed charged at us, swinging their weapons at us in a wanton frenzy. At this moment, the laughter of the necromancer sounded like that of a tyrant deliberately sending in fodder to be sacrificed.

Haste! Shadow Armament fully on!

[Shadow Armament (Full Body)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

As ordered, my shadow armor completely shrouded me in its blackness as I shot out a black lightning bolt. Kaian and I then charged forward, slicing the undead apart. As lightning, metal, and shadow claws rained around in a flurry, I noticed halfway through this skirmish that a few undead ran past us, ignoring us for the people behind.

[Lifetaker (40 Kills)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

“Wiieaaaaaaah! Monsters!!!”

The slaves!

Were they the real targets all along? Of course! If we defeated the mercenaries when they were still alive and able to use their weapon abilities, then it was obvious brainless versions of them wouldn’t provide much value. I was too distracted.

I blasted the zombies around me away with an electric shockwave before shooting out [Dark Tendrils] at the ones who’d already made it past me. However, before the tendrils caught up to them, a giant ice golem wider and taller than the hallway emerged from a cyan magic circle, completely blocking the way to the slaves. With a single punch, undead body parts flew back into the mob.

“Leave the defense to me, Miss Saori!” Tasianna declared before warding off multiple incoming fire spells. Fortunately, their accuracy was questionable at best - whatever wasn’t stopped by Tasianna’s immediate [Sapphire Membrane] ended up scorching the zombies.

“Where are you aiming with those shots, fire follower?! You are harming our men!” the swordsman, Masalim, exclaimed to the fire mage, Helmut. “They might be undead, but watch your aim!”

“Hmph! Your mistress can heal them. The important thing is for us to retrieve those damn slaves! And kill that blue-haired fae!”

The moment Helmut mentioned healing, the necromancer called out “Flesh for Mana,” invoking a black magic circle that reformed the bodies of the undead inside it. Even those turned into torches had their muscles and skin repaired at the same time it was being melted off. In a couple of seconds, all the undead were back on their feet, ready for battle once again.

Aim for the mage!

“Kaian, good luck!” I said before diving into my shadow with [Shadow Dash].

“Huh? Oi, wait, where are you—” His words cut off the moment I was inside the shadow world, moving towards my target. In the next moment, I jumped out of a shadow, my daggers in hand as I aimed for the back of the necromancer.

“Your opponent am I!” With a loud metal clang, my daggers slammed against the scimitar of Masalim, the merc having properly protected his company boss. As I clicked my tongue, I noticed the wind around his sword increasing, causing me to back off.

Using [Dark Tendrils] to pull me into the shadow I jumped out from, I used [Shadow Dash] to reappear out from underneath Masalim before kicking him away from the necromancer. Wrapping my shadow armament around my daggers, the blade grew to the length of a short sword, allowing me to attack the necromancer from a longer distance.

“Kiek! Truly, you are an experienced dark mage, but so am I! Death cometh, Deathly Wave!”

My [True Wolven Instinct] activated, warning me I should avoid this spell at all cost. Using [Gale Steps], I slipped past the activation area of the spell, barely dodging the giant wave of concentrated dark mana. I had [Tenebrous Resistance Lv. 1] and [Penumbral Armament], so most dark spells shouldn’t be able to deal too much damage, but I knew better than to take unknown attacks head-on.

“Strings to move the deceased, Undead Puppet!”

Before I could counter, the necromancer forcefully pulled an undead with her mana, swiftly accelerating it at me. Dodging it was easy; the body flew past me and exploded against the wall into a bloody mess, but this gave enough time for the swordsman to reenter the fight.

“I call for your help, Aerobis!” The swordsman swung his sword, blasting a small tornado, damaging me with small cuts. As I escaped the full brunt of the attack with [Shadow Dash], the moment I reappeared, a humanoid made entirely of air formed behind the swordsman.

Huh? Identi— Kuso! Baffled by this being, I tried to appraise it but a sharp bone stopped my attempt, pushing me back onto the defense. I was not allowed to take a breather.

Bone? Ah, the body! Whatever spell the necromancer cast allowed her not only to control the body but also its individual pieces after it became bloody modern art, shooting sharp bones and flesh to distract me.

“Inferno Blast!”

“Aero Blade!”

Fire and wind attacks sandwiched me between them. Even with [Haste] speeding up my reaction time and movement, it didn’t speed up my spell casting time. Unable to dodge, I decided it was impossible not to take damage. As such, relying on my [Inferno Resistance Lv. 5] and shadow armor, I charged through the giant fireball.

Hmph! This is nothing compared to Hestia’s!

“What the fuck!” Helmut cried out as I pounced at him. [Shadow Armament] prevented me from catching on fire, providing an opportunity to leech off some Health.

Just Blink! Gale Steps! Shadow Pierce! Disappearing from everybody’s consciousness for a single second, I executed a [Gale Steps] to close the distance between Helmut and me to thrust a shadow-covered blade towards his heart.

“Kueark!” He screamed in pain. It was a direct hit… but, unfortunately, it wasn’t a direct hit to his heart.

Damn, body blocked, literally! What stopped my blade was the regenerating body of that undead necromancer used as a projectile. This time, it barely saved Helmut’s life with a hand, giving Helmut a chance to escape.

Regardless, my attack did what it needed to. With my unique skill [Stygian Blades], any damage I dealt with [Shadow Armament] would heal me from a percentage of the damage. I was healed, and, with that done, I focused my attention back on the necromancer. I had to deal with her.

“You bitch, you dare—”

“Icicle Gale!”

“Arhhhk! Fuck, you damn ice witch!”

Fire and ice; Helmut could not ignore Tasianna who was aiming for his life. Kaian still had to deal with the horde of regenerating zombies while Tasianna could handle Helmut for me. All I needed was to do my job — assassinate the necromancer!

“Claws of Darkness! Shadow Dash.” A giant hand with sharp claws descended at the swordsman as I slipped back into my shadow. Using my travel time to think, I reevaluated my situation and thought of a new fighting plan.

My pack, gather! It’s hunting time!

As I reemerged from the shadow, an instant wind slash shot right at my head. Using my shadow armor, I controlled the shadow to produce a shield, blocking the attack to give me time to finish jumping out of the shadow world.

I threw two of my daggers, each aiming at the mana lamps illuminating this hallway, leaving everything except the areas Helmut set ablaze in the dark. Using [Telepathy], I called for Tasianna’s help to douse them.

While I continued dodging, eventually, the area around me became the perfect hunting ground for my pack and me!

Garms!

Four garms sprang up, tearing any zombies in their way into scrap meat. White mana threads flowed behind them, bursting into bright lights, stunning the zombies around, giving Kaian a chance to mow down the enemy around him. As a side effect, it also halted their regeneration.

“What?! Where did that holy magic come from?!” the necromancer shouted in bafflement.

Mana thread made from Hestia’s holy mana. My shadow garms damaged themselves when they activated the threads, since they, too, counted as dark elemental beasts, but it was a small price to pay to cripple the undead. As my garms helped Kaian out with the culling, the necromancer had to focus on keeping her army from falling apart, giving me a chance to deal with this swordsman.

“A nice being of air you have there.” I tried to open him up to reveal what it was, but that didn’t lead to anything.

“Must we speak when we duel, My Lady? A worthy opponent stands in our way, letting our might make conversation is a must in this situation! Engarde!” The time for talk was over and the battle continued.

Identify!

Wind Djinn

An intermediate wind elemental mostly found in the desert area of Evida, able to control and conjure wind through mana. When bound by contract to a being of flesh and blood, allows the contractee to control wind magic

Djinn? Wait, it’s an elemental?

I’d heard about elementals before from Silva’s description, but I didn’t know they were called djinns. Regardless, I didn’t have the time to think about that; it was good enough for me to know what I was dealing with.

I stuck with a defensive approach, for now, making sure I understood Masalim’s fighting style. From what I managed to appraise from his profile, all of his magic and spells came from his djinn and the catalyst inside his sword, making them rather limited. His skills with the sword, on the other hand, were no joke.

“Desert Sand Swirl!” Masalim activated an ability, and his sword danced around like a cyclone, swerving in difficult to counter arcs. To me, though, they felt a bit too slow. [True Wolven Bloodlust] and [Night’s Caress] boosted my Agility depending on the number of kills I’ve made recently and how little light was around respectively. Reacting to his attack was no problem.

Still, he wasn’t unskilled.

Whenever I tried to cast a new spell, he would dash right in with his djinn’s power and interrupt me. All of these were wind spells, making them fairly easy to predict, but Masalim wasn’t the caster here, but rather it was his djinn — it was a similar strategy to Hestia and her parallel minds. Hestia moved her body while her parallel minds cast the spells.

“You are an able fighter, My Lady, but you are holding back! You dishonor me with this gesture!” Wind focused around his legs and arms before he activated [Gale Steps], launching himself forward. A cloak of wind surrounded his blade, empowering its next attack with an air blade.

Speed versus speed, huh? Dark Tendrils. Gale Steps!

I dodged the cleave attack at the last possible moment to not allow Masalim to redirect his attack. As the ground sundered with his attack, he twisted his wrist and shot an uppercut at me. The attack moved closer and closer to my eyes…

… before my [Dark Tendrils] erupted from the shadows around us.

“What?!”

One set of tendrils wrapped themselves around the swordsman’s ankle as another grabbed me out of the sword’s attack and into a shadow. Using the darkened hallway to my advantage, I reappeared out of another dark place and sliced bits of the mercenary’s armor with a sharp claw before letting another set of dark tendrils grab me.

When I launched my next attack, the swordsman activated his catalyst again to produce an [Air Shield]-like barrier, but before I got caught in it, another black tentacle pulled me into another shadow from a different angle. If there was no way for him to deal with this, then I would continue this maneuver until I got a clear hit. And with every second, my launch speed increased.

“Dammit!” Wind flew around, destroying the hallway, but none of it hit me. He managed to keep his cool, never overreacting to an attack… but taking too long to think of an attack was a detriment when fighting against me.

The moment I appeared from a blind spot—

— I made my killing move.

Black lightning around my dagger as I jumped around, destroying the air shield around him in a single slash before throwing the dagger at Masalim, cutting off his sword arm. With a loud “Kuuuuuargh!” he left himself open for a lightning bolt, which stunned him long enough for me to land a clean heartpiercer.

“Kffpah…”

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]’s Job [Monster Master] has risen from [Level 6] to [Level 14]

Attributes have increased due to level up

[Lifetaker (41 Kills)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

As I ripped my hand out from his chest, I threw the body of the swordsman into my storage, preventing the necromancer from raising him. After I retrieved my thrown daggers, I dashed towards the necromancer. With her guard down, she was vulnerable as ever.

“Haha! Brilliant! Of course, somebody watched over by Mother Goddess would have to be this talented! A C rank mercenary is nothing for you, right, fellow Sister? Right?!” the necromancer screamed as she blasted another [Deathly Wave], pushing me back into a shadow. When I reappeared before her to slice her with a thunderstrike, she cast another spell.

“Dance in my protection, Casket of Souls!”

Weird skull-like wisps appeared around the necromancer, nullifying my attack completely and reflecting it. As I was left off-guard from my hand bouncing back, I only managed to narrowly dodge the next [Deathly Wave] with the help of my tendrils. However, while I did dodge the full attack…

…I did not dodge it completely.

[Necrosis (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

Necrosis?!

As I dived into the shadow, pain suddenly appeared around my left hand. Retreating the [Shadow Armamnet] around it, I noticed my hand were slowly turning a deathly black. The spread wasn’t super fast, thankfully, but my fingers were already a lost cause by now.

P-Potion!

I took out a [Major Healing Potion] Tasianna made from Belzac herbs and drank half of it before pouring the other half over my hand. I had no idea which method would work for this case, but one of them had to, right?

Well, while I felt optimistic that my Health was going up and that the necrotic skin was being peeled off, replaced by healthy ones, the effects of [Necrosis (Minor)] — the system-based curse — did not disappear. As if this game-like system was fucking me over, the tips of my finger began to rot once again.

Dammit, dammit, dammit! What the fuck am I supposed to do! If I leave it untreated, I’ll lose my hand! I-I need to get to Hestia! Argh! I need to calm down!

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]’s Job [Monster Master] has risen from [Level 14] to [Level 17]

Attributes have increased due to level up

I did not have any potions that could heal me from this. A drastic method to solve this would be to cut my fingers off and put them into my storage, taking advantage of its time-stopping method to halt the necrosis. The other option would be to endure it and to push the effects back with potions. Either way, I needed Hestia to stop this!

With [Shadow Armament], I can conjure up fingers with shadows. I would be wasting potions if I chose the second option. Damnit, fuck me! Argh, what the hell are my thinking patterns?! Even if I cut my fingers, I had no guarantee that [Necrosis (Minor)] would disappear!

… Argh, fuck!

I dashed out of my shadow, having chosen the second option.

“Oooh, what took you so long? While you were gone, I had everything handled, kiek kiek kiek!” The necromancer pointed with her staff in the direction of the others.

Looking over, I saw what happened when I took too long to conclude. Helmut was dead, slain by Tasianna’s ice spears. I didn’t notice his death before, but I had noticed my job level had risen to 17. Was Helmut’s death the reason?

Nevertheless, that wasn’t the problem, the problem was that he was raised to undeath, turning him into an [Undead Mage] capable of using spells, unlike the raised mercenaries. Speaking of those people, their corpses morphed together into a twisted construct of flesh and bones, moaning eerie hymns as they challenged Kaian and my garms.

“Kiek kiek kiek! If only I had Masalim’s body… Strangely, only his hand was left. What did you do to the corpse? I could have turned him into a pretty strong temporary death knight.” The necromancers' interest was only in creating stronger minions.

“Soooo, my fellow Sister of Darkness, how do you like Goddess Death’s gift? Necromancy is the power to control both life and death at the same time, and nothing but the holiest light can cleanse it! Cut off your fingers, and you may save your hand, Sister!”

So cutting my fingers would have been enough?!

The pain coursing through my fingers felt like small ants eating up my skin and flesh. My instincts were yelling at me to follow Necromancer Fulsara’s advice, but somehow, coming out of my shadow gave my mind time to reset. The stress of seeing my hand corrode away didn’t disappear, but I wasn’t in a rush to solve it.

After all…

“Hiehie.” With sweat forming on my forehead, I smirked. “You should make sure your creation does not just die after all the effort, right?” This time, I was the one to point to the side.

“Huh?”

… no need to fear with Tasianna around.

“Aifli eir Vintral! Tor Eiclere’s Finulaflei!” With wings of ice forming behind Tasianna’s back, the hallway’s temperature dropped significantly and a magic circle formed underneath the undead abomination and undead Helmut. “Garms! Panther! Retreat!”

“No need to tell me twice!”

“““““Wruf!””””

The moment my garms retreated into their shadows and Kaian dodged out of it, a snowstorm was invoked.

“Kruuuaaflllaaaash!”

“Uuuuuuuuuuunnnnh…”

“Arck! What is this spell’s power?!”

The moans of the two undead were muffled by the rage of ice blades ripping through their bodies and freezing them at the same time. Tasianna’s [Tor Eiclere’s Finulaflei] was a large-scale spell she designed to take down large monsters. A few undead was nothing against this force… Neither was the hallway.

Cracks appeared on the wall and ceiling, causing blocks of stone to fall and crumble from the merciless cold Tasianna was producing. Tasianna’s mage stats weren’t as high as Hestia’s, but her mastery of her catalyst was far greater.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]’s Job [Monster Master] has risen from [Level 17] to [Level 18]

Attributes have increased due to level up

“My creations! Nooooooo!” Frozen to the core, the undead turned into frozen popsicles, apparently unable to be controlled, seeing as how the necromancer was screaming.

[“Everybody has made it out, Miss Saori. Ellaine told me we will rendezvous outside!”]

Good.

Back in a good mood, I took something round from my storage and threw it over to the necromancer. “Hey, catch.”

“What?! H-Huh?! A bomb! C-Come out, Zykos! Flesh for Mana!”

Whether it was her instincts or her skills, the necromancer did not take any risks as the bomb exploded into white flames, scorching the whole area in Hestia’s holy fire. As I dived into my shadow, the hallway finally crumbled from the impact of the attack, causing a landfall.

Her [Casket of Souls] thing is weak to holy, huh? Obvious. Still, I wish I had the chance to appraise her to see what that spell did. Shame.

Although I was acting like the fight had ended, it hadn’t quite finished yet. After all, my next [Shadow Dash] target was exactly right next to her.

When I slipped out, I saw a tall skeletal being with minimal flesh holding up the rocks, preventing the necromancer from being crushed. Whatever it was, it didn’t matter since it was an undead, a being susceptible to Hestia’s fire.

“Dammit, why can’t I extinguish this fire!”

I drank another potion to push back any progress the necrosis had made on my hands before putting my jacket in my storage, unveiling all the white fur from the tips of my fingers to my shoulders. With black electricity crackling, these hair strands began to stand up like that of a porcupine’s.

“Guek!” I groaned, seeing as the necrosis once again returned.

Regardless, it was a small price to pay for the results. Black lightning completely covered my body, shocking everything around me like a plasma globe. Using [Gale Steps], I dashed forward, increasing the potency of the lightning even further and further!

“Arck! Come, Sister of the Dark Gods! Death cometh, Deathly Wave! D—”

I crashed my lightning-infused body against the wave of concentrated erosion, relying on my shadow armor and lightning to protect me from immediately dying to it. Dodging this with [Shadow Dash] would have given the necromancer enough time to cast the next spell. It was all of nothing now, or this fight will be prolonged even further!

I had to take the risk!

Like the blade of the [Boltreaver Wyvern] Astalos, I cleaved through the wave with my black lightning. Black air still assaulted me though, but I was fully confident that my [Shadow Armament] would prevent the worst after it had mutated with [Penumbral Armament].

I had to believe!

[Necrosis (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

“—ance in my protection, Casket o—”

Then I pounced.

“Voltage Impact!”

Stygian ability gained: [Voltage Impact]

With the howling of a thunderclap, the black lightning struck the necromancer’s body, eviscerating and atomizing her from her stomach up. The blast affected even the surroundings behind her, destroying the skeleton she’d summoned and all the rubble, including the rest of the hallway.

With the slaves gone, my garms inside my shadow, and Tasianna and Kaian hiding away, there was no need to hold back anymore. I couldn’t bring this ability’s full power out against the geisenlarg, I had fucked up the activation. But tonight—

— lightning struck.

“OnCE—GIGIGI! MORE. PURE ECSTASY! GODDESS DEATH, I MEET YOU ONCE AGAIN! GIIIIEIEGGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

Her clothes and flesh disappeared. The necromancer known as Fulsara evaporated before my eyes until a weird crystalline orb was all that was left, but even that only withstood my attack for a couple more seconds before cracking and turning to dust.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa] has risen from [Level 5] to [Level 6]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 650 skill points

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]’s Job [Monster Master] has risen from [Level 18] to [Level 20]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Max level of Job   [Monster Master] has been reached

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Shadow Armament Lv. 9] [Stygian Blades Lv. 2] [Stygian Voltage Lv. 2] [Battle Mind Lv. 9] [Monster Tamer Lv. 4] [Monster Synergist Lv. 3] gained

Acquisition requirement fulfilled.   [Erosion Resistance Lv. 1] gained

[Lifetaker (42 Kills)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

A level from the geisenlarg queen and now another from this necromancer? Kuso, I forgot to check her level! How high of a level was she?

But that thought could be left for later, instead turning my focus on observing my handiwork — the whole basement was destroyed and I could see hints of the auction house, but the blast wasn’t strong enough to reach the streets. I could see the terrified faces of a few well-dressed men and women, all looking down at me at what I just did. I could smell not only the scent of fear but also that of involuntary excretion.

Did I overdo it? Nah, if I had my catalysts here with me, I probably would have caused something more devastating.

“Eeuk!” Pain rushed through my right arm and left hand. I dispelled my shadow armor and saw what was happening to them — they were rotting at an obscene rate.

Holy! I need to throw a bomb!

Leveling up may have healed up any damage I sustained from engaging that [Deathly Wave] head-on, but the necrosis returned the moment the fight ended. My first thought wasn’t to call for Hestia, but to take out her holy bomb to bask myself in its flames to heal myself.

“Saori!”

But that wasn’t needed; after all, if the auction room was available for me to see, so was my rescue.

“Oh fuck! Here, Halo of Consecration!” Cool white flames basked my body in its rejuvenating effect, soothing my pained arms. I saw my rotting flesh peeling off from my arms and hands, being replaced by new healthy cells. I looked at my profile, letting out a sigh of relief when I saw that [Necrosis (Moderate)] was gone.

“Thank you, Hestia!” I gave my dragon friend a nod in gratitude.

“Ah, don’t worry about it. You did all the heavy lifting, Saori! You leveled my [White Pyromancer] up to max from killing everybody down there!”

“…”

Are you serious?

“Lady Hestia!” Instead of my dissatisfied voice at Hestia’s inability to understand how much it took for me to take those mercenaries down, it was Tasianna who swept that situation away. I had to wonder just how much Hestia was overestimating my skills.

“Arck, fuck me… what the fuck is this?” Kaian dug himself out from the rubble. He seemed flabbergasted at first, but his mouth twitched into a grin as he looked at me. “I trained. You trained. But you gained so much more strength than the last time we met, Saori. What kinda monster are you?”

Is he seriously asking? He did hear Helmut call Tasianna a fairy, though.

I shook my head. Let us handle this situation later. I climbed the rubble up to the auction room, reuniting with Hestia and Tasianna. I was brought up to speed on Hestia's side of the operation, which basically was summed up with Eshe and her knights managing to take down all of International Desire’s guards on the ground and second floor and Gael apprehending the auctioneer.

“Look over there.” Hestia pointed at the stage.

Looking over, I noticed all the auction house guests trembling in fear as they sat obediently in their seats. The reason was clear — two giants clad in metal stood around, glaring at everybody in the audience. Apparently, those were Alikar and Anivh, transformed by Eshe’s unique skill [Honored, Sworn Knight].

I had only a faint idea of how it worked. Supposedly, they were connected to Eshe’s eyes, which gave the knights this incredible transformation and power boost. Eshe couldn’t open her eyes in the meantime, but she was able to look through the eyes of her knights. In addition, any spell she cast could be cast through them like a conduit.

Speaking of the saintess, she was currently on the stage with Gael, who was speaking with the captured auctioneer.

“Here is the contract which handles all the slaves you made with this emblem, right? Mind dispelling it so the slaves become free, again?” Gael grinned devilishly at the man.

“Wh-What?! Are you insane?! Do you have any idea how much money we paid for all—”

“Silence!” Eshe shouted, silencing the man. “You speak of such atrocities in the presence of a servant of the Goddess of Light! Why must you sully your soul even more than this? Release the slaves, Sir, for this is the Goddess’s will!”

“What?! You, a citizen of the Folschreck Empire, dare speak about slavery to us Artorians? All you do in your own land is this very ‘atrocity!’ In every land governed by a pious believer in the Goddess, slavery is just part of living!” the man argued. “This is theft in your law! You are stealing these slaves from us! International Desires will not let this—mhrmpf!”

“Will you shut up?” Gael grabbed his mouth shut. “Did you forget? You are in Shaturein, you bastard, and down here, we never, ever take up slavery. You, Hamil, and his other executives are all damn surface dwellers. You don’t respect Shatu’s history. Know your fucking place.”

Gael then pulled out his dagger. “Do you know what the founders did to you slave traders? Release the contract now or I will show you what healing magic can do for a trained torturer like me.”

“Haaaa,” Hestia sighed. “Come on, let’s get this over with. I don’t want to imagine how many people we need to free manually with that tattoo stamp. This is the faster method.”

“There were a lot, Hestia. I mean, a lot of slaves.” I emphasized the amount by widening my arms as far as possible. It didn’t show the amount truthfully but she understood my meaning.

As we walked over to the stage, I suddenly heard multiple footsteps coming from the hallway outside the auction room. However, what really caught my attention was the aura this person was giving. It was something that instantly made my fur stand up, far more than what that necromancer did.

Hestia, Tasianna, and I snapped our heads around towards the entrance, watching as a group of people walked into the room. Three of them were surprisingly Ellaine, Grimnir, and Friell. Somehow, the presence of that last person made me not notice the others.

The last person was a man who looked to be in his late thirties, munching onto one of Hestia’s pastries — a holeless donut called a Berliner, or Bismarck Donut in English-speaking countries. He had an arm casually in his pants pocket and looked at us all with a “hopefully interesting” stare.

He had no visible weapons or catalyst, though his body was lean and muscular. Maybe he was a brawler? Regardless of what his fighting style was, however, only a single thought went through my mind as I stared at him.

Even with all five of us, can we win against this guy?

“B-Boss?!” Kaian shouted in despair.

“Shit! Are you kidding me?!” Gael cursed.

Boss? Is this guy the—

“Hey, Kaian. Heard Friell say you were here with everybody. You lot made a real mess of this situation, to the point Hamil personally went through every hoop possible to hire me to kill everybody here.”

“Saori! Tasianna!” Hestia called out as flames instantly exploded on her tail and claws. Her eyes were a mix between battle-ready and anxious. It seemed she shared my thoughts on our chances.

“Stop, Hestia!” However, before we all readied ourselves to attack, Ellaine shouted to stop us. “Please, this man only wants to talk things out with us.”

“Talk?”

“Yup!” the man responded to Hestia, walking down the stairs with the Berliner in his mouth. “Eithalr’s the name, kiddo. I’m the newest inaugurated boss of the Yanderu Eluseuss in Artorias, Atadoro, and the other human countries in the western part of Altrust after killing the previous boss. Fifth head of the whole international company, you know? I’ve heard about you, you’re that new big-shot noble in the city, right? Hestia Atsuko?”

“…”

“Gotta say, I enjoyed the concert, Miss Singer-Dancer.” He grinned before finishing the last piece of the pastry. Licking his finger, he now stood right in front of us with his three hostages. “Do you mind selling me more of those scrumptious Berliners, kiddo?”

“Eh?”

Huh?

Profile:

Name:   Saori Segawa

Level:   6

Race:   Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir

Age:   9 Months

Job:   Monster Master Level: 20/20

Status:

Health:

11820 (+1495)

Mana:

8921 (+1026)

Strength:

6850 (+620)

Intelligence:

3025 (+294)

Vitality:

4920 (+500)

Wisdom:

4756 (+436)

Agility:

9105 (+843)

Stamina:

8452 (+1032)

Effects:

None

Skill Points:

4650

Unique Skill:

[Shadow Armament Lv. 9] (+1) [Shadow Pack Lv. 2]

[Stygian Blades Lv. 2] (+1) [Stygian Voltage Lv. 2] (+1)

Skill:

Magic skills and related:

[Mana Efficiency Lv. 10] [Arcane Mind Lv. 10]

[Mana Control Lv. 10] [Dark Magic Lv. 10] [Dark Amp]

[Dark Magic Efficiency] [Space-Time Magic Lv. 3]

[Space-Time Efficiency] [Chant Revocation Lv. 10]

[Mental Stability Lv. 8] (+1) [Mental Warfare Lv. 8] (+1)

[Silent Casting Lv. 10] [Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 1] (New)

[Fluid Cast Lv. 3] (+1) [Multi-Cast Lv. 5] (+3)

[Continuous Cast Lv. 2] [Delayed Cast Lv. 3] (+2)

Physical skills and related:

[Dagger Technique Lv. 6] (+1) [Dagger Mastery Lv. 4]

[All Damage Enhancement Lv. 1] (New)

Senses and movement skills:

[True Wolven Instincts] [Night’s Caress Lv. 1]

[Foresight Lv. 2] [Concentration Lv. 9] (+1)

[Detection Sensor Lv. 2] [Air Walk Lv. 7] (+3)

[Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 2] (New)

Resistances:

[Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 5] [Absolute Pain Tolerance]

[Abnormal Status Nullification] [Terror Resistance Lv. 1]

[Fear Resistance Lv. 3] [Erosion Resistance Lv. 1] (New)

[Arcane Corruption Resistance Lv. 10] [Ice Resistance Lv. 4]

[Lightning Resistance Lv. 4] (+2) [Lava Resistance Lv. 5] (New)

[Holy Resistance Lv. 9] (+1) [Inferno Resistance Lv. 5] (+4)

[Earth Resistance Lv. 9] (+2) [Water Resistance Lv. 8] (+2)

[Wind Resistance Lv. 8] (+2) [Tenebrous Resistance Lv. 2] (+1)

Stat growths and related:

[Health Recovery Lv. 9] (+1)

[Mana Recovery Lv. 8] (+6) [Stamina Recovery Lv. 9] (+1)

[Enhanced Health Growth Lv. 7]

[Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 5] (+1)

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 5] (+1)

Others:

[Dancing Lv. 2] [Mathematician Lv. 3] [Merchant Lv. 2] (+1)

[Accounting Lv. 2] (+1) [Monster Tamer Lv. 4] (+3)

[Monster Synergist Lv. 3] (+2) [Mounted Fighter Lv. 1] (New)

[Rider Lv. 1] (New)

[Identify Blocker Lv. 10] [Identify Lv. 10] [Battle Mind Lv. 9] (+3)

[True Wolven Bloodlust] [Mana Weave Lv. 10]

[Sewing Lv. 10] [Elemental Mana Weave Lv. 7]

[Royal Etiquette Lv. 5] (+1) [Cooking Lv. 10] [Dismantle Lv. 9]

[Humanization Lv. 10] (+1) [Telepathy]

Ability List:

Stygian abilities:

[Stygian Lightning] [Voltage Impact]

Unarmed abilities:

[Just Blink] [Shadow Descent] [Gale Steps]

Spell List:

Custom Spells:

[Create Water] [Smoky Haze] [Hadean Dragon Thunder]

Dark Spells:

[Dark Bolt] [Dark Tendrils] [Shadow Dash] [Dark Slash] [Shadow Clones]

[Shadow Snake] [Enfeebling Winds] [Claws of Darkness]

Space-Time Spells:

[Haste] [Storage Magic]

Titles:

[Belzac’s Successor] [Otherworldly Reincarnator] [Hestia’s Retainer]

[Pack Leader] [Watched by Edna]

Name: Uno Level: 19 Race: Shadow Garm

Health: 4256 (+415) Mana: 1398 (+204) Stamina: 2506 (+380)

Name: Song Level: 18 Race: Shadow Garm

Health: 3909 (+246) Mana: 1832 (+523) Stamina: 2095 (+131)

Name: Sarasa Level: 18 Race: Shadow Garm

Health: 4551 (+493) Mana: 1062 (+95) Stamina: 2815 (+444)

Name: Quatre Level: 15 Race: Shadow Garm

Health: 3982 (+316) Mana: 1243 (+198) Stamina: 2795 (+406)

Name: Shoyi Level: 0 Race: Shadow Devourer Slime

Health: 612 Mana: 256 Stamina: 300

A note from AbyssRaven

The first introduction to necromancy.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 230: Eithalr’s “Peace” Talk.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #3 her to promote our Patreon. 17 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Job [White Pyromancer] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 15]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Max level of Job   [White Pyromancer] has been reached

[Humanize (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Considering this is the center, I thought it would look less ‘Shaturein shady,’ and more like an underground club. This tavern really gives that crime syndicate impression. Bunch of sweaty glaring men… and quite a few women too, huh?”

“Hestia, no eye contact. You ignore them and look unperturbed, otherwise, we will get in trouble later.”

“Treat them like monsters? Show confidence to dissuade them to attack? Oh. Easy enough, I see.”

“Sketchy as fuck” would be an understatement if I was trying to describe this place, considering with what I grew up on Earth. After all, Shaturein was that sorta place where the movie criminal underworld was dialed up to the highest possible point. When you experience something in the flesh that you only saw on the TV screen before, it really hits hard, like when I reincarnated or how I was inside a criminal-filled tavern right now.

Well, it wasn’t as if I wanted to be here. After watching all the clapping and cheers during the slave auction, turning it around on the slave buyers and drivers was cathartic. And while Saori and the others managed to free the orphan kids and the other slaves, another hindrance had to appear before we could fully free the slaves from those slave tattoos.

And this hindrance was the current leader of the Artorian Yanderu Eluseuss.

“Nothing to worry about, kraah ampf! Mhmm,” this leader stated before taking a bite of a German “pancake” called Krapfen, Berliner, or Bismarck Donut. “These guys are purely assessing whether you are worthwhile targets, so Miss Wolfkin got the right idea. Besides, if they learned what you alldid to Hamil’s auction house, I don’t think the bounties on your heads would be worth risking their lives for, hahahaha!”

As if his loud declaration was all that was needed, everybody inside the tavern besides our group resumed what they were doing prior to our visit. Cusses, laughs, drinking, eating; the whole place was lively again.

Even if one of them came at us after this ‘talk,’ it’s not like we couldn’t handle them… Although, Saori doesn’t look like she’s really in a fighting mood anymore.

Saori and Tasianna were the main “muscle” in our slave rescue operation, and both seemed like they just wanted to go back to the mansion for a nice warm bath. Saori in particular was pretty much drenched in blood and gore when I saw her. Tasianna may have washed it away, but she still reeked of that bloody smell.

I then turned my gaze from the tavern goers to this leader person.

… Yeah, I don’t want to fight him.

My instincts pleaded to me to not even think about fighting him at my current strength.

Even if Ellaine, Grimnir, and Gael hadn’t talked me into going with this possibly diplomatic way, I still would have tried to avoid a direct confrontation. If he wanted to kill us, he probably would have done it at the auction house without using Ellaine and Grimnir as hostages. Hopefully he was here to talk, and not to ambush us, since I have no idea if we could survive this without sacrificing a pair of [Room] runes to escape.

But what caused me to worry the most was Klea’Hatma’s remark.

[“Careful, you five. It’s faint, but I can feel some demonic energy from him.”]

Who is this guy?

“Well, come right in. Make yourself at home, alright? Nothing fine and nobly, but good enough for a temp housing, eh?” The middle-aged man then jumped up and crashed onto his sofa, relaxing his feet on the table, looking too casual for the situation. Gael accompanied him inside while the rest of us hesitated. “Hmm? What are you standing at the entrance for, everybody? Come on in! I didn’t invite any of my crew in here, so let’s enjoy our talks, alright?”

Friell and Kaian were sent back to take care of the kids and slaves, since he only wanted to speak with Gael, Eshe and her knights, and us from Aurora. Saori would have put them inside the subspace if we had known we would be separated from the kids for this long.

“… I do not detect anybody inside nor can I smell anybody else except for him,” Saori stated.

“Let us trust his good intentions. If he only wishes to speak with us, it would be for the best if we don’t dawdle here. The children should be returned as soon as possible.” Even now, Eshe was thinking of the kids. Fearlessly, she walked into the room, accompanied by her wary knights, ignorant of the fact this guy could be a demonkin.

I looked over at my party, trying to probe their feelings on this, only for Grimnir to pat my back and walk into the room. “Call it a gut feeling, but I think Gael has something planned,” Grimnir assured us.

Well, delaying this any more would be useless.

“Good, good. Nothing makes a man happier than the presence of beautiful women, ahahaha!” the guy laughed joyfully as we all sat down.

[“Klea’Hatma, can he detect you?”] Ellaine asked telepathically. Our telepathy link was only between the members of Aurora and the demon, and I was making sure that nobody could hear it outside of us.

[“I concealed my mana and presence. As long as you don’t use me, nobody will ever find out I am here. Besides, I don’t think this person is a demonkin as you five are thinking. That demonic energy is far too minuscule.”]

[“Are you sure?”] Saori replied.

[“I am a true demon, dearie. Do not underestimate my ability to detect the presence of my lesser descendants. His demonic energy is not related to mine — lust — but he has one of the remaining six. Maybe through an artifact? Blood? A contract with a demonkin? Enough talk, though, focus on getting out of here alive, Ellaine.”] And with that, the demon silenced herself.

The man pulled the bag from his belt and threw it on the table. Opening it up, he took another one of those Krapfen to eat. After he licked his lips clean from the glazing, he began speaking.

“Alright, introductions first, right? I already did mine but let’s do this the proper way. Gael, do me a proper, eh? You do like information dumps.”

Sighing, Gael began introducing his old boss like a king, “As he said before, this is Eithalr, also known as the ‘Phantasmal Armory.’ He is one of the eight ‘heads’ of the—”

“Seven!” Eithalr interrupted Gael. “Gestien is dead. Forgot about how I cut it off? His head, I mean. The boss hasn’t replaced his spot yet, so there are seven of us right now.”

“… Seven ‘heads’ of the Yanderu Eluseuss organization. Each head controls a different area to keep their presence and reputation up among the criminal underworld of Altrust. They all answer to a single boss who controls the growth of the company, with their HQ located somewhere in the Empire.”

‘Phantasmal Armory,’ huh? If his moniker is a reflection of what he can do, then is he some kinda ghost smith or something?

Looking at him, Eithalr didn’t look too intimidating for being an underboss of a black mercenary company known for assassinations and murder. His carefree attitude, at the very least, fitted his clothing choice.

He wore a simple red trench coat over his green shirt with black leather pants and boots — none of it looked as if it was made with strong monster parts. Even his scruffy beard and unkempt grey hair made him look more like those fun, irresponsible middle-aged uncles instead of a serial killer.

“Well, that’s the gist of it, I guess.” Satisfied with Gael’s introduction, Eithalr took over the microphone. “I am currently the fifth head, the fifth strongest of the company. Don’t ask me why I’m here or why I killed the eight head, ‘cause I haven’t even told the crew that. Outside of the fact that Hamil wanted me to kill all of you, I don’t really have anything against you. Gestien’s problems went with him into his grave. They aren’t mine.”

“You’re not angered by what we did in Firwood?” I asked cautiously. The fact he mentioned how Hamil set a hit on us wasn’t assuring.

“Nope. Heard about it, but I couldn’t care less what grudges Gestien had. His fault for botching a job for a rich contractor. I even made peace with Gael and other ‘traitors’ since I’m the head of this branch now. You see, the boss didn’t order your death, you understand?”

So he has no obligation to fight us, but… what about Hamil?

“Then, you really are here to speak with us about something?” Saori responded. “Then, what about this agreement with Ha—”

“Their heads, where are they?!” The door into the room banged open in the middle of this discussion, interrupting Saori. As we turned around, we saw an overweight man in a fine suit appear before us. His hair was groomed and his skin well-maintained like a baby’s, heavily contrasting the common flair of Shaturein.

“Ahhh, speak of the devil! Krampf! Mhmm.” Gael ate up another Krapfen and took out another from his bag. What a glutton.

“Eithalr! Where are the— Kuek?!” The moment he saw us, his face stiffened. “Estas! Aren’t these the wenches and bastards who attacked my property and stole from me?!”

“Y-Yes, Master Hamil. That redhead and the—”

“Uh, sorry, my hair is crimson red. Crimson red,” I interrupted the slave auctioneer, Estas. “If you want to describe others, you should do it properly otherwise you might attack the wrong gi—”

“Silence your filthy mouth, beastman! How impertinent of you to speak back! A wench like you should know her place in this situation!” With a reddened face, the fat man, Hamil, rebuked me for even daring to speak up.

Sheeeeeesh! What are you doing making me hate you even more, you fat skorr in human skin!

After giving me the stink eye, he returned his glare to the pastry-loving man. “Now, Eithalr, explain to me why you haven’t killed these thieves yet! If you are here to show me an execution, I detest seeing them. Kill them as I requested and send their heads to my headquarters!”

As the man was about to leave, Eithalr stopped him with a brow raised. “When did I accept your request?”

“What is the meaning of this? The request I made to you to stop the people who were attacking my auction house! I went directly to you and you heard me—”

“Yeah, I heard what you had to say, but never did I say I would accept it, right?”

“H-Huh?!”

“Fuck me, for somebody whose supposedly the brain for your gang’s success, you sure can’t think properly when agitated, huh?” He then placed another krapfen in his mouth and continued speaking with a full mouth. “I srait tat I will go and slook, snot tat I will asset sur rerest. (I said that I will go and look, not that I will accept your request.)”

He paused to swallow his food, and then continued, “And when I was on site, I decided not to accept your request. Easy as that. But, since I know you probably would come and complain to me anyway, I thought I would bring the people over so you can discuss this over. Am I not the nicest person ever?”

“Thank you very much, Mister Eithalr, for allowing us this chance to resolve this,” Eshe suddenly thanked him. She then turned to Hamil. “Mister Hamil, if you aren’t aware of this yet, I am Eshe of Sarkarfiina. I am one of the Goddess’s saintesses.”

“W-What?!”

“While I understand slavery is an accepted custom in my homeland, the Empire of the Holy Emperor, I cannot say it is the same in the Kingdom of Artorias. Slavery is forbidden here. As such, I ask of you to seek penance and free the slaves you unlawfully are keeping and selling. Allow yourself to walk in the light of the Goddess, once again.”

“…” Hamil stayed silent, glaring at Eshe with a pensive face. Was Eshe actually successful with her speech? “… Eithalr.”

“Yeah?”

“Whatever you wish! Kill that woman and her followers now! All of them! Bury their bodies, don’t let them ever be found by the damn Lycerepth! Enforcers! Get in there and kill those wenches, that man, and the dwarf now!”

Ahhh, so he was worried about that.

Upon command, Hamil’s bodyguards charged into the room, readying their weapons to attack us. Clicking my tongue, I told Saori and Tasianna to stay back and rest, while Ellaine, Grimnir, Eshe’s knight, and handled these idiots.

But before we could do anything, our aggressors’ heads flew off their bodies at the same time. As their decapitated corpses slumped down onto the ground like stringless puppets, I noticed seven blue translucent short blades floating in the air with blood on them, the same number as the dead enforcers.

“Wha-What?!” Hamil shrieked out, stumbling back from fear.

“Oi, oi, oi, I said we would talk, right? I brought all of you here to speak, so sit down and let's speak. No need for everybody to turn into corpses, right?”

I turned around, looking at the source of that declaration — Eithalr. He was leisurely eating his pastries. I was baffled at how he was able to summon those blades, unable to detect a magic circle anywhere. As quickly as the blades appeared, they just as quickly disappeared.

Those things looked more like they were made from mana than actually ghostly. Should I risk using [Mana Eyes] on him to see what’s going on?

… No, if he’s anywhere Yorshka or Muraina tier, then he probably has his [Identity Blocker] at a high level, maybe even evolved like Astalos. I can’t risk angering him for ignoring his privacy.

With his position established before one of the pillars of Shaturein, Eithalr seemed even scarier than the fat pig. As if he understood his own position, Hamil and his aide Estas went over to the couches and sat down. We made sure to make them unwelcomed with our glares.

“H-Hold on, you are that girl Licht!” Estas suddenly brought up. “W-Weren’t you, no, I am sure you were a human before! Where did your horns and scales come from?!”

Ah, that’s right, I only showed him my human form.

After we had departed from the auction house, I turned myself back into a dragonewt, seeing as Eithalr knew about me. Sure, Cernust told me dragonewts didn’t like taking transformation skills like [Humanization] since it was like disrespecting their dragonkin ancestry, but Yorshka had it. With such a case, I thought he probably wouldn’t question if I was a dragon or not.

“Estas, right?” I recalled. “I think you should still keep addressing me with that ‘My lady,’ you know. Also, since I’m done acting like an Empire noble, let me introduce myself properly. Hestia Atsuko. Still a noble, just a dragonewt~”

“Wait… Atsuko… Hold on! Master Hamil, this is the noble our spies talked about!”

“… Mhmm, shit.” It seemed they knew about me.

“Well, since I answered your question, how about you treat me back?” I leaned forward, looking at Hamil in pure disgust as a certain memory reappeared. “Your guild, International Desires, haven’t just gone slave-hunting only once or twice at this point, right? You’ve done it multiple times. Tell me, did you hire a group of bandits to raid a village and enslave the villagers there?!”

That memory was from my friend, a village girl from Carine village called Lorena. Her village was burned down and a good chunk of the villagers were kidnapped before Arcanuess Helvas could do anything. Master Kush’s party and ours managed to save them at the end of the day, but I could still remember how Lorena described being raped by a fat man who acted as the leader of a slave trader group.

When I heard International Desires and Hamil had a hand in Artorias’s slave scene, I had to bite the bullet and ask him. Master Kush also was looking for the mastermind behind those slave traders, but I haven’t met him in Griffonpeak yet. Considering how beastmen were being captured to become slaves in the Lecartiglio duchy, he probably was there right now.

That also meant that his student had to take this matter into her own hands. And I have a serious enough grudge to turn this guy into ash.

“Pah!” However, instead of answering me, Hamil sneered and turned towards Gael. “I will make my offer once more. Kill them, hide their corpses, and I will pay you in whatever you want, Eithalr. Name your price.”

This bastard!

“Lass, calm down,” Grimnir soothed me. “You burn too much, you’ll break yourself.”

I bit the inside of my cheek and tasted blood as I tried to stay civil.

“Are you seriously still trying to offer me that request, Hamil? I’m a merc. I might be a criminal, but I listen and obey the local law of my employers if I wish to continue my business. And one of those rules is that you go through Blackreach to hire your mercs, Hamil,” Eithalr spat at Hamil’s offer, looking a bit irritated that he had to say something this simple to somebody living in Shaturein.

“I do not have the time to wait, Yanderu!” Hamil shouted in response. “Not only was my whole auction house destroyed, but all my wares were stolen before they could land in the hands of my buyers! In addition, the Empire’s saint—”

“You spit on the goodwill of the Goddess! How dare you keep calling those people your ‘wares!’” Surprisingly, it was Eshe who yelled. “In the Goddess name, we did nothing of what you accused us of. We did not steal, we freed people you unrighteously held captured! Among them were also children! Have you no heart?!”

“Tch, my heart does not win me more money, wench of the Goddess. I came this far because I abandoned it to survive in this shithole!”

““Impertinent!”” Alikar and Anivh roared as they stood up with their weapons unsheathed. Hamil squealed in fear at the possibility of death, but nothing happened, as a blue greatsword materialized in Eithalr’s hand, slamming it down to block the knight’s attack path.

“If you wish me to send you to Ilsaphone, then make another step forward.” That was the second time Eithalr’s attitude made a 180 turn, rousing my instincts to run away.

“Alikar. Anivh. Please, sit down.” With Eshe’s command, the knights sheathed their blades and sat back down.

“S-See, Eithalr! These people only wish for my death! As a pillar, whether it is them or the Lycerepth, if you don’t kill them now, then you will be endangering your contractor’s city! Blackreach will understand! Kill them!” But Hamil’s pleading went unnoticed.

After all, there was somebody who was ready to bring his argument down.

It was Gael.

“Hamil, I think your arrogance is getting the better of you today.”

“W-What?!”

“I mean, you must already know that Mister Vangrim despises you, right? He is only tolerating you because you bring in money and valuable goods. You are increasing Shaturein’s reach.”

“And? What is your point? I am valuable as a pillar, what are you doing stating the obvious.”

“Well, the obvious thing here is that you are overvaluing yourself too much. After what happened today, you won’t have any way to get out of this if you keep pushing. You kill Saintess Eshe, the Lycerepth won’t stop investigating. Mister Vangrim will torture you until you are only a shell. If you endanger the wind elf and dragonewt, Lady Grengar will expose you. Did you honestly think we’d come here without the approval of the other pillars first?”

“…” Hamil stared at Gael in horror.

“… You had this planned all this time? Did Blackreach order you to do this?” Estas asked. It looked like he’d just aged five years.

“Nah, it was all just a coincidence. However… Mister Vangrim did ask me to do him a favor now that I was back in Shaturein. For old time’s sake, you know,” Gael glared at Hamil and Estas as if they were scum. “You shouldn’t have caught everybody’s attention by capturing those church orphans, Hamil. You poked the hornet’s nest.”

I looked over at Grimnir, who shrugged in response. Grimnir said he suspected Gael had a plan, but I didn’t think he would use me like this. Were those letters he sent to Blackreach and The Heartful Dance part of this scheme of his?

“… Damn new-bloods. It just had to be some new recruits,” Hamil cursed. In the next moment, his hands turned into fists and his teeth clenched against each other, making weird tire sounds as he snapped his head over to Eithalr. “ANYTHING! Ask me anything you wish! Even if I have to sell my soul, kill these people and get me out of Shaturein! Eithalr, accept my request, I beg of you!!!”

Hamil dropped to his knees and slammed his head on the hard wooden floor, begging Eithalr like a beggar pleading for alms. Eithalr had a look of indifference at what was happening, simply enjoying his pastry.

Until he spoke…

“Then let’s make a deal, eh? If you fulfill it, I will accept your request, no excuses.” Smiling like the devil himself, a glint of bloodthirst escaped his eyes as he looked at us as if we were prey.

Kiiiiuek!

A chill ran down all our spines, affected by the sheer animosity Eithalr was showing us in. My instincts told me to run, to run as far as possible from this person right now. The only other times I ever had this feeling was when I first encountered the Garm Matriach and Astalos. That feeling of facing a hostile being far too early into your life.

Overcoming the opposition as underdogs? I wasn’t a damn hero from a storybook who could overcome any challenge despite how large the hurdle was. No, I was just a girl who was a bit stronger than others. And in my position, my focus was to get my friends out of this situation no matter what.

Surviving was winning. That was a lesson I learned thankfully early enough.

My body tensed up, I was pouring mana into all of my protective skills. I was ready to shield everybody with spells and my abilities. If I can survive long enough to bring everyone into my subspace, then we would win.

I could do that. If he was around Muraina’s level at best, then I was confident enough to pull out this stunt. Dying was not an option, not for any of us!

As Eithalr looked back at the despairing Hamil who had found the light of hope again, I told everybody to ready themselves to escape. Even Gael seemed perturbed. It seemed none of this was part of his plan anymore. He put too much trust in Eithalr’s work honor. A criminal was still a criminal.

“Tell me, what is the deal?! I will do anything!”

“My deal is…” Eithalr left everybody hanging, going over to a wooden barrel to get something.

Now! Sanctuary, let’s g—

“A cooking contest!” A bag of toffels, hard Peolyncia potatoes landed on the table, spilling its contents. I was currently posing with a white magic circle in my hand, looking at the bag with sheer confusion.

“The best people in this world, at least, in my opinion, are those who can cook well! Mhmmm! A warm soup and hearty dish after spilling the guts of a powerful general! Devouring sweet snacks after letting a young maiden breathe her last! Such bliss! Oh, I praise Aniuqa, for the world’s continued food development!”

This person is a fucking pyschopath!!!

“That is why, the deal is to cook me a good dish with those toffels. Hestia and Hamil. The leaders of your respective parties. You two cook me something good to eat, and I will fulfill the winner’s request, on my pride as a gourmet!”

“Haha! Fine, Eithalr!” Hamil cheered as if he already won. “If you wish a fine dish, then I shall call my best chefs to cook—”

“I said that you will do it, Hamil.”

“Huh?”

“Didn’t you hear how I said, ‘You two cook me something good to eat.’ Didn’t you hear that? The challenge is to test who is the better chef, not who has the most money to spare.”

“W-What?! This is preposterous! How could you ask a businessman like me to make such a deal?! You could have asked for anything else and I would ha—”

“Alright.” I clapped my hands, dispelling the spell and throwing my original plan out of the window. “Let’s have a cook-off.”

I pulled a cauldron and a stone cooker from my storage and placed them on the table in front of us.

“S-Space-Time?! Void-touched?!” Hamil exclaimed in shock, but I ignored him.

I produced a flame underneath the stone cooker, using [Pyrokinesis] to hold it there without burning everything down. I then picked up the toffels and peeled the skins off before cleaning them with Tasianna’s water magic. I placed them to the side after chopping them evenly before pulling out the deciding factor of this challenge.

Eithalr said we had to make a dish with toffels. He didn’t mention if we couldn’t add other ingredients. I can’t wait for him to start calling me “Cooking Mama” after what I planned for him.

I placed a slice of butter into the cauldron and let it melt under the heat. I minced onions and garlic and added them into the pot, stirring it with the butter until they released their fragrance. After adding some flour for the thickness, I added in my chopped toffels.

I then added some chicken broth, milk, and cream into the mix. For seasoning, I only added rock salt. I wanted to add some black pepper, but apparently, it was an expensive import from the Empire. Saori was okay cooking without the pepper, so we didn’t have any on hand.

After letting it boil and simmer, I used [Aerokinesis] to pull the soup out of the pot and began to puree the potatoes with wind magic. Once done, I poured it back into the pot and added some sourness with lemons and some cut green onions.

Proficiency requirement fulfilled. [Cooking Lv. 7] evolved into [Cooking Lv. 8]

“Here you go! Potato soup!” I placed the bowl of soup in front of Eithalr, who was drooling as if he hadn’t eaten anything for days. “Bon appetit!”

“Thank you for the food!” Blowing at it, Eithalr took his first spoonful of my potato soup, instantly opening his eyes. “… Hamil, good luck.”

“Gack!” Hamil groaned, while I smiled.

“Let me give you an authentic experience, Eithalr.”

I took out another plate and placed some sauerkraut and pretzels on it. I then cooked some of Saori’s sausages up and added them with the sauerkraut to Eithalr’s meal. I then poured into a tankard some tavern beer, since Grimnir’s and Tasianna’s weren't done yet. With all of this in front of him, all I could say was—

“Happy Oktoberfest! A meal straight from the home of those Berliners you liked so much! Enjoy!”

As I watched Eithalr happily devouring his meal, my lips curved into a smirk as I heard everybody on my side heap a sigh of relief. I lifted my head and turned to the pale Hamil. “Now, where were we? Eithalr said any request, right?”

“Y-You! No! You cannot do this to me! If you kill me, you won’t hear the last from Shaturein!” he tried to threaten me, but it was very past that point now.

“No, I don’t need to kill you. I won’t actually, but…” I pointed with my eyes at the person who would — Eithalr. “Or, you can answer my question and free those slaves. What will it be? I have no intentions of killing you, you retarded sausage filling.”

“Grrrk! Estas, hand it over…” Hamil unfurled the scroll he received from his aide and began speaking something out loud. “On my privilege as the owner of this contract, every being bound to this mark of ownership shall be freed. Their shackles shall be broken and their marks terminated.”

And once those words were spoken, blue fire erased the piece of parchment from existence.

“… There, done. What is the other request… honorable Lady Hestia.”

“Were you the one who ordered that attack on Carine village during last year’s harvest season? Not only did they burn down the village but they also enslaved people there… Were you also the one who laid your hands on some of the female captives?”

“… So you were the ones to bring down Narube’s group, huh?”

“Answer my question. Did you, or did you not?”

“… I did. I also spent a night with a young woman, too.”

My eyes flared up in fury as I heard him say that. I clenched my hand, drilling my claws into my scales as I felt an incredible hatred for the person right in front of me. As if he could understand my intention, Hamil stepped back, holding his hands up in terror.

“H-hold up! You cannot kill me! If you do, I will make sure you will regret this!”

“Lady Hesti—” Eshe wanted to stop me, but Saori held her back. Even the usually rational Saori was fully in agreement with my rage. Lorena was also her friend.

“No! No! Please, Goddess Aurena, save me!”

“You don’t deserve the Goddess’s mercy!” I leaped forward, a claw clad in fire shot right at Hamil’s neck, too fast for him to respond.

As my claw approached, my memories of Lorena flared up again. She became pregnant with this asshole’s baby. She had to suffer ‘cause of him. She nearly lost everything ‘cause of this asshole! Sure, she was living well with her husband right now, who understood her plight and would marry her despite being pregnant with her assaulter’s child.

As her friend, I will make sure this person would never do that to other girls ever again.

…

But it seemed today wasn’t the day for him to die.

“Emergency! Get outta here! Lycerepth!”

The police were here.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 231: To be a Dragon or a Human.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Lycerepthors entered the tavern! Master Hamil, we need to leave!”

Hamil’s enforcers forced themselves inside the room, interrupting my attack at the sudden intervention. Snapping myself out of my bloodlust, I retreated my hand and flame as the men grabbed Hamil and Estas.

“There’s a hidden exit through the window,” Eithalr informed them without anybody bringing it up, pointing towards the window leading outside.

‘hIdDeN exIt,’ my ass! That’s just a window!

“Shit! Master Hamil! Mister Estas! We need to hurry,” the men declared as they broke the window, inspecting if they could jump down safely.

Meanwhile, Saori noted how she could hear something happening down in the tavern, mentioning loud, commanding orders as the guards broke in. That probably was the Lycerepth, but I was confused about how they found us. That was when I noticed Gael’s smirk.

“W-Wait, Gael, did you call for them?! How?!”

Everybody stopped what they were doing and stared at Gael in disbelief. The Lycerepth was the Empire’s secret police force, likely doubling as their inquisitors as well, so how could someone born in a place like Shaturein be able to call them to rescue us?!

“It wasn’t me,” Gael replied. “I just gave Master Vangrim all the information he needed to be prepared for the worst. I think, when he heard Saintess Eshe was captured by Eithalr at the request of Hamil, he took drastic measures. Good thing Lady Hestia bought them a lot of time with her cooking.”

Wait, this is my fault now?!

“Haha, what a clever trick, Gael!” Eithalr laughed before gorging down all the food I made for him. “Say, there is some rather interesting stuff about to happen in the Empire. I heard you weren’t the best fighter from the others in the crew, but a man of your talents is something any budding schemer would love. Wanna help out?”

“Sorry, can’t do. My current boss would probably hunt me down if he heard that I was re-entering the criminal underground. I’m already considered a traitor; even if it’s your crew, I don’t think they’d like having me around.”

He probably was speaking about Farron and Yorshka here.

“Well, I’ll be merging the Artorias branch with mine, so I guess you’re right. Damn. Shame. Anyways.” He then turned to us, a wry smile on his face. “Thanks for the meal, Hestia. Lovely as your pastries. The Empire is so incredibly behind when it comes to stuff like this, you know, so I appreciate it. Before I leave, I’ll make sure to buy lotsa it.”

“T-Thanks, I guess?” I still haven’t gotten the bloodlust he showed before.

“However… acquaintances today might become enemies tomorrow. People like us learn this sadly too early, and as a merc, that is doubly so. I appreciate you introducing those treats to me, but turning those good feelings off for a job is something I’ve mastered… so be careful when we next meet.”

I gulped. Nobody on my team liked how ominous that sounded.

He raised a single finger up before continuing, “You have one favor. Use it wisely. I’m not a fan of backstabbing my contractor, since it devalues people’s trust in my abilities, but for a favor, I can probably do something about it.”

Eithalr then conjured up his ethereal greatsword again and deftly sliced up the shattered window even further, letting out little to no sounds as the exit widened. “Hope we don’t meet again,” he said before jumping down from the second floor.

Please. I’ve had enough heart attacks…

Seeing Eithalr flee the scene, Hamil’s bodyguards were about to help their employer and Estas leave the premise through the same way, but multiple large [Frozen Shield]s materialized between them, blocking the way. When they turned around, red in anger, they shouted at us.

“What are you doing!? I answered your question and freed those slaves, girl! Release me now! I have to leave before the damn Empire gets to me!”

“Why should we?” I answered back. “In fact, I never said I only had one question.”

When my attempt on his life was interrupted, I didn’t retreat my hand out of shame for nearly doing him in. The fat pig deserved it for traumatizing Lorena with that despicable action. However, I stopped my bloodlust ‘cause I realized somebody else in our group needed answers.

It was Tasianna.

“Sorry about that, I nearly forgot,” I apologized to her, feeling embarrassed.

“It’s alright, Lady Hestia. Even if we hadn’t gotten the information from him, I am sure we could have asked Miss Muraina, or even Master Krymdar, for the answers,” she accepted my apology, before turning around to face Hamil. “As someone so heavily involved in illegal smuggling, you should know something about the recent fae hunting in Firwood, right? Also, the fae hunting that happened a year ago in Saelariel, right?!”

The clues were there. Davison hired people to hunt lesser fae for him, the same ones that Tasianna freed when we raided the alchemist’s building. However, while it was true that the Yanderu Eluseuss had something to do with it — at least, Helmut did, but he was dead now — asking them probably wouldn’t work without the former Yanderu boss here.

From how Gael described the company, they were mercs, so it was likely that only the boss had any contact with the contractor. People like Kaian, Friell and Helmut just did their job. Asking the current members wouldn’t lead us to a target. We had to ask somebody higher in the illegal smuggling chain — Hamil.

“Answer me!” Tasianna shouted.

We had to know how Davison got those fae hunters, and we had to know who was responsible for Princess Schuri’s death. The hunters might not have aimed for Schuri specifically, but Tasianna’s vengeance was something I promised to help her with. She was my friend and somebody who had helped me more than enough. I need to do this for her.

“Can you hear it, Hamil? The rooms downstairs are being opened and people are being questioned down there. Better hurry up,” Saori pressured him to speak.

“You are a criminal. You are a smuggler involved in illegal drugs and imports from the Empire. While the Lycerepth might not care that you are a slave trader, they will care when they hear you tried to murder a saintess acknowledged by the church and the holy empire,” Ellaine added, furthering the stress Hamil felt. “I heard the Lycerepth do not allow prominent criminals an easy death.”

Jeez, Ellaine can certainly be as ruthless as any other noble when she wants to!

“Tch!” Realizing he had to do something before it all ended, he quickly . “I do not work with products related to fae or fairies. Too much risk with all the elves in Griffonpeak. However, I heard someone in Estralia who has been taking on these jobs for high-paying customers. If you want to learn more, go over there and ask them!”

The Republic of Estralia, the birth country of Farron and the origin of that alchemist Davison. Even though Davison was banned from the alchemy guild in Estralia due to his experimentation on monsters, I wouldn’t be surprised if his captured faefolk source came from that place. If I remember correctly, the country bordered the Equevanna duchy.

That’s good enough of a lead. We should question Muraina and Krymdar more, and especially ask them why they haven’t brought this topic up to Tasianna.

“Now, dispel these things!” Hamil commanded. “I must leave now!”

“Once again, I ask, ‘Why should we?’” With Tasianna satisfied, I walked up to Hamil with my claws aflame.

“W-What is this?! I answered your questions! Release me now!” he squirmed, pushing his enforcers and Estas forward as human shields.

“Yeah, you did. Thank you very much, but…” I scowled, gesturing to cut his neck. “You’ll just come back to bite me in the tail. You’ve done enough fucked up shit that I won’t let you continue your crap!”

“Eiiiiiiiie!”

With Hamil vainly hitting the ice shields with a dagger he had under his clothes while his enforcers glanced at each other with timid expressions, I continued forward only to be stopped by Eshe and Ellaine.

“Lady Hestia, please, he answered everything! I beg of you as a fellow blessed to stay your hand and let the lycerepthors handle this! Allow Lamreeta, Goddess of Justice, to handle this, Lady Hestia!” Eshe pleaded to my goodwill.

“I agree, Hestia!” Ellaine nodded vigorously, urging me to stop. “You aren’t like these people! Even if you justify this to yourself now, you are not the type of person to the murder others if there is a better way to resolve this. There is a better way! Hand them in to the lycerepthors with all our testimonies!”

I felt conflicted.

On one hand, killing had become second nature to me. I had to grow up with it to survive as a young dragon and become the Hestia of today, to the point that I wasn’t even fazed if I had to kill a human to protect myself or my friends. At this point, telling myself to stop when I had enough reasons to kill Hamil is slightly hypocritical.

On the other hand, I knew I shouldn’t take a life so easily. I was a dragon, yes, but I also had my mentality from when I was still on Earth. “Hestia” was created from these two aspects of me combined to create my reincarnated self. I wasn’t a saint, I wasn’t a hero, nor was I the perfect good person. But I strived to stay on the white side of the morality spectrum.

“Little miss, don’t forget that you will get in trouble if you are the one to kill Hamil.” After sweating over the details, Gael suddenly interjected himself. “Mister Vangrim might have sent the Lycerepth over here, but I don’t think he would like it too much if you did him in now. That is how Shatu works.”

Grimnir, too, had something to say about it. “If you are hesitating, then I believe letting justice run its course would be better for your conscience, lass. At the end of the day, I would agree with either.”

Even Tasianna and Saori had something to add.

“As your maid, Lady Hestia, I will bear the consequences of your actions with you. However, if you would ask me for advice, then I don’t believe our good friend would like it if you avenged them like this. They aren’t that type of person, nor do I believe you are, either.” Tasianna was talking about Lorena.

“In my opinion, he deserves death, Hestia. He did something wholly unforgivable to our friend and the kids. If I were to make the choice, I would not risk letting this rat escape just so he can ambush us when we least suspect it later!”

Everybody had a different opinion on this matter. Should I listen to them, let their opinions influence me, or should I look deeper into myself and find that answer on my own. As we were both monsters, Saori had the same thoughts my dragon side was telling me to do, while Ellaine empowered my human side’s choice.

What was right and what was wrong?

“Huh? Eithalr, help me escape!”

But, that decision wouldn’t be mine to make today.

In a single second, Tasianna’s ice shield exploded into snowflakes, eviscerated by a blue, translucent greatsword.

“Pay?” the man wielding it asked.

“Anything! Connections, details, money, resources; anything! Just get me out of here now!” Like a desperate plea to the devil in a hopeless situation, Hamil took a choice no sane businessman would take.

“Deal!”

“No!” I scream, tugging free from Ellaine’s and Eshe’s hand and dashed forward, attempting to stop Hamil from escaping.

“Don’t dash forward in a rush, Lady Idol, otherwise you’ll get hurt.” And, with a wide smirk, Eithalr kicked me, drilling the force of his leg right into my stomach.

“Blark!”

“Lady Hestia!”

“Hestia!”

I shot right backwards like a bullet, breaking through the entrance walls and crash landing down into the tavern. With a loud commotion around me, I quickly recovered from the landing and strained my legs, shooting myself back in the room with [Wind Blast].

By the time I arrived, however, Eithalr and Hamil’s crew were long gone. Saori was looking out from the window opening, glaring at the escaping party and was about to send her garms, only to be stopped by Gael. “Not worth it,” he said, pointing at how we were involving ourselves in Yanderu Elusuess business now. If we continued, we would make them our enemies once again.

I clicked my tongue, holding onto my pained stomach as my flames recovered the damage done to me.

His attack was fast. My skills managed to warn me in time, but that kick was still too fast for me to dodge it. Damnit, how much Agility does he have?! Over 6000?!

As I complained to myself about it, the footsteps coming up the stairs became louder and louder. When a familiar voice came up, I knew it was about to become annoying.

“Well, well, Lady Hestia? I see that you are here, too. Did you also come to save Saintess Eshe, or were you also captured alongside her?”

I turned around, seeing the all too familiar outfit of a certain officer of the lycerepth. With the badge of an eyed gavel proudly presented on his chest, the mustache man looked at me with an “I have questions” look.

“Hello… Pestrodus.”

The situation after the Lycerepth’s arrival was fairly quickly dealt with. We were escorted outside and given some rest with the help of the officers. Eshe especially was treated like a VIP as they brought her anything she needed.

When we asked why they came, Pestrodus explained how a spy from the king himself had informed him that Eshe had entered Shaturein. Mortified at the situation, he mobilized everybody as they were preparing to go to sleep, ordering the agents and knights to make their way into the undercity to bring Eshe back.

Due to the fact that we’ve been keeping ourselves incognito, they couldn’t find us even after interrogating everybody. The undercity was vast, and they’ve been keeping this investigation up until now with little to no breaks. When people already went to sleep, he woke them up.

Eventually, he found some random beggars who informed him people with our description entered an auction house. When he arrived there, it was already in ruins. As he was about to continue the investigations, an anonymous messenger arrived, delivering the information to our location. When he arrived at the tavern, he began asking people where we were, only to see me shooting out of the room. This brings us to now.

Well, I kinda did expect King Drangleic to have some people making sure we weren’t in danger. They’ve been relatively unintrusive, so I never really worried myself with them. Still… now that I considered it, I am causing him a ton of headaches, huh? Also, who was that anonymous messenger from?

“Now, Lady Eshe, I would like a full coverage of the whole incident. I hope you know your position well enough that performing a stunt like this was enough to jeopardize our whole diplomatic trip,” Pestrodus glared at Eshe, urging her to answer him. Even towards a saintess, this guy had to play the bad cop.

Eshe explained to Pestrodus about how she had heard some orphans were kidnapped and brought down to Shaturein. Knowing we would get into a lot of trouble if she were to tell the truth, she lied by telling Pestrodus that she had asked us to help her save the orphans with her.

The king only mentioned Eshe entering Shaturein to get Pestrodus to work for him, while giving him a reason not to mention me. Even Eshe is now covering up for me. Urgh, how much trouble do I cause people around me?

“Hmm,” Pestrodus murmured. “Are you lying to me, Saintess Eshe?” Pestrodus adjusted his monocle, probably activating the lie detector function in it.

“… No, what I said was only the truth, I swear this on the Goddess and my duty as her saintess,” Eshe committed to the lie. “When I heard the children were kidnapped, I knew I needed help to rescue them. Sir Alikar and Dame Anivh were not enough, so I asked for help from my friend, Idol Hestia. When she heard what happened to the children and my conviction to rescue them, she did not stop me and promised my safety. As you can see, I was not harmed one bit.”

Well, that isn’t exactly a lie. Just mixing events around.

Pestrodus stared at the wary Eshe, inspecting her expression before he had enough. “Sir Alikar. Dame Anivh. By your honor as Knights of Aurena, can you attest the words of your Lady?”

““We do, Sir!”” Their response was instant.

“…” Pestrodus silently turned towards us. “I now wish to hear everything. Even from you six. Especially from you, rogue.”

“Haha…” Gael laughed nervously. Looking back, he probably should have escaped with the others.

Getting interrogated was not an easy task for us. It was mentally draining on our already tired minds. However, through the power of [Telepathy], we managed to get through this crisis by all sticking to the story Eshe told us, even after they separated us for the interrogations.

“Where are the kids now, Saintess Eshe?” Pestrodus asked us after we were all done and satisfied.

“In the care of trustworthy slave breakers, Sir Pestrodus. With the contract broken, all of them should be free.”

“Then please pick them up and go back to the surface. Your safety is everybody’s most important duty, Saintess Eshe,” Pestrodus ordered. “Sir Feos, bring Saintess Eshe and her companies to their destination. After that, bring them back to the orphanage. Take a few officers with you, just in case. Come back once they have made it back safely.”

“Yes, Sir!” a guard around Pestrodus’ age responded vigorously with a salute.

“Now, Saintess Eshe. Idol Hestia.” He turned back to us. “I ask you to take care of how you conduct yourselves. You are representatives of the Goddess, and while your actions today were commendable, if either of you had made a mistake and perished, it would have led to mass chaos. Especially you, Lady Hestia. You may call yourself a blessed, but it seems the church hasn’t fully accepted your claim yet. You are no champion, so you aren’t entitled to the privilege of protecting a saintess.”

“But I am one,” I wanted to say, but my mouth was sealed shut after all the interrogation. I still found it funny that people still questioned my claim when both Eshe and the King testified to it, but I guess I just wasn’t “popular” enough with the clergy to be considered one of their blessed, huh? Then again, I introduced myself as an idol, so maybe they were questioning that point.

As we said our goodbyes to him, this Sir Feos led us towards Friell’s and Kaian’s house with two others. One of them, coincidentally, was a familiar-looking yellow-haired young man. Thinking about it more, it was the lycerepthor who visited Eshe with those two slaves. He only spoke with her, ignoring me, but I was okay with it.

I need time to think about what I nearly did anyway.

I contemplated the moral dilemma I was in just a while ago. Which decision was correct for me? Was it killing Hamil to prevent him from retaliating and avenging the atrocities he committed, or was sparing him and letting him face justice through the law system the better option? With everybody giving their opinions on it, I was still confused.

Strangely enough, I had this weird feeling that I had heard this discussion somewhere before. Not in Peolynca, I think. Maybe it was on Earth? During a movie or a cartoon? Superheroes and vigilante actions were common on the internet, so maybe this memory came from those moments? I wasn’t sure, all I knew was that I was confusing myself further.

Hamil is a criminal just like those bandits and an aggressor like those grimgarians. All of them are sapient beings. As a dragon, they were simply enemies. It’s so much easier to think of them like that, but I just don’t know. Why is having a human conscience so tiring…

Regardless, time went by as I pondered on this. Nobody wanted to interrupt me and I believe Saori was questioning herself as well. Regardless, we eventually made it back to Friell’s house. As we didn’t want to scare them, Tasianna went inside by herself and brought the kids outside, who all ran up and hugged Eshe and me. This was our reunion after the slave auction.

“Thank you very much for rescuing me, Lady Hesita.” Outside of the kids, the katzune women I helped at the auction house, Haati, also came out and accompanied us to the surface. She was in tears when she learned her mark was gone.

As we made our way back up to Griffonpeak, Tasianna recalled what Friell told her. The slave marks had disappeared, as we planned, and some of the ex-slaves left right after that. Whoever wanted to leave, Friell let them since she wasn’t their caretaker. She accepted the children until they chose what to do, but she probably will transport the adults back to the surface in due time.

They weren’t our problem anymore, in other words. Still, it seemed like some of them still wanted to send their thanks to us.

Once we made it back to the surface — saying goodbye to Haati once we were outside the red light district — and subsequently the orphanage, the lycrepthors dismissed themselves to return to Shaturein. They had to catch Hamil, it seemed.

“Lady Hestia,” now that everything was over, Eshe wanted to tell me something. “First things first, thank you so very much for everything. I cannot thank you enough for your care for the children, to the point you were willing to plunge yourself into the unknown to rescue them. Kids, tell it to her.”

“Yeah, Big Sis, thank you very much. We prayed to the Goddess that you would come and you did. You rescued us!”

“Yes, thank you very much for everything, Big Sis. Thank you very much for not abandoning us.”

“Eheheh… no need to thank me, everybody.” I gave them a fat hug. “I promised Abi to save you, so I did. That’s what friends are for, right? Also, don’t forget to thank everybody else. We weren’t the only ones, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right! Big Sis Tasi and Miss Saori were so cool!”

“Hey, we need to thank Mister Grimnir and Lady Ellaine, too! They helped all the other prisoners to escape!”

As the kids charged towards the others, Eshe smiled and continued what she said, “It brings me nothing but joy to see kids so joyous. In Sarkafiina, I have seen kids feeling less than joy to be helped. Some scowled, some were suspicious like little animals, and some only knew how to take good intentions and run. A few I tried to help in this city declined my offer, saying the orphanage was a servant trainer for the nobles. As an adult, I’m ashamed that kids with already scarred hearts exist.”

“…” I nodded, questioning if I would be included in this. “You didn’t need to say all those things to Pestrodus, Lady Eshe. You didn’t need to lie.”

“That was my decision alone, Lady Hestia. My position is already on a thin rope. One more ‘mistake’ isn’t an issue,” Eshe stated. “I was already in danger of being forgotten as a saintess by the world, so I thought coming to you would be a good chance to make my presence known. About my piety to the Goddess. But… after what we did today, I realized even if I hadn’t become a saintess, I still would have found happiness if I could just help children grow up properly.”

“… You are a great person, Lady Eshe. A very good person.” Hearing Eshe say those things really increased my opinions on saints. Aurena told me to become her saintess as well as her champion, but seeing how Eshe behaved, I couldn’t imagine myself as nice as her.

My thoughts weren’t worthy of a saintess.

“Still, I caused you enough trouble which could ha—Huh?!” Out of nowhere, Eshe hugged me. She smelled a bit like Shaturein at this moment, but that wasn’t enough to detract from how soothing it felt.

“Hestia, you count as a child as well. You may be sixteen mentally, an adult as a result, but there is something innocent in you that still makes me think of you as a child. I do not wish to patronize you, I’m sorry.”

I didn’t say anything. I just let her continue speaking.

“I came here to help you learn how to be a proper champion of the Goddess, but being with you, I have also learned much. I was happy when you hesitated to slay Hamil. You are a good person, Hestia, don’t let anybody else tell you otherwise.” Eshe released her embrace, showing me a wide smile. “Have a pleasant night, Lady Hestia.”

“Yeah, you too, Lady Eshe.”

“Mhm. Come children, say goodnight to them. The Sisters must be worried sick.”

As Eshe and her knights guided the children back to the orphanage, Saori laid a hand on my shoulder. “She seemed to have taken the big sister role today. Hestia, I’m sorry for giving you my opinion today. I should have dissuaded you, just like everybody else.”

“Your monster side, right?”

Saori nodded. Her expression seemed crestfallen, as if she had done something unforgivable. “I thought I could keep it better in control, since I’m older, but it seems I was naive to think I that I was still the same Saori as on Earth. I’m sorry, I failed you today as a friend.”

Saori stopped Eshe from preventing me from killing Hamil, and she also voiced her opinion on killing Hamil. The two of us were the only ones fully willing to end Hamil.

“Nah, it’s okay. If I was in better control of myself, you wouldn’t have to feel as conflicted as I did. I have to take responsibility for my own actions, too, Saori.” I glanced over, watching as the orphanage kids streamed out of the building, welcoming everybody back with warmth. “I thought it would be easy, but adapting with a dragon inside me is harder than I thought. If [Battle Frenzy] wasn’t evident enough already.”

“But that is why we are here for you two. Hestia. Saori.” Saori and I turned around. Tasianna, Ellaine, and Grimnir were standing there.

“I’m not the sorta person to scold others for their moral decisions, as this life isn’t easy for nice people. Even the smoothest rocks will form cracks and edges as they face nature’s trials.” Grimnir then patted our backs, a big smile on his face. “But don’t put yourself down, alright? One mistake won’t turn you into bad people. Even the best amongst us will have their down moments.”

“That is correct, Lady Hestia. Miss Saori. Your decision was motivated by your worry for Miss Lorena. That is not a sin, that is a virtue. I mean, for my love and guilt for Princess Schuri, I even dragged my current Mistress into my revenge plot. I also am not pure, my friends.”

“But it is okay, right? That is why we are a team now! It is our job to complement each other, as everybody helped me find what I need to do in my life. Even if it’s as simple as a moral compass, on my honor as a daughter of House Helvas, I swear I will do my best at it.”

“You guys… hiehie.” I wiped a small tear from my eyes. It was heartwarming to have these people with me.

“Agreed, hiehie. What a blessing a second life really is. It is such a difference from my life on Earth,” Saori expressed.

As we waved the orphanage kids goodbye for the night, we said goodbye to Gael and began to make our way back to the mansion. With a good deed done tonight, it was time for us to rest.

But—

[“Ahhh, that was a beautiful moment for our party, right? Hmm, such a joy to hear… So, do you dearies want to hear the good news or bad news first?”]

— things weren’t simple for us.

“Good,” I answered, already preparing myself for the worse.

Klea’Hatma acquiesced, [“Well, good news is that I am 100% sure that Eithalr is not a demonkin. He definitely had something giving him that aura. Maybe it’s similar to that Davison person or it really is from another source. Regardless, he cannot use a demon’s power.”]

“If that is the ‘good news,’ then I’m sure that I’m not going to like hearing what the bad news is,” Saori stated. I had to agree, especially when the good news was just a repetition of what she said before.

[“Mhmm, I think you won’t like this at all, as you said. But, you need to know, I think,”] Klea’Hatma paused, keeping us on our toes. [“I didn’t have enough time to pinpoint the target since the aura was on all of them, but one of those outfitted men… I am sure that one of them is a genuine descendant of us demons. One of them is probably a demonkin of Envy.”]

“““““…”””””

Something was about to happen in Griffonpeak, and it was something I didn’t like at all.

“Damnit!”

Plates, utensils, and paper flew around from the rampage of an overweight man. Despite his impeccable appearance from his hair to his suit, this man’s behavior and actions had little in common with the nobles he had so desperately tried to copy his entire life.

The luxury he worked so hard for was being flung around the room, shattering into pieces before him. His shouting echoed through his manor, reaching the ears of most of his servants.

This was Hamil Czecsics, former merchant from the Empire.

He had moved to Artorias in the pursuit of money, identifying the local resources and commodities to be valuable enough to risk such a venture. He risked lowering himself from a respectful merchant to that of the “scum” his parents dissuaded him from interacting.

“Why?! Why?! Why?! Why did this have to happen today! Those pieces of shit! I told them church children were off-limits! Noble children were off-limits! Too. FUCKING. RISKY!” Hamil’s hands ached from him pounding them on his sturdy wooden desk. His body told him to stop before they shattered, but Hamil ignored it all in his rage. “I’ll have to kill that idiot who assigned those new-bloods to that task! It is such an easy rule to follow! Follow the guild rules and you get your money. Street urchins are such easy targets, why did they have to pick on church orphans!”

Hamil’s rage at Hestia and Eshe hadn’t subsided, but he was more furious at how this chaos had begun in the first place. If those new recruits had only followed his orders and rules to the perfection. If they had only left the nobles and church alone, none of this would have happened. He was more enraged at the incompetence of his own men.

“…What do I do now? I’m done. The Lycerepth knows of me. Blackreach now has a proper excuse to get rid of me. Even that damn bastard woman, Jenghil, is working against me now!” Hamil crumpled a letter in his hand, hammering it on the table.

“Need help?”

Like a fly lured to a fireplace, Hamil’s cries of despair was like a potential feast for an ambitious devil. The door opened up slowly, revealing a figure hiding inside the shadows of this house.

“You…” Hamil glared at the man.

His outfit was that of a lycerepthor, an agent of the Empire’s state inquisition. Although his badge was openly there to see, his face was hidden behind a mask. The darkness of Hamil’s room shrouded his figure, but that didn’t stop Hamil from recognizing who exactly this was.

“I apologize for being unable to stop everybody. I have my duties, and I need to perform them to not attract attention. People are watching, Hamil.”

“I know that!” Hamil yelled, letting out the last of his rage. He calmed himself, fixing his suit up to look presentable. “Why did you come all the way here? You aren’t the sort of person to apologize like this.”

“Precisely. I have come to inquire if all the preparations are done? My Lord will arrive soon to take matters into his own hands. As such, we need things to be prepared so our plan may work flawlessly.”

“Don’t worry about it. I still have enough people in my pocket to make them cause some trouble. For all the haughty air they breathe, nobles are just like common merchants, always looking to push their agenda. They’re just usually a bit more prideful, which makes it harder to persuade them to work with somebody like me, but not impossible.”

“Will they move all at once?”

“I have two specific candidates who will lead the charge. The chaos you create, they will take it onto themselves to abuse in their favor. With their rising influence, everything will work out. How about your work? I heard the kingdom has been stomping schemes after schemes.”

“…” The person was silent. With how much Hestia’s information had aided Artorais in thwarting various plans, he didn’t want to answer. “I have something else planned. Something bigger. The issues in Equevanna and Olivus haven’t dissolved yet, so I will try to lead them to prey on the other duchies.”

“My supporters won’t like that.”

“Why should you care? After all, you have a single goal with all of this, right? You’ll be gone before the aftermath.”

“… I do. If I do this for you, demonkin, you will help me exact revenge on the people who destroyed my family, right? Even if they are nobles, correct?”

The man opened the door. He turned around, leaving one last message before bidding Hamil goodnight. “A demonkin respects his contracts, Hamil.”

Outside the manor, hiding inside the shadow of a building, the man took off his mask, revealing the actual face behind all these plots.

“ ‘[Original Sin: Demiurge]…’ It cannot be compared to the ability of the true Prince of Envy, but it still does the trick for long enough to fool everybody. Still, an inferior mockery of the true demonic ability will eventually lead me to death… a death most glorious.”

“But, why would you care, Master?” An eerie voice escaped from underneath his clothes. Pulling that source out, the demonkin looked at the hand-sized crystalline ball with black mana flowing inside.

“Fulsara, I did not think you would lose a soul urn so soon? Who did this to you?”

“Memories are etched onto your soul. I cannot remember their faces nor names, but I’ll just ask my familiars for that later on. However, I know they were another one watched over by either Father God or Mother Goddess.”

“They shattered your soul before you released it from the crystal? Then they truly deserve to be watched over by Honored Lord Marsven. Watch yourself, though — even a lich will die once your remaining soul urns are gone.” The demonkin then placed the orb back into his pocket. “Once you revive your body, prepare for the grand entrance of a king, Fulsara.”

He aimed his glare to the ceiling of Shaturein, squinting it as if locking onto a target. “My Lord will want the most chaotic entrance. For his descent will mark another victory for us demonkins against the false Goddess. I face the original sin of my bloodline, I call upon my Envy to surface, Original Sin: Demiurge.”

As if an eldritch force had taken hold of him, the demonkin’s body and face morphed through this esoteric ability. His heart and blood vessels trembled, actively rejecting this power from how overwhelming it was, but with clenched teeth, the demonkin forced it into his body.

With bated breath, the being adjusted his clothes, calming himself for his task requires him to act as the very beings he was indoctrinated to hate since childhood. The history of demonkins was not kind to their race, and its many members accepted the hate thrown at them by the humans and beastmen.

But pride and wrath would not let this shame go unanswered.

Envious of the bravery his sin brothers and sisters have shown against their aggressors, a young child can be nurtured into a suicidal weapon to bring down a whole kingdom.

“We shall cut the wings of the griffons.”

A note from AbyssRaven

Yikes, big problem time.

Also, just be reminded that Hestia is still a 16 year old, mentally. She's gonna have some issues to go through. If you want to be even more technical, she's a one year old dragon whelp. Identity crisis, you know.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 232: On a Day with Ellaine.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #1 her to promote our Patreon. 17 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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“Is that so, Lady Ellaine? Why, considering that your father was just elevated to a higher rank, you should have expected that you would receive more attention. Not like you hadn’t already.”

“The invitations have been piling up, Lady Severa. It’s gotten to the point that I wish Lady Hestia would drag me out to do more Quests, just so I can have more excuses to refuse them all.”

“Well, it is something you’ll have to just bear with. Even Cernust and I have things to sort out before we can advance to the next phase.”

It has been three days since the orphan trafficking incident on the midnight of the 17th. After receiving rather chilling information that a demonkin had infiltrated the lycerepth entourage, most of us couldn’t get a real rest that night.

Of course, since it was important for her safety, Hestia did warn Saintess Eshe’s knights to be wary of them, using Goddess Aurena as an excuse for knowing about it. “We swore our loyalty to our Lady. Even if the opponent was the Holy Emperor, we would stand with her,” they replied with conviction. They were the ideal knights to me.

Still, even with that news, it wasn’t as if we could run up to the lycerepthors and denounce one of them as being a demonkin. Klea’Hatma clarified that demonic mana surrounded all the lycerepthors like cloaks, and assumed the demonkin did it to hide their existence. While she could detect the demonic mana, she wasn’t capable of pinpointing the source in her current state.

Klea’Hatma also informed us that her former compatriot — the Demon of Envy — could fully transform themselves into whatever form they wanted, making them one of the best infiltrators. If their descendants inherited this power, like the Prince of Envy impersonating the Pope did, then it could be any one of those lycerepthors. Maybe even the judge, Pestrodus.

As such, instead of trying to expose this menace, it was better to take cautionary measures like informing His Majesty. For whatever reason this demonkin was in Griffonpeak at this moment, it couldn’t be good.

Also, I heard that his Majesty summoned Hestia and that she had to apologize for endangering herself by going into Shaturein. I was surprised I wasn’t punished for not stopping Hestia. She was a very, very important foreign dignitary, even if she didn’t act like one all the time.

“Lady Ellaine, is something worrying you, again?” Snapping out of my thoughts, I turned to face the person I was having my lunch with — Severa Moreschi, daughter of Viscount Moreschi of the Lecartiglio duchy.

“Ah! I apologize, that was rude of me,” I responded, embarrassed at having been caught spacing out.

“It’s fine. You have much to think about, but this is your lunchtime. You should eat before, uhm, you have a physical education period today, correct? Your body will need energy for that.”

“Mhm, that’s right. Thank you.”

Honestly, she and I became good acquaintances in such a weird way. While so many other noble ladies approached me to get closer to Hestia, and lately to get closer to my house after father became an arcanuess, Lady Severa approached me to deliver a message from Hestia’s acquaintance Cernust.

In the letter, the aforementioned Cernust complained to Hestia that Lord Duke Greenveil had hired him to regrow the woods the rachonoid queen destroyed during the dungeon break in Cedaraille, and that he was recommended by her to Lord Duke Greenveil. There was so much to do that he could neither visit his Princess, Hestia, nor his beloved, Lady Severa, in Griffonpeak due to this request.

Regardless, while I had mentioned briefly meeting Lady Severa the day they encountered the grimgarian battalion, I didn’t think I would meet her at the royal academy. I meant, actually speaking with her instead of just greeting each other in passing. I haven’t been particularly popular at the academy for a while now, so I found it surprising that somebody approached me without any political agenda.

This all happened after the ball, so I was already on edge with so many noblemen and ladies trying to smooth talk themselves into becoming “friends.” I knew they were only interested in Hestia and the rumors of the partnership between father and Lord Duke Greenveil. I was just their middleman.

It’s such a difference now that I have somebody to talk to in the academy. My life really was lonely before, huh?

After my father was honorably elevated to the rank of arcanuess by Lord Duke Greenveil, my time in the academy had also changed. Despite the royal academy advertising that rank didn’t matter here in this educational system, there were still a lot of ways to segregate students from others. For example, the three cafeterias and how they were decorated.

The first, and most lavishly decorated of the lot, was reserved for the children of royalty, greifnobles, and arcanuesses, the second was for the rest of the nobles, while the third was where commoner students ate. From what was explained, this system was there to allow students to comfortably eat and talk with each other, but I guess it’s just a way to keep those of a similar ranking together to bond with.

As much as the royal academy wanted to imitate Aleistunum culture, where students could actually learn without fearing ranks, our academy’s board of directors proved to be a thorn to this plan. As the board was made up of high-ranking Artorian nobles, it was obvious decisions would be made to favor the nobility. While commoners could still learn here, they certainly didn’t have it easy.

At the very least, the food was kept at the same quality for each cafeteria. The only difference between the cafeteria I used when my father was a count and now that he was an arcanuess was really only the decor and people around. At least I was allowed to invite whoever I wanted to come eat with me.

After spending a good lunch break with Lady Severa, the bell struck, signaling the end of the break and the time to return to class. Ignoring everybody’s inquisitive eyes, I said goodbye to Severa and walked over to the classroom for my next period — agriculture and farm management. To a noble from the Greenveil duchy, including this lesson in your schedule was as normal as a Morgiana noble attending magic courses.

“Now, as you already know, mana concentration in the soil usually acts as a growth accelerant. Not only does it aid in the harvest yield, but it also nurtures beneficial critters like worms and various insects which help break down fertilizer faster. A simple question to start off the class, then. Why is it recommended to keep the mana concentration low?” the professor asked, pointing at a male student to answer it.

“Monster spawning, of course. Since farms are cultivated by serf villages, it is best if we do not risk large monster spawnings and instead save on the pay for guards. Some mana is good, but too much, and the risks will outweigh the benefits.”

“Correct! Moderation is best in this case; however, recent studies done by the researchers in the Magical Capital have discovered that the type and quality of mana can have a significant effect on the end product of a crop.”

Somebody raised their hand at this moment, wanting to ask a question, which the professor accepted.

“Professor, isn’t this already well known? The reason why Belzac herbs are potent is due to the area they grow in. The mana in the Belzac forest is so ripe that the quality of herbs grown there and here in the kingdom differs starkly.”

“Yes, but do you know what produces this mana?” Nobody answered. “It is a known fact that different creatures produce different types of mana. The mana from a dragon and a human cannot be compared. Spells also change the property of mana to a different element, similar to how elementals do it. However—”

Picking up his mana pen, the professor began writing on the fairnite board, imprinting blue glowing words for everybody to read.

“How does this work? What makes the mana in the Belzac forest different from that of the farms in Greenveil Duchy? How is the mana from a monster different from that of a human or beastman? Is there an organ that produces this effect or is our blood and mana connected in some way? From the notes of Goddess Chihiro, research has also been done on uncovering genetics and how it might be involved in the different types of mana.”

The revolution queen, Dravlia Kongun, who later became known as the Goddess Chihiro, was most likely the most important person for Peolynca’s development in the last 200 years. A transmigrator from the same world as Hestia and Saori, she was a wellspring of innovative ideas and a champion of progress. Even after her death and apotheosis, her notes and inventions still aided us in research like this.

I do wonder what Hestia’s and Saori’s marks on the world will be. But then again, they will outlast quite a lot of people due to their lifespan. Even me.

I raised my hand. “Professor, while I do understand this is a very fascinating topic, your excitement might be diverting us from the primary subject for today. How can different types of mana affect crop quality and is there a way to recreate this?”

“Ahh, I apologize, Miss Ellaine. This is something I shouldn’t take away from your magic theory professors, haha! Now, to answer your question—”

As I was about to begin writing down my notes, I overheard some students speaking behind my back. Improving my hearing through skills really helped.

“Tch, the teacher actually raised an interesting point and she wants the boring facts we’ve already read from the textbooks.”

“Mhmm. Don’t you think she’s gotten a bit arrogant with her house’s recent success? The rumors even say she’s become a retainer to that Lady Hestia.”

Flies buzzing around.

I ignored them and continued writing down every word my professor spoke, planning to organize them into proper notes afterward. Mother mentioned this was how she taught herself to make notes since it helped you become a better listener, a valuable trait for court politicking. Well, not like it will become useful for me.

“Do you think she might just be bored from staying here? Why hasn’t she requested a time off yet?”

Whether it was during a tea party or at the academy, gossiping was not an uncommon occurrence. However, it wasn’t like this one was wrong. I was bored. Every week, five days in a row. Academy in the morning to dull my senses, and more in the afternoon to drive me to tears. I would only be introduced to something fun and interesting in the evening.

Maybe I really was becoming spoiled recently. Becoming a member of Aurora has not only helped me deal with some of my personal problems but also helped me become much stronger. In addition, ever since I met them, I cannot tell how often I’ve thought, “My heart is about to stop!” Not in a bad way, but in a good way.

My life after father stopped training me with brother was just dull and dreary, to be honest. I lived the life of an average young noble lady by speaking with the people my parents wanted me to be acquainted with, learning the skills necessary to become a proper noblewoman, and just not acting out to shame my house. Well, not like I was that successful with that last part.

But, after I’d visited the Cedaraille dungeon and fought that lightning wyvern, my mundane life just seemed even more mundane. It is the breaks in between these moments that really invigorated me. My training with father, my adventures as a member of Aurora, and Master Grimnir’s loud voice pounding in my eardrums whenever I made a mistake with repairs. Spending time with genuine friends and surviving through our antics made all of the academy and tea parties just annoying.

Well, speaking of genuine friends.

I looked around the room, trying to find Amelia, but it seemed like she wasn’t here. For a daughter of a commoner woman, Amelia always was quite the workaholic and perfectionist. She had to prove herself to her noble peers as the daughter of a duke.

Even if her half-siblings would inherit their father’s titles and land at the end of the day, Amelia couldn’t escape the life of a noble even if she took over for her grandfather and became the president of the Sarlenzia company. Their most prominent customers were aristocrats, after all.

As such, it surprised me that she wasn’t here today. Even if she knew the subject like the back of her hand, she would be here for the same reason I was here.

Reputation and image.

I promised father to attend the academy to help restore my damaged reputation from rejecting my birthright and handing the inheritance to brother without a proper duel. Outside of Brother dropping from the academy, everything went alright after I returned.

But, Amelia’s business wasn’t mine anymore. Considering how much of a selfish friend I was to her, I did not deserve to meddle in her affairs anymore. We had to work together and maintain a good enough reputation for our respective houses, but our friendship was no more.

I shouldn’t get distracted. It’s still a long way until I can go home. Haaaaa, I wish I had a way to speed up time…

After what felt like an eternity, I managed to endure through additional classes until it was time for physical education. Compared to the training I suffered through with either Father or Hestia, this seemed more like a warm-up for me, even while the non-knight students struggled to catch their breath.

After doing some laps and stretching, it was time for some Elemental Barrage, or, as Hestia called it, Peolyncian tag. Apparently, this exercise was a bit like an Earthly game called tag, but we could use magic and unarmed abilities. No weapons or lethal attacks, of course.

“Urgh … let’s see if I can do it again. Three in a row, I wonder?” I stayed silent for a moment, waiting for Klea’Hatma to speak, but nobody responded to me. Right, my demon-infested spell rings were with Hestia.

Hmm, I’m getting too used to speaking with her.

There was also another distinction—it was everybody for themselves. The person with the most people tagged out wins. There were no official teams.

After accepting a room key from the receptionist of the training building, I went and entered a small private changing room. Since privacy was important to nobles, the academy was funded enough to afford rooms for three classes worth of students to change at the same time. Inside one, I changed to the academy-issued training outfit.

Should I bring it with me today, again? It dangles too much without my chainmail.

I was speaking about my [Necklace of Vampiric Undying]. You could say that I’m feeling a bit paranoid after what happened with that lightning wyvern. Even if the Goddess and Klea’Hatma were ready to save me at the last moment, I couldn’t argue that I was this close to dying. To me, it felt as if time had slowed down, letting me have enough time to think of everything that occurred up to this moment.

Except when bathing, I haven’t gone anywhere without this necklace. Even when I sleep, I keep it on. Life is too precious to die this young, and this necklace is here to grant me that second chance if that does happen. It doesn’t grant me any other benefit outside of a single death save.

“No …” I shook my head, slightly disappointed in myself. In the end, I decided to leave the necklace in my changing room.

I then gave a solemn nod before I departed to the training grounds. As I entered it, the effects of the mana barrier began to affect me. This was a barrier designed to temporarily reduce Strength and Intelligence, while raising Vitality and Wisdom. It was there to reduce the likelihood of death.

After doing some laps and stretching as a warm-up, it was time for Elemental Barrage. After making sure I was limber enough, I turned around to see all my classmates glaring at me. If I had arrived earlier at the academy, I could have joined the PE classes suited for the knight students. However, as I didn’t, the ones I was facing were those with little to no combat experience.

Still, they knew I was their biggest threat. It has been like this for nearly a month now. I have participated in this four times now. In the first, I dominated everybody since they didn’t expect me to have improved too much, while I lost the second match as I hadn’t expected literally everybody to target me first. For the last two, I was prepared and went in to win.

Today, for the fifth match, it wouldn’t be any different. Three wins in a row, that was my goal.

“The potency of the barrier has been increased. Everybody ready themselves … Begin!”

It wasn’t even a contest.

Even without my sword, I’ve more experience fighting as a mage due to Mother’s and Hestia’s training. Even with all the projectiles shot at me at the beginning of the fight, I managed to use wind and earth magic tactically to escape everything.

There were fire, water, wind, and earth mages as well as those from knight houses amongst my classmates. However, unlike a well-practiced party, they weren’t able to show enough coordination to defeat a single superior opponent. I wasn’t fighting against 22 nobles, I was fighting against a mob.

“The match is over! Final tally—Lady Ellaine Helvas at 18 points, Lord Oliver Farsrein at two points, with Lord William Colhan and Lady Beatrice Catrina at one point each. The winner is Lady Ellaine Fierro Helvas!”

When the match looked unbeatable, the remaining nobles turned against each other to gain some points before I could finish them in a clean wipe. Well, not like it mattered to me. A win was a win. And with that, the day came to an end.

Without changing my clothes, I picked up my belongings from my private room, intending to leave before everybody else finished changing. My classmates would shower me with worthless flattery and other gestures if I didn’t leave immediately. I wanted to avoid that as best as I could.

As I was about to leave, I noticed a few young men waiting outside. Nobles were allowed to enter the academy with their retainers, that was why the academy also had a sizable commoner population amongst the students. Those who came from humble homes and those who swore loyalty to a noble house either by themselves or through their family.

If these students were the retainers of my classmates, then that probably meant my noble peers noticed me avoiding them. These young men were here to stop me, most likely. As such, I went over to the back entrance and used the stealth training I received from Saori to its fullest, sneaking away from everybody right under their noses.

As I let out a sigh of relief, I suddenly noticed two people hanging out in the shadow of a nearby building, the one Principal Thyra was building for her new classes. Since it was afternoon, the construction work has stopped. Still, entering the building wasn’t allowed for safety reasons.

Probably should leave. Not worth getting in trouble for eavesdropping.

Turning around, I began making my way to the entrance. Usually, after all the classes were over, most students would meet up at the communal building to spend time with each other, while the knight and magic-focused students left for training.

I had training with my father. Gargoyle usage was only allowed at specific locations to prevent air traffic, and one of those places was the academy entrance. I heard Hestia was coming back to the city today after testing out her portal system, so I definitely have to—

“Well, my dear Lady Amelia, I hope we have a deal~”

I immediately activated my stealth skills and snuck behind a corner, perking my ears in the direction of that voice. I took a peek, recognizing a tall man in silver-gold armor speaking with a young girl with green and lilac hair. The man’s groomed light green hair was pretty noticeable, even without his armor.

“Lord Charleslyt, there is no deal. If you wish to make me your fiance, go to my father and ask him for my hand. My marriage is not for me alone to decide on!”

Huh?! Marriage?! Hold on, who is marrying who? Amelia?! Lord Charleslyt?! What?!

“But, Lady Amelia, was my proposal not very enticing? Considering my standing and how the church supports my every action, it would boost your own image even more. Think of the acknowledgement and respect you can gain by joining me.”

I couldn’t stop myself. I couldn’t look away nor stop eavesdropping. The moment I heard Amelia’s name, my body just instinctively hid behind this corner and began listening to what was going on.

It was even more surprising when Lord Charleslyt was named. Who was he but the most popular noble in the kingdom right now? Even the crown prince, an incredibly handsome and capable man destined to rule the kingdom one day, is less on the mind of young ladies than Lord Charleslyt.

Although he wasn’t the heir, he still was Duke Equevanna’s second son. He was not only a B rank adventurer but he was also supported by the church in the effort to become a champion of the Goddess. If you heard this, any father would want this person as a son-in-law. Even if his reputation wasn’t the most stellar thanks to the rougher members of his party, he was known to be cordial and a smooth talker inside the court.

And he is also the one who took in Jonathan. He is my brother’s party leader. And now he is speaking with Amelia about marriage.

However, without any warning, Amelia pushed Lord Charleslyt back. “E-Enough. I don’t care what you have to offer me or whatever you think I need, Lord Charleslyt. You shouldn’t drag an unmarried woman into a lone place like this. Please, if you want my hand, talk with my father!”

“Mhmm, I see,” Lord Charleslyt nodded, raising his hands as he walked back slowly. “I apologize, but please see this as a gesture of my feelings for you. Still, I promise you, if we were to be wed together, I would make sure that the Sarlenzia company never faces any hardships ever again. I shall help you make it the best merchant company in the west. Please, consider this when you inform your honorable father, Lord Duke Greenveil.”

And with a flamboyant bow, Lord Charleslyt left Amelia. Graduated nobles were allowed to visit the academy, but I’d never seen one of them visiting just to offer his hand to a girl. Maybe I’m just not popular enough to know about it.

After he left, I watched Amelia, who let out a deep sigh and began leaning her back onto the wall, looking unnerved as she tried to calm her breathing. Noticing something was wrong, I walked over to speak with her. She’s not my friend anymore, but that doesn't mean our past friendship was a lie.

“Amelia?”

“Kyaaaak!” Amelia screamed, covering her mouth with her hands. “E-Ellaine?”

“I’m sorry! So sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you like that, Amelia. Uhm, well, I saw that you weren’t looking very well, and we aren’t allowed to enter this building so… Well, are you alright?”

“Y-Yes, thank you for worrying about me, but, why are you here in your training clothes? Why do you smell like sweat?” She pinched her nose, making me conscious of what I was wearing in front of her.

“I-I ran away before I could take a shower. To avoid everybody, you see.” The changing room had a small restroom with a toilet and shower. I could have showered, but that would have delayed my escape.

“I see… You have it hard, too,” she nodded before eeking out a sentence, “Uhm, uhhh, d-did you hear anything?”

I guess that would be something you wouldn’t want to get out of. The other girls would torment her if they knew Charleslyt had offered her his hand.

“Don’t worry, my mouth is zipped. If my word isn’t enough, then I’ll swear it on my house’s honor, Amelia,” I replied.

“T-Thank you, Ellaine.” She smiled softly.

“But, what was that about? Why did Charleslyt ask for your hand in such a forceful manner? He should have formally asked for you by making the request to your father. Even if Lord Duke Greenveil and Lord Duke Equevanna do not have a good relationship, it would be better than this.”

Rumors could start if somebody else saw this scene. Considering how Amelia was currently viewed by the noble lady society, rejecting Charleslyt would be a massive blow to her reputation and image. You can’t just reject the most popular bachelor in Artorias without people speaking about it.

“Please, I don’t want to talk about it.” As expected, Amelia was less inclined to bring the topic back up. “We should leave before a professor finds us here, and, uhm, Ellaine, I apologize.”

I raised a brow. “Hmm? Why are you apologizing, Amelia? If someone should apologize, it should be me for selfishly aband—”

“No!” she interrupted. “I’m really sorry that I couldn’t stop him. I’m really sorry, Ellaine.” And with that, she left in a hurry, as if she was running away from something.

Who is ‘him?’ What does she mean by that? Urgh, what is going on in Amelia’s life right now?

But did I deserve to know about it? Was I qualified to question her any further?

No.

I left the academy by flying on my gargoyle. I returned home, learning from Josine that father had to call off today’s training since some complications happened at the yeast factory. Since he had to check on it, I was free for the afternoon.

After taking a shower, I went over to the RV, noticing it had returned. When I entered, I heard from Tasianna that Hestia went over to Mother’s room while Saori went over to Muraina to ask about Tasianna’s problem and, lastly, Master Grimnir continued working on Hestia’s and Saori’s weapons.

“Here you go.” Tasianna handed me my spell rings with Klea’Hatma back. Safety first; without Hestia around, using these rings was a bit dangerous, even if Goddess Aurena was watching over me.

I graciously accepted the rings and placed them on, instantly feeling the thick mana around my fingers. Before I left, I helped Tasianna out with the garden. “Ooh, the fruits are doing well. Green as always … Oh, right. How were the tests? Did they work?”

I was speaking of the space-time portal technique Hestia had invented.

“Perfectly! We only tested it from Cedaraille to Griffonpeak, but it seems like there weren’t any complications regardless of who used it. The only issue was the mana cost, which was daunting, to say the least.”

I furrowed my brows, not liking that last part. “How much is it from Cedaraille to Griffonpeak?”

“For Lady Hestia? Nothing, since she’s the owner. However, for anybody else, well, it used up half of my mana pool, for reference.”

“H-Half?!” My eyes widened in surprise. “You have the second-highest mana pool in our party, even more than Saori in her fenrir form! I can’t afford that!”

Tasianna flinched, waving her hands to calm me down. “Don’t worry, it seems the teleportation also accepts mana from your catalyst. The one I have, which was blessed by Goddess Zephira and Kiiro, has enough to pay for my trip.”

“Is that so? Then we probably should acquire some more catalysts in that case. My spell rings are used to cast spells, they aren’t there to store large quantities of mana.”

“Yup, that is the plan!” Tasianna exclaimed excitedly. “Master Krymdar already showed me how to make catalysts, so all we need to do is gather the materials. I’ll use this chance to train myself. When Lady Hestia’s and Miss Saori’s catalysts are returned to us with their enchantments, I must always be ready to repair them!”

I gave her an affirmative nod. Seeing Tasianna like this is always a treat.

After leaving the RV to depart for Mother’s, Josine informed me she had received some letters in my name. I wondered who sent them to me.

While on my way to her room, I looked down at my rings, causing Klea’Hatma to suddenly speak with me, [“Oh, lookie here. I can sense how much you missed me, dear~”]

[“… Aren’t you repeating this every single time?”] I frowned, reminding her how she would always start with this sentence whenever I returned from school. [“Maybe think of a better greeting?”]

[“Oho! No. I think this is our thing, Ellaine. No need to change something that just works, right?”] Her words were always laced with mockery; she did love teasing me about everything. [“Okay, okay, you’re getting irritated. I’ll stop. So … what do you have mind, today?”]

My frown deepened when she said that last bit, only for me to let go of the tension and just sigh. It really was a nuisance how demons could read emotions so easily, so, instead of fighting back, I just accepted it. It always felt easier to vent my stress out on her, even more than my confident, Josine.

[“If you’re that nervous, you should just bring it with you, Ellaine. A human’s mortality is far too short for you to worry about death this much,”] Klea’Hatma advised.

[“Klea’Hatma … Do you fear death?”]

[“…? You are asking a being whose only binding to life is this little speck of mana inside your rings. Have you forgotten that Aurena destroyed my soul?”] I looked at her bitterly, realizing that was a bit insensitive of me, but Klea’Hatma simply laughed it off. [“Hahaha, oh, don’t give me that look, dear. I’ve lived a life too long for you to ever understand. If it weren’t for my hedonistic tendencies, I would have accepted death as the sweet release from my immortal coil. Mhm, to join my compatriots. It wouldn’t be so lonely anymore.”]

Klea’Hatma had been imprisoned inside that dwarven ruin for over 2000 years, and was only recently released by Hestia and the others. Her soul was destroyed and she was made to do my biddings in order to continue “surviving.” It was pitiful, to say the least.

[“Well, to answer your question, no, of course not. However, to a mortal like you … From my perspective, worrying about death sounds more like a nuisance, considering how short your life is. Instead, live it as vibrantly as possible! Life has so much to give! Haa, this question just makes me want to go on tangent about my sin, but I think you should get what I mean.”]

I couldn’t disagree. Almost out of instinct, I clutched something around my neck, only to finally notice I have been wearing my [Necklace of Vampiric Undying] since I left the academy. I hadn’t even realized I had put it on until now!

[“Well, considering how you always wear that death-defying necklace, I think you worry about things too much sometimes.”]

“…” Once again, I was left speechless by this teasing fiend. Unable to say anything, I just turned my attention to the corridor and walked faster until I reached Mother’s room.

Inside, I greeted both her and Hestia, where I learned that latter had received a letter from Dame Yorshka.

“Haaaaa, the letter says the message that she sent to my dragon mother was intercepted by two snow wyverns I’m supposed to know. Apparently, those wyverns are now taking the letter to the Nordor clan in Loatryx and then will send it to my dragon mother,” Hestia explained.

“That that means—”

“Yeah, we need to stick around in Artorias for a while. I mean … I can’t accept her as my mother right now, but she still is, right? I mean, if I thought of her as my real mother, I would do my best to meet up with her again. Not complicate things by running around.”

“By your real mother, you are speaking about your human one, correct? Not the Sixth Dragon Empress?” my mother asked. There was a lot of mother talk between the three of us.

“Yes, that is correct. I’m not thinking as ‘Hestia’ about the situation, but whoever I was back on Earth. Melloxtressa is a stranger to me, plain and simple. But I do want to soothe her. I can’t imagine how much she was suffering after losing my egg.”

“To a mother, her child is everything. If I had lost Jonathan or Ellaine when they were just a newborn, I would drown myself in sorrow,” mother admitted, making my chest feel a bit warmer. It felt nice hearing somebody valued me. “You are doing the correct thing, Lady Hestia. Now that Ellaine is here, please, these are the remaining letters for each of you.”

Hestia and I both received a pile of letters, all coming from nobles. Most of them were from young noble ladies who invited us to their tea parties while a few asked Hestia to join them for a ball at their domains. Among them, three came from Lady Duchess Morgiana, Lord Duke Greenveil, and Lord Grand Duke Myrrdin. In other words, the people Hestia should ally herself with.

“Jeez, another load of this? Lady Marianne, haven’t I explicitly stated that I won’t be joining any tea parties?” I agreed with this statement.

“Now, you two,” mother scolded us for our responses. “While I understand Lady Hestia saying this, you should know better, Ellaine. Tea parties are a great place to form bonds of friendship and make allies. It isn’t too bad of a proposition, no?”

“But they are boring, mother,” I stated for the both of us. “You should know it best as a lady. All of these tea parties are just social and political battlefields, where becoming true friends is not on anyone’s mind. It is analyzing your peers, assessing if they are allies, neutrals, or enemies, as you told me.”

Hestia nodded. “Exactly. My first tea party with the Chezaic twins was just a political play for us, right? To uncover their family’s role in the Davison problem. Even if I joined now, all of those ladies are expecting me to appear just so they can advance their houses’ ambitions. Everybody wants to speak with me, right now, and, once my dragon mother arrives, it will become even worse!”

Mother stayed silent, having already heard this argument before. Understanding what she was intending to do by accepting these letters, I had to speak up. “Mother, I know you want to do this for me. Like at the last tea party, having Lady Hestia accompany me to a tea party would help my reputation, but I’m not interested in such a scheme.”

Relying on Hestia wasn’t the way to go. I would just be considering Hestia’s retainer at that point. To make my family proud, I needed to achieve my own merits. I needed to change everybody’s opinion with my own hands. I didn’t want people approaching me to meet Hestia, I wanted them to be like Lady Severa.

“Please, send them back.” My mother agreed, reluctantly.

There was still one more letter addressed to Hestia, and this one was surprisingly coming from the cathedral. Specifically, the cardinal.

“Burn it,” Hestia responded after she read it, looking irritated.

“Huh? But why?” I asked.

“The cardinal wants to invite me to meet me, but something tells me it won’t be as simple. Why hasn’t he sent an invitation up until now? I even announced my relationship to Goddess Aurena at the ball. After that time with the spies, I just don’t trust this guy at all. Let’s just stay away from him for now.”

In Artorias, if the cardinal of the cathedral asked for a meeting, even His Majesty couldn’t outright refuse it without a proper excuse. However, Hestia was about to burn the letter. Not sending a response, even if it was a refusal, was simply antagonizing the church. Even if Hestia was the Goddess’s champion, that went too far.

“Lady Hestia, please, reconsider it. Not sending a reply can already be considered extremely discourteous, but this is the cathedral we are talking about. While I agree with your wariness, considering how late it came, you should still visit the cardinal.”

“Why, Lady Marianne?”

“Because you are already known as her blessed, Lady Hestia,” mother firmly stated. “From your explanation of what an idol was, I understood it as being someone who’s well-known and well-loved. Although you are a champion, your description made it sound more like you’re actually a saint. You wish to bring people hope and happiness, only without all the sermons and religious justifications. Am I not right?”

Hestia scratched her neck, giving a delayed “yes, ” to mother’s reply. She did elucidate that an idol on Earth was mostly a musician and entertainer who was extremely popular, who fully embodied the concept of the word idol — someone meant to be admired or revered by her fans.

Translating words and concepts from another dimension or world to ours was a bit tricky. The idea of Hestia’s meaning of “idol” wasn’t something we were aware of, although it could be comparable to that of a saint or a popular noble.

“In any case, since you are using the Goddess’s name during your concerts, it would be best if you got better acquainted with the church. The church and their God’s blessed have always been the supporting foundation for all the six Origin Gods’ faith, after all. Also, unlike our High Bishop Theodore, the current Cardinal of Artorias, Bennard Bonovier Gillsna, abuses the goodwill of Lord Grand Duke Olivus too much. Usually for… bad gossip, from what I heard.”

What mother just said could be classified as heresy against a high-ranking clergyman. After all, cardinals who act as the spiritual representatives for a country were usually appointed by the ministers of Aureolis. People like Lord Grand Duke Olivus or His Majesty could give recommendations, but, as mentioned, they were only recommendations.

“Lady Hestia, I think it would be good if you accepted it,” I supported mother. “Uno only found out that the cardinal had been spying on us, but he hadn’t discovered the reason. Saori might not have detected any spies since then, but who knows when the cardinal might act again. It might be better to just confront him and learn his motives.”

“A direct approach, huh? Hmm, yeah, let’s do that. Staying too passive won’t do me any good when I have to stay put until my dragon mother arrives. Still, I have a bad feeling about it.”

“Well, I don’t think it’s anything unusual. Our party’s luck is extremely bad for our health, hiehie.”

“Hey, hey! Don’t say it like that, Ellaine! You’ll jinx us at this point! Just because we meet giant monsters and weirdly aggressive people sometimes doesn’t mean our luck is that bad!”

“… Hearing all of this… Oh my sweet son and daughter. Following in the footsteps of your parents and facing such audacious events. The life of an adventurer is not good for my heart, you two children.”

Mother, forgive me!

But, even if our luck was that bad, even if our constant confrontations with all of these threats was becoming the norm instead of the exception, I still felt more excitement being an adventurer than being a normal noblewoman. I felt alive here.

I have no regrets.

I was proud to be a part of Aurora.

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Chapter 233: A Meeting with the Cardinal.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“I didn’t think you would arrive here with Lady Eshe, High Bishop Theodore.” Confused at the people who exited the carriage, I couldn’t help but wonder why Theodore brought her along. “Lady Eshe, you didn’t have to come. This invitation was on such short notice that I can understand if you were preoccupied.”

It was the day after I received the letter from the church. It actually arrived three days ago, while I was outside Griffonpeak testing out the fast travel function. Technically, I could have received it whenever I returned to Helvas mansion each night, but I didn’t want to deal with all those letters really, so I put off looking at any of my mail.

Speaking of testing, I tried teleporting from Cedraille to Griffonpeak. It worked, thankfully, although there was a slight catch — if you weren’t me, you had to pay a large amount of mana. In any case, while I was there, I tried to meet up with Cernust, as I’d heard from Severa that he was working in Cedaraille, but, sadly, I couldn’t find which inn he was staying with. I probably could have asked Duke Greenveil when I had returned to Griffonpeak through the portal, now that I thought about it.

Back to the topic, the invitation was set for the 21st of SpringBloom, which was today. Makes sense, since it’s a cardinal meeting up with one of the blessed of Aurena, so the meeting had to be on a LightDay. The religious symbolism was obvious.

Since the cardinal only invited me, not mentioning anybody else, I had to leave everybody else behind for today. As such, I asked Theodore at the very least to help me out. Give me some tips. As a high bishop, he should have the authority to chaperone me.

I just didn’t expect him to bring Eshe with us.

Eshe gave a small curtsy with her dress, flanked by her two knights. “Lady Hestia, as one of two who were responsible for your theology lessons, it is only right for me to come with you. Besides, since the introduction of saints and champions, they have always been partners. You did me a favor, so how could I not reciprocate that gesture?”

“Heh, I don’t think you owe me for that. I did it for myself, hiehie.” Accepting the situation, I boarded the carriage with Theodore and Eshe. Once again, carriages weren’t good for my butt or tail, regardless of their quality.

Eshe was referring to the rescue of the orphan kids, of course. She did thank me profusely for it, but, even if she hadn’t asked me to help, I still would have delved into Shaturein to find them anyway.

Once we were inside, I learned from Eshe that the kids were doing well, but the two younger ones were now extremely paranoid around strangers. They even refused to go grocery shopping as a result. It made me regret deciding to give them some time to cool down after what happened instead of visiting them immediately.

Leaving Hamil alive poses a future problem. He might be hunted by both Shaturein and the Lycerepth right now, but who knows when he’ll strike? There is also that demonkin and Eithalr. Making sure the fast travel worked well in an emergency was my priority so I can keep everybody safe within the subspace, but still…

I shook those thoughts out for now. I had to get myself in the mindset of one of Aurena’s blessed right now.

“Remember, Lady Hestia, Cardinal Bennard Bonovier Gillsna is what you would expect from an influential noble in a priest’s clothes. He isn’t the most reasonable person, and he will always set his mind on supporting his house’s ambitions. Don’t let his words trick you,” Theodore warned me.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” I nodded. “When I had my concert, I met the cardinal by accident. Back then, I refused to speak with him at first, asking him to wait until I finished cleaning myself up first. but he left before I returned. Can he be petty?”

“Very much.” Theodore’s reply was blunt. “Not only does he wield power as the cardinal appointed by Aureolis, but his family has also recently been favored by Lord Grand Duke Olivus. As you should know, House Olivus is responsible for religious matters in Artorias. With all these perks, men weak of will and mind quickly become pompous, unaware they have become puppets.”

“Wait, Duke Olivus is controlling the cardinal’s actions?”

Theodore shook his head. “His family. Count Gillsna, the cardinal’s older brother. Cardinal Bennard is a content man. His ambition died out when he became the cardinal. He is quite talented as a mage and rose quickly from his hard work, even though, ironically, it was driven by his laziness.”

What Theodore wanted to explain was that the cardinal is the sorta person who would work hard until he made it big and secured his retirement funds. He wasn’t necessarily greedy, so he wasn’t squeezing the church of everything they had, but he wasn’t willing to improve it either. As long as he was happy, he wouldn’t lift a finger.

So, why did he send spies to follow me? The answer was his family. They wanted the cardinal to get close to me to benefit his family, to improve their image in front of Duke Olivus. Even approaching me after the concert made sense now.

Strangely, the situation of House Helvas and House Gillsna mirrored each other. Both patriarchs had held the rank of Count, and both sent their relatives to me to help them improve their reputations in the hopes to garner favor with their respective dukes to rank up. In Arcanuess Helvas’s case, he sent Ellaine, while Count Gilsna sent an impatient man—

— who wasn’t even my fan in the first place, but I thought he was, so I felt bad, only to learn later on that I didn’t just lose two fans, those two poor men died ‘cause of some vile slave traffickers.

In any case, it meant that the cardinal couldn’t be trusted easily. Eshe instantly disliked him when they met, reminding her too much of the priests who denounced her. “A noble in priest’s clothing,” Theodore had stated. I wondered if the cardinal’s appointment was due to the corruption in Aureolis from the Prince of Envy, or if it was just something already established.

Eventually, we left the noble district and reached the cathedral. Going through the noble exclusive entry, we were greeted by a row of white robes on arrival, led by an overweight priest.

“““Blessings to our iridescent guests on this auspicious LightDay. May you be blessed with its brilliant light, illuminating your path forward. On these sanctified grounds of the Goddess, you bless us with your presence, Saintess Hestia. Saintess Eshe.””” The priests collectively welcomed us.

Saintess? I’m not a saintess. Either call me a champion or an idol, or nothing at all.

I was sure people should have already gotten the memo that I called myself an idol of Aurena from the ball. The fact they called me saintess was most likely ‘cause they had no understanding of what the addition of an idol amongst the blessed meant. I was the first to call myself as such, after all.

Smile and accept for now. Uprooting over 2500 years of tradition with a change like this won’t happen overnight.

Eshe and I stepped forward, curtsying in response. ““We blessed greet the clergy of the cathedral of Griffonpeak, led by Cardinal Bennard Bonovier Gillsna. May the light granted to us by the Goddess bless you, illuminating the path forward. On these sanctified grounds of the Goddess, allow us all to pray together to her honor.””

As the two of us held our hands in a prayer pose, Eshe conjured up a white magic circle in the sky, prompting the other clergymen to begin their prayers.

“““The Goddess watches over us ♫

In her name, we pray, we sing, we love ♫

For her merciful light, protects us all ♫

Purify the ground, wherever her feathers touches ♫”””

The priests sang in a chorus, pouring their mana into the [Prayer] spell floating above us.

This was how a God’s blessed was officially welcomed to a religious building, at least, for the churches of Aurena. As the blessed, our role was to cast a [Prayer] since it was considered a direct blessing from the Goddess and we were her mortal representatives.

The eldest blessed was to lead the prayer — Eshe in this case — while the rest aided in creating a powerful blessing. The priests helped in the endeavor, of course, but the majority of the accumulated mana had to come from us blessed, since we were the ones blessing the clergy. The stronger the blessing, the more respect we would earn.

That was easy enough for me to do.

““Oh Goddess of Light, Aurena. I bid you, hear our prayers of gratitude and ardent worship so it may empower you evermore in your duties of overseeing us. I beg of you to hear us and grant upon us your blessing of light, Prayer!””

[Blessing of the Goddess of Light (Major)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Oooh, a grand blessing from the Goddess’s blessed! What an honor!”

“Magnificent, it is even stronger than when Saintess Eshe did it alone! Truly, Artorias is privileged to have the honor of welcoming two saintesses!”

I felt a bit bad that my official welcome was overshadowing Eshe’s, especially since I had done what Theodore and Eshe wanted and made sure the buff was “Major.” When Eshe noticed it, she told me it didn’t matter to her what her reputation was amongst the clergy, and that it would be better if my standing was as high as it could be before I talked to the cardinal.

Eshe really is a saintess!

After that was an obligatory “priests of noble birth” moment where I greeted everybody as if it were a banquet or ball. They each greeted Eshe and me with their house names and also mentioned how we supposedly met them at the royal ball three weeks ago. Most of them, I would probably forget.

They also asked me why Theodore was following us around like a dog, to which we answered that he was our advisor. We told them that Eshe only joined us mid-way through, when I had already agreed to make Theodore my advisor for Griffonpeak. I was a foreigner, after all. Of course, the noble white-robes disliked this, since in their eyes, Theodore was gaining my favor instead of theirs, but I couldn’t care less.

After a few more introductions, we finally made it to the cardinal himself.

“A beautiful LightDay to you two, Saintess Eshe and Saintess Hestia. This humble cardinal, Bennard Bonovier Gillsna welcomes you to our cathedral with open arms,” the chubby man introduced himself.

Having taken a closer look, he really was the drunk man I met at the concert. I was now 100% sure he was the guy who couldn’t wait for a minute or two.

“Saintess Eshe, I didn’t expect you to accompany the Goddess’s most recent blessed. I see you have already taken a liking to your junior. Ha, this is most glorious for our Goddess that her representatives are working well together!”

“Thank you for your praises, Cardinal Bennard,” Eshe replied. “I apologize for not mentioning this earlier, but it would be most gracious if you could allow me to accompany Lady Hestia to the meeting. She is still inexperienced, after all.”

“Of course, of course! The more the merrier, hahaha!” After merrily laughing at having Eshe, he began glaring at Theodore. “High Bishop Theodore, I have heard you were acquainted with our beautiful saintesses, but today’s discussion is not for your ears. Still, I thank you for chauffeuring them, hahahaha!”

The cardinal was blunt with his entry denial, but Theodore didn’t back down that easily. “While I agree with your statement, Cardinal, it is without a doubt that both Saintess Eshe and Saintess Hestia are still inexperienced with Artorias, correct? They have been with us for only a few months. As such, they require someone to advise them on matters.”

“I am enough, High Bishop. You are not needed.”

“For the sake of the discussion, I implore you to allow me. This will expedite the talks when I can give both saintesses an accurate explanation of our church’s actions in our kingdom.”

“You speak the truth, but for today, you are not needed, High Bishop. You may be respectable and a valuable member of the church, but I am still the cardinal! Any more arguments and I will take this as insubordination against Aureolis and an insult to the position ordained to me by the Goddess!”

“… My apologies for my presumptuousness, Cardinal Bennard. I shall take my leave.”

Verdammt! There goes one ally. Could I argue back?

As I was about to speak up about it, Theodore bowed and announced his leave after wishing us good luck. I was disappointed that he gave up so fast, but I guess I should put myself in his situation. If he angers the cardinal, he’ll just have a harder time later on.

Guided by the cardinal, Eshe, her knights, and I walked through the hallways of the cathedral. While he was flattering and buttering up to us, I remembered I could have argued that Theodore was like a guard for me, since people were thinking of me as a saintess. Too late now, though.

“Saintess Hestia, you have been in Griffonpeak for a while now, so when I heard you haven’t visited me, I thought I should meet you at your musical performance. A brilliant show, I must say, worthy to honor the Goddess through your artistic talent, huah huah ha,” the cardinal said, interrupting my thoughts. “Mhmm, it was quite a shame that I couldn’t talk with you back then. I apologize for coming at short notice.”

“No, the fault lies with me, Cardinal Bennard.” I had the right to clean myself up before meeting my fans, but it was better to play nice for now. “However, since my concert was tiring, I did not want to present myself dirty to people, especially to other nobles, you see. My attendants cleanedy me up as soon as possible, but I must admit I shouldn’t have left you standing like that. I apologize, Cardinal Bennard.”

“Hahaha, no, no, my lady, it is alright. A lady must allow herself to look impeccable, so only my impatience was to blame. Now, come, come. We should hurry up, otherwise, I will upset my other guests.”

Guests?

Eventually, we ended up at the cardinal’s office. As he opened it, the fact the room was garishly decorated with little to no style or reason really stood out to me. However, this wasn’t the only thing that caught my attention; in fact, it was the three men sitting on the couches right at this moment.

“Lady Hestia?! Cardinal Bennard, you invited His Majesty’s honored guest?!” One of the guests was a lanky man in a white and gold suit — one which was suspiciously similar to a white-robed’s priest garment.

“… Not just our reputable dragonewt lady, but also Saintess Eshe of Sarkafiina.” The other was a grey-haired man with glasses, adjusting his tie as he glared at the cardinal. He then turned his head towards the last man in the room, a familiar face. “You seem quite unperturbed at our sudden guests, Charleslyt. Has my son hidden something from me before we came here?”

“No, of course not, father. I was simply so captivated looking at these enchanting ladies that I simply forgot to react much. As a man, you must agree they are breathtaking, no?”

Charleslyt? Father? So does that mean this person must be— and the other person must be—!

“Haha,” the cardinal laughed, clapping his hands to stop the fighting between Charleslyt and his father. “Arguing the moment our last guest arrives is unbefitting of a Grand Duke. Is that not correct, Lord Grand Duke Equevanna? Please, let us make introductions first, hahaha.”

“Mhmm, I agree with the cardinal, Grand Duke Equevanna. As pious followers of the Goddess, it is within our duty to properly greet her blessed.” The man in the white-gold suit walked up to us, bowing courteously. “I have heard much about you from His Majesty, Lady Hestia, however we sadly did not get a chance to speak at the ball. I am the Grand Duke of Religious Affairs, Joseph Liam Olivus. Our meeting today must be Her Holiness’s will, no? It is an honor.”

“I must agree with Grand Duke Olivus, this is a most wonderful coincidence,” the grey-haired man replied before making his introduction. “Grand Duke of Economic Affairs, Mazarin Colbert Equevanna. It is a pleasure, Lady Hestia. This is my second son, Charleslyt. I have not told him much about you, but I had also not planned to introduce you to him. You see, he has the reputation of a womanizer, so I did not wish to sully your impression of our kingdom with such a skirt chaser.”

‘I had not told him much about you.’ A hidden meaning? Then he’s probably telling me that he had not told Charleslyt that I’m a dragon.

All the dukes learned about my identity from King Drangleic, and while they were allowed to share this information with their heirs, they were supposed to keep this information hidden from everyone else for now.

“Haha, father, speaking ill about me when we’re here? Sometimes that is too much, no?” The paladin-like Charleslyt then walked up to me, gesturing to me to offer my hand for a kiss, similar to our first meeting at the hunter’s guild. However, unlike last time, this was a formal meeting. “Mchu~ The scales on your hand are tough and strong, Lady Hestia, but I could feel a soothing warmth when you gave me the honor. Beautiful and fair, you are, my lady.”

Uargh! Keep it together, Hestia! Don’t cringe! Don’t cringe!

“I-It is a great honor to meet the three of you great lords. As you already know, my name is Hestia Atsuko. It is a pleasure to meet the three of you and may the Goddess bless our meeting today.”

After they also introduced themselves to Eshe, we finally sat down and it seemed the cardinal was ready to skip the small talk entirely, a good choice since Dukes Equevanna and Olivus both seemed uninterested in anything else but why I was here.

I also wanted to know why the cardinal had not mentioned inviting two dukes and Charleslyt. Meeting them here reminded me of how King Drangleic had mentioned how the Equevanna and Olivus duchy were the least affected by demonkin interference, for some reason. Was this all a coincidence?

What was the cardinal planning?

“I can see that everybody is anticipating what I have to say. Be at ease, my lords. I have brought Saintesses Eshe and Hestia here for a good reason.” The cardinal tried to calm the suspicious dukes, only to confuse them even more when he called me a saintess. They knew I was actually a champion.

“Lord Grand Duke Mazarin, as we had discussed prior to the saintesses’ arrival, I had mentioned how your son, Charleslyt, was slowly gaining fame for himself as an adventurer while also increasing his reputation among the clergy and nobility,” the cardinal started. “It’s to the point that people have begun calling him a champion candidate. A great honor, as you must know.”

“But he isn’t, Cardinal. I might have asked you to bless my son’s armor with holy enchantments and water, but that doesn’t exactly make him a candidate. Nobles throughout history have sought their Gods’ blessings before wars and travels for their safety,” Duke Equevanna replied. “I am simply a father who is worried about his son’s constant adventures.”

“And it is quite honorable, yes, but wouldn’t it be even better if your son formally took the Rite of the Blessed?”

Rite of the Blessed?

Duke Olivus spoke, “Cardinal, are you suggesting to formally induct Lord Charleslyt as a champion candidate? You must be aware that this is something we cannot decide on our own. Even if you are a cardinal, you do not have the authority to sanction this, Cardinal.”

“I agree, I would require the permission of the pope. Even if I were to tell him of all the feats Lord Charleslyt has done for Artorias, he has only recently been promoted to B rank. He also does not have as many qualifications since he hadn’t done work outside of Artorias and Estralia. He is still young, after all.”

“If you knew this, then why did you invite us here with the Saintess Es—” Suddenly, Duke Equevanna paused midway in his sentence, and turned his head towards Eshe, looking at her as if he was just enlightened about something. “… I see, so that is why you summoned Saintess Eshe today.”

The cardinal laughed, all while I was still confused about everything. “Hahaha, I see Lord Grand Duke Equevanna has already figured it out. Yes, we shall have a saintess perform the Rite of the Blessed. However, while we are fortunate to have Saintess Eshe here, I had actually summoned Saintess Hestia today.”

“Me?” I had absolutely no clue what everybody was talking about.

When she realized this, Eshe began explaining everything to me. “A saint and a champion have always been companions. While the saint preaches and spreads the ideals of their god to the people, the champion has the duty to protect the saint while performing their divine Quests. As such, in their time of need, a saint is allowed to grant someone their share of their god’s blessing, turning them into a champion candidate.”

Now I understood why I was invited today. I knew I should have listened to that bad feeling I had and declined the cardinal’s invitation.

“Usually, the blessing is done by the pope, the strongest and wisest priest of our church. A rite performed as such is pure, as the pope calls upon the Goddess to grant that person a new blessing, either making them a saint or champion candidate. It is similar to what the two saint candidates who just arrived in our world last year underwent.”

Eshe was speaking about Saori’s students, as two of them became saint candidates for some reason, despite Aurena having nothing to do with it.

“That is correct. Speaking about candidates, Cardinal, did you get this idea when Lady Asaka visited Griffonpeak?” Duke Olivus stated, mentioning one of Saori’s students.

“Why, yes, of course. Saint candidate Asaka did give me that idea, but when I heard that another blessed besides Saintess Eshe had arrived in Griffonpeak, and that she was a saintess who was new to the human world, I knew I had to do my part as the Goddess’s servant!” the cardinal voiced it in a way to sound like he had no ulterior motives. “Saintess Hestia, I ask of you to allow Lord Charleslyt to join your entourage and to make him a champion candidate. Allow him to foster his strength by protecting you to gain the Goddess’s favor for his advancement, my lady!”

… Is this guy for real?

Silence. That was my answer.

I was completely baffled at this point. Not only did I learn that saints could turn people into champion candidates, whatever that even meant, but I also learned how a misunderstanding could lead to something like this. I was a champion, so how am I supposed to do this?

I asked Aurena for some tips on how to handle this, but I received no answer from her. She had mentioned that she was busy the last time I spoke with her, but what exactly was she busy with? I guess planet management or something like that. I shouldn’t expect an Origin Goddess to have too much free time.

Correctly interpreting my silence as being unable to answer, it seemed that both dukes had guessed what was going on in my mind.

“I decline this suggestion, Cardinal,” Duke Equevanna plainly stated.

“Father?” Charleslyt eyebrows curled, frowning in disbelief at what he just heard. “Why would you say that? Isn’t this a perfect chance for us to improve our house’s reputation even more? I mean, with how much House Greenveil has been overshadowing us recently, you will lose your position as the Grand Duke of Economic Affairs at the next selection event. As your son, allow me to help.”

“Help? Charleslyt, I have not raised you to be an imbecile. Whether you become a champion or champion candidate, it would make no difference to our house’s rank. The title is for ‘Economic Affairs’ not ‘Religious Affairs.’ If you had been Lord Olivus’s son, yes, then you becoming a blessed would be beneficial for our house’s standing, but you’re not. You are an Equevanna.”

“As you said, Lord Equevanna. Cardinal, while it would benefit our faith to make more champion candidates, it would be better if we were to allow the pope to bless Lord Charleslyt,” Duke Olivus reprimanded the cardinal. “If Lady Hestia were to bless him and he accepted it, it would mean under the law of our church that he must remain at Lady Hestia’s side until he becomes a champion. If she were to return to Loatryx, he would be forced to follow her or face excommunication.”

Whether it was ordered by King Drangleic or not, it seemed the dukes were taking my side on this. I appreciated that. I would have declined, anyways, but doing it like this, I didn’t have to be the one to talk.

“But Lord Dukes!” Charleslyt began to argue back against their decision. “Isn’t this a grand chance for our Artorias to gain a champion candidate? Besides, while Saint Candidate Asaka has the heroes and Saintess Eshe has two mighty Knights of Aurena, Saintess Hestia has neither heroes nor knights with her. Father, allow me this honor to defend her. It would only benefit our house.”

“Pah! You overestimate yourself if you think you are worthy to defend a maiden like her, boy. Honor? Benefit our house? All you will do is embarrass yourself,” Duke Equevanna rebuked his son harshly. Even I felt he might need a burn heal after that scolding.

“What?! No, Father, you are underestimating what I have been able to accomplish from my training! I was able to build up a capable party on my own, I was able to reach the strength of a B rank hunter on my own, and I gained all this armor with my own sweat and blood!”

Is that why I haven’t met him once without his armor? Was he wearing one at the ball, too? I can’t remember.

“Acknowledge my efforts, Father. It would be for the better. Winning the race until the next Grand Duke selection only with your pride will not work, especially when House Greenveil not only has access to the yeast recipe but also has one of their vassals serving Saintess Hestia!” Charleslyt exclaimed. “That pitiful girl, Ellaine Helvas or something, is not worth anything according to the academy’s students. I can have her kicked out once I become a candidate!”

Huh?! Why is he bringing Ellaine into the discussion like this?! Bastard!

“Are you too old to understand how to adapt to this new situation? Have you grown lazy from winning all this time? Huh, Father?! Or senile? Or is this another one of your tricks to block me, just like when you unfairly gave that useless brother of mine the heir position!”

“You brat… Pah! Not only did you set up an ambush like this but you also dare to insult me to my face? Know your place, boy!”

The temperature of this room instantly plumbetted a few numbers, a chill spreading from this awful atmosphere. It felt as if this deal the cardinal had planned was just an excuse for a father and a son to quarrel.

“Don’t believe I do not know what you are planning with Greenveil’s youngest daughter. What are you intending to do after you ask for her hand, huh? After you become a champion candidate? I may dislike Greenveil, but our kingdom cannot afford an internal dispute. Have you any idea what he will do when he learns you plan to leave his daughter after marrying her?! You imbecile, this is why you are not worthy of becoming a duke!”

Greenveil’s daughter? Amelia?

Something inside me was growing and growing. Something unpleasant the longer I listened to this fight.

“That half-breed should be elated that I am willing to marry her. With her commoner blood, her chances of marrying into another greifnoble house are abysmal. Once she belongs to our house, that pest, the Sarlenzia company, will finally be ours too. Even the yeast recipe through that girl. I heard from Agram that Saintess Hestia’s party is not worth mentioning compared to them. Once I become a champion candidate, my party and I will make sure that— Oof! W-What?”

Charleslyt’s eyes widened as a white glove slapped his face and fell onto the ground. His fingers touched his reddened cheeks, baffled at what just happened. The same thing could be said about the remaining members in this room. All of them looked at me as if I had gone crazy.

“Yes, I might not have said anything up until now, but what right does everybody have to ignore me when you’re constantly speaking either about me or my friends? Isn’t that just rude?”

“““““L-Lady Hestia?”””” Everybody outside of Eshe uttered. Has she gotten used to my temper yet, I wonder?

“What is there to be surprised about, huh? You and your party of assholes are speaking badly of not only Ellaine, not only Amelia, but also everybody else in my party? Tch, what a joke.” I clicked my tongue, denouncing everything he just said. “Sure, Ellaine could use some more training, but I’m telling you this just to clear up your head. Grimnir could wipe out any of those goons. Saori and Tasianna could wipe your whole party, including you at the same time.”

“H-Haha, my lady, I understand your trust for your companions but stating such things will only—”

“Shut your mouth.” My [Draconic Aura] exuded, shutting Charleslyt up. “But, honestly, the audacity. You really think I need you? You really think some stuck-up young master can protect me? I’m sorry, but if you really think you are worthy of this champion candidacy, then prove it to her yourself.”

I pointed up.

“Charleslyt, I challenge you to a duel at the arena. Prove not only to the Goddess but also to me that you are more bite than bark!”

If he wants to prove himself to his daddy, then I’ll be a good girl and help him out… after I shove a real stick up his ass.

A note from AbyssRaven

Welp, Charleslyt, my man. You're picking up the wrong girls.

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Chapter 234: My Definition of an Idol.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Pardon?”

The superhero smile Charleslyt originally had when I saw him at the guild the first time had fallen away when he began arguing with his father. I don’t know if he kept it on every time he appeared in public, but, as an entertainer, I could imagine and sympathize with smiling all the time.

That’s why you know a public icon is being truthful when they finally drop their smiling mask. Just like with nobles. Just like with politicians. Not like I had any right to say any of this, but being truthful with each other makes discussions so much easier.

“A duel? You are challenging me to a duel, Saintess?” Charleslyt’s baffled expression twitched into a smile, causing him to chuckle a bit. “Surely you jest, my lady? There is no need for a saintess to show her strength. If you wish me to show my abilities, then please send forth your champion. Then I will show—”

“It seems you are misunderstanding something here. The cardinal, too, apparently.” I interrupted him. “Who ever told you that I was a saintess of the Goddess of Light?”

Charleslyt and the cardinal fell silent. They had this expression on their faces that clearly told me, “Shouldn’t be obvious?” What was obvious about it, I wonder?

“I already told everybody at the ball that I was an idol of the Goddess of Light. I am not a saintess.”

“Pedantic. Aren’t they the same concepts?” the cardinal argued. “A saint is the mortal representative of the Goddess, who seeks to teach and spread her message. They are our Goddess’s mouths. Your actions up until now have only shown us that you are a saintess, Lady Hestia. There is no need to categorize each saint individually, otherwise it would be impossible to group them.”

Technically speaking, the cardinal was right, I had to admit. What was the real distinction between a saintess and an idol? Both try to capture the hearts of people, only the saintess does it through religion while the idol does it with entertainment, according to modern terms.

It wouldn’t be wrong to call me pedantic. After all, an idol’s job was to become idolized by the people. That was where the origin of the word came from, causing people from Earth to develop a rather toxic view of the performers.

“Idols have to be pure and perfect” or “Idols should serve their fans.” The same also applied to pop stars in the western countries, where their every action was scrutinized to the extreme, wrecking their mental health for monetary gain or fame. They were not only tools to their company but also their own fans, whom they wished to only make happy.

And so, I was not about to let myself become a tool for Charleslyt’s ambitions. That will not be how I spread the image of my ideal idol.

“The difference is that an idol is the best of both worlds,” I answered. “Saints aren’t expected to be strong combatants, only competent priests with a high level in their faith’s elemental magic. On the other hand, champions are not expected to become known or be popular. I heard from Lady Eshe that while all champions of the Goddess of Light are known in the Empire, most of them rarely make public appearances. They are expected to fulfill their divine Quests or protect a saint or holy place.”

Theodore’s and Eshe’s theology lessons really shone when I was talking with a clergyman or speaking about religious matters. While they didn’t have an accurate idea of how the other Origin God churches actually functioned, there were still enough similarities they shared with Aurena’s religion for me to know and learn.

After all, they were there to help me understand my duty as a champion and priestess.

“Champions are known for their strength and ability to overcome any challenge, correct, Cardinal? Their feats are sung by bards for the common people to learn about, but most of the time, they aren’t expected to participate in church matters, right? Even during a church meeting, if there is a saint on site — even if they were multiple years the champion’s junior — the saint is to take the lead for the prayer, correct?”

“W-Why, yes, that is obvious enough. A saint must train their [Sacred Magic] skill to its peak. That is their responsibility, so it is only obvious they should lead the welcoming ceremony. Any ritual led by a saint is a great fortune,” the cardinal agreed. “A champion, though, is expected to train their martial prowess. Being a priest or mage is not a must, in fact, being well-rounded, like Lord Charleslyt, here is a virtue, yes.”

I nodded. “It is as you said, Cardinal Bennard. As such, I am not a saintess, wouldn’t you say, Duke Equevanna, Duke Olivus?”

“Why, yes, My Lady. The reports His Majesty has graciously given us and the personal commendation Duke Greenveil gave me full trust that you are a qualified blessed of the Goddess. May the light banish the shadows in your path, Lady Hestia,” Olivus prayed for my health and success.

“Lady Hestia has done more martial deeds than religious feats, fitting a champion more than a saintess. Although, from what I’ve heard from Lord Greenveil, her ‘concerts’ and charity healing has been quite popular. People in Cedraille and Firwood call her the Crimson Saintess for that reason,” Duke Equevanna answered, although that Crimson Saintess stuff seemed unnecessary to add.

“Do you understand now, Cardinal Bennard?” Eshe finally interjected herself into the discussion. “The Goddess deemed it suitable to add another classification for us blessed — the idol. Someone who represents both the virtue of a saint and the prowess of a champion mixed into one person. Lady Hestia does most of her religious gatherings through her singing and dancing at her concerts, while always aiming to help others and solving their problems.”

“Grk!” The cardinal groaned, unnerved by how the dukes and Eshe were supporting me. “S-Still, even then. W-We the church cannot just introduce a new category out of nowhere! Aureolis must be informed and then a decision has to be—”

“Cardinal, you are dismissing the decision of the Goddess! How can you say this as a pious man!” Duke Olivus rebuked the cardinal. “As a man of faith, how can you continuously disrespect Her Holiness’s newest champion like this?!”

“C-Champion?!”

The duke’s reveal of my actual classification shocked not only the cardinal but also Charleslyt.

As the cat was out of the sock thanks to the duke’s temper, I had to speak up, “The Goddess informed me that my official duty is to fulfill her divine Quests while also encouraging me to continue my ambition of becoming an idol. She is the one that coined me an ‘idol.’”

“The Goddess informed you, Lady Hestia? Personally?” Eshe raised a brown.

“S-Speaking with the Goddess? Heresy!” the cardinal declared but I ignored him.

O-Oh right, I forgot. Blessed usually cannot speak with their deities since their soul would explode. I didn’t tell her about it before.

“Y-You know my circumstances, Lady Eshe. My soul, remember?” I finally revealed it to her, now that I trusted her enough. The dukes probably knew what I meant, but I stayed vague enough that both the cardinal and Charleslyt couldn’t figure it out.

“O-Oh? Huh, oh! I-I’m sorry, that does make sense now that I think about it. I apologize for interrupting you.” We both let out nervous chuckles as I told everybody to just forget what I had said.

“An idol is there to be idolized by others. Through my performances and actions, I wish to support people. To brighten their days and lives whenever possible, while also encouraging those to fight through my voice.” I pointed at Charleslyt. “You want to become loved and respected, right? That is why you are doing all of this. Actions speak louder than words. If you want that fame, then you need to grab it for yourself. Don’t believe it will just sit there, waiting for you. There are more than enough people who will do anything to fulfill their dreams.”

I asked Eshe to stand up. It was a short meeting, but it was time for us to leave.

“Next week. LightDay on the 28th. I’ll ask King Drangleic to reserve the arena for us. If you have what it takes, I’ll give you the stage to show the world what you can do. I’ll make sure not only the nobility but also the common people will know your name and your face, Lord Charleslyt.”

As we turned around, Duke Equevanna shouted for us to stop.

“W-Wait, Lady Hestia!” He ran up to us. “Please, do not do this! M-My son only misspoke and the cardinal did this believing you were a saintess. There is no need for the duel.”

“Your son wishes to prove himself, Duke Equevanna. As his father, shouldn’t you be more supportive? He proclaims himself stronger than my friends, even calling them out as weak? If his words are true, then a week is enough for him to prepare to give everybody a good show.”

I was petty with my reason, but I could kinda sympathize with Charleslyt’s desire to prove himself to his father. If he can back up his words, he should be able to make it worthwhile.

When I turned around again, Duke Equevanna suddenly grabbed my shoulder.

“No! Lady Hestia, please, be reasonable! I’ll make my son apologize for speaking ill of your companions so y—”

“Father!” Charleslyt dashed over to his father and grabbed his arm, inadvertently causing the former to release my shoulder. “Is there not an ounce of trust in your heart? Have I not proven myself by raising my strength and advancing through the adventurer guild? Why are you like this? Why must you and mother always condemn me?!”

“You fool! I am trying to prevent you from embarrassing not only yourself but our house! How can I trust a person who only thinks about himself instead of the people he should work with? Do you honestly believe all your skirt-chasing would benefit our house one day?” the duke replied by slapping Charleslyt’s hand away. “Stronger or not, you brother is a worthy heir because he knows how to act like a proper noble, not like a debauched dilettante who mingles so much with even the scum of those damn peasants!”

So he is a commoner hater, or something? These two… whatever.

Charleslyt pushed his father to the side to walk up to me to bow. “Lady Hestia, I apologize for my discourteous actions from before. I ask that you forgive me for my rudeness, even if the words have already been said. That said, I accept your challenge. Next week, we meet at the arena. Not as a nobleman and lady, but as rivals.”

Even if it was only for a second, I saw his trembling smile. The eyes he looked at me with were those of somebody who was embarrassed and angry about it. I did make a scene, so it was understandable, but it only made me not trust this person any more than before.

When he stood up straight, only a bright smile could be seen on his face. He managed to recover his superhero face.

“… See you there, Lord Charleslyt.”

I ignored Duke Equevanna’s scolding of his son and opened the door, noticing who the person was who was standing right outside the room.

“High Bishop Theodore?”

“Ah, I see your meeting is done. Here you go, Lady Hestia. You asked me for material on Aureolis, correct?” He wasn’t smiling much, just as usual. His attitude honestly fit his sleep-deprived eyes.

“Yes, I did. Thank you.” I accepted the offered books. Since it was the seat of power of the church of Aurena, it would be best if I learned more about it, especially since I had to reform it somehow.

“These are my journals of when I visited the Holy Capital myself. They detail not only the capital city but also the different villages and towns. Of course, the names of the higher clergy and also a small recap on the country’s history. May they serve you well.”

Meticulous as always. He was serious when he said he would teach me everything I needed to know.

“High Bishop Theodore?” Duke Olivus exited the room, noticing us speaking. “I had heard House Sirius was acquainted with Lady Hestia, but I did not expect you to be waiting for her.”

“Saintess Eshe and I are her tutors, Lord Grand Duke Olivus.” Theodore bowed. “As such, Lady Hestia’s theological education is a priority for me. As a priest, that is a very important duty, no?”

Eshe nodded, supporting Theodore’s claim. “I was sent here by the Goddess to support Lady Hestia in her studies, but I wouldn’t have made as much progress without Lord Theodore’s aid, Duke Olivus.”

“Ahhh, I see,” he nodded his head, intrigued. “High Bishop Theodore, would you be preoccupied at this moment?”

“I was about to return to my work after seeing Lady Eshe and Lady Hestia off.”

“Oh? I see, then let me accompany you. As a duke, I must make sure His Majesty’s guest departs safely.” He quickly said farewell to the cardinal and walked next to Theodore as we went to the entrance. “High Bishop Theodore, would you have a fiance?”

“Pardon?”

In Peolynca, the clergy were allowed to marry, especially those of the church of Marsven, Eshe emphasized during my lessons. While joining the priesthood meant giving up your right to inherit noble titles, unlike on Earth, there was no stigma with priests or priestesses marrying. If they could continue their duties, there would be no conflict of interest.

After saying goodbye to all the priests and priestesses, Eshe, her knights, and I departed from the church and headed to the orphanage. I played with the kids a bit — making sure Abi and those who were kidnapped had a good time — until it was time for me to go back home.

When I was about to leave, Eshe pulled me aside to ask about something. “Lady Hestia, when you mentioned that you had talked to Goddess Aurena at the church. Were you speaking the truth? Or was that just deception?”

Eshe didn’t like noble politicking at all, as that was the main cause of her anguish back in her home city Sarkafiina. I guess she would be rightfully suspicious since speaking with a deity is not merely rare, but downright impossible for most people.

As the cardinal said, it was heretical to even suggest it. A normal mortal’s soul wasn’t strong enough to endure being in the god’s realm. As such, a new champion like me bragging that I could speak with Aurena personally when her other blessed and pope couldn’t, seemed crazy like a lie. If you didn’t know my situation, it made sense to not believe me.

“No, that was all true. I’m sorry for not revealing this before, but when I was reborn, my soul had already been blessed by Goddess Aurena. Apparently, it made my soul strong enough for me to speak with the Goddess outside of System messages,” I explained.

“Y-You mean, your soul can enter her divine realm? You aren’t just speaking with her through the Divine System while praying?” I nodded to Eshe’s guess. “S-So you do not even have to interpret her words?! Lady Hestia, you do not know how incredibly jealous I am right now! W-What does the Goddess look like? Like the statues?”

Eshe shot out questions like a machine gun, asking me about everything when I had visited Aurena. I kept the demon part out of my explanation, as I think having Ellaine explain it herself would be better.

“A-Amazing, so the Goddess created your blessing to help you fulfill your unfulfilled dream in your old world? As expected, she is beyond generous!” Eshe praised her Goddess. “Hmm, intriguing.”

“What was intriguing?” I asked.

“Well, Lady Hestia, isn’t your blessing more like a saint’s? Usually, champions receive blessings that directly improve their combat prowess while the blessings saints receive are mostly supportive or indirect. Like mine, for example.”

Honored, Sworn Knights

A unique skill granted by the Goddess of Light, Aurena. Through this skill, knights are able to link themselves to the life force of the user, creating an oath of loyalty to the latter. By binding their link to a body part, the knight is able to gain immense power and transformations, depending on the level of this skill and the body part used as the binding. While this skill is in effect, the user may not use those body parts. Spells activated may be cast through these knights

The more crucial the organ, the more potent the skill. Eshe bound Alikar and Anivh to her eyes, turning her blind while the skill was active. In return, her knights were able to transform themselves into those hulking metal monsters.

Blessings usually reflected the personalities of the blessed. Eshe’s selflessness and willingness to go through hardship to help others gave her a skill where temporarily sacrificing a body part would grant her knights immense power to rival even giant monsters.

“However, the skill has a weakness, Lady Hestia,” Anivh spoke up. “When I was injured two years ago protecting my lady, we noticed that she was bleeding from one of her eyes once I dispelled the transformation. It was the eye I was bound to. It led to no permanent damage, but we suspect if I had died in that battle, Lady Eshe might have lost her eye.”

Alikar nodded. “We suggested changing the binding to a less important body part like her fingers, but Lady Eshe refused.”

Why couldn’t the blessing be more beneficial and overpowered? I thought, but then I remembered how the Origin Gods acted as game masters. They probably didn’t want to hand out too OP skills.

[Idol], for example, was really, really strong but it was restricted by a low number of song slots and the skill couldn’t be leveled up by SP. In addition, if I didn’t have [Aerokinesis], I would have been forced to physically sing and play the instruments for every single spell song. I would have had to fight like a passive bard if it wasn’t for my skill set, maybe able to cast the occasional spell thanks to my chantless casting.

“Enough about me, everybody!” Eshe stopped the current discussion to return us to what she wanted to say. “As I mentioned, your blessing seemed very similar to that of a saintess despite you being a champion, Lady Hestia. [Hestia’s Retainer], as you see, is almost as similar to granting others a part of your blessing to turn them into a champion candidate.”

“… Is everybody in my party a candidate then?”

If that were true, then Aurena was sneaky to hide that fact.

“I’m not sure, Lady Hestia. I couldn’t detect the Goddess’s blessing on them. But it matches with what I heard the other saints can do. Miss Saori and the others might not be official candidates, but they might be something similar. I do wonder if they could speak with the Goddess as a result?”

Hmm, Aurena did mention turning me also into a saintess during our first meeting. It kinda makes sense now.

As such, maybe defining “idol” in the way I did today makes sense. I was a hybrid between a saint and a champion. I make people idolize me like saints but I also have a divine Quest like a champion. Another difference, maybe, is that I include little religious connotations in all my concerts.

With that thought in my head, I said goodbye to the orphanage and went to the mage’s guild, asking Maverina to hurry up with the enchanting, and that I was willing to pay more if she could return it before the 28th. She agreed.

I then returned to the manor to give everybody a breakdown of what transpired at the cathedral. I was expecting some scolding from Saori, but all she did was sigh before warning me to train more so I don’t accidentally embarrass myself by underestimating him.

“Huh? No lecture?” I asked almost as a reflex.

“Considering how much trouble our party always faces, I do not have the energy to do it anymore, Hestia. Besides, it is just a show match, correct? Nothing serious,” Saori explained. “Just make sure to train harder. We cannot have the reputation of Aurora fall because our party leader was being lazy.”

Kinda feels unfulfilling without a scolding. Hollow, as if my actions had no meaning… Not a good thought.

“I guess you want to tell me to rush the job on your glaive, too, right?” Grimnir asked.

I nodded. “Yeah, I told Maverina to hurry up with the catalyst enchantments, so we should have them back before the 28th. Do you think you can get the enchantment done in time?”

“Pah, who are you talking to, lass? If it’s to make Bleidla seethe in anger, I’ll gladly finish your weapon even faster, hahaha! Probably can’t leave the smithy until I’m done, so don’t get yourself into even more trouble, lass! I don’t have the time to bother!”

Ahhhhh, there we go. The scolding I needed, now it feels like I’m doing the correct thing! … This is bad, why am I so used to getting scolded?!

Despite everybody else talking with me about the upcoming match, I couldn’t help but notice that Ellaine was staying silent. When I asked her what was wrong, she mentioned that she was thinking about the trash talk Charleslyt had thrown out.

“Everybody, I hadn’t mentioned this before, but yesterday, I saw Lord Charleslyt speaking with Amelia behind a building. He was offering Amelia his hand in marriage, informing her how marrying him would boost her reputation. Amelia rejected him and asked me to not tell this to anybody, since she knew it could blow up in her face. But…”

“After hearing what this Charleslyt was actually planning, you are not just upset but also angry, correct?” Saori stated.

“Yes. I mean, I know noble’s marriages are mostly political, but not only is he planning to potentially interfere in the Sarlenzia company but also he fully knows that he will have to leave her after becoming a champion candidate. That is scummy, even for a noble. I don’t like it at all.”

“There is also the fact that he spoke badly about us, correct, Lady Hestia?” Tasianna pointed out. “I mean, us, inferior to those human scum in his party? Preposterous. Sure, they might be those rumored wyvern slayers, but so are we, no? And a high-leveled B rank as such.”

“Who knows how strong they really are, lasses. Have you checked their profiles? Arrogance ain’t bringing anybody back home,” Grimnir tried to calm Tasianna down. “But you know what will? Luck, sweat, and effort. Especially luck.”

“Grimnir is right, Tasianna. After meeting with Eithalr, we should accept that our party still has a long way to go. We are not at the top of the food chain yet, so we need to be careful. Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer, after all.”

Saori was probably speaking about the necromancer fight she had just experienced, where that necrotic spell nearly cost her a hand. There were so many people in this world, so who knows how strong our next opponents would be?

“Death waits for the slightest lapse in concentration is all we needed to learn from being in the Belzac forest, Tasianna. Cool yourself.” I shared Saori and Grimnir’s opinion.

“I-I apologize, but they did speak ill of us without having seen what we could do. It is slander.”

“Yeah, I know, but we shouldn’t be outraged. Talk is cheap, action pays for itself in gold,” I stood up from sitting and began stretching. “Well, time to go change my class and get some training in. Everybody, how about a trip into Griffonpeak’s dungeon?”

A note from AbyssRaven

A lot of Hestia's irony in this chapter, lol.

Anyways, announcement, it's gonna be Thanksgiving soon and I'll be going out to meet family. I've been feeling a bit burnt out recently. Probably due to the writhalon and how often I posted in this month and in the last one. Also, my house is getting repaired, so I have to get out of the house anyways. So, I'll be using this chance to get a holiday since it'll be hard to write. I should be back by next week, so, happy holidays! Don't miss Hestia too much!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 17 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 235: To the Arena.

A note from AbyssRaven

I'm back! Enjoy!

“First thing you need to understand is that your weapon is the most important factor in how you will function as a dragoon, Hestia.”

“Huh? What do you mean, Yorshka? Spears are spears, right? I’ll be jumping around and stabbing things, and you already mentioned that mechanical weapon part. What more do I have to look out for?”

“Obviously, Hestia, you need to keep an eye out for the polearm type. Glaives, halberds, tridents, spetums, pikes, and so on and on. There isn’t just the lance and spear for you to choose between, Hestia. For reference, the most popular dragoon polearm would be the lance.”

“Because it’s long and pointy, right? It doesn’t have too many additions on it, so it can pierce better, helping you stay aerodynamic.”

“Correct! Good reasoning. Look at mine, the very model of what a dragoon lance should look like. Sturdy shaft, hard spear tip, and keeping the additions to a minimum. But that is no problem for us from the Nordor clan, Hestia, since we can control our silver powder to temporarily create blades on it. Look, right now it’s a lance, now it’s a halberd!”

“Oooh, weapon transformation! That’s neat, but I can’t do that with my scale-dust, since its primary function is creating explosions instead of fortification like yours.”

“That’s true, but if you’re creative about it, you can even use your version of our powder like a weapon. I told you, get a mechanical weapon and give that dwarf clear instructions. Hey, dwarf, you hear that?! Make sure you think of something to help the girl out!”

“Shut up, woman! I already know! Bladdarg, damn dragonewts…”

“See? Don’t worry about it too much, you have enough time to think about it. Now, the break is over, so let’s get back to training. Stance up! … Hmm, yeah, Farron showed you the basics alright. But we really need to adjust it a bit for your stature and weight. Bend your knees more, raise the tail for counter-balance, keep your wings clear of the arms and shoulders, and hold your grip like so.”

“We need to repeat this every time, huh? Haha, you even did this yesterday.”

“Because this stance has to come to you naturally, Hestia. If you master my suggested stance, you will know how to adapt it to fit yours down the road. This is my last day to help you train, so you need to absorb everything I’m teaching you today and continue familiarizing yourself with it. Do you understand? Now, let’s do this. You won’t perfect it any time soon, but memorize my movements.”

“Urgh, the motions…”

“I know, but if you don’t practice, you’ll never learn any of the Nordor style abilities. Even the ones you might have created for yourself. Do you remember the two ways one can learn abilities, Hestia?”

“Yes, the standard method is to repeat the same ability flawlessly 100 times in a row. The System will register it once you succeed. And the second method was, uhhhh…”

“Come on, this is the easy part.”

Ah, right!

“One impressive blow powerful enough to get even the System to notice you!”

Proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Fluid Cast Lv. 4] [Delayed Cast Lv. 3] [Continuous Cast Lv. 3] [Spear Technique Lv. 9] [Spear Mastery Lv. 7] [Sundering Enhancement Lv. 8] [Piercing Enhancement Lv. 9] [Crushing Enhancement Lv. 5] [Accuracy Correction Lv. 8] [Danger Perception Lv. 7] [Probability Correction Lv. 8] [Enhance Vision Lv. 9] [Tracking Lv. 5] [Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 8] [Aerial Fighter Lv. 4] [Trap Creation Lv. 9] gained

Ability gained:   [Dragoon Dive] [Spiral] [Spark Crescent]

Max level of Jobs [Spearwielder], [Sky Lancer] has been reached

Individual   [Sunfang Dragonewt, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has switched her Main Job to [Dragoon Whelpling]

Main Job benefits have been updated due to Job change

Dragoon Whelpling Level: 0/15

Job Skill gained:   [Aerial Dive Acceleration], [Spear Mastery Lv. 7], [Enhance Sky Attacks]

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Job [Dragoon Whelpling] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 15]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Max level of Job   [Dragoon Whelpling] has been reached

“Fair lords and ladies of the realm! Hard-working men and women of the Kingdom! As the commentator of today’s battle, I welcome all of you to our glorious capital’s arena!”

“Wooooooooo! Let’s goooooooo!”

“Where is Lord Charleslyt? Bring him out already! Eyiiiiiiii! We all want to see him!”

Could it be better compared to an MMA fighting ring or was it more like a baseball stadium? Regardless, it was impossible to tune out the fact that Griffonpeak’s arena was currently filled to the brim with people. Their shouts and cries were showering the surroundings with the energy and excitement these people had in anticipation of a match promoted since the beginning of this week.

Within one of its waiting rooms, I was silently wiping down my brand new weapon with a napkin, making sure it was spotless before its first match. After I was satisfied, I stroked it and lifted it to marvel at it under the light of the mana lamp.

Its shaft was made from a combination of some voldunna ore and treant bark Muraina had given me on behalf of the elves at the outpost; the elves had applied a flame retardant sap on to the wood. Apparently, the Saelari apply it to the trees around their cities and towns to prevent forest fires. Considering that this was material for my personal weapon, the materials had to be fireproof.

Combined together through Grimnir’s skills, this metal-reinforced wooden pole stood around my height, with its blade making the weapon a head and a half taller than me. We couldn’t make it any shorter since I was still growing.

As planned, Grimnir made a mechanical weapon for me with Ellaine’s help. In other words, it was similar to Farron’s swordspear and Grimnir’s blasthammer. There were mechanical parts added to the weapon to allow it to assume different forms or abilities, all controlled with my mana.

The two-headed glaive was made with eoriant alloy, the geisenlarg queen’s carapace and stinger, and some of my chipped-off claws and shed scales. Since it was my weapon, it not only needed to be sturdy and fire resistant, but also had to be highly mana conductive. Still, the weapon didn’t have a natural sun core, so overheating was a problem, but that was what I had my catalyst for.

Having a weapon that could work with my catalyst, after all, was the reason why I had this glaive made.

“And, finished~ How does it look, Hestia? Too cute?” Saori asked after attaching something on the other end of my weapon.

Looking closer, it was a cartoonish dragon head spewing fire, made from mana threads. Since Grimnir and Ellaine had to rush the weapon a bit, any ornaments or decorations would have to be added later.

When the weapon was finished five days ago, I suggested adding some sorta accessory to it to personalize it a bit. Since I missed the small charms I had on my phone, Saori offered to make me one with mana threads. Normal metal would melt, but at least this strap would regenerate. Speaking of, she also made one for each of our party bracelets.

“Nah, it’s perfect, thanks!” I gave the glaive a twirl. “It couldn’t be helped due to the materials, but the spear being mostly black and red made it too edgy for my taste. This is just enough cute!”

Lowering my glaive, I checked out my robe, opening it to reveal my usual outfit underneath it. I then took out my catalyst from my storage and began stretching.

“Are Ellaine and Grimnir at their seats?” I asked Tasianna, who with Saori, was with me inside the waiting room.

“They should be, Lady Hestia. Grimnir mentioned he was anticipating the performance of the spear, so he asked me to tell you to give it your all.”

“My ‘all’? What, does he want me to destroy the whole arena or what? Crazy talk, that dwarf.” Shaking my head, I emptied a glass of water and psyched myself for my match. “Well, time to go. See you guys in the audience.”

“Good luck, Hestia. Please, do not go all out but you cannot lose, okay?”

“May Goddess Plesia bless this match to be fair and just. I will await your swift victory, my lady.”

As I walked along the corridor from my waiting room to the arena, I thought about the week of training I did in the Griffonpeak dungeon. Our party only went up to floor ten, although I heard there were 40 floors in this dungeon. Albeit, the floors over thirty were blocked, reserved for training of the Knights of the Lionheart.

Unlike Cedaraille’s Emerald-Flare Dungeon, in which had you descend deeper with every floor, Griffonpeak’s Eagle’s Overwatch dungeon actually had you traverse through a prairie for the first floor and ascend a massive mountain. A mountain within a mountain, you could say. It really hit home how these dungeons were just pocket dimensions, similar to my [Room] spell.

In any case, my training mostly focused on me perfecting the lessons I learned from Yorshka when we met in Cedaraille. We unfortunately only had a few days of training before she had to leave, so the training I did for this duel was mostly done through memory and reviewing with Ellaine. Unlike with Master Kush’s training, I did not have enough time to master everything Yorshka taught me.

For example, I was able to get a feel of what my stance had to be and my general fighting style, since Farron had taught me prior, but the intricacies of the moves were hard to assess even with somebody experienced like Arcanuess Helvas watching over me. I was able to learn [Dragoon Dive] and [Spiral] after a lot of tries, but I couldn’t perfectly mimic the attacks of the Nordor style of dragoon spearmanship.

To learn a weapon ability, like [Gale Step] or [Dragoon Dive], you had to perform the move 100 times flawlessly in a row. The other method was only applicable to high damage finishing moves like Yorshka’s [Nordor Style: Silver Dragon’s Skyfall] or Saori’s [Voltage Impact].

According to the former, the Divine System intervened if an attack was too strong for its liking, turning it into a System’s ability in order to properly regulate the damage. Yorshka joked how her first usage of the skill was the most impressive, before explaining how her attack became stronger down the path after she got the correct skills.

A move could be performed without needing it to be part of your profile, but you had to perform the motions without any assistance from the system — like a custom spell as opposed to a system spell. Once you fulfilled the requirements, the System would guide you through the motions each time you used the move, making it second nature. It made it easier to perform particularly difficult attacks, although learning it in the first place was the problem.

I wish Yorshka or Farron were around to coach me. Gael and Muraina said they didn’t know how all the little motions actually worked together, despite having seen the former two fight.

My Nordor style was shoddy as hell, in other words. Weapon fighting didn’t come to me as naturally as magic or using my dragon abilities. But, meh, that’s why I trained. Yorshka mentioned in her letter that she will meet up with me again along with Saori’s students, so I’m planning on surprising her when we meet up again with how far I’ve gotten.

As this whole place was an arena, the basement of the place was reserved for fighters and the staff, while the audience would usually only see the ground floor and the seating area. After entering the gladiator’s hub, a single male attendant greeted me before leading me to my starting side.

“Is Lord Charleslyt already done with his preparations?”

“Yes, Miss Hestia. When I called for him, he went with me immediately. Please, do not worry, we are still on schedule. The commentator should still be entertaining everybody while the nobles are taking their seats.”

According to Saori, who looked up the history of this place, when the arena was rebuilt for the entertainment of Empire guests and the annual founding event, the nobility still thought of the arena as a place for slave fighters. Unless they were fighting or called for by a noble, the slave gladiators weren’t allowed to show themselves, which was why the fighters’ preparation rooms were built inside the basement.

The king acquiesced to the noble’s design plans despite disliking the idea, since arguing the issue would just anger the lesser and middle nobility. Artorias was founded just after the War for the Faefolk and the Leosfalt civil war, so tension was high. Afterwards, laws were made to ban slaves both in responce to the founding of Shaturein and as an attempt by the king to gain the favor of the Revolution Queen, who despised slavery since she was a transmigrator from our Earth.

But, that was all after the arena was reconstructed. Everything the slave fighters needed was here in the basement — kitchen, restrooms, and training field. Although slavery was outlawed nowadays, this place gave me an oppressive feeling after learning about its history.

“Please, wait here, Miss. Once the commentator announces your entry, we will open the gates,” the staff member instructed.

I sharpened my hearing, clearly picking up the voice of the MC through all the loud fervor of the audience for their blood entertainment.

“The audience is pretty excited about two people beating each other up,” I murmured my thoughts out loud, something the attendant didn’t ignore.

“Ah, if you are worried about your safety, Miss Hestia, then there is no need. The arena fields are equipped with a special mana field granted to us by the Folschreck Empire. It severely reduces the contestants’ Strength and Intelligence, while raising your defensive stats to prevent unnecessary deaths.”

“They are?” I frowned. “During the tournaments, wouldn’t the fighters complain about how it was restricting their power? Wouldn’t it be better to use something similar to those challenger bracelets?”

“Y-Yes, that is true. It happens every year, unfortunately. But the arena was constructed in the image of the ones in the Empire, and those use these mana fields to prevent their fighters from dying. We would have regulated Health with challenger bracelets, but those have a slight flaw - they cannot protect you from too strong of attacks.”

The Empire most likely wishes to protect their fighters since most of them are slaves. From what Saori told me, the whole “thumbs up, thumbs down” thing to decide the life of a defeated gladiator was false. A myth made from a misunderstanding with some painting.

In fact, thumbs down meant “lower your sword.” In addition, if both gladiators were slaves, the economic incentive to keep both of them alive was pretty high. Training slaves into competent and entertaining fighters was expensive, so losing them to the whim of a hand gesture would dissuade most slave trainers from sending in their “wares.” If one of them were a prisoner, though, and meant to be executed, that was an entirely different matter.

Well, history from ancient Rome isn’t always accurate. Saori told me to stay open-minded about it, but choosing a single truth is usually sooo much easier, so, whatever.

“Is there a way to turn it off?” I asked, causing the staff member to look at me with worry. “D-Don’t get the wrong idea, I’m not trying to kill him. I’m just asking, since I dislike having my power restrained.”

I trained hard last week. It would be a shame to not let it out, especially since this is a show match to see if Charleslyt does deserve to be a champion candidate.

“W-Well, the controls for the manatech controlling the field is operated by the Royal family. His Majesty could disable it, but it is far safer to keep it turned on, Miss.”

Hmm? He looks… worried for me? Huh, does he believe in Charleslyt more than me?

The commentator was still speaking. There was time for me to actually gain some more information on Charleslyt’s fighting style. Ellaine and her parents had given me a quick breakdown, but they didn’t know the full intricacies of his abilities.

“Have you seen Lord Charleslyt fight before?” I asked.

“Yes, Miss Hestia. He has been attending the annual founding event tournaments consistently ever since three years ago. There were also a few times where he joined privately held tournaments. OF all of those different tournaments, he has only lost in two of them.”

So he attended this year’s tournament? I probably should have visited it, huh?

“Truly? Could I hear about them?”

“The first was during the founding event tournament, the first one he attended. He didn’t have his current equipment or skills at that time. A complete newbie,” he stated. “For his second, it was a privately organized tournament. He was the tournament favorite since he just won his second founding event tournament. However, surprisingly, he lost in the finals!”

“To whom?”

“A beastman. A young martial artist girl with three horns. Most of Lord Charleslyt’s abilities came from his church-blessed sword and shield, but the girl was able to pierce through his defenses. It was astounding, especially when the champion simply left without attending the winner ceremony.”

A horned girl?

“Well.” I stepped forward to the gate, having noticed it was opening up. “Today, he will lose to another one.”

“Fair lords and ladies of the realm! Men and women of our kingdom! Your patience has been awarded! With the blessing of the Goddess that Saintess Eshe, Cardinal Bennard and the clergy have so graciously given us, it is now time for today’s battle!”

The shouting and yelling intensified into the cheers of the mosh pit of a rock concert, drowning even the voice of the MC despite him using one of those microphone rods. Peeking from under the shadow of the tunnel, I noticed the nobles sitting on one side with a special place for the royal family, while the commoners occupied the remaining seats.

“In our first corner!”

It’s time to take the stage.

“The challenge issuer — a young dragonewt girl from the north, beyond the mountains of the dwarves. A wandering priestess who is challenging our up-and-coming champion candidate to test his qualifications! Welcome warmly, everybody! I present, Heeeestiiiiaaaaaaaa!”

My parallel minds went to work, activating light magic and [Aerokinesis] to produce my theme song to imitate those from pro wrestling matches. I spread my wings out, sending my scale-dust out to explode into tiny sparks.

“Don’t let your light flicker and dim. ♫

Put up a smile and never give up. ♫

Hope will not die this soon. ♫

Remember that this is the life that you have chosen! ♫

My broken wings set yourself free. ♫

Rise from the ground, oh, so I plea. ♫

So, our dreams can be true. ♫

To reach the stars! ♫”

[Music Resonation (Moderate)] [Stage Fever (Minor)] [Suppression Field] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Oof, damn, why do I feel so much weaker now?! This field— Focus on the entrance, Hestia!

I bumped up the volume to overwhelm the cries of the audience, drawing everybody’s attention to me and my song as magical spotlights shown on me with floating sparks. I flew up in sky, twirling my spear before diving to the ground, striking a cool pose with my spear raised.

If this had been the me from Belzac forest, I probably would say something embarrassing like ‘krasasa.’ Oof.

“Wooo, let’s go, Lady Priestess! Give us a good show!”

“No wonder the priests had to bless this battle! A clergywoman and Lord Charleslyt are fighting!”

The news of the duel had been carried out by city criers after I informed King Drangleic of it. He immediately gave permission for it and would handle the promotion. I honestly thought he would be a bit more reluctant, but whatever, it worked out well enough.

Looking over at the audience seats, I noticed several familiar faces. All four of my party members were sitting with House Helvas. I could also see Thyra and her mother waving at me. There was also Severa and her brother Antonio Moreschi, Duke Greenveil, and it went without saying that Eshe prayed when she saw me.

“Such a warm welcome for such a stunning entrance! A priestess with a spear who can fly! Why, I don’t think we had this combination before! However, can she prove herself strong enough to stand against the two times champion of the annual founding event tournament?”

“Nooooo! Lord Charleslyt will win!”

“““Lord Charleslyt! Lord Charleslyt!”””

He hasn’t even entered yet but people were already cheering his name. They had already forgotten about me!

“I hear you, everybody! With no further ado, I present to you our reigning champion and challenger! The noble son of Lord Grand Duke Equevanna. A warrior who has recently become a B rank adventurer after years of grueling work and dedication! A brave and honorable man hailed by Cardinal Bennard to be a champion candidate, who has received the blessing of the Church on his armor! I present, Looooord Charleslyt Equeeeevaaaaaaanaaaaaa!”

From the opposite side, a man in silver and golden armor slowly walked out his corner, holding his sword up as it shone an iridescent light. The cheers intensified into almost uncontrollable ferver as young women waved at him, shrieking like crazed fangirls. Even the noble ladies couldn’t hold back, cheering for him as if they were enchanted.

He lowered his sword in a slash, shooting the light onto the ground like a light blade, before holding his shield in front of himself, causing not only it but also his armor to release bursts of light. It felt as if an armor of light was covering him.

Hrmmm, his cheering was louder. At least, I thought I would be able to get the guys to cheer for me as loud as the girls cheered for Charleslyt. Am I not cute enough?

The cheering continued nonstop, something Charleslyt was clearly enjoying and more focused on. He hadn’t looked my way from the moment he entered the arena. He honestly seemed more like an entertainer than a fighter to me, which made me a bit jealous. I wondered if I was taking this match a bit too seriously.

“Everybody, quiet!” With a loud shout from the MC, the cheering slowly died down, as if they were used to this. “I present to everybody, you king, His Majesty, King Drangleic var Artorias!”

King Drangleic pushed himself off his throne, moving closer to the railing with his wife. With his arms and wings stretched out, he welcomed the audience, “Welcome, my people!”

There were no shouts or people yelling, only respectful clapping to greet their king. Even the commoners were doing it, as if this was just part of the course.

“Today, we have a sudden and surprising match before us. A priestess of the Goddess has challenged Lord Charleslyt to not only test his might but also the conviction to become a champion candidate of the Goddess. A great honor, as you can very much guess!”

Directing his hands to each of us respectively, he then continued his speech, “As such, this was a match I could not reject. For that reason, to the winner, I will grant the honor of meeting my ancestor and father of our kingdom’s founder! The King Griffon, Assurfel!”

“What?! His Majesty is inviting the winner to meet his Supreme Eminence?! S-Something like that is—?!”

“Is his Majesty serious? Wouldn’t such an act only expose the Supreme Founder to a potential assassin?”

“Quiet! Who are you calling an assassin?! Lord Charleslyt, the second son of Lord Grand Duke Equevanna, or Lady Hestia, his Majesty’s honored guest? Or are you questioning both of them as well as his Majesty’s decision?”

… Ah, so that’s why he agreed without questioning it. He just needed an elaborate excuse to invite me to meet his great-grandfather.

Outside of the rich and influential, most of the commoners didn’t understand the meaning of such a reward, as they simply marveled, only knowing that it was something amazing, but not having any idea just how amazing. The nobles, on the other hand, were whispering to themselves, giving their king a questioning look.

Noticing this, he released his royal aura to silence them. As the noise died down a bit, I raised my hand and spoke, “If that is the case, Your Majesty, would it be okay for you to disable the suppression field?”

More noise erupted, this time, it came from a vast majority. They looked at me as if I was crazy. I guess it was understandable.

King Drangleic had not publicized my information. Outside of the chosen few, barely anybody knew what I could do. The nobles knew who I was, but not how strong I was, while the commoners only had faith in Charleslyt. Outside of the adventurers, most of the people here only knew me as the “singing girl from that musical performance” probably.

“Oh? May I know the reason, Lady Hestia?” he replied.

“This is a test for Lord Charleslyt. With so many members of the clergy around, especially Cardinal Bennard as I can see, our survivability shouldn't be an issue. In fact, since this is a test, Lord Charleslyt should be able to show his true strength.”

There was some acknowledgment of my argument but most of the audience critiqued me for being arrogant. That I didn’t know how strong Charleslyt was. King Drangleic ignored them and smiled.

“Oooh, that is true. Lord Charleslyt, what do you say?”

“Your Majesty, while it would pain me to raise my hand against a fair lady as Lady Hestia, as a fellow warrior, I believe she would feel ashamed if we did not fight with our full abilities. I concur with her request. I swear to stay my hand when my victory is assured, Sire.”

“Then so be it. This duel has been blessed by the Goddess, a tragedy cannot happen.” King Drangleic returned to his seat and pressed something on the hand rest, materializing a blue screen like the party screen from my party bracelet.

After pressing a few bottoms, the oppressive feeling I had the moment I entered the arena disappeared. My power returned while I felt slightly more vulnerable. I felt liberated.

Twirling my glaive around, I made sure that my body was back to normal before resting the weapon on my shoulder. “I’m ready whenever you are, Lord Charleslyt.”

“The first action goes to the fair lady,” he bowed. “May the Goddess bless us both with light to banish the shadows!”

“Noble lords and ladies of the realm! Men and women of Artorias! The moment you have waited for has come! Let this battle begi—”

Buffs up! Panzer! Halo of Consecration!

[Various Spell Effects] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Purple fire erupted from my body before forming into armor, covering me from my neck up while a white flaming halo floated above my head like that of an angel. Attaching my red catalyst into the opened slot on my glaive’s socket, my body tensed up as I did exactly what Charlesyt wanted.

Dragoon Jump!

Shooting myself forward, I poured mana into my glaive, activating the mechanism within. With a mechanical sound, small slits opened up around the socket. The catalyst shone crimson red as the glaive began sucking up the scale-dust through the slits.

The runes on my weapon began to glow with red light before erupting into flames, the cogs spinning faster and faster. Using [Instant Heat Ignition], my tail exploded into fire as well as I charged towards the stunned Charleslyt with two flaming spears.

“SPARK CRESCENT!”

A note from AbyssRaven

How much has Hestia improved as a dragoon? Find out next time on Dragon Ba— Idol Z!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 236: To Bring a Smile.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Burn My Dread

A manatech-based dragoon glaive created using [Geisenlarg Queen] and [Sunfang Dragon] materials, supported by the enchanted bark of a [Stonewood Treant Guardian] and voldunna ore. As the blood and flames of a [Sunfang Dragon] were used during the smelting process, this spear exudes a natural heat as if it was a miniature sun core. The [Dragonkin Blacksmith Technique] used to create this weapon causes the weapon to only show its full potential in the hands of its true owner.

Dragonkin: [Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Attack Power: 2281

Skill: [Mana Conductor Lv. 8] [Mana Efficiency Lv. 6] [True Spear Mastery Lv. 1] [Increased Weight Lv. 5] [All Damage Enhancement Lv. 1] [Herculean Power Lv. 1] [Speed of Sound Lv. 1] [Superior Aerial Fighter Lv. 1] [Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 8] [Mind’s Eye Lv. 1] [Durability Loss Reduction Lv. 10] [Explosion Pressure Nullification] [Flame Core Aura] [Dragonkin Ownership]

Runes: [Utility Rune: Guided Projectile] [Defense Rune: Scale-Dust Barrier] [Passive Rune: Clean Blade] [Passive Rune: Mana Drain] [Passive Rune: Stamina Beast] [Passive Rune: Crimson Cloak] [Attack Rune: Triple Attack]

Heart of the Volcano Catalyst

An alchemical orb created using the volcanic heart of a Volcano Furnace Volchark. If mana is registered to this catalyst, it will levitate and float around the owner using stored mana. An aura is emitted from this catalyst, reducing any fire or lava element damage by 50% against the owner. This reduced damage will be turned into Health for the owner. Significantly reduces Health, Mana, or Stamina cost of any fire elemental attacks and its compound elements.

Owner: [Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Skill: [Resource Efficiency Lv. 8] [Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 8] [Chant Revocation Lv. 10] [Flame Furnace Aura] [Cast Activation Speed Increase Lv. 7] [Inferno Amp] [Lava Amp] [Artillery Spell Enhancement Lv. 1] [Explosion Spell Enhancement Lv. 1]

Enchantments: [Flame Accumulation] [Heat-Mana Transmutation]

A trail of crimson flames flowed from my glaive as I slash down at Charleslyt, forcing him to block my blow with his shield. The impact of the blow caused his shield to glow brighter for some reason, prompting me to use the second part of [Spark Crescent], a combo with an upward slash of my tail to back away.

My combination glaive and tail attack caused the shield to glow even brighter before it shot forth a ball of light as a counterattack. I activated my catalyst, and one rune on my glaive glowed bright red — [Defense Rune: Scale-Dust Barrier] — congregating the flames inside the glave to form a shield that blocked the attack in front of me.

A shield that counters the more you hit it, huh? That is one enchantment out of three for the shield.

Once the flames returned back into my glaive, I had my parallel minds cast two [Banishment Beam]s at Charleslyt, keeping him from going on the offensive. Using [Continuous Cast] on them, I had them shoot as long as possible, allowing me the freedom to dart behind the paladin through flight.

Gale Steps.

By combining [Gale Steps] with [Air Walk], I managed to dash forwards in the air in the blink of an eye, throwing another slash at Charleslyt from behind.

“Grgh!

He managed to block the attack with his sword. To continue my momentum, I chained my attacks, using the moves I copied from Yorshka and trained to form my Nordor Style.

With Charleslyt having to shield himself against the [Banishment Beam] while I was constantly attacking him from the side, I was pushing him even closer to my beam spells, until he finally decided on a new course of action. He used his taller stature to give his attacks more leverage, pushing me back a hair and giving himself the time to dig his shield into the ground and activate another one of its enchantments.

A mana barrier similar to [Defensive Rune: Auracoil] materialized around the shield, only that it had the same color as my [Sanctuary]. Now that he was protected from the beams, he turned to face me full on while double-handing his bastard sword. In pure weapon mastery, he had me beat, and through that advantage he was able to ward off my remaining attacks.

“Your strikes are powerful, My Lady, but you lack experience with your spear! My sword arm was trained with our Kingdom’s knights and the Knights of the Goddess!” Charleslyt stated with a proud smile as his sword glowed up again. “Holy Slash!”

[Foresight] warned me an attack was coming, although it wasn’t enough of a threat to dodge it. Still, I used [Wind Blast] to create some distance between Charleslyt and me.

In the next second, an anime-like light cleave shot out of his sword, completely missing me and hitting the arena’s wall. Briefly, I was able to see the flicker of some mana field.

So the field also protects anything from leaving the arena, huh? Is it similar to the barrier the mage guild uses for their training field? The audience shouldn’t be in danger if I go a bit wilder.

“My Lady, that is quite the interesting armor you have there. I had thought you had come to fight in that skirt,” Charleslyt bantered.

“Of course, not. With my fighting style, having an upskirt accident is always a worry if I don’t create my own armor, right?”

[Panzer] wasn’t only there to provide a layer of defense to support [Draconic Barrier], but it also covered up my skirt and underwear. Flying could lead to some embarrassing problem and I didn’t want that. Naturally, the obsidian wasn’t poisonous this time, I didn’t want to win this battle through [Corrosive Fire]’s toxin.

“Haha, that is true, My Lady. I envy your ability to fly. Hmm, you know, your amulet doesn't match the dark purple of the armor despite how spectacular the latter looks on your alone.” He pointed at the amulet of Aurena I had on, one of the few things which couldn’t be covered up by the armor. “As a paladin of Goddess Aurena, your armor should be bright white like the beauty of the Goddess and her knights. You look like a warrior of the Dark God right now.”

“Oh really? I’m pretty sure God Kargrxymor would appreciate that thought,” I gave Kramps some snark. After all, if I had hatched properly, I should’ve had black scales like his.

White flames erupted from underneath my scales. Some shot out from my armor while others activated the rocket boost on my wings, although I kept myself from flying off with [Tailwind]. I snapped my fingers, dispelling the two light beam spells.

I gave him a “Still not impressed?” look before saying, “The crowd is excited. Let’s continue, Lord Charleslyt.” I settled back into the stance Yorshka and Farron taught me.

“I apologize once again for my rudeness.” He picked up his shield before his sword shone again. “I will make this battle quick! Gale Steps!”

Charleslyt charged forward with his shield, aiming to knock me off balance with the hit. I, however, let my rocket boosters shoot myself up into the air as I conjured up a large [Scorching Sun] and sent it crashing onto Charleslyt. As it exploded onto his shield, I could hear him groan before I had to dodge away from the incoming counterattack from his shield’s enchantment.

“Woooo, Lord Charleslyt! Not even fire magic can take him on! Go, Lord Charleslyt!”

“Come on, more action! Woooo, this was so worth begging my boss to give me the day off!”

“Superior fire magic slammed against Lord Charleslyt’s shield but not even a scratch can be seen on his shining silver shield! This match is heating up, everybody!”

Wow, imagine all that excitement after he tried to ‘end it quickly’ only to end up countered.

The crowd was naturally excited from how the fight began like a ping-pong of attacks. I personally wanted to hear how the top nobles were speaking, but it was impossible through all the announcer’s commentary and the crowd’s shouts.

When I first entered the arena, I did see the seven dukes and a few other acquaintances sitting with the other nobles. I also saw my party members sitting with Ellaine’s parents, cheering for me. I couldn’t disappoint them.

In the sky again, I activated [Dragoon Dive] and [Wind Blast] while standing in the air, shooting myself like a bullet at Charleslyt. Seeing he would block my next attack, I used my rocket boosters to swerve around to his back, slamming my glaive to his side. He managed to block it with his sword, but the weight of my spear staggered him. This was why I wanted my spear to be heavier, not lighter. With my Strength, I could handle it.

Instead of chaining melee strikes and repeating what I did before, I materialized [Terra Wall] and [Bedrock Blades] to push Charleslyt back, disorienting him. I backed off, cast [Rumbling Might] to create a miniature earthquake to unbalance him, baiting him into showing off more of his skills and enchantments.

I could use [Mana Eyes], yes, but that wouldn’t be a challenge now, right? I had to train my observational skills as well.

As he slowly took damage from the giant rock blades, the crowd let out a loud gasp. Noticing the audience’s cheers were dying down as they looked at him pitifully, Charleslyt clicked his tongue before his sword began to grow in size through white mana, smashing the rock blades around him, reigniting the excitement of the audience.

First enchantment on the sword.

As he was about to unleash this light blade at me, a sudden flame bolt crashed against his shoulder plate, denting it and interrupting his attack. As he was about to say “What?” in disbelief, an explosion erupted from his shoulder, knocking him onto his back.

As they saw this, the audience turned silent at what happened only to turn their eyes from Charleslyt, who was healing himself with [Moderate Heal], to me. There were no traces of a spell’s magic circle, all they saw was that I was aiming the tip of my glaive at Charleslyt.

“Gahahaha, yes! Show the world our creation, lass! Let everybody see it, let everybody see it! Gahaha! See this Bleidla! Your fears are now realized through me!” Grimnir shouted and laughed maniacally, attracting lots of attention, especially from the nobles. Ellaine tried to stop him but to no avail.

Jeez, was he always this, well, passionate? I guess going against a god demands you be a bit crazy.

Now, why did Grimnir have such a huge reaction to my attack? Well, aside from the fact that his weapon was working well in combat after all the testing, the second reason was that this weapon was a mechanical weapon — a weapon made with the help of a blacksmith and artificer.

I twirled my glaive and activated my catalyst’s first enchantment [Flame Accumulation] to absorb some fire. In this case, my scale-dust counted as such. As the fire inside my glaive raged on as my catalyst was refueling itself with scale-dust, its second enchantment [Fire-Mana Transmutation] was keeping the weapon from overheating by turning fire and heat into mana for me

As Charleslyt stood up, he raised his shield instinctively as the sound of a sizzling flame shot through the air and smashed against it, exploding a few seconds after the hit. With every additional shot, the recoil I felt coming from my glaive began to remind me of my air rifle.

In fact, that was an inspiration for my weapon. My glaive was also a rifle, a rifle which could shoot out a concentrated balls of scale-dust. [Flame Accumulation] gathered the flame around the catalyst, [Utility Rune: Guided Projectile] not only affected spells cast through my catalyst but also every bullet.

I could send my scale-dust flying out with [Aerokinesis] but it wouldn’t be as accurate. This was my solution to the problem. It was like shooting out a grenade with a gun — a grenade launcher. It was my continued plan to weaponize my scale-dust even further!

And I planned to abuse it like mad.

“Dammit! Enough!” Charleslyt shouted as the light barrier appeared once again around his shield, giving him a chance to shoot out a spear of light with his sword.

The flames on my glaive turned white as I parried the spear of light away before throwing my glaive at Charleslyt. The weapon crashed against the barrier and it bounced back even as I dashed forward with [Gale Steps], closing in the distance between us.

Instead of grabbing my glaive, I used my catalyst’s ability to float and had one of my parallel minds control it remotely similar to how Tasianna controlled her floating ice blades. Flames erupted from my claws and tails as I used them to attack Charleslyt while attacking his blind spots with my floating glaive.

While Charleslyt’s skill with the sword was superior to my skill with the spear, I was faster and more used to changing my fighting style. My white flames and his light blades clashed as we brawled with each other. Life was brought back into the arena with a rumbling roar, following the explosive duel between the two of us.

Ah, I see. There is a mistake, oh, gotta patch that footwork up. If I had timed that better, no, angling it to the side would have been better. Damn, missed a window there. Oh, there, nice!

I was like a flurry of steel and fire. I would transition from brawling to using my glaive whenever I could, using my dexterity to switch from one fighting style to the next. I jumped, dashed, somersaulted; I did everything to continue practicing my footwork while delivering attacks when I could.

Charleslyt was thankfully quite skilled. Unfortunately for him, it made him a great sparring partner. I could only spar with Ellaine, Arcanuess Helvas, and Saori so often until I remembered their moves and habits. Charleslyt, though, was probably the first paladin-like fighter I dueled. It was a great opportunity to continue polishing my glaivemanship.

Honestly, training with the glaive was similar to dancing for me. I wasn’t talented when I started out, I had to learn proper movements and footwork, and the advanced stuff required me knowing the foundation. I was nostalgic. Fulfilling even, when I created [Spark Crescent].

Spark Crescent!

“Grrk! Gak!” I broke through his defensive stance and landed a roundhouse kick to his stomach. A suppressed one, of course. I didn’t want to kill him or break his armor. Just imagine if he sued me for vandalism, ha!

“Damnit!”

Cursing during this scuffle, Charleslyt began shooting out multiple light slashes from mid range and using what was probably his sword’s second enhancement to create massive blades of light to come raining down on me.

Playing like that, huh? Unheilige Engel!

A brown magic circle appeared behind me as purple flames flared up until it hardened up into a pair of obsidian wings. These wings countered the blows as my [Halo of Consecration] sent out a wave of white flames to banish them.

With me knowing four of his enchantments now, it was far easier to avoid his attacks. First, don’t hit the shield, otherwise it retaliates. Second, it can conjure a barrier of light. Third, his sword could grow and attack with holy mana. Fourth, he can form these mana projectiles into blades to attack people remotely.

Unlike runes, enchantments were restricted to, at most, three since adding any more would cause them to interfere with each other and explode. As compensation, the enchantments were allowed to be more creative. It had the freedom of creation of custom spell, but, if not created properly, the enchantment could just blow up in your face since they have a lower chance of success than rune smithing.

And thanks to this restriction, it was just a matter of figuring out what all three of the enchantments were so you could form counters against them. That was why my enchantments were kept simple and flexible, as I was the real weapon here and only needed tools to cover up my weaknesses.

Hmm? My senses were better than his. The longer we fought, the more his moves looked sluggish to me. Was this turning into easy mode?

“Gagk!” After a long enough clash, I was able to clearly see a perfect line of attack. Slipping my glaive through his guard like a snake, I drew quite a bit of blood from one of the few unprotected spots on his leg armor — behind his knee cops.

As he fell onto one knee, I comboed into a smack from my shaft to his head, knocking him down for a moment.

“Damn you! I must win! I-I will win!”

Before I could deal another attack, his shield glowed and revealed the last enchantment on his shield. A blast of holy mana, which somewhat similar to my [Dreadflare Aure] but in holy mana of the purest white, sent me flying back.

Proficiency requirement fulfilled. [Sacred Resistance Lv. 1] evolved into [Sacred Resistance Lv. 2]

I recovered quickly with white flames healing me and my wings preventing me from ragdolling too far away from Charleslyt. As my glaive came flying back into my hand, the paladin stood up, holding his sword with both hands before holding it up into the sky.

“The light of the Goddess is my shield! The Goddess’s holiness is the sword to cleave through the darkness!” Holy mana congregated on his sword as a giant white magic circle appeared above me. As he continued his chant, a giant sword materialized. “Heaven’s Sword! Purifying Greatsword!”

It was a double attack. The giant blade shot down from the sky at me while his bastard sword grew in size, to the point I had to question if he was compensating for something. Both blades thrust at me, making me question if this was a show match or not.

I was holding back heavily, like incredibly heavily, but now Charleslyt was going all out? If I was a normal combatant, wouldn’t this be like shooting out your finishing move against a newbie?

Then again, he looked pretty desperate.

“Gloria Ascendence.”

It only took one spell, granted, it was a level seven spell of an advanced magic skill, but it still only took one spell to block both of these attacks completely. The audience gasped as they saw me just flying in place, taking both attacks head-on. The cheers Charleslyt had previously were replaced by cries of anguish at my disappearing figure.

So it was a bit anticlimactic that I was literally unharmed. The two supposedly devastating attacks were nullified by my barrier, turning all the damage into Health.

Usually, I probably would be pretty peeved at the fact Charleslyt just went all-out like that, but at the same time, I was the one who asked for the mana suppression field to be turned off. I had no right to complain. In fact, my thoughts were more occupied by Charleslyt’s words than the fact he launched two large-scale mana attacks while trying to kill me here.

‘I will win,’ he said. I knew he wanted to prove himself to somebody, but he sounded extremely whiny about it later on. Not in an annoying way, but more like the ‘I must win or it’s over’ kinda attitude.

To be honest, I did come into this battle wanting to kick Charleslyt down a peg, since I heard from Ellaine that he tried to persuade Amelia into marrying him solely because he wanted to take over her grandfather’s company. It didn’t sit right with Ellaine, so I didn’t like it either. I also hated the fact he and the cardinal wanted to use me as his promotional tool.

But… now that I had a week to think it over, wasn’t I being too petty? What kinda attitude is that for somebody striving to be an ideal idol? I shouldn’t let people run over me like a doormat, they wouldn’t respect me if I allowed it, but I should not act like a bully.

Instead, forgive and forget. If they weren’t outright atrocious like Hamil, then they weren’t on my shitlist, and Charleslyt only acted like a cliched noble. Pompous and pampered, believing the world belonged to him. Sure, there were the rumors about him being mixed in with criminals from Shaturein, but it might just be from his shitty companions. Although, where he met them is worth questioning.

Still, all this negativity isn’t good for a person. In a world filled with pessimism and problems, shouldn’t I at least know how to act optimistic? I should do my best to do exactly what I imagined an idol should do. Bring hope to them through my songs and actions. Bring them a smile in their time of despair.

I’m an idol.

“I-I- Uhm, as everybody can see, Lord Charleslyt just unleashed two massive, devastating attacks on the challenge issuer! The blades of light crashed against Miss Hestia, pulverizing everything after contact! The light might be gone now but all we can see is dust and smoke…”

“D-Did Lord Charleslyt just commit murder?”

“N-No, that can’t be right? I mean, this-this was a match. Yes! A duel, right? A-Accidents happen?”

“H-Hey, what the hell was that? Wait, did he just— You bastard mana blood! You fucking murdered the priestess who reattached my father’s leg!”

“We haven’t had a death in the arena for years! Dammit, why did Hestia ask for the barrier to be taken down! C rank versus B rank. Urg, stupid arrogance of the youth…”

Is that really what everybody is saying?! No more cheers, only shouts of complaints at Charleslyt. Hold on, where is he?

Through [Detection Sensor], I found the signal closest to me, which had to be Charleslyt, slowly walking backwards. I couldn’t hear his voice at all, even if I concentrated through all the roars of anger of the audience. I felt pretty happy that so many strangers were speaking up for me, but I was starting to feel bad since nothing happened to me.

I should probably come ou—

“Silence!” It wasn’t the voice of the king, but one of his right-hand men. I think it was Armado Lifcio, the burly general type guy. “All of you are in the presence of His Majesty, King Drangleic! Idiotic! Aristocrats or common folk, none has the right to interrupt His Majesty’s entertainment when it hasn’t finished yet!”

The cries of anger died down, now replaced by bafflement and confusion—

— which only lasted for a couple of seconds.

[Music Resonation (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

For music began to play through [Aerokinesis].

“Is this not the day, are you feeling down? ♫

Wanna smile so much, but can’t lift up the frown ♫

Is the world so bleak, all is going wrong ♫

Like a raging stream, dragged through it all along ♫

Do you ever want to break apart that wall? ♫

But every try rings hollow, and all that’s left is emptiness ♫

But let me tell you this, you gotta raise your head ♫

‘Cause there is more to life ♫”

The dust was blasted away with wind magic, revealing me in the center using my glaive as a microphone. [Panzer] was gone, I was in my normal outfit. The twin heads of my glaive retracted lower down the shaft, letting me bring my catalyst closer to my mouth without obstructing my face.

Technically, I didn’t have to treat it as a mike. I could use [Aerokinesis] to do that job, but I just liked holding it like this. If I wasn’t in such a hurry due to this match, the enchanter probably would have had enough time to apply the last enchantment I wanted. He managed to give Saori her three, so it was a shame.

“As there will be a chance to shine ♫

It will appear ♫

So grab it tight! ♫

Your great light of hope! ♫”

Charleslyt looked mortified. He had dropped his sword and shield for some reason and was staring at me as if he had seen a ghost. The audience also was baffled at how I was unharmed, singing for some reason after everything that happened. There was barely any cheering, it was a tough crowd.

“Woooooo! Hestia, you go!”

But out of nowhere, six people in the noble section began clapping, cheering for me to catch everybody’s attention. It was Saori, Tasianna, Grimnir, Ellaine and her parents. This action caught onto a few others, which included members of House Morgiana, House Greenveil, Severa and Antonio Moreschi, and lastly Eshe.

Like a snowball effect, as these people began clapping, so did the other nobles, and eventually also the commoners. Silence was pushed back, and the loud cheers of the arena returned, only this time, it wasn’t one demanding action and conflict.

“ ‘Cause you’re the center of your story ♫

Don’t let others say it’s not ♫

Aim your sight up, up, up ♫

You gotta let yourself shine, shine, shine ♫

‘Cause you’re the center of your story ♫

Burst into a thousand colors ♫

Leave them all to gasp, gasp, gasp ♫

So rise up to be your own star, star, star ♫”

I cast [Terra Wall], creating an impromptu stage for me before I raised my glaive up and shot up a scale-dust bullet. It crashed against the mana field, exploding into a crimson flower. I shot three more bullets, each exploding into crimson, white, and purple flowers each.

The second function of this new rifle mode — fireworks. I lowered the impact of these bullets to the point they wouldn’t harm anybody if they accidentally did hit somebody, but it also meant they were so weak that they couldn’t break the mana field around the arena’s battlefield.

178 humans and beastmen have become your fans

Total fan count updated. Total fans of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 2778

“ ‘Cause you’re the center of your story ♫

Don’t let others say it’sacknowledgment sight up, up, up ♫

You gotta let yourself shine, shine, shine ♫

‘Cause you’re the center of your story ♫

Burst into a thousand colors ♫

Leave them all to gasp, gasp, gasp ♫

So rise up to be your own star, star, star ♫”

After I continued onto the second chorus, I reached out my hand to Charleslyt with a smile. In my opinion, this fight was already over. I saw everything Charleslyt had and he should know I was too strong to defeat right now. If Aurena wanted to make him a champion candidate, this would have to be enough for his CV.

I wanted to end this match now. It also would act as a good PR move for him and me, no? I was able to show the church and nobility of my strength. Yes, if I had unleashed everything, like using my dragon abilities more I probably would have crushed Charleslyt, beating any chance of him becoming a respectable church representative ever again.

But I wasn’t petty. I was the better person in this argument. We should act maturely about this.

And I wanted to show him this with this song. I dunno what caused him to want this match so much, but I wanted him to know that there were other options to his goal than to act so much like an “aristocrat.”

But, it didn’t work like that.

When our eyes met, Charleslyt’s expression was still the same terrified one I saw before. Without grabbing his sword and shield, he ran out of the arena, effectively forfeiting the match. As such, since he forfeited, I won. I guess I defeated him morally?

Regardless, the match was over and I met up with the others. Grimnir kept throwing questions at me, trying to get feedback on the glaive. He did see me use the weapon when we went dungeon diving in Griffonpeak’s dungeon, but he never saw the functions Ellaine added to it — the gun and mike mode.

It was Grimnir’s second gun creation. He had to rely on Ellaine to create it with his instructions, but he was proud of it as he made it himself. It was just unfortunate that guns are somehow not supported by the Divine System. We could blame Bleidla for that.

“Lady Hestia, that was a wonderful match. A bit short, sadly, but entertaining nonetheless. As for your reward, would you have time tomorrow?”

There was no need for me to meet the Griffon king, but I also had no reason to not meet up with him. It was decided.

After I had some talks with the nobles, who now had a newfound respect for me, openly calling me “idol” as if I was some mighty magician or something. I think they still can’t accept me as just an entertainer, but my Peolyncian definition of an idol was a hybrid of a saintess and champion, so I had to accept it.

When I asked where Duke Equevanna was, I was told he left early with Charleslyt’s sword and shield. It seemed he wanted to return it.

Well, I hope it works out. They did not have a good relationship when I met them at the church.

Before we left, I walked over to Eshe and handed her a pair of [Room] runes. “This is a pocket dimension created using space-time magic. My party is planning to delve into the Griffonpeak dungeon to train after we meet the Griffon king. We’ve been neglecting it. If you need anything, you can come in. Sir Alikar and Dame and Anivh are allowed to, as well. So are the kids and caretakers.”

“Lady Hestia, there is no need. I meet you often enough.”

“Ah, don’t be like that, Lady Eshe. You can return it before you have to return to the Empire, but until then, keep it. Oh yeah, the subspace can’t be entered by anybody without my permission, so don’t worry about weird people coming in. Alright, see you, Lady Eshe!”

“Yes, may the Goddess bless you, Lady Hestia.”

That was actually a lie.

Aurora wasn’t going to the Griffonpeak dungeon. We were actually going to finally confront the danger inside the city. After a week of waiting, Muraina managed to get some information from that lady information broker in Shaturein, Lady Grengar, one of the undercity’s pillars.

King Drangleic had also sent a letter that his spies had finished their investigation on the demonkin posing as one of the lycerepthors. Our meeting to discuss this seemed to be scheduled for tomorrow, with the Griffon king.

As such, due to the danger, I had to make sure Eshe has a way out of danger in case the worse happened. I also gave Ellaine’s parents a pair, just in case, meaning our party only had one pair for our own use. Grimnir just hadn’t had time to create another one after all the work he put into my glaive.

In any case, the time to sit down and wait was over. It was time to bring the fight to that demonkin and uproot the city’s biggest threat right now.

“Dammit!”

A sword and shield crashed against the ground, reverbing metal sounds throughout this noble’s room. In his silver-gold armor, the young green-haired man began punching on the wall, creating a visible hole in it. He unleashed his anger at the furniture in his bedroom, destroying everything he could get his hands on.

Once all the pent-up anger was out of his system, exhaustion caught up to him and the man fell onto the ground. No tears flowed down his cheek, only a large red flush could be seen on his cheek. One caused by a slap or punch.

“Blast them all! Blast all of them! Dammit… why…”

This man was Charleslyt.

“Nothing I do ever garners their appreciation. Father. Mother. What makes my brother better than me? What am I lacking?”

But there was little time for the young man to wallow in his sadness as he jumped onto his feet. He suddenly felt something sinister approaching him. A knock from the door and Charleslyt grabbed his church-enchanted sword and shield.

He readied himself, wary of the intruders that had somehow made it into his house despite his guards and party members. People he had hired to help him achieve his dream. Mercenaries that were recommended to him by none other than Cardinal Bennard, a person he considered more his father than Duke Equevanna.

“Lord Charleslyt, we only wish to talk. Cardinal Bennard sent us.”

The Cardinal?

As if it was the special word, Charleslyt’s guard dropped slightly. The sinister aura could still be felt from behind the door, but the young man slowly inched towards it. When he opened it, he immediately noticed one of them — a lycerepthor.

But what surprised him more was the yellow-skinned man standing next to him. Two horns adorned his head while a thin tail flowed out from his pants. Aside from the ominous feeling Charleslyt felt from him, there was a certain charisma that drew him towards this man, no, demonkin.

“Lord Charleslyt, we are allies of Cardinal Bennard. He had informed us that something had happened at the arena today and that you needed somebody to, well, improve your mood,” the lycerepthor explained his visit. Charleslyt recognized this man but his gut told him to not mention the man’s name.

“… Improve my mood?” Charleslyt’s eyes did not sway away from the yellow-skinned demonkin. “I would have preferred it if it were women.”

“Oh? My apologies, let me correct that oversight; a moment, please. I face the original sin—” The lycerepthor chanted a strange incantation as black tentacles burst from his skin, morphing flesh and skin into the appearance of a young female with green hair and lilac highlights. “Is this form more to your liking?”

“L-Lady Amelia?!” Charleslyt exclaimed, stepping further back after the eldritch transformation.

“No, I am not that girl. But this is the person you seemed to have taken a fancy to, correct? I thought it would be better to speak with you in this form.”

“N-No, I do not have anybody I like. Preposterous. I am Charleslyt Equevanna. Noble ladies swarm to me all the time, why would I need s-some half-blood’s attention?”

“Is that really how you feel?” Suddenly, the yellow-skinned demonkin spoke, walking into the room to approach Charleslyt, who instinctively raised his blade. “Do you have no pride in yourself?”

“What?” The young man’s eyes widened.

“Can you not live for yourself? Are your actions purely for the satisfaction of others? Why do you not allow yourself what is best for you? The actions you perform, you should have pride in them. Have pride in your strength. Have pride in your efforts. But I smell nothing of that sort on you. All I sense is a child who was given a blade and shield to wield for others.”

“Nonsense!” Charleslyt shouted before slashing at the demonkin with his glowing sword, only for the latter to effortlessly slap it out of his hand. “N-No! W-Why?!”

“Why what? Why are we here? Why am I doing this to you?”

“W-W-W-Why—”

“Don’t speak anymore, just listen to my words, young human.” The demonkin grabbed Charleslyt’s shoulder and began whispering into his ear. “Do you seek acknowledgement? Do you wish to finally have the title of the heir? That was rightfully yours?”

“I-I—”

“Take priiiiiide. A person without pride is nothing but an empty husk, controlled by the puppeteers behind it. Are you an empty husk?”

“N-No. I don’t want to be one.”

“What is your desire? Tell me and I shall grant it to you.”

“I-I want to—”

Charleslyt delved into his memories, searching for an answer to this being’s question. His brain was telling him to not say anything but at the same time, his survival instincts and his heart were telling him otherwise. And then, the words of a young girl appeared.

His heart was swayed.

“I want to smile. I want to stop faking it. I want to finally become somebody happy with myself, to take my own life in my own hands. Away from my family’s constant influence.”

The demonkin smiled devilishly.

“The cardinal should have ordered you to do something for him. Hand it over and I shall make sure you will be the hero after everything is over.”

Mindlessly, Charleslyt walked over to his desk and pulled out a parchment. A single sentence was scribbled on it. He handed it over to the demonkin.

The latter smiled again and handed Charleslyt a vial of sickly yellow color. “It is a deal, Charleslyt Equevanna.”

“What is this?” He inspected the vial with his [Identify Ring], but it wasn’t strong enough to appraise it.

“A little pick-me-up. It will… release your inner desires. Make you happy and give you the ability to act on it. Call it an upfront payment before our business is over. Take it. You will feel so much better, Charleslyt.”

And with those words, the two demonkins left the mansion as if they never were there in the first place.

“Lord Pride, when do you wish the operation to begin?” The fake Amelia asked the yellow-skinned demonkin.

“As soon as possible. A day inside the city of these humans is more than enough for me. How is that little project of yours?”

“Destroyed, but I have acquired another toy. A toy that will help us plunge this city into chaos, and it is ready to fight whenever.”

“Good. Praise the Edjurl Gods.”

The stage was set.

A note from AbyssRaven

Just a reminder, Hestia is still an idol. She will beat you down when she wants to and in other moments, she will sing for you. Only problem is that she kinda forgot that it would embarrass somebody if you suddenly sing for them, treating them like a non-threat.

Song for today was Katy Perry's "Firework!" Rawr!

Also, have i mentioned it yet? Hestia's new art is on Patreon for a month. It's art of Hestia in her ball dress.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 17 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 237: The Start of the Invasion.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #2 her to promote our Patreon. 17 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 17 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until January!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

Individual [Sunfang Dragonewt, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has switched her Main Job to [Incandescent Blaze]

Main Job benefits have been updated due to Job change

Incandescent Blaze Level: 0/30

“Jeez, and just like that, thirty floors have been passed. Dungeons and subspaces, in general, are so interesting, aren’t they?”

“Correction, Princess. 38 floors. Those with the blood of Assurfel who chant the entry phrase are allowed up to floor 38 by the dungeon master, the Griffon King himself.”

“But, still, King Drangleic, Lady Hestia is not wrong with what she said. Large, established dungeons are most intriguing for any scholar. The floor count even increased after the esteemed Assurfel took over the dungeon; although, shouldn’t he be able to increase the floors even more due to his power?”

It was the day after the duel, and, as planned, I was meeting up with King Drangleic and Muraina inside the Griffonpeak dungeon. I was only accompanied by Saori and Tasianna.

Ellaine didn’t want to meet the griffon king, as she thought she wasn’t worthy. It was a momentous affair for Artorian nobility, since the only times you were allowed to meet the griffon king was when you were being knighted as a member of the Lionheart order or became a royal guard. As such, she didn’t participate in this meeting, and went with her parents to the Greenveil manor to discuss the future of their business alliance.

Grimnir, on the other hand, didn’t like these sorta events. He didn’t participate at the ball and neither would he participate here. He explained that dwarves in general are content people when it comes to politics or official meetings. If they trusted their leaders, they would leave such business to them solely, believing in a “too many chefs in one kitchen” mentality.

He trusted me, hiehie.

In any case, he was currently working on Saori’s weapon that she could use with her catalysts. He focused solely on my weapon for the duel, which meant that he still had to apply the finishing touches and the runes on hers.

After we met up at the royal palace, King Drangleic along with his two advisors — Political Advisor Ulquint Myrrdin and Military Advisor Armado Lifcio — guided my party and Muraina to the second entrance of Griffonpeak dungeon. The one used by the Lionheart knights and the royal family.

After we entered it, I was amazed by how the dungeon had shifted completely for the last set of ten floors. When I entered the dungeon through the front entrance, the whole place was just a prairie with a large mountain to scale, which acted as the floors from two to 29. Apparently, it was made to resemble the Kirkantos plains in the east of Griffonpeak, over the mountain.

The floors from 30 to 40, on the other hand, were created like an ecosystem similar to the bottom floors of the Cedaraille dungeon. A vast area of a mountain range, filled with flora and fauna, a haven for any griffon or hippogryph. It was the home of the A rank griffon king, Assurfel.

“My ancestor said that this was enough for him. He could increase the floor count even more, but what kind of sane man would wish to challenge a level 57 A rank griffon?” King Drangleic questioned rhetorically. “Besides, floor forty is where my great-great-grandmother and great-grandfather were laid to rest. Our ancestor did not want to change nor open the graves of his lover or his daughter’s husband. After grandfather and father also passed into Goddess Ilsaphone’s realm, it suddenly became the royal family’s graveyard.”

“Beastmen with the heritage of strong monsters also inherit some of that monster’s extended lifespan. Neither the history books nor public knowledge spoke of this, but you are talking as if your great-grandmother is still alive, King Drangleic,” Saori pointed out as we boarded a griffon carriage to the top of a mountain.

“That is correct. Ancestor Assurfel’s only child with a human woman — Liazehn var Artorias. Great-grandmother was raised as a humble child before she gave birth to grandfather, and while she did support his claim for the throne, she never really involved herself in anything you would expect from royalty after our kingdom was founded. As such, she secluded herself with our ancestor here in his dungeon, only coming out to meet with her family privately.”

A father and daughter living together inside a dungeon, secluded from the world around them, only coming out to meet family. Sounds like the perfect setting for a sitcom.

The path to the top of the mountain was made only for arvisians and flying creatures in mind, making it impossible to get up here without wings, since even climbing was treacherous. While King Drangleic, Tasianna, and I could fly up, the remaining members of our group had to use a griffon carriage.

Once we arrived at the top, we were greeted by a beautiful grassland with plenty of flowers and a couple of fruit trees. A graveyard could be seen from the sky, surrounded by a wooden fence. The only other landmark was a small countryside house and its garden. Both points of interest were well-maintained.

After we landed, the king led us to the house, knocking on it before waiting politely for a man to answer back. As the door opened up, a towering man with a pair of white-blue wings and a feathery mane similar to King Drangleic’s appeared. His clothes, on the other hand, were simple and dirty like that of a farmer.

He gave us a welcoming smile as he spoke, “Drangleic, you came earlier than expected. Lia, I must be off.”

Hearing that, a white-blue feathered arvisian woman came running out of a room, coming into view for me to see. Similar to the king and the man before us, she had wings on her back, bird talons on her hand, and lion-like legs and tail.

Unlike them, she did not have a feathered mane. Instead she had long white-blue feather strands running down her back, reminding me of King Drangleic’s daughters. Contrasting her middle-aged appearance, she had a few silver strands mixed in between her brown hair.

“I should have our meal ready when you come back, father. Drangleic, sweety, don’t take too long with him.”

“Of course, great-grandmother, I shall only take a short moment of Ancestor’s time. Oh, and mother told me to tell you that she and Filene will be meeting you next week with more of those pastries you liked.”

So, these are the two huh? They honestly seemed pretty normal.

The arvisian man closed the door before moving his finger in a circle. “Let me hurry this up,” he said as wind began to circle around us, increasing in speed rapidly before we began to levitate. As my party started to get alarmed, King Drangleic told us to not worry.

The arvisian man’s wings flapped, lifting him to the air. The moment the wind around us turned into a sphere, the man turned his head around and he blasted off, disappearing into the distance while only leaving behind a strong tailwind.

In the next second, the wind sphere shot forward with us inside. I looked around as the landscape changed from the grassland we were just in to the bottom of the mountains and then immediately into a forest before we finally ended up at the tallest mountain and most windiest in this area. All of this happened in what felt like five minutes.

He can fly faster than me!

This place was not small. It felt as if we began in a grassland, hopped into a military plane and flew through the grand canyon before ending up at our stopping point. I thought my flight service was fast, but this one was faster and more comfortable.

Next time I have to speed up like this, I’ll copy this idea. Just surround the Engel wings with an air bubble and it should be more comfortable.

As we were landing, I was worried that the hurricane rampaging at the top of this place would blast us away. Seeing as how it was tearing cracks into the ground, I couldn’t help but question the decision of that arvisian, but in the next moment, our wind sphere began to expand, pushing the twisters back.

As I was fascinated by this phenomenon, Saori tapped my shoulders and pointed my attention towards the sky, where a giant blue fog was growing and growing, before it shrank to reveal the giant entity underneath that cloak.

Four giant white wings flapped the remaining mana fog away, slowly being covered with wind like a cloak. The shrill “Kyrouuuuh!” erupted from an eagle’s head, fluttering its white blue feather mane as wind congregated around them and turned them into long locks with more than a bit like tendrils.

The monster that appeared before us was undoubtedly a griffon, but instead of making me feel intimidated by the sight, the aura it exuded instead calmed me like a cool breeze on a summer day. Once wind began to naturally surround it, the creature looked even more regal, as if it was the sovereign of this wind-covered place.

M-Mana Eyes.

Information blocked

It was like an instinct. I murmured the skill activation in my head as if I had to do it, only to come out empty-handed.

[“I am the A rank [Tempestral Sky-Winged Griffon], Assurfel, princess of the Kargrxymor bloodline and scion of the Belzac bloodline. Drangleic had told me you children were with good manners, but such rudeness… Then again, instincts rule us apex predators, correct?”] A voice entered my head, heating up my cheeks in a manner of seconds.

“Princess Hestia?! Miss Saori?!” King Drangleic looked at us incredulously, but all I could do was facepalm myself.

“I-I apologize. We didn’t do it maliciously, I promise!” Saori tried to defend us, but King Drangleic still frowned, massaging his head as if he had a headache.

“I understand that, but I had warned you of how—”

But before King Drangleic could scold us, Muraina chimed in.

“Enough, King Drangleic. Even I had to hold myself back from using my [Identify]. Strong beings are naturally wary of each other, and our griffon king here was not holding back with his boasting.”

[“The elf is correct, Drangleic. The throne has weakened your instincts more than you think, my descendant. Dragonkin and Gryphonkin have never gotten along since Kargryxmor’s time, and Belzac was known to protect his forest from even griffons. It is only natural for the young to be warier of the old and experienced.”]

‘Never gotten along?’

“U-Uhm, I would like to sincerely apologize for our actions. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, my name is Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor. B rank,” I curtsied, trying to not seem like a ruffian of a teen.

“As do I, Griffon King Assurfel. For coming into your territory and showing such discourtesy, that was horrible out of place for us,” Saori followed up. “It is a pleasure. My name is Saori Segawa.”

In the Belzac forest, Saori and I learned that if we wandered into another monster’s territory, fighting was pretty much an assured thing. Nobody liked intruders, especially aggressive monsters.

Our survival instincts made us act on what we had learned there, and gathering information was usually the first thing we did. Just like when I first met the leviathan’s tentacle or those wyverns. I had to force that habit out of myself when we came to Firwood, but if you had been there, if you had seen a monster in the form of a typhoon appear before you, you would have done the same.

Muraina bowed. “Griffon king Assurfel, as the representative of the Saelari for Artorias, I am honored to finally be able to meet the former ruler of Avitor peaks. I am Muraina Yvette Groveshield, a Haireti general of Saelariel.”

When Assurfel landed on the ground, the whirlwind around him ripped through rock and any vegetation around him. It looked like nothing could enter his zone of influence. Upon getting a better look at him, I saw that he was even larger than my dragon form. If he had transformed back at his home, the wind around him would have definitely destroyed all the grass and flowers.

How thoughtful.

[“Good to meet all of you, my guests. Now, with the introductions over, let us speak about the rats sneaking around inside the kingdom. Drangleic, begin,”] Assurfel ordered.

“Yes, Ancestor,” Drangleic bowed, gesturing to Ulquint and Armado to start. The griffon king orders his descendant to do something and he delegates that job to his advisors. Sure enough, that’s ruling for you.

“Princess Hestia, after we received information from you that the demonkin were responsible for the sabotage, we increased our search to the point that we rooted out several conspirators of the accidents around the kingdom. Most of them had relationships in some way with a certain person from the Empire,” Armado explained.

“However, as you might have heard, all the dukes, aside from Duke Greenveil, had to promptly return to their duchies last night. This might be the worry of an old man, but I don’t think this is a coincidence,” Ulquint stated, something I nodded too. “Something is happening, my ladies, your Majesties. And aside from Duke Greenveil, whose most worrisome problems were solved by you, Griffonpeak had to wish six of our seven dukes a safe trip.”

“That is more than a coincidence, really. Have you heard anything about the Lycerepth, Lord Ulquint?” Saori asked in my stead.

“Yes. In fact, after they routinely went to Shaturein to gather information on this Hamil, we found out that some of them have been meeting up with Cardinal Bennard. In particular, Judge Pestrodus and a few of his assistants.”

Pestrodus? Then again, he is the leader of the whole group. But was he really the person? He seemed too loyal to the Empire to be a demonkin, although, Klea’Hatma had warned me demonic mana was around him.

“I concur, but I presume you haven’t been able to find any evidence on him?” Muraina assumed. Saori had already told her about Klea’Hatma’s information after the Shaturein trip. “My trip to Shaturein was slightly more fruitful. Hamil Czecsics — born and raised as a merchant’s son in Giernich’s capital Zharlgharlein. Since it bordered the Folschreck Empire while the empire was still expanding its borders, it was one of the first countries to be conquered. Shaturein’s pillars had done their research, you see.”

Muraina explained that the possible reason why Hamil came to Artorias was to flee his parent’s enemies, who conspired and killed his parents using the influence of a few aristocrats. Artorias was the perfect place for him to hide, since not only was the Empire’s influence weak in the kingdom but there was also a vast undercity in Shaturein — a haven for a refugee like him, and a brilliant location to begin his revenge.

After joining the former pillar’s guild and rebrand it into International Desires, not only did the former guild master die but his business boomed into a huge success through his Empire-based connections, though they were mostly shady ones. However, what was interesting was the fact the pillar’s death coincided with a visit of the lycerepth.

“Oh, I remember that one,” King Drangleic interjected. “The Empire was launching a campaign to retake the forts taken over by the Beastmen Alliance. It was during my father’s rule. They ‘requested’ that we ‘donate’ recruits to the cause. Since we were vassals, under heavy scrutiny too, there was never an option to refuse.”

Ulquint nodded. “The lycerepth and a representative were sent to speak with us about the details. Many young men and women never returned from that campaign, and those who did come back, told us of how they were sent in like fodder. I regret to this day how I urged King Vendrick to accept those demands.”

“Weakening us by eliminating our younger soldiers and mages. Dishonorable methods, but it reminded our Kingdom that we had to push the alliances with the dwarves and elves,” Armado explained.

If they hadn’t accepted the terms, their disloyalty would have been proven and they would have been persecuted. However, when they accepted it, they lost many lives as a result. This whole situation was just despicable.

Muraina continued, “My information broker assumes Hamil had been in contact with a lycerepth agent since then. Do you remember the agents sent during that time, Lord Ulquint?”

“Pestrodus and his team were the ones who came at that time, Lady Muraina. I cannot forget that day, and I cannot forget the faces of the Empire representatives sent to give us that ultimatum.”

“Hmm, coincidences are funny, huh?” Muraina then pulled out a parchment from her satchel. “Saori, here is a list of residences Hamil could be in. His public and hidden ones. We will strike at them to extract the worm. Lord Ulquint, here is a list of people Hamil has been conspiring with, including a very important person — Cardinal Bennard.”

“Are you serious, Lady Muraina?!” King Drangleic exclaimed.

“Hamil burned most of his documents, but before he could burn everything, Mister Blackreach’s executives broke into his house with multiple enforcers. My information broker charged me a high price for all of this information. Here, use it well, and take it as a sign of my goodwill, King Drangleic.”

“Haha,” King Drangleic laughed. “I will, may the Goddess’s light bless you, Lady Muraina. Lord Ulquint, there are a significant number of nobles on the list. This Hamil has also noted the people the cardinal has been interacting with. This will be problematic, but I presume you can handle this?”

Nobles? I guess Charleslyt would count, too, huh? I mean, the whole situation at the arena was because of those two.

“After the stress they are facing in their own territories right now, the dukes will surely aid us. It shall be done, My King.” Ulquint bowed.

But the real issue was still before us. Even after we got rid of all the human conspirators, there was still the biggest hurdle before us.

“Then, what should we do about the lycerepth? How will we lure the demonkin out and how should we fight him? That person is a demonkin of envy, somebody who can transform their appearance. We don’t even know how strong he is,” I brought up.

[“Your worry is unnecessary for a dragon, Princess Hestia.”]

The sound of turbulent wind increased the moment Assurfel flapped his wings, as if he was showing his powers off. He looked down and spoke, [“A nuisance in my domain shall be destroyed. This land belongs to my family and I, and I shall pluck off the serpent’s head as it brandishes its fangs. Bring the blight to me. Destruction is their only destiny.”]

“Ancestor, a normal demonkin might be naturally stronger than a human, but they aren’t almighty like a demon. This one is most likely not as strong as a prince of sin. The Lionheart order is enough,” King Drangleic argued.

[“Foolishness, Drangleic!”] Assurfel replied with a scornful tone. [“They have caused harm to our domain and are scratching onto our post like a spiteful rat. That faefolk incident was caused by demonkin influence. Now another ant dares to harm us, now with its master by its side. Crush them with your full might, send the enemy a warning.”]

The griffon then turned his away from Drangleic and towards Saori and me. [“So did Kargryxmor. So did Belzac. Bring them to your heel, would you not agree, scions of, oh, great beasts?”]

“You speak as if you know them, King Assurfel,” I responded.

[“I am not of that era, Princess Hestia. However, stories have been passed down my lineage. About the story of how Kargryxmor defeated my ancestor, a great SS rank ruler of the sky. The blood feud between dragonkin and gryphonkin started then when the black tyrant took down his rival. Might is all there is in our world, my fellow beasts.”]

I remembered Antonio, a hippogryph knight, mentioning how his mount didn’t like wyverns in general and that it affected its liking for me. If Kramps really went around killing rivals to his status as the Black Tyrant of the Sky, it was hardly surprising that some species would dislike dragonkins.

“I-I’m sorry about that. I—” I wanted to apologize but Assurfel interrupted me.

[“You do not need to apologize. You weren’t the one to do any of that, Princess Hestia. Miss Saori is a spawn of Belzac’s blood but she wasn’t the one to kill my ancestors when they tried to challenge for hunting ground. We may be their descendants, but we are our own beasts. Old rivalries has no bearing on the present, and regardless of the era, we must fight to preserve what we love and desire.”]

If it were for my friends and family, even if they were gods, I will not allow myself to lose them.

“You would defend Artorias with everything, right?” I asked.

[“With my life. This is my lover’s, my daughter’s, my grandchild’s, my descendants’ home. The storm wind will strike all who endangers them, while blessing my allies with swift winds.”]

I nodded then turned to King Drangleic. “Better safe than sorry, King Drangleic. Have you fought a demonkin before?”

“Hmm, I acquiesce, Princess Hestia, haaaa,” King Drangleic sighed before straightening his back. “Then we should move. The early birds catches the worm. I shall lead the Lionheart knights to arrest the lycereptors and Cardinal Bennard for conspiring with a criminal. Lady Hestia, you will lead your party with Lady Muraina to capture Hamil. If you can, bring as much evidence as you can find.”

“Your Majesty, I know the urgency of the situation, but if we were to arrest Judge Pestrodus and his lycerepthors, that would mean going against the Empire. We will face serious consequences, even if it is justified,” Ulquint pointed out.

“Enough with your worry, Ulquint,” but Lord Armado intervened. “If we can expose the demonkin for everybody to see, even the Empire cannot punish us so easily. Even if they would try to silence us for knowing this, we can then fall back on our allies. If,” here the lord paused, stressing the word before looking to the sole elf representative, “your word holds true, Lady Muraina.”

“Do not worry, Lord Armado. In fact, an action like this would probably garner you some favor from the rest of the Saelari. The dwarves, on the other hand, would appreciate you keeping your word. There will be some help, I’ll make sure of that,” Muraina spoke with full confidence, even giving me a thumbs up for some reason.

With everything sorted out, the only thing left was to execute the plan. It was time for us to—

“King Drangleic! Your Majesty!”

We were fast, but it seems that we were not fast enough.

“Lord Ulquint! Lord Armado! I have an urgent message!”

From underneath this mountain top, a loud shout echoed through the area, drawing everybody’s attention. Assurfel noticed this and used his cry to signal the griffon the knight was riding on, letting him know where we were.

“Your Majesty! An emergency!” The knight and griffon were completely out of breath, as if they had flown to this place without taking a break. “An emergency! Griffonpeak is being attacked!”

“““What?!””” The three nobles exclaimed.

“Speak, Lad!” Armado ordered.

“A giant monster is attacking farms and slums at this very second! Deformed monsters suddenly emerged from the ground within the lower city’s red-light district, swarming to the residential and market district!” the knight announced. “Reports have also arrived that among the monsters were also the undead, Sire!”

14 human and beastmen followers lost

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 2764

O-Oh no…!

My eyes widened in terror. Our enemy had taken action before we could.

[“It begins. Drangleic, bring everybody out of the dungeon and defend the city. I will join once I secure Lia’s safety. Storm’s winds to your wings!”] Assurfel’s wings flapped and in a blink of an eye, he flew away.

At the same time, wind began to surround all of us in a bubble, flying us towards the exit of the dungeon. There was no time to take a breath. Once we were outside, I cast [Unheilige Engel] to help Saori and Muraina fly with Tasianan and me. King Drangleic and the others, on the other hand, had to visit the knight in order to mobilize the troops.

As we soared into the sky, from there, we saw the devastation Griffonpeak was experiencing.

Monsters, similar to the ones Davison had, were released into the city, ravaging ordinary people by the seconds. Zombies and skeletons fought against adventurers and soldiers, destroying each other and dwindling their numbers. The undead were not regenerating, but their resilience made it hard to kill them.

57 human and beastmen followers lost

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 2707

No, no, no, no, no, no, no! No, this can’t be fucking happening!

But that was not all. No, these were just the footmen. Once the knights and mages arrive, these monsters would stand no chance. However the real threat was the monster looming over the walls, a bloodcurdling scream issuing forth from its mouth as it trampled on everything with its four legs.

A centaur, or something like that. Four spider-like legs armored in carapace crushed buildings like lego pieces, while its shield-like pincers swept things from its sight. A giant scorpion stinger in the form of a needle was on its tail, reminiscent of certain monsters, as it sundered the earth with every strike.

“G-Geisenlarg king,” Muraina uttered. “B-but how? We destroyed the whole nest! This isn’t possible!”

But what was worse about this creature was its appearance. Unlike the green shell of a geisenlarg, this creature’s carapace was pitch-black like the night and adorned with a mana veil like a king’s cape. The most horrifying part was the bone antennae protruding from its head, holding up the disfigured skull of a bird.

78 human and beastmen followers lost

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 2629

“P-People are dying,” I let out, horrified at how the death of everybody was made even more pronounced through the constant System messages. As if they were taunting me for letting them all die like this.

“Hestia!”

“Lady Hestia!”

In the very next second, I felt two hands shaking my shoulders. When I turned my head around, I saw Saori and Tasianna giving me a firm glance — telling me to calm down. I clenched my teeth and nodded to them.

This wasn’t the time to cower.

“That geisenlarg is A rank. I don’t know how all of this happened, but it seems we all need to hurry this up.” Muraina summed up as she stepped off my [Unheilige Engel], using [Air Walk] to stand on air. She then whistled, summoning her Whisperia to her side from a nearby dungeon entrance. “Let Krymdar and me handle this for now, everybody. I don’t think our jolly fellows would be very surprised that an attack would come today.”

I nodded. When I saw her nock an arrow on her bow, her eyes looked like she had experienced battles like this before. From her long age, this probably was true. This was not a time to argue.

“Saori. Tasianna. We need Aurora back together! Find them and let’s rendezvous at the red-light district. I need to make sure Eshe is alright in all of this,” I issued my orders to my friends, before looking at all the monsters on the streets. “And… destroy every single one of these damn monsters!‘

“Hai, Hestia Oujo-sama! (Yes, Princess Hestia!)”

“By your will, Lady Hestia!”

“Hrmm, hrmm, hrmm, hrmm.”

The sound of metal and fire. Calming as always. Ha, Bleidla, once I’m done with this thing, my only wish will be to see your damn face! Hahahahaha!

The anvil is my home. It has always been my home. The hammering of metal and the flicking flames inside the furnace. Music to my ears. This is my passion, and I am honored even more than I can provide my skills to my benefactors.

Saori’s weapon should be done soon… Hmm? An intruder?

Nonetheless, a blacksmith cannot work in peace forever. The peace would usually be interrupted by the cheerful voices of my newest companions. Who would have thought that a dwarf like me would have the luck to travel with young adventurers nowadays? It was only all the more surprising that all of them are young lasses.

But not right now. What interrupted my focus wasn’t my party members, but a couple of unwanted guests. I etched a rune on my wagon to warn me if somebody intruded into it, giving me enough time to prepare.

And today, I will face some of them.

“Haaaa, bladdarg. Better clean this up before the lasses come back.”

I put on my armor and swing the memento of my cousin on my shoulders. After putting on my helmet, I was about to leave my smithy when I stopped my steps and turned around. I went over to Ellaine’s workbench and picked up something from it with my spare hands.

Why not bring this out for a test run. Hahahahahaha!

A dwarf is at his strongest at home.

“Thank you, Josine. Now, go and tell father and mother that I need to rendezvous with Lady Hestia and the others!” I ordered Josine, my personal maid.

“Yes, My Lady. Please, be careful.”

Call it a gut feeling, but was I ever glad that I told Josine to bring my armor with us when I decided to help father and mother with the yeast bakery. They thought I was being paranoid, but honestly, I was now ready to join the others to fight against the threat happening inside Griffonpeak.

As I was about to leave, however, somebody suddenly greeted me in the hallway — it was Amelia.

“Ellaine, you’re going out?” she asked me.

“Yes, Amelia. As you can see, those things are attacking the city and I need to join up with Lady Hestia and the others of my party. They will most likely want to fight the invaders back and I have a duty to defend the capital of our Kingdom,” I answered. Every word coming out of my mouth was true.

“…” But Amelia frowned, looking at me as if I was crazy. “Ellaine, you aren’t a knight. Why are you endangering your life like this? Just like when we were young, you would always act like this.”

I was stunned. I had not expected Amelia to suddenly bring up the past. A past I regretted being unable to live up to anymore.

“Is this your new hobby? Running around to face some unknown threat like you're trying to prove something to everybody? You are just like your brother, but I’m not sure if you got it from him or he got it from you.” Amelia held her palm on her face, massaging it to hide the frown she was showing.

Now it’s about brother?

“…”

I didn’t know what was going on with Amelia, but from the look of it, it was likely that she was worried about me. Me? The one who abandoned her because of my own low self-esteem? I didn’t think I deserved it anymore due to how bad of a friend I was, but if she was worrying about me, then I couldn’t let that continue.

“Amelia, do you remember what I told you when we were small? That I wanted to become a knight just like my father?” I reminded her of how I admitted that to her. “Although Father did stop training me, I didn’t want to give up that dream. I did some training by myself afterwards, trying to copy the moves that Father taught to Brother, but when I didn’t show any real progress, I gave up. When I joined up with Lady Hestia, you could say that I was trying to prove my self-worth. But…”

“But what?”

“But I eventually learned that all I was doing was tormenting myself. I was so caught up in an endless cycle of self-hate that I wasn’t able to move on. I still think I am trying to prove that point to myself, to prove my dream of a knight could still happen. Maybe my sense of justice is just that, but to find that out, I need time. I need time to figure it out.”

“And that’s why you’re jumping into this fight, knowing it might kill you, Ellaine?”

“I was a bad friend once, I won’t do it again, Amelia. I betrayed you, I don’t want to commit that same sin once again with Lady Hestia and the others of Aurora. Besides, I have the strength now to protect father and mother… of course, you too, Amelia.”

“E-Ellaine…” Amelia closed her eyes, breathing in deeply before opening them up again. “Ellaine, I need to tell you something before you go. Your brother, Jonathan. He and I—”

But in that single second, two voices blocked me from hearing the rest.

[“Ellaine watch out! Behind you! Use [Musclemass] now!”]

“Sorry, kid, your head is the only thing not protected.”

My skills activated, warning me to respond right now. But when I tried to turn my head around, something heavy pushed against the back of my head. A headache erupted and I noticed the ground coming closer and closer.

Bam!

“Grugak!”

The headache intensified. Red fluids shot out of my nose and mouth — blood, my blood. It streamed out of my nose like a river, creating a red puddle where bits of my teeth got washed away by it.

“Kyyyyyyaaaaaaah! Ellaine!” A scream. I moved my eyes.

[“Ellaine, stay still! I protected your head from the impact, but you need to stay still! Regena— Dammit, Aurena! Released that power, already! The girl needs that power right now! She needs to regenerate! Aurena!”]

‘Hyuk! W-Who are you?! Answer me!“ Amelia was flustered. She trembled as she saw a man approach her. Somehow, this man looked familiar to me despite how wobbly my vision was.

Who is—? Shaturein? Who is he?

“A matchmaker, apparently. Sorry, kid,” the man answered. His voice too was familiar.

“Wha— Ghagk! No…” A swift punch to her stomach, knocking Amelia unconscious. The man picked Amelia up effortlessly with one hand before turning back to me.

Move. Move. Why can’t I move myself? Move, please!

“Sorry, a job is a job, kid. Even if this one sucks, haa. Sorry.”

And with a swift stomp, darkness came for me.

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Chapter 238: Griffonpeak in Danger.

A note from AbyssRaven

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"Arrrrrrh! Help! HELP!”

“Uuuuogh, he-help me. Pleas— Don’t leave me…”

“Kuuuh! Kraf! Kraf!”

54 human and beastmen followers lost

Total follower count updated. Total follower of [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 2575

If 75 more were to die, I might just lose the milestone reward. I can’t let this happen any further! Halo of Consecration!

A flame halo formed on my head as white flames burst from me, destroying any chimeric monsters the moment I landed on the streets. Of course, given how much everybody was already panicking, even to the point where some people were being trampled on, my sudden appearance startled everybody and made things even worse in spite of my intentions.

The first thing I had to do was to calm people down.

Remembering what happened in Caederaille, I clad my wings in white flames before releasing a wave of fire to burn away any enemies and heal any of the wounded. I jumped up into the air, taking myself as high as possible before using [Aerokinesis] to amplify my voice.

“People of Griffonpeak, the Goddess’s Champion is here with you! My white flame is the sign of my allegiance to her, so I ask of you to embrace the white grace it holds in its warmth! Move to the merchant district! Your King’s knights are creating a defensive position over there! Move, and walk in the Goddess’s light!”

[Sanctified Blaze: Halo of Consecration]’s effect activated, applying a [Sanctified Blaze] on everybody within my zone of influence. White flames erupted from people’s bodies, healing them of any wounds they received.

While they did panic at the start, my announcement and the fact it didn’t burn them seemed to have calmed them down. Their mood even turned around when the flames around their bodies jumped off to burn any approaching monster or undead, searing it to ash in a matter of seconds.

They need Stamina to run!

“Is this the fated battle, the light shines ♫

It’s blinding my sight ♫

But I’ve gotta hold on, the stage calls ♫

The cries of a thousand, the flames of war will descend ♫”

[Music Resonation (Moderate)] [Stage Fever (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

This was where my [Idol] skill shined — supporting multiple people at once with music. Among my three spellsongs, [The Will to Fight and Survive] was the best for motivating people and giving them the infinite Stamina to run away.

As the flicker of hope was regained in these people’s eyes, it quickly faltered once again as more hideous monsters suddenly appeared. Large undead land-bats and felwings appeared suddenly with a few crypt horror-like zombies coming straight out of something from ResidentXBiohazard. Just this sight alone was enough to terrify people.

Before the monsters could do anything, however, I swooped down, cleaved them like butter with my flaming glaive and shot down the remainders with its gun function. Everything had to be done with white flames right now. I had to use my status as Aurena’s champion to help these people first.

“T-Thank you, champion! Thank you very much for rescuing us!”

“Lady Hestia, please, my husband is stuck in our apartment after rescuing us! Please, save him!”

“Ahhhh, thank you, thank you! Argh, this pain… I thought I was about to die! Thank you, may the Goddess’s light be with you!”

49 human and beastmen have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total follower of [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 2624

The citizens of Griffonpeak still ran away from the threats in terror, but I managed to prevent them from trampling on others, or even sacrificing each other for a moment of safety. Still, from the cries I could hear all around me, I knew my job was far from done. No, the city was too large, it was impossible for me to help all of them at once.

All I could do was to save those in front of me as I made my way to Eshe. I saw adventurers and soldiers helping out, but even then, my follower count was still falling. The situation was dire for the city, and it seemed like the knights hadn’t been properly mobilized yet.

What was taking them all so long?!

25 human and beastmen followers lost

Total follower count updated. Total follower of [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 2599

Dammit, some of them are regenerating now. Why? I need to burn them to cinders quickly, at least they can’t heal after some holy fire!

The threat was a mix of undead corpses along with monsters similar to the abominations Davison kept experimenting on in his basement, though the majority of the enemies were definitely the undead. While they hadn’t been regenerating at first, they were all doing it now. This enhanced resilience was making it impossible for the adventurers to hold them back.

Holy fire was the best cure for this pest. Anything burned by my holy elemental spells or flames quickly withered and stayed in the ground indefinitely. The militia and common soldiers began to hail me for my help, but the thundering roars of the giant geisenlarg king gave everybody a grim reminder of the reality of the situation.

The battlefield in the lower city was just the beginning, a prelude to the threat behind the walls.

I should be fighting there! But… Eshe has to come first! I need to make sure she and the children are safe!

Most of my acquaintances in Griffonpeak were either from the nobility or the adventurer guild, both fully capable of defending themselves. I didn’t need to worry about them yet, but Eshe was another matter. The orphanage was close to the walls, and most of the monster attacks were in the market district, not the merchant or noble districts. Even the geisenlarg looming around was a big problem, too.

94 human and beastmen have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total follower of [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 2693

But I couldn’t help myself. Everybody was suffering, I couldn’t just leave them to their fate. It was at this point that I was the most thankful for the fact that I developed my parallel minds, magic abilities, and flame power the most. Saving people becomes much easier when everything could be done remotely and with ten other mes.

“Prayer!”

[Blessing of the Goddess of Light (Moderate)]inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

It was done quickly, as I only needed to give people the energy and motivation to move their legs. You could say whatever you wanted about faith and religion, but when it mattered most, using it to my advantage to push the average citizen forward was a real boon.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Job [Incandescent Blaze] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 2]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Cleansing and incinerating any enemy in my way, I eventually made my way to the orphanage. This could have been done so much faster if I had flown here. I knew what I did was the correct decision, but I was worried sick for Eshe and the orphanage, and that meant bad thoughts.

“Harrr! Flow of Sand’s Blade!”

“Sandstorm Dance!”

Monsters were swarming the orphanage, growling as they went on a frenzy, attacking anything in the neighbourhood. Fortunately, three blades sliced and diced anything attempting to enter the orphanage, cleaving through undead and chimeric flesh alike. Once they were dead, purifying light engulfed their remains, preventing them from regenerating.

Sir Alikar and Dame Anivh!

They weren’t in their [Honored, Sworn Knight] form, but they were still slaughtering everything without an issue with their khopeshes, leaving Eshe to cast [Purify] the corpses, an anti-undead spell gained from [Holy Magic Lv. 10].

After I helped out by cleaving a few monsters apart myself, I greeted them, glad to see them safe, only for Alikar and Anivh to stand between Eshe and me. They suddenly asked me how our first meeting went without any warning.

Huh? Are they testing me?

I answered them, describing the time when I first met Anivh back when I first snuck into Griffonpeak to have Aurena fix Ellaine’s issue, before meeting Alikar and Eshe at the altar room. Satisfied, they let me through. Naturally, Eshe scolded them, but Alikar used that chance to whisper, “Apologies, Lady Hestia. That morphling is an issue, you see.”

I understood his reasoning. If I was that demonkin, letting me through would have been a major issue. Sure, it was kinda a leap since I showed them my glaive and white flames, but it was better to be safe than sorry, especially if Eshe’s safety was their primary objective.

“Lady Eshe, you should go to the merchant district. The cathedral there should be able to protect you unlike at the orphanage!” I told her after hugging her, elated to see her safe and sound.

“The kids, Lady Hestia. There are too many, and Sir Alikar and Dame Anivh can’t protect them on the way,” Eshe explained. “Staying at the orphanage was the best choice in our situation.”

That was the perfect reason. Eshe would never abandon the kids, no matter what happened.

“Then use the subspace! I gave you those runes for your safety, but I also permitted the kids to enter the [Room] so just put them inside and run to the cathedral!” I pointed out to Eshe’s surprise.

“I-I haven’t tried it out. I wasn’t sure how the runes worked, so I didn’t want to accidentally break them.”

Oh verdammt, maybe I should have told her how to use them!

“Give them to me, please, I’ll show you.” As her knights continued destroying monsters, Eshe handed me the [Room] runes and we entered the orphanage. My halo was still active; it should be supporting her knights well enough.

“Big Sis!”

“You’re safe, you’re safe! Thank the Goddess.”

The young kids ran up to me the moment they saw me, trembling and weeping as they let their stress out. I soothed them for a moment before telling them that we had to hurry up. I threw the runes on the ground, activating the portal.

“Everybody, please come in.” I guided the kids and Eshe into the subspace. Having been brought into the community area, they were pretty surprised to see such a large area for them to stay in. Even the kids stopped being scared for a moment.

“Eshe, bring everybody inside. Your knights, too. I’ll carry the runes to the cathedral, and I’ll set you off there.” Eshe, the caretakers, and I dashed out of the church and began bringing the kids into the subspace; however, the evacuation didn’t exactly go too smoothly since a lot of the kids were being a bit too selfish for my taste.

Some of them didn’t want to leave their toys or small possessions behind, especially the older kids who had jobs. The money was important for their future, and they would rush into their rooms and grab their stashes out. This significantly slowed down the process.

Only when a few monsters broke the walls of the church did the kids’ survival instincts finally kick in. My arrival seemed to have calmed them down a bit too much. After I dispatched the monsters, we managed to get everybody into the subspace. As Eshe and I were about to call her knights into the [Room], too, somebody suddenly flew over to me, calling down from above.

A griffon and gargoyle? Huh? Arcanuess and Arcaliess Helvas?

Arcanuess Helvas and his wife flew over to us with Tasianna, Saori, and Grimnir, whose armor was splattered with blood for some reason.

“Lady Hestia, have you seen my daughter or Lady Amelia?!” the Arcanuess shouted, looking pale as a ghost.

Huh?

“The servant told us that they saw a shadow of a man or something leaving the Greenveil mansion after we discovered that Ellaine and Amelia were missing!” Arcaliess Helvas informed us. “We originally thought Ellaine left to join up with your party, but when Miss Saori arrived, she told us she wasn’t with us!”

Saori continued, standing on a floating ice disk with Grimnir. “I thought she might have gone over to Grimnir to regroup with him, only to find Grimnir standing over the corpses of multiple black-robed men. Assassins, Hestia. Assassins attacked Helvas mansion, killing a few servants before invading our RV!”

“What, you can’t be serious!” I cried out.

“By Crustacia’s twin locks, lass, it’s the truth. Those damn bandits entered the RV, unaware of the subspace, so I managed to eavesdrop on them mentioning that bladdarg Hamil was their boss. I captured them, but they killed themselves before I could get any information out of them,” Grimnir explained, showing off the blood on his hammer and armor. “We ought to hurry up, the two girls aren’t in a good situation if some invader took out Ellaine.”

Scheiße, why is everything going wrong?! Ellaine, where are you?! Please, be safe…

Using common sense, Ellaine couldn’t be dead yet. The System always informed me when somebody gained my [Hestia’s Retainer] title, above and beyond what I recieved for gaining a new follower. I also get a system notice whenever one of my followers dies. I didn’t know if it was true or not, but if Ellaine had died, then it stood to reason that there should have been a message or two to inform me of it. I had to hold onto this hope. I had to.

“Lady Hestia, please, go. My knights and I can make it the rest of the way, so you should focus on saving Lady Ellaine,” Eshe urged me after seeing me look up in horror.

“W-What, no! Get into the [Room], Eshe!” In my anxiousness, I dropped her proper address. “If you walk through the city right now, you’ll only put yourself and your knights in danger! I can keep you safe while you are in the subspace.”

I couldn’t afford to lose another friend.

“No, I cannot, Lady Hestia,”

But Eshe objected.

“While I’m inside that area, I will not be able to help anybody. As a saintess, my duty is to the people. As the Goddess’s servant, I must mend their minds and bodies!”

“That’s stupid! You’re risking your lives by going through this hell! The monsters are everywhere, and you don’t know when a stronger monster might appear! Eshe, please, get into the subspace!”

“No!” Eshe shouted, putting her foot down. “While you need to save Lady Ellaine, I also have to prevent the worst for the kids of this city. This fighting… is the worst for any family. As you said, you would never know what threat will appear, but that is exactly why I must be free to act. I am a saintess of the Goddess of Light, I am there to bring hope and to banish the shadows. Every child deserves a family, they don’t deserve to live the life of an orphan, Lady Hestia!”

I was left speechless.

Family…

Eshe went back into the orphanage, picked up the runes and put them into her satchel. She then walked back to me, telling me to go. “Lady Ellaine is in danger, Lady Hestia! You need to prioritize your loved ones! Your friends! Trust in my knights to keep me safe!”

“Lady Hestia, we must go!” Arcanuess Helvas urged me. He was biting his lips in worry, causing them to bleed.

“I-I… Sir Alikar! Dame Anivh! Here, take these! Use them well!” I handed them as many holy flame grenades as they could carry, explaining to them how they functioned. “They can act as emergency healing! Please, use them liberally!”

““Yes, Lady Hestia! We shall protect the beacon of our light! May the Goddess’s light guide you through this chaos!””

“May the Goddess guide you through all of this! Lady Eshe… please, stay safe.” I hugged her one last time before flapping my wings, shooting up to join the others.

As we made our way to the red-light district, on our way to capture Hamil and retrieve Ellaine and Amelia, I suddenly realized something.

“Lord Helvas, Lady Helvas! Why are you coming with us! You need to help protect Eshe on her way to the cathedral!” I ordered them, still unnerved by Eshe’s inclination to be a hero in this situation.

“This is the second time you ask us to stay put when a child of ours went missing, Lady Hestia! Even if it’s you, this is an outright spit to our faces!” Arcanuess Helvas exploded, showing none of the calm and collected nature I was used to seeing in him.

“W-What?! Don’t you see what’s going on in the city, Lord Helvas! The city is in danger with all these monsters. Where are the damn knights?! I can’t see a single hippogryph or griffon knight descending down to help! You’re a knight of the realm, you need to help out!” At this point, I was only trying to push them away. To make sure they wouldn’t be harmed when we went down to Shaturein, but from the way I said it, it came out all wrong.

“Impertinence! Not only is our daughter, but even our son is missing right now! Jonathan was not at Lord Charleslyt’s mansion, we couldn’t make sure he was safe! And now you are asking me to calm down and ignore my family?! My children?! Lady Hestia, how dare—!”

“Andre, stop it!” Arcaliess Helvas interrupted her husband. “Lady Hestia, enough! We’ve made up our minds! Ellaine and Lady Amelia were kidnapped. Lord Duke Greenveil has sent out all available help to search for those two even while he is preparing himself to fight that abominable monster outside the wall! Parents are sacrificing themselves for either duty or their family, and my husband and I have chosen our daughter!”

Once again, the reasoning revolved around family and happiness. Eshe and the Helvas parents — both were thinking about their children in this case. I just couldn’t speak up against them. I couldn’t. Something was gnawing in my chest, something that made it hard for me to speak.

I nodded to the Helvas parents, accepting their reason. They loved their children too much. They searched for Jonathan for a whole day and night, not sleeping one bit and they even agreed to entrust us to search for him afterwards. Now, with their son missing and daughter swept away under their noses, how could I tell them off?

I kept silent and continued flying forward. Moments before we reached the red-light district, however, a sudden explosion of black mana erupted from the opposite side of where the geisenlarg king was attacking. Saori told us to stop, giving her some time to peer into the distance, noticing multiple large figures climbing up on buildings.

She couldn’t make them out, but her attention was more on the explosion. That black mana caused Saori’s fur to stand up.

“All of these undead. This can only be the work of that necromancer. I should have realized this earlier,” Saori uttered.

“But, Miss Saori, you already slew that necromancer. You disintegrated her body as you said, they can’t be alive!” Tasianna argued.

“Nay, Tasianna,” Grimnir interjected. “There are two possibilities — either this is the work of another necromancer, or what Saori actually killed wasn’t a normal necromancer, but a child who was strong enough to endure Ilsaphone’s soul extraction ritual.”

“A lich?” Tasianna’s eyes widened. Saori bit her lips, looking in the distance at the number of monsters flooding out from that location.

“Lord Helvas, do you think the nobles will still try to object to sending the knights down to the lower city?” Saori asked, frowning at what she had to say.

“The executive right to send out the knights without the bureaucracy is held by Lord Duke Lecartiglio, as the marshal of the realm, and His Majesty, our King. Both of them must agree to the decision before anything can happen, but Lord—”

“King Drangleic told me all the dukes outside of Duke Greenveil went back to their territory due to all the strife popping up everywhere. Fucking hell, did that damn demonkin plan all of this?! Is that piece of shit cardinal really sabotaging everything now?!” I roared out, feeling more and more sickened by that fat piece of shit.

“Why are you speaking of the cardinal, Lady Hestia?” Arcanuess Helvas asked.

“Lord Helvas, at the meeting inside the dungeon, we received information that criminal Hamil has been interacting with the cardinal. There were also multiple documents on nobles who dealt with Hamil. There is a chance all of this is going exactly as the demonkins want to,” Saori explained, causing the two Helvas parents to scowl.

Saori then looked back at the explosion. “You remember how I told you that necromancer was interested in my title [Watched by Edna]? I have a feeling she’s looking for a rematch. Hestia, I’ll—”

“Just come back alive, alright?” I answered. Somebody had to take care of the source of all these undead and monsters. If the damn knights weren’t helping ‘cause of a stupid, unflexible rule, then we had to do something about it ourselves.

“Got it, of course. I beat her once, I’ll do it again.” Saori smiled to calm me down. “Don’t forget, Muraina mentioned that the lycerepthors are down in Shaturein right now. If the demonkin is still among them, you will get in trouble. Also, Eithalr… avoid him at all cost, Hestia. We can’t be sure that Yanderu Eluseuss wasn’t hired by Hamil or the demonkin.”

I nodded. I wanted to avoid Eithalr at all cost after what happened. I don’t know how strong he was, and that was reason enough to not fight him if I could.

As we were about to leave, Grimnir stopped and told Saori to bring him with her, “You about to forget that I have your equipment, Saori?”

Grimnir took out two corrosive obsidian armguards, each with a large spherical hole in the middle, the perfect size to put in her twin catalysts.

“Going alone is suicide, let me come. I also need more test subjects for my new gauntlet.” Grimnir held up his left arm, showing off the power gauntlet he wore on it. As he tensed it, mana glowed blue in certain parts before steam escaped from two vents.

Did Ellaine and he finish the prototype?

When Saori nodded, Grimnir looked back at Tasianna and me. “Bring that lass back, alright? There is still much she hasn’t learned yet, and I need her back safe and sound to teach her everything my cousin knew.”

I gave him the thumbs up. “Count on it,” I said before buffing them up with my spells.

With our party once again separate, but now with two new members in Ellaine’s parents, we made our way down into Griffonpeak’s darkness.

Ellaine, we’re coming!

“Goddess Aurena, I’ve sent the subordinate gods to their respective positions. They should be supporting the subordinates of the other Origin Gods while Kargryxmor is waiting for you at the crack.”

“Good job, Istari. Make sure to keep watch over the rest of the pantheon while I’m away.”

The trials Hestia and Aurora had to face wasn’t the only tribulation happening at the same moment, as Peolynca itself was facing its own tribulation — an otherworldly tribulation.

Aurena shut her administrator window and teleported herself in a ray of light outside her divine realm, appearing in an open area with nothing but an aurora of six colored mana. Although invisible to its inhabitants, this aurora covered the whole planet of Peolynca like a force field, protecting it from outside threats. This included the beings from the Origin God’s former dimension.

And now, there was a crack in this aurora, letting a foul wind seep into the divine realm. It began corroding the mana around it, turning it into a dark purple color before small black eyes sprouted from them. Fortunately, before it could spread, a sphere of calm wind blocked its path.

[“**//*^^^’;;.....///———**))-”] Gibberish escaped from the crack, a sound of madness filled with dark powers able to corrupt most beings' minds. Assuming they weren’t creatures already used to its insanity-inducing prose.

Suddenly, out of the crack, an amoeba-like creature burst through the crack, struggling to squeeze itself through it in a frenzy, but in the next second, floating rocks struck it, ripping every piece of its body, disintegrating it at the anatomical level.

“Haaaaa, those damn fuckin’ geezers! Can’t they just leave us alone already, or are they really that desperate to get us back for what we did?!” A small woman cried out in annoyance, shaking her head and petrified twintails in exasperation.

“Well, it cannot be helped, Crustacia.” The woman next to her, a woman with an elf’s appearance and two sets of rainbow-colored wings raised her hand. The wind sphere suddenly turned into a small tornado able to contort reality and space, sucking out multiple hideous globules from the crack. “Aurena, you’re here. Could you eliminate these pests? They’re all crowding around the crack as if there was a waiting line.”

“Of course, Elder Zephira.” Light rays shone from Aurena’s hand, illuminating the figures as they struggled inside Zephira’s cyclone. In the next moment, those rays cracked with the beings, shattering into tiny pieces and leaving behind a gaping dimensional hole for Aurena to fill up with light.

She then gathered the pieces in her hand, transforming them into a crystal before throwing them over to the giant bipedal dragon towering over these three women like an apartment complex.

“Here you go, Kargryxmor, eat it up. Anything our former gods send is most likely a lesser demon, so it should have some divine energy to satiate you.”

“Mrhm,” the giant black dragon groaned before swallowing the crystal ball whole. “Before I became a god, I would have never guessed that these demons would have divine energy like this.”

“They are like our angels and subordinate gods, Kargryxmor. You gained your apotheosis through us, so your divine powers should be similar to theirs,” Aurena explained. “What makes something divine isn’t its appearance, but the followers willing to pray to it. Now hush, you need another source of divinity as your religion is declining, so here, a buffet just for you.”

The Origin God’s former home, the dimension they came from, was currently attempting to break through to Peolynca. Former allies or acquaintances, now enemies. The Origin Gods could not allow them to enter Peolynca, for it would surely cause another disaster similar to their own advent over 2000 years ago.

However, unless the six Origin Gods were all incapacitated or unable to mend this protective aurora, there was little chance for these beings to break through it. This was especially the case if Plesia and Marsven were around to handle this situation.

“They should be inside the crack right now, correct?” Aurena asked.

Crustacia nodded. “Yeah. Those two might not be able to reach the level of their former glory inside Peolynca — there is still a long time of cultivation needed — but once they return to our old home dimension even temporarily, the energy of their followers and such should be enough to strengthen them enough to fight those idiots back.”

“Yup, our duty is to support those two. To make sure they come back home safely,” Zephira added. “Haaaa, if only Plesia hadn’t punished Danterno. If he were around and not down there, he could probably provoke one of them to have them send in stronger things to kill. If I could kill a couple of them, I might be able to absorb enough divine power to outrank Marsven.”

But their casual talking ended in the next moment, as more weird eldritch monsters attempted to come through the crack. The three Goddesses readied themselves by summoning their favorite artifacts and tools of war, fully committed to protecting their new home from any threats.

But at this moment, little did Aurena know that something was happening in her divine realm. Her administration window opened up…

“So you are the griffon king, Assurfel.”

“Demonkin! You dare invade my home?! Are you powerful enough to traverse the tempest I have prepared for you?!”

The beautiful grassland filled with flowers was erased from existence as pillars of spiraling wind devastated everything in existence. Only a single house and graveyard were spared the wrath of this city-ruining power, protected by an equally powerful blessing of wind.

In the middle of the tempest’s eye, a four-winged griffon flew into the sky, eying down the small yellow horned man standing there, pushing the wind away with his magicks.

“Pah, of course I can. After all, you were the target all along, birdbrain. I swear on my blood, I, the Demonkin Prince of Pride shall take you down!”

A clash inside Griffonpeak’s dungeon was about to ensue. Humanity’s most threatening enemy from the demonkin was about to hit humanity in its most vulnerable state.

“Down with the Goddess of Light.” A small battle plea was invoked from outside the dungeon by a man in a suit with an eyed gavel emblem. He looked down at the city, having made up his mind on his two targets.

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Chapter 239: The Aurora shines through the Darkness.

A note from AbyssRaven

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9 human and beastmen followers lost

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 2684

“All of the target locations are spread throughout the whole undercity. I’ll make this quick, so get on you two.”

A map of the different locations of Hamil’s hidden bases was all Muraina was able to dig up, but that was enough of a lead for me to go on.

Descending down to Shaturein had some complications. First, Lord Helvas’s griffon couldn’t come with us and Tasianna had to stop flying so as to not expose her fairy nature to a bunch of shady cutthroats. Thankfully, it was hard to see her flying with everything going on in Griffonpeak, and the only ones who saw her like that were Eshe and her knights.

Still, Griffonpeak wasn’t the only ones dealing with the monsters, as the red-light district and Shaturein dispatched multiple gang members to subdue the monsters within their boundaries. The people living inside the undercity itself, due to how they had adapted to living amidst normal monster spawnings, were dealing with the attack far better than those living on the surface.

Regardless, it was chaotic down here, well, more chaotic than usual.

“Wooooo! Let’s go! It’s hunting time bo— Argh! Shit! Fuck!”

“That’s what ya get for being cocky, ya bloody fool! Hurghaaaa!”

“Run! Run! Leave this crap to the Blackreach guys!”

Trials and tribulations bring people together, and it was doubly so for the Shaturein people. While I saw people trampling on each other and pushing each other away to escape, there was a certain hopefulness down here. The gang members might argue even now, but they were keeping each other alive in the exact same way they did during my first visit. They were doing their job by protecting the people.

“You, get over there and reinforce that group! You! You! And you! Bring our customers into the center, but keep an eye that they don’t steal our damn stuff!”

The Blackreach guild was Shaturein’s primary defense force. From the lowly grunt to the enforcers and executives, everybody was getting into the fray to take down all the undead and experimented monsters. I could also see mages helping out.

“By the Goddess…” Lord Helvas looked at the sight of all these people fighting together with surprise. Sure, they were uncoordinated and disorderly as they fought, but at least they were defending everybody regardless if they were a rich merchant or a lowly beggar. In comparison, the knights were still being held up by those stinking nobles.

We had a perfect bird’s eye view from above here. With [Unheilige Engel], I was holding up both Helvas parents while carrying Tasianna in a bridal carry. With my rocket boosters, I blasted through the undercity towards Hamil’s hidden bases, using that wind barrier idea I got from Assurfel to prevent the three from getting acceleration stress.

At the first base, we noticed monsters crawling around the area with no one trying to subjugate them. Four-legged beasts with black globules growing from their bodies had dragged a few of their victims to this area and began devouring them in a frenzy, only stopping once they noticed me dragoon diving two of them to death.

I twisted my wrist, slashing four more of them in an arc with my glaive before raising it over my shoulder. My catalyst crackled and sparked to life as I conjured up a large flame around its tip, which I used to hammer onto the ground, causing an explosion to wipe out all the monsters at the entrance.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Job [Incandescent Blaze] has risen from [Level 2] to [Level 3]

Attributes have increased due to level up

“Let’s go.”

The inside of the large building was equally infested with those experimented monsters, who are using this place like a nest. While Lord Helvas did state that Hamil or the girls probably weren’t here, I argued that this might just be camouflage. Making the outside look derelict, meaning it’s far easier to hide a secret entrance or basement.

Still, after killing these monsters and searching the whole place, we couldn’t find anything. Even after I uprooted the building, Lord Helvas’s assessment remained true. Clicking my tongue, I blasted over to the next location… and the next… and the next.

“Drink up!” I threw two dragorades over to the Helvas’s parents, seeing as they were exerting them by killing the monsters during our searches. Lord Helvas’s advanced swordplay was a treat to see, a possible testament to how Ellaine will grow in the future, while Lady Helvas wasn’t joking when she mentioned that she was a battle-hardened mage.

At their skill level, both of them could have possibly taken out Charlelsyt in a one-v-one.

“So this is what Ellaine has been drinking all this time. It’s certainly a better training drink than potions. A more delectable taste, at least.” This was the first time either of them had a taste of the dragorade.

“Yes, dear, certainly, we can talk about the monetary worth of this drink later. First, we need to find our daughter! Then we have to, find out where Jonathan went with Lord Charleslyt!” Lord Helvas’s businessman side came out for a moment, only for his wife to remind him about our situation.

The stress was getting to both of them, it seemed. This was the fourth building we had swept through cleanly, but we still hadn’t found any sign of Ellaine. There were only two bases left on Muraina’s map and we were becoming increasingly fearful of the possibility that we wouldn’t find Ellaine or Amelia at either of them. The idea of having wasted our time was irritating.

“We’re splitting up!” I suggested.

“Lady Hestia, splitting up would be too dangerous! There are a substantial number of black mercenary companies in Shaturein, and Hamil could have hired any of them without the Blackreach guild’s permission! Even the Yanderu could be one of them,” Tasianna sternly objected to my idea.

During the slave auction, Hamil was able to hire some muscles from the Empire, which included a swordsman elementalist — who used a djinn, an eastern elemental — and the necromancer causing all this trouble with the undead. We didn’t know how much money he had left, but he had nearly been able to hire Eithalr.

Still, who knows what they were doing to Ellaine right at this moment. I was thankfully not losing any more followers, but Shaturein’s ceiling was trembling in periodic bursts. Ellaine, Amelia, and Jonathan weren’t our only worry; Griffonpeak itself could fall if we don’t hurry up.

Please, Muraina, show me why they call you the ‘Haitiri!’

Muraina never specified what her actual adventurer rank was. All I knew was she was at the very least on par with Farron and Yorshka, and possibly even stronger.

Still, we were on a timer, and wasting more time was not good.

“No, I know the risks, but the longer we continue this scavenger hunt, the more problems that will pop up! For Ellaine, Amelia, and even the whole city! There are two bases left — Tasianna you go with Arcanuess and Arcaliess Helvas to the one closest to our location,” I ordered.

“Lady Hestia?! No, I will not leave your side when there are so many possible threats nearby.” Tasianna, as loyal as always, could not agree to my demands.

Lord and Lady Helvas stayed silent. They knew my idea was the correct choice to help their child, but at the same time, Tasianna’s argument of it being too dangerous to go alone was rational.

“Tasianna, there is a 50-50 chance that Hamil will be in one of these buildings. That is our ticket to get Ellaine back! If you forgot, Klea’Hatma is still with her, and if she was kidnapped, she would have been injured. Ellaine is strong enough to defend herself, she wouldn’t have let Amelia get kidnapped without a fight.”

When you’re at your most desperate, the whispers of evil are the most seductive. The troll shaman and Davison both ingested an unknown substance when they were on death’s door, which caused their bodies to deform into eldritch monstrosities.

This sorta situation was exactly what Aurena warned me about. There might be a holy protection on her [Okl’Luthier’s Powers], but we cannot risk it activating when Ellaine was at her most desperate.

“… I understand, Lady Hestia. Please, be careful. Don’t engage in anything you cannot deal with, your inclination for danger is terribly bad.”

“Whaaaaat? You know I fully believe that escaping is winning, Tasianna. Don’t worry, we’ll rendezvous at the other’s location the moment we end up empty at our respective locations, alright? Good luck!”

And with that, our party was separated once again. Honestly, going alone might be the perfect recipe for dying, if slasher movies are to be taken seriously. The only difference was I wasn’t a normal human being even outside my dragon form.

When I flew over to the next location, the first thing that stood out was the number of monsters in the vicinity, which could be counted with two hands. The neighborhood was abandoned with so many derelict houses that it would make a realtor cry in their sleep. No people, but there were enough monsters around to give it a bit of a post-apocalyptic feel.

I recharged my glaive and shot down the eight monsters roaming on the streets. Preparing myself, I entered one of the two last hidden bases, and, to my surprise, it hadn’t completely turned into a monster nest.

Similar to the other bases, it was well-furnished with rugs, tapestry, and candle stands, although it lacked finer luxury items like mana lamps and paintings. I activated [Detection Sensor] and, after excluding the small signals I guessed were bugs and vermin, there was nothing inside this building. Still, I pressed on, knowing there were rooms like Farron had which could hide the presence of the people inside.

The hallways were completely dark from what I could guess. My night vision was good enough to get me through this, even if there were only a few lit candles. Still, it was ‘cause of these candles that I was sure somebody was here. The thing is, I was getting more anxious the longer this silence continued.

As a musician, the quiet flickering of the candles and thuds of my leg on the wooden floor wasn’t enough for me. It was creeping me out. Every corner I walk, only silence and darkness. No life, no warmth. Even the candles I saw felt cold with the atmosphere.

… It was like that cave. That dark, damp cave. No friends, no allies. Nothing to do but my own thoughts arguing with each other like a discord call with a bunch of fangirls. My parallel minds were my only source of comfort, my retreat from loneliness.

Did I almost go insane back then? Or am I still insane?

I conjured up a bright [Shine] on my glaive, using it as a lantern to guide me through this terrible darkness. I whispered to myself, “In the darkness of despair, the Goddess gave us the miracle of the light, banishing the many ailments of the land and bringing those lost in the shadows back with her ray of hope.” It was an excerpt from the clergy handbook I had to read during my theology lessons with Eshe and Theodore.

Reciting excerpts from a religious textbook. I really have gone insane, huh?

Regardless of what was going on in my head, with my light radiant, my confidence surged and my path was made clear. In the light, I felt safe, I felt able to win anything…

… All I needed was the strength to do it, no, I must have it to save Ellaine.

I never want to be alone again.

With the shadows crawling back away in fear of my [Shine], I ran through the small manor, looking through every room I could find, using [Mana Eyes] to detect potential magic. It did strain my eyes a bit, since Shaturein is just a cauldron of mana, but I didn’t care. The moment I detected a faint hint of concentrated mana inside the building, formed around a humanoid body, I had already forgotten the pain in my eyes.

Found it! Well, something, at least.

Dashing over to the location, I readied my weapons. Using [Detection Sensor] once again, my hair began to stand up like chicken skin, noticing how there was nothing for me to sense inside that room. However, with my eyes squinting from using [Mana Eyes] to confirm it, I could see something inside there staying in one place.

Now the question was, who was skilled enough to hide away from my [Detection Sensor] like Saori or Muraina? Who was able enough to suppress their mana to the point I couldn’t detect it without using [Mana Eyes].

… I had a bad feeling.

Should I run? … Warp Point: Exit.

I walked over to a window and cast a [Warp Point: Exit] magic circle outside the mansion, using it as my last resort of escape. I made sure to suppress the detection of the cast with [Silent Casting], assuring myself that whoever was inside did not just detect me using magic. I double-checked everything for traps with [Mana Eyes] once more, and then grabbed the handle.

“Took you a while to open the door, little pastry genius.”

I gulped audibly.

Grey hair, a week-old beard, a red trench coat over a white shirt. The man sat on the couch of a ruined office, biting into a fried pastry — a Berliner. He had an indulgent smile as he chewed on it, fully enjoying the last two on his plate as I buffed myself with everything I had.

[Blessing of the Goddess of Light (Major)] [Various Spell Buffs] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

It was none other than Eithalr.

Mana Eyes!

I had to check. I had to know how strong he was, to form a plan around it, but the moment I activated it, I suddenly felt a strong jolt running through my eyes. “Kiiergk!” I groaned as I grabbed my head, holding my hand over my eyes as I felt white flames trying to heal the pain.

“Woah, there, kiddo. Already? We haven’t even started yet and you already tried to appraise me? Talk about guts, hahaha!” I heard Eithalr say with a laugh. “Thought you knew of the existence of [Identify] protection tools. I always have mine on, you see. Hmm, but somehow, I didn’t get your information… Just how high is your [Identity Blocker] skill?”

Tools meant to protect you from being appraised also had the secondary effect of giving the protected information to the appraiser if the appraisal failed. I guess I just learned that your [Identity Blocker] could also block the rebound function.

Verdammt, I gotta find a chance to escape! This is bad!

“Well, anyway, it doesn't really matter. I prefer learning how to fight opponents during a match, you see, makes it more fun. Exciting. Go, Armory Prison.”

Multiple ghostly swords materialized behind Eithalr as he shot them forward, breaking through the front of the room’s entrance and opening up the ceiling. The hallway and the office room were rearranged to give us a large field fit for a battle. Once done, the swords sunk their tips into the ground, forming a large circle that invoked a phantom-like barrier.

“I wouldn’t try escaping while that thing is up if you don’t want to turn into a pincushion.”

The translucent greatsword he had during our first meeting reappeared in his hand as he swung it over his shoulder, resting it there.

“Sorry about this. I really meant it when I said I don’t like killing good chefs, I actually never accept requests targeting people who made my meals. Never anger the person making your food, right? A good friend gave me that tip.” As Eithalr walked closer, I inched backward, feeling the pressure he exuded. “But… Hamil has something I really need. Something my partners need, too. I made this whole trip over here just for him, after all, and now I’m honored-bound to also take care of the Yanderu group around here.”

He sighed, looking conflicted.

“A job’s a job. Get ready, kid, I can’t go easy on you. Hope you’ll forgive me once you meet Ilsaphone.”

“I-I,” I stuttered, trying to say something.

“Go on, time is not on your side. You’ll be staying here for a looooong while.” For some reason, his eyes turned into a pale grey as I could feel mana congregating around his left forearm. As he walked closer and closer, I stomped my feet down, took in a deep breath and pointed at Eithalr with my left arm.

“I activate my favor! Don’t kill me and let me go!”

“…”

“…” My legs trembled.

“… You pissing on me?”

“Wha-What?! Why are you talking about peeing at this moment?!” I did not wet myself, I repeat, I was scared but I did not piss myself!

“I meant, you are joking, right? All this suspense, all this build-up with me leading a monologue, and you stop me just like that? Anti-climatic as hell,” he stated with a disappointed expression.

“You said you would keep your word! You said it when you escaped with Hamil! I’m not joking here when, as you said, I don’t have the time to spare! Keep your promise and let me go out of here, alive!” I shouted.

“… Paaaaah, alright, alright. I’ll do just that. I won’t kill you today.” The ghost swords disappeared and the way was free again. “Well, whatever, go. Get your Hamil. The place where he is should be is guarded by my new crew, so you’ll know if it’s the correct place if you see them.”

“T-Thanks.” I nodded, still slightly trembling.

Success! Victory! Speechcraft for the win! Avoiding the boss fight with words, let’s goooooo!

Similar to how I diffused the tension in the air, the pressure in my chest dissipated as I let out an internal sigh. I turned away from Eithalr, absolutely elated I didn’t have to fight him, and flapped my wings to begin flying. As I was about to fly to the location Tasianna and the Helvas parents should be, however, Eithalr suddenly spoke again.

“You know, my job was actually to stall anybody I saw who wanted to find Hamil. He never mentioned killing anybody since it was obvious enough how killing was the perfect stalling method. You, the lycerepth, the kingdom, whoever I met. It didn’t matter.”

“… Why are you telling me this?”

“Well, you see, even if you went over to Hamil at this moment, you won’t be able to get any information out of him concerning the whereabouts of your little girl friend. After all, the one who contracted me to do so was the cardinal, who asked Hamil to hire me to bring the Greenveil girl to a kid called Charleslyt. The one you want to ask is right in front of you… and you just used up your favor.”

My head turned around slowly. Rage. Anger. Confusion. These thoughts shoved out the anxiousness I felt for him.

“Now we’re talking… How about I feed that fire of yours a bit.” He smirked. “I planned to kill that blue-haired girl with my first attack, but she somehow survived it. After I incapacitated my target, I stomped on your girl’s head, aiming to take her out this time, only for some bones to sprout out of her shoulder, protecting her from a second killing blow. I ended up taking her with me to Charleslyt, since leaving her behind would be too risky.”

[Panzer] covered my body in purple armor. Crimson, purple, and while flames began shooting out of my wings as I kept myself down with [Tailwind]. [Unheilige Engel] and [Halo of Consecration] materialized, again. I used [Instant Heat Ignition] to heat up my tail as my scale-dust refuelled my glaive.

“That girl is a demonkin contractor, huh? She’s pretty skilled with it, since I wasn’t even able to detect that demonic mana until that moment. Whatever sin she had, it helped her survive, but she did lose a couple of good teeth. I wonder how she met a demonkin so far away fr— Woah!”

A gunshot, or rather, a fire explosion echoed through the area before something exploded behind Eithalr. He had his body turned away from me, having just dodged my projectile attack.

“Purple Flash… Symphonie des Feuergottes.” A purple magic circle appeared before I chained the spell’s effect into a giant red one in the sky.

“Oh no, you don’t. Can’t have you mages do whatever you want.”

Eithalr dashed towards me in a blink of an eye, but I had already anticipated him doing that even without [Foresight], remembering how he kicked me when he escaped with Hamil. I activated [Dreadflare Aura], blasting Eithalr away from me and melting my surrounding area.

As [Symphonie des Feuergottes] showered me in a waterfall of fire, Eithalr’s greatsword vanished as a three-section nunchaku-thing appeared in his hand, which he used to create a wind barrier by rotating them in his hands.

[Symphonie des Feuergottes (Allegro)]inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“You’re dead. I will kill you, you bastard,” I declared as the flame sea dissipated, revealing Eithalr perfectly fine even as the rest of the surroundings burned.

With [Inferno Coating] and [Fire Abnormality Effect: Dread] after grinding through my dragon Jobs, if he hadn't protected himself, he would have been in big trouble. Instead, he was smiling, enjoying the sight around him.

“I will pry that information from your damn broken jaw!”

“Try it, don’t worry, I’ll keep my promise of not killing you today, kiddo.” He struck a pose, and gestured to me to attack. “Come on, let’s dance, Miss Idol!”

“Krrrriiiiiiiiaagghhhhhh!”

[Battle Frenzy (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“I see, so that abominable Hamil is here.”

Arcanuess Helvas drew his sword, activating the runes on it for the first time today. With his wife magician staff’s catalyst glowing, the both of them walked towards the large group of mercenaries, among them were a few Yanderu Eluseuss members.

“Huh? Tasianna? I thought Saori would come with you,” a familiar pantherae said as I showed myself.

“Kaian… I don’t see a loopridae around. Friell isn’t with you?” I asked. My catalyst was ready for a fight.

“We saved too many orphaned kids and she’s swamped taking care of them. Also, when she heard of this job, she kinda guessed your party would come to attack, so she asked the Boss to let her sit this one out. He’s nicer than our old one, you see.” Kaian then readied himself in a stance with his spear. “I wanted to test myself against Saori, but you shall do.”

“You overestimate yourself…”

But Kaian and the Yanderu weren’t the only familiar faces, there was also a group of four who had made me angry the moment I saw them again.

“Haha! Yo, isn’t that the elf from that one group? The group with that girl who shamed Dickslyt? Can’t believe we would meet one of them here.”

“Shut it, don’t speak badly of our contractor. The cardinal will have our heads if he hears us speak badly of his golden goose.”

“Who da fuck cares? We are wyvern slayers. Da boss can be a shit wimp and we’ll still get him out of his shit. After all, three opponents aren’t enough to defeat us.”

“Ready yourself already! I want to slice that damn elf already for glaring at us like that!”

Lady Hestia told me Charleslyt believed his party members were stronger than us. That Miss Saori wouldn’t be enough to defeat all four of them.

I shall serve them a cup of humility.

Priest Kush’lekzar, I shall borrow your spells today.

She had the face of a human woman but the rest of her body was nothing but bones, with an orb hidden behind her ribcage. The robe fluttered from her black mana, which swarmed around her undead minions like it was tethered to her like a leash.

“Welcome to the one acknowledged by Mother Goddess! I see you understood the meaning of my mana! You do not know how elated I am to finally meet you again.”

“…” I remained silent.

I whistled, summoning my garms from my shadow, fully equipped with plenty of holy elemental mana threads I had made just for situations like this. They growled as they watched all the undead beginning to congregate around us.

Grimnir, having finished his own preparations, mounted on Quatre, reading not only his blasthammer but also gauntlets and his new weapon. I shrouded all five of them in my [Shadow Armament].

“… I see. Talk is superfluous at this point, correct? I understand. You have defeated me once already, but I reappear before you in my true form! That of a lich! That of somebody given a new life by the Mother of Necromancy! A true ruler over death!” Her form began to morph drastically, growing in size and height. She began to levitate from a cloak of souls, pointing down with the presence of a true monster now. “This shall be a battle between two who have gained the acknowledgment of the Gods! Who shall survive to become a blessed?”

Proficiency requirement fulfilled. [Erosion Resistance Lv. 1] evolved into [Erosion Resistance Lv. 10]. 3100 SP remaining

As my mana congregated around the white fur on my arms, it began to change into stygian lightning, crackling wildly as the voltage increased with every second. This lightning streamed into my armguards, activating the cogs inside it and charging the catalysts attached on both of them.

Let the duel begin.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 240: A Desire for Happiness.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Max level of Jobs [Whip Fighter], [Acrobat], [Warrior] has been reached

Individual   [Human, Ellaine Fiero Helvas] has switched her Main Job to [Whipsword Fighter]

Main Job benefits have been updated due to Job change

Whipsword Fighter Level: 0/15

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Fluid Cast Lv. 2] [Sword Mastery Lv. 5] [Whip Technique Lv. 6] [Whip Mastery Lv. 4] [Accuracy Correction Lv. 7] [Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 9] [Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 5] [Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 2] [Holy Resistance Lv. 6] [Water Resistance Lv. 8] [Wind Resistance Lv. 7] [Health Recovery Lv. 4] [Mana Recovery Lv. 6] [Stamina Recovery Lv. 4] [Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 2] [Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 3] [Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 2] [Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 3] [Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 2] [Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 3] [Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 3] [Enhanced Agility Enforcement Lv. 2] [Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 3] [Enhanced Stamina Enforcement Lv. 2] [Artificer Lv. 5] [Terror Aura Lv. 2] gained

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 1] evolved into [Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 2]

“Ell—e! —ain—! Wake—!”

[“Ellaine, wake up!”]

“Hmrm? Urck! Guuu— Ark, pffrah!”

A headache, the worst headache I’ve ever had. Like needles piercing my mind the moment I woke up, and it got even worse when I finally realized how much my face began to ache. My nose, my teeth, my forehead; the pain was beyond excruciating and my mouth was filled with the taste of iron.

When I spat it out reflexively, a glassful of blood stained the cold floor in red, accompanied by pieces of skin from my mouth and a few white shards. Touching my teeth with my fingers, I felt a sharp sensation like glass fragments along the skin of my fingers instead of the firm touch of immaculate teeth.

As I continued touching them in disbelief, some sort of warm liquid began dripping onto my hand. When I followed the stream up my face, I ended up at where my nose had to be, but it felt crooked. Broken. Pain coursed through my face at the touch, once again reminding me that this was reality, only for [Absolute Pain Tolerance] to activate, allowing me to suppress my urge to scream.

My fingers grabbed onto my nose, and in one swift movement, I realigned it.

“Eiuk!”

A loud crack echoed through the room, making me flinch as I felt my own nose shift into place. Once it was over, I began taking in quick breaths as more warm liquid escaped through my nose, my body was expelling it like a burst dam.

“Ellaine! Are you okay, now?” a young man’s voice entered my ears from the left.

When I turned around, I discovered that my vision was blurred, making me see the person thrice. I tried rubbing my eyes, ignoring the liquid dripping down from them, blinking as often as I could to regain my sight. But I couldn’t. It was still hard to see.

“Here, drink it. Dammit, they really injured you this badly…” Regret, anger, and disappointment… in himself?

“B-Brother? Is that you?”

I couldn’t see him properly. My eyesight was so terrible that it was impossible for me to make out any details. Thankfully, my ears were still working properly. I would never forget the sound of my brother’s voice after having spent 15 years of my life as his sister.

“Ellaine! Yes, it’s me! Are you not able to recognize me?” Jonathan cried out ecstatically. “Oh! Your eyes! They were damaged when you were brought here. Here, drink this. A medium health potion and some of the drink you had in your satchel.”

Drink? Oh, Hestia’s dragorade. But that only regenerates mana and body nutrients after training.

Regardless, I didn’t have the privilege to decline his offer. My throat was parched and my body aching — I needed to drink something.

Chugging the potion and dragorade down, I began to feel my body rejuvenating as the drinks worked their magic. The aching inside my head and my face mostly disappeared, although I could still feel some stinging in my mouth.

“Here, let me help. This will hurt, so forgive me, Ellaine.” I nodded obediently and closed my eyes, opening my mouth for Jonathan to pull out the broken teeth inside my mouth.

As unpleasant as it was, this was the only way for you to regrow your teeth after they broke into shards. Healing magic and potions would help you regrow them, but you had to remove the old ones beforehand. Father instructed me to do so if it ever happened, so Jonathan must have learned to do this from him as well.

Once they were out, I drank the last bits of the potion. I felt my new teeth growing with my tongue, but I could tell that it would take a while before they regrew completely. My eyesight had also returned and I could finally make out that Jonathan and I were inside a cold cell.

“B-Brother, where are we? Where is Lady Amelia?” I asked, my eyes widened in shock.

The last thing I remembered was that I was talking with Amelia, having made my reasons for staying with Aurora clear to her. I couldn’t remember anything between then and just now, when I woke up with blood on my face and inside a cell.

“I’ll explain everything, but first… well, you need to put on some clothes, sister. Ahem.” I had only now realized that Jonathan had a blush, and it wasn’t due to a fever, but the fact that I was only dressed in my undergarments.

“Huh? W-Waaaaeekk!!” I covered up my body with my arms reflexively. Keeping his eyes closed now that I had realized my embarrassing situation, he handed me the clothes I always put on under my armor. On top of the pile were my spell rings.

[“Kinky~”]

Klea’Hatma!

Jonathan turned around, but he showed no signs of leaving the cell to give me some privacy. I wasn’t foolish enough to not understand what was going on with that gesture. Something serious happened, anything else wouldn’t have made sense for why I was inside a cell right now… and half-naked.

[“Hope you can still remember how I saved your life not once, but thrice now, my dear. You really know how to lure in death, Ellaine.”]

[“What?”]

Klea’Hatma did not reply to my astonishment, leaving me to silently put my clothes back on. When I told Jonathan I was finished, he came over with a sword and an amulet.

“Things happened, Ellaine. I only realized the severity of the situation when both you and Lady Amelia were brought to Charleslyt by a mercenary unconscious. We need to hurry up, so you nee— Huh?!”

As Jonathan was about to hand me my whipsword back, I quickly recognized my vampiric undying amulet in his left hand and that it was missing from my neck. Ignoring my sword, I snatched my amulet out of his hand and rushed to put it back on, only now feeling safe again when I had it back on.

Jonathan stared at me with confusion but he snapped out of it when I took my sword back. When I asked him about where my armor was, he shook his head, saying it was too difficult to recover at the moment.

“If my previous statement wasn’t obvious enough, you’re— Actually, I’m in trouble too, now that I have revealed my true colors.”

“What do you mean by that? Could you begin by explaining to me where we are?”

“In Charleslyt’s house, or more specifically, the house Charleslyt bought for his party members — the four scoundrels calling themselves wyvern slayers. When I had to stick around, I used this house to sleep and prepare,” Jonathan replied, but that information was different from what father told me.

“Hold on, father and mother told me you were staying at Lord Charleslyt’s mansion! What do you mean you’ve been staying in another house?”

“It’s a long story but esse— Quiet!”

Jonathan held his hand against my mouth and pulled out his sword, the surprise shutting me up more effectively than his actions. At the same time, I heard a door creaking itself open followed by the sounds of footsteps and voices.

“Yeah, if we want Lord Charleslyt to help us out with our position, we need to do this. Don’t think too much about it, nobody will find out about it, and she’s just the daughter of a Greenveil magnoble. Who cares?”

“Huh? Are you sure? That Jonathan won’t like it once he learns what Lord Charleslyt has planned for that girl. Don’t you think he would rebel?”

“And? Who cares? He’s just a broken pup Lord Charleslyt picked up since he sympathized with the pup’s envy towards his little sister that became stronger than him. Hahaha! If you don’t have the strength, you don’t deserve to be the house leader. Just like with Lord Charleslyt and his elder brother Fillion.”

What now? I recognize those voices. Aren’t they from the academy?

As the footsteps came closer and closer, Jonathan brought me over to hide behind a wall next to the cell bars, staying out of sight as two noblemen appeared in front of the cell, bewildered at the opened cell door.

“Huh?! By the Light, how is the cell open?!”

“Did she wake up?! No, wait, we would have seen her if she had tried to escape. She must still be in the cell! Let’s look!”

“Got it! She has to be— Bhurak!”

Jonathan charged forward the moment both of them entered the cell, half-swording to knock one of them out with the pommel of his sword. As the defeated noble crashed on the ground, the other managed to jump back out of the way as Jonathan slashed at him.

Narrowly blocking my brother’s sword, the noble looked at Jonathan in rage, shouting, “I knew you would betray us, you bastard!” Streaks of blue began to show up on his face, shining brightly as he fended Jonathan off and began his counter assault.

Swords clashed as the two young men began to dodge and strike at each other. Jonathan’s swordsmanship was phenomenal as always, a boon he gained after training to become a knight for years. His opponent was no match against him in that department, but, for some reason, brother had an uneasy look on him.

Strength!

If the nobleman could parry Jonathan’s blades, he did so easily, as if he had far superior strength than Jonathan. It became even more noticeable when his sword strikes cracked the ground.

“Hahahaha! So this is the holy power Lord Charleslyt can give you! You were a fool to decline it before betraying us, you rat! The Goddess and the true heir of Equevanna are on our side! Fall, Greenveil scum!”

His behavior was widely antagonistic. By the Light, what was going on?!

“Lord Charleslyt truly is the— HUH?! What?!”

“Helvas Sword Technique: Flowing Stream!”

The 2nd form of father’s sword style, developed after he trained with the Knights of the Lionheart during his travels with mother as adventurers. House Helvas had never been a martial-focused noble house until father took over. As somebody not talented in magic, he did everything he could to close the distance between his elder brother and himself in order to claim his title as the heir.

This was his gift to his son.

Jonathan’s sword sliced the air like a flowing river, showing no resistance as he effortlessly dodged a wild sword swing to slash open the nobleman’s left thigh. His first reflex was to shout in pain and try to cover the wound, which provided Jonathan the opening he needed to knock him unconscious with the broad side of his sword.

After the nobleman fell unconscious, Jonathan quickly cleaned his blade and sheathed it, before ripping his opponent’s shirt for a long strand of cloth, which he used to tend to the wound. Seeing from how profusely it was bleeding, if Jonathan hadn’t tended him, he probably would have bled to death in a few minutes.

As he was preoccupied with that, he was too late to notice the other noble standing up, prepared to slash him down!

… But that slash never connected as blade segments connected together with a mana thread caught his sword arm, pulling that person closer to me. Using this surprise attack, I vaulted over his shoulder and swung my whipsword over me, dragging him with it to slam him face-first onto the ground. Blood and fragments of teeth poured out of his mouth.

“… Sister, when did you gain such monstrous strength?”

“Huh? Brother, when did you learn how to fight properly?! This was a far cry from when we had our duel!”

Each of us was clearly surprised by the other’s growth as a fighter. He didn’t know that I had [Musclesmass] to power up my arm strength, while I had no idea when he learned how to use father’s sword style.

“W-Whatever, here, help me a bit. We need to hide these people for now.”

As instructed, I dumped both of the young noblemen in the corner of the cell. With the dim lighting, it should be hard to see them. After we left the cell, Jonathan had me follow him into a nearby wine room, where he gave me some water from a nearby barrel to clean myself up.

“Charleslyt had to satisfy his mercenaries, and money wasn’t enough, you see. So he added a wine cellar and bought them barrels full of good food and drink. When I first joined them, they told me explicitly to never, ever come into this room. They said the same to Charleslyt’s other followers, too, so we should be safe here, for now.”

Once he made that clear, he began answering my questions and explained to me about the whole situation.

Essentially, Jonathan never really was Charleslyt’s loyal companion. What actually happened was that, during the academy festival, Jonathan accidentally heard Charleslyt trying to woo Amelia into marrying him, only to receive a rejection. When that happened, Jonathan noted how Charleslyt began to essentially beg, even mentioning shady facts to get Amelia to accept his request.

It was then that the four “wyvern slayer” companions found him, literally threatening him when they asked if Jonathan had seen anything. In that stressful situation, Jonathan had to come up with an excuse, noticing how bloodthirsty they were.

“And you told them you wanted to join them?!” I presumed.

“I had to. If I hadn’t, I had this gut feeling that they would have attacked me, Ellaine. I had no choice,” Jonathan added. “It became even worse when Charleslyt and Lady Amelia noticed us. I had to play along, even praising that dastard Charleslyt while I was at it. Lady Amelia noticed the situation and tried to bail me out, but I had to decline her help.”

“Huh, why?”

“Well… I didn’t like how Charleslyt tried to ask her hand for marriage, you see. You know, that isn’t how you are supposed to do it. Also, a man like him, speaking with a lady who is neither his family nor wife in an alleyway like that? Why, that is scandalous! I had to investigate this matter… and then, well, I didn’t exactly expect myself to get into such a bad situation.”

So, that is why Amelia said sorry when I saw her after Charleslyt spoke with her. She was saying sorry for being unable to help out Brother and keeping it a secret from me.

Jonathan had to act like Charleslyt’s follower, joining him in his party to not only save his life but also keep an eye on him. When he sent that letter to us, he tried to make it clear that there wasn’t anything to worry about.

But, a few days later, he accidentally stumbled on the fact that Charleslyt’s companions were literally still criminals. They brought him to Shaturein, letting him meet quite a colorful bunch of people down there. Once we gave the information where Jonathan was to father and mother, they met with him, and that was when father taught him the first and second form of his swordsmanship.

“Father probably saw through my lie, or maybe he was just worried that I was getting myself into something I couldn’t handle. Honestly, I was glad he taught me some proper swordsmanship before Charleslyt sent me off to do Quests a beginner like me shouldn’t be taking on. Haaaa, Ellaine, I apologize for feeling envious of you. Being an adventurer is not something to be envious of.”

“… I can see it in your eyes. You faced death quite a few times, right? So that’s how you learned how to fight. Hiehie, and here I thought Hestia’s training regimen was hellish.”

In a way, joining them into the depths of Cedraille’s dungeon was not something I should have done either. The monsters there were far stronger than I was and then there was that whole incident with those fire cultists.

“However, it just got a lot more problematic yesterday after Lady Hestia defeated Charleslyt in that duel. For some reason, he called in all these noble children and began giving them that weird power he calls ‘Divine Ambrosia’s Power.’ I don’t know exactly what they are planning with all of this, but, from the looks of it, they are planning to forcefully have Charleslyt succeed as the Duke of Equevanna over his brother.”

“Then, what does Amelia, or I, have anything to do with this? Do you remember who brought me here?”

Uuuuh, whoever did that, how underhanded of you to do that to me. Next time it won’t end that way!

“… No, I didn’t see the person’s face. Charleslyt told him to come into his office immediately.”

Why did he hesitate there?

“In any case, that guy isn’t important. What’s important is that Amelia was kidnapped and you were hurt, Ellaine. You were completely bloody when you arrived and Charleslyt ordered for you to be stripped of your weapons and armor and to be put inside this cell. And, well, this order was directed at the Chezaic twins, you see.”

“Was that why I was half-naked?! Are you serious?!”

Those damn bitches!

“Yeah, I managed to stop them before they did anything even more obscene. From what I could tell, they are only here for revenge, whereas the other young lords and ladies are here to support Charleslyt in their parent’s stead. The fact you helped in the arrest of their parents really angered them, my little sister.”

Well, that’s because their parents were criminals! What am I supposed to do, huh? Stay silent and let the whole duchy get in trouble because of those two fools? I argued, but I kept it to myself as Jonathan continued his retelling.

“That’s when I heard your, uhm, rings. I didn’t know you had such a secret, Ellaine.”

[“Klea’Hatma?!”]

[“Whaaaat? Should I have been silent about it and just let you rot in this prison? Your brother was already trying to get you out but nearly forgot to bring me to you, dear! I saved your life twice against that Eithalr. Some more thanks would be appreciated,”] Klea’Hatma pouted.

Hold on, Eithalr was the one who tried to kill me?! The one who hit me with that sneak attack and kidnapped Amelia?! … And I wanted to pay him back for that…

[“… Eithalr? Thank you once again for saving my life. You are my savior, Lady Klea’Hatma.”]

[“Ah, I was just joking, dear. Playing hard to get is exciting for me, you see~ However, I don’t think you can afford to hide me any further from your brother. This ‘divine’ ambrosia thing isn’t any more divine than a demonkin’s powers, dear.”]

[“Thank you for the insight. Well, it wasn’t as if I had a choice either way.”]

This wasn’t the time to be secretive anymore. Although the demonkin in Griffonpeak might have made a deal with Charleslyt based on what brother said, there should be a lot of other people inside this house. The two of us weren’t enough, and I had the feeling Hestia and the others might be looking for me in Shaturein right now.

I wasn’t like the rest of Aurora, not yet. I couldn’t take on multiple people at once. Most of my new strength came from [Okl’Luthier’s Power], which could only be accessed through Klea’Hatma’s mana. To get Amelia out of this, I had no choice but to rely on Klea’Hatma once again.

“Brother, let’s go.” I stood up, my spell rings shining brightly.

“Are you sure, Ellaine? You cannot possibly have recovered with a single health potion,” Jonathan asked with worry.

“Don’t worry, I have enough stamina to get Amelia out of here safely,” I said as my mana was turned into muscle fibers and flesh. “Will you trust me, brother?”

“…” He stood up and nodded. “You’re my sister, of course. Let’s go, father and mother are probably worried to death, and I don’t want Lady Amelia to wake up to all of this.”

What’s with his fixation on Amelia? Forget it, it’s not important.

Our goals were to get my armor back and to rescue Amelia. Jonathan was wearing the armor Charleslyt gave him — the silver-plated one — but I was entirely lacking in defense outside of [Musclemass]. Somehow, he could have brought one chainmail, at least, right? … Or a helmet?

The headache is returning…

As we snuck up, Jonathan explained we were inside the middle district and that Charleslyt had rented a building intended for a guild or workshop. It was redesigned to become a living space and headquarters for his party. As such, it was large enough to accommodate multiple people inside.

As we snuck a peek through the door above the basement stairs, I learned that the kitchen was the next area. The young lords and ladies were apparently celebrating the whole situation, believing Charleslyt would solve it swiftly and that they and their parents would reap the benefits. With a small entourage of attendants, these nobles came over to show their houses’ fealty to his cause and, to mark this occasion, Charleslyt had hired chefs to create a feast for his guests.

Despicable! Our capital is in danger but all they are doing is fooling around?! Unforgivable!

In any case, the hectic situation in the kitchen did mask all the sounds from our struggle inside the basement. Regardless, that didn’t change the fact that we had no way out of this except through the kitchen. Saori taught me how to sneak and track down prey, but I didn’t have access to her dark magic to sneak past this situation.

We had no other choice.

“Let me handle this,” Jonathan whispered as I adjusted my ponytail. We straightened our backs and walked into the kitchen with the demeanor we would take on during a public outing. “The two young lords are currently in the cellar. Do not enter it until they come out, even if it means running out of ingredients.”

“W-Wha—” The chefs were surprised to hear this the moment we came out, but, thankfully, none of them questioned me being here. “B-But, M’Lord, we’re about to run out. We need to—”

“What gives you the right to speak back, chef? You stand before nobles. You listen to our orders or you might as well leave this place before I call Lord Charleslyt. Have I made myself clear?”

“““Y-Yes! We humbly apologize!”””

“Good. If you cannot produce any more dishes, go ask the attendants for permission from the other—”

“Kitchen, hurry up! We need more wine and— W-Wha— Lady Ellaine?!”

Attendants would walk around performing their duties. If you were a magnoble, your attendants would most likely be from a schwertnoble house… Just like this woman before us.

With shock on her face, she was about to run for it. I activated [Wind Blast] and jumped, closing the distance between us as I tackled her, pressing her onto the ground before performing the chokehold Saori taught me. I used [Musclesmass] to drastically strengthen my arms to squeeze the consciousness out of her in seconds, only controlling myself enough to not accidentally kill her.

“Get down on the floor, now! Hands behind your heads!” Jonathan ordered the chefs as he drew his swords. Only commoners, the chefs were obedient and listened.

But all this noise attracted the rest of the attendants to the kitchen, arriving just in time to see me placing the maid on the ground. I cast two [Rock Blast], shooting them at the backs of two of these attendants as I stood up and detached the blade swords from the thread of my whipsword.

Now with only a mana thread, I activated [Whiplash] on it, giving the thread a flesh mass which I used to hook and pull to prevent two more attendants from running away. Jonathan dashed out from the kitchen, wielding both his sword and its sheath. Using the sheath, he slammed it against the side of the attendants’ heads to send them to dreamland.

But like a cascading stream whose blockage was opened up, the noise we created spread throughout the house. I just didn’t have enough time to cast [Air Shield] to prevent it from escaping.

“Hey, you! Our lords and ladies are— Huh?! Uwaaahhhh!”

I caught the butler's neck with my whip and pulled him closer to me. Brother took this opportunity to punch the butler’s stomach, using the momentum to land a strong knock-out punch.

I was very surprised to see Jonathan being able to adapt this quickly, making it seem like we had prior synergy, although we never fought together before. Fast reactions and quick thinking was a necessity for life-and-death battles. I wondered once again how severe his training was and if we siblings were fated to endure such torture to become stronger.

“Ellaine, more are coming! Quick, the stairs!” Jonathan called out. I followed him, before using [Terra Wall] to completely block the path from where the butler came out from.

“Shit! That Greenbump Helvas betrayed us—!” I heard as we ran past the room. The young lords and ladies have noticed us. Not a very sneaky mission like the slave auction one.

We dashed upstairs, where I noticed some people coming closer to us with [Enhanced Enemy Sense]. I recalled the segments of my sword with the retrieval runes, reforming it, and jumped up the stairs with [Wind Blast]. Surprising the two noblemen, I swung my whipsword, slamming the blunt side into their faces.

They crashed on the wooden floor, disoriented and groaning. As I ran past them towards the door they left open, Jonathan gave them two good thuds in the heads.

“Amelia!” I cried out as I found her sleeping comfortably in a queen-sized bed, tucked into the blanket. But to my surprise, two others were inside this room, sitting on the bed as they let their fingers stroke Amelia’s sleeping face.

“Ellaine~”

“Helvas!”

My ears and eyes glared at the two girls. They looked almost identical, the only difference between the two were their eye colors — the older sister had yellow while the younger had red ones.

But unlike during our previous meetings, not only did they have the same blue streaks running across their skin as the two nobles from the basement, but weird feather-like objects sprouted from their heads and shoulders. They matched the eye colors of their respective owners, exuding mana I was very much acquainted with.

[“Oh my, the fools, they are mutating. They’ve gone mad with the demonic energy, Ellaine. That Charleslyt gave them too much.”] Klea’Hatma said, but that wasn’t what interested me. What caught my attention and ire was the fact Francesca, the elder of the Chezaic twins, was wearing my armor! The armor Hestia had Master Grimnir had made for me!

“We knew you would be here when we saw Jonathan enter the kitchen. It was so obvious where you would go, especially with all the noise.” There was a raspiness behind Francesca’s voice, as if she’d been shouting these past days. “Ellaine, you bitch. We are so glad you woke up!”

“We’ve been waiting for our turn to have fun with you, you little farm girl!” Red-eyed Iracela, on the other hand, had a certain echo behind her voice as talons began to sprout from her fingers and through her shoes. “Lord Charleslyt told us we could have precious quality time with you — ripping off your nails, cutting off your hair. Doing everything to make you feel the pain we felt for losing our parents!”

Klea’Hatma was right. Francesca and Iracela always acted like two bullies, but their behavior and expression were a far cry from the sophisticated ladies I came to know them as. Insanity was dancing behind their eyes.

In the next moment, a loud blast could be heard from outside, followed by cracking rocks, glass, and wood.

“Shit, Ellaine, they broke through!” Jonathan dashed into view behind the doorway. “You need to hu—!”

“Jonathan, Jonathan. Tch, tch, tch,” Francesca shook her head with a wry smile.“Someone as handsome as you really shouldn’t have done any of this. But, it’s too late now.”

We were surrounded. The rest of the nobles climbed up to the second floor. They had the blue streaks covering their faces and hands just like the Chezaic twins, only they weren’t “mutating” as Klea’Hatma described it.

“This is as far as you two will go! This is Equevanna territory now, you two Greenbumbs. You two should have just stayed quiet and everything would have worked out nicely.”

“We outnumber you and now all have the power Lord Charleslyt shared with us. Don’t think you can take us on by yourselves, even if you two can handle yourself in battle. Surrender, or we will make this even more painful.”

Why do they sound like that ‘bad guy trope’ Hestia has been telling me about?! They are ticking off every point from that checklist!

“True, you are surrounded.” Iracela gave Amelia a backhanded strike, waking her up and causing her a nosebleed.

“Amelia!” I screamed.

“Uuuiiem!” Amelia groaned.

“My, my, what unladylike sounds, Lady Amelia~ But, I guess that is what we should expect from Greenbumps, right? As uncivilized as the farmers they cherish so much, hiehiehiehie!”

“You two, twins! Charleslyt told everybody not to harm Lady Amelia! Are you two crazy!” Jonathan shouted at them, his eyes bloodshot like mine.

“Huh? Oh come on, a little blood won’t hurt her. I held back, but it was enough to agitate the both of you,” Iracela taunted us. “You just had to involve that damn lizard tramp in everything, ruining our Chezaic house! We said we will do everything to ruin you, Ellaine. Your house, your family, your life! A waste of a noble like you should have just stayed down for us to walk over!”

“Yes, Lady Amelia’s suffering is your fault, no, it is the fault of both of you two siblings,” Francesca added.

“Our fault?!” I roared out in response.

“I mean, who told you to ruin our lives, Ellaine? Who told you to escape and make us do this? Not us. This is just the Goddess’s way to reward us for staying patient, waiting our time to get our revenge on the enemy of our house~”

“You hypocrite! You hypocrite! You hypocrite! You made my life hell! You made my social status even worse than it already was, and you think you can say all of this shit to me! Your mother deserved to be executed for helping that criminal Davison! Your father did everything to help his son, your half-brother, to get better, knowing full well the consequences! If there is somebody to blame for all of this, it is your overly-ambitious bitch of a mother!” I screamed.

I screamed as loud as my voice could allow. I wanted to release everything. I didn’t want to keep all of this bottled in just to attempt to diffuse this situation. I hated it. I hated it. I hated it so very much!

““Hiehiehie!”” The twins laughed, before speaking in unison. ““And this is why we will make your life even more of a hell until you breathed your last, Ellaine! First this beautiful armor, then your family! We will make sure they suffer as much as we did before we have you killed!””

“You!”

[“Klea! Can I use multiple powers at the same time now?!”]

[“Jeez, calm down, d—”]

[“Answer me!”]

[“… No, but you can if you gave me control over my powers for a bit. I’ll help you. Like how I can conjure up my bone shield although you still don’t have that power yet.”]

[“Do it!”]

[“… If I were any of the other demons, you would have just made the worst mistake in your life, Ellaine. A fate worse than death… Unleash your lust for battle, Ellaine Fiero Helvas!”]

That armor was present from Hestia, the person who saved me from the depths of my own despair. That armor was made by the person I have accepted as my master, the person who gave me a passion outside of my dreams of becoming a knight and a daughter my parents could be proud of.

It isn’t just a piece of armor that could be replaced if it were lost. It was the symbol of my new life and new ambitions. My first step outside my shell, into a world where I felt free. My reminder that people could support me to walk forward, but I had to be the one to do the walking.

My spell rings shone, turning my mana into flesh and muscles. [Musclesmass] began to cover my body like armor, covering my white skin in dark red meat. Some on my left arm hardened, morphing the flesh into long claws, while tendrils grew out from my right, wrapping themselves on my whipsword.

But worse of all. They dared threaten my family.

“W-What is this?!”

“By the Goddess, what is going with her?!”

“S-Sister?!”

I didn’t feel much more powerful than before, but, despite that, I still felt like I had the power to triumph against all of these people. In previous tests, I learned that it was more efficient on my mana to use one demonic power only, as using multiple at once would drain my mana too much.

However, in a situation where I had no armor, I had to use [Musclesmass] as armor, and I needed [Claw] and [Whiplash] for damage at the same time. In situations where I was outnumbered, there was no way for me to hold back.

“Hahaha! What is that sort of power, Ellaine? It looks so much like ours,” Francesca stated as more feathers began to sprout from her arms, turning them into wings, while spikes grew out from her back. She picked up the grimoire lying next to her.

“But you are still no match for all of us! Everyone! Let us get rid of this scourge!” Iracela’s feathers also turned her arms into that of an arvisian, but unlike her sister, she did not sprout any spikes. Instead, her talons grew even longer and she was able to fly unlike her sister, shrieking like a feral beast.

“… No, I’m not like the two of you at all.”

Klea’Hatma was regulating my powers, making sure I wouldn’t run out of mana too early into the fight… But I was also aware that I was breaking my promise Hestia’s and Goddess Aurena.

I’m such a failure of a person… but I’ll deal with that later.

I want to be happy with my decisions. I want my life to be more fun. I want my family and friends to continue smiling, even if I always cause them to worry about me.

That is my desire.

“Amelia, I’ll save you!”

A note from AbyssRaven

So, just in case, reason why Ellaine's fight first — because demon contractor vs. demonkin contractors. Also, I want to give Ellaine some more screen time.

Enjoy, especially the next chapter. :)

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 241: Ellaine Fiero Helvas.

A note from AbyssRaven

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My whipsword shot forward, whipping its fleshy and metal tendrils around to catch the flying Iracela. She flapped her wings, dodging it using her aerial superiority, but due to the height of the ceiling, she crashed against it even as she avoided my attack. I returned the extended blade and swung it against Francesca, who came at us like a rampaging bear.

“Krah!” she growled from the damage on her face, the pause giving me enough time to activate my [Attack Rune: Blood Bane], causing the blood my blade shed to explode. “Kraaaaaaaa!”

“I’ll hold them up! Get Amelia, Ellaine!” Jonathan stated foolishly. With the number of nobles outside this room, he alone wasn’t enough to hold the room’s entrance when he had so much trouble with a single opponent back in the cellar.

If we were on the ground floor, conjuring up a [Terra Wall] wouldn’t be a problem. But everything was wooden around us, and we had no line-of-sight to a viable place to invoke an earthen magic circle. Earth mages weren’t completely vulnerable in an area without earth or rocks, but our conjured spells didn’t have the usual powerful blocking potential.

“Stand back, Jonathan! Earth Spears!” Two brown magic circles appeared on my hands, creating two large rock spears which shot at the incoming enemy nobles. One lodged itself into the floor, blocking the entrance while the other destroyed the floor outside the room.

They can and will still try to destroy the room wall. We need to hurry—

“Ellaine!” Jonathan called out as his blade intercepted the talon strike of Iracela, moments before I could react to it with [Prediction].

“Helvas!” the warped bird woman roared.

“You endangered my sister and kidnapped Lady Amelia! As an aristocrat of Greenveil, I must cut you down! Soaring Wings!”

Father’s first form, a sword attack where you swing it using a half-moon arc upwards, using both Mana and Stamina as a resource to manipulate the winds to accelerate your trajectory. Even without superhuman jumping power, you would fly up considerably, making it particularly useful against flying enemies.

It was an adaptation to the [Artorian Lionheart Style: Calling Wind], which manipulated the wind to beckon enemies to come closer for a decisive hit. Even if our Helvas style is only a branch off of the real deal, it uses the same foundation as the sword fighting our Founding King adapted from his grandfather, Griffon King Assurfel.

“Kriiiiaaaah!” Iracela cried out, blood spraying from a deep wound on her torso.

Nice!

Just when it looked like we would be able to take down one of the twins, the other shot a giant fireball at us. I narrowly managed to conjure up an [Air Shield] in time to weaken the spell, but, in the end, I still had to activate [Defensive Rune: Auracoil] from my whipsword.

“Ellaine!”

“Sister!”

I heard Amelia’s and Jonathan’s voices, as the mana shield created a bubble around me, blocking the spell but causing a large smokescreen.

“Hahaha! Imagine taking an [Inferno Magic Lv. 1] spell head-on, Ella— What?!”

Interrupting Francesca’s rambling, I shot my whipsword forward. It hit her right at the chest, but the armor she was wearing — mine — completely blocked any damage. I was proud of how strong the armor was, but I cursed that it was in enemy hands right now.

Still, that was enough for me. [Whiplash] created a three-fanged claw on the tip of the sword, which I could use to grab on things. As the tendrils contracted, the claws grabbed onto the breastplate, giving me an anchor point to pull myself closer to Francesca.

Damn you!

With [Claw] materialized on my left hand, I slashed at her head, but she blocked my attack with her arms, using my armor to nullify the damage. As I clicked my tongue, I lashed out with my claw once again when I noticed the scar I made on her face at the start of the battle was gone. Klea’Hatma immediately informed me that Francesca had heightened regeneration.

[“The demonic energy is inside their bodies, running through their blood and cells. Unlike yours, which you conjure up with mana, theirs is more ‘pure.’ They can use those powers freely, but looking at their behavior. It’s clear that ‘Pride’ has already corrupted their minds.]

[“Pride? Not Envy?!”]

[“Yeah. You better settle this battle quickly, Ellaine. Not just because your body is using up mana too quickly even with my help, but you probably need to tell Hestia and the others that there is a second demonkin in the city.”]

Not only did I have to worry about arcane corruption, but now this? This fight was not becoming easier for me. Both Francesca and Iracela were regenerating from their wounds, while we had no healing at all. There was also the crowd of nobles outside the room, trying to break through the walls and rocks. I had to hurry.

Morphing [Claws] away on my left arm, I armored it up completely with [Musclesmass], before skirting under Francesca’s vision as I began slashing her legs by double-handing my sword. With knowledge of my own armor, I knew exactly where to hit the gaps.

Her transformation not only gave her a larger stature as well as more strength, but that was meaningless before my weapon. Prodigious size alone does not dissuade the strikes of a dwarven-made blade! Every blood drop I managed to shed activated a rune on my whipsword — Defense Ripper — and weakened her Vitality and Wisdom more and more.

“Damn you, Greenbump!” She shouted as she slammed her feathered arm down, missing me by a split second, only to crack the floor.

Seeing this opening, I landed a heavy punch into her sides. She flinched and gasped for air, before I landed a jumping kick into her stomach. Weakening her defenses did the trick.

[Musclesmass] gave me slightly more defense through the muscles, but its primary use was the massive increase in Strength. My punches and kicks were stronger. Usually, I could only activate it around my arms, but with Klea’Hatma helping out, I could spread the effect throughout my body, for the cost of even more mana to maintain it.

As I heard Jonathan and Iracela struggling in the background, I jumped onto Francesca who was laying on the ground. I stomped down on one of her arms and began removing a few of the armor’s clasps. When Francesca tried to stop me, I aimed my sword at her neck, forcing her to grab the blade.

My [Musclemass] versus her inhuman strength, which would win?

Meaningless.

My sword was a whipsword with [Whiplash] applied on it, it could extend itself, even in this position.

“The moment any of this comes to light, you and the rest of your supporters will be executed.”

“H-Hold on, Lady Ellaine! Please, I can—”

“The moment you made up your mind to kill my brother and me, you should have been aware of the chance of your own death, Francesca!” The tendrils from [Whiplash] extended themselves, biting into Francesca’s throat with the three-fanged claw. I could feel some resistance from her skin, but this fight would end in a—

“Sister!” That wasn’t Jonathan’s voice, it was Iracela’s. My [Prediction] warned me of a dangerous attack coming from behind me, so I reflexively turned my head around, only for Francesca to grab my leg standing on her arm and yank me off her arm. She then reached up to attempt to tear the tendril off her throat with her now free hand.

Shit! Air Sh—

“— of sharp winds. Wind Slash!”

As I was about to invoke a spell to protect myself, a gust of wind slashed Iracela’s back, stopping her attack. I had to dodge Iracela’s incoming body check, ducking under it to give Francesca a strong punch into her head, forcing her to let go of the tendril and my leg. When I raised my head, I realized Amelia was the one who had helped me.

“Thank you, Amelia!”

“N-No need for thanks!” Amelia called out, her lower face still covered in her nose blood.

“Now to end this— What?!”

“Slowpoke! Take this!” The grimoire Francesca dropped after I gave her that jump kick was in her hand again, and when the pages began to flutter, earth, wind, water, and fire magic rained out from, blasting me at point-blank.

“Yairgh!”

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Water Resistance Lv. 7] [Wind Resistance Lv. 6] gained

I flew off from Francesca, only to be caught by Jonathan. As I groaned from the damage I received, Jonathan warned me to use my runes again, as the she-fiend was about to use her grimoire again. As the spells flew towards us, I cast [Air Shield] around Amelia and brother while I activated [Auracoil] around myself.

Grimoires and seals were frowned upon by proper mages, but they allowed someone to cast the stored spell as rapidly as if they had [Chant Revocation Lv. 10]. A great tool for a battle, as Francesca was locking us down with them right now.

We were pushed onto the defense, which gave Iracela the time she needed to regenerate her wounds and the young nobles, unfortunately, the time to finish breaking through the wall, creating space for them to enter the room. Both twins smirked when they saw reinforcements coming in.

“Good! What took you so long?” Iracela asked.

“We apologize, my ladies. The walls in this house are harder than we thought. We couldn’t use too much strength, otherwise we risk breaking the ceiling.”

“Enough. That doesn’t matter now! Prepare yourselves. Once that Greenbump’s mana is used up, strike at her! Kill both Helvas brats!”

Francesca was right. The longer I maintained [Auracoil] and my demonic powers, the more I used up my mana. I could already feel signs of arcane corruption affecting me, so keeping this up wasn’t viable.

Thankfully, I was patient enough to leave insurance behind for these situations. Another rune on my sword lit up — it was Blood Bane, once again.

“What?! Kyaaaaah!”

The blood I shed from her throat and legs exploded, knocking her down to her knees while she tried to stop the bleeding from her throat. I used this moment to use [Piercing Shot], shooting my whipsword forward like an arrow to grab her grimoire, pulling it to me. I threw it to Amelia.

“Help us for a moment, Amelia! We can’t escape just yet!”

I then activated [Gale Steps], closing the distance between a noble and myself in an instant to slash at him with [Claw], materialized once again from my left arm. As blood sprayed from his torso, I used the whip part of my whipsword to strike down the other nobles inside the room.

None of the swordsmen were able to come close while I used earth and wind magic to block the attacks from the mages. Jonathan used his own [Gale Steps] to close in on the mages, and Amelia gave him cover fire from Iracela.

While the three of us performed our counterattack, something distasteful happened when my whipsword sliced somebody in its whip storm.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Human, Ellaine Fiero Helvas]’s Job [Whipsword Fighter] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 3]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Aside from the fact that these nobles were low-leveled, I actually killed one of them during the chaos. I mean, it was impossible to hold back when all of them were trying to kill me, and justice would have sentenced them to death anyway. Still, most of them were acquaintances from the academy, even if I never really got along with them, so I was loath to slay them out of hand.

[“Too much sympathy won’t do you any good, dear. They want you dead. You die, they’ll be happy. Simple as that. Reciprocate it. Hestia, Saori, Tasianna, and Grimnir would do the same,”] Klea’Hatma advised, urging me to know how to differentiate rivals from actual enemies.

[“I know. I’m sorry for that moment of weakness.”]

I put more strength into my sword arm, swinging with even more power and precision.

“Ugggarrrgh!”

“Eiiiiiek! Noooo…”

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Human, Ellaine Fiero Helvas]’s Job [Whipsword Fighter] has risen from [Level 3] to [Level 6]

Attributes have increased due to level up

From the walls to the ceiling, everything inside this room was getting destroyed, and with every death, the young nobles became even more deranged. At first, they mourned the two young lords I slew, blaming me for their deaths and saying the Goddess wouldn’t forgive me for what I had done.

When I killed my third, none of them even gave her dying moment a piece of their attention. Francesca and Iracela drove them at us, telling them they were superior with their blessing of the Goddess and that they were in the right for all of this. Even Jonathan’s hand was forced.

“D-Dammit. D-Did I—”

“Brother, this isn’t the time to question yourself! Self-defense! This is self-defense! Tell yourself that!”

From his ill complexion, this seemed to have been brother’s first human kill. Saori’s students, especially Tamae-chan, told me the same thing when I had to kill those fire cultists. It was then that I understood why opposing factions must vilify each other to make fighting easier on their minds.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Human, Ellaine Fiero Helvas]’s Job [Whipsword Fighter] has risen from [Level 6] to [Level 10]

Attributes have increased due to level up

“I-I’m out of offensive spells, Ellaine!” Amelia called, informing me she only had healing spells left.

“Concentrate on Jonathan! He needs healing more!”

As the fighting continued, Jonathan and I became increasingly wounded. With my spells and whipsword, keeping people and damage away from me was easy, but Jonathan didn’t have these options. His spell casting was slow and his armor was neither enchanted nor runed up. I had to save him a couple of times.

There was also Amelia. With her as our goal, if they took Amelia back, we would lose our momentum. Jonathan and I were thinning the crowd out, to the point we probably could escape if we just could cripple or kill the twins. They were the only ones with superhuman regeneration.

Aargh, this damn headache! I shouldn’t have drunk all the dragorade.

[“Reduce your Mana and Stamina usage, Ellaine. Turn off the third ability. Keep up [Musclesmass] for defense and [Whiplash] for your sword.”]

I was down to half Mana and my Health was falling slowly thanks to numerous glancing hits. But my biggest issue was my Stamina, which I had almost depleted with all the dodging, demonic attacks, and handling my whipsword. I was tiring myself out.

“Uuuuargh!”

“Jonathan! Hu— Shit! Dammit, out of my way!”

Francesca found an opening to land a punch on Jonathan, shattering his breastplate and driving him through the wall into a neighboring room. As I was preoccupied with keeping Amelia safe from the enemy nobles, Francesca tore the wall down, cackling as she slowly walked over to Jonathan.

“Jonathan, Jonathan, Jonathan. You should have stayed silent and just let us take care of your sister. Out of your sight, out of your mind, right? You could have been one of Lord Charleslyt’s knights, just as he planned to do for Iracela and I… But no, you were being—”

“Shut up already!” Jonathan shouted as he forced himself up, coughing up blood as he struggled to stand. Raising his sword, Jonathan resumed the stance our father taught us. “You’re a traitor of the kingdom. Just prepare to face real justice after this!”

“Idiot…”

No! Wind Blast! Whiplash!

A mighty blast of wind threw the nobles approaching me, giving me enough time to materialize[Whiplash] on my left arm, throwing the tendrils at Francesca’s head, harassing and distracting her from hurting Jonathan. I then moved closer to the outer wall, using my whipsword to slice and dice it, before kicking the wall open.

Bedrock Blades!

With the street in sight, two large brown magic circles were invoked on them, materializing large earthen blades. They descended down, slicing the building like butter. The walls and ceilings collapsed, everything was falling apart.

I retreated my whiplash before throwing it out again, this time threading the arm through the falling rubble to grab Jonathan, pulling him towards me, just before Francesca tried to crush him.

“Pavise!” The physical-resistant defensive rune [Pavise] began to conjure up a mana shield as I [Gale Steps] over to Amelia, hugging her and Jonathan, protecting them from the collapsing building.

“Damn you, Helvas!”

“Big sister, help me!”

I ignored their death cries. I didn’t care about them. I did something reckless, and I was just content I managed to save both Jonathan and Amelia in time.

Collapsing the building didn’t give me any more Divine System messages, making me question if any of them had died. I hoped so. Even the floor collapsed underneath us. They might be strong with the demonkin powers, but their levels were still around mine before I joined Hestia. They couldn’t be too sturdy.

“Jonathan, there are healing spells in this grimoire. Ellaine, help me take his armor off. We need to heal him,” Amelia said as we ignored the outside of this mana barrier and began treating Jonathan’s wounds.

When the noise finally subsided, the three of us cast [Earthen Wall] to push the rubble away from us, freeing the way. As I deactivated the [Pavise] rune, we walked out of the rubble, standing on top of the piles of this destroyed building. We looked around, but we couldn’t find any of the nobles.

“D-Did we manage to survive that?” Jonathan asked, completely out of breath.

“Maybe?” I wasn’t so sure. I still kept my demonic powers up just in case, as my [Enhanced Enemy Sense] noticed a few signals.

[“Argh, Ellaine, shut down that third ability! Why are you being so reckless with my powers?!”]

[“Huh? Klea? Are you alright? You don’t sound too good.”]

[“Did you forget I’m just a piece of mana inside your spell rings? I have my limits, dear, very significant limits compared to my former self. I can lend you my powers, but doing stuff like helping you control multiple powers at once is exhausting,”] Klea’Hatma complained.

Our usual relationship was Klea’Hatma would mold my mana into her demonic powers, and I would use them. What we did today was as if Hestia had made her parallel minds control two of her spells, enabling them to reach their prime effectiveness. While Hestia’s parallel minds were supported by the System, Klea’Hatma’s support wasn’t. In fact, from how she worded it before I allowed her to do so, the Goddess would frown at me.

[“Ahhhh, ignore them. Ignore that armor of yours. Let’s just go, Ellaine. I need to rest.”]

Agreed.

“Ellaine. Lord Jonathan. Could you two finally explain to me what is going on around here?” Amelia asked. The only one who isn’t out of breath.

“Don’t worry,” I assured Amelia. “We’ll explain everything, but we need to meet up with our pare—”

[Prediction]? Why is it— Kouff! … Huh?

I felt something go through me. Something sharp, something cold, but at the same time, it felt as if I was touched by the soothing warmth of a white grace. But… for some reason, I could feel something else. My body was trying to tell me something, but I couldn’t register it.

[Bleeding (Minor)] inflicted on [Human, Ellaine Fiero Helvas]

But that was when my eyes noticed something was in front of me. Gold and silver. It was armor, and not a simple one like Jonathan’s silver one, but it was decorated with accessories, fit to serve as an icon in a battle. It was perfect for a noble.

[Bleeding (Moderate)] inflicted on [Human, Ellaine Fiero Helvas]

But what creeped me out were the black, fleshy bits seeping out from the armor’s crevices, wiggling around like small creatures. Some looked like tentacles while others—

“Ooopruaaaah!!!”

I now knew what my mind wasn’t registering.

It was pain. A lot of pain.

[Bleeding (Major)] inflicted on [Human, Ellaine Fiero Helvas]

“Uruuuuuuaaaaaaeeeeeeeeeeeeghhhhhhhh! Uuuuuuugaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak!”

““ELLAINE!!!””

“How dare you destroy the house I rented. Who gave you the right to make such a decision? You have desecrated this Glorious One’s possession with your filth and blood, wretch!”

“Kkrriiiiiagh! LET GO! LET GO!”

[Absolute Pain Tolerance] work! Work! Why am I feeling so much pain! Tolerate! Tolerate! Tolerate! Stop this pain, PLEASE! Wooooork!

The pain grew and grew. My organs, ripped apart and now bleeding internally. They screamed and screamed, their message only now coming in large quantities. The shrieks escaping my voice were the natural explosion of all of this.

Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Blood. Blood. Blood. Sharp. Sharp. Sharp.

Something was sticking inside my stomach. My hands tried to pull it out, reflexively, but all they could do was cause me even more pain. I screamed to the sky, gagging on my own warm blood, crying out in prayer for all of this to stop.

“Charleslyt! Let go of my— OOOF! URRRGHHH!”

A light appeared, followed by the loud thud of somebody being flung away and landing on a rocky location.

“You disappoint me, Jonathan. I had thought you worthy of becoming my page. You were foolish to ignore my gift, a gift given to me by the Goddess! To betray me, is to betray the church and the Goddess herself! You stand before a Champion of Aurena, you heretic!”

“Kriiiiagaaaaghaaaaa! Let me go! Let me go…”

[“Ellaine! Ellaine! Stay with me! Push yourself out from the blade now! Your Health, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no! Aurena! Release my power now! Come on! You are letting this girl die this time! I can’t stop him with my energy reserves! Release the rest of the powers of that skill!”]

“Ellaine! Noooooo! Lord Charleslyt, please, let her go! Let her go! Please, noooo, don’t let her die!” I could hear somebody, but my mind couldn’t register who it belonged to.

“… I am sorry, my dear Amelia. But these two dared to betray a Champion of the Goddess. For that, they deserve death. As the future Grand Duke of Economic Affairs and the one to destroy every enemy of the Goddess, I cannot be the same wretch that I was before. I am—”

My arms felt weak. Numb. I was seeing things in two. Fatigue. Lethargic.

In the next moment, the cold sharp piece inside my stomach withdrew itself, and from then, warm liquid began to spray from my body. It was like a pond, no, it looked like a fountain to me.

“— Charleslyt Louis Equevanna, the greatest Champion to be. The glorious sun of the Goddess! … And this shall be my first step towards that goal.”

“NOOOOO! PLEASE, NOOOOOOOOOOO! STOOOOOOP!”

A sharp pain.

… The world was rotating and rotating and rotating. I felt a sting around my neck, and in the next moment, a headache. Thudding. Thudding. Thudding. My vision rolled and rolled and rolled. I saw rocks, I saw the bright sun in the sky, I saw… a headless body.

Ah…

“ELLAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE!”

When my vision finally stopped rolling around, I heard a loud thud and scream from behind me. I couldn’t see what it was. I thought I would feel pain. I thought I could feel something else, but to my surprise, my memories began to surface.

I made my decision to renounce my birthright due to my lack of self-esteem. I saw my first meeting with Hestia, where I realized how interesting of a person she was. She didn’t like me at the start, but somehow, we became friends.

I saw my decision to rebel against Mother and my choice to become part of Aurora. I saw myself fighting alongside Tamae-chan and the others against all those Danterno cultists. I saw myself in my new armor, made by Master Grimnir. I saw myself rebelling against not only Hestia’s but also Goddess Aurena’s decision, believing Klea’Hatma was my chance to become worthy of Aurora, if only I could control her. Was it right or wrong, I didn’t know.

I saw myself speaking up against Father, telling him what I wanted. I saw myself standing up against my former bullies, the Chezaic twins. I saw myself getting my whipsword and training with it, becoming better and better, to the point I could help the others fight against those geisenlargs. I saw myself…

… I saw myself rescuing Amelia once again… but that was only a dream.

I-I don’t want to die. I… there is so much I still wanted to do. So much. Hestia, brother, father, mother, I still have to make you prou…

…

…

…

… Crack.

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Chapter 242: A Lust for Happiness.

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…

…

… White.

It was white.

The ceiling, the floor, the walls, the distance. Everything was white to the eyes. There was no color around except for… myself. Even then, I was more translucent with some colors, dyed with the white around me. It seemed familiar… like when I visited the Goddess’s divine realm.

“You’ve woken up, Ellaine,” a soothing voice said from behind me.

I snapped my head around, beholding a woman in a pure white dress, drinking tea as her iridescent feathered wings shuffled around. She had the same white hair and face I remembered seeing before, during my first meeting with her.

“… Goddess Aurena?” I spoke, before remembering everything that happened before this meeting. Being kidnapped, being rescued by Jonathan, and then trying to rescue Amelia, only to end up…

“… Am I dead? Is this the afterlife?” I felt an immense desire to cry out, as if something compelled me to fight against that statement. To not accept it, that this was not a fact, but a callous suggestion. I wanted to be wrong.

But all I could feel was an immense despair. I remembered how my head had been cut off. The light flickered away from my eyes, drowning myself in the darkness and silence of the abyss. Terror. Fear of my own mortality resurfaced. I couldn’t help but shiver.

“Oh, don’t be like that, Ellaine. Don’t think you were the only one worried to death about what happened!” Another voice appeared from nowhere, this time, it wasn’t nearly as soothing or calming as the Goddess’s, in fact, it had a certain seductive attraction. I felt nervous just hearing it.

“Ellaine, dear, I can hear your thoughts. I think we made this clear a while ago!”

“Klea’Hatma?” It wasn’t actually the demoness’s real form, but a small mana orb floating around, the same one I saw during our first meeting. “What are you doing he— Oh wait, right. I forgot. I’m sorry.”

[Okl’Luthier’s Power] was a unique skill connecting Klea’Hatma’s powers to me, meaning I was the only one able to use her powers. However, as a safety measure, the moment I died, Klea’Hatma would, too. If she went against me, she would have been killed, too. The Goddess acquiesced to my request, but she did not slack with the preparations.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough. I’m sorry I wasn’t attentive enough. I should have known all of this. I should have reacted faster the moment [Prediction] appeared. There was still so much I had to improve about myself, but I guess all my efforts were in vain. I was too late to improve myself…”

The effort everybody put into me was wasted. Thrown into the trash. I felt terrible. My family, my friends, my party. I failed them all, and I couldn’t imagine what they would think after they found my corpse. I felt disgusted with myself for allowing them to witness me like that, especially my parents and bro—

Brother?

“You aren’t dead just yet, Ellaine,” Klea’Hatma stated.

“Huh?”

“She is right, Ellaine,” the Goddess said. “And, I am also not the actual Goddess Aurena. I am just a part of her power she put into [Okl’Luthier’s Power], with the function to destroy the demon the moment you fall into temptation. I am her cell and executioner, and this is the realm within that skill.”

I am… inside a skill? My soul?

“ ‘Death-defying protection,’ or in simpler terms, a vampiric blessing of undying. The amulet you received during your dungeon dive — because of the effect of such artifacts, we place them high on the rarity list. You can’t get one without killing a guardian or mid-guardian of vampiric or bat origin. The higher the difficulty, the better the chance. You were lucky to receive it from a C rank.”

Rarity list? Guardian? Is this the language of the Gods?

Even if there were words I wasn’t familiar with, I still understood the gist of it. The amulet I kept with me even in my sleep managed to prevent my death. I placed my ghostly hand around my neck, wondering how that was supposed to work. Am I to live as a disembodied head?

“We can read your mind here, Ellaine. Your soul, technically. Rest assured, the amulet is currently repairing your injuries through blood magic, and will reattach your head,” the fragment of the Goddess’s power explained.

“Then, why is my soul inside this area? If my resuscitation is upon me, then I must immediately make myself ready! My brother and Amelia are in grave danger with Charleslyt around!”

That’s right. I remembered. I remembered Charleslyt piercing my body with his sword, giving a monologue as I pleaded in desperation, before decapitating me. It gave me a deep chill as I reminded myself of it.

“There is no need, Ellaine,” Klea’Hatma was the one to answer me this time. “This place has its own law of time. Every minute here is but a few milliseconds in reality. Aurena brought you here because she needed to tell you something, and, besides, what did you imagine you could do once you stand back up? Your Health will be full again, but your Mana and Stamina are still empty.”

“Urgh…” I groaned.

Charleslyt was a capable warrior who was able to reach B rank. Within the hunter’s guild, you had to pass an official guild exam to rank up, and, even if he had cheated on it, I saw exactly what he was capable of when he dueled against Hestia. With his equipment, he was quite strong.

In addition, he had received the powers of a demonkin. If they managed to turn inexperienced combatants like the twins and those young nobles into threats just through a stat boost and quick healing, what could that power do for an almost knight-tier warrior like Charleslyt?

I am a C rank adventurer at best, even with my armor and sword equipped. Even then, I don’t have much actual dueling experience.

“Klea’Hatma is correct, Ellaine. Although powerful, the blessing on the amulet only works once before breaking. The next fatal strike would be it — your end. If survival is your only priority, use the moment of your survival to flee.” Although it wasn’t the real Goddess, this was still a fragment of herself, and hearing this nonchalant answer as she sipped her tea made me feel… unpious.

I was angry at her answer.

“But… from the looks of it, I don’t believe that to be an option for you. Klea’Hatma, you can feel it, can’t you? Her desire to rescue her brother and friend?”

Klea’Hatma’s mana orb found wobbled in the air, indicating a nod. “That feeling is intensifying, yes. You mentioned wanting to experience happiness in your life, correct, Ellaine? And this desire includes your family and friends, so you can make them proud. This was your last thought before you died.”

Oh! How embarrassing… I was thinking that when I thought everything was about to end. But, it’s not like it wasn’t the truth. I really do want to make everybody proud of me. For how long I made them feel bad for me? I really, really, really want to change that image of myself.

“Ellaine, I have been watching over you and Klea’Hatma ever since I originally gave you [Okl’Luthier’s Power]. I must admit to being somewhat surprised. Your heart and mentality were surprisingly stable, despite having used her demonic powers so often. The more your personality is aligned with a demon’s blood, the more power you can invoke from it, but also the more likely you will be consumed by it.”

From my textbooks, the more a demonkin accepted their demonic lineage, leaning towards one of their ancestors, the more they would be able to awaken that power. The more demonic they acted, the more powerful they would become.

“Ellaine, I might be your Goddess in Peolynca now, but I was once someone who governed over beings like Klea’Hatma in the world we Origin Gods came from. Even without this skill realm, I can tell there are hints of envy and wrath inside you right now.” Aurena placed her teacup down. “ ‘The Sin of Lust,’ in our world’s definition, is the ultimate hedonist. A person who strives to quench their unending thirst for pleasure and stimuli. Whether sexual, materialistic, or emotional. Unlike those controlled by greed, who cannot accept something not belonging to them, or gluttony, who would go to any lengths to satisfy their appetite, someone under the sway of lust is more in control of themselves. They are more like a wildcard.”

“And you have been influenced by me, Ellaine,” Klea’Hatma stated with full confidence at the end of the Goddess’s explanation. “Whether it's you acting a little bit more assertive or just being more aggressive with your actions. Your desires have been intensified during this time that I’ve been with you… however, for some reason, you haven’t fallen into full-on lustfulness yet. You still remain yourself, to the point I was testing my limits by teasing you more than I should have probably done.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond to those statements. Did I change? I don’t think so. I still acted on what I believed would be correct for me to do, even if I had to go against the opinions of my party members. Just… With strength comes confidence, and with this confidence my desire to become my ideal knight reawakened.

“Then… What are you two trying to tell me? I don’t quite understand.”

Aurena nodded. “The reason why I brought you to this realm? I believe it is time for you to unlock the next function of your skill. Level three and… assimilation.”

“… Aurena, are you trying to kill me here?” Klea’Hatma questioned the Goddess with an indignant tone.

Assimilation?

“The ability to temporarily become a demonkin by injecting demonic mana through your blood, allowing you to manifest more powers of a demon ancestor, without straining your body too much. In your case, you would possess purer blood than even one of the demonkin’s princes of lust, since you have the progenitor inside your rings,” the Goddess explained, smiling at me but something told me this wasn’t a warm one.

“… Demons are like elite soldiers, Ellaine. In our previous world, we were led by our primary gods and their subordinates to enforce their ideals and execute their plans. In some cases, when a worshiper summons us, we would perform assimilation to grant them our powers temporarily,” Klea’Hatma added. “But the problem is, the likelihood of permanently becoming like a demonkin is extremely high, Ellaine. Like those twins, those twisted nobles, and that Charleslyt. They have been corrupted by the sin of pride…”

Klea’Hatma then looked towards Aurena. “The moment you fall into that corruption, I will die. Aurena would kill me to prevent you from falling any further.”

“ ‘Use the demon like a tool.’ I remember those words you and Hestia spoke to me, Ellaine. This is a gambit. You would obtain enough strength to rival a B rank adventurer at your current assimilation rate, but not only would your body feel immense fatigue afterwards, but there is also a chance I will destroy this skill and Klea’Hatma if you fail to stay true to yourself.”

The Goddess’s words were like spears while her eyes leered at Klea’Hatma and me as if we were all beneath her. The warmth the Goddess of Light showed me at the beginning was gone, replaced by a cold, calculative stare. She was giving me a choice, and she was ready to act on whatever I chose.

“Klea’Hatma?” I looked over at the demon, worried and anxious at her reaction to all of this.

“… Follow your desires, Ellaine. That is exactly what I would do in your position. If Jonathan and Amelia are precious to you, you should do everything to keep them safe! Don’t show any pity for me; I’ve lived long enough and I had my fun with you and the others. I have committed countless atrocities, more than you could ever fathom; I am the antithesis of what you wish to become, Ellaine.”

Klea’Hatma’s voice seemed distant, as if she wasn’t directing those words at me. It was as if she was just speaking her mind. Expressing her instincts and giving everybody in the room an idea of what she really thought of it all.

“I can feel it, Ellaine. You have an incredible lust for happiness. You want your life to turn around, to turn your story up until now around completely.” Her voice became clearer and louder the more she spoke, as if she had readied herself for the inevitable. “You need my power to save Jonathan and Amelia! Take it! Accept the assimilation! I will even give you the power to defeat those damn demonkin youngsters! I will make you into Griffonpeak’s hero! I will turn you into the knight you always dreamed of! As the demonic embodiment of the Sin of Lust, I, Klea’Hatma will fulfill this contract between—”

“No!”

There was an eerie silence. Neither the Goddess nor Klea’Hatma said anything as I bit my lips in frustration, having forced myself to say those words.

“… What do you mean by that, Ellaine?” Klea’Hatma finally asked in disbelief.

“I will not accept this assimilation. That is my final answer.”

“… Liar. Hahaha!” Klea’Hatma burst out in maniacal laughter, as if she hadn’t laughed in ages, until she found a joke so funny she couldn’t control herself. “I am the demon of lust, Ellaine. Do you think you can trick me? I can sense it. I can sense your lust to find happiness! Stop lying to yourself and embrace that desire of yours already! ACCEPT THE ASSIMILATION!”

“… No.”

“… But why? I-I don’t understand. I can feel it. I can feel what you want, so just release it. Don’t bottle it up until it explodes later on, Ellaine. You will regret it.”

With a wry smile, I looked at Klea’Hatma. I took a deep breath before giving my answer.

“Because that isn’t who I am.”

The knight stories father always told me when I was still a child were probably the most impactful part of my life. They taught me ideals I cherish to this day, but they were also a major reason why I felt frustrated in myself.

My envy for brother’s talents and success as a knight-in-training made me aware that this dream was only a distant imagination. And this self-deprecation fed itself into my mind, furthering a cycle of self-destruction. I gave up on my dream, separating myself from that dream to distance myself from the constant thoughts of how much of a failure I was.

But, that was until I heard Hestia perform her first concert.

Her song “Promise” holds a dear place in my heart. The story she told through it was heart-wrenching but also reawakened something in me I thought I had given up. I had reached a turning point, and I held onto it in order to never let this opportunity fly away.

But, could I sacrifice something to preserve my happiness? I couldn’t. I wasn’t that strong yet. I was still a naive noble girl who still dreamed of stories of gallant knights ending wars on the backs of their trusty mounts.

I knew at this moment that I was choosing the worst option. But…

“You are lying to yourself as well, Klea!” I shouted. “I can sense it. I can sense your will to continue living. I can tell you aren’t willing to just throw your life away for me, erasing any chance for you to reconstruct your body! You said it yourself, you and I have been working together for too long. I can’t tell it as accurately as you, but I can feel it, you want to be happy, too. But death… you don’t desire that for yourself.”

“…” Klea’Hatma was silenced once again, this time, she couldn’t say anything as I continued making my mind.

“I don’t know if I can do it. Call me naive all you want! I am! I am still like that! Even if I have to die once again, this time, I will make sure that at least I will rescue Jonathan and Amelia!” I pressed my hand on my chest. “Even if we both die this time for real, Klea, let’s do it by our own free will. So… Klea’Hatma, will you make a contract with me? Will you grant me the power to save Jonathan and Amelia!”

A contract was a binding agreement between two parties. Yes, sometimes you could force somebody into a contract, but as a daughter of the Greenveil duchy, I understood what it really meant. Until the both of us accept it willingly, I would not think of Klea’s “contract” as binding!

“Do you want me to be truthful with myself! Yes, I desire myself to be happy! But what I really want is a happy ending where good triumphs over evil just like in a story. I want an ending where people can be satisfied! That also includes you, Klea.”

I reached out my hand.

“Ellaine… Hiehie, you are such an idiot. Such a foolish girl, but… somehow, you are really attractive right now. What sort of power do you have to make the heart of an old demoness like me beat like this?”

Uhh, w-what?!

“Hiehiehie, you impress me, Ellaine.” Our attention snapped back to the third person inside this realm, the fragment of the Goddess. Her cold stare was gone, returned to the warmth I always imagined she would radiate. “I understand. If you are like this, then you have my blessing.”

A light lit up inside my soul, followed by one surrounding Klea’Hatma’s mana form. It became brighter and brighter, to the point it consumed the both of us.

“However, never become too lackadaisical, Ellaine! The more you feed Klea’Hatma with your mana, the more energy she will have to reconstruct her former form, and when that happens, her personality will shift. When that time comes, you will need to subjugate and make her your pawn."

I could hear Aurena giving me that warning, but neither my thoughts nor words reached her. Everything was being consumed by this light.

“Until that time comes, you must strengthen yourself! Train, level, become more acquainted with the powers of an okl’luthier. But, most importantly, stay true to yourself, Ellaine! Even you can become my champion. Or, maybe even a seraphim.”

Health has dropped to 0. [Necklace of Vampiric Undying] has prevented death. Returning Health back to 1

[Necklace of Vampiric Undying] has activated. Refunding blood stored inside to Owner: [Ellaine Fiero Helvas]’sHealth pool. Applying [Invocation of Vivachel] on Owner using stored blood

…

Body of Owner has been repaired. Injuries and status effects removed. [Necklace of Vampiric Undying] effect has been completed. Destruction of artifact commences

… Crack.

“Nooo, let go of me! Let go of me! You killed her! You killed Ellaine, you Equetard BASTARD! Noooo, you killed her! Nooohohooooohooooooo…”

“Ellaine! NOOOOOO! Charleslyt, I will kill you for this! How dare you do this to my baby sister! You fucking traitor! EeaaaaaAAArgh!”

“Silence. What gives you the right to address me only with my name? Know your place. You are just the son of an arcanuess. I am the son of a grand duke. The only traitor I see is a pitiful noble who decided to bite the hand of his master. For that, you will join your sister soon en—”

Proficiency requirement fulfilled. [Okl’Luthier’s Power Lv. 2] evolved into [Okl’Luthier’s Power Lv. 3]

Ability gained:   [Blade]

A portion of   [Okl’Luthier’s Power] has been unlocked. Ability gained: [Assimilation]

“HiiiiiiiiiiiAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!”

Pressure was building up inside my body the moment my consciousness returned to my body. The energy streaming through my veins was calling for my full focus, to the point I wasn’t even interested in making sure if my body was reformed correctly. Were my organs stitched up properly? Was my head on the right side?

But, with all the thoughts running through my head and my blood singing in my veins at this moment, those were the least of my worries.

[“Listen, Ellaine! Pour your mana into the rings and I will morph it into blood. Inject this blood into your bloodstream, and let it course through your blood system! Be careful, control the flow, don’t let it rupture your heart! You must control this!”]

[“Got it, Klea!”]

Pour mana in, get blood, slowly inject blood into my body through flesh tendrils. Slow breaths, slow breaths, I have to control my breathing! I can’t let my heart race too much!

[Okl’Luthier’s Power] assimilation rate: 2%

[“Good! The skill is controlling the assimilation rate! Damn that Aurena, she scared the panties off of us for no reason when she had a way to stop me from affecting you too much! Still, don’t get complacent, the moment you feel like you aren’t yourself, tell me and I’ll stop the assimilation!”]

[“Got it, Klea! Let’s do this!”]

Breath in, breath out, breath in, breath out.

[Okl’Luthier’s Power] assimilation rate: 5%

Feel the blood flow through my heart, let it feed me cells.

[Okl’Luthier’s Power] assimilation rate: 10%

“By the Light, how is that woman still alive?!”

Nourish my cells. Allow them to control the blood! Let them feed on the blood!

[Okl’Luthier’s Power] assimilation rate: 13%

“Begone, you foul undead! By the Light in this sword, I shall cut you dow—”

“Noooooo! You Equetard, I won’t let you kill my friend again!”

“Wha—?! Amelia! Unhand me now!”

[“Enough, that’s the limit! Release it!”]

I stopped pouring mana into my spell rings. The headache from arcane corruption was still there, but I pushed right through that pain, pulling the energy from inside my body forth!

[““Assimilation!””]

“Purifying Greatsword!”

As my vision blackened, I could see a glimpse of a bright light sword. [Prediction] activated as I could feel something sprouting out from my head, back, and behind. As I moved my body away from the projectile trajectory reflexively, I could feel something happening with my eyes, teeth, and nails.

When the light finally returned to my eyes, I realized that I had been inside a black mana cloud as the light sword flew right past me, cleaving through the collapsed pile of that house we were in a few minutes ago.

[“Fly, Ellaine!”]

[“What?!”]

[“I’ll show you, learn quickly!”]

Bone wings. Large wings made from bones and bits of flesh had sprouted from my back, fully capable of bringing me up to the sky to fly around. As I was struggling to control them correctly, Klea took full control of them, ordering me to attack.

And I did just that.

“Let go of Amelia!” Wrapping [Musclemass] around my arm, I flew right up to Charleslyt, twisting around his shield to give him an uppercut with my right fist.

“Uuuaf!”

I then grabbed onto his armor, dragging him up into the sky before landing another hit to his face, sending him shooting down to the ground. Before the dust dissipated, multiple light sword slashes shot right at me, prompting me to dodge around. Surprisingly, I had little trouble dodging it, despite how fast they were.

Materializing [Whiplash], I used [Enhanced Enemy Sense] to detect Charleslyt behind that smokescreen, waiting for an opening to shoot the whiplash. Once I found it, I shot the thick, flesh tendrils into it, feeling something metal when my three-fanged claw grabbed it.

I pulled myself towards it while Klea’Hatma accelerated my body with the wings.

“Damn woman! Haaa!”

I narrowly ducked from Charleslyt’s incoming sword. He had anticipated me launching myself to him like that. With my back turned to Charleslyt, I could feel [Prediction] telling me to dodge, but I was still recovering from my bad landing.

[“Your tails!”]

[“My what?!”]

The moment Klea said that, I felt something from my behind moving, and Charleslyt suddenly began cursing me for some reason. When I turned around, I saw three flesh tentacles with spikes on their tips harassing Charleslyt. When I looked down, I saw a tail having sprouted from my behind, splitting into three.

What in the world is this transformation?!

I ignored my worry for my body and materialized [Claw] on both hands, beginning my assault onto Charleslyt. As my long demonic claws clashed against his sword and shield, I was forcibly reminded of Hestia’s duel with him. I began remembering the runes he had on them.

[“Mix and match, Ellaine. Mix and match! That is my advantage compared to the other demons! My power is flexibility!”]

When I was blasted away from activating that holy explosion rune on Charleslyt’s shield, which activated as a counterattack, I quickly materialized [Whiplash] on my right, pulling myself back into the fight before turning it back into a claw, continuing the assault.

“Demonkin! You sold away your soul!” Charleslyt shouted.

“Hypocrite! I’ll pay you back for everything!” I retaliated, before digging my claws right through his armor into his sides.

“Arrrgh! Bitch!”

He kicked me and landed a deep cut with his sword on my arm. Thankfully, [Musclemass] protected me from most of it before it recovered and closed the cut. Still, I was flying and crashed into the ground.

As Charleslyt healed himself with [Modest Heal], I stopped my landing before forming my newest demonic ability on my right hand — [Blade]. A large, razor-sharp blade formed along my arm. Length-wise, it went from my elbow down to my knees. It wasn’t as long as my whipsword, but it surely was larger.

“Charleslyt!” With [Claw] on my left arm and [Blade] on my right, I charged right at him with flight, drilling the [Blade] right through his shield. Ripping his shield from his grasp, I began to slice and dice away at him.

Thankfully for him, I was still fairly inexperienced with using these two abilities simultaneously, so Charleslyt and I were in a stalemate. However, once he calmed himself, he grabbed his sword with both hands and began warding me off. I began to take a small amount of damage with every confrontation, which began to build up.

[Exhaustion (Minor)] inflicted on [Human, Ellaine Fiero Helvas]

[“Ellaine, I told you already! Mana and Stamina won’t recover, you need to conserve yourself! You nearly used up all your Mana without having cast a single spell!”]

Spells? Spells!

I was so preoccupied with fighting like this that I forgot this wasn’t my fighting style! I was a magic swordswoman first and foremost!

Terra Wall! Bedrock Blades!

Abandoning my fear of accumulating too much arcane corruption, I pushed through and I cast two spells. I didn’t care if I had to suffer afterward, I will win this and survive! I will save Jonathan! I will save Amelia! I will prove to the Goddess that I can control this power and save Klea as well!

For I will become that gallant knight!

The earth morphed underneath us, a rock wall separated me from Charleslyt while large rock blades occupied Charleslyt’s attention. I released [Blade] on my right arm and raised it in the direction I saw Amelia and Jonathan watching the fight.

“My sword!” I called out to them.

Amelia’s eyes widened and she gave me a firm nod, telling Jonathan something before turning around to run.

But there was no time to wait, Charleslyt turned my rock blades into rubble before continuing the fight with me. With [Claw] on both hands, I defended myself against his swordsmanship, which honestly would have been inspirational if he wasn’t an enemy.

When I understood the difference between us, I took to the sky and began using hit-and-run tactics with [Whiplash]. I would fly away, use the whip, and land a hit with the claws as I flew by. The sight of the fleshy tendrils on my body constantly morphing around was pretty disgusting, to be honest.

But this plan didn’t last for much longer, when Charleslyt adapted and landed a counterattack the moment I slashed at him. He left a deep gash on my left arm, bleeding terribly.

[Bleeding (Minor)] inflicted on [Human, Ellaine Fiero Helvas]

Staunch the bleeding… with muscles!

As I crashed onto the ground, my tails helped me by pushing me away from Charleslyt’s next attack. As I tried to make some distance, Charleslyt shot multiple blades of light at me, slowing me down for him to catch on to continue his aggression.

Even if I used my own spells to distract him, Charleslyt proved himself as the better fighter right now. Charleslyt’s demonic transformation only resulted in blue mana streaks and more yellowish skin, but it felt more substantial than the twins’. He didn’t look as monstrous as me, but his strength couldn’t be questioned.

Still, [Exhaustion] caught up to me, I was slowing down and becoming even more tired. If we kept this up, I will lose even with [Assimilation]. If only I didn’t use up all that Stamina during the previous fight.

“Ellaine!” But when the situation was turning sour, a single voice pierced through the heat of the battle. From the sides, Amelia called out for me and threw my sword up for Jonathan to blast towards me with [Wind Blast].

No! It’s not far enough!

Not only was I preoccupied right now, but the sword’s trajectory wouldn’t fall into my hands. When I tried to fly away, Charleslyt stopped me. I was repeating my attacks so often that he had perfectly adapted to me at this point.

[“Ellaine, your other body parts! You can materialize the abilities on your legs, tails, or wings, too!”]

Fuck, of course! Why didn’t I think of that!

Before [Assimilation], I could only use my abilities on my arms due to the spell rings, but now, in this form, I was more like a demonkin than a human. I had to use my abilities better.

As I flew back up, Charleslyt shouted “Not again!” before trying to slash at me, only for me to materialize my leg into a [Blade], countering his attack.

“What?!”

I then transformed one of my three tails into [Whiplash] and pulled myself away from Charleslyt and directly towards my flying sword. I grabbed it, gave it a quick kiss, before swinging it to parry one of Charleslyt’s attacks.

Dodding around the light slashes, I unfurled my whipsword and began using its range to my advantage, pressuring Charleslyt to stay on the defensive or charge directly at me. My sword play was inferior to his, but when it came to fighting a sword fighter using my whipsword, I held the advantage.

Thank you, father!

As his armor took damage from my sword, Charleslyt threw caution out of the window and charged right at me.

Exactly, come closer!

With every step, he came closer and closer, and the moment he was close enough to attack me, I used [Gale Steps] to dash away from him to materialize a [Blade] on my whipsword, giving the tip a scythe-like look.

As Charleslyt followed after me with his own [Gale Steps], I swung my sword. The blade separated itself into shards as the whip extended, and with it, the scythe tip. Given that [Blade] could drill through his sturdy shield, it had to be strong enough to pierce his armor!

Time slowed down. The deciding moment was here. It was a match between his leg speed against my swinging speed.

And the one to win this was…

Musclemass!

— Me.

“Guuuugraaaahhhh!”

His armor shattered, blood sprayed from his torso as he twisted through the air, crash landing on a pile of wood. I used [Gale Steps]to sprint towards him, intending to finish him with my sword. As I swung it at his exposed throat, however, Charleslyt’s terrified eyes came into view for me.

And in them, I saw my reflection. I saw two slim horns protruding from my forehead, two slit irises, and four sharp canines. I looked… not human.

At the very last second, I began to form doubts and I slammed my sword tip into his shoulder, pinning him on the ground.

[“E-Ellaine?!”]

“You will face proper justice, Charleslyt! You will answer for your crimes!”

I gathered up all my strength and remaining mana into my right arm, morphing large muscles on it with [Musclesmass]. Drawing it back, I saw some black energy sounding my fist, but I simply attributed it to an optical illusion.

“Fuck you, you Equetard bastaaaaaard!”

And with this one punch, I shattered his stomach armor, pulverizing the stones underneath him with the sheer shockwave of the attack. Charleslyt’s body jerked forward, expelling puke as he gasped for air, before falling limp onto the ground.

“Ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaaaaa.” I was out of breath. I fell right on my behind as fatigue made me want to go to sleep.

[“Unholy shit… Ellaine… Hehehe, you need some proper rest now. I’ll undo the assimilation.”]

The bone wings and fleshy tentacle tails fell right off my body as Klea did that. They began to melt into a meaty goo on the ground while the rest of my demonic features began to subside. My eyes and canines returned to normal, and I also noticed my teeth had regrown already.

There were a few features that hadn’t disappeared, though. For example, my nails were thick and sharp like claws and, for some reason, my horns wouldn’t fall all by themselves. Klea told me I had to tear them off myself, but I really wondered why they didn’t do it themselves.

“Ellaine!”

“Sister!”

“Amelia! Jonath— Woah! Oh!” When I tried to stand up, my wobbling legs were about to let me fall, only for Amelia to grab me at the last second, supporting me up.

“Don’t overexert yourself, Ellaine. You did far too much already, hie hie,” she smiled as she said that. Without warning, she then began frantically checking my neck. “How is your neck whole? I thought, well, I thought… I’m glad you’re alive, Ellaine.”

“Amelia?”

With tears in her eyes, Amelia wrapped her arms around me and hugged me, dirtying her dress with the dirt and sweat I accumulated from the battles up until now.

“This is now the third time you saved me.”

“Third?”

“First when we were still kids and the second time when you stood up for me during the academy festival.”

O-Oh, that one. I didn’t really count it since we weren’t friends at that point, but I kept that to myself. I didn’t want to ruin the mood.

“Ellaine, I’m really glad to see you well and alive,” Jonathan stated with relief when he caught up. “How? I clearly saw him decapitate you, so how was it possible for you to survive that? And, that transformation and all those weird morphing body parts from before. And, you now have those two hor—”

“Shush now, Jonathan. Can’t you see your sister’s blue complexion? She’s not only exhausted by almost contracted [Arcane Corruption]. Give her some rest, and… hand me over your coat. Your sister needs some new clothes.”

I looked down where Amelia was pointing at, and finally noticed how tattered and bloody my shirt was from my fight with Charleslyt and my transformations. Even my undershirt wasn’t spared and more skin than I wanted to expose could be seen through the slits of my ripped shirt. Embarrassment was now a luxury I could absolutely afford.

“Is he dead?” Jonathan asked with his back turned to us, while Amelia was helping me cover myself.

“I punched him hard, but I didn’t receive a level-up notification. Considering what happened today, I thought it wise to keep at least one of these traitors alive for the subsequent trial. I mean, the rest are all under this rubble and we have no way to know if they are alive… and they’re buried with my armor.”

My poor armor… Damn that Francesca! I will talk bad of the dead, just because it’s you, you Equetard bitch!

Of course, that wasn’t the only reason. I did wonder something during the end of that match, despite how Charleslyt acted, why didn’t he show any unhuman features aside from blue steaks and slightly yellow skin? From what I understood, the more you embodied a sin, the more your body would adapt to it.

It happened with the Chezaic twins, who were prideful as hell before their house fell. I was also a good example, since I admit I was very much a lustful person when it came to personal happiness. That’s how this [Assimilation] worked in the first place. So, why did Charleslyt not transform?

I had heard Davison had taken a black drink to morph his body into a regenerating freak, and it was the cause of demonkin interference. Klea had told me this had demonkin of pride plastered over it. Did Charleslyt drink a different concoction, or what now?

Today’s attack was a grim reminder to the kingdom that the demonkins will affect us, even with the Empire in their way. I had to capture Charleslyt and have him interrogated. It was the only way for us to gain more information.

I wanted to kill him so very much, for everything he did to me, but… I have to act like a knight. I can’t let my killing lust take me over. That would be exactly what I couldn’t allow, otherwise, Klea might die.

As Amelia finished helping me put on Jonathan’s sweaty coat — it was better than showing people a lack of modesty — Jonathan informed us there was a barricade in the merchant district. It was there to protect the upper city from getting invaded by the monsters.

With our plan decided, Jonathan was about to grab Charleslyt’s unconscious body, when a massive black thunder ray blasted off into the sky at a far part of the city. I didn’t doubt that that was Saori’s [Hadean Dragon Thunder]. In the next moment, I saw an elf standing in the sky above Griffonpeak, having conjured a floating giant wooden owl, shooting enchanted arrows at a monster demolishing the walls of the city.

This battle wasn’t over yet.

I stood up and began to make my way towards the stygian thunder.

“Ellaine, wait, where are you going?!”

“The threat to Griffonpeak isn’t done yet, Amelia! I need to regroup with my party,” I told her.

“What?! But your wounds! You’re even fatigued! You can’t possibly go out to fight right now without a rest.”

“Huh? What do you mean? I am doing exactly that.” I grinned. “Saori has potions and dragorade stored in her [Storage Magic]. The best place to rest is with either of Aurora’s two otherworlders! Brother, can I leave the rest to you?”

“Yeah, don’t worry. I’ll make sure to bring Lady Amelia and Charleslyt to the knights. Go, trust in your older brother!”

“You got it! Thanks!” Without turning back, I ran towards Saori’s location after making sure I couldn’t feel any threats in the area anymore. I wanted to see Francesca’s and Iracela’s bodies to confirm their deaths, but getting out of here was better for now.

“Come back alive, Ellaine! I never want to see your corpse ever again! I want you to explain everything to me afterward!”

“Promise!”

And with that, I made a promise to her.

[“You’re feeling hyper despite the huge strain I can feel coursing through your body. What was that term again? A flag? You’re putting down a flag as Hestia would say it, dear,”] Klea joked.

[“Maybe, but for some reason, I think I can handle it properly this time. I feel like I’ve gotten used to my terrible luck as a member of Aurora. After all, our party has nothing but bad luck when it comes to conflicts.”]

[“Hiehie, well, make sure to survive this time. I lust to live and to see what you and Aurora can do, Ellaine.”]

[“Understood!”]

After all…

… I lust for happiness.

Profile:

Name:   Ellaine Fiero Helvas

Level: 66

Race: Human

Age: 15 Years

Whipsword Fighter Level: 10/15

Status:

Health:

3517 (+714)

Mana:

4785 (+1044)

Strength:

1590 (+325)

Intelligence:

2223 (+482)

Vitality:

1423 (+325)

Wisdom:

1617 (+308)

Agility:

1513 (+300)

Stamina:

2941 (+685)

Effects:

None

Skill Points:

5350

Unique Skill:

[Okl’Luthier’s Powers Lv. 3] (+2)

Skill:

Magic skills and related:

[Mana Efficiency Lv. 10] [Mana Control Lv. 10] (+1)

[Arcane Mind Lv. 8] (+1)

[Earth Magic Lv. 10] [Earth Amp] [Earth Magic Efficiency]

[Terra Magic Lv. 2] [Wind Magic Lv. 10] [Wind Amp]

[Wind Magic Efficiency] [Storm Magic Lv. 1]

[Synergist’s Oath Lv. 4] (+1) [Silent Casting Lv. 7] (+2)

[Chant Revocation Lv. 10] [Mental Warfare Lv. 6] (+3)

[Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 1] (New) [Mental Stability Lv. 4] (New)

[Long-Range Spell Enhancement Lv. 1] (New)

[Fluid Cast Lv. 2] (+1) [Multi-Cast Lv. 1] [Continuous Cast Lv. 1]

[Delayed Cast Lv. 1]

Physical skills and related:

[Unarmed Technique Lv. 3] (+2) [Sword Technique Lv. 7] (+1)

[Sword Mastery Lv. 5] (+2) [Whip Technique Lv. 6] (New)

[Whip Mastery Lv. 4] (New)

[Sundering Enhancement Lv. 5] (+2) [Piercing Enhancement Lv. 3] (+1)

[Crushing Enhancement Lv. 1] [Mana Strike Lv. 4] (+3)

[Stamina Strike Lv. 4] (+3)

Senses and movement skills:

[Stealth Lv. 6] (+1) [Accuracy Correction Lv. 7] (+1)

[Concentration Lv. 7] (+1) [Prediction Lv. 9] (+3) [Tracking Lv. 1] (New)

[Danger Perception Lv. 8] (+2) [Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 9] (+2)

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 5] (+1) [Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 8]

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 4] [Night Vision Lv. 4] (+1)

[Presence Killer Lv. 4] (+1) [Evasion Lv. 8] (+2) [Acrobatic Lv. 8] (+2)

[Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 2] (+1)

Resistances:

[Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 2] (+1) [Absolute Pain Tolerance]

[Lava Resistance Lv. 4] [Holy Resistance Lv. 6] (+3)

[Inferno Resistance Lv. 4] [Poison Resistance Lv. 5] (+4)

[Paralyzation Resistance Lv. 5] (New) [Torpor Resistance Lv. 5] (New)

[Bleeding Resistance Lv. 8] (New) [Fear Resistance Lv. 1]

[Water Resistance Lv. 7] (+1)

[Terra Resistance Lv. 4] [Wind Resistance Lv. 6] (+1)

[Arcane Corruption Resistance Lv. 10]

Stat growth and related:

[Health Recovery Lv. 4] (+1) [Mana Recovery Lv. 6] (+1)

[Stamina Recovery Lv. 4] (+1)

[Enhanced Health Growth Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 2] (+1)

[Enhanced Mana Growth Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Mana Capacity Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 3] (+1)

[Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 2] (+1)

[Enhanced Intelligence Growth Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Intelligence Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 3] (+2)

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 2] (+1)

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 3] (+1)

[Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 3] (+1)

[Enhanced Agility Enforcement Lv. 2] (+1)

[Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 3] (+2)

[Enhanced Stamina Capacity Lv. 2] (+1)

Others:

[Singing Lv. 6] [Dancing Lv. 5] [Musician Lv. 7]

[Merchant Lv. 2] [Handicraft Lv. 3] [Woodworking Lv. 1]

[Enchanting Lv. 4] [Artificer Lv.5] (+3) [Identify Lv. 8] (+3)

[Identity Blocker Lv. 10] (+1) [Terror Aura Lv. 2] (+1)

[Battle Mind Lv. 3] [Noble Aura Lv. 4]

[Royal Etiquette Lv. 8] [Riding Lv. 6] (+1)

[Mounted Fighter Lv. 1] (New) [Scholar Lv. 2]

[Cooking Lv. 1] [Dismantle Lv. 4]

[Calligraphy Lv. 6] [Mathematician Lv. 7] [Telepathy]

Ability List:

Unarmed:

[Dragoon Jump] [Gale Steps]

Okl’Luthier

[Claw] [Whiplash] [Musclesmass] [Blade]

Sword:

[Power Slash]

Whip:

[Piercing Shot]

Spell List:

Custom Spells:

[Create Crack] [Wind Gust]

Earth Magic:

[Earth Wall] [Rock Blast] [Earth Strike] [Rock Bullet] [Sturdy Earth]

[Earthen Spears] [Earthen Shackles] [Terra Wall] [Bedrock Blades]

Wind Magic:

[Wind Bullet] [Wind Cutter] [Air Shield] [Wind Slash] [Swift Winds]

[Wind Blast] [Featherfall] [Aerial Blitz] [Tornado Bullet]

Titles:

[Hestia’s Retainer]

A note from AbyssRaven

As if I would let Ellaine die! I had art for her commissioned! Iove this lawful good girl!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 243: The Lich.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #4 her to promote our Patreon. 19 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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Max level of Jobs [Spy], [Wolf Tamer], [Bladedancer] has been reached

Individual   [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa] has switched her Main Job to [Stygian Thunder]

Main Job benefits have been updated due to Job change

Stygian Thunder Level: 0/30

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Dagger Technique Lv. 7] [Dagger Mastery Lv. 5] [Concentration Lv. 10] [Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 3] [Monster Tamer Lv. 7] [Monster Synergist Lv. 5] [Battle Mind Lv. 10] [Elemental Mana Weave Lv. 8] gained

Skill requirement fulfilled.   [Battle Mind Lv. 10] evolved into skill [Tranquil Mind Lv. 1]

“Hadean Dragon Thunder!”

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]’s Job [Stygian Thunder] has risen from [Level 1] to [Level 5]

Attributes have increased due to level up

[Shadow Armament (Full Body)] [Lifestealer (13 Kills)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

A powerful bolt of black lightning shot out from my magic circle, decimating five large ogre-sized skeletal monsters. As their bones scattered around the battlefield, Grimnir stepped forward and began spraying white flames at the skeletons’ remains from his left gauntlet, “purifying” them from further necromantic control.

Once he was done, he began shouting “Run for your lives, Akongs!” at the cowering Shaturein residents, scaring them into motion. The moment they ran away, our opponent — the lich woman — began to laugh maniacally.

“Kiek kiek kiek! Wonderful, magnificent! If I had taken that spell head-on, I probably would have ended the same way as that spare body you destroyed!”

I originally had aimed that [Hadean Dragon Thunder] at Fulsara, the necromancy-obsessed lich, but when I noticed that a multitude of Shaturein civilians flooding out from the hole she came from being chased by skeleton monsters, I chose to redirect the blast at the skeletons. It was a very close call. I might have saved them, but now I revealed one of my trump cards against the lich.

No rest for the heroes.

“Well, to be honest, I didn’t expect those people to appear. Saves me from using my mana to protect myself… but all this talking is wasted time, anyways. You have a giant bug to stop and I have a Goddess to prove myself to. Let us please continue, Miss Saori. Corpse coffins!”

Without a chant, four black magic circles appeared from the ground, releasing a monstrous corpse each. From the looks of it, it appeared to be space-time magic; a variant only used for corpses and with a significant carry limit unlike the more flexible [Storage Magic].

“Curious? As a fellow worshipper of the Dark Gods, I shall quench your thirst. [Corpse Coffins], a space-time magic that only functions for necromantic usage. It has a limited amount of slots for each corpse, and the stronger the corpse I store, the more mana I need to pay for it.” She then raised her skeletal hand, promoting the undead monsters to shuffle and move by her command. “What is this limit, though? I think I shall leave that much a surprise. Let me see how much you can struggle, Miss Saori and Master Dwarf!”

The battalion of undead charged at us, the four just summoned and those she had around prior to our fight. I whistled, calling for my garms to jump out of the shadows, turning the weaker undead into chew toys. After Grimnir finished leading the Shaturein civilians out, he jumped back into the fight with his blasthammer, shooting a large felwing skeleton down with a water ball.

The blasthammer expelled a large amount of steam as his gauntlet began pouring water through it. Unlike the previous versions, the mana battery this hammer carried around to power it didn’t explode.

“It worked?” I asked as I wielded my daggers, infusing them with stygian lightning.

“Not perfectly, sadly. But, by Crustacia, it certainly beats having to keep exchanging the (insert dwarven cuss word here) mana batteries every time I shoot! Gotta give the lass a thanks after all of this!”

From what Grimnir explained on our way to fight this lich woman, it seems that Ellaine and he had tuned down the power of each shot of the blasthammer by using that steam idea Hestia mentioned. Instead of elementless blasts, each one was now a water attribute.

Water is stored inside the blasthammer, giving it weight for each strike, and when he uses it to shoot, his mana activates a fire rune, which heats this water up. Scalding water then shoots out with the pressure of the produced steam, with the latter released through vents in the back or in the front as a steam attack.

His gauntlet, which was turned into a fuel supply for the hammer’s water along with a flamethrower made of Hestia’s white flames, still granted him a power increase through runes, but it was more an auxiliary item for his blasthammer now. However, for whatever reason, the rune that Grimnir made from Hestia’s [Sanctified Blaze] completely lacked the ability to heal people. It can only damage things, unlike her holy flame grenades.

Grimnir assumed he messed up the runesmithing process, though. It was something we can only test later on, after we survive this battle!

“Stygian Lightning!” Black lightning crackled in my hand as I shot out a bolt of it at an incoming enemy.

[“Everybody to me!”] I telepathically ordered my garms.

Together, the five of us began to blitz through the undead army. While I focused on eliminating everything with [Stygian Voltage], [Stygian Blades] and [Shadow Armament], my garms used their dark spells and the mana threads I gave them to create openings for me. Each undead caught in the white strings became easy prey for us.

Grimnir remained as a support, spraying white flames with his flamethrower gauntlets and throwing out Hestia’s crimson flame grenades to ensure the skeletons remained dead. I learned my lesson when I fought Fulsara the first time. If you don’t have a way to stop her from reraising her undead, an unending wave of monsters would be at her command.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]’s Job [Stygian Thunder] has risen from [Level 5] to [Level 9]

Attributes have increased due to level up

[Lifestealer (25 Kills)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

But this fighting rhythm quickly ended.

“Deathly Wave!”

A wave of life-eroding mana blasted through the area, forcing Grimnir and my garms to flee the area. With [Erosion Resistance Lv 10], I felt less afraid of the magic than last time, but I still didn’t want to test my luck. Fulsara as a lich seemed to have better magical abilities than she had in human form.

“The abyss haunts the sane, Aura of Maddening! Rupture and weaken, Enfeebling Shriek! Deathly Wave! Undead Puppet! Deathly Wave!”

Damn!

Uneasiness strained my mind before [Tranquil Mind] and my other mental protection skills kicked in and helped me recover, only for a shrill banshee-like shriek to sound, torturing my ears and weakening my defense and speed. My mental skills activated once again, but the shrillness did enough damage to my poor ears for Fulsara’s skill to be worth her using it.

I could tell Quatre and Grimnir were less fortunate, but that didn’t mean we had any time to pause. Fulsara threw out two more [Deathly Wave]s and personally controlled an undead troll to rampage towards the latter group.

Kuso!

I dived into my shadow with [Shadow Dash], reappearing next to Quatre and Grimnir. Grabbing them with [Dark Tendrils] through [Shadow Armament], I pulled them out of the way by jumping with them onto a nearby building. With them still connected to my shadow armor, I began weaving through the buildings with [Gale Steps] and [Air Walk] as Fulsara continued shooting out spells and commanding her undead.

She fights just like Hestia! No chants, only endless spell casting!

I didn’t know much about liches, but that was all I could concluded at this point. Either her new form or her staff probably was giving her the ability to cast her necromancy spells chantlessly, while [Aura of Maddening] and [Enfeebling Shriek] were most likely regular dark spells. In addition, to be able to cast all these spells, she must have a lot more mana than she had in her human form.

Where is she getting all of this?

“Are you still thinking how to win this, Miss Saori? Think more, make a mistake, and allow me to prove myself to my Goddess, fellow blessed candidate! Soul Snatchers!”

Three soul projectiles shot out from her magic circle, homing in on me like heat-seeking missiles. As you would expect from ethereal missiles, they bypassed anything corporeal. Grimnir sprayed steam out to push back the undead, which had a side effect of blocking normal vision. Unfortunately, those undead and soul missiles probably had something like a life-seeking power they were using to continue chasing after us.

Death magic is nothing to scoff at.

“Grimnir, with me!” I pulled Quatre and Grimnir into my embrace before clocking the latter in [Shadow Armament]. On my command, we dived into a shadow, evading the undead and soul missiles.

I wanted to use this time to think, but something rather obvious suddenly stopped my chance to do so.

“Don’t forget that I am a dark mage, too, Miss Saori!” Fulsara’s voice echoed through the shadow world, appearing before us as she shot out a [Deathly Wave].

Kuso!

Quatre, being a dark mage himself, could separate from us, but I had to hold onto Grimnir, otherwise he might be lost in this world.

“Two dark mages fighting inside the purgatory realm of the Father of Darkness to gain the acknowledgment of the Dark Gods, how poetic! They will recognize our powers even more here! Will the Dark Mother praise you or will Goddess Death count me as her favored? It will all be decided today!”

Fighting against another dark mage is something I had little experience with. Gael was an arcane trickster himself, but he wasn’t a mage. He merely complemented his rogue skills with dark magic. After my evolution, I could act as either a rogue or a mage at will.

As a combatant, Fulsara most likely had more in common with Tasianna than with Hestia or Ellaine. A pure mage with a few protection spells and skills. My only hope to win this is to coordinate with Grimnir and my garms to get close to her.

As I was dodging through the shadow realm, trying to find my exit location, I asked Grimnir, “Grimnir, do you think auracoil will protect you from that [Deathly Wave] spell?”

“Magic-resistant shield, Saori. It will cost me a lot of mana, but I can block it. I assure you on my honor as a runesmith!” Grimnir stated confidently.

I nodded my head. While shooting stygian lightning at Fulsara in retaliation, I eventually found my exit. Jumping out of a shadow, I released Grimnir and let him do his preparations while I sent a telepathic message to my garms and inspected my gauntlets and catalyst.

Black Thunderers

A pair of manatech armguards created using a special obsidian and eoriant alloy, fused together with the scales of a [Stygian-Scaled Fenrir] and carapace of a [Sunfang Dragon]. The white hair of a [Stygian-Scaled Fenrir] was added to this gauntlet, giving it a soft touch, contrasting their use as a stygian lightning conductor. The [Dragonkin Blacksmith Technique] used to create this weapon causes the weapon to only show its full potential in the hands of its true owner.

Dragonkin: [Saori Segawa]

Vitality Power: 525

Wisdom Power: 525

Skill: [Mana Conductor Lv. 8] [Mana Efficiency Lv. 8] [Decreased Weight Lv. 5] [All Damage Resistance Lv. 1] [Inferno Resistance Lv. 1] [Lava Resistance Lv. 1] [Terra Resistance Lv. 1] [Tenebrous Resistance Lv. 3] [Water Weakness Lv. 2] [Lightning Resistance Lv. 5] [Durability Loss Reduction Lv. 10] [Stygian Conductor] [Dragonkin Ownership]

Draconic Thunder Cores

Twin alchemical orbs created using the electric sac of a [Boltreaver Wyvern]. If mana is registered to these catalysts, they will levitate and float around the owner using stored mana. Connected by an electrical current, the function of a single orb will deteriorate if the distance between the twins is too far apart. Electrical current may be stored inside this orb as a replacement for mana. Even as a catalyst, the wyvern’s heart pulsates with power.

Owner: [Saori Segawa]

Skill: [Lightning Revolt (Limited)] [Boltreaving Blade (Limited)] [Mana Efficiency Lv. 8] [Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 10] [Chant Revocation Lv. 10] [Cast Activation Speed Increase Lv. 8] [Lightning Amp] [Artillery Spell Enhancement Lv. 1] [Critical Spot Damage Increase Lv. 8]

Enchantments: [Lightning Rod] [Lightning-Mana Transmutation] [Spell Piercer: Stygian Lightning]

Yes, for some reason, after I ingested Hestia’s blood, I now counted as a lesser dragonkin. That’s why Yorshka even confused my scent for Hestia’s in the first place and the reason why I grew scales on my body. I was a “mutated fenrir”, as my description liked to call me.

Not that it was important to me at all, although it might cause some confusion in the future with dragonewts and levianewts. But, while I still counted as a “wolfkin,” Grimnir could create weapons and armor for me using [Dragonkin Blacksmith Technique] to empower my equipment.

And that was good, since my Job skill from [Stygian Thunder] synergized with my two equipment.

Lightning Shadow

Allows [Stygian Voltage] to flow through shadows controlled by [Shadow Armament] like a river

Simple effect with a great application potential.

“Ooh, that took a bit for me to find my exit. Still, why are you standing around? Shouldn’t you be more roguish, Miss Saori?” Fulsara trash-talked me the moment she reappeared from the shadow realm.

“Oh really? Who says I have to fight how you imagined me to? All that matters is how I win this fight, right?”

I took off my jacket, revealing all the white fur from my hands to my shoulders. As I began pouring mana through them, the white hairs began to stand up like goose bumps. Crackling electricity spread around my body, to the point I felt tingling sensations across my whole body.

Let’s go! Lightning Revolt!

[Lightning Revolt (Limited)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

Lightning Revolt (Limited)

The racial skill of the [Boltreaving Wyvern] enabled through a specialized organ sac, now turned into an alchemical catalyst for further usage. While the heart’s power still pulsates with life somewhat, its powers are now reduced in their new form. Electricity of any kind may be stored inside this catalyst for future usage. Once at maximum capacity, the owner may supercharge the catalyst, increasing the power of lightning-based attacks and enabling to owner to cast one additional [Multi-Cast]

A lightning shockwave exploded from the twin catalyst embedded into my armguards, rotating furiously without showing signs of slowing down. A black magic circle appeared before me, one with the same size as [Hadean Dragon Thunder].

“Nobody will steal your attention this time! Let me test my defenses, Miss Saori! Casket of Souls! Flesh Wall!”

Without something like Hestia’s [Purple Flash], a strong spell like [Hadean Dragon Thunder] requires time to materialize. Even if I don’t have to chant, there is still a set wind-up time. In the time it took for the spell to prime, Fulsara cloaked herself in a veil of souls and sacrificed a few undead to form a literal meat wall.

“Hadean Dragon Thunder!” A human-sized thunder ray shot through the magic circle, blasting through the wall of flesh as if it was butter before crashing against her soul veil.

Fulsara frowned as the blast began to push her back, but it seemed she could still strengthen her magical defenses. Most likely, the spell wouldn’t be able to pierce whatever that veil was actually made from. Fulsara was wearing an identify blocking armlet. I tried appraising her, but it failed. I couldn’t read her skills or spells.

But this wasn’t my finishing shot. This was just a distraction.

“Dark Tendril! Gale Steps!” Using [Continuous Cast] on the [Hadean Dragon Thunder], it continued emitting that large bolt of dark lightning, giving me the opportunity to dash at her undead armor.

Slipping through their gaps, I began constricting them with my [Dark Tendrils], weaving a web to immobilize the undead. Without Fulsara’s [Undead Puppet] spell, these undead couldn’t react fast enough, given my high Agility.

When Fulsara noticed me decimating her army, she turned her attention to me, which left her open to an incoming holy flame grenade from Grimnir. Quatre, who was helping Grimnir stay mobile, informed me through [Telepathy] that holy attacks could break through her soul veil.

“Taunt! Get over here, dead woman! Your target is me!” Grimnir taunted her, forcing her attention back away from me. When Fulsara shot out a [Deathly Wave] at him, he activated [Auracoil], saving himself and Quatre from the damage.

Nice tanking.

As Grimnir did this on the opposite side of the [Hadean Dragon Thunder], I finished tying up the giant skeletal monsters, allowing my three remaining garms to aid me. They began tying up the smaller undead using black mana threads, those made from my dark elemental mana.

Noticing something was going on, Fulsara began summoning more undead using [Corpse Coffin] even as she was beginning to push back my dragon thunder. But, trying to directly compete with my magic was just a mistake for her. Similar to how I couldn’t appraise her, my [Identity Blocker] was too high for her to appraise me.

She didn’t know I would gain more power the more I killed through [True Wolven Bloodlust]!

The more she summoned, the more fodder I gained! And once all of them were captured in my net, I released all the electricity stored inside my catalysts and armguards. And I was charging it up all this time.

“Stygian Lightning!”

With [Lightning Shadow], my lightning was able to travel through my shadow spells and dark mana threads, exploding their bodies into pieces of whatever you would imagine from bags of decaying meat and skeletal remains.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]’s Job [Stygian Thunder] has risen from [Level 9] to [Level 19]

Attributes have increased due to level up

[Lifestealer (67 Kills)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

What in the—?! That many?!

I deactivated [Hadean Dragon Thunder], chugged some dragorade to restore my mana, and dashed at Fulsara with [Gale Steps]. Channeling my stygian electricity into one of my daggers, I threw it towards Fulsara.

She was bewildered. Her [Casket of Souls] was still active. That alone should be able to protect her, considering my dragon thunder couldn’t pierce her defensive spell, but the thing is, I had another trump card, one I haven’t shown until now.

My catalyst’s enchantment.

“W-What?!” Fulsara cried out as my dagger severed her right arm, the one holding onto her staff. I grabbed the catalyst on the staff and overcharged it with stygian lightning, causing it to crack and explode.

The third enchantment on my catalysts — [Spell Piercer: Stygian Thunder]. That was my ace.

After having my attacks constantly blocked by Hestia’s [Draconic Barrier], I decided I had to find a way to stop that. This was my solution. The more specific the condition of a [Spell Piercer] was, the better it was able to pierce through mana barriers, defensive spells, or anything naturally resistant to that attack.

Fulsara, noticing her mistake, instantly cast [Deathly Wave] at me point-blank, but with [Lifetaker] at a high kill count, I was able to just shift my body just out of the way of the spell with ease. I let her create some distance between us, and she began chanting [Shadow Dash] to escape, only for my garms to appear and slash at her, tying her up in white mana threads as an after thought.

“Undead Puppe— What?!”

“Hahahahahahahahahahahhahahahhahahahah!” That was not some bad guy’s maddening laugh, that was Grimnir. He was burning the remains of all the undead I killed with his flamethrower, while laughing maniacally.

“Dammit!” Fulsara cursed, having no minions to call for. “Corpse Coff—”

“Too late! Goodbye! Stygian Lightning!” I held my hands together, shooting out a blast of lightning like a stun gun. This damage from this blast was increased even further through [Lightning Revolt] and [True Wolven Killer], pulverizing Fulsara’s lich body.

“Kiek kiek kaaaaaaaa!” She let out a death cry as everything vanished before me from the power of my magic, my garms preventing her from moving.

As the dust settled, I checked if I got everything. I smirked. “Your familiars aren’t better than mine.”

I dusted off my hands as my garms howled in victory. Grimnir approached, spraying some white flames on her dust, just to make sure.

“Gahahahaha! I must say, fine work there, Saori. Hmmm, hmm, glad to see that other equipment is doing its job well. I’ll get your runes once we’re done with today,” Grimnir said with a wide smile.

“Yeah, the fact they can bring out my catalyst’s powers is the best part. Not too flashy compared to Hestia’s glaive, but still practical and effective. I like it, thank you, Grimnir.”

Throughout history, weapons and helmets were usually a symbol of power or a ceremonial attraction, while things like gauntlets and greaves were less spectacular, despite how important they were for armor. The same could be said about my armguards. People will speak less about them compared to Hestia’s glaive, but I’m fully okay with it.

As the two of us looked up to the sky, watching Muraina trying her best to prevent the geisenlarg king from entering the city, we decided it would be best for us to join her. Hestia, Tasianna, and Ellaine’s parents would be able to rescue Ellaine and Amelia. I had full trust in them. What we needed to do was to prevent that giant monster from coming into the city.

With Fulsara out, the undead should be gone. The soldiers and adventurers should be able to retake the city.

As we began to run towards the gate, a chill suddenly ran down my spine. I stopped Grimnir. A memory suddenly came back to me.

“There are two possibilities — either this is the work of another necromancer, or what Saori actually killed wasn’t a normal necromancer, but a child who was strong enough to endure Ilsaphone’s soul extraction ritual.” That was what Grimnir said.

Hold on, should I have received a System notification to confirm her death?

I slowly turned my head around and activated [Detection Sensor] to find something, anything. And that one thing was close by.

“Oh my, I got found out.” From the rubble of a nearby building, a small crystal orb appeared. Within it, something was spiraling. “I wanted to escape, but I guess I couldn’t this time. Damn the Divine System. Really makes faking your death hard.”

Does this mean—?

“You can’t get experience when the being you kill isn’t counted as a monster or ‘living being.’ A body controlled which hasn’t been turned into an undead monster won’t give you any experience, and, for a lich, the soul is a part of the ‘living’ condition anyways.”

Two black magic circles appeared before it, summoning the decaying bodies of a wyvern and a worm the length of multiple buses.

“Corpse Coffin. Say hello to two of my best-trained corpses. I have been training them for years, kiek kiek kiek. You’ve proven your superiority already, Miss Saori. I concede… but I don’t think you will let me live after what I did today, right?”

“…”

On the way here, I saw multiple instances of normal, everyday people who had been killed and turned into undead. All of these monsters roaming the city right now were killing more people and Fulsara was turning them into more of her army. There was no way I could risk her leaving today and getting revenge on us.

“See? Now, it’s life or death for me. You destroy this soul urn, I will die indefinitely. Soooooo… Corpse Fusion!”

“Shit!” I dashed forward with [Gale Steps], mere steps before grabbing her soul urn, only for the wyvern corpse to wake up and interrupt me with a strong gust of wind. When I shot a charged up [Stygian Lightning] at her, the worm woke up and blocked the attack, which instead pierced it in the side.

Two chances used up, both failed. All I could do was watch as Fulsara fused with her two undead, turning into a tyrant serpentine monster with the giant arms of a wyvern and the mouth of a worm. On top of this five-floor tall monster was a skeleton form with the soul urn hidden behind its ribcage.

Identify.

Undead Chimera Wyvern-Worm

A chimera created using the necromancy spell [Corpse Fusion]. At the cost of all fusion materials aside from the caster, this creation will stay fused together to fight until its time is used up and the body begins to crumble. Rank B

“This will be our last battle, I promise, Miss Saori! For my last wish, show me the power of someone who has attracted the attention of Mother Goddess!”

“… Hmph. I can’t deal with this in this form.” I took off my arm guards and placed them inside my storage, while letting my catalyst float around me. I took off my party bracelet and anything else that would break upon transformation. “Humanization.”

A mana cloud escaped my body, morphing my flesh and bones back to my rightful form. The form I was born with when I reincarnated into Peolynca.

“Ahwroooooooooooooooh!” I howled as my fenrir form showed itself. Lightning crackled around my front legs as I growled at Fulsara.

“… I see. So that is your true form. It seems you have been going easy on me. Kiek kiek kiek kiek, wonderful. It was a true honor to meet you, Miss Saori. Oooooh, if only I had gotten to meet you outside of this job.” The wyvern-wyrm roared at me, raising its body up to show off its size. “One last battle, I plead.”

[“Come.”]

A note from AbyssRaven

Thunder will strike twice today.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 19 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Christmas Special: A Dragon’s Wintery Special.

A note from AbyssRaven

Happy holidays, everybody!

“White snow comes, see it falling ♫

Cold is in the air, next year is calling ♫

It’s time for a fest ♫

Let all your family be bless ♫

A great Origdiviel Arashan to you all ♫”

“Happy Origdiviel Arashan to all of you!”

Ahhh, Peolyncian Christmas. Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays!

Snow was coming down, the air was cooling down, and there were plenty of people celebrating in the street market for this one special winter holiday. The day of the Origin Gods, it was a time to celebrate together in your home with your family, all cozied up next to a warm fireplace while drinking hot sweet choco. Well, that’s at least how I imagined it would be!

“Origdiviel Arashan!” I heard people calling out, while kids would sing a carol praying for the happiness of their families from the Gods.

“The Gods watch over us as the earth turns heavenly white ♫

To honor our patrons, we servants feast in their name, praying and praising their name with every bite ♫

They blessed us with shelter, food, friendship, love, and life ♫

So in their name, we shall live good lives, so our faith may fuel their power above in their domain ♫”

Celebrating this festival in a village was nice and wholesome, but seeing all these people celebrating in a city was also a good experience. Still, if I’m promoting spending this time with family, I better do the same! Buying the last few presents, I rushed back to where our RV was stationed in this city.

“Merry Christmas and Happy Origdiviel Arashan everybody!” I announced with a fat grin as I entered the communal room inside our subspace. There, I saw Tasianna and Svena putting down food on a large table fit for over twenty people. Of course, two people would be too little to prepare the table, but no worries, for we had some good helpers.

““Merry Christmas and Happy Origdiviel Arashan, Hestia!”” One of them replied while handing me a warm fragassa milk. Sadly, we had no access to chocolate yet, but strawberries were better anyways!

“Yes, you too! Thanks for the drink, Kyouy—”

[“CUT! CUT! CUT!”]

“““Whaa—?!”””

A loud trembling voice suddenly erupted in everybody’s heads, spooking people into stopping what they were doing. We all looked around, thinking it came from Klea’Hatma, but that voice sounded different. Less sultry.

[“Hestia, you’re not supposed to spoil things! Didn’t you read the damn script!”]

… Oh, it’s you…

“Is that the author, Lady Hestia?” Tasianna asked me with a brow raised, and I nodded.

Yes, good ol’ author finally spoke to us after how many years of writing this story and only including me in the author’s notes. Only now does he speak.

[“It’s been nearly two years, okay? And, yes, if I had spoken to you during a normal chapter, it’ll be called breaking the fourth wall. Hello? Didn’t you read the script? You weren’t supposed to spoil things for the Royal Road folks!”]

Ahhh, there he goes again.

[“It’s supposed to be a Christmas special for everybody so you can’t go around spoiling stuff!”] The author continued lecturing me, to the point I told Kyouya to go back to Tatsuya.

[“Oi, you did it again! That hasn’t happened yet in the Royal Road chapters! This is supposed to be a time-skip so I don’t have to name the city you’re currently in for a future arc. You avoided the name up until now, why did you have to mention the students?!”]

“See, people, this is your author. He can’t handle non-canon stuff at all,” I joked about the author, causing him to send me a frown emoji to my head. “I mean, this is all non-canon anyways. We’re celebrating with everybody who has appeared in the story, right? So just let me celebrate. You cannot control me!”

[“… Why are you being like that?”]

“Hey, that’s how you wrote me. Anyways, go back to your family and celebrate the holidays with them! I’ll get back to my festivities, alright?”

[“…”]

“Perfect.” I pointed a thumbs up towards the ceiling, not knowing where exactly the author’s voice was coming from before returning to the main special of the day. “Well, the cat’s out of the bag, so no need to hide anything. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of you! All of you readers out there!”

“Happy Origdiviel Arashan to all our supporters! Lady Hestia and everybody welcomes you to his short but timely chapters!” Tasianna wished.

“We’ll be going and get Sensei, Ellaine, and Grimnir. See you guys during the meal,” Tatsuya suddenly said.

“OI, where the hell are you guys going! Wish them Merry Christmas! You don’t need to go!” I protested, but the students were adamant about leaving.

“Wrong story, Hestia-san,” Kyouya argued. “You five are the main characters and this chapter has a word budget so the author doesn’t have to write much. Not enough screen time for everybody and this isn’t canon. So we’ll make way for the five main characters.”

What the hell are you guys, side characters?! That’s so cliche to say!

“Hey, we can read what the author is writing. We know what you thought, Hestia.” Tatsuya countered before disappearing into the word pile courtesy of the author’s intentions. One moment you’re here, the next, you’re gone! Writing sucks with how it can make people vanish like that.

“Yo, we are here.”

“WAAAAAH! Saori?!”

She suddenly appeared from thin air with Ellaine and Grimnir.

“Yeah, the author wanted us to appear so we are here. Anyways, Merii Kurisumasu from your wolf Sensei! Wrooooh!” Saori suddenly made a pose, absolutely out of character.

“… Saori what are you doing?” Ellaine asked with confusion on her face.

Saori stopped and coughed, her face reddening in embarrassment. “Ahem! W-Well, since the author said we could do whatever during this special, I thought it would be okay to act more weirder? You know, for people to laugh.”

[“Dear, it isn’t gap moe if you force it. Forcing it is how you fail at seducing people since they’ll see through it,”] Klea’Hatma commented, causing Saori to hide her face in shame. [“Anyways, I’m not exactly a main character, but I am part of Ellaine right now so let me use this time to make our story even more irresistible. Me-rry Christ-mas. Everybod—”]

“Alright, alright, stop it Klea!” Ellaine threw away the demon’s sentence, stopping her from describing what the hell she was intending. This story isn’t PG enough to have a succubus lap dance in front of our readers. How the hell am I supposed to describe that to everybody?!

“In any case,” Ellaine cleared her voice. “Origdiviel Arashan, everybody. Well wishes from House Helvas and ‘A Dragon Idol’s Reincarnation Tale.’ It warms my heart to see everybody having fun with the story! Please, take care of yourself and stay healthy. Master Grimnir?”

“Origdiviel Arashan, you lads and lasses reading this story. Toast to all of you able to legally drink and enjoy the festivities,” Grimnir raised his tankard of beer. “Hmm, you know, this is supposed to be a time for me to wish you people well, but I’m not gonna let this opportunity pass! Author, I demand you increase my screen time! I have my own character arc, too, you know!”

[“… You know my storyboard. You will get your moment when it’s time. I’m not gonna forget you, Grimnir.”] The author tried to appease Grimnir but failed.

“Yeah, yeah, bladdarg! The only times where I had a chance to shine were when I got introduced and during the crafting chapters. Otherwise, I’m stuck in the back while the lasses are shining! Do me a favor and get things rolling, yeah?”

[“… I’m pretty sure I gave you enough moments to show off your wisdom in the story. In any case, you know my storyboard! You know when you’re coming in so shut up already Grimnir!”]

“Bladdarg, you better not forget me!”

“Grimnir, we will forget about everything once this chapter ends,” Saori threw cold water on him. “Yeah, that is what a non-canon chapter does to everybody. But, well, it is still nice to be with everybody for now. Two years have passed since this story was first written. I do feel a bit emotional about what we have experienced together everybody.”

Saori's aloofness broke as tears started streaming from her face. She turned around, saying, “Pardon me” as she tried to hide her crying.

“Hiehie, it’s all right, Miss Saori. This is more fitting for your personality,” Tasianna slightly teased Saori. “But, it is true. Without this story, I probably wouldn’t have met anybody from Aurora. Especially Lady Hestia.”

Tasianna suddenly kneeled down before me. “Lady Hestia, another year will pass soon. For that, I thank you for allowing me to stay with you. Like always, my life is yours to use and I will continue serving you with the best of my abilities. Thank you for everything, my lady.”

Even Tasianna’s eyes were starting to water. This is supposed to be our first holiday special, but everybody is crying! This is supposed to be a happy moment! I had to pull Tasianna up to calm her down.

“That is how it is, lass,” Grimnir stated.

“I agree. Meeting with all of you has changed my life, so it’s only natural to feel slightly emotional on this day. This is the first special we will spend together,” Ellaine added. She hadn’t started crying yet but her words were starting to affect me now.

“Well, you heard it, everybody!” I turned to a wall, believing the author will describe me facing the readers to not embarrass me. Hey, wait a minute, these are my thoughts right now. Author, make me face our damn readers!

…

I face the readers. With a wide smile, I spoke to them, “Happy Holidays to all of you. Thank you very much for all your support up until now. I honestly wish all of you great health and a great next year. Hopefully, all of you will stay with us and we’ll have more fun together. I love you guys! All of you!”

I held my fingers together, showering the readers with my hearts.

“AND A MERRY HOLIDAYS FROM THE WHOLE CAST OF ‘A DRAGON IDOL’S REINCARNATION TALE!’”

“WWAAAAAAAAAAH! Fucking hell! Stop appearing and disappearing like that! It fucking sucks for me!” I shouted at how the room was full to the brim with every ally who has appeared in the story. Some of them are people I haven’t met up again yet, like Master Kush and the saurians!

But do you know what's even more tortuous? I can’t hug any of them since this special is almost at its end. We are reaching the word budget soon! But, it can’t be helped. The author needs to rest for the holidays, too.

Hold on, isn’t somebody missing?

I noticed somebody very important missing from the cast. I couldn’t see her around in the mass. I began looking around as everybody greeted me until I heard a knock on the door. I rushed towards it and opened it up.

There, the last person was standing.

“I’m sorry, I overslept.”

I smiled.

“Come in—”

[“Word budget reached. Okay, everybody, go have fun and let’s wrap this up.”]

“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Fuck you, author!”

And that is how this non-canon chapter will end.

Once again, from all of us, thank you very much for your continued support. Of course, you guys should be curious about who this person will be, at least, the Royal Road peeps should be. It will be special and it will be awesome.

As such, I hope you guys enjoyed this small present and look forward to more of our adventures! Once again, from ADIRT — this acronym is so shit, but our word budget is empty — Happy Holidays!

Thank you for reading! Love you all!

A note from AbyssRaven

Happy holidays and stay safe, everybody. Dragon Idol will come back after I'm done with family stuff, so, until then, enjoy yourself!

Two years will soon pass since this chapter came out, so I can't express how happy I am to know that you guys like this story. It made writing them for two years pretty fun, even if burnout was a constant problem. Still, Hestia's story was worth writing, so I can't wait to continue giving you guys more. As such, wait for me!

Thank you all for supporting the story!

Chapter 244: A Thunderclap on a Sunny Day.

A note from AbyssRaven

Back from Christmas!

Befitting the fact that this was her last chance for survival, Fulsara didn’t pull any more punches. She immediately began shooting [Deathly Wave] after [Deathly Wave] at me the moment she got the chance, all while summoning more and more [Corpse Coffins].

“If I am to die today, then I will die fighting with my company! Come to your mistress, my dear ‘Death Defiers!’ One last time. Show your brilliance one last time!” Corpses rose from her spells as her giant body kept Grimnir, my garms, and me occupied. Her constant [Deathly Wave] made it difficult to approach her without taking damage.

With [Erosion Resistance Lv. 10], I should be able to take more risks to end this fight. She is demolishing the whole area.

Buildings were being bulldozed by Fulsara’s wyvern-worm chimera’s large body, while the ground cracked open as it slithered around. Thankfully, the area was evacuated, but the reconstruction of this portion of the city will be extensive.

“Tell me, Miss Saori! Where is Masalim? What did you do to him?! Tell me! I ask this to you as a fellow worshipper.” Her plea was solemn, littered with no malice or ill-will. I would have taken it more seriously if she wasn’t turning the area to rubble with her flagrant use of [Deathly Wave]s and [Abyssal Bomb]s, the level two spell of [Tenebrous Magic].

While my garms carried Grimnir away from the onslaught of spells, I dived into my shadow to dodge the next three waves, reappearing from the rubble only for my [Foresight] to warn me of an incoming attack. I cast [Dark Tendrils] from my body to pull myself away from the danger, but multiple undead mercenaries suddenly appeared to block my way, causing me to get hit by a [Deathly Wave].

“Grrrk!” Luckily, I wasn’t affected by necrosis this time, but I still felt as if a truck rammed into me.

Elongating my claws with [Shadow Armament], I sliced at the nearby undeads, leeching off their Health and slightly restoring mine.

[Lifestealer (73 Kills)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

[Lightning Shadow] is a Job skill, I can’t rely on it in my current form!

I cast [Enfeebling Winds] on a few of the approaching zombie horde, targeting a few zombies I found “healthy” looking. The spell slowly sucked up Health like a leech, transferring a portion to me. I’d use that as a passive healing for now.

“I know [Enfeebling Winds] myself, do not presume I have no counter-measure for it. Corpse Coffin!” The undead I had cursed returned to their space-time coffins, before immediately returning back to the battlefield. My [Enfeebling Wind] had been nullified. “If you wish for damage, you use [Tenebrous Magic]! [Dark Magic] is all about cunning! Now, tell me, where is my vice-captain? What did you do to his body!”

I roared, shooting out multiple bolts of black lightning, ending the undead lives of a couple of them, but Fulsara kept summoning more and more. None of them were monsters like in our previous battle; all of them were mercenaries. I could see their dog tags hanging off their necks, showing off their names and birthday.

[Lifestealer (87 Kills)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

[“I buried him. I had put him in my [Storage Magic] during our battle to stop you from raising him. I then gave him a burial after leaving Shaturein,”] I answered her question.

“I see…” The wyvern-worm slammed its circular mouth at me, prompting me to dodge it. It crashed into the ground and began to hit such stone and earth. “May your soul reach Goddess Death, Masalim! I will join you soon!”

The worm mouth spat out chunks of rock and earth at me, ravaging the neighborhood. I stood my ground and cast [Hadean Dragon Thunder], aiming the bolt at the approaching projectiles and completely atomizing them.

I then ordered my catalysts to come close to me, rubbing them against my fur as I channeled mana through my white fur. Once my catalysts were filled with electric power again, I activated them to return back into [Lightning Revolt] mode.

<[Lightning Revolt (Limited)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]>

As I did so, I deactivated my dragon thunder as Fulsara decided to dodge it instead of taking it head on. She learned.

“Taunt!” Grimnir’s voice echoed behind Fulsara.

“Argh! Damn you, dwarf! Do not presume I will be tricked once again!” Fulsara resisted the [Taunt].

“Aye, but taking your attention away for a single second is good enough for me! Take this!” Quatre’s form appeared from behind the rubble, carrying Grimnir on his back.

Grimnir had his blasthammer in its gun form, holding it as it began to shine a bright blue light. Steam blasted through the exhaust vents like a locomotive, all while Grimnir began to laugh like a madman. And then, KAAAABOOOOOM!

A massive blast shot out from his blasthammer, the recoil knocking Grimnir off Quatre’s back. Fulsara shot out a [Deathly Wave] at Grimnir, but that attack couldn’t block things. It could only affect organic substances, not mana.

“Casket of Souls!” A veil of souls shielded Fulsara’s wyvern-worm, only for me to shoot out multiple bolts of [Stygian Lightning] to activate my catalyst’s spell piercer effect. The shield weakened to the point Grimnir’s blast broke through and drilled a hole through the worm’s body, causing it to ooze disgusting green blood.

“Krruh!” The worm’s body wiggled from the force of the attack for a moment, but it showed no signs of pain. Fulsara even cast [Flesh for Mana] to restore its body, healing herself back up.

But that was enough to give my three other garms plenty of time to begin wrapping mana threads all around its long body.

“What?!” Fulsara cried out, only for me to draw her attention back to me by shooting a [Hadean Dragon Thunder] at her. With no time to react, her wyvern-worm body was struck by the lightning. I conjured [Dark Tendrils] around my body as I pounced on the worm’s body.

“Till death does us apart! Corpse Fusion! Undead Puppet!” Fulsara joined her undead mercenaries together, fusing their skin, muscles, and skeleton into a large amalgamation of flesh and bones. All these bodies created a towering giant the size of an ogre and a bone sword with a flesh handle.

It flew at me through [Undead Puppet], landing on the worm’s body to fight against me. With the spell support from Fulsara, the undead monstrosity began its attempts to knock me off the worm’s body.

It had an unsteady build entirely unsuited to sword fighting, so the problem wasn’t dodging its heavy strikes, but piercing its fleshy innards. Bones and meat were joined together into a horrific and disgusting abomination. Words couldn’t describe the horror of seeing this… thing moving around as though it was alive.

My claws scraped off pieces from its body, but they would simply return through Fulsara’s [Flesh for Mana]. I honestly questioned how much mana she still had at this point, and if a soul urn could even get arcane corruption. But it wasn’t worth considering when her spells and meat shield prevented me from advancing forward. I had to destroy her soul urn if I wanted to stop this creature.

I could outmaneuver the undead giant, but doing that with Fulsara’s spells and the worm struggling to knock me off was difficult. Not to mention, every time I tried to [Shadow Dash] or [Air Walk] my way closer, [Undead Puppet] would give the undead giant a surprising amount of speed. It was the perfect body blocker.

But what annoyed me the most was…

How the hell is there no reinforcement?! There is a giant worm attacking the city but no one is coming to help me! I can’t land the killing blow like this!

My garms were helping and I suspect Grimnir was doing his own thing, but that stuff takes time. This worm was gigantic. Smaller and shorter than the geisenlarg king, but it could still crush houses like a kid destroying their sandcastle.

I had to deal with three opponents at once right now. The only chance for me to break through this was to spam [Hadean Dragon Thunder] as much as Fulsara was spamming [Deathly Wave]! [Multi-Cast Lv. 5] brings the number of spells I can control simultaneously up to six, and then a seventh with [Lightning Revolt].

I’ll recover my mana and stamina after this fight, I need to end this fight now!

Hadean Dragon Thunder x7!

I jumped into the air, levitating there with [Air Walk]. When the undead giant flew at me with [Undead Puppet], I smacked it out of the air with my electrically-charged paws, causing it to crash into the worm’s hide, though it was able to instantly recover its wounds with [Flesh for Mana]. In the time this took place, however, seven black magic circles appeared above the worm.

As my seven spells shot out, I felt an intense sensation of something getting forcibly ripped out from my body. It was my mana. Using up seven of these spells at once felt excruciating.

The worm anticipated the incoming rays, dodging them surprisingly well for its size. Although there were glaring wounds littered on its bodies from my rays, none of them hit its head, where Fulsara’s soul urn was.

I made a big mistake.

I couldn’t control the spells unless I spent more mana. Keeping them going with [Continuous Cast] brought me to agony. My control of them was terrible. I tried imitating Hestia, but using all these large spells all at once is something I couldn’t copy with just my Mana pool. I had to dispel them at once, otherwise my mana would have been spent.

Big mistake, big mistake…

“Kruuuuuh!” The worm roared. It looked like swiss cheese at this point, but its flesh was being slowly restored by Fulsara.

Where does she get all this mana?! Where does it all come from?!

After the magic circles dissipated, my mind felt like it was in turmoil. I only reacted to [Foresight]’s warning in the last second, when the undead giant slashed at me.

Grk!

A large gash appeared on my side, spraying enough blood for someone to shower with. Crashing onto the worm’s hide, I was forced to enter the undead giant’s shadow to escape. In this situation, I didn’t have many choices if I didn’t want to jump off the worm. There weren’t too many shadows on top of it.

However, ducking into the shadow realm was a less than ideal move. Sure, I had been a bit reckless just now, but I shouldn’t be dissuaded by one mistake. What I should do is fully capitalize on the fact I have 87 kills stacked in [Lifetaker] right now!

I jumped out of the same shadow I had entered through, the undead giant’s. This meant I had to tank a [Deathly Wave] and a slash from my enemies, since they could see where I was about to emerge; [Shadow Dash] leaves a magic circle at the point of exit, after all.

I groaned, but I slammed my paw into the undead giant, pushing it further away, giving me an opportunity to rip through the worm’s hide. I was taking advantage of [Stygian Blades]’s life steal effect again. The more damage I did, the more Health I regenerated. I took damage to get a chance to deal more damage!

As I kept slashing into the worm’s body, [Foresight] warned me of the approaching undead giant, but I wasn’t fully healed yet. I had to recover as much Health as I could.

Checking my storage, I didn’t have any more holy grenades to heal myself after giving all of them over to Grimnir, and I couldn’t easily use potions in my fenrir form. Drinking them was a hassle aside from crunching the whole glass bottle, and I didn’t want to swallow glass shards and that was my only method of drinking a potion left.

I thought I could rely on [Stygian Blades] only, so I abandoned the grenades. I have to make this work!

At the very last second, I will dodge. I know I can do this. I know I could do this!

Keeping watch of Fulsara and her giant, I readied myself to stop attacking and to dodge. As the attacks slowly came in, I cast [Haste] on myself, time speeding up for myself and the rest of the world seemingly slowing down.

And then, I—

“Kruuuuh?!”

“What?!”

— only needed to dodge the [Deathly Wave], as reinforcements stopped the other attacks. Help finally came!

[“Saori, give Ellaine a dragorade now! She needs it now!”]

Klea’Hatma?!

The silhouette of my savior heavily reminded me— I didn’t have the time to look away from the fight to glance at my saviors, and I knew better than to delay an request during a fight!

I activated [Storage Magic] and took out two dragorades. They only recovered Mana and Stamina while helping prevent arcane corruption build-up, but they were still an excellent recovery drink despite not being an actual potion. I had tons of them since Hestia liked making them. When I threw them over to the person, she grabbed the two and began drinking them at the same time.

Her bone wings then spread out and she took flight, charging at the undead giant with her feet morphing into giant blades respectively.

[“Ellaine?!”]

Her appearance was a far cry of that 15-year-old noble girl I came to know. Her clothes were ripped apart with only a far-too-large coat covering her exposed skin, but what was more baffling to look at were her bone wings, a three-pronged tail, and her thin horns. Eldritch tendrils wrapped around her body like armor and she could transform this flesh into claws, giant blades, and whip-like objects.

“Long story, tl;dr later, Saori!” Ellaine shouted.

When did she learn ‘tl;dr’?! Hestia? The kids?!

“Let’s beat these things first! Klea, let’s go!” Ellaine threw away the empty dragorades and unsheathed her whipsword to engage the undead giant for me.

Klea’Hatma?! Does this transformation have something to do with that damn demon?! Was Ellaine corrupted by that thing?! I was outraged at the mere thought of that, but due to the hectic nature of the current situation, I had to question those two later on. First, we needed to stop Fulsara from demolishing Griffonpeak.

As I dashed towards the soul urn, Fulsara shot another [Deathly Wave] at me, but without the undead giant, it wasn’t much of a threat to me. Fulsara did attempt to [Undead Puppet] it to body block me again, but Ellaine showed immense strength and tenacity when she managed to grab and hold it in place with her whipsword and [Whiplash] combo.

She pulled it back like an angler hooking in a fish, clearing the way for me. Fulsara, in her desperation, used [Undead Puppet] on her wyvern-worm, moving the winged arms to attack me. The worm also began to twist its body around, making it harder and harder for us to stand on the body. I had to [Air Walk] while Ellaine had to fly to continue fighting.

But then, something even more insane happened. I had thought I had seen enough crazy stuff today, but something even more baffling appeared.

“Ruuk!”

“What?!”

The worm stopped advancing forward. It struggled, wrecking everything around it, but it couldn’t move forward at all.

“Gahahahaha!”

Are you kidding me?!

Ellaine and I looked behind us, only to finally notice the lower body of the worm had large chunks of wood and rock lodged into its body, held together with white mana threads. They acted like a bunch of rope, tying the worm down. My garms had somehow managed to wrap them around the rubble and any sturdy-looking object.

Only its upper body could move, but with its bottom tied down, it couldn’t cause any more destruction than it already has done. How the hell were they able to do this? I had no idea. None of us seemed to have noticed it, but I could always question them afterward.

After all, the crazy dwarf was standing in the middle of a mountain of building scraps, laughing like a lunatic.

“Detonate!” Grimnir roared like a cannon.

““““Ahwrooooooooooooooh!””””

Explosions. A lot of explosions. White flames surged in the area, erupting like a wildfire as it wrapped everything in its inferno. The worm roared as the flames began to corrode its body, spreading fast along its skin. In the span of a few seconds, the flames already covered its entire lower body.

“Nooooo!” Fulsara cried out.

“Saori!” Ellaine called out as she whiplashed herself to the undead giant, slashing off its left arm with her giant blade.

Go!

Ellaine launched the giant back onto the worm’s body. Fulsara cried out as Ellaine began launching spells at her, turning her full attention onto my teammate and completely forgetting about me. I used this moment to my advantage and air walked above the worm and began charging up an extraordinary amount of electricity around my paws.

Once all my hair stood up, I dashed down, descending with my eyes set at the soul urn. The sound of thunder boomed around me as I did so, torturing my ears, but I kept my aim straight. Even if the worm was jerking its head around, I did not care. I adjusted my trajectory.

Voltage Impact!

“Damn!”

With pinpoint accuracy, I struck the worm’s head. Black lightning burst from my paws and began atomizing every cell it had. Nothing stood a chance against it, giving me deja vu as this was the exact same method with which I killed Fulsara’s other body.

“Congrat—”

And the soul urn cracked and burst open. I knew Fulsara wanted to say something but her sentence was just drowned by the thunderous sounds happening around us. Whatever they were, I would never hear them.

[Lifestealer (89 Kills)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa] has risen from [Level 6] to [Level 8]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 1300 skill points

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Shadow Armament Lv. 10] [Shadow Pack Lv. 3] [Foresight Lv. 3] [Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 7] [Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 7] gained

The worm’s head was completely gone, and so was the soul urn with Fulsara’s soul. If she doesn’t have another one hidden somewhere, this would be the last time I would meet her. Hopefully.

Looking at the white flames spreading along the worm’s body, it probably will be completely purified. I also noticed the undead giant burning, too — lifeless after Fulsara died. No necromancer would be able to use them, at least, not with how torched they will become, or after they got dismantled.

By the divine System, individual [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa] is granted the title: [Watched by Ilsaphone]

…

I had a feeling that would happen. Something inside me told me so, or, if I could hazard a guess, it probably was the [Watched by Edna] title. After all, Edna was Ilsaphone’s mother according to the lore books I read.

But, then again, Ilsaphone and Aurora do have a certain amount of history thanks to the onnikai encounter. My four garms gained a second life due to how Ilsaphone tried to create her own patron race, at least according to Kiiro, the onnikai leader of that battle. Uno, Song, Sarasa, and Quatre — I would have never met them if it weren’t for Ilsaphone.

“Saori!” A girl’s voice interrupted my thoughts.

I turned around and growled. [“Stop right there, Ellaine! Or is it Klea’Hatma? I expect you to explain everything to me right this instant! Why do you look like that and how are you free? I thought you were kidnapped with Lady Amelia?”]

I scowled at… Ellaine? and her altered appearance. With her bone wings and horns, she definitely wasn’t human anymore.

“Wait, wait, Saori, it’s me. It’s really me, Ellaine. I know it's pretty hard to believe but look at this first.” Her wings and three-pronged tail detached from her body, dropping on the floor before they began to melt into a fleshy puddle. Ellaine then grabbed her horns and used [Musclesmass] to tear them off, letting out a small, pained squeak. “See? I can always deactivate [Assimilation]. It’s a long story, so please hear me out.”

Ellaine explained to me what happened after she was kidnapped. About how she met her brother Jonathan at Charleslyt’s party house and how the two of them had to fight through a group of nobles who accepted Charleslyt’s demonic gift. They managed to beat those nobles and save Amelia but Ellaine had her head cut off when they tried to run away.

[“Y-You what?!”]

[Humanize (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

“Ellaine, here are some healing potions. Are you okay? How is your head still attached to your body?!” I ran over to her, grabbing her neck to check for any wounds. It wasn’t cut off at all, was she lying to me?

“No, wait, Saori, I’m alright, please.” She grabbed my hands off to create some room between us. “That vampire necklace saved my life, you know, the one we received from the boss in the Cedaraille dungeon.”

I remembered. [Necklace of Vampiric Undying] was its name, I believe. I couldn’t forget about it since Ellaine always wore it due to her fear of death. After looking at her, I noticed the necklace was still there, but it was cracked.

“It was used up, but it repaired my whole body through its effect. I was lucky I had it on, hie hie,” she laughed carelessly despite how mortifying it sounded.

She then went to explain how her she met Aurena’s fragment of power inside her [Okl’Luthier’s Power] skill, who explained to her how she could use a new power since she supposedly hasn’t been corrupted yet by Klea’Hatma, despite showing heavy signs of changing because of their interactions. With that power, she managed to knock Charlelsyt out, and Amelia and Jonathan were transporting him to the knights at this moment.

“Do you want me to destroy the rings?” Lightning crackled in my hands.

“No, wait, please! Saori, stop! I don’t think our relationship is perfect just yet, but I think it has gotten to the phase of a symbiosis, I believe?”

[“Oh really, is that really how you think of me, Ellaine? A little parasite? Wow, and here I was completely infatuated with how you spoke so lovey-dovey to me. Like a princess in shining armor, oooooh, woe to me for believing your seductive words. A true succubus, you are,”] Klea’Hatma interjected, acting dramatic.

“W-What?! I did not do any of that! Klea, stop lying!”

[“Hiehie, well, there you have it, dear. Ellaine and I are working together now. I’m not exactly trying to corrupt her, honestly. She just changed her association with me, but for some reason, she wasn’t corrupted like those nobles. She’s still Ellaine at her core. I’m just here to lend her my powers while she continues giving me interesting experiences.”]

“… Like us bathing?”

[“… Sure.”]

I can’t believe this demon!

I was really about to trample those two spell rings Klea’Hatma was staying in, but I had to restrain myself. Ellaine really did seem normal. Actually, on a closer inspection, Ellaine seemed brighter and more confident for some reason.

Still, what’s more important than Klea’Hatma’s perverted nature was the fact there is a second demonkin in Griffonpeak. This is problematic. Very much so.

“Hey lasses!” Once again, my thoughts were interrupted by another familiar voice. “Did you lasses like the white inferno? Mhmm, beautiful as hell, right? It’s even died out at this point, turning everything to ash, aside from the worm.”

It was Grimnir riding on Quatre. The other garms were with him, too. He pointed at the area behind the worm, showing how the inferno he caused was all gone, having consumed everything but the worm. We did cause a lot of trouble, but it wasn’t as if the neighborhood wasn’t already in ruin.

“Grimnir, I am glad to see you well. Tell me, how did you do all that? Tying that giant worm down couldn’t have been an easy feat,” I said.

“Hahaha! It sure was difficult, you know! Since the worm wasn’t concentrated on us, the garms and I could just run next to it without any problem. Using my power gauntlets, I just threw some stuff until it stuck. Undead feel no pain, and that worked to our advantage. If a giant doesn’t take care of the mosquitoes sucking its blood, it will die soon enough.”

And from there, the garms did what they did the best. Using my mana threads to tie things down. I did feel a bit bad that I wasn’t able to give them a more substantial role, but their support was amazing once again. If the worm had had a better way to dodge my [Voltage Impact], I would have had to use a close-range attack without the long charge-up time, and it wouldn’t have been as powerful.

I patted my garms, praising them for a job well done. Sadly, they weren’t able to receive any experience for me killing the worm and Fulsara. Without my party bracelet on, I did not share anything with these five. Grimnir and my garms did a lot of work, and they weren’t able to gain any rewards from me killing our foes in my fenrir form.

“Argh, stop looking so down, Saori. I know what you are thinking,” Grimnir stated. “Don’tcha worry about it. Fighting is like that. Some won’t get their share, but what’s important is that we got through this mess. Hahaha, taking down such a large thing was worth wrecking my blasthammer.”

“You did what, Master?!” Ellaine burst out. “H-How could you do that! I just finished maintenance on it! After all I did to change its function, you had to ruin it?”

“Argh, stop your complaining, lass! Weapons and armor go broken or missing all the time during a battle. I can’t see my armor with you, for example. Don’t worry about it, we’ll reconstruct everything. Better than ever, I tell you! I’m sure my cousin won’t be too angry after I show him how much you’ll improve it, lass. And, you gotta explain what that new form of yours was, since if that is how you fight at this point, we gotta specialize your armor even more, hahahaha!”

Grimnir’s “what’s done is done” attitude was motivating. With how much this area of Griffonpeak was totaled, there will be a lot of repairs needed afterwards.

“Also, we have better things to contemplate. For example, that problem.”

“You’re right. Rescuing Ellaine and killing the necromancy are fulfilled, but we still have a giant bug— Oh…” When I turned around, I thought Grimnir was speaking about the geisenlarg king which Muraina was keeping out the city with her arrows, but what he was worried about were the group of adventurers right over in the distance. Watching us.

“U-Uhm… H-How long have you guys been here?” I noticed a few faces. All of them were regulars at the hunter’s guild, and since I’ve been visiting Muraina often for information and or my own training, I came to get to know more of them. Some were even fans of our restaurant, although I haven’t opened it lately due to everything going on.

“Well… after we saw a giant wolf kill that giant worm thing… We thought we had to help. Saori… Uhm,” one of them replied, and that was all I needed to know I fucked up.

“W-Well, I se—” I wanted to respond with something but all I could do was stutter. At that point, Grimnir took over.

“I know you lads and lasses have much to say, but we ain’t got the time to do that. Muraina, our guild leader, is dealing with that damn giant bug at this point. If we don’t stop it, the city will probably be lost with how slow those damn nobles are moving!” Grimnir shouted. “The necromancer is dead! We, Aurora, took her and this damn undead worm down. Neighborhood got destroyed, but no casualties. Praise the Origin Gods. Now, I think you people have known us long enough that we ain’t here to cause trouble. So how about we go out there and help our guild leader!”

Grimnir gave an inspiring speech, but it didn’t seem to have motivated the adventurers. Their suspicions weren’t lifted.

“… Free meals! Three free meals, alright? After this whole mess is over, I’ll treat all of you to three free meals at my usual quality, alright? Just please shut up about it! Muraina already knows, so please just let it go!”

“““YAY! FREE FOOD!”””

What?

“We’ll take you up to that, Saori! Open the damn restaurant again! Cheap prices for fucking good food is hard to get, you know!”

“Yeah, after this fucking mess, we need something to celebrate with. Gotta toast to those we lost today. We gotta drink for those we fought today!”

“Three meals! All of us! Bring them to the guild so we can get drunk and full!”

Adventurers were adventurers. I didn’t expect them to get bribed that easily, but I guess that was how adventurers lived. Too many have died today already. Giving them a reason to see this fight through was good enough for them to get motivated.

I have to make a feast for them. Just so they don’t go around telling people I’m a fenrir.

I then looked into the distance, watching Muraina and her treant Whisperia engaging the geisenlarg king while somebody was casting tenebrous spells. It had to be Krymdar.

Hestia should be in Shaturein, but once she finds out Ellaine isn’t here, she’ll rush out. Should I go and inform her? No, I’ll just send one of the garms. First things, first we need to—

Booooom!

A bright light and black explosion appeared in the distance. Looking over there, from how far it was to our current location, I managed to recognize it being in the area where the orphanage was. Of course, there shouldn’t be anybody there after Hestia evacuated everybody but… I had a bad feeling about it.

“Ellaine, Grimnir! We need to go there right now!”

Something told me this miserable day was about to get even worse.

A note from AbyssRaven

Now have to go spend New Years with family! Sorry, guys, but this will be the last chapter of 2021!

As such, I will greet you guys with a chapter for 2022! As such…

Happy New Years!

P.S. Good thing no cliffhanger.

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Chapter 245: The Phantasmal Armory.

A note from AbyssRaven

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[Symphonie des Feuergottes (Allegro)] [Battle Frenzy (Minor)] [Music Resonation (Major)] [Blessing of the Goddess of Light (Major)] [Various Spell Buffs] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“I descend on Earth with Wings of Death! ♫

A Storm of Fury ♫

Creating Ash and Dust ♫

I am the Incarnation of the Sun ♫

I shine so brightly, I bring your death ♫

My lineage belongs to the God of Dragons! ♫”

Wind Blast! Tailwind! Rocket boosters, Dragoon Dive!

The very air was set ablaze by my flames as I crashed landed onto the ground, creating a massive explosion using my scale-dust, turning anything it hit into ash. Knowing I missed him, I locked my eyes at Eithalr once again and sent a slash-wave of flames at him before [Dragoon Jump]ing back into the air and getting ready to perform another [Dragoon Dive].

I repeated it over and over again, never forgetting to also cast spells to lead Eithalr towards my landing zone. However, he used his phantom blades to block my attacks while staying mobile with [Air Walk] and [Gale Steps]. Regardless, I was not dissuaded. I had to bring this bastard down.

“Woah!” Eithalr cried out, dodging the incoming flames from my spell song [Dragon Fire]. “Nice song there, kiddo. I would enjoy it if you weren’t trying to kill me or keep me trapped inside this flame arena with you.”

“Shut up and go down!” I shouted before [Spiral]ing myself close to him, twisting my body like a tornado. Now in front of him, I sent a flurry of strikes with my glaives and tail.

He used his three-section nunchaku to smack away any attacks, forcing me to use extensive amounts of wind spells to even hold onto my advantage. I spread my wings, scattering another round of scale-dus—

“Waaacha!”

“Kuek!”

A fast strike of his managed to hit me before I could react to [Foresight]’s warning. I didn’t receive any damage with my [Draconic Barrier] and [Panzer] up, but causing me to stop attacking for even one second was enough for Eithlar to take the initiative.

Allegro isn’t fast enough?!

He swung his weapon, striking at my arms, head, torso, legs and tail. Any time I tried to attack, he’d hit me with a counter attack and prevent me from being able to do anything. His combo chain continued and continued, before ghostly gauntlets and greaves appeared on his hands and feet respectively. He swung his nunchaku once more at my head before throwing it away, causing it to dissipate.

Before he hammered me with a punch, I let out a [Dreadflare Aura] to blast him away, canceling his incoming flurry strikes. I ground my teeth, growing a flame inside my mouth before unleashing that inferno laser at Eithalr. He didn’t even try blocking it, instead immediately fleeing.

Not so fast! Bedrock Blades, Tornado Bullet, Levin Core, Banishment Beam!

With [Dragon Fire] playing in the background, the fire arena made it impossible for Eithalr to escape if he didn’t want to get burned into crips by the inferno. His area of movement was restricted. All I had to do was to use my spells to lead him into a trap.

Earth, wind, lightning, and holy spells ravaged our battle area, sending it straight into a bullet hell status where Eithalr couldn’t come any closer while I blasted him with everything in my arsenal that wasn’t one of my trump cards. Even though, [Dragon Fire] may prevent my enemies from leaving my arena of fire, it doesn’t stop any spells from flying outside my control. This area we were fighting in was desolated, so who cared?

I definitely didn’t while I had a piece of shit to kill.

“Woah, aren’t you go— Woah! Going a bit too hard on me, kiddo? This could kill me.” Eithalr still had the leisure to speak.

How?! Dammit, I need to dial this up a notch.

“You tried killing, Ellaine! Did you honestly think I would forgive you, you bastard!” I shouted as I released another dragon breath at him, detonating a chain of scale-dust on the side.

“Shit!” The collective blasts finally hit him, sending him flying to the ground.

Before he crash-landed, Eithalr somersaulted to land softly, showing no signs of extensive damage aside from his coat catching fire. As he tried to fan it away, I did another [Dragoon Dive] at his location, but, just like before, he was too agile. But, since I was expecting him to dodge my dive again, I readied myself to follow him the moment I landed.

Gale Steps! Spark Crescent!

Now right in front of him, the catalyst in my glaive flared up from all the scale-dust, and I unleashed a purple flaming strike imbued with some nasty toxins. Eithalr was forced to block my strike with his ghostly greatsword, narrowly dodging the flames. But that wasn’t the end of my attack.

[Spark Crescent] was an attack using my glaive and tail. In another crescent arc, my tail struck his sword again, unbalancing him. That was when I activated the [Attack Rune: Triple Attack] on my weapon and used another [Spark Crescent]. [Triple Attack] made you do three times the damage on your next attack, so it was a great finishing combination if you used it when you know you can hit.

As my glaive seared the ground one more, Eithalr suddenly smirked as multiple phantom blades suddenly materialized in front of him, shielding him from my attacks. He then kicked his sword wall, shooting out multiple blades that scratched my armor, but most importantly, blocked my line of sight.

Once I had completely weathered the assault, I noticed Eithalr was gone from my view. I immediately activated [Detection Sensor] and focused on any sounds, reacting to one coming straight at me. While I tried to counterattack, I realized I only blocked a flying phantom sword. The next attack was another one, as was the next, so was the third, and not to mention the next few ones.

“Well, let me show you why they call me the ‘Phantasmal Armory’, kiddo.” My head snapped around to that voice, seeing Eithalr turning from being translucent to corporeal. “Armory of Avarice!”

Blood burst from his left arm’s wrist before it formed into a levitating hand. It grabbed onto my glaive and wrapped itself around it. As I tried to burn it away, the blood quickly fled from my weapon and returned to Eithalr, slipping into his coat.

He whistled before a phantom imitation of my glaive appeared in his hand, barring the catalyst. He swung it around as if it was a toy, acting smug while I was baffled at what happened.

“The ability is a finicky one. Very picky, you see. Once the hand grabs onto any weapon I want, I can create a weaker copy of the weapon with most of its skills intact. No runes or enchantment, but I’ve managed to snatch some pretty good ones in my lifetime, regardless,” Eithalr explained his ability. “But, if the ability doesn’t like the weapon or I can’t use it, the weapon turns into a dud. For example, yours. Can’t use it properly since I’m not its dragonewt owner, but I can appraise what it can do without your [Identity Blocker] activating.”

[Identity Blocker] and those appraisal blocking armlets prevented you not only from identifying people but also their items.

“Nice name, Princess Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor. I had a feeling you were a dragon, but your weapon just helped me confirm it. Good weapon, nonetheless.” Eithalr threw my glaive’s copy away, letting it dissipate into nothingness.

“W-What, you knew?!”

“Cedaraille. Dragon. Those words have been flying around in Shatu for a bit, and then you appeared in Griffonpeak. Hot-shot dragonewt noble making her name known in the noble’s world. I’m not a sleuth, but I think I have enough of a brain to put things together,” Eithalr said with a smirk, tapping his head. “You know, even if you were a dragon, I was okay trying my luck against one. But, oh boy, Kargryxmor? Kiddo, you’re an even bigger hot shot than I thought. Hah, Hamil’s compensation wouldn’t have been worth angering a whole damn empire to hunt me down, hehe. You kinda wasted your favor there, kiddo, you were never in danger of dying.”

He lost interest the moment my lineage came into play? Are you kidding me?! I could have just said that and then used my favor to have him bring Hamil to me?! Are you freaking kidding me?!

Sparks exploded around me as my emotions caused my flames to go berserk. They spiraled around me as I asked Eithalr a question before I went in, “Where is Ellaine?!”

“… Sorry, still have to stal— Woah!”

I charged right at him with my glaive before unleashing my [Dreadflare Aura].

[Symphonie des Feuergottes (Adagio)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Allego was sadly over, meaning my speed was now heavily diminished. In return, during Adagio, my Strength and Intelligence would increase by 50% and all my spells would cost me 50% less. I couldn’t continue blitzing him, but I could overwhelm him even more with power and spells.

Eithalr had to back away as I kept [Dreadflare Aura] activated, causing the surroundings to begin turning into a magma field. Every strike with my glaive carried along a large amount of scale-dust, turning every hit into a massive concentrated explosion, as if each hit was a grenade.

Solar Beam!

My solar core flared up as I unleashed a bright ray of solar fire, melting rocks, wood, and earth whenever it touched them. The very air in this area had its temperature raised to the extremes, and it seemed even Eithalr couldn’t handle it becoming this hellish.

[Dreadflare Aura] and [Solar Beam] pulsed with power. I wasn’t holding back any punches anymore. Even if I have to melt Shaturein down, I would do it to get Ellaine and my friends out of here! When my internal temperature reached its highest possible point, the scale-dust under my scales burst in fire. Crimson, white, and purple flames shot out from my armor as I flew around the area with my rocket boosters, destroying everything Eithalr threw at me.

“WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?!” I shouted as a glaive strike shattered one of his phantom blades. “I KNOW YOU’RE A DEMONKIN CONTRACTOR, BUT YOU’RE HUMAN! WHY ARE YOU WORKING WITH HAMIL AND HIS DEMONKIN SUPPORTERS!”

The very ground was nothing more than molten slag at this point. There was barely any solid place to stand anymore. If you didn’t have [Air Walk] or resistances against heat and fire, you’d probably die here.

“SO MANY PEOPLE ARE DYING UP THERE. I WITNESSED HUNDREDS LOSING THEIR LIVES! WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS!”

I hadn’t personally witnessed that number of people dying with my own eyes, but according to the amount of fans I lost during the initial attack, I was fully aware that over a hundred of them had already died. Not to mention, those who haven’t become my fans. All these lives lost… for whatever the fuck those demonkin want.

What was their goal with all of this, and why were Hamil and Eithalr working with them like this?

“WHY ARE— Arck!” As I was winding up another attack, a bolt suddenly flew through my [Dreadflare Aura] and pierced my armor, drilling itself right into my shoulder. When I looked at it, I noticed it was a ghost arrow as it disappeared. My [White Flame] began to heal me, but the fact an attack got through my [Dreadflare Aura] was unnerving.

“You really want to know, kiddo?” Eithalr asked with a frown, hoving over the magna while wielding two phantom hand crossbows. “Then listen up. Not every demonkin is an enemy to humans and beastmen like all the propaganda the church of Aurena and Folschreck Empire spews out.”

Like a gun, arrows shot from those two crossbows non-stop, showing no need for Eithalr to reload them. They blasted through my aura, but they weren’t faster than me with my rocket boosters on. So I voided or blocked the bolts, all while my spells kept Eithalr on the move.

“You are looking at this whole conflict only through one pair of glasses. Every faction has a reason to fight the others, and it’s not like it’s black-and-white. Neither the human nor demonkin population are the real enemies here, but those at the top are. The Holy Emperor, the Pope of Aurena, and the Seven Princes of Sins! They are the ones urging the ‘innocents’ to move out and kill each other!”

Ghost-like armor appeared around Eithalr’s body as he charged into my aura. The armor began breaking apart under the power of my aura but Eithalr quickly replaced them before his body became exposed. We both heaved our respective weapons, and his greatsword and my glaive clashed.

As we held this pose, Eithalr continued speaking with our faces close to each other. “I knew a very amazing demonkin once. Best cook I’ve ever met. His gluttonous appetite caused him to strive to make the best meals he could find, despite how underdeveloped agriculture and food culture was in Bole’Taria.”

I unleashed a flame breath, breaking this standoff. With him inside my aura, I couldn’t let him get away. I dashed around, striking at him, making sure he was neatly inside so he could begin melting.

“But war demands blood, even of the ‘innocents,’ kiddo.”

Tch!

I didn’t let his words distract me. I continued my assault on him, peeling his armor off and using up his phantom weapons.

“I’m not a good person, but even I can tell that there is good amongst the demonkin, even if they are descendants of otherworldly creatures bent on destroying us. But then again, the Origin Gods aren’t from this world either. Only difference is that they decided to take over instead of killing us all. That’s why we worship them and are able to tolerate dark and wind elves, right?”

The moment I tried to make another attack, Eithalr suddenly materialized a ghost blade he hadn’t taken out since the beginning of this battle. It was a one-handed sword with an extremely long blade. Mana poured into the blade as it intercepted my attack and, for the first time in this fight, I was repelled.

“There are two factions within the demon kingdom of Bole’Taria — those who support the Edjurl Gods, the ones who sent those demons to our world, and those who worship the Origin Gods with the exceptions of Aurena and Plesia. Both sides wish for a world for the demonkin, but only one side can control the demon king to enact their wishes. Guess who’s in charge?”

That parry left me open to Eithalr’s sword strike, slashing through my armor and drawing a massive amount of blood. I tried to reply with an attack of my own, but Eithalr’s answer to this was to unleash his full arsenal.

A massive amount of weapons materialized around us, allowing him to constantly swap whatever weapon he was using for another, using swords, maces, spears, crossbows, fists, and so many other variants to put me completely on the defensive. His skin and clothes were being burned, the consequence of staying inside my [Dreadflare Aura] for too long, but he didn’t care. He kept attacking me while I did my best to heal myself up. I still had energy inside my solar core, I could recover from anything if I simply avoided any fatal attacks.

I will win in this endurance race.

“This war has been going on for a long time. I want it to end, but I’m not delusional enough to admit I’m a good guy. I’m terrible, a criminal. But I will do things my way. My Boss told me what I have to gain, and the only way to do this is to aid Hamil, even if he’s working for an Edjurl God supporter.”

“That does not make any of this right! The ends do not justify the means! They don’t! All the people you let die today could be a lost father, mother, son, daughter, brother, or sister to somebody else. A friend you will never meet again. A loved one you wanted to spend all your life with! Some of these people will never get this fortune because of you!”

I twisted my body and landed a tail slash to Eithalr’s side, creating an opening in his phantom armor for my aura to burn his stomach black. He closed it up but a large scar remained.

“Then strike me down if you think me evil, Princess! Be ignorant and stay in your lofty nest as this war continues until we are all too weak to fan the fires of war! Armageddon Ghost!”

Eithalr’s body turned translucent as he dashed around, striking me with even more attacks. [Foresight] was able to detect his attacks but not early enough for me to react, just like when he copied my weapon. Strike after strike, my [Panzer] broke and was replaced by white flames.

His attacks were so numerous that I was physically unable to react. I could use spells, but Eithalr’s floating swords shielded him well. I was bleeding more and more, and my frustration became worse and worse. I was stun locked.

“Haaaaa!” A roundhouse kick landed on my face, shooting me crashing into the magma river I myself created.

I jumped out from it, throwing up chunks of molten rock I swallowed. I deactivated my [Dreadflare Aura] at this point, only now noticing that I was sweating. Did I go overboard a bit?

No!

I clenched my hands and awaited for Eithalr’s next attack…

… I waited.

… Now! Humanize! Release: Solar Flare!

[Humanize (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

As if I had turned into a bomb, extreme heat was released from my body, growing in size the longer I kept this up. This was the solar energy I had inside my solar core, all released through one singular burst of energy. I didn’t care what I hit at this point, all I knew I had to do was to kill Eithalr once and for all.

Krk! Arrrgh!

But then another surprise happened, a stabbing pain appeared around my chest, specifically, I could feel it happening inside my solar core. The light dissipated as I dropped onto my knees in the magma puddle, clutching onto my solar core in agony. [Absolute Pain Tolerance] did not activate.

My parallel minds scrambled to find the reason for this intense feeling, even reminding me that [Absolute Pain Tolerance] had not worked during the rachonoid queen battle in Cedaraille. At that event, I was overheating so much I felt like I was cooking myself.

But just like last time, this pain was unbearable. My skill wasn’t dampening it enough. I couldn’t just grit my teeth and take it. It felt like my chest was about to explode.

Uuuuuuuugh! Healing! Healing! Heal my core, now, parallel minds!

I slumped on the ground, doing my breathing technique to try to calm my racing heart. The pain was lessening with every breath, but I was getting more and more worried with every second.

What is going on with my solar core?! It feels like it’s gonna explode. What’s happening to it!

“Did you go overboard?” Eithalr’s voice echoed above me. I turned my head around slowly, struggling to move. “Yeah, you did go overboard. But, well, so did I.”

Eithalr’s clothes except for bits of his pants were reduced to ash, revealing charred areas around his leg, stomach, and shoulders. His hair was disheveled, but it seemed like he took no damage to his face.

“Yeah, you’re strong alright, kiddo. Really strong. I knew you could use [Humanization], but that sudden form change really surprised me with how much strength you were hiding. Damn, if you had taken on your dragon form, I wonder if I would have had to become serious at the very beginning. Congrats, you pushed me by a ton, but still not enough compared to the number one of the Yanderus.”

Are you kidding me?!

Eithalr was ranked five among the underbosses. That meant he was the fifth strongest. The thought of four people stronger than him was insane.

“Hahaha, you should be fine with your healing magic, right? Well… since you’re down for the count, how about you answer some of my questions now.” Eithalr sat down, levitating on air with [Air Walk].

[Humanize (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Fuck off…” I forced out.

While the pain around my chest was getting worse and worse, I still found myself petty enough to spit those words out. Using [Telepathy] to say it didn’t have the impact I wanted it to have.

The damage in my solar core wasn’t disappearing, even with my white flames treating it. At this point, I bet Astalos had caused some serious damage to it that couldn’t heal right now.

“Now, now, you have nothing to do, right? Come on, I think you might enjoy answering my question. I need to delay you for longer, after all.”

… Delaying?

“… Sure,” I acquiesced.

“Huh? That was quick.”

It is like he said. If I could answer some questions and delay him for longer, then I should be able to heal my core. Eithalr might not look injured but I bet he was only hiding the damage behind his grin.

“Great, so, first things first, your name… ‘Hestia Atsuko.’ Not a very common one. Is it a draconic one or did it perhaps come from somewhere else? Something otherworldly?”

What? Are you joking? This guy can’t be actually asking such a question, right?

“What do you mean by that?”

“News of the heroes, kiddo. Everybody in the underworld from here to the Empire knows about the otherworldly heroes Aurena summoned. Getting their names through official channels was impossible, since the church forces them to use pseudonyms in the form of their unique skills. But, since they also registered as adventurers, things are easier. You can’t cheat the Divine System if you don’t have a specialized manatech, right?”

For example my ID card and party bracelet. I could hide certain information from them.

“And, you see, your name is pretty similar to theirs, no? Your middle one, I mean. Also, you used a moniker during the slave auction raid, right? ‘Licht?’ Funny name, also doesn’t seem Peolyncian. Coincidences?”

And this guy doesn’t call himself a sleuth?! All these deductions make him so like a detective, hello?

“What do you want to imply with all of this?” I didn’t give him any straight answers. I slowed down my breathing, maintaining it with a deep breath seeing as it was weakening the pain.

“You’re pretty close lipped despite agreeing to answer my questions, kiddo. Well, if you won’t confirm that you’re an otherworldler or not, I’ll just presume whatever. So, what does ‘Licht’ mean?”

“Nothing special, just light in my own language.”

“Your own language? Ahhh, I see, then why did you call those pastries ‘Berliner?’ In fact, most of the pastries you sold at that concert of yours had weird names. Names I never heard about. Duke Greenveil is selling them, but I am so sure all of these recipes come from you.”

“You really are curious about these sorts of questions, huh? Why?”

“I was asking you, but well, whatever, kiddo. Just a gut feeling that my Boss might be interested in all this.”

His Boss? Well, I guess he would be.

“Anyways, back to my question. What do, urgh— What do, urk, bleeeegh!” As Eithalr tried to question me again on it, he suddenly groaned and bent over, puking purple-colored bile into the magma puddles.

Hahaha! Yes, it finally kicked in.

“What? How? When? I never got hit by those purple flames of yours… Urk, bleegh!”

I forced myself to stand with a smirk, still trying to weaken the pain in my core. “My armor. Did you forget how it was made from purple flames? I’m immune to my own poison, but I can make that obsidian armor tough and lethal once broken. As it turned to gas, you probably got a sniff when I cut your armor with my tail.”

My Health was back to full, although my chest still hurt. [Battle Frenzy], albeit a tricky beast most of the time, did come in handy today since it made me fully focused on fighting. [Instant Heat Ignition] turned my tail and glaive on fire.

“You should still have [Dread Burn] from all that flame damage, right? You can’t heal yourself and that toxin will eat you up until I’m done with you.”

The toxin’s effect couldn’t be that strong. It took a while for the toxic gas to affect him so he should have a high level [Poison Resistance]. Fortunately for me, he didn’t have full immunity. If he had, then I could have only wished that I had taken [Purple Pyromancer] as my Job to have poison able to ignore normal immunity.

“Hehe, yeah, you got me good there.” Eithalr snapped his finger, summoning his armory. “But, I’m used to fighting with venom inside my body. I have my own pride as the fifth head of Yanderu Elusuess, so let’s see if you stand a chance with me like this.”

Eeeeeiii! The nerve this guy has! His body has third-degree burns, toxic gas is pumping through his veins, and he was standing inside an area where his sweat was literally getting evaporated the moment it left his pores! Why is he acting like such a badass for a damn criminal!

“Tsk, well, if you want to be like this then I’ll jus—”

Hestia, get to Eshe now!

Huh?

But this was the end of the match, without question.

Go to her now! The demonkin has engaged her! Go to her NOW!

Aurena? Eshe?

What are you standing around like this! This is urgent, Hestia, go to her! She’s going to die!

Die? Eshe? Wait, no, I-

1 human follower lost

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 2683

“Nooooooooooo!”

The music stopped. I ignored everything before me as I [Dragoon Jump]ed into the sky, flapping my wings as fast as I could. I tried to activate my rocket boosters, but I’d used up all my stored dust after I activated [Solar Beam]. But, I didn’t care, the moment I recovered some, I used them.

I could feel my solar core aching and aching similar to my heart, which was suffering from the anxiousness I felt from Aurena’s words. It became even worse when that System message appeared, updating me on how I lost a follower.

This is just a coincidence! This is just a coincidence! It can’t be real! Aurena, you’re lying!

Alikar, Anivh, Eshe. Three. Three. Three. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no! It can’t be them, it can’t be them!

IT CAN’T BE THEM!

I ditched the idea to get to the entrance and turned my eyes to the ceiling. Channeling all my mana into my mouth, I unleashed my dragon fire at it, melting through the earth as I flew through it.

At first, I made fast progress, but the moment I hit the fairnite plate separating Griffonpeak from Shaturein, I slowed down considerably. Still, I didn’t care. I didn’t care if I got into major trouble ‘cause of this, I had to make sure Eshe was safe.

1 human follower lost

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 2682

Eshe. Ellaine. Why? Why? Why? Why is this shit happening to us?!

Light.

As my flames burst through the ground, the sun’s radiance began to shine on me, despite all the dark clouds gathering up there to block it. It filled me up with solar energy, soothing the pain in my solar core. As one part of my annoyance was gone, I was able to calm down a bit. I turned to Aurena to have her tell me where Eshe or even Ellaine was.

Goddess Aurena, where is Esh—

Booooom!

1 human follower lost

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 2682

An explosion from where the orphanage was located, followed by this very message.

No…

H-Hestia…

Nooooo!

I flew over to the source of the explosion, landed there and saw the orphanage in ruins. In fact, everything around it was in ruin as well, but what caught my eye the most were two large metal beings, laying on the ground with large chunks of their bodies ripped in pieces. The bright light I remembered emanating from their eye sockets was no longer there.

“N-Nooieeee!”

I touched the bulky giant’s body first, swaying its body to check if it was asleep. I cast [Major Heal] on it, but there was no response. “S-Sir Alikar? No…”

I turned to the lanky, who was holding its twin khopeshes tightly in its hands. I cast [Major Heal] on it, but there was no response. “Dame Anivh? H-How? No… Eshe?”

But the worst was about to come. There, in front of the ruined orphanage’s garden, a woman was laying on the grass. Red tainted her pure white robes as she continued laying in that red liquid puddle. She showed no signs of moving.

“ESHE!” I ran up to her, tears in my eyes as I instantly cast eleven [Major Heal]s on her body, desperately trying to close up the wound. As I saw the large hole in her chest closing, my lips began to twitch into a smile, relieved that the spell worked.

I then turned to heal the wound on her right eye. It seemed to have exploded for some reason, but as the pieces were only hanging out from her eye socket, I was able to heal it up after imagining the anatomy of an eye. As it was whole again, I noticed her eyes looking at me and a smile forming.

“Eshe!” I cried out, elated to see I make it.

…

But she didn’t respond. She still smiled but the look she g-gave me… So distant. So unfocused.

“Eshe? Hey, Eshe, can you speak? I healed your wound. No worries, I’ll get to Sir Alikar and Dame Anivh in a second. Please, come up and help me heal them.”

…

She should be alive. She smiled at me when I came just in time. I came JUST IN TIME!

“Eshe? You shouldn’t be sleeping with your eyes open. All the blood will just, hic, stain your clothes. Eshe, please, let’s wake up…”

Mana Eyes.

Human Corpse

The corpse of a human

“… Eshe, please, wake up. Please… Not you… Not Ellaine. I even left Tasianna and Ellaine’s parents down in Shaturein… Please, don’t go. Please, Ilsaphone, hic kec kec — Please, don’t take her. No, no, no, noieeee, ack, ack…”

I caressed her face. I used my white flames to find if she had any wounds on her body. But nothing.

I tried [Telepathy] but I got no answers. My tears dropped down on her face, washing off some of the blood on her fine, untainted face. And then it began to shower.

Rain.

The blood was washed off, the puddle flowed away. Eshe’s blood-stained robes began damp from all the droplets. But, still… Eshe did not give a single sound.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

If I only had saved Ellaine faster! If only I hadn’t separated from the others and just went to that other house, we would have gotten Hamil and saved Ellaine in time for me to get here! If only I wasn’t in Shaturein when it happened, I could have reacted to Aurena’s warning! If only—

“Kkacck… Her blessing was more formidable than I thought. For a saintess not known for combat, she and her knights surely were a force to be reckoned with. If she had received more resources from the church and had more chances to train, I alone probably wouldn’t have been enough.”

My head turned around slowly. My wet hair blocked my sight while the rain made it harder to see the person in front of me. But in my current mental state, I could see it all. All the details. Nothing escaped my eyes.

A ripped outfit with an eyed gavel as a badge hanging loosely on his chest. His dark yellow hair was shoulder-length and as I looked into his eyes, I saw his irises colored yellow and red, split between them right in the middle.

But that was just the normal parts. Two small horns grew from his forehead while a short tail was attached to his butt. Black streaks ran along his face and neck, and I could see him gritting his teeth in pain.

… It never was Pestrodus. It was just a random lycerepthor.

“I had to use a tonic meant for you to win against her knights, even with an ambush. Hehehe, I underestimated her. Thankfully, you appeared before the tonic ran out. If I kill you too, then that means that two more of Aurena’s blessed will die. All of them will die today.”

… Kill.

[Battle Frenzy (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Hestia, listen! It is I, Kargryxmor! This is our first time speaking like this but listen to my warning that your solar core requires rest before you use it again. It might have recharged on some solar energy, but you have not maintained it well enough for you to use it once again.

… Kill.

… I see, so we were too late. It seemed I have no choice. I cannot allow you to cripple or even kill yourself. If you unleashed your battle frenzy now, you probably would not be able to control yourself. Parallel minds of my granddaughter, obey me!

[Symphonie des Feuergottes (Minuet)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

… KILL!

You must learn how to unleash this for yourself one day, but for today only, I shall assist you, Hestia. Indulge yourself in the true power of our bloodline and the blessing I have granted you! Behold!

Restrictions on Additional effect of [Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] has been temporarily lifted. Linking title to other blessings… Found. [The Light] and [Divine Inferno] linked with [Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood]

… KIIIILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!

Show this worm the true power of a scion of the Black Tyrant of the Skies!

[Battle Frenzy (Major)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

[Battle Frenzy] activated. Necessary requirements fulfilled. Releasing linked blessing power on individual

“KRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

A note from AbyssRaven

… Well, good thing I didn't release this on Christmas or New Years, right?

Uhm, well, happy new year! Happy 2022 and let there be more chapters of Dragon Idol!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 246: The Crimson-White Fledgling Tyrant.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #2 her to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until January!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

Assure Hestia doesn’t cripple herself. The solar core is currently damaged and she has shown little interest in fixing it, so adjust its output by reducing the thermal energy fueling her flames. Redirect it into Mana and Stamina recovery. If you fail this task, I shall destroy all of you.

“You piece-of-shit Kramps! We are all part of your granddaughter, too! Don’t threaten us!”

“Yeah, what Parallel Mind 2 said! We’re being oppressed by a tyrant!”

“Number 2 and Number 3, if you two are done, how about you resume your stations and help us out? Original Mind is about to attack!”

How long has it been since we last took control of things? Oh right, when Original Mind went berserk after Shiterno messed with our skills and forgot to tone down the pain. And, once again, Original Mind was going out of control and now we had to ensure she wouldn’t go around destroying everything like last time.

Fortunately, unlike last time, we made some arrangements with O.M. where, if she went crazy again, we would retain the ability to cast spells and control a few functions of our body. Although we were copies of her mind, we were still creations of the Divine System, so we needed her permission beforehand to be productive.

During the last berserk moment, we had to stop our rampaging body, but this time, I don’t think we could stop her before she quenched her [Battle Frenzy (Major)]. Her mind was focused on a single thought — kill. Our job now was to help her fulfill that goal while preventing too much collateral damage.

[Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] has integrated certain abilities from Titles: [The Light], [Divine Inferno]. Seeking permission for activation… Individual [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has usurped control over [The Light] and [Divine Inferno]. Permission automatically granted

“Holy shit. Hey, Manager Mind, our hair is changing color!” One of the nine other parallel minds called out to me.

Looking through our body’s eyes, I could see our crimson hair slowly turn snow-white and begin to glow like a lightbulb. Upon checking within our body for the reason for this phenomenon, it appeared that our general mana type was changing to the holy element. In other words, if we were a monster in a certain RPG game, we were becoming holy type alongside our usual fire type.

Has to be from that message. Is this one of the benefits of [The Light]?

But a reply to my question didn’t come. The System didn’t send me another notification to explain what abilities we received. Kramps said something about unlocking the true power of his blessing, but what exactly did he do? There was no information for us to work with.

Unfortunately, we did not have any more time to work on that particular issue since Origin Mind finished roaring.

“Dammit! What is with that roar of yours?! I thought I was about to—What?!” The demonkin complained since we used [Draconic Roar], but he blocked it with an [Air Shield]. Was he a mage? We did not see him conjure a magic circle for it.

In any case, while the demonkin was speaking, our body used [Gale Steps], closing the distance between us. We used [Instant Heat Ignition] on our right hand, flaring up in bright flames despite it raining all around it. With [Inferno Coating], none of the flames on our body could die out for any reason without our consent, meaning we were creating a steam cloud around us.

“Belarghk!” he spat out as we landed a fire punch to his stomach.

But what made me wonder more was that, as we swung our fist, the flames around us created a trail behind us, lingering there before gathering around our fist. They grew in size, creating a propulsion effect like our rocket boosters, shooting the demonkin upwards.

“[Solar Beam] already?!” I shouted as our body gathered up the small amounts of solar energy inside our core, shooting it toward the demonkin in a concentrated laser. The demonkin used a [Wind Blast] to shoot himself out of the trajectory of the attack, landing on a nearby roof.

“Oh shit! Everyone, get to work! Stop the laser prematurely, deactivate any [Corrosive Fire] powers, conjure up some [Air Shield] around Eshe’s, Alikar’s, and Anivh’s bodies! And start playing [My Darkest Thoughts]!” I gave out my commands to the other parallel minds. We had to support our body!

[Music Resonation (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Staring out the window while it rains ♫

No one here to talk, silence is all I have ♫

So I delved into my thoughts and wondered, “What if?”♫”

That slightly depressing song we wrote for Ellaine to control Klea’Hatma began playing in the background through [Aerokinesis], doing everything in our power to forcibly stopp our body from spending too much solar energy on the laser. Kramps’ words about permanently crippling ourself still lingered in our mind; we had to control our usage of the solar core.

The pain has dulled ever since we returned to the surface, but once Original Mind used [Solar Beam] again, the pain started to return. Thankfully, we were currently in the third movement of [Symphonie des Feuergottes] — minuet. Our offensive power wasn’t as great as it could be in this phase, but our defenses and regeneration were superb right now. Our Mana and Stamina pools were quickly recovering from the fight with Eithalr.

“The laughing kid stomping loudly upstairs ♫

The damn lovebirds flirting on the streets ♫

Those rich asses living in their golden bubbles♫

I just wish they would all just disappear ♫”

“Argh! What are these sounds? By Lord Marsven, why does it feel so hard to control this form— Urgh, arrgk!”

The figure of the demonkin began to morph. Flesh and muscles began to twist around, contorting into impossible forms for something with a humanoid body. Eventually, the flesh warping stopped and the demonkin’s true form was revealed — a single horn on the left side of his face, four eyes, long, ungroomed hair flowing down his back, and a single thick, hairless pink tail. There was only one word to describe this form — ugly.

“N-No, why?! Gaaaaaaaaaaah! No, no, no, no, no, not this face! Not this face! This isn’t worth showing to the world! Morph, morph, I face the original sin of my bloodline, I call upon my Envy to surface, Original Sin: Demiurge!”

But nothing happened.

“N-No, youuuuuuu! What have you done to me, you slave of that unworthy Goddess?! Why can I not switch away from this obscene form! This isn’t what I look like!” The demonkin lashed out at us.

“Because [My Darkest Thoughts] is a song we created to counter the power of demons. Good to know that it also seemed to reveal a demonkin of envy’s true form.” I spoke my thoughts out to the other parallel minds, but obviously it wouldn’t reach the demonkin. Our body couldn’t gloat and speak what we say, but I couldn’t lose this chance to do so, even if it was redundant.

After all, we parallel minds shared our Original Mind’s emotions, and, right now, we wanted this guy to suffer for everything he did. He deserved no mercy.

“Kraaah!” Our wings flapped, sending scale-dust around the demonkin and with a snap of our fingers, everything exploded.

[My Darkest Thoughts] significantly weakened demonkin, but it also meant we couldn’t play combat songs to buff ourselves like with [Dragon Fire]. We had to rely on our current strength.

But our body didn’t need to hear this from us. It was obvious enough, even to our berserk Original Mind.

With [Solar Beam]’s buff active, flames were exploding from underneath our scales even as we unleashed a dragon breath at the demonkin. He dodged it by jumping onto another roof. As if we had no control over the fire breath, the flames fanned around the area, spreading to every building it could.

Scheiße!

“Use [Pyrokinesis] and—” I wanted to give a command to the other minds, but for some reason, our vision suddenly became completely muddy, and in the next second, we were behind the demonkin!

“W-What?!” the demonkin gasped.

“Flashfire,” our body mumbled before landing another fire punch to his stomach, sending him crashing far away from the orphanage’s ruins like a bullet. As the demonkin struggled to get himself up after crashing to the ground, our vision went muddy once again before reappearing behind him once again.

“Shit!”

But this time, black mist gathered around his hand, materializing into a black sword made from voldunna, which he used to block our next punch at the last moment. Still, the sheer force of our attack was enough to blast the demonkin away. And then it repeated.

Our vision muddied and we appeared somewhere close to the demonkin. He would parry our attack, but he would still be blown away further and further away from Eshe’s body. One, two, three, four, and so on and so on. I had no idea how our body was able to do this.

“I got it!” Parallel mind #4 yelled. “It’s the fire! She’s teleporting towards the fire she spread around beforehand! That’s [Flashfire]’s effect!”

We still had no idea exactly what Kramps did, but we now knew that it actually gave us a pretty crazy ability. Knowing this, I looked into our senses, noticing that our body was intensely preoccupied with our hearing, touch, and smell whenever the vision muddied.

[Flashfire] wasn’t some kind of teleport ability, but rather it was a high-speed movement towards any flame around us. But, due to the extreme speed involved, it was nearly impossible to see. Our body was focusing on the sound of the demonkin’s breathing, their smell, and the feel of the wind against our skin. Even if we couldn't see anything during [Flashfire], our other senses compensated for it.

The moment we were far enough from the orphanage for our taste, we dashed with [Flashfire] and conjured up a house-size [Scorching Sun] over us, aiming to end the demonkin with this one hit.

“Damn you, do not underestimate me, Aurena pawn!” Black mana surrounded his hand before an ominous purple-colored ball shot out from his hand. “Mist Ball!”

Demonic energy. It felt similar to the demon abilities Klea’Hatma could conjure up as well as that weird morphing the demonkin underwent earlier. The two spheres collided, causing a spell duel between the two of us, but thanks to all the power-ups we had active right now, we were pushing the demonic energy ball back.

The black streaks on his face glowed us as he roared, causing the ball to grow larger and larger. We weren’t losing the advantage, but I could feel Original Mind becoming annoyed. As such, with our spare hand, we emitted a bright light in our hand, without any spells, at the same time as our white hair lit up.

With this light, we smacked the two balls, somehow causing the space around them to literally crack. When it broke, it echoed like glass shattering from a powerful blow, turning the entire area completely black before the light returned. The two giant balls were gone.

How was this even possible was a mystery to me, but I could guess that this was part of our boon from [The Light]. We literally emitted light, something we normally couldn’t do without using [Shine]. The fact that we erased what was inside that area was true magic, and it absolutely frightened us parallel minds that this power was in our hands.

And we weren’t the only one; the demonkin, too, was flabbergasted at what we had done. Before he could react, we unleashed [Dreadflare Aura], blowing him away from us. He crashed through a building while we parallel minds deactivated [Dreadflare Aura].

We wanted to continue the assault, but a sudden sharp pain stung our chest like a giant needle, causing us to roar out as it kept worsening. A chilling cracking sound resounded from our chest area as we were unable to continue moving, falling onto our knees as heat began to escape our body in the form of flame waves.

“Solar core overheating! Turning fire into white flames to help cool things down.”

“Turning solar energy into mana and nutrients. Hey, I need help over here, we need to do all of it manually!”

“Shit! A crack in our solar core confirmed! No idea how to fix it but it’s probably from either overheating or mana usage. Deactivate any unnecessary mana usage, including the Symphonie! Keep the music!”

No spells, no high maintenance buffs, or skill-based power boosts. Our glaive was also in our storage, but it seemed like our body had no intentions of taking it out. We were relying purely on our dragon and physical abilities at this point. Kramps warned us this could cripple us if we weren’t careful, so it couldn’t be helped.

“Daaaaaaamn yoouuuuu! Gluk… GuuuAAAAARRRRGH!” We felt a surge of energy from inside the building that the demonkin had flown into. [Detection Sensor] warned us how the target was growing in strength, and our instincts began to warn us to be careful. “FooOOOurgGrh LOOOrghhhH MAARRRSVEEEEEEN!”

Long, spiked tentacles shot out of the building at me, which I dodged. They dug into the ground, and dragged the demonkin out. What crawled out looked nothing like him. It was a giant mass of black flesh with his face fused onto it. We were struck with a strong sense of deja vu.

The troll shaman and Davison!

It was a similar eldritch abomination, but somehow, this was probably the most grotesque of them all. Tentacles were growing out from its body right at this moment, although they couldn’t be compared to the two extremely long ones he threw at me at first. The fleshy mess used these smaller tentacles to move around, crawling towards me in that oversized meat bag.

I could see a pair of arms and legs each sprouting from that mess in random places, while its tail looked nothing more than a fat tentacle at this point. A giant mouth with sharp spikes formed from this flesh and mask-like indentations were visible all over the body. But probably the worst inclusion on this “thing,” was truly the demonkin’s face, which looked like just another random addition to this eldritch creature.

“KiiiiiIILllll youuuuuu!” Multiple voices were synched together like in a chorus, bellowing those words out as it was in agony.

“What in the— Why, why? What the hell is that potion they’re drinking and why does it turn you into something like this?! It doesn’t make any sense! T-This is not right.”

That black potion — the one the troll shaman and Davison drank before they turned themselves into real monsters. What was it made from that allowed them to turn themselves into such a state? I heard from Saori that Davison had drunk a potion prior to his full transformation that gave him a lesser monster-like form, but it allowed him to retain his consciousness.

So seeing even this demonkin wasn’t immune to black potion was unsettling. As much as I wanted to sympathize with what he had done to himself, the wrath and grief he inflicted on me by taking Eshe away from everybody trumped it. The disgust his form gave me disappeared instantly as I charged towards him with [Gale Steps].

Just like before, its body was shooting out spells without needing to conjure a magic circle, including that black ball from before. One of these was a fire spell, which was a serious misjudgement, since we had [Flashfire].

We teleported towards the fire, right above the abomination where we saw the demonkin’s pained expression as he roared at us. Flapping our wings, we somersaulted and performed an axe kick after using [Instant Heat Ignition] to wrap our leg in fire, landing a devastating explosive attack.

“GuuuuuOOORgh!” it belched out.

The ground cracked and the abomination’s flesh was burned. [Dread Burn] prevented it from regrowing or healing itself, despite it casting white light on itself in a mimickry of [Major Heal]. This proved one of the parallel minds’ theories that the various demonkin of envy can not only assume others’ appearances but also copy spells and maybe even skills.

Maybe it could have proven a challenge to others, as it did to Eshe and her knights buffed up with [Honored, Sworn Knights], but to us, this bastard was just an ant. [My Darkest Thoughts] weakened it, [The Light] had turned ourself into a walking demon energy destroyer, and my flames naturally countered any types of regeneration. Not to mention the high elemental resistance I had to any of my magics.

“Insect!” we shouted as we kicked the blob upwards before slicing it in half with our tail.

“Grrrruuuu!” it screamed. Black tendrils erupted from its wounds, binding it together before all its tentacles grew in size and attacked me. Like a venus fly trap, it tried to prey on me, but all it would find was a predator — an apex predator.

We [Flashfire]ed out of there and unfurled my claws for the first time during this fight. Searing hot claws severed the monster’s tendrils like butter. Instead of trying to regrow them, the monster simply amputated any body parts afflicted with fire like a lizard shedding its tail, before growing new tentacles from a different spot.

We did not stop our attack, taking more and more of its body as we dashed around like crazy. Its spells, although numerous, were worthless. [Draconic Barrier] nullified their damage — we could ignore them. The pain in our chest did slow us down a bit, but as parallel minds moved our attention from casting spells to maintaining our body, Original Mind could devote herself to slaughtering this amalgamation of flesh.

Still, despite how badly we were injuring the deformed demonkin, it was tenacious. Each time, the black liquid or something oozed out from its body to simply replace any damaged parts. We parallel noted this for later — there were ways to get around [Dread Burn]’s effect.

Due to the abomination’s immense staying power, the fight was taking its toll on the surroundings. The street cracked, buildings burned, and the corpses of the undead, deformed monsters, and of Griffonpeak’s slain citizens were all consumed by our fire or destroyed by the blob.

We tried to contain it but the battle was getting fiercer and fiercer as we tried to get close enough to the thing to land a decisive blow. We couldn’t appraise it, which made it hard to know what its limit was. Thankfully, there was nobody alive in this area besides the two of us. We had all the time and freedom to wail our emotions onto this thing.

And our patience finally paid off.

“Kkrrriiiiaahhh!”

A flaming claw slash reaped a chunk of flesh from the monster, but as we anticipated it to replace that piece, nothing happened. There was no black ooze or some tendrils. Also, we noticed that the skin of the abomination had suddenly turned into a bright pink at the same time this occurred. Did it finally use up all that dark power?

“Now! Channel our mana into an attack and end this thing!” I commanded the parallel minds as our body seemingly agreed.

“Light Horizon,” our body murmured as we created light from our mana once again, before spraying it out like shotgun pellets. They penetrated the abomination’s skin, at which point those light pellets morphed into needles, pinning the monster down on the ground.

Damn, even light manipulation?

“Kriiiah!” We roared as we stomped our feet into the ground, breaking it in the process. The energy within our solar core then burst out, entering our hand for the killing blow! “Release: Solar Beam!”

A humongous light laser burst from our hand, roaring so loudly that it even made our ears ring in pain. It completely enveloped the abomination in the light, pushing little by little up into the sky with the ground it was tied down to.

From just a small glance, the amount of energy released through this blast would have been enough to probably consume something as large as our dragon form, but this laser also had the length part down, too. We parallel minds didn’t need to guess. We knew very well that this blast could have reached the very ends of the sky like a true solar beam.

Like the light of a lighthouse acting like the beacon of hope and safety for sailors during a storm, our blast pierced the rain, sundered the rain clouds, ruptured the blowing wind, and brought back the incandescence of the sky. And all of this with the dying screams of the blasted demonkin.

“GrruooooAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!” The demonkin’s alien cries ringed throughout the neighborhood, atomizing at the same time as its body. “L-LORD PRIDE! HONORED LORD MAAAAAARRRRRSVEEEEEEEN—!”

[Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood]’s release requirement not found. Deactivating effect. Temporary access to the full potential of [Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] has been used up with the authority of the God of Dragons and Oaths Kargryxmor. Usuper rights activated. Attempting to override access… Attempt failed. [Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] has been resealed

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has risen from [Level 15] to [Level 16]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 700 skill points

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Job [Incandescent Blaze] has risen from [Level 3] to [Level 30]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Max level of Job   [Incandescent Blaze] has been reached

Mutation requirements acquired. [Level 30] of Job [Incandescent Blaze] was achieved. Mutation skills unlocked for acquisition.   [Flames of Purification] have been added to the SP shop

“Holy shit! That was a powerful blast!” I spoke out as [Battle Frenzy (Major)] turned off and we could feel the Original Mind’s presence inside our mind. She was cooling off, confused at what happened.

Just like during [Battle Frenzy (Moderate)], Original Mind essentially blanked out. Her body was moving on instincts alone, although, fortunately, she didn’t totally turn into a mindless berserker. My guess is that Kramps did something to make sure we didn't destroy everything while we fought the demonkin. Very considerate.

As we shared the memories we had of the battle to help Original Mind catch up on the situation, we also did some maintenance on her solar core. It was absorbing solar energy, thankfully, but when we had our body open up our shirt to look at it, it certainly confirmed our worry.

“No…” our body murmured in worry.

There was a large crack on the core. It was only a single one, but even that was worrying enough. Since we just had our wings repaired, none of us expected to be injured like this again. We had no idea what detriments this would cause, but we did know that we would try to repair the injury with white flames.

“Why is all of this— Urk!”

“Yo, Original Mind, be care—”

“Oof!” I groaned as I fell uncomfortably on my back. My landing on the fresh rubble was… rough. Pain was pain, in any case.

The rain continued. I peered up, watching water droplets drop on my face. I checked my hair — it was crimson again. I couldn’t believe that my hair had turned white, but the memories my parallel minds sent me couldn’t be refuted. I remembered the whole fight I had with the demonkin, and now, with my revenge enacted, I felt a deep emptiness as [My Darkest Thoughts] continued playing.

“Those are my honest thoughts, something I wish to hide from them ♫

My life is stagnating, nothing I do brings me forth ♫

All I can do is sing, drowning my sorrows while it rains ♫

Every step I take just brings me back, to a rundown apartment room ♫

Turn away, close my eyes, lock these wishes far away ♫

Not again, not again…or I’ll cry until the end ♫

All of my darkest thoughts ♫

Will serve me as my muse ♫

So, I’ll sing, I’ll sing, I’ll sing, I’ll sing! ♫

As I fade from your thoughts ♫”

Eshe… Alikar and Anivh, too. They’re all dead…

I thought I would grieve, or maybe feel some catharsis from killing their murderer, but I felt no fulfillment. I felt nothing motivating me to stand up. I might have fallen due to overexerting myself, seeing as my solar core cracked, but I could have simply stood up at this point.

But I had no reason to.

Yes, I could hear the loud roars of that geisenlarg monster, and even how it was slowly destroying the wall. I could hear Muraina’s arrows flying through the sky, pushing the monster back as best as she could, waiting for people like me to help her.

But I had no motivation to do so. I felt tired.

“Is this how Mama and Papa felt when I died?” I asked myself, trying so earnestly to remember my parents’ faces, but I couldn’t. The cloud inside my mind obstructed it. I couldn’t even call out their names.

I wanted to cry, but I didn’t have the agency to do that. For me, the rain was enough. It cried for me. I wondered if Krunal, God of Harvest and Weather, was also sad right now.

“I wasn’t fast enough… A dragon unable to protect what is theirs… I am pathetic.”

Has obtaining all these powers done anything good for me? I wanted to protect those I loved but tragedies just keep happening all around me. At this point, I was sure that I even failed Ellaine. Eshe and Ellaine… two friends I’ve come to know in Artorias were lost to me forev—

“HESTIA!”

I pushed myself up, snapping my head towards that voice. And there I saw them.

“E-ELLAINE!”

My party. Saori, Tasianna, Ellaine, Grimnir, Uno, Song, Sarasa, and Quatre. With the exception of Shoyi, all of them were there.

Tears began to stream from my eyes, accompanying the rain, as I ran towards them, embracing Ellaine the moment we were close enough.

“Y-You’re alive! You’re alive!” I cried out, touching Ellaine’s face to make sure. She wasn’t wearing her armor and her clothes seemed like some spares Saori had in her storage, but I didn’t care. “You didn’t die! Waghaghagah… Siiierpf! You didn’t die, thank goodness, you’re alive. You’re all alive! I didn’t lose any of you!”

“H-Hestia—” Ellaine tried to say something but I didn’t listen.

“Hestia, where is… It’s alright. It’s alright, we’re here. Don’t w-worrrry.” I could feel Saori’s shaky voice as she caressed my back, supporting me as I didn’t want to let go of Ellaine.

“Lady Hestia, we’re all here. We’re all safe.” So did Tasianna.

““““Woof!”””” our four garms barked as they came closer.

I could also feel Grimnir’s strong hand tapping my back, but he kept quiet. I didn’t know what he was thinking. I wanted to know, though. I wanted to listen to all of my companions’ voices. I wanted to selfishly have them with me forever.

Why… Why couldn’t everything be more peaceful?

A note from AbyssRaven

And with that, Hestia has killed a demonkin in the most explosive way possible in her berserk mode… but at what cost?

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 247: The Heir of Hope.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #2 her to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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“KRRRRRUUUUUUUUOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH!”

The walls sheltering the orphanage’s district suddenly broke apart as a medieval standing cannon suddenly crashed into them, causing rocks to shower down upon us. Tasianna immediately manipulated the water from the rain above the orphanage to hold the rocks up, allowing Saori and me to break them apart with our respective powers.

Once all the boulders and debris were turned into pebbles, Tasianna tossed them away while Ellaine and I went over to the wall and hardened it with [Terra Wall]. As the orphanage was placed right next to Griffonpeak’s wall, it used to give the orphan kids a great sense of protection, as the caretakers always assured them that it would protect them from the dangers from outside. Now, this very wall almost crushed Eshe’s, Alikar’s, and Anivh’s bodies.

“I got them out. They’re over with the poor lass…” Grimnir informed us, having taken Alikar and Anivh out from their giant metal suits. While they were created from Eshe’s unique skill [Honored, Sworn Knights] and would ordinarily disappear once Eshe deactivated the skill, it seemed when they died, their armor remained.

“A knight’s death,” Ellaine called it, and I agreed. These intimidating suits of metal were rather befitting of their status as Eshe’s bodyguards. It was just a shame that… even thinking about them like this caused my tears to flow. I couldn’t suppress my grief and loneliness, even after I made sure everybody from Aurora was alive and here with me.

As the rest of us followed Grimnir to the garden, we saw he had placed a tent over their bodies, preventing the rain from dropping on them. Tasianna was preventing the rain from falling on us by freezing the droplets and then throwing those ice shards away with [Cryokinesis], but it was good that the rain couldn’t touch Eshe and her knights anymore.

“Eshe…” I whispered in mourning. I wasn’t the only one, as Ellaine, Grimnir, and Tasianna prayed for them in the name of their respective gods, while Saori began cleaning their bodies from the rain and blood.

Seeing Eshe’s peaceful face was like a thorn piercing my heart. Memories of her resurfaced, and I couldn’t control myself any longer. Memories of how she would treat me to cooking from Sarkarfiina, of how we laughed as we played with the kids, and of how she truly was a “Saintess” as she stood up against the criminals of Shaturein to rescue the kids and slaves Hamil captured rose in my mind, drowning me in sorrow.

“Hieeehic! Hiuek hieuk uek uek, hic!” My voice cracked. I kneeled down, hiding my crying face on my legs, still unwilling to accept the reality of things.

Please, Aurena, please, answer… Please, tell me Eshe, Alikar, and Anivh are still alive…

… I’m sorry, Hestia.

Her reply was something I expected, but it stung even more when I was confronted by it once again. I knew I couldn’t just stay here and continue crying with the large bug rampaging at the front of the capital’s gates, but I wanted this moment. I dearly needed this time to slow down and mourn.

I was in an emotional turmoil. I used up all my anger and wrath to kill the demonkin, and felt too weak to move, right now. Fighting was out of the question.

“Ellaine, hieec, Tasianna…” I forced out with my face planted against my legs. “I-I thought you two had died, too. I thought that I would have lost you too. That I left you two to die in Shaturein. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…”

“N-No, no, I should be the one to apologize, Hestia.” I could hear Ellaine’s shaky voice due to how she too was just crying. “I was weak. I learned from Klea that Eithalr was the one who knocked me unconscious and handed me over, but I still got surprised and couldn’t react. If I hadn’t been captured… you might have been able to focus more on protecting Saintess Eshe. O-Oooh, dear Goddess, dear Goddess Ilsaphone — please, let her soul rest in peace. Light be your guide to the gates of souls, Saintess Eshe.”

Ellaine wasn’t a very pious person in the sense that she didn’t go around spouting Aurena’s name like it was the most important thing in her life, but she was faithful. Most nobles in Artorias were, since the church of Aurena was the kingdom’s state religion.

It shouldn’t be surprising to see Ellaine cry for Eshe, even if they hadn’t known each other for too long. To Ellaine, seeing Eshe die would most likely be similar to a Christian seeing a revered clergyman like the pope dying before them.

“Ellaine, Tasianna… what happened with you two?” I wiped the tears from under my eyes, trying my best to stop crying. Saori and Grimnir had told me what happened to the necromancer, but I still had no idea how Ellaine escaped or where her parents were, as they should have been with Tasianna.

Noticing I wasn’t in the right state of mind to fight, they nodded to each other and began telling me their stories.

For Ellaine, it was a wild ride of emotions. Hearing from Klea’Hatma how Eithalr had bashed her face against the floor caused another surge of rage inside me, as the contempt I felt for that bastard grew and grew. If he hadn’t been so adamant about stalling me, I could have learned that Ellaine wasn’t in Shaturein earlier and saved Eshe in time. If he hadn’t kidnapped her, none of this would have happened.

“He’s a kill-on-sight!” I shouted, grinding my teeth.

“I understand your feelings, but if you were having so much trouble against him in a duel, would it be smart to constantly fight him? Although, I must admit I want to get revenge on him,” Ellaine replied, trying to calm me down.

She continued her story. Jonathan, her brother, was the one to rescue her from the cell and the both of them went to save Amelia from the corrupted nobles, only for Ellaine to get her head cut off by Charleslyt. She managed to survive her own death thanks to her [Necklace of Vampiric Undying], but hearing that coming from her own mouth caused me to feel [Battle Frenzy] crawling up again.

Ellaine noticed this and quickly ended the story by telling me that she defeated him with Klea’Hatma’s help, and that they seemingly had created a symbiotic relationship with each other. Charleslyt was defeated and Jonathan and Amelia brought them to the knights to arrest him.

[“Wrath doesn’t suit your cute face, dear. Calm yourself down, you can unleash all of it against that giant bug once your heart settles,”] Klea’Hatma advised me. I wanted to click my tongue to her words, just ‘cause I was annoyed at Eithalr and Charleslyt, but restrained myself, knowing giving a tantrum now would be disrespectful to Eshe and her knights.

“… Haaaaaaaa.” I did my breathing technique, slowing my beating heart a bit. “Tasianna, Lord and Lady Helvas aren’t with you. What happened down in Shaturein?”

“Oh, please, don’t worry about it, Lady Hestia. Nothing happened to them; in fact, when they saw Ellaine safe and alive, they were fully capable of crying and embracing their daughter,” Tasianna explained, only to cause Ellaine to blush in embarrassment.

What happened was that Tasianna and the Helvas parents had to fight through a horde of mercenaries to get into Hamil’s secret base. Most of them were random thugs and small-time mercenary companies not registered with Blackreach — a major crime in Shaturein as you were disrespecting the leading guild of the undercity — but a few notable participants were the members of the Yanderu Elusuess and Charleslyt’s “wyvern slayer” buddies.

Of course, if Eithalr had been hired, his crew wouldn’t be far behind. Allies one day, enemies the next. It’s fucked up how that had to happen…

All of the mercs except for the Yanderu folks naturally underestimated the trio of Tasianna and the Helvas parents since they were vastly outnumbered. That was quite the surprise, since Kaian, who was there, should have seen Tasianna fight before. He could have informed everybody of how dangerous Tasianna was, not just his own group. Cutthroat, honestly.

Nevertheless, Lord and Lady Helvas weren’t too bad themselves, according to Tasianna. They were former adventurers but they never did tell us what their ranks were. Marianne conquered the field with her spells while Lord Helvas cut everything down. He and Kaian even dueled evenly while Tasianna took care of the wyvern slayers.

“We had the advantage, don’t get me wrong, Lady Hestia. We probably would have won and I could have shut those damn wyvern slayers up forever, but the moment Pestrodus and the lycerepth appeared, most of them fled the scene. Like, the lycerepth announced themselves and all of the mercenaries just retreated.”

The surprising addition to all of this was Pestrodus and his agents. They were on their own investigations in Shaturein from what Muraina told us, as we had presumed he was the demonkin. Naturally, Tasianna was wary of him. She even tried fighting him when he tried to approach them.

That stopped when Tasianna saw my [Solar Beam] attack from my fight against Eithalr, and that was when she decided that she had to hurry up and find Ellaine before rendezvousing with me. Since all the Yanderu and associated mercenaries had left, entering the mansion proved no challenge.

Tasianna initially tried to ignore Pestrodus and keep him at arm’s length, ready to freeze him the moment she noticed something wrong. After all, Pestrodus mentioned he was looking into apprehending Hamil and found this base after painstakingly investigating leads over multiple days. Of course he would, he was the demonkin working with Hamil, right?

“Hamil wasn’t there, he had already fled. Arcanuess and Arcaliess Helvas agreed with me to rendezvous with you, since it’s likely that Hamil would be in the last area. However, Pestrodus stopped us, warning us that Eithalr would be there,” she explained.

Pestrodus was adamant that this was the only possible place for Hamil to be, since he inspected the neighborhood’s blueprints beforehand, learning that there was an underground passage. Tasianna wanted to rush over to me after learning I was possibly fighting against Eithalr, but that was when she saw me flying away. That must have been when I learned from Aurena was Eshe was about to die.

At that point, she assumed I had most likely learned where Ellaine was and decided not to pursue me. She had so much faith in my ability to win against Eithalr that she honestly thought I had won against him. Kinda made me feel worse when I informed her he wasn’t even going all-out against me and I was still nowhere close to winning, at least going by what he said after I poisoned him.

With the Helvas parents agreeing to leave the rest to me, Tasianna followed Pestrodus and his lycerepthors as they vehemently searched the mansion for the secret entrance. In the meantime, Lord and Lady Helvas went around to collect any evidence to aid King Drangleic in sending out the knights.

When they finally found the entrance, Tasianna readied herself for a fight, believing Pestrodus was using this place for their grave. But a conflict never happened. At the bottom of this passage was an underground river, leading south according to the documents they found. Hamil had escaped south, to the Atadoro Kingdom before they even entered the mansion. The mercenaries truly were just there to stall.

Pestrodus had smacked his fist on the wall, infuriated by his failure to catch a heathen to the church. But it became even worse for him once he began looking through all the documents, becoming distraught when the truth was written on a piece of parchment.

“The demonkin you fought went by the name of Joachim von Spitzwald, Pestrodus’s younger cousin. A cousin he had recruited to the order as a favor to his uncle. Hamil documented every letter, transaction, and meeting he had with him, intending to use it as blackmail. He only learned that Joachim was a demonkin after he took over International Desires.”

So, in the end, Pestrodus’s cousin was killed and replaced by a demonkin of envy who used his appearance to enact all of this. The more I learn, the more fucked up everything is.

Eventually, the garms found Tasianna and the Helvas parents, and informed them that Ellaine, Amelia, and Jonathan were safe. The trio left on the backs of the garm, leaving Pestrodus to deal with the information they found. Once back on the surface, they met up with the Saori, Ellaine, and Grimnir.

They then left to find Jonathan and to hand in the documents to the knights. I honestly still didn’t understand why the knights weren’t sent out already, but I also had little idea how any of the bureaucracy worked in Artorias. I figured the king had the final say in everything, but it seemed the dukes had a lot of rights to keep the power balance between them intact.

I sighed in relief, happy to hear that at least something good was happening to others. “I see… Thankfully everything seemed to be going well for—”

But I was quickly interrupted.

“Hestia, you gave Eshe two of the [Room] runes, correct?” Saori asked, to which I nodded. “They aren’t on her or her knights. Grimnir and I can’t find them!”

The runes? Hold on… did I forget— Ooooh!

“The kids and caretakers!” I shouted before pulling out a pair of [Room] runes to open the subspace.

I’m such an idiot! How could I have forgotten about them!

I entered through the portal, ending up in the community room, expecting to see the kids and caretakers worryingly waiting inside. However, to the surprise of my party and me, the whole room was full, not only with the kids and caretakers, but also various strangers. The elderly, adults, teenagers, and also kids.

I think I recognized one or two of them visiting the restaurant, but the majority were strangers.

“““Big Sis!”””

“A-Abi?!”

The orphans ran up to us the moment they saw us enter, jumping into our arms. Shoyi, Saori’s slime, happily jumped on top of her head and began to wiggle like a puppy in elation at seeing its mistress again.

“Wady Weshe! Hiiec! Is Wady Weshe alwight?!”

Tears and snots covered their faces while their cheeks and eyes were a vibrant red. Their talking was mixed in with their crying, coming out as slightly incoherent as they slurred their words. Looking at them crying so loudly, I wondered how long they’ve been doing this.

“W-What happened?” I asked, holding Abi and two others tightly as if I already understood what occurred from the looks of all the people around us. Their tattered clothes, their wounds, and their worried expressions — if I thought back on what Eshe’s personality was like, I could already guess what happened.

And it was confirmed when the orphanage director came over, her wrinkles growing under her eyes from all the weeping. “L-Lady Hestia, is Saintess Eshe alright? Please, tell us, is Saintess Eshe alright? Where is she?”

“S-She’s— Huek…” I stroked the kids’ hair, unable to speak it out. Regardless, from my reaction alone, it seemed the director and caretakers already understood the situation, and when they understood, the kids did as well.

“N-No, Lady Eshe c-couldn’t be, no, Big Sis, you’re lying! She can’t be gone, nooo!” I remembered the faces of those who Eshe told me were the children of adventurers, who had to learn the deaths of their parents in the same similar fashion. They knew what was going on, they couldn’t, no, they didn’t want to accept it again.

“Stop it, stop shouting at her! S-She’s not at fault here… RrrrrARRRRRGH! Fuck, dammit!” The older kids, those who had to live knowing their parents weren’t with them anymore tried to control the younger ones, but even they were at their limits experiencing the same trauma.

“Huh? Wait, why is everybody shouting and crying? Where is Lady Eshe, Big Sis?” But the ones that broke my heart the most were those who had no idea. Those who were too young to remember their parents, those born into the orphanage due to some noble clergyman wanting to have fun with a grey-robed priestess, or those who were far, far too young to contemplate on the implications.

And Abi was one of them. Seeing her confused with tears flowing from her eyes made it all too much more problematic. It felt like my heart could just break apart at any moment. I knew there would always be a risk in my lifestyle, but I thought I was more prepared for it… I was mistaken.

…

And it didn’t get much better.

Saori and Ellaine stepped out of the subspace, having learned where Eshe most likely hid the runes. Once they reappeared, they told everybody it was safe to exit the portal, and to give everybody mourning some space.

“Saintess Eshe… Light be your guide to the plains of souls —she was a benevolent person. The perfect embodiment of a saintess, Lady Hestia,” the director told me after I let out another waterfall of tears. I never thought I could cry so many tears.

The reason why Eshe was around the church area instead of at the fortifications in the merchant district was because of the people she met enroute. Countless people tried to barricade themselves in their houses or neighborhoods, trying to survive the undead and monster outbreak on their own.

Some didn’t trust the knights, some didn’t trust the nobles or merchants nearby, some just didn’t want to get trampled on by the scared populace. Everybody had a reason to refuse to go to the merchant district.

Eshe tried to dissuade them, urging them to go to the church at least for their protection, but even if she was a saintess, some couldn’t place their trust in the church or Aurena. I didn’t know if they were atheists, but it was their choice to make. Artorias had a state religion but it had no laws to force that religion on their citizens, unlike the Folschreck Empire did according to Eshe.

Eshe wasn’t used to being rejected like that, so she had asked the director and caretakers how to handle the situation. They suggested to her to allow those who wish sanctuary to come with her, but it wouldn’t be right to force people. After all, even if they weren’t in the church, the Goddess would still grant them her protection.

“But as we spoke, Sir Alikar informed us that monsters were breaking through the floor. Sir Alikar and Dame Anivh managed to repel the threat, but most of the citizens were slain. It was a gruesome sight but, Light be praised, the children weren’t exposed to it.”

Still, this was just the beginning and a chain reaction started where more monsters and undead appeared. Whether children or adults, Eshe wanted to help all of them, so they tried and tried. More people populated the subspace as Eshe and her knights fought through the chaos.

I remember giving her the normal permission of everybody in my party, just in case I might have forgotten to give every kid permission to enter the subspace. I never really thought she would end up letting so many strangers into the [Room]. Eshe… why did you have to be such a hero?

It was heroic. A tale worthy to be told by the bards. A feat fitting for a saintess of Aurena. Her kind and warm heart saved the lives of over 60 people, even if most of them weren’t too warm to her at first.

But she died.

Ambushed while trying to rescue others, Eshe and her knights tried to flee from the demonkin only for him to try using hostages to draw her out. Alikar was gravely injured in the ambush attack, but even then he did not reject Eshe’s wish to save them. He and Anivh had sworn a vow to serve her, even if it meant their deaths.

In the end, Eshe managed to save the people from the demonkin, but at the cost of Anivh. She tried to enter the subspace to escape from the demonkin, but that was when the director saw Alikar being cut down by the disguised demonkin. Eshe, seeing this, ran out, using her spells to give cover fire for the remaining people to enter the [Room].

But…

“…” I closed my eyes, complaining internally at what Eshe had done. It was a truly selfless stunt, but to me, while I was still emotionally broken, it felt so very selfish. Why did she have to sacrifice her and her knights’ lives? Why did she have to act so heroic?

“Hieeeeuc! Hieghieghieg… haaaaaaiec.”

And then it came to me.

I turned around, seeing Saori crying as profusely as I did after hearing Eshe’s story. I forgot about this, too. I wasn’t the only one suffering. To Saori, this probably hit even worse due to her own past.

As Saori from Japan, she lost her father, a firefighter. He managed to rescue the people trapped inside the burning building, but he lost his life in the process. After his death, Saori’s mother broke down, and was never the same. Saori had to give up on her ambition of becoming a historian to pursue a job that paid more, sooner.

For once, I could fully understand why Saori was so hesitant about risks. Why she had been adamant that I not leave to rescue the lizardmen we met in the Belzac forest. Being heroic was fine, but if you lost your life in the process, how many people would you leave behind?

I began to sympathize with Saori’s mindset.

“Before the portal closed, she threw this into it, telling us to give it to you, Lady Hestia.” The director handed me a slightly ripped piece of parchment with words written on it. As I read it, tears began to fall once again.

‘Stay strong.’

“… Idiot.”

“Stay strong.” That was all that was written on it. I had no idea how to respond to those words. It felt weird. Grief and anger were the two emotions I felt at this very moment, battling with each other to become the dominating one. Grief for losing a friend, and anger at having learned how Eshe died.

It was kinda fitting for someone like Eshe, but I also felt slightly betrayed by it. She knew she was about to die. Her knights were gone and she still willingly went out to defend those entering the subspace. If somebody were to sacrifice themselves for others’ safety, it would be Eshe.

Verdammt…

Memories of when Eshe helped me read through a holy book appeared as I thought of her last message to me. “Aureolis Scriptures on the Principles of the Holy Clergy,” was the book’s name.

Eshe described the book as the most common and widely used text to teach newly initiated white-robes to the hierarchy and order within a temple. Rituals and ceremonies being important to the church meant that it was imperative that every clergy member learn how to perform them, which also included the grey-robed priests, as they would act as supporters.

I thought it sounded all good, but when I began to read it, it was completely gibberish to me. Objectively speaking, the book was just a way to worship Aurena, a way to indoctrinate the reader while giving information on how you should act and function as a priest and shrine maiden.

In a way, it was also mildly sexist with how it encouraged only females to join the shrine maiden ranks, even if shrine priests were a possibility. “Only the elegant and fair may serve the Goddess as her shrine maidens, as purity is important to not contaminate her shrines,” was a quote, before it began explaining how you were supposed to remain “elegant and fair.” According to Ellaine, it was the usual etiquette lesson a noble lady must learn sprinkled with a bit of religious zeal.

If it weren’t for Eshe, I would have probably had to ask Theodore or it would have taken a long time for me to decipher it. It was honestly even worse to read than the church’s public version of the bible, which at least had cool stories.

When she finished explaining it to me, she went into what my job as a champion was and what our roles as fellow blessed were. Since she had never met an actual champion of Aurena in person, she tried to make me out as somebody heroic with a Divine mission to help the people. That was when we first met, so we hadn’t known each other for too long.

Even now, you want me to ‘stay strong?’ I’m not a hero, Eshe, I’m just a normal girl who was reborn as a dragon.

Sure, I’ve experienced things that would cause normal people to crumble, but look at me. I didn’t want to fight against that geisenlarg king after seeing Eshe’s lifeless body. What sorta hero is that supposed to be? I’m emotionally fragile, always have been.

But… you’re right, Eshe. If I don’t stay strong, how will I be able to protect those I still have? I wasn’t strong enough to rescue you in time. I don’t want to lose anybody else important to me. This day wasn’t over yet, and the longer it continued, the more I could lose.

Biting my lips, I placed the memento in my storage and turned to Saori. “Saori, I—”

“I know, Hestia.” She wiped her tears away and breathed in deeply. “I will not scold you. I am already over that phase. Griffonpeak needs help. We need to help them.”

I nodded.

“A lot of adventurers should be fighting in front of the gates. I heard from those who saw me fighting that Muraina and the garrison captains are holding it the best they can. Cannons were deployed and a lot of mage adventurers were helping. Even then, the bug is still alive.”

I nodded once again. “They need a beacon of hope.”

I said goodbye to the director and the caretakers, telling them that I will do what I have to do in Eshe’s stead. When the kids saw me leaving, they ran over to the entrance, body blocking me from the portal.

“““Nooo, Big Sis, no! Please, don’t leave!””” Abi and the other kids shouted. They hadn’t gotten over Eshe’s death yet as I could see them still crying. “““Please, we don’t want to lose you, too!”””

They pleaded with their watery eyes, looking up at me like disgruntled little puppies. I could understand them. If it were before I read Eshe’s note, I probably would have even stopped Ellaine from going out to fight for her own kingdom. I wanted to be selfish, too.

I kneeled, putting my hand on Abi’s head as I patted her with a wry smile. “I know, I’m so sorry.” Tears wanted to fall but I forced them back. Right now, I have to be strong. “But I need to go—”

“You don’t have to go! We don’t want you to go, Big Sis! Please, don’t leave us, too!” she begged.

Kuek! I’m sorry!

“I’m sorry but I have to! Just like Eshe. We are both blessed, we are people chosen by the Goddess to help those in need. Just like how Eshe did everything she could to help even strangers. I know I’m being selfish to all you little ones, but I’m… Believe in me. Trust in me. I will make sure that when you leave my home, you will see a bright sky! I will come back, I swear it on my tail, and I will never, EVER go back on a promise!”

I stretched my tail forward, holding it up like a pinky swear.

“You promise?” Abi asked.

“On my scales!”

The kids reached out their pinkies, holding onto my tail with their small fingers. ““Pinky promise!””

Saori and I left the subspace, where we saw the rain had stopped pouring down. There was still some drizzle, but it wasn’t as bad as before. I turned around, noticing all the people who were inside my subspace kneeling and praying for Eshe and her knights. They mourned for her, crying and apologizing for being stubborn and being the cause of her death.

It was bittersweet.

“Saori, I’ll meet you in a moment…” And without waiting for her answer, my rocket boosters activated and I blasted into the air.

Having had the time to recover, my scale-dust amount has recovered back to a point where I could consistently accelerate my flying speed. And I needed it, since my goal was the top of the mountain, Wintertalon.

The cold stung my skin as I stepped onto cold, hard rocks on this mountain, holding up the citadel and royal palace of King Drangleic and his family. Up here, I could see the entirety of Griffonpeak. Just like when I had my city tour with Ellaine, this place really was a sight to behold. I had never gone mountaineering, but maybe this is why mountaineers never stop this dangerous hobby.

Parallel minds, boost it up.

‘Understood, boss.’ Manager mind responded.

I took out my glaive and placed it before me. As the wind began to move by my commands, the sounds of instruments began to play.

[Music Resonation (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“In the midst of the desert ♫

A bright ray of light shines ♫

Pure and brave, that she was, as she walked ♫

She was the ideal for me ♫

The bringer of children’s smiles ♫

Alas, the world seemed bleaker without her ♫”

The music and my voice roared around like a typhoon, blasting themselves from the tops of this place down Griffonpeak for everybody to hear. I had to cast [Air Shield] around my ears to prevent them from rupturing, meaning I couldn’t hear my own song. However, I didn’t need to. The time I needed to fly up here was all I needed to internalize this whole song.

A calm voice. Play it slowly like an introduction.

[Music Resonation (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“But all wounds must heal, we must force back the tears ♫

Her legacy remains for everybody to hear ♫

All these wounds will heal, mourning must end ♫

Our path is made clear through the loss of a friend ♫”

Powerful vocals! End with harmony through repeating voices. Softly waning into the next verse.

[Stage Fever (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“The sun rays lost all their colors ♫

The pain stinging in the heart ♫

A wild plea for the martyr, will she come? ♫

Dawn and dusk, so very fleeting♫

The world turns as we c-hieuc-ry ♫

Hiuc, huech… Beseech, w-wake yourself up, or all’s forgotten ♫”

Tears fell from my face onto my glaive as I held it like an impromptu microphone. I couldn’t hold it in. I knew which words came out from my mouth, and it made it so much harder for me to force back my tears. I wanted to stay strong, I really did.

But it was impossible to control my emotions any longer.

Still, the show had to go on!

[Music Resonation (Major)] [Stage Fever (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

68 humans and beastmen have become your fans

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 2750

“And from my despair, awakens a pyre ♫

I will heed her wish and soar all so higher ♫

This stage that she left, the light shines anew ♫

With heavenly fire, this dragon is here for you! ♫”

I spread my wings out, materializing white flames and made them look larger and larger, like those angel-like wings people thought they saw me with in Cedaraille. I cast [Shine] on my tail, shining it so brightly behind me that people will think of me as a beacon of light with two angel wings.

234 humans and beastmen have become your fans

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 2984

“I pray that my song will reach your soul ♫

For hope will fly down on wings of grace ♫

and banish the sadness ♫”

Time will move on, but your stories remain ♫

A legacy made upon the warmth of your heart ♫

The light shines so brightly, all in your honor ♫

May the light guide you to the plains of souls! ♫

467 humans and beastmen have become your fans

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 3451

And from my despair, awakens a pyre ♫

I will heed her wish and soar all so higher ♫

This stage that she left, the light shines anew ♫

With heavenly fire, this dragon is here for you! ♫

891 humans and beastmen have become your fans

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 4342

You have poured your emotions into the song, granting it power from the depths of your soul. The performance was one truly worthy for a singer. The sheer emotions expressed with each word will influence the power of this spell song

The recording has ended. Please wait as the System analyzes the song

“In the midst of the desert ♫

A bright ray of light shines ♫

Pure and brave, that she was, as she walked ♫

She was the ideal for me ♫

The bringer of children’s smiles ♫

Alas, the world seemed bleaker without her ♫”

I repeated the song.

1002 humans and beastmen have become your fans

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 5343

Congratulations. The song has been successfully accepted. You may now give your song a name

The Heir of Hope!

Proficiency requirement fulfilled. [Idol Lv. 2] evolved into [Idol Lv. 3]

“The Heir of Hope” has been registered. Song description and effects will now be generated. You have chosen “Buffing.” This song is filled with your true emotions of everything, a self-reflection on your future, and in loving memory of somebody dear. The song was written to give those in even the darkest of depths the fire of hope, to awaken their will and bring them out from it. The more people gather around you — the beacon of their hope — the more this song will inspire you and those around you

Custom magic song gained:   [The Heir of Hope]

Custom magic song   [The Heir of Hope] has been perfectly integrated into the System

“But all wounds must heal, we must force back the tears ♫

Her legacy remains for everybody to hear ♫

All these wounds will heal, mourning must end ♫

Our path is made clear through the loss of a friend ♫

The sun rays lost all their colors ♫

The pain stinging in the heart ♫

A wild plea for the martyr, will she come? ♫

Dawn and dusk, so very fleeting♫

The world turns as we cry ♫

Beseech, wake yourself up, or all’s forgotten ♫

And from my despair, awakens a pyre ♫

I will heed her wish and soar all so higher ♫

This stage that she left, the light shines anew ♫

With heavenly fire, this dragon is here for you! ♫”

Hestia’s voice spread throughout Griffonpeak. Amplified by her [Aerokinesis], even if you were inside a house, you would be able to hear it. Farmers, commoners, merchants, nobles, and even the king could hear her voice echo down on them.

In these dire times where the citizens struggle to find safety inside the merchant district the merchants and nobles so very much want to keep isolated for their own selfish reason, and when the battlefield in front of the gates was so chaotic, her voice was a welcome surprise. It was uplifting.

“Quick, all of you in, now! Move in a line! In order! May the light protect you!” Two dissatisfied young knights opened the gates for the quickly made walls inside the merchant district. The commoners left out for the protection of the nobles and merchants quickly thanked them, praying to Aurena for their mercy.

They had been ordered to guard it and not to allow anybody to enter without the consent of their superiors. They were disobeying a direct order, a crime within the knight’s order that even a noble cannot escape.

However, these two weren’t the only ones. Inspired by Hestia’s song, the mages who made this all opened certain places for people to enter. The merchant district was becoming more and more crowded.

“Fight, fight! We have to protect our city!” Those on the battlefield fighting against the geisenlarg king were especially affected by her singing, motivating themselves despite the perilous threat.

To the centaur-like geisenlarg, these guards and adventurers were simply ants. But they kept on fighting. Using cannons and shooting out spells to aid the heavy hitters to repel it. But with only Krymdar, Muraina, and a couple of B ranks, the tides of this battle weren't turning.

“Fight! We will win today!”

They needed a beacon

“And from my despair, awakens a pyre ♫

I will heed her wish and soar all so higher ♫

This stage that she left, the light shines anew ♫

With heavenly fire, this dragon is here for you! ♫”

“… KRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!”

Down on the streets, those who heard this rumbling roar snapped their heads up, watching as the sphere of light at the top of Wintertalon flapped its angelic wings and flew up. As it shone up there, it dimmed out, only for the angel wings to flap and flap, descending down like a blazing comet with a white flaming tail.

And that was when she made her debut.

“O-Oh, look! Shit! A dragon!”

“KrrrraaaaAAAAAAH!” White flames burst from her mouth, bathing the geisenlarg in a searing inferno before she charged into it, driving the giant bug outside the capital.

“Skkkkrrrrooouuuuuuuuuuuuh!”

Unfortunately, the dragon, as large as she was, still looked like a child next to the enormous geisenlarg king. It used its shield-like hands to push the flying monster back while it stabilized its balance.

The push didn’t do much once he regained his balance, but that was when multiple earth blades shot out from the ground, aiding the dragon to stop the invading king.

[“You shall not pass!”] That telepathic voice resounded in everybody’s ears, a voice very much familiar.

The adventurers and soldiers looked up at the dragon, now flapping her wings to hover right in front of the invading monster. As they received a better look, they saw her crimson scales covered in a veil of white fire, cloaking not only her tail but wings.

The music they had heard before resumed around her, drumming the song on repeat. But unlike before, where they only felt inspired by the song, they now felt energy surging inside them. Morale was the fuel of an army, and this song gave them the fervor to continue the fight.

[“People of Griffonpeak! I, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor, party leader of the C rank adventurer party ‘Aurora’ stand with you!”]

Hope has descended.

A note from AbyssRaven

The name for this song's melody was from "Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia" and named "The Heritors of Arcadia." Rawr

May you rest in peace, Eshe.

Also, since the 2nd anniversary of Dragon idol is coming soon, here you go, ball dress Hestia!

Also, since somebody mentioned wanting me to do a Q/A chapter with the characters answering them for the laughs, I thought "sound's fun." So, I think I'll do that for the special chapter on the anniversary.

So, shoot out your questions at Hestia, Saori, Tasianna, Ellaine, and Grimnir! Serious or funny ones. I actually have no idea how I will write it, so just send them to me and I'll try to figure something out.

Thank you!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 248: Geisenlarg King, A rank Holy Moly.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #3 her to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until January!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

1002 humans and beastmen have become your fans

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 7205

[Music Resonation (Major)] [Various Spell Buffs] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Sanctified Blaze: Halo of Consecration! Purple Flash! Purple Flash! Symphonie des Feuergottes!

[“Prayer! Dreadflare Breath!”]

Three individual spells appeared simultaneously as I breathed white dragon fire at the hybrid centaur-like, scorpion-thing geisenlarg king. I kept my two custom spells to myself while I made sure to announce [Prayer] to everybody in attendance. As absolutely vital it was for me to appear in this fight as a dragon, I knew very well that if I didn't do something to gain their trust, the adventurers and soldiers would just see me as an enemy.

A halo of white flames appeared above my head. With the white flames surrounding my wings from my rocket boosters, I did hope I looked like an angel dragon to everybody. In addition, two huge magic circles appeared in the sky as I began pushing the bug away from Griffonpeak.

[“Muraina, I need your help!”] I called out as the two spells activated, pouring searing flames on the bug and me while a veil of iridescent light basked everybody in a shower of holy power.

<[Symphonie des Feuergottes (Allegro)] [Blessing of the Goddess of Light (Major)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]>

Muraina, understanding what I meant, began shouting and giving orders while I continued my fight against the bug king.

“Do you hear that, my forest kin, adventurers of the guilds, and soldiers of Griffonpeak! This dragon is Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor, scion of the great Dragon Empire of Kargryx! The descendant of the Dragon God himself! Look at this blessing of the Goddess and her music of hope!” Muraina announced in a ferocious tone. “This one is a champion of the Goddess! Anyone who is foolish enough to attack her will not go without a punishment! Hunters and mercenaries, if you dare hurt her, I will make sure you will be demoted! Twice!”

Hold on, I didn’t tell you to tell them—

“““For her Highness, Meoshaera Hestia! Saelari, inbaek hasti ka!”””

“Saelari, bask them in our anger and might,” or something like that. My Andurenian was literally just beginner level where I had memorized a few quotes that Tasianna threw at me. However, hearing actual elves sprout that while I was fighting did boost my morale. For a war cry, it sounded exotic and filled with controlled fury.

[“Muraina, I didn’t tell you to tell them about my champion title!”] I complained.

[“Then you should have specified it, Hestia. Just because I can use telepathy doesn’t mean that I am a mind reader.”]

[“I mean, sure, but couldn’t you have— Woah! Speak to you later!”]

This wasn’t the time to talk. An inferno ocean was being created around me, pretty much blocking my sight and such while I tried to cook the bug alive. [Foresight] activated in this situation, forcing me to stop my breath attack and make a quick dodge to the side, avoiding a black beam as it divided the flames from my [Symphonie des Feuergottes] in half.

“Skrrrrrrooooouuuuch!” The geisenlarg roared as it revealed itself, having used its armored arms like a tower shield, blocking my spell from above. Its tail with the needle stinger was shooting out that black ray, demolishing the wall and scorching the earth.

Hold on, is that? Play it, parallel minds!

“Staring out the window while it rains ♫

No one here to talk, silence is all I have ♫

So I delved into my thoughts and wondered, “What if?”♫”

As the flame sea dissipated back into mana, I began playing [My Darkest Thought], thinking this blast of dark energy felt similar for some reason. And to my elation, my guess was correct.

The song weakened the monster’s laser attack to the point it only damaged the surface of whatever it hit. Meanwhile, its skull antennae and black veil cape squirmed independently from its body, as if they had their own consciousness. Its reaction made me confident this creature had some demonic energy within it. This song only worked on demonic things.

I need to alternate between my four songs. Use them like spells to pin this thing down. Mana Eyes!

Sepulchral Shell Geisenlarg King

A geisenlarg king born within <Information not available>. Rank A

Rank A, huh? Urgh.

Honestly, I had hoped [Mana Eyes] would have worked here since I needed to know what this monster could do. Now that I thought about it, I couldn’t appraise Eithalr at all either due to those damn appraiser blocker armlets. One of my strongest tools — appraisal — was rendered completely useless today.

However, just with this alone, I was satisfied. This bug was Rank A, probably had some relation with that black potion the demonkin drank, and the amount of destruction it had done even with Muraina fighting it was severe. Looking around the outskirts of Griffonpeak, I could see that nearly all the farm villages close to the wall were destroyed.

At the minimum, this thing was at the same destructive power as the rachonoid queen. But, it’s obvious enough this raid will be even harder.

[“Muraina, I’ll rely on you! Let’s win this!”]

[“I have your back, Meoshaera!”] Muraina declared. “Our reinforcement has arrived, everybody! Let’s all survive and slay this damn thing endangering our homes! Soldiers and adventurers, through holy fire and the light of the Goddess Aurena, we shall win today! The huntress, Themestra, bless our blades, arrows, and spells for we will HUNT!!!”

“““YEAAAAAAAH!!!”””

The many participants quickly resumed their battle stations, manning the cannons and ballistae. Normal weaponry wouldn’t work against this thing’s hard shell, though, so I couldn’t help but be a bit curious what they defenders were planning. Mages began shooting out their spells, while others filled up hollow cannon balls with mana, a type of object I hadn’t seen yet.

Mana Eyes.

Arcane Eoriant Ball

A cannonball made from eoriant alloy, intended to absorb mana and explode upon impact. The more mana poured into them, the higher the damage potential will become. Overloading the ball will lead to a large explosion

Eoriant, while common as an alloy since iron and eurinium were common enough, wasn’t the easiest thing to make. There were more normal iron cannonballs than eoriant ones, which means every shot counted. Multiple mages were pouring their mana into a single ball, just to get more bang for their buck.

I don’t think using normal spells and methods would work on this thing. It was obviously weak against [My Darkest Thoughts], so it should be weak against [Shine] and my holy flame grenades. Sadly, I can’t exactly make a cannonball size grenade at this moment for them to use.

“Skrrrrruooouch!” the geisenlarg roared as it swiped it's shield-like pincers at me, trying to swat me like a fly. But the real issue came when it tried using its needle stinger to turn me into a kebab, striking at me like a trained spearman.

I dodged with my rocket boosters. If it's trying to treat me like a fly, I’ll evade it just like a fly.

I couldn’t use my [Solar Beam] with my core cracked. It being able to still absorb and transform solar energy into mana or nutrients was enough for me, honestly. I just had to make do with my spell songs and [Symphonie des Feuergottes] to buff myself. First things first, I needed to cripple this thing.

Panzer. Unheilige Engel.

Brute force wasn’t the way here. Just like with Eithalr, I had to rely on my venom.

The size and agility difference was my advantage. I slipped through its stingers and pincers, using my purple dragon breath to spray toxins into the geisenlarg while using my tail slashes and scale-dust to attempt to puncture its hard shell. I even brought out my glaive, using its levitation function to shoot scale-dust at it.

But, like a living fortress, it withstood my attacks with only a few dents and scratches. My toxins were taking a while to kick in; hopefully, it wasn’t fully resistant against them. I was pretty sure [Dread Burn] should have applied on it by now, but I wasn’t sure if it had a natural regeneration or the same “recovery” as that demonkin — replacing broken parts with new ones.

Turn on [The Will to Fight and Survive].

Aside from the extremely useful [Exhaustion] prevention and increased Stamina regeneration, [The Will to Fight and Survive] also increased damage from fire and holy attacks while decreasing my enemies’ Wisdom stat by 5% — their magical resistance. Every bit counted.

With [Symphonie des Feuergottes]’s “Allegro” phase, I was just speeding around with the increased Agility. I could continue this as often as I wanted, slowly killing it with my toxin.

“Taunt!” However, this rhythm was broken by an unsuspected person.

“Skrrruruuch!” The monster sent a tail swipe at me, which I dodged, before it turned around and head to the ravaged remains of a forest before the walls.

Looking over, I saw a single armored adventurer raising its shield, shouting the [Taunt] skill to draw the monster’s attention. As it began to run, walls of earth were created underneath its feet, shooting him up in the air before a few wind mages used [Wind Blast] to blast him away from the bug, creating distance between them.

However, the geisenlarg was quite mobile for its size, easily trampling forward to catch up to its taunter. The mages escaped before they got stomped on, meanwhile the armored adventurer was now running for his life.

Shit! Is he crazy?!

[Halo of Consecration] was currently applying an AOE field around me, healing everybody with white flames. Any small injury would be healed, but if anyone sustained a fatal blow, they were dead. I did not have the ability to revive people, unfortunately…

As I raced towards the bug to grab its attention with dragon breath, my [Foresight] warned me to dodge followed by a telepathic message by Muraina. [“Move!”] she ordered me, and I did so without questioning it nor looking at the source of [Foresight]’s warning.

In the next two seconds, a giant wind arrow struck the geisenlarg king, pushing him to the side and unbalancing him. This left an opening for multiple normal-sized wooden arrows to fly, striking at the bug’s tail and digging into the slits between the carapace. They stayed there for a moment before wiggling out from them, returning to Muraina while I took this chance to morph [Unheilige Engel] into slime and let it seep through that crevice.

“Next taunter! Go!” Muraina shouted.

“Taunt!”

“Skrruuuuoch!”

Without a single delay, a [Taunt] cry echoed in the area again followed by a volley of cannon shots. The bug shields himself just in time against the cannonballs but its attention was forced away by the first taunter to a new target.

“Hestia, aim for the tail! We need to get rid of its ability to shoot that beam!” Muraina commanded. “Use these moments to deal some massive damage with me!”

I had underestimated Muraina and Griffonpeak’s forces. They were like a well-oiled machine, listening to Muraina without a question. They weren’t making too much progress even with Muraina’s firepower around, but the monster probably would have begun destroying the city if it weren’t for Griffonpeak’s defenders stalling it.

“Saelari, suska!” As the geisenlarg followed the taunter, who was riding on a equerochs with a soldier, the elves began to rain arrows onto its multiple eyes. Then, a large black magic circle was cast on the wall, materializing a [Umbral Pendulum] from it to knock the geisenlarg back, delaying it even more.

“Lady Hestia, here! Drink!” I turned to the source of that voice, identifying it coming from Krymdar. He emptied a potion filled with red liquid and used his staff to gather it up into a ball, before shooting it at me.

I opened my mouth, swallowing the ball whole.

[Raging Blaze Potion] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Raging Blaze Potion

A potion made from fire elements-aligned ingredients. Significantly increases fire resistance and attack potency. Decreases the mana cost of fire elemental attacks

Oooh, nice! Alchemist support!

I wasn’t the only buffer in this raiding party. People weren’t spamming buffs like I was with my songs, but there were ways for normal people to gain buffs, and that was through potions. Krymdar was not only a dark mage but also an alchemist. After he threw this potion at me, he dashed towards a casket of potions and took a couple of them to hand over to a few elves.

While I was marveling at all this teamwork, the geisenlarg was preparing to shoot out its dark laser again, intending to snipe the second taunter. Before I could disrupt him, another giant wind arrow soar through the air and knocked him back, ruining its aim. I took this chance to play [My Darkest Thoughts] again and hellblade slash its tail to shut down the beam completely.

As if we were in sync, Muraina’s treant — which had grown in size to that of a building and was carrying its master in the air — threw shards of its bark at the geisenlarg as I attacked, crashing against is pincer to create an opening for Muraina to snipe one of its eyes.

Up in the sky, Muraina took out an arrow molded from her treant’s wood as three green magic circles appeared around her. She nocked it on her bow and pulled the string, holding it as long as she needed before releasing an arrow so fast I couldn’t follow it with my eyes. It made me feel like a normal person watching a bullet fly.

Also surprisingly, when the arrow hit, it was almost the length and size of a common car. That arrow had grown.

“Skkrrreeeech!” The monster finally roared out in pain, grabbing the arrow with its pincer to pull it out. As green blood sprayed from its body, black tendrils grew out from the hole, trying to morph into something.

Oh no, you don’t!

I flew up to it and breathed white fire on the tendrils, causing it to screech once again before almost hitting me with its tail. Thankfully, the damage was done and it couldn’t replace its eye. It cried out a third time, rearing up on its hind legs like a furious horse.

It then began slamming its shield-like pincer against the wall, creating a destructive echoing shockwave, stunning multiple people all while the wall began to crumble from the sound waves alone.

My white flames immediately formed on their bodies, healing their ruptured ears. However, as the walls began to crumble, a few people fell with it. Unwilling to let any more people die before me, I cast [Air Shield] around myself and braved through the bug’s sonic attack, catching the falling adventurers and soldiers.

However, suddenly, my [Foresight] warned as I did so, only for the geisenlarg’s stinger to shoot out at me. I managed to dodge it but its stinger ended up drilling through the wall, wrecking it even more to the point that everything began to break apart.

I tried using [Terra Wall] to prevent it from breaking, but the bug took advantage of my hero action and executed a flurry of stinger attacks, only to ruin the walls even more. I kept trying to keep the wall from collapsing and catch anyone who fell, but it was at this moment that the bug managed to smack me with its tail. I had to dodge too often.

As I crash-landed on the ground, protecting the people I had already caught, I let out a sigh of relief when I saw Krymdar and the elves rescuing the rest.

““Thank you, M-Miss Dragon! We’ll be alright from here, the others need you!”” The adventurers thanked me. I gave them a nod before getting back to the fight.

The wall was completely abandoned, but it didn’t seem like anybody was caught in the rubble, but it could also be the heat of the moment, causing everybody to just care about the present. I also didn’t receive any follower lost notifications, and, while it could just be that some of them weren’t my fans, I kept myself optimistic. I could be depressed after this battle.

“Taunt!”

“Steel Piercer!”

“Hammer Fist!”

Multiple adventurers had abandoned the collapsed wall and joined up with those responsible for keeping this monster in a taunt chain. Looking at their more sophisticated armor design and quality, they probably were some B or C ranks. They managed to land some damage on the geisenlarg while it was getting taunted, but nowhere near as much as Muraina. They couldn’t be A rank.

Of course, engaging the monster to buy some time for those on the wall to recover was dangerous. There were some close calls and quite a few of them were hurt when I returned to fight the bug. Once they saw me, the adventurers immediately retreated back behind the wall, leaving Muraina and me to coordinate our attacks while people taunted.

“Fire!” A cannon volley erupted, hitting the geisenlarg at its head, followed by earth spells to try to unbalance it.

Muriana and her treant Whisperia took this chance to launch multiple arrows and bark shots at the monster, even managing to crack its shell. As she readied the next attack, she told me to attack.

[Symphonie des Feuergottes (Adagio)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

And it came at the perfect time. The second movement activated, stripping me of my speed boost but gave me more offensive power in turn. I turned on [The Will to Fight and Survive] and flew towards that crack, heating my tail as hot as I could without needing to use my solar core to control my body temperature.

The geisenlarg jumped back, trying to get away from me, but it was stopped on its feet by a [Taunt]. Using my rocket boosters to make up for my lowered Agility, I slipped through its pincers and stingers to finally reach the crack on the top of its shell.

Hellblade Edge!

Like a volcano, an inferno twister erupted around my tail, forming into a large searing blade before I turned the crimson flames into white. I drew it across its carapace, cutting into it with the same arc motion as my [Spark Crescent]. As I readied for the second slash, the white color tainted itself in purple, and I dug my tail into its shell.

“Skruruuuuuch!”

A large dose of virulent flames entered its body, not giving the flames the chance to cool down and turn into slime or obsidian. The crack grew in size again and again before I then used [Instant Heat Ignition] on my tail a second time, detonating all the scale-dust reserves I had in the scales of my tail. The blast was so powerful that I even blew myself away from the geisenlarg with the shockwave.

“Skrreeeeeeech!” It roared in agony, but even then, it endured the fact explosions were going off within its shell, bursting out and causing even more cracks, just to finally catch me with its pincer.

“Skkkkrrrrrrrach!” It roared right into my face as it tightened its grip, literally squeezing the air out of me. I was forced into using [Dreadflare Aura] to get it to release its grip from melting, only to slam me into the ground and start stomping on me.

Arrrgh!

Proficiency requirement fulfilled. [Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 5] evolved into [Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 6]

I could feel my scales breaking off in this roughhousing as it finally decided to kick me, blasting me like a football through a bunch of trees. After I finally came to a stop, I let out a deep groan and opened my eyes, only to see my visions completely covered up in white flames.

Profile.

Health: 10576/16894

Uuuurghg?! Are you kidding me, that single attack chain nearly shaved off half of my Health pool?! Argh, I knew it got through my [Draconic Barrier], but this shit is insane!

This geisenlarg wasn’t an A rank for nothing. It wasn’t a special attack by itself, it was just a stomping. If the rachonoid queen had done this to me, it would have had the same results. Evolution gave you a huge boost in power, but usually, late-stage B ranks could be compared to newly born or evolved A ranks in combat power, simply ‘cause the latter had to get used to their new powers.

But this attack went through a [Taunt]! The bug was taunted! Taunt decreased the damage caused to others outside of the taunter. In other words, this thing would have pulverized me if it weren’t for that [Taunt]. Holy fucking Scheiße

The only other A ranks I knew were the leviathan in Belzac forest and the Griffon King of Griffonpeak. I knew the leviathan could wipe the floor with me, and I presumed the Griffon King would too. I just didn’t expect an A rank like the geisenlarg would be able to as well, though. I presumed he would be around the power level of Astalos or the rachonoid queen.

Verdammt, being a B rank sucks!

I forced myself to stand up, spamming [Major Heal] over and over again to fix up any cracked bones and scales. However, the quaking earth drove my adrenaline up to the point I just listened to my [Foresight]. I threw myself to the side, just as a black laser shot through the forest, sundering the land.

Its blasts then punctured the earth multiple times, causing the earth to burst open in an explosion. I got caught in the blast, as I didn’t expect it to explode so often to the point it created something like a mortar bombing.

Urrgguuark, [My Darkest Thoughts], now!

[Foresight] activated as I was blasted in the sky, still trying to heal myself up from the previous beating. I activated my rocket boosters, narrowly dodging a stinger attack, only to grab onto it with my mouth. As the geisenlarg pulled its tail back, I released my bite and was thrown away from the momentum, using this chance to create some distance between us.

Ahhhhh, this is a really shitty de-aggro mechanic! Why do DPSers always have it the roughest!

I unleashed a dragon breath at the bug, forcing it to block it with its pincers. With [My Darkest Thoughts] up, it couldn’t use that dark energy, but I wasn’t giving myself any significant buffs aside from spell-based ones.

It kept up its pincer shield and began charging at me, its stinger ready to attack. I increased my firepower, even sending out spells through my parallel minds as ballistic support, but I merely delayed it for a second or two. As it came closer and closer, I could only think of doing only one thing.

Now! Warp Point: Exit!

A portal opened behind me and at the spot where I landed from the first beating, my parallel minds setting up the first point for me while I tried to stand up. I dashed into the portal the moment the geisenlarg shot out its stinger. As the portal began to close, a chill went down my spine as it wasn’t closing up quick enough.

Stinger or portal, which was close enough?!

“Skkkreeeeeeeuch!”

It was the stinger! However, although the geisenlarg finally managed to hit me with its tail attack, it was only a glancing hit on my shoulder, while on the other end, the portal closed while the stringer was going through it. Cleanly severed by my spacetime magic, the swiftly-moving tip of its tail continued on its trajectory… and lodged itself deep in the base of the geisenlarg’s own tail.

“Skraaaaaaaaahhhhh!”

Uh, don’t hit yourself?

“Incoming!”

But I didn’t have the time to contemplate the weirdness that portals bring to reality, since a pretty large attack was coming at this area at this very moment. I looked up, back at Griffonpeak where Muraina was and saw mana congregating around her.

“Raeturi Sltarue!” My eyes widened as my body reflexively flew me away from this incoming attack.

And then, Muraina released her arrow.

Damn!

As the arrow shot forward, it began leaving magic circles behind as it circled around the geisenlarg, disappearing completely once it made a full revolution. In the next moment, hundreds, perhaps thousands mana arrows shot out from these magic circles, basically carpet-bombing the area.

“Skrrruuuuuuuach!”

The whole forest was getting leveled by this attack, the geisenlarg decimating the land and anything within it with a monsoon of thousands of ruinous bolts of mana. It felt like a laser show, demanding for the destruction of this single monster. Absolute wicked, and honestly—

— terrifying!

“What?! You have to be kidding me!” Muraina suddenly cursed as the noise died down, signaling the end of that attack. “Fuck me, Hestia, I’ll end it with the next attack. You need to buy me more time, this thing is a fucking monster!”

What in the hell, that attack wasn’t enough?!

“RRRRRRROOOOOOUUUUUUUUUCCCCCHHHHHH!!!”

And that was the confirmation.

Like the drums of war, its roar was a signal for this battle to continue. It used its tail to swipe away the dust around, revealing the absolute termination of all life within this area, excluding the target this attack was meant to have killed. And how the geisenlarg looked now was the frightening part.

Its original head was destroyed, replaced completely by a tower of black flesh with eyes and mouths to the double digits where its hands and pincers should have been. Its new set of arms were two large mauls of crocodile mouths, snapping around in search for a target. Purple energy then exploded from its back, forming a flaming purple cloak from its back.

But that wasn’t all. Tentacles wrapped themselves around its legs, making it look like an exoskeleton made from flesh. Its tail also received a make-over, as the purple energy covered the whole stinger, turning it into something like a cannon.

Divine Quest: Otherworldly Intruder Destruction

Quest Giver: Origin Goddess of Light, Healing, Miracles and Kinship, Aurena

Description: I don’t need to write anything, right? This thing merged with the otherworldly power within it, becoming a creature that shouldn’t even exist on Peolynca. You need to destroy it!

Rewards: A unique skill created using current available skills, +2 levels

ARE. YOU. FUCKING. KIDDING. MEEEEEEE?!

You have chosen [Divine Quest: Otherworldly Intruder Destruction]. With the blessing of your championed God, may you be successful in your Quest!

I didn’t really have a choice, right? If I couldn’t destroy this thing, then Griffonpeak would be destroyed. The city Eshe gave her life for in order to protect its citizens. The city Ellaine’s family and acquaintances were in right now. And also the city my party was currently using as our temporary lodging.

There was no way I could allow this thing to win. I have to become the victor.

… The problem was, how the hell was I supposed to do that? This eldritch thing just went into its second phase!

“Krrrrrouch!” It roared as it began shooting black lasers at Muraina, forcing her to dodge. It did this even with [My Darkest Thoughts]’s active!

It then stomped the ground, pushing itself forward as it charged at the wall with its mouth-like pincers snapping like a crazy snapping turtle.

Shit! Don’t let it get forward, [Dragon Fire]!

“In my purgatory, I make the devil cry ♫

In Hellfire ♫

All you hear are his screams, begging to be released ♫

It’s Music ♫”

As the monster was about to leave the ruined forest, an arena of inferno welcomed it, blocking its way forwards with a bombardment of flames. The geisenlarg roared as the flames became more and more intense, searing through its new tentacles and black mass with ease.

However, despite how powerful this arena was, the geisenlarg broke through its walls of flame through sheer willpower, sustaining massive damage in return for continuing its charge. The further it moved into [Dragon Fire]’s flame walls, the more damage it would sustain, but even [Dragon Fire] couldn’t do anything once the target was past the walls. This was the fire time anything broke through this spell song.

No! Damn it!

I rocket boosted myself forward, flying as fast as I could to reach it in time before it barreled through the last piece of defense of the city. However, even as I gave it my all, I wasn’t fast enough.

Scheiße!

“AWROOOOOOOOOH!”

“Skry? Krrrrruuuuuch!”

As the worst outcome was about to happen, a massive bolt of black lightning shot right out from the gate of the walls, disrupting its charge and pushing it back.

“Slithering Frost Serpent!”

Moments later, a giant serpent of ice burst through a cyan magic circle appearing from the sky, falling onto the geisenlarg before constricting its legs. Raindrops turned into ice before forming into large swords around the serpent, striking down at the giant bug in an attempt to freeze it in place.

“Fire!”

The roar of a cannon exploded from the wall, shooting forward a ball of white flames, bursting upon contact. Thanks to the serpent and the thunder ray cannon, this blast of white flames was enough to finally knock the monster down on the floor.

“AWROOOOOOOOOH!”

As the ray dissipated, a loud wolf howl echoed through the battlefield, followed by the crackling of thunder like an approaching thunderstorm, only that there weren’t enough black clouds in the sky.

Took them long enough!

[“Party leader, Hestia Atusko Kargryxmor! Vice-Leader, Saori Segawa, announces her entry on the battlefield with the rest of C rank adventurer party, Aurora!”]

[“Maid of Lady Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor and ice mage of Aurora, ready to freeze hell to protect my mistress!”]

[“Daughter of Arcanuess Helvas, Ellaine Fiero Helvas, and Master Smith, Grimnir Luedbrumdar, reporting to Aurora! We are combat-ready and have somehow made a warhammer mana cannon with the spare parts of— OWWWW, Master Grimnir! Alright, whatever, we’re ready to fight and have brought the flying cavalry with us!”]

“Brave adventurers and dutiful soldiers of Griffonpeak! Hear me and allow me to express my gratitude!”

Up in the sky, an army was approaching. Riding on armored griffons and hippogryphs, knights raised their weapons to the sky and yelled with that at the beginning of the speech. Mages channeling their spells followed behind them on gargoyles, chanting and readying themselves to unleash their firepower.

They covered the sky, blackening the ground with their shadows. This whole flock was led by two people. The first was a man in armor with the sigil of House Greenveil on his tabard, carrying a pristine wooden bow in his hand. And the second was—

“I am Drangleic var Artorias! King of Artorias and the Knight-Commander of the Knights of Lionheart! Brave heroes, may the Goddess bless your soul for your service on this day! Your bravery shall be rewarded for aiding Griffonpeak in her time of need, you have my word!”

He then raised his sword and, summoning a tornado around him in the same style his ancestor, the Griffon King, controlled the wind.

“Princess Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor of the Dragon Empire Kargryx! I have heard and witnessed your words of serenity! Your songs will echo and break through the tragedy of today, and it will give us the light of hope we dearly needed! The knights of Artorias have come to fulfill our oath to protect our land! Be our beacon, Idol of the Goddess of Light, AURENA! FOR ARTORIAS! FOR THE LIGHT!”

… Let’s do this!

“In the midst of the desert ♫

A bright ray of light shines ♫

Pure and brave, that she was, as she walked ♫”

The entire day was entering its final stage.

[Symphonie des Feuergottes (Minuet)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

A note from AbyssRaven

Last chance to put up questions for the Q/A tomorrow. Please, send out questions. Please.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

2nd Anniversary Q/A with the Aurora.

A note from AbyssRaven

Q/A time!

AbyssRaven: Hello, everybody. Our 2nd anniversary is here! On the 9th of January, the first-ever Dragon Idol chapter was released on Royal Road. Chapter 0, or in other words, the prologue. Or, in other-other words, the moment Hestia’s soul was transferred to Peolynca. As I’ve already mentioned before, we will be having a small Q/A session with the Aurora for today.

Hestia: It’s non-canon!

AR: … Yes, that should have been obvious. You don’t need to say it out loud, Hestia.

H: I mean, you made us keep to the script pretty strictly on the Christmas special. A word budget of 2k words. And most of it was wasted on telling us the special wasn’t canon. I just wanted to make sure our readers know about it, you know.

AR: … I have the feeling you just want to tease me about it. In any case, this Q/A session doesn’t have a word count budget, so answer the questions as much as you want Hestia.

H: Cool. Can we begin?

AR: Of course, in a few seconds. Everybody in the readership, as you already know, all these questions are directed to the members of the five Auroras. I saw some of you pose questions directed to the gods! Do you guys really think I can just uproot them and bring them over here?! They are busy! … In any case, let us begin the show!

Saori: Thankfully, all our names have a different first letter. It should be easy to differentiate us all.

AR: True. Well, without further ado, let us begin!

Question: What are their three sizes?

AR: Are you seriously asking that?! Who is that directed to?! To everybody? Even Grimnir? This question forces me to think of their three sizes and that is enough for me to get burned by the girls before you get sent to Nirvana!

H: Huh? I have no problem saying them. They are—

S: Next question!

Question: To Hestia — What would you think if you had the option of evolving into an Eastern Dragon/ Loong?

H: Hmm, honestly, I don’t know how to feel about it. I’m so used to my current body. However, if I had that chance back then, I probably would still go with a western version dragon body. The wings, my sixth set of limbs, have been very useful.

Question: To Hestia or the students — Have you tried using the auto-translation of the [Otherworldly Visitor] title to translate Earth songs to make them understandable to the locals? What were the results?

H: Well, I don’t have that title, sadly. [Otherworldly Reincarnator] doesn’t give any special bonus. That’s why I’ve been writing my own songs or doing Common tongue covers of them. Renai Circulation was sung in Japanese, after all. Nobody understood the lyrics, though. Hiehie.

Tatsuya/Coffee Boy: Hey, why am I here?!

H: Answer the question before we put you back into the void.

T: … W-Well, we haven’t actually tried singing them. Kyouya has done some humming, but that was about it. Singing wasn’t really a concern for us, outside of personal R&R.

Question: To Hestia — What are you going to do if, by the time you return to Earth for a visit, one or both of your parents have died during the time you’ve been on Peolynca?

H: Jeez, that is a really, really difficult question, no? Uhm, well, personally, I don’t want to think of that sort of scenario since it’s just demoralizing. But… if it were to happen, I guess I would grieve for them. Seriously. I already have a feeling I’ve been a bad daughter from my memory recovery, but this would just be… Urgh. If only one were gone, I would do my best to comfort the other in any way possible. I really want to make it up to them for everything. If both… well, then I would have nothing left attaching me to that world. Well, I guess I do have relatives, but… Haaaaaa, yeah.

Question: To Hestia — What do you think about martial art dance?

H: I have no idea what that is supposed to be. But, I guess something like capoeira counts? Well, do remember that I’m mostly a mage with a dragon fighting style. I only recently learned the spear from Yorshka and I still need more training with it. I really have no idea if dancing can be used effectively in a battle.

Question: To Saori — If you could choose another monster/animal race, which would you want to be? (No human or humanoid, of course)

S: Dragon, without a question. I have no particular wish to be part of any specific dragon clan, but one above S rank would be great. Probably not one of the empresses or emperor, though.

H: Wait, you don’t want to be related to me?!

S: … What fantasies, Hestia. No, the real reason is that I do not wish to have anything to do with the political side of things. Also, having battle frenzy sounds a bit unnerving.

H: But, Kargryx barely does anything politically based, from what we’ve learned so far.

S: ‘So Far.’

Question: To Hestia — What is your favorite thing since arriving in Peolynca?

H: The fact my idol career finally began. Well, also meeting Saori, Tasianna, Ellaine, and Grimnir. That is also a great thing. Creating Aurora is a really fond memory for me.

Question: To Tasianna — What do you miss most about the Fairy Kingdom?

Tasianna: Hmm, well, the carefree nature of it. We aren’t a kingdom, we are just a small village. The days are less stressful and there is also a festival or celebration going on. However, currently, I don’t long to go back there. My only reason to be there is gone. Now, I am simply overjoyed to be with everybody else in Aurora, especially Lady Hestia.

Question: To Ellaine — After this quest is done what are your hopes for your future in Greenveil?

Ellaine: To become a full-fledged knight, honestly. I’ve always wanted to stand next to father and brother as a knight, and that dream still is ongoing. Taming a griffon would be great, also. Hmm, but if we’re talking about House Helvas, then I probably can’t do much without hurting my brother's role as the next Arcanuess. I would like our house’s rank to rise to that of a Marquess, though. However, if I were to be named a Marchioness, either I have to become the head or create a branch house. Both options aren’t too good, in my opinion.

Question: To Grimnir — What invention you've heard of from the summoned people are you most interested in trying to bring to Peolnyca?

Grimnir: The internet. Mechanical flying constructs like an airplane. Ahhh, the heart of a craftsman inside me sings with joy at everything I’ve heard. I do not know if I can create even a fraction of what these lads and lasses have told me in my lifetime, but I sure as hell want to try it.

Question: To Saori — What is your greatest hope for your students to take away from their time here if they do manage to return home someday?

S: Honestly, that all of them make it back to Earth alive is already all I can wish for. Hopefully, sane and mentally healthy. Tamae and her party have changed somewhat from their experience here, sadly. Optimistically, if they could use their experience in Peolynca to help them continue their success on Earth, that would be nice.

Question: To Hestia — Which of the 4 languages do you find the most impactful for composing? Most of the lyrics end up on the site in English, but what language are they really being sung in?

H: The songs are composed in Common tongue since I also perform them in Common for everybody to understand me. Honestly, I haven’t been using English or Korean for a long time now, outside of my thinking process. Japanese, I speak to the students and Saori, so I’m still pretty fluent with that. So, I think I’m best in Japanese and Common, right now. Since the author has to write the story, he can’t just post the Common translation of everything. None of you would understand it. That’s why everything is coming out in English!

Question: To Saori — Your favorite person or period/era in history?

S: Ancient Rome, in the time of Gaius Julius Caesar. The Warring Era of the Three Kingdoms. Cao Cao is quite an interesting man. I think most would have thought I would choose something Japanese, but I was always more interested in the world’s history, compared to my home country’s. My favorite historical personage would be Niccolo Machiavelli, purely due to how he portrayed his ideal way to rule as a monarch or control a state as a senator.

Question: To Hestia — What is your favorite Dragon ability?

H: Scale-dust. I love them.

Question: To Tasianna — Is there a difference between Maid dresses of your world and Saori´s and which differences do you like / dislike?

T: Well, the dresses I used in the fairy village were more modest. Even the ones Svena, Josine, and the other Helvas servants wear are extremely modest. I personally do not feel that embarrassed wearing my current one, as I don’t know why I should. There is nothing shameful or to be bashful about. It’s a beautiful dress made with splendid skill.

Question: To Ellaine — If you would be transmigrated to Saori´s and Hestia's original World, what would you like to do or become after their stories?

E: Explore this internet thing, and fly in these large aerial beasts called ‘airplanes.’ Also, the technological advancement and how they can live without manatech and magic.

Question: To Grimnir — What Skill do you want to buy the most but will never do because it is too expensive or impractical?

G: If you ask me, the skill shop is too much of a shortcut. Skills should be gained through sweat and blood. Aside from the resistance skills, I haven’t bought anything noteworthy from it. My skill shop actually allows me to buy [Earth Magic], but I know I wouldn’t be able to use it at all. Which is a damn shame! [Fire Magic] would help a ton to keep the fire going. Reason why I like the lass inside my smithy, helping out.

Question: To Danterno — Do you think it was a good idea to merge Heatias skill and would you still do it again?

AR: Well, as I said, I can’t just—

Danterno: The results speak for themselves. Now, if only that girl would go around spreading that gift to my other followers, that would help me a ton!

AR: … Go away.

Question: To Aurena — When do you plan on allowing Hestia to see her previous family? Will she have to complete everything with the church Quest first? Even though that will take years.

AR: Like I said—

Aurena: Yes. A deal is a deal. Opening up dimensional portals isn’t an easy feat if you have to safely transfer a mortal through it to another dimension. She needs to become stronger to make the process easier on me.

AR: Why do I care?

Question: To Melloxtressa — How do you feel about the fact that your daughter is reincarnated?

AR: Oi, seriously? She’s coming to Hestia right at this moment. Some patience, please. See, she can’t even come to this Q/A session right now since she’s busy. Let’s wait……… See?

AR: And that was it. All the questions I could muster from the comments section and discord. Thank you guys very much for all of them. It was a joy to answer them all. Once again, I have to thank you guys for all the support over these two years. We aren’t the largest novel on Royal Road, but I’m still glad I’ve managed to see 2k people enjoying this story enough to become followers. I hoped you guys liked the 2nd Anniversary special. It isn’t much, really. Honestly, considering how I’ve gotten used to writing, I should be churning more chapters out, but this is the pace I like the most. Sorry about that, guys. Still, I hope you can keep up with the story for another year, despite the pacing and how I sometimes make bad writing mistakes.

H: Yeah, thank you all for all your support! The length of each chapter is quite long, and instead of separating them into individual chapters to release every day, we do it like this for this novel. Thank you guys for still supporting us.

A note from AbyssRaven

Thank you, guys!

Chapter 249: Hope has Descended and She’s coming for You!

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #4 her to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until January!

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“She was the ideal for me ♫

The bringer of children’s smiles ♫

Alas, the world seemed bleaker without her ♫

But all wounds must heal, we must force back the tears ♫

Her legacy remains for everybody to hear ♫

All these wounds will heal, mourning must end ♫

Our path is made clear through the loss of a friend ♫”

[Shield of [The Light]] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

The geisenlarg’s crocodile mouth-like pincer opened up and bit into Tasianna’s ice serpent, tearing one of them off its legs before crushing its body with a loud crunch, breaking it into two. Although the lower half of the serpent broke into snowflakes, the head section still was “alive” and slipped through the pincers to attack the geisenlarg abomination.

“Duke Greenveil, you take the knight archers and work with Lady Muraina! Knights, field support. Mages, cover fire and ensure support for Lady Hestia’s Aurora and any other members of the vanguard! Begin!”

“““Your will, your majesty!””” The knights and nobles of Artorias erupted in unison, acknowledging their king’s orders. It took them sooooo long to finally get their asses off from their comfy seats, but it was a sight for sore eyes when they finally did appeared, honestly.

Griffons and hippogryphs screeched as they assumed their positions while the mages on their gargoyles flew up higher, around where Muraina was hovering, and began unleashing their various spells on the geisenlarg.

Water, wind, and fire spells rained down like artillery while the earth began to mold to push the geisenlarg further away from the gate. With how destructive attacks had to be to hurt this thing, pushing it back to the barren land Muraina created would be best to avoid collateral damage.

However, the geisenlarg king wouldn’t let that happen so easily.

“““Skrrrrrrraaaaaah!””” All the mouths on its flesh tower cried out before it destroyed the ice serpent and the earth spells. It then used its left pincer to shield himself from the artillery spells and its right to block the incoming cannon fire.

But as that oversized insect probably thought those measly attacks wouldn’t be able to hurt it, it turned around towards Saori, only for a white ball of mana to crash against its side. “Krraaaaaaak!” it roared as the flames began to burn its unprotected eldritch flesh. No shell, no protection.

Taking advantage of this opening, Saori shot out multiple stygian thunderblast at the monster as she raced towards it. Meanwhile, Tasianna turned the rain into a battalion of frozen swords, freezing anything she could to use as a weapon. With so much water around her, Tasianna was in her element right now. Literally.

“Slithering Frost Serpent x2!” Flapping her [Aifli eir Vintral] ice wings while standing on a hovering ice slab, Tasianna summoned two giant ice serpents, launching them at the geisenlarg king.

Wait, when did Tasianna learn that spell?

[Slithering Serpent] was Master Kush’s custom spell. Since he acted not only as my but also Tasianna’s magic tutor, we technically were apprentice sisters in a way. However, unlike me, who only inherited his magic battle and custom spell creation techniques, Tasianna also received instructions on how to learn his spells. The perks of being a water mage like him.

The thing is that Tasianna didn’t just copy his spell, she turned his water spell into an ice one. She made the spell her own, making it not only larger than the original but also like a puppet similar to [Winter’s Golem].

The geisenlarg began shooting its tail cannon, attempting to destroy the serpents coming towards it. Like actual snakes, Tasianna’s summoned constructs slithered through the rubble left behind after Muraina’s attack, dodging the attacks before striking at the monster’s legs once they came close enough.

Without delay, Tasianna constructed a huge [Winter’s Golem] using her catalyst’s mana slime function. The hulking construct, around my size, landed with a loud thud on the ground and grabbed the geisenlarg’s left pincer while it tried shrugging the serpents off. The three ice puppets were trying to freeze him.

Nice, Tasianna!

Arrows then began accompanying Tasianna’s ice sword rain. Led by Duke Greenveil, knight archers unleashed arrows empowered by mana, targeting the eldritch flesh of the geisenlarg, apparently having decided on the eyes as priority targets.

The elves and adventurers stopped shooting their arrows, acknowledging it would be best to leave this to the flying knights. Instead, they turned their attention to the wounded and the cannons. I was healing people, but some seemed to have lost consciousness. The only elves still actively fighting in this phase of this battle were Muraina and Krymdar.

“Lady Hestia!” While I was hovering around, a woman’s voice entered my ears. I turned around, seeing Thyra flying towards me on her gargoyle. “I know we’ve already introduced ourselves, but I have this tingling to greet you once again. This is only my first time seeing it, but your true form is a sight to behold, Lady Hestia Kargryxmor!”

[“Thyra! Good to see you, too. You didn’t accompany your mother back to your land?”] I asked. All the dukes except for Duke Greenveil had left for their duchies yesterday to deal with issues that had cropped up.

“My younger siblings accompanied her. I might be the heir, but I am also the director of the royal academy. And now, I have to take up the mantle of Archarcanist, since neither mother nor Lord Duke Myrrdin are around. Now, enough talking, we have a beast to slay! Let’s both make sure to survive this, Your Imperial Highness!”

Flying forth, Thyra began rallying the mages around her, flanking the beast while the archers took the other flank. Thyra then began rapidly shooting spells from all four basic elements and their compositional elements, finally showing her power as a mage. At the sight of her casting spells the morale of the mages in her retinue soared.

King Drangleic, on the other hand, was only accompanied by three of his royal guards and the Lords Armado and Ulquint. The guards had their weapons unsheathed, but it seemed their king’s safety was their utmost objective, as they did not attempt to fight the monster.

On the other hand, their king took on a more proactive role. Wielding his sword, adorned with feathers, King Drangleic began gathering wind around his weapon, having it twirl around like a cyclone. With a single strike, a wind blade shot out.

As if he was training swordsmanship, he continued slashing and slashing, releasing more and more wind crescents to cut the monster. With a single stab, the wind even shot out like a miniature tornado, pushing the monster further away from the city.

Even Saori’s garms and Gael were participating in this battle by helping out at the wall. Ellaine and Grimnir were completely busy with maintaining that scrap of a cannon, shooting out mana shots once they prevented it from exploding. I guess since there were too many people around, Ellaine couldn’t assimilate with Klea’Hatma to join the raid as a vanguard.

“Wo-argh wraaaaaaaaaagh!”

“Evasive maneuvers, go— wiiiiiaaaargh!”

However, the fighting wasn’t all sunshine and good. This geisenlarg was still an A rank threat, and had finished assimilating with whatever demonic power it was injected with. Underestimating it was a mistake.

It destroyed one of Tasianna’s ice serpents and regained full control of its tail, using it to shoot out small black balls toward the knights and mages. Both groups cast magic to defend themselves, but unlike the mage battalion, the knights didn’t have powerful mages like Thyra around to defend them.

The balls exploded, catching a few of the knights. While griffons were sturdy and too stubborn to flinch back from the damage, hippogryphs were less so. They might be faster than a griffon but they didn’t have the defensive stats to fully shrug those attacks off, even with their armor. It was very likely that the knights would fall to their deaths…

However…

“H-Huh, what?! We’re okay?”

“Krraaaaieh?”

… Think again! I wasn’t just the best supportive dragon just for show! [The Heir of Hope] playing in the background has already spread [Shield of [The Light]] to everybody at this point.

The Heir of Hope

A song created by the Idol   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]. Through the images of accepting and becoming the beacon of hope inside the realm of darkness and despair, picking up the torch left behind by a martyr, this song will become the strength for all those who stand and rally towards this light. All allies affected by [Music Resonation] will receive these effects: Reduce dark elemental and demonic-source damage by 50%. Increase holy elemental healing by 50%. All attacks and spells will have [The Light]’s holy elements applied. All stats increase by 10%. Applies a [Shield of [The Light]] buff, which will act as a temporary Health pool that will regenerate over time if no further damage is taken for a period of time. [Shield of [The Light]]’sstrength will scale depending on the number of allies with the [Music Resonation] buff. [Fear] and [Terror] can never rise above the [Minor] stage. These effects will not apply if an enemy of terrifying proportion or strength isn’t present, or if none of the allies present have either [Fear] or [Terror]

The description was already essay levels long, but essentially, this was my plan to keep everybody alive. [The Heir of Hope] was my first fully defensive spell song without any negative effects for my enemies. Increased healing through holy spells along with a pseudo-barrier acting like a secondary life bar, in addition to reduced dark and demonic damage, made it incredibly hard to kill anybody while I was around.

Of course, I didn’t say they were immortal. Although the barrier would become stronger with more people around, a vaporizing attack would kill them anyway. If you were too weak, this thing wouldn’t do you any good. However, it synergized well with those already strong and well-equipped.

If I keep [Halo of Consecration] active, I can ensure a low mortality rate so long as they are careful. If they can deal damage, then being able to deal [The Light]’s holy element through the attacks will benefit them greatly against the geisenlarg. After all, it was super effective against demonic beings.

[“Everybody, you have my protection! Listen to my song, listen to the voice of an Idol of the Goddess of Light!”] I announced it to everybody, rallying the knights even more once my flames began to heal any wounds they sustained. Duke Greenveil knew not to let this opportunity pass and immediately regrouped everybody to continue the assault.

Of course, if I had the ability to play two songs at once, I would. [My Darkest Thoughts] would really help out, but just like playing two songs side-by-side, it would be hard to hear the lyrics of either one. The song itself provided the powers, after all.

“Skkkrrrrra!” The geisenlarg roared in frustration at not having killed anyone with its latest attack, and in its rage, readied himself to shoot a black laser at them. Fortunately, Tasianna recognized this and made her last summoned serpent instead grab its tail.

A struggle broke out, as the geisenlarg could now move again, only slightly encumbered by the ice golem. With its right pincer, it grabbed the golem and pried it away from its left pincer. With one loud crunch, the golem broke apart, allowing the geisenlarg to destroy the last ice serpent.

With its freedom regained, its numerous mouths contorted into a smile as it prepared its tail cannon once again, only for a large wind arrow to interrupt everything. Tree bark then flew out to attack the monster followed by a [Hadaen Dragon Thunder].

“Wrrrrraar!” Wrapped up in her [Shadow Armament], Saori had finally reached the geisenlarg, and began using [Dark Tendrils] and mana threads to try and wrap its legs up. Her maneuverability with [Shadow Dash] really made her hard to hit.

Good. Time to get back into the fray!

With my Health back to its maximum and my scale-dust having the time to recover, I used my rocket boosters to zoom over to the geisenlarg, re-engaging the thing, now with everybody’s support.

Cannonballs flew, spells sizzled the air, arrows hit their targets, and ice and black thunder were tearing into flesh and breaking shells. And with me around, white flames were unleashed onto the geisenlarg. After all, after a hard day of fighting and destruction, this bug certainly deserved a warm shower of holy flames, right?!

“Skrrruch!”

It was unable to shoot its laser, and could only throw out black balls of demonic energy, but [Barrier of [The Light]] kept everybody unharmed. It eventually figured it could scoop up some of the earth with its mouth-like pincers to then “throw up” everything like a projectile rain. Earth, tree bits, rocks, anything it could find was used to shoot down the flyers.

As effective as my song’s barrier was, it couldn’t exactly protect you from the law of physics. Some knights or mages were hit and had to restabilize themselves, while others, far less lucky, were hit by a boulder or such. Griffon knights could survive such damage easily, but those on hippogryphs or gargoyles were taken out of the fight as they crashed landed.

I could see my white flames healing them as they fell and I also didn’t receive any fan loss notifications, but it didn’t exactly fill me with confidence. I earnestly wish for nobody else to lose their lives today, but this battle was just pure chaos. In the chaos, anything could happen. But, just like with Eshe’s death, I must grit my teeth and fight on.

Please, survive!

I continued fighting.

Younger knights were sent down to check up on any fallen knight or mages, making sure they were alive and would be brought back to safety. Everybody flew back to the wall with somebody unconscious on their backs. I could see white flames on some of them, while others didn’t have any. I couldn’t tell if they were dead or not.

I continued fighting.

[“Hestia, let’s do this! We’re taking the tail down!”] Saori called out and I agreed.

With her lightning and my hellblade tail, if one of us could create a crack in the carapace, we could cripple or hopefully even sever the geisnlarg’s tail. While two more [Slithering Frost Serpent]s kept the monster occupied, Saori and I rushed up to its tail.

Saori’s [Dark Tendrils] anchored me onto the monster’s back while I bite into the lowest point of its tail. I held it back, making sure it wouldn’t struggle too much. The geisenlarg immediately took notice, but so did Tasianna, controlling her serpent to grab the eldritch flesh tower and subsequently its attention.

Using her catalysts, Saori went into [Lightning Revolt (Limited)], causing her fur to stand up like a bad hair day. She channeled her electricity in her paws and began to pound against the tail’s carapace. Every strike hit like a piledriver, and the carapace began to shatter.

Seeing this, I created more crimson fire inside my mouth and used its explosion to crack open the shell I had bit into. As the monster roared just behind us, I grabbed the flailing tail with my claws. Saori then used her tendrils to grab onto the tail for us, although it was more or less futile since the monster was too strong. Still, I rocket boosted myself up to the wound Saori had created and used [Instant Heat Ignition] on my tail.

As I was ready to cut off its tail, [Foresight] activated to warn me of something coming from the wound. As if it was a repeat of the same situation as the demonkin, black tentacles poured out of the wound like ants. Saori and I dodged back with [Air Walk] and flight respectively, shooting out thunder and fire to burn away those things, only for more to appear.

Scheiße!

“Skrree!” The geisenlarg cried out, rearing up on its hind legs before intentionally falling on its back, prompting us to move the fuck away from him. At this moment, it showed some serious dexterity for its size as it swung its tail around in an attempt to stand up.

The swing sundered the serpents in two and nearly managed to hit us. As it struggled on the ground, its flesh tower proved to be a detriment for its plan, the only problem was… the flesh was moldable. It adapted to the monster’s needs, its urgency.

From a towering eldritch monstrosity, it morphed and transformed, like a meaty piece of clay. Its eyes and mouths contorted as it twisted in sight, turning that useless tower into something resembling a form. It became thinner in appearance, but that flesh simply turned into four more pincers for it to use.

To crown all of this, a skull revealed itself from underneath all of that. Black fluids oozed out from its eyes, rising up to its top to create a black crown. With its newest form done, it stood back up and unfurled the purple flaming cape it had on its back. In the next moment, it unleashed a beam from its mouth.

Woah!

I grabbed Saori and blasted the two of us away from that attack, not a second too late as, when it touched the ground, it exploded in a black explosion. Rattling its skull in delight, the monster jumped around, using its new pincer to grab any knight foolhardy enough to stay too close.

Let them go!

I let go of my grip on Saori and shot out a [Dreadflare Breath] as a laser, forcing it to release its captive. My attack was followed up by Tasianna’s hail of ice swords and Wisperia’s tree bark, keeping the thing from jumping around too wildly. Thanks to my [The Heir of Hope], those caught weren’t immediately crushed by the pincers.

But the monster wasn’t done with its tricks just yet. Gathering mana on the tips of its tail, it began digging it into the ground, performing a previous attack. That earth erupting one.

The ground erupted underneath us. As everybody kept to the skies to stay mobile, seeing all the rocks and balls of dirt shoot up was a disaster.

Griffons, hippogryphs, and gargoyles fell from the skies like flies. I believe most survived the initial fall, but many couldn’t get themselves up in time, and the geisenlarg fell upon them like a praying mantis.

54 human followers lost

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 7186

Nooo, noo! Fuck!

I wanted to do something about this, but I was equally trapped inside this eruption of earth. I could melt everything around me with [Dreaflare Aura], but my parallel minds reminded me that I wasn’t fit. My solar core had to begin working again to cool my body down. If I didn’t want to crack it, I had to slow down.

But how could I?

People were dying all around me. I was not responsible for their lives but I was weak to seeing them die. Seeing my allies die. This whole day was getting worse and worse for my psyche.

I’m gonna turn you into ash and dust, you piece of shit. I will burn you for everything you’ve done!

[Battle Frenzy (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Demonkins, Yanderu, Hamil — they will suffer for all of this. But first, I need to—

“Dammit!”

My head snapped around to that voice. It was Thyra’s.

“Hold up your spells! Concentrate on using wards but don’t neglect to control your gargoyle!”

With her mages behind her, Thyra swerved through the mess like an expert rider, focusing her spell usage on protecting her group. Lightning and lava shot out to eliminate everything. It seemed like they would be able to survive this, but that was when I noticed the geisenlarg charging at them, its pincers ready to grab.

No!

Scale-dust exploded around me, destroying any debris. [Tailwind] activated to give me a boost of speed, which I needed even with my rocket boosters to get through all of this. I breathed out fire, making sure nothing stood in my way.

[“Thyra, watch out!”] I warned her through telepathy.

“Wha-?!”

““Griiieeaaaaaak!”” Two mages were captured by the monster’s pincers. Their shrill cries were silenced forever.

“Skkrrrrrrrrrouuuuuuuk!” Like a nightmare, the skull of the beast appeared with a loud roar behind a veil of dust and debris.

Seeing this creature in front of their eyes, the mages couldn’t keep themselves calm as they cried out. Unable to control their gargoyles nor cast spells finely, they were easy prey to the erupting debris. Anybody hit survived it due to my barrier, but it allowed the geisenlarg to crackle in delight as it attempted to squish its enemies.

“Back off, mongrel! Purple lightning, godly speed — spells will weave to my need! Purple Flash! The Goddess’s tempest, I beseech you! Cyclone Madness!”

A huge tornado immediately burst in between the falling mages and the geisenlarg, preventing the large creature from catching them. Due to the storm, the mages stopped falling as they were caught in the spiral.

“Aqua Prison!” Thyra shouted multiple times, imprisoning the mages with their gargoyles in individual balls of water for their own protection.

[Lightning Magic Lv. 2] and [Storm Magic Lv. 4] — Thyra just cast two high tier spells in a row, and one of them was [Purple Flash]. It allowed you to cast long-winded spells immediately, but it also meant you needed to pay triple the mana cost. And she then cast multiple [Water Magic Lv. 10]’s [Aqua Prison]. I couldn’t see Thyra’s complexion, but that was just a recipe for arcane corruption!

“Urgh!”

“Lady Thyra!”

Through the debris, I saw Thyra groan and slouch on her gargoyle. All that mana usage had to have affected her!

“Skkrrrrrouuuuuuuuuu!” And the geisenlarg did not let this opportunity go.

“Crap! Purple lightning, godly spe—”

Faster! NOT ANOTHER ONE!

I zoomed through all the debris I could, my eyes set on Thyra, but when I saw how close the geisenlarg was to Thyra and her squadron, I turned my eyes to the bug.

“—ed — spells will weave to my—”

“KrrrrrriiiiiiiAAAAAAAAAHHH!”

In the last very second, I rammed my head against its pincer, piercing it with my horns. I then released [Dreadflare Aura] and rocket boostered myself to get to its skull, spewing white flames out of my mouth to scorch the monster’s body.

Die you piece of— Woah!

But it was as if I fell into its trap — it caught my tail with one of its pincers.

“Skrrrra!” He stumbled back from all my flames, trying desperately to extinguish it, but with six arms, it had enough to concentrate on different tasks. Two to kill off the fire, three to grab and kill some of Thyra’s mages, and one to slam me against the ground to stomp at me.

Go— Argh!

I tried to rocket boost myself away from its foot, but when I did, [Foresight] warned me too late when its tail aimed at me. It told me there was no way for me to dodge.

I was smacked by its tail, flying up like a ragdoll, only for him to catch me by the tail again. I increased the potency of [Dreadflare Aura], literally melting its pincer, but it still did not let go. That overgrown insect slammed me once again on the ground, and this time, its foot hit its mark.

Like a kid giving a tantrum, its constant stomping was unbearable. I could feel my scales cracking, my bones failing against the pressure, and my head ringing from all that weight. I would be lucky if I could get out of this with only a concussion. What my mind was actually telling me was —

I messed up.

[“Hestia!”]

“Lady Hestia!”

I saw lightning and ice crashing against the monster’s back, but it didn’t budge.

“Lady Hestia, no! Whisperia, save her!”

“Princess Hestia! No, stay strong!”

A giant owl treant grabbed its tail, trying to get him off me, but the geisenlarg was stubbornly staying on the ground. The constant debris rain had already stopped at this point and I could see King Drangleic charged forward to my rescue with his knights unleashing whatever attacks they had.

But, for some reason, I was seeing everything thrice. The world was shaking. My mind was becoming numb. Spells and scale-dust activated, trying to protect me and ward against this beast, but everything became futile.

For some reason, this thing wanted to kill me desperately. I could see its tail, carapace, and even pincers destroyed by everybody. But this kept going. It was as if—

It hates me.

The geisenlarg queen. A Quest where I thought I had caused the issue due to my negligence. I thought my fight against Astalos caused it, so I felt compelled to stop it. Could it be? Could it be possible this thing was trying to kill me for its mother? But Saori was her killer. I simply… burned down all the eggs.

Ah, I get it. This is revenge. Of course. Such mindless zeal, it could only be possible with a deep seething emotion. It wants me D.E.A.D. Dead.

…

… AS. FUCKING. IIIIIIIIIIFFFFF!

[Symphonie des Feuergottes (Finale)] [Overheat (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“KriiiAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!”

Vitality surged throughout my body, healing all my wounds. I felt an immeasurable power rising from the depths of my soul, telling me to fight on for this is the final dance! Like a volcano. I was like a volcano!

Symphonie des Feuergottes Movement (Finale)

The curtain call is near, the spotlights shine brighter than ever, for the final act is here. Like the epitome of the inferno god, fire will explode. Fully heal Health, Mana, and Stamina. Increase all stats by 100%. Increase fire damage by 50%. After this effect ends, apply   [Exhaustion (Moderate)], [Arcane Corruption (Minor)], and [Mana Stress (Minor)]

I ignited the scale-dust in my scales causing a significant explosion. Taking advantage of the narrow window of opportunity opening up from the explosion, I rocket boostered myself up, ramming against the monster as I began to drag it up in the sky with me.

Crack.

I heard it again. I could not maintain this form. I was overheating too badly. To survive I had, no, I must deactivate this buff immediately. Unfortunately for myself, I was a stubborn girl. And at this point. [Battle Frenzy (Minor)] probably had me in its clutches already.

[“You want revenge, you bastard? Huh?! Well, I’ll show what real revenge is!”]

With fire surrounding me like armor at this point, I kept my grip tightly around the geisenlarg, pulling him higher and higher into the sky. Raindrops turned into steam the moment they came close, all while the bug in my hand was melting before me.

“Skrrouiekomaarkrkrrk!” Cries of agony resounded, but I didn’t stop. I kept flying higher and higher. My rocket boosters wouldn’t stop until I killed this thing.

And then turned back towards the ground. I was supersonic.

[“Run!”] I screamed to everybody below me.

Like a comet, I descended. I was a meteor who will bring this thing to its grave!

[“Now! DIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEE!”]

Letting out every scale-dust I still had, our impact devastated the area like a nuclear bomb. My parallel minds, thankfully, managed to keep the explosion range to a minimum with [Pyrokinesis], but even they couldn’t stop everything. It was too powerful.

Even for me.

The shockwave blew me away at ground zero the moment we crash-landed. I was blown completely away. [Symphonie des Feuergottes] was turned off immediately.

[Overheat (Moderate)] [Exhaustion (Moderate)] [Arcane Corruption (Minor)] [Mana Stress (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Hot! Hot!

“UuuuuuARRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHH! KiiiiiiiiiiiAIIIIIIERRRRRK!” I screamed as I ragdolled through the air, crashing multiple times against the ground.

The moment I landed, the heat inside my body felt like it was ready to consume me. My solar core began cooling me down as fast as it could, but I could feel an immeasurable amount of pain coming from my chest now. It was agony.

This was like the rachonoid queen raid when I overheated myself again. However, as I did last time, pouring ice-cold water should be able to solve this problem. But first I had to reduce my size. Less body, fewer places for the heat to stay inside.

Humanize! Humani—

There was one issue I hadn’t thought of — [Mana Stress] prevented mana usage until it went away. It usually appeared when you have zero mana, but this time, it prevented me from turning myself back into a dragonewt nor did it allow me to use [Storage Magic].

I could also not heal myself, neither with flames nor healing spells.

Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!

“KiiissssssAAAAAAARRRRRRCCCC!”

“Lady Hestia!”

[“Hestia! Oh shit! Tasianna, cool her down now! She’s overheating!”]

“Right, I— Arck! Hot! Wha—?! My water and ice are turning into steam! It’s too hot!”

[“Use [Tor Eiclere’s Finulaflei]!”]

“Y-Yes, of course! Tor Eiclere’s Finulaflei!”

I could see ice appearing around me as I rolled around, unable to correctly make out who was speaking to me. In the next moment, my vision was completely shrouded in white clouds.

“H-How?! NO! Lady Hestia! Come on, work!”

[“Are you kidding me?! Even a spell-like this is useless against all this heat— Urk! It’s getting hotter!”]

“KkrrrrrrrriiiiiiAGGHHH”

Help!

HELP!

“Skkkkkkkrrrrrrrrrqqqqqqqqqquuuuuuuuuuuuesssssschuuuuuuuuqqqqqm…”

[“A-Are you kidding me?!”]

“Saori! Tasianna! That thing is still not dead! It’s just a blob of flesh at this point so we can— W-What is with this heat?! Wha— Meoschaera!”

“Miss Muraina don’t go closer! Urk! More! More ice! Colder! Tor Eiclere’s Finulaflei! Tor Eiclere’s Finulaflei! Tor Eiclere’s Finulaflei! Princess Hestia, please, PLEASE!”

I could finally hear them… Saori, Tasianna, Muraina. I could hear their voices… the moment my consciousness began to drift.

Crack.

Another crack. The outside world and my constant wailings became more and more distant to me. It felt like I was trapped inside my own mental world now. The cries of my parallel minds felt fleeting. I could feel the heat burning my own soul.

I think this was it.

I couldn’t think of a plan. I couldn’t get my body to obey me. I couldn’t stop my parallel minds from panicking from all the pain. Like an overworked PC, the heat was causing everything to slow down.

Eshe… I failed. Everybody… Saori, Tasianna, Ellaine, Grimnir, I’m so sorry.

“—y— ia!”

My senses were fried. The world seemed darker and my hearing was impaired.

… Papa… Mama… I fucked it up, aga—

[“My h-hatchling!”]

My eyes opened. That voice. The soothing voice. Where is it? Where did it come from? It’s so dark…

[“M-My hatchling… Y-You… I’m here!”]

Cold… Cold… Cold!

[Divine Quest: Otherworldly Intruder Destruction] completed. You have done well, Champion, please accept your reward

Experience has reached a breaking point.   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has risen from [Level 16] to [Level 18]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 1400 skill points

Unique skill creation in process. Analyzing current skill set to appraise the proper creation

I felt my mind returning to my body. Vitality and mana re-entering my body. The heat — it was still unbearable but it somehow cooled down.

“Krrrrrrrrrk!” I grit my teeth, trying to endure through it, but I couldn’t. I felt so, so, so, so, so, sleepy.

Snow?

It was only now that I realized the sky was dropping snowflakes. It should be in the middle of summer, it couldn’t possibly be snowing. Was Peolynca already facing a global warming threat?

… But I didn’t care. I felt cooler. The heat inside me began to dissipate.

Cooler… please.

The sky darkened for a moment, before it twisted around, returning the bright blue sky. I could hear a soft thud. I detected something around me, something unknown and large… but I wasn’t feeling scared. In fact, I felt safe.

[“Ocean Healing. Take my mana,my hatchling. Take it all to become healthy. There is nothing to be afraid of. I will keep you safe, I swear that on my tail.”]

That voice… it came back. Like a lullaby. Drowsiness became stronger. The heat was gone, replaced by a cool breeze. The mana raging inside me settled down, feeling… manageable.

[“Hestia? It is a beautiful name. A beautiful name for my beautiful daughter. My little Hestia~”]

[“Mama…”]

Sleepy, so sleepy…

…

A note from AbyssRaven

Mom is here to beat up baddies. Deus Ex Mama Dragon

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Side Story 30: Onlookers of the Winter’s Coming.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #1 her to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until January!

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There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

“Hmm, it seems he won’t be escaping. Shame.”

A large distance away from Griffonpeak, a lone man was sitting in the shadow of a tree. Blood was dripping down the stump of his right arm, tainting the dirt underneath him in red. He was heaving large breaths in between taping sips of his potion, too exhausted to down it in one gulp.

It was the demonkin Prince of Pride.

“Unbelievable. Why is such a large dragon flying to Griffonpeak of all places? Has that false Goddess truly ordered her lackey to send one of his lizards to protect that saintess and champion? Shameful… but truly demonic, kehehek!”

His yellow skin, the mark of a demonkin attuned to the sin of pride, was now saturated with shades of purple-blue — a sign of arcane corruption. His twin horns were slightly cracked and numerous wounds were scattered across his body, revealed through his tattered suit. His body was like an abstract painting, dyed in red and purple.

Still, even as he was bearing through the pain, he smiled. He tapped the car-size beak next to him, admiring the trophy of his most recent kill. He thought of how he ripped it off the face of the Griffon King, Assurfel, after sacrificing one of his arms. Against an A rank monster as old and experienced as that griffin, losing a limb for the victory was well worth it.

At least, that was what the demonkin thought. All the intrigue and scheming he left to his minion had been successful, giving him the opportunity to duel the griffon king by himself. However, Assurfel wasn’t just a mighty A rank, but also a dungeon master. The dungeon itself moved to defend its master. It was never a true duel.

Losing a single arm was merely the price for the privilege of living.

“That tonic is still imperfect. 30%? Or maybe even worse — 20%? I felt my ancestor’s power rising inside me, but it wasn’t enough. It was too weak. That alchemist must be slacking, yes,” he uttered, bringing up the near empty potion bottle. A little drop of black liquid was still inside.

What abominable ingredients were used for this creation? Only its creator could possibly know, but, without question, it was absolutely a heretical item inside Peolynca. In a way, the demonkin by themselves could be construed as heretical, since they were the spawns of demons and Peolyncian denizens. At least, that was what the church of Aurena truly believed.

This tonic, however, had the purpose to bring out the power of a demonkin’s heritage. A liquid able to churn their blood and heart, to fully unleash the beast inside. It was the tonic the demonkin of envy used to slay Saintess Eshe and her knights. A more refined version than the black elixir the troll shaman used moments before it died to Hestia in the Belzac forest.

It was rather fortunate that none of the demonkin learned of the modified version Davison created in his quest to transcend the weakness of human flesh. The black potion — the payment for Davison to work for Hamil — was modified to suit and strengthen humans without the side effects of their flesh undergoing a hideous transformation into something akin to an eldritch horror.

If this demonkin of pride had known his work had been used for the ambition of bettering humans, what would he have thought? A failed prototype to aid the demonkin in becoming like their demon ancestors, turned into a final hurrah attack for desperate demonkins and their agents, was used by a human to draw out the potential of his own race. With his hatred for humans as great as it was, this demonkin of pride would have most likely only felt disgusted.

But, alas, the only copy of the perfected potion was used up by Davison himself. The secret to its creation was lost forever with his death and the destruction of his guild. Maybe it would have helped the demonkins in their own potion creation if that secret had survived?

“The dragon shouldn’t be able to find me after I used up all the demonic power I had been storing in my body. In this state, I’m little better than a human.”

Demonic energy — one of the demonkin’s defining features, along with their iconic appearance and nearly one-dimensional personality controlled by the sin singing in their blood.

Just like how Ellaine was able to draw out her demonic abilities by allowing Klea’Hatma to infect her mana with the demoness’ own, or how [Assimilation] requires the demon of lust to inject mana directly into Ellaine’s blood. This process was simply the norm for a demonkin. Their blood carried their ancestor’s powers.

However, similar to how Klea’Hatma would become drained after Ellaine used up too much of her mana, the energy within a demonkin’s blood could be exhausted as well. In this state, they would be unable to freely use their demonic powers without serious repercussions. If they didn’t want to risk their lives, they were required to rest.

“I should leave this place soon. Taking on an A rank monster like that was nearly more than I could handle. Considering that lizard’s size, it probably is a S rank.” He stood up after the right arm had stopped bleeding, pausing only to pick up the beak. “However, soon, yes. There is still so much to do for the future. True freedom for this world from its false gods. A world where this constant war has finally come to an end. Humans… Hmph, at least pick a proper Edjurl god to pray to. The betrayer Plesia or the mighty Marsven, either would have been better, but what could you expect from a bland race like them. The weak attracts the weak.”

“The weak attracts the weak.” A statement spoken with a deep seated grudge and hostility. The constant conflicts the demonkin had to suffer From the persecution of the Church of Aurena was just like history between humans and beastmen. Entirely filled with little more than blood and strife.

“Too bad, too bad, young U’Skaie. Children like you deserve to see a better world than all of this… Humans and beastmen love celebrating their days of birth, even those barbaric grimgarians cherish their childrens’ births so much they would call their whole tribe for a festival in honor of even a single babe… How is being born into this world a gift?”

Footsteps. The drizzle of the rain masked the presence of this hunter, returning to his camp victorious after a successful hunt. In the distance, the rain froze into snowflakes, cooling down the raging inferno, the young kin of a being able to call in the next ice age.

Today they wouldn’t meet.

“U’Skaie, I shall see the world fit for your reincarnation. May the Goddess Ilsaphone bless you with the fortune to come back to us. Until then, our kin shall know of your feats and accomplishments. You have made me proud to have a subordinate like you, very proud indeed.”

His purple complexion slowly turned yellow as a bright smile shone on his face. Pride in his subordinate caused his blood to pump rapidly.

“You look terrible, Eithalr. I thought you just wanted to get Hamil out of there, not pick a fight. I didn’t think you would get yourself in so much trouble,” the young man expressed in surprise, squinting his eyes at the man walking towards him who looked as if he just survived being ravaged by a beast.

“Well, it was more fun than I expected, you know. Had to make it worth coming all this way. Getting a merchant and more helpers on board wasn’t exactly what I called thrilling, hahahaha!”

Current fifth head of the black mercenary company Yanderu Eluseuss, Eithalr. Known as the “Phantasmael Armory.” Known by most in the underground as a lax but highly competent mercenary who used to go by the nickname of “Weapon Stealer” and “Weapon Copier.”

One weapon for every kill. It accumulated until it was an entire armory. Even with an army, it would be hard to defeat such a person at this point.

However, Eithalr’s clothes were tattered, burned away, in fact. He had to replace them with spares he salvaged on his way out of Griffonpeak. But none of them could hide the number of burns and the trail of puke he left across his whole body. The wounds and burns were slowly healing, but he still looked more or less like a zombie himself.

“Well, every fight is an experience. I never thought I would— Urp! Buuuwaaaaaaaark!” Eithalr fell on his knees, puking out more purple fluids.

“Shit! Damnit, are you alright?” The young man helped Eithalr up.

“N-Not really, hahaha…” he laughed weakly before pounding his chest, acting strong. “Guess I’ll probably be out of commission for a bit. Shitting ain’t gonna be fun. That toxin was a real threat, never thought I would get this wrecked with such a ‘simple’ job.”

The young man watched Eithalr drink a bottle of Health potion as well as an antidote, trying to get himself fit again. The young man scratched his short brown hair, showing off the trained muscles underneath his monster leather armor. If this were Earth, he would have the perfect physique for an MMA fighter.

“Where is Hamil?”

Eithalr chuckled. “Don’t worry, he should be traveling to the endpoint of the underground river in the Lecartiglio duchy. We’ll meet him there and pick him up. But I presume you are more interested in this, right?”

Eithalr threw a satchel filled with documents to the young man.

“All he has. His connections to that demonkin and all the other nobles. Hamil is neurotic as hell, as the Boss guessed from the information. He really made sure to document everything and even paid a large sum of money to make sure he has agents in the Empire. Everybody that demonkin of envy met with.”

The young man smirked as he read the first one. “He’ll be pleased. We got enough dirt to bring down quite a few of these corrupt nobles. Wonder who he will pick. Well, he’s resolute in doing justice the proper way, so we will need all the evidence for their trial. Will Hamil work with us?”

“He’s planning on betraying the demonkin, yeah. Well, only if we can bring those responsible for destroying his family down. Haaaaa, the Boss really is a stickler for all of this formal stuff. We could just kill them, you know.”

“… Light does not like that. We do things his way, Eithalr.”

The young man glared at Eithalr, trying to intimidate him into his place.

“Whew!” Eithalr whistled. “You’re trying to tackle a beast too large for you, man. I guess you were a bit of a low-class bully back on Earth, huh, Ryuji?”

Ryuji Enokida. One of Saori’s students was standing before Eithalr at this moment. Staring him down, his wariness for this mercenary was apparent. A mercenary was a person who only did things according to their interests, and they would be able to discard all previous contracts and break any promise if a better opportunity presents itself. This was, even more, the case for a black mercenary.

“Hey, hey, no need to look so morbid, man. Hahaha, we are allies, right?” Eithalr tried to calm him.

“Only if our interests are still aligned. If you were on our side, you would have cut yourself off from the Yanderu completely. You are a threat to my party’s operations.”

“And you know I can’t do that. The moment I do that, I will be hunted down by the others. The reason why I could just casually stroll into Griffonpeak and take over the Yanderu operations in this area is ‘cause I am the fifth head. The Boss told me to get here for Hamil’s information, and boy, I was lucky that a certain event happened that let me completely gain his trust.”

“The slave auction?”

“Yup! Learned from the crew that Hamil used Gestien for nearly everything, ignoring the mercenary rules set up by Blackreach. Due to that accident, I got into everything faster. That was also the only reason I was able to learn that the demonkin would strike Griffonpeak today.”

It rained around them, but, in the distance, the two could see snow falling down after a silver dragon flew by. The giant fire explosion they saw was gone, a vanishing memory underneath a veil of winter.

“… This leaves a bad taste in my mouth,” Ryuji uttered, contorting his face in disgust. “We shouldn’t be working for these demonkin.”

“This is war, Ryuji. You don’t reform a whole entire fucking empire by being nice and pure. You must dirty your hands, or at least allow those under you to stain theirs.” Eithalr stared blankly into the distance. “Not all of the demonkin are bad, Ryuji. You saw them. Some simply wish for peace and happiness, just like any other human and beastmen. We worked with the radicals today, but, to create Boss’s ideal, we need to take every opportunity we have to move forward.”

“Hey, Boss!” a voice resounded from behind the trees. Both men looked over, seeing a group of humans and beastmen approaching.

“Yo! Good to see you alright!” Eithalr exclaimed, waving at them, only to receive a cold response.

“Fuck you, did you really have to take on this job! All of our people were nearly wiped out by that damn ice witch!” The pantharae stepped forward, shouting as loudly as he could. He twirled his spear, only to groan out from exerting the wound on his shoulder.

“Damnit, Kaian, shut up!” The rabbit woman chided him by slapping his head.

“Yoewch! Friel, what gives?! I told you we lost a few new bloods during that mission! I nearly lost my life to Tasianna and that damn noble!”

Kaian and Friell, the two Yanderu Eleuseuss members Hestia and company worked with to free the kidnapped orphan kids from Hamil’s slave auction. Back then, they were allies; however, today, they turned back into enemies.

“Hahaha, I see you have some energy left after that! I mean, just look at me, Kaian. Do I look like I got out of my fight without a wound? I’m pretty sure that kiddo’s toxin is still inside me, probably trying to kill off my organs. It’s almost hydra or basilisk levels of obnoxious.”

Seeing Eithalr in that state, Kaian and the other weary Yanderu silenced themselves. Today was a successful job, but neither they nor their Boss got out of it unscathed. At this moment, the members simply felt a sense of sympathy.

“My Boss risked his life for the job, just like us,” they thought before reminding themselves of Gestien, their previous leader. “We are Yanderu, of course, we need to get dangerous jobs,” was their next thought. They knew the rules and what living like this would get them. As one of the most notorious gangs, taking on impossible jobs was normal.

As was losing people… but aside from a few new members, those they have known and fought with the longest were still here. Breathing and complaining with each other. And just like that, everybody’s mood was raised. You couldn’t stay depressed for too long in this line of work.

“Big Sis Friel?” A small wolfkin child tugged on Friel’s robe. “I’m tired. I don’t want to walk anymore.”

“Hahahaha!” Eithalr let out a boisterous laugh. “So you brought the kids with you, huh?”

“… You told us to leave. If I’m going, then I won’t leave the kids behind. None of them have anybody else,” Friel justified her action. Awaiting to be scolded, the man next to Eithalr caught her in surprise as he replied.

“Don’t worry, our Boss likes children. Once we’re at our base, we’ll make sure to get you a place and the kids to stay, Miss Loopridae.”

“… Who’s he, Boss?” Friel asked.

“One of your new partners, everybody.” Eithalr smacked Ryuji’s shoulder before turning around and shouting, “Hey, get out there now! We need to get going!”

To the Yanderu mercinaries’ surprise, the air behind Eithalr suddenly began to wobble around like jelly before breaking into light fragments like a mirror. Friel gasped as numerous people suddenly revealed themselves behind it, with multiple wagons ready for travel.

“Yanderu of Griffonpeak, I present to you your new family and crew. This is my crew, the people I’ve worked with as the fifth head of the organization. Hope you’ll get along. Hey, get them up to speed, will you?”

“Got it, Boss!” One of the men ran over, stopping in front of Friel and Kaian. “Hey, welcome to the party. We got everything ready for a long trip. Boss told us to ready a wagon only for children and their caretakers. That would be you, right? Come on, let’s get them on. Night is about to come.”

“Wha-What?! H-How?” Friel looked to Eithalr in surprise, only to see him smirk as if he had this planned all along.

Asshole, Friel thought before smiling.

With Kaian and Friel having accepted the situation, they decided to save their questions for later. Eithalr may have not told them everything, but the members of the Yanderu felt like they could trust him, even for only a day.

A Boss who fought with them, taking on an even mightier threat all by himself. He bled with them instead of sitting at the headquarters, sipping wine as if none of the jobs were his responsibilities. Eithalr was far better than Gestien, who was more like a cutthroat than a leader. Even among criminals, real leaders with actual charisma were needed to inspire everybody.

Seeing the trust and merriment his old and new crew were showing him as they began sharing food and drinks while getting on the wagons made Eithalr smile. He opened his bag and took out a fried piece of pastry. “Want some?”

“Hmm? … Huh? Where did you get that?”

“Oh, this? This donut? From the Greenveil pastry shop in Griffonpeak. Forgot the shop name, haha! Let me guess, you never saw this in Peolynca before, eh? Me neither.” Eithalr quickly took a bite from his glazed donut before offering Ryuji one.

Eithalr inspected the pastry before taking a bite, widening his eyes at that nostalgic taste. “… Are you kidding me? Hehe, while we were trying our best to fulfill the church’s goals and get ourselves back to Earth, Tamae-san and her party went on to spread Earthen pastries to Peolynca? Damnit, those freeloaders! Mamph!”

Ryuji devoured the whole donut in seconds, completely ignoring the complaints he threw at his fellow classmates.

Uuuuuuuuu! The frying, the sugar, the damn umami! Fuck me, I would give everything to get some high sugary treats, again.

“Did you get more?” Ryuji inquired greedily. In all his time in Peolynca, Ryuji had completely pushed his sweet tooth underneath his persona as a tough guy. Now confronted with such nostalgia, he couldn’t stop himself.

“Glad you like it, sugar pal!” Eithalr grinned as if he had found a kindred spirit, handing him another donut. “Also, who is this ‘Tamae-san’?”

“One of our classmates. Daughter of some high-profile chefs. Great cook and baker. When we still went to school together, she would bring tons of her experimental pastries for us to taste. Good wife material, I say,” Ryuji answered.

“Ahhh, I see. Hmm, wish I had met that person. I think we would have gotten along pretty well,” Eithalr imagined his meeting with her and what dishes she could cook. “But, this recipe wasn’t made by that girl. It was somebody else.”

“Huh? You serious? Well, Tamae-san went with nine others from our class so who—”

“Nope, none of them.”

“W-What?”

“Hahaha, boy, do I have a lot to tell you. But, first, you want this?” Eithalr took out another glazed pastry, but this one didn’t have a hole in the middle. Instead, it was filled with jelly as Eithalr bit into it. “ ‘Berliner,’ they call it. Simply scrumptious.”

“ ‘Berliner?’ … Hold on, did you just say ‘Berliner?’ Like in, a Bismarck or Krapfen?!” Ryuji snatched Eithalr's pastry, causing him to eke out a meek “That’s mine…”

Ryuji turned the Berliner around, and bit into a spot Eithalr has not bitten into yet. Once the taste of the sugar glaze, the fluffy breading, and the fragassa jelly entered his mouth, Ryuji suddenly remembered a time when he went to Germany with his best friend. There, his best friend made sure to introduce him to a variety of historical spots.

Of course, Ryuji wasn’t very fond of it. History wasn’t very much his thing, even if this was a new and unknown place. However, his mood instantly brightened when they went out to find stuff to eat. Germany, allowing drinking at the age of 16, made it easy for the two to enjoy the stuff they couldn’t in Japan.

He had fond memories of those times, but what stayed in his mind the most was Germany’s delicacies.

“Pfannkuchen… this is a Pfannkuchen! Ein Berliner!” Ryuji exclaimed. “W-Where did you get this?! I know Tamae has never made a Berliner before! She doesn’t know much about any pastries that her parents didn’t teach her! Where did you get this?!”

Ahhhh, so that’s how it is. I know who you are now, Princess~ Eithalr thought, his deduction giving him the information he needed.

“I’ll tell you everything, don’t worry. But, first, tell me this. What does ‘Licht’ mean?” Eithalr asked.

“‘Licht?’ That’s some specific pronunciation. That’s not common, that’s German. Where did you learn that, Eithalr?!” Ryuji insisted, but Eithalr kept his mouth shut. The former caught on. “… It’s from German, a language from our Earth. It means ‘Light.’”

“‘Light’, huh? Interesting, pretty similar to our Boss’s nickname, right?” Eithalr then took out another Berliner and bit into it. “Come, let’s get going. I’ll tell you everything on the way.”

Princess Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor. I had a feeling you were an otherworlder, but I had to make sure. We’ll probably meet again, but I do hope it’ll be as allies…

… not like I think you would accept it. Hahahahaha! See ya later, kiddo!

A note from AbyssRaven

Hey, at least Eithalr is an optimist. Also, RIP Griffon King.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 250: Those Memories inside my Other Half.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #2 her to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until January!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

… Huh?

“Fuck!”

My vision cleared up, the fog in front of me disappearing to unveil a girl sitting alone in her room. Tears were flowing down her face as she cursed, profanity firing from her mouth like a machine gun. She picked up a pillow and began bashing her bed with it in a state of absolute fury, reminding me of those gang members in Shaturein who had clubbed those monsters to death.

Well, I might call her a girl, but it was a bit hard to tell just by her appearance. Her voice was definitely that of an adolescent girl, albeit a very harpy-like one, full of tortured sounds. But her body was like black smoke — just a shadow of a slim girl. However, as I continued watching her begin wrecking her room, I noticed some things flowing around as she did so — strands of her shadowy hair.

They were long. They went down to her back, unlike my own shoulder length locks. While I do like having longer hair, I have found out that I liked it better at this length. It was easier to style and the stray strands didn’t accidentally obstruct my vision when I was fighting. Making them even shorter would be better for fighting, but medium hair struck a perfect balance of cute, styling potential, and practicality. Right up my alley.

Still, seeing all that black hair flowing around did make me nostalgic. Noticing that, I began considering the truth of this place. The strange fog, the shadowy figure, the intense feeling of loss — this place was similar to when I remembered my vow to not cry before I made it as an idol. If that was the case, then this has to be a dream, no, a flashback of my long lost memories of Earth.

W-Wait, hold on, wasn’t I just in a fight?! Oh shit, right, w-wasn’t I burning up like a cooked lizard just a moment ago?! Why the hell am I dreaming about this right now?!

I remembered my fight with the geisenlarg king and how I entered the finale phase of [Symphonie des Feuergottes]. I kinda wanted to smile at how damn overpowered its effect was, but then I remembered that the side effects of the spell had the potential to kill me if I wasn't treated.

Sure, if you isolated the individual debuffs of [Exhaustion (Moderate)], [Arcane Corruption (Minor)], and [Mana Stress (Minor)], then they probably wouldn’t pose too much trouble for me. It’s when they apply all at the same time it’ll get dicey. That happened once when I tried to escape the Belzac garms back when I was still a Rank F, and it nearly killed me.

With my current stats, I could probably outlast the tick damage of [Arcane Corruption] and I had enough regeneration to outheal the damage even if [Mana Stress] prevented me from using mana. Nevertheless, it is when another issue presents itself that this combination becomes deadly.

For example, when my internal temperature was too much for my body to handle.

Holy crap, I felt like I was being cooked alive! Is this the afterlife? Fucking no, what the hell am I thinking here?! Like, ‘Oh no, I’m dead!’ As if! Not if I'm remembering the end of the fight correctly, at least.

As this was a dream, I didn’t have my parallel minds with me. However, digging deeper through my memories, I did remember my body cooling down. Also, I think I saw snow. Since it was snowing, it probably was Tasianna who saved me in the end. I must have fallen asleep afterward.

Tasianna! You truly are the best friend ever! I’m sorry for being a reckless leader! I keep getting myself into tricky situations and you and the others always have to bail me out when I go over the top! I’ll make it up to you when I wake up!

Thank goodness, I let out a sigh of relief at the situation. If this was only a dream and my body was safe in reality, then it was all good. Yup, negative thoughts away with you!

I turned back to the rampaging girl and I couldn’t help but frown and cringe at what she did. The whole room was demolished. Pencils, books, and other items from her desk were thrown around the room. Some were broken. Posters of well-known K-Pop idols had been ripped off the walls and thrown into bins, all crumbled.

“Oi, stop it! Some of them are even autographed, you bitch!”

I scratched my head in irritation. I honestly couldn’t believe what I was seeing here. Was this really a part of my memories? Was I really like this on Earth? Well, honestly, as hard as this pill was to swallow, something was telling me all of this was true. I even had that memory from when I found out how terrible a friend I was back on Earth.

It was then that I remembered Aurena’s words again — the more my soul repaired itself, the more memories I would regain. I might have lost a good chunk of them before I reincarnated, but since the memory wipe was incomplete, I was regaining them slowly.

I ignored that idiotic girl before me and looked at myself. As with my meetings with Aurena, my “body” in this dreamworld was a reflection of my soul. And, as your soul took on the image of your corporeal vessel, in other words, your body, my soul had developed quite a few dragonewt features like my scales and tail.

However, apparently, there have been some additional changes since the last time I saw my soul-self. I now had claws on my fingers and toes, two horns were on my head, and quite a number of additional scales have closed up the cracks I used to have on my soul. It seemed like I had recovered quite a bit.

Hmm, I wouldn’t be too surprised if my soul suddenly transforms into a dragon one day at this rate. Well— Hey, wait! What are you— oh shit! Hey, don’t!

The shadow picked up a beautiful violin from the corner, holding it up at its neck. She raised it over her head, looked at the wall in front of her and began taking aim.

“No, no, stop! That violin is—”

Kabrack!

Argk!

The wooden instrument shattered into two pieces, with one of the halves ricocheting off the wall and hitting the shadow girl’s shins, causing her to drop to the floor and cry out in pain. She held onto her injured leg and began crying even fiercer, but I didn’t give the slightest care, more concerned with the broken instrument.

I tried picking it up, but as my hands simply passed through them, I remembered that this was all just a dream. A memory. Still, seeing my broken violin laying on the ground ruined caused my chest to tighten. I began to remember. The person who gave me my first violin was my Mama.

Since my family was made up of two successful musicians, it wasn't too uncommon for my parents and I to simply play our instruments together and have fun. This was our quality family time. Of course, we would also enjoy going out to watch operas and musicals for the funsies, but it wasn’t as if those were the only things we did. We were still a normal family, albeit with enough money that you could say that I was raised with a silver spoon.

In any case, my family taught me how to play the violin and piano since they wanted me to learn them. And the first violin I received was the one Mama used to use when she was still a professional violinist. She stopped once I was born, and this violin was like a symbol. “Handing over the torch,” you know, since she thought I would follow in either hers or Papa’s footsteps.

It meant a lot to me. There was a ton of sentimentality inside it.

… And my past self had just broken it.

You!

I snapped my head around and walked over to her and began shouting my mind out.

“Are you a fucking idiot?! That was Mama’s! Did you really forget about it, you damn moron?! Throw your fucking tantrum all your want, but that piece of that violin ricocheting at you? Yeah, you fucking deserved that! Karma, bitch!”

I knew my words wouldn’t reach her. I mean, this was just a memory, even if it was a very distasteful one that made me furious to heaven’s high. But, if this kid here is allowed to act like a spoiled, ungrateful brat, then I'm allowed to act like an annoyed, furious brat! I just couldn’t believe I did something like that, no, it had to just be a mistake, right?

“Fuck you! Verdammt nochmal! Arrrrrgh!”

I scratched my head in irritation again, even stomping my feet at how obnoxious this dream was. Why did I have to remember such a crap thing? I love my Mama, I would never, ever do something this idiotic to a present like this. Why would I? It didn’t make sense!

“It’s all so unfair… It’s just so unfair… I hate everything… Everything is so unfair…” I heard the girl begin to whimper. Tears continued flowing without stopping as she lay on the ground so pitifully.

… Why are you crying?

I made a promise, to never cry until I became an idol to stop my parents from worrying. I technically did break it after my group left the Belzac forest, but I did have an emotional breakdown at that point.

However, promises to me were sacred. I mean, if I began breaking one promise, who's to say that I won’t do it with another whenever I find it convenient? I didn’t exactly learn this from my parents, but it's just something that I chose to do after watching shows and reading books. It also made sure that I took my promise to not cry seriously, just so I can put more effort into training to become an idol.

So why was this shadow crying? I didn’t remember breaking mythat oath.

…But maybe that was the reason why it took so long for this memory to resurface. Aurena did mention that she could bring back my memories, but that it would negatively impact me. She advised me to slowly take them in one at a time.

And my goodness, she’s right… This one memory has been a total disaster.

“… I hate my life.”

Holy shit, don’t say that, you damn idiot! We’re gonna die soon enough and you’ll learn how fucked up it is to say that! Fucking cherish your life! My goodness, ‘i hAtE mY liFe,’ you damn brat!

As I was massaging my temples in exasperation of the situation, I noticed the shadow stand up and move towards the door. Wait, stop, I called out for no real reason. When she exited the room, I let out a sigh, inspecting the chaos she left behind.

Nanny is not gonna enjoy this. Well, pretty sure Mama and Papa would just shout at me until I cried for this. They don’t like me acting like an overly spoiled brat. The more I learn about myself, the more I’m starting to really hate this side of myself.

Already anticipating what would happen afterward, I moved towards the door. As I opened it, I expected to see—

“Forget it all…” The shadow grabbed my shoulders as I was about to follow it, pushing its pitch-black face into mine as it exhaled those words. “… Hestia!”

…

…

“What?‘ I let out a confused remark after nothing happened after the shadow made its demand. Having this thing jump into my face was the perfect jump scare, paralyzing me for two seconds at the randomness of it.

The shadow’s head then began shaking wildly, flapping its hair around and around like a death metal fan. Even its limbs and torso spasmed around like a demon from an exorcist-themed movie.

“FORGET IT ALL, HESTIA!” it shrieked right in front of my face, shaking my mind through sound. I might only have soul ears, but I’m sure I could still get tinnitus.

“Ark, fuck off!” I pushed the shadow away from me and lashed out with a right hook into its face. I did feel a bit bad since this was memory me, but I mean, it screamed at me.

“Skeeeeee! Leave! Forget it!” it cried out once again before running through the darkened corridor.

Confused with all this craziness, I didn’t let that thing get away from me. I wanted to know what the hell was going on here, so I ran after it.

I didn’t have any of my skills working in this world and this whole place was dark like the shadow world Saori enters with [Shadow Dash]. I was disorientated, but if this place was similar to my apartment, then I should be able to use my memories to get through here.

I waved my hands around, moving to the side to try to find a wall or something, but there was nothing. No matter how much I tried it, there was absolutely nothing.

What the hell is this place?! This should be a dream but why is there nothing here? Come on, where are— Hold on, this is a dream, right? Come on, Hestia, this should have been obvious!

If this were a dream, then this should be my dream!

Get the hell away darkness! Bring me back to my apartment!

The darkness instantly crept away, revealing a pristine white corridor. I ran to its end, where I realized I was on the second floor of this place. Unfortunately, the furniture and other details of this place were replaced by large holes of nothingness; I guess they were a side effect of my memory loss. It reminded me of the ones in my soul.

I descended to the ground floor, noticing the piano situated in the living room. I looked around, unable to find that shadow, but instead of running around to find it, uhm, me, I walked over to the piano.

“Papa…” I murmured, feeling nostalgic. But suddenly, as if somebody injected a needle into my head, I felt a sharp pain there. “Urk!”

It didn’t last long, but I had a feeling this was an event where I would remember a certain memory of myself. I didn’t, but I mean, I should’ve. This piano was Papa’s personal one and where he taught me how to play it. The place where our family would have fun playing songs.

“I’m sorry I can’t remember you nor Mama. I don’t know your faces…” I regretted being unable to remember more. As their daughter, that was the least I could have done after dying before them. “… I’m also sorry for doing all that to my room. To your violin, Mama. The more I remember… the more I just feel disgusted with myself. Why? Why was I like that? That couldn’t have been me, right? I shouldn’t have been such a—”

“Then, FORGET ABOUT IT!” I twisted my body around at that voice, that voice that was so similar to mine. There, from underneath one of the corridors, that shadow reappeared. “These are not your memories anymore! Forget about it already! You have no right to remember any of them!”

“W-What is that suppos—” I tried to reply, but the shadow didn’t allow me to.

“YOU. ARE. HESTIA! You’re Hestia! You’re not **k***, anymore! Stop trying to remember all of them! Just stop… please!” Tears once again fell from her face. Her body slouched down, as if she was cowering from something. “P-Please, just stop making me remember! I don’t want to remember them anymore! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Shut up! Stop it! Stop it! Forget about it, Hestia!”

W-What is happening?!

I was flabbergasted. The shadow before me kept spasming around like some kind of eldritch monster. Its form morphed around similar to that demonkin of envy, only that hers always reset to that of the young girl I’ve become used to. Why was she doing all this, and why is she trying to make me forget about my past?

“W-Who are you?” I asked, although I already knew the answer.

“Who do you think, huh?” she spoke while crying. “Your past self, of course. The real **k***, unlike… you. Why… Why couldn’t I die? Why do I have to relive all of them? This is all your fault, you know? You, trying to remember my memories. Just forget about them. Stop trying to remember!”

It was the pleading of someone who had suffered for too long, begging me to fulfill her wish. But, why? Why is she asking me to forget? Shouldn’t she be elated that I’m trying to remember our parents? I mean, we forgot their names? We should at least try to remember their faces and names!

“NOOOOOO!” she screamed. Did she read my mind? “No, no, no, no, no! Stop it! Eiiiiiiek!”

She clutched her head, shrieking more and more until it really seemed as if she was transforming into a banshee. The agony inside her voice was terrifying for me to listen to.

She pointed at me. “Y-You are making me suffer. ‘Cause you try to remember, I stay alive. ‘Cause you remembered your promise, you remembered me. You are the reason for why I’m still in this purgatory. This hell! I don’t wanna. I don’t wanna be here anymore! Let me DIE ALREADY, HESTIA!”

“…”

I think I finally understood what this was.

As this shadow just said, she really is the past me. The one who lived on Earth and then died, only to be reincarnated in Peolynca as me, Hestia. She is my other self, the shadow of my past. The part of my soul whose memories were fragmented and deleted, allowing me to form a new self — the persona of Hestia, the dragon.

So that was why I was visibly revolted by my behavior. Why I found it so wild that I wasn’t as good of a friend as I thought. And why I felt a bit alienated when I observed myself destroying my room. “Hestia” wouldn’t act like that, she would try her best to keep herself composed just to not scare off her current friends and acquaintances.

However, if I looked at some of my mood swings, I could kinda see myself as—

“No, no, no, no, stop it! You are not me! You aren’t **k***! You are a better person, a far better person than I could ever, ever be! You managed to fulfill our dream, while I… I gave up on it. I am not you, you are not me. We are two different people trapped inside one soul, with you being the dominant one…”

‘I’ gave up on our dream? What?

“These memories are mine. Don’t try to open them up. You don’t deserve to see them, so please, just accept your new life. You’ll be so much happier if you just forget about me…” she fell on her knees. There were no signs of her stopping her weeping.

“… But I don’t want to,” I replied.

“Fuck you, then!” she shouted. “You sadistic bitch, just forget about me already! You're torturing me. If you remember, so must I. If you mention it even a bit, I have to remember it for you and the moment I can’t hold it in anymore, you start remembering. The cracks heal. I fall asleep and you remember. And when I wake up again, I’m assaulted by all that pain until I seal those memories away!”

“Hold on, how often has this moment happened? How often have I revisited my memories only for you to stop me? Were you the one that kept saying ‘Forget it all, Hestia’ every time”

“It has only happened a few times now, but a few times too many. There have been so many other chances for you to enter this dream world, only for me to stop you before you do. However, if I can’t wake up in time, you will exit the dream world with those memories intact. You remember.”

I could only remember two moments when I had these sorta vivid dreams. The first time after I ended up in that cave in Belzac forest and evolved inside it, and the second time before I met Tamae and the others. I couldn’t remember anybody whispering “Forget it all, Hestia” in those dreams.

“Please, forget it all, Hestia. Please! I don’t wanna suffer anymore. I just want it all to end. Everything… all the shit and unfair crap. I just want to forget them all. All the crap I did to Papa and Mama. I couldn’t even keep my promise to our cousin. I am a total failure. My life was worthless…”

“… Don’t say that.”

“What?”

“Don’t say that your life was worthless!” I ran up to the shadow, pulling her up and helping her wipe away her tears. “You heard me right, I said you aren’t worthless. Just like I said before, your life is precious. Don’t try to belittle the happiness we brought to Papa’s and Mama’s life! I don’t need you to tell me about it, I know they were happy. The only tragedy we brought to their life is when we died.”

“…”

“And, don’t think you’re so innocent with the creation of ‘Hestia.’ It is ‘cause I have some of your memories that I became ‘Hestia!’ Have you forgotten? Aurena told us that our memories were meant to be erased. Yes, you would have died, but I would have never been able to become the current me without you. It is ‘cause I remembered our promise that I got ourselves this far! I became an idol ‘cause of you!”

“No…” She shook her head. “Aurena said she would have kept our ambition to become an idol. That persona would have done the same. They would have become an idol, too.”

“You don’t know that,” I completely rebuked her argument. “You can’t see into other timelines. You can’t presume ‘what if’ situations, you can only look at what’s present and make your opinion then. And in this timeline, ‘Hestia’ was born because I remembered our parents and our vow to not cry. To not make them worry. To make them proud of this dysfunctional and failure of a daughter. Don’t make light of yourself.”

I couldn’t remember my original name, but I knew myself well enough to kinda guess what my shadow was thinking about. Yes, Hestia and this shadow might be other personalities at the end of the day, but the both of us knew how to deprecate ourselves. Honestly, now that I thought about it, maybe this was the reason why I had the [Parallel Thoughts] skill.

I had a major case of dissociative soul personality disorder.

“Remember this — We made it. We made our ambition and dream come true! We finally became idols who can make others smile. To give others hope!” I then remembered Eshe’s last words to me. “Be strong.” It was a short message, but I understood well enough what she wanted me to do. She understood what an idol had to do.

“So I’ll make sure we make it through this together, you hear me? I am you, and you are me. I am the fire inside your soul ready to blow up, to fly through the skies into the infinite vastness of the stars! These memories you hold, allow me to be the strength for you to stand up and to become one once again,” I told her. “Yes, I am Hestia now. Our body is Hestia now. But that doesn’t mean I can’t be you, too. Those memories, whether happy or not, I want to experience them all.”

“What?” she expressed her doubt, however, it seemed to have betrayed her momentary hope for my words. I could see her tears dry up and her eyes — two black eyes — appear on her face. “You’re selfish. You’re ignorant. You have no idea what I did. What a little bitch I was! I am not a person deserving of our parent’s love. You are. You are my ideal, the person I wanted to be. If you remember, you’ll only suffer. You’ll make me continue suffering.”

“And how about you stop doubting yourself and accept it already. We are the same. Accept me as your other-self. We are the same. My feats are yours,” I kept persuading her. “If I forget about you, how am I supposed to explain it to them when we finally meet them again?”

“What?”

“Aurena’s deal with us — I help her with her Quest and she allows me to meet Papa and Mama again. When that happens, I want to know our original name. Don’t you want to see them again? I know I do.”

“…”

She kept silent, unable to answer, but I could already guess what she wanted. After all, the shadow around her face disappeared.

It was exactly like mine.

Holy hell, I look pretty stunning with black hair. Maybe I should try it and get Yorshka to teach me how to dye my hair. I’ll look pretty Asian again.

“… Go. Leave me.”

The white apartment suddenly became darker and darker. She separated herself from me and slowly walked into that darkness, leaving me hanging in the middle, the point the latter were congregating towards.

“I will remember. I promise you that. And when that happens, let’s watch them together.”

“…”

And then, everything became black and I lost control of everything. The dream has ended.

…

Light.

This was not the RV. This was not Griffonpeak. This was not Artorias.

This place is—

“… Riekwelst.”

A knock against the door echoed inside this large room, fit to accommodate even a duke. The lone grey-haired young man turned away from the window, turning his attention to the door.

“Come in. I am awake.”

The large doors opened at his command, revealing an entourage of butlers and maids, bringing in a tray full of food and a line of suits. They set everything into their correct places before lining in front of the young man, bowing before him deeply like servants serving a noble master.

“““May the light shine upon the hero of the bright sun of the human world. Hero Light, we are ready to serve you.”””

The young man nodded. He seated himself and began eating his meal quietly while the servants prepared his outfit for today.

“Will the church be participating?‘

“Yes, Hero Light. The Cardinal and several saints and champions shall be there with you to celebrate and also announce your acquisition of the [Hero] title. Hero Takuma and saint candidate Aiko shall be attending as well.”

“Have you heard anything about my party member Ryuji?”

“Yes. A letter has arrived that he returned to the Empire and that he is now en route after disembarking from the post. Here, the letter in question.”

So they read it, huh? Being careful even among allies… just like father.

The young man asked his questions and the head butler of this group answered everything impeccably.

Three weeks. They kept me here for three weeks. At least I got the opportunity to get to know most of the influential nobles. Know thy enemy.

After his breakfast was over, the maids began washing him in the bathroom before dressing the young man up in a white-golden suit, fitting for either a high-ranking church of Aurena member or a noble of the Empire of Folschreck. Once he was finished, he left his room, only to meet a woman dressed in a white robe of the church of Aurena.

“Lord Light, may the Goddess’s light bless you on this fine day. I hope your night has been peaceful and your morning bright.”

“Saintess Fleindia, may the light bless your path and banish the shadows. I have been well. This is our first meeting since three weeks ago. I hope time has helped your heart mend after the death of Champion Cleionvall.”

“… Time heals all wounds. He has fought valiantly against that assassin. I am saddened that his death was because of me, but this must have been part of the Goddess’s plan. He must have had the honor to finally meet her Holiness. Light guide his soul to the plains of souls,” the saintess gave a prayer.

She then continued, “However, I should also be gracious to you for saving my life, Hero Light. If it weren’t for you and your allies, I would have died. Thank you very much.”

When Ryuji comes back, he’ll complain about how he missed out on all the action. But, who would have guessed that demonkin assassins would be brazen enough to attack champions and saints.

But most importantly, they managed to kill quite a few of them, even if it meant suicide.

But that was all just an afterthought for the young man. These events have resulted in him attaining one of his goals — to gain the respect of the nobles of the Empire of Folschreck. It was a fortunate opportunity for him to accelerate his plans.

After all, this young man who had lost the color in his hair had an ambition worthy of another of Peolynca’s otherworldly guests. “To influence Peolynca’s history” just like the Revolution Queen did, eyes filled with ambitions gaze forth.

This was Franz “Light” Akabane’s ambition.

Let us begin.

<Unique skill [Justice for All] has evolved…>

A note from AbyssRaven

Well, well, Hestia has another soul inside her. Well, more like two personalities.

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Side Story 31: Origin God Summit.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“By my duty and responsibility as the presiding Origin Goddess, I hereby announce the opening of this meeting between the five elemental pantheons concerning the recent invasion attempt of our former acquaintances.”

“Hmph, pretty sure it woulda been six, if ya hadn’t sent ya brother off, Plesia.”

“Crustacia, come on, don’t begin with a condemnation.”

The daily life of a god was usually a very peaceful and uneventful one, at least compared to when they were still mortal, for a being who has gained the gift of apotheosis was not only immortal but also extremely hard to kill, depending on their faith and stature amongst the mortals. Heaven, or the Divine Realms as most Peolyncians call it, was more or less an utopia ready to suit the needs and wishes of its inhabitants.

For every subordinate god would receive a personal divine realm from their patron Origin God, allowing them to sculpt it however they wanted. Even constructing a “neighborhood” or an “apartment” between the gods of a pantheon was possible, allowing gods to merge their realms. In this place, these gods performed their duties while watching over the mortal realm of Peolynca through the eyes of their followers.

However, for over 2000 years, these “supportive administrators” have seen quite a lot. For those who were long-living or truly immortal in the first place, like Istari and Kargryxmor respectively, watching the people repeating mistakes over again while slowly progressing towards the future was the norm. However, for those belonging to short-living races or those who had only experienced a short lifespan, these could become boring quite quickly.

As such, some gods quite liked being able to personally descend to the mortal realm, experiencing sights happening outside their followers’ visions. A subordinate god of Marsven could potentially mingle among followers of Aurena, for example. Fortunately, due to the Origin Gods’ strict laws against directly influencing substantial mortal events, accidents haven’t happened just yet.

However, just recently, something momentous did happen — the Edjurl gods broke through the protective aurora of the Origin Gods and managed to send in a few of their minions.

For that reason, a conference between the six Origin Gods was ordained. A rare occurrence, since the Origin Gods were usually able to handle any business matters between them through admin messages. If they met, it was usually for personal reasons — resulting in the chagrin of their angels, beings born from the souls of ardent followers who decided against reincarnation to support their god.

Now, speaking of the six Origin Gods…

“No, Zephira, this is a topic worth discussin’,” a short girl with petrified twin tails demanded, overriding the plea of the human-sized fairy woman with four rainbow wings. “The only reason Plesia and Danterno had to flee to Peolynca in the first place was ‘cause of that muscle-brained fool! This issue is his to solve too. As such, I am bringing up my dissatisfaction with how she handled this matter. She shoulda recalled Danterno from his punishment and sent him to deal with his own problems!”

This was Crustacia, Origin Goddess of Earth, Craftsmanship, Minerals, and Creation. And this was the summit of the Origin Gods.

The fairy woman — Zephira, Origin Goddess of Wind — frowned at her friend’s insistence, looking over at the leader of this meeting. Worried that she would become angry, Zephira continued trying to dissuade her Crustacia from continuing, “Crustacia, you really sh—”

“It is alright, Zephira,” but she was quickly stopped by a woman in a fish scale dress — this was Plesia.

Placing her scaled arms on the table, she continued speaking, “Crustacia, I understand what you are intending to say, but there wasn’t a need to necessitate his return. Marsven and I had it under control.”

“It’s not about that, Plesia. I know personally that you can handle yourself, but what I’m talking about is that, even now, you cuddle your little brother far too much. It’s about principle.”

Crustacia kept her emotions repressed, as the best way to speak with Plesia was by being calm. The Goddess of Water, Order, Honor, and Tradition was very much like her domains. She was reasonable, but a stickler for proper etiquette and found shouting and emotionally controlled talks unfitting to consider as anything but banter.

“The punishment for Danterno ignoring the rules and forcibly trying to influence somebody dear Aurena was grooming to become her champion is more important than that ‘invasion,’ Crustacia. If I simply summoned him whenever an attack appeared, even if we didn’t need him, then that goes against the entire point of my punishment, correct?” Plesia argued.

After pausing and looking at the disgruntled Crustacia, Plesia continued, leaning forward with a dark smile, “As you should know, even if I was the only Origin God left… they would not win.”

A chill quickly ran down Crustacia’s spine, as if the cold breeze of the sea suddenly entered this neutral zone. The three other Origin Gods did not speak up to Plesia’s assertion. They knew her well.

“Oh, and don’t forget!” Plesia broke off her expression and returned to her poker face, ending the pressure exuding from her aura. “The Elders won’t participate in any of this. It isn’t their issue and we settled into Peolynca according to their laws. The only ones we have to deal with are gods weaker than me or—”

Plesia turned her eyes away from Crustacia, towards the only male Origin God currently seated with them. The man was like a veil of black fog from all the mist exuding from his suit, shrouding his appearance until Plesia called his name.

“— Marsven.”

The black smoke around his head was reabsorbed into him, only leaving that area now clear to identify. Medium-long ebony hair and a well-groomed beard framed a face similar to a middle-aged man, giving off the posh and intimidating aura of the patriarch of an established noble house.

Grey skin covered his body and with his elven ears, the man looked very similar to that of a dark elf. However, those weren’t the only notable features, as this man also had four sleek horns growing from his temple. When he opened his eyes to acknowledge Plesia, he revealed his heterochromia — one had a red iris with black sclera and the other was completely white with a golden iris.

This was the appearance of Marsven, Origin God of Darkness, Progression, Defiance, and Fate. The Shadow Father of all Dark Elves and Grimgarians.

“Let us proceed,” was all Marsven said to this topic, earning him a loud sigh of frustration from the Goddesses before him. Although it wasn’t part of his domains, Marsven was known amongst the Origin Gods and his own subordinates as a slothful person.

“… We can discuss this later on, Crustacia. First, let us finish this meeting before Marsven accidentally falls asleep again.”

“… Agreed, Plesia.”

The five then activated their administrator windows. On them, information and statistics of the invasion were shown.

“As we expected, this ‘invasion’ was really just the Edjurls’ attempt to test out our defenses, but I guess it does give us an excuse to renew the barrier now. We have gained a considerable amount of followers over the years since the last time their servants attacked us. We should be able to bolster the aurora enough to thwart further small-scale attacks,” Plesia presented a quick summary of the situation.

“Agreed. The enemies sent against us were imps, daemons, and failed demonic servants. A flick of our fingers would be enough to squash them. Disappointing, since I expected at least a demon fledgling to appear,” Crustacia added.

“However, while the damage done to our barrier was irrelevant, what should be concerning is the intention and cause for this attack,” Zephira pointed out before looking over at Aurena. “Those demonkin, the, uhm, princes of sins, right? Foolish little beings, from what Marsven has seen through some of their eyes, they sacrificed the Prince of Lust to perform a [+**.<< summoning. And not for Marsven’s attention, but to our old acquaintances. It seemed not all texts were burned.”

“[+**.<<,” translated would mean “Primordial Edjurnic.” Used with the word “summoning,” it would mean to commune with an ancient god — a being older than the gods of a fledgling world. In this case, those who fall into this category would be the Edjurl gods, including the Origin Gods of Peolynca.

Zephira continued, “Marsven, I am pretty sure we had asked you to keep an eye on those demonkin in case they do find a memento or so from their demon ancestors. Most should have been destroyed at the end of the war, but it seems that some survived. Squashing every ant that tries to use them is impossible if we don’t outright destroy everything.”

“There was no need,” Marsven answered, to the chagrin of Zephira and Crustacia. “This commune was imperfect, as the demonkin tried to recreate it using the small snippets they found. They simply received small whispers, nothing more. I saw no need to do anything.”

“Argk, can ya please stop actin’ like that for once, Marsven!” Crustacia, exasperated by her comrade, blurted out before recovering her composure. “This negligence of yours is affecting our little Aurena, you old fool! What was it again, Aurena? From your 38 blessed, 13 of them were slain? That’s a huge enough number to be worried about! That’s a filthy amount of accumulated faith just sent to the void cuz of your laziness, Almost Demonic Lord of Sloth!”

Crustacia then increased the size of her admin window, turning it around for everyone to see.

“Ya see this? Number two — moi. Number three — Aurena! For the first time since the deaths of those demons, I am number two in the power ranking of us six! Also, Aurena reported on yer ass! We know ya left that damn Klea’Hatma alive! That demon of lust is thankfully now under Aurena’s more reliable control, but it could have caused some serious problems if she had been freed by a demonkin! Answer for ya actions, Marsven!”

Blessed in the forms of saints and champions weren’t just a god’s representatives, but they were also conduits of power for their individual patrons. In exchange for a unique power that will grow as they fulfill their duties, blessed also acted as cauldrons of faith.

Let us take Hestia’s [Idol] and [The Light] as an example. Followers, or fans in Hestia’s case, were gained as people began to feel faith or depend on Hestia for something. Not only does her own power grow as she does so, but all this faith is also funneled into the Gods as a separate source of power.

This energy was less than what an Origin God would directly gain from gathering their followers, their subordinate gods gathering followers, or if a mage cast a spell in their name. However, the blessed had the advantage that they could travel and were more numerous than gods. In addition, while a god required the piousness of their followers, blessed could also gather power by helping those belonging to other religions.

However, similar to the amount of apotheosis an Origin God may give out at a time, the amount of blessed they can create depends on their own competency and power. For older gods like Plesia and Marsven, their amount of blessed they have outnumbers what Aurena could field vastly, for she is the unquestionable youngest amongst all of them.

Fortunately for Aurena, the reach and size of her church equalized this disadvantage. It also helped that her patron race — the humans — were the most numerous. Crustacia’s, on the other hand, were the dwarves, a medium population race. While Crustacia could keep up with Aurena since she was the patron goddess of all craftsmen, it couldn’t fully compete against the entire human race.

Every saint and champion was able to gather power for Aurena through the same sphere of influence, creating a snowball effect. However, the moment an influential blessed died, this energy would dissipate. So, what would happen if multiple of them died, all in the same window of opportunity.

“Those demonkin worked with the Edjurls, they timed their attacks to when we were preoccupied with that invasion, only to then land a devastating attack on Aurena’s blessed! Ya can already see the cracks in the mountain. This is not how I wanted to raise myself up the rankings.”

Crustacia was livid. Her dissatisfaction with Plesia’s decision was further exacerbated by another ancient Origin God. She was the Goddess of Earth for a reason, as she was surely blunt as a boulder.

“Calm yourself, Crustacia,” Plesia ordered, earning her a click of Crustacia’s tongue as she obeyed. “Still, a satisfactory answer would be appreciated, Marsven. As you can see… Aurena doesn’t seem too focused on this meeting.”

“H-Huh?” Aurena’s head snapped up as her wings flapped a bit from being flustered. “N-No, I’m alright! Truly. I was simply engrossed in the information, that is all. I’m alright, please, do not worry.”

But her comment only made Crustacia and Zephira worry more. To them, although Aurena was more influential as a Goddess in Peolynca, they cannot help but look at her as a small robin. In their original homeworld, they were her seniors. Even now, Aurena respectively calls them as her elders.

As such, they glared at Marsven. Even with the latter trying to ignore them, they kept it up long enough for Marsven to comply reluctantly.

“They are merely mortals,” Marsven answered. “They will recover quickly, especially since they are humans. The damage done to Peolynca was zero, which is our main goal as gods. Unlike our old world, our new home is ruled equally by the six of us. None are willing to compete and take over. There is no competition, no progression. No need for that power ranking you are so obsessed with, Crustacia.”

Crustacia frowned, understanding the implication he was making. It was a personal one, filled with much history when she was still a goddess in their previous world. She couldn’t speak up against it.

“The deaths of a few blessed is a common occurrence, especially when our followers war with each other. Nothing abnormal. And those demonkin? Pray, tell me, what amount of damage have they truly done? Plesia?”

“None we cannot repair. As I mentioned before, they made me consider the reconstruction of our old barrier,” the water goddess replied, causing the earth goddess to groan in displeasure.

Marsven nodded. “The communion is imperfect. They cannot speak with our ‘friends.’ If they do not complete the actual ritual, they will not become a threat. The Princes of Sins? They might be dangerous for the mortals of Peolynca, but their powers are simply an imitation of an actual archdemon. They cannot even be compared to a normal demon. Even if they complete that tonic of theirs, they will not become an issue for us.”

“Then what about Klea’Hatma, huh? That archdemon of lust?! You left her there alive, for what reason?” Crustacia tried to fire back, but Marsven’s cold aloofness was undeterred.

“For change, Crustacia. You should know that best. Yes, Klea’Hatma could teach them the perfected communion rituals, but that honestly would be good for this world. It is stagnating. The only substantial event I was excited about in the past millennium were the three otherworldly summons that happened. Crustacia and Aurena, you two brought a much-needed development to this world. An influx of unaccountable variances. Sublime.”

But those two weren’t as exciting as the third, Marsven thought before he opened his mouth again.

“Our Edjurl friends aided the demonkin with those Earthlings. Will they become a bane to Peolynca, or will they be a much needed change of pace for our world? Will they defy their summoner's demands, or will they comply with it all? The story and paths may change, so will a new fate for Peolynca be written? … Or will it continue to stagnate with us ruling over these little mortals?”

This cold-hearted bastard, Crustacia thought but didn’t say it out loud.

This is why he was one of the strongest gods… Zephira sighed in exasperation.

A god acting like a proper god, what a surprise. Hiehie, Plesia simply smiled.

“…” The only one to not have any response to his words was Aurena.

To Marsven, his followers didn’t matter much. They were simply beings who ask him for power, which he will grant as leisurely as the sun delivers shadows to the world. To him, his duty as a god had priority.

The meeting then continued with Crustacia’s demands and questions answered. She was not satisfied with them, but complaining about them openly would bring no further progress. A god as old as Marsven will not change his personality much.

“Alright, that should be all. Everything we needed to talk about has been brought up and I have updated all of you on the current situation. With this, the meeting between us five—” Plesia was about to end the summit, only for Crustacia to stop her.

“Please, hold on for a moment, Plesia. There is somethin’ I wish to discuss.”

“We shall talk about Danterno in a moment, Crustacia.”

“No, no, not about him. I have somethin’ a bit more interesting, or at least, interesting for Marsven.”

“Oh?” Marsven raised a brow. “Let us hear it.”

Crustacia smiled. As Zephira and Aurena simply went with the flow, Plesia did not try to stop the goddess of earth.

“I would like to suggest an improvement on the Job System”

The Gods stared at Crustacia in surprise. They did not expect her to suggest a System update of all things.

“Continue,” Plesia urged her.

“I believe this was something we discussed at the beginnin’ when we created the Divine System. The Job system was intended to equalize the strength between monsters and men, between evolution and stasis. As such, with how the demonkin have begun to prepare a way to evolve themselves, why do we not add a function to aid other mortals to keep up?”

“Denied.” Plesia’s answer was swift.

But Crustacia knew this would be her response.

“I understand, Plesia, you were the one to dissuade us from adding that function, after all. However, look at the current situation of Peolynca. Humans, beastmen, dwarves, and all the other humanoid races have been stagnatin’ in strength all while monsters continue developin’ their powers through the Divine System. Some monsters are able to develop intelligence, turnin’ them into even more ferocious beings that gain access to the one advantage humanoid mortals have over them.”

“Camaraderie? Information and communication? The ability to teach and adapt? Intelligence?” Zephira threw out some buzz words.

“I mean, just look at two prime examples, Plesia — Grimgarians and transforming monsters. Not only would they be able to work and adapt to dwarven or elven society if they received the chance, but they also have access to both the Evolution and Job system. The reason why we separated these systems amongst monsters and humanoids respectively was to avoid having the two systems mix.”

Crustacia then gave Marsven a quick glance. Marsven was not only the ancestor of all dark elves and vampires, but he was also the ancestor father of the grimgarians, due to his third daughter Kronnaz being the first grimgarian. He has always been a status quo changer.

Crustacia continued, “Monsters are becoming stronger and stronger, Plesia. They were able to humanize or elvenize even before our arrival, but we underestimated the impact of this problem, believin’ humanoids would make better use of the Job system. The dragonkin are a prime example of our failure.”

Plesia did not rebuke her. She silently agreed.

“That is why we must do somethin’ about it. As such, I believe it is finally time for us to introduce main and sub dual-classing and, most importantly, unique Jobs.”

“Unique jobs?” Zephira asked. “I can understand what you mean with the main and sub Job system. Continuously hang onto a single main Job for their job-specific benefits while using the sub Job slot as another job skill source or to train up skills. That would significantly boost the strongest elves and dragonewts, but wouldn’t it also empower the demonkin? The System has to be fair for all Peolyncians.”

“I know that, but that is why we will introduce unique Jobs. My fellow Origin Gods, I believe it is finally time to introduce our version of the demon system into Peolynca!”

“Oh my~” Marsven let out. “The Goddess of Creation sure is an ingenious one. Like when you summoned that Earthling, Chihiro, just to boost your race’s technological development. Now, you are even suggesting we personally update the Divine System?”

The Divine System was an autonomous creation similar to an A.I. Its role was to manage the System-like world Peolynca had due to the Origin Gods. As such, it had an excellent ability to adapt to changes, for example, creating mutation evolutions for Hestia and Saori. The creation of new weapon abilities and custom spells was also another of its functions.

As such, due to its competency, it didn’t need much influence from its creator. It could work by its lonesome, but there was something it couldn’t do without the Origin Gods’ consensus — develop new systems.

“Pretty much,” Crustacia shrugged. “Now, what are unique Jobs? Easy, it is our version of the demon system, no, let us call them Seraphims! Or whatever other names we can figure out.”

“Hmm, it would be the natural progression, correct?” Plesia considered the idea. “Our saints and champions were inspired by the dutiful work of the imps and daemons we controlled back in our world. Allowing them to progress through the hierarchy to eventually become half-gods — demons — would be natural.”

“Just like how monsters can become as strong as half-gods through evolution,” Zephira noted.

Kargryxmor, he was the most notable. A being who was able to fight and defend Peolynca against the demon invasion with the support of Aurena.

“That is why I suggest we start implementin’ this system. Only the blessed we trust the most, or those who have shown their competency should be allowed to bear a unique skill. Just like their title and unique skill we give to them as blessings, the announcement of a Seraphim would most likely help us gather more faith!”

But most importantly… Crustacia eyed Aurena, something the latter nor Plesia did not ignore.

“Your intentions are easy to read, dear Crustacia. You really are trying to join Aurena’s little project, huh? Are you really that desperate to stay close to those two reincarnated Earthlings?”

Crustacia expression contorted for a moment. “W-Well, as the Goddess of Craftsmanship and Creation, I have to support them, no? The dwarf following them has been overwhelmed with a creative drive. So much so that it kinda resembled when Chihiro came to Peolynca. I am simply offering my blessing!”

“But there is also the whole Divine Quest Aurena gave that little dragon,” Zephira murmured. “If we support the other members of little Hestia’s party, we technically would be giving them our support in solving our problems. Plesia and I have Tasianna, Crustacia has that Grimnir, Aurena can work with Hestia and Ellaine, and Saori will—”

“I am not interested in this,” Marsven rejected without giving it any further thought.

“W-What? But what about your wife and daughter? Edna and Ilsaphone are quite intrigued by Saori. Shouldn’t you be supporting them as their husband and father respectively?” the wind goddess replied.

“The reincarnator is not a follower of either of them nor is she one of mine. ‘Watched’ only means we have taken an interest, but, until she prays to one of our shrines, we cannot see through her eyes. I know that she has been rather close with a dark elf that has talked to her about my faith, but she showed no signs of embracing my religion. I do not need to interfere. Fate will decide if she will come to me or not.”

For the God of Defiance, it was only natural for Marsven to give this answer. To force his will onto others would go against one of his domains. If fate wills it, then Saori and Marsven will meet at the intersection of this river.

“However, I will give my consent to this idea. A System update sounds interesting. What will become of the balance you desperately want to maintain, Plesia?” And with those words, Marsven stood up, dissipating into black fog as he left this conference.

Aurena saw Marsven leave and stood up also. “This idea has my consent. I shall now ask for my leave. Goodbye, elders.”

And with a ray of light, only three Origin Gods remained in this room.

“Jeeez, those two… So what about ya two?” Crustacia turned to Zephira and Plesia.

“… The majority has already decided. You will support Crustacia’s proposal, correct, Zephira?” Plesia asked.

“That is correct. Regardless of Crustacia's intentions, I personally have to do something about my religion, right? This is a great way to improve it.”

“I see… Well, then it is decided then. Crustacia, come, let us speak more about it. We must iron out the details before we can present this for the update,” Plesia stood up. “By my duty and responsibility as the presiding Origin Goddess, I hereby announce this meeting between us five Origin Gods over. Now, come. You wanted to talk about my brother, right?”

“Yeah, time to reveal what you are intending with Danterno, Plesia.” Crustacia materialized rocks to move her forward, helping the shorter woman reach eye level with Plesia.

“You know, you could always ask me for my brother’s hand in marriage if you like him that much. I won’t stop you, Crustacia.”

“Fuck you!”

Those two…

With everything business-related over for now, the relationship between the Origin Gods returned to how they treated themselves in private. Plesia could relax.

And so, a summit between the Origin Gods was over. What will become of Peolynca afterward will be left for the future.

In the divine realm of a certain Origin Goddess, angels were slowly leaving it at the order of their patron Goddess. Like stars, they flashed for a moment before darkening. With all of them gone, this Goddess let out a sigh before summoning a certain person of hers.

“Father, you can come in now,” Aurena’s voice resounded through her realm, reaching the ears of a certain black mist.

As it grew in size, the mist slowly dissipated to reveal the face of a very familiar god

“Ahhhhhh, my sweet little lightray, that bore of an event is finally over.”

It was Marsven.

“You shouldn’t be saying this. Mother made sure you would look like a proper Origin God to attend the— Hold on! Stop replacing your suit!” Aurena shouted, stopping Marsven from morphing his shadowy suit into his usual attire.

“Why? The conference is over. It is time for me to finally sleep again.” Marsven’s mist separated from his body, forming into a black bed for him to lay on. “Ahhhhhh, finally! Come, Aurena, lay yourself down, too! You should rest. The stress is getting to you.”

It was a huge contrast. The intimidating attitude Marsven presented himself at the meeting was simply a persona for him, the other side of a coin to the Lord of Sloth. To his followers, Marsven was an uncaring God, who only granted them powers but little else. Still, due to how willingly he gave out power, even allowing mages to access his shadow world freely, made him especially popular amongst those who prefer freedom with some support from a god.

However, were they to see him in this state, most would be baffled. However, to Aurena and the other Origin Gods, this was just par for the course. To the dutiful Aurena, having a slothful father was a large burden. But he was her kin, still.

Aurena shook her head, rejecting Marsven’s offer, and simply sat down at her table and sipped some tea. The tea she loved so much did not taste good to her. It was dissatisfying to Aurena.

“… Haaaaa,” but even this Marsven understood when he was allowed to act as he wanted to. He rose from his bed and walked over to his daughter. “You are too soft, Aurena. A god does not act like this.”

“… I know.”

“You treat these mortals like pets, pets to be cared for. But, as you have seen numerous times, all of them will die sooner or later. It is only the select few who can stay with you for longer. Those who became subordinate gods or those able to gain immortality. You are troubled because you care for their deaths.”

“The curse of godhood,” was something Aurena usually thought of whenever she saw somebody she was intrigued with die. Aurena, being a young Goddess, found it hard to break her habit of bonding with certain individuals. After all, being the Goddess of Light in Peolynca was truly her first time as a functioning administrator.

“I have taught you how to act as a goddess. How to be strong. These emotions you are feeling will continue to torture you, my daughter. Our followers do morph our forms, at the end of the day, but they shouldn’t influence our minds and personalities. However, you are too much like a human. They are weak beings; mortals.”

“… I understand, Father. Your words are always in my mind, but I do have to question — what is so wrong with supporting the weak? To care for the weak? To worry about how they will develop? What is your opinion of me, Father?”

Marsven looked into his daughter’s eyes, peering down the light inside them. Unwavering, also shining. They were like two inextinguishable suns.

“… I have underestimated you. I am proud of you,” Marsven patted her shoulder. “However, this church of yours… if you truly care for it, they will need to be properly purged. Your champion should be able to do this, correct?”

“… Yes.”

Aurena had warned her followers. She knew what the demonkin were aiming at. She also told them about the pope, but moving against the central hub of an entire world religion was difficult. Divine messages could not be properly transmitted to anybody but Hestia. They had to be interpreted, and that undoubtedly had created confusion amongst her own blessed.

“Who is telling the truth? Goddess Aurena, please, answer us!”

Paranoia was the result. Why are all blessed speaking of different things? Are they interpreting the Goddess’s words correctly? But the pope is the central figure of our church, if the blessed are going against him, then for what reason? Why are all their reasons so different and why are they arguing?

The fragility of a mortal’s soul was apparent. They could not take in the words of an Origin God or their subordinates properly. Miscommunication could break everything.

This could break her church, fracture it and play right into the demonkins’ hands. A fractured church was easy to take down, especially one backed by an entire Empire. Which side was the true church? It could cause a civil war. Even the Holy Emperor cannot just stop such an event, for the Folschreck Empire is vast with numerous countries and vassals.

Marsven continued, “That is why, rely on your champion more. Of the 25 you have left, rely on the only one you can speak properly with. Abandon the rest. Throw them to the wolves, turn them into bait. Make them the dragon’s feast, and allow her to rise in the hierarchy.”

It was cruel, but those were the words of an experienced god. A god who has seen numerous cycles of life and death. Someone who knew the best course of action would sometimes require cutting off the useless fat away.

“…” Aurena did not speak.

“… I see you have much to think about. Visit us, Aurena. Edna recently has gotten a new recipe she would like to cook for you.”

“Hiehie, if it’s mother, I will make sure to come.”

After they said their parting words, Marsven left this divine realm to return to his own.

…

… I’m sorry, Father. You don’t seem to know much about Hestia. After everything that happened, I don’t think she would agree to such a ruthless plan. After all—

— a god is attracted to those most similar to them.

The savannah. A place far away from any cities or town, filled with monstrous beasts who lived a life of hunters and hunted every day. However, this place wasn’t devoid of intelligent life. Civilization was here, only it was far more barbaric than what our dragon idol’s party was used to.

“Fire consumes fire! Fire consumes fire!”

“May this fire purify their bodies and souls, may they be reincarnated in a body of power!”

“Oh, God of Fire and Destruction! Oh, God of War! Here we have three sacrifices meant for you to see! May this fire turn their bodies into kindling, as we beseech you for your protection and blessing! Allow us to destroy our enemies! Allow us to consume them in fire, to allow our tribe to flourish! Oh, Lord Danterno, we ask of you for your strength!”

“““Noooooo! Please, nooooeeeiiii! Heeeeeeelp!”””

They were all beastmen. None of them were humans. Humanoids of various types of monsters were parading around a bonfire while three beastmen cried with everything they had for saving. The cries of two naked katzunes women and one male resounded from the middle, but the cheers of this morbid festival drowned them out.

As a shaman lit up a torch on fire, the creeping shadow of death finally appeared. These three captured knew there was nowhere to go.

But even if they couldn’t be heard, they could be seen. In the foliage of a faraway tree, two beastmen were hiding there. One was a crying katzune woman while the other was a red arvisian.

Unlike most arvisian, his arms weren’t where his wings were, but he was similar to King Drangleic, an arvisian with wings on their backs like a dragon. It was a sign that their beastmen lineage belonged to a powerful avian being. But to whom did it belong?

“P-Please, you must save them! P-P-Pleaseeee…” the woman begged and begged the arvisian, but he did not budge, for he did not understand why she was like this.

“I do not understand? Why? Shouldn’t this be glorious? In fire, their bodies can be cleansed. As their souls leave their bodies, they will be reincarnated and when they do, they might be born into a place where they will experience less pain and suffering. Fire will consume the trials they face now,” the young birdman explained, but the tribal-clothed woman did not accept it. No, she frantically tried to persuade him.

“Nooo! How could you say this! They are my family! They helped you! We helped you! Have you no heart? The teachings of Goddess Edna are to protect those you care for, to help them even without question. You are in our debt! We helped you!” the woman tried to guilt-trip him. Even if it was unfair, her only option was to force him to pay off his debt.

How dare this little ant! The arvisian man was infuriated by the katzune’s demands, jumping off the tree and beginning to walk off. The katzune, noticing her mistake, jumped off and followed him, only to receive a spray of fire from his red and yellow feathered arms.

“I am not your pawn. I never required your help in the first place. If you had left me there, nothing would have happened to me, for any beast foolish enough to attack will be turned back into dust. They are weak, too weak to face me.” The arvisian’s response was cold. “Go away. Pray to Ilsaphone that they will be reincarnated safely somewhere. Maybe you will meet them again.”

“N-No, please! They are all that I have left! You saw it! They killed and burned down everything but those three! Please, I don’t have anybody else, I don’t have anybody else but my sisters and brother! Wouldn’t you do the same for your sister?! If she was in danger, wouldn’t you do anything to save her?!”

“Pah, my sister?!” The arvisian turned around with a smile, laughing at her ridiculous assumption. “My sister? Really? You do not know her, I see. My sister is the strongest being I know, even stronger than anything you can possibly imagine. It would be I who must be saved. I am the one who always causes her trouble.”

“T-Then what would she do if you were in danger, huh? She would do anything to save you, right? Right?! Please, I need you! I am not strong enough, I need your help. I-I can’t imagine a world without those three? Can you? Can you imagine a world without your sister? Can you?!”

The arvisian stopped. Those words have hit their marks.

A world without Sister… A world without her? It would be lonely. So terribly lonely. Every fire requires a reason to strive to become stronger…

… Sister, why did you send me here? Why did you strip me of my divine powers? What do you mean I must find myself? I do not understand.

The arvisian turned around once again, this time, his feather burst into brilliant flames. Red, orange, and yellow — the colors of fire wrapped around him as he moved past the begging katzune.

“… I guess I shall repay my debt before leaving.”

In the far east of Altrust, a brilliant phoenix raised his wings. Only time will tell what he will achieve over there. What will happen when he meets the brilliant dragon of the west will be a mystery for another day.

A note from AbyssRaven

Oh shit?! Marsven?! Danterno?!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 251: Waking up after Three Weeks.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Unique skill creation completed. [Earth Magic Lv. 10] [Lava Magic Lv. 3] [Long-Range Spell Enhancement Lv. 5] [Lava Resistance Lv. 5] [Inferno Resistance Lv. 6] [Terra Resistance Lv. 1] [Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 7] [Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 5] [Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 7] [Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 5] [Pyrokinesis] merged intounique skill [Volcanic Blaze]

Magic Lost:   [Earth Wall] [Rock Blast] [Earth Strike] [Rock Bullet] [Sturdy Earth] [Earth Spears] [Earth Crash] [Earthen Shackles][Lava Ball] [Lava Stream] [Molten Guard]

Skills Lost:   [Earth Amp] [Earth Magic Efficiency]

Unable to automatically merge   [Corrosive Fire Lv. 3] into [Volcanic Blaze]. Requirement: [Corrosive Fire Lv. 10]

…?

I couldn’t hear my other half speaking anymore. My short lived loss of touch returned as I felt the things around my hands, feeling some soft and comfortable materials in my fingers. I wanted to question where I was currently, but when that sudden System message appeared, I realized I was in the waking world again. My other half had returned to my subconsciousness while I returned to reality.

I opened my eyes and began looking around while still laying down. I was in my room.

Well, not my room on Earth. It couldn’t even be compared to my old room due to the lack of decorations and personalization. However, I could see my study table with a few books on fire magic and a pile of tools to create my bombs, so this had to be inside our party’s RV.

I had survived that battle, thankfully.

Wheeeeew, I sighed internally.

Admittedly, it was logical that I was still alive but it didn’t mean I was 100% sure about it. I couldn’t help being a bit nervous. I mean, when I was first reincarnated to this world, I had that weird-ass dream, right? In that cold dark place? It still gave me the creeps that was how my reincarnation probably happened, eeeik!

So, seeing a familiar ceiling and my barebones room was a relief. I decided on decorating my room after today, if there weren't any problems. I haven’t had the time or motivation to decorate it up until now, but remembering my old room back on Earth made me realize I shouldn’t be lazy. This was my home now.

Damn, I probably made Saori, Tasianna, Ellaine, and Grimnir worry…

I should probably stand up, but I felt a bit lethargic right now, even though I just woke up. Maybe my body was still fatigued. I did fight to my absolute limits to defeat that giant eldritch scorpion. Three tiring fights in one day was far too much… my core even cracked several times during the fights.

I’ll check it out afterwards. First, let’s see what my divine Quest reward is~ Mana Eyes!

Volcanic Blaze

An incomplete unique skill missing an important skill component. However, while the full power of this skill cannot be released yet, the extreme firepower of an [Obsidian Blaze Dragon] can still be displayed. The earth’s heat will follow the will of the dragon, blanketing the skies and earth in ash. The skills combined are:   [Artillery Enhancement Lv. 1] [Volcanic Resistance Lv. 1] [Herculean Strength Lv. 1] [Indomitable Bulwark Lv. 1] [Pyrokinesis]

Hmm, yeah, I guess it did say ‘incomplete.’ Still, better than nothing.

The unique skill wasn’t bad. In fact, it improved quite a few of my skills. [Long-Range Spell Enhancement] evolved into [Artillery Enhancement], while my lava, inferno, and terra resistances merged into one. A third-tier resistance skill, I presume? I was already quite resistant to fire attacks, but I kinda hope it also helped against temperature problems.

Well, unfortunately, I did lose [Earth Magic] and [Lava Magic] with their respective spells. But, let’s be honest here, I probably won’t miss them.

I already used lava spells rarely, preferring fast casting or utility ones like lightning, wind, earth, and holy spells. Being able to create lava was still pretty dang cool, but those spells still required time to materialize, which made them slow to cast. Not my cup of tea.

And thankfully I only lost [Earth Magic] and not [Terra Magic]. Ever since I got the latter skill, the only reason why I would use [Earth Magic] spells was to create my bombs, but I could just use my [Corrosive Fire] to replace the bomb’s casing. Obsidian sounded far more moldable. It’s not a big loss.

However, in return, the skill mentioned something about ‘earth’s heat’? What is that supposed to mean? Seeing as my lovely [Pyrokinesis] got merged into this skill, maybe it’s saying I can control fire even better? But my control was already pretty good before.

No idea. I’ll have to test it out later on. Maybe it was referring to geothermal energy since it also took [Earth Magic]? Since it's related to my [Obsidian Blaze Dragon] evolution, everything seemed to be connected to [Corrosive Fire].

Still, it’s giving me some more motivation to level my poison fire skill up. I can only imagine how powerful it will become one day. Damn, unlike Shiterno, Aurena’s reward actually took redundant skills and used it to make a possibly better skill.

Satisfied with my reward from fighting that geisenlarg king, I pushed myself up and began to stretch. I knew I was fatigued after that battle but holy hell, it felt like I was stuck in bed for too long. My body was completely stiff and I could hear my bones and joints cracking as if I hadn’t used them in ages.

“Holy crap, argh, my body feels like a rock!” I complained.

“Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it after you sleep through your first year.”

“Huh?” An unfamiliar voice just came from right next to me. When I turned my head around, a person I had never seen before was crawling out from under my blanket, yawning.

“Good morning, my little fire~”

“… Krriiyyaaaaaaaaah!”

I jumped off from my bed, wanting to create as much distance from this woman as possible, but I remembered that I didn’t have my wings out a bit too late. I ended up landing on the floor and jumping again to end up next to my room’s door.

“W-Who are you?! What are you doing in my room and why are you in my bed?!” I shouted, taking out my glaive from my storage and pointed it at her. My body immediately started to ache from all of these actions due to how stiff it was, even with the adrenaline rush from the surprise.

An unknown person who was sleeping right next to me? I mean, even if my body was still asleep or something, my reflexes were good enough to react. The real question was, why did I not feel any threat from her? I should have at least noticed her from [Detection Sensor] alone.

“Oh my,” the woman looked stunned at my reaction but suddenly snapped her fingers with an enlightened expression, as if she remembered something. “Oh, Saori did mention something like this might happen. Incredible, does she have future vision? At such a young age?!

Saori? Future vision? What?!

The woman continued speaking while I was flabbergasted. “Then I should follow what she told me to say. Ahem, Hestia, I’m sorry for sleeping in your bed and surprising you so much. However, gaze upon me. Do I not look familiar?”

Wary at how she knew of Saori, I did exactly what she told me to. Starting from the top, her hair was probably the most familiar sight to me, as it was pure white like snow, which looked a lot like Yorshka’s and her daughter Priscilla’s. Unlike theirs, however, hers had this constant glittering shine like polished silver. From afar, it probably looked less white and more like silver.

What caught my eyes next were her horns and tail. Both of them looked eerily like mine, only reskinned with a silver paint coat. I wasn’t exaggerating here, they looked extremely like mine and they probably would have been clones if they weren’t slightly larger, colored differently, and more pronounced.

Looking at the scales on her limbs and that scale-like dress, this woman might be a dragonewt. No, I could definitely smell that she was a dragonewt. Like Cernust, Priscilla, and Yorshka, she had that sweet aroma around her. True dragonkins and those descended from them usually have that scent.

This brings me to the most confusing parts: her ears and face. Dragonewts in a human or beastman body had short but sharp ears, like a pocket knife. However, hers were long and pointy like Tasianna’s elven form. Was she using [Elvenization]?

Also, even with her similar horns and tail, her face was completely unfamiliar to me. Why were her dragon features so similar but nothing else was? I recognized her as a dragonewt, no, maybe she was a dragon? But who exactly was she?

“… Uhm, are you a relative of Yorshka? A Nordor?” I asked cautiously. It didn’t seem like she had malicious intentions.

Her eyes widened in surprise and her mouth was agape. Did I say something wrong?

“W-Well, yes, young Yorshka. I guess we are related through our bloodline…” Her voice was clearly filled with disappointment. I really did say the wrong thing, huh?

“B-But, my scent! Yes, you should be able to recognize my scent, correct! Yes, even if we met now or a year ago, what should make it clearer than even words should be our dragonkin scent. Please, I beg you, take another wiff.” Her quivering voice made her last sentence sound like a plea.

It was a bit creepy to ask somebody to suddenly smell you, but I guess this was just normal for dragonewts and dragonkins? Still, even if I did what she wanted, what am I supposed to learn from sme— Hold on.

I stepped forward, my nose sniffing the air like a dog finding something new. The sweet aroma entered my lungs again, a scent that I was finding completely addictive. It was like meeting a friend who bought and used a new type of bath salt.

At the same time, this smell somehow made me feel safe. Like a mother’s warm embrace. The more I breathed in, the warmer and safer I felt, drawing me closer and closer to the woman. And that was when I remembered something about her voice.

Wasn’t that the one I heard after I stopped burning? My parallel minds confirmed what I said. It truly was the female voice I heard before losing my consciousness after the geisenlarg battle. Like a lullaby, yeah, every word she said helped me feel calmer.

Coupled with this scent, it made me feel so incredibly close to this woman. I did not know her name, I did not know where she came from… But, something inside me seemed to already know. My instincts told me that it was safe to hug her. None of my skills warned me of any dangers.

“A-Are you—”

““Lady H-Hestia!””

Before I could finish speaking, the door suddenly shot open, letting two young women in maid clothing enter. Both shouted my names as tears flowed down their faces and they jumped towards me with an embrace

“Tasianna?! Svena?!”

I was surprised to see them suddenly rushing into my room like that. Sure, they would sometimes wake me up if I overslept, but never in such an outrageous fashion. Their elated smiles paired with their watery eyes made me realize once again how much trouble I cause others.

I really am not the best friend, huh? I’m lucky to still have people willing to care for me.

“I’m awake,” I said as they wished me a good morning. “I’m sorry for worrying everybody.”

“Ehehiehie.” That laughter came out of nowhere while I was trying to apologize to Tasianna and Svena, who kept trying to tell me it was alright and that a maid’s duty is to wait for their mistress’s recovery.

I turned around to see the dragonewt lady standing next to my bed, smiling and laughing but with a slight “I am lonely” expression. As I was confused at why she was doing this, Svena noticed it before Tasianna and spoke up, dropping an information bomb onto me.

“Ah, we apologize for suddenly interrupting your talk with your mother, Lady Hestia. That was inconsiderate of us!” Svena apologized but when she mentioned “mother,” I was too baffled to continue listening to her. “U-Uhm, mayhaps, have you not made your introduction yet, L-Lady Empress?”

The woman smiled wryly. Svena let out an “oops” in response.

T-Then does this—?

Tasianna stepped forward, having understood the situation. She bowed to me and began introducing the woman, “Lady Hestia, may I present to you, the Sixth Empress of the Dragon Empire Kargryx, Melloxtressa Wisperia Nordor. My lady, this is your dragon mother.”

The woman walked slowly forward as I continued staring at her in disbelief. “I have much to say to you, my little fire, but I know we can do this later. Hestia, your mother is here.”

Memories of a shadow woman appeared inside my mind with those words, followed by the images of this woman. They were trying to merge inside me, with more and more bits of that shadowy woman being replaced by the one standing before me.

A part of me was telling me she really was my mother, but the other half, it knew this wasn’t true. The more I allowed my brain to function, the more my memories of my Earthen mother were replaced by another woman’s.

But there was a problem. A very prominent problem.

She didn’t look like me.

“H-Hestia?”

I didn’t respond. I simply grabbed my head, feeling an intense sting. A rejection. I was actively rejecting this woman’s face and smell. I turned around and walked through the door and into my [Room]’s community room.

My legs didn’t stop. Even when Tasianna and Svena called out for me, I didn’t stop. I had to get away from this “Melloxtressa.” I had no idea what was going on with me. My throat felt dry. My eyes felt wet. I felt light-headed.

After speaking with my other half, the person I was in my past life, I now had full confirmation how I looked. Except for my dragon features and shorter hair, I had instinctively shaped my body and face to resemble my Earthen version. That also meant that my mother and father had to be fairly similar to me.

But that woman wasn’t even close. That “mother” wasn’t my mother.

“Urgh!” While I kept moving forward without an aim, my legs suddenly lost strength and I could hear my stomach growling like a hungry beast. It was so loud that Tasianna and Svena immediately ran over to me and helped me up.

“Lady Hestia, you need to get something to eat. You must be famished!”

“Yes, your mother has been feeding you mana to sustain your body these past three weeks, but Empress Melloxtressa stressed that your body requires proper nutrients the moment you wake up.”

“W-What?! Th-Three weeks?!”

Did I hear that correctly? It has to be a joke, right?

“We will answer your questions later. First, we need to get to the kitchen!” With those words, Svena and Tasianna dragged me to the kitchen while the silver-haired woman followed from behind. I did not see her expression.

Once we entered the dining hall, I noticed five people happily eating at a table. The moment we locked eyes, three of them stood up and came over with smiles.

“Hestia! You’re awake! Oh, you must be hungry! Tamae-san, could you possibly cook a large breakfast portion for her? I will help,” Saori said.

“Of course, Sensei!” Tamae, one of Saori’s students, nodded vigorously. “It’s good to see you awake, Hesti-chan! We’ll catch up in a moment, alright? I’ll bring you a feast worthy of a princess!”

“Haha, yes, this is worth celebrating! Our little princess is finally awake! Oh, Tasianna, Svena, allow me to help!” Yorshka swooped in, replacing Svena and Tasianna. In a princess carry, she quickly brought me to my seat. “Also, I think you should be acquainted with these two. These two dragonewts are the ice wyverns you met in the Belzac forest, at least according to Saori and Tasianna.”

I turned around, noting two similar-looking white dragonewts. From their horns to tails, everything looked practically the same, almost like they were twins.

[“Lady Hestia, if you could remember, we were the wyverns who accompanied Astalos to escort you out of the forest.”]

[“We apologize dearly for creating a misunderstanding back then. The Empress has been gracious enough to teach us [Elvinize] and [Telepathy] so we can be here to serve you.”]

They both bowed.

[“I-It’s good to meet you,”] I said, feeling even more overwhelmed the more things happened. [“Uhm, I am Hestia. What are your names?”]

[““…””]

They explained they didn’t have any names yet. I felt embarrassed… long enough for Saori to bring out a tray of pastries.

“Coxinhas. Brazilian chicken croquettes. Tamae-san has been experimenting with food after we reunited a few days after you fell unconscious, so we got quite a list of things you need to try out, Hestia. It will really spur your nostalgia, I can assu—”

“Mamphf!” Without letting her finish, my body instinctively grabbed and bit into one of these croquettes. The fried breading, the creamy sour-spicy sauce, and the tantalizing chicken; it was a festival of tastes for my tongue. It was impossible for me to stop gorging everything on the dish.

“Seconds, PLEASE!” I screamed. Just a single bite was all that was needed to wake up this intense hunger I had. I was starving, I was so famished I could eat a whole whale!

I didn’t exactly know what I ate. I didn’t look at them for too long but I knew well enough that everything was incredible. Like from a Michelin restaurant. My eating speed was so intense that everybody had to pitch in to feed me. Even the silver-haired woman helped, using silver dust to carry out dishes.

If I wasn’t completely preoccupied with eating, I probably would have acknowledged this fact earlier, instead of when my head fell on the table. I was full, I was filled to the brim that I could feel my stomach bulging too much for my taste. I might have slightly overeaten.

“Jeez, you ate enough to feed multiple battalions, Hestia,” Yorshka commented before laughing like this wasn’t her problem. “Aye yei, Saori, thank goodness you have the goodwill of King Drangleic, correct? He can pay for all of this.”

“As if, Yorshka. The kingdom needs all the money it has to repair everything. We’ll work all this food off, as our party has always done up until now,” she replied.

Uuuurgh, the food cost…

The cleaning took a bit, giving me some time to calm down and digest. I also would randomly give the silver-haired woman a glance, only for her to smile back at me. Flustered, I would just turn my head around. What was wrong with me?

After Saori and the others finished cleaning up, they sat back down and the information bomb Svena set off continued.

“T-Three weeks?! Y-You have to be kidding me.” I still couldn't accept it, even if it came from Saori’s mouth.

“Unfortunately, we’re not, Hestia. Today is the 20th of SpringMoon. We couldn’t exactly extinguish the intense amount of heat you generated from your final attack. We were quite lucky to have your mother appear so suddenly, saving you from self-immolation,” Saori enlightened me. “She was also the one to repair your core.”

I turned around to the silver-haired woman.

“It is true, my daughter. It took me the entirety of those three weeks to repair the damages to your core, at least, the outward ones.”

“Outward ones?”

“Correct. From what I could see, this sun core of yours is like a secondary heart. With two, even if one were to be damaged, you could still live while you regenerate the other. However, unlike your flesh heart, your sun core is created from your concentrated, crystalized mana,” Melloxtressa explained. “The issues are that I cannot repair the internal damage to your core. It is your mana, not mine. There is a rejection. In addition, it seems that certain toxic substances have made their way into your core. The toxin merged with your core.”

“Hold on, if I understood that correctly, then only my own mana can repair my core? Some foreign substance can’t just go in and meld with it, correct?”

“That is correct, Lady Hestia,” Tasianna answered. “After Miss Saori took a closer look at it, we confirmed it’s corrosive obsidian, Lady Hestia. Yours.”

A-Are you kidding me?! Am I poisoning myself?!

Considering how often I used [Corrosive Fire] after my core cracked once, I guess this was a consequence of my carelessness. I did not even consider such a possibility.

As I was panicking, Melloxtressa spoke up in a hurry, “O-Oh, don’t worry, Hestia. I heard from Saori that this substance is something you made, correct? Well, then it shouldn’t endanger your body. However, it most likely will reduce your core’s efficiency.”

I guess that would be correct. If there are impure objects inside my core, then I probably will have some trouble transmuting solar energy into mana and nutrients. Still, even if it wasn't dangerous, I shouldn’t keep it in this state, so I asked her if there was a way for me to fix it.

“Well, of course, certain dragons and monsters have obtained crystalized mana features during their life. However, in your case, that mana core acts as a heart, and that obsidian seems to have fused itself pretty deeply into your core. If you ask me, it would be better to completely replace the core by removing it and creating a new one.”

“How?”

“As your mother, I will teach you, you do not have to worry, Hestia. In addition, before you transformed back into your dragonewt form, I took a look at your body and it seemed you had been neglecting yourself. When was the last time you shed your scales? So many of them are so flimsy and old.”

I was flabbergasted at what Melloxtressa said. My scales? Flimsy? Impossible. Those things are harder than steel and are perfect for weapon and armor making. And shedding? My scales are falling off my body all the time. I don’t think this woman knows exactly what she’s talking about.

Saori noticed my confusion and spoke up for the silver-haired woman, “It’s probably true, Hestia. We haven't been maintaining our original bodies enough. Your mother even noticed that my fur and claws were too overgrown. Look.” Saori took off her jacket and showed off the white fur on her arms.

“They aren’t just shinier but there are also less tangles. I shed and groomed my whole body.” Then she conjured up some of her stygian lightning. “The speed of my lightning generation has increased by a small amount, and you know how every millisecond is important. My arms also feel more comfortable, since the tangles aren’t shocking my skin anymore.”

“Ehehiehie,” Melloxtressa giggled. “I felt like I had received another daughter when I helped her. Yorshka mentioned you gave her some of your blood for her to evolve with, but it still surprised me how similar Saori’s scent was to yours. If you wish, I would be happy to help you if you need, Hestia. Body grooming is important to us dragons.”

“…”

I felt conflicted.

I could feel a genuine desire to help me coming from her, but at the same time, how she called herself my mother or how she called me daughter made me feel weird. Coupled with another reason—

“… Uhm, why do you look so different?”

Silence. Everybody looked at me as if I had gone crazy, causing me to realize how I just spoke my thoughts out loud! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME?!

“Ehehiehie.” For some reason, she laughed it off. “It’s alright. Usually this shouldn’t happen since young whelps generally imitate the appearance of their parents. Humanoid transforming skills create the ideal appearance a monster wishes for them to look like. Since you are a transmigrator, it would of course take on your original appearance. That of your Earthen mother and father, Hestia. If you like, I could morph my form a bit to look like yours. Of course, I won’t imitate your previous mother.”

What?!

What was I supposed to say to that? It felt awkward, it felt wrong. Why did she suddenly bring that topic up, huh?

She continued, “There is no need to worry. When I saw you in your dragon form, I noticed you were sharing some of my features, like your horns and tail. Our wings are also quite similar if I—”

“Tamae-chan, when did you guys arrive?” I ignored Melloxtressa. I didn’t even look at what her expression was. From how the others looked at me, I could already guess.

But then again, was it really that rude? I mean, she suddenly brought up Mama and Papa. “Not imitate?” As if! The fact she brought that up must mean that she’s trying to replace who my real Mama was.

Even that sickening smell must have been a trick. The fact that it made me begin to forget about Mama was the worst. I just gave a fucking speech to my other half about how I wanted to remember everything, especially my parents, and I almost began to replace Mama with some random woman? What is wrong with me?

“Hestia, you really shouldn’t—” Saori was about to scold me, but Tamae-chan understood what I wanted. Even if we had only met for a short time, she somehow understood me better than Saori…

“Oh, everybody arrived five days after we heard there was an attack in Griffonpeak. We planned to come to Griffonpeak before the battle, but we found some issue coming from the Lecartiglio duchy. A mass immigration.”

Griffonpeak wasn’t the only troubled place. The Lecartiglio duchy recently had a ton of beastmen kidnapped, causing beastmen to feel insecure in the area. That was what I heard from the King’s advisors and I had thought that would be the main reason why Duke Lecartiglio had to return to his fief before Griffopeak was attacked.

Tamae-chan, though, explained that the duchy experienced an uncontrollable amount of beastmen immigrating from the south, from the Atadoro kingdom. Many were slaves, and quite a few of them insisted they were former citizens kidnapped and bought off to be turned into slaves.

“From what I heard, there was a slave revolt down in the Atadoro kingdom. Those in the north and west decided to travel to Artorias, hoping for the kingdom’s charity,” Tamae-chan continued.

Yorshka nodded. “It was a real mess. The slaves were one thing, but it also caused the beastmen population in the duchy to lose trust for the nobility and governance. It’s true. Quite a few of those slaves were formerly from the duchy.”

They tried to help out the duchy with their problems, only to receive the recent news about Griffonpeak, where they quickly made their way over here. Not only Tamae-chan’s party but also the second set of students came.

Since I wasn’t around to modify the subspace, Tamae-chan and the others had to check in to a hotel in the meantime. I promised her I would create some more rooms for them to stay in, and she thanked me quite profusely. She mentioned how Saori had explained everything that happened to her, and decided it would be best if the students stayed with us now.

“We’ll be glad to have you,” I said before readying myself for the next news — Griffonpeak and the nobility.

“My students are out helping the city, and Ellaine had to support her parents as an aristocrat. Grimnir is in his forge,” Saori said before continuing into the meat of the news.

Essentially, certain parts of Griffonpeak were demolished and had to be repaired. Unfortunately, quite a number of citizens within the city died during the attack, but even more died outside the city. In the farms, the slums, and the small villages surrounding Griffonpeak; the majority of those places were destroyed by the geisenlarg.

Shaturein also didn’t come out unscathed. In fact, Saori heard that because I burned through the fairnite block separating Shaturein and Griffonpeak, the mana down there had been leaking into the main city. Knights were stationed at the hole, making sure monsters weren’t spawning while repairs were done.

I cursed myself for doing that.

Furthermore, King Drangleic also had to make some drastic choices during the aftermath. In particular, the cathedral’s Cardinal and Charleslyt.

“After Ellaine defeated Charleslyt, Lady Amelia and Jonathan brought him to the knights. Once he woke up, the king ordered for him to be tortured until he gave out all the information he had, including all those who supported him.”

This was just to fish out more information before the trial. After all, since Ellaine’s parents brought all the evidence they could to King Drangleic, he already knew enough. When Pestrodus appeared with every single piece of dirt Hamil had on the responsible nobles, it was already enough to create a trial.

The only problem was the cardinal himself. Sly fox that he was, he made sure that he was never the one to act on anything. All the supporters within the nobility he built up were done either through Hamil or Charleslyt. He never did anything to directly implicate himself. Even in the notes Hamil made, Hamil specifically noted “I made a deal with him.”

Working with people from Shaturein wasn’t outlawed, it was just frowned upon. Now, if he had done anything treacherous or forbidden through Shaturein, that would be a different story. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough evidence to implicate him in anything.

Since he was also a cardinal, he had the church’s protection. Without evidence, King Drangleic could not just execute him, even if it was clear he was one of the masterminds behind the attack. It almost seemed like the cardinal would run off without any problems. Almost.

“The cardinal hired Hamil to help him build up Charleslyt to become a worthy heir for his family. That was the deal and that was how the latter got those ‘wyvern slayers’,” Saori explained. “He intended to make Charleslyt into the next Duke Equevanna, allowing him to use the kid like a puppet. Essentially, he wanted to control the Equevanna and Olivus duchies at the same time. That was why those duchies had the least amount of problems.”

“From what Ellaine and Lady Amelia said, Charleslyt was mostly ignored by Duke and Duchess Equevanna during his childhood in favor of his older brother. That was when he met the cardinal and became almost infatuated with Goddess Aurena. He saw the cardinal as a father figure. His commands took priority over his actual father’s, even if it meant something as treasonous as stealing the passcode to the dungeon’s secret entry.”

There was a passcode to enter the dungeon through the royal entry. The only people who had this code were the King and Queen and their seven dukes. Charleslyt stole it from his father under the orders of the cardinal, with the latter assuring him this was the way to make him into the next duke. Like a mindless pawn, he did it.

The cardinal thought nobody would figure this out; the problem was that Charleslyt exposed everything. He was initially determined to bring this information to his grave, unwilling to betray the cardinal even after his family tried to force it out of him.

It was only when Ellaine and Amelia talked to him that he spilled it. With this information, they managed to locate the documents to the cardinal’s betrayal in his hidden residences. He was swiftly taken to trial, judged and executed. If the Church questioned King Drangleic’s decision, he would have the evidence to protect Artorias.

“So, what about Charleslyt? Sure, he had quite a ton of problems and also stole the passcode from his father, but the information he gave ws pretty substantial, right? What was his punishment?” I asked, earning me some dark frowns from Saori and Tasianna.

“Hestia… the Griffon King, Assurfel, is dead.”

“What?”

“Charleslyt admitted to giving the demonkins the passcode. They used it to sneak into the dungeon and slay Assurfel. His daughter, King Drangleic’s great-grandmother, managed to survive the encounter due to the Griffon King’s actions. When she arrived at the royal citadel, she told the Queen everything…” Saori informed me.

“For such a crime, Charleslyt was sentenced to death. He was executed one week ago, and, while Duke Equevanna hadn’t participated in any of this, the actions of his son reflect on him as well. He was stripped of his rank as Grand Duke and was forced to hand over his title to his older son. He is still alive but is being forced to repay his debt by serving King Drangleic personally now.”

I slammed my fist against the table. “Fucking idiot…”

I thought Charleslyt wasn’t a bad person. I kinda had that feeling when I fought him in the arena. Sure, he was competitive and desperate, but it didn’t seem like he had a black heart. He was just a noble who wanted to achieve his agenda. Not likable, but it wasn’t like I wanted to kill him.

It’s just that learning all of this, it made me want to scream and shout in his face. An idiot. A freaking idiot. He hired Eithalr to kidnap Amelia, who nearly killed Ellaine. His action at this point couldn’t be forgiven. Even if he didn’t do it on purpose, he was also a reason for the disaster in Griffonpeak. If the Griffon King had not been preoccupied, he could have helped with the geisenlarg king. What is he but a villian?

But most importantly—

“Those demonkins are strong…”

Saori and Tasianna nodded.

Assurfel was an A rank monster, at the end of the day. Achieving such a feat would not have been easy. On the other hand, how much did we struggle against the geisenlarg? Sure, it was corrupted to high heavens, but it took me cracking my core and going into [Symphonie des Feuergottes (Finale)] to beat it. I killed off one demonkin, but he wasn’t the one who killed Assurfel.

“This information was kept a secret from the public for now. The nobility already has to mourn two deaths, so it would be even worse if the commoners had heard it. Probably cause uncertainty in the kingdom’s future, you see,” Yorshka suddenly said with a deep sigh.

“Two?”

“Oh, oops.” Yorshka slapped her mouth shut, earning stink eyes from everybody else.

When I urged her to continue, Saori sighed and took over.

“You have to promise to stay calm alright, Hestia?” I nodded. “Okay… well, seeing how many people she saved, the mourning is still ongoing, you see. King Drangleic informed everybody in Griffonpeak of the death of Saintess Eshe of Sarkarfiina. The 29th of SpringBloom has been turned in honor of her into Saintess Eshe Day.”

“…” I stared at Saori. I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.

This feeling in my chest… I knew I had forgotten something. I had to push something back. Those torrential emotions inside me finally burst out, freed after I sealed them to fight the geisenlarg.

My sadness for Eshe’s death.

Drip, drip, drip. The sounds of tears falling on the table were the only thing to break the silence. My tears. My teeth quivered as the memory of Eshe’s lifeless body reappeared in my head. Her lifeless eyes… it felt like they were haunting me.

Without saying another word, I stood up and walked towards the subspace’s exit. When I felt somebody following me, I turned around and immediately shouted, “I want to be alone! Leave me be!”

Something told me it was the silver-haired woman, so when I saw her through my teary eyes, I was able to confirm my suspicions personally.

“H-Hestia, if you want, I could—” she tried to say something but I didn’t want to hear it. What is she even trying to do here?

“No! I said it already, leave me alone! Why are you trying to get yourself involved here? You don’t know me. You don't know what happened. You don’t know anything! You appeared out of nowhere, and think you know how to solve this?! Just, urgh — leave me alone! Don’t follow me!”

I ran out as fast as I could, ignoring any sounds. I jumped out from the RV and materialized my wings with [Humanization]. With my rocket boosters, I flew off.

Dammit, dammit, why did you say that you idiot! Idiot! Idiot! Idiot!

“Huek! Hiieec, huek! Hieeeeggeggg…”

I slapped my head in frustration, cursing myself for what I said. Why did I do that? She was just trying to be nice. Why am I doing this? Why am I like this? What is wrong with me?

All these questions ran through my mind multiple times. My tears didn’t stop as I continued blaming myself for everything. Being a terrible daughter as my other half said, being a terrible friend as my memory told me, being weak and letting Eshe die, and then being unable to accept Melloxtressa. I couldn’t even give her a chance, despite promising Yorshka I would do it.

I am just the worst.

With those thoughts, I made myself towards a single place—

— the orphanage.

“…”

“Melloxtressa?” I spoke to Hestia’s dragon mother, trying to cheer her up. “As I said, Hestia is currently having to deal with some personal problems. It won’t be easy to have her heart open up. However, she’s a good girl, she’ll do it eventually. You just need to be patient.”

“T-That’s right, Empress! Sensei is correct!” Tamae-san supported me. “I’m sort of in the same situation she is in. I love my parents and miss them greatly, so it probably would be hard to accept somebody else as a parent. It would feel too much like a replacement.”

“Yes, Matriarch! Also, if I hadn’t mentioned Saintess Eshe so suddenly, she probably would have been in a better mood to speak with you,” Yorshka apologized. “It would be best if we left her alone for now. Priscilla would sometimes have these moments when she’s dissatisfied with something. Like a protest, you see? And I consider her a very obedient daughter.”

“… Thank you for your concern but I think I am fine.”

Fine? I asked myself. She certainly didn’t look like that.

However, contrary to my thoughts, Melloxtressa suddenly smiled and began crying. When I asked if she really was okay, she responded with a strong nod.

“I am. It hurts my heart to see my only daughter not willing to accept me as her mother but… somehow, I was okay with it. Seeing her healthy and energetic enough to speak back against me — goodness gracious, the other Empresses already told me just how much children liked to be rebellious. It makes me happy. Really, really happy.” The floodgate opened. “I am so, so, so thankful to see she’s alive. I was so worried. I was so scared she was lost to me forever. To see her in pain like that, I thought… I thought it was over. Thank goodness. My own daughter, hiiek!”

I felt relieved, and so did the others. She was taking it well. Like a good parent.

“Good, good!” I clapped my hands. “Melloxtressa, how about this: Hestia probably needs some time for herself, then why not go out for now? To clear up your head?”

She stopped crying for a moment and tilted her head. “I do not follow, Saori.”

“How about we go out and drink a bit together?” I suggested.

“Ooooh, fantastic idea, Saori!” Yorshka chimed in. “It would give us some time to calm down and, while we drink, I can give the Matriarch a few tips on handling your daughter. As a mother, I can give you some advice.”

“I see… is this what humanoids do for fun? Yorshka, you should know this but dragons cannot take alcohol too well. Our bodies have a hard time breaking down the toxins, even if they aren’t harmful to us in any way.”

“I know that, but I’ll make sure to control your drinking amount, Matriarch! I will make sure you won’t go on a drunk rampage! Your brother, ancestor Odlesstrus, has handed down tips to control drunken dragons just in case he drank too much with his wife!”

It was decided. Tamae-san, Tasianna, and Svena declined on coming since they weren’t interested in drinking. The two wyverns joined us, mostly to act as guards for Melloxtressa. We might have been enemies once, but it wasn’t like we both held deep grudges against each other. They didn’t even take Astalos’s death too badly.

“Gu—Waaaaaaaah!” Melloxtressa suddenly yawned as we exited the RV. When I asked if she was still tired, Melloxtressa nodded.

“Yes… I honestly haven’t slept even once since I was pregnant with Hestia’s egg. Even after laying it, I still did not sleep. Not to mention when Hestia was lost to me. The moment I met her was the first time I slept in seven years.”

“Seven years?!” I was astonished.

Yorshka took over to explain, “The gestation period for a dragon egg is one to five years, depending on the parents. Coupled with low reproduction rates and the time needed for a dragon to fully mature sexually. The time needed to hatch an egg is also an issue.”

That made sense to me. Five years for Hestia’s egg to be laid then the near two years of her going missing.

“Also, the Matriarch isn’t just tired, she is missing out on some serious amounts of sleep. The older a dragon, the more rest they require to stabilize their mana. That’s why dragons sleep for so long.”

“Well, ten years of sleep usually go by quite fast. Dragon mothers usually have to stay awake for quite a bit to take care of their whelps, but I guess I didn’t sleep much when I was striving to evolve into an SS rank. That might have added up, it seems.”

“Hold on, does this mean you will have to go to sleep soon?” I asked, worried for her.

“Most likely, yes. I’ve kept myself awake for Hestia’s sake all this time. Once things settle down, I probably should go to sleep but… I’ve already missed out on nearly two years of her life. I can’t just go to sleep…”

I guess that is a problem. The first few years are the most important for the mother-child bonding. I guess I should have a good talk with Hestia after this.

But first, drinking time.

A note from AbyssRaven

Hestia, Hestia, no, no. Okay, seriously, don't forget to look it through Hestia's perspective. Her little dream with her other half was like a second ago. She did not experience the three weeks the others did since she was in a coma. In her mind, she just fought the geisenlarg and just saw Eshe die. To her, before everything was explained, this was in the same day Griffonpeak was attacked.

Her being a brat now made sense.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 252: Taking my Mind off.

A note from AbyssRaven

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The damage that Griffonpeak had sustained during that entire day of fighting could only be described as unbalanced. What I meant by that is how it was spread. The upper city and merchant district were completely fine; in fact, if you only looked at those two areas, you wouldn’t even think the city was attacked. The nobles and wealthy merchants got off well enough.

On the other hand, we have the rest of the lower city. Even as I was making my way to the orphanage, I could see the area where Saori fought the necromancer and where I had my berserk moment against the demonkin assassin. The area around the front gate where we fought the geisenlarg was also terribly ruined. There was so much rubble.

Thankfully, it seems that the three weeks I spent asleep were pretty busy for the city from the looks of it. I could see quite a lot of construction work going on between the builders and mages, especially for the walls. Builders would transport large amounts of bricks up the walls through an elevator driven by equerochsen, where they would place them against the wall and apply a cement-like sludge to stick them together.

Meanwhile on the ground, the mages were busy creating more bricks and that sludge stuff. Earth mages would tear out small rocks from boulders using [Rock Blast] or some similar spell, which would then be pulverized by other earth mages. Laborers would place these ground rocks into two areas, where they would be turned into either bricks or that sludge.

In another area, water mages would start drenching this powder, making it easier for laborers to mould it into a brick form. In the other one, earth mages began grinding everything once again before handing it over to the wind and fire mages. The former would create a tornado for the powder to circulate in like a rotating kiln, while the fire mages began heating everything up.

After all of this was done, the brick would be sun dried while the cement-like substance was turned into a sludge for use. Once everything was on the wall, wind mages began cooling it down while earth mages fortified it.

All of this happened in a rotation. Those who were exhausted were replaced by the resting ones. There weren’t too many mages and they had limits to their mana, so this process wasn’t as fast as you would think. Well, it probably was fast for the people of Artorias, given their technology level.

Fire mages are participating, but they aren’t doing much.

I sadly didn’t have much knowledge on any of this. I never learned how cement or bricks were made as it just wasn’t interesting. However, even I could see that fire mages would be great for drying stuff. Why were only wind mages used? Is it ‘cause wind spells do a better or safer job with it? I had no idea.

Still, just looking at how the mages worked together with the builders and laborers to repair or build something was quite fascinating. I hadn’t had the chance to watch a full construction work up until now. Just watching the amount of work earth mages had to do during a single construction job made me aware why they were so popular, not to mention how useful earth magic was for farm work.

Earth was good for anything related to civilization, wind magic for scouting and transportation, and water mages were most likely very popular around ports or any body of water. So, what use does fire magic have for a city or town? I could imagine quite a lot of uses, especially with anything metal, so why weren’t fire mages more popular?

At the end of the day, maybe the prejudice against fire magic really is from the stigma around the church of Danterno. Well, too bad, Shiterno. Take better care of your followers.

So why was I able to give a detailed description of the construction site? Well, flying with rocket boosters was quite fast, especially when I was trying to get away from Melloxtressa. I had initially ignored the construction work around the city and quickly made it to the orphanage, where I then noticed the city wall behind it was being repaired. I had been staring at it from a random roof for quite a bit now.

I needed time to think. Find myself, you could say. Unlike how I could speak with my parallel minds, I couldn’t just speak to my other half. For some reason, I could imagine her feeling vindictive at what just happened. A new mother? Perfect time to forget about my previous one, right? Yeeeeah, no.

I realized that I overreacted a bit. It wasn’t even Melloxtressa’s fault. She wasn’t really forcing the whole mother-daughter thing too much. I guess it was just bad timing? I did just wake up from that dream with my other half, so meeting Melloxtressa just after that made me a bit prickly.

Even my parallel minds told me that my memories of my Earth mother and dragon mother aren't being merged together. It was just a side-effect of the stressful and surprising situation. I could perfectly think of Mama’s shadowy silhouette and Melloxtressa’s face without any problems now. I probably should return and say sorry but… it’s awkward.

Besides, I had to find the kids first. Make sure they and the caretakers were okay.

I jumped off the roof and made my way to the orphanage's construction site. Well, it’s more like the whole neighborhood required repairs. Eshe’s fight with the demonkin followed by my own really did a number on this whole area. Aside from the construction workers, nobody else was here.

As I approached the construction site, a laborer quickly noticed me and ran up to stop me.

“Hey, hey, lass, this really isn’t— Oh shit, a blue blood priest?!” The moment he tried to stop me, he quickly noticed my draconic features and white robe. “O-Oh, damn! Please, forgive me, Champion Hestia! Please, have mercy on me! I didn’t mean to offend you!”

Hold on, ‘Champion?’

“Please, calm down. You know me?” I stopped moving to ask him.

“Y-Yes, of course, your Highness! A friend told me about your music performance and I attended it with my wife and kids!” He then pointed at one of his co-workers, prompting them to stop eating and give him a “don’t drag me into this” expression.

So, is this person maybe a fan? That’s kinda cool to meet one here.

“I see! Well, I hope my concert was to your liking.” He nodded, exclaiming how much he liked the pastries and food with the whole festive atmosphere.

… Not really what I was aiming for but I’ll take it.

“Well, alright, that’s good to hear. Uhm, you just called me ‘Champion’… Uh, where did you hear that?” I was pretty sure that should still be a secret.

“Huh? W-Well, didn’t you announce that to the whole city, your Highness? That you were one of the Goddess’s blessed? I also heard from some adventurers how you announced yourself as royalty or something. A princess, right guys?”

Uurk!

Now that I thought about it, I did announce that to everybody fighting at the gates, right? Once I admitted my royalty status, there probably wasn't any way for anybody to stop the rumors. Well, except for that one way that Duke Greenveil suggested after the Cedaraille battle — permanent silencing.

“People of Griffonpeak! I, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor, party leader of the C rank adventurer party ‘Aurora’ stand with you!” I said. Muraina and King Drangleic even went out of their way to support me and publicly support my statement. You only needed one person versed in how dragon culture functioned and boom, you would know I was a member of the royal family. Muraina even called me a Champion.

I did all of that to motivate and bring hope to everybody. I was pretty impulsive when I said all of that, but it wasn’t as if I had another option. I had to be in my dragon form for that battle. I had to give people some kind of explanation so they wouldn't be afraid of me. If they thought of me as just another adventurer helping out, we could work together better.

Well, what’s done is done. My secret was out. In that case, it wouldn’t be good to hide it any longer.

“Also, I think the city criers announced how you were one of the city’s heroes with her Holiness, Saintess Eshe. So, uhm, thank you very much for saving us, Champion Hestia. May the Goddess bless you.” The worker and his four co-worker bowed deeply, showing their gratitude. I had to quickly stop them, as it made me feel flustered.

Still, “hero,” huh? I wasn’t sure if that word really fitted me. I wasn’t a hero, Eshe was. The ideal hero would be someone who could lay their life down to help others unconditionally. I, on the other hand, couldn’t always do it for random strangers… I think. I was reckless, sure, but I still thought of myself more as an entertainer.

Then again, words were cheap, actions spoke louder. The song I dedicated to Eshe was a bit cringey, now that I thought about it. It was so good, up until I mentioned “picking up her torch.” Argh, so embarrassing. Calling myself something like the “Heir of Hope,” despite not being that super inspiring like Eshe, is just too pretentious. If I could change the lyrics right now, I would, but the Idol system didn’t allow for that.

System, I would like to change [The Heir of Hope]’s lyrics.

The lyrics of a spell song may not be changed

Verdammt.

Ignoring what just happened, I asked the workers what happened with the orphanage kids and caretakers. They told me they were currently being accommodated in the cathedral, under Duke Olivus’s and High Bishop Theodore’s orders, where the two of them were in charge after the death of Cardinal Bennard.

“Yeah, what a day that was. Not only did Saintess Eshe have to leave us for the Goddess, but it’s been announced that the cardinal fell to his death on his way back to the Olivus duchy. Damn shame.”

“As if. If you ask me, that has to be the Goddess’s punishment. Suddenly leaving the city on the day the Saintess died? It’s not like the church sent anybody to help the adventurers at the gate, and they sided with the merchants and nobles who blocked us from being able to escape to safety in the merchant district. The Goddess had to be mad!” One of the other workers rambled.

“Oi, shush, you idiot. Champion Hestia, please forgive this idiot here! He’s not the brightest!”

Ah, I see. So the King hid the cardinal’s execution with a convenient lie, huh?

Saori mentioned before that the cardinal had left the city for the Olivus duchy on the day the geisenlarg attacked. Most likely, Hamil had warned him ahead of time. Fleeing didnt really help the Cardinal that much, however, as he was arrested in his family’s mansion after the attack and brought back to Griffonpeak where his trial and subsequent execution were held.

The nobility probably knew this open secret. To prevent having people lose faith in the cathedral, they probably spun this lie to keep the common people ignorant. Well, not like I really cared how they handled this. The cardinal and the nobles who supported him got what they deserved. None of this would have happened if it weren’t for those backstabbing, sabotaging bastards.

I said my goodbye to the workers and flew over to the cathedral, where I turned into my fully human form so as to not attract attention. I threw my white robe into my storage for a moment and hoped nobody associated crimson red hair with me.

[Humanize (Major)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

I sadly didn’t get too far. The whole cathedral area was filled to the brim with people using their lunch breaks to pray to a memorial in Eshe’s and her knights’ honor. Everything was wide open and the clergy were making sure to accommodate everybody around.

I could see High Bishop Theodore giving a sermon from afar and I saw the kids and the caretakers. They weren’t crying, thankfully, but they didn’t seem to be happy about things. Eshe’s mourning period has lasted for three weeks now, and it didn’t look like it would end anytime soon.

I decided to leave. I was just happy to see the orphanage doing alright. I didn’t want to push myself onto other people when they were mourning. I’ll meet up with them later when I was in a better mood.

For my next destination, I chose Shaturein. Specifically, Hamil’s hidden base. Tasianna already mentioned that Hamil escaped before she could capture him, and, since they haven’t mentioned him today, he probably hadn't been caught afterward. I wanted to see the place where this maniac lived and also check on the damage I did to the undercity in general.

[Humanize (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Since the entrance to Shaturein probably changed and asking around was too hard, I decided to take the easy path, if it was still open. I flew over to where I made that hole, noticing quite a few mages, knights, and other workers there.

[Humanize (Major)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Excuse me, sir, are you currently working on repairing that large hole?” I asked a random worker, acting like a curious human girl.

“Huh? Lass, you shouldn’t be here. The mages can get quite cranky if you meet them. But, yeah, we are and it’s been going on for a while now with little progress,” he answered, so I asked him why the mages were irritated. “So, you see, have you heard the rumors that there is a whole undercity underneath the city?”

“Ehhhhhh?! Really?! You aren’t messing with me, right, sir?”

He believed in my acting. “Nah, overheard it from the mages and knights. I guess those red-light district guys probably knew the truth, too. No idea why the king and nobles hadn’t dealt with it, but whatever I guess. Anyways, that hole leads directly down.”

“Really?! Shouldn’t it be super deep? That’s a pretty scary thought if you fell there.”

“I checked it. Dark as the God of Darkness. We laborers are only allowed to get close to it with a mage’s or knight’s supervision. Don’t want a sudden death,” he explained. “In any case, the mages down in the undercity are constantly arguing with the mages on our side. There is normally this thick fairnite plate separating the two cities. Heard it protects us from all the unmonitored magic experiments down there. Goddess, help us.”

He then pointed at the giant hole for me and the knights guarding it. “We’re finished constructing the fairnite plate and are ready to attach it, but the mages have been arguing how to do it. Their way or our way, you see. Honestly, those mages are so stubborn, but I guess it comes with the profession, huh? I would be pretty up my own ass if I could create earth from nothing, ha!”

“Oooh,” I feigned curiosity. “So, so, that plate hasn’t been installed yet? If one of those knights were to fly into it, they could end up on the other side, right?”

“Guess so,” he shrugged, uninterested in considering my question. “Anyways, you should get out of here, lass. If you get hurt, your merchant family might get me in trouble. Okay?”

“Yeah, sure. Sorry for bothering you, sir.”

Hmm, my clothes are still too flashy. Well, they were made by Saori so being confused for a merchant’s daughter is the least they could do!

Satisfied with his answer, I walked away from him, only to turn around and sneak through the construction site. It might have been sunny but sneaking past was still easy when everybody was busy. Humans weren’t like Belzac’s beasts, after all.

[Various Spell Buffs] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

After identifying a good path, I cast [Haste] and [Swift Winds] on myself and dashed towards the hole from everybody’s blind spot. I was only a few feet away from the hole when one of the knights’ hippogryphs noticed me and warned its rider.

“Hey, girl, stop!” He tried to stop me but it was too late. I had already jumped into the hole.

“I’ll be alright, don’t worry~” I waved at him before conjuring up a green magic circle for everybody to see, casting [Tailwind] to speed up my descent while preventing them from catching me.

This was also a good time for me to check out if I could still use [Pyrokinesis] well after it merged into [Volcanic Blaze]. It should, but I better test the skill out.

“Fire, light for me the path forward!”

Dramatizing a simple fire snap with my fingers was pretty cringe, but I’m a dragon princess, so your argument has no merit. Joking aside, the fire I held in my palm was lighting up this tunnel, but I didn’t feel much had changed with my ability to control it.

Still, it might require more testing to figure out its actual use. [Volcanic Blaze] could be an empty vessel magic, or maybe it had something to do with geothermal energy? It could be anything. I just needed to find it out later on.

“Oh shit!”

“Yo dazo! Sayonara!”

As I was falling, a few mages noticed me and cried out in a panic. I greeted them in my calmest voice possible and said goodbye. Hmm, now that I thought about it, maybe it sounded like I was attempting suicide? Probably. So I decided to play some music to announce that I was safe.

[Music Resonation (Minor)] [Humanize (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Once I saw the light behind this tunnel, I materialized my wings again and sped myself up until I was outside of it. I then looked around, immediately finding the area where I fought Eithalr. I went all out to defeat him, so it couldn’t be helped that I turned it into a desolated black spot on any current map. It seemed they cooled down the lava and just left it there. No signs of repairs, in contrast to the rest of the city.

With my “landmark,” I quickly located Hamil’s secret residence using Muraina’s map. Once I landed, I wanted to enter the mansion, only to notice a lycerepthor coming out of it.

“Huh? Official empire business. Please, leave.” It wasn’t any of the lycerepthors I recognized, then again, outside of Pestrodus and his vice, I didn’t know any of them. Oh, wait, that demonkin was one, too, right?

I took out my white robe and put it back on, before declaring my identity and intentions, “I am Princess Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor of the Dragon Empire. If you are here for empire business, so am I. Can you move out of the way, please?”

If a group of commoners already knew me, I wouldn't be surprised if Pestrodus and his group knew about me. If the news about me being a champion circulated, he would have definitely heard who I am somewhere. His subordinate should have heard about me.

“P-Princess?! Oh sh— Ahem, I-I am sorry but our agents are still investigating the area. My orders tell me I cannot let you in, Champion Hestia!” He was adamant about it.

“Alright,” I replied. “Then call Pestrodus or whoever his second-in-command is. I don’t want to wait for too long.”

If he’s here, then I can ask him about a few things. Spares me the need to find him.

The young lycerepthor nodded and entered the mansion. Once he returned with an older-looking agent, I was led into the mansion and down to the basement, where I met up with Pestrodus.

“Ah, Lady Hestia. Or, should I address you as Champion or Princess?” Pestrodus gestured to me to sit down after telling his subordinates to leave us alone. “Don’t worry, the seats were cleaned. I did it myself after isolating myself inside here for the past week.”

I took on his offer and sat down. “Lady or just Hestia is okay, whatever you like.”

He nodded. “I see… Well, you did mention that wasn’t your full name, but I didn’t expect to learn it after Saintess Eshe’s death… Lady Hestia, since you are one of Her blessed, could you tell me what Her plan in all of this is supposed to be?”

I had heard that the demonkin of envy was posing as Pestrodus’s cousin, so I guess he was asking why all of this was happening. Eshe’s death had affected me also, so I kinda sympathized with him on this matter.

Now, the question was: Should I answer him like any other blessed would or should I speak with the knowledge of somebody who can directly speak with Aurena?

“… Even if you ask me that, I can’t exactly give you a direct answer. Sorry, even after everything, I can’t begin trusting you, Pestrodus.” I decided to hide my knowledge. He was still an agent of the empire.

He sighed but nodded in understanding. “… Being from different countries, it is only natural for you to distrust me. I would too, if I was in your shoes. I did not expect my cousin to be one of the conspirators for all of this. Those demonkin are truly evil.”

“Has anybody told you that Eshe was killed by him? I was too late when I arrived to save her, I apologize.”

“No, no, don’t apologize, my lady. I trusted him too much myself. If somebody were to condemn you, then they should judge me also. I too am guilty of the Saintess’s death. Without a question, this will be a problem for the Folschreck Empire,” Pestrodus sighed deeply. “… I heard a giant dragon had appeared and stopped the geisenlarg king by freezing it solid. An acquaintance?”

“You could say so, yes.”

So, Melloxtressa froze it, huh? Well, guess I wasn’t the one who killed it after all.

“Lady Hestia, I will be departing from Griffonpeak in two days. Maybe it was the Goddess’s wish for you to wake up in time to speak with me."

“You knew I was unconscious?” I lifted a brow.

“I wanted to question you, since you were there when Saintess Eshe died. My insistence earned me a slap from your wolfkin friend. I never expected to be slapped by a beastman… but I guess I was in the wrong here. I later learned enough from them to satisfy my curiosity.”

Saori… I was also rude to her. Saying Tamae-chan knew me better than somebody who has been with me for so damn long. I guess that bitchy side of me came over after I reincarnated. I should apologize to her, too.

“If you’re leaving, what will you do about Eshe’s, Sir Alikar’s, and Dame Anivh’s bodies?” That was the question I came here to ask.

“Their bodies have been preserved, there is no need to worry. We would normally bring their remains back to their relatives… but, in truth, since Saintess Eshe was sold to the church when she was still a child, she technically belongs to the church. I am obligated by law to bring her body to the temple of Sarkarfiina.”

I clutched my hands into a fist. Considering how much Eshe hated the temple she was in, I couldn’t allow him to take them away.

“I would like to request you to not do that, Pestrodus,” I demanded.

“…I had assumed you would object, but even for a princess, I am not allowed to do that, Lady Hestia. I am not a citizen of Kargryx, nor do I believe you would wish to anger the Folschreck Empire in your current situation, Lady Hestia,” he replied, glaring at me sternly, but I did not falter. I knew how to play this.

“Don’t threaten me, Pestrodus. Regardless of the consequences, the chances of you leaving Artorias with Eshe and her knights is zero. I can assure you of that. I made sure to check if there were any traps around, and I understand you let your subordinate go because you acknowledge my strength.”

I used [Mana Eyes] before I entered the basement. I was going alone into this palace, so I had to make sure none of the agents were planning anything. I really came out of nowhere. If they wanted to do anything, they did not have the time to prepare.

“… Lady Hestia, I would like to remind you that even if you are not affiliated with Artorias, the kingdom still must answer for your actions since they hosted you. Even if you left with the Saintess’s body right now, Artorias will be held as a traitor to the church, and as a consequence, to the Folschreck Empire. Do you understand?”

“…”

With how much Artorias has done for me, am I really willing to act selfishly and bring them into a war? Sure, I could fight and maybe ask Melloxtressa to help out, but we were talking about war here. For protecting Eshe’s and her knight’s bodies, I would condemn the life of thousands of people.

How many of those soldiers sent to Artorias were actually willing to fight? How many were conscripted? Am I actually willing to be responsible for even more death and carnage?

Pestrodus tapped by shaking hands, knowing exactly what I was thinking right now. I wasn’t strong enough to bear all these responsibilities.

“I do not believe Saintess Eshe would want you to do this, Lady Hestia. At least, that’s what I learned from my limited interactions with her. I know Lady Eshe’s history. As a Lycerepth judge, that is just part of my duty. Her body cannot be desecrated; in fact, the temple will worship her remains as a sacred treasure,” Pestrodus assured me. “Through my report, they will have no choice but to do so. Saintess Eshe had made a lot of friends with the common folk. Sarkarfiina is socially unstable right now, with tensions high between the nobility and commoners.”

In other words, they have no choice but to treat Eshe’s body with respect. If that was the case, then this probably would be the best course of action. I didn’t know how the children would react, but Artorias wasn’t Eshe’s home. She still loved Sarkarfiina, even with its misgivings. Those who loved Eshe in her home city deserved to mourn, too.

I was finally persuaded and nodded to his decision. “What will you write in your report about me?” I asked after accepting how reality worked.

“… Lady Hestia, you must understand that I am a man of faith. To lie to the Lycerepth and Church would be to lie to Her. This I believe with all my heart. I will have to report everything truthfully, and only the truth. Even if it would damn me.”

Having your cousin exposed as a demonkin who killed a blessed of Aurena would be pretty damning, indeed.

“In addition, it would probably create a terrible reputation for yourself within the Church and Empire, my lady. Champions are meant to protect saints. Seeing as you failed, the church of Aurena might deem you as incompetent and lacking. They would never publicly admit this, as you still are a blessed, but they will do so internally.”

“Pah!” I sneered at what he said. “I was personally blessed by Goddess Aurena, but this is how they treat me? I even have the title to prove it. I consider myself an idol of the Goddess, but I am still officially a champion in her eyes. And yet still, they would do that before even asking my side of the story. Do they trust your report that much, Pestrodus?”

However, he shook his head. “It isn’t that they trust me specifically, they trust the Lycrepth. Besides, there are also other reasons for them to do so.”

“Pray, tell.”

“First, you did not announce your true classification until very late. While I admit, you may become the first new blessed class — the first idol — but this won’t interest the Church. You are still young, they will deem you a rebel similar to Saintess Eshe.”

Good. Sounds just like me. Like how I usurped the blessings of three gods.

“Second, it is clear to me that you have no allegiance to the Church. From your blessing, all I can presume is that you are loyal to the Goddess. If the Goddess hasn’t taken your blessing away yet, you must still be worthy in Her eyes. If the world was only filled with Her light, men like me wouldn’t exist, right? Shadows beckon, even behind holy walls.”

So, Pestrodus is at least aware of the corruption within the church? I don’t think he knows about the demonkins, or even amuses himself with such an idea, but he knows at least certain nobles are corrupt.

“The Lycerepth was made to protect the Empire and the faith, even against those wearing pristine robes and glittering armor. And, to assure I remain true to my order’s motto, I must remain earnest. Please, forgive me if the Church begins to antagonize you, Lady Hestia. From our talk today, I learned that you are not among the corrupted.”

I nodded in gratitude. “You don’t need to. If the holy capital Aureolis does not acknowledge me as a competent blessed, then it is their own fault. I will sing and dance to make people smile, but I will not allow anybody to trample on me like this.”

Pestrodus smiled weakly. I wasn’t sure if he approved of this or not, but at least I learned this person can give out a genuine smile.

Before I left, I also asked him if he learned anything about Hamil but he assured me everything he found was handed over to King Drangleic. The whole trial against Cardinal Bennard was supported by his efforts also. While the common folk will only know Bennard died from an accident, the church most likely will kill him off from their history for what he had done.

A fitting end to an ambitious nobleman who was even willing to dance with the devil to get what he wanted.

“Farewell, Lady Hestia. I am not sure if we will meet ever again. It will depend on my punishment, but I do not believe it will be light. A man like me has enemies within and outside the order.” He wanted to bow but I stretched my hand out, gesturing for a handshake.

He accepted it.

“May the Goddess bless you, Pestrodus. Let the light banish the shadows in your path. If we will meet up again, may it be as allies.”

With my goodbye, I left the mansion and made my way back up. Finding the exit truly was easier than finding the entrance to Shaturein. I just had to ask somebody and I flew over there in no time. Once I saw the sun again, I let out deep sigh.

This sucks. Everything sucks, man. Life sucks. I want to go back to sleep.

“I had thought this would lighten my mood, but this fucking sucks, duuuuuuuude.” I complained to the skies, ignoring everybody around me.

… Why not. That’s what adults do, right?

I flapped my wings and made my way to the middle district, to the area around the hunter’s guild. I looked around, deciding not to enter the guild nor its inn next to it. Once I located a tavern, I landed and entered it.

I looked into my storage once inside, realizing I only had 185 Davi inside. Saori and Ellaine were our party’s treasurers. Sure, I usually carried most of our funds with me if I was going around shopping, but if I wasn’t it would be in Saori’s storage. Her mana has reached an amount where her carrying our money was viable for her. As such, I had no money on me except for the amount Saori gave me all those weeks ago.

This was the money Saori presented to me as a Christmas gift after she worked her ass off in Carine village. It wasn’t a lot, but it had a lot of sentimentality attached to it.

Can’t believe I’m using it to buy ale, but… I guess it’s my pocket money. None of this needed to be announced to Ellaine. 185 should be enough to buy a few pints to get drunk and forget the shit today.

As I sighed once again, I began to look for an empty table. I never understood why adults drank alcohol. I even hated the taste, but I guess I could try drinking my sorrows away for now. Not like I would get addicted to the horrid taste.

“Come on, Tatsuya, it’s still noon! Sensei will be livid if she learns we drank for lunch!”

“Oh, shut up, Kyouya. We’re adults! Segawa-sensei may still be our sensei, but she can’t exactly scold us when we’re legally able to drink now.”

Hmm? Tatsuya? Kyouya? Aren’t those Japanese names?

I walked towards those voices, becoming curious at what they said. I could see two young adventurer-looking men ordering food and drinks from a waitress, arguing about if they should be drinking or not. As they turned their heads around and began gesturing whenever they spoke, I noticed how their complexion looked pretty Asians. A literal rarity within Peolynca.

The only Asian people I knew were Saori, Tamae and her party, and me—

— and now I knew two more.

“Hey, there,” I said once I was standing next to their table.

“O-Oh, hey!” The taller dude with dirt blond hair addressed me nervously. He looked as if he had dyed his hair.

When I turned my eyes to the shorter guy with the spear, all I saw was a frowning face.

“Do I know you?” he asked.

A note from AbyssRaven

Oh no, they met! Coffee boy and dragon girl!

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Chapter 253: Nerding Out.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Ahahaha! Ahh, that makes sense now. I thought you knew me from back when I was on Earth. Whew, you made me worry that I had forgotten your face and your name!” I laughed out loud while sitting with two of Saori’s students inside a tavern.

“Huh? Hestia-san, you have amnesia?” Kyouya, the guy with dirt blond hair and equipment which made him look like a knight, responded.

I tilted my head. “Did Saori or Tamae-chan not tell you two? Yeah, when I was reincarnated by Aurena and Kargryxmor, they tried to erase my memories. Normal procedure, apparently. When you die, your soul gets a memory wipe. A clean slate. So, it kind of makes Saori and me special, right?”

“Y-Yeah, you and Sensei do seem more like Peolyncians at first glance than we do. Unlike us, you even speak Common fluently and look like the more human-like beastmen, Hestia-san,” Tatsuya, the wolf-smelling spearman with dark green hair, commented. I could also hear him murmur, “A wolf and dragon girl…” but I didn’t bring it up.

After meeting these two for the first time a few minutes ago, I was a bit surprised to hear Tatsuya say “Do I know you?” From that dream sequence, I knew my face was similar to my previous life’s, only with draconic features now. So, I was quite baffled to suddenly learn that a former Japanese student knew me. It just seemed like the perfect time to gain back some of my memories.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. When I told Kyouya and Tatsuya about my predicament, I had anticipated some good news, only to hear that they saw me unconscious in bed when they arrived in Griffonpeak. I laughed it off, but I would lie if I didn’t say I felt a sharp sting of disappointment.

Still, idols smile even in the hardest times. It would have been too easy to just suddenly learn about my entire past. Guess I’ll have to follow Aurena’s advice for now and wait for my soul to repair.

Hmm, I haven’t heard from Aurena in a while. Should I ask her? … Nah, she’s probably busy after Eshe’s… death.

Aurena didn’t speak much but I thought she would at least have something to say. No idea what she was doing now — was she even mourning Eshe’s death? Well, it didn’t matter right now, as I had my own problems to solve first.

“Sorry for the wait! Your food and rice wine!” A katzune woman walked up to us, carrying a tray with food in one hand and another tray with three small wooden cups and a bottle with a white liquid in the other hand.

Before she came too close, I preemptively took control of the [Air Shield] around our table, creating a hole for her to enter to place all the dishes and drinks down. Without Tasianna around, the air barrier couldn’t just let air and sound in without preventing our voices from escaping at the same time.

“Thank you very much, Haati,” I thanked her. “You got us the best parts of the meat from the stew, right?”

The young katzune woman smiled and nodded vigorously, “Of course, Lady Hestia! After everything you did for me, I made sure to tell the chef to give you three the best we can offer. Although, I think it might still not be very fitting for a princess. Hehe, I do hope it's to your liking.”

She seemed a bit nervous, but considering the situation, it was to be expected.

Haati was one of the people I saved from the slave auction held by Hamil. I might have went there just to rescue the orphan kids, but we decided to free everybody from their bonds. I played the haughty noble act to infiltrate the auction house where, to my surprise, I met Haati, who had been caught and enslaved there.

She lost her brothers on the night she was kidnapped during my first concert of Griffonpeak. It’s good that she was able to get her life back in order, seeing as she managed to get a job. Still, I wonder how much she’s hiding behind that smile of hers.

Life wasn’t fair — the truth behind these words became clearer and clearer to me with every passing day. Well, not like I haven’t already experienced it multiple times here in Peolynca and on Earth. But, what does a tantrum solve? All it does is push people away from me.

Argh, forget it! All these shitty thoughts when I’m trying to calm myself down! It’s stew time!

I ignored my brain and placed the spoonful of stew into my mouth, taking in the warm broth with bits of vegetable and meat. To be honest, the stew lacked some salt, and, if I really wanted to be critical, the texture was a bit too watery like a soup. Still, that didn’t mean it had no flavor. In fact, from the still crunchy vegetables and succulent meat, it had it aplenty.

“It’s pretty good. I like it,” I said, clearly causing everybody, even the other guests, to let out a sigh in relief.

“Yeah, it’s not bad. Pretty hearty,” Kyouya agreed while Tatsuya nodded.

After Haati left with a satisfied smile, I closed up the air barrier.

The fact that Saori’s students were otherworldly “heroes” might be known to the public but their faces, on the other hand, weren't. These two asked me to erect an [Air Shield] since they understood how much attention they might draw from their time in the Lecartiglio duchy. Well, I guess they probably underestimated how much attention I would draw.

Everybody is looking. A few even left. I should apologize to the owner by buying a bit more food. Feeling a bit peckish from flying around the town.

“Well, in any case, it’s good to meet you two, Kyouya, Tatsuya. I’m Hestia Atsuko, although I don’t exactly know my past name, so please call me Hestia.” I stood up and gestured for a handshake and both young men responded. “I heard from Tamae-san that, uhm, The Magical Biscuits and Misfits are intending to join up with us. Saori already said okay, but I gave my own okay after I woke up if that matters at all to you two. One question, though. Why exactly did you call your party ‘Misfits?’”

“Ehhh, well…” Kyouya scratched his cheek, looking conflicted. “It’s what the others called us for a while since we were a team made up of those who couldn’t find a team at first. We had to party up out of necessity.”

“Well, everybody but Kyouya,” Tatsuya interjected. “Haruka-chan — small girl, smells like a foxian because of her unique skill — was the last pick for the girls, so she had to end up with us. Two others and I were not even in anybody’s consideration, but, Kyouya? Dude was chosen for the ‘Hero’ party, but declined them just for me. He’s a real pal, you know.”

Tatsuya began clapping Kyouya on the back while the latter laughed it off, saying “If I hadn’t, you probably would have caused more trouble for everybody” while Tatsuya replied with “Shut up! With how stressful this world can be, you should be glad I haven’t been broken yet!”

“Hiehie,” I giggled. They sounded like good friends.

As they were arguing, my nose suddenly picked up a disgusting smell from the wooden bottle Haati placed down. Rice wine, she called it. I had smelled sake before, and this was just as disgusting as last time.

Still, I told Haati to bring three cups when the boys ordered it. They mentioned they would get in trouble with Saori if she knew they drank, so I told them I wouldn’t say anything if I could have some as well. As such, I poured the white liquid into our three cups and served them to everybody.

“Oh, thanks, Hestia-san,” Tatsuya thanked me. “But, uhm, do you really want to drink that?”

“Hmm? What do you mean?”

“Well, you’re still underaged, right? Also, the sake here isn’t the best, but it still has a pretty strong alcohol taste. It’s pretty intense.”

“… Drinking age is 15 in most Peolyncian countries from what I heard, at least it is in Artorias. If you’re talking about Japanese drinking age, then shouldn’t you be underaged as well? Really no need to complain about it.”

“… Aren’t you American, Hestia-san? Drinking age is 21 there, so you really shouldn’t be drinking stuff like this. Sure, we might be 19 right now, but it’s better than a 15-year-old like you.”

“Oh, come on! I’m 16 this year, alright? Besides, this is Peolynca, I’m just at the right age to drink!”

“You say that, but I know from Sensei that you two were just born last year in your new Peolyncian bodies. In other words, you are just a year old! What if you get too drunk and Sensei finds us here? Considering how protective she seemed of you, we really would like to avoid you stumbling around, drunk as a salaryman after their payday!”

Saori is protective of me? Well, I can see that with how much of a worrywart she is, but we are friends, to the point I consider her family at this point. I too am protective of her and the others of Aurora. But why would she be worried if I drank a bit?

“Alright, alright, chill, you two.” Seeing us argue like this, Kyouya stepped in between us, figuratively, and attempted to calm things down. “Tatsuya, just have her try it. Considering we’ll be working together from this point, I don’t think you should already start antagonizing her like this.”

Tatsuya raised a brow to his friend. “I’m not trying to antagonize her. I’m just warning her of this stuff. You drank it with me before, so you should know that it hits hard. Argh, whatever, I came here to just rest before going back to the guild, so let’s just drink. Do you know what to say when we toast in Japanese, Hestia-san?”

“Of course. I have family in Japan, after all.”

We all picked up our small cups and with a countdown, gently touched our cups together, letting out a small wooden dud.

“““Kanpei! (Cheers!)”””

As I saw Kyouya and Tatsuya only sipping a small bit from the rice wine, I drew the cup closer to me, noticing how warm it had made my fingers. I steeled myself, ignored my nose, and took a si—

“Bruff! Puff!”

This is disgusting!!!

“Ark, see! I knew this would happen, Kyouya!”

The moment the warm liquid touched my tongue, my body instinctively rejected it, causing me to spit it out before it could move past the entrance of my mouth. From the wind I expelled, some of the sake spilled onto the table, earning me the annoyance of Tatsuya.

“Uhm, Hestia-san?” Kyouya suddenly pointed to the side, bringing my attention to Haati standing outside with a wry smile. I opened up the air bubble for her to enter.

“Lady Hestia.” While hearing Haati’s voice again, I saw she had brought a patchwork cloth and a mug filled with something sweet-smelling. It was probably juice.

“… You expected this?” I said, quickly realizing how prepared she was.

“I saw you didn’t like the fruit wine when we first met. I heard the wine reserved for nobles or rich merchants was usually less strong with a focus on a pleasant aroma. So, since the rice wine we commoners use is, well, cheaply made, it’s there to make you drunk fast. If you didn’t like the fruit wine, I thought you might not like this rice wine, Lady Hestia.”

Blinking my eyes blankly for a second, I quickly thanked Haati for her consideration and cleaned the sake on my lips. I could feel my face warming up from embarrassment. I then took a sip from the fruit juice and thanked Aurena. Ooh, being able to cleanse that nasty filth from my mouth was a godsend.

Once Haati left, I noticed Tatsuya giving me that “told you so” eyes, causing me to scoff at him. I then turned my eyes away and drank a bit more until I felt refreshed. Kyouya and Tatsuya laughed it off and told me to eat before my stew turned cold.

“So, I heard from Sensei that you're an idol, right? K-pop or J-pop,” Kyouya asked while we were eating together.

“K-pop, 100%,” I replied with full confidence. “I do like the idol scene in Japan, but I personally think the Korean one has developed faster and is more eager to experiment— Hold on, that smile. Oh, don’t tell me! You’re actually a fan of the scene!”

“Yeah, damn right, I am!” Kyouya tapped the table while raising his voice. “I fucking love the composition of the music added with the singing. I began listening to them pretty religiously once I joined the athletic club. Without some music, I can’t even train properly.”

“Huh?” Tatsuya took notice. “Is that why you always hummed those songs? I never really understood why you liked Korean stuff so much when we have enough gaming studios focusing on their tracks. I mean, come on, imagine if you had battle music accompany you while you go hunting.”

I slammed the table the moment he said and stood up, jumping up and up while waggling my tail gleefully. “Oooh, I get what you’re talking about! Here, how about this!”

I activated my music.

[Music Resonation (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Is this the fated battle, the light shines ♫

It’s blinding my sight ♫

But I’ve gotta hold on, the stage calls ♫

The cries of a thousand, the flames of war will descend ♫”

“Oh?! Hold up, is that music? An electric guitar?! Wait, are you actually able to recreate instruments, Hestia-san?!” Kyouya stood up as well, infected by my enthusiasm.

“Sure, can do! [Aerokinesis] allows me to control wind almost perfectly. So when I learned I could do that, I immediately focused on recreating the sounds of every instrument I could think of! I’m not an idol for nothing!”

“And what is this [Music Resonation] part? For some reason, after I got it, I started to feel less fatigued,” Tatsuya noted.

“My spell songs. Did Saori tell you how I’m a champion of Aurena?” They nodded. “Yeah, I got the unique skill [Idol] from her. Not only does it allow me to create spell songs through the idol system, if you get [Music Resonation] I can also share my buffs with you similar to [Synergist’s Oath].”

“Are you serious? That’s your unique skill? The ones we got when we came to Peolynca really sucked unlike yours,” Tatsuya complained before handing over the information to me.

Rush Hour

A skill that dictates a user’s maximum stamina and general activeness. Lowers maximum stamina of the user in low tension situations. Increases maximum stamina of the user in high tension situations. In a flight and fight situation; the user may activate this skill to cleanse any [Exhaustion] effects and apply [Rush Hour] on oneself, significantly increasing Agility and Stamina regeneration. However, under [Rush Hour] the user will also receive double of all incoming damage. Once dispelled, the user will be inflicted with [Starvation (Minor)], and [Exhaustion (Moderate)] or [Exhaustion (Major)] depending on the length of [Rush Hour]’s usage

Ardent Defender

A skill that specializes in and improves the defense of the user. Improves the effectiveness of all shield abilities by reducing a certain amount of damage from any blocked attacks. Passively improves Vitality and Wisdom of other members of the user’s party

[Rush Hour] was Tatsuya’s unique skill while [Ardent Defender] belonged to Kyouya. To be honest, [Rush Hour] sucked while [Ardent Defender] was consistently good in every situation. I mean, just look at the minuses it has. Sure, it might be good when things get dicey — a berserker-like effect — but that was about it.

I know those demonkin summoned Saori’s students to this word but they really didn’t do much to make their unique skills amazing, huh? Even Tamae’s party had some good, some okay-ish ones. None was on [Idol]’s tier, with its ability to create multiple songs with varying effects for different situations. Even Eshe’s [Honored, Sworn Knights] was strong enough to push a demonkin to go full out.

I guess this just proves the difference between proper blessed and those summoned by non-gods.

“Ahh, don’t worry about it. Skills can evolve and merge into new ones. You just have to grasp it when the opportunity arises. The Divine System is like a game sometimes,” I encouraged the two before we continued our meal, even ordering more and more stuff to snack on.

While we did so, I learned what their and Tamae’s parties had been up to after Tamae left us in Cedaraille. They apparently entered the Belzac Forest for a training session with Yorshka, when she went to check on the information I gave her about the grimgarians.

It was there that they coincidentally met a small scouting group of the grimgarian army, who ambushed them. Tatsuya and another member of his party — the leader of the Misfits, Asaka Hanazawa — accidentally fell through a hole, landing in the final resting grounds of Belzac himself. It was there when they met and spoke with Belzac’s soul.

“Huh, considering what I’ve already experienced, that really doesn’t seem outlandish. We met an army of angry souls called onnikai during our time in a place called Rashan village who could possess corpses to move them around like zombies,” I commented, recalling the story of Kiiro and Davison’s experiments.

Tatsuya continued his story after I was done, telling me how he ingested a bit of Belzac’s blood while Asaka gained control of four ex-wolf will-o’-the-wisps. They were forced into this decision, since Belzac demanded them to bring Saori to him in exchange for allowing them to escape his resting area.

“… Let me guess, Saori did not take it well.” Saori cared for her students. I could imagine her not liking this one bit, and my guess was confirmed when both nodded.

“Those wolf spirits Asaka had tried to persuade Sensei, but that was when four giant wolves emerged from her shadow, physically blocking them from reaching her. Seeing them growl and bare their fangs was pretty terrifying when they stood right in front of us.” Tatsuya shook his head at that memory.

Kyouya nodded. “Sensei told us she wasn’t willing to go back to the Belzac Forest. ‘This isn’t my business,’ as she said. I guess Belzac didn’t expect her to refuse like this, as Tatsuya hadn’t felt any side effects up until now.”

I shrugged. “Well, his fault. At least now you smell like a wolf and have a druid-like transformation. Pretty good reward, I say.”

“Yeah, it is, but I can only activate the druidification with blood from renowned monsters. Those with long lineages… like dragons, for example.” He stared at me when he said that.

I drank my juice before responding, “Yeah, say that on our first meeting, Mister Vampire. Asking a girl for her blood doesn’t sound gross or creepy at all. Nice tact.”

“O-Oh, sorry about that. I didn’t mean to say it that bluntly.” He became flustered.

“Argh, don’t worry about it,” I dismissed it by waving my hand. “I’m just teasing you. But, seriously though, you aren’t getting my blood just like that, Tatsuya-san.”

Yes, I gave Saori and that Chezaic boy, Amadeus, some of my blood, but those were special cases. I only learned afterward that dragons shouldn’t be giving their blood out willy-nilly, since most dragonewts consider that disrespectful.

Elixirs made from dragon blood were the height of blasphemy, and if a dragonewt were to learn of that fact, they wouldn’t show the person holding it any mercy. When I heard from Yorshka that Saori smelled a bit too much like me after I gave her my blood to evolve into her current form, I was a bit nervous. To avoid that, I decided to be more careful and ask for Yorshka’s advice when it’s possible.

We then continued talking, where I learned that Kyouya was a huge K-pop fan, even sharing a few groups I loved. Tatsuya, on the other hand, was a full-on otaku, who had very little interest outside of gaming, manga, light novels, etc. Both of them were the children of large corporation CEOs, but they showed little interest in their fathers’ businesses.

“Oh, they didn’t even force you to eventually inherit their position?” I asked.

“Nah, our fathers didn’t own those corporations. They were the CEOs since they earned a ton of money for the board of directors and the shareholders. We became friends since our fathers used to live in the same neighborhood, until Kyouya had to move away and our fathers became business rivals,” Tatsuya explained.

Kyouya laughed at that explanation, “Haha, thankfully, they didn’t force us to play part in their new relationship, but it didn’t mean they stopped comparing us with each other.”

“Welp, if I didn’t keep up with school, my dad probably would have pulled the cord on all my spendings. I couldn’t buy any more games or merchandise if he did that. Haaaa, but to be honest, instead of my otaku life, I honestly miss coffee more. A mug of my mother’s freshly brewed coffee every morning before school was heavenly. Mhmmm, coffee.”

Pfff, coffee boy.

“Then, have you tasted fulinoe tea yet?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah, I have! Tamae-san gave me some when we reunited. Told me it came from your garden. When I saw Tasianna’s garden, I thought I would get a heart attack. The smell of fulinoe tea every morning before taking on a Quest is heavenly. Mhmmm, fulinoe tea.”

Deja vu?!

In any case, for how random this meeting was, it went by surprisingly well. Compared to what happened at the start of the day, speaking with these two about our interests and what we experienced after landing in Peolynca was a blast.

It reminded me of when I had these talks with Saori and Tasianna in the Belzac forest. We still had them now and then, but I guess since we were together all the time, we didn’t have much to talk about. Then again, Saori usually mingled with the more shady people, for example, Gael, Muraina, Krymdar, and so on, so her days were usually pretty fascinating.

It’s good to meet new people… just like when I met Eshe. Her curry was so good, and her stories of Sarkarfiina…

I’m so sorry for not being there to help you, Eshe. Please, forgive me…

“Hey, hey, Hestia-san. Come on, another toast,” Tatsuya suddenly said.

“Hmm?” I tilted my head, prompting him to clarify.

“Well, we haven’t exactly toasted to our meeting yet, right? Come on, the bottle is empty, so this is the last drink for us two.” Both boys held their cups forward, urging me to do the same.

You two just want a reason to continue drinking, was what I thought, but I suddenly noticed what sorta face I made before. I haven’t gotten over Eshe’s death yet. How could I? I might have probably made such a face when I apologized to her, so maybe those two were worried about me?

Was this their way to cheer me up?

“Hmph~” I snickered as I held up my juice mug. “One. Two—”

“““Three! To our friendship! Kanpei!””” Like shots, we chugged down everything we still had left and slammed our cups and mug respectively on the table. A princess I might be, but a normal girl I am still.

“— Careful!”

Suddenly, after finishing our drinks, we could hear some sorta commotion happening outside the tavern. Somebody was shouting but I couldn’t exactly hear the voice clearly, even with my [Idol]-enhanced hearing. I felt quite a few people outside with [Detection Sensor], but that was just normal for a city like Griffonpeak. It was also the afternoon, so some might be going home from work right now.

“Oh?! What in the—?!”

“Shit! Was that just a cat?!”

But that was when a single signal ran through multiple others, quickly approaching us while accompanied by the confused and panicked shouts of multiple citizens. As the three of us looked at each other, questioning if we should do something about it, something suddenly burst through the door as a telepathic message entered my head.

[“Master! Hestia!”]

It was like the voice of a child, a child who hasn’t learned how to speak properly yet. I did not recognize that voice, I don’t think I heard it anywhere before. But my nose, on the other hand, managed to recognize this scent. It smelled so nostalgic for some reason. Like going back home after a vacation.

“Oh, the little guy is done transforming,” Tatsuya said, but I didn’t really care what he meant ‘cause the moment I laid eyes on the person, no, creature, my lips curved up into a smile.

“Rajah!” I dispelled the air barrier and ran to the entrance as the smaller jaguar-sized cat jumped into my arms, forcing me to twirl around with him to offset the force. He gained some weight since I last saw him, not to mention his stature.

“Rajah, is that really you?”

The jaguar in my arms had moss green fur with dark stripes like a tiger instead of spots like an Earth jaguar. A shadowy veil like Saori’s [Shadow Armament] was attached to his legs like socks, while Rajah seemed to have developed heterochromia with one eye as yellow as lemons while the other was black like the abyss. He changed a lot since I last met him a year ago.

Rajah didn’t say anything. Instead, he pushed his neck closer to my face. Was he telling me to sniff him?

As I did so, an earthy smell coupled with a variety of scents I remembered from my time in the Belzac forest entered my nose. It wasn’t intense, most likely it started dissipating once Rajah left the Belzac forest, or it could have happened from taking baths. He smelled pretty good, aside from that. Fresh.

Even without Rajah’s answer, I hugged him even harder. This little cat was one of my acquaintances from the Belzac forest. Just a mere kitten when I first met him who I took up after he was separated from his family. Eventually, we found his mother and afterwards his siblings again, but when that happened, it also meant goodbye.

It was good to see him. I personally didn’t think I would ever meet him again.

[“Master. Rajah.”] Noticing I finally threw away any doubts, he spoke. [“Water. Head. Why?”]

Was I crying? I dunno. Maybe. I just wanted to continue hugging Rajah at this moment. Getting emotional after a reunion was obvious.

“Oh, da— ori! Oh no! Damn!”

I suddenly felt an intense chill in the air.

[“Master. Follow.”]

Rajah slipped through my embrace as he dashed back into the crowd, where I saw a few people suddenly start shivering, despite it being in the middle of summer. This strange event prompted me to activate [Mana Eyes] to look for whatever might be causing this, where I found Rajah moving through the street to the other side.

Noticing a black trail of mana around him, I followed him back to the hunter’s guild, where I found three people with huge amounts of mana inside of them. One was filled with black, the other had a mix of green and cyan, like Tasianna’s ice magic, and the last was filled with a huge—

“Arck!”

“Oh sh— Hey, Hestia-san, are you okay?” That was Tatsuya’s voice.

“I-I’m alright. Don’t worry. I overstrained my eyes.” I noticed some blood flowing from my eyes. [Mana Eyes] was a great scouting skill for me, but it had the drawback of a huge amount of information entering my head, especially profiles as my [Mana Eyes] also doubled as my [Identify] skill. My parallel minds only recently learned how to ignore certain information to make this process less straining.

Still, if I were to look at a huge concentration of mana in a single area, that’s when the skill becomes too much for me. My eyes simply couldn’t handle all that mana — all that information. The first time this happened was when I looked at the center of Shaturein, and now, it happened again.

Thankfully, no permanent damage has appeared yet. My [White Flames] could heal me up well enough, so there wasn’t anything to worry about. I wonder, if I had better eyes, would this still happen?

After showing how my white flames were healing my eyes, I told them to follow me, before flying over to Rajah and picking him. After that, I quickly flew over to the hunter’s guild building, which I presume Rajah was leading me to.

“Why doesn’t she love me — hic. Am I not strong enough for her to respect me? Maybe it’s time to get back into the dungeon and train up to become an SSS rank — huec!”

Once I was inside, I saw Saori, Yorshka, and Muraina trying to suppress a single white-haired woman. Silver powder suddenly escaped her body, floating around before landing on the ground and freezing it. My very breath was turning white from being inside the guild right now.

Cold!

“Hestia?” Saori noticed me, turning her body around for me to see multiple beautiful porcelain bottles on a table. One spilled its content, smelling so similar to the rice wine from before, only more refined.

Scheiße, they got Melloxtressa drunk… and those idiots are drunk as well!

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Chapter 254: Mother and Daughter Talk.

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“Kriiash kraf shkiee kel! Pfeitrei, sister, oh, where art thou and thy insight, for my eyes weep at my ignorance.”

Melloxtressa was crying and speaking carelessly as she downed another shot of sake before pouring more for herself. This by itself wasn’t strange — a woman got drunk and continued drinking without restraint. However, the problem was how her silver powder had frozen the area around her table and was starting to affect the rest of the hunter’s guildhall.

“Argh, Yorshka, stop her already! Her Imperial Majesty will destroy my guild and the whole city if you don’t!” Muraina shouted at Yorshka before turning her head around to the adventurers and guild staff. “All of you, if you don’t want to freeze to death, get the hell out of the guild!”

With that single command, everybody quickly left the guild except for a specific few people — myself along with Saori, Yorshka, and Rajah.

Muraina then erected a few [Air Shield]s around me and the others while Saori told Rajah to jump back into her shadow. Yorshka then sent out her scale’s silver powder to form a shield to ward off the freezing aura of Melloxtressa’s powder. Once she made sure everybody was safe, Yorshka [Gale Steps] towards the drunk dragon empress.

“W-What’s going on?!” I questioned Saori and Muraina about the situation.

“O-Oh, well, you know, we were just having some fun—” Saori stumbled over her own words before Muraina immediately skipped over it.

“The four of us went out to drink to cheer up Her Imperial Majesty. Dragons cannot hold their liquor very well and, while Yorshka assured us it would be okay, this disaster happened. That’s about it, Hestia. So, before your mo— Empress Melloxtressa destroys the city, could we rely on your help to calm her down?”

“Your dragon mother drank herself into a depression because of what you said to her, and now please would you cozy up to her so she doesn’t kill everybody and usher in an ice age?” was what I understood. Was any of this really my fault to begin with? Yes, while I could have said things more nicely, she couldn’t have expected that I would just jump into her lap and we would play mother-daughter, right? A ridiculous notion.

… Still, it wasn’t like I couldn’t see her anguish.

“M-Matriarch!” Yorshka shouted, trying to gain Melloxtressa’s attention.

“Hmm?” She placed the bottle of rice wine on the table and looked at Yorshka.

“Your daughter! We brought your daughter, Matriarch!” Yorshka pointed at me, prompting Melloxtressa to turn to me. “You wanted a proper talk with your daughter Hestia, right? Well, here she is. So, please, it is getting too cold for everybody to handle. I ask you if you could reabsorb the released powder.”

Her pleading seemed to have gotten to Melloxtressa, as the powder around seemed to have calmed down, but any progress was stopped as more tears began to drop from her eyes.

“M-My whelpling. Young one, look, she’s supposed to only be a year old, but she-she already has a humanoid form. I didn’t get the chance to help her form it, huec!” she lamented. “A whole year! A whole year of her entire existence and I missed it all! I wasn’t even there. All the preparations and all I did was sit in my cave, weeping and feeling sorry for myself instead of turning the planet upside downlooking for her.”

… Urgh, please, stop.

The moment I heard that, it struck the daughter inside me. I could sympathize with her, since those words came from a genuinely worried mother, something that, if I were her daughter, I would appreciate very much. Well, the problem for me was that she actually was my mother.

I felt bad for her. She was drunk, right? So these words were her actual emotions and feelings without any kind of filter, and it became harder and harder to watch as she continued drinking. But, on the other hand, all of this was ‘cause of me. She began to feel all this sorrow starting from when I went missing, and during the entire one year I’ve been in this world, I haven’t even given her or my dragon father a single good thought.

In fact, I was mostly apathetic to anything concerning them until Yorshka fully explained to me about Melloxtressa's situation. Cernust told me just how much of an uproar my egg being lost was to the dragonewts, but that was more politics than personal feelings. I was one of their princesses, so patriotism was their motivator and not any personal connection to me.

It was an “Oh shit, I shouldn’t get Artorias involved” thought. I was more worried about Artorias getting hammered down by zealous dragonewts if something were to happen to me; although, now that I thought about it, my actions didn’t exactly take that worry into consideration perfectly. Maybe I was just the type of girl who didn’t think of the consequences and just went along with what I wanted to do. King Drangleic did scold me after I entered Shaturein, endangering myself in the process.

… Just like how I couldn’t make my legs walk to Melloxtressa. I wasn’t brave enough to confront her.

And she saw this. She saw me hesitate. She saw me being unable to act. Her shoulders dropped as she placed her rice wine down, before recalling all the powder around her, literally reabsorbing it back into her scales.

“I understand…” The temperature of the guildhall was steadily warming back up by the outside heat of a summer’s day, but to me, the room still felt extremely cold. Like the awkward silence after your parents lectured you for misbehaving. The inability to talk back, since you knew you did something wrong.

“Matriarch?” Yorshka blurted out as Melloxtressa stood up from the table, unsteady on her feet. “You should probably sit and drink some—”

“No, there is no need. I’ll be retiring. I think I shall sleep for a bit.” With those words, Melloxtressa made her way outside of the guild. Although it was clear she was drunk, she walked with a certain amount of grace, as if to say this was nothing.

When she passed me, all I did was give her a small glance, just enough for our eyes to meet. I could see frustration and sadness just from how her eyes wobbled. The fact I turned away and didn’t speak probably stung her even more.

I was hurting her.

Once I heard Melloxtressa’s wings flap and fly off, the three older women quickly turned to me. Was it disappointment I saw in their eyes?

“Just say it already. ‘I am a bad daughter,’ right? No, I was just a bad person overall. That’s what you three want to say, right? Just spit it out, I know it already…” I told them before slumping down at a nearby chair. I was so done with this day.

Saori, Yorshka, and Muraina just looked at each other, but didn’t say anything. They simply kept silent, as if they were willing to let things cool down for a moment.

“Hey, Hestia-san, why did you dine-and-dash like tha— Uhm, what is with this atmosphere?” It was Tatsuya and Kyouya, who both barged into the guild.

Oh, that’s right. I forgot to pay the tavern for the food and drinks…

“Haaaa,” Muraina let out a sigh as she gestured something to Saori and Yorshka. “Sorry, you two, the guildhall is closed for the moment. Mind going outside with me for a bit?” Without any complaints, both boys were escorted from the guild with question marks over their heads.

“… Did you take Rajah in as part of your shadow pack? I didn’t know he arrived with Tamae-chan and the others,” I said, seeing as neither Saori nor Yorshka were about to speak.

“Yeah, Rajah and the rest of his family; you remember his mother and siblings. They seemed to have evolved since we last met. Rajah and his siblings still needed some time to grow up, though,” Saori explained, going along with my icebreaker. “They were quite excited to see you again, Rajah in particular. But, when they saw you in that state, they decided to stick around, and that was when they met the garms. They got pretty jealous.”

Rajah instantly decided that he wanted to become a shadow pack member, even demanding it from Saori like a spoiled child. Although it technically meant Saori was his tamer master now, he did it since he learned of the dangers I faced which caused me to fall unconscious. He wanted to become stronger at all costs to defend me.

“Rajah had just finished his assimilation, while his family is still inside my shadow. All four are taking a few weeks, since it seemed the protective blessing Aurena gave them was still in effect, right up until they became a member of the pack. I presumed that, since they will be taking on your [The Light]’s blessing, Aurena probably removed the blessings since they weren't needed anymore… Are you willing to bring them along, Hestia?”

“… I dunno. Can I protect them?”

That question — this constant damnable worry. Am I strong enough to protect everybody? I honestly wasn’t sure after what the demonkin just did. Not only did they murder Eshe and the Griffon King Assurfel, but they also managed to bring in that monstrosity. I even learned afterward that Melloxtressa was the one to actually kill the geisenlarg king.

It was frustrating. My powerlessness was gnawing at me, and that was on top of how much Eshe’s death was killing me inside. Once again, I felt weak. When I told Saori and Yorshka about this, they couldn’t help but shake their heads.

Yorshka came over and brought a chair over to sit next to me. “Hestia, you are being too hard on yourself. Why are you trying to put all the responsibilities on your own shoulders? You might be a dragon, but even a dragon cannot carry the planet. You expect too much of yourself, and the moment you face a wall, you lose faith in yourself? That is not the way.”

“She’s right, Hestia,” Saori agreed. “It isn’t wrong to ask for help, I’ve told you this time and time again. This is why Tasianna and I were working so hard! Why I was so very frustrated when you didn’t even think of evolving into a B rank because you thought ‘we couldn’t handle your berserk form if you evolved’. You keep looking down on the people who can help you. Always thinking everything has to be done alone.”

She was right. I did think like that. Before I evolved into a B rank, I thought Saori and Tasianna were too weak, since I had that moment after Shiterno merged my skills without my consent, causing my body to go out of control. If it weren't for Master Kush, they probably would have died.

I was only made aware of how asinine my thinking patterns were after they defeated me in a duel with specific rules. And now, look at how both of them developed. They were a far cry from how they used to be.

“I think you can agree that I’ve gotten stronger, no? I managed to kill a pretty powerful lich nearly on my own.” Saori looked at me while boasting of her accomplishment. “Yes, it wasn’t a perfect kill. I still have a long way before I have a better understanding of my current body. But you can't deny that it was an improvement. You saw what Tasianna could do. Even with that, we, as a party, weren’t enough to perfectly slay that monster. If you are talking of protecting others, even I am not strong enough to protect you yet, Hestia.”

After letting me digest those words, Saori continued, “I’ve said it before, Hestia. You think a lot, not in a positive way, but in a negative one. You worry about everything, as if you are expecting the world to judge you for every little thing. As if you are going to an audition and you have to make sure every single step and action is perfect. You aren’t, Hestia. You aren’t a trainee anymore seeking the limelight to make your parents proud, all while hiding your frustrations under a mask meant to force back your tears. You really aren't. The moment you stop thinking about the perfect performance, the more you can think about the next concert. Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?”

I nodded. Saori made me wonder if I had developed at all. Had I not grown up at all, or did my personality development regressed since Eshe’s death?

“… I’m sorry. For what I said before. That was an incentive for me to say that you didn’t know me well. With me out of commission, I cannot even fathom what you have been doing in these three weeks, and I still said something so terrible to you,” I apologize for what happened when I woke up.

Saori sighed, showing a wry smile. “Yes, apology accepted. However, can you promise me to stop thinking that you have to deal with everything by yourself all the time? It’s patronizing to Tasianna, Ellaine, Grimnir, and me for everything we did to contribute to our party. You hear? I don’t like repeating myself twice, and you probably don’t want the same lecture a third time, right?”

I nodded. I promised to never be overly selfless to the point of being selfish, again.

Yorshka caressed my shoulders, seeing me contemplate Saori’s words deeply. “‘Our party isn’t strong enough,’ that’s what Saori said. If you think that she’s correct, then it’s fine. There is so much to change and develop inside a party compared to yourself. More variables to change. Heroes do not become legends by being alone, Hestia. They become legends not only through their sweat and blood but also through the people they meet on their journey to the top. Tragedies and hardship may happen, but to learn how to handle them and use them as the catalyst to your success is the key here.”

‘Stay strong’ … Eshe’s last words to me.

I stayed strong when I fought the geisenlarg king, and I managed to help everybody push him back, but I didn’t have the strength to protect everybody nor to kill it outright. If I reflected on the battle, I believe there would have been better ways to go about it. With a huge list of attacks to choose from, I most likely chose the wrong ones.

There were ways for me to get even better. Upgrade spells and attacks, develop better tactics, or even become a better leader to for my party. Repetition was the mother of learning. If I just gave up, I could never progress further, which means tragedies like Eshe’s death could happen again. It could happen to another person I was close to.

“Besides, you have me now, Hestia,” I raised my head to Yorshka’s words. “Tamae already said it, we will be joining you. I am part of the package.”

“But what about your duties as a Knight of Aurena?” I asked.

“Pah, do you really think I cared about it? Hestia, this was just the job an old friend asked me to do. Too bad for the salary, but it’s not so important considering what we will be doing. For example, the money the kingdom offered as a reward for saving them was huge!”

I turned to Saori. “‘Offered?’”

“I declined it. With how the kingdom is looking and what their plans will be in the future, they need it far more, whereas we can just travel around for more funds. We made a ton of profit from your concert through pastry sales alone, don’t you remember?”

Saori rejecting money? Damn, am I the only one who is regressing in character development?!

“See? No problem, right? And, if you really want to be specific, there is another person you can add to our party at this very moment. Who will make the most direst emergencies into a cakewalk, so long as she can stay awake long enough to act.”

The answer was obvious.

“… My dragon mother.” Everything led back to her.

“Yes, please. I know I am saying this as a member of clan Nordor, but please talk to your mother, Hesta. She loves you. All she did while we were out was talk about you. When you were unconscious, all she wanted to know was who you are and how to properly talk with you. She even asked about your previous life, and how your ‘real’ mother treated you. We helped her practice being a mother, although, uhm, her talents for housework or even cooking were not… sublime.”

Which further explains why she and Saori got along so well. They had three weeks to get to know each other.

… I need to get stronger.

I clutched my hands into fists, before pushing myself up. I began taking large whiffs of air, quickly identifying the sweet smell of a dragon. I activated [Mana Eyes], detecting a trail leading out from the guild to the top of Griffonpeak — the peak of Wintertalon. I deactivated [Mana Eyes] the moment I had her location, not daring to keep it active any longer and strain my eyes.

“See you later,” I nodded to both of them, before Rajah jumped out of Saori’s shadow and made a small growl. “Yes, yes, see you later, too. I’ll greet you properly once we’re back home.”

I exited the guild and spread my wings, telling Tatsuya and Kyouya I’m sorry for leaving them with the full check and that we will meet again, before flying up to the tops. I continued following her scent, until I finally made it to the peak, where I saw Melloxtressa sitting on a rock, gazing at the blue sky in solitude.

“… Empress Melloxtressa.” I knew she didn’t want to hear that, but I couldn’t just call her mother.

“Yes, my little whelpling?” The tears she just shed were still there, visible for me to see as she showed no signs of cleaning them. She looked like she still was slightly tipsy.

“I’m… sorry,” I forced myself to say. “I-I know you wanted to hear something else. I know all of this was not what you had envisioned or expected. Yorshka had already explained your plight to me, so I can’t even excuse myself for the cold reception I gave you. It’s just… I-I don’t really know what to say. The three weeks you experienced might as well never happened for me, and I still remember yesterday as the day one of my friends died. It’s all—”

“Come.”

I stopped talking. I looked up from the ground, seeing the tears Melloxtressa had frozen before they were absorbed into her skin. She made room on her boulder and tapped it, gesturing for me to come over and sit down with her. I had no reason not to accept and nodded.

As I sat down, Melloxtressa held her hand up for a moment before the surroundings began to heat up. In the next second, a cracking sound appeared out of nowhere and a ring of frozen air appeared around us, hiding us from the world. Did Melloxtressa just warm things up inside the frozen sphere out of consideration for me?

“You don’t need to ask for forgiveness, Hestia. Your own circumstances haven't been easy on you, and, as you said, I had three weeks to prepare myself mentally. You didn’t. You only had a second,” she said, while I was intrigued and distracted by her ability to control the temperature itself, not just the ice.

“No, no! You shouldn't say that! I wasn’t there for the whole thing but I saw you crying and spilling your heart out. I heard that, when you’re drunk, you’re more susceptible to speaking your mind. I hurt you, I understand that now. Just because I’m conflicted doesn’t mean that you should find excuses for me.”

“But isn’t that what a mother should do for her whelpling? Make her feel more comfortable? Yes, I did find it unfortunate that we couldn’t bond as fast as I wanted, but when I was pregnant with you, all I could think about was how to take care of you. You, my child, were my dream and the reason for my drive to evolve into an SS rank. Have you heard about it yet?”

I nodded. I explained that Yorshka had told me her story, about how she swore to only lay an egg once she was one of the strongest beings in the world. To have the strength to protect her future child. For that reason, she trained endlessly to become the second SS rank among the current era of dragons.

“Yes, that is correct. The child of two SS rank dragons should be powerful. Even without your father and mother around, you would be able to defend yourself. That is why I became Eltharion’s sixth empress. I am so very glad that you managed to survive all this time all by yourself, Hestia. Your life is my treasure, and even if you cannot accept me as your mother just yet, I have regained my will to live by meeting you.”

… Guk! Ark, that really hurt my heart. Jeez…

I felt even more terrible than before. What have I been doing? I was already aware of her situation, but I still was too simple-minded.

No, no, no. Blaming myself right now, would be doing exactly what Saori just told me not to do. Don’t overthink everything. Things happened. It was better to forget about past mistakes if the person in question wanted me to do so.

My lips unconsciously curved into a small smile after acknowledging my fault.

“… You know, it wasn’t easy. Born as a G rank and the size of a gecko. My first kill was a loopabit, and it really traumatized me with how I had to crush its neck to slay it,” I joked, and Melloxtressa giggled.

“Yes, I heard it from Saori. I’m sorry you had to go through all of that, but the fact you hatched far too early in your incubation time and yet still developed into your current self is a blessing.” Melloxtressa then touched my head and pulled it closer to hers, up until our forehead touched. “Hestia, I am very glad that you became my child. If your soul wasn’t in my whelpling’s body, I fear… this probably would have been my last few years in this world. That despair would have eaten me up.”

I immediately pushed her away from me, unable to control the tears dropping from my eyes. “Verdammt, did you really have to say that?! Verdammt nochmal. Your scent is so intoxicating and then you even threw that out? You’re impossible, Melloxtressa.”

I turned my teary face away from her, hiding my flustered face as I tried to clean my wet face. Melloxtressa giggled once again and caressed my wings, and even used her tail to stroke mine.

I still remembered from the lizardman that among scale-kin, stroking each other’s tail was considered a sign of attraction, but maybe it was different for parent and child? Just like how kissing each others’ cheeks was considered familial love?

We sat there in silence. Just… being there, for each other. I didn’t have any urgency to leave like before. As my parallel minds told me, the memories of Mama and Melloxtressa weren't being merged together. It was just the surprise of the situation.

We both stared into the blue sky and down to Griffonpeak. We watched as the clouds moved each other, even talking about how some of them looked like birds. Melloxtressa didn’t seem too interested in the cloud talk. I could hear it slightly from her voice, but it wasn’t as if she was bored. I believe speaking with me even about the dumbest and most mundane stuff was probably extremely exciting for her.

Like a mother speaking with their child over the phone after they went off on a school trip or something.

“… Can I ask you something?” I inquired, deciding to finally get to the whole reason I followed her out here. Melloxtressa nodded, so I took a deep breath to steel myself before speaking, “What are you planning on doing now? Now that you met me?”

“… If I am to be honest, I would like to bring you back to Miononbolax. Saori, Tasianna, Ellaine, and Grimnir — those are your friends, right? I asked them about your journey and what you are doing, and that is when I learned that Goddess Aurena and Kargryxmor have given you a divine Quest. That you are their champion… I want to bring you away from their scheming.”

It was as Kramps expected — Melloxtressa wanted to bring me to Kargryx.

“I heard from Kramps—”

“Kramps?”

“Oh, sorry, I meant Kargryxmor. I call him ‘Kramps’ since he is my grandfather, right?” I explained.

“Oh… I see. So you can accept Eltharion’s father before your own mother?”

Gck!

“No, no, no that’s not really what I meant! I-uhm-I just thought it would be—”

“Kriehihihi,” she giggled. “It’s alright! It’s alright! I am merely teasing you. You do not need to explain yourself… but I guess Kargryxmor will. Kishagas kriis til, Karshgrixgar!”

I let Melloxtressa shout her frustration into the sky before continuing what I wanted to say. “Ooookaaaay. Now, where was I?”

“So, what I wanted to say is that I wish for you to allow me to stay here. I heard from Kramps that, if I were to come with you, I would not be able to leave Kargryx until I was five. Until I matured.”

“That is correct. That is the imperial law Eltharion enacted. At the age of five, dragons have developed enough for their bodies to handle even the most drastic changes during their evolution. Unlike other beasts, we dragons do not become ‘adults’ when we become five. In fact, it would normally take almost 100 years for a dragon to fully reach maturity.”

Huh, I guess that is why I’m not feeling any sexual attraction to any guys at all. If I were my past self, a few nobles probably would have caught my eye, but they were pretty much whatever to me if I wasn’t interacting with them.

Melloxtressa further explained that the “young” prefix was just a way for the Divine System to control the minimum age a dragon may evolve into A rank. It was the right age to evolve above B rank, without showing any signs of issues. Before the System, this prefix didn’t exist after all, and you were only considered “mature” after your 100th birthday.

The System sure influenced a lot of cultures, even the dragons’.

“Which is why I would like for you to come with me. I don’t wish to see you harmed, Hestia. And I believe that you need to finally learn how to take care of your dragon body because I can see how the shine of your scales is dulling, despite how healthy they look. This should be a parent’s duty.”

I didn’t answer her.

“… You disagree?”

I nodded. “Yes… I want to stay around here. Here, on Altrust. I know I have no idea how Miononbolax is, but I don’t think it’s time yet for me to go there.”

Melloxtressa turned her head, looking back at the blue sky. “But why? I can hear your heart beating, my whelpling. It slowed down after our initial talk and it suddenly jumped up after you said that. Could you enlighten me?”

Considering I could hear her tone of voice clearly, I guess it’s fair for her to hear my heartbeat. Good hearing can be a problem sometimes.

“I-I want to continue what I’m currently doing. I’m an idol. The others probably already told you everything, so I don't think it should come to you as a surprise. My goal is to sing and dance, to bring everybody a smile as I appear on stage… and, Aurena promised me she would allow me to meet— Uhm, m-my—”

“You human parents? You can say it clearly, Hestia. I will not be offended. Your human parents raised you well. As your mother, I am very grateful to them that they gave me such a brave little daughter. You are a reincarnator. I have accepted it,” Melloxtressa comforted me. “… But your heart still hasn’t calmed down yet. It’s actually increasing. Are you sure this is what you wanted to talk to me about?”

“Melloxtressa, uhm, could you please not listen to my heart for a moment? While we’re speaking right now, at least,” I asked her, expressing how hard it was making it for me. Melloxtressa agreed without complaining.

I stroked my face, taking a moment to try and form the correct sentence for this before speaking.

“Well, you see, after seeing what happened during that attack, I learned that I’m not really that strong, and to get even stronger than now, I’ll need to wait four more years and develop the skills necessary to evolve. That will definitely take a while, and, with how Aurena’s Quests demands me to possibly start a war with the demonkin and maybe even the empire, I wanted to ask if you could maybe help me with it?”

“… No.”

I widened my eyes. I knew my request was pretty rough, but since Melloxtressa was an SS rank, I thought she would be the perfect force to fight against the demonkin. I didn’t expect her to solve everything herself, no way would I allow her to do everything. I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself for abusing our relationship like that.

When I asked her for her reason, Melloxtressa didn’t give it much thought. “Hestia, have you heard what we dragons had done during the demon invasion immediately after the Origin Gods appeared in this world?”

I retold what Yorshka told me. Kargryxmor, being probably the strongest being at that time, stood on the frontline in the defense of the planet with the Origin Gods. He led the dragons into battle against the demonkin, before he ascended to godhood with a few of the older dragons joining him as his aides.

“Exactly. However, that was how the greatest tragedy of the Dragon Empire Kargryx happened. The civil war between Eltharion and his siblings. Many dragons — the children and relatives of those who left us for the divine realm — died, fighting for their preferred ruler. Your uncle and I were the very few who stayed out of the succession war, in no small part because of our own sorrow over losing our father.”

She paused at this point, looking at her own hand before continuing, “We dragons have bled and died for the world far too often already. We have lost all our parents either through battle or the apotheosis of Kargyxmor, only to end up fighting against each other as our ideals conflicted. Hestia, what has Kargryxmor told you about us? That we are lazy? That we broke the oath he selfishly created between him and Goddess Aurena, arrogantly believing we dragons would wish to continue being this world’s protectors for the rest of time? No, we dragons finally understood how much we have sacrificed.”

“But, what about the other races? The elves, for example? Shouldn’t they have helped you also?”

“And many of our elven comrades have either chosen to enter ‘eternal sleep’ or developed a conservative stance to interacting with the ever-changing human race. Yes, while I do not know much of the current Peolynca and its events, I can tell you that those who fought back then are not too thrilled to be dragged into another battle. Even if you are his daughter, Eltharion will never, ever support this idea of yours, Hestia. He wouldn’t, for the emotionally-scarred Eltharion has seen enough.”

She then pointed down at Griffonpeak, telling me to look at the many people walking down there. “It is astounding how much humans have developed. The last time I was here, this whole area was just a wild, uncontrollable forest filled to the brim with monsters. Now, that very forest has shrunk and was pushed to an edge by the Saelari and humans. How many years has it been? How much time has passed?

She then turned to me, looking into my eyes with a mix of waning sadness and acceptance of reality. “Hestia, this is your first lesson as a dragon: we will outlive many of the people we meet in our lives. It is an inevitable truth. Dragons have extremely long lives even as C ranks and, once you make it to S rank, you will, for nearly all intents and purposes, be immortal. Sometimes, it is better for the old to stay out of the affairs of their juniors, for every bond made could end after we wake up after a nap.”

“…”

I did not expect this to be her perspective. Saori and Yorshka told me to rely on others more, but the moment they said that, this happened. What am I to believe?

But at the same time, isn’t the life of a dragon too sad? No, the life of an immortal. People you meet could just die before you and you would simply live on. I’ve been having this thought for a while now, and I thankfully had friends who could live for quite some time. Tasianna was immortal as a fairy and maybe Saori could also become immortal by becoming S rank. But what about Grimnir and Ellaine? What about Rajah? The many people of Griffonpeak?

The memories I made here, they all began flashing before me. The fans I made today, could all die tomorrow.

“Hestia, allow me to tell you something. To the Origin Gods, if the planet itself isn’t in danger, they will never personally intervene. Do you understand? Goddess Plesia and God Marsven by themselves are truly enough to protect all of us. Goddess Aurena’s Divine Quest is simply a small issue, which will disappear after a nice, long sleep.”

A large-scale conspiracy concerning the whole church of Aurena and the empire was only a “small issue?” Was that actually true? To me, all of this sounded far larger than I was. To me, those demonkins and a potential wars were enough for me to stay up all night.

My shoulders slumped down. “You know, I have been thinking about this whole impending war thing. How many people will have to die for it? Even if I could protect those on my side, what about the others? Those who don’t wish to die but must fight because of the orders of their leaders. As an idol, I should be someone who brings people hope and happiness, not end their lives through fire and claws. And now, you tell me all of this is just a small event even for the gods? Unbelievable.”

Sometimes I really do wonder if I’m idol material. With how I am…

At least, I beleived Aurena cared for her followers. But then again, the fact she told me to help her with this will bring out conflict. I could naively wish to solve this peacefully all I wanted, but some people couldn’t be reasoned with. Different ideals and goals will battle against each other to stand at the top… just like the Kargryx and Leosfalt civil wars.

An idol should bring smiles, even if she has to lie for it. That was showbiz, and my parents even warned me about it. The thing is? Is somebody who causes a huge war really idol material? The lives I took up until now were necessary, I told myself that.

“After Eshe’s death, I had the thought of just stopping. Like, staying out of all this conflict. I mean, the thought of losing even more friends was tortuous and then I began thinking of the people on the other side of the war. If I had the opportunity, I could be performing for their entertainment. All this thinking makes it so hard for me to know what to do. What is right and what is wrong?”

The mages under Thyra were complete strangers to me. Maybe I met them during the ball, but in the heat of the battle, I wasn’t able to remember any of them. But, despite that, the moment they were consumed by the geisenlarg’s claws, I felt saddened by their deaths. A complete stranger. So, what would happen if I have this same reaction when I meet a nervous soldier fighting on the other side?

Melloxtressa stared at me as I gazed aimlessly into the horizon, only to bring my attention back after a few seconds. “Cherish your own life and those of your loved ones. A flawed reincarnation like yours and Saori’s is rare, so I hope you understand to value your own life, my little flame. Those who wish to threaten it or your ideals are the enemy. Never, ever forget this. To live is to kill. Like the loopabit’s life you had to take to survive, if you second-guess everything, then your ideal place should be the scholar room with all the philosophers.”

“That is quite blunt,” I admitted.

“I am simply saying what I believe would be the best mindset for myself and for you, Hestia. You don’t need to be a tyrant like your grandfather. Some issues can be solved by peaceful discussions and diplomacy. It is the privilege of living beings to negotiate. Two predators would not fight each other if they have nothing to gain or if they are unsure if they can win. But if all things fail, then you must dominate your foes, and make them regret ever facing you!”

This was the ferocity of an ancient dragon. This was also her wisdom to me.

“Don’t forget, Hestia,” she made our foreheads touch again. “If my brother were to be slain, I would destroy everything their slayers held dear. If you were to vanish from my life, I would bequeath Peolynca the gift of an eternal ice age.”

S-Shit, she’s serious!

I push her back. The forehead touching was a bit too much right now. “A-Alright, alright, I get it! I’ll get strong, I’ll stop whining like this… But, Melloxtressa, I would still wish for you to let me stay around in Altrust. I don’t want to go to Kargryx and get grounded for the next four years. I still want to continue traveling. If possible, could you allow this?”

Melloxtressa tapped her cheeks, thinking about it before smirking. “Only if you can prove yourself strong enough to survive through adversity, Hestia. The adulthood pilgrimage forces a whelpling to survive without their parents, to journey and experience life outside secluded Kargryx. Many of them die from unfortunate circumstances, but those who return can prove themselves as powerful beings. Aside from one, all your older siblings came back alive and well, Hestia.”

The last one was probably the youngest of my older sisters, the one Cernust mentioned. She probably was still journeying, since she made her pilgrimage a few years prior to him. Then again, maybe she was already back in Kargryx?

“As such, if you wish to stay outside, then let this be your pseudo-pilgrimage. If you cannot prove yourself, I will drag you and your friends to Kargryx, where you will train and prepare for your adulthood ceremony. Do you believe you have the strength to do so?”

I nodded. “However, please, teach me, Melloxtressa! My dragon abilities are still things I’m not sure I fully understand yet. I’m not even sure of my anatomy. If I could know my body better, maybe I can make better use of it.”

“Kriehihi, of course, my little whelpling. That is what a mother is there for,” she smiled. “However, your fights are your own. A dragon unable to fight is not fit to leave their roost. If that moment comes, then I will appear, and that is when you will also leave Altrust, Hestia. I will not allow you to complain.”

“I understand,” I grinned, happy that worked out fine. “Then, can I rely on your help on our journey?”

“Of course, but don’t forget that I will not be fighting your battles. If you wish to travel, then I will treat you like an adult dragon. Aside from that, 3500 years of constant fighting have worn me out. I am tired of fighting, Hestia. So…”

Melloxtressa’s scales began growing from her naked skin before moving around her scale dress, altering its design and adding more ornaments onto her hair, wings, and tail. Ice also formed, either levitating around her like fireflies or they were added to her outfit.

From the simple one-piece she had at the beginning, it slowly turned into a dress filled with intricate scale design. Her ice even formed into accessories, carapace, and also a crown on her head. It was majestic, fitting for an empress of the Dragon Empire, Kargrx. Perfect, for the silver dragon matriarch of clan Nordor.

“— don’t make your mother worry, alright, Hestia?”

… She wants me to say it.

Her smile and eyes were telling me she was anticipating something from me. Melloxtressa might have said she accepted my situation and the circumstances for why I acted like I did this morning, but her attitude right now was saying the opposite. I guess it’s to be expected right?

But, am I really willing to call her as such?

“… M-Mother?” In the end, I made myself say it, just to appease her. Not like a word would matter that much.

“Hmm.” But for some reason, Melloxtressa was still not happy. Did she sense my insincerity? “You called me ‘Mama’ when we first met. Could you call me that? It feels… closer, no?”

Hold on, when did I say that?!

The only time I could think of was when she first arrived? Or maybe I said it while sleeping? Sleep talking would probably count in her book, wouldn’t it? Argh, does it really matter when I do so? I’m not gonna call her that, in any case, that’s the name for my Mama.

I smiled and shook my head. “Let’s just stick with ‘mother’, please.”

Mellox— Well, I guess she’s “Mother” now — Mother was naturally not delighted about it but she didn’t seem offended, at the very least. Good enough for me.

With the main topic of the subject down, I stood up and asked Mother if she was okay with rejoining the others. As nice of a view this was, it felt a bit too lonely up here. I wanted to be with the others. Thankfully, Mother accepted it, seemingly having recovered from her tipsiness during our talk.

After she broke the ice barrier, we both unfurled our wings and dived back into the city. Flying with her felt pretty weird, to be honest. I didn’t know how to describe it. Surreal, maybe? I never would have thought I would be flying around with my mother. Then again, never would I have imagined I would be reincarnated into a dragon, so stranger things could always happen.

Eshe, once again, I hope you can rest in peace.

I am not so sure if I can actually live up to what Eshe expected from me. A hero? As if I could live up to being a virtuous hero similar to Eshe. Honestly, I still have no idea what was right and wrong here. I was sure the other side — the demonkin — had countless reasons for doing all of this, but I didn’t know them here and now.

An idol? Who knows if I really counted as one. I always wanted to be an idol who could bring a smile to people’s lives. I suffered by myself just so I could fulfill this dream, making others worry for me as a result. And now, I was confronted by a reality I wished wasn’t real.

Was it evil? After all, evil to one person might be good to another. To the demonkin, Eshe’s death was probably worthy of celebration. The death of a saintess of Aurena would probably bring out jubilation similar to the death of a tyrant, while the humans would cry and mourn for her. Two sides, two stories.

… However, Eshe probably didn’t want me to think like that. To stay strong, she told me. To stay bright like a star in the shroud of a night sky. To continue being the idol I wanted to be.

However, this star had a little shadow around it.

The bastard going around doing whatever he wanted, making my life and those I love worse and worse. The one who killed the Griffon King. That demonkin who ordered for Eshe’s and, I presume, my own death. The person who caused all the disasters in Artorias.

To me, that guy was pure evil.

It was enough for me to consider all of this large enough to act on, regardless of how small of an issue it was for the Origin Gods. My happiness was in danger.

Like Mother said, “But if all things fail, then you must dominate your foes, and make them regret ever facing you!” And, “War demands blood,” Eithalr said to me. His saddened eyes were enough for me to understand what he had to go through to say those words without any hesitation.

Do you hear me, demonkin of pride? All the plans I ruined up until now? Those were only the beginning, I will continue ruining all your plans. Every single last one of them. You ruined my happiness. I will not let you get away with this.

If I was to make sure my friends and happiness would survive, I needed to stop that piece of shit.

And while doing so, I will make sure the world will know the name of Peolynca’s first idol — Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor, imperial princess of Kargryxmor. Earth’s definition and image of an idol should not affect Peolynca’s ideal idol.

Ravenous fans who throw out love and hate for an idol, not understanding that we have a life and emotions as well? The price of stardom. The price of being a public figure, like one of the Blessed. Some things couldn’t be changed even for the most idealistic people, but I am still an idealist through and through. The fact I even decided to become an idol in the first place already made me abnormal.

Mourning time was over.

Eshe, watch me. This little star will shine even brighter than before!

Profile:

Name:   Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor

Level: 18

Race:   Young Sunfang Dragon

Age: 1 Years

Job:   Incandescent Blaze Level 30/30

Status:

Health:

16514 (+1032)

Mana:

44493 (+2340)

Strength:

8979 (+1296)

Intelligence:

12826 (+823)

Vitality:

4814 (+578)

Wisdom:

6501 (+611)

Agility:

12264 (+899)

Stamina:

8888 (+823)

Effects:

None

Skill Points:

13050

Unique Skill:

[Dreadflame Dragon Lv. 4] [Hellblade Dragon Lv. 3]

[Solar Core Lv. 3] [Venerated Saintess Lv. 3] [Idol Lv. 3] (+1)

[Volcanic Blaze] (New)

Skill:

Magic skills and related:

[Lightning Magic Lv. 3] [White Flames Lv. 4] (+1)

[Corrosive Fire Lv. 3] [Sacred Magic Lv. 7] [Terra Magic Lv. 3]

[Wind Magic Lv. 10] [Wind Amp] [Wind Magic Efficiency]

[Storm Magic Lv. 3] [Space-Time Magic Lv. 6] (+1)

[Space-Time Magic Efficiency] [True Draconic Lineage]

[Draconic Barrier Lv. 6]

[Silent Casting Lv. 10] [Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 7]

[Mental Stability Lv. 8] [Mental Warfare Lv. 5] [Fluid Cast Lv. 4] (+1)

[Delayed Cast Lv. 3] (+2) [Continuous Cast Lv. 3] (+1) [Mana Eyes Lv. 5] (+1)

Physical skills and related:

[Unarmed Technique Lv. 8] [Unarmed Mastery Lv. 4] (+1)

[Sword Technique Lv. 1] [Spear Technique Lv. 9] (+2)

[Spear Mastery Lv. 5] (+2)

[Draconic Roar Lv. 4] [Sundering Enhancement Lv. 8] (+2)

[Piercing Enhancement Lv. 9] (+3) [Crushing Enhancement Lv. 5] (+2)

Senses and movement skills:

[Silence Lv. 1] [Accuracy Correction Lv. 8] (+1)

[Concentration Lv. 7] [Foresight Lv. 3]

[Danger Perception Lv. 7] (+1) [Probability Correction Lv. 8] (+3)

[Detection Sensor Lv. 3] [Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 9] (+1) [Tracking Lv. 5] (+2) [Night Vision Lv. 8]

[Odorless Lv. 1] [Evasion Lv. 10] [Acrobatic Lv. 10]

[Air Walk Lv. 5] (+1) [Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 6]

[Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 8] (+4) [Aerial Fighter Lv. 4] (New)

Resistances:

[Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 6] (+1) [Absolute Pain Tolerance]

[Mental Corruption Resistance Lv. 3] [Mind Protection Lv. 5]

[Mana Leak Resistance Lv. 10] [Abnormal Status Nullification]

[Fear Resistance Lv. 5] [Lightning Resistance Lv. 6] (+4)

[Sacred Resistance Lv. 2] (New) [Wind Resistance Lv. 9] (+2)

[Water Resistance Lv. 3] (+1) [Dark Resistance Lv. 2] (+1)

Stat growths and related:

[Speed of Sound Lv. 1]

Others:

[Stage Fever Lv. 5] [Handicraft Lv. 6] [Woodworking Lv. 7]

[Stonecrafting Lv. 1]

[Trap Creation Lv. 9] (+1) [Instruction Lv. 2] [Identity Blocker Lv. 10]

[Tranquil Mind Lv. 1] [Cooking Lv. 8] (+1) [Benevolent Aura Lv. 3]

[Draconic Aura Lv. 3] [Royal Presence Lv. 3]

[Dismantle Lv. 8] [Gluttonous] [Thought Acceleration Lv. 4]

[High-Speed Calculation Lv. 2] (+1) [Multi-Thought Processing Lv. 3] (+1)

[Parallel Thoughts Lv. 10] [Core Regulation]

[Humanize Lv. 10] [Telepathy] [Aerokinesis]

Job:

[Incandescent Blaze]

Ability List:

Dragon:

[Dreadflare Aura] [Hellblade Edge] [Scale-Dust Veil] [Hellflame Breath]

[Solar Beam]

Spear:

[Spiral] [Spark Crescent]

Unarmed:

[Dragoon Jump] [Gale Steps] [Dragoon Dive]

Spell List:

Custom Magic:

[Symphonie des Feuergottes] [Prayer] [Sanctified Blaze]

[Sanctified Blaze: Halo of Consecration][Ignite] [Panzer] [Unheilge Engel]

[Scorching Sun]

Custom Spell Song:

[The Will to Fight and Survive] [Dragon Fire] [My Darkest Thoughts]

[The Heir of Hope]

Lightning Magic:

[Lightning Bolt] [Purple Flash] [Levin Core]

Holy Magic:

[Sacred Smite] [Sacred Veil] [Sacred Field] [Banishment Beam]

[Major Heal] [Omnictus] [Gloria Ascendence]

Earth Magic

[Terra Wall] [Bedrock Blades] [Rumbling Might]

Wind Magic:

[Wind Bullet] [Wind Cutter] [Air Shield] [Wind Slash]

[Swift Winds] [Wind Blast] [Featherfall] [Aerial Blitz]

[Tornado Bullet] [Sylphid’s Cloak] [Tailwind]

Space-Time Magic:

[Haste] [Storage Magic] [Warp Point: Entry] [Warp Point: Exit] [Room]

The Light Magic:

[Shine] [Sanctuary]

Titles:

[The Light] [Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] [Divine Inferno]

[Otherworldly Reincarnator] [Princess]

A note from AbyssRaven

Mother and daughter, now reunited. Ice and fire join together. One is a singer. Can we call this a "Song of Ice and Fire?"

Hehe.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 255: Our Party got Huge.

A note from AbyssRaven

Guys, due to some drama that happened, the novel's discord got nuked due to an impulsive action. As such, the Zard empire was nuked… however, a new server is up.

I'm really sorry for what happened!

https://discord.gg/sDf7qDr8QS

“Thank you for having us! We already met yesterday, but let us introduce ourselves again, Hestia-san. I am Ishigami Kyouya from party Misfits. I’ll be happy if you will address me with Kyouya.”

“Nagata Tatsuya. We haven’t done a proper introduction in a while, so it feels a bit weird to use the Japanese naming structure again. Artorias and Aureolis use the western version. Anyways, we will be in your care, Hestia-san.”

“S-Sakamoto Haruka. Pleased to meet you, Atsuko-san! I’m not very useful with fighting, but I hope I can still be of some use to you.”

“My name is Mikami Daichi. It is good to finally meet another person from Earth in this world outside of our classmates. I have heard much about you, Princess Hestia! So I hope we can get along well!”

… Okay, this guy is a bootlicker. Feels like I’m speaking with a noble. Even that smile feels unnatural.

After my slightly awkward talk with Mellox— Mother, I felt a bit too tired to do anything after everything that happened yesterday. Since I wasn’t in the mood to create their rooms in my subspace, Saori’s students decided to meet up with us on the next day. As such, it gave me some more time to spend with Mother — which made her quite happy, especially when we had a bath together in the hot spring.

Cernust did mention dragon mothers were like helicopter parents. Mother really wants to do everything with me to create memories. Can’t say I blame her. If I were in her position, I would have done the same, even to the chagrin of my own child.

Speaking of Cernust, I heard he was in the city right now with Severa, acting as her bodyguard. I really should find some time to meet up with them. Saori told me he greeted Mother once, since she was his empress, and immediately fled the scene. Mother’s mere presence made dragonkins nervous, it seemed.

In any case, once I woke up, the plan was to meet up with Saori’s students and hold a meeting between all three parties with the goal of merging all three. It looked like we would all be working together now to proceed with our goals. We shared a lot of goals in common with each other due to the demonkin threat.

It was just a bit overwhelming that we were gaining so many new members all at once! Twelve to be exact, not including Mother, the snow wyvern twins, and Rajah and his family… Oh boy.

So, who exactly are joining us? Well, we first had “The Magical Biscuits”, which included Tamae, Nishio, Misaki, Kazumi, Kohaku, and Yorshka, whom we had already met in Cedaraille. The second set of students were the “Misfits,” which included Kyouya and Tatsuya from yesterday.

The other members were Haruka, a smaller girl who was a year older than me with the smell of a foxian, and a fire mage by the name of Daichi, who seemed like a yes-man with a very slimy smile. The last two members were—

“Champion Hestia,” a blond young man in full white armor kneeled for me, holding his sword before him like a knight showing respect to a king. “In the name of the Goddess, it is an honor and blessing to meet a champion like you. May the Goddess bless this auspicious meeting with bountiful light. I am Elrick von Karstein, a humble paladin of the Knights of Aurena.”

… Yorshka did say the student parties were all watched over by a knight of Aurena for their own protection, but I guess I didn’t realize that we would have somebody as devoted to the church as Eshe in our midst now. The only difference was that I wasn’t sure if he was aligned to Aurena or the church.

If it was the latter, then I couldn’t trust him. But that wasn’t important right now, since the last member of the Misfits was about to introduce herself.

“Hanazawa Asaka.” And that was all the blue-haired girl said before looking away.

“…” Unfortunately, while that was a decent enough introduction in my book, the same couldn’t be said for Saori, who let out a quiet sigh before telling everybody she’ll wait for us inside the RV, creating a chilly atmosphere between them.

Deciding it would be better to get everybody inside, I led the Misfits and The Magical Biscuits into my subspace’s dining room, the largest room we had. There, Tasianna and Svena were about to finish placing some treats and drinks on three round tables placed together, while Grimnir welcomed us.

“Oh, good morning, lass,” he greeted me. He was still sleeping in his smithy when I ate breakfast. “Good to see you awake, but you sure you want to have this meeting this early? You deserve some time off. Good for your head.”

Grimnir was being considerate, believing I needed more time to mourn. In a way, yes, I had to agree. I didn’t think I was fully ready to get over Eshe’s death yet, but it’s not like time would stop for me as I kept whining. I had three weeks’ worth of stuff to catch up on, and since I was the leader of Aurora, I had to determine what our next destination and goals were.

“No, it’s okay. I’m ‘fine.’ Fine enough to at least act as a leader for us, Grimnir. I heard from Saori that she handled everything while I was out, so I better do my part and get up to speed. There is still time for me to mourn after it's done, don’t worry,” I told him, showing him a small smile to not make him worry.

He shrugged. “Mhmm. I’m not good with comforting others, but even I can see you weren’t totally over yesterday. Not even today. Make sure to take care of yourself, lass. The world and time will wait, especially once you reach the max level of [Space-Time Magic], I tell you! Gahahahaha!”

“Ehehiehiehie,” I giggled. I know I could slow down time with the later spells, but who knows if I could stop it. Still, even if he does grumble a lot, Grimnir knew how to have a good time.

After Tasianna and Svena led the students to their seats, Saori came out from the kitchen and seated herself on our table, right next to the middle chair. Tasianna also seated herself next to the center, while Grimnir took the chair next to hers. Svena bowed and went back into the kitchen.

… Can’t forget that she’s still a maid contracted to House Helvas. Who would have thought that she would actually choose to continue working as my maid on their payroll? Well, glad to have her on board for now.

“Ahh, sorry for being late!” As I sat myself down, the door suddenly opened up to Ellaine rushing in, with her maid Josine right behind her, trying to fix her hair. “I apologize, Father forced me to handle some of his paperwork while he and Brother had to settle some dispute and also fill up the void left behind after the recent noble purge. Ahh, there is so much to do. Josine, the papers, please.”

I showed her a wry smile, feeling sorry for how much work she’d been doing. I didn’t have the chance to catch up with her yesterday.

“It’s alright, Ellaine. We haven’t even started yet so slow down and calm yourself.” I waved at her and she nodded. After putting the papers on the table, she came over to me and hugged me.

“Don’t push yourself, Hestia,” she whispered into my ear.

[“Her heart is set, Ellaine. If you worry too much, you’ll just be patronizing her desires,”] Klea’Hatma chided Ellaine’s comment. I personally didn’t mind everybody’s worry as much as Klea’Hatma thought, though.

Idols, or public entertainers in general, are expected to lie. Put up a mask. But while I’m with all of them, I don’t need to hide it all. It’s good for them and for me to know how I am.

Regardless, once Svena and Josine filled everybody’s glasses with fresh magically-made water, I announced the beginning of the first meeting between Aurora, Misfits, and The Magical Biscuits. I’ll be honest and totally not biased, Aurora had the best name among the three.

“Thank you everybody for coming on such short notice. I am Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor, but you may simply call me Hestia. Yes, I was reborn as a princess of the Dragon Empire, Kargryx, but please don’t even think of addressing me as Princess. Makes it complicated and such, you know. Instead, I want us to think of each other as equals.” I clapped my hands, smiling at the rest of them. “As such, I would like to welcome everybody to our first meeting as a team!”

I sat back down and let Saori handle the formal stuff. I still had three weeks to catch up, so it was better to just listen to those who had better knowledge than I did.

“Alright, as Hestia said, thank you very much for coming everybody. It’s been a long time. As such— Yes, Tamae-san?” Noticing Tamae raised her hand like a diligent student, Saori paused and acknowledged it.

“Is Empress Melloxtressa not coming?” she asked.

I answered, “Mother’s currently sleeping in my room. Catching up on seven-ten years of sleep? Maybe even more, but she didn’t specify it. The two snow wyverns in their dragonewt forms are taking care of her right now. Any decision I make has her consent, as long as I follow her rules.”

I just learned that older dragons, especially ancient dragons, literally have to take time to sleep to control the massive amount of mana stored inside their bodies. The more they sleep, the more they will recover. Immortality does have its downsides, huh?

In any case, Mother technically didn’t have to hibernate peacefully for the whole period, but it would be better if she did. She decided she would sleep whenever she could while waking up to spend time with me. Even if it meant harming herself, she was not willing to sacrifice even more personal time with me. She wanted to make memories. So, she’ll probably wake up tomorrow when we design her room.

With that out of the way, Saori continued, “As such, I would like all of us to work well together. You aren’t my students anymore, so you don’t need to call me ‘Sensei’ or ‘Segawa-Sensei.’”

“You’re still our ‘Sensei,’ Sensei,” Nishio, the bespectacled mage, stated firmly. “Even adults call their former teachers with Sensei. Even if you continue arguing that you are a ‘different’ person, you still are the same person with whom we spent those three years with. I don’t think we need to change that part. The others agreed.”

Everybody aside from Asaka nodded.

Saori sighed. “Well, do what you want,” she said, before continuing where she left off with a satisfied smile. “First things first, since we decided to merge our three parties into one, I would like to suggest we form a ‘hunter’s company’ with our combined groups. In essence, it is simply a larger party, but it allows us to accept certain Quests without having to partner with other parties.”

Kyouya raised his hand. “Sensei, we already talked about this when we were traveling together. Dame Yorshka suggested to us to stay as individual parties, since companies are restricted with the type of work you may take. Individuals cannot take on personal Quests, we are only allowed to take Quest at or above our current rank, and we will be taxed more for our Quest.”

“Hmm, I did say that, right?” Yorshka chimed in. “However, the circumstances have changed. Yes, staying as individual parties means flexibility, but companies aren’t without advantages.”

As the name already implied, it was a company. A guild company acted similarly to a liaison according to Yorshka. Like the white and black mercenary companies I’d heard of before, hunter companies were expected to go around and seek jobs by themselves.

Normally, as adventurer parties, we would go to the local guildhall and simply take a Quest from the Questboard. Sometimes you would get a commission while wandering into a village. But those were normal things any adventurer could experience. The difference a hunter company brought to the table was—

“Reliability and trust.”

“Reliability already comes from our ranks though. That’s why they force you to do soooo many Quests just to give them a reason to trust us with more daring Quests,” Kazumi, our resident human-turned-katzune, complained.

“True, but what I’m talking about is the liaison part, remember? Conducting investigations that can get you remuneration without a Quest, acting as a moving Quest board for areas the adventurer guild doesn’t wish to build a guildhall for, and, I guess what Saori is intending, going around with the authority of a state. In this case, a sovereign state.”

“I plan to finally use Hestia’s influence as a princess of Kargryx,” Saori explained. “Previously, our party tried to keep our real identities low, but as it was recently exposed in the Griffonpeak battle, it will be impossible to stop word from spreading. Gael and Muraina, our underworld sources, have already confirmed that this information is leaking everywhere down in Shaturein. Soon, it will spread to other countries and completely beyond our control. As such, to protect ourselves, we need to establish our image and reputation.”

“Of course, they can do this as a normal party,” Yorshka continued, pointing at everybody from the two other parties. “The thing is that they have you kids on board, now. Instead of using this influence for themselves, why not share it? Yes, as a company, we have some very annoying restrictions — the taxing part is the worst — but the fact is, the Guild trusts us enough to allow us to establish a company. Understand?”

“Oh, the Quest part, right?” Haruka seemed to have understood what Yorshka meant. “Uhm, I heard we’ll be using this RV as our main method of travel, correct? If we market ourselves as a company, that means people will swarm us with Quests they can’t be bothered to go to a guildhall to post. Even if we have to file these Quests later on to the Guild to have them taxed and record our accomplishments, we should be allowed to negotiate with the Quest givers ourselves!”

Just like with Carine Village and the village chief, huh? We got some money for the bandit Quest, but they also allowed us to stay inside the village for winter. Even allowed us to build a house.

If we are talking about influence, we also have Mother. The personal recommendation from an empress and a princess should assure Aurora’s safety. If Tasianna’s fairy form or Ellaine’s identity as a “demonkin contractor” were to be exposed, we could always rely on Kargryx’s influence. We had diplomatic immunity, in effect.

Of course, this meant the nobles would flock to us. Companies are larger, allowing them to work with larger contractors. Meaning nobles, governors, and rich merchants. Sure, some of them would hand in Quests to the guild, but from all the ones our party has taken on, only three Quests came directly from a noble — the two handed to us by Carine village’s fief lord, Arcanuess Helvas, an the one from Severa’s brother to find her.

Verdammt, I can’t imagine how much I will have to deal with them now… But we need the protection.

In any case, the talk about the company was agreed upon unanimously, mostly since all of us understood we couldn’t stay in Griffonpeak forever. We needed to travel, and having some protection and ability to go around flexibly would be best. However, we still needed a tool for this.

“Grimnir, will you be able to continue production of those [Room] runes?” Saori asked.

“With the lass up and about, I can,” Grimnir replied. Due to me being unconscious, he hadn’t been able to produce more [Room] runes since he needed me. We needed them to expand the fast travel nexus.

“Damn. Honestly, I had thoughts of fast travel, too, but with how hard it is to level up [Space-Time Magic], I had given up. It’s still only level two for me,” Tatsuya noted. “Are you really able to do it?”

“Of course, my lady is fully capable of it,” Tasianna spoke up. “Everybody, I have been testing the functionality of this idea with my lady since the very start. We will require the [Room] runes Master Grimnir makes and also my lady has to be around to make it work, but we are able to teleport around from one city to the other in seconds.”

“Unfortunately, long-distance will be hard,” I stated. “The further away two rune portals are, the more mana you will have to spend. You can use a catalyst to bypass having to shoulder the cost yourself, but it will become a problem if we want to go from Altrust to the Empire, for example.”

The students nodded, understanding what I meant by that. Grimnir smirked for some reason, and was ready to explain what he had in mind… Only for Haruka to speak out before him.

“If the mana cost increases by distance, couldn’t we make the fast travel system work with a waypoint system? Put a [Room] rune in every city or town we trust, and when we need to travel from one country to the next, we can simply use this system. Every catalyst can be filled enough to teleport to a city, then take a break, and then continue the trip until we end up at the designated destination.”

“Bladdarg, you damn brat! I was going to say all that! Arrrgh, by Crustacia’s twin-tails, I was waiting to explain all that!”

“U-Uh? Uhm, I’m sorry?”

Eheheh… Poor Grimnir.

In other words, a cooldown system to offset the mana cost. Ways to charge up catalysts or mana batteries with mana were abundant with Aurora in the equation. We even have Mother, and her mana usually overflows when she doesn’t take notice of it. She makes a good AC, though.

The problem was that only I could control the nexus with my [Mana Eyes]. The mana issue was solved, but I had to be around for the teleportation to work in the first place. Without me, no teleportation.

Still, it meant we could continue using Griffonpeak as a hub. The RV would be our transportation method, the subspace our gathering point, and Griffonpeak our hub for materials and information. That’s what Saori explained afterwards.

And then it was Ellaine’s time. She picked up some of her paper and began announcing the news concerning Artorias as a whole.

“A lot of things have thankfully calmed down during the three weeks since the siege and coordinated disruptions within the seven duchies. However, due to the noble purge issued by his Majesty, there have been some changes in the kingdom itself, especially concerning the church.”

Church-wise, Eshe’s death was a massive blow to them, which affected not only Griffonpeak but also all the other temples in the kingdom. “Why couldn’t the church and monarchy protect her? What about the empire entourage?” Commoner dissatisfaction was at a high towards the church and aristocracy.

The duchies affected most by this were the Lecartiglio and Olivus duchy. The Lecartiglio have large groups of beastmen actively hostile to humans, especially after the whole kidnapping and slavery incident there. Meanwhile, the Olivus duchy, being on the border of Aureolis, the religious seat of the church of Aurena, had people illegally migrating into the holy capital, believing Olivus cannot protect their faith.

There were also other problems outside of these locations. Equevanna just had their duke resign after his second son was executed for high treason, but Ellaine stated that House Equevanna wasn't entirely in the clear.

“Due to a historical friendship and debt to House Equevanna, House Artorias decided to pardon them for now. However, Father told me that one more foot out of line and even their previous history cannot save them any further. Including their branch houses. If House Equevanna cannot prove their value and make up for their failures, then another ducal house will succeed them.”

The former Duke Equevanna was stripped from his noble status and was now treated like any other servant at the castle. His dukedom lost a vast amount of nobles and houses through the noble purge, and we could expect King Drangleic’s spies to keep them in line. House Equevanna practically lost all their reputation and influence and was now at the mercy of the vultures that were the other ducies.

Well, only if the others could do anything. Lecartiglio and Olivus were dealing with massive unrest and population decreases, and Morgiana and Myrrdin weren’t better off. Many of their commoner citizens were actively wishing for equal standing between the classes. Their internal affairs were being plagued, so moving out will be problematic.

However, Greenveil was the least impacted by all this drama. In fact, due to nation-wide dissatisfaction and problems, the Sarlenzia company — Amelia Greenveil’s soon-to-be company — has been expanding into the other duchies. Their populace’s satisfaction has been growing since, thanks to Aurora, they managed to avoid the other duchies’ problems, and I expected them to make their move soon.

“Of course, at the end of the day, none of this is Aurora’s issue,” Ellaine stated flatly with a smile before throwing the paper away and scratching her hair in distress. “Ahhh, but it’s my problem since I’m a Helvas! Argh, they really want to push Greenveil to become more influential in the next meeting between the dukes and his Majesty. Argh, so much work.”

Thank you very much for all your hard work, Ellaine.

“In any case, as I said, we do not have to deal with anything. This is the kingdom’s problem and they will have to find a way to solve it. However, with all this unrest on top of Saintess Eshe’s untimely passing, the other countries have taken notice of our failings. One of them is our southern neighbor.”

The Atadoro kingdom. They were responsible for the recent beastmen problems in the Lecartiglio duchy. They were the enemy of Artorias.

“Hestia, I had to talk with King Drangleic in your and your mother’s stead,” Saori informed me. Amazing work, second-in-command. “Once you are awake, he wishes to arrange a meeting between you, as a sovereign party, and him with his dukes to discuss future plans. From what I presume, he wishes to see what your future plans will be. As such, this meeting will also be talking about our goals for the future.”

Saori then turned to her students. “As such, I wish to talk about yours, first.”

“Hold on,” I interrupted. “Well, I don’t mean to be rude here, but…” I glanced over to Elrick. “Should we be talking about everything here?”

Elrick showed me a wry smile, unsurprisingly, as if he knew his presence wasn’t welcomed. However, he didn’t complain. While I was waiting for somebody’s feedback, Yorshka voiced it.

“Don’t worry. Elrick is church-aligned, but he won’t be doing anything with them any time soon. I have it under control, so speak as freely as you want. In fact, Saori agreed to tell him about everything. You wouldn’t imagine the religious shock he went into when we told him about the false pope, hahaha!”

“Grk, Captain Yorshka…” Elrick frowned, looking ill.

“You don’t need to call me that. I’m just doing this for appearances,” Yorshka said. “Just for your information, the students, Elrick, and I are all still affiliated to the church due to the control the church possesses. If I were to step down as a knight, they would simply send somebody new to take my place since we have a ‘saint candidate’ amongst us.”

Yorshka pointed at Asaka.

“Elrick has a secret, which makes him easy to control. The new person? Not so sure, so we need to keep this status quo for now.”

Yorshka can be as devious as Gael and Muraina, huh? Well, I guess that’s an adult for you. And I thought she was more on the carefree side.

In any case, that wasn’t the discussion point. What was important was to hear about Saori’s students’ goals.

Tamae began for her group. “Return to Earth.”

Then Asaka. “Don’t die and return to Earth.”

… Huh.

“…”

There was silence.

Damn, I should probably say somet—

“If that is the case, then may I present a proposal?” The one to speak was Tasianna. “Lady Hestia, Miss Muraina has found something we could check. If possible I would like us to go there after we wrap up a few things in Artorias.”

There could be only one reason why Tasianna would be the one to speak up like this.

“… Is it about fairy hunters?”

“Yes, she managed to find an underground market dealing in items favored by alchemists and magicians in the Republic of Estralia.”

“Estralia is a commercial hub in the western part of Altrust, Hestia,” Ellaine explained to me. “Bordering the Equevanna duchy, the capital of Estralia, Gleisvale, is protected by an incredible stone formation while being built upon a part of the Ankoran mountain ranges. Commissioned by its founder, the city was built by dwarves to act as a hub of commerce. Including being located next to the river Gleislain which follows even into the Folschreck Empire, they are the merchant powerhouse in our region.”

Grimnir nodded. “Aye, us dwarves used to trade with them a ton before the whole war stuff, I heard. They have an entrance inside our tunnels through Gleisvale, so they were also the main source of dwarven, dragonewt, and levianewt goods for you humans. They remained neutral during the war, as expected from merchants, but it still soured our relationship since they didn’t do anything about the fae hunters.”

And now, there was confirmed news of there being fairy hunters there.

“If Hamil’s information was correct, I might be able to find the person who commissioned those fae hunters who killed Princess Schuri. If there is a connection there, there might also be something on Davison. He used to live there, right? Also, with the Equevanna duchy bordering that place, there might also be more information on Hamil.”

In the whole Hamil and cardinal relationship, Hamil was merely a contractor for the cardinal. However, it shouldn’t be ignored that Hamil was who was dealing with the demonkin. Under their orders, probably, he arranged all the chaos that forced the dukes to leave the capital just a day before the attack on Griffonpeak.

At this point, we needed more information on the demonkins. It was either going to the Empire or using what connections we had to find more about them. However, with a small group like ours, we couldn’t just waltz into enemy territory. I wasn’t strong enough and Mother already expressed her wish for neutrality. If I suddenly get into a fight I could not handle this early, Mother would simply drag me back to Kargryx.

Four years until I become an adult. All that time will be spent in Kargryx. Yes, I might become stronger by then, but that also meant I would allow the demonkin to go wild during that time. I already planned to absolutely stomp on them for angering me. At least that demonkin of pride.

But, most importantly, this is for Tasianna to find closure.

“Okay, agreed,” I gave my okay. “Just to make sure, I don’t want to vote for this by myself. Does anybody have any complaints?”

Saori and Grimnir gave me their thumbs up. Ellaine cheered, expressing how they meant she didn’t have to do any work anymore. She even bragged about how she could drop out of the royal academy with this. Oi, girl, you should not brag about that!

However, the students on the other hand…

“I have one complaint,” Nishio raised his hand. “Hestia-san, concerning what you said before, you are right. We are technically joining you mostly for our own safety, but we aren’t intending to do this without working for it. We will contribute, don’t worry. We also understand that we need to get stronger.”

“That’s right,” Tamae took over. “That’s why, if we want to improve our chances to go back to Earth, we need to build up some allies. And currently, I would say that would be Artorias, no?”

It’s true. Even if I am the princess of Kargrx, I won’t be able to rely on my supposed subjects because of the Emperor and his neutrality stance. I could maybe ask Loatryx, but I would feel bad about ordering them. I want them to accept it if they wanted to. If we think of it like that, Artorias most likely would be the best candidate to help out since they have a grudge against the demonkin.

“Tamae-san, we aren’t planning to abandon Artorias,” Saori pointed out. “Griffonpeak will be our hub and due to the Ankor-Nazta and Artorias alliance we want to promote, we need to help them with that. Especially if we want Saelariel and Loatryx to help out, too. We know Artorias is our ally.”

Saori looked over at Ellaine. She smiled back.

“No, no, Sensei, I didn’t mean it like that. I meant that all of us shouldn’t be going to Estralia together. Look at us. We are 17 people, excluding the demon Lady Ellaine has with her, which to be honest we can’t trust fully right now.”

From the looks of the other students, it seemed they felt a bit uncomfortable also. I could sympathize. Even after spending some time with Klea’Hatma, the only one who seemed to have warmed up to her was Ellaine. And that was ‘cause Ellaine is a real sweetheart behind all that noble stuff.

Tamae continued, “As such, I would like to suggest we split up into groups to deal with issues. We have 17 people, we should not force everybody into a single event just because we can. Once we register our company, shouldn’t we use that influence a bit more?”

Thanks to our connection with Muraina, she will probably make the company registration process easier. She isn’t into nepotism, but I don’t think there is a reason for her to decline it professionally. We just helped her ward off an A rank monster with hundreds of adventurers as witnesses.

“Then what do you suggest, Tamae-san?” Saori asked, not following her.

“Sensei, I would like to ask that you allow me to become your restaurant’s head chef and manager!”

My eyes widened.

Are you serious?!

I consider Tamae a friend. We only met for a short time, but I was able to get a decent idea of who she was. It could definitely be categorized under: Nice. But, wasn’t this just absolutely impertinent. The restaurant Aurora worked so hard to make; she was asking to become the head chef?!

I can’t allow that!

“Tamae-chan, that is—”

“Brilliant! If you would do me the honors, Tamae-san!” But Saori was fully on-board.

“S-Saori, isn’t this the restaurant you work so hard for?! You put so much work to make it successful, you even dragged Tasianna, Ellaine, and me into it! You even used me as a rice cooker to make it work!” I was flabbergasted. All the work Saori put into the menu and her own cooking, and she was about to hand it over to somebody else.

“Hestia.” But Saori just gave me a confused face. “Don’t forget that my dream is to travel the world and learn more about this place. My restaurant was my method to get our party a consistent, reliable way to earn funds for your concert, our travels, and equipment.”

… Oh. I forgot about it.

“Beside, Tamae-san is the daughter of two successful Michelin star restaurant proprietors. In addition, she knows how to cook a variety of dishes, while I am limited to Japanese cooking and whatever Western dishes you can explain to me. Having her as the head chef and manager is the best option for us.”

“Also, please, don’t worry that I will kick Sensei out of her own kitchen, Hesti-chan! She’s a phenomenal chef in her own right! But, if you ask me, the kingdom currently needs our help right?”

“That’s what I’m thinking,” Nishio interjected himself back in. “The kingdom is currently going through a tumultuous time with how many nobles were executed. This isn't good. If this were a company, that would mean there will be a huge power vacuum left behind from all the firing. People will vie for those positions. They want to be acknowledged. They want money, power, and influence.”

That was a given, but what could we do about it? This wasn’t our problem.

“I suggest we from The Magical Biscuits stay behind in Griffonpeak, Hestia-san. Since the restaurant is done remotely through the portals, we can have it serve both people in Griffonpeak and those you meet on your travels. A perfect place to gossip, since we don’t have the internet here.”

… That glint in his eyes. What did his father do again?

“Hestia-san, before you probably thought we didn’t have any ambition in this world, correct?” He looked at me straight and I couldn’t help but become flustered.

“Wha—?! W-Well, I, uhm, d-didn’t think about it like that. Wait, do you have a mind-reading skill?!”

It could totally exist!

“No, I just know how to read expressions as part of my education that my parents put me through to become their company's heir. I just learned how to do it.”

Or, not.

But, then again, he was right. I did think it was weird they just answered with “Return to Earth.” It was such a simple but understandable answer.

It was a case of us both having the same end goal, but we had a difference in how to achieve it. The students have no grand motivation to place their mark in Peolynca like me, who has accepted this place as my new home. They just wanted to get back home. It was a perfectly acceptable situation.

I understood from some of their faces that this world had left its marks on them, but that didn’t mean they could just sit it out, I thought. I mean, I personally would have a very good reason to shut up and sit things out, but an idol wouldn’t do that. If I hadn't persevered up until now, that idol dream would have been buried by everything I experienced.

But now you were telling me I was wrong?

“We are all planning to return to Tokyo, but we aren’t trying to do it tomorrow or the next year,” Misaki, the professional archer, stated.

“My father is a mangaka, and I wish to become as good as him one day,” Kohaku, the sword-chuuni, said. “As such, this whole world is a paradise of ideas. But I’m also not delusional enough to fully immerse myself without a care. It’s pretty painful, and I wish I could just return to my room. Seeing how reality is… not fun, if you ask me.”

Kazumi nodded. “Yeah, things are hard here. You know, I never really experienced such in-the-face racism before. Sure, you see it all the time on the internet with how people speak with each other, but you know, it’s the internet. People are assholes there. But… looking at all the hate between the beastman in the Lecartiglio duchy was an eye-opener.”

“This might be rude to say, but while we are staying with Aurora for our own safety and trip back home with your deal with Aurena, we won’t be dead weight. We intend to continue training or at least be useful to you guys in some way.” Tamae explained truthfully. “My talents as an alchemist suck, but what I can do well is make sure a restaurant is successful! So, leave it to me! I will make it so the nobles will crawl towards our restaurant! Oh, and don’t forget to get lots of ingredients for me to cook! I want to try them all!”

Jeez, Tamae-chan can be more than I thought, huh?

“Hestia-san, I hope that settles your worries for us.” Nishio then leaned forward, holding his hands together like some scheming villain. “Don’t worry, we agree with your plan. We are the newcomers, so if you have anything to do, feel free to do so. However, if I may, you are going to the meeting with King Drangleic, right?”

“Hmm? Well, that’s right.”

Of course. Politics or not, things have to be handled. A lot of loose ends would remain if I don’t confront King Drangleic about the problems I have, especially how he handled the day of the invasion.

“As I thought. Alright, we need to go through a few things. You need to know which questions to ask for us, Hestia-san.” Suddenly, Nishio stood up and grabbed Kazumi’s arm. “You’re coming, too.”

“W-What?! Let go of me, Nishio-kun! What are you doing?!”

“Stop complaining. We all know your father’s a PR manager for multiple people inside our circle. You don’t like speaking about it but, come on, even you should realize we aren’t dumb enough to not recognize ‘Hoshino’ and how much you look like your mother. Your father prances her around like a decoration to hide their unstable relationship!” Nishio just revealed something private to everybody in attendance.

“Gaaaaaah! Dammit, you don’t have to reveal everything going on in my home, you ass! It’s supposed to be a secret! Stop talking about it!” Kazumi easily freed herself from Nishio’s grip afterward, a testament of a rogue’s Strength compared to a mage’s like Nishio.

They then came over to me and began to form a list of things I should say and shouldn’t say, while also helping me learn how to lead a business discussion. As if they took this as a sign that the meeting had ended, everybody else said their goodbyes, leaving me behind to suffer.

Of course, we had to talk our plans and goals in detail later on, since this meeting was there to inform and keep people in the know. Still, it wasn’t like I was completely satisfied with it.

I still hadn’t heard from the “Misfits” and their opinions on stuff. They just agreed to our plans but never really explained to me what their goals in this world were. Tamae’s group made it clear to me.

In any case, things were settled that evening. Tamae’s group will be staying in Griffonpeak with Yorshka to handle matters here, while the Misfits will join us on the way to Estralia. Of course, since we will always meet inside the subspace, it wasn’t like this was farewell.

And this was important. Yorshka and Mother were experienced people, perfect to help our group develop and refine our skills. There were also other tutors in Griffonpeak, like Muraina, Thyra, and whoever else we could find. In other words, I would not miss out on training in the future.

Plans were made for me to meet up with King Drangleic, and it was planned that we would meet up in a week's time. Naturally, I didn’t waste this time. First things first was to create everybody’s rooms. Fortunately, Mother allowed me to use her mana to construct everything, so even creating a room large enough for her dragon form wasn’t too hard. And, boy, was it huge, like huuuuuuuuuumooooooongous.

While some good things happened, sad things did too. Pestrodus, his lycerepthors, and Krymdar had to leave on the next day, carrying the coffins for Eshe, Sir Alikar, and Dame Anivh. Aside from mourning before them, I didn’t have much time to pray for her soul’s well-being. They left and all I could hope for was that they would arrive safely in Sarkarfiina.

Spending time with the children was my next important objective. I had to catch up with them. There was also Cernust, who still couldn’t handle Mother’s presence and even fainted right in front of me. He would stay with Severa in Griffonpeak, so I could always meet them when Mother wasn’t around.

In any case, time flew by. Training was set to the minimum as Yorshka told me to rest and recuperate. She forbade me from exerting myself and simply told me to spend time with Mother. Spending time with family and friends made everything move faster, huh?

And when the time of the meeting came, I was completely ready for everything and anything. Nishio and Kazumi were surprisingly pretty experienced with marketing and PR talk. I guess it made sense given their parents. I never expected Nishio to be the son of a talent agency. I thought his parents would be economists or scientists with how he acts.

However, even with all their preparations, I didn’t expect what they told me that morning.

“Hestia, Shaturein has announced to be there at the meeting. They are waiting at the citadel as we speak,” Saori informed me.

A conflict between the kingdom and their past was about to happen. All while I was in between them.

A note from AbyssRaven

One again, sorry about the discord thing. Here's the link once again.

https://discord.gg/sDf7qDr8QS

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 256: Aurora doing Politics.

“Y-You really want to look the part, huh, Mother?”

Scales floating around like glistening snow, enchanting scale accessories complementing her aloof beauty, and ice forming and disappearing in a deposition and sublimation process you wouldn’t really see naturally as often outside of special effects or shows. It’s almost as if Mother was showing off her complete control of her scales and magic.

“As you would expect, draconic fashion doesn’t exist, as we do not wear clothes, my whelpling. To attract mates, we must make sure that our scales and carapace shine healthily before we females assault the males,” Mother suddenly went into a tangent on dragon courtship.

“Hold on, the women attack the men?! What does any of that have to do with finding a partner?!” I was baffled. If I were to go out and attack some random dude, he would just call the police on me!

“Why, of course, Hestia! How else would you know your husband is competent and is able to protect your child? Dragons mate for a lifetime. Our tails stay linked even through the harshest times, never separating until one of us passes on. We must make sure they are as or stronger than ourselves. Even the males prefer strong and assertive females, as that will result in a strong hatchling.”

… This is my life now.

Speaking with Mother was fun, although admittedly, I did think some of the things she spoke about would be more suitable if I were, I dunno, 100 years older? At least when I’m interested in anything concerning boys, which I am not right now. I have an idol career to focus on, plus I had duties to fulfill for a Goddess, but that was beside the point.

This whole talk should have been about her attire.

When I brought us back to that topic, Mother nodded. “Oh right, I apologize. I got ahead of myself since you act older than your real age.”

‘Cause I am mentally older than my biological age, but I kept that thought to myself.

“Back to my point, we dragons did not develop our fashion style alone. We learned and adapted it from how dragonewts and levianewts clothed themselves. Even with their scales, their elven, dwarven, or human parents thought they were naked, so a clothing culture naturally developed afterward.”

Back on Earth, I was never really into fashion and clothing, as most of the stuff I wore was picked out by my Mama. I didn’t have to think about it. But after Saori drilled her whole “clothing is important” lecture into me, I began developing a mild interest in it. At least, I was curious as to why certain cultures clothed themselves.

In the case of the dragonewts, as Yorshka once told me, dragonewts took a lot of pride in their scales and other draconic features. Their sleeping wear, armor, even formal clothing all had their scales and features displayed. It was a mark of prestige and strength if your scales are impressive to look at.

“Since our scales are filled with our mana, they are, as a consequence, attuned to our mana. My scales are naturally attuned to ice. Hestia, yours is probably a mix between fire and light, due to your blessings and evolution path. You could have been born as a silver or ice dragon, but Kargryxmor’s blood overpowers ‘lesser’ lineages. Your siblings inherited more from the Emperor than from their mothers, too.”

Because they’re made mostly out of mana, dragons often possessed the ability to manipulate their scales, taking pride in their ability to control them. That’s why Mother pimped out her usual Empress outfit with more scale-blings with her control over mana.

On the other hand, I was wearing a modified version of my ballroom gown. Saori made sure to emphasize my regalness with a more draconic design while Mother created some accessories for me to wear from her own scales. Make-up came from Ellaine, giving Tasianna and Svena a fun time to pretty me up.

Unlike my meeting to mediate between King Drangleic and Muraina, this was an official conference. A meeting between two sovereign parties, and Mother and I were the representatives of Kargryx. If it were only me, this meeting would have been unofficial, but since Mother agreed to participate, it automatically turned into an important event.

We would be treated like any other imperial guests for this whole day, although properly now, as any minor grievances could cause a war. The problem was that I felt underdressed next to Mother.

While I could copy — insert name of whomever the hell I could think of to copy — and act regal like a princess with the help of my skill [Royal Presence], Mother exuded majesty with every movement and action, naturally. She had this presence which told you straight to your face, “You are beneath me. I am beyond your comprehension.” She had an amazing cold shoulder look.

“I will teach you how to turn your scales into clothing, Hestia. Mother’s promise,” Mother comforted me. And just like that, she switched from being a dragon to a mother. Simple as that.

I did see her talking extensively with Yorshka about how to be a mother. Ehehe, I guess she has a good enough mentor?

With both of us dressed and ready, we said goodbye to everybody in our company except for Saori, who would be accompanying us as our aide.

“Hesti-chan, good luck! Break a leg!” Kazumi encouraged me, looking anxious as she helped me memorize the proper etiquette with Ellaine’s mother, Marianne.

“Sensei, please, don’t forget to raise those topics we went over. Our classmates who went to the Empire will be a sore subject. And please, make sure everybody sticks to decorum,” Nishio reminded Saori.

“You worry too much, Nishio-kun. You should know how I work, especially when you were one of my class’s representatives.” Saori tapped her satchel with documents before waving goodbye to everybody else.

The three of us then left the RV and were confronted with a large retinue of griffon knights, all surrounding an ornamented griffon carriage. There wasn’t a need for it, since we could all traverse the sky in one way or another, but we were supposed to be VVIPs right now.

“Your Imperial Majesty, Melloxtressa Wisperia Nordor, and Your Imperial Highness, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor. I, Duke Isaac Albreus Greenveil, shall be your escort to His Majesty’s, King Drangelic var Artorias’s, citadel. Please, allow me and my knights the honor to guide you there.”

According to decorum, only those of high status may act as escorts for an empress and imperial princess. Either the Knight-Commander of a Knight Order, the highest-ranking member of the royal guards, or somebody of the second-highest rank just below the royal family. That’s why Duke Greenveil introduced himself like that, despite knowing me personally.

Without further ado, we boarded the carriage and sat down. From the looks of it, they seemed to have made modifications to the seats in order to accommodate our tails and wings. Thanks to that, this was the first carriage ride where I felt completely comfortable.

We eventually made it to the royal palace and were greeted by the head butler. With Duke Greenveil accompanying us, we were led into a waiting room where he excused himself to prepare for the meeting. A little bit later, the butler returned and told us it was time.

“It’s time. Here, for you, Hestia.” Mother handed me a circlet made from her ice and my scales, making the latter look like rubies shining under the light.

“…” I took it, but all I could do was look at it with a frown. I was conflicted on this. Not only was the thought of wearing a princess circlet suuuuper cringe, I just thought it would look stupid on me.

… But, idols had to learn how to sacrifice some things for success. Wearing things they didn’t like, performing songs they didn’t want to, or working out for ungodly hours. Somethings just had to be done.

There was still a part of me who was still trying to reject this whole princess stuff; however, I also had to learn to use this to my advantage. Being a princess was a double-edged sword — you get dragged into this political stuff, but the influence I would hold was pretty huge.

Reluctantly, I handed Saori my circlet and positioned myself for her to put it on me. Without speaking, she understood my intent.

“Okay, let’s go.”

The butler led our group through a long hallway before ending up in the same room I held my mediation session. The butler rang the bell, prompting the door to be opened for us to enter.

“May I present — Sixth Empress of the Dragon Empire Kargryx, the SS rank [Diamond-Powder Fimbulvetr Dragon], Empress Melloxtressa Wisperia Nordor.”

Oh, Mother’s race is [Diamond-Powder Fimbulvetr Dragon]? I haven’t asked her about that yet. Her silver powder certainly does have a diamond-like brilliance sometimes.

“And accompanying her is her daughter — Third Princess of the Dragon Empire Kargryx, the B rank [Young Sunfang Dragon], Princess Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor. Their presence has been announced!”

King Drangleic and his aides, the seven dukes, Muraina, and two unfamiliar faces — one man, one woman — all stood up from their seats, bowing as we were led to our spot at the table. As we sat down directly opposite from the king’s position, everybody said in unison, “We welcome the winged frost and fire from the Empire of the God of Dragon, Kargryxmor. May he bless our auspicious meeting this day.”

Holy crap.

When it’s an official diplomatic meeting, those used to it really knew what they were doing. The magnificent presentation of the meeting room, the coordinated announcement and greeting, and the respect for somebody of a higher social status. It made me feel more out of place than I thought.

Also, as you heard, I was the third princess. Mother had told me I was the eighth child of the imperial family, having two half-sisters and five half-brothers. Problem was that she only knew the other empresses well, not their children. Then again, learning I had seven half-siblings was already informative enough.

In any case, back to reality. After Mother, Saori, and I sat down, the others did too. Looking at the people before me, I had to take a deep breath to prepare myself. It was nerve-wracking.

As mentioned before, King Drangleic with his aides — Ulquint Myrrdin and Armado Lifcio — sat directly opposite from us, a sign that our two sides were the most important members of this discussion. To my right were all seven dukes of Artorias, while to my left, Muraina and, I presume, two of Shaturein’s leaders were seated.

I knew that Muraina joined the meeting as a representative of Saelariel and ally of Kargryx the moment she heard of our participation, while Saori only informed me this morning that Shaturein was also joining. It was surprising to see King Drangleic accept their presence here. There was a political reason not to allow them to participate, since it could endanger Mother, Saori, and me. I mean, not that it was likely, but it was politics, dude.

“As the King of Artorias, I would like to personally welcome you to my kingdom, Empress Melloxtressa. I apologize if my first introduction was lacking in any way,” King Drangleic started out.

“There is no need, King Drangleic. I merely came for my daughter on that day, so there was no need for any sort of decorum. In fact, your city was endangered and you just survived through a perilous battle with that insect. There is no need for you to worry. I am not fickle when it comes to human or elven etiquette.” Seated right in the middle of our spot, Mother replied with a cooling calmness as she told everybody she wasn’t in any way perturbed by any sort of “human” mistakes — minor mistakes, to her.

King Drangleic caught on to it and nodded. “I thank you for your consideration, Empress. Before we begin, allow me to introduce the people participating here.”

King Drangleic first started with his two aides before leading into his dukes. I also noticed that “Duke Equevanna” was somebody else, and when King Drnagleic introduced him, I learned it was his son, Fillion Bastois Equevanna.

As Saori said, not only was Charleslyt executed but his father was stripped of his title, ordered to hand it over to his heir. Just by looking at him, I could see him hiding his anxiousness behind his smile.

After the dukes and Duchess Morgiana were presented, King Drangleic allowed those on the left to present themselves. First, it was Muraina, who gave a long-winded greeting fitting for an ally of Kargryx. Mother and Muraina already knew each other over drinks, so it seemed they were happy to see each other.

After that, it was time for our surprise guests.

“My name is Jenghil Grengar, one of the three pillars of Shaturein, the underground city beneath Griffonpeak. I am not personally acquainted with your daughter, Empress Melloxtressa, but Princess Hestia has done much to help me and my city. It is an honor to meet you, Your Imperial Majesty.”

Jenghil Grengar, described to me, was the madam who owned all the brothels inside Artorias, using them as her spy network. With a guild name like “The Heartful Dance,” I imagined she would be a bit more, uhm, daring with her appearance.

However, to my surprise, she shared some similarities to Thyra, in fact. Like an older sister. Since she was the bastard child of Duchess Morgiana’s brother, Jenghil was a half-elf with long, sharp ears and House Morgiana’s distinctive “double circled eyes.” She gave off the aura of an overworked businesswoman.

Now, the person next to her was exactly how I imagined him. The boss of a whole underground society. Wearing a fashionable suit with a cape, the tall man stood up and bowed his head, letting his medium-length dark hair fall.

“Vangrim Blackreach. Representative as one of Shaturein’s three pillars. A blessing to the Gods for the honor of meeting you today, Empress Melloxtressa, and your daughter, Princess Hestia. If possible, Shaturein would like to partake in this meeting as a neighbor of Griffonpeak. To speak terms through them with you for our city’s future.”

The dukes naturally scoffed at the notion that Shaturein was a “neighbor” of Griffonpeak. Shaturein technically was an independent force but it also historically belonged to Artorias’s land. Whatever grievances they had with each other, I hoped they could drop it for today.

“You are already here. I have no complaints,” Mother said, ignoring the glares the dukes directed at Jenghil and Vangrim. I guess to her, this wasn’t her problem.

After the introductions, King Drangleic began explaining the reason for this meeting. Essentially, he had decided that it was time for him to reveal certain “specifics” to everybody in attendance and to have everybody be equally informed. This was intended to put everybody at the same level, as the discussion would involve Artorias’s diplomatic future.

And to begin, he dropped the bombshell that was the demonkin’s infiltration of the Empire and the Church, specifically, all the information I have given to him from Aurena. To nobody’s surprise, everybody but Muraina and my group was flabbergasted at this revelation. In fact, Duke Lecartiglio, Groushia, and Olivus even doubted King Drangleic due to how absolutely insane this sounded.

But, not with me around.

“Duke Lecartiglio, Duke Groushia, and Duke Olivus, as you are well aware, I am a champion of Aurena. I am a reincarnator who was blessed by two gods’ blessing the moment I was born. I am not interpreting the words of the gods as most other blessed would do, I can actually listen and even banter with Goddess Aurena if I wanted to. I can send my soul to meet her in her divine realm.”

This was new information to the Shaturein folks, but since King Drangleic allowed them to come today despite what he was planning with this meeting, it meant he was okay with them knowing about it. Although, I have to admit it was a bit dangerous since they managed criminals.

“Princess Hestia, do you mean to say that you heard all this face to face with Goddess Aurena?” Duchess Morgiana asked.

I nodded. “I have visited Goddess Aurena’s divine realm three times now and seen my Kramps, once. Oh, Kramps is my nickname for Kargryxmor, since he technically is my grandfather. In any case, I know this might sound pretty heretical, but there is a reason for which King Drangleic received all the information about the insurgencies in your duchies.”

“So it was from you, Princess Hestia?” Duke Olivus still looked doubtful. “I… I must admit, this is hard to accept. A-Although, I do not question your ability to listen to Her Holiness! Of course, it must be so, since she was the reason for your reincarnation.”

That’s good enough, I guess?

“Hmm.” Duke Groushia stroked his beard, looking doubtful, before nodding vigorously as if those doubts disappeared in an instant. “My fellow dukes, I shall choose to believe Princess Hestia. If the information His Majesty has given us truly came from Princess Hestia, then I have no reason to doubt her. If those issues hadn’t been resolved, the fallout would have been far more troublesome. As all of you must be aware, it cannot be a coincidence that all dukes except for Duke Greenveil had to depart from the capital a day before the attack.”

“I agree,” Duke Greenveil agreed. “During her stay in my duchy, Princess Hestia has managed to solve three major events — the incident with Davison, the attack by the grimgarian battalion, and the extermination of the rachonoid queen. If any of them had occurred while I was away, I most likely would have left at the same time as with all of you.”

“Hmph!” While everybody else was starting to realize things, only Duke Lecartiglio seemed displeased. “So… if this information is to be believed as truth, this would mean all the soldiers I sent to the Empire as ‘Imperial tribute’ for our kingdom’s ‘participation in the war’ were sent to the demonkin? All those young soldiers who died and those who are still fighting on the frontlines? Your Majesty, this is an outrage!”

Duke Lecartiglio was the kingdom’s marshal. He was responsible for all the soldiers’ deaths. The notion that he sent all of them to their enemy made him weep a single tear as he spoke with a quiet rage.

“… My Duke, unfortunately, this most likely is the case. The person who killed Saintess Eshe… this information I had kept from you, telling you I will reveal it later. We have our witness before us.” King Drangelic gestured to me. “Princess Hestia was the one to avenge the Saintess after her death. All traces of the assassin were vaporized by Her Imperial Highness, but we have the evidence coming from Sir Pestrodus as you are aware.”

“Your Majesty, are you saying the demonkin who murdered King Assurfel wasn’t the only one?!” Duke Myrrdin's eyes widened.

“A demonkin of envy,” I answered. “He took on the appearance of Pestrodus’s nephew. He was the one I found while I was mourning for Eshe. I can confirm, he definitely was a demonkin.”

Duke Lecartiglio smashed the table with his fist, unable to hold back his rage despite the situation. As King Drangleic was about to lecture him, the duke didn’t let him continue.

“My King, if you had known this information all along, how can you even think of allowing those imperial swines to leave the capital! You should have imprisoned them!”

“And possibly cause our rocky relationship with the Empire to deteriorate even more? You fool, think about it. If we had done that, all of this would have escalated into a war!” King Drangelic’s military advisor, Lord Armado, rebuked the duke.

“Fine! It would have been better as such! I’ve been talking about how it was impossible to appease the Empire at this point. The fact that they continuously demand more tribute and conscription from us compared to the other countries is because they know we are not loyal! If we continue down this road, our country will soon be weak enough for Atadoro to overtake us.”

“You battle fool, must you only think about war?” Duchess Morgiana chided him. “Artorias is not capable of any large-scale battle after everything that happened. Our duchies are still in need of repairs and, after King Assurfel fell — may the light guide his soul to Goddess Ilsaphone — our mightiest weapon has been destroyed. Our talons have been removed.”

The dukes began to argue amongst themselves with all this information. As expected, things like this caused an uproar. I could even see Vangrim and Jenghil discussing it under the guise of all this noise. Looking at Mother, she had little to no care if this discussion continued or not.

I looked over to King Drangleic and nodded with him. We had to do something about this.

Ordering everybody to be silent, King Drangleic attempted to calm the dukes down. “Duke Lecartiglio, while I do understand your feelings, imprisoning the lycerepth agents was not the correct move.”

“How so? Maybe one of them was another demonkin?”

“That is because we have good reason to believe that none of them is a demonkin. If you wish to know my source, you may request it from Princess Hestia.” In other words, Ellaine’s secret was still taboo for now. “Second, it is because I cannot afford the Kingdom to go to war that I had to leave them be. If we were to antagonize the Empire even further, there would have been no way for us to attend the alliance meeting between Artorias, the dwarves, Saelariel, and Loatryx.”

The dukes’ eyes and ears were completely turned to King Drangleic. Talk about the demonkin was gone.

“Your Majesty, do you mean—?”

“Yes, Duke Myrrdin, there has been progress. We will begin the process of separating ourselves from our vassalage to the Folschreck Empire. Lady Muraina, if you please?”

“Of course, King Drangleic,” Muraina pulled out a piece of document. “As you must have seen before we removed it, the corpse of the geisenlarg king, or what remained of it, was frozen solid by Empress Melloxtressa. She was the one to end the attack on that day. Under the advice of Miss Saori, I had ordered Krymdar and a few alchemists amongst the elven community of Griffonpeak to appraise its blood.”

Saori had mentioned something about that in the past week. Since the geisenlarg king went full-on eldritch mode, there had to be something in the blood. I was only curious about the black potion Davison and the demonkin drank to go eldritch mode, so Saori believed there had been information from it.

And she was right.

“From our results, the blood of the geisenlarg was completely corrupted with demonic mana. The energy a demonkin requires to activate their demonic powers from their blood. According to Imperial Alchemist Krymdar, this is very similar to the process that a demonkin contractor would undergo, only that whatever caused this corruption was imperfect. An imitation, or if we were to follow his theory, something to draw out the full power of a demonkin contractor.”

“Did he find out how the geisenlarg’s blood was corrupted?” King Drangleic asked.

“Presumably during birth. Geisenlarg kings do not live for long, and, if I were to guess, this one most likely came from the colony underneath our outpost. After reflecting on it, I presume the demonkin most likely also planted that colony there, readying themselves for the attack on the capital.”

It was the logical conclusion. If it was a sabotage or threat, the demonkin most likely planned on it. A geisenlarg invasion would have given the demonkin enough time to attack Assurfel also.

“Now, what caused it? Was there a substance they injected into the egg? Well… King Drangleic, you should have the honor to reveal what Charleslyt said.”

“My brother?” Duke Equevanna blurted out, earning him a pitiful stare from his king.

King Drangleic did not leave a single detail out. He informed everybody about how Charleslyt consumed a tonic and even shared it with the nobles who attacked Ellaine. That tonic gave them powers they believed came from the Goddess, but in truth, was a cruder version of the tonic Davison dranked.

“No…” The young duke clutched his head, dismayed from the news. The other dukes even began looking away from him, almost as if this news just killed all trust they had for the Equevanna duchy.

This was a political death, even worse than what happened with his brother and father. All of this, after he just assumed his father’s position as duke.

Politics is cruel. But this information had to come out some way.

“I am sure all of you must now understand the situation at hand,” Muraina continued, not allowing the young duke to digest this information. “I have already discussed this with King Drangleic, and we have concluded that an alliance is needed. Or at least, it is worth talking about.”

King Drangleic nodded. “As such, a summit will be held. The information we have gathered was sent to the respective leaders, to gain their attendance. All but the Ankoran King have not answered yet, but the dwarves were all we needed to schedule this summit. In five months, on the 30th of AutumnSun, when the dwarves celebrate the birthday of the Revolution Queen and Goddess of Change, Ingenuity, and Ambition, Chihiro.”

So that is the date. Got it.

I went to ask him why it was scheduled at that late of a date and the king answered, “The Ankoran King expected the answers of the Saelari and Loatryxian to be slow, due to their reluctance to work with us. As such, we required a reason for them to come. Also, because of the recent attacks, I am needed here to oversee the repairs for some time yet.”

“What is the reason?” I questioned, but I already had a feeling what it was.

“I had Lady Muraina not tell them about your existence, Princess Hestia. After all, I never really got a firm stance from Kargryx. Your confirmation to help us was appreciated, but as this will demand proper diplomatic procedures, I require an answer from you as a representative of your home. I require your agreement not as ‘Lady Hestia,’ but as ‘Princess Hestia.’”

He then turned to Mother.

“But, I will also need the answer from your Mother. Empress Melloxtressa, Artorias humbly requests your aide to mediate the summit we will hold.”

Mother smiled. This is what we wanted to hear. Seeing her like this, the dukes were relieved.

Only, there was a problem.

“I decline.”

It was all crushed into dust.

“B-But, Empress Melloxtressa—” Duchess Morgiana looked mortified, as if her goals were just squashed right before her. She and Duke Myrrdin wished for Artorias to make amends with the elves of Saelariel, so seeing the key to solving this problem reject them must have been heartbreaking.

“You cannot persuade me. Do you have any ideas what we dragons have done to ensure the world developed to this point? How many dragons have died to fight back the demonkin? How much we had to suffer during the aftermath of all these events? Our Emperor, our glorious leader, Eltharion, has enacted a law to prevent Kargryx from interfering with the world. A law of neutrality.”

“But what about the humans and elves who fought and died during that war?” I presumed some of the dukes wanted to say, but they knew better than to anger someone like Mother. She could snap her fingers and they would turn into popsicles.

“Would there be no way to persuade you? Is there anything you need?” King Drangleic urged her to reconsider, but she did not sway. Even the Shaturein representatives showed signs of being nervous. Letting a potential ally as Mother and Kargryx go would be a disastrous situation. If they were to separate from the Empire, they needed a strong ally.

“… However, while I cannot and will not allow Kargryx to participate in any of this squabble between you, I must admit that my daughter had been unruly for a while now. Only a year old, but she has already decided on becoming an adult. Oh, woe is me, but a mother should still support her rebellious daughter… no?”

And hope was brought back into the dukes’ and Shaturein pillar’s eyes. King Drangleic smirked.

“I understand. It is a shame that Kargryx cannot help us.” He then turned to Saori and me. “As such, if possible, I would like to speak with your daughter, who is currently acting as a separate faction. However, as she is still a princess and has the backing of Your Imperial Majesty, her words must still be influential, correct?”

“Of course, she is my daughter, after all.”

He nodded firmly. “As such, Princess Hestia, shall we discuss terms? Now, in an official diplomatic capacity between royalty.”

Saori smiled and unpacked the documents inside her satchel. She glanced at the Shaturein representative before saying, “We are ready, King Drangleic.” Their eyes immediately sharpened, fully understanding what they had to do now.

Gael, Yorshka, and Muraina. All of them are tricky.

From what Nishio and Kazumi explained to me, business meetings were a battle between factions to gain the terms they wanted. And this battle began the moment the meeting was scheduled. We needed allies and we had to make sure these allies thrived to work for us. Even if we had to make preparations and talk behind the curtains.

I smiled. The Aurora brand will spread well with our new team.

“Let us hear what you can do for us, King Drangleic.”

A note from AbyssRaven

:0 Politics.

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Chapter 257: Making Allies through Politics.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Why did Mother reject Artorias’ attempt to discuss a potential alliance with Kargryx? It was simple: the dragons did not want to get dragged into this mess. Humans versus demonkin or humans versus humans, neither of these situations sounded like a problem to Mother. It wasn’t the dragon’s concern if either race eliminated the other.

Of course, you could argue that, if the demonkin were to win, they would then engage the dwarves, elves, dragonewts, levianewts, and eventually the dragons. But that was it, it was only a “possible outcome.” Mother argued that, if the dragons were to engage every single potentially world-scale threat, what would stop the other races from continuously pleading to them to solve their problems?

Mother and most of the ancient dragons had enough of war. That was the point.

Of course, the other races constantly entreating for help from the dragons would follow Kramp’s wish to turn dragons into the world’s protectors, but all the ancient dragons currently inside Kargryx are mostly apathetic towards the world, and dragons like Mother and Emperor Eltharion were completely done with the notion of war. They now stood at the peak of a mountain, peering down, looking at everything as if it wasn’t their problem.

Mother wouldn’t budge, even if I tried persuading her. She personally was against my participation and the gods’ will. She only wanted my safety, but I had things to do in Altrust. Idol stuff was obvious enough, but I still wished to fulfill Aurena’s Quest to get my end of the bargain — a meeting with my parents and to apologize to them for all the sorrow I gave them.

As such, Mother wouldn’t agree to anything as a representative of Kargryx. She couldn’t even. She didn’t have the authority to do so since all the executive power belonged to Emperor Eltharion, my dragon father.

However, what about just putting my name on a piece of paper? Nishio, the son of a talent agent, reminded me how important a name was for marketing purposes. The participation of a famous and amazing actor in a movie? Instant seller. The name of a celebrity promoting the quality of a product? Better make sure you can get restocks soon.

Now, what would happen if I were to trade my permission to use my name on things? For example, a letter to certain country leaders? The name of the eighth child of the imperial family of Kargryx and the dragon whose egg went missing? Not only that, but she was also accompanied by her Mother on an adventure?

Well, I am sure it would make a few people raise a brow when King Drangleic sends this letter out.

“Princess Hestia, if possible, I would like you to agree to the urgency of this summit. If it were you, I am sure Saelariel and Loatryx would contemplate our proposal to hold a summit to discuss an alliance between all of us,” King Drangleic said, following the instructions we as Aurora gave him on how to open this discussion.

“I understand. However, I presume you must understand that simply giving you my approval is already a large commitment. As a princess and idol, I have my own reputation to look out for. The recent incidents, as you might expect, were not very pleasing to experience.”

I placed my foot down during this discussion. There have been things I was majorly inconvenienced by during my stay in Artorias, and signs that might cause Artorias to lose out on this alliance deal. After all, the elves, dwarves, and dragonewts don’t have to accept Artorias, they could just go and solve the problem by themselves if they had to.

The dukes quickly caught onto what I meant, looking serious as they recomposed themselves. Whether they deduced that most of the beginning was staged, I dunno, but what was important was that they understood the real meeting would begin now. With documents on hand, they were ready to negotiate.

As I said, the beginning was staged and coordinated with King Drangleic, but now, everything was up for grabs. Muraina was in the know, too, of course. It was just surprising to see Shaturein participating today, but I guess if they didn’t betray us today, it would be important to get Shaturein on our side, too.

Regardless of their alignment and their criminal-infested city, having some sort of contact in the underworld would be good. Now, while I didn’t have the strongest moral compass, I wasn’t ignorant of whom I was intending to work with. However, after the slave auction rescue, I get that sometimes you will have to work with less than ideal companions.

Now, if we could urge these less than ideal companions to change, or at least not backstab us like those Yanderu guys, that would be for the best.

“For Griffonpeak to gain my support, the very first term I must receive is a guarantee that the Kingdom of Artorias is currently in control.”

This probably was the most important part. We had to stress it.

“As you might already know, I was involved in numerous accidents and incidents during my stay in Artorias. Most of them happened in Greenveil, however, the most recent one was rather damning to Artorias security and stability. Out of my responsibility as Goddess Aurena’s champion, I chose to defend Griffonpeak; however, I saw little to no support until the end from the nobility and knights.”

“I concur. When I arrived on that day, I saw my whelping in a life-threatening state. I learned you were aware of my daughter’s identity, so I must ask why you left the elimination of multiple high-ranked threats to my daughter and her party,” Mother supported me, causing the king and his dukes to frown.

Yes, Mother, scare them! … Does that make me sound like a villain? Nah, whatever.

“Regardless of your excuses with corrupt nobles or not, I must ensure Artorias is peaceful from within. United, not divided. As such…” I turned to the Shaturein representatives. “Mister Blackreach and Miss Grengar. I do understand why King Drangleic wishes for my assistance, however, I do not understand your motives. I presume you must be aware that the information you received today won’t come for free, correct?”

“Of course, information never comes for free. Everything has a cost,” Jenghil tapped the piece of parchment before her. “However, all the information we received today has been priceless, I must say. Everything concerning Princess Hestia’s real identity and subsequently her companions, like Miss Saori. The reveal of the demonkin plots and also the truth behind that giant monster.”

And due to how precarious it was to keep this secret from others, Jenghil and Vangrim couldn’t leave without handing in some kind of assurance. We had to know they wouldn’t just sell this to the enemy.

Jenghil continued, “However, as I can see, you are skirting over some information, like how Davison was involved in fae hunting. My little spiders have already gained this information for me, and rest assured, Shaturein has no interest in profiting on it.”

Duchess Morgiana narrowed her eyes, inspecting her niece. “So, what does Shaturein want, Miss Grengar? There is still the question if His Majesty can trust you and Mister Blackreach with this information, but I presume you must have a reason for us to do so, if you are here.”

“Precisely, Duchess Morgiana,” the one to answer was Vangrim. “I must also say that our proposition will also aid in Her Imperial Highness’s wish for unity. Shaturein and Griffonpeak have always been separated since our founders created our cities. Griffonpeak would guide those under the sun, while Shaturein shall shelter those too unfortunate to see the glistening white walls of the nobles. That has always been the case.”

Jenghil continued, “However, during these tumultuous times, Shaturein has also learned that it cannot fully survive alone. We may work in the shadows and our webs might spread all throughout the kingdom, but if Griffonpeak were to fall, Shaturein would also collapse.”

“As such, I, Vangrim Blackreach, leader of Shaturein and the three pillars, would propose a proper alliance between us, King Drangleic.”

“Preposterous!” Duke Lecartiglio spoke bluntly.

Yeah, it couldn't have gone this smoothly. Please, don’t escalate the situation.

He continued, “Do you really believe an alliance between us would be possible? Shaturein, you should know your place. You have long since devolved into a realm for criminals and those depraved enough to forsake honor in all their actions. Allying with you would cause the opposite of what Her Imperial Highness wishes — unity.”

“You speak with prejudices, Duke Lecartiglio. I understand your wariness. Past events concerning our citizens and foreign workers have caused Griffonpeak distress. I will not make any excuses concerning Hamil. It is our fault for not producing a proper background check on him,” Vangrim humbly accepted his mistakes. “However, I do not exactly believe Artorias has the liberty to choose its allies. As Her Imperial Highness already implied, your alliance with the northern races isn't secure. Shaturein can provide information and supplies in exchange for protection.”

“Then why not accept vassalage?” Duke Greenveil proposed.

Jenghil shook her head in response. “Shaturein’s culture cannot conform to Artorias’s. If we were to accept your offer, this will, without question, cause riots and public disorder beyond what Mister Blackreach can control. If we cannot control Shaturein, we cannot prove our worth.”

“An alliance is done through equals. We are not equals in strength nor influence, Miss Grengar,” Duchess Morgiana rebuked her argument. “No matter how much Artorias has suffered from this attack, we stand strong. In addition, Artorias relies on the Aleistunum mages guild to educate novices and further our arcane studies. The management of your contracted mages is a blight and embarrassment to proper arcanists, and if we were to ally with you, it will only damage our relationship with them.”

Hmm, as rough as I thought. We need to give them a push.

[“Saori, your turn. We need to settle this, otherwise, it will just get to nowhere,”] I told Saori through telepathy, and she immediately interjected herself in the discussion.

“We can see that there is discord between the both of you,” Saori interrupted both parties, drawing their attention to her. “However, while I do understand Artorias’s concerns and Shaturein’s reluctance to change their ways, things have to come to a compromise. As Mister Vangrim mentioned, Artorias will gain much in working with Shaturein, gaining proper access to the underworld in the west of Altrust. Princess Hestia wishes for this to happen.”

“We all know that Hamil, formerly one of Shaturein’s four pillars, was complicit in the attack on Griffonpeak, Miss Saori,” Duke Myrrdin brought up. “He worked with Cardinal Bennard to sow rebellious thoughts in my people against us of noble birth and those learned in the arcane. We cannot trust that they will not do this again. Not to mention our relationship with Aleistunum, and what would the northern races think of us? The underworld is brimming with fae hunters.”

Duke Myrrdin brought up some very important points. There are advantages to allying up with Shaturein but the penalties can be pretty damning. Looking at it from Artorias’s point of view, I wouldn’t want to team up with them in their current state.

“I agree, that is why there must be compromises,” she then turned to the Shaturein side. “As such, I have a proposition, Mister Blackreach.”

“I am all ears, Miss Saori.”

“According to Muraina, we heard that you are currently interested in expanding your influence outside of Artorias, correct? To be more specific, you wish to tap into the market of Estralia, the dwarven trade city manned by humans. You faced… complications, no?”

Vangrim and Jenghil turned to Muraina, who was peacefully smiling back at them. Feels like Muraina is our mole in all of this really. Like in a spy movie.

I nodded and continued for Saori. “Aurora’s next destination will be Estralia, as we wish to deal with a problem over there. As such, we will be temporarily leaving Griffonpeak; however, as I am pretty sure Duke Greenveil and Duchess Morgiana are aware, I have access to teleportation magic. Or, to be technical, I have control over a teleportation system.”

I never really told Arcanuess Helvas to be silent about it, so I was pretty sure he had reported about it to Duke Greenveil. It wasn’t a problem, people I could trust enough knew about it. While I never told Thyra about it, I did mention about creating a fast travel system to her, so she probably relayed this to her mother about the possibility. I was simply confirming it here.

“We can always return to Griffonpeak if needed through Princess Hestia’s subspace. While we are in Estralia, we can personally solve your problems, Mister Blackreach. However, only if you transform Shaturein to something Her Imperial Highness can accept as an ally,” Saori explained.

“… What exactly would you ask of us?” Vangrim was now wary. His eyes sharpened as he assessed our next words. He already told us what he couldn’t change, so we couldn’t just repeat what was said.

Ugh, the hardest part is coming up. Good luck, Saori!

We couldn’t change their culture, however, he knew he had little choice in this. His appearance today was a surprise, but now that I thought about it, it shouldn’t have been. In his mind, if I had allied up with Griffonpeak, there might have been the possibility of their destruction. Vengeance from me, due to them letting Hamil escape.

Well, I wasn’t that sort of person, but that’s what I believe somebody like Vangrim might have thought. As such, Nishio’s tip on appeasing a cornered business partner should come in handy. Weave the contract to our favor, but don’t further anger them. A disgruntled subordinate will always find a way to stab you in the back.

And Saori knew this well enough. She listened to Nishio explain these negotiation methods.

“Mister Vangrim, while I understand you do not wish to change your ways, if you cannot adapt to the times, this discussion will lead to nowhere. Before you is the option to join a possible large alliance through Griffonpeak. You will have less restrictive access to the northern countries, that was one of your goals for this meeting, correct?”

“…” He stayed silent but he did not dispute it.

“As such, if you cannot compromise to change how you conduct your business, we can not continue. For example, there is no reason to stop the influx of black market goods, but, you must be aware you cannot deal with certain objects with the elves breathing down Artorias’s neck. First things first, ensure another slave auction never happens. Your negligence to stop Hamil caused Her Imperial Highness discomfort and distress.”

“… I understand. I will work earnestly to ensure slave trades will not continue.”

Saori continued discussing what Shaturein could change with Vangrim and Jenghil, all while King Drangelic gave his feedback on stuff. Saori went a bit aggressive but still gave Vangrim and Jenghil enough room to discuss details.

For example, we managed to get them to have their mages conform to more safety-appropriate rules, just borderline forbidden by the mages guild. This meant that they might lose certain mages and might even anger Shaturein’s third pillar, but it meant having access to elven and dragonewt arcane studies.

In addition, by giving Shaturein permission to expand their protection program to Griffonpeak, it meant King Dragleic was able to spend less on the garrison and soldiers taking care of criminals, enabling him to increase investment in economic ventures. Vangrim made sure nobody caused trouble in his city, now he would make sure outsiders don’t cause trouble in Griffonpeak also.

Give and take. We needed to show them the advantages of altering certain parts of Shaturein were worth the demerits.

“However, there is still the problem of trusting Shaturein,” King Drangleic’s diplomatic advisor, Lord Ulquint, questioned their sincerity in this.

“I can help with that,” I spoke with a smile. “Make an oath under Kargryxmor’s name to King Drangleic and me. If Shaturein breaks it, then prepare for Loatryx to attack you for ‘damaging their princess’s pride.’”

Kramps being the God of Oaths really helped me in this after Mother told me how much oaths are respected in Loatryx. If two dragonewt clans wanted to ensure everybody kept up their end of their bargain, they would venture to Kargryx and swear this oath before the dragon leader of their respective clans. If you broke it, you would disrespect the authority of two ancient dragons! Fun, right?

“Well, of course, I presume you have no reason to go against your end, correct, Mister Vangrim? You would only lose in this deal.”

At the end of the day, we didn’t want to completely change Shaturein. We only wanted certain aspects to go. Just enough for all of us to accept them into our fold.

“Heh… Of course, Princess Hestia,” Vangrim smiled, accepting my key into this alliance. “To ensure this goes through without any complaints, I am willing to swear this oath. Therefore, I hope you will keep your end of the bargain and help us solve our problem in Estralia. Miss Grengar will inform you about everything after this meeting.”

“As a sign of our trust, allow us to give you this document.” Jenghil handed a parchment to King Drangelic before she continued explaining. “The list of nobles who have acquired a slave from one of Hamil’s slave auctions. What you wish to do with them will be left to your discretion.”

“Hmm.” King Drangliec squinted his eyes. “My dukes and duchess, are there any complaints?”

The dukes were disgruntled but seeing how much Saori managed to make Vangrim and Jenghil accept, they didn’t want to push Shaturein too far and call the entire thing off. During the entire discussion, Saori always made sure to reiterate the benefits Shaturein could bring to Artorias and us. Now, all we could hope is that Shaturein will shape up to be a good ally.

Speaking of allies…

“King Drangleic, I do hope you will do something about the nobles on that list,” I spoked up. “I will not tell you how to deal with your nobles, but what happened on the invasion day was a disaster. How many of your citizens died on that day? How much did the adventurers and my party have to deal with until you arrived to fight the geisenlarg king?”

The necromancer, Charleslyt, and our attempt to get Hamil. Not to forget, if some knights were around to escort Eshe, her death might not have happened. Artorias had let me down on that day, and that cannot happen once again.

“I understand. My sincerest apology for my failure, Princess Hestia. I will ensure such a mistake does not happen again, on my word as king.” King Drangleic stood up and bowed in forgiveness. Seeing this, Duke Greenveil also stood up and did the same, seeing as he was in the capital at that time also.

I nodded contently.

Today’s meeting wasn’t there to suddenly introduce reforms to Artorias. We weren’t that pompous to think we could just waltz in and change everything here to be similar to America or Japan. This wasn’t my kingdom. All we needed them to handle was to expunge corruption. That was something we didn’t need.

And once we made that clear to them, we expected King Drangleic and his dukes to change their kingdom naturally over time. Pretty sure if we just kept communicating with them, they would change in some ways. I mean, Earth pastries and idol culture were slowly being spread here.

And with two dragons literally breathing down their necks to be better, Artorias has to work hard to appease us. That was our advantage as the superior faction.

Yeah… this does make us seem like the oppressive empire stereotype. Literally throwing our weight around, hoping something sticks. Meh, it’s better this way. In the future, they’ll have the elves doing the same to them!

With that out of the way, now it was time to coordinate with our newfound allies.

Saori began, “Our first term is that you will help us in keeping watch of the Heroes of Aurena in the Empire. As you know, those heroes were not actually summoned to this world by Goddess Aurena, but by the demonkin. Still, they are from Earth and acquainted with us. We require information on them to make sure they are safe.”

Krymdar will act as our correspondence in the Folschreck Empire, but as the imperial alchemist, he probably shouldn’t put himself in the fire too often. As such, we needed less conspicuous spies.

“I can send my girls to the empire. I might not be able to provide the same service as Hamil with his contacts, but my girls should be able to slip into the empire’s capital easily enough,” Jenghil offered. “However, it would become far easier for me to coordinate with them if I had access to their path into the empire. I believe the southern way through Atadoro is out of the question?”

“If we were to interact with Atadoro, it would be mostly for war. Our interactions have never been friendly even once,” Duke Lecartiglio explained.

“I see, as expected. As such, our only way would be either through Ankor-Nazta or Estralia. We need access to the Ankoran train.”

The Ankoran train was the first and only mana-fueled train in Peolynca. Probably the only train in the world, in fact. According to Grimnir, this was the very last invention of the Revolution Queen before she died. Her last memento to the world.

With its tracks beginning in the dwarf’s capital inside the Ankoran mountain ranges, the train allowed you to reach the beastman and the empire through the underground of the mountain. The train was the reason why the dwarves were able to interact with the eastern parts of Altrust with ease.

After the War for the Faefolk, the train was made and the train tracks placed after its inventor’s death. One of the stopping points is in Estralia’s capital. Even if the dwarves didn’t like trading with humans, Estralia had access to the underground tunnels since its capital, Gleisvale, was made by the dwarves.

If we help Shaturein, we help ourselves, in other words.

Saori continued after that was dealt with, “Second term, we require you to still act as allies to the empire and church of Aurena until the alliance is sealed, King Drangleic. We would like a war to be avoided as long as possible.”

“It might not be possible, Miss Saori,” he answered bluntly. “Even if the Church and Empire don’t use Saintess Eshe’s death as a reason to destroy us, they will probably soon demand for a higher tribute. More soldiers and resources. We cannot afford that. If we deny it, they will have Atadoro and the other human countries attack us.”

“I understand that six months is a long time. Anything could happen, after all.” Yorshka gave us a realistic view of Artorias situation, so we had an idea of what to expect. “However, Aurora is currently not ready to support you in your war. There must be a way to delay it, Your Majesty.”

I didn’t want to fight in a war. If we could avoid it, I would do my best to stop it. I do understand if it's inevitable that I had to do something, but having a war now wouldn’t be feasible. Griffonpeak is weakened from the demonkin and I still had a lot to prepare before I could do anything in a war. It wasn’t time.

“Maybe… If we can spread our own influence through Estralia, we might be able to prevent a war purely due to a lack of resources?” For the first time since the beginning of this talk, the new Duke Equevanna spoke up.

“How so, Duke Equevanna?” King Drangleic asked.

“Well. As my fellow dukes and His Majesty must be aware, after everything that happened with House Equevanna and the noble purge, our duchy is currently in a precarious situation. We are dealing with the aftermath right now. However, before all of this, the previous Duke Equevanna had multiple contacts within Estralia’s capital. As a republic, they are managed by senators and representatives whose power is above their monar— president’s. Their senate is quite corrupt and influenceable.”

“… Gleisvale is a terrible location to do battle,” Duke Groushia added after taking time to think. “Due to its natural fortification, invasions are always in Estralia’s advantage. With access to the longest river in western Altrust, their ability to ship resources gives them the reputation as the ‘City which can never be conquered from the outside.’ Only from the inside, through these senators.”

“The president is a pawn, a marionette for the senate,” Lord Ulquint spoke. “To wage war in Estralia, one must go through the senators. To control the president and Gleisvale, one must bribe the senators. If we can convince them to, we can make sure only Atadoro and Rakarteen can attack us. They will think twice before they attack us immediately.”

Everything is starting to look like Estralia really was the best next destination. Damn, and here I thought I just wanted to help Tasianna.

“However, that would leave Aureolis. If they support the Empire’s decision, the holy capital might excommunicate us, Your Majesty,” Duke Olivus warned us. “The moment they do so, the Knights of Aurena will be sent to attack us. We also cannot forget that the Empire will also send its own forces. If they send any of their Imperial Knights, we will have to deal with people of at least rank A in power.”

Imperial Knights?

I wasn’t sure what these knights were, but I guess they might be the personal guard of the emperor. If they were around rank A in strength, they might be as strong as Yorshka.

“In that case, if that were to happen, then it might be okay to use me if you wish,” I was the one to bring that up. “As a Champion of Goddess Aurena, they cannot just ignore my wish to meet with them. If the time for war were to come, then allow me to speak with them.”

“If we were speaking about influence, Princess Hestia might be able to gain enough to make Aureolis think twice before condemning Artorias. As an idol, we will travel towards cities and towns to perform her music concerts,” Saori supported me. “If she were to state her support for Artorias, to ‘assure the faith stays true in the kingdom,’ they might consider stopping the empire from breaking your vassalage for now.”

And then we backstab them all! Muhahaha! We join with the other races! Yeaaaaaa, that will turn me into people’s enemies, but if it can prevent a war before we get ready? It might be worth it.

“I do hope it will not come to that, but it is worth a try.” King Drangleic was worried but he had to look to the future. He had to make sure Griffonpeak was strong enough to weather the storm.

After that, we mostly talked about internal stuff and how Artorias and Shaturein would proceed from here. The politics stuff concerning me was finally over at this point but Saori still had a few things to say. In any case, I finally had the time to just take a breather and just listen. All this stress made me want to eat cake.

The future will be wild, huh?

Once the meeting ended, King Drangleic and everybody else thanked us for attending and that the formal agreements will happen at a later date. As we left the citadel, we congratulated ourselves for a job well done. It wasn’t perfect, but we still got certain things across.

The day after will get stressful since I need to attend some political appearances, though. Six months and a few days remain for us until the summit. Until then, I gotta make sure I use it well. After all, our next destination will be a new country.

But first, time to sleeeeep and relax.

A note from AbyssRaven

Politics over. Boy, dry stuff.

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Chapter 258: A Fragassa Smoothie on a Sunny Day.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Lady Hestia. Miss Saori. Here are your drinks — a frozen fragassa smoothie for my lady and a lemon cocktail made from dwarven sake which arrived today for Saori. Please, enjoy.” Tasianna placed our drinks on the table placed between Saori and me.

Standing there, she watched us in anticipation as we took our first sips. I don’t know how it was for Saori, but the moment the cooling smoothie entered my mouth, the warmth of this sunny summer day vanished immediately for me. The sweet and sour fragassa spurred my taste buds to celebrate from the invigorating taste.

““Cheers!”” Saori and I softly touched our glasses together in jubilation from the taste. ““It is amazing, Tasianna!””

Tasianna let out a sigh of relief before bowing and retreating into the RV. As she did so, we stayed sitting in our wooden sun loungers, enjoying our drinks and the sun as we relaxed here in House Helvas’s garden.

“We deserve this,” I said with closed eyes.

“After yesterday? We sure do,” Saori agreed with me, taking another sip from her cocktail. “Mhmm, arg, this stuff is strong. The stark quality difference between imported dwarven sake and the sake made in the lower city is quite obvious. Well, I think it is worth the money we spent.”

“Treat yourself, Saori. Our first actual political meeting and we got out of it with what we wanted. Sure, we had the advantage for our own terms, but the relationship between Shaturein and Griffonpeak could have broken apart. They could have just continued working with a false smile,” I comforted Saori, telling her the money we spent on something she liked was not a waste.

“Thanks. I honestly do not remember when I last treated myself to something expensive. Maybe before my father died? Then again, most of them were decently priced and I just wanted them because I was a child.”

“Oh? I do wonder how you were as a kid, Saori. Less uptight maybe?” I showed her a devilish smile, but Saori didn’t look as amused.

“… If you want me to be even stricter on our finances, I could, if you were trying to provoke me here, Hestia.” I quickly apologized to her. The last thing I needed was an even more merciless Saori. “Haaaa, whatever. Speaking about our past, did your ‘second personality’ appear again?”

“Mhmm, sadly, nope. I haven’t had a dream with her since I woke up after my coma,” I told her. My party was aware of my dream and soul separation. “Still pretty wild that was the reason for my [Parallel Thoughts] skill, right?”

“Yeah, I honestly was a bit worried about your mental state. I thought you might have been bipolar or something.”

“Ehh, I became a bit unhinged with my solitude in Belzac before you came, so maybe I was. Still, multiple soul personality disorder, as I call it, isn’t very normal, either. My parallel minds were questioning their existences, you know. Hahahaha!”

‘Oi, shut up, Original Mind! We never said anything like that! Stop lying for a joke!’

Sorry, sorry, #2. Ehehehe.

But there was a small truth behind it. My parallel minds and I did question how much my personality as “Hestia” differed from my previous self. I guess, quite a bit, since my other half didn’t accept me as her. She wasn’t even willing to tell me my original name. What a weird case of double persona, huh?

But, she did seem adamant to “die.” Have the last pieces of her inside me forgotten, so there was nothing left of her. Sadly for her, I wasn’t having any of her bullshit. It’s obvious my past self couldn’t handle all the stress to become an idol. All those failed auditions, that promise to not cry, and also seeing our parents’ continued worry for us. I can still feel it.

I really should have just gone indie to build my brand. Make a video of myself, promote through social media, and then collab with people in the future. I was so stuck on the ‘proper’ way to become an idol that I forgot about all the other options.

I’m not sure if Papa ever tried to persuade me to stop being an idol, maybe he did and I couldn’t remember it. Still, just like how I had my first concert on a stage made from dirt, earth, and stone, I should have also just started from the bottom instead of dreaming to join some agency. I could have also just begun my career as a singer then transferred into becoming an idol.

Ahh, I’m starting to regret all my dumb decisions. If I had been a bit more open-minded, I probably could have achieved something instead of turning into a depressed bitch. But, all of that is in the past now. My other half’s past. What is important now is my future in Peolynca, and to get her to accept our new chance in life.

“We’ll be going now, Sensei!” As I was daydreaming of my past, present, and future, Tamae’s voice appeared, prompting me to turn my head around. There, I saw her manning the RV with Grimnir, driving the carriage forward with Sarasa and Quatre.

“Yes, good luck out there, Tamae!” Saori wished her luck. “Grimnir, do not forget about the correct location! If you make a mistake, I will have to pay a fine to the chef and merchant guilds!”

“Argh, I know, I know, Saori! Do you think of me as an old geezer? Just cuz I’m stuck in my smithy all the time doesn’t mean I forgot where our usual spot is! I got it!” Grimnir replied in exasperation. “Lass, the next batch of [Room] runes are done. This afternoon, you gotta come back in and help me with the next.”

“Goooot it.” I showed him a peace sign. “Tamae-chan, good luck out there! Tell Kazumi-chan and Kohaku-chan good luck from me, too! You can rely on Tasianna to perform perfectly as the waitress!”

“Thank you! See you later!” And with that, they left the noble district.

The one week of preparation to make the meeting a success for us wasn’t the only thing everybody did. While I had my hands full with Mother and the meeting, Tamae continued getting everything ready to take over the restaurant. That meant adapting Saori’s former menu while keeping prices low enough for people to pay.

Not to say that was all she did. Our main goal with the restaurant was to get it ready for nobles and rich merchants. Lord Helvas was kind enough to help us hire the staff for it, with Josine and Svena personally overwatching the hiring process. They would train as waitresses and chefs under Tamae’s command to serve our party and House Helvas Earthen dishes.

Today, Tamae wanted to re-debut the restaurant to our customers in the lower city. As such, Kazumi, Kohaku, and Tasianna were there to help her. Our restaurant helpers weren’t comfortable managing common people, as they were trained to serve nobles and influential personages. It wasn’t a big deal. It meant we could keep the street restaurant more carefree and lax, perfect for the demographic in the lower city.

Concerning the others of our party, Tasianna had been keeping up with her alchemy training and has even asked Mother to train her in magic. You know, ice dragon and ice mage; a perfect fit if you ask me. In other words, I’ll be training with Tasianna once Mother believes it’s time to train me.

Nishio and Misaki went to the mages guilds and archery field, respectively, for training. The Misfits members weren’t lazy either, as Kyouya and Tatsuya went out to the dungeon, and Asaka and Haruka went out to explore the city, while Daichi, well, I dunno what he was doing. I thought of him as a bootlicker, but it doesn’t seem like he particularly likes me at all. Every time I tried to speak with him, he made up an excuse to leave.

I could understand Asaka and Saori not getting along. They have a bad history together, but what did I do to Daichi? Considering we will be travelling to Estralia together, it doesn’t seem like we will get along too well. Hopefully, it won’t cause any problems.

“Mhmmmm!” I stood up from my lounger and stretched. “I’m going to give Ellaine a visit. Do you want to come too, Saori?”

“I am fine, Hestia. After all that politicking, I just want to turn into mush and pudding,” she said before summoning Uno, Song, Shoyi, and Rajah. While her garms laid down on the grass to enjoy the sun, she placed Shoyi on her chest. “Ahhh, everybody, let’s enjoy our break for now~”

Wow. Then again, she’s been working for a whole month pretty much everyday. She deserves this.

With Rajah following me, the both of us entered the Helvas mansion. Svena welcomed us inside and took the smoothie glass I had from me.

“Rajah sure is very obedient. Even Saori’s garms can be rough when they dislike doing something,” Svena began small talk, complimenting how much of a perfect virigress Rajah was.

“Hmm, that is true. The garms usually fight amongst themselves when Saori hands them something good to eat. They will always fight for the best pieces.”

The garms had a weird dynamic. They were extremely faithful and obedient towards Saori, while showing respect and interest towards the rest of us. They were good wolves, you can say. A bunch of good boys and girls… The only problem was they were constantly fighting amongst themselves who was the best.

Like a bunch of siblings, neither could accept the other as the “Beta,” the secondary leader after Saori, who was their alpha. At first, I thought Uno was the Beta, but after I asked Saori about it, they thought of no one but themselves as the beta. To Saori, Uno was her beta due to how much more responsibilities he was willing to take, but the rest weren’t as receptive.

Outside of battle or washing them, I didn’t spend as much time with them as I wanted to. I should. They were part of the party. Just like Rajah and his family.

“Rajah, when did you learn how to be like this?” I asked my virigress, who seemed to have learned some common tongue words.

[“I. See Master speak with Saori. I copy. Goddess grant power. I believe. Good.”]

From what I could clue together from his broken common, I understood that Rajah copied everything he could when he was still with me in Belzac. Unlike his siblings who grew up as normal virigress, Rajah learned [Telepathy] after his first evolution, and used this chance to develop himself mentally.

Seeing as the entire virigress family received Aurena’s protection after they went their ways, they pretty much abused the experience boost it gave to level up. It wasn’t as powerful as mine with Kargryxmor’s blessing, but still good enough that they could level up faster. Rajah believed he should be acting more regal, like the heroine who saved his life back in the forest — me, in other words.

Was I really that regal back then? I guess I had my [Princess] title even back then, but I wasn’t even trying to act at all pompous and shit. Well, whatever, it didn’t matter too much. I was just happy to see Rajah developing himself.

However, there was still one question I hadn’t asked him yet.

“Why did you want to come back, Rajah?”

When he left me, Rajah chose his family over me, and I was perfectly fine with it. If you have a family, you shouldn’t abandon them so easily if you love them. I greatly admired Rajah’s choice. I was a bit sad when we had to say goodbye, however, Rajah’s happiness was more important.

Which is why I was surprised when he came back with Tamae and the others. Why did he bring his family with him? What caused him to leave the forest?

[“Home. Changed. Gruu? Word, not know to say.”] It was obvious now that I had to help him with his words. He hasn’t mastered common yet.

“Hey, good morning, my little aunt!” As we were walking through the hallway, Yorshka appeared from a corner. “Oh, and good morning to you, Svena and Rajah. Hope I wasn’t disturbing anything.”

Yorshka wasn’t in her armor nor her casual clothing, but in a yukata with scales floating around it. Her silvery hair was tied into a bun, making her look like a stereotypical traditional Japanese housewife.

Due to the Revolution Queen, Japanese stuff had spread to Loatryx, so seeing a dragonewt in a kimono or yukata wasn’t weird. It was just a bit surprising to see her having her yukata with her.

“A yukata?” I questioned.

“Oh, oh right, I picked it up when I visited my husband and Priscilla in Firwood. I mean, since it’s Earthen inspired and so on, I thought, why not, right? Lets me fit in with you guys, haha,” Yorshka released some of her silver powder to make it seem like she was glistening, reminding me of what Mother said about dragonkins liking to show off their control of scales. “Anyways, what are you up to? Visiting Ellaine?”

I nodded to her question, but then figured I could probably ask Yorshka about Rajah’s situation. She picked him up with his family. Maybe she knew why Rajah wanted to come with us. When I asked her about it, she picked Rajah up and asked him a question.

“More monsters and competition, right?” Rajah nodded in response. Yorshka placed him down and began explaining to me. “You know, I heard from Muraina you were one of the reasons for the recent large monster spawning recently. It even hit Cedaraille, so hunters have been working well.”

My fight with Astalos the wyvern caused some serious problems after we defeated him. Mostly, we forgot to drain the mana from the area, resulting in a high concentration which caused a lot of monsters to spawn from it.

Yorshka remembered how I explained how we escaped the Belzac forest, about how Astalos was escorting us only for an entourage of grimgarians to ambush us. Astalos used the level six lightning spell [Ramuh] to destroy them, allowing us to escape in the chaos. Yorshka believed this was the reason for a general increase of monsters.

“There have been no reports of an ecosystem-altering monster, but I do think the forest might be more populated. In any case, Rajah might have wanted to flee the area, and he might have thought staying with you would be better. He felt your [Hestia’s Retainer] on Tamae and the other kids, so he knew we knew you.”

I picked up Rajah and gave him a large hug. “Don’t worry, once we’re back on the road, I promise we’ll do some training, alright? We’ll get stronger together, Rajah!”

[“Rajah. Make Master happy!”]

To rest, Yorshka told me to not train in my week of preparation for the meeting. Now that it was over, all I needed to do was to enjoy my break day and get back into it. I needed to get stronger. I would not allow another friend to die like Eshe. I will protect my happiness, and I will prevent that damn demonkin’s plans for endangering my enjoyment of life any further.

Yorshka then asked me if I could open up a portal for her to visit Mother, knowing Tamae should have brought the RV down to the lower city by now. I did so and Yorshka was back in the subspace. With Rajah and Svena, I walked to Ellaine’s room.

“Ah, Hestia, good morning!” Ellaine greeted me, standing up from her desk to embrace me.

Once we let go of each other, I noticed her armor was placed on a mannequin right next to her closet. I couldn’t detect any damage to it.

“Oh, did Grimnir finish the repairs already?” I wondered, to which Ellaine confirmed my question.

“Yes, but it took quite a bit for him to do so. It’s mostly because Francesca’s transformation caused some internal damage to it. Otherwise, the armor managed to protect her body from getting crushed from the ruins… but not her head.”

Ellaine’s armor was stolen from her by the Chezaic twins during her scuffle with Charleslyt. Francesca, the elder twin, wore it to taunt Ellaine and used it to fight against her. Ellaine managed to defeat them by causing the whole house she was trapped in to collapse, crushing everybody aside from her, Jonathan, and Amelia.

The young lords and ladies who died on that day were all traitors, all willing to help Charleslyt in his pursuit to overthrow his father, so there was no reason to pity them. All of them even accepted the demon tonic Charleslyt gave them. Francesca and Iracela, the two twins, seemingly even attained a form similar to Ellaine’s demonic assimilation form, so they were already kind of a lost cause.

Thankfully, Ellaine’s armor survived all of that. Speaks of the quality of Grimnir’s craft.

“However, Master Grimnir decided he had to reforge it one day, seeing as how it was damaged from internal transformation. With my cooperation with Klea, that has to be solved.” Ellaine shrugged, telling me to sit down.

Josine, Ellaine’s maid, and Svena already knew about Klea’Hatma, as Ellaine decided it would be better to trust them with it, seeing as they were trusted attendants. Josine was Ellaine’s maid since childhood and Svena was slowly taking on more responsibilities due to her decision to continue serving me. She was even the head waitress for our restaurant now due to her hard work.

Once we sat down, Josine and Svena went out to prepare tea for us, allowing us to talk freely with Klea’Hatma. “Klea’Hatma.”

[“Mhmm, I had a feeling you wanted to talk with me, dearie. So long since we last spoke, so you naturally would want more of me~”]

However, contrary to Klea’Hatma’s more carefree tone, Ellaine had a wry smile. She knew what was about to come. “Hestia… this is about my future with Klea, right? About what happened during the fight?”

“Yeah… I’m sorry. I just- When I heard from Saori how you looked in that ‘demonic assimilation’ form, I felt a bit apprehensive of it. A bit scared. That you might be lost to us, and that Klea’Hatma is controlling you right now. You’ve also changed a bit, Ellaine,” I told her without holding back anything, and Ellaine nodded in acceptance.

“I can understand what you mean, Hestia. I guess with all these demonic moments we had in our adventure, it’s natural to be more wary with anything concerning demonkins or demons. However, from the looks of it, [Okl’Luthier’s Power] seemed to be a good backup plan against Klea possibly rebelling.”

Ellaine had told me that when she was decapitated by Charleslyt, she met a figment of Aurena in [Ok’Luthier’s Power] where she was lectured by her about Klea’Hatma. She was able to subjugate the demon if she wished, but Ellaine, out of the goodness of her heart, declined and decided to make this symbiosis work.

The issue was that this Aurena warned Ellaine to not be careless. Klea’Hatma might have found this gesture touching, but a demon of lust wouldn’t idle for too long. One day, it might bite us in the butt. Prevention is the best cure, but I also respected Ellaine’s decision. I want to talk to her and get my own opinion on the situation.

“I presume you understand what ‘lust’ in the context of a demon of lust means, right? The actual meaning?” Ellaine asked.

I nodded. “Yes, lust doesn’t just mean sexual desires, but desires in general. A desire to find new experiences as the old ones die out. You quench your thirst in excess, before throwing things away like a broken toy in boredom. That is what I understood from my interactions with her. Am I right?”

[“Spot on, honey.”] Klea’Hatma sent a thumbs up to me telepathically. [“Sexual pleasure is, of course, the most distinguishable desire attached to the definition of lust. Sexual strive is as natural to life as eating. However, I personally consider it primitive thinking. Lust is so much more. The strive for perfection, the desire to break free from monotony, the eagerness to change one’s life. Just like Ellaine. Her lust for happiness is a good example, and can be used to explain some of the problems in her life. Not all, mind you.”]

“Even Brother had his phase where he was envious of my development. He wanted to train himself more, to the point we misinterpreted his wish to join Charleslyt. Nevertheless, his experience as an adventurer did bring us closer once again.”

“Isn’t that just envy, though?” I questioned, still confused on how these demons construe the seven deadly sins.

[“Every emotion is affected by one or more sins, Hestia. Don’t think of all of this so simply. Emotions are complex. Your wishes are difficult for others to completely understand. Your rage for somebody can trigger wrath, envy, and pride for example. Never think of us demons of sins as simple beings, Hestia, we will feast and trigger sins even by abusing the other emotions.”]

Now that was something I could understand. Thinking of them as complicated as emotions might help me create a better understanding of them. But that was why Klea’Hatma was making me so damn nervous.

“But, then, what is stopping you from betraying us one day, Klea’Hatma. Yes, you explained you are interested in Ellaine and us right now, but what about the future? I don’t want you to harm Ellaine. I don’t want to face another tragedy.” I massaged my temples anxiously. “I am thinking of taking your rings away if you can’t persuade me, Ellaine.”

“Urk.” Ellaine clutched her hands together.

“I don’t want to impede your progress, but I also don’t want to mourn for another friend like Eshe. Please, tell me you can persuade me, Ellaine.”

“…” Ellaine stayed silent for a moment, before answering with a wry smile on her face. “All I can really tell you is to trust me, Hestia. Just like before.”

“Ellaine.” I scratched my head in exasperation.

[“Well, that is the only answer she can give you, dear. The only proper answer without lying to you,”] Klea’Hatma spoke to me. [“However, I can understand your feelings. Well, I literally can feel them, but that is beside the point. In any case, as a demon of lust, someone who has fully accepted the life of a hedonist, I am something like a wildcard. Aurena explained that to Ellaine in detail. I can change my opinions at any turn.”]

Images of Ellaine speaking up for Klea’Hatma when she spoke to Aurena’s figment entered my mind. I could feel Ellaine’s and Klea’Hatma’s feelings during this moment, all delivered to me by the latter.

[“Yes, I am grateful to Ellaine. Yes, I am currently enjoying my pseudo-life with all of you. Yes, learning so much about Earth and its culture tickles my lust for knowledge. Even your adventures intrigue me.”] But her cheery tone quickly changed. [“But, I do admit I wish to have my body back. I am safer to you and Ellaine while inside these rings, but it also makes me desire a new body. I can still lend Ellaine my powers through a demon contract, but it also opens up possible problems. Problems you are already thinking of, Hestia.”]

“Yes. You can betray us,” I confronted her earnestness with my own. “I know Aurena can stop you, but I don’t think I want to rely on it perfectly. I think Aurena once said that gods aren’t omniscient, right? Well, that is why I have to be careful. Just like how she couldn’t warn me about Eshe in time, I can’t rely on her for everything.”

Mother mentioned the Origin Gods will not allow the planet to be endangered by the demonkins and their Edjurl gods, but she didn’t mention our everyday life. The gods will not intervene if their blessed were to die. Eshe’s death is proof of that. As such, to ensure my own happiness, I needed to take things into my own hands.

[“Hmm, that fire. A lust for happiness, just like Ellaine’s.”]

“Hestia, I understand your worry in all of this, but I also cannot just give up on this power. I don’t think Klea is a good person, I can already imagine what she did when she first came to Peolynca. But, I am still of the opinion that using her power to fight our enemies is the best way to use her. Fight fire with fire,” Ellaine argued.

“Then why did you not just subjugate her. Tame her. Break her. Do everything you can to suppress her urges? If you had done that, we could have one less random possibility. Didn’t Aurena mention that?” I pointed out.

“Because I do not believe that is what a knight should do, Hestia.” And Ellaine’s answer was still out of the goodness of her heart. “I personally do not believe that tormenting an evildoer is true justice. I believe that is just a way to fulfill your sadistic side to attain closure. Charleslyt was a traitor, a traitor who deserved the highest punishment available. However, once he had repaid his debt to the kingdom, he was given a quick and merciful death. There was no public fanfare. Nobody gloated at his deceased body. Afterward, his remains were handed to his brother, the current Duke Equevanna, to bury and mourn him in his way. To me, that is justice.”

She paused as she looked at her rings. “Klea’s debt to Peolynca is to aid us in the name of the Goddess. An enemy forced to work off her debt. To me, this is the appropriate punishment for Klea in our current age. What will happen afterward? I will not know, but that is for the future to decide.”

[“I am an archdemon in strength, Hestia. A demi-god, but I must still follow the rules given to me by the Edjurl gods. Contracts are to be followed, I told her such. For that reason, Ellaine wanted to form a contract with me to hold me on a tighter leash, but, you know, don’t make contracts willy-nilly with a demon. It won’t end well, dear”]

For that reason, Klea’Hatma didn’t form a contract with Ellaine at the end. They were still going around in a symbiotic relationship without any real connection between each other aside from [Okl’Luthier’s Power]. The demon mentioned she didn’t want to abuse Ellaine’s goodwill and drag her into an unfavorable contract.

[“If you cannot trust in me, there are two paths forward for the both of us — a contract which binds us in a mutual, but eventually parasitic, relationship, or we go down the subjugation route, dear. The latter option will have Ellaine dominate me and suppress my free will, turning me into just another source of power. A slave. You will need to prepare her, in this case. Help her become strong enough to defeat my willpower, and then, you may do whatever you wish with me.”]

“You make it sound like we are the bad guys in this, Klea’Hatma,” I said, noting how she worded everything.

[“Evil and good are subjective. If you ask me, this is not evil, this is the natural course of life. I do want to keep my free will, but even I understand that I have lived for a very long time already. A hedonist hates endings, but realistically, it cannot be warded off forever,”] Klea’Hatma stayed real with me. [“However, if you want to keep me under control through less ‘bad guy’ tactics, just give me enough stuff to enjoy. Endless streams of stimuli, so much that I cannot digest them before your Quest is over, and I will stay with you forever~ My little darlings~”]

“Oh, goodness gracious,” I shook my head. “You know, Ellaine, this is exactly like when we first met Klea’Hatma. Grrrr, it was so infuriating to listen to how much you wanted to use Klea’Hatma! Even now, you defend your right to use her! Fuck this!”

I stood up and grabbed Ellaine’s arm, pulling her up.

“H-Hestia, what is wrong?!”

“Fick dich! Und fick dich ins Knie, Klea’Hatma! Both of you are turning me into that worrywart Saori! No, Saori has dialed her cautiousness down for us, I am turning into her previous self! All I want is just fewer risks! Less stress!” Pulling Ellaine, I opened up the door, where I saw Josine and Svena pushing a tray table. “I’m sorry you two, but there will be no time for tea. Please, get Ellaine ready for an outing.”

“Wait, what?” Ellaine exclaimed in surprise.

“As I said, fick dich! But…” I took a deep breath. “I’ll trust you and Klea’Hatma, alright? I’ll make sure to keep us on the good guy route for now, but the moment that bitch even shows a hint of betraying us, you will have to take responsibility, Ellaine! This is not a joke, alright?”

“Y-Yes! I understand, Hestia! I will not fail you!”

This girl is so infuriating sometimes! Now I understand what her mother thought of her rebelliousness!

After Josine and Svena helped Ellaine in walkable clothing, I grabbed Rajah and dashed outside. Locating Saori, I pulled her up from her lounger and told her we were going to the merchant district.

“We’re going shopping! We’re spending time together as party members! No more slacking off!” I announced.

“Wha-What?! Hold on, what is this for?! What exactly are we buying?” Saori questioned me in a fluster.

“I don’t know. I don’t care. We’re window shopping if we have to. Let’s just go and enjoy ourselves, dammit!”

“Hahaha…,” Ellaine laughed nervously. “I apologize for this, Saori. This is my fault.”

“What did you do to our Hestia, Ellaine?!”

Friends were supposed to trust friends. Klea’Hatma was undoubtedly evil, but Ellaine’s justice wasn’t to do evil for good’s sake. Her moral compass was far whiter than mine, and that was something I could respect.

Still, there had to be something we could do to ensure Klea’Hatma’s allegiance to us. Until then, we had to keep a lookout for it for Ellaine’s sake. She knew the risks and she still held onto it for the ability to keep Aurora strong. I will trust her. At the same time, she had a responsibility to find a way to make Klea’Hatma trustworthy.

But until then, I needed to get rid of this irritation. It was time to bond.

A note from AbyssRaven

Mhmm, strawberry smoothies.

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Chapter 259: Going Shopping with Friends.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“There is certainly a large quality difference between the clothes for a noble and those sold to the merchant families, huh? I had thought the difference would be less,” I stated in surprise after looking at various clothes sold inside a clothing store in the merchant district.

“No, Hestia, it’s the difference between store bought and commissioned clothing. Those wealthy enough always order custom clothing from a tailor. These shops, on the other hand, sell less intricate and detailed pre-made clothing; that said, however, they are a valuable source of information gathering concerning fashion trends. Foreign merchants often sell clothes from other countries in the capital’s clothing stores.”

After the explanation, Ellaine pointed at a set of accessories, describing them as common in the maritime kingdom, Rakartheen. They were necklaces with pearls attached to them, made with a design common there. In particular, they showed symbols similar to Tasianna’s church of Plesia amulet.

“Goddess Plesia is worshiped more by sailors and port cities than the Goddess, even by humans. If we were to visit Port Annencia in the Lecartiglio Duchy, we could even visit a temple of Plesia there,” Ellaine informed Saori and me.

“Hmm, considering the relationship between sailors and the ocean, I guess showing some respect to Plesia and her gods would be beneficial for their trips. Clothing really is a good indicator of a country's culture,” Saori commented, and I agreed.

Fashion and I had a weird history really. If this were past me from Earth, I would totally be bored at this point, but after everything that Saori put into my head, I gained an appreciation for it. Mostly for cultural reasons, but I had come to realize that I also needed to know about fashion as an idol and princess. Relying only on my fashion designer wouldn’t be good since they needed my input to make the appropriate designs.

In this case, Saori needed me to know what I wanted with my idol outfits. Being able to express my opinion was important to her.

“My ladies, is there anything this humble servant might help you with?” A shop clerk came up to us after he was finished with another set of customers, bowing as he asked if we needed any help.

“Oh yes, good man.” Ellaine looked elated. Was she looking for something? “Perchance, would you have a [Necklace of Vampiric Undying] for sale?”

“I beg your pardon?”

Pfft! Oh jeez, Ellaine! Those things are rare to find.

Ellaine’s fear of death just caused her to ask the clerk a pretty impossible request, seeing at how rare those necklaces were if we were to ask Aurena. As he bowed to Ellaine to ask a manager for it, I had to ask her why she did that.

“Well, I mean, for safety reasons. That day really showed me how fragile I was. Hmm, I should probably ask Master Grimnir to craft a helmet for me, also. Maybe we could visit Cedaraille and grind the dungeon for the necklace?” Ellaine explained.

[“… Just level up [Okl’Luthier’s Power]. You can materialize bone and flesh armor superior to [Musclesmass] and conventional armor, Ellaine. A helmet would just hide your beauty from the world,”] Klea’Hatma chimed in.

Pretty sure staying alive is more important than showing off your face in a fight! Oh, then again, aren’t Saori and I pretty much helmet-less when we go without [Shadow Armament] and [Panzer] respectively? Huh, well, an idol should be recognizable, right?

Unfortunately, and also obviously, the store didn’t have any of those vampiric necklaces nor had they heard of anybody selling them in Griffonpeak. This clothing store Ellaine brought us to was quite popular amongst nobles, so if they didn’t know, we won’t be able to get it through legal channels. Although, I don’t think you could get it from the black market either, really.

“Hmm? Mister, could I ask you about this dress?” After the clerk returned with an uneasy face as he gave that bad news to Ellaine, I drew his attention to something else. “There is an emblem of the Goddess stitched on them. From the look of it, they aren’t priest robes.”

Aurena’s religious symbol was that of a sun reaching down to the earth with a hand. Aurena was usually depicted as an angelic goddess, while her religious emblem symbolizes her as a sun watching over the world. The hand — a reflection of her miracles through white graces — is to show her granting her merciful touch to the world. Seeing as the sun was the giver of life, it seems that the church of Aurena sees Aurena in the same manner.

“That is correct, Lady Champion. Does Loatryx not celebrate the Sun Worship Festival?” he asked me. It still felt a bit weird that people know me more by my champion title than my idol career. Too bad for me.

Since I had no idea what this festival was, I simply told him that I wasn’t aware of this dressing style. As such, he began explaining the reason behind the design, ignoring his previous statement. “During the Sun Worship Festival, nobles and the wealthy prefer to wear clothing with the Goddess’s emblem on them to show their piety. Since balls and festive gatherings happen during this time, our tailors have been experimenting with more daring and conspicuous designs while keeping the dresses and suits comfortable to move in.”

“Oh, is that why the tailor guild is currently filled out with commissions for clothes like this?” Saori stated so I had her explain it further for me. Since we were in public, she was using her formal tone. “My lady, as you know, I am a member of the tailor guild. I have been receiving a few requests from merchants concerning designs similar to this dress. I did not know it was for the Sun Worship Festival.”

After we were done window shopping, we left the store while Ellaine explained things in more detail for us.

“The Sun Worship Festival is a holiday during the second LightDay on HarvestSun. Exactly half a year has passed at this point, so the festival is there to thank the Goddess for protecting us up until now. With the last month of summer behind us, we give thanks to her as the harvest season dawns on us.”

Since Aurena is seen as a sun goddess to her followers, it made sense in a way.

“Usually, only the clergy would have the Goddess’s religious symbol on their robes — like yours, Hestia — so seeing nobles and merchants wear the symbols on their clothes is seen as a special occasion. It isn’t taboo to wear it every day, but it is frowned upon to place a House emblem and a church symbol on your clothing at the same time.”

Ahh, so that’s the reason why they have to have a completely different set of clothes for the festival.

“Hmm, we probably won’t be celebrating the festival in Griffonpeak, huh? Since we would most likely be on the road in two weeks,” I pointed out since the festival will happen after our plannd departure date.

“That is true, but you should use this time to do a concert, Hestia. Depending on when we leave the city, we should announce the concert either in Sephara or Ullistar, the capitals of the Myrrdin and Equevanna duchies, respectively,” Ellaine suggested, and I agreed.

Those two duchies were on the way to Estralia, and since we could prepare the concert in two to three days, I should do it for more fans. Concerning the festival, Ellaine wanted to commission Saori to tailor these festive clothes for her family and our company. This would increase Saori’s prestige in the local tailor guild if we did so too.

In any case, with that topic out of the way, we continued moving around the merchant district, looking at the different stores here. I realized quickly that, in all my time in Griffonpeak, I haven’t exactly gone out exploring this city as much as I thought I did. I mostly spent my free time at the orphanage or the hunter’s guild.

I missed out on visiting the cosmetics store, the local opera — sadly there was no show today — and we even found an instrument atelier. I was pondering on commissioning my own geigler — Peolynca’s version of a violin — or even have them make a piano for me. However, I decided to postpone it for another day. I had to design a proper set of blueprints for my piano, after all!

Window shopping was pretty fun, honestly. You learn more about the city’s culture that way. While we were walking to our next destination, I had some questions for Ellaine and Klea’Hatma.

“So you haven’t been able to speak with her ever since that moment?” I asked them, refering to the time when she met the Aurena figment in her [Okl’Luthier’s Power] skill.

“Mhem, I haven’t since,” Ellaine confirmed, disappointing me a bit. If she could have, I probably would have questioned why the gods were having trouble communicating with their followers when Ellaine could speak with Aurena’s figment perfectly.

When I made my thoughts clear to them, Klea’Hatma made an “ahhhh” sound and began explaining why Ellaine’s circumstance was special. [“Essentially, it boils down to Ellaine having me around, Hestia.”]

[“Oh, because you’re a demi-god-like existence, right?”]

[“Not quite, dear. Allow me to explain. You are able to communicate with the gods perfectly because your soul was prepared for it during your rebirth. The blessings allow you to visit the divine realm and stay there for an extended time without any consequences. Ellaine, on the other hand, requires me to fortify her soul to even be around Aurena’s figment inside the [Okl’Luthier’s Power]. In fact, I act as her translator. Without me, she wouldn’t understand a word of what Aurena would say.”]

Ellaine’s eyes widened, looking like her worldview was just shattered. “I-I had thought…”

[“Ellaine, dear, speaking with a god is not a task everybody can do. Their sheer presence is enough to destroy your soul. If I were at my full potential, I could allow you to visit Aurena whenever you wanted like Hestia. I believe that [Hestia’s Retainer] title should grant you some resistance, but not enough to speak with her.”]

Ellaine pouted while caressing her sword handle, even asking Saori to summon Rajah for her to cuddle. To an Origin God follower, being able to talk to them was a great honor. Guess this revelation was too much for Ellaine to handle.

[“Hold on, if that is the case, then why did Aurena once ask Hestia to bring me along to her divine realm?”] Saori asked.

[“Oh, that was most likely a joke. You dearies probably don’t know Aurena as well as I do, so you don’t know that Aurena has a bit of a trickster side in her. Inherited from her father, you see.”] I asked Klea’Hatma who Aurena’s father was, but she simply shut her mouth. [“Meh, if you want to know it, ask her yourself. Unlike my feelings for Aurena, I do have enough respect for her father to give him some sort of privacy.”]

Wow, Aurena really isn’t that super respected by Klea’Hatma, huh? Hmm. Hey, Goddess Aurena, you heard that, right? Could you tell me who your father is?

…

… Jeez, she still isn’t answering me. What is going on up there? How busy are the gods?

I was starting to worry about Aurena. It’s been a month since we last spoke, so her not answering me made me slightly anxious. Maybe it meant that it was time to give her a visit. I bet the orphan kids would like it if I went over now, but it was bonding time with the girls. Gotta push it back for later.

After walking around the district for a bit, we eventually made it to an extremely busy area.

Well, the merchant district’s streets were always busy and filled with wagons and pedestrians moving from one point to the other. It didn’t have the hectic nature of New York’s Manhattan, where people would curse at you if you stood still for even a second, but the crowd wasn’t one to be underestimated. You could easily get lost here.

However, right now, I could see numerous well-dressed people lining up before a single medium-sized shop. A bakery, or, to be more specific, a confectionary. “Olive’s Garden,” was the name of the shop. Named after its proprietress’s middle name — Amelia Olive Greenveil.

“Dearest customers! Ladies and Gentlemen.” A young green-haired woman with lilac highlights appeared from inside the shop, greeting everybody with a wide smile as she spoke through a manatech microphone. “Due to the popularity of the sun weaver’s cake, we, of Olive's Garden, have decided to release two additional types of products. These will be shortcake and cupcake versions of the sun weaver’s design, intended for those who cannot wait for the long reservation queue. I thank you very much for your consideration and continued patronage!”

“Mhmm, I guess that is to be expected. The nobles should have made prior reservations for the cake. My dear, we should probably settle with a few shortcakes.”

“Haaaa, every new product they release is an instant success. Being the only provider for yeast-made products will make Greenveil the front-runners in the future.”

“Oh no, the cakes are selling too fast! The shortcakes will probably be next with how far down the queue we are! W-We should just buy enough cupcakes for the party. We must, my darling.”

Nobles and common folk standing in line were of the same mind — the pastries were selling like hotcakes. It was to be expected, I guess. I heard from Saori and Ellaine that with how much Amelia was selling using all our pastry recipes, we’ve been building up a good amount of money through them.

I did wonder if somebody was trying to imitate Amelia’s shop yet, but nothing had come up yet. With a strong hold on the pastry and yeast industry, Amelia was leading the future of confections with our help.

“Amelia!” Seeing as we were already here, Ellaine walked over to Amelia, greeting her with a wide smile.

“Ellaine!” The two grabbed each other’s hands, looking happy to see each other. It seemed they managed to make up. “Oh, Lady Hestia and Miss Saori. What is the occasion?”

“Oh, we were just walking around, window shopping. We just coincidentally met you while passing by,” I told her.

We didn’t intend to stay around for too long, but it seemed Amelia wanted to talk with us about something. Looking at how many were looking at us, she urged us inside her shop and then into her office.

“Please, make yourselves comfortable. Do you have a preference for a type of tea, Lady Hestia? Miss Saori? Ellaine, white everdew tea with honey, correct?” We accepted her hospitality and a maid came in to pour our tea. Once some treats were placed on the table, we began talking.

“As I have already informed Ellaine and Miss Saori in my monthly reports, business is booming. I’ve gained a massive resurgence in my store’s interest since I abandoned traditional Artorian treats and confections and replaced them with Earthen ones.”

Amelia was quite enthusiastic while explaining to me about the increase in business, using stats and graphs to show me how much she’s earning. Naturally, I wasn’t very good with numbers so I didn’t know what to do with most of them. It also didn’t help that math in Peolynca wasn’t like Earth’s, so it was a bit hard to follow her explanation.

Still, I was kinda an investor in her shop, right? I sold her my recipes with royalties and such, so having her do well was good for my wallet. Sure, I didn’t know what to say here, but listening to her, maybe I could learn a bit more about how to manage a business?

“As such, Father has been suggesting that I expand my business throughout all the cities and large towns of our duchy. Using grandfather’s influence, the Sarlenzia company will be making sure you will keep amassing plenty of wealth, Lady Hestia. I hope you will trust us with further recipes, if you are satisfied with my explanation.”

Amelia’s smile unnerved me a bit with how much of a businesswoman she was. Like a CEO explaining stuff to the board members and stockholders, making sure they stay confident in her and keep investing. I didn’t know what to say here except to thank her, so Saori took over for me to keep the discussion rolling.

“That was a splendid explanation, Lady Amelia. I see you also included the recent introduction of the sun weaver’s cake in your new report. The sales numbers are extremely praise-worthy.”

Ellaine agreed, “With the Sun Worshiper Festival upon us in two weeks, announcing the sun weaver’s cake’s icing would be designed to honor the church and the Goddess was a fantastic idea. You even had High Bishop Theodore contribute to the design, making sure the cake would look proper while having him endorse it. You really are spectacular as a merchant, Amelia.”

She smiled confidently at the compliments she received, putting her hands on her hips proudly. “I am the heir of the Sarlenzia company, after all. My grandfather is relying on me to become a worthy lead, so I must answer his kindness in kind. As such, I have a proposition, if you are willing to listen to me.”

Here comes the real reason why she brought us inside.

“I heard from Father that yesterday’s meeting went by… as smoothly as it could have. I heard Shaturein’s representatives attended the meeting unannounced, so I would like to hear if Father was exaggerating or not.”

“Hmm, well, it took Saori quite a lot of effort to persuade the two pillars to accept our terms, so yeah, I would say that it was quite touch and go there for a while. Still, our goal of having Shaturein and Artorias working together was achieved, so now only time will tell.” I explained what happened yesterday to Amelia, even giving her some details her father didn’t tell her.

“Hmm, I see. Thankfully, since I’m not the heir of our father’s title, I probably won’t have to deal with diplomacy in the near future. I am far more suited to being a merchant and handling economic politics,” Amelia stated. “Which brings me to what Father mentioned. I heard you will be leaving soon for Estralia, correct?”

We nodded.

“Good, then Aurora should be passing by Ullistar, the Equevanna Duchy’s capital, around the time of the festival. Will you be performing one of your music concerts, uhm, I mean, idol concerts, Lady Hestia?”

Here it comes. Greenveil’s move.

From how she was leading us into this point after the whole business report, I already had an idea why she was asking this question. Staying around nobles really helped my critical thinking.

“We are planning on doing it, yes. Is there something you wish to promote on that day? Maybe those shortcakes and cupcakes you mentioned before?”

“Ah, you already figured it out, hiehie. But, yes, I have some economic plans which I wish to use your concert for, Lady Hestia. Specifically, the Sarlenzia company wishes to expand its operations to the other duchies and the Republic of Estralia.”

Amelia explained that currently, the Sarlenzia company acted as the main importer and exporter of goods in and from the Greenveil duchy. The company did possess a solid foundation in the Lecartiglio duchy, due to them being neighbors, as well as Griffonpeak, due to Olive’s Garden. However, her father and grandfather wished to expand even further.

“Seeing how destabilized the Equevanna duchy is currently, Father’s chances to become the next Grand Duke of Economic Affairs is practically secured. Your help has been invaluable, Lady Hestia,” Amelia bowed slightly in thanks. “But, Father also recognizes the weakness of the new Duke Equevanna. With all the drama inside the duchy, Lord Fillion sadly cannot rest around. As such, this is the best time to finally spread Greenveil’s duchy towards our rivals, the Equevanna duchy.”

“And you are thinking of using my champion title to have me perform there, allowing you to promote your products and the Sarlenzia company. Afterward, we will do the same within Estralia’s capital and cities?”

“Yes, but we will only target Gleisvale. The capital is the most prominent location for a merchant to be in. If we can assure the Sarlenzia company’s influence in Ullistar and Gleisvale, we will be able to import various goods for Artorias’s future. Also, money, hehehe.” Amelia snickered at the mention of the money.

As you would guess, such a proposition demanded me to think of the ramifications. Anybody could see that, if I were to accept Amelia’s offer, I would be telling the world how much I favored Greenveil over Equevanna. Considering the latter’s current situation, that might not be the best for unity’s sake.

“Sure, I can do that.”

However, the offer was too good to refuse.

“Well, that was quick, Hestia. No discussion?” Saori looked at me perplexed. I did just make a sudden decision without consulting with her, huh?

“Idols need to accept promotional work, Saori,” I told her with a grin. “Besides, I don’t think we have much to deliberate on. Yes, I know we might provoke further rivalry between the two duchies, but the Sarlenzia company is our ally. They are one of our money sources alongside our restaurant, adventurer work, and idol concerts. We need to support them.”

In addition, by increasing the amount of Sarlenzia company affiliated stores inside Artorias and the other countries, it allows us to withdraw our money from them without having to return to Griffonpeak or Cedaraille all the time. It was a win-win.

Also…

“Our party has just gotten extremely large, Saori. Your students, Yorshka and Elrick, my Mother and the two snow wyverns, and there is also Rajah and his family.” I caressed Rajah who was lying underneath the table with my tail. “There will be a lot of expenses in the future to get everybody into tip-top fighting form. Equipment, food, and training. There is also Tasianna’s alchemy and Tamae-chan’s desire to experiment with food. And then, there's the travel costs, Saori. We need more ingredients for more runes, or do you want us to fuel all of them with our own blood?”

“… Yeah, I would prefer not having to fill buckets full with my blood for Grimnir’s runesmithing.”

It was nice having more people around in the RV, but, as the leader of this company, I also had to make sure everything went off without a problem. That meant money. We all had needs to be fulfilled, so if we had spare cash around, we could progress smoothly into the future.

Saori and Ellaine saw my point and agreed to it, seeing no need to argue back. As such, Amelia clapped in delight, telling us she would handle the venue reservation. She asked to use my nexus to arrive at Ullistar once we made it there, since she had to educate the local branch’s manager on everything. She would do the same when we reached Estralia.

After gifting us some of her experimental cakes, we said our goodbyes and left the store. As we rushed away from the crowd, our group decided to leave the merchant district and visit the restaurant. It was about time to do so, after all. See how Tamae and the others were doing.

However, as we made it to the road towards the lower city, we met two acquaintances.

“O-Oh… It’s you…”

It was Asaka and Haruka, two of the Misfits party members.

“Hanazawa-san…”

And Saori and Asaka glared at each other.

A note from AbyssRaven

Shopping fun. Hestia's new concert, though? More fun.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

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Chapter 260: Saori and Asaka.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“… I didn’t expect to meet you here, Hanazawa-san.”

“… We were just returning to the mansion after checking out the city… Segawa-san.”

“…”

The aura Saori and Asaka were exuding couldn’t exactly be compared to how chilling Mother’s was, but being around these two felt far more uncomfortable and awkward. I knew Saori had a bad relationship with Asaka from her stories about her students, but it shouldn’t have been this antagonistic.

In fact, Saori has been starting to call her students by their first names due to their previous relationship. Even omitting Japanese honorifics with the girls — mostly ‘cause she felt awkward calling her students with “-chan.” Asaka seems to be the only person she’s addressing formally. It’s like she’s putting this distance between them, not even trying to get closer to Asaka.

“Do you need me for anything, or can I go?” Asaka didn’t seem interested in staying around. On the other hand, her companion, Haruka, seemed to be rather conflicted.

From what I learned from our interactions, Haruka didn’t seem like the shy and introverted girl Saori described her as. Well, she wasn’t too assertive nor did she speak much when we talked, but I guess that was to be expected from a shy person meeting somebody new. She spoke just fine with those she knew, though, like Saori.

“Nothing; we just went shopping. If you do not want to come with us to the restaurant to meet up with Tamae and others, then you are not obligated to stick around,” Saori said bluntly.

“Perfect! Haruka-chan, let’s go.” Without another word, Asaka began moving away from us. Haruka bowed nervously before following after her.

Hmm. I should ask Saori about this after— Oh wait, I should tell her this.

“Wait, Asaka-san!” I called out for her, stopping her. “I’ll probably say this during dinner, but we’ll be moving out to Ullistar the day after tomorrow. Hopefully it won’t interrupt anything?”

Tomorrow would be another day of public obligations, mostly concerning the recent terms we settled at the meeting yesterday. I had to give my signature on some documents, including giving my blessing with the letter directed at the Saelari and also have Vangrim swear an oath to me and Kargryxmor to keep what was revealed in the meeting a secret.

Since Ellaine recently asked for a break from the academy, our party didn’t have any obligations to keep us in Griffonpeak any longer. Even if we did have some reason to be in Griffonpeak in the future, we could use the nexus to fast travel back. So, the important part was the Misfits, our partners for this mission to Estralia.

“It won’t, Hestia-san.”

Despite Asaka’s rude behavior toward Saori, Asaka and I didn’t have that bad of a relationship. After all, Asaka might act hostile when she met with Saori, but she wasn’t going around making Saori’s day worse or anything. They simply preferred to ignore each other. Up until now, they hadn’t argued yet.

As such, I preferred if they got along, but without knowing what their deal with each other was, I couldn’t do much. For now, I decided to inform Asaka about our plans before asking Saori about their issues.

“That’s great. I’ve been asked to perform a concert in Ullistar, so it would be good if we could get there in time to prepare and such. Have you heard about the Sun Worship Festival? It’s happening on that day,” I explained.

Haruka nodded. “Yes, we have. We had to celebrate it when we were still confined in the holy capital, so we understand why you’re doing that. That’s awesome, Hestia-san! I would love to see how your singing and dancing will appear on stage!”

“Hiehie, thank you~ Well, I haven’t done any of my daily training regimens lately, so I’ll have to work hard on getting back in form. Not to mention, I don’t think Yorshka or my mother would allow me to skip their training either. It will be busy.”

“That’s admirable, Hestia-san… Hopefully, I can be of use to you in the future,” she said meekly, looking distraught at everything I listed out.

Haruka admitted that she wasn't of any use on the battlefield as a fighter. She detested fighting and seeing blood, something she learned quickly when the students went to a dungeon to level up. She’d been acting as the group’s scout mostly, but she had little experience actually fighting. Her level, as such, was the lowest amongst the students, only keeping up due to the party bracelets' experience sharing function.

“Oh, don’t worry, Haruka-chan. I heard you’re good with numbers and also are good at striking deals. That’s good, too. Considering we all just created the company, we all need to readjust and find our roles in it. Even if you cannot fight, I am sure you can provide support in other ways!”

Haruka smiled as I gave her my words of comfort, thanking me and telling me she would find a way to contribute. Considering her preferences, she could probably work well with Saori and Ellaine with deal brokering, but I think those two would know better than me.

“Then what about me?” I turned towards that monotonous voice, where I saw Asaka looking at me with tired eyes, completely devoid of any expectations. Was that a rhetorical question? “I mean, I was the healer for my party. Tamae was the healer of her party. Now, we have probably the best healer and supporter party member we could possibly get. So… what do you think I should do now, considering you’re around?”

“I—”

That’s a good question.

I hadn’t exactly thought of it, but due to the recent merger of our different parties into a single company, quite a few specialties and niches now overlapped with each other. In particular, the rogue, healer, and supporter roles.

Haruka was their sole scout for their group for a long time, but now, there was Saori and her garms around, plus if she trained Rajah and his family up, there would be more competition. Tamae was the alchemist and healer of her party but was happy with handing over those roles to become our gastronome. Since Saori was fully willing to hand over her restaurant, there was no conflict of interest.

But, honestly, I hadn’t given a thought about those who were displeased with their roles being taken away. How would I feel if one of them turned out to be an experienced idol? I dunno…

“Haaaa,” Asaka sighed after I couldn’t think of a proper answer in time. “Don’t worry about it, it’s not like I liked being relied on to save somebody’s life. Less gray hairs if somebody else can act as the doctor. But, not like I’m like everyone. Some are less thrilled. Can’t believe he can’t get himself to kiss your ass, when an actual ‘hime-sama’ — an imperial princess, in fact — like you appears before him.”

I turned around to Saori, looking at her in confusion, unsure on whom Asaka meant. Saori scratched her head before giving me an answer.

“Daichi. He’s a good flatterer. He has a tendency to always get himself into somebody’s good graces if he believes it will benefit him.”

“Oh, I did see him acting like a sleazy schwertnoble with my parents. He tried buttering them up, but he wasn’t very successful,” Ellaine commented. “I haven’t been able to talk with him outside of our initial greetings. So I don’t have an opinion on him.”

[“The pyromancer, I believe? Hmmm. I believe he had a bit of an envious aura around him when I saw him during the meeting after you woke up, dear. He’s probably jealous. Of. You.”] Klea’Hatma added, making me finally understand what was going on.

He’s a fire mage?

“Yeah, that weird, creepy shit inside Ellaine’s rings got it correct.”

Asaka’s insult seemed to have awakened Klea’Hatma’s masochistic side, causing her to moan loudly. All sent into our heads through her telepathy. It was… It sounded real enough to fluster everybody.

“Gods, I hate that damn thing. Why do we have to work with it again?” Asaka shivered as her goosebumps intensified, all to the chagrin of Ellaine, who was smiling wryly. After shaking it off, she continued where she left off. “In any case, if you want to speak about readjusting, maybe talk with the people who just joined in. I don’t care, but I’m not ‘normal’ like the others. You’re putting pressure on them to work, you know.”

“Then why didn't you speak up about it until now, Hanazawa-san?” Saori asked, jumping in between Asaka and me, as if she was defending me.

“Huh??? Shouldn’t you know that best, Segawa-san?” Asaka grimaced, contorting her face like some Japanese delinquent. “Our dumb culture. Did you forget about it after flying over this place? Hit your head? It’s all about haRmONy… bleh. Conform so you don’t cause anybody any trouble, in other words.”

Despite being half-Japanese, I wasn’t as well versed in Mama’s birth country as I wished to admit. I wasn’t born nor was I raised there. I simply visited Japan and had a decent enough idea of how Japanese culture worked due to Mama and her parents.

However, even I could tell what the kanji “和” meant. Its direct meaning was “Japanese,” and it would be pronounced as “wa,” but originally, it meant something like harmony. “Harmony should be valued and quarrels should be avoided,” a quote from a person called Shotoku-ouji. He was a prince, if I could believe the memories I had of my rather traditionalist grandparents.

“I don’t care that my role was taken, in fact, I’m perfectly fine with it, you know. But, do you really expect the others to simply voice out their complaints when they just joined in? When they learned our new leader is a girl with a bunch of achievements and a social ranking we can’t reach even with our well-off parents?”

“This is not Japan!” I immediately cast [Air Shield] around us, having finally come back to my senses after Saori shouted that. “Just like I asked you to not call me ‘Sensei’ anymore, there is no need for any sort of social hierarchy in this team. Hestia said she wanted to be equals, right? If you have complaints, you are all allowed to speak them out.”

“Oooooh, is that so? Segawa-san, maybe you had more time to change than we did? I mean, all we’ve been doing in this past year was to follow the commands and orders of the Church of Aurena, to maintain good relations. A year is a pretty short time to change from being indoctrinated from youth by a collective-focused society!”

Oh, scheiße! She’s mad!

“Asa-chan!” Haruka tried to calm her down but failed.

“No, Haruka-chan. You heard our ‘Sensei,’ right? We can complain all we want, so I have every intention to take her up on her offer now that I’m not inside a school anymore!” Asaka waved her hand in front of Haruka, rejecting her attempt at peace. “You know what’s funny? The fact I mentioned having these four dumb mutts following around me inside this stupid catalyst here, nagging me over and over again to persuade you to come and meet your mutt of an ancestor, so I can get rid of them. But, nooooooo. No, no, no, you didn’t even bother to mention it during that meeting.”

Asaka took out a black catalyst from underneath her robe, releasing the four onnikais. Without the prison of that magic item, the four smokey onnikais began circling around Saori, only for her garms to suddenly appear from her shadows and bark, sending the onnikais back to Asaka. Even Rajah snarled at them.

“See, Hestia-san? Let me introduce you, these are the deceased spirits of four A rank fenrirs, turned into onnikais by the Goddess of Death to serve as protectors for the spirit of Belzac.” Asaka pointed at them for me. “I’ve already told everything to your ‘second-in-command,’ so why wasn’t this brought up when we spoke about our plans? I was waiting, you know.”

I already heard quite a lot about it from Kyouya and Tatsuya when I met them in that one tavern. Unfortunately, with all that stuff that happened with Mother, I’d completely forgotten about it the next day and I hadn’t been reminded of it ever since. Considering how it impacted Asaka and Tatsuya, it definitely was a topic worth talking about.

I looked over at Saori, who was frowning, acting anxious instead of her usual aloof self.

“Saori?”

“… Y-You could have brought this up, Hanazawa-san. You could have spoken up about it.” But she didn’t reply to me; instead, she was throwing the blame back at Saori.

“Oh, no, no, no, don’t bring this back to me. Your current body might be younger than me, but you were our teacher back on Earth. You’re an adult, so act like an adult! Stop shifting blame just ‘cause you don’t want to deal with this shit. I don’t want to either, but Tatsuya and I will have to keep dealing with it if you don’t.”

“Still… why didn’t you bring this up?” I asked, while Saori was being silent. “I’m not blaming you, but if you had, we could have talked about it. Instead of heading to Estralia as a single group, we could have split the party up even more. You, Saori, and the others of Misfits could have gone to Belzac while the rest of Aurora went to Estralia.”

“The others, like Haruka-chan? They don’t want to complicate stuff since they just joined. They don’t want to seem like a nuisance, you see. You know, ‘your problems are more important than ours.’ Since the trip to Estralia is something personal for Tasianna-san, they don’t want to say anything. Tatsuya? He’s pretty horny for kemonomimi and he'll say or do anything to stay around beastmen girls, so be careful around that virgin idiot. Well, he’s off his coffee for a year now, so maybe he’s just unhinged?”

… You really didn’t have to say that about him! Poor guy, we've been gossiping behind his back… I should probably not stay in a room with just him around. Kyouya seemed like a nice guy, though.

“And now to me. Why didn’t I bring this up?” Asaka showed me one finger, and gave me only one reason. “I dislike having responsibilities placed on me, so I don’t want to hand it over to you. You seem more than just busy with everything, and this doesn’t concern you personally. This is Segawa-san’s and our problem.”

Asaka put the onnikai back into the black catalyst, prompting Saori’s garms to return back into her shadow. Like two wolf packs fighting over the same territory. That’s the impression I got from them.

I looked at Saori, who still seemed hesitant to say anything. From what I know, Saori hadn’t exactly accepted her fenrir heritage yet. She accepted herself as a fenrir, but didn’t want to deal with anything concerning her parents or ancestors. Compared to me, she wasn’t constantly confronted by it, and her only family member died just after she was born. It was easier for her to forget about it.

And now, since she didn’t even bring it up to me, it seemed she was even denying it further. I honestly thought she had accepted herself enough to at least do something like this. Or at least, do it for her students.

As I kept looking at Saori, my eyes probably seemed like they were drilling through her. When I considered that, I immediately apologized and stopped staring at her. That was when she began to speak.

“No, it is okay, Hestia. Hanazawa-san is correct, I am acting like a child… but, I really do not want to meet this Belzac. My garms do not seem to like those onnikais.”

“Seeeee! How about it, Segawa-san? How does it feel to not comply with everybody's demands and wishes because you yourself do not want to do it, huh? Feels good? Does it make you seem like a delinquent? Is following your own wishes enough of a reason to allow others to think of you as lazy?” Whether she intended it or not, Asaka’s provocation caused Saori to growl.

“I did not call you lazy because you are in any way lazy, Hanazawa-san! You are simply a person who cannot accept that you have talents and gifts at your disposal, and instead of listening to others, you throw everything away! You could develop yourself, become even more educated! You are smart enough for that!” Saori lectured her. “But, no, you make an excuse about everything being too ‘burdensome’ and go slack off. Even simple duties like making sure the door is closed, you do not want to do! It was such an easy task!”

“Ah, here we go, again. Look, Hestia-san, this is your friend’s real personality. Control freak. Thinks just because she can’t have me conform like the others, that it will harm her reputation to her seniors.”

“YOU WERE THE ONLY ONE IN THE SCHOOL MAKING A MESS OF EVERYTHING!” Saori shouted as she walked up to Asaka with bloodshot eyes. Ellaine and I had to block her path, sternly telling her to calm down. “KUSO!!!”

While grinding her teeth, Ellaine dragged Saori away from Asaka and Haruka, intending to calm her down. Haruka, seeing this, bowed in apology to me and followed after them, leaving only Asaka and me behind.

“… You went too far. That was pretty shitty of you,” I scolded her.

“You think? I didn’t even mention what happened during the second school trip we shared together. Ha, I really was a fucking bitch back then, but I honestly am pretty proud of how I messed up all those teachers on the last day! Made that fun trip even more memorable.”

I shook my head, massaging my temples as I heard that. I knew from this point onwards that this woman could become a huge troublemaker. “… Asaka-san, I really don’t know what you are trying to do. Are you trying to make me hate you or something?”

I wasn’t sure if it was 100% accurate, but hearing all of this from her made me remember the bitchy side of my memories.

But Asaka shrugged, looking unconcerned about it. “We don’t need to like each other, Hestia-san. Not everybody has to become friends to work well together. If we don’t hate each other, that’s good enough for me going forward.”

“Then why did you do that? Saori is my friend, in case you forgot. A very, very, very important friend to me!”

“Yeah, I figured. I wouldn’t be happy if you were to spit insults at Haruka either, but… you know, catharsis. I needed it so much after those hellish years I spent in that world with my shitty parents.”

Seriously? She hates her parents also? Checking the points to make me despise you here, girl! I kept that to myself, not intending to interrupt her.

“Yeah, I guess I lived a pretty privileged life, but all that stuff came with a price for me. Parents who didn’t love me nor my brother, thinking of us as political tools. A culture that demands you to adapt to it, especially the higher you go in the social ladder. And then having your future already settled for you. All of that just made me want to rebel, you know. Make my own happiness, even a little.”

… Way to turn it around, girl.

“Hey, Hestia-san, you see all those people eyeing at us like two celebrities?” She pointed behind her.

“Yeah, of course, I’m always aware of people looking at me nowadays. Besides, you are a saint candidate and I am a champion and princess. We are celebrities. But, as an idol, I just have to get used to it.”

“Yeah, you sure? Seems pretty stupid to me, but that is just human stuff. People look up to others. Just like Daichi being envious of you.” Asaka paused, looking away from Saori, and turned around to look me into the eyes. “Question: do you have any idea of what a terrible idea it is to become an idol? You literally put your life behind glass for everybody to see, while putting up a mask to lie to everybody. To give them the ideal girl. Kyouya is a frantic K-pop fan, you know. I’m pretty sure he can tell you one or two horror stories about the shitty idol industry.”

“Kehehe…” I let out a snicker. “Don’t worry, I learned everything about the industry as well as I could. I faced it when I was still a trainee and never managed to get in. Even being talented with singing and average with dancing won’t get you in all the time. Pretty infuriating, you know.”

“… Yeah, I can imagine. Dreams suck when they can’t come true. So why are you still doing all this idol crap? You know, I heard about you when we visited Firwood. Kids and people speaking about you. Not a lot, but enough to make me notice.”

I turned around, showing her a wide smile. I knew of the bad things that this industry could bring. I knew of the pain I brought to myself and my parents when I was too stubborn to look at other alternatives to launch my music career. I could never, ever forget all the suffering I went through to get to this point. That’s why I knew very well why I was still doing all of this, despite all the pushback.

“To bring a smile to people even in their darkest time!” I told her brightly. “My motto is that ‘Music is the art of touching the souls of thousands to empower and heal them’ That is what I believe in and I want to continue doing it, even if my path forward were to bring sadness to others. That is why I will sing and dance, bear through the pain I’ve experienced, and keep on smiling through everything!”

“But even a saintess can’t smile fore— Oh, sorry. Insensitive. My point is, one day, it will hurt, and you might break, Hestia-san. Just telling you the reality of stuff. Even I was once ‘normal’ before shit happened to my life. Those people you bring a smile to? One day, they might all turn against you.”

Memories of Eshe’s last moments flashed before me. Even seconds before her death, all she could do was care about the orphans and me. It was her last message to keep me on my path. To prevent me from deviating.

And that is why I smacked my chest, unwavering after all of that. “And that is why I will bring Peolynca my own version of idol culture. I agree, Earth’s idol culture isn’t what I want. I don’t want to turn into my fan’s only source of happiness, I want to help them up and allow them to move on! Even if they forget about me, I will stay happy if they can turn their life around! None of that parasocial relationship bullshit, either! Not with my idol culture!”

“… You know, there is this one actor who attended our school before he graduated. He had an idol as a sister, and I asked him once why the hell he would allow his sister to continue working in that unhealthy industry. He told me, ‘Because she loves it.’ In my opinion, the only idols willing to stick around are those crazy or desperate enough to stay. Even in your first year, you realize how shitty it is quickly.”

Bad pay, terrible job security, and potentially picking the wrong agency to work for. A lot of mistakes could happen. I made sure to research about it extensively, only to still accept this line of work.

Maybe I was crazy, but that might also be the reason why I made it in the end. A new life could have been a new chance to do something different, but I still chose to follow my previous dream.

“Well, good luck.” Asaka gestured for a handshake and I accepted it. “We can talk about the other side quests and stuff after we’re done with Estralia. I’ll try to think of some way to help out now that I’m not the healer anymore. In any case, hope to see your concert, company leader. Haruka-chan, let’s go!”

And with that, Asaka and Haruka left. Seeing them go, Saori managed to calm down and apologized to me once again for what she did. She told me she would be more transparent in the future, but I told her I didn’t blame her. I went through a phase where I rejected everything concerning my dragon heritage, so I wasn’t one to scold her like that.

With all that behind us, we went to the restaurant, only to see it swarmed with people, to the point there weren’t enough chairs for everybody, forcing them to stand and eat. Even Grimnir had to come out and do waiter duty to keep up with all the orders.

When we asked Tamae what was going on, she told us the adventurers in the hunter’s guild noticed our RV parking on our spot while they were preparing everything. They brought a lot of people over when it opened. At first, they were surprised to learn Tamae was manning the kitchen and not Saori, but once they tasted her cooking, all doubts were gone.

Eventually, all this noise caught on and more and more people came. It helped that Tamae increased the menu’s products while keeping everything as cheap as possible. With more stuff to eat at an affordable price, it was just natural that it would be filled to the brim.

“Lady Hestia, w-we are doing fine!” Tasianna tried to say, but she looked as if she had just run two marathons. Even Kazumi and Kohaku didn’t look good.

“We need help, lass,” Grimnir pleaded.

“Yes, please! Sensei, please help me!” Tamae begged, looking like an asura as she rushed around in the kitchen with inhuman speed.

“… Guess it can’t be helped. Hestia? Ellaine?” Saori looked at us with a wry smile.

““Of course!””

Saori entered her kitchen again and Ellaine and I performed songs to help calm people down with singing. I even placed down more tables and chairs for everybody to sit down, just enough that we don’t accidentally go over our reserved spot. Seeing me here, most of the rowdy customers instantly chilled out.

67 humans and beastmen have become your fans

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 7253

This should have been my break day. It turned out, I still had to work. It felt like stuff was starting to go back to normal. Almost.

After closing time, Tamae did complain that she might need more people to help out. We should ask Svena if anybody wanted to help out with the lower town restaurant in the future if this happened again.

But, in any case, the day had been refreshing. Once tomorrow came, I went to the royal palace again and gave my signature and stuff to everything before having Vangrim swear an oath to me to not betray us. Before leaving, I handed King Drangleic two of the new [Room] runes Grimnir managed to finish. This was to be used for the future when I had to visit him.

After returning to the mansion, we made preparations for our trip tomorrow. I handed Yorshka and Lord Helvas a set of [Room] runes each, telling them to place it in Firwood and Cedaraille at a location they could trust. These will be used as nexus points for the future.

But, I already had an idea where they would place things. One with Marquess Sirius in Firwood, and the other would be in Duke Greenveil’s mansion in Cedaraille. This meant Yorshka could visit Farron and Priscilla whenever she wanted as long as I was around.

I thought of handing some runes to the other dukes, intending to use their homes as nexus points, but that could wait for when Grimnir made more. For now, I wanted to make sure my party had enough portal runes to get back into the subspace.

Since we had to get to the Equevanna Duchy’s capital, Ullistar, in two weeks' time, we decided to take the road directly north, skipping the Morgiana and Myrrdin duchies for time’s sake. When Thyra visited me and heard this, she showed her disappointment visibly. I had to hand her a set for her to place it in the capital of her mother’s duchy — Phaleisha.

I used this day to tell everyone I knew goodbye for now, and our party went over to the hunter’s guild to change our classes. I also took this time to buy my mutation skill from maxing out [Incandescent Blaze].

Individual [Sunfang Dragonewt, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has switched her Main Job to [Corrosive Pyromancer]

Corrosive Pyromancer Level: 0/15

Main Job benefits have been updated due to Job change

Job Skill gained:   [Virulent Corrosion]

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Corrosive Fire Lv. 3] evolved into [Corrosive Fire Lv. 4]

Acquisition requirement fulfilled.   [Flames of Purification] gained. 11550 SP remaining

Mutation acquired. Merging   [Flames of Purification] into skill [White Flames Lv. 4]

Being able to heal even strong toxins like my own was the biggest selling point of [Flames of Purification]. Now, I could do it whenever I wanted. As such, it was time to go down the venom flame path.

With everything settled, once the next day arrived our RV once again hit the road. We were finally leaving Artorias for another country.

And at that moment as I was enjoying the wind, a beast of immeasurable strength appeared above me.

“Hestia, Mother’s awake~ It’s time to groom your scales!”

As I said, a beast of unsurmountable power.

A note from AbyssRaven

O.O

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 261: How to Molt a Dragon.

A note from AbyssRaven

Shout out to "The Dungeon Shop: Wares for the Weary Adventurer" about a girl dreaming to become the best dungeon merchant. Relaxing and fun MC.

Lumina struggles in her day-to-day life, managing her grandfather's item shop all by herself. The struggle is real. Her wares often spoil before customers have a chance to try them.

But that all changes when a new dungeon appears just out of town, and with it, a chance at the life she's always wanted.

Strapping on the biggest enchanted sack she can find, she makes herself useful as a pack mule and a dungeon merchant, earning her keep and selling her wares in the thick of the adventure.

Being the first merchant in the dungeon gives her an advantage many envy.

She'll risk everything to follow her dream: to be the greatest merchant to ever live!

Health Potions, Mana Potions, Stamina Potions and... Coffee!

“S-Shed? But, I’ve been shedding my scales all this time. I thought you would be teaching me how to groom my scales?”

Dragon caves were large, according to Mother. I guess it would make sense since Mother’s real size was large enough to cast a shadow over a whole neighborhood and tower over Griffonpeak’s wall if my friends weren’t exaggerating. As such, Mother wanted her room inside the subspace to be large enough for her to transform in.

Naturally, creating such a large room demanded insane amounts of mana that even I would not be able to provide in one sitting, if I didn’t have Mother’s aid. Sharing her mana with me, the room quickly expanded, but at the same time, I was completely baffled at how deep her mana pool was. It felt like a bottomless pit was pouring mana into me. Mother showed absolutely no signs of exhaustion, even after we were done with her room.

Sadly, rooms made in the subspace were mostly wooden colored, as in, the floor, walls, and ceiling seemed like they were painted with wood. Similar to a dungeon, the outside walls and floors were indestructible, so the only way to morph it was to use even more mana. My jaw dropped to the floor at how much Mother leisurely gave me, and the only reason we had to split the room expansion into two sessions was due to arcane corruption.

My arcane corruption, to be specific. I was still spending mana, after all, even if it wasn’t mine. And I was practically immune to Arcane Corruption at this point!

So, Mother’s cave was finished. Outside of freezing the ceiling with her silver powder to create a cave with diamond-shimmering ice crystals, she hadn’t decorated it. She only used it to sleep in.

“Hestia, if you have already forgotten about it, we are dragons. You are not human anymore nor are you a dragonewt. As dragons, we need to take care of our dragon bodies. Our grooming will then be transferred over to our humanoid forms,” Mother responded to my confusion. “What you call ‘shedding’ is just your scales falling off to be replaced by younger ones. We dragons molt our skins.”

“Oh, just like lizards and reptiles?”

I should have figured, but when I pointed that out, Mother suddenly showed me a sinister smile.

“My whelping… comparing us mighty dragonkins to a lesser being like a reptile? No, no, no. You must take pride in yourself, Hestia. We are not ‘like’ reptiles, we are above them. Do you understand?”

“… Yes, Mother.” Her eyes told me I had no choice but to accept it. Goes to show that “superior” beings don’t want to be compared to their “lesser” kin. Just like with dragons and wyverns.

Speaking of the wyverns…

“I see, so you control the frost sacs close to your lungs to produce your ice breath. How do you control the temperature? Mana?”

Tasianna was currently training with the two snow wyverns. Mother accepted Tasianna as her student after the latter asked her to do so, seeing as strengthening my friends would indirectly protect me. Conveniently, Mother was pretty much the epitome of cryomancy in this world right now.

Since Mother had to teach me how to be a better dragon first, she gave Tasianna a quick demonstration of her power and told her to train with the snow wyverns. In her words, “They are still young, but lesser dragonkins like wyverns are not to be underestimated if they decide to focus on a single element. They will provide valuable knowledge if you can understand them.”

“A hatchling grows larger quickly, all for the sake of survival. However, Hestia, since you were born as a G rank and evolved and grew so fast into a B rank over the span of a single year, you have been growing ‘normally’ despite not molting at all.” Mother then pulled my hand up and pointed at some dark-looking scales on them. “It’s easy to see which of your scales have lost their luster from age. Their color has dulled and they aren’t glistening with mana.”

I looked at the ones Mother showed me but I couldn’t exactly follow her. “Really? Shouldn’t they be harder since they got older? It has the same color as my carapace. I thought it was good.”

I mean, stories always say that the older a dragon’s scales become, the harder and more valuable they become. Shouldn’t this be the case, too?

Mother frowned, looking at me with confusion. “… Is this what you’ve been taught from your old world? Does Earth have any actual dragons at all? How can they teach something if they do not know if it's true or not?”

Mother deduced that quickly. Guess you shouldn’t believe everything from a single source, huh?

“No, dragon scales become stronger the more they regrow and are bathed in your mana. Your body adapts to your stats and the threats you face, so it’s imperative that you molt your old scales as often as possible. The more full your scales are with your mana, the stronger they and your scale-dust will become.”

That was weird. I had thought that my stats would apply to my whole body, so Vitality and Wisdom would not only increase the resistances of my bones but also my scales. That’s what I thought during all my fights. But now Mother told me that was wrong?

Seeing me still unable to understand, Mother nodded. “That’s alright. Dragons, like all monsters, usually know about the System and our body’s needs through instincts, but I guess your human mind suppressed it slightly. Allow me to demonstrate it. But first, Saori~ Could you transform back into your original form with my daughter?”

“Of course.”

Accompanying me today through this lesson was also Saori, since she also needed to learn how to groom her body. I guess since her garm mother was dead, Mother was kinda substituting as one. It also was convenient that Saori became a lesser dragonkin after I gave her my blood to drink.

After we both transformed back into our proper forms, I was glad that Mother’s room was large enough to fit both of us. Still, just from the looks of it, we were nowhere near as large as Mother could be, if the cave’s size was to be believed. At this point, curiosity for her actual form started to intrigue me.

When I expressed that to Mother, she smiled brightly, almost as if she was waiting for this request of mine. After telling everybody to make some space, she announced, “Hum! Hum! Witness your mother’s magnificence, Hestia!” before the mana mist expelled from her body like a bomb.

Not only did it cover her body, but it grew to what seemed like the size of a football stadium. She’s fricking huge! Like, the mist alone was enough to dwarf me even while I was dragoning around!

Just seeing how much it spread really made me glad I listened to Mother and made the—

Oh shit!

Pressure. A whole lot of pressure suddenly burst out in the middle of the mana mist, growing stronger and stronger with every second. The temperature quickly fell below zero, forcing my body to release a suppressed [Dreadflare Aura] to counter it, restoring it to slightly below room temperature.

But in the next second, this pressure stabilized and the cold disappeared as quickly as it came. Still, even if it felt easier to stay around, my instincts had already been spurned by that immense power. Like in the abyss of an ocean; my mind couldn’t comprehend the true depths of the mana source in front of me.

At first, it was like an exploding current. Now, all this mana felt like being inside a tranquil lake. Soothing even; that is something I could understand. When two glistening wings sprouted from the mana mist and blew it all away, the surprise of Mother’s true form wasn’t shocking to me. With that one display of power, I could gauge what my reaction to it would be.

Mesmerizing.

Silvery scales glistening like gemstones under the light, snow-like particles floating around before forming into icicle armor, and two turquoise eyes staring down at me with slight anxiousness.

[“I apologize. I was a bit too eager. Were any of you hurt?”] Mother’s voice resounded through our heads, worry clear to hear.

I turned around, letting a sigh out that Tasianna, Saori, and the wyverns weren’t hurt. I deactivated my [Dreadflare Aura] and shook my head, calming her down.

As Mother asked me how she looked, I couldn’t help but focus on how huge she was. Probably the second largest being I’d ever seen in this world, since Kargryxmor was in number one. However, the latter was a god. Mother was probably even larger than the leviathan I met in the Belzac forest.

I then flapped my wings and flew up to her head, noticing how my whole body was only as large as her head, and I was larger than a two-story house. But seconds later, her silver powder formed into a single icicle horn, ruining my size comparison.

[“It is normal for a dragon parent to give their child a ride on them as they fly. Would you like to sit on me as I do so outside, my whelping?”] she said.

[“Mother, please, you’re gonna embarrass me here. Please, don’t. Also, if you start flying around, you’re just gonna scare everybody,”] I quickly rejected her offer, disappointing her.

I mean, I could understand why a kid needed to sit on their dragon parent’s back to keep up with their flight speed, but I’m not gonna do it for leisure, okay! It’s like giving your teenage daughter a piggyback ride!

After I was done looking at Mother’s form, I did have to admit that I shared quite a few features with her. Well, we even shared them in our dragonewt forms but the fact she had a different face and was a high elf kinda ruined the whole mother-daughter thing for me at first. N-Not to speak ill of adopted children, though.

But, in any case, now? Well, now, I could see our familiarity. Mother was correct to say that our dragon forms would resemble each other since this was our correct form. Our humanoid ones were made using our minds, what we wanted to look like. My current dragonewt appearance was made using my subconscious knowledge of my past self, so it couldn’t be helped that Mother and I looked so different outside of our dragon features.

Our horns, carapace, claws, and tail were shared, in addition to the fact that I was quadrupedal like her, and not standing on two legs like Kargryxmor, and presumably my dragon father. On the other hand, our wings had different shapes, my scales were edgier than hers, my head was bulkier due to my jaw plate, and a couple of other traits. Still, I inherited quite a bit aside from my scale-dust.

So, it kinda soothed my heart to see her true form right now. It made me finally realize that this was my mother. That we were blood-related. I knew nothing she told me could have been a lie, but I still had some doubts inside — that same wish to reject her. But, like the cold disappearing during spring, I felt like I was beginning to warm up more to Mother.

[“Thank you, Mother,”] I told her earnestly, returning to the ground, where I saw the snow wyverns bowing and tucking their tails between their legs. A sign of respect, I presume?

[“You are always welcome, my whelping.”] Mana mist then exuded from her body and she transformed back into her dragonewt form. She then looked at Saori and me. “Now, it is time to help you two with your grooming sessions.”

You would think the older a dragon got, the less they needed to molt, and you would be correct. Mother had her molting session soon, but due to her size, it would take a bit for the process to finish. As such, she would demonstrate the process to us through the scales on her forearms.

“The procedure is relatively easy once you know. Usually, parents would show and aid their hatchlings as they shed for the first time, but since your draconic instincts were suppressed in your respective situations, I will show you how.”

[“Well, Melloxtressa, you do know I was not born as a dragonkin, right? I expected Hestia’s blood to change me, but not into a dragonkin,”] Saori brought up.

“Oh, yes, of course. However, it is your fault now that you are a dragonkin, Saori. Sadly, not a true one, but you will still need to molt since you have scales underneath your fur. Do not worry, I know of dragons who have feathers and fur, so I understand how to help you through the process.”

Saori told me before that Mother told Saori to shed her old fur in her garm form. Like as mentioned, any grooming done to our original form would also influence our humanized ones. However, it didn’t work as efficiently the other way around.

As Mother moved Saori’s fur around to reveal the scales beneath them, I took this chance to observe Saori’s body more in detail. Just like her race’s name mentioned, her scales were colored black like the river Styx, glimmering slightly under the light. The carapace she had on her legs, though, were tougher and could shock you from the static electricity in her white fur.

[“How do you shed your fur, anyway, Saori? Don’t you do that all the time?”] I asked.

[“You are thinking of dogs, Hestia. I shed like a wolf, so it’s better to call it molting, in a way. In large bundles and clumps. However, the issue is that my fur is tough and gets hung up in my scales. Either I need to comb or have Tasianna wash me and then shake it off one by one.”]

“A monster’s body parts are always filled to the brim with their mana; that’s why humanoids are so, so, so greedy to make armor and weapons out of them. But, like our scales, Saori needs to shed them as often as possible to gain an outer fur coat worthy of her current stats. As I said, you two need to take better care of your bodies. Your real bodies.”

Mother insinuated that the armor and weapons we made up until now from our materials weren’t as strong as we thought they would be. Was there an even higher height for them even without evolving? Maybe, but we would need to reforge them. Thankfully, Grimnir could do that.

“Alright, now observe, you two.”

Mother stretched her arm forward. “Unlike reptiles, a dragonkin’s old skin is stuck to our new scales until we forcibly remove the outer layer. For our own protection. Yes, two layers are stronger than one, but that prevents you from regrowing a new one.”

Mother then breathed in for a moment before she mentioned moving her mana to her arm. As she did so, I wanted to activate [Mana Eyes] to see what’s going on, but my parallel minds quickly reminded me of the last time I used it on her, which strained my eyes until they bled. So, I held my urge back and simply observed.

At first, nothing was going on with Mother’s scales, but after a few seconds, the scales began wiggling slightly around, as if they were trembling. Saori and I could feel mana being released from her body. Even her dragon pheromones smelled more potent than usual.

“Always molt in a safe area. The mana attracts hunters… Which would be a good tip if you were actually hatchlings. In your case, use more mana during a molting session to intimidate potential threats away.” Mother’s want to provide motherly advice sadly wasn’t as successful here.

In any case, Mother continued explaining the process, “Circulate your mana throughout the area you wish to molt, and continuously inject more and more into your skin. At this point, you should be able to feel a loose layer above your scales. This is the skin you must shed. Continue the process until you see the skin loosen. If your scales are wiggling and letting mana escape, you are doing it correctly.”

And as Mother said, the color of her scales changed into something like baking paper — pale and slightly translucent. As she continued, more and more changed color until she was satisfied. Telling us she was still circulating her mana around her arm, she then used wind magic to create a larger gap between the shed skin and her scales, before using her silver powder to rip it off completely.

Holding her shed skin with a business-like-usual smile, she told us to look at her arm. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much, but once again Mother proved to me that my knowledge about my own body was severely lacking. Not only did her scales look even shinier, they actually looked like crystals. No, like diamonds! Like actual, clear, light-refracting diamonds!

[“Hold on, are your scales actually diamonds, Mother? I know you are called a [Diamond-Powder Fimbulvetr Dragon], but I thought it only described your silver powder.”]

“They aren’t, of course.” But Mother quickly brought me back to reality. “A dragon’s scales embody your mana’s element. Mine is ice, as I said before. As such, they look and shine like the clearest crystals while being harder than any diamonds in the world. A single scale could fetch an empire’s wealth. If you want, we could solve your wealth problems, however…”

[“Dragons should not give their scales out freely,”] Saori ended Mother’s sentence. [“Hestia, remember how Cernust told you how dragons only give their scales to those they trust? This is the same type of gesture, I believe.”]

Dragons disliked prying off their scales since that would weaken them, and would only do something like this if they trusted the other. It was also a sign of respect and loyalty. Yes, I could probably ask Mother for a scale for some larger amounts of money, but it would also be like spitting in her face if I did so. What kinda daughter would do that to somebody who’s trying to give all her love to you?

After Mother gave me a quick reminder of this, she then began eating her shed skin. Saori and I flinched from how cringy this action was, but Mother thought of it as normal. While we thought it was similar to eating your hair, dragons consume their shed skin to restore lost nutrients and mana stored in it. It was recycling, in other words. I didn’t know dragons were so ecologically aware.

After that, Mother told us it was our turn, so we began following her instructions. First, circulating mana throughout our bodies and letting it into our scales to remove the outer layer of skin. Now I understand why dragons were born with [Mana Control]. They needed this skill for molting.

However, compared to what Mother did, we had to do our entire bodies. And since we weren’t as proficient as her, we required quite a long process to do so. There was also the problem that Mother just told us about — our scales were too old from our lack of proper care. We had trouble shedding the outer layer with the inner one, and we were forced to repeat the process more than Mother anticipated.

In Saori’s case, her fur also was a problem. Sure, she shed it a few weeks ago, but due to our neglect, some of the old fur was stuck in between the scales that fell off. That caused trouble with creating the shed skin.

Honestly, I never would have expected this to be so problematic. More and more surprised. We were taking so long that Tamae came into the room and asked if we were coming for dinner. Sadly, Mother told me we had to finish the shedding sessions otherwise that shed skin would get stuck into the next layer.

It was a vicious cycle. It was better to do it now and eat later. To sate my hunger, I was using solar energy as the alternative. This was my punishment.

[“Argh, damn! My spikes and carapace aren’t coming off!”] I complained.

[“Another patch of fur tangled around my scales…”] Saori looked defeated.

“Enough complaining, you two! This is your fault! You must persevere!” Mother scolded us.

“Lady Hestia! Miss Saori! You can do it!” Tasianna cheered us on.

Even the two snow wyverns were acting like cheerleaders.

[“The process is important. Do well, Princess!”]

[“Yes. All hatchlings must learn how to do it.”]

The problem was that they demonstrated their shedding to us, thinking they could be good role models, but it only killed my self-confidence even more!

Fucking hell! I will never neglect this shit ever again! Never again!

It took us deep into the night, but we finally managed to do it. Our whole bodies, from head to tail, managed to shed the outer skin layer. Mother inspected us, noticing nothing lacking and told us it was time to take it off.

“The process for us dragons is easy. This is also a chance for the both of you to practice controlling your draconic abilities better. Instead of using your claws to scrape it off or using a wall to scratch your body, you should use your scale-dust and stygian lightning.”

Dragons take pride in being able to control their scales perfectly, so I guess this is what Mother was referring to. I don’t know what my scale-dust had to do with my scales, but I guess it would be better to have them handle it than to do it manually. The fastest way would be to—

“Oh, and do not forget, you must eat your shed skin for the process to work perfectly. Do not burn it off~”

… She was onto us. 100%.

Without further ado, I began the removal by copying what Mother did. First, I used wind magic to create a large gap between the shed skin, but this was where it got a bit finicky. Unlike Mother’s control of her silver powder, I wasn’t able to telekinetically control my scale-dust outside of setting them ablaze. I could fan them towards something with my wings or wind magic, but there was a reason why I had Grimnir make a glaive gun for me, meant to shoot scale-dust bullets.

Mother told me to pour mana into them just like how Tasianna controlled her ice blades, but even after trying it over and over again with her instructions, I still couldn’t do it. At this point, I told her I was giving up on this idea for now, since the skin was annoying my eyes. As such, I used something more comparable to Tasianna’s control.

[Corrosive Fire], to be specific, my corrosive slime and obsidian.

Unheilige Engel!

Two purple slime wings appeared from a magic circle behind me before I had them turned into obsidian. Using them like chopsticks, I slowly began removing patches of shed skin from myself. Mother nodded her head in satisfaction, telling me this was also acceptable. At least, I wasn’t doing it with my claws like a reptile… Her words, not mine.

Proficiency requirement fulfilled. [Hellblade Dragon Lv. 3] evolved into [Hellblade Dragon Lv. 4]

The moment that notification appeared, my eyes widened as I marveled at how bright red my scales were. There were still spots of crimson around, but it just seemed as if my body brightened up like a light bulb. Scales like rubies, I tell you. I felt like a ruby being revealed to the world.

“How do you like it, Hestia? It’s already darkening a bit since it’s ‘old’ skin due to your molting neglect, but it’s beautiful, right? My little beautiful fire!” Mother embraced my front foot, unable to control her tail from caressing me.

[“… Mother, please, stop trying to embarrass me here! I know I look far better than before but you don’t have to say it so loudly!”]

Loving mothers in any world know how to fluster their children.

As I was working through this embarrassment of my own mother nuzzling her head on my leg, I turned around to see Saori having some difficulty with her shedding. Not only did she not have access to wind spells, but her fur was proving to be an obstacle. Even her lightning wasn't proving itself as helpful as usual.

Mother noticed this and stopped hugging my leg and went over to Saori. “Fur and plumage aren’t convenient for shedding, since you don’t want to remove them from the root. Hmm, if you can’t use wind magic, couldn’t you use your lightning to create a magnetic field? Bounce the skin away?”

[“I don’t think that would work. My catalyst and armguards could create a proper magnetic force, but my stygian lightning isn’t the same. Also, ‘bounce your skin away’?”] Saori looked confused. [“Hmm, well, if I have to bounce this shed skin away, then maybe I could— Oh, right! That would work! Shadow Armament!”]

Saori’s shadow armor materialized underneath her shed skin, making her look a bit like a cheap plastic toy right now. As she began to expand the armor, the skin was naturally pushed outward, until she was finally finished.

“Congratulations on your first molts, Lady Hestia! Miss Saori!” Tasianna congratulated us.

I smirked and took the compliment with pride, despite how normal this was for dragons. To me, this was a new experience despite driving me insane with its difficulty.

“Yes, it is good to celebrate your first molting, you two! Now, for the future, please do not forget to groom yourselves regularly. You may use my cave to do so even when I am asleep. I will most likely sleep through it, unfortunately,” Mother told us, and we could only agree.

I did it ‘cause this molting was actually legit. Not only did my scales gain an amazing luster, I also felt more flexible and “free.” You know how it was important to allow your skin to breathe and how breathable clothes were important for workouts? Yeah, I guess you could say this was the same case. I felt far more comfortable being in my body.

I did check on my stats if anything changed with them, but sadly nothing did. It should have been expected, I guess. This wasn’t a process to increase your stats, this was a method to have your body adapt better to your profile!

And it felt gooooood! I swore to myself to create an urge for shedding and to do so when I was free, but Mother told me she will manage my shedding schedule for now, until I get into the groove.

Since it was past midnight, we all went to sleep hungry; Saori and I were mentally exhausted. Hunger was not fatigue’s opponent.

Once morning came, I decided on putting my dance training off for now, ‘cause it seemed I got addicted to all this dragon improving stuff. Mother still hadn’t told me how to control my scales, groom them, nor other things I wanted to ask her. I wanted to learn more about my body.

But I guess the actual reason why I came to her today was due to something else. Something coming from far higher than the sky.

Melloxtressa, how dare you speak like that to your Emperor and God! I am Kargryxmor, the one who ruled it all! You dare speak in that tone towards me!!!

“You are not my Emperor anymore, God! Eltharion is now the rightful Emperor! Unlike you, he stayed with us and fought to bring back peace to our empire! All you did was to take away all the elder scales and bring them to relax in the divine realm! You betrayed us!”

Today, we would be playing Family Feud.

A note from AbyssRaven

Hestia has taken her stuff in becoming a proper dragon. Also, did anybody watch family feud? Yeah? Good. We about to have one in Hestia's dragon family.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 262: Draconic Family Feud.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Well, welcome to Family Feud, everybody. I’m your gal, Hestia Kargryxmor. We've got something good today and we've got just the right clan heads to duke it out so the rest don’t have to.

To my right, representing the former head of clan Kargryxmor, we have the divine Black Tyrant of the Skies and the Dragon God of Oaths — Kaaaaaarrrrrrgrrrrrryyymor!

And to my left, we have the current matriarch of clan Nordor, the illustrious and majestic Silver Diamond of the Frozen Peaks — Meeeeeelllloxtressaaaaaaaaaa!

Both coming right up from the land of the dragons, Kargryx, these two giant natural disasters wrapped in scales are about to have themselves a clash of ideals!

… And I was right in the middle of this. No, this wasn't fun. This was actually pretty cringe and painful. After all, two giant dragons who lived longer than the Julian and Gregorian calendars of Earth were quarreling right before me. The worst part?

They were my granddad and mother.

<Betrayer?! Have you grown senile over the years, young scale?! You dare call someone who fought for our world and home a betrayer? The one who solved the problem of the dwindling number of prey in Kargryx and gave you a place to feed and find peace? You insult your god!>

“Then tell me, oh mighty god, what has your ascension brought to dragonkind? How did we benefit outside of a single dungeon to satiate our hunger? Your apotheosis started a civil war in Kargryx and Loatryx, a war you could have stopped if you had taken any of it seriously! Eltharion would not have ended the war in that way if you had!”

<Pah! Sophistry! Eltharion is the son of the Black Tyrant! He is a fool for feeling any anguish for his avaricious nestlings! Instead of accepting my parting wish, those foolish children of mine dared take flight, upsetting the balance I left behind. Eltharion should take pride!>

Holy shit…

You know how your parents sometimes wouldn’t get along with their parents-in-law? Yeah, I guess that was the situation I was in right now. My Papa and Mama had a pretty good relationship with my grandparents, so I wasn’t exactly used to my mother absolutely despising my grandfather.

But, this is my life now.

“Could you two please stop?” I attempted to stop them, since nobody else was inside Mother’s cave. The snow wyverns were interacting with the others right now, to give us all some space.

When Mother sighed and looked at me, Kramps’ voice stopped echoing in my head, but I knew he was still listening in. “First things first, stop arguing when I have to send it through to Mother telepathically, Kramps! Secondly, why did you two start arguing like this?! I was supposed to learn how to control my [Battle Frenzy] today!”

In my day-to-day life, [Battle Frenzy] had pretty much stopped appearing randomly after I evolved into a [Young Sunfang Dragon]. Of course, I still had some tinglings if I went without a single fight for a while, but enough had happened in the prior month for it to be a non-factor. The only time when it activated was during the whole Griffonpeak invasion was when I saw Eshe’s body and immediantly went berserk with [Battle Frenzy (Major)].

However, after I finished that demonkin off in my berserk mode, I learned from my parallel minds that I had received some help from Kramps to control it during the fight. That I was able to access the powers of my godly blessings in that form. As such, aside from my draconic body and abilities, I had to also control my innate ability from my bloodline.

<Hmm, maybe it would be better if I didn’t shout. It wouldn’t be too good for your soul, Hestia,> Kramps said and I kept the telepathic link up with Mother to convey his words.

Mother, although her soul was strong enough thanks to her advanced age, wasn’t receiving Kramps’ words directly, but was instead relying on me to pass it on to her. In a reverse from Aurena's saints and champions, it wasn't Mother's soul that was incapable of supporting a conversation with Kramps for an extended time, but rather it was her lacking faith in him that would cause her to take damage from doing so.

Similar to my dragon father, Eltharion, I had the “honor” of having a soul able to resist the damage, and was a better vessel to speak through. Just like with Aurena. As such, if he shouted, that would echo through my head and begin to hurt my soul.

“Yes, very much appreciated, Kramps. I really wouldn’t want my soul to suddenly explode or crack again.” I massaged my temples, just happy that I wouldn’t have to continue listening to an angry dragon ranting inside my head.

After things seemed to have calmed down, Mother began to speak. “If you wish to learn how to control your bloodline’s battle lust, I could teach you by myself, Hestia.”

Kramps scoffed as he responded, but kept his anger in control. <You? A Nordoramsul? Don’t make me laugh. A Kargryxmor should be taught by their own. I would be the best teacher, as such.>

“Eltharion has taught the other empresses how to help their children control their bloodline’s rage. They taught me. Not only can I help Hestia make another core for herself, teach her how to control her scales better, and control her draconic abilities, I am fully capable of supporting her anger management. You are not needed.” Mother was strict, denying Kramps any chance to contribute to my education.

<… Do you now understand why female dragons are said to be overprotective? Don’t tell this to your mother.> His fleeting voice reminded me when he warned me of that. Maybe Cernust’s mother was also as territorial as mine?

Feeling the awkwardness and chill in the air, it didn’t surprise me that Mother wasn’t enthusiastic to continue this discussion. Still, Kramps did ask me to convey his words to her and, for the first time since I spoke to him in his divine realm, he was willing to help me with my growth.

Intending to warm up this iceberg, I attempted to soothe Mother. “Mother, isn’t it fine for Kramps to help me out? Considering how much you’re intending to do, it wouldn’t hurt to have someone who knows my bloodline as well as he does.”

“I have enough time to kill, Hestia,” Mother flatly rejected my proposal. “The life of an ancient dragon is mostly just sleeping, hunting, and eating. It is mundane. To my elation, finally, a little vibrancancy appeared for me to care about outside of leveling up and sleeping.”

Mother then walked up to me and gave me a warm embrace. “And that is you. I have enough endurance and patience to teach you, Hestia. I have learned enough to teach you what you need to grow up well. And I will not allow anybody to steal my time with you! Especially not an arrogant elder scale who believes he still has any control over us dragonkin!”

<Hmph!>

Kramps grumbled.

<If Hestia were to learn from me, she will be able to control her wrath faster. Once finished, she will be able to use my blessing to draw out the divine powers from Goddess Aurena and God Danterno’s titles. Once attained, she is required to then train her body even further to control them without my intervention.>

“There is no need to rush things. She has enough time to handle your ‘issue.’ She is just a whelping. The world is not in danger for her to hurry.”

<Arrogance! You young scales still believe that you can sit on the laurels of your parents and elders indefinitely? No, you are simply lazy. There is no reason to slow down Hestia’s training. She will require more power for the future. The earlier, the better.>

Aurena and Kramps told me that my early birth had accelerated the progress of their plan. So, I was a bit worried about how Kramps told me I should hurry up a bit more. Was there anything going on that I should know?

“Do not lie, Kargryxmor!” Mother snarled aggressively. “All us ancient dragons know there is no threat to the world with the Origin Gods around. The only threat is to its inhabitants. But, what is the significance of such a fact for a being like us? A being who can live until time ends itself? I witnessed human kingdoms and empires fall just for another to replace them. A memorable day today is a fading memory tomorrow.”

Mother let go of me and continued shouting at Kramps by looking at the ceiling. “You call us slothful? Just because we aren’t following your plan for us? To become this world’s protectors? You wish for us to lay waste to all threats and wage more wars?! There are enough ashes and dust in our history already. What does it matter if the demonkins rise and ended the era of the human’s dominance of Altrust? In the next millennium, the beastman may rise against them. Or the dwarves. Or the humans might want to reclaim their throne? It doesn’t matter. Miononbolax will stand and endure.”

Mother was speaking from the perspective of somebody of who had lived ages, making it very, very hard for me to truly understand her. From what she said, I could deduce she doesn’t hold much attachment to the world. The only reason why she’s forcing herself to sleep less is for me. To spend time with me.

<… Then what about Hestia? The faster she trains and gets stronger, the less tragedies she has to endure. She would have the strength to make this world kneel, just as I did.>

… He brought that up, huh? Still, he has a point.

The stronger I become, the fewer people like Eithalr that could stop me. If I could waltz right through people like him, I could protect my friends better. I know Saori and the others will become stronger to fulfill the same goal, so I couldn’t slack off to make them worry.

“If my daughter isn’t strong enough to survive this world, then she should not be exposed to it.” Once again, Mother stomped her foot down. She was like an unmovable fortress. “I will bring her back to Kargryx. There, I will protect and train her, allowing nothing in the world to threaten her until she becomes strong enough to not need me. I will make sure even if I were to ever disappear, she will be capable enough to stand strong alone.”

“M-Mother?!” I expressed my shock. “W-What are you implying?!”

I was not in the mood to discuss the mortality of my mother!

She caressed my cheeks, looking at me warmly with love. “I didn’t mean it like that, so please don’t worry about me. I am healthy and I can live as long as you wish me to, my whelpling. However… the future holds unknowns, and even someone like me cannot predict it. Just like how my parents ascended with Kargryxmor’s apotheosis, you cannot be sure nothing will happen to me. When all the elder scales like my father and mother left, there was no one to protect my brother and me. All we had was ourselves, and then the civil war began. We chose neutrality, but that was for our own safety, as we wouldn’t have survived if we had participated.”

Yorshka had told me Mother and my uncle didn’t participate in the succession war, but she never told me the actual reason for why they didn’t choose a side. However, as I guessed, the real reason was for their own safety. I just didn’t know that mother wasn’t confident in her strength back then, unlike now where she would proudly proclaim being able to introduce an ice age to the planet.

Honestly, the more she kept ranting at Kargryxmor, the more I learned the reasoning for all her actions. Why she doesn’t want to fight or help me with my quest, why she wants to bring me to Kargryx if I cannot fight my own fights, and why she doesn’t like Kramps.

However, I also understood that she was too stubborn to be persuaded if you weren’t being forceful.

I grabbed her hand, stopping her from caressing me and looked her in the eyes. “If you want me to become strong enough to protect myself, then allow Kramps to teach me.”

Mother looked bewildered. Shocked that her words weren’t getting to me. However, I understood what she meant very well.

“Please, don’t speak like you will disappear one day, Mother. I already lost one, I don’t want to lose another right after meeting her,” I told her truthfully. “As you said, you want me to be strong enough to protect myself, so you should allow Kramps to help me. Family helps each other, right? Yorshka is already helping me with my spearmanship, you are helping me become a better dragon, now Kramps can help me with my blessings.”

“I do not want you to spend more time with him.”

Holy shit, Mother!!! This woman is stubborn!

I frowned. “Mother, I know you want to spend every second you can with me since you missed out on it for an entire year. Also, since I’m such a ‘weird’ child, I also know I robbed you of your chance to properly raise a sweet baby from infancy to adulthood. I know that, and I’m sorry about it.”

The more I got to know her, the more I felt bad about that. Every mother should have this opportunity. Instead, due to my reincarnation, Mother was robbed of that chance. Even if she considered me a ‘baby’ due to my mental age, it wasn’t the same.

Mother formed a wry smile, holding my hand with both of hers. “It’s alright. I am perfect—”

“No, no, no!” I interrupted her, astounding her once again. “This is something a hatchling wouldn’t be able to do, right? See? And it will probably happen even more in the future, and that’s why I can understand why you wish to spend more time with me. However, if you really want to do that, then you shouldn’t be staying inside this cave all the time. There are so many other opportunities for us to bond together instead of training or just during breakfast, lunch, or dinner.”

“Hmm?” she tilted her head. A confused expression plastered on her face. “But, what else would we do, Hestia? That’s how parent and child bond.”

It seemed like Mother was still thinking a bit too much like a dragon. Sadly, her daughter was also a human inside this dragony body.

“Maybe show some interest in my hobbies?” I suggested. “Outside of when I mentioned my idol career, you haven’t asked about it ever since. Neither have you mention my singing or dancing. In fact, you haven’t asked me what my hobbies were, Mother.”

For the first time since we met, Mother’s face reddened a bit. “W-Well, but you are still a whelpling, no— Oh…”

Yeah, it couldn’t be helped. Not only our age but also our common sense were different. To her, I was still a whelp, but I had the mind of a teenager.

“Ehehe,” I giggled, flustering Mother and causing her to hide her blush with her hands. “Your daughter might be a dragon, but I was still raised by human parents, Mother. I have a lot of hobbies and interests. I can’t speak much about boys now that I can’t even feel any sexual attraction, but I’m sure we could speak more about fashion or cultural norms. Training and dragon education is all fine and such, but you should come watch me do what I dedicated both of my two lives for.”

“Y-Your idol career?” she said meekly.

“Yes! Correct!” I paused to raise one arm over my head, curling all my fingers except my index finger. “Your daughter is about to bring the idol culture to Peolynca but you aren’t even giving me your support, like a real mother should! You have to sleep, I know, so you want to spend all your time when you’re awake with me, but how about we not spend it all together for training. That’s booooooriiiing.”

“Boring?!” Mother looked shocked.

Well, I didn’t think it was boring at all, but I was exaggerating a bit to get what I want here. To have Mother actually enjoy her life more. I wanted to be a better daughter this time around.

“T-Then what are you proposing we do?”

“Well, how about we stop training today and you come watch me train with Ellaine and Tasianna for our upcoming concert? I can share with you the music culture of Earth and you can give a rant about it if you don’t like it. If you like it, though…” I formed two Korean heart signs and winked at her. “Your daughter will love you even more~”

“Huh!” she gasped, her hand covering her chest. “Y-Yes, you’re right! I should do that! I cannot just spend all my time inside this cave! I should spend more time with you! We can always push the training to another day, there is no need!”

“Exactly!” I exclaimed. “Mother, you probably don’t know much about the current world, so how about we go shopping when we reach Ullistar? I haven’t explored the city there yet so I want to go around with the others. If you were to come, it'd become even merrier!”

While I was holding her hand and slowly dragging her out of her room, Mother frowned a bit. “Mhmm, but this world will just change after a few years. If I were to become too familiar with it, I would feel worse if it were to change.”

“Oh, really? Then what about your memory of me?”

“Why, I would definitely remember those. Every second spent with you is a blessing to my life, Hestia.”

“Good! Then we can reminisce about all of this after our whole journey is over. Mother, I understand you fear everything will die while you will live on, but staying so pessimistic won’t help your happiness. Let’s live in the present. Let’s have some fun.”

“… Ehehe.” Her laugh was short and quiet, but her wry smile told me she understood I was speaking the truth. “Maybe, I’ll try… But all this fun will sap my time to help you develop. I will still need to sleep and that I cannot change.”

“Delegation.”

“Correct.”

One word each was enough.

“Kargryxmor!” She stopped moving and looked at the ceiling with a scowl.

<I see my granddaughter has managed to persuade you.>

Stop acting like an asshole, Kramps!

Ignoring that sassiness, Mother continued speaking, “I will only allow you to help Hestia with her [Battle Frenzy] and divine training. Do you hear? I will help her remove and reform her sun core. I will help her with her scales and dragon abilities. Have I made myself clear?”

<Hmph! Your indignant tone continues to slight me, Melloxtressa. However, I shall accept your proposal. Now with that over with, I shall now present my initial—>

“I already know what you want,” she sneered, showing off her fangs. “Eltharion will not change his mind, even if I were to speak with him. None of the five empresses would either. We will not heed your call.”

<… Then it seems I must rely on Hestia, then. Hestia! We will begin training soon, so make time in your schedule. I will not tolerate any delays, granddaughter.>

“Uuuhhh, yeah, sure, Kramps.” My carefree tone infuriated him, but before he could scold me, I asked him something. “What are you trying to rely on me for?”

<Hmph. You do not need to know about it now, Hestia. Once you make it back to Miononbolax, I shall tell you about it. For now, concentrate on Aurena’s divine Quest. Mine shall be left for a later time, maybe after hers is done.>

And with that, Kargryxmor stopped speaking. With the old man out of the equation, I brought Mother to our smithy, where I saw Ellaine tinkering with Grimnir’s blasthammer 2.0 prototype.

When I told her we were doing our choreography training now, Ellaine looked too surprised to answer, so I simply grabbed her hand and forced her out of the room with my superior Strength stats. Grimnir seeing Melloxtressa with me did not complain.

“Good luck, lass,” Grimnir wished her luck.

“W-What?! Master Grimnir, say something! Help me!” Her pleas went down the drain.

I then visited Tasianna and told her about my plans.

“Oh, wonderful! I had nothing better to do than to maintain the plants. Let us go now, Lady Hestia,” she agreed immediately, to Ellaine’s chagrin.

“Are you kidding me?! Hestia, you shouldn’t just drag people away from their own plans! Tasianna, you shouldn’t accept this so easily even if she is your mistress! … Hold on, didn’t I do that a lot with Josine when I was little?”

It seemed Ellaine attained some sorta revelation but it wasn’t that important to me. Instead, I dragged them both into our idol studio, which was outfitted with a room for singing and dancing. It was just made recently, since we needed a proper place to train now with so many people just joining the crew.

Tasianna and Ellaine both wanted to join me on the stage during my concerts, so this was just the preparation for that. Training was important. Still, we weren’t actually an official idol unit yet, as both couldn’t perform multiple songs and their choreography for a single concert.

Still, “yet” was the point. Well, hopefully it would happen one day. Being solo was nice, but having a full unit performing together sounded amazing. Just imagining all of us on stage with proper outfits made my tail waggle so much, I nearly broke the ice mirror Tasianna made for us.

In any case, our concert in two weeks needed some planning and I also had to get back in the groove. The foundation was the most important, and I will drill into everybody the trifecta of dancing, singing, and fanservice!

The Aurora fandom will grow even more!

“Ehe.”

And sitting on a chair, Mother was looking at us dancing with a smile. I wondered what was going through her mind as she saw me instruct everybody and get their feedback on the choreography, but that could wait for later. Now, it was time to dance!

Don’t worry, I’ll get strong enough to not make you worry, Mother. This time, I will be a better daughter!

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Chapter 263: Kramps, the Originator of [Battle Frenzy].

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Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Fluid Cast Lv. 5] [Spear Mastery Lv. 6] [Draconic Roar Lv. 5] [Crushing Enhancement Lv. 6] [Concentration Lv. 8] gained

<Our blood activates upon emotional and instinctual stimuli. When I was first born, [Battle Frenzy], to me, was just part of my fight-or-flight response. Even with my parents, fighting was part of our daily lives. As such, I never had a problem with it as you did.>

I could feel my heartbeat rising, causing my blood to pump through my blood vessels at a higher pace. The blood gives my cells nutrients, using the oxygen I breathe in to keep my body nice and healthy. My mind eased up as my body relaxed. The calmness and tranquility of Mother’s cave were perfect for meditation.

<Before the Divine System was introduced, life was fragile, suffering from all sorts of maluses. Even I was weak when I was first born. There were no concepts like Health or Vitality. All we dragons could rely on were our fangs and scales.>

Memories of the past were pulled out from the depths of my mind. The fear I felt when I first entered this world, fleeing with all my might from those kobolds. My decision to kill that kobold group after learning how human they were. The appearance of the two garms, looking down at me with the ability to kill me with a single stomp.

The chills I felt as the reaper crept up to me, his scythe ready to swing. I had to bring those emotions up. Relive the moment I felt them. Everything had to be remembered. I had to put myself back in that weakened state. Like VR.

… Urgh.

<Thankfully, we dragonkins are naturally inclined towards magic and mana. Mana has always been around since the dawn of Peolynca. Fangs and scales are important, but when we add magic and elemental prowess into the mix, that is when the lizard becomes a dragon and drake. Just like the faefolk, our bodies take on the elemental properties of our magic and mana, and mutate as such. That was how monsters evolved before the Divine System>

The chase! My legs moved as fast as they could. Tripping from my lack of finesse. Imagining my heart beating so fast I could hear it pounding caused my actual one to simulate that tension. It caused my body to become twitchy and the heat inside of me to grow. I could feel my sun core activating, fully believing I was in danger right now.

Calm down. Calm down. Slow breaths. Deep in… exhale. Breathing techniques.

<But I wasn’t satisfied with that. I wanted to reach beyond the limits of magic and mana, so I directed my attention to my blood. The raging lust for battle. I was the only one to have it, so I was my own teacher. [Battle Frenzy], I called it. The power that allowed me to become the Black Tyrant of the Skies. An ability that drew out the full potential of my black flames and enabled me to shatter the sky and sunder the earth. I am the Black Tyrant, Hestia.>

“… Grrrrk!”

My inability to use [Imperial Hellfire] against Astalos despite trying all I could to finalize the spell. Shiterno hijacking my status and suddenly giving me more power than my body could handle at that moment, the pain forcing me into a berserker mode. Astalos nearly killing Ellaine, provoking me to meteor bomb him to death. Then…

Eshe…

Her lifeless body. Her blood seeped the puddles red. The images were coming back to me. That smile on that demonkin’s face. How he bragged about murdering Eshe, Sir Alikar, and Dame Anivh. Everything became more and more vivid.

“Grrk!”

[Battle Frenzy (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Mental Stability Lv. 8] evolved into [Mental Stability Lv. 9]

[“Bethlieranha.”]

[“Yes, brother.”]

The warmth in the middle of my chest increased further and further until the heat became noticeable to me. Warm tears began seeping through the slits of my closed eyes, pouring down my cheeks and falling onto my skirt. My tail kept slamming the floor over and over again, uneasy and nervous from witnessing Eshe’s death over and over again.

I’m sorry! I should have come sooner! I should have noticed something was up and that the demonkins would target us blessed! Dammit! Why didn’t I think abou—

And then an uncomfortable cold wrapped my whole body like a blanket.

“Brrrrr! Fuck! Cold!”

My eyes shot open and I jumped up, shivering from the sudden frost winds. It pulled me right out of my meditation.

<Hmmm. That’s how long you can keep your emotions in control, huh? What caused [Battle Frenzy] to activate?>

It was Kramps’ voice. At the same time, the cold quickly dissipated and the darkness around me brightened up like unveiling a window inside a black room. I looked to my sides — the snow wyvern twins were there.

“Thank you, Bethlieranha and Shayatierus,” I thanked them for stopping my [Battle Frenzy], earning me an “Our honor, Princess” from them. After that, I turned my attention back to Kramps’ question. “When I remembered Eshe again…”

I explained to him everything I simulated and tried to remember since he started his storytelling, detailing how I felt and what emotions were triggered by those memories.

<Mhmm. I understand. Your mental resistance skills have helped you endure the simulation of all your fight-or-flight responses you’ve experienced up until now, but emotional stress seems to be your limit.>

“… I guess I also have to conquer all that baggage to get [Battle Frenzy] under control, huh?” I asked rhetorically.

<Of course. [Battle Frenzy] can only be controlled if you do not fall into a blind berserker rage, and to do that, you need to be one with your emotions. All the rage, wrath, and desire to destroy is an intrinsic part of my blood. To conquer that part of yourself, your nature? That is when you transcend from a simple dragon, and become someone able to harness the full powers of your draconic heritage and the divine blessings inside you. You are a usurper, Hestia.>

Four days had passed since Mother managed to compromise with Kramps to help me out with [Battle Frenzy]. With my training with her, Yorshka, and for my concert, I hadn’t done anything concerning [Battle Frenzy] in the meantime despite Kramps telling me I should open my schedule up for him.

Regardless, today was the first day of the training to conquer my [Battle Frenzy]. While Mother was deeply asleep, I was now spending time with Kramps and the two snow wyverns mother had practically taken in as her attendants.

<Tell the wyverns to increase the cold. The colder it is, the less eager your body will be to fight.>

Remembering how I would feel sleepier than usual in the winter, I asked Kramps about it. I presumed it was ‘cause I was a fire dragon.

<That is correct, Hestia. Fire dragons are the most active in warmer climates, while winter is usually a perfect time to hibernate for us. Yes, we can warm our surroundings up, but nature is nature. It seems you inherited more of Eltharion’s blood than your mother’s. It also doesn’t help that you evolved into a full fire elemental dragon. Well, this also means you have more potential to draw out once you conquer [Battle Frenzy].>

I did remember Mother lamenting that I was incredibly weak against ice and water. She admitted to being extremely elated that I was able to inherit my scale-dust from her.

In any case, I turned to the two snow wyverns and conveyed Kramps’ words to them. As you would guess, calling them “snow wyvern female” or “the brother wyvern” would be inconvenient in the future. Since Mother took them in as attendants, I asked her to give them names to make addressing them easier.

“Shayatierus” was the name of the older brother, and Bethlieranha was for the sister. They were completely overjoyed with their names, given to them by a being they greatly respected as the epitome of winter. They practically swore their eternal loyalty to Mother and to me at the same time.

The snow wyverns were helping me out by cooling me off whenever I lost control of my [Battle Frenzy]. Just like how Master Kush stopped my rampage after Shiterno’s interference, anything ice or water element could help “douse” me.

With my solar core still damaged, I couldn’t exude extreme heat without cracking it again. The pain most likely would have snapped me out of it. Fortunately, this did mean the wyverns and Tasianna would be able to cool me down. Otherwise, Mother probably would have been the only one able to do so.

“Okay, got some time to rest. Let’s do it again, Kramps.”

<I am Kargryxmor, Hestia! Your grandfather. I am not ‘Kramps!’>

Yeah, yeah, it’s not like you hate it that much. You’re just complaining about how casual I’m talking to a god. Whatever.

Ignoring Kramp’s pouting, I sat back down. I took in a deep breath, using my breathing techniques to quell my beating heart and find tranquility in the silence. I could hear the wyverns’ breathing, but it felt more like a cold breeze than anything else. It made the process easier, in fact.

Meditation was key to this process. Kramps explained when he first tried to conquer it, he thought constant fighting and beating other apex predators was the answer. With his method, his progress was slow and he almost died multiple times trying to overcome any walls he faced. It was only when he changed his fighting style to be less a berserk brawler that he understood he had to look deeper in himself.

The idea was to find harmony with your emotions, thoughts, and actions. A bit of Buddhism in the idea, eh? This trifecta was there to calm yourself down during a fight as your body was being overwhelmed by the mana from Kramps’ blood. [Battle Frenzy (Critical)] was the goal here, as that is where you would have the power to “shatter the sky and sunder the earth” or whatever over-exaggeration Kramps wanted to compare it to.

I was pretty sure it would be pretty strong, but my goal, for now, was [Battle Frenzy (Major)]. That was when [Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] would connect with Aurena’s and Shiterno’s blessings to grant me a sliver of their power. In other words, my hair would turn white and I would go super dragon mode.

As such, I had to work hard and find inner peace, I think.

Okay, first, my memory of being born.

The start was quite rough during the previous try. That was when I was still the size of a gecko and was afraid of everything around me. I was a city girl in the body of a small, helpless reptile placed inside a deadly forest. I was scared shitless day in and day out.

I then remembered the conflicts I had with the kobolds, orcs, and garms, simulating myself back into that memory. I asked myself how I felt and what I could do to overcome them. Of course, after reflecting on them so often, I knew exactly how to defeat them while sustaining less damage than I should.

Up until the garm matriarch. The imposing wolf mother of Saori. The fear of death was so very vivid. Chills ran down my spine whenever I remembered her eyes glaring down at me. A D rank newbie fighting an experienced C rank; I just couldn’t figure out how to win her battle, even after going through it multiple times. Maybe I was projecting Saori in her place, but I couldn’t think of a way to outwit the matriarch.

… Good enough.

But death has been with me far too often now. I’ve gotten used to it. I’ve accepted living as being victorious. If you survive, you could always return for a rematch. I was scared of her, but from her, I learned how just barely surviving was a blessing by itself. How life was so precious and fragile.

The next important memory was after we escaped Astalos and went into a cave towards Artorias. I remembered how I went mad in that cave and got to [Battle Frenzy (Moderate)] and went on a killing spree without any idea of what happened. And then the thing with Shiterno happened.

The fear of my own body and the dread of potentially harming everyone and everything I came to care for during that time. Saori and Tasianna are my family. Just imagining hurting them made me scared of getting stronger since I had no idea how my body worked. It also didn’t help that my fear of performing and failing was influencing my decision-making.

Thinking back on it, I was going insane from the isolation. Saori and Tasianna entering my life stopped that, which also caused me to fear losing them. I still did, and I would probably go mad if something happened to them now. But, back then, I honestly thought I was the only one able to protect them.

I was stupid. Saori and Tasianna showed me they could handle themselves with enough training. I thought I learned that when I broke into tears, breaking my oath to my past self, but I had to get lectured by Saori and Yorshka to remember it. If I couldn’t handle a threat alone, then I shouldn’t be scared to let others carry me. I learned to trust others.

… Another one. T-This is exhausting.

[“Princess, you are sweating.”] Shay — short for Shayatierus — called me out of my mediation with [Telepathy].

Opening my eyes, I noticed myself breathing faster than I expected and even felt some sweat beads forming on my forehead. My body temperature wasn’t exactly high with the twins around, so this was cold sweat? Stress?

<Yes, most likely, Hestia. You held out well for the first try, but it seems it has taken a toll on you for the second try.>

While massaging my temples, I responded, “It shouldn’t be this hard, though. I made it all the way to Eshe’s memories on the first try. The second time, it should be even easier! My [Mental stability] is level nine and I have [Tranquil Mind Lv. 1]. I shouldn’t be sweating only a half year into my memories.”

<You are underestimating how much mental fatigue affects you, Hestia. Do not forget, you are going through the trials and tribulations of your travels up until now. You are puttting yourself back into those deadly positions and are reliving those emotions. It is harsh, especially if one memory was a trauma. Like Eshe’s death.>

I reluctantly agreed. Getting over Eshe’s death completely would still need a while.

<Still, I am surprised, Hestia. Astounded, really.>

“Hmm? Why? If you ask me, slowing down on the second try seems more like a failure to me.” I didn’t think my mental state was that weak. For someone so prideful of their bloodline, I thought Kramps would scold me for being unable to do something simple like this.

<Not at all, Hestia. After all, this method you are using is the unfinished one. The brute force way.>

“Huh?”

<Yes, this is the method I had to use to conquer my [Battle Frenzy] and the one I taught your father, my firstborn, Eltharion. We are the only two who mastered [Battle Frenzy] through this rigorous method, and the reason why I realized it was unrefined and barbaric. When I had to teach it to my second child, I realized how difficult this method was when he wasn’t able to last as long as you did.>

Kramps explained how he had to refine this method for his other children, unwilling to allow them not to master his ability. It was his pride speaking. With the help of Eltharion, they both refined the method and separated the process into different sections, all targeting different emotions which could awaken [Battle Frenzy].

It was to isolate these memories and to allow the dragon to take breaks instead of searching through years upon years of experiences. This was the official method taught to my half-siblings. According to Kramps, most have mastered their [Battle Frenzy] up to (Moderate), while only my eldest siblings could enter [Battle Frenzy (Major)] without a problem. Eltharion remained the only living Kargryxmor able to access the (Critical) stage.

<I wanted to see your aptitude, Hestia. Maybe you had a piece of your father inside you. Hmmm… but then again, somebody as iron-willed as Eltharion still managed to succumb to the effects of war. The deaths of his siblings must have been truly traumatic, but a necessary thing to do. I had high hopes he wouldn’t end up like that but…>

Kramps…

Is this the reason for why Kramps was so disgusted about his son? Was that why he sounded so antagonistic when he spoke to Mother? Damn. My family has some issues, huh?

<In any case, you lasted long enough for my liking, once again making me glad that you were chosen as our reincarnator. Hahahaha! That other god surely chose the correct soul.>

Instead of my [Battle Frenzy] training, the moment Kramps opened his mouth to mention a god, my attention was instantly drawn towards that topic. If I were to guess, Kramps was probably talking about the third god involved in my reincarnation.

“Who is he?” I asked. “Goddess Aurena wasn’t very talkative about them, so I don’t have any idea who they are.”

<Mhmm. I do not have the authority to tell you about them, Hestia. Goddess Aurena has already told you that they are an external god, since Ilsaphone isn’t as experienced with transferring souls from one dimension to the other yet. Hmm, however, I think I could tell you a bit more now that we were able to investigate your soul a bit more. For example, he’s responsible for you usurping our blessings.>

Hold on, what?!

<Goddess Aurena told me they are a mischief-maker. A trickster. While they performed the same procedure for Goddess Crustacia, they didn’t add anything weird to Chihiro’s soul. Yours, however, was meant to rebel against our blessings and to usurp them. Even that [Mana Eyes] skill is something you shouldn’t have gained this early in your life. It’s essential for space-time skills, and Goddess Aurena and I were planning on giving it to you later down your life.>

“You serious?” I was baffled. “But why would that person do all of this?”

<For chaos’s sake, I presume. He’s a trickster, after all. Goddess Aurena and I were careless. I would also like to blame him for the death of the imperial egg deliverer, but I have no proof of that.>

“Hmm?”

Thinking about it, it did make sense. If I were to be born away from the dragons and in the Belzac forest, the gods would have easily found me if my blessings had worked fine. They could have seen through my eyes, after all. But if that person was the reason for me usurping the blessings, then it could also be he was the reason why I was in the Belzac forest in the first place.

But, as Kramps said, all of this was just an evidence-less presumption. An accusation with no weight behind it.

<Nevertheless, the fact you usurped three gods’ blessings is a feat nobody could brag about, Hestia. Ha! As the Black Tyrant, I am actually quite proud of that fact, even if it inconvenienced me majorly.>

“What are the benefits of me usurping them? I guess, one is that I am not exactly tied down by you three, right?” I presumed.

<Yes, quite so. We gave you those blessings, but now they actually belong to you. We cannot take them back, even if you displease us. We can add more on top of those blessings, but we cannot modify them in any way without your consent. In addition, to actually use the divine powers in those blessings, normally you would need the permission of the gods they belonged to. As I knew your usurpation of those blessings would work in our favor, I allowed you to use my blessing's ability to borrow their powers when you fought that demonkin.>

I see… I guess the goal of that third god really was chaos, in a way.

With everything said, it all pointed to the fact that the third god didn’t want me to be a pawn of Aurena and Kargryxmor in their plans. He allowed me to be born away from their influence and also outfitted me with skills and abilities to help me find my own path. They even made me usurp other gods' blessings like it was nothing.

Thinking about it, I didn’t exactly go through with his plan, huh? At the end of the day, I still allied myself with Aurena to form a deal. Then again, if that god had told me anything, I could have followed down another path, maybe.

Hold on… Would that be possible?

“Say, Kramps, since I’m able to usurp the blessings of not only Subordinate Gods but also Origin Gods, then, couldn’t I also usurp the blessings of those weird Edjurl gods? Or maybe even a demonic blessing?”

<… That sounds a bit stupid, don’t you think? Imagine being able to control the power of a demonic god? You would do the exact thing you’ve been trying to dissuade your human companion about.>

“… Yeah, you’re right. That does sound a bit stupid. It would be a bit broken, huh?”

Besides, which Edjurl god would willingly give me a blessing? I’m pretty sure that, after seeing Shiterno losing control of his own blessing to me, everyone must know not to give me any blessings anyways. I could steal it away from them.

<Anyways, we’ve deviated too much from the topic at hand. Your [Battle Frenzy] lesson. Alright, the method taught to all of Eltharion’s descendants is a method the both of us refined together. Before I ascended, I further improved on it by isolating the different phases into the seven cardinal sins. All types of emotions are connected to them in some way. As such, this is a great way to guide the process.>

Back to the seven deadly sins, huh? Season one, hopefully.

“With which do we begin?”

<With the sin least impactful in controlling [Battle Frenzy], but also the one most important for calming you down — Sloth. It is the best foundation.>

“I see. I can imagine why that would be good. Okay, Kramps, let us beg—”

“Hestia-san!” But, before anything could happen, somebody suddenly stormed into Mother’s cave.

I turned around, only to see Haruka running at me at high speed. She was pretty fast, honestly.

“Haruka-chan?” I wondered when she stopped before me.

“There’s a problem in the training ground! Daichi-san and Tatsuya-kun are fighting!” Haruka exclaimed loudly, but I couldn’t help but feel confused.

“Well, yeah, they’re training, Haruka-chan. If you spar, they should be fighting against each other.”

“No, no, they aren’t sparring. They are fighting, for real! Tatsuya said something to Daichi and that caused him to suddenly lash out at him. Tatsuya even used his druidification to fight back! Kyouya-kun and Asa-chan can’t stop them! Sir Elrick is doing all he can, but he can’t do much without accidentally hurting them!”

Are you serious?!

“Hold on, I told everybody that I would be busy right now. Why didn’t you ask Saori?! Or Ellaine and Grimnir?”

“Tamae-chan just asked Sensei for help since the restaurant is booming again. She’s working in the kitchen right now and doesn’t seem like she has any time. Tasianna, as you know, teleported over to Griffonpeak for today. And Ellaine and Grimnir are currently so engrossed in their work that they didn’t even hear me shout for help! You’re the only one available!”

What the fuck?!

<Hestia, go.>

“Wh-What?! Kramps?” I didn’t expect him to give me permission that easily, seeing how busy he was.

<You are the leader of this hunter’s company, so act like its leader. These situations shouldn’t have happened in the first place, so you should take responsibility for your negligence.>

“Negligence?! What do you mea— Oh!”

I suddenly remembered what Asaka told me a week ago, about how some people won’t be able to adapt their roles in this company due to Aurora conflicting with them. One of them was Daichi, who was a fire mage through and through. Asaka told me to talk to him, but due to everything going on, I had forgotten about that.

Scheiße! This is ‘cause of me!

“Alright,” I told Haruka. “Let’s go. Lead the way, Haruka-chan!”

“Y-Yes, let’s go. We must hurry!”

It was time to act like a leader.

A note from AbyssRaven

Hesita neglected the rapport Quests. Side Quests, sure, but still important. Can't increase your friendship level without doing them.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 264: Helping my Company’s Members.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“What the hell is going on here?! My training room!” I cried out in horror, despite knowing the room itself couldn’t be destroyed. Outside of some belongings and benches to rest on, there was nothing substantial inside which was worth stressing out for if they were broken.

The reason why I was acting so melodramatic was ‘cause of the two idiots rampaging around at this very second.

“Inferno Blast!” A searing hot fireball exploded on the floor, barely missing a wolfkin-looking person.

“Shit! You insane bastard, are you actually trying to kill me here?!” The wolfkin roared with Tatsuya’s voice. “I just asked you a simple question and you start shooting your damn fire at me?! Are you crazy?!”

“SHUT UP! Petal Flames! Flame Spear! Flame Spear!”

The Tatsuya-sounding wolfkin kept on the defensive, using his higher Agility to dodge the spells. Still, despite this advantage, he couldn’t actually get close to Daichi, who was using his spells to slow him down.

“Oh, Sir Elrick!” Haruka exclaimed, running off towards Asaka crouching next to a wounded Elrick, healing him with spells.

“Oh, Haruka-chan, you came back! Did you bring somebody back with you?” Asaka asked before Haruka pointed at me. “Hold on, was Segawa so busy that you had to bring the head honcho into the mix?”

She’s still calling Saori by her last name, huh?

“Yes, Sensei was cooking up a storm in the kitchen. The lower city restaurant is full again and Tamae-chan needed the extra hand,” Haruka explained. “What happened to Sir Elrick?! Why is Kyouya trying to stop them now?”

Haruka’s question led me to look over at the two idiots duking it out with each other, where I saw Kyouya tag teaming with Tatsuya to get closer to Dacihi. Still, seeing as I could currently feel an immense amount of mana exploding from his direction, they probably will have a hard time doing so.

So that is Daichi’s [Kamikaze] skill, huh?

All the students had a unique skill after they transferred over to Peolynca, probably given to them by the demonkins or something. I mean, since Aurena didn’t give it to them, this was the only logical conclusion, right?

Daichi’s [Kamikaze] skill gave him incredible firepower for a short time in exchange for crippling his Vitality and Wisdom growth. In addition, while he was using the skill, he also wouldn’t be affected by [Arcane Fever] from all the accumulated arcane corruption, only after it ended.

Pretty useful skill, but it seemed a bit unstable to me. Too many disadvantages for the gains. That could be said about some of the other students also, like Tatsuya’s [Rush Hour]. Some just got decent or good skills, but none of them were completely overpowered or something. When I pointed that out last week, we all concluded the demonkins probably planned it that way.

Honestly, what are the demonkins trying to do with these guys?

“So, what happened?” I asked.

“Jeez, you seem pretty calm despite the situation, Hestia-san…” Asaka looked at me weirdly but I just shrugged.

“It might seem dangerous, but I don’t think Daichi-san is trying to kill them. His aim is off. Even with Tatsuya being fast enough to avoid those spells, Daichi-san is focusing on causing more explosions instead of hurting him. I think he’s just venting,” I gave them my analysis on the fight, prompting Asaka and Haruka to blink at me and look over at the three fighting.

None of them were hurt in the slightest, but I guess Kyouya has been doing his best to block the fire spells.

“But, they are causing a ruckus inside here, so maybe it’s best if I stop them now. Unheilige Engel.”

Wings of purple ooze materialized from a magic circle before I shot them forward and had them wrap themselves around Daichi and Tatsuya. As they struggled to free themselves, I cooled the slime down until it was obsidian. Now, it was too solid for them to make another move.

“Oi, oi! What the fuck! Why was I captured, too?!” Tatsuya shouted his complaints at me.

I shrugged.

“Tailwind.”

I lifted both of them up with [Unheilige Engel] and used [Tailwind] to carry them over to me, as if I had telekinesis. Kyouya let out a sigh as he followed them over to me and the others before bowing to ask for my forgiveness.

“Sorry about this, Hestia-san,” he apologized. “We shouldn’t have caused you so much trouble that you had to stop your own training.”

“Don’t worry about it. It wasn’t your fault so you don’t need to ask for forgiveness,” I waved my hand in dismissal. “After all, the ones causing the problem should be the ones explaining what the hell happened.”

I looked over to a dejected Daichi biting his lips and a disgruntled Tatsuya, looking at me as if I got the wrong guy. He wasn’t done complaining.

“I wasn’t the one who began this fight! It was this fucker Daichi, so why am I being caught like I’m a criminal?!”

I frowned at what Tatsuya had to say, turning over to Daichi to see if he had something to say. Sadly, he was entirely quiet and continued keeping everything within him, allowing his dissatisfaction to boil more and more.

“So, can anybody explain how all of this happened?”

Kyouya came forward and began giving me a summary of what occurred. To keep it simple, the reason why all of this happened was due to Tatsuya asking Daichi what he was gonna do now that I was around, seeing as Daichi fully focused on being a fire mage.

This struck a nerve and prompted Daichi to lash out at him, starting a quarrel between them. It escalated to the point of name-calling and insults and then the fight happened. Kyouya and Asaka tried to stop them at first, but their efforts were fruitless. As such, Haruka was sent out to get Elrick from outside the RV, meaning the wagon was being driven by the garms alone.

When Elrick couldn’t do anything either, they had to rely on somebody else to stop. That’s where Haruka went over to me since Saori was busy.

“And Elrick got hurt after taking a hit from Daichi’s spells. Jeez, I know you’re lagging behind in levels compared to us, Elrick, but you shouldn’t have been that careless,” Asaka scolded the now healed Elrick. “Damn, you do look paler than yesterday. Are you actually eating enough or did you ignore me when I said that yesterday?!”

“I beg for your forgiveness, Lady Asaka. It seems I have been neglecting my training. Once we reach Ullistar, I am sure I will feel better.”

“More like, you’re under the weather. Then again, you can’t be sick. [Cure] should have done something if you were ill. Hestia-san, what do you think?”

I looked at Elrick at Asaka’s request but couldn’t say much else except that he was paler than usual. I told Asaka that he might have an ailment the body believes is “normal,” like albinism or something. Also, since the holy healing spells only helped the body regenerate and recover faster, it couldn’t do anything against cancer.

After giving her something to think about, I then turned to the two idiots. “So, I think I understand the situation, kinda. As such, I’ll release you two, but don’t begin killing each other again, otherwise I’ll make sure you won’t get dinner or something.”

Tatsuya frowned but that is what a leader should do, right? In any case, he agreed to my words and undid his druidification, turning himself back into a human. I released the obsidian bondings and let both free.

“Okay, now, while I am new with your party’s whole dynamic, I can’t say that this will work out if you two fight all the time,” I stated.

“We argue, we don’t fight to the point we’re trying to kill each other!” Tatsuya bellowed back outraged. “But this is Daichi, Hestia-san. This is what you should probably expect from him in the future since his personality is shit and he blows up at everything for whatever reason! An egomaniac who has—”

“You are calling me the asshole here?!” However, trying to place all the blame on Daichi caused him to squawk up a counter. “Then what the fuck are you supposed to be, huh? Don’t try to place everything on me when you were the one asking that damn question! What the hell am I supposed to say, huh?! Fuck you!”

Oh boy…

I turned to Asaka, giving her an “I fucked up” face but she simply shook her head. She pointed at the two arguing young men then twirled her finger next to her head, gesturing they were both crazy and at fault here. She then stood up and clapped her hands.

“Alright, alright. Shut the fuck up, both of you!” Asaka shouted as loud as she could to garner the boys’ attention. “Daichi, you’re 20, and Tatsuya, you’re 19. And the both of you are acting like children in front of a 16-year-old. She was also the one to stop you. Awesome work.”

She clapped sarcastically.

“Kyouya, take Tatsuya and speak with him. Haruka, help me bring Elrick to the kitchen. He needs to eat something filling.”

“W-Wait, Lady Asaka, I’m actually perfec— Ah! Ah! Arck!” Elrick wanted to complain but Asaka stopped him from saying another word by pressing her index finger at his forehead repeatedly.

“Shut it. It’s lunchtime anyway. Segawa is probably too busy to cook lunch so I’ll have to make something for you. Be honored.”

“Hold on, Asaka! What am I supposed to do?!” Daichi called out.

“Hmm? Well, what do you think? I’m pretty sure Hestia-san wants to have a word and you have a lot on your chest. You can’t cause this kinda shit all the time Daichi. It ain’t cool.” And with that, Asaka left with Haruka and Elrick. Kyouya told me he would bring Elrick to take a bath, leaving Daichi with me alone in the training room.

I sighed.

“Uhm, want to have a seat, first?” I scratched my head, not knowing what else to say to break the ice.

“… Sure, Hestia-sama.”

We sat down. I sighed. Being alone with him was making me feel awkward.

“Sooooo… I heard about it from Asaka-san. And then what happened before… I guess you aren’t taking it too kindly that I’m around, huh?” I hinted at how he felt insecure about his magic abilities with me around.

“N-No, no! Not at all, it’s just that—”

“Stop it, please, Daichi-san. Asaka-san already told me that you like to overplay or downplay stuff, so let’s just be honest. You really have no reason to act like a sycophant with me,” I told him bluntly. “As the leader of this company, I have to make sure that we can actually work together for the future. Arguing is normal, but what isn’t is trying to blast others with spells to vent off stress and anger.”

“… Y-You realized that?” He looked at me in bafflement, eyes so wide they looked like a fish’s.

“I’m a fire mage myself, don’t forget. If you wanted to kill somebody, then you could have followed up on [Inferno Blast]’s explosion with [Petal Flames]. The damage isn’t much from one or two, but it forces them to avoid or tank it. If you can get them with two or three fire petals, you create an opening, which is perfect for a fast and damaging spell like [Flame Spear].”

“True!” he exclaimed, eyes shining this time. “Tatsuya might be faster in his druid form, but he still has his quirks. [Petal Flames] is quite effective on him since he’s trying to imitate Dame Yorshka by barely dodging attacks to conserve stamina. When I warded Kyouya and Tatsuya off, I targeted Tatsuya’s legs since he doesn’t have [Air Walk] yet.”

“Oh, nice observation. If you had [Blazing Twister], that would create a proper distraction if you use it to surprise them at the very last second. Lead them into a spot with [Flame Spear]s and [Petal Flames] and then create a flaming twister. [Flame Explosion] is also good, and very effective if you fight against earth mages.”

“Ah!” He shook his head in disappointment. “I already used up all the SP I got on mana, magic, and my growth skills. Since I don’t have much Vitality and Wisdom, I’ve been investing in more Mana and Agility skills.”

I wanted to give him some tips on conserving SP here, but before I could say anything, he continued speaking faster and faster, to the point it was a bit hard to follow. My Japanese was good, but I had to think twice about some of the harder Japanese words.

“In an MMO, min-maxing to become a glass cannon is viable since you can just respawn if you die, but not in this world. I can do a lot of minor modifications to maximize my casting speed and position, but it is hard to adapt for every confrontation and enemy! I mean, fire should be all-powerful, right?! I should be able to dominate everything and live an easy life after so much effort, but I can’t count how many times I’ve nearly died at this point!”

And his venting didn’t seem to end.

“Then there are all the times I tried to butter up the church people to get some better connections but then I learned that the damn pope is a demonkin prince of sin?! What the fuck! Why did they summon us to this world and why are they trying to sic us on the demonkin king?! It makes no sense!”

At this point, he was just holding a monologue.

“And then all the effort I put into fire magic is soon to be worthless. Asaka and Tatsuya getting two possible power-ups, while I’m still stuck with fire magic. Do you know how the fire mage who trained me advertised this magic to me? That it is the element with the strongest magic that will be able to give you everything you want! Ultimate firepower so you can win! It should have been an easy way forward for some glory, but all we’ve been doing are subjugation quests and some goon work from the church.”

Okay, this guy sounds overly spoiled as hell.

As he was shaking his head in disappointment, I took this chance to ask him about something. “I’ve only met two other fire mages aside from you. Both were… ‘interesting.’ How did your fire magic teacher act?”

“Like a goddamn fanatic. It’s absolutely incredible how much he kept repeating the same religious sermon like a gospel. The church of Danterno’s bible is forbidden from being brought into the holy capital, but that didn’t stop him from spewing the same ‘fire consumes fire’ bullshit. I ignored it all.”

At least he isn’t a Danterno follower. Then again, with how he acted, he certainly seems like a flamboyant fire mage.

“I see… Sorry that I took away your specialty, Daichi-san,” I apologized, just to appease him.

“No, why are you asking for forgiveness? Don’t you know how absolutely awesome it is that you were reborn as a fire dragon? That’s the isekai fantasy, you know? I want to be a dragon, too!” he exclaimed in excitement before falling back into meekness. “It certainly would have been better than being me…”

“Huh? What do you mean by that?” I inquired, now curious where his self-esteem went.

“W-What?! N-No, forget about it. Sorry, I shouldn’t be acting this way. I’m just mumbling all the time. I shouldn’t act so much like a whiner. Nobody likes that.” He stood up. “Thanks for listening. I guess I needed to vent on somebody who isn’t just another person I know. Sorry, could you keep this for yourself?”

I nodded, however, as he was leaving, I grabbed his arm.

“We’re not done yet.”

“What do you mean?”

“I haven’t made sure if there will be a repeat of today or not. Complaining about things won’t solve anything, but at least you got it out of your system for now. What about next time? Are you thinking of making me listen to your ramblings all the time?”

“W-Well, no, that would be rude considering how you accepted us into the company.”

“That’s right. As such, I need to ask you the same question Tatsuya posed you — ‘What are you gonna do now that I am around?’” I looked him directly in the eye, telling him to be serious about it.

He pulled his arm away from my hand before answering, “Like what I told him, ‘I’ll think about it.’”

“Daichi-san, you should be aware that, even if I am around, you shouldn’t be ashamed of training your fire magic. Danterno is a shit god with a shitty religion and followers, from what I’ve witnessed, but his system spells are actually very useful. They are focused purely on power and damage, which means you can best enemies far superior to you if you play it smart.”

I was the best example. I managed to survive my Belzac forest days as a pure glass cannon with healing tank abilities. I’ve cut it closed quite a few times but being an underdog with firepower meant that I was a big threat if I landed a hit. It’s what Daichi wanted to be.

“But fire magic isn’t popular on Peolynca. There is barely any use for it in everyday life, which is where the average mage earns most of their cash.”

“Which I find completely stupid and you should too, since we came from Earth. Although I don’t think like Danterno’s whole religion, I can agree when they say that fire is the source of life and that progress will be created from the ashes they make. Don’t forget, the Blacksmith god was once part of Danterno’s pantheon before he turned to Crustacia. The church of Danterno’s biggest enemy is themselves. They shoot themselves in the foot with their religion’s doctrines.”

My ability to make grenades, how I could create artificial hot springs, or how Saori and Tasianna would use me as a rice cooker. In an industry setting, people use fire for metalwork, glass making, or making adhesives, to give examples. With fire magic, Peolynca has so much potential to accelerate certain aspects if only their fire mages were more cooperative instead of destructive.

“Daichi-san, if you want to find something you can do, why don't you start by telling me what you like to do as a hobby. I can give suggestions.”

“My only hobby is otaku culture. If my parents weren’t forcing me to do well in school to get into a proper university — otherwise, they would have kicked me out of the house — I would have become a NEET. I hate interacting with other people in person and prefer it on the internet. It’s safer there.”

“Hold on, you hate socializing? Then why are you buttering people up and acting like a yes-man?” Now I was confused about what his real personality was.

“My parents told me that, without any connections, you will just wither and die in today’s society. Education is important, sure, but you can’t get a good job or work if you don’t know people. They give you the real opportunities, not your grades. You want to get into high-ranking schools and universities where the upper-class study because our collective is ruled by nepotism.”

“…” I was speechless. This guy could be quite eloquent. “… Well, I have to agree with that. The entertainment industry is all about connections. Still, playing games all day isn’t exactly useful around here. Uhm, all you guys from Shirako High School have either rich or influential parents, right? What do yours do?”

“Correction, most of us fall into that category. You can also get in with a scholarship if you have high grades,” he corrected me. “But, yes, my parents do fall in the former part. They own a tech company.”

My eyes widened and I jumped up from my seat. “Wait, you’re good with tech! Why didn’t you say so before? Do you know how to record music?! Make albums?”

“Wh-What?!”

I grabbed Daichi’s shoulders, pushing him back onto the bench. I once again asked him the same questions, eagerly waiting for him to answer.

“Y-You do know that ‘tech company’ doesn't mean we make everything, right? Tech companies have specialization and focus on that solely to deliver the best product possible to sell to customers.”

“Then what is your parent’s company?”

“… Uhm… Part of a conglomerate.”

I smirked. “And?”

“Mostly entertainment electronic products like TVs, karaoke stations, and computer parts. My parents not only own one of the companies in the conglomerate, but they also possess a large amount of shares in the latter. They have a very loud voice on the board of directors. I am supposed to be their heir, so they trained me in economics and the tech they sell.”

“Hiehiehie~” I giggled mischievously, causing Daichi to twitch a bit. “Come with me, I know two people who could use your help. Your magic and fire training will really benefit your new job.”

“H-Hold on, wa— Yarrrgk!”

I grabbed Daichi’s arm and pulled him outside the training room and into Grimnir’s smithy, where I saw Ellaine celebrating as Grimnir held up his shiny, brand new blasthammer.

“Lass! Gahahahaha! We did it! We did it! My second mana gun! Gahahahaha!” Grimnir joyfully came over to push his hammer into my face, “Look at this sweet darling Ellaine and I made. The parts were all crafted by me but Ellaine did all the wiring to connect the different pieces. Your halberd really gave us the training to finish this thing up.”

“O-Oh, that’s great— Wait, my halberd was just a prototype for you?! No, wait, that isn’t what I came here for—” But before I could speak, Ellaine interjected herself.

“No, no, don’t worry! Once I get better, we’ll make sure to rework it, don’t worry, Hestia! Master Grimnir also told me he had plans to reforge it once you’re done with your shedding and core repairs.”

My shedding schedule was still important. Mother told me I needed to do it two more times every four days and then we can transition into once per week and eventually every month. At that point, my scales would glimmer and seem healthy — perfect material for my weapons.

“Oh, that’s great and so on, but I wa—” Once again, I was interrupted, but this time it was Grimnir who grabbed my arm and began dragging me away.

“No time to speak, we need to test this baby out! Come!”

And just as I left the smithy, Grimnir brought me back to the training room. He held his blasthammer high, showing off its metallic design made from eoriant and a few pieces he managed to salvage from the geisenlarg king. It wasn’t the best quality and Grimnir barely got enough for the sides of the hammerheads.

With one swift motion of his arms, the hammer quickly transformed into its gun form, now looking less than a shotgun and more like a rifle. Grimnir laughed once more, kissing his new weapon with complete affection.

“This is the very moment I love the most! Ellaine! Watch our darling shoot out her first shot!” Grimnir roared out in excitement.

“Do it, Master Grimnir!”

“Yes!” he announced before tapping a red rune on the side of one of the hammerheads. “Fire!”

And, literally, flames came out of his blasthammer like a flamethrower, searing the empty training field right before him. As the flames died down, Grimnir clicked something on his rifle which turned into blasts of flames, similar to how his previous blasthammer worked. However, unlike how he could only use it only once last time, he only had something like a ten seconds delay until he could shoot another one.

“The mana battery is still not optimal, so he probably can’t overuse it during a fight. We still need a proper mana battery or catalyst to fuel the whole weapon. If only we had another volchark heart or something similar,” Ellaine informed me.

I took out my catalyst, looking at it before looking down at my chest. I wondered if my broken sun core could be turned into a catalyst? Tasianna has been keeping up with her alchemy practice and Krymdar taught her all she needed to make more.

But my contemplation didn’t last any longer when Grimnir suddenly began shooting out ice from his weapon. Similar to when he shot our flames, the ice could be used as a flamethrower or blasts.

“Wow, can it also shoot out the other elements?!” I asked Ellaine.

“Sadly, no,” she shook her head. “The reason why we had Tasianna help Master Grimnir make runes was to act as a coolant for the flames. The flames and ice work in tandem to keep the weapon from freezing or overheating. The whole steampunk idea you gave us? We tried it but we couldn’t get it to work properly, so we adopted the cooling idea and used it to transform the runes inside to do what we want.”

In manatech, the wiring of the mana paths from the mana battery to the cogs and working parts was the most important part of the construction. Proper techniques were needed to connect it properly to prevent waste of mana and inefficiency.

This was even more important if the wiring also activated the runes inside the item and controlled different functions. It could get to Earth’s levels of progress if this technology were to be more developed.

“A blast of pure mana would drain the battery, so instead we decided to use runes for the shots. The mana in turns creates the flames and ice and then shoots it out. Less mana used, less stress on the battery,” Ellaine explained. This was probably why they asked me a week ago to help them with a fire rune. “However, since we can use these runes to shoot things out, we could also—”

“Use it like a runeslayer’s weapon!” Grimnir shouted before transforming the rifle into the blasthammer and cladding it in fire. “Hrk!”

With a single swing, Grimnir shot out a wave of fire to the distance while slamming the weapon on the ground created an explosion of fire. Compared to Saori’s and my personal weapon, Grimnir’s blasthammer wasn’t there to synergize with his innate abilities, but to allow him more options to fight.

But most importantly—

“This will be the future of manatech! Gaze upon my work, Bleidla! Gaze upon it and become envious! I dedicate this weapon to Goddess Crustacia and Goddess Chihiro! Praise the benevolent Goddess of Ingenuity! Curse the scornful God of Blacksmithing!”

This will be another step towards Grimnir’s goals and the future of Peolynca’s technology.

“Shiiiishooooooo! (Maaaaasteeeer!)” Daichi rushed towards the chortling Grimnir, prostrating before him with his head smacked against the ground. “Please, make me your apprentice! I wish to make such glorious works with you!”

“… Who the hell are you?” Grimnir frowned in confusion.

W-Wait, does he not know Daichi?! They’ve been together for over a month now!

“My name is Daichi Mikami! I am a nobody who has lost his way! I am a worthless little pawn, unable to think by himself! But, looking at you right here, has awakened something in my heart! My desire to create! So, please, teach me! I will do anything to learn from you! Teach me how to love creating again!”

“Bladdarg!” Grimnir suddenly smacked him on the head before pulling him up. “I am not here to teach you how to love to craft! I am here to teach you how to put your love of craft in action! To show you how to love it even more! I don’t take in milk drinkers who cannot make that distinction!”

“I apologize from the depths of my soul! You have helped me reacquire my love to create! I want to allow it back into my life. So, please, teach me! Whether it's strenuous or not, please, teach me!” Tears were flowing down Daichi’s face as he continued begging, and, seemingly, it seemed to have affected Grimnir.

Grimnir placed his thick, calloused hand on Daichi’s shoulder. “Then we begin tomorrow. You will observe Ellaine and me work together. Being late is inexcusable. You understand, akong?”

“Yes, thank you very much, Shiiiishoooooooo!”

“…”

“…”

Ellaine and I were silent, letting boys act like boys.

“… I guess I have a fellow apprentice now?”

I nodded. All’s well that ends well.

After possibly solving Daichi’s self-esteem problem, I let our three artisans handle their own business before returning to Mother’s cave, where Kramps told me that I should take a break for today and that we will continue this training after my concert.

“Until next time, think about what makes you slothful, Hestia. Good memories, reasons to make your life easier, and ways to calm you down in the direst times. Oh, and bring that demon with you next time. I believe it would be best if you learned what the actual meaning of the sins is to allow you to meditate better.”

In other words, I had homework.

When lunch came, I also took this chance to give the Misfits the chance to receive [Hestia’s Retainer] titles to allow them to level up faster, which they all agreed to immediately. Daichi especially, acting even more like a yes-man after I introduced him to Grimnir.

5 humans have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 7191

[Human, Tatsuya Nagata] [Human, Kyouya Ishigami] [Human, Asaka Hanazawa] [Human, Haruka Sakamoto] [Human, Daichi Mikami] have received the title [Hestia’s Retainer]

You have usurped the   [Saint Candidate] title from your retainer [Human, Asaka Hanazawa]

…

“… My [Saint Candidate] title just changed. Would you like to guess what exactly happened to it, Hestia-san?”

I smiled wryly. I didn’t think what I told Kramps today would create a jinx. Imagine usurping the control from a demonkin’s blessing, huh?

For now, I had no idea what the skill actually did and Kramps couldn’t exactly tell me about it either. Outside of designating Asaka as a “saint candidate” and giving her the ability to clad her weapons in holy element, it was just a generic higher holy proficiency gain and lowered dark gain. He presumed Aurena most likely knew about it but she currently wasn’t available to say.

“What is Goddess Aurena doing right now that she isn’t speaking?”

<Hmm. I think I can probably tell you this since she would have told you if she wasn’t so busy right now. Hestia, the Origin Gods have decided to personally add a new system to the Divine System soon. The Goddess has decided to contribute to its creation, which I presume is to take her mind off the recent tragedies.>

“Oh… So, she is mourning for Eshe in her own way…”

Considering how much Aurena cared for her religion, she must love her blessed or at least like them enough to choose them. It made me humanize Aurena a bit more.

<There have been other occurrences but… I will not tell you about them now. The news will spread soon, and you will learn about it then. Just know that Goddess Aurena will not be able to respond until she finishes the System. Afterward, we might ask her what your human friend’s title does.>

Well, that sounded ominous… but I guess it is how Kramps is showing consideration for me. After all, if I worried too much, I wouldt just think too much about it. After all, I had a concert to prepare.

After two more days, we finally made it to Ullistar. One week left until the festival, and I could already see that this city required a way to get their minds off the recent events. This city needed a reason to smile.

It needed an idol.

A note from AbyssRaven

Look at Hestia usurping everything.

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Chapter 265: Arriving in Ullistar.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“House Equevanna welcomes her Imperial Highness and the company Aurora to our fief and court. I am the current Duke Equevanna, Fillion Bastois Equevanna. It is an honor to meet you once again, Princess Hestia,” Lord Equevanna bowed deeply with his wife as he greeted our group. “Of course, the Equevanna Duchy also welcomes Aurena’s heroes. May the Goddess bless our auspicious meeting today. Please, allow yourself to rest as you stay here.”

Fillion Equevanna was the first son of the previous Lord Equevanna and the elder brother of Charleslyt. After the death penalty from his brother's betrayal and the fact that his father had to take on all the blame, Fillion was announced to succeed his father as the Duke after the previous duke was exiled from the duchy. Fortunately, he was still alive and was now a personal servant of King Drangleic, but he lost not only his status as a noble but was also forbidden from interacting with his family.

A cruel punishment, if you asked me, but King Drangleic had to weaken the Equevanna duchy as punishment for the traitorous actions of its numerous nobles and the second son of its duke. It was about maintaining authority and showing off the power of the crown.

“Thank you very much for having us, Duke Equevanna. May the Goddess bless you and your duchy’s future,” I greeted him with a nod. Now that my status was pretty much public, I wasn’t allowed to curtsy to anybody but King Drangleic and his Queen according to etiquette.

“Yes, may her light guide your path forward, banishing any shadows hiding underneath it.” Asaka, still keeping up her [Saint Candidate] role in public, greeted Duke Equevanna as any saint should, albeit, in a bored tone.

After the recent conference, pretty much all the dukes knew about the truth of the church’s pope and the students’ “hero” titles. To the public, we still treated them as Aurena’s heroes and saint candidates, but we knew better.

With my status as a princess of Kargryx, greeting and announcing my visit to a duke’s city was necessary for courtesy’s sake. Fillion’s advisors, guards, and other attendants would all welcome us, so we all had to be on our best behavior.

Once the meet-and-greet and formal stuff ended, Fillion brought us into a private room with his wife. After we all sat down, Fillion and his wife stood back up again and bowed once more.

“Lady Hestia, I cannot thank you enough for deciding to perform your concert in Ullistar for the Festival in two days. We’ve already reserved a spot for you, as large as the concert you held in Griffonpeak, as you requested,” Fillion informed me.

“No, please, you two shouldn’t need to bow like that. I’m doing it simply because I wanted to,” I tried to dissuade them, but it was ineffective.

“No, please, allow us to show our respect,” Fillion’s wife, Renea, insisted. “After the noble purge and with everything going on, the duchy’s reputation and status have dropped significantly. Merchants, artisans, and even simple workers have begun migrating into the Greenveil and Groushia duchies of late. We’ve tried to stop this bleeding, but the news about all the advances in Griffonpeak spread too fast for us to handle.”

Merchants were people addicted to even the simplest gossips and rumors. To assure they continue making a profit, they had to listen to the words on the street. With what happened in Griffonpeak, how a new Duke Equevanna was announced, and why there was unrest in the noble houses, it would make anybody nervous.

“I do not wish to bore you with the details and my complaints, Lady Hestia. Equevanna has committed a major sin against Artorias, and it will take more than me and my heir to redeem ourselves. As such, we wish to thank you for this kindness of yours,” Fillion said with his head down. “We have done as you asked, Lady Hestia. We announced that you will be performing here in Ullistar in two days. As you might have noticed while coming into the city, it is crowded with merchants.”

Like his wife said, news spread fast.

In Griffonpeak, everybody knew who Saori and I were. They knew we were a fenrir and dragon respectively. However, due to our participation in the defense of Griffonpeak and how Saori’s restaurant was popular amongst the middle district and adventurers, we were generally liked, albeit some considered us intimidating now. This applied to me especially, since they knew I was a champion and an imperial princess.

Without a doubt, with how loose mouths were amongst merchants, this information probably spread around. When we decided to come to Ullistar for the Sun Worship Festival, I had Duke Equevanna spread the news of my concert there. I did it purely to help my own attendance number and to help the Sarlenzia company, but I was still glad to hear I could help Fillion a bit.

After Fillion and his wife sat back down, they handed Saori multiple parchments concerning the concert’s location and formalities. They told us that, while everything was cleared under his name, we should still announce it at the local merchant guild.

Saori, along with Haruka and Ellaine, began working through the details with the young duke and duchess. After all, they only made the reservation for us, they didn’t talk to the guild about what we wanted to do there. Aside from my concert, we would also be selling merchandise, ticket sales for nobles, and more pastries.

“Yeast-made pastries? Ah, is that why Lady Amelia Greenveil arrived with you today?” Fillion asked, revealing that he had his spies keep watch when we arrived. Not like it was a problem when they made themselves easy to detect for Saori. “Ah, I see… You must be working with the Sarlenzia company, correct? I had heard whispers that Duke Greenveil was planning on keeping his momentum.”

I smiled wryly, causing him to sigh deeply. Having your rival settle into your territory wouldn’t be liked by anybody.

“It’s alright, Lady Hestia. I understand. If that is the cost for you to perform in our capital, then it is a price I am willing to pay. It is the price I must pay for the failures of my father and the betrayal of my younger brother. Regardless, even if the Sarlenzia company were to find a foothold in Ullistar with your help, I would hope you would allow us to keep our grounds against them as merchants?” Although he looked stressed out and tired, there was still the fire of a merchant in his eyes.

I knew the impact Asaka’s and my attendance would have on the public. A religious festival with a blessed and a candidate? The possibility of meeting them and gaining their [Prayer] blessing? Now, that is something no one would want to miss out on.

And Fillion was right, the city was packed to the brim. Maneuvering through the city with the garms and RV was a difficult task. Fillion quickly forgave our ulterior motive since he knew I could become the catalyst to help fix his bleeding population of merchants and artisans. He had too much to lose if he were to suddenly antagonize me here. After all, it could mean his entire family’s heads if King Drangleic thought he disrespected me, Artorias’s only hope for an alliance with the northern countries.

Fillion nodded once more, announcing his support for my event and my partnership with the Sarlenzia company. Since we would be inviting nobles to the concert, Fillion also had to begin advertising this news to his fief lords. Even if the concert were to start in two days, nobles had gargoyles, griffons, and hippogryphs to travel over here quickly.

After Saori and others were done speaking business with him, we all stood up as we were about to leave. There was much for us to do.

“Thank you very much for coming today, Lady Hestia. Will you be needing help with the construction?” Fillion asked.

“Most likely not. We will receive help from the attendants and servants of House Helvas and Greenveil. If you wish to help, could you order some soldiers to guard the area for us? We were planning on using Saori’s tamed beasts to help us, so without the guards, people might get spooked.”

“I understand. I shall make the necessary preparations.”

And with that, we left House Equevanna’s castle. Our next destination was the Sarlenzia company’s branch in Ullistar.

“We’ll be going back to the RV,” Kyouya announced before leaving with Asaka, Tatsuya, and Daichi. They had to bring the RV to the concert area and begin the preparations with the Helvas attendants.

Haruka stayed with us, as she would be responsible for our finances, along with Saori and Ellaine. With the exception of Grimnir, who didn’t come to the castle at all, the rest of us went to meet up with Amelia.

“Lady Hestia, Ellaine! How was your meeting with Lord Fill— Duke Equevanna?” The moment we went into the branch, Amelia greeted us.

Of course, Amelia didn’t come with us on the trip nor did she arrive in Ullistar before us. I just used the nexus to teleport her here.

Amelia wasn’t a particularly strong mage, so naturally she wouldn’t have had enough mana to teleport from Griffonpeak to Ullistar without help. There were two options: either I gave her mana or she used a catalyst with sufficient mana inside.

Well, thankfully, we had a pretty useful tool for that, disregarding our battle catalystsw. We still had the orb Klea’Hatma was sealed in, the [Zazail Orb of Sealed Shadows]. After her body was destroyed by Aurena, the orb returned to being a normal catalyst with a capacity for 10k mana. I had about 32k more in my dragon form, for reference. Recycle and reuse; if it can't cause any more trouble, we should use it.

“It went well enough,” I said before letting Saori, Ellaine, and Haruka explain everything to her. “So, how is it on your side? This branch isn’t exactly the largest.”

“Don’t worry about the number of employees, Lady Hestia. I made sure to have the branch manager hire enough helpers for the concert. They will be ready to build and contribute once they make it to the location,” Amelia said with confidence. “My employees should be setting everything up in your subspace’s bakery right now, correct? Have there been any problems on that front?”

“There shouldn’t be any. Svena and Barathan should be making sure everything is working well and that nobody is causing any trouble. Tamae-chan should have the recipes ready for tonight and we can begin practice tomorrow. I hope you have made enough yeast for us to last, Lady Amelia. As you can see outside…”

I pointed at the people surrounding the branch at this moment. People in proper suits and dresses were eyeing us at this very moment, only to turn and walk away after I glared at them. Those were merchants or their attendants. They’ve been following us the moment we left the castle and noble district.

They haven’t given me any trouble yet, but it seemed people were already taking notice of me. I guess I wasn’t very inconspicuous.

“Mhmm, I agree,” Amelia nodded with a wry smile. “With how the Sarlenzia company has been spreading your products in Griffonpeak, the nobles and the wealthy commoners have come to know the taste of our confections. The queue of orders is always too long to read. The Sun Worship cakes and cupcakes are selling faster than we can make them. Once we announce another wave of new pastries, the concert will be overwhelmed by people.”

“Which is good, since we will now sell tickets for proper seats. The merchants and nobles will scramble to buy them,” Ellaine assessed.

In my first few concerts, we didn’t force people to buy tickets to attend my shows since I was aiming for larger crowds to benefit my [The Light]’s fandom count. The more the merrier. The faster I could acquire followers, the faster I could get to the different milestones for my reward.

However, with my popularity rising and with the power of the pastries, getting people to attend wasn’t the problem now. As such, from our money-minded members, all of them suggested to me to start selling tickets.

Not to commoners, of course. If we did, that would be a dealbreaker for the majority of them and I didn’t want to risk having a smaller crowd.

The target demographic for these tickets would be the patricians of Artorias — the wealthy and influential. The people who aren’t willing to mingle among the “plebeians,” in other words. These tickets would allow them the privilege to sit on seats separated from the masses, giving them a comfortable experience. It was like selling the higher positioned seats in an opera or orchestra.

Of course, we couldn’t just have wealthy merchants sit with nobles, right? Well, according to Ellaine, this was also another way for us to make money. Separate the wealthy from the super-wealthy, and the schwertnobles from the mag- and greifnobles. Easy way to make money since people are obsessed with showing off their status and wealth, and we appease those who only want to speak with others of the same rank.

Geez, we sound like a bunch of nickel-and-dime economists.

But, money was important for us. Any opportunities we had to make some good amount of cash should be taken. Aside from our equipment and food fees, we also needed the money to buy the ingredients for Farron’s medicine. We had to fix his petrified lungs for Yorshka’s and Priscilla’s sake.

Of course, with my next milestone, I could gain the [Miraculous Grace] spell, which allowed me to regenerate limbs and organs. That most likely could solve Farron’s illness too, if he would allow me to perform surgery on him. Still, just to make sure, we had to make more money as a plan B. If we didn’t need this insurance, then it’s just more funds for us to work with.

“Good, good, okay. Now, my fair ladies, we should probably settle the prices right now. Lady Hestia, Miss Tasianna, would you two mind waiting for us? I shall send somebody with a tea set for you.” Amelia then pointed at a private room for them to speak in.

“True, true! With how the demand has skyrocketed, we need to adjust the prices of the pastries. The factory is struggling to keep up, so we need more money to expand,” Ellaine stated, going into the room without looking back at Tasianna or me. She only had business in her head.

“U-Uhm, we also need to keep the wages for the staff in mind. Quality over quantity should be our priority for the nobles. If we want it to spread organically, we need to give them the best experience ever. And we will need more experienced attendants to satisfy the VIPs. As such, the prices of the tickets should be…” Haruka mumbled, already calculating the prices in her head before they began the meeting. Asaka called her a human calculator, apparently.

“Rajah,” Saori called out the virigress cub from her shadow. “Keep watch over Hestia, alright? Make sure no shady-looking merchant enters and tries to speak with her.”

[“Yes, Sensei! I protect Master.”] Rajah announced loudly to everybody before leaping onto my lap and keeping watch like a guard dog.

Jeez! I am not a child, Saori! I know not to get scammed by some random person!

And with that said, Saori and Amelia were the last to enter the room. As the branch manager of this building closed the door as he joined them, I could hear my friends giggling over talking about money.

“… Lady Hestia, sometimes I do wish I never learned about the importance of currency, ehehe,” Tasianna laughed nervously before beginning to prepare our tea.

“… Money rules the world, right?” I ignored what I had seen and began stroking Rajah. Saori was overprotective, but I couldn’t believe she would think some random person would enter this shop just to solic—

“Ah, you must be her Imperial Highness, Princess Hestia, correct?”

W-What?!

A slightly chubby man dressed from head to toe in garments covered with conspicuous embroideries, looking like somebody with the fashion sense of a mule, entered the shop suddenly. Behind him was an entourage of three mercenaries, most likely the chubby guy’s bodyguards.

“S-Sir, you aren’t allowed to— Urgh!” Two employees stepped into the man’s way and tried to stop him from coming closer, only for his bodyguards to grab their arms and pull them to the side.

With a single bodyguard left, he bowed deeply in an exaggerated manner before he began introducing himself to me.

“I wish you a wonderful and auspicious day, Lady Champion. May I presume— Hueeeeiiiik?!”

“GrriiiGRAAAK!”

But before he could finish his sentence, Rajah jumped off my lap and roared as loudly as he could, scaring the chubby man shitless, prompting his bodyguard to step in front of my virigress and draw his sword.

“Stop.”

Before a confrontation could happen, a large icicle spear suddenly appeared out of nowhere, aiming the mercenary down. Turning around, I saw Tasianna had taken her catalyst out and materialized a spell.

“You are in the presence of my lady. If any of your mercenaries dare make another false move, I shall make sure none of you four will leave this shop with a warm body.” The temperature in the room lowered as Tasianna made that threat, glaring at all four intruders with no mercy.

“L-Lower your weapon,” the merchant commanded his mercenary, and he obeyed. “P-Princess Hestia, I am just a humble merchant. I do not wish you any ill. Yes, yes! I am here to tell you of a lucrative proposition, my lady.”

“Insolent human!” Tasianna’s hatred for humans was showing there. “You are speaking with an Imperial Princess of Kargryx here, and you dare speak in such a tone to her? After your mercenary almost dared attack one of our own?”

[“You. Dangerous! Sensei calls you ‘shady’!”] Rajah continued growling.

Looking at the situation, I was beginning to question how it even happened in the first place. Before it could escalate any further, I chimed in and told Tasianna and Rajah to lower their guards for now. Rajah wanted to protest but Tasianna quickly told him to listen to his mistress.

“T-Thank you, your Imperial Highness,” the merchant laughed nervously before bowing in apology for his mercenaries’ behavior. “My name is Ugene Lafreet, and I am one of the representatives of the Equevanna merchant’s guild. I personally lead the luxury product division and am responsible for the regulation of them inside our honored duke’s fief.”

Luxury products? Huh, well, I guess that answers why he looked rich.

“And, what do you want with me?” I asked, now completely suspicious of this person’s motives.

A representative as wealthy-looking as him wouldn’t personally meet up with me like this, although I guess it was more respectful than sending some random messenger? I wasn’t entirely sure about the etiquette protocols here.

“Well, I have heard that the illustrious Lady Ellaine of House Greenveil exited your carriage this morning. As such, may I presume she is here to further your partnership with the Sarlenzia company?” I nodded to his question. “Fantastic news! Please, allow me to say that the pastry recipes you have given to the Sarlenzia company were fantastic. My wife and daughters have praised it so many times my ears might fall off, hahahaha!”

Placing his hand on his protruding stomach, he laughed merrily all by himself. All while his mercenaries were staring warily at a smiling Tasianna.

He continued his pitch, “As such, I would like to propose a partnership with Equevanna’s merchant guild. I can see the Sarlenzia company wishing to expand into the duchy after the, well, power vacuum. As you must know, the Greenveil and Equevanna nobles aren’t too friendly with each other. They will pose a hurdle to the young Lady Amelia and her grandfather, Newt. However, with our support—”

“Then why aren’t you talking this over with Lady Amelia?”

But the pitch has gotten a bit too long for my liking. Should practice your elevator pitch, dude.

“W-Well, since she is currently occupied, I thought it might be good to meet and greet with her most exalted partner first! You are also the source of the recent success of the Sarlenzia company’s expansion, so I thought it wise to pose my proposition to you first. To assess your thoughts on it, yes.”

I shook my head in disappointment. I finally understood why he was here talking with me.

“Then you sadly have the wrong person, Mister Ugene. I might be Lady Amelia’s partner, but I have nothing to do with the business side of our venture. I only provide her with my recipes and the yeast formula. The people you should be talking to are my party members, Saori and Lady Ellaine Helvas.”

Seeing him twitch his eyes, I continued, now knowing he already knew about that. “As you should be aware, Mister merchant guild representative, only Saori and Lady Ellaine are registered to the merchant guild as members. Unlike them, I have limited knowledge on how to properly lead a business. As such, I listen to the words of my retainers. Even if I have the final word, I have delegated the responsibility of working with Lady Amelia to them.”

Everything I said was the truth, but I added a bit of my “Noble Lady Licht” persona into the mix to sound imposing. Wording my sentences the correct way was important to make the correct impression, and the one I was aiming for here was that of a graceful princess annoyed by the prattling of an opportunistic merchant.

“If you wished to skip the process by speaking with me, then you have failed, Mister Ugene. I am not interested. Any sort of proposition you have may be directed to my retainers; however, if I could give you some advice, pose it to Lady Amelia. If the merchant guild wishes to do business in good faith, prove it on the table. You may leave, now.”

“B-But, your Imperial High—”

“I know I don’t have the authority to order you around, Mister Ugene. I am neither your fief lord nor princess. I am not a person who misuses her status and authority to do whatever she wishes. However, I could name you the next time I speak with Lady Amelia. Say that I ‘do not trust you since you believed I was some naive girl.’ … You may leave, Mister Ugene.”

“My lady has spoken. Sirs, would you kindly guide these four gentlemen outside the shop?” Tasianna requested the branch’s employees.

“Grrrrr!” Rajah kept growling, even conjuring up a white and black magic circle to threaten them to leave.

With Tasianna, Rajah, and me telling them to leave in our own ways, the merchant and his bodyguards left the building reluctantly and dejected. Rajah gave a proud “Hmph” and jumped back on my lap, holding his head high, proud that he “protected” me from a sleazy merchant.

“… What was that?” I sighed deeply as I massaged my temples, completely confused at the merchant’s sudden appearance.

“This is our first example of what will happen when we enter Estralia, Lady Hestia,” Tasianna told me after finishing my tea.

“What do you mean by that? This is supposed to be a common occurrence? I thought commoners hated speaking with nobles?”

“If we were in Greenveil and Griffonpeak? Yes, that would be the answer. However…” She then looked at the elated employees and asked them a question. “Sirs, if I may have a portion of your time. Would you be able to tell me the dynamic between commoners and nobles in Equevanna and Estralia?”

Both employees looked at each other for a moment before nodding to Tasianna.

“Well, it is as her Imperial Highness just said. Commoners usually aren’t too fond of speaking with nobles. W-Well, nothing against Lady Amelia, of course! She is truly benevolent. H-However, this fear doesn’t apply to the merchants.”

“Yes, merchants in Equevanna have a higher position due to the influence of the Republic of Estralia. Merchants know their worth here, allowing them to speak and work with nobles as if they were any other customer. In Estralia, where wealth and influence are worth more than your status at birth, merchants are said to be the ones to rule the republic. Equevanna has adopted this culture, although the Duke and his nobles have the final say on everything. Mostly.”

In other words, a plutocracy.

This will be a headache once we—

“Excuse me, may I speak with Princess Hestia of Kargryx, please?”

… Another merchant entered. No, it looked like a line was forming outside the shop. Were they the same people who were window shopping before?!

Before I could say anything to them, Rajah jumped off my lap and followed a glaring Tasianna. Tasianna began conjuring up ice swords while Rajah readied another set of white and dark magic circles. Both were ready to shoot somebody!

After some chaotic moments of shouting out threats, the line in front of the shop disappeared. Once Tasianna and Rajah were back inside, both looked at each other and nodded their heads.

“Good work, Rajah. You should ask Lady Hestia to grant you a title soon.”

[“Yes, maid-Sensei. I will be better.”]

When the hell did Rajah begin calling Saori and Tasianna ‘sensei?!’ When did he learn that word?! … Urgh, merchants are scary, yo.

Afterwards, I learned that Tasianna and Saori knew this would happen from Muraina and Gael, both having been to Estralia and Ullistar before. Still, I felt a bit insulted that Saori thought I was naive enough to fall for their words, but I ignored it. I didn’t want to think about it anymore.

“Rajah,” I cuddled my virigress. “I didn’t know you could cast two spells at once. Seeing you cast a holy and dark spell today was a surprise.”

Rajah, from being granted protection from Aurena, chose to evolve into a virigress with the ability to cast [Holy Magic] when he had the chance in the forest. After his assimilation into Saori’s shadow pack, his race mutated into a [Young Black-Light Virigress], now able to cast both holy and dark spells.

[“Sensei. Teach me! Pack. Teach me, too!”]

So Saori and her garms have been training them, huh? Mhmm! Urgh, that kinda makes me feel a bit jealous! Arck, why don’t I have enough time to train Rajah, too!

I hugged Rajah harder. I was supposed to be his master, but I barely acted as one. Unfortunately, I would not have a lot of free time in the near future either. The concert was in two days and I needed to train Ellaine and Tasianna.

Being busy suuuuuucks.

After the meeting between the others ended, Amelia thanked us for coming and hoped nothing bad happened. The room was apparently protected by soundproof runes, so they didn’t hear anything. Shrugging my shoulders, I told her everything that happened.

“Haaaaa, merchants…” she sighed deeply, unaware of the irony in her statement.

After telling Amelia we would meet her for dinner, our group went over to the location of my concert. The helpers Amelia hired were already there, waiting. To not halt the construction for any longer, I quickly unpacked all the pieces of my performance stage from my storage and handed them to the workers.

Under the leadership of Grimnir, the helpers began building everything up. I, on the other hand, returned to the RV. I visited Mother’s cave, seeing her still sleeping. She had to sleep but she promised to wake up to watch my concert. When she told me yesterday, it did give me a weird feeling in my chest.

Now that I thought about it, I always wanted Papa and Mama to watch me perform as an idol one day. That was part of my dream. To have them see me on a stage and think, “that’s our girl.” After all the trouble I gave them, it once again made me sad I couldn’t do it.

Maybe this was why I wanted to perform for Mother so badly? Not only to show her that there was still joy to find in a long life, but also to satisfy my own wish to make my parents proud? Maybe.

Well, whatever my reason was, I was certain about something. I’m gonna give a show people will not be forgetting any time soon!

It’s showtime!

A note from AbyssRaven

Do not talk to Hestia if you can't deal with the people standing in front of her.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 266: Sun Worship Festival.

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #1 her to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until January!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

Sitting at the very top of a bleacher, I gazed down at the crowd of people cheering and snacking on food. The joyous mood was infectious, making me want to jump down to the crowd and cheer with them, but the cupcake I was snacking on right now made me rethink that plan.

“Damn, the venue is packed. I’ll be honest, I had my doubts we would be able to bring in more than two hundred or something. They are really making noise for this concert,” I said out loud.

“Dude, you’re enjoying yourself, too, Tatsuya,” Kyouya replied back with a wry smile.

Today was LightDay, the 10th of HarvestSun in the year 2679 after the descent of the Origin Gods; the second LightDay of the month, actually. To the followers of the Light Goddess, Aurena, it was a day of celebrations and festivities to show their thanks to the sun and their goddess — the Sun Worship Festival.

Technically, the festival was just an excuse to further celebrate Aurena, since the Sun was attributed to her in her religion. The care and mercy of the sun as it shines its invigorating light onto the planet, was similar to the miraculous healing Aurena could perform with her spells. The white grace — healing magic — was named as such.

As a result, the Sun Worship Festival was a day reserved for praising Aurena only. There could be no work outside of festival preparations or contributions to the celebration itself. In fact, if we were in Aureolis or any other highly religious city or town, people wouldn’t be allowed to make a profit from today, but had to donate all proceeds to the local temple or cathedral in exchange for a blessing from the clergy.

But, most of Artorias wasn’t super religious to the point they would enforce that. They knew if merchants could be further incentivized, they would do all they could to make the festival inside a major city a success. Outside of the Olivus duchy, every other duchy and Griffonpeak only recommends that you donate.

So, considering the person hosting this concert right now, wouldn’t it be considered a bit unethical to earn money from it? Shouldn’t the church be against it?

Apparently, not as I thought.

“Tatsuya, we already spoke with the local cathedral and came to an agreement. Any tickets sold are considered a ‘donation to a saint candidate and champion’ and Hestia-san will share this money with the cathedral. All the pastries and merchandise Sensei and the seamstresses made will go through the Sarlenzia company, and we will get our ‘cut’ from it. So, don’t worry, it’s all handled,” Kyouya explained to me.

“The advertisement for this promotion was handled phenomenally. It would have been a disappointment if we had gotten less of a responce.” From his seat behind and slightly above me, four-eyes Nishio began explaining. “We got the local duke, the cathedral, and the Sarlenzia company on our side. With Hestia-san’s reputation and how she and Asaka performed a [Prayer] by themselves at the beginning of the day, of course they would draw in the normal folks. Attracting the nobles was never a problem; they all wish to get close to Hestia-san and Asaka-san, after all.”

I nodded and looked over to Asaka with Elrick behind her, speaking to nobles with a bored expression. She was making the nobles she spoke to uncomfortable, but thankfully she hadn’t blown up in their faces yet. It happened once when we visited the Olivus duchy when we first entered Artorias, and it sure was awkward afterward. I’ve been nervous ever since.

I sighed in relief before looking into the sky. The sun was still up, and it should be lunchtime right now. On this day, everything began the moment the sun dawned and it would all end the moment the sun disappeared below the horizon. People were supposed to rest and let the day end, but we all knew that just wouldn’t happen.

Just before this concert started filling up with people, a moment of prayer was held near the cathedral, with Hestia and Asaka performing various rituals with the aid of the local clergy. Hestia and Asaka both performed the rituals phenomenally. They’ve had practice, after all. While Hestia kept up her smile like a professional, however, Asaka looked like she wanted to die.

Sure was something.

I then looked behind me and to the people sitting next to me on this bleacher. The Misfits and the Magical Biscuit were once again reunited after the latter used the nexus to teleport here. The girls of the Biscuits — Misaki, Kazumi, and Kohaku — were eating and sharing their shortcakes while Nishio was speaking with Barathan, a butler of Ellaine’s family, to learn how his attendants were doing and if the nobles were satisfied.

“Everything is going as planned, Lord Nishio. As Lady Amelia perfectly anticipated, serving the ordered sun weaver’s cake right now elevated the nobles’ moods. Those who weren’t able to order ahead of time are ordering the newly made batches at a higher price right now. The attendants aren’t facing any problems outside of their tea making being too slow.”

“Good, thank you,” Nishio nodded, satisfied. “Please, inform Lady Amelia immediately and have her prepare more cakes and other pastries. Considering the order size and popularity, it seems we underestimated it a bit. People will order even more after the performance is over.”

His parents might be talent managers and own an agency, but it’s clear he would have become a better CEO than them. Well, at least he knows how to manage a promotion like Hestia-san’s. Alleviates Sensei’s need to do it.

“How are the merchants?”

“Elated. The most wealthy of them are sharing seats with magnobles and the duchy’s greifnobles, giving them all the chance to network. Thankfully, this is Equevanna, so the nobles do not mind wealthy commoners sitting with them.”

We were able to invite the nobles inside Equevanna to come, but asking foreign nobles to come wasn’t possible. They had to celebrate in their own duchies.

After the report was done, Barathan left and Nishio sighed, looking annoyed that Kazumi was having fun while he was working. They were supposed to work together to manage the concert, but it seemed that one of them was more focused on eating cake.

While those two were now arguing, I chuckled slightly before returning my gaze back to the concert stage. The curtains were still down, but it honestly looked like any other concert stage from Earth. Hestia really had people make a faithful recreation of it in Peolynca.

Sure, it was missing some modern amenities that we needed to replace with magitech and magic, but it was about the same. It was all about setting the mood.

Speaking of the mood, it was clear to see that all the merchants and nobles sitting on the bleachers had spent some money to have the perfect outfits for today. Everybody was wearing ceremonial suits or dresses with Aurena’s religious symbol stitched on them.

Our two groups were also wearing them, although ours were tailored by Sensei and Tasianna. All made from Sensei’s mana threads. Honestly, considering how much she had to do already, it’s crazy how she found enough time to make these for us.

“Hey, hey, quiet! It’s starting! Hestia-sama is performing!” Daichi called out. I don’t know what Hestia said to him, but he has been acting less depressed ever since, although he was still pretty much an asshole.

Still, he was right. The curtains were moving and suddenly, music began to play. I could hear the sound of a synthesizer and also a drum machine. Electronic instruments. Something Peolynca doesn’t have. There was only a single person who could recreate them this perfectly while keeping the melody flowing.

And then, her voice reached us all.

[Music Resonation (Minor)] inflicted on [Human, Tatsuya Nagata]

“Is this not the day, are you feeling down? ♫

Wanna smile so much, but can’t lift up the frown ♫

Is the world so bleak, all is going wrong ♫

Like a raging stream, dragged through it all along ♫

Do you ever want to break apart that wall? ♫

But every try rings hollow, and all that’s left is emptiness ♫

But let me tell you this, you gotta raise your head ♫

‘Cause there is more to life ♫”

The moment the curtains rose, a dragonewt girl dressed in a colorful outfit was revealed and began singing as waves of flames moved around the stage like clouds. The loud music, her angelic singing voice, and the special effects, instantly drew everybody’s attention. There was no need for an announcement.

Hestia stole everybody’s focus in the very first moment of the song!

“As there will be a chance to shine ♫

It will appear ♫

So grab it tight! ♫

Your GREATlight of hope! ♫

‘Cause you’re the center of your stooooory! ♫”

The moment the chorus began, multiple small flames shot from Hestia’s wings to the ceiling, before exploding into crimson red, purple, and white flowers. A massive “woaah!” came from the crowd below.

“Don’t let others say it’s not ♫

Aim your sight up, up, up ♫

You gotta let yourself shine, shine, shine ♫

‘Cause you’re the center of your story ♫

Burst into a thousand colors ♫

Leave them all to gasp, gasp, gasp ♫

So rise up to be your own star, star, star ♫”

As the song continued, the special effects continued to fire off as Hestia sang. Noticing this was all part of the show, the crowd transitioned from being flabbergasted to pure excitement. The colors captivated them, but that wasn’t all.

Her singing was already entrancing, but her swift dance moves led people’s eyes. The special effects were nice and all, but Hestia made sure everybody’s attention was on her alone. I could tell, I couldn’t keep my eyes away from her. Her dancing was like water, flowing pure and without any ripples. Her singing was like divine melodies coming from an angel.

It was ravishing.

“Oooooooooh!” Kyouya shot up from his seat like a bullet. “Let’s go! Hestia-chan!”

The only way anybody could take away my attention from the stage right now was a fanboy cheering so loudly in my ear, it was obnoxious. And Kyouya did just that.

As if he was wielding lightsticks, he swung his arm around, looking like an absolute clown right now. Our group couldn’t help but look at him with our mouths agape. Only Asaka, who returned to her seat with Elrick, was laughing her ass off. Amidst all the flustered nobles, confused merchants, and us, his weirded-out friends, Asaka was the only one enjoying Kyouya’s fanboy moment.

“‘Cause you’re the center of your story ♫

Burst into a thousand colors ♫

Leave them all to gasp, gasp, gasp ♫

So rise up to be your own star, star, star! ♫”

After we started ignoring Kyouya, the show returned to being quite enjoyable. We already had a taste of how Hestia could sing during our stay in the RV, or from overhearing the girls’ bath over the hotspring’s wall. What a joy, every night.

Nevertheless, Hestia was an extremely good singer. I had no idea about music in general outside of knowing when it sounds good, and Hestia could really hit the notes. You give her an anime opening and, if she knew the lyrics, she could give a wonderful cover for them. But seeing her on the stage singing while dancing, it was a whole other experience.

“Thank you very much for coming today, Ullistar!” Her voice resounded throughout the venue with her [Aerokinesis]. “If you have attended the festival opening at the cathedral today, you might already know me. But, in case you couldn’t somehow, allow me to introduce myself! I am Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor. An idol and your performer today! There is no need for titles or status during this concert, so if you all want, you may just call me with Hestia today~”

She formed a heart with her hands and grinned so brightly it seemed her teeth were reflecting the sunlight. She then pointed up to the sky, drawing everybody’s attention to a giant white magic circle forming up there.

“I have already given those who came to the cathedral my blessing, but those who only learned my name now shall also receive it. As such, I hope all of you may enjoy today’s festivities! Prayer!”

The second the circle finished forming, Hestia cast her spell, causing it to pour down warm light onto us all.

[Blessing of the Goddess of Light (Major)] inflicted on [Human, Tatsuya Nagata]

“Wooooah?! Another blessing! Thank you, Lady Hestia!”

“May the Goddess bless you, Champion Hestia!”

I don’t think that’s what Hestia wanted to hear…

Still, Hestia didn’t look too perturbed by it, simply waving and thanking everybody before leaving the stage to prepare for the next song. During this break, the pastry shop manned by the other members of Aurora and those who weren’t sitting here with us — Tamae and Haruka — went back to being busy.

The nobles and merchants also began ordering while talking to their peers about the performance. As if they wanted us to hear them, they spoke loudly, praising Hestia and how well coordinated this event was. Nishio nodded, having expected this to occur. Excited people spend more, he commented.

After this small break, the curtain once again rose, but this time, Hestia wasn’t the only one on the stage.

“Ooh, the moment our eyes met, ooh, my heart couldn’t stop beating ♫

Badump, dump, dump, it’s like you used a skill on me ♫”

Tasianna, in a clear blue dress, sang and danced as the curtain fell, using her hands to gesture the beating of her heart on her chest. Although her voice was not as strong as Hestia’s, Tasianna singing was clear and cheerful, setting up the song’s theme.

“Ahh, but don’t you even think I’m so easily swayed ♫

Can you prove to me that you can set my heart on fire, pal ♫”

The next singer was Ellaine, continuing the verse where Tasianna left off from. Dressed in a green and yellow noble dress, she drew people’s attention with incredible hip movements.

“Until you show me the flames in you ♫

I will smile and keep these three words for myself! ♫”

And then the leader of this unit appeared. Bright light shone on Tasianna and Ellaine before it showed Hestia right in the middle, leading the song with her powerful vocals into the pre-chorus.

“““I can’t wait! ♫”””

“Just watching you makes me feel so anxious ♫

I dream of the day that you will hold me ♫”

“““You are it, my Fireheart! ♫”””

“““Say those words! ♫”””

“Don’t just stand there and keep your mouth wide, dummy ♫

Can’t you feel the rhythm of our heartbeats ♫”

“““Say those words, my Fireheart! ♫”””

Perfectly choreographed, the three girls sang and danced without any issues, switching their positions and who was singing fluidly. Their practice showed.

“Holy shit!” Kyouya cheered! “Damn, I thought Hestia would be the center of attention with how good she was in the first song, but she’s adjusting to her members amazingly! Yes, that’s what you should do! Performing solo and in a unit are two different situations! You can’t overshadow your other members but you can’t let yourself get outshined either!”

Kyouya, being a K-Pop stan, was analyzing everything they were doing, down to the way they were singing and to how meticulous their dancing was. We had finally managed to persuade him not to fanboy around too much, but now he was acting like a total know-it-all.

“Ah, but Ella-chan just made a mistake in the notes right there! Oh, but she can really dance! Did Hestia teach her those moves?! Hmm, but Hestia isn’t as good with the sexy moves. Oh, she just overperformed her dancing right now. Did she get too caught up in the mood? Hmm, Tasi-chan is really good but she’s not taking as much space when it’s Hestia-chan’s turn. She should be more assertive!”

Why are you calling all of them by nicknames now, Kyouya?!

But, disregarding that, Kyouya’s analysis was catching onto me. I’m not too good with this stuff, but when he pointed these flaws out to me, they become far more noticeable to me. It didn’t sully the experience one bit, but I guess it meant that the girls could still improve on their teamwork and practice.

“Mother, isn’t that Lady Ellaine? From House Helvas? She’s performing with Princess Hestia?” I heard a noble lady speak with her mother.

“Yes, dear… I wonder what her parents are thinking with her daughter performing up there? Haaaa, but this performance is… entrancing. How could Greenveil be so lucky to find such an ally so soon?”

“Shush. Quiet.” The noble lady’s husband silenced the two of them. “The times have changed and they will continue to change. Greenveil might have taken the lead, forcing the rest of us to play catch up. And all of it will hang on the actions of our auspicious guests. Pride will not help us if we are to suffer. Equevanna is required to adapt. Do not think of the young Lady Helvas’s appearance today as a challenge, but rather a call that we should change. To embrace this as a new opportunity.”

Although I had already spent a good amount of time in Artorias, I wouldn’t say that I'm knowledgeable about its political sphere. All I’ve been doing is acting like an adventurer. I kill monsters, stop bandits, and then get money to upgrade my gear. Just like in an RPG.

I wasn’t 100% sure what the nobleman was thinking or talking about. It made me wonder if I should have focused more on my father's business. Learn his trade more, instead of simply being content with my situation. Even in Peolynca, all I've been doing is being obsessed with coffee and fulinoe tea and just doing Quests.

What would Hestia change in the future? Was the nobleman also talking about us? Well, all I knew is that I couldn’t do anything in my current state. I could only fight, and that was about it, while everybody else was starting on taking up roles. Even that bastard Daichi was doing something.

After the song ended, I turned around to my classmates and asked them a question we already talked about before.

“Hey, guys… what are your opinions on Aurora and our inclusion?”

“Hmm? Didn’t we deal with this after our first company meeting?” Asaka tilted her head.

“Yeah, I mean, we did talk about it back then. But we’ve now spent two weeks now with Hestia-san and seen how she works. We already knew about Sensei, Tasianna, Ellaine, and Grimnir, but you have to admit our leader is quite impressive.”

“Magic, fighting abilities, arcane ingenuity, entertainment, and also presence during discussions. Not to mention, she has status being a princess of the dragon empire and also the champion of an Origin God,” Misaki pointed out.

“Jeez, if you list all these categories out and then dive into them in detail, you have to admit, Hestia-san is overpowered as hell,” Kyouya nodded before looking back at the stage. “And holy hell, she’s a good idol, too. Average idols come and go and will capture people’s interests with looks alone, but the really good ones, those who will remain in the industry, not only are they good at singing and dancing, but they need this bright spark. Being able to conquer the stage by their presence alone. Damn.”

Nishio then suddenly cast [Air Shield] around us before talking, “I heard from Sensei that Hestia-san was constantly rejected during auditions in her past life. She auditioned for mostly Korean agencies. If you ask me, they lost a diamond in the rough. After all, that diamond is now shining on her own stage, performing to her heart’s desire. I don’t know how she was on Earth, but if I could, I would have even threatened my parents to go recruit Hestia into our agency.”

“Whew. Big compliment.” Kazumi whistled. “Then again, you mostly deal with film and theater actors. Expanding into idol entertainment wouldn’t hurt, I guess. Hmmm… then again, Hestia-chan told me personally that she thinks it had to do with her average dancing skills and how the other girls were cuter than her. If her singing was as godly back then as it is now, no way anybody would decline her, right?”

“True.” Nishio nodded. “Singing is valuable to sell albums and records, in addition, you need it for the initial push in your popularity and getting yourself trending. Songs are a powerful medium. Dancing can be further improved later down the line, when you transition from a trainee to a professional. Hmm, if I had access to my parent’s contacts, I could probably have asked around about—”

“Guys, guys, it doesn’t matter.” But before we could hear what Nishio said, Kohaku told us to stop talking about it. “It’s her past. Don’t think too much about it when we technically only recently became her friends. It’s rude. Besides, we are in Peolynca! Does it really matter?”

“I agree with Kohaku,” Misaki supported Kohaku. “Hestia herself mentioned how her memories were jumbled around and that she believes she isn’t the same person as her past self. That her reincarnation created a new personality on top of her ‘base’ memories. She thinks of herself now as a new person.”

“And this new person is amazing!” Daichi interjected himself into the discussion. “She’s a great listener, is willing to help when she can, and she’s the one to introduce me to Master Grimnir! Hahaha, imagine it! I will make a laser cannon in the future! Just watch me mow our enemies down with it!”

“… You seem to be enjoying yourself. Glad to see you found something to do, so you don’t complain all the time. Still, what will you do with your fire magic stuff?” I commented, feeling slightly annoyed that he chimed in. He usually doesn’t do this.

“Jeez, do you want another fight, you dick?” Daichi scoffed at me, prompting me to scowl at him. “I’ll think about it, okay? I still have no idea what to do with all the fire magic with Hestia-sama around. I should probably learn from her, but thinking about how I will never become as good as her makes me feel discouraged.”

“Then finding a way to turn fire into an everyday useful element would be better for you.” Kyouya grabbed one of Hestia’s grenades from his storage. “She can make this with [Trap Creation], earth, and fire magic. If you think about it, Artorias should be able to make more use of fire. It’s the perfect element with Earth to bring the industrial era to this medieval place.”

True, sometimes it does feel weird that fire mages aren’t more common. I guess Danterno really was a shitty god with a badly managed religion. If they only had one competent person, their church wouldn’t have taken such a dive in popularity.

“I think we deviated from the topic,” Asaka stated. “If you ask me, I’m fine with our situation, Tatsuya. Glad we got somebody like Hestia around, similar to how Yorshka protected us from stuff before. However, I can understand what you are thinking, dude. If you ask me, if you feel inferior to somebody, you either have to become better or find a different way to be useful.”

“Daichi has his smithing. What about you guys?” I asked everybody.

“Well, Kazumi and I are handling this promotion here. Making sure we have the marketing and financing correct. We will also probably handle more on the political side, aside from our combat training.”

“Nishio is a pretty strong mage, so he’ll be useful in combat, regardless. I’m better at multitasking since I can make a ton of clones. Maybe I can learn something from Sensei. But, my rogue skills aren’t that useful, so I probably have to handle a supportive position.” Kazumi pouted a bit, looking slightly sad as she explained her plans.

“The company still needs an archer. I still have plans to become the best archer in this world, maybe even rivaling the Goddess of Hunting,” Misaki stated, showing off how competitive she was. She wasn’t an outspoken person, but she had confidence in her own abilities.

“Well, I don’t know yet, to be honest. Just like you, I’m better off just focusing on doing Quests,” Kyouya said disappointed in himself. “I think my goal should be to improve my tanking ability. Become a better knight or maybe even a paladin one day. It would help me protect you guys better, after all.”

A bro comment from a real bro.

Last but not least was Asaka.

“Tamae-san is working in the kitchen and she does it well. Haruka seemed quite overwhelmed with all the recent tasks she had to do, but I think she feels better off the battlefield. But, I don’t think she’s that satisfied right now. Hmm, me?” Asaka pulled out the catalyst holding the fenrir spirits on her belt and held it up. “Well, first things first, get rid of these four. I have to drag Segawa to the Belzac forest eventually, even if she doesn’t like it. I don’t want to be stuck with them. Hmm, until then? I don’t know; become a necromancer or onmyoji who controls these four spirits? Wroooo, ghost lady? Not funny? Okay, whatever.”

She then turned back to me after making her ghostly impression. “How about you, Tatsuya? Did you ask Hestia-san to give her some of your blood to get her bloodline?”

“W-What, fuck no, of course not! Especially not after you told her I was supposedly into beastmen girls! Do you know how conflicted she looked when she confronted me on that! She would think I’m a pervert if I brought it up now!”

“Well, Asaka-san isn’t wrong, Tatsuya. You do look at beastmen girls differently. Didn’t you stare at Dame Yorshka when she revealed her dragonewt form?” Kyouya landed a critical hit from the sides.

“Urk! W-What the fuck, dude?! H-How about you and Haruka-chan, huh?! Has that gotten anywhere yet?!”

“Well, things are going by quite fast, you know. Haruka and I still spend enough time together, but it’s not like I can ask her out right now. Do you know how filled up her schedule is, right now?” he replied.

“That’s an excuse!” I rebuked him.

“And you’re feeling slightly insecure that your druidification isn’t leveling up after using it so often. If you have a problem with that, maybe work with Asaka-san and get Sensei to help you. She’s a fenrir and a descendant of Belzac. Don’t try to excuse yourself from asking her.”

Grk!

“Wow, Tatsuya, you sure made Kyouya mad,” Kohaku commented before pointing our attention forward. “Let’s stop. The next song is coming up. I want to continue enjoying this concert, so let’s just say this discussion is done for now.”

And just like that, the concert continued with five more songs. Two of those songs were duets, Hestia singing one with Tasianna and the other with Ellaine, while the rest was done by Hestia alone. Despite how exhausting the dance moves were for every song, it didn’t look like Hestia had any problems with them. In fact, it seemed like she became better the longer the concert went on.

After the concert was over, it was time for the merchandise sale and fan meeting. Our group didn’t have much to do here, so the majority decided on going out and enjoying the city. The festival was still going on, after all.

However, what did I do? I went back into the RV. I took my spear and went to the training field. While others had fun, I decided I had to continue training.

Hestia and I had the same master in Yorshka. We both learned her spearmanship. While I was currently better than her in skill with the spear, I haven’t been able to beat Hestia in a spar once. It’s not just our stats being too far apart, but rather a huge difference in our overall battle experience.

I tried to overwhelm her with my techniques, but she adapted too fast. She would learn and then use it mid-fight, pushing me onto the defensive. Even if I used druidification, I couldn’t beat her. Attempting to beat her in a contest of Strength or Agility was just stupid.

But after the talk I had with my classmates today, all I could think about is how I should just get better. If I began sweating blood, I had to continue training. That’s what I knew I could do best. Grind. Grind. Grind.

That jerk Dachi might have given up beating Hestia with fire magic, but I won’t with my spearmanship. I’ll become a master to defeat the strong.

A note from AbyssRaven

Coffee boy arrives in a main chapter, wow. The students watching their first concert in Peolynca.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 267: Mage Tutor, Melloxtressa.

524 humans and beastmen have become your fans

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 7715

“Oooooooh, you were so good! You were soooooo goooooood, my sweet whelping! How you used your flames and scale-dust to create those lights! How you smiled! Grrrrrraaaaaaarrrrrrrrh! You were so cute!”

This is my life now…

I was unable to move. No matter how much I tried, it was impossible to free myself from the tight embrace of an indomitable beast. Her loud roars even forced me to use [Air Shield] to protect my ears. I knew she was delighted, but my poor ears, man. Think about them, Mother.

Yes, the indomitable beast was once again just Mother. She was rubbing her face against my head while her tail was caressing mine. This was a show of affection amongst scalekins — lizardmen, dragonewts, and any other race with a tail and is covered in scales — similar to kissing for humans. Wholesome when it’s amongst family, lewd when you do it with some stranger.

“Oh, but you should be careful, Hestia. Swinging and dancing with your tail is part of a mating ritual to attract others, before you begin testing each other’s combat abilities. You might make some younglings go into heat.”

“… Mother, seriously, stop!”

As promised, Mother actually attend the concert the moment she woke up. Although I didn’t expect her to be that excited, the moment she saw me in my first performance outfit, she couldn’t stop wagging her tail like crazy.

She was gasping, and while she didn’t say anything, I still felt my confidence rise more and more. Having a parent feel proud of me really tickled this weird but amazing feeling inside my chest and stomach. I just wanted to release this happiness from my body like an explosion.

And when I finished my first song, Mother nearly crushed me when I went backstage to meet her. To stay inconspicuous, she controlled her silver dust so perfectly that she reflected all the light coming to her. She was practically invisible as she floated in the air above the crowd. Even Yorshka couldn’t do this.

But that meant she didn’t attract attention and could still receive the authentic concert experience. With all the fanfare, the booming music drowned out even the loudest of cries and roars, and the vibrant energy filling your body. Mother told me all of this while also praising my performance.

“I can’t stop thinking of how you smiled, Hestia!” she told me. Even after sleeping it off, she still couldn’t stop thinking of the expressions I made. Like the dazzling stars in the midnight sky; Mother thought of what she saw at the concert as her treasure.

And now she wasn’t willing to let me go.

“… Lady Hestia, Miss Saori told me to inform you that we are now leaving the city.” Tasianna came into my room to inform me. Yes, the moment Mother woke up, she stormed into my room and began hugging me. Talk about not knowing personal space, huh?

“… Thank you,” I thanked her, just accepting the fact that Mother wouldn’t release me until she was satisfied. “How did Amelia’s talk with Duke Equevanna go?”

“A moderate success. As in, she entrusted the [Room] rune set to him and he agreed to preserve their secrecy and to only use them in emergencies or if we call him. He has taken an oath in your name as a Kargryxmor, willingly.”

One good thing about me accepting my lineage and status as princess of Kargryx is that I could use my influence to have people acquiesce to my demands. In this case, Fillion didn’t have the luxury to decline my offer. Possessing my [Room] runes meant I trusted him enough to keep them safe.

Taking an oath in Kargryxmor’s name also meant that, if he were to break our agreement, he would incur the wrath of “Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor, Princess of Kargryx.” Similar to the Shaturein case, it meant becoming hostile to dragonewts and Kargryxian dragons. I couldn't help but think that its a good thing, right? Thanks to Mother, I knew about this now~

Like I told the merchant, I really didn’t like flaunting my status around, thinking it’s irresponsible, but I also now know not using it when needed is irresponsible as well. I’m a dragon with a human soul. My other soul half made me understand this wasn’t a bad thing. Saori and Yorshka explained to me this wasn’t a bad thing. Mother assured me this wasn’t a bad thing.

I planed to make Artorias into a great ally for me. We needed a bastion to fight against the demonkins and to help me fulfill Aurena’s Divine Quest. Even if the world wasn’t in danger with the Origin Gods around, those demonkins won’t stop ruining my happiness. This was more than enough reason for me to continue working.

And to do that, I needed my dragon heritage to help me out.

“So, Amelia wasn’t able to negotiate Duke Equevanna into allowing access to his trade routes around his fief?” I asked Tasianna.

“Sadly, no. The negotiation was cut short thanks to our departure. According to Lady Amelia, Duke Equevanna wished to go into a partnership with the Sarlenzia company. Lady Amelia thought it was a good deal, since it meant she would have more leeway when dealing with the local merchant guild, but this wasn't something she could agree to without her father's permission.”

“So they have to renegotiate, right? Another date? Amelia wants my permission to invite her father and Fillion into the RV to discuss, correct?” Tasianna nodded. “Haaaa, alright. I’ll make a meeting room for everybody to use. We won’t have to use the dining room to discuss stuff anymore.”

“Thank you! I will deliver your words to her. Also, Miss Saori anticipated this, so she asked Duke Equevanna to commission a beautiful table for the room, including its furniture. A ‘gift’ to a pleasant partnership.”

Saori, Saori. She knows what’s best. Always a step ahead of the rest.

Money saved and the room will be filled up without our worry. Free stuff is good.

But, going back to what Tasianna said before, today we were also leaving Ullistar. The moment the festival ended for the day, we quickly packed all the stuff back into my storage. The cleaning would be left to Fillion. After all, our goal wasn’t actually in Ullistar, but rather the Republic of Estralia.

We were leaving the city today in order to get to Estralia’s capital, Gleisvale, as early as possible. The earlier, the better, since we needed Shaturein to start controlling the underground market over there. All this was just setting things up to reach our primary goal, finding clues on the contractor who sent fae hunters to Saelariel and killed the Princess Schuri, all for Tasianna’s sake. In addition, there might also be hints of demonkin dealings over there for us to find.

After we left the city, we made our way east, going along the official route between Ullistar and Estralia. Along the way, we would go through a small town built around Equevanna’s only dungeon, which bordered Estralia. There was supposedly a faster path through the mountains, but that one was infested with monsters, bad paths, and the risk of bandits.

Not like any bandit could do anything to us, but I wasn’t in the mood to delay our trip for them. In any case, getting to Gleisvale would take around a week for a normal caravan. We could probably shave a day off with our speed, but none of us were used to the path outside of Yorshka. Her estimate was six days, but who knows.

In other words, its going to be a long trip. Since we didn’t have computers or television around, the only way to spend this time was either cards, board games or training. Well, pretty much the exact thing I did on the trip to Ullistar. With the garms moving the RV and only needing one person to man the coach, everybody else could stay inside and train, work on projects, or slack.

I was in the training group, and, well, I guess pretty much everybody else was too. Well, everybody but Asaka, really. I’m not really sure what she was doing now, but she was a wildcard when it came to contributing and training.

“Before the advent of the Origin Gods, there were only three types of beings who could use magic without aid. Among them were the creatures born with the body of the energy of the world — faefolk, with their body of mana. The second are the creatures with the ability to mutate their bodies further and further using mana, an occurrence we now call ‘evolution’ — the monsters. And the last are the ones who once used to rule this world as our ‘gods’ before their rule and elemental authority was usurped by the Origin Gods — the primarchs, the elemental kings.”

Our company’s magic tutor was none other than Mother.

“I will not bore you with the history of the primarchs, but essentially, they controlled the six elements of the world, keeping everything in balance. History has almost forgotten them completely, outside of the long-living races like us dragons or the elves. The earth primarch, the one who created the dwarves in imitation of the humans and elves, is probably the most known of them. But the others? They are probably either dead or in hiding. I cannot tell you much about them.”

“Is that the reason why the dwarves cannot expel mana from their bodies?” Nishio asked.

“The dwarves were made from gems and earth, meaning their bodies are essentially different from ours. While dwarves can breed with the other races, all half-dwarves are unable to cast magic because of their dwarven half. Even with Crustacia’s aid, this bodily law cannot be overwritten even with the Divine System. ‘The Curse of Earth,’ the dwarves used to call it in the past.”

I wasn’t alone with Mother, though. Tasianna, Ellaine, and Nishio were all attending these lessons with me. Those of us who wanted to continue improving their magical abilities. Those more focused on their physical training like Tatsuya, Kyouya, Misaki, Kohaku, and Elrick were working with Yorshka. Only Saori and Kazumi were training under Muraina, as they were our rogues.

The rest of our company was on support or artisan duty. Grimnir and Daichi were working in the forge, Tamae was keeping our food storage in check and managing the restaurant, and Haruka was doing our ledger with Amelia. Josine, who decided to commit to following Ellaine, and Svena, who was practically my maid at this point, were keeping the whole place clean and in check.

Our animal companions weren’t slacking off either. The garms either were driving the RV forward or training with Saori. Shoyi, Saori’s slime, was keeping our toilets and trash clean. And the virigresses, who were all done with their assimilation into Saori’s [Shadow Pack], were being trained by the garms to work with them. They were all a pack now.

If any of us weren’t inside the RV, we most likely were doing something outside. I teleported the members of The Magical Biscuits back to Griffonpeak, but they could still use the subspace to train anytime. Even the fact we could call in a meeting between Duke Greenveil and Fillion makes me once again appreciate that I figured out the [Room] nexus trick. It’s like a VR chat, kinda.

“Ignoring the primarchs, let us focus on the faefolk and monsters, particularly us dragons.” Mother then called up Tasianna and me to her. “The reason why these two races are able to cast magic without the aid of the Divine System is due to the mana inside us molding into one of the six elements. Humans and elves were required to create a contract with a faefolk, becoming faemancers, to cast magic. The faefolk acts as your catalyst, molding your mana into fire, water, and so on, allowing you to create water or fire. As such, the moment a faefolk is born, they all have an innate potential for one of the six elements, or, on rare occasions, a compound element.”

Tasianna's eyes widened suddenly. “Oh! Is this why I was able to buy [Ice Magic] from the skill shop without having gained either [Torrent Magic] or [Storm Magic]?”

That was true. After the first week of Tasianna becoming my retainer, she bought [Ice Magic] and [Cryokinesis] with her SP. It was a sudden surprise for us.

Mother nodded. “And Hestia’s mana is fire-aligned. Monsters adapt their mana into the element of their choice or evolution path. Hestia has always been more fire-aligned due to her bloodline, but it became more prominent with every subsequent evolution. Similar to Saori.”

Saori’s [Holy Resistance] has been growing at a considerably slower pace now after she evolved into a [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir]. This was probably the main reason.

“Now, what I want you to get out of this lecture is that humans are able to do the same thing. Become one with the element of your choice and become stronger. However, you will also attain the weaknesses of that element. For example, with Tasianna and me. We are ice mages. We have better control of ice but we are more susceptible to fire and require an impractical amount of time to learn fire spells.”

Mother looked at Ellaine and Nishio with her intentions clear for them to understand. She was asking them if they wanted to learn this method from her.

“Will this conflict with my access to my demonic powers?” Ellaine asked.

“Hmmm, maybe. But the demon would be able to answer that question better,” Mother prompted Klea’Hatma to speak.

[“It won’t, don’t worry. In fact, if you were to transform your mana into a certain element, it would actually benefit your demonic abilities. Now, which one would help you the most? An element with a high regenerative characteristic, since my later abilities will focus on regrowth.”]

“So, holy and water,” Nishio answered. “These are the two elements who have access to healing magic, if we disregard empty vessel magic.”

“No, earth or fire are also options,” Mother replied. “Earth is the mother of all life. Just as how the earth primarch managed to create life from stones and earth, so could you find healing from the ground we walk on. Fire, in the form of heat, is the fuel of life. Without the heat in our bodies, no being outside of ice-aligned creatures can survive in this world. The warmth inside you is your body’s energy, and flows through you, energizing your whole being.”

I nodded. “Outside of geothermal, another major source of a planet’s energy comes from the sun, correct, Nishio-san? Energy is transformed through photosynthesis by plants and this energy is then spread through the world through the other lifeforms.”

Sometimes I really wondered why Aurena was related to the sun instead of Shiterno. It fitted Aurena’s image as a miracle bringer and benevolent Goddess, but Shiterno could have probably garnered more people if he had sun images or something in his domain. There was even a fire spell to make a miniture sun. His church was so incomprehensible.

Nishio and Ellaine then began thinking over their options, contemplating which element was the best for them. They spoke and discussed among themselves; meanwhile Mother sat down with Tasianna and me, taking this chance to begin our training.

“I am a specialist when it comes to ice and wind magic, as that is what I gained from my evolution and lineage. I only learned water and torrent magic after the Divine System appeared, and, while I cannot control water as deftly as ice, I can freeze moisture to control it perfectly.” Mother then moved her hand, creating hundreds of small ice spikes from the very air. She controlled them with finesse.

However, at the same time, I began to notice how uncomfortably dry the air now was. It really made me wish I had a moisturizer right now.

“While it is true that water and fire are mostly opposite from each other, the composite element of ice is the true opposite of fire. But, at the same time, both elements are simply two sides of a single coin. What they have in common is thermal manipulation.”

Fire warms up the air and ice cools it down. That was the general difference anyone could see when they watch a fire and ice mage fight. They control the two ends of a thermometer.

“Ice can never raise the temperature over a certain point, and vice versa, for fire. However, what they can do is to bring themselves to an equilibrium, where it is neither cold nor warm.”

“Just like my [White Flame]. I’m able to control them to the point that they are just unable to burn you; the ideal temperature to heal others,” I interjected. “However, I can’t seem to do the same with my other types of flames.”

“Good, Hestia, that is a good point. Danterno at least knows what sort of powers he was supposed to give you. But, what if I told you can control the very temperature of any of your flames to the point of being cool. The same thing with Tasianna. The ability to warm up any ice or cool down any fire. You both can do this due to your elemental alignment.”

Tasianna and I nodded simultaneously, greedy to improve even further.

“Good. Hestia, we will begin your thermal manipulation training after your core is restored. It might only be your second heart, but it’s important for your mana control.” I nodded, slightly disappointed. Mother then turned to Tasianna. “We will begin yours now, Tasianna.”

Tasianna’s training was intended to return her to the source of all magic and her body —her mana. It wasn’t to rely on the Divine System and the spells associated with it, but to create ice and control it like a real cryomancer. All spells and magic abilities are created from mana, but not all of them require the Divine System to work. My scale-dust and mother’s silver dust were the best examples here.

However, outside of ice, Mother would also teach Tasianna to control her wind abilities even better. Telling her of the destructive nature of wind, reminding her why [Storm Magic] is so much more destructive than plain [Wind Magic]. It was like the difference between a breeze and a hurricane.

If you thought about it, Mother was the perfect teacher for Tasianna. Master Kush helped Tasianna become an extraordinary mage, and now Mother would turn her into a master, no, a natural disaster in the form of a fairy.

They eventually brought over the wyvern twins, as they seemed like they also wanted to train , so I went over to Ellaine and Nishio to help them find an answer to their progression. After some lengthy talking, they finally gave Mother their answer.

“I personally wish to stay element neutral, Lady Melloxtressa,” Nishio answered. “My unique skill allows me to learn and use all six elements with almost perfection, even granting me bonuses if I do. I know it comes from the demonkins, but I still wish to cultivate it as long as possible. I believe being flexible like this will benefit the group.”

As for Ellaine…

“After contemplating on it, I believe either holy or earth will be best suited to me, I believe.”

“Holy? I understand earth, but why holy, Ellaine? You haven’t learned a single holy spell yet.” Mother looked confused.

“Because of my faith in the Goddess. I believe my faith in her will most likely bring my spirit closer to her. However, after talking with Hestia about it, it might be hard if I push myself on one path alone. As such, I believe earth would be the best second option.”

Mother explained that turning the mana into a certain element will naturally affect the body and that it would be a painful and difficult path. Once you become elementally aligned, you cannot change your element outside of evolution. Since humans couldn’t evolve, it was a one-way trip for Ellaine.

Still, Mother was fine with it. She said she would have Ellaine perform the precursory training for the elemental-alignment change until she finally decides on her element. She advised Ellaine to properly learn the intricacies of the holy and earth element before the time came.

After giving Ellaine and Nishio some tips to control their magic and how to bring them out fully, she then went over to Tasianna and the wyverns, giving them a lengthy lecture on the full control of ice and its properties. Once they were training with each other, acting like rivals with who would master the elements first, Mother let out a sign and turned.

“Now we finally have time to ourselves, Hestia~” Mother’s smile was shining so brightly, it made it hard for me to look at her.

“Can you please not say it in that fashion? It’s awkward.”

Now, it was dragon training time.

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Chapter 268: Mother-Daughter Dragon Training.

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[Humanize (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Mother and I sat down on the floor where she asked me to transform to my [Humanize Lv. 1] form with her. Now looking like two complete humanoid lizardmen with wings and horns, Mother’s scales suddenly brightened up in color before they started floating up in the air. Her silver dust followed them, flying and moving above us like water.

I marveled at how pretty it looked. Controlling your scales and silver dust with impeccable control. It was like telekinesis. However, when I looked back down to ask Mother how to do that, I noticed how she still had scales on her arms and legs. They should have been bare and naked. I mean, where did the scales over my head come from?

“Are you curious?” Mother asked. Just like Yorshka, Mother could speak in her full dragonewt form, explaining that I just needed to be in the form more often to practice speaking so I didn’t need to rely on [Telepathy] to speak in the future. The wyverns had the same problem.

In any case, I nodded to Mother’s question.

“This is why I made you focus on learning how to shed, Hestia. Molting is the basis of this ability. We might call it scale control, but the truth of this technique is that we only use the oldest layer of our scales..”

[“Ah, that makes sense. If you were to peel off your scales, that would leave you vulnerable at that naked spot? A perfect place to attack.”]

“Exactly. What good technique would leave you vulnerable for an extended time? Scales are to dragons what influence and power are to humans. We don’t like losing them. However, a single layer of our carapace that will molt away a week later? Even then, dragon scales are tougher than metal.”

[“And you can simply eat the shed scales up after the fight. No waste, and you don’t hand them over accidentally to your enemies.”]

I’ve shed my scales three times at this point. Every single time, I had to eat that bland, molted skin. I was thinking of frying them, but Mother said to not cook the scales, as it reduced the nutrients. Thankfully, I could add condiments to aid the taste, but Mother just lectured me on not being picky with food.

I’m not that picky.

In any case, Mother began her teachings.

“To control your scales for combative usage, you will need to master molting, mana control, and manipulation of your element, so [Pyrokinesis] for you as well as [Draconic Aura].”

[“[Draconic Aura]? That seems… random?”]

“Not at all, Hestia. Why do you think it’s called [Draconic Aura]? It’s exactly because only dragonkins may use it.” Mother smirked. “But, seriously, we need this ability since, without it, controlling all these scales would require massive amounts of attention to control perfectly.”

True. Looking at the thousand scales still hovering above, I could imagine how seriously annoying it would be. I would have to dedicate multiple parallel minds to use it effectively, probably making the skill useless outside of practice.

“However, our aura isn’t just some pressure to intimidate or scare off overconfident hunters, it is also our field of dominance. Like a fire attracting fireflies, or treasure luring in greedy adventurers. To us dragonkins, our aura attracts and empowers our elemental alignment.”

[“Like gravity? Oh, wait, maybe it’s like Saori’s twin catalysts? We made it from the electro sac of a lightning wyvern who could control an electromagnetic field.”]

“Hmm, in essence, yes. The stronger your [Draconic Aura], the further you can control your scales.”

Mother then began displaying examples of this ability, using her scales to instantly form a protective dome around us before transforming it into a spike that froze anything it touched. Her control over her scales was completely flawless, even able to move the scales into individual units all while she explained how she was doing it.

“It’s about linking your mana with your scales in a similar manner to using [Delayed Cast] or [Continuous Cast]. However, you will leave the movements to your [Pyrokinesis] skill, I mean, [Volcanic Blaze] skill. It’s all about your elemental control. You need to control fire as if it’s another limb. Fire control must come to you so naturally, you can dance and sing with your flames through the night without rest.”

[“… I mean, I’m confident in my ability, but through a whole night? That’s a bit rough for my mind, Mother.”]

“And that is why it’s called training, no? It’s supposed to be hard so you can reap the benefits for it later on. Just be glad that Aurena enhanced your [Pyrokinesis] into a unique skill. That should make it easier on you. Just think of this as furthering your mage training while benefiting your dragon side. Of course, when we do this, we will do it in your dragon form. You need to get better acquainted with it.”

Mother’s scales then flew under her, carrying her up like a flying carpet before moving her away from me. It was a signal. She was telling me to transform now.

Humanization.

Once the mana mist was gone, I had once again assumed my dragon form. I then moved away from the others training inside Mother’s cave, following Mother towards the opposite end of it.

“However, scale manipulation can be done any time. It’s a seamless process that requires practice over weeks and months or maybe even years. You need time to master it. And you need to train it every day for as often as you can. Use your scales like limbs and it will make your life easier.” Mother stopped once we arrived at the location, and turned around. “Try it now. Even if you think you can’t control your scale-dust, we should see where your limits are. I shall be your guide, my whelpling.”

And if my scales were to accidentally explode, I wouldn’t hurt anybody. Mother thought it through.

“Fire is your element, Hestia. Your scales have molted three times now, so they should be stronger and filled with more of your mana. They are fire, like your mana. Think of them as such. They are fire, and you are their master. You are the lord of inferno. To you, fire is but another pawn to dominate. Think of your scales and scale-dust as such!”

Mother’s way of explaining the process had a bit of a tyrannical or dictatorship vibe; she truly was a dragon. Her attitude fitted one. And, it certainly was clear enough for me to understand.

Like fire, huh? So I have to imagine myself being on fire… Like when I was in [Symphonie des Feuergottes]’s finale movement. My body is fire. I have to think of it as such. And now, I have to control it.

I first went through the process of molting, letting my mana flow through my whole body, repeatedly letting it seep into my skin. Once I could feel a loose layer forming above my scales, I injected more mana to speed up the process. I still had some problems with the process, but I was getting better and better while my scales felt sturdier.

“Good. Now, you must remove them, Hestia.”

I’m still at the stage of having to rely on [Unheilge Engel] to remove the molted skin, but Mother just needed to use her silver dust and her mana to do the same. To become better, I had to spread my wings. Learn more techniques.

As such, I began thinking of this skin as fire. Pure, destructive flames able to destroy the land with explosions and wildfire. However, I also knew fire could be beautiful. Like fireworks. Bright lights shining in the night like stars. And just as I used my flames for my performance’s special effect, I began controlling my scales in the same manner.

My scales are fire. They have my mana. I can control them like any other fire spell.

Just like how I used [Pyrokinesis], I expelled some of my mana outside my body, directing it towards the molted skin. Acting as if the mana was an extension of my physical body, I had it move whatever it was holding up.

With the sound of something tearing off, I looked down to see a pale red sheet slowly getting torn off from my body. Now knowing I could do it, I increased the strength of my control and peeled it all off my body. Instead of throwing it away, I imitated Mother and had my molted skin hover above me, using the method I did for all the flames I’ve used since I received [Pyrokinesis].

And there it was. My old skin, flying above me like a waving flag. I wanted to be proud. I did exactly how Mother instructed me to, but the issue was how ugly it looked. Unlike Mother’s scales, which gave the illusion of her scales coming directly from her body, mine was this ugly piece of paper. Why?

“Are you curious why there's such a difference from mine?” Mother seemed to have read my mind somehow. I nodded, as I had a feeling she knew what I was confused with. “You’ve only learned how to molt your entire outer layer as a whole, not individual scales at the same time. Instead of a unified skin sheet, you need to molt each scale individually without creating a connection between them.”

[“…”]

“Ehe~”

I felt a sudden sense of foreboding.

Training time flew by quite quickly at this point forward. Mother and I may have some quality mother-daughter time with all this training, but boy was it mentally exhausting. I did eventually manage to molt ten or twenty individual scales and move them, but I gave up on being able to control my scale-dust. There were too much to control.

Still, maybe later down the road, it might become possible, but for now I had enough to do with only twenty of the full scales, let alone the dust. It required too much focus at this point. Mother was correct that my [Draconic Aura] had some effect on my scales and fire, but I still couldn’t feel it. This gravity-like feeling wasn’t there, sadly, so I had to control my scales with my parallel minds. Which was weird, since I could control fire so much better than this.

“Hmm, more practice should be the answer, but I think we'll test your [Volcanic Blaze] skill next time, Hestia. Unique skills are always harder to predict without using them. Have you done any tests yet, Hestia?”

I shook my head. [“With what time? I’m either training with Yorshka, taking care of my spell training, or practicing for the concert. Now, I'm training with you and Kramps. I know I should probably have checked on it sooner, but it kinda slipped my mind.”]

“Then I will help you with that on another day. I also think today is enough with the scale training. Let us not do too much and take a breather. After dinner, I wish to check on your core, Hestia.”

[Humanize (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

And with that, the training ended and we all left Mother’s cave. As a group, we went to the dining room and, along with those who weren’t preoccupied with other things, ate together. Well, it was really just Grimnir and Daichi that were busy with other things. Grimnir usually didn’t eat with everybody when he was in a working mood, not letting anything stop him, not even hunger. Daichi was probably being forced to stay.

“Welcome! Hope you all had a busy day! Food is ready!” Tamae came out of the kitchen with Svena and Josine behind her. But surprisingly, Asaka was there, too.

“Yo, some food for everybody. Eat it while it’s hot, yaaaaay.” Asaka came out with a pot full of stew, still managing to sound aloof despite her expecting face.

So, that is where she was, huh?

Freshly made food was always better. What could make it better? Eating food with your friends and family.

“Ahhhhh, so tiring,” Kohaku complained while gouging down her food. “After this, I need a shower and bath.”

“How are you tired after training with me all the time, Kohaku? You need to toughen up a bit,” Yorshka scolded her at the dining table. “Your Stamina should be high enough to endure it, so stop complaining. It spoils the food after we all broke a good sweat.”

“What?! Come on, Dame Yorshka, I just want to complain a bit. Let out some stress, nothing big. Hmph!”

“She’s right,” Kyouya agreed. “You know, now that I think about it, our training has been quite hard ever since you came back from visiting your family in Firwood to drop off those [Room] runes. Did something happen?”

“What? No, nothing serious happened really. I just think that all of you need to train more and get stronger, so I’m just increasing the amount. I thought you kids would have appreciated it.”

“Oh?” Mother suddenly tilted her head. “Then, was the mumbling you made that other day about turning them into fine warriors to make ‘the Matriarch proud of me,’ false?”

“W-Wha—?! M-Matriarch, you shouldn’t eavesdrop on others! That’s really rude!”

“““Hahaha!”””

The more the merrier, they say. While our company getting bigger did have some small problems, mostly funds and some disputes, it did bring in a larger amount of people to spend time with. With all these people around, the dynamic of the group began to change.

“No, no, Beth. You need to hold the utensils like this.” Ellaine was showing the snow wyvern twins proper etiquette.

Seeing Mother show some impeccable table manners from her years of living, the wyverns wanted to emulate her like two ducklings following their mother. Of course, I knew it actually was the reverence of the wyverns for dragons, but it certainly was pretty close. It also helped that Mother was the greatest ice dragon in the world, a great role model for snow wyverns.

“Oh no, Shay! You must eat slower, otherwise you will create a mess” Josine and Svena were also helping them, seeing as those three were the most used to proper manners. Then again, most of the company knew how to eat properly and not like a slob, so I guess anybody could have done that… Maybe not Grimnir.

[“This is difficult.”] The brother, Shayatierus, expressed his disappointment.

[“Eating with our winged arms isn’t very comfortable.”] Bethlieranha, the younger sister, agreed with her brother and told us one of their problems.

“I see. However, progress can only be made if you put in the effort. Hold up your tail, and keep on the path, younglings!” Mother encouraged the twins, causing them to nod their wyvern heads vigorously.

This is the happiness I want to preserve.

After dinner was done, everybody aside from Mother and I went to the hot spring. Instead, the two of us returned to her cave to begin the repairs of my sun core. I assumed my dragon form once again and looked down at my cracked core.

Thanks to Mother, I wasn’t crippled in any way thanks to my shoddy care of it, but it couldn’t be called healed either. Mother got rid of the cracks, but I also saw some purple stones deep inside it — pieces of my corrosive obsidian. 'Cause of this damage, I had pretty much forbidden myself from using [Solar Beam] or overusing it until I was confident it wouldn’t break.

Otherwise, the core worked the same as usual. Less efficiency, but I could still manage my body temperature and transform solar energy into nutrients. Thankfully, I didn’t cripple myself again.

“I’ve already said this before, but the only way to repair your solar core is to remove the current one and to create an entirely new one. Do you understand, Hestia?” Mother told me and I nodded.

[“Yeah… but what exactly does that entail? I know it’s my second heart, but what consequences will there be for removing it? Will I lose my ability to use solar energy?”]

“Not entirely, if my familiarity with solar energy monsters also applies to you.”

Essentially, from losing my solar core, I would lose the ability to store solar energy into my core and, subsequently, temporarily lose access to [Solar Beam]. Without a core, I would also have no way to properly regulate my body heat while I’m using [Symphonie des Feuergottes].

However, Mother told me that my ability to turn solar energy into Health, Mana, Stamina, and nutrients shouldn't be gone. I was like a plant, a photosynthesizer. My core wasn’t responsible for the process, but my individual cells.

Now, that didn’t mean I was a complete plant. I don’t think I produced oxygen like one and still expelled a ton of CO2, but the way I gained energy was similar. As such, even if I were to lose my core, I could still benefit from being a sunfang dragon.

[“If it’s about regulating my body heat, I could probably use my catalyst for that job. It’s made to transform heat into mana, so I can probably have it take over that job,”] I informed Mother, and she agreed.

“However, what you can’t replace will be the solar energy storage. Your body can store minimal amounts in your scale, but not enough to use it for a power boost. Hmmm, and also don’t think about using the broken core to make a catalyst, Hestia. It’s broken, so the quality of the catalyst will most likely be below the one you made with the volchark heart.”

Mother knew how to think like an adventurer from her time with the elves and humans 2000 years ago. Alchemy creating a catalyst to support a mage? Yeah, that existed back then as well, so it was common sense to Mother. She was starting to think like an adventurer for my sake.

[“Hehe,”] I laughed nervously after getting caught by Mother. [“Well, I had thought of using my core to make additional catalysts. It would help out the mages in our group.”]

“You are generous, but Hestia, regrowing a mana core usually takes a few weeks to finish. The process is long since the structure of a mana core is complicated, and yours will probably require even more time. Without one, you only have one heart left, so if something were to happen to your flesh heart, you will most likely die.”

[“How long will it take?”]

“About three or four weeks, probably.” I was stunned. “However, the process is pitifully easy compared to learning how to manipulate your scales, Hestia. It’s like a wound. Your mana seeps out and recreates it automatically. There is no problem there; the problem lies in removing your current one.”

[“… I assume it’s because the core is attached to my nervous or whatever system, right?”] Mother nodded. I hit the nail right on its head. [“So, tearing it off forcefully will probably hurt me in some way. That’s why overloading my core is so dangerous to me.”]

Using [Mana Eyes] on myself, I could see veins full of mana flowing from the core to the rest of my body, looking pretty much like my heart in this case. No kidding, it really was my second heart.

“I won’t say I know too much about your biology, Hestia. However, I can tell from instincts and the flow of your mana that we need to take it off carefully. I’ll help you with it. All you need to do is cut off the mana connection to your solar core.”

[“Cut it?”]

“Yes, your mana paths. It’s easy. You’ve done it multiple times today already.”

I thought about it, before quickly landing on what she meant. [“Do you mean simple mana control? Like my molting? Should I just reverse the flow of mana and then pour it somewhere else?”]

“Caught on quickly. That’s my whelpling. Yes. Reduce the flow of mana to your solar core and let it flow somewhere else, like to your flesh heart, wings, or pretty much anywhere else. Once the core is removed, return the flow to normal and you will slowly seep out mana to rebuild your mana core. Simple.”

‘Simple.’ Yes, it’s simple for a dragon, not for humans or beastmen.

Without further ado, I followed Mother’s instructions and did exactly what she told me I should. I slowed down the flow of mana to my chest and began to move it away. Eventually, enough mana was removed that I could create a blockage, imitating how I used to have blocked mana paths in my right wing. The feeling was similar.

Once I gave Mother the signal, she touched my core and cooled it down significantly. It stung, hard! I could feel my core activating, trying to warm up my chest but, without any mana around, it had to use up the solar energy inside it as emergency fuel instead. However, Mother kept it up until all the energy was gone. My core was empty.

“Alright, stay strong, my whelpling. This might hurt.”

Mother then touched the edges of my solar core, right next to my protective carapace. She tore the scales attached to my core quickly and efficiently, confident that this wasn’t enough to hurt me. Once that was over, however, her freezing hands returned, and this time, they let some of her silver dust seep through the edges’ crevices.

Uurgk!

I could feel a painful cold right inside my chest. Not deep within, but it had definitely penetrated through the scales and skin. And then, I felt something moving. Something foreign and uncomfortable. Something that shouldn’t have been inside me!

“Hestia.”

I began to twitch and squirm as Mother called out to me, telling me to hold still as she continued letting more of her silver dust in between my core and chest. I nodded and stood as still as I could. My claws dug into the floor and I felt the urge to let out a yelp, but by remembering the pain I’d experienced in the past, I scolded myself for acting so weak right now. Performing my breathing technique, I simply waited for the procedure to end, just like a doctor visit.

“And… done!”

And just like that, it was out.

“Alright, good work, Hestia. You can let your mana flow normally again.”

I did just as she said. As my mana flowed back to my chest, I suddenly felt some phantom pain. My body thought the mana was flowing into my solar core, but all I could see was my bare chest. No scales nor carapace. It was just my skin, only looking red like blood.

“How do you feel?”

[“… A bit empty, honestly. Like something is missing. It also feels colder, no, wait, now I feel my body temperature rising. Wow, it’s been a long, long time since I last regulated my body warmth manually. I think, before I evolved?”]

Without the sun core, managing my own temperature was now back to being a daily thing. Well, I had enough practice when I was still a C rank, so this wouldn’t be too bad. Still, I did feel a bit like a cripple similar to when my wing was damaged. Well, it’s my fault in this case, so I’ll just take this as a chance to learn and heal.

[Humanize (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Once I was back to being a dragonewt, I opened up my shirt and checked my chest. As expected, my sun core was missing and it had the same emptiness feeling there as in my dragon form. I let out a sigh.

“Thanks, Mother. I’m glad you helped me.” I gave her a genuine smile. She’s been helping whenever she was needed, never complaining about it. How could I not appreciate all she had done for me and our company?

“No problem, my treasure. Mother is always here to give you a hand. Now, do be careful when you enter Estralia. You are still pretty strong for your age and you should have gotten even sturdier with your molting, but don’t go around and overexert yourself. I really don’t want you to force me to take you back to Miononbolax.”

It seemed like Mother wasn't as inclined to leave. Did my concert help change her mind?

“Sure, I won’t. Well, I guess this might be a good time to take it slow and just let Saori and the others handle stuff. Oh! Or, I’ll just learn how to throw a meteor at people~ Hahahahaha!”

“Meteor?”

Once again, Mother showed me that there was still so much I had to learn. But, for now, I’ll just take a dip in the hot spring with her.

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Chapter 269: Enter, Estralia!

A note from AbyssRaven

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Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Storm Magic Lv. 4] [Draconic Barrier Lv. 7] [Mental Warfare Lv. 6] [Spear Mastery Lv. 7] [Draconic Aura Lv. 4] [Royal Presence Lv. 4] [MId-Air Maneuvering Lv. 9] [Aerial Fighter Lv. 5] [Wind Resistance Lv. 10] [Dark Resistance Lv. 4] gained

Skill requirement fulfilled.   [Wind Resistance Lv. 10] evolved into [Storm Resistance Lv. 1]

Spell gained:   [Cyclone Madness]

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Sundering Enhancement Lv. 10] [Piercing Enhancement Lv. 10] [Crushing Enhancement Lv. 10] [Danger Perception Lv. 10] [Mental Corruption Resistance Lv. 10] [Mind Protection Lv. 10] [Sacred Resistance Lv. 5] [Storm Resistance Lv. 5] [Speed of Sonic Lv. 5] gained. 3650 SP remaining

Skill requirement fulfilled.   [Sundering Enhancement Lv. 10] [Piercing Enhancement Lv. 10] [Crushing Enhancement Lv. 10] merged into [All-Damage Enhancement Lv. 1]

2 wyverns have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 7717

[Drifting Snow Wyvern, Shayatierus], [Drifting Snow Wyvern, Bethlieranha], [Shadow Stalker Virigress, Varya], [Young Dusk Virigress, Shere], [Young Dusk Virigress, Ajay], [Young Black-Light Virigress, Rajah] have received the title [Hestia’s Retainer]

[“You know, I always found it impressive that you can cheat the System this much just through SP. Sure, you spent 7900 SP for it, but you still have a ton to spare. Haaaaaa, if only Ellaine could use her SP on [Okl’Luthier’s Power], she could use my more interesting powers. Pulling out an Origin Sin technique would be quite a sight.”]

<Demon, you are wasting my granddaughter's time. Enough of your complaints. Continue the explanation, now!>

[“Tch… Yes, yes, let’s continue. Dear, how is your meditation?”]

[“Going well… Outside of you two arguing inside my head and all. I would like it if you weren’t speaking with Kramps so often that I have to put my parallel minds to work.”]

Two days full of training had passed ever since we departed from Ullistar, and from today onwards we were no longer inside the territory of the Kingdom of Artorias. We were officially inside a new country — the Republic of Estralia.

Saori informed us about it after she passed through border control. Apparently, even after we showed them a border pass issued by King Drangleic himself, the sentries still found they needed to search through our RV, since they were not Artorian soldiers, but Estralian ones.

Thankfully, Saori had Rajah hide the [Room] runes in her shadow before then. In fact, the four now fully assimilated Shadow Pack virigresses had all worked together to hide some of the more sensitive stuff to avoid any problems. Mostly, Tasianna’s alchemical potions she left behind in the garden.

“You certainly are well equipped. But not much cargo. And, how did a wolfkin like you receive a border pass from a King?” they asked her after their search.

“Connections. May I pass?” she had responded, which sounded super cool when I imagined it. Still, I guess this was enough of a warning that Estralia won’t be like the parts of Artorias that I visited.

Regardless, stuff happened. Nothing to be bothered by, really.

In any case, as you might expect, the road towards the first town of Estralia was full of traffic. Like, there were a ton of merchants moving together in a caravan for protection, all having their own mercenaries to act as a guard for the collective group. Some also escorted carriages with travelers inside them, issuing them a protection and escort fee. I also heard some offered food and drinks for a price. All to either make a profit or to pay off their guards. Shrewd.

We didn’t want that. Mostly since those merchants pestered Saori with offers after they heard she had a border pass from King Drangleic. They immediately recognized her as the wolfkin who fought on the frontlines of the Griffonpeak defense, calling her “The Jet-Black Thunder Wolf,” or something like that. Some didn’t believe she was a fenrir, some did but kept it to themselves. Still, most wanted to hire her.

It was good to hear that her reputation was growing, but everybody agreed it was better to just get away from the caravan. Sure, getting protection in a group was nice and all, and it would also get us some money, but the caravan was going south of Estralia's capital to one of its cities. They were looking to make money, after all.

Usually, most travelers or merchants wouldn’t go directly to Estralia’s capital. The journey was long and less profitable, since the only stops on the way were medium-sized towns. These places were good for adventurers, but not for merchants. In a merchant’s journey through Estralia, these places were only visited when you decided to depart to Gleisvale.

As such, to avoid them, we were driving on this road. It was less populated by merchants and more by traveling carriages — the medieval taxi, you could say. Saori had a plan to open up a traveling restaurant for them, but they moved slower than our RV, the power of our garms driving it forward. But, our garms also caused the travelers problems since our giant wolves scared their horses.

In any case, we were now all alone. During the time when Saori and Elrick switched coach positions, I decided to use that chance to get some air. Mother was sleeping and it was a break day for Yorshka. What else was there to do but to practice with Kramps, right? The next concert wasn’t assured yet so idol training could be scheduled for another day.

After I borrowed Klea’Hatma from Ellaine, equipping the rings to listen to the demon’s lecture on the sin of sloth, I also brought Beth and Shay out with me. At this point, everybody was calling them with their shortened names, except for Mother and the twins themselves.

Those two would act as my “coolers.” Since the roof of our RV was large enough to accommodate multiple people, we sat up there while Elrick drove us.

Klea’Hatma restarted her explanation from the beginning, after derailing a bit. [“Well, in any case, back to the topic. As you know, we demons represent the seven sins of all beings. Mostly, these are an emotional concept, as that affects both mortals and immortals. It also means our seductive powers are less useful against those unable to feel any emotions.”]

[“On Earth, there were scriptures about the heavenly virtues being the contrast to the cardinal sins. Is that the same case for you demons?”] I asked.

[“Virtues and sins are two sides of a coin. It’s all about the emotional spectrum of a person and the deposition of their moral compass. However, to answer your question, no, there was no such thing as a demon of purity or temperance, or whatever. We leave that to the mortals.”]

If you thought about it, the opposite of the sin of lust was the virtue of purity or chastity. In a way, Ellaine was a perfect fit as Klea’Hatma’s other side.

[“Now, the ‘foundation’ of Kargryxmor’s training means you must understand the sin of sloth. To us demons, sloth is about being content with everything, but it is also the most annoying of all the sins to control. As slothfulness is about being apathetic with your surroundings. It is about idleness, depression, and indifference!”]

I noticed some annoyance in the demon’s voice. Does she not like sloth?

Curious, I asked her. [“Did something happen with you and the demon of sloth?”]

[“Pah, nothing interesting, really. As the sin of lust and the ultimate hedonist, I abhor the ultimate idler. Being content should never be the end goal. Even I am capable of doing good if I wanted to, but a sloth? Never. They will only do the bare minimum to stay alive, but outside of that, nothing else matters to them. However…”]

Klea’Hatma let out a deep sigh.

[“However, on the flip side, the sloth can also be the most diligent.”]

The demon explained that, while the demon of sloth was lazy and lacked any sense of urgency or goals, the moment you took away their happiness, they could do the most heinous deeds to re-achieve their idle life. During the war, the demon was mostly defensive — their specialty — but the moment somebody tried to attack them, they would eliminate anything threatening their peace.

[“Soooo, who ended up destroying the demon of sloth?”]

<I did.>

Kramps answered and Klea’Hatma confirmed it.

[“Your grandpapa managed to annoy most of my former companions, you see. Even killed two of them — sloth and pride. The rest were handled by the other champions of the Origin Gods. All of them are now subordinate gods”]

[“Who defeated you?”] I wondered.

[“A subordinate god of Plesia. Hmm, what was his name again?”]

<Lecullantis. God of the Aquapolis and Rituals. Founder of the Republic of Caedhul and its capital, Lecullius. SSS rank leviathan and one of my rivals during my time, but since we ruled two different domains, we rarely ever fought. In fact, Lecculantis battled more with the other tyrant of the ancient seas, the current Goddess of the Depths and Sea, Ghenngarrath, Patron Goddess of the merfolk.>

Ah. I had heard about them from Tasianna. Didn’t really remember much, though.

[“Ahhh, was that the leviathan’s name? Mhmm, mhmm. I remembered managing to survive by hiding in that old fortress, only for some humans to release me. Then that wolf came to beat my weakened self up and then God Marsven imprisoned me in that orb you found me in. Sure, I managed to survive, but wow, was I ever mishandled. Well, in any case, let’s get back to the topic at hand.”]

That should have been Belzac, if I remembered the murals inside that dwarven fortress correctly.

Klea’Hatma continued. [“In essence, the sin of sloth is about contentment with your own situation, even ignoring the larger picture just to remain in your own bubble. Stagnancy breeds carelessness, you see. But, it also brings comfort when fate has its way with you. To be slothful, you must first be diligent, you might say.”]

<And this is why sloth is the first of the seven meditation practices. It is the foundation. To us Kargryxmors, our desire to battle is the most prominent amongst all dragons. To become slothful is to suppress the urge to fight, to realize that the world is more than just conflict. In the face of our unbridled rage, it is to remind ourselves that our happiness can be lost if we neglect our own well-being.>

[“Certainly philosophical, Kramps. Despite how it sounded more like your own interpretation of the sin of sloth. But… finding contentment with myself, huh? Let me try.”]

I invoked images of my days with Saori, Tasianna, Ellaine, and Grimnir. Of our travels and how we spent our time once Aurora was formed. How we shared stories and how we just lived our lives on the road. Training in the morning and then a dip into the hot spring in the evening before bed. It was peaceful and amazing.

I didn’t want to lose this time. I wanted to protect it… but then—

Flash!

The conflicts we faced and how we were barely able to handle most of them. Getting out with either a lot of bruises and injuries or a whole area destroyed. Our path was filled with fighting, even if I wanted to live a more calm life. The conflict I had between my dragon and human selves, and how my actions didn’t fit what I envisioned an idol would do.

Every foe out there — Eithalr, the demonkin princes of sin, the church of Aurena, and the looming war over Artorias’s head — it made me uneasy. I couldn’t feel relaxed with everything going on. How could I be content with my own situation when my to-do list was still filled with all these things? How could I just stay still for a moment?

<Hestia, yes, your life is a tumultuous one, but so is everybody else's. Do you presume a small ant’s life is simple? No, they must fight for their survival every day despite being in the comfort of a colony. Stress is a motivator, yes, but it can also be your downfall. You must take a step back; calm yourself. Time does not stand still for anybody, but if you allow time to rule over you, then you are nothing but a pawn. Everything has a time and place. You must learn this.>

[“But, the situation is getting worse. You’ve seen what the demonkin of pride did to Artorias. They drove the kingdom to the brink of destruction, killed so many people, and even slew Assurfel. Griffonpeak’s Griffon King is dead. Who knows what they are planning now? If my name spreads, I will become an even greater target to them.”]

<Your own happiness is in danger. That is a reasonable stimulus for [Battle Frenzy] to be activated. However, haste makes waste, correct? You are only tiring yourself out. Foes will spring out from the ground everywhere. It is the law of the world. Will you stress yourself about this unknown force? Will you continue to be paranoid?>

‘Haste makes waste.’ My dance trainer used to tell me that. Have I really forgotten his advice? … Take another deep breath. Recall my past.

I remembered my urgency to better myself so I would be accepted at an audition. This desire to succeed only led to me swearing an oath to myself to never cry or cause my parents undue worry. Most likely, that was also the reason why my past self became so troubled.

I remembered how I made Saori and Tasianna worry when we were still in the Belzac forest. How I kept things from them to not cause them problems, only to make them think I couldn’t trust them. About how I worried about my [Battle Frenzy] going out of control and possibly harming them. About how I didn’t want to evolve to prevent such a situation.

I even felt fear to perform on stage after all that happened. I was a bag of constant anxiousness. I just couldn’t stand still so I kept training and training, becoming stronger and stronger. Until I felt too scared to become stronger after Shiterno’s idiotic “present.”

I hurt myself.

<Good. Now, let this stress go. The enemies will come tomorrow or the day after. Do not let them guide you with paranoia. You are my descendant. You should be the one to rule over them. The one to direct their inevitable path to destruction. Take every step slowly. You will achieve success, you do not have to worry about it. To relax and calm your mind is also a path to becoming stronger.>

… Take another breath.

“Haaaaaaaaaaaaa…”

Descendant of the Black Tyrant Kargryxmor, you have begun your path towards the inner peace of your blood. The seven paths of transcendence await you onwards on exalted wings. The path of Sloth has been fulfilled. Paths unlocked: 1/7

<Good work, Hestia. You once again proved yourself as a worthy descendant.>

[“… Well, I guess. Damn. If it’s this hard with the first step, then I can’t wait for the others. Will be totally awesome, yay.”]

<Not likely, Hestia. The deeper we go, the harder it will become since you will invoke your more troubled memories.>

That was sarcasm, old man. Whatever.

Kramps could hear my thoughts, so I didn’t think too much about it. Instead, I opened my eyes and let out another sigh, falling onto my back.

[“Princess, how did it go? You did not fall into [Battle Frenzy],”] Beth asked with worry, covering the sun from my eyes with her arm wings.

I asked her to let her arm down so I could get some rays before telling her I did fine. “It would be a bummer if I failed at the first step. Anyways, Beth, Shay, how long have I been meditating?”

[“Not too long. Saori has not called us in for lunch yet,”] Shay answered, but suddenly somebody responded to his words from below the roof.

“Miss Saori did not want to disturb you while you were meditating, Lady Hestia. Looking at the position of the sun, it should be a bell after lunchtime now. Would you like to eat something?”

I moved to the edge and looked down, seeing Elrick manning the coach of the RV. “Well, I am a bit peckish. Thank you for asking, Sir Elrick.”

“Is that so? Then, allow me to fetch you something fitting.”

Elrick suddenly jumped off the coach seat and grabbed onto the sidebars we attached to the RV, using them to enter into it. A few minutes passed and the door opened up, revealing Elrick with a small wooden bento, with Asaka following right behind him. In addition…

“Rajah!”

[“Master!”]

It was Rajah and his family! The young virigress and his two siblings slipped through Elrick’s and Asaka’s legs, nimbly jumping up to the roof and into my embrace. I cuddled the three jaguar-looking cubs and held onto them tightly. With a large jump, their mother also made it up.

Varya the mother, Shere and Ajay the two brothers, and then Rajah, the youngest of the group. After the virigresses were done with their assimilation, we needed to give them a name to call them out easier, as with the wyverns.

As I was the one to give Rajah his name, Saori asked me to give his family ones, too. However, I have a feeling it was more 'cause of Saori’s bad naming sense than anything else. In any case, after I named them, I also had them accept my [Hestia’s Retainer] title to give them an experience boost and access to the SP shop. I did the same thing for the wyverns, since they saw Mother and me as their masters now.

Personally, I did feel a bit awkward since we were kinda enemies once in the Belzac forest, but I guess it was water under the bridge at this point. Since these six were now our allies, I had to make sure they could grow up strong.

“I didn’t expect you to come out like this, Rajah, Shere, Ajay, and Varya. Did you guys want to spend some time with me?” I asked them.

[“Yes, Master!”]

While Rajah responded back with a telepathic message, the other two cubs simply growled as confirmation. The same thing with Varya. As the other three didn’t have [Telepathy] since they didn’t go down the same evolutionary path as Rajah, they had to respond like any other virigress. At the very least, it seemed they could understand Common, similar to Shoyi the slime.

“Well, look at the cat lover.” That came from Asaka. With Elrick’s help, both of them were now sitting at the coach spot. “Here you go, a bento. Thought it would be fitting for the first bento of Peolynca to go to you since you made this box yourself.”

“Awww, thanks!” I graciously accepted it from her. I hadn’t done much carpenting recently, so I decided to practice making a bento box to keep my skills up. Surprisingly, I was still pretty good with my claws.

“But, you know, the first ever probably was made by the Revolution Queen of the dwarves. She was Japanese, too,” I told Asaka but she simply shrugged it off.

“What evidence? Grimnir sure as hell hadn’t heard of it. Shut up already and eat it, Hestia-san. It’ll get cold, and I don't want you to eat my stuff after it gets all cold and disgusting.”

I gave my thanks to Asaka and opened up the box full of goodies, only to have my eyes lit up even more. It was full of cute food. Panda-looking rice balls, octopus sausage, and vegetable bunny faces, all wrapped into a comfortable-looking omelet blanket. It was so sweet looking, I thought I could get cavities!

“… You sure have a gap moe, Asaka-san. I knew you could cook, but I didn’t think you would make a bento like this despite your, you know, rough exterior.”

Asaka scoffed at my remark, responding back with a lecture, “A bento is all about expressing yourself artistically. It’s not just a box full of food, it’s all about the care the chef placed into it. I like expressing myself, and I personally think a dull-looking bento is a waste of effort, really. If you want food, get something instant from the Konbini and be done with it.”

Konbinis were Japanese convenience stores that were open pretty much 24/7 made to suit the life of hard-working Japanese. Filled with a ton of instant stuff, it wasn’t really that bad, honestly. The food was in fact pretty good if you weren’t used to gourmet-level food. I just wasn’t expecting somebody with rich parents like Asaka to know them so well.

“What is that look?” Asaka noticed my confusion. “I told you, I hate my parents. If I had the chance to cause them grief, I would. That’s why I would usually ditch school and go out and do something. You learn about the ‘peasant life,’ as my father called it, if you mingle with them. That’s how I learned how to use graffiti and such. Never would have learned it with my parents around.”

While I did have some problems with how she treated her parents, I held my opinion to myself. Asaka already told me about her past with them, so it really wasn’t my place to complain about her. After all, I wasn’t much of a good daughter myself, apparently. Also, I could sympathize with her a bit about “mingling with the peasants,” since I also felt a bit alienated from normal people due to my upbringing.

I shrugged and returned to my bento. And boy was it good. There was nothing fancy in it like Tamae’s or Saori’s cooking, but Asaka had this simple but good taste to it. As I began complimenting it and sharing it with the virgiress and twins, Asaka replied with “Cool” before turning around, bashful.

Am I ever glad I made the bento box larger than it should be!

Note, the bento is about as large as a dinner since making something larger was easier than something small for my first project in forever. A normal bento box was the size of a school lunchbox. Everything is larger with a dragon around, you could say!

Once I was done with the bento, I thanked Asaka once again and placed the box into my storage. Now free, I used this time to play with Rajah and his siblings, acting like a scratch post since I was impervious to their claws due to all my Vitality.

Varya, who was the size of an actual tiger, used this chance to go up to Sarasa and Quatre, who were driving the RV forward. It was training. Saori explained that Varya felt competitive towards the garms since she and her cubs counted as the new members of the pack. In a fenrir pack, the oldest and strongest always had seniority, which means even Shoyi, the E rank slime managing our toilets, had a higher standing than all four of them.

The only way to rise above was to become stronger. Virigresses were loners, but even Varya could understand her low standing. Not like it mattered to Saori, but it mattered to the garms and Varya.

Personally, I was rooting for Varya. I wanted her to become stronger than the garms just to show them that they could accept me as their “master” to receive [Hestia’s Retainer] while remaining under Saori’s commands. They still wouldn’t do it, which was a bit annoying. I wanted them to get stronger for Saori’s sake.

While I was playing around, I noticed after a while that the coach spot was pretty quiet. Looking down, Asaka and Elrick were just sitting there in silence. Nobody was talking. Thinking it weird, I tried breaking the ice.

“Hey, you two—”

But, a few people came to annoy us.

“Finally making their move, huh? Took them long enough to decide.”

““Huh?”” Elrick and Asaka were confused by my statement, but the garms, twins, and Varya instantly reacted to my words.

The RV stopped, only for an arrow to fly onto our path ten seconds later. It seemed we spooked them by standing still suddenly.

And here the masses come.

Ten? Twenty? Thirty? Yeah, about that amount and a bit more men appeared before us. All wearing shoddy gear and clothes which looked like they got from some trash yard or something. There was an almost equal split among humans and beastmen among them, but all of them were male. No woman in sight.

If this were a normal carriage, I was sure people would start freaking out at the large number of people appearing from nowhere, but I was more confused why they took this long to show themselves. I’d noticed them ever since Klea’Hatma and Kramps began arguing!

[“Boy, those people do not look too good, dearie. You would think they would turn around, but they actually went and tried attacking the group led by two giant dogs. Wow, wonder how many will piss their pants,”] Klea’Hatma commented.

“S-Stop the carriage!” One of them cried out. His legs were shaking like maracas, just like everybody else surrounding us.

This is pitiful.

“We already stopped a long time ago. How about you state your business with us?” I commanded them, looking more bored than interested.

On the other hand, the garms were growling, showing their giant fangs off. A single crunch and those fangs could dig right through a person’s skull and turn it into mush. In fact, our woofers were large enough to bite off your torso. They were the perfect deterrents for any small-scale threats, but some people can be a bit too foolhardy, huh?

The virigresses and the twins weren’t slacking either. Varya jumped back on the roof of the RV and began roaring with all her might, all while her cubs imitated her with their more-or-less cute meows.

Then there were the twin snow wyverns, who assumed a battle stance in their dragonewt form to protect me. Shay protected my back with his body covered in ice, while Beth held her wings in front of me, mimicking a shield.

“H-Hand over your goods!”

“Yeah! Hand over your goods! This is a r-robbery!”

Fucking hell, this is sooooo pitiful…

One thing stood out when I looked at all these bandits, all of them had bright blue shining tattoos on their faces. This was a slave mark.

They were all slaves.

“Haaaaa…” I stood up and unleashed my [Draconic Aura], causing some of my scales to suddenly molt and float around me. In the next second, all these scales burst into fire, releasing some of the scale-dust inside them.

This was already enough to scare and break the morale of a good chunk of the robbers. Klea’Hatma already counted four who lost control of their bowels.

“Some people really have the nerve…”

A note from AbyssRaven

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters for the whole month! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 270: Not so welcoming “Welcome to Estralia.”

A note from AbyssRaven

'Parallel mind #3 her to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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“This carriage is escorting both a Champion and Saint Candidate of Goddess Aurena! You are interfering with church business! You will hand down your weapons now and answer for your threats, or you will face the Goddess of Death on this day, vagabonds!”

After unleashing my [Draconic Aura] on every bandit before us, Elrick drew his sword and jumped off from the coachman's spot. Putting himself in front of Asaka, he was going through the whole holy knight stuff with the robbers. Intimidating them by announcing our status and then telling them to surrender before it escalated.

I mean, sure, he was doing it by the book, but didn’t I already make a number of them wet themselves? Their spirits were broken before I needed to even lift my finger. I found it a bit redundant, but I had no reason to stop him. It meant I had to speak less!

“W-We— Hey, stand the fuck up! You want to get offed here!?” one of them shouted through his wailings, picking up his spear with a cracked iron head.

“Y-Yeah, stand up already! Stand—!” another cried out in despair, only for his voice to be drowned out by multiple painful shrieks, coming from those who sullied their tattered pants.

“Giiiiiiiieraaaaaaaaak!”

“Noo— Iiiiierrrrrrckkkkkkk!”

Wait, what?

They cried and shouted as they forced their bodies up with tortured movements. They looked like they were in pure agony. “What is going on?” I wondered, but I then remembered I saw their slave tattoos light up just seconds before it happened. Like a warning, followed by this terrible punishment.

“The master is nearby!” Elrick shouted out loud. “Slaves! Tell us where your master is and your punishment will be lighter!”

Hey, come on, if they are slaves, you should give them even more leeway. It’s not like that can do anything with that damn slave tattoo on them.

I knew Elrick was from one of the Folschreck Empire’s vassal kingdoms, so his mindset on slaves and so on was completely different from my own, but I still couldn’t help but find what he said unfair. Were slaves guilty if they were forced into doing a crime?

Just from that one stunt with Gael to rescue the orphan kids from Hamil, I learned that slave marks were binding and forced the slave to do whatever their masters wanted. They couldn’t object nor could they harm them. Sure, the runic tattoos could give them benefits like more Strength or whatever, but if you were to forcibly break them, you could cripple a person’s mana paths for good. Deadly for mages.

“Shit! Fuck! GeeAARRRRRRGH!”

And without much warning, the mass of slave bandits rushed at us with tear- and snot-covered faces, pointing their weapons forward in hopeful desperation. They had no choice. They were following orders despite their fears and reluctance. They knew if they continued, they would die. I could see the terror in these men’s eyes so clearly.

I could wipe them out right this instant.

[“Don’t kill them.”]

As such, I could also attempt to save them.

[““By our tails, Princess!””]

[“We do! Master!”]

[““Yes, Alpha’s Master!””]

“Got it, Hestia.”

“W-Wait, Lady Hestia?!”

With this single order, everybody aside from Elrick moved to immobilize the slaves. Beth and Shay unleashed a frost breath that froze the very ground, causing most of the front runners to slip or slow down considerably from the freezing cold. The virigresses followed up by shooting out [Dark Tendrils] to pull them all towards the garms, allowing the latter to bind them up in mana treads.

The bandits in the back, those who avoided the frozen battleground, didn’t dare come any closer. Instead, they took out slings and began throwing stones and any other hard objects they could find on the ground. Pretty primitive weapon, but getting a stone slung at you at a considerable speed was no joke, especially if it landed on your head while you weren't wearing a helmet.

“Come out and do something for your rent!”

As the projectiles flew at us, Asaka pulled out her second catalyst and four will-o'-wisps shot out from it before constructing a large black translucent dome around us, perfectly blocking all of the stones. It reminded me a bit of my [Sanctuary] spell, which I hadn’t used in a while.

However, unlike my spell, Asaka’s shield could be turned off at any time. The moment the shield turned off, the twins shot out their scales and blasts of snow at our assailants, binding them onto trees once the snow froze.

And just like that, the skirmish was over and our aggressors were unable to continue fighting. The garms and virigress went on to capture the rest while the twins bowed and asked if they did a good job. I praised them for a job well done.

“L-Lady Hestia, it isn’t over yet!” Elrick announced, so I turned my head around and tilted it. “The master! Slavery is part of the Divine System and allows the slave master and any co-master to issue commands to them. However, these can only come into effect if the master is close by! We need to arrest them as well!”

Guess I should have expected somebody like Elrick to know this much about slavery. But, being part of the Divine System? Wow. I don’t know of any slavery god, so this system was probably made by the Divine System itself. It’s adaptable enough to do so.

“Don’t worry about it,” I waved Elrick’s concern off, causing him to look at me baffled. “I already know where they are.”

Elrick’s [Detection Sensor], or his hearing really, wasn’t good enough to detect a few onlookers from afar. I might not be as good as Saori, but detecting some unskilled rats was still perfectly within my limits.

I snapped my head to the side and cast [Terra Wall] deep into the woods. A giant wall of solid stone appeared behind a boulder, followed by the panicked screams of two men. Even if I didn’t have [Detection Sensor], I could fully trust in my hearing.

Now, if I had Tasianna’s mastery of [Aerokinesis], I could probably create a vacuum and suck them towards us, but I didn’t. Dragons couldn’t control their scales outside the range of their [Draconic Aura], so using that to pull the slave owners over was out of the window too; not like I was good enough to do that just yet anyways. However, what I did have were my flames.

Unheilige Engel.

Wings of purple obsidian flew towards the flustered bandit leaders, grabbing them around their shoulders. As they tried to free themselves, the wings turned into their slime form, wrapping them into a cocoon. Levitating them over us, I couldn’t stop myself from glaring daggers at the real perpetrators.

“One warning, if you bite into that slime or consume any of it, you won’t get a quick death. It will be painful. If you try to kill yourself with some poison inside your teeth, I can and will heal it up to drag you back from the fangs of death.”

After the Job [Incandescent Blaze] was maxed out, I bought the mutation skill [Flames of Purification], which then merged into my [White Flames]. It allowed me to purify most toxins, which included my own [Corrosive Fire], so dying to escape interrogation wouldn’t work on me ever again.

“So, why did you send all your slaves to attack us, huh? Simple banditry? No, that would be stupid. You can see our garms clearly and there are two priestesses with white robes riding the wagon. There is also a holy knight with us. Even the most idiotic bandit wouldn’t be crazy enough to try to rob something like that,” I questioned the two men. As I was about to release their mouths from the slime binding them, Elrick quickly interjected.

“Lady Hestia, please be careful! All the commands given can be either through speech or on a panel through their party bracelet. Even if the slaves are asleep, the slave master can still order them around.”

“Huh? Seriously?! That is deranged as hell. At least allow them to sleep!” I protested on how badly slaves were being treated but quickly returned to the subject at hand.

From Elrick’s explanation, the slavers could cause the slaves to experience that excruciating pain from before again. Even if they couldn’t break through Saori’s mana threads if they woke up, I found it inhumane to make them feel such agony in their current state.

Of course, one option was to ignore them and just interrogate the slavers. Easy peasy. But, that would kinda go against what I stood for. Eshe would just shake her head if I were to do that.

The woman who saved a bunch of kids from slavers and was punished by her own church because of the consequences it brought upon the village who wanted to sell them off. The woman who wanted to save not only the orphans but also all the slaves Hamil had at his auction. And in both cases, she did not regret it one bit.

I’ll get my answers one way or another, but what’s important was the method I got them with.

“Asaka-san. Sir Elrick. Please, get the others to take care of the slaves. I’ll have some professionals speak with these two.”

If the problem was that they had to be around them to issue the commands, then I had the perfect way to get around this. [Room], of course. The subspace might be linked to Peolynca’s reality, but stuff like party bracelets or outside mana links wouldn’t connect from the outside to the inside.

The slave commands were distance-based, so it had to be done through mana. The connection between the owner’s mana with the slave tattoo. Not a hard deduction, but so easy to break apart.

“The RV?” Asaka questioned when I opened the door, before realizing what I was planning. “Oh! Yeah, that is a good idea. Perfect place to have some alone time with those idiots. Muraina will probably make them squeal.”

““???!!!””

The prisoners relaxed after Elrick explained to me how slave tattoos worked, probably since my reaction to it was typical “goodie-two-shoes.” They only panicked when both Asaka and I were entirely okay with the torture part. Two white-robed priestesses giving their okays? Well, your hostages were worthless now.

Even if I hadn’t intended to bluff my way through.

“Mhmmk! Mghk! Uguuuuuuuuuuuuh!” However, as I was about to bring them into the RV, one of them suddenly began making a lot of noises, struggling even wilder than normal.

Did he bite his tongue?

I didn’t stuff their mouths with the slime so they didn’t accidentally swallow it, leaving it possible to bite your tongue in this situation. I honestly was a bit sick of spies and bandits biting their tongues off so I threw a ball of white flames right in the man’s face and controlled it to patch up his wound.

His eyes widened in horror once the flames dissipated, probably realizing that I wouldn’t let him die so easily. The other made the same futile attempt. I was beginning to get sick of these two men at this point. After healing him up with my white flames, I let out an annoyed sigh, to which Asaka told me to “ganbare!” “Hang in there,” in English.

Are you seriously throwing all the responsibilities on me here?!

I shook my head in exasperation but continued anyway. But, once again, things couldn’t be that easy.

“Mggrk! Grak!”

“UUuuurgh?! Noooo-argkkkk!”

Spontaneous screams of anguish.

“Giiiieearrrrrrrierk! GRAAAA!”

“Uhhh! Guufueck! Kruuuuuh!”

Turned in the next seconds into blood-curdling howls.

[“Master!”] Rajah’s voice rang in my mind as I turned around, only to see all the 34 slaves we captured spasming simultaneously. I instinctively shot out my white flames at them, believing they had some sort of wound, only to continue hearing their tormented cries.

““Mhmmmkg!?””

And they weren’t the only ones. Even the two slave masters started making weird movements. Their eyes blew up like those of a fish and their skin began to redden and oozed out blackened pus and blood.

“Shit!” I cursed as I undid the slime cocoon, realizing once they were free that something was protruding from their chests. Something round.

““Grrrraaaaaaargkjkkkkk!””

[““Princess!””]

But what made me stare at the men instead of reacting to their sudden lunge was the fact black slime burst out from their chest, where I saw the shattered pieces of a catalyst. There, on their now exposed chest, I saw a bright blue glowing runic tattoo.

A slave mark.

““Grrraaaa— Griiarck!””

With their winged arms covered in sharp ice, Beth and Shay defended me by helping the two men perform mitosis from their stomachs. Disemboweled and now lying in two pieces on the ground, I noticed the black slime moving towards their wound. It reminded me of the onnikai and the chimeric monsters Davison and Hamil used.

[“Princess, are you okay?!”] Shay asked me, so I reassured him everything was alright, only for Asaka to call out to me to turn around.

“Grruruaaaack!”

I let the white flames vanish, however, something inside me told me I shouldn’t have. After all, what I saw there were 34… men tied up in mana threads squirming and screeching out like monsters.

They had red skin, along with black pus and blood seeping from their skins causing their faces to look like that of a demon. Their chests bloated up and I could see black slime moving around. On a scale of ten of how morbid this all looked, I would rate this 100.

… Mana Eyes!

I felt a small headache as the world around me was dyed in blue. I darted my head around, inspecting the surrounding forest for any signs of mana. After I couldn’t, I activated the skill’s ability to see mana trails, where I saw all of them combining into a singular line.

Without telling anybody what was up, I flapped my wings and shot in pursuit of whoever was at the end of this line. I captured the wrong people. Those two men weren’t slavers, they were slaves themselves! The real master tricked me!

Verdammt!

But even after following this mana trail to its end, all I found was nothing but a small puddle of blood with flesh and bones in it. I deactivated [Mana Eyes] and focused on finding any clues, only to find pieces of a brain and some crushed eyes and teeth.

Seriously? This is how we start the trip? Fucking hell…

This was the end of the trail. Was this the remains of the master? Then, who killed them? I searched around me but I couldn’t find anything even with my skills activated. Whoever killed him disappeared just like that. Even the remains didn’t leave anything important behind outside of a sword.

With no other choice, I clicked my tongue and picked the sword up. Maybe there would be a way to sniff out the owner of this weapon? I dunno. It was better than to go back empty-handed.

Once I made it back, I heard a girl screaming out. When I came closer, I noticed Elrick's sword completely soaked in dark red blood from killing a few of the slaves. Some of the liquid seemed to have squirted onto his face, but he seemed almost unperturbed by it.

On the other hand, Asaka was standing before him, protecting the remaining slaves with her four garm spirits, all while shouting out insults and other curse words at him. “You fucking murderer!” and “They could have been saved!” she kept saying, but Elrick didn’t react. He just continued staring at the remaining slaves.

“Hestia-san!” Once she noticed me, Asaka shouted at me. “I’m sorry! I tried to stop Elrick from killing them but I was too late! Please, stop him!”

Sarasa and Quatre stood behind Asaka, acting as bodyguards for her. I guess, even if Saori didn’t like Asaka, she still wanted to keep her safe. The garms would have never protected Asaka if Saori hadn’t given them an order to do so.

“Sir Elrick. Stand down. Now!” I ordered him.

“Champion Hestia, these are foul abominations and a stain to the God—”

“I will not repeat myself!”

Beth, Shay, and the virigresses began to move. They glared at Elrick to do as I ordered him to.

“… I was rude.” He bowed and moved out from the river of blood he created, wiping the red liquid from his sword with a napkin before putting it back into his pockets. I thought it would just dirty his clothes, but I wasn’t in the mood to question him on that right now.

I walked up to him and activated [Draconic Aura] and [Royal Presence]. “I would like to remind you that you are currently in my company. You are a guest in Aurora. I don’t know how you ‘Knights of Aurena’ conduct yourselves, but while you are here with us, don’t try to throw around your religious beliefs.”

“Lady Hestia, as a fellow follower of Aurena, I must ask that you see my point of view. These men were suffering and transformed into something abominable. They were unholy. All I did was end their misery so they don’t further stain their soul. As a Champion, you should have done the same instead of running off.”

[““Human!””] Beth and Shay wanted to attack him for disrespecting me, but I stopped them.

“I know what I have to do as a Champion, thank you very much. Don’t try to enforce what you believe I should do onto me, Sir Elrick. My first goal is to help out those in need and then enforce justice on those deserving of it.” I then turned over to Asaka trying to help out the slaves, only to frown as she noticed all of them had already died. “I’ll give you this, my priorities were in the wrong order this time due to my outburst. Instead of trying to find the real slave master because of my pride, I should have helped these men out.”

“… I apologize, Lady Hestia. I spoke out inappropriately.”

I knew from the state of how they looked that my healing magic wouldn’t have helped. If their chest had burst out just like the two men I captured with [Unheilige Engel], then healing wouldn’t have helped. It accelerated healing, it didn’t regrow lost organs or limbs. For that, I needed 10000 followers first.

I told Elrick that ‘cause I knew my pride had affected me a bit. Considering I just learned how to meditate into the first stage of Kramps’ training, I should do my best to remember to use it more often.

I called out Saori, Tasianna, Ellaine, and Grimnir and told them everything that happened outside, and that I needed their help burying the dead slaves. The students also came out, curious what happened and told me I shouldn’t be shy about calling them out either.

Maybe I had been trying to protect them from the gruesome sight, so I quickly reprimanded myself. Yes, I should rely more on Aurora as my crutch. I knew that. However, the same could be said about the students. They were now my allies so I shouldn’t hide them away from the more hideous parts of Peolynca. It was hard to let go of old habits, so I should remember to better myself, always. Never stagnate. Never become a sloth.

“I only found this sword at the end of the mana trail.”

After we were done, I handed Saori the sword I found.

“I see… I don’t know if it will help but I’ll hand it over to Muraina or Gael. Maybe they can get some answers. Oh yeah, I also found these broken emblems on the two men you thought were slavers.”

The emblems were round and made out of copper with a weird snake surrounding a potion vial. It looked a bit like the symbol for medicine on Earth, just a bit more sketchy.

“… The supposed master probably caused all of this. Very similar to what Davison did and the monsters released in Griffonpeak. I still have no idea what they were trying to do with attacking us. They have to know about us, right?”

Saori shrugged.

“Maybe they are trying to frame the organization behind this emblem?” Ellaine interjected. “If they incur our anger, whatever mastermind behind this attack will benefit if we did their dirty work. It sounds like what a criminal would do. Although, I have absolutely no idea why they would stuff a human body with a catalyst. How did they even do this?”

“Humans…” Tasianna murmured as she walked up. “These are the same experiments Davison performed on the onnikais like Kiiro. Now, these alchemists are performing them on their kin. This is disgusting. Purely nauseating. Is this really what alchemy is supposed to be?”

Tasianna clenched her hands into fists. A fire was flaring up in this ice mage’s eyes.

Estralia will in for a wild ride, huh?

After four more days, we reached the capital of Estralia — Gleisvale.

“Kroza, did you really have to kill that thing?”

In the depths of a forest, two female elves were sitting on chairs made from solidified shadows, watching as a muscular gray-skinned elf walked up to them while carrying a giant warhammer in one hand and the decapitated head of a man in the other.

The tall, well-built woman replied, “Self-defense. The fool tried to attack me. His death will affect nobody.”

“Oh, is that what you believe?” A beautiful elf with perfect skin spoke in a haughty manner fitting for the noble apparel she wore. “You are not who decides if our action had any effect on our world or not, dear sister. I have no wish to get myself in trouble again. After all, I do wish to return here whenever I can.”

“Enough, Vivi,” the woman sitting next to the rose-skinned elf interjected herself, speaking in a slow and unenergetic manner. “Arguing now is such a bore. Come, Kroza, come nearer. At the very least, we could learn what is actually going on.”

The muscular elf nodded and obeyed diligently, laying the corpse of the decapitated man on the ground. The woman who gave that order reached her pale-like-a-ghost hand out and the soul of the man was extracted from his body, now floating in her hand.

Pulling down the hood of her black robes, the face of a sickly elf was revealed. Still, despite her pale constitution, her cheeks were filled and her body showed no signs of malnutrition or weakness. This was simply how she looked.

“I see…” she mumbled with the soul in her hand. “Oh, so you wanted to sneak those humans and beastmen into their carriage? Hmm? For your faction and leader? I see. I see. So those are your wishes? Your dreams? I am sorry that you weren’t able to fulfill them. I apologize. Life is hard but you endured well enough. Allow me to grant you a peaceful rest, do you want it? Yes? I understand…”

She raised her other hand and touched the soul with one finger, causing mana to flow through it. In this single second, the process was over.

“May you be reincarnated into a better life,” she wished the soul well before sending it off. “They are close by. Should we follow them in the shadows for now?”

“Hmph, we came here because of your wish, elder sister. Of course, we would do well to continue as such. I, too, am very curious about the person Step-sister found so appealing. The person you and Mother chose is also very interesting. However, I do wonder why one of my bloodlings is around this area? Well, regardless. How about you, Kroza?”

The tallest of the three women nodded. Compared to her two sisters, this elf was dressed like a warrior. Metal and leather covered her body with the parts of fallen foes, hiding the proud scars she had underneath them.

It contrasted well with the revealing red dress the rose-skinned elf had. Noble, but at the same time, seductive. Compared to her two sisters, this elf was not dressed for travel. However, in her mind, appearances came before practicality, unlike the muscular sister.

“I see.” Both fair-skinned elves stood up from their chairs, leaving them behind to melt back into the shadows. “Then, shall we go?”

These three were dark elves. The very first of their kind.

A note from AbyssRaven

Well, welcome to Estralia, gentlemen! I will not lie, we have merchants, dwarves, a train, and three gods walking around in the shadows!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters for the whole month! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me!

If you guys enjoyed this chapter then, please follow the story. If you guys want the story to grow, then giving it a rating or a favorite will do wonders: Rawr

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 271: Gleisvale, the Dwarven-Made Human Republic.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #4 her to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until April!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

“Welcome to Gleisvale, lasses and lads. By Crustacia’s twin-tails, I haven’t been to this city since my cousin Broggi and I decided to break some taboos and make our blasthammer. Mhmm.”

There was one thing I immediately noticed the moment we entered Gleisvale, and that was the architecture. The towns we visited on the way here all had similar, medieval-type buildings reminiscent of what you would see in Artorias. Gleisvale, however, had something Grimnir called a dwarven-human fusion style.

“Cities or towns who often trade or interact with us tazongs usually develop a tazong-akong hybrid style to their buildings and city layout. Not that it’s a surprise, since tazongn architects and stonemasons are the best, gahahaha!” Grimnir laughed out loud as he manned the coachman spot, explaining everything to us while we looked outside the RV from Tasianna's garden on the second floor. “We tazongs use metal and stone for nearly everything. Wood or anything easily flammable is forbidden to use as building materials not only because of our lifestyle but also because of the fact we Taz dwarves sometimes spew out flames when we get drunk.”

“That hasn’t happened to you yet,” Saori noted. “And we go out drinking often enough that I know your drunken habits. So, do you have it so well under control that you made your carriage out of wood?”

“Ha, of course, bladdarg! But accidents happen when you’re young, and if a group of apprentices goes wild for a night, any taverns and houses made with wood might catch on fire. That said, a wooden carriage is faster and easier to move, and I don’t see any other Taz outside of me in Artorias. Besides, do you honestly believe some equerochsen could drive a metal or stone carriage forward?”

After entering the city, Grimnir began giving us a general idea of how the city was structured. Similar to the cities in Artorias, there was a slum, a middle, a merchant, and an affluent district, all with the same functions as their counterparts in Cedaraille and Griffonpeak.

However, the main difference between those cities and Gleisvale was the fact that there was a dedicated artisan district where a ton of dwarves lived and worked whenever they came to the city, as well as an underground train area. The last invention the Revolution Queen brought from Earth to Peolynca; there was a station right beneath the mountain.

That’s right, a mountain. Gleisvale was built by the dwarves under the Ankoran mountain ranges and inside a valley called Centipedeclaws, named such due to the numerous hills along the valley path which looked like the legs of a centipede. Monsters roamed the area around these hills, and they were arranged in such a manner that I could understand why it would be hard to siege Gleisvale — there was only one easy path into the valley, a chokepoint.

Before we entered the valley, we went through a small town built to help merchants pass through the valley without any problems. Numerous caravans were waiting there for the next guide. The reason for this was 'cause of the uneasy road as well as the possibility of going off the beaten path and getting lost. Useful, but the issue was you had to pay for a safe trip through Centipedeclaws, and then you had to pay an entry fee into the city.

Fucking capitalism, dude!

Still, after coming out of that rather uncontrolled valley filled with trees and other annoying road bumps, Gleisvale sure looked like the light at the end of the tunnel. Civilization amid a wild forest.

And it sure utilized the dwarves inside the city well enough. The walls surrounding the city and the entrance to the underground train were created entirely by dwarven hands instead of magic spells. However, Grimnir told us these dwarves only worked if the project was suitable for their talents, so normal houses or the mansions of the rich were made by earth mages.

Still, the architects and builders took inspiration from their dwarven artisans or were apprentices under them, and they used this knowledge in their own contracts. For example, the houses in the middle district looked very Renaissance Venice according to Saori. So, a bunch of brick houses, but I guess she also meant the canal running through the city similar to Venice.

“There are three main points of interest in this city. The first is Gleisvale’s river port, made by us tazongs so the humans here could properly use the river Gleislain. We were also the ones to construct this whole waterway flowing from the mountain through Gleisvale into the valley,” Grimnir said while we drove on a bridge, built above the waterway in question.

“This place sure is a different sight from Aureolis and Artorias. More progressive, I guess?” Tatsuya commented, to which Kyouya agreed.

“While not as modern looking as this city, I heard that the Groushia duchy’s capital similarly contracted dwarves to improve their architecture, correct, Grimnir-san?”

“Mhmm, correct, lad,” Grimnir nodded while keeping his eyes on the busy street, trying his best to have the garms avoid accidentally hitting something due to their size. “The kings of the hold and the Ankoran King are politically unable to directly work with any human country since our friendship with the yfleis is too strong. While we can forgive grudges, the Ankoran crown does not forget slights and insults to our allies… but that doesn’t affect the individual tazics and inkos. We are too stubborn to accept such a law, you see.”

Yflei, dwarven for elf, have a pretty tight bond with the dwarves, so I guess that was to be expected. From the sounds of it, I guess the Ankoran King did have a reason to create an alliance with Artorias, just to satisfy those still interested in working with humans. If this alliance went through without a hitch, it could benefit every human country.

Grimnir continued pointing out the notable landmarks of the city. “Second, we have the seat of the capital and the building hosting Estralia’s senate and its president, the Mercurial Hold. There, we will also find the local merchant guild since in Estralia they hold immense influence, even more than the mage’s and adventurer guilds. The name comes from a combination of the Merchant God, Mercurias, and the fact it was a dwarven fortress before the guild took it over.”

Drawing our attention to the huge structure etched into the mountain at the far end of the city, it reminded me a bit of the royal citadel of Griffonpeak. Of course, unlike King Drangleic’s home, there weren’t any griffons or hippogryphs to help them fly up to that hold. Instead, the place had a proper bridge to it, and there was also a path within the mountain to get up there.

While the headquarters of the local merchant guild was in the fortress, there was a branch within the city for everyday usage. Since Estralia was ruled through wealth, guilds and organizations able to bring in a large amount of wealth were the most important for the city. Money is absolute power here.

“And then, lastly, we have the most important location in this city. The train station, the last creation Goddess Chihiro gave us before she departed her mortal life. Gleisvale has a station here, and, if we make it in time, we could use the train to reach as far as the Beastman Alliance’s territory. In addition, a tazongn blacksmith and trainfaring guilds are located there.”

“Oh, seriously?!” I exclaimed. “I want to see it! Hey, Grimnir, mind showing us around there if you already know the place?”

“…” However, unlike how talkative he was while praising anything the dwarves made, Grimnir became silent the moment I proposed going to “the most important location in this city.” It took a bit of awkward silence before he responded. “… After we’re done with the mandatory stuff, alright, lass?”

Hmm?

In any case, I knew something was bothering him, but I decided to not speak about it for now. Grimnir was a stubborn and grumbling man. If he didn’t want to do something, he wouldn’t. As such, he never attended any aristocratic meeting or met King Drangleic. I guess, since he was my retainer, he was using his status to ignore a royal summons, and I never wanted to force him.

Regardless, he was right that we had some mandatory stuff to do before we could frolic around the city. For example, the “Heroes of Aurena” and I, one of her champions, had to announce our presence at the local temple. It was our duty, after all. Then, there was the need to acquire suitable accommodation. We would mostly stay inside the RV, but we needed a place to park it legally. In a place where thievery was low, hopefully.

And that was exactly what we did.

Unlike Griffonpeak and Cedaraille, the local temple of Aurena wasn’t exactly placed close to the affluent district; in fact, it was located at the border of the merchant and artisan district, next to a general temple of the Origin Gods and one fully dedicated to a subordinate god, Mercurias.

<[Blessing of the Goddess of Light (Major)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]>

“Thank you, thank you, Champion Hestia and Saint Candidate Asaka! We humble priests weren’t worth such a powerful blessing. Please, allow us to welcome you two and the heroes into Estralia.”

Outside of Tasianna and Elrick, I was attending this mandatory introduction with only the members of The Misfits. Tamae and her party were back in Griffonpeak, and they didn’t want to come if they could avoid it. To them, these meetings were usually very tiresome.

“Just a question, you like to show-off, huh?” Asaka asked me in a whisper as we followed the clergymen. “I mean, I usually only do it up to Minor, since I don’t exactly have the mana to give a stronger buff. You, on the other hand, have like an infinite supply, in my opinion. These priests are easily impressed if you can do the blessing thing on your own, so you don’t have to do anything better than minor.”

I shrugged my shoulders before using [Telepathy] to reply. [“As you would expect from an idol, I do like being in people’s minds. Also, I learned that showing off your ability is the most reliable way to prove to the local temple that you can be trusted and are the real deal. Our strategy to prevent Aureolis from excommunicating Artorias and plunge them into a war before the alliance is sealed is for me to prove my worth. I have to act like a real champion.”]

Eshe taught me it was important for the morale of the followers that champions were strong enough to fulfill their duty. Saints weren’t expected to be powerhouses, so what Asaka mentioned only applied to her, since she was only a candidate. I had to show off.

While walking through the church, I noticed a certain lack of, well, grandeur around it. Sure, it was just after lunchtime so I didn’t expect a lot of followers to be here, but the number of clergymen was also quite low. In fact, the temple was significantly smaller than any I’d visited before.

It could be compared to the orphanage of Griffonpeak, before it was destroyed during the invasion. A medium-sized elongated room for prayers and sermons, with hallways around it leading into the other rooms. There was a shrine room dedicated only to Aurena here, since the temple next to it handled the rest of the Origin Gods. The rest of the rooms were reserved for the clergy, like the kitchen, dining room, sleeping area, and also the bishop’s study. But, that was about it.

Nevermind the cathedral in Griffonpeak, even the temple in Firwood, a smaller town, was larger than this place. There was a library there, an altar room for rituals or training of the priests, and a greeting room for nobles. In addition, I hadn’t seen a single gray-robed priest around.

“Excuse me, we just arrived today from Artorias, but I noticed there aren’t any gray-robed priests around here. Do you not employ them?” I asked the bishop managing this temple.

He shook his head and explained with a wry smile. “Ah, no, we don’t, Champion Hestia. The gray and white priest relationship is mostly a thing maintained by nobles. In Estralia, the temples here do not rely on gray-robed priests to manage the holy buildings. Instead, we must do it ourselves, but we do have volunteers come and go to aid us.”

“Volunteers?” Asaka wondered.

“Yes, mostly adventurers or fledgling healers who wish to learn the magic of the Goddess. We do still follow the laws of Aureolis where we have to induct the members, so these volunteers usually have to stay with us for a whole year before we teach them our spells. They help us a lot, but they also leave us if they aren’t interested in the life of a clergyman.”

Without the caste system, Estralia had a different culture overall, even affecting the local church. Well, I wasn’t a big fan of the white-robed and gray-robed relationship since it reminded me too much of a master and servant system. I knew it wasn’t officially the case, but I always felt the latter were treated more like slaves, really.

At the welcoming “party,” the clergy thanked us for visiting them and also gave us the usual speech about “the Goddess has blessed us with your presence!” and “if you require our aid, please, do not hesitate to ask.” The students usually received a tithe from the local temple as a sign of support, but I decided to forgo that.

Yes, it was rude not to accept it, as it isn’t seen as a sign of generosity, but a showing of superiority. You know, “your money and goods aren’t worth my time,” kinda thing. A temple being able to support and help a champion or saint on their journey means the temple was doing alright. I remembered getting some money and stuff from the cathedral in Griffonpeak, but I just handed it all over to Eshe, who invested this money into the orphanage.

I was kinda doing the same thing here, but instead of just refusing it, I was also here for charity. Instead of them giving me something, I gave them some gifts. Mostly, the pelts, hide, and meat from the monsters the virigresses and garms hunted on our way through the valley. They were all still fresh so they couldn’t be used up by the clergy before they began to rot, so we offered to cure it for them.

“Oooooh?! Champion Hestia, w-what is this?!” The bishop’s eyes brightened at the sight of all the pelts from the D and E rank monsters we hunted on the way.

“A donation. We will be intruding for some time as we stay in Gleisvale, and Saint Candidate Asaka and I intend to provide some white graces to the people around here. We know this is your duty, but since we are still young blessed, we also want to prove to the Goddess that she has chosen the correct candidates. As such, this is our contribution to the church. Please, accept it and our blessing to brighten the future of this temple.”

“Oo-oh, Champion Hestia! Saint Candidate Asaka!!!” The bishop and the priests kneeled and prostrated themselves before us, showering us with words of gratitude. “We are not worthy of your help! We apologize for worrying you! As the bishop of this temple, I ask for your forgiveness for not being able to provide you with more! Thank you, thank you for your generosity!”

Huh, guess Yorshka was right.

Yorshka explained to me that Estralia wasn’t extremely pious towards Aurena due to the mercantile nature of this republic. Still, they bordered Aureolis and had a population of mostly humans, so a temple dedicated to Aurena was still important and had to be maintained.

I just thought she meant it wouldn’t be as impressive as the cathedral in Griffonpeak. Since Gleisvale was also a capital, I thought at minimum, it would still be impressive to look at. Boy, was I wrong. And boy did I improvise well enough to figure out that giving them some gifts would help me out more.

And with such a small gift that came from our garms and virigresses hunting to level up, we just earned ourselves an easy ally in this city already. Hopefully, they will be useful for later.

“Is the small stature of the temple due to the worship of Mercurias in the city?” Haruka asked after everything settled down and we had a chance to speak with the bishop.

The bishop nodded, looking slightly exasperated to admit it. “Mercurias is the God of Mercantilism and Commercialism. Although a foxian, Mercurias represents everything a merchant must strive to become. To Estralia, where wealth is might and status, Mercurias has the most followers in this city, followed by his Origin God, Goddess Zephira. Goddess Plesia is the third largest faith in this city due to the port, while the Goddess remains at a measly fourth place. Sadly, fourth place means little here, so our finances have suffered.”

Healing magic was still the most important function of the white-robed priests, but that was about it for this country. Most festivals and events were centered around Mercurias and Zephira’s subordinate gods, so there wasn’t enough opportunity for the church to acquire donations. Without donations, a larger temple wasn’t needed. Without money, your opinion didn’t matter.

We left the temple afterward and went on to rent a room in a pretty good-looking inn within the merchant district. We only needed it to park our RV there, and I don’t think they would care if we actually used the room or not. As long as they got their money.

Speaking of money, we probably had to make some more sooner or later. The restaurant was a good money source and the Sarlenzia company provided us with our shares on top of the payout from Grimnir’s ores, but the latter had been complaining lately that we needed better quality ones. I also had the feeling we would be spending more money than we should in Estralia, so we better be prepared.

But, first, let’s explore this city, no?

“Hey, Lady Hestia! Can’t believe we would meet up again, right? Hahaha…”

“Gael?”

There were two things we promised to our allies in Griffonpeak. First, we promised to help Amelia spread the influence of the Sarlenzia company into Estralia. The second was to aid Shaturein in gaining a proper foothold in the underground market of Gleisvale; specifically, to help Lady Grengar make a path into the Empire to have her girls spy on the rest of Saori’s students.

She told us she would have a delegate help us. I thought it would be one of her employees. Nope. It was Gael once again.

“… Mister Vangrim offered me a deal to help out for a good amount of money. I accepted it thinking, ‘Cool, more money.’ I didn’t anticipate he wanted me to help you through Lady Grengar…”

I smiled wryly at his conflicted expression. There would probably be trouble with us getting involved with the underworld here, which means Gael’s statement that we always bring him into something troublesome still holds true. Well, I hoped we could prove him wrong, but who was I kidding? Which gangster would want another gangster to invade their territory?

“Do not worry, young one. Conflicts and confrontations build up your personality and character,” Mother tried to comfort Gael, but he just slouched his back even more, trying to look small. “Now, we have much to do! Let us all be off!”

“Understood. Well, we will be heading off now, Hestia. Take care of my students, alright? Ellaine, Shay, Beth, please keep Haruka-san safe,” Saori stated with Gael and Tasianna on her side.

“Yes. Please excuse us, Lady Hestia. We shall take a look into the underground market. Hopefully, there will be some clues there.”

Saori and Gael were the ones responsible for Shaturein’s task while helping Tasianna find the one responsible for the fae hunters. In addition, we still had that problem with the bandits we met on the way, so it was important to find out why the hell they attacked us.

Muraina and Lady Grengar gave us an idea of what the reason could be, but the broken emblem we got from the two non-slave masters was unknown to them. Still, they presumed it would belong to an alchemist gang or something. Sadly, we didn’t get any clues from the sword I found, but if we got to the end of this search, we would probably find them eventually.

Then they would pay.

“We will also be going. We’ll get the paperwork done after everybody is back. Saori, don’t forget to register yourself at the merchant guild once you’re done on your side,” Ellaine informed everybody with Amelia and Haruka beside her, and Beth and Shay behind them acting as their bodyguards.

“Yes, we will be going. There is much to be done to establish the Sarlenzia branch in Gleisvale, but we will make it a success,” Amelia followed up. “Haruka, no need to be so nervous. We are well prepared.”

Trembling slightly, Haruka forced herself to nod. “Y-Yes. I’ll do my best!”

“Don’t tire yourself out too much, Haru-chan,” Asaka comforted her. “Alright, I guess we’ll see each other later on. See you guys back at dinner.”

“Shisho! Please, teach me everything there is to be seen at the train station! I cannot wait to see the grand designs of the dwarves!” Daichi hyped up to Grimnir, but all the latter showed was a slight annoyance.

“Shut up, lad…” he grumbled. “Bladdarg. The fastest way to the station is with a water boat. Let’s go. Can’t wait to get this over with.”

Tatsuya, Kyouya, Daichi, Asaka, Elrick, Mother, and I were coming with Grimnir. Our destination: The train station of Gleisvale, and the last creation of the Revolution Queen. In addition, we would also be meeting a bunch of other dwarves.

A new city, a new experience.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 272: Train Station, chooo, choooo!

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“Oooh, look, Rajah! Mother! A boat restaurant! Quite a few of their guests look pretty wealthy, too.” I pointed at a medium-sized boat floating in the waterway of Gleisvale, looking like a restaurant from all the food being served to guests. Looking closer, practically all the diners wore clothing fitting for nobles or wealthy merchants.

However, while I was enthusiastic at seeing something new, well, new to Peolynca, Mother and Rajah didn’t share my enthusiasm.

“It is simply a boat, Hestia. You see them all the time in Caedhul. If you are already excited with a small one like this, once we visit the levianewt’s capital, Lecullius, you will be amazed at the aquatic culture of the aquapolis.”

[“Master. All this water. Dangerous.”]

…

“Jeez, come on! At least act amazed!” I complained about Mother’s and Rajah’s indifference. “Argh, whatever. Rajah, I’ll have Varya help me teach you how to swim. You can’t always be scared of the water since you’ll grow into a strong and large virigress one day.”

[“… Rajah doesn’t like swimming.”]

Complaints and complaints, just like a spoiled child. Then again, maybe it was my fault too since I was spoiling him too much. Regardless, this was all part of the joy of sightseeing, right?

Rajah wasn’t originally part of the train-watching squad since I thought he would join his mother and brothers with helping Saori, Tasianna, and Gael with the black market search as a member of the Shadow Pack. However, before they headed off, he jumped out of Saori’s shadow and joined me.

His mother, Varya, was about to drag him back into their shadow, but Saori stopped her. Instead, she used this chance to slip a [Shadow Snake] into one of Rajah’s black foggy legs and Ellaine’s right gauntlet. This way, she would be able to keep watch of where we were, in case one of us got into trouble.

We separated and departed at that point to our respective destinations. Grimnir led us to a nearby water boat dock, walking through the streets instead of driving inside the RV. On the way, I noticed that there were quite a few foxians around, about the same amount as humans actually.

Grimnir explained this was due to Estralia’s worship of Mercurias, the only foxian god in the six pantheons. While you wouldn’t find such a concentration of them in the other cities or towns, since Gleisvale was the center of commerce for the republic, foxians should be the second most populous race in this country. Similar to Lecartiglio and arvisians, foxians were treated far better than other beastmen races in this place.

I wonder if Zeather and Quini would like it here? I wondered, thinking of the two foxian merchants I met in Firwood. They worked for the Sarlenzia company and were indebted to its president, Amelia’s grandfather, so I didn’t think they would leave the company, but I couldn’t help but imagine it.

“Honored guests, would a ride on our humble canal boat interest you?”

Speaking of foxians, the dock manager and boat drivers were all foxians. They even spoke in the same manner Zeather did, in that humble second-person point-of-view way. Maybe it was due to their religious teachings or something. Or maybe it was just how foxian merchants behaved in general, I didn’t know. It was irrelevant.

In any case, what was important was that we got onto a boat and were now on our way to the train station with it. Surprisingly, while I thought it was just a pure sightseeing ride, I really should have anticipated the number of merchants wanting to sell you stuff. Yes, even while we were on this boat.

“Papribulbs! Papribulbs! Papricha stuffed with meat! Crunchy vegetable skin with soft and juicy meat! Grilled right above the water and handed it to you immediately!”

“Fried noodles! Made by dwarven artisans with quality tazlokwheat! Got some fresh vegetables and pork included in it, too! Good food just for you!”

“Orslagges! Orslagges! I got the best orslagges in the country! Everybody needs some orslagges in their life! Energy comes from a meal made with orslagges!”

… Are you kidding me, there is a guy selling cabbages on a boat? Can’t believe there is an orslagges-exclusive seller around.

“Hey, hey, Kyouya! Come and buy some! These papribulbs are freaking amazing! Damn, mhmm!” Tatsuya made a satisfied face after buying a few grilled paprikas stuffed with meat and other stuff.

“Bladdarg, are you kidding me?! These ain’t tazongn-made noodles! What the hell is this form and its length?! We tazongs enjoy our noodles long and firm! You dare disrespect our workmanship with your cheap imitation! By Crustacia’s twin-tails, I bet these aren’t even made using tazlokwheat!” Grimnir got into a fight with the noodle vendor.

Daichi joined in, about to throw a fireball at the poor man and his boat. “Oooooh?! How dare you serve these cheap, unskilled copies of dwarven wheat! You snake-oil seller, I should burn you into a crisp!”

“Daichi!” Elrick rushed over to him, barely stopping Daichi from doing something stupid. Still, that was enough to scare the noodle vendor away.

“Swooo… Mhmm. This ain’t bad.” On the other hand, Asaka brought some of the noodles and was enjoying it. “You three want some? I bought some for Haru-chan, but the portion sizes are pretty large despite how cheap they were. Probably evident enough that it wasn’t made by a dwarf.”

“Hiehie, yeah,” I giggled at what she said. “Well-made noodles cost quite a bit, if we take Japan as an example. Mother, Rajah. Let’s eat.”

“How generous. Thank you.”

[“Rajah wants meat pieces.”]

Gleisvale wasn’t a maritime city but they still were dependent on the river flowing from the mountain and through the city of Gleislain. It was the reason why Estralia’s capital was the center of commerce and was so wealthy. It was ‘cause the river's length spanned over multiple countries and into the Empire, such that their cargo and merchant ships could trade with so many different people. It was the same with any other country with access to the ocean.

Still, the canals were pretty large and spacious enough to accommodate multiple boats and gondolas. There was a culture developed around this river you didn’t need to go to the port to see. For a city where money was everything, people had to be creative to survive within it.

If I could hazard a guess, it was ‘cause of this culture and its lack of a caste system that even affluent people would mingle and traverse even into the middle district. In Artorias, nobles would go no further than the merchant district in most cases, but here, the rich went from and out with their carriages or personal boats. Money and entertainment could be found even in the less opulent areas.

Mhmm, these noodles aren’t too bad.

After meeting a few more boat merchants, we eventually made it to the artisan district, or, as Grimnir liked to call it, the dwarven district.

“There is history in this city for us tazongs. We made it for the humans and, since they didn’t know how to maintain it properly, quite a few of us stayed here. You gotta remember, this city was made before the train was established. Travel was hard and long with those Centipedeclaws, so staying around was better.”

During the War for the Faefolk, Estralia officially stayed neutral with respects to either side, wishing not to completely sever their ties to humans and dwarves. Still, problems crept up as the republic’s populace were divided. The dwarves wanted Estralia to fight on the side of the northern alliance due to them “owing” the dwarves for their city, while the humans were less than enthused about fighting their own race.

Nowadays, you would rarely find dwarves outside their districts outside of work. They were stubborn and considered the city their home. Even if the Ankoran King ordered them to return or the human populace of Estralia wanted them out, they would not leave. This was their home and they would defend it as if it was any other dwarven hold.

And to prove this point, the artisan district was entirely different aesthetically from the rest of the city.

“Jeez, there is so much smoke around. Are those factories?” Tatsuya pointed at the numerous chimneys letting out black smoke.

“Hey, look, everybody.” Kyouya, too, pointed at something. What he was drawing our attention to was a bridge with rails built above the buildings, allowing minecarts to transport items around with dwarves manning them.

“Mhmm. That’s our minecart system. Mobilized with runes, we had to invent this system once we realized that getting from the mines to the surface took too long with our short legs. It was eventually extended to being a part of our daily lives,” Grimnir explained. “The rider is protected with runes if they were to fall, but our design of it is perfect, so accidents barely ever happen. As such, you can expect ores, monster materials, or food to move around a tazongn hold or city through this system. However, it’s a bit outdated nowadays.”

Grimnir told us that after the train was created by the Revolution Queen, the dwarves have been hard at work on implementing this technology into their minecart transportation system. This area of Gleisvale was very dwarven, but it was still behind technologically compared to any of the dwarven holds, especially their capital and the seat of the Ankoran King — Inkoran-Tazul.

Still, if you compared this place with Griffonpeak, you could see that the dwarves relied on artificers and runesmiths for their architecture far more than humans did. The dwarves I saw all had party bracelets on their wrists, and when it came to labor and work they had tools around to make it easier on them. Being around Grimnir has taught me that runes could create fire, water, wind, and so on, assuming you made the rune correctly. I could only imagine what dwarven cities could use them for.

We really have to visit the dwarves one day! Not only to learn more about the Revolution Queen, but just look at all of this. It isn’t even that medieval anymore.

We docked at the artisan district since we had to walk the rest of the way to the train station. With Grimnir leading us, we began making our way to the mountain Gleisvale was built upon, and boy was it a hike. The streets were slanted upwards.

Kyouya noted that we could see dwarves riding on minecarts, moving on them towards the mountain. As he pointed this out to Grimnir and asked him if it would be possible to ride them, our blacksmith snapped at him and told him to not be such a “larrunda.” Mother told me he called him a “baby or whiner.” Good to know Mother could act as my translator without Tasianna around.

From his demeanor and how he was being silent instead of proudly explaining everything about this city, I was starting to get the impression that he didn’t want to be here. In fact, I thought he wanted to hide himself away. If that was the case, then raising his voice to Kyouya was the wrong move.

“Hmm?” A trio of inko dwarves — surface dwarves without any horns or the ability to spew our fire like a taz dwarf like Grimnir — noticed us and turned around. Looking at their attire and the picks they carried around, they probably were miners. Comparing them to Grimnir, I also noticed that they were taller but less stocky than our resident blacksmith.

“Oi, look at that small beard.”

“Hmm? Ha! Burned it up without any crust’locks. Look at that zuekluk!”

“Hmmph. Heavy smell of blood and mana around him. Runesmith. Shamed and dishonored. Pitiful.”

“Mhmm…”

The three dwarves ran their mouths as they passed us, clearly affecting Grimnir as he grumbled in silence. Noticing this, Daichi and Tatsuya turned around, confronting the trio.

“Hey, what is the big idea, huh?! Do you go around insulting people on the streets, assholes?!”

“Yeah, take those words back! Nobody insults Shisho while I’m around!”

Both were rightfully outraged at the comments those dwarves threw at Grimnir and made it clear that they wouldn’t accept it. Honestly, I too was pretty peeved at the rubbish they said, especially since Grimnir was my friend here. Nobody insulted my friends while I’m around… but I also noticed that Grimnir didn’t want us to cause more of an uproar. His glare was not directed at the dwarves, but at Tatsuya and Daichi.

“Hmph! Get the hell out of our district, akong! Humans aren’t welcomed here if you aren’t working! We don’t need more damn sightseers. Bladdarg.”

“Learn how to make proper friends. Leave that damn zuekluk in the gutter.”

That last comment caused Daichi to burst a vein, already materializing a fire spell to throw at them, only for Asaka to punch him on the head and drag him back to our group.

“Shut up, idiot. Stop making such a mess. You’re embarrassing yourself and your master here. Move it!”

Asaka pushed Daichi closer to Grimnir, earning him a staredown by the angered dwarf. Daichi became flustered and bit his lips, looking down at the ground, now understanding what he did.

While I sympathized with his actions, learning when and how to confront someone is an important skill. Here, the victim of all those rude remarks wanted us to shut up and move towards the train station as soon as possible, so he could leave sooner than later.

“Jeez, what was their problem?!” Tatsuya stated irritated, but Grimnir didn’t answer him. Instead, Mother did.

“ ‘Zuekluk,’ or ‘dishonored dwarf’ in Common. In dwarven culture, there is a higher importance put in the honor of a clan compared to an individual’s, since if your clan thrives, so shall you. This also means if you slight them, you could incur the wrath of hundreds of dwarves at once. Bonds of friendship and family are as thick as metal to them.”

Mother’s explanation reminded me of how Grimnir became a member of Aurora in the first place. After I allowed him to protect his honor as a blacksmith by showing others that his skills were real, he kneeled down and swore his loyalty and skills to me. Not only ‘cause he owed his life to me after saving him from the slazzigula, but also ‘cause I trusted him to produce the best equipment for us.

I guess this was when our bond of friendship was created.

“As such, if an individual dishonors themselves so terribly that it could affect the clan, they are to be exiled. They are stripped of the ‘crust’locks’ — stone hair — from their beard as a sign of being dishonored. Male dwarves have them on their beards while females have them on their hair. It is hardy, strong, and protects your hair from being burned.”

“And Grimnir’s beard was burned away after he nearly plunged into magma,” I continued. “Grimnir broke a rule by creating his blasthammer, and he and his cousin were exiled from their clan and the blacksmith guild. Beards are a sign of age and experience, and the rock hair grows with them. When we first met him, his beard was long, like, it went to his stomach. It was also well-groomed and was braided.”

“Mhmm. Could you two stop talking about me? Let’s just go…” Grimnir asked before speeding up his dwarven legs. This was a sour topic for him, and I guess I now realized why he didn’t want to be here.

As we moved up the streets, we started to attract quite a few eyes to us, followed by whispers and clear insults at Grimnir. It came to the point that I had I release my [Draconic Aura] just to scare the whispers off, while the more foolhardy ones simply shouted their insults and ran the fuck away. Damn rats!

“Mother, could you use your silver-dust to hide Grimnir, like how you hid yourself during my concert?” I asked Mother, remembering how she used her silver-dust to reflect the light away from her, turning her invisible. She told me she could, but Grimnir immediately told me off for doing.

“I don’t need your pity, lass. Let’s just get this over with. Can’t wait to get back home and bash some damn metal.”

Jeez, Grimnir…

Without much talking, we eventually made it all up to the train station area. Entering a cave that looked more like a mineshaft, what awaited us at the end of it was something I couldn’t believe I would ever see again.

An actual train station.

No, like, almost identical to Earth’s. Like the subway in New York, or the S- and U-Bahn in Germany, or the bullet trains in Tokyo. The aesthetic and design of the station were nostalgic with how heavily it resembled its Earthly counterpart.

I knew I should have expected something like this when I heard about it, but I still couldn’t believe how much my memory was jogged by this sight. Even the Misfit members were wowing over how close it looked.

Nevertheless, there were some major differences. For example, the atmosphere was less “rush hour” since there weren’t too many people here, nor was it comfy like a “daily ride on the train.” It had a heavy “still under construction” vibe with all the dwarves working and tinkering with objects.

You could hear the loud banging of metal, feel the warmth of a nearby smithy, and hear the loud crackling of artificers working. The sound of steam erupted every once in a while, drowning out the commanding shouts of some dwarf giving out orders. It was very industrial, but at the same time, it had something like a rhythm to the working. Loud, but undisturbed and focused.

Like every time I saw Grimnir and Ellaine work inside our smithy.

“The train isn’t around,” Kyouya stated, so we walked up to the platform.

Rails. There were rails placed before us, lighting up with a blue color from the mana flowing through it. Blocking our paths down to them was a gate that projected a barrier of mana like [Defensive Rune: Auracoil]. Grimnir explained that they would turn off and allow us to enter once the train was around. The Revolution Queen, Chihiro, noted that safety came first before everything else, something that was new to the inventive dwarves.

“Wow,” Tatsuya exclaimed, and all of us could agree. Well, outside of Mother and Grimnir, but both Rajah and Elrick were stunned by how huge this place was. It seemed Elrick had never been to a train station before.

“Oi!” But our amazement ended when somebody called us out. “By Crustacia, this ain’t a place for you akongs to hang around! If you got business, get to it and— Hmm? Dragonewts?”

If I had to be honest, I couldn’t tell the age difference between male dwarves. The females were easy since they didn’t have a beard covering their faces. However, since beards represented age and experience, from the looks of this dwarf’s beard, he was probably a young adult.

And this dwarf was sweaty and dirty, having soot covering his hands and face. From the looks of it, he was a blacksmith or an ironmonger.

“Rare sight so deep into akong territory, but still, what— A zuekluk?” The moment he saw Grimnir, the slightly annoyed dwarf quickly turned antagonistic. “Tsk, get the hell out of here you damn zuekluk! We don’t need a dishonored inside the holy place of Goddess Chihiro! Get the hell out of here!”

Not just antagonistic, he was bluntly hostile now, even taking out a hammer from his tool apron. He pointed it at us, shouting that we should leave, causing a commotion that drew in the sights of the other dwarves. Like flies, they came towards us, further fueling the anger of the rambunctious complainer.

“Hey, hey! Look at that damn zuekluk! He dares come into the railroad guild’s territory and taints Goddess Chihiro’s ground! This train station ain’t for damn traitors and dishonored!”

“Huh? A zuekluk?! Bladdarg, why the hell are you here?! Get the hell out, you scum!”

“Get the hell out! You akongs and krasulongs, too!”

It was a vortex of hate and rage, and we were in the middle of it all. Spit was shooting out like a minigun as the crowd didn’t show any signs of stopping, continuously flinging insults and rude remarks at Grimnir like it was normal.

Everybody was unnerved by this, all except for Grimnir, who simply shut his eyes and shook his head. Without saying anything back, our friend kept his head down and slowly moved towards the entrance, the only path the crowd left open for us. Seeing him not even fighting back, all of us clicked our tongues and followed him.

Fuck these people!

I glared at all of them, feeling absolutely disgusted by behavior, but in all their rage, none of them reacted to my [Draconic Aura]. There was no way to break a dwarf’s confidence when he was angered, I presumed.

Holding onto Rajah tighter, I gritted my teeth and simply moved faster. Responding to this sorta hate was something I’ve never experienced before. Sure, some ill stigma or racism, but this? It felt suffocating and unbearable. I despised them from the depths of my soul, and I honestly just wanted to let it out. Activate [Royal Presence] and [Draconic Aura] to their maximum output and cause them all to shit their pants!

Fucking hell!

As we all tried to rush towards the exit, I suddenly heard the sound of something flying towards us. [Foresight] didn’t activate if the attack was not a threat to me, but my senses were trained enough to pick up on them without my skills. And this one was a stone thrown at Grimnir.

Scheiße!

My legs moved and grabbed the thing before Grimnir reacted to it. He looked at me stunned, surprised that I did just that. His [Prediction] probably activated, but I was still faster than him

“Las—” Grimnir probably wanted to thank me, but before he could say anything, I felt a sudden chill coming from behind me.

“Kriassah!”

The very temperature dropped far below what you could call comfortable following a dignified roar, silencing all the loud dwarves. Ice formed in the area as I turned around, seeing Mother standing proudly before the shivering dwarves, all of whom having fallen either onto their butts or knees.

“Listen, dwarves. This is your last warning. When my daughter appears before you again, you shall show her the due respect you would to a dragon princess. If you displease her, if you dare threaten her, if you ever dare harm her! Prepare your clan for battle, otherwise you will witness the age of ice overwhelm everything you hold dear. It will be forfeited!”

Solid ice spread towards them, threatening the dwarves with spears of ice, as Mother turned around and told us to leave. We followed her, too occupied with how daunting she just was. Once we were outside the train station, I walked over to Mother and asked her why she did that.

“I thought you wanted me to fight my own battles?” I asked her with Rajah still shivering in my arms. He seemed to be scared of Mother now.

“Hestia, there is a difference between having your daughter handle her own problems and people disrespecting you. In the former, your goals and ambitions will create trials and tribulations which you must conquer and prove to me that you can survive. In the latter… I am your Mother, and I will not allow some ants to spit upon the pride of us dragons.”

In other words, Mother was being overprotective. Well, not like I could complain. I was about to spew fire at them and imprison them in an obsidian jail for what they were doing to Grimnir. Mother figuratively and literally cooled me down.

“Well, it was still satisfying seeing them shiver like that. It probably doesn’t solve any of Grimnir’s problems, though…”

I looked over to Grimnir. He had thanked Mother and me for standing up for him, even Daichi and Tatsuya for before, but he didn’t look any better. He still had that depressed look on him. Crestfallen with a face telling us he wanted to go home now.

I guess that is another thing we need to solve. Grimnir’s relationship with the other dwarves will be dicy…

“Haaaaa, I hope we don’t get into too much trouble.”

“Hestia, I have already made my point to them.”

I guess she did… under threat of freezing them all. Hmm?

“Now that I think about it, shouldn’t I have announced my arrival to the local leaders? I mean, I did the same with Duke Equevanna,” I wondered, but Mother simply shook her head.

“You had to make sure he had everything prepared for your concert, Hestia. You came to that Fillion to make sure he had your preparation finished. However, in this case, they should come and plead for you to grace them with your presence. You are a dragon princess, Hestia. Do not forget about that. Words go around this city, so you can assume they had spies notify the city’s leaders of our presence. Now, you wait.”

Mother was a proud dragon and she wanted me to act like her since I was her daughter. Mother really had an ice queen personality behind all of that loving mother act she had with Aurora. I liked it.

But, as if her words were premonition, it came true the moment we returned to the inn.

“Ahhh, Princess Hestia! I am a representative of the local merchant’s guild! We wish to invite you for some business!”

“Princess Hestia, I am the manager of the most illustrious tailor store in Gleisvale. Please, would you honor us with your visit and a chance for us to create something beautiful for you?”

“Princess Hestia, I am a messenger of one of Estralia’s senators. My master wishes to invite you to her humble abode.”

… Oh right, I was a princess now.

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Chapter 273: What is a “Zuekluk?”

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Waaaaaaa, I’m done. Speaking with people is more stressful than Kramps’ training. I crave sweets. Gib me candy!” I declared before falling face-first on the sofa inside our RV’s communal room.

“Please enjoy, Lady Hestia. Some small confections we made under Tasianna’s and Lady Tamae’s instructions. The breading encases a concentrated jelly of fragassa. It might be a bit too sweet, so please be careful.”

I moved my head up before taking a heart-shaped cookie from Svena’s tray. Putting it into my mouth, I crunched on it and enjoyed the extreme sweetness I needed to refuel my fatigued brain. Giving her a thumbs up, I planted my face back on the sofa.

“Lady Hestia, you really shouldn’t lie on the sofa like that. It is unladylike,” I heard Josine’s voice ring in my ear, followed by Svena’s.

“It’s okay, Josine. You’ve seen the line of representatives Lady Hestia had to meet. I believe if this were to happen to Lady Ellaine, you would let your mistress act up a bit, correct?”

“I don’t act like a lady when I’m not in public anyways,” I retorted.

But Svena didn’t take that too lightly. “Please, don’t talk with your mouth full, Lady Hestia. We will be the ones to clean it up later.”

Urk…

Anyways, stress was stress, and the life of a princess was not the least bit chill. Accepting my position as a dragon princess and also the fact I announced it all at the Griffonpeak battle, made it easy for my reputation to spread.

According to the rumors, while Saori was known by people as a wolfkin adventurer with black lightning instead of a garm, people knew me more as a champion of Aurena and a dragon. And that was very relevant in Ullistar when those merchants approached me, and now its head reared itself again with the people of Gleisvale.

Like Mother mentioned, nobles and guilds had gossipers and spies in this city. The moment we entered the city, no, the moment we entered the country even, people knew we were coming. There were the border guards, the valley guides, the city entrance soldiers, and not to mention the various merchants and towns we met on the way to Estralia’s capital. Any one of them could have sent a pigeon over, or even all of them.

Regardless, that wasn’t the point. What was important was the fact the merchants and senators of this city wanted to meet with me. Some had small-time business ventures they wanted to discuss with me, mostly to advertise their products, while others clearly had ulterior motives. Politics and grandiose goals, or something. It was a headache.

But deal with them I did. Our main objectives for Estralia concerned Tasianna’s and Shaturein’s business, while Amelia’s expansion of the Sarlenzia company was a side quest. However, from a political point of view, our overarching goal should be to befriend Estralia and get its president to support Artorias and possibly dissuade a war between Artorias and the countries in this part of Altrust.

Estralia, or to be specific, Gleisvale held the position of the most important trading hub of the mid-western part of Altrust. They had access to dwarven craftsmanship, a train station which the dwarves used to trade with the Empire and the Beastman Alliance, and a river that spread throughout the land and into the Empire. Gleisvale was also strategically located in an area where sieging it was hard for any invaders.

Earning their trust and making them favor Artorias over the other countries would be important for the latter’s safety. I had to speak with them eventually, so seeing some of the senators wanting to speak with me expedited stuff. Too bad the president hadn’t sent a representative, but I remembered Duke Fillion saying he was a puppet leader or something.

Nevertheless, without Saori, Ellaine, or Nishio around to help me out with the political stuff, I wouldn’t dare do it on my own. I wasn’t that knowledgeable about it. I knew I should study more, but it just didn’t interest me.

As such, I used the mightiest tool in my arsenal for this moment — delaying it. Rescheduling it. Whatever you wanted to call it. All that was important was that I accepted their business cards and letters and told them I will reschedule with them when I could. With anticipating smiles, they left the inn, but it left me completely overwhelmed.

[“Master did well. Good good.”] Rajah patted me on the head with his paws, all while I could hear some boing-boing sound moving around on the sofa. My guess? It was Shoyi, our cleaning slime.

“Thanks, Rajah. Thanks, Shoyi.” I stroked the two little guys. One was furry and fluffy while the other was smooth and wobbly. They were super cute now, but the moment they grew up and evolved, that would change. “Ooooh, I love you two, so much!”

I couldn’t stop myself from hugging them.

“Ahem.” Somebody coughed to draw my attention. “Lass, I know you were busy and probably want to get some recreation time, but could you stop and tell me why exactly you called me into the living room? I was planning on working.”

I turned my head around. Aside from our maids Svena and Josine, and Rajah and Shoyi, the other people in the communal room were the members of the Misfits, minus Haruka, Mother, and lastly, Grimnir. While Mother looked at me cheerfully as if I was a cute cat, the latter half were waiting for me to begin.

I let out a loud sigh and sat up properly on the sofa. “Alright. So, Grimnir, the reason why I asked you to come is that I want to know what’s up.” Grimnir frowned as I continued. “I know the whole thing with ‘zuekluks’ and how dishonored dwarves were considered pariahs, but today was too extreme. I expected something like those blacksmiths we met in Cedaraille, and I also expected you to fight back. What happened?”

“Mhmm…” Grimnir grumbled. “This doesn’t concer—”

“No, wrong, Grimnir.” I shook my finger. “This does concern me. It concerned me the moment you got belittled, insulted, and got things thrown at you. You know me. I don’t really take the whole master-retainer stuff seriously, so I won't treat you as such. I consider you my friend, Grimnir, but I also recognize that outside of when you swore your loyalty to me, we haven’t spoken much about your past. I honestly don’t know you as much as I want to.”

All I knew was that Grimnir had studied some gun blueprints with his cousin Broggi, ones that were made by the Revolution Queen, Chihiro, but were never finished. Unfortunately, Bleidla, the blacksmith god, despised the idea of guns Chihiro had planned, and banned their creation after her death and apotheosis.

Once they were found out, they were exiled and dishonored, losing their crust’locks in the process. They then traveled on the roads in the old version of the RV and managed to combine a gun with a warhammer, creating the blasthammer in the process. The skills of a master blacksmith and runesmith together with that of an artificer.

However, while traveling, his cousin died somehow, but he never specified how and why. All I knew was that Grimnir blamed Bleidla for it. That he cursed him and his cousin. And now, Grimnir’s goal was to create weapons grand and powerful enough to anger the blacksmith god. His drive was to spite Bleidla.

“You managed to recreate your blasthammer with Ellaine’s help, even improving on it. I’m really glad for you and thankful that you're also taking Daichi under your tutorship. You might speak brashly in this rough tone, but I know you have a caring and soft side underneath that tough skin. And that is why I want to help you. Seeing you today really hurt me, Grimnir.”

Tatsuya nodded to my assertion. “I just joined, so I can’t really say too much, but I do agree with Hestia-san. You seem so meek today for some reason. Most of the time, you would shout at us for not taking care of our weapons and equipment well enough. My first impression of you wasn’t the best, but, you still repaired them so well, I thought you just reforged them.”

“You show your care for others by making weapons and equipment,” Kyouya added. “This armor was given to me by the church, so I know very well how it feels to wear it. You made it better. You made it easier for me to move in and fight. I only asked you to repair it, but Mister Grimnir, you went well beyond that.”

“Daichi is an ass and a bootlicker,” Tatsuya continued, earning him a “fuck you” from Daichi. “But the both of us still tried to help you today. I would kinda like to know why you didn’t want us to defend you. You even left the train station without defending yourself.”

“There was nothing to defend myself for,” Grimnir answered, but continued his silence afterwards.

I frowned. “Please, tell us why. You’re usually not too assertive when it comes to speaking out your own thoughts or our goals. You add onto ours. You aren’t even interested in speaking about yourself even now, and while I can understand that, I don’t think it is healthy. Please, let us help you, Grimnir.”

“… My life isn’t worth talking about. Everything important, I already said. My value to Aurora has always been my skills, lass. I understand you care for me, but I do not feel comfortable talking about it.”

But Grimnir just wouldn’t give in. It made Tatsuya and me sigh, and I was considering if pushing him further was good or not.

But that was not a worry for one of us.

“Master taz, the fact your exile is causing trouble for my daughter and her friends was evident today.” It was Mother. “You may say your value comes from your skills alone, but you are also a provider of knowledge and guidance. In other words, you are an adult. Hestia has already spoken to you about visiting the Ankor-Nazta. Will you allow them to stay ignorant throughout their visit and watch you suffer from your past actions?”

“Jeez, you people…” Asaka blurted out after Mother was done speaking. “Could you not try to urge him to speak about something he doesn’t want to? Some people just don’t want to talk about their misery. Is that so hard to understand?”

“But you all indeed faced troubles today because of his status,” Mother replied, looking slightly confused as to why Asaka seemed irritated.

However, Asaka retorted without caring that she was arguing with an ice dragon able to call in the next ice age. “That is ‘cause we made him come with us to the damn train station. We didn’t need Grimnir to lead us there, we could have just asked some guide or something, or just followed his directions. But we had to bring him with us and that caused us all some trouble. Yeah, it’s all Grimnir’s fault. Fun fact, it wasn’t, and we shouldn’t have reopened old wounds.”

Her words stung. It was true. I was the one who asked Grimnir to lead us to the train station despite how reluctant he looked. Sure, he didn’t decline the favor, but it was inconsiderate of me to do so without considering his opinion.

“And that is why he should—” But before Mother and Asaka got into a fight, Grimnir stopped her with his booming voice.

“I got it! I understand. Bladdarg. By Crustacia, if you all want to know it this badly, then just shut up and listen to me. I have no plans of repeating this again.” Grimnir massaged his temples, looking like he would develop a headache soon. It seemed we pushed him too far.

“Essentially, ‘zuekluks’ aren’t just dwarves who were dishonored, but also criminals.”

I narrowed my eyes and frowned.

“Originally, the word was given to soldiers or guards who failed their masters, and it was taken up by these tazongs as a sign of their failure. Honor is important to my race. These warriors and soldiers took up their failure like a medal and went on a journey to redeem themselves, whether it was to fight for our gods or to bring glory back to their clan’s name by felling powerful beasts,” Grimnir explained. “Tazongs aren’t as prone to fall into temptation and perform crimes, since honor is worth more than gold to every single one of us. ‘Fels-guk pal drahi tazong gazon oyti.’ ‘Gold flows in the bonds of dwarves,’ in Common.”

Grimnir paused, taking a deep breath. “But, this was all before the arrival of the Origin Gods and the demons. The moment tazongs began to abandon honor for our desires, was the moment a demon appeared before us. Sloth, pride, and greed. Those were the sins we were the most susceptible to.”

Once again, the demons reared their heads. Like the original sin, their problematic influence spreads throughout the world.

“At that point, the word ‘zuekluk’ was mostly attributed to tazongs who let their desires control them, to the point they dishonor their clan and friends. We tazongs are quite religious, like most Peolyncians really, so we honor our gods quite zealously. So when I disrespected Bleidla as a member of the blacksmith guild, I shamed my whole clan.”

The dwarves’ piety to their gods was a byproduct of their time under the earth primarch, their creator and god. Grimnir told us when Goddess Crustacia usurped their control over the earth element, the dwarves were naturally apprehensive of her, until she displayed her power by repairing a section of the Ankoran mountain ranges.

There were two mountain ranges included in the Ankoran mountain ranges — Tazlok to the left and Inkong to the right. Gleisvale was located in the Inkong mountain ranges. And there was a gap between these two which allowed people to pass through it to Loatyx. However, it only became passable after Crustacia terraformed it before the dwarves’ eyes.

Once a rocky landscape filled with ground too hard to farm on, the ground today was bountiful and perfect for farming. Once filled with dangers and a large hole where dwarves would find their doom while mining, was now an easily traversable path along the mountain’s edge. In addition, Crustacia created a location perfect for the defense of a dwarven hold. This was where the dwarven capital was relocated and named Inkoran-Tazul, after the gap between the two mountain ranges.

With the addition of the Divine System allowing the dwarves access to powerful skills and abilities, faith in Crustacia grew until a proper religion was established. There were some issues, since it still didn’t allow the dwarves to cast magic nor was Crustacia willing to rid the dwarves of “The Curse of Earth,” but the complaints didn’t last too long.

And once Crustacia’s pantheon was filled with dwarven subordinate gods, the faith in her religion grew stronger and stronger. That was why Bleidla defecting from Shiterno and joining Crustacia was an important event to the dwarves. Blacksmithing was part of dwarven culture.

Since Bleidla issued a command to not create the guns Chihiro had planned, the dwarves accepted it since Chihiro never finished her blueprints nor did she retort back. To the dwarves, Grimnir and his cousin broke a divine taboo. They let their greed to create overtake them, and ended up antagonizing the blacksmith guild.

However, since their clan, the “Luedbrumdar,” was primarily a mining and smithing hold, this also meant it brought great dishonor to them. Dwarves who only focused on their own needs, instead of the collective’s, were considered dishonorable. They were stripped of their rock hair and were then exiled. In addition, Bleidla took away their [Blacksmith’s Eye] skill to further drive the point home.

“The way I was treated today would be the same way a criminal is treated everywhere else. That is why I didn’t resist. I do not regret what I did, but I do understand that I was greedy for something new to create. I wanted to make something phenomenal and new. Dwarven society is very conservative when it comes to new inventions, despite always innovating and creating something new. Such a contradiction.”

“Hold on,” Tatsuya raised his hand. “If the dwarves have such a history with the seven demons, why aren’t you constantly arguing with Klea’Hatma? Hestia-san, did it happen in the beginning?”

I shrugged. “Not more than the rest of us, really. Now that I think about it, you also don’t seem too bothered by the demonkins, Grimnir. The dwarves in general. After what you told me, I thought they would wage a war against them, supporting the Empire.”

“As if.” Grimnir waved his hand in dismissal. “Firstly, I’m not the sort of person to direct his own faults on others. Bleidla is a special case, but I don’t harbor much ill-will to that demon outside of contempt for her flirtatious habit of speaking. My sins are my own. Zuekluk’s meaning might have changed cuz of them, but I am the one who committed the wrong.”

It was a very adult way of looking at things.

“And, secondly, the demonkins are an ocean and continent away from us. We tazongs aren’t fond of the ocean and are more used to defensive tactics. Still, if you brought a demonkin over to them, a tazong will likely treat them the same as they did me today. I guess, you could say that is a good argument for the dwarves to join up with Artorias, lass.”

That was good to hear. King Drangleic did mention the thing with demonkins attacking his capital in his letter to the northern races, but I wasn’t aware dwarves didn’t like demonkins.

“The gun blueprint was stored in a preservation room meant to store all of Goddess Chihiro’s blueprints and notes. For future knowledge, you see. Also, since they belonged to our Revolution Queen, destroying any of her items was a crime. Even if Bleidla ordered so, those loyal to Goddess Chihiro would contest that demand. Since Broggi and I entered this room without permission, we technically are criminals.”

Oh… Damn.

While it was interesting to hear that there was a room where all the notes of the Revolution Queen were stored, the story I got it from wasn’t as happy. I couldn’t help but look at Grimnir with pitiful eyes, which only earned me a scolding.

“Ark. Lass! Don’t give me those eyes!” He was irritated. “This is why I didn’t want to speak about this bladdarg! I knew the lot of you would look at me like that. Yes, all of you are working with a criminal right now. Nothing will happen with you outside of interacting with me and the consequences it brings since my punishment was exile.”

“Shisho! There must be something we can do for you!” Daichi pleaded. “You only wanted to create something new! That isn’t worth being treated like scum. I mean, how can you allow that to happen? If people treat you like trash, you should do your best to give them a reason not to!”

“Gahaha!” But Daichi’s attempt to motivate him was only treated like a joke. “As if that would work for this situation, lad. Dwarves can forgive, but they do not forget. Honor is everything to us. Hence, what you said is futile. I will not allow humans and beastmen to disrespect me, but I will for my brethren. I broke their rules. I deserve this punishment. All I can do now is continue down this path I chose and create the weapons, armor, and manatech I always wanted to make. To innovate and stick it up Bleidla’s bladdarg for what he did to Broggi. He didn't deserve a dishonorable death like I do…”

Grimnir stood up from where he sat. He had spoken his piece.

“I’m going back to the smithy, lass. There is a lot I still need to do for my armor. I owe you my life. I will not dishonor myself again by failing the mistress I swore my loyalty to. I would rather die. And so, I need armor and weapons to protect you for our future battles.” He turned around and waved his hand. “Lad, come! We will meet them later at lunch.”

Once Grimnir left the room through a door, Daichi stood up and turned to me. He was frowning, looking sad at the situation at hand.

“Hestia-sama… There has to be something we can do for him, right?”

Daichi’s expression reminded me of when we had a one-on-one talk together where he told me the reason why he became a sycophant. He didn’t tell me if he faced any problems himself, but he did make an impression on me of why he needed to butter up people — he just wanted to stay safe.

It made me wonder if he saw himself in Grimnir or if this was just a matter of master-apprentice loyalty. Regardless, once Ellaine hears about this, I presume she will ask me the same thing Daichi just said.

“… I’ll try.” I nodded, earning Daichi’s gratitude.

At the end of the day, Grimnir was my friend. I had a responsibility to help him. I wondered what I could do, but maybe it was something I needed to sleep on.

Still, with the discussion over, the rest of us went to deal with our own business. I mostly spent time with Mother, training to control my scales and learning how to control heat. This lasted until Ellaine, Amelia, Haruka, and the twins returned home, looking slightly disappointed.

I asked them what happened and Amelia answered me with a deep sigh. “Lady Hestia, we managed to rent out a plot of land for the company’s building, but it seemed like they weren’t as thrilled about our pastry and confections as we expected. Even after I mentioned they were made using yeast.”

Ellaine continued, “Supposedly, Gleisvale already had a confectionery in the city, serving pastries made with yeast. So, we visited the location and confirmed the rumors. Here.” Ellaine took out a thin sheet of leaves. When she revealed what was wrapped inside it, I saw a soft-looking bread with some cream on it. “They were made with elven yeast.”

I picked it up and took a bite, immediately opening my eyes when it tasted exactly like milk bread. The only difference was how fruity it tasted.

“Elven yeast is fruitier than our yeast. I presume they are made in a similar manner like when you tested out yeast made from fraggasa?” Ellaine proposed. “When we asked the clerk where he got the yeast, he wouldn’t tell. Elves shouldn’t be trading with humans, so this either came from the dwarves or…”

“The black market,” Haruka answered for Ellaine.

The most popular products of the Sarlenzia company currently were the pastry and confectionery recipes I gave to Amelia. They were the reason why the Sarlenzia company was growing, and while they could still stay above the green with their usual import and export of goods from the Greenveil duchy, they needed our products to expand at the rate they wanted to.

“Their source is far more expensive than ours. We can produce more yeast and turn it into bread and sweets that they can afford, but what we lack is brand and country loyalty,” Haruka pointed out. “People like rooting for their home country. We can rival and eventually triumph over them since we can sell our products at a less premium price, but if our competition uses propaganda and some, uhm, ‘donations’ correctly, our chances of winning this might dwindle to zero.”

“So, giving the people quality and affordable products isn’t enough to be successful here?” Asaka summed it up. This city was ruled by money, not good products.

I told the five of how I had to meet up with a bunch of representatives today, amongst them a few senators and merchants. While Amelia and Ellaine were excited about this revelation, I had an entirely different idea.

“No, no, I just told you guys that to get you up to speed. What I want to propose is…” I turned my head around, looking Kyouya right in his eyes. Looking at his smirk, it seemed he read my mind. “It’s time to show you guys what an idol can do during a promotion event!”

What could an idol do well? Well, sing and dance, but an idol was also a celebrity. A tool to promote and advertise your product if the price was right. With a pretty face and the ability to lure in people, I was planning to use that aspect of myself to help us garner some traction.

I told the three of them of my plan and that we will have to rope in Nishio and Kazumi for more help on the advertising part. I will help them get more attention, but they had to make sure it became a success. Most likely, we will be using Tamae’s ability here. We couldn’t just survive with our old products in this city, we needed more! We needed something to distinguish ourselves other than just a “cheaper” choice. We had to be better than our rival!

It was time to plan things out, so we would probably have to call The Magical Biscuits into the RV for a discussion. Still, while we did that, I began to wonder what Saori, Tasianna, and Gael were doing. They hadn’t gotten back home yet. I was starting to worry for them…

Yeah, as if! They wouldn’t get into trouble.

“Welp, Saori. Tasianna. We got ourselves in trouble.”

“Could you not say that as if this was a normal occurrence? We aren’t looking for trouble!” Tasianna retorted, but it couldn’t be helped that Gael’s words were correct.

“Alright! Alright! You three twinks really think you can walk into our territory and get out of it without a lesson?! We know y’all are from Shatu! Better confess or our boss will get you to speak!”

We were surrounded in an alleyway by a gang of thugs. The only way to escape? Through the skies.

… Haaaaa, why do I always choose the harder tasks? Hestia must be having fun at the train station right now.

Black lightning crackled around my arms. One way or another, we will get out of this scuffle.

A note from AbyssRaven

Look at them getting in trouble again. Gael has a sixth sense for that.

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Chapter 274: Shaturein’s Favor.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]’s Job [Stygian Thunder] has risen from [Level 19] to [Level 30]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Max level of Job   [Stygian Thunder] has been reached

Mutation requirements acquired. [Level 30] of Job [Stygian Thunder] was achieved. Mutation skills unlocked for acquisition.   [Lightning Shadow] have been added to the SP shop

Individual   [Stygian-Scaled Wolfkin, Saori Segawa] has switched her Main Job to [Assassin]

Main Job benefits have been updated due to Job change

Assassin Level: 0/20

Job Skill gained:   [Critical Spot]

Acquisition requirement fulfilled.   [Lightning Shadow] gained. 2900 SP remaining

Mutation acquired. Merging   [Lightning Shadow] into skill [Stygian Voltage Lv. 2]

“Alright, you really brought us a ton of trouble. You and your friends. Didn’t expect the cartel to come find us this fast when we were just looking around for now. Still, you did us a good one by coming to us first, so how about you talk, or do we need to continue this shit?”

“F-Fuck you! As if I would—”

“Grrr KRAHK!”

“Iiiiiiiieeeeeee!!! D-Don’t feed me to that monster! Please, I don’t want to end up as crap!”

Shadows hold grim warnings for the living… or however you would say this to make it sound edgy. Maybe Hestia or Tatsuya could think of a better quote. Quite embarrassing.

Outnumbered but not outmatched. In the history of wars, victory usually went to the side who were either more technologically advanced, strategically adept, or possessed superior forces. Of course, having all three advantages would be for the best, but a good tactician was said to win even against the odds with timing and resourcefulness, like the battle between Scipio and Hannibal.

But, of course, we were in Peolynca. Just like Hannibal, the use of terror routing your enemy with war beasts was quite effective. I had my garms and the new addition of the virigresses, mostly Varya, just like Hannibal had his elephants. It also helped that my shadow pack all possessed magic.

Now, whoever would I send my pack against? An army? A devilish evildoer? No, none of those… well, I had done all of those before, but for today, I sent them to capture just a bunch of thugs. Yeah, I was overkilling it against some street delinquents.

“Do not worry, I trained my garms to not eat human, beastman, or any humanoid meat. However, the virigresses haven’t yet,” I told the cowering thug Gael was interrogating, telling Varya to roar at him.

“Iiiiiieeeek!!!”

I sighed. Getting into trouble was part of being Aurora, but I didn’t think we would have it on the first day we were in Gleisvale. As Gael suspected, people around the city probably noticed our entry into the country. There were plenty of chances. The bandit ambush on the road was evidence enough of that.

I turned around, watching my garms hunt down any runaways before dragging them back wrapped in [Dark Tendrils] or mana threads. Imagine giant wolves and a large tiger able to control and dive into shadows to hunt you down in a wide alleyway like this. It would be frightening.

In addition, there was also Tasianna. With her eyes closed, she was channeling mana through her catalyst and using her [Cryokinesis] to control the air around us, making it impossible for any of them to escape regardless of how fast they could run. Melloxtressa could create a bubble of frozen air without affecting the temperature within it, and Tasianna learned to do the same after training with her.

However, unlike Hestia’s mom, Tasianna required complete focus when using this technique and couldn’t do anything else, otherwise it would collapse. Oh my, who could have possibly known it would be that difficult, right?

Still, the effects weren’t perfect. I could see the buildings around us gaining a sheet of ice on their walls while the ground was forming ice spikes. Tasianna had already made three custom ice spells, but I could see a day where she wouldn’t need the System at all. Just like Melloxtressa and the snow wyvern twins.

“Oooh, look at that. Hmm, one, two, three, 15, 21. Yeah, that’s about all the guys I counted when they came to mug us,” Gael continued his interrogation after seeing Uno bring back the last three. “Looks like you lost, mate. Now, how about you talk since I’m pretty sure that if we hand you into the guards, your gang boss will buy them out to get you to either shut your mouths or take you out.”

In other words, we will extract the information now or never. One way or another, Gael will get it out of them.

“S-Shit…” he cursed under his breath as he finally broke from Gael’s threats. “The cartel is gonna make you regret the shit you just pulled.”

Pulling the ruffian up, Gael patted his shoulders, smirking. “Take care of yourself first, mate. After we supposedly die, you can gloat at our corpses… but you probably have to do it from Death's side if that future were to happen, hahaha!”

Tasianna dispelled the barrier of ice and we had the garms “motivate” our prisoners to move forward by growling, making them lead the way. Moving through the streets with them did garner us some attention, but not enough to be a problem.

Unlike Shaturein, Gleisvale’s underworld was similar to one you can find in any normal city. Some sections had areas where criminals like to congregate, forming gangs and organizations — like the Yakuza, the Mafia, the Triads. It wasn’t a self-sufficient city, it was just a bunch of people gathering with others that shared a similar “profession.”

As such, entering this place wasn’t too hard after we asked around in the local hunter’s guild. After registering ourselves into the guild’s ecosystem, they sent us to an info broker working for them. He gave us all we needed to know to find what we needed — where the black market was and any alchemists working there.

After strolling around a bit, getting used to the locals, we were “ambushed” by some thugs. Blocking all paths out of the alleyway, the only way these ruffians left for us to escape was for us to flee was through the skies. Now, I was aware this was entirely possible for us, but our ambushers apparently weren't aware of this. The thugs were all well-equipped and looked like they worked as E or D rank adventurers, so they could clearly threaten people and were used to springing traps like this.

Only problem was they chose the wrong targets.

“Grrak!” Uno growled, towering over one of them moving his eyes as if he was looking to escape.

Seeing my garm’s silhouette blanket him completely and Uno’s drool splatter on his face, he quickly made himself small all while shivering. Any thug who showed even a sliver of rebellion was quickly sniffed out by the garms and Varya.

““Greow!”” Shere and Ajay tried to imitate their mother, but it was all futile. They were too young and it only made them look cuter. In hindsight, I probably should have handed them to Hestia, like Rajah. Though, if Rajah had expected he wouldn’t be as useful and stuck with Hestia for that reason, then I would be shocked.

I picked up the two virigress cubs and held them in my arms. They were like kittens… just in the size of normal house cats. It made it hard to embrace them.

“Do you know who this emblem belongs to?” While I was managing the prisoners, Tasianna went over to the lead and showed him the broken emblem we got from the bandit ambush.

“H-Hey, I’m already show— Guff?!” Unwilling to answer her question, Tasianna immediately grabbed the man’s throat before he could finish his sentence. White smoke like cold air began to form around her hand, clearly causing the man pain. “Grk?! Alright, alright! Stop, please!”

Tasianna unhandled him.

“I-I really don’t know much about this symbol. I really don’t! Honest! B-But, I think I saw something similar when I went out to get stuff for our senior members. Uhm, potions, yeah! We gotta hunt monsters since you can’t find certain mons’terials in other countries. Brings in a good price, but gets pretty dicey without some potions to back you up.”

“Where?”

“U-Uhhh, there are some people selling them in the back area of some mons’terials sellers. Quicker access to the good stuff. You can find some potion sellers at the edge of the market, but most of them are amateurs. People who can’t afford training from the alchemist guild or aren't good enough to sell the potions in a normal store, so they sell them there for cheap.”

“Thank you very much. Now, please, hurry us along towards the person who sent you to us. Quickly, I have better things to do than speak with you.” Turning around and returning back to me, she left those cold words behind in the poor thug’s ears.

“… You can be pretty fierce, Tasianna,” I told her and she shrugged. Once again, I was reminded of Tasianna’s aggressive habits towards humans she didn’t like. She did admit to crushing somebody’s throat after freezing it once.

In any case, after walking deeper into the area, the thug notified us that we made it into their territory. As he said that, I began noticing a few people moving around with [Detection Sensor], so I whistled for my garms and Varya to dive into their shadows. Informing them through [Telepathy], they began stalking them, funneling me information.

When one or two of them nodded their heads and stopped observing us in order to run away, my garms or Varya captured them and allowed them to join their friends. When the thugs saw my shadow pack leave, they initially let out a sigh of relief, only to fall into despair again when they saw their numbers increase with more and more of their gang members once the pack returned.

“Y-You people are relentless!” The thug in the front complained.

“Hahaha! Right?” Gael laughed and placed his arm around his shoulder. “And you haven’t seen them fight properly yet. Now, how about you start moving faster, eh? The longer we take, the more you have to deal with us.”

Eventually, the people learned from their mistakes and simply moved into the clear, letting us see them. We were simply stopping them from informing their people, since we wanted the element of surprise here. If they didn’t run off, we wouldn’t act. Our prisoner count did increase some more as we went on, but it was what it was.

We eventually ended up a little bit away from the black market, at least according to the thugs. Looking around the neighborhood, the buildings and streets weren’t the cleanest but they were well-maintained at least. The thugs explained that established gangs invest in their territory’s infrastructure. They might be criminals, but they still wanted to attract normal people wishing for normal lives, just because renting off apartments was good money in this city.

Eventually we ended up at a building that screamed “I am the most important one in this place” due to the detailed engravings on its stone walls. Looking closer, I believed the whole place was made using the stone of the rich, fairnite, including the stone statues, and there were even guards placed before the entrance. This was, without question, the base of this gang.

Money rules this country. It seems like in every world or place, bragging about what you have more of is a universal, no, dimensional trait.

“Okay, I guess that’s the place?” Gael asked the thug he had his arm wrapped around. The thug nodded to his question. “Good, thanks, mate. Okay, now if you would be nice enough to no—”

“INTRUD—”

The moment Gael wanted to tell the thugs to not announce our appearance, one of the thugs from behind suddenly raised his mouth and shouted, but, before he could finish it, Shere jumped out of my arms and paw punched him to the ground. They might be cubs, but they were still the cubs of a tigress.

Agitated by this, the other thugs saw their moment and shouted from the top of their lungs, only for a green magic circle to appear below us, materializing an [Air Shield]. Their voices still escaped it, but the climax of their screams were stopped just in time by Tasianna.

Still, as I said, their cries still managed to catch the attention of the guards standing before the building. The seven of them had finally noticed our group. They came closer to us, shouting out why we were messing with their members, only to suddenly notice the large group of prisoners we had the moment they came over the corner. Turning blue, they clearly understood what was going on and attempted to run.

I reached my hand out and conjured [Dark Tendrils] from their shadows, wrapping them up and pulling them to the ground. I also had their mouths wrapped shut.

“Tasianna, make sure they can breathe. Let’s go!”

[Shadow Armaments] wrapped themselves around my hands and the stygian armguards I was wearing before I shot out a [Dark Tendril] from my left shadow-cloaked arm, wrapping it around Gael’s and Tasianna’s waists. I jumped out from the latter’s air barrier and cast [Smokey Haze].

My shadow erupted into a cloud of darkness, enveloping the whole front part of the building, reaching high enough to blanket a few windows. I kicked the door in, attracting everybody’s attention before pulling my smoke fog into the building as well. [Shadow Armament] allowed me to control my shadows and dark spells as if I had a “-kinesis” skill.

Heat vision, on.

[True Wolven Instincts] activated, allowing me to see heat signals within this fog. It didn’t allow any light in, so you had to rely on other methods to get by this. It also helped that a lack of light made it “night,” also activating [Night’s Caress].

I didn’t care in the least if one of them was strong or not. Using this moment of surprise, I activated the twin catalyst embedded into my armguards and began generating black electricity through them. With pinpoint knowledge of where everybody in the room was, I blitzed through the room, hitting them all with a thunder palm, stunning them.

Once all of them were down, I grabbed my fog once again and pushed it upstairs. Those above me most likely heard my raid since, according to my ears, they were running towards me. Still not a problem, though.

“Woah, what the hell is this fog?! I can’t see for shit!”

“Arck, you bastard, you stepped on my foot!”

Mutation skill [Lightning Shadow] from the [Stygian Thunder] race Job allowed me to move my thunder through any shadows I controlled with [Shadow Armament]. I bought it after I hunted in the Griffonpeak dungeon a few days before we departed, just so I could Job change in time. It was pretty obvious what I would do with this new skill of mine.

The moment electricity crackled around my hand, I saw black lines flow through the fog, followed by the loud cries of numerous men and a few women before silence came with the sound of something falling to the ground. I walked up and used [Identify] on all of them. None of them were dead.

“Are you two keeping up?” I spoke to the people slowly following me from behind.

“Well, better than nothing, I guess. I stepped on somebody, so, oops.” I could hear Gael say as he tugged on the tendril hanging off my arm.

“I am doing fine, Miss Saori.” She also tugged on the line.

As they couldn’t see in this fog, the [Dark Tendril] was there to help them follow me.

Once I made sure they were okay, I continued onwards, using my [Smokey Haze] to completely take over this building. Sure enough, on the third floor, there were actually a few C rank adventurer level thugs amongst them who might have the ability to threaten us. They seemed well-equipped and capable, seeing as they were able to coordinate even in the dark.

It was just unfortunate that their [Enhanced Enemy Sense] was underleveled against me. With their eyesight robbed and their smelling and hearing abilities worthless against my [Night’s Caress], all they could do was hear their comrades fall one by one before I came for them.

“Gaaaaargk! Monster! gRRRgZZKKKKrrk?! Urgh…”

There is the last person.

Seeing through the walls with my heat vision, I found a single person shivering alone in a spacious room. As I couldn’t see mana like Hestia could and I was wary of the threat of a rune planted somewhere as a trap, I blasted the door open with a bolt of lightning before flicking some small currents around the fog to hopefully activate a trap or two.

I got this idea from Muraina’s [Manalocation] spell and the action of electroreception from hammerhead sharks. I was currently planning on turning this ability into a custom spell, since I did need more ways to scout ahead for our group. This was just my way of testing out the theory before I committed to it.

Hmm, no traps?

“Arck! Fuck!”

Oh, seemed to have shocked them. Hmm, that didn’t go as I wanted to.

Disregarding my disappointment, I shot out a set of [Dark Tendrils] from my arm at him. Surprisingly, he was more adept at fighting than I thought as he did manage to avoid getting captured. So, instead, I simply shocked him with a quick stygian thunder to stop his movements.

With the defeat of everybody inside this building, I had my spell retreat back into my shadow, reforming it. The moment my body came into view of the supposed boss of this gang, he began crying out for no reason.

“Arck?! W-Who the hell are you?! How did you get through all my men, you monster?!”

Wow, twice now. I’ve been called a monster twice now. I mean, I am one, but it's still rude to call me one while I’m in my wolfkin form.

“Haaaa, Gael, get to it,” I told him before taking two chairs from outside the office room and putting them inside for Tasianna and me to sit on.

Taking some of my mana threads, Gael then proceeded to wrap the person up and place him back on his chair. He couldn’t move since I paralyzed him, so Gael was just being polite.

“Anyways. Introductions, right. My name is Gael, I’m coming here to Gleisvale as a representative of Shaturein. Could I know your name and your gang’s?” Gael introduced himself before sitting down.

“Fuck you.” The man spat out, so I whistled for Uno to reappear from outside the room, growling and baring his teeth. As he entered the small room, I could see he felt it was too cramped for him, but he still did his job well by scaring the man into speaking.

“M-My name is Neville Layavete. Underboss of the Layavete cartel! Dammit!” he cursed to Gael’s satisfaction. Knowing he would talk, he asked him what his duty was in the cartel. “Dammit! Do you really think I would continue talking after you admitted to being from Shaturein! The moment you entered this city, we knew you were coming this way, so do you really think I would— Arck?!”

Gael jumped up and grabbed onto the collar of Neville’s embroidered robes, pulling him closer to the table. He then conjured up his own [Dark Tendrils], wrapping them around his neck, holding him down like that.

“I get it, as a cartel, you aren’t too fond of having rivals enter your area, but I’m not here to talk about that stuff. Mister Vangrim Blackreach and Lady Jenghil Grengar have sent me here as their representative to learn why you assaulted and obstructed their people when they came here to talk to you for a partnership. I heard they were diplomatic, wanting to co-exist within the ecosystem of Gleisvale. Sadly, you and your organization weren’t so appreciative.”

“”Of course we weren’t!” he retorted. “The moment we let you into the city, Shaturein will do everything to take control of every single bit of the place. Don’t you dare underestimate the Layavete cartel. In this city, your threats and power do not matter one bit. It is all about money and influence here, and that is something the Layavete cartel has aplenty. We will never share it.”

“Hmm, yes, I heard about that. You got one of the senators under your control… or was it two? Nevermind, the important part is that you have at least one of the senators in your grasp and you can control things through them. That is why I believe you are scared of us. Shatu is a city. We have the money, so if we make it into this city, we would take over your position.”

“…”

It seemed Gael landed a bull’s eye.

“Here, do me a favor, alright? Send a message to your boss and the other underbosses that Shaturein wishes to talk to. Let’s meet at the discussion table, alright? Shaturein has things the Layavete would like to know,” Gael patted his head before pulling out the broken emblem. “Ever seen this?”

“… What’s it to you?”

“Nothing much, but for those two ladies?” Gael pulled the man’s head and had him look at it for a moment before blocking his sight from us. “A lot. You see, they were attacked on the road when they arrived in the country. A bunch of slaves were sent to attack them and we then found out their master was killed. The slaves dropped this emblem, but we have no idea where the master is from. So…”

Gael unsheathed his dagger, pointing the tip on the man’s ear, drawing some blood. “Answer carefully, alright? Did the Layavete cartel send those people to attack them? Were you behind the attack? Who does this emblem belong to?”

“…”

The man fell silent. I didn’t expect him to talk immediately, so I wondered what Gael was—

“Alright, got you. See ya later after you give my message to your boss. Come on, you two.” Gael stood up to leave.

““Huh?!”” Tasianna and I blurted out, following him. We tried to stop him, but he didn’t answer us until we left the building.

“Tasianna, free those goons for me will you? Good thinking not to kill any of those people, Saori. We’ll need them for later. Let’s send them off for now.” We did as Gael wanted but we still weren’t sure what he was planning, so we asked him our questions once again after we freed the thugs. “This gang isn’t the one.”

“Huh? How do you know that?” I asked him.

“It’s a bit of a conjecture, but I don’t believe the Lavayette cartel is currently in charge of the underworld of Estralia. Not anymore, at least.” He waved his hand, telling us we would go to the black market before continuing. “I haven’t visited Estralia in a long while, ever since I went on an adventure with Farron and Yorshka. But, the last time I came here, I knew the Layavete cartel was so intimidating and influential that you didn’t need to repeat it after a made man tells you his name.”

According to Gael, the Layavete cartel had a tradition where every made man had to abandon their family name as a sign of unity. These men would introduce themselves proudly, as the Layavete surname was a medal of honor. People knew not to fuck with them the moment names were given.

“However, that Neville guy? Never heard of him before, but he was made an underboss? Lady Grengar’s intel is usually good enough to sniff out important members like an underboss. But that guy? He didn’t represent the pride of a Layavete at all. He was unwilling to say his name and repeated the cartel as if it was his shield, instead of his sword.”

“And that’s why you believe the Layavete aren’t in charge anymore?” Tasianna summed it up. “So, who is it then?”

“I have no idea. I don’t know how it happened, but they either got taken over or something happened with the previous underbosses. We’ll need to seek them out. Also, I get the feeling it might have something to do with this emblem.” He pulled out the broken emblem again. “As such, let’s go to the black market. That guy from before gave us the directions and Tasianna has her own problems. Let’s head over there before returning home.”

Accepting his answer, we went to the black market. Our objective from Shaturein wasn’t done yet, but Tasianna’s goals had to come first before we left Estralia.

“I’m ready.” Tasianna nodded firmly.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 275: The Mark of the Tempting Serpent.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Elven yeast?”

I picked up a small satchel made from a single green leaf that felt very much like paper. Opening it up, I saw a handful of pink powder. Looking at it closer, each individual powder piece had a small, spikey form. Like a virus.

“Tasianna?” I handed her the satchel.

Tasianna looked at it before giving it a deep smell. “Hmm, yes, fruity with a hint of mushroom spices. The shape of the yeast also has that authentic spikiness. Yes, this is actual, real elven yeast, Miss Saori.”

“Ahhh, wonderful, honored customers!” the foxian merchant exclaimed in excitement, drawing in a few other customers around his stand. “It is as the honored elven lady has said, Miss Wolfkin. This is authentic elven yeast, imported and sold to me and my associates by a trustworthy provider. I can assure you, once you use this yeast in your bread, you will feel like heaven.”

I looked at the pink product once again. The yeast Hestia and Tamae are making is the pudding-like version, stored inside bottles or other suitable vessels. The liquid yeast was also the recipe Hestia gave Arcanuess Helvas and Duke Greenveil, so it was obvious why the two looked so different.

I could trust Tasianna that this yeast was made by the elves. She might not know how to make it, but she had seen and eaten it before enough times to tell the difference between the authentic and the fake. In other words, the elves are selling the dried version of yeast. The one you would find in industry packages.

“… I presume this will cost a lot?” I asked and the merchant confirmed it. “I see… who is your supplier? I thought the elves did not sell their products to human countries.”jA

“They do not, honored customer! Outside of the northern and western countries, elves are forbidden from selling their products to us eastern folks. And most elven merchants act like ass—, uhm, I presume this doesn’t offend you, dear elven customer?”

He looked over at Tasianna but she simply shook her head. Pleased, the foxian continued speaking. “I cannot tell you who my contact is, but please be assured that I received it through, well, ‘gray routes.’ Nothing illegal. So, would you like to make a purchase, dear customers?”

I nodded and handed enough money to the foxian merchant for a single satchel. After we left the area, Gael began speaking.

“It isn’t illegal, it’s just heavily frowned upon. He probably got it from a dubious source, but I wouldn’t count out a dragonewt or levianewt making a deal with him.”

“ ‘Gray routes,’ huh? I guess it came through the train station,” I deduced with Gael’s comment. “Which means, this yeast is probably more widespread inside Gleisvale than Artorias. Gael, how does elven yeast make it to Artorian nobility? Before we came, it was a luxury product there.”

The main reason why our yeast sold like a storm was due to how greedy the nobility was for soft bread and pastries. Elven yeast has been circulating inside the kingdom in small amounts, according to Lord Helvas and Ellaine. It was very expensive, since it was technically black market goods, and mostly reserved for the greifnobles and royalty.

“Estralia and Ankor-Nazta.” Gael’s answer was simple but very obvious. “Black market, as you might guess. A few gangs from Shaturein go to Gleisvale or to the dwarves, and they buy some yeast and come back. Profit. But, as you’ve seen before, Shatu isn’t popular in Estralia. And it ain’t easier with the dwarves, since they are ‘honor bound’ to not sell it to us. There are still; plenty of fences inside the dwarven capital, you understand?”

And that was why Gael didn’t presume a dwarf sold the foxian yeast. Considering how stubborn Grimnir described his race, dwarven merchants probably wouldn’t sell any eleven products to anybody outside of their northern alliance, which meant the source had to be a Loatryxian or Caedhulen. There was also the chance for a thief, but the foxian mentioned “gray routes.” Then again, I should take what the merchant said with a grain of salt.

There is probably a shop or two selling this yeast and its products. Well, depending on how much is imported. Hmm, I guess Ellaine, Haruka, and Amelia will probably have some trouble on their side. Competition for the Sarlenzia company… we will probably need Tamae’s help. Or, maybe Hestia has some interesting product ideas.

Putting the satchel of yeast on my belt for now, trying to not attract attention by using [Storage Magic] here, the three of us continued walking through the black market of Gleisvale.

Aside from a few tough-looking guards protecting their contractors, this whole place just seemed like any other market. Sure, you had more shady-looking people around, but I guessed it was normal since a cartel’s territory was close by. Most likely, every area around this market belonged to a gang.

When I brought that up to Gael, he vaguely confirmed it. He mentioned Gleisvale had been ruled by the Layavete cartel for as long as he knew about it up until now. Something probably happened in the underworld scene, or Layavete’s senate support was toppled in some way.

However, since we only arrived in the city today, information was scarce. Gael said he would look around, but since he didn’t have any “birds” in the city, it will probably take a bit. I offered to help him out, and he gladly accepted it. “Would be nice to have some muscles around so I can concentrate on the information gathering,” he said. So I smacked him on the head.

He was a B rank adventurer. He should act like one. Considering he’s older than me even with my two lives combined, he really should act more like a role model.

In any case, our search for the owner of this broken emblem continued. A round copper piece with a snake slithering along a potion vial; it did look similar to the medical symbol on Earth. Still, it was cracked and broken on the top and its right side. You couldn’t see the snake’s head nor the top of the potion.

Asking the merchants around the market, they gave pretty much the same answer the thug gave. I would have thought it would be harder for them to identify it since the emblem wasn’t whole, but it seemed the alchemists using it were more well-known than we presumed.

“Slaves! Slaves! It’s time to get the show going!” And then my ears picked up on that.

Clapping, cheers, and the fanfare followed the hype-bringing voice of an announcer. Gael and Tasianan noticed my attention shifting and told me we should go over if I was curious about it. I thanked them and followed the trail of people.

But when I got to the location, I couldn’t help but frown. Men and women from different races were trapped in cages and placed on a stage like goods to buy. Most of them were wounded but the majority looked malnourished and weak, far too feeble to fight back as a guard pulled one of them out of it.

“Hear up, people! The Kishnak gang just pulled in some potential new slaves! We got them all weakened, so just prepare your wallets and coins for the runic tats!” The infectious noise of the announcer’s voice drew people to him despite not using a microphone or sound amplifier. “First off, we got ourselves here a human D rank adventurer. Sword and shield. You see these muscles here? Still strong enough to probably kick my ass down the stage despite not having eaten or drunk anything for the last five days. Death’s door now, but you can get him going after a meal. So, let’s start out! Starting price: three large silvites!”

“Two small silvites!”

“Three silvites!”

“Three silvites and 1 small copper!”

They raised and raised onto the starting bid.

It was an auction. An open-air slave auction in the middle of the day. No guards in sight to stop this, only the laughs and cheers of some thug-looking people in the back and the haggling of the suit-wearing people in the front, sitting in their chairs and sipping wine.

Nobody was protesting against this event. Everybody simply enjoyed it, harassing the people in the cages despite contributing nothing to the ever-increasing price of the poor man being sold. They were all being sadistic scum.

“Why…” I mumbled under my breath, but Gael managed to pick up on it despite all the noise.

“That’s how it is, Saori. If Artorias and Shatu didn’t have any laws against slavery, this probably would be happening there too. Most countries believe slavery is just part of daily life, and that criminals should pay for their sins through labor. Debt criminals who were forced into this lifestyle or even people willingly selling themselves to pay back something,” Gael pointed out. “From the looks of it, most of those people were travelers and adventurers. Let the slaves starve before selling them, since the people they are selling slaves to will probably want a slave tattoo made using their emblem as a sign of prestige.”

“Barbaric…” I began walking forward only for Gael to grab my shoulder.

“Nah, don’t think about causing trouble now, Saori. Shatu is already unpopular around this area. You storming this auction now will only bring attention to us from all the gangs inside this city.”

“What does it matter?” I shook off his hand. “If the Layavete knows about us, it's only a matter of time before all the others will. I bet most already do.”

“Yeah, I know, but are you willing to antagonize all of them? We’re here to fulfill your end of the deal for Lady Grengar. Get her people a spot in the city so she can send her people to the Empire and get information on your students over there. Think of the bigger picture. If they become hostile, they won’t let Lady Grengar work in peace.”

And even if we crushed them, syndicates will arise from their ashes to fight back. Gael was right, and I wanted to agree with him, but after rescuing all those people from Hamil’s slave auction, I definitely felt the itch to save those before me once again. I guess Hestia infected me with that heroine act.

Defiance was part of humanity’s nature. History has shown it over and over again how people will do everything they can to strive for their own interests. The plebeian and patrician conflict in ancient Rome where the commoners sought political equality between the classes, or the French revolution, for a more modern and well-known event, were all driven by wants and interests.

I wanted to free these slaves before the runic tattoo was placed on them, but if I angered some people now, even if I managed to destroy all of them, all I would do was place a seed of vengeance for the future while the slave trade would simply return once I left.

“Don’t forget, Saori. Gleisvale is ruled by money. If you want to do something, do it from above. Besides…” Gael looked over to Tasianna, who was scaring off two men who tried to flirt with her. “We probably shouldn’t stay around here for too long.”

“I agree, Miss Saori. I would like to leave this place as soon as possible.” She then turned her head around, nearly shoving two floating ice spikes into the thugs’ throat. “And you two, the next time I see you trying to touch me, I will make sure you will meet an icy prison. Now, leave or die.”

The men made a hasty retreat.

I massaged my temples and sighed, before looking back to the slave auction. The man on the stage had been sold and the buyer came up on the stage, handing the slavers his emblem. A runic tattooist came up and took it from him before applying it on the slave’s face. The sound of the man’s screams was like a hillarious punch line for the cheering crowd.

Despicable.

Lightning began to crackle around my arms, as I wanted to stop this show, but it immediately died down when I suddenly noticed gazes directed at me. I looked around, seeing a few guards looking our way, including the presence of those now hiding and trailing behind us. I understood we were being watched now.

I sighed once again and the three of us moved on to the location the merchants had told us about. Once there, the sight of common merchants was replaced by a couple of people manning stands with potions readily available on their tables. I could see alembics behind them, brewing something while the shopkeepers read or did everything else but promote their products.

They looked bored.

“Excuse me, do you know about this emblem?” I asked one of them, rolling his eyes when I wasn’t here to buy stuff.

“Just go already. The shop is around the corner, the first left. Can’t miss the damn thing.”

I thanked him and began moving, only to stop when I saw Tasianna not make a move. Instead, she bent forwards and inspected the potions on the stand.

“Your potions are undercooked and you used too little alcohol to make them. This one looked more like you placed some ingredients into a pot and forgot to grind them properly. You can even see some solid reminants whirling around.”

I didn’t know if the criticism was correct, but it certainly made the shopkeeper turn red in rage. “Arck, piss off you damn knife-ear! Not everybody got the chance to learn proper technique! Get the fuck out of here already!”

Cranky.

The sudden outburst from the man made the other potion sellers hurl insults at us to get going already, prompting us to move faster than we planned. Gael looked over at Tasianna, asking her why she did that, but all Tasianna could say was “What did I do?”

“Did you already forget? Some wannabe alchemists either banned or declined by the alchemist’s guild are selling their stuff around here on the edge of the market. Those people had to be the ones the guy from before talked about. Nobody likes being told their products suck!”

“But, I was merely pointing out the flaws so he could learn. That’s what Master Krymdar and even Cernust explained to me. Learning from your faults, since alchemy is a very unpredictable profession,” Tasianna replied, still confused about what was happening. She has a sweet personality at times, but she really needed to learn how to read the mood better.

Using the instructions we received, we left the screaming alchemist booths behind and ended up at another neighborhood at the end of an alleyway. Seeing all these stone buildings really scratched that itch I had to visit Greece one day, wanting to see the ruins of all its ancient buildings.

In any case, we did manage to find the shop which we “couldn’t miss” as the potion seller from before mentioned. It had guards standing in the front with a shop sign clearly depicting a snake curling around a vial. However, against my expectations, the snake looked different from what I was expecting.

The snake was smirking, for example, and it also had two horns growing from its head. The cork on top of the potion was in the shape of a heart with a skeleton’s face edged onto it. It gave off a comical impression from the snake but, due to the heart-shaped skull, it seemed too morbid. There were too many contradictions surrounding this emblem.

“ ‘The Heart’s Healing’” Gael mumbled. “Strange name for an alchemist shop. Guess they are more focused on healing potions?”

“Isn’t that what is mostly sold, Gael?” I asked, remembering how Tasianna’s healing potions sold out more often than her mana ones.

“I mean, sure. Yeah, I guess, but the thing with alchemists is that they also provide potions that give buffs. Strength and Agility are the most popular ones, since it directly increases the combat effectiveness for an adventurer or soldier. Healing is mandatory, but stat-increasing potions are equally popular.”

Tasianna took note of that bit of information before we entered the shop. Inside, the place was what you would expect from a potion shop. Potions could be found at the front with the shopkeeper managing them while there were shelves and barrels filled with ingredients like plants, monster materials, and mana water.

I could see some macula plants growing inside a plant pot, which reminded me of just how many our company had in storage with all the mana cleansing we had to do after every time we trained outside. In a potion shop, your ingredients were also your decorations. You could really feel the nature-like atmosphere inside this place. Very earthy, you could say.

“Welcome, welcome to the ‘Heart’s Healing,’” a human woman greeted us. “Please take your time if you need any ingredients. If you require potions, please come forward.”

There were three other women inside this place — all of them were human guards in leather-metal armor holding sheathed swords on their belts. Seeing them keep watch of us turned the more comfy impression I had at first around, making me feel slightly wary of why they needed five guards.

Then I figured we were inside an area where a lot of gangs roamed around. Protection and security were paramount if the shop offered any expensive potions. Still, the fact they needed so many people in such a small shop like this was uncomfortable.

We went to the desk and Gael pulled out the emblem to question her. “Yes, we do have some business. Could you tell me if this belongs to you?”

The clerk took the copper piece and inspected it, nodding after a few seconds. “Yes, I believe so. Although, what exactly happened with it? Where did you find it?”

“A few bandits attacked us on the street a few days ago and two of them had this on them,” I told her truthfully, since there was no need to hide it.

“Oh, by the Goddess?! I hope nothing happened to any of you, or did something happen and you are here for potions? If so, then we have quite a few quality products. Do you require a small, medium, or large? Multiple ones?”

Sending a shiver down my spine, the clerk somehow was to feign compassionion with our plight before using it to promote her products. Certainly, money ruled this place and Gleisvale could be considered a city of the merchants, but the juxtaposition in her behavioral shift was incredibly jarring.

“No, wait,” I stopped her. “We didn’t come here to buy anything, we just wanted to know if this emblem was yours or not.”

“Oooh… oh.” Her smile twitched, looking like she didn’t enjoy what we said. “W-Well, to answer your question, customer. Yes, this emblem does belong to our shop. It is given by our master to the employees to signify their employment to the Heart’s Healing, giving us the protection needed to live inside this city. Since you are newcomers, you should understand that living around this area requires constant support by somebody so we can live properly… and we can only keep it if we work.”

Taking the hint, Tasianna asked her to bring out her potions again, brightening up her wry smile.

“Thank you!” she exclaimed. Seeing us now as customers, she continued speaking. “I heard we lost two people recently and that they took the emblems with them. It’s a matter of faith and trust, so we cannot let people keep the coin when they leave. Since the two men didn’t come back, I presume they died?”

I nodded, but she didn’t show any emotions. Simply shrugging it off like “happens, I guess.”

“The two men were captured and turned into slaves when we met them. Could you tell us if you had any enemies who could have done that?” I asked.

But once again, she shrugged. “Not likely. If they were men, then they were either guards or just some laborers. If I could give a guess, they were debtors and got themselves in trouble. If you are in debt with one of the gangs or the Layavete cartel, you’ll get hunted down and turned into a slave.”

“Uhm, what do you meant by ‘If they were men?’” Gael asked her.

“Our Mistress doesn’t like male employees working with the ingredients she procured or the potions she made, so usually if you are a man, you work outside as a laborer or guard. That’s why the shop guards are only women. But, I guess, since they had these emblems on them, they probably were more important than laborers. But I really couldn’t care less.”

Seeing Gael frowning and that we weren’t bombarding her with questions, she returned her attention to Tasianna, showing her a wide smile. “Is there anything you need, Miss elf?”

“Hmm, yes, I can see that the medium-sized potions were made with more potent ingredients. The lighter red, almost pink, suggests you diluted it?” Tasianna brought up to the clerk’s surprise.

“W-Well, yes, that is correct. The medium healing potion was made using healing herbs from the Morgiana duchy of Artorias. They aren’t as strong as Belzac herbs, but they perform well enough even if diluted. However, unlike normal potions, the taste is so intense that you can’t cover it up with fruits. It’s bitter. Very bitter. But it’s good for you!”

“Oh, I see. Then I guess the two other potions were made using the common healing herb. They should cost less, correct?”

“Yes, yes, that is also correct! Wow, Miss elf, it seems that you are an alchemist, correct? Are you here to also sell some of your products?”

“Sell?” Tasianna tilted her head.

“Yes, our shop also buys potions from other alchemists to supplement our wares. Our Mistress can’t keep up with everything, so she also buys potions from the alchemist guild to sell here. She buys them cheap and sells them at a higher price in this shop, since the local gangs trust our shop very much!” the clerk explained. “That’s why you can identify the vials our Mistress made with the emblem attached to it.”

She then brought out another potion from the box underneath her and placed it before us, pointing at the bright blue symbol on it. Looking at it closer, it had the same design as the shop’s emblem.

“She used a mantech or something to write it. It’ll remain there until the potion is drunk and disappears if you empty it. It’s our quality assurance and our pride!” She placed her hands on her hips, looking proud. “So, would you like to sell or buy?”

“Buy. Thank you.” Tasianna pointed at the potion with the emblem and then looked at me. She wanted me to buy it so she could analyze it later on. I sighed but I still agreed to it.

After Tasianna placed the potion on her belt, she nodded to the clerk. “Thank you very much, this will be a good source of training. We shall now take our leave.”

And just like that, Tasianna turned around and moved to the exit. Technically, we weren’t done with our questions yet, but she had already left the shop despite our complaints. Once we left the shop, I grabbed Tasianna on her shoulder to stop her, but when I turned her around, the eyes looking into mine were cold like ice.

“Miss Saori, this is the place.”

“Huh?” I looked at her in confusion.

‘Place?’ What place?

Telling us to continue moving, Tasianna explained what she meant while we walked away, “Miss Saori, if you had forgotten, I am a fae whisperer now. Fairies usually cannot speak with lesser fae like spirits or spriggans, but I am able to since I received the [Fae Talk] skill from [Fae Whisperer].”

“Did one of them speak with you just now?”

“Yes… multiple spirits warned me to get away from the shop. They told me it was dangerous. In fact, this whole area feels very similar to the ruins where we met Kiiro and the other onnikai. Its filled with the scent of the Goddess of Death.”

I looked around the area, but couldn’t see what Tasianan was talking about. There were plenty of people moving through these streets. It was lively, not dead.

But that was just before I received another sense of foreboding.

[“Alpha…”] That was Uno’s voice.

I turned down to my shadow, seeing the garm’s head peek outside of it, bearing his teeth.

[“I can smell it! I can smell it!”]

[“What are you talking about?”] I questioned my agitated garm.

[“My body! I can smell my past body around! The scent of the Goddess Ilsaphone is around. I smell it! My body! I must find it!”]

[“W-Wait, calm down!”] I ordered my garm before he jumped out of the shadow, needing time to think about this.

His body? What?

My four garms weren’t exactly garms, per se. They were actually just four onnikais, dead lesser faefolk driven back to life through strong emotions, who were combined into the corpses of garms killed about seven years ago during the fenrir hunt.

The leader of the group, an onnikai we named Kiiro, was able to conjure up a black slime made using the catalyst Davison imprisoned it in — a catalyst Tasianna was using nowadays as her main weapon. With the help of Ilsaphone, Kiiro was able to help its fellow onnikai control corpses like their own bodies with that slime, in an effort to create a patron race for the Goddess of Death.

Uno, Song, Sarasa, and Quatre were the results of that experiment. The first four new beings, made using an onnikai to possess the body of a corpse. Over time, this slime allowed them to repair their host body and the memories of the body merged into them.

My garms weren’t exactly garms, but at the same time, they were. They weren’t the body’s original owners, but they were now a copy of them. A sort of pseudo-reincarnation, you could say.

And now Uno was telling me he could smell his body around here. At this point, I didn’t know what to think about this.

“… We need to come back here.” Was all I could say as we made our way back to the RV. Tasianna and Uno were dead silent as we went back. It was so eerie.

Once we made it back, I noticed that Hestia had made it back home earlier than we did. When I asked her how her day went, I was surprised to hear she met such a strong opposition at the train station 'cause of Grimnir. Even more surprising was the fact he hid some of his past from us.

“Where is he now?” I asked Hestia.

“In the smithy. Ellaine and Daichi are with him, but I guess they must be working on Grimnir’s new armor. Smithing is Grimnir’s method to destress, so I guess we should just leave him to himself for now.”

“I agree.” I nodded to Hestia’s assertion. “He’ll probably open up a bit after some work and alcohol later on. I’ll talk with him… but it’s still surprising. Well, but I don’t think you’ll like what we learned on our side.”

And I was right. Hestia didn’t like what we experienced at all. Still, for now, the day was almost over and we managed to get a good impression of our first day in Gleisvale. Tomorrow, it was likely that we had to help Hestia out a bit with her duty as a princess.

We needed to begin gathering more information and bring our goals here forward. Our list of tasks kept growing larger and larger with every moment, and it was certain that our stay in Estralia would bring us more stress than we accounted for.

Profile:

Name:   Tasianna Marina Silverpond

Level: 69

Race: Wind Elf (Fairy)

Age: 88 Years

Job:   Alchemist Level: 0/20

Status:

Health:

3436 (+245)

Mana:

11443 (+2039)

Strength:

989 (+94)

Intelligence:

3886 (+429)

Vitality:

1182 (+189)

Wisdom:

2850 (+320)

Agility:

4038 (+930)

Stamina:

4141 (+852)

Effects:

[Elvenized (Major)]

Skill Points:

4950

Skill:

Magic skills and related:

[Fairy Magic] [Arcane Mind Lv. 10] [Ice Magic Lv. 5]

[Water Magic Lv. 10] [Torrent Magic Lv. 6] (+1) [Water Amp]

[Water Magic Efficiency] [Wind Magic Lv. 10] [Wind Amp]

[Wind Magic Efficiency] [Storm Magic Lv. 4]

[Synergist’s Oath Lv. 8] (+2)

[Chant Revocation Lv. 10] [Silent Casting Lv. 10] (+1)

[Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 8] (+3) [Mental Stability Lv. 5] (+2)

[Mental Warfare Lv. 7] (+2) [Fluid Cast Lv. 4] (+2)

[Continuous Cast Lv. 4] (+2) [Delayed Cast Lv. 3] (+2) [Multi-Cast Lv. 7] (+2)

Senses and movement skills:

[Silence Lv. 3] (+1) [Accuracy Correction Lv. 10] (+2)

[Detection Sensor Lv. 1] (New) [Foresight Lv. 1] (New)

[Danger Perception Lv. 9] (+2) [Enhanced Vision Lv. 8] (+1)

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 7] (+1)

[Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 8]

[Night Vision Lv. 7] (+1) [Tracking Lv. 5] (+2) [Presence Killer Lv. 7] (+1)

[Evasion Lv. 10] [Acrobatic Lv. 10] (+1) [Air Walk Lv. 1] (New)

[Flight Acceleration Lv. 9] (+1) [Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 9] (+2)

[Aerial Fighter Lv. 3] (New)[Concentration Lv. 10]

[Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 4] (+1)

Resistance:

[Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 2] (+1) [Absolute Pain Tolerance]

[Abnormal Status Nullification] [Mana Leak Resistance Lv. 10]

[Ice Resistance Lv. 6] [Lightning Resistance Lv. 3] (+1)

[Lava Resistance Lv. 5]

[Sacred Resistance Lv. 1] (New) [Inferno Resistance Lv. 5]

[Torrent Resistance Lv. 2] (+1) [Earth Resistance Lv. 9] (+2)

[Storm Resistance Lv. 3] (+1) [Tenebrous Resistance Lv. 1] (New)

Stat growth and related:

[Health Recovery Lv. 2] (+1) [Stamina Recovery Lv. 8] (+3)

[Enhanced Health Growth Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 4] (+2)

[Arcane Conduit Lv. 1] (New)

[Enhanced Intelligence Growth Lv. 10] (+2)

[Enhanced Intelligence Enforcement Lv. 8] (+2)

[Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 2] (+1)

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 4] (+2)

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 4] (+2)

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv.8] (+1)

[Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 6] (+2)

[Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 8] (+1)

[Enhanced Agility Enforcement Lv. 5] (+1)

[Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 5] (+1)

[Enhanced Stamina Enforcement Lv. 4] (+2)

Others:

[Singing Lv. 8] (+3) [Dancing Lv. 5] (+2) [Identify Blocker Lv. 10]

[Identify Lv. 10] [Cooking Lv. 9] [Dismantle Lv. 8]

[Herbalist Lv. 8] (+1) [Alchemy Lv. 4] (+2) [Brewing Lv. 8] (+1)

[Sewing Lv. 4] (+1) [Battle Mind Lv. 8] (+2)

[Terror Aura Lv. 6] (+3) [Fae Talk Lv. 2] (+1) [Royal Etiquette Lv. 7]

[Elvenize Lv. 10] [Frost Body Lv. 3] (+1) [Cryokinesis] [Telepathy]

Spell List:

Custom spells:

[Create Water] [Greater Create Water] [Marine Lungs] [Ocean’s Blast]

[Aifli eir Vintral (Fairy of Winter)]

[Tor Eiclere’s Finulaflei (Ice Age’s Paradise)]

[Slithering Frost Serpent]

Ice spells:

[Ice Spike] [Frozen Shield] [Icicle Gust] [Glacial Protection]

[Winter’s Golem]

Water spells:

[Water Ball] [Water Wall] [Water Bolt] [Cleanse] [Protective Water]

[Droplet Torrent] [Aqua Prison] [Aqua Beam] [Torrential Rain]

[Ocean Healing] [Azure Blade] [Sapphire Membrane]

[Kraken’s Destruction] [Perilous Tidefall]

Wind spells:

[Wind Bullet] [Wind Cutter] [Air Shield] [Wind Slash]

[Swift Winds] [Wind Blast] [Featherfall] [Aerial Blitz] [Tornado Bullet]

[Sylphid’s Cloak] [Tailwind] [Cyclone Madness]

Titles:

[Hestia’s Retainer]

A note from AbyssRaven

Former bodies hype. Garm getting old body back?!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 276: Shopping Time with the Girls.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #1 her to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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“Faster! My whelpling, you need to produce your flames faster! With [Volcanic Blaze], you need to learn how to produce fire from anything and everything if you want to realize its full potential!” Mother instructed me, pushing me to snap my fingers faster and faster.

Snap, snap, snap; the sound of fingers rubbing against each other echoed inside this clothing store. Every time I did so, fire was created not through my scale-dust, but through my mana. One snap on the left hand and a fire erupted, and when I did it with my right hand, the fire on my left disappeared, replaced by one on the right.

Meanwhile, my ten parallel minds were controlling the scales around me, picking up the clothing the store clerks were handing over to me. With Svena helping out, I was almost able to dress myself using my scales alone. Sadly, the clerks weren’t as excited since they were scared my fire could catch onto the clothing.

“M-Mother, do we really have to practice this right now?” I pleaded to Mother to stop since I could see the clerks looking at my flames nervously.

“No. Clothing is important since your appearance must be impeccable for a dragon of your status, but you could just make dresses using your scales. Your training is more important than wasting time like this, Hestia.” But Mother was strict.

Dammit, for an immortal, you really treat time as any other mortal!

Regardless of Mother’s helicopter mum-like behavior, today has been a pretty busy day for me. Mostly ‘cause I had to go around the city a lot to do some mandatory stuff, which I couldn't have done yesterday when we first arrived in Gleisvale.

For example, Aurora had to register ourselves at the hunter’s, mercenary's and mage’s guilds. Similar to how we did it in Griffonpeak, it was there to let the guilds know we were around and to allow us to take on jobs if we needed them. While we weren't legally bound to register at the hunter’s guild — although we still did so, as we were a company — it was a requirement to keep our guild membership for the mage’s guild.

Maverina, the mage’s guild master in Griffonpeak, told us we had to do it. If a mage’s guild was around in a city, mages had to make sure to announce their appearance since the magical capital, Aleistunum, was responsible for managing them. And they did it through the mage’s guild. “Laws and restrictions,” I told myself.

I was also annoyed that I had to announce any custom spells I made for myself, but I do admit they were useful in Griffonpeak when we needed an enchanter for our catalysts. Still, now that we had Tamae around, she could handle our enchanting needs. If it weren’t for raising Master Kush’s prestige as a mage’s guild member from me being acknowledged as his apprentice, I would have probably wanted to hand in my membership just with how annoying it was.

Speaking about memberships, Mother and the twins were less enthusiastic about being “bound down by human laws.” In Griffonpeak, I had suggested we get them some party bracelets and also a membership with the hunter’s and mage’s guild, but they rejected that idea. At the very least, I managed to persuade them to get IDs despite the fact that they thought it was redundant if they could simply introduce themselves.

When we went over to the mage’s guild today, the guild leader had already known of our arrival — as did anybody else with any amount of influence in this city, apparently. He was pleased to meet me and that I was a member of the guild, but imagine my surprise when he was actually brazen enough to demand that Mother and the twins had to register, stating it was the law of the lands.

Suffice to say, Mother “put him into his place.” In fact, the whole building was “put into its place.” I had the feeling no matter how many fire mages they hired, they wouldn’t be able to use that plot of land anymore until Mother forgave them and dispelled the ice around it. For a bunch of smarty-pants arcanists, the guild leaders of these mage’s guilds were pretty up their asses.

Can’t wait to tell this story to Maverina. Would remind her of that time I made the Sarlenzia company raise the price of fulinoe leaves just for them! Ha, making back our ‘compensation fee’ and more was pretty funny. Hie hie~

Anyways, after all that guild business, we were now going around upholding the “promises” I gave the representatives I met yesterday. First, a bunch of merchants wanted to do business with us, so I just sent Amelia, Ellaine, and Haruka with the twins guarding them to handle that stuff. Ellaine could handle herself well enough, but better not take any risks after what Saori told me yesterday about cartels being supported by senators.

With that annoying part delegated to people with a better aptitude to it — I wasn’t running away — it allowed me to visit the shops who just wanted to sell us things to possibly “promote” them. Like clothing, jewelry, and even that pastry store our merchant trio told me about yesterday.

That pastry store was our first visit and I had to agree with what those three told us. The pastries were nice to eat and delicious, using a lot of sugar, cream, and butter to elevate it into dessert heaven. Still, I didn’t think we would lose out to them, but I could see why they were selling well.

In any case, that could be dealt with later on. For now, it was a shopping trip with the girls and I was fully intending to enjoy it~

“Ark! Jeez, why do these dresses always have to come with a fucking corset or bustier?! Damn, is there something without a corset around?!” The rowdy voice of a certain rebel resounded, nearly drowning out those of others.

“Hmm, oh, you are right. These colors do compliment my hair pretty well. Although, the skirt might be a bit too frilly.” I could hear somebody comment about herself worriedly, which I guessed belonged to our new chef.

“Hmm, the dress is nice but it really doesn’t go well if I get into trouble. The sleeves are too long to use my bow.” Considering she mentioned a bow, it had to be our resident archer.

“Misaki-san, you should not be using a bow while wearing a dress.” And that matter-of-fact tone could only belong to a certain electro wolfkin friend of mine.

After I was done dressing up, I opened the door using my scales and came out of the changing room with Svena and Mother. I looked around, noticing the rest of the girls of Aurora were also done with their changing and over by the mirror to inspect themselves.

The clothing shops had large rooms reserved to try out clothing, divided between private and group intended ones, according to each customer's preferences. These group rooms had separate changing rooms behind doors for everybody’s privacy, of course, but a communal room to inspect each other’s appearances.

“So, how does this one look, guys?” I asked everybody, drawing their eyes towards me.

“This one also has an opening for your wings, huh? They really worked hard to get it finished in a day,” Kohaku commented. She herself was wearing an eye-catching yellow-red dress which made her stand out even in a crowd.

“Jeez, and I thought Sensei could tailor everything fast. Imagine making six dresses for Hesti-chan to try out in a single night,” Kazumi stated, having transformed into her katzune form for right now. With cat ears and a tail, her black dress seemed quite brazen as it was made specifically for katzune tastes, and they liked their clothes to be athletic and free-feeling.

I heard beastmen from Carmaniate, the beastman alliance in the east, sometimes visit or even immigrate using the dwarves’ train, so Gleisvale merchants also put in the effort to appeal to them also. This really was a hub.

Outside of Saori’s, Tasianna’s, Mother’s, Kazumi’s, and my clothes, the formal dresses made for humans ranged from late medieval style, basically Gothic, to slight Victorian. In other words, they loved their corsets to accentuate the breasts and the long, flowy skirts. There were also casual dresses available, but they were similar to what Artorian nobles wear.

Now, for the beastmen dresses they had a more refined beastial charm to them. They were less strict with modesty and could be called risque in a way, although not as much as you would expect from modern Earth’s dresses. Rather, you could say the dresses were there to accentuate the animalistic features we had like our wings, tails, scales, and fur.

I naturally rejected any dresses which even tried to show off my chest 'cause of my missing core, which were three out of six I received from the most noteworthy boutiques in the city. Fortunately, each store gave me both a modest and an eye-catching option, so at least they were being considerate about my tastes.

Speaking about my core, after I had removed it, I noticed a small pebble of crystalized mana had appeared on my chest. Mother told me I had to wait for my core to naturally reform, so this was just the beginning stages. It would take quite a while for it to reform, but even as a small gem, I could probably use [Solar Beam] and enter my overdrive form. Just, it wasn’t recommended for obvious reasons.

Back to the topic of dresses, I already saw Kazumi’s before, and Mother’s dress was pretty similar to mine, only they had the wrong proportions. Mother’s humanoid form was that of a high elf, but unlike most female elves I’d met so far, she was busty. It made me remember how Muraina explained elves were naturally flat and only had their chests grow if they were pregnant or during the first few years after having a child.

Well, she did have a child, so I guess it counts.

“Haaaa, do I really have to get a new outfit?” Tasianna lamented.

I had heard she was nearly groped yesterday when she visited the black market in her usual maid outfit. Honestly, Tasianna was a strong mage and personally wanted her to dress like one just for my fantasy. Just imagining Tasianna looking like a badass mage in some incredible looking robes made me want Saori to hurry up with it.

Regardless, Tasianna’s current dress was also a chance for Saori to learn about elven dress fashion along with how beastmen fashion worked. Although Gleisvale was rarely visited by elves, half-elves were a different question. As such, from the few half-elves who came through the dwarven train, the boutique had a small section reserved for their style.

Not surprising, the dresses the elves like to wear were similar to how Tasianna described them to us in the past. Very few materials were used for them and there was a higher focus on looking elegant while remaining minimalist, which reminded me of Earth’s preferences. Showing skin was not a problem for elves.

With Saori’s dress, you could imagine just how much she hated it even if she didn’t admit it to not be rude to the people who made it. Our good wolfkin hated showing off the fur around her arms and legs, and the skirt of a wolfkin dress was usually longer in the back but shorter in the front. The dress she wore was exposing her arms and legs, and I could see how embarrassed she felt.

Chin up, Saori! It’s almost over!

Technically, she could have transformed into a higher [Humanization] form to get rid of her fur, but that would mean she couldn’t use her lightning. Practicality over fashion.

“Urgh, can we just get this over with…” The other person who disliked her dress was Asaka, voicing her unwillingness to wear a corset. I could imagine everybody didn’t want to say it out loud, so we girls smiled wryly as she spoke out what we thought.

Thank goodness beastmen hate wearing corsets too! I thanked the flexible nature of beastmen fashion.

Since all of us were done with changing, we exited the room and walked back to the busy front of the shop. Many ladies were inspecting the clothing in the boutique while their male escorts complimented or praised them, telling them how beautiful they would look in a specific dress.

Speaking about guys, we had our own.

“Yo, boys, we’re done. How do we look~?” I asked the bored-looking Tatsuya, Kyouya, Nishio, and Daichi. Outside of Grimnir, all the men in our company were here.

““““…””””

However, for some reason, all four were silent as they stared at us. Not even a squeak came out of their mouths, but I could see they were focused on us with their widened eyes.

“U-Uhm… do the corsets not hurt?” Was the first thing we heard from them and it came from Tatsuya.

“““““““““…”””””””””

We were speechless.

“… Yes, they are uncomfortable and freaking pain in the butt to wear, so how about you guys say something else so we can get out of them sooner?” Asaka complained to the boys with a tired expression.

Noticing we wanted to hear them talk about our appearances, the boys straightened up their backs.

“U-Well, you girls all look fantastic!” Kyouya was the first to speak out. “W-Well, uh, you guys look very pretty!”

He’s flushed. Cute.

“Hmm! Not perfect, but still better than nothing!” Kohaku grinned and gave him a peace sign. “Now, Kyouya-kun~ Who is the one you like the best, hmm?”

“Wha-What?!”

“Ohh, nice one, Kohaku-chan!” the blond-haired katzune-wannabe Kazumi responded with a thumbs up. “Kyooouya-kun~ Who is it, hmm? Me? Hesti-chan? Or, maybe you’re into Sensei~?”

“Kazumi-san…” Saori glared at the tricky kitty.

Buuuuut, not to say it wasn’t any less awkward for poor Kyouya as he tried to think of something to say. Stammering around like that, Kohaku and Kazumi giggled as they witnessed their teasing successful. We girls can be quite mean, huh?

Patting his shoulder, Kohaku then turned her attention to Nishio. “No worries, Kyouya-kun. Just watch how somebody else answers that question. Nishio-kun, how about you? Who do you think looks the best?”

“Tamae-san.” His answer was swift like a storm! “The lime green with the combination of yellow on her dress really compliments your purple hair, Tamae-san. Very natural while giving you an aura of a caring person as none of the colors stuck out too much. They fit perfectly. It’s a sight for sore eyes. You’re quite enchanting.”

“O-Oh! U-Uhm, thank you very much, Nishio-kun. That’s really nice of you to say. I didn’t think I looked that good, to be honest. But hearing you say that to me really made me happy.” A bright smile graced Tamae’s face as she giggled embarrassed with a bright blush on her face.

“Whew,” Kazumi whistled. “Damn. Smooth. I wonder if Tama-chan finally caught on or not?”

Oh, right. Nishio had a crush on Tam—

“But, I think Melloxtressa-sama looks better than me. The cyan and white colors of her dress makes her feel so approachable even if they aren’t very warm colors. Like a breath of fresh air, you know.”

“Oh, why thank you, Tamae. I do agree with your apt description. The tailors really did a fine job with this dress, despite not knowing me that well. Still, a bit too tight, but they didn’t manage to guess any of our sizes correctly, so I am able to forgive them.”

“…” Nishio’s grin dropped as he stared blankly at his failed attempt. He sat back down, looking at the floor, crestfallen. Hope couldn’t be seen in his eyes.

Ooof… Poor dude… Now that Mother mentioned, this dress does feel a bit too tight around my waist… Oh shit, am I gaining weight?!

In any case, aside from Nishio, none of the boys could bring out a similar or more eloquent compliment than he did, which, honestly, wasn’t too bad. We only wanted to tease the boys and we got our laughs out of their embarrassment. Flustered and unable to speak is already extremely flattering, if you ask me.

Anyways, before we were finished, Ellaine, Amelia, Haruka, and the twins arrived at the store, looking exhausted after the talks with the merchants. They wanted to tell us what happened, but we decided they needed a break so we pulled the girls from their group into the dressing room and had the clerk get us some dresses.

The boys, plus Shay, stayed behind and waited for us. Once we returned with everybody dressed, we pushed the four new girls into the light for the boys to see. While Ellaine, Amelia, and Haruka didn’t have any problems getting into a dress, helping Beth get into hers was quite tricky since she could only assume a [Humanize (Minor)] form, in other words, she looked like a humanoid wyvern and had wings as arms.

Still, with perseverance and a lot of tries, we eventually managed to do so. Beth didn’t know about the concept of nudity or exposing her skin, so she didn’t feel embarrassed about modesty, but she sure felt awkward. Why? Well, her brother could be quite insensitive about it.

“Fuhahahahaahahah!” Shay laughed out loud. [“Bethlieranha, dress isn’t fitting! Too small, yes!”]

“Kierk?! Urgk!” Beth unfurled her wings and covered her face while dropping her tail between her tail, a sign of surrender for scale-kins.

Oh no, you didn’t! Shaaaaaay!

“Kuek!” Shay stopped laughing as he suddenly flinched back, finally noticing us girls glare at him intently. [“Uhm… I say something wrong?”]

Whether it was due to his lack of ability in stringing words in Common or a general misunderstanding due to wyverns having no idea about clothing in general, we still didn’t let Shay go scott-free for laughing at Beth. After lecturing him, we told the boys to have some boys talk with him.

Beth and Shay were twins and around 93 years old, but their minds were more similar to that of young adults rather than senior citizens, just like how Tasianna was 88 but acted more like an adolescent. Long-living races mature in different ways compared to humans.

In any case, after we changed back into our normal clothing, our time in the shop ended. The manager of the boutique approached us and wondered if we liked any of the products he and the other two shops offered, but we mentioned most of us wore mana clothing at home so we didn’t need them.

Shocked to hear that, he quickly realized the boutiques forgot Mother and I could transform back into dragons. At the very least, they should have offered mana clothing. He offered to rectify this mistake, but we declined, expressing we learned a lot about the local fashion. As much as the dresses were nice to wear, since we wouldn’t use them as often compared to the easily-maintainable mana clothes, we decided not to buy useless stuff.

After leaving the shop, we saw the sky turning orange so we decided to return to the RV for the day. Once back, we noticed Yorshka and Grimnir enjoying some beer together while Elrick was sleeping on the couch.

When we asked what happened, Yorshka simply laughed. “Haha, the training today was too rough for Elrick! He told me to go harder on him but he couldn’t handle it! Hahahaha! I think he’s falling behind a bit since we haven’t had a good hunting session in a while. Mhmm. The same thing with your kids.”

“Hmm? Oh! Now that she mentioned it, Hestia, how is your [Battle Frenzy]? Any tingling? You haven’t hunted anything for nearly three weeks now,” Saori asked me.

“Oh, don’t worry about it. Honestly, with Kramps helping me out, I think I’ve been getting better accustomed to it. Haven’t felt a need to fight in a while.”

Even after finishing the sloth stage of Kramps’ training, he told me to continue working on maintaining my cool for now until we went to the next stage, which was gluttony. For a Kargryxmor can be spurred into rage due to an insatiable need for power.

With Mother helping me out with my scale manipulation and to find out if [Volcanic Blaze] was an empty vessel magic or not, I also had enough stimulus to not want to fight anything. I wasn’t in danger of suddenly lashing out on anybody for now. It was a relief to me.

“Speaking about fighting, I think it should be time for us to return to the fields,” Tatsuya suddenly pointed out. “Some time to rest is nice and all, but let us not forget that we need to train. Like Elrick, we are lagging behind in levels and training. With the experience boost we got from [Hestia’s Retainer], we need to get out and hunt.”

“I agree,” Kyouya nodded. “There is also the thing we found about the potion shop. I don’t think we’ll get as much information as Sensei or Gael, so we’ll try to help by speaking with the adventurers. Some might have frequented the shop and could tell us more.”

Saori’s information on the potion store was pretty worrying, especially with how Tasianna and Uno reacted to that store. For now, we needed information on things.

“Hmmm, if we are talking about training, then we should also continue ours,” Misaki brought up as she looked at the others of The Magical Biscuits. “Tama-chan, I think it would be best if I returned to training, too. Well, Kazumi-chan, Kohaku-chan, Nishio-kun, and I. Working at the restaurant was nice, but we can’t neglect our training.”

“O-Oh, right, that’s true… You should do that. We need to get stronger before the next demonkin attack or if we have to attack them.” Tamae acquiesced to Misaki’s request but seemed troubled, nonetheless. I wondered why.

“Sorry about that, Tama-chan. We’ll still help out when we need to. Right, Kohaku-chan? Nishio-kun?” Kazumi apologized. The two others agreed to it, comforting Tamae.

“Oh yeah, don’t forget to use the company, guys,” I said to those wanting to do some adventurer work, but they looked at me with confusion so I had to elaborate. “Well, isn’t it obvious? We have a nexus and the ability to fast travel. We have teleportation points in Ullistar, Griffonpeak, Cedaraille, and Firwood. The former three have dungeons and the last has access to Belzac forest. Perfect place to hunt monsters for their materials.”

“Ooooh!” Haruka figured out my plan. “Do you mean to use that ‘traveling quest board’ function we could use? Now that I think about it, one of the merchants who wanted to do business was somebody who traded in monster materials since his primary customers were smithies.”

“But, we’ll have to pay taxes to the hunter’s guild if we worked like that, correct?” Kohaku asked.

“Sure, but we can still earn rank points as well as money,” Kyouya replied. “We aren’t restricted to the local guilds and we do need to enter a dungeon soon. Gleisvale doesn’t have a dungeon, only monster-infested areas nearby. Tatsuya and I will stay around, though, to help the others, you four should probably go hunt with Dame Yorshka in the other places.”

Tatsuya agreed to Kyouya’s statement. “We also need to find some information on the ‘Heart’s Desires,’ so we’ll ask some adventurers if we can. However, I personally just want to turn this time into proper training. If that’s okay, hopefully.”

“Oh, in that case, would it be okay if I accompanied you two?” Ellaine raised her hand. “Amelia and Haruka can take care of the business side without me. In addition, Hestia and Tamae are better suited to support them with our future plans for the opening of the Sarlenzia branch in the city.”

She paused as she raised up her ring. “There is also my wish to train with Klea’s power more. I want to get more used to assimilating with her. Without my death-defying necklace, I need to get stronger, too.”

[“Ahh, true. That would be best. A long training trip with two boys sounds great, hiehie. No, but seriously, I do think Ellaine needs to get more training. There are still more powers and I also have to explain to Ellaine how to use ‘Original Sin’ abilities when she gains them. She knows as much about my powers as you do your [Battle Frenzy], Hestia,”] the demon compared my situation with Ellaine’s, making me nod. [“Depending on what we will do, I won’t be around in Gleisvale to detect any demonkin presences, so be careful, dears. Still, when I’m around, you can call me for your training, Hestia.”]

I nodded once again. “It’s decided then. Ellaine, would you mind acting as the leader for those two?”

“M-Me?!”

“Yeah. You’re planning on becoming a knight, correct? Knights need to take a leadership role sometimes, like what Elrick and Yorshka are doing. Tatsuya and Kyouya have lower levels than you, and you probably have more combat experience than they do.”

“B-But— Hold on, am I not younger than those two? Doesn’t that feel a bit inappropriate?”

“I have no problems taking orders, Ellaine,” Tatsuya stated. “Also, I personally think it would be cool to work with you. From one transformer to the other. Well, I don’t like the demon, but I’m okay, regardless.”

“Same with me.” Kyouya showed a thumbs up. “I’m better at taking orders than giving them.”

“Good. It’s settled!” I announced. “Shay and Beth. Would you mind joining them as insurance? Don’t fight their fights if you aren’t needed, though, alright?”

[““Yes, Princess!””] the two agreed immediately.

Outside of Gleisvale, the Centipedeclaw valley was teeming with monsters, making it a good place to hunt. While it didn’t provide the best amount of challenge for experienced adventurers, our goal here was to find information. What better way than to go and ask people who frequent potion shops and alchemists?

“Which means, Gael, Tasianna, and I will handle investigating the area around the ‘Heart’s Healing,’” Saori followed up. “We’ll try to sneak into the shop and get some information. If we manage to find anything, then your three can just continue on with your training. We still have to deal with Shaturein’s request, which probably means interacting with the local gangs. Keep your schedules flexible and stay on guard, in case they want to try something. We already angered a cartel on the first day.”

“Sounds interesting. I’ll come with you.” Surprisingly, Asaka was the one to offer her hand to Saori. “What are you looking at me like that, Segawa-san? You don’t want my help?”

Saori frowned. “… I didn’t expect you to help out.”

Asaka shrugged. “I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for myself since I won’t be of any use on Hestia’s side, and I’m not in the mood to go out to the forest again after what happened in Belzac. In other words, I have nothing better to do. And, lastly, the stupid garm spirits want to stay around you. Mind helping me out?”

It really seemed like Asaka wanted to help out.

“… After everything on Earth, it’s hard to rely on you, Hanazawa-san.” But Saori still had a wall in between them.

“Miss Saori, I don’t think it’s that bad to bring her along with us,” Tasianna suggested. “If Asaka came with us, Sir Elrick will, too. He might be underleveled compared to us and a liability since he probably will have a hard time working with people like Gael, but he can probably deal with any goons since he’s a knight of Aurena. Besides, even if you disregard Sir Elrick and her garm spirits, Asaka is smart enough to catch onto details.”

“Well, you’re overpraising me there, Tasianna. I’m not good either in combat, since I’m just a healer with a mace to bash people with. Not like you two with your fancy large-scale spells. However, well— Okay, I don’t have many other arguments, really. I just don’t want to stick inside the RV like a NEET, so can I help out, or not?”

“… Haaaaaaa,” Saori sighed, scratching her head. “Yes, alright. I do not see too much of a problem there. Maybe this trip will help you mature a bit.”

Hehe, even Saori doesn’t want to admit it, she still acts like a teacher around her ‘former’ students.

Which meant, only one group was left — the Sarlenzia group.

“Alright, I haven’t planned anything with the senator, but I have a feeling they will send another representative when they are ready. Since I didn’t go to them today,” I told everybody. “As such, it’s time to prepare for the mission ‘Introduce Earthen desserts to Peolynca Part 2!’ Tamae-chan, I have some ideas for products I want the Sarlenzia company to introduce, so could you help me translate those recipes with the local ingredients?”

“Oh! Sure, that would be amazing!” Tamae’s bad mood disappeared instantly once food was mentioned.

I nodded. “Amelia. Haruka. How were the merchant visits? What did they want?”

“Mostly to provide us with business deals since they knew you were affiliated with the Sarlenzia company. Well, since I went to them, things began to smooth out even more once I told them we were opening a branch here,” Amelia answered.

“We probably left a couple of them disgruntled, considering how they behaved after we announced our plan. It might be a problem for later.”

“Ahh, don’t worry about it. If they don’t want to join us, then they will be left behind. Gleisvale is the city of merchants, so we have to play by their rules to win. If they want to lose, then let them continue thinking we are their rivals. We’ll crush them.” I smirked. “Also, before I meet up with the senators, we need to get information on them. Who are they? What do they do? Their affiliations? Amelia, please, get somebody from House Helvas or Greenveil to help you with the branch opening. We need to get this finished as soon as possible. I’ll handle any problems with the merchant guild with you two, alright?”

It was time for me to act like a proper leader. Hearing me give out all these orders made me feel kinda giddy inside. Like I was finally growing up.

“Hiehie.” Mother giggled, but didn’t say anything so I continued.

“Oh, and I have a plan with the restaurant, so Tamae could you—” But before I could end my sentence, Tamae seemed to have figured out what I wanted.

“If you are talking about serving people food, that might be a problem.”

“Huh? Why? Shouldn’t the chefs and waiters we trained at House Helvas be ready?”

“Yes, they are,” Tamae confirmed, but smiled wryly afterward. “However, they still are refusing to serve their skills to commoners.”

“What?!” Ellaine burst out. “No, you informed us about it before. That’s why the others of the Magical Biscuits were helping out, but are you saying after two weeks after I left Griffonpeak that none of them are willing to help?!”

“Y-Yes.” Tamae looked troubled. Was this the reason why she wasn’t looking so good before. “Misaki and the others knew about it, but I also have to admit I was asking them to help out despite them wanting to stop beforehand to continue training. They really only helped out of the goodness of their hearts, but I can’t continue being selfish. This restaurant is something I wanted, so I need to take responsibility for it.”

“I apologize, Tamae-san.” Nishio bowed deeply, but Tamae told him to stop.

“This can’t be…” Ellaine massaged her temples. “Why aren't Father or Mother saying anything?! Brother? They should know and educate our servants better! This is preposterous!”

“Well, you should know that Duke Greenveil wanted to expand the whole yeast and pastry business, correct? He just made a deal with the new Duke Equevanna, so your family has been too busy helping them. They should be going from Firwood to Cedaraille and then to Ullistar. They told me not to tell you, since you might be worried they might be working themselves to death.”

“Oh goodness…” Ellaine stated anxiously. “What about Barathan? Manuella? They should be helping out.”

“Mister Barathen is managing the new yeast guild in Firwood while Miss Manuella is handling the one in Cedaraille with Duke Greenveil’s head attendant. Any other attendant from the two families are in the Equevanna duchy, to make sure our secrets aren’t accidentally leaked. I don’t think Duke Equevanna would do anything to compromise this new relationship, but neither he nor Duke Greenveil trusts the nobles currently inside the Equevanna duchy.”

The power vacuum was still very much present after the previous Duke Equevanna had to step down and with the whole noble purge. I was sure some nobles would like to ride this storm as if a new age was coming, but I could imagine some rats narrowly dodging the purge. The two dukes were just being safe since losing the yeast recipe to a competitor meant I would lose out too.

“And, since there is nobody I can call to help with this, my restaurant crew hasn’t been doing what I want. I can’t get them to work for the lower city, saying their talents and training were wasted on them.”

“Are you serious?!” Ellaine was outraged. “Josine! Svena! I thought that both of you managed to recruit and hire proper attendants to help out! What is the meaning of this?!”

“L-Lady Ellaine, I am unforgivable!” Josine bowed down with Svena.

“My deepest apologies, Lady Ellaine! Lady Hestia! I was sure we got the best of the best and we also informed them we might also serve commoners. Most of them came from schwertnoble houses or have worked in a magnoble’s house. They were recommended by their former employees!”

“Yes… technically, we promised them that they would be serving rich merchants. Specifically. W-We have made a mistake and forgot to inform them of the lower city restaurant. This is our mistake, Lady Ellaine.”

Oh goodness, so it was a communication issue. Dammit.

“Urgh!” Ellaine covered her face and breathed in deeply. She knew we couldn’t force them if that was the case. She might be a noble, but nobles also had to act like ones especially towards their employees. We couldn’t afford a bad reputation.

“No problem then. Let them work for the noble restaurant, then.”

Which means, we had to adapt.

“Hestia?” Ellaine looked at me in confusion. “So, are you planning on scraping the idea to serve the commoners here and simply focus on the wealthy?”

“Nope,” I stated, confusing everybody. “Tamae-chan, make sure your crew for the noble restaurant will actually work well enough. Their work contract stated something we overlooked, so it is now our responsibility to handle it ourselves. We need to act properly, not them. As such, I will get you people who will help you.”

“You will? From where? Hesti-chan, we can’t just take on random people, since we need to trust these people with my recipes so they don’t expose them. The people Josine and Svena hired are all nice people, and I believe they are enthusiastic about working with us, especially since I think they are planning to stay around after I taught them my recipes. The chefs loved them and wanted to learn more from me.”

That’s good to hear! We won’t force people to stay if they didn’t want to, but we had to make sure they didn’t tell these recipes to others.

“Don’t worry about that. I can get you some helpers who we can all trust,” I assured her before turning to Yorshka. “Hey, Yorshka, mind coming with me to a trip to Griffonpeak and Firwood?”

“Huh? For what?” she asked but I couldn’t help but smirk.

“I’m gonna meet up with a few of my fans~”

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Chapter 277: Culinary Recruitment.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Y-You want to hire me?!”

Flabbergasted and astonished. Those were the only emotions you could see on the faces of the young katzune woman and the middle-aged human man sitting across from me. Not only did I already surprise them by coming back to their eatery, but by suddenly asking them to talk, I scared them.

Sadly for them, there was no stopping this train. Choo-choo, I was out to recruit people for the restaurant.

“Yes, that is correct,” I confirmed Haati’s, the katzune’s, question. “I don’t know if you know about the street eatery we operate—”

“Yes, I do! I just went there with my friends to eat the noodle dish five days ago. Uhm, what was the name again?” Haati scrambled her brain as she interrupted me, trying to remember the name of one of the new dishes.

“Spaghetti Bolognese.” Thankfully, coming to her rescue was Tamae, whom I brought with me since these recruitments concerned her the most.

“Yes, that’s exactly—”

“Haati!” But before Haati could speak, the person next to her shouted at her — her boss. “I don’t know if you forgot about this, but you are sitting before a princess and champion of the Goddess. Could you, please, act properly?”

I could see the man’s wrinkles growing with how Haati was speaking to me. With how she interrupted me. If I were any normal aristocrat, being so “rude” could come back to bite Haati’s tail, and I guess her boss was trying to remind her of that. He didn’t know I was nowhere close to being an ordinary princess.

“Oh, it’s fine. There is no need to worry, Mister Braym,” I told the agitated eatery owner. “I don’t really care about etiquette in general, and this isn’t exactly formal. I mean, I’m trying to poach one of your employees right in front of you. If you ask me, I’m being infinitely ruder.”

Of course, that alone wasn’t exactly enough to calm down a common citizen since they were taught in Artorias to stay away from nobles. One mistake with a less amicable noble and you could lose your head just like that. And since the aristocracy controls the laws, nobles can get away with things pretty easily if they have friends.

As such, it took a while for Braym to come around to the idea I wasn't like the nobles he was taught to avoid. Princess or not, I’m just Hestia at the end of the day. I wasn’t a fan of abusing my power.

After I managed to calm everyone down, Braym and Haati asked me to explain the situation better. They were confused about why I suddenly wanted to talk to them and why I brought up hiring Haati. She was, according to them, just a “normal single woman, trying to make due with her situation.” She didn’t have any special skills, in other words.

“Well, since you already know about the eatery we serve, this is not only the chef but also the main proprietress of the eatery. Technically, it’s part of our adventurer company, but small stuff, really.” I patted Tamae on her shoulder. “And, we are soon planning on turning the eatery into a ‘restaurant.’”

“‘Restaurant?’” Braym looked confused at this English word. The word restaurant didn’t exist in this world yet, as eatery was the general term used for anywhere you could go to get food. Street eatery, instead of food cart, and so on.

Tamae nodded. “Yes. A restaurant is similar to an eatery as it serves food to customers, but the difference between the two is that restaurants are more formal. The main demographics will be nobles and wealthy commoners. That’s how it worked where we came from.”

“Came from? Oh, do you mean Loatryx? Kargryx? I think you mentioned your country the first time we met.” Haati twitched a bit when she mentioned “first time,” probably since it was when she was still a slave. The slave mark on her might be gone, but I could only imagine that the pain from the her bothers' deaths and her time as a slave was still there.

“I see.” On the other hand, Braym didn’t show any reaction. I wondered if Haati had told her new boss anything about her past. “But, the gal doesn’t exactly have the manners or know-how on how to deal with nobles, though. Isn’t hiring her for that job a bit too much?”

“Oh no, don’t worry,” Tamae replied. “I already have the staff for the restaurant ready and trained. However, for the street eatery I’ve been holding for a while now, I’ve recently lost my helpers for it. Although the restaurant will bring in more profit, I presume, I still wish to keep serving food to the lower city or any other commoner on our travels. As such, I need new employees willing to work with me on the eatery.”

““Travels?”” The two of them asked.

To them, the restaurant hasn’t been going anywhere despite Tamae and The Magical Biscuit members teleporting from Griffonpeak to Ullistar and then to Gleisvale. Since I didn’t tell them goodbye, they didn’t know we had been away from Griffonpeak for three weeks now.

“Then I can’t!” Haati rejected our offer. When I asked her for her reasons, it became clear that we had a misunderstanding. “Well, since my brothers died, I’m the only child left that my parents have. They were one of the people who got injured during the attack, but, thankfully, High Bishop Theodore granted them the white grace without a fee. May the Goddess bless his kind soul. Still, while they can work again, I think age is catching on and they’ve been feeling more fatigued than usual. I can’t leave the city, since I need to help with the household money.”

Quite a lot of people were either hurt or even killed during the demonkin’s invasion of the city. Griffonpeak seemed to have recovered quite a bit, and even the hole connecting Griffonpeak to Shaturein was closed up. However, it seemed the effects it had on people hasn’t ended yet.

“Oh yeah, that attack. I’ve lost my two previous waitresses cuz of it. Good gals. Also quite a bunch of my regulars got hurt, but, thank the Goddess, they still got their lives. Better results than a bunch of other people, really.” Braym let out a deep sigh, scratching his throat while his eyes looked around. He stopped once his eyes returned to us.

“Yes,” Haati nodded. “That is why I must decline, Lady Hestia. I can’t leave my parents alone, right now.”

“Hmm, I see. Parents come first, I can understand that. However, I think you’re misunderstanding us a bit, Haati. You would be traveling, but you could easily still live inside Griffonpeak, if that's what you want.” Haati tilted her head as I brought that revelation to her, causing me to smile. “Magic is pretty extraordinary, don’t you two think? Well, I won’t bore you two with the finer details of the spell, but let me just say that we can serve food to people from any country at the same time, even if the restaurant is here in Griffonpeak.”

““???”” Now even Braym was tilting his head and was looking at me as if he understood not even a word I’d said.

Explaining this concept to people has been pretty easy when I did it to other mages. If they had an inkling of knowledge on space-time magic, they would be able to grasp the concept somewhat. But this time, if I suddenly explained the finer details on the [Room] runes to them, I probably won’t get through to them. Seeing was better.

However, I couldn’t just bring out my [Room] runes now. It was just the evening after I brought up hiring new people to Tamae, and after I brought up that idea, we went straight to Griffonpeak. Braym’s eatery was gonna go into the night, so it was still pretty full. His wife and children were currently managing the front while we talked about Haati’s hiring in the back.

Showing them the nexus would be the best way to explain it, but I couldn’t do it here, where there was the danger of somebody I couldn’t trust seeing the runes. I’m okay with people knowing I could teleport, but not with how I could do it. The method had to stay a secret. After the invasion, I really had to be more careful.

“I know it’s confusing, but that’s how I’m here right now. Just for your information, I left the capital three weeks ago to go to Ullistar to perform one of my concerts. Currently, I was in Ullistar, working on some stuff there. The restaurant we were opening? Well, it will serve not only Artorian nobility and merchants, but also invite the merchants of Gleisvale.”

““?????””

Well, I kinda expected that reaction.

“Uhm, okay… I won’t say I understood anything you just said, Lady Hestia. What is teleportation anyways?” Haati seemed like she lost all hope in what I said. “However, the summary of what you meant to say is that I can work for your restaurant, but I didn’t have to leave the city?”

“Correct.” I nodded. She was smart enough to understand the gist of it. “You have two options — you can either stay in our quarters or you may stay at House Helvas’s mansion as one of our employees. Don’t worry, the latter option is alright since I have a strong relationship with them. They will treat you pretty well.”

“I can’t stay with my parents?”

“You could, but I wouldn’t advise it. You see, the whole teleportation method requires you to enter through a specific entry point, and the only ones, outside of myself, who have one are Arcanuess Helvas and another person I cannot disclose. That’s why I recommend you staying in House Helvas’s mansion, since you don’t have to go from and out of the noble district all the time.”

The other person was King Drangleic, but there was no need to reveal that.

Haati, still taken aback, didn’t answer immediately. I guess it would be hard to make such a decision like now, and I didn’t know how much we would pay her since I had no idea about it. Tamae, also, wasn’t versed in how to pay people since she only had a surface-level idea about the money of this world. She could use it and she had an idea of what was worth how much, but she didn't know enough about how much eateries paid people.

However, that was why we brought somebody with us who knew about the whole money thing.

“If it’s your wage, we can discuss it right away.” It wasn’t Saori or Ellaine who spoke for us, it was Yorshka. “Your primary employer will be Hestia, but you will work under Tamae as she will be the proprietress for the eatery. As such, you will be receiving money appropriate for the person you are serving. In this case, the youngest princess of the Dragon Empire, Kargryx. We aren’t here to scam you, and are willing to compensate you for your work.”

Even if Yorshka acted lax sometimes, she was still an adult.

“No, that’s not it. I didn’t think Lady Hestia was here to trick me at all.” Waving her hands in a fluster, Haati cleared up the situation for us. “No, the reason why I’m not sure what to answer is because I still owe Braym for allowing me to work here. I don’t want to suddenly leave him just ‘cause a better option is available.”

That was understandable. Loyalty was good. It reinforced my wish to hire her even more.

Still, this will be tricky. I have to persuade her somehow, so it might be best to—

However, before I could say anything, Braym made his move first.

“Haati, I think you should accept the job.”

“Huh, Braym?!” Haati’s eyes widened while I raised a brow at this development. “W-Wait, hold on! D-Did I do something that you didn’t like. I didn’t break anything, nor did I give a wrong order to any of the customers ever since my first day working! W-Why are you trying to get rid of me?!”

“L-Lass?! Haati! Stop shaking me! Ark! Your claws!”

Haati suddenly shot up from her seat and grabbed Braym’s shoulders, shaking him wildly as she frantically bombarded him with questions. Yorshka went to help Braym out by pulling Haati back onto her seat, but she reacted too late as the katzune's claws protracted and bit into him slightly.

I healed him with [Major Heal], but I don’t think you could hide the holes or bits of blood on his shirt. Looking over at Haati, she was breathing heavily and clutched her chest as if she was having a heart attack. Her eyes were wide like a scared cat and her shivering hands caused her claws to scratch herself.

“Can’t believe this happened again…” Barym said after we finally managed to calm Haati down. Confused at his comment, I prodded him to elaborate on it. “Well… Lady Hestia. Uhm… the thing is that this happened once before when she first began working here. She suddenly had a panic attack when she brought the wrong dish to a customer, dropped it and began scratching herself on her chest. My sons managed to calm her down, though.”

Hearing this, before I used [Major Heal] to heal the wounds she inflicted on herself just now, I looked through the opening at the chest area of her light dress. There I saw some fresh scars. Considering some of them still had scabs, too, she probably hurt herself recently.

Wasn’t this where I saw her slave mark? Shit.

“… It’s okay. They aren’t here anymore. They are all gone, Haati.” I soothed her as I sent my [White Flames] to heal her wounds and, hopefully, some of her old ones.

As we all sat back down, Barym apologized to us for what happened. He thought Haati had had it under control, as it never happened in the eatery again, but it seemed he touched a sore spot. I could agree. A very sore spot.

When Braym asked Haati what the hell happened just now, Haati just looked at the table meekly, unwilling to answer. However, seeing as it seemed to gnaw at her, I encouraged Haati to tell her secret if she thinks Barym is trustworthy. Holding it in wasn’t good.

Anxious, she told us she wasn’t willing to share it, as she was scared Braym would judge her for it. However, having PTSD from your experince as a slave wouldn’t help anybody if she kept it boiling inside her, releasing it in a burst whenever she was triggered. I had to make her aware that Braym was worried for her.

“But, he wants to get rid of me,” Haati argued, only for her boss to scoff at her.

“When did I say that, you idiot?!” Braym exclaimed. “I’m just saying that you’ll be better off with Lady Hestia and her job offer than with me. I can always just hire another waitress, but you have the golden opportunity to work with a noble here! Doesn’t your family need money after your brothers died? Idiot, take it! I like your loyalty, Haati, but you gotta take care of yourself here. I’m not telling you to leave cuz you’re a bad worker, I’m telling you to go since you need the money.”

Haati, widened her eyes again, but this time it was to release the tears now flowing down her face. Braym was surprised to see her cry, trying to calm her down as he had no idea what he said to make her so distraught. But, Haati looked grateful as she smiled at him.

She then went on to reveal her time as a slave and how she lost her brothers when she was kidnapped. She stayed as a slave for a good chunk of time, working mostly as a maid for Hamil’s guild, serving the gang members. The reason for Haati’s outburst was due to how they treated her whenever she made a mistake.

“The slave tattoo was placed on my chest. I-I can still sometimes feel the pain. That burning needle poking into my skin, marking me as theirs. I couldn’t go against them. If I made a mistake, the tattoo would heat up and burn my chest. Then, those scum would start kicking me as I fell onto the ground from the pain. It was a nightmare…”

Nearly two weeks of being a slave, and that mental scar has persisted in her mind until now. The phantom pain she felt whenever she made a mistake or when she thought Braym was kicking her out ‘cause she was inadequate, caused her heart to start beating faster and faster. She feared the burning sensation from coming back again.

Once again, I knew it, slavery shouldn’t exist in this world. I honestly would have liked it if Saori had busted that slave auction she saw in Gleisvale. Maybe I should pay those bastards a visit. Culture be damned.

After Haati was done retelling her story, to the point where she was released and had to tell her parents about everything that happened, Braym nodded firmly at her story and thanked her. “That makes me want to go with Lady Hestia even more, lass. She’s not only your savior but she wants to give you a job. If you ask me, this must be the Goddess’s will. Her champion wishes to give you a chance for a better life, so I think you shouldn’t let it go at any cost.”

“But, I’m not anything special. I can’t cook that well enough to serve it nor am I that good of a waitress. I can’t provide much to help them,” Haati argued, but Tamae interjected herself to clarify.

“The reason why Hestia recommended you to me was because you can be trusted. As you know, I only serve food nobody knows about in Artorias. I’m planning to continue doing that; sharing the recipes inside my head by using the ingredients around me is a dream come true. But, since the recipes are trade secrets, I can’t hire people who could risk that secrecy.”

“And I trust you, Haati. It also helps that you’re a fan of my music, hiehie, but, ahem, I also think you won't squander the goodwill I gave you. And that’s the most important,” I added. “You’re competent enough. I saw you work the last time I was here. You can only go up from here, and I think you’re up for the challenge. As such, will you help me, Haati?”

Haati’s eyes widened as I extended my arm. She then looked over at Braym, to which he nodded to push her further over the finish line. Seeing this, she smiled before looking back at me.

“I will make sure not to disappoint you, Lady Hestia!”

<[Katzune, Haati] has received the title [Hestia’s Retainer]>

Hold on, what?

“Huh?! Lady Hestia, I just—”

“Abababa! We can talk about it later, Haati! Hehehe, yeah, let’s talk about it later.” I frantically stopped her from talking. “Ahem, well, there will be a lot to do now that you gave me the okay, so we’ll make arrangements for you depending on where you want to stay. Either at House Helvas, or with us, in our company wagon. We have enough space to give you an entire room for yourself with the latter option.”

“I can still visit my parents with either one, right?”

“Yes, that teleportation magic I told you about will work for either case.”

“Then I would like to join your wagon. I would rather stay with people I know, at least.”

“Got it.” I nodded in satisfaction “We’ll pick you up tomorrow or however long you need to inform people.”

“I can get ready tonight. My parents can’t work properly, but they can still take care of themselves well enough. Besides, I had been living away from them before I was enslaved. I’ll make them let me go.”

With Haati recruited and her accommodations decided, it was time for us to say goodbye to Haati and Braym, telling the former we’ll see each other later on. After that, we went to House Helvas’s mansion and entered the subspace, only to teleport ourselves to Firwood. Our next target was a chef to help Tamae out, and we had an ideal candidate for it.

We only needed Yorshka to do it properly.

“Mom?!” It was Priscilla, Farron’s and Yorshka’s only daughter. “A-And, Hestia?! Tamae, too?!”

Oh! She remembered me!

“Hehe… hey, honey. Uhm, let me just get your father for a moment, actually, let’s just go upstairs.”

It was just after Priscilla’s shift as one of the chefs responsible for the kitchen in the hunter’s guild of Firwood and the inn next to it. If I remembered correctly, she became a chef to help her father, since the latter was still injured from his crystalized lungs.

“Hmm? Kiddo? Cooking gal? Dear? Why are you all here?” It has been several months since I last met Farron, and the guy hasn’t changed one bit ever since I met him.

Now that I looked at the family with all of them here, I could really see the similarities Priscilla shared with her father and mother. The beautiful snow-white hair from Yorshka, and the blazing-red eyes she got from Farron. She was still in her human form right now, but from the sweet smell coming from her, I could tell she was a dragonewt.

After we sat down and made small talk to catch up on the time we haven’t met each other, Tamae and Yorshka began explaining the reason why we came here today, expressing that the Tamae could really use another chef in the kitchen since it always got so busy that she had to call in Saori or Asaka to help her. She had her improved Strength and Agility to help her, but that only got her so far; stats weren't a replacement for cooking the food properly.

“Although, Hestia, isn’t it a bit weird for us to hire her? Isn’t Priscilla only twelve, Dame Yorshka?” Tamae asked, only for Priscilla to point out she just had her birthday.

“I actually became 13 two months ago.”

“And, there is no child-working law in Artorias, as you know. It probably doesn’t exist anywhere in Peolynca, I presume,” Farron rebuked Tamae’s question. “I don’t know how Earth does it, but that’s what Yorshka told me. Here, the moment you become eight, you’re expected to work if you’re a commoner. Mandatory schools do not exist, and most of the education is done at home.”

“Hmm, that’s right. My precious Priscilla already knows how to do anything an adult is supposed to know.” Yorshka then embraced Priscilla and hugged her like a teddy bear, similar to how Mother would do it to me. However, unlike me, Priscilla seemed to enjoy it far more. “She can read and write well, she can do her calculations, and she’s also interested in history so all my talk about our clan hasn’t gone in one ear and out the other.”

“Mom, please, I know, I know, but you’ll squish me at this rate. You’re too strong!” Priscilla eventually managed to slip out of Yorshka’s arm. After recovering her breath, she prodded Tamae for more details. “So, uhm, Tamae, first, thank you very much for showing me that onigiri dish last time and the other small snacks you could make with bread and rice. It really helped me a lot and Father also liked it!”

“Oh, that’s good to hear, Priscilla. The culinary arts is an endless adventure, worth sharing with everybody you meet. I rarely had any chance to cook properly without rushing myself during all the traveling, so I was just glad that you allowed me in the guild’s kitchen,” Tamae expressed her gratitude. “But, now that I’m with Hestia and Aurora, I’ve been able to really experiment with all the ingredients they bring in. Recreating a lot of Earth’s cuisine is important, but I also want to adapt them to Peolynca.”

“Our food bill has skyrocketed with how much Aurora has grown in size, especially my mother, the twins, and the virigresses having big appetites. Good thing we got somebody turning the ingredients into good meals,” I praised Tamae’s work in the kitchen. Sure, she didn’t like fighting, but having somebody keep everybody fed and happy was also an important job.

“Wow, that does sound pretty amazing.” Priscilla’s eyes dazzled at everything we said, looking as if she wanted to directly pounce at us for more stories. Considering how curious Priscilla was about the outside world and Earth when we started becoming friends, I could imagine she wanted to learn more.

And as if she read my mind, she snapped her head directly to Farron. Using puppy’s eyes, she was already making a move to the latter’s chagrin.

“… You really want to leave, huh?” Farron asked with disappointment, but Priscilla denied it.

“No, of course not, I can’t leave you while you’re still sick, Father. However, with the teleportation nexus they have around, I can just treat the eatery as another job. If Hestia can give us a set, I can simply go to the eatery in the morning, cook your lunch, do my work time, and then I can meet you back at home,” Priscilla argued, putting Farron at ease she understood how it worked. “Also, Mom is finally around, Father! We can finally meet her all the time, whenever we want. We don’t have to stay apart for months now, and I really want to spend more time with her! Also see what she saw instead of hearing her stories all the time!”

“Ooooh, Priscilla. My little treasure.” Yorshka embraced her again. “Seeee, Farron? I told you she took after me. Always wanting to learn more and travel. Not like a certain stubborn desk scribe.”

“Desk scribe? Last time I checked, being a ‘desk scribe’ makes sure our household has a stable income source, unlike how you would wander around the continent, trying to find a job suitable for your rank.” Farron didn’t look too pleased at his wife’s teasing.

“Oh yeah? Who is the one getting the ingredients for your cure, hmm? We already have three of the five necessary stuff for the recipe, and I bought all three of them,” Yorshka pointed out the potion to cure Farron’s crystalized lungs. “Also, from what I heard, you’ve been getting pretty rusty. You’re still good at home, but can you wield your spear on the training field~?”

Yorshka suddenly let go of Priscilla and touched Farron’s left leg with her fingers, moving them up slowly like a spider.

“Oh? Is that a challenge?” Farron’s hand began stroking Yorshka’s chin, causing her to smile and bite her lips. “I’ll show you how much this husband of yours hasn’t changed when we last met a week ago. Let’s see if your tail can keep up, my love. Then, I’ll crush you one-on-one.”

““…”” Priscilla and I couldn’t help but cringe as they looked at each other lovey-dovey.

“… So that’s why Dame Yorshka was so late that other time.”

Before they could make-out and do some pretty PG18 stuff, I left two [Room] runes on Farron’s desk before leaving his office with Tamae and Priscilla. We could leave Yorshka alone for now.

“Uhm, well, I think it will work out in the end, so when do I start?” Priscilla stated to our satisfaction. The guild’s kitchen already was full enough, so losing Priscilla really wouldn’t hurt them.

After informing Priscilla that we will start tomorrow, early in the morning, Priscilla nodded and told us good night for the day. “Good night, Tamae! You too, Grandaunt Hestia!”

“Urk!” I flinched.

“Oh right, Yorshka is your niece, right?” Tamae remembered. “A one year old grandaunt huh? Although, with how age worked with dragons and dragonewts, you’re probably Yorshka’s great-great-and-so-on grandaunt, anyways.”

Life was suffering.

However, while it was soon a good night for Priscilla, our trip wasn’t over yet. We still had one more person to recruit, and thankfully, it was somebody also in Firwood.

“Hmm, are you sure this is the correct place, Hesti-chan?” Tamae asked me.

“Probably. I’ve only been here once, but if they’re at home right now, we can finish it off our list. Let’s just hope.”

In a neighborhood bordering the middle and slum district of the town, we found ourselves in front of an apartment. Walking up the dirty stairs, we stopped at a door on the second floor. Knocking on it, I smiled as a familiar voice came from behind it.

“Who’s there?” A young man’s voice could be heard.

“Well, I don’t know if you two can still remember me, but I can remember you two. Ruld? Lorena? It’s been a long time!”

“Y-Yeah, that’s our name, but wh— Woah, Lorena?!”

The door slammed up and a young woman with dark green hair appeared before. Her clothes looked quite patchwork, suggesting it was regularly mended by adding cloth to cover up holes on the dress. Dirt and some soup stock could be seen on her apron. Maybe she was cooking.

But the most surprising sight was the fact her belly wasn’t as bloated anymore. It was slim.

“Lady Hestia!”

“Hey, Lor— Woah!” Without letting me speak, Lorena jumped into my arms and embraced me. Giggling, I reciprocated her gesture. This woman was the first human friend I had in Peolynca. “It’s good to see you, again.”

After she had enough of hugging me, she invited us inside her home, apologizing that this place wasn’t suited for a noble like me. She was still the same as we first met, it seemed.

Ruld, also apologized, but mostly ‘cause he couldn’t remember my voice. I didn’t think bad of him at all, since opening your door when it began getting dark wasn’t advised. It was very dangerous to do so.

When Tamae and I sat down, we noticed the two bowls on the table, meaning they were just having dinner. Bad timing on us, but the two didn’t take it too badly.

“I see you guys are still together. Good for you!” I congratulated Lorena and Ruld on their marriage.

“And it’s all thanks to you, Lady Hestia. Honestly, I cannot thank you nor the Goddess for the honor of meeting you,” Ruld bowed his head. “We did hit some problems up until now, but I think we’ve been doing well. Our jobs are exhausting, but they're keeping us afloat.”

“Mhmm, that’s great!” My eyes then turned to Lorena, specifically, her belly. “I see you’ve changed, Lorena. I guess from the lack of crying, you did choose to give up the baby to the orphanage, right?”

However, unexpectedly, getting directly to the point of it seemed to have caused Lorena to frown. She looked grief-struck at the table, clutching her hands.

As I stared in shock at what happened, I turned to Ruld, only to see him have his eyes closed. Something had happened, and I just brought that memory up again.

Before I could ask, Lorena spoke, “… Maybe it was the Goddess’s way of saying that I shouldn’t have thought of the baby as such. That not being able to give him enough love meant he shouldn't have lived his life. I didn’t want him, but he still deserved to live…”

And then it became clear.

“We… Lorena had a miscarriage, Lady Hestia,” Ruld answered my fears. “The baby might have come from Lorena’s rapist, but in the light of the Goddess, the baby should have at least given the chance to live his life out.”

“Rapist?!” Tamae exclaimed, reminding me that I forgot to tell her about it. I calmed her down and told her I would explain it once we left.

“Lorena…” I tried to say something to soothe her, but I couldn’t think of anything.

“It’s alright, Lady Hestia. I was already able to mourn for him. Even if the newborn came from a man I never want to remember ever again, it was still mine. I was still his mother, and I failed to give him the life he deserved. A warning to me that I should love my next child with Ruld, otherwise it might happen again…”

I should not tell her anything about Hamil.

I was planning on revealing everything I knew about Hamil to Lorena, but at this point, it might just be better to forget it entirely. Just leave it in the past so Lorena could heal from her time. Once again, I regretted my passiveness in the past. I should have killed Hamil for what he did to Lorena!

Seeing the situation at hand, I told Tamae it was better for us to leave and she agreed with me. However, when we stood back up, Lorena stopped us, telling me she hadn’t seen me in months and wanted to talk and why I was in the city right now.

As such, I let Tamae tell her about the restaurant and our wish to hire Lorena as a waitress since we needed people we could trust. Lorena, listening to us talk for the entire time, nodded after we were done.

“How much does it pay?” Lorena asked bluntly.

“We were planning on talking about pay tomorrow, when our treasurers talk about it, but you can expect a good price since I’m hiring you, Lorena,” I answered. “The eatery is placed in a type of magic area. You will be visiting the hunter’s guild and talking to Farron, the guild leader there. He will then transport you to the area. It’s better if you see it for yourself, so we’re planning on showing you it tomorrow. Or, the second option, you could join us and we’ll make accommodations for you in this magical area.”

“I understand.” She nodded before turning to Ruld. “Dear, I think this might be a chance for us to get out of this neighborhood and get a new life.”

“Lorena?!”

“Think about it. We’ve been having some trouble lately with those women starting to believe I’m having an affair since I had that miscarriage. It’s true… but you know it came from that bastard,” Lorena pleaded to her husband.

“I know… I know they’ve been harassing you, but I also can’t just leave my workshop. They brought me in, and I still owe the Master a great debt. I can’t just up-go-and-leave like that.”

“You don’t have to,” I interjected. “If you don’t want to leave Firwood, I’ll get you an apartment close to the hunter’s guild’s master. Considering you’re working for me, it would be better if you stuck around Farron for your safety, in case, I have any enemies in Firwood. And, don’t worry, this magical area allows you to enter it and back to Firwood whenever you want. If you choose the second option, that is.”

“See?” Lorena begged Ruld once again. “Please, I just want to leave this area and the memories here… We don’t need to get out of Firwood, but just a new place to start anew. If I know it’s for Lady Hestia, I know I can work even harder to get us more money. I’ll make sure I will love our children Ruld. I will make sure they will be born!”

“… Of course, if it’s for your happiness, I’ll do it, Lorena.”

And that was how we got the last member for Tamae’s eatery. Even with three more people, it probably will still be too busy as always, but our gastronome didn’t mind it. She relished the challenge to manage two restaurants. Cooking and experimenting with food was her dream in Peolynca.

And, it was also our path to conquer the bellies of Gleisvale. As such, we needed a proper menu for that.

“Let’s do this, Tamae-chan!”

“Got it, Hesti-chan.”

An idol and chef were about to bring another culinary revolution to this world.

A note from AbyssRaven

Oh yeah, I haven't mentioned this yet but I like Gordan Ramsey shows.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 278: The Culinary Revolution, Again!

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #3 her to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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“Good morning and it's nice to meet all of you. May the Goddess bless our auspicious meeting today, everybody. My name is Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor, and I’m the princess of whatever, as it doesn’t matter today and, hehe, it looks like you all already know me.”

Four chefs, five waiters and waitresses, and one dishwasher. That was the current number of employees Tamae had House Helvas and House Greenveil hire for our restaurant. All were either commoners with great references from working with the aristocracy or were members of a schwertnoble family, making them barons and viscounts.

At first, there were more people in this group, about twenty at first. However, Tamae never planned on getting so many people for the first iteration of the restaurant. She only wanted the minimum. Since we were planning on serving the influential with our establishment, there had to be some tests to weed out the “less efficient” workers from the best. And these were the best candidates from the entire pool, who were then allowed to build a rapport under Tamae and Svena.

After recruiting the people for the eatery yesterday, Tamae and I decided it was also high time we properly trained these people. We managed to finish up the menu yesterday and were now confident in sharing the recipes with our employees. As such, I decided on appearing today to make sure it went smoothly.

Buuuuuut, of course, it kinda went as you might expect considering they knew about me.

“““I-It is an honor, Princess Hestia!””” The ten-man group announced while kneeling down. As I said, all of them had experience working with nobles, so they knew somewhat how to act when they met a royal.

I smiled wryly as I turned around to face Amelia, who had a “I told you so” expression. Svena, standing behind me sighed and moved up, clapping her hands.

“Everybody, Lady Hestia thanks you for your formality, but today is an important day. There is much to do, so we do not have the time to waste. Please, stand up,” she ordered, prompting everybody to stand up. Clearly still nervous, they looked pretty rigidly as Tamae moved in front.

“Everybody, today is a very important day, as this will be the start of our journey together as a team of restaurant ‘Aurora.’ As you know, the goal for this restaurant is to serve premium dishes for our guests in our pursuit to better the culinary arts of our world,” Tamae began her speech. “As we have all told you before, I am one of the ‘Heroes of Aurena’ and came from a different world than Peolynca. Hestia here is the one responsible for the spread of her version of yeast throughout Artorias, and will also bring in various recipes from her ‘homeland.’ With the both of us, we managed to create a menu of dishes we believed would be best suited for the first worldwide restaurant of Peolynca.”

“First worldwide restaurant of Peolynca” sounded lofty for a title, but it was true. In Artorias, nobles didn’t go out to eat. They either stayed at home or visited another’s noble’s mansion to eat with them. In Gleisvale, we did find some eateries which served food to wealthy merchants, but none of them were called “restaurants.”

But I guess the most enticing part about being able to claim that title was the fact that our restauraunt used the nexus as a platform to serve people from different countries and cities in a single place. Just like how Duke Greenveil was able to negotiate with the new Duke Equevanna despite being two duchies away, we could serve people from Gleisvale and Artorias at the same time.

Svena handed copies of our menu to the staff members, allowing them to read what we were planning. As I read through it, I noticed the majority of the employees were raising an eyebrow. Considering about 90% of the dishes on the menu were heavily inspired by Earthen dishes, it was to be expected they never heard about them.

“Mister Ademnis,” Tamae called out to a brawny man with a slight belly dressed in a white outfit you would expect a chef from a fine dining restaurant. With a stern expression, he nodded and walked forward. “As I mentioned last time, you will be my sous chef — my deputy chef, in other words. You will be my second-in-command while we work in the kitchen, so you must be sure to remember every single dish, do you understand?”

“Of course, Lady Tamae. Such a gift from the Goddess, I will cherish it from the depth of my heart. I shall mark each ingredient into my soul, to never forget them.” Surprisingly, or maybe not, this aloof-looking man showed a fierce passion for not only cooking but Aurena, too. He was the only person I saw who was more focused on reading the menu than being flustered by them.

“Good.” Tamae clapped her hands before putting her hair into a ponytail. “Then, I expect you and everybody else to watch intently how we cook these dishes. Hestia. Priscilla. Let’s go.”

Hearing the signal, Svena quickly turned my slightly messy hair into a perfect ponytail while the 13-year-old Priscilla stepped out from her hiding spot behind Tamae. Unlike every other time I’ve met her, Priscilla wasn’t in her human form today, but rather she showed up in her dragonewt form.

““““W-What???””” The employees looked at the two of us in surprise.

Tamae, noticing this, quickly explained what was happening. “I had to test each individual dish before I placed them on the menu, of course. Since it was late, I needed help and I called on Hestia and this young dragonewt for help. Priscilla shall be my sous chef for the eatery designed to serve commoners. She has learned how to make every single dish on the menu somewhat. Mister Ademnis, I expect you to do the same.”

“Y-Yes! Lady Tamae!” Finally flustered, Tamae’s sous chef eyes widened as he watched Priscilla walk past him and to her station in the kitchen. I heard all of the employees here declined to work in the eatery, as it wasn’t part of their contract, so I did wonder what Tamae was planning by having Priscilla here today.

Yesterday, while Tamae and I worked on the menu, Yorshka came back to the subspace with both her daughter and Haati. While Svena and Josine showed Haati to her room, located in the “attendant area" as the former two liked to call it, Priscilla joined us with eyes filled with anticipation. She wanted to cook.

Watching her childish curiosity, we couldn’t help ourselves and decided on testing the dishes with her. At first, Tamae and I worked together since we knew Saori and Asaka wouldn’t be around today due to their spy mission. I was also somewhat familiar with each dish and how they should taste, so I was the best helper Tamae could find for the restaurant’s theme of French and Italian inspired dishes — her parent’s specialties.

After we managed to produce passable versions of about 60% of the menu and allowed Priscilla to taste them, we then began training as a three-man group, emulating the process of an actual kitchen. We had to show the chefs how to cook the dishes and the waiters and waitresses how they tasted and looked, so this was the only way to do it.

Of course, I saw that they were nervous that I was participating, but I simply told them this wasn’t a problem.

“As I said, everybody. My rank doesn’t matter today. Instead of focusing on it and becoming nervous, watch and learn. All ten of you will become the forerunners for the culinary evolution of our world.” With [Royal Presence] activated, I gave them a slight motivational speech before I joined the other two. I had my head already turned around before I saw how they reacted, but since Svena didn’t tell them off as the head waitress for the restaurant, my words probably did something.

Once the three of us were at our stations, we all breathed in deeply and out.

“Alright, the first step is the entrées. Let us begin! Hestia, cast your spells!”

And that was the signal to begin!

“Haste! Music on!”

[Haste] [Music Resonation (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

With a snap, a gray magic circle appeared around me before I began playing some classical music, sharing the buff with Tamae and Priscilla. By thinking of my spectators as “enemies,” I could prevent them from gaining the buff.

Using my high Agility and [Haste] buff, I moved into the pantry and carried out the ingredients needed for our entrees. Once they were there, I began cutting the chicken, removing all the meat and fat from the bones as best I could; meanwhile, Priscilla began cutting the vegetables while using wind magic to help her.

“French and Italian cuisine. Those are names of the cultures our menu will be inspired from. Fine dining, regardless of which world it came from, always strives to bring out the potential of the ingredients. To elevate them further beyond what you could imagine. The mark of a good chef is being flexible enough to adapt to the local produce, and to turn that into your art.” Tamae began her explanation. While cutting the meat, I noticed the chefs taking notes on wooden slates, focusing on watching either Priscilla or me.

Tamae continued. “I will not be adapting everything I learned from Earth into this restaurant for now, but I will add more once I become satisfied with the current results. As such, the first course of our guest’s meals will be the entrée — the entry dish.”

Proficiency requirement fulfilled. [Dismantle Lv. 8] evolved into [Dismantle Lv. 9]

Once the bones and vegetables were ready, Priscilla and I placed everything into a metal pot placed over a stove. Then Priscilla activated the fire runes Grimnir etched onto them, creating fire without the need for wood. By pouring more mana into the rune, the flames grew in size and warmth. Once done, she slightly filled the pot with water using her magic. Like her mother, Priscilla was a water and wind mage and has been using her magic during her days in the hunter’s guild kitchen.

“Too warm, Priscilla,” I called out before using [Volcanic Blaze] to reduce the size of the flame to boil the water slower. Priscilla caught on and removed some mana from the rune.

Priscilla then grabbed the dried spaghetti I brought out and put them into another pot to boil with some salt, beginning the second entree — spaghetti napoli, also known as marinara. Afterwards, we left the rest to Tamae and began the preparations for the main course.

“There are multiple entrees we could offer, but I am planning on keeping it small with four options. Two of them — an cepillium chicken consummé and tazghetti with matato sauce — will be served for you to taste today.”

While we kept the word consummé around since we didn’t know a better alternative, we did change the word for spaghetti into “tazghetti” since the noodles were made using tazlokwheat. This dwarven wheat was the toughest wheat we could find, making it perfect to give our noodles that bite you expect from them.

Also, since the names of certain ingredients were completely different in this world, we also had to change them to their Peolyncian variant. Onions were cepilliums and tomatoes were matatoes.

“With the help of House Greenveil, we managed to start production on tazghetti and other pasta — hard noodles — varieties similar to our yeasts facilities. Watch and learn. This is how you make the noodles ‘al dente.’ Just right. And, the sauce cannot be neglected, as that will be the lynchpin of the dish, alright, Miss Ivy?”

“Yes, Lady Tamae. I will make sure to focus," the “saucier” of the kitchen staff nodded.

With her deft hand, Tamae began preparing the tomato sauce for the pasta, explaining her moves and actions while preparing it as if it was second nature for her. Once the noodles were done, she poured out the warm water and rinsed the noodles in cold water using the rune-etched sink. Pretty much the whole kitchen had different runes made by Grimnir.

“All of you are beginners when it comes to being mages, so please use the in-built mana batteries to fuel the runes. Otherwise, use your magic to expedite the process, okay?”

In Peolynca, magic was everywhere and, for many people, it was also a daily part of their lives. As attendants and servants of the Artorian nobility, they were taught beginner-level magic to help them with their work. As such, every single employee before us had one or two spells in their profile.

In this world, we could use that magic to speed up our cooking process. Saori used her [Shadow Clones] to man the kitchen by herself, and Priscilla and I used our spells to make the cooking easier.

In a normal kitchen, chefs didn’t use magic as often due to the threat of arcane corruption. It was always a problem for them since they didn’t have access to fulinoe leaves. However, we did. We offered tea to them to drink during their breaks. While expensive for a normal business, to us, the leaves grew in our garden in abundance.

With the tazghetii with matato sauce finished, Tamae served a large portion for everybody to taste, including Svena, Amelia, and Josine. After showing them how to eat it, everybody else began to devour it.

“Mhmm. As expected from Tamae. Your food is always delectable to eat,” Amelia praised Tamae, being the only one to sit down as she was a noble.

While Amelia, Svena, and Josine were already used to Tamae’s cooking from staying inside the RV, the staff members, on the other hand, were blown away.

“Mhmm?! How are these noodles so soft but still firm at the same time? Weren’t they made with tazlokwheat? Shouldn’t they be harder?” one of the waitresses exclaimed, baffled as she tasted the noodles.

“You must be joking? Concentrate on the sauce. Didn’t Lady Tamae only use matatoes, allsati, papricha, and some aromatic herbs to make it? Why does it taste so much better than what I’ve already made?” The chef called Ivy commented, only tasting the sauce without the noodles.

“Ivy, don’t just concentrate on the sauce. Lady Tamae already taught us to take in the full experience, we need to taste and analyze everything presented to us,” another chef rebuked Ivy before taking in another fork full of pasta.

“If you want to have an answer, then it has to be how she crushed the herbs with the papricha seeds before combining it with the crushed matatoes. Also, you ignored the Port Annencia fish sauce and how she let the matato sauce lose its liquid. You don’t have that watery taste polluting the end product,” sous chef Ademnis commented on how Tamae prepared and added all the ingredients, even mentioning reduction without knowing the proper name for it.

Picking up an allsati — Peolyncian garlic — Tamae praised Ademnis for guessing the technique. “Good eye, Mister Ademnis. These are cooking techniques to bring out a better taste. I ‘reduced’ as much liquid in the sauce before letting it ‘simmer’ on low heat. Don’t let the sauce boil. You need to keep it warm, but if you boil too much, you ruin the tastes of the herbs and cepillium as you ‘denature’ them. Burn them, in other words.”

““““Ooooooooh!””””

Seems like the chefs are really getting excited now, I thought as they began asking Tamae more and more questions. I thought she might become overwhelmed, but any worry was unwarranted as she was in her element right now.

“Look at this soup. Consumé is a clear soup without any fat or impurities. It is the perfect soup, arguably. Like in a normal broth, remove the stock. All the ‘minerals’ and ‘vitamins’ have been extracted from them now. Remove the remaining fat before adding an egg.” Tamae continued with the soup, serving it to the delighted employees who wanted to savor more of her food.

This continued with the main dish where she took the lead as Priscilla and I made the desserts, which were my specialty.

“‘Bask’ the meat! Always bask the meat if the star of the dish is the ‘protein.’ Butter, herbs, garlic, wine. Whatever you can add to elevate it even further!” Tamae continued with the steak. “This sauce here is also gold, do you four understand? You can use it to garnish the dish. Use it! Don’t waste time on making another sauce if it doesn’t require one. The fat, the cooked butter with the herbs. It’s heavenly ‘ambrosia.’”

After tasting it, Ademnis once again stated his genuine surprise. “Such a simple technique but it can bring meat to such a level? Incredible! [Cooking] levels are worthless if they doesn’t teach you such cooking methods.”

Of course, an Artorian chef wouldn’t know about basking meat with its own sauce. The noble chefs in Artorias preferred cooking everything in cauldrons or roasting it over a fire. Cooking pans were less commonly used, as they were a dwarven creation in this world, reserved to fry up rice and noodles. Grilling the meat in a pan wasn’t common since the whole animal was usually roasted over the fire for noble dinners.

After serving a pan-seared steak in red wine sauce, grilled salmon in herbal dressing, and then tomato chicken with garlic rice, it was time for dessert.

Proficiency requirement fulfilled. [Cooking Lv. 8] evolved into [Cooking Lv. 9]

“Tiramisu with fulinoe tea mascarpone and butter canelé with wine and caramelized honey filling. Please, enjoy.” I presented them with the final touch to this three-course meal.

“Mhmm!” Amelia's eyes widened as she tasted the tiramisu first. “So creamy! Mhmm, what is this cream? This ‘mascarpone?’”

“I have to agree, Lady Amelia,” Josine agreed. “It feels like cream on your tongue, but its sweetness is more subdued. It’s less intense. And then you have the taste of fulinoe tea.”

Svena nodded her head fiercely. “This is perfect after the hearty dishes we ate before. A great palette cleanser to soothe your taste buds. Lady Hestia, this would be great to sell even outside the restaurant!”

I smiled at their comments. Coffee was impossible for us to get right now, as we didn’t even know if it existed in this world. However, what did exist was a coffee-tasting tea leaf in the form of fulinoe leaves. It was perfect, and I wondered if Tatsuya would like it once he comes back from work today.

“Oh!” However, on the other side, Ivy the chef squinted her eyes. “The wine taste might be a bit too intense with this pastry, Lady Hestia. Oh, I’m sorry!”

I was surprised. I didn’t like wine that much, but I made sure to taste test it before I served it and thought it was edible. I thought I put too little in it. Still, I was glad to hear the chefs weren’t too shy to give out proper criticism if they didn’t like something. This whole day managed to make them act more relaxed, I believe.

Still, I didn’t want to shut her up. However, as I was about to tell her it was alright to speak her mind out, Ademnis spoke up in my defense.

“Ivy, is something wrong with your taste buds? In fact, these bread might have too little wine in them. If you were to add a bit more wine in them, it would perfectly balance out the sweet honey inside it. This would be perfect for anybody without a sweet tooth.”

“Nghhh… I just don’t like alcohol in general…” The young woman admitted, causing me to feel like I had a kindred spirit in her.

In the end, this food tasting session has been a major success. With the four chefs, the one dishwasher, and Priscilla, Tamae decided it was time for the chefs to train with the dishes, telling them they will be serving food to Amelia, Ellaine, me, and the rest of Aurora.

“And all of that, without my help.” Tamae smiled but her announcement that she wouldn’t help caused the chefs to become nervous as they looked between Amelia and me. I guess they were worried they wouldn’t be able to make something good for the nobles in our midst.

“Good job, Hestia!” Priscilla told me as we finally were done.

“You too, Priscilla. Good luck with the rest of the training!” I told them, and she told me she would do her best, of course.

Leaving the kitchen so the chefs could focus, Svena led Amelia, Josine, the waiters and waitress, and I outside to the front of the restaurant — the tables. There we saw Haati and Lorena enjoying the leftovers we made.

Those two have been decorating the eatery part of the subspace up until now. After they were finished, they came to the restaurant but decided against joining in with the others as they were slightly nervous around nobles. When they saw us enter, they immediately cleaned themselves and stood up, even bowing as they greeted us.

“Don’t worry about it, you two. Hehe…” I laughed nervously as I calmed them down before asking how the food was.

“Amazing! Brilliant! I-I never thought I would ever be able to taste something this good!” Lorena expressed, having never visited our street eatery. She also only moved to her new apartment next to Farron’s home today, so I could guess she must have been famished.

“I already have been able to eat Lady Tamae’s food yesterday and at the eatery, but it never gets old. It’s really good. Like, heavenly. So this is what noble food tastes like!” Haati’s ears wiggled around like Rajah’s whenever he was excited.

“Miss Svena, who are these two?” one of the waiters asked.

“These will be Lady Tamae’s waitresses for her eatery. They are here today to train and practice being waiters before the eatery opens up soon. As such, they are fellow staff members, so please be polite.” Svena eyed one or two distrustful waiters and waitresses. I wondered if one of them was a low noble or not.

Regardless, I could rely on Svena and Josine to help out Haati and Lorena. Haati already had experience as a waitress, so she shouldn’t be in trouble, but she was there to help our Lorena. If they were to work together later on, they had to get to know each other.

“Good luck, you two!” I told the two, prompting them to say they will make sure to repay me in full. I smiled and as I was about to leave with Amelia, Svena came close to my ears and whispered something to me.

“I heard Haati received [Hestia’s Retainer] as a title. Lady Hestia, I will make sure to make my vow, later on, so please forgive me for forgetting it.”

“… Cool.”

Well, that happened.

Regardless, Amelia and I left the restaurant behind for them to deal with while we entered the community room where the former smiled at me.

“How many desserts and pastries did you two plan out?”

I winked. “Enough~”

Suffice to say, dinner was once again good, especially for Amelia and the Sarlenzia company.

[Human, Svena], [Human, Lorena], [Dragonewt, Priscilla Nordor] have received the title [Hestia’s Retainer]

Well, that happened.

Three days later, we invited all seven dukes as well as King Drangleic to come to visit and test out the restaurant’s team with their family. We had to stress test everything, and since they were also planning to visit during the official opening, I believed letting them know what we serve in advance would be great for them.

While the team did become nervous to the point the dishes came out a bit too slowly, naturally since these were the seven dukes and their king, it still went down well with Tamae and Svena coordinating everything. We also brought in the others from Aurora to act like new customers, giving the waiters and waitresses even more practice.

It went well, and that was enough for Tamae to shine like a beacon for the next few days. After all, with a successful test service, it gave us the confidence to begin promoting the restaurant and the new opening of the Sarlenzia company as the new pastries were being made.

While Saori did bring in some news on her side about the alchemy shop and the cartels, she told me I didn’t have to worry about it for now. I should focus on gaining the political support of Estralia for Artorias, as I was best suited for that job. Once they had more conclusive answers, they would tell me them in heartbeat and we could act on them.

As such, with our restaurant and the Sarlenzia company branch planning to open in five days, I decided it was high time to meet up with the merchant guild of Gleisvale. At the same time when I scheduled a time, the secretary told me one of the senators wished to talk to me before then.

Seeing the name of the person, I remembered I had received an invitation from the same person a few days ago. A representative was sent to me, but I didn’t answer back.

Well, might as well, I thought and told the secretary, who quickly ordered a carriage for me to take me to her. Once I was there at her mansion, a foxian man equipped in metal armor appeared before me.

“Welcome, Lady Hestia. We have been awaiting you.”

My guard was instantly raised. For some reason, this man gave me the chills as I stared into his almost lifeless eyes.

A note from AbyssRaven

Food. I like food.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters for the whole month! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me!

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 279: Encounter with the Resclaves.

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Dreadflare Dragon Lv. 5] [White Flame Lv. 5] [Delayed Cast Lv. 4] [Draconic Roar Lv. 6] gained

“I welcome you on behalf of the senators of Estralia to my home, Princess Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor. I thank you from the depths of my heart for accepting my invitation. May God Mercurias and Goddess Aurena bless our meeting today.”

The foxian man with the lifeless eyes led us into the mansion’s office almost immediately, as if they were ready to receive us the moment we arrived. Considering we only made an appointment about just a bit ago at the merchant’s guild, it was a bit surprising to see. Nevertheless, I was okay with it. The sooner, the better.

“My name is Reajaen Resclave. One of the senators of Estralia’s senate. You have already met my son, yes? His name is Parilostro and he’s the one responsible for the security of our home and my protection.” Her hand stretched out to the foxian man from before, pointing at him without letting her gaze escape my direction.

The owner of this mansion was a human-like foxian woman in a Victorian business dress. Very elegant and mature. It exuded respect, prestige, and, most importantly for this city, wealth. Of course, as a woman, a bit of female flair shouldn’t be neglected. For how modest the dress was, it fitted well with her aging beauty, like fine wine, as the saying goes.

“Thank you for inviting me and I do apologize for giving you an answer this late. First arriving in this city and I have already become too busy to manage my schedule properly.” I then pointed at the four people around me — two sitting side by side to me on the couch while our two guards stood behind us. “This is Lady Amelia Greenveil and Haruka Sakamoto. They were with me when I received your invitation.”

Saori and Ellaine were usually my go-to people when my business had anything to do with money or the merchant guild. Sadly, Saori was still on her mission for Shaturein and Tasianna’s revenge, while Ellaine had become too busy with adventurer work after deciding to take a bunch of Quests with Tatsuya and Kyouya.

As such, Amelia and Haruka came with me to help get the administrative and bureaucratic stuff with the Sarlenzia company’s branch out of the way. Mother was asleep for a couple of days now, but her usual guards, Shay and Beth, still accompanied us. Most likely they felt it was better to guard her young daughter who still had a missing sun core rather than the embodiment of absolute zero inside a hard-to-infiltrate subspace.

They were our guards, so I decided not to introduce them to the senator. They weren’t here to speak.

Reajaen’s winkles contorted as she smiled at my introduction, taking a sip from her tea before looking back at us through the still warm beverage’s steam. “Amelia Olive Greenveil. Youngest Daughter of Lord Duke Greenveil of Artorias. One of the heroes of Aurena, Haruka Sakamoto. Also known as the ‘Foxian Slyness’ due to her unique skill. Mhmm, I can smell that foxian smell from you, dear.”

She’s well informed, huh?

Her showing off her information on us here told us she had done her research. How much, I didn’t know, but I knew I had to keep my guard up. This woman was a senator of a city where merchants ruled through money. She had to be cunning.

I then looked back at her son standing right behind her like a robot. His lifeless eyes still gave a sense of foreboding, but I had to immediately turn away once he noticed my stare. Without showing my flustered self, I sipped from my tea, enjoying the warmth and the melting honey inside it.

“I have heard much about your exploits in Artorias, Princess Hestia, in addition to what you have been planning inside this city. A branch of the Sarlenzia company. Sharing the recent yeast boom with us Estralian, Lady Amelia? I presume you already know of our own pastry shop, ‘O’Bloom’s Confectionary,’ correct?” the middle-aged foxian asked Amelia.

“That is correct, Lady Reajaen.” Amelia nodded. “However, we are still planning on competing, since we believe our products are superior and will have more value for Gleisvale. I can assure you, my company will benefit Gleisvale tremendously.”

“At least our taste buds and belly, I presume? Hahaha!” The foxian let out a controlled laugh. “Still, O’Bloom is owned by another senator and he has his hands all throughout the food industry. The amount of elven yeast he imports is well known throughout the upper city, and it is just barely enough to keep up with the demands of certain individuals. Not even close to how many customers he could receive, and the price would be ludicrous weren’t it for the lack of supply. Have you tried his cakes yet?”

“Yes, we did. He invited us and I would say it was a good treat,” I commented, remembering how our first stop on our second day here was that store. Although, we didn’t meet this O’Bloom fella.

“And you still believe you will be able to compete? Mind you, with how fattened like pigs my fellow senators are, merely quantity won’t be able to satisfy their tongues. You need quality as well.” Not only her gaze but also her tongue was razor-sharp. However, once she heard Amelia give her a confident confirmation, Reajaen's eyes widened in wonderment. “Oh? How intriguing. I do admit I haven’t had the luxury of tasting confectionaries created by Princess Hestia yet. I shall have to pay a visit when the shop opens.”

After taking another sip from her tea, she placed the half-empty cup on her saucer and pushed it slightly forward. Her eyes instantly calmed down after our information, telling us the small talk was over.

“Pleasant as that was, time is money, and I am aware I am overstepping my boundaries here with a princess of the great Empire of Dragons, Kargryx. I shall not take any more time off your hands,” Reajaen stated with an artificial smile. “You went to the merchant’s guild to get something approved, correct? Please, allow me to look over them.”

I instantly raised a brow, wondering what this woman was suddenly planning. Look over our documents? Was she actually attempting to steal our ideas right in front of us so brazenly?

Noticing our suspicions, she shook her head. “Every senator is authorized to approve guild dealings to a certain extent. After all, our country’s president is also the merchant’s guild’s master, and we senators are simply high-ranking members of the guild. If it is something as simple as authorization for the establishment of a business and allow it to operate, I can do it without you needing to wait in line in the bureaucratic queue.”

“But why?” Haruka spoke our thoughts out loud. “Excuse me for saying this, but we know little of you, Lady Reajaen. You mentioned our competitor in the other confectionery, which could mean you are allied with them and here to scout our plans in advance. This is all too sudden.”

“You suddenly called us out to come to your mansion and are now asking us to hand you our company's documentation on our operations. I cannot allow that without a proper reason, Lady Reajaen,” Amelia added, frowning.

Reajaen’s smile waned, her winkles relaxing as she looked as us with a face telling us “Isn’t it obvious?” before stating it outright, “Why, to ally with you, of course.”

Ally? So suddenly?!

Ignoring my confusion, she continued her explanation. “There is one thing you must understand about us senators, my dear young ladies. We are not merchants. We are rulers in our own little territories spread around Estralia like any other kingdom’s nobles. The only difference is that our ‘king’ is the senator the senate voted to be the most capable president.”

“Hmm? I thought the president was a marionette to be controlled?” Amelia asked in a fluster, considering this went against the intel we received from Duke Fillion.

“No, my dear lady.” She shook her finger. “To you Artorian and any other kingdom, our system of governance does seem like our president is the marionette, as we vote our ruler democratically. They aren’t installed through some royal bloodline or a feat worth celebrating over, but if they are capable of leading the senate. If not, they are kicked out immediately and replaced by somebody with more, well, wealth and hopefully competency.”

“It sounds like the power still lies in the senate, though,” Haruka argued. “You are able to denounce your current president and remove them from their position just like that. The same constant is your senate, here. The power doesn’t lie in the president, but in your senate. He seems even more like a marionette now that you explained it to us.”

Being from Earth gave us a more substantial idea of types of governments. She might call Amelia ignorant, but she couldn’t say that to Haruka since she knew her as an otherworlder.

“Ahh, the insight of someone from another world, it truly is a blessing for the studious. However, while I cannot comment on how the countries of your world are ruled, Miss Haruka, I would say that you shouldn’t be too quick to criticize without a full understanding of our country.”

“Then enlighten us, please, Lady Reajaen,” I said, causing the foxian’s smile to grow and say, “With pleasure, Princess.”

Estralia was, as explained before, a republic governed by a group of senators made up of the wealthiest, most influential merchants. The people who held the different seats often changed, though, as there was always a maximum of 21 senators and the ranking of the merchants was often in flux.

“Eight are always composed of the oldest houses and merchant families with history dating back to the founding of Gleisvale and the country. The eight Olden Money, as they liked to call themselves. The remaining 13 are composed of the representatives voted on by the merchant assembly. This is why the merchant guild is such an integral part of our country.”

While the eight old money members rarely ever changed outside of choosing a different house member, the 13 remaining senators always vote for new senators every two years, though senators could be reelected and serve for multiple terms in a row. This was to ensure the “normal” people had a representative against the city’s old guard.

Of course, only the most successful merchants could be elected as a senator due to the city’s belief of wealth makes right. As such, these merchants were better described as business people as their ventures included investments beyond just operating two or three stores. They owned land, they hired private mercenaries and adventurers, and held full or partial ownership of multiple shops throughout the country.

“Which side do you belong to, Miss Reajaen?” I asked, asking if she was old money or a newcomer.

“The latter, dear. All eight of the Olden Money families are humans. Beastmen like me are fully allowed to work as a senator since money is more important than your race and sex, thank Mercurias.” Reajaen pressed her hands together and closed her eyes, turning her head to the ceiling as she let out a sigh. Once she was done, she continued her explanation concerning the president.

In general, while the president’s position was volatile and prone to getting voted out, it was probably the position with the most voting power in the senate. Voted amongst the members, not only did the president have the support of the people who elected them in but they also had the voting strength of three senators and the ability to veto decisions outright.

In theory, presidents could be removed with the system, but in practice it was harder since the senators wanted to keep their president in power. Also, since they had the voting power of three people, the president could lead the discussion of the merchant guild and Gleisvale’s political sphere.

Huh, that did seem a bit different than we heard before.

[“Hesti-chan,”] Haruka sent a telepathic message to me. She had bought [Telepathy] and she learned how useful it was for situations like these. [“Their government really is a plutocratic republic as we expected. And, it seemed the president really wields more power than a puppet. Since the president could bribe and join an alliance with other senators, I think we should imagine them similar to any government member with high executive powers from Earth. Like the US’s president or Japan’s prime minister.”]

We already had a good idea of what Estralia’s government type was but we had no information on how the senate and president worked outside of a surface-level understanding from Duke Fillion. As such, Haruka was aiming to get more information about how it worked.

And, from the looks of it, it made sense why during the meeting I had in Griffonpeak the dukes called the senators corrupt and bribable. As fine as a republic was, one ruled by the rich could easily lead to outside forces controlling the members of the senate through money. For example, an enemy state or through those cartels.

“Which leads me back to my wish to ally with you, Princess Hestia.” Reajaen finished her explanation and crossed her legs, smiling again and awaiting an answer.

“You want to become the president, I presume?” From all the information I had gotten, that was my conclusion from this talk.

“You wield immense influence, my dear. I don’t know how much diplomatic power you have in your country, but being the senator to have the support of a dragon princess sounds pretty fine, no?” Reajaen winked. “Tell me, how many senators have already approached you?”

“One. Only you, for now.”

“Wrong, dear.” She announced dramatically by intoning it. “At least two others. You already visited O’Bloom’s pastry shop, no?”

“Huh? But we haven’t met him yet,” I said, flabbergasted at what she was trying to tell me.

“… But we tasted his cake. We visited his shop and let people see us enter it,” Amelia suddenly stated. “Then, the clothier we visited was also—”

“Exactly, Lady Amelia!” Reajaen confirmed her guess. “Everything in this city belongs to one of the senators one way or another. You are currently the hottest commodity for them, Princess Hestia. Uhm, not to be rude, I apologize. I was speaking about how we senators and most merchants who know about you are thinking about your worth to us.”

I waved her apology off. “None taken. I already understood that when your representative and the others came to me on the first day to invite me.”

“Mhmm. Yes, that is correct, but unlike the other senators acting like cowards, as they don’t know how to handle your presence here, I believed it would be best to confront our newest guest right on,” Reajaen admitted her intentions. “When royalty or nobility visit our ‘humble’ city, they usually approach us for deals since Gleisvale holds power over trade due to our location and access to the longest river in the western part of Altrust. We hold value as ‘pawns’ for these rulers, but little do they know we are simply using them to increase our wealth.”

“So why do you call the others cowards?”

“Because we never received a guest from an imperial family before. The wealthier you become, the more likely you are to take risks, as you can afford them. However, who can afford to risk their lives by potentially angering the Folschreck Empire or Kargryx? They don’t know how to work with you, since they fear you might kill them if they go too far. Neither of the imperial families need Estralia after all, especially not you dragons.”

Ahh, I get it now.

Reajaen continued, further confirming my new understanding. “That’s why they aimed to approach you in a roundabout way. Show you their worth through their businesses before sending you an invitation. That’s how all of them wanted to gain your favor.”

“But you didn’t,” Haruka interjected. “You went directly at us on the first day. Instead of showing the value of your products and business, you are showing your value as a person. As our business partner. As our ally.”

“Good!” Reajaen clapped her hands. Her foxian ears wiggled around, looking adorable despite her age. “I have my own private business with you, but first and foremost, I must represent my family — Resclave. Princess Hestia, you coming to Estralia probably has a meaning. You have a goal here. Your group has not only been dabbling in expanding Greenveil’s but also Shaturein’s influence, from what I could see. You aren’t here only for them. You are here to expand Artorias’s influence into Estralia. Allow me to help you so you can help me. Allow the both of us to help Artorias.”

This woman!

Her gaze intensified as she got into this discussion, figuring out the political goal of our trip into Estralia. She didn’t guess how it was to gain Estralia’s alliance so we could stop a possible war between Artorias and the countries around it, but this was still close enough. This woman was pretty good.

This woman could really be the—

“But that doesn’t mean we can trust you.” But before I thought of something dumb, the two young woman next to me spoke up.

“Your aggressive approach won’t impress us,” Haruka stated to support Amelia’s exclamation. “Instead of going with the roundabout way, you decided it was more efficient to send an invitation. That doesn’t make the other senators cowards. It makes them careful instead of reckless.”

“But, I believe it was the correct decision, no? I think Princess Hestia was impressed,” Reajaen said with a smirk.

Did she react to my expressions!? Shit, did I not have my poker face on!?

“… The decisions are made as a group. I’m not the only one who has a say in our company’s future.” Considering there was no way out, the only way to save myself here was to give Amelia and Haruka equal decision rights.

“Oh? So very similar to our presidential system, huh? Since you’re the princess, you should still have the final say, though, right?” Reajaen turned my argument around me.

[“H-Hesti-chan…”] Haruka gave me a worried look.

[“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’ll shut up. Damn, I really need Nishio-kun to help me with this kinda stuff.”]

Deciding to shut up for the rest of this discussion, I let Amelia and Haruka continue it for me. Amelia took the lead with a sigh.

“Haaa, regardless, I don’t think we can actually make a deal to ally with you yet. We need to know more about what you are planning.”

“My goal is to become president or at least control the president, including squashing some rivals I have. If Princess Hestia and the Heroes of Aurena are allied with Artorias in any way, I believe I can argue for Estralia to help out. Depending on what it is, of course,” Reajaen answered without a single hesitation.

“We understand that but this isn’t proof that you would continue helping us in the future,” Haruka raised her voice as she spoke, acting more assertively than I was usually used to with her. “Even if you mention angering Hestia and HER MOTHER to be good deterrents against a betrayal, it doesn’t mean we would ally with you without knowing the intentions of the other senators, Lady Reajaen. Do not presume you are the best option when we are ignorant of others.”

Reajaen’s smile waned as Amelia and Haruka were vehemently against deciding on an alliance or not now. Hearing them speak made me realize I was too easily drawn in. I was not only a princess but also the leader of my company. I had to keep an open mind.

“Hmm. I see. Then, I shall be patient about it,” Reajaen backed off. “However, please allow me to look over your documents. Regardless if you hand it to me or to the guild, it will land in the hands of one of the senators anyway.”

“If we choose to hand it to you, the other senators might presume you already gained our favor. We apologize, but we would rather stay neutral for now. In the future, we shall speak with everybody and make our move fully in the know.” Amelia did not let down her guard. “Now, instead of speaking about this alliance or not, how about we end this quickly. What private business did you have with us?”

Reajaen sighed and took up her teacup and drank from it. Finally, the uneasy atmosphere dissipated. Her drinking gave us the chance to calm down, too.

Once everybody was done drinking with their tea, Reajaen renewed her smile, but this time, it was more relaxed. It told me this wasn’t part of her work.

“I would like to buy your Belzac herbs in bulk. As many as you can offer,” she said with slight anticipation in her voice.

“Why would you need to buy so many? Are you part of the alchemy guild?” Amelia asked. “Outside of the guild, the cost for such a large amount of Belzac herbs is substantial for a single person.”

“I cannot ask the guild master of the alchemy guild to do something like that for me. However, I will be needing the potent Belzac herbs for potions which I will have made in-house. They will be used for the health of myself and my son, you see,” Reajaen explained. “The herbs used for healing potions around this area or in the other countries of this part of Altrust aren’t as potent as Belzac herbs. I don’t know what makes Belzac herbs so much different from other healing herbs, but that is simply the truth to me. As such, I need them. Will you sell them to me, Lady Amelia? Lady Hestia? I heard the Sarlenzia company was selling them.”

For her son, too? I turned to her son behind her and his lifeless-looking eyes. Even now, he hasn’t said anything and was so silent, I really thought he was dead. I then turned my eyes back to the discussion once Amelia spoke.

“How much?”

Reajaen nodded and asked her son to hand her a wooden slate to write on. Using a mana pen, she wrote something on it before turning it around and handing it over to Amelia. One look at it and Amelia’s eyes widened like a fish’s.

“You should have done your research, Lady Reajaen. You should know you are overpaying me.”

“Most merchants would have jumped right onto it and took advantage of my lack of information.” Reajaen looked at Amelia in surprise. “You don’t act much like a merchant, Lady Amelia, despite operating a pretty successful company made by Newt Sarlenzia.”

“… I am still wary of you, Lady Reajaen. Is this your way to garner favor?”

“Not at all. This price is there to assure you sell the next bulk to me and not somebody else. I really want it,” Reajaen explained. “I shall take your silence as acceptance. Would you also be able to provide monster materials from the Belzac forest?”

“If you are looking for adventurer work, you can ask our adventurer company, Lady Reajaen.” Finally, there was something I was confident in talking about. “The Aurora is a hunter company and you may commission Quests to us at the Sarlenzia company on its opening day. If you need a monster hunter for the Ullistar, Griffonpeak, and Cedaraille dungeons, you may come to us too.”

“Hmm? I do not fully comprehend what you are talking about, Princess Hestia. Dungeons? Hunting? Even in the Belzac forest?”

“You don’t need to understand it, Lady Reajaen. You may guess the reason why we can offer this, but I will not be confirming anything. Just know, we can hunt down the monsters you need in the offered locations. If you need them, visit us on the opening day.”

Believing we talked about everything there was, I stood up, signaling both Amelia and Haruka to do the same. “You’ll probably be the one to read our documentation later even if we don’t want you too, right, Lady Reajaen? As such, see you in five days.”

“Five days?”

With those words, we excused ourselves and her son guided us back outside. Once we entered the carriage, I created an [Air Shield] around us and let out a deep sigh.

“… Estralia have already made their moves, huh?”

“Yeah, I think once the documentation is read and accounted for, it will be pretty busy once our restaurant opens up. All the senators will probably visit… We should tell Tamae-chan to increase the number of tables and probably get some more waiters,” Haruka stated and I couldn’t help but agree.

We didn’t research how many senators were around. With 21 there, not accounting the normal merchants, and their family, the restaurant will be full as hell. With only five waiters and waitresses, not including Svena, they might be overwhelmed.

Haaaa, it will be a busy day.

Five days passed and it was time for the opening of the Sarlenzia company and also…

“Ladies and gentlemen of Estralia! My name is Hestia and I present to you, the Sarlenzia company’s newest additions to their menu! Prepare for a sweetness overload!”

Idols were the best product promoters!

A note from AbyssRaven

Boss is here.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters for the whole month! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me!

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 280: Idol Promotion!

A note from AbyssRaven

Take this: Rawr

[Music Resonation (Moderate)] [Stage Fever (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Every time I look at them ♫

My eyes can’t turn around ♫

It’s so hard to resist this sight ♫

But my figure is shouting at me to ♫

Stop there, girl ♫

Don’t listen to your tummy, it’s an addiction ♫

Stop there, you know so much better ♫

But I can’t help myself ♫

That my cravings! ♫

Are telling me to cheat today ♫

Oh, I want to please my sweet tooth, oh, so, so much ♫

Oh, that fluffy sweetness, it melts right on your tongue ♫

That heavenly taste is such a guilty pleasure, don’t you all agree? ♫

But by tomorrow it will all be gone ♫”

The music echoed throughout this area of the city, accompanied by the talking and chatting of the numerous people standing and walking before my stage. They weren’t paying perfect attention to me, but that wasn’t the goal of my performance today. Today, I wasn’t the star of the show, but the fried round glazed pastry in my hand.

“Artorias’s Sarlenzia company presents to you the opening of the Olive’s Garden branch in Gleisvale! The newest and most trendsetting confections and pastries you can find in the whole of Peolynca! Not even the Folschreck Empire can contest with this treasure trove of mouth-watering goodness!” Kazumi spoke through an air microphone I created for her, announcing and promoting to everybody to hear but the deaf. Her cheerful nature combined with her energetic voice made sure the crowds were exuberant.

“Bistro Aurora is at your service today! If sweetness isn’t your thing, how about enjoying a hearty and warm lunch made by our master chefs? Dishes you have never heard before! Meals that can even please the tongue of a king! We aren’t always here folks, and magic can’t save you from missing out on this sort of food!” Nishio, positioned a bit further away from Kazumi and I, was advertising at another part of the building we were standing in front of. Behind him was a normal wooden door but over it was a sign stating “Bistro Aurora.”

This building was the one rented by Amelia under the Sarlenzia company name to use for her branch of Olive’s Garden, the premier pastry and confectionery store in Artorias. Kazumi was promoting Amelia’s store while Nishio was drawing people into the rebranding of our eatery. “Bistro Aurora,” was the new name of our eatery now that the fine dining restaurant took “Restaurant Aurora.”

After mercilessly slaving away at perfecting the new recipes for the last seven days, Haati, Lorena, and Priscilla were debuting at the official opening of the store. I could only imagine how full it was just from looking at the line of adventurers and workers standing before it, drawn in by the smell of food and the sight of people eating through the opened door. Of course, it was inside our subspace, but that fact was easily hidden if we placed the portal right next to the door.

“Hunter company Aurora, the adventurer group formed by Princess Hestia of Kargryx is here to fulfill your Quests! Come in the bistro and let our cute handlers take in your Quests! You need materials from one of the dungeons of Artorias? Griffonpeak, Ullistar, Cedaraille? Or maybe stuff from the Belzac forest? Come up and give us your requests! We aren’t around forever!” Right next to Nishio was Kohaku, wielding her rune sword like a glow stick and informing people of the official opening of our company’s Quest acceptance. “Some B rank monster material? No problem, we got the A rank ‘White Winged Dragoon’ with us! Otherwise, everybody here is a — quote-unquote — C rank, too lazy to do normal Quests! We need money, you need stuff slain, so come up already and put out a monster bounty!”

Except for Grimnir’s blacksmithing, as he and Daichi were too busy with their own projects to deal with customers, we were going full-on promoting and expanding the Aurora brand. Bistro, company to take on Quests, and also the expansion of the Sarlenzia company for our own benefits. Today was our day, and I will do all I can to make it a success.

“Tonight, I’m really feeling the heat surging inside me ♫

I’m about to explode ♫

And this night, won’t end until we’re done ♫

Satisfied from our fun and games ♫

So, (Blaze it all night) ♫

(I won’t be stopped) ♫

Cause this night is still young, far too young! ♫

I’m a burning star ready to explode ♫

To bring my light down to rock your entire existence ♫

I move like flash fire, bringing your night an incredible WOW! ♫

I’m gonna go, go, go ♫

Don’t you stop now! ♫”

“Wooooooooo! Let’s go! Mrhmmp!”

“Such a sudden music festival but, by the gods, this stuff is good to eat. How the hell is this so good but cheap at the same time? Weren’t yeast products reserved for the filthy rich?”

“Oh, goodness gracious, look at all those peasants, dear. Come quick, I heard there is an upper floor for people to properly enjoy the treats. Hopefully a sound rune to dull out the noise.”

Similar to my previous concerts, every individual liked a different style of music. The nobles and less rambunctious commoners all liked more calming and pleasant songs. The songs I’ve played up until now were there to draw in people. During a promotion, it wasn’t about people liking your songs, it was about drawing in the people in the first place.

The cutesy songs, like my “Guilty Pleasure” tune I sang before “Blaze It All Night,” certainly attracted every demographic, especially the younger women who understood the meaning of the song. When the day began, I led with those sorta songs to draw in everybody. It helped that I focused more on being an idol, so my voice and my dancing were in the limelight. My visuals — appearance — and entertainment qualities were important for the beginning of an event like this.

Afterward, once I drew enough people to the shop or product, a certain snowball effect began where the main reason people came closer wasn’t ‘cause they heard my performance, but the crowds of people standing before me.

Humans and beastmen had a herding mentality, where they wanted to understand what the majority was looking at. Have some people compliment and praise the products I was promoting, and boom, now these people became interested. They needed to satisfy that curiosity. The loud music helped lure in people who weren’t here yet, but the one doing the heavy lifting now was the numerous people I lured over in the first place.

I already knew the theory behind the promotion work, but Nishio explained the psychological parts of it. Why companies in the east and west had celebrities and idols advertise their products. The cost of hiring a known actor or singer was usually easily recouped.

Just look at all these people… Holy crap.

But, I guess we kinda underestimated how well this promotion would work, especially after we handed in all this information to the merchant’s guild about our shops. It also helped that the Ellaine and Saori group have been getting more well-known in their fields and promoting our stuff on the side.

It’s the 28th of HarvestSun… Damn, time flies when you’re busy. Hope we get a chance to celebrate Saori’s and Haruka’s birthday soon.

Haruka had hers on the 4th and Saori’s had been on the 25th. In both cases, we weren’t able to fully celebrate them ‘cause something was always getting in our way. In Haruka’s case, everybody was training and even Haruka forgot about it until Asaka gave her a small birthday cake. We celebrated it, but we planned on doing a larger celebration later on.

Even Saori didn’t want hers until the affair with Shaturein and the cartel of Gleisvale was over. I mean, it was her first birthday since reincarnating in this world. She should have celebrated it, but I could imagine she was a bit stressed out. To be fair, everybody was so busy with today’s preparations that we didn’t have enough time to prepare her birthday.

Still, I was planning on celebrating both of theirs eventually. We had to. Hopefully, it would be before Elrick’s birthday on the 5th of HarvestBloom, otherwise, that would be three birthdays we would celebrate in a single day.

140 humans and beastmen have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 7857

In any case, after five more songs, I was done for the day. Singing too much was bad for my throat, even if I could heal it with magic. After I waved and thanked those who became my fans today, I went into the pastry shop to take a break, only to watch multiple merchants slowly walk up to me.

Noticing this, Shay, Beth, and Rajah quickly dashed in front of me, blocking their sights before assuming their positions. The twins went to my side while Rajah hopped into my arms. Glaring out, the merchants cowered and went back to their tables inside the shop, continuing eating the dessert they bought.

[“… Thanks, you three,”] I told them with a wry smile.

[““Always, Princess.””] The two wyverns responded in a business tone.

[“Master, you should take a break. Rest, good!”] The little feline told me worriedly. He has been waiting for me the entire time backstage.

Guess I could use a drink.

An employee from the shop came up to me and led me to the back of the shop. While walking, I noticed how the horde of people buying the new pastries and products hadn’t died down yet, despite it being far past lunchtime now. Merchants talked business with each other over their treats, while workers and laborers came in to buy some of the cheaper products we had on sale.

By cheap, I meant easy and quick to make. Yeast, while a rare commodity for most people, was pretty much a common product now in Greenveil and Griffonpeak. We’ve made enough for Olive’s Garden to open up two branches in Ullistar and Gelisvale. That’s why it gave Amelia the opportunity to expand her customer base.

While the more well-made pastries and confections were still reserved for the rich with a hefty price tag, Amelia knew she also had to concentrate on commoners as that was a largely untapped source of money. Sure, the poor and day-to-day wage-workers couldn’t afford what we offered, but craftsmen or those with some expendable coins could. As such, we lowered the prices of the products for them, which needed less work to prepare.

Milk bread, donuts, muffins, and so on were for that group, while another section of the shop sold stuff like cakes, cannolis, macarons, and cookies to the rich. If we couldn’t mass produce fast enough back in the bakery in Griffonpeak, then they were made by a team of bakers inside this shop right now. Those people came from Amelia’s shops in Greenveil, teleporting here through the nexus for the day to work.

Speaking of desserts like tiramisu or other hard-hitting sugary delights, we were debuting them today in the restaurant. The best should come last, right~?

“Waaaah, I’m soooo tired,” I complained as I settled down. A couple of seconds later, Svena came over with some tea and a snack for me.

“Amazing job as always, Lady Hestia. Please, let yourself rest now before the evening. You will be needed later on,” she told me with a pleasant smile. With Tasianna away with Saori still, Svena has taken over her job mostly.

Hmm, really miss Tasianna’s tea… But Svena makes a good one, too.

I was a bit worried Tasianna’s obsession with her revenge was consuming her, but I should believe that Saori was taking care of her. I really wished I could help, too, but ever since I accepted being a princess, I’ve just had more and more stuff on my plate.

With Mother still sleeping until this evening, I haven’t even had the time to practice my dragon skills with her. So, it was mostly preparation for today and training with Kramps. Although, I say training, Kramps has been delaying the next stage of controlling my [Battle Frenzy] for some reason. I still haven’t unlocked the “Gluttony” part yet.

After I talked to the senators, I’ll just skip out on any other formalities and dedicate more time to training. I need to get my [Battle Frenzy] and scale manipulation down already.

“Grrew.” Rajah purred as he licked up some whipped cream I gave him. Stroking him, I noticed some sand and dirt in his fur. He wasn’t around the venue for the entire day, as he was out working with his family under Saori.

I’ve looked in his profile before and I did notice had been using his [Hestia’ Retainer] title a lot to power-level his skills up like I did when I was still an E rank. Honestly, although I wanted to be, I haven’t been the one to train him. It was actually Saori’s garms who did it.

I felt bad I couldn’t get the time to help him out, feeling I spent too much time treating him more like a pet than another combat companion, but what could I do? My schedule was full. There wasn’t enough time, and the training I did wasn’t beneficial to him. It was sad for me.

I also heard Rajah would join the others to deal with the new Quests issued to our company soon, so he’d be off training again while I kept to myself. Despite now being reunited, it felt a bit like nothing had changed. I was spending time with Rajah, sure, but not enough. To be honest, I wanted to spend time with everybody new in Aurora, but time was finite for each day.

Our goals all led to defeating those demonkins. Hopefully, after it’s all done, we could rest for a moment. Spend time together and have less princess business and shit.

Time was not only a gift but also a curse.

After I was done with my break and had changed back to my normal clothes, I went up to the second floor of the building, where we had the space reserved for our more wealthy customers, those who weren’t too thrilled with the loud crowds. While I did hear a bunch of them not liking how rowdy it was, I did hope they were enjoying themselves up here.

And they were.

“Mhmm. This fragassa cake is amazing with how it combined the cream and sweet-sour taste of the berry. The soft bread just tickles your tongue.”

“Oh, but dear, you must be careful. This is our second piece of cake. Enjoying them is good, but look at the amount we bought. Our waistlines!”

“Tragedy, I know, but we can worry about that on another day. Mhmm~ Delectable.”

It was a success. Our main target audience were happy. Still, it wasn’t over yet. The Sarlenzia company was surviving in this city by relying on our nexus to transport yeast and proper bakers, but they will have to do without us in the future. Amelia had to work hard.

“Lady Amelia, this piece of pastry is absolutely fantastic! Such simplicity, but the quality of the cream is outstanding.” I overheard a guest say. Turning towards that voice, I saw Amelia standing next to a table and speaking with the customer.

“Thank you very much for this compliment, Senator Vesco. The milk used for this cream came from cows from the Myrrdin duchy. They allow them to graze inside the Krikantos Plains, a monster-infested area east of Griffonpeak’s mountain. The grass there allows the milk to come out filled with more fat and nutrients good for your skin.”

“Skin, I see? Haha, I do wonder if it will help my old self a bit or not, but I do admit I am too out of form to look like my younger, more handsome self. But, I believe this should help my beautiful wife retain hers in the future.”

It seems she is making friends. A senator, even. Good.

“Oh, my lady?” While I was walking around with my three guards and Svena, I suddenly heard a man speak out. When I turned around, I noticed a chubby man sitting at a table with a woman and a younger man, eating a wine cake.

Keeping my smile, I nodded. “Good day, mister. How is your table doing? Are the desserts to your liking?”

Customer service. Another part of being an idol.

“Oh, mighty fantastic, my lady princess!” he exclaimed, telling me he knew exactly who I was before introducing himself. “My name is Harrold Huumitcher. A wine and liquor connoisseur from the east of Estralia. Not only am I one of the largest alcohol merchants in this country, I am also a part of the senate. May I presume I have the greatest honor to meet the illustrious Princess Hestia of the Imperial Family of Kargryxmor?”

“You do, sir,” I answered. “Most of the recipes the store is selling today came from me, so hearing something liked is relieving to my worried heart. Although, I do admit I don’t enjoy liquor treats too much, so I’m not so sure if you liked your cake.”

“There is no issue, my lady. The cake is to my taste. My son and wife also found the products made today quite agreeable.” He pointed at the two people sitting with him, prompting them to praise their treats which I accepted. He then continued after looking around in the shop. “Hmmm. I can identify quite a few senators inside your wonderful pastry shop, my lady. All of them are looking at you very carefully, outside of Lady Reajaen over there. Mhmm, I heard you met her?”

I turned around, noticing Reajaen actually staring at me with a wide smile, all while her son was enjoying the muffin he had. He might have some soulless eyes, but it seemed he had a sweet tooth.

With a wry smile, I answered the man’s question. “… Yes, when I handed the documents in, Lady Reajaen invited me to her mansion. We talked, but that was it.”

“Hmm, I see. Well, having allies inside Gleisvale is a good thing, but a dragon like you probably doesn’t need it,” he said with a smile, kinda hinting to me what Reajaen said yesterday about the senators being unsure how to handle me. “Well, they say Gleisvale is the city which cannot be conquered from the outside, but I do disagree. A dragon breathing fire from the skies would hurt us, even if we have dwarven ballistae and catapults to hopefully fight back with, haha!”

He paused, taking another bite from his cake before ending his meeting with me. “Well, I must thank you for bringing such a wonderful dessert to us, Princess Hestia. I am not sure what I will talk about with Lady Amelia or with you, but I shall think of something we could do business on. Until we meet again.”

Weird.

I thought I would get into more of a discussion, but it was just a small greeting really. What you would expect to do during a party or something. Just greet and introduce yourself, to keep up decorum.

I was up here to meet with the senators since, after my meeting with Reajaen who offered to ally up with us, I understood that the people around here were beginning to make their moves concerning my presence. Since we needed to have Estralia ally up with Artorias, I had to find somebody worth working with. I needed to learn more about the people here beyond that first senator that I met.

Surprisingly, as I went through everyone present, all the senators I met acted similar to Harrold Huumitcher. Small talk into some hinting about whatever, and then goodbye. Short and simple, but it did mean it was a bit chilling with how I couldn’t tell what they were all thinking or planning to do.

[“Master, do you want me to get the answers out of them?”] Rajah asked, so I had to reprimand him for that suggestion. He looked at me with those “what did I do wrong?” eyes, worrying me the garms were turning him too much into a rogue.

“Oi, little missy.” After I was done meeting my ninth senator and few random merchants, I stopped walking as I overheard somebody speak to me. Surprisingly, it wasn’t in that “my lady princess” address. It wasn’t just less formal, but also more casual.

As I turned around, my body suddenly wanted to flinch back as two blood-red eyes looked right into mine. I barely managed to control it, only letting myself shake for a moment.

What? I was flabbergasted, unable to react in time for the woman to continue speaking.

“Did I spook you, dear. Oh, my deepest apologies. My eyes do glow up when I begin to find interest in someone.” The eyes of the woman began to dim, turning into a pale red similar to pink.

Like a weight was removed from my heart, I calmed down, blinking wildly as I felt the atmosphere turning weird around me. Rajah and the twins were slightly on-guard as they kept their eyes on the woman before me, looking more alert than usual. My own instincts were telling me I should do the same.

“Oh, where are my manners,” the woman spoke up. Only now did I notice her blond, flowing hair hiding two long, sharp ears. “You may call me Vivi. A traveler, you could say, just like you, Miss Most Popular.”

Her perfect, model-like skin was a warm rose, showing off not a single age wrinkle as she smiled at me. Captivating, you could say. It was as if she had activated something like [Seducer’s Aura] to tempt me, but it felt more like her natural charisma was the one in effect right now.

Her blond hair contrasted well with her red dress, exuding a noble’s aura. With a boob window large enough to shudder other woman, I knew without a question this woman understood her sex appeal to the point she would use it like a weapon. I could only imagine how many men’s hearts broke after they met her.

“Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor… a pleasure to meet you.” I was cautious. Wary of the reason why I suddenly flinched.

“Charmed, Meoschaera roy Sheothrudra,” she greeted me in elven for “Princess of Dragons.” “I will not take too much of your time, dear, as you clearly have more to do for today. However, I must say that you are certainly a large surprise.”

“A surprise?” It was a weird way to call me that, but I guess I was for this city.

“Yes, the desserts you brought to the country, I mean. Like, look at this beautiful masterpiece of a cake! Mhmm! Soft and fluffy. It truly quenches my cravings. Such a bliss to finally taste something this wonderful. Once again, a culinary revolution, and one I very much like with my tea.”

Once again? What? Did the elves have a change in their cuisine or something?

I felt confused, like really confused. I wanted to ask her what she was saying, but as if I was in a trance, I was simply listening to her. Like, as if, there was an invisible wall between us. My thoughts couldn’t get my mouth to speak out.

“Ahh, I must say, my step-sister truly was correct about you. Your music taste was great to hear while eating, before you went full on rowdy, and then all this cake and dessert! Hmm, I can’t wait for later.”

“Your step-sister?” I finally managed to eke something out.

She nodded. “Yes, she was a great fan of yours when you performed in Griffonpeak, you see. But, she couldn’t come as she was far, far too busy with her work. Almost overworking herself, right now. I came here to see you in action, and I must say, she was right about the youngest meoschaera of Kargryx. Certainly a surprise, my dear.”

It was weird. I was unlike my previous meetings with the elves — who acted very respectful and more uptight — but I guess I never met one with such a strong noble aura and demeanor like Vivi here. It felt a bit like speaking with a noble or even royalty at this point, but she still had this carefree side about her despite knowing who I am.

It made me feel smaller, to be honest. And now this part about having a step-sister. Who was she? I didn’t think I knew of any blond elves or half-elves, but then again, in Peolynca hair color didn’t matter too much as it could whatever depending on your parents.

“Although, if I had one complaint, I think it would be your dancing, dear.”

“Urgk!” I let out as my mind returned to the subject at hand. Did she just criticize my dancing? “Y-You didn’t like it?”

“Oh, no such thing, dear. I did. But, I felt it lacked a bit of stage presence. You know, it could be more expressive or explosive. At least, that’s what my younger sister told me when she saw you.” As I was trying to process what she told me, she handed me a small parchment. “I can see you worked hard. If you want to confront my sister, go to her with these directions. That’s where our inn is if you begin from here.”

When did she have the time to write this up?!

“Excuse me, but how did you know—” As I was about to ask her about it, somebody suddenly tapped on my shoulders. Turning around, I saw Haruka looking at me worriedly.

“H-Hestia, could I borrow either Shay or Beth for a moment?” she asked me, almost urging.

“Did something happen?” Something told me I didn’t have to ask that in the first place.

“Yes, some thugs have begun harassing our guests outside the shop and inside the bistro.”

Seriously?

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Chapter 281: Dragon Bigotry.

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“Are you kidding me, who cares what that damn dragon does, huh? She’s a damn dragon and you think you can actually trust some people working with those things?”

“Moment it sees an opening, it’s gonna burn us all down! None of you read how their god is called the Black Tyrant?”

“Yo, shut up! You celebrating here means I can do the same! Wroooooooooh! Fuck this place!”

“… Fuck.”

Those “thugs” Haruka talked about didn’t look like I imagined them at all. I thought she was talking about some alleyway idiot too violent for their own good causing some trouble. Easy to manage, I thought. But, what I saw when I went outside the building was a bunch of tough-looking adventurers.

“Haruka?” I turned around to her. “How did this happen?!”

“I-I not so sure how this all happened…” Haruka cowered, looking nervously at the group of those “thugs.”

Equipped with leather or metal armor made using monster materials, these battle-scarred and highly trained men were what you would expect a bunch of adventurers would look like if you never met one. Some were beefy and carried larger weapons to show off their high Strength, while others had an unkempt and roguish-look which came from a life of traveling and sleeping outside.

Still, it wasn’t like these muscle-freaks were dumb. The longer you survived in this line of work, the more you had to become smarter. It didn’t mean they were exceptionally cunning, but they knew enough to choose the fights they could win. Which was surprising to me now, as I saw a large group in the middle of the crowd, denouncing the shop and me.

“Excuse me, but you are—” Nishio, standing in front of them with Kazumi and Kohaku, tried to calm them down, but one of those “thugs” interrupted him by drowning him up with his louder voice.

“HEY! We told ya, we ain’t leaving! We go where we like and we stay where we can stay, and I see no guards stopping us here, eh?”

He was right. Looking around, I couldn't see a single guard around for some reason, despite the large crowd. We didn’t order any guards to come over, as we thought we could handle it by ourselves. If somebody caused trouble within our shop or bistro, we would simply kick them out.

The problem was that we couldn’t do anything if they harassed people on the streets.

“Yeah! Glass-eye, you ain’t getting us away from here when it’s clear you are just here to spread your damn influence in our city! We have no need for your damn dragon!”

“Hear, hear! Dammit, all you Estralians should be ashamed of supporting this damn dragon. Manablood or not, the bitch is still a fire-spewing dragon! She can kill us all if she wants to, you damn idiots!”

“Yeah, where the hell are the damn senators, huh?! Big threat like this and nobody does shit about it? But you saw those damn senators going up and dining with the lizard! They are conspiring with it!”

Now they are throwing insults at me?! Why am I an ‘it’?!

“Assholes!” As I was flabbergasted at the hostility they showed me out of nowhere, Kohaku pushed herself forward, speaking down at the taller men. “Who gave you the right to speak like that about friend, huh?! What are you man-childs trying to accomplish here?!”

Kazumi, too, moved in front of Nishio, supporting her friend to defend me. “Yeah, this here is supposed to be a happy day where you get some food and enjoy yourself! And, what is your problem with Hesti-chan, huh?! She’s a good person!”

“ ‘Good person,’ my arse, girlie!” However, none of her words got to them. They kept on arguing. “Tell me she’s a good person after she burns down a village or swoops in and kidnaps a kid for lunch! She’s calm now ‘cuz those cowardly senators suck up to her like the pompous princess she is, but you anger her, she is about to reduce us all to ashes! Don’t you all realize this shit?!”

His loud voice and how he waved his arms around caught the crowd’s attention. The customers we just sold our pastries too were beginning to frown and look back to the shop, where they noticed me standing. Immediately, they snapped their heads around, hiding the suspicion in their eyes.

Scheiße!

This was not good. Reputation was everything for an idol, as I was a people’s girl. I honestly expected this reaction in Griffonpeak after everything occurred, but I guess the king managed to maintain my good image by telling everybody about me being the hero of the city and how Eshe supported me. However, for another country, all that influence wasn’t here to help me.

I have to do something!

We did far too much and put in too much work to make this opening day perfect. I wasn’t about to let these people ruin it just ‘cause they had some pre-existing concept on who I was before they met me. The customers we had today also didn’t know me very well, and I could understand their opinion swaying around.

As such, I had to stop them no—

““Shrisk!””

But as I was starting to move through the crowd, Shay and Beth hissed before spreading their wings, taking to the skies as they sped towards the adventurers.

“Uuuurgahhhaaaa!”

At the same time, three men flew out of the bistro door, crashing hard on the ground. As they laid on the ground groaning, I noticed bruises and blood on their faces. It looked like somebody resculptured their heads.

I stopped walking and turned back to Haruka, remembering that she was acting as a temporary handler with Misaki to accept the Quest commissions for today. Haruka did mention people made a mess inside the bistro, too, but I forgot about it once I saw the mess in front of the shop.

“Wow. Pretty disappointing. Spitting out insults, but all you can do to back them up was leaving your broken teeth and blood on our floor. Yes, wow, now we have to clean the place.” With her spear tip relaxing on her shoulder, Yorshka came out from the bistro. Fresh blood could be seen on the blunt side of her spear shaft. “Alright, so, how about repeating it again, yeah? What did you say about my daughter and little aunt, again, you freak?!”

Yorshka grabbed one of the men at their collar and pulled them up. The outer layer of her scales loosened and began floating above her before their edges began pointing down at the three men like an army of archers readying their bows. While they didn’t dazzle like Mother’s diamond-like scales, Yorshka’s still shined like pristine silver.

“Yorshka!” I called her out, noticing some bloodlust in the tone of her voice. “We can deal with them later. First, that!”

I pointed at the men causing the mess in the front, drawing Yorshka’s attention to them. She let go of the near unconscious man and retrieved her loosened scales back to her body. They were still loose, but she could use them like silver dust for now. Later on, she will have to shed them.

“Shit! Look at this, people!” One of the men began to flap his gums, again. “Look at them kicking out—”

“Oh, shut up!” Finally having enough, I shouted with [Aerokinesis]. “You’re an adventurer, so man the fuck up!”

The crowd made space for me as I moved through them with Haruka and Yorshka. Knowing they were watching me intently, I knew I couldn’t cause too much of a mess if I didn’t want to scare people away. With how thorny this sorta situation could be, I shouldn’t be too antagonistic.

“My name is Hestia. I’m not the proprietress of the Olive’s Garden, but I am one of them for our Bistro Aurora,” I announced, causing the adventurers to frown, squinting their eyes as they assessed what their next moves were. “Haruka. Yorshka. Could you tell me what happened inside the bistro?”

Haruka began to explain how the three men Yorshka kicked out suddenly began to make a fuss inside the bistro after they finished up their dishes. Haati tried to calm the situation down, but her attempts were ignored and he continued acting like a ruffian. He didn’t hurt anybody, but it clearly annoyed the people around them.

Haati went on to inform Tamae, who went to inform Haruka about it to send in a guard or two to help out. Understanding the situation, she left the reception to Misaki and went to get Shay or Beth. On the way, she noticed the mess outside and everything afterwards was the past.

Meanwhile, Priscilla, believing she could calm the men down as she had to do it in the hunter’s guild, jumped out of the kitchen to stop them. But, for some random reason, the men spat on the floor and insulted her about being a dragonewt, even calling me out for being a dragon awaiting her time to destroy the city.

They pushed Priscilla away from them, crackling with wide, smug grins as they “decided to leave” without paying anything. But, that smugness disappeared the moment Yorshka stood in their way, having entered the bistro to get Farron’s lunch. Without letting them say anything in their defense, Yorshka pummeled them, stating this was how adventurers did it, and threw them outside.

“If you want proof for what I said, how about asking those people who were just inside the shop?”

Yorshka pointed at a few men and women coming outside the bistro, saying stuff like “Hey, didn’t you beat them up too much?” and “Fuck that, they threw some of that curry at me, I would have done the same.” When prompted by Yorshka, all of them complained how those three ruined their meals by acting like insufferable brats, shouting and talking without showing any consideration for the people around them.

“… Yorshka, could you call the guards for me?” My decision was to leave the rest to the guards.

“H-Hey, wait!” But as if they were like fish flowing along a river, the adventurers before us suddenly panicked. Two men closest to me moved forward, holding their hands out in an attempt to grab me, but without letting them take that one step, my companions reacted in time to show them their place.

““Kriiishaaaah!””

The twins roared as they moved in to defend me with their wings, while Kazumi and Kohaku drew their blades, threatening them from coming any closer. Flustered, they flinched back at the sudden hostility we showed. It made them silent enough for me to speak.

“Now, to you six. I don’t really care what you people think I am or what I can do, but saying it all right in front of the shop I’m sponsoring is a bit too much, no? Yes, I am a dragon. I think I made that clear enough when I began singing and dancing, no?” I asked around, causing multiple people to nod and agree with me.

I continued, “Even if it isn’t illegal to actually cause a mess in front of the shop, we can still hand you six idiots into the guards for disrupting the peace around here. This is my last warning. Leave now and let people enjoy themselves! You six are unwelcome around the building.”

“Tsk!” The armored man who looked like he had a berserker class clicked his tongue as he moved up, undaunted by the Kohaku’s rune sword pointing at him. “You think you can do whatever you want in this city, lizard?!”

“No, but I think I can at least give people some yummy food to eat,” I countered, further aggravating the man.

“Grrrk! You really think this is all just a game for you, right, dragon?! You’re a monster! A beast! We’ve seen your wyvern kin kill and maim people before without any remorse! Leaving villages desolated cuz you felt like hunting! The moment we leave our guard down, that’s when you arrogant lizards will burn everything down!”

The man’s veins pulsated like crazy as I could feel an immeasurable amount of anger inside his eyes. His arm suddenly jerked, reaching for the giant greatsword strapped on his back and unfurled the cloth holding it. The motion he made suggested he was about to land an upper swing at me.

It was predictable.

[“Don’t move, please.”] I told everybody the moment I noticed his intention, stopping Yorshka and the twins from killing him.

The upper layer of my scales shed and flew into the air, forming a shield before me as they took the hit from his sword.

“What?!” The man called out in surprise, noticing how his sword didn’t even leave a dent on my scales. This was ‘cause of [Draconic Barrier].

I recently learned from Mother that this draconic ability wasn’t restricted to protecting my body only, as it was also connected with my scales due to the mana inside of them being mine. As long as I controlled my scales or even scale-dust, I could apply [Draconic Barrier] on them to prevent them from being too flimsy. Another lesson I probably would have learned earlier if I knew I could control my scales like this.

While the man was still flustered, I threw some [Corrosive Fire] at the sword and quickly turned the flames into corrosive slime. Morphing it into a hand, I had it grab his sword and pulled it out from his grip despite his struggles. Due to the motion, he fell onto his knees in front of me.

Kneeling down, I asked him one simple question, “If I were a normal girl and I were to see you in an alleyway during the night… What do you think I would think from a burly, armored man with a giant greatsword? Hmm?”

“Grrr… I am no fiend like you, monster!”

“I am a priestess of Goddess Aurena. I don’t kill things for fun, you musclebrain. Especially not people who just want to live their lives without much trouble. I’m a dragon, but I’m not an idiot.”

“You say that now! But I know you are just like any other wyvern and monster! The moment something happens, that’s when you go on a rampage! You aren’t a priestess! That damn white robe is a fake!”

“Heretic!”

A man’s voice suddenly pierced through the crowd. Standing back up, I saw a group of people dressed in white robes slowly approached us. People I should very much know as they belonged to the religion I technically was a part of — the church of Aurena. The local temple was here.

“Heretic, how dare you call a champion of Aurena a fake!” Leading this group was the bishop I met at the temple.

Why is he here?

Not noticing what I was thinking, the man continued talking, admonishing the barbarian as if he was a child. “This young woman here is one of pure heart. If the Goddess had deemed her worthy to make her a champion, then does that not mean she is worthy to be our champion, my fellow humans? Goddess Aurena is our patron Goddess! She is our protector! This woman is very much qualified to be a priestess, for she is one capable of granting us a blessing not even I can ever dream of granting to everybody!”

The bishop’s statement and praises caused the crowd to rile up again, commenting on what he said about me.

“Hmm? Even stronger than the bishop? Well, she is wearing a white robe meant for a noble, right?”

“I guess, if she’s a champion, she should be able to cast some strong magic.”

I remembered I hadn’t told anybody I was a champion of Aurena. I didn’t think it was necessary here, as I wasn’t treating it as my usual concerts. However, maybe that was my mistake. I thought people didn’t follow Aurena that much in this city due to the relatively small size of the temple, but being aligned to an Origin God still gave you credibility. Well, all of them outside of Shiterno, probably.

Understanding what I had to do now, I raised my arm up into the sky, forming a giant white circle in the sky before beginning the singing chant of [Prayer]. The bishop and priests instantly accompanied my singing followed by the voices of a few citizens around us. Once the chant was finished, I cast the spell, pouring white rain onto everybody around the area.

[Blessing of the Goddess of Light (Major)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Every single time this thing happens, I have to use this spell. I began to wonder if I should just use [Prayer] on every person I met. It seemed to cool down situations like these pretty easily.

“Oooh, shit, this feels amazing! Is this what everybody gets all the time in the Aurena temple?”

“I feel stronger and even faster? Wow! This really had to be a miracle from the Goddess!”

“Oooh, thank you, champion Hestia. Not only once, but now twice! You have granted us your blessing twice now!”

“Ehehe…” I laughed reluctantly before turning my attention back to the adventurers under the cheers of the people around me. It was too loud for me to speak softly, so I had to raise my voice. “Now, leave. I don’t want to see you six ever again! Actually, take those three other idiots with you. The guards probably won’t want to deal with this.”

And with that, the men walked away in shame from the constant booing of the people around them. I didn’t know if they actually were trying to stir things up against the shop or Aurora — it could just be they hated scalekins, in general — but I was glad we solved this almost without any issues.

In fact, if they were trying to cause trouble for us due to some very paranoid suspicions of mine concerning our competitor — Senator O’Bloom — then we just reversed the situation. Were we already making enemies in this city? Probably. Was I liking the fact we were doing it? Not really.

It meant more things I had to deal with and I was beginning to understand what the senators on the second floor were talking about.

I turned around, looking up on the second floor, having noticed somebody was looking at me all this time. It was Reajaen Resclave. All this time, she had been watching our actions through the window. Was this her doing, then? Or why was she smirking?

I didn’t like the mystery of these people at all.

Wanting to return back into the building, I had to push myself through the crowd of people wanting to meet me. Some even asked me for a “white grace” for their injuries, and it wasn’t like I could reject their requests now. No fee for today, just to make them like me even more, and I could see the bishop and priests approving it.

When I asked the bishop why he was here, he told me he learned of the opening of my shop only today and was planning to come over to grant his blessing. Seeing as how he handled the situation, I had to thank him for doing so. Him being here really helped me, even though I once again forgot to ask him for his name before he left.

Meh, I’ll meet him again, I think. Gotta remember it by then.

Leaving Nishio, Haruka, Kohaku, and Kazumi behind, I headed back into the shop with only Shay, Beth, and Yorshka accompanying me. Once inside, Rajah jumped back into my arms. I had left him in the shop since I thought it might be too crowded outside.

“Hestia.” Yorshka stopped me before I went back upstairs, handing me three metal objects with a design I was quite familiar with. “Those three had them on them. I grabbed them while I was pummeling them, so I thought you would want to know about it.”

The object was the same emblem as the one Saori and Tasianna were looking into right now. The emblem belonged to that one alchemist shop. Once again, this emblem was in the hands of thugs who wanted to cause me trouble. This could not be a coincidence.

“… I need to talk to Saori later on. Rajah, if you find them before I do, tell them I need to talk to them about our future steps. I think we really need to start investigating those senators.”

Like Reajaen said, the wealthy controlled this city and each senator was like a ruler for their own area of investments. Without a doubt, one of these senators must have been the reason for all of this to happen. If I read between that fox woman’s words and used it with Saori’s intel on the cartels, then each senator had to have a hand in a criminal organization.

Which meant, one of those senators was planning on using us to attack an opposing cartel. Was the one with this medical snake emblem innocent in this, or were they waiting for us to track down their enemies and attack them. Cleaning up their business.

In any case, we were being used. We were being used from the moment we entered this city.

“Oh, now don’t you all look very suspicious inside your own shop. Something in your mind?”

I turned around, noticing the blond haired high elven woman from before coming towards us. Her pink eyes felt entrancing once again, but due to how focused I was on our current matter, I didn’t feel I needed to listen to my instincts.

“Vivi, yes?” I spoke to the woman. “I didn’t manage to ask you this before, but how did you know I was promoting the shop with my singing and dancing? You couldn’t have guessed I would come to you or be interested in knowing about your sister’s opinion. Or, are you the best guesser ever?”

“Ehehehe,” the woman giggled, closing her eyes as she somehow found amusement from my question. Once she opened them up again, her eye color returned to that bright red from before. “Call me a bit of a seer, Meoschaera. I have my own ways of looking at things.”

I narrowed my eyes, feeling more suspicious of this woman. Noticing it, she waved her hands in front of me.

“No need, little one. I don’t think I’m your enemy really. However, seeing as how busy you are right now and how much you must assess your situation, I don’t think you can meet up with my sister just yet.” She then asked me to return her the piece of parchment and I obliged. “You won’t need to come meet us now; however, probably, we will meet again later on. I can assure you that. But, until then, enjoy the surprise, Meoshaera Hestia. Oh, and, please grant my thanks to that waitress of yours. Svena, was her name, I believed? Although I didn’t speak with her, she still managed to bring my order without any trouble.”

And just like that, I let her go. I didn’t stop her. I didn’t want to despite how ominous her message to me was. Something inside of me told me this was the correct decision.

[“Hestia.”] But, almost like it was to say my decision was correct, Yorshka spoke to me through telepathy. [“That elf there… she’s a vampire.”]

[“Huh?!”] I looked at her in shock. [“H-Hold on, how is that possible?! Vampires shouldn’t be able to go around in the sun! How do you sound so sure?”]

[“Hestia, I don’t know what sort of fairy tales the people in your world talk about about vampires, but those in Peolynca are fully able to walk around in the sun. They are only weakened since their realm is the dark of the night. This is their gift after being born to Vivachel, the first vampire,”] she explained. [“The reason why I think she’s a vampire is because of the bloody smell around her lips. It’s similar to when Elrick is finished drinking blood.”]

[“Wha—?! Elrick?! Y-You don’t mean—”]

[“Yes, Elrick von Karstein, a knight of Aurena, is a vampire. That is my blackmail on him.”]

Hold up, what?!?!?!?

“Speak.”

A soft female tone echoed through the room as a man struggled to free himself from the shadowy bindings holding him to his seat. No matter how much he screamed for help, nothing would escape the wind bubble around us.

The ice spears grew in size.

[“MY BODY! HOW DID YOU GET A HOLD OF MY BODY?!”]

As he wouldn’t talk, my garms, Uno and Song, started becoming impatient. They growled, baring their fangs at the man to intimidate him. He cowered, looking even more frightened, as they wouldn’t let him rest. Such a sight made me question if this person really was the leader of a local cartel or not, considering I knew of Eithalr.

“Haaaa… Looks like I need to work. Tasianna, could you, you know?” Gael tried to move Tasianna aside, but our fairy friend had her eyes locked on our captive. The ice spears surrounded him like an iron maiden’s needles.

“Speak,” she said once again, pulling up a small mana battery for the man to see. “This was made using a spirit’s mana! The onnikais warned me to not trust you human scum!”

Small glowing orbs surrounded Tasianna as she began her interrogation of the man. These weren’t fireflies, these were onnikais — the dead version of a lesser faefolk. They were essentially zombies, in a way.

“Wow… Tasianna is hot, damn. She acts more like a girl boss than you, Segawa-san,” Asaka commented, causing me to really question why I was trying my best to tolerate this damn girl.

“… Let her have this, Hanazawa-san.”

“Mhmm. I guess you're right. The more information we get, the more these damn fenrir souls will calm down.” Asaka smacked the catalyst she had on her belt, agitating the four black onnikais inside it. I could hear them telling me to “Avenge our kind” but I ignored it.

“Elrick, how do you feel about this?” Meanwhile, Asaka asked her trusty knight behind her, ominously looking down at the cartel boss we captured.

“… Sinners must pay.”

Hestia, I wish I was in your position now.

“Please, please! Thank you very much for accepting this Quest! Thank you very much!”

[“Ellaine, Ellaine. Always so nice and knightly! How chivalrous, my dame~”]

[“Shut up, Klea.”]

I shook my head and then turned around to Tatsuya and Kyouya. All three of us were still slightly tired after finishing five D rank Quests. But after hearing our Quest givers ask us for our help, as the hunter’s guild recently canceled the Quest as nobody could fulfill it in time.

“Are you two still up for more?” I asked the two and they gave me the thumbs up.

“This is the reason why we opened the company. Let’s go, Ellaine.”

“Yeah, there might be something interesting there. Sightings of ghosts sounds like a horror story come true.”

To the east of Gleisvale, there was a small village surrounded by a large forest. Recently, ghosts have been sighted there, but none of the hunter’s were able to fulfill it as no one returned alive to confirm the details. It eventually was raised to B rank, but even then, nobody wanted to accept it.

Now, these people were coming to Aurora for aid.

And Aurora will answer in kind.

A note from AbyssRaven

Dragon bigotry is dangerous if you do this to an Chaotic Evil one. Also dangerous on Neutral ones. Also, looks like our other two sides are finding things out, especially angry ice fairy.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 282: Interrogation with an Angry Fairy.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #2 her to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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“Haaaa, Tasianna I know you want to take the lead on this but you’re wasting time by threatening him all the time. Here, let me show you. This is a good lesson for you and Saori anyways.”

Gael tapped my shoulders, gesturing with his hand for me to move back to Miss Saori, Asaka, and Elrick. I glared at him, feeling frustrated he would ask me to leave this to him. However, my goal was so close. This man not only had mana batteries filled with the mana of spirits but also there was the pelt of a garm in his office — the pelt of Song’s host body.

I have to find the ones responsible for Princess Schuri’s death! I must! They are here in this city!

“Tasianna.” I turned my head around as Miss Saori’s voice rang in my ears. She pointed at the man strapped on a chair using her tendrils before attempting to persuade me to back down. “That’s the leader of the Layavete cartel. The cartel Gael mentioned was the reigning criminal syndicate of the city. You won’t get through to him if he doesn’t want to talk. Look into his eyes. I don’t see any fear in them.”

Despite surrounding the man with ice daggers, ready to attack if he tried to escape, he wasn’t acting erratic nor was his breathing out of order. He seemed calm as if he was used to all of this.

“I’ve only just begun, Miss Saori. I can still—” I tried to argue, but Miss Saori simply wagged her finger.

“No. You are letting your emotions get to you, Tasianna. Also, I think we have the same situation again, similar to when you had Kiiro around.” Miss Saori eyed the three onnikai we met on our investigation. “Leave it to Gael. He knows what he is doing. The sooner we have our information, the faster we will find the true perpetrator.”

“… Understood,” I reluctantly agreed to her demand and dispelled the ice blades surrounding our captive. I moved to the back with Miss Saori, who attempted to calm me down, telling me we will find whoever killed Princess Schuri eventually.

I hoped so. That human will pay for what they did.

“Alright…” Gael scratched his head and pulled up a chair for him to sit in front of the captive. “Treyenor Layavete, leader of the Layavete cartel and son of its founder, Westrix Layavete. Working behind the scene with two senators belonging to the eight Olden Money, meaning your syndicate not only possessed their financial support but also practically free reign when it came to expanding your area of influence. You were the ruler of the underworld of Gleisvale. Wow, those were the glory days, no?”

“…” The dark blue-haired man blinked, staying silent to Gael’s words. He sighed after a while, shaking his head before finally talking. “Gael. Some orphaned urchin born in the slums of Shaturein. Somehow, you managed to climb your way up in the graces of the Blackreach guild and met your future companions in the ‘White Winged Dragoon’ and the ‘Wing Ripper.’ Through their efforts, which you leeched from, all three of you managed to reach B rank with the former two even reaching A rank later on after you left them. How has your life been since you lost your lover? How has her brother been? It’s been a while since you stole Lilene and Bo away from us.”

“…” Gael didn’t react. His back was turned to me.

“Bastard!” I wanted to intervene, having heard enough from this arrogant human’s mouth. How dared he speak like this to Gael when we had him captured?!

But I couldn’t do anything. Miss Saori grabbed my shoulder and held me back, telling me to just watch. That was also the moment when I saw that criminal look at me. Looking into his eyes, I saw he understood exactly what he was doing and it enraged me even further.

But, before I could materialize an ice spear, Gael began to laugh.

“Hahahahaha! Yeah, those were the days. I really brought a lot of trouble to Lilene back then. She was one of your flames back then, right? Beautiful woman. Probably the reason why she stole my heart and convinced me to get her out of your gang…” Gael reminisced, looking down at the floor as he became silent. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. As you said, she was a flame. Just another pretty girl I could have gotten at any time. I have a wife and kids now, so I don’t really care if she were to be alive or dead now.”

I remembered Yorshka explained that Gael’s lover had been kidnapped by the Yanderu Eluseuss after he defected from them. When the trio of Farron, Yorshka, and Gael went to save her, she unfortunately was killed. Afterward, Gael’s life twirled into a disaster, falling into depression and becoming a heavy drunk.

He seemingly changed, but I did wonder what exactly caused it. Was his meeting with Miss Saori and me that impactful? Well, it was good he wasn’t drinking all the time now.

“I see…” Gael nodded. “I guess you want to return to your family in one piece today? Once again, like any other day?”

The human simply stared at Gael, returning to his silence. Probably out of spite.

This isn’t working!

Gael managed to get him to talk, but it seemed his plan wasn’t working. I could hear the three onnikais next to me telling me to “handle it yourself” and that “the longer we leave him alive, the more problems he will cause us faefolk!”

I could also hear Uno and Song growling in displeasure, only holding their bloodlust back by virtue of their loyalty to Miss Saori. I knew for a fact, if Miss Saori hadn’t been around, I probably would have launched my spears into this despicable human’s body by now. Being ripped to shreds was an appropriate punishment for a fae hunter like him, just like what I did to that Yanderu fire mage back at the slave auction house.

Why are some humans such scum? Why? Just why?

I grabbed tightly onto the mana battery in my hand. Just like the spark which ignited the War for the Faefolk, this little object could herald in a second one. Humans, in their greed, do not learn.

Unlike the long-living races, they forget the mistakes of their forefathers because none of them lived long enough to pass it on properly to the next generation. Educating them in their history would be a wise choice, but how many would have access to it? Even then, some were just blind to goodness.

As the tapping of my left leg was echoing in the office of the Layavete cartel’s headquarters, the criminal finally chose to speak.

“First, answer this. How did you manage to pinpoint this headquarters and also capture all my lieutenants? Most are known publicly, but not my bookkeeper.”

The nerve!

Gael shrugged and answered, “Well, not like you can learn anything from this really, since the conditions and combinations are pretty rare.” He then pointed at Asaka and me. “Those two ladies were our main scouts and information gatherers. You can defend yourself from leaks and rats, but you can’t hide information when faefolk are involved.”

Asaka then released the four fenrir onnikais from her catalyst, showing them off to the human. “Sneaking in and out was pretty easy with these four. Eavesdropping and reading documents. The difficult part was pinpointing where you people were, but we have her for that.”

I guessed Asaka was talking about me, as I was the one responsible for talking to the spirits around the area. Since they were invisible without needing the proper skills, they made excellent scouts. For anybody who wasn’t one of the faefolk, this room might look empty, but I could see numerous of them gathering around, warning me to be careful.

Lesser faefolk were tricky to speak with, since they weren’t reasonable. You couldn’t talk or negotiate with them if they didn't want to work with you, even if they knew I was a fairy. I could request aid, but they would only help if they were willing to. And, right now all of them were, due to their friends’ deaths.

Gael continued, now directing the man’s attention to Saori. “And then, the actual capture was done by our hard-hitter here. Our wolfkin is a tamer and arcane trickster. You should know, since your bruises and burns came from her.”

“I will be honest, for a level 38, you put up quite the fight,” Miss Saori commented. “But, I guess you had your equipment and runic tattoos to thank for that.”

Two spell rings, a staff, and multiple daggers laid broken on the ground around us, all destroyed by Miss Saori when she went to capture this man. Looking at the damage outside this office, you would guess the fight was quite intensive.

“Heh! Gloating on me, eh? Manatech is there to make up for our lacking profiles, but even my detection enchantment on my rings wasn't able to find you before it was too late. Lost my auracoil barrier and then my scepter’s spell couldn’t even hit you before you knocked me out with some lightning.”

Hearing it from him, instead of Miss Saori’s modest retelling of the story, it really sounded like it was a crushing defeat. In general, the raid and ambush went really well since we had all this information we gathered from the spirits and onnikai.

Miss Saori’s familiars, except for Uno and Song, captured all the cartel’s leaders and were now holding them prisoner outside this room. Even storming the building was too simple since Elrick and I were too strong compared to the foes we met.

The cartel boss then turned his eyes to me. Exhaustion could be seen on his face, but I presumed it was more due to sleep deprivation.

“I guess you would be the faemancer here, elf? I guess you really can’t defend yourself from somebody who can talk to tiny faefolk for information. Only thing you can do is get rid of the— Kuek?!”

The man flinched and immediately flinched his head to the side as I shot an ice spear at him. However, before it actually penetrated his throat, I held it back, only slightly touching him with its tip.

“You really have a death wish, human. These onnikais and this mana battery are proof that there are fae hunters in this city. How and where did you get it?!” I held the mana battery back up, drawing his attention to it. “These onnikais want your death, for some,” I couldn’t keep the sneer from my voice as I taunted our captive, “reason, but I can tell you have no idea what spirits actually look like. You cannot see them. If you can’t see them, you can’t sacrifice them for your greed like fairies. Tell me, who was the abomination who did it?!”

The reason why fairies were mercilessly hunted more often than spirits before the War for the Faefolk was due to the fact there were less people with the ability to perceive mana in the air. If you couldn’t, you couldn’t see the lesser faefolk like spirits or spriggans. On the other hand, elementals and fairies were visible to the naked eye for even the most novice fae hunter.

“Tasianna, redraw your spear, please. Let me handle this,” Gael pleaded to me, looking at me with a worried look.

Turning around, I could also see Miss Saori on her guard. Her eyes wanted to tell me to calm down, again. But, at this point, what is there to gain from this man? He was wasting our time! He knew what to say but he didn’t because he was deeply involved with all of this! Just like the onnikais said.

[“He used our mana! Our life force! He must die! Die! Just like we did!”]

[“No mercy! No kindness! We were used and discarded! We were left to rot! No more! Kill him! Kill them all!”]

[“Stalling for time for reinforcements! Eliminate him! Free us, fairy! Free us from this pain!”]

Why do we faefolk always have to suffer from these humans…?

“I agree.” As if the words of these onnikais became reality, Elrick suddenly drew his sword and pointed it at the human scum. “Criminals must be judged. Our peace with the elves is a fragile construct, and it is being threatened by this human waste. His actions will have repercussions for the entire human race. This is a diplomatic disaster.”

Just like what Davison did.

“Hold up, Elrick!” However, our group was still conflicted on the actions we had to perform. “I will bonk you with my mace if you continue speaking like a damn zealot. Stop it! We need more information from this guy! Our clue from that alchemist store gave us nothing to work with outside of those onnikais!”

“Lady Asaka, this man is a—”

“Bla bla bla! Come on, can you think reasonably for a moment?! Put that sword down and think with your damn brain!”

“She’s right,” Miss Saori agreed.

[““Alpha!””] Uno and Song argued against Saori’s wish.

[“You two, do not even dare touch a hair on him — for now. You will leave this to us. We need more information. Is that clear?”]

The garms reluctantly stood down, even stopping their growls. Once Miss Saori made sure the garms were calmed down, she then turned her attention to Elrick and me.

“You too, Tasianna. If both of you keep letting your emotions and convictions control you, we will continue scrapping up bits of information. This is vital. Hestia should still be busy with the promotion event, but if you cannot calm down, I will have to drag her here to order you to both stop!”

Urgh… I can’t inconvenience my Mistress.

Lady Hestia had given me too much for me to act like a burden to her now. Her idol activity was her heart’s desire, and, as her maid, my responsibility was to keep her dream intact. Miss Saori was right, I couldn’t let myself be consumed by this. She told me to stay myself.

I took in a deep breath, using the breathing technique Lady Hestia taught me during our idol practice. Let the air stream through my lungs and into my brain, then let the emotions holding me down out through my mouth. I then told the onnikais around me to stop, and then gave Miss Saori a nod.

“… Well, that almost escalated. Haaaa,” Gael sighed deeply. “Tell me, you are smart enough. Why are you trying to invite Goddess Death to your office today?”

“Heh…” The man chuckled, smirking as if he had nothing to worry about. “Cuz the Layavete name is almost gone anyways. You probably seen some of our new lieutenants, Gael? Neville, for example.”

“Yeah, I know. Apparently, the guy didn’t give you our memo that we wanted to talk. Considering how you fortified your base, he probably acted like a fearmonger instead of a messenger,” Gael explained, causing the human to click his tongue, realizing a misunderstanding was around. “Huh? Guess so? Really? Huh.”

“Damn that Neville… But I guess that’s how it goes.” He straightened up his back, losing his smirk and looked up at Gael with the eyes of a businessman. “This is about Shaturein, right? I thought Blackreach ordered you to kill me.”

“No, but we want to work with you. However, this, on the other hand, has nothing to do with Shatu.” Gael then pulled out the broken emblem we had, the one with the snake curling around a potion bottle. “The main reason why we are here is ‘cause of the onnikai behind us. They told us you had something to do with the fae hunting, and I guess they were right since you have that mana battery in your office.”

The man blinked his eyes as he looked at me. I felt my anger rising up again, but I kept breathing in and out to suppress it. Noticing my chest moving, he closed his eyes before explaining the reason for why they were there.

“You want to know where I got them, right? Consider it my price for not killing me,” he stated. “The Resurrection. That’s the name of the syndicate behind the crippling of the Layavete cartel and also where one of my contacts got that mana battery. I had presumed they were crafting new batteries, despite only dwarves lawfully being able to make them. I was planning on using it as blackmail.”

He then chuckled.

“But, if a spirit’s mana is inside that, that thing just became useless to me. It’s worthless now as blackmail.”

I turned to Saori, looking at her with confusion. She explained that exposing the battery would have even worse effects than what he wanted to use it for. It could cause a war and it would drag the Layavete cartel into it since Gleisvale was his home. A piece of blackmail that was a double-edged blade was not usable, in this case.

“Who are these ‘Resurrection’ guys?” gael asked?

“From what I could tell, they owned that small alchemist store you probably noticed around here. You wouldn’t expect it. That store does a lot of Samaritan work. Handing out potions to the poor and even freeing beastmen slaves, particuarly female ones. At the same time, they aren’t strapped for coins.”

I was reminded of how the alchemist shop we visited was well-known in this area of the city and only had female employees and guards inside it.

“That’s when we find out they were being supported by a bunch of alchemist radicals with the goals to improve humans through the help of alchemy. The ‘Resurrection.’ The resurrection of humankind to compete with the other races,” he explained.

“Hold on,” Miss Saori stopped him. “Radicals? Treyanor, do you presumably know any of their members? Someone called Davison?”

Of course, Davison!

I had almost forgotten that Davison came from Estralia. He was a demonkin conspirator who had shouted something about raising the human race’s potential to that of elves and demonkin using a potion he created. That potion turned out to be made through demonkin methods, similar to the troll shaman we faced in the Belzac forest.

“Davison? Yeah, of course, we heard about that alchemist around this area. He was a high-ranking member of the local alchemist’s guild and used to frequent this area, since he had to hide his less than ideal experimentations. Turns out, he was transforming beasts into grotesque monsters with catalysts.”

We were told once this information began to spread, the alchemist guild caught onto this and kicked him out from the guild. At this point, the human presumed Davison joined the Resurrection as he still kept himself busy within the city despite being fired from the guild. However, eventually, he left Gleisvale and wandered to Artorias, where he continued his work for the next ten years.

“At the same time, a new guild master was assigned at the alchemist’s guild. Sadly, I have no idea who that person is, as they never ever reveal themselves. Instead, they use a proxy to handle their official work for them. If you ask me, the leader of the guild and the Resurrection are most likely the same person.”

“Are you willing to help us?” Gael proposed, causing me to widen my eyes.

Why would we want to work with this person?!

“Shatu proposes a chance for cooperation, since we want to expand our influence here. I don’t know how the other cartels work, but Mister Blackreach and Lady Grengar know about the Layavete cartel.”

“Ha! You mean take over. We are too weak to not get consumed by Shaturein.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter now, right? You did say you were crippeled.” Gael then proceeded to imitate walking like an old man. “Ooooh no… But you have no choice in this case, Treyenor. You are captured. So, how about you stop being stubborn and explain to me exactly how you lost your standing to those buncha alchemists and why exactly you have this garm pelt here before you turn into garm food.”

“…”

He hesitated, but only for a second.

“De—”

But it was one second too late.

“Hanazawa! Shield! Cover your heads!”

“Hu—?”

[Shadow Armament (Full Body)] inflicted on [Fairy, Tasianna Marina Silverpond]

Miss Saori’s shadow erupted into a tangible cloak, wrapping not only her in it but also the people around her. In the next second, a massive explosion erupted from the side of the building, scorching the rock walls of this building into fragments.

“Greiiiiaaaaaaaha!”

“Arck, Fuck! Grraaagk!”

Protected by her [Shadow Armament], the shadow armor absorbed most of the shockwave, but we were still sent flying to the other side of the wall. I managed to protect my head, as Miss Saori commanded, but I could still feel my head ringing. The blasting noise did not do my ears any favors.

“Tasianna!” I heard Miss Saori’s voice followed by the crackling of electricity. “Clear our vision! Hanazawa-san, heal Treyenor and Gael!”

““Grrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaark!””

Without questioning her, I let my mana flow into my catalyst before activating [Aerokinesis], commanding the wind to blow the ash and smoke in the air away. As my head cleared up from expending mana, I felt multiple enemy signals right in front of me through [Detection Sensor], pushing my brain into action as I finally understood what was going on!

An ambush!

Five men and women. All were beastmen of different varieties. Uniformly dressed in a black armor that looked like leather through the dust, but the sound of clanking metal suggested otherwise. They eyed us with eerie intention, only for my attention to be drawn towards the people to my right.

“Grraaaark! My leg!”

“Urk! Shit! Couldn’t protect him in time, urgh…”

It was the scum human and Gael. The former was missing a leg while the latter had rock splinters stuck inside his body with burns covering his left arm and leg. Miss Saori couldn’t protect them in time.

“Focus, Tasianna! Elrick! We have enemies!”

“This criminal is in our hands! You are obstructing the goals of a Knight of Aurena!”

But the five intruders didn’t respond to his shouts. They simply dashed towards Treyenor and Gael. I didn’t need [Danger Perception] to tell me what their unsheathed weapons were planning to do.

No! I will get my information!

[Frost Body] activated, cooling down my body and my surroundings. My catalyst began solidifying my mana into a slime-like substance before forming it into a rock-hard ice shield. I used [Cryokinesis] with the instruction I received from Empress Melloxtressa, freezing any water particles in the air into solid ice needles.

You have no right to harm them while I am alive!

A note from AbyssRaven

Angry frost fairy. Oh noooooo!

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Chapter 283: Frost in Summer’s Sun.

A note from AbyssRaven

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The sound of metal clashing against ice. Through my semi-transparent glacier [Frozen Shield], I could see the five intruders throwing out multiple knives at us. All of them had some liquid on their tips, seeing as they froze slightly after touching my defenses. I presumed it was some kind of poison.

“Just Blink!”

Meanwhile, Miss Saori shouted, drawing the attention of our aggressors slightly, only to suddenly teleport towards one of them the moment I blinked. In that single second, [Just Blink] allowed Miss Saori to escape everybody’s senses no matter how skilled they were. And in this very moment, she attacked.

Using two of her daggers, she stabbed the legs of one of them. However, instead of turning her attention to the others, as I presumed, she sent an electrically-charged punch right at the man’s chest.

“Kurraaghh!” The bovline, a minotaur beastman as Lady Hestia described, immediately began to retch from the force of the strike.

In the next second, Miss Saori grabbed onto the man’s shoulder and rolled over his back, all while creating mana threads from her fingers to tangle around him. Just like that, one of our enemies was out of the battle.

[“Uno! Song! To our right! The rest of you, stay in reserve!”] That last order was not for us, but the remaining members of her shadow pack. “Hanazawa! Heal Treyenor before he bleeds out!”

“Huh?! Y-Yeah, got it!” Asaka ran to Gael’s and the human scum’s side before releasing her fenrir spirits as she sat kneeled down next to me. “Hey, stop screaming, I got you. Moderate Heal!”

“Enchant! Ruuragh!” Unsheathing his sword, Elrick’s blade began shining a bright light before charging in.

““Grrrragk!”” The garms didn’t leave the attacking to them either.

“Back!” One of the intruders suddenly commanded, prompting the remaining four to dodge back, creating space. They then took out a mining mask, something dwarves used to combat the gases and dust inside a mountain whenever they went mining, and donned them. The moment they were finished, they took out hand-sized balls and threw them onto the ground.

“Urgh!” I groaned as a bright light exploded before us, blinding me and most of the others. Once I opened my eyes again, I noticed a thick fog of smoke spreading in the room.

“Urgakak!” I heard a man’s voice cough up.

Followed up by Miss Saori shouting “Poison! Elrick was poison— Gak!!” before she and her garms made gaggling sounds. She had to rely on [Telepathy] to communicate with me.

[“Stink bomb! Mhmmmmmieeek, my nose! Tasianna, get rid of it! Blow it away already!”]

Miss Saori and I couldn’t be poisoned since we had [Absolute Status Nullification]. Neither could the garms, since they were technically semi-living, semi-undead bodies inhabited by onnikais. Any damage caused by the poison could be repaired with the black mana slime they produced.

However, Miss Saori and the garms have extremely sensitive noses, which became even more of a problem since Miss Saori’s olfactory senses were heightened by her [True Wolven Instinct] skill. I had to act fast.

“Wind Bla—” I was about to cast, but my [Detection Sensor] suddenly picked up more people right outside of the building, followed by my [Danger Perception] warning me an attack was incoming from below and in front of me. “Change of plans! Aqua Prison! Glacial Protection!”

Water exploded from underneath me, capturing everybody on my side, including the human scum, in a giant ball of water. Immediately, I cast [Glacial Protection] on myself, reducing my body temperature even further. I then spread this cold with [Frost Body] from my fingertips, freezing the water around us until we were all encased in an orb of frozen ice.

In the next second, I sensed the mana inside the man Saori had captured was running amuck somehow before it triggered an explosion right next to my defenses. It rattled the building, destroying the floor beneath us and sending us falling down. This was followed up by even more explosions, demolishing a huge portion of the building and causing everything to literally tip over.

Please, by Goddess Plesia and Goddess Zephira, hold on! I prayed to the gods as I saw us crashing onto the ground with the building.

Thank goodness!

There were some cracks on the barrier, but none were endangering us. Using [Cryokinesis], I unfroze the portion of water around me, enabling me to move and look around.

[“Everybody alright?”] I called out to everybody, confirming they were conscious after they responded back. Elrick, Gael, and the criminal didn’t have [Telepathy], but I presumed they should be safe since I was fully confident my actions were executed well.

With my companions’ safety assured, I contemplated the rubble above us obscuring our sight, only to hear three different telepathic messages.

[“Alpha!”]

[“Uno! Song!”]

[“Pack Leader!”]

Those voices were from Sarasa, Quatre, and Varya respectively. Thankfully, they didn’t sound too hurt. They probably escaped through a shadow and only reappeared after the building had collapsed. From the lack of excessive panic in Varya’s voice, her cubs probably were safe and hiding in her shadow as well, I presumed.

I need to hurry. Marine Lungs.

[Marine Lungs] inflicted on [Fairy, Tasianna Marina Silverpond]

While I had made sure to not freeze any of my party members, it still didn’t mean I could keep them in this frozen orb for too long. I unfroze the upper section of the ball and began swimming up with [Marine Lungs], a custom spell I learned from Priest Kushlek’zar that allowed me to breathe underwater.

[“All three of you, get out of the way! I’m creating a path,”] I warned our animal friends before beginning our escape.

I cast [Tornado Bullet] to pierce through the rubble above us, following it up with the custom spell, [Ocean’s Blast], to launch all the debris into the sky. In the meantime, I constructed a [Winter’s Golem] to prevent the mountain of stone from falling back on us.

I then let my mana flow into the cracked ice orb, slowly “making it less cold” and letting the environmental temperature melt it. As everybody was freed from that prison, coughing up water, I left them to recover and directed my head upwards.

Aifli eir Vintral!

Wings of ice formed on my back as I used them to cool down the area from the explosions’ flames, already prepared to fight as I could detect multiple targets en route towards us. Using [Air Steps] and [Wind Blast], I launched myself into the sky before shooting out a cannon-sized [Azure Blade] at the first enemy I saw.

“Shiek!” The water sword ran right through a female aegosa, a sheep beastman, pinning her on the ground before the sword turned back into fluid water.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Fairy, Tasianna Marina Silverpond]’s Job [Alchemist] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 2]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Huh? I was flabbergasted. Considering how high my magic stats were, the spell should have gone right through her, instead of getting stuck.

That armor… Wait, is that a ranger’s bodysuit?!

But, this wasn’t the time to think of any of that.I noticed several signals coming closer. There were 18 left, meaning there were 20 at the beginning with five acting as distractions. The five from before, now three, took off their masks and began drinking multiple potions with the encroaching group.

At the same time, all 18 of them threw flashbombs, blinding all of us. I prepared a [Glacial Protection] around me to protect myself, but not a single attack came at me. When I opened my eyes, Sarasa and Quatre informed me they were making their way to the captured lieutenants.

I didn’t know how they managed to do it, but they miraculously managed to save all of the Layavete cartel’s people.

I clicked my tongue, realizing we weren’t their targets. The Layavete cartel was, and they tried to silence its leader. Now unable to kill him, they turned their attention to the other members of the syndicate.

Dragons have an organ sac to turn mana into ice naturally. I have to simulate it with [Frost Body]. Once again! I reminded myself of the training I went under Empress Melloxtressa, learning alongside the wyverns how to properly control the ice element. How to control temperatures.

And one of the tricks I learned was—

Freesch Hiiwui. (Frost Whispers)

Feeling my lungs with air and mana, I lowered my body’s warmth down with [Frost Body] before breathing out a blow of wind with the sting of winter’s embrace. Combined with the moisture in the air, not only did I freeze the rubble around me but also the intruders as well.

This ability could become so much stronger if I had practiced it enough to have the Divine System acknowledge it as a custom Ability, but so be it. I will have to make do with what I have now.

I once again released the mana from my body, causing the ice I made from that breath to grow larger and pursue the remaining 16 foes. With frozen spikes growing from the ground behind my frost breath, it chased after the people with the garms and Varya following it.

Our attackers threw out stink bombs, attempting to immobilize our furry friends. Unfortunately for them, I reacted in time and blew it away. One by one until there were only nine left, the shadow pack or my ice spikes extinguished their lives.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Fairy, Tasianna Marina Silverpond]’s Job [Alchemist] has risen from [Level 2] to [Level 6]

Attributes have increased due to level up

I could have probably ordered them not to kill those beastmen and show mercy; but we couldn’t waste time if we wanted to save that human scum’s subordinates. I didn’t know what Gael had planned, and I really couldn’t care about these humans’ lives, but I knew I had to look at the bigger picture. My travels have taught me as much.

We only need one captive any— What?!

The three onnikais from before and a few spirits came rushing up to me, warning me there was a large amount of mana concentrating in a single area to my left. Turning around, I noticed the body of the aegosa I killed from before. Her mana was running amiss, similar to that person from before.

Falakash! Sapphire Membrane!

Kaboom! An explosion rocked my eardrums again, rattling the azure water barrier I created to defend not only me but also the hole the others were still trapped in for the moment. The faefolk then drew my attention to the people I froze and the ones the shadow pack and I slew.

[“Get in your shadows!”] I commanded the pack, seconds before I noticed the mana inside the corpses beginning to amass. Realizing something was amiss from my words, they didn’t jump far away from the bodies of the intruders before sinking into the shadows just a moment before everything exploded.

Are you kidding me?! Are all these people bombs? Do they all have bombs inside of them?!

I squashed the flames and smoke using [Kraken’s Destruction] and jumped out from my barrier. Outside, I heard the pained cries of men which brought my attention to the lieutenants being assassinated by the remaining nine.

I directed the giant water tentacle, and used it to slam down at two more of them, killing them before they got the finishing blow on the last few cartel members. However, all of them were too late, as the rest of the assassins just finished the job, killing all of the cartel’s people.

All but one.

“Shit!” It was that one fat one we interrogated on our first day in the city. I had forgotten his name. “What took you so long?! You could have killed me!”

Huh?! What did he sa—

Once again, I couldn’t think fast enough. Another flash bomb was thrown and I had to block my eyes to not get blinded. Smoke was then thrown to cover their escape, but I had [Detection Sensor].

I shot multiple ice daggers I had created with my catalyst at our fleeing foes, but the fools weren’t allowing me to stop the one carrying the fat goon. They threw themselves in the way of my blades, dying in the process and exploding from whatever caused them to do so.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Fairy, Tasianna Marina Silverpond] has risen from [Level 69] to [Level 70]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 700 skill points

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Fairy, Tasianna Marina Silverpond]’s Job [Alchemist] has risen from [Level 6] to [Level 9]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Tsk! I clicked my tongue that three of them managed to escape my hail of daggers, but they wouldn’t get away from me. Using wind magic and [Air Steps], I flew towards them even without my fairy wings.

As I was about to catch them, the shadows in front of them, cast by the buildings around, materialized three black magic circles. And from them, the fangs and claws from the abyss came to retrieve their prey.

“““Griieaaahhhhhh!!!”””

Blood and flesh spewed out as Sarasa, Quatre, and Varya mauled the remaining intruders to death before throwing their corpses back to the rubble like trash. Since they would explode when captured or in death, we couldn’t get any information on them. Anything we might get from them could only come from when they were still living and breathing.

For example, a certain somebody with a loose tongue.

“Hey, human.” I called out to the cowering fat man.

“Wuuiiiiiiiieeeee! Raaaaaahhhh!!!” he flinched before screaming, trying to flee despite still being tied up. He honestly looked like a caterpillar.

I sighed and followed after him slowly. This sort of worm was the ideal candidate to interrogate, and, just like on our first day, he would become useful to us once again. And, apparently, I wasn’t the only one with that idea.

“Stay back! Stay back! Don’t you dare touch me! I have people behind me that you cannot comprehend! The moment they find me injured again, they will send more and more of these assassins! You will all die, you damn bit— Gurak!”

“Shut up.” Miss Saori landed a kick right to his face after appearing from a shadow.

“Miss Saori, how are you?” I bowed slightly, happy to see her well.

On the other hand, Miss Saori simply shook her head, looking disappointed in herself. “Good enough after all you did, Tasianna. Thank you very much. Haaaa, I was surprised there. I should have expected something like a stink bomb would be a good counter against beastmen and animals with a good sense of smell.”

“Our enemies have been watching us. I thought you mentioned nobody was following or spying on us after we intruded into that alchemy store?”

“I made sure, Tasianna. You can believe me on that. That is a mistake Muraina told me to never do,” Miss Saori insisted on her capabilities. “However, what I cannot sense is people asking around about us. We have become rather famous, Tasianna. Even the hunter’s guild in this city knew about me, not to mention Hestia.”

It was true. Among our company, the three most known members had to be Lady Hestia, Dame Yorshka, and then Miss Saori, in that order. It was obvious how grand my mistress was, so it was clear everybody would know about her the moment she revealed her true identity. Dame Yorshka was a known A ranker, and Miss Saori recently made headway as “The Jet-Black Thunder Wolf” even if most only assumed she was just a talented wolfkin instead of a fenrir.

Similar to a hunter gathering information before a subjugation Quest, people targeting us would need to find our weaknesses first before attacking us. I guess they weren’t fully prepared against Miss Saori’s lightning and my magic casting, but they had enough tools in their belt to make this battle something other than just a one-sided slaughter.

Especially that stink and poison bomb combination. Cunning. Especially that armor… but I can mention that later to the others. First, we have something else to do.

“Now, what do you wish to say, Mister Neville?” Miss Saori called the man out, reminding me what his name was.

“Gurg… Glak! Fkuck kyou!” He spat out a broken tooth and attempted to speak, but it seemed Miss Saori broke his jaw.

Miss Saori then grabbed him from the back and threw him on the back of Sarasa, who was smirking at him with her fangs, sending a shudder through him. We made sure to keep our garms’ teeth clean, since mouth hygiene was important.

“I apologize for the sudden ice orb moment. My instincts told me that was the correct move to defend us from any attack, but I understand it must have been uncomfortable for you and the others,” I apologized as we slowly walked back to get the others out of the hole.

“No problem, I knew you had no choice. Don’t think too much about it. If I had reacted sooner, they wouldn’t have been able to use those bo—”

“Urgk…”

Unfortunately, there was something we had forgotten about the building that just crashed right down onto the street — the lower members of the cartel we subdued had been left right in front of the building. And these very people were still currently among the rubble.

“Shit!”

“Oh no!”

Miss Saori and I grimaced as the situation dawned on us, immediately heading over to try and find anyone still alive and trapped in the rubble. The shadow pack members with us noticed this and began helping, warning us if they found anybody alive. Although I didn’t like these people, leaving anyone to needlessly suffer was wrong and I wasn’t heartless enough to leave them to die.

“Ocean Healing!” I began saving anybody we found were still alive. A lot of time has passed since the building was demolished and the constant explosions from the deaths of those intruders ruined the chances of a quite large portion of those who could have survived.

If Lady Hestia were here, would this have been her first choice of action? Damn, I can’t heal them fast enough!

“Miss Saori, you need to call Asaka over here! [Ocean Healing] isn’t healing them fast enough.”

“Already ahead of y—”

“Grrriiiak! Sto—!”

“Elrick! W-What are you doing?!”

“Hanazawa?!”

A scream, followed by Asaka’s voice shouting out in disbelief. Miss Saori dashed forward and I couldn’t help but want to follow her along. I pulled out a few of my small health potions from my satchel and handed them over to Varya, telling her she had to take over for now.

The virigress nodded, accepting my request and called out her two sons from her shadow, as Rajah was with Lady Hestia. They took my potions, allowing me to run over without a guilty conscience.

Once I made it, I was astounded to see red liquid staining Sir Elrick’s mouth. Long fangs like a blood-sucking bat replaced his canines, still fresh with dripping blood. His ears were sharp, not as sharp as an elf’s but still sharper than that of a human. But the most distracting were his dark-red eyes. They glimmered like two rubies under the shine of the sun.

Looking down, I noticed a skinny human lying right behind him. It seemed they managed to dig somebody out from the rubble, but the disturbing part about this was the two deep holes on the side of the body’s throat.

“E-Elrick?!” Asaka quivered, holding her mace up with her fenrir onnikais protecting her in a defensive shield.

“You gotta be kidding me… Never expected that from a paladin from the church of Aurena.” Gael had his jaw agape, unable to look away from Elrick. He wanted to say something but he couldn’t until the cartel boss finally mumbled.

“… A vampire”

You have to be kidding me!

Only Miss Saori remained calm during this whole event. “… Elrick, we have much to talk about.”

“Yes… May the Goddess forgive me for what I did today.”

A note from AbyssRaven

Scribble Hub

If that caught your attention then let me just quickly say that I've recently expanded "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" to Scribble Hub. I would be pretty happy if you guys would take some of your time and support me over there if you guys could.

Now, to incentivize you guys to go over there, the chapters on Scribble hub from 0 - 14 will be posted using the edits I've done using the criticism I've received from your guys over the two years I've been writing here on RR. That means, it will most likely be a new experience for you guys. I would recommend reading them.

Now, since I decided on adding those edited chapters, I've also done them on RR. Chapter 0 to 5 have been released on Scribble Hub and those are the ones I've altered for RR for now. I will sync the two versions with each other. But, if you read the new old chapters here on RR, I don't think your view will count. That's why, I would like you guys to try out Scribble Hub and help me grow over there

Please, and thank you for reading this!

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For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters for the whole month! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 284: The Mysteries Continue.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #4 her to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until May!

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“Neville… So you were the traitor all along, huh? Should’ve guessed with how you suddenly became competent out of nowhere, only to start acting like an idiot again later. Who the hell bought you out, huh? The Resurrection? The Riverside Syndicate? Or… did our old friends order you to kill us all?”

After the “disaster” that was the attack on the Layavete cartel’s headquarters and its subsequent destruction by some assassins, we managed to rescue any remaining survivors with Asaka’s and my healing spells. Sadly, the number of people we managed to save could be counted on two hands.

Speaking of the injured, the Layavete cartel’s leader, Treyenor, had been saved by Asaka after she stopped him from bleeding out, although his right leg was lost forever from the initial explosion. Gael only sustained some minor burn damage, thanks to his Vitality and [Fire Resistance]. Lastly, we had Elrick… I heard blood rejuvenated vampires. The poison in his body was expunged after he drank.

Regardless, the situation wasn’t ideal to talk about Elrick right now. We had to interrogate our prisoner instead. For that, we took the injured cartel members and their leader to one of their hideouts. Needless to say, the members guarding that place were devastated to hear what just occurred to their faction.

Now, we were inside one of their rooms. Although crippled, Treyenor decided he would lead this interrogation on the fat scum who betrayed his organization.

“Tell me, Neville… TELL ME!” The former stuck a knife into the latter’s leg out of rage.

“Kuraaarrrrrgh!”

“… Gael, take him away. Hanazawa-san, could you do it once again?” Miss Saori asked exasperated.

While drinking some of Lady Hestia’s dragorade to restore her mana and reduce her arcane corruption, Asaka showed a thumbs up. With her thirst quenched, she moved up after Gael took out the knife and Miss Saori brought the enraged Treyenor away. With [Major Heal], the wound our prisoner had disappeared.

Once she was done, Gael used the handle of the knife to tap the fat scum’s head. “Well, three times the charm, they say. Three times this knife was stuck in your leg. A bit problematic coming from a cripple, Treyenor.”

“Don’t patronize me, Gael!” Treyenor scoffed. “This leg is the least of my problems. My problem is that the Layavete cartel is practically gone now with all my leaders dead. All due to me being blinded with how to rebuild my father’s legacy, unaware of the worm devouring it from the inside. This leg means nothing. I was crippled even before!”

Self-guilt. I can sympathize.

“Mhmm.” Gael gave an understanding nod to Treyenor, leaving him to process what happened to turn back to the interrogation. “Well, you heard the man. Speak, Neville. You’ll be dying in any case, but if you at least give us the information, we’ll let you die easily.”

“Fuck you!” He shouted. His jaw was healed up but I guess Miss Saori gave him a concussion from her kick.

“Haaaa… Hierk!” Gael turned around for a moment, sighing in the process, only to stab the knife precisely into the gap between his middle finger’s nails. It was too fast for the scum to react in time, only for Gael to peel it off the moment he screamed.

“KriiiieeeaaAAAAARCKKKK!!!”

“Oh jeez…” Asaka turned around and made her way out. “Call me when you need me. I’ll get some fresh air.”

“Excuse us.” With nobody stopping him, Elrick followed behind Asaka. I guessed Miss Saori could trust he wouldn’t run away.

Back to the interrogation, the screams haven’t stopped. In fact, they became even more intense as Gael used a plier to peel off fingernails as if he was used to it. Still, even after all of this, the fat scum was unwilling to speak. He kept his mouth shut for everything but his shouts.

With his attempt not working out, Gael sighed again before grabbing onto his bleeding fingertips with the tool. With one quick motion, the finger was forced back unnaturally and broke.

“Kriiiiahiehkehkehiek!” Tears and snot ran down his face. Gurgling could be heard.

“You know, the moment you speak, the moment I stop. I really don’t like going so far with the torture. It’s bad for the ears. However, I can continue and I will break you, Neville. I’ve known hardier people break after I’m done with them!” His eyes told me he was telling the truth.

“… I can’t take this any longer. Tasianna, let’s leave with Treyenor. We need information.”

Miss Saori grabbed Treyenor around his shoulder and helped him on his feet. She then used [Shadow Armament] on him and created an onyx leg for him. Once hardened, it could act like a replacement.

Thanking Saori, Treyenor then left the room with us. We then went to the office room of the building, where Saori gave him the mana battery from before back. The onnikais around me quivered in rage when they saw that, prompting me to shut them down. A bit risky, since they could revolt against me, but I relied on the spirits following us to calm them down.

[“We will find who was responsible for this! Please, trust me,”] I told the faefolk.

“…” Treyenor inspected the battery before sitting down and asking Saori for the broken emblem. “If you ask me, the people who attacked me today were from the Resurrection.”

“How are you sure?” Miss Saori asked.

“Clean up the mess and erase potential enemies. It’s what any cartel would do. The Layavete cartel used to be supported by two of the eight Olden Money houses. Should probably not tell you who they are, but our connections were severed already, so whatever. The Plymeirs and Urlandors, those were our patrons,” Treyenor exposed them for us, but this information didn’t tell us much.

It seemed Miss Saori shared my thoughts. “So? I have done some research into the senators, but we don’t have anything to do with them… yet.”

“Take it as a snack for now. You might need it,” he answered. “In any case, the fact we were supported by two Olden Money heads gave the Layavete cartel the power to control a large portion of Gleisvale. The other Olden Money families controlled other aspects, so we were in a sorta stalemate until we were dethroned by a pretty insidious plan.”

“How so?” I asked. “Considering how much you are elevating your former position, how did you fall? And what does this have to do with our problem?”

Noticing my impatience, Treyenor nodded compliantly. “The Resurrection is a newly formed syndicate we haven’t heard much about. They were like any other newcomers. The problem came from the events that happened right after they began making a name for themselves. My organization’s two supporters were assassinated and fake evidence was planted to implicate us.”

With the death of two senators, especially ones who belonged to influential houses, there had to be consequences and someone needed to take the blame. Treyenor explained how the relationship between crime syndicates and senators was practically a norm in Estralia, but it was an open secret at best. The houses the Layavete cartel supported knew they were working with them, but none of them wanted to acknowledge it publicly.

And these houses’ rivals jumped on the opportunity. Labeling them as a public enemy, they hunted and destroyed the Layavete cartel with the goal to cripple the Plymeirs and Urlandors. In a desperate attempt, Treyenor exposed the relationship between his cartel with the two houses, proving to everybody they couldn’t have done anything to their former supporters.

This action meant his cartel would survive, but it also played right into the plans of the other houses. The Plymeirs and Urlandors lost plenty of influence from this. Although still part of the senate, as is custom, their honor and status was put into question for “being shameless enough to work with criminals.” This also burned all bridges the Layavete cartel had with their old employers.

“After that, the Resurrection began to rise up. Quite a lot, in fact. The power vacuum left behind our defeat? They filled it all. And now they were ready to finish us off.” Treyenor threw the emblem back to Saori. “In addition, their armor. Elf, you know what that was, right? It might look different, but it’s the exact same thing.”

“Yes.” I nodded. “They might have been made with metal, but I knew after seeing them work that they were Haireti armor.”

“Haireti armor?” Miss Saori questioned. “Wait, do you mean the same one Muraina and the elven rangers at the outpost were wearing? But they look nothing alike. Their armors were made with leather and bark.”

I agreed with Miss Saori, but that was why they looked foreign to me at first. “Normal ranger armor made by the Saelari comprises leather and mana-infused tree bark, weaved together using mana threads. The pieces of bark the Saelari gave Lady Hestia, for example, were examples of this. Unlike the dwarves’ mountain, the forest of Saelariel have few mining locations for metal. Our tree groves, on the other hand, give us the material for our armor.”

I also explained how they could hide runes and enchantments easily, as they combined aspects of the earth and mana. Miss Saori questioned why I hadn’t told Grimnir yet, mentioning this would improve our armor. However, considering how a master blacksmith like Grimnir hadn’t mentioned it once, I understood he didn’t know how to combine mana weaving with armor.

After I was done explaining it to Miss Saori, I turned back to Treyenor, only to see him look at me with squinted eyes. I asked him what was wrong, only for him to say he was trying to make out the spirits around us. I dismissed his idea as absurd, as humans weren’t naturally able to perceive raw mana without a skill or manatech.

With a sigh, he dropped the matter and continued with his explanation. “I’ve done some information gathering on the Resurrection once I realized they might have been involved in my downfall. You know, looking into who exactly supported them. What I learned was the part with Davison and that they somehow learned how to make that sorta armor.”

Miss Saori frowned. “And they are able to make it en masse, considering they were willing to sacrifice 20 of them to try and kill you and your underbosses. I guess our next goal is the Resurrection. Do you have any information on them?”

“Location of their bases? Sure. Most of their members are normal alchemists, so they aren’t very good at keeping themselves inconspicuous. If you want to, you can also look into the alchemist guild and their current leader. I bet the guild and the Resurrection have a connection.”

“And the mana battery?” I brought his attention back to the important part to me.

“Like I said, I wasn’t the one who hunted those fae. Fae hunters are pretty rare, since the job is pretty suicidal and could cause more problems than you can handle. You have to be extremely greedy or dumb to attempt it,” he made his stance on the job clear to me. “However, if you want to know where I got that battery specifically, it was through one of my spies. He found it inside one of the storage warehouses on the pier. I’ll get him to speak with you.”

That’s our next goal then. Gleisvale’s pier.

We thanked him for the information. Courtesy was expected.

Miss Saori then asked him for the mana battery, saying she wanted to keep it for the future, which Treyenor agreed with. At the same time, she remembered we also wanted to talk to him about the ambush we experienced when we entered the borders of Estralia. We also explained how we got the broken emblem from one of the slaves, which we learned was probably a member of the potion shop we visited a week ago.

“Slaves? Then it has to be one of the syndicates personally owned by one of the Olden Money; they’re used like a private army. Slaves are expensive, even the most useless ones,” he answered. “If you want to ask me for my opinion, it has to be from the O’Blooms.”

“Don’t they own a pastry shop?” I commented, remembering how they were our prime competitors to the Sarlenzia company’s Olive’s Garden.

“Yeah, and they are the Olden Money who deal mostly with luxury and exotic products. Elven yeast is a luxury. Do you guys know Hamil from Shaturein? The O’Blooms’ head was one of his main customers, since Hamil had Empire connections, I heard.”

But the most important part came right after.

“Also, you mentioned those slaves turning and morphing around like some messed up monster, right? Well, Davison was the one who experimented with that kinda stuff for some reason, and after he was kicked out from the Resurrection, he went to the O’Blooms.”

“You are not suggesting that—?”

“Yes, I am, Saori. Get the recipe or plans, and then poach or somehow get an alchemist for yourself. O’Bloom wants the Resurrection to fall, so, if I had to guess, one of the latter’s supporters has to be an Olden Money.”

And Hamil and Davison had some relation with each other, aside from both working with demonkins. This cannot just be a coincidence, right? I mean, is our next target O’Bloom or should we continue tracking the Resurrection down?

“Oh yeah, there’s more,” Treyenor stated after fishing out a mug and filling it up with some rice wine. “While we’re still on the Davison topic, the pelts your giant wolves were so focused on, I got mine from ambushing one of the caravans Davison was sending here. No idea as to whom, as we killed everybody transporting it before they could answer.”

Davison and the alchemist’s guild in Firwood commissioned a subjugation Quest to kill off the fenrirs and garms inside the Belzac forest about ten years ago. Speculating, I assume Miss Saori’s garm mother was involved and a large part of her family were massacred during that event.

The four garms we had now were slain during that event. I heard Miss Saori had asked them before if they were related in any ways, but they couldn’t give a precise answer for it, since Miss Saori knew too little about her mother. There were many garm packs, and not all of them saw eye-to-eye.

The leviathan we met in the Belzac forest did mention he had met her mother once, but that was about it. I knew Miss Saori wasn’t really invested in all this drama, but her garms were. If I could guess, she was doing this for them. On the other hand, I could sympathize with their need for vengeance… and an attempt for closure.

“We found a garm pelt in the apartment above the potion shop belonging to the Resurrection. Do you have any idea what that could mean?” Miss Saori asked, looking like she was curious how all of this was connected.

“They do? Did it belong to one of your garms like mine did?” Treyenor questioned and she nodded. “Hmm. Well, they could have simply sold it to them, but since Davison used to belong to the Resurrection, maybe the pelt was a peace offering? Bring him back into the leader’s good graces?”

“… Maybe.”

This was starting to become complicated. So many strings were around us now, all leading us down different paths. Would all of them bring us to the same destination or were they all distinct? It was hard for me to decide, honestly. Demonkins or the one responsible for the fae hunter who killed Princess Schuri. And there was also this mystery behind the garm pelts…

Actually, no it wasn’t.

“Let’s go back for the day, Miss Saori. We have enough to inform Lady Hestia and I think we need her consent for our next action.”

“Agreed. Treyenor, I thank you for your patience and time today. Since Gael isn’t done yet, I’ll leave the rest to him, but…”

“Yeah, I don’t think I had much choice in the beginning anyways. Now, with everything going down, I only have one option to keep my father’s legacy alive. Not like it’s any different from before. Shaturein will have the Layavete cartel’s support, even if what I can give is meager than what they probably wanted.”

But that isn’t our problem anymore. We kept our end of the bargain with Shaturein. Now, they had to keep theirs and get our connection to the Empire. Lady Hestia will be happy about this~

“Also, can I keep this leg?” Treyenor pointed at the replacement leg created with Miss Saori’s [Shadow Armamnet].

“… No, of course not. I have to be around for it to manifest. Sorry.”

… Well, that happened.

On our way out, Treyenor asked us what we were doing with the vampire, but we told him to mind his own business and to keep quiet about it. We then asked one of the cartel’s members where Asaka and Elrick were and they told us that a strange woman had suddenly shown up and asked to see them.. The cartel members wanted to chase her away, but it seemed Asaka told them to stand down.

Thanking them, we made our way to the foyer, where multiple of the organization’s members stood next to the entrance like a row of servants and attendants. Bowing deeply, they all spoke unanimously.

“““Thank you for saving our boss’s life!”””

Seeing such a strong resolve of loyalty for your boss despite your organization breaking down from the outside, did make me respect them a tiny bit. Perhaps because it reminded me of my own loyalty. Even if the world were to die tomorrow, I would stand with Lady Hestia until the very end.

After we left the building, Saori and I looked around in the front. Asaka and Elrick were nowhere to be found, so we had to rely on our [Detection Sensor] to find them behind a crowd of people a bit further away from here.

Once there, we saw Asaka holding an amulet in her hand with a glistening, onyx, opal-shaped crystal. The moment we got closer, the three onnikai around me suddenly flew over to the object and began floating around it like fireflies attracted to a fire. Miss Saori also suddenly commented on how her garms could smell the scent of death around it.

“Oh? Are you guys done?” Asaka asked us after noticing us.

We nodded and told her we would talk about it while we moved back to the RV. Miss Saori told me to maintain an [Air Shield] around us to prevent information from leaking, especially since this was confidential.

“Gael will come back later. We were not interested in staying there for the torture, so we went and talked with Treyenor. Details can wait for later when we report it to the others, but to summarize, our next goal is to find the Resurrection’s base, or perhaps where it's storing things at the pier. In addition, we have some leads on which senators are not to be trusted,” Miss Saori explained.

“Docks?” Asaka and Elrick suddenly looked at each other, flabbergasted, to say the least. They then turned back to us, where Asaka held up the amulet and spoke, “Hear me out, even if this is crazy to hear, but the person who gave me this amulet just told me the exact same thing.”

Excuse me?

Noticing us shocked by what she said, Asaka gestured for us to calm down. “Yeah, like I said, crazy, right? She didn’t exactly tell me who was behind it, simply ‘Your target is located at the city’s pier inside a storage building with the mark of the tempting serpent. Slothfulness will not get your far, so make haste.’”

“Who was that person?” I asked, so full of suspicion that I was beginning to look behind my shoulders if that person was following us.

“An elf,” Asaka stated. “I dunno which one since she wore a hood, but I saw her long ears sticking out. She was also incredibly pale, like a ghost, and had dark hair deeper than ours before we changed our hair color. It felt like looking inside a room without any light in it.”

“Lady Asaka also mentioned her onnikais were squirming around inside the catalyst for some reason. They were clearly agitated and only calmed down after she left,” Elrick further added. “She also spoke in a terrible accent. I couldn’t understand a single word, while Lady Asaka only managed to identify some words. We had to rely on the onnikais to translate most of it.”

And the mystery became even harder to understand once Asaka asked us to appraise the amulet. So, we did exactly as she wanted.

Amulet of the Blessed Spirits

An amulet created using the bones of dark-aligned monsters, fused together with metal to become a catalyst to appease the dead. If worn by its owner, dark elemental spells will be cast at a lower mana cost and they will be able to commune with the undead and the spirits of the dead. Allows using onnikais as conduits of mana.

Owner: [Asaka Hanazawa]

Skill: [Dark Magic Efficiency Lv. 5] [Dark Elementalist: Onnikai] [Chant Revocation: Dark Lv. 10] [Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 7] [Death Aura Lv. 5]

[Death Aura]?! I looked at my own catalyst and appraised it to compare.

Catalyst of the Blessed Gale Storm

An alchemical orb blessed by Zephira, Goddess of Winds, and drenched in the mana of a rage-filled onnikai. If mana is registered to this catalyst, it will levitate and float around the owner using stored mana. If this catalyst is used as a support for the owner’s spells, the mana used in the process will be thicker, increasing the durability and damage of spells. Due to this process, casting speed and mana cost will increase.

Zephira’s Blessing: Casting speed and spell strength will increase for wind elemental related spells, improved [Air Shield] can be cast, [Aerokinesis] for all wind elemental spells cast through this catalyst, [Storm Resistance Lv. 5]

Owner: [Tasianna Marina Silverpond]

Skill: [Mana Cost Increase Lv. 3] [Liquid Mana] [Zephira’s Blessing] [Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 8] [Chant Revocation Lv. 8] [Death Aura Lv. 1]

Death Aura

The death aura associated with the Goddess of Death and Necromancy, Ilsaphone. It is a weakened version but it will still affect the undead and those close to death. Undead will be more willing to listen to you. Those close to death will fear you more, making inflicting [Terror] and [Fear] more likely

“Could that person have been a necromancer?!” I blurted out, suddenly reminded of the death mage we met in Griffonpeak. Remembering what she did, a chill ran down my spine.

Unnerved by this, Miss Saori frowned deeply. “Hanazawa-san, why did you accept that necklace?”

“I didn’t want to. She pushed it onto me, saying ‘Hold onto it.’ While I was surprised at what happened, Elrick wanted to stop her from going away, but she slid into the crowd and disappeared.”

Elrick nodded. “I lost her presence completely despite how close we were. I don’t know who she was, but she had to have high stealth skills.”

“Even with your ‘special’ abilities?” Miss Saori questioned, causing Elrick to stutter.

“I-I mean—”

“That’s not the issue now, Segawa-san. We can talk about it in a bit, but what am I supposed to do with this thing? She even called herself an ‘ally’ for some reason. She was a complete stranger. I’ve never met her before, and I don’t think Yorshka had any necromancer friends.”

“But she was an elf, you said,” I argued. “A Saelari or Anduri, elves from their original home Anduriol, shouldn’t be wishing any harm on us. I believe we can trust them a bit.”

“Tasianna, this is a stranger we are talking about. We should not act on faith alone, even if they were an elf or not. It is naive,” Miss Saori rebuked me.

Asaka nodded. “I agree. I don’t feel too good having this amulet around. I’ll keep it in my [Storage Magic] for now and we can argue about what to do with it later on. I really have no idea if destroying it would be the correct choice here.”

I felt conflicted about their opinion. Elves could be trusted since they were more united than humans and had the wisdom of age on their side to understand the faults of the past. I believed that. Could there be an elf who had their heart tainted? If the elf who gave Asaka this amulet was a follower of the Death Goddess, Ilsaphone, then could they also be a threat?

In elven society, the children of Marsven and Edna weren’t considered evil. Ilsaphone, Vivachel, and Kronnaz were important figures for the dark elves. Even if the human’s church of Aurena considered them enemies of their religion, the elves didn’t. Not even the elven followers of Aurena did.

But until I receive further information, I believe it might be better to understand where Miss Saori and Asaka were coming from. Maybe I was being a bit too naive here.

Nevertheless, whatever the correct choice was, we could delay it for later. We first returned to the Sarlenzia company’s branch in the town to see how the grand opening of the pastry shop and our bistro went. From the sight of the crowd, a stone was removed from my heart. It was relieving to see the success after all the preparation and work we put into it.

“You guys!” As we entered the shop, Lady Hestia was there waiting for us. Did she notice us with her [Detection Sensor]? “Good to see you guys, okay. And… Sir Elrick.”

Lady Hestia pondered while holding her hand on her chin. “We can talk about everything in the evening after the restaurant closes. Yorshka told me everything…”

Yorshka did what?

But, Elrick seemed to have understood what was going on and nodded. “Yes, I thank you very much for your consideration, Lady Hestia. I shall be staying in my room for the time being. It should be better for everyone if I don’t move around too much.. Lady Asaka, please, excuse me.”

With a bow, Elrick exited the shop.

“… So, Yorshka knew about everything, huh? I guess that’s what she meant with blackmail,” Asaka spoke with Lady Hestia.

“You knew?”

“We just learned about it. We’ll brief you about it later on, but… while I do feel a bit betrayed, don’t be too harsh on him, alright, Hestia-san? We should hear his side of the story first.”

“Agreed.”

And with that, this night was destined to be eventful. Not only because the nobles of Artorias were about to meet the senators of Estralia in the restaurant tonight through the use of Lady Hestia’s space-time magic, but also because of the revelation that we had a vampire in our midst.

But, I guess what stole my attention the most was the fact two mysterious elves had approached Lady Hestia and Asaka today, respectively.

“Elsa, did you really have to approach them like this today?” An elven woman with red eyes as deep as blood complained to her sister inside a small inn’s room.

The paler older sister waved her younger sibling’s concerns away, looking confident in her decision. “I didn’t break any rules, Vivi. I went about it as discreetly as possible while planting some sort of influence for me to communicate with them in the near future. After all, from the looks of it, I believe I can foretell what will happen.”

“Do you really believe they will be able to help you?”

“I know it, dearest sister. After all, Saori’s garms will not overlook this nor will Tasianna. I also don’t believe our sister’s champion would abandon people in need. The question is, how will they deal with the problem?”

“Hmm, the outcome is something you cannot expect. There are two major roadblocks for the optimal results, and one of them is moving towards the destination.”

“Yes… that sly seducer. Let us see if we have to eliminate it or not…”

“Mhmm. Let us see how Kroza will react to all of this.”

And the shadows lurking behind the bright Aurora began to move.

A note from AbyssRaven

Crime syndicate taken over.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters for the whole month! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 285: Vampires.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #1 her to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until May!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

21 humans have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 7878

“I am a vampire. A vampire bloodling, if you want to be specific.”

The grand re-opening and rebranding of restaurant Aurora as a fine dining establishment was not only an extremely hectic day but also a very stressful affair. Though, that much was only to be expected, honestly.

Not only did we promote our restaurant to the senators of Estralia through the merchant guild, but I also informed King Drangleic and his seven dukes about it. With all of them bringing their families to experience this new event, every single table was occupied. Even then, once word spread through the grapevine about it, more people wanted to come in, forcing us to put up a queue.

Beforehand, we accounted for only our VIPs, which meant 21 groups from Gleisvale and eight from Artorias. 29 tables were divided between six waiters and waitresses, which included Svena as the head waitress. But, it became clear right at the beginning that we needed more help, and thankfully, Lorena and Haati were willing to help out. Apparently, Svena had trained them up in case this would have happened.

Now, while I did say the restaurant was full, I didn’t mean every senator actually came or, if they did, in a large group. Some senators came only with each other, while I learned later on some didn’t even come in the first place. This allowed other important guests to take their place.

On the other hand, the king and all the dukes came with their closest family members. The test service was so successful they practically couldn’t help but admit they’d been waiting for this in anticipation, up until the very moment we opened the restaurant. And it’s only been a few days since the test.

Once the kitchen had opened, everything happened exactly as you would expect for a busy restaurant. I had thought the kitchen would falter a bit since there were even more people around this time, but through Tamae’s immaculate leadership, they barely had any trouble outside of the dishes not being cleaned fast enough. In fact, the waiters up front were the ones that suffered from the most issues.

Ellaine and I led the musical entertainment for the night, so we had a front-row view of the senators being baffled at how the Artorian king and his nobles could possibly be here. They initially thought they had somehow been transported to Estralia for the day, but I quickly refuted this, simply telling the senators that the Artorians had entered the restaurant from Artorias, leaving them flabbergasted. I didn’t enlighten them any further and just let things flow.

And by “flow,” I meant letting the politicking and business negotiations begin.

Honestly, it was too boring for me to listen to. I couldn’t help it. I found their delight over the food far more interesting. It gave me a sense of success, seeing as everybody apparently loved the food Tamae and I placed on the menu.

However, pleasantries aside, this was still a political move to make it clear where Artorias stood in my relationship network. Considering I invited the King of Artorias and his seven dukes, it was clear we were good acquaintances at the very least. In addition, I had told the dukes and the King that we needed to find a senator we could safely support, so this allowed them to help me out a bit on that front.

After one table left, the next came in from our queue. A majority came from Artorias, as the dukes actively bragged about eating at the restaurant trial to their relatives and friends. I made some followers from it, but they were too focused on the food to fully immerse themselves in my music.

Regardless, all I wanted to see was the restaurant being a success. I could tell Saori was quite happy when the service ended, even if it wasn’t under her full control anymore. This was her idea, after all. She just couldn’t realize it due to her lack of experience managing a restaurant. Whether she will return to the kitchen or not would be a question for the future, but for now, we had something else to talk about.

Sitting on a sofa surrounded by nearly everybody else from Aurora was Elrick von Karstein. A member of the Knights of Aurena, a profession which you could call a paladin or holy knight considering his skill set. A handsome man with bright blond hair; the perfect image of a lawful young man in the service of the Goddess of Light.

Well, until you realize this man now had ears almost as sharp as an elf’s, dark red eyes, and two fangs protruding from his closed mouth. He still looked like Elrick, at the end of the day, but the fact he wasn’t human was a real surprise.

“A bloodling?” Asaka asked. She was probably the one most shocked by this revelation.

“A young vampire who hasn’t awakened their full vampiric abilities yet. I hid a lot of information from my ID, but not my age.” Elrick spoke slowly and concisely, looking slightly saddened at how Asaka looked at him. I didn’t know if he was feeling bad for hiding this information or ‘cause he was found out.

“W-When were you transformed into a vampire? When were you bitten?” Asaka continued, still trying to grasp the situation, but her confusion only led to Elrick himself getting confused as well.

Hmm?

Noticing some misunderstandings were at play, Yorshka asked us if we knew anything about vampires beforehand. Outside of the fact vampires were created by the Goddess of Vampires, Vivachel, all we knew about them was the folktales and pop fiction of Earth.

Once we explained it to them, Yorshka quickly nodded and stated that people couldn’t be turned into vampires in this world. Vampires and half-vampires could only be born; they couldn’t inject some virus or something into somebody’s body to transform them.

“Vampires are a subrace of dark elves, everybody,” Tasianna pointed at her elven ears. “Similar to how wind and dark elves are variants of high elves, the vivachaerii — elvish for children of Vivachel — are variants of dark elves.”

“Ah… so that’s why your ears are almost as long as Tasianna’s in her elven form,” Kazumi noted.

I looked at him from top to bottom, noting how his skin wasn’t as grayish as Krymdar’s. I wouldn’t say it out loud, but he didn’t really look like a dark elf at first glance. But then again, neither did that vampire woman from before.

“So, uhm…” Kohaku hesitated, darting her head around to see our opinions on the subject. However, she couldn’t ask him the question in the room outright, leaving it to Nishio to speak it out.

“Sir Elrick, seeing as you’ve been a vampire for all this time, why and how did you become a knight of the church of Aurena? I thought they only tolerated dark mages and dark elves to prevent hostile actions. Why would you join them as a vampire?”

“Why I exactly joined the church is something I would like to keep to myself, but rest assured, my faith and loyalty to the Goddess is far stronger than what I have towards the Goddess of Vampires,” Elrick stated with unwavering eyes. “I believe my life and destiny belong in the Goddess’ hands, and I will sacrifice my life for Her if I had to. Mayhaps the priests think of me and my race as abominations, but as long as I can keep my [Humanize] up, I will play the part of a holy knight.”

“Not ‘mayhaps,’ Elrick. The fact your kind requires blood to restrain your feral urges and control your blood magic makes you even harder to tolerate for the priests and bishops,” Yorshka interjected while shaking her head.

Yorshka gave us a rundown of what characteristics vampires had which differentiated them from dark elves, outside of the visual differences. For one, unlike normal mages, every vampire was born with the ability to use blood magic as a racial ability. A compound element composed out of water and dark at its core, and vampires had amazing affinity for it and could draw out more of its potential.

Secondly, vampires did need to drink blood similar to Earth’s perception of them. Younger vampires required them to suppress their hunting urges, which could be called a desire to become stronger. The reason being that the total mana capacity and regeneration of a vampire was directly related to how recent their last “drink” was. Elrick’s “Mana” on his profile was as low as a human’s, since he had to suppress his instincts in order to blend in properly.

And lastly, vampires weren’t weak to sunlight, but they did become stronger during the night. Like Saori’s [Night’s Caress] skill, vampires received an increase in stats so long as the moon shone on them. Elrick called it the “veil of our progenitor,” similar to how dark mages considered the night the warm embrace of Marsven and Edna — like a father and mother placing a comforter on you while you sleep.

Of course, a few things from Earth didn’t apply to Peolyncian vampires. They weren’t weak to silver nor were they invisible in a mirror. They could enter houses even without permission, had no problem eating garlic, and they weren’t any more immortal than a normal dark elf. They just have a ridiculously long lifespan.

Weakness- and resistance-wise, vampires were quite vulnerable against fire and holy elemental attacks, while resistant against water and dark. This also applied to the respective component elements, so something like my [White Flames] would totally destroy Elrick. On the other hand, blood magic was almost useless against him.

“The irony of a vampire becoming a paladin under the church of the Goddess of Light…” Saori commented, causing everybody to nod.

“Sir Elrick, doesn’t it hurt when you cast a holy spell? Shouldn’t it be extremely hard for you to level up [Holy Magic]?” Tatsuya followed up.

“It doesn’t when I’m wearing armor resistant against holy spells, Tatsuya,” Elrick answered with the obvious, causing Tatsuya to facepalm. “Haha, don’t worry about it. The situation is truly rare, so common sense wouldn’t work here. But, yes, without being in my armor, I would not dare cast a holy spell. It is also a wonder that I managed to get my [Holy Magic] up to level six despite my disadvantages.”

Elrick clenched his left hand into a fist, looking at it with a wry smile. “I probably could have improved faster if I had given in and drank blood to recover, but I considered that a sin. If I had done it, I would not have been worthy of championing the Goddess’ faith.”

The room went silent, only broken once Asaka spoke out.

“… What about your family? You told me your family was part of the Empire and that your sister went to Aleistunum.”

“We have kept our secret well enough, since we could transform into humans. We also regularly import goods from our race’s capital, which I cannot tell you exactly as it’s a secret. I presume the Emperor and those close to him probably are in the know, but since we have served the Goddess for generations, I don’t think they consider us a big threat anymore.”

“Generations?”

“We cycle out members. Those too old in comparison to humans move back to our capital or to other lands. You could say, we enjoy our ‘limited time,’ until we have to ‘die’ like any other human. Similar to any other elf, we vampires have an extremely low birth rate, even if we wed humans, so overpopulation was never a problem.”

In a way, that is a very sad life, huh? All these secrets, just to live amongst humans.

“Still, while I had my reason, I do have to apologize to you, Lady Asaka, and to everybody else for keeping this secret for this long. I tried to suppress my need for blood for this long, but I couldn’t do it any longer.”

Asaka had mentioned how Elrick hasn’t been looking too good recently. Almost as if he was sick. I had also noticed how Elrick stared at the blood pool after we dispatched the slave bandits during our entry into Gleisvale.

Yorshka then cleared up that Elrick has been drinking mostly the blood of small animals as a way to quench his thirst. Usually, the more mana the creature had in its blood, the better its effects on the vampires. Therefore, vampires didn’t need to feed on humans or any humanoids, but could do it on monsters. It was just hard to do it on good targets while remaining inconspicuous.

“Looking at Elrick’s complexion, he probably needs another session soon. It was a dying cartel member, right? Some random person probably won’t do it,” Yorshka informed us, completely glossing over that Elrick just drank from a human.

However, Elrick didn’t. He bowed his head deeply, not bringing it up as he continued his apology. “I understand my presence might be dangerous to everybody, as such, I shall take my leave from the company. I shall report that Knight-Captain Yorshka has been more competent than me, and therefore, she can keep saint candidate Asaka Hanazawa safe better than I ever could.”

As Elrick stood up, Asaka jumped up and stopped him from going away. “Stop!” she ordered him with an outstretched arm. “What are you trying to do? That isn’t a reason for you to leave.”

“It is, Lady Asaka.” However, Elrick was stubborn with his answer. “As a vampire, I cannot serve you anymore. In addition, I can feel myself waning in strength. As your protector, I have failed too often during our travels together while I haven’t been able to keep up with the amount of progression all of you Heroes have experienced.”

“Failed? When? As you can see, I’m still alive and haven’t lost a limb yet.”

“That doesn’t mean I am suitable. During the bandit subjugation, you nearly died because I couldn’t defeat my opponent. In the Belzac forest, you went missing and I nearly let multiple Heroes die because I was reluctant about using my blood magic. Even today, what did I do to protect you from the bomb? Nothing. It is obvious, Lady Asaka.”

He then turned his eyes towards me. “And, from the look of it, I don’t think I fit in this company. Champion Hestia, our goals misalign. I believe it would be best for me to leave.”

I raised an eyebrow, confused what he meant with that. “How so? Haven’t I told you that I’m a champion of Aurena? I’m working for her.”

“But your goal is to root out the corruption inside the church. To banish the demonkin posing as our pope. On the other hand, I am a knight meant to protect her Holiness’ religious symbol, which is her church. Do I draw my sword against the organization my family has followed for generations, or do I lay my blade down? I cannot fight you, for that would be betraying the Goddess.”

What is this sorta internal conflict?!

It was obvious Elrick understood what was going on, but it seemed like his heart wasn’t fully onboard with our objective despite fighting with us being the correct answer here. If you were dedicated to Aurena, isn’t listening to her divine Quest the right thing to do?

“If you need blood, we technically have enough of it.” Saori sliced open her thumb with her claws and presented it to Elrick before licking it away herself. “For our runes, Hestia and I used to fill buckets full of our monster form’s blood for Grimnir’s use. It is a bit disgusting having somebody drink it — the thought of it is not pleasant — but it is not a problem in my book.”

“I find it gross,” I gave Saori a weirded-out expression, to which she shrugged and countered by how I let her drink my blood before she evolved. “Hey! That was different, okay!”

“You also let that albino boy, Amadeus, drink a potion made with your blood, Hestia.”

“Jeez, alright, Saori! Cut it out, will you? I’ve just been more conscious about it after Mother drove in the point that I should be careful about letting others take my blood and scales. Besides, you’re family to me, so I don’t really care if you were to drink my blood or not.”

In Amadeus’s and Saori’s case, I did it to help them out, and you could say Elrick needed my help here, too. But, I guessed I was just apprehensive about it. Maybe I was using Mother as an excuse to not give a stubborn dick like Elrick my blood.

I didn’t mean to reject the thought of it completely, as I wanted to stay neutral here. My impression of him has soured since we met, but as the leader of this company, I didn’t want to be biased about it. However, Elrick’s intuition probably understood my thoughts on him and he turned around, again. This time, nobody seemed to want to stop him…

… except for Asaka.

“Then take my blood. You don’t need to go, Elrick. You know, the moment you leave, somebody else from the church will come to replace you. You aren’t helping anybody by leaving like this.”

“… Thank you, Lady Asaka, but you know I can’t take your blood. It will be fine, please, trust me.” He left the communal room with that final smile.

Asaka clicked her tongue and jolted her head at me, glaring at me for what I said.

What? I don’t care about him after what he did to those slaves-forced -to-be-bandits. Even if they did try to rob us, not like they had a chance. How many of them were actually innocent? I don’t care if his thoughts on slaves conflicted with mine, when he killed them in cold blood.

Seeing how nonchalant I was with my dislike of Elrick, Asaka looked conflicted, as if she was singled out. With me turning into a less ideal candidate to throw her anger at, she turned to Yorshka.

“Why didn’t you stop him? You were the only one who knew about it, so why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because this was his choice, Asaka. Calm down.” The usually carefree Yorshka sighed and began speaking to Asaka as if she was a child giving a tantrum. “The church of Aurena considers vampires almost as bad as grimgarians, you see, and to humans and many other races, grimgarians are nothing more than monsters, even if they were born as a subspecies of the dark elves.”

“That doesn’t answer the question. Why did you let him leave? You know our goal is to bring down the church since they are clearly the enemies here. The demonkins summoned us all to Peolynca and it’s obvious they are trying to do something with our presence here. What exactly it is, we don’t know, so the only way we can find out is to support Hestia and Aurora in their mission.”

“Asaka-san,” Tamae chimed in. “I think Sir Elrick was just trying to look out for us. We are technically already on the ‘wrong side’ by working with Hesti-chan. If they find out we are planning to take the pope down, we will get all the enemies we could ever wish for. But that is hard to find out, aside from us admitting it.”

“But learning that Elrick is a vampire is easy,” Kyouya added. “He couldn’t control his urges today and had to drink blood. Somebody outside our group even saw him in the process. Dame Yorshka even mentioned how she could smell the blood on him whenever he finished drinking. Isn’t that how we know that one lady who came to the pastry shop was a vampire? Sensei, could you sniff them out?”

Saori scratched her nose, looking unsure. “Well… maybe? I mean, I could not smell it before since I was not aware of it, but after learning about it today, I might be able to sense it. It has a strong metallic and charcoal scent, like burning something on a pan. There is a hint of sulfur, too. You could probably hide it with garlic or onions, honestly.”

“And that’s how Elrick did it.” Yorshka nodded.

“Hey, wasn’t Sir Elrick’s favorite food garlic soup with plenty of herbs?” Misaki replied, causing most of the students to stare at her in surprise. The irony of a vampire hiding themselves with garlic.

“Fuck…” Asaka slumped down on the sofa, defeated and exhausted. “What the hell is with today? First, those two weird elf ladies we met, then that racist attack against our company, and now this crap.”

Asaka then pulled out an amulet from her storage and threw it onto the table before us. “I don’t want to explain this crap, again. What are we gonna do with the damn thing? It’s too ominous.”

The metal pendant didn’t look too out of place at first nor did the onyx-colored catalyst embedded in the middle. However, after I appraised it, this [Amulet of the Blessed Spirit] sent a chill down my spine. If the elf who gave Asaka this item was a necromancer, then she might know about the vampire elf, right? Two followers of Marsven’s daughters, and I remembered the vampire mentioning she had a sister.

We really only had one option.

“I think we should destro—” I was about to give my answer, only to be interrupted by a loud voice in my head.

[“Keep it with you, honey.”]

And we all turned to Ellaine.

“K-Klea?!” Ellaine stuttered as she looked at the mana rings on her fingers.

[“I repeat, I personally believe you should continue wearing that thing. Not openly, mind you.”]

What is this demon thinking?!

“Are you trying to betray us, demon?” Grimnir glared at the rings. “We made it clear this amulet came from a dubious source. Actually, maybe this is reason enough to destroy it! Lad, fetch me my hammer!”

“Right away, Master!” Like a puppy, Daichi dashed out of the room so fast none of us could react to the situation.

Therefore, we completely ignored him while Grimnir stood up and approached the amulet, only to be stopped by Klea’Hatma again.

[“I heard you loud enough, don’t worry, but I am not trying to mess with you here. In fact, I am telling you to keep this amulet on because I think the outcome of not destroying it will be more fun for me to watch.”]

“… You know something, right?” I squinted my eyes, clearly seeing the smirk the demon had right now.

[“Do I really need to answer that? Just saying, all you need to know is that the correct choice is to keep it and continue, besides, didn’t that elf say she’s an ally?”]

“She did,” Asaka confirmed while scratching her head.

“And you mentioned she had a weird accent, correct?” Yorshka posed a question that didn’t contribute to this discussion, but Asaka confirmed it anyway. Once done, Tasianna raised her hadn.

“Were she also a dark elf or vampire, would they truly want to harm us?” Tasianna brought up. “I know we need to be careful, but maybe she is trying to help us in her own way?”

“Help with what?” Nishio adjusted his glasses, letting his displeasure at all these mysteries out. “Being cryptic only leaves us paranoid. Demon, answer us already. You know what this thing means, right? Is it a demonic artifact? Huh?”

[“All you need to know is that this thing won’t harm you. That’s all. Just think of this situation as a way to control me. I am actually flailing around right now at how everything will resolve! This is getting interesting!”]

Urgh…

At the end of the day, we decided to heed the demon’s advice. Maybe it was good, maybe it wasn’t. Although, this might be a good chance for us to understand more about her and where she stood. Was she too much of a wild card to control? If so, I will have to force Ellaine to accept Aurena’s advice and have her tamed completely. Ellaine will get Klea’Hatma’s powers and the demon will be pacified forever. No risks, high reward.

After this discussion, we brought up the mana battery the sneak crew got from the cartel boss, causing Grimnir to stomp his feet. Apparently, the battery wasn’t made by the dwarves, mentioning the techniques used in the creation of this battery were unrefined imitations.

“I’m joining in, Saori. If you are going to that facility, I’m going with you!” Grimnir pounded his blasthammer on the ground after Daichi retrieved it.

“Me, too! I shall come with you!” Like master, like apprentice.

The Magical Biscuit, outside of Tamae, mentioned they would concentrate on fulfilling the Quests they received today to gain money and rank points, leaving the rest of this whole affair to us. I found it the best way to divide our attention for now. They could join once the final raid is planned.

I also asked Saori to lend me her shadow pack to spy on the senators, but that was when Gael arrived. He told us the deal with the Layavete cartel was sealed and if he needed help getting dirt on the senators, he would do it. He would bring some help from Shaturein, since helping the Layavete cartel required knowing who the senators really were.

Saori, Tasianna, Asaka, Grimnir, and Daichi could deal with the investigation at the port. I was sure those five could handle it. Hopefully, we could find a lead there leading to Tasianna’s and the garm’s problem.

Therefore, this left Ellaine, Tatsuya, and Kyouya to deal with an urgent Quest coming from two women issued to our company directly. Something was happening at their village, and the hunter’s guild wasn't able to fulfill it. We had enough people to deal with the senator and fae hunter problems, so it wasn’t like they couldn’t go out and help people.

“Yorshka, could you follow them?” I asked with worry. “Considering the demon, I don’t think we can leave Ellaine alone with her. And, I’m not sure Tatsuya and Kyouya can stop Ellaine in her demonkin form. Nothing against you boys.”

Thankfully, they understood my reasoning and accepted it. They did mention they wanted to do this alone, but maybe it was better to get some help when they were so far away from the others. They could use the [Room] runes to retreat at any time, but that meant losing the runes.

“Got it, Hestia. I’ll keep an eye out for them.”

As we were about to end this discussion, Asaka raised her hand up. “I would like to join the Quest party.”

“Wh—” I wanted to ask for her reason, but I quickly figured it she probably just wanted a change of pace of everything. She did act sometimes cold around Elrick, but it was clear she found it sad he was leaving. “Sure, stay safe, alright?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

And with that, everybody was dismissed. Now, what exactly was I planning on doing? Well, what I did best.

“Mother, are you awake?” I piqued my head into Mother’s cave, where I saw the twins serving Mother her after-sleep meal.

“Mhmm! Hestia, my treasure! Do you want to share?” Mother waved back at me, looking cheerful after her “nap.”

“Mhmm? No, I’m good,” I refused but still joined her at the table. “Anyways, do you have time for some training and… an idea?”

Mother giggled, smirking at me. “What, are you planning on behaving like a humanoid in this case?”

I smiled. Mother seemed to understand me more and more. I could be as patient as needed but…

… Time to smoke out the rat. Nobody hurts my friends and party members while I’m around.

A note from AbyssRaven

There goes the vampire.

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Chapter 286: The Adventuring Group’s Mystery.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #2 her to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Okl’Luthier’s Powers Lv. 4] [Terra Magic Lv. 3] [Storm Magic Lv. 2] [Sword Technique Lv. 8] [Whip Technique Lv. 7] [Crushing Technique Lv. 3] [Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 10] gained

Skill requirement fulfilled.   [Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 10] evolved into [Detection Sensor Lv. 1]

Ability gained:   [Ribcage]

Magic gained:   [Rumbling Might] [Sylphid’s Cloak]

Eshreen Village.

That was the name of our destination. It took us a two days ride with a normal carriage to the east to reach it. Looking out of the carriage, I noticed that, while the village was located close to a large forest, unfortunately Estralia’s famous river, Gleislane, didn’t flow through or close to it. Even our carriage driver informed me how isolated it was, located at the end of this road.

If I were to guess, the village probably was some kind of a lumberjack village. There were some fields for cattle and pigs to graze, but without easy access to a large source of water or a talented water mage, they wouldn’t be able to maintain large farmlands. That would cripple their income, so they probably dealt with wood and furniture.

Well, this was just the opinion of a magnoble aristocrat, so it wasn’t worth that much.

[“You are underselling yourself, Ellaine.”] Klea shook her telepathic head in exasperation.

[“I am not. Any Greenveil noble, whether a young lord or lady, must learn how to manage their fief even if they aren’t the primary heir. Once you are married off, your partner will expect you to know fief management well. I still remember my lessons, but I’ve become too rusty at this point.”]

Traveling with Aurora demanded time investment in becoming stronger, and since I also worked with Saori and Haruka as our company’s treasurers and merchants, I haven’t been able to keep up with my studies concerning land management. I could give an educated guess, but anybody who was learned could have given you a similar answer.

“Wakey, wakey, you three, it’s time to work.” As I was gazing at the landscape, Yorshka woke up Tatsuya, Kyouya, and Asaka. I had considered taking a nap as well, since Yorshka offered to keep watch, but I felt too nervous to do so.

After all, Yorshka told me I would be leading this party, not her. She was simply our guard today and I had to lead this Quest to success. Nerve-wracking, honestly.

I thought Asaka would have wanted the role as she was Tatsuya’s and Kyouya’s party leader, but I guess not. Well, the latter two and I have been working together for a while now, so we should be able to do this.

Party Leader

Name: Ellaine Fiero Helvas Level: 67 Job: Terra Arcanist

Name: Tatsuya Nagata Level: 55 Job: Dragoon

Name: Kyouya Ishiigami Level: 55 Job: Bulwark Knight

Name: Asaka Hanazawa Level: 50 Job: Sacred Healer

Name: Yorshka Nordor Level: 132 Job: White-Winged Dragoon

Our party strength, excluding Yorshka, was middle to low C rank according to our average level. With Klea’s assimilation and Tatsuya’s [Druidification], we probably were a bit stronger, so this Quest should be easy enough to do. Still, arrogance bred complacency, and the tallest equerochs fell the hardest.

After we arrived at the village, we walked up to one of the villagers and asked him about the Quest we accepted, noting we were a hunter company.

“Quest? I don’t know what you are talking about, but if you adventurers want to talk about it, go to the chief. She probably knows, or something.” The foxian man then gave us directions to the village chief’s house.

Weird, I thought. Considering how our clients usually made such a fuss about the Quest and how it was tormenting their village, I thought the villagers would be more appreciative when we arrived. Or, at the very least, feel disappointed since the Quest had failed multiple times already. However, we were met with confusion here.

I looked at the others and they shrugged, so we decided to meet up with the chief. On our way, we looked around the village, noting how everything seemed normal. The adults were working while the children either helped them or were taking a break, frolicking around with others of their age or with the animals. Strangely, the kids helping the adults didn’t look related.

If this were Carine village, the people would have greeted and welcomed me as their young lady. I wondered if this fief belonged to anybody, or if it was sold to a yeoman. Then again, this wasn’t Artorias. Estralia was a republic, not a feudal kingdom. The latter situation probably was more likely than the former.

On our way, I began to notice that all the villagers we saw up until now were beastmen. I couldn’t see a single human, elf, or dwarf in sight. It was such an oddity for me, as it was rare to see a community devoid of any humans in Artorias.

Carine village only had humans since we bordered the Lecartiglio duchy, and any beastman who wanted to immigrate into the Greenveil duchy would usually choose a place further away from the border. It also didn’t help that we had some trouble with beastmen hunters and mercenaries in the fief once, so the villages weren’t appreciative of beastmen outside of Hestia and Saori.

The villages and towns we visited on our way to Gleisvale weren’t so racially homogenous either. There were plenty of humans and beastmen there. It made me wonder if the owner of this village was a beastmen, too. Creating a community for your own people might be the reason for this village’s creation.

“Jeez, why are they all staring at us like this…” Tatsuya mumbled under his breath, but all four of us could hear him.

He was right. All the adults were glaring at us, making us feel unwelcomed here. It was uncomfortable and I felt a desire to leave here, but I endured and pressed on.

Eventually, we made it to the house in question. And, going by the guards placed in front of it, there was no doubt that we were at the correct place.

“Hmm?” Asaka suddenly stopped moving for a second, drawing my attention. When I asked about it, Asaka simply stroked her hair. “I dunno. Those guards and their armor look a bit similar to the ones I saw at that potion shop. You know which one.”

The only store she could be talking about was the one Saori and Tasianna were investigating, the one we presumed was related to the criminal syndicate named “The Resurrection.” If Asaka’s intuition was correct, then why were those people here?

“Welcome, Lady Priestess! Please, come in with your companions.”

Regardless of what Asaka said, we still went and met up with the chief of the village. And, as expected, the person was a beastmen — a female foxian to be exact. When we explained to her who we were and why we were here, the chief tilted her head and looked at us in confusion.

“I am sorry, but I am not sure of what you are talking about. We never requested aid from the hunter’s guild for anything concerning a ghost, nor did we send an envoy to ask for more support. Who sent you here?”

It was a great shock to everybody.

“Uhm.” I pulled out the commission paper and handed it over to her. “Two older women. They called themselves Vivian and Phinea.”

“We don’t have anybody with those names,” she stated without even looking at us, concentrating fully on the piece of parchment. “Were those two people beastmen?”

“They had hoods on when they came to us, but from what I saw and could smell, I don’t think they were, no,” Tatsuya answered for me.

“Then, you were lied to. Our village only allows beastmen to live here. Humans are not allowed here outside for either trading or business; so, from the looks of it, I must ask you to leave, right now.” And just like that, the chief handed us the paper back and immediately wanted us to leave.

“W-Wait, hold on, please!” Kyouya protested. “We were sure this Quest was legitimate. They even paid the reward money in advance for us, so this cannot be false. Please, we are only here to help.”

“As I said, you were tricked. There is nothing going on inside our forest outside of our lumberjacks and gatherers working for our monthly payment to our landowner.”

“May I ask who they are?” Asaka interjected.

“Of course!” Without any warning, the chief’s personality shifted around completely, changing from mildly hostile to friendly and bright. With a wide smile like a zealot’s, she began glorifying her fief owner. “Lady Reajaen Resclave! Oh, our wonderful benefactor has been our guardian angel! No, she is the hero of us beastmen! Yes, she will soon rise up in the senate and become its president! And for that, we must work harder! To repay her kindness, Eshreen village must dedicate our bodies and minds to her!”

W-Woah?! Resclave? Wasn’t that the senator Hestia talked about and who invited her to their mansion?

“O-Oh, I apologize…” She settled down, clearing her throat in embarrassment for her outburst. “That is all. I would like to ask you to leave since our community doesn’t feel very comfortable around humans, so please don’t take this too personally. Even if you were lied to, you still made your way to us to help, so at the very least, we could offer you some supplies for the way home.”

“Oh no, don’t worry about that. You don’t have obligations.” Asaka waved her hand. “Uhm, before we leave, do you have anybody who needs healing? I’ll do it for free if you can’t pay back.”

“Oh, thank you for your offer, Lady Priestess, but I am sure none of our villagers are in need of a white grace. The alchemist manning the potion store next to my house provides us with enough potions. Recently, we also received a large supply of high-quality potions from our benefactor, so we are all healthy.”

Hmm? Potions? Didn’t we just sell a box full of Belzac herbs to the Resclaves? Did she just spend that much davi just to keep her villagers healthy? I-Impressive.

Belzac herbs weren’t cheap since they were the best medicinal herbs you could acquire from the western part of Altrust. Even if you diluted the finished product into a minor potion, it still would go for a good price amongst the nobility just because of its effectiveness.

Nobles would usually treat their serfs in case they were hurt or became ill, since the peasantry technically “belonged” to the fief they were born in. They were our workers and turned our land into income, while we nobles were honor-bound to protect them from anything short of a war. After all, we nobles had a duty to protect our land and peasants.

However, even Father and Mother, who were altruistic unlike other nobles, wouldn’t think of spending Belzac herb potions on our people. It was overkill and a waste of money. It was more efficient to purchase more common Health potions or commission a bishop in case of an emergency like a plague.

Still, to see this in the country ruled through merchants, this Reajaen Resclave must be quite the person. A merchant would never invest this much if she didn’t care about the community she created.

After the discussion with the chief, we left the village pretty quickly to avoid the villagers’ constant glares. I really didn’t know what we humans did to make the whole village hate us so much, but it wasn’t as if I could imagine it clearly. Would this happen all the time in the Lecartiglio duchy?

“So, what are we doing now?” Kyouya asked after we had moved far away from the village and stopped at a nearby boulder to rest.

“Not like we can do anything.” Asaka shrugged. “Jeez, I can’t believe we just got kicked out like that, and after coming all the way to help. What the fuck is wrong with those people who tricked us to come all the way over here?”

I had to agree, sighing at the prospect of explaining this to the others. Two days were wasted because somebody thought it would be funny to prank us like this. I was pretty sure the two women weren’t even called Vivian and Phinea! We wouldn’t be able to track them down at this point anymore either.

“Should we just leave through the portal?” Tatsuya suggested, a grimace on his face. “We wasted two days of travel since we couldn’t use the nexus to teleport here, nor do we have good ways to fly over here. I was really itching for a cool ghost mission, but noooooo…”

“I guess that’s— Dame Yorshka?”

As I was about to agree with Tatsuya’s suggestion, I noticed Yorshka looking back at the village. She hadn’t done a single thing since we arrived here, so I didn’t give her presence much thought, but now I found her behavior a bit weird.

When I asked her what she was doing, she hummed for a second before answering it with a “What do you think” expression. “The village certainly is interesting, right? Not the beastmen thing, but the fact they didn’t have a sawmill or anything.”

““““Huh?”””” All four of us blurted out.

“No sawmill?” Kyouya looked at us with a brow raised. “Wait, she’s right. I didn’t see a sawmill around at all, nor are there large amounts of felled trees inside the village.”

“Didn’t she say they were a lumberjack village? Then shouldn’t they be storing their logs somewhere close to a water source? I heard people stored their unworked lumber in water to prevent insects or fungus damaging them,” Asaka noted.

“I’ve been to an actual lumber village before,” I mentioned. “They usually smell a mix of charcoal and old wood. These villages not only produce wood for their lords, but also charcoal to be used during winter. Large amounts of lumber have to be stored, since it was hard to make good charcoal or burn wood during the winter since they were usually moist.”

“I didn’t smell that much charcoal or old wood, no more than most villages have,” Tatsuya added, using his impressive smell by human standards to good use. “If what you’re saying is correct, then is it possible that their lumberyard is just deeper into the forest? That doesn’t make it that strange, no?”

Tatsuya gave a good point, cooling down our theory crafting, but apparently it didn’t change Yorshka’s expression at all. Was that not the correct answer?

When I questioned her about it, she simply shrugged. “You’re the leader of this party, Ellaine. You should be the one to make the decision. We don’t need to do anything here, if you think it’s better to go back. We don’t have any obligations to stay here anymore, since the people we wanted to help don’t need it.”

She definitely knows something we missed. Or, had a feeling about it.

I turned around to Tatsuya and Kyouya. Both of them seemed to share my thoughts, so we then looked over to Asaka. We asked her if she could send her onnikai to scout for us, and she obliged with a deep sigh, complaining how she wanted to take a dip into our hot spring already.

After a few clouds passed us, the onnikais came back and informed Asaka of what happened. But, to her surprise, what they told her made her grimace.

“Great…” She spat that out. “The four detected some death auras deeper into the forest. They presumed they were onnikais and came back.”

“… Change of plans.”

We decided we would investigate this situation further, just to quench our own curiosity. Did those two women send us here for a reason or was it all just a joke? After all, they did pay in advance.

However, as we didn’t want the villagers to find us out, as they were already quite hostile with us, we decided to go exploring during the night. We returned to the [Room] nexus by using my runes, where I was planning on updating Hestia and the others about the situation. However, the only people inside it were only Josine and Svena.

“Lady Hestia went sightseeing with the empress and the wyverns while Miss Saori went to the port,” Svena answered. “Our hunter group is currently out working and Miss Tamae mentioned taking the chefs and waiters out to buy produce. I believe we are the only ones around now, Lady Ellaine.”

“I see… then please inform Hestia and the others as soon as possible. Josine, could you fetch us something to eat and prepare the hotspring?”

“Without a question, My Lady.”

We took a long break inside the nexus as we hid the runes in a safe spot, but, despite staying there until the afternoon, none of the others had returned. Without Hestia around, we couldn’t teleport back to Gleisvale, so this was a predicament we couldn’t solve.

Therefore, we decided to leave the rest to Josine and Svena. We returned back to the outskirts of the village and scouted around until it was pitch-black. Since neither Hestia nor Saori came to talk to us, it meant they still weren’t home yet. As such, it was time for us to leave.

“Everybody, here.” I handed everybody a black robe for them to wear. We shouldn’t get caught tonight, so staying inconspicuous was for the best.

Asaka changed from her white robes and Kyouya had to take off some of his plate armor to not let the metal rattle too much. Yorshka was the only one who took off her armor completely, since it was made of silver scales. To further avoid detection, she also went back to her complete human state with [Humanize]. I then cast [Air Shield] around us and moved towards the opening the onnikais found for us.

With the night sky so dark and without a source of light, Yorshka led us forward with her [Night Vision]. It was peaceful, to say the least. I couldn’t detect anything larger than a rabbit or fox with my [Detection Sensor]. Maybe the forest was empty and there were only lingering onnikai auras around?

But, after a long trek, Yorshka halted us and told us to sense what was in front of us. I sneaked up closer, as I couldn’t sense anything, until Tatsuya and I stopped together. We opened our eyes wide.

“Multiple large signals. All placed together.” I pointed at the three large groups.

Tatsuya nodded. “Yeah, some of the signals were moving around the different groups, while others were standing still completely. Sleeping, maybe?”

Kyouya and Asaka nodded in confirmation. While moving from one tree to the other, using the darkness as our veil, the sight of fire eventually became clear to us. The more we approached the location, the more it became obvious this was a small village.

There were guards holding torches moving from the three houses in the area, revealing how tall they were in size. Around three floors with a large enough area for a medium-sized store. Curiosity began to fill my chest as the mystery of this place proved harder to resist.

[“Ellaine, go and take a look. I’m pretty curious with what’s going on there!”] Klea suggested to me in an excited tone of voice. Since Klea was an extreme hedonist, when her interest was piqued, she wouldn’t stop annoying me until I did what she wanted.

She didn’t need to tell me to do something I wanted to do myself.

Inside the [Air Shield], we talked it over and decided that Tatsuya and I would go and check if this really was a village or not. Meanwhile, Yorshka would use her own [Air Shield] to keep Kyouya and Asaka safe. The latter also wanted to send her onnikais out to scout ahead, as they mentioned that death aura from before was close by.

Tatsuya and I separated from each other to inspect different houses. Since his armor was less clunky, he would make fewer noises than mine. With the sound of my footsteps and armor dulled by the wind barrier, I managed to avoid the sights of the guards and remained undetected until I was right underneath an opened window on the second floor.

Musclemass.

I surrounded my arms in black fleshy tendrils. Without assimilating with Klea, I couldn’t cover my whole body in it like armor. Still, it was enough for what I wanted to do.

Using the claws on my gauntlets, I slowly climbed up the wooden building, hoping the guards didn’t suddenly turn around the corner. Once I was at the window, I slowly peeked my eyes through it. There, I saw multiple beastmen in patchwork clothing sleeping in three extremely large, multi-men beds.

Children, adolescents, men, and women all shared the room together. Not only were there katzunes, wolfkins, aegosas, arvisians, foxians, and so many others here, most of them didn’t look related in the slightest.

Through my [Air Shield], I couldn’t hear anything, but by squinting my eyes and using [Night Vision], I could see into the room; it seems that they were all quite soundly asleep.. However, this glance inside only lasted for only a few more seconds since I noticed the light of a torch slowly appearing.

With my increased strength with [Musclemass], I quickly scaled up to the roof, hiding there from a guard’s eyes. Breathing a sigh in relief, I looked over the other buildings as I turned my head. From up here, I could see an opened window at the building next to me. Seeing as I was safe here for now, I disabled my wind barrier, wanting to hear what was going on around me.

“Uuuuuuurghhhh!”

And that was the first thing I heard — a pained cry — coming from behind that window.

Shuffling around, I angled my eyes where I could look through it. A small candle was lighting up the room, where a beastman in a black metal armor or suit was doing something to another beastmen lying on a bed.

The former was holding something close to the latter’s body, pulling my attention to the bright blue tattoo plastered there. While not always true, usually seeing such a blue runic tattoo could only mean one thing.

A slave.

“Uuurrrrrrrrrghhhh!” The latter beastman groaned and struggled.

Hold on, are they trying to forcefully break a slave mark?! That’s insane! You’ll destroy his mana paths!

Slave tattoos had a cruel failsafe in case as slave attempted to break their bond without destroying the slave contract holding control over it. The destruction of your mana paths and also a surge of pain so intense you wished you would die. This was what I was taught in the Royal Academy, and it was later confirmed when I talked with Gael about it.

And now, I was watching somebody trying to destroy this slave mark despite all of that.

Hmm?

The door inside the room suddenly opened, where I saw a woman enter. A woman I recognize immediately as Eshreen village’s chief!

Hold on, is she involved in this? Wait, is the village itself just a front for all of this?! What?!

As I was panicking at what I just found out, I heard Tatsuya’s voice enter my head through [Telepathy]. I turned my head around until I saw him waving his hand at me inside the forest. I recast [Air Shield] around me and jumped down the building, using [Featherfall] to nullify any fall damage.

Rolling on the ground, I pounced right into the forest and immediately hid behind a tree. When I was safe, I took a moment to look around, making sure I was safe before I moved over to Tatsuya. We then rejoined the others, where we told them what we found.

“In my building, there were a quite a few people with slaves marks on them. They were sleeping with other beastmen in a huge bed, but that was about it,” Tatsuya started.

“Really? Similar to mine then, although I didn’t see anybody with a slave mark,” I added before telling everybody about the last building.

“Hold on, the village chief was here?” Kyouya’s eyes widened, jaw agape. “Then, we were right! The first village really was a front to hide all the slaves here!”

“But Ellaine said they were breaking the slave marks on that one man.” Asaka calmed Kyouya down for a moment. “If this were a slaver’s den, then all those beastmen should have had a runic tattoo or two on them, but most of them didn’t, right? Or, did you not see them through their clothes? Depending on what you two actually saw, then the situation changes dramatically.”

“Don’t forget, guys, this village is supposedly owned by the Resclaves,” Yorshka interjected. “I don’t know exactly what is going on, but something is. The onnikais just came back before you two did. Tatsuya. Ellaine. They pointed out how the death aura was far stronger the deeper you go into this place and that they believed they saw one or two there. Also, check this out.”

Yorshka pointed at a plant below her feet, which I recognized as a macula plant. Yorska then instructed me to plant one of my macula seeds in the ground to check the mana levels. Obeying her, I did so, only to see the plant quickly mature with a full sac of mana water.

Macula plants were the primary way for mages to check on the mana accumulation in the ground and to extract it before it accidentally spawns a strong monster. If the plant matured this fast, it could only mean that the area had enough mana to spawn a C rank monster! In other words, it was dangerous here.

And they still haven’t removed it. This situation is so similar to Shaturein’s. What are they doing here for so much mana to accumulate?

Without Saori or her shadow pack around, intruding into the buildings to find documents was too risky. We needed a dark mage to do this properly. As such, we had to give up on that idea for now and move deeper, towards the place the onnkai wanted us to go to.

“Shit! Catch her!” We suddenly heard as we approached. It was a man’s voice.

“Should we hurry?” Tatsuya asked, unsheathing his spear, but I told him not to.

Our goal was to stay inconspicuous for now, since if the people recognized us, they could inform the Resclavse about it and get Hestia in trouble. If the Resurrection was also involved in all of this, then we needed to stay silent even more! We couldn’t sabotage what Saori and Tasianna had been working on.

How ironic that we came here to investigate ghosts, only to act like those invisible faefolk ourselves. But, it was for the best to find out the truth behind all of this.

Bariiing!

The loud sound of metal bending and breaking echoed through the forest, followed by multiple loud “Gruooooooooohk” roars. Large signals suddenly entered the edge of my [Detection Sensor], all running towards four targets.

Monsters!

“All of you, to the sides,” Yorshka commanded and drew us away from the chased group.

Although it pained me to leave them like that, I still obeyed, having to convince myself to stay unseen and undetected. As we moved away, we noticed three large bears with stone skin running over a guard before throwing him away like a doll. The three remaining ones unsheathed their weapons and charged at the one closest to them, swinging ther blades at it before realizing their weapons couldn’t do any damage.

Avoiding the bears’ counters, the guards quickly went over to the injured one. One guard grabbed him and all three ran away as fast as they could, while the bears were in hot pursuit.

Still confused at what just happened, we shook it off and ignored them, venturing closer to where all those things originated from. But, once we came close to a large metal wall, my [Danger Perception] warned me of an incoming attack.

In the next second, a loud explosion ruptured the metal wall, sending shards flying at us. Yorshka quickly built a barrier made with her silver scales to protect us, but another explosion shook the ground again, creating a large smokescreen around us.

However, this wasn’t all, for nothing was stopping this catastrophic situation.

“Grrruuuuuuuugk!” For there were more bears incoming.

“Dammit! Move!” I heard Yorshka’s voice followed by Tatsuya’s, only for him to crash against me. “Your four! Find a safe space and open up the portal! I think we just hit the jackpot here, so get more support or get the hell out!”

“Dame Yorshka, we can help!” I heard Kyouya protesting while a sword was unsheathed.

“Gruuuuoh! Grruooooooeeeek!”

How many [Stone-Skinned Grizzly]s are around?!

The loud roars of bears erupted around us, only for some of it to get drowned out by the sound of flesh and bone tearing along with the death cries of these monsters. However, we couldn't afford to listen to it as another bomb exploded again.

“Arck! Grab onto somebody!”

With the bears roaring out in pain, I told myself “What is all of this?!” before grabbing whoever I could and dragging them away from the smoke with [Musclemass]. Yorshka could defend herself, but with all this noise around, I couldn’t concentrate on creating a defensive wall. I need time to collect my thoughts.

[“Hey, Ellaine, stop!”]

With the adrenaline motivating me to run, I ran and ran without stopping until Klea told me to stop. With heavy breath, I turned around, noticing Kyouya and Tatsuya were the ones I had grabbed onto; however, I couldn’t see Asaka anywhere.

Shit!

I turned to my party bracelet, bringing up the party menu to check on Yorshka and Asaka.

Name: Asaka Hanazawa Level: 50 Job: Sacred Healer

Name: Yorshka Nordor Level: 132 Job: White-Winged Dragoon

Oh, thank goodness!

Both were unharmed, having received no Health damage at all. In other words, Asaka probably stayed behind with Yorshka since neither Tatsuya nor Kyouya grabbed her in time.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” Tatsuya shouted at me as he recovered his breath. “We told you to stop! Why didn’t you?! Arck, my back!”

Apparently, I had dragged both of them against the ground, and, on the way, Tatsuya crashed against a tree root, hurting his back. Understanding what I did, I quickly apologized to both of them, telling them I was too focused on running away to hear them.

“Argh, dammit, we need to go back,‘ Kyouya told us before taking out his [Room] runes. “Let’s get some support for now and then get Asaka-san and Dame Yorshka before they get hurt. Let’s g—”

“Halt!”

Our bodies froze up by that imposing voice. Despite wanting to turn my head around, I couldn’t. It was as if I had lost complete control over my body.

[“You…”] I could hear Klea’s words right now, sensing the rising excitement and anxiousness in the demon.

“Turn around, young mortals. This trial will start now.”

Without resisting it, our bodies turned, facing a tall, gray-skinned elven woman with a giant hammer. And I wasn’t exaggerating when I called it giant, as not only was the handle as tall as she was, but the hammer head was around half its size again. It was truly humongous.

“Here, wear this now.” The woman threw three necklaces to each of us, and as just like before, our bodies against our consent to grab them. “Each amulet has ten protective charms against my attacks. If all 30 charges are used up, you will fail this trail. On the other hand, to defeat me, you must land at least one hit on me.”

What?! Trial?! 30 hits?! What is going one?!

“If you succeed in defeating me, I shall grant each of you with a certain blessing or prize; however, if you were to fail or if the girl loses control of that damn demon, then I will forever end lust’s endless desires right here, right now!”

WHAT?!

[“Hiehiehie… How sly of you to lead us into this trap. Now I get it, it was you three, huh? The three daughters of the night! You led us here! Right, Kronnaz?!”]

The woman let go of her hammer, shaking the whole ground with a mighty earthquake before assuming a fighting stance with her bare hands. “Let this divine trial begin! I, the Goddess of Vengeance and Grudges, will now test you three mortals! Overcome and earn my favor!”

Trial of the Goddess of Vengeance and Grudges has begun. Fulfill the requirements to succeed!

Once that system message appeared, we regained full control of our bodies.

“““… WHAT?!”””

“Urgh…”

I looked around myself. The dust and dirt clouds were nowhere to be seen, but I could still hear the sounds of bears rampaging around in the rain of explosions farther away. I wasn’t inside the cloud anymore, but I did notice that the four fenrir onnikais had erected a barrier around me.

When was I knocked unconscious?

[“You four? Where are the others?”] I asked those spirits.

[“You are awake, Asaka. We protected you.”] One of them spoke but I didn’t answer back, prompting another to reply properly.

[“The others are separated. Three to the east. The strong one is fighting like a monster-possessed against the bears. You missed when you gained a level.”]

I did? Oh, yeah, I just leveled up to 51. Wow, Yorshka can fight all those bears despite all the explosions? Urgh, no, wait, where are they coming from.

I stood up, dusting myself clean before trying to grab something from my satchel, only to remember I had forgotten to ask Hestia to give me a pair of [Room] runes. I facepalmed. The other four had a copy since we were traveling so far away from the others, but I couldn’t believe I procrastinate so long to ask the little princess about getting my own.

Dammit. Laziness isn’t an excuse for this shit…

I shook my head. What happened, happened. It would be better to find Ellaine and the boys and retreat back into the subspace instead of complaining about things right now. I could do that later on in my dairy.

I brought up my party bracelet and activated the party member location function, receiving information where the three were. As I made my way over there, fully trusting Yorshka’s ability to defend herself, I noticed somebody was standing a bit further away from me.

Now sneaking, I went closer to the target, preparing my onnikai to protect me, but, for some reason, they told me to go closer to the stranger instead. That there was threat at all. I couldn’t understand what they were going on about, but from my time with them, I knew they couldn’t allow me to get hurt until Segawa visited her gramps.

Dammit.

I reluctantly trusted them and revealed myself from a bush, only to see a young girl in front of me, having her back turned to me. Wondering what the hell she was doing here, I frowned and moved closer. I had to tell her to get away now otherwise she might get hurt.

“Hey, little girl, you need to go now! Don’t you hear all that action, it’ll get bad, so let’s move!” I tapped on her shoulder, not wanting to scare her too much by grabbing her arm.

“Hmm? Oh, sorry!” The girl sounded excited for no reason, before jolting her body ar—

“Oh shi— Mhmmk!”

Without any warning, I shrieked only to stop myself before going too shrill. I didn’t do it for no reason, though. No, not at all. The girl… When the girl turned around, she showed me her true appearance.

A bitten-off eyeball hanging loosely from her socket, while a section of her jaw was rotten and had worms feasting on it like a decaying piece of meat. White and green mold could be seen covering her other eye. Outside of that, she looked mostly normal, albeit her clothing was in complete tatters, showing some of her red skin.

Improper! What is this crap?! Where are her parents and why didn’t they give her something better to wear!

“Miss?” The girl’s initial smile turned into an agape mouth as she tilted her head. “Are you scared of me like our capturers?”

“C-Capturers?” I managed to eked out, but the girl completely ignored me as her eyes, or whatever remained of them, stared at the four onnikais I had.

“Wow! You must be a faemancer! You are a friend of onnikais! You must be a friend of us and Goddess Ilsaphone then! Are you the one her holiness sent to meet us, Miss?”

“Wha—” Still confused about everything, I couldn’t answer what she was trying to say, but before I could sort out my thoughts, she suddenly pushed me.

“You need to go! The bad people are coming back! Hide! Hide!”

She pushed and pushed, and my body just complied since my mind was on autopilot. As I hid in a bush, she told me she would be “waiting” for me. As she ran back to the spot, two of the guards from before appeared from the trees, complaining how long it took to find her after all the attacks.

“Dammit, you little runt! Did all of you really have to increase the mana level around here to spawn those things?! Some of us died from all of that!” One of them shouted. “Our leader had to waste all those bombs to kill those bears! Honestly, I had enough of you damn zombies!”

Hold on, isn’t that the same armor those Resurrec—

Kaslashed!

“Mhmmk!”

With one quick swipe, the guard used his sword to slash off the small girl’s legs before digging the blade deep into her head. Black slime suddenly oozed out from her legs and the two guards clicked their tongues before dragging the now lifeless body away while still attached to the weapon.

What is wrong with those people! Oh my god, she was still just a kid! How could they! Fucking monsters! Fuck them!

And without listening to the calming words of the onnikai fenrirs, I jumped right onto my feet and imbued my mace with holy powers.

[“Asaka! That girl was an onnikai inhabiting a body like the successor’s garms!”]

You bastard are about to learn what it means to wake up with a cracked skull!

A note from AbyssRaven

This is very much like a horror story, huh? Well, at least Asaka's side of the story.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 287: Fighting against a Goddess.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #3 her to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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“G-Goddess?! Are you kidding me!”

“How is something this random possible?! Did we touch something cursed for this terrible luck?!”

Oh, if only you guys knew…

I couldn't help but recall all the memories of when I fought against a giant rachonoid queen and her swarm of children, of that time a wyvern nearly killed me, of that moment when I discovered an ancient demon possessing my mana rings, and when Griffonpeak was invaded by demonkins to kill our Griffon King, not to mention my memory of actually dying once! Tatsuya and Kyouya might have heard our stories, but I guess they haven’t realized just how unlucky Aurora was when it came to encounters.

However, even then, I somehow felt surprised to see that a goddess, one of the subordinate goddesses of Marsven nonetheless, appeared before us. I wanted to deny it. It was impossible! How and why would one appear before us like this? What was her reason?

And why did it have to be Kronnaz, the Goddess of Vengeance and Grudges? Why couldn’t it be one of the Goddess’s subordinates like Yeostar, the God of Knighthood, Bravery, and Loyalty?

“Put on the necklaces.” The goddess commanded with her imposing voice, and our bodies moved to put on the necklaces she threw at us irregardless of our actual wills.

“Argk! Fuck, not again!” Tatsuya lamented.

Is this the power of a god? Of course, the Goddess probably could have done this every time we met. Such a higher being would have the divine power to overwhelm us!

[Bonding of Trials (10 protective charms)] inflicted on [Human, Ellaine Fiero Helvas]

What is this thing? Identify!

Information Blocked

Dammit! Worth the try…

Not a sliver of information was given, despite me having [Identify Lv. 8].

Trial of the Goddess of Vengeance and Grudges

Objective: Consume one protective charm on Kronnaz’s amulet

Reward: A blessing or boon from the Goddess of Vengeance and Grudges

Penalty: The destruction of [Human, Ellaine Fiero Helvas]’s mana rings and the demon mana inside

A new System message revealed itself before my eyes, forcing me to finally accept the reality of the situation.

“Prepare yourselves, young humans!” The humongous woman readied herself. Her yellow eyes were so sharp they could kill something with its glare alone.

With a height that could even dwarf the already tall Yorshka and skin so gray it melted into the dark night, this elven woman was the definition of intimidating. She might not have been wearing any armor but her rather immodest clothes fully displayed her tensed up muscles. So large they could crush skulls, I had a bad feeling even my okl’luthier’s [Blade] couldn’t even pierce her skin.

We were hopelessly outmatched.

But yet… we needed to fight. I unsheathed my whipsword and cast my buffing spells on myself and the two boys.

What is this thing? Identify!

[Various Spell Buffs] inflicted on [Human, Ellaine Fiero Helvas]

[“Hmm? Oh my, you are actually fighting for me? Even against a goddess? My, my, Ellaine, you are as captivating as always~”]

S-Shut up, Klea!

I could hear my face warming up by Klea’s constant flirtatious attitude, making it always hard to get accustomed to while the situation was this serious. On the other hand, Tatsuya and Kyouya looked at me as if I was crazy, thinking that challenging this goddess was foolhardy.

It was, but we really didn’t have any choice in this matter.

“The battle has already begun, you two! I don’t think we can talk our way out of this!” I rationalized the situation, to which the goddess nodded.

“Yes, whether allies or enemies, we are to fight here. If you are true warriors, then prepare yourselves!” Kronnaz stomped her feets on the ground, creating a small earthquake as her eyes began to glow. “Contend against me! Humph!”

With a single trust, black mana surged from her open palm, consuming us entirely. Like being trapped in a storm or torrent, our bodies were forced away, struggling to find some way to counter it. Before I could respond with a spell to dampen it, a large shock spread from our back as we slammed hard into the ground.

Charms: 9

Urgh!

My Health wasn’t reduced, but I could still feel the pain assaulting my whole body. That wave she sent out didn’t feel threatening at first, but it was a trick. Klea informed me the black mana had entered my body, targeting my mana paths and stifling my mana regeneration.

“Move! Fight!” I heard before my [Detection Sensor] and [Danger Perception] noticed anything.

I snapped my head up only to see a fist land straight into my face, forcing me deeper into the ground.

Arck!

Charms: 8

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 3] gained

Acquisition requirement fulfilled.   [Dark Resistance Lv. 1] gained

“Shit! Ellaine! Druidification!”

“Taunt!”

“Patronizing me with a [Taunt], child? Ha! I shall play along for your sake! Defend yourself! Raise that shield arm!”

My brain rattled in my head. I felt ill, unbalanced. I could hear people talking around me, but my whole world was swerving around as I pushed myself up. I spat out dirt from my mouth and gritted my teeth. I couldn’t feel my sword in my hand. Where was it?

I couldn’t think right… outside of standing up.

[“Klea! Assimilation, now!”]

[“13% only, Ellaine. Lend me your mana!”]

[Okl’Luthier’s Power] assimilation rate: 1%

Klea’s mana began flowing through my blood, entering my body from head to toe. Just like last time, the process wasn’t painful but the fact my heart was beating faster than normal was a worry for me. I had to let the blood move through my organs, but I had to control it. I couldn’t let anything inside of me rupture.

“Oho?” Kronnaz noticed my transformation before smacking Kyouya away. A chill went down my spine as I feared she would attack me mid-transformation. “You are using this power already? Do you rely purely on this power, girl? Pitiful girl, your arrogance to transform while I stand before you will not go unnoticed.”

“Dragoon Dive!” Like an arrow, Tatsuya descended down from the skies.

I expected his attack to create a dust cloud, but all it did was force the goddess to move her attention to him, grabbing his spear before it could touch her. His attack was completely nullified.

“What?!” Tatsuya exclaimed, surprised, but he recovered quickly enough to throw a kick in his wolfkin form.

<[Okl’Luthier’s Power] assimilation rate: 5%>

“Too slow.” She redirected his kick away from her face and slammed Tatsuya right onto the ground. She then turned her eyes back to me, maneuvering forward to the point I couldn’t read where she would move.

But I knew it was towards me.

Ribcage!

The moment I predicted she would land a hit on me, the flesh tendrils on my left arm hardened up and formed four sets of bones with a purple barrier around them, defending me at the very last second.

However, they cracked immediately. They couldn’t handle the force of Kronnaz’s fists long enough for me to breathe. Although it slowed down the assimilation process, I had to dodge back and conjure [Terra Wall]s and [Bedrock Blades] to obscure her vision. However I struggled, though, this woman was undeterred by it all.

She jumped over the large walls and maneuvered through the field of large earth blades with the poise of a dancer. No moves were wasted as she twisted and turned, captivating me just as Tasnianna’s and Hestia’s dances would.

[Okl’Luthier’s Power] assimilation rate: 9%

“I erected a mana barrier around the area. Nothing comes in or out without my permission. Run as much as you want, but that won’t be enough to escape from me. Humph!” Kronnaz stomped the ground, causing three large circle spots around me to brighten up before exploding in a pillar of black light.

I narrowly dodged out of the explosion with [Wind Blast], but suddenly, two large shadow tendrils grabbed onto my legs and pulled towards the goddess. I materialized [Whiplash] on my left arm and grabbed onto a [Bedrock Blade] I created. With [Musclemass], I tried to pulled myself away, only for two additional shadow tendrils to appear and drag me in faster.

Shit! I can’t free myself!

[“Protect you heart, Ellaine!”] Klea warned me and I obeyed, creating [Ribcage] around my body.

“Weak,” she announced before throwing another fist at me!

… But that hit never landed.

“Spiral!”

The air twisted around as something like a tornado shot at the goddess. She turned her attention away from me, swatting it back onto the ground with a black tendril coming from her shadow.

“Argh!”

“Tatsuya!” I shouted as he took another hard hit when he tried to attack again.

“You come at me like a fly — without a single thought. Strength and training are useless if you know naught of how to fight but as a mindless berserker. You are trying my patience with this pathetic display. Are you truly the people my step-sister has chosen to champion her Divine Quest?”

Huh? Step-sister? Who is she talking abou— Urgh?!

“This is disappointing. Vivi and Elsa told me to test you, but you have been below any expectations I had. I am done playing this game.”

Her tone of voice suddenly changed. From how stiff she talked before, you would have thought she was only here because she was ordered to. There was no malice or friendliness at first, but now, you could only hear the anxiety-inducing disgust from her.

Moments before Tatsuya appeared, her eyes when she nearly punched me were almost suffocating. Her displeasure at fighting us was almost too palpable. And it wasn’t just because she didn’t want to. Because of my link with Klea, I could feel what Klea was sensing from the goddess — she thought of us as nothing more than a waste of time.

She was angered at how miserably below her expectations we were. And that aura was too frightening to react to.

“Fuck you!” But in the middle of this fruitless battle, a single cry broke through the disdain of the displeased elven goddess. “Don’t you even think of underestimating two fucking MMO players!”

“Hraaah!”

I spotted three round objects suddenly flying in from the corner of my eyes, three balls made from solid rock. In the next moment, they exploded, sending out an explosion of white flames to blanket my sight and Kronnaz’s.

“A surprise attack?” A barrier of dark mana surrounded Kronnaz, warding off the flames before they could hurt her, which inevitably also protected me from them. “Do you really— Hrm?!”

Blades attached to a single mana thread flew out and wrapped themselves against the goddess’s protected arm, pulling her forward a bit. In the next moment, Tatsuya growled in his druid form and re-engaged by using my whipsword to drag himself closer from beside me.

[Okl’Luthier’s Power] assimilation rate: 11%

Like a whirlwind, he swung his spear from side to side and thrust it with fierce determination against this imposing enemy despite his other hand having to hold onto my whipsword to hold her arm back. Although her left hand was restricted by my sword, the goddess still managed to deftly evade all his attacks, but she couldn’t counterattack as effectively as before.

Still, a hit did land on him, but in the next second, Kyouya dashed through the flames and replaced him. “Ellaine!” Tatsuya called out as he recovered by landing on a tree, signaling for me to attack. So, I did.

I pulled out one of Hestia’s holy flame bombs and used it by pouring my mana into it. A charm was used from the bomb’s initial explosion, sadly, but Hestia’s white fire easily burned away the shadow tendrils holding me down.

Charms: 7

[Battle Frenzy (Imitation)] inflicted on [Human, Ellaine Fiero Helvas]

My armor’s effect spurred my body against the fear I had for this divine being, pushing my mind into a tranquil state where I saw the battle in a clearer mind. I could think faster and the more I wanted to win this battle, the more I could feel my body rising in strength. A feral frenzy turned into an unbreakable and ever growing resolve. This was just an imitation, so I could only imagine what a real [Battle Frenzy] would feel.

Blade!

My flesh tendril erupted from my left arm and formed a large sword. As Kyouya occupied Kronnaz, I struck my blade at her legs, but she quickly reacted to this by jumping over my attack. Kyouya followed up by charging at her with his shield, knocking her back before she could kick me.

[Okl’Luthier’s Power] assimilation rate: 12%

I dissipated [Blade] and and formed [Whiplash], shooting it like an arrow at Kronnaz’s arm, restricting that arm in the same way. Kyouya’s sword then glowed blue, enveloped by an aura of mana, and swung it. Despite her restrained arms, Kronnaz still managed to counter the strike by redirecting it with her hand.

This left Kyouya open for an attack, but he was saved at the very last second when Tatsuya intervened. “Rush Hour!” he roared as his skin turned redder. With a burst of speed, he threw my sword back to me and took over the situation with a flurry of attacks.

Whenever Kronnaz wanted to counter, Kyouya would take over by throwing a bomb or use his weapons to answer back, giving Tatsuya all the time to attack. This was the synergy between these two. Over the one week where we worked together on Quests, I’ve learned how these two loved to fight, and it was in this formation with this rhythm.

[“What are you doing staring at them like that, Ellaine? Go!”] Klea urged me and I snapped out of my amazement.

“Tatsuya! Kyouya!” Tensing up my left arm, I [Dragoon Jump]ed by pulling on the [Whiplash], catapulting myself towards Kronnaz.

““Got it!”” Both of them understood me without talking about it and made a clear path for my trajectory.

[Okl’Luthier’s Power] assimilation rate: 13%

[“Now, Ellaine! Transform!”]

And, just as my head was almost squashed by the goddess in response to my attack, an eruption of mana burst out from me, blowing up the area around me. I didn’t know if I actually hit Kronnaz, but I could feel a ton of weird sensations across my body. On my back, my buttocks, and my head. Something was growing out from those places.

[“Focus! Don’t let the energy overwhelm you, Ellaine! Pierce through with my power, engage her with the power of a demon of lust!”]

Wings of bone sprout from my back, a forked tail from my buttocks, and two demonic horns from my head. After my armor was retrieved, Master Grimnir made some modifications to my armor to accommodate these new features according to Yorshka’s own armor. Moveable back plates managed by mana.

I have assimilated with Klea, once again.

“Interesting…” As the dust settled, Kronnaz appeared from it. “A human using the power of a demon to become a demonkin. Long has it been since I last saw this… So many of them were corrupted by this power, consumed by the darkness and enticing powers. You too rely on this power instead of cultivating your own strength.”

“… Yes, I admit that!” I grimaced as I twisted my body, [Musclesmass] covering my whole body to power it up.

Using my weapon’s range advantage, I began my attacks with the extended blade, prompting Kronnaz to stay on her feet and dodge away.

“Call me a selfish brat or what, but this is the path I’ve taken. You are here to test that, right, Goddess Kronnaz? That I can control this demon?”

“Hmph.” Kronnaz stomped the ground, shaking me slightly off-balance and delaying my next attack by a fraction, only for my [Danger Perception] to activate just in time to react. As I saw Kronnaz teleport — No, dash at me — I stopped my sword arm and rolled to the side as she smashed the ground.

“You dodged that?” Kronnaz raised an eyebrow before I used my bone wings to fly up. “Power doesn’t come lightly if you skip on the process, girl. A gift is a given, but talent can only blossom with sweat and blood. And I dislike the stench of a demon’s powers corrupting the people of my home.”

Kronnaz stomped her feet down and reached her hand into her shadow, pulling out what looked like a black spear and threw it at me. I managed to dodge it by flying to the side, but a strong wind current was created as it flew by, staggering me.

In the next moment, tendrils grew from Kronnaz’s shadow, which she used as platforms to reach me in the sky. With her arms, heavy blows came raining down on me, forcing me to materialize [Whiplash] on my left arm and grab onto a tree with it to flee from her. With Klea helping me out with the flying part, I was able to keep maneuvering around the forest while shooting out my whipsword in an attempt to hit her.

It was a battle in the air. Even without a weapon, Kronnaz was too formidable. I could feel my sweat drenching my whole face since practically the start of this whole conflict, but I couldn’t even see a single bead on hers.

Every blow she threw at me was heavy and felt like even the wind was fighting against me at this point. I tried to dash around with my abilities, but it was strenuous. I had to land a hit, but Kronnaz wouldn’t let me even take a break to breathe.

“I remember my grudge with you demons,” she whispered with rage filling her voice as we fought. “You killed my children. You killed Vivi’s children. You killed Elsa’s children. And all three of us had to witness the souls of our precious family depart. It broke our hearts as Elsa was forced to erase their memories in accordance with her role. And now, you have tempted another mortal to do your bidding!”

“No! Wait, I was the one who chose—” I wanted to argue back, but Kronnaz ignored my attempts.

“And for that, you are pitiful, human girl. You tasted her power, and in a moment of absolute weakness, you were taken in. You might not have been corrupted by her yet, which is a feat worth praising you for, but time will prove me correct.”

“But until then, as you can see, I am fully in control of my emotions and demonic corruption despite currently being assimilated with Klea’s blood!” I shouted back as I fended off two of her black spears with [Blade]. “Yes, this power is not mine! I never said it was mine in the first place! I know I’m borrowing it from Klea, but that doesn’t mean all my efforts to get it in control are a waste!”

“And with those words, you continue to condemn your allies to a future death. A death created when this demon consumes you. Child, you know nought of the terror Klea’Hatma had done when she was still at her peak.”

“Grk…!”

Hestia’s face and our talk after the Griffonpeak invasion flashed before me.

Just like what Hestia said. Klea was a wildcard, and if she were to ever regain her powers, she wou— GrrGRAK!

Like a sword piercing my heart, Hestia’s worry and anxiousness about me and my deal resurfaced. And, in this small window of weakness, Kronnaz managed to land a dizzying blow to my face, sending me crashing back to the ground.

Charms: 6

[“Ellaine! Focus! Kronnaz was a war leader back when she was active on the mortal planes! Not only did she learn combat from the Origin Gods, but she also studied amongst the strongest warriors during the demon war! Some of them even became gods. Battles aren’t won purely through prowess, but through mental and psychological damage, too! As the Goddess of Grudges, she is fully aware of both.”]

[“Uof… I know, I know. Sorry.”]

My head felt like it could break open at any point. Trying to soothe it, I noticed one of my horns broke upon impact. Once again, my Health didn’t deplete thanks to the protective charms, but it honestly felt like I could die at this very moment.

However, Kronnaz wasn’t willing to give me any time to think or recover, as she stomped on the ground where I was just a few seconds ago. Whilst rolling away, I materialized [Whiplash] on my three tails and pulled myself away before Kronnaz crushed the grounds we stood on.

Splinters of rock and earth shot out, and our clash continued as I had to weave myself through this hellish flurry of hits. [Whiplash],[Claw], [Musclemass], [Blade] and[Ribcage]. I was tiring my body out with my demonic abilities while combining them with spells and my whipsword to fend off this wrathful goddess.

“So much potential, wasted on conquering the ruinous powers inside you. The world is so vast. Talent as strong as yours, could have benefitted from study and training, instead of kneeling before this demon.”

“WHAT TALENT?!” I finally snapped. Kronnaz’s length scolding was too much for me and shouted out, leaving me open for another of her attacks.

Charms: 5

However, I didn’t flinch back. Rage and irritation urged my tongue to speak. I’ve lost my cool.

“Talent?! What talent?! All that talent went to my brother during our childhood. How often must I hear how talented he was. How often must I hear from my peers how he was assuredly the heir of our house. What talent, when my own father gave up on training me, giving me over to Mother to become a mage instead!”

I might have made up with Father after all these years, but those memories didn’t just change or disappear from my mind. The Chezaic twins weren’t the only ones who belittled my situation, but they were the most outspoken ones of all of them. I loathed myself. I loathed my inability to become as good as Brother.

So, I gave up. I couldn’t take it anymore. I handed my birthright over, as I knew nobody expected me to win against him during the heir trials. However, what did I gain from all of them? More mockery. More of the same.

Every decision I made up until now always felt wrong to others. They always felt wrong to me.

Kronnaz frowned at my words, looking at me as if I was nothing more than a spoiled child. “You are able to contend with me right now. Do you call this a lack of tale—”

“This isn’t even my own efforts! You don’t know me! You don’t know how I’ve gotten all of this!” I rebuked her completely as my time with Aurora came to mind. “My levels? Hestia’s doing. My training? Hestia, Father, Dame Yorshka, and Empress Melloxtressa! Through one sliver of luck in the cave that I trapped myself in, my whole life changed. I grabbed this light with all I could, and this is where the aurora brought me to. None of this was through my talents, all of this was through luck alone!”

“…”

“And I don’t want to regret any of my choices! I wanted to get rid of all the disappointment in my life. Make my parents proud for once. So I became a member of Aurora. I accepted the dangers before me, only for my mother to scold me for it! And then I nearly died. Sweat, tears, and blood? I’ve experienced them all! All to become the same knight in the stories of my childhood!”

I lashed out, my attacks became wilder and wilder. Klea tried to stop me from attacking so recklessly, but my actions went unpunished. Kronnaz simply looked at me. She remained on the defensive, blocking my attacks whilst I lashed out with both my tongue and my weapons. Even now, some part of me understood she was showing me mercy by allowing me to release this tension in my heart.

“Yes! I took on Klea’s powers! I used some type of excuse I never thought would have worked, if it weren’t for Hestia’s and the Goddess’s kind souls. I’ve taken upon this road, knowing I was bearing the sins of a monster on my hands. I could have enslaved Klea as the Goddess offered me, but I refused. This went against my morals. My ideal justice… I’ve experienced death almost twice now! I don’t want to die knowing all I was, was another lady living her short life only to disappear by the next two generations!”

“So you accepted this shortcut? Your lack of talent does not entitle you to take on a demon’s power to compensate. Even humans managed to reach the heights of godhood. One of my teachers is amongst that group.”

“You do not get to judge me, Goddess Kronnaz! You don’t! The only gods I have faith in are Goddess Aurena and the Pantheon of Light! As long as the Goddess believes I am fit for this duty, then I will be. I will keep on sweating and coughing up blood. I will train and learn everyday under those more wise than me. I will master my whipsword, my spells, and these abominable powers inside! The lust of power I have? They do not have a hold on me!”

[“Undo the assimilation, Klea!”] I ordered.

[“Huh? Ellaine, wait!”] I could feel her flabbergasted at my sudden request, but I didn’t let her try to talk me out of this.

With one strong [Wind Blast], I blew myself away from the Goddess. As I slided along the ground, I sheathed my sword and began to pull my spell rings off my fingers.

[“Shit! Ellaine! If you do this forcibly, you’ll just hurt yourself!”]

I could feel the spell rings somehow resisting to be pulled out, probably since they were glued to my body from the blood I was getting from Klea. In a panic, Klea had to quickly start the de-assimilation, undoing my transformation until I was able to pull both rings off my hands.

My tail and wings fell on to the ground, turning into a meaty goo. I felt ill after the rings were off, puking out a dark red bile. Although still queasy from the after effects, I let my two spell rings fall onto the ground, leaving Klea there to question if I had lost my mind.

“You…” As always, Kronnaz was too fast. She made it here before I could unsheath my blade. “… are foolish. You have no hope to win even with the demon power, but now you believe you can do it without her?”

“You told me to not rely on it,” I replied through bated breath. “I can give it up at any time. If the Goddess wills it, I will. However, I won’t give up on this power so easily without her command. I’ve spent too much sweat and blood on it already. Even if it’s Hestia, Saori, Tasianna, or Master Grimnir, I won’t give up on this. No, I won't! I will convince them I can control this beast without enslaving her. For a sinner like her, death is what she deserves. Not slavery. Never slavery!”

If there is one thing Griffonpeak will never do unlike the other human countries is to allow slavery to become legal inside our borders. As a noble, someone who is supposed to be the ideal of the kingdom, I will never let myself enslave Klea’Hatma!

This is my justice. This is what I believed in as a soon-to-be knight! Naive or spoiled, call me what you wanted!

[“E-Ellaine…”] Klea’s voice entered my head. Even now, our telepathic link remained.

“… Foolish. No mortal can escape the enticing lust for power! You will feel it soon. However, I shall show you mercy. The mercy of never having to experience your own undoing by the hands of a demon! Hraah!”

Urk! Move!

The lethargy after de-assimilating was slowing down my body. I couldn’t dodge in time!

Shit!

“Hey, did you two forget we were here?”

As I could see Kronnaz’s fist shooting towards me, she suddenly aborted her attack and dodged backwards as a shimmer in the dark landed in between us. It blew me away, helping me land back on my wobbly legs. Turning my head up, there, I saw Tatsuya wielding his spear with its tip covered in Hestia’s white fire.

“Stop listening to what she has to say!” he shouted at me. “It doesn’t matter what your choices have been up to this point! Shit happens! Shit happens all the time! Like how we Japanese were transported to this world! How the church wanted us to all become murderers. Like how a dead wolf made me drink his blood to escape dying in his grav— Ugagk!”

Kronnaz dashed forward and landed another hit at Tatsuya, only for Kyouya to catch him and shove him forward. Like an unrelenting force, Tatsuya didn’t let this stop him and sprang right back at the goddess.

“If the blood of some dead wolf managed to give me such a strong ability, then couldn’t it also start mind controlling me? I’m living with that damn fear, Ellaine! I get you! However, if you ask me, you do have a talent, you know! A very good talent! The fact you’ve been able to control and actually improve your transformation powers is hype-worthy!”

“Hype?” I tilted my head. Did his translator malfunction?

“You’re good in our books, is what he wanted to say— Wraaah!” Kyouya answered for him before Kronnaz smashed him out of the way. After he landed on the ground, he pulled out his [Room] runes and placed them on the ground. “We’ll get support, so get your head back into the—”

“That won’t work.” As the portal was about to open up, something interfered with it, causing the runes to fizzle out. “As I said, nobody can enter this place without my permission. Do not belittle a god, child. Anything concerning the Divine system is something I could control.”

“Oh, are you freaking kidding me?! Haaa!” Tatsuya shouted as he continued his onslaught, never waning and giving up. Kyouya, too, didn’t seem like he would give up, standing back up and throwing holy bombs at her.

“Persistence… praise-worthy, at least. Still not enough.” The glare Kronnaz had before dissipated, returning to that neutral expression she had at the start. However, that didn’t mean her blows were any less restrained, as she still managed to smack Tatsuya and Kyouya around. “Your charms are almost used up. I will soon free you from the demon. Your excessive lust for power will end here.”

“I have my lust in control!” I charged forward, blocking Kronnaz’s attack from connecting to Tatsuya with [Bedrock Blades]. “I have a lust for happiness! I want to be happy and remain happy! And just like Hestia, I will protect that happiness no matter what!”

“Ellaine!” Kyouya threw my spell rings back at me as I pushed the goddess back with multiple [Tornado Bullet]. If any of them hit her, she would have lost.

“Thanks!” I grabbed them and put the rings back on my fingers. “Klea, I’m sorry. One more assimilation! I want to win this!”

[“You almost scared me there by leaving me behind but… Fuck it! Another transformation will push your arcane corruption up so drink afterwards. Don’t even think of a third, so don’t throw me away, Ellaine!”]

[“Got it, Klea! Let’s show this goddess what we’re made of!”]

Klea’s blood began coursing through my body before it erupted into another surge of power. Once again, wings and a tail were added to my body, and the one horn I lost before regenerated.

“Tatsuya! Kyouya! Let’s do this!”

““Right!””

A whole week. The three of us have been fighting with each other for three weeks now. While our cooperation was perfect yet, it was still good enough to not hinder each other. Tatsuya’s and Kyouya’s teamwork was especially amazing, as they seemed like a single unit when they fought.

Tatsuya led the fight, rushing at her with the frenzy of a beast, while Kyouya kept him safe by intercepting Kronnaz’s blow and warding them off. I was their safeguard. Standing behind them, I focused on supporting them with my whipsword and range options. Both Tatsuya and I were our main damage source, so the strategy was to overlap our attacks to pressure the enemy into a mistake.

Unfortunately, Kronnaz was difficult. She was stronger and more experienced. It felt like fighting against a mountain.

“You led us here!” I shouted as I took Tatsuya’s place to give him time to gather his breath. “Klea just informed me right now, that you and the Night sisters were the ones to lead us here! Goddess Ilsaphone and Goddess Vivachel. They were the ones who came to us that day and gave us that Quest, correct?!”

“Hmph.”

“She was right…” I mumbled, now fully trusting everything Klea told me while supporting the two boys. “Then the amulet, the amulet Asaka had! Why did Goddess Ilsaphone give it to her! Why were we led here?”

Klea also informed me that it was unlikely that they came here just for Goddess Ilsaphone’s goals, but that they also wanted to test me. Since I was under the Goddess’s protection, they couldn’t just interfere with Klea at will, apparently.

Therefore, this was all just a trial. However, at the same time, the Goddess was looking through my eyes. She could be evaluating my skills and thoughts at this very moment. I couldn’t fail, in other words. The Night Sisters might not be able to do anything, but if I couldn’t prove myself, then I will have to give up Klea.

If the Goddess commands me so, I would.

“Urk!”

Charms: 4

Still, determined or not, Kronnaz easily smacked Kyouya and me away. Landing back on my feet, I brought up the party menu on my bracelet.

Name: Tatsuya Nagata Level: 55 Job: Dragoon

Effects: [Bonding of Trials (2 protective charms)]

Name: Kyouya Ishiigami Level: 55 Job: Bulwark Knight

Effects: [Bonding of Trials (5 protective charms)]

Tatsuya!

Under Dame Yorshka, Tatsuya and Kyouya have been training tirelessly to keep up with everybody’s rising powers. However, unlike me, both were far below my level. Not only that, but Kyouya, who had no special powers outside of his “blessing,” was still able to keep fighting with Tatsuya helping him.

Did they have a talent for this? I didn’t know, but what I did know was we were fellow trainees. I had my own pride. I couldn’t let them work harder than me. As somebody who recognizes herself as being talentless when it comes to combat, at the very least, I couldn’t let my hard work become a waste.

… And, besides, if my talent really was keeping my emotions intact to control Klea, then I really shouldn’t lose this chance.

[“Tatsuya! Kyouya! We need to outmaneuver her!”] I told them telepathically before finally taking to the skies again.

“Oh! Got it!” Tatsuya announced before increasing his attack speed. This did open up ways for Kronnaz to counter, but I made sure to cover for him.

“Even an ogre would respect a human for fighting against adversity, children,” she commented before shadow tendrils sprung from her shadow, only for them to be destroyed by Hestia’s bombs once again. “That annoying little—?! Tsk, if you wish to challenge me, then I shall respond in kind!”

Kronnaz’s movement altered itself. Instead of countering or blocking our blows, it appeared more like she was dancing through all the attacks like the wind. However, Klea quickly warned me to be careful with attacks coming from around us, only for her warning to become true as a black hand materialized above me and slammed onto the ground.

Charms: 3

“Ellai— Ark!!” Kyouya cried out only for him to get hit, too.

“A dance… a dance to cull even armies.” She twisted her body even more, sending out multiple black hands to attack us. As we kept dodging them, she suddenly stopped and assumed another stance. “A dance… a dance to aggravate even the calmest oceans.”

Waves of black mana spread through the field, bursting into ripples of explosion whenever she reached a certain rhythm. By interchanging from one dance to the other, she kept us on our toes, making it harder and harder for us to fight. The skies and the earth, nowhere was safe.

Charms: 2

But we had to fight.

Charms: 1

We had to fight!

Charms: 0

We had to win!

[“Ellaine, stop!”]

“Ellaine, wa—!”

“Foolish girl! Don’t!”

Despite my charm having turned useless, unable to protect me anymore, I still kept on fighting. The only way for this fight to end was for all 30 charms to break. All we needed was one single second.

Ribcage! Hestia, I need your help!

As a black hand was sent my way, I conjured up a huge ribcage around me and threw a bomb in front of me. The white flames exploded, covering up my sight as I charged forward.

“Tatsuya! Kyouya! Do it!”

“Shit, you idiot, fuck it! Don’t die!”

“Wha— You foolish children!”

Death won’t get me this—!

And a loud bang erupted from the area.

…

…

But it didn’t come from my body.

“Stop.” A clear voice echoed through the forest, silencing the chaos in this battle field.

When the white flames dissipated from the area,, it revealed what actually happened. Three black hands, blocked by translucent barriers where I stood and around the boys. In the middle of those things, I laid on my back.

My sword?

Its edge was touching the Goddess’s bare foot. This should have been it, right? So, why was there no system message?

“The trial has ended.”

“Huh?!” I turned my head around to a lone robed person walking from behind a tree. From the sound of their voice, they sounded like a woman.

“Sister…” Kronnaz suddenly mumbled in exasperation, causing me to dart my head from her back to the robed person.

“I apologize for stopping you. I know you hate it but…” She took off her hood, revealing a pale as a ghost elven woman. “This is enough for us. I am now willing to approve of them and to proceed with all of this.”

… Is that… another goddess?

A note from AbyssRaven

Hey,another Ellaine character moment.. O.O

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For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters for the whole month! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 288: Asaka all Alone.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #4 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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What is this place? Urgh, the smell…

Sneaking around wasn’t my forte.

I was more the type of person who would cause trouble and then run away, rather than staying inconspicuous about things. If I did, if my actions didn’t leave a mark behind, then how could I rub my shitty behavior in my parent’s faces? The daughter of two respectful politicians was a little bitchy delinquent. It sounded better when I read the actual article after my first arrest.

However, that was when getting into big trouble never really was a problem. My parents couldn’t just disown me since my brother had taken his life and our relatives despised my parents so much they didn’t even want to speak with me. As such, even if I was arrested, I would be out and my name was taken off any jail time records. Bribery also worked when it came to silencing any news articles that were written about my arrest, defaming the writers until they were fired.

Now, though? I was all alone. Yoshka wasn’t around. Neither were my party members. The idiot that I was forgot to ask Hestia for some [Room] runes, so I couldn’t call for help. If I were to get caught here? Most likely, I would get killed if I couldn’t talk myself out of this.

Which begs the question, why was my first instinct to avenge the girl those two guards killed? The situation became even funnier after I had calmed down and my onnikais had informed me the girl was just an onnikai possessing a body, similar to Segawa’s puppies. In other words, that small girl was dead already, she just had been turned into an undead puppet.

Unluckily for me, I only heard that from my onnikais after I had already infiltrated this place. I wanted to bash those two guards with my mace, but before I could, more guards showed up and walked into the area behind the metal walls. Using my onnikais to distract the guards standing in front of the gate, I entered the place easily enough.

And that was when my mind calmed down after getting exposed to the atrocious smell. No wonder those guards were wearing gas masks. Not only did they wear the same armor those assassins had on when they attacked the Layavete cartel’s base, they also had a similar mask style.

Regardless, this was my situation now. My onnikais notified me of a guard station where masks were stored. Since this place just reeked of rotting corpses and probably crap, I couldn’t really focus on anything if I couldn’t breathe properly. Not like escaping was a real option since the gates were closed now and the only way to open them was through physical means.

Oh, this is so much better… I spent a moment relishing the clean air after I put the mask on behind a tree, but my mood instantly soured when I returned to reality.

[“What is this place?”] I asked the onnikais.

I turned around the corner of the tree, where I saw piles of bodies being stacked upon. Corpses, from what [Identify] told me. That terrible smell had to come from them. Looking at it closer, I noticed the body of that little girl from before on that mountain.

Weirdly enough, all the bodies had some black slime crawling out of the wounds they had on their bodies. For example, the girl from earlier had her legs cut and her head pierced by a sword. That ooze surrounded those spots like flies, acting like blood, in my opinion.

“Gouuueee…” As I continued staring in that area, the peace of the night was abruptly disturbed by the groans of a man. One of the bodies began to move, struggling out of the corpses it was covered with.

“No…tag…ain.”

Bodies fell off the pile of corpses like dominos, rolling around in their lifeless state until I flinched back at how some of them twitched around as if they were spasming. I felt an incredible urge to puke at this sight. I was used to the dead at this point, even dead humans, but this brought it to another level.

When I saw the one groaning body crawling around, I expected the twitching bodies to start moving also, only for the sound of metal clattering around to appear and weapons to suddenly stab into those bodies. It was those guards again.

“Always the same fucking shit. Every single day and night!” one of them complained as he furiously stabbed the corpse over and over again.

“Stop complaining!” A female guard chastised him. Similar to the assassins from before, all these people were beastmen. “We’ve been given another chance to live normally. This is all part of giving back to our saviors. Just wait until our Mistress and Master are finally done with the project.”

A third guard nodded as he placed the corpses back onto the pile. “She’s right, mate. Soon, all these onnikais will vanish. We’ll get our chance and then we can live normally with all the others. Don’t forget, in this human-infested world, we beasts have to stick together. Unity! For the Resurrection!”

““Unity! For the Resurrection!”” The other two guards exclaimed with a pound to their chest. It looked like a pose to me.

So this confirms it. The Resurrection and this village must be working together, or something like this.

“Hey, you guys are quite loud.” As I was thinking through this situation, I noticed a group of guards coming over with torches in their hands. “The western area is currently being covered by the Master. The bears these damn onnikais spawned using the dungeon are slowly getting whittled down.”

“What? Already? Did the Master suddenly create a new masterpiece? He couldn’t have improved his body so soon after repairing it, right?”

Repairing your body? What?

“Ha! Well, he has eight hands, technically, so he probably did. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. Come on, let’s burn these bodies and hope they don’t regenerate them for a week before the next accident. The chief managed to sneak in a bottle of fine Greenveil rice wine for us, so let’s drink later. To nobody dying today!”

“““Yeah!”””

In merriment, the guards threw their torches onto the pile of corpses, setting it on fire like a bonfire before walking away. A few screams were coming from it, but they were quickly snuffed up, replaced by the disappearing laughter of the guards.

Seriously, what is this place? Did they really say these bodies could regenerate? How?

[“Asaka, we should move deeper.”] My onnkais gave me a suggestion to my horror.

[“W-What?! Are you kidding me? You know I don’t have much fighting power, especially against several people at once. I only have [Sacred Magic Lv. 1] and my mace. If I get caught, it’s all over.”]

[“We can protect you.”]

[“The only thing you can provide is a shield, that’s about it. You don’t have any offensive abilities, and I can’t shoot my spells out when the barrier is up.”] I shook my head in exasperation and began looking for a way out. There had to be another way since that onnikai girl managed to escape this place.

However, the onnikais squirmed around in the catalyst, sounding offended in their reply. [“Asaka, we have offensive abilities. You just never tried experimenting with us.”]

[“Yeah, and risk whatever you four are planning with that dog. And, besides, how do you expect me to train with you when all the four of you have been doing for these past three months was annoy me with ‘Oh, find the successor.’ ‘Ooooh, persuade the successor to meet the Alpha.’ Tsk, fuck that. I’m losing sleep ‘cause of the four of you!”]

Imagine having four annoying people you can’t get rid of. Imagine these four being with you all the time. And whenever you put them somewhere you couldn’t hear them, they would complain about how I should bring them everywhere for my safety. It would infuriate anybody.

The less I had to deal with them, the better. Which meant I had little to no time to actually know them better. While Tatsuya kept using his druid form despite knowing that a giant wolf might try something on our mind, I was more reserved since these onnikais were a “gift” to us. Who knew how much control Belzac had over them? Being suspicious and apprehensive was the obvious choice here.

As such, I rejected the onnikais’ idea and went in the direction of the guards. They wanted to go drink, right? This meant that they must want to go back to that village. If I could distract them with the onnikais, I could slip through their attention just like when I got inside.

While making sure I wasn't seen, I began following after the guards. Yorshka’s training was still fresh in my mind after the whole Belzac forest visit, I was able to notice the footsteps ingrained in the ground. They’re already too far away to hear properly anymore, but they still left a lot of footsteps behind to follow.

Hopefully Yorshka is done on her side. I really want to go home alr—

“Imila!”

The sound of somebody’s voice piercing through the night jerked my body back into the shadows of a nearby tree.

“No! Your body was almost recovered! Why did you have to run away like that!”

A person in a black robe, the one who screamed that, appeared from the forest and ran towards the fire. He looked around it in a panic, almost rushing, until he found what he was looking for. He pulled up his sleeves, revealing two gray arms with molds growing on him like rotting bread.

In the next moment, black slime oozed out from them, covering his limbs up to his shoulders. He thrust them into the flames, grabbed onto a burning body and pulled it out. It was the body of the girl from before.

“Ark! Your body! It can still be repaired. Here.” He took out a canteen and poured its contents onto the fire, dousing it. What was left of the small girl almost looked too blackened to appear human.

Jeez… I know she’s already dead but that just seems wrong.

While I was feeling disgusted at what happened, the man holding the burned body seemed elated, letting out a relieved sigh. “Goodness, yes, this can still be repaired. I can probably fix you up with some flesh for mana, but you need to stop being so reckless!”

He then stood up with the girl in his arms, looking at the rest of the bodies. “I will see all of you later on. Please, we cannot be too reckless all the time!”

A few black clouds, similar to the onnikais Tasianna talked to in Gleisvale escaped from the bonfire, following behind the robed man as he delved back into the forest. Curiosity got to me. Who was that person and why did he only grab the girl? Was he another onnikai?

Against my own good judgement, I decided to follow behind him instead of the guards. I had the feeling that if I could watch whatever he was doing, I probably could find out what was going on here. However, if I got caught by that person, would I be able to get away?

Warm bath or curiosity? Hard choice… Hold on, I don’t have a reason to do any of this anymore. Who cares! I’m not risking my life for information!

I decided to run away. No way was I—

“Grouuuh!”

“Khrraaaaaaiek! ELRIIICK!”

I shrieked from the top of my lungs as something suddenly grabbed onto my leg and attempted to pull me down. I wasn’t able to detect that through [Enhanced Enemy Sense] nor [Danger Perception]!

Shit! I just called for that dick!

I clenched my teeth at how embarrassing it was to call out for somebody who wasn’t even here anymore. But I didn’t have much time to dawdle on that thought as a strong tug caused me to fall onto my knees. Snapping my head around, I unsheathed my mace, imbued holy power onto it with my [Saint’s Wrath] title and smacked whatever did this.

A shrill groan. Something just screamed from below me, and when I looked under my shoulder, I saw a broken arm sticking out of the ground. The moment I became aware of what was happening, I jumped onto my feet only moments before another hand shot out.

<Proficiency requirement fulfilled. [Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 6] gained>

Shit!

Signals suddenly appeared around me. There were more things hiding underneath the ground!

“Elri— Shit! Fuck! Not again!”

I couldn’t believe myself. Not once, but twice now? I knew I relied on him and the boys to protect me from any close dangers, but I didn’t think I was that reliant. It felt terrible how I was acting like a damsel-in-distress, but my offensive options were quite limited. I could use my mace well enough, but not against things swarming around me.

I had to relax and calm my breathing. My heart was racing too much. Elrick was gone. The bastard left on the earliest carriage the same day after he revealed himself as a vampire. He left at dawn, trying to avoid me and everybody else. I wanted to tell him to stay, but all I could was see him off.

I was isolated from everybody right now. I had to think and solve this by myself now!

[“Onnikais!”] I took out the catalyst that was holding those four wolf spirits, materializing a purple barrier around me.

Moments later, more hands sprouted from the earth, before pushing their bodies out from their hiding spots. Zombies! Actual, rotting humans were struggling to stand up, groaning and moaning like a bunch of sex-deprived office workers going to a love hotel after their monthly paycheck!

And, no, these undead weren’t like that girl from before. While the girl had considerable wounds which could scare people, she honestly looked more like a kid dressing up for Halloween. However, these things? I couldn’t see any light in their eyes. They looked like puppets forcibly held up with strings.

And these things dashed towards me, banging their pus-covered hands against the barrier. I was confident they couldn’t break through, but I wasn’t able to move or react with this thing up!

“Hey! You four, do something! Speak with them! They’re onnikais, too, right?!” I pleaded to them with a pounding heart.

[“They are not onnikai. They are the undead, bodies controlled through dark mana from a necromancer.”]

“What?! T-Then, what the fuck am I supposed to do— The amulet!” I opened my storage and pulled out the amulet that weird elven woman gave to me in Gleisvale.

[Amulet of the Blessed Spirits] was the name of this item. The moment I put it on, I shouted at the zombies to “s-stand back!” And, thankfully, these things stopped hitting the arcane shield and moved back slowly.

I-It worked?!

I couldn’t believe it. My idea was just a spur-of-the-moment thought. I wasn’t expecting this thing to actually work, but when I first appraised it, I noticed it mentioned an ability to speak with the undead and onnikais. Tasianna even told me the [Death Aura] skill it had would allow me to command the undead, although she never had the chance to use it herself.

Fortunately, it worked. The fact the zombies weren’t attacking me anymore was evidence this amulet actually worked. I couldn’t help but thank Klea’Hatma for telling me to keep it. Even if it was suspicious as hell, it certainly prevented me from getting a heart attack.

I hate jump scares! Fucking horror series these days!

I didn’t really know why zombies suddenly appeared out of nowhere, before the onnikais told me the undead were treated as monsters. Even those resurrected and controlled by necromancers were classified as monsters, enabling them to evolve.

Identify.

<Human undead: The body of a human granted the gift of an undead’s life through mana. Although only possessing a fraction of its body’s former glory, the more experience and mana it gained, the more it will return to its previous strength. Rank E>

So, humans are normally ranked E? Is that what I’m understanding?

With the knowledge that zombies were actually real in this world, I was beginning to lose my sense of reality for this world. However, then again, I was in a party with a giant dragon my homeroom teacher died and was reincarnated as a giant lightning wolf. The crazier things got, the more I questioned how I hadn’t accepted all this craziness.

With that fact in my head, my heart began to race more, to the point I could hear it in my ears. Not like Any of this should make sense to me, really. Still, I would be stuck in here forever if I didn’t try to calm down. Reluctantly, I gulped, and inspected the creatures before me.

First, all five of these zombies were humans and, from the look of their armor, they were not a bunch of random goons. They had weapons on their hips and none of them looked too worn out. Same with the armor; aside from some damage to the leather and gambeson, they could still be used with no problems after some repairs. They honestly looked like mercenaries, but I would hazard a guess they didn’t belong to the beastmen guards. Definitely not.

I shook my head in exasperation. “Jeez, did they come from somewhere? Did they attack—”

“Who are you and how were you able to—?!”

“Kyaaaaaak!”

I shrieked. I shrieked once again, and pointed my enchanted mace in the direction of the voice only for my eyes to widen up widely.

It was the man from before.

“Tsk! Who are you?” He scowled at me and pulled out some sorta talisman from his belt and held it up. “Talk! Or I will make you talk after you die!”

“Grrrouuuu…”

I snapped my head around. The zombies were moving again and began attacking the barrier.

“What? What is that thing?” The man stared at the purple barrier in confusion, but somehow wasn’t able to see the onnikais. “Dammit! An unknown intruder!”

Shit! I noticed the exposed hands of the arm forming that black slime again. I didn’t know what he was trying to do, so this was the perfect time to use one of the few things my parents actually managed to teach me.

Speaking.

“Wait! I didn’t come here for hostilities! I just came to look!” I held up the amulet hanging from my neck, hoping its ability to speak with onnikais also worked on this one. Well, I hoped he was an onnikai.

“Y-You?! That amulet, where did you get it?! I can sense the aura of Goddess Death on it!”

Goddess Death?

The man started to become unnerved, against my expectations. I thought he would settle down but showing him the amulet just made him more distrustful of me.

“Y-You must be an enemy! The living! You are a human! You stole that from a follower of Goddess Death! You are here to extract more of our mana! Intruder! Ravager! Barbarian!”

Oi?! What is with all these accusations?!

The slime on his hands exploded forward, clashing against the barrier and pushing it back. The zombies were covered in that ooze, but instead of being taken out of this encounter, they simply became even more feral. What the hell was going on here?!

[“Hey! You four! Speak with him! Now!”]

[“We are trying but he isn’t registering our voices! He’s ignoring us.”]

[“Then speak fucking louder! Dammit! There has to be something we can do?!”]

Think! Think! A tool? An item? A spell?

But I had nothing in my arsenal. I wasn’t prepared for this kinda encounter. The barrier wouldn’t break unless the onnikais disappeared, but until something happened to stop him, I was trapped inside this ball. All I could do now was to lament how useless I was without the others.

[“Stop! Emil!”]

But suddenly, a girl’s voice resounded in my head and the black slime waves stopped entirely. The ooze moved, moving away from the barrier.

I saw the zombies falling on the ground, back to being lifeless, and a black cloud floating around their former master. The robed figure had his head turned towards that cloud, listening to its words.

[“That miss isn’t an enemy! She’s a faemancer. She has onnikais with her and that amulet has to be hers! She has to be a fellow follower of Goddess Ilsaphone!”]

“What?” The man turned back to me. “That woman? That human?”

Recognizing the rope tossed at me, I grabbed onto this opportunity and told my onnikais to break down the barrier and show themselves to the man. I clearly shouted “Onnikais! Show yourselves!” to make it believable that I was in control of them.

As he stared at the wolf spirits, I landed the finishing blow to persuade him. “And, yes, that onnikai is correct. This amulet is mine, but I’m not a faemancer. I can just speak with you through it.”

“…” The robbed man went silent, tilting his head around and around as if he was evaluating me. Eventually, he took his hood off, revealing the mangled, insect-infested face of his. It was horrendous to look at and I could feel my heart skipping a beat as I wanted to scream out.

However, I didn’t. I swallowed that shriek and remained steadfast. Negotiations were all about your poker face.

“… Come. We made too much noise. You’ll be killed if the guards find you, human.” And it looked like it paid off.

[“Yes! Good choice, Emil! This must be the one Goddess Ilsaphone told us to wait for! This has to be her!”]

“Silence, Imila… We will know soon enough.”

He turned his back around, moving with the onnikai floating next to him. In the next moment, numerous black clouds revealed themselves hiding behind all the trees around me. They had me surrounded.

Grrrrrrrrroummmmm! I screamed internally in my head.

I swallowed my saliva and began moving with them. To where? I didn’t know.

Please, everybody! Find me!

All I could hope was that the others would find me with their party bracelets.

A note from AbyssRaven

Poor Asaka. She just got into a horror game.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters for the whole month! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Easter Surprise! A Meeting between Protagonists Part 2.

A note from AbyssRaven

Happy Easter! Surprise, surprise! This dragon egg has a big surprise for you!

This chapter was made in collaboration with Comiak, another web novelist like me, who wrote "The Reincarnation of Alysara." And as you can guess from the title, our two main protagonists are meeting and bantering for this five chapter collab!

Before you read this chapter, please go over to Comiak's novel and have a look at chapter 1 and give him some support! He's been a very awesome person to work with as we poured in some comedy gold in these chapters. Please, enjoy them!

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/42521/the-reincarnation-of-alysara-progression-litrpg/chapter/888387/easter-bonus-a-meeting-between-protagonists-part

“So, to summarize, the goal of the magic test is for you to learn how to mold your mana and then cast a spell. You will be rated on how strong your spell is. There are plenty of magic books around for you to read and get an idea for a spell, so use them well!” John said.

Ahh, yes, magic lessons. How long has it been since Master Kush trained me? … Fuck that, why the hell am I here?!?!?

“Hestia? Are you alright?” the foxia— runalymo girl standing next to me spoke up with curiosity, somehow able to detect the agitation in my heart despite having blindfolds on.

Alysara stood elegantly with long, waist-length, royal blue hair that shifted to gold near the ends. She had large fox-like ears similar to a fennec fox's ears in proportion to her head. A pair of sapphire and gold earrings adorned her ears, atop her head was an intricate Diadem of some unknown metal but [Mana Eyes] shows it was made entirely out of mana much like her dress.

An amulet sat around her neck. It was a dark gem in the shape of a teardrop with swirling colors inside, matching with two bracers. She had a voluptuous figure and three very long tails that were as long as she was tall which flicked gracefully from side to side.

Shit, calm down, Hestia. This is all just a dream.

“O-Oh, nothing, Alysara. Just a bit excited since it's been a while since I had an actual magic testing session.”

“I’d teach you how mana works and all that but… your world probably doesn’t work the same way,” Alysara said while playing with her hair, somehow, with all the grace and elegance in the world.

“Probably not, but my magic master taught me to observe and learn from other mages, even if I couldn’t reproduce the spells. Creating spells is all about creativity and having an open mind.” I showed a thumbs up to Alysara. “So, can’t wait to see how—”

“Hey, ladies.”

My body froze as I heard somebody say those words in the most cringey way possible. My neck slowly snapped around as I forced myself to smile just to be polite. And, just like nearly everybody else in this weird place, the people standing before me were three young men with the most generic hairstyles possible.

No, I lied. I wouldn’t call them generic, but they certainly weren’t really eye-catching. All of them had hair colors ranging from blond to black, a mighty departure from Peolynca’s myriad color palette. I might not be a hairstylist, but even I could probably do something to bring these guys up a notch in the attractive meter.

“We heard from John that you two were already reincarnated before coming here. Well, shame about that, but it’s kinda cool that we get to meet each other now, right?” The dude in the front smiled friendly. “You guys already got a cool makeover, so I kinda want to ask if you guys also came from Earth and from which countries exactly.”

“I have yet to recover all my memories but I’ve been told my soul was adrift in the void for a few… million eternities so my earth is long past its expiration date,” Alysara said matter-of-factly.

“…” The young men stared at Alysara as if they had just seen a ghost, causing the situation to break down dramatically. “U-Uh, well, at least we have a new world that awaits us, right! Who cares about our old home when the one we’re going to is gonna be so much better!”

“My memories are also in shambles and I died, leaving my loving father and mother behind. I’m currently trying to work my way back to my Earth to apologize to them,” I said with a deep sigh.

“…”

Awkwaarrrd.

“W-Well, then how about we help each other learn some proper spells so you guys can—” But before this smooth talker could end his sentence, John waved at us, calling us over to him.

“Hey! You two! Let’s get this over with, already. Get over here and cast whatever spell you want.” It seemed John was quite impatient.

“Do you want to go first or should I?” Alysara asked, ignoring the smooth talker much to his annoyance.

“You can go first, if you want.” And just like that, the both of us simply forgot about that young man’s whole existence, albeit, I could hear him boil silently from behind, but that was not our problem.

Once we met John, he pointed at a lone training dummy standing on an empty field. He told us the dummy was usually closer, but he had a weird feeling, something about his gut hurting, which told him he should do this arrangement for us.

What is he expecting us to do? Nuke the training field?

“You’ll be graded, but nothing bad happens if you fail. So, just shoot something at it and you’re done.”

“I haven't had a chance to use this much,” Alysara said, moving up obediently. “But it is quite strong.”

Alysara held a hand out and a glowing cat-sized wispy fairy materialized above her hand, however. the fairy did nothing other than glow slightly brighter and shrink down. Alysara continued to charge her spell until a humming sound started to emanate from the fairy, which was rapidly losing its wispiness. A few seconds later the fairy had turned completely solid and looked metallic, but Alysara didn't stop there.

It was at this point John began backing away, looking paler and paler.

“Umm, Alysara, That’s good enough, you can use the spell now,” he said, almost begging her to.

“I’m being graded right?” Alysara said with a mischievous smile “I need to show my best.”

It was then that the fairy started losing its metallic look and ripples formed on its flapping wings. Several flashes of light jumped from Alysara’s hand to the Fairy before she lowered her hand and the fairy darted to the dummy, seemingly sinking into the dummy before a loud roar and wind rushed past the group. A wave of mana washes over the field but safely parts around everyone. Dirt and earth rained down as a gust of wind blew the dust cloud away, revealing the aftermath — a huge crater.

“…?!” John’s mouth was agape, prompting me to nod vigorously. He must have been impressed.

“I see, I see! So that is what you should be doing, huh? I thought nuking the field was a joke, but you actually want us to do that!” I stated with amazement. No wonder this place was responsible for sending reincarnators to worlds!

“W-Wha—?! Wait, no, that’s—” John tried to say something, but I didn’t register it as I noticed the ground of the training field was regenerating by itself. The crater Alysara created disappeared and the dummy returned, almost untouched.

“Interesting, it’s like a Dungeon” Alysara said with academic interest.

So her dungeons work in the same way ours does, huh? Dungeons are universal.

With the ground repaired, I took this as my cue. I flapped my wings and flew over to the training dummy in a few seconds. I thought of using a draconic ability, like solar beam, but I guessed it wasn’t really a spell. It was a draconic ability. I shouldn’t cheat, right?

Instead, I channeled my mana through my hand and held it up. In the next moment, this mana created a huge red magic circle above in the sky as I quickly recited the chant for it. I haven’t done it in a long time since the Divine System did it for me, but not like I would forget my first custom spell, right?

Symphonie des Feuergottess!

A waterfall of dragon fire shot out from the magic circle directly onto me and the area around me, bathing a baseball stadium’s area in an ocean of inferno. I had to use my pyrokinesis ability to prevent it from harming John and the reincarnators, but that was about it. Otherwise, the flames had full liberty to consume grass and earth.

Once the flame dissipated, I could feel the buffing effects of my spell inside me, even in effect without my system. I canceled it, since it would just make controlling my body temperature harder.

Good! This should be plenty enough. I smiled at my handiwork. The whole area was dyed in gray ash.

I waved my arm at Alysara and returned to her and John.

“Sooooo… did we pass?”

“… Haaaa,” John sighed deeply. “Yes. SSS rank, far better than anybody we ever got. Next trial, come on. Let us please get this over with— urgh! My stomach ache is coming back…”

I offered to treat him but I didn’t, so I turned to Alysara instead. “That was a cool spell. How did you do that?”

“I compressed mana into a solid state then into a liquid one, this increases the energy density of my spell and makes it more powerful. Since liquid mana is like a superfluid it can leak through matter which increases the efficiency of explosions since it’s happening inside a target rather than outside. I use my Bond to make the mana unstable as well as to enhance its power by a few over a thousand percent,” Alysara continued into a short lesson about the workings of ‘mana physics’

“So.” Alysara changed the subject. “Do you have a high fire resistance or something? You were not damaged by your own spell.”

I shrugged. “I mean, I did mention I was a dragon, right? A sunfang dragon to be exact, like, I can absorb sunlight. My own flames won’t damage me, really. Besides, for some reason, I think I still have the blessing from the fire god of my world.”

I guess they did bless my soul…

In any case, after leaving everybody slack-jawed, we left the magic training area and went to the martial test. John informed us the idea of this whole place was to prepare reincarnators for their new lives and to prevent them from dying randomly. As such, they needed to better themselves outside of just magic.

In other words, their bodies need to become fit.

“Look at them.” He pointed at a group of slim generic hairstyle boys running laps. “Newcomers. Technically, you two would have gone there, too. Then, you would go over to the martial training camp, where our instructors taught you how to fight and wield weapons.”

“… How does that help your body after you get reincarnated?” I asked.

The benefit of magic training was obvious, but you won’t inherit your fitness or physique once reincarnated.

“You learn discipline here,” he answered. “Once in your new world, you will understand how to better your body, making it more efficient to transform yourself there. Since we teach martial training, also, you can familiarize yourself with your fighting style here. It’s all about knowledge and then turning that into muscle training for the future. Trust me, it works.”

I guess?

“So, what is the test for this area?” Alysara asked.

“There is a simple animated armor that you need to defeat using purely martial prowess. It will register how much damage you do to it with your hits and it will regenerate so feel free to go all out. Its own weapons can’t hurt you but will leave a glowing red mark to indicate that you have been hit. You will be rated based on your performance.”

“Can we summon weapons and armor?” Alysara asked. “What about making our own, or using a spell in the shape of a weapon? Can we use support spells like clones? What about strength, speed, etc, enhancements.” Alysara rapidly fired several questions before John could answer.

“Whoa! Slow down there.” John thought about it for a few moments before answering. “Yes for making or summoning weapons, no for the rest. However, in the sparring test you can do them all since it’s a test of both martial and magical prowess.”

“Got it~” I raised my hand before moving up. “My turn to go first. Hope you won’t mind, Alysara.”

Gesturing it was okay, I returned her a thumbs up and readied myself with a few stretches, only for some random boys to come up and begin talking.

“Hey, are you two the new arriv—” He tried to make small talk, but I waved my hand in rejection.

“Sorry, but I really want to get this over with.”

I immediately stopped warming up and used [Storage Magic] to pull out my glaive from my storage. I tensed up my legs before jumping up into the sky with [Dragoon Jump] in conjunction with [Wind Blast] to shoot me to the sky like a rocket.

Hmm? I can’t feel any barrier around. How high is the ‘sky’ or is there even one? I wondered if I made it as high as I wanted, floating in the sky using my wings to test if this was a dungeon or not.

However, I quickly lost interest in it, thinking it really didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. If these people were telling the truth, they would send us back after we passed the trials. As such, the faster we could do them, the earlier I could return before Mother or Saori scolded me about suddenly leaving.

Dragoon Dive!

Snapping my attention back to the target dummy, I stomped the air and ignited the scale dust inside my scales. Bursting up in fire, the stream of flames emitted from my wings appeared like rocket boosters as I flew back to the ground like a meteor. Twirling my glaive, I then slammed the spear part of my halberd into the animated armor, followed by an explosion engulfing the area.

Once the dust lifted again, I pulled my glaive up, noticing the whole thing had melted into liquid metal. After a few seconds, the armor regenerated back to full, but was still stuck on my weapon like a meat skewer. I pulled the thing off and threw it back on the ground, where it projected an ‘S’ with a few other numbers and letters, but I was already standing before John before I could inspect the rest.

“… I said you should only use martial abilities. Not cause another explosion! Why do you like explosions so much?!” John shouted at me with a red face, so I simply pointed at my glaive.

“I did. I didn’t cheat on that part. Have you ever heard of dragoons or flying spearmen? That’s what I did, and I clearly hit the armor with that attack. Since it came from my weapon, it should count, right? Go check.”

“…” John looked at the projection the animated armor was showing, grimacing as he nodded reluctantly. “Then why did you have to use that explosion?! You didn’t hurt anybody but this is bad for my heart!”

“…” I blinked excessively, letting John wait in anticipation for my answer. “Alysara, your turn! Go, girl!”

“Okay.”

“HEY! Answer me! Do you have an explosion fetish or something?!”

… It was an accident. I activated the fire bullet part of my glaive at the last second. But I kept this thought to myself. I’ll let this be a reminder to myself that I still needed more training with the spear urgently.

Alysara’s belt flashed for a second and a blue-metal armor accented with green-metal and decorated like a king’s suit of armor materialized around her along with a fang-tipped spear and dagger. She was covered from head to toe, tails included, in armor. There weren’t any breathing holes in her armor nor did she have eye holes. Naturally, since she was blind.

Alysara assumed an odd stance, but considering her three tails shifted her center of balance that was understandable. She dashed forward at a decent speed and struck the animated knight square in the chest, denting it a little.

The knights retaliated, but Alysara barely managed to dodge with a graceful twirl before counterattacking. They traded blows, and again Alysara barely dodged with an elegant flip. It seemed her ability to dodge was far better than her martial ability, however, the longer I watched her, the more it seemed like something was guiding her to not only hit and dodge but to do it beautifully.

It was a captivating battle style, but I couldn’t help but think she could do it more efficiently. Fewer movements.

Guess I’m not the only one who needs more training with weapons.

“Oh, thank goodness she isn’t blowing it up.” John exhaled a relieved sigh. “Ok, that’s enough!”

The animated armor stopped attacking and projects an image ‘B+’ along with several other stats.

“How’d I do?” Alysara asked, storing her armor and weapons.

“Can’t you see? The armor is displaying it.” John said.

“No, I can’t see.” Alysara pointed to her eye wraps.

“Oh…” An awkward silence fell over them before I clapped my hands, causing John to cough lightly with a blush. “B plus. You missed some opportunities and could have aimed for weak spots but overall proficient. And…” He then turned to me. “Whatever you do, please, don’t do the same thing you just did in the next test, Miss S.”

At the sound of our announcement, the crowd behind us became too loud for me to ignore. All those guys were gossiping behind our backs like a bunch of valley girls.

“Oi, did you just hear that? S rank! That girl over there.”

“Jeez, how the hell did she manage to create such an explosion?! She’s just shy of two ranks before SSS. If the armor had taken the explosion into account, she probably would have hit SS, at least.”

“Yo! Aren’t they supposed to be a bunch of noobs?! They just arrived! How the hell did one of them nuke the field and the other fight better than me despite how long I’ve been training here! This is fucking unfair!”

Unfair? A bit too self-absorbed, maybe?

I looked over at Alysara, noticing how neutral her expression was despite all we were hearing. I wondered what she was thinking, but I simply shrugged it off when she noticed me looking at her. “Nothing, let’s go,” I told her. Unlike Alysara, I glared at the guys quite intently as we left, leaving them figuratively frozen in place.

For our last test in this section of this place, we had a final sparring session with a humanoid golem inside an anti-death field, as John called it. The golem would attack us with both magic and martial abilities, and unlike the animated armor from the last trial, any damage we took would hurt.

“Not too much, of course, but you will feel the impact of the hits you take,” John warned us before pointing at somebody fighting the golem, only for him to get knocked out unceremoniously. “Pain is dulled slightly in this world, so you don’t go into shock, but that doesn’t mean you should take them. Bones breaking can happen here. You win by defeating the golem and are graded by how fast and how skillfully you did it.”

“And you lose when you get knocked out?” I asked, which John confirmed with a nod. “So, if you actually can take damage, does that mean you can die here?”

“Hestia, aside from the both of us, all the other soon-to-be-reincarnated are already dead,” Alysara astutely pointed out. “If they die, they probably just wake up in a bed or in the room where we were all summoned.”

The both of us then turned back to the training field, intently watching the “corpse” of the guy who just lost his match, probably both wondering if he would disappear into light. However, disappointedly, after a few seconds, he simply stood back up, laughing as if nothing happened.

“… You can’t die here. This place doesn’t work under mortal laws.” John sighed at our morbid curiosity. “Anyways, I already know what you two can do. I’ve seen too many people clear this test already, so get it over with. Just, Hestia, don’t. Cause. Another. Explosion!”

“So does that mean I can make it go boom?” Alysara said with a mischievous smile and started walking toward the golem as John started protesting.

“Alysara, no! Don’t blow it up!”

However, it was too late.

Dozens of fairies manifested around her, building up an army of hundreds in a few seconds. Five of those liquid-mana fairies were already forming in front of her. The golem readied itself and charged at Alysara, swinging a sword down on her. However, she didn’t even bother dodging. The sword cut her in half to John’s shock, but she then became fuzzy and reformed. It was another of her illusions. The real Alysara was never standing there in the first place, since she retreated to a safe spot before the fight began.

Without Mana Eyes, I don’t think I would have found her. This is some advanced illusion magic.

While I stared at Alysara’s real body, the dozens of fairies swarmed around the golem, attacking it with spears and causing tiny explosions where they hit, blowing off pieces of the golem. Eventually, it lost too much of its body, crumbling under its own weight in the process.

That’s when the super-fairies charged. All five rushed toward the golem, their bodies sinking into it before a blinding light flashed over the training grounds, knocking most of the trainees down with a powerful gale. Some were even outright blown away! A deafening roar silenced the world, soon accompanied by a ringing as the dust revealed an enormous crater, far larger than the last time she did this spell.

I tilted my head around to John. Since I was expecting something of this effect, I had preemptively cast [Air Shield] around us to protect us from the shockwave. Seeing him fall onto the ground with his jaw wide open, I could only imagine what was going on in his head.

As Alysara returned to our side, multiple adults in the same outfit John was wearing ran towards us. Poor John received the full brunt of the scoldings from his colleagues, telling him he should have controlled us better. They even noted that some of the reincarnators were even traumatized by what Alysara just did.

After those people left, a crestfallen John turned around, looking at me with eyes that told me he would die soon if I messed up. I gave him a thumbs-up, acknowledging the two of us might have gone a bit too far with our display.

While I moved up for my turn, I showed Alysara a peace sign with a wink, before telling her she probably will have a higher score for this round. She showed me a playful grin, understanding I couldn’t go all out since it would make John sadder. John was nice to us. We shouldn’t tease him… too much.

Like the field from the last two tests, Alysara’s masterwork quickly regenerated back to its former state. I twirled my glaive around as I challenged the golem. Acknowledging me as its opponent, it charged at me, readying its sword for a powerful slash! And it cut me!!!

… I would have mentioned, if I wasn’t keeping the thing away from me by shooting it with the rifle mode of my glaive.

“Hestia?!” John cried out, but I couldn’t help but be confused at his outcry.

“What? I’m not blowing it up. This is a totally normal strategy and it's part of my weapon.”

Made by my party’s personal blacksmith, Grimnir, my glaive wasn’t only an incredibly sturdy weapon made from my dragon form’s shed scales and claws, it also had a mechanism to shoot out my scale-dust like bullets. It was a glaive-gun, in other words.

And with this weapon, the golem was quickly shot down like a gangster. John didn’t want me to be flashy and explody, right? Well, this probably was the least scenic ending I could have given the golem. Anything else would have involved flames, infernos, and explos—

Boom!

“…”

“…”

I turned back to John and Alysara, both dumbstruck at what just happened. You see, the scale-dust exploded, taking the golem to the netherworld.

“Hey, I didn’t destroy the ground or anything else. That was the fastest way I could think of defeating it without, you know, causing some environmental damage.”

“…” John didn’t seem convinced. Maybe I could have turned the golem into a donut, but that would have been too boring.

Hmm, maybe the glaive isn’t working properly in this dimension? It shouldn’t have ignited the scale-dust there. I should let Grimnir check on it later on.

Regardless, what was done, was done. John did receive some glares from his fellow instructors, but none of them complained directly to him. With shadows under his eyes, he announced our scores, telling us we aced all three tests and established new records.

Alysara set the high score for the magic and sparring tests, while I reigned supreme over the martial arts one. One for me, two for Alysara. I was losing right now, but there were still a ton of other tests before us.

“Good luck with the next one, Alysara. It’s been kinda fun, right?” I showed her a warm grin.

“Well, I suppose it’s a nice change of pace from my studies and experiments and let loose once in a while,” Alysara said, turning toward John for the last part. “We can get the scouting and survival tests done easy so let's get that out of the way next.”

“Yeah, got it. You two go there first. Here, these are the directions.” John handed us a sheet of paper. “I need to warn my superiors there will be more explosions.”

And he fast-walked away.

“… I guess we scared him a bit.”

Alysara nodded.

A note from AbyssRaven

Hope you guys enjoyed it! The link to Chapter 3 is here!

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/42521/the-reincarnation-of-alysara-progression-litrpg/chapter/888388/easter-bonus-a-meeting-between-protagonists-part

Easter Surprise! A Meeting between Protagonists Part 4.

A note from AbyssRaven

Part 3 is here: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/42521/the-reincarnation-of-alysara-progression-litrpg/chapter/888388/easter-bonus-a-meeting-between-protagonists-part

“You’ll be assigned roles and are expected to play it out using the information you have.”

John handed Alysara and me a sheet of paper, each containing information on the role we were supposed to assume at the upcoming “ball.” This ball was our next trial.

The social section of our trials contained political, trading, and then a test about leadership. And to pass them, we had to play the role of what John has given to us. It was to test out our ability to adapt to a new world with whatever knowledge we had from our past life. Only, the fact we were rich or poor didn’t matter here.

I was okay with it. I had to do it already, but watching Alysara scowl at our roles made me realize this might be harder than I thought. Still, I had high hopes. Alysara had shown she was strategic and adaptable. With her natural grace, she should be able to stun people.

“Alright, so what do we have here?” I began reading the papers before remembering Alysara was blind. “Uhm, can you read letters with your mana sight?”

“Yes, if there is a different amount and type of mana in the ink and the paper” Alysara answered. “But the mana in this place is not the same as in my world so it’s harder to see small details. Although now that I think about it, I can infuse this paper and ink with my own mana…”

Realizing a workaround to her problem, Alysara focused on the paper before it began glowing softly. “Worked well enough, I guess.”

Cool. I nodded before reading the list out.

“So, apparently, I am a minor noble whose incompetent parents almost destroyed our house before I persuaded them I would take over. I am 18 and a graduate of our kingdom’s royal academy. I am an only child, making me the heir.” I summed up my background. “My goals are to secure a trade deal for my impoverished lands and also to find a fiance, since my idiot parents couldn’t find somebody for me… fuck. Are you serious, John?”

I eyed John in irritation, finding my role just shitty to play. However, our examiner didn’t flinch a bit, looking me straight in the eyes.

“The idea of reincarnation is that you possess your knowledge and wisdom from your previous world, only that you are thrust into a new life. What life it is depends on your score and luck, really. In other words, the role I gave you can be one of many doors,” he explained. “You are tasked to be adaptable. Can you work well enough with limited knowledge and succeed in a social setting? Even grizzled veterans need to know how to handle nobles, Hestia.”

“Yeah, I know that very well, but this… Urgh, fine. Whatever. I’ll just deal with my cards…” I returned to inspecting the remaining details from my role, trying to soak in as much as possible to find a way to get through this.

After I reread it for the second time, I turned around, seeing Alysara patiently waiting for me. It seemed she had finished.

“What’s your role?” I asked Alysara.

“I am supposed to be the fourth princess of a Kingdom who recently suffered a natural disaster. The neighboring kingdom is using this chance to invade and I need to secure allies for the war. The kingdom has little in terms of resources with only a mystic crystal mine which is a rare resource.” Alysara replied before turning toward John. “I assume that we can prepare a little, right? Technology or methodologies we might have brought to the world can be a major influence on the outcome of this scenario.”

“Of course,” John nodded. “We encourage using your previous life knowledge but be aware that some worlds have gods that don’t want such influence. In that case, though, they either warn you in advance or wipe that knowledge from your memory. By default, any gods who import souls do so knowing the potential consequences.”

“We can team up, right?” I asked.

“Yes, you may, but you must adapt your stories accordingly. However, please be aware that we will only evaluate your individual success. For example, if Hestia were to fulfill her goals, Alysara wouldn't auto-pass like the survival trial,” he explained before warning us about ways to fail. “Be careful, since bad negotiations and deals can also cause you to fail. The higher your background, the more careful you need to be with choosing allies. On the contrary, with a lower background, you have more wiggle room to succeed, but people will be less inclined to join you, since that might become a detriment to them.”

Jeez! This is why I hate politicking!

After John pointed us at the hall for the ball, he wished us luck and asked us not to delay it for too long. In other words, we didn’t have a lot of time to prepare. We couldn’t miss it, since we would have to wait for the next ball. As such, Alysara and I quickly went through our backgrounds again and combined them, trying to find some way to tip the scales for our negotiations. It was a bit hard since our backgrounds were worlds apart in status. I was a low noble while she was the fourth princess of a kingdom.

“We need a backup plan, though, Hestia,” Alysara noted and nodded.

After some whispers and giggles, both of us smiled mischievously. After all, this wasn’t just a normal ball between nobles and such. As John said, we could bring our knowledge and skills from our previous world to help us succeed.

With our plans done, we entered the building where the social test would start, where I stared at all the people walking around. Quite a lot of them managed to pretty themselves up by quite a bit. There were mostly boys around for now, but I did wonder if some girls were already inside the ball.

Alysara pointed at a place with “Dressing Room” written on a plate above its door. We entered it, where I noticed Alysara wasn’t with me anymore. I wondered if this was a subspace or something, and seeing as nobody else was around, I just accepted it.

Hmm, quite a few dresses.

There were free dresses around and also a styling desk where a metal golem could be ordered to do your make-up and hair. After looking at the dresses again, I decided on pulling out my usual ballroom dress.

Made from mana threads, it was flexible and easy to move in, especially since it was strapless, allowing my wings enough room to wiggle around. Using red and black as its main color made me feel more confident as the flower designs and accessories really highlighted my youthfulness. The hundreds of shimmering sequins designed like scales glimmered impeccably under the light.

After I added a ribbon to the ends of my tail, I went to the stylist golem to have my make-up and hair done. After telling it what I wanted, it quickly did everything for me. One quick check-up with the mirror and I was done.

After leaving the room, I noticed Alysara was already done. While I walked over to her, I made sure to give her appearance a good look.

It was quickly evident that Alysara made her own dress which stood out exotically from the styles offered in the dressing room. The dress was black as the void and impeccably made, accentuating her voluptuous body while a flowing long skirt parts in the back to make room for her three very long royal blue and gold-tipped tails. The embroidery capitalized on the dark dress with vivid images of an aurora-filled night sky with a red, green, and blue moon.

“Nice~ Cuuuute!” I complimented my blind friend. “And, from the looks of it, I’m not the only one thinking the same. Although, I guess for the boys, it might be a different feeling.”

Looking around, the boys were obviously down bad for Alysara. She was stunning really.

“I can sense some of them are also looking at you, Hestia.” Alysara then pointed at a few boys, drawing my attention to them. They quickly turned around, hiding their reddened faces. “Your dress looks really good too. Too bad I can’t see mundane colors, I am curious how the colors match; since it is made from otherworldly mana the colors of the mana are… weird.”

“It goes both ways, Alysara. Mana for me is mostly blue, outside of specific situations. I guess my eyes aren’t similar to your senses, so it does make me curious what you are ‘seeing,’ hiehie,” I said with giggle. I looked around to see the gathering crowd of admirers.

I smirked. If it was this easy now, then I couldn’t wait for what came next.

Alysara and I entered the ballroom, where we were introduced to a spacious place decorated to the brim of maximalism. It reminded me a bit of the one King Drangleic hosted. Both were splendid and literally looked like medieval art of historical social events.

Similarly, the participants gave off that feeling of attending a party with rich second generations, or even third. Aside from Alysara and mine, most of the suits and dresses the people were wearing didn’t have a very strong medieval or victorian vibe. They looked more Earth modern.

“Alysara?” I turned around when I saw her slightly cowering behind me. “Are you good?”

“Yeah, I’m not good with all this attention. You said before you would lead, so please, lead the way my fair ‘lady-in-waiting.’”

It was obvious she didn’t like these settings, but we couldn’t avoid it at this point. I promised I would make sure we won this round easily, but I couldn’t have her put everything on me. She had to perform, too, if she wanted to pass her test.

“A lady-in-waiting moves behind the ‘princess,’ Princess Alysara. I will attend to you, so you have to lead the way as the leader. Don’t worry, I will have your back. We will win this, alright?” I gave Alysara a slight push, making sure she understood my point.

First, we had to scout around. In a social event like this, we had to identify who the important people were since Alysara needed proper allies for the war approaching her kingdom. We needed to aim big for her sake.

In this case, Alysara’s powerful scouting abilities were the best. I could hear very well, but nothing beat Alysara using her mana to appraise everybody around. I then remembered the backstories we received, noting how everybody in this room was playing roles coming from the same world. As such, we had to choose our targets politically, meaning, countries close to Alysara’s.

Once we found our target, we made our move.

“Good day, Prince of Arriendal.” Alysara gave him a perfectly elegant and graceful curtsy, as if she had mastered the art of etiquette to an unparalleled degree.

“O-Oh… Oh! Ahem! M-My fair lady, to whom should I thank for this honor of meeting you?” The young man narrowly recovered in time from staring at Alysara’s dress and tails to speak, although his companions weren’t as strong.

“I am Alysara, fourth princess of Windguard,” Alysara said. It was subtle but it seemed like she had slipped into a role with her [Acting] skill to help her with the event. Her introduction, although perfect somatically, showed her social inexperience. This was where she should push her influence, and mention familiar relations or notable deeds to hook him in!

“Windguard… Ahh, of course! Our neighbor in the north. I think we used to trade a lot until your land faced a bit of a famine from a crop disease. Were your people able to survive it well, my lady?” The young man asked, perfectly reciting a part of another kingdom’s history.

“Yes, we did, but the famine had led us into some financial problems. Mostly so we could ensure our kingdom’s economy wouldn’t fall and that our people wouldn’t starve. We had to sell off quite a bit of our natural resources to recover,” Alyara answered as if she memorized a script.

“Ah, I see… Well, first, I had not expected the princess of Windguard to be… Well, to have tails and such fox-like ears.” The “Prince” strayed off a bit in the discussion, but one of the boys behind him helped him recover. “Ahem, what do you wish to speak with us about, my lady?”

“The Kingdom of Tayahlia is about to wage war against us, and I am in the process as my father’s, the king, representative to find allies who could fight with us against their tyranny. Will the Kingdom of Arriendel help us, as former trading allies?”

“… The Kingdom of Tayahlia, you say?” The young man then turned to one of his companions, letting somebody whisper information he hadn’t read up on yet. “Oh, yes, yes! That kingdom. Yeah… Your highness, you do know they are the strongest kingdom on the continent, yes? Warmongers. They are about to become large enough to establish a whole Empire.”

There was hesitation in his voice. From the look of it, joining our side to fight the empire might hinder the success of the other “nobles.” Such a huge enemy could spell their doom. However, this would only be problematic if we had only one ally.

“Yes, but if we join forces against them, we can win. I am sure the other kingdoms will join us. If we don’t fight back now, we would all lose our independence!” Alysara argued with the elegance of a real princess, but even with her ability to charm people, the prince didn’t look convinced.

In fact, he looked even more nervous. “Your highness, it’s suicide. If your goal is to fight back Tayahlia, then may I give you a tip? Try your luck next time with a better background.”

He suddenly broke character.

“It happens. This is the hardest part of the trials. Unfair, even! They give you stupid objectives to do, so they keep you here until they believe you are ‘ready’ to go. Once they think you are good, they give you a stupidly easy objective and whoosh, there you go. This is my third try and I’m pretty much set to reincarnate after this! They told me my score is high enough for an S rank world! Amazing, right!”

“Wait, what?” Alysara was dumbfounded.

“Yeah! Sure, they hold you back, but it’s mostly so you can train more. I’ve gotten so much better at speaking like a noble that I can probably be reborn as a prince or something, I dunno. Probably something amazing compared to my shitty past life. But— Nah, forget about it. Just, don’t take it badly really. Your goal isn’t supposed to be cleared. So, yeah, sorry. I can’t really sabotage myself at the last point.”

Wait, are you serious?

Alysara couldn’t answer back as the young man turned around with a wry smile. It seemed he wasn’t in the mood to roleplay anymore, intending to return to talking with his friends. I think this warranted our Plan B.

“Hold on, Your Highness,” I called out to the man. “What if we told you we had a way to fight back against the kingdom?”

“Uhm, what?” He really wasn’t playing around anymore.

“Here you go.” I held my hand in front of me and breathed out purple fire, before superheating it up and then cooling it down until it transformed into a piece of corrosive obsidian. “The attack of Tayahlia Kingdom will happen in about one year and four months, according to our scouts. In that time, we will have enough time to produce weapons and armor using this.”

“Uuuuuuuuuuuuh? What?! How did you just breathe fire like a dragon?! What the fuck!” He expressed his shock, but I maintained my role.

“Because I am. I am the adoptive daughter of a low noble. My parents have given me the authority as a house head at this point to elevate our small family. Princess Alysara here has agreed for me to become her lady-in-waiting so I could help her fight back against our tyrants. If we succeed, her father would adopt me while ranking my family up.”

As John said, we could use all the things from our past life. Experience, talents, and most importantly for Alysara and me, our new powers. We just needed to change our backstories a bit, just enough to not break any rules.

“This is obsidian.” I held up the mineral higher. “But not just any normal, fragile, volcanic glass, but obsidian made from a dragon’s breath. All I need to produce it is mana. In other words, it's unlimited. And this thing is far harder than steel.”

I managed to achieve one of my goals — to find something to help my house escape bankruptcy. That was this obsidian. I only had to make some trade deals with it now. Now, it was time for Alysara to follow up on what I did.

“If we’re talking about benefits, if you were to increase your performance during this ball, wouldn’t you be able to, I don’t know, increase your brownie points?” I nudged the young man. “If we were to defeat a giant kingdom together, for example. And, don’t worry, this obsidian isn't the only thing we are offering. After all…”

I then pushed Alysara up a bit.

“… our Princess is a wonder child.”

A little flustered from my encouragement Alysara raised her head and all of a sudden it felt like all the world’s attention was drawn toward her. The lights began to glimmer more brilliantly and the candle flames began to flicker around, almost looking like they were fairies dancing. Entrancing; that was all I could say.

Holy… You could have done this earlier, Alysara! Jeez, talking about making me jealous here. Wow. She can grab people’s attention like an idol.

Mana condensed in her hand, transforming into a solidified form as it built an object as if it was a 3D printer. A small boat with large sails stretching from above and to the sides like fins and wings, respectively, was created, floating in the air once finished.

“We have recently begun developing airship technology which will give us a huge advantage in the war. Quick mobility as well as aerial supremacy, not to mention the trading benefits this technology would bring.”

“I-I,” the prince stammered. “I’ll have to think about this”

Alysara nodded politely. Her enchanting presence faded, but I couldn’t let the guy go just like that. “Don’t wait too long, our first confirmed ally will have the benefits of negotiating with us first. Just imagine what benefits this could bring. The rewards you can receive to your, ahem, ‘new life position.’”

“…” The prince stood still, eyes widened like a goldfish. His friends, the people standing behind him quickly began to whisper behind his back, turning away so he couldn’t hear what they were saying.

“Oh, and, guys~” I stopped the schemers. “My adoptive father is a bit of an idiot, so he kind of forgot to get me a fiance. If you know any bachelor who wants to have a dragon as his wife, who will become the King of Windguard’s adoptive daughter and the Wonderchild Princess’s sister after we win the war, then please send them towards me.”

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh, cringe! Kill me already! Fuck you, John!

And like an avalanche, the ballroom just turned into a swirling storm of chaos, with guys desperate to pass this trial swarming around us like hungry ants. Of course, Alysara and I didn’t want to deal with it, instead, we called up the few girls around, offering them some sort of relationship with us if they could help us manage all of them.

At the end of the ball, Alysara and I were sitting on some well-made chairs, having to act like princesses playing court as numerous people came to pledge their allegiance to us. Not only were they here for the airship technology, but also for the sturdy obsidian I had. This was all just roleplay at the end of the day, but holy cow, everybody really got into it.

And after it was all done.

“… Are you kidding me?”

John received a figurative punch to the gut.

“What was it again? ‘We encourage using your previous life knowledge but be aware that some worlds have gods that don’t want such influence.’” I imitated John’s voice. “Well, those ‘gods’ didn’t say anything. No warning means we did what was asked.”

“We followed the rules. You cannot disqualify us,” Alysara stated before handing John a list of people who will help us.

We couldn’t take all the people who wanted to ally with us, since Alysara pointed out it would fire back at us. With too many allies, we wouldn’t have enough resources to satisfy them. She thought of the future, even if it was roleplay.

“No, that’s not the point. You girls passed. both of you fulfilled your requirements. If your kingdom were to actually fight with the setting you created, any pseudo-empire would be destroyed.” John frowned. “It’s just that you pulled so many people into your plot. So many of these men and women shouldn’t be reincarnated any time soon, that’s why we have this test in place. But, now, we have to let some of them go despite knowing they are unprepared. Do you think reincarnating is easy?”

Alysara and I turned our faces to each other before returning it back to the distraught John.

““Of course, not!”” We said in unison.

“I can count on both hands how many times I’ve narrowly escaped death, John. Even my birth was a catastrophic disaster. And you know what? I wasn’t prepared for any of that. I didn’t know how to use magic, wield spears, or even survive in the wilderness. You think you get to lecture us on reincarnation?”

“Even with the goddess of beauty purposely reincarnating me in a peaceful place where I would have the best chance of living, my village faced total destruction three times from superstorms, monsters, and a cursed being capable of destroying continents. Even when given the best chances things can go downhill really fast.”

“Yeah, exactly what she said!” I agreed, now learning a bit more about Alysara’s past. “You might be helping these people, but all you are doing is making them anxious. We’ve only been here for a day, and we already knew how to use these social events. Stop lying to people, how about that?”

“…” John looked shocked.

Maybe we said too much?

“… You know, about your reincarnations, I’m sorry we couldn’t do anything about it. Despite what I said at the beginning, people coming to this place to prepare for their reincarnation isn’t really a common thing. In fact, we’re really just a small organization with a couple of real gods helping out, pulling in as many people as we can to give them the best chances at survival.”

It was surprising to both of us that John suddenly explained something like that.

“The gods of every dimension and world are whimsical, to a fault. We really just wanted to help more people, get them prepared so they can have a better life…”

“… John,” Alysara called him, causing him to open his eyes up again. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry. I guess I’m getting too old. I just wish you kids a better life than your previous ones…”

I nodded, sympathizing with him. “This might have gotten a bit serious, so let’s just forget about it. Where do we have to go for the merchant and leadership tests?”

“Oh, that. You passed them already.”

““Huh?”” We both tilted our heads.

Apparently, the social event also acted as an event for all three tests. If you didn’t do a good enough job to pass them, you would be sent to the next test, but the both of us didn't need to do it anymore.

“Merchant: You sold yourself well to the other participants, while also creating something which you can sell off to. Hestia, your obsidian. Alysara, your ability to create those airships.” He read for us our evaluations. “Leadership: You managed to lead your way forward, not only inspiring yourself but also those around you. Hestia, you made sure Alysara kept on going forward and knew when to talk and when not to. You have the potential to become a powerful leader. Alysara, your charm and charisma were impeccable, drawing people towards you. You might have been more reserved than Hestia, but being able to act as an icon was also a quality of leadership.”

“… So, that’s the fourth?” I commented and John nodded.

“Yup, only one trial left and you may go back to your homes.”

Alysara and I clapped our hands against each other and cheered. Another trial down. Only one left.

It felt good that we could go back home soon, but, I felt a bit sad. After all, it meant Alysara and I would separate. It was a very short friendship but—

Ah, no, don’t think about it! Let’s just make this memorable! After all, the last trial would be—

“Time to take the stage!”

A chance for me to perform!

A note from AbyssRaven

Hope you enjoyed it. Next chapter

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/42521/the-reincarnation-of-alysara-progression-litrpg/chapter/888389/easter-bonus-a-meeting-between-protagonists-part

Chapter 289: The Onnikai and Ilsaphone.

A note from AbyssRaven

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The smell of death and rot. That was all I could think off when I took my mask off for a second, regretting my choice quite a fuck ton. The robed man with the black clouds swirling around him instantly took notice of my reaction, but ignored it a moment later. It seemed they were used to it.

Speaking of people used to my reaction, other people were standing before me with a similar “affliction” to the robed man. Zombies. Not only foul human and beastman bodies, but some of them were even animals.

“As I explained, this is our home. Our refuge. Our prison. The ‘world’ for us onnikai,” the robed man told me. He had put his hood back up after showing me his deformed undead face.

The place he presented me was simply an extension of the forest, the only difference was there were sheets of gathered leaves around, looking as if they were used similar to beds. Black slime and mold-covered body parts laid on the ground, making it all seem too filthy to live in unless you had no other choice.

[“I am Imila! This is Emil!”] One of the countless black clouds moved around wildly like an energetic puppy. [“We met before, Miss!”]

“… Yes, we did. You look different now that your body is gone, Imila.” As crazy as my current situation was, I felt slightly more at ease at hearing her voice. The light-hearted way she spoke made it easier for me to speak with her.

[“Ahh, yes… My body. Mhmm! I took so much time to rebuild it and it was destroyed before I could—”]

“Enough, Imila. You speak too much,” the robed man interrupted her, sounding grouchy. “It’s your fault for leaving… Human. What is your name?”

“Asaka.”

No reason not to answer.

“Asaka… So you are supposed to be the one Goddess Death wanted us to meet? Hmph.”

[“But she has the amulet, Emil! She has the amulet! Goddess Ilsaphone told us to look for it on the person she chose, definitely! Miss will help us! Yes!”] Imila interjected herself in the conversation. She truly acted like a kid.

However, what confused me was the information she was giving me. I was chosen? By this amulet? Then, what did that make the woman who gave me this thing? What was going on?

“…” The robed man was looking at me, analyzing me. However, with the mask I was wearing, he couldn't find any clues from my expression. “Let us say you are the chosen one, human. What are you planning on helping us with?”

“… Nothing.”

That was my answer.

“Wrat?”

“No help? Why?”

There was some commotion coming from the undead behind the robed man while the onnikais were swirling around as if they were displeased with my answer. However, lying here wasn’t the way.

Assessing my situation and the risks and benefits, I concluded offering them a solution wasn’t the way to go. As much as I tried, forgetting the lessons my parents imprinted into me to prepare me into their political pawn was impossible. It was like a trauma to me. I will act as I wanted if the repercussions were worth taking, not the other way around.

And in this case, the amount of information I had was not enough. Stalling was an option, but one thing my shits-for-parents taught me was to never make a decision without prior knowledge of the situation and circumstances of the opposite party. It would all blow up in your face if you did.

I could die here.

“… Then why did you come here?” The robed man’s suspicion rose up again. He was on guard, and I could hear a threat coming from his sentence.

“… Because I was simply given this necklace by somebody. I don't know who they were, only that they told me they weren’t an enemy. I came here ‘cause somebody gave my company a Quest to solve the ‘ghost situation’ in this area. That’s all. I don’t know anything about what you’re talking about.”

[“You don’t? … Miss?”] Imila stopped moving around like her previous self, sounding lonely as her hopes were crushed.

Sorry, kid.

“… Then who are these onnikais you have with you?” On the other hand, the robed man kept asking me questions. “They aren’t like us. They weren’t spirits or lesser fae before they died. I sense Goddess Death’s intervention in you, wolves.”

As I was about to say something, my onnikais came out of their catalyst after requesting me for them to take over. They floated out of their cage and spoke with the people before me, swirling around like the other black clouds.

[“We are the souls of fenrirs under the alpha, Belzac!”] One of them announced proudly. [“We were turned into this form by the Goddess of Death, to serve our alpha even in death. This human girl, Asaka, is our current ward. We protect her at the command of our alpha”]

The robed man nodded, seemingly content with something. “… I see. Follow me, Asaka.”

“H-Huh, uh, sure?”

Somehow that worked out so easily?!

I wasn’t about to complain about what just happened. I should just follow along the ride.

While walking behind him, we went even deeper into the forest, where I noticed more and more corpses lying around. Some were twitching around, which the robed man, Emil, was explaining were onnikais trying to recreate the bodies they decided to inhabit.

I thought I should have probably asked him about the matter there and now, but I was more interested in something else. Something I felt was quite hard to believe.

“Hey, uhm, Emil, you mentioned before something about your goddess speaking with you? What is that supposed to mean?”

“Impossible.” It was an immediate answer.

“Huh?”

“You cannot speak with gods. It is impossible if you aren’t a blessed or a being with an extremely powerful soul. You, as a human, should have known about that,” he explained, causing me to frown at how he said it.

“I clearly heard Imila say she told you that I was a ‘chosen one’ or something. You reacted to that, too!”

[“I said nothing! Hmph!”] Imila, for some reason, grumbled to the side. What caused her attitude to change so dramatically? It actually pissed me off.

Emil waved his hand around, trying to flatten Imila as if she was a fly, only for her to act like a kid and fly away with a few other onnikais.

“Quiet, you…” He scowled. “… Don’t mind, Imila. She speaks and acts like that because Goddess Death has given us onnikai the ability to assimilate corpses. In the process, our mana bodies slowly adapt to the body’s memories and our personalities get twisted in the process. She acts exactly like you would imagine a small child would, but she dramatizes it a bit too much from how she expects a child to act.”

I shrugged. I didn’t care what her reason was. If she wanted to act like that to me, then so be it. Not like it mattered too much to me.

“Now, to answer your question, we did not speak with her. Goddess Death, or Ilsaphone with her birth name, suddenly came to us about three days ago.”

Emil then took something around his neck and pulled it out from his robe for me to see. It was the exact same amulet as I had, from the design and name. I had to double-take [Identify] to make sure I wasn’t imagining it.

“She gave it to us without saying anything. We had no idea what she was trying to say, but I guess Imila interpreted something after she met you. From all my time alive, I learned mortals will never truly receive the full words of our gods. We must interpret them.”

He stopped walking, turned back to me and continued, “From whom did you exactly receive that amulet? Did you speak with her? Did you feel like you weren’t hearing something properly?”

“Hmm? Not hear something? Well, she had this weird accent that made it hard to listen to, but I know she mentioned I should hold onto this thing and how she was an ally. The onnikais had to translate a longer sentence, but it was hard enough to listen that I wish they had done everything she said.”

“… Then that means you actually met her.” He turned around nonchalantly and began walking again, gesturing for me to keep up.

“Huh? Hold on, what are you talking about? Stop making all of this so mysterious!”

“You met the actual Goddess Death in her mortal form, human.”

“U-Uh… WHAT?!” I grabbed his arm, pulling it back to stop him but I accidentally pulled his entire arm off his body! I could only stare in horror at what I did. “… Eiiik!”

I dropped it onto the ground after being stunned for a full two seconds. The disgust I had inside of me began to surface again.

“Uhm… Sorry.”

Emil sighed, shaking his head at my words and simply picked up his arm and put it back on with some black slime support.

“Stop shaking. The bodies we all are inhabiting are ‘unfinished.’ We haven’t been able to live up to Goddess Death’s dream to create her own patron race. Come, I’ll speak. Just follow and watch.”

“… I guess I won’t be able to leave until then?” I asked, feeling too stressed out to stay here any longer. My heart hasn’t stopped feeling like a drum ever since I entered this place.

Emil didn’t answer. His silence was his reply.

And in this silence, we continued walking through this forest of the dead. The groans and moans of the onnikai zombies stumbling away. Small rotting cats slipped past my feet, frightening me. Some of the black clouds were even more mischievous, using their slimes to pull pranks on me using the trees. And all of this while I couldn’t even see if I was stepping into poop or mud, or even a piece of growing flesh.

Proficiency requirement fulfilled. [Night Vision Lv. 4] gained

Even with the skill leveling up just now, I was really tempted to level it up to level ten, but I knew I wouldn’t hear the end of it when I made it back to Haruka. Such a sweet girl, until you speak about numbers with her. Then she would turn into Miss High Scorer.

Unable to take it anymore, I asked Emil if I could use [Light] to create some light for myself, and he accepted it. Thankfully. If I had gone any longer in this darkness, I probably would have pissed my pants.

And I learned about why only seconds later, as he stopped at a hole with a set of stairs leading down. A light in the middle of the dark could have attracted people. I thought he let me since we were quite deep, but it was ‘cause he wanted us to go down.

“This is our real home, and the source of our bodies.” He turned around to me, looking at me despite the robe covering his eyes. “A dungeon. Created through the many deaths of the faefolk around us, and serving as the base of the mastermind behind this place.”

“A dungeon? Wait, does Estralia know about this?” I asked.

From what I heard, Estralia didn’t have too many dungeons, as they valued the dungeon cores quite a lot in their trades with the dwarves. Tatsuya and Kyouya, in their time at the local hunter’s guild, informed us many dungeons were destroyed since the cores were taken and cracked open for the shards.

If you wanted to enter a dungeon as an Estralia adventurer, any other country would have been better. Thankfully, Ullistar in Artorias was close by and had a dungeon.

Which made it weird to me that a dungeon actually existed here. In this place.

“Do you know why I am speaking with you?” Emil suddenly asked me, but I shook my head. He was articulate, but I didn’t know anything else. “Because I am the oldest onnikai in this community. As a spirit, I died during the War for the Faefolk. Vengeful beings, we onnikais are, and every single one of us cannot just give up on our grudge. Do not blame Imila for her bad attitude. She was betrayed by a human when she was captured and eventually used to fuel a mana battery.”

“Does that mean all the onnikais here are in the same situation as Imila?”

He nodded. “Yes. But the reason for a dungeon being created here wasn’t purely because of the passive mana we exuded. The monster holding us captive here, the ‘Master’ as those guards called him, placed something with a tremendous amount of mana here. Dark mana. Dangerous. It’s not a darkness elemental. It’s something far more sinister. I overheard it was taken by their enemies. After some time, the dungeon appeared to contain all this mana.”

Still, the fact we actually have evidence now on all these onnikais once being spirits and getting their mana drained should be proof enough for Tasianna. As weird as it was to find it all here. And we also now know the Resurrection was involved in it.

However, something didn’t make so much sense. I knew about how dungeons worked and how the dungeon master could influence everything. If Emil admitted all the bodies they got came from here, then how did they get them in the first place?

“I am the dungeon master,” Emil answered after I asked him. “I was the first to find the presence of the dungeon and make the contract. Due to the mana barrier placed around this area, we cannot escape, and since that meant our lingering mana could permeate the grounds and the dungeon, I used that to create undead bodies.’

Emil explained how the object in question was placed here as rumors of ghosts appeared due to some onnikais managing to escape this area. The results of mana draining the lesser faefolk were these onnikais, vengeful mana creatures, and the people who drained the faefolk wanted to hide this. Most likely from the elves and any faemancers.

Over time, the area turned into a monster infested area due to all the mana in the ground, something they couldn’t control even with macula plants. To the Resurrection, this sounded like the perfect place to hide something important. Sadly, that was the tipping point on the scales of balance. Too much mana was around, and it created this dungeon.

And from there, after Emil became the dungeon master, he began creating undead bodies for his friends to possess. Undead, since humans didn’t count as monsters and couldn’t be spawned by a dungeon. This happened about two year ago.

And the moment they received this dungeon, Ilsaphone also gave them the ability to create this black slime through their mana. It reminded me of the story I heard from the Aurora gang, something about an onnikai gaining the ability to use a black slime from the catalyst it was trapped in. It used that black slime to create undead bodies for its friends.

I told this story to Emil, trying to further understand the situation here. Hearing it, Emil went silent.

“… I see, a fellow survivor of that war… I am glad that he managed to find peace in the end. I am glad Goddess Zephira decided to grant the others mercy. Instead of the Wind Goddess, we received the blessing of the Goddess of Death. One’s torment became our blessing.” He spoke about the slime oozing out from his arm. “But, unlike that one, our control of this slime isn’t as good. We cannot fully repair our bodies.”

“Is that why you can use necromancy? Well, those undead were controlled by you, right?” I remembered the scare I got from their surprise attack.

“Limited… I remembered following a necromancer once. I learned how to use two spells — [Raise Dead] and [Flesh for Mana]. Otherwise, I cannot become better. The bodies I used to attack you came from a few intruders who were enemies of the ‘Master.’ Even as the dungeon master, the monsters I spawn do not listen to me. At least they can attack our oppressors.”

Emil then looked back to the hole. He didn’t speak. What was he thinking about?

“… How did you know that woman was a goddess?” I finally asked, finding this too awkward.

“…The amulet. And the fact you weren’t able to hear her properly. Her ‘accent’ is our soul’s inability to hear all their worlds. However, you can listen to some of her words. She clearly blessed your onnikais but where did you get your blessing? Only one blessed by a god or a godlike being could listen to a god’s voice!”

“I-Is that so?”

But, from whom?

It’s already been made clear that our unique skills weren’t actually blessings, nor was my [Saint Candidate] title. They came from the demonkins through some method, so where did my blessing come from? I didn’t have some special skill or title for that.

Hold on! If that was Ilsaphone, the Goddess of Death, then Elrick shouldn’t have heard anything. If it was the Goddess of Vampires, that would explain something, but Elrick couldn’t hear anything!

And that was when it dawned on me. There were too many factors to get a clear conclusion, but what I knew was that Elrick couldn’t hear her at all while I could a bit. And what differentiated us from each other?

[Hestia’s Retainer]… But that girl is nowhere near a goddess in strength, though. Not divine at all. This doesn’t make sense.

“Asaka?” Emil’s voice brought me back to reality.

For now, I should leave this thought for later, as I couldn’t understand enough.

“Yeah, yeah, sorry So, uh, since you probably know your goddess so well, why did she give me this amulet?”

[Amulet of Blessed Spirits] not only allowed me to speak to the onnikais, but use them as a conduit for dark magic as well. In other words, I could emulate the elementalists of old who used elementals to cast spells. I didn’t need to learn any dark elemental spells with this catalyst around my neck.

“I don’t know.”

But Emil’s answer was unsurprising, but still disappointing.

“She couldn’t say anything to us, don’t forget. It makes me curious how your onnikais and my fellow war survivor managed to hear Goddess Death and Goddess Zephira respectively.”

Once again, another good point. Tasianna and Segawa talked to Zephira, right?! How?! Both of them have [Hestia’s Retainer], too. Are you actually telling me, the secret is in Hestia's title she’s giving out like cupcakes?

“However, I do know you can help us, Asaka. Goddess Death didn’t send you our way for no reason,” Emil continued while I returned to that previous thought.

“Urgh…” I groaned, scratching my head. I didn’t like what I wanted to say when somebody looked as if they needed my help. “… I don’t like expectations, Emil. I hate it, actually. I feel forced to do something, despite not getting a say in it. If I tell you off, I look like a dick. If I accept your request, I’ll have to deal with the repercussions of my decision. I don’t like it at all.”

Imagine your parents not caring about you one bit, thinking of you and your brother like tools. Yeah, that was my curse after being born. Now, add to that annoying part with how Japanese society looked at people who were “different” than the ideal, and you start getting annoyed at everything.

“You must do this”, “You should learn it like so”, “You can’t speak with these people.” Fuck off. This was my life. Rebelling was my only way to respond back to these expectations, even if it turned me into a delinquent. I felt liberated about it, especially since it tormented my uncaring parents.

But, now? I felt bad. I hated it even more when people began to depend on me. I despised having this saintess shtick pushed onto me, whilst having the church constantly breathing down my neck to become more like Aiko Hasebe, the other [Saint Candidate] from our world. How was that supposed to motivate people? Compare them to others? Really?

But outside of that, imagine having all these people injured before you, relying on you to save them with your healing. Imagine these people dying before you ‘cause their wounds could only be cured with [Major Heal]. I wanted to spend my skill points on [Sacred Magic] so many times, only to return to reality that I needed other skills to survive. Too often I was placed in danger, and then Elrick or Yorshka had to save me.

Too often. I didn’t want people to depend on me since I felt uncomfortable about it, but I was making myself depend on others. I hated it so much. And how I loved it when Hestia appeared, with not only her incredible healing ability but also her talent as a leader and attacker. No longer did I need to lead “The Misfits” nor did they rely on my healing.

I felt liberated again, but now?

“…” I stayed silent. I did not give Emil an answer.

“… Come with me. Let me show you the rest of the stuff in the dungeon. We need your help, Asaka. We onnikai want to leave this place and fulfill our duty to Goddess Death. But we cannot. Every time we try, the ‘Master’ simply destroys our bodies with his guards,” he lamented as he took his first step onto the stairs. “I can spawn monsters how often I want, but the ‘Master’ simply destroys them. Afterwards, he destroys any body that we try to repair and—”

And my [Danger Sense] activated at that moment. I felt something approach me from the skies, and only seconds later—

Boooom!

“Griiieeack!”

“Woah!”

The onnikais managed to form a barrier around me just in time as the explosion landed, protecting me from the impact.

“Emil! Are you okay?!” I shouted after confirming my own health, but as the dust settled, I noticed a signal with [Enhanced Enemy Sense] from above me.

The target landed onto the ground with a loud thud, blasting the clouds of smoke and dirt away with a thrust of wind. Looking from within my protective ball, I saw him stand up after performing a superman landing.

“Who are you? Why are you here?”

It was a foxian in a suit of black armor. In the next moment, his arm literally opened up in two, revealing gushing blood and tendons as a metal barrel came out from it. The end of it then began shining blue, looking to me like a gun readying itself to shoot at me,

He gazed directly into my eye, where I noticed how absolutely devoid of life they looked. Even the zombies from before seemed more “living” than this person.

“Respond or die.”

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Chapter 290: Conviction.

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“I-Uhm-”

Should I tell him who I am? Would that even hel—

“Your hesitation begets my suspicion. Die.”

“Woah!”

And a blast of concentrated mana struck my barrier, sending the ball I was in flying as it took on the full force of that attack. I was safe, but I still had to deal with all the rolling, like I was being tossed around inside of a hamster ball. Thank goodness I managed to protect my head, otherwise this would have hurt.

[“Asaka!”] The onnikais’ voice entered my head.

“Urgh… yeah, I’m alright,” I groaned, holding my head as I struggled to stand up.

My vision was slightly blurred, shaking even. The [Light] I had floating in front of me illuminated the area, but I had absolutely no idea where I was. Well, outside of knowing I was still inside this onnikai forest.

“Fascinating.” A cold, monotonous voice appeared again, drawing my attention in the direction of a figure slowly walking into the light. “Something was able to endure my miniature mana cannon. Intriguing. I must see how much longer you survive this.”

And his arm opened up again, revealing the blue glowing metal barrel from before. A chill ran down my spine as it grew brighter, but I couldn’t do anything but take the hit again. And another. And another!

“Arghhk!”

My body felt bruised. The barrier might still be standing, but my Health still suffered from being thrown around by the projectile’s force. I tried to cast [Moderate Heal] on myself to get rid of the pain and injuries, but my [Danger Perception] warned me only seconds before my spell was undone.

“Uwarrrk!”

What the hell is happening?! Argh, this fucking hurts!

I have to move.

The moment my barrier landed safely on the floor, I grit my teeth through this god-awful headache and had my onnikai bring down the barrier. Forcing my tired body forward, I dispelled [Light] and ran in the opposite direction of where that man was, hoping he wouldn’t find me.

But, only moments later, my onnikais jumped in front of me, projectile their barrier in front like a shield and covering me from an incoming blast of mana.

“Unique. A faemancer?” That same abominable voice entered my ears again. I wanted to puke. “Then, your survival is even less desired. We cannot afford to let any of this information escape this area.”

“Stop!” I pleaded in desperation. “I have no intentions of doing anything with all of this! Please, believe me!”

It was a lie. I hated lying. It reminded me of my parents. However, this was the sort of information I couldn’t just keep to myself if I were to get out of here, but telling him the truth here was the worst.

“Impossible.” However, in that same — almost robotic — voice from before, he rejected peace. He saw through my lie and chose violence. “Your existence will prove to be nothing but an obstacle for our future. You must be erased to ensure our safety. May you rest in peace.”

Shit! Psycho!

[“Asaka, we’re draining through our mana! We need your help.”]

This couldn’t have come at a worse time. As I was distracted by the words of my onnikai, another blast crashed against the barrier, causing dust and dirt to fly around me. Sure, having the mana barrier in the form of a shield prevented the force of the projectile from pushing me away with it, but my ears rang so much more from the loud noise, compared to when I was still inside the ball version.

Another advantage of the ball was also an omnidirectional protection, meaning it was impossible to hurt me if they were to flank me. Now? I was vulnerable from the sides. And this was exactly what this man took advantage of.

Shit!

My onnikais moved just in time to block another hit, but I was beginning to see the cracks in the barrier. The onnikais weren’t kidding when they mentioned they were using up their mana. At the end of the day, they might have been A rank fenrirs in their lifetime, but now they were only dead spirits with a little more mana than the average onnikai.

And I was learning that the hard way.

“What?! My mana!” I looked in horror at my dropping Mana pool, seeing the number drop down to half just to repair the barrier up again. “How much are you using to keep this barri— Woah!”

And the crack reappeared. Half of my mana, gone. For a single use of the barrier to stay up. I could feel sweat drenching my face as I stared in despair at what was happening.

I’m gonna die!

[Fear (Moderate)] inflicted on [Human, Asaka Hanazawa]

“Shit!”

I couldn’t control my body anymore. Fight or flight. Every single cell chose the latter without a single hesitation. The endless parade of thoughts about my death was killing my brain, clouding it to the point I was auto-piloting through the forest.

[“Asaka!”] The onnikais shouted as they darted in front of me, blocking an explosion a few feets in front of me.

I was knocked onto my butt from the wind pressure, as the shield materialized too hastily to block everything. Before I could make do with what was around me, the onnikais moved again, blocking something from hitting me. However, this time, it wasn’t a blast, it was a sword.

“You are tiring to kill, woman.” The foxian’s eyes and mine met each other, making me want to puke at how lifeless and uncaring he looked at me. His aloofness was nauseating. “Once I’m done, please wait for O—”

I could tell he was saying something, but my ears didn’t register any of his words. My attention was fully focused on the widening crack of my barrier. It was about to break, and that meant my last defense was about to go. Without the others around, all I had left was my spells and this dumb mace from the church.

[“Asaka, RUN!”] The onnikais ordered me and my body stood up as if I was possessed. My legs didn’t stop…

… which left me unaware of the foxian’s next move.

“Got you.” And at that moment, he was flying right above me, casting no shadow as the light of the moon barely got through this thick forest.

I stepped my heels onto the ground as he landed right in front of me, trying to stop my acceleration but I wasn’t in time. Nor did I have the room nor space to dodge his sword strike

Death flashed right before my eyes.

“No! Ugok!”

Blood splattered right onto my face, covering my nose in that pungent iron smell. But there was something else among the stench, something foul like rotting meat.

As I came back to reality, I saw two things suddenly drop onto the ground. Guts spilled, flesh sundered, and red liquid drenching the grass and ground. A black robe covered the wound, the bisection of a torso, but I still found it gut-wrenching from how the man who just saved my life was still wriggling around on the ground.

“Emil!” I shouted, realizing who it was.

“Get out of here! I’m fine!” he stated as a black magic circle appeared from his arm, only for hands to sprout out from the ground in the next seconds. “Get out here!”

“So you were the one to hide the corpses of our recent intruders. Resourceful, necromancer.” As the zombies attacked the man, he used his sword to ward them off easily, but from the horde of bodies Emil summoned, it should still buy enough time for me to escape.

Still…

Why isn’t he using that cannon of his? That arm thing.

“Hey!” Emil drew my attention. “Run away, already! You cannot die!”

“W-What, how can you still speak?! Here, let me—” I was about to instinctively heal his wounds, despite knowing it would be impossible to do with [Moderate Heal].

“I’m an onnikai!” He stopped me. “This body is one of many. I can repair it, but you? You cannot die! You were chosen by Goddess Death for an objective! You cannot die! Escape from here!”

“What?! That’s impossible! That person can outrun me and all of that! I cannot do anything!”

Moments of that man shooting his cannon and almost slashing me with his sword flashed before me. I could feel my hands drenched and my heart dropping from the fear I felt from him.

“You were chosen by Goddess Ilsaphone! I do not care if you are a priestess of the Light Goddess or not, but you were chosen! You received her boon in the form of that amulet. You are a onnikai faemancer and elementalist now! Use us! Use our powers with your mana! Cast dark magic and escape from here!”

My eyes widened and it felt like time slowed down. I took out the amulet, realizing I had it the whole time. I wasn’t wearing the amulet of Aurena, the one I received from the Holy Capital which marked me as a priestess and follower of their church. Neither was I wearing the robes of a saint candidate; instead, this black robe I wore was made from Segawa’s mana threads.

Was it truly fine for me to use dark magic when I was supposed to be a holy priestess?

Emil suddenly went silent, dropping onto the floor as a black cloud seeped out from him. [“Use me, Asaka. Channel your mana into me, and I will transform its element into dark. Use that to cast whatever spell you wish.”]

“… Don’t you hate humans?”

Emil was an onnikai from the time of the War for the Faefolk. He was one of the spirits who died in pain from having his mana drained for a battery. The whirling emotions he had at his time of death brought him back to life in the form of a vengeful onnikai. He didn’t specify who killed him, but from what I could guess, it had to be a human or beastman.

[“This is not the time for that! Dodge!”] I did what he said as my [Danger Perception] agreed with him, avoiding a zombie’s decapitated head.

That foxian man wouldn’t be occupied for too long anymore.

[“Asaka. Use us. We can handle the chants and magic circle construction,”] my onnikais offered to me, but I still felt apprehensive of this idea.

The one who didn’t want others to rely on her, but who was always reliant on others. I felt lost when my brother died. Lonely. And now I was relying on people like Yorshka, Hestia, my onnikais, and…

Elrick… Grk! That baaaaastard!

I clutched the [Amulet of Blessed Spirits] and reached my hand for one of my fenrir onnikai and began pouring my mana into him with [Mana Control]. I could feel my body losing it, only for it to return back into my body, however, something was off about it.

[Saint Candidate] has rejected the usage of this type of magic. Reason: Dark elemental mana

It felt like my body was treating the dark mana like a virus. Rejecting it. And I learned this truth after a system message appeared before me. My own title was the culprit behind this nausea I was feeling? This wasn’t an allergy, this was my ticket out of here!

Go away! This is my body! You will not do as you wish!

[Individual [Human, Asaka Hanazawa] is attempting to overrule the effects of [Saint Candidate]. Denied

What?!

… [Saint Candidate] control has been usurped by individual [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]. Sending title owner’s request to the usurper… Request accepted. [Saint Candidate]’s effects were overruled by individual [Human, Asaka Hanazawa]

Hestia-san!

The swirling mana inside my body began to subside, no, in fact, it felt almost normal at this point. As if it was part of my body, erasing all the problems I had of it before.

Who would have thought Hestia usurping control over my title was this beneficial?! I thought she was trying to do something, but if it was for this, then who was I to complain?! That girl was a goddess in my time of need!

[“Asaka, what spell? We can conjure it now, so give us the command!”]

There was only one I could use at that moment.

“Light! Shadow Dash!” I snapped my head around as I conjured a new [Light] to illuminate the darkness, increasing the visibility of the area.

I identified an area as far away as I could. In the next moment, words streamed into my head and a black magic circle appeared where I was looking at. I remembered all of this. This was when I still didn’t have [Chant Revocation Lv. 10]. I had to read this chant while the system created the magic circle.

Now, I had to do it again, only this time, it was with my onnikais’ help.

“God of Shadows, consume me in your embrace as I travel under the cloak of the night. Allow me passage through your world! Shadow Dash!”

I grabbed Emil and my four onnikais and slipped into the shadows whilst watching the foxian fight through the hordes of zombies. In the next moment, the world around me turned completely black. There was no light here, as if it was actively rejecting everything.

My onnikais then tugged on my shoulders as I felt overwhelmed at where I was, understanding a bit what Segawa and Kazumi had to go through with their dark magic practice. They drew my eyes to a single light source in this whole place. I could draw myself towards it, so I began swimming.

Once I was there, I looked out of it, only to see the shine of the moon right above me. All I could of it was how beautiful it was. The sun didn’t allow me to watch it, denying me and shoving me away to do something else. But the moon… I could watch it without getting hurt.

This wasn’t time to frolick. I need to get out!

I pushed myself out of the hole, nodding at how the spell worked perfectly. This gave me the confidence to cast my next spell.

“Appendages of the dusk, reveal yourself. Horrors of the night, do my bidding! Dark Tendrils!”

Acquisition requirement fulfilled. [Dark Magic Lv. 1] gained

Spell gained: [Dark Bolt]

I didn’t have Segawa’s [Shadow Armament], meaning I couldn’t bounce around like a flying squirrel with a grappling hook attached to myself, but what I could do was emulate her mana threads. Creating a spider web was all I needed before I ran away as fast as I could.

All I could hear for a while was the sound of my breathing and my feet stomping the grass, but after a while, I suddenly heard a loud “Urk!” It seemed that foxian was actually caught in my trap. That should delay him for a bit for me to use [Shadow Dash] two more times.

I killed my [Light] after I exited the third shadow. [Shadow Dash] might mention shadows in its name, but even complete darkness was acceptable for using the spell. I could use the spell again without any light, but that affected my line-of-sight. That was the real weakness of this skill, as I needed to see my destination. My onnikais knew their spells well enough.

In any case, I had to concentrate on getting out of here. That foxian couldn’t track me that easily, so I had to find the entrance with Emil leading the way. While I ran, I noticed multiple onnikais and undead looking at me.

Emil shouted, “The monster is chasing us! Protect the chosen one of Goddess Death!” at them. They were initially quite confused about it, but that changed quickly when that foxian appeared out of nowhere, shooting his mana cannon at me only for my onnikais to block it with a barrier.

Unlike before, though, the barrier cracked. My onnikais were at their limits with their mana. Anymore, and they would die.

Shit! How did he get here so fast?!

He was once again using his mana cannon and it really showed the difference between that and his sword.

“Hey, hey, a large spell! We need a large spell!”

[“Dark magic spells aren’t designed to be offensively used. They are made for those creative enough to use them properly,”] the onnikais stated, making me wonder who the hell Marsven was for developing these shitty spells. [“[Tenebrous Magic] is what you are looking for, but even with [Dark Magic Efficiency Lv. 5] on your amulet, you yourself don’t have the mana anymore for advanced spells, Asaka!”]

“Shit!” I cursed before pulling out my amulet of Aurena and shooting a spell at my enemy. “Sacred Smite!”

This spell too was from an advanced magic skill, but at least I had a lot of skills to reduce mana for that element. Also, at this point, I’ve been casting holy spells in front of this man twice now. He probably already knew I was a holy mage, but he still didn’t stop his attack. Nothing to hide anymore but my name and appearance.

The man easily avoided my attack and readied his cannon again, causing me to flinch back. As I tried to [Shadow Dash] away, I stopped when I heard an ear-piercing cry around me.

“Gruuooooooooeeeeeek!” The onnikais, both the clouds and those possessing bodies, charged at the man with feral war cries. Far more viciously than the undead from before.

The man jumped back and shot a cannon at the incoming onnikai, blasting a few of the bodies into a bloody mist. However, none of them were scared. None of them stopped their cries. They raged on like berserkers hungry for the deaths of their foes.

[“This is the true nature of us onnikais, Asaka. You were lucky Goddess Death chose you. Our wrath would have been indiscriminate towards humans and beastmen, regardless of their gender or age. The pain we suffered cannot be appease outside of the deaths of our offenders.”]

I gulped. Was this what Hestia, Tasianna, and Segawa experienced when they met the onnikais inside that ruin? Endless waves of zombies, uncaring of the danger and threat? Frightening.

However…

“Are you su—”

[“Don’t try to stop us, Asaka. This is our lives and we cannot die outside of them using us as batteries again. However, I won’t let any of them die. As long as I am the dungeon master, I will stop any of my companions from dying before we regain our freedom, enact revenge on those who killed us, and fulfill Goddess Death’s wish. Now g—”]

“You will go nowhere!” The foxian shouted as he sliced through three zombies before something exploded underneath him, slinging him up in the air as he prepared a cannon blast at me.

I couldn’t avoid nor block this one. Was this checkmate?

“Gruooagh!”

“Stop it!”

No. For five bodies jumped right in front of me, saving me from a direct hit, but the blast still flung me into a tree.

[Bleeding (Moderate)] [Broken Bone (Left Arm)] inflicted on [Human, Asaka Hanazawa]

“KyyyyaaaaERRRRRKK!” I howled in agony.

My left arm was broken. Twisted and bent to the point it showed my bone. My left side received the brunt of the damage, with my robe in tatters and red with my blood. I managed to survive, but I did not come out of that without substantial damage.

“Grk!” I wanted to pull out a Health and Mana potion from my storage, but the pain was almost paralyzing. I had to buy out [Pain Resistance.]

<Proficiency requirement fulfilled. [Pain Resistance Lv. 4] evolved into [Pain Resistance Lv. 10]. 1500 SP remaining>

<Skill requirement fulfilled. [Pain Resistance Lv. 10] evolved into skill [Absolute Pain Tolerance]>

Thank you Haru-chan! Thank you for telling me to keep some for emergencies!

The pain dulled immensely. It still hurt like a bitch, but I was able to regain control of my body and pull out the necessary potions to heal myself. Sadly, my arm didn’t heal completely. It needed proper treatment before a healing potion or spell could fix it.

[“Miss!”] I heard a familiar voice.

“Imila?”

[“Miss, you need to stand up! Run!”]

“W-What!?” I looked around, noticing the bits and parts of the bodies which saved me. From four of the five, onnikai clouds escaped. “D-Did you save me? But, why? I thought you didn’t like me?!”

[“Emil commanded me, too! I won’t say no to a favor from my big brother!”]

Big brother? Are they— No, can’t be. Emil said he didn’t belong to this group of onnikai.

However, while I was occupied with that, Imila continued pleading for me to go. [“Escape! Don’t come back! I don’t care what Goddess Ilsaphone told you to do! Just leave! We don’t need more pain in this place! You will just die! Forget what Emil said and run away and don’t look back! We can handle ourselves!”]

The voice of a small girl, somebody that should have been protected, was telling me to leave them to their faiths. Was it care or her disinterest in me? I didn’t know, but her words still hurt me.

Still, I was thankful.

“… I’ll come back!” I announced as I forced myself back up, before questioning what I just spat out. Only to remember how often I had to rely on people instead of trying to have others rely on me. I felt like a loser.

[“Idiot Miss! Don’t come back! We don’t need you! We will escape soon enough! Emil knows how to do it!”]

“Yes, and I will help you when that time comes! Urgh!” Saying all of that while my arm was completely useless. What was compelling me to act like this.

[“We don’t need a human help—”]

“Shut up, kid! Let me help you! I don’t like putting expectations on myself, but I hate it even more when I can’t get rid of this guilt! You guys have suffered enough from all of this, so let me help! I have enough allies that can and will help you! We aren’t just humans, but also other races! So, shut up, kid, stop being stubborn, and let this Miss here help you out!”

[“?!”]

However, for some reason, I felt the need to help. I wanted to help. I wanted to be useful. It was the same feeling I had whenever I saw somebody hurt in front of me. I had these healing spells on hand, and I knew if my spells would or wouldn’t heal them in time. I would go around healing people in need even without payment, ‘cause I felt I had to.

I hated this feeling so much. I hated becoming responsible for everything since it would most likely fail. Even now, I was questioning what I said. Why was I willing to help them this much?

[“… You better.”]

But when I heard her say those two words, something caused my heart to beat faster. In a good way. Something in my chest felt happy. Was it pride? Confidence?

“Yeah!” And that energy escaped through the tone of my voice. I just doomed myself… but it felt so correct to do.

“Not on my watch!” In the time where I had this discussion with Imila, the other onnikais distracted the foxian, but now, he was free. He had his cannon aimed at me, glowing at me with its merciless light. “Die.”

Shit, Light!

Pshewww!

Was this my death? Was the third time the charm as they say? I managed to survive that cannon gun so often now, so I was anticipating my luck to finally run dry. As such, I had no wish to die. I made a promise to this onnikai girl, and I will fulfill it!

A white magic circle appeared from my hand and a bright light shone as the cannon shot out. How would this save me, you ask? Well, I had to inform my allies where I was, right?

Not only my arm, but my party bracelet was broken. However, there was one thing I saw before it stopped working completely.

Name: Yorshka Nordor Distance: 800m

Boom!

A dust cloud exploded before me. I wasn’t harmed, thankfully.

“Good thinking with the light, girl.” I heard a familiar voice praise me. “Sorry for taking so long.”

“Thanks for the save, again… My hero.”

Cloaked and with her iconic white spear, the White-Winged Dragoon appeared before me at the last moment. My party bracelet had broken, turning the search function off. The [Light] was there to signal to my savior where I was and I was hoping she was fast enough to reach me before I blew up.

Yorshka then turned around and cast [Wind Blast] at the confused foxian before he could understand what was going on. He was blasted away, along with a few zombies. Yorshka then dashed towards me and held me up in a princess carry.

“Wait!” I called out, reaching my hand towards Imila and Emil. However, they didn’t budge.

[“We will see you again, Chosen of Goddess Death,”] Emil announced. [“We will wait here. We will hold our ground…”]

[“And when the time comes, save us!”] Imila ended his sentence.

I nodded and placed my tired onnikais back into their catalyst. Yorshka then sprinted through the forest at a speed too fast for me to comprehend. In the next second, multiple explosions were triggered at a far point of the forest. What caused it?

[“Sorry, I met some interesting people while getting the others and also had an angry aunt tell me to hurry up to rescue you,”] Yorshka told me through [Telepathy].

Hold on, Hestia?

I guessed the system message helped me get their attention in time. Still, why didn’t they save me sooner? I could have died three times already.

The explosions acted like a marker for where we had to go. Our path out of here as they occurred on the edge. After we escaped through it, Yorshka threw down her [Room] runes and told me to enter it. The other three — Tatsuya, Kyouya, and Ellaine — were already back home, and Yorshka would be taking the long way back to Gleisvale.

I accepted it and entered the subspace, where I was greeted by the other three. Ellaine ran up to me and gave me a hug before I groaned at the pain from my still broken arm. She noticed this, and let me go and helped me adjust it in time.

Looking at the three, it seems that they also faced some sorta trial. They were sweaty and covered in dirt. Not as bad as I was, but whatever we experienced today sure was a tribulation.

Ellaine sighed and then led me towards Hestia, saying she was ready to heal me. Yup, Hestia actually received that System message. No more questions.

We entered our small infirmary, a new room still in need of furnishing Hestia wanted to make in case of emergencies. When I entered it, I expected Hestia to have a bed ready for me, and it came true! The only problem was that I didn’t expect to have a neighbor sleeping next to it.

“Segawa-san?!” I blurted out as I saw Segawa on the bed, unconscious.

Hestia sighed and turned around. “O’Bloom and the Resurrection,” she stated with gloomy eyes, looking like she was on the fence at something.

“A fight happened in the warehouse Ilsaphone told you about, Asaka.” I was surprised to hear Hestia knew about the Goddess of Death, but I didn’t interrupt her. “The Resurrection and Senator O’Bloom’s gang fought inside that place, a slave auction. They burned it down and Saori tried to rescue the slaves inside.”

Hestia then turned back towards Segawa with a sad frown. “Dammit, Saori! … Thankfully, she only fell unconscious from the carbon dioxide.”

It seemed like everybody had a reason for why they couldn’t help us today. This night was too filled with conflict.

A note from AbyssRaven

Hestia did some usurpation, again!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters for the whole month! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 291: A Blessing in the Shadow.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Urgh, urhm…” Saori began to groan and move around on the clinic bed, pushing her body up whilst scratching her head. Her eyes blinked multiple times, rubbinging the sleepy sand out of her eyes before she turned her head around, looking at me in confusion. “Hestia?”

“Morning, sleepyhead. Pretty nostalgic, right? You, unconscious. Me, staying up the whole night, worried.”

Saori blinked even more, trying to understand what I was saying before she eventually realized and facepalmed herself gently. “Oh… I was careless. Sorry. Well, I guess it’s payback for having me worried for three weeks.”

“Haha!” I laughed, unable to be mad at that response. Saori giggled with me.

After our joy that neither of us were terribly harmed from our accidents, Saori sighed, looking disappointed at herself. “I am sorry… I cannot believe… How long did I stay unconscious? All I can remember is that I rescued a few slaves before some guards tried to fight me.”

“Tasianna, Grimnir, and Daichi rushed back with you after the color of the moon changed, so after midnight. And then, you stayed like this for a whole day. It’s the 1st of HarvestBloom now.”

Saori shook her head. “Are you kidding me…?”

“…” I let her calm down a bit before I signaled Tasianna to come into the room with [Telepathy]. “We have a lot to talk about, but first, how about we enjoy breakfast together. You’re probably starving.”

“Good point, thanks. And, thank you for saving me, Tasianna. I presume it was you.”

“All three of us did our part, Miss Saori. Please, rest yourself and recuperate your strength.”

It was usually very obvious who made our breakfast based on what was served. If it was more western style with bread, eggs, meat, and fruit, you knew it was either Tasianna, Svena, or Josine who cooked it. If it was traditionally Japanese, then Saori or Asaka were responsible. On the other hand, if it was a mix between multiple cultures, then Tamae was the chef behind the meal.

In this case, we had fresh rice, baked beans, grilled tomatoes, sausages, sauteed mushrooms, kimchi, and a warm vegetable soup. Gosh, it smelled wonderful, but I always questioned if such mixing was necessary.

“Tamae-chan was creative again…” I smiled wryly before putting a sliced sausage with mushroom on top of some rice into my mouth. My mouth widened and my cheeks felt the heavenly juices of this wonderful combination.

“Good food is good food. Even if the style of the breakfast does not fit together that perfectly, it is not weird to see these things combined together in another meal. Tamae knows what a healthy diet is and when you need to experience cuisine.” Saori ate some of the baked beans before indulging herself in the soup. “Ahhhh… how I wanted this to be miso soup~”

The meal was refreshing and invigorating. Food was good for the soul, not just the body.

After we were done, we became serious and asked Saori what exactly happened. I had heard the story from Tasianna, Grimnir, and Daichi, but I also wanted her perspective.

“The warehouse at the docks, the one Asaka’s stranger told us to go to, was not exactly one owned by the Resurrection. It had that serpent tattoo on it, but it was actually a building reserved for a large-scale slave auction with its ‘wares’ delivered by ship through the other countries down the river from Gleislain.”

I frowned. It was exactly as I heard from the others.

And the worst part about this was that it was a known public event promoted by the eight Olden Money. In other words, the patricians of Estralia. The mark designating the warehouse was in fact to help the Resurrection pinpoint which warehouse to attack.

“While we were mingling amongst the guests, we learned that the auction was hosted by the O’Blooms, the Plymeirs, and the Urlandors. It helped that they were glorified as such by the announcer,” Saori stated, mentioning two senator houses who used to work with the Layavete cartel. “While the auction lasted throughout the evening, there was suddenly an attack by the Resurrection.”

There were only beastmen and they were all wearing black armored suits; those were very easy ways for us to identify their members, or at least, the attackers from this crime syndicate.

“The guards and the Resurrection members attacked each other, giving me some time to get into their offices and find some stuff.” Saori pulled out sheets of parchment with words hastily scribbled on them from her storage. “Sure enough, Gleisvale is the hub of all trade in this part of the continent. Food, dungeon materials, artisans, and slaves. A lot is imported and exported year round.”

Saori handed me the papers to look over them. A majority of the records showed the O’Blooms being mostly in charge of the operations, which I presumed was due to the Plymeirs’ and Urlandors’ slow decline after what the Layavete cartel did to them.

Imports came through ships and as well as through the dwarves’ train, but mostly the former. The O’Blooms seemed to have dealings with quite a few notable members of the different countries along the mid-western part of Altrust: the Kingdom of Rakartheen and Astraford, the Divide of the Five Princes, Aleistunum, and also Aureolis. All ‘cause of the river Gleislain.

On the other hand, their access to Artorias had been severed, it seemed. The records show little to no interactions with the Kingdom of the Griffon starting about two months ago, around the time we began annoying Hamil. Even their imports through the train was only done through one source, a beastman. “Adhi Bayudra,” a levianewt and ship captain, it mentioned. The “smuggler” who was responsible for the elven yeast the O’Blooms needed.

This levianewt has only been doing it for two months now, but I heard the O’Blooms’ pastry shop is older than that. A different source and they changed the carrier? The transporter?

“Those Resurrection members, I heard from Tasianna that they were there to release the slaves,” I asked after I was done with the notes.

“Only beastmen slaves,” Saori corrected me. “They did not bother with the humans, even if some of them were children or teens. They were the reason why I had to go back into that place even after the fight caused the warehouse to go in flames. Now that I think about it, I think I fought a couple of the warehouse’s mercenaries and guards, and while rescuing one of the slaves held hostage, an explosion was triggered.”

I sighed at her recalling the events and pulled up a mask and threw it onto Saori. “Tasianna said you saved more than just one, you were literally leading all the saved human slaves outside before having to save them from falling debris and such. While you did so, you probably breathed in too much of the carbon monoxide.”

As Saori looked at the mask, I continued, “Next time you want to act like a hero, maybe put on a mask. Asaka gave me this dwarven mining mask to give to you, for your information. Or, just use your [Shadow Armament] cowl or mask. I still don’t understand how you were knocked out in the first place. We traveled through the inside of an active volcano, and you managed to survive that.”

“As you guessed, I had my mask on back in Cedaraille’s dungeon. I had it on during the rescue at first, but I took it off after I noticed the kids being too scared of my appearance to trust me…” Saori looked away, obviously ashamed of what happened. She wasn’t even close to death when she arrived in the subspace, and I didn’t think she would have died with how high her stats were, but good gosh, it scared me when I saw that she was unconscious.

I shook my head in exasperation. “If you want to be a firefighter like your dad so much, next time, put on precaution.”

“Don’t bring my father into this, Hestia,” Saori snapped at me.

“No, you should probably reflect on this, Saori. You were the one pestering me to stop taking risks when we were in the Belzac forest, but, if you ask me, you’ve turned more into the person you didn’t want me to become: a hero.”

Going against Davison, entering the cave during the grimgarian raid, and also her fight with the necromancer in Griffonpeak. If you thought about it, Saori really sounded like a hypocrite. Not like I could judge her, as I thought of myself as one, too.

Honestly, she was slowly becoming what she hated about her father. A firefighter who died during a rescue, leaving his family to deal with the aftermath of his death. It broke Saori’s mum and also changed Saori to be more focused on earning money instead of pursuing her dream of becoming a historian.

And it seemed Saori was beginning to understand what I meant about this. I was angry at her for risking her life like that, but I couldn’t outright say that to her, as I also found it rather inspirational. I also heard from Tasianna how Saori wanted to stop the slave auction despite how it would anger the local crime syndicates. If you asked me, her changing and becoming more heroic was a good thing. She was breaking out of her shell, kinda.

“… Sorry. Also sorry for snapping at you. I really shouldn’t have acted like that.” She frowned and massaged her forehead.

Considering how conflicted she was with her father, I could understand her outburst. A firefighter who valiantly died to protect people while working, but due to his death, it left Saori in ruin. Her mother became sick from the stress, mounting in medical bills. Meanwhile Saori had to give up on her dream to pursue her teacher job for the money.

She loved her father, but at the same time, she didn’t want to be compared to him.

“It’s okay. Here. Gael came over after he heard about the news,” I drew Saori’s attention away from our previous talk. I was content with her simply thinking over her decisions. “The warehouse you were sent to wasn’t the one the Layavete’s spy obtained that mana battery from.”

“Seriously?” Saori’s eyes widened and I nodded.

“Yes, and I think that place is the final key for us to solve all of this properly.” I then placed two fingers on my head and then spoke with [Telepathy]. [“You can come in, now”]

The door opened up again, but this time, three other people came in. First, it was Asaka, then Mother, and the last was the person Mother was happily talking to.

The elven stranger Asaka talked to. In other words…

“Saori, let me introduce you to the first god you’ll meet in person. Ilsaphone, Goddess of Death and Necromancy.”

“What?!”

The black-robed woman took off her hood, revealing a beautiful, albeit, pale face with lustrous ebony hair like the night’s sky. With her white eyes, she looked almost like a corporeal ghost or soul, which would have made her unnerving to look at if it weren’t for how pretty she was. It also didn’t help that a small haze kept seeping out from around her neck, showcasing some stitches around it, as if she was once decapitated.

“A healthy and long life to you, Saori,” she spoke in a modest and reserved fashion, sounding more like an introvert being forced to speak. “I apologize for it taking this long to meet you after giving you my mark.”

“… Uhm, I know this might be inappropriate to say now, but I cannot understand you.” As expected, I knew this would happen.

“Are you also hearing an accent or something like that, Segawa-san?” Asaka asked, smirking as she also knew this would happen.

Seeing her acting so smug, Saori frowned and simply ignored her, turning around to me. Her eyes told me she agreed with what Asaka said but didn’t want to admit it.

“Hold on, let me give you the translation.” I sent over what I heard from Ilsaphone. “The reason why you and Asaka-san can’t understand her properly is due to her being a god. You know a god’s followers always have to interpret what they mean? Yeah, that ‘accent’ is the reason.”

It was a defensive mechanism to protect a mortal’s soul from a god’s words, as even a “hello” could break a soul apart if they didn’t have proper protection. Even saints and champions couldn’t hear them properly despite having a blessing. Even Mother, whose soul was strong enough to chit-chat with Kramps if she wanted to, wasn’t perfectly suited to listening to a god.

On the other hand, I was a big exception to this rule. My soul was technically pretty weak right now since it was fractured and still recovering, but thanks to Aurena’s and Kramp’s work on my soul before I was reincarnated, I was quite resilient to the aura and words of a god if I accepted them. Unlike how Aurena had to shoo me out of her divine realm at the beginning to safeguard me, I could pretty much handle a lengthy talk without any problems after being exposed to them so often.

As such, similar to with Kramps, I was acting as the translator here. If Klea’Hatma were here too, she could have helped out.

“… I see,” Saori blurted out, but I could see she was still confused as hell with everything. “Actually, no, I do not understand what is going on. Why is there a goddess in our subspace? What is with that warehouse she pointed us at? I have too many questions.”

Her irritation blew up. I guess it was still too early in the morning for this. As such, we had to begin at the start.

“Saori.” Ilsaphone sat down on a chair before scribbling something on a wooden slate she had with her. She turned it around, revealing a “Can you read this?”

However, Saori turned her head around again, looking even more confused. I had to tell her what was written there. The voice and writing of a god was too divine for people to understand, and I could see Ilsaphone pouting about it.

“Saori’s and Asaka’s souls aren’t properly fortified yet, Hestia. Your blessing hasn’t reached the level of a demi-god’s yet.” Ilsaphone looked at me as if this was my fault. How the hell was this my fault?! Hello?!?!!?

“Hestia is still young, Goddess Ilsaphone. Expecting her to be anywhere close to a demi-god when she’s only a year old might be too much.” Mother could understand Ilsaphone well enough to reply.

How is this even my fault?! Also, why is my title supposed to help them listen to gods when I’m just a normal girl?

I began massaging my temples, remembering how I met Ilsaphone, Vivachel, and Kronnaz, the three daughters of Marsven, the same day that Saori fell unconscious. I had just received a System message about how Asaka wanted to rebel against her title. Since I somehow usurped it just as I did with [Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] and [The Light], I was technically able to override some of its functions, which led to Asaka learning how to use [Dark Magic] despite the title forbidding her at first.

Realizing something was going on, I stopped whatever I was doing with Mother and exited the subspace the moment a portal was opened on Ellaine’s side. Worried, I wanted to learn what was going on their side, only for me to run into the three night sisters.

Ellaine, Tatsuya, and Kyouya explained how Kronnaz was testing Ellaine’s control over Klea’Hatma, as the Goddess of Vengeance wasn’t too thrilled that the demon of lust was still alive. Technically, the trial probably should have failed, allowing Kronnaz to destroy Klea’Hatma, but she couldn’t, even if she had won.

Ellaine’s ownership over Klea’Hatma was currently under the protection of Aurena through the [Okl’Luthier’s Power] skill. Kronnaz still wanted to know if Ellaine was strong enough to act as a demon contractor, knowing Klea’Hatma could corrupt her easily, similar to many other mortals during the demon wars.

“I was not impressed with their strength… but that girl had the spirit and gall to fight back.” Kronnaz mentioned back then when I was still trying to digest the situation.

After Ilsaphone stopped the trial, Vivachel also appeared and greeted the three trial takers before Yorshka came over. It was during this time that I appeared and told Yorshka to hurry up and save Asaka. With Yorshka gone, the goddesses went on to leave us, except for Ilsaphone who stayed behind to explain why the hell they were here and lead us around like puppets.

The reason why Ilsaphone and Vivachel posted that Quest was simply ‘cause they thought we would be interested in knowing what was going on at that village, whilst also potentially helping Ilsaphone with her project. Similar to the onnikais by Griffonpeak from before, her plan was to create her own patron race using these dead faefolk. For example, the four garms Saori had were the ideal of this plan.

Asaka was key for Ilsaphone’s plans, and was predicting she would follow Ellaine and the two boys after the cartel business. No idea how she could, but everything seemed to have gone as she planned. Asaka made contact with the trapped onnikais inside a village managed by the Resurrection and House Resclave.

While Ilsaphone did have an ulterior motive, she still helped us understand what was going on. At this point, Tasianna knew exactly who her targets were. The first senator I met in this city, the foxian woman Reajaen Resclave.

“Saori, Tasianna mentioned you met a foxian man in a black armor during the attack. Did you get a good look at him? Did his eyes look dead, for some reason?” I asked Saori after explaining all of that, to which she nodded. The person I was talking about was the one leading the Resurrection.

If it was true, then there was only one other foxian man I thought matched this description, and that was Reajaen’s son, Parilostro Resclave.

“But the issue with this is that it should be impossible,” Asaka commented, rubbing her hand on her face in irritation. “That’s the same person I met on my side. He nearly killed me!”

Asaka was right. The man I saw next to Reajaen in our first meeting, the man Asaka met, and the one Saori’s group saw. All three of them were the same person, but what made it unclear what was going on was how this man was in two places at the same time. Asaka and Saori met this man at around the same time.

It should be impossible. This couldn’t happen outside of if those two were actually twins, or…

“Sloth.” Mother said before holding up Ellaine’s mana rings, letting Klea’Hatma finally speak.

[“The demon of sloth, one of the most annoying people I’ve ever met. He was no terror on the battlefield like wrath or pride was, but he was our best defender. Until Kargryxmor killed him, nobody was able to penetrate our bases. The cloner and puppet master. In his sloth, he made others do his work. In this case, he made spare bodies to work for him.”]

“In other words, we’re dealing with a demonkin contractor here, and they are within this city.” I looked back at Ilsaphone. “This is the reason why you led us to both of these places, right? Goddess Aurena told me gods aren’t omniscient, but you sure are a seer.”

Ilsaphone shrugged. She seemed to have taken that as a compliment.

“Then what are we waiting for?” Saori almost stood up, but I told her we weren’t done with the explanation yet.

“In the one day you were out of commission, we did some looking around, or, I did it with the demon’s help.” Asaka pointed at Klea’Hatma. “We confirmed our suspicion with the sloth dude, and also discovered that there is another demonic source coming from the area the onnikais were trapped in.”

[“The aura of envy,”] Klea’Hatma ended.

“Hold on, are you telling me, there are two demonkin contractors in this city?! How is that possible?” Saori was blown away.

“The reason why we couldn’t move just yet is precisely due to this. We know the Resclaves have at least one demonkin contractor, and that the Ressurection’s enemy is involved with another, whoever they exactly are. Asaka spoke with the onnikais. The thing hidden inside that area was stolen from the latter.”

“But it still is confusing, right?” Asaka scratched her head. “If we engage with the Resurrection now, the other side might escape. We are planning on taking both out at once. The problem is, we have to find who the other group is.”

Saori nodded, agreeing with the idea before frowning. “… Then, what about Tasianna?”

“She’s holding back,” I said.

“Why? Her enemy is right in front of her. From what I heard, the onnikais trapped in that area were formally lesser faefolks who died from being drained, correct? She has her target and most likely the person responsible for the death of Princess Schuri.”

I knew the answer for this, but I wasn’t the one to answer it. That was reserved for our eavesdropper.

“Because I’m not satisfied, yet.” Tasianna entered the room, a forlorn expression on her face. “I want to look into that last location. The place where the mana batteries came from. I want to understand how a group of beastmen were the ones responsible for this. All this time… All my hatred for humans came from Princess Schuri’s death, and it turns out that the real perpetrators weren’t even humans? What have I been doing all this time?”

Tasianna, ever since we met her, has always disliked humans ‘cause of the fairy hunters who killed her former mistress. She despised the human so much that upon meeting her first human, she almost killed her. Saori and I have been slowly teaching Tasianna to let go of her anger, that not all humans were as scummy as she thought they were, and it seemed to have worked.

But I guess finding out the truth like this wasn’t alright to her. Like her worldview breaking apart, I presumed. She needed closure by finding the people who sent the fairy hunters on that day, but after learning who it actually was, she was questioning herself how narrow-minded she was.

“Tasianna, don’t worry.” She needed comfort, which meant I needed to be there for her. “We’ll get to the bottom of this. Reajaen or whoever she worked with will pay for this. So, don’t cry now after everything I said yesterday, alright?”

“Of course, Lady Hestia…”

All I hoped that she wouldn’t turn too cynical from all of this.

After Tasianna left the room, I then turned the discussion back to the last location on our list before we did something about it. “As such, I want to look into this last spot. Saori, I know you just woke up, but I need you to look into this place. I need to know what the Resurrection is actually planning. They’ve been releasing beastmen slaves, gave them a village to live in, and also sharing potions with the sick. Who are they really?”

I then placed the papers back on the table, the ones from the slave auction. “It wasn’t written anywhere here, but those O’Blooms and the two other Olden Money families must be responsible for the slave bandit attack. We just don’t have proof. The Resurrection’s enemy has to be one of these three or all of them, seeing as the Plymeirs and Urlandors were the people the Resurrection targeted by taking down the Layavete cartel. I will have Shaturin and the Layavetes handle this.”

I then pulled out another piece of parchment, but this time, it came from my storage. “This is the list of senators King Drangleic and his dukes believe we can work with. None of them trust the Olden Money, as they are not only prideful but also major schemers. Too stubborn and proud to control. On the other hand, the civil representatives are quite ambitious, but they know when it’s better to follow to reap their reward. We only need to control the majority of them to control Estralia, and Mother and I have a great plan for that.”

I looked over to Mother, who had her chest puffed up. “Oh yes, it will be such a spectacle. Estralia and Artorias will be blown away, I assure you.”

“Hmm? This is a first.” Asaka raised a brow. “I presume you will explain everything later on, Miss Mastermind? Then, what about me? Can I do something?”

“You’re awfully willing to help,” I commented, remembering how she acted out of character by wanting to help those onnikais. “In any case, I haven’t planned it out yet. But…”

I then pointed at Ilsaphone. “… She has. You have a specific reason for why you are here personally, right, Goddess Ilsaphone?”

“True.” Saori stared at the goddess with questioning eyes. “That [Watched by Ilsaphone] title and the attack from Fulsara. I want to know what exactly you want with us, Goddess Ilsaphone. You involved Hanazawa-san in this, too.”

Ilsaphone remained silent for a bit, playing with her ear as she thought the words through. She then looked at me, probably asking me to translate, so I nodded.

“Essentially, my dearest Mother, Edna, wishes to make Saori into her champion, unlike dearest Father. Mother believes we of the dark pantheon must involve ourselves in the current demonkin conflict with the holy pantheon. We sisters agree,” Ilsaphone revealed. “Fulsara… her intentions were twisted by the friendship she had with the demonkin she traveled with. The one you killed, Hestia.”

“…” I remained silent. I couldn’t care less about him. He killed Eshe and, for that, I hoped he burnt in hell.

“I must admit, I never intended Fulsara or any of my followers to meet you, Saori. The saints and champions of dearest Father and Mother probably spoke about it, after they detected your [Watched by Edna] title you got when you evolved. When Fulsara came here, she barely understood any of my words when I sent a System message. It was too late.”

She then went on to explain how her mortal bodies couldn’t be always used. After some problems in the past, gods would have a harder time descending down to the mortal realm due to Plesia putting up stricter rules. Since a god’s presence here could alter major events.

When I asked her about how her involvement was also changing things up in Estralia, she explained the reason she gave Plesia was to turn Saori and Asaka into a champion and saintess respectively. As a god, she was allowed to guide, but never interfere directly. She showed us the path, now we had to choose how to walk it.

“You may do whatever you want. You do not have to follow a god’s will,” she answered. “Just as I couldn’t come down to stop Fulsara, you do not have to continue following the shadow I left behind. You may even go down a different path of what I expect. It is your choice, as mortals. As such…”

She stretched her hand out and began tapping in the air with her fingers, until two System messages came to Saori and Asaka. Once they read through it, they shared it with Mother and me.

Divine Quest: Expunge the two demonkin associates in Gleisvale and explore the secrets of the demonic mana source

Quest Giver: Goddess of Death and Necromancy, Ilsaphone

Description: Saori, find the two demonkin associates in this city. How you deal with them will be left to your choice. Also, explore the dungeon created by the onnikais and the demonic mana and find its dungeon core. Destroy the dungeon, but the dungeon core will be left to your discretion.

Reward: +1 Level, Edna’s blessing, information on Belzac’s intention

Divine Quest: Rescue the onnikais left in Estralia and aid them in finding a place to settle down. Become their guide

Quest Giver: Goddess of Death and Necromancy, Ilsaphone

Description: Asaka, rescue and aid the onnikais in finding a place where they can live and prosper. Once you have, the reward will be dispensed

Reward: Ilsaphone’s blessing, empty vessel magic, unique skill

At first glance, it really seemed Saori was getting the shorter end of the stick, as Asaka would not only receive a god’s blessing, but also an empty vessel magic and unique skill from the deal. However, to Saori and me, a free level up was worth the deal.

She had two years left to reach level 45 and max out the necessary skills for her to evolve into an A rank, and since our experience gain was heavily nerfed, getting there was hard without always fighting against powerful beings. Even one more level was amazing.

Saori knew this, so she didn’t complain; however, there was something else both she and Asaka couldn’t accept.

““I don’t want to become your blessed.”” They said simultaneously.

“Hey,” I looked at them as if they were crazy. “You do know what I’ve received from all of my work for Aurena, right? Quite a lot of stuff. Are you two serious about declining it like this?”

“I don’t want to continue dealing with this. One promise is enough, and now they want me to not only free them but also find a safe haven? I’ll do it, but not again. The saintess crap is too much…” Asaka began to give her usual speech about her unwillingness to take responsibilities, albeit with a more reluctant side.

On the other hand, Saori just shook her head. “I will be honest, I still have some misgivings about Fulsara, Goddess Ilsaphone. If I have to deal with that all the time, I would rather become inconspicuous again. A goddess’s blessing sounds interesting, but I think I can achieve greater strength on my own.”

“If that is your wish, then so be it.” Ilsaphone stood up from her chair, about to leave the room. “However, I will leave the reward in the Quest. To become a champion or saintess, you will have to accept it willingly in the first place. Everything will work out in the end.”

“I heard the God of Darkness is also the God of Fate,” Mother suddenly brought up. “Did you inherit some of that fate power, Goddess?”

“Hiehie… I am no Goddess of Time, Melloxtressa. But… if I may give a tip. Saori, retrieve all four pelts of your shadow garms.” And with that, she left the room. I closed my eyes, also noticing she had left the subspace.

“Damn…” Asaka clicked her tongue before mumbling under her breath. “I should have asked her about Elrick…”

I should have asked her about this step-sister thing, too. I lamented, remembering how Vivachel, the elven woman I met at the pastry shop, mentioned that. But, for some reason, I held it back, thinking she wouldn’t have answered that anyways. Maybe I should ask Kramps or Aurena about it.

In any case, our plans were settled when I told everybody our plans in the evening. Now, it was about executing it and then cornering both Reajaen and the second demonkin contractor. Find the proof, denounce them, and then get things rolling.

But, for that, I shall leave it to the rest of Aurora. As for me, Mother and I still had a very important project for all of this, and until then, I had to focus on that~

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 292: The Answer: Curry.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Sail! Out! Waters still, weather fine! Sail with Melicertha’s and Plesia’s blessing!”

“Hey! Saori, let’s go!” Grimnir called out to me, trying to bring my attention back to him, but I couldn’t help but to continue watching the workings of the dock.

The sound of sails unfurling and catching the wind, accompanied by the sailors’ and dock managers’ confirming ahoys. The anchor was retrieved from the ground of the river before water mages began to push the ship they were on forward. Another cargo ship was sent with boxes full of wares down the river to another country. Another day at the docks of Gleisvale.

Honestly, when I first came here, I thought it was magnificent, worthy of being one of the top three locations to visit when you’re in the city. I wasn’t able to go to the train station and going to the fort the merchant guild was based in wasn’t possible now, as it also doubled as the senate’s meeting chambers. Acting like a tourist, for me, was more enjoyable than coming here for business.

And, despite only being a river, Gleislane was huge. Far larger than I had thought at first. A huge pond was where the docks were, with its water coming down from the Ankoran mountain, giving the city its distinct water canals. To reiterate, the river’s beginning at the docks was like an inland sea.

And this river went under a hanging hill, which looked like an arch, from the Centipedeclaw rock formation surrounding the capital of Estralia. There were only two suitable entries into this city — the valley and the river — and both were a sight to behold. I only began admiring it once I saw the ship traffic around the docks. A natural phenomenon.

And then I brought my attention to the docks itself, noticing the seamen hanging around in nearby pubs and inns, waiting for their next voyage. Dock managers and guards would roam the area, making sure everything was working and in peace.

Rowdy sailors and adventurers were a common sight here. They either drank and ate with each other, or were arguing and fighting after a game or two. If you thought about it, sailors were like the adventurers of the oceans and seas, right? I felt that was right in a way, though I didn’t know much about it. My opinion only came from observing these people, after all.

“Miss Saori!”

“Coming!” I stopped watching after Tasianna urged me back to the group. “Sorry about that.”

“Jeez, Sensei, I never knew you were this interested in the ocean. You never acted like this when we went on the school trips,” Daichi commented, resting his staff on his shoulders.

“She’s probably still occupied with what Hestia said yesterday,” Ellaine interjected. “Saori only had a day of rest after what happened at the warehouse, right? We should allow her some time to relax before we reach our destination.”

“You only had a few days of rest, too, lass! You are not one to talk,” Grimnir stated, chastising his apprentice.

“Three days is just fine! Besides, with Hestia working on whatever she’s planning, I can’t be the only member of Aurora staying in bed just because I fought a random, ahem—” She placed her hands in front of her mouth, and mumbled, “— goddess.”

I thanked Ellaine for supporting my decision. It wasn’t as if Tatsuya, Kyouya, and Hanazawa were sitting in their beds either despite the trials they faced on their adventure in that beastmen village. They too were doing work, coordinating with Gael and the Shaturein-Layavete cooperation team to find things out about the second demonkin contractor in this city.

My group, on the other hand, were finishing up with what we started out — finding the location of the mana battery that Layavete spy found. And this time, it wasn’t some place which belonged to a senator we suspected, but the actual place itself.

Grimnir pulled up the note with the location on it, reading it out loud to us. “Close to the fifth dock, in an alleyway behind the Groundbait Kleesha. There is a manhole hidden behind a bunch of trash. Hard to detect, as it's covered by an earth mage.”

The noise of the docks hid our talking well enough.

“Kleesha?” I looked at Grimnir.

He nodded, smiling like an enthused uncle. “Sliced raw fish,” he answered.

So, sashimi.

He then continued, describing it with the hearty voice of a connoisseur. “Dipped in pickled rivergrass or seafruit, and you can eat that stuff without getting a stomach ache. But, oh boy, khohoho, that stuff hits you tongue like a bomb. It’s so sour and intense that you can’t even get rid of it with dwarven mead. It’s the good stuff, Saori.”

“Ha! Then we should try it out once we’re done, Grimnir. We haven’t had a drink together since we arrived in this city. Yorshka is also swamped with work from all the company Quests, so let’s invite her, too.” I was already imagining the aftermath of this tip.

“We do still need to celebrate your birthday, Saori,” Ellaine pointed out. “Haruka-chan, too, so there'll be a ton of things we need to celebrate. A feast!”

Our small talk was great for the mood of our group, save for one person. Tasianna, hadn’t participated in any of our talks as we walked, staying silent even after we reached the fifth pier of the dock. The revelation of the real mastermind behind Princess Shcuri’s death was affecting her.

Then again, maybe it really wasn’t much better for us, either. At our current location, we had a perfect view of the warehouse at the first dock where that slave auction happened. Burned down, but its rubble and remains hadn’t been removed yet. Looking at it gave me a terrible headache.

The fire, the smoke, the heat; I thought I had gotten used to it with being around Hestia and inside a real magma chamber, but watching those slaves being scared within it was something else. Their coughing, their unanswered pleas for help, and their weeping filled the crackling warehouse in noise.

I felt as if I was suffocating in the [Shadow Armament] cowl I had on to ward off the smoke. Maybe I lied to Hestia a bit about taking my armor off to not scare the children I saw in their cages. I felt light-headed back then. I wondered if this was what my father always experienced on the job. He rarely told Mother and me about the tragedies on his job, always the moments when the “hero saved the people.”

Father…

My memories from when he was still alive began to creep back up, but I pushed it back before continuing with the others to the tavern. I wished the slaves we managed to rescue good luck inside my mind, hoping their slave contracts were burned down with the whole warehouse so their tattoo would disappear.

“Hoyoooooo loooong! On a wave of the river, the grass is tangling ‘round. Air full of life and cold, that makes the mead taste so sheit. Ooooh, but so divine, at the docks with all the maidens~! ♫” Sailors were singing sea shanties, jolly as they ate and drank despite it being in the middle of the day.

Like most inhabitants in this city, the sailors were mostly just humans and land- and air-based beastmen. There were no levianewts or merfolk among them. I thought there would be at least one or two water-based beastmen, but I guess we were too deep inland, and a single river wasn’t enough. Then again, I was just guessing and had no real idea about it.

After walking past the Groundbait Kleesha, we moved into the alleyway behind it, ignoring the shady-looking people around us. We were all wearing robes and hoods, but we stuck out quite a bit due to Tasianna and Grimnir.

Even with our hoods, Tasianna’s pointy elven ears and Grimnir’s large ram horns and height made their races a bit obvious. Dwarves were normal citizens in this city, but most stuck to their neighborhood around the train station, while elves were entirely devoid in this city. Not even half-elves.

At this point, all the power players likely know about us or whatever. Some probably know we were at the warehouse, too.

We continued on without caring about them.

The trash and junk in this alley reeked. Drunk sailors and puking homeless people populated our path forward, making it hard for us to look around the area. Some of them even came close to us, wobbling around as they swung their bottles almost to the point I was worried they would hit us.

A few of the sailors hit on the women in our group, but most of them were so unhinged from the alcohol that they thought we were here to party with them. Thankfully, Grimnir knew how to take care of drunks and Daichi was quite assertive when he’s annoyed. Teacher’s pet he might be, but he knew how to fake his confidence whenever he needed to speak.

“This note is worthless.” I threw the note away into the trash around us, now realizing how unspecific the directions were We should have just brought the spy with us because “hidden underneath the trash” leads us nowhere.

Let it be known, I’m willing to dive through the trash… I lamented with everybody before using [Shadow Armament] on everybody so they didn’t have to smell this.

After a grueling time searching around, to the point we made a mountain of trash at another location, we managed to find a spot where the ground looked weird. Ellaine cracked the ground with the beginner-level custom spell [Create Crack], revealing a metal disc underneath it.

Pulling it up, we discovered the manhole, and sure enough, I was glad I had my shadow mask on. One whiff of it, and I already had a terrible feeling with how atrocious it smelt.

“… I don’t think anybody is in there.” I couldn’t find anybody with [Detection Sensor] and I thought it was suspicious that the smell was this bad.

“Yeah…” Grimnir nodded. “If a beastman were in there, they would try to make it smell less terrible. Most of them have extremely good noses, and I don’t think you would want to wear a mask all the time.”

To not enter a trap, I took out a wooden slate from my storage. On it, there was a magic circle and a chant for the custom spell [Manalocation]. Muraina had given it to me when I was still sparring with her. Not like I won any of the spars, but it was still a good learning experience.

I planned on learning the spell at an earlier time too, but I never had the chance to do so. [Manalocation] was easy to understand and use, so I had no problem reading everything. It was simply using wind mana to send a wave out and having it return to the magic circle as a signal. Like a bat’s echolocation. Thankfully, you didn’t need to have [Wind Magic] to cast it.

The magic circle only has a few letters, unlike what Hestia and I make. Is it more efficient, I wonder? Or just easier to learn?

I released my mana out through my fingers as I looked and memorized the magic circle on the slate, before beginning the chant for the translated version of the spell. Obviously, I couldn’t read elven.

“Seek thy mark within obscurity and the unknown, fill the air with wind goddess’ magicks. Call forth thy mana of pure, for thou’rt the conduit of the storm. Thine will, the gods’ commandest. Manalocation.”

Custom spell gained: [Manalocation]

The green magic circle began to morph, changing from its standardized form into what looked like a spider web with a large circular plane in the middle. Tapping into it hard for a second, the magic circle wobbled around, and nothing really happened. However, since I knew from watching Muraina use this spell, I understood the spell was working. I just couldn’t see it without [Mana Eyes] like Hestia had.

After a few seconds, the circle began to vibrate again, but this time on its own. Certain words on the magic circle lit up, informing me there were multiple medium sized targets down the manhole. I informed this to the rest and we decided to venture down.

Climbing down it with the ladder next to it, we eventually made it down to the bottom. Daichi conjured up a flame to use as a torch and we began to move forward. I still couldn’t detect anything with [Detection Sensor], but [Manalocation] kept repeating something was in front of us.

After a while, I finally understood why the information was conflicting. All of the people the spell was detecting were the rotting remains of beastmen and humans. And as we kept looking around, this whole place looked like it was burned down or something.

“Tasianna?” I wondered if she noticed any faefolk around, but she simply shook her head.

“There are a few, but none of them want to speak with me. Most of them are simply celebrating that they could finally leave this place, since we opened up the hole.”

A bit ungrateful.

We pressed on. [Detection Sensor] wasn’t notifying me about anything, and I couldn't hear anything else but the breathing of my companions. The silence of the dead was too eerie to fully ignore, though.

“Some of them have their version of the Haireti’s armor on them,” Tasianna noted, pointing at the dead beastmen. “Some were burned, but others died through other wounds.”

“Same thing could be said about the humans,” Ellaine noted as she picked up a sword with dried blood on it.

[“It seemed like a battle ensued here. The bodies have become quite stiff already, from the looks of it. We probably missed them by a few days,”] Klea’Hatma added. [“Guess all of you were too late. I don’t think we can find anything else here.”]

“Hmph. Who knows.” However, Grimnir decided we should look into it more, leave no stones unturned. “But, I guess if this base belonged to the Resurrection, then the attack they made on the warehouse probably was retaliation for whatever happened here. If more of those mana batteries were around, then the attackers probably took them. Any emblems on the people?”

Daichi searched through the bodies of the dead with a queasy face at Grimnir’s question. “None, Master. Only the same snake one the Resurrection likes to keep around.”

“Daichi-kun, you don’t have to do everything you don’t like whenever Grimnri asks for it.” I massaged my temples. I couldn’t help but wonder if he will ever outgrow the sycophant side of his.

After walking in deeper, we learned that this place was like a maintenance tunnel for the water canals. There were a lot of dead ends as such, but following the trails of bodies, we made it into a self-dug hole.

Behind it was a hallway leading into three different rooms. None of them had any flame marks like the tunnel in the beginning, so it was easy enough for us to identify what they were.

One was a supply room with piles of broken crates. Moldy food could be seen scattered around, and also other supplies like wood, ores, and also tools.

The second seemed like an abandoned sleeping bunker. Beds were inside with furniture and a few trinkets like plush toys, small wooden sculptures, and self-made amulets to name a few. If you ignored the brown blood puddles and corpses within it, this probably would have been a bittersweet sight.

The last one was definitely the most interesting, though. Especially since it drew Grimnir’s interest as he charged towards a workstation.

“Ellaine, lass, come’re.” He called her over to him with Daichi following behind her. “Look at these tools. Tell me, what are they?”

“… Master, if I may be presumptuous, don’t they look a bit similar in design to the ones your cousin used? The ones you safekeep?”

“Aye, they are, lass. Every tazongn artificer orders or makes their own set of tools, as every hand is different. That’s why I made your own set after measuring your hands and how you like to use them.”

“And I will treasure them eternally, Master Grimnir.”

“Mhmm.” Grimnir nodded to Ellaine’s loyalty. “But, that’s besides the point, these tools were obviously made using dwarven technique and hands. Every blacksmith makes manatech tools differently, and that shows when you inspect those made by the different races. The size, the durability, and how refined the metal is. All of this contributes to how well they conduct mana.”

“Do you mean human smiths have a different style of tools, Master?” Daichi asked before turning around to Ellaine. “Ellaine-chan, you should still have your old set of tools, right? How do they feel?”

“The ones I received from my mother were made in the Groushia duchy, so from human blacksmiths tutored by dwarves. They conduct less mana than the ones Master Grimnir made for me, but they feel more dexterous to use.”

“Aye, dwarves have less mana in general compared to humans, as it's harder for us to train and increase our capacity. So, we make tools which conduct our mana better, but are bulkier to use since our hands are larger than yours.” Grimnir then picked up one of the tools. “These were made for dwarven hands. Either a tazong was working ’ere or some rat piece-of-shit stole it from them. Tazongn blacksmiths never have spares of their tools to sell, they always make them upon commission according to the customer’s hands.”

Whether it was a dwarf or not, what this confirmed was that this really was the place where the mana batteries came from. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find any signs of faefolk cages, onnikai, or even additional mana batteries. Were they taken during the raid?

Looking at the dead bodies around, beastmen and humans, there definitely was a clash here. No magic, but I could see bomb marks and arrows laying around. It was mostly a melee scuffle, but a deadly one, nonetheless.

With nothing more to find, we left the hole with even more questions than we came in with. I dispelled the [Shadow Armament] around us and Tasianna began surrounding us individually with scented flower oil she made at home.

This place should have been the last place we hit until we went after the Reslaves and whoever the second demonkin contractor was, but this search led to nothing. I could see Tasianna’s disappointment in her gloomy face.

I felt dejected, as I could hear my garms pestering me to find the person who had their pelts. Loyal as they were, their garm memories were affecting them, and they wanted to track down the people who had their bodies. I retrieved Song’s former pelt from the Layavete cartel’s boss, but we were still missing Uno’s, Sarasa’s, and Quatre’s.

Sulky, we made our way back to the RV. We needed to inform Hestia about everything, and hope that Hanazawa’s side would find something about the other demonkin contractor.

“Captain! Stop!”

But as we passed the Grounbait Kleesha, the louder than before commotion drew our attention. Four lizard—

“Levianewts?!” Tasianna blurted out before I could end my thought.

Now that I looked at them, these four scale-kins looked nowhere close to the lizardmen we met in the Belzac forest. All four of them had dorsal fins, spikes, and shimmering scales ranging from green, blue, and yellow.

Being full-animalistic beastmen — so their whole appearance looked more like bipedal lizards, they had some similarities to the dragons — dragonewts, and wyverns in our company when they were in [Humanize Lv. 1] form. In that their scales looked like hard armor rather than skin, and their heads were intimidating.

If I were to rate which scale-kins were the most intimidating in appearance, it would go from levianewts, dragonkins, saurians, and lizardmen in that order, based onthe ones I’ve met up until now.

“Captain, please! Stop talking with him!” One of the levianewts grabbed onto a well-dressed one with a blue suit and a bicorn hat.

The one called “Captain” opened his large mouth, showing off the two fins underneath his neck and the barbel on his chin. “What are you talking about, mate?! He just said he knew somebody who can make curry! Oh, woe on the sea, a blessing from the depths! The Goddess has decided to bless us with some actual real food! Not this knock-off seafood coming from a puny lake!”

“Captain, don’t say that!”

Some of the sailors bashed the bottom of their mugs hard on their tables before standing up, clearly feeling insulted at a foreigner's criticism of their local food. Like a bunch of rowdy adventurers, they cracked their necks and knuckles, looking like they wanted to fight.

“You!” But, the green and blue scaled captain didn’t give those people a single look. He simply kept speaking with the adventurer before him. “Tell me! Where is that eatery with the curry! I wish to delight myself in the sea’s bounty once again! A hearty curry for the weary sailor trapped in land without his boat! Gahahahaha!”

Huh… what a jolly good fellow. Well, hope he looks around in time.

The sailors were approaching and the captain’s companions were trying to turn him around, but the cheerful levianewt wouldn’t. At this point, we should probably go before a fight began.

“Miss Saori!” But, as all of us were about to leave, Tasianna grabbed my arm and pointed at the brooch on the suited levianewt’s chest. “That’s the church of Plesia’s emblem. Those levianewts have to be Caedhulen!”

A small engraving of the sea’s beauty on an oval shield framed with tentacles looking like waves. It looked a bit different from Tasianna’s amulet of Plesia, who had the Goddess of Water more in focus, but I guessed both had tentacles?

Regardless, that was the important part. What was important was how Tasianna reminded me of the documents I gave Hestia, about a levianewt handing the O’Blooms the elven yeast supply. His name was something-something Bayudra, but maybe this was all just a coi—

“Captain Bayudra, turn around!”

… Okay.

“Hmm?” The levianewt turned around, looking at the angered sailors with no sense of danger. “Ahhh! My fellow seamen! Are you also in search of the wondrous power food that is curry! Caedhul’s greatest dish, made with powerful spices and plenty of fish to satisfy even the wildest storms we call our stomachs. An amazing voyage ration, I must say!”

Oh goodness!

But, against his expectations, these sailors weren’t here to make friends and break bread, they were here to solve the dispute in the one way they knew best.

“You don’t come into a man’s home and insults his favorite tave—”

“Stop!” I dashed in between the two men and catched the aggressor’s fist before it hit the levianewt. “This is all just a misunderstanding. Please, you do not need to get into a fight.”

“Tch! Woman, get out of the way! This isn’t ya damn business! This is between us men!” The sailor retrieved his arm, massaging it as he looked in confusion at how I was able to stop his burly arm. “Some random stranger has no right to come into our city and insult our food! That ain’t right. That ain’t nothing but rude!”

“Yeah! Storm in the water, if river fish ain’t to his liking, then get back to the sea! Taste your damn ocean bounty, we can do without all the damn jests on our behalf.”

There was clearly some animosity between the freshwater sailors and these levianewts, or maybe saltwater sailors in general?

“Hold on! Our captain didn’t mean that! He talks too much and exaggerates a lot when he goes on a tangent.” The levienewts tried to diffuse the situation.

“Yeah! Captain Bayudra, just apologize to them already! We can’t just get into another fight after only two visits!”

“Hmm?” But the captain only tilted his head to his crewmates’ pleading. “What are we talking about? What is with this fight? All I said was the truth! Freshwater fish cannot hold up against the myriad tastes and the abundance of fish the ocean can deliver to a hard-working sailor. This place is watered down, and they don’t even serve any curry! What is the meaning of this?”

But the fuse wasn’t blown out; in fact, the bomb just became even larger.

“You bottom-feeding chum! Riiiargh!” Without any warning, the sailor sent a sucker punch at the levianewt, which I barely caught in time without hurting him. Any faster, and I wouldn’t have been able to cushion his arm, causing it to break from the impact and force.

“What in the hell, you damn wren—!!!” He tried to swear, only to stop and take a step back with the other sailor.

Huh?

“Oh fuck! That’s the ‘Jet-Black Thunder Wolf!’” The adventurer the captain was talking with a second ago shot up and pointed at me, calling out my nickname.

“Huh? Jet-Black Thunder Wolf? Who’s that?” Another patron of this tavern spoke up, prompting the adventurer to explain it in detail.

“One of the heroes who stop the capital of Artorias, Griffonpeak, from being destroyed by two giant B rank and A rank threats! She was in the front, taking out a giant A rank monster by herself with her giant wolf. They call her the Thunder Wolf because she can shoot out black lightning! Those eyes! Those red-blood misty eyes are her trademark I heard from a friend over at the place!”

“What? She’s an A ranker? I guess she did stop two punches without any effort.”

“Oh shit, I think I heard about her. Didn’t she fight with that random dragon that appeared out of nowhere over there?”

“A dragon? You kidding me? Who would believe that crap.”

It seemed my reputation preceded me… I really did not know how to feel about this. I also noticed my hood blew off due to the force of the sailor’s punch. No wonder my ears felt the wind again.

“Hey, hey, levianewt!” The adventurer suddenly grabbed the captain. “That’s one of the women I was talking about! She’s part of the hunter company managing a small eatery which serves that curry you wanted! I went over there! By the Goddess, it tastes exactly like what I experienced in Port Hevalentus when I sailed over there for a visit, no, it’s even better!”

“Oooooh! Truthfully! Then, my lady!” The captain then grabbed my shoulders and turned me around, breathing down at me as he spoke with his large sea dragon mouth. “Then you must lead me to your establishment! I beg of you! By the Goddess of the Ocean, I have not tasted good curry ever since I came to this city. Please, my men and I, Adhi Bayudra, must taste our home’s dearest food!”

“Uhm, I mean—” I wanted to agree, but the levianewt lived in his own present.

“Oi, you men!” He called over the sailors from before. “You want curry, too, right? Then come! I shall pay for your meals and drinks for today! This is worthy of celebration with mead, ale, and food! Jubilation! We sail, seamen!”

“““Ahoy! Blessed the Goddess!”””

“““Blessed water to you, Captain!”””

And just like that, the previous animosity was bribed away. And for some random reason, my group and I were now leading a pack of cheering sailors to our bistro. They sang sea chanties together as if they have been friends for years.

“Welp, I guess we’re gonna have our drink sooner than I thought, Saori. Gahahaha!” Grimnir joined the seamen despite hating oceans and lakes. Men were men.

“Miss Saori, don’t forget, this is a good opportunity to find our next clue.”

“Yes, we need to get information from him, Saori. We might be able to solve who actually is our second enemy here.”

Both Tasianna and Ellaine urged and comforted me that this was the correct decision, but all I could wonder was how this came to be. How did we end up going from a stinky manhole to leading customers to our bistro?

A note from AbyssRaven

I do like eating curry. Warms me up.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters for the whole month! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 293: The Scent of Lurking Schemers.

“Oooooooooohyoooo! What do we do with a stranded serpent? What do we do with a stranded serpent? What do we do with a stranded serpent? With the leviathan around now~! ♫”

Bistro Aurora.

The rebranding of our previous street eatery into a proper establishment where people could eat and drink as much as they wanted transformed the eatery into a normal tavern. With our Quest counter to the side, it also served as a place for adventurers to hang out, mostly so we could gather information in the area.

Currently, we did not have the subspace open in multiple areas, only here in Gleisvale, since we were still not sure how to manage our guests. Sure, it would be good if we could gather customers from Griffonpeak and Gleisvale at the same time, but who knew how much of a security problem that would be?

This would become not just a place to eat, drink, and relax, but a hub for information trading between factions. It would be so easy, and it could be done all while under our noses. Hestia could manage it as the master of the subspace, but that would be ridiculous. She had better things to do.

Leaving the Room open to allow anyone to enter the bistro would be okay for places we were certainly allied with and had fixed control over, like Griffonpeak, Cedaraille, Firwood, and maybe Ullistar, but that was about it. Ideally, we would have our customers self-regulate themselves, but that was a pipedream for now. We couldn’t force them and it would ruin the mood if we tried to.

Nevertheless, Tamae’s goal was clear. This was for her to test out her more experimental recipes and serve different sorts of people in a casual setting, unlike the fine dining restaurant between nobles and rich merchants. The latter couldn’t operate every day for now, but this place for sure could.

“Oh hoy, pray to the gods! Oh hoy, pray to the gods! Oh hoy, pray to the gods! That it won’t just sink us~! ♫”

In the middle of the bistro, human, beastman, and levianewt sailors were dancing around, joyfully sharing mead together as they sang sea shanties. The Caedhulen levianewts and Estralian sailors certainly had songs the other didn’t know about, but once they found something both knew, both parties would go wild.

The adventurers and our normal, everyday worker patrons also joined in, of course. The monotony of the day was reason enough to simply join when fun was around. Our bistro could be rowdy and loud, but that wasn’t something we disliked. In fact, our two waitresses loved the mood!

“Hey, don’t throw the damn chairs around! Lady Hestia made them in her own time just for the bistro!” Haati, our katzune waitress scolded two sailors, pushing them back on their chairs like children. She knew how to handle tavern guests. “Eat up, boys! The next servings are coming up!”

“Yyyyeaaaaaaaaah! THANKS, HAATI!” Haati has pretty much become the mascot of the bistro at this point.

“Refills! Mugs out!” On the other hand, our human waitress, Lorena, was keeping the front side going as she meticulously worked through the orders. She wasn’t as energetic in her customer’s service compared to Haati, but people liked her since she got their orders out fast. “Your landbat steak has to wait for a moment. Sandwiches are out, here you go! And, sliced sausages here. Guess what’s in them today, everybody~”

For two normal waitresses, this would have probably been pretty rough, but I heard they went to get some levels with the Magical Biscuits just so they could have the levels and to buy the necessary skills they needed for this. They probably were still swamped in work, but at least the kitchen manned by Tamae and Priscilla was working without a problem.

“Excuse me!” Outside of tavern work, there was also our Quest counter, where a person dressed as a butler was standing next to it.

“In a moment!” Lorena called out before serving the remaining people. She cleaned her hands at a basin using the water catalyst there, and then greeted the guest. “Company Aurora is here at your service. Is there something you wish to commission or are you looking into the progress of one of your Quests?”

“The former, Miss. My patron wishes to continue his business with you, and, as such, requires these materials if you are so willing to acquire them on our behalf.” The man handed Lorena a list of monster materials, or so I presumed, which she began to read out loud to him to confirm.

I heard Haati and Lorena had a crash course with Svena to learn how to read and write. This was probably the reason why Lorena and Haati could both serve as receptionists. However, considering the future, we either needed more employees or a dedicated person at the counter. Our two waitresses were already too busy for an additional job. For now, however, the counter didn’t receive many commissions. It wasn’t active every day, but I heard from Nishio that they had a lot of Quests to do. Quite a lot of leveling on their side. I really should consider helping them out for my own growth.

“Mhmm!”

But, back to reality. The reason why I was in the bistro right now.

“Ahhhh, the tide’s blessings to you, Saori. Ahhhh, this curry… is magnificent.” Adhi Bayudra, a levianewt captain from Caedhul, thanked me, flapping his dorsal fins in gratitude. “I must be honest, I was skeptical. I have never, ever tasted a good curry made without fish or ocean products in the western part of Altrust before. Only the eastern Evidian curry was good enough to sate my stomach, and I have been a sailor for nearly 70 years now.”

“Well, then you probably never met Tamae-san before, Mister Adhi.” Daichi placed another spoon full of curry rice into his mouth, causing Adhi to gulp despite having eaten seven plates full of it, including some naan bread on the side. “Give her a recipe and she will quickly master it in one to two tries. Afterwards, she will give the dish her own spin on it, adding and experimenting with it; she believes that there’s more to cooking than just filling up your stomach.”

Daichi and Tamae weren’t close. They were classmates and could speak with each other, but at best, you could call them good acquaintances even after traveling with each other for two years. This was just Daichi promoting her to try to win over Adhi.

“Ahhh, I see, so this is why this curry tasted so differently from conventional curry you can find elsewhere in Caedhul. It even still has the required spiciness and savoriness it needs to be good. Hmm, impressive. Astounding.” He nodded before slamming the table to rise up, calling out with his right arm stretched out. “Another portion, please!”

After he sat down again with a wide, greedy grin, he looked at Grimnir, Tasianna, and me. He gave us a nod for some reason. Did he see through why we were here?

“Ahh, I believe I am taking up too much of your time. As is tradition, I must give my thanks to you for serving my men and me such a wonderful dish after we spent days without any. Please, your faces leak your intentions,” he pointed out our ulterior motive. “Do not worry, if it is transporting cargo, then you came to the right levianewt! I, Adhi Bayudra, am a transport captain extraordinaire! Unless death claims me, by God Melicertha, I shall deliver any package to the destination unharmed! Ayhahahahaha!”

Boisterous, huh?

Considering he was inviting us to speak out, Grimnir did as such. “We’re looking into the person you’re selling the yeast to, Captain.”

“Mhmm. Can’t do.” The energy he had in his movement and voice disappeared and he sat down with a restrained smile. “By my honor, I cannot divulge information from my clients. No transport information, apologies. You would understand, Miss Elf? I can see your amulet to our Depth Goddess.”

The rest of our group looked at Tasianna, and she nodded. “Goddess Plesia is the Goddess of Honor and as well as Order. If his honor doesn’t permit him to speak, then we won’t be able to force him. Similar to dragonewts, levianewts can be quite stubborn.”

Sure enough, it also applied to dragons. Hestia and Melloxtressa could be quite pig-headed. Like mother, like daughter.

As Adhi nodded to Tasianna’s pleasing words, it seemed he let his guard down as he didn’t expect Tasianna to still mount a counter.

“However, Mister Adhi, as Master Grimnir has already mentioned, we already know what your cargo was. You don’t need to skim over it, we know you’ve been transporting Saelarian yeast to an Estralian from the O’Bloom household. It isn’t illegal, but as allies, we Saelari frown at what you did.”

Tasianna herself couldn’t care less nor was Muraina bothered by it much, but those from the isolationist faction of Saelariel probably would be angered at how a levienewt was trading their precious yeast with humans. Tasianna was putting herself in their position.

Clearly unnerved at what Tasianna said, Adhi lowered his neck and came closer, almost speaking in a whisper. “It’s not like I’m trying to cover it up, but that trade should have been a secret. My contact should have paid everybody off for this thing to come in clean. You should not know about this.”

“Smuggling?” I raised an eyebrow at him, flustering him as he took my question as an assertion.

“No! No!” He waved his hand in front of him to deny everything. “I am not a smuggler! I am an honor-bound, lawful sailor! I bring cargo to people and do my job! I never take orders from unofficial sources!”

“But you did in this case, levianewt,” Grimnir argued back. “How can any of this be ‘official’ when you’re trying to be secretive? A tazong’s nose can smell the scent of a liar.”

I don’t need the ability to listen to hearts to know that’s a fat lie, Grimnir.

“Huh? You can? That’s something I’ve never heard from the dwarves I’ve met.” And, apparently, Adhi agreed. “Argh, regardless, by my faith to the depth Goddess, I can’t just reveal information like that, my friends. Regardless of my situation, I take myself as an honorable sailor.”

“Your situation?” I remembered something his men said at the argument back at the docks. “I heard your men and you mention about being stuck in the city for a while. Why can’t you leave?”

“Ark! Tidessss’swallow me, it’s all cuz of my damn mouth! But, how can one judge me when having fun is important for one’s life? And now, look at me, stuck inland without my ship! Just cuz I am supposed to transport another package, not including the money they haven’t paid me yet!” Adhi complained, probably thinking this information wasn’t too sensitive. “Estralia, the country of businessmen, and yet, what does the merchant I am waiting for do? Leave me high and dry for nearly three weeks now!”

Adhi bashed his hand on the table, rocking it at his show of strength. He snarled out loud, letting out his frustration at being stranded for this long. Whatever was stopping him seemed to be important.

“Why don’t you complain about it? A three weeks wait for your compensation is enough of a reason for even soldiers to abandon a cause. Merchants and especially sellswords are even less patient about it.” Ellaine pointed out, but Adhi could only shake his head in despair.

“The person I’m, reluctantly, working for is forcing me to stay here. I already have my compensation. The money is even going for today’s celebration, but everything else is supposed to be delivered to my client. I can’t leave cuz of that.”

“Which country does your client belong to?” I asked.

“No information on my client. I am giving you this much information because of this favor, but that is about it. I have my pride, Miss wolfkin. Please, respect it.”

“I understand that, but we might be able to help you if you can help us, Mister Adhi.” I produced my ID from underneath the table and showed it to Adhi. “We’re from the hunter company Aurora. Only a C rank for now, but our company leader wields a certain amount of influence. We can help you with your problem here in Gleisvale, but for the one back home, we need to know who it is.”

“… This is a rather expensive ID card, I must say. I’ve never seen one such as this outside of—”

“Royalty or the high nobles,” Grimnir ended his sentence, surprising Adhi. “One of the newer models, I must say. Not fake, in other words, and that you can believe since we dwarves are the ones responsible for making these IDs and selling them to other countries.”

“Our liege is Princess Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor,” Tasianna stated flatly. “We do not know what your problem is, Mister Adhi, but we are willing to help you out if you can help us out with our predicament.”

“P-Princess?! Hold on, that is not one of the names of a member of the Kargrxian royalty! You lie!” He stood up, outraged at what we said.

Apparently, even levianewts knew about the royal family? Or perhaps this person was above-average when it came to politics and global news.

“We aren’t. Please, calm down.” I stood up and went over to the door and entered Melloxtressa’s cave. Regardless of how he knew this, persuading him was now more important than asking him a redundant question.

I expected that the mother-daughter duo would be inside here, but I suddenly heard some noise coming from behind a giant crystal wall. That wasn’t here the last time I checked. However, coming closer to it, I noted how transparent it was, letting me see another cave adjacent to it, and this one was far larger than the one I was in.

Wait... is that?

Unlike the crystal cave-like decor of Melloxtressa’s cave, the one next to it was black, purple, and brown. Upon inspection, the black-purple ground looked quite similar to Hestia’s corrosive obsidian, even to the point of how glossy it was.

[“Saori?”] I suddenly heard Hestia’s voice entering my head, where I asked where she was. [“Oh, you need something? Sure, hold on. Watch the ground.”]

And in the next second, a large portion of the ground started to glow yellow before a giant crimson-red arm pierced through it and stomped the ground with its sickle-like claws. I was taken aback, moving backwards as I stared at this weird scene.

But, my fears quickly subsided when Hestia’s dragon head sprouted from the ground. Armored in her [Panzer], she shook the remnants of molten corrosive obsidian from her head and pulled the rest of her body out, looking almost as if she had just gone for a swim.

Hold on, what?

[“Whew, this is awesome.”] Hestia expressed with elation while shaking the rest of the “lava” off, like a wet dog. [“Mother. Shay. Beth. You guys can come out now.”]

In Hestia’s left hand, she was holding a large ball made from her scales. Probably a result of her scale manipulation training. But, when it opened up, it revealed Melloxtressa and the twins were inside of it. All three were clapping to Hestia’s success.

[“Were you guys hurt? You told me it was a bit too warm?”]

[“Yes, Princess.”] Shay nodded. [“I believe you need to put more mana around the scales to fortify your [Draconic Barrier]. However, your theory was correct; in conjunction with your scales, it can protect you from extreme heat.”]

[“Yes, you must fine-tune it a bit more. The perfect ratio of mana is needed for your future project.”] Beth clapped her hands and wagged her tail in excitement, before placing her hand on her chin. [“However, your movements… it took us a while to get through it all, despite your [Volcanic Blaze].”]

[“Urgh! Come on, I never swam in this body before! Besides, not only do I have to swim with a dragon body, but I also have to control [Volcanic Blaze] so I can swim underground! It’s hard, alright!”]

“Well, that is obvious, my whelping. Dragons aren’t meant to swim,” Melloxtressa defended her daughter. “Hmm, we might have to ask a drake or leviathan to teach you how to do it. Or, we can meet up with one of your stepmothers. Forminaztrass, the fourth empress, is a double-headed lichdragon. She had to learn how to swim while fighting off a leviathan, despite having a skeletal body.”

A lichdragon? How does a skeleton procreate?!

Disregarding whatever family business was going on here, I asked Hestia what she was doing and why there was another cave next to Melloxtressa’s.

Her answer?

“Every dragon and boss needs a boss room, right? I’m reconstructing the one I made in that cave in the Belzac forest.”

As expected of Hestia. A Hestia answer that should have been obvious to me.

But, seriously, the main reason why she made this place was for another reason, she admitted. She then turned around and heaved out a massive purple flame breath, swamping the area in the back in her flames. I was confused at what she was trying to show me, until the flames suddenly began to solidify.

Whilst Hestia sat on the floor, the flames moved by themselves, turning to slime as they formed an obsidian stage with most of the equipment needed for it. Although it was still barren without any decoration, making it monotonous, just like that, Hestia made a concert platform for herself.

[“[Volcanic Blaze] isn’t an empty vessel magic, sadly. It is, however, [Lavakinesis] and a pseudo [Terrakinesis] all in one skill. But, it also helps with something else that I’m planning on doing.”]

“Like that swimming part?” I asked her and she shrugged her dragon shoulders.

[“Yeah, I guess. But, I have an even better idea once my sun core regenerates. And I am training that part with mother.”] I could see Hestia’s mischievous smile in my head. My intuition told me she would either burn down another forest or become a rice cooker. One of those two.

After she transformed back into her dragonewt form, I explained the situation about Adhi and what occurred in the manhole from before. She accepted my proposal, so I brought her to the bistro. There, with one [Draconic Aura] and her [Royal Presence], she had Adhi and all his levianewt sailors kneeling down.

They pronounced, “We are unworthy of the majesty of a true dragonkin!” and caused Hestia to dash back into her cave. We had forgot dragonewts and levianewts could be zealots when it came to true dragonkins. It didn’t help that Yorshka and Priscilla didn’t act like the ones we should have expected.

“I cannot tell you much, but I shall do what I can. To help a true dragonkin, I, Adhi Bayudra, must have been blessed by Kargryxmor today!”

Adhi then went on to explain what he could without breaking his professional pride. In essence, the contract he was forced to reluctantly sign due to his loud mouth was only eligible if both clients could work with him. In other words, if one of them were to be removed either through force or imprisonment, he would be free.

Due to this, he had to stay in Gleisvale until his other client — the O’Bloom member — told him he could leave. As they kept him waiting, he became impatient after the first week ended and decided to stalk one of their members.

“The transactions happened at the train station, so we never learned who exactly our client was. Only that they belonged to the ‘O’Bloom household.’ After that, we were to wait around the dock for our next package, but it never came.”

When he saw one of the bodyguards on the day of the delivery, he decided to follow him against the judgement of his crew. He saw them enter the alleyway behind the Groundbait Kleesha and open a manhole before throwing in bombs. They entered it afterward and he heard fighting and screaming down there.

Once they came out, they also brought with them bags full of items from their raid. Afterward, they boarded on a boat and sailed forth. Since Adhi was a levianewt, he was a spectacular swimmer and could even breathe underwater with his gills. Tracking them was easy when he didn’t even have to swim as fast as he was able to.

After a while, the boat stopped right under the mountainous arch overhanging the river Gleislane. He wanted to get closer, but his instincts told him he should stay away from the place. Something was around there which could kill him, so he decided it was smarter to just stay away.

“From what I heard, it’s probably the hideout for one of the syndicates around here. The Riverside whatever gang. All I know about this city is that order is not a thing. Thank goodness the docks follow the Goddess’s will, but the rest of Estralia is certainly not a good place for a levianewt.”

Sounds like the O’Blooms have hired a crime gang to do their dirty work, but I guess that is normal for this city. This explains how that Resurrection hideout was destroyed. Everything's coming together.

After thanking Adhi for his help, we left him behind at the bistro and the five of us went outside the city, where I ordered my garms to appear. Ilsaphone’s tip about getting their pelt back was still lingering in my head, but I had no idea if I would be able to find the remaining two.

On their backs, we rode out, down the river before eventually reaching the location Adhi mentioned. And, true to his word, the hideout was there, and by goodness it looked almost like a fort with the stone walls. There were even defenders stationed there at this very moment.

After I sent out Varya to scout ahead, seeing as she was smaller than my garms, I had Ellaine ask Klea’Hatma something important.

[“Can you feel any demonic powers around, Klea?”]

The demon remained silent. According to Ellaine she was concentrating, trying to assess the location while inside that small ring. After a few moments, her answer came and it instantly put everybody on guard.

[“Yes, and not only one strong one, but multiple smaller demonic presences. What a party.”]

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Chapter 294: The Church of the Edjurl.

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“And don’t forget, the best loot is always at the bottom of the bandit lair, Sensei!”

With the threat of the situation clear to us, it also meant that Daichi couldn’t continue inside with us. It was too dangerous for him.

As such, we had to send him back to the subspace with a portal, telling him to inform Hestia about everything and to have her get ready in case we ran into a problem. It would be best if she didn’t simply come over here now, otherwise it might blow our cover. Besides, scouting was my duty in Aurora.

Before he left, he handed Grimnir the equipment he was holding onto. Aside from his blasthammer which he had with him all this time, Grimnir also equipped his prototype gauntlets and sabatons. The rest of his attire was his newly made armor made from Hestia’s scales.

“I’m sorry the dream isn’t done yet,” Daichi said, motioning to the still unfinished armor piece and helmet he took out from his storage.

“Stop worrying, lad. That project can wait for us later. The lass also needs more time to work on it, so go on and wait for our return.” Grimnir patted Ellaine’s shoulder, causing the latter to feel ashamed at how little time she had to work as an artificer lately.

“Yeah, I get it. Still, sorry for being the weakest link. Good luck and come back alive!”

And with that, we were four, one shy of the original members of the Aurora.

[“In and out. Quick. Let’s try not to fight the demonkin contractor if we don’t have to. We’ve faced worse, so let’s do this!”] I encouraged everybody as Varya returned with her scouting report.

Cloaking everybody in my [Shadow Armament], we sneaked inside the fort through a blind spot in the sentries she found. Before we entered though, Klea’Hatma warned us there was a mana barrier surrounding the place and that we should enter the facility with [Shadow Dash].

She might be untrustworthy, but wisdom denied was not smart. After we made it in undetected, we began looking around, where Ellaine noted how a couple of the guards inside looked like the people who came to the grand opening of the bistro and confectionery and were causing a ruckus with their dragon bigotry crap.

[“I only arrived there at the end with Tatsuya and Kyouya, but I still remember the guy Hestia humiliated. The tall and burly one.”] Ellaine pointed at a man with a greatsword.

This means the Resurrection emblems they had on them on that day were false. Hestia was right, this gang was trying to frame the Resurrection and have us destroy their rival for them. So, is the slave bandit ambush also related to these people?

If so, then we have some talking to do…

After we found our way into the stone hideout, Grimnir noted how there probably was a basement around, noting how there was evidence on the stone walls that there was something below the ground floor.

Splitting up was an option here, but it was too risky since we didn’t know who our enemies were. We knew there were at minimum two demonic contractors of some kind around after Klea’Hatma warned us. As a four-man group we were easier to detect than if I was alone, but our fighting potential was higher. Also, it wasn’t as if it was that bad if they found us.

Four Auroras were here. I had full trust in our coordination together.

We decided on leaving the upper floors for last, going with Daichi’s advice despite how I found it too unreliable of a tip. And, what did you know, his intuition was correct.

The ground floor had mostly barracks with a few facilities where the gang members could relax and eat. However, the floor below? An alchemist cave full of people experimenting on slaves with their concoctions and other items. Some of the said items were even manatech, but the most horrendous part was when they transformed a person into the same monster from the slave bandit attack.

“Grouuuuuahkkkk!”

“Ahh, I see… Damn, we still can’t reproduce Davison’s recipe. What the hell are these last two ingredients?”

“Argh, whatever. We still have enough time to find something to beat out that bitch Resclave. Taking over the guild for her damn fucked up ambition! Not even acknowledging the people bringing in the money!”

Hmm? Reajaen is the alchemist guild’s master? I placed that information in the back of my head for now, as I was too occupied scowling at what these “humans” were doing to other members of their race.

The alchemists were absolutely indifferent to the agony and fear they were inflicting on their test subjects. It was absolutely stomach wrenching. I felt disgust lingering in the back of my throat as I watched them perform their cruel acts.

“Mhrm!” Grimnir suddenly grabbed my arm, surprising me.

When I looked down at what he was pointing at, I noticed black thunder was surrounding my hand. I clenched it into a fist and stopped the mana surging around my arms. I also noticed my eyes were glaring again, emitting red mist. Reflecting on my emotions, I had to admit I wanted to attack them right at this moment.

While I was contemplating on what to do, Ellaine pointed at another entrance at the end of the basement’s hallway. Sneaking passed all the alchemists and their guards, we went down another set of stairs until Klea’Hatma warned us to “Look out.” We instantly readied out weapons.

As we opened the door, the deep booming voice of a man burst right into our ears.

“My fellow Olden Money! Long have we waited for our revenge. To enact our grudge onto that wrench Resclave. A random commoner beastmen coming into our country and attempting to ruin us by taking the foundation of our organization down!”

A grand hall like a church’s nave could be seen as we opened the door, where seven people were seated at a large round table placed upon a giant wolf’s pelt.

Hold on?

I felt Quatre suddenly growling from inside my shadow, but told him to stop. To stay quiet as I inspect the seven humans in the room, each flanked by two guards and an attendant of sorts.

Four of them were wearing gaudy-looking golden suits with jewelry and other accessories to flaunt their incredible wealth. While most of the men at the table were built leanly, there was one I wasn’t able to take my eyes away from as he gorged himself on a ton of pastries like a pig.

“Today, our order has received another message!” that very man announced. “A stain on our master’s glory was inflicted in Artorias, land of the Griffons. He has called for us to prepare for war. As such, it has become paramount that we retrieve our master’s gift from the damn beastmen! His orb of power that they have stolen from us. Our scouts have confirmed it is hidden in a village east of here!”

And then the bomb dropped.

“Our master has sent us help! A help most wanted. Please, welcome with me our war power! Sir Hee’Rlak!”

And from a room, a person with red skin and bright yellow hair appeared. With red eyes looking like life was unappealing to him, he shuffled into the room with little to no enthusiasm.

“Our very own demonkin of wrath.”

I took out my daggers out of instinct.

“Mhmm.” Grimnir grabbed my arm and I shook him off. I gave him a thumbs-up, gesturing to him that I wouldn’t be attacking them just yet. There was still information to be gained and we still haven’t found the stuff from the Resurrection.

I just wanted the others to get their guards up. One of the targets Klea’Hatma warned us about was here, and it was the second worst case possible: a demonkin. Why couldn’t he only be a demonkin contractor?

The others nodded to me, understanding my intentions. As such, we continued watching with our hands on our armaments. We stared down the balcony we stood on, watching the procedures. Outside of two of the three gaudy-looking senators, all of them were gazing at the red-skinned person with eyes of wonder. The overly obese one was even laughing with joy.

A demonkin… of wrath. Who was he?

The demonkin stared at them, sighing after inspecting them before showing his disinterest. For someone encompassing the sin of wrath, he sure was calm. Even his build wasn’t what I expected. I imagined a wrath demonkin to be more muscular, like a bodybuilder viking, but this man was lean, like an MMA fighter.

There was an unnerving silence in the air, to the point the demonkin started to look even more bored. He gazed around the room, even glaring at the guards protecting each senator before looking over at the balcony. We didn’t move. I was confident he couldn’t find us while I was around. And as expected, he didn’t react to our presence.

“My fellow senators! I have learned from our master that the recent attack on Griffonpeak was a success! Our master, the demonkin prince of pride, took down the Kingdom of Griffon’s true king! He snapped their wings!” the fat man spoke, spitting out pieces of pastry as he chortled while his sycophants clapped. “However, in the process, we lost Hamil. Slain by Shaturein. As you might have noticed, their pawns are in the process of integrating themselves into our beautiful city! No more, I say! For when we become Estralia’s rulers, we need naught the plague of another country!”

Did Hamil really die? I thought he escaped according to Tasianna and Pestrodus.

“What about the saintess, Senator O’Bloom?'' One of the others brought up, confirming for us that the fat one was Senator O’Bloom. “She might be dead, but the Empire still hadn’t taken its move. Do our masters have a problem in Folschreck?”

“Nay, Senator Plymeir. Our masters managed to slay multiple blessed of the Light Goddess, but controlling the damn heroes without them noticing has been a problem. Damn otherworldly brats!”

My eyes widened. Blessed? Slain? As in saints and champions of Aurena were murdered in the Empire? If that was the case, then maybe this was the reason for Aurena’s silence to Hestia’s questions? If so, then this was starting to look bad.

“Then how are we supposed to attack Artorias then?” another senator asked. “Outside of ourselves, the other countries Master Envy tried to cajole to our side have been unsuccessful. Our master’s other pawns are imbeciles. Unable to rise in power like us.”

“Oh?” O’Bloom stopped eating, grinning with a mocking frown. “ ‘Like us?’ Ha! Senator Urlandor. You must be jesting! You and Senator Plymeir were fortunate to have me sponsor you, otherwise your brothers’ wives would have taken over the senator roles of your houses. Without me, you would have never known the grace of our master. If I hadn’t approached you, you two would have turned into mere fodder once our masters gift us Estralia to rule.”

“Gahaha!” One of the less gaudy senators laughed out loud as his right arm began to turn into what looked like Ellaine’s [Claw]. He bashed the table with that arm, showcasing it to the shocked Plymeir and Urlandor. “The gifts of our masters. In this place, it’s not your wealth that matters, but your faith in our masters. Your loyalty! Our order has been here before the two of you joined to get revenge on the Resurrection.”

[“Aho, my blood is in him…”] Klea’Hatma noted. [“I guess it’s similar to that Charleslyt boy. Instead of forming a contract or pact, someone just injected my blood into him. Not a very good alternative if you want to stay human. Or sane.”]

[“It’s what Goddess Kronnaz wanted to warn me about. The more I used Klea’s abilities, the more I’m prone to fall into her sin,”] Ellaine added. [“If five out of the seven senators were similar to that person, then we have one demonkin and five with demonkin blood inside them.”]

I frowned. That still wasn’t ideal at all. We were outnumbered, and the laughter of the senators sounded to me as if they were mocking us, despite it being directed at Senator Plymeir and Urlandor. The two named senators could only look at their colleagues in shame and fear.

“Regardless! Soon you may join us, though…” O’Bloom showed a greedy smile at the two men, twisting his body like a beast eyeing its prey. “However, before that can happen, we must first acquire what is needed for the future. Our invasion of Artorias will happen soon, but first, our master, the demonkin prince of envy, requests us to hand his orb back. We must reacquire it from that damn Resclave!”

The attention then shifted to Plymeir, who gulped as he took out a sheet of parchment. “As mentioned, my spies managed to look into the situation in that beastman village. The orb is definitely there, hidden inside a dungeon created from all the onnikai.”

“Ah? Fighting a dungeon with its master around might be difficult. Hire as many black mercenaries as possible. I heard there are a few former Yanderu members around after the local group broke apart, right? Send your messengers with pouches full of coins!” O’Bloom announced.

“Senator O’Bloom.” One of the lower senators raised his arm. “What about that dragon princess? Have you forgotten about the news we received?”

“Aye, never! She and Resclave are currently our most problematic issues. A champion of Aurena, I heard from my contacts. That she fought against the creatures there and also possibly responsible for the death of the hero who killed that saintess.” He threw his jam-filled bread on the table, looking too irritated to continue eating. “The Church of the Edjurl cannot falter. We will succeed and become beings beyond humans. Once the demonkins have conquered the world and the Edjurl gods rid Peolynca of the Origin Gods, we of the chosen elite shall rule the world. The world will be back in the hands of its inhabitants!”

I didn’t understand what they were talking about. Grant themselves freedom by getting rid of the Origin Gods? What is that supposed to mean? Wouldn’t the Edjurl gods or some tyrannical demonkin prince just take over? In all of history, when there was a power vacuum, some “god” would appear to goad the people to put him on the throne.

Louis XIV, the sun king, had a megalomaniac personality and thought he was the God of France simply because his advisors led him down the correct path to secure his control as king. Robespierre of the French Revolution took down Louis XVI to liberate the common man from the nobles and rich, only to fall into the delusions of a tyrant while trying to bring out his ideal republic. A path of blood was his legacy with the first usage of the guillotine.

“Sir Hee’Rlak!” O’Bloom called out to the dozing demonkin, waking him up before he fell on the ground. “What say you? We have many enemies of your master in this city. Not only must we regain the orb, but there is a person here who managed to kill a demonkin, weakened after he defeated one of the blessed! You must wish revenge!”

“Hrmm…” He looked sleepy before speaking in a demotivated voice. “Whatever. U’Skaie knew the risks and still managed to fulfill one goal. Lord Pride is probably happy about it. I don’t know why you humans are glorifying us demonkins so much, anyways. Cool, he killed one of our top enemies. He’ll go down in history, or whatever. Not like I knew him or something.”

… Is he really a demonkin of wrath?

The mood dampened as the demonkin showed no interest in their scheming. Instead of continuing their interactions with him, they turned back to their original plan, talking about how their attack would happen in a week. They needed time to gather the necessary mercenaries and bodies. Afterwards, they would attack the Resclave’s mansion and beastman village.

They also talked about attacking us and Hestia, but quickly understood doing that wouldn’t be good since it would invite retribution from the various dragonkin. As such, they decided it would be better to go for their plan B — drive Hestia out through dissent from the people.

Attacking anybody from the Aurora would only bring about political drama, but they’ve learned from their spies and rumors in Artorias that Hestia was more kind-hearted than they initially thought. As such, to defeat somebody that was nice, it was best to stay in the shadows and manipulate people to vilify her. To make her unwanted.

They planned that bigotry moment during the grand opening of our pastry shop and bistro by specifically buying out mercenaries who had bad experiences with wyverns or any dragonkin. There were already quite a few humans who only thought of beastmen as lesser people or slaves in this city. Narrow-minded, I must say.

To the senators, the money they’ve earned in this city was meant for this moment. In a week's time, the people they’ve hired to come to Gleisvale to launch another propaganda movement would arrive. They knew Hestia supported Artorias from the dinner, as she had pleasant interactions with King Drangleic and his dukes. They didn’t want her to get her claws around “their” city.

“How boring…” the demonkin complained as he left the room with a loud yawn. In the perfect moment, too, as the senators were done with their attack plans and were now discussing how to control the senate.

However, that was more than we thought we would learn today. We now knew even more people were associates of the demonkin and that this group was even working with the prince of envy, the one posing as the pope.

The Church of the Edjurl was a name not even Muraina knew about, and if this was a proper secretive organization, then this might become a real threat if humans actually supported the demonkin. Like moss or a fungus slowly destroying the foundation of a building. This was probably part of the “rot” Aurena was talking about.

They eventually also talked about the loot they got from the Resurrection base and how the attack on the slave auction was meant to retrieve all of that in addition to saving the slaves. Apparently, the Resurrection has been targeting any place where beastmen were sold, evident of how the street auction I saw was so heavily monitored.

Once the discussion went to what they would do with the loot, we managed to learn the location of it. Second floor, in the storage room. I could probably assassinate the senators right now, but Tasianna told me we shouldn’t with the demonkin around.

Quatre protested, of course, since his pelt was right in front of us. I also thought getting rid of the problem now was better than waiting for later. Still, I acquiesced. I didn’t want take the gamble of appraising the demonkin’s status now, since we didn’t know if he had countermeasures. No information, no go.

As we left for the second floor, Grimnir suddenly spoke out about what was worrying me after having the time to think about the situation.

“We don’t know how strong the demonkins exactly are. Combat-ready ones, I mean. We fight on our terms.”

Grimnir’s words resonated with me. How strong were demonkins exactly? Not only was this race isolated to the southeastern part of the world, meaning dwarves and elves didn’t know their current strength much, but outside of Hestia, none of us ever fought one of them.

Even in Hestia’s case, she dominated that demonkin of envy in no small part due to her berserk moment from [Battle Frenzy (Major)], all on top of being the strongest member of Aurora. The demonkin was also weakened after he fought Eshe and her guards. That gave us no way to properly assess them.

I felt anxious now after having some time to think about it. Assassinating those senators would be for the best now, but maybe we were being reckless. Infiltrating enemy territory was already dangerous regardless of our power strength, even more since we were expecting a demonkin contractor to be here. And, what did you know, there wasn't a contractor here, just an actual demonkin and five who partook in demonic blood.

I was even considering if all demonkins were this powerful, and that these weren’t just warriors or trained fighters. A pretty weird thought, honestly, but warrior societies like the Spartans used to exist. Even the lowly baker was a trained warrior… sort of.

After knocking a few guards out, I [Shadow Dash]ed everybody through a protected metal door into the storage room. There, crates were everywhere, letting us know little of what was inside of them. The only thing we could do was to start breaking into them.

“Oooh!” Grimnir let his excitement out, drawing our attention to his chagrin. “I, uh, this crate has a ton of monster materials in them. I kinda want to bring them back.”

“Focus on the task, Grimnir. We need to get out of here now.” I shook my head and returned to another crate.

After a while of breaking through everything, we eventually made it to the jackpot. The mark of the Resurrection, the serpent coiling around a vial, was inside. We didn’t check for the rest of the items, simply stuffing everything we could into my [Storage Magic].

With our goal fulfilled, we snuck back to the ground floor and decided on leaving the premises for today and coming back tomorrow to launch a full-scale attack with Hestia with us. However, as we were about to leave through the base’s blindspot, I suddenly felt a presence.

[“Oh oh.”] Klea’Hatma’s voice gave me a terrible feeling. [“I think we were found out.”]

[Danger Perception] and [Foresight] activated as I felt something coming from below, quickly warning everybody in time to spread out. The ground exploded, burst open with rock and earth flying around like a fountain. The dust covered the area, blocking our site and making it hard to breath until Tasianna blew it all away.

“Found you, rats.”

[“Incoming!”]

A silhouette jumped out from the hole left by that blast before my attention was turned towards a flaming spear nearly drilling a hole into Ellaine’s chest. She instantly retaliated by extending her whipsword with a [Piercing Shot], only blocked once the flame spear morphed into a shield.

“Oh, this is exciting…”

A humanoid with red-skin and bright yellow hair. He only wore casual clothing that made him look slightly plain, but I saw flames begin to form around his shoulders, only so slightly. However, what wasn’t there before were four small flaming horns sprouting from his head, like a toddler growing teeth.

“I really didn’t think it would become this interesting today.”

All four of us took our opportunity to ready ourselves with our weapons and equipment, letting the man speak his monologue.

“I thought it was weird to find beast tracks coming from the forest. A bit unfortunate for you that I went outside to take a dump, only to find those tracks replaced by those from shoes.”

Identify!

Profile:

Name:   Hee’Rlak

Level: 99

Race:   Demonkin of Wrath

Age: 37 Years

Job:   Elemental Scourge Level: 24/30

Status:

Health:

10257

Mana:

3790

Strength:

3572

Intelligence:

831

Vitality:

3056

Wisdom:

1924

Agility:

2389

Stamina:

14190

Effects:

[Excited: 23%] [Anger: 1%] [Fear: 0%]

Skill Points:

50 (-1550)

Skill:

Magic skills and related:

[Mana Efficiency Lv. 5] [Mana Control Lv. 6]

[Arcane Mind Lv. 3] [Fire Magic Lv. 5]

[Mental Warfare Lv. 3] [Mental Stability Lv. 1]

[Wrathful Emotions] [Elemental Manifestation Lv. 6]

Physical skills and related:

[Unarmed Technique Lv. 7] [Elemental Meisterweapon Lv. 2]

[All-Damage Enhancements Lv. 3] [Mana Strike Lv. 7]

[Stamina Strike Lv. 10] [Sadism Lv. 2]

Senses and movement skills:

[Stealth Lv. 2] [Accuracy Correction Lv. 8]

[Concentration Lv. 3] [Foresight Lv. 1] [Tracking Lv. 7]

[Danger Perception Lv. 8] [Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 8]

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 7] [Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 7] [Night Vision Lv. 5]

[Presence Killer Lv. 1] [Evasion Lv. 10] [Acrobatic Lv. 10]

[Air Walk Lv. 2] [Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 7]

Resistances:

[Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 1] [Absolute Pain Tolerance]

[Poison Resistance Lv. 9]

[Paralyzation Resistance Lv. 8] [Torpor Resistance Lv. 9]

[Bleeding Resistance Lv. 10] [Fear Resistance Lv. 4]

[Holy Resistance Lv. 8] [Inferno Resistance Lv. 1]

[Lightning Resistance Lv. 3][Water Resistance Lv. 4]

[Ice Resistance Lv. 1]

[Earth Resistance Lv. 7] [Wind Resistance Lv. 7]

[Arcane Corruption Resistance Lv. 1]

Stat growth and related:

[Mana Recovery Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Mana Growth Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Mana Capacity Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 8]

[Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Intelligence Growth Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 7]

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 2]

[Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Agility Enforcement Lv. 5]

Others:

[Handicraft Lv. 6] [Woodworking Lv. 4]

[Identity Blocker Lv. 5] [Terror Aura Lv. 6]

[Battle Mind Lv. 8] [Dismantle Lv. 8]

Ability List:

Unarmed:

[Warbringer’s Body] [Bloodreaper’s Tearing] [Power Punch]

[Emotion Surge]

Elemental Meisterweapons:

[Myriad Slasher] [Hammer of the Elements] [Flashdrive Ever-Piercer]

[Shield of Lion’s Bane]

Spell List:

Custom Spells:

[Create Flame]

Fire Spells:

[Fire] [Firebolt] [Imbue Fire] [Fire Ball] [Strengthening Flame]

[“People, meet your first demonkin of wrath. The sin of the unending anger. The everliving emotion that can drive even the sanest people into insanity.”] Klea’Hatma’s voice echoed through our heads as the four of us looked at each other, already forming a plan on how to fight him. [“The power of the demon of wrath is their uncontrollable emotions. Calm and collective at its lowest, but all-consuming once they reached their peak. Their ‘racial ability’ is to manifest their mana into elemental weapons. Only one element can be chosen, and this one chose fire as his companion for life.”]

“Emotion SurrrrrrrgGEEEEEEE!”

Mana exploded around him like an aura, creating a wind pressure as his hair began to flare up and grow in length, starting to look like a stream of fire once it reached its maximum length. The four horns grew in size and twisted into the forms of shotels, shining a bright orange. Another set of eyes opened up at his forehead, moving around the area as they adjusted to everything.

“Hammer!” He cried out before stomping the ground. That outburst showed the most emotions I’ve ever heard from this person.

[“Do not allow him to reach 100% with all three of his emotions. At that point, even if he’s not a Prince of Sin, this demonkin could prove too much for the four of you to fight.”]

Identify!

Effects: [Excited: 61%] [Anger: 0%] [Fear: 12%]

“My name is Hee’Rlak! An apprentice of the third Warbringer of Lord Wrath! To honor Master Vifi’Yok’s name, as her squire I shall grant you a glorious battle and honorable defeat! We reap, to water the blood lilies!”

Now, it’s time to die, asshole! Humanization!

“AhrwooOOOOOOOOOOHHHHH!”

A note from AbyssRaven

The pin is rolling, it is time for this arc to get moving. Time for Saori, Tasianna, Ellaine, and Grimnir to fight against a demonkin and his bandit allies!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 295: The 5th Sin: Wrath.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #2 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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“Grreeegrouuuuuuuuhhhhh! Ahraaarrrrrrrrg!”

“Grrrrrrrk! Urgh! Gahhhh!”

A thunderclap. Black lightning shot out from my arm as I smacked the demonkin of wrath with my bulky right foreleg, sending him crashing through the fort’s walls to the outside. Before I destroyed the interior of this place with my size, I followed after him before using [Smokey Haze] to blanket the whole area in my shadow smoke.

[“Go all out, everybody! Either we leave now or fight and kill him! Choose quickly! I’ll lead the charge!”] I commanded everybody.

“W-What?! Where da fuck did that thing come from?!”

“Monster! We got a monster in the base!”

“Wh-What is this smoke?! I can’t see! Somebody blow this shit away!”

[“I am for fighting!”] I could hear Ellaine say telepathically before her whipsword swooped past me in the direction of where I smacked the demonkin to.

Activating my heat vision, I saw her sword being deflected by his fire sword. Thetwo of them traded blows in this darkness, purely tracking each other’s position with their respective [Enhanced Enemy Sense]. And, it showed, as most of their attacks were off by a good mark.

“Wow! Why doesn’t this damn smoke disappear?” I heard the demonkin voice his annoyance. “Argk, whatever. Warbringer’s Body! Hiiiiraaaak! Hammer of the Elements!”

Ellaine’s sword finally managed to strike our enemy. However, it seemed he did something to protect his body as he took those hits like a tank, before turning his flame sword into a hammer. With a singular strike to the ground, an earthquake shook Ellaine and me off-balance before I noticed cracks forming around the area.

“Careful!”

I felt a chill around my feet seconds before a large golem made from ice materialized, picking Ellaine and me up in the air as flames burst from the ground like an eruption. The golem was instantly destroyed, but this allowed me to put Ellaine on my back and use [Air Walk] to avoid the remainder of the demonkin’s attack.

With an opening at hand, I channeled mana through my arms to turn them into my stygian lightning. I jumped up and let this surge of power crash right on top of the demonkin’s location with [Voltage Impact], breaking the ground before using [Stygian Lightning] to shoot out bolts of thunder through the smoke.

“Grkk?! How?!” our enemy groaned from this unavoidable attack. As long as he was in my shadow, my lightning will hit their mark thanks to the [Lightning Shadow] skill. “Dammit, is this all from this damn smog? Fuck this, then!”

The fire hammer transformed back its sword form and released multiple flaming waves as it slashed, forcing me to dodge around while releasing more electric bolts. Every single one was hitting him, but I noticed they weren’t slowing him down. He was aiming to escape the [Smokey Haze].

“Wrong direction, lad!”

I saw Grimnir’s heat signature make a superman landing right in front of the demonkin just mere moments before he escaped. Raising his hammer up, his gauntlets suddenly let out sounds of a strong gale, accelerating his downward strike into a burst of ice spikes.

This pushed the demonkin back as he narrowly blocked it with his fire shield. Grimnir suddenly blasted forward, shouting “Ellaine” as he readied his sword.

[“Saori, the smoke!”] Ellaine called out as she jumped off my back and used [Wind Blast] to fly forward.

I did as she said, recalling the smoke back into my shadow to reveal the total state of the battlefield. Destroyed and covered in fire and ice. The moment the smoke vanished, both Grimnir and Ellaine rushed at the demonkin with their weapons ready. Unfortunately, their attacks were easily parried, not by his sword, but by two flaming wings sprouting from his back.

“This is actually a surprise. You four are actually stronger than I anticipated!” He announced with a wide grin, almost as if he was immersed in joy. “But not strong enough. That lightning is nothing compared to Master Vifi’Yok’s!”

An aura of flame bursts from his body as his arteries began to glow yellow, becoming progressively brighter as his [Excited] meter reached 80%. Ellaine and Grimnir were pushed away, and the demonkin took to the skies with his wings of fire. Turning his shield into a sword, he dove down with Grimnir in his sight.

“Freeze!”

Blades of ice rained down at the demonkin, forcing him to block and dodge all of them if he didn’t wish to turn into a pincushion. To my right, Tasianna was floating in the air with [Aifli eir Vintral] active, looking like an angel of ice as she materialized more and more ice blades to attack with. When those didn’t work, she instead chose to crush him with [Kraken’s Destruction].

As the giant tentacle made from water clashed against his fire, the steam it created made the field look hazy. With Tasianna covering them, Ellaine and Grimnir regrouped. Meanwhile, the bandits finally organized themselves, forming a circle around us with their melee fighters while the archers stayed behind, arrows ready.

“Don’t attack the fire person! He’s a VIP!” from the sides of the bandit base, a man in a suit shouted as he was escorted by his guards outside. “The rest are damn intruders! Kill them! Don’t let them escape or our plans are ruined!”

The senators!

Those fiends were escaping at this moment! I couldn’t let them escape like this!

“Ahrwoooooh!” I turned my head around and formed a large black magic circle in front of me. I was taking them out now or never!

Hadaen Dragon Th—!

“I know when I see a powerful lightning attack!”

The demonkin’s flaming hammer suddenly appeared before my eyes. I ducked, but I felt my fur singe from that attack. I didn’t even have any time to breathe as [Foresight] warned me in the next two seconds that a flurry of attacks would happen.

And it did. Transitioning from sword to spear, the demonkin released a flurry of fiery strikes akin to what Hestia could do with her claws, tail, and glaive. I didn’t want to take any of those hits. Luckily, I was extremely nimble despite being around the size of a house. I had my high Agility to thank.

Still…

He’s level 99 alright!

In my fenrir form, I was level eight, which translated into level 88 as a wolfkin. I was eleven levels below this person and, if I had stayed in humanoid form, all my stats outside of Mana, Intelligence, and Agility would have been inferior to his.

To be honest, the Agility gap between us was huge, currently. About 7000. It showed here, as I wasn’t being overwhelmed, but for some reason, the longer we traded blows and the more I damaged him with my attacks, the stronger he felt.

“Hahaha! Yes, come at me with all your got! Show me your strength and I will answer in kind! Hahaha!” As if he was in a berserk frenzy, he kept on attacking me despite his armor being damaged and his body being covered in wounds.

Identify.

Effects: [Excited: 95%] [Anger: 10%] [Fear: 42%]

Dammit. What am I supposed to do? I still remembered Klea’Hatma’s warning to not increase those three emotions too high, otherwise we might put ourselves in a bad situation. The only option really was to kill him befo—

“Shoot!”

[Foresight] and [Danger Perception] sent a chill down my spine. My head snapped around to a cannon at the side, blasting a large blue ball in my direction. There wasn’t enough time to dodge due to my size nor could I [Shadow Dash] into my shadow right now. I was too big and the sun was shining into this area right now.

Humanize!

[Humanize (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

I was forced to change. The ball of mana flew right past me and drilled a hole into the mountain next to the fort. In the next moment, I felt another attack come at me, but I failed to dodge it in time.

“Bloodreaper’s Tearing!”

[Shadow Armament] protected me from the full brunt of the attack but I still felt my blood spilling from my arm. That searing hot feeling made me grit my teeth, only for something to punch me right into my stomach.

“PooooWWWWWERRRRR PUNCH!”

“OooorUUUUUFFFF!”

With incredible force, I was catapulted through the fort’s outer walls and right into the forest. I felt a dent in my stomach for some reason, making me want to puke. My instincts reacted, pushing my body up just as the demonkin jumped forward with his wings, about to hit me only for—

[“Alpha!”]

“““Ahrwkrrrrrrr!”””

“Grrruukraauuugh!”

— my shadow pack to emerge.

“Krak!”

Sarasa and Quatre emerged first at Uno’s command, grabbing the demonkin at his leg and tossing him on the ground. Uno and Song then cast [Dark Tendrils] and caught his wings, holding them down, making it hard for him to move. Finally, Varya shot out, her claws dripping Hestia’s toxin. As a virigress, a venomous tiger, she used her swiftness and slashed through an opening in his armor, injecting that putrid liquid.

“Argh! An ambush?!” He swung his sword and would have hit Varya in the process if she had [Shadow Dash] a second later. In the next moment, swords of ice rained down, only targeting his legs until they turned into a pincushion, stuck to the earth.

“Uwaarrrgh!”

“Power Slash!”

“Pierce!”

“Shield Bash!”

As the demonkin cried out in pain, the sound of people shouting out their weapon abilities came from inside the fort. Ellaine and Grimnir were fighting back to back against the swarm of bandits, immensely outnumbered by them. They were slicing and burning them down together, but the number of bodies they had to deal with was too much.

“Ellaine, I’m—” Tasianna wanted to say something but I immediately interrupted her.

“Tasianna!”

My warning was just in time as Tasianna conjured up a [Frozen Shield] in time to block a giant flame sword from the demon. Unlike its previous version, this sword’s size was larger than the fort’s walls. And it apparently had the strength to fully pierce through Tasianna shield and force her to tank the hit with [Frozen Armament].

“Graaaaaahk!” Tasianna crashed onto the ground with blood drenching her clothes.

Blood rushed to my head as I saw her hit, filling my mind with anger at the one who did this to her. After drinking one of Tasianna’s health potions to heal up, I humanized back into a fenrir and used [Voltage Impact] on the demonkin. His sword turned into a shield, one large enough to block my entire paw. If it weren’t for my [Shadow Armament] and [Inferno Resistance Lv. 5], I most likely would have burned my hand.

“GraAAHHHHHHHHH!”

“Grrrrr!”

He bellowed out like a madman and I deduced he had already fallen into a berserk state. Knowing this, I used his shield to jump up and use my tail wrapped into shadows to somersault smack him into the air.

Just Blink. Shadow Descent!

Disappearing from the berserker’s perception for a second, I dodged his wildly swung counter-attack, before appearing above him with a full shadow covered tail, activating [Stygian Blade]. Like an axe kick, my tail descended down with full force, striking the demonkin while he was unable to block the attack.

He shot down into the floor, lodging himself into the ground. My shadow pack shot out their [Dark Tendrils], constricting his limbs and neck. He wouldn’t be going anywhere. I saw Ellaine and Grimnir taking care of an injured Tasianna, giving me the confidence to take our most problematic opponent down first.

While standing in the air with [Air Walk], I grabbed my twin catalyst from my storage and held them in my paw, and began channeling even more mana into them. I turned all that mana into lightning, causing sparks to fly around me like an aura.

[Lightning Revolt (Limited)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

“Ahrwoooooooh!”

I kicked the air, I shot down at the demonkin with my forelegs surging into power. This was the actual one, this was the attack that killed Fulsara while she was fused with her creations!

Voltage Impact!

“Ahhhhhhhrr!” the demonkin shouted only seconds before I landed, and in the next moment my whole vision went black and white…

— as lightning and flames clashed against each other, producing a powerful blast destroying the area around us.

I was protected from the impact by my shadow armor, but the blinding light and the loud thundering shook my head. I felt slightly unbalanced as my ears recovered from the sound, waiting for the dust to settle around me.

But through heat vision, I saw something in the middle. It was so reminiscent of what would happen after Hestia released her [Solar Beam]. That small fire at the epicenter of the explosion… reigniting in power.

Oh shit!

“Nghhkraaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

I dodged back the moment I felt the temperature around me increasing. The dust was blown away, revealing a giant flame sword had cut the ground, searing it. The attacks didn’t stop though, as the flurry pushed me to us [Dark Tendril] to pull myself out of the conflict zone.

There, in the sky, I saw what was going on. That same demonkin’s appearance changed once again. An armor of flames had surrounded his entire body, making him look like a mighty warmonger. His four eyes were literally burning while fangs had grown from his mouth, making him look a bit like a Japanese demon — an oni.

Two arms and a tail made out of fire had appeared on his body. In each of his four hands, he held one of each of the four armaments he had shown today — the sword, lance, hammer, and shield. He held his weapons high and when he roared, each of them flared up and increased in size.

Identify.

Effects: [Excited: 100%] [Anger: 81%] [Fear: 100%]

Shit! How are you supposed to manage those emotions?!

Klea’Hatma told me I should stop him from reaching 100% in all three emotions, but how was I supposed to do that? The moment I tried to kill him, he exploded and turned into a four-armed war general straight out of ancient Japanese folktales.

“Gruooooooaaaaaah!”

And befitting his new appearance, his frenzied warcry was quickly followed up by another clash of might.

Thunder surged around my body as I engaged him in the air with [Air Walk], using not only my stygian lightning and shadow abilities, but also my dark magic to full effect. My shadow pack would help out, of course, serving as my support crew with their disruptions and ambush attacks.

However, the demonkin wasn’t a slouch; in fact, it was starting to get a bit hard to dodge his attacks even with my Agility. The information couldn’t be read from his profile, nor did it reflect on his Agility, but I swore his strikes and movements were faster than before. His endless and ruthless combos mixed together too well, making me feel as if I was dodging bullets.

My size was starting to turn into a detriment. I had to start taking hits to create an opening for myself to attack, but with every slash or lighting bolt I landed, the more his [Anger] rose. The higher the number went, the more Klea’Hatma’s warning occupied my mind.

It also didn’t help that I noticed his Health was regenerating whenever he made me bleed. His damn [Sadism] recovered his Health and Stamina whenever he basked himself in a person’s blood. Afterwards, I would use a shadow attack and heal my own Health with [Stygian Blades]. This process looped and looped, forcing us into a stalemate.

As Hestia would call it, we were vampire tanking or leech tanking or whatever it was called. If Hestia’s toxin was going to finally affect him, now would be the best.

I’ll exhaust myself first!

It was our damn difference in Stamina. Not only did I have less, but he was recovering it when he made me bleed. It felt like he had an endless supply while I couldn’t keep up, slowly becoming tired.

[“Alpha!”] Uno called out at me in worry.

I felt arcane corruption building up but even with my shadow pack helping out, I couldn’t find a moment to drink a dragorade. Still, coordinating with my garms and Varya gave me more or less the edge in this battle. Even if slightly, and even if the demonkin was slowly turning the tide as my resources dwindled.

I just needed some time for a [Voltage Impact] or [Hadaen Dragon Thunder] to kill him. One good opening was all I needed!

… However, I knew that was just my ego talking, driving to defeat him on my own, but I wasn’t stupid enough to continue doing this alone. At this point, we needed to end this quickly and catch the senators, and for that, we needed Hestia.

[“Varya! Use the flare Tasianna made! Call for Hestia!”]

[“Yes!”]

Varya sneaked away from the battle, getting away as I continued preoccupying the demonkin. The moment the flare activated, was when we would win this hands-down.

… But there wasn’t enough time for that to happen.

“Hee’Rlak, calm down.” A woman’s voice came from somewhere followed by a sharp whistle sound, interrupting our fight.

“Urgh!” The demonkin squirmed before the fire around his eyes disappeared. He smacked his weapons together, sending out a huge fire wave at me.

I chose to dodge it and so did my shadow pack. As I did so, I noticed the signal of the demonkin dashing away from me, towards a location with multiple other targets. I didn’t want to lose him, but my only choice was to move through this fire wave at this point. I needed line-of-sight to [Shadow Dash] towards a shadow. Without it, I couldn’t use my spells.

…

As the wave disappeared, having chosen the trees and grass around me as their prey, I dashed back to where I fought the demonkin, only to see bandits escaping the base. I looked down, seeing Tasianna, Ellaine, and Grimnir look at me in confusion next to a floor covered in corpses.

I grit my teeth and turned back to where I noticed the demonkins escaped and was about to dash over there, only for my fur to suddenly stand up. In the next moment, a giant lightning bolt suddenly struck the ground where their signals were, before it turned into a typhoon of lightning. I didn’t know why, but my instincts told me this was where this fight and chase stopped.

Something in the middle of this storm felt wrong.

After this strange phenomenon happened, I ran over (ran over where?), while Tasianna handed the forest fire behind me. The trees were vaporized and nothing but brown earth and black ash remained. I couldn’t even detect where all of them were.

What happened here?

[Humanize (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

With the enemies nowhere to be seen, I shook my head and transformed back into my wolfkin form. I sent out my shadow pack to find out where they were before rendezvousing with the others. There, the three apologized to me for being unable to support me more than they could. I looked over their shadows, looking at all the bandits they had to kill and told them it was alright.

Goodness… Kuso!

“Probably doesn’t show after I froze and burned them, but some of the bodies were the slaves the alchemists worked on. Had the slave tattoos and also transformed into those hideous beasts we saw at the bandit ambush.” Grimnir then began pulling up a few bodies, showing the fading blue slave tatoos. Totally unperturbed.

Whether it was from experience or not, he was the only one who could deal with the corpses with a clear mind. I just found the smell and sight too much to bear.

“Good job not using your demon powers, Ellaine.” As such, I decided to change the topic.

“Yeah, I deduced it probably wouldn’t be too good here with so many eyes. Klea has to stay a secret from the demonkins for now.”

I didn’t tell her to do it, but she made the correct choice despite our situation. Glad to see she doesn’t need her demonic powers, although she probably could have ended the bandits sooner if she had assimilated with Klea’Hatma’s blood.

I was wondering if this battle today was a win or a draw, or maybe even a loss. Regardless, I think I was starting to understand the entire story of this situation, of this Estralian drama.

The Resurrection, led by Raejaen Resclave, must have some sort of grudge against O’Bloom and his conspirators. Did she know they were demonkin associates? Maybe, since her son was involved with the powers of the Sin of Sloth.

And this antagonistic relationship was starting to climax. The two factions were fighting each other. O’Bloom even tried to drag us into their spiel, nudging us to destroy the Resurrection while keeping their involvement hidden. I did wonder if the attack on the Layavete cartel was the Resurrection’s attempt to influence us, or if they just wanted to clean up their mess since the former had connections with the O’Blooms.

There were still a few holes in my theory, but all we needed to know was O’Bloom’s plan. How should we deal with this? How should Aurora deal with this situation?

I looked at the divine Quest Ilsaphone gave me and sighed. Hanazawa also had a similar one, both directing our attention towards the onnikai imprisoned by the Ressurection.

While contemplating our options, the four of us started to hear the sound of something in the air. Like a rocket. To our surprise, Hestia was in the air, looking at us with a worried look.

“What happened?! Are you okay?!”

It seemed that lightning before was the “flare.”

We explained to her what happened, shocking her when we told her we had to fight the demonkin. She lamented about not just flying over after Daichi told her everything, but the four of us told her not to, saying we should have sent the signal the moment we fought the demonkin. All four of us thought we had the battle after I almost killed him with a [Voltage Impact].

Maybe it was ego. Maybe we didn’t want to bring Hestia along, to prove we could do it without her. Didn’t it also happen against the volchark? I was the one to persuade Tasianna to fight it with Grimnir and me.

In the end, I knew I had to use the flare, but that decision came too late. If I had used it at the beginning, Hestia would have been able to help out and take down all of them. Especially after Hestia lectured me on being reckless, I really shouldn’t have been so competitive.

“Don’t worry about it, Saori.” Hestia noticed my worries. “I know what I said before, however, don’t forget that I have full trust in you. Sure, you make me worry, but it isn’t as if I do that to you four as well sometimes. Saori, you are a B rank monster and you managed to take down that lich almost on your own. It’s all good, at least we now knew what the fuck is going on here. Come on.”

Hestia waved my worries away and pointed at the base’s fort. She wanted to look around. Sighing once more and nodding to Hestia’s kind words, I threw away my worries for now. I could reflect on acting less and less like a responsible adult afterwards.

Inside, we started to search for any clues. Sadly, most of the fort was destroyed. The alchemists were probably involved in said destruction, as they were nowhere to be seen and their tools and papers were destroyed. The slaves they had in the basement were entirely used up to cover for their escape.

I was thankful we managed to acquire the loot they got from the Resurrection before the attack, but even then, it didn’t make me smile. If we had only escaped undetected. We could have stopped them all at once in this location. I had to curse my own incompetence, but how could I have expected the demonkin to go to the woods for his toilet business?

Nevertheless, I could have hidden the tracks. I was getting better at fighting, but was my assassin training not enough? I’ve been training with Muraina recently. I don’t really understand how this could have happened.

At least, we got this…

Quatre caressed his pelt we retrieved from the bottom. Sarasa could only look at him in envy, since she was the only one we hadn’t found the pelt of. Uno was still in the Resurrection’s hands, but we could retrieve it at any time. We had Song’s after I asked the Layavete cartel’s boss for it.

[“Saori, dear, don’t be too disheartened. A demonkin of wrath is made to fight head-on. They aren’t like the others who use other tricks to win battles. They are meant to be strong, but now you have experience. You know how to counter him now.”]

I accepted her advice. I had to return to my roots when I used the tools Hestia made for me to win battles. Maybe I was over-relying on my stygian lightning and shadows too much. I had to reflect on this battle.

We then returned to the city, tipping off a guard about the location of the fort before going back into the RV, where a worried Daichi was waiting for us. After explaining everything, we went to the living room where I slowly pulled out the items we obtained from that Resurrection crate.

After I did so, I excused myself. I needed a shower and some time to look back on the day. I didn’t like the taste of two failures in a single day.

As I was about to leave the room, Hestia and Grimnir suddenly cried out.

““What the hell is this supposed to be?!””

We finally found the remaining mana batteries…

… and what it was used for.

A note from AbyssRaven

Things are about to heat up! No pun intended.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters for the whole month! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 296: An Accord.

A note from AbyssRaven

Supporting a fellow dragon author today! Shout out to A Sovereign's Scorn: Dragon Dilemma from Luke W. Logan! His book just got release on Amazon so have a look at it with this link: https://www.royalroad.com/amazon/B09P211Y6J

Big scary dragon who got tired of having to deal with adventurers all the time, so he turned himself into a normal human to get away from it. Thing is, since he could transform himself into what he wanted, he turned himself into a "Normal human woman." A romance LitRPG with a dragon who can turn himself into a red-haired girl. Where did I hear that?

In any case, if you guys want to support him, check out his book!

“Huh? Who are you? This is the residence of House Resclave, state your busi—!”

“Tasianna!”

“Yes, my lady. Out of the way!”

““Woah?!””

“Grimnir!”

After Tasianna blew the two beastmen guards standing before the gate away with wind magic, the ones behind it became agitated and fled towards the mansion while calling for reinforcements. I noticed the mana barrier surrounding the place with [Mana Eyes], realizing it probably protected the place from outside attacks as well as fortified its gate and walls.

Still, I kept moving forward after calling for Grimnir. With a loud “Got it, lass,” he activated parts of his unfinished “Manatech armor” prototype. From his sabatons, wind blasted out of them, shooting Grimnir forward as he readied his blasthammer. With flames bursting out from it, a single swing was all that was needed to blow the gates wide open.

“Halt!”

Beastmen guards equipped in decent armor and weapons, similar to a soldier’s not a town’s guard, rushed out. They were ready to attack us. Despite yelling out for us to “Halt,” they didn’t leave us a second to actually respond before their archers shot at us.

“Saori. Ellaine,” I calmly ordered.

Ellaine conjured up multiple brown magic circles, materializing [Terra Wall]s to block their attacks from reaching us, whilst Saori whistled, summoning her shadow pack to capture all the soldiers with mana threads.

[“Master! We are done!”] Rajah came sprinting over with his siblings after the job was done, looking up at me with the wish to be praised. I used [Unheiliger Angel] to create a floating platform for them to stand on, petting them once they were high enough where I could do it.

As we walked up the stairs, Tatsuya and Kyouya rushed in front of us to open the mansion’s doors, causing the five of us to look at them in confusion. They looked at each other awkwardly for a second, before we thanked them for it and continued forwards. It did seem as if they were acting like my servants for a moment.

With the members of Aurora and The Misfits trailing behind me, excluding Haruka who decided to stay in the RV, we ventured through the mansion. The servants and guards tried to stop us, but Tasianna was actively making it hard for them to even move by freezing their legs to the ground.

Now that I look at it, most of them are beastmen, huh? I noted, only seeing a few human servants, although all of them were female and fiercely loyal. It really seemed like they were willing to risk their lives for their mistress.

“Stop.” After a while, a familiar foxian man in black armor appeared before us, his lifeless eyes turned into a scowl. He had his sword ready to strike us down, but lowered it in shock after he saw me. “P-Princess Hestia?! And… You?!”

He darted his eyes over to Asaka, slack-jawed as she and I walked past him.

“We will see your mother and have a talk. Come, show us the way, Mister Parilostro,” I demanded without even looking into his eyes.

“Halt!” However, he was still adamant about resisting. “You are intruding into our home! Even if you are part of the imperial—”

“Do not make me repeat myself!” I snarled at him, causing him to shiver as I released my [Draconic Aura]. The others of Aurora also gave him the stink eye, finally persuading him to act, otherwise this might become violent, and not in his favor.

As we barged into Reajaen Resclave’s office, the surprised foxian woman looked nervous for a second before widening her eyes in shock at our appearance. The guards probably informed her there were intruders, but not who they were, leading her to react just like Parilostro. Like mother, like son, I guess.

“P-Princess Hestia?! W-Welcome.” She tried to stay calm but I could see the anxiousness and confusion in her eyes. “To what do I owe you the honor of—”

“Cut the crap, Ms. Reajaen!” I silenced her attempt for small talk before talking out an item from my storage. “What the hell is this?”

I slammed the item on her desk, revealing it to be a weirdly-shaped manatech. Four mana batteries could be seen on it with an empty slot for a fifth. It had multiple tube openings on it and looked a bit like a heart to me, although only slightly.

“Whe— you? Ahem, what is this?” Finally having the time to settle down, the veteran merchant’s agitation vanished as she assumed her poker face demeanor.

“Don’t try to talk yourself out of this, foxian!” Grimnir blurted out with a massive frown, anger clear to see. “How and where the hell did you manage to build this, huh? I know the designs and techniques used on this thing. I would always with this type of mana wiring! They were the signature style of the artificer Broggart Luedbrumdar!”

Grimnir then pulled out the mana battery we got from the Layavete cartel, displaying it for everybody to see. “This, however, was not made with my cousin Broggi’s techniques. This is a failed imitation! The others were definitely made by a dwarf, but not this one. Speak!”

Grimnir slammed the desk, causing it to crack as he neglected to take off his manatech gauntlets. Reajaen’s son quickly grabbed him on the shoulder, but Saori pulled off his arm. “Sit back and watch,” she warned him before releasing him.

“…” Reajaen remained silent, trying to assess the situation. However, this wasn’t the time for that.

“We know all about it,” Asaka came forward and allowed her fenrir onnikais to come out and create a purple shield around her. “The beastmen village in the east and your involvement with them. About you being the true leader of the Resurrection, and also the secret you hold there. You can’t hide onnikais that easily when someone can speak with them.”

“Faemancer…” Parilostro mumbled under his breath, prompting Asaka to glare at him. She was still holding a grudge on how he almost killed her.

“We also know the secret with your son, Lady Reajaen. Or, should I say, the puppet your son is controlling,” Ellaine pointed at the armored foxian man. “The Sin of Sloth. The ability for a demonkin to control bodies like a puppet. We saw them. Two Parilostros in two different locations at the same time.”

“One tried to kill me.” Asaka scowled.

“And the other burned down the slave auction at the docks with members of the Resurrection. The one they attacked was owned and operated by Senator O’Bloom, wasn’t it?” Daichi added.

Tatsuya nodded. “And those beastmen slaves, you sent them to Eshreen Village, correct? We saw your hidden village where you kept those slaves.”

“You freed them from slavery,” Kyouya then took over. “But you were keeping the onnikais you created hidden in the back, guarded by your son and members of the Resurrection.”

“…” In the face of all our accusations, the foxian woman remained silent, letting not an emotion escape her facade. This was a departure from our first meeting.

“If you want evidence…” I took out a thick book from my storage. It was one of the many things we got from the Resurrection loot Saori and the others recovered from Senator O’Bloom’s hidden bandit base.

It and the heart-shaped manatech were the reasons why we immediately rushed over here to confront Reajaen Resclave about her connection with the Resurrection.

“Then this should suffice, right? Lady Reajaen, I ask you to explain yourself right this instance. I want the entire picture and why you did all of this.”

Reajaen took the book I handed to her calmly, opening it up and inspecting the first page. “My dearest Haven, this is the first page of many containing my plan for vengeance for the death of my dear Resclave!” was the first sentence. This was a dairy.

“…” She closed it.

“I didn’t read any further… Who is this Resclave and why does he share your last name?” I asked reservedly, noticing a change in her mood.

“… My love eternal.” She placed the book in an empty spot in her bookshelf, perfectly sliding it in with her other books. “… So you know about our plans? … Members of Aurora?”

“… Why is your son a demonkin contractor and why are you fighting against O’Bloom and the Church of the Edjurl?” I asked, hoping she would finally be cooperative.

“… Revenge.” Was her only answer.

I nodded, already knowing this from her diary. When I asked her to continue, she shook her head and sat back down on her seat after cleaning up her bookshelf.

“That is a private matter, Princess Hestia. I understand you wish to know what is going on, but even then, I cannot give you answers I would dislike to give.”

“But you will.” Tasianna stomped the floor as she approached Reajaen from the sides, glaring at her as she pulled out the four mana batteries from the manatech item. “You are at fault… You sent those fae hunters! You killed Princess Schuri, foxian!”

Mana clouds began to stream out of Tasianna’s body. It seemed she used [Elvenize] as when the cloud dissipated, Tasianna assumed her [Elvenize Lv. 6] form. She became shorter and now was showing her fairy features like her wings and shortened ears.

Reajaen widened her eyes before closing it as if she was praying. “… I apologize,” she spoke solemnly.

“You apologize?!” Tasianna snapped. “Humans might have been condemned in the past for what they did to us faefolk, but that doesn’t allow you beastmen or anybody the right to perform such abominable actions on us! My Princess Schuri will never, ever come back because you hired people to hunt us!”

Tasianna’s voice cracked as tears began to flow down her face. I went over to her, caressing her shoulder in sympathy.

“I hated humans. All of them! Because I thought only a human would be terrible enough to do so… But…” Tasianna suddenly threw the mana batteries she had to the ground, to which Reajaen jerked up from her chair, falling onto her knees where she barely managed to catch all four. She cradled them in her hands as if it was her most precious treasure.

“You did this. You did this to create this manatech. You sacrificed how many faefolk lives? For revenge? For what? You will tell us why and, after this is done, you will answer for your crimes. YOOU! You have gone far enough without paying for your crimes!”

“Mother!” Parilostro’s arms suddenly split open right in the middle. One aimed at Tasianna and me and the other at the rest.

However, having been warned about this by Asaka, Ellaine and Tatsuya snapped his arms shut, preventing the portable mana cannon from gathering energy to shoot. Saori quickly dashed to his back and forced him onto the ground, wrapping his arms up with threads.

“Urgh!” he groaned.

“Stop! Please!” She jumped up, pleading to Saori to stop before returning her attention to Tasianna and me. “I-I… Please.”

She bowed her head. I didn’t know if she would speak, but I wasn’t about to torture her with her son in pain. Saori nodded to my intentions and placed the wrapped up Parilostro on a couch before opening the window, making sure the other “copies” of her son wouldn’t ambusd us.

Although she wasn’t calm in any manner, I still pulled Tasianna back from Reajaen, letting the latter sit back down. As I joined her on the other side of the desk, I repeated what I said before. I wanted to know what her deal was.

“… Senator O’Bloom, no, before he killed his own father, mother, and siblings to take his place as the head of his house. Harrione O’Bloom, he killed my lover, Resclave.”

Reajaen suddenly took off her coat and pulled down the back of her dress. As Tatsuya, Kyouya, and Grimnir were forced to look away by us girls, Reajaen turned around, revealing a large scar on her back. Although it wasn’t visible anymore, I could only wince as I guessed what it was.

An emblem inside a cage. The mark of a slave tattoo.

“He was my slaver and tormentor back when I was still a debt slave in the Folschreck Empire.”

I frowned. “You were a slave? So your last name and your wealth—?”

“Yes, I was never this rich. My parents were daywagers in the Folschreck Empire and they sold me to pay back a debt as I was their youngest child. Full-bestial beastmen are constantly belittled and bullied while free, but as a slave, we were desired by the affluent humans. They see us even more as beasts than our human-skinned relatives, you see,” she explained, giving off a slight teacher-like vibe, as if she was lecturing me on beastman racism.

“Hold on.” However, I was more interested in what she just mentioned. “You just called yourself a full-bestial beastmen, right? But you’re like me, right now. More human than beast in appearance.”

“Thank you. It was what I wanted.” She touched her fair skin. If this were Earth, people would have thought her of a middle-aged woman cosplaying a fox. “… But I am even happier that O’Bloom hasn’t noticed me yet. It was worth shedding myself, even if it meant I could never look like my son ever again.”

I rotated my body, looking at Parilostro. I couldn’t believe Reajaen was telling such a flat-out lie. Her son shared a lot of features with his mother, so what was Reajaen talking about?

“… Then what about your son? What does he have anything to do with all this? Don’t try to lie to us about him not having any connection with a demonkin. We know and have our methods to detect it. We also know you are hiding the demonic item you stole from O’Bloom and his group in your hidden village.”

“The Church of the Edjurl…” she mumbled. “So you know about them? Which means, the reason why you flew out of the city was for that? You went to O’Bloom’s base under the mountain arch?”

“Are you specifically trying to stall us for some reason or why aren’t you answering my questions?” I was starting to get annoyed at her. “You haven’t objected to being from the Resurrection, but you haven’t confirmed it either. You are asking me questions instead of answering mine. Lady Reajaen, this is getting tiring! I am not here for small talk. I want clear answers. I want to know if you truly are either an ally, neutral, or… an enemy.”

My eyes stared into hers as if I was gazing at her soul, looking for any signs of lie. At this very moment, I had to know if she was a real threat to us or not. We were exposing things by going at it directly, but that was ‘cause we needed a lot of answers. There were so many things we needed to know.

This was precisely why I told Mother to stay back home. Things would have already turned ugly if she had joined in. Also why Haruka decided to avoid coming.

“… And what would you do with that information if I were to say yes or no, Princess Hestia?” She glared back, letting my intimidation not affect her. “You are a priestess of Aurena. Do you know what is currently circulating in the underworld? In my sphere of information? That a demonkin killed Saintess Eshe, your friend. I know you are no friend of demonkins or those associated with them.”

“Ahh, so you’ve done more research into me than I thought.”

“Precisely why a no-name slave was able to reach the status of a senator in the city where money was everything. You are resourceful… or die.”

“And you sure were resourceful enough to try to ally up with me at first. Try on a pretense and then probably use me as any other tool for your plans. Oh, and then you attacked my friends. Were you that annoyed I rejected you? Heh… you sure had me fooled with that amicable nature of yours, Lady Reajaen.”

“And you are being too modest, Princess Hestia. When I ordered my people to attack the Layavete cartel, I told them to not attack you. None of your friends were hurt in that attack, only the people I wanted gone,” she said without flinching.

“Oh, you finally admitted it to being the Resurrection leader. Thank you, and…” I tapped my claw on her desk, digging a small hole in it. “To answer your question, if you aren’t our enemy, I won’t do anything to you. Although you will still have to answer to Tasianna for what you did. That is a problem between you and her.”

“We aren’t allies of demonkin, but we aren’t stupid,” Asaka spoke up, also nearing the ends of her patience. “We know who we need to put down first. And that is the Church of the Edjurl. They are actively aiming for us, and they will take you down as part of that. The onnikais at the village told me enough of what you and your son have been doing.”

“So I offer you an accord.” I took over again. “You want revenge on O’Bloom for killing your lover, and I need to destroy him since he’s a threat to my friends and happiness. We finally have something in common to rethink that deal you spoke about during our first meeting.”

“Hehehe, but you don’t need me to squish one tiny insect, Princess of the Dragons.”

“Oh no, I don’t. I agree with that, but you know I have an ulterior motive to all of this. I still need to make allies within Estralia.” I pulled out two pieces of parchment. “The opinions of King Drangleic and his seven dukes on which senators we should ally with. In the other, the confession of Neville, your mole in the Layavete. Honestly, about the latter, I had thought you only hired beastmen or women as your workers.”

“After what O’Bloom did to me, I admit, I do prefer the company of women over men. To feel safe. But this is a world where even people would seek the aid of demonkins to further their goals.” She then read the papers, widening her eyes at what was written on them. “Me? In such a good light?”

The general consensus from the Artorians was that all the senators were slimy and laced their words with ulterior motives; however, this was nothing new to a noble. As the heads of their respective houses, politicking was part of their everyday lives.

As such, a good ally to them was not a person with good intentions, but someone whose goals correlated with theirs without overstepping their boundaries. If they were also good to boot, then that was a nice addition. We needed someone to attain the presidency in Estralia, but they shouldn’t be prone to backstabbing us.

As such, all eight Olden Money were out of the window. They were too profit-oriented without a moral compass or anything. That left us with the “lower” senators, composed from the representatives voted by the people. All of them had ambitions, but most of them didn’t have a plan on how to execute them when they approached King Drangleic.

All except Reajaen.

“Heh… you know, I only talked to them about you. That was it. I never mentioned an alliance or anything. I was simply networking,” she admitted.

“And that was why I trusted Neville’s statement about. You are modest in your spendings, only using it when you have to. You are loyal to the beastmen companions you took in, where he even stated you weeped when you heard one of your bases was exterminated. And, most importantly for me, you are a stark opposer of slavery. One of the very few in this city, even if you couldn’t be bothered to help human slaves.”

“… Ahhhh, now I see. This accord of yours, it’s your way to understand if I can actually be trusted or not. You want a president you can trust, even if they have connections with a demonkin? But, Princess Hestia, your fairy friend isn't enthusiastic about it, it seems.”

I looked over at Tasianna, who was still glaring at Reajaen with a look of death.

The room became chillier once she spoke up, “And you will answer for them, monster. But until then, our goals align.”

“… Hehe.” A giggle escaped her mouth. A smile formed on her face, suddenly lifting away the tense atmosphere. “You are far more interesting like this, Princess Hestia. Your first impression wasn’t as good. I expected more from a dragon. You sounded too meek.”

“My job isn’t to be a princess all the time,” I countered while sighing in annoyance. “My main job is an idol and leader of my hunter company. I would rather leave these discussions to somebody else if I could.”

“Ahh, I understand. But you have talent with how you can use your dignity as a princess and the ferociousness of your species to your advantage. Hahaha, maybe this can be interesting. Allying with you, I mean. Well, if I can survive after all of this…”

Ahhhhhhhhhh, finally it’s oooooooveerrrrr! I hate this. I let out a small sigh through my nose as I started to relax on the chair I was sitting on. I really hated these tense situations.

“To answer your question—”

“Mother!” Parilosto protested, but his mother simply raised her hand.

“Enough, my son. It is better this way. If we can have an ally for this, then we can save the lives of our fellow Resurrection. They will hand down their lives for you and me. That is the goal of the Resurrection, after all. However, let us not, and hear them out for now.”

“But if we accept them, you will die! That blue-haired fairy has a bloodthirsty aura. She seeks revenge just as much as you do.” He continued arguing but his mother only shook his head.

“And I deserve it… For your life, I would sacrifice even my soul. Every action has a consequence, and this will simply be my reward for everything.”

She then turned around to me, finally ready to spill the beans.

“Now, where was I? Ahh, your question. No, my son isn’t the demonkin contractor.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“I am,” she admitted. “I spoke with the demonkin Prince of Sloth on the night I was to give birth to Parilostro after managing to escape one of O’Bloom’s nightly ‘pleasures’ when he was still young enough to visit the Empire at his leisure. I was still a slave, so I didn’t have a midwife to help me nor was there a stranger kind enough to lend a hand for a beastman slave. I gave birth, and, from it, Parilostro was born. However, he was small and fragile. My dear Resclave’s only memento was about to die on the same night he was born.”

I felt my chest tighten.

“ ‘Do you need aid?’ was the first thing I heard as I wept for my sad, pathetic life and how my only son would soon die before I could spend any of my years with him. I looked up. The silvery-white moon of winter shone on the horned person, revealing the hand he offered me. I took his hand. He freed me. Strangely, I never asked his name once, always calling him Master out of habit.”

The Prince of Sloth was supposedly a talented artificer and alchemist according to Reajaen. He brought her to a rundown shack he was using as a base while he stayed in one of the Empire’s cities.

There, he forcibly removed the slave tattoo without harming her manapaths. A feat even experienced runic tattooists couldn’t do - the only known safe way they knew was to destroy the slave contract binding the tattoo.

“He gave us shelter. Fed my son and I without expecting any compensation. All he asked me was to never disturb him while he worked or slept. He did all of that, and when Parilostro experienced complications that would lead to his death, I made a contract with him to save my son. The Prince of Sloth created an artificial heart for my boy, which pumped a demonkin’s blood through his veins.”

“Hold on, but that would mean your son is a demonkin now, no? It’s been too long.” Ellaine blurted out.

“That is correct. As you guessed, this body is simply a puppet, a puppet my son made for himself to ‘move’ around while his real body was trapped in his bed. He is a demonkin in the form of a foxian, with the power to control puppets within a certain distance.” Reajaen smiled while her son frowned in pain. “But, the prince warned me. My son was still young, and the heart would deteriorate in quality as he grew. A heart made for a toddler wasn’t adequate for an adult. His skin is always pale as a ghost, and his real body sleeps almost for the entire day.”

“And this is why you have this heart?” Grimnir wondered. “But you didn’t make this. This was made by tazongn hands.”

“Correct. I asked a dwarf for help. While I only learned alchemy from the Prince of Sloth, he left the blueprints for the artificial heart for me to use.” She then pulled out the blueprints, letting a shocked Grimnir and Ellaine read them. “As you can see, they are very hard to read, even for an experienced artificer.”

Ellaine nodded slowly, still flabbergasted at what she was seeing.“T-True… I can make the intentions of the plans out, but some of these techniques… I cannot replicate them.”

“You aren’t even a year in your training, lass,” Grimnir comforted her. “Then, who was the artificer you called upon?”

“The local head locomotive engineer of the train station, Jadhund Heimhunter.”

“Heimhunter, huh?”

“Do you know him, Grimnir?” I asked.

“Aye, I do, lass. One of the top members of the train guild. He used to train under one of the original manatech engineers who worked with the Revolution Queen on the train. He’s that man’s successor, which also makes him one of the best artificers you could find in the Ankor-Nazta.” Grimnir then scoffed, shaking his head in disappointment. “And you are telling me that man is helping you? Ha! He more of a zuekluk than I am.”

“Maybe.” Reajaen nodded. “But Master Jadhund was our savior. He made the foundation of the heart for us in addition to creating the batteries. He even taught my son the art of manatech. And this saved us, as the heart wasn’t finished and we even broke one of the batteries during a test. Despite knowing our predicament, he still hadn’t told anybody about our secret.”

“The honor of a tazong, foxian.” Grimnir crossed his arms, keeping his eyes shut as he continued. “But I could guess the one your son made. It was a feeble attempt to copy my cousin’s technique… Heh, the famous Jadhund Heimhunter used Broggi’s techniques, huh? If only you were still here to hear it, cousin…”

It was a touching moment, but there was still something I didn’t understand. The same something that Tasianna wanted to know.

“Then why did you need to hunt down my people? If you needed mana, hire a mage. You had enough money.”

“… I have no excuse there. Once again, I apologize.”

But every additional apology only caused Tasianna to become more agitated. As such, Reajaen just continued to talk.

“The Prince of Sloth told me I needed a good base for the batteries. They would continuously refill themselves within my son’s body, but to make him healthy, we needed to fill the batteries with quality mana. He suggested elementals or fairies.”

Reajaen knew as an alchemist she couldn’t do this, as draining a fairy of their mana would mean their death. Something Reajaen initially wanted to avoid. As such, when she first became a member of Estralia’s alchemist guild and established the foundations of the Resurrection, she employed Davison. A known fanatic on evolving the human race.

With Reajaen’s wealth and Davison’s ideas, the two made a good duo trying to find a better, accessible mana source for the batteries. Dragons were out of the question, leviathan’s as well, and many high ranked monsters weren’t enough for them. They even tested on lesser faefolk, but the amount of mana a spirit had compared to a fairy meant they had to use more spirits to fill a single mana battery.

After many tests and out of patience, Reajaen finally listened to Davison and employed fae hunters. And, before the first test could be completed, she stopped it. For the fae hunters never returned.

“…” Tasianna was silent. This was probably when she and Princess Schuri were captured.

Afterwards, Reajaen fired Davison when they got into an argument about it. Davison joined O’Bloom after the Resurrection began making moves, where Davison was given full leeway on all of his abominable experiments. Advancing the technology of implanting bombs inside a person — something he worked with Parilostro with — and also mutating monsters and people.

But, most importantly, this was when Davison joined the Church of the Edjurl. He became one of their pawns and was tasked to further the demonkin’s goals to take over Artorias. He was also tasked to free the demon trapped inside a ruin dedicated to the fenrir Belzac. As we know, this demon was Klea’Hatma.

When I mentioned the black liquid potion to her, Reajaen shook her head. Apparently, this was a personal project for Davison, as Reajaen never heard that O’Bloom knew about it. I couldn’t help but let a sigh of relief out. Davison’s demonification potion was far superior to the ones the troll shaman and the demonkin of envy I killed in Artorias used.

“And all of that was for my revenge and the survival of my son,” Reajaen ended. “I chose a new name and even had the Prince of Sloth change my appearance with the help of a demonkin of envy just so O’Bloom wouldn’t recognize me. I came to Estralia, bringing my knowledge of alchemy to kickstart my wealth. Afterwards, I used the conversations I overheard from O’Bloom to become a successful merchant in this city. My greatest enemy was also my greatest mentor…”

She became silent after that, laying in her chair as she stared up at the manatech chandelier.

“Now, I believe I have spoken enough. What is your judgement, Princess Hestia? May I accept your accord? Am I worthy enough to help you, help me?”

“… What is your end goal after O’Bloom is dead? What is your goal as the president?”

“To abolish slavery. To abolish the Olden Money system. To make Estralia a place where beastmen can live safely.”

I closed my eyes.

‘Not every demonkin is like that.’ Fuck you, you fucktard, Eithalr. You are a major reason for everything that happened in Artorias, so don’t come at me with your self-righteousness. Next time I see you, I will kill you… but, you were right, at least for this.

At least some demonkins have some compassion.

I stood up.

“O’Bloom will attack you in a week. He will come for what is his. Call your people, Lady Reajaen. Get them ready.” I then snatched the heart and the mana battery her son made. “Until we deal with them, I will keep them with me. You have no complaints?”

“Do I even have a choice?” Nonchalant, that she was.

Turning around, all of us began to leave the room.

“Aurora, it’s time to hunt down our enemy.”

“““Yes, Princess Hestia!”””

Holy crap, can you guys not all be so cringy?

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Chapter 297: Baited.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Narrator moment.

“The dragon is nesting inside the Wandering Fox Inn in the city. North of the middle district, close to the merchant’s. If she isn’t there, then you might also find her visiting the merchant district, inside a shop called ‘Olive’s Garden.’”

Obese. Fattened to the point of looking like nothing more than a pig. There was an attempt to hide this ugliness through fancy robes and brilliant gemstones, but the spectators could only think of it as gaudy. Like wrapping a slug with golden sheets.

However, none of the servants nor the adventurers would say those words out loud. There was too much Davi to lose if they did. Making an enemy out of one of the Olden Money senators of Estralia, the republic where money was king, was neither good for their pouches nor heads. After all, what was this senator doing with his wealth right at this moment?

He had hired a small army of mercenaries to fight for his cause. To utterly destroy any opposition standing before his goals.

“However, do not even try to slay the dragon. Its mother roosts within also. The last thing my city requires is an angry mother dragon trying to destroy it, and if I hear any of you try to harm the young, I will put down the coins for your head.”

And there was the threat all the mercenaries knew well-enough to fear. The mercenary business in Peolynca was supported by a guild to protect them from unscrupulous clients and guarantee the mercenary would receive their money. However, even then, some employers would still backstab their contracted adventurers, and if there were any evidence for the act, all the guild could do was to blacklist them.

However, this wasn’t the case for a black mercenary. Those who scurry away from the legal mercenary’s guild to participate in Quests sometimes require some silencing. In these, scheming employers could do what they wanted, as you had less protection if you weren’t part of a known mercenary company.

And all the mercenaries here were black for this job. Outside of two parties of hunters.

“Wyvernslayers.” Harrione O’Bloom, the overweight senator, spoke to the group of hunters. “I hope you understand this well. I want you to chase the dragon away. She has a young heart. Perfectly moldable by causing some uproar. Manipulate the crowd. With hatred, you can get rid of her without causing me any fuss.”

O’Bloom had not revealed the true identity of the dragon in question to the hunters. They did not know they were about to encounter the third princess of the Dragon Empire Kargryx, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor. Nor did they know they might anger the second strongest dragon currently alive on Peolynca.

“Are you fucking messing with us?!”

And it showed with the reaction of one of the wyvernslayer parties.

“You brought us here to hunt a damn lizard! And now not only are you not telling us what the hell we’re dealing with but also forcing us to simply scare it away?!” A human archer in his early thirties complained about the Quest details. “Dragons are more intelligent than wyverns, but at the end of the day, both lizards are bad-mannered and ill-tempered. You say ‘fuck you’ in their face, they will respond with their elemental breath to our face!”

B rank hunter Simeon of the wyvern hunting party “Scale Breakers.” Although only a B rank hunter, specialized hunters like Simeon were experts in their particular monster category, sometimes even outperforming more experienced jack-of-all-trade adventurers during a Quest.

However, unlike other monster specializations, being a wyvernslayer or dragonslayer was probably one of the most hazardous job specializations out there. Not only did you have to account for a dragonkin’s powerful elemental abilities and their deadly claws and fangs, but you also had to remember the vast variety of them. A battle with a fire wyvern would play out differently from one with a snow wyvern.

And this became even more apparent going from a wyvernslayer to a dragonslayer. Dragons and drakes had even higher stats compared to wyverns while possessing intelligence similar to a human’s. They were the epitome of a wyvernslayer’s career. Slaying a true dragonkin would guarantee them Quests from numerous influential Quest givers, given they survive each of them.

However, becoming an adventurer was already unorthodox for most people. Becoming a hunter only willing to hunt wyverns and dragons, on the other hand, required you to be committed enough to endure this arduous path. You had to be mad, angry, or a thrill-seeker to willingly face a living fortress of scales and fire capable of destroying parties of even experienced hunters alone.

“What rank is the beast? What element? What elemental weakness does it have? Does it have a weak spot to exploit? There are two dragons, so how can we—”

But the endless question of professional wyvernslayer was too much for O’Bloom’s patience. He didn’t hire these people to slay Hestia, he called them to drive her out of his city. If Hestia were to die at the hands of these idiots, her mother would destroy everything he had built up. He knew very well these “ants” would have no chance against the Empress of Kargryx.

As his face reddened at the wyvernslayer’s words, O’Bloom was about to order the mercenaries to shut his mouth up, but before he could give the order, someone else intervened.

“Hey, stop being so enthusiastic about it.” With a strong arm on his shoulder, the archer stopped talking and turned around to a burly man in scaled armor. “Adventurers follow the wish of the client. Slaying a dragon is fine and honorable, but if the mother suddenly tries to kill us all, what are you gonna do about it? I’m not an expert like you when it comes to dragons and wyverns, but even I know not to anger the parents of a young monster.”

“… Sure, Sir Larent.” The archer quickly acquiesced, silencing himself before bowing in apology to O’Bloom.

Yes! This is why I brought in an A rank hunter! Someone that isn’t an imbecile!

O’Bloom’s face brightened up like a sunflower, smiling widely at his decision to hire an A rank party just in case something went wrong. However, a normal A rank party wouldn’t cause him such joy; rather, it was the leader of this party that made him want to dance in glee.

“Sir Larent Antonodius, former member of the Hands of Heaven, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for stopping this mess. Will you swear to drive that ravenous fiend from my city?” Unlike the mercenaries and the wyvernslayer, O’Bloom addressed this man courteously, as if he was speaking with a noble of significant worth.

“Haha, no, please. I am far past my days as a member of the Imperial Knights. His Majesty, the Holy Emperor of Light, probably doesn’t even remember my name or face anymore. I am simply a normal adventurer, like the others of my party.”

The Hands of Heaven, the official name of the Imperial Knights of the Folschreck Empire. The defenders of the Holy Emperor of Light, the swords of righteousness protecting the realm of humans. The superhuman rivals of the Church of Aurena’s Knights of Aurena.

It is said that the Hands of Heaven are the equals of the church’s Knight, that both factions were similar in strength. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. It was propaganda the church created with the approval of the Emperor to not make the Church of Aurena’s look worse in the eyes of their followers.

In truth, the Knights of Aurena could include any brave and ardent warrior of faith, but a position within the Hands of Heaven demanded you to be A rank in strength. As you would serve as the Emperor’s hands and shield, you also had to be a person who could catch his eyes. As such, one’s valor and glory claimed in the name of the Emperor could be ended in a second once your splendor dimmed.

“However, you still are ‘Auegor’s Blade,’ Sir Larent! A masterful swordsman, nay, I say you could have been a sword saint in your prime!” O’Bloom tried to butter up the middle-aged swordsman, but the latter simply dismissed such a claim.

If I am a sword saint, then the world truly does not know the might of one. One who would say that a swordsman in his forties is still only a fledgeling, Larent thought, disliking such flattery.

Larent had only accepted O’Bloom’s quest due to his party’s need for money. They required money as they needed to turn their materials into new equipment. Such was the life of an adventurer.

Neither his companions nor he did proper research into their employer when a messenger came to them with the Quest request. The amount of Davi offered was too enticing. To simply scare off a young dragon wasn’t easy, of course, but it sure beat trying to kill one and its mother.

Really hope this dragon is as kind-hearted as this guy claims.

With the wyvernslayers calmed, O’Bloom directed his attention back to all the mercenaries. Not only did his money flow into this small army, but also the money of six other senators. Senator Plymeir and Urlandor watched their compatriot’s speech, hoping this investment would work out.

It had been four days since they escaped the sudden attack from Saori’s group at their bandit’s base. Sure, Saori and co. weren’t specifically there to assassinate O’Bloom and the members of the Church of the Edjurl, but after their allied demonkin, Hee’Rlak, fought them to a standstill, what else were they supposed to think?

They learned later on that Saori and others were from Aurora, but those later reports also specified that Aurora hasn't made any further moves to track O’Bloom and the Church of the Edjurl down. All the senators concluded that Aurora didn’t know their current location, but they were still wary if the hunter company had overheard their plan at all.

Nevertheless, even if Aurora didn’t know the senators were members of the Church of the Edjurl, they now knew O’Bloom and the other six senators were allies to demonkin. However, getting rid of Hestia was impossible. No, it was possible, but the consequences would be too severe with Melloxtressa around. The sixth Empress of Kargryx was still a gigantic dragon, if the rumors of her size were true.

O’Bloom had already informed the princes of envy about everything, but no answer had arrived in return. Still, their plans couldn’t be stopped at this point. They needed to act now, otherwise the other senators of Estralia would simply kick them out of the senate. If they lost their power now, it would be impossible to take over Estralia politically. All the work O’Bloom had done over the years would be wasted.

“Senator Plymeir, do you really think this is the correct way?” Urlandor asked his only real ally in this group.

House Plymeir and Urlandor were historically friends. The previous heads, as such the respective house’s senators, used to cooperate in most of their business ventures, including ruling the underworld through the Layavete Cartel. However, after their brothers died, the current two took over using O’Bloom’s influence.

They had planned to avenge their brothers by destroying the Resurrection and Reajaen Resclave, but little did they know they joined a group where defecting would be impossible. They knew too much at this point. They had seen too much for the Church of the Edjurl to leave them alone.

Their spies had told them that Reajaen was currently sending people to Eshreen village. They weren’t sure how Reajaen managed to learn of their upcoming assault, but they both had a bad feeling it might have come from either an internal rat or from Aurora themselves. They hadn’t voiced their opinion to O’Bloom yet, who fully believed their victory was at hand.

Both senators looked anxious, worried their gut was telling them to jump off this boat before it crashed. “No way would that sly fox Reajaen not prepare herself,” they thought. Still, with all the mercenaries around, including some defected Yanderu Eluseus members they managed to hire, Reajaen would not be able to fight back, right?

“You two.” A voice came from behind a corner.

Both senators froze in place. They knew that voice. That bored, monotonous voice had already seared itself into their minds and souls. That image of the fiery destroyer couldn’t be forgotten. Such a contrast, but both belonged to the same person.

As they turned around, they saw that demonkin of wrath before them. Not anymore in his plain clothes, he finally looked like a warrior. Clad in armor made from the materials of volcanic and desert monsters, specifically to improve and endure against his flames. On his hips was a normal black staff, not used to attack, but to act as a conduit for his elemental weapons.

Unlike his first meeting with Saori, Hee’Rlak was fully equipped with everything he needed to go to war. A demonkin of wrath was controlled by their emotions throughout their lives. Without excitement, or something to anger and frighten them, they would go about their lives in constant monotony.

However, once enough stimuli appeared, their whole demeanor changed. Their demonic bloodline allowed them to control their mana and turn it into one of the many elements, similar to an elemental, though they may only choose one element for their lifetime. Their depression and addiction to the power of their element constantly push these demonkin to constantly seek stimulation of all kinds, but especially fights. As such, demonkins of wrath were called warmongers and troublemakers by even their fellow demonkins, desperately needing such ecstasy for them to escape depression.

“S-Sir Hee’Rlak!” Senator Plymeir said in surprise but before he could speak, Hee’Rlak raised his hand, silencing him.

“I need not hear what you and he were thinking about. I can guess.” His saddened face suddenly morphed, curving his downward mouth into a smile. “I too am waiting for her to return. A trap awaits us. If you two wish to escape now, I would suggest you do. Wipe your hands from this association.”

“W-What?! You want us to defect?!” Senator Urlandor made sure to not trip on his words. He couldn’t make a mistake while speaking, as this could just be a test.

“War is war,” Hee’Rlak answered. “I have nothing against you humans, but I have my orders as a soldier. To find thrill in it is my wish. I have no idea who will win, but if you two aren’t sure about it, then I suggest you leave now. My instincts tell me that wolfkin and her companions were still hiding their real power. That dragon that O’Bloom talked about. I want to fight her! The leader of this group.”

“But what about your master?” Urlandor talked about the giant lightning bolt that covered their escape.

“I told her not to interfere. This is my fight.”

A daredevil through and through, although his honor also told him he had to conclude his battle with Saori. Whether she fought with Tasianna and the others against him. Whether they ganged up on him hundred to one, he would still face them by himself. A thrill like this was hard to find outside of a full-on war.

“As such, do what you want, but do not try to stop this battle. If you try to do so, I will end your life right here, right now.”

The words of the battle junkie shook both of the senators. They nodded. There was nothing more they could do.

And so, without anybody stopping O’Bloom and his small army of mercenaries, three days passed. The day of the all-out war between Resclave and O’Bloom was about to start. Both sides wanted the heads of their opponent.

The black mercenary army was split into two groups. One would engage Eshreen village and retrieve the demonic orb held in the dungeon close by, while the other would go with the wyvernslayers to assault Resclave mansion. With the help of some of the bandits who tried to insult Hestia at the grand opening of the pastry shop and Bistro Aurora, the wyvernslayers made their way to the RV first.

“Hmm? Is this city supposed to be so empty?” The archer, Simeon, commented about how devoid of people the roads of Gleisvale were.

When they entered the city, they had noticed the usual bustle of a merchant city wasn’t around at the gates nor was it further into the town. Simeon never visited Gleisvale before, but Larent had. He knew this city should be full to the brim like the capital of the Folschreck empire, Riekwelst.

Of course, there were still laborers on the streets, but not enough to call this city a city. Where were the merchants? Where were the street performers? Where were the pickpockets? Many shops in the middle district were closed for the day, and they couldn’t even see a single horse carriage driving rich merchants through the city.

“It’s just past the lunch bell.” Larent noted, and his party members agreed. Some of them even felt hungry from the lack of people around.

It felt weird to both Simeon and Larent. Their instincts, honed through years of being adventurers and fighters, told them something was awry. As if there was a trap. They wondered if the other mercenaries also felt the same.

When they reached the inn where Aurora’s RV was parked, they learned from the innkeeper that all of Aurora had gone to work, which O’Bloom’s bandit guide noted was their pastry shop and eatery. The two hunters also asked why the city was so empty at this moment.

“Ah, you probably haven’t heard about it. The temples and their priests have called for everybody to converge into a moment of prayer. Ah, I believe the young priestess of Goddess Aurena was also invited. Such a rare event, I must say, since the Temple of Mercurias rarely interacts with the others.”

It still surprises me how little the people of Estralia pray to the Goddess. Something like this would be impossible in the Empire, Larent thought, still unable to believe Mercurias’s popularity. If the god had been a member of the pantheon of light, he would have accepted it better, but such was the world.

The group checked the RV for a moment, wondering if somebody was hiding inside. The bandit suggested breaking in it, but both hunters rejected that idea. Although having learned the reason for why the city was so empty, they thought it was too much of a coincidence. On the day of the attack, something this weird happened?

Of course, maybe they were simply overthinking it.

After they arrived at Olive’s Garden, they were baffled at how that shop was also closed. The “Closed” sign was clear to see. However, what wasn’t close was the door next to the building. A pair of laborers just rushed in, shouting “Shit, we’re gonna miss it!”

The bandit guide told them that was the entrance into the eatery of the dragon. In other words, it was another one of the “lairs” she could enter. With nowhere else to go, they decided it was the only path left.

After all the hunter’s readied their weapons in case they got into a fight, the bandit guide once again warned them to chase the dragon away, not to kill them. Simeon accepted it reluctantly. He was another wyvernslayer with a terrible experience with dragonkins, having seen his village in the Empire destroyed by a wind wyvern. Years later, the wings of that wyvern were made into his bow.

As they opened the door, against their expectations, an angelic choir suddenly erupted from the gap. As they peered inside, they noticed the shining black floor in front of them and a queue of humans and beastmen slowly entering through another door.

Why is there a choir? And is this obsidian? Larent touched the ground before checking his sides. Once he determined it was safe, he told the others to enter.

There, the hunters’ jaws went agape as they saw the room furnished with tables and chairs. The walls also had manatech lamps illuminating the area, making the obsidian-colored walls and floor look even more mesmerizing. They also saw a sign on one of the tables.

“Don’t hurt, steal, or threaten anybody. You will be kicked out if you do. Otherwise, please, enjoy the show!” it said.

There was confusion amongst the hunters. Why was such a sign here and why did it say those words in front of a dragon’s lair?

As they wondered what was happening, they noticed other people entering and ignoring their group. These people immediately picked up bulb-like items from a box full of them and left through the only other door in the room, immediately letting in the loud choir.

The hunters looked at each other and agreed they had to move. They didn’t pick up any of the bulbs but entered the next room directly, where they saw something they would have never expected.

“For all the life on Peolynca ♫

Our hymn is directed to you ♫

For the Origin Gods watch over us, so pray we do in their names ♫

For the love they gave us, all year long ♫

Soooo… hear as we say, for love of your life. ♫

Make peace, not war ♫”

A gigantic cavern made entirely out of obsidian-colored walls and ground, decorated to make it look homely. Around them were hordes of humans and beastmen, either standing or sitting as they watched something happening in the middle. Where the sound of the choir came from.

Moving through the moveable pass in between each group of people, they noticed some of them releasing that bulb from before, where it floated into the air and blossomed, releasing brilliant green, red, and yellow lights. Simeon couldn’t help but stare in shock, as this wasn’t what he expected to see today.

This is obviously a dragon’s lair! Why are the people here?! Were they brainwashed?

On the other hand, Larent was thinking of something else.

This song… It isn’t one I know, but the practice and melody is definitely a liturgical song. I feel like I’m in a temple. Now that I think about it, I haven’t visited the local temple yet. I must make my prayer to thank the Goddess for guiding my party to success in the last Quest.

After a while, where every hunter was made aware of how truly humongous this place was, they noticed the origin of the choir. An elevated stage was in the middle of it, where multiple people were standing.

Larent noticed multiple people in robes, people of faith, standing in a row while singing the choir, while a red-haired person in a white-red priest robe directed them. Like a conductor for an orchestra. However, as he looked closer, he noticed this person having horns on their head and a crimson-scaled tail peeking out from the bottom of their robes.

Dragonewt? Lizardmen?

It didn’t matter. Either way, it was a scalekin. In other words, this was either their target, or somebody who knew where the dragon was.

“Thank you very much!” A girl’s clear voice resounded inside this place, reaching everybody’s ears. “Please, give a round of applause to a wonderful starting piece from the temples of Gleisvale! Goddess Aurena, Goddess Plesia, Goddess Zephira, Goddess Crustacia, God Marsven, God Shi— Danteno, and God Mercurias. In their name, I shall dedicate today’s show!”

“Sir Larent, that must be her!” Simeon grabbed Larent’s shoulders as the red-haired priestess turned around to the cheering crowd, revealing herself as Hestia. “You, that is the dragon in her dragonewt form, right?!”

“Ark! Yeah! Fuck me, let go!” the bandit confirmed.

Before Simeon or Larent could say anything, Hestia’s speech continued, “As I mentioned at the beginning, this is the very first dimensional idol concert of Peolynca! I dare a mage challenge me in this! Regardless, I would like to welcome all of you once again to the Artorias-Gleisvale concert.”

Dimensional? Larent’s eyes widened. How could he have not noticed this sooner?

This cavern here, how was it possible for such a huge place to fit inside that small building they entered? Hold on, was this even the same place? They didn’t go down any stairs so it was impossible for something like this to exist. However, when he heard the word “dimensional,” he finally realized the answer to this mystery.

Space-Time Magic! Does this dragon know how to use it?!

“This is bad,” Larent thought aloud.

As his instincts told him, they had wandered into a trap. But before he could say anything, the shrill cries of griffons and hippogryphs filled the area, drawing his attention towards them.

There, he saw a small wall separating the crowd. On the other side, he saw multiple griffons and hippogryphs flying around with their riders on them. There were also some gargoyles in the air, which he presumed belonged to either mages or nobles. Regardless, it looked like these people were watching the show from up there. Were there not enough seats?

His eyes also noticed the giant diamond-like shield ingrained in the obsidian wall behind that group of griffons. Was that thing always there? Where was such a large diamond gotten? It felt large enough for even an ancient dragon or leviathan.

“Sir Larent! Focus! We need to beg—” Simeon wanted to start the Quests, but Hestia’s voice once again drowned his out. Nothing could overshadow her voice while she had [Aerokinesis].

“Please, enjoy yourself! The concert part is about to begin, so, if anybody is hungry or wants to buy some splendidly-made merchandise made by my friends, then please be ready! The merchants are coming out!” The girl curled up her hands into fist before placing them on the ground.

Spots on the floor suddenly began to glow, looking similar to lava to the experienced Larent. In the next moment, that obsidian ground opened up and people manning stands suddenly arose from it. Immediately, they began to announce and promote their products, giving Larent the experience he had been expecting from Gleisvale from the beginning.

The sound of merchants working while customers came over to buy their products was far louder than he had thought. After a few seconds, soldiers with the house emblem of House Helvas and Greenveil suddenly appeared, beginning to control the crowd like town guards.

“As I mentioned in the sign before you entered, please, do not hurt, steal, or threaten anybody! Whether you paid or didn’t for your spots, it doesn’t matter! You are inside my home right now, and I will have people kick you out! This is a place for you to enjoy yourself! This is an idol concert!”

Cheers came from the side with griffons, calling out “Hestia! Hestia! Hestia!” as she warned everybody. It was as if they were used to this sort of event.

“However, before we begin the concert. I have to direct our attention to a few new entries! Take a look, peeps!” The spotlights on the stage dimmed before turning on around the hunters, drawing everybody’s attention to them. “Our ‘wyvern and dragonslayers!’ No idea if they actually came here to kill me or something, but I do hope they don’t!”

““““Booooooooooo!””””

Displeased sounds coming from both sides erupted in the cavern. All was directed at Larent’s and Simeon’s group.

What is this?! Larent panicked a bit. This has never happened to me ever! Why are they booing me?!

“Come on people!” However, before it could become worse, Hestia stopped them. The spotlight was back to her. “As I said, no threatening! Alright? Let my bodyguards deal with them. You guys are here to be entertained! As such, Misters and Misses hunters, I do welcome you to my concert! I am Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor! The dragon you were looking for!”

Kargryxmor?! The dragon god?! Larent’s mouth went agape.

“Shit!” And Simeon spoke his thoughts out loud. “We’ve been had!”

They were lured in like fish.

“Make peace, not war, people! Let the show begin!”

A note from AbyssRaven

Baited, jebaited, outsmarted.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters for the whole month! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 298: The Obsidian Orchestra Debut.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #4 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until June!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

Take this with you! Rawr

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Hellblade Dragon Lv. 5] [Lightning Magic Lv. 4] [Corrosive Fire Lv. 5] [Terra Magic Lv. 4] [Draconic Barrier Lv. 8] [Delayed Cast Lv. 5] [Continuous Cast Lv. 4] [Trap Creation Lv. 10] gained

Spells gained: [Overload] [Ruinous Rockfall]

[Music Resonation (Major)] [Stage Fever (Critical)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Somebody once told me the world doesn’t revolve around me ♫

I ain’t the protagonist of the story ♫

A look in the mirror, and the memories that I’ve made ♫

And I couldn’t help but feel so sorry ♫”

The shimmer of the obsidian walls, the powerful glow of the spotlights, and the sound of people cheering all directed to the middle of this place. A humongous arena, far too large for my dragon form, but one meant to be large enough for Mother to stay in. It wasn’t close to what I imagined the final product to be, but the project I began with Mother blossomed for today’s show.

With her mana as fuel to create a cavern even larger than hers, my “lair,” my “nest,” was made. A dragon had to have her own boss stage, right? The one I made in the Belzac forest when I was stuck in that cave wasn’t around anymore, but now I had this — the “Obsidian Orchestra” as I liked to call it.

The stage was in the very middle of the arena, surrounded by seats. I never really dreamed of having my very own concert hall, but look at it now. I made the obsidian hull with [Volcanic Blaze] and I was now singing and performing before all my fans. This was, clearly, an evolution of all my previous stages.

I loved it.

“Well, ‘fuck you, too.’ Not gonna give up now ♫

You’re just a hater, don’t bring me down ♫

You don’t get a say who’s the hero here ♫

You get meaning in life with the actions you’ve done ♫”

The music echoed throughout the room. After quite an extensive amount of testing, I managed to control my [Aerokinesis] to the point where I could maintain the same volume across the entire room, no matter where you were seated. Sure, it meant more of my parallel minds had to be preoccupied with maintaining the volume. I was already using eight parallel minds to maintain all the special effects, lights, instruments, and sound.

From a combat perspective, I couldn’t fight at my full potential right now. I only had two unoccupied [Parallel Thoughts] left, and those two were responsible for whatever went wrong. Currently, I had no help with this concert. I was the skeleton crew. In other words, I had little to no time for those pesky dragonslayers interrupting my concert right now.

I couldn’t give them any more of the attention as I was giving to everybody else here. All I could do was continue singing.

“Big Sis! Your singing is amazing!”

And the cheers of the crowd told me I should. Seeing the orphanage kids from Griffonpeak shout and encourage was the best! Watching all the fans I made from Artorias release the light bulbs into the air, illuminating the obsidian floor in their brilliance was what every idol dreamed to see!

Kids, watch me! All of you, your idol won’t fail today!

“Showtime, get yourself up, the spotlights are here for you! ♫

Hey now, you superstar, flare-up, you’re number one ♫

All those cheers are for you ♫

You’re the centerpiece of your tale ♫”

The music exploded with the chorus. Louder. The music had to fill up the hall. Let this music enter your soul and awaken your enjoyment of it. Food and music! What brings people together even in the most hopeless times. While I give you the time of your lives, enjoy yourself in the numerous merchant stalls Reajaen, Amelia, and Haruka had to persuade them to appear here today!

“Whooooooo!” the common people of Gleisvale shouted! They were fully immersed after only one choir and pop song!

“These concerts are the best! Praise the Goddess for our Champion Hestia!” The raucous Griffonpeak folk celebrated while they visited the many food and merchandise stalls.

Greenveil and Helvas personal helping out was always a huge help. They benefited by selling a ton of stuff, while I benefited from a fervorous crowd.

However, even then, there were a few who weren’t enjoying the show from both sides. It couldn’t be helped, considering I was singing a pop song, which was a far departure from the priestly church music from before.

Taking advantage of the faith of people, I asked the Temple of Aurena, of Mercurias, and of the Six Origin Gods to come today. It was easy to persuade the bishop of the first temple, since he was already basically worshipping me as a champion, but it took some honeyed words to get the other two. In the end, however we did it didn’t matter, what mattered was that I managed to bring in as many people as possible here to ruin the plans of the Church of the Edjurl.

Specifically, the plans that Saori told me about. How they knew murdering me wasn’t the answer here, but driving me out with hate was. And to do so, they needed people who hated dragonkins and scalekins to rile up the crowd. They were planning on using pack mentality and fear-mongering to drive me out.

Not a problem, really. I had this whole place created for such a situation. Well, not specifically this situation. It was there in case a city got attacked again, like Griffonpeak. To give the citizens there a haven where they could seek refuge at. This was the real reason for the creation of the “Obsidian Orchestra,” but that didn’t mean I couldn’t still make concert plans for it.

And now, with a massive counter like this, I wondered what the two parties of dragonslayers were planning on doing? Outsmarted and baited into a trap. What would they think of doing now?

“Mind control! These people were charmed!”

As expected, they were checkmated. It was the obvious answer they could have given.

“We need to stop the beast!” A human archer, the one standing in front of one of the two hunter groups, ordered his party before readying his bow.

“Wait!” One of his companions, a heavily armored adventurer with a humongous tower shield, grabbed his arm and pulled it down. “Are you cra—”

“Hey, fuck off, ya fuckwit!” One of my attendees shouted at them, spilling some of his drink on the floor.

“Yeah! Get the hell out! Oi! Guards get those assshits outta here!” A woman tugged on one of the venue guards, drawn from the many soldiers of House Helvas and Greenveil for the day, and pointed his attention towards the adventurers. I could see the guard looking disturbed, seeing as I told them explicitly to not interfere against the dragonslayers.

The guards instead directed their attention back to the Gleisvale crowd. Them getting rowdy was expected, really. They acted pretty much as I came to learn during the promotion event for the pastry shop. Since the hunters were in the middle of Gleisvale seats, they were being insulted by people who just wanted to have fun.

Not to say the Griffonpeak people were any less loud. I could hear them complaining how none of the guards were stepping in to protect the “Champion.” The whole of Artorias didn’t know me, of course, but those in Griffonpeak did. I guessed making my appearance as a dragon there and how King Drangleic told everybody I was the city’s heroine helped a bit with my reputation.

With nobody really stopping them, outside of the belittlement of the crowd, the human archer seemed to become even madder. He rebuked his party member and then told the others about how wyverns used to destroy their homes and kill their loved ones.

It was a bit of a heartbreaker, until you remembered he probably wanted to kill me here. I couldn’t really feel bad for him if he was looking to shoot me down. Besides, I wasn’t even done with my first song yet.

“Showtime, get yourself up, the spotlights are here for you! ♫

Hey now, you superstar, flare-up, you’re number one ♫

All those cheers are for you ♫

You’re the centerpiece of your tale ♫”

The second chorus.

“Fuck it! We need to take her down and free everybody! Witch!” And with a firm pull on his longbow’s string, he released a bone arrow strong enough that my [Danger Perception] recognized it as a threat. How strong was this person?

But I didn’t react to it. I didn’t even use my scales to block. After all, I had the aid of some powerful bodyguards.

From above me, two large beams of ice blasted through the area where the arrow was, destroying it. Once the beam dissipated, snowflakes could be seen flying around before Shay and Beth landed on the frozen floor. Their wyvern maws scowled at the dragonslayers, readying themselves for a fight.

“Shit! Attack!” Undeterred, the archer retrieved another arrow while his teammates finally agreed to participate. Three melees charged forwards while a mage began cloaking his arrow with electricity.

But, before they could do anything, I poured mana through my feet, breaking the ground apart with [Volcanic Blaze]. The obsidian shards of the ground began to glow bright yellow, like magma, heated up by my mana. While making sure it wouldn’t hurt anybody, tree roots shot out from the gap, constricting the hunters’ legs.

[“Good work, Shay, Beth, Cernust. Make sure to kick them out without actually hurting them.”] I told my helpers telepathically before returning to my performance.

“Wh-What the fuck are these?!” The hunters tried to free themselves from the root, but every time they managed to cut themselves out, more grew out of the gap.

“Wrong place to try to harm our Princess, assholes!” Cernust, the [Woodland Drake] I befriended in Firwood, appeared from the ground in his dragonewt form, rustling his head to get rid of the obsidian dust. “You want to leave, or should we kick you out?”

[“Leave now.”] Shay commanded them, glaring at them imposingly while his sister took her combat stance immediately.

“Showtime, get yourself up, the spotlights are here for you! ♫

Hey now, you superstar, flare-up, you’re number one ♫

All those cheers are for you ♫

You’re the centerpiece of your tale ♫

…

Thank you very much!”

“Wooooooooooooh!”

“Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

Applause and cheers.

201 humans and beastmen have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 8080

The finale of the music, ushering in a small moment of silence before I thanked my audience. And a second later, my own ears were overwhelmed by the booming explosion of the claps and voices. The shower of praise tickled my skin and made me smile reflexively. I could never get enough of this.

“Thank you very much! Thank you!”

I saw King Drangleic and his seven Dukes standing up at their seats. Yes, all seven dukes were here. Similar to the dinner, they were here to foster our friendship even further, and I invited all of them here to give them a taste of what an idol actually was.

I could see Duke Groushia, Lecartiglio, and Greenveil not liking the first song too much, but it seemed the others did. Their smiles were more genuine. I sent the former trio a telepathic message, apologizing to them if they didn’t like the first song, and that I will be performing more styles later on. They smiled wryly, noticing I could see them before nodding and saying “Do not mind me, Lady Hestia.”

I know they like opera and orchestral songs. Maybe I should spice it up and include them? I guess I should since I’m in my orchestra house. Yeah, time to improv. Ballad time.

The King and the Dukes showing themselves wasn't just to show their approval of me, but also to show the dragonslayers they were supporting me. Well dressed and with all the griffons and hippogryphs circling around them, I don’t think anybody keen enough could miss them.

And whilst waving to my fans, I turned around, eyeing what the hunters would be doing. The human archer was telling everybody they would fight, prompting Shay, Beth, and Cernust to glare at them. I hoped they wouldn’t, since I promised Cernust’s fiancee, Severa, that he wouldn’t be fighting. He had such a hard time persuading her parents for her hand, I couldn’t allow him to hurt himself.

But, before the situation escalated, a person from the other hunter group grabbed the archer’s shoulder. A bulky, scarred man in an above-average-looking scale armor. Nothing was overly-fancy about it. It was just well made.

And this veteran was the one person I felt very wary about.

“Come on, Simeon, let’s go,” he told the archer in a rather thick accent, reminding me of Pestrodus. “Nothing we can do here anymore.”

“What?! Sir Larent, are you mad?! We need to kill her now, otherwise we’re letting a damn dragon roam free, destroying lives! Kargryxmor or not, to hell with him! You can slay her!” The archer kept insisting on killing me over and over again. Talk about a personality here dude.

“The contract is to drive her—”

“Fuck that fat fuc— Oof!” With a quick right hook, the archer was knocked out by the veteran. Unsheathing his sword, the man sliced apart the roots so fast I wasn’t even able to properly see his movements.

… Uhm, yes. Okay.

The man also freed up the archer’s other party members of Cernust’s roots and told them to carry their leader out of here. They were done here, since their contractor didn’t explain all the details properly, he said.

With no one complaining, they nodded and began their path of shame, getting booed by the crowd. As the man stared at me one last time, he turned around, making his way out.

… Hmm. Too much negativity. Oh well, let’s do it now. Prayer.

[Blessing of the Goddess (Major)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

406 humans and beastmen have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 8486

The shimmering radiance of this buffing spell enveloped the entirety of the cavern, basking everybody in its shine. Once again, the crowd erupted. Songs are powerful, but something like [Prayer] was just too effective. No wonder the Church of Aurena called this custom spell they made a gift from the Goddess Aurena. It was so easy to rile up people to your cause.

[“Hey,”] I called the veteran man telepathically, seeing as he was staring at the residue of [Prayer]’s large magic circle in the sky, completely amazed and baffled. [“If you’re actually from the Empire, try to choose your employers more carefully. If you’re a follower of the Goddess, you should drop this contract.”]

He had an amulet of Aurena around his neck and his accent was close to Pestrodus’s. I wasn’t sure if he was from the Empire, but at the very least, he was one of Aurena’s worshippers.

He turned around and gave me a short nod before leaving the room. Hopefully, I won’t meet him again. He was the only one I felt was a real threat. His party members were probably B rank, but that archer guy felt like a C rank adventurer. Maybe his equipment was better, but not really important.

[“Mother.”] While I kept my smile up to the crowd, I spoke to Mother who was watching the whole concert behind a huge wall made from her diamond-like ice. [“I didn’t think they were able to get dragonslayers strong as that middle-aged man.”]

A problem from my last performance was that Mother had to make herself invisible to watch me without people fearing her. As such, the best way to solve this was to create a way for her to watch without that problem. My cave was literally next to hers. We were in the same subspace room, right now.

[“Hmm. Outside of that abrasive rat and his group of dissidents, I don’t believe the others were dragonslayers, Hestia. In fact, that rat only had equipment made from wyverns,”] Mother informed me, surprising me.

[“Seriously? Wow. The power of money, huh? Where the hell did O’Bloom find such a person?”] But I shook that thought away for now, it wasn’t more important than my concert right now. [“Still, hopefully, the others won’t have too many problems on their side.”]

After all, there was a demonkin of wrath they had to defeat… Buuuuuuuuut, this wasn’t the only trap.

A week was too much preparation time, honestly.

“Urraagah!!!”

[Lifestealer (41 Kills)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]’s Job [Assassin] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 20]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Max level of Job   [Assassin] has been reached

“No! No, please! Don’t kill me! Gruuuuargh?!”

Your fault for attacking my clone. Any talk for peace was over then, you perverted misbegotten.

With a dagger drenched in blood and my shadow pack tearing and ripping every single mercenary they faced into pieces, I had to shake my head. Aurora didn’t have a real dungeon, but Hestia could make an artificial labyrinth alright. Even an army would have trouble fighting against a trap like this.

Obsidian walls made using her [Volcanic Blaze]. She can shoot out corrosive flame and turn it into some solid walls. Then, she would just do some terraforming. Incredible… Yeah. It’s time to spread my horizons like she did.

My ears piqued to the other battlefield in this labyrinth. Tasianna, Ellaine, Grimnir, Tatsuya, Kyouya, and Asaka were on the other side. It seemed the goons were almost killed off, and only O’Bloom and his four demonkin contractors were left.

As such—

“Hello, Miss. We meet again.”

My opponent had finally arrived.

No longer was he in that casual clothing from before, looking nothing more like a citizen. He now had the appearance of a warrior with his scar-filled armor. The red and black fitted well with the rest of his image.

He drew a black staff from his hip before it burst up into fire, making it look like a solid magma longsword. It gave off a more controlled vibe. Similar to how the demonkin looked in general.

“I never got to learn your name, Miss. May I? Considering this is our rematch.” He was quite courteous for a person who could explode into fire. Considering his horns were only peeking out slightly, he most likely wasn’t super excited yet.

So his real personality isn’t much of an asshole, maybe?

“Saori Segawa,” I answered him.

“Hee’Rlak, but I already introduced myself.” He then readied himself into a stance. “No need to talk as enemies. Let’s go! Emotion SurrrrrRRRRRRRRRGGGGGEEEEE!”

“… Humanization.”

A note from AbyssRaven

Song for today comes from Smash Mouth "All-Star," or, also known as the Shrek Theme song. Shrek is life, Shrek is Reaper. Rawr

Now, if you would excuse me, I will Domain Expansion myself now to sleep.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters for the whole month! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 299: A Prepared Rematch.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #1 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until June!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

“We’re trapping them!”

Those were the words Hestia said when we discussed how we should deal with O’Bloom. She said it with full confidence, as if she already had an entire plan in her head. When Reajaen asked her to specify, she really blew my mind with what she was planning, especially her “secret project.”

“You’ve entered the restaurant, right, Lady Reajaen? Met King Drangleic and his Duke? Well, I’ll unveil the mystery, I am a void-touched. I have [Space-Time Magic].” Reajaen’s tilted her head in confusion at the sudden revelation. “As such, we will trap them in my [Room]. Specifically, I will lead the dragonslayers into my lair, whilst you can engage the O’Bloom’s army within another confined room.”

“W-Well, this is certainly a sound plan, but how will you get them to enter this [Room]? From what I saw, the only way to enter your subspace is through that door, correct? At the pastry shop?”

Reajaen guessed the limitations of Hestia’s [Room] well enough after only one visit, but she didn’t know all the details of how we, Aurora, were using it. Waving her hand as if to tell Reajaen didn’t need to worry about it, Hestia continued.

“It’ll actually be pretty easy, really. We know exactly where they want to go, right? Thanks to Saori’s info.” She then turned to me, prompting me to answer in her stead.

After thinking it through, I replied, “Their goals are driving Hestia out of Gleisvale, kill Lady Reajaen and destroy the Resurrection, and to reclaim what you stole from them. If we are talking of locations and places where it’s easy to catch them… Hmm, it would be Lady Reajaen’s mansion and the dungeon. Entrances, easy to hide your subspace, Hestia.”

“But what about you, Lady Hestia?” Tasianna brought up. “The dragonslayers will want to agitate the people against you. Leading them to your lair won’t do much, or are you planning on killing them?”

“No, no, of course not! Well, unless they actually attack me, but that’s a ‘what if’ moment. Actually, my plan for them is to pull the Uno reverse card on them.” Hestia casually confused all the Peolyncians. “If they want to make everyone hate me, then I’ll simply overwhelm them with love first. They won’t be riling up anybody. They will be the ones to leave the city in embarrassment in the most pop media fashion possible. ‘Don’t fuck with a public icon,’ is what I’ll say.”

“Then how will we do this, lass?” Grimnir pushed the discussion back to the labyrinth, seeing as we didn’t need to worry about Hestia’s public stunt. “Last time we attacked them, we were at their base. This time, home advantage. You can ask any tazong you want, all of them would say having the home advantage is the most important thing possible.”

“Oh, right, I think I read about that. Something about during the War for the Faefolk, the dwarven forces managed to protect one of their cities from four human armies and support from the Empire?” Kyouya remembered a passage in a history book he read when he was still trapped by the Church of Aurena.

“Hadjuk-Orn, the largest dwarven hold in the east part of the Ankoran Mountains,” Ellaine answered. “It was the landing spot for the North-Western Alliance. If the city fell, the war would have probably extended even further, to the detriment of the elves and dwarves, due to a lack of numbers compared to their enemies.”

Grimnir nodded, stroking his growing beard. “Aie, the city was left in shambles after the attack, but we delayed them long enough for our reinforcements to arrive just in time. Even with all our defenses, the Empire’s magicians and elite warriors were a force to be reckoned with.”

“So, are you suggesting we do something similar for our battle, Grimnir?” Tatsuya asked. “Can we even do it in a week’s time? Seems like a very short time to create things like cannons or stuff.”

““Not at all!”” Hestia and Grimnir simultaneously announced before grinning at each other. It seemed the two were in sync again.

“The lass is a treasure trove of materials we could take and transform into traps, in addition, the girl has a very high leveled [Trap Creation] with the ability terraform using [Volcanic Blaze]. [Lavakinesis] and a pseudo-[Terrakinesis] are the lynchpin of my plan.”

“And Grimnir has help with Ellaine and Daichi.” Hestia followed up by mentioning our trio of crafters, the ones responsible for all our tech and equipment currently. “We don’t need traps to beat thousands of soldiers, we only need enough for our forces to beat down a couple hundred mercenaries. Traps, environmental hazards, and some divide and conquer. Also—”

Hestia turned her head around to Asaka. “It’s time to make good on your promise to them. Lady Reajaen, you will have no complaints, alright? You will follow up on your end of the deal.”

“Yes. But, as I said, my people and my son are out of your reach. I am the one responsible for everything, so punish me after all that is done.” The foxian woman had a determined face, already knowing what would happen with Tasianna around.

“Mother, please, we—” Her son once again tried to dissuade her from doing this, but his mother rebuked him.

“A merchant follows up on her deals. You may contort and twist a contract, but you never break them. Reputation is what a merchant lives for. Even that damn O’Bloom understood that, so do not act like a fool, Parilostro.”

“Alright then.” Asaka nodded at everything working well enough. “I will lead the onnikais into this fight. I guess they’ll want to let out some steam after being imprisoned for so long, anyways… But I won’t do this ever again, alright?”

Disliking her role or not, Hanazawa was acting mature right now. I was happy to see her finally overcoming her limits, even if reluctantly. Her true potential was so much more, so I hoped she would continue like this.

As such, as her former Sensei, I needed to show my own growth.

“Hestia.” I directed all attention to me. “The strongest force they have is the demonkin of wrath. If you are too preoccupied with your part…”

“Yup, I’ll be relying on you once again, Saori. Don’t die, alright?”

“I am not planning on it… Hanazawa-san.” I then looked at Hanazawa right in her confused eyes. “After this is done, I will relieve you of those fenrirs. Let us go to the Belzac forest and meet my great-whatever-grandfather.”

She widened her eyes in surprise, probably not expecting me to say something like this after our last talk. She calmed down a moment later and shrugged her shoulders. “Cool. Tatsuya, make sure you don’t die either. We’ll be going on a class trip with our ‘Sensei.’”

“Heh…” Tatsuya smiled wryly. “Our first real battle as ‘Heroes’ fighting back against the demonkin scourge. Yeah, sure, dying now would be too embarrassing! Kyouya, you hear that?”

“You heard our party leader, dude. Guess you two will be my VIPs to protect.” Kyouya fist-bumped his best friend.

“Yeah, you two better not.” Daichi also joined in his party’s rapport moment. “Blacksmiths can’t do their jobs without people to wear our stuff, so come back alive. I'll get good enough to make you guys some legendary tier weapons and armor in the future. The Tale of Daichi is the Mastersmith starts here!”

“I can’t do much in combat, sorry! But, I’ll cheer on you guys, so please, don’t get hurt!” Haruka encouraged them despite being a non-combatant. However, considering how Hestia’s brain worked, I presumed Haruka would have a pretty large role in her part of the plan.

And that was how our Anti-O’Bloom mission began.

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Stygian Blade Lv. 3] [Stygian Voltage Lv. 3] [Night’s Caress Lv. 2] [Monster Tamer Lv. 5] gained

After all that planning and preparing, I had to say it was a landslide in our favor. [Room] runes placed at the entrance of Reajaen’s mansion and the dungeon. The mercenaries and intruders all funneled in pretty easily as we placed no opposition in their way. They could become as wary as they wanted, but it didn’t matter. They didn’t have any other options either way.

All the non-combatants of the Resurrection were given refuge inside another area of our subspace Hestia made in the image of a bunker. Meaning, the mansion and both beastmen villages were devoid of people. No casualties will come from them.

After our enemies entered Hestia’s subspace, the real fight began. Isolated in a labyrinth-like area, the enemy had to traverse the place under the mistaken belief that this was the actual dungeon. While they were careless, the members of the Resurrection led by Parilostro’s three puppet bodies began assaulting them in a guerilla fashion.

But, that wasn’t the only threat to them. Grimnir’s crew created quite a few traps around the place, triggering small, one-time use attacks. Everything had to be made with runes or manatech, sadly, so we had to invest some money into it. Still, the cost of war. I would rather see our coffers slim up if it could save the life of one of Aurora’s members.

After their numbers dwindled, the now stressed and agitated mercenaries arrived at the last area we had. A week was a lot of time, but not enough to create something even more complicated. But that wasn’t needed, thankfully.

In the last area, our main fighters would eliminate the remaining enemies. And, to ensure we wouldn’t get the wrong enemies, Grimnir used his experience as a miner to advise Hestia in the construction of the place. And one of them was a way to lead people around like a train track using manatech.

That was why I was now alone with the enemy I had to take down — the demonkin of wrath.

“Graaaaaa! Let’s go, Saori! We reap, to water the blood lilies!”

Effects: [Excited: 85%] [Anger: 5%] [Fear: 50%]

It wasn’t the demonkin’s multi-armed form, but the one he assumed mid-way through our battle at the bandit base. Four shotel-shaped horns grew from his head with fire flaring from Hee’Rlak’s body like Hestia in her solar power form.

However, unlike our previous encounter, he had equipment with enchantments, though they lacked runes. An aura of flame surrounded him, using the fire his body was emitting as its source. It blasted backwards, creating a drift that catapulted him forward.

[Shadow Armament (Full Body)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

My shadows wrapped around my body as a response before I let out a burst of electricity from the white fur around my head. The demonkin dodged it and transitioned his flame sword into a spear. Like a rocket, the spear burst into flames and gave him another boost of acceleration, sending him flying at me like a bullet.

I sidestepped his attack, letting him fly past me. I cast [Dark Tendrils], shooting them at him only for them to be destroyed by his spear. Seeing as it was hard to fight like this, I allowed my shadow to expand into a mist with [Smokey Haze], enveloping the whole area in complete darkness.

“Ahhh, this trick again! Let’s see if this can change things up! Guraaaagh!”

Through my heat vision, I noticed Hee’Rlak’s armament changed again, this time to his hammer form. With one strong strike to the ground, it exploded into a fiery twister, creating a pretty terrible smoke from the obsidian floor melting. It was like volcanic gas!

“Guf! What the fuck! This smells like a magma chamber! Fuck! Why isn’t this smoke disappearing?!”

Luckily for me, he still hadn’t found out the secret of this spell. I guess it would be hard to figure out without prior knowledge, and he had only seen me use it twice now. Regardless, that was his problem.

Thunder!

Streams of stygian electricity streamed around the shadow smoke, flowing through it like water. It assaulted my enemy, and without Tasianna or the others around, I made sure to up the voltage to really hurt him this time. However, I guess his high [Lightning Resistance] wasn’t there just for show as he was barely slowed by the current.

While enduring the electricity, the demonkin kept searching for me, though it was more like a wild goose chase at this point. With [Night’s Caress Lv. 2] being the upgraded version of my stealth skills, it was too hard for his [Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 8] to do anything. A basic skill versus an advanced merged skill; it was obvious who would win in this perception duel.

“Fuck!”

Effects: [Excited: 93%] [Anger: 42%] [Fear: 71%]

Although it was good for me for now, it wouldn’t once his emotions reached the next level of their respective brackets. Klea’Hatma had given me a more detailed lecture on how wrath demonkins functioned. To summarize, the numbers themselves didn’t matter much, but the brackets for the three emotions.

Each demonkin had a different “breaking point” for each of the three emotions they had to manage. Once they reached one of them, for example 50% or 100% depending on the person, their body would forcibly enter their next form, until all emotions reached 100%. At that point, they could be considered literal demons in a sense. If they couldn’t control their emotions, they would be put down like a rabid dog.

‘It is a sad life, honestly,’ the demon said, right? Being controlled by your emotions your whole life does sound very restricting.

But, after all that, she also told me how to counter them. Demonkins of wrath, due to their explosive emotions, have immense amounts of Stamina to compensate. It wasn’t easy to make them tired, but drowsiness would dampen both their [Excited] and [Anger]. [Fear] was harder to control in a battle, due to self-preservation, but having only one emotion reach 100% wasn’t too bad.

If I had Hestia’s songs right now, it would be so much easier to control him. Ahhh, I miss my phone! I lamented due to how [Room] worked. The doors essentially teleported you into other areas, so I was currently “isolated” from Hestia’s concert.

Regardless, I came in here prepared. Prepared to the brim with tools.

[“Uno, now!”]

[“Yes, Alpha!”]

I leaped onto where the demonkin was, prepared to crush him with a lightning stomp. His [Danger Perception] activated at the very last second, helping him to avoid the full brunt of the attack. Still, as my leg crashed on the ground, an electric current blasted with shards of obsidian flying around me.

Buffeted by these projectiles and my presence before him, he wasn’t able to react in time to my shadow pack’s sneak attack. Mana threads wrapped around his four limbs, pulling him onto his back. In this small moment of vulnerability, Varya shot out from a shadow and threw three leaf bombs at his face.

Once my garms and Varya escaped into their shadows, I released some lightning at the demonkin, triggered the bombs to explode, sending a virulent liquid into the air. That was Hestia’s corrosive toxin; paralyzation, necrosis, and tranquilization were its effect.

As a sludge and liquid, the toxin was already pretty powerful, but it wasn’t too easy to inflict on people since they had to drink them or get injected by it. During a fight, that was a bit of a problem, but what happens if you mix it up with some of Hestia’s scale-dust? Now, it lingered in the air. Inhalation was a far easier method to spread the toxin, and I could use my [Shadow Armament] to simply block it from affecting me.

“Grukr! Grak!”

Effects: [Excited: 100%] [Anger: 64%] [Fear: 89%]

Fire exploded from his body, forming into a pair of wings, a tail, and another set of arms. He flailed around, grabbing his throat in pain from the airborne toxin. Flames escaped through his mouth. It seemed he was trying to burn away the venom, but this was Hestia’s, no, an [Obsidian Blaze Dragon]’s corrosive obsidian.

At either [Anger] or [Fear] 100%, he would gain the ability to manifest his four weapons all at once, it seemed. He still only had his one elemental weapon, the one formed around his black staff.

Identify

Voldunna staff

A staff made from voldunna ore to endure extreme temperatures. It has low mana conductive abilities due to a lack of refinement of the materials, but makes it harder to fracture even when submerged in magma.

Enchantments: [Elemental Mastery: Fire] [Meisterweapon Invocation]

The enchantments were simple, similar to his armor. They were only there to make sure his abilities had a good catalyst to work through from, although they both only had two enchantments each. I wondered why the third enchantment slot wasn’t used.

“Grak! Warbringer’s Body! Come fire, come to me! Grant me the power to overcome all foes! Strengthening Fire!” He began to strengthen himself and even pulled out a potion to drink, but before he could use that item, I smacked it out from his hand before landing a lightning stomp on him.

“Urghk!” He managed to block it in time with his fire shield, so I kept on pounding on the shield. However, unlike last time where I tried to break it, I wasn’t trying to brute force my way through this person.

Trickery was better.

“What?!” From the side, Uno and Song grabbed onto his hand with [Dark Tendrils] and tugged away his shield for me to land a [Shadow Descent] onto his chest. He spat up bloody as my lightning surged through his armor and into his body, but the armor was sturdy. It didn’t break, meaning the full damage was mitigated.

Before I could land another blow, his other three arms materialized weapons on them and tried to attack me. I dodged it, letting him free himself from my garm’s restraints. He stood up, roaring out in anger, only for him to land on one knee. Outside of his shield, all his fiery weapons disappeared.

Effects: [Excited: 87%] [Anger: 74%] [Fear: 100%] [Torpor (Minor)] [Poisoned (Minor)]

It’s working.

“Hahaha! Damn you! Emotion SurrrrRRRRRGEEEEEE!” He roared out, trying to hype himself up but he voiced cracked for a moment before his head slumped downwards.

Effects: [Excited: 100%] [Anger: 21%] [Fear: 67%] [Torpor (Minor)] [Poisoned (Minor)]

Emotion Surge

A demon of wrath bloodline ability. Allows a demonkin of wrath to jumpstart their slow beating heart to invoke their emotions. The wildness of this ability can create both desired and undesired outcomes

In other words, the ability wouldn’t always benefit the demonkin. Noted.

If he’s currently lethargic, then there is no better place to do it now. Hargh!

I dashed forward and rammed my tail against the demonkin while he was vulnerable, slinging him outside my smoke where my garms caught his legs as he flew past them. With a strong tug, they pulled him back, crashing him back into the haze for Varya to land another set of toxin bombs.

He coughed out loud, overwhelmed by toxic mist in the air. He might outlevel me, sure, but I came in here prepared while he was only ready to fight. Putting on some armor and a weapon didn’t make you any less susceptible to a rogue’s fighting style.

A fenrir, I might be; a large, monstrous, quadrupedal beast with giant fangs and claws who could strike fear even in the hearts of veteran fighters. But I was still Saori Segawa inside. I won’t overpower someone with force like Hestia, and even if I could, that wasn’t what I learned when I first began this journey.

Time to end this.

I now stood up in the air with my twin catalyst charging me up like a battery. My [Smokey Haze] still surrounded the demonkin. He was struggling to breath and couldn’t even leave the smokescreen with my shadow pack playing around with him using mana threads, bombs, and spells. I was sure Hee’Rlak came into this fight wanting to let loose his full might and fight me in a blazing glory, but he chose the wrong opponent to try it on.

Hestia would have gladly confronted his challenge head-on, but not me.

[Lightning Revolt (Limited)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

Goodbye! Hadaen Dragon Thunder!

“Grak! Uruuuriik!” He couldn’t even move at this point. The toxin had fully entered his bloodstream.

Effects: [Excited: 51%] [Anger: 24%] [Fear: 100%] [Torpor (Moderate)] [Poisoned (Moderate)] [Paralyzation (Minor)]

The black magic circle of my strongest spell appeared before me, building up its arcane letters and magical geometry. It grew in size as I poured in more of my mana, until it was at the point where it could take down a B rank rachonoid queen. I aimed this spell at the demonkin—

— until another presence suddenly showed itself. My fur stood up and felt a strong static coming from the entrance of this labyrinth. [Danger Perception] told me to ignore the demonkin before me and shoot the beam at that spot. Even [Detection Sensor] confirmed a new target had entered the labyrinth.

The problem was, I felt some sort of dread, which made me hesitate. And this hesitation meant whoever it was that entered the labyrinth was able to act.

“Everybody, get out!” I suddenly heard Hestia’s voice out of nowhere before I felt something suddenly tugging me forward.

Shit!

[“In your shadows, now!”] I ordered my shadow pack and retrieved my shadow from [Smokey Haze], moments before a large electric wave tore through the area, destroying all obsidian walls it touched.

When it reached the demonkin and me, instead of taking damage, a magnetic force began to pull me towards the entrance of the labyrinth. And it was strong.

“Saori!” I heard Hestia call once again before my vision accelerated, dashing past layers of floating obsidian chunks before everything became dark for a moment followed by me being flung out into the bright sun and clear sky.

I heard numerous thuds and groans around me before I kicked myself back onto my feet. My eyes weren’t tricking me, it really was the blue sky above me. I could see trees around me and the smell of death started to enter my nose.

Before me were the others, as in Tasianna, Ellaine, Grimnir, Hanazawa, Tatsuya, and Kyouya. I also saw the three puppet bodies of Parilostro with the moaning Resurrection fighters. They shouldn’t be here, they should be fighting the senators!

“Warbringer!!! Ooooh, you saved my life!”

“Urrgh, Master, gruk! I said I would—”

“Shut up, Hee’Rlak, you woulda been dead if I hadn’t interfered. You ain’t dying for some stupid reason while yar still are my apprentice.”

Grotesque. Those voices brought my eyes towards a giant bulgy worm-like creature with a human’s face and a huge mouth like a frog’s. Strangely, it had O’Bloom’s voice as it began sprouting flattery like a gun towards a singular woman.

This person, with the appearance of a punk teenager, poured an entire potion down Hee’Rlak’s throat. Ignoring how he was coughing from how rough she fed him the tonic, she glared at me at and the others, who were coincidentally all neatly placed on a single side while O’Bloom, Hee’Rlak, and the woman stood before the entrance of the dungeon.

“Nice trick,” she said before something exploded inside the dungeon. “But we ain’t playing by your rules any longer. No more portals or whatever. Emotion Surge.”

Four shotel-shaped lightning horns sprouted from her head while electricity began to cover up her form-fitting bodysuit. Armor, a cape, and a jacket manifested, coloring itself red like her skin. Her wild black hair began to glow yellow and red, looking very much like a neon sign as it dimmed and brightened. Six arms formed from behind her back, each possessing an armament of some sort.

With two of her hands in her jacket pockets, she scowled at me like some sort of delinquent.

“Third of the three Warbringers of Lord Wrath. ‘Voltaic Red,’ Vifi’Yok. Nothing personal, but you did try to kill my stupid apprentice. Hope ya can keep up with my speed, wolfy! We reap, to water the blood lilies!”

Her figure suddenly disappeared from thin air, leaving only a streak of red lightning behind. As my instincts told me to search for her, something hard suddenly crashed against the side of my head, causing me to lose consciousness for a moment.

When I woke up, I noticed I had flown far away from where I first stood. As I tried to stand up, something pushed down my face, holding me down.

“War is a bitch, bitch.”

S-Shit!

Level: 150

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 300: Voltaic Red.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Fuck!”

She stomped on me twice in a single second.

“You!”

I felt my brain rocking inside my skull. I felt my snout breaking. My fangs were enduring it, but the cracking sound they were making was making me nervous. The pain and damage were minimal, but it felt so humiliating as I lay here helpless on the ground.

Get off me!

“Growhhhh!” I slashed forward as fast as I could but all it caught was air. I felt my [Danger Sense] and [Foresight] warning me of an attack, but all I could see was this woman running in circles around me.

“Sit down, wolf!”

Left!

Thunderous lightning clashed. Black against red. Sparks flew as I narrowly managed to block a lightning halberd from the demonkin using my electrified claws. However, she didn’t react to my defense at all; instead, she just dashed once again, leaving behind a red silhouette.

Even with my senses fully sharpened, I was still being pushed back by her rapid attacks. Even though my [Shadow Armament], I could feel her lightning stinging me. I felt chip damage accruing. And I couldn’t find an opening to fight back.

After I felt I had adapted to her attack rhythm, she finally decided to mix it up, and began using her six elemental arms. A rapier, a halberd, a staff, a crossbow, a warhammer, and a gauntlet — those were the weapons she had. And with these six and her two normal arms, she ravaged me to the point my Health dropped down to 75%.

I can’t keep up?!

The Agility I was so proud of wasn’t even close to matching her speed. And I couldn’t even do anything to try to keep up. I couldn’t cast spells with how fast she attacked me. My tools needed to be taken out of the storage but I didn’t even have a second to afford. I was stuck, without my toolkit!

And the worst part was, outside of the kid virigresses and Shoyi, I didn’t have the other members of my shadow pack with me! They were stuck in the [Room]!

Why aren't they coming out from the dungeon?!

Fortunately, as if answering my call for help, the demonkin’s barrage suddenly stopped as she had to dodge a rain of ice spears.

“Miss Saori!” Tasianna’s voice drew my eyes to the sky, where I saw Tasianna flying above with an army’s worth of ice blades floating around her. “Go into your shadow.”

I [Shadow Dash]ed without hesitation. Moments before I submerged, I saw the faint hints of a cyan-colored magic circle on the ground.

Now in the shadow world, I took out multiple potions and used [Dark Tendrils] to drink them, recovering my Health back to 100%. Still, there was no time to waste. I “swam” towards the light at the end of this world, where I resurfaced at a nearby tree, only to see Tasianna crash landing into the ground.

Shit!

Thunder crackled in the air and multiple bolts struck at where Tasianna was. With the [Dark Tendrils] conjured on my [Shadow Armament] and my own speed, I rushed over to her, blocking the deadly bolts with my large fenrir body.

I need to protect her! Was the only thing I thought when I saw this situation.

Proficiency requirement fulfilled. [Lightning Resistance Lv. 4] evolved into [Lightning Resistance Lv. 5]

Even with a good resistance to it, that lightning still stung through my armor.

We can’t escape this beast! I immediately drew that conclusion from how the fight was going, already knowing I couldn’t put [Shadow Armament] everybody and then transport them into the shadow world to delay the match. This demonkin was too fast for me to do so.

“Ocean Healing.” Water seeped into my wounds, healing me up.

I looked down, seeing Tasianna had protected her landing using a cracked ice coffin. She was unharmed, fortunately.

[“Tasianna, delay her! Plan D!”] I ordered, receiving a quick nod from her, before turning my attention back to the fight itself.

Although relieved I could think fast enough, my warning skills activated again, making me want to gulp at how they were predicting this fight was going. I intercepted another attack from the demonkin, but we simply returned to the same situation as before when she used her six arms to attack. However, this time I had my spells prepared and Tasianna was around.

Ice and shadows flew through the air, forcing the demonkin to zig-zag and jump around to dodge. Watching her not accelerate away like a ghost made me realize how right I was with my initial impression of this young girl. Outside of the lightning coursing around her body, masking her real appearance, she did look like a teenager. Around or below Hestia’s height, probably.

And this realization made me wonder. How could I have the time to look at her like this?

“Time’s up.” Her red lightning silhouette appeared again, she accelerated again!

“Woah!” Tasianna cried out as her ice coffin suddenly was sliced apart, the lightning clad weapons narrowly missing Tasianna as she melted the ice within into water. She burst out of her defenses before blocking another attack from the demonkin with a miniature [Sapphire Membrane], which all happened right below me.

“Argh! What the fuck! Water should conduct lightning, you bitch!” She complained before she attempted to stab me with her halberd. I smacked her away like a fly.

[“You remembered that pure water doesn’t conduct electricity, Tasian—”] I praised Tasianna before the demonkin landed an upper punch to my jaw, sending me flying up. I couldn’t react to it!

She assumed a stance, ready to launch a powerful attack at me, only for her preparations to be disrupted by Tasianna’s burst of ice. As the demonkin dodged around to avoid Tasianna’s ice, something else suddenly flew right at her, nearly grabbing her leg with blade shards attached to a thick mana thread.

It was Ellaine’s whipsword!

“More rats!” The demonkin’s attention was divided once again.

She used her staff to cast the level four [Lightning Magic] spell, [Levin Core], above her. The sphere of magical electricity began hovering around, shooting lightning around like a plasma ball, destroying Tasianna’s ice.

She then dashed towards Ellaine, probably intending to kill her, but to her surprise, a huge rib cage suddenly sprouted from Ellaine’s shoulder, sapping the power from the strike. She stood then with her rapier sticking through the bone, only piercing Ellaine’s shoulder, and even then the wound was shallow. Ellaine’s armor was made from Hestia’s and my monster materials, after all!

“Wha—?! A lust contractor?!” She stuttered before Ellaine warded her off with the [Blade] materializing on her left arm. She sidestepped the attack and clapped her hands, creating an echoing sound as a wave of electricity burst out from her limbs. It destroyed the rib cage and blade easily, but left Ellaine unharmed. However, similar to when I was pulled from Hestia’s maze, something suddenly pulled Ellaine towards the demonkin.

Before Tasianna or I could do something, Ellaine was already at arm's length of the demonkin’s fatal attack. Before the demonkin could strike, however—

“Dragoon Dive!”

Tatsuya landed right in between them, blowing both girls away with the shockwave.

Seeing the demonkin like this, Tasianna and I converged towards her. Crashing the ground with lightning and smacking at her with my [Stygian Blade] attack, while Tasianna covered my blind spots with her ice and constructed multiple [Winter’s Golem] to act as meat shields.

Still, our opponent wasn’t level 150 for nothing. She was dueling the both of us without too much of a problem, constantly piling more and more wounds around my attacks. Tasianna wasn’t as durable as me, and, while she knew pure water and ice wouldn’t conduct lightning, making the demonkin’s electric attack useless, she wouldn’t survive a full brunt attack.

However, that balance between the three of us turned in our favor when Ellaine and Tatsuya joined up fully. Like a feral beast, fitting for his werewolf form, Tatsuya combined his ferocious attacks with my more impactful ones, creating a sturdy frontline. At the same time, Ellaine came in and out like a guerilla fighter, using her demonic power and whipsword to keep the demonkin at bay, while throwing Hestia’s toxin bombs at her to control the demonkin’s emotions. And then we had Tasianna controlling the areas where the demonkin could move, leading her around for us to attack her.

Teamwork!

I was a bit worried Ellaine suddenly showed her demonic powers, but she told me telepathically Klea’Hatma was still suppressing her powers. The demonkin would not know a true demon was inside Ellaine’s rings. Instead, we were using the fact we had a sloth contractor in the form of Parilostro as a smokescreen, making it seem like we had a lust contractor on our side as well.

Speaking of Parilostro, Tatsuya told me he and Grimnir, Kyouya, and Hanazawa were holding back Hee'Rlak and Senator O’Bloom. The group managed to kill off the other senators before all of this happened, but, according to him, O’Bloom seemed to be at another level. Not only was he tanky thanks to whatever he transformed himself into, but also dangerous.

Taking a short glance over, I saw Grimnir and Kyouya fighting the weakened demonkin of wrath. Luckily, the curative didn’t cure him completely of Hestia’s toxin. On the other hand, Parilostro and his Resurrection fighters were working with Hanazawa and the onnikai to fend off O’Bloom.

I noticed quite the number of Resurrection fighters had already died, but their bodies were still fighting on, being used by the onnikais and the necromancer onnikai as vessels. It was disgusting, just a bit, but we had no choice here.

Even with this sort of situation, it wasn’t looking good.

“ArrrrrrGGGK!” Tatsuya groaned as the female demonkin smacked his leg with her warhammer, causing a loud cracking sound to reverberate around the area.

[“Tatsuya!”]

“Tatsuya!”

Ellaine and I called out. The situation was turning around again in her favor. We were getting tired while she wasn’t showing any signs of weakness.

She then kicked Tatsuya in the head, sending him flying away. I managed to cover him with my [Shadow Armament] in time, slightly shaken with the knowledge that, if that had been a direct hit, Tatsuya would have lost his head. Seeing him spasming on the ground, unresponsive to anything else… I could only grit my teeth.

Calm down! Calm down! I can’t let this continue like at that bandit hideout. I need to assume command. I told myself, slowing down the blood rushing to my head from all this chaos, and quickly assessed the situation. Hestia isn’t here. If reinforcements are coming, then I need to stop this demonkin from killing anybody. I can afford having my body broken!

[“Tasianna, help him out! Ellaine, to me!”] I ordered before using [Dark Tendrils] to keep up with the demonkin’s speed outside of her acceleration. For some reason, she hadn’t used it once since we got her in this situation, making me believe there was a trigger requirement.

As I tried to attack her with a miniature [Voltage Impact], she dodged it and retaliated using her crossbow to shoot at my eyes, attempting to blind me. While they didn’t, I was still preoccupied for a moment, which allowed her to slip around me towards Ellaine.

Ellaine defended herself by coating her whipsword with [Blade], before taking the demonkin’s kick with [Ribcage]. Before the demonkin could use her weapons again, Tasianna summoned her golems and even a humongous [Slithering Frost Serpent] to protect Ellaine.

However, instead of dodging away, the girl jumped onto the serpent, riding it around its back, staying on it despite how much it was moving. She continued shooting out lighting crossbow shots and the [Lighting Bolt] spell without a chant.

She’s going for Tasianna!

I ran through the air with [Air Walk], trying to catch up to her in time, but against my expectations, the demonkin jumped into the air and shouted [Emotion Surge] once again.

Identify!

Effects: [Excited: 100%] [Anger: 100%] [Fear: 0%]

Guk!

Her lightning armor changed, creating two large wings and a serpent's tail. She grabbed her halberd and held it up high, letting it feed on her mana to grow larger and larger, to the point it was almost as large as my usual [Hadaen Dragon Thunder].

Shit!

I stayed where I stood and activated my catalyst for their boost, renewing the [Lightning Revolt (Limited)] buff on myself. I then conjured a dark magic circle, understanding I had to defend everbody or it would be all over for us.

As the demonkin and I eyed each other, both preparing our next attack, Tasianna dispelled her serpent. As her frozen construct suddenly stopped in place and broke into numerous ice blades, she used these new weapons in an attempt to prevent the demonkin from casting her attack, but it all failed as she cast another [Levin Core] to protect herself.

“Voltaic Red:—” Red lightning burst from her eyes as the lightning spear slowly turned red. “Thunderspeed Roar!”

Hadaen Dragon Thunder!

Black and red clashed once again; however, unlike before, it was a match between two thunder-type attacks. A thunderclap upon impact, it made me want to close my ears. But there was no room for error right now, as the spear outmatched my spell, slowly boring through my laser.

I poured more mana into my magic circle. I had to stop it, but no matter how much I did, it wouldn’t stop. Death was slowly coming towards us.

“Grant me strength, Goddess Plesia! Goddess Zephira! Slithering Frost Serpent!”

Two huge ice serpents shot out from Tasianna's side, roaring loudly as they tried to bite into the spear. But, as you expected, the bodies of Tasianna’s spell were disintegrated by the demonkin’s attack, however, despite the futility, the serpents kept going, trying to interfere with the red lightning attack. All so I wouldn’t be pushed back.

But—

“Ramuh.” That chilling voice stomped all over any bits of hope the both of us had.

Those four purple magic circles in the sky deemed us unfit to continue this fight. Like God's judgement.

[“Tasianna!”] Fighting this wasn’t possible. We had to perform damage control.

“On it! Sapphire Membrane!” A dome of water expanded from her, encasing not only herself and Ellaine, but also the people on the other battlefield. Breathing out, she released white mist, freezing the whole barrier of water. “Kraken’s Destruction! Come in!”

She shouted as four tentacles erupted from their magic circle, blocking the lightning spear in my stead to allow me to enter the protective barrier. Although large enough to capsize ships on their own, the tentacles stood no chance before not only the spear but also the level six [Lightning Spell], [Ramuh].

“Argh!” Tasianna screamed as her blue hair began to lose its vividness. Her Mana suddenly took a large dip! “I need mana!”

I had to donate my mana for Tasi—

“Die! Saori!”

As I tried to ensure our survival, Hee’Rlak suddenly came flying over in his two 100% form, using his four arms to fight against me.

I don’t have time for this! I roared loudly as I saw the barrier cracking against the weight of two deadly attacks. I used a [Shadow Descent] tail smack to punt him to the ground. However, he recovered quickly and was about to jump up again, determined to make sure Tasianna died from lack of mana.

However—

“Where are you going?!”

“Taunt!”

Kyouya shouted, drawing the demonkin’s attention for Grimnir to fly over, looking bruised and beaten up, before landing an earth-crushing blow to his head. I didn’t let this moment go. I ran towards Tasianna, who was slumping over as she tried to pour more mana into the barrier to maintain it.

Ellaine was feeding her Mana potions, but even that wasn’t enough. I nuzzled my head against her back, beginning to pour more mana into her. We had to try. There was no Hestia to save us right now. If this barrier broke, all of us would die.

I still remembered how the spell [Ramuh] scorched and left a baseball field-sized crater behind when Astalos cast it in the Belzac forest.

“Urgh!” Tasianna downed her sixth Mana potion.

Name: Tasianna Marina Silverpond

Health: 3109/3436 Mana: 2098/11945 Stamina: 2961/4141

Hold!

“Kack!” She spat the water out, even puking and looking pale.

Name: Tasianna Marina Silverpond

Health: 3109/3436 Mana: 1198/11945 Stamina: 2961/4141

Hold!

“Urgh…”

“Tasianna! Saori, her Mana is almost used up!”

Name: Tasianna Marina Silverpond

Health: 3109/3436 Mana: 409/11945 Stamina: 2961/4141

Don’t die for us! Take it all, Tasianna!

Mana: 5290/9117

Tasianna was a fairy. If her Mana dropped to zero, it was all over for her.

Name: Tasianna Marina Silverpond

Health: 3109/3436 Mana: 5699/11945 Stamina: 2961/4141

Urgh!

[Mana Stress (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

But by pouring all of my Mana into Tasianna, making it reach zero, meant I gained [Mana Stress]. I would be unable to regenerate any mana until the penalty disappeared. Meaning, I couldn’t channel my stygian lightning or maintain my [Shadow Armament].

But…

As the vice-leader of Aurora, I could never let any of its members die right before me. This was my responsibility! I will endure any pain if it assures my new family lives!

“Arrghh! Sapphire Membrane!” Tasianna shouted as she created another barrier and turned it into ice under the original one. And even a third was made, for good measure.

The bright red and yellow from the spear and [Ramuh] disappeared as those three [Sapphire Membranes] layered over each other. A loud crack reverberated around the area, making the loud fighting noises next to us almost mute.

But… then it became relatively silent. I could hear anything outside the barrier. Did we manage to weath—

Bang! Like a thunderclap.

The dome broke apart before my eyes as lightning shot right through it, crashing against the ground and kicking up the dirt and dust. Grimnir, Kyouya, and Hee’Rlak were blown away, as they were the closest to the landing, while the three of us group around the still unconscious Tatsuya.

Tasianna created one last [Sapphire Membrane], this time smaller and only around us to protect us from this dust storm. With the dust mixing with the water barrier, the mud made it impossible for us to look out.

Considering the destructive nature of [Ramuh], this cannot be it. There was even that sound again. Like somebody clapping thei— Wait, no!

Tasianna, duck! A chill ran down my spine as [Foresight] warned me of something.

I tried to call out for Tasianna, but I couldn’t since I had no mana to use [Telepathy]. I had to run up to her. I had to—

“Too slow.”

“Huh?!”

It was only for a split second when I saw something red in the dust storm. In the next moment, the barrier had been slashed apart and lightning rapier had slashed off Tasianna’s right forearm. The blood spraying from her limb was carved into my memories.

In addition, the sight of the demonkin surrounded in her red lightning armor. As she recovered her blade, I noticed lightning suddenly forming around her feet, smacking itself against the ground.

Her speed, it’s repulsion! Which means—

She suddenly disappeared once again, only to reappear behind Ellaine, preparing her rapier to cut off her head. However—

Kisssplash!

Guuuuek!

My paw blocked it in time, taking the attack instead of Ellaine.

I can read your movements now!

Tensing up my paw, I pierced her arm with my claws before pulling her towards me to take a bite at her shoulder. But before I could do that, she let go of her rapier, making her arm disappear, before reforming it to counterattack me. Fortunately, Ellaine defended me in time.

As the demonkin stepped back, the dust storm suddenly stopped, as the repulsion effect of her “hand clap” stopped. It all made sense now. Magnetism! Of course! It was the same case with Astalos, and now for this demonkin.

I heard red lightning actually was a thing on Earth. They were called red spirits, or something. I wasn’t a physics major, so I didn’t know the reason for their existence, but what I understood was how this girl’s powers worked. Magnetism was already obvious with how she pulled us towards her in the labyrinth, but now it also explained her movements.

“Tasianna!” Ellaine called out, but there was nothing to worry about.

“I’m alright! Take her down!” Tasianna shouted despite her missing arm, making me confident to take this fight forward.

Red lightning appeared around her feet again as she left a silhouette behind. My eyes darted to the sky, seeing a fresh silhouette being made. She was using her power to dash around us.

“Grouuuh!” I barked as I eyed a location behind Tasianna. Understanding me, she nodded.

“Got it!” Tasianna used her [Cyromancy] and [Frost Body] to freeze the blood seeping from the stump of her arm, forming a blood-red arm as a replacement for her severed one.

With an ice sword she swung where I commanded her to, it caused the speeding demonkin to grimace as she arched her body back, sliding against the ground to dodge that attack.

“Wha—?!” She glanced at Tasianna before trying to do the same move once again, but I wouldn’t let her.

“Grouuh!” I barked again, already pointing at one of the grenades on Ellaine’s belts. She, too, understood me.

She threw the holy flame grenade, forcing the demonkin to dodge it, stopping her acceleration. As she recovered, trying to understand the situation, she didn’t even try to channel the lightning around her feet anymore.

Now I understand!

This wasn’t lightning, fully, this was mana. Her mana was the key here! This wasn’t actually magnetism through electricity, it was magnetism through her blood and consequently her mana!

Klea’Hatma’s words ran through my head again. Of how demonkins of wrath took on an element as their partner for life, only being able to cast that element by forming their mana into it. That was wrath’s demonic powers. In other words, the reason why she couldn’t use her lightning speed before when we barraged her with attacks was due to our mana conflicting with hers.

For some reason, she couldn’t use this ability when mana other than her own was around. At least, that was what I understood. But, even without the full details, this was enough to counter this extreme speed of hers!

“Grouh!” I barked again.

[“You want us to attack her?”]

“Grouh!”

[“With magic?”]

“Grouh!”

[“Alright, then I’ll take the front and—”]

“Grouh! Grouh!”

[“Oh, you take it! Sure! Uhm, did you figure something out, Saori?”]

“Grouuuuh!”

Barking was all I could do now, and although Tasianna and Ellaine couldn’t fully understand me, I didn’t need to talk. They had [Telepathy] on their own. There was a serious delay in our communication since I couldn’t use [Telepathy] myself, but they noticed the intention in my voice and where I was looking at.

The worst part was over for now. The demonkin probably saw us as pests, ready to be destroyed. Ants. She was definitely stronger than the three of us combined. Tatsuya was taken out before we could do anything, but we wouldn’t just roll over and die because of that!

We were Aurora! We will fight back!

Go!

“Tor Eiclere’s Finulaflei!” Tasianna invoked her finishing spell, intending to use it more as an area denial to force the demonkin further away from us.

The girl shot out her electric crossbow and lightning spells, but Elline took over Tasianna’s job as the defender, using her whipsword and demonic abilities to protect all three of us. This gave Tasianna the focus to commit to a full barrage of spells whilst I chased the demonkin down.

[Exhaustion (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

She quickly noticed as we fought that something was awry with me. I wasn’t in my [Shadow Armament] nor was I using my [Stygian Voltage], so it would be obvious to everybody I was suffering from Mana Stress, but I couldn’t just stand back now. Even without mana, I was still a B rank!

As this continued, I intentionally let her slip through my attacks, allowing her to recover at a spot before using her red lightning. The moment her red silhouette appeared, I darted my head towards the position I predicted and pounced towards it, pinning the demonkin onto the ground before biting into her left arm!

“Arrghk! Fuck!” She bellowed before using her lightning gauntlet to strike at me, only for Tasianna to cover my retreat in time.

“Argh!” She stood back up, looking rather angry at what I did to her armored arm. I could still feel the lightning surging through my mouth. “Okay, bitches! So ya somehow figured it out, huh!? Yeah, ya, sucks to be you! But a Warbringer can do far more than this single gimmick!”

She grabbed her staff. “Extreme Speed!”

A purple magic circle appeared before her as it covered her entire body in a purple lightning aura. In the next moment, she dashed forward, far too fast for my eyes to see. I knew it was an attack, but I couldn’t—

Ding!

— move myself in time.

“Are you fucking kidding me!”

“Yeah, I’m fucking with you, slut!”

A purple barrier was placed before me, blocking the demonkin’s attack. She screamed out in annoyance as another girl’s voice drew my head over. It was Hanazawa.

“Nobody fucks over or annoys my Sensei unless that person is me!”

Onnikais began to converge around Hanazawa, while the purple barrier dissipated, revealing itself being made by her fenrir spirits. A zombie-looking man, an onnikai by the name of Emil, stumbled over to my student, bowing to her before drawing his attention towards the angered demonkin.

“Ukk…”

Parilostro and the remnants of the Resurrection fighters approached also, pushing a groaning O’Bloom to the ground. He had transformed back into his human form and was now chained up.

“Master!” I heard Hee’Rlak’s voice, calling for the female demonkin as he was held back by Grimnir’s blasthammer. Streams of ice were buffeting him while Kyouya kept throwing toxin bombs at him.

“…” The demonkin girl frowned.

“A ceasefire.” Parilostro pointed his sword at O’Bloom’s head. “Go, and you may have him back.”

“… Bastard, do you think I am that easy to threaten? I could rescue him right at this moment, without ya even noticing. That puppet of yours won’t be able to react in time, sloth contractor! None of you can, if you cannot predict it.” She then glared at me. “I am a Warbringer. Peace only comes to the true winner, and you are not winners yet. You haven’t even faced me when I’m not toying around with ya bitches!”

She was right. Everybody knew it. Her [Fear] was still at 0%. She never had an inkling of fear of us. She never thought of us as anything more than ants. If she were to go full-powered right now, we wouldn’t be able to fight her. We were all too tired after a full day of fighting.

[“How about you say that again, you little punk?”]

The bright sun suddenly disappeared as if somebody pulled up the curtains. I looked up, where I saw the origin of that shadow — Hestia was there, in her dragon form.

Plan D! Thank goodness for you rocket boosters, Hestia!

[“So proud of your speed, but how about we play your game, huh? Go, pick on my friends. If you do, then don’t mind me if I returned the favor.”]

“Kraaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” Hestia roared out, shaking the whole ground with her [Draconic Roar]. However, while the demonkin girl grimaced at this terrible rumble, our group was saved with Tasianna’s [Air Shield].

[“I. DARE. YOU!”]

“… You think I can’t take you on, dragon?! I know ya can’t fully appraise my profile, but I’ll gladly flaunt around my level. A Warbringer is anointed to bring total destruction onto the battlefield. I can take you on with all your buddies!” She shouted out, looking even less likely to back down now.

But Hestia remained composed. All she did was look up in the sky, drawing all our attention to an object. A red object looking very much like a—!?

Comet?!

Breaking through clouds and burning so brightly like another sun, an unknown object was slowly descending down to the ground. I panicked. Was I hallucinating, or was this object an actual meteorite? How did Hestia get such a thing?!

[“You know I am a void-touched, you bitch.”] Hestia’s voice resonated throughout everybody’s minds. [“Sure, you might be stronger than me, but are you strong enough to protect yourself from this world-ending space stone while protecting your two accomplices? If you are here to kill us, then I’ll take you down with us.”]

She grimaced, looking at Hee’Rlak, then to O’Bloom, and then back to the meteor. She clicked her tongue as her lightning suddenly weakened. The electrical wings and tail disappeared.

Identify.

Effects: [Excited: 72%] [Anger: 100%] [Fear: 43%]

She kept on thinking about the problem, to the point the meteor flew past Hesita. Hold on, was she serious about this? No way would she let that thing kill us, right? This had to be a bluff. Yeah, Hestia was bluffing 100%!

U-Uhm… Still, despite my trust in her, feeling the extreme heat singeing my fur was enough for me to remain anxious.

“Fuck… FINE. Let there be peace!” she shouted loudly, prompting Hestia to reach out her hand, stopping the meteor in its place. With a snap, the flame dissipated and the meteor broke apart, revealing itself to only be an extremely huge collection of her shed scales.

How far did she get with her scale manipulation?!

“Guek… Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Seeing how she was fooled, she took a deep breath—

— before she just screamed while running her hands through her hair rapidly, messing up her entire hairstyle. She then stomped over to O’Bloom, showing all of us the middle finger as she grabbed his unconscious body. Despite her clear annoyance, she didn’t even glare at or hurt anybody in the process, acting in a relatively amicable way.

Seeing her approaching, Grimnir stopped his attack, allowing Hee’Rlak to finally fall onto his knees, shivering from the cold and coughing up blood. The girl walked past the snorting dwarf, paying him no mind before pouring antidote into her apprentice’s throat.

“… You won the fight, but don’t forget about the bigger picture.” She pouted as she declared war on Hestia, and as a consequence, the entirety of Aurora.

[“Go already, you little shit.”] She would not be intimidated.

“Wha-What?! You piece of— Hrmmmm!” And with her red lightning forming around her body, she grabbed Hee’Rlak in her other arm and dashed away, leaving only her silhouette behind.

At the same time—

“Urgk!”

“Grak!”

“Bladdarg!”

“Grouuk…”

“Dam—Ark!”

“Tch!”

All six Aurora members all fell onto the ground simultaneously. From what I could hear as Hesti descended, Kyouya fell unconscious while bleeding profusely with severe burns after being cooked alive by Hee’Rlak while Grimnir had [Arcane Fever (Major)], having hid his blue face with his helmet and was almost dead.

Tasianna was dizzy and nauseous, having lost quite a lot of blood. Even if she couldn’t die from blood loss, she was still missing an arm and her elven body still heavily weakened. Ellaine was enduring a numbed arm, caused when the demonkin girl stabbed her shoulder. The armor hadn’t fully protected her, as the lightning rapier went through her shoulder and made it impossible for her to move it without [Musclemass].

On the other hand, Hanazawa and I both came out of this fight with minimal injuries. Hanazawa only had [Arcane Fever (Minor)], perfectly handable unlike Grimnir, while I only had [Mana Stress] and some [Exhaustion].

Sure, we might have won today, thanks to Hestia somehow making it over here with her rocket boosters, but it still stung. We didn’t win this fight through our powers, but by luck. If she hadn’t accepted the deal and continued fighting…

[“Hey, are you alright?”] Klea’Hatma asked me while Hestia was frantically taking care of everybody. I nodded to her. [“Thank goodness you guys listened to me, right?”]

I nodded again.

The last bit of information during the planning session. It was Klea’Hatma who stopped us before we left to prepare the battle stage.

Good thing we listened to her.

[“Hmm, oh yeah, that boy said he had a master, right? A Warbringer or whatever they are called nowadays? Yeah, well, in case they were the reason for that giant lightning, just think of fleeing. Try to do something to get on the demonkin’s sense of dignity and honor. The demon of wrath was a bit of a warmonger, but he was extremely honorable, to a fault. Not the type to scheme. If his descendants inherited that personality type, then those demonkins of wrath are pretty similar to dwarves.”]

Dammit…

I thought I had scaled the tower by almost defeating Hee’Rlak, but the true tower was still behind him. A Warbringer, an elite guard type opponent behind one of the seven demonkin princes of sin. We, Aurora, showed our hands today, and I had a feeling this was just the beginning of its ripple effects.

But, in return, we now had an idea on how much more we had to catch up. How far the summit really was. Our catalyst to move beyond that foe.

A note from AbyssRaven

They were defeated in the fight itself, but they survived in the end. For that, they are winners.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 301: Scars and Miracles.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #3 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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1496 humans and beastmen have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 9982

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Idol Lv. 4] [Stage Fever Lv. 6] gained

“How are you feeling?” I said, holding up Tasianna’s right arm. Stitches could be seen connecting her upper arm with her slightly charred forearm. “Hopefully this doesn’t leave a scar… Sorry, I didn’t realize your arm was cut off.”

“Lady Hestia, please,” Tasianna placed her hand on my cheeks, gently pulling my face up. “Don’t be saddened. As your maid, seeing you crestfallen would be a great shame. It is just an arm. You couldn’t have known, and given the conditions Grimnir, Kyouya, and Tatsuya were in and you hadn’t cast your halo…”

I didn’t know what the hell happened. One moment, I was performing before my audience, carefree and fully believing in my companions when it came to defeating the demonkin and O’Bloom’s army, but in the next, my [Room] subspace warned me, its master, somebody unauthorized had entered it, somebody who made me freeze in place.

I stopped my performance, rushed over to a door, and tried to warn Saori and the others, but before I could do anything, they were sucked out of the subspace. Only Saori’s garm and Varya weren’t pulled out. Knowing the entrance of the labyrinth was the portal to Reajaen’s dungeon, I wanted to help them, but for some reason, I couldn’t.

The only answer was that the portal was either disabled or the [Room] runes were destroyed.

I canceled my concert, telling Duke Greenveil to handle things in my absence. Yorshka and the Magical Biscuits were in the Griffonpeak dungeon, going through Quests. We didn’t think we needed them since we were fully prepared, but I guess the enemy had a trump card to level the playing field.

After I exited the subspace, I blasted into the sky with my scale-dust boosters, leaving the snow wyverns and Mother behind. Once I made it past the mountain formation of Gleisvale’s Centipedeclaw, I transformed into my dragon form and used all my stored scale-dust to just rush, rush, rush!

Once the sight of Reajaen’s beastman village came into sight, I also felt a serious amount of mana in the area. Mostly, I felt electricity in the air and some serious cold. I didn't know what was happening, but if Tasianna and Saori were fighting seriously, then something was seriously awry.

As such, I needed to come up with a backup, something I could use if fighting wasn’t possible. And, that backup plan worked when I saw the demonkin. Level 150 and most of her profile was [Information Blocked]. She was aggressive and belligerent. Not a good combination. And I had no idea if I could stand up to her even with all my skills and spells.

Still, we managed to scare her off, but while the imminent threat was gone, my heart was still beating like a drum. Grimnir and Kyouya were on the verge of death, Tatsuya had taken a huge blow to his head, and the others had some sorta injury or mana issue.

I came in with [Sanctified Blaze: Halo of Consecration], intending to stabilize their wounds before feeding Grimnir a truckload of dragorade. [Arcane Fever (Major)] was not a joke. The last time I saw somebody with that abnormal effect, her limbs exploded. Thankfully, dwarves were quite sturdy, but I honestly thought Grimnir was turning into a grape with how purple he was.

The aftermath of their battle wasn’t really easy on my heart. Grimnir was dying, so I had to just overwhelm him with multiple [Sanctified Blaze] and even [Sacred Field] to keep him alive. Kyouya was literally cooked alive in his armor, with metal sticking to his skin; getting him out of it was not an easy task without damaging his body too much. And Tatsuya, well, I just hoped he didn’t get any brain damage from the fight.

I was scared. Relying on my allies? When this could happen? I didn't know what to think, really.

When Saori and Ellaine told me what happened, I was sorta happy they managed to stand up against the demonkin well enough, but honestly…

The students need more training.

It was the truth.

Major Heal.

I healed Tasianna’s arm before attaching her forearm back on, meaning the stump had closed up. That was not good. It meant a perfect, seamless recovery couldn’t be done. It also didn’t help that her severed limb was charred around the cutting area by the bitch demonkin’s lightning.

I had to slice Tasianna's stump back open, exposing the flesh and bones again. Fairies were being made out of mana, and while they couldn’t die from blood loss, losing a limb meant their maximum mana would be reduced. I didn’t know what would happen if she turned back into a fairy like this, so I had to stop her.

After the wound was opened, Saori helped out by stitching her arm back up. The charred parts were removed, but it also meant Tasianna would be left with a scar around her arm. Well, she would if her body was flesh and blood. I had no idea what it would do to a fairy.

Once the heal spell was cast, the flesh of the two arms began to grow out, attaching themselves back together. The bones reconnected and muscle fibers were formed. Once it was closed up with soft, pink skin, I let out a sigh of relief. There was a slight scar, but not noticeable enough to matter. The line was similar to the white stretch marks running down your waist.

“How does it feel?”

Tasianna moved her arm around, testing it by stretching and moving her fingers. “A bit… uncomfortable. I can’t move my arm as well as before.”

I nodded. “Try transforming back into a fairy. If you still have problems, then I probably messed up the healing of your nerves or blood vessels. I’ll fix you up later on.”

After Tasianna returned to her fairy form, it seemed like her arm was fixed. Magic and mana, people. [Humanize] probably corrected whatever was missing, making me wonder if that was the same for my dragon form. Then again, it didn’t fix my mana path problem, so it was inconsistent, to say the least.

With Tasianna fixed up, we walked through the emergency clinic I set up for everyone.

Quite a lot of dead… The Resurrection didn’t come out of this unscathed.

When I learned the [Room] runes were destroyed, I opened another entrance to the labyrinth, where we emptied it of all the corpses. The mercenaries were left to the onnikais, as they took their bodies as their share of the “spoils of war.” They probably would take over their bodies, I guessed.

The bodies of the Resurrection members, on the other hand, were given over to Reajean. Our foxian ally was actually hiding inside the dungeon all this time, inside the room where her son’s real body was. She was now going through the corpses, identifying them. Her son’s three puppets were also helping her, but I managed to see him taking glances at me and the others.

Hopefully this won’t end in violence.

My deal with Reajaen wasn’t fulfilled. Aurora was supposed to kill O’Bloom for her, as that was her primary objective and obsession. Yes, I heard Parilostro was the person who handed O’Bloom over, but that was for survival reasons. If Saori and the others hadn’t tried to negotiate with the demonkin Warbringer, there would have been more dead.

And some of those extra dead would have included my own friends.

“Hey.” I bent my knees next to a grape-skinned Grimnir, looking at me before laughing.

“Hahahah! Don’t look at me like that, lass. Makes a man feel sad when a girl looks at him with those eyes.” He tried to joke around despite being on the verge of death right at this moment. The only thing keeping him alive and not dying from [Arcane Fever] were my white flames.

“You know, you should be unconscious right now. Honestly, you taz dwarves are too hardy.” I shook my head, baffled at how he wasn’t sleeping. “Don’t you feel any pain?”

“Oooh, I am, lass. Even speaking with you right now hurts like shit! Bladdarg, I need a mug of mead right this moment.” I glared at him, causing him to laugh again. “Hmm, still, I meant it when you shouldn’t feel so bad. A battle is a battle, anything can happen. Dwarven men learn this fact early, since we have mandatory battle training since adolescence. Every tazong man is a warrior of some kind.”

“Oh? Not women, too? Since the System equalizes everything amongst gender.” I wondered a bit.

“Mhmm, dwarven society was a patriarchy before the rise of the Revolution Queen. Not only technological advancement, but also changes were made for our fairer half. I won’t bore you with the details, since I feel uncomfortable speaking about them to you, a lass, but some things have changed, others not so much. Don’t worry, when we visit the Ankoran-Nazta, you will feel welcomed, gahahahaha!”

You nearly died and you’re laughing as if you won…hiehie. I smiled as he laughed so heartily, unperturbed at what happened before.

However, it seemed I assessed his true thoughts a bit too soon.

“Still… a tazongn man should be able to protect our women. Arck, I know it makes no sense with you lasses being beyond the norm, but I certainly feel pretty pathetic as a member of Aurora. Hmm…” He then looked over at the unconscious Tatsuya and Kyouya. “I almost lost more people… I wonder what Broggi would think about how weak I am?”

“Aren’t you overthinking it, old man?” I turned my head around. Asaka stood behind me, holding back an anxious Daichi back, before releasing him.

“Shishou!” Daichi cried out as he ran up to Grimnir’s side. “Don’t die, Shishou! I still have so much to learn!”

“I ain’t dying you stupid apprentice! And I told you to stop calling me like that!” It seemed Grimnir would be keeping living considering how much energy he still had to bonk Daichi on his head.

“Kyouya-kun!” On the other hand, we had a more depressing moment on the other side with Haruka clenching Kyouya’s hand, almost in tears with him unconscious. “Hesti-chan, will Kyouya-kun be okay?”

I stood up and nodded. “Yeah. He had a ton of burns, but I managed to heal him up. Although, when he was burned, he had his armor on so some of the metal melted into his skin. I cut those out, but his armor is gone.”

“Shoulda made some time to make him a new armor set. As a blacksmith, I shouldn’t have listened to the lad’s insistence that some human-forged armor was ‘fine enough.’” Grimnir complained about his lack of action leading Kyouya to his current state.

“Master Grimnir, you shouldn’t be saying that.” More people were coming over, this time, it was Ellaine and Saori. When she heard Grimnir blaming himself, Ellaine reprimanded him. “I don’t think any of us expected to meet somebody at S rank strength this early. As a fellow artisan, you taught me we only have so much time to prepare everybody’s equipment.”

“But, after what happened to Griffonpeak, we should’ve been more careful. The demonkins managed to defeat the Griffon King, and then we even have the unknown powerhouse that was Eithalr.” Saori pointed out. “Hestia, what was your opinion on the Warbringer?”

I thought about it, having trouble since I didn’t have the opportunity to fight her. Compared to the demonkin I defeated, the ones who attacked us today were most likely the ones we would meet on a battlefield. An elite soldier in the fire demonkin of wrath and a party commander in the demonkin girl.

In comparison, the one I fought could be considered an assassin. He took Eshe and her knights out in an ambush. When we fought head-on, he stood no chance. Even if I didn’t have my controlled [Battle Frenzy] and the two god powers I borrowed, I was 100% sure I could have stomped him.

However, would I have defeated that Warbringer? I told everybody I didn’t know. I was still an early-mid leveled B rank dragon. I still haven’t mastered my scale manipulation nor did I think I knew the full extent of my triple-colored flames yet. I was still learning how to be like an [Obsidian Blaze Dragon] with [Volcanic Blaze].

“Our enemies are too strong.” Tasianna grabbed her right arm, looking into the sky’s horizon. “We were all struggling with a single Warbringer while Grimnir and Kyouya kept a Warbringer apprentice back. There are still two more Warbringers left, possibly stronger than the ‘Voltaic Red,’ before we can fight the prince of wrath. This isn’t even including the other princes of sin and their entourages, or even any allies they could bring.”

“Right, the Yanderu Eluseuse and the whole Church of the Edjurl are other factions we need to keep an eye out for,” Ellaine added while massaging her right shoulder, the spot where she was hit by the demonkin’s lighting rapier. “Not to mention, the Church of Aurena and the Empire should be our allies, but the chances are high they’ll be our enemies instead. If we cannot build up our own alliance, then chances of our victory are low.”

“Even then, we have to become stronger ourselves,” Saori stated before turning to Asaka. “Hey, Hanazawa-san—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. We’ll be going to the Belzac forest after all of this. The summit with Artorias and their alliance is in AuthumnSun, right? Which means there are still three more months.”

Three more months until then, but with how much we exposed ourselves to those two demonkins, it might become difficult for us. If we weren’t already in their sights after Griffonpeak, then we were 100% now on their radars. They couldn’t overlook us now.

“Pardon.” Midway through our discussion, somebody interrupted us. When I turned around I was surprised to see Reajaen and her son had approached us. “… I would like to make alterations to our accord, Princess Hestia. Please, come with me.”

She looked me straight into the eyes. There I noticed the state of them, looking dull, almost as if she had accepted something inevitable reluctantly. If she wanted to make alterations to our deal, then it could only mean one thing.

“Sure.” I stood up and then used [Telepathy] to contact the wyvern twins scouting in the air to make sure the demonkins wouldn’t come back. [“Shay. Beth. Could you two make sure nothing happens in the camp? Well, in case, the Resurrection attack?”]

[““Of course, Your Highness.””]

“Haruka-san. Daichi-kun. Could you take care of everything here?” Saori turned to her two students, and they nodded.

“Emil!” Asaka called out to the onnikai necromancer, waving at him to come over before telling the rest of the onnikais to wait and make sure nothing happened.

“You better give us our vengeance, Miss! Free us!” Imila, the onnikai possessing the body of a young girl, pouted as she was told she couldn’t come with them. “Goddess Ilsaphone will look fondly over you! You will receive her blessing!”

Onnikais were faefolk born after a painful death. They lived their lives with a constant need to satisfy their urges for vengeance. I was already used to how they acted from my time with Kiiro.

After I reapplied [Sanctified Blaze] on Grimnir, all of us went down to the dungeon. Emil, the onnikai necromancer, called the dungeon simply a “basement” as he never really bothered to customize it. He didn’t care much about the dungeon core, so the dungeon was pretty lackluster and could be classified as a G rank one.

“A few days after they realized the dungeon was created, the ‘Master’ moved his primary body deep within it, down on the last floor. We tried to attack him once or twice, but the problem was that he kept a barrier around himself. Whenever I spawned a monster horde, his puppets would simply shoot them down. Level zero monsters aren’t very useful, you see,” Emil explained.

“Having your source of vengeance flaunted right before you all this time…” Tasianna commented, and Emil agreed with both of them glaring at Reajaen and Parilostro.

Both ignored it.

So they are fully committed to enacting their vengeance, huh? Tasianna…

It wasn’t my problem to worry about. I helped Tasianna find the person responsible for Princess Schuri’s death, and now I would only hope she can find some closure with this. Hopefully.

As the dungeon master, Emil was able to create a path directly to the dungeon core. However, Reajaen stopped him, telling us she wanted us to first meet with her son, her son's real body, before all of this would end.

Emil was a bit impatient, but none of us were against it. When Tasianna and Asaka said it was okay, Emil was persuaded and we made our way to the last floor. There, at the end of a hallway, was a thick stone door guarded by a mana barrier that I noticed after I activated [Mana Eyes].

Parilostro’s puppet opened it up for it, revealing a workshop with tables full of manatech machinery and potions. Multiple crates full of herbs were stored in the corner, looking very similar to the ones we sold Reajaen. When she noted my interest, she began to explain herself.

“Belzac herb recovery potions are very potent. However, you could also use the herbs in another concoction to alleviate and aid in the repair of mana paths. The recipe the prince of sloth taught me required multiple different ingredients found in the Empire, but acquiring them en masse is expensive. As such, I had to adapt the recipe.” She picked up a finished potion, shaking the liquid inside. “This is how we forcibly free slaves from their slave tattoos. It’s not perfect, since it requires an extensive amount of potions for a proper recovery, but… it’s hope in a bottle. Also—”

She then went over to a bed occupied by a foxian man. His eyes were closed and numerous tubes were attached to a contraption on his chest. It glowed blue like mana, making noises like clockwork. Another tube led to his mouth, which Reajaen used to pour the potion into the man’s mouth.

Looking closer, the face of the foxian was eerily similar to Parilostro’s puppets but the major difference between them was how malnourished the bed-ridden person looked. He was almost skin and bones. It looked like even a gentle breeze could break him.

Is this…?

“Let me properly introduce you to my son, members of Aurora. This is Parilostro Resclave.”

… How sad.

“And he is the reason for why I wish to alter our agreement, Princess Hestia. After all, you did not manage to kill Senator O’Bloom.”

I nodded. There was no need to argue here.

“As such, as a merchant, I am obligated by my values to not follow up on my end of the bargain. So—”

“Are you kidding me?!” Emil suddenly shouted, charging up to Reajaen in rage. But, before Parilostro could stop him, Saori had already dealt with it by casting [Dark Tendril] to tie him up. “Ark! Let me go! Thi-This is outrageous! Asaka! You promised us! You promised to release us! Do not go back on your word, Chosen of Goddess Death!”

There was clear desperation in his voice, almost sounding like he was begging us. However, against his expectations, Asaka snapped his forehead.

“Just listen, you dork.” Asaka grabbed his jaw and dragged his face back to Reajaen, making sure he wasn’t speaking with her grip.

“So,” she continued from where she was interrupted. “I would like us to change the conditions. Princess Hestia, you are a Champion of Aurena, the Goddess of Light and Miracles. I ask of you for a miracle — to heal my son of his plight.”

“What about the mantech heart?” I pulled out the artificial heart from my storage.

“Yes, it would probably be best to use it after all the sweat and blood we poured into its creation, but… my instincts tell me you probably wouldn’t like me to keep the demonic object we stole from Senator O’Bloom. I stole it not only to irritate him, but also since it's required to use the manatech heart.”

Parilostro then pointed at the contraption on his real body’s cheat. “The reason why I am considered a demonkin contractor is due to this machinery. The Prince of Sloth placed a catalyst inside it with his mana and blood. With it, I can control my puppets through my mind after infusing them with my own blood. Over the years, not only my heart but also this catalyst have deteriorated.”

“And you most likely need more demonkin power for it, right?” Ellaine figured using her knowledge of demon blood to use. “But, is that demonic object also made using a demonkin of sloth’s mana? If not, then you won’t be able to fuel it and keep using your puppets.”

“I see you understand it better than we did, demonkin contractor,” Parilostro shot back, prompting Ellaine to smile wryly. “But, you most likely are correct. When we created it, we didn’t think of this scenario. We thought any demonkin blood would be viable, but after acquiring some through the black market, we noticed it wasn’t.”

“But, it was still worth it for us. Even if Pariostro lost control of his puppets, it was worth it if he could finally live like a normal foxian. I was ready to pay any price for it but…” Reajaen shook her head. “I know when I am outmatched. I am a merchant, not a fighter. I weigh risks with rewards. I thought of betraying you for a final gambit, but if I did, there would be nothing left for us. I spoke with my son. I am ready to lay my life forward for my sins, but in return, I ask of you to free my son and also hunt down that bastard O’Bloom!”

I saw the Resclaves’ conviction. A son not wanting his mother to die but understanding there is no other way out, and a mother who is willing to sin and taint her soul to give her child a chance for a proper life. It pulled on my heartstrings.

“That last part is a given. Don’t worry about that, I won't go back on my word. An agreement can be considered a promise, so rest easy, I will always try my best to fulfill my promises!” I had no intention of abandoning her wish like this, especially since O’Bloom will be a target in the future as a member of the Church of the Edjurl. “Does your son still have his original heart?”

She nodded. There were pieces of manatech on it, meaning it was 50% machinery since it needed to be attached to the chest contraption.

In other words, there was only one thing left to do.

“18,” I stated, confusing both of them. “I need 18 more ‘fans.’ Then, I shall show you a miracle from the Goddess herself.”

“ ‘Fans?’ Do you want us to swear fealty to you, Princess Hestia?” Reajaen asked, confused, but still bent the knee. “Then so be it. May it be the Goddess or even the demons, I would accept any of them.”

1 beastman has become your follower

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 9983

That was quick.

“If it is to save the young master, then we shall follow the mistress.” From behind us, multiple members of the Resurrection appeared, shocking Reajaen and Parilostro. I noticed them following us into the dungeon, but I really have to ask what they said to persuade Shay and Beth. “Our lives, although meager, will be yours, Princess Hestia. Please, we beg of you, save Master Parilostro!”

17 beastmen has become your follower

Total follower count updated. Total follower of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 10000

Follower amount requirement fulfilled. [Miraculous Grace] requirement fulfilled

Milestone reward gained:   [The Light] spell [Miraculous Grace]. Next Milestone unlocked: 50000: An improved solar core

Solar core, nice, but how the hell was that exactly 10000 followers?!

“Hold on, you all—” Reajaen tried to stop her followers, although it was too late at this point, but her Resurrection members interrupted her.

“Mistress Reajaen, we understand the situation. If today is the last day we will serve you, then we shall do it until the very end. You saved our lives when we had no way out. You gave us the training to survive. Our lives are connected to yours. Those who fell today did it knowing it might be their last.” They turned towards me, kneeling down. “Please, save Master Parilostro!”

“… So be it.” I went over to the bed, asking Reajaen and Parilostro to help me take off the manatech contraption from his chest.

I let out my white flames, surrounding the foxian man’s real body, having them ready to heal him in case his Health began to fall. However, when his chest was revealed, I honestly thought I needed the healing more now from what I found. I thought I would have to open up to his heart, but everything was open already.

“The manatech was his chest?!” Saori blurted out, as surprised as the other Auroras.

“Jeez… he will need a lot of healing to fix that, Hestia. And that heart… You think you’re up to the task?” Asaka looked at me worried.

It was true. This was something only a surgeon should be looking at. Tubes were attached from his lungs to his windpipe while all his ribs were removed to fit the manatech chest plate. A small, immature heart was in the middle of all of this, looking far too feeble to be part of an adult’s body.

Reajaen told me his ribs were removed when he was still a child, so she believed they couldn't be repaired. However…

Miraculous Grace

Bring down the Goddess of Light’s power onto the mortal realm, enabling the caster to heal wounds of any kind depending on how much mana is invested. The more mana is spent, the more the healing power will resemble the miracles of the Goddess of Light, even allowing the regrowth of missing body parts. A true mark of an acknowledged Saint of Aurena

Parilostro began the surgery, using his three puppets so deftly I understood he had been doing this often enough he seemed like an expert at this. Honestly, he might rival Duchess Morgiana and her daughter Thyra when it came to this, and both of them were professional manasurgeons.

While helping him out by keeping his real body healthy, progress was made to remove all the wires and tubes until it was the heart’s turn. His puppets hesitated, looking at me nervously as he wasn’t sure if he could trust me.

I placed my hand on his real’s body hand, reassuring him with a resolute look. “Don’t underestimate a dragon working as a priestess for the Goddess of Miracles. By the God of Oaths, Kargryxmor, I, Hestia Atsuko Kargrxymor, swear I will save you! And I never go back on my promises!”

“…!” His eyes widened and he nodded. For the first time since I first met him, I could see a hint of emotion in his lifeless puppet eyes.

Hope.

And hope was an idol’s job to give!

Parallel Minds! Get ready!

The moment the tubes and harness were removed from the heart, it immediately began to leak out blood as Parilostro’s puppets fell onto the ground as if their strings were cut. This meant this was the last mile!

“Sacred Field!” Light shone on the field as it began to repair the heart’s wound, giving me enough time for my ten parallel minds to go through all the information I had on hearts and adapting them to the current situation.

White fire seeped into the inside of his heart, repairing the wounds it was received from all the blood flowing around. The white clothing of my casual outfit began to be stained by blood, almost resembling the crimson red of the rest of my clothes.

Time was moving slow for me.

Let’s go! Haste!

[Haste] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Miraculous Grace!”

A white magic circle around the size of Parilostro’s body appeared above him as I kept pouring more and more mana into the spell. Rays of light descended from it, precisely landing on the spots I wanted it to go. And then, the potency of the spell showed itself.

The flesh of the heart morphed, growing larger and larger. The aorta, the pulmonary artery and vein; I analyzed the heart as I held it in my hand. It had to become larger, far larger than it was before. This was not a child, this was an adult!

Name: Parilostro Rescalve Health: 95/541

Not good!

“Help!” I called out immediately as I noticed the blood was spraying out far too fast for his low Health pool.

And that was all I needed to say as the blood stopped stained my clothes. It froze and moved back into his body before I saw it and breathed out from heated air. Thermokinesis. Tasianna and me.

A shadow also began to wrap around Parilostro’s inside, simulating the missing blood vessels. Saori came from the side, producing her mana threads and using them to pump oxygen into his lungs. More and more blood moved through his body, reinvigorating them, while less ended up on the floor.

[“I’m sending you guys anatomy info. Its high school level only, but should be good enough while I keep it up.”] I sent Saori and Tasianna all the information my parallel minds built up.

Name: Parilostro Rescalve Health: 166/541

Good!

“More, help!”

“Here!” Ellaine came over with a full set of ribs around the size of Parilostro’s, probably created with her demonic [Ribcage]. “Klea made sure they would work for transplant usage, or whatever she meant with that. It shouldn’t have any compatibility problems, she said. Also promises no tricks!”

“Good! I’ll fix that up for you, Hestia,” Saori stated before producing her sewing needle made by Grimnir, attaching the ribs back together before my white flames healed everything up. Even if our fifth member wasn’t here, he was here in spirit!

Name: Parilostro Rescalve Health: 356/541

Alright, gotta go faster! Song time!

“In the midst of the desert ♫

A bright ray of light shines ♫

Pure and brave, that she was, as she walked ♫

She was the ideal for me ♫

The bringer of children’s smiles ♫

Alas, the world seemed bleaker without her ♫”

[Shield of [The Light]] [Musical Resonation (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

[The Heir of Hope]; my song dedicated to Eshe wasn’t just useful for its Health shield, but also for increasing all Holy type healing by 50%. It accelerated the process. The flesh was formable. And ‘cause of that, I had to make Parilostro’s heart grow as I wanted it to.

Left Atrium, left pulmonary vein… Now!

“Watch out, everybody, this isn’t done yet!” I raised my finger and cut off the fully made heart in half, removing the old, small part of the heart before I resumed [Miraculous Grace].

Name: Parilostro Rescalve Health: 206/541

Superior vena cava, right ventricle, inferior vena cava — biology classes for the win!

Smoothly with cooperation. Aurora was here to save a life!

Right atrium, right pulmonary vein— Done!

I placed the heart back into its place, moving his lungs to the position I read in that one science book in school. I identified the shadow blood vessels Saori made and began reconstructing them with my miracle heal spell and also fixed up his windpipe. There were also his lungs and the rest of his body that I had to correct. Having a young child’s heart for so many years had some serious detrimental effects on his body beyond simply having a body unable to move around.

“Tasianna, help me out with the mana paths.” I activated [Mana Eyes] and began identifying where his mana was flowing. With all the blood vessels back and working, Tasianna didn’t have to focus on the blood anymore.

Let’s go!

I don’t know how long it took. Time was moving slow for me even without [Haste]. This was my first time as a manasurgeon and I could tell I wasn’t doing an extremely great job of it. There were no biology books on manapaths on Earth, after all. I knew we had to send him to Duchess Morgiana after this, but I was still glad.

Glad that the operation was a success.

Name: Parilostro Rescalve Health: 467/781

His Health increased by about 200, huh?

Once his chest was closed, Saori, Tasianna, and I stumbled away from him, breathing heavily from the anxious atmosphere. But, the moment we saw his chest move up and down normally? When he didn’t spit out any blood? When his Health reached its maximum after I let my white flames handle the rest of the healing? We all smiled.

“Parilostro!” Reajaen walked up to her son, tears streaming down her face while her hand hid her quivering mouth and voice. She didn’t care about the blood dropping on her expensive-looking dress, believing it was more important to kiss her son on his cheek before pressing her head against his.

It was a heartwarming scene between a mother and her son.

I wanted to say something to congratulate her, but I kept it to myself. My job was done. This moment was entirely hers.

But, it seemed like everything was so fleeting today. When we thought everything was about to work out, somebody’s voice dragged us back to reality.

“Excuse me.”

It was a familiar one. One from a specific person I hadn’t expected to see today.

“I shall congratulate you on your hard work, Hestia, Aurora, for thwarting somebody’s death today; however, time presses. Your fate lies elsewhere.”

It was Ilsaphone and the Night sisters.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 302: I, Usurper.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Welcome, children of Aurora. You certainly took your sweet time coming.” A haughty-sounding woman welcomed us into the room, attracting our gazes as she wafted her blond hair around and looked at us with her ruby-colored eyes in interest.

On the other hand, a muscular dark elven woman nodded as a welcome. “Not a single member of Aurora died despite facing an enemy beyond your levels so early. Admirable,” she said, showing us only a reserved smile as a sign of acknowledgement.

The Night Sisters, the daughters of Marsven and Edna. Ilsaphone, the eldest and the Goddess of Necromancy and Death; Vivachel, the middle aged one and the Goddess of Vampires; lastly, the Goddess of Grudges and Vengeance, the youngest of the sisters, Kronnaz.

Because of their status as gods, everybody aside from me was mostly listening to either gibberish or some weird accent whenever they spoke. This was a safety measure, since the words of a god could harm a mortal’s soul. Due to my circumstances, I could hear them perfectly and acted as everybody’s translator with [Telepathy]. Pretty similar to when I did the same for Mother and Kramps.

“Hmm? Where is the fairy?” The blond, noble-looking Vivachel questioned after counting us up.

“She’s… We left her behind,” I replied.

Emil and Tasianna were with Reajaen… for obvious reasons. Our end of the bargain was now complete, and so it fell to Tasianna and Emil to do what they needed to do. Closure for Tasianna. As her friend, I didn’t know if that was the best path for her, but we couldn’t stop her anymore. Even Reajaen herself accepted her death.

“Don’t worry too much,” Kronnaz suddenly spoke, somehow noticing the atmosphere around us. “Vengeance and grudges are part of life. To overcome them, regardless of your methods, is to pass a trial in life. It will mold you. To deny somebody this chance would be folly.”

[“Oh? Is that why you actually let me live, Kronnaz?”] Klea’Hatma’s voice appeared in our heads, sounding as if she was teasing the goddess. Was she actually trying to pick a fight? [“Well, whatever. Glad to be around Ellaine for a bit longer. In any case, look at this! Seems like those princes of sin aren’t slacking on their training. An aberration of indulgence, and it looks like it was growing pretty well!”]

After we gave Parilostro a new heart, Ilsaphone led us into the dungeon’s core room, as that was where the Resclaves stored the demonic item. Here, now, our attention was drawn towards two places, beyond the goddesses. First, right in the middle was a clear, crystal ball floating above a pedestal, protected by a pillar of mana, while on the left, in a small room, lay our primary reason for coming here.

Looking very much like a safe with all the metal fortification, Reajaen told us they built the walls around it to make sure the demonic object wouldn’t escape. I was confused by what she meant by “escape,” since I thought the thing was a ball or something, but now that we were here, we could see what she meant.

“Kruuuukyuk!” It growled at us as we looked through the small window.

[“Awwwwww, look at the thing!”] Klea’Hatma sounded like a girl fawning over a small dog or cat. [“Look at the small aberration. Such an adorable little bugger.”]

… This is ‘cute?’

As Reajaen mentioned, the object was indeed in the form of a sphere. In fact, it looked pretty much like an eyeball. The problem was that it had flesh surrounding it which formed into a mouth and a bunch of tentacles. It looked less like an inanimate object and more like a monster.

… Mana Eyes.

Aberration of Indulgence (Envy)

A semi-perfect gargoyle created using the blood of a demonkin prince of sin, a being who has gone down the path to assimilate themselves with their progenitor, the Demon of Envy. This gargoyle acts as a source of power similar to a catalyst, but also as a phylactery and anchor for their owner’s life force. Due to the chaotic demonic mana inside the blood, the gargoyle transforms into a true monster, evolving over time depending on the amount of mana embedded into it. Rank E

Owner: Thals’Yond

And it was a monster. A demonic one, even.

The Prince of Envy’s name is Thals’Yond, huh? I’ll remember that.

“… This is the object you wanted me to destroy, Goddess Ilsaphone?” Saori asked wearily.

Ilsaphone wobbled her head around. “No, to be exact, my Quest detailed you to destroy this dungeon here. What you do with the dungeon core or this demonic object is left to your discretion. You can do whatever with them.”

“Didn’t she also have to kick out the two demon associates here?” Asaka asked. “O’Bloom is bye-bye, but what about Parilostro?”

“Most likely it should still work. He and his mother hadn’t had any contact with the Prince of Sloth in years, and if we destroy his chest plate, that would mean all the demonic influences are gone. It should count. Correct, Goddess Ilsaphone?” I turned around where Ilsaphone still kept her face hidden under her hood. I expected her to answer me, but her younger sister was the one to do so.

Clapping her hands with a wide smile, making it seem like she was patronizing us, Vivachel spoke out in her sister’s place. “Elsa probably would agree. She is not a pedant and I think she would just like to give Saori her blessing. She won’t admit it, but she would like to make you her champion no matter wha—Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, Sisteeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!”

White silhouettes looking like ghosts suddenly appeared behind Vivachel before they picked her up and threw her outside the room. In the next moment, a wave of blood entered the room like a slime before forming itself into Vivachel. She didn’t look too pleased.

Ilsaphone ignored her younger sister’s pouting to explain the details. “What Vivi wanted to say without all the fluff, is that yes, I will grant you your reward. A blessing, although you won’t be officially recognized as my champion, as well as information related to Belzac’s true intention for calling you. Oh right, have you retrieved all the pelts of your garms, yet, Saori?”

“I have three.”

One from the Layavete cartel, another from the O’Bloom’s bandit base, and the last one from one of Reajaen’s potion shops. The last one, according to the intel we received from Gael and the Shaturein folks, was among O’Bloom’s pelt collection inside his mansion. Once we returned to Gleisvale, we should have Gael pick it up for us.

“Good. Once you have them, bring them with you. They will be needed for your garms with what Belzac is planning. Let that be your crumb to entice you.” The Goddess then turned to Asaka. “Asaka, have you already figured out a place for the onnikai to live?”

“Huh?” She looked surprised. “I thought after the onnikais and Tasianna deal with their source of anger, wouldn’t the former, you know, just disappear? Didn’t that happen with that Kiiro fellow, Hestia?”

I nodded, but Ilsaphone had something else to say.

“If you are speaking about the onnikai leader in your time in Firwood, then I will say that Kiiro was already weakened from his fight against that human, Davison. Onnikais aren’t like ghosts or ‘yokai,’ as you Japanese would know them. They can’t be ‘exorcised’ or appeased like that.” Ilsaphone used her knowledge of our world to explain it to us. “Yes, over time, an onnikai can turn back into a spirit once its source of vengeance is gone. They can pray to Goddess Zephira for that. However, these onnikais have fully converted to my faith. They want to remain onnikais since I’ve managed to adjust my blessing after what happened in Firwood. I thank you for helping me with that.”

“Which means…” Asaka sighed. “No… I haven’t found a haven for them yet. I guess they can’t stay here, huh?”

“Hmm. That probably would be quite a bit of a problem,” I commented. “The onnikais despise the Resurrection member. Even if Reajaen died, they wouldn't like being here, nor would the Resurrection appreciate their presence. The primary religion in Estralia is God Mercurias, but the seat of the Church of Aurena borders them. I don’t think they would accept the onnikais inhabiting corpses.”

Everybody nodded. The Church of Aurena only tolerated the Church of Marsven since he’s an Origin God, but that was about it. Conflicts still happen between their followers which could lead to wars. I mean, grimgarians are technically the descendants of Kronnaz but they were treated as nothing more than monsters, so what would they think about onnikai-controlled undead?

Nothing good, that’s what I would predict.

“Hmm, then how about we ask Lady Duchess Morgiana?” Ellaine suddenly brought up as we contemplated on a way to solve Asaka’s Divine Quest. “Onnikais are faefolk, and the Morgiana Duchy is the closest to Saelarial. We can ask her and Lady Thyra for help. Or, we can even default to Muraina. As a Saelari, she could bring the onnikais into elven territory. Regardless, they would feel safe in either case.”

That was a good suggestion. We could probably talk with Artorias or Muraina for help in this matter. Migration shouldn’t be a problem with my nexus.

[“Hmm, it seemed like the four of you figured something out. Now, how about you direct your attention to the aberration?”]

“I agree with the demon. Has Ilsaphone not told you to make haste?” Kronnaz chastised us. “The aberration is about to evolve into a D rank.”

[“Mhmm.”] Klea sent us an image of her nodding her head. [“Aberrations are us demon’s lovable pets. Not only are they the protectors of our life force cores, but also an incredible force of nature once they mature and manage to evolve. They can take on so many forms. So many cute and very grotesque figures, unnatural to the world of Peolynca. Ooooh, this brings tears to my eyes. I miss my little ones so very much.”]

…

I squinted my eyes and turned to the growling eyeball with sharp teeth and tentacles.

Yup. Eldritch. Nothing to see here. Her tastes can remain her tastes.

“So… how do we destroy it?” Saori asked.

[“Hmm, destroy?”] Our demon sounded like she was about to object. [“You don’t need to do that, Saori. As Ilsaphone mentioned, you can do whatever you want with it. It’s a phylactery. Perfect to safeguard your soul like a lich. Give you a second chance. It would be a waste to simply get rid of it.”]

“If you are trying to trick us, demon, I can end you now. Words won’t get you anything here.” I scowled at Ellaine’s rings.

[“No, no, not for me, dear! Whatever amount of my soul I could give it would be worth next to nothing. At best, I could transfer my mana into it and make it my new home, but that would be about it. Not to mention, if I tried that, Aurena would probably kill me before you could. No, my suggestion would be for Ellaine.”]

“Me?” Ellaine raised an eyebrow.

[“Yes, Ellaine. You are not a demon contractor, but you could grant the aberration your mana while in [Assimilation] form. You can make your own aberration to protect not only your soul, but also yourself once it evolves into an A rank. You wouldn’t need to fear death any longer.”]

“Like a lich,” Ilsaphone added.

“Excuse me, but shouldn’t you say something against this? I mean, you three are goddesses and this sounds like such a bad move to do,” Asaka pointed this out, prompting Vivachel to answer her.

“No. We are gods. We are watchers and guides, but we aren’t your mothers. We cannot interfere if your actions are ‘abiding by the rules.’ We can only suggest. And, in this case, Kroza can explain it better than me.”

Kronnaz looked Ellaine straight in the eye, intimidating her a little bit due to their height and stature difference. “Let me reiterate once again what I said after you, Tatsuya, and Kyouya fought me — I will trust your judgement.”

It was short and to the point, fitting for somebody stern and aloof like the Goddess of Vengeance and Grudges. It reminded me of what Ellaine told me after their first meeting.

Their fight was pretty one-sided, where Kronnaz dealt with them as if they were small children. While Ellaine and the boys went at it seriously, Kronnaz treated it as if she was drilling a mortal champion. Although the goddess said she would destroy Klea’Hatma if she failed, she actually couldn’t follow through with that threat due to Aurena’s protection.

In fact, the test was just a way for Kronnaz to understand Ellaine better. It was a trial to see if Kronnaz would aid us in our Divine Quest, or if she would stay neutral about it. In the end, she chose the former. Fortunately.

Outside of Kronnaz’s trial and Ilsaphone’s Divine Quests, the Night Sisters’ goal was to assess our “fates” as they called it. To analyze two specific people in this, and those were Asaka and Reajaen and their positions in the sisters’ plans. Asaka, as she was considered a “saint candidate of Aurena” by the demonkin-controlled Church of Aurena, and Reajaen, given her relationship with the demonkin prince of sloth, were both suspicious figures to the goddesses.

I didn’t know what they were thinking with Asaka, but Reajaen was probably dead at this point. I did hope Tasianna would find it in herself to forgive her, but I had no idea what Emil would do. That onnikai was an old one, having been “born” during the War for the Faefolk. His hatred for humans and fae hunters was the most intense, similar to Kiiro’s in a way.

“As such—” My mind returned to the present with Kronnaz’s strict tone. “What you do with the aberration is your issue. You can not keep it here. Even after destroying the dungeon, a new one would form around the aberration’s mana. Choose wisely.”

“I see…” Ellaine nodded after I told her all of that, then immediately gave them an answer. “Alright, let’s destroy it then.”

[“Hold on, stop!”] However, before any of us opened the door, Klea’Hatma voiced her disapproval. [“First off, if you tried to destroy it like that, you would just unleash a wave of demonic mana into the surroundings, dears. Macula plants won’t cut it to cleanse the ground. Second, you would waste a valuable tool in this phylactery.”]

“Klea, while I trust that you aren’t trying anything weird and this is for my own benefit, I don’t think keeping something like this around is anyway good. This is the life force of the prince of envy, right? That’s why O’Bloom and those two demonkins were sent here. If we keep it, they will target us even more,” Ellaine argued, seemingly undeterred by the demon’s request.

Proud of you! Don’t let that demon whisper you sweet nothings!

[“The answer is obvious. Destroy the mana in it before using the phylactery for yourself.”] But, of course, Klea’Hatma still continued to defy our wish and give us another suggestion. [“Once the mana is no more, the demonkin whelp will believe he lost his phylactery altogether. If he will hunt us, it will be for being a threat to his plans. Not to take a hold of the aberration. It will also prevent him from having any control of it once the aberration evolves enough times.”]

I scratched my head in annoyance. Hearing the demon continue speaking was giving me a headache. “Klea’Hatma, while Ellaine can ‘trust’ you, the rest of us can’—”

“She’s right, though.”

“Huh?!” I turned around to Vivachel, confusing the others since I didn’t send them the translation yet.

“Hestia, you are in a particularly special position where you are an U.S.U.R.P.E.R. Usurper. For some reason, that ‘guest’ who helped Goddess Aurena and Kargryxmor with your reincarnation gave you the power to usurp divine powers. I think the latter two already told you that?”

I nodded. That’s why I was able to take control over their two blessings, making them technically mine if I didn’t permit them to alter them.

“Good, no need for me to explain then, little princess. Now, have you tried using it on a demonic power, yet? Take control over, for example, Miss [Saint Candidate]’s skill?”

I also nodded, but neither Asaka nor I knew what that meant. It clearly had “Usurped by Hestia” or something on her false [Saint Candidate] title, but nothing really changed for her.

“Mhmm, I see. Well, Asaka, do you still use your unique skill for anything?” Vivachel asked and she shook her head. “Then, good, hope your fellow transmigrator doesn't either. Well, those Hestia has blessed with her pseudo-blessing, at least.”

“What do you mean by that, Goddess Vivachel? Pseudo-blessing? And what is this with their unique skills?”

But, my questions weren’t answered and she simply opened the door for the aberration to jump out. Before it attacked anybody, Saori captured it with her [Dark Tendrils]. While we were baffled at her sudden action, she simply smiled at me.

“Here is my advice as a goddess, dominate and usurp this aberration’s mana, Hestia. Once you do, expunge it with the spell Aurena granted you. The phylactery would then be ‘clean’ and you can use it for yourself. Afterwards, use your control over the [Hestia’s Retainer] title on your Earth friends, and rid them of their unique skills given to them by the demonkins. There you go. A free trial in the infinite wisdom of the vampire queen, hmph, hmph!”

Haughty like a noble, fitting for the Vampire Goddess’s appearance. However, with the backing of a goddess and no complaints from the other two, the four of us girls actually begin considering Klea’Hatma’s idea. Were we being too cautious of her?

“The last of my worries are gone. If you want, we can do it like Klea said, Hestia.” Ellaine was the first to agree, since her only issue was the phylactery acting like a beacon for the demonkins. She was the only one who trusted the demon.

And this was what was needed for Asaka, Saori, and me to stop being stubborn about it. I presumed Ellaine could use this to improve herself further with her demon powers. If it won’t backfire, then this was the path to go down on.

[“Or, of course, Ellaine could simply suck up all the envy mana. That would give her demon of envy powers, but will most likely corrupt her.”]

“Okay, shut up! I’ll do it already, Klea’Hatma!” I stopped the demon from saying anything further, before calming down to ask how I was supposed to do this.

“Pour your mana inside and concentrate on the blood it has.” Ilsaphone began her instructions and I followed them. “Blessings are granting people a piece of your mana. At least, when it comes to us gods. However, in your case, your [Hestia’s Retainer] comes from your [The Light] title. In essence, your pseudo-blessing comes from the mana Aurena gave you, but since you usurped the blessing, it makes it so that mana is ‘yours.’ It also makes it so your retainers have more resilient souls, so that’s why they can hear us, fragmented those words may be.”

“Kyyyuuuuurk!” the aberration growled, trying to sound like a roar. It tried to remove my hand, snapping around like a turtle, but Saori kept it in control.

My mana began to enter the aberration, recoloring the “eyeball” slightly blue on a side. As I did so, I could feel something foreign trying to enter my body. Since I didn’t know what it was, I used [Draconic Barrier] to block it.

“Good. You realized that quickly,” Ilsaphone noticed what happened. “That is the defensive mechanism of the object. Envy’s mana is trying to take control of you, but without its original owner, it is no threat to you. Simply block it from entering your body, otherwise, you might get some nasty thoughts.”

I did as she said and as more of the aberration turned blue, a System message suddenly appeared before me.

Condition to usurp demonic object fulfilled. Object: [Aberration of Indulgence (Envy)]. Owner: Thals’Yond. Usurpation process ongoing…

You have usurped control over [Aberration of Indulgence (Envy)]. You are its new owner

Wait, it’s doing this with—

You have usurped control over [Aberration of Indulgence (Envy)]. You are its new owner

—out my approval… Well, that was easy.

“Oh good work, Hestia. That was honestly quicker than I thought,” Vivichel looked amazed but also worried. “Hmm, that is a bit scary. Why would anybody give such power to a mortal like that? Our poor blessings. And you can even do that on demonic blessings!”

“Enough, elder sister,” Kronnaz shut Vivachel up. “Hestia, now expunge the mana. That will kill the aberration and make it free for you to use.”

Looking at the aberration, it wasn’t snapping at me anymore, instead, it was looking at me with pure affection. It stung my heart! I knew it wanted to hurt me before, but its mood change was a total surprise.

I’m sorry, little one. Shine.

With one of my first spells, I shone a bright light on the creature, melting it away as it screamed in horror at its impending doom. I had to close my eyes, feeling really bad about what I was doing. It wasn’t created like this ‘cause it wanted to, but I was reaping its life ‘cause it was bad for us.

Once the screams ended, I opened my eyes to see a thick white orb. None of the tendrils or the eye was around anymore, and once I appraised it again, it didn’t mention its rank. In other words, the monster was dead and it was back to being a normal inanimate ball.

What did this cost me? Everything… Well, not anything really, but it still made me feel bad. I need to hug Rajah afterwards…

[“Good work, dear~”] Klea’Hatma praised me, making me feel even worse. [“This can be the replacement for your vampiric necklace, Ellaine. We can do it afterwards when you assimilate. Simply pour some of your mana into it and it can practically act as your soul phylactery similar to a lich's. Which also means you can attain immortality in the future if you fortify your soul enough.”]

Hold on, immortality? Wait, does that mean I won’t have to be scared of Ellaine dying of old age?! Wait, that’s amazing!

But contrary to my excitement, Ellaine had an entirely different reaction.

“Hold on, what?” Ellaine looked at the demon in surprise. “Y-You didn’t mention this before.”

[“Oh, I thought that was obvious with my explanation. Sorry about that, Ellaine.”] Even Klea’Hatma sounded like she didn’t expect her reaction either. [“W-Well, it’s just when you are still attached to me, Ellaine. If we someday were to be separated, you will lose the ability to use it, too. You need to be in your assimilated form to use it, so you can still die if you are in your human form. Yes, not true immortality.”]

“… I-I see. Mhmm.”

Ellaine doesn’t like it?

But my thoughts didn’t last long as Ilsaphone clapped her hands, drawing my attention back to her.

“And that is about all that we Sisters need to do here. You will only need to destroy the dungeon, which should be easy, as you only have to drain the mana from the dungeon core until it's empty and crack it open. Warning, drain the mana, alright? If you don’t, you will cause a mana explosion large enough to kill all of you.”

I wouldn’t forget that point. I was already told this multiple times in Cedaraille.

“Once you do, I shall grant Saori her reward. The same thing happens once Asaka fulfills her bargain.” Ilsaphone nodded in contentment. “In any case, with this done, allow me to give you another tip. This revolves around you [Otherworldly Visitors]. Asaka, you are currently linked to the demonkins through those unique skills of yours. I am not sure what they wish to do with you. If you wish to sever any possibility of a bad fate, I would suggest abandoning those skills with Hestia’s help. She can similarly usurp them like the aberration. However, be warned, if you do so, the demonkins will have no more reasons anymore to ignore you.”

“… Guess that’s important enough to inform everyone before we do it, huh?” Asaka looked at us and we nodded. “Oh right, before you three leave, may I ask Goddess Vivachel a question?”

“It’s about that bloodling, correct?” She guessed correctly. Elrick still hasn’t sent us a letter. “Hmm, in that case, you probably shouldn’t worry too much. Considering he abandoned his position as your guard — a saint candidate’s guard — he probably would be excommunicated by the church by now. In that case, he would either return home and continue his act as a human, or this might be the chance for him to finally do what is normal. Vampires are not supposed to hide in the darkness, we are to prowl even during the mornings.”

From the sound of it, it might be hard to meet up with Elrick for a long time. Asaka knew where the von Karsteins’ territory was, I believe. We could always visit him, if necessary.

“If that is all, then we should dismiss ourselves,” Kronnaz said before she slowly melted into her shadow with the other two goddesses. “My elder sister will visit you in Gleisvale once everything is settled, but until then—”

“Actually, there is something I wish to ask you, Goddess Kronnaz,” I stopped her, which she did without complaining. At her quick “Speak,” I nodded and asked the question that was bothering me. “Not only are you the Goddess of Vengeance and Grudges, but you also are the progenitor of all grimgarians, correct?”

She nodded, waiting for me to finish. My instincts told me she already knew what I wanted to say.

“The ogre king has migrated to the southwest of the Kingdom of Artorias, over the mountains of Avitor Peaks. As their goddess, would there be a way for you to persuade them not to follow your demonkins’ plans? There is no need for war, right?”

I remembered the black potion the troll shaman drank. I understood from Aurena’s warning that the grimgarian battalion was part of the demonkin’s plan to send Artorias into chaos. They probably were still working with them, but considering the situation, I had to hope Kronnaz could stop them.

But when the goddess shook her head, I could only frown and sigh in disappointment.

“There is a grudge between the humans and beastmen, and my descendants. I will not stop them not because I am their progenitor, but because I am the Goddess of Vengeance and Grudges. I stand by my ideals. To find your path in life, you must face trials.” This was her divine domain, after all. “If you wish to stop them, you must do it yourself, Hestia. You are mortal, and this is a mortal concern. If I were to intervene, I would break a rule. You are an idol, Hestia. Use your ability to persuade them before it comes to a battlefield.”

And with those words Kronnaz left. Shortly after, Ilsaphone did, too. Vivachel on the other hand, smiled brightly and waved at us, wishing us goodbye.

“It has been fun to meet and speak with all of you. Trial and tribulations you might have faced, but your growth has been promising to watch, little ones. Do know that we gods are on your side as long as you don’t commit some horrendous act, but not all will accept you as easily as we three did.” Her ruby eyes glistened as her head was almost submerged in her shadow. “Listen well, in a week’s time, we gods will have finished our preparations. Hestia, you already heard this from Kargryxmor, so explain it to your friends. When that happens, prepare yourself for a turmoil in the mortal realms.”

A Divine System update, right? I’ll be able to speak with Aurena when it finishes… but what exactly is the update?

That was an answer we had to wait to receive. Until then, we could only wait.

Once Vivachel also left, we grabbed the dungeon core from its pedestal and placed it and the aberration into my storage. Next, we made our way to Parilostro’s room.

I expected the worse… but—

“Kuek! Kuek, hiekhiekhiek…” Emil was crying.

“Huaaaah… huaaah…” Reajaen was still alive, though she was missing an eye and a left arm, while her legs were mangled with ice spears. She looked like she would die from blood loss at any moment now, weren’t it for the ice sealing her wounds.

We didn’t know what happened, until we saw Tasianna.

“… I couldn’t bring up the hate to finish it,” she said when we approached before tears formed in her eyes and she hugged me out of nowhere. “I thought I hated humans because they killed Princess Schuri. When I learned Reajaen was at fault, that hatred suddenly disappeared. I didn’t understand what was going inside of me… I thought I would start hating beastmen, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not even towards foxians. That hatred I had never resurfaced.”

She took a small break. I could feel something wet drop on my back, wings, and tail.

“Until the day we confronted Reajaen on everything. I hated her. I wanted to kill her. But I felt lost at the same time. She was remorseful. I didn’t expect that. Her apology caused me to reflect on myself. Until I knew of the truth, I directed my hatred on the entirety of humankind. It was as you and Miss Saori said, Lady Hestia. I didn’t know the world enough. Not every human is as malicious as the fae hunters I met that day. As such…”

Tasianna let go of me and a frost blade floated towards it. On its edge it held a frozen eye.

“Her crimes can never be forgiven… but, as an individual, I shall. That is what Princess Schuri would want. My kind-hearted mistress did not reappear as an onnikai. Such a young soul…” She wiped away her tears and took a deep breath. “However, as a fairy and a former attendant of the royal family of Iggdrasil, Reajaen Resclave will face her punishment for the crimes she had inflicted on us!”

Reajaen moved towards us, having drunk one of her potions just so she could endure walking with her deformed legs. She fell onto her knees like a stringless puppet, groaning as she forced out her words.

“T-The Resclaves are at your command, Princess Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor… haaa. My sinned soul and body are now yours to use and throw away until the day I am trialed by Saelariel. Allow me to do something good and repay you for saving my son until I die.”

[Foxian, Reajaen Resclave] have received the title [Hestia’s Retainer]

“Foremost, I am Her Imperial Highness’s attendant, maid, and shield.” I turned back to Tasianna, who had kneeled down, too. “As punishment for her crimes, Reajaen Resclave will serve my Mistress until the day she dies. She will follow your orders and become President of Estralia to control the region and the trade in eastern Altrust in your name! Once her duty has come to an end, she will personally visit the Fairy village and face her judgement for stealing away the royal family of Iggdrasil’s daughter, Princess Schuri Estria Iggdrasyl.”

“… That sounds like a lot of problems,” I remarked at the last sentence.

“Yes, and I apologize for that, Lady Hestia. If we inform Muraina, she will do the same for Saelariel. If Reajaen comes anywhere close, archers will try to shoot her down as the sentence is death, without a doubt. If that happens, we will require your aid to assure her survival, Lady Hestia, just enough so she can reach a court of law. Vigilante justice is not justice. As a follower of Goddess Plesia, I am ashamed to have only come to this realization now.”

What a drag… Still. Tasianna, good job.

“Come.” I pulled Tasianna up before embracing her. “I’m proud of you. Thank you for also persuading Emil.”

She clenched her fingers on my back hard enough to the point I could feel the pain, but I allowed it. A little irritation was irrelevant after seeing Tasianna’s growth.

“Yes…” Tears began to fall again. “It was hard to do so.”

“Please, promise us,” Emil spoke up from the corner, still crying. “A new life. Away from all of this. I never want to meet this woman ever again! If you can do that, I will make sure all the onnikais will follow your wish, Tasianna. We just… peace.”

“Don’t worry about that.” Asaka moved over to him. “We’ll resolve this. Don’t worry.”

And so, the conflict in Estralia had finally ended. The merchant republic would probably still face more challenges in the future with Aurora’s influence over Shaturein and the Resurrection, but that was just another day for them. Merchants trying to vie for power was nothing abnormal, compared to what we faced today.

For now, rest was on the plan. R&R and also some time to let things settle down. The enemies loomed over our heads, but Aurora couldn’t fight nonstop, at least, not for now. We still had injured and other issues to handle.

Regardless, a week passed by quickly. The introduction of the Divine System’s new feature woke everybody up.

System Update: Triple Job System has been implemented into the System and all profiles. To read more on the details, please continue reading. Once you are finished, please visit your nearest [Crystal of the Divine System]

And there was something else, just for me.

<Good Morning, Hestia. It has been a long time. I would like for you to accept a Divine Quest to obtain your Unique Job.>

A note from AbyssRaven

Tasianna's character just took a strong end for now. It took nearly 300 chapters for Tasianna to find some closure after Princess's Schuri's death, helping her develop more as a person and into the maid Hestia needs for the future. Hope you guys liked it! N

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Side Story 32: Vifi’Yok and Hee’Rlak.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #1 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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System Update: Triple Job System has been implemented into the System and all profiles. To read more on the details, please continue reading. Once you are finished, please visit your nearest [Crystal of the Divine System]

“Huek, huek, h-huek! Uguek uguhh…”

“Master! Master! Master, are you awake?!”

A young maiden’s tears. They flowed down her face, drenching her bed and pillows. The sound of her soft weeping echoed inside her room, filling it with the sadness she felt not only in her heart but also her mind. What could have caused this?

Was it heartbreak from unrequited love? Or was it the failure of her family and business? How about the demise of a loved one? There were many reasons for young adolescents to cry their eyes red and swollen, for that was a normal part of living and growing up.

However, the girl crying at this point wasn’t just a normal teenager. No, she was something much more. A demonkin of wrath of the age of 15. A prodigy amongst prodigies who managed to reach level 150 and become an illustrious Warbringer, one of the three personal guards of the demonkin Prince of Wrath.

This is Vifi’Yok, the “Voltaic Red.”

“Master!”

And, inside a room of a wooden cabin, hidden deep inside a forest of Estralia, the sounds of not only her weeping but also a person banging on the door filled it.

“Huek, huek… What the hell do you—” But before she could answer it, the impatient guest broke open her door, stomping into the room without permission. “Hee’Rlak!”

“Argh?!”

The demonkin girl shot a lightning bolt using her demonic power, shocking the adult demonkin intruder with pain. He didn’t say what he came into the room for, giving Vifi’Yok the time to punish him for his indiscretion.

“Fuck off!” And her method to punish him was to literally kick him out of her room, knocking him flat on the ground. She then let her mana cover her body, transforming them into red lightning before she dashed over to her demonkin companion. “Fucker! This isn’t the barracks! Stop trying to enter my room without permission! Piece of crap, what kinda apprentice can’t let his master have a moment for herself!”

Vifi’Yok and Hee’Rlak — the two demonkins of wrath who attacked Aurora a week ago. They were still currently in Estralia, resting and awaiting their next orders.

“Ugh… Glad to see you so animated, Master.” Hee’Rlak’s comment annoyed Vifi’Yok, causing her to let her foot off his chest, going back into her room with a sour mood. “Argh, sorry about that. I didn't know you were still crying.”

Vifi’Yok’s blushed, but due to her red skin, it was almost impossible for anybody to see it. She cleaned the tears on her face away with her blanket before returning her attention back to her apprentice.

“Feels better than being L.E.P. all the time. And besides, you should feel nervous, too. When I get demoted back to a normal soldier, you will be too, Hee’Rlak.”

Demonkins of wrath were emotional creatures. Every day and at whatever time, they were always controlled by their emotions. The three emotions of [Excited], [Anger], and [Fear] were the trifecta that controlled their overall mood. If all of them were at 0%, then the demonkins would feel L.E.P. — an acronym amongst their community meaning “low emotional potency.”

Essentially, they would show symptoms of depression and nihilism. While this wasn’t a problem for the life of a youth, since there was so much to experience in the world, L.E.P. cases were extraordinarily high amongst the elderly and those overindulging themselves in stimulus. As such, most strong demonkins of wrath were known as daredevils, as they required proper stimuli to keep themselves happy.

However, overflowing in all three emotions wasn’t ideal either, since reaching 100% in all of them would lead a demonkin of wrath to become, more-or-less, a stereotypical berserker. An unthinking behemoth of elemental prowess, prone to do whatever they wished without realizing what they were doing. It was almost always a death sentence to run into a three 100% emotion demonkin if you were only a normal citizen.

As such, demonkins of wrath had to balance their lives around this fact. Too little emotional stimuli were harmful to their health, while too much could deem you a threat to society. This was what it meant to live and die as a demonkin of wrath.

“Master Vifi’Yok.” Hee’Rlak helped himself up, towering over his far younger superior. “I don’t think Lord Wrath would dismiss you. This is only your third mission.”

“Third! Yes, it’s my third! And I fucked it up!” She sat down on her bed and fell onto it, laying her arms out lazily. “Hee’Rlak, you’ve been a soldier for your entire life now, you should know better. The third Warbringer is replaceable. The only two who matter are the first and second; the right and left hands of Lord Wrath.”

Vifi’Yok had only been a Warbringer for a year now. The previous number three had perished during a clash against the Folschreck Empire.

“The Warbringer I replaced heroically died in battle against two of the human empire’s Hands of Heaven. But what have I done in my last three missions? Assure the safety of some war refugees and defeat the empire grunts hunting them, then assure Lord Pride and his entourage reach his destination, and then assure the safety of some fat pig and acquire lord Envy’s phylactery. What is this? I am a Warbringer! I should be fighting in a war… not this.”

Vifi’Yok’s [Anger] and [Fear] decreased below 25%. Her tears dried out. The glowing, neon red highlights on her black hair dimmed, disappearing with her sadness. She wasn’t in a mood to cry anymore, just wanting to go to sleep now. She was officially L.E.P.

Hee’Rlak sighed, her behavior was affecting him also. “… Master, I don’t think you father—”

“Adoptive father, Hee’Rlak. We’ve only been ‘family’ for two years,” she corrected.

“‘Adoptive’ father, I apologize. Master Oshul’Yok was a powerful Warbringer, but your relationship with him wasn’t the reason Lord Wrath named you his third. Both Master Oshul’Yok and Lord Wrath identified the talents you have, and the former decided to adopt you because of them. You were to be his successor and that is why he chose to nurture you further.”

Demonkins did not officially have a last name like the rest of the races of Peolynca. They took on the naming traditions of their demonic ancestry, which was a naming theme of “first name’family name.”

For example, the reason why Ellaine called Klea’Hatma by Klea was due to this reason. Klea was the demon of lust’s first name, while Hatma was her surname. The only one who knew this trivia amongst the members of Aurora was Ellaine, as Klea’Hatma only wanted her “partner” to call her by fire name.

“Then why am I not allowed to act like a normal Warbringer?” she replied, pushing herself back up. “Why am I not allowed to take revenge on those who slew him? Why do I have to do menial duties normally reserved for foot soldiers? I even failed one of them! If that fat human swine wasn’t so important to Lord Envy, I would have left him to die and challenged that dragon myself! I would have slain her and retrieved Lord Envy’s phylactery! I would have proven myself to Lord Wrath and then I would—”

… Before she fell right back on the bed, realizing the reality of the matter.

“— have been able to repay Lord Oshul’Yok for his kindness and the warmth of a home.”

Bole’Taria, the home of the demonkins, was not a very wealthy country. Due to a never-ending war against the Empire, the demonkins were never able to build up proper architecture nor infrastructure for their cities and towns. Why waste resources and manpower on something that would be destroyed once it got taken over?

Due to the reality of their world, every demonkin was expected to spend their blood, tears and sweat to assure Bole’Taria would survive in a war that would decide if demonkins could find a place in this world or would remain outcasts forever. It was a society where the powerful would lead and rule, while the weak scrambled around, serving the strong as their wars took countless lives from each side.

And one of these “weaklings” was Vifi. A street urchin with nothing to her name otherthan the profile the gods and Divine System had granted her. “Survival of the fittest” was the name of the game. To steal, to kill, to live another day as your stats in your profile went up.

She was like many war orphans in Bole’Taria, with either her parents dying as soldiers or as fleeing citizens. The fires of war did not discriminate, but unlike the majority, Vifi managed to come out of them alive. But not only alive, but strong enough to join the army at the mere age of eight, the age when a demonkin of wrath was allowed to choose their elemental prowess.

The life of a soldier was grueling, but for the ever-warring Bole’Taria, soldiers were treated better than bakers and farmers. Training was nothing to Vifi, as the army provided her a warm home and food to fill her stomach. It didn’t matter if her body was bruised and aching at the end of each day. To her, it was better than the alternatives.

Still, once eleven, Vifi understood being a fish amongst thousands of fish would do her no good. If she wasn’t a shark, she would be devoured by one. Her life on the streets taught her that. And it was because of this fear that she drove herself on a self-imposed mission to the “Twin-Elemental Lake,” as the demonkins called it. The area where the first divine taboo was broken by shattering a dungeon core with all its mana, turning it into a nuclear bomb.

The Twin-Eleemntal lake was an areawhere the fallout of the dungeon bomb and the wrath of the Goddess of Water fused together, creating one of the most hostile monster-infested area in the world. A place worthy of Rank S.

This was where Vifi attained her iconic red lighting. This was where she became the “Voltaic Red” Vifi’Yok.

“Haaaa…” Vifi’Yok sighed. “Whatever. I don’t feel like crying anymore. What do you want, Hee’Rlak? Shouldn’t you be in bed? Your body should still need some time to get rid of that toxin. If it’s an update from Lord Envy, then no, I haven’t received one. And yes, I made sure I wrote all the formalities. I told him everything we learned, even the fact we found a lust and a sloth contractor around. I don’t know what they will do with Lord Sloth or the new Lord Lust.”

Despite her punkish appearance, Vifi’Yok was drilled in proper speech and documentation in preparation for her position as a Warbringer. Her attitude in battle was her true personality, but a Warbringer was also an officer and commander during a war, so knowing proper etiquette was a must.

“No, Master, I didn’t mean that. I know they would need more time.” Hee’Rlak then pulled out his bag, revealing a small pouch with tantalizing pastries — glazed donuts. “It’s about the System message. You’ve seen it, right?”

Hee’Rlak handed one over to Vifi’Yok, confusing the young woman. “Where did you get these? We’re so far away from Gleisvale and shouldn’t O’Bloom’s shop be closed at this point?”

“Got it from the traveling merchant from the nearby town when I went down to buy groceries,” he answered.

If a demonkin of wrath covered their skin and face, they would be able to pass by as humans.

“I didn’t ask where he got it from, since it would expose my accent, but I thought you might like it, Master,” Hee’Rlak smiled at Vifi’Yok, treating her slightly like a younger sister at this point. Noticing this, the girl flinched back and made an “ewwww” face, emotionally damaging the older demonkin.

But, the moment Vifi’Yok bit into the donut, her eyes shot right open, freezing on the spot from the taste.

W-What is this?! This is so much better than whatever crap O’Bloom gave me!

Sweet sugar coated her taste buds, tingling them into action as her [Excitement] raised from 9% to 57% in an instant. However, it was bumped even further into the 75% area, causing her electrical horns to sprout from her head. The juiciness of the fried donut hit her taste like an explosion, causing her to let out a small yelp.

I want more! She thought as she chewed on it and swallowed.

“… I’m so jealous,” she blurted out. “They can farm all this wheat so easily and then turn them into delectable sweets. What does Bole’Taria have? Nothing. It feels like our race is just a bunch of underdeveloped monsters only governed by our emotions and desires.”

Bole’Taria, as a country, was severely divided. To the south of the continent of Altrust was the island continent Nemurus, the original home of the Folschreck Empire before they moved their Imperial Capital to Riekwelst in Altrust. There, in the shadow of the human empire, the demonkin kingdom of Bole’Taria was born.

Dividing the continent into two sides, the demonkins took the western front of the island, as well as a small tip of a peninsula in Altrust, as their territory. However, over the years, more and more of the demonkins’ territory was taken away — bountiful land they needed to feed their growing populace. Now, the demonkin kingdom was stuck with mostly mountains and desert, with only a few areas worth sacrificing an army’s worth of lives to protect.

To Vifi’Yok, who grew up poor, the land of the humans was filled with wonders she would have never been able to see if she were still stuck in Bole’Taria. Starstruck by this, this young woman began to develop conflicting thoughts.

If only we could stop all this warring and just have some peace to develop our own land… but, who am I kidding. This world would never accept us. It is kill or be killed. We demonkins must win, for the world hates us.

“Whatever. Useless thoughts…” Vifi’Yok took another bite before turning around to Hee’Rlak. “Yeah, I saw it, of course. Once again, the Divine System shows the world fairness and equality, unlike everyone else in this world. It’s obvious this is supposed to be in preparation to fight us, but they still allowed us demonkins to have access to it. Hmph. Sometimes I really have to question if the Edjurl gods will be as lenient as the Origin Gods.”

“Master!” Hee’Rlak scolded his master, dismissing their current relationship for a moment.

“Whatever.” She rolled her eyes at Hee’Rlak’s behavior. “I made sure nothing will hear us, Hee’Rlak. Besides, this is just my private opinion. I won’t ever say this in public or even in private without proper precautions.”

“And? If you say such things, you can get into real trouble if anybody eavesdrops on you. ‘Always expect the worst,’ that is the soldier’s creed. If you ask me, it doesn’t matter which gods rule us, but our Lord worships the Edjurl gods. As his soldiers, that should be our goal too. We demonkins fight for stimuli, to find a reason to continue on living. We don’t need to worry who will lead, we only need to follow orders.”

Hee’Rlak was an army man. In his L.E.P. moments, he would act mostly like a middle-aged couch potato, but in his heart was the spirit of a warrior. Honor in battle. But he was also a staunch soldier, and knew orders were to be followed. As insubordination could destroy a whole chain of command during a war if it was done by an officer, like a Warbringer.

For that, Hee’Rlak had to act like an adult and not as a Warbringer’s apprentice. As strong and clever as Vifi’Yok was, she was not wise when it came to the world. Despite her previous way of living, she could be quite naive.

“… Okay, okay. Sorry, you’re right. I’ll make sure to keep this to myself.” The young woman sulked but couldn’t argue back against his words.

She knew deep down her opinion didn’t matter in the greater state of things. She was only a single soldier, another cog in the wheel. In her time as an urchin, she knew she had to learn when to take and when to leave.

What does the world matter to her? Nothing. She disliked humans, as she believed they were at fault for their race’s predicament. The animosity they showed towards their race due to their ancestry. The life she had to live. Whether the Edjurl Gods would be as lenient to all races or only kind to demonkins was not her problem. Her home was Bole’Taria.

… But, she wanted to learn more about the world.

‘The only thing I truly possess is my profile.’ She remembered her motto, always keeping it close by. She was a soldier first and foremost, and as such, had to act for the good of demonkind.

“I have no idea about this ‘Unique Job’ field,” she brought up the new System update after both calmed down. “But, from the looks of it, we will need to start training properly and find a way to gain this Job. Whatever it is. If it’s unique, it might be made to fit us.”

Vifi’Yok did not have a Job named “Voltaic Red.” In her mind, she wanted to make her title fully hers. There could only be one person who could own the Job [Voltaic Red], and that person would be her.

At least, if I understood the description correctly.

She then stood up, nodding her head with determination. “Okay, I think I know what we should do.”

“Hmm?” Hee’Rlak raised an eyebrow. “Master, we do not have any orders yet. We weren’t instructed to stay here, but it would be better if we did. You shouldn’t be going anywhere.”

“Then you stay here. Only one of us needs to be on hand to receive the notice. Once you have it, come and fetch me.”

“Master!” Hee’Rlak tried to grab the girl, but she was too fast for him to catch. In a blink of an eye, she was already at the door.

“Hee’Rlak, I am a Warbringer, correct?”

He raised an eyebrow at that sudden question. “Uhm, that is correct, Master.”

“If what you said was correct, then I am supposed to be Lord Oshul’Yok’s successor, right?”

“Yes, Master. He confided it to me. I meant every word I said.”

“Good, which means as a Warbringer, I have a certain amount of autonomy to train myself. To better and prepare myself for any upcoming war. In other words…” She dashed over to her desk, pulled out a piece of parchment and a feather pen before writing a letter in record time. “I will do exactly that. I am still too weak. I should not have struggled so much against those ants even if I wasn’t being serious. If I cannot even defeat foot soldiers easily, how can I call myself a Warbringer?”

She then furled the letter into a scroll and sealed it with her mark before handing it over to Hee’Rlak.

“Send it to Lord Envy. Hee’Rlak, we’re going south.”

“Wha-What?! Master! Hold on!” Hee’Rlak jumped onto his feet, running over to the door to block Vifi’Yok from leaving. “What do you mean by that? We cannot run around wherever we want. Our disguises are rudimentary and, if we expose ourselves, that could expose other operations in the area. Our enemies already vaguely know we are around, but if they know we are specifically staying around, this might jeopardize the actions of other agents!”

It was a logical argument, but Vifi’Yok couldn’t care less about it right now. She desired something. She wanted more strength. She wanted to “evolve” herself and gain her Unique Job. The System was available to everybody, and, as a Warbringer, it was expected of her to be one of the strongest. How else could she take her revenge on the people who killed her adoptive father?

Vifi’Yok pointed at the scroll, drawing Hee’Rlak’s attention downwards. “I’ve explained everything in the letter. We will travel to the ‘The Divide of the Five Princes.’ To the Principality of Yeos. Do you know the tale of Yeostar the Brave?”

Hee’Rlak tilted his head. As a demonkin, he had little interest in the person called Yeostar, one of the subordinate gods of the Pantheon of Light — the God of Knighthood, Bravery, and Loyalty. Vifi’Yok herself didn’t know much about him, and it also didn’t help that most tales of him were fabricated or exaggerated by the Church of Aurena, but she still heard about one little story which piqued her interest.

“Subordinate god Yeostar, when he was still a mortal, supposedly sealed away an SS rank leviathan in an underwater shrine in the depths of the Principality of Yeos. The country was made on the land Yoestar used to call home, which is why it was named in his honor.” Vifi’Yok easily pushed the two heads taller Hee’Rlak to the side as she continued her explanation. “The leviathan is most likely weakened. I want its materials. The heart and organs of an SS rank is so rare, it could probably fund entire countries.”

The heart for myself, and the body for Bole’Taria.

Upon hearing this, Hee’Rlak couldn’t stop her anymore. Using her right to work autonomously from the army, she chose a quest that could bring in a wealth of materials for the war effort. There was no reason to stop her, although, whether she could achieve her goals was another question.

To the southeast of Estralia, the demonkin duo shall travel. To the land where Yeostar lived and his legend was born.

“We reap, to water the blood lilies.”

A note from AbyssRaven

Guys, I am L.E.P. I need sleep now. Goodnight. Stay L.E.P. or not.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Side Story 33: The Pantheon of Light.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #2 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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“Ahhhhhhh, it’s done! It’s finally done! I’m finally done.”

We turn back time. To the moment when the Origin Gods finished the System upgrade, only having to review and implement it now into the Divine System.

In the realm of the light and clouds, Aurena let out a deep sigh as she rested on her chair, exhausted after finishing her part of the job. After sipping from her tea and taking a bite of a biscuit, she returned to her administrator window.

<Aurena: Are we testing it now?>

<ZephiraBloom: I already tried a few permutations after we finished it. It should be working, although maybe we can call a subordinate god to try it out.>

<MarsvenXmarsveN: I can have my daughters perform some tests. They are currently playing around in the mortal realm.>

<Crustacia-Sama: Hmm? Really? Wouldn’t they just try to pick a fight with Klea’Hatma? Kronnaz can be quite rowdy if she meets with people she doesn’t like.>

<Plesia: Maybe, but I think it’s a yes. The girls have already sent in a request to me about performing a Divine trial. At this point, it’s too late, so let Kronnaz test it out a bit.>

Jeez… those three.

Sisters. Ilsaphone, Vivachel, and Kronnaz — Aurena’s stepsister born from the union between her father Marsven and her stepmother Edna. Despite being over 2500 years old, to the six Origin Gods, these three “half-Edjurls” were still children to them. And to Aurena, they were her lovable younger sisters.

It did wound Aurena that her public relationship with her father and sisters couldn’t be fully acknowledged given the state of their two religions. Aurena had tried to resolve this issue within her own Church, but due to her follower’s inability to fully understand her words and seeing her more as “merciful” and “gracious,” the truth was never really acknowledged.

In contrast, her father Marsven works with a more lax control over his followers. To not worry what they think of him, as they would naturally flock towards him for power and comfort in faith.

He had always advised Aurena not to mind the opinions of her followers, and as such, isn’t interested in the misunderstanding. To him, it only mattered that his family and he knew the truth.

Disregarding whatever his daughters thought on the matter.

<MarsvenXmarsveN: Alright, I’ll send them a notice about it. My fellow Origin Gods, have a good rest. We’ll reconvene once the tests are done.>

Alright, time to handle some tasks.

Free time for Aurena was her returning to her ordinary work. The time of a god might be limitless, but managing and maintaining an entire planet demanded commitment. And for that, Aurena spoke with her angels and aides.

Angels, creations made from a god’s mana using the System as a link for its foundation. Due to this, angels were artificial constructs by nature, similar to the parallel minds from the skill [Parallel Thought]. Aides, on the other hand, were actual mortals turned into a god’s attendants, helping them where angels couldn’t

In the case of a subordinate god, these aides consisted of their followers when they were still alive. More specifically, in Kargryxmor’s case, many of his aides were dragonkins. For example, Nordoramsul, Melloxtressa’s father, was currently working for the God of Dragons in his divine realm.

For an Origin God, though, those attendants were their subordinate gods.

<Aurena: Istari, it has been a long time. Has something happened in my absence?>

<MagicIsEverything: Welcome back, My Goddess. We, your subordinates, are exhilarated to have you back. To answer your question, nothing substantial has happened after what happened in the Folschreck Empire. Your saints and champions have done well, helping the recovery of the sudden tragedies. Lady Andira can tell you more.>

<Aurena: Andira, you may speak.>

<Andira: Thank you, Your Holiness. Some incidents involving demonkins have happened, but please, rest assured that nothing of the same scale has happened. Please, allow me to send you the documentation.>

The Goddess of Equality and Fairness, Andira. Unlike Istari and Kargryxmor, she was not someone Aurena could act freely around due to the former’s intense faith and loyalty to the image of the Goddess of Light. Still, this subordinate goddess was a diligent one, something Aurena appreciated very much, to the point she considered Andira her secretary.

She opened the documents in her administrator window, reading through everything that happened while she isolated herself to update the Divine System with the other Origin Gods. Meanwhile, there was only silence inside the gods’ chat window as she did so.

It was very similar to a company meeting between the executives and their CEO. Whenever Aurena had a question, she would ask her aides for an answer and they would answer, otherwise, everybody remained silent. It was Aurena’s preferred way to work, something everybody had learned over the years they had aided her.

Hmm, the demonkins still haven’t launched another large-scale attack? Only small guerilla movements and such, disregarding whatever we haven’t found out yet. What are they planning?

On the other hand, the Empire seemed to be ready to attack them in retaliation. That was obvious. It was the only outcome, and the demonkins probably planned that. Meaning, there might be another war soon… Meaning conscription from their vassals.

Aurena frowned. Although she had isolated herself from all sorts of work during the System update, she still took her time to monitor and keep up with Hestia’s life. She was her ace in the hole, after all. As such, she had Kargryxmor relay everything he learned to her, as she was far too busy to constantly look through Hestia’s eyes.

As such, she knew how Hestia had allied up with the Kingdom of Artorias and was confident she would somehow do the same with the Republic of Estralia. Due to Artorias being a vassal of the Folschreck Empire, this war would mean Artorias was required to contribute to the war effort by sending resources and men over. This would be normal.

However, Aurena knew Hestia’s identity as a dragon princess and as her Champion wouldn’t stay incognito for long. The demonkins will learn about it, and when they do, they will target her with what they could to bring her down. In this case, it was to cripple Artorias and Estralia. With the Prince of Envy disguising himself as the pope of her Church, this would be a guarantee.

The only thing Aurena could do was to warn Hestia about this and encourage her growth with Kargyxmor’s help. She had to become stronger. She had to be ready and take down the Prince of Envy as soon as possible, then the possibility to make a change in the Folschreck Empire would open.

Her mother could take down the prince easily, but…

It would mean Hestia would be isolated from the mainland of Altrust for four years thanks to her deal with Melloxtressa. In that time, the demonkins could rebuild and anoint a new Prince of Envy, just as they already replaced the previous Prince of Lust. Without Hestia to lead her Church into a brighter future, the cracks underneath its foundation would simply worsen even further without a pope. The ramifications could break everything.

Slow and steady. If we rushed this, it could all backfire.

<Aurena: Alright. Kargryxmor, update on Kargryx.>

<blacktyrantoftheskies: Still nothing. I apologize>

“Haaaaa,” Aurena sighed, massaging her temples at this nuisance.

Kargrxymor had promised her the dragons would remain the world’s protectors after his apotheosis, but time thought little of it. As the ancients were replaced by the old, and the old by the young, the Dragon Empire, Kargryx, had changed under the rule of Kargryxmor’s son, Eltharion.

Hestia truly was their only hope left to convince her father and rally the dragons to the defense of the world. With the demonkins wishing to bring the rule of the Edjurl gods to Peolynca, the dragons were the contingency plan should the Edjurl gods’ arrival were to ever happen. The last thing Aurena wanted was for Goddess Plesia and her father, God Marsven, to fight against them.

The last thing our home needs is a battle between gods. We need to keep them out of our world!

As Aurena thought about how to proceed with the dragons, a message suddenly appeared in the chat, unprompted by her.

<GoddessAurenaIsTheMostMostElegant: Once again, the God of Dragon cannot control the dragons. What use are you? Goddess Aurena! Your Holiness, please, you mustn’t rely on the dragons like this. Your humans have grown much over these two millennials. You must agree with how the Folschreck Empire has grown with your blessing!>

Aurena took a moment as she read the owner of the chat before shaking her head in exasperation.

<Aurena: Erithia, I’ve told you before, you cannot always change your name into something like this! People must be able to know who you are!>

It was Erithia, Goddess of Nobility and Wealth, and the twin sister of Andira. While Andira was the more reserved of the two, Erithia was the sort of person who would proudly boast about her accomplishments and her allegiance with the Goddess. Zealotry and unwavering trust, those were the words to best describe her.

However, despite this personality of hers, Erithia from her experience as a noble lady was a capable human resource manager and commander, far superior in this field compared to her twin sister. She was not shy to grant Divine Quests to the Pantheon’s Saints and Champions, believing guiding them through Quests was the best way for the human race to develop. The truth of such a belief was arguable, but what wasn’t was how she taught the blessed to act like proper heroes, making her one of the reasons for the Church of Aurena’s continued growth.

<GoddessAurenaIsTheMostMostElegant: I-I apologize. Is this name also not to your liking? Please, give me a moment…>

<GoddessAurena’sMostFaithfulServantErithia: There! But, pardon me for my rudeness, but wouldn’t this also apply to Istari? His name also does not have his name in it!>

<MagicIsEverything: I am the God of Magic, Lady Erithia. I have magic in my name. It is similar to Kargryxmor, who is using his former title as his admin name. You would easily associate our respective names to either our godly domain or previous lives.>

<Aurena: Also, I did not scold them about their weird names for the umpteenth time, Erithia. Please, stop this. Enough. I have no time for this. What is it you wanted to say again?>

<GoddessAurena’sMostFaithfulServantErithia: Ah, yes, right away, Your Holiness. You see, you should know about the Foslchreck Empire’s Hands of Heaven, correct? The order Yeostar and I founded in your honor? Well, they were originally disbanded after the Demon War ended, but they were revived after the Folschreck Empire was founded.>

Aurena remembered. She would do her best to keep herself in touch with her patron race, the humans. Although, Erithia thought Aurena wouldn’t have the time to remember something “trivial” like this, the fact of the matter was that Aurena very much appreciated how an order of knights was founded for her.

The Knights of Aurena were the direct replacement of the Hands of Heaven, but were now under the control of the Church of Aurena. On the other hand, the Hands of Heaven were now the imperial guards of the Holy Emperor of Light. Outside of praying to Yeostar and Erithia when they entered battle, the imperial knights had little resemblance to the old order. They were no longer required to be fully faithful to Aurena.

Aurena knew this, so she wondered what Erithia had in mind.

<GoddessAurena’sMostFaithfulServantErithia: With how things stand, the demonkins have done a terrible, cruel blow to our blessed, targeting them purely to destroy our morale. We cannot accept this. However, due to the inner turmoil of the Church of Aurena from the demonkins, the growth of our blessed and Knight of Aurena is unsatisfactory. Shameful, even. Therefore, I propose we reinstate the Hands of Heavens as another branch of the Church of Aurena.>

<MagicIsEverything: Hmm, are you planning on turning some of them into blessed, Lady Erithia? That probably won’t go well with the Emperor.>

<Andira: I agree, sister. The Holy Emperor of Light might be humankind’s stalwart champion against the enemies of the Church of Aurena, but that doesn’t mean we can do this. We would strip power from him and hand it over to the Church.>

<GoddessAurena’sMostFaithfulServantErithia: Of course, I already know that, but with the Hands of Heaven we can potentially remove the Prince of Envy from his falsely taken throne. We must remove the parasite on top of the Church first, before we can begin our recovery. Once he is removed, the Holy Emperor of Light and the Chief Knight of the Hands of Heaven will prevent our Church from falling apart. I am sure they are up to the task. If there are any concerns, we can always issue them a Divine Quest.>

“But they might misunderstand us” was the greatest concern for all the gods who heard this plan.

It was hard for gods to properly guide mortals due to their divine presence being far too oppressive. The voice of a god could destroy the souls of humans. Even using System messages had a similar problem. Also, due to Plesia’s rules to never directly interfere with mortal issues and events, they also weren’t able to direct everything in their favor.

That wouldn’t be guiding, that would be ruling and manipulation. Gods weren’t rulers, they were guides.

At least, that was what the Origin Gods believed.

<blacktyrantoftheskies: Then, who are we supposed to appoint with this task?>

<Andira: It has to be someone who can understand us well enough but also has the trust of the Church and Emperor. They also have to be close by and would be able to announce our plans.>

That would rule Hestia out completely, Aurena thought.

The subordinate gods began throwing out the names of candidates, going through numerous saints and champions, arguing who was the most suitable for the task. Meanwhile, Aurena listened to them, forming a plan in her head on how to execute this idea.

<Yeostar: Pardon.>

But in the middle of this discussion, the God of Knighthood, Bravery, and Loyalty finally spoke up, interrupting the discussion.

<Yeostar: This might be inopportune, but I would like to bring something up since it fits the topic. The Festival is starting soon.>

<GoddessAurena’sMostFaithfulServantErithia: Festival? Oh, right! The festival dedicated in your name to find your Champion!>

Subordinate gods were also allowed to bless people as their saints or champions, as evident in how both Edna and Ilsaphone wanted Saori and Asaka respectively to be their blessed. Yeostar, though, had a complicated method to announce his champion. He could only take on champions and there could only be one, but this person would be given the opportunity to train under him and learn his techniques.

It was a great honor, but the issue lay in the process. To become his champion, they had to win the tournament hosted during the Festival of Yeostar and this event only happened after the previous Champion had died.

<Yeostar: Yes. She had died valiantly in battle against the demonkins two years ago. Now, the Principality of Yeos has finished its preparations. The festival will soon begin, but I am worried.>

<MagicIsEverything: Sabotage. I understand. With how active the demonkins have been recently, it would be very likely they would try to steal your blood to prevent another Champion. Or, at least, they would send in people to do it for them. Like the Church of the Edjurl.>

<Andira: Or mercenaries.>

That is a problem.

<Aurena: Let us put aside the discussion with the Hands of Heaven for now. This is an issue we should handle first. To receive the blood of Yeostar is to receive not only his tutelage but also the power to become a hero. One of our most powerful Champions cannot be lost for even more years, nor can we allow it to strengthen the demonkins.>

<Yeostar: Yes, thank you, Your Holiness. Your wisdom is unimaginable. I do not know if the Church of Aurena or the Empire can send their envoys this year to protect the sanctity of this event.>

<GoddessAurena’sMostFaithfulServantErithia: If that is the case, then why have they not delayed this event? Such rashness will only call forth disaster!>

Yeostar shook his head, unsure how to properly answer this question. He began writing his message but did not send it until he was satisfied with it.

<Yeostar: I do not know. The current prince of the land is not a fool, not from my impression. Maybe I overlooked a discussion he had with an advisor or maybe it has something to do with the civil unrest after my last Champion died. She was the principality’s hero, after all. Regardless, it seemed I cannot dissuade him after having a short discussion with him.>

<blacktyrantoftheskies: If that is the case, then we should act. The mortals lead their own lives, while all we can do is guide and watch. In addition, isn't Karhalantheel sealed close to that human country? The demonkins might plan on breaking the seal to that terror.>

Yeostar frowned. Karhalantheel, the SS rank leviathan he had fought in the past to protect his home. At that time, he was not strong enough to fully defeat him, requiring the help of Aleistunum to seal it. He stroked his beard, wary of the threat Kargryxmor brought up.

<Aurena: In that case, we can send her over there. She is the closest to the Principality of Yeos and her company should be strong enough to act as guards.>

<Andira: Your Holiness, are you talking about—>

There was only one person the Goddess of Light could talk about at this point.

<— that Earthling? Hestia?>

<Aurena: Yes, that would be the case. It would also do her good to speak with another blessed after what happened with Eshe.>

Silence in the chat. Aurena tilted her head after a few moments passed with nobody speaking up. She had thought everybody would agree as it was the obvious answer. Most of the Pantheon of Light’s blessed were situated in the Folschreck Empire, only traveling the world for missions. Hestia was one of the few whose home base wasn’t there.

The trip to the Principality of Yeos would take time as they had to traverse either land or water to reach it. On the other hand, Hestia was a dragon. She could reach the country in less than a week or so if she flew over there. Even if she only traveled with her RV on the road, she would require the least amount of time to arrive in the country.

<GoddessAurena’sMostFaithfulServantErithia: Your Holiness, must we really rely so much on this Earthling?>

“Hmm?” Aurena raised a brow. What was Erithia speaking about?

<GoddessAurena’sMostFaithfulServantErithia: I understand she is groomed by Your Holiness to become a threat against the demonkins, but aren’t our current Champions not her equal in this? They have given their lives in your honor, training and facing trials in preparation for the future. The Earthling is still young, inexperienced. Our current blessed can rise up to the task! We just need to give them more time and attention.>

… Hmm? Is Erithia… disagreeing with me?

It was obvious to most how much time Erithia spent with the blessed of the Pantheon, training and leading them like a teacher. She would be proud whenever they fulfilled a Divine Quest and heartbroken whenever they died. To her, while Hestia was a Champion chosen by Aurena, her Goddess, she was still an unknown factor.

<GoddessAurena’sMostFaithfulServantErithia: It was proven to me when she couldn’t defend Eshe. A Champion should be able to protect a Saintess! How can we rely on her again to defend something like the anointment of Yeostar’s Champion? My Goddess, I beg you to reconsider. Please, allow me to choose a Champion worthy of this task. They would be able to do it without any problems!>

<blacktyrantoftheskies: Erithia, it is precisely because she is young that she must face more trials. Isn’t this your motto when it comes to training our blessed?>

<GoddessAurena’sMostFaithfulServantErithia: As I said, she already failed. Eshe’s death could have been prevented if she had stayed by her side. But she did not. She chose to play around, neglecting her duty to the Goddess. As a Champion, why has she not gone on a pilgrimage to our shrines yet? She can speak with gods without any problems, so why does she not put it to use? There is so much knowledge and wisdom all of us can grant her!>

The discussion was derailing towards Hestia. Some subordinate gods supported Erithia’s opinion, having listened to her complaints when Aurena was still preoccupied with the System. She did not know of the dissent amongst her Pantheon with her favoritism towards the young dragon idol.

Istari and Kargryxmor had not known this. The subordinate gods might all work under the same Pantheon, but they weren’t all united or friendly with each other. Kargryxmor was mostly a loner and liked being in the presence of his dragonkin aides more, while Istari was more preoccupied with his endless search for knowledge to make small talk.

None of the three knew why Erithia and some of the subordinate gods were so against the idea of having Hestia involved.

However—

<Yeostar: I believe it would be good for Hestia to come to the Principality if we are talking about her growth alone.>

<GoddessAurena’sMostFaithfulServantErithia: Hmm? What do you mean by that, Yeostar?>

<Yeostar: Kargryxmor. Where is the location of the second youngest child of the Dragon Empire?>

<blacktyrantoftheskies: Hmm? The half-kirin girl? Well, the last I checked, she was in Artorias. It’s been a while, though, since I last checked up on her. About a year or two ago? Hmm… Ahhhh, I see. She’s currently inside the Principality of Yeos. Hmph. What about her?>

<Yeostar: Children of your bloodline are taught how to control their battle frenzy, no? The last time I spoke with you, Hestia had only unlocked the first step and hasn’t made much progress ever since.>

<blacktyrantoftheskies: She has been preoccupied with her dragon abilities. [Battle Frenzy] must be conquered, but you are expected to do it over many years. The girl has the determination and work ethic to master it in less. There is no need to rush her, even more, when she is growing stronger and stronger.>

<Yeostar: But, would it not help her if she were to learn not only under you but also her sister? Someone she can relate to?>

<blacktyrantoftheskies: Fargryneill is a kirin, a lesser dragonkin. Hestia would learn nothing from her. She was only able to master five of the steps before she abruptly stopped her training and decided to go on her adulthood pilgrimage. She is a disappointment.>

<Andira: She is still your granddaughter, Kargryxmor. Don’t be too harsh.>

The atmosphere inside the chat was deteriorating. Not only were most against Hestia participating in this but there was also the moodiness of the Black Dragon. During this time, a voice was needed for everything to continue.

<Aurena: I have made my decision.>

And that was Aurena’s duty.

<Aurena: As the festival is starting soon, we need to make haste. As such, I shall ask Elder Plesia for aid. She will send a Saint and a Champion over there as help. With that, we will have experienced fighters to defend the festival. Hestia shall take this time to learn. I shall also tell her to make contact with all of you, so grant her the wisdom you talked about, Erithia.>

<GoddessAurena’sMostFaithfulServantErithia: Yes! Of course, Your Holiness! I shall transform this girl into a proper warrior!>

<Yeostar: Thank you for listening to my request, Your Holiness.>

And with that, the discussion was over. Aurena had thought she could relax before the next meeting between the Origin Gods, but never had she thought it would be such a discussion.

She let a deep sigh out before finishing her tea.

“Haaaaa, time to speak with Elder Plesia.”

And so, the time passed until the day the System update was online. Aurena could finally reveal what was discussed to Hestia.

System Update: Triple Job System has been implemented into the System and all profiles. To read more on the details, please continue reading. Once you are finished, please visit your nearest [Crystal of the Divine System]

“Mhmm! Just as the Goddess has told us!”

His nostrils took in the smell of the sea, his scales felt the gentle but cold breeze of the beach, and his webbed feet touched the sun-warmed sand. He enjoyed every bit of this, having traveled too long inland. He missed the ocean, despite being a race used to the jungles.

A raptorsilian. One of the three subspecies of the saurians, an indigenous race across the ocean from a continent named Aelozonia.

“Ahhh, praise Xohulotel! My training is finally over!” Wearing a priestly robe with scales and accessories made using items you could find in the ocean, the raptorsilian raised his arms up before falling onto his knees into a prayer. “Kri! Xohulotel and Goddess Plesia, I, Kushlek’zar, am honored to be blessed with sea winds once again. On my first Divine Quest, please, guide me well. The ‘Depth Serpents’ shall heed your call.”

An old acquaintance was here.

“Oi, Kush! We’re here! You shouldn’t let the Champion wait too long!”

“Yeah, just a bit more to go until we reach the border of Yeos. Let’s go!”

Two carnotaurus-looking saurians shouted at the lone priest. One was red and the other blue, but both were equipped to the brim with armor that even an A rank adventurer would be envious to possess.

“Yes… Hestia. Meet!” A hulk-like saurian cried out with his massive crocodile-like maw, trying to speak Common but being unable to with how his throat and tongue were developed. He cast a shadow over the already tall carnotaurus-like saurians, waving at Kushlek’zar to hurry.

“Haha! Yes, my friends! I cannot wait to meet my young apprentice either! Mhmm, Xohulotel, I pray that she would be a mage, no, a dragon that can stand up against the terrors of the deep! Mhmm, but, as her master, I shouldn’t dally too much.”

He stood up after praying. He brushed the sand off his robe as he continued his travels with his party. Holding onto his amulet of Plesia, he could only smile as the thought of the young dragon princess came to mind.

“For I have become a blessed, also, Princess Hestia.”

Let us talk soon, my apprentice!

A note from AbyssRaven

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 303: Checking of the Checklist.

“Are you serious when you say you haven’t seen such a spell before?” I asked Duchess Morgiana as we performed a surgery together. She and her daughter were the surgeons while I was the miracle healer helping them out.

“Yes.” The duchess nodded without letting her eyes escape the area of operation, keeping her fingers going as she spoke. “Like many talented human mages, I and so many others studied in Aleistunum at some point in our lives to elevate our knowledge of the arcane. The Magical Capital is extremely close to the borders of the Folschreck Empire. However, Aleistunum was founded by the God of Magic and Knowledge, Istari. An elf.”

“Immeasurable amounts of magic can buy you neutrality. That is why the Magical Capital is not a vassal of the Empire,” Thyra continued for her mother, also diligently working through flesh and blood. “All blessed of the Church of Aurena are managed by Aureolis and the Empire’s state church. Which means, if you do not have a good relationship with them, they probably won’t ever send you a visit from a blessed. Saintess Eshe was the first saint in so, so, so, so many years. Similar to you, Lady Hestia. Except you’re a Champion, of course.”

“Hmm… Eshe was a special case. The Goddess asked her to teach me, after all.”

With the topic having suddenly switched to Eshe, the room fell into silence as my mood soured a bit. I wish I could have saved her. She will be a constant reminder to me that I had to become so much more powerful. With what happened in Estralia, that became even more apparent.

“Okay, Lady Hestia. We’ve removed one of his lungs. Please, prepare the spell.”

I nodded and pinpointed the location I had to heal with [Miraculous Grace]. I looked up to the owner of those lungs, seeing his manly face asleep, unconscious from a potion the duchess brewed.

Farron, just hang on a bit.

Farron Nordor, my nephew-in-law, you could say. Husband of Yorshka and father of Priscilla. It’s been a while since I last met him, back when I hired Priscilla for Tamae’s bistro. I had promised him and Priscilla I would help heal his physical ailment, his crystalized lungs. Originally, the plan was to make an elixir which we had to gather the ingredients for, but thanks to the fact I had [Miraculous Grace] now, we now had another option.

From what I did when I gave Parilostro a new heart, I realized I could give Farron a new set of lungs if we removed his damaged ones and then regrow them with the spell. Still, I didn’t want to perform the surgery myself. Unlike my other healing spells and [White Flame], [Miraculous Heal] wasn’t instantaneous. It took a bit to heal somebody, so there’s the potential for the patient to die before the spell finishes.

I did not know this when I fixed up Parilostro. That was why I had so much trouble with his surgery and, if it weren’t for everybody being there on that day, he probably would have died through blood loss. Blood was something holy healing magic couldn’t regenerate. If only we had a hemomancer.

That was why I called Duchess Morgiana and Thyra for help. They did my surgery, so I knew they were good, and we had a good relationship, similar to my friendship with House Greenveil. I could trust them and Farron would have the best experts we could get.

Okay, parallel minds, lung anatomy, please. First, inside to outside. Left primary bronchus first and then…

The operation went smoothly. I managed to fix up Farron’s lungs and made sure his status ailment [Crystallized (Lungs) (Moderate)] was gone. Once I did, the two Morgianas began fixing up his mana paths, something I couldn’t do for Parilostro. I had to schedule a surgery for him.

After they were done, I sent my white flames out to heal Farron's chest. It was more accurate and cheaper than using a potion for this, after all. With his chest closed and with nothing bad happening, I gave a thumbs up to signal to Yorshka and Priscilla. Success!

After I cleaned up, I gave them a rundown of what happened. They thanked me for what I did, but joked about how much money Yorshka spent on the ingredients and now there was no way for us to use them. Yorshka was flabbergasted at this, falling onto her chair from the headache. With the money she spent, her family could have lived comfortably without having to work for many years.

“Still, thank you, Hestia.” She recovered before giving me a big fat hug. Her tears dampened my head a bit. “This is the best birthday present you could have given me. Thank you for giving Farron back his time.”

“Don’t worry. We’re family, and family supports each other.”

A week had gone by since the events in Estralia. After taking a good rest from everything, it was back to business for me. There were a lot of things on my check list I had to do as soon as possible. I had to go somewhere before the start of HarvestFest.

So, the first thing on my agenda was to give Yorshka the best ever present possible — a healthy husband. With how much Farron had done for me in the past, it was obvious I would repay him for that.

After we moved the resting Farron to his own medical room, I waited there with Yorshka and Priscilla until he woke up. When he did, we gave him a run down of what he missed, including having Duchess Morgiana give him some medication and also instructions on what to do for a swift recovery. His lungs and connected muscles were new, after all, so he couldn’t push himself.

“Well, that was about it, Captain Farron. Hope you don’t ruin your new set of lungs too soon.” the duchess smiled, addressing Farron with his old title.

“Hehe… Lady Duchess, my time as a knight has faded. I’m too rusty to be called something like that…” He pointed out his deteriorating health and physical condition due his ailment, but still grinned as he took in a deep breath. “But, yeah, this feels so much better. Probably better than when I first became a griffon knight. With these, I can return to being a dragoon.”

Watching Priscilla and Yorshka embracing Farron was heartwarming. Family really is the best, huh?

“What are you planning on doing now, Farron?” I asked. I was a bit impatient since I had to do a couple more things today, so I tried to move things along a bit.

“Hmm. Well, I never thought I would get the chance to do it myself, really. But… with my lungs repaired, I think I need to get back to training.” Farron clutched his chest as his sharp eyes flared up with spirit.

“Revenge, right, my love?” Yorshka already knew what he was planning.

“Yes… Tempestclaw. But, I know in my current state, I’m nothing more than a lion without his fangs. I cannot defeat that basilisk right now. As such…” He turned to me. “Kiddo, at this point, I’m just an old soldier and adventurer. Nothing like my wife. Still, will you accept me in your service? Honestly, that is all I could think of to thank you, but even then, I’m doing this for your title. Sorry.”

He wanted [Hestia’s Retainer]. He wanted access to the SP shop. Honestly, after how long he had to live with those ailing lungs, I couldn’t fault him for that. This was the time to be selfish. He was allowed to be like that.

“Sure, get big and strong, Farron.” I casually agreed to his request.

<[Human, Farron Nordor] have received the title [Hestia’s Retainer]>

“Hahaha!” he suddenly burst into laughter. “Knowing you, I figured getting the title would have been casual like this, but I still imagined it to be more formal. The last time I dedicated my life to royalty was an entire ritual.”

“Father!” But, unlike her careless father, Priscilla looked made at him. “I’m glad you’re happy again, but don’t forget about your own health! Just because Hestia helped you doesn’t mean you can go wild again. You need rest, and you still have your job at the guild!”

“Your daughter is right, Farron. Your lungs are technically new, and your body is rusty from disuse. You need to train yourself up again. I think you noticed your maximum Stamina falling, right? That is the consequence.” Despite replacing his old, damaged lungs, his Stamina still went down. Honestly, that told you a lot of how strong his previous were. “Anyways, I have taken up too much of your time. Stay here for another day. You may leave tomorrow if you don’t show any issues.”

With Duchess Morgiana about to leave the room, I said goodbye to the Nordor family, letting them have their personal moment. After all, my next destination needed Duchess Morgiana and Thyra.

After both of the Morgianas switched into more travel-ready clothes, they got onto their gargoyles while I spread my wings. The three of us took to the skies, flying out from her castle and towards the west of the capital of the Morgiana Duchy — Phaleisha.

Looking down, the capital was quite pretty to look at. Not only ‘cause they combined the surrounding forest with human architecture, but also the numerous wizard towers to the north of it, surrounding a single towering one. The Tower of Morgi, they called it.

The main Morgiana family were all half-elves, being conceived through the union of their house with the elves of Saelariel. The Tower of Morgi was the original home of the Morgianas until after the War for the Faefolk, where they rebuilt Phaleisha and turned it from a hamlet into a city. It was a relic of the past relationship between House Morgiana and Saelariel, you could say.

Nowadays, the area was used as the central area for all sorts of magical learning. Doing any of it within the capital was too dangerous after all, since an experiment could cause a catastrophe if it failed. At least around the Tower of Morgi, there were numerous protective measures.

“Lady Hestia,” while I was looking down at the city, Thyra spoke up. “Considering your mood, nothing probably happened, but I will ask regardless. Were you and Aurora alright after you stopped your concert so suddenly?”

Oh, right.

The concert I held on the day of O’Bloom’s attack had something like over half of its seats filled, I believed, according to what Amelia told me. So, when I had to cancel it mid-way through the performance to come to help Saori and the others, I did let down quite a lot of people. Not really good for my idol reputation there.

Thankfully, I didn’t sell any tickets to people this time. All the funds we received came from the food stalls and merchandise sold. I already thanked Duke Greenveil and Arcanuess Helvas for salvaging the situation, but I hadn’t really explained what happened in detail to everybody. The King and the Dukes only knew we won and had recruited Reajaen Resclave for our goals.

“Just a bruise to our egos, honestly,” I answered. “Tatsuya and Kyouya were the ones most heavily affected by that fight, they almost died before I got there. They really should be resting, but they’re already training like madmen after three days. Grimnir also was in a bad spot, but nothing stops a stubborn taz dwarf. There’s even something we have to do today together.”

On a more positive note, we managed to celebrate everybody’s birthday yesterday, including Yorshka in advance. Ellaine’s birthday was yesterday, on the 16th of HarvestBloom, and we also included Saori and Haruka, as we couldn’t give them a birthday surprise with everything going on.

It was a fun day, and it became even better for Yorshka today. Still, with everything going on, nobody wanted to rest more than a week. It was time for Aurora to move on.

“Mhmm, I guess those boys will probably be working even harder now with the System update and the triple Job System, right?” Duchess Morgiana brought up.

That was right, the most interesting thing that happened today was actually this:

<Main Job: Corrosive Pyromancer Secondary Job: None Unique Job: Locked>

“Would it be rude to expect the Goddess to have spoken with you about it, Lady Hestia?” the duchess asked, curious.

“Mhmm, she had. The moment the message appeared. She gave me a Divine Quest to unlock the ability to receive an Unique Job, which involves sending me to the Principality of Yeos.”

The main function of the Job System for most people was the ability to level up your skills and increase your stats by acquiring and then leveling them up to max. Once they were done, you would replace them with something else to level up.

However, the problem was that for most people, they also relied on the Job skills you received from them. For example, mage Jobs gave you skills like [Mana Efficiency] and [Fire Amp], which stack with the ones you had on your profile normally. With every fight possibly being your last, leveling Jobs was difficult if they had some useless skills.

And this Job System update seemed to be the answer for that issue. Now, the Main Job would be the one you wanted the skills for, while the Secondary Job could be used as a slot to level whatever Job you needed. It was more efficient this way. A quality of life update, in a sense.

But, that wasn’t too important for me, since the restrictions of the Job system never mattered to me when I could power grind Jobs easily. But, what did interest me was this Unique Job slot. From what Aurena told me, the Job system was created to give humanoids the possibility to grow in a similar manner to how monsters evolved. However, over the years, it didn’t become what the Origin Gods envisioned.

That was why the Unique Job slot was created. Once you unlocked the right to receive one, this Job would be yours alone. It would grow with you, becoming stronger as you become more powerful. It would have no levels, simply adapting once you fulfilled specific requirements. Once a certain breakpoint was reached, you could choose to “promote” it in a way reminiscent of monster evolutions.

Details aside, there was also a mention of how the current Job system would be completely overhauled. Aurena told me the Origin Gods had a whole debate on how the current System was too unrefined and filled with more clutter than necessary. There would be less overall Jobs in general, as they were planning on redirecting the Divine System’s Job creation function to the Unique Jobs.

They were planning on streamlining the Job System by reducing the amount available and making each Job harder to level, but making each level and the Job acquisition more meaningful. The Unique Jobs would be hard to acquire now, but once the entire rehaul was released, they would be easier to unlock.

And, when would this second update be released? In four years. How suspiciously close to the time when I would lose my “young” prefix, no? Coincidence? I think not, even if the System message explained it was to give everybody time to adjust to everything.

The explanation in the System message warned people another change to the Job system would happen soon. It reassured everybody that this new Job System would work retroactively with our current progress, so there was no need to worry about our efforts becoming redundant.

Once again, the Divine System is sooooo game-like. This is literally something you would find in an MMO!

Regardless, with the future of the current Job system 100% over in four years, Aurena recommended that I unlock my Unique Job as soon as possible and begin developing it. FOMO, honestly; fear of missing out. And for that, I received a Divine Quest from—

“Lady Hestia, we arrived.”

But, I could think about it later. First, I had to make sure everything was going well on Asaka’s side. Hopefully, her Divine Quest was fulfilled.

The three of us landed inside a village currently being built up by both humans and elves on the border between the Morgiana Duchy and the Kingdom of Saelariel. Even from here, I could see a watch tower looking over at us. A few elven guards were stationed there, but even more were hidden in the trees.

Should I wave to them?

No, there was no need. At this point, with Muraina and the dwarven king knowing my existence, I was 100% sure the elves already knew I was alive. Even the dragonewts of Loatryx knew about it between Yorshka telling Clan Nordor and Mother staying here with me.

Speaking about Mother, she waved at me as we approached her.

“Hestia!” Mother embraced me, pulling me up from the ground as she cuddled me like a sleeping pillow. “From the looks of it, everything went well for Yorshka and Priscilla?”

“Yup, yup. Healed Farron up. He should be good to go after a week or so, I think.”

Mother let me down, where Duchess Morgiana and Thyra kneeled down, greeting the Sixth Empress of the Kargryx Empire. Mother gave them a casual hello, thanking them for taking care of my mana path problem in the past. Suffice to say, the two nobles were exhilarated to get to talk to her.

Leaving them alone, I asked one of the nearby elves where Muraina and Asaka were. After I got some directions, I headed their way, where I saw the elves and humans working mildly well together.

The elves were obviously from Muraina’s group, mostly the ones living in the elven district in Griffonpeak, while all the humans came from this duchy. The former group were tolerant of the humans, but there was a weird atmosphere between them. Awkward, honestly. I couldn’t really tell.

“Uuurgh!” On the side, a weird, unkempt-looking human suddenly dropped his jaw, the bone falling off his face. While the other humans around him grimaced and began moving away, one of the elves tapped his shoulder and helped him put his jaw back where it belonged. “Ahh. Thanks for the help. I lost control of the mana slime for a moment there.”

“No worries. Us Saelari are friends of the fae, after all.”

That “human” was an onnikai. To fulfill Asaka’s Divine Quest, we had to find a place for the onnikais to migrate and live in. This was the place — the onnikai village.

“Hey, Asaka-san,” I greeted the blue-haired girl. She was no longer wearing her white-gold priestess robe; instead, Saori made her some chic, modern clothes.

“Yo, Hestia-san.” She raised her hand before moving away from Emil, the necromancer onnikai, after they finished their talks. “Been only two days. Looks good, huh?”

“Heh, I guess. Honestly, I didn’t think you would be this interested after all the things you said about not wanting to be bothered by it so much.” I then turned around, looking over at the large building in the middle of this village before waving at the approaching Emil. “Seems like the mayor's house is done. The church is probably next, huh?”

“Most likely, yeah.” The ancient onnikai nodded, smiling. It contrasted how crestfallen he looked a week ago. “Thank you very much for reading that letter you received from Goddess Death to us. Now that we are free from that place in Estralia, we can finally start doing what our Goddess wants from us. But, before that, we need a place to pray. A place for her faith to flourish.”

Four days ago, Ilsaphone came back, earlier than she told us she would. She greeted me while I was being a tourist in Estralia. She handed me a letter, addressed towards the onnikais, complete with instructions on how to lead their new lives.

At that point, I had already talked with Duchess Morgiana and Muraina about the onnikais. They were already relocated using my nexus to the Morgina Duchy, where they stayed at the elven outpost until proper plans could be made for the onnikai’s refuge. That was how the onnikais got to know the elves better.

Two days later, everything began. By the wish of the onnikais, their settlement would stay around humans. The bodies they assumed were those of zombies they created from the Resclave dungeon, and were all humans. The memories they received from them weren’t spectacular, but they’ve gotten used to a human form and wanted to learn from human culture in order to properly become “humans.”

Honestly, onnikais were strange. Even Saori’s garms were onnikais at the end of the day, but they weren’t as complicated as these ones. I guess that was due to the garm bodies having a history behind them, unlike zombies spawned from a dungeon. Regardless, that was their wish, so we obliged and gave them a place close to the borders.

“Where is Muraina?” I asked and Asaka and Emil told me she was negotiating with a nearby ranger unit. Probably to find a way to protect this village.

After all, one of Ilsaphone’s instructions was that the onnikais had to be hidden from the Church of Aurena. Or, more specifically, hidden from Aureolis. If the Holy Capital learned faefolk were inhabiting the bodies of the dead, and these beings were living in this duchy, there would be some serious trouble. Thankfully, the Church of Aurena had little presence here, since the primary religion of this duchy was the equal worship of all Origin Gods — the Origdinean faith.

Then, once the village was founded, they needed to create a church where they could pray to her, enabling Ilsaphone to be able to continuously monitor their progress. The onnikais were, after all, Ilsaphone’s experiment to create her own patreon race. That was why she had to make sure nothing bad happened to them.

And, lastly, the third point was they needed a mayor. A leader. And that person was supposed to be—

“So, Asaka-san, have you finished the Divine Quest yet?” I asked her with a smug grin, only for her to show me the middle finger and conjure something up in one of her hands.

With one small movement, two comma-looking objects materlaized from her mana. One was white and the other black, looking pretty much like a ying-yang formation.

“Can you not tease me? Seriously… But, this should be the answer, right?”

The last objective was to make Asaka the mayor of this village, which was required for Ilsaphone to accept that she had fulfilled her Divine Quest. Pretty cunning from that Goddess of Death.

“Gone is my unique skill [Saint’s Wrath], robbed and taken away by the scary dragon. No more am I a [Saint Candidate] of ‘Aurena.’ I am now a [Moonlight Guider], a saintess of the Pantheon of Darkness with the unique skill [Twilight Paladin]. Haaaaa, fuck!” Asaka suddenly lost strength in her legs and fell onto her butt, shouting “Fuck!” into the air for some reason.

“Oi, Asaka!”

“Saintess Asaka!”

“Oh, don’t you two suddenly show concern for me! Fucking bitch, that Ilsaphone, honestly! I told her I didn’t want to become her saintess, but what does that two-faced elf do? Fucking make me a saintess, and not hers, but for the entire P—!” I quickly created an [Air Shield] around us before she screamed her next words. “—antheon of Darkness! That means I’m working for Marsven now, too! Ooooh, not only did you take away my role in the Church of Aurena, but now you thrust me back into the exact same situation! Only difference is the sorta person at the very top!”

The Night Sisters had told me that I was able to take away or delete the unique skills and titles the students received since I usurped their control once they became [Hestia’s Retainer]. Since we knew about how the demonkins were literally planning on using the students for something, and how the skills were there as trackers, none of the ten who were with Aurora right now declined my offer to delete them.

The problem was that some of them were currently feeling the aftereffects of what I did. Kohaku, Misaki, and Tatsuya loved their unique skills, and had their fighting styles built around them. It forced them to relearn and retrain everything from the ground up. They might be thankful to me for freeing them from the demonkins’ trackers, but I could see their frustration every evening.

On the other hand, there was also the case that taking away their unique skills also meant we finally decided to reveal a bit of what we could do to the demonkins. Honestly, if those two demonkins had the ability to appraise Tatsuya, Kyouya, and Asaka during their fight, the demonkin forces would probably know the summoned heroes here already betrayed them. With this, they just couldn’t track us anymore.

This was an issue since they could probably tell the 15 other students in the Empire that Tamae’s and Asaka’s party had betrayed them or even died, whatever the demonkins wanted to go with. Either way, with every passing day, we became even more and more the enemies of the Church of Aurena.

And now, Asaka was also considered a Saintess of Marsven. Not only did I strip her of the [Saint Candidate] title, I also took her unique skill. But, at the same time, she just got into a similar situation like before. Then again, at least this time, she wasn’t on the side of the enemy.

Moonlight Guider

A title granted to a mortal recognized by the Goddess of Death and Necromancy, whose control has been usurped by individual [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]. Enables the ability to communicate with all types of faefolk. Enables the ability to control and speak with the undead. The owner of this title will be immune to all mana ailments while the moon is up

Twilight Paladin

A unique skill given to the [Moonlight Guider]. Enables the owner to enchant equipment with either the Holy or Dark element. Enables the user to conjure up Holy and Dark mana into a twinned object of light and darkness, enabling them the usage of the compound element [Twilight]. Dramatically increases Health regeneration when the sun is up, and Mana during the night. Reduces damage received from all undead-related sources by 80%. The skills combined are:   [Mana Efficiency Lv. 10] [Mana Control Lv. 10] [Light Magic Lv. 10] [Dark Magic Lv. 10] [Health Recovery Lv. 10] [Mana Recovery Lv. 10] [Arcane Conduit Lv. 10] [Sorcerer’s Power Lv. 10]

Oh shit! Those are some good rewards! Asaka just got an empty vessel magic!

“Woah?!” I grabbed Asaka’s shoulder and pulled her up the moment she shared that information with me, not understanding why she was so down.

“Come on, Asaka-san, that is one big unique skill with a pretty nice title! Yeah, I know, now you had to deal with the gods and so on, but you honestly were already part of all that by joining me. Besides, what are they gonna do if you refuse to do Divine Quests or something? Take away the title and unique skills you disliked?”

“… Holy crap, you’re right.” Asaka looked at me in wonderment. “Didn’t expect you to say that last part, Miss Champion of Aurena. But, you’re right. Didn’t Ilsaphone say the gods were only guides or something? Sure, let them take away my skill but who cares! Shit! You know what, now I wished I scream that to Ilsaphone’s face when her message arrived to congratulate me but the problem was—”

“That you still can’t fully read or understand what the gods say? Yeah, I thought so. Too bad.”

Similar to Eshe, Asaka couldn’t really listen to the words of the gods. Only I could due to my circumstances, but that meant I had to continue acting as the translator for everybody.

Fuck me.

With things looking like they were sorted here, I left Asaka with Duchess Morgiana and Thyra. Since the role of mayor was forced onto Asaka, she kinda wanted to just stop and hand the role over to Emil, but since she already started the job, she wanted to see it through. At least, that’s the reason she gave me before Imila and Haruka suddenly ran over to her, wanting her attention for something.

Go have fun, Tsundere~

Regardless, I handed Thyra a set if [Room] runes, telling her to keep it safe since I needed a point here to teleport to. Thyra went crazy at the fact I was willingly giving her the ability to visit us in my subspace, but I just shrugged. She was a magic nerd, so it was kinda expected. I gave her permission.

Anyways, with Mother accompanying me, the first thing we saw the moment we returned to the [Room] were Grimnir, Daichi, and Ellaine. After all, they were the third point in my schedule for the day.

With Mother, the four of us returned to Estralia and went to the headquarters of the Layavete cartel, now fully under the control of Shaturein. There, not only did we meet the Layavete cartel’s boss, but also Reajaen and one of Shaturein’s pillar’s, Jenghil Grengar.

“Princess Hestia,” Reajaen immediately rose up and bowed before me, followed by a confused Jenghil. “I expected you to come a bit later. I apologize, could you give us a moment?”

“Yeah, sure. Take your time.” I nodded to the one-eyed Reajaen.

“An eye for an eye,” as Tasianna mentioned. Before she calmed down and thought it through rationally, Tasianna was fully ready to kill Reajaen, having pierced her eyes in the process. Emil, too, was also in a frenzy back then, ripping through Reajaen’s arm.

I managed to heal up her arm, but the foxian merchant told me she wanted to keep the eyepatch. She thought of it as a reminder of her sins and crimes. Honestly, putting aside our past, Reajaen was now an ally of mine, so I wish she would take care of herself more. Especially since she’ll become Estralia’s president. That eyepatch would only make her look more like a tyrant than a benevolent leader!

Still, with Reajaen on my side, the Resurrection was also there for me to use. Since we had to control Estralia, I had them team up with Shaturein. We kept our deal with Jenghil, now we only had to make Reajaen the president. And for that, I will leave the rest to those two and Gael. Honestly, I didn’t really want to know what sort of dealings they would do, but I did tell them to not kill or torture people without a need.

Once their discussion was over, Reajaen joined us and we went over to the dwarven district, specifically, the train station.

“Huh?! Bladdarg, why the hell are you back, you zueklu—”

The dwarven engineers there tried to start another fight once they saw Grimnir, but since we already experienced this before, Mother’s aura activated immediately, intimidating everybody there.

Now, why the hell would we come back here when our first visit was so terrible? Well, I wouldn’t, but Grimnir wanted to come here to meet somebody. Someone he thought would bring his skills to the next level.

“Where in Crustacia’s name is Jadhund Heimhunter? Bring that inko out!”

We were here to meet up with the person who made the mana batteries for Parilostro’s artificial heart.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 304: The Exile’s Resolve.

“Grimnir Luedbrumdar.”

“Jadhund Heimhunter.”

A taz and an inko dwarf sat at a table, locking eyes with each other. The taz dwarf was significantly larger and had a bulky build with flaring orange hair and two ram-like horns, whilst the smaller, but more well-proportioned, inko looked like your stereotypical dwarf. Similar to Ogni, the blacksmith I met in Firwood, this inko had a long well-kempt beard, hardened from the tips to the middle with rock.

“Lad!” The inko named Jadhund shouted at one of the nearby train engineers, commanding the young man to scramble next to the table. “Tankards. A whole barrel. Now.”

The order was swiftly filled. Two tankards were quickly placed in front of the two master artisans, while four other dwarves carried over a barrel large enough to accommodate three ogres. With a loud slam, the barrel was dropped next to the table, the sound of splashing waves of dwarven mead filling the room.

A large block of rock also was transported over, shoving the barrel of mead to the side. The same four dwarves from before grabbed the barrel once again, activating several bright runes in the process, and lifted the massive keg without any difficulty into the air, throwing it directly onto the stone. A spigot was then hammered at the bottom of drum, oozing golden brown liquid from it.

“You got weak from all the human fruit juice, zuekluk?” Jadhund spat out as he handed his tankard to one of the dwarves to fill up.

All the dwarves had stopped working in the train station, instead coming over here to watch this scene. They had tankards in their hands, banging them next to the stone floor or wooden tables to create drumming music. It made me anticipate something exciting.

“Hmph. Fill it.” Grimnir handed his mug over to the same dwarf, but unlike with Jadhund, the young man just scowled at Grimnir. However, this was quickly fixed when Jadhund shouted at him.

“You fool, are you here to dishonor me? FILL HIS DAMN TANKARD! How is he supposed to compete with a dry mug, you larrunda! Bladdarg! Go away.” Jadhund impatiently shoved the dwarven man away after taking Grimnir’s tankard to fill it up himself. As he handed the drink over, another dwarf took the shoved man’s place.

“Drink. Zuekluk.”

The banging of the tankards intensified, echoing inside this room like a loud festival. Ellaine, Tasianna, Reajaen, and I were weirded out by how much they were building up to each drink, while Mother just smiled peacefully. Daichi was the only one who was moved by the atmosphere, clapping his hands to the rhythm.

And at the climax of the banging, the two dwarves instantly downed their drinks at the same time, banging their tankards right on the table.

““Next!”” they shouted!

“Bruuuuu, unda sahmaliet te! Hoi! Hoi! Hoi!”

Fill, drink, slam. Fill, drink, slam, Fill, drink, slam. The constantly banging of the tankards began to show color, displaying vibrance as the singing of the dwarves mixed into it. Cheers erupted, egging on both contestants as they kept on drinking. The sounds of their full gurgles, their swallows, and the mead flowing through the spigot all joined into this weird symphony.

Such simply sounds, honestly. It was just a bunch of dwarves making sounds and banging their mugs, but by joining all of them together, you could call this music. Some might call it rowdiness, but after being around adventurers whenever I visited the guilds, I was used to it. I liked the energy!

“Bruuuuu, unda sahmaliet te! Hoi! Hoi! Hoi!” More and more dwarves began to sing that single sentence, continuing whenever the two master artisans had to wait for their mugs to be refilled.

“Hmm, you can still drink like a man, Grimnir? Ha, that’s the least I should expect from any master,” Jadhund complimented Grimnir, followed by the crowd shouting “Hoi” in response. “Still, let’s spice it up. This is too easy. Bring on the sake!”

“Ha!” Grimnir laughed while the audience blurted a worried “Oooooooh?” as if this match was about to end. “I was waiting for this. You can’t understand how long I’ve waited for real Ankoran wine after having to deal with that distilled rice wine we sell to humans! Come on, bring it in faster! We have a thirst to quench!”

““Aye!”” Surprisingly, the dwarven engineers cheered back at his request.

For some reason, the animosity and hostility everybody had been showing Grimnir at the start disappeared, replaced by the festive mood of this drinking contest. I was flabbergasted when they filled up Grimnir’s sake glass with the rice wine willingly, without needing to be threatened by Jadhund.

Wait, did Grimnir even need me here? I asked myself as the two dwarves drank their wine.

“Urgh! Guek!” Grimnir grabbed his throat and banged on the table with his fist.

“Gahahaha! Ahack! Bladdarg! That’s strong stuff! Urgh!” Jadhund grabbed the table and shook his head, throwing droplets of mead hanging from his beard to the ground. “Gahahah! You seem weak against the stuff, zuekluk!”

“““Hahahaha! Bruuuuu, unda sahmaliet te! Hoi! Hoi! Hoi!”””

“Bladdarg! Gaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” Grimnir roared out and slammed his head against the wooden table, breaking it in the process.

What the fuck?!

“Gahahahaha! Those damn taz horns! Gahahahaha!”

“““Hahahahahaha!”””

“Master Grimnir, don’t give up! Beat him!” Daichi cheered on.

“Shut up, lad! I know that!” Grimnir responded with a croaky voice before downing his own tankard to moisten his throat again. “Come on! Drink!”

“Drink! Gahahaha!”

Jeez… these two are already drunk. And it looks like all the dwarves are drunk from the atmosphere alone…

Certainly, this drinking challenge was a spectacle, especially with both contestants puking their insides out, then taking two more chugs, before puking it out again and then falling into their puddle of vomit, laughing. In fact, they were laughing together so much, we help but think they were lifelong friends.

After a couple more drinks, Grimnir called it quits in the end after they both drank another shot of the rice wine. Jadhund tried to celebrate with all the engineers around him, but he just fell right back onto the stone floor. I thought he would have got a concussion from it, but he was still conscious and laughed it off. Yup, he definitely had a concussion so I healed him before he became even more stupid.

And this was why I disliked drinking. Saori and Yorshka showed me too many times how they could go out of control. Not to mention Mother’s “accident.”

Urgh…

Tasianna pulled out a few hangover curatives, giving them to the two dwarves before we told all the other engineers to leave the room. With Mother around, it was easy enough to persuade them.

Once Grimnir and Jadhund had settled down, massaging their heads, Tasianna gave them a quick shower to get rid of the puke while I dried them up. Since they were still relatively drunk, Tasianna gave them another hangover potion. With the number of people in our company who were heavyweights with alcohol, Tasianna needed to keep making them.

“So… why was that exactly necessary?” I asked after I gave them long enough to rest.

“Lass, it’s just a tradition amongst us dwarven artisans. A master visiting another master usually had to earn the respect of each other through action,” Grimnir answered. “It’s like that smithing challenge I did in Cedaraille. With mastery comes arrogance, and to beat arrogance, you must show your own talents. However, what happens if you meet a master from a different field? How would you earn their respect then?”

“A drinking contest. Dwarven men need to know how to drink,” Jadhund answered as he stood up and kneeled before Mother and me. “I apologize for not doing this sooner. Empress and Princess of Kargryx, this dwarf humbly greets you. I, Jadhund, am at your service.”

“You know us?” I asked after telling him he could stand up.

He nodded. “Mhmm. We dwarves might isolate ourselves from the rest of Estralia, but I still pick up rumors when I visit the merchant guild to file taxes. Also, I felt her Imperial Majesty’s presence the last time you came here. It was hard to ignore all of my workers shouting ‘zuekluk’ all the time, so I knew what the two of you looked like.”

He then turned around to Grimnir after we gave our introductions, offering our blacksmith a handshake. “Grimnir, right? I heard quite a lot about you.”

“…” Grimnir stared at his hand, standing there as if he was frozen. After Daichi and Ellaine both spoke up, he shook his head and took Jadhund’s hand. “Honor to your ancestors, Jadhund. I am not talented enough to be known like this.”

“Mhmm. Being from the Luedbrumdar clan makes you famous, but for bad reasons.” Jadhund then turned his head around to Ellaine and began looking at her hands. He then moved closer to her and asked her if he could inspect them.

Ellaine agreed reluctantly. Jadhund then began touching her hand, feeling them out for the calluses from both her training as a fighter and as a manatechnician. He nodded contently, thanking Ellaine for her time.

“You’re an artificer, right?” he asked and Ellaine nodded. “Who's your master?”

“Master Grimnir,” Ellaine answered, causing Jadhund’s eyes to widen in surprise. He then closed them and sighed deeply, before returning to Grimnir.

“So the rumors were true? Broggart is dead?”

Grimnir nodded. “An accident on the road. Cousin had a hard head, but not hard enough when he fell off that cliff.” Grimnir then took a seat, sounding and looking more solemn as he spoke about his cousin Broggi. “Broggi… Bleidla cursed us after what we did, I say. Bladdarg. I sent my cousin home, hoping our clan would at least grant him a proper burial. I guess that’s how you heard about it.”

At the mention of that, Jadhund shrugged and shook his head, causing Grimnir to sigh. Seeing he needed some time for himself, Jadhund left Grimnir alone for a moment before turning over to Reajaen. “You’ve seen better days, foxian.”

“Ha… A price worth paying for what I gained.” Reajaen then pointed at me and asked Jadhund to take a seat. “Come. Time is money, and my Lady wishes to have you speak with her a bit.”

“You’re always been too hasty for your own good, Reajaen…” Once we all settled down, he skipped over the small talk and bluntly asked me why I am here. “I'm gonna assume you, as her Mistress, already know what’s going on, Princess Hestia. But, how much?”

I nudged Tasianna and she created an [Air Shield] around us. I then placed the artificial heart on the table. Jadhund nodded.

“It shouldn’t be outlawed, right? The only rule is that a dwarf must be the one who makes it, although…” I frowned when he acknowledged the artificial heart he help make for Parilostro. I had removed the one mana battery Reajaen’s son made, only showing the dwarf the ones he made. It wasn’t necessary for anybody to know what Parilostro did… for now.

Can’t believe I am keeping blackmail now… I shook that thought away as Jadhund began to speak.

“Sure. But I knew what Reajaen was doing. Makes me no better than the humans who did all those things to the faefolk years ago. Hmph. In my situation, I’m nothing more than a zuekluk.” Jadhund then turned to Tasianna. “Is she the one who will bring me in? I had thought a Haireti would capture me, but you don’t look like one, yflei.”

“I am Lady Hestia’s maid,” Tasianna answered.

“… Then, I apologize for what I did. Certainly shines a bad light on me after what happened to the fairy’s youngest princess.”

It seemed like the news of Princess Schuri’s death was also known by the dwarves. It seemed Jadhund already knew Reajaen was at fault for it.

“I’ll be the one who will answer for my crimes, Master Jadhund,” Reajaen tried to comfort him. “You helped my son out of goodwill. I never asked you for more than was necessary. Never told you more than you needed to know. You are not at fault for the faefolk I killed.”

“Ha! I am not a fox like you, foxian. Dwarves live by their honor and we die by it. An artificer needs to take responsibility for his creations, and because I made batteries which could help you, I doomed the lives of so many faefolk.” Jadhund stood up. “It’s enough. I should have announced this to the officials a long time ago. Now that you found out, it’s time for me to—”

“Sit, Jadhund.” Grimnir suddenly grabbed the inko’s arm and pushed him back on his seat like some thug.

“Blackmail?” He raised an eyebrow. “I thought after that drink I could trust you, Grimnir. But it seemed like you were a zuekluk to the end. You spit on your cousin’s legacy, you know that? Well, try as much as you want, but I’m gonna—”

“Master Jadhund, I am a merchant,” Reajaen put her foot down during the discussion. “I know how to use blackmail. Don’t take me as an amateur, it’s demeaning. We aren’t here to blackmail you, we’re here to ask you for a favor.”

“A favor?”

Tasianna nodded. “We’ve made peace, for now. That’s why Reajaen is alive and why my Lady was gracious enough to grant her son a new heart. Our Lady requires you help to rally the dwarves to our side to make Reajaen the president of Estralia.”

“What?” Jadhund looked at us as if we were crazy, but Reajaen took no heed.

“Master Jadhund, do you know of the lost dragon egg of Kargryx?”

“Hmm? Well, of course, every damn dwarf would know about that. It was sent to every major hold and clan. I learned it from the railroad guild, as the High King ordered everybody to keep an eye out.” He then turned to me and Mother. “But, what does that have to do with getting Reajaen to become president? How is that supposed to help you find your sibling, Princess?”

“She is the lost dragon princess, Master Dwarf,” Ellaine answered, shocking Jadhund. To prove it, I even gave him my ID to see. “Princess Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor, Third Princess of the Dragon Empire, Kargryx, and the daughter of the Sixth Empress, Melloxtressa. Outside of the obvious, the Kingdom of Artorias has also vetted her identity.”

Ellaine produced her ID and showed the insignia of the Kingdom of Artorias and her house, Helvas, proving her claim. Jadhund then read my profile using his party bracelet, noting everything.

“16-years-old? Hold on, no, this cannot be. At best, if she hatched last year when her egg was lost, the princess has to be one at max! This has to be a lie!”

Oooh, bad choice of words.

And Jadhund quickly regretted ending that sentence as the room’s temperature quickly fell into the shivering territory. Jadhund’s head slowly moved around to Mother, who was glaring at him as if he had made the worst mistake in his life.

“Dwarf, are you saying I cannot even make out my own whelp? My own child? That my nose cannot differentiate the scent of another dragon? Should I freeze you until you figure out an excuse for what you just said there?”

“I-I-I-!” He couldn’t form an answer!

Shit! She’s serious!

“Mother!” I placed my hands over her eyes. If a stare could kill, then hers certainly could also turn people into popsicles. “You know how much dwarves like to joke around, right? He’s probably still drunk. You know, drunk. Like when you were that one time. You nearly froze everybody in the guildhall, remember?”

“… Oh.” And the cold disappeared, slowly rising back up. After I let out a sigh, I let my hands go from her eyes, where she nodded in understanding. “True. Dwarf, you should drink less. You speak like a fool.”

“… Yes, maybe I should do that. May Crustacia forgive me for this mistake.” He looked as if he had aged twenty years.

Regardless, after things settled down again, I began explaining the plan to Jadhund.

“Well, to make you understand, I am the lost dragon royal. Yes, I hatched last year and am now a year old, as you can see on my ID. Now, I think the crazy part about this is that, if I’ve been found, why am I not in Kargryx? I am not old enough for my adulthood pilgrimage. That’s what you are thinking, right?”

He nodded. As expected.

“Well, the reason for that is pretty clear and also confusing at the same time. Ahem. Nihonjin-desu.” (I’m Japanese.)

Jadhund tilted his head, widening his eyes like a fish while his jaw dropped.

“What did you just say?”

“I heard from Grimnir that the railroad guild also acts as the Church of Chihiro, right? Since the train is Chihiro-sama’s greatest work. As such, you should also have learned to use certain Japanese words from her, right?” I continued. “Honestly, during all my entire time in Peolynca, I’ve only heard people use the word ‘rice wine.’ Not sake, like you, Jadhund-san. Actually, wait, what would be the honorific here, Daichi-kun?”

“Gijutsu-sya, since that fits an artificer or manatechnician the most, I think. Hestia-san, your Japanese is extremely simple for even a half-Japanese.” Dude is speaking sass with me now.

“Oh jeez, come on, It’s not like I went to school in Japan. I learned it from my family. It’s enough to get my point across, though, so cut me some slack, teacher’s pet.”

Daichi and I continued bantering around, making sure to emphasize our real origins with everything we said. Jadhund’s head followed the one speaking. He remained mostly silent, not interrupting us for even a second until we were done. The both of us then turned to him, smiling.

“… As the apprentice of a master artificer who worked with the Honored Chihiro-sama, I have never truly spoken with an otherworlder before. Are the both of you—?”

“I am a visitor, she is a reincarnator. Like the Revolution Queen,” Daichi answered.

“…” He fell silent once again, so I had to continue my explanation.

“That should answer why I’m so young. Now, the second point is that, similar to the Revolution Queen, I was brought to this world due to the wishes of an Origin God. Goddess Crustacia summoned Chihiro-sama, while I was summoned here by Goddess Aurena. For a Divine Quest.”

This outcome was planned out beforehand. I already knew how much the dwarves, especially those loyal to Chihiro, loved the notion of otherworlders due to the chance to learn from their knowledge. It wasn’t recommended to expose this secret of yours, since some people would love to take advantage of it, due to how extremely rare we were.

However, in this case, Grimnir explained how this probably would be the best way to gain a member of the railroad guild’s trust. Although it might not be effective on all dwarves, they would at least treat us with great respect. Especially the wise-woman council, a faction composed out of the most talented women to serve as advisors for the Ankoran High Kings and Queens.

I continued, “And to fulfill this goal, I need Reajaen to become the President of Estralia at all cost.”

Aside from our deal with Shaturein for them to track down and monitor Saori’s students stuck in the Empire, Shaturein was also our ally in these other matters. With Shaturein slowly taking control of Estralia’s underbelly, they would start rooting out any source of power from the other senators. Meanwhile, the Layavete cartel with the Resurrection would start recruiting allies for the future Presidential vote.

We needed it to take control over Gleisvale and, as such, the western trading hub of Altrust. To make sure we would succeed, Reajaen had to do the one thing no Estralian President had done in over 200 years — bring the dwarves back into the ecosystem of Gleisvale. To make the Dwarven-Made Human City regain its former ally.

However, that was just one of our goals. And Jadhund seemed to have noticed that since Grimnir was here.

“But you want more, right?”

Ellaine showed Jadhund the mana batteries he made. “Master Grimnir told me these batteries were made with his cousin’s technique. Master Broggi, the owner of the scrolls and book I am currently learning from.”

He nodded. “Aye. Broggart was a talented artificer, the best from the Luedbrumdar clan, really. He wasn’t as well-known in the guilds, due to his lack of achievements and inventions, well, until the day he and Grimnir stole the technology of Chihiro-same — the gun blueprints. Grimnir, is that—?”

“Aye.” Grimnir unsheathed his blasthammer from its leather holder and transformed it into its gun form, showing off the bright mana flowing through its circuitry like a river. “The one Broggi made was destroyed in a battle. I’ve made a new one with my apprentice. This human lass here, Ellaine. I fixed up the metal, but she did all the artificer stuff by herself.”

“Hmm? Truly?” Jadhund was surprised, looking at Ellaine for a confirmation and was even more flabbergasted when she nodded. “… Grimnir, can I look at it for a moment.”

Our blacksmith acquiesced, opening up a plate to reveal the wires and other machinery inside of Grimnir’s treasured weapon.

“Hmm? Runes, huh? Fire and ice? Hmm, to cool down and warm up. A counterbalance. Smart. Hmm, but… Lass.” He waved Ellaine over, pointing at certain spots inside of the blasthammer. “This is wrong. With how you wired it, there will be a longer delay with the mana transfer. And this, I can see the attempt to copy Broggart’s technique, but you are doing it all incorrectly. The mana paths need to create a reversed spiral to move the cogs!”

“Lass!”

“Huh? Yes, Master Grimnir!” Grimnir surprised Ellaine.

“What are you doing there looking like a fool! Get your pen and slate out and write those tips down! You are getting tips from an actual artificer master!”

“Yes! Right!”

“Lad!”

“Yes, Master!” Even Daichi was called out.

“You and Ellaine are supposed to work in unison in the future. A blacksmith needs to understand the usage of his creations to make them properly. I can only teach you so much until you have to learn and see it for yourself. Do the same and listen with Ellaine!”

“Of course, Master! I am too slow and unworthy of your advice!”

Ellaine and Daichi committed themselves to Jadhund’s care, intently writing down everything he had to say about the blasthammer. At times, he shouted and criticized Ellaine nearly as harshly as Grimnir would do it, but through her time with the latter, she weathered it well. Daichi was nowhere near to his cross-fire, but being studious, he asked his own questions, earning himself the artificer’s ire in exchange for tips and advice.

After the three were done, Ellaine and Daichi looked exhausted, but were still full enough of energy to compare notes. Was this a school? We had to leave those two alone in their own world as we continued our discussion.

When Jadhund asked us to speak earnestly, Grimnir voiced his favor. “As the blacksmith in the service of Princess Hestia, I have a responsibility to make the best equipment for her and our company, Aurora. But, with my current equipment, I can’t do that.”

“… You want access to your workshop and Broggart’s, I assume?” His guess was a bull's eye.

“Aye, in particular, I need Broggi’s tools.” Grimnir then tapped his gauntlets, drawing Jadhun’s attention to them. “I am currently ‘sinning’ in the eyes of Bleidla. I am planning on using the lass’s knowledge to create an armor nobody in this world has ever seen. And, from the looks of it, I need to do it now. I need to become stronger than anybody else.”

Grimnir’s eyes then locked onto mine before he nodded, prompting me to do the same. Grimnir was already committed to making a set of armor and weapons for himself that would help him to become a stronger combatant for Aurora. It seems to have become an obsession after his meeting with the demonkins.

Despite how well his creations did in combat against the fire demonkin of wrath, he was still disappointed how he still almost died even with them. Arcane Corruption was his problem. He had to find a way to resolve that. In addition, he knew he had to create armor and weapons for everybody. Weapons able to kill even the largest beasts. His pride as a blacksmith was damaged when he saw Tatsuya and Kyouya on the brink of death.

“I don’t mind what you want to do in the future, Jadhund,” I stated. “However, before you face justice or whatever, could you do me this favor? Please? We need help.”

“He… Bleidla already knows what I did. If I help you, I will only anger the god even further.” He looked at me straight into my eyes. “Deal. But you owe me one for this, Princess Hestia. If I’m getting exiled, I expect a place where I can live afterwards.”

“Got it.”

And with a strong handshake, the deal was settled. Ellane’s and Grimnir’s trip to the dwarven capital was assured; in addition, he would bring most of the students and the RV with him. Now, why would I exclude certain other people and myself in the list?

“Hey, Saori. You ready?”

After we were done at the train station, we said goodbye to Reajaen after giving her a set of [Room] runes and then returned to the RV. Inside the subspace, I greeted Saori waiting at the nexus point with Tatsuya, Kyouya, and a now fully adventurer-dressed Asaka. No longer did she look like a priestess of any gods, she just looked like a girl ready to go on an adventure.

Well, everything but her face, really.

“Yup, supplies are ready. Tools and other stuff are inside our storages. The garm’s pelts are also with me. And, of course…”

Rajah suddenly jumped out from her shadow and walked over to my side. With a loud rawr, he growled like a growing tiger.

I smiled and picked him up, stroking his stomach before looking at the four. “Don’t forget to come back into the [Room] whenever you’re in trouble. Yorshka will be on standby if you need her help, or any other person around.”

“Yeah, we got it. Don’t worry, Hestia-san,” Tatsuya reassured me.

A scar was clear to be seen on the side of his head. A wound he picked up during the demonkin battle and healed with Tasianna’s [Ocean Healing]. Unlike [Major Heal], that spell could leave scars behind.

“Yeah. The impromptu armors Grimnir made us fit well enough. I think we’re much stronger than before,” Kyouya smiled as runes shone on his armor.

As I was the one who took care of Kyouya, he showed no signs of any scars on his body. The burns weren’t there anymore. However, what I couldn’t heal was his hair. Singed away, he was now bald and was missing his eyebrows. A shame, since he had a handsome face. It will take a bit for him to regrow them.

“Yay, team,” Asaka cheered sarcastically. Even if she wanted to do this for herself, she really wasn’t into it.

On the other hand…

“You got this, Saori. Show that old wolf who’s the true alpha.” I grinned at her, prompting Saori to smile wryly.

“I’m not planning on fighting him… but, if what Ilsaphone said was correct, then I should expect something rough. Haaaaa, anyways, expect a new fenrir to appear the next time we meet, Hestia. Until then, stay safe.”

She embraced me. I reciprocated it.

“You’re a real drama queen. You know we’ll meet up every then and so.”

“Who knows. Maybe we’ll be too preoccupied to enter the subspace. If that’s the case, then we better hug and wish each other luck, no?”

“… True. Good point. As expected from you, Saori.”

Three parties.

For the first time, Aurora will be splitting up.

Grimnir’s group would head to the dwarven capital with Jadhund’s help and the train, where he was planning on creating his masterpiece, the power armor we’ve kept hyping him up for. Saori and her three students would enter the Belaz forest to meet up with her ancient grandfather, Belzac, the S rank fenrir. She had already spoken with Ilsaphone, learning his motives, and now she wanted to confront him about it. In my opinion, I think Saori was going there to understand herself.

Her fenrir self.

Meanwhile, Artorias and Estralia would be run by our allies. All towards the goal of the dwarven summit in three months. In three months, even I had to be done with my goal.

And what was it?

Divine Quest: The Champion of Yeostar

Quest Giver: Origin Goddess of Light, Healing, Miracles and Kinship, Aurena

Description: Hestia, I would like you to travel to the Principality of Yeos inside the territory of the Five Princes. The Divide of the Five Princes, as they call it. There, a festival will be held in the honor of one of my subordinate gods, Yeostar. Not only will there be plenty of fun and festivities, but also a tournament will be held there. The reward for winning the tournament is to become the Champion of Yeostar through the ingestion of “his blood” synthesized by the ruling royal family. I want you to go there and assure the blood does not get into the hands of the demonkins or anybody with malicious intent. This is a personal request from Yeostar himself.

Reward: [Idol] proficiency gain, [Venerated Saintess] proficiency gain, a reward from Yeostar, Unique Job Unlock, +2 level

A divine quest, of course. And those who were accompanying me on this mission included Tasianna, Mother, Rajah, and the twins. If Yorshka and Priscilla were to come, too, this would have been a full-on family trip, you could say.

And, it was also an important family trip for my royal self, too. After all, during the discussion I had with Aurena, she told me something interesting.

My big sister was over there.

A note from AbyssRaven

Aurora is splitting up for their tasks. Just to remind everybody, Hestia's story is the main story, so any side story I will introduce soon will include Saori's and Grimnir's side of the story. So, prepare yourself, we about to go "It's family time" with Hestia and her big sis.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 305: A Freezing Boat Ride.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Mhmm?! Princ—”

“Shush!”

A day has passed since I teleported Saori’s group to Firwood, where they would begin their journey through the Belzac Forest in search of its namesake, the S rank fenrir, Belzac. I woke up inside the RV this morning, as Grimnir’s group had to wait for the train to return to Estralia. Meaning, his trip to the Ankor-Nazta would be delayed.

After I said my goodbyes to the bishop of the local Temple of Aurena, also thanking him once again for all the help he gave me, I went over to Reajaen’s place. Parilostro, her son, was moved from the destroyed dungeon to their mansion, but hadn’t woken up yet. However, from the looks of it, he was merely resting and having his body get used to his new heart. Reajaen expected him to wake up in a few days.

While I did come to her mansion to check up on Parilostro, I also was there to say goodbye to Reajaen and also to receive my boat tickets from her. My trip to Yeos would probably be faster if we flew over there, but the festival only started next month. Aurena had told me it was fine if I took my time, since she’ll just warn me if something happens.

“Alright, I’ll leave the rest to you, Reajaen. If you need any help, go to Gael and don’t be afraid to work him like a mule. Shaturein can probably afford it, anyway,” I told her after receiving my tickets.

“You mean monitor me,” she responded bluntly. “I won’t say you should trust or not worry about me. As a merchant, the best way to gain somebody’s trust is through action and effort. You give them a quality product, and they will continue their patronage. It is as easy as it gets. You have given me the tools, my lady, so I will make sure to repay the debt of saving my son’s life back. I will become president of Estralia.”

Shaturein, Artorias, and Jadhund from Gleisvale’s dwarven district promised to aid her. I honestly didn’t know how Jadhun would do it, but with the dwarves on Reajaen’s side, I do not believe any of the other senators could challenge her properly. It was just a matter of time.

And so, I would trust in her, for now. Saying goodbye to Ellaine, Grimnir, Daichi, Haruka, and the Magical Biscuits, I left for the pier for a “family vacation.” Well, most likely things would be a bit hectic, but until we reached the Principality of Yeos, I only had Mother, Tasianna, Rajah, and the twins with me. That was pretty much a family boat trip, yeah?

Still, when we got on the boat, I expected the ride to be a fun one. It was a relatively high-tier cruise ship meant for rich merchants and nobles. It wasn’t very big, since we were on a river, but I noticed several well-to-do people when I boarded, all protected by their own guards. Reajaen wanted to treat me, it seemed.

Gleislane, the river we were on right now, traveled east into the Kingdom of Astraford, Estralia’s neighboring nation. From what I heard, Astraford was pretty much similar to Artorias in that they were a medieval, European-style country, only with magic and fantasy mixed into it. Except that Astraford was extremely beastmen-unfriendly, had slavery, was extremely loyal to the empire, and was extremely vigilant against mages since the Magical Capital Aleistunum was right next to them.

Reajaen mentioned that if you were a mage and weren’t registered at a mage’s guild and were not granted permission to enter Astraford, you could be trialed and executed for potentially being a spy or ‘threat to the kingdom’s security!’ Fun.

I wondered what Mother and the twins would do if they actually stopped us for that reason. Mother and the twins didn’t want to register themselves to the mage’s guild, after all. Mother would abide by local laws as long as she found it not tedious, and I even managed to persuade her and the twins to get IDs, at least. However, they were not fans of being “bound by human laws.”

Something about an Empress and natural disaster being above all of that. The wyverns also had no love of how controlling everything was. Honestly, I really should sit those three down and have a talk with them about being too stubborn.

Anyways, if it happened, it’d happen. At least, I had evidence of their identities with my ID and status as a princess.

Once our boat had finally left the docks, we headed to our cabins, took a break there, and then decided to enjoy the breeze a bit before trying out the diner. Reajaen complimented it.

However, while we were walking around, Tasianna suddenly encountered somebody she had met before. In fact, I only got to see them for a few seconds before dashing away, but I still remembered them. Most likely since they were levianewts!

“Adhi!” Tasianna cried out as I shut the giant scalekin’s mouth up, stopping him from calling me “Princess Hestia” while on the boat.

Everyone on board probably knew who I was, but they were keeping a careful distance for now. If somebody suddenly confirmed it, they might come to me to talk. I didn’t want to deal with merchants on my family trip!

“Hey, you should know better than to reveal someone on a pseudo-adulthood pilgrimage,” I whispered into his ears, causing him to nod furiously.

I let his mouth go, seeing as he understood me. He bowed reservedly before speaking, “Depth Goddess drown me, my apologies! I-I the surprise was— ahhhhhhhhh!”

This levianewt, Adhi, stopped talking for a moment. His mouth was agape as he turned his head around to the person behind me — Mother. He began to tremble, shivering as if he was freezing.

I turned around, but Mother was only looking at him normally, even showing a polite smile. What was going on here? But then I figured he probably felt the [Draconic Aura] Mother had naturally, which probably was extremely noticeable to another scalekin’s senses. Cernust had a similar reaction, after all.

“Uhm, let me introduce you. This is my Mother, Melloxtressa. Our bodyguards, Shayatierus and Bethlieranha. You already met Tasianna and me before. And also,” I picked up Rajah like a cat. “Rajah, our bestest boy.”

[“Master, I can smell a lot of fear from him,”] Rajah said out loud with his [Telepathy]. The moment he learned how to speak properly, he became even more talkative.

I put him down and ignored what he said. “Anyways… Adhi, sorry if we surprised you like that. We’re just here for a trip. It’s not exactly secretive or anything, but we would still like you to be quiet about it. If possible.”

“Y-Yes! Of course, my lady. As the Depth Goddess is my witness, I shall adhere to your command!” He was pretty enthusiastic.

“Hmm.” Looking up and down the levianewt’s attire, I noticed he wasn’t wearing the captain outfit he had on the last time I met him, back when Saori brought him in to question him about the O’Bloom’s bandit base. When I asked him about it, he smiled and bumped his chest with his fist.

“Why, this is far more convenient to work in, of course! A captain’s outfit is there to present yourself, your prestige and your command, but if you need to work, plainclothes are better! Hahahaha!” he laughed, but I was questioning why he was supposedly working on this ship.

“Miss Saori and I already told you that you may leave Estralia,” Tasianna spoke up to Adhi. “We resolved your issue with O’Bloom. Why aren’t you taking the next train back to Ankor-Nazta?”

“Ah, that?” Adhi scratched his head, looking away bashfully. “Well, you see. Do you remember when I said how everybody's drinks and meals were on me? Well, like a sudden storm, after running the numbers through my head, I realized I was lacking in funds to buy the train tickets for my crew. Even for myself, to be honest.”

… Hold on, what?

“I am a man of my word, after all — Goddess Plesia is my witness. My word is my honor. What captain can be trusted when he cannot even pay for his men’s meals and drinks? Mutiny, my lady! God Melicertha would probably strike me with storms, if I were to do that!”

“… Wait, so, you are actually working on this ship? Like, for real?” I quizzed him, looking confused at what he was telling me.

“Yes. The rest of my men are also on it. We are being paid and the captain is feeding us. This ’re’s a fine vessel, I concluded. Also our only route back to Caedhul.”

… This captain is an idiot. That was my conclusion after hearing all of that. How could you be so irresponsible with your money that you would strand yourself and your crew in a foreign country, forcing everybody to work for their trip back home?

“But! The peace after a storm, of course! Us levianewts feel more at home on this ‘re boat than on land anyways. Down the mountain and out with a carriage, and all of that, locked inland. The path home with the dwarven train is arduous, my lady. Harsh, for us seafins. With this, we can work as sailors to earn our keep. Once we’re in Elyonda, I’ll find a vessel to Port Annencia and afterwards, a trading ship to Port Hevalentus.”

Elyonda was the capital of the Principality of Yeos. That was our destination.

“Oh, right, that small human country is near to the waters, correct?” Mother responded. “I presume you levianewts usually port there when you trade, correct?”

“Yes, your majes— my exalted lady. Large Caedhulen trading ships rarely need to dock, since us seafins can live off the oceans. However, I am an independent transporter captain. I transport goods and people. Many other smaller vessels dock in mainland ports to make ends meet as well,” he explained. “It isn’t always pleasant to work with humans, since the officials are hard to deal with. But, sailors are sailors. A hearty meal and a jolly tune, and you can motivate even the grumpiest sea serpent, hahahaha!”

Well, at the very least, his attitude was infectious.

Idiot or not, it seemed this Adhi was a good person at the end of the day. I guessed if you lived your life moment by moment, money shouldn’t be an issue.

“You said you’re heading for Elyonda, right?” I asked.

“Ai, my lady! Crew’s contract ends there, and we’re inbound for some land days probably. If you ever need something, come summon me. Good waves and weather are assured. We made a proper rite to Melicertha to assure the vessel’s safety.” He shook his fist, proud of the rite he made to his god.

“Mhmm. Thanks, we’ll be in your hands. Also, we’ll be on for the entire voyage, so once we’re there, could you show us around a bit? We need a tour guide, after all.”

“Mhmm! By the Depth Goddess, it would be an honor. Ha, but pray forgive me, I only know the ports. Not much reason for a scalekin to move further inland, ahahahahaha!”

Our talks with Adhi quickly stopped when he was called out by one of the other sailors. He laughed as his response before saying goodbye to us to return to work. We waved in response before going to the diner.

Honestly, it was just alright. It was nowhere near the level of what you would expect from a meal prepared for nobles, but it was also nothing like the chaotic, but lively, atmosphere of a normal eatery in the middle district of the cities and towns I’ve visited. Really, this place just seemed like a place for the rich merchants to flaunt their wealth around as they spoke with nobles wanting to go on a trip.

After our meal was done, my group unanimously decided to just open a [Room] in our cabins the next time and eat whatever Tamae was cooking. It would be less stuffy and the meals would be more delicious. If I wanted to attend a noble’s dinner, I would go to a noble’s mansion to do so. Not a sparse imitation with mostly people trying to act important.

Nobles who were confident in themselves and their family knew they were important. They didn’t have to try to justify it. It was an entirely different experience, nothing like this fake.

Days passed by as we stayed on the boat. Unlike a modern cruise ship, there wasn’t much on deck to entertain us. No swimming pool, no arcade, or really anything, really. I already mentioned how small the ship was, but it was also lacking in entertainment.

The other guests mostly spent their time either talking with each other or taking walks on the deck, watching the admittedly beautiful sights of the large river and the woods around it. When we would dock, that was when our party could finally do something outside of just sunbathing.

On the third day, we entered the borders of the Astraford Kingdom. On the fourth day, we docked at a place where we had to go through immigrations, or maybe their border control. I guess what Reajaen mentioned with being suspicious of mages came true now.

Tasianna and I did just fine since we had our IDs on us. We got our permissions after we answered some questions and it was all fine and dandy, outside of the guards giving us the stink eye and talking badly behind our backs. I wonder, if I hadn’t used my ID’s function to hide certain information and they found out I was a dragon princess, would they have treated me differently? Meh, whatever.

On the other hand… the captain of the vessel handed in the guest list to the authorities. Mother tried to hide herself and the twins using her scales, but until the border guards got to question them, they were stopping the ship from going.

Oooh, you could say this was bad. Like, really bad. In the end, Mother and the twins showed themselves, but those three really were not fond of the guards calling them up as if they were dogs. Their [Terror Aura] was so suffocating, some of the guards even fell unconscious as they approached them.

And, honestly, I couldn’t feel any sympathy. They outright insulted my mother when she finally revealed herself. She was furious, and she let everybody know about it. When the local border captain came over to see what was happening, all the border guards were already down for the count. At least, Mother’s control of her aura was immaculate. Our fellow guests were spared by her rage.

“Sir, excuse me. There’s a misunderstanding. Please, take a look at this.” I had to intervene before they started calling in violence.

“Haaa? You’re already checked on, reptile. Back off, and get the hell back to the line as we told you! Goddess forgive me, you beasts should know when to listen.” It was impossible to reason with these people!

What the fuck was wrong with these lame border guards?!

Anyways, after the border captain’s soldiers also fell unconscious from Mother’s sheer pressure, I managed to “persuade” him for long enough to sit down and hear me out. I showed him my ID again, particularly the part about me being a [Princess] and also my last name.

“Y-Y-You’re dragons?!” He almost pissed himself in the process.

Suffice to say, it was a nightmare of a day, really. In the end, I managed to get the guard captain to let us leave, but it was already late afternoon before the ship finally disembarked. Considering how much trouble we brought to the cruise ship’s captain, I had to apologize, but even more surprisingly was Tasianna, who willingly volunteered to help the ship out as its water mage.

“Really?” Tasianna rarely did anything proactive when it came to humans, and most of the people on the ship were humans.

“Well, the trip has been boring for my lady, so I thought it might be better if we sped it up a bit. Also, her Imperial Majesty is at fault here, so we should take responsibility since she is your mother, Lady Hestia.” Tasianna’s demeanor had vastly changed. That icy maiden personality of hers certainly seems to have to thawed out, especially when she gave the captain details on how she would help out.

I guess going to Estralia was the correct choice in the end.

I left her there, seeing as she was doing fine by herself. I went back to our cabins, where I had a strong talk with Mother and the twins.

“You three will register yourself at the next mage’s guild we visit! I will transport you to Griffonpeak, if I have to!”

“I refuse.” But Mother was still stubborn. “I am not human. This is not my land. As I said before, all of these restrictive rules are only there for people to control their populace. Why should I, a foreigner who bears no ill will towards them, have to follow something like this? I can understand why you want to fit in for your dream, Hestia, but I see little reason why I should do it.”

“Because it’s the right thing to do and it would cause us fewer problems, Mother! Why can’t you get this in your head! I told you this multiple times, already! You are in human lands. You need to follow their rules, otherwise we’ll continue getting into this sort of trouble! Artorias already knew you and Estralia only demanded your IDs, but some factions are more strict. Like the mage’s guild, or what we just saw before.”

“Mage’s guild? That puny looking ant in Estralia, you mean? That ant who tried to cage me in with his laws, to make me another part of his organization’s vast array of networks and connections? Don’t jest, daughter. Just who does he think he is? I have seen 3000 years fly by. I have learned more than he would ever achieve, and he dared threaten me? Like those humans from before? Threaten and insult?”

I still remembered how Mother froze the entire mage’s guild in Estralia after its guild master asked Mother to join the guild as a member. She declined for this very same reason, but when the guild master still continued, even urging her by reciting the laws of the land of how all mages needed to register with the mage’s guild, Mother just blew up. When I left Estralia, the guild building was still frozen in place.

“But you saw what happened today! I don’t get how you can’t just say ‘Whatever. I’ll do it and just get a membership.’ Does it really matter? I am one, but no one has bothered me about it to this point,” I replied but Mother still had that same look in her eyes.

“I asked Muraina about it. She told me you were fined a heavy sum by the mage’s guild in Griffonpeak.”

I flinched. I didn’t expect her to learn about that.

“Do you call this something a good-willed organization would do? They punish and drive you to the point you must join their guild, or you will be treated as a criminal,” Mother furiously chastised my actions. “The arcane arts are dangerous and highly volatile for the lives of many people, especially to those ignorant of them like most humans and beastmen. I agree with that. Don’t get me wrong, Hestia, I understand rules were made for some past reason. It is an adaptation. It still doesn’t warrant them strong-arming you or me into their fold.”

“But… things like before will just happen, again. Aleistunum, and as their proxy, the mage’s guild, are everywhere. Most definitely, if there is a mage guild in Yeos’s capital, they will most likely try to do the same as in Estralia… Mother, I want to follow their laws, so I will have to register myself there. I don’t want trouble.” In the end, Mother’s own outburst was the catalyst to cool me down.

“And you may. You are your own person, Hestia. You want me to accept you as an adult in a whelp’s body, right? But I will freeze up more of their guilds if they try to coerce me into this humiliation. I did not train for centuries to become a pawn of some pompous mage. I am an Empress of Kargryx, an SS rank dragon, and a survivor of the demon wars. They will grant me and my daughter our due respect, or they will answer to my breath.”

“…”

It was futile. Mother’s own pride overshadowed anything I said. I looked over to Shay and Beth, and they seemed to be following Mother’s opinion on this matter.

[“We will not bend to anybody but you and your mother. Their words and attitude showed little care for us. Why should we care for them?”] Shay bemoaned the actions of Astraford’s guards. It was only a short visit, but it left a bad taste in his mouth.

[“In the mountains, only the strong reign free. The strong create the laws,”] Beth said something dangerous, potentially problematic if any monarch were to hear this. [“Astalos was the second strongest there. He led us, and we followed him. He was defeated by you, Princess Hestia. You are strong. You must show your pride as a dragon, a being of incredible power.”]

I knew Beth meant nothing bad with the last part, but it still went contrary to what I believed. Unless I wanted the whole world to hate me or if I wanted to rule it all, following their local laws was how I should act. I was an idol, not a warmonger. Unless they weren't totally unfair, I would not go around breaking them.

Although, working with Shaturein and Reajaen already is tipping the very limits of the law. Haaaaa.

“Rajah, don’t forget to be nice, alright?” Unable to convince them once again, I hugged Rajah to comfort myself.

[“Big Sis Beth is right, Master. You are strong. You should not bow as an alpha predator,”] he just said.

“…”

They had the mindset of monsters, while mine was that of a human. I guess seeing eye-to-eye here would always be an uphill battle for either side.

With this discussion being mostly fruitless, we stopped it for the day and returned to the subspace. During our argument, Tasianna left to make her deal with the captain by acting as the ship’s water mage as compensation. She would turn the waves into ice and move the ship with her [Cryokinesis], essentially cutting down on our trip by days.

In the meantime, as that happened during our trip, I spent my time with Mother, the twins, and Rajah by returning to my obsidian cavern to train up. I still had more to learn about scale management and also [Volcanic Blaze], not to mention Kramps’s [Battle Frenzy] training.

<The second step is that of gluttony, Hestia. Living beings are voracious, regardless of who you are. To be a glutton, is to accept your unending need for something, as without it, you would feel empty. This sin coincides very much with lust and greed, in that aspect, but unlike those two, the word ‘need’ is the most important part of this sin. You cannot live without it, and if you get a taste of it, you cannot let it go. You want more and more.>

“From what I understood about lust, you will eventually lose interest in it, correct? On the other hand, greed is about ‘want,’ while gluttony differentiates itself with ‘need.’ As you said.”

This was the second step on my road to mastering [Battle Frenzy]. Kramps and I have been going through this same explanation over and over again after I had finished mastering my “slothfulness.” To find contentment with what I have now, and to know when to act slower to attain a goal.

From what Kramps explained, by mastering the first step, it should be impossible for me to randomly go berserk again if I repeated this mantra. Well, outside of something terrible happening, at least. I didn’t need to constantly fight or spar to keep my desire to fight intact.

So, what does gluttony do?

<Gluttony is the second step because it is the easiest to control of the three ‘desire’ sins composed out of lust, greed, and gluttony. An unending appetite for something. To become one of the strongest beings in the world, you need to ‘hunger’ for it, Hestia. It isn’t about ‘wanting’ to be strong, it is about ‘needing’ to be strong. As if this was your life’s entire purpose.>

“Like Mother, when she trained up to become an SS rank to conceive a strong child?” I remembered what Mother told me about her past.

<Exactly. A need for something is the strongest motivation, after all. And that is why it is the second step. This should be relatively easy for you, Hestia. Just think of all the reasons you want to become stronger and why you must control [Battle Frenzy]. Those thoughts will be the catalyst for your future growth. They will be the fertilizer of your growing strength!>

And so on. Training, training, training; it was all about training. And I couldn’t stop. If I wasn’t preparing for my next concert, my time was spent on bettering myself. After all, I had a great “need” to constantly grow.

And so, a whole week passed at this rate. Tasianna’s involvement enabled us to reach our destination nearly a week earlier than the captain predicted. On the 29th of HarvestBloom, my group arrived in the Principality of Yeos.

In the meantime, for the other groups, Grimnir’s group had reached the Ankor-Nazta already and were currently forming a plan to take back everything from Grimnir’s old workshop, including his cousins. On the flip side, we had lost full contact with Saori’s party after they told us they would be talking with Belzac the next time they left the nexus.

Honestly, I was worried. It was really creepy to see Saori gone like this. To see anybody gone for this long. But I had to trust in them. Whatever Saori was facing there in the Belzac forest, I had to believe she would survive it.

As such, until we meet again, I had to focus on the first goal of my stay here.

Make contact with Plesia’s Saint and Champion.

A note from AbyssRaven

Another month, another chapter. We are starting out trip to the next arc with a boat ride.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 306: Elyonda, Capital of Yeos.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“… Wow.”

Ports. Or, as Saori described them, the economic and cultural hub of any city with access to the ocean.

The bustling noise of the people talking, walking, working at the harbor, the sounds of ships unfurling their sails and beginning their voyage, and the screeching of the seagulls flying above all of us in search of food resounded across the pier. Not to mention, for us, the newcomers, having to walk through crowds of people shuffling around, trying to reach their next destination.

“Oi, ‘ere the stops! Ank’ down, rope her up!”

“Hey, porter! Move thems crates to the next loading deck, already! Bluebloods waiting for’em. Ya necks under the water, if those snail-legs ain’t moving faster!”

“Phweeeeeh!” A whistle. “Come on, come on! Move! Faster, faster! The ship’s about to depart! Tickets ‘ere, people! Come here!”

It was loud. I had thought Gleisvale’s river harbor had been already filled to the brim with people, but it couldn’t be compared to a major harbor like this one, located right on the beach next to the Principality of Yeos’s capital, Elyonda. The city itself was about three blocks away, but that just meant the harbor had more room to work with.

Numerous ships, whether commercial or passenger, were moving in and out of the port. Activity was booming and, honestly, surprised me with how many people were around. Most of the port workers and seamen were rowdy and moved around like New Yorkers, pushing anybody stupid enough to just dawdle awound sightseeing. If you wanted to look, you had to do it while keeping on moving.

Admittedly, I had never, ever been to see a port once in my life, well, outside of Estralia. I knew New York had a port, but I never visited it. It was never part of my life. I didn’t know what was going on, so my curiosity was causing me to inconvenience others.

“Eyes on the road, people. Let’s move to a tavern! Drinks on me, lads!”

“““Oooooooh!”””

Adhi led his crewmembers and my group through the crowd, deftly avoiding large incoming parties and slipping through people transporting cargo. After a while, it got a bit too annoying for me, so my group took to the skies, scouring above them to give the levianewts info on where they should go.

After an exhausting trip through the port, we made it to the commercial district of the harbor. There were still a ton of people around, but it was laxer and you could find benches to rest on. Adhi, and his crew of eight men, led us to a nearby tavern he always visited whenever he came here. Once we entered it, I couldn’t help but feel out of place.

Smelly, salt and sweat in the air, and filled to the brim with muscular men gorging down on mead and food. With every step I took into the building, my shoes stepped on something. Fallen food and mead; whatever it was, I had to make sure I wouldn’t slip.

But even without all those issues, there were also the seamen themselves. Loud, with too much energy. They would tell tales of what they experienced on their recent voyage, boasting it to other seafarers while they either laughed heartily or rebuked them with what sounded like roars.

I like it.

It had that adventurer feeling. But, even if I liked the atmosphere, I understood mother and I weren’t what you expect to see here. My group stood out like a sore thumb, especially Tasianna, who was mortified at how filthy the place was.

Hmm, there are a lot of beastmen here.

Another thing I noticed after moving around a bit was that the majority of patrons here were beastmen of various kinds. Wolfkins, katzune, and arvisians were the most common present, but they were everywhere in general. Some rarer types like bovlines, leonids, and pathereons were also here, impressing others with their muscles.

But—

“Oooh! Levis and dragos! Come ‘ere, come ‘ere! Good to see more Caedhulens and a few Loatryxians!”

There were also merfolk and nagas around.

“Melichertha’s greetings, seafins! Did you just dock?” Adhi clapped hands with the merfolk who greeted us and gave him a quick handshake.

“Aye! Good tidings, today. Waves are calm and smooth, ‘ike me mood, krakhahahkrak!”

The merfolk were generally more fish-like than reptilian. However, unlike a goldfish or koi, the merfolk I saw here looked a bit like a depth’s terror with his completely black eye protruding 50% of itself from his socket and orange scales covered his entire body with fins on his back and limbs. Lastly, his wide grin showed me his numerous sharp fangs, looking very much like a piranha or shark.

“Waitress! Give us…” A naga shouted before pausing and counting how many of us there were. “14 more mugs!”

Unlike the merfolk and Adhi, this naga was easier on the eyes, as it was a race with the torso of a human and the bottom of a sea serpent. His upper body was what you would expect from a human-like beastmen, with smooth blue skin and a couple of animalistic features, like claws, fins, and whiskers. On the other hand, his long tail was completely covered in azure scales and serving in place of a chair for him right now.

After the order was made, the friendly merfolk and naga sailors brought over a table and several chairs for our group, enough for everybody to take a seat. While Adhi’s crew members celebrated meeting fellow Caedhulen, the twins and I were confused as hell.

[“Hmm, there was nothing like this in Gleisvale.”] Shay spoke, noting how the tavern was mostly beastmen. Even the waitresses were foxians.

“Adhi Bayudra, captain of the Kartika Pearl. We arrived just now from our voyage from Gleisvale.” Adhi began talking with the Caedhulens after taking a sip from his mug.

“Gleisvale?” the naga looked at him weirdly. “That’s no sea route, you went down the river? Why are you sailing so deep inland?”

“Mhmm. Some business I got my wide mouth into,” Adhi answered remorsefully.

“Captain Adhi has a wide mouth and drinks like a whirlpool. If he starts yapping while drunk, take everything he says with a grain of salt.”

“Ha, ya woulda think the man would be more competent when he speaks with our clients, but we had to go down the river to get back home. Hahahaha! We’re stuck here ‘cause of our Cap!”

Adhi’s crew members began some bantering, laughing at their captain’s account. The latter scratched his neck before downing the whole mug in one go and ordering another mug.

“Refill, waitress!” He threw his hard-earned coins on the table, prompting the smiling foxian to pour him more ale.

“Oi, cap! Ya can’t drink just yet! We gotta help Lady Hestia and Her Grace before that!” Adhi’s crewmate pulled the embarrassed Adhi away from his mug and back onto his seat. Adhi smacked his fist on the table and shook his head, apologizing to me in the process.

Oh jeez… I smiled wryly. It was nice seeing him so animated, but this was as chaotic as talking with any adventurer.

“Ahem.” Adhi cleared his voice. “Well, about the Gleisvale thing. Got ourselves in a storm over there. Melicertha be thanked, that we got out, but it’s ‘cause of this dragonewt’s help. Lady Hestia and her mother, Honored Lady Melloxtressa.”

“Hmm? Some true dragonkin spawns?” the merfolk question. “From which clan?”

“Clan Nordor. S rank silver dragon,” Mother answered with pride, even if they mistook us for dragonewts.

““Ooooooh.” The nine merfolk and nagas expressed their amazements.

“Uhm, excuse me, before we continue this discussion, could I ask why there are so many beastmen in this tavern? This is all part of a human city, right?” With Beth and Shay still unable to speak in their dragonewt forms, I had to ask for them, although I was equally curious.

Adhi nodded and began his explanation, “The sea is vast, and you get all sorta guests. Every group needs a place to rest, right?”

What Adhi meant by that was, due to being a maritime city, Elyonda received a ton of ships everyday. Most came from the Empire, but about the crewmates on these ships? Even Caedhulen races come in and out, like Adhi and the merfolk and nagas here. As such, opportunistic merchants took it to themselves to take advantage of this fact.

Taverns and other entertainmentfacilities were needed to greet the incoming sailors after their long voyages. The principality of Yeos and the other human countries around them weren’t big fans of beastmen, so any interactions between the two could become hostile if they intermingled too much. As such, a few businesses were made for only beastmen.

I looked over my shoulder, noticing a few humans enjoying themselves inside the tavern. Adhi explained, if you were crewmates, you were allowed to get in on your best behavior. A bit hard for sailors, but at least they weren’t throwing racist remarks around them.

“Mhmm, better than the scuuma tavern a few buildings to the right. Bunch of pink skinned goblins, really. Hateful bunch,” the merfolk spat out that racist remark, probably directed at a human-only area. “The amount of crap they spit out whenever we walk around the area can fill a whole aquarium.”

““““Hear! Hear!”””” All the beastmen voiced out in unison.

“Scuuma” was apparently sun-dried, rotting fish oil, and a term Caedhulen sailors liked to use to call out a rotten-to-the-core captain. Adhi mentioned his own experience, as one of the people over there threw a mug of ale at him. As such, if you weren’t a human, it was advised to not even approach the area to the right of us.

This tavern was closest to the main road that headed towards the city, so it was really easy to avoid the area he mentioned. I noted it in my head. Honestly, never have I ever heard something this bad before. The treatment of beastmen in Artorias and Estralia was pretty decent, but what was going around here?

Tamae’s and Asaka’s group had mentioned how beastmen also had a hard time in Artorias’s Lecartiglio duchy, but since I never experienced it, I couldn’t tell. The worst experience I had was in Carine village, but that was mostly ‘cause the villagers were paranoid about me from what their previous beastmen experience was. The bandits who attacked them had a rhinoceros beastmen leader.

“Anyways, my brothers, I need your help. Well, this young lady needs your help,” Adhi brought the discussion back to my problem. “We’re looking for a Champion and a Saint of the Depths Goddess.”

“Wait, ya kidding?” the merfolk doubted him, looking at him confused. “Nah. No way. We’re the only Caedhulen crew around right now. No Blessed came with us. We woulda known with how most depth priests holler their voices out at the break of dawn.”

But Adhi shook his head. “Nah, Lady Hestia has proper intel on this. A Champion and Saint are somewhere in Yeos. No idea if they are—”

“Uhm, they are here,” I interrupted Adhi after Aurena just answered that question for me. “One is a raptorsilian priest and the other is a naga warrior. They should have been pretty noticeable, since the raptorsilian is in a party of other saurians. Two carnosilians and one sarcosilians. I am sure the saurian came here on land, not on a ship.”

That last part was ‘cause I knew the Saint didn’t go back to Caedhul. He went around the land, looking for criminals to lock up. He was a very good friend, and I was impatient to meet him again.

“Hmm? Saurians?” The merfolk looked at his crewmates but none of them knew what I was talking about. He then stood up and drew the attention of the whole tavern. “Hey, seamen, you’ve seen a bunch of scalekins? One is a priest and another is a giant, hulking beast of a warrior with a crocodile head.”

The beastmen patrons contemplated what he said, trying to remember any information they could. However, it wasn’t them that said anything, it was the two human patrons.

“Large beast? Yeah, we saw something like that,” one of them said, causing the sides of the mouth to curve up a bit.

“At this city market, that thing was causing such a fuss with people, you know. The guards eventually came cuz a few nervous onlookers called for them. I don’t know what happened afterwards, sorry.”

“No, thank you very much!” I shot up from my seat and pulled out some Davi to pay for my party’s drinks. I picked up Rajah and everybody rushed out with me.

“Wait, Lady Hestia!” Adhi followed after, stopping us once we’re outside. “That was a fast one, so I hope I was of help.”

“Thank you very much!” I told him with a wide smile, but my legs were restless to move to the city. “Will you be staying around in the city for a while, or will you take the next ship to Artorias?”

“Mhmm, no idea. Temporary sailor contracts ain’t good pay, especially if it isn’t a long voyage. I’ll need to work around the docks to earn enough for my crew, or we can just work as sailors for the ship to Annencia.” Adhi brought up some future options. “Anyways, if you need us for something, come over to the beastmen district. There are tons of inns over there.”

He pointed to the left, at a distant neighborhood. I guess that meant goodbye to Adhi for now.

“I still need a guide for the port, as you said. I don’t know if I’ll come back before you leave, but if you are still around when I visit, please take care of me there, Adhi!”

“Mhmm! As the Depth Goddess is my witness, I shall help you if I can, Lady Hestia. May calm waves guide you forward, my friends.” He bowed deeply.

“May Goddess Plesia bless you with calm waters, Captain Adhi.” Tasianna prayed in response before my group left for the gates of Elyonda.

“You must really like this priest, huh?” Mother said with a teasing smile. “Is this scalekin that interesting?”

“I’ve already told you that story,” I said in an annoyed way, feeling like she was misunderstanding everything. “Master Kush. My first magic master. He taught me the basics of magic and also how to create custom spells. He is the reason for my progress and growth as a mage. Of course I would want to see him!”

“Hiehie… he better be strong, then. My daughter only deserves the best teachers, and I would certainly feel bad as your current teacher if he were disappointing.”

Oh, I guess it’s just competition, huh? She’s jealous for not being my first teacher!

I had already told Mother about Master Kush and the saurians before, so her suddenly asking about him was weird. Until it became clear that she was jealous. Jealous that Master Kush was my first master and not her. Mother really had some cute moments.

Entry into the city was a bit problematic when I handed the guards our IDs. As the IDs Mother and the twins had were the same model as mine, they could hide their profile.

They scrutinized us heavily, eyeing us as if we were not welcome. When they checked the ID, they shook their heads and told us they wanted to see our entire profile. It seemed they knew of our IDs’ actual function.

Mother was expectantly annoyed and so was I. Thinking it really didn’t matter if he knew it or not, since my role here was to be a Champion of Aurena, I deactivated my IDs function and gave it back to him. He scoffed at me, mumbling “I could get you imprisoned, rat,” before using the [Crystal of the Divine System].

And his eyes blew up.

“… Tell whomever you want, but can I enter the city now? Or, will we have a problem? … Mister Guard?” I glared at him.

“W-What?! No, no, no! Uh, Y-Yes! Shit! Move, you idiots! Move!” He pushed his fellow guards away and bowed in front of me, presenting the entrance to the city to me. “Welcome to Yeos’s Gem, Elyonda, m’lady!”

Hmph. ‘Gem, indeed.’

After we moved past the guard, he quickly ran into the garrison, probably informing the guard captain about this. The other guards, having seen this, simply moved away from us, none willing to annoy us at this point.

“I don’t like this city already.” Mother’s happy mood instantly turned around.

“Maybe it was a bit too early to stop disliking humans, hahaha,” Tasianna giggled at the irony of the situation before shrugging. “We should expect some envoys later in the day, Lady Hestia.”

[“If they annoy you, Master, I shall not allow them to come to you!”] Rajah enthusiastically stated, but I had to cool him down. He was still only rank E. He could defeat a normal human, but not a proper adventurer.

“Evolve first, Rajah. You need to learn when you’re outmatched or not. Don’t say something like that, otherwise I will actually drag you into a nearby forest and powergrind you,” I chastised Rajah. I liked my cute virigress, but even I could be annoyed at him for showing confidence he hasn't earned yet.

Actually, fuck it. I’m putting him through a wringer after I find Master Kush and my Big Sis.

It was decided. My parallel minds were already structuring his training schedule.

[“M-Master?!”] He could feel my glare.

I shall turn you into a man, Rajah… Then again, he’s the age equivalent of a kindergartner right now. I shall turn you into a boy!

Anyways, with the tip from the sailors, we went over to the marketplace after asking for directions. There, we went around asking for more information, specifically targeting vendors and merchants. Buy one or two items of merchandise, and they suddenly could remember what happened the moment they woke up.

“Oh? That big fellow? Ah, yeah, some guards tried to stop them but some freaky fishman in some dark blue armor came up and explained everything. Even handed them something. The blokes ran away the moment that happened, hahaha!”

“Oh, fuck me, you’re asking about those freaks?! Fucking hell, you scalies. If you want to meet with your damn friends, then get the hell out of this place. Or we’ll get some adventurers to kick you out of the city! We don’t need fucking walking monsters roaming around!”

“Hmm, oh yeah, I remember those guys. Very generous with their money, really. Hmm, too bad you can’t get some people to broaden their minds, ya know what I mean? Would make more money if we didn’t scare off you beasties from entering the city. Maybe you’ll find your buddies in the mercenary guild? They got dragged there by the ‘peacekeepers’ the merchants here brought out.”

People actually paid mercs to scare off Master Kush and the others? Jeez, good thing Akasht is a mild giant. Krim-Slak and Grazlahta probably would have punched them, if they weren’t in the city.

The information digging went by quite quickly with Tasianna and me asking everybody we saw. It also helped that the city was seemingly getting ready for the festival happening in three days, on the first of HarvestFest. Merchants from all around the lands for this event, not to mention the farmers and peasants wanting to sell their products.

Aurena informed me the Festival of Yeostar would also act as this year’s harvest festival, and as such, would run for two weeks straight. Like, wow, that was how you knew something like this was important. It probably held as much cultural value as Artorias’s one week festival for their founding anniversary.

And, this was my first time here. Elyonda certainly was smaller than both Gleisvale and Griffonpeak as a city, and its architecture was probably less impressive than both of them, but the streets were booming. Although it was just the pre-fest, Elyonda felt extremely alive.

If only the populace were a bit less hostile towards us. The amount of annoyed looks I was receiving from people was astounding. I was starting to doubt if performing here would be worth it.

Hmm, as an idol, I should but…

Considering how Aurena mentioned how my idol job was made for this sorta situation, to bring people together with songs, I guess I had to be brave. What was an idol who was scared of performing?

Anyways, while pushing an extremely irritated Mother away and dragging Shay and Beth who actually wanted to start culling people for acting so brazen in front of me, we eventually made it to the mercenary guild. It also helped that the people we asked for directions were elated that we were “learning our place and going back into a cage.” Somehow they thought some mercenaries would be capable of enslaving me.

Little by little, I felt a growing desire to abandon this Divine Quest and shout at Aurena and Yeos. God or not, some warning would have been nice.

“Ha ha ha!”

Wait. That awkward style of laughing. Isn't that—

But that thought and all my anger disappeared into the noise of the city and I burst into the guild, perching my ears until I noticed a conspicuous group of scalekins laughing and drinking with a bunch of human and beastmen adventurers.

“Hmm? Oh? He—”

“Master Kush!” My rocket boosters activated and flew right into Master Kush, shocking him with my appearance that he didn’t even embrace me.

“Ooofk!” I knocked the air out of him, pushing him onto the ground before I wrapped my arms around his scale body and pressed my face against his soft priestly robe. “Arghk! My girl, ha ha ha ha! You almost knocked down over 600 Health with that one slam. Ha ha ha, were you trying to kill me that badly?”

“W-What?! Oh shit!” Flustered, I push myself up and sent my white fire out to heal him. At first, he was surprised at the flames, before noticing how he wasn’t being burnt.

His eyes widened. “I see… you’ve grown, my precious student. Not only your flames but that aura around you. The mana you wield. It seems that we have a lot of catching up to do.”

“Hiehie.” My mouth curved into a big grin as I couldn’t help but giggle and nodded over excitedly. “Kri! Yes! It’s been almost one year since we last met, after all, Master! I’ve missed you!”

“Lady Hestia!”

“Little princess!”

“Woah!”

From behind, a strong arm suddenly pulled me off Master Kush into a big bear-like hug. A bunch of blue scales were shoved right into my face coupled with hard metal and leather. With the embrace intensifying, it became harder and harder for me to breathe, forcing me to strengthen my arms with mana and push myself out of that tight grab.

“Woah?!” I heard a surprised voice as I landed back on the ground. “By Xohulotel, how strong have you gotten, little princess?! Can't believe you managed to break my grip like that.”

I stuck my tongue out at the blue carnosilian. “Yeah, too bad for you, Krim-Slack! Have you been sleeping and eating around all the time while I was out training and becoming stronger? You got beaten by a little young-scale!”

“Them’s fighting words! Now that I remember it, we never had a round before, right? I’ve only been sparing with Saori!” Krim-Slak bared his fangs in a playful manner, egging me on to fight.

“Stop!” But before we could become rowdy, another saurian pushed us away from each other. A red-scaled one. “You two know you shouldn’t fight here. You especially, Krim.”

“Argh, jikla, get off my case, Grazlahta. Turn around,” Krim-Slak pushed the red-scaled saurian around to, where our eyes met. “By Xohulotel, you think I coulda stopped myself from speaking with her? We’ve been waiting for this, ya numbskull.”

“Hiehie,” I grinned, holding my arms out, offering him a hug.

“… He.” He suddenly patted my head and then took the embrace, kneeling down to my height. “It’s good to see you again, Hestia.”

“You too! Grazlahta!” I was ecstatic.

The wise and fatherly Master Kush. The energetic and boisterous Krim-Slak. The stoic and warrior-personality Grazlahta. We were reunited after almost eleven months of being separated. However, that was only three. There was still one more left.

“Hey, big guy!” After I let go of Grazlatha, I arched my head back, looking up at the person casting the large shadow over all of us. “Akasht, how are you doing?”

“Go… od… to se… e… you.” He struggled to speak, but I could still feel his sincerity through his voice. He was an extremely intimidating person, but I could feel the warmth his greeting gave me.

“Still hard to speak, right? I really should learn Aelulash just to make it easier on you.”

“Kraaaahahaaahaaa!” The giant crocodile-saurian bellowed out a deep laugh, understanding my joke.

100%. This was the reunion I imagined.

“Ha ha ha.” I turned around as Master Kush was dusting the dirt from his clothes, standing back up to give me a proper hug. After he let me go, he inspected me from top to bottom. “Mhmm. Kri, you really did change. Even without [Identify], I can just tell how much you’ve grown by your general aura. That draconic power inside you, that fire. It’s shining so brightly now.”

It was the best praise I could have ever imagined. I was already on the road to becoming a true mage before I met Master Kush, but he was the one to push me into the right direction. He gave me all the tips I needed to grow faster than ever before.

“Excuse me.”

But our small moment to reunite was just that, a small moment. It was a blissful one, but the five of us couldn’t live in our tiny world forever. After all, we were inside a guild, after all. But, more importantly, there were other people waiting for us.

I turned around to that voice.

Mother, Tasianna, the twins, and Rajah were standing there, looking at me as if I was the cutest thing in the world. I felt my face heating up into a blush, finding this all too embarrassing. However, before it got to the point I had to turn away, another imposing person talked.

“The gods have guided us to each other. Blessing of the tides to you, young scale.”

He was a naga. An intimidating half-man, half-snake in marine blue armor, looking like some sorta deep diving soldier from an ancient ocean-dwelling society. Actually, this was exactly it.

His helmet suddenly let out a shrill sound like a boiling kettle before separating itself into several pieces, revealing his face from behind it. Greyish-blue skin with black long hair framing the face of a handsome young man.

“My name is Tehmrayn. A Depth’s Adjudicator, and Champion of the Depth Goddess, Plesia.”

A note from AbyssRaven

Nice first impression of the city, huh? Also, as you guys probably noticed from the previous chapter, not really good at portraying racism. So take things with a gran of salt.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 307: Duty and Family.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #3 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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“Woah, so you actually managed to track down the rest of the slavers?” I asked, eyes sparkling with interest.

“Kri, that we did. It belonged to a person named Hamil, a thug based in Artorias. That group of slavers gave us the slip when we reached Gransromus, the capital of the Lecartiglio Duchy. We followed them into the Atadoro Kingdom, but, due to how they treat beastmen and saurians, it was hard to do so. Eventually, though, we got them and returned the slaves back to their home in Artorias.”

After our meeting in the mercenary guild of Elyonda, Master Kush’s party led me and my partyaway from the city walls and to the inn they were staying in. Coincidentally, it was at the harbor, in the same neighborhood Adhi pointed us at. What a surprise, right?

And here, in this rather shabby wooden room, I listened to Master Kush’s story of how he became a saint of Xohulotel, and by extension, a blessed of the Pantheon of Water and Plesia. I honestly did not expect him to make it this far in a little less than a year after we parted ways.

Name: Kushlek’zar   Level: 104   Race: Raptorsilian   Age: 65 Years

Job:

Main: Primal Summoner

Secondary: Ravager

Unique: Locked

“I believe it was the month of SpringBloom. I wanted to hunt this Hamil down, but I suddenly received a Divine Message from Xohulotel. It took me a week to fully decipher what he meant. I learned he wanted me south, along a beach. Ahhh, my companions and I were reluctant, for we had to go through Atadoro once again, but how could we deny our god?” Master Kush retelling felt like a grandfather speaking with his grandchildren about old stories.

In any case, Master Kush followed Xohulotel’s guidance and went south, where he kept on wandering along the shores of the Atadoro Kingdom until he finally met Tehmrayn, the naga Champion meditating on his bed right now. Apparently, Tehmrayn had received a Divine Quest from his patron god, Zennithra, the God of Tridents and Divers to wait there for Master Kush.

He led the saurians into the ocean, where they dived into its depths where a dungeon awaited him. To be specific, it was a temple once dedicated to Plesia but was abandoned through the years after some accident happened. There, Plesia gave Master Kush the option to become Xohulotel’s Saint by conquering a trial.

“The trial also acted as a chance for us to train in an isolated place, filled with monsters and traps. Champion Tehmrayn helped us, but this was a trial for us Depth Serpents, so we had to traverse most of it ourselves,” Master Kush explained.

“Not to be rude, Priest Kushlek’zar, but why were you turned into his blessed?” Tasianna asked after we heard his story. “Gods do not choose their Saints and Champions lightly. Even the most pious followers can only dream to become one of the blessed, as the ones chosen all displayed qualities the gods would want, no? Especially a Saint.”

I was chosen by Aurena due to my dream of becoming an idol, as she believed music would bring people together. Eshe was chosen as a Saint due to her kindness and benevolence towards children as their guide and teacher. While I understood those choices, I still wasn’t absolutely sure why Asaka and Saori were blessed by Ilsaphone and Edna respectively.

“Because Saint Kushlek’zar is the most prominent saurian priest on the continent of Altrust.” I turned around, seeing Tehmrayn having finished his meditation and was the one who answered that question for us. His sea serpent tail slithered from his bed onto the ground, and continued as he moved over to us. “God Xohulotel is the second youngest god of the pantheon, only behind Goddess Chihiro. Due to his niche domain as the God of Serpents and Saurians, he also doesn’t have many followers in general.”

Master nodded. “And that is where I come in. The Depth Serpents are a known name in the western part of Altrust, as you could see with the members of the local mercenary guild. My reputation precedes me, even in the more beastmen-hostile nations.”

It was true. Unlike the behavior I saw from the people at the market, the mercenary guild was quite cheery, as most of the mercenaries were sharing a drink with the saurians, especially liking Krim-Slak’s boisterous attitude. There were a couple who kept to themselves, but I saw more people treating Master and the saurians like equals instead of being haters.

“And thanks to my reputation, my god wanted me to spread his name more. He asked Tehmrayn’s patron god, God Zennithra, for aid to train me. With Goddess Plesia even having accepted my qualifications, I was given a test to prove myself worthy. The dungeon was destroyed after numerous months, and I was reborn as a Saint. Mhmmm… I’ve only been back on land for a week now, and I cannot tell you how much I missed it.”

“Hahah! Now that’s an adventure.” I gave Master a thumbs-up, but then sighed at the implications of his last sentence. “And the moment you become a Saint, you receive your second Divine Quest? That is harsh.”

“You may call it whatever you wish, Champion Hestia, but our duty is to the gods, not the reverse. We gain their blessings, unique skills, and also other rewards in exchange for our service. As such, we must do our best to ensure their power and influence.” Tehmrayn sat down on his tail, looking at us with a neutral expression as he said all of that. I couldn’t help but think he’s a bit too much of a preacher, but I guess this was normal for a blessed.

Maybe Eshe spoiled me a bit too much, but then again, she had her preachy moments, too.

With his first impression settled after our meeting in the mercenary guild, I knew this person was probably as stoic as Grazlahta. Both thought of themselves as warriors who must pursue strength and uphold their duty. They very much contrasted Yorshka, in this case, who was extremely lax for a knight.

“Ha ha ha,” Master Kush suddenly began laughing. “Forgive him, my apprentice. Champion Tehmrayn is, as he said, a depth’s adjudicator. They are the elite warriors amongst the Depth’s Guard, which you could probably compare to a knight, but more prestigious. He has been serving as a Champion for 28 years now, so he can be a bit thorny when he communicates.”

“Service for that long?” Mother looked slightly impressed at the naga. “I heard Champions of the Water Pantheon are notoriously known for dying during their service. Plesia’s subordinates are monstrosities from the depths, after all. The strongest Origin Goddess, ruling over a cabinet of leviathans. Wars and duels between Champions are quite common between these ill-mooded divines. You seem to have fared well.”

“Wait, what does that mean?” I looked at Mother with a confused head tilt. “Do you mean to say that they kill each other? Like a lot? Instead of, you know, working with each other?”

“Our gods are all former monsters. Rivalries do not end once you become gods, they intensify since everybody is immortal.” Tehmrayn cast [Create Water] into a cup and drank from it to refresh his throat, telling me how casual this was for those blessed who serve Plesia’s pantheon. “If the Depth Goddess requires something, we blessed listen to her before our patron god. But outside of that, the sea is massive, and Caedhul is only one part of it. There are many smaller tribes and communities underwater, spread around the many oceans. Unlike the softer Light Pantheon, we fight each other to not only expand our god’s influence but also to empower ourselves.”

Did he just take a jab at Aurena? Uhm, hello? I might not be that super committed to being a Champion, but that didn’t mean he could say that while I was around.

The mood was worsening, mostly between Tehmrayn and myself. He was ignoring my glare, but I knew he understood exactly what he meant with his words. I didn’t care how strong and old he was, this was still annoying to hear.

“N-Now, now, everybody. Lady Hestia, Champion Tehmrayn, we are all allies in this manner. Weren’t we brought together here for a similar Divine Quest?” Tasianna tried to calm everything down, but it was to no avail.

“Wrong. Saint Kushlek’zar and I were sent here to protect the shrine currently imprisoning Karhalantheel,” he answered bluntly. “As we would be coming here either way, Goddess Plesia asked us to aid you in your mission to defend the festival of Yeostar. However, I couldn’t care less who gets chosen as Yeostar’s champion. I am only here to make sure that you do your duty correctly, Champion Hestia. That no lowlife or such gets their hand on the blood. Otherwise, you would do well to learn how to perform your tasks by yourself.”

“That—” I wanted to say something against him, but even now, he wouldn’t give me a single chance as he finished his drink and stood up.

“Saint, I shall await you at the port. Bring Goddess Aurena’s Champion with you. We might as well show her Yeostar's greatest feat for her own education.” And with that, he left the room.

“… What a douche!” I shouted after the door closed quietly, breaking the shock of his sudden departure by shooting up my chair. “What the hell is that guy’s problem?!”

“Now, now, Hestia,” Master looked conflicted as he grabbed my shoulder and pushed me back down. “I meant it when I said he can be quite rough when he speaks. Do not take his manner of speech too personally.”

“Didn’t you see how much he ignored me? As if I wasn’t even here! I get you two have a different objective, but does he really have to be like that?”

“Oh, my sweet child, that was tame compared to what you would have experienced if you had spoken with a jealous dragon. Each word is like a challenge to a duel,” Mother rebuked my irritation with something out of left field, something the twins agreed very much with.

[“I have gotten into an argument against another wyvern once over a hunting ground. I had won the fight, but he managed to escape with his tail tucked behind his legs. The next day, he brought his egg siblings with him and almost killed me,”] Shay retold a story of his past in the Avitor Peaks.

Beth nodded, even adding more to the story with her involvement in it. [“Brother came back in a similar fashion as his rival. When he called for my help, we managed to kill two of them the next day, but were still forced to retreat, since a group of griffons came in to interrupt our fight. We have been enemies with both groups ever since.”]

Jeez, getting third-maned in real life! That really has to suck.

“But that still doesn’t really excuse his behavior. Even if he was ‘holding back,’ it felt weird to have to listen to all of that. Haaaaaaaaa, whatever.” I slumped on the table, prompting Mother to stroke my back in encouragement. “Did you arrive today, Master?”

He shook his head. “Yesterday. We arrived in the evening and rented out rooms. Afterward, Champion Tehmrayn and I booked a boat to the shrine for today. We went into the city this morning to see if we could find some information on potential threats.”

“Who exactly are you looking for?”

“Well, you should know them, the demonkins, of course.”

I tensed up. I had already given Master Kush a quick summary of what happened after we parted, especially my Divine Quest with Aurena after we reached the inn. Only the details, like Eshe and so on, weren’t mentioned.

“Did Goddess Plesia or God Xohulotel mention them?” Considering the situation, I needed to make sure I understood the whole situation.

However, Master just shook his head. “Not entirely, but the signs Xohulotel sent me were pointing deep south! To the lands of the demonkins, I am sure. I understood little else, but being wary is common sense, no? Wars spread far, not only through violence, but also through subterfuge, my apprentice.”

“We’ve met demonkin sympathizers and agents before. The Church of the Edjurl is the most prominent organization,” Tasianna noted, causing Master to write that name down. “If we’re talking about mercenaries, then the Yanderu Eluesess could be around, too. They’ve been working with Hamil all this time, after all.”

“Eithalr…” That name was seared into my mind. One of the people responsible for Eshe’s death and the attack on Griffonpeak.

“Calm now, my whelpling.” Mother touched my shoulder with her slightly cold hand, causing me to realize I was releasing my [Draconic Aura] unconsciously from remembering that Yanderu bastard. “You really have your sights on that person, I see. However, do remember that your sun core still needs a week more to fully regenerate. Until then, don’t go around provoking people, hehe.”

Mother was partly correct. At this very moment, my sun core was functional and I could fully use my solar abilities without any issue. Meaning, I could enter overdrive mode with [Solar Beam] and would have no problems keeping [Symphonie des Feuergottes] activated. However, where she was correct was that it wasn't fully grown.

If I compared it to the size of my former core, my current one was definitely smaller, but from testing it yesterday on the boat, I could feel it having the same capacity as my last one. In other words, it was growing in strength. Mother explained it was similar to my scales. The more I shed it, the more the new one would be infused with my mana.

Obviously, of course. I was still a growing dragon, so having the same core wouldn’t be feasible. With how often I was losing old scales and claws, I wouldn’t be surprised if my horns and fangs would need to regrow into their “adult” form later on as well.

This did give my party some options, though. I could shed my core and hand it over to Grimnir or Tasianna to make something out of them. We were already planning on using my old one for a catalyst or something, but Tasianna still didn’t know for whom she should make it for. Catalysts had to fit their owners.

“In any case, Master Kushlek’zar.” Mother turned away from me to face Master, eyeing him expectantly like a predator. “Whether the enemy is inside the city or not doesn’t matter at this point. The tournament, after all, hadn’t even started yet. I personally believe it would be better if you and Hestia concentrate on the source for Yeostar’s blessing, first.”

“Oho, as expected of the Sixth Empress of Kargryx, you are absolutely right, Your Imperial Majesty.” Understanding the intention behind those words, Master pulled the topic towards this country itself. “However, this reward, the ‘blood of Yeostar’ as the Yeosians call it, can only be produced by Yeos’s royal family. As you have probably experienced inside this city it would be impossible for me to gain access as a saurian. Even if I explained I am a Saint of the Depth Goddess, I do not know if they will let me in.”

“That’s fine, I can get in, no problem,” I suggested. “Princess. Champion of Aurena. Priestess. And also a local hero of Griffonpeak, if the news is widespread enough. I even showed the guards my ID, so 100% an envoy from the royalty will come. I will ask for permission then.”

“Yes, absolutely. It would be for the best if you also explained to them about your Divine Quest. Coming from you, they should believe it,” Master stated before widening his eyes as he remembered something. “Ah, while on the topic of you being a princess, I do apologize I couldn’t tell you your last name back then, my apprentice. Ha ha ha, I haven’t learned much about Kargryx, you see.”

Farron was the first person who called me by my family name, Kargryxmor. Although Master Kush knew I was a dragon princess, he couldn’t figure out how dragon’s named themselves.

“Well, if we start talking about princesses and so, Master Kushlek’zar, would you possibly know anything about Hestia’s half-sister?” Mother suddenly asked, causing Master to tilt his head.

“Half-sister? There is another exalted daughter of Emperor Eltharion?” Master placed his hand on his chin, stroking it as he thought about it, but shook his head in the end. “No. I can assure you, if she were around, we would have probably heard about them at the mercenary guild. Rather, who exactly is your sister, Hestia? Would she be hard to deal with? If so, then somebody probably would have known about her.”

“I don’t know. Haven’t met her yet, really.”

Mother nodded, too. “Neither have I. However, I do know her mother. An S rank kirin by the name of Yuilengreill.”

“A lesser dragonkin?” I was surprised to hear one of my stepmothers was a kirin.

Mother had only told me about Forminaxtrass, the lichdragon and the third empress. Although Mother kept talking about how she was on good grounds with my dragon father’s other wives, and how she would like to talk about them with me, she never really did. I guess her time with me was more valuable, considering she even contested Kramps for control of my time.

“You never really talked about her. I thought there was a stigma between lesser and true dragonkins?”

Mother shrugged. “Well, yes, but what does that have to do with an emperor’s libido? Many dragon families were dissatisfied with Eltharion’s decision to take on Yuilen as his fifth consort. But, that stubborn unicorn horse still challenged him head-on like a true dragonkin despite all the complaints. She impressed him in battle, and that earned her the right to entwine her tail with his.”

That last part was a bit too much detail. Or is that just a way to say they got married?

“Then again, there were even complaints when I went before him and challenged my future partner. From the empresses, too. But, complaints are just that — words. Before power, it all doesn’t matter. A male seeks strong females to sire strong whelps, and a female seeks strong males to protect her children. Didn’t I have this talk with you before, Hestia?”

“You can cut it out with the ‘birds and the bees’ talk, please.” I placed a hand on my head and sighed in exasperation, slightly flustered, which seemed to cause Mother to giggle. I really didn’t want her to talk about how dragon sex worked, again.

“Hmm. I am seeing you in a totally new light, my apprentice.” Master Kush joined the teasing group, nodding as if he just learned something rare. “I am glad to see you reunited with a parent half. Happiness is important to keep the mind of a mage stimulated and away from the more ruthless path you could have gone down.”

“Urgh…”

“Hiehie, isn’t it wonderful we met Priest Kushlek’zar again, Lady Hestia?” Tasianna rubbed my back to soothe me, but even she wasn’t letting this moment go to make fun of me. Only Rajah, Shay, and Beth were my allies!

In any case, after everybody had their fill of teasing me, we returned to the previous discussion about finding my half-sister. Fargryneill Qilinus Kargryxmor was her name according to Mother. She was a half-kirin, half-dragon hybrid who inherited her mother’s ability to use something called “dragon paths” and the black flames of my father.

Mother didn’t know too much more about her, since none of my half-siblings spent too much time in my dragon father’s home, deciding instead to roam Miononbolax to either train or just to enjoy themselves. As a result, all Mother knew were their mothers. To Mother, our meeting with my half-sister Fargryneill would be their first encounter.

In the end, Master Kush had to go ask the other saurians if they had heard anything about her, but, sadly, they had nothing to say. I even went back to the beastman tavern from before, surprised to see Adhi was still around. I asked him as well as the other patrons, but none of them had anything to add.

In the end, we only had one person left to ask. Probably, we should have asked him first to save us time. Then again, Kramps and Mother liked to argue with each other, so maybe it was for the best that this was our last option.

<Ha! The girl is as stubborn as a mountain drake. Not only can she not hear me well enough, but she is also defiant even towards Eltharion. She goes where she wants, disregarding everybody’s opinion. Absolutely incorrigible.>

“… Is that what Kargryxmor said?” Mother frowned disappointingly when I told her what Kramps told me.

“Hmm. I had heard the God of Dragon was quite dissatisfied with his descendants. I had not thought he would be this outraged. I can only imagine his tone when he spoke to you.” Master sympathized with me. Little did he know, Kramps could get even madder.

“Regardless, your opinion on the girl doesn’t matter, Kargryxmor. Tell us already where she is. Hestia should meet her. Even if you can’t command her, you can look through her eyes.” Impatient and irritated by Kramp’s answer, Mother pushed the God of Dragons to answer the question properly.

Whether he was used to it by now or if he was just not interested in an argument, Kramps scoffed at her before giving us a proper answer.

<Fargryneill is currently journeying with a human towards Elyonda. She is about a three days walk away from the capital. She and the humans talked about joining the tournament.>

“She wants to join the tournament? Does she know what the prize is?” I asked.

<Affirmative. She is planning to decline the reward after she wins. Her adulthood pilgrimage is filled with her wandering from one tournament to the next. For example, she once fought in a tournament held in Griffonpeak.>

Is that so? Hmm.

My parallel minds suddenly brought something up that I heard offhandedly when I was about to duel Charleslyt, the former duke of Equevanna’s son and demonkin conspirator, in the Griffonpeak’s arena. That some horned girl defeated him once during one of the tournaments. Could that horned girl have been Fargryneill?

Regardless, my half-sister still needed three more days to reach Elyonda. That meant there was nothing I could do about her for now except fly over to meet her right away, but after contemplating on it, I decided against it.

Instead, there were a couple of things I wanted to do first. For example, it would be best if I learned more about this city and then maybe dived into the dark side of the city. Maybe I could get Shaturein to do that part for me. I couldn’t possibly form a plan at this very moment.

“Okay,” I said before picking up Rajah from the ground and turning to Master. “I would like to see this shrine off the shores, if that would be possible, Master.”

He nodded with a smile. “Yes, let us go. Tehmrayn had waited long enough for me.”

A note from AbyssRaven

Grumpy mood champion. Well, at least Hestia is getting some insurance on the fact THERE IS A GIANT LEVIATHAN SEALED NEXT TO THE CAPITAL, right? Also, sister.

Also, I will be taking the rest of the week off due to burn out. CYA guys next week.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters for the whole month! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 308: Karhalantheel Island.

A note from AbyssRaven

I am back!

Karhalantheel Island was a small piece of land off the shore of Elyonda, protected by a barrier created by a magic object made from Aleistunum. A cage designed to imprison the SS rank leviathan this island was named after. Considering the peace and quiet on the isle, it was hard to imagine something capable of destroying nations was right underneath my feet.

A small community had grown around the shrine holding the beast asleep. From what the ship captain who sailed us over here told me, this place was home to a sub-faction of the Church of Yeostar, consisting primarily of warrior priests. Their duty was to protect this island, and they would only leave it for emergencies or events related to Yeostar, like the festival in three days. This was also where the next Champion of Yeostar would be knighted after the tournament.

Once our group landed on this island, we were immediately greeted by a group of armed, muscular, tanned human men in togas with metal gauntlets and boots, complete with scars peeking through their outfits and stoic expressions.These guys looked very much what I envisioned them to be. One of them, though, was wearing a white-gold priest robe adorned with some leather armor. This man came forward and introduced himself as the leader.

Going by the name of Jethro, he called himself a knight. From the look of it, he seemed quite advanced in age, probably past 50, at least going by the number of wrinkles and the amount of white hair on his beard. His demeanor and speech were quite refined, but there was a hint of roughness behind his actions. As if he wasn’t comfortable speaking like this. Still, he gave off a noble’s aura.

And surprise, surprise, he was one!

“Sir Tehmrayn, I have read the letter you wrote for the request to enter this island. I presume you must be the Champion God Yeostar has sent to us! My name is Jethro Caimlace, a member of the Kingdom of Yeos’s royal family. Uncle to our current liege.”

Huh?!

But the more surprising fact was that, instead of addressing me, the actual person Yeostar wanted, he completely ignored me after his introduction and went over to the naga.

“Tehmrayn. Well met.” He gave a short bow and nodded. “This is depth priest Kushlek’zar, a newly inaugurated Saint of the Depth Goddess. We were both sent here by Her Wisdom to aid in the protection of the seal of Karhalentheel.”

“Yes, you had also stated he would be here as well. Although, there is something that perplexes me.” He stroked his beard, looking conflicted. “You see, good sir, the one who wears the crown of Yeos, and is accepted by it, is allowed to briefly commune with Yeostar at the level of a blessed. My nephew had received a Divine Message saying ‘Champion.’ The church and the royal family had thought our grand ancestor had sent only a Champion here to help us, so we readily permitted you to come here.”

Master Kush had mentioned Tehmrayn didn’t want to divulge their status as blessed to people unnecessarily, as too much attention could lead to missed opportunities. He preferred to control word-of-mouth, and was more than okay if his success were only known to the gods. Quite admirable, contrasting my first impression of him.

But he was still extremely blunt of a person.

“Then you have misunderstood the message to an extent. I am here on the Depth Goddess’s command. The Champion you seek is this young lady here.”

He then shoved me in front of him in front of Jethro, before retreating even behind Mother. It was as if he was saying this was not his problem so I should deal with it, since it was mine. Jerk!

“Y-You?” Jethro looked confused as hell.

“Uhm, yeah. In the name of the Goddess, I, Hestia Atsuko, greet you on this auspicious RestDay. May the Goddess bless our meeting today with blessed light.” I then raised my hand and cast [Prayer] on everybody, as it was custom for a blessed of Aurena to do to give thanks for their warm welcome. In addition, it proved my capabilities.

[Blessing of the Goddess of Light (Major)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Wha-?! Alone? A single priestess cast [Prayer]?”

There was a small commotion amongst the warrior priests as they clapped their hands together, praying in thanks to Aurena and me for this blessing. On the other hand, Jethra was dumbstruck as he looked me up and down, looking more and more conflicted the longer he took.

Uhm, okay? I felt unnerved by his rather weird reaction.

“… I do not know of a dragonewt Champion. And you are a woman at that, too.” He frowned.

On the other hand, I went silent. I had not expected such a reaction. Never have I heard anybody say something like that to my face ever since I came to Peolynca. He was reeking misogyny.

“I’m the newest Champion of the Light Pantheon, with my patron goddess being the Goddess herself,” I announced clearly for everybody to hear. “I was tasked with a Divine Quest to assure the blood of Yeostar is correctly given to somebody who is worthy for it. If you are a member of the royal family, and also the leader of this faction of the Church of Yeos, then I assure you, I am here to help.”

“…” He didn’t seem any friendlier, but neither was he more hostile. “Then come. Allow me to give you a tour and a little clarity on the situation. Sir Tehmrayn and Kushlek’zar, please, I ask you to accompany us.”

This nation sure has its problems…

Master and Themrayn quickly agreed to the tour, asserting that it would do them well to learn more about the island. With them going along with it, I had to swallow my wish to shout and follow along with it. I honestly had no idea if I should follow right behind Jerkthro or behind Master.

[“Are you sure you don’t want to reveal your identity, Hestia?”] Mother’s voice suddenly entered my mind. I turned my head around to her, looking at me curiously instead of being angry.

I guess this wasn’t something I should care about. Jethro hasn't said anything majorly wrong just yet.

[“No need. My identity was already revealed at the gate. News will fly around soon enough. After what happened in the city today, I wanted to understand the stance of the royal family first.”]

[“Oooh, reconnaissance? Smart thinking. Although, from what I’ve seen in the past, a country reflects the authority of the ruler. Even if the current prince is young, the efforts of his father took their toll on Yeos. Use your own influence, don’t forget.”]

[“Yeah.”] I nodded before walking next to Jethro, walking with him as if I was an equal. Looking at his face, it seemed he had a problem with it.

In any case, the Principality of Yeos, as Mother said, was currently ruled by a boy of the age of eight. According to the Muraina’s and Shaturein’s spy network, the previous prince of Yeos, along with nearly all his heirs, died fighting for the Empire against the demonkins. The only ones left were his only daughter and pubescent son.

Yeos had an Agnatic-Cognatic succession rule, in other words, women could only inherit titles if no eligible males were available. Apparently, due to their superstitious belief that only males were allowed to inherit, as it would bring misfortune to them otherwise. Further reinforced when a past princess almost caused the downfall of the principality until she “unfortunately died from a sickness.” Only if it was to maintain the bloodline may a noblewoman inherit anything in this nation.

Saori went on a field day to find all this information for me before she left for the Belzac forest. When it came to history, I could not possibly have found anybody better to teach me about it. It also helped that something like this was extremely common in Medieval Europe, so it was easier for me to understand.

“Oh ho!” Master let out a surprised noise once we reached a side of the island with multiple wooden rafts docked a bit further away from the beach. Multiple warrior priests were there, maintaining large fishing rods with metal lines. “Mhmm, I presume fishing would be the best way to gather supplies on a lonesome island.”

“Yes, that is correct Saint Kushlek’zar.” Jethro replied, his tone formal with Master. “As you should know before coming here, the mana barrier holding the leviathan back contains immense amounts of mana. Although its mana doesn’t leak, at least as far as we can tell from years of staying on this island, my predecessors presumed all this mana attracts large amounts of merfiend. We hunt them not only for training, but also to protect the seal.”

“Merfiend” was the general term for ocean monsters, as the majority were considered fish. Similar to how there was a distinction between garms and virigresses, despite them both being mammals, there were all sorts of different merfiends.

“Us warrior-priests of Yeos are the protectors of this island, the greatest achievement of Yeos, and also of our faith. As such, we are to learn the arts of war as much as we must better our understanding of the gods. Unlike paladins or holy knights, we are more scholarly.”

And this was their primary place to train — the fishing area. They would fight against the surrounding merfiends, kill them for experience before turning them into products for their country. Their primary diet was seafood and the fruits they grew here, as all inhabitants on this island had taken a vow of abstinence, rejecting any food they had not grown or killed on the island. Any money they gained would be donated to the local church or used to buy equipment.

The only exception was the leader of this group, who would always be a member of the royal family. They acted as the link between the warrior-priests and the castle, and would act in the former’s interest to uphold the value of Yeostar. It was an oath for life and prevented them from inheriting any titles or to marry, but was considered one of the highest honors you could gain.

Jethro was the current leader of the group. He was allowed to eat and act as a royal when he was called upon to the castle, but once he returned to the island, he was to follow the life of a warrior-priest.

Ahhhh, such nice weather. It’s almost autumn, but it’s still pretty warm in Yeos. Taking a swim in the ocean doesn’t sound too bad.

Summer. Swimsuits. Tropical island. Why couldn’t everybody else be here with me? Haaaaaaa…

I stared in wonder, only to be suddenly interrupted when one of the priests started shouting from the bottom of his lungs. Like a war horn, it jolted everybody into action as they anxiously ran over to the moving fishing rod, weapons in hand. The man who called began attempting to reel the catch in.

From the looks of it, the rods were manatech; by injecting mana into them, the rods reeled in the catch by themselves. Looking down, although the accumulated mana was high, I saw a single body of mana struggling against the fishing line, only to suddenly lose strength and quickly ascend to the surface.

Until an eel-like creature shot up from the water like a flying fish.

Serpentine Ripper Merfiend

An aquatic monster found roaming in coral beds, navigating through the tight area with its snake-like body. Once in combat, the eel hardens its scale, turning them razor-sharp to the touch. Able to swallow water and shoot out rays of water by using mana. Rank D

The priests reacted immediately with fervor. They shot [Smite]s at the creature before throwing harpoons at it. The beast rattled and fought back, too panicked to take notice of the damage it took from their attacks. Like a snake, it jerked his head around, almost biting one or two warrior priests.

However, once it began shooting water beams out from its mouths, the situation got a bit hairy, prompting Jethro to click his tongue and pull his armor off to swim over to the raft. Once he and his guards were there, he began issuing commands while joining the fight as a combatant.

“He can fight,” Tehmrayn commented. “He has clear experience as a commander. Competent, good.”

I nodded. There was a clear difference between Jethro’s combat experience and all the other priests. I hadn’t checked his profile, for obvious reasons, but I guess with age did come wisdom and experience.

Through his participation, the warrior priests finally managed to slay the monster, but in the end, the damage dealt to the raft and priests was not ignorable.

At least nobody died.

I stood up and flew over to the raft, intending to heal them after the fight, but with a loud “Stop!” from Jethro, I froze in place.

“Healer or no, your job is not to heal these men, Champion. They are to do it themselves to train their [Holy Magic].”

I turned to the injured, noticing a multitude of the warrior priests riddled with wounds, either from getting hit by a water beam or being scratched by that eel’s sharp fins. Considering he was their leader, wasn’t it too heartless to do that?

“They are the new generation of warrior-priests. If they cannot become better fast enough, then they will only be a disappointment to everybody who died!” Jethro then gestured to the beach, telling me to fly back before he readied himself to swim. “Come. Leave them alone for now.”

And then he dived into the water, swimming over at record pace.

“…”

Such a weird place.

The tour continued, this time without his guards as they had to attend to their wounds. Now that I thought about it, those scars littering their bodies probably came from living on this rather dangerous island.

Standard healing magic fostered the body’s natural regeneration. It wasn’t a heal-all miracle like [Miraculous Grace]. Even [Major Heal] or my [Sanctified Blaze] could leave behind scars if I healed somebody too late into the recuperation phase.

However, looking at the priests, they could all use the minor and moderate healing spells from the System. They were even healing them right on the spot. This either happened a lot, or they weren’t very proficient even after all this healing. Even then, I had to ask, why was Jethro the only one who came out of that battle unharmed? They outnumbered that merfiend by 16 people.

The rest of the tour was pretty uneventful. He showed us around the different facilities of the island, including the armory, smithy, storage building, and so much more. It was as that ship captain said, this was pretty much a self-thriving community — a village.

Only, there are no women here. I guess they are more like monks.

After we made the rounds, Jethro asked Tehmrayn, Master, and me to join him at the shrine. He wanted to speak with us in private, so he asked if we could tell our followers to leave. We didn’t argue back, as there was no need, since the saurians and the wyverns had their interest locked onto something else already.

“Wruuuoah! Catch, Beth!” Krim-Slak shouted as he jumped out of the water and threw a C rank merfiend into the air.

[“Caug— Woah! It’s moving around too much! Brother, freeze the fins!”]

[“On it!”]

On the other hands, the twins were flying around in their dragonewt form, freezing and incapacitating whatever was thrown at them. This was their fourth catch, already.

“Akasht, get moving! Bring that merfiend onto the ice island already!” Grazlahta ordered as he decapitated a shark-like monster with a single chop from his axe.

“Krruuuuuaaaagh!” And the large sarcosilian did just that, swimming like a jetboat before wrestling the monster, all while Rajah was on his back and capturing the merfiend with [Dark Tendrils] and mana threads.

[“Go! Go! Big Bro Akasht! I can heal you!”] my virgiress said before casting [Minor Heal].

… Looks like they are having fun.

Rajah was an odd one, to be honest. Then again, considering the people he was associating himself with, I guess this was just normal. He really was fearless.

On the other hand…

“I have brought you a fruit punch, my lady. I harvested the ingredients from the local flora.” With a quick bow, Tasianna served Mother an ice-cooled drink in an ice glass, all while the latter was laying on an ice lounge chair. Mother looked like a stressed-out career woman enjoying her vacation… outside of the fact she was still wearing her elaborate dress.

“Why, thank you, Tasianna. Mhmm.” She drank from it, making the warrior-priests either look at her in envy or anger, probably thinking she was ridiculing them. “Mhmm, a perfect drink for such a warm day. With all the music, it’s certainly fitting. Pleasant.”

Music? Huh? Where? Wait, is Mother’s hearing better than mine? No way. She’s probably talking about those weirdos.

I looked over at the warrior-priests eyeing them. Nobody even wanted to approach them. Tasianna had made all that ice herself and Mother’s nonchalant attitude while on that frozen chair weirded everybody out.

“… Your companions are certainly… colorful,” Jethro stated before leading us to the shrine.

Guess they are.

The island itself was protected by the mana aura, but there was a second shield covering the shrine itself. The mana tool responsible for this creation was right in the middle of the plaza in front of the shrine. Jethro explained that only the leader of the warrior-priests was allowed to open this mana barrier, and usually only for the inauguration of the newest Champion of Yeostar.

As such, this was an extremely rare moment. Not only did the barrier protect anyone inside from outside threats, but also prevented any leak of information while talking. If somebody with ill will tried to enter it, they would be repelled immediately. In other words, this was Jethro’s way to test out motives.

… And we passed, of course.

“This was the start of our grand ancestor’s, God Yeostar, legend and also his greatest achievement. The imprisonment of the SS rank leviathan, Karhalantheel, and the protection of the kingdom which would one day be divided amongst five princes. Welcome, to Yeos’s most treasured area.”

… It honestly just looked like something you would find in ancient Greece. Stone pillars combined with arches. And more pillars, really. The plaza was huge enough to accommodate families, excellent for a forum. The only two noteworthy places were the sole pillar in the middle holding a stone owl head and the shrine in question.

When I pointed at the object, Jethro, looked at it for a moment. “Our gift from Aleistunum. A device created by the God Istari. A catalyst made from a technique nobody can find the details of, not even today. Apparently, when Istari ascended to godhood, he was never able to fully finish his manuscripts about his life and techniques. A knowledge-starved elf, who learned more than he could teach others.”

“So you don’t know exactly how it works?” I asked, but…

That so? Mana Eyes.

This knowledge is blocked by the God of Magic and Knowledge, Istari. To acquire knowledge of his creations, you must first acquire his favor

Even [Mana Eyes] can’t overcome the restrictions of a god, huh? Hmm, maybe if I usurp the control? I did it with Ellaine’s aberration. Speaking of which, I wonder if she started using it or not.

Ellaine told me she had some apprehension due to the fact it could make her immortal like a lich. Pretty much my own fears about my probable immortality once I reach Rank S. I haven’t had the time to fully have a talk with her about it, but I guess she had to figure it out herself first before we spoke. After all, even I was scared of the aspect of slowly losing people through age.

“Hestia?”

“Hmm? Yes?” Master’s voice woke me up, bringing me back to reality.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, no problem. Come on, Master, I think someone is waiting for us.” I glanced at Jethro’s disapproving eyes before following up to the front of the shrine.

Now, this was the real winner when it came to the marketability of this landmark. First things first, the shrine itself was massive, as large as Lincoln’s Memorial in DC. Second, a large statue of Yeostar in full armor and two-handing a greatsword was built inside of it, including a small altar for himself. And lastly, art displaying the fight between Yeostar and Karhalantheel was etched into the walls, displaying both the tragedies and heroics of the tale.

Fascinating, honestly, I could imagine the whole event purely by analyzing them. Even without any text, the effort the artist placed into having people understand the emotional weight these pieces had was mind-blowing. This was some Greek-level storytelling.

“… Blessed, do you happen to know the current state of the Principality of Yeos?”

After literally reading off the whole story of Yeostar from the wall, well as best as I could, Jethro suddenly spoke. Honestly, he and Tehmrayn were standing before the statue the whole time while Master and I wandered around the place. Were we keeping them up?

… Guess I should learn how to control my impulses a bit. But, then again, that story was like from a child’s storybook. It was fun.

Considering he was posing that question to all of us, I looked around but neither Master nor Tehmrayn seemed to want or was able to answer the question. Guess that meant I had to use Shaturein’s intel.

“Two years ago, the Principality of Yeos was called upon by the Empire for a battle, correct? That’s where you lost not only your previous prince but also most of his sons. That is why your current liege is a young boy, correct?”

“…” He squinted his eyes at me.

Honestly, what is your problem?

“Correct, Champion,” he finally answered. “And during that battle, we also lost the Champion of Yeos.”

Guess that’s why they are having this festival, huh?

He continued, “As such, we had to hold a Festival of Yeostar to find a new, capable candidate. As you might know, that is the whole idea behind the tournament. The winner will become the new Champion, not only a vital warrior in the name of the Goddess but also a national hero to Yeos.”

“National hero? But aren’t you inviting people from far-off lands to the tournament, too?” Master asked, and I agreed. If some random mercenary won the tournament, wouldn’t that just, you know, ruin the whole idea?

“Of course, we are not foolish enough to actually perform such a ridiculous rite. The last thing we needed was a traitor or a foreign enemy taking a hold of God Yeostar’s blessing. No, that is why we always send our own candidate into the tournament.”

The idea was for Yeos to send in a multitude of their knights or possibly warrior-priests into the tournament to contest for the title. Usually, these people were candidates for the blessing anyways, and were going through a roundabout way for it.

It was a failsafe, an illusion to the common people and foreign countries. A publicity stunt, you could say. They would reject certain participants if they had a high enough chance to win the tournament, always making sure one of their own became Yeo’s blessed. It seemed a bit weird to me, considering Yeostar was the God of Knighthood, Bravery, and Loyalty, but I guess he could overlook such actions due to the implications if the country didn’t.

“However… the ‘blood of Yeostar,’ is a creation synthesized by using the blood of the current ruler through a process I wish to withhold. Usually, this would take five to ten years. However… I and two others have pressured my nephew, Markval The Fifth, into announcing the festival before the blood is ready.”

“You lied?” Tehmrayn asked immediately while I was flabbergasted at this information. I was pretty sure Aurena would have told me this inside her Quest description!

“No, not entirely. The next blood isn’t ready, however—” He went over to the altar and picked up an amulet with the symbol of Yeostar, that of two helmets placed next to a sword. “This is the amulet of our previous Champion. A fine knight and mighty warrior, he was. In case a Champion doesn’t believe they are worthy of the role anymore, they are able to extract some blood and give their blessing up. After one year of alchemy, it was ready to be used.”

“Still, that doesn’t answer why you aren’t waiting. Why are you being so rash, Sir Jethro?” Master asked another good question.

“Various reasons, but the most important ones are the civil unrest after our previous Champion died and the fact we fear the demonkins might do something about it.”

There it is, again. Demonkins.

“… You are thinking about sabotage, correct? The demonkins might steal the blessing?” I pointed out, earning Jethro’s nod. It seemed he was too engrossed in the matter to worry about me.

“All Champions of Yeostar are national heroes, but our previous one was the embodiment of valor and power. He was the finest knight we have had in decades. He was popular inside the whole country…” He went silent before putting the necklace back on the altar. “But, after his death, there was dissent from the common folk. They blamed the royal family for accepting the Empire’s decision to join their war outside of sending our levies. Our consequence was his death and my brother’s.”

Losing a public icon could be tragic, not only to the people who were related and personally involved with them, but also to the icon’s fans. Some only cried and mourned for them, but others were more fanatical. More extreme. They needed an outlet, someone or thing to lash out on. People could become irrational.

“Now, we somehow managed to quell the unrest when it all happened, but after a while, we noticed it starting to appear again. From our information network, we are sure it was done by the other four principalities.”

“Ahh, I see. Despite joining together to protect yourself from the other countries, your allegiance is slowly turning against each other for their own gain. I understand that well,” Tehmrayn spoke. “‘The Divide of the Five Princes’ you call this country, only so you could show the surrounding nations your might. However, internally, you are less united than you might seem from the outside.”

Nailed it. That was exactly what Muraina told me.

And Jethro approved of his answer. “Yes, and that is why we require the Champion soon; otherwise, this country might fall. Our prince is only a young boy, after all. He cannot calm and rally the people to him without first showing some feats. At least, the Princess Dowager won’t. Nor his seneschal or sister, really.”

From what Muraina said, the Principality of Yeos was currently in a political war between three people. Jethro Caimlace of the warrior-priests, and a war veteran of the battle which claimed his brother and the Champion of Yeos. Prince Markval The Fifth’s half-sister, Anasthasia Caimlace, a child born from the previous king's first wife. And, lastly, Yurius Alberstien, the seneschal and most prominent member of the noble faction.

When I revealed this knowledge to Jethro, he grimaced at how much I knew about his country, to the point he became even more distant, instead of trying to work with me here.

“As you heard, that is the problem… Lord Alberstien is a supporter of the Empire, my niece wishes to make reforms in favor of the common people, while I wish to make our nation strong again. Independent of the Empire who stole everything from us.”

He was finally revealing his true colors.

“I fought in their war. I saw the treatment we received for the death and sacrifice. My brother and his sons died in battle, but what did the Empire do for us? Nothing. They left us to die. It was only thanks to the previous Champion, Sir Royce, who stalled the army of demonkins on his own that I and the remnants of our army managed to escape! Even without the blessing, Sir Royce was strong enough to fight back an army…”

“And that is why you are being so strict with the current warrior priests? You are missing military streng—”

“Your pity is not needed, girl! I have not fallen far enough to hear the lecture of a girl young enough to be my granddaughter. You do not know the horrors of war, so do not speak of them, lizard!” He spat on the ground, furious.

… Tsk, yes, call a dragon a ‘lizard.’ Wanna get burned? I can do that!

“I advise you to hold your tongue, Lord Jethro.” However, Master suddenly stepped in front of me. “This young scale is my apprentice. She is a person fully worthy of the title of Champion of Aurena. Do not sour my mood even further…”

But Jethro did not back down. “Women are not fit to be Champions, Priest. Saints, maybe, but the role of a Champion is to inspire the faith and fervor of people to fight—”

“Enough!” I shouted. I had to step in before those two got into a fight.

I glared at Jethro after everything went silent. “Maybe I forgot to mention this, but as I said before, I am a Champion of the Goddess. I was sent here by God Yeostar’s Divine Quest to aid the Principality of Yeos in the protection of the blood of Yeostar. Currently, you are being an obstacle in that goal as you cannot even fathom letting your prejudices slide to the side for the sake of our mutual objectives. I will warn you, only once, don’t insult me as if I was some clueless child ever again. Now, instead of wasting my time, speak about what you brought us here for!”

I finally snapped at this old man. I didn’t care what he thought of me as a girl, but the last thing I could accept was for him to ridicule what I experienced or have done ‘cause I was a one!

“Agreed.” And it seemed Tehmrayn was equally impatient. “This is enough small talk. I do not care for human politicking. Listen to your Champion. I do not know of any of her feats, but her Patron Goddess is the Goddess of Light herself. Your animosity in front of an Origin God’s representative would demand for your blood where I come from!”

He unsheathed his trident. I had to stop him. It was nice that he supported me, but this might go too far if I left him to his own devices.

After Master and I calmed Themrayn down, the three of us stared at Jethro, waiting for him to speak his request already.

“… The festival is held too early, as you might have figured out. It was our way to lure out our enemies while also making sure to find a Champion candidate. However, due to the war effort, we did not have the personnel to maintain our old methods. My niece and Lord Alberstien called upon the Empire and Church of Aurena for help, a tradition to maintain our relationship with them; however, none of their envoys have come.”

… Ah, I get it.

“I intended to join the tournament myself with whoever I found worthy within our knight’s order and warrior-priests. However, with the fact you two are Champions, I would like to ask you two for a favor.” He bowed. “Please, join the tournament, and help us weed out the filth and the weak.”

“No restrictions on women joining?” I asked, remembering how male-focused this country was.

“There are.”

Oh, of course.

“However, due to complaints from the Empire, specifically, from the female Hands of Heaven, the Empire’s royal knight order, we had to change the rules. If you are female and pass a combat test arranged by the tournament staff, you will be eligible to join.”

Goddess Aurena, can I please, please, reject this Quest! I want to leave the country!

<No.>

Fuck!

“I decline.” That was not me, it was Tehmrayn. “I am here to protect the shrine from potential interlopers while the festival is still around, and until you have chosen your Champion candidate. I will not leave this island. This is the will of Plesia.”

He then turned to Master and me. “Depth Priest, you may do what you wish, but I suggest for your party to train and stay here. I will need help with the defenses.”

Master nodded. “Of course, the sea underwater is ripe with enemies. However, I have not seen my two apprentices in almost a year. I wish to learn their capabilities. Training them is no issue?” He was talking about Tasianna and me.

Tehmrayn nodded before addressing me, but I already knew what he wanted. “Yeah, I can handle the tournament by myself. Am I allowed to win?”

I turned to Jethro.

“… If you are that confident… do whatever. We will find our candidates while you fight and after the tournament, we will grant them the blood. Expose or eliminate whatever threat you believe is necessary. I will inform the castle about what we talked about today.”

Seems like the tournament arc is coming up~ But, first.

I went up to Yeostar’s altar and clapped my hands together in a prayer. I kneeled down and focused on the image of Yeostar before me.

God Yeo—

And then something happened. My senses became wobbly, as if I was being moved somewhere. The moment I opened my eyes, the world was pure white.

“—star.”

I turned around. There, in this vast cloudy world, a single furnished room occupied it. Sitting there wasn’t one person, but three. And strangely enough, two of them I had never seen before.

“Ooooh, look at the girl. Ha! The minimum required for being a mortal our impeccable Goddess had chosen to bless. A soul she had deigned the honor to speak with her personally!” One was a woman in full armor with flowing orange hair, speaking with an especially pompous voice.

“Still, I am surprised. Subordinate gods we may be, but it is still three gods she is meeting.” The other was a woman in a white dress, looking more like a worriless noble lady who would rather enjoy a day at a tea party, than whatever this was.

And, lastly, the only person I recognized. An aged man with a full beard and a broken crown-like helmet sat on a chair. His armor was pristine, adorned not with fancy accessories to look impressive, but with the coarse materials of monsters. Still, even then, the craftsmanship it was made with was nothing to scoff about.

A warrior? A king? No, he was far more than that.

He was—

“Champion Hestia, the Pantheon of Light welcomes you to my domain.”

— Yeostar.

A note from AbyssRaven

A bit of sexism here. I apologize if anybody felt offended by it.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 309: Sometimes there is too much Pressure.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“…”

I looked at myself, confirming this was my soul form. My figure was slightly translucent with a couple of scales and holes there and there. I could feel my horns, wings, and also tail. Compared to the last time I had entered the gods’ domain, only a couple more holes were covered up with my draconic features. Maybe talking with my other half did something there.

“Hmm, it seems your soul still is quite unstable.” A serene voice caught my attention, bringing my attention to the orange-haired woman in the white dress. “I presume this is the aftermath of your failed full reincarnation? My my, this is certainly something you don’t see every day.”

On the other hand, the other orange-haired woman puffed her chest forward, speaking confidently. “Well, of course, it wouldn’t be, Sister! As if our wonderful Goddess would fail something as easy as soul manipulation? It is obvious that the third collaborator she called in did something nefarious! Otherwise, everything would have followed Her Holiness’s perfect, immaculate plan!”

And I wouldn’t have been ‘Hestia.’ Thank goodness everything went awry and didn’t go according to her plan.

The three people turned towards me.

Oh right, they can read my mind in this place. Welp, the cat’s out of the bag.

Considering the people I was talking to, it probably was better for me to not make them too angry. As such, I curtsied to the three divine beings before introducing myself.

“Champion Hestia, at your service, gods of the Pantheon of Light. I thank you for the honor of granting me this audience, God Yeostar, Goddess Erithia, Goddess Andira.”

Even without their introduction, I already had an idea of who they were thanks to the descriptions High Bishop Theodore and Eshe gave me during my theology lessons. It also helped that the knight-like orange-haired lady called the other her sister.

The twins of the Pantheon of Light, symbolizing two conflicting ideologies when it came to their domains. The armored goddess with the personality of an authoritative commander who was seemingly idolizing Aurena by quite a bit was most likely the Goddess of Nobility and Wealth, Erithia. Which would make the more gentle, soft-spoken one with the appearance of a proper noble lady the Goddess of Equality and Fairness, Andira.

Sitting in between these two, in the middle of the table, was an imposing person. An elderly-looking man with a whitened beard and dulled royal-blue hair framing his scarred face. Despite his advanced age, the man showed no signs of weakness, gazing at me with the sight of a man in his prime. This was Yeostar, the God of Knighthood, Bravery, and Loyalty, looking exactly like the statue in the shrine of Karhalantheel island.

“I see we don’t have to introduce ourselves. Your guess is correct, young lady.” Yeostar gave me a short nod of approval. “Forgive me for bringing you here to my domain without warning.”

Aurena had told me to pray at Yeostar’s altar whenever I had the chance, telling me he wanted to speak with me and create a link with me. I hadn’t expected he would do it now, nor with two other gods present.

“Our intrusion must have been surprising to you too, Champion Hestia,” Andira spoke with a smile. “Do be at ease, we are only here to create a link between yourself and my sister and me. We wish to be able to observe your progress.”

“Andira, enough of your roundabout words, speak truthfully as we had planned with this meeting. Young Champion, tell us, why did you not perform your duty and protect Saintess Eshe?”

I grimaced. With how Aurena hadn’t mentioned Eshe, I thought it wouldn’t be worth talking about it so I kept silent. I was slowly getting over her death in my own way, but now, somebody was confronting me about it. And now when I had to explain myself when I wasn’t sure what to say about it. What could I say about Eshe’s death?

“…” Noticing my reluctance and hesitation, Eritrea frowned. “Hmm. You cannot answer it? Disappointing, but I do not know whether any answer you would have given would have been satisfactory or not. Although, I do hope you understand your failure. Champions aren’t only chosen to fulfill Divine Quests, but also to protect the Pantheon’s saints! Hmph, not to mention, the fact you usurped our Goddess’s blessing! Unforgivable!”

She hates me! I concluded from the way she looked at me at the end of her scolding! Her divine aura was affecting my soul, causing it to quiver and making it hard for me to resist!

“Erithia, enough!” But before it could get any worse, Yeostar materialized a sword and pounded it into the floor, releasing a shock wave that forced Erithia to withdraw her aura while simultaneously creating a shield around me.

Eritrea’s armor suddenly brightened up, releasing light particles that materialized into additions to her plain knight armor, starting to make her look like a war goddess. Although not as coarse as Yeostar’s, the hides and shells of monsters were slowly replacing her pristine white armor, turning it grey and red.

“I agreed to the favor because I believed it would do this Champion good to meet you, but if you are only here to lecture her, then leave. Do it when she comes to your domain.” Yeostar put his foot down, silencing Erithia and calming her down. Once she leaned back on her chair, Yeostar’s sword disappeared and he looked over at me. “Apologies.”

“None taken.” With the mood changing, I decided to probe out the situation. “I prayed to your shrine as Goddess Aurena asked me to, but I hadn’t expected you to summon me here. Would it be possible for you to tell me why?”

Yeostar gave a small nod. “I wish to inform you of the urgency of this Divine Quest. To make you understand why you must, under no circumstance, fail this one.”

Oh jolly. More weight. More pressure.

“The life of a Champion is not easy, young lady.” Yeostar tried to give me a lecture on it, but even if I had accepted being Aurena’s Champion, it wasn’t as if I wanted more to worry about it. Regardless if he noticed that or not, he continued his explanation, “After all, as the quest description mentioned, there might be sabotage from the demonkins.”

“Yeah, Jethro had mentioned that. They probably were targeting the festival to claim the blood, right? That would mean for three more years, there cannot be another Champion of Yeostar, right?” I remembered Jethro’s explanation.

“Correct. The true power of my Champion can only be achieved through a ritual I had taught my first Champion. Through more stringent requirements to become a blessed, I was able to persuade the Goddess to grant my Champions a stronger blessing.”

“The Champion of Yeostar is known to have the strongest base blessing amongst the Pantheon of Light,” Andira added. “If you hadn’t known, Goddess Plesia is the head Goddess of the Six, and she is an advocate for balance and fairness when it comes to the System. Even for our blessed, we Gods cannot show too much favoritism towards them without testing them. That is why Divine Quests exist, so we gods can continue overseeing your growth, for example.”

[Idol] was my blessing’s unique skill, which I gained after I performed my first concert even before I accepted Aurena’s deal. However, after that, I’d never received anything “free” from her, as all the rewards like level-ups and [Volcanic Blaze] came from completing Divine Quests. I guess this was what Plesia considered balanced.

“However, the Champion of Yeostar begins with three unique skills,” Erithia surprised me with that information, “in addition to a few other boosts to their stats and personal training from Yeostar. However, for such a privilege, Yeostar may only possess one blessed at a time, and the item needed for the blessing requires at least five years of preparation. If it were to be stolen, there would be a need to wait another five years.”

“Then why would your previous Champion give up the power? Supposedly, it can be used now,” I asked.

“Two years is all that’s needed to remake the blood to become able to anoint a new champion. This, however, only grants them my recognition and allows me to train them. Three more years are needed for the proper blood to mature, which will grant them the three unique skills and the full power of my blessing. In other words, it is to prepare them. My previous Champion, she did it knowing exactly this.”

She? Wait, didn’t Jethro say it was a ‘he?’

“It’s the culture of the country, Hestia.” Andira once again used her ability to read my mind, not minding my privacy, unlike Aurena and Kramps. “Women are not allowed to become knights in Yeos, due to their superstition for our gender.”

“Ha! Idiocracy, you meant, Andira. Many women in history have fought and died valiantly on the battlefield, and for a whole principality to think of such a thing? Hmph. I’m beginning to not understand the minds of our race after so many years.”

Putting aside Erithia’s outburst there, was I supposed to assume this “Sir Royce” was actually a “Dame Royce?” If so, then I was beginning to feel some sorta respect for the previous Champion of Yeostar.

“Regardless, it is not my place to say how they rule their country. My time is long over, and I am now only a guide,” Yeostar answered Erithia’s displeasure before turning the topic back to what he wanted to say to me. “With this knowledge, you should be able to understand the prowess of my Champion, young lady. Aside from the stability of Yeos as a country, my Champion also acts as a rallying leader for the other blessed. Hestia, has Kargryxmor told you anything of what occurred in the Empire?”

I shook my head.

“Hmm, I see. Then, allow me to be the one to enlighten you. Many of our Champions and Saints have been assassinated, not only Saintess Eshe.”

My eyes widened. I wanted to ask him if this was actually true or not, but then I suddenly remembered something I had spoken with Kramps before. I asked him why Aurena hadn’t spoken to me yet, where I presumed she was mourning for Eshe, and that was the primary reason for drowning herself in work. However, didn’t he say something about “me learning about it later?”

Was this what he meant? If so, then why hasn't anybody told me about it up until now? How has this sorta information not reached Artorias or Shaturein yet?

But the answer for that was obvious.

“It was the biggest victory the demonkins have ever achieved against the Church of Aurena, even more impactful than the Pope position being taken over by a Prince of Envy,” Erithia grimaced. “The Empire and Church are naturally keeping something like this under a tight lid. The war between the Empire and the Bole’Taria is already long enough. A blow like this could shatter morale in the Empire’s vassals.”

“And that is why I have summoned you here to make sure you understand the full scale of this single Divine Quest. If you fail, the demonkins will give themselves another victory. Even if some random criminal were to ingest the blood, it would be a great loss. You must succeed, Hestia.”

“Wait, hold on!” I was outraged at something this huge placed on me. “First, why couldn’t somebody else more experienced than me take this Quest on? I couldn’t have possibly been the strongest available Champion, right? Second, doesn’t this mean the festival was announced far too early? Why now, and not in three years? Jethro mentioned the Empire hasn’t responded to Yeos’s request for support yet!”

“Do not question Her Holiness’s choice, girl!” Erithia scolded me with a strict frown, before Andira blew it away with her next statement.

“Sister, you were the first to argue with Her Holiness about Champion Hestia’s involvement. You wanted one of our other blessed to do it.”

“Do you not know when to support your own sister, Andira?! Come on!” The goddess blushed.

Ignoring the two, Yeostar began to explain, “As for your questions, the Goddess had asked for you since you were the closest to Yeos, and I agreed. Most of the current blessed are being held in the Empire for their own safety. The Empire and the Church had always been the ones responsible for the protection of the festival of Yeostar and my blessing; however, this year, it seemed the recent assassinations have made them too weary to even send a single Hand of Heaven.”

“The royal knights, correct?” Yeostar nodded to me.

“This news has not reached Yeos, and I couldn’t communicate it directly due to the limitations of my ability to communicate with my followers. Still, I gave my disapproval, but the boy was still insistent. I presume that the civil war is the problem. If possible, I want you to go and talk with Markval, young lady. Understand his motives. Maybe I have become too old to understand this current generation.”

Considering they knew my identity now, it was very likely I would have a chat with them. That was covered for now.

“Champion Hestia,” Andira drew my attention after Yeostar was finished. “Her Holiness had asked Goddess Plesia for her aid. You have met her blessed, yes? Even if they have not come here to directly support the defense of the tournament, I do not think it would be a problem for you to ask them for aid. At least, concerning the defense of the shrine. If the demonkins wanted the blood, they most likely would go with a plan to steal it as well as try to destroy Yeos at the same time.”

“Breaking the seal at the shrine, to free the SS rank leviathan. That really would be the worst scenario.”

“Yes, it would, but don’t be neglectful, girl! The demonkins’ plan might involve using mercenaries or even a direct attack. The demonkins want to prevent the ascent of another Champion of Yeostar.” Erithia hammered that point into my head, making me wary of it. “As such, you need to become stronger. Far stronger. Make up for being unable to protect Eshe.”

I honestly wished she would quit it with that demotivating speech, but I couldn’t speak up about it. I still felt guilty over Eshe’s death. I still blamed myself. The whole basis for [Battle Frenzy]’s stage one Sloth was my desire to become so strong I would never have to experience something like this ever again. How could I reject that idea at this point?

Andira then followed up with her sister, trying to comfort and motivate me instead of bringing me down. “Champion Hestia, we gods are your guides and teachers. As such, our wisdom to you is to find your sister. Meet up with her and master [Battle Frenzy]. But, even then, do not hold yourself back by only relying on yourself. Even heroes need allies to succeed.”

“Her Holiness has not said it outright, but make your pilgrimage to the altars of the rest of the Pantheon of Light,” Erithia added before becoming silent.

“I expect good fortune, young lady.” Yeostar stood up and walked over to me, kneeling to make up for our size difference. “I am sure you will succeed at this task immaculately. For you have Her Holiness faith. Once you have unlocked your unique Job, come meet me. I shall aid you in your training.”

“Thank you.” I bowed deeply. “I won’t fail. This is my promise to you.”

And I never break my promises.

And once I did, the white world turned black. In the next moment, my eyes opened up and I was back in front of the altar and statue of Yeostar. When I stood up, my parallel minds drew my attention to my bangs, noticing they had turned white. Like, a brilliant white.

After a few seconds, the brightness dulled and it turned back into my crimson hair. I guess every time I entered a divine domain, my hair would turn this color. No wonder Saori, Tasianna, and even Eshe kept mentioning something like this; it was quite eye-catching. And when I turned around, I saw a particular reaction from Jethro.

“Y-You— How did your hair turn white like that? It was so incandescent. Like a holy spell…” He looked at me in wonderment before turning back into that same grumpy person from before. “Who are you?”

“You’ll learn in time. Ask the castle.” And with that, I went back to Master and Tehmrayn, both acknowledging my hair color change in their own style.

“Once again, another proof for the authenticity of your claim, my apprentice. The Light Goddess certainly favors you.”

“You have increased my impression of you, Champion Hestia. Make sure to give it your all during the tournament. A Champion of an Origin God should not lose to some random vagrant.”

“Thank you for your confidence… I guess?”

After our business here was done, we returned to the beach, where we saw a huge stack of merfiends piled up. From the looks of it, there were enough bodies there for a whole village to eat their fill for over a month! Rajah, the twins, and the saurians really went wild!

[“Master, Master!”] Speaking of Rajah, he ran up to me. [“Master, Master! I can evolve!”]

“Hold on, you leveled that quickly!” But I immediately shook my head, realizing it should be obvious he could do something like that. He had [Hestia’s Retainer] after all, so he had an experience booster. “Good! When we return to the inn, I’ll have you evolve, alright? Good work, Rajah!”

[“Yay! Thank you! Can I come back here to train, Master? There is so much I’m learning from Master Krim-Slak!”]

I turned to the blue-scaled carnosilian. “Hold on, are you actually training another member of my party? First Saori, now Rajah?”

“Hey, the kid asked me. How could I say no?” Krim-Slak shrugged. “Although, he got all that experience from us killing all of this. Oi, Kush! You think this is enough!”

For a meal, he meant to say. In any case, after we told them all that happened, Master and the saurians decided they would move into the island for the shrine’s safety. He told me we could take over the rooms in the inn if we wanted, or tell the innkeeper they were leaving. After talking it over with everybody in my party, we decided to take up his offer. After all, our real rooms were the subspace.

We returned back to Elyonda before everybody, after telling Jethro that we’ll meet again when necessary. And, it would probably be soon since the moment we returned to the port, an envoy from the Yeos’s royal family came over to us to deliver a letter.

In it, the seneschal under the authority of the Prince Markval the Fifth, asked me to meet them as only a Champion of Aurena on the day of the festival. In other words, in about three days. They wanted to speak with me about something which they couldn’t disclose in the letter, but I hazard a guess. Jethro probably would be summoned as well, so I couldn’t wait for the surprise on his face.

Since the tournament registration was also on that day, I also had to make sure to visit the arena and sign myself up. Jethro did mention I had to go through a test or something, so I better be in proper form. I had to make sure I got in. Still, considering what I learned from God Yeostar and the goddess today, I should probably get Shaturein to help out with this.

In any case, after we returned to the inn, we told the innkeeper what happened and he agreed to our deal. So long as he was getting paid, he didn’t really care who was inside the room. With everything set, it was time to get things rolling along.

Rajah’s evolution into a D rank, speaking with Shaturein for help, and also getting informed by everybody what they’ve been doing. However, for some reason, no one but Svena, Lorena, and Haati were inside. Saori’s group still haven’t communicated back, and Grimnir’s group were supposedly busy, according to Svena.

As I was beginning to worry about everybody, Aurena suddenly chimed in and told me everything was alright with Saori’s party, and that I should just have faith in her. I guessed I could, but it was still unnerving not to see her around for this long. I guessed this was the problem with everybody having their own set of adventures now.

Come on, Hestia. Get it together.

Three days was a lot of time. With Master around, wasn’t this also the perfect time to show him some of the fruits of my efforts? At the very least, this could be a good time to learn how to combat water monsters; after all, I was still incredibly susceptible against water and ice.

“Hmm, the music is getting more intriguing.” Mother randomly said as she stared out of the window, in the direction of the island. No idea what she was talking about, at this point, but maybe she was finding some joy in this trip right now.

Maybe she’s stressed out. Maybe I’ll plan a Mother-Daughter beach visit?

My schedule was full as always.

A note from AbyssRaven

Somebody described Erithea an Aurena simp, and, I can't help but say it was an apt description. In any case, let's not forget Hestia's schedule is a bit too full so maybe a Daughter-Mother beach day would be nice.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Side Story 34: Saori in the Forest of Garms and Fenrirs.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #1 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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… What is happening?

“We will be meeting with Belzac soon, at least according to the kids. Funnily enough, the location of his shrine is below where I was born.”

“Oh really? … Oh shit! Sorry! Now that I think about it, I think I remember your garm mother mentioning something like speaking with her ancestor or something! I should have told you that sooner!”

“Hmm? Do not worry about it. You know I have not cared about my garm family until the kids got into trouble with Belzac. At least you kept your promise to my garm mother by protecting me up until now, right?”

Those were the last things I spoke with Hestia before my group departed from the subspace and into the area beneath the Belzac garm’s ancestral grounds. There, I found the stone statue depicting the S rank [Three-Eyed Fenrir] Belzac.

The voice of a growly old man entered my mind, addressing Hanazawa and Tatsuya first, thanking them for their help in bringing me here. The four onnikai garms in Hanazawa’s possession then left her and returned to the statue, orbiting him like moons. He then said something to me, though I couldn’t seem to recall what he said right now.

Argh, my head.

My memory was still swimming from the encounter, and the next thing I could remember properly was the sight of a darkened forest, dark to the point it would be impossible for a normal person to see. I couldn’t find the sun or the moon. There was just no light. Thank goodness, [True Wolven Instincts] and [Night’s Caress] were working. My night vision was working well for me.

But even with night vision, the lack of light is making it very hard to navigate. I can’t look too far away.

I couldn’t find my students. Tatsuya, Kyouya, and Hanazawa weren’t around when I woke up. I have been wandering around this place, not only for my own safety, but to find my students. Anxiousness and trepidation. The fear of the unknown. I couldn’t sense any living beings inside this place outside of myself.

In addition, I couldn’t transform back into my wolfkin form. I remembered being in my wolfkin form when I met Belzac, but I woke up here in my original fenrir body. [Humanize] wasn’t working even though my other skills and spells were.

I could generate stygian electricity, my dark elemental spells were working, and my body’s flexibility and function were working well enough. Oh, its seems that I couldn’t summon my [Storage Magic] at all either. What was this place? Where was I?

…

How long have I been in this place? My sense of time was completely ruined by the lack of sun and this dark maze.

…

I looked over at one of the trees, suddenly noticing some smoke coming from its roots. I went closer and covered my right paw with [Shadow Armament], reaching out to grab it. The sensation was similar to touching a shadow — formless and fragile like pudding, but as soft and smooth as water. I pulled on it, ripping the whole tree out of the ground and throwing it away. I looked down, only to see a hole.

These are shadows. Belzac did something. I just don’t know what.

Without [Shadow Armament], I couldn’t pull any of these trees out of the ground, confirming my thoughts even more. If I were to put this clue and the whole night and darkness aspect of this place into question, then Belzac had to have done this. Considering I couldn’t [Humanize] oruse [Storage Magic], this couldn’t be reality.

Well, at least, that was what I believed. This was all probably an illusion, but how was I supposed to break it? Looking at it objectively, and with how I’ve been wandering this place for a while now, it was obviously to trap me. Searching for an exit was making me restless and impatient, so I had to calm down a bit.

In a situation like this, I had to think of my next move thoroughly.

Belzac invited me through Hanazawa and Tatsuya, and even welcomed us, according to my memories. Was he antagonistic? I questioned using my fenrir instinct, or in other words, my gut feeling. No, I don’t dislike him, nor do I feel any hostility towards him. At least, it doesn’t feel right to think of him like that. Apprehensive, maybe, but only because I was a bit afraid of meeting him. Or, to be more specific, confront my fenrir heritage.

A whole year had passed since I was reborn into this world. My memories and thoughts of my mother were slowly becoming less and less important to me, as hard as it was to admit. Being with Hestia and Aurora has eased my mind a lot. Suffice to say, I had stopped worrying so much about something I couldn’t influence.

Of course, there was a part of me feeling guilty about dying before my Mother, and how my death probably would have affected her. Regardless, thinking about it rationally, was use was it? I died; end of the story. Outside of Hestia getting Aurena to also send me back to Earth, what else was there for me to do?

Get stronger.

That was all I could do. To protect my new family and friends, and also make sure Hestia’s Quest ends well, all so I could get that chance. Whether my Mother was alive or not wasn’t my problem, at least not for now. I had to think forward, towards my future, and what I had to do.

And one of those things was to find a way to become stronger. Find a way to overcome my limitations as I did in the past. Just as Hestia and Tasianna grew, so must I. And, for that reason, I agreed to come with Hanazawa and Tatsuya to meet Belzac. Not only to help my students and act responsibly, but also to learn from an S rank in my bloodline. Just as Hestia did.

I came in front of Belzac to finally learn what [Belzac’s Successor] actually meant.

That’s right. What did Ilsaphone say again?

The reward for the Divine Quest Ilsaphone issued to me was three things. First, a single level up. Very kind and needed. Second, a blessing from Edna, the Goddess of Monsters and Fertility as well as the wife of the God of Darkness. If I remembered correctly, I had lost the two “Watched” titles and gained a new one — a blessing.

By the divine System, individual [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa] has lost these titles: [Watched by Edna] [Watched by Ilsaphone]

By the divine System, individual   [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa] is granted the title: [Ambassador of Grim]

Right. That was the System message I remembered. Curiously, my new title was pretty close to Belzac’s nickname, the Harbinger of Grim.

Hold on, when did I learn that information? From a book? No, I wasn’t that interested in Belzac, even before I came here. Did I learn that from the kids or from the wolf himself?

There apparently were some holes in my memories. It felt like a hangover with how hard it was to recall events.

Nevertheless, that wasn’t important. Back to topic, the last reward was information on Belzac’s intentions from Ilsaphone’s mouth. She was as truthful as you could get with something like this. At least, I didn’t think she would want to trick me considering what her goal was supposed to be. Or, maybe I was just naive.

Now, what did she say again?

“Belzac wants you to become the first of his descendants to unlock the full power of [Belzac’s Successor]. If you don’t know yet, titles aren’t exactly easy to receive without specific conditions. The easiest method is to get them from a god. And, upon his death, Belzac made a deal with my mother, Edna. Essentially, [Belzac’s Successor] is the first, still juvenile, form of my mother’s blessing on the Belzac bloodline.”

Belzac became Edna’s Champion in his last moments, when he asked her to keep his soul from reincarnating before his wish for revenge was fulfilled. Through his service to Marsven when he fought and resealed Klea’Hatma when she broke out from the dwarven ruins, it was easy for the Night Goddess to accept his plea.

Instead of being the one to receive the blessing, it was his descendants who did. It was essentially a similar situation to Hestia and her Kargryxmor bloodline. That was also the reason why [Belzac’s Successor] had such an incredible bonus in the form of increased experience and skill proficiency gain.

Belzac's Successor

A title given to a descendant of Belzac that is destined to be the next Belzac. Boosts experience gain and skill proficiency gain. Increases Dark Elemental resistance and proficiency, while also improving the effectiveness of Dark Elemental spells. As a descendant of the mystical three-eyed Fenrir, Belzac, the possessor gains heightened parameters, when fighting with other of its pack

It was to make us stronger so we could do what Belzac and Edna wanted.

“Belzac wants revenge on the people who killed him after he was weakened by his fight with Klea’Hatma. The humans and elves at that time. Like an angered onnikai, he cursed their leaders with his dying breath. Humans die quite easily, but the elves are more resilient to the passage of time. Two of three have died already during battles, but the last is currently still alive.”

How funny that Klea’Hatma was once again involved in all of this. Close to Rashan village in the Greenveil duchy was a set of dwarven ruins we, Aurora, had to delve into in order to solve an onnikai problem. There, we found a mural displaying Belzac’s fight against Klea’Hatma, and was also the place where we found the latter imprisoned in a catalyst.

Then again, if he hadn’t fought Klea’Hatma in the first place, he probably could have continued living and become an SS rank, maybe even stronger. So, Marsven was also at fault for leaving Klea’Hatma alive. Ilsaphone even agreed with my point.

Nevertheless, concerning Edna’s side of the story, Ilsaphone refused to say anything about that, as the reward only involved information on Belzac. A shame.

Hold on, wasn’t there something else?

“Of course, Belzac has more things he wants you to do, but you can hear it from the spirit himself. They aren’t too important, really. Just know that Belzac will welcome you with open arms, so be nice. Oh right, he also told me something about how you had to procreate to make sure his bloodline doesn’t go extinct.Well, the onnikai-possessed garms do have his blood, so its not like everything rests on your shoulders. However, since you are the strongest living Belzac wolf, he will try to ask you to have a lot of sex—”

Yeah, okay! Okay! Let’s forget that part! Not like I needed to remember something as silly as that. Goodness, gracious!

To conclude from that, I was doubly blessed by Edna at this point, although [Belzac’s Successor] wasn’t that important to talk about. And second, Belzac actually wasn’t the enemy here. In other words, this had to be a test.

Should have figured this out sooner, then again, maybe that is the reason for my foggy memory?

However, even after calming my mind down to the point I felt nothing but annoyance at how this test was constructed, I still had no clear way to solve this puzzle. Logically, the best way to find the exit was to hang onto any clues I could find. The one I found the most intriguing was the black mist coming from that one tree from before.

Got it.

I broke apart a sizable chunk of the shadow tree I pulled out and channeled lightning through it, before sticking it into the earth, right next to the hole. With [Shadow Armament], I could manipulate any shadows I wanted, so, I turned this piece of wood into a lightning conductor. It would endlessly channel my lightning, giving me a landmark to return to. Sound was the best sense to use in this place, as seeing in this abyss was too hard.

I began exploring the forest once again, this time with a more realizable objective. At first, I couldn't find any more smoking trees, so I began tearing off two from the ground to see if the first was a fluke or not. Strangely, none of them had a hole underneath them.

So, to make sure, I returned to the landmark, following the sizzling and crackling of the electricity. I placed my leg into the hole, testing if there was some other clue or not. I used [Shadow Dash], sinking my paw directly into it like a shadow. Having made sure there was nothing there, I delved my head into the shadow and began looking around in this “shadow world.”

Once again… nothing.

This wasn’t the actual shadow world. It had the same interior like the usual, which was just blackness, really. However, the real one would always have a light showing through a hole, showing you where the shadow you wanted to teleport to was. Even if the other side was inside the darkest room of the world, there would always be this one indicator!

However, I could not see one. It was similar to the many other tries I performed before. Without a light, it was impossible to use [Shadow Dash] effectively. I would just go lost in the shadow world. It was discouraging to see this hole didn’t have any further answers, but at the very least I knew these smokey trees had something important.

Sighing once more, I began my search anew. There was no reason to give up. I just have to trust in what Ilsaphone told me. There was a way out of this, and I would find it. Still, even if my will was strong to start with, the more I wandered around fruitless, the more my motivation wavered.

Eventually, the sound of my electric landmark vanished. Did I go too far, or did it just stop streaming the lightning? I wasn’t sure. I didn’t care, honestly. I was just getting more and more mentally fatigued. If this was a test, then what was Belzac even testing me for, huh? My walking ability?

[“Uno! Song! Sarasa! Quatre! Varya! Shere! Ajay! Shoyi! Can any of you hear me?!”] I tried calling for my shadow pack. I could feel they were alive, I knew they weren’t dead, but I couldn’t feel them in my shadow nor close by.

This was infuriating. Was that smoke actually a fluke? If so, then I was back to square one! No, even worse! I got my hopes up and landed on a “get fucked” square!

Fuck!

I slammed the ground, accidentally letting a jolt of electricity escape as I lost my temper. Catharsis. A very needed one, honestly. Losing my sense of time and direction while putting me into this weird place was making me scratch my head. I could not understand Belzac’s motives.

Maybe it’s best if I just destroy this place, better than just standing around and— Huh?

The sound of electricity, and it was near. No, it was even closer than this, it came from underneath my belly. Was it my fur? No, I wasn’t letting my mana go wild after the slam I did before. I haven’t heard the lightning landmark for a while now, and I was sure the sound couldn’t just appear out of nowhere like this.

So where was that sound coming from exactly? In this darkness, it was hard to see, but I saw a few bolts of lightning surging on the ground.

That couldn’t be right. Even if my stygian lightning wasn’t like normal electrical energy, that didn’t mean it could continue acting around on the ground — the earth. Insulators and conductors were still a thing, and basic physics rules still applied to it, with a few new additions.

For example, my lightning could still flow through metal well, but had a harder time with something like rocks and other raw minerals. However, due to the effects of [Lightning Shadow] in [Stygian Voltage], my lightning could also stream through any shadows.

… Of course! Why didn’t I think about that earlier? This whole place was one big shadow!

That smoke actually was a clue. It drew my attention and had me use [Shadow Armament] to manipulate the shadow tree and pull it out. What did I do afterwards? Pull out more trees. The whole [Shadow Dash] part was still confusing to me, but if the ground was a shadow, then that meant I could control it.

I covered my entire front legs in shadows and bore my claws right into the ground. As if it was butter, tearing through the earth was easy enough and it didn’t seem like anything was around to fix the crevasse I just created. For some reason, I felt good about this. It seemed like I finally had a clear path forward.

Continue!

I cast [Dark Tendrils] from two trees and had them grab me around my torso, having them act as a safety harness in case all this did was make me fall into an even deeper abyss. Better to be safe. Once I made sure of this aspect, I began digging, throwing away shadow earth like any other dog.

[“—pha! —e up!”]

I heard something. Something else but my own thoughts! This singular moment was enough for me to continue this process with even more fervor! I dug as if my life depended on it! Until—

[“Alpha!”]

[“Uno!”]

My scarred garm’s head suddenly appeared from the ground, calling out my name before he grabbed my leg with his tendrils, pulling me right into the hole.

Alerted by this, my first reaction was to activate the harness around my body to pull me back out, but for some reason, the [Dark Tendrils] dissipated into the air. With nothing holding me back, Uno kept dragging my body even deeper into this darkness… until a light appeared.

My body began feeling lighter. The light blinded me, and in the next moment, Uno was gone and I was in what appeared like a house; an apartment. I noticed I had transformed back into my humanized form, but none of my wolfkin features could be found. I was in my [Humanized Lv. 10] form — a complete human.

Where is the System message?

Strangely, this transformation was done without my consent. I didn’t activate it and, for some reason, a System message didn’t appear. The Divine System was consistent. This shouldn’t happen.

No, wait, forget about that. Where am I now?

First, I was in a forest of pure blackness. Now, I was inside a standard flat. From the look of the tatami mat and how I was laying inside a futon, this had to be from Japan. I push myself up, acting as if I had just woken up.

“Wha—?!” Something fell onto the ground, drawing my attention and freezing me into place. “G-Goma-kun?”

I picked up the black-white dog plushie up, staring at the stitched-up left ear. Now that I remembered, Father had nearly torn off my husky plushie’s ear when I was still a kid. It was his present to me when we went on a family skiing trip in my childhood.

I cried like a storm when I saw Goma-kun’s stuffing sticking out from where his ear was. Mother quickly sewed it up for me, but even then, I was still quite sad since the stitches could be seen. Only after father told me about how scars were medals of deeds did I finally stop crying. Such a childish reasoning, but I bought it up like cupcakes.

I embraced the little husky plush, holding it tightly to my chest. The sensation of his fur touched my arm, causing my eyes to suddenly water.

I missed you.

Adulthood was stressful. When I was still a teen, I had quite a few plushies inside my room, just to give me a place to destress after all the work I had to do for my graduation and college entrance exams. However, after my father died and I was forced to work while attending college, the amount of toys I had around decreased purely because I needed something to let all the built-up stress out on.

Eventually, only Goma-kun survived. Named after sesame seeds since he was white and black, I cherished him too much to throw him away. Every time I looked at his injured ear, my father’s face came back to my mind. Why was he here? I had already forgotten about him during my stay in Peolynca.

You and Uno have a lot in common… If he’s here, then that means this is my room?

I looked around, noticing the messy desk in the corner, swamped with papers and books. There was always more to do for my job as a teacher, since not only did I have to help out my colleagues and prepare for my classes, but also had to help my students as needed. Outside of the rest of the apartment, I rarely fully cleaned my own room.

On the other end of the room was my sewing machine and kit, a skill I learned from Mother, which had helped me a lot in Peolynca. Fashion magazines and other materials I needed to keep up with the fashion world were scattered around, although with how our financial situation was, looking up fancy and beautiful clothes was always just indulging a dream. How wonderful that I was able to become more or less a seamstress in Peolynca.

However, even in the face of all of this, I still only had a single question—

Where am I?

I stood up and walked over to the door, where I noticed a thick book about traveling the world. It had many interesting tidbits on traveling and what to look out for, especially towards countries with a more “divisive” culture.

I left my room and went into the living room. Our apartment was small, so there were only two bedrooms, a living room, and a bathroom. Then again, it probably was larger than what you would find in the main districts of Tokyo, but for my home city, Yokohama, this place still had a pricey rent.

Hmm? What is this smell?

This was strange. I was hearing something happening in the kitchen. The sound of sizzling oil and the scent of herbs and spices welcomed me into the room, drawing me closer to it until I saw somebody there I never expected.

“O-Okaa-san?!”

It was my mother.

“Hmm? Saori-chan? Why are you already awake? It’s only five.”

That was right. I always woke up at 5:30 am. Not only to prepare for my own breakfast, but also for my mother, since she was ill, not only physically but mentally, after Father’s death. After I was done, I would prepare for my trip to work and take the next earliest train to Tokyo, where Shiroko High School was.

Mother had never cooked after the tragedy. Her cooking an omelet all while looking at me as if I shouldn’t be awake right now, not only shook me to the core but caused my already watery eyes to let tears fall down my face again. Not only from nostalgia, but also ‘cause one of my earnest wishes came true.

“Oh! Why are you crying? Did something happen at work yesterday?” Mother rushed up to me, caressing my face and wiping the tears off my cheeks.

Her black hair, still unkempt from sleeping, had lost its luster and had strands of white, a result of years of lack of care and stress. She would still bath and clean herself, but she was mostly unmotivated when it came to proper skin and hair care. It also didn’t help that we also had to be more conservative with our money.

However, even with all of that, her face was exactly how I remembered it, but with more emotions. She always had a deadpan expression whenever I wasn’t around and would always force herself to smile. She was heartbroken from father’s death. And, although I understood it, I sometimes wished I could shout and tell her to get over it already. Watching her wither away pained me.

So, seeing her so lively, rushing towards me with a worried face tugged on my emotions.

“… Nothing.” I embraced her for a moment, causing her to giggle. “What are you cooking? Are you sure you haven’t gone rusty, Okaa-san?”

“Oh!” She pushed out of my hug and frowned jokingly at me. “Don’t say that to your mother. I thought I had raised you better. Go ready the table, and wait for me to remind you from whom you learned how to cook!”

The both of us chuckled. How long has it been since we joked like this?

Breakfast was simple. Steamed rice, omelet, miso soup, seaweed salad with sesame seeds, and a grilled filet of salmon. With a warm oolong tea, Mother’s favorite, to finish it off, this was as standard as you could get. In a way, I missed something normal like this.

We ate together.

Enjoying the food and talking about some mundane stuff was fun to me. How long has it been since I had done this with my mother? Instead of frowning whenever I entered my mother's room, we were both smiling and laughing. It felt like we were a family again. The burdens of the past, gone.

Even if all we talked about was my work, I kept telling her everything that happened since I became a teacher at Shiroko High. How I stumbled and felt overwhelmed by the fact my first job was to become a homeroom teacher for high schoolers with parents who probably had the money to hire a hitman to kill me if I fuck up their children. Or, how the stress of having to earn money for our medical bills forced me to become the perfectionist Hanazawa accused me of being.

I had to be a perfect teacher. Even if I wanted to rest and have some quality de-stress moments, I couldn’t. If my class, class 3-2, could continuously pump out high-scoring students, I could gain bonuses and raises. More money to hopefully heal and restore my family.

Now that I thought about it clearly, maybe the reason why I disliked Hanazawa and acted so cold around her on Earth was because of this reason? It wasn’t because she was messing up her potential or how ungrateful she acted around her heritage, it was because I identified her as an intelligent young woman. And this student could get me another raise… but would never listen to my instructions to do so. I was frustrated.

In the end, did my students really mean much to me? Or were they just sacks of yen I had to grow to harvest.

“You seem to love your students.” Mother smiled widely, showing enough wrinkles that nobody would have believed she was only 51 years old. “I didn’t expect you to love your teacher position so much.”

“… Neither did I.”

No.

The memories of my time with all my students. My time as the homeroom teacher of class 3-2. I was only 24 when I met them. Due to this small gap in our age did I manage to bond with most of them, especially with the girls and the scholastic-focused students, like Nishio.

How we celebrated after everybody passed their final exams in their first year. The kids dragged me into a pretty expensive restaurant, even saying they would cover everything from their pockets. It was embarrassing, since I was the adult, but no way could I afford to pay for any of this. Still, it was a fond memory.

So, no, the students did mean something to me. Outside of our relationship as teacher and students, we were quite friendly with each other. And now, after we were reunited in Peolynca, I had to fully admit we had become friends. I might have had ulterior motives as a teacher, but I knew the kids already knew about it.

Maybe if I had realized this earlier, maybe I would have been able to connect with Asaka. Or, at the very least, I wouldn’t have turned into such a stick-up-her-ass adult.

“Haha, then I met this girl named Hestia. No, wait, she went with ‘Miss Dragon’ for a while until I gave her that name. A very weird girl, honestly.”

“Oh, weird sounds good to me? It does make life more exciting right?”

“Yeah. It did.”

Reflecting on it, I think my time with Hestia and as a garm had definitely changed me. I was more willing to take risks, act more heroically similar to what I thought father was as a firefighter, and also be more casual about things. In our first half of our meeting, I was the one mostly lecturing Hestia and trying to push my ideals on her, but that sort of changed in the other half.

As Hestia became more confident and more willing to accept herself, I became more envious of her growth as a person. From the shy, self-deprecating dragon whelp I first met in the forest, to an inspiring, reliable heroine. I came to the Belzac forest because I wanted to change as she did, outside of just becoming stronger.

“And we fought and traveled together. We made more friends, more allies, but also quite a few enemies, sadly. However—” I stopped myself from continuing.

However, Mother already knew. “She’s your family now, too, right?”

“… Yeah.”

I looked at our already finished breakfast. We had already finished it ages ago. The stories I told were too engrossing for me to end, as every single memory was like treasure to me. I knew how fleeting life could be. My father died before we could travel the world, and I died before I could help my mother.

As such, every moment should be valued like treasure. At the end of your life, all that will remain with you would be your memories. A precious commodity. Some take it too lightly with how short a human life could be. After all, we never know when our lives would and could end. Sometimes, being a bit hedonistic would be best.

“…” Tears ran down my eyes once again, dripping as fast as a waterfall to the point Mother jumped up and ran over to me with a handkerchief. Wiping my tears away, she soothed me as if I was a small girl again. “Okaa-san…”

My weak voice reached my mother’s ears. “Yes, my dear?”

“Huek! I love you! Huek, kuek… And I miss you!” I forced my words out through a torrent of snot and emotions. “I’m sorry I left you! I’m sorry for dying before you! I want to see you again… Huek! I want to see Otou-san, again! I want us all to be happy!”

My mother to the right, and my father to the left. All together in a hug. Little wishes. Little prayers. Never to reach the proper ears.

“My sweet child…” I felt her hand stroking my hair and back. Her warmth was comforting. “I love you, too. We’ll always be there for you. In your hearts.”

“I hope…” I released myself from our hug and looked directly into my “Mother’s” own weary face. “Thank you… for giving me closure. But, you're not my mother. I can’t stay here forever.”

A wry smile formed on her face. Mothers knew best.

This wasn’t an illusion. This was a dream. No System messages, a memory full of holes as if I had a hangover, and a comforting place for me to find peace at. However, all Mother did was listen to me, never talk about herself. I also did not forget about Uno’s voice. I wouldn’t forget about my garms as I almost did Goma-kun!

“… You could be at peace here, Saori-chan. No more of the woes of the outside, no more heartbreaks. An illusion to keep you safe.” “Mother” tried to argue back, but I shook my head and wiped away my tears.

“Enough. I know this place is all made from shadows.” My shadow crept up my leg and began covering my arm like a black gauntlet. “Enough tricks. Stop this. You aren’t my mother.”

“… She is not. But I am.”

Mother dissipated into the air, flying away like a storm of sakura petals. The walls of our apartment broke down, revealing a translucent figure coming closer to me. I couldn’t guess its figure at first, but with every step it took, it became larger and more detailed.

Eventually, the creature towered over me like an elephant. It was see-through like a ghost or spirit, but I could at least make it out as a wolf. A giant monster wolf — a garm.

[“And you are my pup.”]

I recognize that face. It was the first person I met when I was reborn.

“Hello… Mother.”

A note from AbyssRaven

Hope you guys enjoyed a more Saori focused chapter resolving around her past and helping her overcome some of it.

P.S. My patrons asked me why this chapter isn't a main chapter, well, the reason is because while Saori is the deuteragonist of the story, Hestia is still the main story. As such, because this chapter currently has nothing to do with Hestia's plot line, it is considered a side story. Hope that explains it. And hopefully I didn't scare people away with the Side Chapter title.

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For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters for the whole month! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Side Story 35: A Fenrir’s Legacy.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #1 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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“Erm…”

There was a pain in my head. My bed, no, the floor was cold and dirty. While opening my eyes, I pushed myself up, only to feel something soft fall off me as I did. Deja vu? This sudden realization woke me up entirely and I snapped my head towards the object, only to actually see my husky plushie.

“Goma-kun?” I picked it up, but quickly recognized from the feel of it that it wasn’t my old toy. It was actually my slime! “Shoyi?!”

The husky plush squirmed, even twitching its stitched-up ear, before its form softened and turned into some fluid. Eventually, it transformed back into my black-purple slime, Shoyi. While I was still surprised at this transformation, Shoyi took advantage of my hesitation and moved right up to my shoulder.

“Oh, hey, don’t be like that! You know I’m ticklish!” I grit my teeth, trying my best not to laugh but couldn’t help but form a grin.

[““““Alpha!””””] Four voices appeared in my head as Shoyi kept playing with me. I turned my head around, only to be surprised at my four garms charging and pushing me onto the ground, only to assault me with a storm of tongue licks.

[“Alpha, you woke up!”] Uno’s voice showed an explosive elation, sounding as if he was waiting for me for an eternity; however, I couldn’t begin processing what he said as my face was starting to feel disgusting.

“Stop! Stop it! Argh, eww! Urgh! Stop!” I grimaced as I got some of my garm’s saliva into my mouth, trying my best to spit it out, only for my garms to continue licking my face. Strong I might be, but it felt like it was impossible for me to break out of this.

[““Master!””]

[“Alpha!”]

Even more voices suddenly appeared, this time they came from three of my virigresses. When I looked out, Ajay and Shere, the two virigress cubs, jumped into the mix and began cuddling me. Thankfully, Varya wasn’t doing anything, but it felt like she was watching me die like a bystander. I could use some help here!

Jeez, what is wrong with them? Hahaha!

I was confused, left in the dark, so to speak. Just why and how did I earn such a greeting?

But it only took a few more seconds for me to finally piece together the puzzle. The puzzle I had inside my dream. The fog was being lifted, unveiling the threads of memories and patching up the holes. I remembered everything, and once I did, I commanded everybody to stand down.

Hearing the tone of my voice being more assertive, my garms, virigresses, and Shoyi stopped playing with me. I pulled some water out from my [Storage Magic], confirming I was back in reality, and cleaned myself up before standing up. Once I did, I gaze at my surroundings.

Black sphere? … Right, now I remember.

“Uno, how long have I been asleep?”

He nodded and gave a quick answer, [“Almost two weeks, Alpha. We counted the moons while you were in your trial.”]

Right. Right. Still, two weeks? I was stuck in that black forest for two weeks until I figured it out? Wow. Not the best, Saori.

… Got it. Right, that happened. Now I remember…

[“Saori Segawa.”] The voice of an older man entered my mind as I gazed upon the stone statue of a once proud fenrir. It was made in his appearance. [“I have waited for you to come for a long time. Hmm. Already B rank and you are still only a ‘pup.’ Outstanding.”]

After he greeted and thanked both Hanazawa and Tatsuya, the Belzac, the S rank [Three-Eyed Fenrir] spoke to me, treating me as if I was a long lost kid, or something. With his deal with Edna, his soul didn’t reincarnate, but was transformed into an onnikai, so I was actually speaking with a person from over 2000 years ago.

If I were still the old Saori from back on Earth, getting to personally speak with someone that old would have probably made me giddy, albeit, also a bit scared. After all, getting such a chance would have been so monumentally small, only some weird magic or eldritch-like science could cause something like that.

However, I was, more or less, apprehensively nervous about being here.

[“I heard Goddess Ilsaphone had told you what I wanted with you and about my deal with Goddess Edna,”] he continued.

“Hmm? Wait, where did you learn that? Did you speak with her?” I noted the hints in that sentence immediately, but Belzac himself wasn’t really willing to answer it in full.

[“Does it matter? No.”]

Oh, right? Fuck you, too, smartass. Thankfully, I did not send that message. Phauuuewww.

[“Then I shall be brief about it, but first, did you learn what Ilsaphone wanted from all of this?”]

I tilted my head, unsure what he meant by this.

[“I had made two deals with the gods. First, Edna, to make my bloodline sworn to her as Champions. In exchange, I would not be reincarnated by her authority and I would be allowed to receive my revenge. The second is with Ilsaphone, to assure my soul doesn’t deteriorate with how long it could take for me to take my revenge. In exchange, I became an onnikai, sworn to aid her in her creation of a patron race.”]

The statue began to twitch and shake. I couldn’t see his onnikai form, but I remembered Hanazawa telling me his soul was trapped in the statue in order to prevent him from going feral like Kiiro.

“If you’re talking about onnikais, then we already have some of them settling down,” Hanazawa chimed in. “They are already taking over undead remains. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, so what does a Goddess need our help with, anyways?”

She was right. My four garms and the onnikais from Estralia were prime examples of Ilsaphone’s plan succeeding. She should know everything going on with them, so why was Belzac stating such a request? If Ilsaphone spoke with him, then she should have mentioned that part.

[“Wrong.”] However, Belzac declined our assessment. [“I know naught of what you speak, but the only four successes in Ilsaphone’s plan are yours, Saori. Your pack. Come!”]

I snapped my head to the ground, hearing some low growling coming from there. My four garm’s head peeked out from my shadow, scowling and baring their teeth at Belzac. They’ve been feeling uncomfortable ever since we came here.

[“Hrm? What is this attitude? Pups! Do you not know who I am?!”]

A terrifying aura erupted from the statue, paralyzing everybody’s body. It had to be [Tyrant’s Aura]! That oppressive feeling of some giant monster staring you down, thinking of you as nothing but an ant in its way. That instinctual fear to run away was there, but every single cell was too terrified to listen to my mind.

[Terror (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

“Urgh! Sensei!” Tatsuya and Kyouya fell on the ground, having lost their strength.

“Arck! Not this shit again!” Hanazawa tried to use her new unique skill, but she could only kneel in the end, too overwhelmed by Belzac’s presence.

“Urgh!” I stepped forward and shrouded my students in my shadow before manipulating a separate part into a shield for them. I glared at Belzac’s statue, channeling lightning around my body despite how much my cells were telling me to run and to not fight him!

This is a test. Remember what Ilsaphone said! He needs me. I will not be dominated!

Controlling my mana, I infused energy into my muscles, slowly raising my trembling arm up, ready to shoot a lightning bolt at him to stop. The pressure was getting to my head, making it feel like it could explode at any moment. With every step I took towards Belzac, the more suffocating it became.

[Terror (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

“St-op! It— Arghk!” I tried to shoot out the stygian lightning, but I tripped, having lost the necessary strength to stand up anymore.

Gotta turn back! Shadow Dash!

But before I touched the ground, a black magic circle appeared underneath me before my garms’ [Black Tendrils] grabbed my arms and pulled me directly into the shadow world. The momentary respite of not having to feel Belzac’s aura was refreshing, but a chill went down my spine as I felt something lurking behind me.

When I turned around, I—

[“Hmph!”]

— saw Belzac’s… statue. I looked around, noticing the rocky walls. I wasn’t in the shadow world anymore.

[“Hahahaha! Brilliant! Brilliant! You really are the one, Saori! Gahahahahahahaha! Yeessss! I’ve been waiting for you for 2000 years! Gahahahahahaha!”]

“W-What?” I looked up. I felt my butt on the ground and I could see my students sweating profusely from all that pressure from before.

[“What brazenness! What bravery! What stoicness in the face of indomitable power! Ooh, you remind me too much of myself when I faced that archdemon of lust, pup! Gahahahahaha! Ahh, like staring at a younger me!”]

… He really sounds like some yakuza boss at this point.

[“But, let this be a lesson to you, Saori. The shadow world is not yours alone! It is the domain of the God of Darkness and every dark mage can enter it. But, if you face against a master of the shadows, then be prepared to witness the horrors looming in the abyss.”]

I gulped. That was no threat. Something happened in the shadow world, but it was a total blank to me right now. No matter how much I tried to remember, I couldn’t.

[“A taste of the powers I can bequeath unto you. What you may learn.”] The statue shook and the four garm onnikais Hanazawa controlled created a purple, ghostly hand. [“Accept my proposal. Become my successor, get revenge on the person who doomed our bloodline, become a Champion even Edna would have never imagined, and become the catalyst for the creation of a new race!”]

Uno, Song, Sarasa, Quatre, Varya, Shere, Ajay, Shoyi; all the members of my shadow pack, minus Rajah as he was with Hestia, were immediately ejected from my shadow, falling onto the ground. They immediately got back on their feet, glaring and growling at Belzac, but the wolf only laughed.

[“Gahahahaha! Your pack looks passable, but there is still so much more they can accomplish. The summit is yet so far!”] Once his laughter stopped, his attention was back to me. [“I can show you the extent of our bloodline, Saori. We are more than just an S rank bloodline, we can and will reach the peak! Join me, my descendant.”]

“… No.”

[“Huh?!”]

““Sensei?!””

“Oi, what, Segawa?!”

I surprised everybody with my answer, but it was all too obvious to me.

“I am not your pawn. Bloodline? I haven’t even accepted you as anything but a random dead wolf.” I scowled, despite knowing what would happen if I were to get angry here. “I am not your errand girl, Belzac. I am not here to do your bidding or get your revenge.”

I stood up, lightning wrapped around my body.

“I came here to learn more about being a garm, but what am I looking at here? A dead wolf who built up a grudge for over two millennia. You aren’t that [Three-Eyed Fenrir] anymore, you are only another onnikai. Anger consumes you, driving you forward with every step.” I boldly announced. “Maybe you can show me how to master my abilities, but family? We are not. I will never accept you as anything but a stranger!”

[“…”]

“…”

A complete silence. I couldn’t feel any hostility or malice coming from the statue, only awkwardness. Eventually, the quiet was broken by a single person clapping their hands. I snapped my head around, bewildered I couldn’t detect them prior.

“It—ay. —zac.” A weird, indistinguishable accent filled my ears, only managing to pick up a few words there and there.

When they finally came into the light, my eyes widened as their silhouette were revealed. Three people. All women.

They were the—

A rumbling. Grruwwwwuik! Or something similar escaped my stomach. I was hungry.

[“Ancestor told us these shadow cocoons are similar to an evolution cocoon. The mana would keep you from starving, but—”]

“I’ll be hungry when I wake up. Right. I need to account for how the System works.”

My flashback stopped. My memories were there, all neatly placed in a neat row for me to remember. Now I knew again how it all happened, but remembering any further was too much of a drag. I was starving.

Effects: [Starvation (Moderate)]

Ah, that’s why I felt like I was withering away a bit. Good thing I have a high amount of Health to endure this.

Even with how I made it seem so non-threatening, the fact still stood that I was losing Health and with all the playing I did with my shadow pack, I had ignored the pain coming from my body. Thinking could wait for later. First, I needed to eat.

I pulled out a Health potion and drank it to recover my Health before taking out multiple dishes and also food for my garms. They weren’t hungry like me, but it was still good for us to have a meal together since it had been almost two weeks for them.

“Itadakimasu.” I clapped my hands together before cutting up a steak for myself, signaling my shadow pack to begin feasting, too. After I remembered how they rejected Belzac with me, I felt our bond growing even tighter.

As a pretty large fenrir, I had to eat a lot to keep myself from going hungry, so when I was starving, I could probably challenge Hestia’s normal eating habits. Plates and bowls began to be emptied, all neatly piled up until there were three stacks of ten. My garms were already finished, but I still needed more.

After ten more servings, each which would have been enough to fill a single athlete from Earth, I let out a giant sigh and touched my bloated belly and fell to the ground. I could feel my head warming up from shame, embarrassed at how unladylike I was acting right now. I lamented how I should have gotten a bit drunk, just so I could ignore this unnerving feeling.

Whatever, not any different from stress eating.

Eating a lot to calm down my nerves after looking at my mother’s medical bills, while the stress itself helped me stay thin in a way. Balanced lifestyle. That dream honestly brought up some rather sad memories which I really would have liked to stay hidden. I loved my mother, but it really wasn’t a pleasant time, to say the least.

I then stood up, groaning a bit from the food moving in my belly, before going over to the wall of this black sphere. I covered my right arm with [Shadow Armament] and pulled a piece of it off, creating an opening for everybody to leave.

Once outside, I noticed I was still inside the cave where Belzac’s soul was. I turned around, noticing the shadow ball was see-through from the outside. Meaning, my shadow pack — outside of Shoyi I believed — [Shadow Dash] inside once they saw me awake. No wonder I hadn’t noticed their presence until the very last moment.

“Thanks for staying with me all this time, Shoyi.” I caressed my little slime. Despite not spending as much time with him and only using him as our company’s trash and waste disposal, I could still feel a ton of affection coming from this little guy.

The little guy wobbled around in happiness, making me feel even worse.

[“Alpha…”] Once I was done thanking Shoyi, Song suddenly called for me, pointing my attention forward to a translucent wolf around the size of my garms. She was sitting and was only eying me.

How long has she been waiting there?

Without me needing to say anything, my entire shadow pack quickly dived back into my shadow, knowing the ghost and I needed some private time. Once they were gone, I walked up closer to the spirit-like garm and stood in front of her, not knowing what to say.

Until some words slipped out of my mouth. “I did not expect the dream to end immediately upon our meeting.”

[“… Ancestor set the illusion up to test your ability to manipulate shadows, in addition to being able to discern it being a trick. You took longer than he expected, but…”] She paused, looking me up and down. [“So I took advantage of his disappointment. I slipped myself into that moment. So I could…”]

She stopped talking again. Her telepathic voice was filled with pain.

“So you could get to know me. I get it.” I nodded, still feeling awkward.

It was obvious enough to guess with how she worded her sentence. In other words, my “dream” ended the moment Belzac noticed I was free, and it coincidentally happened after I finished confessing my regrets to my fake mother. Well, it gave me a chance to find closure with my memory of Mother, so I couldn’t complain.

On the other hand, the garm before me missed her chance.

“You… are my mother?” I asked carefully.

She nodded.

“Then, how are you… here? Speaking with me? I saw your body. I saw Hestia burying you with—”

[“The rest of our family, yes. Your father and your elder siblings. All fell on that day when they confronted the young reincarnator dragon. I, too, did, but I still managed to relay my last wishes to her. Seeing as you are alive and well, it seemed she kept her promise to me.”] I felt happiness coming from her, but also a hint of regret.

Hestia had mentioned something about promising my garm mother to protect me when we first met. I had to admit, I felt nothing when she told me that.

“Then, should you—” I stopped myself from finishing that sentence. It still felt hard for me to accept that this was my mother in this world, but Hestia and Melloxtressa came into my mind as I saw the grief in her eyes.

Child and mother, separated only to be reunited a year later after the former had grown up. A chance for a childhood, gone, never to be obtained. If I had continued speaking, I was sure my words would have cut even deeper than a blade. There was no need to torment this poor mother of mine.

As such, I calmed down as I mentally reevaluated how Hestia and Melloxtressa dealt with their initial meeting. Unlike Hestia, I could suppress my emotions, especially after I had that moment with my dream mother. If that illusion was this garm’s work, then I owed her at the very least to act reasonable.

“How did you manage to remain here? To talk with me?” I asked my question as calmly as possible.

And from the look of it, I didn’t agitate her, so I called that a success. [“In my last moments, I made a deal with our Ancestor, Belzac. He woke up when you were born, apparently. By surrendering my life, he told me I could entrust you with that dragon whelp. In exchange, I wanted him to allow even a sliver of me to meet you once you’ve grown strong enough to become Ancestor’s successor.”]

Hestia did mention that latter part when I mentioned wanting to meet Belzac. That girl had forgotten the second part of the promise entirely, and only remembered it at the very last moment. Honestly!

My garm mother continued, [“My actual soul has already met the Goddess of Death. This is only a part of it, a small remembrance so I could meet you. I am bound here similar to the other fenrir onnikais Belzac has under his command. In other words…”]

Her translucent body began to shrink, condensing itself into a small creature, looking very similar to a lesser faefolk.

[“I am an onnikai,”] she stated before turning back to her previous form.

“…” I was speechless.

A mother who loved her child so much, she would sacrifice her life to make sure her guardian was prepared to face any new dangers. She ignored the pain of her dying body and trained that guardian, giving her combat styles, strategies, and also managed to humble her. You could argue Tasianna was Hestia’s first teacher, but to be honest, it should have been this garm before me.

And even after dying, a small part of her still wandered this place, waiting diligently for her child to return. She hid herself at first, and only appeared once she saw an opportunity. She created an illusion, where daughter and mother could talk. She gave that daughter a chance to speak and cry, despite those emotions being directed at another woman she considered mother, and all that while she remained patient and quiet, considerate of her daughter’s own inner turmoil.

It could feel her sincerity. I could now understand why Hestia talked so positively about my garm mother. I was conflicted on how to feel. This was my mother, but I still couldn’t accept her as that. However, I felt extremely thankful to her for what she did.

I just didn’t know what to say.

[“… Come with me, Saori. You are the first of your allies to break through the illusion,”] she called for me before beginning to move deeper into the tunnel.

I sighed deeply and followed behind her. My chance to say my thanks was gone. And this awkwardness between us continued as we walked. Sadly, my garm mother wasn’t like Melloxtressa. While the latter could take the lead to help Hestia warm up to their relationship, my mother and I were both too unsure how to bridge the gap.

And it wouldn’t come any time soon, since the moment we reached the end of this tunnel, a familiar face greeted me.

“Ooooh, there you are, Saori! Hoho, you sure took your time in that dream. A beauty sleep to keep your cute face fresh and youthful, right?” A blond woman with blood-red eyes walked up to me. Her elven ears perked up as she smiled before taking a sip from her suspicious dark red drink.

“Goddess Vivachel? Oh right, right. You and your sisters appeared.”

The appearance of this elven goddess reminded me of the three people who appeared during my argument with Belzac — Ilsaphone, Vivachel, and Kronnaz. I hadn’t expected them to be there, but without them, I was sure my arguement with Belzac wouldn’t have concluded in a peaceful manner. They were the ones who suggested to Belzac to train us, which prompted him to send us into those shadow cocoons for his trial.

“Hrm, two weeks of staying inside that shadow world, with nothing but your own thoughts must have been trying for a healthy mind. Don’t mind it, don’t mind it.” She wagged her finger, telling me to sort my thoughts quickly and to get up to date. “So, did you change your mind in any way? I bet that old wolf would appreciate a positive answer.”

“… The answer is still a no.” I was blunt. I still thought Belzac’s request was annoying and felt too alienated to accept we were related.

The reason for the trial was to actually give me time to rethink Belzac’s proposal, to accept my role as Edna’s Champion and also to get revenge for his death. To essentially right what was wrong. However, I just came back from one revenge Quest, and was not okay with another one. There was too much vengeance around me, anyways.

“Oh? Not even to my mother’s proposal? Didn’t you receive Mother’s blessing? You won’t accept the responsibility?” Vivachel quizzed me, looking more curious than offended.

“As I told your older sister, I am not completely apprehensive of it, but with how Belzac’s quest would become my third Divine Quest if I accepted, I cannot take on such a role with those prerequisite.”

“Well, still, understandable. However, once you pass the trials here, it will become hard for you to develop your Unique Job without more aid from Belzac. He is the origin of your bloodline, after all, and you should have tasted his power already.”

Divine Quest: Pass Belzac’s Trials and Training

Quest Giver: Goddess of Death and Necromancy, Ilsaphone

Description: Just pass Belzac’s training.

Reward: Unique Job Unlock

It was an incredibly simple Quest, but its reward was also not the most impressive. Unlocking the ability to get a Unique Job was nice, but it didn’t mean I could earn one immediately. That was the problem, and why I considered the rewards appropriate.

Considering what Vivachel said, I had to agree that learning more from Belzac could help me. To create his trial, he created not only an illusion which I thought was real for a time, but inside this place, it had an almost dream-like reality to it. Seeing as how a projection of my recovered mother appeared.

Of course, there could be more Belzac could teach me, but I wasn’t so sure if it was worth agreeing to his incredibly selfish request. Tasianna was a friend, Belzac was just a stranger. Doing all these revenge jobs was getting rather annoying.

[“Please, consider it,”] my garm mother implored me to, but I could only stay silent. It didn’t feel right to refute it again.

“Now, now, Saori. Good daughters take care of their mothers, right?” Vivachel tapped me softly on my shoulder, before tracing her finger along my jaw, nudging me to look her straight into her eyes. “And since I am a good daughter, I have to make sure my mother gets what she wants.”

It immediately felt like my consciousness was sinking right into her ruby glare. I was unable to speak back as I could feel my mental protection skills were doing their best to drag me out of it, but it was all futile. I was entranced, drawn in deeper and deeper…

… Until I was released.

“I jest! Hohohoho!” Vivachel laughed out of glee as I flinched backward, feeling cold sweat forming along my forehead. As I tried to control my breathing and beating heart, the vampire goddess produced a blood fan from the red liquid inside her glass before gesturing with her finger for me to follow. “Come, come, little bloodling. You want to see your students, no?”

Jeez… why do I always get tangled with these weird people?

Still, I did as she wanted me to, and what I saw in the next cavern sent another chill down my spine. I wasn’t hallucinating when I saw the three Night Sisters, and I sure hoped my eyes weren’t lying to me right now, as I could see both Ilsaphone and Kronnaz sitting inside two individual black spheres.

Vivachel told me to look inside, so I did. In the first, I saw Kronnaz meditating in front of Tatsuya’s and Kyouya’s sleeping bodies. Vivachel then asked me if I was curious what the two were dreaming of, but before I could reject that idea, Vivachel smirked gleefully and began sending me thoughts.

There, I saw Tatsuya biting his nails short in school, anxiously waiting for his parents to come back from court. Apparently, his mother was sued by Yoichiro Akabane, Japan’s most notorious persecutor and the father of Franz Akabane, one of my best students.

Something had happened when Mister Akabane visited Tatsuya’s mother’s coffee shop, and this altercation led to the former suing the latter for damage. Since it was a civil proceeding, Akabane couldn’t exactly present himself, but from Tatsuya’s memories, his parents told him how Akabane literally controlled his lawyer to do his bidding.

Tatsuya’s father was a CEO of a rather successful international trading company, and he told Tatsuya Akabane instigated this situation with his wife to sabotage him. In the end, Akabane won the trial and almost caused the coffee shop to be closed. At the end of the day, this drama didn’t ruin Tatsuya’s father, but it still gave him some bad press he needed to answer to the board members.

Is this why Tatsuya hated Franz so much? Because of this? I questioned, now realizing how much it made sense.

When I was still their teacher, those two were the worst student partner pairs. Their anti-synergy was so problematic that it made the usually honor student Franz get a failing grade during one of the partner projects. I learned from that moment, if I wanted my students to pass, I could never, ever pair them together. My paycheck rested on that fact.

Back to the topic at hand, Tatsuya’s dream then looped again, and he found himself right at the beginning, learning of the trial, and then witnessing his parents arguing with each other about what to do about it. With every new loop, Tatsuya would try something to make sure his parents won, whether it was to use his Peolyncian power or something else, but it would all still end in failure.

It was disheartening to watch, so I turned over to Kyouya’s. Unfortunately for me, while his dream was simpler, it wasn’t anywhere easier to digest.

Body shaming. When I first met Kyouya, he was already a fit, athletic young man, but from the dream, I saw him struggling with his weight as a young boy and in his early teens. He would be ridiculed not only by his schoolmates but also from his cousins, all driving home how he was sweaty, ugly, and dumb.

The poor boy was driven into a corner by the public shame, forgoing eating for entire days to “diet,” only to fall into his craving the next day and eat so much it made the previous day a waste. Eventually, his father forced him into a gym, telling him “if you want to change, do it here!” A professional trainer was hired, and while Kyouya had his misgivings at the start, eventually warmed up to it. Not only did he lose weight but also gained muscles, eventually turning him into the person he was now.

However, from the looks of it, he was going through some internal problems concerning his body after being transported into this new world. How compared to people like Hestia, Yorshka, and Muraina, he was insignificant compared to them, and how his own Unique skill could never measure to the strength he wanted. He was glad Hestia removed the skill through her usurper rights, but was now unsure how to progress for the future.

Just like when he was still overweight, he needs somebody to guide him in the correct direction. He’s unsure where his future will go.

And my thoughts were proven correct when the reason why Kyouya couldn’t break out of his dream was the fact he was theorycrafting what the best way forward was. Was it to ask Yorshka for more tips or should he ask one of King Drangleic’s knights? Should he learn magic from Hestia and Melloxtressa, or should he learn from Grimnir to become a craftsman. He wasn’t sure.

“Don’t think about breaking them out.” Vivachel suddenly stopped sending me thoughts and drew me back to reality.

“I was not planning to,” I scoffed at the mischievous vampire queen, earning me a hearty laugh from her. “I was about to say, I did not want to see their thoughts. You act too hastily.”

I already had a feeling this goddess was an extremely playful one from our meeting in the dungeon where the real Parilostro Resclave was located. Now that I was speaking with her, I was now 100% sure of it.

Ignoring her, I turned around to Hanazawa, where I noticed something different compared to the boys. Instead of sleeping on the ground, she was meditating right in front of an analyzing Ilsaphone. The ying-yang mana symbols from her Unique skill [Twilight Paladin] were floating right in front of her.

“Hmm?” I tilted my head, prompting Vivachel to answer.

“Just like you, Asaka already has a patron god. Both of you have a clear path forward, when it comes to training and improvement of your skills. On the other hand, the two boys are still in a limbo. That’s why Kroza wanted to help them, since they needed the guidance of a true warrior more than a mage.” She pointed at Ilsaphone and herself. “Elsa is Asaka’s patron goddess, and you already have mother, and Belzac, really.”

[“The first trial is tailored towards each person,”] my garm mother added. [“You went through a forest because the Ancestor wanted to learn about your mind and your control over shadows. The male pups have an issue since they do not have a strong, profound reason to fight for the future, so they must analyze their past. The girl likewise had no real goal and is probably going through the same process, but in her case, she has the Goddess of Death impeding and directly challenging her ideals and convictions.”]

Vivachel nodded. “The reason why you are out first is that your trial didn’t ask for your psychological profile. Belzac only wants you for your strength. Asaka probably will be the second to come out, I guess, since she has my sister directly guiding her. But, who knows?”]

Considering Hanazawa’s troubled past with her abusive and neglectful parents, and the death of her brother, I would believe she would have more problems. Unlike Tatsuya and Kyouya, I asked somebody about Hanazawa’s background. In this case, Haruka, her current best friend, so I could understand the mind of that girl.

Hope it works out.

I sighed and hoped my former students would do well, before turning my head over to Vivachel. “I have a question. Why are the three of you helping us out with our growth? And why aren’t you helping any of them?”

“My dear, we gods can do whatever we like.” She smiled arrogantly. “Kroza took an interest in the boys, while Elsa is trying to groom Asaka. On the other hand, why am I not helping out? Because I have no fancy for any of you. If I am to train a mortal, it must be a blessed of mine, at least.”

So, the other two are nice, while you aren’t? Is that what you— Hold on.

At the mention of “mortals,” I suddenly realized something I hadn’t thought of before. Something that shouldn’t be possible without Hestia or a translator like Klea’Hatma around.

I raised my hand, stopping Vivachel from continuing. “Hold on, why am I hearing you correctly?! This shouldn’t be possible!”

And a wide grin formed on her face, before she spoke with a completely different voice. The same one I heard from Belzac! “It took you a bit, but my ability to imitate people never wavered after all these years. Come, it’s time to talk face-to-face again.”

She folded her blood fan shut before her form started to waver and turn completely black, like a shadow. While waving her hand, this being slowly melted into the ground and began to move. I followed it out of the cavern, chasing after the rapidly speeding target, only to end up in another room where another Vivachel showed up, waving at me.

“Hestia?” She asked me in that weird-sounding accent gods usually had when they spoke.

She then shrugged and shook her head, before forming a cross in front of her mouth. She then pointed at her ears before doing the same with mine. Was she gesturing how I couldn’t hear her?

With how confused I was, it made it hard to understand what was actually going on. Vivachel laughed, hiding her grin with her fan, before pointing at the statue behind her — Belzac’s skeletal remains.

[“How was it, Saori? Was it not perfect?”] Belzac’s deep voice growled in my mind.

“W-What?!”

[“Look.”] The shadow underneath his skeleton squirmed before it started to move by itself, forming what looked like a female. Only, it wasn’t just any female, it was me.

“Huh?!” I flinched from seeing myself. The shadow waved at me and spoke in my voice before melting back into the shadow. “T-That was not a normal [Shadow Clones]. It is not possible to make a copy of anybody else but yourself with that spell!”

[“Correct, but I was able to mimic Goddess Vivachel and also make a copy of you. The only way you realized it wasn’t the real Vivachel was that you could hear her properly,”] he explained. [“Saori, there is more than just simple shadow manipulation, black electricity, and some beasts you managed to tame when it comes to my bloodline. I can show you why they called me the Harbinger of Grim and why it took two armies to defeat me. I can show you—”]

I heard the wind. I turned around to see my garm mother passing through the tunnel entrance, too slow compared to even my wolfkin form.

[“— your true family.”]

… Family? That’s right, that is why I came here. The whole self-reflection and closure part was just the icing on top, right?

There was a reason why I didn’t follow either Hestia or Grimnir in their objectives. I came here because of Belzac. Right, I had to keep this in mind. It didn’t matter how I achieved it, but the goal of this trip was to learn from Belzac about my bloodline and to become stronger. That was the only thing I needed to think about.

Similar to how I compromised with a teacher’s position instead of following my dream of becoming a historian, sometimes, it would be better for everyone and myself to endure some pain. To live, was to struggle. My time on Earth had taught me that in abundance.

Okaa-san. Otou-san. My family. Hestia. Tasianna. Ellaine. Grimnir. The Aurora is my new family. I lost the former, so I must do my best for the latter now. I gripped my red scarf, made entirely from Hestia’s fire mana.

I lost one family, but gained a new one in the form of Aurora. There was no reason for me to keep rejecting my fenrir bloodline. I lost my first mother with my death, but there was now a chance for me to make a new one. Every mother deserved a chance to love their child…

What’s another family? The more the merrier, right?

However, what use is it to have so many people caring for you, if you cannot defend them? For Hestia’s Quest, strength and cunning was extremely important. Hestia represented that strength, while I… am her shadow.

From my experience in Gleisvale, I started to remember why my father became a firefighter in the first place — it was to make sure fires wouldn’t take a person’s life. He always impressed me with his tales of being a hero, and I always focused on the heroics instead of how he felt about them.

He loved saving people, he loved to see others smile after an inferno. I couldn’t speak with him, but I was starting to understand him better after what I did in the slave auction and my time in that illusion. He went into the fire disregarding anything outside of the situation, only being able to think about the family stuck inside the aflammed building. He died, but he managed to save them. A family existed because he was there.

It broke ours in return, and I couldn’t forgive him for that. It gnawed at me. I didn’t want to become like him, but I guess my time in Peolynca had exposed that part of him in me. His stories affected me. Seeing Hestia being a hero inspired me. The personality I developed as a teacher, as an adult, was being pushed back, whilst my idealist side came forward.

However, that wasn’t what I wanted.

Now I get it.

I had to embrace both sides of myself. My pragmatic, rational side with my brave, heroic one. Hestia could be reckless because she ias that strong, but I didn’t need to emulate her. I had my own distinct fighting style, and becoming a [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir] shouldn’t change that. I gained more power from my evolution, but I couldn’t forget about my roots. Yes, what made me this strong in the first place.

The dark element was a flexible one, filled with more trickery than power. I had to remember what Hestia told me in the past. “I think I am the problem,” she told me concerning what was holding me back. At this point, I could completely say, I disagreed.

Me imitating Hestia wasn’t her fault, it was mine. Even back when I was a teacher, all I did was follow my senpais and constructed a personality to fit Shiroko High School. To make them feel I was a part of them. Even with my own dagger mastery, I hadn’t innovated on it as much as I did my shadow mastery. All my techniques came from my time with the saurians, when they trained me.

However, dark magic was fluid. It had a tool for every situation, you could say. [Smokey Haze] was the perfect example for a spell with a multi-facet of usages. To become stronger, I couldn’t be reckless and rely on my strength alone, I had to be cunning. I needed to understand the true nature of the shadow world.

And for that, I needed good mentors. Teachers who looked at the abyss and came out of it unscarred. I needed—

“Now that I think about it, my time inside that dream did make me reconsider things.” I turned my attention back to Belzac.

— him.

[“… Your eyes. That red mist. Aren’t you eager, my descendant?”]

Speaking with “Mother” gave me the time and chance I needed to look back at my life and how I grew. The current me, you could say, was similar to my Earthen life as I was willing to do whatever was needed to survive. Even if I considered my students good friends, my primary reason to become an amazing teacher was for the money. Intentions mattered to me.

So, what did it matter what Belzac’s goal was? How he ended up in this cave was not my problem and I could care less about it. However, this was the obstacle for me to get that “paycheck.” That trove of knowledge to exceed my current limitations. I wanted it so badly.

‘Travel the world…’ My deal with Hestia. Right, how could I drag her around the world if I keep being so stubborn? I’m already dealing with criminals and underworld scum, after all, ahahahaha!

“I need to become stronger. More than I currently am. Can you help me with that?”

[“Of course.”]

“Will you help my shadow pack become the most frightening force there is?”

[“Of course!”]

I smacked my chest, holding my hand over my heart as I stated my last demand. “I want the ability to protect my pack and family. I require it! The power of the shadow world to defend and attack. Will you make me a fenrir who will even surpass the notorious [Three-Eyed Fenrir]?”

[“…”]

The shadow underneath his statue moved once again, but this time, instead of transforming itself into a woman, it morphed and grew ever so large. Fur and claws appeared as the shadow transformed itself into a wolf, peering down at me like a giant. Its humongous body was too huge for the cavern, denting it and expanding it to fit its size.

Its black eyes glared at me with a third one sprouting on its forehead. [“The abyss calls, and as its ambassador, you will answer. As the harbinger, I shall pave your way forward. The secrets of the void, the domain of the God of Darkness. You will become my successor, and the inheritor of my techniques. You will become the legend I couldn’t be.’]

Slashes and bites weren’t the only things we wolves did well. We could howl really well.

“Then let’s talk.” I took a breather, steeling myself for the path forward.

He wanted me to kill somebody? Well, let us just say there was enough time to talk this out. Play it smart. I just needed to use my current position and his impatience to my advantage. Better use Gael’s and Muraina’s training to its fullest now.

Sorry, Hestia. It will probably take a while until we meet again. But until then… I turned my head back to my garm mother.

It’s time to get used to my estranged family.

A note from AbyssRaven

Saori and her garm family. The pack about to grow?

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Chapter 310: A City in Trouble.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Main Job [Corrosive Pyromancer] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 15]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Max level of Job   [Corrosive Pyromancer] has been reached

Individual   [Sunfang Dragonewt, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has switched her Main Job to [Virulent Corrosion]

Main Job benefits have been updated due to Job change

Virulent Corrosion Level: 0/30

Job Skill gained:   [Virulent Corrosion]

Individual   [Sunfang Dragonewt, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has switched her Secondary Job to [Holy Mage] [Space-Time Mage] [Healer]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Max level of Job   [Holy Mage] [Space-Time Mage] has been reached

Healer Level: 0/10

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Corrosive Fire Lv. 6] [Mana Eyes Lv. 6] [Water Resistance Lv. 5] gained

“Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor, Third Princess of the Dragon Empire, Kargryx, Daughter of Emperor Eltharion and Sixth Empress Melloxtressa, Champion of the Goddess of Light, and Leader of the C rank hunter company, Aurora.” I gave a curtsy inside this decorated and lavished throne room, making sure my head only nodded slightly, as was custom.

“The Principality of Yeos and the royal family Caimlace warmly welcomes Princess Hestia to our court. May the Goddess bless our auspicious meeting today with bountiful light.” A suited man with a sharp goatee bowed deeply as he greeted me before gesturing towards the two people behind him, sitting on thrones. “May I present, His Royal Highness, Prince Markval Caimlace the Fifth, and his mother, Princess Dowager Estelle Gleasa Caimlace.”

I looked up, seeing a young pubescent boy sitting on the throne with his head held up high and a certain strength in his eyes. On the other hand, his mother sitting next to him was showing a forced smile in an attempt to hide the darkness in her expression. Untold numbers of restless nights could be seen on her face.

Looking down, the retainers of the royal throne were standing in two neat rows to the sides of the court’s carpet. On one side were a bunch of knights I had never seen before, save for one aged individual, the warrior-priest leader Jethro. I hadn’t told him about my identity until just now, so the surprise in his face was obvious. I wondered if he thought I lied to him?

On the other side, there was a group of ministers and politicians. The man with the goatee was undoubtedly the seneschal, Yurius Alberstien, a perfect match to the description I received from Jethro. There was another noteworthy member there, a finely-dressed woman with a small tiara, sharing the same royal blue hair color as her brother and Yeostar. That had to be the only daughter of the previous Prince of Yeos, Princess Anasthasia Caimlace.

“Princess Hestia, it is an honor to receive your serendipitous visit to our humble nation. I am aware you are not here as a delegate of the great Empire of the West, the Dragon Empire Kargryx, but I can assure you, we will treat you with the respect of one.” The young prince announced, acting and sounding like a proper ruler with the way he conducted himself. “And for that, I humbly apologize to you for our country’s conduct. Your visit was a surprise, sowe were unable to make the proper arrangements. I hope the three days since your visit have been well.”

“All is well, Your Highness. Traveling as the Goddess’s Champion means being flexible and working with what is available. If I were to expect a royal greeting every time I visit a new locale, it would only hinder my duties and take up my own time.” I let the prince and his country go with no hard feelings. All of this was still just formalities.

To be honest, if I were here as a princess of an empire, my treatment could be called into question. However, with how I didn’t want people to know I was a princess at the gate, I couldn’t fault them really. I didn’t even send a letter in advance to announce my appearance. Even if they apologized formally, just to maintain relation, there was really nothing for them to be sorry about.

“You are most gracious, Princess Hestia. Your kindness and patience undoubtedly makes you a blessed of our merciful Goddess. Surely, our meeting is all part of her plans.” He gave a small nod to be before gesturing to his seneschal.

“Duke Yurius Alberstien. It must be the grace of the Goddess to bless me with your acquaintance today, Your Imperial Highness.” He bowed deeply, almost looking like he would fall if he went even further down. “As announced, we shall honor you here as Her Holiness’s blessed, instead of by your imperial status, Champion Hestia. However, before we go into business, may I inquire about your stay? You’ve been staying at an inn in the harbor, correct? Would you like to temporarily move to the castle? I assure you, your every need will be satisfied here.”

More like the castle would be a better place to monitor me.

Not to mention having to act formally here instead of however I wanted to at the inn. It was better if I gave a proper excuse here.

“I must humbly decline.” I stated bluntly. “Although I would welcome a change of scenery, for the purpose of my stay at the harbor, the inn I rent suffices, and it is actually the more preferable choice.”

“Oh?” The seneschal tilted his head, prompting to continue.

“As you might be aware, there are two blessed from the Goddess of Water currently situated on Karhalanteel Island. Their Divine Quest is to protect the shrine and seal while the tournament is ongoing,” I began. “One of them, Saint Kushlek’zar, is my magician master. As a Champion, I am still young and have much to learn, regardless of my identity as a dragon. Warrior-priest Jethro can attest to my stay there. I’ve been diligently training in preparation for today’s festival.”

Everybody turned to Jethro, barely unnerving him. It appeared he caught on quickly and expected something like this. He confirmed my statement, even going further by telling everybody how I’ve been using visiting the local mercenary guild frequently and how I donated most of my merfiend spoils to the warrior-priests.

Considering how speechless he was to learn I was a princess today, he did a great assist. The seneschal instantly dropped the matter to my elation. Despite how much of a misogynist Jethro was, even after the first day, he knew when to put it aside for moments like these.

“May I also inquire where your mother, Empress Melloxtressa, is, Champion Hestia?” the seneschal asked, but I shot that question down.

“We are not here as delegates. My mother is enjoying her time like any other tourist or visitor. If you wish to know if the Principality of Yeos is safe while she is around, then, yes. She is not a whimsical, mindless dragon, Duke Alberstien.” I then turned my attention away from him. “Now, I believe Prince Markval’s time is more precious than these trivial questions. I also have to register in time for the tournament. May I begin with my reason for being here?”

“… Yes, of course, Your Imperial Highness. I was out of line.”

With that out of the way, I began retelling everything I told Jethro already, about how I was here on a Divine Quest from Aurena and Yeostar. My main objective was to protect the blood of Yeostar, and to make sure a new Champion of Yeostar would be knighted. For that, I had already accepted Jethro’s proposal to join the festival’s tournament.

Prince Markval Was surprised to hear that last part, but seemed to appreciate me wanting to help out to the point I would join the fray. In addition, everybody else was shocked to hear it, too. Apparently, Jethro had not told anybody about this at all, literally concealing it from his family, too. There really was friction inside the royal palace.

Duke Alberstien and several other noblemen confronted Jethro on this subject, questioning why he was “sending ‘our ‘illustrious guest’ into the tournament.” While they didn’t explicitly say it, from the look I received from the nobles up until now, I had the feeling their opinion on women was just as high as Jethro's.

“I repeat, my job is to make sure the blood doesn’t go into a random person's hand. Sir Jethro has already given me the necessary information to understand the situation. From my three days here, I have seen no ship from the Empire arriving at the docks to assist with the tournament security. I am here to help.” I redirected their ire away from Jethro, bringing their attention back to me.

“I concur.” The young prince supported me. “Duke Alberstien, we have a Champion here with us. Let us have her work with us to make sure we can find a blessed for ancestor Yeostar.”

“Y-Yes, of course, sire. However, please don’t think every Champion is similar to Champion Royce. He was one of a kind.” The Duke turned around, looking at his liege with a stern face. “We have to make sure the memento Sir Royce left behind is given to somebody worthy of it. We need to meticulously make sure his sacrifice is not in vain, so we can show our friends, the Empire, that Yeos is still the bastion of the strongest Champion.”

“Empire?! Our friends?!” Jethro suddenly exploded at the mention of Folschrek, stomping his way towards Alberstien. “You must be out of your mind, Alberstien! What sort of sycophant are you to still support the Empire after everything they’ve done to us? Where is the support we requested? Why is a girl here before the great Empire of Humankind?! A woman and bunch of beastmen are more willing to help us than our ‘allies!’”

“Blasphemy!” Alberstien scoffed back. “You are supposed to be a man of faith, but you show little of that role when speaking about the land of the Emperor of Light! The Church has appointed the Emperor of Folschreck to be our bulwark against the demonkins. The darklands! What human would not be willing to support them? They fight on our behalf, but all I hear from that mouth of yours is scorn!”

“Our Prince and Champion Royce would not be dead if you hadn’t convinced His Highness to support the Empire! You spoke of gaining favors, but what you did was send my brother and many of our countrymen to their graves! Where were our ‘allies’ when we needed aid? They care not for us!”

A bombastic argument between the leaders of the noble faction and the warrior-priests of Yeostar erupted in the throne room, deafening everybody as they fought without showing signs of rest. Not a single attempt to stop them arrived, as both the knights and ministers simply cowered and averted their eyes.

I could see Prince Markval trying to speak, but his voice reached nobody. The young ruler was flabbergasted, panicking as he didn’t know how to calm down the bad vibes in the room. From the looks of it, if I didn’t step in soon, this would just go nowhere.

“Pa—” I was about to say something until some banshee suddenly screamed

“QUIEEEEEET!” That shriek silenced everybody in the room, bringing their attention towards the throne area. It was Markval’s mother, the Princess Regent. “All this talking, talking! You are all incompetant! Enough of this, taint my son no longer! Court is adjourned!”

“Adjourned?!” Alberstien stared up in shock. “Your Highness, we have a gue—”

“Deal with her yourself! Court is adjourned!” The royal mother quickly moved and began pushing her son, trying to get him out of the room. He tried to stop her, but every word he said went to deaf ears. “Now, now, my son, you need to rest. There are so many dangers around. You need to rest your weary mind. Come, come, with your mother.”

And just like that, the whole royal meeting was over in the most unexpected way possible. Before the prince left completely, I sent him a telepathic message, [“Blood and sweat on sword and ground, the stars shine bright with glory abound.”] He looked at me with widened eyes, but couldn’t say anything before his mother left him.

Hopefully, he’ll get it. I shrugged my shoulders after delivering Yeostar’s message to Prince Markval.

Yup… this country has major problems.

And I didn’t mean just their cultural and ideological issues. Two of the most influential members of this principality’s court began an open argument and nobody was willing to stop them, all while they were greeting a guest. It was outrageous, honestly. The wounds in this place ran deeper than I thought.

With a quick curtsy, I excused myself while they were still speechless. While I was walking out of the door, I could hear Alberstien cursing the Princess Dowager under his breath, but it honestly wasn’t my problem. Still, I made a mental note of the people who caught my attention today. Gael would probably want to hear about everything.

With a deep sigh, my ears picked up the hastened footstep of somebody behind me. Metal clanging against each other and the ground could also be heard. When I turned around, Jethro was there.

“Oh, hey. What is it?” Our friendship level was a colossal zero, as he never tried to warm up to me. In other words, I had all the right to act however with him.

“Champion Hestia… why didn’t you reveal your true identity when we first met? Why did you hide it from me?” he asked with a more curious expression, not looking as offended as I thought he would.

“Because it didn’t matter,” I told him bluntly. “I was there not as a princess, but as a Champion. Or, would you have treated me better if I came to the island as ‘Princess Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor?’ Who knows, but I personally like it more if we spoke without our personas on. Anyways, this can’t be the only thing you came running to me for, right?”

“… Yes.” He gave a short nod, understanding I wanted to change topics. “For the tournament… I pray for your success. Please, help us make sure this tournament ends on a good note.”

“Ehehe…” I burst out a small snicker before showing him a peace sign. “Got it~ Leave it to me.”

Whether he was rude to me in the past or not, his request just now was sincere. I didn’t know if something changed his mindset on my participation, but I honestly could believe it. Outside of a pretty beastman unfriendly populace, the whole royal palace felt like it could break apart at any moment now.

I returned to the palace’s foyer, where Tasianna greeted me with a deep bow. I explained to her what happened and she sympathized with me about the problems this country possessed. After our gossip, my fairy friend told me Shay had flown over here a while ago, telling me Mother became bored and went to the beach where she would wait for me.

“Shay said the Empress wishes to spend some time with you after your qualification match. She found some interesting stands.”

“So why couldn’t she just wait at the— You know what, I should have expected this. Her interest can’t be held for that long, haaaa.”

I told everybody Mother wasn’t whimsical, but maybe I lied a bit about it. She can be quite random sometimes to appease her interests.

With a deep sigh, I asked Tasianna to lead the way. It would be best for me to meet Mother quickly, finish the qualification match, and then go have some fun with her. Buuuuuut, before we could do anything, I had another person waiting for my attention.

I turned around. It was Markval’s older half-sister, Anasthasia. Although she was part of the royal family, she did not speak once during the court meeting.

“Oh, Princess Anasthasia? A pleasure.” I curtsied while Tasianna bowed.

“Oh, please, there is no need for any formalities right now, Champion Hesita. Any sort of prestige our country had was just blown away inside the throne room, so it really doesn’t matter anymore.”

Hmm?

Her tone of voice suggested she was exhausted and wanted this over with, so I simply shrugged and looked around, noticing a few guards around. Anasthasia shooker her hand, telling me this wasn’t important enough to go to another room for.

“I am only here for a request, specifically, with your normal, everyday occupation as an adventurer.” She then handed me a piece of parchment, detailing events happening next week. “I don’t think it was too surprising there was a three-day delay until our meeting today, right? We need to gather information on you.”

“Wow, you certainly are blunt about it. And here I thought you would want to hide it.” I said it in the most sarcastic manner possible, still reading through the different events and noting them in my head for Mother and me to enjoy.

“So you knew?”

“Of course, why else would you wait that long to invite me? We could have had that meeting on the same day you sent that missive to me.”

Master and I pretty much expected for them to try to gain information on us. Considering how we arrived out of nowhere, any proper nation would try to know more about us before proper talks came into play. The problem was, they couldn’t use whatever they dug up with all that effort since the Princess Dowager stopped any talks.

And here I was all ready for some politicking. Oh boy, what a shaaaaaame.

“Then, I will get straight to the point,” the princess announced. “I had heard from rumors that you’re supposedly an ‘idol?’ A musician or something?”

I nodded. “That’s my quasi-official role, yeah. Champion of the Goddess is easier to understand for everybody, but I personally am the Goddess’s first idol. A combination between Champion and Saint whose duty is to bring hope to people.”

Of course, to the Church of Aurena and also the Pantheon of Aurena, I am more or less a champion, since the term idol didn’t exist amongst the blessed. Aurena herself acknowledged me more as an “Idol of Aurena” as I wanted to be called that way. Like Themrayn said, my unique skill was more suited for a Saint than a Champion, and that’s why I was a hybrid between the two.

When I gave this explanation to Anasthasia, she nodded. “I won’t try to understand the way of the Goddess, so I will accept you like that, Idol Hestia. So, I heard from these rumors you performed multiple concerts in Artorias and also in Estralia, recently? And they attract plenty of people?”

I nodded.

“Then, could I commission you to perform such a concert in Elyonda?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Hmm? Hold on, I was pretty sure I told everybody that I was here for a Divine Quest. Are you now asking me to prepare for something like this, while I also have to participate in the tournament?”

My eye was twitching a bit from all the pent-up stress building up in my body. Not only did Yeostar, Andira, and Erithia pretty much force upon me a pretty monumental task, I also had to be aware that possible demonkins or their sympathizers were around to sabotage this festival. Now, somebody wanted me to coordinate a whole fucking concert?!

What was this pressure?!

Noticing my bad mood, Anasthasia’s eyebrows furled into a frown, looking slightly desperate. “Please, I beg of you. I know this is much to ask, but please consider it at least. Although it doesn’t show it right now, Yeos is currently on its way to an economic recession due to all the war bills piling up before our treasury. We need to earn Davi.”

My eyes widened. That was not what I expected to hear. “Why are you telling me this? Shouldn’t this be a matter you should tell the seneschal or your brother?”

“Markval’s mother, my step-mother, became extremely paranoid after my father’s death during the war. It also doesn’t help that she and my mother hated each other, even before all of this. She doesn’t trust me.” She grimaced. “And, the men… In Yeos, women aren’t supposed to take on administrative roles concerning the country like I am, right now. The only reason why I am Yeos’s treasurer is due to my godfather’s — the previous treasurer and head administrator of the land — will to entrust me the position until I am betrothed and married off. It had my father’ signature on it, so nobody can speak up against it.”

“Are you telling me, nobody is listening to you?”

“Both Duke Alberstien and my uncle, Jethro, are currently building up our weakened military for different reasons. However, I couldn’t care less about it. The peasants on the borders of the principality are being riled up by our neighbors, and our nobles are asking for compensation for our ruined war efforts. There are debts to be paid. This Festival of Yeostar isn’t only there to announce a new Champion of Yeostar, but also our only means to avoid becoming bankrupt!”

“Well, then it’s a big success. I walked through Elyonda when I came here. The city is so crowded, I thought pickpockets were trying to steal from me multiple times.” Incomparable to Artorias when it came to the number of people around, but Elyonda was also a smaller city. The density of the crowds was enough for me to feel like I was in New York again.

“But, how many of them came from the Empire?” She posed a question I couldn’t ask. “I honestly thought outside of the usual delegates, like a royal knight to protect the sanctity of the tournament, we would also welcome multiple merchants and nobles. However, not a single ship from the Empire came. We need to attract more people.”

“… And you were thinking of using my name for Artorias and Estralia, right?” I stated that carefully, just to make sure in case she didn’t know I formed an alliance with both of them.

“Yes, your concerts were a big success, right? Also something about you serving food? I wasn’t sure what to make of that information.” She looked puzzled. “However, from what I learned, people liked it. For the concert in Gleisvale, I heard even the seven dukes and the king of Artorais attended it! Numerous notable personages from Artorias came to Estralia just to hear you perform music!”

A bit of a misunderstanding. They didn’t come to Gleisvale, they came into my subspace where I performed that concert. My subspace could bridge people together without needing them to travel to meet in person. However, before I could correct her, she grabbed my hands.

“Please, Idol Hestia, for the good of God Yeostar’s country, I plead for you to consider this offer! If you need people to prepare it, I can sort it out for you!” Her royal blue hair waved as she spoke animatedly, staring right at me with her yellow eyes. Her earnest plea; it felt like this wasn’t such a simple thing at all.

“… I’ll consider it.”

“Thank you very much, may the Goddess always lead you down the path of righteousness!”

Tasianna and I then turned around, walking outside the palace while Anasthasia thanked me once again as a farewell. After we made it out of the palace’s vicinity, back into Elyonda’s noble district, I couldn’t help but feel like a complete idiot.

Should have said, no. I should have just said, no!

“Ehehe,” Tasianna laughed while I felt more weight put on my shoulder. “Lady Hestia, you are an idol through and through. Even in a city you dislike, you are willing to perform a concert! Incredible!”

“… Ask Amelia for help for me, will you?” I said in defeat, accepting my faith.

Even if I didn’t like this country at all, from my initial impression, I had to grit my teeth and just do it. I was an idol, and idols wouldn’t complain if they had to do their job. My duty was to bring people a smile with my music. It didn’t matter if I was performing in front of a bunch of assholes or not. If they were willing to listen to me, then my time was theirs to enjoy!

Gotta act more mature. I slapped my cheeks, remembering once again why I became an idol in the first place.

My deal with Aurena was to connect people through music, to have them resolve their issues through this intervention. If music could touch souls, then I would become the binding agent to bring them together. And Yeos would be a test for that.

Could I bring people to like me despite most of its citizens being unfriendly towards beastmen while the nobility had a strong stigma against women in power? That sounded like a real challenge for me to tackle, and the idol inside of me told me I could.

They probably won’t enjoy my usual arsenal of songs. In other words, I have to touch on their cultural and historical weak spots. Songs about valiant tales!

With a plan in mind, I now needed to do some research for the lyrics. However, first, I had to perform my duty.

“Come on, Tasianna. Time to get Mother and get back to the arena!”

Duty first, fun later.

A note from AbyssRaven

Okay, so while Hestia went and did political stuff and be an responsible Princess, her mother went to have fun at the beach? Well, we now know what Melloxtressa prefers. Beach > Hestia. Sadness.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters for the whole month! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 311: Festival of Yeos.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #3 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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“… For an ice-type dragon, you really like the sun, huh?” I stated to Mother as she lay on a frozen lounge chair, wearing a beach dress and icicle sunglasses. Her elven skin and silver scales were being exposed to the sunlight as she sunbathed in this quiet area of the beach.

“I am a silver dragon, dear. I like feeling warm instead of cold. Oh, Tasianna, while you are here, could you make me another cocktail, please? Uhm, fragassa pina colada, please~ No alcohol, of course.”

My eyes widened at what she said, but what shocked me more was Tasianna agreeing to her wish. “Yes, of course, Empress. Shay. Beth. Lady Hestia. Would you three like something?”

[“Cooled water, please. A lot of ice.”] Shay stated while blowing cold air around himself, looking uncomfortable under the sun.

[“Smoothie, please. Oh, and if Priscilla had made any more ice cream, could you bring some out for us, too?”] Beth replied. Unlike her brother, she was quickly breaking out of her icy imperial guard persona, and simply enjoying things more.

“Oooh, ice cream! Yes, that would be brilliant!” She then turned away from Beth and back to me. “Fragassa ice cream or should we try the fulinoe flavored ones today?”

“…” I stared at everybody before me, feeling incredulous at how my family and friends were enjoying a summer break like this. All whilst I had to deal with politics even! “… Let’s try the fulinoe-tasting one. Tamae said she was experimenting with the taste to make it seem more coffee.”

In the end, I just said “fuck it.” Today was a festival.

Tasianna opened a portal into our subspace while I took out my lounge chair and took off my jacket and robe. While laying on it, I took in a much-needed sunbath, reenergizing my core with fresh solar energy.

“Uwaaaaaaaaa…” I sighed deeply with a smile on my face, while Mother laughed. “The festival in the city is pretty big. Why did you leave it?”

“Waiting for you, dear. This is our first festival! Even if you came here for a Quest, I will not allow it to stop my chance to spend some valuable time with you!” Mother announced with a curled-up fist, looking determined. “Plus, I can only endure those nasty glares when I’m having fun. I don’t think me being angry would be good for the festival.”

“…” I grimaced. “Y-Yeah, good idea.”

Just a bit more and the people who disliked beastmen could have ruined their whole harvest festival. Jeez, I wondered what Yeostar was thinking after he heard that little nugget. Good thing Mother didn’t act as furious as our trip through the Kingdom of Astraford.

<It would have been problematic.>

I suddenly heard Yeostar’s voice. Like with Aurena and Kargryxmor, my newly formed connection with Yeostar allowed him to look through my eyes and speak with me, although I could always forbid him to with [The Light]. Erithia and Andira could do the same, but they hadn’t spoken with me yet.

[“Master!”] As I enjoyed the sun, a boy’s voice entered my head and I snapped my gaze over to my left, seeing a husky-size white-furred tiger with green stripes. He jumped onto me, purring and rubbing his head against mine, while I was having a hard time controlling him. [“Master! Master! You’re back!”]

“Haha, stop, stop, Rajah!” I stood up and snuggled this giant dog-like cat, rubbing his furry cheeks while he tried to lick me. “Where were you, hiehie? I told you to stick with Mother.”

[“Master, I was hunting down a monster with a hard shell! It was large and had weird, flabby skin! Before I could bite its neck, it retracted its limbs and head into that shell! I used [Dark Tendrils] and got it out, but then I noticed your scent! Like those merfiends, there are so many weird monsters so far away from the forest!”]

So, you let the poor turtle go? Phew.

Rajah was, at the end of the day, a tiger monster and had the mentality of a young teenager. He was still quite childish and excited about anything new that he had never seen in the Belzac forest before. For example, how he “played” with Master Kush and the saurians when they went merfiend hunting. He showed no fear.

Now, after that hunting session, he had evolved into a D rank virigress — a [Young Monochrome Virigress]

Young Monochrome Virigress

An immature virigress whose green fur has turned white from its connection to the Goddess of Light. Its black fur can wave around, looking similar to a shadow due to its connection with the shadow world. With holy and dark elemental magic, this virigress had thrown away its ability to camouflage in forests for more virulent venoms and higher stats. Rank D

As mentioned before, Rajah’s fur lost its iconic green color, having turned completely white and black from his evolution. He had not only grown bulkier, but also some pretty interesting black fur. After he became a member of the shadow pack, he gained black fur around his paws, but somehow they were moving by themselves now.

The interesting part was that his venom mostly excreted from any black spots on his body —. like a poison dart, yuck, frog, in a way. He could even use his holy and dark spells better now after his Intelligence and Wisdom received a huge increase, not to mention his Strength. Compared to before, Rajah was combat-ready now to fight without me having to watch over him.

“Hmm.” I picked him up. Although it was more cumbersome to carry him around all the time, I had enough muscles to heave him up. “I can feel some oils on my skin. Rajah, you still need to learn how to control the poison output through your fur! Until then, you cannot touch anybody who isn’t immune to it, alright?”

[“… Yes, Master. I shall continue practicing.”]

Two days had passed after his evolution and his current focus was to make sure he doesn’t accidentally kill people with his fur. Thankfully, Master Kush’s party and mine were all immune to his toxin, so it wasn’t a problem for us. Still, he had to be careful when he entered the subspace to not hurt Svena or our bistro employees.

After a while longer on the beach, Tasianan returned with our snack. Mother, satisfied with her drink, told me it was time to return to the city so I wasn’t late for my registration. Using [Unheilige Engel], I carried Rajah and Tasianna as us dragonkins flew over to the gate.

Still eating and drinking our cooled snacks, we entered the city and began exploring the extremely crowded festive city. Rajah had to enter my shadow so he wouldn’t hurt people, saddening him as he wanted to spend time with me. Sadly, it was necessary.

“Fresh veggies, ‘resh veggies! Come ‘ere for ya veggies! We ‘ere from Yoktu Village! Bestest toffels ya finding anywhere!”

“Pearls from the underwaters! Ya ground peeps ain’t ever seen these merfiends before! Blessing from the Depth Goddess herself!”

“Oi, fuck off, ya scalies. Watch where ya walking at! Damn lizard sailors, stinking up da place…”

It was the usual Yeos experience, really, but pushed to the extreme with so many more people around to the point it was overcrowded. You couldn’t take three steps without accidentally bumping into somebody. No matter how deftly I moved, my wings would also hit somebody in some way, and they would complain about it.

Eventually, our group decided it was impossible to move around like this, so we took to the sky. Mother, Beth, and I had to manipulate our scales to prevent upskirt moments, but I honestly wondered if Mother was trying to embarrass me here. Instead of her usual clothes, she was still wearing that damn beach dress.

Mother! Wear something that shows less skin!

In any case, the festival of Yeostar was enjoyable. The atmosphere was great and I could excuse people’s behavior purely ‘cause there were fun moments. For example, despite having to go to the arena, I was drawn by Mother’s curiosity to multiple stands and street vendors.

“Yes, yes! Five honey-roasted apples coming up for ya!”

“Grilled squid with fish oil! Orders coming up! Eating ‘ere or to go?”

“Hey, hey, dragonewts! Come here, my scaled beasties! Some fresh catches this morning! Ya can’t have an Elyonda harvest festival without some good ol’ kleesha! Trust! Ya won’t get bad shit, later, ahahaha!”

The merchants were very friendly; at least, most of them were. A few native merchants didn’t want to sell to us but foreign tradesmen and beastmen traders were fully willing to take our money regardless of our gender or race. Then again, unlike the nobles I’d met here, the general populace had no noticeable sexism. The locals just hated beastmen, that was all.

“Mhmm, Hestia. This juice is pretty intriguing. I think they put some honey in it. Very tantalizing.” Mother smiled as she drank a refreshing drink after putting some self-made ice cubes in it.

“Oh, really? That— Hey, Shay, don’t eat it like that!” I called out to Shay as we five sat at a table to eat. “You need to cut it like this and this. Put some of this with it and then mamph! Mrhm!”

Shay nodded and did exactly that, licking his lips clean afterward. [“Delicious. Could use some more pepper, though. The texture is certainly special.”]

[“You say it like you’re still on duty, Brother. Come, come! Her Imperial Highness told us to eat with her! Eat faster!”] Beth devoured the food with her large dragonewt snout, enjoying it very much. Only for her to realize her behavior and jump up a bit in embarrassment. [“It can’t beat Tamae’s food though, I mean! Warrrgh! I should stop eating like a skorr!”]

“Hiehie, that is part of the mood, Beth. Come, let’s enjoy some more,” Tasianna giggled before comforting one of the twins. “Should I order more for you? Our budget is pretty huge so let’s eat a lot!”

[“Hmph.”] Shay shook his head before placing another spoon full of good in his mouth, smiling once again. [“Act properly in the Empress’s presence, Sister.”]

Hiehie, it’s been a while since the last festival.

After we went through the horde of stalls and ate our fill, we eventually made our way to the coliseum where the tournament would be held. It was located right in the middle of the district and had street vendors already covering every side, making it hard to enter it.

“Let’s get this over with and then continue our day. I promise Master Kush to buy some vegetables and fruits for the others,” I told everybody before hanging my pouch of coins back on my belt.

While flying, it couldn’t be stolen, but a few pickpockets had tried their luck on us while we were on the ground, only for Rajah, Beth, or Shay to scare them off. Not like I needed them to, since I couldn’t handle myself nor did we have any money problems from all our investments. Still, it was nice to just spend time with Mother and the others here. It really felt like a family vacation at this point.

“Oh yeah, Tasianna, did you notice those skulkers?” I noted as we walked up the stairs of the arena.

“Of course, my lady. They were eyeing us like hawks from their alleyways. Should I catch them?”

“Nah. Gael is coming over in the evening today, so have him do his job. With how many ships come in and out, we need Shaturein to put up an information network.” I shrugged. “It’s two weeks, don’t forget.”

“Yes, my lady. By your command.”

“Oh, and, Mother, did you smell my sister anywhere?” I turned my attention to Mother biting a piece off her honey-roasted apple.

“Hrmm?” She shook her head. “I was more occupied with spending time with you, my whelpling. I’m sorry.”

“Meh, don’t worry about it. If we can’t find her now, we will find her once the tournament starts.”

Outside of the message Yeostar wanted me to deliver to Prince Markval, he also told me that he noticed my half-sister arriving in Elyonda today. She was somewhere in the city right now, but with how crowded everything was, I told Yeostar to not bother looking for her.

Lesser dragonkins like kirins didn’t exude that sweet fragrance from their bodies like us true dragonkins, but my half-sister was a daughter of Emperor Eltharion. She had the blood of a true dragon running through her vein, making her one, and should be easy to detect through our smell alone. Or, if everything else failed, I knew at least she came to this city for the tournament by Kramps.

Speaking of the tournament, after we entered through a door, all five of us felt a sudden shift in the environment. We looked outside and then back inside, Shay and Beth noting how it had a very [Room]-like feel. However, to Mother, Tasianna, and me, it felt more like this place was a dungeon.

Regardless of that fact, we looked around, noticing how the arena was unsurprisingly full. It wasn’t crowded to the point you couldn’t move, thanks to how huge this place was; shockingly, it was larger than what it looked like from the outside.

We approached the queue where numerous armed and armored people from humans to beastmen could be seen. No elves or dwarves, and the beastmen were mostly the common types you could find everywhere, though. From the looks of it, people of various backgrounds were here; some looked like greenhorns trying their luck while others were scarred veterans.

Since I was the only one who would enter the tournament, Mother and the rest decided to move to the spectator platform to wait for me. I saw them off and then had my parallel minds quickly scan through the room, trying to see if I could find any sketchy people. There were plenty, of course, but I was looking more for demonkins of envy or followers of the Church of the Edjurl.

I was contemplating on playing [My Darkest Thoughts], my anti-demonic power spell song, but found it would be too dangerous to do it here. There were too many people around and if I were to cause a ruckus now, it would probably end with a lot of innocent blood since I couldn’t play [The Heir of Hope] for its barrier. I could only play one spell song at a time, after all.

Anybody who couldn’t hear my songs wouldn’t receive the benefits of them either, and who knew how many people were at the spectator arena right now. No, as I told Tasianna, there were two weeks until the festival would end. Two weeks for me to prevent anybody from stealing the blood of Yeostar.

For now, I had to rely on the royal palace to protect it while I kept an eye out in the city. For the tournament, it probably would be better if we had multiple people enter into it. However, Mother had no interest, and Beth, Shay, and Tasianna wanted me to win. If those latter three entered and we faced each other in a match, they would rather hand me the match. Not like I couldn’t defeat them in a fair fight, but that was beside the point.

Hmm, maybe I should double-check my Profile. Tournament starts tomorrow, so maybe I should double-check my stats. Just in case I have to appraise somebody.

Profile:

Name:   Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor

Level: 98

Race:   Sunfang Dragonewt

Age: 16 Years

Main Job: Virulent Corrosion Level 0/30

Secondary Job: Healer Level 0/10

Unique Job: Locked

Status:

Health:

8415 (Dragon: 16830 (+316))

Mana:

22436 (Dragon: 44851 (+358))

Strength:

4551 (Dragon: 9102 (+123))

Intelligence:

6491 (Dragon: 12981 (+155))

Vitality:

2434 (Dragon: 4868 (+54))

Wisdom:

3286 (Dragon: 6572 (+71))

Agility:

6200 (Dragon: 12400 (+136))

Stamina:

4551 (Dragon: 9102 (+214))

Effects:

[Humanize (Moderate)]

Skill Points:

3650 (-9400)

Unique Skill:

[Dreadflame Dragon Lv. 5] (+1) [Hellblade Dragon Lv. 5] (+2)

[Solar Core Lv. 3] [Venerated Saintess Lv. 3] [Idol Lv. 4] (+1)

[Volcanic Blaze]

Skill:

Magic skills and related:

[Lightning Magic Lv. 4] (+1) [White Flames Lv. 5] (+1)

[Corrosive Fire Lv. 6] (+3) [Sacred Magic Lv. 7] [Terra Magic Lv. 4] (+1)

[Wind Magic Lv. 10] [Wind Amp] [Wind Magic Efficiency]

[Storm Magic Lv. 4] (+1) [Space-Time Magic Lv. 6]

[Space-Time Magic Efficiency] [True Draconic Lineage]

[Draconic Barrier Lv. 8] (+2) [Silent Casting Lv. 10]

[Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 7] [Mental Stability Lv. 9] (+1)

[Mental Warfare Lv. 6] (+1) [Fluid Cast Lv. 5] (+1)

[Delayed Cast Lv. 5] (+2) [Continuous Cast Lv. 4] (+1) [Mana Eyes Lv. 6] (+1)

Physical skills and related:

[Unarmed Technique Lv. 8] [Unarmed Mastery Lv. 4]

[Sword Technique Lv. 1] [Spear Technique Lv. 9]

[Spear Mastery Lv. 7] (+2)

[Draconic Roar Lv. 6] (+2) [All-Damage Enhancement Lv. 1] (New)

Senses and movement skills:

[Silence Lv. 1] [Accuracy Correction Lv. 8]

[Concentration Lv. 8] (+1) [Foresight Lv. 3]

[Danger Perception Lv. 10] (+3) [Probability Correction Lv. 8]

[Detection Sensor Lv. 3] [Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 9] [Tracking Lv. 5] [Night Vision Lv. 8]

[Odorless Lv. 1] [Evasion Lv. 10] [Acrobatic Lv. 10]

[Air Walk Lv. 5] [Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 6]

[Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 9] (+1) [Aerial Fighter Lv. 5] (+1)

Resistances:

[Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 6] [Absolute Pain Tolerance]

[Mental Corruption Resistance Lv. 10] (+7) [Mind Protection Lv. 10](+5)

[Mana Leak Resistance Lv. 10] [Abnormal Status Nullification]

[Fear Resistance Lv. 5] [Lightning Resistance Lv. 6]

[Sacred Resistance Lv. 5] (+3) [Storm Resistance Lv. 5] (New)

[Water Resistance Lv. 5] (+2) [Dark Resistance Lv. 4] (+1)

Stat growths and related:

[Speed of Sound Lv. 5] (+4)

Others:

[Stage Fever Lv. 6] (+1) [Handicraft Lv. 6] [Woodworking Lv. 7]

[Stonecrafting Lv. 1]

[Trap Creation Lv. 10] (+1) [Instruction Lv. 2] [Identity Blocker Lv. 10]

[Tranquil Mind Lv. 1] [Cooking Lv. 9] (+1) [Benevolent Aura Lv. 3]

[Draconic Aura Lv. 4] (+1) [Royal Presence Lv. 4] (+1)

[Dismantle Lv. 9] (+1) [Gluttonous] [Thought Acceleration Lv. 4]

[High-Speed Calculation Lv. 2] [Multi-Thought Processing Lv. 3]

[Parallel Thoughts Lv. 10] [Core Regulation]

[Humanize Lv. 10] [Telepathy] [Aerokinesis]

Job:

[Virulent Corrosion]

Ability List:

Dragon:

[Dreadflare Aura] [Hellblade Edge] [Scale-Dust Veil] [Hellflame Breath]

[Solar Beam]

Spear:

[Spiral] [Spark Crescent]

Unarmed:

[Dragoon Jump] [Gale Steps] [Dragoon Dive]

Spell List:

Custom Magic:

[Symphonie des Feuergottes] [Prayer] [Sanctified Blaze]

[Sanctified Blaze: Halo of Consecration] [Ignite] [Panzer] [Unheilge Engel]

[Scorching Sun]

Custom Spell Song:

[The Will to Fight and Survive] [Dragon Fire] [My Darkest Thoughts]

[The Heir of Hope]

Lightning Magic:

[Lightning Bolt] [Purple Flash] [Levin Core] [Overload]

Holy Magic:

[Sacred Smite] [Sacred Veil] [Sacred Field] [Banishment Beam]

[Major Heal] [Omnictus] [Gloria Ascendence]

Earth Magic

[Terra Wall] [Bedrock Blades] [Rumbling Might] [Ruinous Rockfall]

Wind Magic:

[Wind Bullet] [Wind Cutter] [Air Shield] [Wind Slash]

[Swift Winds] [Wind Blast] [Featherfall] [Aerial Blitz]

[Tornado Bullet] [Sylphid’s Cloak] [Tailwind] [Cyclone Madness]

Space-Time Magic:

[Haste] [Storage Magic] [Warp Point: Entry] [Warp Point: Exit] [Room]

The Light Magic:

[Shine] [Sanctuary] [Miraculous Grace]

Titles:

[The Light] [Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] [Divine Inferno]

[Otherworldly Reincarnator] [Princess]

I should be around A rank in strength, or at least, at the precipice of becoming one. Hmm, I really am neglecting my leveling with everything going on. Why can’t it be as simple as my days in the Belzac forest. Just hardcore grinding and so on…

I let out a deep sigh, sad at how life was becoming more complicated. Acting like an adult sucked. But, it was necessary for me to be like this ever since I accepted my princess status. Instead of complaining, I should probably scout out my possible opponents.

Hmm, a few knights and warrior-priests are around. I noted some of the people around me, specifically those with an emblem of the Principality of Yeos or the warrior-priest toga. I even recognized a few of the warrior priests!

Hrmm, nothing noteworthy for now. I concluded my search and returned my head to the queue, all while trying to avoid the stares directed at me. Some lecherous, some curious, and some hostile.

“Hey, ‘ey, kiddo! This ain’t a plac— Woah?!” As expected, somebody did come over but I ignited some scale-dusts, jump scaring the well-armored man before using my wings to block my vision from him.

“Barking up the wrong tree, pal,” I stated without looking at him, causing quite a few people to grip their weapons in response. However, none of them did anything and simply moved away.

Of course, those weren’t the last groups of men trying to approach me, but depending on how they spoke to me, I either scared them away with my scale-dust or politely told them there was nothing to worry about. Well, considering how I was one of the few obvious teenagers around, they thought I was an easy target to chase away. The other teens, all boys, were also being harassed by the older participants.

So, the competition has already begun.

Nothing was fair about this tournament already. With the number of people this event was taking in, you could expect a very, very, very large pool of competitors. No way would they be able to make a tournament with so many people. Jethro hadn’t explained the details of the tournament to me in the past three days, mostly ‘cause he didn’t like speaking with me, so I had no idea what was going on.

In other words, before the main event began, there had to be a way to cull all these participants in tomorrow's matches. However, the culling had already started. People were harassing each other, trying to scare rivals away, while the more violent ones aggravated them into “testing their strength” in the arena. No guards were stepping in to stop all of this madness.

“Hey, lassie, you gonna show what’s underneath your skirt to everybody tomorrow? Haha, I bet ya could sneak yourself a win with a dick in your mouth! Wuaahhahahaha!”

“Or, ya know, we could give her a taste of what the rumble stages have to offer.” One of them licked his knife, smiling like a huge pervert while his eyes wandered up and down my body. “The youngins, heheheh… Hack an arm off and ya can’t give up, hehehehe. All those screams will be fun to hear.”

There were a bunch of lowlives. Like actual people you could find in Shaturein or any underworld. It seemed the tournament was taking in whoever… Well, maybe not women. I could not see a single other girl around.

Looking at the registration desk, they simply took a person’s ID and used their [Crystal of the Divine System] to register them before giving them a bracelet, probably their tournament ID. It was a quick process, making this queue go by very quickly.

“Hey, kid.” While I was looking forward, the guy in front of me turned around. I looked up, only to notice the eyepatch. “You sure you want to keep on going?”

He sounded genuinely worried, so I spoke with him normally. “Sure. I know what I’m getting myself into.”

“That’s what every greenhorn says,” he scoffed at my remark pointing at his eyepatch. “Da tournament uses dungeon mechanics to protect participants from some heavy wounds, but with how this tournament is made for da entertainment of da damn folks, it ain’t perfect on purpose. Ya can still lose limbs and body parts. If ya dueling armlet ain’t giving you the loss, ya need to give up yourself. But—”

He pointed at the previous group of fuckwits. “If they cut ya other arm and also ya leg, they just gotta make sure ya don’t drop down to 20% Health. Can’t give up like that, but ya wish ya could. This tournament ain’t no game for kids.”

No mention of being a girl, huh? Okay.

“Then why are you here, again?” I looked him up and down, noticing his armor wasn’t in the most pristine shape, nor was his spear and shield.

“Davi, of course, why else?” He scowled, flabbergasted I would ask something that obvious. “Ya make it through the royal rumble, get into the 32 top contestants, and you get money. Not a lot, but who cares about da damn Championship, eh? Some fucking hero can swoop in and get it, for all I care. This tournament don’t come around often, but the prizes are always good!”

“Worth it to lose an eye?”

“Pah! Ya asking me that means ya ain’t an adventurer. Some scaly lass, pah!” he scoffed at me before turning around. “Get the hell out of here. Ain’t your place to die, girl. Blood and sweat can make men into monsters.”

Hiehie, cute dude.

But in spite of his warnings, I stuck around. In fact, I lowered my wings and just let everybody see me. I proudly puffed up my chest and stood there, giving anybody being sassy with me the middle finger. This, of course, angered quite a lot of people, but I quickly reminded them what would happen when my scale-dusts spark.

The veteran fighter in front of me shook his head, probably thinking I was an idiot for continuing this, but on the other hand, the younger contestants cheered me on. Probably seeing me acting like this despite everybody's eyes on me, they started to band together against the older, more experienced warriors.

Eventually, I made it to the desk. There, the receptionist looked right at me and said, “No. Get out.”

“Hmm? Why? I know females are allowed to join, too. Just give me the test and everything will work fine,” I countered, remembering what Jethro told me on our first meeting.

“Fucking bollocks, who you heard that shit from? Get the hell out of here! This is a tournament for our God Yeostar! Blood and gore will fill this dungeon’s ground. We don’t need you sullying this holy place!” He kept on shouting, standing up and pointing at the door.

But, I was stubborn. I offered my ID. “I am here to register. Let me enter the tournament. I am not violating any rules.”

“…” He glared at me, provoking the other combatants to support him, telling me to get the hell out of here.

“Register. Me. Or, do I do this in a different way to the point you will regret having spoken to me? How about it?”

However, I stood my ground, and that obviously annoyed him to the point he clicked his tongue. “Tch, fine, scench.”

He swiped my ID away and put it into the crystal to register me without even assessing my Profile. Once it was over, he threw my ID and an armlet at me, before telling me to hand the armlet back after I lose since it was worthless outside this place.

“You want to join the matches, then sure, have a test. If you lose, you’re out. Understood?”

“… Sure, holier-than-thou poser.” I shrugged. I wanted to punch this guy so badly now, but I was keeping my trembling fist in check.

“…” He glared once again before hollering to the ground. “HEY, SWORDCLEANERS! You heard this kid speak! Women need to get tested before joining, so who wants to give this lass a go, huh?”

“Sure!” Two hands rose from the ground. It probably shouldn’t have surprised me that they were the perverted lowlives from before.

“Hmm? Hold on—” I wanted to complain since those were two hands, but the receptionist continued without my say.

“Anybody else?! Who else wants to show this girl what the true world is like?! Ya ain’t gonna get forfeited if you lose! Hahahaha!”

“Hahahaha! As if, you fucker! Sure, sign me up!”

“And me!”

“Down with the bitch! Teach her what's really up!”

One, two, three… 37… 62… 83. What?

85 scarred or otherwise trained men showed up, surrounding me as they glared at me with rather dubious intent. And would you know what was funny? All of them were the people I just flicked the bird at. Two were the perverted lowlives, but out of the 83 people I showed the finger to… Well, it was obvious by now they were all here.

Okay, no wonder that old dude thought I was an idiot.

“Last chance.” The receptionist gloated at me, but I simply snickered.

Appraised, assholes~

“Well, I guess it should have to be some sort of challenge, right?” I released my [Draconic Aura], causing all of them to flinch backward. I put the armlet on with a smirk, signaling my agreement to the test.

Armlet of Yeostar activated. Safety net activated: [Major Heal] [Protection Aura (Dungeon of Yeostar)] [Dungeon Escape]. Tournament competitor 349 is now registered to use the arena’s first floor.

“You kidding me?” The receptionist frowned, showing a mix of confusion and ridiculement. After a moment, he began to laugh, being the only one who hadn’t felt my aura. “Hahaha, so be it! Bloodsport on the first day! Glory to the tournament and festival! Alright, your filthy pieces of shit, get int—”

“Hold it!” Somebody’s rumbling voice suddenly silenced not only the receptionist but also the whole foyer, feeling similar to me using [Draconic Roar].

As I was about to turn my head to the voice’s direction, I noticed a glowing line forming on the ground before it erupted into a wind explosion, blasting a few competitors away. As they yelled and cried out, my nose suddenly picked up on something. Something sweet, something familiar.

While all those sent flying landed on the floor, I could hear the sound of footsteps followed by some rattling. The louder they became, the more my nose felt agitated by the person approaching me. I couldn’t ignore it anymore. I was 100% sure, this was a—

“What?!”

“Yo, longneck!”

— a true dragonkin.

“Sign me up for this tussle! If I have to get through a test, too, then might as well get this over with for the both of us. Should be enough for a little warm-up.”

A dragonewt woman around the size of Saori appeared, wearing a purple-black scaled jacket over an open light-purple yukata with black flame, thunder, and flower designs. Her outfit not only exposed a bit of her cleavage but also almost her entire right leg. A horsetail wiggled around in excitement from her butt.

Her arms and legs were covered in scales while the graves and gauntlets she wore were made from carapace and shell. However, the flashiest part was the single raven-black horn growing from her forehead. Her long black and purple hair flared around her face, framing it a bit like a wild mane.

“Register me as Fargryneill. The future winner of this tournament!”

A note from AbyssRaven

Ooooooh~ Who is that? Who is that hot lady?

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters for the whole month! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 312: Sisters.

“So, your name is ‘Hestia?’”

Footsteps could be heard walking through a tunnel, echoing the two sets of legs moving forward. Who were the owners of these sounds? First was me, and the second was my half-sister.

“… And? Go on, what’s the rest?” And while we were getting to know each other, I could only tilt my head in confusion after I introduced myself. “Come on, you can tell your big, strong sister, little sis! Nice nickname, but what’s your full name?”

“…” I was speechless. “That’s it. ‘Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor.’ That’s my full name.”

“… You serious?” She stopped moving, her black eyes stared right into me, stabbing my heart, right before she burst out in a howl of laughter. “Shiehiehiehie! Are you kidding me?! Who in Father’s name names their hatchling like that?! Shiehiehiehie! That’s such, hiehie, such a lame, short name, shiehie. My poor sis, hiehie.”

Her wild, mane-like hair fluttered around like in a L’Oreal advertisement as her body twitched from excessive laughter. The yukata covering her [Humanize]d dragonewt body bounced around, nearly failing in its purpose! Fortunately for her, before it actually slipped down, she stopped and wrapped her jacket around her chest.

“Hahaha— Hiehie. In Father’s name, hiehiehie-” Wrong. She just continued giggling at me now.

“Oi, Hestia is an amazing name, alright! Stop laughing!” I ended up shouting in the end. “You know what’s wrong about your name? It’s such a mouthful! ‘Fargryneill.’ What’s with the three syllables, huh? And they don’t flow as well when you speak it! Fargryneill. Fargryneill. Fargyneill. See!”

“Huuuuuuuh?! What did you just say there, you little twerp?!” Her jagged horn tapped the top of my head as she lowered her head to around my height, arching her body forward. “My mother named me that way. It’s a prestigious name meaning ‘Black piercing horn,’ you know! You think you can say those things? Young sis or not, you need to learn your place.”

“Oh yeah? You like your name so much but you ridicule mine?! My name is a homage to the Goddess of Hearth and means the fire within to keep a family safe. My best friend gave it to me, so don’t even think about badmouthing it.” My internal temperature rose as my mood worsened, ready to blow if this actually did lead to a fight.

This was the first time anybody mocked the names Saori gave me. Even Mother was readily accepting of them, but some random exhibitionist comes in and tells me it's uncool? What the fuck?!

We glared at each other. Friction would have been clear to anybody watching us right now, and I felt Fargryneill’s scale levitating, telling me her scale manipulation was probably quite advanced. Unlike me, she was able to create clothes and armor using her scales like Mother could.

“… Shiehiehiehie!” However, in the middle of this staring contest, my half-sister straightened up her pose and smacked her hand on her hand, laughing once again. “Yup, yup! You are my little sister, after all. I can smell some of Father’s scent on you, mixing with some others to make a pretty sugary-sweet hormone smell. You got spunk, little sis!”

I was flabbergasted. I couldn’t read this young woman at all. But she didn’t give me much time to think before clapping my back and wings.

“Come on, little H. Let’s move. Those scaleless numbskulls are probably waiting for a beating. Can’t miss out on a tournament, you hear me?” She then continued walking, while I stood behind with a vein almost ready to pop.

“It’s ‘Hestia.’” I released my [Draconic Aura], causing her to wave her hand with her back still turned.

“Got it~” she replied in a very teasing manner. “Get over here already. I want to know how in Father’s name you’re even on an adulthood pilgrimage. Makes me really wonder if you are my sister, shiehiehie!”

“Huh, wait!” I ran over, catching up to her. “Long story, really. Anyways, what do you mean you didn’t think I was your sister? I noticed your scent immediately.”

Her scent felt very familiar to me, having a similar “feel-good” smell to Mother’s. Mother described it as our bodies knowing and accepting the other as family, to help dragonkins get along instead of fighting or disputing all the time, which was the usual for our kind rather than the exception. Still, it certainly didn’t help prevent that Kargryx civil war when my dragon father had to fight against his siblings for the crown.

“Your scales aren’t black. Weird, for a spawn of Eltharion and a Kargryxmor.” She shrugged, making me remember what Cernust said once. “Anyways, tell me the story later, after we’re done with this. You fighting with magic or your limbs?”

Also, our age, yeah…

I remembered Cernust mentioning how my youngest half-sister, who I now knew to be Fargryneill, only went on her adulthood pilgrimage a bit earlier than Cernust did, and he was 21 when he told me that. You could only start your pilgrimage once you become a young adolescent, which was at the age of five, so it certainly would seem weird for me to be here with her.

I could understand her confusion, but she was right, we had an issue in front of us. It would be best to deal with it first, so I took out my glaive from my storage. My main power came from my scale-dust and magic, but since this was only a “test,” it was best if I didn’t show my competitors everything. Some small spells and my glaive were enough.

“Uuuuhm, okay?” She looked at me strangely after I showed my glaive, before I realized I probably shouldn’t have pulled my glaive out from [Storage magic].

“Long story, right? I’ll tell you later.” I played it off.

I accidentally let my guard down just now, seemingly already accepting Fargryneill as my sister. I guessed it was a combination of accepting Mother as my birth mother, my draconic ancestry, and also our dragonkin hormones messing with my decision-making.

As cold as it sounded, I shouldn’t just believe Fargryneill was my ally and get careless. She was a stranger, even if she was family. Revealing something like me being a void-touched wasn’t good since that was supposed to be an ace up my sleeve.

Still, what was done was done, and it wasn’t like I could do anything about it now. Fargryneill shrugged before calling me “interesting” as we passed through the exit of the tunnel and into the sandy arena of a coliseum. A mana barrier was blocking our path but, even from here, we could see the spectators' seats and our 85 opponents on the other side.

“Welcome, blood enjoyers! What a surprise I have here for youuuuu! It’s only the first day of the festival of our God, Yeooooostarrrrr! But we already have some action going for you! Presenting some ladies willing to join the gore-drenched arena of the divine!” The voice of an announcer resounded throughout the arena as only a few cheers erupted from the seats.

I looked around, noticing the announcer sitting and commenting behind a fortified room with a window, looking pumped despite how few people were inside the arena. My sister noted how the seats were free outside of the prestigious ones for the rich, so the reason why there weren’t as many people in the audience was ‘cause a fight wasn’t scheduled today.

I agreed. Our test only happened if a female combatant wanted to join the tournament. All the people here were either the fighters joining this competition or people associated with them. Either they came here to “watch us get ripped apart” or they were scouting the winners of this match. And I could identify the two groups depending on how rowdy they were.

“Hestia!!! You can do it, my whelpling!” My face instantly warmed up as I heard that familiar voice, running over to the edge of the mana barrier and snapping towards the direction of that voice. It was Mother. “Burn them to ashes! Show them how unworthy they are to even touch the same ground you walk!”

Jeeez!

Mother was cheering me on while Beth and Tasianna were holding up frozen signs with my name written on them. Not only ice cream, cocktails, but also cheering culture?! They were copying everything I told them about Earth, and this cultural cross-pollination was to their taste! Mother was a bit too hardcore, really.

“… Case in point.” Fargryneill looked around with me while I cowered. “That’s not a dragonewt I recognize. Pretty strong, ancient aura, sounds like your mum. Has to be Father’s new consort, Melloxtressa.”

I slowly turned my head around. “You know her?”

“Course. She’s as famous as Father right now, probably even more so since she’s a new age SS rank. The dragonewts in Loatryx love her, those little gremlins.” Fargryneill shrugged. “Now, enough of that. Heads up, young scale. Don’t embarrass your sister by being weak, alright?”

She certainly has a high opinion of herself. I had that impression of her, but I simply shrugged. Mother also had an extremely high opinion of herself, so maybe this was just a normal dragonkin attitude. Or maybe it was because we were all members of the imperial family?

“But, are these ladies of ours battle-hardened warriors like the Hands of Heaven? How could we forget the gracious but deadly performance of Hand Maiden Ezanna, who cleaned up the right side of the tournament bracket, only to meet her match by our Hero, Sir Royce! A proud moment for the Hands of Heaven, only second to our Champion of Yeostarrrrrr!” The announcer continued with his hype making, causing the crowd to cheer again, before finally coming to us.

“Nay! But they are dragonewts! Ferocious spawns of the dragonkins! However, none of them are heroine material, for they are only a C and B rank, respectively! Can they make a dent in this tournament of heroes to reach the top? Well, before that, they must prove themselves to Yeostar!”

“You’re B rank?” I turned my attention to Fargryneill.

She shrugged and grunted annoyed. “Eh. You don’t find B rank Quests that often, you know. Takes a while to get to A rank with only C rank Quests. But, that’s not important. How in Father’s name did you become C rank?! With Melloxtressa being your mother, no freaking way you’re even supposed to be here! Everybody knew she was mateless before joining tails with Father!”

She was starting to become more suspicious. Hiding my real identity might be quite hard.

“Like I said, long story. Tell you in a moment, alright?”

“A moment, you do know we have a fig—” But before she could continue, a gong rang.

“It is time, blood enjoyers! 85 hardened adventurers and soldiers versus two maidens! Can they survive? May Yeostar judge them on the battlefield of blood and glory!”

The armlet on our wrists lit up before the mana barrier dropped down. As we entered the battlefield, the arena suddenly churned and lit up in bright light, before the whole scenery changed to that of an open field.

The both of us looked around in confusion, the stone walls of the coliseum and the brown ground of the arena were replaced by open air and a grassland respectively. I tapped her shoulder and pointed up, where we didn’t see the sky, by something like a glass dome showing the seats of the colosseum and the cheering crowd. I could even see Tasianna standing up, shouting something, looking quite mad, but all the sounds were dampened outside of the announcers.

God Yeostar?

<This is my present to my home after I became a god, Hestia. Similar to your grandfather’s Dungeon of Eternal Feasts in Kargryx, my Training Halls of Warriors is a dungeon I made for a specific reason. In this case, to train people in the most optimal training room possible.>

The two-floor dungeon, Training Halls of Warriors, was this entire coliseum. The first floor was the foyer and the audience seats, while the second floor, the actual interesting part, was the arena floor. In this place, any fighting happening outside of the arena would kick you out magically, by the rules of the dungeon.

There was no real dungeon core in this place, but by divine right given to the royal family through Yeostar, they were able to permit others the right to modify certain aspects of the dungeon. The custom System Yeostar created for his dungeon, acted in his interest alone, and would override control from anybody if it detected a threat. Yeostar himself could intervene.

In other words, worrying about a demonkin entering this place was redundant since Yeostar could detect them and inform me about it.

Essentially, this was a bit of his domain. But, it wasn’t perfect. He couldn’t detect a person’s alignment and would have to manually appraise people he found interesting. If they didn’t reveal their true self inside the place, even Yeostar couldn’t tell me if somebody was a threat or not. Meaning, I still had to worry about the non-demonic powered Church of the Edjurl members and the mercenaries working for them.

I couldn’t just relax and have fun.

<The arena is made to create and simulate different environments, as I believe a perfect warrior must be able to adapt to every sort of battlefield there exists. To achieve that, they must first gain experience in each kind of battlefield. For that, the arena can differ for each stage of the tournament, ranging from the molten reaches of a volcano to the underwater terrain of the ocean depths. If you can imagine it, the dungeon can replicate it.>

He then began describing my armlet, explaining it was created and bound to the dungeon. It ensured people would survive here, even having a function to prevent death inside the arena altogether. During one of Yeos’s many previous iterations, ruled by a different royal household, the principality won a war by leading the siegers into the dungeon while giving their army the inability to die.

However, that made me question why there wasn’t a rule like that on the armlet, and Yeostar answered that the tournament organizers didn’t want it. The audience wanted to see disembowelment and mutilations. To see the war tales in action with contenders fighting in a deathmatch to see who would be most worthy for the peak, where glory, riches, and victory lay.

Now, over the course of history, this had changed as killing people meant depriving the world of warriors. Yeostar had to personally argue, even mentioning how revenge matches would hype up the crowd. The matches could still be fatal, but deaths were less likely to happen in the current age. It still sounded a bit too barbaric to me.

Pardon me, but that sounds less like you’re a god and more like a caretaker. Why are you the one who has to make these rules?

<The gods are guides and teachers, Hestia. This is no longer my country nor do I feel much kinship with my current descendants. I am patient because I must be, as a god. I lead and teach them because this is part of the duty of an old soldier. Even if every generation changes and my teachings might go to waste, it is what being one of the divine means.>

Seems sad, honestly.

Yeostar didn’t respond, but it wasn’t like we had any more time to talk. The 85 assholes were right in front for us to see.

“And they made eye contact, blood enjoyers!” The announcer's voice could be heard before the cheering of the crowd erupted. Similar to dampening the sounds of the audience to assure the combatants weren’t distracted, for entertainment value the sound could be increased up and down.

This is like a huge production.

“Oh, look at them surrounding our two challengers! Smart! Even for a ragtag group of ganguppers they aren’t underestimating our ladies! Warriors in the front and archers in the back!”

It was exactly as the announcer described. We were surrounded and Fargryneill could only smile.

“Interesting, right?” She nudged me, showing off her carapace gauntlets. I could tell she was a battle junkie.

“You’re awfully excited for being ganked by a bunch—”

“Hey, scalie scamper!” Somebody’s voice interrupted me, drawing my attention to them, where I noticed two of the perverted dickfaces shoving themselves through the battle formation.

“Hey! That wasn’t the plan! Get back— Shit!” One of the other combatants complained at them, but the long-haired jerk with a sword and a dueling knife slashed at him, forcing him to block it with his shield.

“Don’t ya fuckin’ tell me what to do! That red-haired wench is ours! Don’t fuckin’ do anything!” he bellowed, while his companion, a scared short-haired warrior with a grisly-looking, monster-material broadsword, walked forward with a punchable smirk.

“Don’t worry, we’ll make sure to remember your screams after we’re done with you, hehehe…”

His pose was lackadaisical and his grip on his sword was soft, but he would be quick to act and his movements looked more like he was parading his victory already. There were obvious holes to take advantage of even if my Agility was human level, but this guy did look competent. I had everybody appraised beforehand, and I believed this guy was level 45 or so.

I knew how to regulate my strength, but this guy was ticking me off quite a bit. Fargryneill whistled before asking me if I had done something to aggravate the guy this much, but it wasn’t like this was my fault. The dude and his buddy were two lowlives.

Holding my glaive tightly, I walked towards the guy while the announcer commented on this action. I just wanted to get this over with so I could return back to the festival and the others.

I’ll just knock him out clean. The armlet should be able to protect him. I determined my next course of action.

“Hiehiehie! This sword gotta some good venom, you know. We got it from the Evida desert to capture people. Heard it makes people feel more excited! Hiehiehie, I can—”

Wind Blast.

“Shut it.” With a strong gust, I properled myself forward with a spell and [Dragoon Jump].

“— ‘t. Wha—?!”

And I swung the blunt side of my glaive right at his head before he could react, holding back a bit so he wouldn’t die. But…

Kasploosh!

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Secondary Job [Healer] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 10]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Max level of Job   [Healer] has been reached

Oh… Oops.

Suffice to say, I was quite angry, and forgot I still had the strength of an A ranker as a dragonewt. Also, Yeostar reminded me in that single second when his head exploded that the armlet couldn’t prevent his death, and could only have life-saving effects if they don’t die from one hit.

I was stunned.

“…”

“Shiehiehiehiehie!” Meanwhile Fargryneill laughed as if she was possessed. “Nice one, little sis! You actually got some moves!”

“U-Unbelievable! The red-haired dragonewt girl just smashed that person’s head into pieces with a single blow! That’s one less competitor for all of you challengers to worry about!”

“DaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAVEEEEEEEEEEE!” His friend cried out while my eye was twitching at what I just did.

I wasn’t horrified nor did I feel guilty for killing the dude, since he was threatening to do some unspeakable things to me if I lost, but I was still flabbergasted that I lost my temper like that. Honestly, this dude kinda reminded me of the more shady people I met in Shaturein. Actually, maybe comparing him to those bandits was a more apt description.

“You bitch! You biiiiiiiiiitch!” The other dude pounced at me in a rage, looking as if he wanted to stick my head on a pike or something. Talking this out was probably out of the question.

[“Go.”] But my only response was a single telepathic message, and in the next second, a white tiger jumped out my shadow and bit into the other guy’s throat and crushed it with one quick bite.

“Whaaaaat?! Who let out the monsters! We aren’t supposed to have monsters in this match today!”

I waved at the direction of the announcer. “I’m a tamer! He’s legally registered with me!” I pointed at Rajah.

“Y-You are, Miss? Hold on, uhm, uhm, ahh! Competitor 349, right! Ahh, you really do have a tamer license issued to you! Good, all’s fair, carry on, warrior!”

Well, that proves I can speak to the announcer even inside this place. Just need to raise my voice.

The license was issued to me by Muraina after I told her I would bring Rajah with me. Since Saori was his official master, I had to register myself as a tamer to be allowed to bring monsters with me into cities and towns. Saori transferred custody of Rajah to me, so he was now officially mine, outside of his role as a member of Saori’s shadow pack.

Another thing I learned from this interaction was that the announcer had records of each registered challenger, but seeing he wasn’t surprised, he probably didn’t see my profile. Otherwise, his tone would have changed more drastically than just calling me “warrior.” Yeostar confirmed this, and that the only one who could see my Profile at this point was the higher officials of the tournament.

Guess that receptionist blew his chance. Welp, thank you two assholes for giving me a chance to learn these things.

I might have killed them, but I would just strike this as a necessary defense.

[“Master, how did I do!”] Rajah ran over to me, looking like he wanted pets, so I gave it to him.

“Nice one, Rajah! Good work listening to me!”

As I was playing with my virigress, Fargryneill came over. “Nice cat. But, you do know we’re still in a match, right?”

My sister then assumed a battle stance. Her gauntlets and greaves suddenly lit up, revealing blue tattoos on them. Stomping the ground, the ground began to light up underneath a spot of our testers’ battle formation, before it blew up with a powerful explosion, sending all of them flying away with their armor and weapons battered or destroyed.

I quickly checked on them with [Mana Eyes]. None of them were dead, but they reached the Health threshold to activate their armlets. They were basked in a brilliant white light before they disappeared altogether from the area. They probably got transported out of the arena.

“I counted eight.” She then eyed me with a provocative grin. “You and your cat versus me. Let’s see who can defeat the most. Eight to two, for me.”

[“Rajah is not a cat! I am a virigress!”] he corrected my sister, but the latter simply waved it off before calling him how she wanted to. Similar to how she called me “Little H” at first.

On the other hand, I was more curious about what she just did there.

Dragon Paths, huh?

Mother told me something about kirins being able to access the “Dragon Paths” of the land. It was their racial skill, apparently, and they could manipulate mana around them without actually changing the mana into invocation circles. Mother called this mana “pure,” like a faefolk’s.

“… You’re on!” I replied to my sister’s challenge, causing her to smile even brighter.

“Shiehie, glad to hear that, Hestia! Let’s have some fun, eh, my little sister?”

While she only thought of this challenge as entertainment, I had an ulterior motive to this. You could say, my competitive nature just awoke after seeing her use that move. Fargryneill wasn’t just my half-sister, but she was also a fellow tournament competitor. From the little moments I’d spent with her, I knew she would never allow herself to lose intentionally, even if I asked her for the good of Yeos.

Jethro wanted me to win this tournament, and I was inclined to do so. I knew my sister would be strong, since she was a tournament lover and also that all children of Eltharion had to be rank B to leave on their adulthood pilgrimage. You could only return to Kargryx if you were rank A.

I haven’t appraised her yet, but I knew, at the minimum, she was B. Maybe even A and she didn’t want to return home just yet, which could make sense since Kramps called her unruly. In other words, to make sure I would win against her, I needed to know how her “Dragon Paths” worked without using [Mana Eyes].

You, too, huh? I realized after a bit. I wasn’t the only one who thought of this fun challenge as a way to test a rival. I saw a little bit of a cunning glint in her eyes as she turned around. She was here to win it all, and it seemed she had her eyes on me as one of her main rivals.

Better live up to it!

“Rajah, no killing, alright? These guys weren’t too dickish to me.”

[“Master, I heard them insult you. They aren’t better than the two we just killed.”] Rajah somehow knew how to counter back, but I still ordered him to follow my commands. There was no need to lose more lives today.

“Oooh, a no kill rule, huh? Now, that makes it more fun. We can really see what the others do better, huh?” She smirked mischievously, now being completely open with her intentions.

“Yeah, then, let’s do this!”

“Oooooh, and the two dragonewts move in tandem! Blood enjoyers, maybe we have two of our tournament's favorites right here!”

“S-Shit! Get back in formation! We need— Wauuurruuugh!” Fargryneill’s fist blasted three of our opponents away with a powerful, blue shockwave. With trained movements, she continued her assault, transitioning from one stance to the other as she delivered a barrage of punches and kicks.

She wasn’t even making physical contact. Each action sent out a wave of pure, natural mana at our enemy, or she manipulated her scales in giant fists, using them to fight from afar. After her two prior usages of the “Dragon Paths,” she hadn’t used it ever since, relying purely on her skills and scales. I didn’t even know what draconic power this kirin-dragon hybrid had.

She’s hiding her stuff, but at least I know she’s a martial artist like Cernust. Arcane Scrapper, or something. However, unlike Cernust, Fargryneill has a more esoteric fighting style. I wouldn’t be surprised if she could shoot out mana blasts, like a certain anime’s ki blasts or so.

However, I wasn’t intending to lose to her. While my parallel minds were analyzing her, Rajah and I were duoing as we took down numerous of the fighters. Learning from my mistake, I decided to only hit them with my staff, seeing as the glaive head was a bit too hard to use on “squisher” targets.

Imitating my fighting style with Saori, Rajah immobilized everybody with [Dark Tendrils] and even threw some [Smite] spells to ward off some of their attacks. Meanwhile, I flew around the place with a high-speed tactic, using [Dragoon Jump], [Wind Blast], and my high Agility to their fullest effect. I didn’t want to show any more of my hand.

“Buffraaaaaah!”

Maybe I caused a few broken bones there or there, but that was better than losing your whole head, right? I was holding back significantly! At the end of the day, although they weren’t as bad as those two dickfaces before, they still tried to harass me and kick me out of the competition. Reap what you sowed, assholes.

“Shit! Fuck! Where the hell did these two monsters come from?!”

Suffice to say, it was an overwhelming victory. The test was easily passed, but, the proper question is, who of us won our challenge?

“And the winner of this self-imposed challenge! 46 to 39 defeated contestants! Give her your applause, everybody! Heeeeeeeeeeessssssssstiiiiiiiiiiiiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

One point for me.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 313: Family Bonding.

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“Congratulations, Lady Hestia. That was a wonderful show of your skills.”

After a rather obtuse “winner’s interview” held after our fight, where the announcer kept slipping small insults against our 83 living and 2 dead opponents, we were officially registered into the list of contestants for tomorrow's tournament. Once that awful receptionist realized this, his face began to twitch, as if he was having an allergic reaction while trying to smile and act polite.

With our armlets updated, Fargryneill and I smiled mischievously as the receptionist tried to endure our presence and smugness. My sister had the wonderful idea to continue pestering the guy, flaunting how she would be the winner of the whole tournament and would beat out anybody he sent at her.

Them’s fighting words, right? But, I really didn’t care as the receptionist tried his best to keep his cool after the announcer dubbed us as some dark horses. The receptionist did fire back, in the end, graciously telling us how the new knight-commander of the Yeos’s knight order, or how an ex-Hands of Heaven member would put us into our place. Well, disregarding the sexist remarks he threw at us, it was actually quite informative for us with Fargryneill annoying him.

“Oh really? Oooh, sounds exciting! Thanks for the info, scale-gifter.”

“Scale-gifter?” Question marks formed above his head as we turned around.

We left him flabbergasted with that nickname and went to get some fresh air. When I asked my sister what that meant, she gave me a weird look before shrugging.

Essentially, giving other dragonkins your scales was considered a sign of trust or loyalty, so a “scale-gifter” was someone who didn’t care about this meaning and gave them out to everybody. Scales were a sign of power and prestige for us dragonkins, and were also our last line of defense. As such, the term “scale-gifter” was like being called naive, gullible, or even slut at worst. It means leaving your guard down.

In any case, as we left the queue area, Mother and the rest came over to congratulate me. Tasianna handed me a fragassa smoothie as a freshener, while Rajah ran over to the twins looking for more praise after his spectacular first performance as my tamed companion. As I smiled from the sweet rejuvenating taste of the smoothie, I noticed Mother and Fargryneill had started to talk.

“Melloxtressa, well, Empress, I guess.” Fargryneill tucked her tail in between her legs and gave a deep bow. “It is an honor, elder scale.”

“Ahh, Fargryneill! Yes, I saw you with my little daughter in the fight. Your moves reminded me of Yuilengreill quite a bit, dear. I’ve only seen her fight in her proper form, but your control of the dragon paths was still quite impressive,” Mother praised her as part of her greeting, looking happy to meet my half-sister.

Hold on, why is she looking like that?! I noted Mother wearing a wide brim hat made from mana threads now, looking more and more like she was in full vacation mode. I did not say anything, but I was really reconsidering the true meaning of my Divine Quest.

“Oh, you fought my Mother?” Fargryneill tilted her head.

“More like she and the other Empresses helped me settle down a bit when I was on a rampage, hohoho. Eltharion had to stop me before it got even worse,” Mother giggled.

“Hmm, I can imagine that. Father is the only one strong enough on Miononbolax to stop a natural disaster like you, elder scale.” Sister nodded her head as if it was the obvious thing in the world, before suddenly turning her head over to me, still enjoying my drink. “So, what’s the deal with this one, then? Smells like you and Father, that’s for sure, but no way can she be like this when you’ve only been with Father for only under 20 years.”

In other words, she wanted to hear the long story. Her suspicion probably grew even more after I won our challenge. When I got that win, I could hear her grinding her teeth as she looked at me like a poor loser. Note to myself, Fargryneill was extremely competitive.

“Let’s go somewhere else to talk,” I suggested. Mother concurred.

“Yes, do you also have a great appetite like Yui? I know this really good honey-roasted apple stand you might like.”

Are honey-roasted apples her new favorite food? Or did she mention those specifically for a different reason?

“Oooh, right, the festival. I didn’t have the time to check it out, but bulking up before training later sounds good.” Fargryneill nodded before looking like she just remembered something. “Give me a moment. I need to speak with somebody.”

She then tilted her head a bit to the side as before her eyes widened as she recognized somebody behind me. She ran over to that person, roughly around her height, lingering around next to a wall, almost as if they were waiting there for my sister specifically.

The person she was talking to was covered from head to toe in brown and red armor made with hide, carapace, and tempered bones from monsters. A single claymore or maybe zweihander, at the very least a greatsword, was strapped on their back, while another sword could be seen on their hips, but for some reason, it had a strange 25-degree bent for a tip. Without Grimnir around, I couldn’t tell what sorta weapon it was.

After the two finished speaking, they fist-bumped each other and parted ways. When Fargryneill returned, I asked her who that was and she mentioned it was her travel companion she’d met two years ago.

“Renee comes from Yeos. Wanted to look around the city, and we planned to do it together.” She shrugged. “Family comes first, though.”

Oh, is that person the travel companion Yeostar mentioned?

I tried to apologize to her for interrupting her time with her friend, but she waved it off, saying she was more curious about her “little adorable sister.” She mentioned only having experienced being the little sister to our eldest sister, so now she wanted to see how it felt to be the big sister. She patted my back and pointed to the exit, saying it was time to have fun after a well-earned victory!

And she wasn’t kidding when she mentioned having fun, ‘cause it came to me as a big surprise at how much of a party animal she was. And not as a drinking maniac like some frat boy — she hated alcohol just like me — but she was such a glutton, I thought she was inhaling her food at how fast she ate.

It was a bit too bad for Tasianna and Rajah, but we dragonkins ended up holding a series of eating contests to see how much we could eat, to the point I was actually getting a bit worried about our purse; thankfully the street food was super cheap. Which meant my own weight was starting to be a point of worry for me!

Just like during my initial rounds with my group around the festival parts of the city, the fact I had an important Divine Quest was slowly slipping from my focus. I was having too much fun to worry about the seriousness of the situation. I only started to feel guilty once we finished our festival trip and got onto the ship departing for Karhalanteel island.

“Verdammt! I did it agaaaaaaaain!” I fell on my knees while drinking an orange juice we bought from the port, dismayed at how I was treating everything like a vacation again.

Mother and Sister were both terrible influences.

“Come now, to me! Beasts of the jungle! Defend me!”

“You are underestimating my ice if you believe your water summons can stop me, Saint Kushlek’zar! Me, the frost nurtured by the winter herself!”

On an ice platform further off from the beach of the warrior priest island, a fairy in the form of a wind elf and a raptorsilian were sparring. However, while they were both mages, the clash between them wasn’t done only through projectile and blast spells, but also large elemental constructs.

Wind and water followed their commands, creating something like a maelstrom where the ice platform was the eye of this storm. Although I was watching it from afar, I could feel the intensity as a giant ice serpent clashed against a water-born flying snake in the sky. On the platform itself, ice golems wrestled against what seemed like a platoon of dinosaurs.

Regardless, while this was already astounding enough, there was a reason for this maelstrom I mentioned. [Storm Magic], [Torrent Magic], and [Ice Magic] spells and other custom spells wreaked havoc in the area like a natural disaster. Tasianna and Master weren’t taking this match lightly, having put their pride as mages on the line to see who was more powerful.

A saint of Xohulotel versus my maid. Quite a show.

From the look of it, Master was slightly winning purely thanks to his more varied custom spell arsenal, even having a scalding water spell to counter ice mages. Tasianna was using her training from the twins and Mother to its fullest, but Master was weavingspells even while constructing and repositioning his army of water dinosaurs.

What a fitting unique skill for the dinosaur priest.

Glory of Aelozonia

The primeval prowess of the jungles of the continent of Aelozonia in one skill. Called upon by Xohulotel, the owner of this skill can invoke the native creatures of Aelozonia with the power of water to fight by their side either as water golems, or as a spell buff when cast in a ritualistic manner. The amount of summoned creatures corresponds with the level of this skill x2

This was Master Kush’s unique skill gained from becoming a blessed, which also allowed him to take the new Job [Primal Summoner], which further increased the amount of summons he could field while also increasing the golem’s stats depending on how many he had summoned.

T-Rexs,stegosauruses, and many other dinosaurs were being made to fight for him, while at other times, he would infuse their ferocity in himself or his allies to grant them any of his beasts' strength. If he buffed somebody with an ankylosaurus, for example, a hard carapace made from water would form on his body as his Vitality and Wisdom skyrocketed.

In a way, it was similar to my [Idol] as both skills had both offensive and supportive usages. Tehmrayn called mine a more “Saint-like” unique skill, which didn’t fit a Champion. After I asked him about it, he elaborated that a Champion’s unique skill was so focused on its combative performance that some would forgo using it in random matches to prevent collateral damage.

I mean, it didn’t seem too impressive when he first mentioned it. I wouldn’t use my spell songs in every fight. For example, I didn’t use them today. However, Themrayn still insisted once the time came, he would show me what the true power of a Champion was.

Well, if you can overpower something like my [Solar Beam], then sure, I guess? I thought it seemed a bit exaggerated. I had seen my share of land destroying abilities before.

“Hey, don’t move your arm like that! You’re gonna rip a tendon after your 100 strike with that form! You are slashing flesh, blood, and fat! You cut properly, or you will dull your blade!”

“Yes, move your arms like that! Momentum is important. Cleave into the ribs, pull it out, and then decapitate! All in one swift move!”

While those two mages were having their little training session, I turned my head around to watch Krim-Slak and Grazlahta training the warrior priest in the place of Jethro, who hadn’t come back from the royal castle yet. Seeing as the warrior priests were part of the island’s defenses, the saurians found it important to train their companions.

It also helped that the warrior priests were actually getting along with the saurians, respecting them as fellow warriors. Due to the saurians' relationship to Master as his guards, the warrior priests bonded over the fact they were all religious fighters. They might belong to two different churches and races, but nobody could argue the saurians were unworthy. Like Master, they were all over level 100.

Just two more levels and I can reach that point, too!

“Hmmm. Wow… I honestly didn’t expect to hear something like that. Damn!”

Haaa, if on— Woooah! For some random reason, Fargryneill suddenly embraced me, squeezing to the point I felt I was being squished!

“Oof?!”

“I was that close! So close! I spent some time in Artorias, and if I had known, I could have looked for you! Your egg, Hestia!” Her embrace became even tighter as if she was hugging a teddy bear. “I didn— I am sorry! I didn’t know you were lost! I only knew your mother was pregnant. No wonder she’s following you around like this…”

Her warmth, her sincerness, and her love came off as she expressed her regret. Despite my worries, Mother told me I could trust Fargryneill, as she knew Neill's mother well enough to confirm what we learned about my sister in our outing today. Fargryneill was brash, flamboyant, and competitive to a fault, but like most dragonkins, they valued their blood relatives extremely.

As such, I told her everything. About me being born in the Belzac forest, having never visited Miononbolax or met my dragon father, and only knowing Mother a few months ago. She was devastated when she heard everything, never knowing that my egg was laid nor that it went missing.

My sister was 26, and left for her adulthood pilgrimage at 20, about six years after Cernust left for his. She was in the middle of her [Battle Frenzy] training, but chose to halt it after something happened during the training, something which she wasn’t willing to divulge. She became silent afterward, only to suddenly give me a fat bear hug.

“Oi! M-My spine! I can’t breathe!” I struggled to free myself, but her grip was too strong! I had to escape her embrace by humanizing quickly into my minor form and then back to moderate, using the size changes to slip through. “Haaahahahaha… jeez! Are you trying to kill me here?!”

“Ahaha… S-Sorry,” she apologized with a wry grin before scratching her arm in embarrassment, before readjusting her yukata and jacket to cover up her chest.. “It was a… It still is a bit hard to digest, honestly. You’re a ‘young.’ A whelpling. And, you’re already this strong! Regardless of being the daughter of the two strongest dragons in the world, being blessed by three gods, and being an otherworlder, I can’t help but feel a bit… envious.”

“… So that hug? You actually were trying to kill me?!” I panicked as I came to that realization! I knew she was a bad loser, but to the point she would try to kill her baby sister?! OMG!

“Hey! Don’t put words into my mouth or my actions!” She grabbed my shoulders, preventing me from fleeing. “Just calm down, alright, sis. It’s just that I don’t know how to feel about this. It’s weird, you can probably understand how you couldn’t accept Melloxtressa as your mum at first, right?”

“Admittedly, it also took me a bit to accept everything in Yorshka’s letter to me. However, I had time to think when I flew over to Altrust for you, Hestia,” Mother added her own perspective on the situation, enlightening me that it wasn’t so easy for her either. “But, like I said back then, you are still my daughter. My cute whelpling~ That won’t change, no matter what.”

I nodded and us sisters decided to calm down and sit back on our seats. Beth and Shay took this chance to hand us a cold drink, probably believing the afternoon sun was getting to us.

After we took a sip, we continued our talk.

“… Just saying, but even if you are envious, I have a ton of responsibilities that I’m not a big fan of. I’m supposedly still a toddler, but look at me being here to perform some Divine Quest.” I pointed out but Fargryneill simply shook her head.

“Being strong is everything, little sis. Dragons value strength a lot, and that’s even more important for getting the respect from true dragonkins as a lesser. If I had only a modicum of how fast you are developing, then I wouldn’t have so many problems being a kirin-dragon hybrid.” She chugged the ice water down, sighing loudly as her thirst was quenched. “My emotions kinda got the better of me. Pathetic showing, honestly, for a Kargryxmor. Can I have another, please?”

Beth quickly refilled her glass with some water and ice magic. She drank it empty in one swing, again.

“Argh, but whatever, you’re still my sister, and just like how elder sis Wendriosa cared for me, I kinda have a responsibility to do the same as your big sister,” she suddenly mentioned one of my other half-siblings — the eldest of us sisters, in this case. “You need help with your Divine Quest? Prince of Sin or whoever? Just call, and I will make sure nothing will ever harm my little sis.”

She bashed her fist into her open palm, looking at me as if she was ready to take over the world with me. I was glad to trust Mother and speak the truth.

“Yeah, sure, that would be nice,” I agreed, but hoped we wouldn’t meet a Prince of Sin. “However, don’t worry too much about the finding part. I actually have another favor to ask. Kramps told me to ask you to help me train—”

“Kramps?” She interrupted me.

“Kargryxmor, our grandfather. That’s my nickname for him. Anyways, he asked me if you could help me with my [Battle Frenzy] training. I only mastered the first phase, but am having some problems getting into the second, for some reason.”

However, for some reason, the mood suddenly soured. Fargryneill scowled.

“… Grand… father? Tsk!” She clicked her tongue and stood up in annoyance. “Fuck! Did you really have to mention that insult of an ancestor, little sis? Really? Argh, always, always, Kargryxmor!”

She stomped away, looking furious as she spat out Kramps’s name. I looked over to Mother but she simply stated “I am not the only one” as she shook her head. She was not the only one in what? I didn’t understand it at first, but I suddenly remembered the tension Mother and Kramps had when I first had them speak.

“That piece of shit!” Sis growled again. “Has that Tyrant no shame even for his own family? He’s asking me? Really? After how often he called me a worthless stain in his bloodline? My grandfather Gueillxar was one of the SSS ranks who went with him to the divine realm! Our dragonewt clan is part of the kinkyuro, despite not being dragons!”

<Insolent!>

Kramps voice appeared in my head, but I didn’t give it too much of my attention as Fargryneill continued her rant.

“Dammit! He was okay accepting my grandfather as one of his advisors, but he was angry that Father took my mother in as his fifth Empress? Are you kidding me?! Hey, ‘Kramps!’” she shouted to the sky, “Drizzle yourself up there as you watch everybody walking around. You probably see enough females, right? How about you leave us alone, you old fart!”

What?!

<This ridiculous little halfbreed! How da—>

I immediately cut his message off using [The Light], forbidding him from speaking with me, right now. No matter what she called him, calling my sister a “halfbreed” was going too far. I don’t care if you were the progenitor of our bloodline!

“Haaa, haaa, haha…” Her rage subsided as she let that out and she slumped back on her chair, grinding her teeth. Her wild black-purple hair covered her whole face, prompting her to tie her mane-like hair into a single ponytail, where I noticed two hard-looking objects attached to the side of her head.

“My dragon horns,” she answered as I looked at them. “The one from the front is from Mother, and the two looking backwards are from Father. I even have wings in my kirin form, you know.”

They were small, but thick. Considering they weren’t as pronounced as mine or Mother’s, it was not a surprise her fluffy hair hid them perfectly. I guess this was why she was a hybrid.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” I said after she calmed down. “I can just continue with my current progress.”

“No, no, it’s whatever. Huh, ‘Kramps.’ Wait, that’s not a bad name to make him angry. You know, that old fart actually hates me so much he wasn’t willing to speak with Father about me nor my training.” She shook her head with a heavy sigh, before standing up and tapping my shoulder. “Do you know the schedule of the tournament?”

I shook my head. Jethro had not explained it.

“At the start of the tournament, there will be two days of the rumble stage, which is another name for the battle royal to reduce the amount of contestants into 32 participants for the real tournament. Culling stage, in other words.”

From the looks of it, Sis concluded from counting the number of contestants that the organizers will host four battle royals. With simple math, eight survivors from each group would come out as the winners and would be seeded into the tournament brackets.

The tournament would then go on as each match is held until only a single participant is left standing, becoming the winner and also the receiver of the grand prize. In other words, if I wanted to continue into the matches, I had to become one of the eight inside my group.

“Just saying, but even if you are my sister, I will never, ever throw a match. I’m winning this, or not,” she stated, expecting me to answer back favorably.

“Got it, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I already told somebody I would win it all, so I will.” I smiled fearlessly back, despite knowing Sis to be an active tournament attendee. It was the right thing to do.

And she was happy about it. “Good! Then, let me train you. If you can’t control you [Battle Frenzy], then you are literally missing out on some of that untapped potential inside our blood. Even if Kramps is an ass, you can’t forget he was probably the strongest being back when he was still a mortal.”

She then began to crack her neck, looking like she was about to go training or something. “So, whatever you do, get into the top eight of your group, alright! Surviving is the best method in a battle royale, although with your strength, just go ahead and knock everybody out. If we’re in the same group, then let’s just avoid each other. I want you nice and strong, being able to control [Battle Frenzy (Minor)] at least, before we fight!”

“Cool, but when should we begin?” I tilted my head.

“On the weekend, of course. After the four battle royale, there will be a break for us to do something.”

Today was Waterday, Wednesday, so the rumble stages would happen on WindDay and LightDay. I didn’t know what we could do with only two days, but I had to hope for the best.

I nodded to her plan and made sure to keep those open. Mother seemed excited to see us get along just fine, and was planning on inviting Fargryneill for tomorrow’s festival visit, but my sister declined. For the tournament, she still had to train, and she recommended I did the same. Mother looked pretty sad when I agreed with her.

“Oh, wait, that reminds me.” I released some of my scales to create a barrier between the warrior priests and me, before opening a [Room] portal. Fargryneill wasn’t surprised, as I had shown it to her previously for something else.

And that was to transport two people into the subspace, and those two were coming out just now.

“Ba…ck.” Akasht slipped out of the portal with a happy face.

[“Master, we are back! We told Svena what you needed us to and also the fish for the restaurant chefs to prepare!”] Rajah informed me.

The merfiends the saurians caught would be turned into dinner for us, so Akast did us a favor and delivered it to our chefs working inside Tamae’s restaurant. Ademnis and Ivy, for example. I was inspecting him to give me a rundown of what Svena said, but surprisingly, Svena herself came out… and with a guest.

“Princess Hestia.” Kneeling down, the foxian woman greeted me. It was Reajaen.

“Reajaen?” I allowed her to stand up. Her eyepatch and the scars Tasaianna inflicted on her were still clear to see.

“Who are they?” Fargryneill asked.

“Reajaen is an ally and Svena is my attendant, like Tasianna.” I turned my attention back to Reajaen. “Anyways, what are you doing here? Is there a problem?””

“None, Your Highness,” she stated confidently. “I am here to inform you your investment has bloomed. The Republic of Estralia has just voted in their new president. I am ready to work, Your Highness.”

“No way!” My eyes widened like a goldfish. “Hold on, you only had a month! No way were you able to become president in such a short time! Shouldn’t those olden money guys have something to say about it?!”

The plan was to have Reajaen and the Resclave family control Estralia for us so we could possibly control the city in case a war did break out between Artorias and their neighbors. I just didn’t expect her to do it within a month!

“Mr. Jadhund has advertised you well within the dwarven community, which led to them selling their products and goods through me as well as giving me the ability to trade with the Ankor-Nazta without having to pay the extreme taxes to use the train as a means of transport,” Reajaen pointed out. “We used Shaturein and Layavete agents to sneak in whispers to the other senators, allowing me to settle deals with them where, if they work for me, I will allow them access to the dwarves. Not to mention, after we exposed what happened to O’Bloom and his allies, everybody know Dragon Princess Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor is supporting the Resclave family.”

More information was written within the documents Reajaen gave me, detailing even how the olden monies, the oligarchy of Estralia, tried to stop Reajaen’s rise in popularity with the people and her fellow senators. Estralia was, at the end of the day, still a republic, and the president could be kicked out if enough votes came in.

With the fact that she had my support and also managed to integrate the dwarves back into Gleisvale society, it gave her a lot of leeway in handling things. The opportunists knew who to follow in the short time to gain, however; even if Reajaen was president, we had to make sure to consolidate her power.

“Good!” I said after I skimmed through everything. “Then we need to schedule a meeting with King Drangleic and Shaturein's pillars! Set things up for you to make contact with them. Once again, you may use the Shaturein contacts but don’t forget, no killing! Push interlopers out, but don’t make this bloody. If you need me to make an appearance, ask, alright? I can perform another concert or even organize an event in the restaurant for them to get to know me better.”

“I understand, but we should also make sure Mr. Jadhund enters this discussion. He had made some demands after you left concerning the dwarves. It seemed like some dissent within their community itself.”

“Got it. I’ll organize a meeting between us,” I nodded before turning over to Svena. “Svena, I’ll begin writing the letter. Could you send it in my name to King Drangelic?”

“Of course, my lady. Concerning Lady Amelia, should I also have her prepare for a concert in Gleisvale?” she asked but I shook my head.

“No need for now. I want to feel out Elyonda’s audience first. Have her prepare the obsidian orchestra for that first, and then we can make a joint concert for Griffonpeak, Gleisvale, and Elyonda.”

And our discussion continued as we ironed out the details. With Nishio, Saori, and Ellaine preoccupied with their own stuff, I was the only one who could handle these administrative duties. Of course, I had people working for me, but I still had to be the one to take point.

“… I’m starting to not feel envious at all.”

“See? My little whelpling is truly a diligent one.”

I could her Mother and Sis speak behind me, but I had to ignore them to handle this discussion first. Duty before fun, I guessed.

After it was done, Fargryneill told me she had to return, wanting to train a bit. I told her to visit when she could and she simply shrugged. She departed back to mainland with the ship, as the rest of us could simply fly back if we needed to.

While we were still on the island, I asked Master and Mother for some training. As much as I felt a bit overwhelmed in all of this, with my scheduled pack full, I had to also focus on training. I had to become stronger and I needed to further my magic studies. Not to mention, kill merfiends to level up already.

But, as you would expect, a single night wasn’t enough to do too much. Only enough for me to feel confident as the next day began. The day of the royal battle was about to begin.

“Goooooood mooooorning, bloooood enjoyeeeeeeeeers! Citizens of Yeos! Let it be known on this beautiful day that Yeostar watches upon us! This tournament where his new CHAMPION. WILL. BE. KNIGHTED!”

The crowd, the announcer, the crackling contestants. Everything was loud.

“LET THE FIRST DAY OF THE TOURNAMENT OF THE STARS BEGIN!”

A note from AbyssRaven

Well, competitive sister quickly bonds with weird situation sister. Sisters!

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Chapter 314: The Tournament of Yeostar Begins!

A note from AbyssRaven

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Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Main Job [Virulent Corrosion] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 1]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Individual   [Sunfang Dragonewt, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has switched her Main Job to [Taunter]

Main Job benefits have been updated due to Job change

Taunter Level: 10/10

Job Skill gained:   [Taunt]

Individual   [Sunfang Dragonewt, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has switched her Secondary Job to [Virulent Corrosion]

Virulent Corrosion: 1/30

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Air Walk Lv. 6] [Aerial Fighter Lv. 6] gained

“I’m in A.”

“C”

Tournament competitor 349 you are assigned to Group A of the Rumble stage. Make your way there in time. By the Grace of the God of Knighthood, Bravery, and Loyalty, show thyself worthy of the blood of Yeostar in the Arena of Proving and become the might of Yeostar manifested in mortal coil!

For a god of knights, this sure sounds more like the god of war, or something.

Because I am, for the Pantheon of Light at least. Each pantheon has one god specialized in warfare, since we act as a conduit for the mortal’s prayer for survival and cheers of victory. During peace, a knight is the symbol of chivalry and righteousness, but during war where blood and dust can cloud the minds of both men and women, a knight should be flesh and bones turned into a weapon. When a single second is the difference between life or death, you must learn to accept blood and carnage as an extension of yourself like your armor and weapons.

Sheesh, talk about breaking the fantasy and romance of a knight. Ellaine would hate to hear that part… but, I guess it’s a more realistic viewpoint on it.

As predicted by Fargryneill yesterday, the battle royale to decide the 32 contestants of the main bracket stage would be divided into four groups: A, B, C, and D. From the 931 contestants, about 232 fighters would be in each round, decided by a random number generator done by the dungeon itself.

I would fight on the first day, while Sister would be waiting for her turn tomorrow. Considering how all of this was done about two bells before the actual tournament, it was quite fair and not prone to corruption. Not like anybody could do something underhanded anyways, since Yeostar was watching over this match right now.

“Goooooood mooooorning, bloooood enjoyeeeeeeeeers!” I could hear the announcer’s voice vibrating even through the thick walls.

Every single tournament contestant was currently waiting in the foyer or the resting room, either cheering, trash-talking, or gulping as they saw the results of the draw. My group was in the latter room, but I could hear and see what was going on in the main foyer, and even hear the announcer already hyping up the crowd in the seats.

“Ha ha ha ha! Wonderful!” Master laughed merrily. “It seems we will have something to watch on both days! Mhm, this festival will surely be exciting!”

“Mhmm, burn them to ash, my whelping.” Mother clapped her hands in delight as she encouraged me, all while wearing what seemed like some of my merch from my last concert. Saori designed it with a scaled pattern to form multiple flowers and flames as well as adding one of my quotes to it.

“Let me be your shining light,” it said. I appreciated Mother wearing it to support me, but it felt pretty embarrassing to see my mom doing something like this to me. Didn’t she know this would fluster me?! Even worse, she managed to persuade Tasianna, Shay, and Beth to each wear one too! Even worse-worse, Master was wearing an XL version of it! Oh gods!!!

“Krahahahaha!” Krim-Slak suddenly slapped my back. “Show them mercenaries and wannabe heroes what a true force of nature is, Hestia!”

“Kri, we haven’t had a chance to watch you fight seriously, so go on and show us your growth, young scale. Send them running,” Grazlahta added, giving me an expectant look.

“Goo…d luck.” Even Akasht was here, cheering me on.

It felt nice hearing their support, but the thing that made it hard for me to look at them was how each of them was holding the same frozen signs with my name on them that Mother and the others held up yesterday! How could they do this to me?! How could I focus on the match if they were trying to actively embarass me here?

“Yo, Sis, you nervous?” Fargryneill nudged me with her elbow, noting my red face.

“N-No, nothing like that. It’s just something else. Don’t mind it too much.” I rubbed my hand against my head, trying to hide it from the suspicious Fargryneill. As an idol, I really shouldn’t feel like this, but having friends and family cheering me on felt weird.

In any case, with our placements now decided, I let out a quick sigh, relieved I wouldn’t have to fight my sister this early on. If we had to fight, then it needed to be when the tournament was at its peak! At the finals, of course!

After everybody gave me a last supportive cheer, I left for the underground waiting room, where all the fighters would be waiting. Since the coliseum was a dungeon, it could morph its rooms to accommodate more participants. Yesterday, it was just a small place for resting, but today it should be around the size of a football stadium.

And the moment I entered this place, I couldn’t help but feel the stares the other contestants were giving me. Nothing new, since I received them every time I visited an adventurer guild, but they made me feel that I was standing out like a sore thumb. Sadly, I felt more death stares than genuine curiosity. Inside this room of 232 participants, I couldn’t really say if I could trust any of them.

“Oooh, look at that, guys. Our ‘dark horse’ has entered.”

“Arggh, shit! Better hide somewhere before she wipes me out…”

“Hmm.”

The reactions to my entry could be divided into those three categories — reckless curiosity, genuine fear, and silent judgement. While the former two were easy enough to find and track with my hearing, it was harder to detect those who were giving me the silent treatment. Although the room was spacious, with the number of people inside, it was easy to bump into others.

I went into this room with as minimal giveaways as possible, only showing what I showed back at the testing match. Which were my glaive, Rajah, and my general appearance. I didn’t bring in my white mage cape nor the catalyst I usually put inside my weapon to activate its scale-dust functions. Since I didn’t know who the most prominent opponents were, I had to be careful to not divulge too much information.

They know my dragoon spearmanship, that I have a wind magic, and that I'm also a tamer. Since the announcer called me a dragonewt, you can easily see what my element is from my scales. They would expect me to be a fire mage or be able to spew fire. Hmmmmmm.

How can I win this by showing the least amount of tools while being as lazy as possible? Hmmm. Oh, wait, right, let’s see…

I activated my [Detection Sensor] as I, luckily, found a single chair against a wall. Sitting down, I focused my consciousness around the room, counting the numerous signals inside this place until I couldn’t find anymore. It was loud as everybody spoke, roared, and shouted inside this closed room, making it hard to calm down. Also it didn’t help how it smelled like fish, fried fat, and cheap booze in here.

162. 162 participants. Yeah, that was obvious. Same idea, huh?

People who could hide their presence were somewhere in here. In a battle royale, at least to my knowledge from playing those sorta games on Earth, it was best to not stand out too much. The champion’s team would be targeted after all, or in a competitive setting, the most favorable team to win it all would either be avoided or people would try to take them down.

Sis and I already failed in this department, but I could guess Fargryneill wouldn’t mind it too much. And those skilled enough to hide their presence would do it here, too. Unfortunately for people who could detect them, it only made you more noticeable. Of the 231 other participants, 69 were trying to hide their presence. And from those, I managed to pinpoint about 57 of them.

Meaning, with a non-serious search, twelve people should be on my radar as they were either expert assassins or actually people I had to worry about. The higher the quality of their skills, the more threatening they were.

Hmm, okay, time to find them. Gotta appraise them before the match. Okay, one more—

“Oi, lass.”

“Hmm?” A voice suddenly took me out of my small meditation.

“That’s my seat.”

And here it was, the result of me forgetting to ask people if a seat was taken.

I looked up, noticing how a large shadow was cast over me. There, I saw a towering merfolk man with an appearance that could cause your heart to skip three beats. Not ‘cause he was handsome or ugly, but ‘cause he looked like something you would imagine if you thought of a deep-sea abyss monster.

Four round growing eyes drew my attention to his head and face. A hard shell grew from them, looking very much like a metal helmet if you didn’t look closely and notice, for example, his head's carapace could twitch. Going down to his mouth, tentacles surrounded it like a beard as he wore something looking like a black oxygen mask, connected to what seemed like a heavily-fortified tank on his back.

Looking at his gills, maybe this was a water tank so he could breathe? The merfolk I’d met before didn’t need something like this, they could breathe on land. Nonetheless, seeing as the mask was not clear, I couldn’t see what sort of mouth he had, but from the look of his jaw shape, it couldn’t be anything “normal.”

The rest of his body was less “alien” to me, seeing as he covered it completely in metal armor with plenty of blue and black scales and other merfiend materials. However, you could still see openings in it to accommodate the flappy fins on his elbows, shoulders, and back. There was also a thick finned tail growing from his bottom.

“Oh, lookie there, brudda! Lizard lass got her tail caught by that pirate hunter!”

“Shit, hahaha, sat in da wrong chair of dat monster.”

A barbed double-edged spear with another edged part in between the tip and the shaft was strapped around his arm with a seaweed rope, while a one-handed viking axe was hanging loosely with a rope from his belt. And just like his armor, not only were they well-made, but they had runes and enchantments strengthening them.

No joke.

“Shit! Oh, we getting a fight already?! ‘Deepsea Ebony’ Chahayat against that lizard! Hey, hey! What rank are they, again?!”

“The announcer said rank C for the girl, right? Or was it rank B? Hey, any of ya mercs know the fishman’s?”

“Ha? Dunno, but that Chahayat can sink pirate and smuggler ships all alone. Heard some rumor that he took down a demonkin ship all by himself. Stole some cargo from them fish sailors, and they hired him to do it for them.”

All that gossip entered my ears but they didn’t register properly. All my focus was concentrating on the staring contest I had with this man. He only showed a slight bit of displeasure at having his chair stolen, but once our eyes locked onto each other’s, he didn’t seem to get anymore impatient. Still, the silence was getting awkward with everybody hyping this thing up.

“Sorry about that. I didn’t know.” I stood up and bowed slightly before leaving. He didn’t say much as I walked away, simply sitting back down on his chair.

“Buuuuwwaaaa! Shit’s got funny. Bah! Whatevers.”

“Nah, she’s on his shit list now. Don’t need to do shit to her now. Let them take each other out, hahaha!”

There was an obvious disappointment in everybody’s mood, but I was more interested in the person himself. After all, he was one of the twelve people I couldn’t locate at first, and seeing as how he was still minimizing his presence to others despite how bulky he was, he probably had the advanced stealth skills.

Scary.

I didn’t dare risk using [Mana Eyes] on him now. Angering him here probably wouldn’t be smart. It would have been pretty nice to see what his level and Profile quality was, so I could get an idea on who the other eleven people were, but too bad, couldn’t do.

Still, got some clues. Now, time to—

Competitors! Your match will start soon!

As I was about to do some more reconnaissance, a System message from the dungeon interrupted me, followed by the room’s walls suddenly opening up and forming stairs.

Competitors! Choose one of the ten entrances and walk to the transfer platform. You will be transported to a random location on the field depending on the entrance you choose! Please, consider wisely.

I glanced over the message before Yeostar’s voice appeared in my head again.

<A warrior must be able to think and improvise on the run. The rumble stage is not only a way to weed out the weak, but it is also there to test the warrior on their ability to survive on a battlefield where all odds are placed against them.>

I looked around after I heard his reasoning, noting the exit to the foyer was sealed off now, replaced by two staircases. Each direction of this rectangle room now had a set of two entrances into the arena, and people were slowly going into them.

There was no time to do anymore looking around, sadly. I guess, once all the competitors were inside the room, a countdown activated until the match would start. Nothing I could have done. At the very least, I learned about one of my potential competitors and where he was going.

For now, let’s avoid him. There were twelve strong people, but there could be more than those twelve. Some of the more rowdy guys probably didn’t think hiding themselves would be necessary.

Having fun fighting isn’t the goal here, it's to do my job. And that is to make it to the top eight of this rumble match. Better to avoid unnecessary bad matches.

Sadly, I didn’t know where the other twelve were, so I was still kinda hoping for luck. Oh well, it was time to use my best method to solve such a conundrum!

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe,

Catch a tiger by the toe.

If he hollers, let him go,

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe!

… I chose the door that merfolk went into.

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe,

Catch a tiger by the toe.

If he hollers, let him go,

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe! That one! Yup, got—

[“Master, why are you turning in circles?”] Rajah suddenly spoke to me, causing my eyes to widen like a goldfish.

I forgot to use Rajah as my scout!

I'm used to using Saori as my primary scout to check for monsters when we stayed in the Belzac forest, but I had forgotten to explicitly tell Rajah to do the same, since Saori always did the reconnaissance without me telling her! Even when we were in Artorias or Estralia, I never had to tell her “scout, please” she always did it herself.

“… Dang.” I facepalmed myself, worrying Rajah, but I told him everything was alright.

Remember, I have to train him. This is our first time going out to fight as partners. Parallel minds, do make sure to remind me of things like this!

‘Hey, we were more preoccupied trying to locate 231 people in what seemed like ten minutes or so. Give us a break, Original Mind,’ #2 complained, and I had to lay them off. She was kinda right.

Regardless of this beginner’s mistake of mine, I shook it off and just went through the entrance I chose. Yeostar did mention I had to be adaptable, so I had to do just that. Surviving was all I did in the Belzac forest, so this should be right up my alley! Well, hopefully, I didn’t forget anything.

While avoiding the stream of people rushing up the stairs, I eventually made it to a glowing blue platform. Everyone stood on it, waiting for it to activate, until the door closed up and the platform lit up. Our bodies were then shrouded in a glowing light before it shot up through multiple tubes in the ceiling, going through it like a rollercoaster.

Once light returned to our world, we were launched right into the sky, overseeing an arid battlefield where a decrepit castle was. Numerous fortifications and other things like cannons, pitfalls, and a field of armored skeletons could be seen in the center of this place. There was a single forest behind me, but otherwise, this place was bare as hell.

“Blooood enjoyers of all ages! Welcome to the battle royAAAAAAAAALEEEEE!” The voice of the announcer boomed in our ears as the sky transformed to show the numerous people cheering in the coliseum’s seats, having seemingly grown to increase capacity.

And before long, all of us flew up even higher and were shot in a random direction, making it seem like fireworks from a distance. As I saw numerous other people flying around, I looked to the ground, noting I was about to land in that forest I spotted earlier.

Oh my?

“And look at that, people! The starting flare, the beginning of this tournament and the festival of Yeos has started! Just like during the last competition, the first rumble stage will be our iconic battlefield of Schrade! Where God Yeostar fought with a small battalion to prevent the reconquest of the demonic castle Fatalisa from the demonic invasion! Only a shallow recreation, sadly, but all competitors will have to fight through not only themselves, but also the wicked leftovers of the demonic curses! All to become one of the eight illustrious winners of this rumble!”

“Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Woooooooooooooo!”

“Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! FIGHT!”

The cheers of the crowd set the mood. They wanted violence and even their cries overshadowed whatever I might of heard from my family and friends. I couldn’t even find them in this panorama of a ceiling. However, unless I wanted to lose, I had to focus on the match on hand.

After all, I could see a few streaks of light following me. I couldn’t see who they were, but they certainly were my opponents. I had to take them down before I could do what I wanted.

“Hear me! Who will be the winners this time! Who will conquer the mighty Castle Fatalisa? Who will dominate the bloodfield of Schrade? May this war strengthen your body and minds! And don’t die just like worms, alright? Hahahahahaha!”

Jeez, boorish.

But, as his laugh finally disappeared, it heralded my landing in the forest. Protected by the brilliant glow, I safely rolled on the ground and my instincts shot back into action, quickly locating the trajectory of my incoming enemies. I climbed up a tree like a tiger before sending Rajah out to my right, whilst I parkoured through the branches towards two incoming enemies.

The moment they landed on the ground and the glow disappeared, I blasted myself down towards them with [Wind Blast] and sliced through both of their weapons with my tail, landing a deep gash through their chest armor. As they cried out in pain, I shifted my body around, now on the ground. Digging my glaive into the ground, I then landed two decisive claw slashes, leaving five ruby red wounds on each of their backs before their armlets activated.

Held back too much. Should have been a one-hit KO.

Their pained groans stopped as their wounds healed up, where they turned around, scowling at me.

“Fuck you, bitch! We just landed! Come on!”

“You could have at least given us a chance to react! What the fuck was that?!”

And with a quick “phweeeeeee!” they flew up into the sky and disappeared from the arena. I didn’t believe they saw me give them a peace sign before they left. But, I couldn’t celebrate just yet.

I used [Aerokinesis] and formed my good ol’ wind rifle and loaded the wind bullet with a stone. Unlike my time in the Belzac forest, I didn’t need my parallel minds to control this thing anymore. I could do everything on my own, now so used to my wind manipulation, something complicated as making an air rifle and firing it was second nature.

I can’t poison them, right?

<If you can use poison, then it is allowed, but don’t poison anybody with your major or critical stage toxins, Hestia. Goddess Plesia forbade me from allowing ailment recovery as a safety measure since it could be abused, as she called it. The protection aura will protect them long enough for the priests and alchemists to aid them if you inflict them with a minor or moderate venom.>

Got it~

I wrapped the stone in my hand, creating a purple flame inside of it to hide from the audience. Only a little bit of corrosive venom was on it now. I then detected Rajah using [Detection Sensor] and told him to move to the point I wanted him to. Once it was done.

Bam! But it was silenced, so nobody not in my vicinity could hear it. And after a millisecond…

“Gurraaaaagh!!” Somebody’s growls reverbed through the forest loudly, before a light flew out of it into the skies.

[“Master!”] Rajah came running. [“You shot right through his stomach! He survived, no problem!”]

Maybe adding that venom was overdoing it a bit…

But, regardless, it felt good. I felt at home again. The nostalgic smell of the forest entered my lungs as I shrugged off all the time I was stuck inside a city. I could finally hunt!

Welp, let’s see how many I can take down before having to leave this place.

However, while I could see the three lights I caused vanish, several more suddenly appeared, signaling the success of various other fighters. The match had begun and nobody was willing to show mercy as they reaped through their rivals’ chances to win.

Regardless, whoever saw mine coming from the forest would know where I was. I didn’t even need to [Taunt] for the flies to start coming in, greedy to take down a big game player. Whether they were strong or weak, they were like moths gathering around a fire.

Sadly, this forest had already crowned its apex predator, and I wasn’t accepting house guests today.

A note from AbyssRaven

The tournament has begun, and Hestia is planning to win it!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters for the whole month! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 315: Tournament Frenzy.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #3 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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The Tournament of Yeostar, or as the locals called it, the Hero’s Proving Grounds. The most important event during the Festival of Yeostar, only held once the previous Champion of Yeostar had either stepped down or perished. As such, this was not only a rare and exciting festival for the people of the Principality of Yeos, but also a melancholic one, as it also acted as an impromptu funeral for the previous Champion.

Sir Royce. A Champion of Yeostar with a tenure of 13 years. Although a woman disguised as a man, Royce was a powerful knight heralded by her countrymen as the strongest Champion of the Pantheon of Light. Some would even claim she had been the strongest Blessed overall amongst all the Origin God pantheons, a result of patriotic pride.

Like all Champions of Yeostar, Royce was once a tournament contestant as well. Having braved the bloodfields of the Arena of Yeostar, defeating any adversary she would face, she was then placed into the tournament bracket as one of the top 32 fighters. Those 32 talented warriors fought each other, but Royce was the one to rise above them all, becoming a title owner and a blessed of a god.

However, two years ago, she perished during the war between the humans and demonkins, fighting alongside her country as an ally of the Empire of Folschreck. And with her death, the time for a new Champion of Yeostar to make their debut had come. And that warrior will be chosen in the span of these next two weeks.

On the very day of the tournament to decide it all, the first match was a battle royale to thin out the horde and weed out the weak. The battlefield of Schrade — one of Yeostar’s momentous battles during the demon wars — was the first stage. Overlooking the infamous Castle Fatalisa, this was where the contestants would fight each to decide the top eight of group A.

And, without further ado, numerous fighters have already fallen in the first ten minutes of this battle. Of the 232 contestants, only 178 were left. Whether it was with martial abilities or magic, everybody was cut and shot down equally.

The rules were simple: act “honorably” and fight in the name of Yeostar. Despite the setting of the tournament, Yeostar was still the God of Knighthood, Bravery, and Loyalty. While a certain amount of “unfair methods” could be excused for the pursuit of victory, absolutely unchivalrous behavior would still be demeaned in the eye of Yeostar. Although a realist, the Pantheon of Light’s God of War still had standards.

And as such, attaining victory was the most important for the contestants. Whether it was teaming up with others, utilizing the tools left in this simulated battlefield, or creating absolute chaos, it was all allowed! Creativity was also a virtue.

“Gang up! We got a B ranker here! Group up and let’s take the bastard down!”

“H-Hey, shit!”

The strong will reap the weak? On the battlefield, even the weak may feast on the strong. Being able to rally those around you to fight against adversaries was the mark of a true Champion.

“Haha, shoot! Fire!”

“Mana cannons! Gurwaaaaagh?!”

Reappropriate the tools of war and use them against your enemies. Set traps to capture your foes to take them all out with a decisive strike. A Champion of Yeostar cannot rely on their power and skill with the blade alone, as tactics and strategies could overturn the odds for the armies and men they led.

“S-Shit?! Our weapons aren’t doing anything against him! R-Run the fuck away!”

“Hmph!”

“““Gaaaaaaaaaaaah!”””

However, even then, what differentiated a Champion from a normal elite warrior or knight was their power. Strength to overturn anything they saw. A Champion of Yeostar was that perfect instrument of war, combining every facet of battle into a single person. They would be the one to dominate the field with their presence alone, cleaving a way forward for their allies to charge in.

“And that is another star! Look at them fly away, blood enjoyers! Give praise, for these warriors have fought and fallen for our entertainment!” The announcer celebrated the numerous streaks of white light in the arena’s sky, created each time somebody was defeated and safely transported out of the battlefield with the help of their armlets.

“Look at him swing that sword, woooo!”

“A real sword saint candidate! Sir Antonodius! Can’t believe we got a former Hands of Heaven to fight today!”

“Yeah, look how he cleaved through all those grunts! He’s gonna be the champ, you know?”

And to the onlookers of this match, this was a rare pleasure they fully immersed themselves in. To the contestants, the audience was just part of the sky — hard to see, but you could hear and see their cheers if the tournament organizers allowed it.

However, to the crowd, the center of the arena was a giant rotating orb, displaying a bird-eye view of the different fighters. If this could be compared to Earth, this was like placing a drone over each player’s head, allowing the viewers to watch the 22 different perspectives.

However, for a tournament like this, watching somebody acting like a rat, trying to survive until the end by avoiding everybody wasn’t enjoyable. In fact, cowards like this went against the domain of bravery, making them less ideal candidates. On the other hand, those who fought and preserved through adversity were beloved, garnering the respect and attraction of the audience and announcer.

As such, depending on the valor they showed, their perspective shown on the rotating orb would grow in size, towering over the others. The longer the match went, the more noticeable people would show themselves. They would become the stars of the show, so to speak, becoming the focal point of the audience but also to their potential rivals.

And currently, seven perspectives were dwarfing the others.

“My money’s on ex-Hand Guardian Larent Antonodius!”

“One large silvite on ‘Auegor’s Blade’for the most defeats!”

“No way anybody can defeat an imperial knight of the Empire. Former or otherwise!”

The most notable of the contestants was Larent Antonodius, an Ex-Hands of Heaven, a former member of the imperial knight order of the Empire of Folschreck and personal defender of the Holy Emperor of the Light. In addition, this person was one of the people O’Bloom hired to chase Hestia out of Gleisvale, and was also the one to report Astalos’s presence, causing him to be mistaken for a dragonslayer when Aurora was still in Cedaraille.

But now, this swordmaster was cleaving his way through the rumble stage, defeating everybody he happened to come across as he slowly traversed through the corpse field of the arena. Although not an elder, he still took his time to conserve Stamina. Even arrows and spells would be cleaved by his enchanted sword.

However, he wasn’t the only one to attract people’s attention.

“My Davi is on that mountain of a berserker! He’s like a whirlwind!”

“Ahahaha! That mage! Look at that mage blasting everything away?! By Yeostar, he’s destroying the battlefield!”

“Oi, lookie there, bois! The ‘Acid Killer’ brothers made it the castle, first! Money well spent on the info, eh?”

“Merfolk represent! Sink those landwalkers, ‘Deepsea Ebony!’”

“Deepsea Ebony” Chahayat, the merfolk headhunter.

“Acid Killers” Greisha and Kraeger, black mercenary brothers notorious for their monster killing toxic concoctions.

Master Mage Naemon Humbabwa, an Evidian sorcerer working for Aleistunum.

“Mountain Lion” Ghorush the Decapitator, a leonid beastman with a muscular body almost comparable with an ogre.

All five of these contestants were rampaging across the battlefield, destroying what little hope the weak had as they stood in the way of these living disasters. The number plummeted to 104 combatants after 20 minutes had passed. The number of fighters terrified and frightened by all brutality was increasing, scurrying away like cowards and becoming obscured by the rising warriors. However, this wouldn’t last for long.

The battlefield was huge, with plenty of space for people to run around and hide, but seeing rats scurry their way towards a place to the bracket matches without facing danger was never the intention of the battle royale. For that, depending on how long the match had lasted, certain areas of the field would break apart, sending anybody unlucky enough into the abyss where they would be disqualified and transported out of the arena.

At the 35-minute mark, when only 76 fighters were left, the outer ring of the field broke apart and layers were being peeled off every minute now. This forced everybody deeper into the center where Castle Fatalisa stood. The chances of encountering fellow fighters increased, and so did the cheers of the blood-hungry watchers. Whether nobles, yeomen, or peasants, it was a joy for everybody to watch.

“And that’s the 170th person out! Only 62 fighters left, people!” the announcer stated after 40 minutes had elapsed.

“Hey, look! ‘Arcane Rider’ Arlond is fighting against that sand mage! Uhhhh, ‘Sandweaver’ Joek!”

“Oh, shit! That fishman and lion just met! Fight of the bloody hulks! Let those beasts take each other out!”

And with fewer people around and the area shrinking, the strong began to find their rivals. The ‘Arcane Rider’ rode into battle with a manatech horse, striding through a sandstorm created by an Evidian sand mage. Whereas the “Deepsea Ebony” Chahayat clashed weapons against the “Mountain Lion” Ghorush, both roaring and causing the ground to quake.

It was an endless bloodbath of action and excitement.

However, something stood out amongst all of this. Something neither the viewers nor the announcer could explain really. They were in awe at the destructive force shown to them, but at the same time, they couldn’t help but feel their excitement getting drained as the seventh perspective began to grow larger and larger.

“S-She— Our dark horse took down her 42nd contestant!” the announcer informed the coliseum, narrowly correcting himself from shouting out in disbelief at what he was seeing.

What exactly was everybody watching?

The scene could only be described as a natural disaster. Thunder and storms, the fear of every sailor braving the harsh ocean. And this was currently devastating and terrorizing everybody coming closer to the only forest on the Shrade battlefield.

“N-Nooooo, I don’t wanna die!!! Heeeeeelp meeeeeeeeeeeee! Uwaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

Tornados cleaved through the land, uprooting anything not safely tethered to the ground. Once you were inside the zone of these five cyclones, the only ways out was to either surrender or get your Health torn apart until the arena automatically kicks you out.

“Grrrrriagahashahsdbasd!!!”

After all, while the wind was ripping the challengers apart, lightning bolts coming from five floating thunder orbs rained down upon anybody in the vicinity, sundering both the earth and burning away any chance of approaching the eye of this storm — the forest.

However, this formation stood still, sticking close to the forest without showing any attempts of expanding. As such, how could anybody be caught in this when it was so easy to avoid? Well, it would have been easy for the first 34 minutes, but once the ground started to break apart, it became harder and harder to maneuver around it.

From the seventh most kills in the ranking to number two after 50 mins had passed, this contestant was endangering the throne of Larent Antonodius. However, this bothered less the knight and more the gamblers betting on his position in the top. With only 37 contestants left, they were shouting and cursing for Sir Larent to start defeating more people. Otherwise, they might just lose all their money.

“… Jeez, this is a battlefield and this girl…” The announcer’s voice became weak as he kept watching her perspective grow, unsure how to comment on this. On the other hand…

“Ha ha ha ha! That’s my apprentice! Kriiiiiiiiiiiii! The path of a true mage!” Kushlek’zar shouted from the bottom of his voice, even standing up and roaring, acting unlike his usually priestly appearance.

“Gahahahahahaha! Look at the viewers! Totally shocked! Gahahahahahahaha!” Krim-Slak crackled as if he was possessed, unable to stop the more he watched everything unfold.

On the other hand, the young horned woman sitting next to him couldn’t help but massage her temples in exaggeration. “… Jeez, I don’t know what to feel about this. Second-hand cringe? Pride? That brat is turning this whole battle on its head.”

“Hiehiehie.” But, unlike her, the silver-haired woman on her right giggled in a refined way, before gazing back to the projections with fondness. “Well, that is just how your little sister acts. A very inventive whelpling.”

There was even more support.

“Lady Hestia! Good work! Keep it up!”

[“The princess is worthy of our respect! She can destroy hordes of enemies without even lifting a finger! Sister, we must train even harder to become worthy as her guards!”]

[“Yes, Brother!”]

“He…stia! W…in!”

“Mhmm, very impressive. I just don’t know how to describe this as a warrior, though…”

It was Hestia. And what was she doing to make everybody so conflicted?

“Hmmm, hmm, hmm, hmmm. Oh, how is the seat, Rajah? Still comfortable?”

The white virigress nodded, laying comfortably on his chair. After the young dragon girl confirmed her companion’s contentment, she showed him a wide grin before continuing where she left off from…

… nonchalantly building her next chair using the wood in the forest.

“Hmm, hmm, hmm~” She calmly hummed while cutting off wood chunks with her claws, all while her parallel minds controlled the [Levin Core] and [Cyclone Madness] spells outside the forest, disrupting anybody from coming closer.

“Oh right, it's about time. Ahem…”

“Our dark horse is about to do it again?! Will this be enough to overthrow Sir Larent Antonodius?!” The announcer hyped it all up.

With an [Aerokinesis] microphone, the girl only needed one word to ruin the hopes of all the money bettors.

“Taunt~”

A soundwave was launched out from her air stereo, blasting away leaves and pushing some trees down. Her echoing voice reverbed through the air, escaped through the lightning-storm field and into the area outside of it. Seven combatants escaping from the collapsing ground heard her voice, instantly affected by the [Taunter] Job’s [Taunt] ability.

They snapped their heads around with fear in their faces, noticing the girl jumping out of the forest, waving like a kid in a trampoline house before saying “Weeeeeeeee” as she fell back into it. With sight and hearing requirements fulfilled, [Taunt] was ready to do what it was designed for — pulling everybody’s hostility towards the taunter.

… Even if it meant going through the maelstrom.

“M-Mercy!” The seven men’s last words before they were ripped off the ground and electrocuted, before getting kicked out of the arena.

And then, there were 30 left.

“S-She-I— Contestant 349 just defeated her 57th enemy! She’s in the lead! Ark!” Red marks were showing on the announcer’s face, a result of him facepalming himself every time Hestia continued building her second chair.

“Fuck! Who the hell is that girl! How the hell is that lizard girl ahead of a Hand of Heaven?!”

“Noooo! No, fuck! My money! I bet a month’s pay on that! Noooooo! No, you piece of shit Folschreckian, go kill more! Kill more before I lose all my money!”

Some were furious, others were calm enough to open up the list of combatants on their viewer-only armlets, scrolling down until they found the contestant number the announcer shouted out.

“Heestia A-tschuko Karrgrysssmoor? Who dat? Why da long name? A manablood?”

“Nah, you idiot, read it correctly. Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor. The letters are weirdly assembled but you get it if you read this and this a bit differently. But, you right, bruh. Long name, gotta be a manablood lizard.”

Kargryxmor wasn’t a typical name every Aurena follower would know. Despite how important Kargryxmor was for the history of Peolynca and the world of the dragonkins, it was a rather obscure name for the uneducated. Knowing every subordinate god was not needed for them.

As such, those who didn’t know about Kargryxmor only thought of Hestia as a noble since it was more common to meet people with a middle or last name amongst the nobility or rich merchants. Those who knew how last names worked for dragonkins would have instantly realized who this crimson-haired girl was.

Regardless, the general consensus inside the arena, outside of a certain party, was that a random dragonewt girl suddenly trumped over a veteran knight on the battlefield when it came to “kills.” The favorite in this round of the rumble match was momentarily in second place.

All against a girl who was spending the battle leisurely in a forest making chairs, all while her rival contestants fought tooth and nail to remain “alive.” Out of the twelve people Hestia thought were strong in her initial reconnaissance, only nine remained. Were they defeated by the horde or somebody Hestia didn’t recognize? No, they each fell against others of the twelve.

And it was about time for Hestia to face her “equals.”

After all, nobody could ignore the hurricanes and thunder. Too many “stars” shot into the sky around the area, and this was the perfect bait for people to come closer. Almost an hour had passed, and there were still exactly 30 people left. The crowd was starting to turn impatient…

… until he arrived.

“Hmm…” The swordmaster looked at the storm wall before letting out a small chuckle. “Haha… I shall accept your challenge!”

“Ooooh, he’s here! Go, stop her!”

“Yeah! This will decide who will remain at the top!”

The crowd cheered as the swordmaster took a stance, holding his sword stretched out behind his body. After he took a deep breath, he tensed his muscles and performed a cleave. The wind separated before him… until the mana slash exploded in front of the tornado and [Tornado Core], disrupting and fizzling them out!

An entrance into the eye was created by a single man.

“Aaaaaaand he did it!!!!!!!!!” The crowd erupted in cheers, and so did the announcer. “Auegor’s Blade! That is his name! The former Hand of Heaven, protector of the Holy Emperor and a member of the strongest knight order! Even if he doesn’t carry that title anymore, the sword saint candidate hasn’t lost his touch one bit! With a singular strike, he destroyed two advanced magic spells!”

And this noise did not escape Hestia. She looked into the sky, noticing not only the announcer’s voice but also the jeers some of them seemed to have. She knew instinctively they were directed at her; after all, she wasn’t dumb to not realize how “uncilvalrous” her attack plan was. Even Yeostar questioned her methods.

But this dragon knew exactly what she was doing. Cull the number of contestants, make it easier for her to reach the bracket, all while making sure people had their attention on her. As an idol, she needed to make people look at her. Now, everybody would.

“Welp, time to go, Rajah.” Her virigress entered her shadow before she dispelled every single spell surrounding the forest. She grabbed her glaive before sitting down on her first finished chair, looking in the direction of the approaching swordsman.

As an idol, her greatest joy was to bring entertainment to the crowd, and this was now the greatest stage she could give them.

“Look at this, blood enjoyers! The girl stopped the storm wall! She picked up her weapon! That smile! This girl is about to face one of the strongest swordsmen head-open!”

The excitement the announcer had for his “dark horse” intensified this whole hour, growing more and more as he watched Hestia rise in the ranks. But now, his patience would finally pay off. He saw what Hestia could do yesterday during the test, and his instincts after watching numerous incredible fighters made him aware she was hiding her strength. He wanted to know more. He wanted to see this dragonewt fight!

“‘Crimson-Scaled!’ That’s her epitaph for now, people! Will this smug dragonewt girl finally show us if she is worthy to stand amongst all the giants of this tournament? Or is she just a two-trick mage with an incredibly large mana pool?”

“Fraud! Get the mages out of here!”

“Hurry up already, you old fart! Win the damn match or I’ll curse you for every coin I lost because of you!”

“Scalekin versus human! Eyyy, come on seascales, we gotta support our neighbor here! Beat his pink arse, Princess!”

Just about every merfolk, naga, and levianewt naturally recognized the name Kargryxmor, but all of them simply thought of Hestia as a member of the dragonewt clan Kargryxmor instead of being a dragon herself. As a member of the kinkyuro, the five most influential dragonewt clans of Loatryx, Hestia was still pretty much seen as a princess to them. Similar to how most commoners viewed the children of marquesses and dukes.

And, in this tournament where the amount of scalekin was far below that of the humans, the Caedhulen races couldn’t help but support a dragonewt. To them, a scalekin was a far better choice to cheer for than a human. It was more patriotic.

“Ooooh! They see each other!”

And the swordmaster’s silhouette finally appeared in front of Hestia, revealing himself in the clearing Hestia made in preparation for this fight.

“… Oh wait, don’t I know you from somewhere?” Hestia, still sitting in her seat, questioned the knight as he gave her a deep bow.

He saluted her, acting more like a perfect knight greeting a young woman than an adversary. “Yes, my lady. Larent Antonodius, a humble mercenary. We met, under less ideal circumstances, during your… concert in Gleisvale.”

Noticing the attitude he had just now, Hestia smiled and accepted the small talk. She pulled her catalyst from underneath her jacket and placed it in her glaive, allowing it to float while she corrected her posture.

“Oh right, that really wasn’t the best, huh? Well, I felt a lot of gazes in the waiting room, but yours probably was one of the two more intense one. Since you know me, of course.”

“Ah, pray forgive me. I swear to the Goddess I did not do it with any malicious intent.”

“Don’t worry. Considering you came here with not a hint of murderous intent, I get I don’t have to repeat the same thing we had last time. Should be more fun when our lives aren’t on the line. Hmm, but, humble knight, huh?” Hestia tucked on her eyelid for a moment, before shaking her head. “Your level? Mine is 98.”

Larent raised an eyebrow, flabbergasted at how Hestia just revealed her level like that. “You are certainly blunt, my lady.”

Hestia shrugged, having expected this reaction. “Well, depending on the quality of your identity bracelet, I probably can only appraise your levels and stats. The rest of your profile will be blocked. However, my [Identity Blocker] is most likely too high for you to reciprocate. So, I wanted to even the field a bit.”

“Haha, you are fighting unfairly already, my lady. Honor compels me to answer you.” Larent said with a wry smile, amused by the girl sitting before him. Although he was a noble himself and had seen others speak like Hestia, he still found it entertaining how she persuaded him. “Level 147.”

“Jeez! Buh!” Hestia almost coughed. “Oh goodness, ‘humble?’ Yeah, right. That should be enough to be counted as an S rank. Ahhhhh…”

“Well, it is the minimum a Hand of Heaven should be worth, my lady. Otherwise, how are we supposed to protect our Emperor? … Then again, I no longer have the right to protect him.” He sheathed his sword. “Today, I am merely an A rank mercenary. Former temporary leader of the ‘Band of the Waywards,’ before their proper leader returned. As such, I am only the ‘Auegor’s Blade’ right now. A desperate man wanting to sharpen his blade even further to one day become a sword saint.”

“Eheheh…” Hestia laughed nervously as she twirled her glaive around. “Can I, you know, run away maybe? I have to be one of the top eight, you know.”

“Mhmm, I have accepted your challenge, my lady. Please, do not leave me standing like this. My heart has already been broken by enough women, ahahahaa!” Now, Larent was returning the unfair arguments back to Hestia, causing her to groan and scratch her head. “Will you honor me with your true powers?”

“If I can afford to, no. And I really wish to hide it even further until the brackets, if possible.” But Hestia grimaced. “Phewww… you want to force it out of me, right?”

Larent only nodded. Hestia shook her head before raising it to the sky with close eyes. After a moment of silence, she opened it up, her smile brimming with energy once more. She pointed at the sky with her unoccupied hand, now grinning.

“Peeeeeeooople of Elyonda! The home of Yeostar the Brave! Watch here, for I am ‘The Crimson Idol’ Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor!” Hestia announced her identity, knowing full well of the function of the viewer-only armlet from her mother. “I hope you guys were somewhat entertained by the display I showed before! Numerous fighters fell from my spells, causing not only the announcer but also you to gasp and awe! Well, as unworthy as I am in front of this mighty swordmaster, I will still give you what you came here for! Entertainment, shivers, and excitement!!!”

She then formed the air around her into a microphone.

“Huuuuuuu— In my purgatory, I make the devil cry ♫

In Hellfire ♫

All you hear are his screams, begging to be released ♫

It’s Music ♫”

The air swelled, causing Larent to brace himself and dodge as the ground burst in fire, nearly catching him in it. It continued as he noticed a new status affliction had appeared — [Music Resonation (Moderate)].

His ears perked, noticing the sounds of an inferno forming around his area, until it was too late. He was now imprisoned inside an arena of fire. In the next moment, more flames appeared, becoming even more intense.

Larent was cautious, unable to assess what Hesita could do as he couldn’t appraise her with his [Identify]. As Hestia said, her [Identity Blocker] was far too high leveled for him. And since he wanted to analyze his opponent first before striking, he allowed Hestia to fully buff herself in everything she needed for this fight, including [Symphonie des Feuergottes].

Larent activated the [Auracoil] rune on his armor, creating a mana bubble around him to protect himself against the massive flood of descending flames. The moment he noticed his barrier cracking, he swung his sword forward, in the direction Hestia should be. The mana blast cleanly sundered anything in its way, but once every settled, Hestia wasn’t there anymore.

However, the music still kept playing. He could hear Hestia’s voice, so he knew she was still around.

And there she was, flying above him, fully covered in dark purple armor with two slime-like objects flanking her wings.

[“You ready to give everybody a good show, Sir Larent?”] Hestia’s eager voice escaped through her telepathy, making it easy for the swordmaster to imagine her cheery smile from before. Considering the large black helmet covering her whole head, Larent though it was hard to speak through it.

“It’s ‘Mr. Larent,’ young lady.” He smiled before putting on his helmet. “En garde!”

A note from AbyssRaven

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 316: Dance of Blade and Magic.

A note from AbyssRaven

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[Humanize (Minor)] [Various Spell Buffs] [Symphonie des Feuergottes Movement (Allegro)] [Music Resonation (Moderate)] [Stage Fever (Major)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

32 beastmen have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total followers of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 10032

Dungeons. No matter if their floors had a bright sky or could show the outer world, if they didn’t have a way to fully simulate a sun and its solar rays, then my solar core couldn’t recharge while I was within it. And that was exactly the case with the Dungeon of Yeostar.

And seeing as I had to fight against 231 contestants and make it as one of the top eight, then it meant I needed to be conservative with my resources. This was a marathon, not a sprint. With those twelve, potentially strong targets in mind, I decided I couldn’t expend too much of my Stamina or Mana. Especially since one of the rules of the match also included being unable to use outside consumables, like my dragorade.

And there was another problem I had to face in this whole situation; Mother and the others explained to Fargryneill and me about how the audience watched the matches. You had something like a bird’s eye or even an over-the-shoulder view, like in a third-person video game, of the different combatants. The more “kills” you accumulated, the bigger this screen would become.

Which meant, I couldn’t be at zero kills! I was an idol and my job was to gain fans to reach the next [The Light] milestone. No idea if this would work, since I was in my dragonewt form and a girl, things the Principality of Yeos didn’t like at all, but I had to try to do something. And, from how I gained 32 fans from my plan, it seemed to have worked, well, only for the beastmen, I guess. Solidarity and camaraderie in race.

So, how did I do all of this, especially since I had to make sure not to kill anybody? AFK tower defense was the idea. [Levin Core] and [Cyclone Madness] were both pretty nice spells, but didn’t deal bombastic burst damage as I liked with my offensive spells and attacks. They dealt the damage over time, through lightning blasts and sharp winds.

With how my stats, even in my moderate dragonewt form, were far superior to D and some C adventurers, I could easily kill them with a single punch. I normally was able to control my strength hold back my punches… except for yesterday, when I let my temper come out. That was my bad. Even if it was a sanctioned fight, it was still murder. I didn’t want to sugarcoat it, even if those two lowlives intended to do some rather nasty stuff to me if I were a normal person.

So, I strived to not accidentally cause another death today. With these two spells, I created a barrier around the forest and, when combined with the [Taunt] ability, I could “persuade” people to come into it, making some easy “kills” while climbing the leaderboard and allowing myself to become more well-known by the people of Elyonda.

Really smart of me to take the [Taunter] Job before entering today, if I could praise myself.

I was conserving some Mana through this plan, but I still ended up using about 25% of my max Mana pool after all of that. It dropped down to 65% after I had to [Purple Flash] a [Symphonie des Feuergottes] just now.

This was a necessary measure, as I didn’t expect to find somebody with a higher level than Yorshka in this tournament, especially not this early. King Drangleic and his dukes had told me the Folschreck Empire’s royal knights were strong, but never would I have expected one of them to be over level 140.

And he was even an “ex” member, too.

Wind Blast. Dragoon Dive!

Using [Air Step], I stomped forwards on the very air as the wind from behind blasted me forward like a rocket. With my glaive held before me, aiming at the former knight standing before me, I planned to land a decisive blow to him, hopefully crippling him enough to end this battle fast. Unfortunately, I was a bit too naive, thinking this would be that easy.

With perfect timing, he moved his sword slightly up and used the tip to redirect my blow to his left, before jumping to his right to avoid the shockwave.

What?! I might not have used my rocket boosters there, but my speed was still too fast for most people to dodge, never mind redirect it! This guy, Larent Antonodius, just did it flawlessly and even shifted himself into the perfect position to counterattack.

Spark Crescent.

While I was still recovering my balance and weapon, Larent charged forward with a stab, but thankfully [Dragon Fire]’s automatic flame attacks activated and stopped his assault. I then stepped back, using my self-made glaive ability by slashing upwards with my weapon and tail, creating two flame crescents.

Larent parried both hits, sadly, but it gave me to the chance to leech some Mana and Stamina from him using my weapon’s [Passive Rune: Mana Drain] and [Passive Rune: Stamina Beast]. Small amounts, but much needed.

To prevent him from attacking again, I launched my [Unheilige Engel] at him in the form of obsidian spears, giving me enough time to open the face on my [Panzer] helmet and release a stream of [Hellflame Breath]. This was something he couldn’t parry, so he decided to dodge it and use his position to flank me.

He [Gale Step]ed back into close quarters, exactly where he wanted to be against me, and launched a flurry of attacks. I couldn’t see a way to break through this with conventional means. Even after training with Yorshka and having fought decent swordsmen like Farron and Charleslyt, I couldn’t detect a single opening to counterattack.

In fact, he even found a way through my defense!

Shit! I cursed in my head when he slipped through my glaive and sliced at my stomach. I moved my scales just in time to defend myself, but it was still too close for comfort.

I was forced to release my [Dreadflare Aura], slamming him against a tree from the heat blast. Cold sweat ran down my spine as I touched my belly area, picking up some of the shattered scales used to defend me. His sword slash even broke through the [Draconic Barrier] I placed on them.

“Like peeling a cepillium,” he stated, comparing me to a Peolynca onion while dusting off the dirt on his carapace armor. “The more I move, the more you will have to reveal your abilities, my lady.”

“Uhmm…” I groaned a bit.

He was right. How much could I hide my arsenal while fighting against this guy? I wanted to hold back as much as I could until the finals or when I fought Fargryneill, but from the look of it, that seemed impossible now.

The announcer suddenly spoke up, broadcasting that about 30 people were still on the battlefield, so I was nowhere close to winning yet. Up until now, he had only been commentating about our fight to the crowd and I could see the crowd cheering hard. I hadn't known how many people were left until just this moment.

“Look at this, everybody! A short respite before the battle continues. What a fierce early skirmish, and Sir Larent cannot even rest for a moment! The flame arena Hestia created keeps peppering him with random fire waves!” I kept an ear open for the announcer's commentry while focusing my eyes on Larent as he dodged around the periodic flame attacks from [Dragon Fire].

The spell song increased all fire and dragon type damage I did on Larent, but if I couldn’t hit him, it was practically useless. I currently had [Symphonie des Feuergottes Movement (Allegro)], my second fastest phase before the finale movement. I had even transformed back into my minor form, which only reduced my total stats to two-thirds of my full dragon abilities, but I was still not fast enough.

This battle might still be in its early phase, but I could already tell the difference between us. It felt like fighting Yorska, only I was used to her fighting style and skills. I didn’t know what Larent’s profile looked like since I was doing this duel fairly. I was really tempted to use [Mana Eyes] on him, but it really felt like cheating. He was a knight; a former one, yes, but I didn’t think he would take it kindly if I appraised him now.

Not exactly someone I would like to anger.

Larent was keeping his head facing towards me, despite dodging around. I couldn’t tell from his facial expression, but I really wondered why he wasn’t attacking me. Was he giving me a chance to figure out a battle plan, or what?

From our meeting in Estralia, he knew I was a dragon, so he probably understood I had used [Humanize] to transform into my minor form to kinda even our difference in levels and fighting experience. I hid my transformation with a fire waterfall and my form now with a bulky [Panzer] armor from the crowd, but this middle-aged guy knew. He wanted me to show more of my abilities.

Guess I can’t hold back at all. Can’t show I’m a dragon, but doing this properly should be good enough! I need to win!

From the looks of it, I was almost convinced this guy would be in the finals. He certainly had a last boss feeling around him with how competent he was, so if he was the strongest foe I had to face in this tournament, then showing everybody what I could do wouldn’t hurt too much if I kicked this guy out of the arena now!

Release.

My [Dreadflare Aura] burst forth again, however, unlike before, I was maintaining the heatwave, pushing Larent back from the sheer temperature. My sun core kicked in, beginning to maintain my body temperature.

I apologized to the forest, for I once again set another wood aflame. The ground began to melt, the trees caught on fire, and the very air felt like it could burn your lungs. Anything inside my aura was just fuel for my purple flames growing everywhere, reducing everything into a thick, semi-solid, semi-liquid form — lava.

For a human, this was slowly turning inhospitable. But, for a fire dragon? It was starting to feel like… home.

One thing Mother taught me when I was making the Obsidian Orchestra, my dragon lair, was that I should never try to fight an experienced elemental dragonkin within their home. Home advantage was pretty devastating when they could even control the very elemental mana they cultivated inside their lair.

As such, a truly strong dragon could change the very nature of the area they fought in by releasing their aura with their mana. After all, mana was the fundamental pillar of this world, and with it, you could even change the very land.

And this technique Mother taught me during the creation of my den? It was called: Mana Release.

Volcanic Blaze! Magmakammer! (Magma Chamber)

Mana Release activated. Aura used as control unit: [Dreadflame Dragon Lv. 5]. Wrong control unit used. Semi-perfect Territory established

‘Semi-perfect?’ Awwwww, guess this is my first real try… Verdammt, I should have used [Draconic Aura]!

“S-She burned down three farmland worth of trees! It’s all gone!” The announcer’s voice quivered in astonishment. “I-It all melted down into lava! A-And, is that… obsidian?”

Any hint of a forest was gone forever, as my flame aura reduced everything it touched into ash. The land was now bursting with seams of lava rivers and obsidian ground, crackling and bursting like the inside of a natural volcano.

This was not all I could do with my [Volcanic Blaze] training. I was a lavamancer now!

“Kraaagh!” I stomped the ground, spreading my mana through it to have it explode. Lava flew up, launching me into the air as I controlled the molten rock to follow me like water.

I snapped my head around as I noticed Larent’s ash-covered figure dispelling his [Auracoil]. Towering over him while standing on this stream of levitating lava, I stomped on it once again, launching the pyroclastic flow towards him before I activated my wing’s rocket boosters.

“Mhmm! A Territory? Hmph! It is the least I should expect from someone like you, my lady! Nevertheless, I shall slice through your heat!”

And just as he announced it, Larent sliced right through the lava, but with all my buffs and the rocket boosters, I caught him right when he was recovering his swing. He blocked my glaive strike in an awkward position, causing him to become unbalanced. I then hooked his blade with my glaive and kicked him away. But instead of disarming him, his grip power led me to lose my weapon momentarily.

Still, I didn’t falter. I maneuvered around him with my rocket booster as my parallel minds began preparing spells. Now behind him, I slashed at him with my tail, using [Hellblade Edge] to keep him on his toes before digging my claws into the ground and hurling a boulder-sized lava ball.

He threw away my glaive before slashing the ball into pieces, only for my remote controlled glaive to shoot scale-dust bullets at him to draw his attention away as I changed not only the spell song but also activated two of my buffing spells.

“Is this the fated battle, the light shines ♫

It’s blinding my sight ♫

But I’ve gotta hold on, the stage calls ♫

The cries of a thousand, the flames of war will descend ♫

The carnage of the blazing sun ♫

Blood rain from swords and claws ♫

The strive to pierce the sky ♫

The light that beckons you forth ♫”

The flame arena disappeared, changing into a more peppy song fighting a high-action battle scene between the protagonist and the wall standing before her. If I couldn’t hit him, then I would play into the endurance match with [The Will to Fight and Survive] for an endless amount of Stamina!

Halo of Consecration! Prayer!

[Prayer (Major)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“H-Holy magic! [Prayer]!” Warm light basked me as the announcer and the crowd exploded into an uproar as I finally revealed another piece of my arsenel. The icing on the cake was the white flaming halo above my head.

[Symphonie des Feuergottes Movement (Adagio)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Shit! I cursed, feeling my Agility disappearing with the allegro movement. At least now, if I somehow managed to hit him, I could deal more damage with adagio boosting my firepower.

Not letting it demotivate me for long, I flew right back towards him, wielding my glaive as we clashed our weapons once again. However, unlike Larent, I was also shooting him with lighting and storm spells or reorganizing the battlefield with either [Bedrock Blades] or [Rumbling Might].

Banishment Beam!

Rays of light shot forward only to be sliced apart by his sword, making me start to understand there was something special with his strikes. Every slash could cleave through my spells with ease. This wasn’t just his skill with the sword, his sword had to be enchanted also, even if it didn’t have any runes.

Levin Core!

I produced a ball of thunder whilst meeting him head-on again. It was like a dance, honestly. His beautiful swordsmanship was defending well against my destructive battlemage style; it would be a sight to behold if I wasn’t on the other end of this match. I had to hand it to him, outside of being cooked alive by the ground and air, he was handling this battle pretty well.

Crimson, white, and purple flames began to consume his body, and he couldn’t do anything about it as he had to defend against my other spells and attacks. Slowly but clearly, I was doing something as his movements started to slow down while mine continued on strong. With even the lava under my control, I was making sure he was resisting even against mother nature herself!

But, if I were to give this fight my all, then I still had a few more things to show this knight.

[“Now!”]

Kashoo!

“Urk!” Larent groaned as his sword arm suddenly stopped moving from being entangled by tendrils of dark. He was too focused on me that he forgot I had a companion!

[“Fighting against a tamer means fighting against a number disadvantage!”]

“What?!”

[“Master, now!”] It was Rajah. My virigress was hidden inside my shadow all this time, awaiting for my command to strike when I needed him to.

Attack!

Lava burst from the ground, forming into hands as they grabbed Larent’s legs while I shot my scales out to wrap them around his arms to prevent him from reacting to me kicking his chest. It unbalanced him, giving me the chance to activate my rocket boosters.

Spark Crescent!

With crimson infernos cloaking my glaive and tail, I twirled my body around, landing a deep cut into his chest armor before using the heavy momentum to shoot out a two-handed cut with my glaive right against his head, causing something to crack before sending him up into the sky.

I activated my boosters again and blasted off, tackling him as I readied myself to slam him into the ground like a comet. The velocity of our flight sped up more and more and when it reached the limit I wanted, I flew right down towards the ground. I was sure, this would defeat this guy, or just outright cripple him at the very least. He should be strong enough to survive it and I could always heal him up later on.

At this point, I knew I could win…

… but.

“Urgk! Krah!”

At the very last moment, he punched my throat, breaking through my armor in the process and causing me to gasp for air. He grabbed onto me and threw my flight off-balanced, causing the attack to fail dramatically as I was the one to land directly onto the ground instead of him.

As per usual, my comet strikes always left behind a massive flame explosion and a crater, although due to the imperfect attack, everything was smaller than usual. Thanks to Shiterno’s blessing, I didn’t receive any damage from the attack since I was immune to my own fire attacks.

The landing itself did hurt a bit, but I used [Volcanic Blaze] at the last moment to just move the lava into a cusion, submerging myself in it. Using the magma to move me, I “swam” up to the surface before my white flames healed my throat and repaired my armor.

“Haaaaa, huh, haaaaaaa!” Bated breaths, no, it sounded more like someone was trying to breathe after running a marathon.

I turned around to the sound, noticing Larent standing up, helmetless. I looked down to his feet, noticing his boots had broken apart, probably from my glaive attack, before staring back at his face, covered completely in sweat.

He’s overheating!

“Haaaa, haaaa!” Realizing he was being cooked alive, he tore off his damaged chest plate, throwing it onto the lava floor where it began to dissolve like his helmet. My tail attack left a deep dent and gash in it, so it might have been hard to breathe with it on.

“Incredible!” He said after a few seconds of breathing, before reaching his arm out, activating the rune on his gauntlet, retrieving his sword as if he was a telepath. He wiped the sweat on his brows and beard away before smiling at me fiercely. “I am still not strong enough to destroy a Territory with my strength alone, hahahohoho. Let us continue, Lady Hestia!”

… This battle junkie.

He actually survived all those hits without a problem. I couldn’t even see any blood on his head after I hit him with my glaive. How sturdy, or, what sorta trick did he use to shield himself like that?

“You have granted me immense courtesy by showing off your abilities. Now, I must do the same.” With a deep breath, he lowered his stance, tightly gripping his sword horizontally. “Now, allow me to show you how I managed to earn my spot as a Hand of Heaven. Now you face ‘Auegor’s Blade!’”

A chill ran down my spine once again as I felt immense pressure coming from him, not through his [Terror Aura] or something, but it felt like his mana was trying to choke me out. I activated [Mana Eyes] and was forced instantly to squint as I showed his mana accumulating around his blade, giving it an extremely thin and razor-sharp edge.

When I deactivated the skill, I couldn't see it anymore. Pure mana, the mana flowing in the air and everywhere was usually invisible without a proper skill or tool to look at it. However, unlike Fargryneill’s version of accumulating pure mana, Larent was using the mana inside his body, instead of his surroundings.

“First Form:—”

Verdammt! Here it comes!

“— Strik—!”

His sword immediately began to glimmer blue, revealing the large mana blade it created. But, for some reason, my [Foresight] and [Danger Perception] didn’t activate in Larent’s direction. It told me to dodge what was coming from behind me.

[“Master! Turn around!”]

Huh?

Rajah’s [Dark Tendril] shot from my shadow, tugging me to the side where I saw what he wanted me to see. A cowled person with a mask, arcing their arm around as they aimed their dagger at my head. Where did they come from!?

“— e!”

But before they could hit me, the air rumbled as a blue blade descended down in between us, cleaving the ground and shooting out a humongous ethereal blade. It blasted me away from the wind pressure alone, launching me about 200 yards or so away. Midair, I managed to catch the view of the person wielding that attack — Larent.

And as I was rolling on the ground, I heard an ear-throbbing explosion in the distance. When I looked at it, I saw the mana rupturing a large portion of the battlefield. The explosion was so large, it would have probably been big enough to consume three copies of me.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!

I gulped. I wasn’t so sure how to compare it, but the blast probably was smaller than what I could produce with [Solar Flare]. It definitely seemed weaker than the attack I did on that demonkin during the Griffonpeak attack, but it wasn’t like I wanted to get caught by it either. If I were hit by that thing, I would have probably been kicked out of the match before I could heal myself.

Eye for an eye, huh? I guess I almost did the same to him with my comet dive.

Trembling a bit from his attack, my curiosity took hold of me as I flew back, wanting to know what exactly happened there. The moment I came close enough to hear his voice, I heard him shout, “Rat! How dare you interrupt our duel, assassin!”

As the dust around him settled, I saw that same cowled person from before rearing his head around, showing off the skull mask he was using to cover his face. His whole attire was completely black, looking sleek and tactical like what a covert operative would wear.

A wicked, hook knife was in their right hand and a swordbreaker was in their other. From what happened before, it seemed like they timed their sneak attack right as Larent was about to launch his attack, almost as if they were trying to take me down with a suicide run. I couldn’t detect them, not even in the last moment when they launched their attack. If weren’t it for Rajah pulling me away in the last second, helping me dodge their attack…

This was, without a doubt, one of the twelve. But even worse? I couldn’t even feel their presence at this very moment. It was like they were air, a ghost.

“How long have you been watching our match?” Larent asked and I wanted to ask the same. It seemed he also only noticed the cowled man when they were about to attack me.

This was probably the reason why his attack just missed like that. Larent was too skilled to miss an attack while I was standing still like that, so he most likely redirected it to hit the assassin. Only, the latter seemed to have to dodge it.

“No answer?” Larent’s irritated voice was clear to hear through the commentary of the announcer, which I had driven completely out of my mind, too focus on anything else but the two people before me. “My lady, I call for a ceasefire. I do not take kindly to lurking rats like them.”

Larent readied his sword and I did the same with my glaive. I had no reason to decline. I could not only get rid of another contender, but I also felt extremely uneasy around this guy. That attack he did had no killing or malicious intent at all, but for some reason, my instincts and my skills told me if that had connected, I would have regretted more than just losing a tournament.

“Ooooh, ‘Auegor’s Blade’ and ‘Crimson Scaled’ are teaming up! Ahh, what a death wish! Interfering in an honorable duel like that is like asking for an execution!” the announcer commentated and we did just that.

We readied our weapons as we eyed the cowled person, only for them to suddenly point at something behind them. And that something was the lone castle in the middle of the battlefield, suddenly letting out black smoke as it slowly turned in our direction.

<Hestia, I should warn you about Castle Fatalisa. The reason why I had to fight and hold this strategic point was due to a certain weapon the demons built a giant fort around it. A weapon capable of even slaughtering dragons with a single shot.>

What?!

“Oh, but we have to turn away, blood enjoyers! There is something I cannot believe is happening right now! Castle Fatalisa is moving, and alllllll Yeosians know what this means! The dragonator!” The crowd erupted in cheer. “Who was it? Who is controlling this beast? Oh, the ingenuity, the resourcefulness! The ‘Acid Killers’ brothers were the ones to unlock the secret of this mighty weapon! Wait—? What?”

<Hestia, if you get hit by the blast, then you will be automatically kicked out of the match. Avoid it at all costs.>

What?! Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?!

<Because it is rarely used during a match. This is probably the sixth time it has ever been used, and the last time it was used was five hundred years ago. The only times people can see it in action is during festivals when the dungeon itself activates the cannon.>

What?! Why did you allow such a thing to be useable for a match! What rubbish is this about fair match and so one when someone can kick you out with a an instant one-hit-kill?!

<… Well, for its historical authenticity, of course. This was an important battle for Peolynca’s history so I—>

In other words, this numbskull of a god decided to add something that could break the balance of a match purely ‘cause he thought it was cool?!

Idiot! Fuck! I accidentally cursed a god before rocket boosting myself towards Larent, grabbing hi torso before creating a ball made from scales around us.

“My lady?!” He was flabbergasted, but I could explain everything after we escaped the morbid-looking giant cannon appearing out of the castle’s walls. The black glow growing inside the barrel was causing my chest to tighten up.

[“Volcanic Blaze!”] And I dived right into the lava with Larent as the sound of death shook the entire dungeon

Territory deactivated

Today I learned, even competent-sounding gods had a sliver of “whoops, I forgot” in them.

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Chapter 317: Tournament Alliance.

A note from AbyssRaven

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[Humanize (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“M-My Lady, while I can take heat well enough while my armor is on, without my enchantments, you are boiling me alive…” Larent, sitting behind me inside this sphere made from my shed scales, was sweating like crazy, despite my white flames surrounding him.

“Don’t die!” I shouted out, realizing I was slightly underestimating how much Mother and the twins could offset the heat treatment with their cold aura.

“W-Well… hopefully, I won’t.”

Mother’s training around my [Volcanic Blaze] involved me learning how to control temperatures as well as mastering my new ability of lava manipulation. Temperature control was important, since I could overheat with stuff like [Symphonie des Feuergottes Movement (Finale)] whenever my core gets damaged. Like during the Griffonpeak raid. I had to learn how to manage my internal temperature even with my core.

With the usage of mana, I could do it, since I could manipulate heat with [Pyrokinesis] to a certain extent, similar to how Tasianna could control cold with [Cryokinesis]. Mother noted I already did exactly that with my white flames, so now I had to apply it to myself and my surroundings.

Weirdly enough, it was almost like a physics lesson.

Essentially, temperature manipulation was the stealing and transferring of energy through mana. On the elemental spectrum, fire and water were opposites of each other, while ice was a compound element between water and wind. However, when it came to heat and cold, they were, more or less, two sides of a coin. What determined whether it was warm or cool inside a room was the amount of energy inside of it.

Physics, basically.

And to control it, I needed to use mana. Mana was the foundation of this world, and depending on the user, it could morph into whatever they wanted. Similar to how I could “feed” my scale-dust fire to grow larger or to produce a stronger [Hellflame Breath], I could also use mana to “make things colder” like with my white flames.

Still, even with this theory in my head, controlling extreme heat to turn earth into lava to “swim” in while maintaining a small area where it was cooler than the molten rock I was swimming through was difficult. Especially since I also had to manipulate my scales to maintain a spherical shape to protect Larent from the lava.

And why exactly did I do this? Well, ‘cause of the tremor coming from above us, forcing me to dive deeper into the earth and away from it.

At least, I dispelled [Symphonie des Feuergottes] before going lower. With all the flames, that probably would have cooked Larent faster.

“Ahhaaaa ah, it’s getting better now…” Larent used her handkerchief to clean away the sweat on his face, drenching the poor cloth piece. “My lady, ahuk! Agak!”

Larent suddenly coughed up blood. Magmakammer, or magma chamber in English, not only created an elemental area for me to fight in, it also continuously produced toxic gases born of my corrosive fire. I wasn’t sure if I could defeat Larent in a fair match, so I decided to use poison to win it if I had to.

My white flames quickly cured him of any ailments, and I apologized and explained to him what happened. Strangely, he didn’t take it too personally, as he noted he expected to fight against nature itself when he challenged me, knowing I was a dragon. His straightforwardness flustered me a bit.

“W-We can speak afterward after I’m done with this.” My parallel minds and I had to be completely focused on this dive trip. The very earth before me was being melted into semi-solid liquid before I used [Volcanic Blaze] to move it aside.

I’m using so much mana here. I complained to my parallel minds about all the spells and actions we’ve done until now, which made my minds slightly nervous as I was starting to show some arcane corruption problem — headaches, mostly. I needed some fulinoe tea.

After the tremors above us subsided, I let out a sigh and began moving back to the surface.

Hey, God Yeostar, does that cannon have a long wind-up time?

<Yes. It was a weapon the demons brought to our world as an answer to the huge monsters fighting for our world’s safety. Without a demon’s energy, the cannon needs to naturally reload over time by draining mana from the air. In other words, the moment they missed that shot, the cannon became useless.>

We were talking about the dragon-killing cannon, dragonator. An integrated weapon in the castle Fatalisa, which somehow just activated and nearly eliminated Larent and me from the match! To save us, I grabbed onto him and dove into the ground, where I sought refuge from that one-hit shot.

<If somebody was able to use the cannon, then they probably could use the other weapons inside of it. The whole place is like an amalgamation of demonic powers. The castle can morph its walls into weapons like harpoons and such, so be careful.>

Thank you for that warning. I thanked him for providing me with the information, instead of leaving me in the shadows like before. I have a question, does this castle exist nowadays?

<Of course, not. We destroyed it after the war was over. However, as you can see from stuff like the dwarf’s mana cannon or the cannons on battleships, its influence has seeped everywhere.>

Grimnir never specified it, but I thought the cannon came from Chihiro. So it came from an outside influence, huh?

After a bit, I eventually managed to reach the surface. Lava moved upon my command and the artificial light of the dungeon shone on me once again. I broke my scale sphere apart, laying them over my scales in preparation for a battle. Iwas going to have to dispose of them after all of this was over, as Mother told me to.

I turned around to Larent breathing heavily, looking out of place with how drenched in sweat he was. “Sorry, I didn’t bring any water with me.”

“No need, my lady. How would you know this would happen?” With how much Larent had been sweating, I was worried he would fall over from dehydration. “I am more at fault. My armor didn’t stand up to the test and failed me.”

Larent’s armor spent one of his three enchantment slots on [Environmental Adaptation], allowing his armor to adapt to any surroundings. Heat, cold, underwater — as long as he had his armor completely on, he could theoretically go anywhere he wanted. For an adventurer, it was one of the best enchantments to get.

Sadly for him, but fortunately for me, I managed to break his helmet and chest at an opportune moment, nullifying this magic. Just, it seemed his armor itself was less sturdy than the man inside of it. I did more damage to him by causing him to sweat like crazy.

“Haaaa, haaa, that cannon blast did quite catastrophic damage.” Larent pointed at the spot where the dragonator cannon hit, having atomized literally everything there. Even by flying up a bit, I couldn’t really determine how deep the crater was.

Scary.

“And look at that, people! ‘Crimson-Scaled’ and ‘Auegor’s Blade’ survived the blast! Now, I was quite surprised the dragonewt lass managed to do something like that, but I guess this is what you have to expect from a beastmen descendant of dragons! Monstrous powers like being able to turn a whole forest into a lava field and flying about with flames coming from their wings!” The announcer’s voice appeared out of nowhere, commenting on us reappearing.

“Hey! Don’t call me ‘monstrous!’ I’m trying to impress people here as an idol!” I shouted back, slightly annoyed at how he would call me that! Incredulous, if you asked me.

“But, my lady—” Larent tried to speak up about it, but my head just snapped around.

“Oi, don’t you dare!” I pouted before breaking off my [Panzer], having transformed back into my usual appearance, and began posing in a cute fashion. “Strength is important and so, but I’m also here to promote myself. I need to impress people enough to bring them to my concert!”

“Hahaha… ahhhhhhhhhh.” Larent laughed for a moment before letting a deep sigh from overheating a moment ago. He really didn’t look like he could continue fighting.

Worried, I walked over to him to check on him, but at the same time, the both of us snapped our body toward the rumbling sound in the distance. The castle was moving again, redirected to us, followed by the announcer’s voice.

“Ahhh, the brothers are moving the castle again towards our two top scorers! If they can eliminate both ‘Crimson-Scale’ and ‘Auegor’s Blade’ with one of Fatalisa’s weapons, we might actually see a change in the whole tournament! The brothers might actually take out all top scorers and bring their gang into the bracket stage!”

Fucking announcer! He blew our cover! I realized this a bit too late, but the announcer just broke my attempt to stealth this, as I wanted to take Yeostar’s advice to stay incognito to not get targeted by the castle, again.

Now, that plan was gone.

Verdammt! I cursed before grabbing Larent with my [Unheilige Engel] and taking to the sky as the castle materialized a barbed harpoon and shot it at us. Thankfully, I was faster than the attack, but it still baffled me at how this was even allowed in this tournament.

<Power and intelligence are both necessary to win wars. As I said before, the castle is a historically accurate recreation of it, as I believed it necessary for humans, beastmen, elves, dwarves, and all Peolyncian races to remember. The demon war and the descent of the Origin Gods can never be forgotten, as it is an integral part of our history. As such, if you searched deep enough, you will find information on how to operate Fatalisa and the dragonator.>

Urgh… I couldn’t argue against him now. That was a valid answer, but it was also a truth which could ruin Jethro’s plan altogether.

I technically didn’t have to win the tournament to continue this Divine Quest, but I told him I would, so I had to now. Besides, if I acquired the blood and could give it to somebody I trusted, it would be safe. As such…

“Waaaaaaaaah!” I screamed as even more bus-sized black harpoons and spears were shot from the castle, all aiming at me and Larent as we flew in the sky. “Mr. Larent!”

“Understood! Give me aim!” Larent face refocused and slipped through my obsidian slime claws, jumping into the air as I morphed the slime into solid blocks for Larent to land and stand on. I secured his feet securely onto it, allowing him to wield his sword.

“Hmph!” Channeling his mana into his sword, Larent swung his weapon with immaculate precision, slicing all the incoming projectiles in half before they reached us. With a more readied strike, he even launched a visible blue crescent projectile forward, slashing a few harpoons before crashing against the castle.

Only, it didn’t reach the wall. There was a barrier around the place.

“Welp, that should have been obvious,” I commented while Larent resumed his attacks, undeterred by what happened.

“Agreed. Any fortified castle must have a magical barrier of some sort, otherwise any mage could take it down too easily,” Larent clarified my statement further. “My lady, I haven’t had the chance yet, but allow me to thank you very much for aiding me not once, but twice! Although, I am rather confused why you would do so. We are opponents, after all.”

“Huh?” My mind went blank for a moment before it resumed working, realizing I was currently inside Yeostar’s dungeon, not outside where that blast could have killed him. If I had let them get hit, my biggest opponent would have been kicked out of the match there and then! “Oh…”

“Hmm? Did you move to help me by pu— WAAAAAAAAH! My lady, FOCUS!” Larent shouted at me as he was almost skewered by a harpoon, as I suddenly stopped moving my [Unheilge Engel] due to my realization I just fucked up by pure instinct.

“Oh sh—!” The same applied to me, as I narrowly dodged an incoming projectile by arcing my body back before taking control of the floating obsidian platform and began moving again.

Gotta move down!

With the number of attacks quickly increasing the longer this stalemate continued, I decided it would be best for us to return to the ground, trying to find a way to get out of the castle’s front. Even with Larent helping out, getting a counterattack just looked grim with the barrier around it.

With my rocket boosters, flying through this bullet hell was both easy and difficult, depending on Larent’s cuts. Any divided projectile could cause me to twist myself around, breaking my rhythm. I told Larent this, but since he had so little time where he could only slash instead of think, it was hard to accommodate me like this.

Shit! Stop shooting at us!

I couldn’t see a way to escape this. Everywhere we moved, the large projectiles would destroy the environment. If I tried to build a [Terra Wall] or any earthen construct, it would be destroyed before it could harden. Similar to my obsidian. Shoot back at it? The castle had a barrier and it seemed like it had an infinite amount of ammunition. I didn’t even know how the castle was creating all these weapons in the first place!

Considering this castle was made to fight against dragons and probably other aerial threats, it sure did its job well as an anti-air weapon. I couldn't think of a way to get closer to it or hide. The only way was to make some distance and then try to formulate a counter plan. This was the only way.

“Down!”

““Huh?”” But as I was about to act on that idea, a sandstorm suddenly burst from underneath us.

It twisted before us as the millions of sand grains began to settle down as a wall of sand, large enough to completely hide our vision from the castle. Spears and harpoons still shot at us, but they weren’t as accurate as before, while Larent and I had [Danger Perception] and [Foresight] to efficiently dodge anything we needed to.

“Hey! Down here!”

“Lady Hestia, look!” Larent pointed at a group of five people on the ground, with one of them waving at us. There, I also saw a dark-skinned man kneeling down, putting his hands on a brown magic circle which was continuously producing sand. “We should go down there for now. Hide.”

Seeing as it was too late to go back to our previous duel, I thought this meant Larent was still fully on board with that ceasefire he proposed before. Considering he was a former knight, he probably wouldn’t backstab me now, especially since he seemed like a follower of Aurena.

I nodded and did what he wanted, descending to the ground where the person who waved at us thanked us. He revealed his face behind the brown scowl, showing us he had a similarly tanned skin like the sand mage. It made me wonder if they were from the Great Evida Desert, like Eshe and her knights.

“My name is Naemon. We can speak in a moment.” He activated the brown magic circle to his side, causing the earth to open up like a hatch, revealing a small, impromptu-made cellar. “Please, follow me.”

He and the sand mage jumped down first, followed by a flamboyant man in heavy armor and a giant lion beastman. The next person to enter it was surprising though, as it was that scary-looking merfolk from before. “Deepsea Ebony” was his nickname or something.

“Come.” The tall merfolk gestured with his hand for me to follow before jumping down.

Their presence… feels like the other members of the twelve. Can I trust them?

Still suspicious, Larent tapped my shoulders before speaking his opinion on the matter, “I know one of them. If he’s here, then I think we can trust them. Come, my lady.”

He offered me his hand like a proper gentleman, to help me jump down. Looking behind us, I saw the sand wall slowly disappearing so I shrugged my shoulders and accepted, but left my [Panzer] on just for safety’s sake.

Once the both of us were inside, the hatch was closed, hiding our presence from the castle and whoever was using it. In this pitch-black darkness, I could clearly see one of the mages taking out a small manatech torch. Seeing how small it was, I decided to ignite a white flame on my glaive, using it like a lamp to illuminate everything.

“Ahh, many thanks. May the Goddess bless you.” The mage named Naemon thanked us before personally bowing to Larent, as if the former knew the latter. “Introductions can wait later with the time limit on. Let me get straight to the point, I would like to propose an alliance between us.”

“Alliance?” I raised an eyebrow, but nobody could see it through my armor.

“Hmm, is that a woman’s voice?” The armored human man suddenly blurted out, taking his helmet off and revealing his blond hair. With his green eyes, he began to look me up and down before kneeling before. “My fair damsel! Forgive this fool for not recognizing you earlier! Woe to me!”

He then suddenly picked up my armored left hand, holding it gently before him as he gave it a quick kiss. “My fair lady, my name is Sir Arlond Estaban Herzkreuz. I pray to the Goddess, but would you be so kind as to reveal your face and name to me? A flower like you should not need to hide her beauty.”

… Should I tell him my armor is toxic? I was completely unimpressed by his charms.

“Arlond, you brat!” But before I could say anything, Larent grabbed the man’s arm and pulled him up into a hug. “Ahahaha! How have you been, lad?”

“Hmm?” The blond man push himself out of the embrace, looking at Larent with confusion and surprise. “Wait… your voice, your hair— Sir Larent?! Is that you?”

“Ahahaha, in the flesh, lad!”

“No way!” They embraced once again before the Arlond guy stopped doing so to take a closer look at Larent. “I apologize! When the commentator announced your title, I thought I was going crazy when I heard it! But I saw your swordsmanship when you flew in the sky! I knew it was, but I cannot be forgiven for honoring you so late!”

“Hahaha, it’s been seven years but you still are a skirt chaser, huh? You should have no problems with noblewomen flocking to you with that face of yours, lad, but with your attitude, you will never be able to keep one for long!” Larent gazed at the younger man proudly, tapping his shoulder and shaking it. “Good lad, you gained some muscles. At least you kept up training. The next generation of knights shouldn’t disappoint, ahahaha!”

“Y-Yes, of course! But, I heard this rumors that—”

“KUUUUURAAAAAAAAAIEEEEEEEEEET!”

But interrupting this heartfelt reunion, the hulking leonid roared like a ferocious beast, loud enough to potentially puncture our eardrums. I quickly created an [Air Shield] around everybody before that happened, and dispelled it once the lion man stopped.

“Enough talk! Fight!” he growled, before picking up the mage, Naemon, by the collar. “Human! You told me to stop fighting, egging me on that there is worthier prey! Speak, then!”

“The castle assault,” the merfolk giant added onto the leonid. “We agreed to stop our duel for a common enemy. Make merry after we leave the battlefield, until then, we still must fight.”

The tidbits of everybody’s words were starting to make sense to me. Puzzling them together, I believed I figured out what this alliance was supposed to be.

“You want us all to team up to storm the castle?” I brought up, drawing everybody's attention to me, allowing Naemon to free himself from the leonid’s grip.

“Ahhhh, such a heavenly voice! Surely, my lady, you mus—”

“Yes, that is the plan!” Naemon’s voice drowned out the womanizer’s flattery. “I think you, ‘Crimson Scale,’ and ‘Auegor’s Blade’ should know very well what that castle can do. Fatalisa, the bane of dragons, and the location of one of God Yeostar’s most heroic tales. Although its historic value piques the historian inside me, I must admit that it would mean our defeat if we cannot take out the 23 men inside of it!”

Even if he calls me ‘Crimson Scale’… Verdammt, I don’t want that nickname! I complained inside my head as Larent posed a question.

“What do you mean by that?”

Arlond replied in place of Naemon, “Sir Larent, have you heard what the announcer mentioned? 30 contestants are left, and we are seven of them. The rest of the 23 are all huddled inside that castle, joined together to take out mostly you, their biggest competition. If they can take other threats out, too, then even better.”

“Wait, 23?” I tilted my head. “Wait, hold on, if that’s the case, then are you meaning to say they will take us out first, and then—”

“Survival of the fittest!” the leonid growled. “I ain’t letting that happen. I will take the blood of a god as my rightful possession!”

“My companion and I also have some vested interest in the tournament as representatives of Aleistunum.” Naemon pointed at the sand mage. “As such, I would like to propose an alliance between us. The seven of us shall take out the 23 in that castle. Afterward, may the best win it all.”

So, that assassin from earlier was probably working for them or was independent. Either way, if six members of the twelve I detected before were here, then the other half might be in the castle. It might be tricky.

He then suddenly pointed at me as I contemplated the situation. “I saw you, Crimson Scale, and what you did around that forest. I know you are a dragonewt, but being able to maintain five [Cyclone Madness] and [Levin Core] spells for nearly a bell’s worth of time can only be proof of being a master, no, I don’t think I could compare. You are worthy of an archmage! And you!”

His attention was now on Larent. “Ex-Hand of Heaven. ‘Auegor’s Blade,’ Sir Larent Antonodius. Evida and the crown might have our complications, but no man or woman could not know our Empire’s sword saint candidate.”

He laid a hand on our shoulders, gripping them a bit as he finally ended his recruitment speech. “The both of you lead us in kills as our first and second seat! Let us all fight as one and enter the bracket stage together!”

“…” Larent didn’t say a word, turning over to me as if he was giving me full authority on what he would do. I was really questioning how we started teaming up like this, but I guess it was better than being kicked out of the match.

“… Cool!” I gave him an okay sign.

“Ahhh, thank the Goddess! Ahahaha!”

“Woah!”

Naemon suddenly embraced Larnet and me, squeezing us together as he tapped our backs in elation. Everybody seemed very touchy-touchy today, but not like I minded it too much. I preferred hugging a problem over then resorting to violence.

“Brilliant! As such, allo—” Naemon probably wanted to explain his plan right now, but as I said before, I believed I had the puzzle figured out.

“Let me guess, you want me to act like a decoy by attracting the castle’s defenses, while you lead everybody else through the gate, right?”

“U-Uhm, wise, my lady! Wise! Yes, it is a bit more nuanced than that, however.” The scholarly mage stuttered, surprised to hear me understand what my role in this alliance was. “I have studied much on how God Yeostar once conquered this fortress, so I believe I have an idea how to overwhelm them despite our far inferior numbers. I apologize, but could you possibly act as bait for the rest of us?”

“Hold on!” Arlond grabbed Naemon’s shoulder and pulled him around. “What sort of man are you to put a woman in the vanguard like this? If you need a distraction, allow me to do so in her place. I, ‘Arcane Rider’ Arlond, shall declare to put my body and soul on th—”

“Sure, I can do that.” Unwilling to listen to one more word from this guy’s mouth, I just agreed to Naemon’s suggestion.

“Ark?!” For some reason, Arlon comically fell to his knees, mumbling something I was actively ignoring.

“Yes, thank the Goddess!” Naemon thanked me. “Then, let me—”

“But, in exchange, allow me to create the plan for our assault.”

Naemon went speechless as I said that, looking flabbergasted like a scientist or professor being spoken back to in their primary field of study. Believing this armor was making it harder for people to believe me, I dissolved the armor in its entirety before revealing myself to all the men, causing those who haven’t seen me to widen their eyes.

Some had a stronger reaction.

“Oooh! My lady, please, allow me to accept your hand in— Bwah?!” Arlond tried to do something fishy so I had my [Unheilige Engel] push him onto the ground, face-first.

“I have a pretty good plan on how to solve this issue easily, so everybody can get into the fight earlier,” I grinned impishly at Naemon, causing him to flinch back a bit.

“B-But, my lady, I have stud—”

“So be it, Lady Hestia.” Larent was the first to agree to my suggestion. “I am more of a soldier than a commander. I have seen my share of terrible leaders, but my instincts are telling me otherwise with you. I trust in the words of someone who would save others without demanding something back in return.”

I guess my time with him has gained me his trust. Maybe saving him out of instinct will have some benefits after all.

“I trust your word, scale-kin,” the merfolk also agreed with me immediately, probably influenced by the [Royal Presence] and [Draconic Aura] I was exuding to convince them. “Lead us to battle, like your ancestors did, dragonewt.”

“Ghrmmm.” The leonid scratched his braided mane, looking over at Larent all the time. “Feisty female, huh? Good, get us in, and I will rip everything apart! If the swordmaster trusts you, then so be it. Rather follow a fellow beastman, than a human, anyways.”

“T-Then, I shall listen to you, Lady Hestia! Oooh, that name…” Arlond jumped up before falling onto the ground as he mumbled my name. I didn’t care what he did, I just didn’t want to listen to him anymore.

Eww…

With four of the six other members persuaded, I was democratically voted as the person to lead this alliance. Naemon seemed conflicted about it, probably wanting to shine himself or have his plan executed, but he ate up his pride with a deep sigh before agreeing himself.

“My partner and I will listen. If you need help on the structure—”

“Oh, no problems, I know allll about castle Fatalisa.” I interrupted him.

“Grk!” It seemed like a vein was about to pop on the mage’s forehead, but I ignored it and turned around to the wall. I placed my hand on it before speaking with Yeostar.

God Yeostar, is there a barrier underneath the castle?

<Yes, the bottom is as protected as everywhere else. Weapons of war can also be materialized from there, so be careful. However, it has a range, of course.>

Cool, then please, educate me on everything the castle has. I want to know my prey like the back of my forehand.

<With pleasure.>

Why did I need somebody to give me a second-hand recollection of what castle Fatalisa was, when I had someone who fought within it himself? It was easier and quicker for him to give me a quick rundown of everything while my parallel minds sorted the information out.

As such…

The temperature around my arm began to blaze up, slowly scorching the earth I was touching and turning it into lava. Slowly, with my purple fire, I molded the area into an oval shape, hardening the lava into an obsidian door frame.

[“Rajah, get ready, boy!”]

[“Yes, Master!”]

It was time to boil a castle.

Using [Terra Wall], I shoved the earth in front of me downwards, creating the first part of this long tunnel.

A note from AbyssRaven

Let's be honest here, even if Yeostar forgot to mention the castle to Hestia, the fact that he recreated it perfectly just so he could show it to his descendants and the people of his country is worthy of respect. Saori would love this guy.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters for the whole month! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 318: Castle Assault.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“And look how they move! Ahh, but as all of your blood enjoyers just heard, our ‘Crimson Scale’ wants us to be quiet about her and her team, right? I dunno about you people, but I would like to do a favor for our number one, right now. A bit more tension for our competitors, right? Seven versus the remaining 23. Who will win?”

“Tsk!”

“Tch. There goes the info, brother.”

The “Acid Killers” brothers, Greisha and Kraeger, were two black mercenaries experienced and versed in the art of killing with poisons and venoms. In the past, before they earned their reputation, the brothers managed to acquire the venom glands of an A rank venomous muck serpent through less… legitimate methods.

Having turned the two toxic sacs into catalysts, each brother each took possession of one of them, becoming infamous over the years for the toxic concoctions they could create with their catalysts. With their [Poison Creation] skill, they used the catalyst’s ability to absorb poisons and venoms of various sources, where they mixed them together in an alchemical process into even more potent toxins.

As such, the brothers’ forte was to poison their targets, and not monsters, but rather adventurers. Worldly wanderers who have grown their profiles through perilous trials and tribulations. Therefore, the more experienced ones would have skills making them highly resistant to ailments gained from common toxins. Some were even immune.

However, for the brothers, it was all for naught. The monster their catalysts were created from had a skill that allowed it to ignore various immunities. Meaning that their venoms could pierce through any resistance. This allowed the brothers to even take down B or A rank adventurers if they were prepared enough. Furthermore, even armies were vulnerable to their skullduggery. Their most known feat was the destruction of an entire A rank mercenary company and the murder of an Empire noble.

For this, the “Acid Killers” were very desirable assassins. And the reason why they were in this tournament? To acquire Yeostar’s blood. For whom? In their profession, their contracts came from neutral messengers, as their employers often wished to stay anonymous.

Although an open and public event like a tournament wasn’t their field of expertise, the pay was good enough for them to accept it. Although the principality of Yeos was a vassal of the Empire and beholden to their laws, the Empire preferred handling their criminals through the Lycerepth, the Empire’s law enforcers.

Through their sources, the brothers knew the Empire wouldn’t be coming to Yeos for the festival, which meant they had the freedom to move wherever they wanted, even if Elyonda knew they were inside their city. Even for the land of Yeostar, cowardice was still common, even if their knights wanted to hide it behind a “there are more important issues to deal with” excuse.

But there was still a problem they had to overcome, though. Although their toxins were potent, they weren’t the strongest fighters. They could be compared to B ranks like Gael when it came to direct combative abilities. What made them valuable was their tactical prowess, stealth, and, most importantly, their venom.

They could take down an army with enough preparations, but in the chaos of this tournament’s battle royal, it would be too tiresome to take all of them out one by one. In particular, there were too many all-stars to account for when they entered the battlefield. At best, through some under-the-table dealings, they managed to assure both brothers being in group A. Even the dungeon’s System could be outwitted with enough knowledge.

They knew before the tournament even began that the first battle royal would always be the battlefield of Schrade. Their pre-battle preparations included knowledge on operating Castle Fatalisa, which position was the best to start at, and how to efficiently “persuade” other contestants to work for them. Even though they were criminals, they were still professionals.

“Keep an eye out. I’ll check on the patients.” Kraeger informed his older brother before leaving one of the castle’s watchtowers to the lower floors, intending to check on their “allies” and reapply their “persuasion” on them.

Castle Fatalisa was expansive, filled with many rooms and other facilities to accommodate a defense force — a faithful recreation of the original. As the castle was designed to be used by the seven demons and their minions, flying would have been the most ideal way to move around the place.

As such, Kraegar had to walk extensively down the watchtower, through the castle square, all to reach the central weapons building, responsible for the fortress’s defence. When he did, he scowled at the people laying on the floors and benches, sweating profusely with flushed faces.

“Drink.” Kraegar placed a small wooden casket on the table, prompting the 20 to rush at it in a frenzy, desperately drinking the liquid as if their lives depended on it. Once they had drank and collapsed, breathing heavily on the floor, Kraegar addressed them again. “More time to live. Take down the seven remaining top rankers and we’ll give you the antidotes.”

“Krk!” Their “allies” groaned and clicked their tongues, too weak to respond before reluctantly returning to their stations — the control room of the Fatalisa’s defense systems.

With the most potent toxins, a skilled alchemist could also create a curative capable of healing even major or critical toxins. The brothers were smart, always preparing an antidote against their toxins before they use them. They were completely immune against common venoms, but they weren’t against their own.

And this reputation preceded them. Their “allies” were all enslaved by the brothers after they injected them with a venom. “Persuaded” by the fact no common tonic could cure them, they had to work for the brothers or die, as the dungeon’s protective aura wouldn’t cure them of venom, as Yeostar informed Hestia.

For ten minutes, the venom inside their body would be dormant, but once the time limit was reached, it would activate and begin killing their host. To prevent them from dying, the brothers gave their slaves a watered down version of the antidote. Just strong enough to push back the time limit and have the contestants work for them.

All so the brothers could operate Fatalisa with its dragonator, the various morphable weapons, and the barrier surrounding this place. The 20 people they threatened into working for them were divided into the main defense system, the main gate, and lookout. It was not even close to enough for a skeleton crew, but it was enough to defeat the remaining contestants.

To make sure they wouldn’t die, Greisha and Kraegar had to run around, delivering the weakened antidote to everybody. While it was tedious and they couldn’t help but feel like errand boys, the two mercs concluded it was necessary and didn’t complain. To move to the next stage, the brothers needed to remain professional.

However, while they initially thought everything would work out, they haven’t won yet nor could they find their opponents.

Where the hell are they?! The older brother, Greisha, cursed as he looked through the telescope, trying to find where Hestia and her alliance were. A sandstorm had hid them, and they just outright disappeared from sight afterwards.

Greisha had been relying on the announcer to inform him where they were. He knew the announcer took priority to hype up his audience instead of taking care of the competitive integrity of the tournament. Although the royal family of Yeos disliked it, the nobles and commoners loved such commentary. For the land dedicated to the God of Knighthood, Bravery, and Loyalty, its denizens weren’t the very image of these attributes.

As time went, another dose of the watered-down antidote was given to the slaves. The brothers were starting to get impatient. They hated if their plans weren’t going as planned. They prepared everything they could, but they could find and eliminate Hestia’s group.

They did their research. They knew of the other contestants and through the announcer, they learned who was with them in group A. As such, they knew “Auegor’s Blade” Larent Antonodius and “Demolishing Sandstorm” Naemon Humbabwa were their biggest threat.

They sent some of their men to ambush the mage while they planned on using the dragonator on Larent, planning to wipe the accomplished swordmaster without engaging him head-on. Unfortunately, both plans failed, and although they predicted Naemon might survive, they would never have thought anybody could have survived against the dragonator, which would kick any contestant out the moment it even grazed them.

And this was where their biggest mistake came from. They didn’t know of Aurora’s explosive leader. News of Hestia hadn’t reached the Empire yet, as her feats and reputation were only starting to grow within the western part of Altrust, so they had no way of knowing to look out for her.

If the brothers had asked about Hestia beforehand, they probably would have gotten some information on her deeds in Artorias and Aurora’s part in Estralia. However, they didn’t, and for underestimating the dark horse of this tournament, they now would experience what would happen if they let a dragon idol rampage.

“HEEEEEELLLLOOOOOOO!”

“Krrack!!!”

Greisha flinched, bumping his head against the telescope and fell onto his butt, closing his ears with his hands as a deafening sonic blast suddenly appeared out of nowhere. As it slowly disappeared, Greisha could feel his head ringing as he slowly stood up, feeling nauseous from the pain in his ear drums.

“Urgh, what was that?” The merc wobbled over to the watchtower’s lookout, trying to identify the source of that attack. However, the moment he did so—

“YOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

“Buwaaaargh?!”

— a dragonewt girl jumpscared him with a loud greeting, having boosted the volume with her [Aerokinesis].

“Krugh!” The merc squirmed on the ground in agony, having no time to let his weary ears rest before receiving another debilitating attack.

“Good day to you, Castle Fatalisa defenders! I hope you had the time of your life just now listening to my awesome voice, because let me tell you, it’s time to PAAAAARTTTTTTTY!” The dragonewt girl was none other than Hestia, flaunting around in the sky just in front of the castle while hyping up the crowd.

“AAAAAnd there she goes, people! The first attack after such a long time of nothing! A devastating sound attack just kicked down the elder of the brothers! However, what will she do now? Her voice might be strong, but the castle’s barrier is still up! The defenders just need to hide, and her attacks will become useless!” The commenter did the same, having taken Hestia’s acting as the signal for the incoming attack he was awaiting for so anxiously.

“Greisha!” Kraegar shouted as he heard this, storming out of the weapons room before having one of the lookouts point his attention to Hestia. “Fuck! Fire!”

With his command, the castle began to move, forming hooks from its walls, ready to shoot at any second now. Hestia gave a curtsey as she saw this, agitating Kraegar at her nonchalant attitude towards the threat in her face. However, before he could get the satisfaction of slapping a fly out of the sky, a purple magic circle appeared in front of Hestia before it suddenly struck Hestia with a massive lightning bolt.

This was the level four [Lightning Magic] spell, [Overload].

As it was a lightning elemental attack, Hestia’s [Divine Inferno] title didn’t go into effect, but any damage done to her would be immediately healed up with her white flames. And the moment she recovered from the shock, she twirled her body around like a ballerina, dodging the incoming harpoon by a hair’s breadth. With [Wind Blast] and [Dragoon Jump], Hestia launched herself away from the next couple of giant projectiles, creating some distance as she flew upwards with her rocket boosters.

Meanwhile, Kraegar commanded everybody to continue shooting, personally manning one of the weapon control terminals as it projected a blue screen for him to use. Although the merc had never seen such sophisticated technology before, from his time working with his party bracelet and the information he gained prior to his tournament entry, he had somewhat of a level of competency of it.

At the very least, shooting a weapon didn’t demand professional proficiency.

Down you go, fly! Kraegar morphed and shot giant projectiles, trying to take down Hestia. Knowing he hadn’t seen a white light fly up in the sky, he knew his brothers were still in the match. This logical conclusion gave him all the focus he needed to challenge Hestia with his “allies.”

However, Hestia was fast. Far faster than before, which caught the enslaved contestant off-guard. Not only did she fully buff herself with all her System-derived Agility spells like[Swift Winds] and [Haste], her usage of [Overload] gave her an impressive speed boost at the cost of her Health and Mana constantly being drained. The damage may have been offset by her white flames, but it still did accumulate arcane corruption.

Still, to win this match, Hestia was ready to give it her all to conquer Castle Fatalisa.

“In the midst of the desert ♫

A bright ray of light shines ♫

Pure and brave, that she was, as she walked ♫

She was the ideal for me ♫

The bringer of children’s smiles ♫

Alas, the world seemed bleaker without her ♫”

And using this impressive speed boost, Hestia took the time to apply her next spell song — [The Heir of Hope].

“But all wounds must heal, we must force back the tears ♫

Her legacy remains for everybody to hear ♫

All these wounds will heal, mourning must end ♫

Our path is made clear through the loss of a friend ♫”

This song was dedicated to Saintess Eshe. Although Hestia had only known the Evidian woman for a couple of month, their time together had not only influenced Hestia but also nurtured her to become what Aurena had wanted — a true champion. Although Hestia tried to push it away as she understood being a hero for everybody was impossible, she still took up the spark of heroics when it was needed.

And in this moment, the melancholic but hopeful lyrics silenced the audience for a moment, entrancing them with Hestia’s angelic voice. As her powerful vocals grew at the chorus, the arena snapped out of it, returning to their cheers which had only gotten louder and louder at Hestia’s next action.

[Symphonie des Feuergottes]. Technically, Hestia’s second custom spell was being readied in the sky as the music continued. While [The Heir of Hope] was active, all attacks and spells caused by Hestia or her allies would also apply [The Light]’s holy element. Like [Shine] and [Sanctuary], they were especially effective against dark elemental and demonic opponents.

<The barrier is made from demonic mana> Yeostar informed Hestia, causing her to figure out a plan to force the “Acid Killers” to take her seriously. First, she would agitate the brothers to attack her, and then she would make it so they couldn’t take her eyes off of her.

It was a simple but effective plan.

And the moment the inferno waterfall fell down from the sky, basking the castle’s barrier in a sea of flames, everybody inside the weapon’s room was immediately attentive of the number decreasing in the left corner of their screen.

“The barrier is weakening!” One of the slaves cried out in a panic.

“Shit!” Kraegar cursed before taking out the notes the brothers made on the function of the castle. After looking through it for a moment, he found the solution he needed.

As a creation of the demons, the castle possessed an internal power source feeding all of the fort’s function. Like a dungeon core, if this object were to be destroyed, the whole castle would follow.

One of its functions was to redirect energy towards specific devices, and was historically the main reason why the dragonator could recharge fast enough to become a threat to the dragons. However, as it wasn’t possible for Yeostar to fully replicate demonic powers, only imitate it for its historic value, this power source couldn’t be used to its fullest.

However, it was still good enough to suck the mana from the air to repair the barrier.

Good.

Kraegar calmed down a moment once the fire waterfall stopped and he saw the barrier slowly recovering, however, in the next moment he body suddenly felt the heat on his skin. No, it was more accurate to say he was finally feeling it, as his adrenaline from before subsided.

“Argh! Why is so hot!”

“Argh, is the fever back? Shit! No, hey! Give me the antidote!”

The threatened contestants felt the heat around them; however, from their previous experience, they thought the cause came from the venom they had inside of them, not aware the temperature inside the barrier was skyrocketing.

Consequently, they eyed Kraegar, who flinched at what was happening. The venom couldn’t be active yet, he told them but the combatants were unimpressed. They were too disillusioned from the fear of death to listen to him.

“Stand back!” Kraegar shouted as he pulled out his catalyst and activated the enchantments on his armor and weapons. “Touch me, and you will die!”

His threat wasn’t a bluff, as even his mere touch could poison somebody. His shortsword and daggers were both made using the materials of toxic monsters, and seeing them glisten with a bright liquid made the enslaved combatants anxious. They backed off, too scared to make a move.

“Stay here and keep shooting! I’ll bring the antidote!” he ordered them before running out the building, where his face began to feel the full wrath of this sudden heatwave. “Krk, what in blazes—”

He didn’t care. To keep the captured contestants orderly, he had to dangle the cure in their faces. And the only one who had more of it was his brother. He ran over to the watchtower, ignoring Hestia flying around in the sky singing and shooting down spells. Although she still had to deal with a bullet hell, with all the speed buffs she now had active, she was zooming around with no one to stop her.

Greisha was still recovering from his injuries, Kraegar was running over to him, the weapon’s team were fully focused on Hestia alone, and the lookouts were too unsettled by all of this to think properly. The only team left barely undisturbed by all of this were the two at the gates.

Up until…

Boom!

“Kuraaagh!”

“Waaaargh!”

Mission successful! Infiltration done!

Until a virigress snuck into the fortress using [Shadow Dash]. Hidden behind Hestia’s flamboyance, Rajah flew along a blindspot of the castle before teleporting towards one of the shadows. Although bothered greatly by the heatwave created not only by the fire waterfall, but also the coursing lava river Hestia created during all the down time, he still managed to begin his mission.

With the defence force in a panick and unnerved by the heat, Rajah took the opportunity as Hestia told him to and struck, throwing bombs Hestia just recently made, making them eligible for match. The explosion sent the guards flying away from this surprise attack.

“Ahhh, and here it goes, people! The castle siege! The castle breach! The castle battle! However, anybody bonded with the castle is naturally defended by a barrier! I see that bomb destroying the walls, but you ain’t killing anybody by that, little cat!”

Kraegar didn’t understand what the announcer just said, as the explosion was muffled by Hestia’s constant barrage of spells and the castle’s own weapons. However, Rajah did, as he confirmed Hestia's information from Yeostar. The guards weren’t kicked out, but were protected by a black barrier.

Quick!

He dashed over to the gate’s terminal while the guards were still dazed. As like most terminals in this castle, everything displayed a blue screen like a party bracelet and [Crystal of the Divine System]. After all, the demons’ technology was the source of many of Peolynca’s technological advancements.

And with a single click, the gate opened up, and with it, an opening in the barrier.

“Chaaaaarge!” And waiting right before the castle, under the earth, was the alliance of top rankers. And like any impromptu made team, there was little coordination between the two, however, they compensated it with quality amongst the members.

“Kraaaaaaaaagh!”

“Kuun!”

Larent, Ghorush, and Chahayat rushed right into the castle, their hearts beating with the drums of battle. However, unlike expectations, those three weren’t the first to take a kill, it was Alrond, riding on his manatech horse as he speared one of the recovered guards.

“““Wahoooooooooh!””” The crowd exploded in cheers as the first blood was drawn.

The frenzy of the arena returned as the hopeless gamblers began betting on this last assault, putting their hopes and money on who would acquire the most kills in this battle. Some, however, were still hopeful Larent could overcome Hestia when it came to kills and would double-down on it by betting him to acquire the most kills in this castle battle.

With this uproar, it became even louder as Hestia’s screen suddenly grew in size again. How did she do that when she was still distracting the weapon’s crew in the sky? The answer to that came from Hestia’s family and friends.

“Rajah, good work!”

“Take the opportunity, cub!”

Krim-Slak and Grazlahta cheered for Rajah as he took down the other guard by penetrating the barrier with his claws. Even from down here, everybody from the alliance could hear Hestia’s singing, as such, their attacks were boosted by the spell song. Not only did they receive an elemental boost, [The Heir of Hope] also boosted everybody’s stats by 10%, making them even more dangerous than before.

“Good work, Rajah!” Larent praised the virigress cub.

[“I got information! Come!”] Rajah stumbled on his words a bit, his blood pumping due to the battle’s start and his successful infiltration of the castle. He was giddy like a little child for helping his master out, finally.

The virigress led the alliance members deep into the castle. With the heatwave still affecting all the guards and Hestia looming above the castle while shooting spells down like an airship, it was hard for anybody to react to this sudden attack. When it happened, none of them were able to react in time.

“Joek, let’s go!” Naemon commanded his partner as both of them shot sand-based spells at the lookouts standing on the castle’s walls. Using their sand, they also boosted themselves up their, engaging the forces up there.

Meanwhile, the ground force found the weapon’s team, catching them out as some were trying to recuperate from the heat.

“Arlond, don’t take out too many, alright?” Larent commented as the young knight charged into the building.

“Haha! Don’t worry, Sir Larent! Allow me to pave the way for you!” Arnold stated with full confidence, having already planned to show his best to the beautiful rose flying up in the air. A womanizer, even on the battlefield.

And his confidence was warranted. The enemy were debilitated by not only the poison inside their System but also the stress of the work and the heatwave. The heat was also affecting the castle attackers, but the rush of battle coupled with [Music Resonance] stimulated them. They ignored all of it as they began slashing and stabbing.

“Kuwaagah!”

“Nooo, argh!”

“The cu— Kuuuruuuu!”

It was a slaughter.

“Ragh! Weaklings! Bring me the strong!” Ghorush shouted, but his wish wouldn’t come true with this crowd. Out of the twelve people Hestia decided were strong, the remaining ones were all inside this castle. The others had been taken out by the brothers, having deemed them a similar threat to the top rankers.

Like Hestia, the “Acid Killers” knew exactly who they had to be wary of. And even when cornered, these rats could fight back.

The moment the alliance members exited the building, wanting to search for the brothers, the inevitable happened.

“Arlond!” Larent called out to the younger man, but it was too late.

“Uwaraaaaagh!” With a direct hit to his chest, Arnold fell from his manatech horse, prompting it to revert back into the heavy armor he had on when meeting Hestia. There, on the ground, he squirmed and groaned in pain, enraging the older knight as he unleashed a blade of mana into the shadows.

Two silhouettes jumped out of it, but they quickly scurried back before a wall of sand blocked their way. As Ghorush and Chahayat approached them, bombs were thrown at them, exploding and releasing a poisonous gas. Both veterans jumped out of it immediately, barely dodging the deadly gas.

Before they could do anything else, their [Prediction]s activated and they jumped even further away, dodging crossbow bolts. As the projectiles flew out, they were also cleanly cut by Larent before he released a slash of mana into the mist, destroying the walls and finally forcing the pair to show themselves.

The “Acid Killers” were caught.

“Guraaaagh!” Arlond continued to cry out.

“Antidote, now!” Larent shouted, knowing who they were from the announcer’s commentary.

“You and your friend? Forfeit. And you will get it.” Greisha immediately bargained with Larent. This was the only way for the brothers to continue with their job.

Their shot was precise and calculated. From observing the fight at the weapon’s building, the brothers knew Larent had a relationship with Arlond. They knew the only way for them forward was to win this gamble. There were only ten participants left, and if they could coerce the dutifully Larent to surrender, then it was their win.

The brothers dangled their catalysts around, looking anxiously as Larent contemplated the deal. They didn’t make the antidote yet, but the moment a deal was struck, they would strike and kick both Larent and Arlond out with a cheap shot. With the poison in their systems, all they needed to do afterward was to slip through the arena.

It was their final gambit, and naturally, they were impatient.

“Hurry up! That venom can kill even B rank monsters without any problems. The longer you wait, the closer—”

“— he will be to death?”

The brother snapped their bodies around as they suddenly heard a female’s voice behind them. All they could see was the fog and the ruined walls Larent cut down at first, only to slowly hear the flapping of wings in the air. As a cold sweat fell down their spines, they raised their heads, where they saw Hestia floating above them with [Air Step], supporting her head with her hands.

“Yo, nice to see you two, again.” She smirked, causing the brothers to flinch back.

“Lady Hestia! Your plan worked out perfectly!” Naemon and Joek appeared from the corner, looking amicable at Hestia for what had happened today. Naemon, especially, was flabbergasted at how easily the attack worked, despite him not using his signature custom spells.

“Hey! Told you so, right?” She grinned before lowering the temperature in the area, relieving both Ghorush and Chahayat.

“Graaagh! This feels like the savannah with how warm it was…” the large leonid complained.

“My skin dried up…” On the other hand, Chahayat was showing signs of weakness from all the heat.

“This heat was a big rough, but we Evidians were tempered under the sun of the desert.” Meanwhile, Naemon couldn’t help but brag, having missed out on a chance to elevate his ego after Hestia executed her plan.

Watching the five of them banter around like this only annoyed the brothers, causing them to shout, “What are you doing! Accept the deal, or he dies!”

“We have the antidote, if you think—”

“Huh? Who needs an antidote?” Hestia tilted her head as she point at Arlond, who had stopped groaning a while ago, only for him to suddenly snicker.

“Hehehe…” Arnold stood back up, smiling brightly as a hint of a white flame retreated back into his armor. “Hahaha, Lady Hestia, did you seen my acting? Wasn’t I good?”

Hestia gave him a thumbs up, genuinely happy about it. “Sure, good enough. I was more impressed by Mr. Larent, though. How he shouted like that really made him look like he was actually worried for you.”

However, unlike the two, Larent cleared his throat as his face suddenly started to redden. “… Well, I had forgotten you had applied that spell on him. I overreacted, I apologize.”

He got fooled like the lowlives. Hestia and Arlond thought simultaneously, somehow sharing the same one.

“H-How?!” Kraegar stumbled as he looked at Arlond, mortified and baffled at how the young knight was okay after the toxin.

However, Hestia wasn’t willing to share that information. Instead, she landed back on the ground and snuggled on Rajah who had just returned from scouting the fortress for any stragglers. She praised and snuggled on the white-black tiger as she quietly dispelled all [Sanctified Blaze]s attached to the members of the alliance.

The reason for Arlond’s quick recovery was none other than [Sanctified Blaze], Hestia’s first white flame custom spell. By attaching the magic circle to a person like a tattoo, the flames would activate and heal and cure their host the moment something happened to them. They would even defend their host from attacks if they had to.

But what was important was Hestia’s white flames themselves. With the [Flames of Purification] mutation skill she gained after leveling the racial Job [Incandescent Blaze], Hestia could cure whatever toxin she wanted to, depending on the strength of her [Corrosive Fire]. Knowing the brothers’ reputation from the Empire men in the alliance, she attached a [Sanctified Blaze] on everybody in case the worst happened.

All without showing it to anybody as she discreetly hid it all from the arena’s audience. She even used [Telepathy] to inform the alliance of her plans.

And it all led to the brothers’ defeat. It was checkmate.

“No need for you to know,” Ghorush stated before grabbing Kraegar head, avoiding his poisoned armor, and slammed the flailing man onto the ground. In a streak of light, Kraegar was kicked out of the arena.

“And there was only one left! Greisha was stripped away from his brother, but don’t worry everybody, soon he will follow suit.” The announcer’s voice was like an omen for his Greisha’s own defeat.

“Shit!” Greisha cursed as he saw his brother fly away, only for a sharp blade to be placed next to his throat.

“Well, goodbye and good fight.” Hestia readied her glaive before swinging it down before Greisha could speak. With one swift movement, the battle royal of group A had finished…

“What?” Hestia exclaimed.

There were eight contestants left right now, but during the start of this siege, only 29 people participated. There was one contestant who wasn’t here. And this fact showed when Greisha was protected by a barrier of light from Hestia’s glaive.

In fact, all eight people inside the castle were surrounded by a brilliant light before they simultaneously sent into the sky, placed there for the crowd to see and cheer for. Even without the announcer, everybody knew what this meant — the match was over and they were the top eight.

However, everybody but Larent and Hestia questioned how Greisha was part of this ranking. After all, the former two knew exactly why this was the case.

Where is that assassin?! Both of them thought.

…

Down below was a single person, having jumped off the breaking cliff of the arena. Their skull mask hid their expression as they embraced their defeat and subsequent guidance out of the arena. To the general audience, this person had vanished from their thoughts completely.

Like a ghost.

A note from AbyssRaven

And so, the first battle royale had ended. Not exactly how Hestia wanted, as one rat escaped.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 319: Dragon Toxicologist.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Well, that sucks!

It was this close, so close I thought my plan was about to finish without a hitch! I had such an amazing, but simple, idea to wipe out all 23 opponents inside the castle, leading to us seven and one additional contestants to become the top eight survivors. Larent and I planned on having that assassin be the last person, as we wanted to know who they were and pay them back for interrupting our duel.

However, for some reason, that weird poison guy became the last member of the top eight. I was this close to smacking them with my glaive to end it all, but noooooo, that assassin dude did something! I was sure of it! I had Rajah sniff around the castle just in case, after all.

And it was such a perfect plan, too… Everything was…

In the end, I decided to stop complaining as the arena changed around us. Castle Fatalisa and the battlefield of Schrade disappeared before the eyes of our alliance — and that poison dude. As we hovered in the sky, the world turned completely white.

After a couple of seconds, the ceiling of this endless white world opened up and our feet began to touch the ground. A moment later, and it was all done. We weren’t in the match anymore, we were now in the arena, being watched and cheered on by the crowd.

“Dammit, you damn Folschreckian! Just one more kill! Just one more kill! You lost me a fortune!”

“Hand of Heaven, yeah? More like, hand in my ass! You lost against a kid, you knight-wannabe! Go retire already!”

Well, it was a 50-50 when it came to the cheers. A lot of them were extremely angry at Larent for some reason, actually, a vast majority were shouting at Larent and how they were disappointed at him for losing against me in the “kills” race. He took most of the negativity, but quite a few were leering and jeering at the poison dude, whose name was Greisha.

On the other hand, the rest of us received praises for our performances, complimenting what we did best. It was amazing! Like, it really raised my mood as my heart began to beat faster from this joy. I wanted to win, and I did, and now I was being rewarded by this crowd congratulating me for what I did.

“Amazing fight! You really showed everybody how to take over a castle!”

“Frickin’ hell, love the magic! Need some explosions sometimes, or all that sword fighting gonna bore everybody!”

Ghorush and Arlond raised their arms up, taking in the celebration for their hard work. Arnold especially was dazzling the women with his looks, instantly making me regret thinking he was a good guy. Womanizing was such a turn-off for me.

On the other hand, Naemon and Joek were bowing slightly before they started looking like they wanted this over with. It didn’t seem like those Evidian mages liked the spectacle much compared to me. Chahayat, from the look of it, seemed to fall into this category, also.

Which left the reactions from Larent and that poison dude. To say the least, they looked awkward. Larent had a wry smile on his face while the poisoned dude looked like he just experienced the biggest relief in his life. Well, he almost lost, so I guessed?

“Noble ladies and gentlemen! Blood enjoyers! All hail to you, may I ask, have you enjoyed this MAAAAATCH?”

““Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!””

““Wooooooooooooo!””

The people in the free seats erupted in jubilation at the announcer’s nudging, while the nobility sitting in a separate section simply clapped in response. There, I also saw Prince Markval and his mother, the Princess Dowager, watching us. While the prince looked like a kid in wonder after watching his favorite anime, his mother looked like the sorta parent who would scold you for watching “some stupid cartoon.”

I waved at them and also to the people sitting below them, which were Jethro and Princess Anasthasia. While the prince couldn’t act out of place with his mother on hand, Jethro gave me an understanding nod despite frowning, or maybe that was his natural expression, and the princess clapped in appreciation.

Since I was planning on performing a concert in Elyonda, I had to give a sample, right? Hopefully, the princess understood it and could help with the advertisement process. I had to introduce her to Amelia tonight for the concert preparations.

“Yes, yes, I know you all liked that! I JUST WANTED TO HEAR YOU SAY IT OUTLOUD! ‘Cuz that was INCREDIBLE! I dare say, God Yeostar must be proud of what he observed here today! Not only did she survive a blast of the dragonator, she also saved ‘Auegor’s Blade,’ and then led a war party to conquer Fatalisa! The first time in the Arena of Yeostar’s history where somebody managed to conquer the castle during an actual match! Give it UUUUUP! For ‘Crimson Scale’ Hestia, our top ‘kill’ ranker!”

“IDOL! I am an idol!” I shouted against the announcer as the crowd cheered. “Stop giving me that stupid name! At least, call me ‘Crimson Idol’ next time!”

But, as you would expect, with the crowd exploding like this, it was hard to give my opinion on it without resorting to [Aerokinesis]. Besides, I didn’t want to ruin the mood. An entertainer had an obligation to not do something that petty, as the enjoyment of the adueince came first. As such I kept quiet and simply basked in it with a smile.

However, I could feel the stares and glares. Not only were a ton of my competitors sitting in their seats right now, having had the luxury to watch the whole battle royal, the ones behind me were the same. Chahayat and Ghorush were definitely opponents I had to worry about, not to mention Larent. I didn’t have any opinion on Naemon or Joek, but they were mages from Aleistunum so caution should be important.

Arlond and that poison dude would probably be easy matches, though.

In any case, I—

[“Master, I need to tell you something!”] Rajah suddenly called me while hiding in my shadow. [“I remember now! I forgot about it, sorry!”]

[“Huh, what is going on, Rajah?”] I could hear his voice cracking a bit, mostly from his excitement at him successfully executing a mission. I was a bit worried he might get hurt, but I was so incredibly proud he managed to bring down the castle’s gates in time.

[“Master, I overheard those humans speak. They said they got poisoned by the bad person. There. Over there.”] Rajah’s mental image was pointing my attention at Greisha. [“They said, there is no cure! The only cure from him and his brother!”]

Rajah’s speaking habit was still a bit scuffed at moments, but it was easy enough to determine his motives and ideas through our telepathic link, and this one was huge.

“What?!” I shouted at the precariousness of the situation. I glared at Greisha for a moment, causing him to twitch a bit.

No time!

Arlond and Larent told me a little bit about the poisoned dude and his brother, telling me those two were infamous black mercs specialized in assassinations with toxins. It was said their toxins could kill even those with immunity against them, saying they were potent enough to kill even A rank adventurers.

If that was the case, then I couldn’t waste any time here!

I activated my rocket boosters and shot up in the sky, only to suddenly hit a mana barrier right in front of the audience. While caressing my poor horns, I ignored the shocked audience and turned to the announcer, shouting, “Open the barrier or gates! I need to get out!”

“Uh? What? Hey, lass, we got your celebration for being top eight in a moment. If you need to go to the toilet, hold up a bit.”

“I don’t need the toilet!” I replied with a small blush. “There are people about to die in the infirmary! I need to get out now!”

However, he didn’t comprehend what I was trying to do. If the opening to the audience was protected by a mana barrier, then the gates would be, too. Either I could try to explain things to the announcer again, or I could break through them. Or, ask Mother to do so. This shouldn’t count as a strike to send me to Miononbolax, right?

However, before I could say anything, somebody else came to my rescue.

“Open the gates, now! That is a royal order!” Prince Markval stood up and shouted his order to everybody before his mother pulled him back into his seat.

“Son, what—” She tried to say something, but the prince kept on going, defiantly.

“I said, that was an order!”

“O-Oh, uh, YES, mi’lord!”

The gates were immediately opened and I zoomed towards where I remembered the infirmary was. I was confused why they couldn’t open the mana barrier, but I guessed the safety of the crowd was a bit more important to him. Regardless, once I was close to the infirmary, I started to hear extreme amounts of groans and moans as alchemists and white-robed priests went in and out of a room in a panic.

Here!

Once inside, the chaos I heard wasn’t for show. Multiple men, probably the twenty people we kicked out the castle, were clutching their stomachs and chest as they released bellows like animals. Their faces were red like tomatoes and some even began puking out bloody vomit.

Alchemists were trying to have them ingest potions, but anything they drank was immediately expelled. The healing from the priests and priestesses were too slow, and with how the injured were flailing their limbs around erratically, some of them even backed away from fear.

Quick! Sacred Field!

I cast a white magic circle inside the room, large enough to reach every single patient. As the white light began to illuminate the dim room, surprising the medics at the sudden spell, I cast [Sanctified Blaze: Halo of Consecration]. With the white flame halo above my head, a wave of white flames burst from it, enveloping not only patients but the infirmary’s personnel.

“Argh, what is this?!” and “Flames, help!” all of them screamed, forcing me to quickly calm them down by bringing their attention to me. As I pulled out my blessed amulet of Aurena and explained to them how I got here, meanwhile, my white fire was slowly entering each poisoned patients’ body.

All of them had [Poisoned (Major)] as I took the chance to identify them and from the look of it, the venom had already made itself around their entire bodies and into each cell. In Arlond’s case, he only had the status ailment for one or two seconds at most, since my white flames could cure him there immediately, preventing the venom from spreading around his body in the first place.

They need more.

“Watch! In the name of the Goddess, I will bring the light of hope back in these patients’ lives!” I slipped through all the panicking alchemists and priests, moving towards the person in the most dire situation.

[Miraculous Heal] is overkill. This should be enough!

I increased my body temperature before blowing a stream of white fire on the man, all my halo was creating more and more, to the point any onlookers would think the room was being burned down.

“Uwaaaghhh!” the man screamed, still being consumed by the venom.

“Hey! Stop!” One of the alchemists charged forward as he heard this, only for him to be stopped by one of the priests. “Wha—?! Are you mad! That lizard is killing him!”

“W-Wait! The beast woman said she’s a priestess. That [Sacred Field] is proof for her claim. If you assault her, then you will be punished by the church!” He didn’t sound too sure about that claim as he nervously glanced at the burning patient, but he defended me anyway in the name of the church of Aurena.

“Are you out of your mind?! Didn’t you say the venom was above moderate?! Can you not hear! Listen!” The alchemist grabbed the white-robed priests on his shoulder and pushed him to watch and listen to the agony-filled fillings and cries of all the injured. Suffice to say, my flames were cool like a breeze; this alchemist just didn’t listen to me when I explained that to him.

“You let this random girl come here and kill these people, you’ll be the only one getting on the church’s bad side! Everybody!” He pushed the priest on the away before drawing the other alchemists’ attention. Immediately, all of them materialized a blue magic circle, chanting and readying their water spell. “Douse them now! And then get the Empire-issued antidotes. Quickly!”

“““Greater Create Water!””””

The custom spell immediately produced a bucket amount of water before it was thrown onto various patients. A normal person would have expected the flames to be doused, but sadly for them, with the mutation skill [Inferno Coating] in my [Hellblade Dragon] skill, as long as the flames were connected to my body, they couldn’t be extinguished.

Which also included Mother’s ice, funnily enough. Even if I was elementally overwhelmed, they couldn’t die off, however, Mother could just lower the temperature until it was useless, which was an effective workaround and counter to the skill. But, if you didn’t do that, even a tsunami couldn’t stop my [Symphonie des Feuergottes] or [Solar Beam]’s overdrive mode.

“Wha-?! It won’t die!” The alchemists cried out, causing the one ordering them around to pale, before snapping his head around to me.

“Hey, you! Stop this at once, please! These men need help! They will die if they—Ark!”

“Hrrrrr!” Rajah suddenly jumped out of my shadow, hissing a bit to scare the man away a bit.

“Sorry, but like I said, I am here to help,” I said while manually controlling my flames through the man’s inside, using [Mana Eyes] to see the concentration of foreign mana, in this case, the venom. “Just saying, but you’re an alchemist. Why hasn’t my flame caused any smoke yet?”

“Wha-?!” The realization seemed to have hit him.

“Like I said, I’m a priestess of the Goddess, and if I can help out then I will. So, please, put your trust in me for this moment and allow me to save some people— There!” As I was trying to reason with the alchemist, the amount of venom inside the mana has been reduced to the point where his [Poisoned] disappeared entirely. With his heavy breathing slowing down, steadying itself, it gave me the confirmation to move to the next person.

Whirling the white flames surrounding the person into a ball, I left a few tiny embers in his body behind to cleanse the remaining threat. I then turned around to the next person and basked them in the flame also.

“Now you can help. The venom is almost completely gone in his body, just give him some minor antidotes or body boosters to help his recovery,” I gave the flabbergasted alchemists and priests that order before putting my entire focus on the next patient.

“U-Uh, y-yeah! Hey, you and you! Clean up the water puddle. The rest, get the herbal tonics out!”

“A miracle! She just cured a major stage venom! Brothers, we need to assure everybody survives until our sister can do her miracle!”

“““May the light guide us!”””

“Yeah, may the light bless you and so on and on,” I mumbled at whatever they just said, too focused on the amount of venom was inside these people.

It’s like they’re a colony of them. What the hell is this?

I knew my poison and venom. I wasn’t a true expert in them as all of my knowledge of toxins was self-learned, either coming from me experimenting on the concoctions I made for myself or reading about them in books. I couldn’t tell the little details a true toxicologist would, but I knew about the practical application of them.

From observing the venom inside these two patients, I managed to identify this venom to be a slow acting one, staying dormant and then activating once they infected a cell’s nucleus. The venom then rapidly ages the cell, causing a pseudo-necrosis, before they explode, releasing the venom and spreading with an almost virus-like contagiousness.

From the look of it, quite a few cells were on the brink of this, showing signs of growth fatigue in the form of dry, black remains. Almost as if there was an attempt to push back the danger before the venom burst up and spread. It seemed like torture to me, honestly. Did those poison brothers seriously do this to people to make them win them a single tournament match?!

I snapped around to the praying priests. I would probably cause even more panic if I cleansed them with my flames at this point, so I had to have them help themselves. “All of you, cast [Cure] on everybody who came even close to this room. The venom spreads like an illness.”

“Wha-What?!” Instead of the priests, one of the alchemists overheard me and ran over to me to confirm it. “Are you serious?! Is this a gaseous venom? Pollen based? Do you get infected through breathing?”

He seemed like an expert. Most of my experience with alchemists was mixed. I had a terrible experience with them in Firwood and Estralia, while my only good impression was with Krymdar, that dark elf alchemist. Too bad the guy could be a real prick towards humans, otherwise I would look more favorably at him.

“The venom infects every fiber of the body, until it explodes and becomes contagious.” I didn’t know if they knew about cells, so I had to give a simple explanation. “I am immune to common venom, but this one can supposedly ignore resistances. I can heal myself, but you need to take care of yourself. Where do the tournament losers get teleported to after their defeat?”

“Here!” The alchemist ran to a door inside the infirmary. “There are multiple infirmaries depending on the injuries a participant receives. This ward is for those with life-threatening injuries, ones the arena cannot cure itself. Reserved for toxins, blood ailments, dehydration, and so on! There is a platform behind this door where every is teleported towards.”

“Good! So those infected are either inside this room or— Arck! The top eight! Rajah!”

Larent and the others, those who fought side by side inside the castle might have been infected. As such, I had to make sure they were okay, so I called over Rajah and cast [Sanctified Blaze] on him. Immediately, the magic circle burst into flames, entering Rajah’s body as if he had an injury or not.

Yeah, that’s the case alright!

“Rajah, go run to Larent. Inform him what happened and have him explain everything to the others. After everything is done, just rub against their bodies and let the white flames do the rest. Do you understand?”

[“Yes, Master!”] He nodded before running off like the wind.

I then returned my attention to the patient after the priests understood the situation, beginning to take care and isolate everybody inside of the room.

Jeez! Ten minutes? No, the amount of infection has to range from 30 to an hour. I deduced after all the information I found on the venom and how far it had spread inside this person.

I didn’t know how long the battle royal actually lasted, not after I spent most of it being lackadaisical. However, using what I knew about my own toxins, this venom probably could kill a grown adult by ten or 20 minutes, depending on the dosage. It only needed to infect your brain or heart, and it would be over for you.

However, this venom was everywhere. Lungs, liver, muscles, literally in every section of the body. No way would this be possible before somebody turned into a corpse. My fastest acting venoms could kill a troll after two minutes, using their natural regeneration to literally torture them. I knew my venom timing.

Disgusting…

I bemoaned the poison brothers and what they did to these people, only to remember what I had done to my enemies using my toxins. I wasn’t any less innocent in this matter, really.

Healing these people wouldn’t make up for my past, even if I only used them on my enemies, their deaths could only be described as cruel, really. I even gave Saori and my allies access to them, and I was using my [Corrosive Fire] freely without repressing despite knowing all of this. Needless to say, I probably wasn’t better than the brothers in this aspect.

However, why should I care about my self-deprecation if good could be done?

“Done!” And the second patient was cured, and then the third, and then the fourth, and so on and so. It took a while due to the amount of venom, but my white flames were still powerful enough to get this job done after I understood what the threat was.

“Priestess, here you go, some fulinoe tea. Please, drink it.” After we were all done, I slumped on a chair as I felt arcane corruption affecting my concentration now.

The alchemists told me I looked slightly blue, so they brought out some fulinoe leaves for me. As expensive as these herbal leaves were, especially with Elyonda being so far from the Belzac forest, the fulinoe leaves' original home, I couldn’t help but want to reject it, even if I had the money to pay for them. But after they told me it was to apologize for their previous demeanor and for my heroic actions, I nodded and drank it.

Not as good as Tasianna’s, sadly.

“I have some leaves with me where I’m staying. I’ll repay them back,” I told them, but the alchemists just shook her hands.

“As we said, priestess, you have our thanks. All these men have you to thank for their lives, so please allow us to pay you back. It's all right, the money for these leaves come from noble subsidiaries to the alchemists guild, hahaha!”

… I wonder if those ‘noble subsidiaries’ aren’t just government funds or donations. Whatever. There was no need to think of that.

The patients were all sleeping right now. The stress and exhaustion from having that venom eat you up was showing with how dehydrated and malnourished they looked. Unless you were an outrageous spell like [Miraculous Grace], normal healing magic accelerated your body’s healing factor. Healing yourself could be draining,

Speaking of draining, I was exhausted, too. The battle royal took a lot from me after meeting Larent. That duel was the first time I used my temperature control in a battle setting, not to mention testing my skills against a master swordsman. In a straight out weapon fight, I was hopefully overwhelmed, which meant I still had a long way to go to master my glaive. Magic and dragon abilities were still my crutches for that.

Then again, he’s level 147.

I was starting to feel something gnawing inside me. Something that felt like “I want to grind exp, instead of doing all this rubbish for the gods!” And it was making me uncomfortable as hell, even with all the training I was receiving from Mother and Master. Yeah, sure, I would receive a level from fulfilling Yeostar’s Divine Quest, but come on.

<I apologize if you feel that way, Hestia. Unfortunately, outside of the underwater temple, there aren’t any good dungeons or hunting zones for a person at your level. This dungeon’s primary usage is to act as a training field and to host the tournament.>

Sorry, I didn’t want to complain. I just feel weak, right now.

In any case, since I was done here, I better get back to the others. I bet they must be worried about how I just dashed away like that. Rajah also hadn’t come back. Was he with the others? If he was in any trouble, he could just communicate with [Telepathy] or enter a shadow, so there was no need to worry about him.

“I better make a report to the operators,” The head alchemist spoke with the head priest of this infirmary. “Can you look out for everything while I’m gone?”

“Of course, we must give our prayers for today’s success, after all. The Goddess or God Yeostar must have looked amicable on these contestants for sending such a skilled priestess.” The flattery was nice to hear.

And they did just that, with the alchemist doing reports and writing what happened like doctors, while the priests gave prayer — some were directed to me which also caused a deja vu moment.

4 humans have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total followers of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 10077

Honestly, why don’t I do this more often? Easy follower gains.

I guess being of the same faith and also displaying amazing elemental spells aligned with that church’s Origin God was super helpful. I did wonder if I could do the same with any Shiterno followers, but then I remembered, why should I? Shiterno was supposedly getting punished by Plesia anyways, so it was even better for me to stay away from him.

In any case, I said my goodbyes to the priests and alchemist before trying to find my way around the arena’s hallway. If I remember correctly, there was still a second battle royal which was about to happen. The winner’s ceremony should be beginning right now, so there was still some time before everybody would leave their seats.

Should I skip it? Would be a bit awkward. Hmm…

<Hestia.>

But before I could do anything else, the voice of my current “employer” rang in my head. He probably wanted me to attend the ceremony, since it would do me good as a champion, I presumed.

Oh? Sorry, I’ll—

<No, I am not talking about the arena. I am giving you the choice to act on information. Head to healing ward three, responsible for the moderately wounded. If you wish to do good, then head over there now to prevent what would be a problem.>

Choice?

<Gods are guides, not puppeteers. Have you forgotten? We aren’t supposed to interfere with so many trivial or mundane mortal events. However, in this case, I believe you should be informed beforehand since this is a chance for you to ‘test’ your power. Go or do not, it is your choice.>

… I guess?

Yeostar seemed like a bit of a weirdo, honestly. He seemed so stern and taciturn when I met him, but he seemed like a history nerd who took historical accuracy seriously, probably more than Saori. And then he had that whole problem where his country seemed less and less like a noble, knightly country, and more like a bunch of wannabes who liked blood and were intolerant towards beastmen. And Yeos’s nobles disliked women in power!

But I didn’t think he was a liar. He might deceive people during a war or something — he seemed like a “win at all costs” kinda guy — but lying to me now would only antagonize me. So, I dashed towards where that ward should be with Yeostar’s direction, only to suddenly hear a commotion and countless people in armor standing before a room.

“— go of them now! Surrender, Kraegar!”

“Move one more step and all of you are dead! Move out of the way! Now!”

That voice?

I just heard that voice. It was the same growly voice that poison dude from before had, but was a bit less deep. However, that armored person — probably a soldier from how he shared the armor design with the eighteen other people next to him — just called him “Kraegar,” the name of the younger poison brothers.

“You have one last chance! Let that person go, or I will execute your judgement before you receive a proper trial in the Empire!” However, what drew my attention next was the person who appeared from behind all those soldiers. Brilliant, well-designed armor which gave you a powerful knight-esque impression, however, with his helmet on, it was hard to see his face.

Only moments later, a small vial of dark liquid was thrown on the floor, crashing and splintering glass all before the knight, causing him to take a step back. For good reason, as that virulent fluid began to sizzle, eating away at the floor like acid. Purple gas began to emit from it, prompting the knight to tell everybody to move back.

“Back! Back, now!” He did so himself. “That gas will get you into armor! Get behind now!”

A rune on his shield activated, creating an auracoil around him and his allies like a giant bulwark. The knight drew his sword, looking ready to charge in at any moment. I thought he would do it immediately, but instead, he waited there until a hand appeared from behind the door, holding onto another vial of black liquid.

“Stand back!”

The alchemist from before appeared, the one who went out to report on everything. However, unlike before, his expression was a deathly pale, sweating cold sweat as his eyes darted from the vial to the sinister-looking dagger held to his throat. A moment later, a familiar man appeared. He still had a slightly crushed face from the time Ghorush smacked him on the ground.

Poison dude #2.

“Come, try me! Your Agility against mine, but the moment you take the gasses in, you’re dead. Everybody in the infirmary will be dead!” Poison dude #2, Kraegar, shouted like a madman, however, from the way his eyes were darting around at the soldiers, looking for an escape plan, he probably did it with calculated aggression.

“Say what I told you!” The dude shook the alchemist, drawing the sinister knife closer to his throat.

“Hiiek!” The man shrieked, shivering like crazy. “H-He planted vials in the room. It’s been perfuming the room for a while now. He will leave behind the antidote if you let him leave the city! Otherwise, all of them will die!”

“Krk! Do you not have any antidotes for them?” The knight asked as calm as he could, seemingly in control of the situation.

“N-No, we already tried— B-But we haven’t tested the more potent tonics yet! We might—”

“No need.”

“Huh?”

“Huh?”

“Hu- Grk? Huh?”

In the span of two second and everybody going “Huh?” on me, poison dude #2’s arm was swiftly cut off by a purple flame crescent, thrown out using my tail. By the time he faced me, he already let out a small groan before watching his forearm falling off his body.

“— Ark! Gaaa— GUACK!” And in the next moment, my scales had already wrapped themselves around his dagger, preventing him from killing the alchemist before I could do anything. All so I could turn the flame crescent into obsidian as I manipulated it with [Pyrokinesis] to pierce his armor, digging right into his stomach.

“Kuek!” However, instead of screaming his pants off, he grit his teeth and wrapped his left arm, his uninjured one, around the alchemist, starting to choke him as if he was trying to pull the man with him into his grave.

However, I was calm about it as I saw the knight rushed forward at blinding speed, for a normal person, cleanly slice off the poison dude’s arm without injuring the alchemist and pulling the latter away from the former.

“Argk! Grk!” he groaned and moaned, only to force it all up into a wide smile. “K-Kehehe! Kuef! Have fun dying you, you damn bast—”

“Antidote, now! We can still heal you, so give it up already!” the knight demanded, pointing his bloodied blade at the merc’s throat.

“Kehehe! Sorry, but it's gone the moment you cut off—”

“Oh shut up.”

Too much time would be lost if I let this guy keep yapping his mouth off, so I did the merciful thing and just dashed towards him with [Wind Blast] and slammed his head on the ground, far harder than what Ghorush did and turned it all into mush. Gruesome or not, from one poison user to the other, this death would be less painful than whatever we could concoct.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Secondary Job [Virulent Corrosion] has risen from [Level 1] to [Level 9]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Damn! He must have been high level. Only 21 more levels until it's maxed

“H-Hey!” The knight was about to speak up about it but I simply shoved my amulet of Aurena into his face, telling him I was a priestess.

“Mister alchemist, you haven’t told me your name yet. My name is Hestia. You know what I am about to do, so please explain everything to the gentleman.” I shoved the alchemist into the knight’s way, drawing his attention away before I recast [Halo of Consecration] above myself.

In one wave of flames, the two spilled acid-like toxins dissolved into thin air. I went in to the infirmary, noticing unconscious people on the beds and also the tied up personal hogging a single corner of the area. Smelling the putrid scent of the poison vials, I quickly put all of them up and began burning them all up with my white flames. Although, I did keep a tiny drop for my collection.

Toxin collection was still a hobby to me, as morbid as it sounded. I think I could finally answer the question I posed to myself when I was still in the Belzac forest. Yes, I was crazy for having such a bizarre hobby.

After I freed the personnel and made sure the vapors were gone, I did an emergency flame healing session on everybody inside the infirmary, making sure they would stay alive. Once they were all healed up, I left the room of appreciative priests and alchemists, only to find the group of knights all standing in front of the door. The body of that guy was gone, but there were still hints of his death.

11 humans have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total followers of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 10088

“Uhm, hello?” They looked at me with piercing gazes, making me feel slightly uncomfortable.

“Priestess Hestia!” But pushing himself through the soldiers, the alchemist from before ran over to me, bowing repeatedly. “Thank you, thank you so very much! Not only did you save all those patients before, you also saved my life today! I am of no words! I cannot thank you or even imagine how I would be able to repay you for all of this!”

“Oh, uh, that’s okay.” Was what I could eke out, too flustered by his sudden sincerness. “Like I said before, I just did what I thought was right. There’s no need to repay me back, seriously.”

“… It’s as Brother Colm said, you really must have been sent by the Goddess! Oh, please, forgive me, Goddess! I had doubted your path of light for too long! From here on out, I promise you, I will act more faithful! Starting with your messenger!”

1 humans have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total followers of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 10089

He prostrated himself, praying loudly to the point it was obnoxious.

… Cool, another follower! I had to just ignore how zealous some people could be.

Determined to leave this place before he stood back up, I was about to move through the way the alchemist made in the soldier wall, only for the knight from before to walk in front of me, blocking my way.

“Lady Hestia, could you come with me for a moment?”

… Am I being arrested again?

A note from AbyssRaven

Sorry if it was dirty and filled with problems. Late release. Too tired to do anything else. Sorry, hope it was fun, though.

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For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters for the whole month! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 320: Royale Rumble End!

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #4 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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“So he escaped?!”

“No, Lady Hestia, as I said, he was escorted out of the arena and into the inn he was staying in. I had received orders to monitor the elder ‘Acid Killers’ while I was to arrest the younger one.”

I was not arrested. Thank goodness, I was not arrested by another knight! As I said, I was a good girl and I wouldn’t do tooooo many problems. Well, I did turn somebody’s head into mush, but he deserved it. He used his venom to turn people into his minions and then tried to kill off a whole medic ward just to escape, with the only antidote available in his palm, well, his catalyst. If you treated people like trash, then I couldn’t even muster my ability to feel an inch of sympathy.

I felt a bit like a psychopath thinking like this, but… Well, not like I had a real excuse. I just didn’t like people like those poison brothers. They reminded me too much of my time in Shaturein and that bastard Eithalr.

So, what did this knight want to talk to me about? Alone and around the corner while his soldiers took care of the people hurt? Well, Sir Alistar Coshbart, a noble of Yeos and the knight-commander of Yeos’s knight order, was here to thank me for what I just did. A man around his late thirties who had more of a baby face, he was probably one of the few polite nobles in this country.

The first thing he did was reveal his face, which was quite handsome but less so than Alrond admittedly, and bowed deeply. He addressed me in a whisper as “Princess Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor,” telling me he had learned it from Jethro. Which also meant he knew I was a champion, but didn’t say anything about it for now.

He thanked me profusely for what he just did with the poison dude and how I rescued so many contestants, and also the alchemists and priests working in the wards. I asked him if he found I was being too excessive with my attack, thinking he might have wanted to arrest the poison dude. However, surprisingly, he fully supported my decision.

“The order came through the tournament officials from an anonymous client. We couldn’t ignore it… so I was to arrest the younger one and deport him back to the empire. This might sound paranoid, but I don’t think it was for judgement.” He smiled wryly. “As such, with you killing him, you did me a major favor. May the Goddess bless your decisiveness and also your response.”

“… But I’m about to get into trouble with the elder brother, right? Is this anonymous client also the reason why the elder brother is only monitored and not ‘arrested?’” I asked, feeling relieved after hearing all of that.

“Yes, and I also apologize that you will receive his ire. I will send knights—”

“Oh, don’t worry about me. I have enough bodyguards.” I thought of Tasianna, Shay, Beth, and Rajah. “So, let me get this straight, when you escorted the elder brother out, you were also to arrest the younger one? What happened then? That scene I saw was not what I would expect from a ‘peaceful arrest.’”

“… I was furious. I might have misspoke and caused him to be agitated. I believe our appearance when he was resting in the medic ward also didn’t help.”

So it was all a misunderstanding in the end. Jeez, so many people would have died if I wasn’t around. Yeostar was right to inform me about it, and I had to thank him for it later on. Still, whoever hired those two black mercs to come here is super suspicious, also, why would the tournament officials even listen to them?

Noticing my silence, Alistar bowed again. “I am… as a Yeosian, I must apologize to you deeply for what you had to experience, Lady Hestia!”

It came out of nowhere, flustering me as he kept his head down.

“I have read the reports and also what Sir Jethro told me when he met you. I cannot tell you how embarrassed I am to have you see all of that. Not only as a noble of the Principality of Yeos, but also as a knight and follower of God Yeostar. It is just pathetic…” He looked remorseful, twisting his face into a deep frown. “But, please, understand Yeos had our history with beastmen. Not to mention, how misogynistic we are unlike so many other countries blessed by the Goddess.”

It did feel weird. Artorias and Estralia had their social disparity between men and women, as the two genders had different expectations, but in the end, both men and women could achieve whatever they wanted with enough effort. In Yeos, however, women couldn’t enter knighthood, and Princess Anastasia wouldn't have become the country’s treasurer weren’t it for her godfather, despite her credentials, apparently.

“Although we are the land dedicated to God Yeos, we aren’t showing the worth of knighthood and chivalry within our country. During war, being a knight means to destroy your lord’s enemies, but in peacetime, we are the beacon of hope and justice. At least, that is what God Yeostar has written down in his manuscript.”

<Alistar is a good knight. You can trust him on that.>

Yeostar spoke positively of him, making me more willing to listen to him.

I perked my ears up, listening more intently to Alistar. “But, as you know, Yeos is a vassal of the Empire. If we are called to war, we are to go to war with them. If they want levies, we are to give them levies. And the Folschreck Empire is at war with both Carmaniate and Bole’Taria right now. They are fighting on two fronts.”

Those were the beastmen alliance and demonkin kingdom respectively. I had heard about it.

“If your son dies in another country, and they aren’t humans? But beastmen and demonkins? People are more likely to gain prejudices when we soldiers are to deliver the bad news home. Barely any beastmen live inside Elyonda or the Yeos’s towns, only outside or in slums.” I nodded to his information, giving me context on everything. “You should have already heard from Sir Jethro about our mistrust with women in power, so I won’t keep it up. In essence, what I wanted to say… we probably weren’t the country of knighthood as you expected.”

I shrugged and smiled wryly. “Yeah. This still doesn’t change my opinion on Yeos, or at least, Elyonda. If I wasn’t here for duty, I would rather leave it right now. I apologize, Sir Alistar.”

“Understandable. Thank you for your honest opinion, my lady.” He bowed regretfully. “One more thing before you leave, have you seen a female knight by the name of Rhea?”

“Rhea?” I tilted my head.

“Yes, she is somebody I believe should be in the city right now. She’s an important acquaintance of mine.”

“Oooh, I didn’t think you would know about female knights. Sorry, I had some suspicion since I thought a noble like you would be apprehensive of female fighters. I guess Jethro left a bad impression, sorry.” I spoke my mind, finding it interesting how he would ask me such a random question.

But reacting to it, he simply smiled. “I have been humbled multiple times in my life by Dames and other women. The last time I shared this opinion with my fellow nobles was when I almost lost my sword arm. Hahaha, it is a fond memory.”

How is that in any way good?!

“Ahem!” He cleared his voice. “If you have any information on her, please come over to the knight’s headquarters situated next to the castle. I believe you should have seen it when you attended court. Also, please come over tomorrow as we will have your bounty reward ready.”

“Wait, what reward?”

“There is a death or alive bounty of the ‘Acid Killers.’ You took down one of them, so as empire vassals, we are required to notify his death to the imperials.” He pulled out the bounty parchment in question, which showed an extremely accurate drawing of the two poison dudes. Whoever drew this was talented. “We will receive the reward, but you were the executioner. We would like to pay you what you are due.”

“I don’t need it.” Simply answer.

“It’s three small goldites per brother, my lady.”

“W-What? 300000 Davi?!” I wasn’t sure of the conversion rate to dollars, but a person could live on that for their entire life without working while also spending some on luxury. On the other hand, that was the sort of money needed to hire extremely talented artisans, specifically for equipment.

“The brothers killed a noble, my lady. You don’t anger noble houses, especially not from the empire, without gaining an enemy or two. Folschreckian nobles can be very despotic.” Alistar smirked, looking like he knew it personally.

Regardless, with that, I said my goodbyes to him. If Saori were here, she probably would tell me to just take the money, even if we had far enough and our funds would continue growing like crazy with Amelia selling our recipes. However, I would be seeing Alistar not just tomorrow but also today, as he was participating in the battle royale today.

As Jethro said, the kingdom itself sended in their knights and nobles to participate in the tournament to make sure the Champion of Yeostar would be a Yeosian. In this case, Alistar was their prime candidate, being their knight-commander and a talented swordsman. A few other nobles would enter too, but I hadn’t really learned their names, to be honest.

I would see them in action anyways.

“Rajah!” I called out after leaving the general infirmary area, only to see Rajah running over to me with Tasianna behind him. After hugging the former, I looked over to the latter. “Oh, Tasianna, you came, too?”

“Well, you didn’t come back in time, my lady! You missed out on the whole award ceremony, so Her Majesty told me to fetch you. Yorshka, Farron, and Priscilla have already arrived, so you should come over to greet them.” She looked a bit worried.

“Haha…” I laughed, guilty for taking so long. “I’ll tell you everything on the way. Let’s go. I promised Priscilla we would have some beach time together!”

Suffice to say, Tasianna wasn’t really surprised, even stating it was normal for me to find trouble randomly. I really couldn’t argue back, just seeing how low Aurora’s luck was when it came to avoiding big threats.

Once we made it back to the main area of the arena, we noticed a lot of people exiting the audience area. Tasianna explained there would be a one bell break until the next match, which was one hour in this world. Passing through the area, I was bombarded with people trying to approach me as if I was a celebrity.

“Hey, I just saw your match, Miss! That was a really good match!”

“I watched you back during the test match. I fully bet a month’s worth of wages on you, and I just won big! Thanks for the money, lass! Win your next, alright? I’ll put the money I earned today on you again!”

“Dammit! You cost me all my money! Damn you, damn lizard!”

It seemed I was out of the crossfire of the gambling scene of the tournament. Not only did they sling slur words at Larent, but now I was one of their victims. Those who saw me win were so happy they bet all their money on me, while those who did on Larent or another contestant were cursing me as they walked by.

Tasianna glared at those who said those words at me, still able to show her icy persona. Her hatred for humans has dissipated almost completely at this point, but she still was protective of me. Now it just didn’t matter what race you were, she would probably shoot some ice spikes if she could.

Thankfully, there were those who still celebrated my victory, and those were the people I really enjoyed. From humans to even beastmen, quite a lot of people came to flatter me, making me feel really good about my victory. Adhi and his band of levianewts also came to watch, seemingly still unable to return to Caedhul.

“All the Caedhulen ships either are still on a voyage or are still in port for the festival. Sea’s curses, we are stuck on land until it's over,” he told me, looking crestfallen.

Well, at least he had tons of kinsmen around him to not feel isolated. That was good enough.

Anyways, after a while, Tasianna came in between the crowd and me and led me away, saying there was enough time for this at another time. With how filled with people the lobby was, it was pretty hard, but still managed to get ourselves through everything. When we did, Yorshka jumped right in front of me and gave me a hug.

“Ahhh, Hestia!” She pulled me up from the ground and swung me around, placing me right back on the ground.

“Wha-?! What was— Wahh!” But before I could, somebody else gave me a hug from behind.

“Hestia! We’re here!” It was Priscilla. “We went through so many stalls and we also saw some entertainers doing tricks on the street! And, and you should have seen it, but when some big guy tried looking weirdly at mom, dad came in between them and swung him right over on the ground! He was sooooo cool!”

Priscilla’s thrill was unexpected, and the moment she released me from her embrace, I looked at Farron standing behind her, smirking slightly. When he saw my gaze, he thumped his chest, looking proud at the fact.

He then took a deep breath, enlarging his chest like a balloon. “Still not 100%, but I’ve been able to spar far longer than before. All thanks to you, kid.”

“Yup.” Yorshka agreed as she went over to him, stroking his stout shoulders before giving him a big slap on his back. “Haha, he can get rough now without spitting out blood after everything. He’s healthy and sturdy like a equerochs, again!”

Was that an innuendo? Nah, forget about it.

Disregarding Yorshka’s comments, the Nordor family had arrived as tourists to Elyonda’s Festival of Yeostar, making this their first family outing and holidays in years. The reason was ‘cause Yorshka had to work all the time, trying to make enough money to help cure Farron’s crystalized lungs. Seeing as I managed to cure him of that, they were now using his new found freedom to finally bondas a family again.

When I heard they wanted to do this holiday, I teleported them from Firwood to Elyonda through the nexus this morning. While I went to the arena, the three of them went around the city to have fun. Seeing people fight and so wasn’t on their priority, even if they wanted to support me.

Yorshka and Priscilla were currently walking around as humans, mostly since they heard my impression on Elyonda and how the commonfolk didn’t appreciate beastmen. Despite the Nordor parents being adventurers, both of them had never visited Elyonda, so they didn’t know what to expect. From hearing Priscilla’s story, it seemed Farron was right to come here today in his armor and weapon.

Leaving those two to flirt around, Mother came over, holding three sticks of honey-roasted apples and offered two of them to Priscilla and me. “I just got them before you came back, my whelpling. You really took your time, I would have been seriously worried if Rajah hadn’t told me everything.”

““Thank you!”” Priscilla and I said, before we took a bite.

Mother really loves them, huh? Yeah, it’s confirmed.

After I chewed and swallowed the chunk, I looked at Priscilla enjoying her treat, finding it endearing how much she liked it. I then turned back to Mother, giving her a short explanation of what happened, shocking her and the three Nordors. Shay and Beth overheard this, telling me the younger poison dude’s brother would probably find a grudge against me.

[“If he comes even close, we will kill him.”]

[“Mistress, please, don’t wander around too much.”]

Their worry was clear to see when I told them their poison could penetrate my resistance. At least, that was what Larent and Arlond told me on how they were extremely dangerous. I couldn’t even get ahold of the younger brother’s catalyst, as Alistar immediately confiscated it due to the threat of it. He had to have the royal mage analyze it, he said.

“Hey, sis.” I turned around as somebody tapped my shoulder, finding Fargryneill was standing behind me with her thumbs up. “Good job there. Showed the crowd really what to expect, huh? Good girl!”

She then wrapped her arm around me, drawing me closer to her as she began whispering, using the noisiness of the lobby as a veil. “Hey, so, what is this? Why is your extended dragonewt family over here, too? The girl and the women are white or silver dragonewts, right? Smell like ones, at least. Related to Nordor, right? Is this some family outing to you? Makes me really believe that whole Divine Quest thing was a lie or so.”

“Come on, everything is funnier with everybody around, right? Besides, I can’t help it. They want to come. What, jealous?” I smirked, causing my sister to burst up in laughter.

“Got me there. Feeling a bit homesick, honestly, after I met you and Melloxtressa. But, what can I do? I have to be here until I’m ready to return to my mother.” She shrugged, letting her yukata slip down a bit.

“Don’t be, dear. You’ll have us around you for a bit longer, so why not enjoy it?” Mother spoke to Fargryneill for me. “We are your family, suffice to say.”

“Yeah, big sis Neilly!” Priscilla called out, flustering sis as she saw the young dragonewt smile brightly.

“N-Neilly? Wait, Priscilla, that ain—” she stuttered and tried to speak up about the nickname, but I couldn’t let this pass.

“Oooooh, Neilly, huh? Shorter pet name for our big sis, huh? Now, that is a brilliant idea, Priscilla!” I agreed fully with it, causing Fargryneill to look at me in horror with a face so red it was like a tomato. “Or, maybe Neill? Neilly might be too cute, no? Yeah, Neill sounds sooo much better, don’t you think?”

I looked over at sis, who’s face was twitching around. “S-Shut up! No way! Fargryneill is a proud name Mother has given—”

“Big sis Neilly, please?”

“Big sis Neill, come on. Do it for us?”

Priscilla and I grinned at how Neill couldn’t take our combined cuteness, acting like little sisters to the older kirin. With Mother giggling from behind and Yorshka saying how precious we were, Neill couldn’t do anything but cower before the power of cuteness!

“Lady Fargryneill, if I could give you some advice, you should give up.” Tasianna was the executioner, bringing down the axe to sis’s unwillingness to accept her new nickname.

Scratching her cheeks, sis gave a deep sigh. “G-Guess I can’t help it. As the eldest, I should prioritize my younger relatives! Wait, hold on, I’m not related to you Pris— Argh, whatever, I don’t care anymore. Sure, you two can call me that, but all of you others!”

She pointed at everybody else in an overly dramatic fashion and exclaimed. “My name is Fargryneill, named by Yuilengreill! Remember that!”

“Sure, Neill.” Mother smiled peacefully, causing my sis to fall onto her knees, looking down at what happened. It was good to know Neill could be persuaded by cuteness, even if she was ultra competitive to a fault.

In any case, after all of us went to get some snacks, we returned to the audience room where Master and the saurians congratulated me on a job well done, even saying the meals were on them afterwards. I hoped they knew how much dragons could eat.

In any case, I took my seat, where I finally got a look at the dungeon’s screen projection. It was as the others described, it was an overlay over a blue dome-like barrier, displaying the bird eye’s view of the contestants. Even now when they were in the waiting room, we could all watch them.

“Blood enjoyers, although not a perfect reward ceremony, where we missed out star of the show, after all!” The announcer sent a cheeky comment about my absence. “However, although she didn’t give us a grand speech of how she won the ‘kills’ race, she and our other seven survivors still gave us an amazing show! But, will our afternoon match do the same? Can we find our next heroes to watch? Well, let me present our favorites to win!”

On our dungeon armlets, it was possible for me to read the available contestants in this royal match now that all 232 contestants were inside the waiting room. Obviously, since Alistar was in the match, he was the one the announcer did his best to hype up, prompting a portion of the seats to turn into a gambling ring.

People were betting on the different people the announcer named out, putting their bets on who would be the kill leader. Some were even betting on people not in the limelight, believing a dark horse would appear. The others told me I was considered one of the unknowns. It seemed the vast majority didn’t know what my last name Kargryxmor meant.

Good. Imagine them calling me princess, yeesh.

The battlefield for the second match was placed in the Citadel of Heavens, the original headquarters of the Hands of Heaven. From the trivia the announcer explained, the Hands of Heaven were actually founded by the Goddess of Nobility and Wealth, Erithea.

She was the knight order’s first lord commander and knight, with her sister Andira being the order’s head scribe. The announcer only used their divine names, not the ones they went with as mortals. Outside of the monster gods, all mortal subordinate gods chose a divine name to separate themselves from their mortality. Yeostar just confirmed to me his current name was the epitaph he took on while he was still a warrior.

Nevertheless, back to the battlegrounds itself. The historical value of this scene was where Yeostar and Erithea first met and dueled each other for the right to acquire a powerful sword. In the end, Yeostar defeated her but through this battle which devastated the area they fought in, they became fast friends. Yeostar became the order’s second Hand of Heaven.

What was funny about it was that the order wasn't a real knight order before Aurena’s advent. It was just an adventurer party to the three, and they only called themselves knights ‘cause Erithea wanted to show up some arrogant noble for rejecting her knighthood. Petty, but understandable.

And, as you would expect from how chunni “Citadel of the Heavens” sounded, it gave me a clear understanding why Erithea was such an Aurena devotee. More like fangirl, honestly. The worst was that it wasn’t a citadel, it was just the mansion upon the land Erithea owned. So, it wasn’t anywhere as spectacular as you might expect.

However, the land was vast and filled with nature and villages, perfect for a more grounded battle royale compared to the first one. And the moment everybody landed on the ground, Knight-Commander Alistar began his work.

“Hmm. That person is good.” Farron noted. As a former knight, he could evaluate others better when it came to swordsmanship. “Kid, how was Sir Larent? I had heard of him, but I wasn’t able to watch his skills today.”

“Pretty good, honestly, even before he began shooting out blades of mana.” I answered before turning my attention back to the screen, watching Alistar cleave down his 17th contestant. Unlike Larent, who could shoot out waves of mana, Alistar relied more on his shield and sword skills to beat everything, only using his water magic when needed.

It was easy to see why he was accumulating more and more kills as time went by, shooting up the rankings, and with it his screen time. In the middle of this, I also found the old eyepatch guy participating in the tournament, the one who tried to warn me not to enter. I wondered if he watched my match.

It also looked like he was doing well by taking down four people, but sadly, his streak ended when a group of contestants ganged up on him. Seeing he was losing, he chose to give up before he accumulated any wounds. This tournament really could be brutal, huh?

In the end, Alistar was the clear winner with the remaining contestants being other knights or nobles from Yeos. None of them could contend with him, but it was still a pretty impressive match. With no huge castle shooting hooks and cannons at you, it might seem less exciting to the audience, but I found it more a matter of skill.

After the battle royale was over, our entire group went out for a meal in the port, deciding it was time for some fine seafood, despite the fact that had been all we’ve eaten for the past week or so. And, to my surprise, Master seemed quite confident he could pay for our entire feast despite knowing how hungry I could be.

And it was true. Akast was carrying a bag full of small goldites, the money the group acquired after they sold all the loot they got from their dungeon trip to help Master gain his sainthood. He told me he had to make 20 trips back and forth to sell off all the monster materials they acquired. Talk about a real efficient gamer.

In the evening, Gael returned to us. Similar to the Nordors, I brought him over to Elyonda this morning, but unlike them, he had watched my match. However, for some reason, he was gone for the rest of the day.

“You know that assassin who nearly shanked you? Well, thought I should try to find out who they were. Followed them when they got kicked, but lost the lead after a bit. Went around, asking info brokers and such. Whoever that guy was, he sure was a ghost if you ask me,” Gael explained.

Considering I was curious about that guy, I had to thank Gael for trying it at least. He was good, so whoever this masked person was, he probably was trouble. And trouble meant worry. After all, the poison brothers were sent here to acquire the blood of Yeostar, why not that masked guy?

“If you want my person— Actually, nevermind. My gut feeling did lead me astray once anyways. I’ll get as much information as I can. Make sure they aren’t partying with the demonkins.” He was becoming more and more reliable.

“Sorry for always giving you these hard tasks.”

“Don’t worry about it. We’re all gonna leave on the weekends, so I better get you some information. Haaaa, I really want to continue, but the King asked me and the love birds to meet him.” It seemed Farron, Yorshka, and Gael would have a meeting with King Drangleic. I wondered what they would talk about.

Before it was bedtime, I also went to schedule a meeting with Princess Anasthasia and Amelia, getting the okay from both of them for tomorrow. Once the morning came, Amelia arrived with her house’s knights, and surprisingly, her father! Duke Greenveil was being a protective father, believing he needed to make sure his daughter didn’t get hurt like a chaperon.

In any case, I left those two to plan the concert for me, while I went to the arena to watch Neill’s match. The battlefield wasn’t anything special, simple a battlefield to celebrate one of Yeostar’s endless victories, but today, the only victor was really my big sister.

Out of the 232 contestants, Neill miraculously defeated 195 of them, using her dragon paths to release electrical currents everywhere, blasting people with mana shocks even on the other side of the battle field.

In her match, quite a ton of well-known adventurers were attending it. Most were B ranks and several of them were expected to be one of the eight survivors, but none of them managed to reach the end. When I said Neill was ruthless with competitions, then I meant it. Like a bloodhound, she sniffed out worthy opponents and took them all out.

This meant the remaining survivors were Sis and a bunch of rats with zero kills each. Sis just made seven slots in the bracket stage complete duds. When she came to the award ceremony, all I could say was that it was a call to fight.

“See that? Learn what you can, cuz all of you will become dust before my feet! Learn this name, because it will be the one you see at the very top! Fargryneill!”

One to one, in our sisterly competition. She got more “kills” than I did in the rumble round. Fair enough.

“Ahhh, in two days, two dragonewts completely sturmed through the matches! ‘Crimson Scaled’ and ‘Stampeding Lightning’ are showing us what some dragon beastmen can do! We might have a show on our hands, blood enjoyers!”

Neill had a similar ID card model like mine, allowing her to hide her true profile. With it, she took on her mother’s last name, Gueillxar, to hide her relationship with the imperial family. Unless you were knowledgeable on dragon culture and history, a normal person wouldn’t be able to make the connection that Gueillxar was an SSS rank kirin and a supporter of Kramps.

However, even without it being clear, one person has taken a bit of an interest in Sis. That person was Larent, who reciprocated Neill’s challenge with a knowing wink. Since he knew I was a dragon, he probably made an educated guess that Sis was more to the eyes than a dragonewt.

In the fourth match of the battle royale, Neill’s companion Renee finally made their appearance. And, to the audience’s hype, the battlefield was actually a depiction of a battlefield within Bole’Taria, the demonkins’s land. This was where Yeostar had one of his first battles against the demon forces, and it was also one of the few battles he had ever lost.

Even if they idolized Yeostar, they weren’t scared to show off his losses. They understood losses were all part of the development of a warrior and knight. And in this area, it became quite interesting since this place had the most arena specific hazards.

Storm winds and fissure explosions caused by the unstable mana in the area, created by the contamination of demon blood and energy. It made the whole area almost inhospitable, sulling the land. It was honestly so barren, I couldn’t imagine anybody wanting to live there, making me wonder if this was what the demonkins had to deal with.

Hmm, Bole’Taria doesn’t look too good, really.

In any case, despite he supernatural battlefield, nobody went wild like the first and third match. It was similar to the second with Alistar, and strangely enough, I had a deja vu moment when I watched Renee sweep through the competition, becoming the number one ranker. The remaining survivors were B rank adventurers, even one of them being an A ranker.

It would seem the matches would become very interesting.

With the end of the battle royale meant also a break from all the matches until next week. The weekend was reserved to the festival only. However, for me, it was the start of my training with Sis.

After an incredible festival day, I had to say goodbye to the Nordors and Gael, who sadly couldn’t find anything else but some tips a band of mercs from the empire entered the country. Hopefully, it wasn’t Yanderu Eluesseus, but also a part of me hoped Eithalr was here. I wanted to smack him into the ground sooooo much.

After visiting the knight’s order and getting my reward money, I returned to the inn and had a nice long rest until tomorrow came.

When I woke up, I went to the meeting place with my party, only to find Neill around with her companion, Renee. I guessed the latter would join us.

However, what I didn’t expect was the reason why she really was here. After taking off their helmet, I was surprised to see their face.

“May our greeting be blessed by the Goddess, priestess. I am Renee, and I would like to personally request of you to aid me in a Quest to retrieve my family heirloom,” they spoke with a slightly deep voice, sounding similar to a man’s.

Short caramel brown hair cut short except for his messy bangs, slicked to the side and held back by his right ear. His face was more “handsome” than beautiful, looking extremely dashing with his strong jawline and long scar going down his left cheek. It gave him a bit of androgynous look, especially with how tall and bulky he looked in their armor.

However, “he” wasn’t a he.

“She doesn’t like showing her face, so take it as her way to show you she trusts you. Don’t worry, I vouched for you, little sis!” Neill patted her friend’s shoulder.

Renee was a woman.

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Chapter 321: [Battle Frenzy] Training Phase Two: Gluttony.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Individual [Sunfang Dragonewt, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has switched her Main Job to [Virulent Corrosion]

M  ain Job benefits have been updated due to Job change

Virulent Corrosion Level: 0/15

“The Sin of Gluttony, the second step to the tranquility of our tumultuous blood. A very poetic way to describe it, right? Well, that's what I was taught when I started it.”

Renee, Sis’s travel companion and friend, had asked us this morning to help her with some family business, which my party agreed on as it would give me the time with Neill to help my battle frenzy training. Also, instead of pure training, we would have some fun going around, so it was a good use of our weekend.

Renee, using one of her family heirlooms, was able to materialize a ghostly, wind-based flag from her left hand. It was a catalyst, and with its ability, Renee could summon wind elemental constructs from it, similar to Tasianna’s [Winter’s Golem]. And with it, she created a self-moving wagon, the same one the Renee and Neill have been using for almost two years.

Inside it, Mother immediately fell asleep. Yesterday's feast was rowdy, to say the least, and Yorshka managed to make Mother drunk again. Although she didn’t destroy anything, she had such a terrible hangover this morning, she just wanted to sleep. Dragons couldn’t take alcohol too well.

While Shay and Beth were on lookout, Tasianna was preparing some tea for everybody and Renee took the coachman’s seat. Since it would take some time to reach the place where her family artifact was, Neill decided it would be best for us to start my training. And immediately, without beating around the bush, she started.

“First, how much can you talk with Kramps?”

<Hestia, tell that kirin to stop calling me ‘Kramps!’>

Can you not? I’m still angry at how you called my sister a ‘half-breed.’ Don’t try to bring your opinion in here like that, Kramps, until you apologize!

<…>

The Black Tyrant of the Skies was too prideful to recognize one of his descendants was a mix between a true and lesser dragonkin. I didn’t care about that social stigma, but Neill was still my sister. Even if I had only met her a few days ago. I gave Kramps a chance. I gave Mother a chance. I would also give Neill a chance. It was the right thing to do.

What does race matter in this case? I’ve only known my family for less than a few months, after all. I knew Saori and Tasianna longer than Mother, and I considered them my family even if we weren’t related by blood. I could do the same thing for Neill, and since she was my sister, I wouldn’t let even an old dragon say what he wanted about her.

It also helped that I had Kramps kinda in control, due to what Aurena told me. He needed me at the moment, so antagonizing me like Shiterno did wasn’t to his interest.

“Perfectly.”

“Your younger sister is better in that case than you, Fargryneill,” Renee commented with her eyes on the road.

“Poor her. I don’t envy having to hear that elder scale stinking up her mind with his voice.” Neill shook her head in exasperation, grimacing at the thought.

<Impudent…>

Family Feud is about to begin again, I believe. Mother hated Kramps, and Neill did, too. It was like the whole family not wanting to meet that one radical or old-fashioned grandpa.

In any case, I didn’t want to spend too much time on this, so I brought Neill back to the topic. With a slow sigh, she continued, “So, he probably gave you a quick rundown. Father can do the same for us. Helps that he is the strongest dragon in the world and knew Kramps personally. But, what I realized, and our siblings did, too, was that it's old-fashioned.”

“How so? I managed to get through sloth relatively easily with his explanation. I just have some problems with gluttony, that’s all. I think it should be normal, right?” I responded, remembering my [Battle Frenzy] meditation progress.

“Cuz sloth is easy! It’s the foundation of the whole process, but as you go up the ladder, it gets harder and harder, since you are fighting your instincts and memories.” She then took my hands, holding it before her. “Here, let me help. Do your meditation and try to break through. What is the thing you ‘need?’”

I nodded and closed my eyes.

The Sin of Sloth was about finding contentment in your life, as happiness was the most important part of living. To be lazy, you had to find a situation where you could do it, and it was necessary to take a hold of it. It was to find your ability to destress, to control your anger and emotions, to slow down to not be controlled by time itself. Being slow and steady was a path to success.

The Sin of Gluttony was about desires, being part of Lust and Greed. However, unlike them, gluttony was about needing something as without it, you cannot continue living. It was like breathing or eating for a person, and that was gluttony. You, as a person, needed this inside of you to go forward.

So, what was needed in my life? What was something I could never let go of, otherwise I would lose my sanity?

My friends. Saori, Tasianna, Ellaine, Grimnir, the students, Rajah, Master Kush and the saurians, and so many more. To find contentment in my life, I wanted to make sure they were safe. I had to get stronger so I could be with them, to make sure they were happy. I needed them in my life. To find any peace.

… But even after going through all my memories with them, seeing them push themselves and facing tough opponents, I still couldn’t push through the second stage. I saw us having fun, smiling as we celebrated together and my wish to stay with them. I couldn’t imagine a life without them.

After I was done, I opened my eyes and sighed. “Didn’t work.”

“Alright, okay, now tell me what happened.” Neill was currently on the sixth point of the [Battle Frenzy] training, so she should be able to help me understand this better. “What makes you gluttonous? What is your ‘need.’”

“My friends. Saori, Tasia—”

“Wrong.” But out of nowhere, Neill interrupted me and told me I was wrong for some reason.

“Uuuuh, wrong? Wait, what do you mean by that?” I quizzed her, confused like crazy.

“That is not your ‘need.’ You’re being too specific.”

“Wai-What do you mean by that isn’t my ‘need?’ My friends are very important to me, to the point my happiness is directly linked with theirs! I wouldn’t be able to stay sane if something happened to them!”

Rage was brewing inside of me for people like Eithalr and that Demonkin of Pride. I wanted to destroy them at all cost, ‘cause I knew if I let them continue acting around in the world, they will hurt me. They will hurt my friends. They would bring my happiness to an end, just like how they ended Eshe’s life!

So I didn’t understand what Neill was talking about here. What did she mean my friends weren’t important to me? It was crazy!

“Sis, you don’t seem to understand this fully. Here, let me give you an example from my side, alright? It should help you get a grasp of what the Sin of Gluttony requires from you.”

“Hold on, isn’t that super personal?” I stopped her. This training demanded you to expose your inner self, so what Neill was telling me was she was about to expose her past and wishes like a book to me. Sisters or not, we were still only strangers.

“Don’t worry about it. I wear it on my sleeves like clothing. Only reason why I’m still stuck at the envy phase is due to me being unable to let this stuff go. So, honestly, whatever.” Neill looked proud at what she said.

“She acts like a brat because she can’t let go of her inferiority complex,” Renee chimed in once again.

“Oi, shut it, flattie!”

“Top-heavy muscle head.”

Were they friends or what the hell was this?! Didn’t they just insult each other right in their faces?! And they did it so casually.

However, Neill nor Renee seemed to have minded it too much and went back to their business. I was baffled but it wasn’t my place to analyze it. It was their business and they knew their dynamic better than I did.

“So, to start out. I already told you about that whole half-kirin and half-dragon thing, right? How true dragonkins look down on lesser ones?” I nodded to her statement. She had mentioned how Kramps disliked her about it and how she wasn’t super popular because of lineage. “Well, for sloth, what would make me happy? Well, first things first, I would just be content if I could just get some respect from other true dragonkins.”

“…Were you bullied?” I asked, sniffing out the underlying reason,

Neill turned around, speaking to her companion, “Hey, Renee, mind closing your ears for a moment? Sis talk.”

Silently mumbling a chant, a green magic circle appeared on her hand before it cast an [Air Shield] around her body.

“You won’t tell her?” I probed her.

“Renee and I are friends, but we don’t divulge our past to each other like dining noble ladies. We travel cuz our goals align. Her family business here is a favor and she wanted me to bring you along for a simple task. Should be easy enough for you, Sis.” She shrugged, probably unable to tell me more about what Renee was planning.

I was specifically talking about Neill not wanting to tell her companion about my true identity and past. Neill knew everything, but it seemed she hadn’t told her friend one inch of it. Talk about trustworthiness, honestly.

“In any case, yes, you could say so.” Neill nodded, bringing us back to my question about her being bullied. “Father’s rule isn’t absolute, sadly. Nobody can overthrow him as the Emperor, due to our six Queen Mothers supporting him, and nobody would want to gain the ire of six dragon clans. However, dragon culture is rough.”

Neill was world-wise, having experienced the world outside Miononbolax for six years now. She didn’t admit knowing everything, but by gazing at the world as a dragonewt adventurer, instead of a kirin, she had come to learn and understand different cultures and how they conflicted with her own worldview prior to her adulthood pilgrimage.

“Similar to our courtship ritual, you also had to gain respect from other dragonkin. You don’t deserve anything in Kargryx, even if you are a Kargryxmor, if you cannot defend it. I’ve been harassed and put to the test, forcing me to fight back every time. You might think a half-dragon like me would gain some respect, but I still looked like a kirin.”

Kirin were small, as in, vastly smaller than dragons and even some lesser dragonkins. As a B rank [Violetshock Kirin-Dragon], Neill described herself as around the size of a house, making her quite a bit shorter than Saori. Similar to her scales, she had black and purple fur and scales with a build similar to a horse or equerochs.

However, what made her different was her two horns growing from the side of her unicorn. In addition, she had a set of wings and could use our bloodline’s iconic black flames as an ability outside of her dragon paths. At least, that is what she presented herself as.

“We dragons aren’t completely united.” I nodded. Mother’s experience was reaffirmed to me by Neill. “If you want something, you take it. Plain and simple, and what would make me the happiest, make me content to live my life slowly, would be to bring the respect back to the Gueillxar name! My grandfather is an SSS rank kirin and ascended with Kargryxmor. Why does my clan not get any respect for that? And for that, I push myself.”

The difference between us was the difference in how our loved ones would be treated, in other words. I wanted my friends and family to be happy and safe, while Neill wanted her clan to be respected.

“Sloth is your exit out of the [Battle Frenzy] state, you should know this.” I nodded in confirmation. Kramps had told me countless times already. “If you go on a rampage, always think back to what caused you to make your travels in the first place. This brings me to the second phase, the first ‘gate’ as I like to call it. The stimuli enabling you to enter the minor stage.”

I gulped. Kramps didn’t tell me this part.

“The first desire and least damning one — Gluttony. Your need to live and survive. Like breathing air or drinking water.” She then began poking my chest. “What keeps you wanting to live. Ask Kramps what his gluttony was when he was still alive?”

I did just that and he responded swiftly.

<To survive, I had to dominate others. Living in the area I lived would be unimaginable for you, Hestia. The world was far more ruthless as so many S ranks and higher existed back then. I knew already I had to become the strongest being in the world, otherwise, I would die. Not even the second-strongest was enough, as my rival could kill me at any time. To find my happiness, I had to crush them all. I needed to become the strongest for my dream.>

Kramps didn’t specify what exactly his dream was, but I guess that was his sloth. His desire and foundation for his journey to power. When I told this to Neill, she opened her eyes wide for a bit, looking like she didn’t expect me to say that.

“… That is exactly as what Father told me. Hmph. Whatever your reincarnation did to you really fortified your soul. Wow.” She tapped her thighs, looking pensively at the road. “My gluttony is my need to not feel like I don’t matter in this world.”

“Huh?” My jaw fell open as I was too flabbergasted to close it.

“To make my Mother’s family respected, the first thing I had to do first was to make my existence worthwhile. You know, become special. To the dragonewts, humans, elves, dwarves, whatever races really, a dragon princess is veeeery special. But you compare that to Miononbolax, heck, even the world. I am just—” She held her hand up, pinching her index finger together with her thumb. “Piece of crumb. I die, barely anybody would realize it while I’m out here. If Kargryxmor doesn’t inform anybody, well, even my mother wouldn’t know…”

“…” I was silent.

So this is what Renee meant by ‘inferiority complex.’

I could relate to her. I had a similar wish to not be forgotten, to not be another idol who debutted and crashed and burned after a year or so. The industry constantly produced rising amateurs, but so many of them wouldn’t last for a couple of months or a year at best. Your relevance would fade as quickly as your burned, dimming until you had to retire and become a “normie.”

“Hey, hey!” I was rattled from my thoughts, brought back by sis tapping me on the shoulder. “Come on, I already feel bad, you shouldn't, too.”

“Sorry…” I scratched my head, feeling awkward from what I did, only to have Neill lean on the wagon’s bench and ask me what happened. However, before I could answer, Tasianna came over with tea and a comment.

“Lady Hestia, had a similar need as you back in her previous life, Lady Fargryneill. You two aren’t too different in that case.” She handed us our tea and bowed. “Please, enjoy. Pardon me.”

The aroma of the tea wafted around our noses. While I took a sip from it, Neill continued speaking. “If that is the case, then I’m surprised to hear you didn’t mention that as your need. I mean, didn’t you say something about this whole weird ‘idol’ thing or something? Did you just lie?”

I shook my head. “No. Well, sorta, I guess. My idol dream is still very much important to me, but… I guess you can say I changed my mind.”

After almost losing Ellaine and Eshe during the Griffonpeak battle, my priorities had changed. I was still an idol and still wanted to make my dream come true to bring the idol culture to Peolynca, but what good was a dream if I couldn’t share it with people.

I had to fight against the demonkins to be able to meet my parents on Earth. To apologize to them. I also wondered if Saori wanted to do the same, but the students probably would want to go back to Earth. In any case, a clash with the demonkins was inevitable. In that case, I needed to become stronger. I needed to be so powerful I could blow away all of them!

But, for some reason, when I told that to Neill, she just shook her head.

“Hestia, that is a want. You are greedy for power so you can maintain your sloth. That is not your drive to move forwards and become stronger. You are confusing the two, again.”

“What do you want me to say then? So, my friends aren’t important enough to be a ‘need’ but gaining the power to defend them, to defend my sloth which is the happiness of my beloved, isn’t it either? You have to be kidding me.” I was starting to get irritated. After letting my heart out, Neill just shot my idea down.

Annoyed by my tone of voice, she poured her tea right into her mouth, swallowing it whole with one big gulp despite it still steaming. She then stood up, stomping towards me with a scowl, and once she reached me she pushed her face close to mine, almost poking me with her horn.

“Listen here, you aren’t listening to me. There is a distinction between a need and a want. As I said before, protecting your friends isn’t your gluttony. They are your sloth, your foundation, the anchor to keep you sane! [Battle Frenzy] makes you lose your mind, so you have to remember why you even started training is needed for you to keep your temper in control!”

You can’t control your temper, I wanted to snark back at her, but if I did that, I was pretty sure I would awaken the beast inside her. I didn’t want to be scolded.

“I repeat, gluttony is about your survival. Physical and mental. What you need to remain functional, so you don’t go crazy when you enter [Battle Frenzy] willingly. You need a drive, a need, to enter [Battle Frenzy]. However, it cannot be something specific.” She sat back down after her rant. “Take me for example. I need to make myself a worthwhile existence. What exactly does it entail? Specifics? You can leave that to greed and lust. Look inside you. What exactly drives you forward like this? It isn’t just your friends or the power to protect them.”

What drives me?

If I thought back to it, what was my first wish when I started in this world? Well, it was to survive and become an idol, but I guess that wasn’t what Neill wanted me to consider. Maybe she was talking about looking even further back? Maybe I should look back to my past life? After all, I was a soul with the memories of two people.

But, looking back on my fractured memories, all I could think of was my idol dream. It was the catalyst and source for me to even mostly stay sane in the Belzac forest when I was all alone. Then again, I didn’t have too many friends on Earth anyways. I either alienated myself or… I put my idol dream over my time with them.

…

That’s right. I was pretty lonely back on Earth, huh? Most of my social interactions came from school, my family, and the kids I met at those fancy parties Papa would bring me to for his own networking.

Sure, I spent my time like any other teenager by going out, buying stuff, and just walking around with schoolmates. However, was I really close to them? I couldn’t remember even if I tried. Did I ever have a best friend? I didn’t know. Who was I really close to back then? I couldn’t have only surface friends, right?

Urgh.

My chest suddenly tightened up. I had this weird feeling I was forgetting something super important. In the back of my mind, a silhouette suddenly appeared from nowhere. It was a tall shadow, but no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t recognize them. Was it a he or a she? Just thinking about them was starting to give me a headache.

It honestly felt so irritating at this point, like an annoying itch. It felt like I said something to them but I couldn’t remember it at this point. Was it a promise? Probably, since that might be one of the few things which could trigger me this much. I honestly wish my other self would just appear before me, or if my parallel minds could think of something, but none of these things worked.

However, during this whole deep dive into my memory, I started to understand what was going on. I didn’t have any friends on Earth, but I wanted to make some. That was why I tried to fit in with my fellow idol trainees and learned how to speak informally. As a consequence, though, I lost those I made at school while the trainees just thought I was a poser. It was a spiral of loneliness.

And then I was born in the Belzac forest. What was one of the things I longed for the most? Companionship; anything to keep me from going insane from solitude. I wanted to befriend the kobolds, but they attacked me. I wanted to join that orc, but he attacked me. I thought I could reason with the garms, but at that point, it was inevitable we would clash.

Only when I met Saori was when I started to see that light at the end of the tunnel. I was overprotective of her and Tasianna. When I first went wild with [Battle Frenzy (Moderate)] and couldn’t remember what I did, I couldn't believe what I did. I could have done that to Saori and Tasianna. They were too weak to stop me back then.

I wanted to go away, leave them so I wouldn’t hurt them. However, I still wanted to stay with them ‘cause I valued them so much. Without them, I would have probably gone crazy. I would have turned feral. Without them, I wouldn’t have found the human side of myself again.

It was also then that I broke my most important oath. To never cry before I performed in a concert. I cried, ‘cause I was directly going against what I wanted. I had a mental breakdown. I broke down right in front of them when they still wanted to travel with me, despite the risks.

I was so glad, so relieved they weren’t scared of me. I let go of over nearly ten years worth of held-back tears. I didn’t know how long I cried but when I stopped, I was too exhausted to stay up. I fell asleep with a slight fear they would leave me, but another portion of me believed they would stay with me.

It was one of the best sleep I ever had.

“… Solitude.” I finally eked out.

“Hmm?”

“S-Solitude.” My voice rose and I could feel my eyes wet. “I don’t want to be alone… Never, never, ever again! I don’t want to lose anybody. I don’t want to be all by myself. I need someone!”

“Lady Hestia!”

[““Mistress!””]

I heard Tasianna’s, Shay’s, and Beth’s voices as my body arched forward, overwhelmed by all the thoughts from Earth and also my time in Peolynca. Being all alone on Earth ‘cause of my own damn fault pained me, but it couldn’t be compared to four months of loneliness with only my parallel minds to talk to. I thought I was going insane.

Reflecting on it all was causing me to relapse, going through all the emotions I had back then. I went through my entire travels with Aurora, enjoying all the pain and smiles we had ‘cause we were together. Losing it all, even imagining being alone after all of that was causing me pain. Actual pain.

“Grack!” I fell onto the floor, almost gagging from my crying. “GraaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! EEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSHEEEEEEE!”

Eshe’s smile. The curry she served me. The determined expression she had when we were rescuing the orphans. Her face when I left her to save Ellaine. Her face when… she died. When she died. When she died. When she died!

<Hestia! Noo! Stop thinking about that!>

[Battle Frenzy (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“GURAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!”

“Nooooo!”

““Kriiiieeeeeek! Kruuuuuuuuuh!””

“Shit!”

Heat. Heat. I felt my body temperature rising and rising but also a chill around my shoulders, however, as I felt thinking of Eshe’s dead bodies and the remains of her knights, I felt as if I was burning up. But, the tipping point was when I remember that demonkin’s face. That demonkin who posed as Pestrodos’s nephew, the one who stole that man’s relative.

The demonkins stole Eshe from me and so many others, too.

But… when his face came up. That piece of filth who tried to persuade me this was alright. That mercenary. That scum of all scum!

“EIIIIIIIITHAAAAAAAAAAAAALRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!”

<Fargryneill! Move!>

“Lady Hestia, listen to me! Stop this! Uuuuurghk! NO, urgh, need to move!”

[“Your highness, stop this! Sister, colder! Even colder!”]

[“Freeze her if we have to, brother! We need to prevent her from-arck — explode with [Dreadfire Aura]!”]”

“Woo-Woaha! Fargryneill, what the— Shit!”

The world turned around me and I could still hear the voices of my friends, however, I was pushing them away. All I could think of were the people who nearly stole something from me — Eithalr, Prince of Pride, Prince of Envy. I didn’t want to hate the whole demonkin race, but the more I thought about it, the more my hostility increased. I knew there had to be good in them, but I couldn’t think straight. I just could—

[Battle Frenzy (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

—n’t control myself anymore.

“I WIIIIIIIIL KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLLLLL YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOU AALLLLLLLLLL!”

“Enough!”

“Gurck!”

My tears dried up from all the heat, but when I thought I was losing control completely, three-winged beings shot out rays of ice at me, piercing through the heat aura and shooting me into the ground. At the next moment, black flames appeared, cleaving a way forward.

I felt they weren’t as strong as my flames, but the damage from those cold blasts weakened me slightly, using my crippling weakness to ice to its advantage. A flash and I felt a punch striking my belly, only for me to be slung away in the next moment.

As I was flying through the air, I felt something was stopping me from crashing. Something soft like clouds, but strangely, they felt cool. Like swimming in a pool in the middle of summer.

“My whelpling, you can’t wake me up like that.”

[Battle Frenzy (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

I saw… my mother.

“Mother needs her sleep, my dear. But… when you need me the most, I will be there for you.” I was embraced by that soothing voice. It felt nostalgic, bringing my attention back to when I heard it for the first time.

I almost died from overheating but when her voice appeared in my head, it felt like everything was about to turn back to good. I was calming down. Feeling her warmth and cold made me remember what I was doing, releasing me from my rampaging thoughts.

As my body cooled down, I could feel my tears dripping down my face again. Through the watery veil, I noticed her beautiful white-blue dress and the shimmering scales on her wings and tail. I pressed my arms even tighter against her.

“… I’m sorry.” Was all I could muster after everything I did.

“Mother’s here to help. Always,” she announced before we slowly descended back to the ground. The flames and ice around us dissipated as my [Battle Frenzy] disappeared. “You know, I always feel so much better if you need me like this. Your fire and my ice. It fits.”

“… Jeez, Mother.” I buried my face into her chest, feeling like I was heating up again.

“My lady!”

[““Your highness!””]

Once we were back down, Tasianna and the twins approached us, looking at me worriedly as I let go of Mother. They asked me if I was okay, saying they were surprised I was acting this way. They knew I could heat up from our previous [Battle Frenzy] training, but they didn’t expect me to overreact this much.

Previously, I’ve only burned up a bit and could feel the anger in me settling in, but it was a slow process. Enough for the twins or Tasianna to cool me down in time. However, this time, my thoughts just went haywire right at the beginning. It felt like somebody pushed me right into a maelstrom of memories, bombarding me with every single emotion to drive me to the point of catharsis, however, in this case, I nearly hurt everybody.

“Thank you… all of you for stopping me.” I smiled. I nearly went wild, but they prevented me from burning anybody with my flame aura.

“This is my duty, Lady Hestia!” Tasianna bowed deeply, a smile on her face. I bet she was ultra proud, since she promised me she would become strong enough to stop me one day.

[““Your survival is all we need!””] On the other hand, the twins were more formal, even kneeling down with their tails tucked between their legs — a sign of submissiveness.

“And what about me?” Another voice entered my ears. When I turned around, I saw Neill covered in a cloak of black flames, walking over to me with a frown. “Jeez, you could have warned me you would react like this!”

Her yukata almost fell down as she placed her hands on her hips, scowling at me as if I was a big troublemaker. “You really are too young for all of this! Your mind isn’t experienced enough to handle all of that emotional baggage! Or, even worse, you experienced too much and it’s making it hard for you to stay calm!”

“Ehehe…” I laughed nervously.

“This is not a laughing matter! How could you not warn me something like this would happen! You had your time during the sloth phase, so why didn’t you warn me you could have such a reaction?”

My smile then turned wryly, unable to really give her a proper answer there. This never happened to me. I only burned up slightly when I finished the sloth phase and then the beginning of gluttony.

Seeing I wasn’t answering, Mother did it for me, shocking Neill as she learned the truth. She let out a deep sigh, telling me going berserk was usual during this mediation process. We were going through emotional memories, after all, and with our tumultuous blood, it could bring us to a berserker rage.

“Haaaa, if that is the case, then I guess you can’t be blamed. Wow, still, that was something you would usually only experience during the wrath phase.” She shook her head. “This will be hard.”

I grimaced at what she said before turning to Kargryxmor, trying to get his assessment.

<I apologize, Hestia. I evaluated you too highly when sloth worked out without any issues. You had some hiccups, but it went by so smoothly, I thought you were a prodigy. However, I guess your damaged soul was now complicating your situation as you analyzed all the trials and tribulations you faced. Your sister is right. Wrath and Pride will be extremely problematic at this rate. I don’t think you can even pass the fourth at you current mental strength.>

Even with all my mental protection skills, it was still not enough. I guess they never had a dragon with a fractured soul or memory try this before.

“Oi, what in the Goddess's name are you damn dragons doing?!” All of us turned around to that voice, only to see Renee glaring at us with leaves hanging from her hair. It seemed when the wagon toppled over from my rage, she landed on a tree and fell to the ground.

Suffice to say, she was angry. And in her anger, she forbade us from continuing our training until we reached our destination. With how exhausted I was, mentally and physically, I couldn’t do another session even if I wanted to. The moment I could, I placed my head on Mother’s lap and just went to sleep.

I can’t believe this is so hard… I lamented how I underestimated this whole [Battle Frenzy] progress. However, I was so close. Once I mastered gluttony, I would be able to enter the phase at will, hopefully

I must keep working hard.

We eventually reached our destination. According to the direction of the sun, Renee suggested we were slightly two bells afternoon, meaning it was two o’clock. We still had a lot of time to work with before returning to Elyonda tomorrow evening.

However, when we got off the wagon, I was shocked to see a huge ball of thorny vines before me, towering over me like a mansion. The area, on the other hand, looked extremely pretty though. The earth ground was paved well and it looked like an expert gardener took care of the garden and foliage. If it weren’t for the thorny ball, it would have been eye candy.

“Uuuh, what is this?”

“Just wait,” Neill replied to me before pointing at Renee walking slowly up to the place.

Holding her hands around her mouth, she gave a loud shout, “HEY, RITA! We’re here!”

From a section of the garden, a flower suddenly grew in size, to the point it shared the size of a giant rafflesia flower. Its petals then closed up, growing taller before they opened up, only for a green-looking person to appear from it.

Light green skin, ivy-like hair, and two pronounced ruby-colored eyes stared at us before they began to stretch. Their green flower-embroidered shirt and skirt fitted their slender body loosely, fluttering around as the person moved around.

Once they were done, they opened their eyes again and responded to Renee, “Heyoooo, you guys—”

But her feminine voice stopped as she noticed me. She clapped her hands together as her eyes sparkled, before rushing over to me. To my surprise, I was about to shake her hand, only for her to slip around me and grab my tail, raising it up as she began inspecting it.

“You… Yes! This should work! Wow, you brought another dragon for me, Renee!”

Completely enamored by my tail, little did she notice she was lifting my skirt up, exposing my shorts to the world.

A note from AbyssRaven

… Well that was frantic. Some [Battle Frenzy] mediation nearly caused her to go wild. Good thing we have cold people around.

In any case, please welcome Rita to the story! Created by my Patron Rita152, our little upskirter went directly for what everybody would want — dragon thighs and tail.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters for the whole month! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 322: A Plant’s Matter.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #2 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until August!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

“Rita! That is my name, fauna friends. Summer’s dying embers careth for you, as we meet under Autumn's moon. May the fae Goddess bless you with calm winds!”

The green-skinned androgynous person clapped their hands together in prayer, before doing it twice, joyous to be finished with her introduction. She tippy-toed over to us, staring at us with the curiosity and starry eyes of a wonder-filled child.

“My name is Hestia, and—”

“She’s my little sister, Rita,” Neill interjected herself immediately before I could state what she said.

“…” I stared at Neill’s thumbs-up, as if she was saying “Don’t worry, I vouched for you” with that smirk of hers. I continued, ignoring her, “ Yeah, I’m her half-sister from the same father. This is my mother, Melloxtressa. My friends Tasianna, Shayatierus, Bethlieranha, and—”

“Graaa!” Rajah jumped out from my shadow, before stroking his head against my leg. He was pretty sad he couldn’t do anything when I went berserk before, so this was his way to soothe me.

“Rajah.”

“Oooooh, a virigress! Now this is a feline monster I haven’t seen in a loooooong time. You don’t find them much in the western part of the continent. Oooh!” Similar to how Rita picked up my tail and inspected it, she was now staring at Rajah as if he was something extraordinary, out of this world.

Rajah froze in place, snapping his eyes to me as if he wasn’t sure what he should do. Rita herself pulled out some parchments and a journal from her flowery bag, and began scribbling things down on them. She was too focused on her curiosity to stop. To bridge this silence, Tasianna stepped forward.

“You are a dryad, no, Miss Rita?”

“Ooh? Ahh, yes, that I am! Miss Tasianna, you are a f— Mhmm!” Before Rita could say anything, Tasianna stuffed her mouth with her hand and pulled her to the side, agitating Renee. Neill immediately grabbed her shoulder, pulled her back, and told her everything would be fine.

“I’m in this form to—” I heard Tasianna mumble something before diverting my senses away to not accidentally eavesdrop. After a few seconds and a lot of nodding, the two of them returned to us.

Rita, having calmed down, bowed her body. “I apologize! I think I was a bit too excited there. The world had changed so much I just wanted to experience it all, and I think I got, too, well, I guess you know what happened.”

We nodded.

“Rita has always been extremely curious, since we met a couple of months ago. Don’t let it bother you,” Renee added. As Neill said, Renee didn’t like showing her face, so I couldn’t really see her expression through her helmet.

“True. Probably should have warned you, but I forgot.” Neill was speaking about the tail inspection and upskirt incident from a moment ago. “She did the same thing with me, but unlike how calm and composed you were, I nearly stomped her face into the ground.”

“Oooh, I understand, but you have to admit a kirin-dragon is an extremely rare, and probably, unique subrace of the dragonkins! I just had to!” Rita started to become excited again. “Oooh, Fargryneill, I would like to ask you again! Could you show— Wahh!”

Neill flicked the dryad’s forehead, looking unamused. “Once again, you can’t ask me to show you my form as if it's some favor!”

“You two, break up, now! We have helpers! Stop embarrassing yourself even further!”

The stern but worry-filled voice of Renee, the fully-excited and remorseless tone of Rita, and the tomboyish actions of my big sister. These three were arguing amongst each other, showing a rather fiery dynamic we couldn’t stop even if we tried to. In my group, we decided unanimously to allow the three to let them sort out their issues.

Once they were exhausted and parched from all the talking, Renee and Neill gave us a quick rundown of why we were here exactly.

To start, this area northwest of Elyonda and about a three-hour ride with a carriage away used to be the homestead of her family. Renee didn’t specify if she was a noble or commoner, staying silent when I asked her about that. Instead, she simply changed the topic and directed our attention to her magic ring, the catalyst she used to create that wind-based carriage.

It was a gift from her parents, belonging to her father before he perished. While her mother returned to live with her grandparents, she sent Renee a letter specifying the details of her father’s heirloom and most valuable treasure, a medallion. The object was returned to the mansion after her father’s death and, according to her, was somehow sealed and almost killed her, wasn’t it for Neill’s intervention.

“Pretty strong blast of arcane corrupted mana. I reacted in time with the dragon paths, but it probably would have blown the mansion up if I hadn’t done anything.” Neill sighed, not fond of that memory.

“I personally would evaluate myself as a B rank adventurer, as you could see from my performance during the elimination match. However, compared to my father, I am nowhere even close to his strength. He was one of the greatest knights I’ve ever known.” Renee went silent for a moment, probably melancholic for her lost family member.

“My condolences,” I said.

“No need.” She shook her head, her emotions unclear to me with her stoic voice. “Father was a grand knight, and he died in battle in the service of his Lord. There is no greater honor for a knight. As his offspring and a knight myself, I have a responsibility to carry on his light. The Goddess watches our every action, after all. Isn’t that correct, Lady Priestess?”

I nodded. Aurena and her aides were watching us right now, probably.

“So, little one, you brought us here for that heirloom, yes? If you wanted Hestia to burn the vines down, you should have just asked her sister to do so,” Mother pointed out after Renee gave us the gist. I nodded also, but that was not the end of the story.

Rita jumped forward, shaking her hands wildly. “No, no, please! Those are my vines. They are there to protect the outside world from entering the place, so nobody can get hurt.”

Rita was a dryad, a plant person who was more similar to the grass and trees inside this area than me, being of flesh and blood. According to Tasianna, who sent this information to me through [Telepathy], dryads were similar to treants — tree monsters — in the sense they were spriggans — a faefolk — who inhabited a plant-based host to create for themselves a tangible body.

However, unlike treants, dryads were considered the “pure” version, as instead of turning into monsters, they turn into humanoids. In this form, they were more similar to a grimgarian. They could get jobs but also had the ability to evolve. However, since they remained pure, their original faefolk personality remained in them. They were more curious, mischievous beings.

In Rita’s case, she was 240 years old, but acted more like a young adult in their early twenties. Rita was actually gender-neutral, but preferred calling herself with female pronouns, even styling her androgynous body to be more feminine.

Surprisingly, this was Tasianna’s first encounter with a dryad, telling me they were extremely rare and that, to her knowledge, there weren’t any dryads in Saelariel. Instead, there were countless treants, both hostile and peaceful — like Muraina’s owl treant — to be found in Saelariel. Meaning, to remain “pure” was quite a hard task for most spriggans.

“So, you can retract the vines at any time?” I asked, to which Rita nodded vigorously.

“Of course! As long as I am rooted to them with my mana, I control them however I want! Hmm, yes, I perfected it after I met with one of the Kurnistus drakes, so you can trust me!” Rita named an ancient drake, using their name to vouch for her ability to me, a dragon.

Kurnistus? Hmmm, wait?

“Kurnistus? Hold on, do you know Cernust?!” My eyes widened wide when I remembered the meaning of that name, figuring she might have some connection with a friend.

“Ooooh, you know Cernust, too? Wow, what a small world! Mhm, yes, I met him three years, 4 months, and 16 days ago in a place called Artorias, I believe. Ahh, but no, I learned the ability from his father when he visited me at my old home. But, that was before I went into hibernation.” Rita looked troubled for some reason, before shaking it off and directing my attention back to Cernust. “In any case, how is he doing? As a fellow botanist, I must know if he is still traveling and collecting seeds on his trip!”

Considering Rita knew Cernust’s tendency to collect whatever seed he found interesting, I fully believed her statement. Which wasn’t as surprising, since Cernust had been on his pilgrimage for a while now, and probably had met people and seen things. Since he was a [Woodland Drake], it made sense he would bound with a dryad.

I wanted to speak with Rita about Cernust, but before we could, Renee's deep voice halted us. “You may bond later. I know this isn’t right for me to rush you, but we technically only have today and tomorrow afternoon before we must return to Elyonda for the tournament. If possible, I wish to make as much progress as possible.”

Oops, she’s right.

I agreed to help Renee, so letting myself get distracted wasn’t the right thing to do. Although Rita pouted, she also understood Renee's desire to have this over with. After all, her father’s heirloom was inside that vine ball.

Renee, happy to see us work with her, nodded and continued where she left of from, “Returning to the topic, after Fargryneill and I were nearly torn into pieces by that explos—”

“You would have been blown up, even with your armor and runes. I have innate blast and mana resistance due to being a kirin-dragon,” Neill interjected herself, always competing with others.

“… Can you not, for a moment?” Sis shrugged her shoulders, so Renee continued. Their dynamic really was interesting. “Haaaa, in any case, after I was nearly blown into pieces, we began searching around for a way to unseal the heirloom. Since we knew we had to get rid of all that corrupted mana, the best way forward was to find an alchemist or scholar from Aleistunum. However, on the way, we met Rita.”

“Rita isn’t much a scholar of texts or really anything outside of flora and human interactions, but she resonated with us better than the mages we found in Aleistunum,” Neill added.

“The reason was mostly money. Smaller or not, a kirin-dragon still has the appetite of a dragon. I presume you two should know, Lady Hestia? Empress Melloxtressa?” The both of us nodded. Outside of equipment, most of our spending went into food and spices.

Renee placed a hand on her head, probably exasperated at this fact. “I see… Well, money concerns meant we couldn’t hire a good enough scholar to follow us here, so we had to rely on Rita. However, it was like we struck gold.”

“Mhmm! You see, I have a unique evolution of [Identify] in the form of my [Investigate].” Rita looked proud as she explained to us her skill’s function.

Investigate

An appraisal skill able to bypass [Identity Blocker], however, this skill does not allow access to another’s Profile without their explicit consent. Enables the reveal of an organism’s race and biological function, an object’s material construction, and situational analysis

… Oh. That’s why, huh?

The reason why she immediately knew I was a dragon the moment she saw me was due to this skill, and since it wasn’t as invasive as [Identify] or [Mana Eyes], it didn’t trigger my [Identity Blocker]. Which made me realize why Tasianna stopped her from speaking before, as Rita probably knew Tasianna was a fairy with this skill.

I asked Tasianna about it through telepathy, which she confirmed. In other words, [Investigate] also bypassed transformation skills like [Humanize] and [Elvenize]. Although it didn’t show a person’s Profile, it still felt like a privacy invasion in this case. Still, since you couldn’t inspect a person’s skills and stats with this skill, outside of with people who granted you their permission to do so, this appraising skill probably wasn’t as good during a fight, and was more suitable for research.

When I pointed that last point out, Rita flinched, looking shocked. “You figured it out?! Wow! Just like Renee and Fargryneill! You really are smart.”

Wasn’t that obvious?

“But, yes, it isn’t the best skill for fighting, but all this violent pow-pow-pow really isn’t my forte. Life is far too precious for me to wilt and waste it on combat. I rather escape, even if I could handle most situations as a C rank.”

Surviving was winning. That mantra was something I agreed with 100%.

“So, the reason why Miss Rita is ‘gold’ is because of her skill?” Tasianna deduced from the meaning of our discussion.

“Correct.” Renee nodded before turning to Rita. “Has your investigation led to anything? Is there a way for me to get to the medallion safely?”

“Oh yeah, of course.” Rita nodded confidently. “It is just an accumulation of arcane corruption, after all. Also some demonic energy, but that can be easily cleansed with the correct concoction.”

“Hold on, demonic energy?!” I stopped her from continuing and looked over to Renee, prompting her to answer.

“My father died during a battle between the demonkins. I guess it should have been obvious that some demonic taint got to it.” I wasn’t fully satisfied with her answer, but I accepted it nonetheless. With my question answered, Rita continued.

“So, there is a way to drain the mana, however, you can’t do it with macula seeds, sadly. They only work when in the ground, but the mana is in the air inside a fairnite room. We need an alchemical drainer.”

Tasianna explained an alchemical drainer was used to extract mana from water or the air to fuel mana batteries. Nowadays, there were manatech made to replace them, since the alchemical version was a one-time use item as it simulated the function of a macula plant.

Usually, mana created from spells would linger in the air for a bit before infusing themselves into the ground. Mana was easier to find in more corporeal substances, like earth, compared to the air. It also didn’t help mana in the air would move freely, sometimes even escape an area entirely. That was why it was easier to lower a location’s total mana accumulation through macula plants, by sucking the mana out from the ground.

As such, drainers weren’t as common to find, mostly used by alchemists or as a mana battery refueler for non-mages. However, in both cases, if a mage was around, a drainer wasn’t usually needed. As such, drainers were uncommon and expensive to buy. Although, the most egregious version of this drainer was the one the humans used to suck the mana out of faefolk.

“Can’t we use a manatech drainer?” Tasianna asked as such.

“Urgh, not a fan of them…” Rita grimaced, something Tasianna shared, before replying. “Seriously, it probably won’t work, except if you can spare the money to buy a high-quality one. No, we need multiple of them working at the same time, and depending on your funds, it would be best to make them ourselves.”

“So, what do you need for that?” Neill asked.

“Thank you for asking! So, we need a drainer that can absorb mana from the air, right? In other words, we need plant-based ones. After we do that, Fargryneill, you need to cover the medallion’s in a mana barrier, or I can cast [Air Shield] around it. After that, we leave the rest to Renee,” Rita explained her plan, before pulling out a loose parchment from her journal. “So, for the drainer, we need: a talented alchemist or multiple of them, a super-strong flame as we need to boil the concoction, strong alcohol to bind the ingredients, salt, some other herbs, but, most importantly, mandragoras.”

“Mandragoras?” I tilted my head, somehow thinking I had heard that somewhere.

“Yup! Those little annoying things are the best root ingredient if you want to make a non-blood potion without ruining the regenerative feature. They have so much mana inside their tiny bodies, accumulated through years from growing in the ground, that they are extremely effective for elixirs used on hard to cure diseases.” Rita produced a journal entry on the mandragora, which entailed so detailed information I thought it was a botanical book. “However, due to the mana inside them, whenever you try to harvest them, this mana explodes. People call it a ‘scream,’ but it is more like ripping the plant out of its roots of mana. This causes friction with the wind, releasing this ‘scream’ to hopefully deter predators. If they remain in the ground, the roots reconnect perfectly. And—”

“Rita, stop, don’t go on a tangent, please,” Neill interrupted her. “However, as you said, those things are hard to harvest. Expensive, even the low-quality ones. You have to be kidding with this being the cheapest method!”

However, Rita shook her head, discouraging Sis. “I am not, sadly. What we need is a herbal bath-like drainer. Set it in the room, and just leave it there. Over time, the mandragora remains will want to suck up the mana from the air. In addition, mandragoras are good elixir ingredients because they can purify arcane corruption like fulinoe leaves! They have this special function inside these so-called ‘cells’ where they can—”

“Rita!” Neill shouted. “Please, summary.”

“Uuuh, uhm, well, this drainer would be flaming hot since we will use an extreme fire for the boiling process. Once the mana gets trapped inside the herbal bath, caused by the mandragora, it will start purifying the arcane corruption and, hopefully, the demonic mana. It will cleanse everything, and should make it clear for you to move in.” She then gave the recipe of the concoction to Renee. “I haven’t made a drainer like this before, but I know how to combine the ingredients. We just need a good alchemist.”

“Tsk, more like, we need to fin—” Renee sounded irritated from what she heard, but before she could grimace over it, Tasianna moved next to her, holding her hand forward.

“I am an alchemist. May I read it?” Renee was stunned for a moment, but after looking over at me and seeing me confirm it with a nod, she handed the parchment to Tasianna.

“Hmm.” Tasianna began reading the instructions and recipe intently, before going over to Rita with questions. “You didn’t specify the alcohol, but since this doesn’t use blood, as it isn’t a curative, we probably could get away with a more potent liquor to elevate the effects of the mandragora. I actually am making dwarven whiskey, and have enough for a whole cauldron.”

“Oh? Oh, no, we don’t really need that much! I think five or six mug-sized drainers should be enough for the process. Speaking of the liquor, if we can find extremely potent ones, there is also the need for us to buy a more high-quality mandragora, otherwise, the alcohol would simply overpower it.” Rita quickly adjusted to Tasianna’s sudden question, answering it and giving her more information to work with.

Now grinning, Tasianna seemed like she was in her element right now. “Oh, I know. We need to balance the ratio and also the purity of the alcohol per the mixture. Without blood or mana water as the base, I presume you want the alcohol to become the base, right? So it could endure the flames longer? Why would you need such a flame?”

“The reason is that mandragoras require extreme heat to work properly! You need to extract the mana from them to see their healing factor in action, but you can’t get the mana if you crush them. You need to slice them and then have them boil in the fluids. That is why most alchemists dislike using them, although they are one of the best! Hard to harvest, rare, and also difficult to handle.”

“Was Lady Fargryneill’s flames not enough?”

“No.”

“Arck!” Neill took emotional damage to her pride, but didn’t respond back.

But Rita’s answer quickly repaired it before it broke down. “Her black flames aren’t designed to be used for alchemical usage. They are better used to burn things down and destroy things, but pure, red flames would be better! Princess Hestia is a fire dragon, no? She doesn’t share the same black scales as her sister.”

“That is correct,” Tasianna nodded, glancing over to me as she managed to extract the reason why we were here. Renee told us she needed my flames, so the reason for that was due to Rita’s concoction. “So, let us say we have high-quality whiskey, if we were to use an extremely valuable mandragora, how many batches would we need and how difficult would it be to brew?”

“If we’re talking without accounting for expenses, with the best formula, we would only need one batch. The best mandragora probably has the highest quality mana you could use for alchemy, while also having the best mana absorption ability. However, since we need to extract its mana, we need flames so hot you could only find them in a volcano or lava field. Not to mention, we need better equipment for something like that.”

“Understood. I believe I have a plan.” Tasianna stood up and walked over to me, before beginning to whisper her favor into my ears. “Since Sir Farron is healed, we don’t need the hellscream mandragora anymore, right?”

Ah, that was why I remembered that item.

Among the five ingredients we needed to cure Farron, one of them included the [Hellscream Mandragora]. One of the finest medical plants out there, Yorshka had successfully acquired it for her husband’s sake. However, after I healed his crystallized lungs with [Miraculous Grace], the need for the mandragora pretty much faded.

Yorshka should still have it, including another ingredient — the [Jabbermight’s Bloodclaw] — were both in my storage for safekeeping. I had completely forgotten about them, but Tasianna remembered them just in time for today. I didn’t really have a problem using them, but before we could, I had to ask Yorshka since the mandragora was hers.

“Do you think you can do it?” I asked Tasianna, who smiled back at me without a shred of doubt.

“I am not a master yet, however, we know of somebody who is a master alchemist. And I am not talking about Cernust here.”

“… Oh, Reajaen! She also has her own laboratory, right?!” I remembered Reajaen was technically the guild master of Gleisvale’s alchemy guild. She learned her craft from the Prince of Sloth. “Wait, I thought you hated her, Tasianna.”

Tasianna hadn’t forgiven Reajaen for anything she did, even if she decided on her conscience to spare her. However, it wasn’t done on goodwill alone, as Tasianna did it purely to not blight her own soul by killing Reajaen for revenge. She understood the meaning of vigilante justice, and Reajaen was simply biding her time until she could transfer all her work to her son, her heir, before she would accept the Saelariel’s justice for orchestrating the death of a fairy princess.

“That isn’t a problem to me, Lady Hestia. I despise her with every fiber of my body, but she is currently, until she is judged, one of your servants. In your service, I can bite my tongue and simply endure it. I mean, I managed to do it when we first came to Firwood, no?” She giggled a bit at that last part, bringing back fond memories of our time in Carine village and Firwood.

I shouldn’t have worried.

With that settled, I spoke with Neill telepathically for a second. [“Hey, Sis, can I trust both Renee and Rita with my [Space-Time Magic]? Do you think they will leak it?”]

[“Hmm?! Oh jeez, that was a surprise. Warn me when you speak like this. I haven’t communicated like this in ages,”] Sis was flustered, causing everybody to become suspicious. [“In any case, yeah, probably. Rita has a good heart and head. Renee is a bit more of a mystery, since I have no idea what her background really is, but I think you can. I would like to think my two-year companion wouldn’t betray me, at least.”]

Betrayal might have been a strong word, but I guess having your friend inconveniencing your little sister, especially after you vouched for them, probably would hurt Neill a lot. She wasn’t the scheming type. She was straightforward with her intentions, and that was an aspect I liked about her. As Mother said, the strong do not need to trick others, and that showed in Neill’s attitude.

With her word, I warned everybody of my [Terra Wall]s, using the spell to construct a dome around us to hide what I was about to do. In the darkness, I created a small fire before throwing down my [Room] runes on the floor, opening the portal. Renee and Rita were both surprised, prompting me to ask them to be quiet about it.

“… A void-touched, huh? If you are going the distance to help me out, then by my honor, you have my word I will bring this secret to my grave.” Renee then glanced over to Neill. “Now I am really interested in your sister.”

“Oh, sure. Not like angering two dragon princesses sounded very smart if I want to continue living, right? Hehe,” Rita, on the other hand, was quite excited about everything. She even jokingly agreed to keep her mouth shut.

First stop, the nexus.

I hurried everybody into the portal. Neill had already been inside the subspace before, so she wasn’t as surprised as Renee and Rita, however, I would leave the explanation to Tasianna.

“Mhmph!” The first thing I heard when we all got through the portal was the sound of people eating.

[“Master, look! Ellaine and the others are here!”] Rajah pointed my attention to the dinner table, causing me to snap my head around and run over to them. I haven’t seen them in like two weeks!

“Guys!”

“Mhmm? Oh, Hesti-chan, hey!” Kohaku was the first to greet me, prompting the others to quickly do the same.

“Oh, hey! Sorry for the long wait!” Kazumi added, but for some reason, just like Kohaku, she looked pretty roughed up. As in, they were both sweaty, dirty, and just looked as if they had been underground for a long while. In fact, all of them could be described as such!

Tamae, Nishio, Misaki, Haruka, Daichi, and finally Ellaine. With Kohaku and Kazumi, all the young adults in Grimnir’s group were here, but the one person missing was—

“Ghrm! Hestia!” Ellaine swallowed a mouthful of food in one good, looking like she was about to choke. Although Josine, her maid, was worried about her, Ellaine still stood up to report to me. “Sorry! I apologize for going silent for all this time. Some things happened in Inkoran-Tazul, and, well, we didn’t exactly have the luxury to come and go into the subspace.”

“Wait, what happened?! Where is Grimnir?!” I was starting to worry about how Ellaine worded it, but it settled down a bit when Ellaine began to shake her hands animatedly.

“No, nothing that serious! It’s just, as you know, zuekluks are despised amongst the dwarves. We’ve not been having a good time. Some important dwarven personages have approached us, none of the high king, though, but due to Master Grimnir being around, we’ve been making enemies. Recently, Master’s old clan paid us a visit. The altercation got a bit chaotic.”

“Chaotic? More like physical!” Daichi bashed the table with his fist, looking furious. “They expected Master to hand over his blasthammer! Not only that, but everything he had! ‘Strip yourself, for you have no honor!’ It got even worse when they learned Master’s cousin died! Fuck those dwarves, honestly!”

“Hey, Daichi, mind not spitting?” Nishio glared, disgusted at Nishio’s spit nearly touching his dish. “In any case, don’t worry too much about us, Hestia-san. It looks as if we are having a problem, but it’s actually pretty beneficial.”

“The dwarven capital has multiple dungeons, and all of them also function as mining tunnels,” Misaki elaborated, one of the few who was eating slowly. “Except for Ellaine-chan and Grimnir, all of us are level 70 now. It is good training and it doubles as preparation for the smithing contest.”

“A contest? Wait, did Grimnir enter a tournament, too?” I wondered, but Tamae shook her head.

“More like, his honor and pride were damaged by his former clan, so he challenged them to a smithing contest. If he wins, he will receive access to his cousin’s former studio, but if he loses, he must hand over all his equipment and be imprisoned by his clan for entering dwarven territory again. He isn’t here because he is under watch.”

“Uhm, Tama-chan, we need to eat quicker!” Haruka, as meek as she was, interjected herself before Tamae could continue. “Grimnir-san is currently distracting everybody so we can eat a proper meal, instead of stale bread. I don’t want to rush everybody, but we need to hurry back.”

“Right! She’s right! We have to return quickly!” Daichi sat back down and downed any dishes before him. “Ellaine and I have to help Master as his apprentices! We need to get better!”

“Agreed!” Ellaine sat back down. “Sorry, Hestia, but we need to eat! Josine, Svena, please bring us more water!”

“Y-Yes, right away, my lady.” Poor Josine did not like how her mistress was looking, but I guess this was something that couldn’t be changed for now.

Josine, Svena, Lorena, and Haati were bringing out dishes from the kitchen, and from the sound of it, Priscilla was the only one manning it. She was cooking for eight people. I went and asked her if she was doing alright, but surprisingly, the young girl was smirking as she rushed from one station to the next. She told me she considered this training for the bistro.

I was still a bit worried about her, but with Svena, Josine, Lorena, and Haati around to help her out, I really shouldn’t worry too much. As such, I simply asked her where Yorshka was and left with my group to her.

In any case, I left Ellaine’s group to their mission, wishing them luck and that they should call me if they needed to. I didn’t care who those foolish dwarves were, nobody is allowed to imprison Grimnir for something that stupid as entering his homeland!

“In history, dragons have caused dwarves a lot of headaches by destroying their holds when they are built too close to a nest. I am so proud of you, my whelpling. You are keeping up with tradition.” I didn’t know if Mother was joking or not, but I took that praise and ran with it. Unless Grimnir did something terrible, I wouldn’t allow him to be punished for something this unjust.

Back in Firwood, I gave Yorshka a quick rundown of everything and she agreed to give me the mandragora. Although she initially rejected it, I still pushed her to accept the money I offered her, saying she didn’t owe me that much for saving Farron’s life. Thankfully, I just received that bounty money on that poison dude, so I bought the mandragora from her for a discount. I just had to add one large goldite.

Holy smokes, 15 small goldite coins! That single mandragora was expensive as hell! This single item was worth a fortune, and Yorshka earned that money just for her husband. It was really romantic.

With the mandragora obtained, and the dwarven whisky Tasianna and Grimnir had been brewing all this time in our hands, I then teleported everybody to Gleisvale, where I gave Reajaen a shock for suddenly appearing in her home. This was the first time I had actually used the nexus to return to Reajaen, after all.

After I explained everything to her, she nodded and led us into her basement, where one of her alchemical laboratories was. Once we entered the room, the smell of alcohol and blood was clearly in the air. If I didn’t know Reajaen was an alchemist, I would have honestly thought she killed someone, but, honestly, she was a gang leader so maybe she did. Hopefully not, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to forgive her if they were remotely innocent.

“Welcome, Lady Hestia. Please, you may use it in any way you see fit. Parilostro, we have guests!”

As the name of Reajaen’s son exited her mouth, the sound of something mechanical began to move, drawing our attention to a young foxian man sitting in a chair. His limbs looked like sticks, as if he had never used them for years. His expression was sickly, looking like he could fall unconscious at any moments, but he showed us a warm smile, contrasting the state of his ill body.

“Lady Hestia, welcome. Please, make yourself comfortable.”

Parilostro Rescalve, the son of Reajaen, and a former contractor of sloth.

A note from AbyssRaven

"Plant's Matter" get it? Plant matter? Yeaaaah… I'll see myself out.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 323: An Alchemical Bonding.

“How are you? Is the heart cumbersome or something?” I checked Parilostro’s pulse on his arm, noticing it was beating slower than mine. I never tested my pulse, so I wasn’t sure if mine was beating faster normally or not.

“Good. Good. It’s strong, thank you very much, Princess Hestia.” Parilostro pressed his hand on his chest, smiling fondly at the lifely drumming of life vibrating in his hand.

With [Miraculous Grace], I managed to create a new heart for Parilostro, replacing the undeveloped one he had since he was a toddler. Now suited for an adult beastmen, Parilostro was finally able to experience a normal life with his real body. Unfortunately, he looked feeble and fragile, a consequence of being stuck in a bed for over 20 years.

He was stuck in his chair or bed and required the aide of his servants and retainers to even move to the toilet. His heart still needed time to grow and adapt to his body, after all. It was literally an entirely new organ. Still, from looking at what he was doing on his workbench, it seemed he was still able to act as an artificer.

I stood up after checking his health and looked around. “Your puppets aren’t around anymore?”

“The control unit was that chest piece and without the heart, and for some reason, I cannot feel my demonkin blood anymore. I believe you cleanse it when you operated on my heart, so I cannot use my sloth ability anymore. They were the first thing I had to dismantle, the moment I woke up.” Parilostro admitted to removing evidence from his time as a sloth contractor. As sly as it was, it was necessary now since Reajaen was Estralia’s president.

“Lady Hestia…” I turned my head around when Parilostro’s voice eked out my name. “I know what I am about to ask may sound rude to all you’ve—”

“Stop.” But before he could finish his sentence, Reajaen came over and placed a hand on his shoulder. Her frown contorted her face slightly. “We’ve talked about this. Don’t annoy her.”

“Mother… I know, but this is still unfair. You did all of this because of me! Every crime you did, you did it for me. You shouldn’t be punished for something like this!” Parilostro grabbed his Mother’s hand as tears began to drip from his eyes. Reajaen hugged him and called over one of her gang members, bringing the weeping Parilostro out of the room.

“I apologize. I know he sounds selfish, but—” Reajaen tried to find an excuse for her son, but I could already imagine what it is.

“I understand. Don’t worry about it.” I couldn’t and wouldn’t fault Parilostro for what is happening.

The young Resclave was born with a frail body where if it wasn’t for the Prince of Sloth, he would have died. He had a heart that pumped demonkin blood through him, but after I operated on him and gave him a new heart, he mentioned he was back to normal. I did drain a ton of his blood and even used my white flames on him, so probably did cleanse a ton of it away. I even played [The Heir of Hope] during the whole operation, so it made my white flames even more of a counter to anything demonic.

However, before all of this, his mother committed countless sins and crimes just to keep her son alive. She killed people in cold blood as the leader of the Resurrection, she toppled organizations through illegal means to become a senator in Gleisvale, and she was the one who hired the fae hunters who killed Tasianna’s previous mistress, Princess Schuri.

She only hinted at these facts during our accord, but after the battle was over, I received a full explanation from Reajaen herself. She admitted to every single crime, and it wasn’t a small list. In my opinion, she wasn’t irredeemable, since she did all of this for her son and to kill O’Bloom, but she needed to see justice. She wasn’t fully evil, but she wasn’t anywhere close to innocent.

“Don’t worry, Tasianna. I already explained everything to Parilostro. I won’t run away. The moment I can hand everything over to him, I will accompany you to Saelariel.” Reajaen reassured Tasianna, not smiling.

“Take your time. Lady Hestia does not have the time to go there yet.,” Tasianna replied in an icy tone, glaring at Reajaen with daggers. Even if Tasianna could feel sympathy for Parilostro, she couldn’t for the mother. “Lady Hestia, please, after the summit.”

I nodded. That was Tasianna asking me for a favor. After the summit between the dwarves and Artorias, if nothing terrible happens, we would visit Saelariel. Not only for Reajaen’s trial, but I could guess the elves would like to invite me over. The dragonewts probably would too, but my obligation was also to make sure the elves would support Artorias.

Until then, Reajaen would serve me. The Resurrection and Layavete cartel were under my authority, and ‘cause of that, I forbade them from doing anything morally black at this point. Shaturein was working with them to control Estralia in the shadows, but I wasn’t allowing them to do any cold-blood killings or torture in my name.

I was a killer myself, but there was a difference between hunting for survival and self-defense, and killing an innocent bystander. Although, I had little to no sympathy for criminals. That was why I killed that poison dude after I disarmed him. If you treated other’s lives with as much respect as the ground you walked on, then I had nothing to feel guilty for.

“Is this woman a criminal?” Suddenly, from behind me, somebody spoke to us so I turned around. It was Renee and she was holding her hand on one of her swords.

“This is my business,” I plainly stated and Renee shrugged, accepting it. “Anyways, Reajaen, we need to use your alchemy apparatuses and so on. Tasianna, can you and Rita lead?”

“Of course.” Tasianna nodded before looking over at Rita, only to find her watching the potted plants in the corner. Tasianna sighed and went over to the dryad, forcibly pulling her over.

After she settled down and refocused, Rita pointed at the satchel Shay was holding for me. He nodded and opened it up, placing the different ingredients on the alchemy table.

“Ooooh! Incredible!” Rita grabbed the herbs and other ingredients we needed, inspecting them with wonder, before her grin went downwards. “T-This— Where did you get all of these?! They are saturated with mana, as if they were grown right inside a monster-infested area! T-They aren’t perfect in quality, but from their mana alone, these will produce potent potions.”

I believe Tasianna’s green thumb and my mana helped our garden grow extremely fast. Even Reajaen, a master alchemist, commented how our Belzac herbs were top quality. I wondered what Rita meant with how they weren’t perfect, and it seemed Tasianna did too.

“I grew them. Is there a way to improve on them?” She didn’t feel insulted at all, in fact, it seemed she accepted the fact our garden products weren't the best just yet.

“Oh really, oh! Could you show me your garden?! Please, I want to inspect the status of the plants and then I will give an answer, although if you want a reply now, then it probably would be more quality fertilizer.” Rita was pestering Tasianna like crazy, letting her scholarly side show too much. Neill had to rip her away from Tasianna, giving her loud lecture in the corner like a small child.

Ehehe…

In any case, once she calmed down, Tasianna asked Reajaen for help, citing she wasn’t too aware of Reajaen’s instruments and tools. Although, I personally believed Tasianna just wanted to learn from Reajaen. Regardless of her past and the tension between them, she was the guild master of the alchemist guild, and Tasianna was mature enough to look past that just to better herself.

Reajaen probably understood that, too, so she didn’t argue back and instead began her tour. “80 percent purified fairnite beakers, able to trap 73 percent of the mana from the ingredients. This is something Parilostro made, a rotational mortar. Activate it like any other manatech, and it will grind whatever you need automatically. If you need to make adjustments, do it afterwards.”

Reajaen’s lab was a mix between conventional alchemist tools and manatech her son had made to accelerate her work. There was a manatech drainer specifically designed to extract mana from herbs as efficiently as possible, long-winded pipes connected from one beaker to the other to further purify potions, and also a miniature mana barrier to protect yourself from accidents. This place was fully kitted out.

“We need to boil the brew over a hot flame. We need a vial able to endure extreme flames,” Tasianna stated after checking the beakers and vials.

“How hot?” Reajaen asked, but she immediately twitched, frowning just seconds before Tasianna answered.

“Strong enough to handle Lady Hestia’s flames.”

“…” Reajaen just stared at Tasianna, showing befuddlement and also vexation at what she requested. After blinking her one eye about ten times and Rita waving at her, Reajaen shook her head slightly and went over to a safe hidden in a cupboard. There, she pulled out two black glass beakers.

After setting it up on the table, including a stand and a mana barrier to protect everything from the flame, Reajaen began her explanation while massaging her temples. “Voldunna obsidian glass. Very, very fragile and hard to work with, since it’s impossible to look through its black exterior. You can throw this into a volcano and it will survive the heat, but smack it slightly with a hammer, and it will show a crack.”

“Hmm, if it can survive magma, then it should be what we need,” Rita accepted.

Tasianna nodded, too. “We don’t need it to get hotter, so this should be okay. Alright, let’s begin.”

The trio then began the alchemical process while the rest of us stayed on the side, sitting and watching them work. Rita and Reajaen began discussing the recipe, double-checking the process for the resulting herbal drainer. Tasianna, on the other hand, began separating the different ingredients, especially the dwarven whiskey, into bottles and vials.

Reajaen, noticing the whiff of the alcohol, dipped her fingertips into it, tasting it for a moment before flinching back, shaking her head as she was overwhelmed by it. Giving it a thumbs up, Tasianna smiled for a moment, proud of the hard liquor she and Grimnir have been making all this time.

“Hellscream mandragora is quite the rare specimen. I’ve seen an Aleistunum alchemist prepare a swampborn mandragora, and he told me the best way to do so for high-quality ones was to dip it into water and boil it for around a bell. This is to extract some of the mana beforehand, to prevent it from overwhelming the final product,” Reajaen informed the two other.

Tasianna nodded, documenting the tip onto a wooden slate with some charcoal. “Sounds good, that means we can use that as a base. However, we need a high flame to do so, so we need to add some alcohol into the mix. The last thing we can afford is to burn the poor root.”

“Mhmm.” Rita scribbled everything that was said into her journal, before adding her opinion on the matter. “I used [Investigate] on the mandragora. It has a high boiling point with all the mana inside it, however, if I could give a guess — about three spoons of the whiskey and seven spoons of pure water. Miss Tasianna, you’re a water mage, right?”

“Sure, I'll do it.”

The more they spoke, the longer time seemed to last as I couldn’t find myself extremely invested into it. Alchemy wasn’t boring, that’s for sure. I am a toxicologist, in a way, so I did find mixing around stuff for new concoctions extremely fun, but due to my [Corrosive Fire], my process was different. I just needed to ingest them and my body would remember the toxin, for example, I could recreate the venom the poison dude used to hold everybody hostage.

“… This is boring.” Neill finally stated, which Mother seemed to agree with as she went back to sleep. “If we’re gonna wait, then I can do some training. No idea who our tournament opponents will be, so we better make sure we’re fit.”

“True… but I cannot just leave now, Fargryneill. This is an important process towards my goal,” Renee protested, but I had to agree with Sis here.

“How about we eat? Outside of the bread and dry meat we ate during lunch, we haven’t eaten a proper meal, right?” I suggested and Neill smiled, seemingly understanding what I meant.

She grabbed Renee’s arm and pulled the knight up, prompting Shay and Beth to lick their lips and stand up, also. Rajah, too, peeked out from my shadow, looking at me with his big, white eyes. It seemed everybody was hungry.

“Alright, Tasianna, if you need me, come into the portal, alright?” I called over to her before opening a [Room] portal. After we entered it, I noticed the students and Ellaine weren’t at the table anymore, but from how Svena and the others were cleaning up, I presumed they just finished.

Jeez, how long did we listen to them talk?

“Oh, Lady Hestia, that was quick. I thought you would spend more time on the alchemical concoction?” Svena stated the moment I went over to the table with the others.

“Tasianna is still working on that. However, we’ve gotten hungry, so would it be possible for you to cook us something?” I asked.

““““Of course, Lady Hestia.”””” And with perfect synchronized bows, Svena, Josine, Lorena, and Haati rushed to clean the table and prepare it for us to sit down.

Once we did, Neill looked at me as if she had an important question. “So, little sis, I have a question. Do you have a training ground somewhere in this place?”

Hold on, that was it? It seemed she was still worried about her own training.

“Yeah, I got one. Large enough to go wild, but I have something better, why don’t we take a dungeon dive? I can get us to Cedaraille, instead of being stuck in here.”

“Ooooooooooh~” Neill looked convinced.

But, before she could say anything Renee interjected. “Hold on for a moment here. I know this is already incredible how we went from Elyonda to the Kingdom of Artorias’s capital to the capital of Estralia, but you’re telling me we can go to another place? I know I shouldn’t be asking here, but I’ve been curious, how are you doing this? I’ve never heard of something like this being possible.”

“Hey, come now, Renee, not like you ever met a void-touched before, right? Aleistunum or not, space-time mages are sooooo rare, even a dragon could live a lifetime without meeting one. Of course something like this would be foreign,” Neill supported me, trying to protect my professional secrets.

“I understand that, but just seeing from how it's used, isn’t this the perfect army moving tool? It could turn around a whole war with how it could ease logistics.” Renee was obviously looking at my subspace and nexus as a military tool, and while I could understand it, I didn’t want to talk about it at the dinner table.

“Sure, it might, but can we not talk about war and so on right now?” I frowned.

“Why not? You are a priestess of the Goddess, no? You should know what is currently going on down south. While the conflicts of the Empire and the Carmaniate isn’t to scoff about, I assume you should know the importance of the world’s war with the demonkins, right? The last thing we can afford is Bole’Taria succeeding.” However, to my chagrin, Renee didn’t stop, instead, it seemed my indifference seemed to have fueled her drive even further.

And, apparently, Neill didn’t seem to like that at all. “Renee, I didn’t allow you to ask my little sister a favor, only for you to start trying to pull her into your damn war! As I told you before, we dragons will remain neutral in this conflict.”

“And for how long? As brave soldiers and mages die down south, all you dragons do is remain on your little island until everything is burned to ashes? I’ve read the stories of Kargryxmor. I know what a single S rank dragon or higher could do to turn the tides.” Renee then pulled off her helmet, staring at us outside the confines of her armor. “Consider your role, Fargryneill. God Kargryxmor swore to the Goddess his race would become the world’s protectors. How come that oath is left unfulfilled?”

[“You are speaking out of order, human.”] Shay lashed out at Renee slightly, irritated at how she was speaking ill of Kramps as a non-dragon.

“He’s right,” Neill agreed, squinting her eyes in annoyance. “Shove this talk away, will you? We dragons have already done our fair share of things during the demon wars. Our Emperor wishes to distance himself, and so do our Empress Mothers. Try peace for once, instead of trying to prolong this war.”

“Are you insane?!” Renee banged the table with her fist, causing Beth to hiss at her. However, this did not dissuade the dame. “Do you truly think the demonkins would agree to our demands? Of course, not. The Empire has been waging war with them for over a thousand years now, on and off. Not to mention, the history between humans and the demonkins before the official war began. It’s muddied.”

Neill facepalmed herself, feeling like she just heard something stupid. “So? Are you trying to say this war will only end when one side eliminates the other? The Empire had over a thousand years of conflict to do that, but look where did it get them? A pincer between two factions. In the middle of that, they even angered the elves with the whole faefolk crap and had to surrender to them before it got worse. Goodness gracious, this is what conflict brings to the world.”

If I had to guess what Neill meant by that, then the War for the Faefolk was held during the whole conflict the Folschreck Empire had with the beastmen alliance and the demonkins. It sounded crazy, but it seemed they were at war on three borders.

The beastmen attacked them from the north while the demonkins came from the south, and even with all of that, they were stupid enough to start hunting faefolk to empower themselves, only to provoke the elves and dwarves to wage war agaisnt them from the west. Although the War for the Faefolk ended, I honestly had no idea how the hell the Empire had not collapsed yet. The military cost alone must be enormous.

“Doesn’t it seem like that?” Renee then turned to me. “Priestess, why did you join the tournament? I know Neill is here just to compete, but why are you here?”

I tilted my head, not knowing where she was going with this, but I answered anyway. “To protect the blood from going into the wrong hands?”

“Protect?” Renee raised an eyebrow. “Noble. In the place of the Folschreck Empire, I see. You have my thanks, as a Yeosian. ”

She stood up and bowed before sitting back down.

“And in your case, I believe it’s to acquire the blood, no? You want to become God Yeostar’s next Champion?” I deduced, and from the look on her face, I was correct.

“Yes. To bring an end to this war between the demonkins. However, I know from how the previous Champion died that it is impossible with the blessing alone. Sir Royce was a powerful knight, probably as or more formidable than the Empire’s Hands of Heaven. And every human has them to thank for upholding the bulwark of our faith against two dangerou opponents, but all of this is still not enough to end Bole’Taria!”

In other words, the reason why the Empire hadn’t fallen yet is ‘cause of their powerful knight order. Well, I believed it had to be one pivotal pillar for why the Empire hadn’t fallen yet with how they were waging war, but it still impressed me how Larent was once a part of this group. He was powerful when we dueled, but must be hiding an ace, right? No way would he be able to hold up an entire Empire with the strength he showcased.

After Renee was done with that part of her speech, she went back to Neill and me. “That is why we humans need the dragons. Uphold the oath your grandfather made, Dragon Princesses. Please, Fargryneill, consider it.”

“…” Neill went silent, only to sigh after a few seconds. “Renee, as I said bef—”

But before she could answer, I slammed the table and pushed myself up from my chair. “As I said, I don’t want to talk about wars or whatever on my dinner table. It’s rude, jeez. If you want to continue, then not with me. Rajah, tell me when food is ready, alright?”

[“Yes, Master! I will wait here.”]

Good boy.

As I was about to walk away, flabbergasting both Renee and Neill, Mother suddenly spoke up. “Allow me to accompany you, Hestia. Twins, please, stay here and make sure they do not ruin the interior.”

[““Yes, Empress!””]

With Mother by my side, we exited the portal, re-entering Reajaen’s laboratory where the three alchemists were starting to prepare the different ingredients. As they didn’t notice us as they focused on cutting and grinding the different herbs, I turned my attention to Mother.

“You were awake?”

“Of course, who can sleep through all that noise?” Mother shook her head.

“Then, can I ask you about your opinion?”

“Hehe, and here I thought you didn’t want to talk about wars, my little whelpling~” Mother was teasing me, but I didn’t care about it, shrugging my shoulders.

“We aren’t at the table.”

“Fair.” She then placed a hand on her chin, thinking about my question before answering it. “Well, as I told you when we first met, I will have no part in this war. You must because of duty, but don’t forget we dragons have already sacrificed enough. You already heard what your sister had to say, and she is right. Historical animosity between the humans, beastmen, and demonkins have exploded into the war we have today. Although its influence hasn't fully reached the west, it has left scars on everybody, right?”

The battle at Griffonpeak was a prime example of the demonkins starting to exude their presence over to the western part of Altrust, at least, to the humans. There was also the whole grimgarian affairs, too, but before that battalion could do anything, Aurora managed to stop them.

Even if I wasn’t officially part of the war against the demonkins just yet, I have participated in fights and encountered enough demonkins and Edjurl followers to make me not completely ignorant. I still had no idea how all these wars started out specifically, but since Aurena had asked me to bring a stop to the demonkin’s plan, what could I really say to this matter?

“Hestia, desperation and survival brings out the worst in people. Never forget about it. Whether human, beastmen, or demonkins — both sides have their reasons.”

I agreed to Mother’s words. If it weren’t for my drive to survive in the Belzac forest, I would have probably never developed a more “grey opinion” on killing and such.

“Don’t let them influence you. You aren’t a Peolyncian human, don’t forget that. You are a dragon princess of Kargryx. Your decisions matter, my whelpling. Istari is a good mentor in this case, as he demands you to acquire knowledge to form your own opinion on these matters. Good or evil have little merit against a mortal’s desires.”

“To end a war with peace, I had to first learn about both sides,” was what Mother tried to tell me. I had little to no idea what the demonkins, the average every-day citizen, thought of all these wars. All I had was the perspective of Aurena, her pantheon, and the humans of the west. I could end all of this with force, but conflict just breeds more conflict.

Although, was peace even possible in this scenario?

Let’s leave that decision for the future me. This is too much of a headache…

Once an hour or so was over, Tasianna called me over to produce a flame for the concoction to start brewing, and boy, did it start becoming interesting. The manner in which the three alchemists were managing the flame while also making sure their brew wouldn’t spill or break the beaker. It showed all three of them knew what they were doing, and I could rest easy nothing bad would happen.

After I had dinner with everybody, where Renee and Neill spoke little to nothing, I teleported Rajah and Neill over to Cedaraille. After all, I haven’t entered a dungeon in a while, so the both of us immediately rushed through the early floors of the Emerald-Flare dungeon and then jumped down the cliff at floor ten.

If I remembered correctly, if we continued freefalling, we would skip floor ten to 14, and land directly on floor 15. I just had to make sure to break our fall before we turn into mush, really. And once we were there, Neill, Rajah, and I began what we came here for — to level up.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Main Job [Synergist] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 15]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Max level of Job   [Synergist] has been reached

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Secondary Job [Virulent Corrosion] has risen from [Level 9] to [Level 14]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Enhanced Vision Lv. 10] [Night Vision Lv. 9] gained

There were fortunately a lot of C ranks in this B rank dungeon, which helped us level our jobs by quite a bit, but even still, we weren’t lucky enough to meet a B rank. I couldn’t even find that slazzigula around at all, but maybe he was in the boss room of the place.

“Argh, I wish I had a damn crystal! My Job levels are maxed again!” Neill complained, which I couldn’t help but agree with. The fact we had to have a [Crystal of the Divine System] to change our Jobs was pretty annoying, and I seriously wished we had one on hand right now.

… Too bad the only way to make them was with the shards of a dungeon core, right? Right???

In any case, we had to stop our hunting trip not ‘cause of our maxed levels, but it was time for bed. Neill showed me her wings for the first time, which resembled mine quite a bit, only they were completely black. With the two of us being able to fly, I grabbed Rajah, and the three of us rushed through the dungeon and exited it, dropping a visit at the local hunter’s guild for a job switch, before returning to Duke Greenveil’s mansion where we took the rune portal back to the subspace.

Individual [Sunfang Dragonewt, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has switched her Main Job to [Virulent Corrosion]

Main Job benefits have been updated due to Job change

Virulent Corrosion Level: 14/30

Job Skill gained:   [Virulent Corrosion]

Individual   [Sunfang Dragonewt, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has switched her Secondary Job to [Ravager]

Main Job benefits have been updated due to Job change

Ravager Level: 0/15

“Oooh, kahahaha, I can’t believe you have a hot spring inside this place, too!” Neill exclaimed as we entered our bathing facilities with Mother and Beth, outside of Renee, who told us she would enter after we were done. Tasianna and Rita also couldn’t come, as they said they would have to work through the night to make sure it turned out right tomorrow.

As Neill was about to run and jumped into the hotspring, I grabbed her tail and stopped her from doing so, scolding her she had to clean herself first before entering it. Sis laughed it off as a mistake, having forgotten about hot spring etiquette after not being in one for years, but how could you forget something like that?

“Hmm? So that’s your core, huh? It looks like a gem.” Neill inspected my chest, causing me to frown a bit in embarassment, only for Mother to join the discussion.

“Isn’t it? Right? I knew she inherited that part from me! Just like my scales, Hestia is starting to develop nicely with her draconic features. Don’t you think so, too?”

“Oh, definitely. But, how often is she shedding? Your scales should gleam like mine! Sis, you oughta keep up your shedding schedule, otherwise you’ll end up wasting away your beauty.”

“… Are you seriously talking about beauty and all that stuff with a one-year-old? Jeez.”

“I’m talking with my mentally 16-year-old sister trapped in a one-year-old whelp’s body, jeez. I’m not gonna treat you like a whelp in that body of yours, little sis.”

Touché.

Once our bath was over, I showed Neill and Renee to their rooms and we called it a day. The herbal drainer took a whole night to create as Tasianna said, but once morning came, the little pot of aromatic water graced my nose as I sniffed on it. I did feel a tingling coming from it, which Rita called was mana around my nose getting drained from it.

“Do you see this?” She pointed at a blue spot before it dissipated and steam appeared from it. “Mana is drained and is soaked in the water from the mandragora roots. If it's still warm, it will instantly release the mana back into the air, purifying whatever arcane corruption.”

In other words, once we were inside the mansion, I had to heat it up a bit and it would be able to do its job. With the drainer done, we said our goodbyes to Reajaen and returned to the area in front of Renee’s mansion. I dismantled the [Terra Wall] dome I created around us, returning the light back around us.

Rita then went to the nearby garden, before her feet ingrained herself into the ground. As she sunk into the ground, her legs turned into that giant rafflesia flower again, making it look like she was protruding out of it. In that state, she connected her mana with the surrounding vegetation, allowing her to control the giant vine ball and forcing them to retreat and open up.

With the way cleared, Tasianna, Rajah, Neill, Renee, and Rita entered the slightly decrepit house. Mother and the twins decided to stay back, saying they rather enjoy the fresh air. Fair. Not like this would take that long, honestly.

The mansion was completely devoid of any furniture or decoration, seemingly having been cleaned out by a moving crew. It made the place seem so hollow and lonely, but since this place was only used now as a place to store the heirloom of Renee’s father, it couldn’t be helped.

Down in the basement, Renee led us to a hallway with a entryway barricaded with planks and scorch marks around it. After we tore them off the door, Renee told me to warm up the drainer before she opened the door, only for my senses to go haywire when I noticed the lilac smog seeping out from the crevice.

“Put it down,” Renee ordered and I did just that.

We immediately dashed back to the staircase, where we slowly watched the purple smog slowly moving towards the herbal drainer as if it was lured in by something. Neill told us, the last time this happened, they moved into the room and tried to get the medallion, only for everything to explode around them. That was why there were marks of that event on the door frame.

After what felt like an eternity of waiting, no more purple smog was leaking from the room, but to stay safe, Neill released her scales, creating a barrier before her as she opened the door wide. Since nothing exploded as she entered the room, she gave us the thumbs up and took down her scale barrier, only to suddenly—

“WHAT?!”

— scream out.

“It’s gone! Shit!”

Neill rushed right into the room, breaking something wooden with a loud crack, and causing the rest of us to follow right behind her. However, once Renee saw what Neill did, she let out her own “WHAT?!” before pointing her head towards the giant hole next to the room’s walls, with wooden plank debris laying before it.

“Tsk! Rita, get out of here. We’ll check this out ourselves,” Renee commanded Rita, and the dryad nodded.

“S-Sure, stay safe, alright! In the meantime, I’ll check on the drainer and see how well it worked. I’ll have it done once you’re back.” She dashed right out and picked up the herbal drainer, before leaving the basement.

Renee then looked over to Tasianna, Rajah, and me. “I know this is asking a lot, but I believe I have some unwelcome guests enter my home. Could I ask for some more of your time?”

“I don’t know how fresh all of this is, but—” Neill stomped the ground, releasing glowing blue lines through the ground and into the long-winded tunnel. “— I think our thieves are still around. Sis, mind helping my friend out for a moment?”

“Got it, let’s go!” I agreed. “Tasianna? Rajah?”

“Of course, Lady Hestia.”

[“Master’s will!”]

Rajah slipped into his shadow as I pulled my glaive out from my storage, having no need to hide my [Space-Time Magic] from Renee anymore. Renee unsheathed her curved shortshort and projected a shield of wind with her catalyst, while Tasianna created a few floating ice daggers. Neill was a brawler and used scales as her weapons, so she was ready at any time.

Before we went in, I asked Neill and Renee how well they could see in the dark, which the former said her [Night Vision] was only level four while Sis has it at max. Still, since we didn’t know who our opponents were, Renee opted to use her sensory skills instead of exposing our position with fire.

With Renee leading the way while I protected the rear, we quickly formed a party amongst ourselves and entered the tunnel. It felt extremely eerie with how deep the tunnel was. With the fact Neill’s dragon paths could only tell us something was inside this cave, but not what and how many, we couldn’t really relax and the tension was growing around us.

However, it was purely ‘cause our guards were up that when it came for our senses to be tested, I noticed something on the ground. A small indentation, which looked like somebody’s attempt to hide their footsteps.

“Stop!” I called out, pointing everybody’s attention to the ground, only for Renee to notice further signs of somebody trying to hide their steps, which all lead right into the wall. Upon further inspection, Rajah noticed there were two small gaps in the wall.

It was an [Earth Wall].

“Shit! Hestia!”

“Got it!”

The wall exploded right in front of us, just moments after we narrowly erected our scale barrier around us. Although we survived that attack, in the next second, four silhouettes flanked around our barriers, slashing at us with their daggers. Renee and Tasianna reacted immediately, fending off the attacks with their blades.

“Gruuuuuu!” A loud warcry assaulted our ears in this tight corridor, prompting me to bring my scale barrier down as I dashed forward, swinging my glaive forward to intercept the large waraxe.

“Grouh!” The larger creature in full armor snarled at me, showing off his small tusks and the glint of excitement in his eyes.

“Grimgarians!”

A grim day was awaiting us.

A note from AbyssRaven

O.O Tunnels and grimgarians, Hestia always meets them there.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 324: Battle in the Underground.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Party Leader

Name: Renee Level: 87

Main Job: Storm Knight Secondary Job: Gladiator Unique Job: Locked

Name: Fargryneill Qilinus Kargryxmor Level: 110

Main Job: Dragonkin Destroyer Secondary Job: Esoteric Pathfinder Unique Job: Locked

Name: Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor Level: 98

Main Job: Virulent Corrosion Secondary Job: Ravager Unique Job: Locked

Name: Tasianna Marina Silverpond Level: 70

Main Job: Storm Arcanist Secondary Job: Rogue Unique Job: Locked

“Hrrgh!” My mana surged through my glaive right into the catalyst it held on its blade, awaking the scale-dust inside it and causing flames to roar out in the face of the orc. Although protected by his helmet, the heat was getting to him.

To not allow him to escape, I pressed my strength forward, cutting through the orc’s axe like butter. Staggering backward, narrowly escaping my glaive, the orc wasn’t able to dodge Neill’s fist. With a powerful punch, Neill struck the orc’s armor with a mana-infused punch, shattering the orc’s black equipment in one attack, before using a knife hand to pierce through his belly.

“Grrrrouuuugh! NIAKASH BAAL’AK”

“““Ggugniak!!!”””

As the orc howled in pain and a war cry, the voices of even more orcs echoed from the tunnel behind him. Hearing his allies coming for him, the orc tried to grab and immobilize Neill, but my sister was too fast for him. She jump-kicked our enemy, pulling her hand out of his body, before tapping my shoulders as she landed next to me with a flip.

I didn’t understand what she wanted specifically, but the situation was obvious enough. Channeling my mana in my mouth, I released a fiery [Hellflame Breath] into the side tunnel, scorching the first orc before the rest erected a shield wall to block my attack. From the look of their armor, these orcs looked like the black orc knights I met last time I found an organized grimgarian group. Which meant that their armor and shields were made from voldunna, making them extremely resistant to heat.

In other words, these orcs were [High Orc]s, meaning this wasn’t just a normal grimgarian horde, but maybe a war party.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Secondary Job [Ravager] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 4]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Tsk, they’re living. Turn to corrosive!

I turned my crimson fire into purple ones, using the toxic flames to kill the orc instead of using heat against voldunna armor. I didn’t know what was happening, but Neill didn’t sit around while I blasted my fire. She stomped the ground, creating thick, but less numerous, dragon paths along the tunnel’s walls and ceiling, before punching the start of those nodes.

With the sound of a balloon growing in size, the dragon paths bloated up, creating large bubbles as they exploded. The released mana caused the tunnel to collapse, possibly burying a couple of the orcs most likely. I wasn’t sure if we killed any, but our party was sharing experience with each other, so if we did, I would have leveled up my Jobs.

“Done!” I snapped my head around after Neill and I were done with our side, seeing Tasianna had frozen two [Bleak Hobgoblin] rogues. She might be the lowest level amongst us, but after her training with Mother and the twins, she was stronger than her level and stats suggested.

On the other side, Renee was fending off two hobgoblins too, having injured one of them with her sword. Seeing all their allies falling, the two jumped back before throwing two bombs at us, which released poisonous gas.

Renee increased her wind shield’s size, blocking the gas from reaching us. She then knocked the wind shield onto the ground, capturing the poisonous gas underneath it. With our sight restored, we saw the two goblins fleeing, only for Rajah to suddenly jump out from a shadow to pounce at the one Renee injured.

“Krraaah!” The goblin squirmed, left behind by its companion. Rajah fangs pierced right through its neck, ending the goblin’s life with a resounding crunch.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Secondary Job [Ravager] has risen from [Level 4] to [Level 5]

Attributes have increased due to level up

“Good boy!” I ran up to caress him before shooting out a [Sacred Smite] at the hobgoblin, but they dodged it before throwing down another poison gas bomb to block our sight. Useless really, since I had [Detection Sensor], but before I could do anything, Renee tapped my shoulder.

“I need to retrieve my father’s memento. Trap or not, that green rat will lead us to the others.” And with those words, Renee charged onwards.

And so did Sis. “Come on, let’s level our Jobs.”

Fair enough.

“Tasianna,” I called for my friend, signaling to her to kill the two frozen hobgoblins before we dashed behind the other two.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Main Job [Virulent Corrosion] has risen from [Level 14] to [Level 15]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Secondary Job [Ravager] has risen from [Level 5] to [Level 7]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Buffs on. Music on, let’s go!

[Various Spell Buffs] [Music Resonation (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“All my buffing spells are up! Go wild, people,” I announced after my music began to play, sharing my buffs with everybody using [Idol]’s effect.

“Appreciated, Lady Priestess!”

“Wreak some havoc, ladies!”

We ran through the tunnel, following the sounds of the scurrying hobgoblin through this maze. As the number of signals in my [Detection Sensor] suddenly increased, I notified everybody we were close by, only for everybody’s [Danger Perception] to erupt into action the second we turned around a corner.

At the end of the tunnel wasn’t only a bright yellow-orange light but also a huge, blue one. I suddenly had a deja vu moment, remembering what happened during my time in the Belzac forest. A glowing blue light; I felt a chill run down my spine.

Mana cannon! Terra Wall!

“Brace yourselves!” I told everybody before moving the wall to our left, shoving us all right back over the corner. In the next moment, an ear-piercing explosion boomed, shaking the tunnel.

“Those things have a mana cannon?!” Renee exclaimed, having also recognized that blue light. “That was far too much for a trap! How do goblins and orcs get their hands on something as sophisticated as a cannon?!”

It seemed Renee didn’t know about the grimgarian warband over the Avitor Peaks, which made sense since it was confidential information in Artorias. However, to me, if these grimgarians had a siege weapon like a mana cannon, then I was now 100% sure these grimgarians must be in some way related to the ones over at Avitor Peaks. The ones working with the demon.

Which meant…

<The sabotage seems to be already on its way… What are they planning?>

— I had to start taking this more seriously.

“Follow me, I have a plan.” I rushed back to where we came from after I heard Yeostar voice his concern about the situation.

“H-Hey, Lady Priestess?!”

“It’ll be clear when we get there! Now, come!”

Rajah and Tasianna followed after me without hesitation, Neill shrugged before doing it herself, and, lastly, Renee darted her head back and forward from the blocked passage and my back, before finally running after me. After passing the goblin Rajah killed, we ended back at the tunnel entrance Neill and I destroyed.

Seeing as the orcs we caved in hadn’t died yet, it was obvious to me there had to be others on their side, otherwise, how could they survive this long trapped inside so much rubble? Well, maybe the orcs were super sturdy, but my point was this tunnel must lead somewhere. No way could it only be a dead-end, right?

“Oooh, I get it. Sounds better than getting shot at by a mana cannon, that’s for sure,” Neill agreed with my plan. “But, how are we gonna do this? If I blast through all the rock and earth, we’ll just attract their attention.”

She was right. We were already detected, but I 100% didn’t want to tank a mana cannon, even with all my power boosts since the last time I got hit by one. As such, we needed to be stealthy for a moment, until we could attack. And for that, we needed to get to their base without alerting the cannon crew.

“I only need a precise hole which I could look at the other side with. I’ll get us over with no problem.” I used my [Detection Sensor] to check the other side, making sure nobody was over there at this very moment, which also confirmed my suspicion somebody was in the tunnel when it collapsed to help the orcs.

“On clean look through? Got it.” Neill nodded and went over to the rubble and laid her hand on it. With one deep breath, she created a glowing dragon path through it.

At this point, Neill hadn’t really explained to me how her ability really worked outside of “harnessing the land’s mana” for her attacks. However, I had the feeling these “dragon paths” were probably her mana sent through the ground, where it connects with the mana in the earth to create whatever effects she wanted.

Every time her mana paths appeared, she had to be in physical contact with them. She was like the stem and all these dragon paths were the roots. There probably were more nuances with it, and I could imagine her creating dragon paths in the air, but I was starting to get what she could do. Although, what exactly the effects of her dragon paths were was something I could only guess at this moment.

For example, the fact she was pulling that dragon path out was surprising to see.

“You can do that?” I was flabbergasted at how she was holding a blue glowing rod. She literally pulled out a long cylinder area of earth and rock from the rubble, and the moment she dispersed the mana, all of that fell to the ground.

“Well, every dragonkin needs a racial ability, right? It might look useful, but you need focus and time to create something like this, so it's pretty useless in a battle. Although I could create my own weapon, I have my fists and legs for that job,” Neill explained with a sigh. “Anyways, Sis, your turn.”

I nodded and looked through the hole Neill made, noticing how near perfectly round the sides were. There were only a few gaps, probably from how the rubble was layered. In any case, I looked through the other side and sent Rajah over with [Shadow Dash]. I kept my [Detection Sensor] on just in case.

With him scouting the area and confirming there weren’t any assassins or rogues who dodged my sensory skills, I cast [Warp Point: Exit] on the other side and the entry point on our side. With the portal open, our way forward was clear.

“Tasianna, Renee, I need you two to muffle our steps and fights.”

“Understood, Lady Priestess. You would make a fine commander. Resourceful. Adaptable.” I appreciated Renee’s flattery but I felt some ulterior motives behind her tone. “Miss Tasianna, I can create silence zones wherever we need with my catalyst. Could you keep the [Air Shield] active? My magic skills are humbled by a [Storm Arcanist] like you.”

“My pleasure.” Tasianna cast [Air Shield] before we entered the portal, and once we were on the other side, I let Rajah guide us. My senses were currently better than his, but if I didn’t allow him to train himself, he would never get better.

And after a couple of moments, we encountered the group of orcs from before. They were still injured but their armor didn’t show any signs of cracks and heavy damage. Aside from them, I also noticed a couple of blue-skinned hobgoblin shamans and alchemists treating the injured. Probably the crew who saved the orcs.

Upon seeing them, Renee’s posture changed as she walked before me, letting the ring on her left hand shine green. I couldn't know exactly what was happening, but as time went by, the noise from the orcs and hobgoblins began to disappear, replaced by complete silence at the appearance of a dome of wind.

Renee said her “silence zone” was down. I thought it was just an [Air Shield], but Renee corrected me as it literally was a silence zone. No sound could be made inside the area, meaning it could counter mages who relied too heavily on voicing their chants out, instead of chanting inside their head. It was deployable with her catalyst from a range, but it had none of the defensive qualities of [Air Shield] nor could it stop air from coming in or out.

“My [Ring of Freedom’s Winds] isn’t an artifact you can make or find randomly,” she stated proudly as she pointed her sword at the grimgarians. As she said, she made a silence zone, and without any noise, the grimgarians immediately became agitated.

And their fears came true with Neill dashed before we could react in time, kicking one of the hobgoblin shaman’s head right off his body. She then stomped the ground with her kicking leg, sending three dragon paths towards the panicking shamans and alchemists. Before the orcs could do anything — kaboom! Or to be more specific, a boom without the ka-boom or any boom-boom, really.

This silence zone certainly took away the charms of explosions.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Secondary Job [Ravager] has risen from [Level 7] to [Level 9]

Attributes have increased due to level up

And it became even more apparent this silence zone was the perfect counter to my songs and spell songs, as the moment I entered the area, my [Music Resonation (Minor)] disappeared, and with it, the buffs on everybody else. [Draconic Roar] was also useless as I tried to make it work, but couldn’t.

And idols shouldn’t go silent, but this went beyond that. This ability was not my favorite.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Main Job [Virulent Corrosion] has risen from [Level 15] to [Level 17]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Secondary Job [Ravager] has risen from [Level 9] to [Level 14]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Still, it was there for a reason and that was to assassinate the grimgarians without alerting the others. Back when I had a ton of trouble with these orc knights, they kept using [Taunt] to redirect my attention to others, but in a silence zone, they couldn’t use [Taunt]! They couldn’t even shout commands or orders, making my group’s [Telepathy] usage instantly superior.

The more I learned what got countered by this complete silence zone, the more I found it outright broken. It countered so many other abilities outside of just chanting mages. And with the orcs being disorganized, in a panic, and having lost their mages and alchemists, they were quickly taken down by us.

After we cleaned our weapons from blood, we continued our advance. And as my intuition told me, this path did indeed lead behind the cannon crew, in fact, it led us right into the middle of a caravan.

Kobolds, goblins, and orcs — the most common grimgarians I knew of — were all rushing right in front of us, pushing the wagons full of barrels, caskets, and weapons through the tunnel. Peolynca’s ox-horse hybrids, equerochs, pulled the wagons ahead, while a few evolved kobolds, echikobolds, rode on large, armored rhinoceroses with three horns and tusks called [Savannah Gwunceros].

The five of us were hidden behind a corner, watching this all happen. We could hear the grimgarians speaking in their language with each other, especially the orcs commanding the lesser green goblins around, while the kobolds kept to themselves as they aided the caravan’s move.

Renee was visibly agitated by this, clutching the corner of the wall with her hands. Although we didn’t know the size of this party, I guess seeing a foreign small or medium-sized warband travel underneath your land wasn’t pleasant at all. Not to mention, they could have stolen Renee’s heirloom. Suffice to say, Renee kept it together very well.

[“I’ve seen something like this happen before. This is most likely a grimgarian battalion or a logistic crew. The one I met had a high ogre lead them,”] I told Renee and Neill.

[“A high ogre? Hmph, I haven't met one before, but I heard from other adventurers that those B ranks can duel an A ranker depending if they were trained properly or not. Renee, you’ve met any?”] Neill asked, but Renee could only shake her head. She didn’t have [Telepathy] and we haven’t set a silence zone down.

[“The last one I met nearly killed me when I was in my dragon form, but he was a high-leveled B rank with [True Axe Mastery] or something,”] I admitted and Neill turned her head back at the caravan with a loud “Oooooh.” Before I could continue, Tasianna spoke up.

[“We need to locate the leader of this group, first,”] she added to the discussion and everybody nodded. [“I don’t think a group of grimgarians would try to steal a single medallion from some random abandoned mansion if they didn’t know what it would do. Dame Renee?”]

She then surrounded us all in an [Air Shield], giving Renee her chance to speak about it. From what Tasianna suggested, what Renee’s father left for her was more valuable than she initially made it out to be.

“… As I said, my father was a grand knight, alright? He was one of the best there was, and he, like many other knights, fought with Yeos’s prince two years ago. He died with our previous prince in that battle against the demonkins,” Renee answered but I could hear her hesitate for a moment. “How should I know why some grimgarians wish to take his medallion from him? I thought those green rats were brainless monsters? How are they even capable of organizing something like this?”

It seemed Renee had literally no idea how intelligent some grimgarians could act. She probably had a similar mindset most adventurers thought of goblins, kobolds, and orcs — as more intelligent monsters, but monsters nonetheless. It probably didn’t even cross her mind how some of these “beasts” could act or behave like any other humans, really. Then again, maybe I was speculating a bit with that.

Still, I knew the grimgarians were associated with the demonkins, so from what I could tell, Renee’s father must have been a hotshot for them to try to do something with that medallion of hers. Yeostar wasn’t telling me anything on this matter, saying “it is better to find it out yourself.” Which was an indirect way to say, Renee’s heirloom was important.

“However, how are we supposed to—”

[“Master!”] As I was about to pose a question, Rajah suddenly jumped onto my leg, holding onto it for his dear life. [“Your sister—”]

“COME OUT, BIG BOSS!” An ear-piercing warcry erupted from inside the tunnel, followed by a massive explosion and the pained screams of various grimgarians. However, before the sound could settle down, grunts followed by more blasts rumbled the cave, even rocking us in our hiding spot.

Shit! Neill!

“That damn lizard! I shouldn’t have let my eyes off her! I should’ve known better!” Renee grumbled as the cave’s rumbling nearly caused her to fall to the ground.

“Wait, this happened before?!”

“Your sister has a damn inferiority complex! Didn’t I say that yesterday? Extremely competitive and prone to charge into battles if she even catches the scent of a tough opponent! Just so she can prove to herself how she doesn’t need that damn [Battle Frenzy] of yours! I might have leveled fast because of her, but she nearly had me killed seven times and a half!”

Oddly specific, but okay!

It was a surprise to hear that part about Neil’s complex being true and not just a snarky comment from her friend. Neill had said something about being stuck at the Envy point, the sixth step before mastering [Battle Frenzy]. I had no idea what was happening right now, but if Sis just kamikazed herself like an impatient MMO raid player, then we really didn’t have a choice in this matter!

“Gosh, why did you charge in like that!” I shouted as Neill laughed merrily while bulldozing two orc knights’ bellies with her fist.

“Help her!” Renee used [Gale Steps] to intercept a few arrows aimed at Neill, before jumping into the air and slamming her wind shield into a group of kobold archers, knocking them all up into the air. She then sheathed her curved shortsword before pulling the flamberge on her back out, swinging it in an arc to bisect anything it touched.

“Your sister reminds me of you, Lady Hestia! Hiehiehie~” Tasianna called me out with a giggle.

“NO, I am not this stupid!” I spread my scale-dust in the caravan’s front, blowing them up and allowing us to concentrate on one direction first. A horde of high orc warriors and hobgoblin and goblin skirmishers were charging right at us with the aid of echikobold archers.

But, thankfully, our own support members were competent enough to counter them. Tasianna shot her ice blades at the grimgarian’s backrow, killing and eliminating anything her levitating ice blades could reach. Meanwhile, Rajah would pounce from out a shadow and bite into the unarmored skulls of the kobolds like a jaguar, crushing them before reentering a nearby shadow to escape. Perfect assassination.

“Hey, nice one, girls!” Neill commented, but both Renee and I were fed up with her recklessness.

“Shut up, you moron!”

“You trying to blow everything up here, Sis?!”

Before bonking her head simultaneously.

“Yeowch!”

Neill could be smart, proven when she explained the Gluttony path in such a way I could understand it better, however, she really had to show me one of her stupid moments on the same trip. If she was this reckless on every single adventure, then she sounded like the worst party member ever! Even if she was strong!

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Main Job [Virulent Corrosion] has risen from [Level 17] to [Level 22]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Secondary Job [Ravager] has risen from [Level 14] to [Level 15]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Max level of Job   [Ravager] has been reached

Blood and cries resounded in this entire tunnel as the five of us cleaved through numerous grimgarians. Since too many explosions could cause a cave-in, Neill and I had to rely on our weapons and less destructive spells. For example, Neill’s three-hit combo and my holy spells, or her kick-punch-uppercut-frame cancel kick-kick-grab-lunge-frame cancel-punch combo and my wind spells!

… Okay, maybe I was imagining Neill as a fighting game character right now. She and Renee were moving through the battlefield with more finesse than I was with my glaive. This must have been the difference between physical fighters and a mage-fighter hybrid like myself.

“Rajah!” In the middle of this slaughter, I suddenly felt earthquakes caused by some loud trampling as Rajah killed his eight echikobold. From the veil of smoke and dust caused by my scale-dust and Neill’s dragon path explosions, a giant gwunceros charged at him.

I quickly [Gale Step]ed towards him, picking him up, before fending off the rhinoceros’s charge.

“Grk!” I was pushed back through the sheer weight and mass of the beast. My eyes then snapped up, seeing the echikobold aim an arrow at me, only for my scales to fly out and protect me just in time.

Acquisition requirement fulfilled. [Scale Manipulation Lv. 1] acquired

“Huh?!”

No way! I got it! Finally!

As with most things on Peolynca, if there was an action worth turning into a skill to make it easier on the inhabitants of this world, the Divine System would make adjustments for them. [Scale Manipulation] was one of them, and counted as a dragon ability, according to Mother.

Nevertheless, just ‘cause I could guide my scales around already didn’t mean I had mastered the manipulation of my scales. The skill, as Mother warned me, was a hard skill to obtain and required constant practice to achieve it, which was a real statement, since even with my boosted acquisition proficiency gain, I still needed nearly three months to get this skill!

And I sure wanted to celebrate it.

“Sis! I got [Scale Manipulation]!” My face beamed up as I called for Neill.

After dispatching by kicking him into another orc knight’s spear, Neill clapped and cheered for me! “That’s my little sis! But, honestly, that was too fast! You’re far too young to get it this soon! I needed six months to get that annoying skill! Wooah! Hrah!” Neill dodged and bashed a kobold’s head in. “Your mom’s gonna like to hear that, but let’s get out of here first!”

“R-Right!” I turned my attention back to the rhino, who was desperately flailing around, trying to get its horn out of my glaive’s grip. “You want free? Wish granted!”

I twisted my glaive around, cutting the rhino’s horn right off and causing it to flinch and roar out in pain. This left its neck wide open though, so with a [Dragoon Jump], I chopped the hulking beast’s head right off before [Dragoon Jump]ing and onto its rider, killing both mount and master in the span of two seconds.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Main Job [Virulent Corrosion] has risen from [Level 22] to [Level 23]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has risen from [Level 18] to [Level 19]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 700 skill points

That’s what I’m talking about! L-L-Level up!

The fact I was celebrating this much for a single level up really went to show how long it has been since I reached level 18. And I only got it ‘cause of Aurena’s divine quest. It's been far too long since I grinded this much in a single month. The merfiends at Karhalenteel island, then my visit to Cedaraille’s dungeon, and now this.

I was feeling the level-up euphoria again, and it was making me forget about the ethical fact I was killing all these grimgarians. Enemies of not, they were intelligent like humans, elves, dwarves, and so on… but, yeah. I can discuss morality with myself afterwards.

Not to forget, this was currently a battlefield and one single moment of inattentiveness could decide if you die or not. Neill and I could joke a bit, but we knew something was approaching us right now. I could feel the bloodlust and anger the creature was showing us right now.

“Graaaouuuuuuuuuuuuuuh!” it roared, drawing everybody’s attention to it. Its growls and grunts muffled the pained cries of its companions, making it the only thing our focus was direct at right now.

A hulking beast around the size of an ogre but smaller than a troll lumbered over to us with two troll sorcerers flanking it. Its body was completely covered in fur like a kobold but its appearance resembled more that of a pug mixed with a hyena. Its short snout sported a wide mouth, filled to the brim with sharp black fangs, as it quivered it at us in either rage or anticipation.

It was covered in voldunna armor with some pieces of monster materials attached to them. A long polearm-like flail with three spikey balls was in its right hand as it dragged it on the ground over to us. Clutching its bone amulet, it began speaking to us.

“Interlopers. Become sacrifices to the Goddess of Monsters! Mother of us all! I, Knokhut, shall cleanse your sins! Gguuuuugniak! Shrah!”

And with the appearance of their commander, the grimgarians rallied under him, screaming “Ggugniak!!!” into a huge chorus. Motivation was high again and I suddenly felt like we were in the situation I honestly hope we wouldn’t be in — trapped like a mouse.

It was only a matter of time before that mana cannon would arrive as reinforcement. Nevertheless…

“That blue-skinned hobgoblin woman on that gnoll has my medallion!” Renee pointed at the one hobgoblin shaman riding on the beast’s back, sneering wildly as she prepared a black magic circle with glee.

Mana Eyes!

Noghu Gnoll

A monsterized kobold whose worship to the Goddess of Monster and Fertility, Edna, has granted it an evolution path for its devotion and belief. At the cost of its racial ability to commune with most monsters, this gnoll has obtained the size and incredible strength of an orc. Although it doesn’t have the heightened regenerative abilities of an orc or troll, this beast possesses a rallying shriek to empower and temporarily reduce all Stamina costs of its allies. Rank B

“This is all your fault, Neill!” I complained to my sister as I readied my glaive and spells.

“W-What?!”

“Agreed, we could have solved this in an easier fashion,” Renee agreed before materializing a wind flag from her catalyst.

“H-Hey, Renee!”

“Lady Fargryneill, I shall have some tea ready for you once your scolding starts. However, let us pour our effort into eliminating these threats first,” Tasianna unintentionally silenced Sis before creating a [Winter’s Golem] for our incoming clash.

“Hold on, you two?!”

[“Master, I shall help you!”] Although, in Rajah’s case, he simply went with the flow. Honestly, I would bet on Krim-Slak having infected my poor virigress with his carefree attitude.

“…” Sis pouted at everybody’s reaction and response to her, but she readied herself in either case.

We had a warband to stop.

“Let’s break their bones, ladies!”

A note from AbyssRaven

Grimgarian, no grimming.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 325: The Kirin-Dragon Destroyer.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #2 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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Profile:

Name:   Knokhut

Level: 14

Race:   Noghu Gnoll

Age:   31 Years

Job:

Main: Flail Terror

Secondary: Zealous Flaggalant

Unique: Locked

Status:

Health:

9721

Mana:

1041

Strength:

5931

Intelligence:

1041

Vitality:

5705

Wisdom:

4371

Agility:

3090

Stamina:

9170

Effects:

None

Skill:

Magic skills and related:

[Mana Efficiency Lv. 3] [Mana Control Lv. 2]

Physical skills and related:

[True Unarmed Technique Lv. 1] [True Unarmed Mastery Lv. 1]

[True Mace Technique Lv. 1] [True Mace Mastery Lv. 1]

[Mana Strike Lv. 5] [Stamina Strike Lv. 7]

[All Damage Enhancement Lv. 1]

Senses and movement skills:

[Stealth Lv. 8] [Accuracy Correction Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 7] [Concentration Lv. 5] [Prediction Lv. 8]

[Probability Correction Lv. 7] [Danger Perception Lv. 9]

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 7] [Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 5]

[Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 10] [Tracking Lv. 7]

[Night Vision Lv. 10] [Presence Killer Lv. 7]

[Evasion Lv. 7] [Acrobatic Lv. 7]

[Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 9]

Resistance:

[Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 2] [Absolute Pain Tolerance]

[Abnormal Status Nullification]

[Fear Resistance Lv. 5]

[Holy Resistance Lv. 3] [Inferno Resistance Lv. 4]

[Water Resistance Lv. 3] [Earth Resistance Lv. 7]

[Wind Resistance Lv. 6] [Tenebrous Resistance Lv. 1]

Stat growth and related:

[Health Recovery Lv. 7] [Mana Recovery Lv. 1] [Stamina Recovery Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Health Growth Lv. 7]

[Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 5]

[Herculean Power Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 4]

[Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Agility Enforcement Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Stamina Capacity Lv. 3]

Others:

[Handicraft Lv. 9] [Woodworking Lv. 9] [Identity Blocker Lv. 1]

[Dismantle Lv. 10] [Terror Aura Lv. 5] [Commander’s Aura]

Job:

[Bloodletter] [Enhanced Bone Breaking] [Bloody Euphoria]

Ability List:

Unarmed abilities:

[Steadfast Stance] [Gale Steps] [Crush Fist] [Spine Breaker]

[Ravage Crunch] [Gnoll Shriek]

Mace abilities:

[Bloodletting] [Bonecrusher] [Desperate Torture] [Storm Slam]

Bloody Euphoria

A skill activated by the amount of blood in the vicinity. The more blood the user can smell, taste, or see, the more the user’s Health recovery will increase. Dealing damage and causing blood to flow will heal the user by 1% of their Vitality

Strong, but not as strong as the ogre.

“Shraaaaaaek!” The gnoll roared out before picking up a wagon and throwing it at us, all while the previously demotivated grimgarians regained their confidence upon hearing the gnoll’s warcry.

With vigorous “Niakash Baal’ak” and “Gliedda yuf vernohn blieck, Marsven” — or whatever my parallel minds tried to understand from their gibberish — they raised their weapons and reformed their formations. The troll shamans pounded their staves on the ground before pointing them at us, invoking two black magic circles.

“I got this! Sanctuary!” A barrier of iridescent light manifested around us as the wagon and four concentrated balls of dark mana crashed against it, exploding in the process as they left cracks where they hit.

Higher Intelligence, better spells. Good.

“We can’t stay defensive! One B rank gnoll, two C rank troll shamans, a platoon full of orc knights, a C rank hobgoblin mage, kobold tamers, and too many goblin and kobold fodder!” Renee quickly summarized her report after appraising everything with her appraisal ring. “Miss Tasianna, we need range support. That blue rat is priority number one! It’s speaking something in its Goddess-less language.”

Renee was right. That blue hobgoblin carrying Renee’s medallion was shouting something as she was buffering herself with spells. Either she was the commander of this group, or she was the tactician. Either way, she had to go down, but that was easier said than done with the giant B rank bodyguard in our way.

“Shraaaaaaaaaahk!” The gnoll roared again, spinning his flail above his head.

“C-Chiksu yuf shariyk!” The hobgoblin mage stumbled on her words, a speech impediment most goblins had which usually disappeared once they evolve into a hobgoblin. At least, that’s what I heard from some adventurers.

“Rajah, keep your eyes on the archers and mages. Fargryneill, Priestess Hestia, you’ll be our vanguard!” Renee kept ordering us around, but everything she said was quick and to the point with zero hesitation. “I’ll be the mid-guard, keeping the orcs and other things away from your fight! Aim for the gnoll and troll shamans, priority two and three, respectively. Everybody, create an opportunity for Miss Tasianna to take priority targets down! Understood?”

“Fight the big one, got it!” I nodded while Rajah slipped back into my shadow to await his moment to strike.

“I can freeze the rear, leave them to me. I’ll shoot when needed,” Tasianna turned her attention and cast [Fairy of Winter] for her ice wings and an aura of cold. Her large [Winter’s Golem] was also ready, towering over orcs in an intimidating fashion.

“Time to level up, ladies!” Neill said in the most bloodthirsty fashion possible, even licking her lips as her slit eyes locked onto the gnoll. I knew that expression very well — the look of a hunter who found her prey.

It also helped that she made that face when we went to the dungeon yesterday. Her draconic instinct had taken over. She was hungry for experience.

“We’re in a cave! Don’t go wild, Fargryneill!” Renee warned Sis, but I had an idea for that part.

I slumped onto the ground and laid my hand on it, invoking a brown magic circle to cast [Terra Wall] to solidify the ground and the walls of this tunnel. I would always appreciate my wind and earth spells for being extremely useful for supportive and utility reasons. Still, even if the place wouldn’t break down from an explosion, I probably shouldn’t use my fire attacks too much to drain all our oxygen.

“Wonderful! Your sister is once again a true gem, Fargryneill! You should have introduced me to her sooner!” Renee complimented me after my explanation before waving her flag around and planting it right into the ground. “Everybody, charge!”

[Flag of Valiant Hearts] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Flag of Valiant Hearts

A wind blessing invoked by [Gem of Valiant Winds]. Increases Agility by 5% of the base stat

She can buff, too? Small Agility boost, but at least it’s something.

“Hey, head’s up, Hestia!” Neill kicked the ground, sending dragon paths towards the grimgarians standing before the barrier, before they ruptured forth as blue streams of lightning. “You mind supporting? Like during your match?”

Neill was probably pointing out my stunt in the battle royale, where I acted as the distraction and support for the main breaching crew for that castle. Well, even if Sis saw me more as a support than a frontliner, I couldn’t disagree. My support through my music and white flames was one of my best traits as an adventurer.

“Sure, break something like you did during your match. I’ll keep this place intact!” I replied as I blasted a few hobgoblin spearmen with [Sacred Smite] before playing my music again.

Full buffs, now! Halo of Consecration. ‘The Heir of Hope’ probably would work here, I hope.

“She was the ideal for me ♫

The bringer of children’s smiles ♫

Alas, the world seemed bleaker without her ♫

But all wounds must heal, we must force back the tears ♫

Her legacy remains for everybody to hear ♫

All these wounds will heal, mourning must end ♫

Our path is made clear through the loss of a friend ♫”

[Music Resonation (Major)] [Various Spell Buffs] [Shield of [The Light]] [Sanctified Blaze] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Nice!

[The Heir of Hope] was probably my strongest spell song, but it had the caveat that it wouldn’t work if there was neither an opponent of terrifying proportions and strengths around or none of my allies were scared or terrified. It had a pretty bad condition for everyday use, but not only did it give everybody a 10% increase in their stats but also other incredible bonuses like a self-regenerating shield and such.

I was afraid it wouldn’t work in the battle royale, as I wasn’t afraid or wary of the poison brothers, nor was my temporary alliance. Most likely the castle with its array of demonic weaponry was the trigger. Which meant, even inanimate objects or non-living foes counted towards the spell song’s condition.

I was worried the gnoll wasn’t much of an opponent with Neill around, but I guess my body still remembered how that B rank high ogre nearly killed me. I expected a fight with this guy.

And with all these preparations only gained by my [Sanctuary] buying us the necessary time, we were fully prepared the moment the trolls destroyed it with another blast of spells. As the barrier shattered like glass before dissipating into light, Renee and Tasianna began our counterattack.

With her catalyst glowing green, Renee wrapped her flamberge in a whirlwind and shot it out as a slash, blowing all echikobolds and hobgoblins in front of the gnoll away like leaves. Meanwhile, Tasianna’s snow golem began pounding its massive fist into the orc, preoccupying them while Tasianna buffeted anything in the opposite direction of Renee’s slash with [Torrential Rain] before blowing a cold breath to freeze them.

Bodies were building up on the floor, and shards of frozen flesh and bones were littered everywhere, making the ground as treacherous to traverse as the battle happening around Neill and me. The both of us couldn’t move just yet, as the shamans and mages of this group kept shooting spells, forcing us to rely on ranged attacks to keep at bay. I was admittedly a bit surprised that Neill knew [Inferno Magic], but at the same time, she was my sister.

Renee was sweeping through bodies like a whirlwind, only having to stop and slow down when she faced an orc or a tamed beast. The lumbering, armored gwunceroses and equerochsen required a more precise attack to kill. On the other hand, Tasianna spread fear. Chilly, icy death caused the cowardly hobgoblins and echikobolds to flee, pushing their comrades and interfering with the orc knight’s attacks.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Main Job [Virulent Corrosion] has risen from [Level 23] to [Level 25]

Attributes have increased due to level up

“Grooouuugh!” The gnoll roared out as he watched his troops flee, or he was furious it was taking so long for them to defeat us. Regardless, he swung his flail down, crushing two goblins under him into a bloody mess, before launching his body forward in a stampede.

Neither his allies nor the tamed monsters could evade his rampage, as he was ignoring friendly fire to kill us. However, he was arrogant, if he thought he could fight us head-on like this. Two B ranks who out leveled him were right in front of us, and he was going head-on with us?

This proved none of them used an [Identify] on us.

Terra Wall! Terra Wall!

I constructed two walls of earth right in front of the gnoll, closing up the tunnel. However, I knew for a fact he would break through since I knew his profile. They were just there so I could humanize while allowing Neill to get in a sneak attack.

[Humanize (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Grruuuu!” The gnoll busted through them as if they were nothing, splintering stones and so on everywhere. The hole he left was large enough for the trolls and mages to look out from, but my wall also had the secondary function of blocking their range support. “Yoo— Grukkk!”

And without support, Neill could go wild.

With a devastating kick right into the gnoll’s jaw, the massive beast was flung right into the ground, barely in range of being blasted by my [Sanctified Blaze: Halo of Consecration]. Sure enough, all of this cleared up our way by a ton.

And since their giant gnoll was just kicked away, the trolls and mages behind my wall were naturally agitated. And the moment all of them moved in view of the hole the gnoll conveniently made, I struck.

[“Rajah!”]

“Grouh!” Rajah jumped out from the shadow of one of the troll shaman, cast by my flames, and climbed up the beast. Although the troll tried to throw him off, with one quick strike, Rajah landed a perfect claw attack on the troll’s eye, injecting the poison coated on them.

“Urwaaaaaaaahhh!” The troll stumbled back with a roar as Rajah dived into a shadow to escape. This cry of pain attracted the attention of the all the back-row crew, opening a window for me to throw my glaive at the second troll.

“Uwwuurgh!” My weapon lodged right into his chest, relaying the excruciating pain he was feeling with cry.

Dragoon Jump!

I left Neill to her own devices as she began her fisticuff match with the gnoll, and rocket boostered myself right onto the second troll. Grabbing my glaive, I performed a [Spark Crescent], slicing off his arm before using my searing hot tail to split his head in half. For some trolly reason, his Health didn’t drop to zero from all of that, so I had to finish him off with a fire bullet right into his face.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Main Job [Virulent Corrosion] has risen from [Level 25] to [Level 26]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Okay, now—

“Taun—”

“Silence, orc!” With perfect timing, Renee created a small silence field around an orc’s mouth, preventing him from taunting either Neill or me. That could have been bad, even with my mental protection skills.

And it seemed Renee was keeping her support up whilst fending off the enemies in front of her. She stuck to her word with being our support.

Sweet. Now for the mages.

My head snapped around as I was floating in the air from the fire bullet’s recoil, locking onto all the mages and archers below me. WIth my ten parallel minds, ten white magic circles appeared around me. If this tunnel was larger, I probably could have blown everything up with my scale-dust, or assumed my dragon form, but my minor humanized form was enough for all of this, even almost equalizing the stats between the gnoll and me.

There was nothing to fear from these grimgarians.

And with that thought, ten [Banishment Beam]s shot out from my magic circles, instantly killing ten grimgarians before rotating around me like a disco ball. Suffice to say, nothing in my close vicinity survived that attack, and anything that did, was now running away. Even the troll, who probably would have died from the poison in his eye, was cut into pieces by all the lasers.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Main Job [Virulent Corrosion] has risen from [Level 26] to [Level 27]

Attributes have increased due to level up

In a mage duel, the one who can cast spells faster would win. In a magical fight to the death, the one with more ingenuity and firepower would win. Master Kush’s lessons still remained in my head.

… But, that small moment to feel proud of myself quickly disappeared as Neill slung right through a section of my wall, landing a bit away from me while covered in her scales. Following that, the gnoll bust through the remaining section while brandishing its bloody flail.

Neill slammed the ground and jumped up, snarling out like an angered horse. “GrieeeeHiekeeeeerk! Killing all of them just heals the bastard up! Hey, all of you, stop making them bleed! Blast them with fire or ice, or something else! Just stop making everything in this damn room bleed!”

“I don’t have anything else but bleed damage!” Renee’s distant voice was barely audible from all the fighting. “Smash the head and it will bleed, too!”

[“I’ll think of something. However, can you stop the orcs from taunting me?”] Tasianna voiced her annoyance at the fact the trolls were using [Taunt] on her.

From the look of it, only one of Renee’s silence fields could be active at once, and as she was protecting Neill and me from being taunted, she and Tasianna received the full brunt of that annoying skill. Thankfully, my halo was healing them and dealing with them, as they were still within its area of effect, but I could see why this would be bad.

[“Renee, help Tasianna out. I have [Dread Burn] to deal with the gnoll’s healing! Create a silence field around you,”] I suggested.

[“That woul—”] Tasianna wanted to reply, probably since a silence field would mean disrupting my songs from reaching them. My plan would mean she and Renee had to deal with all the surrounding grimgarians without my buffs by themselves.

As strong as they were, a bunch of C rank grimgarians with proper training and equipment could overwhelm two lone B rank adventurers. It was normal to be afraid.

[“We don’t have time. Hraaaah!”] Neill shouted in our telepathic link before defending me from one of the gnoll’s attack before launching a counterattack. Neill’s kick to his shoulder sent him reeling, but only after a few seconds, he healed up the damage. [“Fire won’t work on him like a troll cuz of that [Bloody Euphoria]. This needs more power to overwhelm, and I can’t do that with taunting pests! Silence the field, and hang on for us!”]

[“… Yes! I apologize for showing weakness, My Princesses!”] Tasianna threw away her concerns, showing the confidence and bravery she had gained after traveling with me for nearly two years. [“I am Lady Hestia’s shield. Face the wrath of winter’s bite, grimgarians! Silence and make sure none of them escape, Dame Renee!”]

And without any delay, a barrier of wind surrounded the area behind the wall I made. Fleeing kobolds and goblins were let go, but any orcs were held back by Renee. She was acting like a bouncer, guarding the way forward. To make sure they wouldn’t get past her at all, I built a [Terra Wall] right behind her.

Now, we had to hurry.

“Yo, Sis, that form doesn’t look as cute. Change back,” Renee asked me out of nowhere.

[“Huh, wait, I ne—”]

“Either go full dragon, or stay cute, don’t half-ass it. Besides, you don’t need to move an inch right now. Leave it to your big sis~” Neill showed me a wide grin, showing her fangs. It looked like there was an eerie light in her eyes, a pressure strong enough to nearly make me submit.

She was using her [Draconic Aura].

[Humanize (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Good girl~” She closed her eyes and smiled to me, helping my instincts calm down. “Now…”

“Fools!” the hobgoblin mage shouted as Neill turned her head back to them. “Knokhut can still feel the bloodshed. Knokhut can still heal! You eliminated your chance for reinforcements!”

“Skraaaaaaaaaaaak!”

“Oh come on, why did I have to transform back?!” I shouted at Neill, now infuriated by her sense of recklessness. “My current stats are lower than that thing! Even if we fight together, why not do it in our minor forms to beat the ever-living hell out of it?!”

“No.”

“What?!”

“No need to.” She smiled in the face of the gnoll raising his flail at us. “Kramps told you I should teach you, right? I taught you how to find the gluttony inside you, now for lesson two… Watch. I will show you the true extent of a Kargryxmor’s [Battle Frenzy]!”

“You will become before presents for our King’s armor! Knokhut, kill!”

“Shrieeeek! Storm Slam!”

“Sorry, no-scales aren’t my type! Kriiark klish garfinik!”

And with those words, her mana surged from her body like a bomb.

“Kruuu?!” The gnoll’s flail was deflecting by the burst of mana, almost knocking the hobgoblin mage off his head.

“KruuuuuuuARRRRRRRRRRRRGH!”

“Urghhh!” I was blown away, only able to stop myself by using [Air Step] to stand in the air. The power emanating from Neill was far too strong, to the point the walls and cracking from the sheer pressure.

Bracelet!

Name: Fargryneill Qilinus Kargryxmor Level: 110

Effects: [Music Resonation (Major)] [Shield of [The Light]] [Sanctified Blaze] [Flag of Valiant Hearts] [Humanized (Moderate)] [Battle Frenzy (Moderate)]

[Battle Frenzy (Moderate)]. Neill had [Battle Frenzy (Moderate)] on. Was she crazy? Was she trying to kill us all here, or what?! Anything above the minor stage was far too dangerous, to the point my senses would go completely berserk. I would lose control of my body as my natural instincts took over.

But, Neill? She just did that on purpose! She pulled the trigger of our blood and let the beast out willingly. With the amount of power she was blasting out, she could probably kill the gnoll but what about later? If goes berserker now, then I had to st—

“Huh?”

“Kriehiehie!”

The power around Neill suddenly weakened and began to turn black, wrapping itself around her like a veil in the form of flames. The purple tints in her scales and hair began to glow up before dimming, no, it was accurate to call the rest of her black scales and hair were brightening up, too.

But, the most noticeable changes from her usual appearance were her purple glowing eyes and her three horns pulsating with mana. After showing me a weird hand sign, her scaled gauntlets broke apart and returned back to her body, only for her hands to suddenly light up with hundreds, no, thousands, no, maybe even millions of blue lines.

“Dragon path!” With a clenched fist, Neill swung her fist out, hitting nothing but air. The gnoll looked at her, flabbergasted, but in an instant, his and my confusion disappeared.

“Kruuuugh?!” The gnoll was suddenly hit in its face and was flung up into the air.

“Kriehiehie!” Without a second to waste, dragon paths flowed from the ground and, somehow, into the air. Neill took them, sliding along them as if she was skating. And without hesitation, kicked the gnoll as he was flying into the ceiling!

She then snapped her fingers, creating dragon paths that moved right where the gnoll was lodged into, causing a massive explosion which sent him and the hobgoblin, who seemed to have had an [Auracoil] around her, down.

“Taste pure mana from a kirin, dog.” A mana ball from in between Neill’s hands, charging it up as it grew and grew in size. “Pulse Arcana: Maxima!”

And like the roar of a dragon, Neill unleashed the blast of pure, untainted mana forth. The blast beam caught the gnoll entirely, not even letting him scream or shout as he was completely swallowed up by the attack. With extreme prejudice, anything the beam touched was destroyed as it flew through the tunnel, dissipating into mana after a couple more seconds.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Main Job [Virulent Corrosion] has risen from [Level 27] to [Level 30]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Max level of Job   [Virulent Corrosion] has been reached

Mutation requirements acquired. [Level 30] of Job [Virulent Corrosion] was achieved. Mutation skills unlocked for acquisition.   [Virulent Corrosion] have been added to the SP shop

There was nothing left of the gnoll. The wagons and everything else on the ground narrowly dodged getting hit by Neill’s attack, but looking at the clean erasure of the ceiling, now perfectly round, I couldn’t help but gulp. In the span of less than a minute, Neill erased any trace of that B rank.

Sure, it might have been weaker than the high ogre I faced, but that still didn’t account how freaking tough and probably experienced he was with his weapon. Outside, I could probably dive into the ground or blow him up, but inside a cave, I had to be careful. In the end, even without anybody’s help, I could have 100% dealt with the gnoll with the help of my flames’ [Dread Burn] nullifying all sorta healing.

However, not only did Neil beat this guy by herself, but she didn’t even do anything to counter it like my flame’s special property. She just went in and started blasting him. She overwhelmed him not with any tricks or cunning, or strategy, really. She destroyed everything in her way with unstoppable power in less than a minute, probably.

<… You can do this, too. You have shown such power before.>

Kramp’s voice echoed in my head as a System message. I remembered when I released that mountain high fire blast when I entered [Battle Frenzy (Major)] to fight that demonkin. Neill’s attack might not have been the largest thing I’d seen — [Omnictus] or [Symphonie des Feuergottes] were larger and probably more destructive — but it honestly didn’t seem like she was giving it her all.

“Phew!” Neill flicked the hair strands blocking her eyes. She then shook her head before pulling her lion mane-like hair along her back. She then landed on the ground and walked over to me with a serious expression on her face. “This is moderate. There are two stages above it. There is also a skill designed for the power-up called [Battle Frenzy] once you break through all seven sins.”

“…” I stayed silent. Her display of power left an impression on me, just like Larent’s mana blade.

Pure mana can do this much, huh? Mhmm.

“It will be hard, but don’t rely on this power-up, alright?” I nodded to Neill’s lecture. “You need to make that raging power in your blood yours. Rear it in. However, don’t forget, [Battle Frenzy] alone didn’t make Kramps the ‘Black Tyrant of the Skies.’ Never rely on it, you hear? Don’t end up like some of our brothers.”

“Brothers?” I tilted my head. This was the first time anybody really mentioned my half-brothers, specifically.

“Mhmm.” Neill nodded. “Kahalameet and Nongramus. Our eldest and youngest half-brothers, respectively. Nice bros, really, but our biggest brother is doing anything he can to make sure our eldest sister, Wendriosa, doesn’t even get a chance to be the heir if father were to, miraculously, die. Nongramus, on the other hand, has an empress-mother who glorified Kramps’s achievements, to the point he wants to become the next ‘Black Tyrant of the Skies.’”

“Uhm, but what exactly does that have with not overusing [Battle Frenzy]?” I was still confused.

“Come on, it’s easy to see.” Neill looked annoyed as appearance started to return to normal, a sign she was disabling [Battle Frenzy]. She really was fully in control of it. “You don’t know how much I held back right there just to not cause the whole tunnel to break down.”

“…”

Yup, guessed that correctly. If she wasn’t, that fight with the gnoll would have lasted longer. She stomped on him as if he was an ant before her.

“You rely too much on this damn power and it can consume your judgement and self-growth. You will want to use it whenever, instead of trying to further develop your body through evolutions and skills. Those two are the strongest [Battle Frenzy] users amongst us siblings, but that is about it.” Neill let out a deep sigh. “Also, just take it as a tip. It’ll get pretty awkward when you start hitting brick walls in the process…”

“… Like how you’re stuck at the envy sin?”

“… Don’t be so cheeky, you little brat.” Neill turned around and let out a deep sigh.

Oops… that was the wrong thing to say.

“U-Uhm, Neill, sorry!” I tried to apologize but Sis only shook her hand in my face.

“Forget it. My problem, so don’t butt into it, okay? Also, don’t listen to that flattie, Renee, about my psychological state. Fire dragon accusing a magna dragon for burning a tree. She got her own issues with how she fakes that damn voice of hers, just to appear as a man inside that tin can.”

Wait, Renee’s deep voice isn’t authentic? Wait, why does that surprise me when she’s a Yeosian?

Neill looked irritated. She wasn’t happy with what I said, even if I didn’t mean it as an insult. “On our way back, we’re training. Everyday after the matches, we train. As your big sis, I have a responsibility to help you with your [Battle Frenzy], so tail up, you hear?”

“Yes, ma’am, yes!” I raised my tail up in a salute as if it was instinct, causing Neill to cringe. Did I do something wrong, again?

“Gahak! HELP!”

But before I could question her about it, we suddenly heard a man’s voice coming deeper into the tunnel. Did the grimgarians capture somebody?

I rushed over to the voice, prompting a reluctant Neill to follow behind me. In one of the wagons, a barrel was shaking violently, clearly repeating “HELP!” all the time. When I broke up the lock holding the lid close, a man suddenly sprang out from it.

“Bwuuuah! Hahaaahaaa! Arck! Ash!- BLARGH!” He suddenly spat on the floor, causing my sister and I to jump down from the wagon. “Guhaka! Guhak! T-Thank you! Ahahak! Dust! Wa-Ahak! Water?”

The man was coughing like mad, probably caused by all the dust residue falling from the ceiling. He probably breathed a load of it in through the small breathing hole on top of the lid. He was asking for water, but I couldn’t find any around. I also didn’t want to show him my [Storage Magic] so I had to shake my head.

“Goddess Wings! Gahak! Blegh!” So, instead, he forced himself to speak through all the dust on his tongue. “Blaine. Adven- blark-turer. Thank you for saving me. Bahaak!”

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 326: The Flag of Resistance.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Jeez, Tasianna…” My mouth twitched slightly as I broke down the wall I constructed to divide the tunnel, preventing the orc knight from coming towards us while Renee, and mostly Renee, destroyed the gnoll. Only to find a glacier with grimgarians embedded in it.

“Your maid is not level 70, Sis. Well, she’s level 73 now, but just from looking at her, she’s been neglecting getting experience,” Neill commented and I had to agree. If she were a video game player, she would probably be the sorta person who would hardcore grind her levels and skills just so she could stomp the rest of the game.

I was already aware of it when she had no problems freezing and taking out all the grimgarians around her, but it became more apparent when she just decided to freeze everything around her. Tasianna was swimming inside her glacier right now, having probably thawed the ice around her back to water. She grabbed Renee and escorted her outside the ice.

“Hoo, [Marine Lungs] is useful as always.” Tasianna wrung her wet hair damp, before bowing in front of me. “The grimgarians have been taken care of, Lady Hestia. If you wish, you may kill or interrogate them.”

“Ehehe, how reliable of you,” I smiled wryly, looking behind her at all the grimgarians in the glacier. Instead of going for the kill, Tasianna instead chose to capture them alive, just so we could get some intel from them. Smart.

“Bwuh… Miss Tasianna, have you made sure they can at least breathe? I don’t know if we can interrogate these beasts, but I hope you made sure they wouldn’t die before we even try.” Renee stumbled back to her feet, shivering slightly from the cold. Tasianna replied positively, prompting Renee to nod her head.

She then turned around to us, looking slightly surprised. “You finished that B rank quickly. I thought you didn’t want to use your [Battle Frenzy], Fargryneill?”

Neill shrugged. “What? Did you expect me to prolong that fight just because? What do I look like? An idiot who doesn’t know how to analyze an enemy? The more it bleeds, the longer I have to beat it up for it to die. At that point, better to show what an ant it was in front of me.”

“Uhuh.” Renee didn’t look convinced. She then looked over at me. “Let me guess, trying to be the respectable older sister in front of your family?”

“Yeah, so what? Hestia needs to see how it works before we actually start the training process.” Neill was dismissive of Renee’s reply. Both of them didn’t seem like they were getting along, right now. “Whatever. What are we gonna do with the grimgarians?”

“Hold on, in a moment. Who is that?” Renee pointed at the black-haired man we freed before — Blaine.

The adventurer was staring at the glacier Tasianna made, holding a crossbow he didn’t have before. I walked over to him and waved at him, trying to draw his attention.

“Are you okay?”

“Uhm, y-yeah…” He flinched a bit. “I-I thought I could help…”

He lowered his crossbow in a crestfallen manner before suddenly laughing a bit awkwardly. He told me he should have expected that when we were able to kill the B rank gnoll, before scolding himself for thinking he could help after he was freed by us. He mentioned being captured by those “green bastards” and “gray brutes” should have told him where he stood in this fight.

“Pardon me, you were captured?” Renee came forward. Her helmet was on and, according to Neill, she was speaking with a fake masculine voice to him.

“Y-Yes, Sir Knight. I and some companions of mine were camping in the forest yesterday. We got ambushed, but the others managed to escape. I stayed behind to cover for them.” He scratched his neck nervously. He had some day-old scratches on his face and a bandaged gash on his arm before I healed him, so he probably tried to fight back but failed.

“Uhm, thank you very much for saving me. Goddess bless you, fair Sir.” He thanked Renee as he said to Neill and me.

Renee nodded and told him to pack whatever belongings he had while our party began making plans on how to get out of the tunnel. He nodded and ran to the barely intact wagons. With him gone, Renee and I returned to the others, where she began the discussion with a very important question.

“Where is my medallion?”

“Uek!” Neill flinched dramatically, which Renee quickly caught onto and facepalmed herself, causing a loud metal bang from her gauntlet and helmet.

“… Whoops.”

When Neill used that “Pulse Arcana: Maxima” attack, I noticed the hobgoblin mage who was wearing her medallion fall from the gnoll. Most likely, the mage was caught up by Neill’s beam, disintegrating with the gnoll in the process. I guess, in the middle of the battle, we kinda forgot the true goal of this fight — to retrieve Renee’s heirloom.

“I… I really, really want to shout right now.” Renee said it slowly with hints of frustration and anger in her voice. She breathed in deeply and let out a loud sigh, sounding more depressed when she continued. “How did you two forget about it? I real— Urgh, no, I am to blame. Father, forgive me, your child has failed you.”

She kneeled down on one knee and began praying, causing Neill and me to look at it awkwardly and in shame. Neill might have destroyed the medallion, but I probably could have dashed towards the goblin and grabbed it before she did. Or, using [Unheilige Engel] to do so. I mean, that was one of its prime functions as a spell.

“H-Hey, Renee, I know I can’t apologize to you enough about this, but sorry about that.” Neill looked remorseful. Although they looked like they were fighting, Renee was still Sis’s friend. “Still, I know this isn’t the time to say this, but shouldn’t we think about what to do with all the grims? Get out of this place?”

“Hey, Sis—”

“It is alright. She is right…” Renee stood up, interrupting me. “I cannot expect every plan to go well. A war effort is gone, but that is life. A proper knight is someone who can rebound from it, otherwise, I would shame God Yeostar. I am not the image of a knight Yeos wishes, so I should go beyond that.”

I nodded. It was a shame.

“If you wish, I could attempt to make a replica of it. I am not a master alchemist yet, but I welcome the challenge,” Tasianna suggested but Renee shook her head.

“No, don’t. The item cannot be made that simple. I don’t even know if we can make it, even if I had the materials.” Renee then pointed at her spell ring. “It is similar to my ring, the medallion came from a dungeon. Father got it from a dungeon chest after defeating the dungeon boss of an A rank dungeon. If I must, I will find a replacement there. But, thank you for the offer.”

“Mhmm. Got it.” Renee patted Renee’s shoulder. “I have a debt to pay now after that, so call me when you’re planning to go over there. I haven’t visited the Empire in its entirety yet.”

“Entirety?” I tilted my head.

“Mhmm. I went over to a port city for a hunter Quest, but I left once I was done.”

That’s not even visiting, that’s literally like landing in a city for a connecting flight to your true destination!

“You haven’t visited Folschreck yet, right? Wanna come?” Neill offered.

In a way, it was a good deal. I didn’t know if Renee had much experience in the Empire, and Neill admitted she didn't know much about the Empire, but having two people I know come with me would be great for navigating. Amongst my close friends and associates, none of them could guide me around the gigantic Empire, outside of maybe Muraina and Krymdar.

Beside, as Aurena’s champion, I had a duty to at least understand the Empire before I could continue my Divine Quest for her. I needed to know where the most loyal human nation of the Church of Aurena stood in the political sphere. I was to help the reconstruction of the Church of Aurena, but to do so, I had to understand what the Empire thought of that.

Just the thought of the Holy Emperor of the Light declaring war on me or having the Church of Aurena excommunicate me would make everything difficult. I didn’t want to associate myself with the Empire, but it wasn’t as if I could avoid it at this point. My plans with Artorias were already on their way, and the moment the alliance paper was signed with the dwarves, the animosity of the Empire would grow.

As such I only had one answer.

“Not anytime soon, sorry. I still have a lot of things to do in western Altrust.” I had to decline.

I had to mediate the meeting between the dwarves and Artorias, make sure the elves can shake hands and forgive Artorias, and then also speak with Loatryx on the matter. As a princess, my schedule was too full for me to go around as an adventurer, right now. The only reason why I was here was ‘cause Champion Hestia had to be here.

Princess Hestia, Idol Hestia, Adventurer Hestia, Blessed Hestia, and also Teen Hestia; there were a lot of things I had to manage right now. Honestly, sometimes I wondered how my life would have gone if I had declined Aurena’s offer to become her Champion. Would my life have been simpler?

Nah, as if. My luck was terrible even before all of that. I would have gotten involved regardless, just ‘cause of Saori, Tasianna, and everybody else. At least, as a Champion, it makes it easier for me to help them.

“No worries, Sis. Guess it will be us alone, Renee.” Neill patted the still crestfallen Renee on the back. “Come on, I’m sorry. I’ll treat you for the rest of our stay here, alright?”

“… You eat more than I do. You’ve been using all your money to pay for our meals up until now, anyway.” Renee stated a fact, causing Neill to laugh awkwardly. With no need for equipment or clothes, Neill probably had less to spend than Renee. “Anyways, let’s think of a way to ge—”

[“Master!”] Rajah’s voice entered my mind as he jumped out of my shadow. [“The goblin escaped, sorry!”]

“Goblin?” I stared at him, only for my eyes to widen as I noticed something was in his mouth. “R-Rajah, isn’t that—”

[“Mhmm, the goblin mage. She [Shadow Dash]ed away because I could kill. But, I scratched her! She—”]

“Wait, hold on!” Renee shouted as she noticed the same thing. “Lady Priestess, did your tamed just— Is that my medallion in his mouth?!”

[“Oh, I grabbed this! You wanted this, Miss Human?”] Rajah innocently placed the silver medallion on the ground before turning his saddened eyes back to me. [“She escaped but maybe she will fall from the poison. I dunno, if I sweated enough on my claws. Master, sor— Woah?! Help!”]

“You loveable cat, THANK YOU! Goddess bless you!” Renee’s real voice suddenly broke through as she pulled Rajah into the air! After thanking him, she began hugging him like crazy, laughing merrily as she held her medallion up in the air.

It certainly looked weird when she was doing this in her armor. I knew it already, but this stern knight really could come out of her shell.

“Wooo, nice, good for you, Renee!” Neill cheered for her friend, only for Renee to push her helmet face into Neill’s private space.

“You still scared me, so you’re still coming with me to the Empire. I need to become stronger, anyway.” She wouldn’t let the grudge go.

“… ‘Kay.”

In any case, with Renee’s medallion recovered and this grimgarian entourage mostly destroyed and disbanded, our time in this tunnel was over. Since it was literally impossible to transport the glacier through the cave in a conventional manner, we decided to just look up at the ceiling. Literally.

“One, two, three, go back!” Focusing my mana in my throat, I released a concentrated beam of [Hellflame Breath], lasering right through the earth.

Neill said the method she used before to make that perfect look-through hole couldn’t work when it was too big, so I had to do it with a breath attack. Melting through the earth and any rock, I stopped after a while, just to make sure I wouldn’t hurt somebody once I got to the surface.

I flew up through the hole, used [Detection Sensor] to make sure nobody was around, before drilling the rest of the way with my dragon breath. After I made it back up, I used [Bedrock Blades] to form giant blades of earth to expand the hole, just large enough for Neill to push the giant glacier right through it.

Weeeeeeee, uhm, this really isn’t something you see every day. I gaze up in the sky, where a glacier with frozen grimgarians was hovering, and now, falling from. I shook my head from the absurdity before catching it with [Unheilige Engel].

Once it was safely on the floor, I dropped back down and had everybody board the “purple floating elevator discus!” Just to set the mood, I played some elevator music.

“Bam bam bam, bam bam,” I hummed to it.

“… I don’t know why, but I don’t like this.” Neill grimaced, prompting Renee and Blaine to nod as they voiced their dislike for the music.

Oh, come on!

None of them had an inkling of the notion of comedic elevator music to combat the all-dominating awkward silence. Imagine riding an elevator with a stranger without it. Besides, it had a good enough beat to dance to.

In any case, once everybody was on the surface, I suddenly heard a “Hey, dear, how was it?” I turned around, only to see Mother, the twins, and Rita coming toward us. I was flabbergasted at how they found us so easily, but Mother mentioned Rita had told her what happened. She found our location the moment a “giant concentration of mana was released in this area.”

It was probably Neill’s beam attack.

“Ooh, I tried to wait for you, but you guys took so long! But then, the tunnel was too long!” Rita, excitedly, spoke with Renee and Neill after their reunion. She currently looked like a normal human, which Neill explained was an appearance she only took if there were strangers around, which made sense as Blaine was around.

“Mhmm, thanks for the worry, but you know you don’t have to worry about us.” Neill puffed her chest up as she boasted about her strength. I left those three to themselves as I turned around to Mother.

“Say, couldn’t you have helped out if you were looking for us?” I asked Mother, but she simply looked at me as if I gave her a rhetorical question.

“Well, yes. I mean, did you really need my help to clean up whatever was underneath there? With your sister? And Tasianna, who I had been training alongside the twins?” Mother felt no need to panic at all. “Also, I find it comforting that you wanted to rely on me, but if you were serious, then as your mother, I would honestly question your strength.”

“… So, you trusted me?”

“Shouldn’t a mother trust her daughter when it comes to handling things under her weight level? Or, do you wish for me to be like all the other mothers who coddle their whelplings under their wings even after they become younglings? Like a ‘helicopter mother,’ as you so like to call it. If you wish, I could accompany you even when you go to the toi—”

“Alright, alright, I get it! Sorry, sorry! You are the perfect, ideal mother. Please, I enjoy my space. I loooove you as you are now.”

Mother smiled and nodded proudly. She made her point, but I honestly had to question where she pulled the line with fighting to the death and going out to “pick some flowers.” Maybe this was a dragon thing, and I really should have seen it coming. I already made her aware I needed more room for myself, and she understood and accepted it without any problems.

Anyways, after I told Mother and the others what happened, Renee suggested to me that they needed to leave this to the knights. As much as she wanted to do it herself, interrogations wasn’t her forte. Tasianna and I could do it, but I didn’t feel like doing it, and Tasianna agreed. Neill couldn’t be bothered at this point, as she just wanted to go back to Elyonda.

However, we couldn’t leave the ice block here to thaw. That would be like releasing prisoners just ‘cause you’re too lazy to call the police. In any case, we needed somebody to take care of it, so I volunteered to call for help. Aside from Mother, I was the fastest flier.

“Thank you very much for helping me. By the goddess, if possible, I wish to repay you one day!” Blaine decided to leave to find his friends, instead of waiting here with us.

“Are you sure you want to go now? You can stay with us. Just in case another group of grimgarian is around,” I offered but he shook his head.

“Haha, when that happens, I will shout from the top of my lungs. So, please, help me then. But I really have to make sure my friends are safe, and I sit still until I know. Excuse me.” Blaine insisted on it, so I didn’t have anything more to say, however…

“Shouldn’t you stay around to report what happened to you to the officials?” Renee stepped in front of him. “As an adventurer, you have a duty to inform me of what happened here. It’s for the safety of the country.”

“Well, I’m not a Yeosian, Sir Knight, ahahaha…” Blaine laughed nervously.

“I know. I recognize that accent of yours. You’re from the Empire, correct? A centrumite, even.” The fact Renee could identify accents, meant she probably visited the Empire once. She really could be a good Empire guide.

“Y-Yes, ahaha… I came here with my friends to do some hunting. If you’ve been in the Empire, then you should know how cutthroat the adventurer guilds could be. Everybody wants to rise up and distinguish themselves when the Quest rewards are so much higher than in Western Altrust.”

Even with that answer, Renee’s interrogation didn’t stop. Instead, she was pushing him even further. “Fascinating. Easier around here, no? Then, why were you and your friends in the area? There are no hamlets around, only a small mansion nearby. This might be the perfect time to find some jobs with all the merchants in Elyonda for the festival, buuuuuut… a bit too far away. What are you here for?”

“Yikes, Renee, aren’t you being a bit too suspicious?” Neill patted on Renee’s shoulder, calming the agitating knight down a bit. However, I could sympathize with Renee since we probably were inside her mansion’s land, so it wasn’t surprising for Renee to feel somewhat on edge by an adventurer. We didn’t know if he was a hunter or mercenary, and what he was here for.

“… You’re right.” But, Renee gave up surprisingly pretty easily once Neill intervened. “Adventurers are wanderers. Not my place to ask you about a Quest. Try to remember to report to the local adventurer guilds when you make it back to hand in your Quest. Enjoy your stay in Yeos, Mister Blaine.”

“Uh-hahah… Thanks?” Blaine left us pretty fast. I didn’t think we left a good impression at all.

With him gone, I created a seat for Tasianna with [Unheilige Engel] and the both of us blasted off into the sky. With the twins around, they could make sure the glacier wouldn’t thaw up. It took us some time, but with my rocket boosters, we made it back to Elyonda at record time. From the look of the sun, it probably only took a bit over an hour, maybe?

In any case, I wanted to fly right through and to the royal castle, but Tasianna warned me there was probably a mana barrier around the town just like in Griffonpeak. Considering I didn’t want to get arrested, I decided to take the gate entry, but not the commoner one. The line was too long, so I decided to go to the noble-reserved gate this time.

There was a line of three carriages there, but considering the urgency of the situation, I decided to just skip it. Rather have three wagon’s worth of annoyed people, than the horde at the commoner gate.

“Halt, this is the wro—” One of the knights guarding the gate unsheathed his blade and held his hand up, trying to stop us, but Tasianna and I simply came forward and handed him our IDs. “Huh?”

“Our apologies for not going through with the proper procedure, but I must insist you, good Sir Knight, to allow us to enter immediately. I must report something to your Lord Commander, Alistar Coshbart,” I spoke frankly but properly, before turning over to the wagons. “I humbly request to enter the city first. Would that be of any problems?”

I was wearing my white mage robe, so I was anticipating it to help me out here. After some silence, the guards sitting on the coachman’s seat opened the speaking window connected to the interior of the carriages. After they were done, all three carriages gave their approval, forcing the knight’s hand on the subject.

And, as I had my ID reveal all my information, it only took a couple of seconds for the knight to return and bow to me. And just like that, we were back in Elyonda. However, as I had to be quick, I blasted my way with Tasianan to the royal castle, where I had to do the same procedure again to enter the knight’s headquarters.

“L-Lady Hestia?!” Alistar was shocked to see me when I suddenly barged into office, with his secretary running after me.

“Sorry for the intrusion, but I have something important to inform you. It’s not urgent, but necessary for you to know, nevertheless.”

Alistar nodded after hesitating a bit and told his secretary to leave. He activated the silence rune in his room, before asking us to take a seat in front of his desk.

“I would like to offer you tea, as any nobleman should for a lady, but I don’t believe you will be staying for long, no?” Alistar hit the nail on its head. So, I made it quick and explained to him what happened today.

“Grimgarians? Wha- Isn’t that the general term for goblins, kobolds, and so on? Are you saying those little brutes broke into a mansion to steal an heirloom?” Alistar was flabbergasted by the information.

“Yes, I can’t tell you much more since this is Artorian intel, but I wanted to warn you that you should probably start preparing some defenses against them.”

The info about the ogre king on the other side of the Avitor Peaks was Artorian intel, so I couldn’t just tell it to somebody not involved with their government. What sorta ally would I be, if I were to be loose with my mouth on pretty important information. I couldn’t think what could happen if I were to leak something like this, but Saori had warned me far enough that there will be people smart enough to figure something out with it.

“… I don’t understand what exactly you expect from me, Lady Hestia. Goblins, kobolds, orcs?” He fumbled around with his hands, trying to form his sentence. “I’ve heard them forming raids and attacking adventurers and soldiers, but they are still mere brutes. Beasts. I understand you care for the city’s defenses, but we currently have a city full of mercenaries, hunters, and also ex-military. If the worst comes, the city will simply employ the adventurer guild to deal with it. Should you not inform them about this?”

He had a point. To deal with monsters, the best place would be the adventurer guild. However, only if you were dealing with mindless monsters, and not with a coordinated army of grimgarians. There was a massive distinction here.

“It is clear you don’t believe me, so the best way is to show you.” I stood up.

“Show? You meant that ice block?”

“Yes, Tasianna had frozen them solid. They should be alive and currently in the custody of my Mother and my friends. They should be alive, right?” I turned to Tasianna.

“Yes, my lady. At worst, a few echikobolds or hobgoblins might have frozen to death. However, the orcs in their voldunna armor probably should be alive. The ore isn’t effective against the cold, but I believe they should have enough padding underneath the armor.”

“You heard her, come on.” Tasianna and I were already moving towards the door.

On the other hand, Alistar was too flustered by my sudden decision to move. “H-Hold on, my lady! I cannot just leave the city for an entire day!”

“Don’t worry, get on Hestia Airlines, and we can make it there in about a bell now that I know the directions.” I grinned, causing Alistar to feel even more confused.

In the end, despite being the Lord Commander of the Yeos’s knight order, he could be a bit of a pushover. He didn’t have the attitude of a knight commander, to be honest. Duke Lecartiglio had the aura and intimidating presence of somebody at the top of the military hierarchy, but I couldn’t feel it from Alistar. He was a talented swordsman, but it didn’t seem like he was fit to be a leader, just yet.

In fact, it seemed to fit the whole knight’s order. Alistar couldn’t take his more talented men with him, as all of them were training for the tournament. The only ones he had around were squires or newly inaugurated knights. Jethro’s situation with his warrior monks mirrored this, dramatically. Guess the war was sapping Yeos’s military might by a ton.

And Princess Anasthasia mentioned the state was focusing too much on reorganizing their power, right? Well, not exactly my place to judge.

Once Alistar had picked two of his knights as guards, they were about to use their gargoyles before I stopped them with my [Unheilige Engel]. I asked them, and once they did, Hestia Airlines could finally begin their flight. Well, after I put their seatbelts on.

“““WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!”””

They certainly scream a lot. A fly could end up in their mouths.

With my rocket boosters, I flew out of the city, towards where I left Mother and the others off. Once we were there, I landed on the ground, and had to witness them puke out whatever they had in their stomachs.

“Lady Hestia, you forgot to provide them with an [Air Shield],” Tasianna informed me.

“Huh? Oh! Oh right, yeah, I had to do that, right? Whoops.” I had honestly forgotten about it. “Wait, if you knew about it, why couldn’t you do it?”

Tasianna shifted her eyes around as she kept her smile up. “My apologies, but I had forgotten about it, too. I only remembered it now.”

It seemed Tasianna had gotten too used to the ultra speed I was flying with. Well, poor Alistar.

Anyway, once he recovered, the Knight-Commander and his guards were shocked to see my words becoming true as they stared at the glacier in front of us. I looked around, seeing Mother was sunbathing again while Neill joined her, for some reason. I liked sunbathing, too, but wasn’t there a limit to it all? … Probably not.

“Lord Commander Coshbart!” Renee suddenly spoke out and saluted, pulling the astounded Alistar out of his surprise. “I would like to report.”

“Y-You—” Alistar wanted to say something before he received a piece of parchment. Alistar looked at Renee for a moment before reading what he received, causing his eyes to widen. “… Is this true?”

“Speculation.”

“… Hmm. Noted.” Alistar nodded, before turning his eyes towards the medallion Renee was wearing around her neck, fully exposing it. “That necklace… it fits you, Sir Knight.”

“Your words honor me, Lord Commander. Now, I must excuse myself. I must bid you farewell for now.”

Renee gave a quick bow before moving past a frowning Alistar. She then summoned her air wagon with her catalyst and called for us to board it. Seeing as Alistar wasn’t holding us back, we quickly boarded it, and began our way back to Elyonda. Sure, I could fly us back, but you couldn’t really talk about things on a fast flight, right?

As we started to leave the premises, I saw Alistar flying off on his gargoyle, probably towards Elyonda to call for reinforcement. Which meant, the two knights he brought were guarding the glacier. Talk about a boring job, honestly, but somebody had to do it.

“So, Renee, who was that?” Neill jumped on the coachman’s seat and suddenly brought that up to Neill.

“Lord Commander Alista—”

“Pah, you know I didn’t mean that. I already memorized his name and face from battle royale. You know I spoke about him to you.” Neill tapped on Renee’s helmet. “Who was he to you?”

“Why are you pestering me, right now? You barely ever ask things like this when it’s not necessary.” Renee sounded irritated, but I had to agree with Neill. I was curious, too.

“He noticed your medallion,” I pointed out.

“And?”

“Oh shit, come on! Stop being so hard to talk to, Renee! I don’t need to lead you around like some dumb whelpling who’s doing their first flight!” Neill forcibly pulled off Renee’s helmet, revealing she was looking slightly somberly on the ground. “Hmph. You rarely have that sorta expression. Who is that guy, and you want to reveal what your medallion is? I’m starting to think you are more than just some girl who ‘wants to become a knight like her father in a country where women cannot become knights.’”

“… Interesting speculations, meat bags.”

“…”

And there was the silence. Sometimes I really have to wonder if they were friends or not.

In such a case, it was up to a third party to break it up. Of course, that person would be me, as I wanted answers, too. “What was in that letter you gave him?”

“My opinion on the situation, and since I expected you to explain the situation to him, Lady Priestess, you could say I gave him a kick in his bottoms. Green rats like those don’t make a caravan and transport them in such a manner. Neither could they get their hands on that mana cannon if they were such simple beasts, as you said, Lady Priestess.”

“Oh!” Tasianna looked like she remembered something. “Now that you mention it, where was that mana cannon? I was sure we would see it, but even after I froze everybody, nothing happened.”

“Hold on, wait, doesn’t that mea—” Neill was about to give her thoughts, only for Neill to answer it for her.

“Exactly. A siege weapon like a mana cannon cannot have disappeared like that. Yes, we might not have investigated the tunnel, but I didn’t believe we had to, right there. Even with two dragon princesses, I didn’t want to curry our luck any further. We have targets to interrogate and a prisoner to free,” Renee explained her actions. “Besides, as you probably should know already, I am not really a knight.”

“You are a Yeosian, but you are a woman. Women cannot take on higher positions, and if they do, like Princess Anasthasia, they are looked down upon,” I replied.

“Yes, exactly. What an antiquated social norm created by some old men because of the mistakes of a single ruling princess, who, after proper investigations, was just a spoiled brat whose parents treated her like the Goddess herself. And now, talented noblewomen and womenfolk must suffer for a single unfit ruler. A stain, I say, for the land of the God of Knighthood, Bravery, and Loyalty. Wouldn’t you say so too, Lady Hestia?”

I shrugged. “If you want my opinion on it as a woman, then, of course, I would hate something like that. But as a princess, I really cannot say much about another country’s cultural alignment. Besides, it isn’t like your commoners treat beastmen any better. What would you have me say to that, Miss Yeosian?”

“Nothing, if you wish, my lady. I can say much about my countrymen’s attitude, but war is war. Hostilities cannot end when a mother’s son is dragged into battle, only to die at the spear of a wolfkin in a country you probably had never truly seen before. To the average commoner, the propaganda our military and the Empire spreads, is all you will and want to hear. What good is it to make friends with the country that killed your sons, or brothers, or father? It also helps that they are of a different race, helping the alienation even further similar to our history. There are many morals and principles this principality has drifted away from.”

“Mhmm, you are speaking about such difficult topics, again, Renee. Can’t we just talk about this mana drainer?” Rita pouted before leaving the discussion, finding it more interesting to document the effects of the mana drainer Tasianna made for her.

“… See? You’re making one of your speeches again, Renee. You’re good at it, but I don’t think your current company would appreciate it.” Neill turned her head around. Everybody in this carriage was non-human, and one of them was even a virigress, who probably couldn’t fully grasp the meaning of Renee’s words.

It’s okay, Rajah. I stroke my carefree virigress. He was completely disinterested in it all.

“And? I have my goals and ambitions, Fargryneill. Am I not allowed to speak my mind out?”

“Sure, but stop talking to us if we are fools. I despise the intellectual dishonesty you are doing, Renee!” Neill scowled. “Tell me, what are you planning? Are you planning to drag us into this goal of yours? Do you want to use us as pawns to change this country, or what?”

“Change? Not a bad idea.” Renee shifted her head around in amusement. “A revolution could help, but that would be too much. God Yeostar and my father would punish me, if I were to incite that. No, what Yeos needs right now is for everybody to rally up towards a single banner.”

I looked at her green catalyst as she continued. “The demonkin war is not the only thing my home needs to protect itself from. The ‘Divide of the Five Princes’ was once a coalition between five principalities to protect ourselves from external threats. However, after the War for the Faefolk, things have changed. Yeos grows weaker as we must provide levies, knights, and ships to the Empire. All while our ‘allies’ watch and cause strife within our borders. Waiting for our factions to split our country apart.”

“Hmm, then why did you only talk about the demonkin wars to us yesterday, Renee?” I asked.

“Because you aren’t Yeosians, you have nothing to do with our internal politics. However, I still tried to call you to arms, because that is what I believed to be the right thing to do. Dragons fighting with the rest of Peolynca against the otherworldly threat, just like in the history books.”

“You are living in a fantasy, my dear,” Mother interjected. “One should not speak about war, when one has not experienced it. Revenge is a fool’s drug. Coupled with desperation, and it will be the last thing you will ever taste.”

Mother’s words were irrefutable for Renee. She knew who Mother was, so trying to speak back against an ancient dragon would be a waste of time. However, her talk about revenge also hit home for me.

Eshe…

“Then there really is no hope…” Renee sounded dejected. “Still, at the very least, would you two grant me your strength?”

She turned to Neill and me.

“I hardly find it a coincidence that the Festival of Yeostar is held this early, despite our lack of support from the Empire. And, I know from this, that something will happen. The gales around us are a prelude to the storm, and I am not only speaking about the grimgarians and their siege cannon. I feel something large is amiss. But, I am only a single woman. How am I to face this alone?”

“… So you left the search for the remnants of those grimgarians to the knights,” I concluded after Renee’s long-winded explanation and why she didn’t have us search the tunnel for the second cannon.

“Yes. During our fight, why not use the cannon? Simple, they wanted to hide it or there was a second group. Wouldn’t it be possible for us to have missed them?”

Neill and I nodded.

“The knights need to know this, so they can start their preparations. Lord Jethro won’t let this go, if national security is in danger.” Renee seemed better connected than I thought, for a wandering knight-wanna-be. “I don’t believe my strength lies there. It is obvious enough something is brewing underneath the festival if grimgarians are appearing. Beasts or not, they proved to me they are intelligent enough. The demonkins or sabateors from the other principalities are moving.”

“Demonkins?” I was astounded Renee would know this much. I looked over at Neill, but she shook her head.

“Of course. None of this is a coincidence. Nothing is. The demonkins killed our hero — the former Champion of Yeostar. Now, wouldn’t it be the perfect time to interrupt the inauguration of the new champion for some more years? Without the strongest Champion of the Pantheon of Light, it would give the demonkins a considerable advantage. The Hands of Heaven are humanity’s greatest military force, but ten knights aren’t enough to fight against the beastmen alliance and the seven Princes of Sins simultaneously. Too many skirmishes and battles, not enough focus.”

She then turned back to Neill and me. “As such, I need your help. I must ask you to help me, Lady Priestess. Fargryneill. I need to uncover what is truly going on, right now, and snuff it out before it can spread its wings.”

“And what exactly are you planning to do, by joining the tournament? You said you wanted to become the next Champion? What are you trying to do with this change of yours?” I remained unconvinced with her speech. Sure, I saw the value in her words, but what were her ulterior motives to all of this?

“As I said, to rally everybody to a single banner. I wish to hold up the honor of God Yeostar, as the knight of knights, and hopefully, in the process, a glimmer of the former glory of my country.” She clutched her medallion. “Sir Royce was the strongest person I’ve ever known… but he wasn’t able to change our country. What Yeos needs is a change of scenery. A single knight who is willing to brave the storm of hatred, to keep the flag up until they die. To remind everybody why our God isn’t the Goddess, but God Yeostar. The God of Knighthood, Bravery, and Loyalty!”

Renee let go of the reins, letting her air wagon move on its own as she stood up. She turned around and showed us a strong smile. “But, for that to work, I have to become the Champion of Yeostar first. I forge my way forward, even through you two. However, what Yeos needs the most right now, are heroes. And what better way to start a change when three young women — two of them being dragon princesses and one a self-proclaimed Yeosian knight — become those very heroes?”

I smirked and straightened my back. “… Then let’s get started. Let’s hunt down some pesky bugs.”

Renee smiled and thanked me, all while Neill shook her head as if she couldn’t believe what she was witnessing.

“Why? Why are you getting everything off your chest when you are speaking with my little sister? Hello, I’ve been traveling with you for two years, flattie!”

“She’s easier to talk with, you reckless brute.”

“Tsk!”

Are they really friends, or what?!

Regardless, the alliance was made. If the grimgarians are making a move, then the demonkins would, too. If that was the case, then it was time for me to start looking into this properly. The tournament was important, but we had to start making progress to identify if there are any demonkins in this city. Yeostar was quiet during this whole discussion, but I believe he would want it.

Time to get Master Kush and the Depth Serpents to work. They aren’t bounty hunters for nothing, after all.

And during the dusk of night, we made it safely back to Elyonda. Tomorrow was the start of the first round of the tournament.

“Mhmm, the sound from the ocean is getting more beautiful to hear, hehehe.”

Sound? Ooooooh, so that’s what she meant by ‘music’ all this time! Mother has been enjoying the beach quite a bit, of course!

With how Mother was talking about music all the time, I was starting to worry my hearing had gone bad. However, it was about the beach, so I guessed it made sense that she was more focused on the vacation part of our trip. The sound of the waves, the seagulls, and maybe she was also hearing the merfiends growling underwater.

I should spend more time at the beach with Mother. No, with everybody. Family and friends.

“Haaa, it’s sooo late. Where is the commander?”

“It takes time to return to the city and to come here with support. Just shut up and wait. I am sure he will be here soon.”

In the darkness of the night, a single campfire was illuminating the forest. The rattling of cicadas accompanied the low mumblings of the two knights, eagerly awaiting their commander’s return with their reinforcements. Whether they were too unskilled or too occupied to realize it, the sounds of rustling grass appeared behind them.

Two eyes stared at them. Followed by four, then six, then eight, then ten. Skull masks were watching their every movement, brandishing their daggers and a crossbow. Tonight, Ilsaphone would welcome new souls under the shine of the dimmed orange moon.

A note from AbyssRaven

No joky author comments today, I actually have an announcement to make. A happy one!

I recently became an author under Aethon Books, an indie publisher who published books like "He Who Fights With Monsters" and "Mother of Learning." In other words, Dragon Idol will become a proper book in the future. However, as per the contract I signed with them, this also means that Dragon Idol will also join Kindle Unlimited. If you guys don't know what that is, it's Amazon's subscription-based reading program. It's a pretty good deal for authors, but Amazon's policy will force me to remove the chapters for my first book from both RR and SH.

I wanted to give you guys a head's up, since this is pretty important for your reading convenience. And, considering how many novels on RR have joined the "dark side" I think quite a lot of you know how this will go out. I will be privating the necessary chapters (probably Chapters 0 to 36 and all its side chapters for book 1) but nothing will be going on with my usual release schedule. You guys will still get a ton to read, not to mention how the book will get a bunch of professional edits.

Still, I hope you guys will continue supporting me despite this. Hestia's journey and growth as an idol still has a ways to go. And, if you can't support me through Amazon because of the KU's weird availability, there is also still patreon or just reading the chapters here and giving me your feedback. There will also be a paperbook version, for the book collectors out there.

Side Story 36: A Sensei’s Duty.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #4 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until September!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

“Yo, Kyouya, let’s go already!”

“Mhmph?”

“… Stop eating! Come on! We’ll be late for that tournament if you keep stuffing your cheeks with pockies and melonpans! Argh, come on!”

Hmm, they sure were different when they were kids, huh?

Tokyo, oh, Tokyo. I was born and raised in Yokohama in the Kanagawa prefecture, so a trip to Japan’s capital only took around 40 minutes. As a teacher who worked in Tokyo, that still meant I needed a total of 80 minutes to commute from home to my workplace and to return. Considering I had to wake up early at 6 AM and get ready to go to work, it was still extremely inconvenient for me, but money was money, right?

However, after only reliving my time on Earth through my memories all this time, it was a sight for sore eyes for me to see the familiar buildings and sights of a modern Japanese city. You could call me nostalgic. My garm mother showed me my home again, but I still felt surprised to see Earth through the memories of one of my students.

“Come on, run! Let’s go!”

“Haaa, yeah! Ahaa, I can’t, Tatsuya. It’s too hot!”

What was even more surprising was that one of my students was dreaming and inspecting his memories when he was still an elementary schooler. Specifically, these were Kyouya’s memories of when he was still a kid.

I knew Tatsuya and Kyouya were childhood friends, but I didn’t know much else from that. I was their teacher, yes, and while I could say we had a nice enough relationship to be called friends, I still had to keep a certain distance since I was their teacher. I couldn’t be too close, otherwise, people would talk about it. My position as a teacher was too important for me to jeopardize it.

Now, that I wasn’t their teacher anymore — since my human self who was employed as a teacher had died — I could proudly say my former students were my friends. Still, I had no idea about their pasts. I didn't know what Kyouya faced before he became my student.

“Kyouya, left, left, left! Normal special. Grab, dude!”

“Gottem, gottem, gottem! Hey, hey, hey, keep him off the ledge!”

The two friends were playing in an arcade right now, spamming buttons on some arcade game I had no idea about. They had joined a tournament to earn some tickets for something, and were now playing against other kids their age. Moments later, they won.

“That fatty really did it?! Clutch!”

“Ah, come on, how was that clutch? Tatsuya led him around like a puppet with his shot-calling. No way can he think without the other. Like some pawn.”

Unfortunately, snickers were coming from the audience. Not only from elementary kids, but also young teenagers and high schoolers. While they praised Tatsuya, most of them were being rude to Kyouya.

Children could be cruel, especially if there was something they could bully you for. In Kyouya’s case, as a kid, it seemed he was quite overweight. In addition, from what I saw, he had an eating disorder, as the moment the two boys won, he would take out snacks they just bought from a combini — a convenience store.

“Come on, don’t let them get to you.”

“Mhmm. Yeah…” Kyouya nodded to Tatsuya’s wide smile, trying to comfort his best friend. However, Kyouya just cowered from everybody and began eating some pockies. “I got nothing to worry about with you around. We’ll win this, alright!”

“Yeah!”

And they did. They won the whole tournament, even beating some older kids. The two friends cheered as they got their tickets, but they didn’t stay inside the arcade for too long. Smart, since the snickering and backhanded jokes on behalf of Kyouya’s appearance was increasing more and more.

The two kids escaped to a nearby park, resting themselves on the grass in the shade of a tree. It was summer, so they were sweating a bit. For a couple of kids with CEOs as fathers, they really acted like any other elementary kid I knew about. It seemed they had a good childhood.

“Can’t believe you got that last hit off. That was too close! I really thought you would die right there.” Kyouya grinned as he praised Tatsuya’s gaming skills.

“What? Ha! Of course I wouldn’t blow it at the finals! As if, dude, haha!” But Tatsuya’s boastful expression quickly vanished as his smile fell into a frown. The atmosphere between the two changed. “… Mhmm. Not when this is our last day together. I had to give it my all.”

“…”

“…”

“I didn’t want to leave.” One of Kyouya’s lingering thoughts resounded in this dream of his. This was his real thought.

From the look of it, Kyouya’s father wasn’t the CEO of his company at this time. For his promotion, he was requested to lead the opening of a new branch. However, this branch was located in a different prefecture, and due to the importance of his job, he decided it would be best for him and his family to move. And looking at the future, this decision allowed him to secure his family’s financial security.

However, this meant Kyouya and Tatsuya had to say their goodbyes. Sure, they had phones and computers, but to those two boys, being able to meet in person and going to the arcade was what their friendship was about. Tatsuya played tough when Kyouya cried, but I could see the former tearing up a bit, also.

“Stay strong, alright, Kyouya! If somebody calls you fat or whatever, just give me a call, alright? I’ll have my mom drive me over and I’ll give them—”

“I know, but don’t alright! The people at the arcade are right. I have to stop relying on you so much. Don’t worry about me, Tatsuya! When we meet again during summer, I’ll show you how much better I got in the arcade, yeah?”

“Deal!”

However, the flashbacks told a different story. Bullied not only by his new schoolmates but also his cousins who lived close to the city his father worked at. They body shamed him, which caused him to gain even more weight as he tried to eat his stress away. A fact I knew quite a bit from my time as a teacher, but due to all the stress, I lost more weight despite how much I ate.

Eventually, his father bought him a membership and also a personal trainer to help him out with his weight. Kyouya disliked it at first, but he quickly grew fond of “the burn.” However, during this time, from all the training, Kyouya decided to not visit Tatsuya during summer or even for winter break. They were still friends, but it seemed they drifted off a bit.

“You would like to join the track team?”

“Yes, please!”

During his last year of elementary school, Kyouya began to participate in sport clubs, which he continued even into middle school. He was changing, not only physically but also mentally. His interest in otaku activities slowly dwindled and he was becoming more and more a training enthusiast.

“Looks good. Feel good. Can’t hate this, right?” Kyouya told himself as he inspected himself, but, as his teacher I had the responsibility to not look at him when he was half-naked. “Just a bit more bulking, and nobody can say anything anymore. Last bits of fat and I’ll look reliable as hell. Yup! Gotta keep on going.”

It was only when Kyouya’s family moved back to Tokyo in his last year of middle school where his interest in games was reignited when he reunited with Tatsuya. The two friends had a lot to catch up on, even if they met often on social media. However, not only Kyouya but Tatsuya also changed during all those years. He wasn’t addicted to coffee when he was a kid, but when the two friends met again, Tatsuya had his usual coffee thermos with him.

“I should have stayed! I should have told Papa I wanted to stay!”

“Why didn’t you tell me, Tatsuya? Why did I…”

The two friends made up and even acted like extremely good friends again, however, from the sound of Kyouya’s thoughts, it seemed they kept some distance between each for a while. Even into high school, where I became their teacher.

For a long time, Tatsuya hadn’t told Kyouya about the court case between his mother and Akabane’s father, which so happened to have occurred in that very month the two met again. Kyouya didn’t seem to hold much of a grudge, but it seemed he had some lingering regrets at not being relied on.

And then, Peolynca happened. A magic circle appeared and transported my whole class to this world, all while I probably died. I saw my students talk about me being late. I still had memories of leaving the house and being in the teacher’s lounge, but I couldn’t find out how I died in this memory. A shame.

[“There you are, Saori.”]

I turned around.

“Oh, hey, Mother.”

It was my garm mother.

[“You were fastidious,”] Mother suddenly told me, making me instantly realize what she did.

“Do not pry too much into his memories, Mother. It is already rude that I am here, doing this.” I shook my head, feeling slightly ashamed I was interfering in my students personal life right now.

However, Mother thought differently. [“It’s been three weeks since they were trapped in this dream by Goddess Kronnaz. You care for your pack, so it’s important for you to help them.”]

It’s been a week since I accepted Belzac’s offer to help my train, meaning, I was currently undergoing his full shadow training. To become a proper fenrir, I needed a fenrir to train me, similar to how Hestia needed her Mother to acquire her full draconic abilities. But, most importantly, it was to improve my control over shadows.

I was currently having a break, and I decided to help out Kyouya and Tatsuya with their trials. For some reason, both of them haven’t broken out of their dreams yet, forcing Vivachel to perform a blood transfusion to give them nutrients. I was worried about blood type and so on, but it seemed a hemomancer like her could bypass those rules. Magic, I guess.

Regardless, the point was I was currently in Kyouya’s dream, or, to be more specific, I was inside the dream bubble of Tatsuya and Kyouya. Like the one Ilsaphone made around me, it extracted the memories inside our soul and released them as a vivid dream. Memories were part of our souls, as Hestia could attest, and for the Goddess of Death bringing out our memories wasn’t a problem for her.

Belzac manipulated my dream bubble to test me with an illusion, however, for Kyouya and Tatsuya, it was about them trying to find a reason to continue fighting. Of course, they had one — to return home to Earth — but Kronnaz, who was monitoring them, wanted to extract another reason from them. And because they were stuck in this problem, I decided to help.

When I mentioned this dream bubble also encompassing Tatsuya's dream, I wasn’t lying. With one command, I could transport my consciousness to his, however, I’ve watched him struggle with his problem too often now. His hatred for Franz Akabane began to affect me, also.

That was why I was inside Kyouya’s dream. It was still sad, but it wasn’t as infuriating to watch. My garm mother also decided to be here, but from her actions, I believed she simply wanted to watch their memories to learn more about me. Similar to how she extracted and created an illusion of my mother — my human mother.

I wished she would ask me directly about it, but from the look of it, Mother was shyer than I thought. She was a garm of little words and was more sneaky than confrontational. She would rather look into Tatsuya’s memories to watch me teach them, than to simply ask me what my favorite sleeping position was… I still had no idea why that was worth knowing, but I guessed it was garm stuff.

Not to mention, mentally speaking, Mother was technically younger than me, since she was nine when her body died and I was 26 when I died on Earth. Honestly, I wished it was more straightforward, like Hestia’s and Melloxtressa’s relationship.

“Dammit!”

My attention shifted from Mother back to Kyouya’s memory, who was smashing his fist into the ground. At this point in time, he had not made contact with me. From the look of it, it was after their trip into the Belzac forest, where their group was almost overwhelmed by a horde of grimgarians.

“Why am I so goddamn weak!”

He blamed himself for not being able to turn the tides when it mattered the most. He planned on sacrificing his life to save everybody else, by taunting every grimgarian towards him, but before they could do anything, he was saved by Tatsuya. Similar to their first Church Quest, where Tatsuya saved him from bandits. Once again, he had to rely on his best friend for his survival.

“Nothing has changed… Dammit…”

He was envious of Yorshka. He was envious of Hestia. He was jealous of how much stronger they all were, and blamed himself for not training enough. He had gladly given up the unique skill the demonkins attached to him as a tracker, knowing it would be best if he severed all ties with the Church of Aurena, but he was lamenting how he didn’t know where to go now.

It mirrored Ellaine’s chagrin, in my opinion. Watching stronger people around you succeed, it felt like you were holding everybody back. I could sympathize with them, but power didn’t come around magically.

Hestia trained hard to adapt to her new body, and so did I, even if I felt too weak compared to Hestia. At this point, though, I knew my path forward required me to have patience and dedication. Tasianna understood it also, with her training with Melloxtressa. Ellaine, although she accepted Klea’Hatma’s demonic abilities as a power boost, at least she was training and making it her own at this point. Not to mention, Grimnir using his ingenuity to weapons and creation none of us could have done without him.

As such…

“GO TO HELL!”

You aren’t the only one, Kyouya…

I turned my head around and transported Mother and myself into the neighboring dream, where I watched Tatsuya screaming like a wildman as he was being arrested by some policemen. In front him was a knife and a young man who was extremely hard to forget with his gray-white hair. He had an unimpressed, stoic expression, glaring at Tatsuya as he was being transported into a police car.

“Die, you bastard! Go die with your damn father! Fuck you for doing that to my mom! Fuck you!”

But, Franz didn’t respond. After all, this wasn’t the actual Franz, but only an illusion Tatsuya created himself in this “wonderland.” I honestly couldn’t understand why he was so angry about Franz, to the point he would actually try to murder him. What was this idiot boy thinking?

… But before I could continue assessing the situation, the environment changed. We weren’t in the middle of the streets anymore, we were now in Tatsuya’s house. In his bedroom, Tatsuya pushed himself out of his bed. He was “awake,” again as the loop continued once again.

“Honey, I don’t know anymore…”

“All we can do is continue, dear. Akabane’s goal is me and my position in the company as the CEO. I’m sorry. Haaa, I didn’t think they would send that demon at me like that.”

“No, don’t! It’s alright… we’ll weather through this. The lawyer said all the evidence is flimsy at best, and the best way forward is to make sure we discredit them.”

Mr. and Mrs. Nagata — Tatsuya’s parents. Every morning, Tatsuya would listen to what they were discussing about the court case his mother had versus Yoichiro Akabane, Japan’s most prominent criminal case prosecutor.

From having listened to this multiple times, Tatsuya’s mother was being sued by Akabane due to an incident in her coffee shop where the latter was given some bad coffee. And when he went to the toilet, he got into an accident from a fallen chandelier, of all things. As vindictive as he was, Akabane didn’t want to absolve this out of court and sued Mrs. Nagata to bring down her establishment.

It was absurd to me when I first heard all of this. It was crazy and seemed so far-fetched… until I realized how I was reborn in the body of a garm. Stranger things could have happened, not the mention how the Mr. Nagata believed this was an orchestrated accident just to bring him down as the CEO of the company he worked at.

From how it all proceeded, it seemed Akabane pulled some strings to make sure he would win, essentially obstructing justice and faking everything for him to win his case. Not only was the whole case already nerve-wracking, when the judgement was issued, but Mrs. Nagata’s heart also fainted when she heard the damages she had to pay.

Mr. Nagata paid for everything, in the end, but it still brought his wife down at what was happening. From my meetings with them during the teacher-parent meetings, I found them still happy together, so this incident probably didn’t affect them too much, down the road. However, it seemed it affected Tatsuya quite a bit, to the point he couldn’t forgive Franz or his father for all of this.

But why, Franz? He wasn’t involved in any of this. I thought Tatsuya was blaming an innocent, only to learn he was holding a grudge for Franz because the latter rejected trying to persuade his father to give up the case. Enemies could be made with lesser reasons.

After all, who was to say Franz could have done anything in the first place? It was irrational of Tatsuya, and this irrationality affected his dream. He was trying to find a way to solve this situation in his mind, seemingly carrying a trauma from seeing his mother crying from all the stress and being worried her coffee shop would be closed. His love for coffee came from his mother, and he became even more addicted to it when he learned his mother could lose her business.

And all of this culminated in him looping his days over and over again. He was fixated on a ridiculous goal. His hatred for Franz was growing more intense with every loop, and it was to the point where the killer instincts he had nurtured in his days in Peolynca was coming out.

Even now, he was trying to sneak up to Franz with a knife. He was going mad.

“Stop.”

“Huh?!”

I’ve seen enough. I couldn’t watch Tatsuya sabotage himself any longer. With no intention of allowing him to continue this alone, I grabbed his arm and disarmed him in one quick move. Tatsuya’s looked shocked as he noticed me, before I released his hand.

“S-Sens—”

“Enough is enough. Three weeks have passed at this point and you are still stuck in this ridiculous loop of yours. Wake up, Tatsuya-kun.”

He tilted his head. He was confused at what was going on. Spending three weeks in this fantasy of his probably corrupted his brain and sense of reality.

“Oh goodness…” I facepalmed myself before I thought what Kronnaz had been doing, believing this was the best path for these boys to grow. Such a barbaric method of teaching was just idiotic!

There was only one way to deal with this… and that was the right way.

“Mother, please assist me.”

[“Just as I showed you.”]

The first thing I learned from Belzac — [Shadow Armament] expansion. Instead of covering a single item or a person, the next step for strong monsters was to expand their elemental presence around the area. To give yourself a home advantage wherever you fought, you needed to spread your elemental mana into the very land itself.

Shadow Armament. Yomi! (Japanese underworld)

With Mother helping me control my shadow around a wide area, I began to cloak Tatsuya’s dream in a dark veil. Using what I learned from using [Smokey Haze], it was actually pretty easy to spread the [Shadow Armament] around, but it became harder the further it went. It would become unstable.

And that was why I needed Mother’s help with this. Similar to an elementalist, or how Hanazawa could use dark spells with her garm onnikais, Mother was helping me by stabilizing my control until I became more adept with it. To ensure I wrapped this whole area in my shadow.

And once I did, I could play around using the law of my shadow manipulation. As long as things were covered in my shadow, I could manipulate them in any way I wanted. And in this case, I grabbed the ground and began merging Kyouya’s and Tatsuya’s dreams together.

“Woah! Woah, Sensei?!”

The world became dark for a moment until the light re-appeared for all of us. The first thing I did when I could see again was to snap my eyes towards a single person.

“Kyouya-kun! Look up!”

“Huh? HUH?! Sen—”

“Give me a moment. Yomi!”

Once again, I spread my mana around, this time-consuming Kyouya’s whole dream before landing on the ground. Grabbing the ground, I pulled the shadow up into the sky, shrouding everything like a curtain. Darkness had claimed out sight once again.

…

“Please, take a seat, you two.”

““H-Huh?!””

But in the next moment, we weren’t in the darkness anymore. We weren’t in the training field where Kyouya was or the street where Tatsuya wanted to kill Franz. However, we were still in their dreams. The only difference was, the two dreams were now merged and I did some temporary changes.

Now, we were inside a very familiar room for any Shiroko High student. We were inside the counselor's room.

I took a seat on the couch. “Please, take a seat.”

“Huh, where are we— Woah! Sensei, there is a ghost garm behind you!” Tatsuya cried out.

“Oh, she? Let me introduce you two to her, this is my mother.” I gestured to Mother, who was laying behind the couch, barely fitting in the room. “Now, please, take a seat, you two.”

“H-Hold on, I was just inside a forest. Then you two came flying from the sky—”

“Take a seat.”

““Eep!””

Some [True Wolven Bloodlust] and you can cajole anybody~

With both of them seated, I allowed them to ask their questions.

“Sensei, where are we? I thought I was still…” Kyouya wanted to speak out but he became silent all of a sudden.

“If you are wondering if you are still inside your dreams, then, yes, you are. Both of you have been stuck inside this dream bubble for three weeks now,” I answered to push the conversation forward.

“Three weeks?! You have to be kidding me… Urgh, n-now, I remember.” Tatsuya looked away from me, looking like he was ashamed of himself. “I-I… T-That wasn’t me, Sensei. I hate Daisy, b-but I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t do that, please, you have to believe me.”

“Mhmm, I do, Tatsuya.”

“You do?”

“Of course, there are many things we would not want to show others in fear of them judging us. It is an entirely normal human action.” I nodded to Tatsuya’s elation. “After all, looking through the memories of the both of you… I really have to question the things you both mastur—”

““Stop! Uwaarrrrgh!!!”” Both boys cringed. We were all adults here, there was nothing to be embarrassed about.

After the two calmed down, Tatsuya was the first to speak up, again. “Alright, alright, I really don’t want to go that way, but can you tell us why the hell you would just look through our memories?”

“Oh, I was not the one who was looking through your memories. At worst, my mother looked through them and was trying to share them with me. Believe me, I sure did not want to learn your fetishes.” Both boys groaned, but I ignored them. “In any case, the two of you were showing me your memories by reliving them. As I said, you have been here for three weeks now. It is time for the both of you to wake up, so that is why I am here.”

“… How will you help us?” Kyouya asked, slightly hesitant to know the answer.

I smiled and then began gesturing around the room, presenting it as my reply. “Shouldn’t it be obvious? It has been a while since we have done one, but I believe you two need it, right now. Let us talk about your future~”

It was career, slash, Job counseling time.

A note from AbyssRaven

Saori has some troubled students if you ask me. And this is only one half of her class, who knows what the hell is going on with the others.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Side Story 37: Job Counseling.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“… Sensei?” Kyouya raised an eyebrow, looking at me with a bewildered look.

“Yes?”

“Career counseling? Really?” Tatsuya looked unimpressed. “If you’ve forgotten, we already had one of them. Why would you want to talk to us about our careers? I mean, aren’t we stuck in this world where our only possible job is to be adventurers?”

I tilted my head. “Boys, I also mentioned ‘Job’ counseling, as in, your System Job. Fighter. Spearmen. And so on. Hey, I am not the gaming addict here, Tatsuya.”

“Point taken.” Tatsuya shrugged and sighed. “Haaa, question, Sensei. I’m starting to remember how all of this happened and how Kronnaz persuaded us into this. I thought this was to test us. To help us find an answer to her question. Are you even allowed to help us?”

[Divine Quest: Pass Belzac’s Trials and Training] was technically my Divine Quest, but they were also given to my students. It was there for us to unlock our Unique Job slots. While my trial was there for Belzac to see my current control of my shadows, the boys’ trials were about them finding a conviction to fuel their training.

For example, I wanted to surpass Belzac at his peak so I could become so powerful my friends and I wouldn’t have to worry about anything anymore. This was my way to take care of my family and friends. However, according to Kronnaz, the boys had recently lost some of their motivation.

I thought it was weird, since they kept fighting after our unfortunate fight with those wrath demonkins, but my assessment was wrong. After watching their dreams, they seemed more conflicted than I thought. They hid their insecurities after that battle, and somebody had to help them overcome that. Kronnaz thought they could do it themselves, but after three weeks, I knew I had to intervene.

“Did something happen in the three weeks we’ve been out?”

I shook my head at the boys’ concerns. “Belzac is forbidding us from entering the subspace until my training is over. Vivachel told me he was afraid I would run away, hehe. As such, I do not know if something happened to Hestia or the others, but I trust they are alright.”

“So…?”

“So I came here to help because you two have been taking too long. Even Hanazawa has found her goal to further her training.”

“Do you mind if we ask what it is?” Kyouya wondered.

“Quote, ‘To kick the fucking ass of that piece of shit pope who thought he could use me like a damn political pawn.’ I listened to her talks with Ilsaphone, and, well, I think she is starting to like her new powers after she learned what she could do with it.”

Hanazawa was a known graffiti artist back on Earth, and the moment she learned she could use her unique skill and divine blessing to turn her talent into a combat style, she instantly jumped onto the opportunity. To Ilsaphone’s chagrin, nevertheless.

Instead of listening to her and how her blessing could help people, Hanazawa thought she could use her power to quote, “Kick the church down and get revenge for all the damn saint classes I had to take!!!” It was pretty petty, but… it was Hanazawa. After getting a glimpse of her past by, ahem, eavesdropping on what she spoke with Ilsaphone, I’ve been able to understand her situation.

It brought a light to what I learned from her parents. Lies, you could say, but at the same time hearsay. Hanazawa’s childhood was troubled because of her unfeeling and unsympathetic parents. Her parents told me they tried their best to educate and discipline her, but every attempt didn’t matter as she kept rebelling against them. Now that I thought about it, they acted pretty well whenever we spoke… or maybe they didn’t know how to adequately convey their feelings to Hanazawa because of their jobs.

Regardless of the truth in this matter, I was just glad the girl was trying to find a reason to stay motivated. As much as I couldn’t tolerate her tardiness and laziness when I was still her teacher, it was bygones at this point.

“In addition, I have been taking up training from Belzac ever since I left my dream bubble,” I continued.

“Wait, have you gotten your unique Job already, Sensei?!” Tatsuya jumped onto his feet, surprise on his face.

“Calm down.” I gestured to him to sit back down. “I fulfilled my ‘divine Quest’ and unlocked the slot, but I have not gotten one yet. However, that is not important, what is important is why I altered your dreams and intervened. Why I am here is because of you two.”

“…”

“…”

They kept silent. Both frowned and even began to grimace, probably reflecting on everything that had happened, or, what they missed out on in the three weeks they’ve been stuck here. The trial wasn’t to break out of this dream, it was to find a reason to continue fighting. Kronnaz was patient, which I guess was a trait of a good god, so she didn’t care for the “when.” It was the “if” she cared for the most.

“As the leader of this group, I have a responsibility to take care of you. And, unlike Hestia’s and Grimnir’s group, we are here purely on a training trip. I need to fully embrace my fenrir bloodline, while Hanazawa has to become worthy to wear the mantle of Ilsaphone’s saintess. Which brings us to you, two.”

“…” Tatsuya clenched his hands into fists while he shut his eyes. Tension was on his face.

“… Uhm.” On the other hand, Kyouya spoke up, but he nonetheless was equally as tense. “Then, what will you be talking with us about? You said you saw our dreams, right?”

“I apologize.” I bowed slightly. Necessary or not, I intruded into their memories without their permission.

“No, no, it’s alright, Sensei. Not like we left you with any choice… I know what I’ve been doing is pathetic. My unique skill was the only thing keeping me valuable as a party member by being able to defend everybody… but now, I’m just a normal person trying to fight giant monsters and demonkins strong enough to threaten you, Tasianna, and even Ellaine.”

“Have you spoken with Ellaine, yet? The problem you have was the same one Ellaine had which influenced her to accept Klea’Hatma as her partner,” I explained, still feeling slightly irritated by that fact. Klea’Hatma has been useful for us, but we didn’t need her.

“… I had heard something like that, but not the real details.” Kyouya shrank his body up a bit, looking even more defeated.

“That is why allow me to speak what I would have told Ellaine if I were there when she accepted that demoness. Comparing yourself to others will motivate you, but do it too often and it would only cripple your mindset. Personal growth and evolution can only happen if you accept your own flaws and build upon them, instead of denying them altogether.” My mind wandered to Ellaine’s face and all the sweat and blood she had to shed ever since she became a demon contractor. “However, if you must use borrowed power, do not let it consume you. Grasp it, pound it down, and never, ever let it rule you. Make that power your own, no matter what.”

“… It feels like you were talking to Ellaine right there, Sensei,” Tatsuya commented casually, but I felt he wasn’t taking my words seriously.

“I wasn’t. Tell me, how much has Kronnaz told you? Has she told you exactly why she was so interested in the both of you, to the point she was willing to help you train?” Both shook their heads, so I let out an internal sigh. “She is helping you two because she wants you to leave Peolynca.”

Both boys raised an eyebrow, looking like they weren’t hearing correctly, so I elaborated on it. “Unlike Ilsaphone, who wants Hanazawa’s help for, or Vivachel, who acts like everything is a playtoy, Kronnaz dislikes otherworlders. While she can tolerate Hestia, she considers me and our entire class to be unwanted guests.”

“You? Sensei, you died, how are you at fault here?”

“Because, as she explained it, I died when you were transported to this world. My soul, instead of being reborn normally, was transported here and found a new body. In this case, my soul became part of a new fetus.” I turned to Mother who was looming over me. “I became a warg out of luck. I wasn’t meant for this body, you could say.”

Hearing it from Kronnaz and then reinforced by Ilsaphone was shocking to hear. Hestia was planning to become a dragon, but I was born as a warg through sheer luck. However…

“It is something I cannot change anymore. I have to live my life now. As a Peolyncian, I cannot exactly leave, hehe.” I giggled at how Kronnaz sighed when I brought that fact up to her. “However, she is currently planning to train you, make you strong enough to survive our future fights, because she wants you and the rest of your classmates to leave this world.”

“So we’re tools?” Kyouya deduced the meaning of my words. “Tsk, nothing has changed then. First used by the church, which I don’t even know why, and now used by a god just so she can kick us out, instead of doing it herself. And how exactly does she plan on doing that? She saw us fight against her! Even with Ellaine, we stood no chance.”

“We talked big about how Ellaine shouldn’t give up… about how she shouldn’t regret her actions, only to eat dirt not once, but twice.” Tatsuya grabbed his head where Vifi’Yok kicked him, massaging it as he continued. “… I haven’t been able to say this, but thank you, Sensei. You saved my life. If you hadn’t wrapped me in your shadow armor, I would have died, right?”

I didn’t say or do anything. I felt uncomfortable thinking of that shocking moment. To make sure my students will make it out of Peolynca alive, I promised myself to become stronger. At least, this should be my graduation gift for them.

“And after I lost my unique skill, I don’t know how to go forward. I don’t know how to handle this blasted druidification thing. I should drink the blood of strong monsters to gain more transformations? How can I be sure Belzac isn’t tricking me? Am I gonna lose myself?” Tatsuya grimaced, looking like he was about to cry. “All I know is to trash talk. I’m useless. Dead weight. I couldn’t help my parents when they were in pain, I couldn’t get over my damn coffee addiction to train despite knowing the reality I was in, and now, I don’t know how to get strong enough to fight with Aurora! I don’t know the path ahead!”

“… It feels like we’re just foot soldiers, compared to you, Sensei.” Kyouya admitted. “That one-year ‘ training’ at the church helped us become strong enough to take care of common bandits and C rank monsters. We’re above average, compared to the normal Peolyncian. However, if we want to fight demonkins and princes of sins, we need to be more than just grunts. Even with Yorshka’s instructions—”

I clapped my hands, interrupting Kyouya before he continued on his rant. His and Tatsuya’s attention was back to me.

“And that is why I am here.” I looked at them straight into the eyes before I spoke my next words. “If you need a push, then I am here to help you two take the next step. If you need power, then allow me to give you that chance.”

The boys looked at each other, utterly confused at what I was talking about.

“Are you talking about training?” Tatsuya brought it up but I just shook my hand.

“Not quite. Remember what I said before? About how if you need borrowed power to continue forward, you should do your best to make it your own?” Both of them nodded. “Hestia’s [Idol], Ellaine’s [Okl’Luthier’s Power], and Hanazawa’s [Twilight Paladin]. In a way, you could argue Tasianna buying her [Ice Magic] from the SP shop and me getting [Stygian Voltage] from my evolution are also undeserved powers. We gained them not through effort alone, but also luck while two unique skills came from the gods. My point is, if life gives you lemons, use it to make the best lemonades in the world.”

[“The power of the shadow pack.”] Mother suddenly spoke out, causing both of the boys to start understanding what I meant.

“Sensei, are you meaning to ask us to become part of your shadow beasts?!” Kyouya's jaw dropped.

“[Shadow Pack] allows me to make everything my shadow beasts. as long as they are sentient and eligible. Not only monsters or onnikais, but also humanoids. Humans count. However!” I raised a finger. “Anything who becomes part of my shadow pack will become a monster, which means you can also evolve. I am offering you this option, but think this through. I do not know how my skill will affect you, and neither does Belzac or the gods.”

There was also this title:

Pack Leader

A title given to the designated Alpha of a group of beasts or beastmen. While fighting with the Alpha, the pack members’ Strength and Intelligence will gain 5% of the Alpha’s current Strength and Intelligence. The Alpha will unconditionally gain 25% of all received experience from its pack members. A list of members can be seen with this title

5% of my Strength was huge. It helped my garms and virigresses when they fought with me, so what would happen if humans were to get 5% of a B rank fenrir’s power?

Whether Tatsuya or Kyouya remembered that fact about my title or if they were just overwhelmed by my offer, they couldn’t help but gulp. However, this offer was something I planned before I learned how troubled they were. Before any of them could answer, I had to stop them.

“However, do not forget, this is a counseling session. Before the two of you choose anything, we need to talk.” I then looked directly into Tatsuya’s eyes before looking over at Kyouya’s. “You need to be honest with yourself. Speak your mind about what happened. And you, Tatsuya-kun, listen to him.”

“S-Sensei?!” Kyouya flinched while Tatsuya looked at him quizzically. Kyouya probably understood what I meant, seeing as he knew I saw his memories. “I-I don’t want to bring something that old back up, again.”

“This is not only for you, Kyouya-kun, but also for Tatsuya-kun. Your inner dilemma and your inability to choose what you want to do is currently trapped inside your guilty consciousness, creating a martyr complex where you want to be relied on. To be useful for others and to stand up for them.”

“Kyouya?” Tatsuya seemed affected by my words. Considering he has been friends with Kyouya since childhood, it would be obvious to him. “What have you been dreaming about?”

“…”

“Kyouya!” Tatsuya stood up.

“Tatsuya-kun, you shouting will not help him! Sit down!”

“Uek! Kuk…” Tatsuya grit his teeth, dropping down on the couch while leaning his head back. To create an environment where teenagers could talk properly, it was necessary to eliminate any chance for possible judgement.

At least, that’s what I remember from that psychology lecture.

“Kyouya-kun, I know you probably would rather not tell this to Tatsuya-kun, of all people, but you two are friends. You should not keep so many secrets from each other. It will make you feel better by getting this off your chest.”

Be diplomatic and give them a chance to either go forward or backwards. It was necessary to encourage them and show them what would happen if they were being truthful. Never admonish them.

“…” Kyouya gripped his fists together before turning to Tatsuya, cowering before him, looking smaller than his build would suggest. “I… Tatsuya, I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For… when I moved with my parents. We promised each other we would keep in touch and that we would meet in summer. However, I didn’t do that nor in winter. I know we drifted apart, and I think our friendship probably would have stopped if we weren’t playing together online.” Kyouya lowered his face, even starting to tremble slightly. “… I didn’t want to, but—”

“But you wanted to change, yeah, I know.” Tatsuya let out a deep sigh as he ended his friend’s sentence. He then shuffled closer to Kyouya, tapping him on the shoulder. “Come on, dude, don’t you think I wouldn’t be happy for you? You changed so much when we met again, I couldn’t help but be jealous.”

“What are you talking about? Didn’t you change because I was away? The moment we meet again, I see you chugging down coffee like a madman. Not even the light stuff or a frap, but black coffee! You literally drank that black goo willingly!” Kyouya’s mood suddenly changed as he erupted from his seat, looking at Tatsuya as if he was crazy.

“I told you already, it was because of school. Getting into Shiroko wasn’t just money, money, money, it was also a lot of studying! Just because you felt less stressed out by the entrance exam, I needed that coffee to stay up to learn! I couldn’t understand the physics and math stuff at all!”

“Then why didn’t you tell me about the fact your parents had a court case earlier?!”

“…!”

Kyouya’s shout shut Tatsuya down, causing the latter to fiddle with his fingers as he averted his eyes away. Kyouya, knowing what he said, sat back down and took a deep breath.

“S-Sorry—”

“Nah, stop it, dude. You’ve apologized too often already…” Tatsuya sighed. “I thought we talked about this already. I already said sorry for not telling you this earlier. Why are you bringing this up again? What does this have to do with what Sensei said?”

“… I… I didn’t just do all of this training just for my appearance.” Kyouya bit his lips and scratched his hair. Anxious as he was, he was finally revealing what he was holding back. “I didn’t want to be that fat, sweaty kid who followed you around like a dog anymore, but I also wanted to be useful to you. Like, actually useful outside of just gaming, Tatsuya. Your and my dad are good friends, but my dad didn’t know about your family’s trouble after it was resolved. Didn’t you trust us?”

“Dude, I… Haaa, of course, I didn’t think of you like that, but this was a problem for our family. I told you that, already. We had to handle this ourselves, or did you want us to ask your dad for help? What was he supposed to do? Daisy’s dad is an asshole, and he targeted my dad because of some of his enemies.”

“Then it would have been even better if you asked my dad for help! He just became CEO and managed to win over the entire board of directors! He could have helped you! Maybe not in the court, but outside. All the evidence was faked, right?” Kyouya was pushing Tatsuya, trying to get more information from him. I was contemplating if I should intervene, but both of the boys fighting now might be better.

“I know you came to hate Franz-san after all of that. You even apologize to Sensei about it. What did you dream about? You wouldn’t act like that when it comes to him.”

“… Hey, dude, you’re really start—” Tatsuya was starting to become irritated, but before he could push Kyouya back, the latter didn’t back down.

“Don’t ‘Hey, dude’ me! This is what I’m talking about! You can’t rely on me, right? Even after all the time we’ve been in Peolynca, fighting tooth and nail back-to-back. Urgh, FUCK!” Kyouya jumped onto his feet and began circling around the room. “Be honest with me, did I fuck up our friendship, or not? Elementary to middle. Did I fuck it up?!”

“Argh! Why the hell would you want me to say something like—”

“DID I FUCK IT UP!”

“FUCK OFF!” Tatsuya jumped onto his feet and grabbed Kyouya’s collar. I almost instinctively stood up, but managed to hold myself back. “If you want me to say it that badly, then, yes! What the hell did you think?! We made a fucking promise! You don’t fucking know how much I prepared for our summer! I entered a tournament and got us tickets for the premier of that pocket creature movie! And instead of telling me it a month or so ahead, you told it to me three days before our rendezvous!”

Tatsuya threw Kyouya onto the couch, almost knocking it over. “And then you declined coming to winter, then the next summer, and only when that damn game came out did we finally talk, again! But do you know how lonely I felt? Fuck the internet and all the social media! I just wanted us, the two of us, to just go around the city and eat some stupid pockies together!”

Tatsuya fell onto the floor, massaging his face in exhaustion. Both were breathing heavily, completely silent after what happened. At this point, saying anything would only have the reverse effects.

“… I want to kill that bastard Daisy. That's what I dreamed about. There, you happy?” Tatsuya admitted. “I wanted to find a way to change the court case, but it was obvious it was impossible. I don’t know much about legalities and it’s just a stupid dream. My mum cried so much during that whole court case, I even blamed dad for not doing enough… I was a freaking spoiled brat and just as useless as one. Still useless, though, even after everything.”

“…” Kyouya recomposed himself and stood up from the couch. He walked over to Tatsuya, speaking to him while standing above him. “You never told me this part. You’re doing, again, dude. Why can’t you rely on me for anything? You can rely on me for fights, but not something this personal?”

“Rely on you for what? It isn’t your business?”

Kyouya’s eye twitched as he grabbed Tatsuya’s arm, pulling him up onto his feet. “Rely on me to kill Daisy, of course!”

“W-What?!”

“Hold on, Kyouy—” I felt like I just heard something stupid right there. I wanted to interrupt the two, but Kyouya spoke before I could.

“Imaginary Daisy, of course?! I’m not a psychopath who wants to kill my classmate!” He released Tatsuya’s arm. “But I’m talking about everything in general! Rely on me! Let me help you! I-I just want to be useful to somebody! Especially when that person is my best friend who made my childhood something I still fondly remember! Without you, I wouldn’t have been able to bring myself to get rid of all that fat!”

“… Woah.”

“Don’t ‘Woah’ me, dude. Come on! I’m telling you everything here, but that is all you got to say? Jeez!”

Kyouya turned around, massaging his temples while Tatsuya stood there, opening his mouth up like a goldish over and over again. He didn’t know what to say, and from the look of things, if a third party wouldn’t help out now, none of them would continue speaking. In other words, it was my turn.

“Tatsuya-kun.” I drew his attention to me. “That dream… I told you people sometimes want to keep their demons to themselves. However, Kyouya-kun just asked you something. To allow him to help you kill Franz-san.”

“Imaginary!” Kyouya shouted, but I ignored him for now.

“Do you want that?”

“… Of course, not. I know all of this is because of his dad, but even then, I don’t want to see him dead nor his dad. It’s just… his dad is a lawyer, a prosecutor, but that old bag was willing to lie under oath just to fuck up my dad. That’s perjury, he should know that! And his son, who’s being trained by his dad to become a prosecutor, too. Why in the hell would I want my country to gain another piece-of-shit lawyer like that?”

“So you dislike him because of his father instead of that one moment when you asked Franz-san to persuade him?”

“W-Well, I mean, it still stung, yeah… But, maybe… I-I don’t know. I just can’t get myself to like him at all, Sensei. I hate it whenever he speaks or even comes into my sight.” Tatsuya seemed indecisive. He needed another push.

“I know you’ve only known him when you both enrolled into Shiroko but—”

“Uhm n-no, Sensei. That wasn’t our first time meeting.”

“Huh?” Now I was flabbergasted. I thought I knew everything from his dreams.

“Well, it was actually our third time speaking when I asked him about that thing with his dad. I actually met him after Kyouya left me waiting after summer. I didn’t know what to do with the ticket, so I wanted to give it to somebody at the arcade.” Tatsuya tapped his forehead, trying to remember things. “I met him there with his cousin. Was showing his younger cousin around Japan, I think. She was a foreigner, but I guess that makes sense for a Half-German like him.”

Franz has a younger cousin? Well, that shouldn’t have been too weird.

“In any case, his young cousin — can’t remember her name — tried to cheer me up with her broken Japanese. Found her nice, so I gave the tickets to her, and that was when Franz came over, totally overprotective like those stereotypical big brothers, you know. We had a big misunderstanding.” Tatsuya sighed. “His cousin solved everything, thankfully. Franz then accepted the tickets and went with his cousin to the movies. We met the next day, in the park. That’s where I learned his cousin loved playing games, so we spent some time together.”

Sounds like a lovely girl.

“And you managed to remember him but not his cousin’s name?” Kyouya asked.

“W-Well, yeah! I never met her again, and I forgot to share my number. I wouldn’t have recognized Franz either, if he hadn’t reminded me… Shit. Urgh, it stings, again.” Tatsuya clenched his teeth.

Oh…

“… You felt betrayed.” I spoke that out.

“… He’s changed. Not only when we met, but over the years during school. Randomly getting white hair like that. I didn’t know what happened to him, and I hated him too much to ask.” Tatsuya looked conflicted. “He was pretty nice, you know. As kids. But, maybe he was just being nice because his cousin was around, and he didn’t want to scare her…”

“If that is the case, then, Tatsuya-kun, I think I know what you really want, right now.” I walked up to him, confident I now knew how to solve his internal turmoil.

“Coffee?”

“No!” I slapped his shoulder, causing him to yelp in surprise as I forgot to hold back my strength. After apologizing, I continued, “Ahem, I was talking about confronting Franz-san on this.”

“… You want me to talk to him?”

“Yes, of course. You want to know exactly why this happened. Tatsuya-kun, I know you might not believe me, but Franz is not an extremely scary person. During our first year together at Shiroko, I met with him for some consultation concerning financial problems. I told him a bit about my life, and he accepted everything without judging me for it. He changed, yes, but he seemed like a rational person.”

“Sensei, didn’t you find him scary?” Kyouya brought up, causing me to shiver a bit.

“Not him, his father! Of course I would be scared of his father! The first time we met, I thought I was about to get sued after he criticized me for being underprepared and unsuited to teach his son! He told me that in my face! If it weren’t for the principal, I really thought I would faint on the spot!”

I had some terrible memories of that despicable man. If there were any modern-time villains, he could pass as one.

“However, during all those teacher-parent meetings, I also learned how reserved Franz-san was around his father. He acts completely differently,” I recalled as much as I could to persuade Tatsuya. “You feel troubled about Franz-san because of your past relations with him. If you feel so conflicted you want to kill him inside your mind, then it would be best if you settled this by talking with him. Even if all he can say is nonsense, it would be best if you spoke.”

“… But he’s currently in the empire.”

“Exactly, and we know the demonkins currently control the church and also the empire from the shadows. At least, they have their hands everywhere. And, most likely, after Hestia took away your unique skills, the demonkins probably will know something is up. In other words, if you want to meet Franz-san, then you need to become stronger.”

“…” Tatsuya stared at me, rolling his jaw slightly before he started nodding. “Beats fighting around like a tool. I got all the fulinoe leaves I want because of Hestia, and now I can get a chance to beat Daisy’s jaw in. Sounds good.”

“Hold on, I didn’t— Actually, nevermind. It is your business, you are an adult, haaaa.” I shook my head before turning over to Kyouya. “How was it? Getting everything off your chest.”

“… Good. Thank you, Sensei. I finally got to know what Tatsuya has been thinking all this time.” He bowed deeply. “As such, I want to ask… is the [Shadow Pack] transform reversible?”

“Kyouya?!” Tatsuya looked bewildered.

“I think I know what I want to do now, Sensei.” I nodded to Kyouya, recognizing his more sharpened eyes. “I want to become a Rank S adventurer before we leave Peolynca?”

I tilted my head, not expecting such a simple goal.

“I want to be like you and Hestia-chan, Sensei. I want to be so strong that people can rely on me safely, and when I can help them, I want to be able to do it without fearing about myself. Those demonkins? Even stronger than them, if possible. I want to get my unique skill, and if I have to struggle to own it, then I will!”

“That is a martyr complex, Kyouya-kun.”

“I know! I know that. I’m not saying that I want to be a hero, but when it comes to helping my friends, I want to be their hero. When you need me, Sensei, I want to be there fighting by your side. And, to do so, I need to learn from you. That is why, until I return to Peolynca, I want to become a part of your pack! I want to hunt and fight with the future strongest fenrir to become the strongest adventurer!”

“Hehehe, but would that not mean you will become stronger than even Hestia and me?”

“That’s the point, Sensei!”

“Oh, and now you sound like Hestia. Honestly, choose one person and take them as your role model, Kyouya-kun. Flip-flopping around is not good.” I smiled. “I will talk with the gods about it. Tatsuya, what about you? WIll you become a part of my pack, too?”

“… I want to be able to control this druidification of mine. If that is my only valuable skill now that [Rush Hour] is gone, then I better train it up. In any case, Sensei, you probably want to meet the remaining 15 of the class, right? I’ll get stronger, so, please, let me be a member of your pack, too!”

And my smile widened even further as the world around started to become fuzzy. Tatsuya and Kyouya started to fade, probably from the fact they finally found a reason to keep on training. In addition to that, I have also found two more pack members to welcome. Only Hanazawa was left.

“See you later, Sensei!”

“Thank!”

I waved at the boys as they disappeared in front of me and the world shattered into pieces, returning everything back to nothingness. The only people left in this place were my Mother and me.

[“They are quite interesting, just like your garms, Saori.”] Mother spoke reservedly.

“Hahaha, they are a bit too colorful, no? But, I came to like them over the years because they are so interesting. Haaa, although sometimes I wished I had normal students.”

Still, my memories of our time in Shiroko High School were a valuable experience for me. I was quite fond of them, and Tatsuya was right, I wanted to help them. And the first thing for that goal was to train myself, also.

However, before that…

“Let us go find your body, Mother.”

[“Mhmm. Thank you, my pup.”]

It was time to revive my dearest Mother.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 327: Bracket Stage.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Okay, honest opinion…” Neill stared at with me a serious look. Tension was rising as she kept her silence. “I need you to be honest about it, okay, Sis?”

“…” I kept my silence.

“Hmmmm… Ahhhhhhh.” Neill took in a deep breath before letting it all out, shaking her head a few times to show me how urgent and important my answer would be. With how the mood was set, it had to be something serious…

“Which of these look better on me?”

“STOP GOING NAKED IN FRONT OF ME!”

… She was deciding on what to wear for our matches today.

“Sheesh, don’t shout!” Neill glared at me as if I was the irrational one, thinking being an exhibitionist was okay! “We are dragonkins, you know. What are you so unhappy about? Don’t tell me you actually have something for your own sister?”

“NO!” I shouted vehemently to deny her allegations. “I am okay with you being naked when we go into the hot spring or shower together. No problem. Just stop undressing randomly, especially when I’M EATING BREAKFAST!”

I pointed at Tasianna, Svena, Haati, and Rajah, the only other people inside the dining room of our subspace, making Neill aware there were also others around. Exposing yourself to others was just plain out rude and awkward! They were all averting their gazes, understandably so!

“And? Not like this is my actual body, anyways. Besides, my clothes are made from my scales. In that sense, I am walking around naked, for a humanoid’s common sense.” Neill shook her head in exasperation as she created her scaled yukata, again. As reluctant as she was, she still acquiesced to my wish. “Jeez, you honestly act more like Renee. Act more like your mother, Sis. She is technically walking around naked, as well.”

“That’s not the point, haaaaa. Whatever, just sit down and eat. We need some calories for later.”

The weekend has passed and today was the first day of the bracket stage of the tournament of Yeostar. The moment we returned to Elyonda yesterday, our tournament bracelet shone, displaying information on the first 16 matches.

Looking at the schedule, the matches would be spread throughout the week, with the first eight fights happening on FireDay and the rest tomorrow, EarthDay. After the first round was done, the second round would pit each winner against the other in their bracket, leading to another eight matches on WaterDay. Which would lead to us having four matches on WindDay, where the quarter matches would start.

LightDay, so Friday, would be a showcasing match for the five champions of the five ruling princes of the Divide. In other words, it was an extended weekend for us fighters and the semis and final would be held next week.

And, coincidentally, Neill and I would be fighting our matches today, but on the complete opposite ends of our 16-man bracket. Meaning, if we were to win all our fights, we would meet during our semi-finals.

I honestly had a feeling some “personal touches” were made during the scheduling. It didn’t really seem fair, especially if you knew the rest of the matches. It didn’t feel random. Very tailored towards making it the best show for the audience.

In any case, our matches were today, and we needed to eat before it began during the lunch bell. I was happy to see Neill this morning, but the moment she began talking about what clothes she should wear for her match today, I honestly felt something bad would happen. And lo and behold, my sister exposed herself.

Was this how siblings behaved with each other? I honestly did not know as a single child for my entire Earth life. Maybe this was just a dragon thing.

“So…” I began after the two of us finished our first breakfast course. My belly was full and my early morning grouchiness was gone. “Why are you coming in here and talking about clothes for no apparent reason?”

“Hmm? Shouldn’t that be obvious? Why would I wear the same clothes I wore in one match for another,” Neill said as that was obvious to her. “In fact, I should be asking you why you’re wearing the same clothes! I mean, it’s cute and fits you well, but you wear that red jacket and skirt all the time! Don’t you have any other combat clothes, like when we wandered around the city on LightDay?”

I looked down, feeling a bit self-conscious about what she said. “… Well, I have spares of the same ones. It’s not the same…”

“That’s even worse!”

Saori said the same thing to me before she made a bunch of spares of my usual clothes. A red jacket, a frilled skirt, and a vest with a T-Shirt. Sometimes I would wear my white mage robe, sometimes I would wear it like a cape. Sometimes not at all. These were my adventurer clothes, and I got so used to them, that they became kinda normal to me.

Still, I did wear different clothes when I tour the city, though! I wasn’t that boring, but I guess my lazy fashion sense was making me less excited about wearing other clothes. As if Neill could read my thoughts, she was frowning deeply at me.

“You’ve been a human for longer than me, so I thought you knew about it. However, tell me, what makes being a humanoid so good?”

I thought about it for a second, but I couldn’t exactly tell what was so good about being a human compared to a dragon. “Uhm, being smaller so fit everywhere?”

Considering my sister’s unimpressed face, I probably answered incorrectly. “No, it's clothes and fashion!”

“Seriously?” I felt unconvinced.

“Of course! By my tail, you really have no idea, huh? A dragon’s main way to attract mates is their strength and the glistening of their scales, earned by scheduled shedding sessions and cultivating a den filled with mana,” Neill repeated what Mother had already told me. “However, unless you're a master of scale manipulation and know exactly what you are doing, the fashion sense of most dragons is pretty abysmal. I mean, if you take care of your shedding schedule, you have the intimidation and beauty aspect down, but I feel like you can do so much more.”

“My mother does it well enough,” I replied, remembering how fancy Mother was with her scale usage, both in her original and elven form. You couldn’t describe her without mentioning how dazzling she was.

“Well, of course, she’s an ancient scale. Our elders know how to use their scales, but most are pretty old-fashioned, you know. Take my mother, for example. Unlike Melloxtressa, doesn’t experiment with her clothes and how to present herself. She’s too used to her own style, like you!” She pointed at me. “However, you mother? Fashion empress! Her dresses are amazing and the way she uses her ice abilities in combination with her scales to make them look like gemstones is jaw-dropping.”

Neill then slammed the table, pushing herself onto her feet. “Which is why hearing you care so little about your own clothes is beyond infuriating, Sis! Look at us! We are currently dragonewts, but you don’t even try to bring out the best part about our current forms. The flexibility to bring out different types of looks! Here! Look!”

“Ark!” I groaned as I saw her yukata starting to break down. “Stop going naked!”

I sent my own scales out to hide her body like a curtain, shaking my head in astonishment at how she was so casual with exposing herself. In any case, after a few seconds, she called me out and I let the scale curtain down, only to see Neill wearing a ballroom dress with her hair tied up and combed, showing off her three horns as they glowed an iridescent blue, probably created from her mana.

“… Wow, that is a real change.”

The wild nature of her mane-like hair and skin-showing yukata was completely gone, replaced by an exotic beauty and refinement I would have never expected from my battle junkie sister. She could use some makeup to elevate her charm even further, going for the mature vibe I would expect from an older sister.

“Mhmm, right? I hate those balls. Too stuffy, but I’ve watched some human nobles dance in these to make my own using my scales. I really look good, right?” Neill’s eyes gaze down her dress, enchanted by her own beauty and even began to adjust things about her appearance while she did it.

“… Is that why you took that curvy body as your human form?” Transforming from a monster to a human allowed you to customize your look however you wanted upon your first transformation, although it was hard to impossible to change that appearance afterward.

“Mhmm, I asked around what would be the best-looking form I could take. Elves and dragonewts were my own reference point, though, but I learned from men how they like curvy women, so I took this form to look the best!”

At least, you didn’t go too wild on the front part… Yeah, she’s a bit needy for attention, huh?

Then again, people had the right to look however they wanted. If Neill liked that body of hers, then what could I say about it. Which made me curious about what Neill said about dragon fashion. However, when I asked her if she could show me how to make my dragon form look prettier, and less scary, Neill just flat out told me to ask Mother about it.

“I’m not a good role model if you want to know how to make your dragon form look better…” Neill contorted her mouth, looking like she didn’t want to continue talking. This was the second time Neill declined showing me her dragonkin form.

Weird. Here I thought I could get an idea… guess I have to ask Mother about it.

Neill then asked me about modern Earth fashion, remembering I was an otherworlder. Saori was the expert on this topic, but if Neill liked talking about fashion, then I could indulge her with what I used to wear. It gave us something to talk about while we ate.

After our breakfast was done, Neill told me to put up my scale curtain again so she could do what she came here for: to ask me what she should wear for today’s match. Considering how fascinated she was with modern Japan’s styling, I wasn’t really surprised what her outfit was.

Ripped black jeans with a purple tank top and her usual black-purple jacket. Trendy, stylish, and still fitting for the summer temperature although I thought hot pants might have elevated her tomboy look. With her wild hair down and a lack of shoes, Neill really looked like a delinquent at this point.

After I gave my approval of her look, Neill smirked as she looked at me, making it obvious what she was thinking.

“H-Hey, I just got [Scale Manipulation]. It’s not that good yet to create clothes!” I protested, but Neill didn’t let me continue. Understanding what my sister wanted, Tasianna’s and Svena’s eyes sparkled for a moment as they jumped onto the bandwagon.

“Lady Hestia, your honorable sister is correct! Today you must present yourself. Do not forget what Lady Amelia told you about how you needed to advertise for your concert today.” Tasianna smiled deviously.

“I concur. Princess Fargryneill’s wisdom is something you must accept, my lady. Our hair is a woman’s pride, but wearing the correct and appropriate clothes depending on the situation is our talent! You must agree how dull it must be to wear the same thing over and over again.” On the other hand, Svena looked like she wouldn’t accept a no from me. Considering the number of times I denied her a chance to try out new clothes, using “I am busy” as an excuse, I couldn’t fault her for hopping onto this chance.

After all, this time, my attendants had my sister as their supporter. They could put their self-interest over their duty.

“… Okay.” In the end, I accepted. I couldn’t argue against the fact I have been using the same clothes for a while now.

However, unlike what Neill wanted, I still wasn’t good enough with my scale manipulation to properly create details like fabric. Everything I created still had a clear scaly theme. In addition, since my scales were crimson red, everything I made was crimson red. Not very appealing as it made me monotone.

So, it was decided I chose from the closet-sized cloth collection in my storage, all made by Saori. Tasianna and Svena were going about it madly, using me like a dress-up doll. The fact they haven’t been able to do this in months really made them go into a clothing frenzy.

As usual, Tasianna and Svena had a more time-appropriate fashion sense. It contrasted Neill’s quick interest in modern Japanese fashion, to the point she was arguing with the others to dress me in such a style. “As sisters, we should match!” she argued, which convinced my two attendants.

However, as you would expect from my attendants, even outside their comfort zone, they still picked something decent for me. A green blouse with a white skirt. Simple but elegant, which my attendants wanted me to look. With my white mage robe on as a jacket, I did look pretty decent.

To be honest, Neill and I didn’t look like two fighters who were about to enter an arena, but what could I do, we were dragons. We didn’t need armor with our scales and carapace. I was 100% sure my skin was tougher than conventional steel armor, anyways. You could stab me with a normal iron knife, and it would break without even leaving a mark on my body.

Not to mention, this was without accounting [Draconic Barrier] into the deal.

With both of us looking good, we departed the subspace with Tasianna and Rajah back to our room in that inn we rented. We left the inn and went to the market of the port, wanting to find Mother who was most likely enjoying her time with the ongoing festival. On our way, we caught quite a few eyes due to our clothes, but that was to be expected.

“Hey, it’s the two dragonewt sisters from the tournament, right? Sheesh, I heard from one of the merfolk the two manabloods amongst their community.”

“Ooh, the two dragonewts! Hey, hey, you two, show those humans what scale-kins can do, yeah? The whole crew will be rooting for you!”

The humans and beastmen amongst the crowd showed some slight trepidation as they saw us, noting not only our clothes but also how we were tournament participants. On the other hand, the merfolks and nagas around us, who were all sailors, cheered us on for the upcoming matches. I did hear quite a few of them having bet on us, but I guess the fanfare was still the same.

I wanted to start getting noticed by people, especially since I was planning the concert, so this helped me out by being a known face. The humans still had some fear of beastmen, reminding me what Alistar and Renee told me, while the general beastmen probably were spooked by my status. With the Caedhulens knowing what a Kargryxmor dragonkin was, they were for sure spreading rumors around for us.

“Found her,” I told Neill as my nose caught onto Mother’s scent. Mother and daughter, easy to do now that we knew each other well.

When we arrived at the location, I saw Mother with the twins enjoying some fish balls, onions, tomatoes, and greens inside a loaf of bread with a yellow sauce, reminding me how it looked like gyros. Sitting with her on a table was Adhi and his crew, Master Kush and the Saurians, and also Rita, who was slurping on some seaweed salad — the flat, kelp-like ones, not the noodle-like ones.

“Hestia! Neill! Tasianna! Rajah! Over here!” Similar to me, Mother had probably detected my scent, as she was shouting at us through the giant crowd of the port market.

“Oi, when did your Mother start calling me by my nickname?” Neill was flabbergasted by what she heard. “Melloxtressa, I told you only Hestia may call me like that!”

Neill stormed away from us, rushing towards the others, almost gliding through the crowd without any problems, despite her unicorn horn almost shanking somebody. Once she made it, Master Kush quickly intervened with a hearty laugh and a plate of fish with white sauce.

“Ha ha ha! Lady Fargryneill, it’s too early for fighting. Here, we ordered some food for the four of you. The sailor who cooked it just got back from a four-week voyage to catch some good ingredients for the festival! It sends a shiver down my tail!”

“Mhmm? Is that so? Well, don’t mind if you do! Pay you back later!” And just like that, Neill’s hostility disappeared with the wind. “Mhmm! You’re right, it’s good!”

Ahahaha…

“Good morning, Master. Blessed FireDay to you,” I greeted Master after arriving. “Hmm, Tehmrayn still isn’t accompanying you, huh?”

“Duty calls, sadly. Champion Tehmrayn is like a charging tiger shark, unwavering as he keeps moving forward. To him, his Divine Quest and his devotion to the gods are his main objectives. You cannot fault him for being dutiful,” Master replied, nodding. “In any case, come! Food before our duty begins! Tasianna, Rajah, come!”

We had just eaten breakfast, but a dragon like me had enough room for a second breakfast. And, considering this was a festival, it wasn’t something I should miss. The celebration was everywhere, especially here at the port since foreigners, even some Empire merchants, were around to sell things.

Compared to the city’s main market festival, the port was loose and had more people inside it. Although there was some animosity between the humans and beastmen, it wasn’t enough to stifle the fact we had a harvest and god-worshiping festival. With how there weren’t just Yeosians around, but humans from other countries, it made it far more exciting to be within.

“Hello, hello, honored ladies and gentlemen! Would you be so keen to buy some of this extraordinary oil? Extracted from C rank [Wrulf-Toothed Land-Bats]! Very good for your skin and also quite a good coating for your armor!”

“Hear ye, hear ye! The finest silk imported directly from the Empire to Yeos! Spider silk, moth silk, and even slime silk! Elegant and strong, great as a present for your wife or fiance!”

“O-Oi, fuck! Ya rat! Get him! Thief!”

Snake oil salesmen, foreign merchants, and pocket thieves were all within this mess of a crowd. It was loud and obtuse, but oh boy, did it bring in the festival atmosphere. In addition, the fact we could taste all the food in this place was amazing. Whether I liked them or not, it was still a great memory to make with my friends and family.

As I was ordering and eating my second breakfast, I suddenly noticed a tall person in a set of marine black armor. It looked familiar to me, helping me recognize the person from the design of it alone — Chahayat, the merfolk pirate hunter I met during the rumble round. Following him were a few other merfolks and also nagas, but all of them looked like normal citizens.

Adhi noticed me looking in that direction, prompting him to look over, too. “Hmm? Oh, isn’t that Sir Chahayat? Hahaha, I’m not a gambler, but if I were, I would bet my coins on that Tide Watcher to win his match today!”

“Tide Watcher?” I recognized that name.

“Oooh, so that merfolk is a fellow colleagues, huh? I would never have expected another of our kind here, right, Krim? Ha ha ha ha, we oughta introduce myself then,” Master laughed before downing some kelp juice, which I honestly couldn’t understand why he would like that slimy stuff.

“Hmm? Yeah, that guy. I heard a bit from speaking with the folks at the pier. Heard he’s a pirate hunter, and a pretty notoriously good one, too,” Krim-Slak replied while tearing off some grilled fish from a stick. “Surprised he can join a tournament, honestly, especially since I heard the amount of pirates have been increasing lately.”

“Aye, that I have heard, too.” Adhi nodded his head. “The scalekins at the docks have complained how the human sailors were complaining about them. Have made it hard to come and go from the Empire through the shortest path. Ha, but a Caedhulen vessel can outsail any human ship easily.”

“Hmph. Not like there aren’t merfolk, nagas, or levianewt pirates, Adhi,” Grazlatha corrected him. “Maybe those scalekins following Chahayat around belong to a newly founded tribe. If he hunts pirates in front of Elyonda’s coast, he probably knows a few newly formed tribes nearby.”

“Tribes? Do you mean underwater tribes? Tehmrayn mentioned something about there being villages and cities underwater,” I asked, remembering the discussion Mother and Tehmrayn had about how long he has been active as a Champion.

“Most likely, yes,” Mother answered in their stead. “Similar to how humans would expand to different parts of the land, the ocean dwellers scour new places for homes. Due to how the ocean works, if you can defend your home, you own it. There are no real governing body or rulers, outside of Caedhulen influences.”

No taxes, in other words.

“Yes, that is correct!” Adhi confirmed what Mother told me. “Caedhul and its colonies are perfect for pious followers to live your lives without fearing for dangers, however, although a republic, Lecullius is ruled mostly by the Church of Plesia and its archbishop. Some call this too restricted to perform their faith. After all, we all pray to Plesia for her protection, but there are countless Subordinate Gods in the Pantheon of Water.”

I looked over at Master. Since he was a priest of Plesia’s church, he should be able to confirm this. Which he did, with a nod.

“I for example, pray to the Depth Goddess but my primary god is Xohulotel. It is the same with Yeos and Goddess Aurena and God Yeostar. Caedhul’s church focuses mostly on the primary subordinate Gods of Plesia, the strongest. As a pseudo-Theocracy, you could probably imagine the restriction in faith for the lesser gods.” Master made it easy for me to understand. “As such, some wander off, making a place for themselves to pray. Therefore, there are other merfolk, naga, and levianewt societies outside of Caedhul’s control. However, at the end of the day, Caedhul — mostly Lecullius — remains the seat of faith for the Depth Goddess.”

I “Ooooh”-ed my interest at how this sounded quite similar to how on Earth there were many different branches of the Christian faith. I guess it is quite hard for people to have a similar faith or opinion on the same matter. Even in a world where the gods’ influence can be seen so easily.

“Mhmm! Ahhh, I’m full, ahahaha!” Krim-Slak caressed his belly, looking completely content before straightening his posture. “Alright, time to get to work then.”

He smacked Grazlatha on his back, prompting the other saurian to stand up with him. “Mhmm. Good time, too, with the tournament almost starting. Kush?”

Guess we have to shelf this discussion.

“Aye, ready.” Master and Akast stood up also, looking like he and the saurians were about to disembark somewhere. “Mhmm, once again, I apologize for not being able to watch your match today, my apprentice.”

“Don’t worry about it. I was the one who asked you to help me, so don’t feel bad. Just make sure to stay safe, alright? Who knows what's lurking around.”

As planned, I had asked Master and the saurians to help me out with the search for any demonkin or their sympathizers. With the information we got on that grimgarian group, Master instantly became anxious about the current state of the city. He mentioned how Plesia and Xohulotel wouldn’t send him and Tehmrayn to this city without a real conflict brooding, so he accepted this being his time to get to work.

Tehmrayn would stay at the island to guard the seal keeping the S rank leviathan from opening, while Master and the saurians would look around. As mentioned before, some Empire ships had arrived, which Adhi told me all came yesterday. Meaning, some of them could be our enemies.

“Thanks for helping, Adhi. I’ll pay you back for this so make sure to stay safe,” I told Adhi as he was also starting to get ready to accompany Master. Seeing as he has been working at the port ever since we arrived in Elyonda with him, he knew the most about the port and what was going on here. Also, he had some connections with the other Caedhulen around, so having him would make Master’s job easier.

“Hahaha, don’t worry about it, Lady Hestia. I told you could rely on me, right? With a saint and his knight around, I don’t think I have much to worry about it! A promise is a promise, and I shall do my best to see it finished!” Adhi slapped his tail on the ground proudly, looking extremely reliable.

“Captain, I know this is for the princess, but still…” His crewmates, on the other hand, were more worried about him, not sharing his fervor.

“Quiet! Do not embrasse me! Hahahaha!”

The news of me being Kargryxmor was so widespread amongst the scalekin community of the port that it wasn’t needed to keep it a secret anymore. It was surprising, honestly, but at the same time it shouldn’t have been. If you came from Caedhul, you would know about the culture of your neighbor, Loatryx. Or, at least, know who Kargryxmor was.

It felt like Artorias, again, where my actual status was known to people. Well, they didn’t know I was a dragon yet, but still.

Regardless, with that said, Master, the saurians, and Adhi left to do some sleuthing around the area. As bounty hunters, Master’s group did this for a living before he became a Saint. With their captain also going, the levianewts in his crew told me they would be watching our matches and had bets placed on Neill’s and my match, so we oughta win it for them.

“Oh, before you guys leave, here!” I gave them a piece of parchment with some words on it and a small sketch of a cute dragon girl in my image. “Draconic Concert! Similar to the one I gave in Estralia. Could you do me a favor and hand this out to people? I’ll pay you, of course!”

“““Yes, my lady!”””

Advertising, check!

And with that, our group finished our food and then went into Elyonda, on our way to the arena. Once there, I could hear the same cheers as I heard from the market. Mostly cheers concerning their bet and how I should win it. People really loved betting, huh?

“Okay, see you guys later!” I saw everybody off as I went over to the registration, smirking as I saw the same receptionist who registered me for my tournament. “Yoooooo~ Goooood morning, Mr. Receptionist! Hope you had a good FireDay.”

“…” He forced a smile, twitching and shivering as he tried to talk with me, only to stumble on every word. “Y-Yes, good FireDay, ahahah… Y-You’re here to register, yes?”

“Mhm. Say, you seem tense today, did something happen?” I gloated at him before I tilted my head to the person standing behind him. “Or, did somebody scold you?”

“Huek!”

“Hahaha! Nothing to worry about, Cris.” The middle-aged man tapped the receptionist’s shoulder before gesturing for him to leave. “You earned yourself a rest, how about you go?”

“Y-Yes, Sir! Right away, Sir!” Like a cornered rat, the guy just dashed away.

“Sooooo, who am I speaking to now? The tournament officials? Or the royal palace?” My smile turned serious, glaring at the person with mild annoyance.

The man looked well-groomed, almost looking like a butler, but from the way he dressed, he seemed more like an administrator. He didn’t seem slimy, but I didn’t get a good vibe from him. Almost like he was judging me.

“Both, my lady, however for today, I am here as Duke Alberstien’s messenger, which also includes the noble faction. I am one of the board members controlling the operations of the Arena of Yeostar, Count Bertlez.” He bowed low. I didn’t see this guy when I met Yeos’s prince, but from the way he acted, he knew who I was.

Knew it.

“Board member, huh? So, Count Bertlez, do tell me something. Were you the one who did the bracket placement? I apologize if I am too paranoid, but looking at everything, it seems too convenient. Almost like a show?” My eyes narrowed. My annoyance had changed to irritation.

“… My lady, you should have known from Sir Jethro’s explanation that this tournament is made for us to find our next Champion of Yeostar. If you are asking if it is rigged, then no. Fairness, at least, in honor of God Yeostar.”

I didn’t need to ask Yeostar to know if that was a lie or not.

“Don’t try to trick me with wordings or something. Did you choose the participants randomly or did you place them deliberately?”

“We chose the best and most fitting people to face each other, if that is what you are asking.”

Tch, in other words, yes.

“After all, we never mentioned the bracket stage would be chosen by random. No, there was nothing like that stated in the rules, only that we will create a bracket stage.”

I knew the rules, of course, but what I was annoyed about was the fact how they placed everybody. On our side, so Neill’s and my side of the bracket, all the beastmen and foreign adventurers were placed there to duke it out, while the other side was majority from Yeos.

Strangely, if I were to beat today’s match, I would have to fight against Chahayat, while Neill would need to fight Ghorush, before we met in the semis. On the other hand, Larent, Alistar, and Renee were on the other side. It was clear what they were doing here. Setting up narratives to talk about.

This was more a show, than a noble ceremony to find a new Champion. It felt like I was a spectacle as I would have to fight my sister, while Larent, the Empire’s Ex-Hand of Heaven, would fight against Yeos’s knight commander. All to see who would win in the finals.

“So, what do you want from me? You wouldn’t appear here for no apparent reason.” I gave him my ID, allowing him to register me for my match, as I was hurrying him along for his explanation.

“As a representative of the noble faction, I thank you for your service, Lady Hestia. Please, smite today’s villain,” he started and bowed dramatically. He clearly had showmanship experience. “But, I would like to inform you that the entourages of the other five princes have arrived in the city. Meaning, our esteemed guests would be watching us from today onwards.”

Friday would be a showcase match between Yeos and the other principalities of the Divide. Most likely, this was a way to strengthen the bonds between the five princes. From what I heard, the five princes currently didn’t get along, so I had no idea how this would proceed.

“As such, as our first match of the day, I would like you to formally announce yourself to everybody. Let the world know what you are doing here, my lady. I am sure, with you around, the other princes would be more appreciative of our young Prince Markval. I ask of you to aid him, would you please?”

“Political tool?”

“Haha, I wouldn’t word it like that. You are an important personage, my lady. Not only your lineage, but also your piety. With the times so dark due to the wars, one would need security. With your support, Yeos may find itself in a better position to continue honoring our role as God Yeostar’s followers. Not to mention, I am sure the Empire would appreciate our returned assistance and our ability to bring back stability in the Divide.”

Tsk, and then let everybody know this was all Duke Alberstien’s idea. Nice plot. Bring the Prince to your side to stifle out the other factions. All because of me. Just to wage more war.

“If you word it like that, Lod Bertlez, that does sound like a fantastic plan!” I faked my enthusiasm, causing the Count to glow up with a wide smile.

“You have my deepest thanks, my lady! Goddess’s blessing to you! Although I don’t think you will need help with that lowlife mercenary, I still wish you good luck! May the Goddess guide your path with brilliant light!”

I am not your pawn. Deal with the dragon, then prepare to pay handsomely.

But, of course, I could only do that if I won today. Which meant, if I wanted to pay them back for thinking of me, a Champion of Aurena and also a Dragon Princess, as lowly as an advertisement tool, then they better think again. I can afford to hear insults, but trying to use me? No, no, I was below that crap.

“Oh, but if you could do me a favor,” I took the set of parchment out from my storage, hiding the action by making him think I took it from underneath my robe. “Could you hand this out to the audience? It’s one of my projects to help with bringing out any enemies, you see. I just need some advertisement help.”

“Oh, naturally! We have a debt to repay!” He took the stack of parchment and began to read them. “Hmm, ‘Draconic Concert?’ You are putting on a concert, my lady? Also, is this a sketch of you?”

“Yes, I am an enthusiast of good music. A festival requires events, no? So, considering how many people are in the city and arriving, I thought it would be a great time to support cultural and economic growth. After all, Yeos and the royal family have my thanks for creating an… interesting experience in Elyonda.”

“Magnificient, my lady! Your ingenuity astounds me! I shall do it right away! Although, ahem, if I may give my opinion. To our cultured guests from the Empire, they might enjoy this, but our commoners? Such music would be wasted on their uneducated ears, ahahahaha!”

I just smiled. I said nothing.

“I shall also make sure our nobles know of it!”

“Please, do, but please keep the surprise for after the match ends. Thank you.”

With that settled, I went over to the waiting room until somebody came to guide me to the arena. Unlike during the battle royale, I went into the arena through the normal gate.

“Noble ladies and gentlemen! Blood enjoyers! I welcome everybody to the first match of the day! The bracket stage has begun!”

The moment I entered the arena, the wild cheers of the audience and the loud, but hype, shoutcasting of the announcer drummed into my ears. I could hear it all. The excitement of the crowd was absolutely enthralling.

However, sadly, ‘cause of what happened before, I wasn’t really in the mood to bask in the mood. As such, I concentrated more on the environment I was sent into. It didn’t look like the flat ground arena during my winner’s ceremony, no, it was a plain grassland. The sky was also the usual dome showing the people in the audience in a panorama-like style.

“To start it all off, and I know all of you are excited for this, we have the tournament’s dark horse! The flaming dragonewt with the abilities of a priestess on the right side! ‘Crimson hair’ Hestia Atsuko Kaaaargryxmor!”

“Idol! Idol! Stop using a moniker that only describes my hair!” I was outraged! Stupid announcer!

However, I was ignored.

“And to the left! We have the malignant manipulator of the venomous depths! The elder, and currently only, brother of the ‘Acid Killers!’ Well, as I said, it probably should be only ‘Acid Killer’ now! Give him a pity cheer, everybody, for he has just lost his younger brother! Greisha!”

Jeez, bad taste! Bad taste!

But the crowd cheered anyway. However, from the look of it, it felt more like jeering caused by the announcer.

On the other hand, the person walking up to me didn’t look too good. In fact, his eyes had been aimed at me the moment I entered the arena, where I could feel the intense thirst for blood from that guy. Poison dude was not happy that I killed his brother, and while I could understand it, his brother shouldn’t have attempted to kill so many people.

It was his fault.

“…” He raised his arms silently, holding up two catalysts. It seemed like the elder brother got the catalyst for his younger brother. “Acid Hydra!”

And it seemed like he wasn’t about to wait for the announcer to finish.

The first match — Hestia versus Greisha…

… Start!

A note from AbyssRaven

I'm sorry for the super late chapter. Haven't been feeling inspired lately. Also, no naked Neill artwork.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 328: Corrosion Vs. Acid.

A note from AbyssRaven

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[Various Spell Buffs] [Stage Fever (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“H-Hey, I haven’t announced the start yet! Hey!”

Purple and black liquid poured out from his two catalysts, falling onto the grassy ground, dissolving everything they touched. Seconds later, the liquid stopped forming and wrapped itself around their respective catalysts again as they began to hover above elder poison dude, Greisha.

The man himself then took out two daggers with a brown gemstone embedded in each, probably enchanted. By wielding them, the movements of the catalyst didn’t escape me. During the rumble match, he nor his brother had cast a single spell, so they couldn’t be mages. They probably could control their catalyst well enough, so those daggers probably acted as controllers.

However, whether they were or not wasn’t important now, the fact his catalyst couldn’t stop producing that ghastly liquid was. After a couple of seconds, and the silence of the crowd, a purple and black snake made from, probably, acid was created.

As the gemstones in his daggers began to glow, the acid snakes then connected themselves to them and wrapped the man in the acid liquid. I let out a disapproving groan as I saw steam be released, probably caused by the acidic reaction, which was confirmed to me as I saw Greisha moan and huff as if he was in agony.

“I-I—” The announcer was equally flabbergasted as the Greisha was completely consumed by his acid snakes, only for them to hover around on his back. “Is this suicide?! Is Greisha killing himself right now?! What a start to a match, people! I have seen grief cause people to do some wild things, but killing themselves in front of a crowd during a festival tournament? Certainly original!”

“ArrraERAAAAAAAAAAH!”

“And the man howled! I can even feel Greisha’s agony on my skin right now! Not to mention how that acidic liquid is melting the very ground with even droplets dripping down! What is the only ‘Acid Killers’ brother about to do?! Ah, but don’t worry gamblers! The bracelet hasn't been activated yet, and as long as it's inside the arena, the bracelet created by God Yeostar will never break!”

Tsk, this is such a ‘let the villain transform’ moment! Just att—

“Eaaaahhhhhhaaaaaaaaak!”

But, as if he could sense my intent, he cried out once again as the purple acid snake shot right at me, mouth wide open to bite. Its speed was pretty impressive, but the bloodthirst made it far too obvious. I [Gale Steps]ed to the side and delivered execution chop right at the thing, sending its decapitated head flying behind me.

“By Yeostar’s beard!!!” The announcer cried out for good reason.

Jeez!!! I squirmed around a bit as I saw the acid head totally melted through the ground and leaving a steam cloud as it did so. I couldn’t see it properly, but from the amount released and how I could see an indentation, I bet it just made a hole in a matter of seconds.

That thing is deadly!

And fitting this attack’s name, this “hydra’s” headless stump split apart and regenerated not one head, but two. Without warning, the thing immediately attacked me once again. I had to release some of my scale-dust into the air, creating a massive spark explosion to drive the things away to allow me to [Dragoon Jump] into the air.

Urgh, my glaive… I grimaced at how I saw signs of damage on my glaive’s edge, caused when I cut the acid snake. Without a doubt, if it could harm my glaive, which was made with my scales, it could harm me if it gets a direct hit.

Then again, my glaive was made from my old scales and claws, before I began my shedding schedule. I felt tougher than when Grimnir made this weapon for me, but who knew? In any case, that was all I had to think things through before the hydra reared its three head and shot them at me.

Using [Wind Blast], I completely evaded the attack but now the snake heads were homing towards me. Nevertheless, my goal was still clear and it was to win this match, and to do so, I had to defeat Greisha and this abomination of his. Igniting both my tail and glaive on fire, I readied my attack and flew at him with my rocket boosters, only to face some resistance.

Using his daggers, the now “normal” Greisha began slashing forward, sending projectiles of acid at me. Far too slow to me, of course, as I had faced faster attacks. It was far too easy for me to slip through all of them before making it to him.

Spark Cres—

I wanted to unleash my attacks, only for [Foresight] to warn me of Greisha suddenly exploding. Not willing to risk it for now, I [Dragoon Jump] in the air as the acid on his body bubbled up and exploded. I got out of it in time, but the hydra heads were already on me, forcing me back even further.

“Guess there is no time for a proper introduction and entrance speech! My apologies dear lords and ladies! However, I can assure you that it is worth it all the same! Bask in the ferocious battle before us! The ‘Acid Killer’ Greisha has stopped his screaming and wailing and is now fighting back, pushing and stopping our dark horse contestant from fighting back!” The announcer’s voice was clear for me to hear as I flew around the snake heads. “Oh, how I envy those with wings! Flying! Watch as the high-speed flying of this dragon girl is tested against the ravenous snakes. One bite, and it will be all over!”

Dramatic. Anyways, you guys got anything? I asked my parallel minds for a clue as I concentrated on dodging.

‘Yup, we found his catalysts hiding behind his back,’ Manager Mind answered me as I was using [Mana Eyes] to properly analyze my situation. Considering what happened when I cut the snake head, I thought attacking blindly would be too stupid when I had the ability to appraise him.

‘His profile is worthless — level 64, whatever. Also, nothing important in his equipment. Only his catalysts are important here, and it seems like the A rank they were made from is coming back for revenge!’ #2 informed me of everything, although she was being a bit too haughty about it, as always.

‘Mhmm, I got a plan and its execution. You want to hear it?’

Hit me up! … Oh jeez, that’s cruel! Then again, he’s here to kill me, right? The poison goes through the bracelet, so if I don’t want this guy chasing me around to murder me, better start scaring him away.

“Dash out! Flame explosion! The girl clothed as if she was going to a tea party and was maneuvering around this battlefield with extreme precision like a knife! Nothing grazed her! The fast snakes and Greisha’s acid projectiles couldn’t touch her at all as even her scales began to defend her! Immaculate movements, outpacing the fas—”

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!” With an ear-busting [Draconic Roar], strong enough to push the acid hydra back, I interrupted the announcer with my own bombastic announcement! “My deepest condolences for the abrupt beginning to this match! How unclout, may I say so myself. And our poor, poor announcer has been trying his best for— Hup!”

I had to take up to the skies again as Greisha shot out a spray of acid at me, shooting it from an angle my voice didn’t reach me.

“Stop speaking! Fight me!” The poison dude shouted at me, roaring loudly as his three-headed hydra continuously shot its beam attacks at me. At the same time, the fourth hydra head was slowly growing from his back.

Easier to rile him up than I thought. Damn, I really shouldn’t be acting like this. Guy wants to kill me for killing his brother, I honestly shouldn't act this rude. I should be acting better, but this is getting the job done.

And just like that, with him angered, his attack became more and more aggressive. I was pushed onto the defensive, unable to do anything as he kept his overwhelming firepower and tracking hydra heads on me. It got even worse when his fourth hydra head grew, supporting the other heads until I was forced to land.

“DIE! UuRAAAAAAAGH!” Greisha cried out in agony as the hydra slammed the ground, bursting and releasing the acid into the environment. The green grassland was nowhere to be seen, completely replaced by a barren landscape steaming with a nauseating smell.

However, this place was about to turn even worse as the back from Greisha burst, releasing even more acid to the point it turned into a large wave. From the size alone, I could tell it would be able to submerge a platoon of soldiers without any problems. While the arena was a grassland, it still had walls around us to probably restrict our movements.

In this case, I had nowhere left to run now.

“Perish!”

Oh oh…

And with a loud slam, the tidal wave of acid crashed right onto me, pounding me right onto the ground.

[Poisoned (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“A-And that’s it, blood enjoyers! O-Our dark horse was just consumed by the wave of acid! Oooh, as much blood as I have seen, being melted down by a pool of acid isn’t exactly what I would call pleasant. However, in this arena, you better get ready to face everything cuz on a battlefield anything can happen!”

Ahhh, the announcer is so dramatic…

“Noooo, what the— Argh, my money! Come on!”

“T-The seas sink you, bastard! You show our face in Loatryx or Caedhul, and you will get your face slashed off!”

“Ha! See, I told ya that lizard girl just rode on the capes of Auegor’s Blade! A fluke!”

Such a mixed reception…

“… Rest easy, brother.”

…

But, as you would expect, nothing else happened after this. For one good reason…

“… Well, uhm, I apologize everybody, but the match for some reason hadn’t stopped yet. The arena setting automatically ends the moment a winner is chosen, but it seems it hasn’t ended yet.” The announcer explained the function of the arena, causing the crowd to rile up in confusion.

“Huh? Is the arena defective?”

“Oi, you idiot, this thing was made by God Yeostar. Are you calling a divine creation faulty?”

“Yeah, what kinda heresy crap are you sprouting? But… what exactly is happening?”

On the other hand, my opponent seemed to have figured the reason out. “… Wait?!”

… I was alive and barely unharmed.

Show time.

With a massive explosion, white flames burst out from where I was slammed by the tidal wave, soaring into the sky before it fell back down. Like a wildfire, my white flames caught onto any drop of acid, burning it and spreading throughout the area, cleansing it from the ground melting liquid.

“H-How?!”

From where I was, I opened my eyes, watching my scale barrier holding up with [Draconic Barrier] without a problem. Some of the acid did get onto me when the tidal wave smacked me, so I was poisoned that way. It seemed the poison dude’s resistance-piercing toxin effect also affected the acid.

I was thinking of drinking some of the acid to recreate it myself, but seeing how it actually managed to hurt me, I felt doing that would be idiotic. It felt like it would be the worst and most horrendous diarrhea ever. I still had a tournament to fight, so the last thing I needed was a toilet problem.

“Pretty weak stuff, that’s why,” I replied, hurting his ego, after I broke my scale barrier down and stared right at Greisha’s head. Taking in a deep breath, my cheeks filled up with warmth before I unleashed my dragon breath!

“I-Incredible! ‘Crimson Hair’ managed to survive through all that acid!”

Idol!

Disregarding the announcer and the cheers of the crowd as they found out the fight would continue, I blasted my fire right at my opponent. For the first time, Greisha was put into the defensive as he had to roll away from my fire attack. However, this was where the real battle began.

Immediately where he stopped, I launched him into the air with [Earth Wall] before shooting him with [Tornado Bullet]. The impact of the wind spell caused him to crash against the artificial sky of the arena before I sent out [Unheilige Engel] to grab his arm and slam him right onto the ground.

“Gruaaaghk!”

“Oooh! That has to hurt! Our dark horse woke up from her acid dip with a sense of violence as she stopped playing around! Merciless destruction, and this is definitely not even close to what she can do if you all remember her royale rumble performance! This is the warrior who defeated Larent Antonodius in a ‘kill’ competition! This is why you should be wary of mages, my fellow normalfolk!”

60% of Health left. Held back well.

“Urgh… Grak— Grak!” And the moment Greisha stood back up, I shot him with [Sacred Smite], launching him in the air where I manipulated my white flames to consume his whole body, evaporating any of the acid but leaving him unharmed.

He bumped against a wall and fell back on the ground. Moments later, my flames moved away from him and returned to cleaning up the arena while I walked closer up to him. Looking at his now bare body, I noticed his armor was mostly intact. He seemed to have a bodysuit underneath it. It seemed like his whole get up was made to be resistant against his acid.

As I thought, he wasn’t suicidal at all. He had a plan all along.

He was wearing a mask right now. I had no idea when he got the chance to put it on, but it was there now, completely protecting him from the acid. I pulled it off him and threw it away, revealing his mostly unharmed face. Some of the acid seemed to have gotten on his face, melting and revealing some of his blood.

“Surrender,” I demanded from him coldly.

“H-How?” he eked out weekly, groaning slightly.

I moved my head closer to his. “Fighting against a venomous dragon with the poison of a snake? Oh, please. Have a taste.”

And I snapped my fingers, right in front of him, causing a loud spark that blew right into his face with purple flames. He screamed out for a moment, but his body fell onto the ground without any resistance. He began to spasm on the ground for a moment before it all stopped and stared at the sky with unmoving eyes.

[Paralyzation (Major)]. He might have strong toxins, but mine can not only pierce through resistances but they were strong enough to deal some proper damage, unlike that [Poisoned (Minor)] from before. Still, I didn’t paralyze his heart or organs, only some of his muscles.

I didn’t want him dead. I wasn’t furious with him like his younger brother, and with Alistar probably wanting to arrest him, I could just say “I arrested him by paralyzing him during the match” to get the bounty on his head. I would get the money, and I could cure him of the paralyzation later.

In any case, considering he couldn’t move anymore, he lost the match due to being unable to fight.

Congratulations, you have emerged victorious! May God Yeostar bless your glory!

“AAAAAAND, WE have a winner!” The announcer’s voice blasted into my ears as my surroundings turned white as they did during the ending of the rumble battle. After a couple of seconds, everything returned to the sandy arena grounds, and with it, the cheers of the crowd.

As Greisha was transported out of the arena by a bright light, probably to the infirmary, I basked myself at the excitement of the audience. The announcer, as always, was amazing when it came to hyping up a situation and was praising and putting me in a brighter light than I should have been.

As easy as that fight was, I kinda messed around a bit too much. I didn’t only want to win, I wanted to scare the guy from ever trying to harm me again. It was cruel. I knew that, but honestly felt that was the correct decision for me, if I wanted to keep my happiness. Always being nice wasn’t the way, especially not if that other person wished ill on me.

“Ahhh, but I can go on and on about how our black horse of the tournament might topple and win the tournament, but we haven’t had a single interview with the young lady, yet, no?” The announcer directed his attention from himself to me, causing the cheerings to become louder and louder, now even coupled with some whistling. “Lady Kargryxmor, please, would you grant us a small introduction?”

I caught a glimpse of Counter Bertlez in the seats reserved for the nobles, even seeing Duke Alberstien smirking with him. I wondered if the announcer was instructed to prompt me for this. Within their side, I also saw some new faces, all sitting with Prince Markval and his mother.

Four other nobles, all wearing crowns and other accessories to show-off their dignity were there with the young prince. They all had a woman sitting with them, probably their wives, and two guards protecting them, like Sir Alistar and another knight who were guarding Prince Markval. Those people were probably the other princes of the Divide.

Count Bertlez told me to formally introduce myself, right? In other words, I better do it properly then.

I flapped my wings, spreading my scale-dust around me and tried to emulate how Mother did her shiny appearance. Of course, my scale-dust would explode, unlike Mother’s silver dust, so what I had to do was what I usually did — make it look like camera light. Only, to make it more spectacular, it was about time I fully used my triple fire with it.

“““Woah?!””” Gasps of wonderment escaped the audience, not only from the commoner seats but also from the nobles as my scale-dust exploded.

Not only did I release numerous sparkling lights, making them look like stars to people, I let my scale-dust burst out, releasing three smoke dusts colored white, crimson, and purple, in that order. With everybody silenced, I cranked up my [Aerokinesis] and began playing an electric guitar.

With the triple colored smoke, I controlled the wind and made the smoke whirl around me like a tornado, all while a set of drums began accompanying the guitar. While my appearance was hidden by the smokescreen, I put my white mage robes properly on. The moment my guitar began its solo, shredding the strings so fast you could only feel your heart beating faster, I blew the smoke screen away from me with [Wind Blast].

[Musical Resonation (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Go, go, Power— I held back from singing the lyrics, before self-igniting my glaive, wings, and tail on fire.

“My name is Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor, eight child of Emperor Eltharion of the Dragon Empire, Kargryx, granddaughter of the Dragon God, Kargryxmor, and the first Idol of the Goddess of Light, Healing, and Miracles, Aurena!” I banged the blunt end of my glaive on the ground and rose it into the sky with the sounds of trumpets! “I have come here to Yeos on a Divine Quest by the God of Knighthood, Bravely, and Loyalty, Yeostar, to aid him in his search for his new Champion! If you distrust me, then you may confirm my identity with Sir Jethro of the warrior priest order!”

Jethro jerked a bit as every noble turned their attention over to Jethro, who cleared his voice and stood up. “I have seen her piety and also profile,” he told everybody, before Prince Markval added onto it even further.

“I have personally confirmed her identity. She possesses the divine [Princess] title, granted to her by the Divine System due to her imperial lineage. Her claim is irrefutable!” he said through a rod, amplifying his voice for the whole arena to hear. Any doubts were laid to rest. “Princess Hestia is a valued guest, not only as a member of the imperial dragon family of Kargryx, but also as our blessed benefactor.”

I then cast [Terra Wall] underneath myself, creating a platform for me and pushing me to around eye level with most of the audience. My flames quickly changed from crimson to white, symbolizing my affiliation to Aurena, even if that skill came from Shiterno.

“HEY! You aren’t supposed to reveal ourselves, you idiot!” Neill shouted from her seat with a red face, all while Mother burst out in laughter.

“Got it~” I winked and smiled at her.

“Oi!”

However, my friends and family weren’t the only people cheering and congratulating me for this appearance, the scalekins from Caedhul all began cheering loudly and even slapping their tails on their seats if they had one of the former. I kinda did want to call Neill with “Sis,” but that would just expose her identity. Since I hadn’t, nobody really gave Neill too much of their attention, probably to her relief.

“However, I know all of you are probably wondering what I meant with ‘idol,’ right? Am I blessed or not?” I shrugged and shook my head all dramatically to make a show, only to snap my fingers to continue. “That is right, I am a blessed of the Goddess! A mage and warrior like a champion, but someone who brings the words and instructions of our Goddess to the people in an effort to comfort them! That is an idol!”

I curtsied to everybody in attendance.

“I have received much support in this goal, not only to come here and bring all of you BLOOD ENJOYERS a great show, but also to find the next worthy blessed for God Yeostar! All of this came from Yeos’s mighty nobles!” I placed the nobility up a pedestal, earning me an even wilder smile from Duke Alberstien. He honestly thought everything would work to his favor. “However, my main goal as an idol is to bring my fellow brothers and sisters in faith the power of music! To bring the light closer to your heart and your souls. As such, I shall invite everybody to my concert this LightDay, after the illustrious showing of the five champions of the Divide! Allow me to grant all of you an unforgettable festival! Please, look at the parchments you received!”

“Oh, hey, didn’t some lizard give this to me? U-Uh, nearly threw a blessed’s present away.”

“Yeah, but a lizard is a blessed? That oughta be a fluke! As if!”

“Oi, shut it! Didn’t you see what she did to that mercenary! Survived acid as if it was nothing, and didn’t you hear! That little girl is a dragon!”

Once again, there was a mixed reaction. There was a general positive mood amongst the scalekins and beastmen, while the human crowd didn’t know what to think of it properly. Some liked it while others showed distrust while others were even fearful of me! Regardless, I believed I could bring them in if they just gave me a chance.

On the other hand, the nobles were harder to judge. They were hiding their emotions or showing positivity in my favor. The Princes were all talking with Prince Markval, with the young prince trying to keep up with decorum. Duke Alberstien, on the other hand, looked like he was anticipating me to continue.

And, so I did.

“Without them, I wouldn’t have been able to plan everything. First thing, I would like to thank my allies from the Sarlenzia company! Western products and treats, all coming from my brain and mind were adapted to be sold to all of you, including the very delicious yeast~”

““What?”” Multiple nobles began to take an interest now. Some merchants also understood what I meant with this.

The further east you went on Altrust, the least methods were available to get the yeasts from the elves. I learned this fact from Adhi and Renee, who both assured me you probably couldn’t buy any yeasts in the Empire outside of the black market. It was perishable and transporting it safely would only increase the price of it even further.

Meaning, Amelia struck gold again when she advised me to promote it.

“Pastries and food coming from my home country. I do wonder how all of you would like what I liked to eat when I was a kid, and don’t worry, it won’t be just dragon food, I promise~” I winked. “All of it would be extremely affordable even for a day worker who only earns 100 Davi per day. I assure you, you won’t lose a limb over how amazing even a bite will be! Why? Because we received amazing financial support in the form of subsidization from the royal family!”

“H-Huh?!” Duke Alberstien stood up, flabbergasted at what I was saying. All while Princess Anasthasia, who was sitting behind him, was showing her smile now.

“Princess Anasthasia of the royal family of Caimlace with the support of her younger brother, Royal Prince Markval Caimlace the Fifth! For the celebration of the Festival of Yeostar and his coronation, EVERY COMMONER is able to buy food worthy for a noble at my concert! If you wish to eat and forget your days, come to my concert! I will enchant you with music and bring you the safety of the light! Come, join me on LightDay!”

And I jumped off my platform and moved towards the arena exit under the cheers of the crowd. I couldn’t hear a single boo at all as I was wondering if I could leave this place with tinnitus or not. I did wonder what Duke Alberstien and Count Bertlez were doing and thinking right now, however, I already saw what my allies were thinking.

Due to her meeting with Amelia, Princess Anasthasia had already suggested to me to promote my concert on this day after my victory. In other words, Count Bertlez came a bit too late to want my favor. With the support and agreement of her brother, the princess could assure some support for her brother, strengthening his position, while also helping out the poor of Elyonda.

The nobles still had to pay normally, but they weren’t stingy with money since they had to live up to their noble pride. If they couldn’t pay, well, let us just say they could make some favors with the royal family.

Even if I didn’t like Yeos, making allies wouldn’t hurt, right? Especially to dissuade them from attacking Artorias in the future with Amelia and Duke Greenveil knowing the Caimlace royal family now.

God Yeostar? Was he one of them? As I walked out of the arena, I asked Yeostar about Greisha.

<He isn’t. I will be able to detect if he has any relations with an Edjurl follower of demonkin. They reek of demons. However, that person most likely was just a mercenary to acquire the blood.>

Alright, thank you.

With today’s announcement, everybody was now aware of who I was.

Come at me, you bastards! No matter if you send a demonkin at am or not, I will burn all your efforts to cinder. Send an army, and I will show you what the rage of an dragon idol could bring!

A note from AbyssRaven

Yes, use poison versus a venomous dragon. It worked well for your brother, yeah? Then again, he probably didn't know, so yeah.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters for the whole month! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 329: News from the Desert.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #4 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! No charge again until September!

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74 humans and beastmen have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total followers of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 10163

“Masked people attacked the two guards, but due to Knight-Commander Alistar’s intervention, they managed to survive the ambush. However, in a suicidal charge, three of the assailants activated a fire seal, releasing [Blazing Twister]s around the frozen grimgarians.” After joining the others in the audience seats, Renee surprised me by joining us, which she hadn’t done before. Since we were allies now with a similar goal, to protect Elyonda, I guess it wasn’t unusual.

And when I arrived, Renee had an update on the grimgarians Tasianna captured in that glacier. Alistar had informed her this morning in the arena, and she was here to hand over the information to the rest of us.

“So, we lost any chance to gain information from them. However, what about those saboteurs? Considering they willfully sacrificed themselves to destroy our chance to interrogate the grimgarians, they must be involved,” I brought up, which Renee confirmed with a nod.

“Alistar thought so, too, and with the knights he brought with him, they immediately went to round up any of them. However, those assailants all took themselves out with their [Blazing Twister] seals. No remains.” Renee didn’t sound perturbed at all. Did she expect all of this?

“Ah, Sis, don’t make that face. This is how Renee is. For a knight, she is more sneaky than a rat,” Neill interjected.

“Mind not comparing me to a vermin?” Renee’s voice cracked, sounding irritated now. “Besides, during peacetime, a knight must act chivalrous to ensure peace of mind for their people. During war, a knight is expected to bring victory, under any circumstances. That is the lesson every knight learns under the guidance of God Yeostar. The life of a knight is more valuable than some grimgarians, in this case.”

In other words, she warned Alistar of the possibility of this attack. However, how did she predict this? Curious, I had to ask her where she got her suspicions.

“Blaine. Who else?” I was bewildered by her answer, prompting her to elaborate on it. “Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t mistrust him when we found him. Just like you and the others, I thought he was an unlucky adventurer. However, don’t you think for an adventurer, he was a bit too ‘modest?’”

I tilted my head. I was absolutely confused about what she meant by that.

“Looting, dear.” As such, somebody had to answer it for me. It was only surprising to hear it from Mother. “Adventurers like to loot and acquire treasures. They make money by selling monster materials and other prizes. As a dragon, don’t you feel similarly?”

I couldn’t disagree with liking treasures and opening chests. The excitement of getting loot was the best part about dungeon runs. However, that still didn’t answer what Renee was implying.

“Lady Hestia, I believe what Dame Renee is implying is that Blaine only took his crossbow, but nothing else, despite how safe it was for him to roam around. It also took you some time to create a way out, but he just waited patiently with us,” Tasianna was the one to enlighten me after she created a [Air Shield] around us to block out our discussion.

“I won’t implicate every adventurer to act greedy. I have met some nice people and maybe Blaine was just being considerate considering you and Fargryneill saved him, but his whole demeanor screamed something was up. I didn’t believe for a moment he was in my family’s land for a Quest, otherwise, my mother would have been informed. He chose the wrong person to lie to.” Renee looked convinced.

On the other hand, all I could muster up in reply was how if she knew this, why didn’t she want us to bring the iced up grimgarians with us. To the castle, where we could interrogate them. Renee nodded, not bothered at all at my question.

“Because, I had to know exactly who Blaine belonged to.” Renee shrugged. “If nothing happened, good, we have the time to make some rats speak. If they attacked and freed the grimgarians, then too bad. It was fully worth the risk. Don’t think we didn’t come out of this without some results, Lady Priestess. Sir Alistar is a dutiful man, and we got something out of it to get some help.”

“Help?”

“Yes, help. You could call it a contingency?” Renee shrugged, seemingly not wanting to reveal her hand. “Well, we don’t know if it would work, alright? I would hate to bring up your hopes… In any case, watch you back, Lady Idol. Sir Alistar told me the masks they wore looked similar to that one skull mask which interrupted your match with Sir Larent.”

“Oooh, nice one, Sis! You got your first assassin! That’s the mark of somebody powerful!” Neill congratulated me on something I honestly didn’t want. However, considering the situation, it was inevitable.

Those two demonkins who attacked us in Estralia got away after learning who we were. I was probably already on their radar, seeing how that fat pig O’Bloom sent some dragon hunters at me, even if one of them was Larent. Without a doubt, the Prince of Envy posing as the pope of the Church of Aurena was currently planning something.

Nothing had happened until now, aside from that one attack on me during the royale rumble, but I couldn’t let my guard down. I should expect the worse — being excommunicated and blamed. They couldn’t exactly hunt me down officially, since I was Aurena’s blessed, but they could do more harm to me through my reputation. All while they keep sending demonkins and mercenaries to try to kill me.

God Yeostar, why didn’t you tell me that person was suspicious?

<Hestia, as I mentioned already, I cannot tell you everything about a person just because I am a god. First, he might be a human but he has no faith in me, meaning I cannot access his mind and sight. Second, as a subordinate god, I cannot annoy the Goddess about every small detail. In addition, if she needs to speak with you, she would have as she is your patron god, similar to Kargyrxmor. Third, do not presume every Peolyncian is religious or follows their racial god. Even some mages don’t show a glimpse of piety. Unless that ‘Blaine’ was a demonkin contractor or had some influence, I cannot tell him apart from any other adventurer.>

… Fair, sorry. However, you watch me fight that mask person, right? That skull mask? Did you look at his profile?

<Qaltil. Level 118. An arcane trickster with [Tenebrous Magic] and some control over shadows similar to your tamed virigress through a catalyst and enchantments. He is able to cast low-tier [Illusion Magic], helping him become invisible. His general skill set is made for assassinations, than a straight-out fight.>

Assassin? Wait, could that guy have— Wait, poisons, right. Of course!

<Correct assumption. It was a poison, one specifically made to incapacitate or even kill fire dragons — Winter’s Gift. A play on words of the Empire’s decrepit language, Folvort tongue. The ‘gift’ means poison, and it chills down your body until you die from hypothermia.>

Seems similar to German. Gift and the English gift are two different words, with two entirely different meanings. But… a poison that can emulate my weakness to ice… White flames should be able to cleanse it, right?

Hey… God Yeostar, couldn’t you have told me this earlier? Seems like a big deal.

<I apologize if I seem insincere, however, I hope you didn’t believe I would babysit you, Hestia. You are a warrior. You know what it feels like to be on the border of death. Even the smallest mistakes can cost you your life. I know this sounds ironic, but don’t rely so much on the gods. The first thing you should have done was to analyze his weapons and equipment to assure your own safety. And, if I must remind you, we gods have rules… and Goddess Plesia is not somebody you wish to anger.>

M-Mhmm, fair enough. Sorry, I’ll do better. Coming from the God of War of the Pantheon of Light, that tip was something I should take seriously. I could make as many excuses as I wanted, but I knew better than to blame my failures on others.

Still, what a reckless person that assassin was. I thought there was no solid evidence for those skull masks targeting me, but the fact he used a poison meant for dragons was convincing enough. However, if that person really tried to kill me in front of everybody, was he planning on sending Mother into a frenzy or what?! Then again, if they were affiliated with the demonkins, they probably would want her to destroy this city.

I looked over at Mother who was munching on a honey-roasted apple, before turning over to me and giving me a confused look. She then offered me an unbitten part of her apple, believing I was just hungry after my battle. I bit a small piece out and began crunching on the sweetened apple.

Trying to use my mother? You trash really are trying to make me furious, huh?

My grudge against the demonkins was growing stronger every day. That was another bullet point on my punching list.

“Still, whoever they are, we don’t know where they are right now so let’s leave it alone.” Renee continued after a while. “In any case, your little speech was more impressive than I thought, Lady Idol. Making your reveal will attract the rats to us like flies to a fire.”

Renee didn’t know I was a blessed, only that I was Neill’s sister. However, while I expected to explain myself to her, Renee just went with the flow and didn’t even ask how I kept that fact a secret from her. Very professional, honestly.

On the other hand…

“Can I now ask? Please, I need to know what it feels like to be a blessed!”

… Rita couldn’t hold herself back.

“Rita—” Renee tried to stop her, but the dryad wouldn’t have it.

“Please! For Isatari’s sake, how does it feel to be a dragon with a god’s blessing? Such a rarity I haven’t even heard of before Kargryxmor! Hestia, please, please, please!”

I was the first blessed Rita had ever met, so the naturally curious dryad couldn’t contain her personality back. Seeing how she was begging me, I told her it was okay to talk about it this evening. Elated and cheering, Rita hummed around happily.

With a loud sigh, Renee told Tasianna to dispel the [Air Shield], since we were done with the sensitive talk, the voice of the announcer became swallowed up by the fact people were talking over him. Merchants, scalekins, and also a few suited-up people were standing around us, not only obstructing the views of the people sitting behind us, but also our view of the arena.

“Lady Priestess, I am one of the co-proprietor of the largest armament company of Elyonda! Not only do we create weapons for adventurers, but we are also the royal army’s main supplier for their soldier’s equipment! We also made the Knight-Commander’s equipment! ‘Knight’s Resolve,’ please, we would be honored to host you!”

“Hail, Imperial Princesses of Kargryx! Krinalish prish phra! The ‘Sapphira Kura’ is me vessel! If you need a ride back to Caedhul or onwards on your pilgrimage, then come to dock four in the beastmen pier.”

“Honored Blessed of the Goddess, I am the stew—”

[“Away!”]

[“You speak with us, not our Mistress!”]

“Grawrrrrrr!”

Annoyed by the number of people around us, both Shay and Beth shot up from their seats, towering everybody but the levianewts. With Rajah jumping out of my shadow and roaring, my three bodyguards began intimidating people around us and push them away from us.

[“You are annoying everybody. Away!”] Shay snarled at a noble’s attendant.

“P-Pardon, but I am the steward of Lo—”

[“This is our Mistress’s rest time. Speak with the head attendant for an appointment,”] Beth interrupted him immediately, fluttering her winged arms around to scare him off.

“Yes, yes, you have heard them, everybody. If you wish to speak with either of our princesses, we must first settle a date and time. After the last match of today, you may approach me for more.” Understanding what Beth was talking about, Tasianna stood up and began appeasing the crowd in a more diplomatic style. It was the “good cop, bad cop” plan.

People would be intimidated by the twins and Rajah, which directed them toward Tasianna as the only person they could talk with. Handling it civilly prevented people from having a bad idea of me after what happened, while also driving them away.

After it seemed like it was handled, Neill hunched her body closer to me. “So, Sis, why did it take so long for you to come back? Tasianna was about to fetch you, again.”

I pulled out a sack filled with coins and also two receipts. “I made sure that poison dude wouldn’t die from the paralyzing flames, and cured him. Meanwhile, I handed the guy over to the knights who were waiting for me, and they gave me the bounty and also the receipt for my successful bounty hunt. Turns out, Sir Alistar didn’t know I was a mercenary, so he didn’t give me the official documents for my bounty hunt. They are both A rank bounties, so this should shoot me up to C rank as a merc. Wooo!”

“Congratulations, Lady Hestia! Now, we can—” Tasianna returned to handling the crowd after she gave me my congratulations. I wondered if I could give Tasianna some credit for it, too.

“Eh, outside if you want to mess with people, being a merc sucks. Being a hunter is far easier to handle. You just kill whatever is rampaging around and don’t have to listen to annoying employers,” Neill gave her opinion on the life of a merc, which I couldn’t agree nor disagree with. I rarely did any merc Quests, so I had little idea how a merc’s life really was.

[“Mhrm… I wish I could have fought with you, Master.”] Rajah looked dejected after I mentioned my match, which was obvious since we fought together during the royale rumble. However, to keep things fair and also to not endanger Rajah, I decided to fight by myself during each of my duels.

I picked my large virigress up and stroked him to comfort him, but that was all I could do.

In any case, things eventually settled down completely with people leaving us in peace and allowing us to watch the next match. There were still a few people who tried to annoy us, but they were scared by the twins to the point they wet themselves. [Terror Aura] can be pretty scary.

This allowed me the time to look up today’s schedule again.

Chahayat versus a Baron from Yeos

A random merc from Neill’s round versus a rank C hunter

Arlond versus a knight from Yeos’s knight order

A warrior priest from Jethro’s order versus a Yeosian knight

A knight from an Empire state versus some random merc from Neill’s round

A B rank adventurer versus Ghorush

Neill versus a Count’s son from Yeos.

I was the first match of the day, of course, which meant the next match was the merfolk Chahayat’s. I didn’t really learn the names of the people I didn’t know from the list, but I would if they showed something interesting. Too many people, really.

And as I thought of that, the announcer gave a resounding introduction for Chahayat, hyping him up by voicing out the achievements he had done in the sea close to Elyonda. This not only cause the levianewts, naga, and merfolk to erupt in a chorus of whistles, cheers, and tail slams, but also caused a few mercs to rise up in his support. I could feel the arena’s liveliness rumbling my skin like an earthquake.

Bets were already thrown at the local bookies, gathering numerous workers, adventurers, and also some merchants to gamble their hard-earned Davi for a chance to win it big. The fanfare when I won was massive, as people roared like beasts at whatever amount they made. Very few bet against me, from what I saw, but those who did were sending out curses at the poison dude or even straight up left the audience.

Seeing as Chahayat was my next opponent, watching him fight would be the best for me. When his opponent appeared from his side, with the flauntiness of a noble, the announcer gave a quick recap of what the two did during the royale rumble. This involved their “kills” and their most memorable moments.

Honestly, it sounded like a sports or esports match, weren’t it for the fact this could get pretty violent. Just hearing how Chahayat stormed castle Fatalisa with our alliance, bringing the defenders to their knees, was already more exciting than hearing how his opponent took down two adventurers at once. It riled up the crowd in Chahayat’s favor, hyping things up so much you couldn’t help but feel excited and invested.

“Easy match for the merfolk.”

“Yeah.”

Regardless, Neill and I already could guess what would happen. Sadly, it also meant I couldn’t get a good idea what Chahayat could do, as he simply overpowered his opponent with sheer brute force.

“““Nice one, scalekin! Depth Goddess bless you!””” Sitting with us, the levianewt sailors of Adhi’s crew shouted in unison for Chahayat’s win, becoming part of the wave of cheers.

Hmm, maybe this will work.

[“Hey, since you guys came from Caedhul, do you know him?”] I tried to fish for some information.

“Hmm? Oh, Lady Hestia!” I caught Adhi’s first mate’s attention. With everybody cheering, it was necessary for him to shout when he spoke. “Nah, not really! Caedhul is large, not to mention how many cities and tribes are in the oceans away from Lecullius. However, the scalekin frequenting Caedhul knows him. He’s a Tide Watcher, like Saint Kushlek’zar!”

The Tide Watchers was a sub-faction of Caedhul’s “knight order,” or maybe it was better to call them peacekeepers in the honor of Plesia — the Depth Guards. Master and the saurians were all Tide Watchers, Depth Guards who hunt criminals in Plesia’s name as the Goddess of Order. Tehmrayn, on the other hand, was a full-on Depth Guard, who was more concerned with the order inside his home.

If Chahayat was a Tide Watcher, then I should expect him to be able to fight on land pretty well. Considering he was known as a B rank mercenary, he would probably prove to be a worthy opponent. However, it still didn’t give me any idea what he could do, so I wanted to get more info.

… However, I couldn't ‘cause we were interrupted.

[“May we join, Princess Hestia?”]

I turned around to that telepathic voice, only to see Shay standing over two brown-skinned human mages. Both looked middle-eastern or maybe more Indian. Unlike the people from before, both didn’t shy away from Shay standing over them as they waved at me.

[“Shay, it’s okay. I know them. Let them sit down.”] Shay nodded and listened to me, sitting back down and allowing the two to sit next to him. [“Hey, Naemon. Joek. Let me guess, you two got interested after what I said today?”]

[“Ahahaha…”] Naemon, the more vocal member of the duo, laughed nervously, looking troubled at being caught. [“Well, our intentions have been revealed, my dear Joek. I guess it was too obvious, considering you knew us, Princess Hestia.”]

[“More like you’re one of many who came for my favor…”] I took a glimpse of the people glaring at the two mages, jealous.

[“Hmm, interesting, are those not two of the people who helped you during your match, Hestia?”] Mother spoke up, showing some interest at our new guests.

[“Oooh, my apologies for our rudeness!”] Both mages stood up and lowered their head. [“Krinalish prish phra. Ahaha, forgive me, if I botched the pronunciation. I never really heard it properly, so I cannot replicate it.”]

[“Do not mind it. It’s a language made for dragons and only used amongst scalekins and dragonkins. Even elves and dwarves cannot pronounce it properly,”] Mother replied.

Since my draconian still sucked, Mother sent me the translation of that phrase, “I lower my tail in your presence.” It was to show respect towards a true dragon. It didn’t make sense for a human to say it since they didn’t have any tails, but the meaning still remained true.

[“You are too kind. Hmm, my apologies if this might sound rude, but would you be Princess Hestia’s mother? Your horns are very similar to hers, despite your different scale colors, and I can feel this trembling presence of yours.”] Mother didn’t even try to deny it, she proudly nodding to his assessment. [“Then, this is beyond an honor to meet one of the Empresses of Kargryx! My name is Naemon and this is Joek. We are mages from Aleistunum, originating from the great Evida desert. If we may be so rude, would it be possible to ask which Empress you are?”]

[“Oi, you know it's rude to ask, but you did it anyways?”] Neill suddenly pushed her face in front of Mother and shooed her back. With a giggle, Mother left Neill and me to handle them.

[“Wha- But! Ahem, hold on, black scales… But your last name is Gueillxar… Your name is Lady Fargryneill, yes? Are you possibly a prin—”]

[“Better keep that to yourself. Just sit down, will you, please?”] Figuratively, stitching his mouth shut, Naemon listened to Sis without question. Joek smiled wryly as he did the same. [“Urgh, Aleistians. Always asking a thousand questions just to quench your thirst. Istari’s knowledge seekers are a headache.”]

[“But your situation is indeed very interesting,”] Rita interjected, earning her a glare from Neill.

[“Hey, you too, hush up! I don’t need three knowledge seekers blasting questions at us! You agree, Renee?”]

“You do know I can’t use [Telepathy], right?!” Renee had to shout out for us to hear her from the loud cheers of the crowd. “Argh, but, yes, I would rather avoid speaking about dragons and so on. Please, if you wish to stay, don’t pose too many questions! Especially not in public!”

[“Forgive us, then.”] Naemon bowed in apology. [“As followers of the God of Knowledge, it is imperative for us to continue searching for more knowledge. As mages, it is our duty. We didn’t want to inconvenience you, your imperial highnesses.”]

[“So, why did you come here for?”] The crowd’s outroar died down so I thought it would be best if we got this over with before the next match happened.

Naemon nodded to my insistence, lowering his smile down a bit. [“Well, as you expected, Princess Hestia, we came here for you. Specifically, we would like to ask you something concerning your title as a blessed of the Goddess. A few months ago, numerous of the Empire registered blessed had died by a coup from the demonkins.”]

Urk! My body jerked at the sound of this. I still remembered how Kargryxmor informed me how many Saints and Champions were killed during the same time the Griffonpeak attack happened. Aurena was distraught by this, however, since I didn’t know any of them, I couldn’t exactly sympathize with her in full…

… except, during that attack, I did witness the death of one of her Saintesses.

[“Saintess Eshe… Our blooming flower of the Goddess. News have circulated around her home, Sarkarfiina, how she died in foreign soils due to the incompetence of a non-Empire Champion. I would hate to ask you, but could this— I apologize.”]

I had closed my eyes, clenching my hands into fists. The fact he named Eshe triggered my heart to beat faster. Pain and sorrow from when I held her soulless body surged around my body again, making it hard for me to hold my breathing rate down.

“Lady Hestia?” I could feel Tasianna’s warm hands on my shoulder.

“Thank you, I’m all right.” I tapped her hand, thanking her for helping me return to reality. I took a deep breath to calm myself down.

I can’t change the past. Just calm down. Assess. Breathe in… breath out.

[“Yes.”] I confirmed Naemon’s suspicions. [“Demonkins attacked Artorias’s capital, Griffonpeak… and I failed to protect Saintess Eshe. She died before I could get to her in time.”]

“…”

“…”

Both Naemon and Joek turned quiet, unnerving me quite a bit, contrasting the general mood inside this arena. It took Naemon a moment to finally answer back.

[“I see… Thank you for your answer, Princess Hestia. The demonkins surely are the worst things to have happened to this world. We would like to wish you luck with your Quest. Please make sure a new Champion of Yeostar is decided.”]

Both stood up.

[“Oh, and, one piece of warning, I would suggest you avoid visiting Sarkarfiina anytime soon. The local temple hadn’t revealed any names, but they are painting you like a devious fiend. Sarkarfiina is generally a good vacation city, but the general populace is not only highly religious but most are uneducated and ignorant of anything other than the church’s teaching.”]

So, I terrible failure who allowed their idol to die, huh? Yeah, I guess they would react like that… Just imagining the animosity, urgh.

They then bowed, ready to leave. [“May the Goddess always bless you—”]

[“Wait, hold on!”] I stood up, stopping him from continuing. [“Before you leave… Could you tell me if Eshe received a good burial? How are the kids from her orphanage? Are they also doing well?”]

[“… What was your relationship with Saintess Eshe?”] Naemon asked with caution. It seemed any trust I earned from our time during the royal rumble was gone by revealing the truth.

[“She was… I considered her a friend, but I only really knew her for one month before the attack began. If you are wondering how I knew about her orphanage, she told me a bit about her past and how she became a blessed. I don’t know if I have a right to know, but I hope the kids are doing well without their orphanage director.”]

[“… We don’t know, we apologize.”] Naemon showed a hint of regret. [“However, most likely not too good. The local temple didn’t like the Saintess, too much. However, from what I heard, it wasn’t as if they did much before Eshe was made the director. A Saintess has more power to speak up for support than a normal shrine maiden.”]

And with that said, both mages excused themselves. I sat back down, my heart nowhere close to being calm. The kids she valued so much were why she was known as the Saintess of Orphans. Her legacy and the love she invested in them made me want to see them. To make sure they were safe in a friend’s stead.

However, Naemon’s warning remained in my head. Was I fit to go over to Sarkarfiina right now? Was I a worthy blessed yet? I didn’t know and that only made me even more unsure of myself, especially with how few heroic traits I showed. An actual hero would be able to fix and solve everything, just like in a fairy tale.

I was unsure if I could follow through with Eshe’s wish for me to become a hero. I could stay strong for her, but was I really hero material?

“Hey.” Neill placed a hand on my shoulder. “Remember that pain and rage inside of you when you are ready for the Wrath stage. Your failures for Pride. And your wishes for Greed. Don’t let this set you back. Okay?”

I nodded. Neill was showing her concern for me in her way.

I need to master [Battle Frenzy].

It would be my biggest power boost until my evolution, without a doubt. If I could have controlled my [Battle Frenzy] when I fought Eithalr, I could have destroyed him, allowing me to make it to Eshe in time. If I had only gone wild without worrying about the consequences on the environment, I could have done it also… I would never hold back against a criminal scum, again.

… Especially not when a friend’s or loved one’s life was on the line. Burn them down with dragon fire.

“Lady Priestess, if I may give you some words. The past is in the past, while the sun will come tomorrow,” Renee also noticed the sharp drop in my mood. “We cannot do much for the dead outside of wishing them well as they meet the Goddess of Death. As the living, those who hold their memories in our hearts, we must continue looking forward. Do not live for them, but let them become your strength as you fight through it.”

Renee took out her amulet of Aurena, using it as she gave a sincere prayer to Eshe. She might not have known her, but Eshe was a Saintess nonetheless, and as a follower of Aurena, Renee gave my departed friend a solemn rite. Renee probably heard about Eshe’s death, but I wondered what she thought of me now that she knew how I couldn’t protect my friend.

“Mhmm, don’t worry about it, Hestia! You are a blessed and that makes you somebody worthy in the eyes of the gods!” Rita shook her fist as if to pump me up. “If Goddess Aurena hasn’t forsaken you yet, that means you are still worthy!”

You don’t know how right you are, Rita, ahahaha… Even if Aurena’s plans for me were still ongoing, it didn’t hurt any less with how Eshe had to die.

“Dear.” Under the roars of the crowd as the next match was about to start, Mother came over and took Tasianna’s seat to hug me. “Don’t fault yourself too much. Their words might sting, but they too must be grieving for their land’s Saintess. Renee is right. You have already made up your mind, don’t let this set you back, in fact, follow your sister’s advice and make sure you grow stronger from this!”

“I know.” I smiled from all the support, grabbing Mother’s arms. “She told me to ‘stay strong,’ and I am planning on continuing it. My mission is clear, and I bet Eshe expected a lot from me. I can’t mourn forever.”

It’s been over three months now since Eshe died. My heart still felt pain whenever I had to think about her, making me remember her final expression. Seeing somebody I considered a friend die in front of me still pained me, but it had been three months now. I had to stop letting it affect my heart, but instead, embrace the pain to grow.

[“Not to mention, it wasn’t only your fault, Princess Hestia,”] Shay implied.

Knowing what he was talking about, I shook my head, telling him he didn’t need to say it. However, neither he nor his sister accepted my reluctance to say it outloud.

[“Numbers matter, your imperial highness. We know it well,”] Beth stated, reminding me when we first met when they were working under Astalos with a memory. [“Two protectors. That was all. You, your imperial highness, have Tasianna, Rajah, and us. You aren’t solely at fault. The church and whoever accompanied them on their travels were also at fault.”]

It was hard to argue, but both of them weren’t there when it all happened. The whole situation was more complicated. Still, they were right that Eshe shouldn’t have only come to a faraway land with only two knights, and the Lycerepthors who accompanied her understood they were at fault, too. Pestrodus, at least, did.

Quality over quantity, sure, but you couldn’t underestimate the power of numbers completely. The twin’s words made me aware of that, again. Which made it sting so much more what Naemon told me how they thought I was purely at fault. It honestly felt like the world was trying to turn on me.

[“Tasianna. Rajah. Will you two stand with me? Even when the world bares its fangs at me?”] I asked my fellow Aurora members. Sometimes, no matter how much you try, the public opinion on you wouldn’t change for the better, and for that reality, I had to prepare myself.

[“Even if it would cost me life, my lady. Even if my family would abandon me.”]

[“The world has nothing on Master! You will become the strongest, and I will follow right behind you as the most powerful virigress!”]

Mother. Shay. Beth. Neill. Yorshka. Farron. Priscilla. All of Misfits and Magical Biscuits. Master. All of Depth Serpent. We from Aurora aren’t the strongest yet, but we will be when we need to protect all of you.

My party might be split and doing their own things right now, but I felt it in my bones they were becoming stronger with every day. Knowing Saori, she probably would be doing some insane training regimen, while Ellaine and Grimnir had some angry dwarves to contend with. Without a doubt, Aurora would become a full-fledged S rank adventurer party one day.

I turned to everybody here with me today, smiling happy

The rest of the tournament went by pretty quickly in mind as I went through preparations for my training tomorrow with Neill. I had delayed it for too long now.

It was time for me to unlock the usage of [Battle Frenzy (Minor)].

“Must you two really go?” Priscilla begged her father and mother, looking at them with eyes filled with worry and fear.

“Daddy apologizes.” Farron kneeled down, kissing his only daughter on her forehead while caressing her hair. “I know how selfish I am, my little whelpling. I just got healed and the first thing I do is go back to fighting. I know you are worried I would get hurt, again.”

“But it’s for our king, right?”

Farron, fully equipped in his old armor in his days as an A rank adventurer, nodded to his daughter. He clutched his swordspear, a blade that had reaped the lives of many bandits and monsters. He knew he wasn’t fully ready for battle, but he felt his soul stir as he held his beloved weapon, remembering how he swore to avenge his trusted griffon partner, Tempestclaw.

And for that, he needed strength. However, at the same time, his duty as a father made him feel terrible for prioritizing his selfish needs.

“Don’t worry, Priscilla.” Coming to his support, however, was Yorshka, wearing a new set of armor she had ordered from Grimnir when they met in Griffonpeak. Not only was it made with materials from Hestia’s shed scales, but also pieces from the wyvern twins during their shedding session.

The White-Winged Dragoon was not only white, anymore.

“This time, I won’t let anything happen to your father. As his wife, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if something happened to him, again. So, don’t you fret, my beloved gem.” Yorshka kissed her daughter also on her forehead. “War won’t take him. I swear that to you, God Kargryxmor, and to Hestia. The last thing I would want is to make you and my aunt sad. Don’t forget who your mother is, my dear.”

Priscilla sniffled, wiping the small tears on the side of her eyes away, before looking up at her parents with a forced smile. “You are the best adventurer out there! The Wing Ripper and the White-Winged Dragoon are the strongest pair ever!”

“Hey, hey! That’s what I want to hear from my baby girl!” Farron's mouth spread to a wide grin, feeling proud and fully energized by his daughter’s cheer. “Don’t worry, those stories I told you? I will make them all come true!”

“So, stay at Lord Marquess Sirius’s castle, alright? Stay there and wait for us!” Yorshka hugged her daughter before giving her instructions. “Lord Sirius will treat you as if you are one of his daughters, so make sure to also take advantage of that generosity, alright? Never go out of the castle without an escort, no matter how annoying they are. Also, if anybody even tries to be rude to you, mention that your great-aunt is the one and only, Dragon Princess Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor, alright? Scare those bullies away!”

“Mom, I am already 13! Please, don’t treat me like a child! I know how to behave myself. Uncle Gael has told me those things already!” Priscilla’s red eyes showed how impressed she was with Gael, as he said everything Yorshka told her before she did.

“Gael! Urgh…” Yorshka, on the other hand, groaned.

“Hey, come on, don’t be like that. It’s a reunion! Gael has stopped being a drunkard all day while I can fight again. You are not a knight anymore, so chin up!”

“Urgh…” Yorshka then snapped her back to her daughter, realizing she still had to say something. “Then, don’t forget you can’t tell this to Hestia, alright? She already has enough going on, and the last thing we should worry her about is an ongoing war in Artorias! Even if you visit the subspace to cook for them, don’t tell them, alright?”

“Gael already told me that, mom.”

“Argh! Gael!”

“Ah, don’t be mad, mom! If you or dad ever get hungry, come into the subspace, too! I will make you a meal even nobles would drool for!”

Seeing their daughter so energized, Farron clutched onto the [Room] runes in his pouch, remembering he had to keep them safe. They were entrusted to him by Hestia, his benefactor, savior, and family.

With their farewells said, the two Nordor’s left their daughter in the care of Firwood’s lord, Marquess Sirius, while they began their journey southwest with a detachment of his army. They rode in the front carriage, leading this army in Marquess Sirius stead as his generals.

Time to use those points. Yorshka finally told herself, opening the SP shop and scrolling down to a particular skill she had her eyes on. The SP she had saved up was eagerly waiting for her to be used.

For it was time to use everything to gain victory. For in the southwest of Firwood, in the land of Duke Lecartiglio lay Port Annencia. There a siege was ensuing and the Nordor pair was about to become the one of the deciding factors in King Drangleic’s gambit.

The first stage of the Grimgarian war had begun.

Niakash baal’ak. Victory of death.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 330: Territory.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #1 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Fluid Cast Lv. 6] [Continuous Cast Lv. 5] [Royal Presence Lv. 5] [Multi-Thought Processing Lv. 4] gained

Individual   [Sunfang Dragonewt, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has switched her Main Job to [Scout]

Main Job benefits have been updated due to Job change

Scout Level: 0/5

Individual   [Sunfang Dragonewt, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has switched her Secondary Job to [Worker]

Worker Level: 0/5

Acquisition requirement fulfilled.   [Virulent Corrosion] gained. 2850 SP remaining

Mutation acquired. Merging   [Virulent Corrosion] into unique racial skill [Corrosive Fire]

“…”

“…”

“…”

…

“R-Rajah, be careful! Stop being so reckless when you fight!”

[“You’ll be eaten up at this point, virigress!”]

[“Grawr?! Sorry!”]

“H-Hey, the waves are about to break the platforms! Stop them! Stop those merfiends!”

Silence, broken by the loud training session of the warrior priests and Rajah, led by Tasianna and the twins. The Depth Serpents, Master’s party, had accepted to help Jethro out with his order’s training while they remained in Yeos, however, they were still preoccupied with roaming the city. They were still searching for any clues on any subterfuge or enemies we had to be aware of.

As such, Tasianna and the twins took over their duties for today. We weren’t going to the arena, since outside of Renee, none of us had a match today. Scouting our potential opponents was important, but I also needed to do some quick training and homework.

And in the midst of all of this, Mother, Master, and I was huddled up in our own corner, completely oblivious to most of the things happening at the merfiend hunting area of Kahalanteel island. Mostly, ‘cause they were loud. Quite loud. It also didn’t help how the three of us were currently stumped.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Main Job [Scout] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 5]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Max level of Job   [Scout] has been reached

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Secondary Job [Worker] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 5]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Max level of Job   [Worker] has been reached

And this silence continued on until Master turned over to me, looking perturbed. “Hestia, I don’t want to say this…”

“No! Don’t! Please, Master, I don’t want to hear it… Reality.” I slumped over. My face twitched as I continued staring at my profile, trying to locate a skill.

“Hestia…” Mother too wanted me to accept the truth of the matter, however, how could I? How could I possibly accept something this incredulous?

It was a sham!

“Apprentice, I told you this already!” And out of nowhere, my usually lax and calm master slammed his tail on the ground, prompting me to slowly raise my head. “Have you forgotten what I told you? About how you’ve been applying some of the advanced casting techniques in your everyday life already? [Multi-Cast] is just—”

“No! Stop! Nooooo! Don’t say it!” I screamed, diverting my face away from him and trying to close my ears, only for Master to grab my arms. He tried to peel them off, but the Strength between us was too large for him to do anything, so he had to resort to shouting next to my ear.

“Embrace the truth, my apprentice! God Istari demands you to not commit to ignorance! Enlighten yourself, for the way to growth is harsh facts and prudent reflections!” Master pushed an owl badge into my face, the symbol of Istari the God of Knowledge and Magic, and swung it around as if he was trying to exorcise something from me. “Listen to what your Goddess told you! Accept it! We are only wasting precious training time on this!”

“Nooooooooooo!” Defeated, I fell onto my knees, eyes wide open as I stared at the ground in horror. It felt like my heart was about to break.

“Dear…” Mother’s worried voice entered my ears. “You can’t learn [Multi-Cast].”

“Urgk!” And with that final blow, my knees lost all their strengths. Curling up on the ground in a fetal position, I pouted solemnly as I recalled what Aurena told me during one of my magic training sessions with Mother.

<Oh, that. We had it available at one point, but Elder Crustacia noted how extremely synergistic they were together, to the point we had to reduce the potential power of that combination. As such, we made [Parallel Thoughts] stronger by having [Multi-Cast] become a base for it. This means, you can't learn [Multi-Cast], Hestia, as you technically already have it in its evolved form, acquired due to your fractured soul.>

… I always wanted to forget this little fact.

“This is unfair… This is unfair!” I punched the ground, causing a small earthquake, before jumping back on my feet. “My dream! My DREAM! It’s all dead! Why can’t I achieve it!”

“I thought you wanted to continue your idol dream, my whelpling?” Mother stared at me, shocked to hear what I said.

“Of course! But- But, this is… Imagine me invoking 110 magic circles! That is like a machine gun! Bam, bam, ba-ba-ba-ba-bam, bang!” I fired off finger pistols into the air, simulating what I was imagining. The thought of the background covered up in 110 magic circles made my heart pound like crazy. “Unlimited firepower!”

Both Master and Mother frowned at my childish outburst, looking at each other as if they were blaming themselves for something.

“Dear, don’t be too sad about it.” Mother tried to comfort me. “All mages must work with a maximum of eleven simultaneous cast spells at their best. Even I am bound by this rule. Outside of using catalysts or seal grimoires, you can’t overcome this System limitation.”

Master nodded to Mother’s statement. “Mhmm. Besides, your [Parallel Thoughts] is an extremely rare skill barely noted down in books! You see, I tried searching for it in the different libraries of the mages guild, but I think we need to go to Aleistunum for more information. Mhmm!”

“Can you not look at me like that, Master? You’re acting like Rita…” I sulked while looking at Master’s dazzling eyes as if he found something interesting. Rita did the same thing this morning when I told her about my training, only for Neill to drag her away before she fainted from curiosity overload.

“Ha ha? You cannot blame me, my apprentice. As I said, knowledge and experience is a mage’s most valued treasure! I did not assume the importance of your skill back then, how could I neglect to inspect it now? Ha ha ha!” Master’s laugh was sorta infectious, but I wasn’t in the mood to follow up on him. “And, don’t be so dismissive of your skill. You might not have [Multi-Cast], but you have ten other yous inside of you.”

‘Yeah! What he said!’ #2 suddenly spoke up, distracting me from what Master said afterward.

‘You really appreciated us when we were all alone, stuck in that cave. Now you’re treating us as if we are just another piece of your arsenal, Original Mind.’ Even Manager Mind was pouting, making me feel slightly guilty.

… You guys do know we only had ourselves back then. Or, do you guys want me to talk to myself in front of our friends? Embarrassing ourselves?

‘Hey, we’re just saying you should appreciate us more than some stinky [Multi-Cast]. Unless you forgot, with [Multi-Cast], you have to do the casting. With us, we do the casting while you continue dodging! We can even take over the body with your permission! We are the best!’ #3 hyped herself and my other parallel minds up, bringing up the fact they were extremely flexible with how they acted as a command system for me.

Magic helpers, appraisers, memory bank, strategists and tacticians, and also an emergency button in case I went wild again, where they can use spells to keep me contained. I did give them full permission to use spells if my body went out of control and I was unconscious.

Still, my dream to use 110 spells all at once and become the indomitable force of the battlefield was gone. I could still kinda replicate it with [Delayed Cast] and [Continuous Cast], but it wouldn’t have the sheer terror impact like suddenly materializing 110 giant magic circles.

With this fact overwhelming me, I turned around from Master’s lecture and took out my [Room] runes. I was too sad to continue training. I just wanted to slip into my blanket and go to sleep, maybe hibernate for 100 years when casting 110 spells would become available. Stupid balancing.

“Stop joking around, young scale! You are too young to already consider sleeping for decades!” Master quickly snatched me up like a fleeing puppy and sat me back down on the ground. With a deep sigh, he pulled out some wooden slates. “We have better things to do than to sleep. Here, I have an idea on how to improve not only your spell songs but also how to combine your spells and abilities.”

“Huh? ‘Improve my spell songs?’ Master, I think I told you how I couldn’t delete my songs, right?” I was reminded of our reunion, where I gave him a breakdown of how my [Idol] system worked.

“Mhmm, of course! And I also explicitly remembered how you asked a bard about their bardic system. While you were away with your sister, I went to Elyonda’s mage guild and took a look around its library; scarce selection, mind you.” Master shook his head, looking disappointed. “However, Yeos’s past during Yeostar’s lifetime did produce many bards. Even now, if you go to certain corners of the city, you can hear bards playing freely without interruptions. So, the library was filled with ancient hymns and songs about war and strife. It gave me great insight.”

Master then scribbled the locations of those bards onto a slate, handing it over to me. Outside of being a Saint of Xohulotel and follower of Plesia, Master was also loyal to the teachings of Istari. Not only ‘cause he was a mage, but ‘cause he believed knowledge was important for society.

As such, even without me asking him, he prepared everything for me as he wanted to see me grow. Since I wanted to impress Elyonda with my idol concert, I had planned on adapting my songs to their culture. Listening to bards might be the best method here.

“Thank you, Master.” I thanked him with a wide smile. All the disappointment from before disappeared as I embraced the care Master gave me. I knew I chose the correct Master to study under, but seeing him do this warmed my heart.

“Hmm, of course. Even as a Saint, I have a duty to your growth, young scale. You and Tasianna are the only students I have ever managed to instruct properly. Even if you have the Empress to further your training, I will not lag behind. Mhmm, hmm.” Master nodded with pride, while Mother smiled wryly at her competition. “Regardless, let us begin. Your personal lecture begins now, so listen well!”

Master introduced me to the concept of upgrading, or as the System called it “updating information.” Master never did mention how custom spells were final once you made them. Mages were allowed to update their spells as long as the new variation of it was similar enough to the original.

He took my [Sanctified Blaze] and [Sanctified Blaze: Halo of Consecration] as an example. Although they both had the same function of sticking onto a person, only creating white flames to heal or defend their host, the halo variant could attach itself to me. It could heal and attack everything within its radius, making it certainly more different than the spell I based it from.

“Usually, updating custom spells isn’t too practical, as making more spells would make more sense. However, in case of running out of available spell slots if your [Arcane Mind] or [Mental Warfare] isn’t high enough level, acolytes usually change the chant to update their spells’ function,” Master explained. “Your first custom spell usually has some hick-ups. Growing pains. However, I oversaw your [Sanctified Blaze]’s creation and it seemed you followed my instructions for your other spells. You don’t need to update them, simply make more.”

He mentioned the current batch of spells I was currently working on, prompting me to pull out some wooden slates with their chants and magic circle on them. One of them was even me trying to copy what that poison dude did the other day, making a hydra out of poison. It was a cool idea and something I hadn’t thought of until now.

Master nodded, proud to see I was planning three new custom spells. “Mhmm, exactly. Good. Stay flexible with your spells, even if you can force yourself through most situations, ha ha ha ha!”

Which brought us to the main topic of this lecture — changing my spell songs.

“Bards work on a similar System as your ‘idol System.’ They create music that grants their allies beneficial attacks, or they can enfeeble and even attack enemies with their songs. However, the biggest difference between the two Systems is the scale.”

Master told me most bards could only increase stats or decrease stats, while certain offensive songs could materialize mana in the form of notes to attack people. This was all translated into my [Idol] System with my buffing, debuffing, and attack options when it came to creating songs. I haven’t gotten a new type of song in a while, sadly, so I didn’t know if there were more options.

In that sense, the two Systems were pretty similar. However, the major difference between the two came into effect with [My Darkest Thought] and [The Heir of Hope]. The former song countered demonic influences and made them weaker, while the latter would give people the power to defend and attack against demonic threats.

Now, that alone wouldn’t be too important, since bard songs could debuff threats, too. However, what made them unique was the fact they could enchant everybody with the holy element from my [The Light] title. A holy element specifically designed to counter dark elemental attacks and demonic powers.

“My songs took up the effects of my title!” I blurted out when I realized this connection.

“Yes, but your two first songs, [The Will to Fight and Survive] and [Dragon Fire], aren’t. Don’t you still have God Danterno’s blessing?” Master asked, causing me to scowl a bit from thinking how I got that title.

“Kushlek’zar and I had a talk about it yesterday,” Mother continued for Master. “I am not too familiar with every System in the Origin God’s Divine creation, but I can allude to things I knew before it was created. For your songs, the System only mentioned ‘Songs cannot be deleted’ not ‘Songs cannot be updated.’”

“… Oh!” There was a clear distinction in the wording. As you would call it, playing the system.

[Idol], question. I would like to update [The Will to Fight and Survive]. Am I allowed to change the lyrics?

…

Verdammt, no answer. Can I make a song?

Idol System, on! Hello, Hestia, how will your light shine today? Fighting!

1. Register Song

2. Song List: 4/9

Okay, still works.

“I just tried it. It won’t let me update my songs,” I told them.

Master nodded, seemingly expecting that. “It’s alright. The actual process to changing song lyrics is not that dissimilar from the bardic or custom spell System. You must work with the Divine System, young scale.”

“… Seems roundabout. Couldn’t it have been made more convenient?” I criticized it, earning laughter from Mother and Master.

My question is also directed at you, Goddess Aurena… Goddess Aurena! I know you can hear me!

<Hestia, you shouldn’t bother the Goddess. An Origin Gods. They have duties to perform outside of speaking with mortals…>

Good point, but this is also proper feedback! I retorted to Yeostar’s scolding. I bet Aurena was hiding away from me, knowing I was speaking the truth!

In any case, with the situation clear to me, Mother told me how she and Master talked about how it might be possible for me to integrate blessings into my songs. Seeing as Kramps confirmed I was able to use a fraction of Aurena’s and Shiterno’s powers through their blessings while in my [Battle Frenzy] form — as long as I could control them — it should be possible for me to use [The Divine Inferno] to a spell song.

This was going off my usurpation abilities also worked. There was no issue with [The Light], since Aurena planned for me to use [Idol] in this way, as she admitted by telling me how I could counter demons with songs. I was able to usurp control over Shiterno’s blessing, allowing me to use his power without his permission during my berserk moment in Griffonpeak.

“Saori and Asaka were blessed by two Dark Pantheon gods, right?” Mother brought up, suggesting I could usurp control over their blessings, since they were my retainers. It was a possibility, but I believed it would be best to focus on Shiterno’s blessing first.

Mother nodded, agreeing, before raising a finger. “Kushlek’zar assumes you can change your song by simply trying to make a new song while keeping most of the lyrics, although you have to sing it differently. Maybe some changes to the lyrics, too.”

“I asked some bards about it. They do change their tales and songs sometimes, either realizing a mistake and receiving inspiration for a betterment. Usually to no changes to the song’s usage, but sometimes the description would change and they would grant different effects,” Master added.

Hmm, I think I should be doing that then.

“It might be good to update [Dragon Fire], Hestia,” Mother gave me a suggestion. “As you probably realized during the rumble round, releasing your mana has a similar effect to your song. The only difference is that [Dragon Fire] also increases your fire damage while creating a hard-to-escape arena.”

“But, otherwise, Magmakammer does the same job. With [Volcanic Blaze], I can even control the whole area to my liking. Hmm, yeah.” I groaned at the truth of the matter. Since it was my song, I had a certain amount of pride in its usefulness.

Songs are rarely rewritten after they are released, however, different interpretations and small changes have been made when they are sung by other artists. Reimagining. Hmm, it does make sense.

“Mhmm, yes, that is true. Which is a perfect time to transition to the second part of this lecture, my dear!” Mother stood up, gesturing for us to follow her to the beach. Master and I did so, leaving the others to hunt the merfiend.

I was a bit curious how many they have killed so far, making me regret not changing to a more advanced job. Since Rajah was registered as my tamed monster, a portion of the experience he would gain would be transferred to me through the EXP sharing function of my party bracelet. That was how I leveled my [Scout] and [Worker] Jobs up while training with Master and Mother.

Still, from the look of it, Rajah was currently level 18. As a D rank, his max level was 25. Seeing as he was killing D and C rank merfiends with everybody, it was no wonder he was leveling up so fast. He even had my experience increase through [Hestia’s Retainer].

His D rank evolution only had two options — his boring, normal evolution path and the mutation one he was currently on. So, if his C rank was interesting, then I really had to look at how he would grow. He reminded me so much of Saori and me when we were stuck in the Belzac forest. Growing up so fast, always evolving. Since he was still a “young,” I really wanted him to reach B rank before he became an adult to give him the B rank bonus.

Once at the beach, feeling the hot sand under my feet, Mother stretched her arms out before flapping her wings. “A race,” she said before pointing at the ocean, away from the island and city.

“You want to race?” I grimaced a bit. I was 100% sure she was faster than me.

“Exactly, just as a warm up. And, we need to go away from the city, otherwise, my practical demonstration would scare people, hiehiehie!”

“…”

This was not a laughing matter. Mother knew how to hold back, but she had that dragon-like way of showing off. During our first scale manipulation session, she went overboard with the dazzling bling-bling of her diamond-like scales. She had full intention of impressing me, and that meant, going 200% or even more!

“Ha ha ha ha! That is a perfect arrangement, Empress Meloxtressa! Today is a good day to unwind. Come on, young scale, your mother has called!”

But with how things were looking, it didn’t seem like I had a say in this.

[Various Spell Buffs] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Regrettably, I readied myself by casting [Haste], [Swift Winds], and [Overload] on myself. I could have probably also used [Symphonie des Feuergottes], but I really wasn’t exactly vibing with what Mother was planning.

With a “One, two, three, ready set, go” I activated my rocket boosters and blasted myself away from the other two, only to stop in place for a moment at how a body of water moved up and transformed into a mosasaurus! Master quickly boarded it and swam past me, surprising me with his unique skill gained by his sainthood — [Glory of Aelozonia].

Glory of Aelozonia

The primeval prowess of the jungles of the continent of Aelozonia in one skill. Called upon by Xohulotel, the owner of this skill can invoke the native creatures of Aelozonia with the power of water to fight by their side either as water golems, or as a spell buff when cast in a ritualistic manner. The amount of summoned power corresponds with the level of this skill x2

In other words, he could summon dinosaurs into battle. Master was pretty lucky, especially since this was both an offensive and supportive skill. And from how he was sailing away, the mosasaurus he summoned was pretty fast.

Hurry!

With a loud blast, through [Dragoon Jump] and [Wind Blast], I flew in hot pursuit, managing to catch up to him pretty quickly.

“Don’t hold back on this elder scale, Hestia! Fly onwards!” Master noticed how I hadn't tried to pass him, only steading my speed to only fly next to him. However, this little banter of ours ended immediately as a strong, cold wind blasted right past us, unbalancing both of us and nearly causing us to fall into the ocean.

Urgh! I massaged my ears, uncomfortable by the ringing caused by that event. Master also seemed to have that issue, and looking at how I could hear Mother’s voice, I could guess who that was.

“Yoohoo! Hurry up!” I turned my head over to that voice, unable to see anybody without squinting my eyes a bit — it was Mother, waving her hands at us.

With loud sighs and small giggles, Master and I gave up on racing against Mother and turned to each other as rivals. In the end, I was faster than him, but we were still hopelessly outmatched by Mother in the end. Considering how fast she was, it really made me wonder how long it actually took for Yorshka’s message to reach her, informing her I was alive and where I was.

“Alright, first thing first, I did like how you used your first actual in-combat usage of your mana release, Hestia.” The moment we arrived at the location, Mother immediately began my lecture without letting Master or me to settle down. “Channel your mana and slowly pour it into the area, influencing it by using your aura. Don’t forget, the stronger the dragon, the more elementally-aligned their mana is. And this mana will cause natural changes, creating an area where you can fight to the best of your abilities.”

I felt a chill on my skin. Feeling like I knew what Mother was planning, I told Master to move away with me, finding a safe location to see Mother taking in a deep breath. Instantly, the water she was flying over froze, spreading in the span of about three seconds to the size of an entire football stadium.

Master’s mosasaurus was turned into an ice statue as we didn’t make enough distance, to the point we could feel the cold mist wafting inside this place. As I felt slightly lethargic from the low temperature, the water inside this air began to freeze, forming jagged ice stalactites and other constructions of our thin air.

After asking my parallel minds, Mother took about eight seconds to create all of this, finishing her Territory construction with a throne for herself and two smaller thrones for Master and me. Flapping her wings, the temperature around us was turned up, probably from her temperature control.

“Since you like naming all your attacks and abilities, how about I try one myself? Hmm, let’s call my Mana Release, ‘Fimbulvetr,’ no? Since it fits my racial name.”

The official name for this technique was called “Mana Release,” due to the fact you would release your mana into the area by using your aura. The area itself was called “Territory” by the System, since it was the materializing of your natural element into the area, essentially marking it your domain like an animal.

The terms were simple, but they got the point across. Mother certainly understood it well, as her Territory was created almost instantaneously. All the ice spikes and so on weren’t necessary, as her mana had already spread into the area, warding or protecting anything the master of this place wanted.

“Question. What would happen if you released your own mana into this area?” Mother began quizzing me, probably to test if I had learned anything from her.

“Our mana would clash, similar to a clashing of auras or spells.”

“Correct. What happens during this clash and what are the consequences?”

“The mana of your field and mine would want to influence the others. Depending on if the mana are compatible, they would try to fuse together, creating a new form of mana release. However, if they were incompatible or if both users were hostile, the mana would begin fighting each other, causing elemental blasts until one of the Territories were to run out of mana. The loser in this match would receive a mana shock, damaging your mana paths and also accumulating any arcane corruption created from this clash.”

“Good.” Mother then reached her hand, gesturing for us to sit down before she continued. The seats were certainly not comfortable for me to sit on. “Territories are the best area for you to fight in, however, the issues they would provide you if you were to lose a clash would be quite severe. Imagine a long tug-of-war between two equal Territories. A lot of corruption would be created in this process. What would happen if one of them were to lose it at this point?”

“… They would die from [Arcane Fever],” I answered solemnly, withholding what I actually wanted to say.

If such a spike of arcane corruption were to enter your body all of a sudden, you wouldn’t just die, you probably die horribly with your body literally exploding. I could still remember the way the garm matriarch died.

Mother nodded, before turning her head over to Master. “Would you know of this?”

He closed his eyes. “Sir Themrayn showed me his during my blessing ritual. A release of mana, carried throughout the area through your aura. A strong aura is needed, at least at the levels of [Tyrant Aura Lv. 1] or any hybrid versions. Mana is the main ‘currency’ in this battle, and the result of the clash is determined by your mana pool and the strength of your aura.”

“That is why most dragons can use it. Since we can gain [Draconic Aura],” I added, but Mother shook her finger for a moment.

“You're special, dear, like any spawn of an ancient dragon. Normal dragons from lower lineages don’t hatch with that skill, but need to acquire it through hard work,” Mother corrected me, although I wasn’t born with it either. Then again, I was told multiple times I hatched prematurely, far before I was fully developed and that was why I was born a gecko.

Mother then stood up and waved her hand around her Territory, creating a fortress with huge walls like Artorias in a matter of seconds just like that! She then asked us to stand up and then move away a bit.

“And that is why you need to learn not to use your Mana Release for every situation, alright, Hestia? If you are strong and have no other foes in the area, use it as often as you like with no fear. However, remember, just like in the wilds, once a territory is marked, you will also welcome enemies to succeed you.”

The animal documentaries I watched on Earth reminded me of a ton of Territorial disputes. Even if the area was owned by an old and strong beast, you would always have reckless young adult beasts try to beat you up. I could understand why Mother used that example to help me realize the impact of this ability.

Also, from hearing how Master mentioned Tehmrayn was also able to create a Territory, it made me aware it wasn’t reserved for dragons alone, but anybody could create one as long as they had enough mana and the necessary aura. Kinda scary to think about it, but considering the enemies I might face in the future, this was essential to know.

“Now, the lecture is done, you two! It is training time now!” Mother spoke with both of us, even addressing Master in the mix, confusing him. “Why, of course, Kushlek’zar. You must join, too. You have no idea how to manifest your own Territory, correct? You also need to level up your [Terror Aura] already. As a Saint, you need to know how to use this technique.”

She then turned to me, shaking her finger at me with a smile. “However, no cheating, alright? No buying [Territory Release] from your SP shop, alright, Hestia? Like my [Fimbulvetr], you can turn your Magmakammer into an actual draconic ability, but I would hate it if you fast-forwarded the process.”

I tilted my head at what Mother just said, sending my parallel minds to search through my SP shop for what she mentioned. Strangely enough, they actually managed to find a skill called [Territory Release], which was strange, since I have never seen it on the list before. Did it appear ‘cause I did my first Mana Release? Maybe, but I couldn’t determine it at this point.

In any case, I nodded to Mother, earning her approval.

“Good! Alright, until Fargryneill returns, I want us to train, alright? My whelpling, it would also be sound time for you to learn how to fully use your Territory. After all, what exactly makes it the perfect place to fight? Azure Blade!”

Without warning, Mother materialized the level four [Torrent Magic] spell [Azure Blade] in the air, using it to dig deeply into the frozen floor. However, it didn’t last long as moments later, it began to turn into ice, dazzling like crystals as the ice grew into a large, beautiful flower around the height of an oak tree.

“You have [Scale Manipulation] now. Your Mother can finally start teaching you some Nordor abilities, hehehe~! Kyaaahk! This is the moment I’ve been waiting for!”

Wait, didn’t I only want to learn [Battle Frenzy] today?

However, you never know what would happen in your life. It was better to just grab every opportunity you could!

“Nice! Teach me, Mother! Make me a great dragon!” I rushed over to Mother and gave her big hug, too excited by the sound of Mother training me to fully worry about my random thoughts. I lost my ability to cast 110 spells at once, but now I could learn some dragon abilities? Hello?! Thank you, please, Mother!

I was a bit worried Mother was getting too excited and not sleeping enough, since I haven’t seen her hibernate for a while, but she told me she would take her nap after all the music around her stopped. It was too loud for her to go to sleep.

I knew Mother was talking about the beach and how she was enjoying it, but I was starting to think she might also mean my concert! I felt like my heart was pumping harder from this fact. It just made me even more motivated to train, not to mention, prepare for the concert this LightDay!

… Only, I didn’t expect Mother’s training to be so… hard.

“N-Noooooo! Heeeeeeeelp!”

“Ha ha ha ha, parent and child, such a beautiful relationship!”

A note from AbyssRaven

Territory Expansion!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters for the whole month! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 331: Gluttony Conquered.

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Solar Core Lv. 4] [White Flame Lv. 6] [Scale Manipulation Lv. 2] [Water Resistance Lv. 6] gained

Ability gained:   [Magmakammer]

Acquisition requirement fulfilled.   [Territory Release Lv. 1] acquired

Territory Release

A skill connected to the Mana Release technique. Widens the area of effect of any aura, while increasing the sturdiness of a Territory during a Territory Dispute. Upon losing a Dispute, reduces the amount of arcane corruption gained by 5% * [Territory Release Lv. N]

“You sure had a party while I was away,” Neill commented as we both stared at the frozen battlefield in the distance, having increased in size from when Mother first set up her Territory. You could see it from Karhalenteel island, where nobody would fault you for thinking it was a faraway island.

But the moment you zoomed in, you could see how weird it looked. A castle of ice stood alone on a small island, leaving barely any space for people to walk around the premises. However, what actually stood out was the tall, oak-size ice flower looming over everything with multiple ice dinosaurs and frozen flame statues decorating the castle.

“Yeah…” I sighed deeply, shaking my head in exasperation. Seeing me slumping, Tasianna tapped my shoulders, telling me to straighten my back for her to continue combing my disheveled hair. “I didn’t think her training would be so rough… Uuurgh! I-I felt… fear.”

My body trembled as I told that to Neill, reliving the shivering cold I felt during my training with Mother. The hailstorm of her scales rained down on me on an ice island, meaning I couldn’t use my earth spells to protect myself. I had to resort to using my scales, but due to my elemental weakness, my [Draconic Barrier] didn’t last long and I was almost turned into cheese holes.

I couldn’t even melt her scales, forcing me to scurry away like my days as a small G rank gecko. But whenever I went, the freezing mist just made me feel weaker and weaker. My fight or flight response activated during training; DURING TRAINING. I was so scared I just wanted to cry. My excitement from learning from Mother just vanished. To survive I had to transform into my dragon form.

Neill gently grabbed my head and slowly pulled me to her, letting me rest on her. I looked up, only to see Neill having an empty expression. “Mothers are scary.”

“Ah! … Yeah.”

Neill seemed to be pretty used to her dragon paths. If she had to learn this from her own mother, then from how she looked, I could tell she could sympathize. I probably couldn’t fathom what she experienced. With what Cernust and Kramps told me about dragon mothers, I could start to see why they would be considered scary.

And here I thought Mother would just be a helicopter mom, but no, she’s a strict performance mom!

“Awwwwww, don’t you two look adorable together~”

“Eeek!” My body flinched, backing away from Neill as I felt chills running down my spine.

“Your Majesty, I do hope the tea was to your liking.” Ignoring what I was doing, Tasianna carried on as normal and greeted Mother.

“Delectable, as always, Tasianna. Wonderful. You have reinvigorated my love for small beverages and my elven body’s taste buds the moment we met.” Mother giggled with a satisfied face, handing Tasianna her cup with her levitating scales. After she was done talking with Tasianna about tea, she turned over to Neill and me. “I am happy to see the both of you enjoying each other’s company so much. Family is everything, after all.”

“Family is everything,” Neill repeated with a wry smile while I just nodded my head.

“Hmm? Is something wrong? The both of you are acting too stiff for young scales.” Mother approached me, causing me to shrink a bit from the trauma I experienced. “H-Hestia?! H-Hey, don’t do that to your own mother! Why are you so scared?!”

Mother’s modified reaction made me feel guilty over what I did. It wasn’t on purpose, just a reflex!

“C-Come on, you know exactly what’s up! What sort of training was that supposed to be?! I was scared for my own life!” I shouted, incredulously Mother was so nonchalant about it. “Dragon abilities?! Nordor abilities?! No! You tried to freeze me into a popsicle! You know I’m weak to ice, so why did you move your silver dust around like a blizzard!”

“Hmm? Is that all?” Mother tilted her head, seemingly unimpressed by the horror I felt. “You might be overreacting, Hestia. It was light exercise. Look. Your master seems fine.”

She then pointed at Master Kush, who was currently talking with Rita about being a blessed. His blue priest robes were completely in tatters, nearly ripped apart to the point where he was exposing the armor he was wearing underneath it.

“Hmm, yes, communicating with a god is not something to be trifled with at all. It is wisdom, but at the same time, it is an uncomfortable noise in your mind. Very hard to decipher, but as a Saint, that is my duty,” Master spoke of his experience as a Saint. “Sir Themrayn has much experience and my apprentice can speak with the gods almost fluently. Ha ha ha ha, I can tell you, I would have enough material to write a whole book about it if I only had the time.”

The dryad jumped out, overly excited by all that she was hearing. “Rita would like to know more! I mean, I want to know more, Saint Kushlek’zar! During my time, I haven’t had the chance to speak with any blessed! How the world has changed!”

“Hmm? Changed? ‘Your time?’ Aren’t you a human?” Master frowned as he stared at Rita’s human disguise. We hadn’t told him Rita was using [Humanize].

“See?” Mother smiled, content with the situation. “He’s fine. What an interesting scalekin.”

“Urgh…” I groaned, before giving up on the topic, pointing at Tasianna to continue correct my messed-up hair.

In response, Mother gave me a slightly worried look. “My whelpling, please, training as a dragon isn’t exactly easy. Fighting is the best way to gain experience, not only from a System standpoint, but also from a combat point of view. Practice is there to help you solidify your foundation.”

“She’s right, you know?” Neill agreed, looking slightly reluctant to admit it though. “Dragonkins are forces of nature, so fighting between each other would reflect that. It’s even worse when we start releasing our mana to create a Territory to fight within. Learning how to wield my dragon paths wasn’t a cakewalk, especially when my own mom had some high expectations for me. You need to toughen up, Sis.”

“… Urgh, right.” I slapped my cheeks, reminding myself of my days with my dance trainer and the whole thing about setting a foundation for myself. “Well, at least, it gave me a few ideas on what to do with my scales outside of having them explode everywhere.”

“Right.” Mother nodded, happy to see me alright again. “But don’t overwhelm yourself too much, alright? You have a concert on LightDay. You will have plenty of time to improve.”

Right, we’re dragons. As much as our enemies are looming over our heads right now, I have a long lifespan to master everything I need. Then again, kinda wished I would master things faster, like my good ol’ Belzac days.

“Yup!” Neill smacked my back, almost sending me falling onto my face. “Being a dragon is more than just spewing out fire and shooting out elemental mana. At least, for us from the more tougher lineages. Nordoramsul is all about scale and powder manipulation with their ice, and mine — Gueillxar — use the dragon paths in conjunction with our specialized jagged horn.”

Well, in my case, it would be using my explosive scale-dust. I was a mutant Nordor-Kargryxmor dragon.

“Buuuuuuut, we are also Kargryxmors, and our specialty lies with our black flame and unique [Battle Frenzy].” Neill pointed at the center at a spot on the beach. “Come on, we barely have any time to really train with the tournament schedules. At least, get [Battle Frenzy], Sis. Tasianna, bring the twins. I don’t want a repeat like last time. Might as well use your ‘new’ public image to use.”

Sis was a bit peeved I exposed my dragon identity to everybody in the arena. Even Sis, who loved attention, never, ever explicitly confirmed her dragon heritage. She went by Gueillxar in her adulthood pilgrimage, which despite being an SSS rank kirin was pretty much unknown within human lands.

And ‘cause of this, she gave me a big lecture on how the adulthood pilgrimage worked. While it was only a recommendation, dragonkins weren’t supposed to expose themselves. As Cernust and Yorshka mentioned, if this information were to spread, it would only attract reckless dragon slayers, seeking fame by slaying one of the most ferocious monsters of this world.

Not like I had to follow it nor could I help it, really. I was an idol, after all. My goal was to seek the spotlight, even if I were to bring problems to me. Not like I could stop that part, since the demonkins already knew about me. They already tried sending some dragonslayers at me.

Eh, it happened already.

In any case, as our group — minus Tasianna who went to get the twins and Rajah — waited on the beach, we suddenly got a visit from Renee and Jethro.

“Oh, hey, Renee! How was your match?” I haven’t asked Neill about Renee’s match yet, but considering Neill wasn’t complaining about it, she probably won.

“A win. Alistar trained him well enough, but he still needed more time.” Renee didn’t sound exhausted, then again, her match was the fourth of the day so she had plenty of time to chill.

Speaking of matches, the two mages from yesterday, Naemon and Joek, Alistar, and Larent had their matches today, too. Upon asking Renee if these acquaintances of ours had won, she confirmed it. In fact, tomorrow, she would have to duel against Joek.

“Sir Alistar performed well for one so young in his position, but I have my suspicion Sir Larent is still the favorite of this tournament. As hard as it is to admit, he put Yeos to shame by defeating one of our lords within three blinks.” Jethro, leader of the warrior priests of Yeostar, shook his head in shame.

“Favorite? Him?” While Jetro felt sad ‘cause it was hard for his country’s champion, Neill didn’t understand this, and instead, took it as a challenge. “Heard what is happening from Hestia. If you need somebody to win, then don’t worry old man, the real favorite of this tournament stands right before you.”

Writing me off right in front of me? Wow.

“You? … Right, you are this young knight’s friend, correct? You’ve been coming over to the island recently with Princess Hestia.” Jethro squinted his eyes, glaring at Neill as if she was somebody worth suspecting.

Neill nodded.

“Right… My apologies if I don’t believe you, but ‘Auegor’s Blade’ is a monster I do not believe anybody can contest. The man is a candidate to become a sword saint.”

“Your lack of confidence in me is rather insulting, old man. Hmph. Once again, showing is better than bragging about it.” Neill turned away from Jethro, ignoring him after their interaction. Instead of becoming agitated by her attitude, Jethro approached me with a grimace whether he was annoyed or exasperated by my sister’s behavior.

“Can I trust you would tell me if you had any more… relatives around?” Just like the Evidian mages from yesterday, it seemed Jethro was suspicious.

I had thought he had softened up a bit to me, but I seemed he was still rather apprehensive of my presence. “We don’t have a good enough relationship, Sir Jethro. I don’t need to tell you anything when it comes to my family or not. Shouldn’t you be more concerned about if I am doing my job correctly after I announced everything yesterday?

“That is why I am questioning you! If that… dragonewt is also part of your family, I need to know as one of Yeos’s military advisors!” Jethro continued arguing, making literally no sense to me. “What you did yesterday was maddening! Must you seriously place a target on yourself like that? If you wanted to be so brazen, then why didn’t you accept the invitation yesterday to join the noble banquet? The five princes wanted to meet you.”

This man really grinds me gear. If only I wasn’t a good girl…

I sighed. “First, this plan of mine was not only approved by Princess Anasthasia, but also Duke Alberstien! Prince Markval also had no problems with it, so why are you complaining? Just because you were left out? If you want to confront someone, go to them!”

Economical and cultural advancements over military, in my opinion. Princess Anasthasia was trying to bring her country out of a recession, to bring in more money, so using my status to attract people into Elyonda was the plan. With the other five princes of the Divide around, it was also the perfect time to have them send in more envoys.

“Second, painting a target on my back is exactly what my role should be! My official duty is that of a Champion of the Goddess, and I am doing exactly why I came here for: to protect the blood. At the same time, as the first Idol of the Goddess, I am also around to rally people up. Isn’t that the main function of this festival? Bring up people’s mood after the death of Sir Royce and your former ruling prince?”

“And I assure you, you have my thanks for caring this much for my country, but how you did it is an outrage!” he shouted, looking like a tomato. “I have heard from Sir Alistar what you had done. I thank you for intercepting them, yes, but if some grimy goblins and orcs are planning to attack the city, then why are you trying to bring more people to the festival? There will be more civilians to account for. The common folk! Us nobles and the military are responsible for their survival, and what you are doing is endangering them!”

I was shocked to hear this man actually caring so much for commoners. He didn’t strike me as somebody who would care for anything but his pride and faith.

Noticing my astonishment, Jethro's face softened up a bit at the misunderstanding. “I am not a knight, no, but knights are there to protect their country, which includes the people. It is an interpretation of Yeostar’s teaching, but even I am not so single-minded that I only care for war. Without farmers and bountiful land, an army cannot be made.”

Even if I disliked how he talked about me, I had to give him some respect for that statement. “… Then you should probably start listening to your niece, then. Princess Anasthasia also cares for her country, but I have been told by her how you and many other of the lords just disregard her purely because she is a woman.”

“Her plan with you is endangering people! Not only our commoners, but also the envoys from the other principalities! If this is that naive girl’s idea, then it shows she lacks the qualifications to be a minister.”

“She cares about the country as much as you do. However, Davi is needed to keep it running. Instead of only thinking about building up your military strength and finding vengeance for your brother, might I suggest you also take care of your coffers? Or maybe the borders? You, Duke Alberstien, and Princess Anasthasia. Your squabbles don't help the land’s unity.”

“… Hmm. There is… wisdom in what you said.” Jethro stroked his bead, taking my suggestion actually seriously. “But, what about the increased influx of merchants and visitors? I have already heard news that merchants are sending out news about you. More people will arrive in Elyonda through the Gleislain river boat on Lightday. What would you do if those damnable orcs or whatever mercenaries the demonkins hired attacked us then?”

“I have ways to save them all. Besides, don’t you have the arena?”

“In an emergency or siege, protocols indicate all members of the royal family or foreign envoys to move to God Yeostar’s arena for safety with the dungeon’s System. The commoners move to the temple for safety.” Jethro then shook his head, sighing. “By the Goddess, I hope you have a method to save them. Their blood will be on your hands if you fail.”

And with that, Jethro told me he had to go to continue the fortification of the city and island, taking the grimgarian threat quite seriously.

Yes, blame everything on me. All my fault, yeah right… Your warrior priest is irritating, God Yeostar.

<Your patience is worthy of a saintess, Hestia. Please, don’t lose that heart of yours.>

I would rather smack that old prick in the face…

“Does he know you?” Once Jethro was gone, Renee came over to speak with me.

“Never met him when I was a child. My father warned me to not reveal myself in his presence, if I wanted his respect.” Renee let out a small sigh through her helmet, probably as exhausted with all this ridiculousness as I was. “He was wondering why I wasn’t officially knighted, so I just told him I was away, in the Empire. Only returning home after the news of Sir Royce’s death arrived.”

It really seemed like I wouldn't ever get along with that man. He was too misogynist for me to ever get a proper discussion with him before some of his animosity appeared. It sucked that I had to work with him, but that was how it worked. Hitting him would be pure vindication, but it would only worsen things between us.

“Good luck making this country actually adapt to the other kingdoms.”

“It will be a long road, but it will happen. I am sure of it.” But her sour mood instantly turned around the moment the discussion ended and turned to me. “Well, don’t let me interrupt you any further. As a Champion of the Goddess, you better start getting stronger, Lady Priestess. When I become God Yeostar’s Champion, I would be honored to fight by your side.”

“Ehehe…”

I thought Renee would be mad that I kept my blessed status from her, but she was more elated to hear about it. Purely ‘cause it made sure she didn’t have to persuade me to participate in the war against the demonkins, as that was my duty to Aurena. Talk about a troublesome woman.

After Tasianna returned with the twins, we went over to Neill who was waiting for me. While the twins got ready to stop my rampage, I sat down at the spot Neill wanted while she took the one opposite to me. Telling me to breathe in deeply, she then began repeating what she told me on the weekend.

“Remember what I told you. Gluttony is about surviving, a reason to drive you forward. However, it cannot be something you want, like attention or strength, but a need. Something inside you that motivates you, drives you forward with everything,” Neill lectured me. “What is your sloth?”

“To me, my sloth is to assure the happiness of myself, which includes my friend’s happiness,” I answered.

“That is your foundation. Good. You already have sloth to keep your [Battle Frenzy] in check, but with Gluttony, you need something that symbolizes your continued effort. You need it to survive.” Neill’s face tensed up, looking at me seriously. “You had a pretty bad reaction last time. We should be able to contain it now. So, just think back. What is it that you need in your life?”

I closed my eyes. My mind wandered to last DarkDay when we were in the carriage towards Renee’s homestead. What was the trigger to my rage?

Solitude.

“Mhrm.”

Pain. My chest felt heavy, as if something was trying to burst out of it. The mere thought of being alone caused my heart to act up, pumping my blood faster through my body. This feeling was undoubtedly [Battle Frenzy].

“You’re heating up,” I heard Neill’s voice inform me. I could feel my body heating up, yes. “I don’t want this to repeat again, so take a breather. Compose yourself.”

I did as she wanted and opened my eyes, stopping the meditation. Once again, I was meeting an early obstacle compared to the sloth phase. What was I doing wrong?

“I don’t understand this. Why can’t I calm myself down! The moment I think of the word ‘Solitude,’ my body just starts to act up!”

Neill shrugged, not knowing how to answer. “Because it’s all our blood’s fault. I can’t give you a more concrete answer there, Sis. There is nothing logical about emotions and so on, and that is especially the case when we dragons usually act on our instincts.”

“This is only the second phase but there is already this much of an issue.” Tasianna worried for me and my path forward. “Mhmm, I knew it would be hard to master [Battle Frenzy], but if every stage becomes harder and harder, then this might take more than a year, Lady Hestia. It’s already been three weeks since you started the Gluttony phase.”

“Hmm.” Mother looked pensively. “Why not ask Kargryxmor for help in this matter? Although, if you were to ask my opinion on the subject, is ‘Solitude’ really your need, my dear? I couldn’t fathom any dragon actually thinking solitude being a need. More like a want.”

“No, Mother, I meant, I don’t want to be alone. I-I-Ahhh!” I clapped my cheeks, feeling embarrassed from all of this. The heat of the sun wasn’t helping as I could feel my head warming up. “I don’t want to lose anybody, but what I mean by solitude is that I don’t think I can survive or even think probably if I were to be completely alone. Just thinking about losing people, or Eshe, just not having these people in my life again pains me. It feels so weird that in 100 years, I won’t be able to meet certain people again.”

“Mhmm. The end is inevitable for us humans…” Renee stated without any hesitation. “I knew the day I chose the life of a knight, I would die on the battlefield. Even if I were to survive and retire, time will pass and I will leave behind my love ones.”

“Hmm, that curse of us long-living races.” Mother’s eyes shrunk, showing hints of sadness as she continued. “But, my dear daughter, as I said when we met in Griffonpeak, you have me. You have Tasianna. You probably will also have Saori, I guess. You will have your family and also your dragonkin retainers, as our lifespan is long.”

“But Ellaine and Grimnir, not to mention Tatsuya and the others… Regardless of those I will still have, I will have to say goodbye to others.”

Just the thought of this was starting for me to act up. Signs of [Battle Frenzy] were showing as my tail kept shaking around uncontrollably, my fingers rubbing against each other, and how I was biting my lips. The twins immediately sprayed cold air at me, causing me to yelp and pushing any anxiousness I felt back in my mind, too preoccupied with warming my body up.

Even with all of this, I can’t seem to unlock it. Why?

Talking about the cost of time felt really awkward and was a big downer for me. I didn’t want to continue talking about it, making it harder and harder for me to keep my cool. I felt impatient, forgetting I was a dragon who had plenty of time on her hands. And it was during this time that Kramps finally talked with me.

<Think positively. A sin is about what you desire, not about what you fear.>

Desire? Fear?

“… Hold on.”

“Hmm? Did you figure something out?” Neill asked, but I ignored her, too focused on that train of thought.

Wasn’t Mother correct? Unless it’s some dragon who just can’t live in the presence of others, it would be kinda weird if a dragon would have solitude as a ‘need.’ It would be more like a want, because they want to be alone.

But even then, it doesn’t make sense to me. This would be a want, but I don’t want to be alone. But, that is exactly the point though. I don’t want to be alone. I couldn't live being all alone, with none of my friends next to me. I want this [Battle Frenzy] to protect them. To assure their happiness, so I could be slothful and content with life.

But… fear? Desire? Maybe… Maybe I was thinking of this in the wrong way? I don’t need to be not alone, I need to have—

“Haaaaaaap!” I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, cooling my lungs with the fresh sea air. I allowed my mind to concentrate on a single word.

— companionship. No! Not just that. To not be alone, I need friends. No, I already went over this. To not be specific. I need something far more simple than that. I need—

— relations.

That’s right, whether good or bad, whether love or hate, whether new or old. What I needed in my life were people. It didn’t matter if they were my friends or best friends, it could also be a simple acquaintance or even a fan I met once in my life. The opposite of solitude was relationships.

I need relationships. I can’t live without them.

“Urrrrk! Krriiiiiiek! KRAAAAAAK!” My eyes opened up as I felt a surging pain from my chest, falling forward. I grabbed my chest where my heart was, noticing it was pounding against my ribcage like a drum.

[““Mistress!””] The twins shouted in my head as they prepared to release ice breaths at me.

“No, stop! Haargh!” However, their cold winds were immediately stopped as Neill stomped the ground, sending dragon paths out which released lightning bolts out.

“L-Lady?! What are you doing!” Tasianna cried out as I continued groaning in pain.

“Fargryneill, what are you doing with your sister?!” Even Renee was chiming in.

“No, we can’t stop her now! Melloxtressa, you should be able to feel it! That feeling! Yes, you fought with Father, you should know how the surge of power feels! This is it!”

“You… No, you’re right. Shaytierus. Bethlieranha. Tasianna. Stop!” Mother calmly assessed the situation before agreeing with Neill, stopping the cold winds sapping my strength away. “Continue!”

“Hestia! Can you listen to me?” I nodded, despite being in agony here. It felt like my heart was burning, only for my sun core to regulate it before it could burst. “Good! Then this is what we are looking for! What is your need? Tell me now!”

“KrraAAK! I-Iiiiieek! I need to protect my relationships! I don’t care who! Without having any relationships in my life, I dunno- Arck! I dunno if I can live all alone! I need to protect all my relationships to protect the happiness of my friends!” I forced everything out, shouting everything I could.

“ ‘Kriffiek kllk gaaung!’” Mother suddenly growled.

“ ‘Kriffiek kllk gaaung!’ That is ‘I will protect my relationship’ in draconic! That is your wish made true, to open up your blood! Remember what your foundation is as you release this power!”

“To protect the happiness of my friends!” I told out loud, unable to control this pain even with [Absolute Pain Nullification]. It felt like my soul was screaming.

“Repeat after me! Kriffiek kllk gaaung! Kriffiek kllk gaaung!”

“Kriffiek kllk- Ung! Gaaung! Kriffiek kllk gaaung! Urk!”

[Battle Frenzy (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Kraaaaaak!” A surge of flames — crimson, purple, and white — burst out of me with a handful of my scale-dust, prompting everybody to make space for me by jumping away.

Descendant of the Black Tyrant Kargryxmor, you have continued your path towards the inner peace of your blood. The seven paths of transcendence await you onwards on exalted wings. The path of Gluttony has been fulfilled. Paths unlocked: 2/7

With the trigger for your heart and blood achieved, you are now able to control [Battle Frenzy (Minor)]

Restriction on additional effects of   [Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] has been fully lifted. Title linking effects will activate once [Battle Frenzy] is activated. Strength taken from titles is determined by the stage of [Battle Frenzy].

[Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] has integrated certain abilities from Titles: [The Light], [Divine Inferno]. Seeking permission for activation… Individual [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has usurped control over [The Light] and [Divine Inferno]. Permission automatically granted

[Hestia’s Retainer] has links for certain abilities from Titles: [Ambassador of Grim], [Moonlight Guider]. Seeking permission for activation… Individual [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has usurped ownership over [Ambassador of Grim] and [Moonlight Guider]. Permission automatically granted… Effects not activated. Necessary amount of power to activate not currently available from titles to harvest. Canceling title linking

“Arck… Haaaaa.”

The heat… it was gone. The raging fire in my body was still burning brightly, but felt more controlled, as if it was contained by my will alone. My heart was still beating like crazy, but I felt calmer, although not at peace. I felt… a want to fight. To hunt. Or to test myself.

I looked down, noticing my three colored flames swirling around me as if I had [Symphonie des Feuergottes] on. But what surprised me more was the color of my scales, having brightened up from my usual crimson color to a more bright, yellowish red. Maybe it could be described as blond?

‘Hey, hey, Original Mind! Your hair!’ Manager Mind pointed my attention to my hair falling in my vision, only to notice I had some white stands mixed in my crimson hair.

“It… White. Isn’t this what it looked like when I had Major on during that fight?” I was thinking of my berserker moment where I avenged Eshe’s death against the demonkin who murdered her.

“Sis!”

“My whelpling!”

“Huh? Woah?!” Mother and Neill tackled me onto the ground, ramming my poor wings on the rather hard sandy beach. Without allowing me to complain to them, both hugged me like crazy.

“I knew it! You make big sis proud, little H! Hahaha! Awesome! Welcome to the family!”

“You did it! You don’t know how proud I am, Hestia! You did it, you made your first step towards your lineage! Perfect, with power like your father, we can increase the necessary training to help you get stronger.”

“Eeeek! No!” Overwhelmed by fear of Mother’s training, I used an opening in their hugs to slip right out of their embrace. Which was where I noticed how light my body felt, almost as if it was weightless.

“Hmm?” Neill smirked as I was astonished at this fact. “Don’t get too drunk on power, alright, Sis? [Battle Frenzy] increases our stats by a bit but what’s more important is that it accentuates our draconic powers.”

Battle Frenzy

The battle will of the Black Tyrant Dragon Kargryxmor coursing through his descendant’s blood, tamed by the dragon to release the full potential of the Black Tyrant’s spawn. When activated, depending on the stage, stats and resource regeneration will increase

I checked my profile, noticing a 10% increase in all my stats outside of Health, Mana, and Stamina. It was similar to the description Ellaine’s armor had, only that it didn’t mention the “full potential” part.

“What do you mean by ‘accentuate?’” I asked her, wanting to learn more.

“In my case, it would be my ability to perceive mana more easily and control them even through the air. What’s more, it helps me focus them around my body and release them in more focused attacks,” she explained. “Which means, it will affect your speciality. In this case — your scale-dust. And, well, whatever else but honestly, only you can answer that, my aging little kid sister. Can’t believe you would have grey hair at this age, hehe.”

“Oi!” I wanted to complain at Neill, but before I could, a loud thud appeared from nowhere, drawing my head to the side.

“Then, allow me to help you discern them, Champion of Aurena.”

It was Tehmrayn.

“I wish to see the power of a Kargyrxmor. Release your Territory. Show me your might.”

… Verdammt.

A note from AbyssRaven

BATTLE FRENZY MODE! GETTO!

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For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters for the whole month! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 332: A Champion’s Worth.

“Fight me as if you mean to slay.”

“… N-No, thank you?”

“…”

“…”

“… Understood. I will return to my post.”

He gave up so easily?!

Out of nowhere, Themrayn, the naga Champion of the God of Tridents and Divers, Zennithra, appeared before us after I was done with the second phase of my [Battle Frenzy] training. Able to control [Battle Frenzy], even if just at the minor stage, for the first time in my life wasn’t just exhilarating from the fact I succeeded, but also from the pure energy coursing into every cell of my being.

It felt like drinking coffee, an energy drink, and then pouring sugar right down through your throat. It was that sorta hyper-focus, and with it, came also some twitching which was a normal battle junkie behavior whenever I had [Battle Frenzy (Minor)] active before today.

Usually, I would be pretty aggressive and more assertive while I had it on, evidently, from all the times I rushed into battle when it activated from a lack of fighting or through pure survival instincts. However, right now, I didn’t feel like it.

“Hold on!” Seeing Tehmrayn slithering away after I rejected his request, I dashed right in front of him to stop him. “Why did you ask that out of nowhere?”

“As I mentioned before, it was to help you discern your new abilities,” Tehmrayn asserted the fact he was doing it for my sake. “As a warrior, I am curious about your newfound strength. However, evidently, you aren’t. As such, I shall take my leave.”

No idea why, but that kinda was annoying to hear.

“Mhmm, but you went about it wrong.” As Tehmrayn was about to leave again. Mother chimed in while approaching us. “Requesting a fight out of nowhere and saying she should fight as if to kill you will unnerve anybody. Misunderstanding, dear Naga.”

Tehmrayn bowed slightly to Mother’s presence, showing his respect to a far stronger being like when they first met. “A Champion should always be ready for opposition. Whether in the light or shadows. A chance to better oneself should not be declined.”

Mhmm, he has a point…

“I do agree, but in this case it would have been better if you explained your intentions more clearly, instead of surprising her with a sudden fight,” Mother argued. “Hestia can fight well enough and has the experience to adapt to sudden situations, from what I could see. As an elder scale, your responsibility with your years of life is to be patient with young scales.”

“Must I announce my intentions all the time? I am offering a fight between two blessed to your daughter. It would be an invaluable experience. There is no need to consider anything more.” Themrayn then turned back to me. I couldn’t see his facial expression through his marine blue helmet. “Curious. You are far less aggressive than I thought a Kargryxmor should be.”

I smiled wryly at his statement. If I were to guess why, my race was probably the reason. Before my evolution, the [Young Sunfang Dragon] was described to be a calm dragon. It would be less prone to aggressive tendencies outside of protecting what is owned, and was one of the reasons for why I took this evolution. It would help me control my temper better while I was in a city.

“That’s, literally, the entire point, naga.” Letting out a deep sigh, Neill came over with Tasianna and the twins. “The idea of the [Battle Frenzy] training is to help a Kargryxmor control their blood thirst. You’re able to use the full potential of your bloodline, without going completely mad. That was how Kramps became the strongest.”

She then turned over to me. “Warning: the longer you stay in that state, the easier you will transition to the next stage. That’s bad. Even if you can control yourself now, you won’t be able to do it for moderate at all. You will go berserk, no matter how high your mental protection skills are.”

I furrowed my brows at that fact. The thought of going berserk right now really sounded weird. I looked back at my hair, remembering how my parallel minds told me my hair had completely turned white when I entered [Battle Frenzy (Major)] in the capital. Or whenever I visited a god’s domain.

In any case, it meant I still had a way to improve. I wasn’t anywhere close enough to mastering this ability of mine. It was still a threat to everybody around me, if I couldn’t control myself.

“Why not try yourself against him, Sis?” Neill suggested. “Might as well, no? I would love to see it!”

“Ooooooh, SAME!” Rita sprinted over the moment she heard that come from Neill’s mouth, breathing heavily with her eyes widened like a goldfish. “Two blessed fighting against each other! One from the light Pantheon and the other from the water one. Such a rarity! Please, please, Hestia!”

Arguments were piling onto me. Today was my day of training, after all, and although I did fight with Mother before, a bit more wouldn’t hurt. Due to my busy schedule, I didn’t have much time to spar really, so a short tussle sounded pretty nice now that I thought about it.

But would it be smart to go all out when I had a match tomorrow? Well, I had enough dragorades to heal up my exhaustion, so it shouldn’t be a problem. I should be less apprehensive, this was a good time to test this new form out.

“Hmm, alright, sure. I’ll accept your generosity, Champion Themrayn.” In the end, I agreed. “However, I think my sister is right, I’m starting to feel a bit antsy in this form. Getting into a proper fight where my instinct gets riled might send me berserk.”

In the end, I had to think about my mental strength. As mentioned before, being in this state did give me that annoying feeling in my chest. My wish to fight was intensifying.

“Mhmm.” He nodded. “Then we shall test something else. A contest of power to push you to show your abilities. What is your highest leveled aura skill?”

“[Draconic Aura] and [Royal Presence]; both level four.”

“[Tyrant’s Aura]. Level six… How old are you again? They are absurdly high for somebody who is still called ‘whelpling’ by her own Mother.” I could hear a hint of being impressed in his voice, but also surprise, for obvious reasons. Skills, especially advanced versions, were supposed to level up slowly.

“S-Same! What the hell! Both of mine are still only level one.” Neill expressed her shock, flinching back a bit. “Wait, hold on, doesn’t that mean… In Father’s name…”

I laughed wryly at how Neill frowned at me. Mother did just explain how the strength of a Territory is determined by your strongest aura skill and your maximum Mana pool. In a sense, with those advantages, I probably could beat Neill in a contest of Territories, although, it probably wouldn’t be a landslide.

Regardless, that was the main goal for my following spar with Tehmrayn, despite rejecting it at first. I just got all of this new power, why not test them out? After making some room at the beach, with everybody not participating moving closer to the grassy area of the island.

As I was trying to unsuccessfully calm down my pumping heart, Tehmrayn began swirling his trident in his hand. Since he was a naga, he didn’t have any legs and was standing on his tail, like a snake. A lot of people already were taller than me, so Tehmrayn standing on his tail was just another addition to that list. He was taller than Mother, but was shorter than the carnosilians, Grazlahta and Krim-Slak.

“Ready, Champion Hestia?”

“Ready! Champion Tehmrayn!”

“Good… Begin! Hmm!”

The moment this spar began, I felt Tehmrayn’s [Tyrant’s Aura] assault me, pushing away all the battle junkie excitement I had. My body entered into fighting mode, focusing on how water was forming around him before it exploded like bombs, expanding itself around Tehmrayn like a bubble.

It pushed the sand underneath us away with almost translucent water, making room for the liquid ball to grow ever larger to the point it encapsulated me. Strangely enough, I could breathe perfectly within his Territory, but instead, I felt my body weighted down, as if I was wearing the heaviest armor in the world.

I almost fell onto my knees, if it weren’t for my body suddenly receiving a second wind, finding the strength to stand up in defiance of all this power. As I struggled to keep myself up, the domain Tehmrayn erected quickly created a school of different types of sea food ranging from normal fish, sharks, crabs, squids, and so on.

Urgh! Ears! I could feel air pressure in my ears, similar to diving too deep into a swimming pool. Holding my nose closed, I blew into it to release the pain.

[“Impressive.”] Tehmrayn’s voice entered my mind, swimming above me while I was stuck on the ground from the sheer weight of everything. [“My Territory emulates the vast sea life of the ocean, which also includes the physical limitations of it. Most land-dwellers cannot even think of moving deep to the ocean floor, to where our tribes are. Suffice to say, fire shouldn’t be able to exist whilst my mana is overflowing.”]

One simple explanation.

Hellblade Dragon

An advanced skill of a Hellblade Dragon, the evolved version of a Spark Inferno Dragon. Focusing on polishing and sharpening their body into a natural weapon, this skill improves scale-dust concentration around claws, fangs, and tail blade compared to its previous version. Mutation skills:   [Instant Heat Ignition] [Infernal Coating]

Inferno Coating

Increase the intensity of fire enveloping your body. Once ignited, flames covering the user cannot be extinguished without their consent. The flame’s special property cannot be nullified while increasing their effects even further

Whether it was Mother’s snow or the ocean’s current, nothing could kill my flames while I was still alive. They were ever-burning. The triple flames surrounding my body right now from [Battle Frenzy] had no problems wrapping me around them, protecting me from the heaviness of this place.

If this Territory of Tehmrayn actually emulated the strenuous physics of being underwater, then the reason why I was having so much trouble moving was due to air pressure. [Air Shield] probably would work here, maybe.

Let’s try it. Air Shield!

And, as I expected, the shield did hold on around me, negating most of the weight around my body by separating air pressures by creating a barrier around me, only for the shield to shatter seconds later.

[“Quick thinking. Unfortunately, a Territory would be a terribly useless technique if it were to allow itself to be bested by mere tricks. Strength and overwhelming mana! Now, unless you wish to be bound to a bed by tomorrow, defend yourself! Release your mana!”] Twirling his trident with so much force it caused this water ball to start forming currents, Tehmrayn threw his weapon with the speed of an arrow.

Dang! Wi- No, don’t try it, blast out!

Instant Heat Ignition

Activate the heat inside you, igniting the scale-dust inside your scales to explode without grinding them. Even in a situation where grinding or igniting the scale-dust is impossible, the user can use their body to do it

With what happened to the [Air Shield], I didn’t even try using a wind spell, and instead ignited the scale-dust in my left wing to blow me away from the polearm’s trajectory. However, the weight inside this bubble was making every movement I took too hard. I dodged the attack from hitting me, but the shockwave it caused smashing against the ground blew me away.

And like a perfect playground for Tehmrayn, the current immediately smacked me right onto my back, sending me floating away without being able to do anything about it. Unable to control my body from this natural force, the school of sea life followed right along, beginning their assault on me while Tehmrayn’s levitating trident kept attacking me while its master threw water harpoons as support.

Urgh, this is insane! It only started, and I was already feeling like this was more than I could handle! If a single water attack or fish hits me, it will hurt!

<Hestia.>

Kramps voice entered my mind in my time of need.

<First thing, congratulations on passing the second gate. You are a worthy descendant. Ahem. Now, don’t forget you are in [Battle Frenzy (Minor)]. Remember what you did to that demonkin of envy.>

Right! If I can’t resist against this Territory's movement limitations, then I have to use unconventional means to move! First, though… Warp Point! Entry! Exit!

Conjuring a teleportation portal right in front of me and one back on the ground, I switched places in a moment’s notice and closed the portal before all the attacks hit me. However, I couldn’t rest for more than a few seconds, as I noticed the water around me starting to swirl like a whirlpool.

Without hesitating for even a moment, I heated up my body temperature, releasing my [Sparkflame Veil] to send my surroundings into fire from all the sparks! My mind was clear with [Battle Frenzy], and I quickly formed a plan to get close to Tehmrayn to contest his Territory. However, not here, it would only lead us into a Territory dispute which will just drain our mana.

With [Pyrokinesis], I wrapped the flames I just produced around my mouth and unleashed a full-powered [Hellflame Breath]! However, Tehmrayn didn’t flinch, simply floating there with his trident back in his arm.

[“Face the Depth Goddess’s blessed!”] A magic circle appeared on his trident — which probably had a catalyst somewhere embedded to it, not that I thought about it. [“Forces of destruction, face the wrath of the ocean! Hydro Pump!”]

Like two beams clashing against each other, Tehmrayn’s blast of water rammed right into my dragon breath. His custom spell was pretty powerful, considering how it wasn’t completely overwhelmed by my breath attack the very moment they touched, Nevertheless, I didn’t care how strong his spell was, it just couldn’t be stronger than my fire breath!

“Grk!” Tehmrayn canceled his spell as he noticed I was pushing him back, deciding to dodge out of the way. Roaring forth without any opposition, my dragon breath shot right forward, blasting itself out of his Territory.

Now! Shiterno, give me your power! Flashfire!

The moment I activated that skill, I could suddenly feel the sound of my heart pounding my heart, only for my eyes to focus on the flames I just spewed out. Feeling a surge of power, my vision suddenly became muddy, only for me to suddenly appear right in front of Tehmrayn, holding his trident up to strike me.

Shit, too slow!

Activating my rocket boosters, I enabled myself to parry his weapon with my aflamed tail. The loud bang, resounded through the water bubble, echoing right into our ears.

<The weight of this Territory, the fact you have only [Battle Frenzy (Minor)]; it is clear you cannot fully produce the power you displayed in Griffonpeak. Not to mention, you haven’t used [Solar Beam], yet.>

[Flashfire], the ability I temporarily gained through [The Divine Inferno] was a high-speed movement ability which allowed me to dash towards any flames I could see. It looked like a teleportation to the naked eye, but it was just my body moving very fast. I wanted to land right behind Tehmrayn to attack him, but movements were probably slow enough for him to anticipate me.

Tsk, can’t go full power.

[“Interesting.”] Tehmrayn praised the surprise factor, only for my [Danger Perception] to notice the horde of sealife on their way to completely gank me!

Now or never! Dreadflare Aura! Release!

Like a bomb, an extremely hot aura exploded from me, blasting Tehmrayn away and causing the water around me to steam up. With the heat around me established, I released my mana once again, guided by my aura skills and activated [Volcanic Blaze].

Volcanic Blaze! Let’s do this, Magmakammer!

Mana Release activated. Aura used as control unit: [Draconic Aura Lv. 4]. Territory [Magmakammer] has been established

Nice!

The purple flame around me flared up as it began to turn the water around it into obsidian and corrosive slime, all while my crimson and white fire pushed back the mana from Tehmrayn’s Territory, allowing me a small pocket where I could freely move inside.

Hostile Territory detected! Territory Dispute engage.

As warned by the System, I noticed resistance between our Territories at the border, causing small tiny bursts of mana, sending floating obsidian and water around us. Tehmrayn also realized the situation, and I could see him expelling even more mana from his body to grow his domain.

In the next moment, the aqua bubble grew up from the size of a two-floor house, to that of a medium-sized apartment building you would find in a city. He also started to swim around me, using his trident to send out piercing water strikes and water sharks to attack me. They quickly evaporated the moment they entered my volcanic chamber, turning into nothing but steam, but it still felt like I was on the defensive here.

Shouldn’t go too hard for a spar, but I’m not gonna lose this! I told myself before heating my body up even further without [Solar Beam] or [Symphonie des Feuergottes]. And with this heat, I expanded my Territory to the point it was the size of a bus.

Taking a deep breath in, my stomach and chest began to twitch and convulse as I was mixing the poison from my purple flames with my dragon breath. Once it was ready, I unleashed another [Hellflame Breath], only this time, it was more apt to call it a lava breath!

With the shards of molten obsidian flying out, Tehmrayn used his impressive mobility inside the water bubble to continuously dodge while swinging his trident. Water slashes tried to harm me, but just like before, my Territory ruled supreme. Once again, it was a stalemate.

So, this is a battle between Territories? Verdammt, so it really is a battle between your aura and mana. The moment an attack flies out over the border, the opposing zone would just overwhelm them.

My lava breath wasn’t managing itself too well. Due to the Tehmrayn’s Territory effect, anything inside it would be affected by the rules of the deep oceans. While my fire couldn’t be extinguished, the molten obsidian would just sink into the floor after it was cooled down.

On the other hand, Tehmrayn was trying to attack me while I was trapped in his Territory, but anything that entered would have to deal with the inside of a volcano. It was like my fight with Larent, where the moment he took off his helmet, he was sweating so much he could have died from dehydration.

Verdammt! The only way to break out of this stalemate is to go full-out! It wouldn’t be a spar if I were to—

But my thoughts were immediately interrupted as the water bubble around me broke apart, splashing all the water onto the beach, turning the yellow sand into dirt brown. Tehmrayn floated in the air on a discus of water, but suddenly clenched his fist and reeled from something.

Since he suddenly stopped his Territory, I had to immediately cancel mine too, before I accidentally turned this place into a magma field. As we both descended onto the ground, Tehmrayn was the first to speak.

Territory deactivated. Territory Dispute completed in favor of individual [Sunfang Dragonewt, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

His helmet opened up, letting water and steam out. “Haaa, haaa… I heard you have fulinoe leaves. I’ll pay you back. Let me drink some.”

His blue naga skin had turned slightly purple. It was one of the first signs of arcane fever! I did as he requested and took out a dragorade bottle, handing it to him to drink. With bated breath, the scalekin drank the whole bottle empty, moaning loudly with his thirst quenched.

“Good display.” Was the first thing he said. “I heard from Saint Kushlek’zar that tomorrow you will be fighting a Tide Watcher. Don’t embarrass yourself. Regardless of his reason to win tomorrow, do not be swayed. A Champion has a duty to fulfill, even if they must trample down the ambitions of others.”

Uhm, thanks? That last part sounded grim…

And with that said, the naga Champion simply put his helmet back on before leaving, returning to his post at the temple. Flabbergasted at what happened, Tasianna rushed over to me with a freshly-made fruit juice. Accepting it graciously, I enjoyed the iced drink to my heart’s content, finding it a fitting drink for a day on the beach.

Once I was done, I couldn’t help but express my confusion. “Haaa, I will never get how that man thinks.”

“Hmm? You don’t?” Master widened his eyes. “Hmm, if you asked me, I believed Sir Tehmrayn’s intention was to help you prepare for tomorrow's fight.”

“He did?”

“Of course, my whelpling,” Mother agreed with Master’s assessment. “What a responsible elder scale, too, I must say. Without mentioning it, he took on the full burden of the Territory dispute by canceling his first. You do remember what happens to the loser of this dispute, right, Hestia?”

“Well, you will damage your mana paths and also gain the accumulated arcan— Ooooh!” I suddenly realized the reason why Tehmrayn had purple skin as if thunder struck me.

Seeing me understand the situation, Neill nodded. “Well, he sure wasn’t lying when he mentioned trying to help you figure things out. In any case, did you managed to do it? The only worthwhile things I noticed was how your fire wouldn’t die in the water and how you could teleport to a fire.”

“The former is part of my fire, they just can’t die without my permission. But, yeah, the latter one. [Flasefire]. Quite weak compared to the time I used it when I went berserk, so it’s good to know about it now. I should also be able to—”

I then pointed my hand to the beach, focusing my mana in my hands. The moment I did, I noticed the white streaks in my hair lighting up like light bulbs, before I invoked my next move.

“— Light Horizon.” Mana turned into a bright light ball before it shot forward as tiny pellets, like a shotgun. “Well, that’s about it, I guess. Jeez… light manipulation.”

“Guk!”My head snapped around as I heard something make a loud thud, only to see Rita having fallen on the ground with closed eyes, smiling widely with a drooling face.

“Rita?!” I cried out in a panic, only for Renee to step in, waving her hand at me.

“Don’t worry about her. This happens to her sometimes when she gets overloaded with information. Curiosity killed the cat, they say, but in this case, the plant can’t take it either.” Renee shook her head in exasperation while the rest of us smiled wryly. “In any case, I’ll take her back to our inn. I need a bath. Staying inside an armor with the sun blazing is making me feel dizzy.”

“Oh, then I shall prepare the hotsprings for you.” Renee tried to decline Tasianna’s generosity, but my fairy retainer wasn’t about to let her after learning how she was feeling. If she was having a sun stroke, we had better handle it before it got worse.

“Hmm.” I looked over at where Tehmrayn left us, wondering if he couldn’t have explained everything better. He spoke too little, honestly.

I know what happens when Territories clash, I learned how to deal with being underwater, although I could probably improve on that, and it also gave me a chance to see how [Battle Frenzy] worked.

“Hey, Sis. Don’t stay in that form for too long, now, yeah?” Neill brought me back to reality, prompting me to ask how I should do that. “This is where you use sloth. Calm yourself back down with what would make you content, to the point you would never use [Battle Frenzy] ever again.”

Content? Well, that would be when all my friends can live their lives without worrying for their lives. Being able to enjoy their days without fear of a war. If I have them in my life, then I can be lazy and continue doing my idol work without needing to stress out about things.

With that thought in my mind, I breathed in and then out, letting my heart rate slow down to the point it was back to normal. I could still feel my blood rushing around in my body at a pretty alarming speed. So, when it all returned to its usual pace, I could feel slightly light-headed from all of that.

“Good! See, not too bad once you know the trick to get in and out, right? It’ll be even better once you try it out in your original form.” Neill encouraged me with a proud smile. “Oh right, do you still remember that phrase I gave you before? The one in draconic?”

I rummaged through my memory for a bit, until my parallel minds reminded me. “ ‘Kriffiek kllk gaaung?’”

“Yup, correct. It means ‘I will protect my relationship’ in our tongue. Think of it as a mantra to bring yourself easier into [Battle Frenzy] form. It derives from your Gluttony, so it makes sense why it would be like that.” Neill shrugged. “If you ever need to fight seriously, mumble those words. Well, but, save that for the semi-finals, yeah?”

Neill’s smirk caused me to do the same, knowing what she meant by that. It sounded a bit weird to fight with my own sister, but this was a competition at the end of the day. I did promise Jethro to win the whole tournament, so even if it was Neill, I would do my best to win it all just to keep it my word.

And to continue winning until the semi-finals, I needed rest. Training was over for the day and all of us had a nice sunny, beach evening, ending it with dinner and a hot spring. Weirdly, Priscilla was unusually less energetic. Svena — who was actually managing the bistro in Griffonpeak while Tamae was absent with Grimnir’s group — told me she was like this the whole day.

“I was a bit worried, but I think she might be a bit overworked without Tamae. Mreem, I told Miss Svena to maybe give her a break,” Hati, our katzune waitress, suggested. “The chefs working for the restaurant have come to help out the bistro once or twice, so we can probably ask them for help. The restaurant has been operating less without the head chef, after all.”

“The bistro is always full, every day. I get why. Exotic food you can’t taste on the streets, cheaply available in Griffonpeak. It will lure in merchants and travelers,” Lorena, our human waitress, explained a possible reason for Priscilla’s blight. “Although, I tried asking if something was happening at home or not. Usually, when my former work colleagues feel sad or irritated, it’s either the ‘monthly stuff’ or something with family or a boyfriend. Although, do dragonewts have ‘monthly stuff,’ Lady Hestia?”

“I’m only a year old, Lorena, I can’t know that. I don’t even know if dragons have them, since Mother never seemed to have any mood swings. Hmm, I’ll just ask Priscilla tomorrow then.” I planned, seeing as Priscilla had already gone back home. “Oh yeah, speaking about ‘monthly stuff.’ Have you and Ruld… you know?”

Lorena’s face turned red, giggling a bit before nodding and caressing her stomach. My face brightened up as I gave her a big hug, congratulating her for being pregnant. Considering her history, I made sure to give her a short blessing ceremony as a priestess to wish her baby would be born healthy and strong.

Luck comes around, eventually. You can do it, Lorena!

Once the day had ended, I readied myself with a huge breakfast, stunning Neill as she questioned why I would try to eat so much before a fight. It was obvious: preparation for my fight!

[Insatiable Glutton] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Chahayat, a member of the Tide Watchers like Master and also a famous pirate hunter roaming the seas of Elyonda in search of them. Considering he worked alone and would handle those ships by himself, he had to be competent.

While I had a feeling the poison dude was weaker than me, I also knew Chahayat was no slouch. He was one of the winners of my rumble match, and he accrued quite a number of defeats. If Tehmrayn thought it was smart to prepare me for today, then he probably was expecting a tough match.

Master and the saurians wouldn’t be watching the matches today, once again prowling through the city for any potential threats. As such, we went to the tournament with the usual group, in addition to Adhi.

Since it was once again the first match of the day, I had to say goodbye early to register myself for the match. This time, no noble came to speak with me. I guess Duke Alberstien probably didn’t need me for anything anymore, but considering he was a crafty noble, he probably would do something. Hopefully, nothing that would make me his enemy.

“Ladies and gentlemen! Bloooooood enjoyeeeers!”

In due time, the match had begun. Standing on an island surrounded by water, I could see the merfolk in his diving armor quake the ground as he moved into the arena. As always, with his barbed spear and his axe, the hulking merfolk with his natural appearance alone was an intimidating force.

“Today, everybody, we have our second round! And that means eight more battles! All between the winners of the last round, to see who is strong enough for the quarter rounds! Today, I am sure, we will start getting rid of any weaklings. Get the blood pumping with brutal matches!” The announcer, as always, was extremely talented at riling up the crowd. “However, sadly, sadly, we will have to say goodbye to a couple of good fighters. That’s how a tournament works! In Yeostar’s name, we have to find a suitable Champion for him, no?”

“““Yeaaaaaaaaah!””” the crowd cheered with loud roars, applauding for the two of us who were about to fight. I could hear my names being chanted, but there were also those who wanted Chahayat to win; in the end, all of them were expecting a monumental battle to kick start the rest of the tournament.

“On our left, we have our dark horse of the tournament, but honestly, can we even consider her one at this point? A blessed of the Goddess and also a dragon princess! Oh, by the Goddess, ‘Crimson-Haired’ isn’t somebody you can trifle with! I bet any wannabe dragon hunters are quaking in their boots with this imperial royalty around! Ahahaahahah!”

Idol! Stop calling me by that stupid name! Call me ‘Idol of Aurena,’ at least!

“On our right, though, we have a pirate hunter any merc or sailor of Elyonda should know! The merfolk with a set of armor to bring fear to the hearts of any child! Like a boogeyman! However, such a gentle giant only has eyes for his enemies in the seas! But today, ‘Deepsea Ebony’ hunts somebody else. He has to hunt down a mighty dragon if he wants to proceed with the tournament! Now, give both contestants another loud cheer, EVERYBODY!”

It was impossible to ignore the crowd, even inside this simulated battleground formed by the arena. You could see all of them through the fake sky, but as I could feel the tension of the situation, my focus was reserved for Chahayat alone. Both of us walked closer to each other.

The first to speak was the merfolk, bowing respectfully. “I have a request, Princess.”

Hmm?

I didn’t expect him to say that. I honestly thought we were just here to give our respects to each other and then fight. Still, since it wouldn’t hurt to hear him out, I nodded.

Almost in a whisper, the tall merfolk bend his body forward to speak, “Allow me to win, and destroy the blood of Yeostar and end this abominable tournament.”

My eyes widened up and I went into a combat stance. This clearly startled Chahayat as he raised an arm out, trying to tell me to stop.

“Don’t tell me… are you a merc hired by the enemy?” I glared at him. “I heard you were a Tide Watcher. Don’t tell me—”

“Listen—” He tried to interrupt me but I wouldn’t let him.

“I’m already tensed up. You heard me announce who I am two days ago. If this is some sort of misunderstanding, then you did a terrible job in wording it! So, tell me, will this be a fun, face-bashing fight where we test our strength, or do I actually have to serve you up grilled, merfolk?”

I might be jumping to conclusions here, but the way he said that would trigger anybody’s senses. I didn’t know when our enemies would appear, and the saurians haven’t found anything of note at all. Sure, I might not act very tensed up at all, but the fact I didn’t know how strong my enemies are and what the hell the grimgarians are doing did make me antsy!

They could strike at any time. Those skulls masks were a real example of how I was currently marked to be assassinated. Was Chahayat like that skull mask from last time, or why in the world would he say such things to me right now?

“I don’t know who you are speaking about, but I seek not to harm you, Princess of Kargryx. My request resolves around myself alone, and the continued problems Yeos has caused the seas close to them,” Chahayat replied, sounding actually genuine about this. Although I didn’t drop my guard completely, I opened my ears to consider what he said.

Seeing me act less tense, he continued in his gruff voice, “I have nothing against how God Yeostar needs to announce a Champion for the Pantheon of Light’s continued battle with the demonkins, but the way Yeos handles it is ruining the seas close to them. Every time this tournament is announced, ships sail to Elyonda to watch this new event. But with seafaring visitors, so come the pirates.”

“Pirates? Well, that is expected, no? Merchants have to deal with bandits all the time. Aren’t you a pirate hunter or something?” I remembered one of the main reasons why he was so famous.

“Yes, so you know I speak the truth. As my role as a Tide Watcher, I have been protecting this portion of the sea from pirates, specifically, nagas, merfolk, or levianewts who have fallen from the Depth’s Goddess’s doctrines. Those who seek to destroy order for greed. Destroying land loving pirates is a byproduct,” Chahayat explained. “However, this tournament always attracts them like blood-seeking sharks. Ruining the seas with all the debris that comes with ships and lost lives. Not to mention, what will happen once this Champion becomes combat-ready.”

So, the reason why he joined this tournament is not only to protect the environment, but also to potential cull the amount of pirates operating in the seas outside Elyonda?

“So you want me to give up and lose?”

“Never!” he yelled back at my accusation. “I am a warrior. Do not dishonor me with that accusation!”

Urgh, seems like I triggered something…

“All I wish is for you to aid me. Whether you or I win. I know how much of a farce this tournament is. Sacrilegious to its core, corrupting a divine event in honor of a god for wealth and reputation. Look how they present this Tournament of the Stars, and how many people are betting on it. Blasphemous.”

Okay, this guy is starting to sound more and more like a religious nut.

<But, sadly, his boorish way of depicting my land is not far-fetched. I might only watch and potentially guide them, but Yeos grows by itself. All I can do is watch…>

W-Wait, even you, God Yeostar?! I was surprised to hear even a god agreeing to what he had to say.

“I know how all of this is just for show. The prince and his nobles pick a Champion inside their roundtables.” He perfectly described what Jethro told me. “As such, I ask if you aid me to stop this. A new Champion may be chosen by trial of combat, we merfolk do it, too, but this is absurd. More merchant and transport ships mean more pirates. More pirates mean more bounty hunters. And that means more blood in the sea, attracting more merfiend from further away like a migration. Not only are there islands further away from Yeos’s coast where people live, but also merfolk and nagas wish to settle in the depths close by. With all those merfiends around, without support from the ones responsible for this problem, life will be toppled.”

Oh, jeez, there are problems like these, too? Why couldn’t this guy come at me like the poison dude? It would make it so much easier!

“First out, please, accept my apology for misunderstanding.” I lowered my tail and put it in between my legs, a sign of submission and apology between scalekins. “However, I have a duty to fulfill. A divine Quest. I sympathize with what you have to go through, but at the end of the day, the gods have asked me to safeguard the blood and make sure another Champion is appointed. At best, I can only pass this message of yours along.”

<Thank you, Hestia. Even if Yeos isn’t anywhere close to what I imagined a country of knights to be, they are still my people. Traditions have to be uphold, even if corrupted to its core.>

And that’s why it needs reforms. Like what Renee said… or how Goddess Aurena’s church needs to change from the bottom up. The rot must be removed. Argh, Yeos has so many problems, I really should have read the fine print about this annoying place…

Chahayat nodded. “Then, please allow me a warrior’s battle, Princess. Let the strong make their goals come true.”

I nodded, walking away to make some distance while twirling my glaive around, ready to fight with it at a moment's notice. Standing there, we stared at each other, realizing we were once again only two competitors seeking victory.

“Weeeeeell, blood enjoyers. They certainly took their time to speak, but a little bit of battle banter always makes people more invested. Even if I couldn’t hear a single thing. In any case, we waited for long anouehg. Now… BEGIN!”

And the second he did it, Chahayat, pressed something on the water tank on his back, releasing its content on the ground. Deja vu, moment though, as I noticed the water started to move by itself and pushed the sand underneath us away. I flew right out of it before the water caught me, only for me to see what all of that water would make.

A ball. A ball of water, just like what Tehmrayn did. And just like his, it was growing from the water around this arena.

“Krrrrrrrrreeeee!” Chahayat roared as he swam in this ball.

… Thanks, Tehmrayn.

A note from AbyssRaven

Clash of Territories and their effects.

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Chapter 333: Second Round set Aflamed.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Holy eldritch water slime monster!

“By Yeostar’s beard, it looks like the fight is starting out without any breaks! The merfolk bought out his secret weapon! A giant collection of water from the tank on his back!”

Mana Eyes!

Serpentsapper urchin water

A sticky, gelatinous water created from a [Serpentsapper Urchin] from the depth coast around the sacred underlake of Lecullius. Used to capture evasive sea serpents, drawing them in for the urchin’s spines to pierce the lesser dragonkin’s scales. Weakens Vitality and Wisdom while within the water

Oh, you gotta be kidding me. Slime, but water slime! All buffs, on!

“There we go! Another display of the ‘Crimson Scale’’s display of magic proficiency! Talk about—”

[Various Spell Buffs] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“— making normal mages envious there! And they just activated, fully enchanting herself in all those spells!”

Idol! Call me— Wait, hold on, didn’t he call me ‘Crimson Hair’ just a moment ago? Wait, hold on, hold on! He first called me ‘Crimson Scaled’ when I got out of the rumble round, then ‘Crimson-Haired’ during the first round of the bracket stage! This idiot! He can’t remember the stupid nickname he’s been givi— Woah!

“In honor of the Depth Goddess, I shall win!”

The giant water ball Chahayat was swimming in suddenly formed a tentacle from the mucous water and tried to bash me with it, prompting my [Foresight] to warn me of the attack before I got caught. Seconds later, more tentacles began to form, making my nightmare of a water slime actually true!

“Oh come on! Why can’t this thing be as cute as Shoyi!” I shouted, still finding slimes just yucky.

With my head back in the game, I pinpointed Chahayat swimming in his ball like a fish in an aquarium, before shooting out a dragon breath laser at him, intending to knock him out of his protective field. It wasn’t a Territory, like Tehmrayn’s, so I should be able to bulldoze my way right through his tricks!

… And, certainly, I did run my attack right through him. Mostly literally, as his amorphous water blob created a donut hole right where I shot my laser, avoiding it completely. When I tried to drag my laser towards his direction, the slime moved as well to nullify my attack.

With the ground smoked and burned, leaving behind a trail of my laser breath, the merfolk threw out his viking axe at me. Not sensing anything special from it, I deflected it with my glaive without stopping my breath attack. However, surprisingly, the axe didn’t break from my attack, in fact, what was more of a shock was when the axe boomeranged right back at me.

Three more time I blocked, and every single time, the axe would continue trying to attack me. It was at this moment that I noticed how his weapon had a glowing rune glowing in the underside of his handle, only for my attention to turn back to the blob as its body quivered with Chahayat’s water tank suddenly letting out a current of bubbles, accelerating his swimming speed.

What the— I closed my mouth as I saw the blob transformed into something like a maw, trying to bite at me. I flapped my wings, flying away from the attack, only for Chahayat to shoot out of the water like a flying fish. With spear in hand and his axe still tracking me like a heat-seeking rocket, I clicked my tongue.

Water from his tank surrounded his spear, helping it grow in size I used [Spark Crescent] to meet his attack. Water and fire clashed against each other, exploding in a cloud of steam as metal echoed inside the arena. I launched him further into the air before I used my flaming tail to cut off his incoming axe’s head from his handle, finally laying the thing to rest on the ground.

Time to end it!

“Sorry for the axe!” I yelled my apology with a smirk, raising my head in the air. I was fully confident I could take him out right now since he was in the air… only for a tentacle from his blob to fly out and grab him back. “Huh?!”

“One of many spares.” The aloof merfolk answered, before he swam through the tentacle like a kid riding down a waterslide.

Imagining him wanting to return to the blob, I shot out a [Banishment Beam], slicing off the tentacle from the body before shooting out multiple flame bullets towards the merfolk. With nowhere to go, he flew out of the tentacle with his diving tank propelling him forward, creating more of that gel water.

I shot out more bullets at him, only for him to show his ability to redirect his flying trajectory before another water tentacle caught him, retrieving him from the air.

There has to be a catalyst inside that tank! I figured out, seeing as he wasn’t storing water in that scuba tank, but was using it with his catalyst like a rocket propellant. Not only could it probably increase his swimming speed but it even allowed him to fly, in a way.

And it was not only the tank alone, but the water that was granting him an extreme amount of maneuverability. When I suddenly spotted something larger in the corner of my eyes, I looked away from Chahayat, only to see the blob had grown. He was even sucking water from the arena itself!

Even more tentacles were created for the merfolk to use as transport tubes, while enough water was absorbed for it to create something that looked like a claw around the size of a two-floored house. And with this gigantic claw, it rose in the air and tried to smack me.

“ ‘Deepsea Ebony’’s plan is starting to unravel! He bought enough time for him to grow his water blob to a size capable enough of creating that arm! Not even when it seemed like he could lose in the rumble round did he use this ace-in-the-hole! The reason, my flabbergasted audience, why this merfolk is also known as the bane of pirates is here!”

I squinted my eyes before flapping my wings, releasing my scale-dust into the air. As the water hand was about to hit me, I snapped my fingers, detonating the veil of scale-dust around me in a massive explosion.

Consumed by fire, the water instantly turned into steam, spewing a cloud of it around me, blocking my vision and the audience’s as the hand slowly disintegrated from the extreme heat. At the same time, I could see Chahayat springing forth from his waterpark slides with [Mana Eyes]. With his spear, he shot out a beam of water, reminiscent of Tehmrayn’s [Hydro Pump] spell, only this one seemed more like him gathering water to attack.

Thanks, Tehmrayn. Really gave me a chance to reflect on everything. Really made me dumb for not using this earlier.

I raised my hand out in his direction. A purple magic circle appeared before me.

Lightning Bolt.

Electric attacks beat water types. I really shouldn’t have been brute forcing with fire alone.

And this showed when Chahayat had to abandon his spear when the lightning struck the water beam, coursing through and nearly zapping him. On the other hand, unlike using my fire attacks, I didn’t exactly do any damage to the water itself, forcing me to dodge it. However, fully knowing this would happen, my eyes were trained on Chahayat as I [Wind Blast], [Dragoon Jump], and used my scale-dust to boost myself right in front of him.

Panzer!

“Kraaak!” With my purple armor cladding my body, I slammed my elbow right into his stomach, leaving a small crack where I hit him before he was shot towards the ground. Barely before he hit it, the blob of water caught up, allowing him back into the safety of his creation.

However, without letting this affect his assault, tentacles attempted to slam me from my blind spot. [Foresight] activated once again, allowing me to predict these attacks just a few seconds before they hit me, slicing them all with a flame strike from my glaive.

I then turned around, shooting multiple [Lightning Bolt]s at Chahayat, only for him to separate the slime up into different pieces to protect himself from the electrified areas. These pieces could join back, having noticed any tentacles I cut off being reabsorbed.

Separate! Terra Wall! Bedrock Blades!

Tall walls of earth and hardened rock blades surged out of the ground, separating the blobs like in a maze, making it harder for him to retrieve the mass of waters he lost. I then swirled my glaive, reloading it with the scale-dust in my wings.

Charging the catalyst embedded in my weapon’s tip, the flames grew even brighter before I began shooting cannonball-sized fire bullets at Chahayat, exploding the moment they landed. Expecting him to be trapped in my construction while I continued laying down artillery fire, beams of water then shot out from all the smoke, nearly hitting.

“By Yeostar’s beard, this fight might not be exciting from the dragoness’s viewpoint, but from all I can see from the merfolk’s, he seems to be in a dire situation! All the movements just to survive under this hail of flames and spells. The hectic nature of the situation is starting to make me want to cheer for him! Come on! We have an underdog here! Chahayat! Chahayat! CHAHAYAT!”

““Chahayat! Chahayat! Chahayat!””

“““Win, Deepsea Ebony! Win!”””

<Hmm, the crowd seemed to have switched against your favor. A few of them seem to come from merfolk and humans, too. The support is even more fierce from them.>

Jeez, you don’t need to tell me that! Urgh, why does this make me feel so bad? Damn you, announcer!

Still, this was all part of the battle. Being distraught right now wouldn’t do me any good as I needed to win this. Not only to keep my promise to Jethro, but also to prove myself to Tehmrayn that I am worthy of being a Champion! He prepared me for this, and now I would repay his trust!

Levin Core!

A large purple magic circle materialized in the sky with a ball of lightning, and began shooting out lightning from above me to truly trap Chahayat in his small bubble. He kept shooting out water beams, but I took this more like a Hail mary — a last-ditch effort.

There!

I kicked the air with [Dragoon Jump], aiming my glaive forward, and crashed right where Chahayat was about to swim towards. With the maze and rain of fire bullets, it became so easy to predict where he was going.

“Uurrrgh!” He flew out from his blob, reeling from my attack.

I ignited my scale-dust and used [Dragoon Jump] again, throwing myself back in the air where I landed a kick to his chest. With the air knocked out of his lungs, the merfolk shot to the ground from the force of my attack. Crash landing, sand and earth covered the area like a cloud. Once it slowly dissipated, I noticed the merfolk having stood up.

“He stood up, everybody! The pirate hunter is not down yet, but even without using her weapon, he sent the hulk down like any other prey.”

“Kuek!” He grabbed his chest. A dent with shattered pieces of metal could be seen where I kicked him. “You could have ended me there, Princess. Defeat me if you have the chance. Any else would dishonor me!”

I frowned, realizing the truth of what he said. “You could die if I actually did that. I could cleave you in two. I know this after my kick.”

“Tsk! Even if you are dragon, young scale, do not patronize a warrior!” Chahayat scowled at my answer. “Fight to kill!”

With no more weapons in hand, Chahayat pulled his scuba tank from his back and began turning one of the valves on it, causing it to suddenly produce even more water than before. Like a waterfall, it poured enough to turn the small hole he was in into a pond.

Anticipating something bad to happen, I tried to shoot him down with my glaive, but water shot out from that pond while a few tentacles roaming inside the maze tried to swat me. Although focused on dodging everything, my parallel minds kept up the pressure by shooting out [Tornado Bullet]s and [Banishment Beam]s.

Shields of water tried to protect him, but Chahayat was still blown away once again, lowering his current Health to 60%. He was almost down, but his water tank kept on pouring more water.

Do I really have to destroy that thing? Just for a match? It probably is the most expensive part of his equipment so if I were to— Argh, whatever, I’ll just have Tasianna make him a new one! Destroy it!

I activated [Mana Eyes], helping my parallel minds pinpoint the catalyst inside Chahayat’s diving tank. With a single [Banishment Beam], the plan was to destroy the former object to seal any chance for him to fight back. And with a loud “phuuuuu” sound, the sacred laser shot out… only for Chahayat to throw his tank into the air, having guessed what I wanted.

“Face the ocean’s wrath!”

Chahayat shouted as all the water in the area finally reached its destination. Not even the countless walls and rock blades could stop them as they could simply let the sand and earth absorb them to reappear underneath the merfolk. Even the water from this simulated beach came to help him.

With Chahayat as its core, the blob of water formed into a giant creature with the head of a shark and the hands of a human. The gelatinous water glistened within this creature, mixed with the salty water of this arena. With a loud roar, this water golem around the size of the statue of liberty towered over, before curling its hands into fist and slamming me with them.

Urgh! I groaned. Instead of dodging, I decided to use my scales to create a barrier around me.

Due to being weak to water type attacks, my [Draconic Barrier] was having some trouble keeping the scales strong, but I still managed to defend myself from his attack. So this was what he was planning — a giant golem.

“He finally showed it! I bet most of you don’t know about this, but I did some research before today’s match! ‘Deepsea Ebony’’s is known as the best pirate hunter amongst us Elyondians for a good reason. However, rumors go out how he would hunt them with axe and spear in hand, but tanking down vessels takes time!” I heard the announcer as I tried to push this water golem’s attack away. “However, this is how he does it! He sinks those bandits to the ground with this creation of his! Can a dragon even do something against a creation able to destroy even a war ship?”

Ha! Don’t underestimate this! This isn’t even me at full strength!

[“I’m sorry, but I really can’t let you win!”] I voiced my challenge through [Telapathy] to him before forming a wind microphone with [Aerokinesis]. [“So, let me send you out of here with a song!”]

Dreadflare Aura!

Igniting the inner flame inside me, I heated up my scale-dusts and had them explode inside my scale to release a massive burst of heat and fire around myself. The aura exploded, freeing me from this predicament before I flew up in the air.

With the eyes of everybody on me, I took in one deep breath. In the next moment, the sound of an electric violin began to play, followed by an air-booming combo between an electric guitar and drums!

“In my purgatory, I make the devil cry ♫

In Hellfire ♫

All you hear are his screams, begging to be released ♫

It’s Music ♫”

[Music Resonation (Moderate)] [Stage Fever (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Soaring flames raged around the small battle island, trapping the amorphous blob into this arena of fire, cutting it off from the water at the beach. I had my fun, but it was time to end this battle.

“T-The dragoness is singing! Just like in her royal rumble and her after-battle during the first round, music I’ve never heard before started playing out of nowhere, blasting this-these, weirdly energizing, instruments. Blood enjoyers, I hope you all just received something called [Music Resonation (Minor)], or maybe I’ve gone crazy!” The announcer commented faithfully. “Honestly, is this lass a dragon or a choir shrine maiden?”

“Urgh!” Chahayat’s golem moved back, protecting Chahayat who was swimming around its chest from the fire. Raising one forward, its five fingers twisted like whirlpools before shooting out like beams.

I released my heat aura once again, defending myself easily from the attack as it all turned to steam around me. Chahayat looked surprised, from what I could seem, but that was obvious with the song I was singing.

The violin and drums in my song continued rocking together, creating a heart-pounding harmony. “Everybody! Steel your resolve! Harden your hearts!” I redirected my attention away from Chahayat, focusing on the audience. I raised my hand up, curling my middle and ring finger together with my thumb, showing the audience a rock sign as a drum solo bridged itself to the first chorus!

“I descend on Earth with Wings of Death! ♫

A Storm of Fury ♫

Creating Ash and Dust ♫

I am the Incarnation of the Sun ♫

I shine so brightly, I bring your death ♫

My lineage belongs to the God of Dragons! ♫”

[Stage Fever (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

The flames of the arena burned taller and stronger, emulating a lesser version of what I could create with my Territory. However, unlike [Magmakammer], [Dragon Fire] couldn’t raise the heat to the point it could melt earth and rocks into magma. The power creep had settled in, you could say.

“Scales of steel, claws of destruction ♫

The Dragon Fire will scorch the lands ♫

The Idol will never fall ♫

She will bring Absolution! ♫”

Still, what made it still strong was a special effect.

Dragon Fire

A song created by the Idol   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]. Through the image of becoming the epitome of challenge and opposition, clad in the fiery inferno of a dragon’s lair, this song will create a stage fit for an idol dragon to fight. Through the power of song and fire, enemies must fight against the ruler of this hellfire as the spotlight is shined on this battle between fates. An arena of fire is created while this song is active, preventing every entity from exiting the arena. All enemies affected by [Music Resonation] will receive these effects: Become the target for periodic fire attacks created by this song. Receive 10% more damage from all fire and dragon attacks and abilities. All entities affected by [Music Resonation] will receive these effects: All water spells and abilities will lose 50% of their effectiveness. All ice spells and abilities will lose 50% of their effectiveness

50% effectiveness loss. Of water and ice attacks.

It doesn’t melt as well nor could it deal as much fire attack. If I have to change the effect of this song, then I have to focus on how it could practically negate my water and ice weakness. Just, how do I integrate [Divine Inferno] with it?

That was a question for later. For now, it was best to win this match. Chahayat had a good reason to win this match. He had to protect the tribes of merfolk. He wasn’t here to destroy all the tradition of this event, but to have it change to accommodate the people he cared for, harmed by the constant pirate attacks on the coast.

But, this was a tournament. And I had a duty to fulfill. Compromises could be solved later.

“Come at me!” I raised my hand up, a large red magic circle forming above it. “Shout! Roar! If you wish to make your goal come true, then come at me now! I shall grant you a warrior’s defeat!”

A ball of concentrated fire materialized from my spell, growing large enough to dwarf the water golem’s head. Chahayat knew this would be his last chance to stay inside this arena. If he couldn’t stop this attack, then he would lose without a doubt.

It was clear to everybody as the golem began to release steam, literally being cooked by the flame arena. As such, Chahayat had his golem ram its hands together, focusing most of the water he had into a focal point. With only a blob of water left to surround him, Chahayat was putting all his remaining strength behind this attack.

“Drown!” The ball twisted like his golem’s fingers from before, before it shot out a beam able to completely consume me if I were to let it touch me.

Scorching Sun.

But against a sun, what hope does water have?

With the steam bursting from the impact of the two attacks, my spell was initially driven back, almost touching me. However, time slowly showed as not only my arena but also my spell were starting to drain away the water beam’s remaining reservoir. My [Scorching Sun] did not move an inch.

Releasing some of my mana out, I pushed the fiery ball forward and therefore, the beam of water. With my victory on the horizon, I took a deep breath before unleashing a dragon breath, driving a miniature sun to break through this clash of attacks, disintegrating Chahayat’s attack, and with a resounding blast, any chance for the merfolk to win.

Congratulations, you have emerged victorious! May God Yeostar bless your glory!

As the fire burned everything on this island, a stream of light flew out of it and away from the arena. With that, my flames and everything inside this dungeon disappeared, returning me back to the normal arena grounds of this place.

“AND WE HAVE A WINNER!”

Quarter finals, here we go.

A note from AbyssRaven

They say Water beats fire. Well, I don't think Pokemon understood hot enough fire can defeat water.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters for the whole month! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 334: Unwanted Seafarers.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #2 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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Total follower count updated. Total followers of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 10177

“Aaaaand, healed up!” I gave Chahayat a thumbs up as he was slowly checking his body for wounds. His face was filled with carapace and scales, making it a bit hard to figure out his expression but I could tell he was surprised… or maybe he really was a man of little words outside of battle.

“Thank you very much for the healing.” He gave me a small nod.

I smiled, relieved he wasn’t holding a grudge after I literally threw a miniature sun at him. “No problem. Although, I don’t think I can help repair your armor. Sorry about that.”

The merfolk shook his head, turning his head over to a small table next to his bed. Grabbing the azure gemstone around the size of my palm, he drew my attention to it. “This is the important piece. Good catalysts are hard to get. I have stores of materials for new armor and weapons, but not this. This is unique.”

There was a small crack in his magic stone, probably caused after the diver tank it was embedded in melted from my fire spell. Catalysts were easy to repair, from what I remembered when Ellaine’s mother fixed up Tasianna’s. As an apology, I decided to have Tasianna do it for free for him.

Since she was standing next to me, I simply asked her if that was possible. She nodded. “I could use the practice.”

After my explosive ending to my match, I gave the audience some quick fan service by hyping myself up before I immediately left the match for the infirmary. There, I saw the priests and alchemist tending to Chahayat, whose armor had melted right into his skin. Honestly, I warned him I would grill him up if he was an enemy, but I still did it anyway after he cleared up the misunderstanding!

Since the infirmary people already knew who I was, they allowed me to handle the rest of the treatment. After removing the molten metal, I healed up his second-degree burns. His armor and the gelatinous water protected him quite a bit. Still, since the arena wouldn’t kick you out unless you either surrendered or had your Health lowered below the threshold, it seemed he was cooked for a while until he lost.

Seeing as the infirmary was low-staffed, as it was only the bracket stage now, I took this chance to sit down and talk with Chahayat. I wouldn’t be bothering anybody.

“Honestly, first and foremost, I really have no idea about the pirate and maritime situation of Yeos, or anywhere, really. So, if I sounded a bit cold in the heat of the moment, then it was because of my ignorance of everything.” The first thing I wanted to do was to possibly make-up, in case I actually offended him for rejecting his proposal. “You surprised me.”

“Hrm.” The merfolk nodded. “I saw your training on the island, and then the Empress creating that small ice island.”

“… So you figured you had no chance, so you made that proposal?”

“I wouldn’t know before I tried. Anything can happen during a fight, and I might catch you off-guard. Many competent fighters have died in the seas, too overconfident of their abilities against a seafin in the middle of the ocean.” But the tone of his voice changed a bit at the end, switching from his confident aloofness to a more reserved manner. “However, I couldn’t think of a way to fight against the firepower you showed during the battle royale and your first bracket match. I wasn’t confident enough.”

I understood him. With [Dragon Fire] and my [Magmakammer], it would be impossible for him to trap me in a ball of water, like Tehmrayn did. I could even use lightning attacks to protect myself if he tried to come closer, like an electric eel. I had too many tools to counter his tactics and was also strong enough to brute force my war through walls.

“Still, even so, wasn’t it a bit rude, Sir Chahayat? Goddess Plesia is also the goddess of honor, and from what I heard, you disrespected the match by trying to influence my lady,” Tasianna chimed in, looking displeased as she brought up religion.

Unnerved, he clutched his half-melted amulet to Plesia. “I admit, I have acted too rashly… I have dishonored my title as a Tide Watcher. I apologize.”

“Enough.” Before it got too awkward, I had to stop both of them. “We can talk about vows or honor, or whatever at a different time. It’s clear your personal reason was enough for you to act differently. That warrants talking. I can’t fulfill everything you wanted, but I can at least help you make compromises.”

“Then, I must thank you. There have been— Uhm, must you go somewhere?” Chahayat stopped talking, looking confused when I stood up.

“Like I said, I can’t do anything. I have no idea what is going on in Yeos or its seas. So, it means I have to bring somebody here who knows it better and who can also make a change if needed. Tasianna, you made an appointment with one of those attendants, right? How many did you make?”

“Two, my lady.” Tasianna then pulled out a wooden slate and a charcoal pen, using them to read out some appointments she had made for me. “Duke Alberstien, and an attendant from the royal family. They didn’t specify Prince Markval or Princess Anasthasia, but I still decided to accept their invitation, just in case. We had eight other nobles wishing to greet you, but I rejected them using Duke Alberstien as the excuse.”

“Smart.” I smiled with Tasianna, who was smirking at being praised. “When?”

“Duke Alberstien wishes to meet you after the third match of today, and the royal attendant told us it would be good during the long break after the fourth match,” Tasianna informed me before going down a few more meetings. “There are also business ventures, mostly to increase their prestige with people seeing you in their products. I have agreed to two clothiers, one armorer, and also a meeting with a Caedhulen merchant fleet. Ship, right now, though. The former two are after the matches, and the Caedhulens after tomorrow.”

Clothing? I should bring Neill then.

“Brilliant, thank you, Tasianna!” I gave a thumbs-up to Chahayat, who frowned a bit, looking evermore confused at the situation. “Then, let’s go to the noble section, right now.”

“Of course!” Tasianna bowed and the two of us excused ourselves from Chahayat, telling him we would return in a moment. “Oh, and please, don’t forget that we have a meeting with King Drangleic and Lady Maverina tomorrow.”

“Mave—? Oh, don’t tell me it’s finally done!” I clapped my hands as we exited the infirmary, already understanding why she would call us. “Haha, I knew it was smart to bring the destroyed dungeon core to her! If we’re already mage guild associates, we might as well use our connections!”

Dungeon cores were extremely valuable commodities due to the scarcity of even shards on the market, not only ‘cause you had to destroy a dungeon — which by itself could bring towns and cities great wealth — but also how rare those very dungeons were in the first place. However, we were lucky. We had a “dud” dungeon that had to be destroyed, and that was the one Reajaen accidentally created.

And that dungeon core was ours after we had to destroy it for a Divine Quest, and that meant we could finally avoid the most annoying thing about grinding:

Changing Jobs.

“Yes!” I shook my fist, excitement filling my body. “Tasianna, when we visit Maverina, I’ll have to order you some actual documenting tools! Mana pen, a diptych or whatever they use to document stuff, alright? Hahaha, we can finally use all the money we’ve been building up! I really feel like going on a spending spree!”

The rich girl in me was talking right now! I wanted to spend money!

“Lady Hestia, please, don’t forget that Lady Maverina did warn you how expensive a crystal is,” Tasianna warned me, but I simply ignored it.

“Ahhh, as if it would cost us a limb or two. We got enough money from all the Sarlenzia company activities Amelia has been doing in our stead, and not to mention the restaurant Svena and Cou— I mean, Arcanuess Helvas, has been operating for us while Tamae is gone!” I stayed optimistic, thinking of all our various money sources. “I guess it slowed down a bit, since you haven’t worked on the garden in a loooong time. Rita, still wants to visit it, ahahaha.”

“Lady Hestia, don’t forget how there is a tax to lend [Crystals of the Divine System] to recuperate the cost for making them,” Tasianna warned me, but I still smiled through it, causing her to sigh. “In any case, speaking about mage’s guild, we haven’t registered ourselves in the local one for over two weeks now.”

“…” I stood still for a moment, remembering what happened in Griffonpeak and how Maverina fleeced money from us for not telling the mage’s guild we were in the city. I remembered to do it in Estralia, but kinda forgot about it after reuniting with Master. “… Let’s just deal with this first.”

I was a terrible mage, to Aleistunum standards, honestly. I would rather not invoke my princess status in such a mundane case, but if they fine Tasianna and me some exorbitant amount like Maverina did, I probably would have to.

In any case, to enter the noble reserved area of the audience, we had to use an entirely different entrance. The knights stationed there instantly recognized us, however, just to be sure, they asked us for our IDs, which I happily obliged them with before they allowed me to enter. With the number of nobles and royals in the audience, it would be best to make sure I was real Hestia.

As you would expect for a noble-reserved area, they didn’t skim on the decorations. A brilliant white-gold carpet probably made from wool was placed over a fairnite staircase. Mana lamps illuminated the tunnel leading up, with chiseled wooden handles making it easy for ladies in long dresses to go up.

At the end of the staircase, a massive frame decorated the exit, from which I could see numerous nobles seated. The moment I went through it, I instantly felt the effects of a weather-controller. The temperature was properly maintained like an AC, probably to make it comfortable for the nobles. The arena was a dungeon, but you could still feel the heat coming from the summer sun from outside.

“D-Dear, look! It’s the dragon princess…”

“The one His Majesty even vouched for… I-Is she here for an audience with him? Look proper, we can’t embarrass ourselves.”

“Feels like trying to prop ourselves wouldn’t be good. Why should a dragon care for a baron house…”

Commotion, well, it became a bit louder after I arrived in the audience seats. I could hear the announcer promoting the next match, mostly drowning out most noises inside here. Consequently, it helped people have some privacy when they talked with the people next to time, although my hearing was good enough to pick things up.

Seeing as my appearance was a total surprise, I curtsied to everybody. “May your wellspring of life be ever filled with joy on this fine WaterDay. It is an honor to be permitted in this place with all your fine lords and ladies. I shall only take but a modicum of your attention, so please, excuse my presence.”

“““…!””” People were flabbergasted, shocked to hear me act so politely. As Saori said, manners impressed people.

Seeing as none of them said anything, I didn’t really know how to take their silence. Well, at least they were gossiping right now. As such, I turned my head up the audience seat, smiling as I saw Anasthasia. I walked up carefully, acting very much like a refined noble with every step. My time with House Helvas had helped me perfect my stride and royal image.

Anasthasia, Jethro, and Duke Alberstien all sat in the same area, only four threads below where the Prince Markval and the other princes of the Divide are seated. I wasn’t here for them, but to follow decorum, I had to greet them first.

“May the Goddess ever bless you with bountiful light, banishing the shadows in your path. Dragon Princess Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor of Kargryx, may our meeting on this auspicious day be blessed by the Goddess and God Yeostar.” I curtsied. “Prince Markval, I am here to make sure the attendant you sent came from you.”

It was an excuse, but it sounded better than what I actually came here for.

“Attendant?” However, the prince seemed confused. Was he not the one who wanted me to meet them?

“I did, Imperial Princess.” Unexpectedly, the one who sent the attendant was actually his mother, the princess regent. With eyes that didn’t show much emotion, she continued, “As your guest givers, it would be prudent for us to introduce you to the other members of the Divide’s roundtable. Also, I would like to talk to you about something.”

Urgh… that look.

The princess regent already looked slightly disturbing during our initial meeting, but now that she was talking to me and acting like a regent, it kinda unnerved me. She still had this tired, almost somber look. She didn’t even smile when she talked with me, looking unengaged, as if she didn’t care about anything else but her son.

<She isn’t possessed, if that is what you are talking about. However, since the death of the previous ruling prince — her husband — she has isolated herself from the world practically. She might be the regent, but most duties have been taken over by her step-daughter and the various court nobles. Then again, even if she wanted to rule, her title as regent is just out of respect.>

Yeostar’s explanation didn’t exclude her potentially conspiring with demonkins, but if she had, he would probably know by looking through her eyes. Then again, if she wasn’t regularly praying to Yeostar, then a god’s connection to a mortal might be severed. A god’s strength and influence was dependent on their followers, which was why Kramps needed me to kick his “shameful descendant’s” butts.

In any case, Markval’s mother took the time to introduce the other princes to me, prompting them to give their introductions. I pushed their names in the back of my mind for later, but I did make sure to remember the countries they came from, just for future reference or so.

Outside of Yeos in the southeast, which bordered Aleistunum to the east, the other principalities were Joyulia, the largest principality of the group to the north of Yeos, Weimasha, the most western nation, and Briamland and Veignneight sandwiched between the other former three. Whereas Joyulia and Weimasha both bordered Aureolis, the latter two were north of the Kingdom of Rakatheen.

Not like it mattered much, but I guess this could be useful to know when I have to deal with geopolitics. Urgh.

“The meeting is still later, but if you would, we could make it now,” Markval’s mother offered, buuuuuuuut, I would rather not.

I kept up my smile. “I apologize, but our meeting will have to start later as agreed upon. Now, if you would excuse me.”

I didn’t even look at what her expression was. If I could avoid it, I would rather not have to deal with nobles like a noble. So, to make sure I didn’t have to, I had to make this quick.

“Ah, Duke Alberstien, I will also talk with you later,” I quick greeted the duke before going pass him like I did the regent, before stopping at Princess Anasthasia.

“P-Princess Hestia?” The refined, perfect image of what a princess actually should look like, stared at me slightly confused but tried her best to hide it.

“I need your help on something. Do you have time, right now?” I was blunt about it.

“H-Help? Well, I am free right now, but—”

“Fantastic!” I gestured for her to come with me. “Then, let’s be on our way!”

Seeing me reach my hand out for her, the princess turned slightly red and darted her eyes around, probably to all the nobles focusing on us. Flustered, but not to the point she couldn’t think, she nodded and stood up from her seat and followed next to me with her lady-in-waiting and two knights following behind us.

Tasianna and I then led them to the infirmary, causing Anasthasia and her group to be confused. She stated she thought I would at least bring her to the noble-reserved infirmary. Apparently, since a few of the contestants were of noble births, the arena had a place reserved for nobles alone. More caste systems, huh?

“Regardless, Lady Hestia, I am sure you understand you just made a rather, uhm, brash display of whom you favor, correct?” The princess brought up as we were about to reach the infirmary.

“Of course, I know. I’m not dull on these matters,” I stated, unfazed. “Instead of currying favor with the princess regent and the other Divide princes, I decided it would be best to spend my time with you, the only child left of the first wife of the previous ruling prince. Mhm, court drama… how annoying.”

“That is… certainly blunt.” She shook her head, disapproving of what I did. “Undermining the regent isn’t smart. I might not be able to inherit any titles, but I am still the child of my father’s first wife. The regent knows her son is heir apparent to the throne due to his gender, but she’s been paranoid with everybody ever since father died. I don’t want to create an even deeper rift between us.”

“Considering the social standing of female nobles in this country, I really don’t see how your stepmother should be paranoid of you, but then again, I don’t know her enough.” I sighed. “Then again, as long as your half-brother doesn’t hate you, you should be pretty safe. I mean, he even accepted the proposal for my concert. It shouldn’t be problematic.”

“I shall pray that God Yeostar can grant him that wisdom…”

<I have heard it, my descendant.>

Once we arrived at the infirmary, Anasthasia had her knights and lady-in-waiting wait outside. Initially, they protested for her safety, but she simply told them off there was no better bodyguard than me. “An imperial dragon princess hurting me would be like a giant stepping on an ant,” she argued, which seemed to have persuaded them, although reluctantly.

The infirmary’s staff also exited the room, seeing their princess here with me made them believe we were having an important meeting. Once they were outside, Tasianna cast an [Air Shield] around the entrance.

“They are my stepmother’s spies,” she told me after it was done, making me understand why she left them outside. “I must say, isn’t that your opponent from a moment ago? Now I am worried you are feeding me to a shark.”

Chahayat acknowledged her presence with a nod, while the princess herself seemed apprehensive of him, most likely from his appearance. Reminding her how she called me her bodyguard, I reassured her nothing would happen. Letting out a sigh, she joined us next to his bed.

Quickly introducing both of them, I gave Anasthasia a quick summary of why I brought her here. Chahayat also chimed in, trying to make her understand why he joined this tournament in the first place, as he never showed an inkling to do so before.

“A few seafins have recently migrated over to the nearby islands off the coast of Elyonda. They’ve asked me to protect them, which is why I decided to join the tournament,” he began. “However, like every time the festival is held or if your navy journeys forth to another war, pirates appear around these islands. Always new fools, even if they know I’m in the area. I can sink two or three ships at once, but too many is suicide”

“… Well, the pirate problem isn’t foreign to me. They don’t attack large merchant vessels or military ships, making them small nuisances, really.” Anasthasia grimaced, seemingly understanding what he was implying. “If you are asking for help, I cannot say we can afford it. Our navy was also terribly damaged by the war two years ago. We don’t have the personnel to spare to catch pirates, when we have to other problems.”

However, Anasthasia’s answer only seemed to anger the merfolk, causing him to shake his head vigorously. “Princess of Yeos, I don’t believe you understand the significance of what I am saying. I have been hunting pirates off your shores for nearly 25 years now. Patrolling the Seaknight’s Gulf, I have fought and sunk many pirates to their watery graves. Not only humans, but also my fellow seafins, those idiotic enough to abandon the Depth Goddess’s teachings for banditry! God Melicertha, curse their bones.”

The merfolk clenched his fist before realizing he was losing his temper. After caressing his amulet of Plesia, he managed to calm down.

He continued, “As you know, ships made with Caedhulen technology and blueprints are far faster than human vessels. We don’t need to worry about drowning and we have access to swim bladders made from [Cloudtrapper Sunfish]es. What takes a human vessel ten bells from Elyonda to Port Salzwieder, it only takes three for a merfiend-pulled djong or bladshar.”

“Uhm, context?” I asked, prompting Anasthasia to explain.

“The sea off the coast of Yeos is called the Seaknight’s gulf after God Yeostar’s triumph over Karhalenteel, and it connects us to the closest large Empire port city — Port Salzwieder. It is as Sir Chahayat said, nothing beats a Caedhulen ship in speed. Even their merchant ships — called bladshars as they use the swim bladders of merfiends or sea serpents — can beat an imperial scouting ship.”

“Hold on, even with the cargo?” I wondered. If true, then that would be insane.

However, as I expected, there were more nuances to that answer. “It depends on the ship type, but the smaller ones like the ones docked at the port right now, can do it even with a full cargo room. Then again, it was rare for a medium or fully armored merchant vessel to appear anywhere close to a human port. For example, a small bladshar could reach Artorias’s Port Annencia in one or two days, depending on the winds. Three days if they are filled.”

I flinched back from that information. “T-Three days?! Are you kidding me? The river ship we used estimated it would take two weeks to arrive from Estralia to Elyonda!”

“The tourist ships used by Estralia are meant to be larger, but slower, just so they can accommodate more people on them. Not to mention, you cannot just sail directly to your goal but have to follow where Gleislane flows. If you had boarded a cargo ship, you would have made it to Elyonda in five days.”

That’s still two days less! What the hell! I should have chosen the ocean route!

I remembered Adhi explaining how only smaller merchant and transport ships needed to dock, as the larger ones could live off the sea and oceans since their crewmembers all could live underwater. This meant, they didn’t have to trade with humans and deal with their officials, and could just trade amongst themselves and underwater tribes.

“Lady Hestia, don’t misunderstand. It is with a Caedhulen ship, not a human one. It would take six days for a merchant ship from Annencia to reach our docks.”

“And this is why the pirates are a problem.” Chahayat accentuated after Anasthasia’s explanation. “No pirate is dumb enough to target Caedhulen ships exclusively, in fact, the slower, more larger, human ships seem more enticing, no? Before the establishment of that underwater tribe, I told them I could handle the local pirates, but after they learned of how Yeos was defeated due to their involvement in the Empire-demonkin war, even more optimistic fools appeared.”

“…” Anasthasia looked shocked, her eyes widened at what Chahayat said. “I-I have heard from reports how there have been more activities in the sea lately. I… I have heard about your exploits, Sir Chahayat, I just didn’t know you did this as a calling. I thought you only a mercenary.”

“A Tide Watcher is a peacekeeper and provider of justice in the name of the Depth Goddess. We bring down criminals, so it is correct to call me a bounty hunter, even a sellsword,” Chahayat corrected her.

“ But… still, 25 years. I have read reports about you, but 25 years? And none of them ever mentioned showing you any honor! From what you described, a Tide Watcher should be something similar to a Knight’s Order, correct? If so, then as God Yeostar’s descendants, we from House Caimlace, have shown you great disrespect, Sir.”

“I do not seek renown. My intention is to bring peace to the seas, and to prevent sailors from being hurt by common pirates.”

“But that is exactly—!”

“It means our principality needs to begin reforms, Sister.”

Anasthasia yelped as she snapped her head around, only to see her young brother inside the room, accompanied by Sir Alistar. I had noticed the two arriving, and it seemed Tasianna thought it was good to allow them in. I was too engrossed in the fact of how fast Caedhulen ships were, to tell Anasthasia about it.

“Sir Chahayat, as the future ruling prince of the Principality of Yeos, I must express my sincere apologies to how the royal family has treated you.” The young prince showed an incredibly mature side of himself just now, bowing slightly to the injured merfolk. The kid was around the age of an elementary student, but he just did an amazing apology.

“M-Markval?! When did you arrive?” Anasthasia looked at him in surprise.

“Just a moment ago, after you were done explaining ships to Princess Hestia. I am sorry, I know I shouldn’t eavesdrop…” But in the next moment, the young prince’s mature facade broke down immediately as he pouted, looking guilty for potentially insulting his bigger sister.

“N-No, you don’t have to… I was under the impression you were in the audience, with the other Divide princes… Is Step-Mother here?” she asked meekly, only for Alistar to shake his head.

“His Majesty had to go to the restroom. I accompanied him… and we happened to walk through this area, where we noticed you, your Highness.” Alistar’s tone suggested the last part was more-or-less a lie, making me believe the prince had planned to follow us.

“But, that is not the point, Sister. What is important is that Sir Chahayat needs to be shown proper recognition by us! It is absurd how Father or Uncle Jethro hadn’t given him any commendations!”

“Your Majesty, many mercenaries and hunters do work without any praises, outside of their rewards. Many do good work expunging bandits and monsters alike. Some are hired by nobles. However, it is in their line of work to not expect fame outside of their guild’s ranking system.” Compared to the more emotional young prince, Alistar gave a more realistic view of things.

“However, we are a knight’s country, we should—” Markval wanted to argue against his knight, but seeing as Chahayat looked rather annoyed by how this talk had deviated, I decided I had to intervene.

“Excuse me, Prince Markval, but while I greatly admire how you wish to show your appreciation for somebody’s hard work, I believe we are going away from the important fact of this discussion,” I stated, plain and bluntly, causing the young prince to cower a bit from being scolded.

That was a bit too easy? No resistance?

“Your appearance is a surprise, but it is a good one. The problem is the pirates and their growing numbers,” I brought everybody's attention back to the subject at hand. “Chahayat, from what you explained, the pirate situation is getting more severe. To the point you can’t handle them anymore.”

“Correct. There is an established trade route between Elyonda and Saltzwieder. Ever time the festival is held, traffic of merchants increases” Chahayat further added. “Usually, there would be patrols from the Empire and Yeos to protect their merchants from pirates and merfiends, or at least, adventurers. This hasn’t happened for this year’s festival, and the number of pirates appearing has gotten worse!”

“Then, wouldn’t the Empire try to send out more soldiers to protect those ships, then?” I questioned, but Anasthasia shook her head.

“ ‘Is Yeos worth it,’ is what they would ask themselves. There are plenty of trading partners with a harbor and routes they have to protect. Port Salzwieder cannot focus on all of them. Merchants would then assess what is more financially viable: sea or land travel. If it is land, then Aleistunum would be a better trading partner. We have tradable commodities, but not enough to entice even foolhardy traders.”

Oh boy, and that means less trade when those merchants decide they don’t want to get attacked by pirates. Which leads back to Yeos’s money problems. Oh boy.

“And if those merchants disappear, then the seafin pirates will focus on the next available prey: the newly-built tribe,” Chahayat continued, making me understand something about this.

“And your seascales like trading amongst each other. With this being the only seascale tribe nearby, that means any potential large Caedhulen merchant vessels wouldn’t appear. The islands nearby are also a perfect docking place.”

“Ah! I didn’t think of that!” Anasthasia blurted out. “Oh no… No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Any chance to expand our available trading partners would die out.”

“Then we really need to send out ships to help!” Markval interjected, causing his sister to just shake her head in frustration.

“No, Markval, we can’t afford it! Duke Alberstien and Uncle Jethro are already demanding a lot of our funds to build up our military might, not to mention, we need soldiers to continue patrolling our land itself. Not to mention, we don’t have a strong enough navy to combat pirates each day. We will need to hire mercenaries, and they can ask exorbitant amounts because they know we are desperate!”

Hmm, this discussion is going anywhere. Anasthasia and Markval don’t have a way to handle this. Seems like they are checkmated.

“In that case, let me handle things.” I stood up, drawing everybody’s attention to me.

“Lady Hestia? … How?” Anasthasia’s tensed face subsided when I smiled.

“Lady Amelia Greenveil.”

“Lady Amelia?! B-But, they left after we had that discussion of your concert. How are you supposed to discuss with them? Not to mention, how would they help us?”

“I have my ways, don’t worry. Don’t forget, I am a dragon and I can fly!” I explained it as vaguely as possible, trying not to divulge my [Room] just yet. “However, Chahayat is right. Things have to change. Prince Markval, I didn’t have much time to talk with, and this is our first meeting together, but I hoped you received my message during our first meeting.”

“O-Oh, yes, I have! God Yeostar had given me wisdom, even if it was just a morsel. I thank you very much for all your help!” the young prince announced, looking a bit nervous.

“Good, good, nice! Oh, and don’t forget to come to my concert this LightDay, alright? You two wanted it, so you have to come!” I grinned at both of them.

“Of course, Lady Hestia. Thank you very much,” Anasthasia bowed, while her brother simply nodded his head, looking a bit shy. “I think I would like to stay here for a bit longer to speak with Chahayat. Sir Alistar, please, bring my brother back to his seat before the princess regent becomes suspicious.”

With that solved for now, I decided it was the time to return to my seat. During our trip back, Tasianna asked me if my plan to help out had anything to do with speaking with King Drangleic, to which I just laughed it off. Speaking with Chahayat and Anasthasia was pretty insightful.

In any case, once we made it back to the audience seat, I expected Arlond’s match — one of the people I formed an alliance with during the rumble match — to have already started. Eager to see what that womanizer could do, I went over to my seat with full anticipation!

… Only to hear the announcer suddenly say something I didn’t expect to hear.

“Well, those things happen sometimes, people. We sometimes attract some pretty petty people. May God Yeostar smite whoever murdered him. During a festival, even!” Tasianna and I stood in place as we heard that weird statement by the announcer. “However, don’t worry, the next match is already ready. The two contestants are both waiting in the waiting room, so no more dilly-dally.”

What?!

The general mood was low, with only a few people complaining and cheering in an otherwise disengaged audience. Weirded out by this mood, I asked one of the people in the audience what had happened.

“Huh? Didn’t you hear, m’lady? The match ain’t happening cause that Arl—, or whatever, died in some alleyway. Soldiers found him.”

Died?

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Chapter 335: A Sword Savant’s Rage.

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“A-Are you sure?! Larent, are you sure he’s dead?!”

“… A fisher found him… his remains. Mangled and nearly unidentifiable. Nearly fully feasted upon by merfiends, weren’t it for these brave saurians.”

“… My condolences.”

“May his soul find peace with Goddess Ilsaphone,” Tasianna prayed for his soul’s safety.

The first match between Chahayat and me was an audience pleaser, as the announcer did a fine job hyping up the match despite the clear advantages on my side. They’ve seen us both fight, so people already knew who the clear winner was. Still, people enjoyed the fight due to our performances and how the announcer made it out.

However… for the second match, I expected a fun battle with Arlond in it. I wasn’t his friend and we were just acquaintances, but that part did make me regret hearing this news.

Arlond was dead.

I turned around to Krim-Slak, eying him for answers.

He shrugged. “His head was intact enough to identify. His ID was nearly eaten up, but we managed to find it on the beach after we recovered his body.”

“You’ve heard about all the pirates, young scale?” Grazlahta, Krim-Slak’s carnosilian partner, asked me, to which I nodded, telling him I had just learned about it. “The Tide Watcher merfolk, right? He was your opponent. We got that information from him. Some Empire and also pirate ships had recently docked at the nearby islands. We wanted to investigate them today, but as you can see, we sidetracked.

So Chahayat had spoken with them, too, huh? Well, I guess that would make sense. Master and the saurians were Tide Watchers, after all, so they probably had some common ground there.

Which meant, the news was true as it could be. Even with a near-eaten-up ID, you could still identify a person and the mana trace embedded in the manatech. That was why you couldn’t impersonate the ID of someone else, as the mana wouldn’t match.

Honestly, when I told Mother and the others I had to leave the arena, to make sure the news wasn’t fake, I really didn’t want to believe Arlond was dead. After all, Larent, another acquaintance, knew him. Knew him pretty well, even. And now, Tasianna and I were in Elyonda’s knight order’s building, where I could only feel sad for Larent.

“He was a knight. Young, with a wish to grow…” Larent lamented his death, reminiscing his time with the now deceased Arlond. “He was strong enough to survive in that royale rumble for over a bell’s worth of time. He isn’t weak enough to die to merfiends. Not stupid enough to swim without at least a partner.”

The veteran knight massaged his temples, looking not only saddened by his loss but also infuriated. “I was to meet with him before his match… Whoever did this will answer for depriving this world of somebody that young!”

“Woah!” I held my hand up as Larent suddenly shot up from his seat, the anger permeating around his face with a big red flush! “Mr. Larent, I personally know how it feels to lose somebody but do you even know who it is you are seeking revenge for? How are you even sure Arlond was actually murdered?”

“It is obvious enough!” he snapped at me. “How can you explain a knight with Arlond’s abilities suddenly dying in the ocean? The boy was strong enough to join the Knights of Aurena if he was just less of a flirt! A skirt chaser, yes, but I overlooked his training when he started out as a squire. He is not incompetent!”

It honestly looked like Larent wanted to rush through the door right now.

Knights of Aurena? Well, Arlond looked around Elrick’s age. I guess, so, although I didn’t have a chance to look at his status board.

“Still, older men like us shouldn’t jump to conclusions this early, Sir Knight.” Suddenly, before Larent actually did stomp himself away, Master appeared from behind a door, looking serious. “We were lucky a mana surgeon from Aleistunum was inside the city for the festival for the autopsy. You might want to hear this before you run off.”

“…” Larent clenched fist softened a bit from hearing Master speak, but his face was as tensed as ever.

Although Arlond was a competitor of the tournament, he was still a noble of the Empire. As a vassal of them, it was Yeos responsibility to send his remains back to his family. An autopsy was looked down upon by the church of Aurena, as it was too similar to the church of Marsven’s necromancy.

However, they relented once Larent had asked for the reason how Arlond died. Unwilling to let it go, Larent was barring anybody from leaving the knight’s building using his aura, literally suffocating some of the knights. Master came forward, and proposed using his connections at the local mage’s guild to find a manasurgeon.

And that was how Master was explaining everything to Larent. At least, that was what Krim-Slak whispered to me while they were talking.

“The surgeon was convinced he was crushed by something, at least, the side where he was eaten at. His ribs and spine were shattered and fractured, but through the tearing of the merfolk. The fragments of his bones were too numerous, to simply be crushed by teeth,” Master summarized everything he said beforehand, before giving his own analysis on Arlond’s death. “As you expected, something happened to the poor lad. I am not sure if he had any chance to fight back. He was crushed to death by something.”

“Tsk, not even a warrior’s death?” Krim-Slak snarled. As he was a true warrior, he could sympathize with that perspective.

Same thing with Grazlahta, who’s eyes squinted in a frown. “An ambush? Did that man see something he shouldn’t? Human, did that lad specify why he wanted to meet you?”

“…” Larent didn’t acknowledge him as he kept his eyes shut, probably going through his grief. However, as I wanted to show my support, Larent shook his head, his face devoid of the red of his rage. “No, it was a simple meeting. Tea. He is a noble, and he simply wished to talk with me like one. There was probably no ulterior motive. Saint Kushlek’zar, when exactly did he die? He was still alive yesterday evening.”

“The surgeon determined it might be early dawn. The body was bloated a bit, as you know, probably from all the water.” Peolynca’s medical knowledge wasn’t as advanced as Earth’s, which I concluded from my time with Thyra and her mother, who were both manasurgeons themselves. This was probably all they could go by, instead of rigor mortis or something.

“Fool.” Larent shook his head. “He would run on the beach every morning, he told me. He mentioned how he rarely gets a chance to see the sea, and even rarer a chance to frolic on the beach. He had to maintain his image for his house’s sake, but here, when he could finally be free from all the retainers and attendants, the brat had to die…”

“Mr. Larent.” Seeing more wrinkles forming on his face, it made me feel bad as he was starting to look older than he was. Unable to keep this uneasy feeling in my chest, I had to speak up to him. “If you need help, then please, rely on me.”

“… L-Lady Hestia?” His eyes widened up, stuttering as he looked at me in confusion.

“As an imperial man, you should know of Saintess Eshe’s death, no?” He nodded to my question. “I was there when it happened. I saw her still warm body, but it was devoid of life just like her knights. In that rain, I couldn’t even tell how much I cried…”

Even if I had finally started healing after Eshe’s death, hearing myself describing that memory stung my chest. Looking at me, Larent seemed to have noticed that pain as his astonishment faded. Tasianna, who had kept quiet until now, noticed where this discussion was going and cast an [Air Shield] around us.

“The demonkins. Damn bastards killed her. They even brought people to work with them; black mercenaries and other damn lowlives, if I get my hands on the ones responsible, I would gladly squash their bodies before burning anything left into ash!” Hearing my anger leaking, I took in a deep breath, remembering my [Battle Frenzy] training to instantly wash it all away from me. Sloth — my dearest wish to find contentment in my life — reminded me of what my goal was.

I calmly continued, “If you heard my speech, then you should know why I am here. I am here to stop the demonkins or any other forces from attacking and destroying any chance for another Champion of Yeostar any time soon. Not only are grimgarians currently roaming in the wild, outside this city’s walls, but now we have even more proof those skulking in the dark are around!”

Larent considered my words for a moment, but still decided to shake his head.“I have seen many friends and younglings die before me, my lady. This rage… I know it well. He called me his role model. At the very least, I need to bring justice to him and his family, who had just lost a precious son. I must go down this path myself.”

“Mr. Larent, didn’t you listen to me?” I stubbornly stood my ground. “I want my revenge, too. And I have this sticky feeling the people you are looking for are also the same I am looking for. Yanderu Eluseuss. I don’t have any evidence for that idea, but everywhere I met them, I would find someone with demonkin contact.”

“Not to mention, those very people had also sent you and that dragonslayer to hunt my lady, Sir Larent. That plumb degenerate managed to escape. My lady had also informed me that the assassin who interrupted your duel with her had clad their blade with poison. They are targeting my mistress and for that they deserve an imperial execution!” Tasianna supported me, expressing her own grudge on this matter.

“The lad was a wyvernslayer, and we weren’t sent to kill, but to drive you out,” Larent argued with technicalities, touching his face with stress. Shaking his head excessively, Larent’s mouth stood agape as he kept thinking everything through. “The war never ends, even after I retired. As his Holy Majesty said, humanity can never find true peace with enemies everywhere. Damning us all. Even this far from the frontlines, I find tragedy in life.”

He let out a deep sigh and adjusted the sword on his belt. His eyes looked to the ground, almost like he was looking somewhere far. “The young die, while the old keep living on. Oschilla, my comrade… how are you faring? Leading everybody towards his Holy Majesty’s vision… only to collect and send back the dear departed sons and daughters of our home.”

“Mr. Larent?” Hearing him mumble so much, I was starting to get worried.

He snapped out of his monologue, turning around to me. His eyes were devoid of any emotions, only bloodlust remained. “It seems the war is calling for Auegor’s Blade, again. This tournament is a waste of time. Who am I to direct my blade at?”

Urgh… His glare sent a shiver down my spine. That jolly middle-aged man from before was completely gone, replaced by this revenge-drunk killer. I could only gulp when I saw his demeanor change. Tasianna, noticing this, step forward, blocking me from his eyes.

This could be me. I need to chill.

On the other hand, the saurians were completely unfazed by his behavior. Akast wasn’t inside the building, since he was too big to come in, but I could imagine his warrior spirit not being intimidated like everybody else. All of them reminded me how I was more a survivor, than a full-on warrior-at-heart person.

Still… it would hurt my pride if I was paralyzed by this. I moved forward, reaching my hand out. Larent nodded, grabbing and shaking it. He was clenching my hands roughly, instead of softly like during the royale rumble.

“Then we would like to provide our help, too. If my apprentice agrees with your help, then you shall hear no complaints from me,” Master intervened, breaking us off. “Sir Larent, I would suggest you continue your match for today. We shall investigate the islands—”

“No.” He didn’t even think about it. “Auegor’s Blade is a weapon sharpened by and for conflict. I shall not unsheath it for a match.”

“… Then, join us, then.” Master nodded, accepting his wish. This meant Larent will forfeit his remaining matches, making the tournament easier for everybody else.

“Kush,” Grazlahta spoke up. “Investigating the islands now wouldn’t help us. If that lad was killed because he found them out during his morning walks, then our enemies most likely have already relocated.”

“Mhmm, that is true. Only an idiot would remain there, challenging people to come to find them,” Krim-Slak agreed with his partner’s reasoning. “Don’t forget, the young scale met those damn green rats moving siege weapons through the underground. A fight is what they are looking for. The question is, are they coming from the sea or land?”

Tasianna’s eyes brightened as she understood what he meant. “Oh, I see. They have people inside the city and harbor. Those people can perform sabotage, making it easier for the main force to invade this city. The demonkins have an entire grimgarian army in the west, so coming to us through the sea isn’t farfetched. Maybe, a grimgarian force is moving into the city right at this moment through some underground?!”

“Tsk, inform me about this force later,” Larent demanded from me. “If the enemy is targeting Elyonda, then their goal isn’t just the blood but also the royal family. I shall cleave anything in front of me, but if the city were to fall, more innocent blood will taint my soul. We need to protect the populace.”

I couldn’t help but smile at what he said. Even if he had become grimmer, he still had the spirit of a knight in him.

As such, I need to do my part now. Goddess Aurena! I need your help now, could you tell me what Arlond last saw?

… Goddess Aurena? Hello? Goddess Aurena! I need your help!

But my patron goddess wouldn’t answer to me. Was she busy, again?

Goddess Aure—

<Hestia, enough!>

That was Yeostar’s voice.

<As I mentioned before, her Holiness has also other blessed and people to manage! Must I remind you how we gods are not supposed to interfere in every single bit of your life? We are guiders and watchers, not your attendants to summon when you need help for every minor subject!>

Minor? I guess, in the grand scheme, but if I could know who killed Arlond, it could—

<You might be close to her, Hestia, but mind what you do. The other gods are watching you.>

Now, Kramps was talking to me, but unlike most of the other times he spoke, he sounded quite irritated… at me!

But this is important! The demonkins or whoever they hired are currently moving and making their moves! Arlond died, but to whom? What did he see? We currently have no good leads outside of inspecting those islands. However, Arlond is from the Empire, so he should be devout to her, right? Goddess Aurena should know!

<Don’t be selfish here! I understand the situation, but stop trying to use your closeness to her as an excuse to talk with her all the time. Yes, she gave you enough time after you accepted to become her blessed, but not only does Aurena have to manage the System’s transition to a new Job System, but she also has many blessed in the rest of the world, all needing her help or advice. You aren’t the only one.>

Hey, don’t try to use ‘closeness’ as an excuse, Kramps! You just called her ‘Aurena’ to me. At least, I have the sound mind to address Goddess Aurena properly when I am speaking with her.

<Silence! That is not the point, Hestia! I am tell— E-Erithia?! Who gave you permission to enter my domain? Wh— Oi, hey, stop unsheathing your weapon! Hey, stop attacking—>

… Yeah, the gods are listening in, huh? Well, too bad, Kramps. Anyway, Goddess Aurena, please, I need your help!

<Hestia…>

Yeostar’s disapproving tone told me to stop, but if I could only get some help from Aurena, I could probably accelerate all of this investigation. I could possibly stop whatever those damn demonkins were planning if I could find the instigators first!

<I do not lecture you because I wish for it, but I must. Know when I first became a god, the Goddess had told me how constant management of mortals as if you are little toys would only create stagnation and complacency. The world cannot develop if all it does is to rely on us. How can you grow? Knowing we would help you with everything? Let me say this, your grandfather and the Goddess were extremely proud of how you survived all alone, without their help in that forest. How could I be proud of my descendants, if all they do is follow my every command?>

I—

His words struck me at the very core. It was impossible for me to speak back to him. Relying on people wasn’t a problem, but relying too much on them might be a problem. Especially when it was the gods, who were technically not supposed to influence things too much.

… Hmm, alright, I understand, but allow me to at leas—

<H-Hello, hello? I’m here, Hestia! What is it? What do you need help with?>

—t.

Aurena finally answered me, but I could somehow hear some… hecticness in her voice? It was like someone answering the phone in a rush, sounding like they were out of breath or something. Aurena clearly didn’t sound like that, but it felt like she was pushing me to quickly state my intentions. Like she couldn’t spare any time, right now.

Uhm, were you busy with something? I could stop if you want me to.

<No, no, no, I’m fine! Just ask, what do you need?>

It felt like Yeostar was staring at my very soul right now, telling me “I told you so.” It seemed I was being impatient, but I still believed I had to get this information out, if possible.

In any case, after explaining the situation to Aurena, she agreed and looked up Arlond’s perspective. From how she spoke to me, it honestly seemed like she hadn’t paid too much attention to my stay in Elyonda. Most likely, she delegated everything to Yeostar, and really was preoccupied with something else.

<…>

The silence felt suffocating.

<Hestia, I have no problems helping you out when something terrible is about to happen. I’ve always done it when needed, and would reward you for them. However… please, don’t call me to do your own work. You can do forensics yourself. I cannot solve every single problem of yours.>

I-I’m sorry.

<It’s fine, just remember that I have other blessed in the world? They need my help, too. You cannot vie for my sole attention as if I am your parent. I do not want to act snappy or unreliable, but showing you too much favoritism would not be fair to the people I have given my blessing to.>

… Yes. I’m sorry.

<… Alright, I have the recording. My condolences… Okay, I watched it. I’ll send you the summary of it now.>

Huh? Summary? Why couldn’t you send me the entire video?

<Unless you have the necessary permissions — in other words, be a god — the only way to watch these videos is by experiencing them yourself like a memory. And, I don’t think you would like to feel how he was crushed.>

…

I didn’t say anything. I simply accepted her reasoning and went with it, only to suddenly receive all that information in my head. Anything Aurena had just seen was sent to me.

Arlond, as Larent expected, was taking a jog on the beach today. He had his steel horse, constructed from his armor, run beside him like a run partner. However, for some reason, the video was pretty unclear, with a lot of static making things hard to discern. Aurena told me this was ‘cause Arlond was less religious than I thought, weakening her link with him.

In any case, the memory continued when he suddenly heard some voices in the distance, drawing his attention to a couple of rowboats coming closer to the shore with crates on them. Instincts told him something was up, so he put his armor back on. Ready to pull his weapon, he strutted closer to the waters before shouting at the rowboats, asking who they were.

Those people turned around due to his voice, but the static made it impossible to see anything clear. I couldn’t even tell if they were male or female, human or beastmen. It was too hard, so I didn’t care.

Unfortunately, it was then that his vision was shot forward, landing head first into the water. He tried to stand up, but something pushed him back to the ground again before a piercing pain came from his back. He struggled and tried to reach for his weapon, but in the next moment, his arm was crushed.

He screamed like a shrieking banshee, crying out from his pain as he tried to look at what attacked him, only for him to suddenly see a giant sand creature with the body of a lion and the head and trunk of an elephant. The beast had placed his paw onto his left arm, not letting him take out his weapon.

And that was when the creature’s trunk struck him, cutting the video off.

<I could not find any other perspective in that same time and area. I’m sorry, but that is all I can do, Hestia. Please, excuse me, I have to leave, but good luck on your Quest! I believe in you!>

… Wait! Thank you.

And she was gone.

And so, I had the fine duty of relaying this information to everybody else. The only person who couldn’t believe what I had said was Larent himself. He was obviously suspicious and wanted to question how I was so confident in this hearsay, only for Master to be the one to support me once again.

“Lady Hestia is a blessed, Sir Larent.”

“I understand that, but what she just described was too explicit! Too vivid. Blessed can receive visions and instructions from the gods, but if you want me to believe something like that descriptive, then I don’t know why you would want to fool me, Lady Hestia.” Larent looked annoyed, but I could understand it. Eshe did tell me even the most devout blessed couldn’t talk to their god for very long.

“Ahh, of course, but don’t forget that I am a Saint. I understand very well, and I so lament how I cannot listen to more of Xohulotel’s wisdom. Ooooh, Xohulotel, I am but your servant, so I plea to hear more of your voice!” Master kneeled onto the ground to give a quick prayer before continuing where he left off from. “However, Hestia is special, even amongst us blessed. Her very soul was blessed before she was born, and with this purity, she can even speak with the very gods! Ha ha ha ha, like nobles having small talk!”

Larent looked over to me, prompting me to simply come clean. “I’m a reincarnator and transmigrator. Like the dwarf’s Revolution Queen, Chihiro.”

“…?”

“I know, I know. Dragon, princess, blessed, and also an otherworldly reincarnator. I’m… I get it.” I shook my head nervously. “Well, to admit, I did annoy Goddess Aurena like a spoiled kid just now to get this information. Not only did I get scolded by her, but also by God Yeostar and my grandpapa, Kargryxmor. They really sounded angry, so let’s not waste this information…”

I felt so spoiled. In a bad way, of course, like I shouldn’t have pestered Aurena like that. I really shouldn’t forget that she was a god and had a world to manage, not only myself.

“…” Larent kept staring at me, seemingly having his thirst for revenge completely replaced by bafflement so crazy it looked like he would faint. Like a pious man learning something so crazy about his faith, he just didn’t want to believe it.

Seeing us like this, Krim-Slak laughed out loud. “Gahahaha, you always do the weirdest stuff, young scale! Of course, a follower would find it crazy. The poor man has had enough surprises today.”

While he was laughing, Grazlahta shrugged and spoke about the information I gave. “That broken arm part; coincidentally, the arm he lost was actually his left. You haven’t seen his corpse yet, but you gave detailed information on the armor and the body damage, right?”

“Well, I couldn’t see the damage to his armor. I could only see through his vision, and it was pretty fuzzy, really. Like, the last thing I saw was that creature hitting him with the trunk,” I replied, causing the green saurian to nod.

“Exactly. And that sand creature; lion and elephant, huh? Sounds like a yazhi, at least, that is what I remembered from the guild’s bestiary. Hmm, Kush, the fact a sand creature appeared like that, it sounds like a golem.”

“Mhmm.” Master nodded. “Sand, hmm? Definitely a golemancer at this point.”

“Golemancer? Is that a mage who focuses on golems like your unique skill, Saint Kushlek’zar?” Tasianna questioned.

“Exactly, my apprentice. You have a golem spell of your own in [Winter’s Golem], but in case you haven’t known yet, there aren’t many golem-creating System spells. Unlike those, the custom spell versions can only create and maintain a single golem per spell, outside of them having a unique skill like me. Golemancers are mages who have a varied list of golem-creating spells, or tools to help them maintain multiple copies.”

“It sounds a bit like a necromancy,” I stated, causing Master to approve my comparison.

“Storing souls in a phylactery, creating mana bonds to control undead like puppets. Mhmm, I can see why you would think they are golem, but there is always something that differentiates them: the materials used. Otherwise, a corpse would just be a flesh golem, and that is something no golemancer would like to hear.”

I understood the implication. Nobody would like to have their art associated with something the public wouldn’t like to hear.

During this thought, Larent suddenly perked back up. The confusion in his eyes were gone, returning back to the aloofness of before.

“A yazhi? Those monsters can be found in the north of the Empire and also at the border between them and Carmaniate. Very adaptable, even to the cold…” He then glanced over at me, giving me a small nod. “I understand. You have my oath of silence, Lady Hestia. I swear this to the God of Dragons and our Goddess.”

“Thank you.”

“Then that is settled then!” Krim-Slak bumped his chest. “So, we’re looking for some idiots who had just rowed a boat to shore this morning. The murderer of that Arlond is most likely someone from the Empire or whoever lived close to the borders to know these things. Or, an adventurer. There was no picture in the bestiary, and I don’t think Hestia had any problems describing it. Most likely accurate, so it had to be someone who had seen it in flesh.”

“Good, my friends, we have our goals.” Master clapped his hands. “Hestia, sorry, but for now, can you return to the arena? Larent missing will certainly unnerve our enemies, but they know you better. The longer you are away, the more they have to worry.”

I agreed.

“Then the rest will continue gathering information. Krim, Graz, bring Akast with you and search those islands. Ask one of those seafins at the docks to help out. Sir Larent and I shall go search the bars now that we have a better lead. Oh, and my apprentice, may I ask you to lend us Rajah?”

“Rajah?”

[“I am here!”] Rajah jumped out of his shadow without any warning. [“I am ready for action! Put me out there, Master’s Master!”]

He certainly is energetic.

“Good, we will need your nose, my dear feline friend! Skulk our shadows like dear Saori, and watch for anything we missed. Inform of us of everything, alright?”

[“Yes! I will do my best!”] The kid sounded even more crazed after hearing he was needed. [“Master, may I go?”]

“… Haaa, as if I could say no. Be careful, alright?”

[“Yes, Master! I shall do well!”]

And that was how my alliance with Larent was once again rekindled. Tasianna and I returned to the arena, understanding we should probably watch out for enemies there. Most likely, after I told everybody who I was, some spies were probably placed around to watch me. Without Saori or her garms around, this would be quite hard. I was out of practice looking for spies, after all.

And it also didn’t help the fourth match was about to start, meaning, Neill’s match.

“Ladies and gentlemen! Blood enjoyers! We have a match for you that will probably rival the first one we had today! A DRAGONEWT GIRL VERSUS A BEASTMEN! Hahahaha, but it probably won’t end the same way, right? After all, we actually have two favorites of this tournament squaring up against each other now!”

Do it, Sis!

“To my right, we have the illustrious horned brawler with a tendency to come in with the most flashiest outfits! Almost like our ‘Crimson Horned’ Hestia from before! ‘Stampeding Lightning’ Fargryneeiiiiilllllllll!”

C-Crimson Horned, are you freaking kidding me?!?!?!? He actually gave me a thir— a fourth nickname?! Use one!

“To my left, we have the beasts of beasts! A berserker whose very name would scare even veteran warriors, but I bet once he roars, all of you will just wet your pants! I wouldn’t judge you men out there, ahahaha! Welcome, Ghorush ‘Mountain Lion’ the Decaaaaapitatoooooor!”

“Ghrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrouuuuuuuuuuu!”

A note from AbyssRaven

Revenge plot, let's gooo! Also, Hestia bothering the gods for everything. Meep.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 336: Fargryneill vs. Ghorush.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #4 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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“And a mad rush! Ghorush dashes forth on four legs, holding his massive axe in his maw! The lion strikes forth, aiming for the horned lizard!” the announcer described the battle as he always did — as descriptive and hype-inducing as possible. “But the black-purple-haired girl isn’t flinching! She’s standing her ground to— OH! IMPACT”

Protected by her scales in a gauntlet form, Neill readied herself into a stance before a right hook at Ghorush as he used his momentum to land a powerful downward slash with his axe! Despite the weapon’s blade being literally larger than her entire arm, she blocked the attack with her fist alone, stopping it from crushing her with Ghorush’s weight!

But, that was when I noticed blue lines spreading on the leonid’s crescent axe. They were her dragon paths! She was aiming to break the weapon using her mana!

“Grroh!” Whether he noticed that part or not, the beastmen swung his weapon around, throwing his two-handed weapon’s long handle at my sister, only for her to use it as a stepping stone. In the air, I saw mana focusing around the scales on her scaled-sabatons before she kicked that energy forward, sending those scales forth to hit Ghorush right in his jaw!

“Grrrk!” The impact caused him to slide along the rocky ground. He almost hit the canyon’s wall — the arena’s theme for this match was a mountainous path — but stopped himself in time by digging his weapon into the ground.

“W-Woah, I apologize everybody, but that was too fast for me to actually see! Ghorush tried to cleave the girl into two, only for his attack to be stopped by his thin arms! He tried to reply by hitting her with his shaft, only for her to, uuh, use a wind ability to knock him away!”

Mana-covered scales. Not wind ability or anything. Then again, you could call it a mana blast in a way. It’s far less powerful than the pure mana blasts she used when she was in [Battle Frenzy] mode.

“Hiehie, don’t look like that, dear,” Mother caressed my shoulders out of nowhere, giggling as if she saw something funny. “You might not have noticed it during your previous match, but the announcer has been trying to keep up with everything going there, too. You can’t fault him for having trouble keeping up with the action.”

“… Chahayat swam like crazy and shot out a ton of spells without pausing. Here, those two only ‘greeted’ each other.” I looked at her, unimpressed. “Hmm, I guess noticing the mana around her legs would be hard. It was quite subtle.

“Mhmm, of cou—” But before Mother could say anything, the leonid suddenly bellowed out a laugh.

“Ghuhahahahahahahah! That’s it! Power and challenge! Taking you down will be a delight!” Showing no signs of being hurt, the berserker bumped his chest like a gorilla, smiling so radiantly, I was surprised his teeth would be so clean for someone like… well, for, yeah, him.

Yikes, stigmatizing berserkers for being unhygienic. Bad, Hestia, bad!

“Ha! I’ve seen worthier prey in my lifetime! If that hit was supposed to impress me, then you better do better, cat! Haaa!” Neill stomped the ground, sending out dragon paths through the ground which Ghorush noticed immediately. Although he probably didn’t know what it actually did, he was cautious and tried to evade it.

Sadly for him, dragon paths were also appearing around Neill’s legs, spraying small purple lightning before she [Gale Steps] right in front of the lion, sending a powerful kick. However, that was when Ghorush smirked and used his weapon to tank the attack. The lightning attack struck true and sent the 2m tall (6.5 feet) humanoid lion flying up.

But, surprisingly, with the deftness of a jaguar, the hulking lion rammed his axe right into the canyon’s walls and began spinning on it like a gymnast. He then dug his claws into the rocky wall and used his axe to throw a chunk of it at Neill. Sis clapped her hands together and used them to tear the boulder into two clear-cut parts.

“The time has come, blood enjoyers! That leonid’s epitaph ‘Mountain Lion’ isn’t for show! Despite how steep the canyon is, he is moving around it like an expert climber, slinging large rocks at her without rest!” the announcer described the next few moments, causing the crowd to be astonished by how well Ghorush was moving. Like a mountain goat, he was scaling the cliff, no sweat.

I could tell Neill was getting annoyed at it as she was showing off her power after destroying the sixth boulder. Instead, she used her levitating scales to simply move them out of her way. This gave her the time to spread her dragon paths on the wall, literally blowing up sections of it to potentially trap or even throw the leonid off.

However, Ghorush once again surprised all of us. Rocks were the only projectiles he had, he also had his roar.

“War Roaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar!” Similar to a [Draconic Roar], Ghorush let out an ear-rupturing roar blast. It crashed right in front of Neill, creating a massive dust cloud to impair her vision.

Even more surprisingly, when Ghorush jumped off the wall, he didn’t let out a war cry or anything, hiding his angle of attack from Neill, even with her [Detection Sensor]. Holding his axe in two arms and over his head, he momentarily defied physics as he levitated in the air as mana concentrated around his blade's head. Once it turned black and grew larger, he slashed downwards like an executioner.

Due to the height from where he jumped from, Neill had enough time to blow the air away by punching the ground, creating wind pressure. Grimacing when she saw Ghorush’s attack, she kicked the ground, and literally sent a perfectly cut-out rectangular slab twirling into the air. It was her ability to make weapons by using her dragon paths!

Nevertheless, that flying object couldn’t stop the leonid. Like butter, it was cleaved apart and smashed right into the ground. Neill barely managed to dodge it by sacrificing some of her scales to protect her. Then again, to us dragons, we had scales aplenty.

Thrown onto the ground, Sis recovered just in time to duck under Ghorush’s following swipe. After dodging another hit, Neill released more scales and finally took back some initiative as her scales helped her like a third arm.

[“That is no brute. He fights well,”] Shay suddenly praised the leonid.

[“Mhm, calling him a berserker or barbarian sounds like we ridiculed him, brother. Her Highness is having more trouble than we thought,”] Beth agreed with the analysis, looking pensive.

They were right. Unlike Cernust, Neill was less an arcane brawler who combined spells with her martial arts, but relied heavily on her scales and dragon paths. I knew she could use [Inferno Magic], but she had preferences for certain abilities. Similar to how I neglect using certain spells over other attacks.

But, even then, this Ghorush was keeping up with Neill’s movement. Neill immediately got out of being on the defensive, but instead of turning the tide, it almost seemed like they were in a draw. The destruction of their clash was so fast that the announcer was having trouble keeping up.

“Dashing around in the air with [Air Steps] and those floating scales of hers, Stampeding Lighting is bringing down her fists upon the lion! But, with that huge smile of his, Ghorush keeps blocking, blocking, blocking, before throwing out an attack to dissuade his smaller enemy! Lighting burst from the impact of their attacks befo— AND S-SHE TOOK OUT A CHUNK FROM HIS AXE! It’s chipped! And those blue paths struck lighting again before the ground explo— GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Exploded!”

The poor guy was speaking so fast, that it almost made him sound like a rap god. He was trying his best to describe everything, but the fight was going so fast that he couldn’t even throw in his flavorful images to excite the crowd. They didn’t need it. The fight was so intense, the crowd turned dead silent from the action!

Honestly, the announcer was trying his best, but even he needed air! He was like a play-by-play caster who didn’t have a color caster to help him out. It showed, as his eyes missed crucial moments! He missed out on the finer details like Ghorush leading Neill around with his guard and fast attacks, before slashing down with his axe to destroy more of Neill’s floating scales!

Although we had plenty of scales, there was a limit to how much we could shed per day. It was like hair. The moment she couldn’t shed anymore, she would lose her ability to manipulate her scales!

“Lady Hestia, Lady Fargryneill uses her dragon paths to power up her body similar to how normal people use their mana to strengthen themselves with [Mana Control]. However, that leonid is keeping up with her in speed and power!” Tasianna explained how the fight was proceeding. “Either he is of a high level, or he has more mana than a normal warrior should have. He shouldn’t be able to keep up like this.”

“Not only that, but like Shay and Beth said, he’s skilled and smart with his attacks,” I frowned as I admitted that. “Never judge a book by its cover, huh? Seeing him fight like this reminded me of Larent or Yorshka. A veteran warrior. Fighting intelligently with precision.”

However, he was described as a berserker by the announcer, right? How come he doesn’t even fight like one? Where are the berserker moments? That high ogre I fought back in Firwood was far more of a berserker than this guy.

It made my leg shake. My instincts on this guy were correct, after all. He really was one of the people I had to be aware of. While Chahayat was strong, his battle style revolved around that sticky water of his. If you got trapped in it, any normal person would just lose.

However, Ghorush didn’t seem to have a gimmick. He was just strong, similar to people like Farron or Master. And that caused my survival instincts to kick in, wanting me to appraise him and see how strong he really was. However — gah, ethics — it was the wrong thing to do. He wasn’t an enemy nor a lowlife. I would lose all my right to complain if someone were to use [Identify] on me if I did it myself. Allowing people some privacy was a line I didn’t want to cross after I rejoined society, and was one of the reasons why I haven’t appraised Mother or Neill yet, despite how much I wanted to.

Even asking them was embarrassing. Pretty sure they would allow me, especially Mother, but it just seemed creepy.

However, I can do this. Mana Eyes.

Averting directly looking at him, I took a glance at his mana levels without opening his status board.

What the—? That’s quite a lot of mana.

To compare, Mother had the most mana inside this arena without a doubt. Although she was compressing it, simply taking a look at her with [Mana Eyes] active would cause a painful feedback. Now, excluding myself, the next one would be Neill herself, which made sense. Following them would be Tasianna and the twins in that order.

Now, outside of the obvious candidates, the next person with the highest mana would be, surprisingly, Rita. It made sense since she was a faefolk before she became a dryad, but she was a non-combatant, which was the surprising part. After her, I could see some mages and the nobles of this country taking the next position, but the ones I noticed were actually Naemon and Joek, who were sitting far away from us.

And this was where it became surprising, just under those master mages was Ghorush himself. He had that much mana, to the point he could beat out trained mages and even nobles. I hadn’t checked out Larent’s total mana, but considering the mana slashes he could produce, he probably was around this ranking, too. Renee, on the other hand, had enough mana as a normal knight — enough to cast spells, but not for an extended battle.

Beastman, mostly a warrior, and he still has that much mana? Where did he train to cultivate that much?

“Aren’t you underestimating her a bit too much, Lady Priestess?” Renee suddenly spoke up, interrupting my thought. “She lives for battle, and no matter whom she goes up against, she always fights with an underdog attitude. Meaning, she never underestimates her opponents even with all her confidence. But she will crush them the moment they show even an inkling of weakness”

“Yup, that’s right!” Rita nodded, palms clenched into fists. “Nothing can stand in Fargryneill’s way once she gets fired up! Every tournament she’s ever entered has ended in her win!”

“Hiehiehie!” And in support, Mother began to giggle. “After all, she is my husband’s daughter~”

“AND DOWN!”

My head snapped back to the match, only to see Ghorush on the ground with black flames burning his fur armor.

“She slipped through his defenses and landed the first clear attack on him! A black fire punch, right under his blind spot!” the announcer cheered, jumping up like an excited fan from where he commentated. Similarly, the crowd also erupted, letting out all the pent-up excitement from their clash.

Breathing out some black flames, her scaled gauntlets and leggings fell off, turning back into scales. Mana paths then covered her four limbs like tattoos, streaming through the gaps between her scales. They showed some lightning sparks but eventually began covering her hands in black flames.

“Dodge this. Huuuuuu!” Breathing in deeply, I knew exactly what she was preparing — a dragon breath!

Ghorush noticed this, too and began scaling the cliff again, but he reacted too late as Neill unleashed a massive black fire blast. Scorching not only the earth, it destroyed a large section of the wall, causing the leonid to be flung into the air.

[Gale Steps]ing to the wall, Neill grabbed a section of it and spread her dragon paths through it, before peeling off a perfectly-cut rectangular slab from it! Only this time, it was as large as a billboard. And with it, she literally flipped the thing like a table, trying to crush Ghorush with it!

“That’s insane!” I blurted out by the extreme nature of her attack, to the point I was really wondering if this was reality or some fantasy story!

“Lady Hestia, you also like destroying cliffs. I mean, you even caused a cave-in, causing a whole cliffside to be demolished when we first met,” Tasianna reminded me of my first few months in the Belzac forest.

“That was Saori’s idea! Besides, look!” I pointed back at the fight, drawing her attention to how Ghorush somehow was scaling this disorientating situation.

Noticing this, Neill literally began running along the wall with her dragon paths, showing off how versatile it was. And with [Gale Steps] once again, she immediately closed the distance between her and Ghorush. With her hand aflame, she landed another searing punch on the leonid, but this time, he managed to block it.

And this was where the mountainous terrain of this simulated arena came into play. No longer were they fighting only in the canyon, but they even used the treacherous paths and platforms of this place to their advantage. Ghorush masterful climbing and Neill’s dragon paths made this whole place seem so much smaller than it should be.

The darting dungeon camera to keep up with the fight was fidgeting around, desperately trying to track how the two were fighting. The audience, although confused at times, was fully engrossed as whenever they stopped moving around, they would fight each other like in an MMA fight.

“Dashing around like lightning, the lass is giving Ghorush no time to breathe! Zigzagging around while using her scales like footsteps, she is outmaneuvering the larger leonid! Ghorush has finally been pushed to the defensive, unable to do anything but react!” the announcer exclaimed. “All those black flames and the constant explosions from those blue lines aren’t allowing Ghorush a chance to counter! What is this leonid to do to get out of this preca— WHAT?!”

This match surely could be called a cliffhanger, but not in the general sense. More like, both Sis and Ghorush had such a love for cliffs, they were hanging off them any time they had to. Literally cliffhangers!

And it all started when Sis punched right through Ghorush’s axe, continuing my tradition of destroying my opponent’s equipment. However, her arm was stuck in the large weapon, and Ghorush didn’t take so kindly to it as he literally took this chance to slam her to the ground with it. Although she freed himself, the leonid smirked before he dug his destroyed weapon into the ground…

… causing the whole cliff to break apart.

“Wraaaaaaaaah?!” Sis shrieked as she lost solid ground under her, falling headfast from the landslide.

“Ghuhahahahahaha! Let us die together in a blaze of fire! Ghraaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Ancestors, watch me fight! Elemental Kings, watch me DIE!” Finally, when the tension reached its peak, Ghorush showed his berserker tendency. With a loud proclamation of his faith towards the elemental kings — the old gods, or “primarchs,” as Mother called them — he charged his mana into his axe, preparing himself for the match-ending attack.

Due to all the rocks falling down with her, Neill fell onto one of them and immediately recovered. Seeing Ghorush planning something, Neill kept jumping deep towards the ground, trying to evade the rubble and Ghorush.

The leonid, on the other hand, kept his axe raised as he fell onto one of the falling rocks. The black blade grew further in size as its master kept following Sis, trying to reach her before the landslide fell onto the ground. It would only take seconds for that to happen, but from how fast those two were moving, it felt like even time stopped for them.

“Ghuhahahahahahaha!” Ghorush laughed maniacally as the blade reached the size of a boulder. He tensed his legs and jumped forth, holding his weapon to cleave her apart!

“Neill!” I shot up, realizing the trajectory and speed of his descent were enough for him to reach Neill with his enlarged weapon. She had dodged, now! “Dodge!”

“Ghuhahahahah! Let us dine in Marsven’s oblivion! Bravery’s Doom!”

A chill ran down my spine as I watched Neill turn her head around to the sky…

… with a smirk formed on her blue face.

“Freikugel!”

The blue disappeared from her face, showing off how they were just dragon paths, accumulating all that energy into her kirin horn, causing it to shoot out purple lightning. And in the next moment, that horn of hers shot out a laser from pure mana, piercing right through Ghorush’s arms, leaving large holes in both of them.

“Huh?” The leonid’s eyes widened as he glanced at his arms, letting go of his weapon due to a loss of important muscles.

“Good match!” Neill shouted as she began gathering mana around her hands, forming it into a ball. “Pulse Arcana!”

Throwing the ball out like a baseball, Ghorush could only laugh as the attack consumed him whole, unable to dodge without [Air Walk]. In the next moment, a brilliant light shot out, retreating from the arena.

“AND WE HAVE A WINNER! IN THE MOST CATACLYSMIC WAY POSSIBLE!”

“Remember my freaking name, HUMANS! FARGRYNEILL!”

“YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! NEILL!”

And I couldn’t help but be the first to cheer for her victory.

A note from AbyssRaven

Another win for the kirin girl. *Happy Monter Hunter Clapping*

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 337: Pen, Sword, and Heart.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Ghuhahahahahahaha! My thanks, dragonewt girl! I’m not a fan of Aurena’s blind little pups, but white spells are far more useful than any other healing method. A salve wouldn’t heal those wounds!”

“Oof!”

The first thing Ghorush did after I healed the two baseball-sized holes in his arms was to smack me right in the back, nearly knocking me over due to size and weight difference alone. Dragon or not, I wasn’t as heavy as my original form right now. Otherwise, wooden floors would just crack under me.

“Well, that’s the least I could have done after making your arms practically useless.” Neill suddenly grabbed my shoulder and pulled me closer to her, looking prideful as she stared at Ghorush, who was just getting up from his bed in the infirmary. “Hmph! That’s how a victor should act, ha!”

“… So you nearly ruined his life as a warrior because you thought I could cure him? Neill? Isn’t that going too far?” I glared at my reckless sister. “Tch, bad loser.”

“Shishihahahahaha! But look at that! You closed up his arms to the point he could smack your back! See, I knew you had in you, Hestia! Huep!”

“Waaaaah!” Neill suddenly smacked me in the back, too! “Stop it! Stop hitting my back! Also, control your strength if you do so! I don’t care how it isn’t hurting me, stop doing so!”

Warrior idiots…

One minute, they were trying to kinda kill each other, in the other, they became fast friends. At least, that was what it looked like when I saw Ghorush laughing merrily, congratulating Sis for her victory over him. Despite her laser beam from her unicorn horn possibly stopping his life as a fighter, he still took the loss well, praising her for giving him a wonderful fight.

Just like my first impression of him when I first met him in the royal rumble, he was a real battle junkie.

When Neill literally dragged me to the infirmary after her win, we saw the tall leonid literally shun the priests away from him, only accepting potions from the alchemists. From what he just admitted, it seemed he wasn’t a real fan of Aurena’s religion and its followers. Reminding me quite a bit of the lizardmen I met in the Belzac forest.

He did try to reject my help, showing more suspicion of me compared to when we first met. Still, to the victor went the spoils, and he was a firm believer of that motto. Sis wouldn’t accept his reluctance of getting healed by a priestess of Aurena, so in the end, she persuaded him to have my flames and [Major Heal] patch him up.

“Hmph!” Ghorush jumped off his bed, which comically broke apart after he did so, probably due to his weight.

“S-Sir, you shoul—” One of the alchemists tried to stop him, but the blunt beastmen didn’t care one bit for their complaint. Shoving them aside, he came over to pat Neill’s shoulder.

“Good fight. Hope we can repeat that again, but for real next time!” He grinned, showing off his massive canines.

Unperturbed by this, even taking it as a sign of goodwill, she slapped his burly forearm lightly before bumping her fist against his. “I fight for glory and respect, leonid. That’s the thing that separates us. Death sounds like a pain for my tail.”

“Ghuhahahahaha! Fine! Each warrior to their own. At least, our wish to become stronger and fight powerful opponents is still the same. The Elemental Kings might not watch over us anymore, but I am sure the Spirit of Fire would have been pleased with our performance!”

Once again, the leonid brought up the Elemental Kings, the former primarchs of this world. Curiosity got to me at this point, as it was clear this guy grew up in a place where the Origin God faith was less prevalent.

“You don’t seem like a follower of any Origin or Subordinate god,” I brought up to Ghorush, causing him to frown.

“Hmm. Curious, priestess? I thought you were more a fighter-at-heart with how you fought with us, but I guess blesseds of Aurena aren’t that interesting.” He shrugged, but his words didn’t match his posture. He looked like he was willing to talk, instead of brushing me off with a bored look.

This guy really is curious, huh? More to him than a berserker.

“My master is a follower of Istari, so I can’t help it. Also, not often you meet somebody like you around in this part of the continent,” I replied, earning me another shrug from him.

“Hmm. If we’re talking, then not here. Too stuffy.” His mouth then turned into a fat grin, even drooling a bit. “Ha! The best way to celebrate a victory is with food and booze! Treat me, and I’ll speak, old comrade-in-arms!”

“H-Huh, food?! Now?” I flinched, not expecting that answer.

“Of course, now! Stomach’s empty!”

“Hmm, sounds good!” Neill immediately agreed with him while rubbing her tummy, before attempting to persuade me. “Come on, it's lunch break now! It’s two bells worth of time. We’ll eat, have some good time, and you can then go do your whole noble shtick. Come on, let’s invite the others, too! More the merrier!”

“Ghuhaha! Glad to hear you agree, fellow warrior! After battle feasts are the best! Best time to remember how you’re alive, while your foes aren’t!”

I was really tempted. I haven’t eaten anything yet after my match, so maybe this was as good of a time as ever. Honestly, with Neill’s lion mane-like hair, she looked a bit like a leonid when I compared Ghorush with her. Acted like him, at least.

I technically had a meeting with Prince Markval’s mother and also Duke Alberstien, so I was a bit nervous to delay it any further. I had my responsibility and I was sure Tasianna would be angry at me if I delayed it… but learning about this lion guy? It was very hard to choose in the end…

… but, I already made a promise to attend.

“Well, your word is your reputation.” Neill nodded understandably, while the leonid groaned in dissatisfaction. “The break is long, though, yeah? End it quickly and come join us! I’ll take everybody else while you and Tasianna make pleasantries with those humans.”

I was lucky to have an understanding sister, knowing what I wanted to do instead of being a princess. Of course, since I outranked every noble in this country by a mile, I technically could act like the spoiled, unruly imperial princess, but that was a cliche I wasn’t willing to do. My parents raised me better than that.

Besides…

This will be a good chance to speak with them about the impending attack.

I had already talked to Jethro and Alistar about my fear of an invasion, and hopefully they also informed the others about it. However, to make sure, I had to speak with them personally. We didn’t know who we were up against, so it would be better to deal with everything now.

So, with Neill taking everybody out for some lunch, Tasianna and I went over to a separate section of the arena, after she helped me get into a dress. If this were a normal building, you would think the arena was linked with another place through a long hallway, but this was a dungeon. Just like my subspace, the interior could be changed however you wanted, disregarding its outside appearance.

After I presented myself, the knights bowed and an attendant dressed like a butler came over to greet me. He bowed deeply before addressing me properly. I asked him why there wasn’t a queue for the banquet, which he answered was ‘cause another entrance was at the audience area for the nobles. Naturally. I should have guessed that part.

“Princess Anasthasia had anticipated you coming this way,” he told me. I nodded and thanked Anasthasia for predicting my obvious path.

Going through the doors, my eyes widened a bit as the hallway looked more like a castle’s garden path. Beautifully maintained shrubbery, flower beds aplenty, and an area so beautiful and peaceful you wouldn’t believe it was placed next to a blood sport arena. Just seeing the artificial sky was a clear reminder this place was a dungeon.

“My lady, may I ask you a few questions?” Instead of me, the butler began speaking with Tasianna. Due to our rank difference, the butler knew he couldn’t address me directly and had to go through Tasianna first. “Her Grace had informed me to ask for Her Imperial Highness’s title and spot in her house’s hierarchy. If I may, could I ask you for them?”

“I presume to int—”

“HOW DARE YOU!”

Ooooooh, here comes the drama popcorn…

Tasianna, interrupted by a loud yell, immediately darted her head towards a mostly-enclosed area with a silver status of Yeostar, large enough for me to see it over the shrubbery walls. The attendant next to us instantly flinched, looking like cold sweat was forming on his forehead. Unfortunately for me, I recognized that voice, and was already imagining something bad about to happen.

With a weary mind, we walked over to the local, only to suddenly hear glass splintering, causing us to move faster. Once there, I saw Prince Markval forced behind his mother by the woman herself, while the four princes of the Divide stared her down. Next to them stood Duke Alberstien and Alistar, both looking mortified.

On one side, the princess regent was scowling at the four princes with a broken wine glass laying before her. On the other hand, the princes looked horrified at the regent’s behavior. Taking a step back, the princes protested at her obscene actions.

“You cannot spew such insults into our faces, Regent Estelle. For a princess, your attitude towards us is discourteous to the extreme! Such a manner of speech deserves nothing but ire from the Goddess!”

“You have welcomed us well but your conduct just now is like lifting a mask! You are your son’s — the future prince of Yeos — representative, so why must you antagonize us? His future allies? Pah!”

The fear in their faces instantly disappeared as if it wasn’t there in the first place. The four men immediately transitioned into humiliating the regent for what they said were demeaning comments. However, as I had just arrived, I didn’t really know what happened.

However, under this storm, the regent didn’t falter, instead, her expression contorted even further. “A-Antagonize? Nonsense! Nonsense! Y-You dare bring up my husband’s death as if it’s some foregone event in the past, stating how we lost power in my country! How dare you! How dare you assume that of us! That we are weak! What are allies when all they wish is to usurp our land!”

“What nonsense are you talking about, Regent Estelle?!” One of the princes shouted, although I had already forgotten who he was without my parallel minds helping me remember. “We suggested we help you! Your borders are filled with bandits ransacking your villages and robbing merchants coming from your home to our nations! Where are you soldiers? Knights? Why haven't you issued this to the mercenary guild?”

“Not to mention those abominable goblins and kobolds! My Veignneight has been attacked by those beasts for a while now, and from the look of it, they are coming from the west. From our neighbor — you, Yeos! Stamp those vile beast’s nests, or do you expect me to continue spending my country’s coffers on solving your issue?”

“Nonsense! Foul trickery!” she shrieked, almost sounding hysterical. “Our land is protected by God Yeostar, always a shining jewel for the Goddess’s army! Small pests are to be expected, for rats to squirm everywhere in this world! Alistar! Tell them! What bandits and goblins do they speak of?”

“U-Uh, Lad—” But stuttering like that only allowed the regent to continue, not letting him say anything.

“See! He cannot say, for there are none! Do not come to our land making these outlandish accusations, only for you to try to offer ‘aid!’ You only seek to invade us!”

“You delusional woman!” And the climax was reached. The four sovereigns had faces as red as tomatoes. “Our states are also in danger of all these troubles and you make our offer for goodwill sound so devious! Paranoia has enraptured you, you foolish pariah!”

“How dare—”

“Please, stop!” Alberstien finally moved in between the two groups, trying to stop them. “Princess Estelle, please, these are our guests! We cannot jus—”

“And you! You repulsive villain! You were the one who pushed my husband to the death! Puppet maker that you are!”

“I did no such thing! His Majesty died a true and honorable death as a warrior prince! Do not make light of his death, Princess Dowager!” Alberstien shot right back at the princess, causing her to flinch back, looking like she was just betrayed.

“… Now, I get it. Not only the Empire, but also to these worms. Make my son your puppet to control it in the shadows for them! You, no, all of you!” The regent raged on, pointing at every noble in the local area in a mad rush. “Traitors! All of you are traitors! None of you will harm my boy! NONE!”

She then grabbed Markval’s arm, tugging on it roughly. “Markval, we must leave now!”

“M-Moth—” The young prince cowered, unable to stand up to his mother’s glare. The boy from before wasn’t there anymore, replaced by the same fear I noticed on the first day we met in his court.

“Alistar, we leave now! Escort us back to our rooms! Now!”

“Yes, Your Highness!” Alistar saluted and immediately followed after them, unable or unwilling to say anything.

Holy moly…

I didn’t know what just happened, but I was right to call this drama popcorn. That was insane, and in a bad way. And that showed with the awkwardness in the air as all the nobles kept quiet, staring as their monarch was dragged away by a helicopter mother.

In the meantime, Duke Alberstien tried to speak and appease the princes, but it all fell apart. They only listened to his plea before rejecting it without thinking about it. Tasianna and I immediately hid ourselves, unwilling to speak with them currently. After they left, so did many other nobles, finding the atmosphere too stuffy to continue.

Poor banquet, I pitied the chefs and attendants who prepared the three tables full of food and wine I saw in the party. It seemed like it would be either wasted, or given out to the populace as leftovers.

After most of them left, Tasianna and I entered the place after we checked everything. Outside of a few servants, only Duke Alberstien was there, waiting for some of the former to fill his wine glass and put food on his wooden plate. After they were done, he went over to an unoccupied table and began eating, solemnly with nobody else around.

We stopped at his table. He didn’t seem to have noticed me.

I took a seat. “Eating alone?”

“The royal coffers are low enough. As Seneschal, I shall not waste the money and effort I invested here.”

“Commendable. I didn’t expect you of all people would say that. Wasting food should be a crime,” I replied, thinking about my time in the Belzac forest and how hard it was to get food all alone.

“Hmph, you are exaggerating, I hope. Wasting food dishonors the hard work our serfs and land perform to provide us nobles and our armies with plenty of sustenance. However, to make it a law where breaking it would force us to punish them? We are no barren country with food problems.” He kept eating while talking with me. “Does Kargryx have such a law?”

“I’m speaking randomly, don’t mind me.” I kept a nonchalant attitude with him, finding no need to act like a noble right now. “Soooo, what happened?”

“The four princes suggested giving up some of our land to them since we have lost military strength. Too much to protect them. Slighted, looking down at Prince Markval and our previous sovereign, the regent lashed out.” He clenched his knife, digging it harder into his place as if he was letting his anger out on it. “Women… emotional beings. Unfit to rule, unfit to lead.”

“…” I stared at him, causing him to put his utensils down.

“I apologize. I should—”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. Jethro already gave me the full brunt of your country’s nobility’s misogyny.” I smirked, finding it funny how it really was ingrained in two high-standing officials in this nation’s government. “If you expected me to be angry and shout at you, well, don’t bother. I’m reserving that for when I meet the people responsible for Saintess Eshe’s death.”

“…” The man looked at me blankly, not saying anything. He stroked his goatee before continuing his meal.

“Where are Princess Anasthasia and Jethro? Shouldn’t they be around?” I brought up, not wanting this to end up in silence.

“Both, not here. Sir Jehtro is probably taking care of that little problem you found out.” After he answered that question, he then laid his utensils back on the plate, before looking at me. “Princess Hestia, why are you here? As you can see, your appointment with the regent is not available.”

“I still have one for you, Duke Alberstien,” I replied. “Don’t forget we had one after the third match. I had to leave before I could speak with you, so I wish to continue it now.”

“Hmph. Of course. The death of a Folschreckian noble, correct? I heard from a knight how Sir Larent was livid when he saw Sir Arlond’s body. Everything really is falling apart after our army marched off to the war. We cannot even please a dragon royal.” He wiped his mouth with a handkerchief before taking a sip from his wine, beginning to look irritated as he looked around the empty venue. “Tell me, Princess Hestia. What does the Goddess think about us? What is God Yeostar thinking? Why have us suffer all of this? Did we not do our best to serve them by helping the Empire in war effort? Why do we deserve all this punishment?”

<Gods cannot wish woe or bless individual countries. Outside of clear disregard of a divine law, we cannot do much. We gods are simply watchers and guiders.>

Yeostar answered while Aurena didn’t, probably too busy to deal with something like this. Even Yeostar’s answer sounded a bit too corporate PR, but it was purely ‘cause I had that lecture just today. I understood their reasoning, but regurgitating that to Alberstien wouldn’t solve anything.

“Do you really think you are serving them correctly? Disregarding the whole female problems you have with a female Origin God as the country's main religion, do you honestly think what you are doing is correct?”

“Of course. Yeos is the land of knights, dedicated to Yeostar, the God of Knighthood, Bravery, and Loyalty. The Empire has done so much for us over the many years we’ve been their vassals. They united us humans together to tackle our enemies, protecting us so we can prosper.”

“What about the War for the Faefolk?” I pointed out, causing the man’s eyes to twitch.

“Mistakes have been made, yes, but don’t you understand, Princess Hestia, without the Empire, the demonkins and the beastmen barbarians would have overrunned our homes decades ago! How could we stand around, not doing our part to help them? These wars can never end, if we don’t do something!”

“And, I get it. Loyalty is something important and how you speak about fighting with the Empire instead of shirking your responsibilities does sound brave, but have you tried to take a step back and observe how your country is operating?”

“What do you mean by that?” Alberstien asked me suspiciously, unsure what I was talking about.

“I mean, come on, your very capital isn’t acting anywhere close to these ideals you’ve set for yourself. I’ve heard from many people in the city how many commoners despise beastmen due to the war with Carmaniate. Their sons and daughters were conscripted before being sent to die for the Empire. None of these people are knights, but you send them out anyway.”

“A war cannot be won with quality alone. We humans cannot afford such an advantage compared to you dragons or the elves. We need numbers; high quantities of levies to protect us from the beastmen, while the Empire’s elite forces take on the demonkins. We humans fight wars on two fronts, so we must make drastic decisions.”

He had his argument ready, despite how he sounded like he didn’t care much about the commoners who fight in these wars.

“Then what about all the gambling your people are doing during these matches? Despite being a knight country, you sure put in a lot of effort to make your blood sport very entertaining for the common man and woman. Blood enjoyers, yeah? Revel in gore and viscerals!” I imitated the announcer’s voice but made it extremely heroic to joke about what I said.

“Yes, well, we cannot control the masses, right? Our people are happy, and that is what makes a good country, in my opinion. Gambling? What are we to do? Outlaw it? It will still be performed underground, far away from our reach. At least right now, we can prevent outside manipulations.”

Yeah, but internal cheating is okay, because it’s there to make things more exciting, right? Sure, I have no evidence, but come on, what have been my matches?

“Urgh, you aren’t understanding what I am telling you,” I massaged my temple, a bit fed up with how he was trying to skip over the implications. “Your people need you here. Not out there, fighting for a war while you are weakened! That is what I am trying to tell you here in the Goddess’s stead!”

“Are those Her Holiness’s own words, or your opinions?” He stared me down, leaving me literally no choice to wiggle around.

“Mine, of course. Don’t presume the Goddess has time for every single problem in this world!” Those words accidentally caused Alberstien to raise an eyebrow, looking at me as if I was heathen or something, but I was simply speaking the truth! “See, what I am trying to tell you is that you should focus on your country’s problems, first! Bandits, those grimgarians, pirates, and not to mention all that damn money you need!”

“… Hmph, so you have joined the Princess’s camp, huh?”

“Stop trying to be pedantic about it!” I bashed the table with my fist, angrily staring at him at how unwilling he was to take on advice. “Sure, I might be a naive young girl, but this little girl has been inside your damn city. Walking around with the normal folks and also went out to fight grimgarians for your country. I have spoken with people who express complaints and those worried about pirates attacking your incoming merchants!”

I scratched my head to calm myself down, before standing up from my seat. “Here is the thing, I didn’t ‘backstab’ you, I was already trying to help Anasthasia. She knows full well the coffers are empty and wishes me to help, similar to you. You even admitted the money is tight. I brought over help from Artorias, helping me prepare for the concert in the city right at this moment!”

“… Hmph, I had figured the Princess had spoken with you earlier than I expected from how everything was resolved. During our first meeting?”

I nodded. “Yes, but if you call trying to help another country joining a faction, then do just that. You have plenty of problems on your plate, as I could see. Not only domestically — with a young prince and his unbalanced mother — but also with foreign politics. However, even if you don’t trust women because of your country’s ill-perceived views, at least, trust Anasthasia. She’s really trying her best for this country she loves. And I — a woman, too — am trying my best to find out who the enemy is, despite how much I want to cancel my Divine Quest and leave this place.”

“…” The duke remained silent, looking at me as if believing I wasn’t done talking. Taking it as a hint, I let out a deep sigh.

“You, Jethro, and Anasthasia. Three factions, all wishing well for your country, but none of you can work together. The pen, the sword, and the heart. You can’t advance or grow as you are, right now.”

He drank his wine glass empty when I ended, looking pensive as he stared at it. “…Then, what do you expect me to do, Your Grace?”

“Communication. You need to do your job as a seneschal and help Prince Markval finally spread his wings, instead of having his mother chain him down. I’m not saying get rid of her, but help her see the errors of her ways, otherwise, I will believe you are pulling the strings. Using the poor kid as a puppet. If you really want your country to survive, with threats within and outside, then start helping those who care to make a change.”

And with that said, I left him alone, hoping my words would help both Anasthasia and Renee in their goals. Jethro and Duke Alberstien were pivotal players in this country’s government. I had spoken my piece to them. Now, it was time to see if Yeos can transform into a place where I would wish to come back for a summer vacation… or not.

I then left the arena without changing my dress, finding it too cumbersome to ask Tasianna about it. Strangely enough, we quickly found Neill and the others, as we noticed Ghorush, Sis, and Mother having an eating contest.

Those fools…

I shook my head as Ghorush and Neill had to forfeit before Mother showed any signs of giving up. I also smacked Neill on her head, as she allowed Mother to pay for everything. That meant, it came from my wallet!

“Mine!” I stole away Mother’s food after the contest was done and began devouring it like a post-hibernation bear. Talking with that duke made me sooooooooo hungry, and if I had to pay for all this food, then I sure would have a bit from it!

“H-Hey, Hestia! I like that one!” Sis complained, but I was a voracious being made from pure hunger, desiring everything she paid for with my damn credit card!

… Then again, I could also just use the sun and feed myself with solar energy to fill myself up, but, eh.

In any case, after our meal was over, we went back to the arena where the remaining matches of the day began.

Naemon vs. Random Yeosian Noble

Joek vs. Renee

Random adventurer vs. Alistar

Random Yeosian knight vs. Larent

Were the last matches of the day. Naemon won his match pretty handedly as the noble couldn’t compete with the sandstorm he could conjure up, while Renee only narrowly won her match against Joek. He, from what I knew, seemed mute, so her silence field was practically useless to him. He could chant his spells in his head. Renee only won against him after using her wind constructs to overturn his sandstorm onto himself.

For the last two matches, Alistar was the winner while, as he mentioned, Larent forfeited his match completely, angering sooooo many people in the arena. Some even called for his head. Others, like Alistar, were disappointed.

With the tournament done for today, I attended some meetings with the people Tasianna made appointments with me. Mostly clothiers and armorers, which Neill loved so much, she didn’t even complain about coming. She was very interested in the clothes, wanting to see how the noble’s clothes would change with an ocean next to them.

Renee and Rita said their goodbyes here, while Mother, Tasianna, and the twins joined us, making this pretty much a family outing. Strangely enough, freaking Ghorush kept following us around despite where we were going. It seemed like he and Neill actually became good friends after their food match.

Well, not like it harmed anybody.

Anyways, after all that fun, the next day came to us. The schedule was a bit more lenient as only four matches were being held today. As such, the tournament ended earlier than yesterday, which was great since I had plans elsewhere.

Me vs. A random merc from Neill’s round

Empire knight vs. Fargryneill

Naemon vs. Renee

Alistar vs. Random Yeosian Knight

And that was it, really. Arlond died, so I swept his opponent in less than five seconds and so did Neill with her opponent. Naemon and Renee was another extremely competitive match, since both were normal humans, using their abilities to beat each other. This time, however, Renee was actually able to use her silence field well, defeating Naemon with a surprise attack with it. Ending the day, was a very chivalrous match between the Knight-Commander and one of his comrades, ending in Alistar’s win.

And that was how the fourth day of the bracket stage ended. And since we ended early, I could finally take the nexus back to Griffonpeak to pick up a very special object I had paid big bucks for.

Our party’s very own [Crystal of the Divine System].

A note from AbyssRaven

Talk about a crazy mother.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 338: Rich one second, Poor the next.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #2 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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[Battle Frenzy (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Deep breaths, deep breaths. Calm down my heart as best as possible. Need to get better at this. Better control if I want to prevent becoming alone one day.

My triple-colored flames were swirling around me like a slow twister. I had my eyes closed, but I could feel their warmth swirling around me. But, at the same time, I felt something pulsating through my veins and arteries. Energy, but also a primal desire for battle.

Yup, this was [Battle Frenzy] alright.

In the past, seeing this annoying abnormal status effect would have probably scared me, seeing as I could lose control and just hurt people around me. It happened once, no, thrice, where I simply lost full control of my body.

The first and second times, I lost complete control of myself and had to resort to my parallel minds to recover my lost memory. Those moments were after we finally left the Belzac forest and after Shiterno granted me his blessing. The third time was during the Griffonpeak attack, but I guessed I had matured enough to not lose consciousness there. Or, even worse, my greed, or wrath, to kill that demonkin wanted me to see him disappear before my very eyes.

The first signs of me wanting vengeance for Eshe’s death. Accepted and noted. But now, even thinking of the Yanderu Elusseuss or Eithalr made me angry. Revenge plots sure sucked ass.

As such, I needed to get stronger.

Kramps, Mother, and Neill already taught me the basics of my bloodline’s power and also how to fight like a dragon. The foundation was set, you could say. Now, it was time I developed them properly.

And the next step for me was to pass the Lust stage of the [Battle Frenzy] training.

“And, cool down.” Upon command, cold, shivering air enveloped my body, forcibly slowing down my heart rate to the point I could deactivate [Battle Frenzy] without any delays. With the training over, the flames around my body and the white highlights in my hair disappeared.

“Once again, such a short meditation session?” I groaned in dissatisfaction, wanting to train just a bit longer.

“Jeez, you’re too impatient. This is a long process, as I said.” Sis shook her head, looking annoyed at my comment. “Yes, you can finally use [Battle Frenzy] but it’s only the minor stage. The purpose of you gradually getting used to using that rage in our blood is to prepare you for Lust. You won’t advance to moderate, no; I’m helping you prepare yourself from embracing the hedonist inside you.”

Since I knew Klea’Hatma, the archdemon of lust, I knew full well what lust actually meant. The ultimate hedonist, to release every bit of your desire into the world to claim it all. It wasn’t like gluttony or greed, which were “need” and “want” respectively, but stimulation of your senses until you couldn’t take anymore. Full depravity, where you would act on any sort of whim, making you more like a wild card.

It is about fulfillment.

At least, that was what I understood from Klea’Hatma’s and Kramps’ description of the differences between the trifecta of desires: gluttony, lust, and greed.

“I agree! I needed more time!” Running towards us from the side, Rita in her humanized form looked at us with glistening eyes, holding onto her wooden slate. “You barely do your meditation practices! This is the first time I get to watch a whole session! I still need to document how all this even works with your blood and—”

“It’s final!” Neill shouted at both of us. “Haaa, Tasianna, I could really use some tea right now.”

“My apologies, Lady Fargryneill, but I still need to warm up the water.” Tasianna smiled wryly, pointing at our outdoor tea cooking setup, using my catalyst to heat up the water. “Maybe I should have taken up Muraina’s offer to use the guild’s kitchen. Well, what’s done is done. It should be ready in a moment.”

“Ha, maybe you're the impatient one, Neill. She just cooled me down, give her some time,” I joked, causing Neill to shrug before helping me up.

We were currently in the mage’s guild’s grounds in Griffonpeak, specifically at the training field they reserved for their university students. Mostly ‘cause the ones next to the guild’s building were preoccupied with other students. I kinda forgot how the guild had a whole plateau all for themselves and their university on Wintertalon mountain — the geographic location which gave Griffonpeak its name.

But, we weren’t exactly here to make a spectacle of ourselves while I trained [Battle Frenzy]. Honestly, I would have preferred it if a crowd of mages and uni students was literally looking at us with stunned faces, as if we were some celebrities. Sure, everybody in Griffonpeak knew of me already but I haven’t even told Muraina Neill was my sister.

We were only here to pick up my [Crystal of the Divine System], but then Muraina, the Griffonpeak mage’s guildmaster, told us we had to wait due to some complications. She didn’t seem nervous or anything, so I said it was fine. To pass the time, Neill suggested we continued my training, so I obliged.

Gathering all these people around us was just an annoying coincidence.

In any case, a couple of minutes later, after Tasianna finished our tea, Muraina’s attendant informed us everything was ready and we could finally pick it up. Our group today was a bit more barebones than usual, only having Tasianna, Neill, and Rita with us. The others were still in Elyonda, either sunbathing or looking into any problems.

I wanted to join the latter group, but I had some pretty important things to do in Artorias today. Good thing my match today was pretty lackluster, leaving me enough energy for what was to come after our visit here.

“Welcome back, Lady Hestia. I do really, really apologize for sending you away,” Muraina, a noble lady from the Empire and Aleistunum mage, greeted us as we entered the building, looking a bit wearier than before. “I had some things to handle, and also Lady Thyra asked me to wait before handing you the crystal.”

“Konnichiwa~” Standing next to Muraina was my friend Thyra, waving her hand, instead of bowing. She spoke in Japanese, but it seemed Muraina didn’t react to it, meaning she was using it so often nobody really minded it.

“Thyra? Hold on, you’re the director of the royal academy, why are you here? The school day shouldn’t be over yet,” I asked her, surprised at her sudden appearance.

“Well, you don’t come over too often. We barely ever have the chance for some tea, with how you’re roaming the world, doing good,” Thyra argued, making me question if I really was doing enough good to get such praise. My bad luck usually ruined things. “Besides, Lady Muraina mentioned you had new companions following you! A human, and a dragonewt… with black and purple scales. Ehe.”

“Ah, my name is Rita! I’m not much of a mage, but I do very much love documenting events and information! Knowledge of the unknown guides us, eheh.” Rita made a pretty good impression on the two Istari followers, earning her a warm welcome before both drew their eyes to my sister.

Neill had a deadpan expression, shrugging her shoulders. With an exasperated voice, she spoke, “Fargryneill. Think whatever you want of me. Honestly, Hestia, you broke so many unnamed rules for the Adulthood Pilgrimage, you should be lucky you aren’t on one, right now.”

“Who’s supposed to punish me, anyways?” Neill waved her hand in dismissal, not replying. Instead, I smiled and shrugged my own shoulders. “Well, it’s always good to see you, Thyra, but if this is about teaching at the academy, I’m rejecting it once again. I don’t have much time until I have to go to the palace.”

“Oh, don’t worry. We already managed to hire a certified Aleistunum fire mage, who probably won’t be a problem seeing as he preaches more about Goddess Crustacia than doing his lessons. Complaints aplenty, but no threat to our students.”

I showed her a thumbs up, finding the image of a teacher giving a sermon during a fire magic lesson oddly interesting, but also unpleasant. If you were a follower of Danterno, the last you would want to do was listen to somebody preaching about another god. It sounded better than the last fire professor they had, though, who was such a Danterno zealot he egged a student into killing a noble, which caused his downfall into banditry.

With the pleasantries over, Muraina invited us all into her office. Seeing as this was a pretty costly transaction, we had to confirm everything was correct with the object. Wouldn’t want to use the crystal during a dungeon dive, only to find it didn’t work, right?

“Hmm?” When we entered the room, I noticed there was a near-empty cup of tea on the guest table, in addition to a crystal slate held up by small keyboard-like legs. “Uhm, is that yours? It looks interesting”

“Huh? O-Oh, how embarrassing.” Muraina clutched her head as she looked at the small mess on the table in exhaustion, before telling her attendant to clean it up and bring some fresh tea for everybody. “It was… business. The reason why I had you wait. Mhrm, if you want, you may appraise it. Certainly saves me time to explain it.”

“Lady Muraina, please, you should at least act a bit more involved in all of this. Stress or not, you are meeting with a princess. Then again, if you don’t mind, then I wouldn’t say no to this chance to see how this [Transmission Slate] works.”

Transmission Slate?

“Oooh, ooh! Do you mean, this is the slate the technology guild of Aleistunum’s capital has been developing? I heard it wasn’t even close to being finished yet!” Rita expressed, being giddy with Thyra.

“It shouldn’t be! This has to be a prototype or something. The dwarves of Ankor-Nazta might be the forerunner of the evolution of manatech, but the mages of Aleistunum lead the world in the advancement of spells, enchantments, and alchemy!”

Certainly putting them on a pedestal there. Mana Eyes.

Transmission Slate

An enchanted magic item used to transmit long-distance information to another transmission slate or crystal by displaying words written with mana.

Enchantments: [Long-Range Mana Transfer] [Vessel Acquisition: Water] [Vessel Acquisition: Wind]

Words? So, it can’t transmit images, huh? Kinda curious what Muraina talked about, but that’s none of my business. Hmm?

After appraising the item, I looked back up, ready to sit down, only for Thyra and Muraina to look at me with anticipation, whereas Rita was completely engrossed by the object. Looking over at Rita, who had already sat down, and Tasianna, all they could do was shrug to my confusion.

“Uh, did I do something wrong?” I asked.

“Nothing. We are just curious what your opinion on it is, Lady Hestia,” Muraina egged me onto something, but I wasn’t sure what she meant.

“Opinion? Well, I would like to see how it works but that is about it.”

Thyra raised an eyebrow at my reply. “Do you have no idea on how to improve it? I thought you would, considering your inventive nature. You were the one to create such an impressive feat of the arcane by creating your [Room] and also a teleportation method using those runes!”

“Just because I had an idea on how to make something doesn’t mean I can figure out new things like a genius! I create things I need, and that demands time!” From culinary to custom spells to my concert plans, everything required time, which was why my schedule was always filled to the brim. Even making my grenades required me to take some time to do them, as I couldn’t mass-produce hundreds in a few hours.

“Here!” Muraina gestured for me to sit next to her for a moment, preparing to write something on the slate. “As those two mentioned, Aleistunum has been trying to create a new method for long-distance communication, as manatech birds leaves a lot to be desired in that aspect. It could break down during the trip, leaving both parties unaware. This is why we need this to work. It could revolutionize communication for the whole world! Imagine being able to speak with an acquaintance on the other side of the continent!”

“… Sounds like a job for space-time. It would make everything easier that way,” I mindlessly commented, only for Neill, of all people, to chime in.

“I don’t think that is feasible, Hestia. Don’t forget, void-touched people are rare, and if Aleistunum had such a mage, they wouldn’t be having any problems at all thinking of such a method. However, if something like that were to work, I could imagine it being pretty useful for all sorts of… things.”

“Yes, that is correct, Lady Fargryneill!” Thyra agreed, irritating Neill as it seemed those two could already guess Neill was my sister. The black scales being iconic for a Kargryxmor dragon were too easy to deduce. It also didn’t help that we were acting pretty close.

“We can’t rely on space-time magic, or would you want to help us create possibly thousands of these items, Lady Hestia?” Muraina asked with a smirk, to which I shook my hand. With a chuckle she then began to write on the slate with her mana pen. “Words written on this slate stay on them unless we erase or send them out. Once I am finished, I pour my mana into it, activating the enchantments inside.”

The slate shone blue for a second before the words “I am testing its function” slowly dissipated into the air, disappearing completely from us. After what seemed like two minutes, a message came, saying “-aina, ans…ut the drago…”

“ ‘Drago?’” I eyed Muraina with suspicion.

She waved her hand, trying to make it seem like she wasn’t at fault. “You are becoming known, Lady Hestia. I didn’t mention you anywhere, but they probably assumed the crystal would be for you. After all, you are a registered member of the guild, correct? Anybody can see your documents.”

I guess that is correct.

“Pfft!” Neill let out a short chortle before slapping her face, shaking her head in disappointment. I didn’t need to read her mind to know she was thinking “you show your information to everybody, readily.”

“Aleistunum is curious about this new Kargryxmor, you see?” Muraina stated, making me think she was talking about me just a moment ago with some mage. “But, it is nothing you must worry about. However, you’ve seen how it works now. How do you find it?”

She pointed at the slate with the sentence and its unfinished words. There were hints of mana alluding to them, but the letters were broken up like ancient text. I could see why this thing was a prototype. Despite the speed the message was delivered — considering the person on the other side must be in Aleistunum, which was two countries away from Artorias — the messages sent were inaccurate.

“This would make it hard to get detailed messages, but it’s fast,” I relayed my feedback to her.

“Fast indeed, but as you could read from the enchantments, it transmits the words written through both the air and water, in this case the water droplets in the air. If we were to use it in a dry area like the great Evida desert, it wouldn’t work at all.” I nodded to her assessment, agreeing with such a weakness. “The researchers also made one that uses both air and light as the vessel of transportation, but not only is it extremely slow during the night but the messages are even harder to decipher. The moonlight isn’t enough.”

They really gave it some thought, huh?

“What about using dungeon core shards? Considering what you can do with a [Crystal of the Divine System] and how System messages are a constant companion to all of us, it should be possible, no?” I suggested, but Muraina shook her head.

“The cost would be ludicrous, Lady Hestia. You will know once you read the receipt.”

“Oh that’s right, Miss Saori did tell me something about it when she made the commission,” Tasianna spoke up. “She told me she almost fainted after she read the full price and even felt like puking while signing the contract.”

“Urgh!” I flinched back, stunned by the implications. Healing Saori reacting so badly to the cost was horrifying me, anxious what the cost would be.

“I-In any case, as I said, I can’t think of any improvements for your inventions just like that. If you want my help, then please compensate me like any normal mage,” I told Muraina, who nodded and said “Of course.”

Although interesting, I still found it not as important to talk to for now. Besides, I didn’t know much about how Earth’s phones and radio really worked. I had some knowledge, but not enough to translate those ideas into Peolynca’s magic system. At the very least, I had to ask somebody tech-savvy like Daichi to explain these things to me first before I could do anything.

With that out of the way, we all calmed down and took our seats. Muraina’s attendants brought in tea for everybody while she readied the contract, receipt, and also the item in question. She showed us an ornamented chest, something you would put your most prized jewelry in, before opening it, revealing a pearl-like crystal ball sitting on a red cushion.

Oooh!

Crystal of the Divine System

An alchemical item created by melting a dungeon core into a condensed crystalline ball of mana. By performing a ritual in dedication to all six Origin Gods, this item is once again granted its Divine System functions to be used as a service.

Services offered: Job System, Tamer System, Quest creation

““Woah.”” Tasianna and I stared at the crystal.

“Hiehie, I am glad you like it, Lady Hestia. The wait must have been worth it,” Muraina stated and we nodded. “This is still a newly made crystal, so the three functions you see it has are the base ones every crystal starts with. If you wish to add additional functions, like ID creation, you will have to speak with the necessary officials. By linking your crystal to another one, you can obtain these services.”

I nodded, glad to hear I could have more things to do on this thing. After all, Aurora was finally rich enough to get our own Job changing machine! We could finally grind without worrying about paying money or even ending our trip earlier than we wanted!

“Go on, try it. Make sure it works, Lady Hestia,” Muraina offered me and I took it immediately.

Rubbing my hands at getting a new toy, I placed my hands on the crystal. Mana poured out from my hands as I asked it to open the Job panel. Glowing for a moment, in the next, a blue panel appeared before me, displaying all my available Jobs.

Weekly Job Change Limit: 1/3

Previous Jobs: [Caster], [Mage], [Fighter], [Cleric], [Brawler], [Spearman], [Aggravator], [Taunter], [Freelancer], ]Earth Mage], [Wind Mage], [Holy Mage], [Space-Time Mage], [Healer], ]Synergist], [Ravager], [Scout], [Worker], [Scale-Dust User], [Crimson-Scaled Dreadgiver], [Hellblade], [Infernal Hellblade], [White Pyromancer], [Spearwielder], [Sky Lancer], [Dragoon Whelpling], [Incandescent Blaze], [Corrosive Pyromancer], [Virulent Corrosion]

Jobs:

Main: [Scout]

Secondary: [Worker]

Unique: Not Unlocked

Available Jobs

[Adventurer] [Pyromancer] [Terra Sorcerer] [Aeromancer] [Storm Sorcerer] [Lava Mage] [Lightning Mage] [Sacred Sorcerer] [Magus] [Priestess] [Shrine Maiden] [Warrior Priestess] [Mage Guild Initiate] [Flame Lancer] [Berserker] [Gladiator] [Toxic Blader] [Pugilist] [Flying Fighter] [Bard] [Rogue] [Woodworker] [Stoneworker] [Inventor] [Academic] [Dragonkin Fighter] [Noble] [Usurper] [Hatchling Tyrant] [Champion of Aurena] [Crimson Saintess] [Idol]

“Ooooh! Nice!” I clapped my hands in excitement, taking in the joy of the item working! It functions exactly as any other crystal I used up till this point.

“Oh, look there, your medal for taking the first step into [Battle Frenzy]: [Hatchling Tyrant],” Neill pointed out, tapping on the Job in question.

“True! … But where is my [Dragoon] Job? I’ve been training with my glaive for a long time now, where is it?” I felt exasperated, as if my efforts weren’t being rewarded.

“… You do know dragoons are knights, right? Just like the [Knight] Job, you need to get knighted first.” Neill’s truth hurt me even further!

But, still…

Job: Hatchling Tyrant

Requirements: Bloodline of Kargryxmor, the Black Tyrant of the Skies, Path of Gluttony Unlocked, [Territory Release], [Scale Manipulation]

Acquisition Benefits: All Stats Increase, All draconic racial skills proficiency

Main Job Benefits: [Tyrant’s Aura Lv. 10] [All-Damage Enhancement Lv. 5]

All? Like in everything that can be considered racial skills? Hold on, isn’t that stupidly broken?!

From a single Job, I would be able to gain quite a lot of power if it could help level up those very draconic skills. If we exclude [White Flames] and [Corrosive Fire], since they were made from Shiterno’s influence, taking this Job now would benefit six skills in total. That alone would be better than most Jobs.

As such the question was if I should take it now or wait for later? Very likely, I would be able to gain more racial skills once I evolved into an A rank. In addition to that, they would most likely be even harder to level up if I wasn’t scared to use my skill points. Aside from certain skills Aurena had blocked, I could level up most of my draconic skills. It was just that I preferred using SP reactively, instead of proactively as using them during a fight could turn the tides in a matter of seconds.

And there was also another problem that stopped me from actually looking at this as an investment for the future. The incoming battle and also how I needed to fulfill certain requirements to evolve into an A rank. Aside from age, the others were to reach level ten in [Dreadflame Dragon], [Hellblade Dragon], [Solar Core], and [Royal Presence].

Not only did this Job have two pretty useful Job skills in [Tyrant Aura Lv. 10] and [All-Damage Enhancement Lv. 5], increasing my power even further, there was also a clear lack of advanced Jobs for [Crimson-Scaled Dreadgiver], [Infernal Hellblade], Incandescent Blaze], and [Virulent Corrosion]. It seemed I had reached the peak for them after gaining the ability to buy the mutation skills.

Considering the situation, I should probably also consider these Jobs now.

Job: Champion of Aurena

Requirements: A blessing from Goddess Aurena

Acquisition Benefits: All Stats Increase, All holy elemental and Goddess of Light-based skill proficiency

Main Job Benefits: [Holy Demon Slayer] [Humanity’s Foe Slayer] [Demonic Influence Resistance Lv. 5] [Light Element Enhancement] [All-Damage Enhancement Lv. 3]

Job: Crimson Saintess

Requirements: A blessing from Goddess Aurena

Acquisition Benefits: Health Increase, Mana Increase, Intelligence Increase, Wisdom Increase, Title [Crimson Saintess]

Main Job Benefits: [Holy Demon Slayer] [Dragon’s Foe Slayer] [Demonic Influence Resistance Lv. 5]

Main Job Spell: [Crimson Angel] [Crimson Dawn]

Job: Idol

Requirements: [Idol]

Acquisition Benefits: Mana Increase, [Idol] Proficiency, +2 Spell song slots

Main Job Benefits: [Acoustic Power Lv. 5] [Bardic Cadenza] [Musical Crescendo] [Heavenly Performance]

_____________________________________________________________________

Holy Demon Slayer

Increases all damage against demonic forces. Healing magic will turn into damage towards demonic forces

Humanity’s Foe Slayer

Deals increase damage towards any race or nationality considered an enemy by 75% of the world’s humans. Enemy: Demonkin, Carmaniate, Grimgarians

Dragon’s Foe Slayer

Deals increase damage towards any race of nationality considered an enemy by 50% of the world’s dragons. Enemy: None

Yikes, hatred-based skills, huh? Feels a bit weird coming from the Goddess of Light, but I guessed as a champion, you have to protect the ones you must defend.

Demonic Influence Resistance

Decreases the effectiveness of demonic temptations and Sin-based attacks

Light Element Enhancement

Blesses the owner of this skill with holy light, vastly increasing damage towards anything demonic and dark element based. Increases healing received

Acoustic Power

Increases acoustic and sound-based attacks and increases the natural range they travel

Bardic Cadenza

A skill focusing on the bard’s musical abilities. Activates once a spell song is used, increasing the effects of the song’s effect as long as the bard only uses songs as a means of attack, defense, and support

Musical Crescendo

A skill that applies additional effects the longer the bard continues playing any kind of spell songs. Escalation depended on [Music Resonation] and the length being played. Minor: Increases bard’s stats by 5%. Moderate: Shares the full effects of all buffs on the bard without reaching Major. Major: Songs travel through mana, bypassing any silence fields or sound protection areas.

Heavenly Performance

An idol’s voice and body are their most prized possession during a performance for the world to hear and see! The art itself is reward enough!

… Hello? Scammed? What is the skill’s effects? Hello? Aurena? What?

It was clear this was another skill Aurena had personally made just for me, and it showed as some of that joking side of hers showed in the description. What exactly did this skill do? I really had no idea and it really made me want to take the Job just to know!

Well, sadly, I can only take one more Job this week, since I already spent two usages for [Worker] and [Scout]. I didn’t know if something would happen this week, since my tournament matches were over. Tomorrow was just a rest day and also my concert, so maybe taking [Idol] would be good?

Then again, who knew when those grimgarians would attack? We didn’t know anything and it felt like we were on the backpedal ‘cause of that. A lack of information for an impending siege or assault felt scary… It was so much better when we knew when the enemy would attack in Estralia, so we all managed to set up plenty of traps, to the point they were only able to survive ‘cause of that walking plot armor Warbringer of Wrath.

Hmm, what should I take? For combat, [Hatchling Tyrant] and [Champion of Aurena] seem like the best, just because they can increase my skills. [Crimson Saintess] is cringe. I don’t want a title like that… Lastly, [Idol] seems like a pure supportive Job.

… But, there really is no question which one I should take.

I will take [Champion of Aurena] as my Main Job.

I was her Champion, and had to finally signify this to the world.

Individual [Sunfang Dragonewt, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has switched her Main Job to [Champion of Aurena]

Main Job benefits have been updated due to Job change

Champion of Aurena Level: 0/50

Job Skill gained:   [Holy Demon Slayer] [Humanity’s Foe Slayer] [Demonic Influence Resistance Lv. 5] [Light Element Enhancement] [All-Damage Enhancement Lv. 3]

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Venerated Saintess Lv. 4] [Sacred Magic Lv. 8] [Sacred Resistance Lv. 6] gained

Spell gained:   [Heaven’s Sword]

“Puuhaaaaa!” I nearly choked on my own spit. “LEVEL 50?!”

The higher a Job’s max level, the more advanced it was. That meant, it required more experience per level, similar to how leveling up as a B rank was faaaaar harder than during my time as a C rank. But at the same time, it required me to get 50 levels to max it?! How did I get myself into this?!

When I explained my shock to everybody, all of them except for Tasianna and Rita could only shrug to my plight. They told me this was normal for experienced adventurers. The more advanced a Job, the more benefits it gave with every level, but as it demanded a lot of experience to grow it, it pushed people to take on harder Quests to challenge themselves.

Still, I couldn’t really say I regret taking it. It would just turn into a long term training plan. Besides, it level up my [Sacred Magic] so I could finally use another high tier sacred spell! [Heaven’s Sword]; it sounds exactly what you would expect from a fantasy game.

I have the power of God and Anime on my side now! In a sense.

“Marvelous!” Muraina clapped her hands. “It is great that it is working well. Aleistunum certified quality! However, if it does somehow act out of order, you will have a three months warranty on any issues not intentionally done to it! The guild will fix it themselves.”

And now it was time. The fun part was over, now it was time for the money thing, but honestly, Saori usually overreacted whenever it came to our finances. She was a penny pincher, for good reason, but still pretty frugal. It was without a doubt expensive, but it probably wasn’t so much anyways.

“Here you go.” Muraina handed me the contract and recipe with a smile. “Saori and Ellaine already looked over the contract itself, and the one you got is the very same one. You will only have to sign it to state the item has been safely delivered to you. Please, make sure everything is correct.”

“Alright!”

Okay, let’s go parallel minds. Blah blah blah, Aleistunum commission, blah blah blah. Mhm, dungeon core shards, crystal, money, and mage’s guild. Muraina and Aurora… Yeah. Seems alright, I guess?

I gave the contract a quick look over using my parallel minds, finding this thing actually pretty hard to read. Actually, it was as difficult as the papers I signed during the conference I had with King Drangleic and the Dukes. Jeez, one year of living in this world wasn’t enough to fully learn this damn language.

Okay, receipt. Let’s see— O-Oh okay, two small goldite coins just for the mage’s guild alone? What? Why is— Hold on, five LARGE SILVITES FOR THE TRANSPORTATION OF THE DUNGEON SHARDS?! That’s 50k Davi just to transport those stupid shards?! What— Okay, okay, just calm down.

I took a deep breath.

Alright, alright, they did say this is expensive, but it can’t get— TWO LARGE GOLDITES FOR THE STUPID ALCHEMIST! Wh-What?! T-T-Two million davi, gone like that?! No, you gotte be kidding me! This is just the third field. How much does this crap cost anyways?! Da fu—

…

My face froze up, eyes staring down on the two digit words with both trepidation and hollowness. My mouth was agape, slightly trembling as I pushed myself to read the number.

2… 2…

…

26 Large goldites, two small goldites, and two large silvites.

… 26,220,000 Davi.

“Cuek!”

Boom.

“Lady Hestia!”

“S-Sis?!”

The straw that broke the camel’s back. Just seeing the price itself was enough to knock me out. I fainted with my eyes open, at least allowing my parallel minds to see what was going on.

‘Yup, and I kinda want to fall down, too,’ Manager Mind commented, looking pale and sick. “… That’s 81% of our total money. Not to mention, we had to pay about 3% of our total funds for something at the pier yesterday. That’s 84% of our Davi gone, just like that. Gone, Poof… I want to puke.”

“Oi, what have you done to my sister?!” In the meantime while my body was kinda unconscious, Neill shot up from her seat, black flames around her fist as she threatened Thyra and Muraina.

“W-Wait, hold on! We didn’t do anything, Princess Fargryneill!” Thyra tried to calm her in a panic. “There is a reason why people borrow crystals and don’t just straight up buy them! Especially if they have to buy the shards themselves. Read the receipt!”

“Oh, really? Huh? Do you really think I would believe something like that? Huh? If this is some sorta trap then I’ll— 26 LARGE GOLDITES! Cueeeek!” Neill almost reeled back, but managed to compose herself. “T-T-That’s an entire fortune! Enough to cover up a small to medium sized cavern in gold! H-How can you— Cuek! Urghk!”

Boom.

Another dragon defeated.

“… Oh dear.” Tasianna mumbled.

And that was how I learned the real reason why people had to borrow these things. Even if organizations like the adventurer’s or mage’s guild could afford to buy crystals for their individual guilds, it was less expensive to just borrow them from rich mages.

This was the reason. You could become bankrupt pretty easily.

I didn’t know how long I was actually unconscious, but it was still long enough for everybody to get worried. In the end, with tears in my eyes, I signed the contract and acquired the crystal.

Bam, bam, baaaaaaam… Yay, happy acquisition music. Oh goodness…

As planned, I also spent some more money to buy manatech tablets, used by attendants to note down information for their masters. I bought two with one manatech pen. One tablet was for Tasianna, while the tablet and pen duo was for master. In total, it cost me 5% of our money.

90%. Gone. Poof. We were rich at the start of this morning, now, we would have to build it up again. I honestly hoped Amelia’s shop will have a ton of success so we can earn this money back.

In the future, I need to have Tasianna and Ellaine create these stuff. Would save us so much money.

A note from AbyssRaven

Warning: Do not try this at home. Other dragons might just rip you apart for money. Beware to only use this technique against reasonable dragons of the Lawful Good, Neutral Good, or Chaotic Good nature. Lawful Neutral might also work, just no guarantee.

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For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters for the whole month! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 339: Grim escalation.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #3 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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“We have been able to incorporate Shaturein’s culture with Griffonpeak’s, allowing easy travel between the two cities, although we have placed multiple sentries to assure peace between us,” Jenghil reported on the latest changes of Griffonpeak’s undercity, Shaturein. “There have been… troubles between the people, though. The Heartful Dance and the Blackreach Guild have been able to incorporate our people into the ‘day’ life, but that was because we already had a footing. People are still living in poverty underground.”

With the crystal securely in my storage and my tears wiped away, the next part of my schedule was a meeting with King Drangleic, the dukes, Shaturein’s pillars, and Reajaen. On our way there, I quickly gave the orphans a visit, since I was their “big sis” after all, where we left Neill and Rita behind, as they didn’t want to participate in politics and city management.

With Tasianna by my side, we quickly flew up to Griffonpeak’s royal citadel, where we were warmly welcomed by the palace’s staff. Once everybody was in the conference room, the discussions quickly began with me mostly taking in their reports.

Everything the first half was mostly trivial stuff about working together and reports and the individual duchies. Of the six dukes here, it seemed like they finally regained full control over their lands after the Griffonpeak attack and the combined demonkin sabotages through the kingdom, meaning they would now have the time and resources to put them elsewhere.

And this was why we were having this discussion. We also needed to coordinate with each other, especially Estralia.

“Creating jobs and opportunities should be one of our priorities. Money and a purpose brings stability.” King Drangleic nodded his head. “Duke Greenveil, your opinion?”

“Trust is the issue, Your Majesty. With the opening of the yeast guild and growth of the baker’s guild under our watch, we’ve been able to increase yeast production to the point we can slowly spread it to the commonfolk. Bakers we trust have been making their own yeast. However, will we be able to trust Shaturein’s thieves and lowlives with this trade secret?”

Even with the fact Artorias and Shaturein were allies now, there was clear animosity between the two factions through Artorias's dukes. They reluctantly agreed to help them, and while I thought they would warm up to each other eventually, it seemed I was too naive. Still, not like I could do anything about people’s opinions.

“Shaturein hasn’t shown their willingness to change with how they handle their mages. The arcane corruption is still in a terrible situation,” Duchess Morgiana added, looking displeased by the two representatives of Shaturein.

Duke Myrrdin, Artorias’s Grand Duke of Arcane Affairs, spoke up with his rival, criticizing Shaturein’s decisions. “As we mentioned before, we do not ask you to conform to Aleistunum laws and rules with managing mages, but surely, you must agree to stop their antics. Monster spawning will only endanger people’s lives!”

“We manage the corruption well enough, Lord Myrrdin,” Shaturein’s de facto leader, Vangrim Blackreach, brushed off the feedback. “However, if we were to immediately enforce new laws on them, the mages would be displeased and leave us. That would cut into our number of mages and create more wild mages. Things need time. Our people need time for reforms.”

“Yes, that is correct. We have been making progress,” Jenghil, the second pillar of Shaturein, agreed while pointing out information to support their claim. “Shaturein isn’t just a place for those unwanted by the ‘day’ to live in, but we are here to act on actions Artorias would find ‘displeasing.’”

“I do hope you have been following my wishes, Lady Jenghil. I know it must be hard, but I really don’t want to be associated with a bunch of cutthroats,” I interrupted her for a moment, prompting her to nod.

“Yes, Princess Hestia. No murders, threatening, or violence against innocents or those not involved in our goals. If a path must be created, we shall do it through diplomacy or bribery. My guild, Blackreach, and Sewer Management have been able to fully implement this change through promises of a better life. Those unwilling to change were given a second chance or were forced to leave and become a ‘target’ to maintain peace.”

“Estralian’s underground has also taken steps to change, Princess Hestia,” Reajaen, current president of Estralia, spoke up, informing me of their changes. “Most criminal activities of my organization and the cartels we have taken over have ceased operation. We have started to transition into supporting economic changes through alchemy and the Sarlenzia company.”

“Although… we have continued with what we always did best, Your Grace,” Vangrim stated, implying some of the more background activities he had been doing. “Smuggling, spying, and torture of targets you deem who deserve it.”

“I am fine with morally grey actions, Mister Vangrim. Just, don’t drop down to black, alright?” I glared at the man, making sure he understood what I actually wanted. “Do what you must to not totally change your culture. I don’t think that’s possible in one generation, anyways. However, don’t just start ruining people’s lives who don’t deserve our ire! First and foremost, I am Goddess Aurena’s blessed and an entertainer to boot. This world deserves more happiness, instead of all the war and pain over all these years. More smiles.”

“Idealistic… but a goal worth fighting for. A world with less slaves or people who have to kill their neighbors to survive a single day would be a dream my ancestors would have fought for, too.” Vangrim smiled slightly, seemingly agreeing with my ideal. Knowing about Shaturein’s history and their hatred for slavers, I eased my heart a bit by working with them. “Then… can we assume we have your blessing to enact the first move?”

“Freeing slaves? Of course. Liberate them of their chains and grant them freedom. But, as I said, don’t overdo it. If you don’t need to kill, don’t.” I emphasized that fact.

“If my people won’t be put in danger, I shall listen to your orders.” Vangrim stood up and bowed. Considering the importance I placed on my own allies, I agreed wholeheartedly with it.

This wasn’t part of the original plan on why Shaturein wanted to join up with Griffonpeak. They only became one of my allies ‘cause they’ve realized if they didn’t act on it now, they might be left behind in the changes that were about to come in the future. It was for their own survival.

As such, it came to me as a surprised how Vangrim also has a secondary motive to fulfill what Shaturein always was meant to be — a haven for freed slaves and a symbol of their hatred for slavers. For such a goal, how could I see no? Eshe was against slavery, and I had no plans anymore to accept this as another piece of Peolyncian culture. Somethings had to be changed, and it seemed just right for me, a blessed of Aurena, to enforce that idea.

Even if they were nothing more than criminals now, they could still change their city for the better for the future generation. I had the chance to help them with this, so why shouldn’t I with my current position?

I then turned to the Dukes, trying to bridge this gap even if it were to be hard. “Duke Olivus, as the Grand Duke of Religious Affairs, I believe this would be a good time to help some of these people in the name of the Goddess, correct? Many of them, impoverished and lacking in hope for the future, will need the Goddess’s grace. I am planning on helping them, give them that light. I would like to sing to them, but before that, I would need help from the spiritual leader of Artorias.”

“Yes! Of course, Your Grace!” Duke Olivus stated with full vigor. “The new cardinal would be most delighted to help our brothers and sisters underground find their way back. In the honor of Saintess Eshe, I will also make sure to aid the orphans we find down there. With stability restored in Artorias, I can finally perform something to further her legacy. Your heavenly voice would bequeath down the Goddess’s mercy upon them.”

Eshe shouldn’t be forgotten. For what she did to Griffonpeak, I wanted her to be remembered. The kids in the orphanage deserved it, after all, and I wouldn’t be a good big sis if I were to abandon them.

The kids deserve happiness.

“Thank you very much. May the Goddess bless you with brilliant light,” I then drew my attention to the other dukes, giving them instructions and what I wanted them to do. This was something King Drangleic was supposed to do, but during this conference, my word had a lot of weight behind them also. “Duke Equevanna, I want you to continue spreading the Sarlenzia company’s control in Estralia. Also, please, get ready once the treaty with the dwarves is signed. I wish for you and Duke Groushia to helm Artorias participation in technological advancements.”

“I presume this will involve the dwarves, also, yes?” Duke Grousia asked, to which I nodded.

I didn’t want to do the researching and tech stuff myself, but I was willing to fling ideas out for them to work with. Like the Revolution Queen, I had the knowledge of an earthling. However, as Arcanuess Helvas and Duchess Morgiana had mentioned quite a few times, they were curious about my knowledge. I couldn’t blame them. At the very least, I could give them stuff to work with.

“I have no idea what the dwarves will do, or if I would in the future, but from my impression of Grimnir and the dwarves I’ve met, I am 100% sure they will ask me about it,” I stated, prompting the duke to agree.

“That is correct, Your Grace. The dwarves are the frontrunner of manatech advancements, not to mention, blacksmithing and artificer techniques. If there is anything you wish to reproduce from your world to ours, they would be the best to talk about it.” I agreed to him, but also mentioned that magical items can be useful, too, like the transmission slate.

“Oh, you’ve seen it, Princess Hestia? Oh, then would you have any ideas on making it better?” Duchess Morgiana asked me, with Duke Myrrdin’s eyes glistening in interest.

Like daughter, like mother…

In any case, the discussion continued with how they would be able to help Shaturein’s impoverished people. Creating jobs was important, but having the commonfolk of Griffonpeak accept them was also important.

“Anyways, please, consider implementing education places,” I pointed out. “I understand education is currently reserved for nobles, rich merchants, and academy students, but I would encourage you to help train people. Education and knowledge is what helps people rise from their current positions. As God Istari would say, at least.”

There was some apprehension from the dukes when I mentioned “rise above their station,” as they saw the Shaturein people more like thieves and rogues, but they couldn’t disagree with me on how it would provide jobs. They gave it some thought, but I honestly would need Saori here to help me. She probably would be able to plan this out better.

“I believe this should be most of our discussion topics,” Tasianna brought up after I gave my opinion on it, drawing everybody’s attention to the time and how long we’ve been in here. Two bells had already passed, and it was starting to get dark outside. “I would recommend stopping here.”

“I agree,” King Drangleic agreed. “We have spoken a lot, but it is about time we take a break for the day. Princess Hestia and President Reajaen must return home, of course. However, before we do, I would like for Lady Jenghil to give her first report on the state of the heroes. I heard a message had returned safely home?”

“How perceptive, King Drangleic.” Jenghil bowed her head with close eyes. It seemed like King Drangleic had spies on them. “But, yes, Princess Hestia, I have my first report.”

Her attendant brought a scroll over to me, which I accepted with gratitude. Opening it up, I began reading through it.

Three parties. All have their base in Riewelst (Capital of the Empire. Seat of the Holy Emperor and also the royal order of the Hands of Heaven)

They move out to other lands when needed. Quest, Emperor orders, with the knights, training, dungeons.

“Hero” Party: Takuma Akanishi, Aiko Hasebe, Chifuya Agano, Natsume Otonori, Hayato Odagawa.

“Champion Candidate” Party: Light Akabane, Ryuji Enokida, Fusao Sawaya, Shiki Yanigimoto, Hirofumi Nakamara.

“‘Media’” Party (We have not found information on what this means): Yuuko Takeshita, Suzuki Rokoda, Ichiyo Amari, Asuka Furukawa, Yuuki Yoneda

“Light Akabane” had to be Franz Akabane, going by another name. I did recognize some of the people on this list from what the students and Saori told me, but honestly, since I didn’t really know any of them personally, these names were saying anything to me. At least, we knew those guys were over there and still alive.

A tragedy has happened recently where 13 blessed of Goddess Aurena were slain by demonkin assassilants. Fully released to the populace. Heavy favor from the citizens to fight in the war. Danger. Calling upon all vessels to attack from the people. War threat to Home.

“Champion Candidate” party have gained popularity with them being able to protect a saint from an assassin. “Hero” and “Media” have also being promoting the church and the war. They haven’t been sent to the front or close to yet. No signs of them participating in war. More influence within the city, using their other world knowledge to remain useful.

The main cathedral of the Empire is advertising Light Akabane and Saintess Fleindia as a blessed pair. Similar to Takuma Akanishi and Saint Candidate Aiko Hasebe. No deeper information on the cathedral. No clients who know better.

We need to work more discreetly, Mistress. We are making ourselves too known.

… This is a lot of information.

“Thank you very much, Lady Jenghil. This is very helpful, thank you,” I thanked her in Saori’s and the student’s stead.

“I shall send your compliments to the girls, Your Grace,” she bowed. “However, as you could read, we need to slow down on the information. Clients are aplenty in the capital of the Empire, but I would rather not endanger my girls by having them look in too deeply.”

“That is alright. This is enough information for now. Have them just standby and send in any public information, or anything important to us,” I ordered, to which she bowed once again.

Considering the importance of this information, I wanted to share it with the others, but for some reason, King Drangleic stopped me. He said that Jenghil herself would explain everything to them, as he needed to talk to me about the Empire for a moment. Outside of Tasianna, the king’s advisor Ulquint, the king himself, and me, everybody else left the room.

Ulquint came over to us, asking for me to hand him the parchment with the info. After he read through it, the old man heaved out a deep sigh. “This is an issue. If they demand us to send troops any time soon, or wish us to participate in the war, I can already hear Duke Lecartiglio scream in our ears, Your Majesty.”

“Agreed. Bringing up the alliance with the dwarves was to fully bring him over to fully support me. I shouldn’t break that promise.” The king closed his eyes with a pensive face. After some moments passed, his feathered winged arms rattled as he stood up, moving over to the window. “Especially with the fight currently happening over at Annencia, it really isn’t the time to anger him any further.”

“Fight?” I raised an eyebrow at the sudden mention of a battle.

“Yes, Princess Hestia.” He turned around, nodding with an aloof expression. “I apologize for not informing you of this sooner, but I believe you must have been occupied with Elyonda. I didn’t want you to have more on your plate. The grimgarians have finally begun their assault on us.”

“Hold on, don’t leave me with such a vague reply!” I stood up at how he ended that sentence, demanding to know more.

“Port Annencia, the kingdom’s only port, was attacked by a large armada of grimgarians ships and tamed sea serpents about a week ago. From messages, it seemed they had been besieging the port and prepared anti-air measures towards our griffon and hippogryph knights. The quantity of enemies doesn’t allow us to launch an attack on them, but the terrain of the port means—”

“STOP!” Outraged by the fact he kept something this important from me for a whole week, I stomped over to him, shouting for him to stop talking. “Why did you keep this from me? What is this supposed to mean, huh, King Drangleic? I thought we were allies?”

Undeterred despite my attitude towards him, the king remained resolute“Because you already have enough on your plate, Lady Hestia. Are you telling me that you would have enough time to also participate in this fight while your presence is needed over in Elyonda?”

“I can fly over there and breathe fire on them! King Drangleic, we are allies! If Artorias is threatened, you have a right to ask me to help you! That is what allies are for! Not to leave me in the unknown, just so you can solve your problems alone!”

“Lady Hestia, this isn’t like that attack you stopped in Greenveil. This is a full on assault with siege weapons, commanders, and even a general. There are sightings of B rank ogres, trolls, orcs, and also gnolls. Not to mention, their beast tamers managed to collect quite a number of sea serpents and merfiends to help them in their attack. You cannot just fly over and fight like it's some evening stroll! You can get injured, Your Imperial Highness!”

“I understand that, I’m not an idiot who doesn’t understand something like that! But don’t you think that I would want to fight alongside you and your people? Don’t forget! I am a dragon. I am a great boon for your war effort!”

“And what do you presume me to tell your mother if you were to fall in that battle? Or, even if your mother were to be there to protect you, what exactly do you presume would happen if we were to be bereft of you until you are fully matured? Before the alliance with the dwarves is settled. Before news of the Empire demanding levies and knights from us? We wouldn’t have you as our religious and political bulwark to protect and help us in the future! I am not a fool, either, Princess Hestia. As king of Artorias, I take these issues seriously where I have advisors listen to my thoughts before I make a decision!”

Our voices clashed against each other as we argued. I was irritated at how he hid this from me, while King Drangleic was unfairly talking it down as if he was protecting me or something. I understand it would be problematic if Mother were to force me to Kargryx, something I had told King Drangleic since I wanted him to know of the deal I made with Mother.

I wanted to continue making him understand why this exactly annoyed me, but it seemed like he was unwavering with his decision. Even Tasianna came over to me, grabbing my shoulder to calm me down and speak normally.

“This discussion will go nowhere if both of you argue over each other,” she advised me.

Taking in a deep breath, I cooled down my heated head. With a glare, I prodded the king to explain himself.

“Lady Hestia, war does end in a single day. Even if you are stronger than most normal B ranks, are you strong enough to stand up against multiple B ranks when you had trouble with them in the past? What if an A rank were amongst them? Even if you were to prevail against them, what if you were injured and unable to fight when Elyonda gets attacked?”

“…” I bit my lips at that thought.

It would mean only Larent and Neill would be around to protect the city. Sure, Mother could intervene but that was the sorta trump card I had to hold back at any cost. I couldn’t afford to get warped away when so many things were happening.

Then again, maybe there were more high valued fighters like those two amongst the fighters in the city. There was also Tehmrayn and Master, who both could take on countless fighters, I had to admit. I probably was underestimating Tehmrayn by quite a bit, since I only have seen Larent and Neill in action.

“War is about accessing the situation and taking care of every single outcome, Princess Hestia,” Ulquint lectured me. “Negative results should always be considered, and it is the role of the generals and leaders of an army to assume what would be the best course of action. In this case, sending you to the frontline would not be for the best, having you defend the next Champion of Yeostar would.”

“… Okay, I get your reasoning.” I had to admit. “However, why keep this from me? At the very least, I should know!”

“That is true, yes. I do apologize for that, but Ulquint and Duke Lecartiglio advised me against it. You would have rushed to the scene of battle, they assumed.”

“Trust goes both ways.” I shook my head, admonishing both the king and his advisor. “I understand you did this in the best interest of me, but I deserve to know these things, do you two understand? Sure, I am a child before the both of you when it comes to politics, military, and probably a lot of other important topics, but you can’t know what I will do if you don’t tell me. If the both of you treat me like a child, how am I supposed to improve my image to the both of you? Haven’t I been doing my best to act like a proper princess whenever we have these meetings?”

“You have, my lady,” Ulquint agreed with me, bowing deeply in apologuz. “You stir and provide ideas similar to what a royal should be doing, without completely taking over the discussion. Your knowledge of the smaller details is still a bit lacking, but that can be excused due to your busy schedule. Please, do not be too angered at His Highness, I cajoled him into it.”

“Haaa, yes…” I sighed, waving my hand to tell him it was okay. “Urgh, whatever, let us leave this behind us. Just, please, talk with me? This alliance is made between us as equals. At the very least, just imagine it being an investment for my growth.”

“Yes, you will have my word, Princess Hestia.” King Drangleic bashed his chest and gave me a short bow.

“Good. Then, please, elucidate me. What has been happening?”

It didn’t take long for me to once again express my irritation at being left in the dark when both mentioned how they sent Yorshka, Farron, and Gael into the conflict. It finally made sense why Priscilla was so despondent lately, and it made me question why they would send Farron, who had just recovered from his injury, into battle like this. Yorshka, sure, she was plenty strong by herself, but Farron. He was still rusty.

The reasoning they gave me was that they wanted to only send Yorshka into the fight, but that Farron and Gael both interjected themselves in the discussion. That if his wife would go, Farron would go, too. And if his two best friends would go, then Gael had to join them since they were a party once. Since King Drangleic told them to stay quiet about it, they told Priscilla to not tell me.

“They should have arrived at the siege already. They are probably fighting right now,” King Drangleic assumed. “Although, due to the terran advantage we have in Annencia, even with a large force, it would take the grimgarians time to defeat not only those three, but also Duke Lecartiglio and his retainers. The man is a veteran adventurer and knight, before he took over his father’s titles. He has fought against Carmaniate with his retainers during his early knighthood, and I wouldn’t trust anybody else with my armies.”

“Port Annencia has defences constructed with the help of levianewts in the past, so they are well equipped to protect themselves from a sea siege. With the mountains surrounding the city, it is a prime position for our knights to swoop in with their griffons and hippogryphs.”

It started to sound like they weren’t having too much of a problem there, but it still seemed weird to me to call staying in a siege a good thing. While the port might not starve, since only their path to the sea was blocked, it probably wasn’t good for morale.

“However, there is a more dire issue to all of this.” But that was just the appetizer, now came the main course. “Our scouts have noted how the siege is losing numbers, not because of our attacks, but because they are advancing further south. Ports in Atadoro and Rakatheen have been attacked by those grimgarians.”

The Atadoro Kingdom was Artorias’s neighbor to the south while the Kingdom of Rakatheen was further south from the former. Unlike Artorais, both countries had better access to the seas, possessing quite a few ports to their name. The problem with that, was that just east of Rakatheen was the Divide of the Five Princes.

“Port Annencia was made to be defendable, since it is our only port. On the other hand, Atadoro’s ports were geographically not as well defensible. Some of those ports, mostly the smaller towns and cities, have already been looted. People have died, and I heard grimgarians were storming into those lands. It is full out war for them.”

“Tsk. That’s bad, then.” A cold sweat poured down my back. “I had ordered three Caedhulen merchants ships to dock in Annecia.”

“For what reason?” The king seemed confused, but for good reason. I hadn’t told him about how I paid them 3% of my funds to have them pick up some adventurers.

“Elyonda is currently plagued with pirates. They needed help taking them down, so I had those Caedhulens travel to Annencia to recruit mercs to help. I heard Caedhulen ships would take only two days to get from Elyonda to Annencia, and I paid them at an express price to have them sail faster!”

The problem here was that Adhi and crew were on one of the ships! Since he was practically broke, I hired him to get some mercs over with the Caedhulen merchants and sailors in the city. I thought I was doing them a favor, but now I was sending them towards a fleet of grimgarians!

Oh shit!

“I-I need to move,” I stated to them.

“Lady Hestia!” Tasianna stopped me. “Are you sure about this? I know they might be in danger, but Caedhulen ships are known to be maneuverable. Normal ships cannot catch up to them, especially with how those merchant ships are made for quick travels! Not to mention, tomorrow is your concert! We haven’t finished training yet, Lady Hestia. I still haven’t gotten the dance choreography and song down yet! Neither have you!”

Tasianna was once again my partner-in-crime on stage. We have been training a lot for the upcoming concert whenever I didn’t need to train with Mother, Neill, or Master. This did present a problem, but what was a concert when lives were on the line, especially if I was the one who sent them forth!

“Tasianna, I can’t sing and dance with a clear conscience while I don’t know if they are dead or not! I need to know and save them if possible!” Nothing would stop me. Adhi has become a good acquaintance, I couldn’t leave him to die even if his ships were good at evading.

“But your maid is correct, Lady Hestia,” Ulquint supported Tasianna. “Reports sent to us made us aware the ships are human-designed. Not the best, but they were strong enough to carry weapons and countless grimgarians. Most are galleon and frigate types, not suited for sea chases. They are made for transportation while being armored. Caedhulen bladshars are clippers. They are fast.

Galleon? Frigate? Clippers? What? What now?

“Stop, Ulquint.” King Drangleic stopped him from interfering. “However, Princess Hestia, before you move, please assess your situation properly. The grimgarians have started their war on us humans, and that means we need to start fighting back. Do not forget, if they work with the demonkins, then they know you. How much they know about you is a mystery to us, but be aware that you are strategic personnel they would want to get rid of.”

I nodded to his advice and excused myself, now that the information I needed was gained. I quickly moved out of the palace after saying my goodbyes, flying over to the orphanage where I noticed Rita enjoying herself with the kids while Neill looked exhausted as hell. Apparently, Neill was harassed by all the kids with “Big Sis Neill” after they admitted she was my sister.

“Big Sis, are you leaving already?” The orphanage kids asked me with puppy eyes, making me feel even worse. However, I had to go.

“I’m sorry everybody. I know I should stay longer to play, but I need to go. Somebody needs me to help them,” I admitted to them, hoping they would understand.

“… Are you going to be a hero, Big Sis?” One of the orphans, Abi, came over to me. She, like most of them, mourned Eshe quite a lot. “Then go, Big Sis! Help them! We can wait!”

“Ah! … Yeah, I will! Stay safe and listen to the sisters and the director, alright!”

“““Yes, Big Sis!””””

The four of us returned House Helvas’s mansion in the city and entered the [Room] portal there to return to Elyonda. I told Rita and Neill what exactly happened during the conference while we walked together, shocking both at how the grimgarians were starting a war.

“In any case, I need to—” As we exited out of the portal to the beach of Karhalenteel island, I stopped speaking when Jehtro suddenly ran over to us, grim shadows over his face.

“Lady Hestia, we have an issue. Our scouts have sighted grimgarians attacking the other principalities and our border.”

…

This was why I hated having to react to all of this crap.

A note from AbyssRaven

To make sure others treat you like an equal, you have to put your foot down sometimes, Hestia. Can't expect others to fully respect you with kindness alone.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 340: The Three-Way Plan.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #4 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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“Make way! This is the carriage and entourage of the Prince of Joyulia! Greatest country of the Divide!”

“Our ruler is the Prince of Weimasha! The Goddess light has granted us her mercy, and we are required back home! Any who stands in our way will be run over!”

“Briamland requires their prince! We are the farthest away, so we must begin going! We must depart now!”

“Veignneight is willing to pay for the right to leave first! Guards, we have money! Have these other groups make way for us!

Chaos was afoot at the noble’s entrance into Elyonda. Four ornamented white wooden carriages were trying to go through the entrance, while the individual groups had their guards, knights, and entourage arguing over each other to go out first. If they moved in an orderly fashion, they would have made it out before I arrived.

“A prime example of the unity of the Divide,” Jethro mumbled as we entered the city and snuck past them by going through an alleyway.

“Unity is always a hard concept, young man. Even us dragons find it hard to unite on the same front unless we absolutely require so. The desire to live and prosper is a daring foe, even for the wisdom of ages,” Mother replied back, prompting Jethro to stand still, thinking her reply through before nodding.

“You might be right. Such a difficult concept… to strive for it, so much effort is needed to build everything up, but a little crack is enough to break it all apart. If not remedied, the gap will only widen.”

Mother, Tasianna, the twins, Renee, and I were following Jethro right now, after I had returned to Elyonda after my trip in Griffonpeak. It shocked me, left me flabbergasted for a few seconds after Jethro informed me the grimgarians were already attempting their invasion into the Divide. However, it only made me more aware I had to go rescue Adhi.

And, I would have just ignored the information to fly away, if Mother hadn’t stopped me. She argued that although I had paid them yesterday, they only departed during lunchtime today as they needed to prepare for the trip. They wouldn’t follow along the coastline, as the fastest route would be to go on the open seas, and if they were to meet the grimgarians there, they would be able to evade them, as the sailors of Caedhul were trained to expect leviathans, sea serpents, and adamantoises even on a one day voyage.

There was also the issue that they flew into the open ocean, where they could end up anywhere. Mother questioned how much I knew about flying over an ocean and how precarious it could become if the weather were bad.

“Even the sky can rend down a dragon’s wings, bringing them down to the depth of the water where the beasties of the abyss await you with greedy maws. The gods of the Water Pantheon are extremely petty, and are as territorial as when they were still mortals,” Mother lectured to me back on the island. “Every sailor, ship, and even fledgling dragons must pay respect to Melicertha, God of Sailors, the sea’s Fortune, and Ports. Unless you are an S rank dragon who can deal with most leviathans in their natural environment, you better not tempt his ire. His wrath is like bait, ready to lure in his servants to snatch on whatever it’s hanging on.”

Mother surely would make a good horror storyteller.

Still, it made sense to me considering how Tehmrayn explained how he would always fight in the name of his patron god, defeating and even killing the other gods’ Champions. Territorial sounded pretty optimistic, it sounded extremely dystopian to me with how the Water Pantheon’s blessed were treated. I honestly hoped Master wouldn’t have to participate in any of this absurdity.

God Xoholotel, please, keep Master out of all of this. I gave a small prayer before eventually conceding to Mother’s point. Since she wanted me to slow down and hear Jethro out, she told me she would be willing to guide me through the ocean’s skies afterwards, if I was still worried for Adhi.

We quickly made it to the royal palace where we were led into a room with Prince Markval, Princess Anasthasia, and Duke Alberstien. With Jethro, we practically had all the most influential voices in this country in this one room.

Unlike Estralia and Artorias, most of the power remained with the crown, due to their bloodline belonging to Yeostar, a god. As such, from the four people present, only one wasn’t directly related to the crown. Still, Duke Alberstien’s influence came from his role as seneschal of the land, granted to him by the crown.

“Alistar?” Was the first thing Renee said once we entered the room, noticing the knight-commander of Yeos standing with his prince.

Unlike Neill and Rita, Renne literally forced herself into this group of ours, coming with us even if Jethro didn’t want her to. She was just a normal citizen, after all, not a knight. She might fashion herself as one, under no circumstance was she actually allowed to be here.

Still, it was a huge surprise to hear instead of Neill coming with me, Mother wanted to appear. Considering Sis wanted to help me with stuff, I would have thought she would come to listen, but it seemed she was more the “give me the deets later” type of person. I guessed she must be preparing herself for the incoming invasion forces.

“Who is that man?” Duke Alberstien called Renee out, also fooled by her fake voice.

“One of the contestants, Lord Duke Alberstien! He is to be my opponent in the semifinals,” Alister replied before anyone else could. “Although not knighted or a soldier, he is a patriot to a fault. We can trust him.”

“Sir Alistar…? No, this is an important meeting, we cannot afford any infor—”

“Duke, I will allow it!” Raising his hand, Prince Markval silenced the duke, and allowed Renee to participate.

Renee instantly kneeled down, giving her prince the necessary respect and gratitude. “Your Majesty, it is an honor, thank you very much. I am Renee, I shall not be a burden to you.”

“… If it is your will, then I shall listen, Your Majesty.” Alberstien did the same, before standing up. “In that case, then we should hurry now that Princess Hestia is here. We have no time for small talk. I shall put it plainly, we are being invaded, and it is a force we cannot compete against in an open field with our current military prowess.”

What?

“It is precisely that,” Jethro confirmed Alberstien’s report, to the shock of Anasthasia and the prince. “Mana birds were sent to us this afternoon after the tournament was over for the day. Reports speak of attacks at the edge of our borders, including the destruction of our outposts reserved to warn us of any attacks from the other Divide members. Two birds arrived from our six outposts, which begs the question of what is happening with the other four.”

“Could they not have been attacked?” Anasthasia brought up but the two older men shook their heads.

“One came from the western front, and the other from the north,” Jethro answered. “Our nation isn’t large enough for another outpost not to notice the attacks. They would have sent birds the moment something happened! We have still not heard even a peep from them. As such, the only way this silence could be explained is that our outposts were all attacked at once, preventing a chance for information to reach us in time.”

Alberstien scratched his beard with a pensive face, looking like he had even more to add. “But that leaves a question open. Why have two birds from those directions arrived? Why exactly?”

“Urgh. A taunt?” I replied. “Sir Jethro told me they are grimgarians, correct? If they are the very same grimgarians I reported on, then without question, this is their way of a declaration of war. They allowed those two messages to pass to alert us they aren’t scared to attack. A challenge, without being blindsided.”

The room went silent when I brought that point up.

“… I agree.” All to be ended by Jethro agreeing with me with a pale face. “ ‘Intelligent grimgarians’ … the demonkins did employ some of them when we engaged them five years ago. They are savages, but aren’t without honor, at least. This is their way to make it understandable to us what they are planning. Whoever is helming this operation is at least no green rat goblin, but at least an ogre. Too prideful to stoop to subterfuge.”

“And there is more to come,” I interjected again. “No need to hide any information anymore with the dire states of things. I was just in Artorias. Grimgarians have been attacking Lecartiglio’s Port Annencia and also the ports of Atadoro and Rakatheen. A fleet is coming from the ocean towards Elyonda.”

“What?!” Just like Alberstien, everybody else had a conflicted expression to my information.

“I have a method to teleport to other locations, and I used it to not only go to Artorias to pick something up, but also to speak with the King Drangleic of Artorias on things.”

“So you really are allied, huh? That close?” Anasthasia frowned, to which I nodded. She probably was aware of it since I brought Amelia and Duke Greenveil over, but I never really mentioned being a proper ally.

This of course, would bring some conflict, after all.

“Hold on, then why—” Jethro was about to question me, looking suspicious, but we literally didn’t have time for something like this.

“Whether I am on speaking terms with a foreign king or not is not the focal point right now. As I have mentioned and declared to everybody out there, my job is to protect the blood of Yeostar upon my acceptance of the Goddess’s Divine Quest in his name!” I repeated for being in Yeos. “As such, trust me upon the fact I will fight to protect it. However, we have a situation right now. I have just sent Caedhulen ships towards Annencia to ask them to bring over mercs for your city’s pirate problems. They are probably going to meet up with the grimgarians soon or have already. I need to rescue them!”

“W-Wait, Princess Hestia!” Anasthasia shouted before I could turn around, having heard enough for me to understand the situation. “Please, you cannot fly out now!”

“Don’t worry! I’ll rescue the Caedhulens and then immediately fly back! I’m fast, and the grimgarians attacked from the border, correct? I’ll come back and have enough time to burn them all down before they even reach the city, or destroy any of your villages!” I scowled at the thought of having to fight, fully accepting who my enemy was. “To ashes with those who wish for my wrath.”

“No! Hold on, please, you cannot go!” However, despite my reassurance to her, she still stopped me. Flabbergasted and slightly irritated at my time being wasted, I urged her to explain herself. “The news. The chaos. Please, calm down and think about what would happen if any of this news comes around. Elyonda is trapped, under assault in every direction, and not only that, but we also have to find a way to evacuate everybody! The citizens, the nobles, the foreign visitors.”

Anasthasia explained to me how they couldn’t stop the other princes from learning this information, and in their hurry to return to their principalities, they forgot to comprehend what the border of Yeos would look like. They were lucky the panic caused them to fight so much that it made it impossible for them to leave the city, but if they were to go now, Yeos would have to send troops to escort them back home. That was Yeos’s duty as a member of the Divide, signed and documented in their alliance treaty.

“We cannot allow such information to leak! The wanton chaos that would be created from the panic and fear would unsettle Elyonda even further. We won’t have enough time to help any of them, with our lacking military power,” Anasthasia continued. “If they wish to flee, we wouldn’t have the power to calm them. They cannot flee inland, the grimgarians would get them without a doubt. Even if one were to slip by, the majority would die. The only way is through the ocean, towards the Empire, but with the panic, that can’t be done properly! Those ships will be easy prey for pirates. Urgh, not to mention the villages and other towns of our country!”

“…” I felt flustered by the facts being presented to me.

If this invasion couldn’t be stopped, then countless innocent lives would be lost by the rage of war. I might have spoken big, but how fast could I fly? My rocket boosters were strong enough to shoot me from Gleisvale to rescue my party from those demonkins in Estralia, but that was a distance I could traverse ‘cause I knew of it.

Where were Adhi and the other sailors? It was already night outside. Black sky wherever I could look. Could I find three Caedhulen ships in the night? In the wide, open sea?

“The princess is correct, Your Grace.” Alberstien supported Anasthasia’s claim, shocking not only Jethro but also the girl herself. “Our citizens need to be prioritized first. We also cannot allow our guest to be harmed, otherwise, our reputation as God Yeostar’s country will be ruined.”

“Yurius?” Jethro raised an eyebrow.

“Seneschal?” So did Anasthasia.

“Princess Hestia, the first thing we need… is tranquility. We cannot let the attacks leak out, inciting a torrent. We cannot, that will only cause more deaths than we can control. Our… our country is weak. We need help!” Alberstien walked over to me and bowed deeply, holding his head down as he begged me with a request. “The moment you leave. The news will come out! The concert you promoted will have to be canceled, and that would only cause more strife.”

“What are you saying?! The concert isn’t the problem right now anymore! Urk!” I shouted out, before feeling like my throat just received a karate chop. I groaned, feeling pain from what I just said.

“Lady Hestia…?” Tasianna eyed me suspiciously, looking as if she couldn’t believe what I just said. I guess I could understand why she would. What I just said felt so wrong to me.

“Princess Hestia, please, you must reconsider Lord Alberstien’s request,” Anasthasia took over as I was massaging my pained throat. “Our first priority should be the citizens. Either we have to focus on preparing ships to transport them outside the battle zone before the armies arrive, or, we need to prepare the dungeon to have enough room to satisfy the number of people in the city.”

Well, I guess that is a—

But my thoughts were immediately interrupted when Jethro shouted at Anasthasia, “Niece, have you lost your mind?! If we are to make enough room for the entire city, or any refugees escaping the invasion, then we would have to open the rest of the dungeon up! Those are reserved for the royal family only! We cannot trust some commoners there!”

What? Why can’t you do that? Seems simple enough, just tell them not to go into some unspecified room… also, did he just say ‘rest of the dungeon?’

“Then what are you suggesting, uncle? You already had scouts inform the nearby villages and towns, correct? If they are escaping, then the only place they could go is either outside the principality or here — the capital. It will be flooded with people! The first batch should arrive tomorrow morning if they don’t rest through the night! The city is already overpopulated with our common folk and the festival goers. Either we leave the refugees to fend for themselves, we get the ships ready to help them, or, we use the dungeon for its real purpose — to defend our people like in any past sieges!”

“Urk…” Jethro groaned, staying silent at his niece’s arguments.

“And that is why we need you, Princess Hestia! We need a way to calm everybody down, make it seem like everything will be okay! Even if you can fight off all those grimgarians, and I believe you can with Her Imperial Majesty by your side!” Anasthasia glanced at Mother with hope, prompting the latter to just smile. She didn’t know Mother would probably not raise a claw… “Even then, we need to stop panic and chaos. We need to give everybody hope! Clear, tangible hope, so they don’t descend into despair! What better day is it to be one of the Goddess’s blessed?”

“I-I get what you mean! But if I stay here in the city, I would leave the Caedhulens I sent out to die! I cannot stomach that. And I can tell you those close to the border will not be able to survive if we don’t do something!”

No way would normal people be able to escape the grimgarians when they have kobold tamers. I still remembered the wargs they tamed when I fought that grimgarian battalion. They had echikobolds mounted on various beasts to hunt people down.

“Sacrifices are inevitable…” Anasthasia shook her head in dismay. “Looking at it realistically, we cannot save everybody. As such, we need to make sure we do it for those who we can help.”

“Erm…” Markval seemed to want to say something, but he stopped himself once he noticed the grim expressions everybody else had on their faces.

“And that is why we need to continue the concert, Princess Hestia!” Anasthasia reiterated. “Music can be a good soother. Some words from a blessed of the Goddess would help everybody keep up hope, to make sure the city doesn’t descend into anarchy.”

“I understand the predicament but it still feels like I would be wasting my time with the concer— Urghk! Gah!” I felt like something just punched my gut! I felt like I was about to puke when I tried to spit those words out.

““““Your Highness?!”””” The Yeosians showed their worry when I almost keeled over in disgust, disgust in myself.

“Lady Hestia, I know how much your life as an idol means to you. Just like the times before, allow me to help you!” Tasianna grabbed my shoulder and back, helping me fix my posture. “Just like Firwood and Estralia, allow us to help me to help you, alright. Shay and Beth will without a doubt be able to help, too. Do not forget, my lady, I am your shield and servant, I shall accomplish it all on my honor as a member of Aurora!”

I looked over to Tasianna, making me feel a bit inadequate as I saw her resolute smile. Shay gave me a quick nod with focused eyes while Beth flaunted her wings and pushed up her chest to look dependable.

“I-I do want to do the concert, but I can’t just do it with a good conscience right now. It feels like I need to do things this time. I can’t just leave the job to everybody else. Everything I went to perform a concert while you guys did something, something terrible would happen!”

In Firwood, that Davison drank some demonkin potion and turned himself into a walking eldritch nightmare, while in Estralia, Saori and the others could have died to that OP demonkin of wrath. It felt like being an idol while something big happened was some sorta flag. Like it was signaling to the world they could do whatever to my friends while I was occupying myself with something frivol—

“Nonsense!” My body jerked up, shivering for a moment not ‘cause of my thoughts but of a voice. This wasn’t a reaction I would have expected of myself to have, and it certainly didn’t come from the Yeosians or my retainers.

No, it came from the person looming over me with a disappointed expression.

“M-Mo-Mother?”

“Who cares about what is logical or what will happen, Hestia? You are a dragon, if you have the strength, then claim everything for yourself!” Mother glared at me with her slit irises. “Don’t let trivial matters like this stop you from what your heart is pursuing! There is always a solution if you are smart or strong enough, and I won’t watch my daughter deny her dream. You are a dragon princess, you must act like one, Hestia. Think calmly, with grace and control. You are not an almighty dragon just yet, you are but a whelpling. However, strength in numbers, my whelpling.”

“Wise words, Your Imperial Majesty!” Without warning, the door broke open as a giant scalekin emerged from it. It was Akast, the hulking sarcosilian, and behind him were the other saurians and Larent. “Wars are feats of attrition, do not underestimate the value of Stamina and morale, my apprentice!”

It was Master.

“I-I’m sorry your Majesty, I couldn—” One of the guards tried to stop them, but their voices were quickly drowned out by Master’s.

“The sun is down and your core has only just regenerated. You might fly over to find the levianewt, but what if you have to fight the fleet of grimgarians? You would be a fool to fly back after being exhausted from a fight! Until morning comes, you will have to rest, and at that time, what will happen to the city or the people?”

“I-I… No, wait, you know? Did you eavesdrop on us?” I was so focused on the discussion I hadn’t realized anybody was outside. I thought the room would be silenced with runes.

“Ha, I had no need! Her Imperial Majesty is not an SS rank dragon for nothing, my apprentice! Even without us telling her where we were, she pinpointed us and gave us enough information through [Telepathy] to figure things out! Even in this enclosed room, Her Majesty has kept me in the know!” Master proudly admitted.

“M-Mother?!” I glanced over to her, confused.

Mother smirked, letting out a small chuckle. “I am a parent. My duty is to teach you, and when it comes to your education, I do not sit around, enjoying the sun. We might have made that deal, my whelpling, but you still have a right to ask your mother for more than just training. I do wish to spoil you rotten as much as possible, but I know you wouldn’t like that.”

M-Mother…

“Correct, Hestia! We adults are here to help you, and also to help prevent you from making a mistake. If you ask me, continue your goal as an Idol of Aurena! You cannot leave the city anyways, even if you wished to.”

“How come?” I felt confused at how Master worded that, as if I really had no choice to go out.

“Because that is what the enemy wants, Princess Hestia.” Larent, waiting for his moment to speak, walked into the room. His eyes were as sharp as before he joined the saurians for a manhunt. “We have tracked down the worms. A demonkin is in the city with enough black mercs to stage an assault on the city itself.”

““““What?!””””

“Tsk!”

The Yeosians inside the room blurted out their surprise while I clicked my tongue. I knew something was up, that was why I entrusted Master to uncover it, but I didn’t think it would be this fast. And I definitely didn’t expect to hear such grim information.

“Do not forget, young scale, the goal of these demonkins is to acquire that blood, yeah? To stop the birth of another Champion of Yeostar,” Krim-Slak reminded me. “That means, destroy the blood that enables it. And not only temporarily, but permanently. Their real objective isn’t just the blood—”

“But the downfall of Yeos’s culture and royal family,” Grazlahta ended his sentence.

““Urlp…”” Anasthasia and Markval gulped silently, while Jethro squinted his eyes.

“This will be hassle…” I shook my head, slightly dizzy with everything going on. I really just wanted to go into bed right about now and dream all of this away, to the point my hostility and sense of helping were slowly dropping down from morale loss. “We need to relocate them, huh? The blood and the—”

Krim-Slak shook his hand, shrugging as if I had the wrong idea. “Nah, that’s impossible, young scale. Well, the blood, I mean. Not the royals. But, that is something the Yeosian royals can answer for you.”

“Mhmm!” Master nodded, a hand on his chin as he stared at the prince. “Krim, Grazlahta, and Akast found some of our enemies on the islands, skulking around with weapons… and plenty of information. With the search Larent, Rajah, and I lead, we tracked the culprits towards a lair underwater, created and maintained by what I presume are some capable water mages. Ha! Just a bit further away from where that young knight died… but the knowledge we gained from our search also directed my interest in what the festival’s true purpose is. Hmm?”

“ ‘True purpose?’ Are you insinuating it isn’t just used as an event to decide—” I stopped myself from talking and turned around to look at the four Yeosian’s in the group. Now that I thought about it, where was the blood even located and why couldn’t we relocate it?

I could probably ask Yeostar about it, but I stared at Markval, prompting him to speak. The young prince was reluctant about it, averting his eyes and pulling his lips into his mouth. His nervousness or embarrassment caused his poker face to break, well, at least whatever he tried to hide it.

“Your Majesty, I think it would be prudent to share this information now…” Alberstien prompted the young ruler with a bow, having noticed the scene he was making with his obvious reactions.

“B-But, Mother and you told me to keep quiet about it. That it would only shame us,” he voiced aloud, prompting the seneschal of the land to nod, assuring him it was alright to tell it to me. “T-Then… No, I did receive notice from our ancestor that you are trustworthy. Even that message you told me… Yes.”

He probably was thinking of the telepathic message I sent to him, the one Yeostar told me to tell him. It would make sense the god would confirm things to make things easier on me. That was why the prince has been so friendly with me, even to the point he followed and talked to me when I had Anasthasia speak with Chahayat.

And so, Markval began, “The blood of Yeostar… is located at the bottom of the arena. Next to the dungeon core where only those of royal blood may enter, as decreed by God Yeostar. The tournament held during the Festival of the Stars isn’t only to find a suitable Champion candidate, but also to empower the potency of the blood through the cheers and battle happening in the matches.”

My eyes widened at that revelation. “Empower?” So, would the Champion become stronger the more chaotic the battle got during the matches?

“Father… Father told me the cheers and battle thirst of the gladiators would channel and produce what God Yeostar seeks in his Champion — a one-man army to conquer any foes. That is why the goal of the royal family is to promote the festival, to attract warriors from every part of the world to join. The stronger the contestant, the more powerful the cheers; it all adds up,” Markval explained with the voice of a child’s imagination breaking from the hammer of reality. The pained tone in his voice made it seem like he disagreed with the way it was handled.

“It is a remnant of the warrior-king God Yeostar was,” Jethro came to his nephew’s rescue, continuing the explanation. “Knighthood came after he realized the importance of it during his travels with his fellow Goddess Erithia, the founder of the Hands of Heaven. However, until wisdom came with age, he would have probably been the type of person attracted to something like our arena today.”

<A warrior’s and knight’s mentality conflict at times, but at the end of the day, both seek strength. The more arduous the challenge, the more bountiful the spoils. I had always imagined making the blood become stronger would only enrich the experience, not… create Yeos’s current culture.>

I heard Yeostar lament his past decisions, sounding like he was blaming himself for the way his country ended up. Maybe this was why he wasn’t criticizing Yeos as much as I would have expected. Honestly, as a god whose job is to only oversee everything and not meddle too much into mortal stuff, it wasn’t purely his fault with how the country became.

[“Master!”] Rajah suddenly sprang out of Larent’s shadow, wagging his white striped tail as he greeted me with a head nuzzle. [“Rajah found the enemy! We can go hunt? Now?”]

“Rajah is correct, Lady Hestia,” Tasianna agreed with Rajah’s carefree comments after the blood explanation was over. “Only royals can enter the dungeon core, and may we presume if we were to remove the blood now, something would happen with it?”

Anasthasia nodded. “Yes, the tournament itself is a ritual, and if we were to remove the blood, it would become unusable. The creation process of the blood requires a massive amount of blood siphoned from us royal, which is then transformed into the holy blood to transform someone into a Champion. It might be the remnants of Sir Royce’s holy blood, but without the ritual, it wouldn’t be usable.”

In other words, it would be ‘destroyed’ for the sake of the Divine Quest.

“If that is the case, then Lady Hestia, please, you need to stay here,” Tasianna insisted. “However, as your maid, I have a duty to assure you do not grieve for anything. Shay, Beth, and I can fly out and rescue Adhi and the Caedhulens if needed.”

[“My sister and I have experience flying over the seas from our time delivering that missive from Yorshka to your mother, Your Highness,”] Shay supported Tasianna’s idea. [“We learned the ritual to Melicertha already. You have fought against us in the past, and although we lost, you have seen our strength.”]

[“Yes! Her Imperial Majesty has trained us, we’re stronger than before. We’ll freeze anything that faces us! Your orders!”] Beth shook her fist and grinned, showing off her fangs and sharp teeth with gusto.

“I would like to agree to that, Lady Priestess,” Renee stepped up into everybody’s focus. “This is my country, I am equally worried for the people out there as you are. Your Majesty, allow me to aid in the rescue process! I can travel faster than a normal gargoyle with my magic items, we can start the rescue process right now!”

Renee showed off her magic ring, the one she used to create all the wind constructs and the silence field during her match. Jethro’s interest was piqued once again, unable to hide his twitching smile as he eyed the talisman Renee was wearing.

“Young man, that talisman, have I seen that somewhere before?”

Renee instantly grabbed the item in question, excusing it as one of her family’s heirlooms. Jethro didn’t seem convinced, but dropped it nonetheless to speak with his nephew.

“Your Majesty, you have seen this person’s prowess in the matches. Alistar himself has vouched for him. I say we allow him to help us. Besides, there is no time to waste! We have spoken too much anyways!”

“I concur!” Master voiced his agreement before stepping forward. “I am just a Saint of Xohulotel, but allow me to aid you in the process! It would ease my apprentice’s mind while my guards and friends can finally let loose a bit! Ha ha ha ha!”

“Ha! That’s what I’m talking about, Kush! Let’s see if these invaders are actually warriors or just a bunch of krill eaters!” Krim-Slak crossed his arms and showed off his muscles as he boasted about the fight to come.

“Ease up, Krim!” On the other hand, Grazlahta tapped his shoulder, trying to reel the big saurian in. “This is a rescue mission. We aren’t fighting them. Rescue any survivors we got with Kush’s unique skill and then rush back to the city.”

“Yes… fight in… city.” Akast growled out.

Everybody's eyes were then directed at me, telling me the plan was ongoing but that they wanted to hear if I was to do my part of it. How could I say no at this point? I was being swept away by the flow.

“How long will it take the invasion force to arrive before Elyonda through land?” I asked Jethro and Alberstien, to which they roughly guessed would take two to three days, depending on how much they could delay them. “Is that so? Hmm… alright, then so be it!”

“Wonderful! Thank you, Your Grace!” Alberstien cheered for my decision.

“An idol isn’t supposed to run away when a show is going, after all! Can’t believe I forgot that part of being an entertainer! The show must go on!” I hyped myself up, now understanding why exactly I have to be here in the first place. “Sir Larent, I will try to confuse the enemy! That demonkin is undoubtedly working with the grimgarians, so they should know the war declaration has been sent. However, if I were to change the mood of the city, turn Elyonda’s festivities to its max, then we can not only lure out those fiends, but also confuse them.”

“That is wise, yes.” The sword savant agreed with my idea. “Just like when you lured my party into that trap of yours. That concert would attract anybody, and we were hooked.”

I was reminded of the attack plan in Estralia, how we handled the demonkin and their attacks. They wanted to destroy my reputation and have Estralia’s capital Gleisvale chase me out for being a demon spawn, or something, however, I turned it around on them by becoming the star in the limelight. With everybody captivated, the Follower of Edjurl’s plans to ruin me failed completely.

“There are more rats in this city, undoubtedly! We need to flush them out and group them for easy killings!”

“Then allow me to assist with that, Sir Larent and Princess Hestia.” Alistar bowed with that request. “I shall send some of my knights and soldiers out, while keeping some guards under your command, Sir Larent. Sir Jethro, I will also need the warrior priest’s help as well. Can I count on it?”

“Of course, knight-commander! My soul would be branded with shame if I cannot protect my brother’s home after his death.”

“Good, then those are the three squads!” I declared. “Tasianna, Shay, Beth, hurry to the Caedhulen’s side and rescue them. However, instead of returning to the city, I want you to follow them to Artorias. Once you are there, open up a portal. We can finally use the nexus for its strategic power, and it wouldn’t hurt if I hurl down a fire bomb or two to help out Duke Lecartiglio’s siege.”

“By your command, Lady Hestia!” Tasianna and the twins shouted out.

“Master, I already have an idea on how you’ll be doing this, so here.” I handed him some dragorade and also [Room] runes. “Use them how you fit. You already know how the nexus works, so make sure to use it wisely, alright?”

“Ha ha, of course, my apprentice! This elder scale can’t disappoint the Depth Goddess on his very first Divine Quest, now can he?” Master laughed boisterously, reassuring me he was the right man for the job.

“We’ll be done with this quickly, so I will hope you will have the capital covered, Lady Priestess.” I nodded to Renee assessment before we fist bumped. “The tournament isn’t quite over yet. I still wish to fight either you or Neill, so the two of you better stay alive!”

“Say that when the siege happens! I’ll take down those demonkins, don’t worry!” I asserted that fact, before turning around to the country’s most important personnel. “Alright, I think I have a plan on how to handle tomorrow’s show, but I probably will need to get it ready now. The tournament needs to happen somehow, I guess, otherwise that would only confuse the citizens.”

“I can handle that!” Alberstien volunteered. “This is my duty as a politician and seneschal. I’ll persuade those princes somehow. Lady Hestia, if you have any need for resources for your show tomorrow, send me a letter. Sir Alistar, I will also proceed with that plan you talked about.”

Plan? Did they talk about something prior?

“And I’ll make sure public order will be upheld! I will make the preparations needed to accommodate all the refugees.” Anasthasia quickly ran out of the room with her role confirmed, which prompted Alberstien to follow after her.

Unwilling to let those two go working while he stood her flabbergasted by how coordinated they seemed, Jethro huffed before taking action himself. “I’ll finish the preparations I’ve done for the siege. Alistar, I need your help, now! Send a new guard for His Majesty and follow me.”

The pen, the sword, and the heart. That is what this country needs!

“Yes, of course!” Alistar saluted to Jethro before sending out a mana bird for a guard switch. He then walked over to Renee, whispering something into her ears, before returning to the prince.

I wanted to speak up to it, but I couldn’t when Prince Markval spoke to me.

“U-Uhm, what should I do, Princess Hestia?” Overwhelmed by the situation, the young prince hadn’t been able to say anything, as everybody else had taken the helm, aside from him.

“That is easy, Prince Markval, act as your country’s liege! Follow behind Duke Alberstien — he is your seneschal — and help him. I am sure he will have something only you as the ruling prince can do.”

“I-I do? … Yes, I do! Thank you, I shall do it immediately!” The young prince jumped from his chair and ordered Alistar to follow him out of the room, only to stop himself to return before me. “I had almost forgotten! Thank you very much, Princess Hestia!”

And there he went…

“Hiehiehie,” Mother giggled once all the members of the Yeosian government just left the room, leaving us behind. “Hiehie, the music he will make will be more interesting once he understands what’s happening.”

“ ‘Music?’” I raised an eyebrow, once again hearing Mother speaking about that ‘music’ she has been hearing. I darted my head around, but I couldn’t even pick up a drum beat. “Mother, you’ve been mentioning that for a veeeeeery long time now. Honestly, is something wrong with my ears, or why are you mentioning music all the time?”

“Hmm? Oh!” Mother placed a hand over her opened mouth. “Hahaha, I had almost forgotten the fact that nobody could hear him speak to me! Hahaha! Oooh, it’s nothing too serious, Hestia. That ‘music’ was just Karhalantheel telling me how he would rip open my chest and devour my heart the moment he’s freed, before enacting his revenge on Yeostar! What a funny person, right?”

“Ooooh, Karhalantheel, that weird leviathan Yeostar imprisoned, right? Well, I guess it would be pretty funny if something woul— WAIT, WHAT, WHAT, WHAT?!”

“Oh yes, WAIT, WHAT?! Right? That old man lived before the System came to this world and he’s stuck down there! Who does he think he is? What a sad old pile of bones and waste. Hmph! Once the demonkins or whoever frees him, I’ll bring down my wrath upon that watered down SS rank. Nobody talks that way about my father!”

… Ho- Wait, wait, what?

I had the feeling Mother just talked over me.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 341: Rapping Dragons.

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“W-What?! You can’t be serious!”

“Of course I am! Try them on, sis!” Despite her reluctance, I pushed some colorful and frilly stage outfits into Neill’s face as she grew increasingly flustered.

On the other hand, Rita was naturally curious about the outfits, picking them up and using her [Investigate] on them. “Oooh, Neill, these are mana thread outfits. Oooh, they’re very well made, and the elemental mana is only about 10%. It’s safe to use. They should fit us pretty well.”

“Hold on, Rita! Don’t you dare put that on! Sis, we ain’t committing to this. I-I… That whole ‘idol’ thing is your shtick! I’m trying to get ready for the fight!”

“Oooh, shut it, you train so much, you’re a whole juggernaut already!” I patted her shoulder, pointing at her arm muscles. They might seem delicate and dainty like mine, but both were thoroughly trained and hard if she tensed them.

My praises caused Neill to smile and be confident, posing while her yukata was falling off slightly. “Heh, well, that’s true and all. Once those grimgarians come, I’ll bash them up just in time for some experience, so we better keep our party brac—”

“Buuuuut, Tasianna is leaving for a bit, so I need a replacement! I need help, okay!”

“NO! Arghk, it’s- it’s… I-I can’t sing, alright!”

“Operation Save Elyonda” was underway now, despite how much I didn’t like the fact I had to stay behind for it. Tasianna, Shay, and Beth had already made their way through the night sky in the direction Mother predicted the Adhi and the Caedhulens should be after they had performed an extremely elaborate ritual for that weird Water Pantheon god…

‘Melicertha.’

Right! Thanks, Manager Mind.

God of Sailors, Fortune of the Sea, and Ports, Melicertha. Like most subordinate gods of Plesia, he was also an SSS rank monster in the past. A leviathan who demanded tribute in the form of food, magic casting, or a huge festival to grant a blessing in accordance with the effort given. This blessing would not only protect you from the terrors of the deep, but also ward off weather hazards.

It was literally a blessing from god as Earth’s religions would describe it. But, unlike on Earth, Mother assured me this was a real thing. Winds to accelerate ship speed, deterrent from merfiend attacks, or even mercy in case your ship was sunk. Like Bleidla, the dwarves’ blacksmithing god, Melicertha was one of the few gods who was extremely active concerning mortal affairs.

Teetering on the edge of the rules, Melicertha only brings his influence with these blessings. Every sailor or sea flyer had to give praise to Melicertha as a sign of respect, with the following tribute acting as a chance to receive a protective blessing. It wasn’t needed, but in case something bad happened, it was there to help you.

In a certain way, Melicertha was considered one of the “kinder” gods inside the Water Pantheon.

And Tasianna, Shay, and Beth offered their mana in his name. Gods received power from magic casting too, so they simply sprayed water around until they believed it was satisfactory. There was no obvious sign or a System message if he was happy about it, you just had to guess it. And once they were done, they flew out, aiming for Adhi’s and the Caedhul’s rescue.

In the meantime, Neill, Master, and the saurians rushed out of the city with the knights without alerting the city’s citizens. Thankfully, the festival was still ongoing despite it being night and, since the prince’s struggle to flee the city was confined to the noble district, none of the commoners knew about it. The mood was good, so now it was my job to keep it as such.

And for that, I needed help to turn this festival into a music event.

“Please, I need your help, Sis!” I pleaded to Neill for help.

With Tasianna gone, my duet with her had to be canceled, but I didn’t want to waste the training time. I also needed to fill up time, really, and I thought Rita and Neill could help me with that, so I immediately asked them once I returned to the island. I could have probably brought in other people to help, like the students or my retainers in the subspace, but they were either occupied or I didn’t want to risk them for the plan.

Rita wasn’t a fighter, but she was good at fleeing and had the ability to control plants. She could do something. Not to mention, Neill was probably stronger than me, so I didn’t have to worry about her. Mother… well, she wasn’t really idol material, sadly. Not ‘cause of her age, but her lazy attitude towards it, as she preferred enjoying me perform than doing it herself.

You know, like a parent who wanted to see their kid succeed to feel proud of them.

As such, I needed Neill! I needed her to become an idol! … Or at least, an entertainer.

“Hestia, I can mow down some green rats and overgrown musclebrains, but don’t expect me to do this with you! I… just can’t sing, alright? I sound horrendous!”

With Sis so against the idea, I really should back off, but I needed help in this matter. With puppy eyes, I looked at Neill and pleaded one more time. “Please?”

“… Those eyes won’t change my mind, Hestia. Don’t think acting like a hatchling would sway me… Urgh, here, just give it a listen. I’m terrible.” Neill finally gave in to give it a try!

Nice! Too easy.

I handed her Tasianna’s manatech tablet — returned to me for safekeeping while she was away — with some lyrics scribbled onto it. Neill reluctantly accepted it and read through them, grimacing and even shook her head once I pushed her to sing them. Playing the music necessary for her to get the beat, I waited in anticipation for her to begin.

“Urgh… Ooooogh, the moment our eyes met, ooggh, my heart couldn’t stop beating ♫

Badump, dump? What? dump, it’s like you used a skill on me ♫… ?

Ahh, but don’t you even think I’m so easily swayed ♫

Can you prove to me that you can set… my heart on fire? What? Uhm, pal ♫?”

… Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh.

“…”

“… Hestia, Rita, say something,” Neill demanded with a reddened face.

Rita didn’t say anything, at least about the singing; instead, she told Neill she only listened to the lyrics, not the words, as she wanted to write them down. Certainly a useful excuse, since that left me to be the only one to answer.

“Well, you know, are you…”

I instinctively stopped myself from saying “Are you even trying?” I was forcing her into this, so the least I should be doing was be sensitive with this stuff. No star was born out of nothing.

However, describing Neill’s singing without insulting her felt hard. I wasn’t too much of an elitist when it came to singing but… Well, maybe I was. Singing had become so much of a passion that I was a bit of a perfectionist with it.

If I had to describe Neill’s singing, then I would call it out of beat and very “speaking voice.” That was why I found it hard to grasp if she was trying her best to sing, or if this really was her voice right now. It felt hollow, without any emotions. It didn’t help that she was barely trying to keep up with the beat of the song, singing it without caring for the music. It felt jarring listening to her.

Considering we only had a day until the concert, this was impossible to fix. I needed another plan.

“… How fast can you speak?”

“Huh? Where did that come from?”

“Humor me, please.”

Neill scratched her head before shrugging. The change in topic seemed to have calmed her down, as her flustered demeanor disappeared. I took back the tablet before writing down the lyrics I wanted to test her with.

“I’ll tell you how the lyrics go, and how you should say them. No need to sing, just keep up with the beat, Sis. Though, I still need to be able to understand them. Here we go.” Holding my hand close to my mouth, I imitated a microphone with my mouth before inhaling…

… to beatbox.

“Bang dicca bang dicca bang dicca bang dicca bang dicca bang dicca bang. [Now! Slow but with emotions!]”

With a grimace, Neill began, “Stakin’ this place to me, the Rap God, Rap God

All me peeps back at the hood fiddlin’ with the jukebox, jukebox

Wanna hear me brin’ down the beat on these fools like pros on the xbox, xbox

So I’mma wipe them clean, so call the NEET God.”

“Chink! Chin chin chin chin, chink! Chin chin chin chin, Chink! [“Now, fast! Stay clear for me to listen!”]”

“But for me to rap like I’m gamin’, gotta zoom pass two gens

Boom ya back to the stone age, old fart

We kids gotta keep— Arck! Shit! Ow! I bit my tongue!”

And just like that, Neill the Rap God was defeated by a simple tongue twister.

“Arck, what the hell is this supposed to be, Hestia? This can’t seriously be a song!” Neill complained, flabbergasted at what I just had her “sing.”

“Mhmm, I’ve never heard something like this before in my life. Also, it had some weird words in them. What does ‘jukebox’ and ‘xbox’ mean?” Rita was equally confused by my choice of words, but it was to be expected.

“Yeah! If you want me to sing things, then don’t give me words only you can understand!” Neill seemed to have grasped that those words were from Earth. “Seriously, what am I doing here?”

I held my head on my chin, evaluating her process while nodding. “I guess I went a bit too wild with your first rap. Maybe it’s best if we go with a slower one, but with more meaningful lyrics.”

““Rap?”” Both of them tilted their heads.

“Yeah, it’s a type of music genre, I guess. Rapid lyrical recital with a rhythmic following of the beat,” I explained it as best as I could. “Honestly, I don’t like rapping at all. Always feels like rappers just speak fast with an abundance of slang and curses to make it ‘hip,’ without actually trying to convey a message or emotion. Although, if you do it correctly, rapping can bring out the meaning or lesson of a song better and faster, then traditional lyrics.”

Not to mention, I can’t write proper rap, at all. Too much classical music, I guess.

“Uuuuh, okay?” Neill raised an eyebrow at my mild rant. “So, this is singing, too? Well, I guess it was easier than before, although speaking those weird words you wrote down felt like torture.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that.” I accepted that feedback, as I did go overboard with the rap. “To tell you the truth, your singing voice needs a lot of work to make it suitable for a performance. However! Rapping is more lenient, but it’s more important to follow the beat and tune. That would be easier for you to train in the short time we have, and I can just write down a new song for you.”

“You can make a song in less than a day?” Neill looked surprised.

“Well, bards and minstrels can produce melodies in a matter of moments if they have the inspiration,” Rita explained. “It shouldn’t come as a surprise, since your sister is a musician. Why, I think I still have some notes on some hymns and tales of heroics in my satchel. Let me look.”

“Stop! We don’t need it!” Neill stopped Rita from rummaging her belongings for some songs for some reason, looking like she didn’t want us to continue. “I don’t care, really. You get my point, urgh…”

Neill really was reluctant about joining in on the fun. Considering her personality, I thought she would be a bit more excited about getting a chance to be in the limelight. She did mention how she wanted to make her “existence known” to people and how it would bring “pride to her clan.” Wasn’t this the perfect opportunity since everybody who frequented the arena would know her face?

“Hey, if you’re worried about messing up the concert, don’t worry about it. There are countless ways to hide an artist’s voice like autotune, reverb, and so on. We can do something, no worries, Neill. If you’re looking for some cool factor, then rapping would be exactly what you need as it fits your tough and hard-shelled image! Rita and I can be cute, and you can lead the contrast.”

Using opposite kinds of artists for a song or performance could give the concert an amazing harmony. It was the same principle with a duet between a man and woman, as their respective low-pitched and high-pitched voices could elevate a song even beyond its potential! Sugar and salt, cute and cool, and singing and rapping.

“Hey, I am not a fan of cheating outside of life or death fights, okay? Besides, doing that wouldn’t make me prou—”

“Absolutely not, Your Majesty!” A man’s voice interrupted Neill’s statement, drawing our attention towards Jethro, Tehmrayn, and Mother walking towards me. I noticed Jethro having a complicated expression on him while Tehmrayn was arguing with a sighing Mother. “I do not care about the insults he spewed. My Quest is to protect the seal. As long as I am on this island, none will break it.”

“Ahhh, you have your tail too wrapped between your legs, boy.” Mother pouted. “Fine. Have it your way.”

“Haaaa, you are as fickle as a leviathan, Your Majesty…”

Curious as to what happened, I asked them what got them so heated, only to listen to Tehmrayn complain to me how Mother just tried to persuade him into allowing her to open the seal on Karhalantheel so she could kill him off. “Why would you even ask for that?!” I screamed at her, where Mother just shrugged and explained how the SS rank leviathan insulted my grandfather, Nordoramsul.

Mother seemed to have held it in right up until I asked her what that “music” she kept talking about. Not like it was my fault, but I really should be more careful with my words when I’m around a dragon, it seems. Just like Kramps, Mother could be quite selfish. Maybe that was just a trait of being a mighty predator.

Jeez, you’re gonna destroy Elyonda before the demonkins or the invasions come around…

In any case, Jethro was currently on the island to speak with Tehmrayn about the plans we came up with at the royal palace. Since Jethro was responsible for the city’s and island’s defenses, he had to make his rounds. While the city wasn’t fully secured yet, it was obvious the enemy would try to break open the seal of Karhalantheel, creating the perfect distraction.

“The seal is reinforced quite well, meaning no ordinary mage could even dare to break it. However, our enemy has been confirmed to have at least one demonkin in the city. I would rather overestimate them than underestimate them,” Jethro stated.

“Sound.” Tehmrayn agreed before excusing himself after his discussion with him was over.

Jethro nodded before looking over at the island’s port. “I shall wait on the ship for a while, if you must return to the city, Lady Hestia.”

With Jethro gone, Mother turned to us. “So, what have the three of you been doing? Oh, make that the four of you. Rajah?”

My white virigress jumped out of my shadow, shaking off some of the sand on his body once he landed. [“Ah, Master asked Sister to sing! Sister sang, but badly! So Maste—Mrrreow?!”]

“Oi, shut it, Rajah!” I pressed Rajah's mouth close, surprising him to stop his stream of thoughts from continuing, but it was too late, as I could see Neill shake her head in embarrassment. “No, wait, Neill! It wasn’t so bad, alright! You need practice, everybody needs it, okay! You can’t start out as a proper singer from nothing. You need to train your voice, be able to control it to produce different tunes, and also your internal beat.”

“Sweet of you to say, but the cat is right. I’m not really fit for the whole singing stuff, so just drop it already, ‘kay?” Neill ruffled her lion mane hair around, trying to shake off her irritation of hearing that feedback.

“Ooooh, wait, did I hear that correctly? So that howling was yours, Fargryneill!” Mother figuratively suckerpunched Neill with that description of her singing, all while wrapping her left arm and tail around her. “Now, doesn’t that seem pleasant! Sisters doing sister activities! I might not be your mother, young scale, but it still would be wonderful if the two of you could do things together!”

“Ark!” Neill groaned, trying but being unable to free herself from Mother’s headlock. “We don’t need to do all this concert and idol stuff Hestia’s so obsessed with together! If we want to build up rapport or family love, we could just beat each other up! That’s fun, too! Or, you know, Battle Frenzy training!”

“Hahahaha!” Mother let loose a wicked laugh, creeping Neill out and silencing her. “Nonsense! Don’t act like us elder scales, spending all our time slumbering in our caves, only to come out to eat or fight. You’re making excuses, dear! Go out! The invasion will come, but there is no need to be so anxious! Have fun at the festival with your sister, you’re plenty strong already.”

“Anxious?” Neill raised an eyebrow at Mother’s word before turning her eyes to me, confusing me. She didn’t even speak with me through telepathy, she just kept staring at me until her eyes widened. “… Sure.”

Wow, Mother is persuasive! I was surprised Mother apparently guessed what I wanted to do with Neill after she agreed to join the concert. I wanted to bring her to the festival for something. I haven't seen her profile yet, but I bet she had a future sight skill or something.

“There, see?” Mother quickly released my half-sister from her grasp before correcting her messed up hair on her behalf. “Now, I wish you two fun. Eat some nice food, have a good time; get yourself ready when the fighting begins. No need to start it in a bad mood.”

“Huh? Aren’t you coming?” I tilted my head.

“Sadly, noo—Ahhhhhh.” Mother let out a big yawn. “Mhmm, my lack of long naps is catching up to me. I’ll call it early today. I’ll see you for your performance tomorrow! So get some sleep and fascinate me, dear, hiehie.”

“Oooh, that’s too bad, Empress! Well, I guess the fou— Waaaah!” Rita was about to come over to us, only for Mother to grab her waist with her tail.

“Now, now, I saw you with those idol outfits. If you want to join, you better start learning~ I know Tasianna’s part, so let me help you before I go to sleep,” Mother stated something surprising to me.

“Wait, you know how to sing?! Why haven’t you told me that!” I felt a bit giddy from the prospect of it, imagining what Mother’s musical talents could be.

“Not as good as you, my whelpling, but good enough to teach others. I learned from the elven operas! ♫” Mother let out an opera-worthy singing voice, controlling and changing her pitch with every word.

Ooooooooooooh! My body twitched before it began to jump on the spot like a rabbit. My chest felt light but at the same time fuzzy, irrationally wanting Mother to continue singing.

“Hahaha, maybe next time, Hestia.” Mother smiled, knowing what I wanted, but that only caused me to pout. She ignored it and kept dragging Rita away from us before opening a subspace portal with her own [Room] runes.

Struggling to free herself, Rita looked in despair as she held her hand towards us, trying to ask us to save her. “N-No, wait, Empress! I wanted to stay with them! I wanted to ask Hestia abou—”

“If you stay still, I will tell you some tales from 2000 years ago~”

“YES! Educate me, please!”

And just like that, Rita and Mother disappeared into the subspace.

Somehow felt betrayed.

In any case, although I hadn’t been able to persuade Neill to come rap with me, there was plenty of time for me to do so once we got to the city. Along with Rajah, the three of us joined Jethro on his ship, returning us to the city.

While we were on the boat, Neill approached me with a rather out-of-nowhere question. “Got a question; you never mentioned having any siblings in your past life. Did you?”

“Huh?” It was certainly not something I had expected her to be curious about. Up until now, she hadn’t really asked much about my past life, seeming like a live-in-the-present person. “I was an only child.”

“Ever felt lonely?”

“Not really. I had my parents as well as my nanny with me at home. Pretty lively, since we would always play music at home, having our very own personal concerts,” I reminisced fondly of my time with Papa and Mama, where I would sing while they played the piano and violin respectively.

“Mhmm, I see… Okay.” And just like that, Neill walked away.

????? What was that?!

Dunno what was going on with Neill right now, maybe the blood got to her head after Mother’s headlock. It was clear I had to buy her a drink or two after what Mother did to her. She might have persuaded her for me, but the way Mother did it was too rude!

With that goal in mind, I led Neill to some stalls once we entered the city. Hopping from one place to the other while snacking on food and fruit drinks, the general mood between the city and port was quite similar to the morning time, honestly Always so festive. I kept my ears open, minding any rumors about any invasions or such. It was really hard, even with my superhuman hearing, as there were too many voices for me to clearly distinguish what the people were saying.

Still, from the vibrant laughters, the raucous drunks, and the merry singing, I could feel the majority of the people I walked past just now weren’t aware of any invasion news. It seemed everybody was able to discreetly leave the city.

[“Master! Master! More meat, please!”]

“Yeah, what he said, Sis! Ahaha, love this festival!”

“Hey, stop eating so much. I had to spend a ton today! Give me a break!”

Sis and Rajah were already enraptured by the crowds and smell of alcohol in the air once again, a staple every time we went to enjoy this festival. It’s been almost two weeks now, but I still wasn’t bored by all of this. It was fun, and it was even more fun when we did it as a family.

“Hey, hey, Sis! There is something new over there!” Sis pointed at a new stall on the street, or to be more specific, two stalls in one. On one side, one woman and three men were serving customers ringed pastries while the other side looked like a ring toss game.

“Wait, are those donuts?!” My eyes widened as I took a pique of what they were selling. Sadly, I was far shorter than Neill and the queue before the stall, so I had to use [Air Walk] to get a look. “Wait, aren’t they—?”

I grabbed Neill’s arm and picked up Rajah before slipping through the crowd with them, until we ended up in the back of the stall. Knocking on one of the stall’s wooden pillars, a young girl with green hair and lilac highlights turned around, dressed like a poor commoner despite her pristine skin and hair.

“Amelia?!” I blurted out, while she was surprised to see me here.

“Lady Hestia?!”

“Wh-What are you doing here?! No, wait, shouldn’t you be setting up stalls for tomorrow, I mean, why are you in this stall, selling donuts?!”

As planned, the Sarlenzia company would continue selling pastries or any other food during my concert, using this chance to not only promote themselves but also cash in as I was doing a no-ticket performance. I knew they would be preparing stalls and such throughout the city, but I didn’t expect them to start today and with Amelia manning it as one of the workers!

“Amelia, what are you doing! We need more— O-Oh!” Even more surprising, one of the other workers was a man in his 50s.

“Mr. Sarlenzia?!” The person was Amelia’s maternal grandfather, Newt Sarlenzia, president of Sarlenzia company.

Apparently, Amelia persuaded both her father and grandfather for her to come here today as a way to “test the waters” with their product and get a sense of the mood of the festival. I asked her why exactly she was working, instead of just watching, but she told me she wanted to know what it felt like to make the donuts.

The doughs were all prepared beforehand, as always, before they were placed in frying fat and then dipped into honey or fragassa glazing. Amelia wanted to learn how it felt, so she could hopefully improve its efficiency and safety. Currently the tools were all normal stuff you could use to make donuts at home, but Amelia wanted to “modernize” it with manatech.

“And my granddaughter thought it would be good to experience it properly. Get in the mood, like a proper merchant. Hahaha, I cannot believe how much she has changed. This must really be Lady Ellaine’s and your influence, Lady Hestia! As her grandfather, I cannot hope to thank you enough for being her friend!”

Saori had told me Newt was a pretty grumpy and merchant-like man, always thinking of the next profit and how it could benefit him. He wasn’t as cutthroat when discussing business with people, unlike his employees he personally trained, but he was still very meticulous. And this man was not only making donuts right now, but also laughing joyfully about her granddaughter’s growth.

“Grandfather used to man stalls like these before he established his company. I thought he would be helpful, without making it awkward like it would have been if I had brought a normal employee,” Amelia explained, waving her hand around, showing off the blisters on her arms.

“Hehe, that’s pretty admirable for a noble,” Neill complimented her, causing Amelia to bow with a nervous giggle. The both of them only met once, but they only introduced themselves when Amelia came over to meet Anasthasia. “Then, let me help you guys out. Six donuts! Half-half honey and fragassa glazing!”

“In a moment! Thank you for the business!”

It took a bit for our donuts to come, since there was a whole crowd in front of the stall craving the donuts. From how all of them smiled and ate their pastries with ravenous desire, I could tell the donuts would be a great sell once again.

In addition, Amelia also debuted a festival game with the ring toss stall next to the donut one. I didn’t even think of this idea. This was Amelia’s. Since she was selling donuts, she found it fitting to throw rings at pegs, similar to a magic training game in the academy, where the students trained their [Fluid Cast] by creating rings with their spells to throw onto spears.

Holy, her intuition as a merchant. Damn.

There was a reason why she was the daughter of Duke Greenveil, a duke other nobles call a merchant. With a grandfather like Newt, it was clear she would develop like this once she was free of the social stigma she had on herself ‘cause of her parentage. Half commoner or not, she was nobler than most aristocrats.

After we got our donuts, we left them after expressing our gratitude. I had informed Amelia and Newt about the impending attacks, telling them to be careful. The other three employees were all members of Duke Greenveil’s knight order, so they had good bodyguards. However, just in case, I would keep an ear out in their direction while I was going around. The moment they shouted, I would fly over.

“Hohoho, by Father’s horns! This shit is amazing! Wow! So greasy, but the sugar complements it so perfectly! Damn, I want more!”

[“Mhmm! Pastries best! Master’s recipe best!”] Rajah enjoyed his two donuts, although I really didn’t know if cats were allowed to eat donuts. Well, he was a monster jaguar, so it probably was okay.

Time to go there, I guess.

After we were done enjoying our donuts, I took out the tablet Master gave me during the training session. It had the names of different locations in the city along with the directions for them. Following them, my ears began to twitch while I was rocking my body up and down to the sound of lutes, flutes, and drums playing in the background.

And then, after just a bit more, singing could be heard.

“The wine of victory flows down the streets ♫

Coloring the ground scarlet red as the soldiers march on! ♫

The lungs of men cheering on, shouting their earnest growls of life ♫

Their bodies, broken and tired, but their minds drunk on the alcohol of war! ♫”

This was the bard guild’s district.

It was time to turn this festival into a musica—

“Heyeyhey! Fargryneill!”

“Huh? Yoooo, Ghorush!”

The leonid berserker Ghorush appeared out of nowhere.

A note from AbyssRaven

Still vacation, but chapter time. Sister bonding moment, but too bad Neill can't rap. Also too bad I can't write rap.

Anyways, song for today was from Eminem "Rap God." Probably a bit too hard... Rawr

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 342: Bardic Inspidragon.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #2 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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Take this Rawr

“Ghuhahaha! Tales of battles with food and ale! That is life! Come! Drinks on me for today, to your VICTORY in the arena!” Ghorush slammed the table with his large hand as a jolly street bartender handed him two mugs of ale with a laugh, before serving his intoxicated clientele.

“I hate being drunk.”

“Yuck, sorry, I hate the taste of alcohol.”

“Mreeeew.”

Neill and I completely rejected Ghorush’s offer, while Rajah began scratching his ear from the silence and surprise the leonid expressed at our words. After a couple seconds, he shrugged, saying “More for me” before downing both tankards at the same time. The ale gushed not only into his mouth, but also outside of it, dampening his mane and clothes before it dropped onto the floor, splattering the liquid on my legs.

“Ewwwwww!” I jumped back, disgusted not just by the ale, but the nasty floor water touching my socks and shoes.

“Oi, you damn cat, drink normally! Or are you already drunk to the point you tried to hit on us?” Neill just took a step back, raising her arms in annoyance.

“Ghluuuurp!” Ghorush burped like a hippo, laughing unhinged as he smacked his stomach. “Ghuhahahaha, the both of you are too scrawny for my taste! I like my women with more meat on their arms and legs, also taller! Ha, as if I would try to mate with either of you!”

“Tsk, could’ve left that last part out…” Neill scowled.

… For somebody with that much mana, he sure is a simpleton.

<Looks can lie, Hestia.>

Oh, I am very aware of that, God Yeostar.

Being a dragon but having the form of a small, cute girl was the prime example here.

In any case, I won’t appraise him for privacy reasons. Should I? Is he an enemy in your eyes? I asked him once again.

<As mentioned in the arena, he isn’t a demonkin contractor or such. However, he is of a higher level than your sister, but still lost in a manner I would say was unbefitting for his power. My counsel would be to be cautious, as that golemancer could be anybody. Or no one you know. We know a demonkin is in the city and that they have mercenaries.>

Good point. Really nothing to do if we don’t have the information. In other words, I should focus on the reason why I came to this area.

While Neill was complaining about Ghorush’s rambunctiousness, I turned my head around to take in the rest of the locale. As if it wasn’t obvious enough with this street bar, the tables placed before it, and the many food stalls around us gave this place a pretty strong street fair vibe, as people wandered from one stall to the next to gather things to eat and drink. Maybe it was more accurate to describe it similar to those food courts in malls, just with a medieval theme.

“Ahhhhh! For our pay!”

““For our pay!””

Dayworkers, adventurers, and farmers were celebrating with each other in this area, raising their mugs up to bang it against each other in a toast. Mead and food bits dropped onto the ground, smearing the grounds with nobody paying attention to the waste they were creating. It wasn’t their problem, after all, and one should savor their evening break, right?

The news really hasn’t gotten far, huh?

“Answer for me, oh mighty knight ♫

Can your sword and armor shine through the night ♫

And all so wonder your call to fight ♫

Jaded by the battle’s fright ♫”

“Oh, scurry forth the skorr away ♫

He’s feasting and nastying our fields ♫

And all we can do is pick up the scythe ♫

And slash it up for winter’s meals ♫”

But what made this area so special, at least interesting enough for Master to recommend it to me, was the fact a bunch of minstrels and bards were gathered here, as if they were in some sorta clique. They created music from nothing, either solo or as they collabed with others, to accompany the non-musicians’ merry food binge.

Whether male or female, or human or beastmen, there didn’t seem to be any kind of prejudices between them. I could see a human woman singing with a male foxian about the transitions of the season and the growth of a tree, while a well-groomed wolfkin man strung his lute, reminiscing about his past and his mother’s soup. At the same, though, a group of bards were playing together in a band-like fashion, reciting tales of old about knights, valor, and Yeostar.

“The blade of yore, flying through ocean floor with might galore ♫

Vicious strikes upon the beast of dread, releasing the dead of their screams unsaid ♫

But a maul of corrupting doom, cursed its challengers with a watery tomb ♫

Alone and tired he fought on, with nothing but zeal and courage to move on ♫

With man’s bravery and elven sorcery, the carnage in flesh was finally brought low ♫”

The bard’s guild.

Of course, you could find singers and minstrels everywhere in the city, and even dancers in the less visited areas. The city was vibrant with people and visitors, and even among all their noise, you could hear people singing tales, giving not only character but also brilliance to the festival.

It was culture and history, all condensed in the voices of these people. You could learn what these people have learned through your own senses. My songs were meant to bring smiles and exhilarate people, but songs didn’t have to pigeonhole themselves only within this spectrum of emotions.

Music was there to touch people’s souls, as my Papa always used to say. It was important for a musician to embrace every sort of genre as a way to help them grow. After all, like rapping and singing, they made good companions despite being different types of vocal expressions. Not to mention that instruments could do the very same thing, elevating the experience like a well-planned out dish with numerous facets of tastes.

Ahhh, I really want to join them~

“Hmm? Daydreaming? Careless gal, with how many pickpockets I’ve seen.” I heard a low, deep voice sounding like Ghorush’s speak next to me.

“Eh, she can take care of herself. Let her have her fun.” While that was clearly Neill’s.

[“Master, if hungry, we can order food!”] While it became clear my companions were watching me when I heard Rajah’s voice.

Turning around, I let out a flustered laugh as my love for music took over my mind for a bit. I could admire them as much as I wanted, but I should probably not start fangirling. A sign for a good singer was their ability to reach notes without any problems and maintain them, but what was more important was to layer your singing with your emotions to enrapture your audience’s attention.

This should work actually.

Sadly, Master couldn’t really write down the location of the guild, as he had only heard how it was in the area. Considering it was a guild, I should be able to request a commission. Money would be pretty tight, but I could probably use the bounty from the poison brothers to pay them off. Before I could execute my plan, though, I had to ask somebody where the guild building was.

“Hey, Neill, what do you think about their singing?” I asked Sis while scanning the area, trying to find somebody who was free and looked like a bard.

“Hmm? I guess, good? Sounds very catchy, you know? Also interesting to hear since some of them seem to be tales about Yeostar,” she answered, pointing at a few of them. “That guy mentioned that Castle Fatalisa raid, the other about Karhalentheel, and so on. Who needs to read books when you have these guys around?”

But, surprisingly, Neill’s answer was more detailed than I thought, prompting me to snap my head around to reply, “Right? Pretty exciting, huh? And they present the story and heroics in a way the people can understand without understanding the details. Just easy and digestible. I guess that is how valorous songs are supposed to be, hmm?”

“Ghuhaha, nothing beats stories about some strong fighters in the past. Gives you confidence and a dream to be like or best them!” Ghorush gave his two cents. “Even more important when you’re going right into a fight! Gotta bring the spirits up. Can’t fight only on bloodthirst alone, I say, gotta have something supporting that drive!”

“But, most importantly, the songs needa keep the audience excited! Can’t earn coins if ya listeners drop dead from boredom!”

“Mgrrrrrr!”

“Woah! Easy, kitty!”

The three of us turned around when Rajah suddenly growled, only to see him threatening some sleazy-looking human from approaching us. He had slick-backed orange hair, glistening probably from using dried fat or wax. He had a lute strapped on his back with a metal flute on his belt, making me believe he was probably a bard.

However, unlike the typical image of a minstrel, he had scaled leather armor on and a helmet hanging loosely on his backpack. A longsword was sheathed on his hip while a wooden shield was equipped on his left arm. The guy looked a bit greasy, but still clean enough to be presentable.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Ahaha, I-I’ll answer, but do you mind wringing ya kitty back? Don’t wanna end up as monsty food, ya get me?” The guy smiled wryly, so I did what he asked and told Rjaha to stand down. “Phew… Thanks, lass! Ahaha… Ahem, well, my lady, glad to meetcha, the name’s Desmond. Bard and minstrel in the area, just to light up a tune just for you two lovely ladies~”

Hmm? He smells weird.

“Uh, yeah, back up a bit, buddy.” Neill held her hand up, stopping him from coming any closer. “Nice meeting you, but I would rather not smell anymore of what you did this evening already.”

“Ha! He was active, huh?” Ghorush scratched his chin and mane. “Well, I ain’t here to ruin my drink with the smell of his gunk and whoever he put it in, so I’mma head out. Glad meeting you two, again! Give me a show on FireDay, yeah? Wanna see the semi-finals between you two explode!”

Gunk? And whoever— Ooooooh. Oh, so that is that smell…

The moment I realized what I was smelling, I instantly frowned at the guy while Ghorush excused himself, leaving us alone with this weird guy in front of us. Getting that reaction from us caused the dude to laugh nervously, understanding what we were talking about.

“Woah there, didn’t come here to make a move on ya… Well, if you two aren’t against it the— ‘Kay, ‘kay! I get it!” He squirmed back after Neill sent out her [Draconic Aura], scaring the guy from speaking any further. “A-Anyways, just to get back on track, the name’s Desmond. Heard you two speak about the music the lads and lasses were playing, so wanna come over to speak with ya. Uhh, can I get your names?”

“Fargryneill.”

“Hestia.”

“Talk about an icy shoulder!” he blurted out in a dramatic way when we gave our names simultaneously. “Jeez… but, hey, I thought I knew ya somewhere, lass. Peeps been speaking about the arena, ya know. Especially me friends over there singing about how some dragonewt lass conquered the famed Castle Fatalisa in some wicked way, yeah? You’re that Hestia, eh?”

I widened my eyes, feeling a bit taken aback about hearing people having already written songs about me. I was supposed to be the one who would do that!

“Songs?”

“Ahaha, yeah! Hol’on, think I can still ‘member. Ahem.” He pulled out his lute and began playing a small tune. “Wings of flames, fury of light, rampaging through bodies with lightning and wind ♫”

Huh? That’s pretty good. I noted how he managed to emphasize the strong points of the strong. Although I wasn’t captured by the song yet, the way he sang it with a mild-mannered voice like a ballad singer was pretty interesting.

“Dazzling and enchanting, calamity afoot with supreme sorcery ♫

Cries ruptured through the air as she sung upon their bodies, ♫

Sitting on her throne of wood with her foes ripped apart by the arcane ♫”

Hold on, what?!

“But by divine intervention, her tyranny ended, by a Hand of Heaven ♫

Sword and flames, clash upon the fields of ruin, captured by the might of Fatalisa ♫

On fellwing she flew, escaping from death with Heaven’s knight ♫

Heralding doom with an angel’s voice, damnation upon all on the Crimson-Scaled’s wake ♫”

…

“Haha, sorry if I butched some of the melodies. Heard it a few days ago, probably didn’t do the original song justice,” the man laughed, looking unsure of himself. “Sooo… good, yeah?”

“It’s accurate. Exactly what I saw,” Neill answered.

“H-Hey!” I stuttered, trying to speak back but I couldn’t. “… True enough, I guess. But it makes me sound more like a villain than, you know, me.”

“Then you shouldn’t have started carving two chairs while you destroyed everybody with your spells flying around randomly! Anybody with an inch of sense would think you’re some destructive force!” Neill commented, making me feel like she was being too harsh.

“Hey! Don’t talk about my chairs! They burned down while I was dueling Larent, okay! Uuuuie, they were so young…” I wiped away a single small tear, in honor of the death of my chairs. They were so simple, but beautiful; sadly, they had to be burned down ‘cause I couldn’t put them in my storage with everybody looking.

“Uhm. ‘scuse me?” I was woken up by the bard’s voice, bringing me back to reality.

“Anyways, can I ask you a question?” He nodded, prompting me to continue. “You’re a bard, right? Do you know where the bard guild is?”

“Oooh, the guild? What do ya need us for?”

“Commission. I need to hire some of you for something special you see, enough bards and minstrels to fill this city with so much music people could actually get tired from it!” I raised my arms to gesture the scale I wanted this to be, leaving out some of the details I was planning like [Aerokinesis] and my scale-dust.

Desmond raised an eyebrow, staring at me with a questioning look. “The whole city? Sooounds like a pipe dreeeeeeaaaaaam! ♫ Sorry, but, uh, ya can’t make the whole city listen to us. We ain’t really loud, ya know, and we can’t go and ruin our voices for that kinda job.”

“Of course, I know how valuable a singer’s voice is. Ahem…” After his clear vocal provocation, I closed my eyes, ready to challenge it. “Iiiiiiiiii AAAAM SOOOOOO VEEEERRRRRRY ACQUAINTEEEEEEEDD! Proooteeect our VOIIIIIIIICEEEEEEES, sooooooo alwaaaaaays staaaaay hy…dRAAAAAATEEEEEEEED!”

Always stay hydrated.

However, strangely, when I finished this small showing of my opera training — really helps that Father knew opera singers from his career — the noisy surroundings of this place dialed down a bit, to the point I could actually hear my own thoughts without getting distracted by somebody’s cheering or drunk escapade.

Opening my eyes, I noticed Neill shaking her head and Rajah copying her, only to be taken aback by everybody close to the street bar staring at me. They just stopped with whatever they were doing, even ignoring food or ale dropping on their clothes as their attention was solely on me.

Awkward?

“… Uhm, hi?”

“H-Hey, Desmond! That’s the girl I was talking about! Emperor’s blade, that’s some singing!” One of the bards sitting next to the meat skewer stall ran up to the greasy bard, slapping him on the back to wake him up.

“H-Huh?!” Desmond nearly fell over. “Yikes, mate! Ya oughta stop slapping peeps on the back like that! And I already knew that fact. But, Goddess’s breath, that’s some singing, alright. ‘Angel’s voice,’ sure enough, ya could probably pass as a diva of the Empire’s Skywelt Opera by trilling those high notes!”

Skywelt Opera, huh? Haven’t heard of that before.

I wasn’t actually ready to perform as a diva in an opera, even with my classical singer training. It was great to help me develop my vocal cords and my Stamina, but idol and opera songs required different practices to prepare the singer. In a way, I could give a taste of that opera training, but I probably wouldn’t be able to keep up almost banshee-like high notes for too long.

But, that was beside the point really. The important thing was that my singing caught everybody’s attention, but especially the bards around me. Quite a number of them approached us, asking Desmond who I was. He told them they potentially had a job, so they asked me if I would follow them to a quieter place to discuss business.

Neill, Rajah, and I entered a nearby inn with around 21 bards, all covered in outfits looking more like adventurers than your typical wandering troubadour. I could identify archers, shieldmen, alchemists, and even a single water mage in their midst. Then again, for a guild, it probably should be this diverse.

… But the issue was, why was the guild building some random inn?

“There is no bard guild.”

“Huh?” I blurted out the moment I asked him if this was the guild building. “W-Wait, what do you mean by there being no guild?”

“Exactly what I meant, lass. There is n—”

“Hey, hey, hey, Desmond! You donk!” An archer bard, the very same one who identified me before slapped Desmond on the back, interrupting his reply. “Didn't Cha ‘member what I said about the girl? She’s a bloody princess, and a dragon to boot! Emperor’s beard, speak a bit more e-gantly.”

“Hol’ up, what ya saying?! This ‘ere gal is some fire-spewing dragon?! A manablood, too?”

“Ya joking, mate, ya joking! Girl’s got a voice, can’t be serious saying she some terrible, overgrown lizard, eh? Feel like you’ve been drinking while watchin— Yeowch!”

“Clam your trap.” One of the swordsmen knocked one of the bards on the head with his shield, shutting him with a dazing hit.

All of them looked at Neill and me, curious what we had to say to that “accusation.” Neill shrugged, telling everybody she was a dragonewt before pointing at me to continue. She really didn’t want to tell anybody she was a kirin.

I, on the other hand, confirmed it, however, I immediately told everybody I wasn’t here as a princess, but just a potential collaborator, as I needed their help for something. The bards began to feel restless by this information, but Desmond jumped up from his chair to play his lute, singing “Ain’t no time for your whining, the show must go on so start smiling! ♫”

With everybody quiet, Desmond turned back to me before sitting down. “Anyway, as I told you, ma’am, we aren’t a guild.”

“Wheew, you changed your speaking habit,” Neill whistled.

“Comes with the job. Nobles can slice off your head if you aren’t speaking properly.” Neill gestured his head being sliced open, before letting out a quick laugh to brighten up the mood. “But, yeah, bard guild? Good joke. How can a guild function if your members are all travelers? No bard stays in one place all the time, otherwise it’ll get boring. Can’t fund a whole guild in that way.”

“Huh? It is possible though, just look at the two adventuring guilds,” I argued, but Desmond simply shook his hand.

“That’s the point, why do you need a bard guild, when being an adventurer is so much easier? They got all the planning and bureaucracy done, and they’re a continent-wide organization. Since we’re travelers, we also have the guild’s protection against forceful conscription, you know? A niche guild for bards won’t be strong enough to do that for us!”

… That is actually pretty logical.

He continued, “That’s why, we just did the next best thing really. Made an unofficial adventuring company. ‘Bardic Inspirational Music,’ we call us, and that probably spread the guild thing around to you. 21 bards around C and D rank, all adventurers, all working to bring music around while keeping ourselves company and safe during Quests. Haha, it does mean our purse is pretty light, very light, to be honest.”

His eyes began to glisten like gold, prompting Rajah to growl at him to return him back to reality. “Y-Yikes, ahahaha… So, yeah, a job sounds like a good thing. We need money… and if you are a dragon princess as you said, then it could be pretty good for us. But, that job you mentioned, turning this city into a music festival? As I said before, Sounds like a pipe dreeeeeeaaaaaam! ♫ No matter how much we sing, we can’t ‘fill this city with music,’ ma’am.”

True. The city by itself was already super loud even without the music as the normal hustle and bustle would drown out simple singing. Add festival goers and more merchants, and even the finest music cannot defeat the loud background of hundreds of people chatting in unison.

However, what would happen if you gave every single singer a microphone and speakers? All made using wind magic for easy transportation? Probably impossible for now, since I needed Grimnir’s help to actually make something similar to a lavalier microphone and portable stereo without me around.

But for now, [Aerokinesis] just had to do.

Activating the skill, I slightly increased my volume, just loud enough for everybody to hear me over the outside sounds. “Maybe, but an idol’s job is to siiiiiiing, loud and with flare, breaking through the norm! ♫”

“Whew, nice singing.” Desmond gave me an approving nod.

“Yeah, yeah, that! Different, right? I told ya guys it was different!” The archer from before shouted so loud in excitement he silenced anybody else who wanted to give back feedback. “So chilling, but at the same time, it’s so filled with energy! Oooooh, please, please, once more! That opera voice, and now this singing! Aaaaaaaaaaah! Oh Gods!”

The guy fell onto his knees, prostrating before me.

WTF?!

“Oooh, so that’s why he’s been talking about how our singing has gotten old. Sheesh.” One of the female bards, a katzune, gave me a wry smile as she said that. “Know how to make a gal jealous, ma’am. Thought I was good.”

“Same, Minim. But, come on, got a taste. We can do that, too! Ahem!” Another female bard declared while pulling out her harp. “Fee—”

“Wait, stop!” I stopped her, before explaining to her and everybody else about my [Aerokinesis] and how I had a test for them. “I want to play a game with you guys. It’s called ‘shiritori,’ and is directly translated into Common as ‘take the end,’ and it's about saying a word using the last letter of the previous one.”

Of course, there was the English version of Shiritori called “Word Chain.” Since I had to translate either words into Common, I chose the one which came into my mind the quickest. Also, technically, there were more rules to the game, but for now, anything was allowed as long as we followed the “take the end from a word” one.

“Last word?” That same bard, a young human, raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, Desmond sang ‘Sounds like a pipe dreeeeeeaaaaaam! ♫’ which ends with the letter ‘m’ so I started with ‘Maybe, but an idol’s job is to siiiiiiing, loud and with flare, breaking through the norm! ♫’ You see? Rajah, help me out.”

[“Yes, Master!”] My virigress sprang up in joy, swinging his white tail around. [“Master is the best singer, best idol, oh mreow and mreow, Rajah likes! ♫”]

Eeeh, yikes! I felt second-hand cringed hearing Rajah's off-tuned singing, despite it literally being telepathic! Shouldn’t it sound good, at least?!

The same reaction happened to the bards. Instead of questioning the voice in their head, I could hear them mumble how bad Rajah’s singing was. However, I couldn’t tell that to him with how he stared at me with big, round, bubbly eyes! I picked him up, protecting him from everybody’s stares, even Neill’s twitching eyes.

“You did good, Rajah! Practice more!” I shouted, forcing myself to say that.

[“Yes, Master!”]

“Soooo, let me get this straiiiiiiight, 21 voices to impress you so our lives caaaaan… ♫”

“Nudge fooooooorwaaaard ♫”

“Don’t underestimate us, gals! We’ve been in this business for long enough to see what you want! ♫ … Wow! That was loud! Goddess Zephira be thanked, if everything Geddi said was the truth, ya should be a ‘etter mage than me, ma’am.”

“Hiehiehie!” I clapped my hands together so fast it would be impossible for most to see, too engrossed by how the three women of the band sang. They tried to imitate my style, and while not anywhere perfect, they showed off some of their habits and intonations when they sang.

“Wooo, yeah, you’re right. That is some nifty magic there!” Desmond pulled out his lute. “So, you want us to sing with that, eh?”

“Not only that.” I snapped my finger, causing a small spark, before [Aerokinesis] began playing out instruments, composing a new melody for everybody to follow. “I can empower your voices to reach throughout the city, but I need to know you’re up to the job. Do you mind if we play with this? Bit weird, I know, but musicians need to get out of their comfort zone, yeah? Hmm, how about it?”

I played jazz, something medieval troubadours couldn’t possibly know due to a lack of the necessary instrument to perform it. But, at the same time, it was chill and easy to follow, perfect to test them without overwhelming them.

Desmond scoffed sarcastically as I smirked at him, grinning back fearlessly. “Hooo? ‘Ear that, peeps? We can’t let out pride as bards get talked down like that. New and catchy, I get you, ma’am. That is some catchy jingle. Alright, challenge, accepted. Somehow, I get the feeling Gedard’s intuition is right. Think you’ll be a great muse, ma’am.”

“‘Course, ya donk!” the archer prostrating before me shouting. “Ahhh, I can’t believe I get to sing before you, my lady! Oooh, let me start! Ahem, T—”

“Trekking through the daayz! ♫”

I snapped my head around to that raspy voice, only to see Neill averting her face from me, looking slightly red. That singing was the same “speaking voice” Neill showed off before, but due to the short stanza, it was hard to hear it audibly.

“Hiehie…” I couldn't help but smile. I didn’t know why Neill would suddenly sing that, especially after she told me she didn’t want to perform, but I appreciated her trying, once again.

It felt… good to hear a family member trying to sing with me. Guess I did force it on Saori a bit, but that didn’t really work. Neill seemed… Nah, it was better to leave that thought alone.

“Zealous moments we could always experience ♫” Due to Neill’s weird pronunciation from her rushing her line, I had to adapt.

“Each person to themselves ♫” Desmond followed.

“So much to hear, so much to sing foooooooor! ♫” Gedard ended the intro to the song.

And the song continued onwards with each person taking over for a stanza. Weirdly enough, we entirely forgot about the time after we went through all 21 bards, continuing for a second round! Eventually, I had to stop us before we got to the third round. The bards were fully engrossed by it, not wanting to stop as it was fun to them.

I told them I was satisfied with them, and that I needed their ability to adapt on the fly with the lyrics. I didn’t have the time to write or coordinate everything. It was literally impossible right now, especially with 21 people. Tomorrow would be mostly ad lib, so I had them do this test for that reason.

And they passed without any problems.

They told me they were pretty surprised to hear me want them to perform at such a scale on a day’s notice, but they still took on the job as long as they could request free white grace — so healing magic — to fix up their throats if they needed it. I would be spending mana tomorrow like crazy, to the point I wouldn’t be surprised if random monsters were to spawn. So what was a few more spells?

With that agreed upon, they told me they would write some melodies and prepare a bit, as I requested them to keep their music theirs, while I would perform my concert using my style. It would separate us enough to make us feel unique, while not annoying too many people who didn’t like my songs.

“Neill, thanks for coming.” After we were done with the bards, our group started walking home, where I confronted Sis on what she did and how she even participated in the second round! “I know you didn’t want to, but you still did, and that means a lot. You know?”

“… I’m your older sister. I can’t let you have all the fun by yourself.” Neill had a small fluster, still not willing to stare me in the eyes.

“Hiehie,” I pushed her shoulders slightly. “… I’m sorry.”

“Hmm?”

“Sorry for forcing you to rap with me. I know you didn’t want to but I didn’t really notice it after that game. I was quite selfish.”

“Try eccentric.” I felt my heart pierced, seeing the irony as I called Mother weird, too. “But, I guess that is okay. We, you know, aren’t very normal beings. We got some weird habits and so on, and yours is your music. Mine is well—”

“Your appearance and how people look at you?” I guessed, correctly even when Neill let out a sigh. “Renee kinda already gave it away. Even the fact that you’re so focused on fashion and how your body looks… Is that why you don’t like to take that form?”

We were outside, on the streets, we couldn’t exactly say we were dragons, right?

Neill’s eyes closed up a bit, staring at the ground as she answered, “I… I’m a hybrid, don’t forget. I don’t really look ‘normal.’ A bit freakish, you know. I already told you how others made fun of me because of that, not to mention how my mom and I are lesser scalekins compared to father’s other wives and children. Feels like I’m a nobody, if I can’t even get those under me to respect me.”

“And that is why you’re traveling around, participating in tournaments, as you know what you do best and if that can get your praise, then even better. That is your ‘gluttony,’ your need. You want to not only look good, but also important for your mother.” The moment I got the guess correct, all the weird habits I noticed about Neill came to me, flooding me with a wish to be answered.

And that is why I probably hurt her when I mentioned her being stuck in the Envy stage.

“…” Neill stayed silent, but that was enough.

Now it made sense why Neill had such a weird reaction when I mentioned her being stuck with her [Battle Frenzy] training when we fought those grimgarians in that tunnel underneath Renee’s home. Renee was correct with how Neill was self-conscious of her own appearance. Maybe that was the reason why she couldn’t break through her Envy.

Which meant, I really did kinda hit a nerve. Everybody deserved to look how they wanted to, that was why Earth’s plastic surgery and dermatology was so successful. In this case, she made her humanized form look attractive for humans, even boosting it with her interest in fashion. However, from the sound of it, she seemed to hate her normal form ‘cause others ridiculed her for looking ‘freakish.’

In the idol industry, appearances mattered as much as your reputation, your talent, and your ability to do fan service. Maybe even more, considering how rabid extreme “fans” and haters could be if they didn’t like how a girl or dude looked. The eyes ate, too.

Sure, I was blessed with being attractive, but considering how the idol industry expected you to look “divinely,” I probably would have been cajoled into getting some plastic surgery back on Earth, if I had made it as an idol. I couldn’t say I was immune to this. The fact I was always in my moderate form already was proof I was vain.

‘Cause I was targeting humans and beastmen with my concert and work as an idol… But, maybe it was time to shake up this industry standard. That was one goal with my idol life in this world. But, would humans and beastmen accept me as an actual “dragon idol?”

At the very least, I didn’t really care what others would say about my sister’s looks. She was still my family.

“You know, I won’t laugh. We don’t really have a ‘norm’ for our family, yeah? I mean, you told me my five step-mothers are all different! We aren’t a normal family, haha!” I joked, bringing Neill to giggle a bit. “Mother even admitted she was a bit disappointed that I wasn’t a Nordor, you know? That my scales are different to hers. See, even my own mother thinks I’m a bit of a weirdo. So, you don’t have to hide your embarrassment from me. You’re my big sis. My first… and only sibling I know. We only met a few weeks ago, but I can already say that I. Love. You. Hiehie!”

“Pfff! You’re too naive to trust people that quickly, you skink!” Neill grabbed my head with her arm, before rubbing her horn on mine, grinning teasingly. “I could be one of your damn enemies and I might have just fooled you! … Pff, stupid joke.”

“Hiehie. Bad joke, yeah. Please, no backstabs.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, well, as long as our goals don’t differ too much.” Neill admitted with a caring smile. “Just like the tournament. I don’t care if you are family, I will push you aside to win. That’s… how I was raised. That is how our home and neighbors, and so many others raised me. Still, family is important… that is what father always told us.”

“… He doesn’t want the same to happen to us, huh?” I spoke of the civil war where my dragon father had to kill his siblings to take the throne.

“Mhmm. That is why Wendriosa and Kahalameet are idiots. Fighting against each other like that. They should be our older siblings, but they act like whelplings. We all have different goals in life and… dragonkins can be pretty eccentric, as you noticed. Even if they don’t want to involve us or our other siblings, it will happen. Father won’t die anything soon, but the fight for the throne can still be waged.”

Wendriosa and Kahalameet? My oldest sister and brother respectively, if I remember correctly.

“Or, you know, a third faction can be made. One against them, to stop them.” I shrugged. “But, for that, we need to be united ourselves. So, do me a favor to share a bit more about yourself, big sis. I want to see your true form. I swear I won’t laugh, promise~”

“Shiehahaha, you skink, do you really think that’s possible? When you don’t even know how weird our other siblings are? Or are you trying to return to Kargryx, following your mother’s request?” Neill joked around with me, before becoming silent and taking a deep breath. “… Maybe. Maybe during the fight, when I need to. But…”

I grabbed her hands, having noticed they were shaking a bit.

“Just like the concert, you don’t have to. Do it when you’re comfortable, alright? I’ll wait. We both have enough time for that.”

“…” Neill stared at me, flabbergasted at how to answer.

Feeling this was a good time to reveal my own insecurities, I took it. “You know I want to be an idol, yeah? We have to look good for our audience, and, well, I don’t know if the humans can accept me if I show them my dragon form. My friends mentioned how I looked extremely scary to others. I’m worried…”

Sure, I showed my dragon form in Griffonpeak, but when I revealed myself, most of the adventurers and soldiers I wanted to help only felt scared of me. I was a pretty big dragon, after all. Sure, it resolved itself with the king’s help, but I was worried the people here would reject me. I knew I had to let my music do the talking, but it still felt unnerving how I wanted to show-off my dragon form more.

Neill nodded. “… Now you made me really curious. Now I want to see how you actually look, little sis.”

Neill had only seen my minor dragonewt form.

“Haha, see? Back at you, I want to see my ‘real’ sister.”

“Shiehie… You know, technically, you shouldn’t be showing anybody your real form. Technically, not showing anybody you’re a dragon is the correct move! Just saying, I met some dragonslayers before and uuuuurgh! A nightmare, those freaks. Real lunatics!”

“Oh really?” I raised an eyebrow, once again hearing how dangerous dragonslayers were, only to shrug it off. “Well, if those guys come back, then don’t worry! Your little sis will protect you!”

“Oi, don’t get ahead of yourself! If somebody’s gonna do some protecting, it’s gonna be me, you hear? Honestly, I do want to get some revenge on those bastards anyways! … Pff! Hahahaha!”

“Hahahaha!”

It honestly felt like we got closer.

“Mreeeeew!” Our attention suddenly darted down to Rajaha, who was looking at us displeasingly. [“Rajah wants to talk, too! Feel like third party!”]

Oops.

To make up for it, I grabbed the big virigress up and carried him for the rest of the way. On the way, we also noticed Amelia packing up the stall with everybody else, saying they were done for the day and that it was a huge profit for them. I was glad to hear it, and would be awaiting them tomorrow.

Once back in the subspace, I learned Rita quickly gave up on the whole idol thing as she was too enraptured by mother’s storytelling how she witnessed Kramps and her father ascend to godhood. In addition, Rita was running out of energy for the day, as it was nighttime. In other words, Rita couldn’t perform tomorrow.

I tried to train Neill now that my backup plan with Rita failed, only to notice how hard it was to teach Neill to follow the beat properly. I honestly thought she was tone-deaf! Suffice to say, we didn’t manage to get anything spectacular ready. I needed to sleep, after all.

In the end, even Neill wasn’t stage-ready. Needless to say, I kinda blew it expecting a big miracle. Guess Neill was right to call me eccentric with my wishes.

Regardless, I still found the evening not a waste. Sure, the whole day was a rollercoaster of emotions, but so was life. Dangers were coming for us, for Elyonda and its royal family. However, I was ready.

Aurora and my family were ready.

Let us welcome those jerks with songs they will never forget!

A note from AbyssRaven

Reminder that I am still with my grandparents, so I do apologize the chapters being slower. Just not enough time to write, considering how long my chapters usually are. Also, this chapter was a ton of fun to write. Really get a kick when it's more musical orientated. Even if writing songs is pretty hard. Also pun title!

Anyways, song for today is from "Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 1." Yes, one of the forgotten Persona games. Song is "School Days," the OST for the main world movements within the school. Rawr

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Side Story 38: A Kirin’s Uncertainty.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #3 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! It works on a subscription base now, so pay when next month comes!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

“Awwwwwwwww, why can’t we just stay at theirs? Have you tried their beds? Fluffy, like the clouds! Waaaah, I just want to find a plot of soil and just go to sleep there, not trek back to the port to sleep with all the fish!”

“Shush, you. I flew us over here, what do you mean by ‘trek,’ huh?” Fargryneill complained to Rita as they both entered their inn room, feeling refreshed after they took a long dip in Aurora’s hot spring. Still, despite it being far past midnight, both could still hear the noisiness of the harbor.

Drunk sailors, captains getting their ships ready, and shady-looking characters running around like nocturnal rodents. Nothing unusual even in the city itself, and it was even more appropriate since the festival was still going strong. Still, outside these loud minorities, the day had ended, and it was time for the responsible and sensible to rest their bodies for tomorrow’s day.

After a most eventful day, sleep and quiet were what Fargryneill and Rita wished for.

“…” Fargryneill looked at the simple inn room with a blank stare, feeling like something was missing.

“Hmm?” Rita stopped herself, turning around to see her friend had not moved an inch from the door. “Are you alright?”

“Hmm? Oh, nothing, just, you know, feels empty. Renee would always be the first to return to the inn,” she stated, reminding Rita of their missing companion. “Haaa, can’t believe she would run off like that, but I guess this is her home. She always rags on about how her country needs to change and how I, as a dragonkin, should help out since Kramps is Aurena’s subordinate. So annoying.”

Rita nodded. “Mhmm. But, it is part of her charm, right? I’m relatively new compared to how long the two of you traveled together, but honestly, I noticed you kind of need her to control you, Fargryneill! You run around like crazy without her!”

“Oh, shut up.” The dragonkin closed the door, before throwing the dryad onto her bed roughly.

“Waaaah!”

While Rita recovered, Fargryneill fell right into her own bed, letting out a deep sigh. She closed her eyes, before blowing out air from her mouth, sounding like a horse for a moment.

“Hey, don’t worry about her! Everything should be alright!” Rita, misunderstanding the situation, shot up from her bed, wanting to cheer up her saddened friend. “Once those big bad grimgarians arrive, I bet you can just blast—”

“Nah, it’s ‘kay. I’m not worried about that.” She waved her hand lazily. “I kind of get what that woman is thinking and we'll see what she’s planning after all this blows over. When it comes to her ideals, she’ll follow through with them without fail. At least, that is one thing the both of us have in common. I’m just not so sure if I'll want to stick around with her after everything is done.”

“Hmm? Ooooh, I get it! Family, right?” Rita hit the bullseye.“B-But, wouldn’t that mean that our party… would have to disband? Our adventure! The three of us!”

“And we told you the two of us only traveled together because we benefited each other,” Fargryneill bluntly answered, silencing the dryad as she solemnly continued listening. “The same thing with you, Rita. We came together because we all could benefit from each other. It isn’t uncommon for adventurer parties to disband once their goals have been fulfilled. Or, can you imagine Renee leaving with us?”

“…” Rita did not respond, leaving Fargryneill to let out another long sigh.

Two years… I guess it’s been a good run. Hmm, can’t believe all this happened because of that encounter.

Dragonkins from Kargryx who travel the world on their adulthood pilgrimage rarely do it with companions, mostly because it would be hard to hide their draconic heritage when someone was around with them. Although not a rule, all fledglings — dragonkins between the age of five and 100 — were taught how revealing their true natures would only inconvenience themselves, as it would attract dragonslayers.

The trip’s purpose was to teach young dragonkins about the world before they returned home with this newfound knowledge and strength to make a living for themselves in Miononbolax or Loatryx. However, it also had the secondary purpose of helping dragonkins become self-sufficient and independent from their worrisome parents. At least, that was what Eltharion, the current Dragon Emperor, envisioned when he founded this tradition.

And part of becoming independent was to face death and the reality of life.

Although many dragonkins were arrogant and thought dragonslayers were insignificant, many learned just how wrong they were a little too late. These adventurers weren’t known as “dragonslayers” for no reason. And should the fledgling perish, their parents would nevert know about it. Their remains would never be sent back home, as all slayers would use the young fledgling’s parts to further strengthen themselves.

This was a truth every parent drilled into their children. Fargryneill had been raised the same, and was one of the reasons why she disliked Hestia's brazenness. She was worried for her. She was flabbergasted that Hestia would tell the world she was a dragon princess. No matter your status in draconic society, most dragonslayers weren’t the type to really reason with their “material source.”

As most dragonkins would rather not travel with another of their kind, it would lead to most becoming lone wanderers. If a dragonkin met another on their pilgrimage, they would exchange pleasantries, but their pride wouldn't allow most of them to team up. And this pride meant they thought of themselves as superior, even compared to elves.

Father’s teeth, sure was a brat.

Fargryneill’s belligerency used to be even more pronounced, a case of small dog syndrome as a self-defense method she had developed during her time in Kargryx. Not only was she a kirin, a lesser dragonkin that was already smaller compared to others, but she was also a dragon mix. Her appearance was different from either of her parents, being almost chimeric. This caused a lot of problems for her, something that Hestia just realized a few hours ago.

The various dragons bullied and pushed her around despite her royal status, and her half-siblings could only do so much to protect her unless they were with her 24/7. Fargryneill wasn’t just the youngest after Hestia, but she was also far younger than any of her siblings. All of them were already done with their pilgrimage, with the nearest of her siblings to her age was 81 years old, compared to Fargyneill, who was 26.

Respect could only be earned. Even if you were the child of Eltharion, the strongest dragon in the world, you didn’t deserve any dragonkin’s respect for that. A fact Fargryneill knew too well, affecting her desire to make a name for herself. To make her respectable and known by others, to make sure her mother and clan wouldn’t worry for her.

And this history caused her to lash out at quite a lot of people during her early pilgrimage years. She was prone to begin fights just to test herself, make others respect her through violence as she had been taught by her harassers. While those with a warrior mindset enjoyed the challenge, many more reasonable people found her obnoxious or scary. And these situations rarely ended peacefully.

“Fight me!” she would demand, and if one were to reject her proposal, she would become abrasive and deride them as below her in a similar fashion as those who once did it to her. And this rude attitude would also transfer to her adventurer work. Lacking self-confidence, Fargryneill would “do good” to entice people to praise her.

And this eventually blew up in her face when she patronized the villagers of a village in the Kingdom of Astraford, the country north of Divide where Hestia experienced a problematic border control. The kingdom was paranoid when it came to non-holy mages, believing all of them spies from Aleistunum.

During the subjugation of a horde of monsters, Fargryneill showed off her abilities without care, not taking into consideration how the villagers saw her as more of a threat than the horde. When she came for her reward, the villagers wanted to chase her out for being a “wild mage.” Instead of de-escalating this situation, Fargryneill went bombastic, throwing insults and crude remarks at them before ending it with a “threat” to pay up or face the consequence.

The girl might have been a brute, but she was no fool. She was intending to report this to the Hunter Guild, which would prompt the guild to ban the village from issuing Quests for a violation of the rules. However, due to the phrasing, the villagers misunderstood her intentions as wanting to destroy and kill them if they didn't pay.

Coming back after three days, Fargryneill returned for her reward, only to notice some unusual auras emitting from the place. Not understanding what they were, she turned herself completely human, only to be confronted by the fact the villagers somehow managed to hire a party of dragonslayers.

Fargryneill was baffled. Although official dragonslayers were some of the most expensive hunters to hire, these rambunctious people were usually pretty gracious when it came to “protecting a village from a dragon.” Mostly, they were only interested in the dragon part. So, the village managed to hire them with the money they had originally promised Fargryneill by stating, “a dragonewt wants to massacre us!”

Dragonslayers knew about the adulthood pilgrimage and how dragonewts hated them like pests. It would be easy to determine if this dragonewt was a dragon or not by their reaction. Once they announced themselves to Fargryneill, the young kirin was reminded of the gruesome stories dragonslayers would do to their kind. She didn’t feel any anger for this betrayal, she only felt the fear of dying, a death that would never, ever reach her mother.

It would mean the world would forget about her. Her gluttony activated, and without saying another word, she fled.

If she had been a dragonewt, the dragonslayers wouldn’t have done anything. They didn’t care about a bunch of fanatical beastmen, but the way she ran away like a scared mouse? They knew they had a target. With psychopathic smiles, they chased after her.

With gear and magic items designed to hunt and kill dragonkins, they were fully prepared to tackle Fargryneill and her dragon paths. She was hounded through fields, woods, and even in the mountains. A whole month went by, and her hunters basked in the exhilaration of the chase. Showing no signs of exhaustion, unlike the kirin.

Like bloodhounds, they wouldn’t let Fargryneill run away until either side was dead.

In the end, too tired to run away, Fargryneill decided on a gamble. She broke off her kirin horn — fully regrowable like Hestia’s sun core — and transformed into her kirin-dragon form for the first time in four years. Her hatred for her own form disgusted her, and she only assumed it to survive.

They battled, but it was clear to Fargryneill she was far too weakened to actually be able to put up a fight. However, this was part of her plan: show them her real form before escaping and assuming a new appearance. She managed to cause a smokescreen by exploding the cliffside they fought on, before hiding away in a nearby cave, though wounded.

With the enemy gone, the exhaustion of a month of chase brought her down on her knees and into a deep slumber. Three days passed before she woke up, only to be shocked to find a fire and an armored person next to her.

She was startled, only to groan from her wounds. She looked down, noticing they were actually treated. The person introduced herself as Renee, a fellow adventurer who found her being chased by dragonslayers and then unconscious in the cave.

“They left already. I told them I saw you flee into the nearby forest. If we go through this tunnel, we should land in one of the dwarves’ mines, I think,” Renee soothed her, trying to gain her trust.

Renee, naturally, wasn’t convinced and tried to run away, but the exhaustion in her body wouldn’t let her. She was also scared as she was showing her detestable form to this stranger, fearing it would make her a joke to her. However, Renee didn’t mind it, in fact, she didn’t say anything about it.

Fargryneill was so worried she would laugh, but over time, as they spent time together, the young kirin began to feel more comfortable. She couldn't worry about it forever and eventually asked the armored adventurer why she hadn’t laughed at her for her appearance yet. “Was it fear?” she asked.

“Everybody has things they aren’t happy about their appearance about,” Renee replied, only to take off her helmet and speak with her natural voice, instead of the man’s voice she made for herself. Fargryneill’s eyes widened, but she didn’t say anything. “I have no problem about my gender, but being male would make my life far easier. I have no right to judge you. But, not like I can do much about this, so it would be better to start loving yourself, dragon.”

… Renee.

[“… Why did you help me?”] Fargryneill asked back then, questioning why a human would help out an “abomination” like her.

“Can’t really say, other than them laughing like lunatics while you cried and called for your mother behind a rock. I felt like you needed help more, and that is what a knight should do.”

Really felt like dying back then…

A coincidence in the mountains, from which a friendship bloomed.

It was this acceptance and pity that led Fargryneill to like Renee, despite how often the two would banter by insulting each other’s appearance. And this helped the two form a party, from which Fargryneill learned humility and how to act like a human, while Renee the joy of helping someone and her own code of knighthood.

Instead of issuing challenges to everybody she met, with Renee’s help, Fargryneill learned about tournaments and how she could not only gain fame but also the cheers from people to help her find the self-confidence she had in herself now. With her horn regrown and her mane-like hair to give her a new appearance to fool the dragonslayers, Fargryneill made herself known as a frequent tournament winner. Hiding in plain sight.

In return, Renee would drag Fargryneill wherever she wanted by using tournaments as a motivation. She not only had she gained a bodyguard but also a partner to do good to help her grow as a knight.

The two began inseparable, even when Rita joined them in Aleistunum.

And now, it seemed like their journey together would end soon. Renee’s goal was right before her, and Fargryneill didn’t know if she should stay with her… or hop onto the next boat, head out with her new half-sibling to defeat powerful opponents.

“Hestia… she’s sweet. Too adorable, you know. Like I want and protect her with every fiber of my being,” Fargryneill admitted to Rita. “Can’t believe she wants to see my kirin form. Feels weird how I actually trust her to not laugh at me.”

“Hey, what is that supposed to mean? I always asked you to show me your real form, too! Why do you treat Hestia differently?!” Rita was outraged, angered with how Fargryneill was more approachable with her own sister.

“You think of me as some fantastic beast to study, Miss Knowledge Seeker of Istari.” The kirin girl glared back. “Hestia, on the other hand… I don’t know. Unlike my other siblings or Renee, who always seem to pity me for my fears, Hestia just… showed comfort. Familial love, maybe?”

She was confused with her own thoughts.

“It’s hard to have talented siblings, you know? Hestia is pretty special with everything going on around her. I feel inadequate. Makes me… not want to lag behind or have her hate me, you know? The way she’s so relaxed and so open with her interests, but at the same time, she has this serious side… I feel drawn to her.”

“So, you don’t have to hide your embarrassment from me. You’re my big sis. My first… and only sibling I know. We only met a few weeks ago, but I can already say that I. Love. You.”

Jeez… that smile. The way she said it… It’s too adorable.

Hestia had won Fargryneill over with her charms.

Renee, while a good friend and party member, wasn’t always the most open friend. She also would always have an agenda concerning Fargryneill’s status as royalty, trying to persuade her to join the fight against the demonkins. Fargryneill also showed her passion and eccentricity around clothing and her appearance to Renee, but as someone who abandoned their appearance to become a knight, they never really clicked with this subject.

Whereas with Hestia, Fargryneill could feel the passion exuding from her. She felt jealous when Hestia expressed her musical interests to those 21 bards, causing her to break through her shell a bit to join in on the singing, despite not knowing how to do it properly. A person with as little self-confidence as Fargryneill, she hated having to do things she wasn’t sure she could do.

Not to mention how Hestia’s own attitude could bounce off the kirin’s own hobbies. It made her realize how fun it was to fully express yourself, reveal bits of yourself to others and just live normally. Live like a dragonkin, instead of all the hiding she had been doing to avoid embarrassing herself. It felt weird to her how her younger sister acted more like a dragon than she did.

And all of this became even more profound to Fargryneill once she learned how Hestia had her own issues with her appearance, how she was scared to show people her dragon form. It hit home for her. This little sister she thought was amazing for not only acting like a proud dragon, but also a leader with how she could order people around with her princess role, made Fargryneill jealous. Envious.

“My friends mentioned how I looked extremely scary to others. I’m worried…” Hmm, looking intimidating is good for a dragon, but she wants to look good for everybody.

This was the catalyst for their bond being strengthened. Fargryneill bonded with Renee for her own insecurities, but both of them rarely talked about this. Most of the time, they only joked about it to alleviate the other’s worries.

However, with Hestia, they talked about it. Expressed their wish to witness the other’s dragon form. Acknowledging each other’s worries, and, while it wasn’t a deep talk, it allowed them to get to know each other better. This “special” little sister was just like her.

It made her question why she was being jealous of her own little sister, who seemed to be going through her own problems as not only a dragon, but also as an otherworldler. To Fargryneill, she was still “naive” to the world of dragons. About dragonslayers, about how she had to prove herself to other dragonkin, and about the complicated relationships of their royal family.

It made Fargryneill want to protect her little sister. She could finally understand what her elder siblings felt when they protected her from her harassers — the urge to protect a younger sibling. She thought she felt it when they first met, when Hestia told her everything about herself, but the bond they created this night sealed it for the heavy-hearted kirin.

Which made her question which was more important to her: her friendship to Renee, or her new sisterly-love for her young sibling. Their goals deviated, and, once this whole Elyonda affair was over, both would go their separate ways. Who should Fargryneill follow? Or should she depart on her own, like before she met Renee?

Still owe you for helping me out. I’ll repay that debt by destroying all those grimgarians for you, my friend. So, make sure you survive and turn this country into what you dreamed off!

“… Well, whatever. Goodnight, Rita.” She pulled her blanket onto herself, closing her eyes to embrace the night. Her small smile couldn’t be seen in the darkness.

“… Sure. Goodnight.”

Fargryneill found happiness and joy with her new sister, but at the same time, her journey with Renee was about to end. The loyalty and friendship she felt for Renee for all her help made her question what she was to do in the future. After all, she couldn’t stay in one place, as she needed to level up and evolve to return back home.

But, that answer was for the future to answer. In the present, it was time to rest.

A note from AbyssRaven

A bit more sister insight. A chapter more focused on Fargryneill. Although Hestia is getting closer to her, Fargryneill wouldn't exactly tell her everything.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Side Story 39: The Warbringer’s Stroll.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #4 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! It works on a subscription base now, so pay when next month comes!

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The day had ended for both Hestia and Fargryneill as they slumbered through the affairs of the night. An invasion might have been ravaging the outskirts of the Yeos, and the rulers of the other countries of the Divide might be panicking during this night. Still, peace was audible for everybody to hear in Elyonda. After all, all was quiet, and this was bliss.

… But, let us turn back time for a moment.

To those in the know, there was a threat looming in the underbelly of this city. A threat that had been plotting not just the destruction of Elyonda, but the slaying of the sealed SS rank Kahalantheel as well. While not part of the plan, the resulting battle would destroy the city without a doubt.

Only, this threat hadn't expected to stumble onto another plan that was ongoing in this city, one that was far more nefarious than she would have been able to think of on her own. And even if she complained, she wouldn’t have been unable to dissuade them; instead, she were sucked into theirs. The autonomy she had wished for? Gone.

And now, she was skulking the city’s alleyways, avoiding any eyes as she moved towards her goal.

The third Warbringer of the demonkin prince of Wrath, Vifi’Yok. And instead of taking her place as one of the commanders of the demonkin’s army, she was moving through the city with the deftness of a former street urchin. With the addition of all her levels and her professional training, her movements were far too fast for anybody to catch her, even if they wanted to.

This level 150 demonkin was dressed in one of Bole’Taria’s — the demonkin’s kingdom — newest creation, invented by the demonkin’s lead artificer and innovator, the prince of Sloth. A black hooded trench coat, inconspicuous in the shadows, hiding the demonic aura of its owner from appraisal skills and even the eyes of a subordinate god.

It was indeed a tool that could even bypass a god’s eyes, although not strong enough to elude an Origin God’s. A creation that went beyond what the world would perceive as possible, another feat for the prince of Sloth in his continuous pursuit to break open the unknown. And a necessity the demonkins needed to continue their plans in the shadow, away from the eyes of those they plot against.

For the Origin Gods were forced by their own rules to not interfere too much in mortal affairs. On the other hand, the demonkins knew the subordinate gods could interfere by skirting Goddess Plesia’s rules without breaking them, despite earning them the Head Goddess’s ire. Evidently, as the Night Sisters, Bleidla, and Yeostar, amongst others, have been active concerning mortal problems. Not to mention, how the Night Sisters would periodically descend to the mortal world for entertainment.

As such, the prince of Sloth had made an item to counter their enemy’s vigilance. The demonkins had to move unnoticed, even from subordinate gods while hoping that the Origin Gods wouldn’t interfere, and as such this [Shrouded Vigilance Jacket] was created. Although very few existed, due to the difficult process to make them, they were all given to operatives for high-scale operations.

For example, to eliminate the Champion of Yeostar forever.

Okay, almost there. Coast is clear. Vifi’Yok darted her head around from the shadows, making sure nobody was on the streets, before her eyes focused on a lone food stall. The aroma of frying fat, honey, and fragassa was wafting in the air, overpowering even the puke and alcohol smell from the streets.

Even with her jacket on, Vifi’Yok still had to be careful to not get found out. The clothing was designed to suppress her demonic aura, but that also meant she had to suppress her abilities as well. It was a state similar to Ellaine and Klea’Hatma when they wanted to be incognito from demonkins. Not to mention, the clothing couldn’t hide their demon features.

Effects: [Excited: 4%] [Anger: 0%] [Fear: 0%]

Vifi’Yok wasn’t in L.E.P — low emotional potency — as she was giddy for a certain something. Although Wrath demonkins were dissuaded from fully expressing their emotions outside of battle, the rest of demonkin society encouraged everybody else to embrace their inner demon and desires. An antithetical ideology, and one many Wrath demonkins were forced to live with.

Although this race was prone to violence and was known to produce powerful warriors, when they kept their emotions in check, these demonkins could pass as humans as long as they hid their faces and skin. After all, their demonic features would only appear if they were emotional.

And what got this demonkin, one of the Warbringers of the demonkin army, so excited?

There she is!

The person this demonkin was staring at was Amelia, youngest daughter of Duke Greenveil of Artorias as well as Aurora’s most important business partner. Her other accomplishments included being the owner of Olive’s Garden, Artorias’s largest pastry and sweets company, and the future heir of the Sarlenzia company, the Greenveil Duchy’s largest merchant organization.

And Vifi’Yok had her eyes on the girl. Even if her visit to Elyonda was a surprise, the eyes of the demonkins and their supporters currently in the city wouldn’t miss the sudden success of a new food stall.

Two? Where are the other two? Hmm, that tall man looks more like a guard or soldier than some food stall merchant. The girl… posture, walking habits, skin… looks highborn. Why is she working like some lowborn?

The street was empty. Amelia and her grandfather were currently cleaning up their stall, ready to call it a day. While her grandfather and one of their knights had to deal with the local merchant guild, his granddaughter and their second knight were making sure to secure everything before they departed.

This was happening just moments after Hestia, Neill, and Rajah met them after their meeting with the bards. They weren’t out of the city just yet, but they also weren’t close. However, with a simple scream during this quiet night, Hestia would be able to make it over here in a matter of seconds.

Honestly, why only one guard? In the middle of the night? In a less populated street? Are they dumb? Any thief would strike now.

Vifi’Yok’s background as an urchin was speaking. She had stolen and killed for her survival in the demonkin kingdom, believing this was the only way for her to live. Although most of her targets were scum and trash — which she also considered herself before conscripting into the army — she had innocent blood on her hands. Although she hadn’t killed many soldiers, not even citizens, after becoming a soldier, she had no hesitation to do so for her country.

And Amelia right now was the perfect target for any lowlife.

‘Kay, gotta do this quick and quiet. No commotions and then out. This is my only chance, the best opportunity!

Vifi’Yok’s eyes locked onto Amelia as she moved out of an alleyway. Activating [Silence] and [Odorless], she moved through the street undetected by anybody. Without a Yeosian around, even Yeostar was blind to this encounter.

Without any hesitation, Vifi’Yok closed into the stall. Amelia’s knight did not detect her footsteps, and as such placed the prizes for the ring game into crates, leaving Amelia to clean the donut preparation area alone. And this was exactly what the demonkin wanted.

There was now nobody to stop her.

Now!

Vifi’Yok took a large step forward, her black eyes glistening out of her hood with her [Excited] jumping all the way to 18%.

“Eh!” Amelia’s body flinched as the small demonkin suddenly appeared in front of her. Although her voice eked out, Vifi’Yok was now close enough to kill her before she could scream.

It would only take a second for the Warbringer to rip the head off a normal noble girl. It was over…

…

“M-May I help you?”

“Yes, do you still have any donuts?” Vifi’Yok rattled her pouch of coins, showing she had money to spend.

… Yes, it was certainly over. Over with the whole sneaking.

“Excuse me!” Before Amelia could answer, her knight darted back the moment he heard her yelp, holding his hand in front of Amelia to protect her. “We are closed, unfortunately.”

Fast. Definitely a soldier, or maybe a knight? This girl is a highborn… Wait, what the devil?

“C-Closed?!” Vifi’Yok was shocked to hear that, only to quickly recompose herself before she let out her accent. “So you don’t have any donuts left? Can’t you sell any? I have money.”

“I apologize, but we ca—” The knight wanted to push the — to him — young girl away, not wanting to risk anything, but was interrupted before he could say it.

“Shouldn’t it be fine?” Amelia interjected, only for the knight to pull her away. Although they whispered, Vifi’Yok’s ears were strengthened by [Enhanced Auditory Sense].

“My lady, I know you wish to understand commoners better, but not now. We do not know when a thief will come. You must understand your position and how it’s nighttime. Not to mention, Lady Hestia is waiting for us.”

Hestia?

Vifi’Yok did not know the names of any of the members of Aurora. Although she knew the “Aurena dragon” was in the city, she was unaware what her name was. She had heard Saori, Tasianna, and Ellaine call out their names, but when they fought, she had not made any attempts to learn them.

Who cared enough to learn the names of ants?

“… I apologize. Doing business now would be foolish.” Amelia nodded, coming to her senses how precarious her current situation was. As a merchant, she had only ever had to do business within her own walls or in the noble and merchant district, places far less frequented by cutthroats and random demonkins.

“I apologize, but we cannot serve you. However, if you wish, you can come back tomorrow, we—”

“I want one now.” Vifi’Yok put her foot down, angering the knight.

… because I don’t know if you’ll be alive tomorrow! Or here, in the city. Your lord will just call you to escape to the Empire and I can’t get any more donuts!

Vifi’Yok did not know about Amelia’s association with Hestia, nor that she was the main distributor for the donuts. The last glazed donut Vifi’Yok ate came from a wandering merchant, who had bought plenty of donuts from the time the Sarlenzia company was in Gleisvale to sell in other cities and towns at a higher price.

As such, she mistook her for a noble lady from Elyonda. Believing the warning and war declaration had arrived from the grimgarians, she suspected that Yeos’s prince would warn his aristocrats by morning. If that happened, Vifi’Yok’s chance to get her claws on another donut would probably be zero. The moment the nobles departed for the Empire through the sea, the demonkins and their mercenaries would strike.

She believed Amelia was the original donut merchant, as she had not seen another person sell them. But, Vifi’Yok didn’t know Amelia wasn’t Yeosian, but Artorian and could travel from one place to the next with Hestia’s nexus.

She only followed the tip of her apprentice and adjutant, Hee’Rlak, once news of the donut stand arrived. She observed the stand, learned the pastries were called donuts, and all she could think up until now was that she needed to eat it. Although her jacket hid her presence from even Yeostar, she still didn’t want to risk being found out in broad daylight. As such, to her, this was her last chance.

Troubled by her response, Amelia didn’t know what to say, forcing the knight to grab his sword as he felt this girl was acting rather suspicious. Vifi’Yok, on the other hand, didn’t react. She didn’t think of him as a threat, which only further aggravated the knight.

Ya wanna fight, punk? Come on, draw that stick. I’mma get my donuts one way or ‘nother! I can smell them!

“Please! That’s enough!” But before it could escalate, Amelia grabbed the knight’s hand, stopping him from following his instincts, and instead placed a wooden plate with two donuts in front of Vifi’Yok.

Ooooooh! Her eyes widened.

“They already got cold, but they should still taste delicious. I can assure you that. One honey-glazed, and the other with fragassa.” Amelia smiled like a merchant, noticing how the demonkin’s head tilted downwards and didn’t move an inch afterwards.

Effects: [Excited: 24%] [Anger: 0%] [Fear: 0%]

“…” Vifi’Yok gulped silently, trying her best to control herself before her horns manifested. She couldn’t reveal herself and endanger the plan.

Although she knew her jacket would prevent such an accident by dulling her demonic abilities, it was just a reflex she had developed over the years. Wrath demonkins were told and taught, especially in the army, to never let their emotions rampage.

“How much?”

“Free. You may take them.”

“What?!” Vifi’Yok’s head snapped up, almost revealing her face before she pulled her hood down in a split second, barely even leaving an after-image for Amelia to see. She did not expect such an answer. “… Where’s the catch?”

“None. Free of charge.”

“…” Vifi’Yok glared at her Amelia, and although she couldn’t see it, the latter could feel the pressure.

To the demonkin, she’d never known a merchant who would give away things for free. After all, most merchants or entrepreneurs amongst the demonkin were Greed demonkins, and although they kept the economy running well in Bole’Taria, without any trading partners, there was no influx of outside wealth. Their merchant guild had a policy against giving out free products.

“I swear to the Goddess, I am not tricking you.” Amelia immediately answered before her knight could react to the hostility. “This is my ‘pay’ for the night. I cannot sell you anything right now since we actually don’t have any products to sell right now. However, considering you want these so much, you may have mine. I am a merchant, not a scammer.”

“…?” Vifi’Yok’s face softened, now genuinely surprised and unable to reply. She looked at the pink and orange donuts, taking in their smell as she tried to think how to respond. “… Are you tricking me?”

“No, no! Take them already! Jeez!” This time, Amelia became annoyed at her customer’s weird response. She pushed the two donuts into Vifi’Yok’s hands. “My word, it is as if you were not listening to me.”

Goddess, just like Ellaine. Amelia wanted to facepalm herself as the girl’s indecisiveness reminded her of Ellaine’s previous personality, before she met Hestia.

Vifi’Yok herself couldn’t believe what just happened, reducing her [Excited] meter by 10% from how this was resolved. Looking up, she saw Amelia having a complicated face — due to reliving some memories of her childhood with Ellaine — and the knight’s aghast expression. When she noticed her hood move, Amelia gestured for Vifi’Yok to try them.

Without answering, the demonkin girl did just that, trying out the less interesting honey-glazed donut. The moment she took the blissful bite, her eyes shot wide open, freezing her on the spot.

I-It’s even better than the last one!

The few seconds the piece of pastry lingered in her mouth, the more her saliva filled it. The sugary delight spread inside it, engulfing her tongue in the delectable spectacle. Instantly, her [Excited] shot right back up to 24%. She was barely able to stop her emotions from reaching 25%. Even if her horns wouldn’t manifest, she had to remain composed.

“Good?” Amelia smiled, happy to see her customer enriched by this experience.

Vifi’Yok didn’t say anything. She couldn’t. She was too focused on controlling her emotions. To stifle this, she took another bite into the donut. And then another. More and more, the little bit of pastry disappeared from her hand, now resting in her belly.

She stared at her empty palm. She could smell the lingering aroma of the donut on her glove. She wanted to lick them clean, but held back, not wanting to look like a hungry beggar. She took a deep breath, before raising her head.

“It was good. Thanks.”

“Hiehie, that is nice to hear.”

“Hrrrm…” She shied away from Amelia’s warm and carefree smile, feeling awkward at what happened. “Why did you share this? If it’s a debt you wanted, I’m not the kinda you can reap it from.”

Because you look like a vagrant. Amelia thought to herself, seeing how the girl was hiding her figure with the hooded jacket she was wearing. Regardless of what she was, the fact the girl was hiding herself was clear. Amelia wouldn’t be able to hold her accountable for any debt, as she didn’t know who she was talking to.

“My lad—” Her knight wanted to stop her, but she spoke before he could.

“Well, you wanted it, no? Quite urgently even, with how you wouldn’t let us pack up for the night.” Vifi’Yok shrugged at her answer, but kept silent to the truth. “So, there you go. Besides, my benefactor has a soft spot for sharing her recipe to people, especially to those who like it as much as you did!”

“Benefactor?”

“Yes, donuts aren’t the only pastries we sell. All the recipes she gave me are—”

“W-Wait, they’re not?!” Vifi’Yok yelled out, surprised to hear there were even more unique snacks like this donut she just enjoyed.

Amelia flinched back a bit, shocked to hear the girl express herself so much. “U-Uh, that is correct… Well, I can’t say too much. So, please, don’t mind it too much. There is no debt you need to repay.”

Easy for you to say. Let it gnaw on my conscience. Vifi’Yok sulked, finding that answer unsatisfactory. Hearing her not have to pay her back for the donut made her believe she just stole from Amelia, a fact the demonkin found absolutely revolting.

Thievery? She wasn’t a street rat who had to live off crumbs anymore, she was a proud soldier of the demonkin army, and was even adopted into the Yok family for her military career. She was a Warbringer, a reaper of the battlefield, not some goblin who had to scavenge to survive. Her adopted father taught her how to act like a proud wrath demonkin, how to take pride in herself as a person, and how there was honor in accepting her past and using it as a catalyst to grow.

She would steal lives as a soldier now, but she wouldn’t allow herself to stoop back to petty thievery. She didn’t care if her subordinates hated the humans or beastmen, or whatever the northerners thought of them, she wouldn’t allow anybody to steal or pillage under her. They would provide recompense, or they would be treated like criminals in her eyes.

Then again, it wasn’t like she could escape her own past. Hypocrite or not, she understood the value of becoming better than where you started. After all, might was right. The army was a place for meritocracy, where your power and feats mattered more than your birthplace.

“In any case, I hope you enjoy the other one. If you want any more, come back once morning comes, alright? Of course, you would have to pay~” Amelia clapped her hands, joyfully thinking about all the profits she would make tomorrow. “We’ll be selling more than donuts tomorrow!”

“… Maybe.” She gave a half-hearted reply. “Oh, this benefactor of yours. Who is she?”

Vifi’Yok’s curiosity for the northern realms — anything outside of Bole’Taria, really — resurfaced. How could someone turn fried wheat and honey into such a delicious piece of pastry? Sure, its recipe was obvious now that the idea existed. People experimented with food all the time, but most of the time they would only make things worse or just slightly better.

To Vifi’Yok, this donut was the best piece of bread she had ever tasted. To her, it was a symbol of the north’s bountiful lands and how they would continuously improve their culture despite there being a war. To her, it was progression, and something she was envious of.

As such, who was this person who created such a thing? Who could invent and think of something that breaks the mold?

“Oh, you should have heard about her. Lady Hestia, that is her name.”

I should have? Hestia? There is that name again.

As mentioned before, Vifi’Yok did not know about Hestia nor could she remember the names of the members of Aurora. She only knew them as “Aurora’s pawns.” As she was also mostly hiding, she hadn’t heard much about the tournament, outside of her “enemy doing well in it.”

Hmm, a noble thought of this, huh? Just like Lord Sloth. An innovator, a changer of ways. Hmm, maybe we could get her on our side. Would be a shame to lose somebody… probably a human. Yeah, might be hard if you don’t worship the Edjurl gods already.

Vifi’Yok wanted to press Amelia for more information. Like many demonkins, she wanted to see her kingdom thrive. A certain amount of patriotic pride was instilled in her in the army along with the understanding that the outside world hated her and her kin, especially the Origin Gods.

However, unlike her Warbringer compatriots, she didn’t see how war could bring out the world the demonkins dreamed of. Even if the Edjurl gods were to take over Peolynca, would anythingit actually change? Vifi’Yok didn’t know what to make of these “true gods,” as she felt more inclined towards Marsven. The Church of Marsven, after all, was the second largest religion in Bole’Taria, almost rivaling the Church of Edjurl as the denizens considered the God of Darkness a “true god.”

Still, she was only a soldier, not a thinker. As clever or witty as she thought she was, she knew all the political and heavy changes were for the bureaucrats to make.

“Anyway, thanks.” Understanding she had been here for too long now, she excused herself. “Oh, and, be careful, yeah? You should escape east by morning, through the mountains into Aleistunum.”

“Hmm?”

And without elaborating any further on that, Vifi’Yok ran away with the pink donut in her end, only stopping after she made it back into an alleyway.

That’s the debt settled. Hope she listens.

Vifi’Yok let out a short sigh, letting out some of her excitement from eating a donut. She stared at the one she received and took a big bite from it, almost wanting to squirm from the sugary delight on her tongue.

Sooo, good! … Hestia, or whatever your name is, hope you listen to that girl. Flee and get out of the city through the mountains. Any other way, and you’ll die under Lord Envy’s plan.

The Prince of Envy, the current false pope of the Church of Aurena, was the conductor of the invasion plans in Elyonda. The goal was clear: the permanent erasure of the Champion of Yeostar. This included not only the destruction of the blood but also the extinction of the Yeosian royal bloodline.

They had every possible escape route covered, ready to pounce on any group they saw. Through the sea? The pirates and grimgarian ships would catch them. Through land and into the other Divide countries? They were being invaded right now.

Even if they tried to call for aid from the other countries, Artorias, Atadoro and Rakatheen were all being invaded by grimgarians right now. Astraford, Estralia, and Aureolis were all preoccupied with internal matters right now. The Empire couldn’t spare an army, and they wouldn’t be able to react in time before the plans hatched.

In other words, the demonkins had successfully isolated Yeos from any possible ally… outside of one.

Aleistunum, the Magical Capital.

Not only did they not manage to consolidate any powers there with their operatives, but an army of grimgarians also wouldn’t have been able to stay there for long. After all, the magical capital wasn’t just the home of the world’s leading mages but also the home of the Blood Fortress Drascul, the Floating Kingdom of the Vampire Queen Vivachel. Invaders wouldn’t be tolerated.

But, as long as Aleistunum wouldn’t help Yeos, everything would be alright for the demonkins. Even if Yeos and Istari had a pleasant relationship over 2000 years ago, it couldn't be said about the current Aleistunum and Yeos. And the demonkins were leading this mission under that assumption.

As such, the only to escape was through Aleistunum… or so the demonkins believed, unaware of Hestia’s nexus. So, either the royal family fled with their nobles to the Empire and got ambushed by the many pirates, or they would trap themselves in the Arena of Yeostar.

Just like in history, the royal family could make themselves and their soldier's undying as long as they had their armlets on. The perfect defense against an invasion force… unless a being of unimaginable destructive capabilities were to be unleashed on it. A being with a hatchet to bury into Yeostar.

… My prize. It has to be weakened. Lord Envy entrusted me to kill it. I will.

Karhalantheel. Release him, let him loose on Elyonda, and have him end another threat to the demonkins: Melloxtressa. And once either one of them were dead, Vifi’Yok would be allowed to unleash her full power onto the weakened fighter.

The Prince of Envy had given Vifi’Yok two devices for this mission: One aimed at “Aurena’s Hound” and the other at either the “ancient silver dragon” or Karhalantheel. Based on the intel gathered on her personality, the demonkin forces expected “Aurena’s Hound” to rush out towards the grimgarians, so Vifi’Yok had been given one of the tools to the grimgarians to eliminate her.

Vifi’Yok was aiming for this mission to succeed — her second major operation. She would not fail like in Estralia, she would succeed like the recent operations in Artorias and in the Empire. She would rise up with this success, to prove to herself and her superior, the Prince of Wrath, that she was suitable for her role as Warbringer.

Even if it would end a whole city and bring down innocent people with it.

“Mhpmf!” She took her last bite of her donuts. She chewed and enjoyed every bit of it, for it would most likely be her last.

Vifi’Yok’s original plan was to release Karhalantheel and then kill it for the glory of her kingdom, not realizing back then it would also bring ruin to the city. That was her plan, before she was made aware by the Prince of Envy of how he had his own scheme prepared there.

It had turned into a full-on invasion, and he had made Vifi’Yok the leading commander for it. However, that honor was merely in name, as Vifi’Yok’s only job was to kill Karhalantheel, while the invasion was being planned and managed by the prince and his associates. Although she didn’t have a hand in this plan’s creation, she was still following through with it, believing it was what she had to do as a soldier.

Another tragedy… like when Plesia destroyed our home.

For a Warbringer’s role was to win the war for the demonkins. Even if they had to drown a whole city with the might of a leviathan.

War crimes? Against their eternal enemies? An enemy who wish for nothing more than the genocide of their race? To the demonkins, it was only appropriate to respond in kind to the horrors they had endured from the Empire. Was it justified or not? Was this drastic measure worth the many innocent lives lost, even if they were the enemy?

The present leaves that for the future and the historians to consider.

Vifi’Yok licked her fingers before staring up to the dull orange moon, before sinking back into the darkness and her hole, awaiting the time to attack. She hoped Amelia would listen to her and escape the city before it was too late, wishing her well for the little kindness she gave her. Even if the humans were her enemy, she couldn’t really say if she hated them personally for killing her adopted father or if it was just how Bole’Taria’s culture.

… Nah, they won’t listen. Who listens to some random. Crap, if she dies, the debt will stick around, right? Mhmm, maybe I should…?

A small sliver of kindness, just like her adopted father gave her. What would be the best course of action for Vifi’Yok now?

… Can’t risk it now. If she stays around, I can probably get her out before the leviathan gets released. Dammit, if I fuck up this operation, my rank will get stripped! Fuck!

And with this indecisiveness, she wandered back into the night. None aware of her presence but a simple noble girl and her guard. Not wanting to possibly endanger her, Vifi’Yok also did not tell anybody of tonight’s event.

Darkness still looms… awaiting hope’s descent.

“… That was close,” Aurena stated at her desk, having finished watching Amelia’s vision. She let out a deep sigh, slumping on her seat, happy nothing happened. “Urgh, Hestia would have been livid if anything had happened. Good thing I can’t lose hair or get stomach aches from stress like mortals…”

Aurena took a sip from her tea, finally having calmed down after Amelia met Vifi’Yok. She hadn’t watched it in real-time, having been preoccupied with something else, until one of her angels informed her. She had watched what happened and was about to send Hestia over, only to stop once the video ended without any violence.

In fact, the Goddess was surprised to see a Warbringer not cause any trouble at all, even being reasonable and friendly by warning Amelia of the attack, even if vaguely. It could have been a massive incident. If anything had happened to Amelia, she was sure it would have had the same result on Hestia as when Eshe died.

Hestia would go berserk.

Her strong desire to not lose loved ones is strong. To not be alone, to always find human interactions. Her gluttony.

“… Was it a mistake?” Aurena considered her decision to not intervene.

At the same time, she didn’t know if Hestia could actually defeat Vifi’Yok at her current strength. Of course, with Tasianna, Fargryneill, and Larent around, not to mention Tehmrayn if needed, it was very possible to take down a level 150 behemoth like a Warbringer. Larent himself was incredibly powerful as a former Hands of Heaven, people meant to be on the same level as the elites of the demonkin army.

Aurena wasn’t a clairvoyant. Goddess or not, she didn’t have the gift to look into the future. She had to consider everything in the here and now, and even if she could slow down time for herself, the world down on Peolynca would continue turning. And at this moment, she had decided not to call Hestia.

But, I should probably warn her about it. It wouldn’t—

<Plesia: Stop.>

Erk?!

A chat message suddenly appeared on her admin window. Aurena instantly tensed up when she saw the name of the poster.

<Plesia: I won’t bother warning all our subordinates, but we six should be role models. I won’t warn you again, Aurena, dear.>

“…” Aurena froze on the spot, remembering the number of lectures and scolding she had received from Plesia. She was allowed to guide Hestia and grant her wisdom for her Quests, but a god should not meddle in mortal affairs.

Otherwise, what were gods but puppet masters? What made them different from their Edjurl relatives? If they were to control their followers around like chess pieces, they would only fall back into the same life as in their previous world. Seeing mortals as nothing but ants and well of energy.

<Aurena: Gods are> Aurena stopped herself from typing.

No… Elder Plesia is right. Father has his ways, I have my own. I can’t break the rules we set up.

<Aurena: Gods are guides. I apologize. I won’t say anything to Hestia.>

I’m sorry…

<Plesia: Thank you. Have more trust in her, dear. Do not forget, we are not their parents. Don’t stoop to those excuses. It is only arrogance.>

<Aurena: Yes, I understand, you do not need to repeat the same lectures, Elder Plesia… ~.~>

<Plesia: … When have you learned to use emotes ?_?>

Hiehie… Still, I’m sorry, Hestia. I can’t help you too much anymore. Yeostar, make sure you support her properly.

Aurena opened up a new chat. As an Origin God, she couldn’t go against the rules she set up with her compatriots. Plesia was correct, Origin Gods were supposed to be role models. However, there were ways to skirt around the rules like her subordinate gods. Plesia took the rules seriously… but she couldn’t punish anybody if they didn’t break them.

<MagicIsEverything: My muse! I am here!> Istari, God of Knowledge and Magic, responded with elation.

<BloodQueen-MistressVivachel!!!: Sister~ How are you, my Shining Light~> Meanwhile, Vivachel, Goddess of the Vampires, smiled as her elder sister was speaking with her.

Yeostar, I’m sorry I cannot tell you about this. In fact, I’m sure you’ll get yourself in trouble with how straightforward you are… I need some less ideal helpers.

The Origin Gods must not meddle in mortal affairs… but who said she couldn’t talk about her problems over some tea?

<Plesia: (ㆆ_ㆆ) … Prepare yourself for another scolding.>

… And I’ll vent that stress out on you, Hestia. I really wish you wouldn’t need me so much… but, good luck! Shine bright, my Idol!

A note from AbyssRaven

Back from vacation so the schedule should be back to normal. I'm re-energized and felt it easier to write a new chapter, although jet lag made it kinda hard. Anyways, hope you enjoyed it!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 343: Musical Flash!

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #4 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! It works on a subscription base now, so pay when next month comes!

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There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

No forgetti, this is an idol novelli. Rawr times three!

The dawn was here. The day had begun. Today was the tenth Harvestfest in the Peolyncian year of 2679, making it a LightDay. Today was a day reserved in honor of the Goddess of Light, Aurena, much like Sunday or the Sabbath would be for religions on Earth.

Heavily religious cities or countries in human territories would usually enforce a morning prayer in honor of Aurena, to display their faith in her and empower her with their piety. Countries like Aureolis, the Empire, and Astraford were prime examples of this. Even Yeos, while not as strict, encouraged their people to visit either a temple of Aurena or Yeostar for the day.

Especially during the Festival of the Stars, priests and warrior priests of Yeostar would walk through the city, singing prayers in his name and giving out street sermons during the first week of it, something Hestia had missed since she was in the port during this time. But, once again, another LightDay had come, and it would be the last for this festival.

However, strangely, none of the commoners or merchant families spotted Yeostar’s clergy up and about the city. The streets were far quieter than they expected. They saw the stall owners setting up, people making their way to their next stops, and kids enjoying the dawn before their chores began.

It was weird. Unexpected. “The Festival of the Stars cannot just begin without a sermon!” many citizens thought. The energetic prayers, the vivid retelling of Yeostar’s tale, and the muscular warrior priests marching through Elyonda’s streets, singing or playing instruments.

Although it felt off, time couldn’t be stopped. People began their walk to the local temples, beginning their day with prayer. For the next Champion of Yeostar would be chosen soon, and for that, every follower must give their time to pray for their strength. However, to most people, it felt too quiet. They expected today to be a grand—

“Feel the echoes of our voice ♫”

And out of nowhere, a woman’s voice appeared.

“Quivering the core of your very soul ♫”

Some of the churchgoers began to turn around, suddenly hearing the voice coming from behind them. However, strangely, there was no one. Those who were curious began to raise their brows at this strange phenomenon, but immediately turned around again as if nothing happened. Others just shrugged. Stranger things could happen after—

“Rally up your strength, you soldiers! ♫”

But this time, it was even louder and was accompanied by the soft repetition of the five chord through drums and flutes. Her voice was loud enough to break through the combined noises of the kids, adolescents, adults, and elderly. People could hear the music through all the talking, and those who were already suspicious, couldn’t believe what was going on. They turned, but they couldn’t see a woman singing.

“Be brave, find hope in it ♫”

And even stranger, everybody around the church was hearing it. It was audible for everybody to hear equally.

“Hey, you heard that?”

“What is that noise? It’s getting even louder.”

“Did some bard come around? Where is she?”

And the lack of an answer just confused the crowd. Where was this voice coming from, and why were others hearing it as much as they were? However, in the end, it wasn’t strange enough to make them care that much. Nothing bad was happening, so it was shruggable. Not like they could bother—

— and then KABOOM!

“Let STRIFE not frightened you away ♫

From the peace of the brilliant light! ♫”

Firework, something the Yeosians had never seen before, suddenly appeared above them, exploding in crimson, purple, and white. The loud kabang immediately caught people by surprise, followed by the singing becoming loud enough that people couldn’t just ignore it anymore as some random bard singing. It could be loud enough to be fitting for a festival.

“W-Woah, look!”

The way to the temples had multiple paths, each separated by buildings leading to a square where Elyonda’s two most prominent temples were.

In the commoners district, it was filled to the brim with people with a few farmers and villagers using their wagons as “cars.” In the merchant district, it was filled with carriages driving merchants and their families, while a few servants and employees were walking over to the square. It was comparable to traffic in the noble district, although the royal family and the visiting royalties weren’t accompanying them, having a separate personal sermon at the castle.

And everybody heard the singing. Everybody was wondering what was going on this morning. Everybody… saw her floating in the air. Everybody saw the white-robed shrine maiden standing above the temples, walking casually down mid-air, as if the very air were her stairs. She fluttered her clothes, revealing a shimmering dress with streaks of purple and silver underneath her robes.

The fireworks came from her, blanketing the blue sky above like stars. Radiant white flames burned from behind her like trails, pointing focus on her trained legs, her crimson-scaled tail, and white-flamed crown levitating over her head. Most who saw her immediately noticed her scaled tail, knowing who this young woman was, but were flabbergasted at why she was here and singing.

Until—

“And let the Star shine bright ♫

Inside your heaaaaaaaaaaartS! ♫”

The complexity of the instruments increased, aiding the woman as she raised her voice to captivate everybody with her singing. The flutes were exchanged with trumpets, while the drums began to play out like a marching band, booming and evoking feelings of pride and battle.

“Will you roar out to the world ♫

And stand tall next to our flag ♫”

But, that wasn’t the woman. It was the sound of a man’s voice. The people from below darted their eyes away from the girl, only to notice a moderately groomed man appeared from a roof, walking in the air as if he was ascending stairs. His voice wasn’t overly deep, but it had a sense of charm, enticing and grabbing everybody’s ears into the flow of the music.

“To seeeeeee the VERY TALE ♫

Of what the gods have in plan ♫”

Once again, everybody's heads moved away, toward the next singer standing in the air. A katzune woman was releasing her vocal cords, as the instruments reached the point of a triumphant march. The beating of the drums and the woman’s high-pitched voice caused everybody’s hearts to pump faster and louder.

And it all climaxed—

“So don’t cower away ♫

In your fears of the departed and be free! ♫?

Out of thin air, a man appeared, holding up a flag with Yeostar’s religious symbol, waving it around as his words challenged everybody in attendance. The flutes reappeared, bridging the song into a massive chorus where 18 more singers appeared in the air, now all walking on white flames. With the young dragonewt shrine maiden at the start leading them all, the volume of their voices exploded, to the point even the port was able to hear the commotion!

“Feel the echoes of our voice ♫

Quivering the core of your very soul ♫

Rally up your strength, you soldiers ♫

Be brave, find hope in it ♫

Let strife not frightened you away ♫

From the peace of the brilliant light ♫

And let the Star shine bright ♫

Inside your hearts! ♫”

With every stanza, with every line, their singing got louder. The confusion was brushed away, the music did the talking. There was no need for anybody to ask what was going on, as they all knew today was a festival in the honor of the Star of their country — Yeostar. The warrior priests’ singing wasn’t around this time, but instead, it was a shrine maiden doing the honor.

“Will you join in our chorus ♫

And make your life clear to hear ♫”

In a cappella style, the four women of this 22 group let out “aaaah”s as the music became quieter. They kept their tunes, even moving up and down as they sang melismatically. All to accompany the deep voice of a bovline shieldman, giving it the harmony it needed to be pleasant for the ears.

At the same time, the challenge issued before was given once again. This time, the voice sounded gruff — like a general or commander — causing the soldiers and knights in the crowd to unconsciously straightened their backs. The presence of the bovline looking down on them and his commanding voice was too hard for their muscle memory to ignore. Even if this man was a stranger, he and the female singers gave the song something heavenly, something they had to listen to.

“The same with the epics of the Knight ♫

That we feel safe under his watch ♫”

And now with the melismatic singing of the remaining male singers, the harmony culminated in the soldiers and knights unconsciously saluting, drawing the attention of everybody around them. Veterans and retired army men immediately understood what the lyrics meant, and what they were telling them. Tears ran down their eyes.

“So live up to your own songs ♫

And raise up your sword to the stars! ♫”

“““FOR YEOSTAR! FOR YEOS!””” They rose up, raising whatever weapon they had in honor of their god and country.

“Feel the echoes of our voice ♫

Quivering the core of your very soul ♫

Rally up your strength, you soldiers ♫

Be brave, find hope in it ♫

Let strife not frightened you away ♫

From the peace of the brilliant light ♫

And let the Star shine bright ♫

Inside your hearts! ♫”

Even if most of the audience didn’t know the lyrics perfectly, people began to hum along with it. First the soldiers and heavily-religious ones, then the children, then the knights before they stopped from the glances of their lords and ladies, and after that the normal Yeosian citizens. Of course, not everybody joined in, as this song was clearly patriotic and focused on battle.

However, it was hard to dislike the song. Sure, it was different from usual, but the instruments were traditional enough to be enjoyable, not to mention the performers’ magnificent singing. Beastmen generally didn’t walk to the temples, knowing they weren’t exactly welcomed, but even they were able to hear the singing and enjoyed the music itself. Non-Yeosians were able enjoying the music, too.

Of course, some people didn’t like it, or at least, found it pretentious. Mostly, criminals or the heavily impoverished who weren’t religious. They were scowling, annoyed by the loud music disrupting their sleep or peace. It was impossible to please everybody.

And this was something Hestia and the bards of the Bardic Inspirational Music knew too well. After all, they were all professional musicians.

“Thank you, EVERYBODY! Good morning, Elyonda!” The moment the song ended, Hestia, standing above everybody, shouted, catching the crowd’s attention as the music died down. “If you don’t know me yet, my name is HESTIA! An idol of the Goddess, one of Her blessed. As I mentioned during my match earlier, today is my CONCERT! But, to fully celebrate the brilliance of the Goddess and God Yeostar, who had welcomed me to your land, I shall turn today into a MUSICAL FESTIVAL! ”

Hestia pointed her finger to the sky.

“May this festival be blessed!” Hestia declared as a humongous white magic circle, large enough to not only cover the entire city but also the whole port, suddenly materialized. With only a single word addressed to the confused crowd, Hestia lowered her hand. “Prayer!”

And Elyonda was basked in bright light, granting them all [Blessing of the Goddess of Light (Major)]

Urgh! Kuek! Hestia groaned, contorting her face from the large amount of mana she just expended. Even if she had a large mana pool, using a huge [Prayer] like that along with a [Purple Flash] to immediately cast the spell still ripped out a huge chunk of her mana pool.

[“Yo, are you crazy?!”] Fargryneill scolded her sister, watching over her from the side, as she was responsible for keeping all the bards in the sky with her scales.

[“Dear, you should be careful. You still have a full day ahead of you, not to mention whatever awaits us after Larent is done with his part.”] Melloxtressa also agreed. She was helping her daughter by using her scales for the sudden appearance act, hiding the bards with her light-reflecting scales, so she was equally surprised at this unplanned move.

[“Ark! I know!”] Hestia groaned, forcing up a smile as she took in the cheers of everybody. The sight of her humongous spell caused everybody to be flustered by her immense magical prowess. [“I'm going to need a dragorade after this. Urgh!”]

But, the show had to go on.

“Everybody, please give a warm welcome to the twenty-one bards of the Bardic Inspirational Music! Today, we will all give you a fantastic, grand last week of the festival. Something that not even God Yeostar will can forget for years to come! As such! Under the authority as a blessed and the permission given to me by the temple of Aurena and Yeostar of Elyonda, I will hereby request all of you to accept the blessing of the Goddess! LET THE FESTIVAL OF STARS CONTINUE!”

“““YEAAAAAAH!””” The bards shouted in unison, punching the air to further goad the people from below.

And, with that, the music began once again. Soft, weak, but hopeful.

“Feel the echoes of our voice ♫

Quivering the core of your very soul ♫

Rally up your strength, you soldiers ♫

Be brave, find hope in it ♫

Let strife not frightened you away ♫

From the peace of the brilliant light ♫

And let the Star shine bright ♫

Inside your hearts! ♫”

And once again, the starting song boomed in the ears of the crowd, guiding them to the temples like a marching band. Once there, the 22 bards disappeared instantly like a flash mob, allowing the priests to perform the morning sermon. However, due to the power and catchiness of the song, kids and adolescents found it hard to keep still, humming it like a jingle.

The moment the early morning prayer was done, the commoners began to stream out of the temples, making way for the nobles’ turn. Only, it was then that music began to play again. The tolling of the temple’s bells was like a signal for the next stage of the musical festival to begin.

Snap!

“As I walk on the ground now ♫

Striding through lands of lush greens♫

How can I forget ♫

I used to see it, from up there. ♫

Feel the wind stream around me♫

Like a butterfly riding on high winds ♫

But now I’m down here♫

Looking up, longing for my fleeting past. ♫”

With a simple finger, in certain parts of the street, diamond balls suddenly appeared before they broke apart, revealing stalls and people inside them. Released from the illusion cloaking them, an explosion of delectable aroma assaulted everybody’s senses. Donuts, muffins, and cookies, not to mention the fresh waft of croissants, eclairs, and shortcakes. Without a doubt, saliva would flow today.

All of them had the emblem of the Sarlenzia company on them. Most were in the merchant district, but a large open-air bakery was found in the noble district. All the commoners and merchants were surprised by this sudden appearance accompanied by Hestia’s singing.

“The Sarlenzia company and Olive’s Garden of Artorias represent a revolution of pastries! Yeasts made goods, made with a draconic recipe!” Amelia announced using Hestia’s [Aerokinesis] to everybody in the city.

With her wings now out again, Hestia descended to the ground while twirling around slowly. The grace she showed when she landed enchanted the onlookers in the square in front of the temple. Mere seconds later, a strong gust of wind blew into the square, carrying the fresh aroma of all the pastries into the faces of the commoners.

It was early morning. Many of the citizens attending the impromptu festival hadn’t eaten anything yet, having prepared themselves for church. They planned to join the festival immediately after the sermons were done, so they were quite hungry. And not only did Hestia’s wind catch the smell of the freshly baked pastries, but also the delicious smells of the other street food. All combined into a tornado of aromas, all assimilated into a bomb.

A bomb that caused the mouths of everybody to water.

With a wide smile and the action-packed music in the background, Hestia curtsied and gestured with her hand like a hostess, welcoming everybody to let their instincts out. And with a deep breath, the music continued.

“Why was it like, wow wow wow wow wow? ♫

Stranded down here, all my hopes are crushed. ♫

However, wow wow wow wow wow ♫

Must I really accept this unfair world, or not? ♫”

“Woooooo, goooooo!”

“Momma, papa, I want that, please!”

“Ahaha, the festival continues!”

“Don’t let your light flicker and dim. ♫

Put up a smile and never give up. ♫

Hope will not die this soon. ♫

Remember that this is the life that you have chosen! ♫

My broken wings set yourself free. ♫

Rise from the ground, oh, so I plea. ♫

So, our dreams can be true. ♫

To reach the stars! ♫”

People ran around Hestia as she kept singing louder than the rambunctious and rowdy children and teens. With her scales, she could make herself levitate, literally putting herself above everybody to see.

As the people rushed into the streets, the Sarlenzia company employees immediately went into action, selling and preparing the pastries for the hungry customers. At the same time, three bards appeared — one on the roof and two from a nearby alleyway. Desmond, the leader, with Gedard and Minim strung and played their instruments, performing exactly what their contract with Hestia entailed them to do:

Sing and entertain.

“Slog through the harvest’s heat, all around the month! ♫”

“Reward yourself with glimmering nuggets of delicious sugar ♫”

“So don’t you dare miss it, a musical FESTIVAL with delicious donuts ♫” Minim, the katzune bard took a bite of a donut before dropping from the roof, landing deftly like a cat.

They continued their tunes until the end of the song, before vanishing from sight, finished with their job. All that was left was the baffled audience, wanting to hear more, as they bit into their jam-filled Berliners.

And it was the same for the other bards. Using their break wisely, they all separated towards different locations, all to bring songs to everybody, while Hestia acted as the central “antenna” with her [Aerokinesis] to blast everybody’s music in the local area. The bards could act like bards, but now with the power of a wind microphone amplifying their voices for everybody to hear.

In groups of three, all the bards performed however they wanted, singing whatever they wanted, whether it was tales of valor, fun-loving mood enhancers, or just jolly and bright festival tunes. And all of this was with the support of Fargryneill, parkouring across the rooftops while controlling her scales to aid the bards in their traversal through the city.

It was a never-ending flash mob.

Whew, yeah, really could consider this training. 21 people, and I’m the only one responsible for moving everyone around. Ha, challenge accepted!

Even if Fargryneill couldn’t rap or sing with her sister, the competitive and hardworking kirin couldn’t say no to her little sister’s proposal. To control her scales while dashing around the city as fast as she could. Sure, it was tedious, but Fargryneill thought of it as good training to level up her [Air Walk], [Dragon Path Creation], and [Scale Manipulation] skills.

She would normally be training either way, today, considering an invasion was incoming, so this just shot down two birds with one stone. In fact, Fargryneill even considered getting [Hestia’s Retainer] from her little sister, but similar to Melloxtressa, a dragon’s pride was a fierce one. “What sorta big sister would I be, if I were to bend the knee that easily?” she thought.

But, regardless of this fact, Fargryneill proved an invaluable part of the production crew with Tasianna and Saori not around. With her help, the bards could rotate around the city easily, or even move to the port and back to the city within minutes.

Speaking about the port, they were all watching and listening to Hestia and the bards, confused about what was exactly happening in the city until those who visited the temple this Lightday morning returned to their ships. They told their friends what happened, and this news quickly spread throughout the harbor. Some knew who she was, mostly the Caedhulens who Hestia hadn’t hired for the trip to Port Annencia. They had been celebrating not only her but also Fargryneill for being fellow scalekins in their arena matches. They knew those two were doing something, as they remembered seeing them enter the city before dawn.

“Come on, let’s see what it’s about!” Those interested in what was going on began to move, only to suddenly hear something.

“The sea’s tyrant’s maw ♫

Wrapped its fangs around our ship ♫”

Deep, but you could still hear the singer was a young woman. The mood of this sea shanty was devoid of the energetic power of most of her songs, following a more solemn mood.

“The cries of me mates deafen my ears ♫

The dark and storms ♫

Forgets all life ♫

Have at thee, blade’n me hand ♫”

And this contrast with the woman’s voice made the sailors and port goers more curious as they saw Hestia standing in the air, wearing far more revealing clothes than usual. Her idol outfit consisted of shorts and a sleeveless vest jacket over a tank top. Her hair was styled into a ponytail, which with the other pieces of her outfit made her look like a delinquent, mostly fitting the sailor theme she was going with.

She raised up her fist, rocking it in the air, summoning six bards to accompany her with the chorus.

“““Yohoooo, haul up the barrels ♫

We drink until the end comes! ♫

Rise up, pray to Melicertha! ♫

Our voice is yours to hear! ♫”””

The song came out of nowhere, not to mention the singers. The people at the harbor were confused, but they weren’t inflexible. Even if normally foul-mouthed and of ill-mood, a sailor enjoyed a good time, for all knew a voyage could end with the whims of nature or the gods. And while not joyful, the sailors felt a connection to the lyrics and general mood. The name of Melicertha, God of the Fortune of the Seas rang loud in their heads.

“““Yohoooo, stand up, me mateys ♫

The ocean ain’t taking us down! ♫

Rise up, pray to Melicertha! ♫

Our voice is yours to hear! ♫”””

And her song's challenge brought the sailors back to reality. Their confusion about what was happening finally cleared up with this simple performance. They understood what this girl was trying to do today. After all, it was a festival, and she was here as the main attraction.

“““Yohoooo, haul up the barrels ♫

We drink until the end comes! ♫

Rise up, pray to Melicertha! ♫

Our voice is yours to hear! ♫

Yohoooo, stand up, me mateys ♫

The ocean ain’t taking us down! ♫

Rise up, pray to Melicertha! ♫

Our voice is yours to hear! ♫”””

And just like in the city, Hestia’s song caught on.

“““Yohoooo, haul up the barrels ♫

We drink until the end comes! ♫

Rise up, pray to Melicertha! ♫

Our voice is yours to hear! ♫

Yohoooo, stand up, me mateys ♫

The ocean ain’t taking us down! ♫

Rise up, pray to Melicertha! ♫

Our voice is yours to hear! ♫”””

Aaaand, done! Flash out!

With a snap of her finger, her scale-dust exploded, causing a small flash bang to hide Hestia’s retreat from the port, so she could return to her subspace to change out of her current outfit. Svena, Lorena, Haati, and other Helvas maids were taking care of her, switching her outfits out in record time.

Meanwhile, the baffled sailors all saw their performer disappear, only for them to turn around as new bards appeared, singing tales about Melicertha and Yeostar’s journey. In addition, a Sarlenzia stall had also opened up, beginning the sale of pastries with their guards. The musical festival had also reached the harbor.

But, most importantly, today’s main show would take place in the arena.

The show match between the five princes was canceled, however, to not worry the populace, a different show would have to be given. And, just like the whole musical festival and the arrangements with the temples, Duke Alberstien and Princess Anasthasia had everything coordinated.

What would be the show?

“Ladies and gentlemen! Blood enjoyers! WE HAVE A SHOW FOR YOU TODAY! FOR THE FIRST TIME, TODAY WE WILL HAVE A ONE AND LIFETIME EXPERIENCE FOR ALL OF YOU!” And with the arena, also came the energetic and always enthusiastic announcer! Only a commoner, this man had transcended the limits of his station. A fan favorite, and today, he would announce Hestia Musical Production’s first show.

“ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE OUR SHOW TODAY! A HISTORICALLY ACCURATE RECREATION OF THE BATTLE OF CASTLE FATALISA! And all while narrated by our newest blessed of the Goddess! Give it up, for Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor! Princess of Kargryx, and history seeker extraordinaire!”

What was one thing that made Hestia special amongst blessed? It was her ability to speak with gods clearly. And amongst the gods she could speak with was the history nerd Yeostar.

“And so, they march forward into position. A merry men band of the elites ♫

He sunk his blade, into the ground, drenched in blood of the fallen ♫”

Under the disciplinary control of Knight Commander Alistar, he was leading two groups of his troops in the simulated battlefield Schrade and Castle Fatalisa within the dungeon arena. Hestia’s singing voice echoed in the ears of the astounded audience, nobles and commoners. They thought today was a friendly match, but instead, they were introduced to some army training.

“Hey! We want a fight! What the hell is going on?!”

“Yeah, cut this shit! We came for some blood! Fight, come on!”

Disgruntled arena comers quickly expressed their outrage, shouting at the commentator. However, like a professional, he kept his cool and simply followed Hestia’s orders. “Let the show speak for us,” she told him.

Guelp, hope you know what you’re doing!

“Oi, come on! Fuck this! Hell with that damn manablood bitch!”

“Yeah! All we want is some freaking blood fight, but we get this crap she’d been blasting all day! My bloody ears!”

“Yeah, who cares if she’s some damn dragon! Get the prince to finally hire some dragon slayers! We don’t need some giant fire—”

“But hot in his heels, the trailblazer he must be ♫

But his sight blinded by haste, he did not see the blade which await ♫

The battle began, before morning dawned ♫”

“Ambush!” Jethro, dressed like Yeostar, shouted in the scene like a cannon! Scaring every single person in the audience, enrapturing them in the sight when a horde of demonkins and black roots burst from the ground, attacking Yeostar’s warband.

“Tooth and nail, he fought ♫

Blood and sweat he paid for his error ♫

Enraged, he called out for the Goddess, bringing down light with his sword ♫”

Not only was Hestia the singer and narrator of this play, but she was also part of the special effects crew. She used her flames to create a blade of light, prompting Jethro to slash down, destroying the black roots, which looked quite a bit like demonic tentacles, and the horde of demonkins, dressed up soldiers.

“Fight for me, men! We shall break these demon’s bones! They will sully our soil longer!”

A cool and edgy one-liner. It shocked the adults, captivated the kids, and silenced the disgruntled crowd. Most bloodsport-loving viewers were also followers of Yeostar, and seeing such a cool scene made them second question what was going on. They sat back down, as “Yeostar” began to fight back the horde with his men, only to finally triumph in the end.

Raising his sword up, he shouted, “THIS IS THE FIRST PHASE! Our victory is nigh! For Peolynca!”

“Wooooooooah!”

A battle where nobody could take a breath for a single second, and once it was over, the cheers were deafening, similar to battle-hardened warriors joining in the joy of surviving. The glory of the battle was perfectly expressed to the crowd through song and the actions of the people.

<I cannot believe this…>

Yeostar looked down at the show in bafflement, unsure how to take in what Hestia had done.

She had stayed up the whole night listening to him retell the true story of the battlefield of Schrade battle, all while she wrote down a rather crude script for her first musical. Most of it had to be improvised by the actors, but that was a problem. Her actors were soldiers. She didn’t expect much.

And it showed when Hestia shared the same reaction. She couldn’t believe it worked out without a hitch.

She had asked Alistar to help her, using the excuse that this was a good time for tactical and sparring training. He could lead his men like a real tactical fight according to the historical retelling of the fight, while Hestia would ad lib everything, narrating as things went by.

Jethro, seeing as he was the only other candidate for Yeostar aside from Larent, was given the main role. He understood he had to do this to hide the threat from the city, but he still found it undesirable to do. However, the moment the situation escalated, both Jethro and Alistar immediately went into warrior mode, treating this play as if it was a real battle.

And this was why the battle felt real, threatening, and had weight behind everything. And this reality of battle drew everybody in.

“Kyaaaaaaaaaah!” During the end of the first act, Rita, who was responsible for the “demonic tentacles” using her [Floral Magic] cried out like a fan girl. Although not as strong or skilled as Cernust’s floral spells, she was able to make authentic-looking special effects for the show.

And the ever knowledge-seeking dryad almost fell unconscious from all of this, writing down everything that was happening to the point her parchments were torn apart by her charcoal. Hestia had enticed her to help by telling her she had heard all of this from Yeostar himself. This, of course, was an extremely good trade for her labor.

And with these three factors — Alistar training his soldiers, Jethro’s surprising acting ability, and Hestia and Rita controlling the special effects — the show certainly became an event nobody ever expected. And after the second and third phases — the besieging and defense of Castle Fatalisa, respectively — the show reached its climax as the arena seats were filled to the brim. Anybody who came late had to stand to watch.

“Victory is OURS! Glory to the LIGHT!” “Yeostar” raised up his sword, letting its brilliance be seen by everybody in the audience. All saw the blood-covered warrior king stand there, having slain a lesser demon — one of Rita’s wood golem — and they cheered in his name

“And so his sword had slain the darkness, cleaved through the gunk for hope ♫

On a field filled with bodies — allies and foes — he stood tall ♫

For a massive victory was here, claimed by the Waaaarrrrio Kiiiing, Yeeeeostaaaar! ♫”

“Yeeaaaaaaaaah! PRAISE GOD YEOSTAR!”

When Hestia said she would bring the musical festival, she would, for her word was her honor. Even if the script was crude and cheesy, written by a novice writer, it managed to evoke the necessary emotions in the audience. Even if Hestia wasn’t the star of her performance today, she understood as an idol and entertainer that sometimes it was better to give somebody more fitting the limelight.

Nice work, Jethro! Urgh, my poor voice…

… But this facade wasn’t just there to keep the city controlled and entertained before the castle could initiate its plans to protect the city, it was also there to confuse the enemy.

After all, as Vifi’Yok believed, the city should have fallen into chaos. The news of the invasion should have caused everybody to panic. However, instead of that, the whole city blew up with music and pastries. Unease? No.

It was just another day for the Festival of Stars, only this one would most likely be more memorable than others. Especially for Hestia and the crowd of nobles, who were begging her to perform another play so they could analyze it for its actual historical accuracy.

And in the alleys of this city…

“What the hell is going on?!”

… the rats couldn’t understand what was going on.

“Hey, tell— ARRRCK!”

“H-Huh, wha— Urghh!”

“Kraaaaayt!”

…

Footsteps.

“… Hmph.”

Blood drenching the streets and walls. The low moaning and groaning of the dying black mercenaries. All took their last breath as a knight walked over what little remained of their bodies.

“… Another band. Hmm?” The man opened the door of the building they came from. “… Found it.”

The Ex-Hand of Heaven, lurking in the shadows of the brilliant light of the dragon idol, hunting down the threats on his quest for revenge. His blade was soaked in their blood, guiding him forward to find and stamp out the threat as they were divided. All to finally find the group’s secret entrance into the city.

“… Tomorrow, they will die. Clean this mess up.”

“““Yes, sir!””” The soldiers following this former knight saluted, before they began picking up the corpses he made and cleaned the alley with water magic.

Arlond, lad, you will be avenged. That, I swear to the Goddess and my old bones!

A note from AbyssRaven

Three times the charms, so three songs this time.

First, "Do you hear the people sing" from the Les Miserable Musical!  Rawr

Second, one of the first "Butterfly" from the Digimon Adventures opening! Rawr

Third, last a sea shanty for the ol'sea dogs. "Hoist the Colors" from the Pirates of the Cariibean! Rawr

Also, another treat for all of you. It's been a looooong wait, but here is Grimnir's art! … Which kinda spoiler, is his armor for our next meeting.

Thanks for diogodesigns for creating him! It took a while for me to find somebody I liked to draw him. Rawr

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 344: An Unraveling Mystery into Burning Disgust.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #1 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! It works on a subscription base now, so pay when next month comes!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

4529 humans and beastmen have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total followers of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 14706

“Ung, ungh, ungh, ung… Buwaaaaah… Oh goodness, how much did I end up drinking today?” I exhaled in exasperation, too exhausted to actually sit upright.

Probably six large barrels and ten dragorades. That made sense, considering how often I had to go to the toilet today. That thought alone prompted me to massage my throat, slightly worried about my vocal cords, even if I could just heal them up with magic. I was really missing Tasianna.

“Hahaha, yeah, the amount we all had to drink was insane! A whole day of singing will probably knock me out for a few days, but I guess with the money you’ll pay us, I can take it easy until it’s all spent.” I glanced over at the sound of that hoarse voice, noticing Desmond ravenously eating a plate filled with fine steak garnished with sauce, all while sipping on some wine.

“Drink room temperature water, you idiot. Even tea will dry out your throat from the caffeine.” I glared at the bard, annoyed at how he wasn’t treating his cords correctly. A singer’s most prized possession was their voice, after all.

“Haha, arck, haha…” Desmond coughed from his laughter, looking in pain. Singers should keep their vocal cords healthy at all costs, but this idiot was throwing any precaution out of the window. “Gotta enjoy this, yeah? My mates downstairs are probably eating like skorrs. I’ve eaten in a noble’s castle before, but never in a royal palace! The food’s so good! Especially this! Mampf!”

He picked up and bit into an eclair, one of the pastries sold within the merchant and noble district at a pretty high price. While we were performing, I saw him gorging on donuts and berliners like a dragon. No wonder he would like the more fancy pastries.

I let out a sigh and left him to enjoy the royal luxury before standing up. I refilled my glass with some more water while I warmed it up to room temperature to moisten my throat, before walking over to the window. Looking out, I could see not only the darkened skies, but also a queue in front of the commoner’s gate.

So they made it back in one day, huh? Probably the people from nearby villages. More probably coming.

4529 fans. Without a doubt, one of my best performances, although I was a bit disappointed the numbers being a bit lower than I wanted. I suppose that's just me being greedy. I performed from morning to the afternoon, with only a few small breaks to drink, eat, and go to the toilet. Not only that, but I also had to rush and perform throughout the whole city while also having to direct a bloody musical.

I was tired. My sun core was drained from all the mana I had to use today, and I just felt like poop. But at the same time—

Ehe.

— I couldn’t believe how amazing it was. Not only was having flash mobs everywhere I went in the city incredible, but the fact my first musical worked out was a miracle. I felt proud of myself as an idol and a person. Sure, if I weren’t a dragon, this probably would have been impossible, but who cares?

I know you can’t see me Papa and Mama, but your little girl is still going strong in this world. Nobody can bring this idol down!

It also was mind-boggling how the bards I had hired somehow managed to keep up with my energy. Sure, I had to heal their throats with healing magic a couple of times, but it was still surprising to see them perform with me until it was all done. As a professional musician to another, I gotta say, mad respect.

And Desmond was here to pick up the pay I promised his band. At the same time, Prince Markval decided to throw a small feast for the bards, as a thank you for the job they’d done. Which they perfectly earned, as performing for a whole day was no easy feat. However, the reason why I was in the royal palace was different than them.

… Hmm, guess it’s time.

The sight of all the torches brightening at the city’s gate made it clear we were having a real invasion on our hands. People were fleeing from their homes to the capital for protection. I was still not bringing the battle to the grimgarians. The tidal wave of goblins, kobolds, orcs, and so on would not only trample towns and villagers, but would reap everything they got their hands on.

We had to bring the fight to them, stop the influx, but our plans demanded I to be patient. To stamp out the tumor growing inside the city’s underbelly first before I could safely depart. As a Champion, my priority should be to the Divine Quest — to defend the royal family of Yeos and the blood of Yeostar — but the amount of people dying out there made me quiver.

I really am not a hero, huh? A true hero would be able to save everybody. What good is all this power when I can’t use it?

In any case, that was enough self-deprecation. I honestly should direct my attention to finding a solution to this situation now that all my cards have been dealt to me.

“Here you go, three small goldites as arranged. Another one because you guys did an amazing job. Thank you very much.” I went over to Desmond and placed four gold coins before me, causing his eyes to sparkle. “Good working with you. I need to leave now, so don’t steal anything alright~”

“Hey, what sorta scoundrel do you think I am?!” He looked visibly annoyed at my accusation, only to shrug, causing me to giggle at his dramatic reaction. “Mhmm, good working with you… Uhm, Princess Hestia, correct? Well, your Grace, if you ever need us again, don’t be shy to ask.”

… Not a bad idea. Would be fun.

“I will if we meet again, but the world is large, yeah? Oh, and, uh, stay safe, yeah?”

“Sure… but something is telling me this whole show we gave today is there to hide something. Hope you can help out when we need it, Dragon Princess.”

Hmph. Perceptive.

With a smile, I left the room and headed to the war room, where I saw Jethro and Alistar both sorting through messages. Both looked pretty worn-out from the musical, but they were still working hard through everything. Mark of soldiers, or maybe it was just the urgency of the situation.

“Lady Hestia!” Alistar’s head darted up the moment he saw me, walking over with a pretty grim face. “The situation seems to be far more dire than I had originally thought. Here. The Plesia Saint has sent us a message with our fastest equerochs.”

Master?

I took the letter and immediately began to read it.

Let’s see… ‘The invasion force of the grimgarians is larger than you would expect from their sudden appearance. I have managed to scout ahead, locating 15 B ranks generals, in addition to various monster mounts tamed by the beastmasters. Numbers-wise, I guess from the size and the number of generals, my careful guess would be around 10,000 capable warriors, not including the support staff and magicians. Unless you dressed as one, it isn’t easy to notice them and the army was carefully hiding their blue-skinned goblins.’

“The army should have at least a couple of Marsven’s priests. Grimgarians, despite their looks, are extremely religious and devoted to Kronnaz and Marsven,” I stated, remembering Tasianna’s theology lessons.

I remembered the three skirmishes we had with the grimgarian army. The first was against the trolls to save Tasianna, the second against the high ogre berserker, and the third was just recently under Renee’s homestead. In all fights, there was at least one mage amongst them, with the latter two having the most.

In every single one of those situations, there was at least one blue-skinned goblin. If I remembered correctly, the description mentioned them being a mana talented subspecies of the common green goblin. Considering how the descriptions of those shamans and mages always mentioned Marsven or something, they probably doubled as priests.

“I agree,” Jethro rose up from his seat. “The more goblins and orcs are around, the more you need those shamans to keep them in check. I learned that during the war with how many sermons and rituals the priests held. Those conniving goblins can be controlled with religion, who would have thought?”

“Urgh, and there are 10,000 soldiers, huh? Master didn’t specify how many of each, so we should assume the majority are goblins and kobolds, the weakest grimgarian group. Some orc knights and berserkers, then trolls, and then we have the generals. Probably ogres, gnolls, or so.” I gave a reasonable assumption. “So we should assume from these 10,000 enemies, a ton of enemy mages are coming. Holy…”

“We don’t even have 10,000 inhabitants in Elyonda.” Alistar massaged his temples. “If we forcefully conscripted all able-bodied commoners, we can equalize the number, but wars aren’t just won by quantity. Quality is a major factor, too. A single master mage can turn the tides, easily.”

And that is not including the naval invaders and the ones under us…

‘I have collected fleeing villagers and my party has slain six platoons. This letter is being written while we are taking a break and performing reconnaissance. We started from the west and swept to the east, where I learned Lady Renee was missing. According to the soldiers there, they mentioned how she was moving east into Aleistunum for some reason. They presume she had deserted.’

“No way.”

I continued reading.

‘I have sent every villager we rescued with the knights, making way to Elyonda. Messengers were also sent to any villages or towns we suspect will be in the way of the invading forces. Losing home and some farmland is better than lives, no? In any case, while I do not know where Renee is, I suspect the invading force will hurry to Elyonda once they notice my actions. I do not know what the enemy is doing with the other principalities, but I cannot help any of them in this situation. My five-man group won’t be able to make much of a dent into the army, but we are used to guerilla warfare from our time in Aelozonia. We will be slowing them down, until we need to retreat. I am not level 104 for nothing!’

Master…

“What is the meaning of this?!” Jethro suddenly shouted from behind me, having read the letter with me. “That man? Renee deserted?! What is this nonsense, Alistar?! You vouched for him but this is the first thing he does the moment it gets dire?”

“Lord Jethro, please, calm down.” Alistar held his hands out, gesturing for the older man to chill, but from how heated it was becoming, it didn’t seem like it would work.

“That man has been fighting in our tournament as a Yeosian, but what does he do after spouting how he wishes to protect our home as a knight? He flees! Coward! Craven!” Jethro bashed the table, breaking off a piece of the wood. “We need no Champion with that attitude. I will not allow such scum to besmirch Sir Royce’s legacy! Alistar, put out an arrest-on-sight warrant on that— Wah?!”

“Can you please calm down!” I grabbed Jethro’s shoulder and pushed him back into his seat.

“What are—”

“We don’t need an old man screaming head off right now, Jethro. Besides, Renee is not the sort of person to run away like this,” I said with full conviction, shocking the warrior priest. Considering the speech she gave me after our little trip together, no way would she run now when she had to rise above. “Alistar, I hadn’t been able to speak to you about this, but yesterday you whispered something to Renee. For somebody who had just heard this, you don’t seem very agitated. What did you two talk about?”

“Oh that… Yes, I guess I did update him. Which might be the reason why he went off to Aleistunum, if the report is to be believed.”

“Care to share?”

“Mhmm.” Alistar frowned, although he nodded immediately after. “Renee and I had spoken after what happened last week. About the grimgarians and the attempted freeing of the captives you caught. Well, Renee suggested a larger attack would be coming and he wanted me to contact Aleistunum and request help.”

“What?!” Jethro shop up, prompting me to force him back down. “Why are you do—”

“Calm down.”

“Urk!” Jethro flinched back after I projected my aura out, silencing him into being quiet.

“Listen to the story. You’re supposed to be a veteran fighter, not a hot-headed rookie, right? Alistar, please, continue.”

“Yes, of course… Well, as you know, Aleistunum and Yeos have a history, mostly because God Istari and God Yeostar were allies when they sealed Karhalantheel. That said, our relationship had not exactly flourished over the years, mostly because Yeos’s past iterations always managed to fall into civil wars or become annexed. So, when Renee suggested this idea, I was apprehensive about it, but I tried anyways.”

“And from the look of it, it failed, correct?” I concluded. “Renee wouldn’t be going to Aleistunum if the correspondence fell off.”

Alistar nodded and frowned. “He hadn’t told me of his plan, but most likely he will try to personally bargain for aid. Aleistunum’s military is magic-focused, so even if they are outnumbered, they can fight back, not to mention whatever secret inventions they had been able to come up with.”

“Why didn’t you inform us of this? I hadven’t heard my nephew or Alberstien mention this,” Jethro, finally chilled out, asked. “Not to mention, what right does this ‘Renee’ actually have to speak to a foreign nation? He doesn’t have the authority of the crown, so even if he were to go there personally, nothing can happen without the Prince’s acceptance.”

Oh, that is true, yeah. I knew politics well enough to understand a random vagabond wouldn’t be able to do much there, unless they had some sort of connection.

“Well, Renee was in Aleistunum recently. Maybe he has a friend there who can help? Neill and Rita, his companions, were also there. Maybe if we asked them, we could understand his thoughts better?”

Neill 100% would know, but she, Rita, and Mother were currently resting in the subspace.

Jethro shook his head. “Impossible, unless he’s personally acquainted with one of the members of the archmage’s council. Your Grace, Aleistunum is not really a normal nation. They are more focused on their academies and their studies compared to a sovereign land like ours or the Empire. Diplomacy is difficult, since they know they have the upper hand on us with the mage’s guild and the fact the magical capital possesses the best university in the lands, open to any friendly country.”

Jethro then turned back to Alistar. The red fluster was gone, but he still had so many wrinkles from grimacing. “You know this. It’s impossible. Aleistunum won’t give us a copper. How can a commoner like him do anything? And also, the fact you spoke with a foreign nation without royal permission can be grounds for your own dismissal, Alistar.”

But Alistar didn’t flinch one bit. Jethro hammered into him that warning, but the young knight didn’t even shrug.

“… But you aren’t dumb, right? No, not someone like you who was trained by Sir Royce himself. That man would never choose an idiot as an apprentice.”

I raised an eyebrow at that revelation. From our first meeting, I honestly thought Alistar had a woman for a mentor, not a… Hold on. With all this talking, I had almost forgotten that Royce was a woman. She hid her true gender from everybody. It all began to make sense to me.

“What are you scheming, Alistar?” Jethro leaned forward, not daring to stand up after I forced him down twice. “I can smell it after spending so much time with Alberstien. I don’t need another fool like that. I trust you enough to consider you my equal, so as God Yeostar is my witness, I hope you can trust me. Who is that Renee? That medallion he had on looked eerily similar to Royce’s [Windseeker’s Absolution].”

What?

And for the first time, Alistar’s poker face broke down. Cold sweat was forming on his face. “… I cannot answer that.”

Hold on, Renee has what?! Wasn’t that her father’s medallion? So what was Jethro speaking about here? It could be a look-alike… but Renee mentioned how important it was to her. So, wait, hold on. Who is Renee’s father and why does he have a connection with Royce, who is a woman? Renee has been clearly mentioning how her mother was still alive and with her grandparents. Wait, hold on, is it possible the ‘father’ is actually—

“ALISTAR!” Jethro stood up and dashed towards Alistar was I was preoccupied with thinking, grabbing him by the collar and picking him up. “Speak! Who is that—”

“Excuse me.”

And without letting anybody continue this topic, our heads immediately snapped to the entrance when we felt a threatening aura coming from it. There, surrounded by an irony smell, Larent stood with an empty stare.

“I have found their entrance into the city. Lady Hestia, we move out tomorrow. Get some rest. You’ve done enough today,” Larent stated, shocking me how monotonous he sounded. He turned his eyes over to Alistar and Jethro, accidentally breaking them off. “Prepare the arena and the knights. We don’t know how the battle will go.”

And with that, he left us.

“… It is getting late. Well, I’ll leave the rest to you, two.” Strangely enough, the moment Larent told me to get some rest, I really felt lightheaded. After all, I didn’t really sleep yesterday since I had to write a whole bloody musical script in one night based on Yeostar’s stories.

Alistar and Jethro accepted the idea, telling me to get a good rest for tomorrow’s raid as well. I went down the stairs to meet Amelia, who was waiting for us, seemingly having just finished talking with Anasthasia. Amelia told me she just gotten another business proposal when I asked her if something had happened.

“I was just informed of a most troubling bit of news. That an invasion is coming and how Princess Anasthasia wanted me to continue operating Olive’s garden tomorrow, but not around the city, but inside the arena,” Amelia informed me with a frown. “Lady Hestia, I noticed the people at the city entrance from a window. The invasion is not a joke, right?”

I nodded. “I will be participating in a raid tomorrow to stamp out the enemies inside the walls. Lady Amelia, I don’t want you inside the city tomorrow. Please, leave with everybody.”

“Are you sure? From the look of it, your performance today wasn’t your usual concert because of this, right? You needed to control the populace, and from the sound of it, the Yeosian royal family is planning something else tomorrow. My pastries can do that. Those bards, too! Although, I do not know why everybody isn’t fleeing east…”

“Huh? What do you mean by that?”

“Well, I heard yesterday from somebody that you can flee east through the Aleistunum mountains. If a grimgarian army is coming, then why not through there or through the seas to the Empire? I honestly don’t know why this trickery is needed.”

“It’s because of the pirates. A naval invasion is also coming, and through some evidence, we can conclude those pirates are part of the enemy. Going out on the seas is a trap.” I then closed into Amelia to whisper to her. “The demonkins are around. I might be able to defend the fleet from pirates, but what if a demonkin is coming? I can’t assure anything, then, especially when neither Tasianna or the twins are around. Damn! I wished I hadn’t sent those Caedhulen ships out…”

I was still beating myself for that dumb decision. Sure, I couldn’t see the future, but it still felt hard to not fault myself.

“In any case, east? Well, it is nice to know we can enter Aleistunum that way, but maybe it’s a trap. I mean, from whom did you hear that info from?” Amelia told me it was a suspicious cloaked person after she was ready to retire for the day. “… Yeah, that info stinks.”

“You think? I honestly thought that person was trying to help me, I mean, she really loved the donuts I gave her for free… Although, how did that person know to say that? Maybe she did know something about the invasion. Actually, now that I think about it, you might be right. This might be a trap.”

I nodded.

God Yeostar, could— No, wait, sorry about that. I stopped myself before asking him if he saw something, remembering what he told me about relying on gods too much. Besides, this wasn’t that important to know. It didn’t matter who that person was, it only mattered that this might become problematic.

“Lady Amelia, I want you to decline the idea, alright? If something happened to me, you would be stuck here, unless somebody with my subspace comes to rescue you. Even then, I don’t know if the magic would last if I were to die.”

“Hey! Don’t speak like that!” Amelia suddenly scolded me. “Lady Hestia, you are too strong to say something like that. Besides, we’ve only become friends, right? The last thing I want is to lose a friend through something unfair, like in the past with Ellaine.”

Right, Ellaine did stop meeting up with Amelia due to her inferiority complex. Amelia would be bothered and worried if something like that would happen again.

“Got it. Sorry.” I bowed slightly to apologize. “However, then you better do me a favor and not accept Princess Anasthasia’s proposal, yeah? They can think of something else. If you consider me your friend, then I consider you to be one of mine too. And I don’t want to lose another one like with Eshe.”

“Yes, it is a deal. I will have to pick something up tomorrow at the local merchant guild, but I’ll bring some knights with me. It’ll be quick and then I’ll return home. Is that alright?”

I agreed and we both returned to the subspace where I informed Mother, Neill, and Rita about everything. Rajah immediately jumped up like an energetic kid, telling me he was ready to gain experience, making me really worried this was what he inherited from our time together in Belzac. And to my chagrin, Neill did the same!

“Alright, finally! No more stupid supporting stuff! Rajah, let’s do this, alright!”

[“Yes, Master’s sister! We will kill them all good! Gwwraaah! Nobody will hurt master while Rajah is around!”]

“Buwahh, I’m more of a wallflower, not a fighter. Sure, I can summon roots, but they aren’t exactly tough, as you could see in today’s musical,” Rita said with a tired face. It was night time and she expended a ton of mana today, so it was obvious she would be a bit exhausted.

… Those two have the minds of monsters.

“Mother? What will you be doing?” I asked her out of caution, hoping she would help out, but as expected, she shook her head.

“I won’t help you clear out ready-to-be-reaped enemies, Hestia. But… I will wait, in case that leviathan is freed. So, do your best to prevent it.”

I took her warning to heart. If Karhalantheel were to be freed, it would drown the city, but that would be hard with Tehmrayn around. As long as he was around, nothing would go past him. At least, according to him.

And then the next day came. I rendezvoused at the castle with Neill and Rajah, where Larent, Alistar, and some of his knights were waiting for us. They informed us the castle had hired Desmond and the bards for the day to replay the musical with Jethro and Alistar leading the facade. Since Rita made some notes on the show yesterday, they thought with her help, they could replicate it like yesterday’s, so I had then call Rita over.

Due to the popularity of the show, the nobles and commoners both wanted more, so it was the perfect excuse to bring everybody to the arena and use the newly-made shelter within it. They had announced it through city criers, informing everybody had to attend it for “their education.”

Anasthasia and Alberstien had hired a ton of the Empire's and other foreign merchants to help out, putting up stalls and so on to provide everything that was needed for people to enjoy the festival underground. With the Prince and the rest of the royal family staying there for the remainder of the raid, it also acted as an excuse for the people to get to know their ruler.

Wow, only two days, and they got that much handled? Then again, I organized that weird flash mob yesterday.

With everything settled, our raid group departed. Neill, Rajah, and I were in one group, while the knights would act as our support group. After all, with Larent around, the knights knew they only needed to support him to succeed.

Larent led us towards an alleyway near the marketplace of the city, avoiding as many people as possible to not make them suspicious as they went to the arena for the show. Once there, Larent opened the door to a building, showing it was empty. He handed us some cloaks.

“You two, I need you to transform into your perfect human forms.”

“Wha—?!” Neill let out her voice, surprised to hear that from Larent. However, seeing him stare at us seriously, it seemed we underestimated him a bit. “Tsk, sly fox.”

“We need a cover-up, your Graces. I will apologize in advance, so please play along.”

He really is too smart.

[Humanize (Major)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

With our cloaks on, and Rajah hiding under Neill’s, we entered the basement. Through a ladder and some tunnels, we eventually made it to a suspicious-looking door. Larent knocked on it, causing a man’s voice to appear from behind it.

“Who’s there?”

“Group Deadlight. The arena has been boobytrapped,” Larent altered his voice to sound slightly higher.

After a couple of seconds, I could hear the man’s voice again, only this time, he was looking at us through a peephole. “You’re late. Where were you? And where is that leader of yours?”

“Got caught like an idiot. Fought back, died. I took over.”

Probably the truth… after he retrieved the information needed to come here.

“… Who are those? The small one and the big tits? You didn’t have women in your group.”

Suffice to say, Neill was stacked. You could see her girls through the cloak without any problems, but who was he calling small?

“Witnesses. Brought them back. Reason why we came back late. Begged they were the princess’s associates, so I brought them back to torture for info.”

“Wha—?!” I let out a yelp, acting like a posh lady-in-waiting. “Y-You scoundrel! You told us you would free us once we told you where the princess and the prince would go today! How dare you go back against your world! My family will— Mhppmgh!”

“We can slice you up now and see how the other girl feels about it? You wanna try?” Larent grabbed my cheeks, revealing my face to the guard while I acted as if I was seeing something scary in the Belzac forest.

It really helped that I did this maneuver once already, ha! Already got the practice in as a vulnerable young lady.

“Hey, hey, hey! Stop, you idiot!” The man behind us shouted at us. “You shit for brains, we need to earn some money after this whole gig! Those damn demonkins ain’t paying us shit. Those empire pigs love their fallen nobles, so come in, already! Don’t kill’em!”

And the door opened. Easy peasy, but at the same time, Neill, Rajah, and I immediately took in a waft of the foul stink coming from inside. Pinching our noses, we entered only to notice the amount of lowlives inside.

To my surprise though, I also noticed there was a small pond nearby, reminding me this place was probably under the sea — the beach entrance the saurians found. With how it looked, it was probably an underwater cavern from all the stalactites stalagmites, meaning they didn’t make this place. They found it.

Entering the place, I could help but constantly hear people whistle at us, noting Neill’s general appearance and mine. While Neill seemed to be composed, I couldn’t help but feel intense disgust for all them. They were already speaking about me as if I was their slave and the ways they wanted to “play” with me.

I knew this was what I got myself into, but it really felt like my fuse was burning. With my sun core full again, I really felt like exploding and burning all these lowlives to ash in one go. Honestly, why exactly were we playing around? We could just blow everything up!

“I found them,” Larent whispered, directing our attention towards where he was looking, only for my own eyes to widen.

Skull masks!

The very same mask that the assassin during the tournament was wearing. There was a group of them just huddling a corner, speaking and sharpening their weapons. I really should stop second-questioning Larent. This guy gets things done when I just play along.

“Move and then upon my signal, we—”

“Hey~ You little manablood.”

“Huh?” I turned around, only to see a taller man, mostly unkempt and dirty, lick his lips as he stared at me. Without any warnings, he reached his hand out, moving it towards my bu—

“Hey, dude, mind if I just— Yuawaaaak-YEEEAAAARCCCKK!”

In a flash, his arm was in my grasp. With just a bit of force, I crushed it like a juice bottle.

“That’s the signal…” I announced while glaring at the arse squirming in front of me, feeling no pity for this piece of dirt.

“Got it! Shiehahaha!”

[“Enemy!”] Rajah pounced at the man before boring his fangs right into his shoulder, paralyzing him with his venom. Whether it was lethal or not didn’t matter to me.

“Oi! What the fu—” The people around me wanted to voice out, but not in time before Neill and I activated [Humanization].

Humanization!

[Humanize (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Kraaaaaaaah!” I roared, swinging my wings to remove the mana mist. “Beat them all up!”

And before Larent could complain, I unleashed my [Hellflame Breath].

A note from AbyssRaven

After performing flash shows all around the city, the idol jumps right back into her role as a dragon. Burning trash.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 345: Underwater Cavern Raid.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #2 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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“““Guhhaaaaa!”””

Searing crimson flames scorched human, stone, and steel all at the same time, melting and burning them all in front of me. Their agony-filled cries startled the people around me, shocked at the sudden attack, giving enough time for Neill to transform back into her dragonewt form and for our knights to block off any escapes they could identify.

I swept my dragon breath around the large underwater cavern with crimson flames, before turning it into white flames. At this point, the mercs and scoundrels came to their sense, unsheathing their weapons and throwing what looked like molotov cocktails and smoke bombs at us to cover their escape.

“I got this!” Neill exclaimed, shooting out her scales to block all of them before they could reach us. She then stomped the ground, sending out her dragon paths to electrocute the closest enemies with mana blasts.

Experience has reached a breaking point. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Main Job [Champion of Aurena] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 1]

Attributes have increased due to level up

“Do not kill all of them! Especially not these— Hraaah!” Larent swung his blade, shooting out a mana slash at the approaching skull masks.

The men and women wearing those masks narrowly dodged the knight’s attack, which continued on to pierce right through the wall they were standing before. Using the many storage crates and natural rock formations to their advantage, the skull masks maneuvered around like parkour tracers and ninjas, before throwing feathered daggers at us.

Neill reverted from offensive back to protecting us, shielding us from the daggers, only to notice her scales suddenly falling to the ground after getting hit. Even if it was just a graze, Neill would lose control of any of the scales those daggers touched. This unnerved me enough to stop my flame breath and direct my [Mana Eyes] at them.

Mana Killing Quills

Daggers made from smelting metal with [Shelled o’ War Eater] teeth. Can nullify mana connections and sabotage magic circles upon touch by drenching its feathers with blood, although it will lose this function after use. Can destabilize mana paths

One-time use mage killers, huh? And it seems they have more of them in their quivers. Did they prepare the quills to use against us dragons? Wrong attrition game, though.

“Switch with me!”

“Sure! Rajah, let’s go!” Neill agreed as she pulled Rajah onto her back, keeping him safe with her mane and wings. Immediately afterwards, her floating scales returned to her, leaving the support and protection of the crew to me.

Seeing an opening arise, the skull masks took out scrolls and unfurled them, revealing they were spell seals — disposable one-time spells for non-magicians. Even with some throwing quills at us and others shooting wind and fire spells our way, they sure weren’t a threat to me or the other two powerhouses in this group, but to the rest of the knights they were.

They were covering the escape of the others.

“Run, gotta move on to the other exit!”

Any of these rats escaping would ruin the plan. Trap the enemy from within, flush out the demonkins or whatever mercs they have, and then beat them into the ground with Larent and Neill by my side. One issue down, two more awaiting us.

But none of that would matter if we let any of these scum run loose. I heard what Larent said about planting bombs at the arena. It probably got resolved already since Larent had the information, but who knew what else they were scheming? We needed to stop them, and that was what our support knights were there for.

So I better do my part as a powerhouse.

Wind Blast! Sanctuary!

With a green magic circle, I unleashed a powerful blast of wind at the ceiling, blowing away all the mage-killer daggers before they touched anything. With those threats gone, I summoned a light barrier around us, blocking all the incoming spells.

With the attacks now handled, I pulled my glaive out of my storage before fully buffing myself and using [Halo of Consecration] to heal everybody. While I began playing my music to share my buffs with everybody, Neill and Larent engaged the enemy.

[Music Resonation (Moderate)] [Various Spell buffs] [Sanctified Blaze] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“This cave is underwater, don’t go all-out!” Larent warned us before [Gale Steps]ing towards the skull masks, overtaking and knocking them down one at a time as they tried to evade him.

“Not taking orders, but sure!” Using her dragon paths, Neill launched concentrated wind fists at the escaping mercs, blowing them away and giving the knights time to attack and subdue them.

“Dammit! Fuck this, fight back!” And eventually, with the tides turning against them, the mercs finally rallied in an attempt to turn around the terrible situation.

And this was where I noticed how uncoordinated the whole group of mercs were. As in, they couldn’t work together as a single group, but they were more suited to fighting with their own allies or by themselves. Which made sense, but it was both an advantage and disadvantage for us.

The separated forces were easier for our knights to overwhelm, but in several of these groups, some pretty unnerving people could be found. There were definitely some pretty weak people, but others looked like they’d seen their fair share of battle. With weapons and armor made from rare metals and powerful monster parts were contesting against the trained knights quite well.

Until…

“Gahaha, ya gotta try ev— GWAAAH!”

“Gack! Shit, spell support!”

“Keep your eyes on that brawler! She’s— Ark! Damn, yo— Guuuh!!”

The cave was large, large enough for me not to worry about bringing the place down with my artillery support spells. I couldn’t be so sure about my terraforming spells, but [Tornado Bullet]s, [Lightning Bolt]s, and [Sacred Smite]s were plenty enough to get the job done. Using my glaive’s fire bullet function made a huge difference providing the knights the necessary support to survive, not to mention healing them with [Halo of Consecration].

Although, with the situation at hand, you would think I would take a more proactive role in this fight. No need, really. After all, my skill set was more suited for support after all, especially when I had my ruthless, muscle-head sister taking the front for me. That was a fact I learned when we fought together while we helped out Renee.

“Rajah!” Neill slid through the skirmish with her dragon paths as if she was skating on ice, using Rajah’s [Dark Tendrils] to round people up for her to smack. Even without using her dragon paths to their maximum potential, Neill was having little to no problem with all the mercs only around level 50 or 60.

Some over 60, huh?

The average level of the enemy was around 32 if we disregarded the skull masks. They had a ton of lower-tier fighters, but I’d noticed some level 50 and 60 people amongst them. Essentially, a bunch of C ranks was helping around, with some close to what I would expect from B rank adventurers.

Seeing how the knights were struggling against these stronger people, I could tell the knights' stats and levels were lower than their enemies', probably around 45 or something. However, with my group helping out, the difference between them was irrelevant. Neill was too strong. Even the roughest-looking ones were nothing but fodder to her. That is excluding my ability to assess the situation from afar, providing supportive fire.

Honestly, this was probably the best situation for a mage like— Left!

“Lass, watch out!” Larent’s voice ringed in my ears just a second before I turned my head around, spark flaming the incoming crossbow bolts. With their ashes falling onto the ground and my flames dissipating, I could see who just tried to shoot me.

Another skull mask, and from the flood of other skull masks coming from around a corner, they must be the reinforcement. Maybe I should have just let that scum grope my butt to sneak in deeper before we engaged… or I could have acted more like an idiot? Who the hell wanted anybody to grope you, especially for an unnecessary stealth mission?!

As if I would allow these low lives— Woah!

Another five bolts flew past me as I dodged out of the way. I knew I shouldn’t let my thoughts wander, but that memory of that scumbag… Without a doubt, I have become quite disgusted by people like them after what happened in Griffonpeak and Estralia.

Wait, that crossbow… Mana Eyes!

Name: Blaine

I knew it! I knew I remembered that crossbow!

“Blaine!” I shouted. “Hey, Blaine! You damn deceiver!”

Blood was rushing to my head at the sight of the person. He was wearing a skull mask like the others, only he had two red streaks running over his eye sockets and covered his entire head like a helmet. You couldn’t even begin to recognize him in that outfit of his, but I knew I still remembered that crossbow from somewhere. Normally nothing special, if it weren’t for the distinctive scars on it.

And without even answering back, Blaine shot another bolt at me, followed by four other crossbowmen. I clicked my tongue and slipped by them with [Gale Steps], quickly moving towards the incoming reinforcements, believing in Neill to handle the other side.

Blaine and the other skull masks with the red streaks on them, moved backwards as the plain white skull masks jumped in front of them like bodyguards. But this plan instantly evaporated as a wave of blue cleaved right through the backline, stopping Blaine and his pals from escaping.

Experience has reached a breaking point. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Main Job [Champion of Aurena] has risen from [Level 1] to [Level 2]

Attributes have increased due to level up

It was Larent.

“You will not escape! I will—”

“Go follow where they came from Mr. Larent!” I shouted after clenching my glaive and flew up into the sky before [Dragoon Diving] right into the crowd. “That demonkin! Find them!”

The alarm was set. We had to find the masterminds of this plan. Larent understood me well enough and he knew I could protect myself. With just a nod, he swung his blade once again, cutting anybody who stood in his way in half. The screams and blood spraying around was his work.

So I had to do the same. No mercy to those who wanted to harm those I cared for. No mercy on these lowlives!

Dreadflare Aura!

“Guuuu!”

They would feel the wrath of a sunfang dragon. The blazing hot sensation of having their bodies melted and turned to ash. Just a two second explosion like this was able to permanently cripple anybody standing around me. I didn’t know if any died or not, but they wouldn’t be able to fight anymore.

As such, I directed my attention to the skull masks in the back. I thought they would panic from their companions’ agony-filled screams, but like cold-hearted psychopaths, they simply ignored their fallen allies, even pushing them out of their way. It honestly felt like I was staring at a hive mind or something with how they were sacrificing their lives, but I didn’t let that worry me too much.

Aiming for Blaine, I dashed forward, using Spark Crescent to kill those in my way while launching me up, allowing me to use another [Air Walk] and [Dragoon Dive] combo, only this time, a bolt flew at me.

I dodge mid-flight using my rocket boosters, only for some skull mask to grab my legs mid-flight. That was honestly some pretty quick reflexes ‘cause I was not flying slowly. My rocket boosters were fast.

What the hell?!

And with perfect synchronization, another two grabbed onto my tail and glaive, causing me to crashland into a group of skull masks from the low altitude and having to carry three adult men. Back on the ground, I immediately activated [Dreadflare Aura] again to blast away the mosh pit, before flying back up and having my parallel minds shoot down spells in retaliation.

Experience has reached a breaking point. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Main Job [Champion of Aurena] has risen from [Level 2] to [Level 3]

Attributes have increased due to level up

There weren’t that many, and the more spells I shot down, the more that died. There were five crossbow bolts were shot out, followed with a barrage of those mana killing knives. And that was when my suspicion was instantly driven to the maximum, realizing fully well these people seemed to know how to fight against me. At least, that was the feeling I had from their teamwork.

‘Hey, information coming in! There is venom on those bolts!’ And it was also ‘cause Manager Mind warned me of their attacks after they shot those bolts at me in the first place.

Winter’s Gift

Dragon-killing venom created in the bone-chilling mountains of Carmaniate to ward off fire wyverns and ryuukoatls ravaging the people of the icy tundra. Ignores the poison resistances of any dragonkin, but provides no effect on other races. Weakens mana paths coursing through the body of the dragonkin, preventing their special metabolism from functioning

Winter’s Gift! The same venom Yeostar mentioned the skull mask assassin was trying to use on me. I already knew there was a connection from the mask they were wearing, but this was even more damning!

Their attack plan became clear to me. Use those quills to nullify my scales and then have those bolts hit me. It was on the simple side, but if what Yeostar was correct, then that venom should be able to harm me. It could penetrate [Poison Resistance], after all.

… Well, sadly for them, I already have countermeasures for this idea.

Aerial Blitz!

The level ten [Wind Magic] spell that I had used about zero times in fights up until this point — [Aerial Blitz]. Why? Well, it wasn’t exactly too useful to me since it was close-ranged and its niche was kinda already taken over by my scale-dust. For a normal mage like Tasianna, this sorta spell was like an emergency button in case they got jumped by a fighter. Well, she never had to use it since her gel slime-producing catalyst was too good, so probably not the best example.

And what exactly did this rather useless spell do? It created a small area where the air turned into numerous wind blades… and only in this area… and it had to be right in front of me. It could theoretically turn somebody into sashimi, but it didn’t do much damage, and people in armor could just run out of the field. Not so useful, right?

So I thought!

Ding! Ding! Ding!

So many dings echoed in this cavern from the quills dropping onto the ground. They would touch one of these wind slashes, only nullifying the individual slash instead of the spell as a whole, and fall onto the ground moments later. The bolts flew right through the area, but without the quills severing my mana connections on my scales, they were blocked without much fanfare.

And then they got clobbered. As in, they got—

“Get away from her, you freaks!”

“““Guwaaah!”””

— suckered punched by Neill and then electrocuted by her dragon paths, giving me the time to dive into the crowd and ruin the days of the remaining skull masks. Tag teaming with my sister, we took out the remaining skull masks but kept those with the red streaks alive.

Experience has reached a breaking point. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Main Job [Champion of Aurena] has risen from [Level 3] to [Level 4]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Call me cruel or not, this was what they deserved.

With these reinforcements taken care of, the threat of the mercs only lasted for a couple more moments as us sisters returned to help the knights and Rajah, taking out anybody still trying to resist. Some died from the fighting, but quite a good chunk were captured by Rajah’s [Dark Tendrils].

After the battle was over, I left the knight to handle most of the captives while having Rajah train his venom injection by having him use it on the red skull masks. It wasn’t to kill them, but to dull their senses with paralyzation. Once that was done, I turned to the one with the name “Blaine” in his status board.

And pulled off his mask.

With a crackling sound like breaking open bones, the mask was torn off, revealing the same face I witnessed about a week ago. It was Blaine, and it seemed Neill agreed.

“Hello, hello, you little ass. Guess Renee’s guts were right, after all,” Neill stared down the scowling human, unimpressed by him still acting defiantly.

“… Do you have anything to say for yourself?” I stared right back into his rage-filled eyes. “Who do you belong to? Who is that skull mask who attacked me in the tournament?”

He leaned forward, slowly speaking, “… Our boss will kill you. He knows what you can do now. Don’t think you can win, you dog of that light bitch. Elyonda will fall, and we will take you down.”

Huh? He knows what I can do? How? Wait, probably the tournament.

“May the skulls survive!”

“““May the skulls survive!”””

Unwilling to help. It was obvious the only way to get any information from them was to leave it to the knights. As cruel as torture was, I didn’t exactly know if I could disregard it as useful, considering I’ve used it in the past already.

“Come, I don’t think professionals would spit anything out that easily. Let’s help Larent. I can hear some noise deeper into the place,” Neill suggested, which I agreed to. My ears were also receiving some grunts, but it wasn’t loud enough to audible identify who it belonged to.

But, there really wasn’t much to worry about since it was La—

“Please, please, Princess Hestia! Please, don’t kill us! We love your music from yesterday! W-We bought those pastries from those stands!”

“Huh?” I turned around, seeing seven of the black mercs escape from the knights to run over to me, kneeling down with haggard breaths.

“Y-Yeah! Please, no! We’ll change, just please don’t kill us! Oh, Goddess, please! W-We didn’t want to sign up for this! Our company did! We were forced into it!”

“Please, I beg you and the Goddess! Have mercy on our lives!”

They claimed to be my “fans.” I was naturally suspicious, but they somehow were able to perfectly describe what flash performance I had performed before them, even to the details like my outfit or if I had a bard sing with me. Some even hummed my music decent enough to prove it to me.

“My lady, we’ll take over from here. Please, go and help Sir Larent!” The knights told me as they recaptured the pleading mercs, pushing them away while I turned around.

They are my… fans? Are they amongst my number of fans? Really?

…

If that is the case, then…

“Hestia.” Neill shook my shoulders, waving her hand in front of me. “Just because people admire you, doesn’t mean that every single one is a good person.”

“… I could have killed some of them. Or, you could have. Rajah, too.” I was conflicted what I was saying, but I couldn’t stop my legs from following where Larent went. “… Idols should care about their fans, but… I don’t know what I would have felt if that had happened. If that System message appeared when they died.”

But, I guess that was how it would work. The more fans I got, the more likely I would “see” them die through the System message, like the ones during the Griffonpeak raid. The question was, would I have felt anything for those seven if they had died? Maybe I would have just been ignorant.

[“Master, please, don’t worry,”] Rajah said, but words alone really couldn’t solve this situation for me.

It just felt weird to think these “fans” of mine could have ended up dead by my hand or maybe even fight against me. I felt… slightly betrayed, but also unsure of myself. There was this gnawing pain in my chest whenever I thought of those seven. It felt weird, since I had been thinking of them as nothing but scum just a moment before… but now I was actually concerned about what would happen to them.

It felt wrong.

“Hey, Rajah, you’re still a kid but you should really learn how to soothe your master. That’s not how you help people in this sort of situation.” It was then when I was deep in thought that Neill grabbed my shoulder again, shaking me back into reality before releasing me. “Just saying, but it’s alright for you to care for them. At least, worrying for them isn’t something bad.”

“Neill?” I raised a brow at what she told me. Did she read my mind?

“I mean it. There is nothing bad about feeling bad for an enemy. Can’t exactly suppress what you feel, right? That’s the whole deal with the [Battle Frenzy] training. It’s to help you control these emotions and thoughts, and to unleash them as your weapon. Those people are your fans, but you aren’t their mother. You can’t and shouldn’t control them as if they were, even if the truth does hurt.”

“… You say that, but even I know fans can act against the best interest of their idol.”

Even on Earth, that was so the case. Fans idolizing somebody so much that their world could break apart by the slightest of perceived problems, turning the fans into actual problems. How many idols have died because their fans became too attached and had their faith broken? It was a real thing any celebrity really had to deal with.

I knew it would happen. It could happen one day to me, but I didn’t expect it to happen like this. People willing to go with the destruction of a city ‘cause of a job becoming my fans, and these very people were now sent to jail ‘cause of me.

“… It felt like I was stabbed in the back, a bit.”

“Ha, then isn’t it good you kicked them in their rear? Acting up like that isn’t healthy for anybody,” Neill laughed a bit, trying to brighten the mood. “Maybe they will change after they ge— Oh. Sorry, that didn’t work, huh?”

“O-Oh, no, it’s okay… I think I get what you meant.”

At least, I believed I understood what she meant. Maybe? She was talking about not letting every fan worry me out, right? Sometimes I could attract people and make them my fans, but it didn’t mean their moral compass would align with mine. Well, at least, I believed that was what she meant.

[“Was that soothing, Master’s sister? Master doesn’t feel much better.”]

“You don’t need to shove that fact in my face, cat…”

Hehe…

But— Kaboooom!

““Woah!”” Neill and I were startled as a massive flame exploded from the corner Larent went into, sizzling away the dirt on the rocks.

Fire? Fire mages? Wait, maybe that was the demonkin? Hold on, fire? Demonkin? … Oh shit! Didn’t Saori mention a wrath demonkin who can materialize fire arms? If that is the case, then doesn’t that mean that—!

“Neill, we need to go, now!”

“Right!”

“Come on, Rajah, Larent might be in trouble!”

[“I run!”]

If what I thought was correct, then it was imperative I reached him in time. If that fire came from that very same demonkin I was thinking of, then we had a situation on our hand. It might not be a Prince of Sin, but something equally as bad…

— that stupid lightning girl… that Warbringer.

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Chapter 346: Wrathful Encounters.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“GruuuuAAHHH!”

“Okay, I’m feeling the heat here, Sis. This sounds like a rabid beast’s roar.”

Corpses were strewn across the floor as we ran through the tunnel, following them as if they were bread crumbs. Sword wounds covered their bodies, making me believe Larent killed them, which meant we were on the correct path. Not to mention, the constant roaring and the sweltering heat were a bit of a giveaway.

Rajah retreated back into my shadow while I used mana to control the warmth around Neill to room temperature. But, the deeper we went the warmer it got, not to mention how flames were shooting through the tunnel following the wild cry of a man. Neill was quite resistant against flames, but not nearly as much as I was, so I handled protecting us from them so we wouldn’t have to slow down.

“Perish!” Another roar erupted from the depth, followed by another wave of fire.

“Heeraaah!” After I redirected the flames, somebody yelled and the cavern started to shake as if there was an earthquake.

My gut was telling me Larent was fighting against the demonkin the saurians had discovered, the one responsible for all of this. If that were the case, then all these flames brought to mind that wrath demonkin Saori and the others fought in Estralia. It could be somebody else, but if it was that one Saori fought? Then that Warbringer girl had to be around.

The question was, why haven’t I heard a girl’s voice yet? Or thunder? The whole reason why I was panicking inside was 'cause of that level 150 demonkin girl. Larent was level 147, but fighting one versus two would be crazy. Neill and I were level 110 and 99 in our human forms respectively, and while we weren’t as strong as that Warbringer, we could turn the tides in our dragon forms and with [Battle Frenzy].

We had to hurry!

“HuuuraAAAK!” A roar echoed through the cavern’s tunnel as we turned a corner, finally seeing a sweltering chamber with a six-armed person floating in the air. Flames formed his horns, tails, wings, and four of his arms, but most importantly, those arms were carrying an equal amount of elemental weapons.

That’s him!

I recognized that demonkin! He was exactly how Saori described him! That meant that Wabringer had to be around!

“Hraaaaah!” And the moment our group saw him, his weapons bloated up and he descended to the ground, probably to slam his weapon for another fire wave.

Wind Blast! Rocket Boosters! Dragoon Dive!

Without saying another word, a strong gale blasted from behind me as I ignited the scale-dust in my wings, launching me forward fast enough to land right in front of the demonkin’s attack. Without being able to block the attack with my glaive, a tsunami of inferno enveloped my entire vision and body.

“P-Princess!” I heard Larent’s voice just as the blistering heat consumed my entire hearing. All I could hear was the explosive “brueeeeeh!” stream past me. Red, red, red, red, red, all were red… until it turned into black.

… And then, there was no more noise.

“Wh—?!”

I opened my eyes, looking down at the demonkin as she stared at me with bafflement. Looking from the edge of my eyes, I saw my scales perfectly blocking the flame waves from hitting Larent and Neill, redirecting them towards the back of the cave. The stone wall was melting, but it didn’t seem like it would break.

No damage, heh.

“That was a two 100% attacks. How did you sur—”

Hellflame Breath!

Without letting him finish his question, I unleashed a purple flame breath before he could react, blasting him against the wall, shredding him using the landscape. Once I stopped my breath attack, the demonkin coughed and tried to stand up, but was immediately intercepted by Neill, landing two punches and a downward kick on his head, before blowing him into the air with an uppercut.

“Kuuw—AAAAH!” He groaned, only for Larent’s mana blade to land directly on his chest, shattering his flame armor and the one underneath!

Get jumped on, fool! … Not idol-like speech.

“Kuuek! Ah—” And indentation was left in the wall in the form of the demonkin’s body. He pushed himself out, bearing through the large gash on his torso, and began to fly. “Haaa, haha, this is exciting. This is a battle! Emotion Surrrrrrrge! Kuek! Krak!”

But whatever he planned failed. After all, there was a small issue.

Mana Eyes.

Effects: [Excited: 74%] [Anger: 96%] [Fear: 57%] [Torpor (Moderate)] [Poisoned (Minor)]

A wrath demonkin’s strongest point was their emotions, as their demonic powers relied on those three emotions. Klea’Hatma warned us to never let them all reach 100%, as it would give them an incredible power boost, but what if I made them drowsy? Or paralyze them?

If Saori could counter them using my bombs, then what would happen if the creator of those bombs were to fight them? I just needed [Corrosive Fire] to do it, really, and boom. [Emotional Surge], as Saori described, boosted those three emotions randomly, but if they were tired, it would actually be a detriment.

And from the look of it, Neill’s and Larent’s blows dizzied him enough to make him forget to look at his System message. But, at the same time, the guy seemed pretty tanky despite all those attacks he just took.

“Yo, firehead!” Neill shouted as she walked up the wall and jumped off it, aiming a punch at the demonkin, only to have it blocked by his flame shield. At the same time, she used that shield as a platform and twisted her body, slamming her leg right into his shoulder.

“Arrrgh!” he cried out as his left arm dangled from Neill’s kick, probably broken. He recovered and tried to grab my sister with two of his fire arms, but Neill’s scales protected her, giving her the time to retreat.

Only for Larent to take her place, reaching him in the air with [Air Walk]. With a single slash, the mana blade sliced through his two right fire arms, before bashing the demonkin in the head with the blunt side of his blade.

“Keep him alive! I can arrest him safely!” he shouted as our enemy crashed onto the ground. As the dust dissipated, he roared out as his flame arms regenerated.

Wobbly from the sleeping venom, the demonkin grinned fiercely, despite his whole body being riddled with wounds and blood. The spots Neill hit finally started to swell, turning not only dark red but also slightly purple. Neill’s mana probably ravaged his organs and muscles.

“Looks like I’m at my end… but you all cannot make me speak, Aurena’s swines! Guuuraaagh” His four eyes, fangs, and flame armor returned and the general intensity of his fire grew back to what I saw in the beginning, caused by his [Anger] and [Fear] reaching 100% at the same time. Adrenaline was pushing him through my venom. “I will bury all of you underwater!”

He turned his head up to the ceiling. The guy was trying to flood the whole place! We were deep underwater! That pressure would swallow us whole, dragon or humans!

“Stop him!” Larent shouted, shooting out a blade of mana, while Neill rushed forward. Everything should reach him in time to kill him, but if he unleashed any attack, it would still break the cavern!

“For the Edjurl gods!” He clanged his weapons and directed—

“Staring out the window while it rains ♫

No one here to talk, silence is all I have ♫

So I delved into my thoughts and wondered, “What if?”♫”

[Music Resonation (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

All we needed to do was let me sing.

“The laughing kid stomping loudly upstairs ♫

The damn lovebirds flirting on the streets ♫

Those rich asses living in their golden bubbles♫

I just wish they would all just disappear ♫”

And the blast was shot up, but unlike what I could produce, his flames were only about the size of a human, only sizzling the ceiling. At the same time, his wings, tails, armor, fangs, and second pair of eyes all disappeared, only leaving his four arms behind. His eyes flared up in surprise, only to cry out in pain as Larent’s slashed his back.

“Those are my honest thoughts, something I wish to hide from them ♫

My life is stagnating, nothing I do brings me forth ♫

All I can do is sing, drowning my sorrows while it rains ♫

Every step I take just brings me back, to a rundown apartment room ♫”

“Gaaaaaah!” The pleasant but solemn music accompanied the agony-filled yell, reaching the chorus as he fell onto the ground. All the groaning and steps inside this room were drowned out by my voice.

“Turn away, close my eyes, lock these wishes far away ♫

Not again, not again…or I’ll cry until the end ♫

All of my darkest thoughts ♫

Will serve me as my muse ♫

So, I’ll sing, I’ll sing, I’ll sing, I’ll sing! ♫

As I fade from your thoughts ♫”

“Captured!” Larent announced as he handcuffed the demonkin.

I snapped my fingers, letting [My Darkest Thoughts] keep playing while I walked over. With the song continuing playing and my venom taking effect again, the adrenaline in the demonkin’s body weakened and his fire arms also disappeared. The only features of his demonic heritage left were his flaming horns.

“What in Father’s name was that?” Neill asked, looking at me and the demonkin in disbelief.

“[My Darkest Thoughts]. One of my spell songs, made to counter demonic powers. It doesn’t block them, but it does suppress them to the point the demonkin and their contractors cannot go full power with them. Or, well, stop them from turning the tide, at least.” I smirked, so happy I could use the song again. Back in Estalia, if that Warbringer had fought me, I would have used this song as my trump, just like the demonkin fight in Griffonpeak.

“Whoo, well, no wonder you’re a Champion. You literally have everything you need to fight them.” Neill showed me a thumbs up, embarrassing me a bit.

“Hehe, well, my Job is also there to fight them. Too bad all I could do was poison and sing for him. Couldn’t use my [Holy Demon Slayer] or [Humanity’s Foe Slayer]. Well, we still got him, though.”

[Champion of Aurena] was there to fight demonkins, and it was currently my main Job. I couldn’t use it to its fullest effect today, but it was all good. With Neill and Larent around, supporting them was easy enough with their combined firepower.

“Graak!” I was woken up from my self-flattery by the demonkin’s cries of pain, only to see a pool of blood forming.

“His injuries are worsening. Lady Hestia!” I nodded to Larent’s call, throwing a white fireball at the demonkin to heal up the huge gashes on his chest and back, both caused by Larent. I didn’t heal all his wounds, of course.

Jeez, those are a lot of wounds. On the other hand… Larent is literally unharmed. Some soot on his armor, but that was all.

“Your song isn’t just nullifying his powers, but also his regenerative powers. The fight might not have seemed intense, but he took a lot of my blows,” Larent noted. “After our duel, his flames really didn’t do much to me.”

“‘Course!” I shouted back, gloating over my own powers. As if you could compare this demonkin’s flames to mine, after it literally did no damage to me nor could it break through my scale barrier.

[“Master…”] Rajah called out from my shadow, sounding a bit sad I didn’t let him fight. The fight didn’t last long enough for him to do anything.

But, in any case, the banter was nice, but we had better take care of this demonkin.

“What are those handcuffs?” I asked, somehow recognizing them from back in Firwood. Although, I needed my parallel minds to do some work to remember.

“Anti-Mage cuffs. Made in Aleistunum to prevent mages from escaping prison. I’m pretty sure every country has them, Lady Hestia. Haven’t you seen any soldiers or knights arrest people? This is the only way to stop those able to use mana from escaping.”

Larent explained whenever the cuffs detected a person would use their mana, the cuffs would absorb the amount before expelling them through the air. There were also highly expensive cuffs made to seal off a person’s System usage or mana completely, but those required dungeon core shards to make, so they were reserved for top priority criminals.

Technically, the demonkin should count as one, but Larent, and to a greater extent Yeos, weren't wealthy enough to afford the more expensive pair and only had the normal ones. As such, all of us had to keep an eye on him, as these cuffs weren’t foolproof and could be broken through sheer strength.

After the explanation, Larent pulled the wobbly guy up. It looked like he was about to fall asleep, but it seemed the adrenaline rush from before was keeping him awake for now. Seeing as we captured him to gain intel, we better start doing it.

“Well, well, well, we meet again.” As we were walking him out of the still sizzling chamber, I began the talk as Larent had to calm his bloodthirst down. “First, you send wyvernslayers to kill me, including this guy, and now you send an actual assassin to assassinate me? Not to mention, trying to plunge a whole city into the sea? I was told by one of your mercs to consider both sides, but you’re really making it hard to like you.”

“… Is that really your first question? My emotions are going down, so you better ask me something important before I go L.E.P— Ouugh!” The demonkin smirked, only for him to groan after Larent punched him in the stomach.

“L.E.P. — low emotional potential. He becomes depressed, in other words. Wrath demonkins are tied to their emotions, sadly. But, he can’t get that low if he feels fear for us,” Larent explained his actions. “But, yes, as she said, long time no see. Well, we’ve never met, but I learned afterward I was hired by an Edjurl follower and their demonkin backers. Not only did you despicable scum kill the Goddess’s blessed, but you tried to make me a blessed slayer as well.”

Aside from the wyvernslayer, Larent was one of the people the Church of Edjurls hired to “scare me out of the city,” as Larent explained before. He didn’t know I was a harmless little girl, thinking one of Estralia’s senators wouldn’t lie about a “dangerous dragon” roaming the city. In other words, he and his party were lied to, and I could see he held a grudge for that.

“… Well, war, right? I know you ‘Auegor’s Blade,’ and it sure was an honor to clash blades against a knight like you. Heard you fought in two of my campaigns, but never got the luck to meet you. Urgh…” Strangely, the demonkin seemed pretty talkative despite being a prisoner, although what he said was kinda redundant. “Subterfuge or not, we are in a war against you humans and Aurena. Call me dishonorable or not, but this is just the way it goes.”

“So, you’re not denying you were trying to sink this city?! We know you’re aiming for Karhalantheel’s seal, and you’re still saying this is just because of the war?! Do you even have any idea how many people are being pulled into this?! That invasion is right in front of the city’s door!” I shouted back, but the demonkin didn’t react much to it, only rolling his eyes.

“War is war. What do you want me to say? I’m a soldier, and I am proud to fight for my homeland, even if you end up executing me for it, Aurena’s dog.” I really wanted to punch him for that snide remark. “If you ask me, an eye for an eye. Those humans you’ve been fighting for haven’t been actually graceful to my people, either. You do know this war is an extinction race, right? Who kills the other side first, wins. Nothing less. This is why this war has been going on and off for nearly 600 years now, ever since the Empire was formed.”

Nearly 600 years?! I knew it had been going on for a long time, but that long?! That’s some Hundred Year War dialed up by 600%!

A side of me really wanted to ask him how a war could last that long, but at the same time, my mind was tunnel visioned on what he was saying. What an absurd thing to say! Eye for an eye? All that will do is continue a cycle of hatred and pain!

“Jeez, cool off, Sis. You’re about to start steaming with that red face…” Neill told me with a frown, looking displeased I was letting him get to me.

“Wouldn’t you be?!”

“Uhm… Sorry if I sound cold, but this whole war thing is really just… Arck, come on, you must have heard it from your mother? Dragons shouldn’t be dragging themselves into this crap! Humans think they can serve the gods better by performing genocide, while the demonkins are idiots for trying to bring their slimy gods to our world.”

“The Edjurl gods treat us well, at least. The Origin Gods have condemned us to this damnation. If the world wages war on us, then how else are we supposed to defend ourselves?” the demonkins snapped at Neill’s comment, causing the latter to glare at him.

“And this is why you demonkins are treated as the enemy. Stop trying to antagonize yourself, you fool. Haaak, whatever, this is not my concern anyways. Hey, Larent, you do the damn interrogation. Leave us out of this.” And without warning, Neill grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the demonkin.

“Woah!” I blurted out in surprise, before standing my ground, resisting. “Neill!”

“Oh, don’t you dare! You already told Renee you won’t join this whole war thing, so FOLLOW THROUGH IT. There is a major difference between your Divine Quest, and the war between Folschreck and Bole’Taria. There is a fine lining, so calm down!” Neill chided me, silencing me at how angry she seemed. “Just saying, but he isn’t being cooperative, trying to hide it by provoking you with everything. It doesn’t matter what he believes this whole war is about. The only thing that matters is that we get the information needed to prevent the city’s downfall. That is our goal, so we can’t have you derail it with your current state of mind.”

I groaned, feeling a bit at a loss for words. It felt like Neill wanted to say even more but kept it to herself, only bringing the important parts to calm me down. Indeed, her scolding hit me hard here. Disregarding how I felt about it morally, she was right that we needed information more than anything else. We still didn’t know enough.

I thought I should participate in this interrogation, but Neill placed some more pressure on my wrist, glaring at me as if she could see right through me. “You’re calm now, but you’re a bit of a hot head. Fire dragon stuff. Leave it to Larent. He’s capable enough to keep that fire demonkin down, and that guy’s bloodthirst isn’t gone yet.”

“Trust me.” I turned to Larent who followed up. “I’m not done yet. Kushlek’zar and I noticed this guy when we saw him sail in with some of those thieves, but he doesn’t seem like a commander-type. There are more, and one of them is the one who killed Arlond. I will get that information.”

“… Right, I know this guy. He’s working with that Warbringer girl. Hmm?” I raised an eyebrow when the demonkin reacted to my statement. “… Where is that little punk, anyways? Now that I think about it, she was working with you the last time we met in Estralia, and I know she seemed to have a soft spot for you considering she valued your life over killing me.”

“… My Master is a free spirit. She has her own goals, as I have my own. We are soldiers.”

“And soldiers listen to orders.” Larent pushed the guy forward. “A warbringer is one of the demonkin army’s top commanders, outside of the princes. If your master isn’t here, then you are going on the orders of a prince.”

With Larent’s cold, emotionless eyes telling me he was ready to extract information from the demonkin at all cost, Neill and I left him to find a place to interrogate him. Instead, Neill suggested we look around for any clues, so I let Rajah out to help us out. He might not be a dog, but he still had a good nose.

“Hmm? Storage room? Food, weapons, armor… nothing else, really. Rations, I guess. So this has to be an army camp, nothing more,” Neill noted after inspecting the first open chamber down the tunnel.

“Yeah, a lot of rooms are empty or just sleeping spaces. Oh, watch for the bodies. Stepping on them feels wrong, enemy or not,” I sighed in disappointment.

Numerous chambers or rooms were just empty or useless to our search, and it continued on until we came close to where we initially started. We could hear the sound of the knights speaking, constantly being spoken over by the loud pleading and curses of people I didn’t recognize, probably the mercs we fought.

As Neill and I were about to give up, Rajah suddenly perked up. [“Master! I smell something tasty!”]

“Huh, Rajah?” I saw my virigress just run off after that remark. “Hey! Work, don’t go around looking for things to eat!”

“That cat can be a real brat. You sure you’ve been training him right?”

“…” I could only look at Neill in shame. I knew how cheeky Rajah could be, even back when I adopted him in Belzac, and seeing as he was still acting up even with me around, it really made me worry what a bad cat owner I was.

Regardless, we followed him to a side room, noticing there was a desk in front, probably used as a makeshift door. Taking it off, Rajah dashed into the small room, completely dark unlike the rest of the place all lit with candles. Neill and I found a desk filled with letters on it, including a mattress. Some clothes were stored in a sack, which made us realize this place belonged to a woman from the underwear.

… Enemy or not, pretty rude to go through a girl’s clothes. Even for us girls.

We placed the stuff back where it belonged and separated. While Neill went to read the letters, I went to see why Rajah was messing with another sack. Were there more clothes in there, and did he smell that? No way would he think dirty girl laundry would be “tasty,” right? … Right?

[“Master! Look. Delicious!”] Rajah called out for me once again, prompting me to open the sack, only to catch a whiff of something sweet as I did so. With my curiosity piqued I looked into the sack, and raised my eyebrow in astonishment. [“Master! Donuts! Your donuts, yes! Also some cake!”]

He was right. I took out a donut from the sack and smelled it, noticing it was cold and felt a bit hard, probably ‘cause it was left out too long. Making sure there wasn’t any poison with [Mana Eyes], I shrugged and gave Rajah the rest of the pastry. He loved them, especially since they were 100% the ones the Sarlenzia company sold.

Hearing him munching like crazy, I bit into the glazed pastry and nodded. 100%, these things were a day old. Well, honestly, it made sense, since we sold them yesterday but wouldn’t today. No way could these mercs get any of them from somewhere else, at least, not in this condition.

Jeez…

It was clear whoever this girl was liked this stuff, considering she stored six donuts and two shortcakes in that sack. Just like the mercs who turned out to be my fans, it felt weird and bad that somebody on the other side of this conflict liked my pasty recipes. It kinda humanized them, making it harder to hate them ‘cause of their bankrupt morality.

At the end of the day, people were people, right? They liked what they liked, regardless of who they were. I couldn’t help but thank them for their patronage in my head.

“Hey, Hestia. Rajah’s nose seemed to have led us to an actual treasure,” Neill suddenly brought up while I was mildly annoyed by this recent revelation.

[“I have! Yay!”] the little guy cheered before returning to his snack. He sure was carefree.

I took the scroll Neill had on her and read it.

“Hmm. ‘This is my order to you. You will lead the plan to destroy Yeostar’s legacy, sinking it into the ground with the grimgarians. Vifi’Yok, you will be the—’ Hold on, Vifi’Yok?” I raised an eyebrow at that weird naming convention, remembering how it resembled Klea’Hatma’s. I shrugged, and kept reading. “Okay, ‘commander for this operation…’ Hold on, ‘commander?!’”

“Yeah, you can see at the bottom it's signed by ‘Prince of Envy.’ We got the name of the commander. ‘Vifi’Yok,’ and I’m pretty sure this place belongs to her considering everything here.”

‘For the glory of Bole’Taria and the Edjurl Gods, make sure you perform your duty admirably Warbringer Vifi’Yok. With your victory, a major enemy to our home will be eliminated for the foreseeable future, or maybe even forever. Assure the dragon Champion is also eliminated, and that her mother will not be a threat to us.’

…

This was damning. And also really infuriating.

“Hestia…”

“I’m okay… It’s like you said, my first assassin, right? Cool. ‘Eliminate, and make sure her mother will not be a threat.’ Cool. Yeah, after how we let those demonkins get away, it was obvious they would consider me a threat now. We didn’t have a choice but… Wait.”

All of my anger, it all dissipated when I turned my attention to the donut. This room belonged to this Warbringer, but she wasn’t in the base right now. Only her apprentice, that wrath demonkin was here. So, where was she? She had to lead this place, so she had to be here in this city somewhere.

‘I honestly thought that person was trying to help me, I mean, she really loved the donuts I gave her for free…’ Amelia told me yesterday. She was visited by a robed person, who liked donuts. SURELY, this is all just a coincidence, right? Right, this Vifi’Yok could have just had somebody else order it for her… but what if?

Amelia was currently in the city. She had to meet up with the merchant guild for something. Considering the enemy was in the city, they probably knew Amelia was related to me for some reason. It had to be. Why else would a random robed person meet her during the night?

And if they knew who she was, then there had to be people around to check on her. So, those people would know she was in the city. What if they were to also know we attacked their base? What exactly could they use to threaten me at this very moment?

My friends.

… Paranoia? I will not risk it… I WILL NOT RISK IT, AGAIN!

“Never again!”

“Hestia?!” I pushed Neill to the side, charging out of the door. “H-Hey, wait! Where are you going?!”

But I didn’t answer. I had to rush. Activating my rocket boosters, I flew right out of the cavern, unnerving the knights and prisoners as I didn’t have the patience to wait for them to get out of the way. My mind was set to one mode, and it was to protect my friend. I could not allow Amelia to get in danger. I would not repeat the same mistake!

Blasting out of the door, I snapped my head to the sky, noticing how it was raining, even storming a bit. Just the sight of this, causing my chest to tighten up when I remembered what happened during Eshe’s death. It was raining. I was stuck underground. And I just learned one of my friends was in danger.

No more. No more! NOT AGAIN, PLEASE!

And without even asking Aurena for information, I spread my wings and took to the skies, blasting up in the air, trying my best to remember where the merchant guild was. No, even worse, I didn’t know where it was at all! I never went there, not even with Amelia. I left all that stuff to her ‘cause I trusted her! This had to be a fucking joke!

I stared down at the city of Elyonda from above, trying my best to guess where she was, even using my ears, but with the storm and rain, that was just impossible. I was beginning to panic! I had to find her. Even if this was paranoia, I needed to get to her and make sure she was okay. She was a friend. I will not lose another friend.

Merchant district! Right, right, of course!

Logical assumption. Just like in Firwood and Griffonpeak, the merchant guild was in the merchant district. Where exactly, I didn’t know, but that was the best place to look for! So I flew over to the area, staring down at the ground and how desolate it was, only seeing a few homeless people rushing through the rain into an alleyway.

Most of the normal people were at the arena right now, listening to that musical, but this still seemed so stressful. It felt like a ghost city. Then again, the city was preparing for war, so maybe it was better this way.

Dammit, concentrate! Listen!

I perked my ears to the eye, focusing on anything I could find. Anything at all! I had to pierce through the storm and rain, enduring the hard droplets, and find my friend!

“Argh, com’on this damn rain! Why is it raining during a festival?!”

“‘Ey, move it! To the arena, ‘eard they doing something there.”

All Yeosians. I had to continue. I needed to find—

“W-What, no, I can’t!”

Amelia!

That accent. That Artorian accent that resembled something English or European, compared to how Mediterranean Yeosian accents sounded. It was the only one I could hear through all this noise. I darted my head around, once again hearing her voice.

“My friend is waiting for me. I know you mean well, but I can’t go with you!”

“Lady Amelia, please, stand back!”

Locked!

I twisted my body around and flew to the left at high speed, reaching it just as a man finished what he was saying.

“— don’t need to!”

There they are! Four knights and Amelia in the middle… but who is that lone person in front of them?

“Please, we don’t have enough time. There is an invasion of grimgarians coming at this point! East! You need to move east! I can get you out of the country fast, so please, trust me!”

Folschreckian? It sounded like the same accent those Lycerepth agents have. Maybe less thick than Pestrodus’s? That judge had a very thick accent, so honestly it couldn’t be compared.

“H-How do you know that?! It’s supposed to be a secret from everybody! Stay back! Why are you even trying to help me? Who are you?!”

“Dammit, you litt— Urgh, lemma just say that ya needa get outta here! I’m trying to get this debt cleaned!” The girl took a step forward.

“Stay back!” The knights drew their swords.

“Oh, ya really trying me ‘ere?! Stand down! I’m not here to fight! Ya need to escape! Now!” She took another step forward, causing the knight to form a wall between that girl and Amelia. “Oh, for fuck’s sake! This is getting annoying! Dammit, ju— Woah!”

A strong gale appeared out of nowhere, rattling me in the sky and blowing away the hood of the girl, revealing her… face. It was her.

<Hestia, that is the demonkin!>

I didn’t need to hear from Yeostar to confirm who it was. It was her. Black hair with red highlights. She didn’t have her horns out, but considering she was a wrath demonkin, it was to be expected.

It was the Warbringer.

“Argh, dammit, this stupid storm! Come on, we nee—”

“KRAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

“— What?!”

I [Dragoon Dive]d down with my glaive, slamming it right into the ground as she dodged away. She didn’t use her lightning abilities, but she was already this fast?

“Shit!” She reappeared to my left, now further away from Amelia. “Huh? Who da hell are you?!”

“Lady Hestia?!” Amelia cried to me, barely audible through this rain.

“Huh?! This is that Hestia? The donuts?” She stared at me, grimacing from surprise.

“You bitch…”

“What?!”

“If you want to kill me, then come to me! Not my friends! You fucking little slut! How dare you go after my friend!”

Deep breaths. Deep breaths. In and out. Remember, Sloth.

“W-What in da hell is this crap?! Kill who? Who da the hell are you even, you little punk, calling me—”

“KRAAAAAAAH!”

Remember, Gluttony. What is my Gluttony? … What is it?

My roar blasted forth, blowing the demonkin back from the pressure. I took off my party bracelet and placed it and my glaive into my storage as the sound of music began to play.

“Staring out the window while it rains ♫

No one here to talk, silence is all I have ♫

So I delved into my thoughts and wondered, “What if?”♫”

[Music Resonation (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Huh, where is— Urgh, what the fuck! Why am I—?”

To maintain my relationships. To keep them all healthy.

“Kriffiek kllk gaaung!”

[Battle Frenzy (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

[Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] has integrated certain abilities from Titles: [The Light], [Divine Inferno]. Seeking permission for activation… Individual [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has usurped control over [The Light] and [Divine Inferno]. Permission automatically granted

“Wooah, what—?!” The outburst of mana completely blew away the girl’s hood, revealing her shock at my sudden power boost.

Humanize!

But the surprise wouldn’t end there for the demonkin. With mana mist escaping from my body, I transformed fully into my dragon form, revealing my splendor as I dwarfed my enemy completely.

“… It’s you.”

“KRAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

Bring it on.

“… Came out of your hole?”

“Tsk! Feels weird getting rescued by a human…”

Larent and Hee’Rlak stared at the man in front of the chamber’s entrance, slowly walking in with a single dagger in hand. His grey jacket dragged along the ground, looking slightly conspicuous, not to mention the large skull mask with numerous horn-like adornments on it.

He waved his dagger, conjuring up three grey magic circles, which materialized multiple floating grey flames and daggers, all aimed at Larent. Readying himself for a fight, Larent took his own stance in response.

“Did you kill Arlond?”

“7th boss of the Yanderu Eluseuss, Qaltil of the Skull Hive. I will make you join the hivemind, Auegor’s Blade.”

Profile:

Name:   Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor

Level: 19

Race:   Young Sunfang Dragon

Age: 1 Year

Main: Champion Of Aurena Level 4/30

Secondary: Ravager Level 15/15

Unique: Locked

Status:

Health:

17231 (+401)

Mana:

45413 (+562)

Strength:

9330 (+228)

Intelligence:

13241 (+260)

Vitality:

4989 (+121)

Wisdom:

6723 (+151)

Agility:

12582 (+182)

Stamina:

9431 (+329)

Effects:

None

Skill Points:

3550 (-100)

Unique Skill:

[Dreadflame Dragon Lv. 5] (+1) [Hellblade Dragon Lv. 5] (+2)

[Solar Core Lv. 4] (+1) [Venerated Saintess Lv. 4] (+1) [Idol Lv. 4] (+1)

[Volcanic Blaze]

Skill:

Magic skills and related:

[Lightning Magic Lv. 4] [White Flames Lv. 6] (+1)

[Corrosive Fire Lv. 6] [Sacred Magic Lv. 8] (+1) [Terra Magic Lv. 4]

[Wind Magic Lv. 10] [Wind Amp] [Wind Magic Efficiency]

[Storm Magic Lv. 4] [Space-Time Magic Lv. 6]

[Space-Time Magic Efficiency] [True Draconic Lineage]

[Draconic Barrier Lv. 8] [Silent Casting Lv. 10]

[Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 7] [Mental Stability Lv. 9]

[Mental Warfare Lv. 6] [Fluid Cast Lv. 6] (+1)

[Delayed Cast Lv. 5] [Continuous Cast Lv. 5] (+1) [Mana Eyes Lv. 6]

Physical skills and related:

[Unarmed Technique Lv. 8] [Unarmed Mastery Lv. 4]

[Sword Technique Lv. 1] [Spear Technique Lv. 9]

[Spear Mastery Lv. 7]

[Draconic Roar Lv. 6] [All-Damage Enhancement Lv. 1]

Senses and movement skills:

[Silence Lv. 1] [Accuracy Correction Lv. 8]

[Concentration Lv. 8] [Foresight Lv. 3]

[Danger Perception Lv. 10] [Probability Correction Lv. 8]

[Detection Sensor Lv. 3] [Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 6]

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 10] (+1) [Tracking Lv. 5] [Night Vision Lv. 9] (+1)

[Odorless Lv. 1] [Evasion Lv. 10] [Acrobatic Lv. 10]

[Air Walk Lv. 6] (+1) [Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 6]

[Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 9] [Aerial Fighter Lv. 6] (+1)

Resistances:

[Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 6] [Absolute Pain Tolerance]

[Mental Corruption Resistance Lv. 10] [Mind Protection Lv. 10]

[Mana Leak Resistance Lv. 10] [Abnormal Status Nullification]

[Fear Resistance Lv. 5] [Lightning Resistance Lv. 6]

[Sacred Resistance Lv. 6] (+1) [Storm Resistance Lv. 5]

[Water Resistance Lv. 6] (+1) [Dark Resistance Lv. 4]

Stat growths and related:

[Speed of Sound Lv. 5]

Others:

[Stage Fever Lv. 6] [Handicraft Lv. 6] [Woodworking Lv. 7]

[Stonecrafting Lv. 1] [Trap Creation Lv. 10] [Instruction Lv. 2]

[Identity Blocker Lv. 10] [Tranquil Mind Lv. 1] [Cooking Lv. 9]

[Benevolent Aura Lv. 3] [Draconic Aura Lv. 4] [Royal Presence Lv. 5] (+1)

[Scale Manipulation Lv. 2] (New) [Territory Release Lv. 1] (New)

[Dismantle Lv. 9] [Gluttonous] [Thought Acceleration Lv. 4]

[High-Speed Calculation Lv. 2] [Multi-Thought Processing Lv. 4] (+1)

[Parallel Thoughts Lv. 10] [Core Regulation]

[Humanize Lv. 10] [Telepathy] [Aerokinesis]

Job:

[Holy Demon Slayer] [Humanity’s Foe Slayer]

[Demonic Influence Resistance Lv. 5] [Light Element Enhancement]

[All-Damage Enhancement Lv. 3]

Ability List:

Dragon:

[Dreadflare Aura] [Hellblade Edge] [Scale-Dust Veil] [Hellflame Breath]

[Solar Beam] [Magmakammer]

Spear:

[Spiral] [Spark Crescent]

Unarmed:

[Dragoon Jump] [Gale Steps] [Dragoon Dive]

Spell List:

Custom Magic:

[Symphonie des Feuergottes] [Prayer] [Sanctified Blaze]

[Sanctified Blaze: Halo of Consecration] [Ignite] [Panzer] [Unheilge Engel]

[Scorching Sun]

Custom Spell Song:

[The Will to Fight and Survive] [Dragon Fire] [My Darkest Thoughts]

[The Heir of Hope]

Lightning Magic:

[Lightning Bolt] [Purple Flash] [Levin Core] [Overload]

Holy Magic:

[Sacred Smite] [Sacred Veil] [Sacred Field] [Banishment Beam]

[Major Heal] [Omnictus] [Gloria Ascendence] [Heaven’s Sword]

Earth Magic

[Terra Wall] [Bedrock Blades] [Rumbling Might] [Ruinous Rockfall]

Wind Magic:

[Wind Bullet] [Wind Cutter] [Air Shield] [Wind Slash]

[Swift Winds] [Wind Blast] [Featherfall] [Aerial Blitz]

[Tornado Bullet] [Sylphid’s Cloak] [Tailwind] [Cyclone Madness]

Space-Time Magic:

[Haste] [Storage Magic] [Warp Point: Entry] [Warp Point: Exit] [Room]

The Light Magic:

[Shine] [Sanctuary] [Miraculous Grace]

Titles:

[The Light] [Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] [Divine Inferno]

[Otherworldly Reincarnator] [Princess]

A note from AbyssRaven

Here we go, the grand reunion! Angry red dragon girl versus angry red demon girl … Hmm.

It's an old song but it's been a while since she played it. "Dry Flowers" from Yuuri. Rawr

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 347: Abyss of Despair.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #4 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! It works on a subscription base now, so pay when next month comes!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

“The laughing kid stomping loudly upstairs ♫

The damn lovebirds flirting on the streets ♫

Those rich asses living in their golden bubbles♫

I just wish they would all just disappear ♫”

Fire!

“Dammit!”

Collateral damage was unavoidable with this damn girl in the city, I had to create distance between her and Amelia! Using all my available parallel minds on top of my own mind to begin casting, eleven white magic circles appeared behind me, causing the demonkin to flinch. With my attention locked onto the enemy, I shot a barrage of [Sacred Smite] at her.

She threw away the coat she was wearing and her body immediately released a stream of red lightning, forming into two horns and a tail. I would have thought she wouldn’t have any time to avoid my spells, but in a split second, she formed her elemental halberd with her lightning and used it to block the first spell. Using the knockback from the first [Sacred Smite], she flung herself back, and then disappeared from sight, leaving only the afterimage of a red streak as my spells decimated the street.

That’s it! Spread the fire! Overload! Buffs on!

[Various Spell Buffs] [Overload] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Lightning enveloped my body, sizzling even the cells inside my organs. The pain wasn’t very noticeable, actually it was more like the electricity was numbing my senses to my own pain. From prolonged [Absolute Pain Nullification] usage, I knew it should be very painful, but I needed this extreme, high-risk Agility boost to keep up with this speed demon.

However—

Ha! Foresight says—

“KriiiGHH!”

— it was still not enough.

Arck! Fast!

“Get shit on, ya damn lizard!”

With a powerful blow to my head, I crashed right into the building next to me, demolishing it and the ones around it at the same time. I was far larger than anything around, to the point I was peeking over them a moment ago.

A headache. I felt something leak though my pain tolerance, and after snapping my eyes to the side, I saw the girl holding a huge lightning warhammer. My [Draconic Barrier] protected me from the attack partially, to the point the attack was healed up in a second by my white flames. Using my sun core, I also regenerated the mana I used up, although since it was raining and the sun was covered up, I should take care not to overuse my solar energy, unless I absolutely needed it.

I’m sorry for the houses. I’ll pay you back!

Pushing myself out of the building, I used [Wind Blast] to shoot myself forward, launching an uppercut slash with my tail at the girl. Expectantly, she dodged out of the way immediately, but the point of the attack wasn't to hit her, but to release a flame cloud and scale-dust into the air.

My [Foresight] and [Danger Perception] activated once again, but now knowing how fast she was, I was able to react two seconds earlier than before, protecting myself with a scale barrier. A loud “BRANG” sound erupted, followed by thunder as I saw the black-red-haired girl reappear before me. As Saori said, she really was fast.

Voltaic Red. Blast away! Dreadflare Aura!

And before she could flee once again, I super dialed up my inner temperature, exploding the scale-dust within me at once to turn myself into a heat bomb. The demonkin was caught by the explosion, unable to use her lightning speed in time.

Not wanting to melt the surroundings though, I disabled it immediately after three seconds, and in this time, the demonkin reacted. Her body produced red lightning and vanished, only leaving behind a red silhouette. However, I remembered Saori’s theory on how this Warbringer’s power worked.

Magnetism through her mana. She wasn’t teleporting, she was just speeding up, and that always left a red streak behind. I only needed to follow it with my eyes and—

Flashfire!

— use my own super speed ability.

My vision instantly turned into streaks of color, disorientating me as I had no idea where I was until it steadied. And what I saw was a small girl with lightning right in front of me.

“Huh? Wh— GRAAAK!” Before she could speak, I slashed at her with my claws, set aflame by [Hellblade Edge]. I felt electricity sizzling my claws and scales upon contact, forcing me to simply launch her away from me instead of grabbing her.

I wasn’t in my [Battle Frenzy] form for nothing. To make up the level difference of 50 levels, half of my current level, I honestly needed everything I could muster up.

And I didn’t expect to hurt her in any sorta way until I could activate my two strongest buffing abilities.

“Ark, you damn lizard!” the girl cried out from the ground, recovering from her fall, although she didn’t show any damage from my claw attack. Did she ward it off somehow? “You piece of— Woah!”

Hellflame Breath! As I’d gonna let you speak, you damn bitch!

[“Amelia! Sir Knights!”] I spoke to Amelia and the knights telepathically, looking at them from the corner of my eyes as I left my parallel mind in control of my fire breath. [“Get her out of here, now! Go to the arena!”]

The knights instantly saluted and pushed Amelia awayfrom the battle, while I could hear her faint “Be careful!” even from here. However, my instincts told me I couldn’t allow any more distractions, but I was still glad I made it in time to protect her from this scum. And my gut feeling was proven right when I saw my flames being pushed back for some reason.

Listening to my skills, I interrupted my flame breath and dodged to the side, only to see a lightning halberd fly past me. I snapped my head around, seeing the girl forming a lightning crossbow to shoot lightning bolts at me.

I set some of my scale-dust in the sky aflame and used [Flashfire] to avoid the bolts, dashing over to the explosions, before being forced to do it again as the demonkin anticipated my destination with bolts flying past me. The damn rain really limited the amount of fire in the area, since only flames on my body were unquenchable with [Inferno Coating].

That meant the demonkin could predict where I was going, leading to us clashing again with our melee attacks. I swung my burning tail and wings around, fending off her lightning weapon assault. Size and mass mattered quite a bit as I could push her aside with everything, but my bulky original form led to more attacks landing on me, totally unavoidable with how freaking fast she was!

I’m getting outsped! Dammit! I need my Symphonie now or never!

“You fucking lizard, what did you do to me!” she shouted as I dodged her rapier that was aiming to pierce my eye. “Why can’t I summon my arms!”

[My Darkest Thought] was the reason, of course.

“Those are my honest thoughts, something I wish to hide from them ♫

My life is stagnating, nothing I do brings me forth ♫

All I can do is sing, drowning my sorrows while it rains ♫

Every step I take just brings me back, to a rundown apartment room ♫

Turn away, close my eyes, lock these wishes far away ♫

Not again, not again…or I’ll cry until the end ♫

All of my darkest thoughts ♫

Will serve me as my muse ♫

So, I’ll sing, I’ll sing, I’ll sing, I’ll sing! ♫

As I fade from your thoughts ♫”

The fact she hadn’t noticed it probably could be attributed to how tense the situation was. You couldn’t really appraise [Music Resonation (Moderate)] and get the information needed in this high speed fight.

And that was my advantage over her, and something I would push to win this fight! Level 150? Fuck off, this girl would be going down for trying to kidnap Amelia!

I gnashed my fangs together, unleashing explosive scale-dust in front of the demonkin, avoiding her attack with the resulting smokescreen. Using this small moment, I focused my mana before my jaw, concentrating it on using my second Divine ability through [Battle Frenzy].

I held it in, perked my ears, and focused purely on my hearing to track the demonkin through the smokescreen. Instantly, thunder claps; pang-pheeeeeew. Even through all this rain, I heard it. And it happened again. Pang and phew, pang and phew, pag and phe—

There! Light Horizon!

The demonkin jumped out from the smoke just as the white scales on my body began to shine like light bulbs, triggering the divine power inside my [The Light] title — [Light Horizon]. Light manipulation; that was what I was doing, and with it, I shot out pure demon-killing light pellets at the demonkin!

“Gruuek!”

And it was a point-blank hit! And, from the look of her face, it actually hurt her.

Flames! Prevent her from healing! Hellflame Breath!

“Bwaa—!”

Unleashing my flame breath again, I shot the girl up into the air, using this chance to activate [Purple Flash] to quick-cast [Omnictus] on her ass! Applying [Dread Burn] on her was the goal here, all so she couldn't heal any of the wounds I inflicted on her before that abnormal effect disappeared.

And, since [Omnictus] ignored non-living enemies, there wouldn’t be any collateral damage with this spell! I couldn’t sense anybody around us, so this was the chance for me to deal some serious amounts of damage!

In five seconds, a small baseball stadium-sized white magic circle appeared in the sky. As the runes within the circle rotated like the hands on a clock, bright light gathering inside of it, turning the mana I gave to it into potent holy light. And once it was enough, a beam from heaven shot down from the sky, striking where I felt the demonkin would be in my flame breath.

I stopped my flame breath as the spell hit, believing I didn’t need to add more to the damage. Beating my wings, I took to the sky to take a closer look at the demonkin, only for my eyes to widen up like a goldfish as I saw that demonkin floating in place, protecting herself from my spell with a lighting barrier. This was a level six [Sacred Spell], how was she—

Eek!

She snapped her head to me. Eyes filled with rage, exuding so much bloodlust that it caused me flinch.

“EeeeRAAAAAAAAAH!” she howled like a proud beast, despite her barrier slowly being pushed down. “EMOTION SURGE!”

My spell finally showed its worth as she was slowly pushed to the ground, but for some reason, I couldn’t help but feel this strange foreboding. She was screaming her lungs out, trying to elevate her three emotions. However, it should be futile with my song around. The song should be stifling her demonic powers to a degree.

However, she kept on hollering, completely ignoring the situation at hand. It felt intimidating as hell how she wasn't giving up, but it also weirded me out that I couldn’t imagine what she was thinking right now. With my mind calmed down now with Amelia escaping to safety, it was about time for me to appraise her profile! I needed information.

Mana Eyes!

Information Blocked

What?!

How the hell was this possible!? I knew she was level 150, but this girl looked around my age! How the hell did she have the ability to block my [Mana Eyes] out of all the things?! She wasn’t even wearing anything special I could see, so I was presuming it was ‘cause of a skill. But she looked 15. 15! She was at a higher level than most people despite being a kid!

“KIIIIIIYAAAAAAAAH!” And that was when my curiosity instantly turned into wariness and fear as her neon red highlights in her hair grew even brighter as her lightening intensified.

She let out a deep sigh afterward and snapped her grimacing face my way. She deactivated her lightning barrier, deciding to simply fly through my spell and just tank all the damage. Without a doubt, this girl was crazy to tank a level six spell like this, but who cared! She was level 150!

Deciding Plan A wasn’t working as well as I hoped it would, I cast both [Panzer] and [Unheiliger Engel], believing it was time to inflict torpor venoms on her like the other demonkin. Hiding trump cards wasn’t possible with her.

So, before she came out of it…

Halo of Consecration… and with this new solar core. Even if it breaks!

Heat and energy. From my newly-formed core, I could feel energy flowing from it, invigorating my body like nutritional pills. I could feel my power overflowing, but at the same time, the temperature inside my body was skyrocketing. How long had it been since I used this draconic ability?

Unable to keep my internal temperature down with my core in overdrive, the scale-dust in my scales exploded, surging right through my [Panzer], releasing poisonous gases in the process. White and purple flames mixed together into something neither holy nor unholy. This was just part of my flames, but at the same time, it was also the tulmotious symbolism for the unfettered energy swelling up my throat at this very moment.

It’s too much!

I had to release it! Now, even with the target still moving.

Solar Beam!

The power overwhelmed me, the heat far stronger than it usually was! Just by opening my mouth a tiny bit, the energy stream forth, forcing my jaw to widen as I unleashed solar energy right at my target.

Unfortunately, I saw her red streak moving away the moment she escaped the [Omnictus], regaining that magnetism movement. Even worse, the stream was far too unsteady for me to control probably, already having trouble preventing it from writhing around like an out-of-control water hose.

I could only stare as two buildings were instantly melted at the mere touch of my breath, turning into sludge including the ground underneath. A hole was drilled right through, causing me to panic as I couldn’t stop the damn beam! I still had too much energy inside of me to stop now!

Shit! It’s coming!

I was barely able to keep up, but that damn demonkin was coming! The lightning streaks were blanketing my sight in red lines. A chill was running down my spine, as I couldn’t move my body right now, unless I wanted to totally destroy this city! Or even worse, kill a bystander!

Damn! Parallel minds! Help!

‘Target locked out! Fire! Move the Engelflügeln around for protection!’ Manager Mind commanded the other parallel minds. Two minds were responsible for [My Darkest Thoughts], but the others unleashed seven spells while [Unheiliger Engel] was used to defend me.

Urk!

But before the spells could be cast, I suddenly felt something hard punch right through my scale barrier, before disappearing. A red streak was left behind, alerting my parallel minds to hurry up, only for my attention to snap to my right, witnessing numerous of my floating scales falling onto the ground. There, the demonkin was floating, with a gauntlet in her right hand and a staff in her left.

“Come and catch me, bitch, oh wait, ya’re a turret now, gecko! Stay there, and I’ll puncha ya light’s out! Extreme Speed!” A purple magic circle enveloped her body in bright lightning, answering why she seemed faster than before. Level seven [Lightning Magic] — [Extreme Speed]!

Fire!

[Halo of Consecration]’s white flame blasted around me in a wave, forcing the demonkin back. She had to be injured, no way did she go through [Omnictus] unscathed. Even if my Job skills like [Holy Demon Slayer] and [Humanity’s Foe Slayer] were deactivated while in my dragon form, she should still be injured!

[Sacred Smite] and [Tornado Bullet] were blasted at her like missiles, preventing her from moving straight from the look of her red streaks. The problem with using higher-tier spells was the destruction of the city; that was why [Omnictus] was so good. Too bad it required either a long cast time or [Purple Flash] increasing the mana cost by three times the amount to cast.

When we had first started fighting, red lightning had covered the sky above the city, hiding the grey cloud behind it and sizzling away rain droplets with every movement. Now, though? Not only was she dashing around, but I was shooting out spells without a care for my mana. This was where my high mana capacity was useful for, and I would not be the one to lose in this dogfight!

However, this girl was fast, not to mention how she could sling lightning spells and her custom spells around without a single delay. How talented was this girl to have [Chant Revocation] at her age? It felt ironic complaining about it, but her talent was giving me nothing but stress. She was zig-zagging around like a fly, but could hit as hard as a rhino.

Even my parallel minds couldn’t keep up with her superior Agility, forcing me to release [Dreadflare Aura] as precautions. [Unheiliger Engel] was proving quite useful in conjunction with my scale barrier, but it felt like I was losing momentum. If only I could stop this solar beam.

No choice. Gotta force it!

Increasing my internal temperature and putting some stress on my core, I activated my rocket boosters and forced my body to twist around as I closed my mouth. A sharp pain spread inside my throat as I did so, feeling like I would blow up if I didn’t let it go, and I had to, the moment my boosters turned my head around to the sky.

I unleashed the solar beam once again, trying to hit the demonkin while keeping my spells active. Finally, the city wasn’t being burned, and I could also shoot out some [Banishment Beams] to support my attacks. But eventually, the energy inside my throat died down, returning control of my power and my body back to me.

… It just so happened to also coincide with the demonkin’s next attack.

“Voltaic Red: Thunderspeed Roar!” With a giant red spear at the size of a small house, the demonkin stood in the air as she roared out her attack. With a wide grin, she threw the attack at me, causing a loud shockwave to shake the very air around it.

Shit! Block it!

Tanking it was out of the question. Dodging also felt hard with the speed of that attack. Which meant I needed an unbreakable shield right now!

Purple Flash! Gloria Ascendence!

Consuming even more of my mana drastically, a bright light covered me up in a cocoon, shining brightly as it took the red thunder spear head on. The impact got stuck into my protective spell, but it didn’t seem to crack at all. The unbreakable shield of light took the damage and turned it into Health, and even this sky-shaking attack was nullified in the end!

With a “brzzzzzzzz” echo, it dissipated in front of me as my shield died out at the same time. I felt relieved managing to survive that attack, but my [Foresight] suddenly blared out like a siren, warning me of an attack coming from my back. Instead of looking, I dialed up the heat inside me and used my rocket boosters to blast anything behind me!

“Grrukkk! Da— TAKE THIS!”

“KRAAAAAH!”

A sharp needle pierced my back, electrocuting me in the process. My wings felt numb, losing the strength I needed to remain in the air. As a consequence, the blistering powerful rocket boosters sent my body out of control like a balloon. I was forced to use [Tailwind] to crash land into a nearby square, where I stopped my scale-dust from exploding.

Dammit! Grrrrk!

“HAHAHAHAHAH! Krak! Krak!” Maniacal laughter followed by out-of-control coughing prompted me to stand up and turn around, witnessing the demonkin landing with a face filled with ecstasy. “Amazing! I-I, hahaha, what the hell is wrong with me?!”

That’s my question, psycho!

“100% in all three emotions, but I’m not goin’ mad? Berserk? I-I can think! I can think properly with [Excited], [Fear] and [Anger] all at max! My elemental arms ain’t forming at all, but I don’t care! For the first time in my life, I’ve never been able to feel this ALIVE!” she blurted out before crackling again. “Who the hell are ya? How are ya doing this? Not even Lord Sloth got it figured out to help my mates. But, here I am. I’m not going berserk even after using [Emotion Surge] so many times!”

What? What is she talking about? I stared at her in befuddlement, but it didn’t seem she noticed it.

“I can fight wildly without any restraints, and I ain’t going cuckoo? This- This is the best thing a wrathy could ever wish for! We can finally live normally!” She clapped her hands and shook both her fist in pure excitement. “You! Ya are suppressing my powers, but how? Hahaha, how da hell is Aurena’s dog able to do this?”

What is she even talking about?! This isn’t bloodlust, this is glee!

[“… Talk less, you deranged asshole.”]

This had to be a trick. She probably couldn’t read my profile and might be wondering how I was suppressing her powers. I had to be quiet about it. Looking at the wounds on her body and how beat-up her clothes looked, she was thankfully injured by my spells. She must be desperate.

“Hahaha, fair enough, ya bitch! This is war, after all! A Warbringer should bring war!” Within a single second, all that excitement turned into hostility, only her damn smirk didn’t disappear as she materialized an electrical halberd and warhammer. “But, ya got soooo lucky, gecko. Lord Envy is wrong. Ya can’t die. I can’t allow ya to die for Lord Wrath, no, for all us wrath demonkins! Ya are the answer to our blood plight! So be happy, I won’t kill ya, but I’m gonna drag ya stinkin’ ass back home with me!”

[“Tck! I knew it! I knew you were bad news! You really were trying to kidnap Amelia!”] Rage filled my head once again, remembering why I was fighting here. These demonkins wanted to destroy everything I loved!

“Hell, trying to repay a debt is supposed to be kidnapping? Getting her out of town for her survival? Fuck off, but who cares about shit like that now?” She assumed her stance, and so did I. “Hiehie, that leviathan isn’t the greatest reward here. You are. Ya ugly mug scares me more than God Marsven’s darkness, but I’m still taking you down, lizard! Like all the damn beasties before ya!”

With her red shimmering lightning and my tri-colored flames flaring up, the temperature of the surrounding area began to skyrocket. Sparks flew between us as the stone-paved streets melted into lava. Our focus was on each other, and with the activation of our respective speedster abilities, the fight resumed at a shocking pace.

“Voltaic Red: Magni Jump!”

Flashfire!

Bombarding attacks and flesh-melting flames consumed the area every time I took the offensive, while the demonkin’s lightning-fast movements and varied weapon abilities could turn everything around in no time. We both landed wounds on the other, but mine were more frequent and more severe.

That said, while I could heal all of my injuries, the demonkin couldn’t. Once again, a war of attrition was at hand, but other issues began to rise as we demolished everything around us. The fact of the matter was [Battle Frenzy].

‘Hey, hey, what the hell is this? Oh wait, didn’t Neill mention not to be in this state for too long?!’

‘Yeah, yeah, moderate can appear! Oi, what are we supposed to do? We would have to rely on our rocket boosters to outspeed her then!’

The heat in my chest was building up and my mind was starting to deteriorate from anger. I felt angrier and angrier at this demonkin, to the point my parallel minds could tell I was losing focus. I was thinking more of killing this demonkin than protecting everything. Anger or not, I shouldn’t let go of what really mattered here!

“Halt!”

But before the fight could drag on anymore, we stopped our clash when we suddenly heard the sound of beating wings followed by the loud cries of men coming closer. We turned around, only to see a group of knights flying over on their gargoyles.

“Everybody, flank the dragon! Shoot down that mage! Protect the city! For Yeostar!”

“““For Yeostar!”””

What?! They show up now?!

Knights from the city, and they only now managed to muster enough people to come. After I transformed into a dragon?! It was clear they wouldn’t recognize me in this form, but come on, what was this hostility?! As if I could afford to hold back against this demonkin! I wasn’t even using my Territory nor stuff that could destroy this place like [Cyclone Madness], so give me some credit!

“Tsk! Annoying flies!” I snapped my head around the moment I heard that from her.

Oh no!

The demonkin clapped her hands, releasing a magnetic field around us before it began pulling all the knights and even building debris towards her. Just, I wasn’t part of it. I didn’t know she could choose who to magnetize! She hadn’t used that ability of hers once during our fight.

“Woah?!”

“Help?!”

The knights came in all heroically, but they would be instantly wiped out if I didn’t do something now!

[“Stop!”] I called out before casting [Sanctuary] around me and the demonkin, before performing [The Heir of Hope] to grant everybody around me with a barrier of light.

“In the midst of the desert ♫

A bright ray of light shines ♫

Pure and brave, that she was, as she walked ♫”

[Shield of [The Light]] [Stage Fever (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

The fewer people around, the less powerful the barrier would be, but at least they got something as they crashed against the [Sanctuary] and were bombarded by debris. I thanked the heavens they managed to survive everything and cast [Sacred Field] on everybody, healing up any wounds they have before shouting at them through [Telepathy].

[“My name is Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor! Princess of Kargryx and Idol of the Goddess, and this is my true form! This is my order to all of you on behalf of Sir Alistar and Sir Jethro! Remove yourself from here and trust in me to battle this demonkin! Protect the citizens!”]

“U-Urk!? The dragon princess?!”

“Wha-What?! My wounds are healing! Captain?!”

“Wo-! We humbly apologize! Men, flee now!”

And just like that, everybody fled before they got seriously wounded. What the hell was that encounter?! That shouldn’t have been allowed to come here, but they still came to try and fulfill their duty. Unfortunately, that also meant I had to change songs, meaning the demonkin was—

“Kraaaaaaagh! You!” The demonkin squirmed in pain as six electric arms formed behind her, including a set of wings, fangs, and also all her elemental weapons. She howled like crazy, scratching her neck sore and bloody. “Stop it! AARRRRRGK! HAHAHAHAHA!”

What is—

I didn’t need a god to tell me what was going on here. Klea’Hatma told all of us to never allow a wrath demonkin to reach 100% in all three emotions, and didn’t this girl mention how she had it all at 100% and wasn't going wild? Was this it? Was [My Darkest Thoughts] actually suppressing such an absurd amount of mana?!

Play it, now! Switch!

“Staring out the window while it rains ♫

No one here to talk, silence is all I have ♫

So I delved into my thoughts and wondered, “What if?”♫

The laughing kid stomping loudly upstairs ♫

The damn lovebirds flirting on the streets ♫

Those rich asses living in their golden bubbles♫

I just wish they would all just disappear ♫”

“Urk! Graaaaah!” She groaned, falling onto her knees as I quickly noticed her electric arms disappearing. I was right, this really was the key!

Her powers were waning, returning to their prior form from before the knights appeared. However, unlike before, she was still yelping in pain, rolling on the ground as the electricity around her streamed back into her body. Was this a side effect?

I didn’t know, but what I did know was that she was unable to protect herself.

Now!

Warbringer. She was a Warbringer, and one of the masterminds behind the plot in Elyonda. If I could take her out now, that meant a major player for the rest of the siege would be gone. Even if I managed to just cripple her or wound her majorly, that would be alright, too! With [Dread Burn] still applied on her, she wouldn’t be able to heal it up any time soon!

Now, or never!

Release!

I didn’t need to grab her and meteor dive to hurt her! I could just release all the solar energy in my core to end it! This was the power of the sun that killed off a demonkin of envy!

Solar Beam!

Channeling all the energy inside my solar core into my mouth, I focused on the squirming demonkin and unleashed the power of a sunfang dragon right onto this girl! The sheer heat of this beam melted the very ground I was standing on, and eventually even the [Sanctuary] barrier around me shattered into pieces.

My mind went blank for a moment as the attack ensued, forcing me to realize my mind was taking damage from [Battle Frenzy]. However, right now, I needed the boost in attack. I needed it now or never! I had to defeat this Warbringer!

The blinding light from my solar energy covered up my entire vision, to the point I had to close my eyes to not accidentally go blind. I didn’t let this stop me, however. I knew the demonkin was in front of me, and I could feel she was there with [Detection Sensor]. It was only weird that I also felt another presence with her. Regardless, I needed to push through until she died!

Please! Please! Make it through!

… The sound of rain turning into steam. The ground I was standing on felt flimsier and more like liquid the longer this took. As more time went by, my chest also felt emptier and emptier, a sign my solar energy was being drained. That also meant I would feel absolutely lethargic after this.

I hoped this would be all worth it…

“Urk!” I groaned, falling onto my knees as my strained breath was barely audible through everything around me. My flames had died down, and it felt like I just used up a ton of my scale-dust. The System message didn’t appear, though, meaning the demonkin wasn’t dead despite giving it my all. I hoped I managed to at least cripple her.

… just, I didn’t know the demonkin had another ace up in their sleeves.

“Yoooo, made it just in time, Master!”

“H-Hee’Rlak?!”

[“How?!”]

Before me stood the same demonkin Larent should have been interrogating, only he seemed bloodier than before and even had a mangled right arm. How was it possible for him to get here in time, and how did he stop my attack?

For some reason—

<HESTIA, GET AWAY NOW!>

— he just unleashed something even Aurena was afraid of.

“You idiot! THAT THING WAS FOR THE DRAGON EMPRESS!”

A mass of wriggling tentacles and burned appendages were squirming out of what seemed like a black hole, and before I could even stand up, they latched onto me.

[“Wha—?!”]

And with otherworldly strength, they managed to drag me towards them!

[“What in the— Arck! Dreadflare Aura!”]

“Back off!” The demonkin man grabbed the girl and jumped away from me as I unleashed whatever scale-dust I still had.

However, despite keeping the aura on as long as these things had me in their grasp, I noticed how I was still getting dragged closer and closer to that hole while my flames were being consumed by it. This really was a black hole!

Black! It’s black! Play Heirs, now! We need the holy attack. Light Horizon!

“In the midst of the desert ♫

A bright ray of light shines ♫

Pure and brave, that she was, as she walked ♫”

<[Shield of [The Light]] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]>

Light shotgun shots, sanctified flames, and even blazing white [Hellblade Edge] slashes. I struggled and persevered, regaining hope as I saw the tentacles dying off from my attacks. I could hear the sound of the girl in the corner crying out, probably since I wasn’t playing [My Darkest Thoughts] anymore, followed by some flute play, but I was in such a panic to free myself that I didn’t even give the demonkin a second of my attention.

After all, this mass of black tendrils wouldn’t die! They just wouldn’t, regenerating faster than I could deal damage. The moment I released myself, more tentacles would just grab my limbs and even carapace. They were vehemently against me escaping, and the longer this took, the closer I dragged to the black hole. Something told me if I allowed that thing to swallow me up, it wouldn’t end well.

<Hestia, listen to me!>

Aurena’s voice rang in my head, but I didn’t listen to her. I couldn't.

“KraaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAEEEEEEEEH!” I roared out in desperation, destroying the last remnants of this square in my struggle. I cried and cried, using everything I had in my arsenel to escape, but none of it allowed me to get out.

“Stop, Master!”

“No, she’s the key, ya idiot! Lord Envy will kill her in there! She stopped me from rampaging! I could go 100% with her! We need her!”

What is she talking about?! Lord Envy? The Prince of Envy?! Kill? In there, in that black hole?! No, I need to escape, can’t fight in the enemy’s territory!

“What the hell are you talking, Master! That’s the enemy! She’s Aurena’s dog! She needs to die!”

Fuck you! Let me go! Let me go!

“No, wa—!”

“KRAAAAAAAH!”

Let me go! Dammit! Omnictus! Scorching Sun! Cyclone Madness! Anything, use anything! Warp Point! Use Warp Point!

Nothing worked. I didn’t care if my spells were devastating my body, I just wanted to get out of here. At this point, the city didn’t matter, I just wanted out and so I summoned a giant laser beam from heaven, a miniature sun, and even a giant hurricane. At this point, I was ready to use [Heaven’s Sword], a spell I had just gotten and haven't tried out yet!

I tried to use [Warp Point] to escape, but every time I went through it and closed the portal, slicing the tentacles off, they would just snatch me before I could flee. Even using my rocket boosters to blast away was met with resistance. Everything I tried didn’t work!

<Hestia, this is important you need to listen! Once you are inside that area, you cannot let yourself lose your sense of self! The Prince of Envy prays on your lack of confidence and your wish for betterment. If Klea’Hatma is a demon that entices people, the Prince of Envy is someone who breaks the wills of people to the point you will have to agree to his demands!>

What?! Why would you— Ark!

<I cannot help you! You must understand. All I can do is prevent the beasts lingering on the edge of this weapon from taking you! You need to be strong, Hestia. You need to be strong! They are preying on your self-worth. This is their gambit!>

What is that supposed to mean?! Why aren’t any of my attacks working on this?! What is this?! Grack!

“Kraaaauuuuak!” Five black hands grabbed my neck at the same time, feeling like I received five punches to my throat at the same time. I coughed up air and saliva, only for a torrent of tentacles to grab the rest of my limbs.

Shit!

With a single pull, I was pulled back to the ground. With another, I landed right in front of the black hole. And with another—

“HESTIA!”

A voice boomed the sky, blowing away some of the grey clouds in the sky, creating a single hole where the sun shone through. The rain froze up, forming into large icicles as they bisected the majority of the tentacles. Without even thinking what happened, I tried to escape, but was once again grabbed by them. Why was everything so futile?!

“HESTIA!” That familiar voiced boomed, once again, only this time, I felt something in the distance.

In the next second, something shot right through the southern walls of the city, demolishing it and leaving behind galewinds strong enough to pull buildings out from the ground. The sound boom was like she reached mach three or higher, and that showed as I could see a giant tsunami of debris, earth, and other things forming in the distance.

“Hestia!”

[“M-Mother!”]

It was my mother. She was here, and she was standing right behind the demonkins.

“W-Wha-?! Who are— GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK!”

“AWAY, INSECT!” Mother’s voice growled as she slapped the demonkin girl right out of the city, through the walls, causing another section of the city to be destroyed.

“Master!” The demonkin man ignored Mother, running after the girl in a panic.

“Hestia! No! No! No! No! No!” she screamed as she grabbed my front legs, dragging me away from the black hole with her strength alone. “NOBODY WILL TAKE HER AWAY FROM ME! WORM, YOU WILL REGRET THIS! Krriek!”

[“Mother!”]

As mother managed to free me of more of those tentacles, suddenly, two of them grabbed her leg and caused her to trip. Unbelievable, how could that thing trip her?!

“Freeze…” White, cold air escaped out of Mother’s mouth, instantly freezing this whole section of the city, forming a large, hollow glacier around us. Her diamond scales flew out in a barrage, slicing all the tentacles grabbing her and me into molecules. “Hestia, move!”

Mother’s scales pushed me away from the black hole. She then turned around and unleashed a cold breath, freezing the very air around the black hole. Tentacles and appendages tried to escape from the place, but found it hard to escape through Mother’s ice.

She then pressed her hand onto the ice, compressing it and even the black hole to the size of a soccer ball. I couldn’t believe she was altering reality without knowing [Space-Time Magic], or, maybe that black hole was something like space-time magic? Maybe it was just something like an item. Maybe that was why she could do it!

“Begone.” Her eyes flared up as she froze herself into a glacier, before crushing the ice and releasing a blizzard.

[“Mother!”] I cried out, unnerved by how it exploded right in her face. Seconds felt like hours as the snowstorm died down, following the glacier breaking down, revealing Mother was alright.

“…” I was stunned.

<… H-How did Melloxtressa forcefully close a dimension breach? With just mana alone? Is… is she ready for an apotheosis? Already? At SS rank?>

“Phew…” Mother let out a sigh, wiping whatever sweat was on her forehead as she turned around.

Humanize!

[Humanized (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Mother!” The moment I switched forms, I charged right at Mother, ramming her right onto the ground in my embrace. “Thank you! Thank you! That was…”

“Scary?” She smiled. “It’s alright. Mother is here for you. I didn’t come for you when we lost your egg, but I won't allow you to come to harm now. Never. This is what a mother is for, right?”

We stood up and I couldn’t help but nod. I felt defeated, feeling hopeless at how I couldn’t even break out of that thing with everything I had. Sure, it seemed Mother had some problems herself defeating that thing, but still.

“… A deal is a deal.” I sulked at the fact Mother saved me from something I couldn’t handle myself. Which meant after this— “I’ll come with you… to Kargryx. To Miononbolax.”

“Ehiehie, I know it’s been too early, but as I said, you still have years of your life before you! Yes, it will take four years until you’re back here, but when you do, you will be more powerful than before! Trust in me, Hestia!”

How couldn’t I after that?

Still, leaving now would mean I would missed out on a ton of things. For example, the signing of Artorias’s alliance with the dwarves. Reajaen’s trial with the elves. Not to mention, whatever the demonkins were planning after Elyonda. I would be missing out on soooo much now, ‘cause I wasn’t strong enough.

“But, after you’re done with this? Alright?” I widened my eyes as Mother just said, before letting out a chuckle at how she could read my mind.

“Thank you. It would be bad to leave now without finishing the job, right? Anyways, I should probably get that demonkin… Jeez, you shot her far away.” I walked in the direction of where Mother sent that demonkin girl flying, realizing how far it was before letting out a sigh. I had to catch that demonkin man, and then the girl, since she was probably unconscious from Mother’s slap.

“Anyways, sorry about this. I’ll go, okay? I’ll tell the prince and so on about the incident here, so please wait for me at the island!”

“Hmm? Oh come, we might as well not risk it, Hestia? I already helped you, so let your Mother handle the rest, alright? Aahhh, I cannot believe how long I had to hold back! Mhmm, it feels good destroying everything whenever I fly!”

I grimaced at what she said, looking over at the mess she left the city with by flying into it at mach speed. It honestly felt like I would've been blown away, if Mother hadn’t, probably, stopped the wind with a spell.

“Okay, whatever, let’s go!” I readied to fly away.

“Hiehie, alright, le—”

“SHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARHK!”

Huh?

A loud shriek. I turned around, seeing Mother releasing her ice breath as a large black mouth, closing its jaw right under mother. In the time I managed to process that, the mouth closed onto Mother and pulled her right into the suddenly restored black hole.

H-Huh? M-Mo-Mother?

The black hole was closing. The tentacles were retreating back into it with Mother.

MAMA!

<Hestia, wait! Stop!>

I rocket boosted myself forward and grabbed onto a tentacle, allowing it to pull me into the black hole.

MAMA! NOOOOOOOOO!

And then, there was darkness…

A note from AbyssRaven

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Side Story 40: Trust and Faith.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #1 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! It works on a subscription base now, so pay on the same date next month!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

[Hestia’s Retainer].

That was the name of the special blessing Hestia could give to those close to her, sharing with them the increased experience and skill proficiency gained properties ingrained in her [Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] and [The Light] titles, granted to her through Goddess Aurena’s blessing. Even though Hestia was not a Goddess or divine being, [Hestia’s Retainer] had “mutated” along with its master, protecting her retainers from demonic influences and also allowing them some ability to hear a god’s word. A consequence of Hestia’s unconscious usurpation of [The Light] from Aurena.

And outside of these effects, there was also another ability that came with this title, although it hadn’t been quite as useful…

… up until now.

Individual [Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] is facing a life-threatening experience

Individual [Hestia Atsuko Kargrxymor]’s connection with you has been severed from this world. Location cannot be confirmed

It was [Hestia’s Retainer]’s ability to help the retainer locate Hestia wherever she was. The ability to assure themselves of the safety of their mistress.

“H-Hestia?!” Priscilla dropped a ladle to the ground, shocked to see those System messages while working.

Eh?! Lady Hestia, how?! Reajaen’s face grimaced as she was working out a deal with one of the local alchemists, the only outward sign of her sudden panic that Estralia’s alchemist guild’s master allowed herself to show.

“Lady Hestia?!” Svena dropped a plate as that message appeared, her heart suddenly skipping a beat at the shock.

Whenever Hestia entered her [Room], fought her way through a dungeon or was taken into the divine realm, her connection to Peolynca was still clearly established. She still had the influence of the Divine System, meaning there was nothing to worry about. However, those were very different cases from the dimension breach she was just sucked into with Melloxtressa.

Unlike the prior examples, the latter took Hestia outside Peolynca, or to be more specific, in between dimensions. As such, this was a major difference. Hestia and her retainers did not have a connection binding them together. In other words, [Hestia’s Retainer] could not grant access to the skill point System and other blessings it gave until Hestia returned.

And this clearly caused a ruckus not only amongst the people Hestia granted her [Hestia’s Retainer] to, but also those who were her fans. To those less familiar with Hestia’s constant shenanigans or Aurora's terrible encounter luck, such a message would without question unnerve them.

Poor Priscilla was already nervous after watching her parents march off with Firwood’s lord, Marquess Sirius, but now seeing her great-great-aunt in danger made the young girl nearly break out in tears. Reajaen kept her composure, but contemplated Hestia’s disappearance while working. Svena panicked, only to be calmed down by Josine.

Even then, her closest friends and allies weren’t the only ones who were anxious about the missing dragon princess. The people of Elyonda were equally as confused, but not only because of her disappearance, but also because of the aftermath of Melloxtressa's hasty rescue attempt.

“Here! Here is another ice ball!”

“More people here. Bring the Earth mages!”

A mere wing beat of Melloxtressa’s could freeze an entire football stadium if she wanted to, but what would happen if she were to fly without controlling her strength? In Elyonda’s case, two sections of their city’s walls were shattered, the southern area of the city, which led to the port, was turned into a giant pile of earth and debris, with countless people trapped inside of it.

Thankfully, Melloxtressa had the forethought to use her scales and the frozen rain droplets to create a protective ball around anybody in her flight path. No one died, but most did not escape from the trauma of being buried alive. The knights and the earth mages were struggling with the rescue process, and it wasn’t known how many more were trapped.

In addition, the places where Hestia fought Vifi’Yok had turned into a smoldering magma pit, not to mention a giant hole leading to the underground was there. This was close to the merchant district, so thankfully, most of the inhabitants were attending the musical at the arena. On the other hand, the area Melloxtressa flew by was the residential area for day laborers and those less fortunate.

Jethro, Alistar, Alberstien, and Anasthasia knew all this damage was caused by Hestia and Melloxtressa after Fargryneill, Rajah, and Larent returned from their raid. Larent was mostly unchanged from his fight against the seventh seat of the Yanderu Eluseuss, but that was because it wasn’t an actual fight. The assassin’s job was to save one of his employer’s soldiers, and that was how Hee’Rlak escaped, arriving just in time to protect his master from Hestia’s devastating [Solar Beam].

[“Master’s connection was lost!”] Rajah yelled after he was questioned by the three pillars of Yeos’s government, causing them to panic, as they couldn’t believe Hestia was defeated.

It was obvious. Not only did they lose a Champion of Aurena, they also lost the SS rank Dragon Empress in the process. Jethro, Alberstien, and Anasthasia wanted to deny this report, only for Fargryneill to confirm.

“The dirt hill was frozen, right? Silver powder, a silver dragon’s most iconic draconic ability. If Hestia were in danger, her mother would have rushed over to her without question. Dragon mothers are overprotective to the extreme. If something had happened to Hestia and she was still around, she would be roaring at this very moment.”

“Helicopter mother,” as Hestia liked to call dragon mothers. While Melloxtressa had suppressed her urge to coddle Hestia like Cernust or Fargryneill's mothers did with them, the sixth dragon empress would still not allow her only child to die while she was around. City, armies, or even dimensional breaches; nothing would be able to stop her from reaching her daughter in her time of need.

And understanding this made the Yeosians lose hope in the upcoming battle. Jethro and Alistar had designed strategies to fight off the siege with Hestia’s participation in mind. They would be facing both land and sea invasions, and were planning to utilize Hestia’s magic to prepare for the battle. However, this plan was throw awry with Hestia's loss, all so as to destroy an underground hideout.

Was taking out an inside threat really worth losing one of their strongest fighters?

“This is my fault. If I hadn’t let that demonkin escape, this would not have happened. Allow me to repay you for this disgrace with my blade, your Grace,” Larent kneeled before Prince Markval, who was panicking from all the information and bad news.

“Wha- But what about Princess Hestia?! Where exactly did she go?!” the young prince shouted after watching his aides and sister looking crestfallen, to the point his mother stood up and tried to calm him down.

She laid her hand on his shoulder. “Markval, please, you don’t—”

“No, Mother!” The young prince slapped her hand off him. “This… This cannot be! We can’t just leave Princess Hestia alone like this! We need to save her. Where is she? She has done so much for Yeos in these past few days, not to mention God Yeostar had vouched for her! Not only because of her valor, but also the way she spoke to him! We need to save her!”

The Yeosians and Larent were stunned by this outburst, finding it strange Markval mentioned Hestia spoke with God Yeostar. Blessed could gain oracles from all gods they had a spiritual connection to, even those outside their main pantheon. From them, the blessed could gain knowledge in the form of a broken System message, but everyone understood a mortal couldn’t speak with a god, as it was impossible for their soul to endure their words.

Thus, they thought Markval misspoke in the heat of the moment. Even the ruler of Yeos, a descendant of Yeostar who has the right to wear the crown of Yeos, could only hear the words of Yeostar at the level of a devoted blessed. Markval could not hear him as well as Hestia could, but was still able to gain some knowledge. To most Peolyncians, Hestia being able to perfectly communicate with Yeostar or Aurena was the delusion of a mad woman.

Unless you were Rajah and Fargryneill, who were privy to Hestia’s secret.

“But, my Prince, where are we supposed to look?” Duke Alberstien grimaced as he spoke with his ruler, unable to even keep his poker face up in this dire situation. “If we cannot find the dragon princess, we—”

[“Master will come back.”]

However, even if Hestia’s retainer knew she was gone, those closest to her knew exactly what to do in this situation.

[“Master is not dead. Rajah’s title is not gone. She will be back. Trust!”]

Although his time with Hestia hadn’t been too long, Rajah's time spent with her in the Belzac forest had taught him a valuable lesson. His master was reckless and had terrible luck, but even in the face of an A rank monster, she would come out of it with her life. Because she was a survivor.

With all the stories she had told him of her adventures after they went their separate ways, Rajah knew what he needed to do right now was to believe. To him, he needed to show his faith in the person who saved his life.

“I agree with the cat.” Fargryneill came forward with a lax smile. “If you want to look, then the area where those knights reported Hestia was fighting would be the best place to start searching. No way any of the knights would miss seeing her flying out of the city in her dragon form, right? Prince Markval, have you spoken with God Yeostar, yet?”

“N-No, I apologize. There are rules for what I may ask or learn from him. I cannot ask mortal concerns as— Oh!” The prince jerked back, worrying everybody in the room. “I… I just received a System message from God Yeostar. ‘Dimension. Demon. Room.’ was the message.”

‘Dimension. Demon. Room.’? … Oh, ‘Room’ as in like [Room]? A pocket dimension?

Having managed to decipher the message, Fargryneill shared her thoughts on the matter with the others, convincing them of her interpretation. As most god messages were like this, it was imperative for the people to understand how to read them.

“In that case, there's nothing we can do unless we have a [Space-Time] mage, then?” Fargryneill scoured the room, looking at every in attendance to no avail. “Thought so. So, instead of worrying, all we can do is like what the cat said — trust and faith. She is a [Space-Time] mage herself, so she can probably figure something out. Instead, what we should do is make sure she has a place to return to.”

Fargryneill pointed at the dirt hill Melloxtressa created, reminding Jethro and Alistar how they needed Hestia for their plans. Although she wasn’t an earth mage, Fargryneill’s dragon path could simulate what they could do.

Although Melloxtressa had destroyed such a large portion of the city, she had also left a gift behind for the defenders — her silver powder and frozen earth. Even now, the rescue process was going slowly because it was almost impossible for anybody to break through the ice and the scales. However, if they were to excavate them, they could prove to be invaluable defenses.

And who else could attempt to use them but Fargryneill and her dragon paths?

Truly, this wasn’t the time to worry, a fact Hestia’s closest friends knew too well.

[“Tasianna, we have to leave now!”]

[“Our mistress is in danger! If Her Imperial Majesty couldn’t do anything, then something is wrong! We need to go now!”]

Shay and Beth argued with Hestia’s most earnest maid, hovering over her as they followed along three Caedhulen merchant ships. They were in their wyvern forms, but the many nagas, merfolks, and levianewts did not bat an eye at them. After all, how could they after what their saviors did for them?

“Nonsense!” Tasianna yelled at the two wyverns, causing both to flinch at her confrontation. “Firstly, we just managed to help these ships escape those grimgarian ships. If we go back now, we will have to fight them again! There were enough B rank commanders on their ships to give Lady Hestia and Lady Fargryneill trouble, and you expect us to rush through that again? We just barely made it past them because of the storm and moving during the night!”

Tasianna summarized what had happened last night after they found the Caedhulen ships, helping them evade the detection of multiple warships by using their ice to create a large haze. Going back to Elyonda with the fastest route would bring them back into the area of detection of the grimgarians.

“Secondly, this is Lady Hestia’s order! We are to bring these Caedhulens to the port.” Tasianna raised two fingers for her arguments, before ending it with her third. “Lastly, trust in our mistress!”

Nobody else right now could feel as torn as Tasianna did. As a servant, she had witnessed the death of Princess Schuri, her first mistress. Her chest burned with the desire to fly back, unable to forgive herself if something terrible were to happen to her current mistress right now.

Hestia and her friends in Aurora gave Tasianna a new life after what had happened in the past, and a chance to grab the revenge she dearly wanted. However, through their time together, Tasianna had learned much about humans, allowing her to understand the good and the bad. Instead of demonizing them all because of one portion of black sheep, she instead learned to judge each person as their own individual, as not only humans could perform tragedies in her eyes.

She could sympathize with the wyvern siblings, even applaud their loyalty to Hestia. She wanted to be there for her mistress, now that her connection with her was severed for some unknown reason. However…

“I feel… for some reason, I don’t feel that worried. I don’t feel like something terrible is happening, right now,” Tasianna told the wyverns, confusing them at Tasianna’s lack of urgency. “Yes, it is bad the connection was severed and we cannot pinpoint her, but… our Princess is strong. Don’t you think so? At this very moment, I believe in her to prevail. I believe the best decision we can do now is to proceed with the duty she gave us, and to bring back reinforcements.”

“Tasianna!” Interrupting their discussion, a levianewt with a captain hat ran over to them on the deck. “Hahaha, our swimmers made it back! We’re about seven bells away from Annencia! Oh boy, the fight there is pretty serious!”

It was Adhi, the levianewt captain Aurora had met in Estralia, and also one of the main contractors for this trip, despite not owning a single ship amongst this crew. Thankful for being saved like the rest of the Caedhulens, Adhi made sure to report any intel he had, which included their scouts. Unlike human sailors, Caedhulen sailors were all aquatic, allowing their fastest swimmers to scout ahead without a vessel.

Tasianna nodded and asked him to specify it further. “Damn huge amounts of warships and sea serpents! Must be a tamer in the attacking force. However, what scared the swimmers the most wasn’t the enemy and the sea serpents outracing them, but a damn silver-scaled dragonewt dragoon! She was sinking ships with a human, all while silver spears materialized around her!”

Yorshka! Right, she was fighting on behalf of King Drangleic. Then, the human must be Farron. But, spears? As in, materializing from thin air? Maybe she finally made a custom spell, or were they made from her scales?

Happy to hear this news, she turned back to the wyverns. “The best way for us to help Her Highness is to bring the necessary reinforcement for us to push back the invaders. In this case, we need to bring our allies and even one of her family members into the mix. So, instead of worrying, let us do what we can for Princess Hestia!”

[“Understood, Tasianna!”] Beth cheered on for Tasianna’s speech, all while Shay contemplated if this truly was the best decision. However, one thing the more cautious snow wyvern could accept was how Tasianna’s trust and faith in their mistress were unwavering, something he couldn’t help but envy.

I am still too inflexible… I need to stop thinking like a wyvern, but as ‘Shayatierus, royal guard of Dragon Empress Melloxtressa!’ I need to watch and learn from Tasianna more.

A small portion of his heart just opened up, willing to abandon his taciturn attitude towards anything outside of fighting and service.

But Tasianna wasn’t the only one to think the same.

“Please, Goddess Aurena! Please, protect them all!” Priscilla prayed inside the kitchen before slapping her cheeks, tensing herself up to return to her work, knowing the bistro needed her to serve the many people outside. She couldn’t do much more than that, but at the very least, she knew she could trust her father, mother, and great-great-aunt to prevail.

Tsk, as if! That girl faced down a Warbringer and didn’t flinch. Even provoking them with a bluff. As if she would die and disappear, right now. A good merchant knows when to put her coin into a basket, Reajaen thought, sweeping away any worry she had until news of Hestia’s death arrived.

“What?!” And for Svena and Josine, their concerns were dissipated when two familiar faces appeared and entered the subspace. “A-Are you sure about this, Lady Ellaine? Master Grimnir?”

“Gahahahaha, of course! This is our team leader you are talking about!” Grimnir, looking filthy with all the dirt, soot, and dried blood on him, bellowed a laugh while scratching his still-growing beard. “Aye, that girl isn’t somebody you can put down so easily. Not with how completely absurd her profile looks. Healing, dragon abilities, and magic casting at the tier of an archmage candidate, you can’t beat her down. Gahahaha!”

“Besides, there are things we need to do on our side.”

A woman covered from head to toe in almost form-fitting armor with seams of mana flowing on it. She took a step forward, before her two spell rings shone brightly and caused the armor to morph armor pieces into a pair of wings, a tail, and two horns.

“We have a blacksmithing contest to win to restore master’s honor! In the process, access to his cousin’s and his workshop. Whatever Hestia and Tasianna bring back from their side, I’m sure they will need some people to turn all of that into weapons and equipment.”

“Gahahaha, right, you are! Honor restored, get an audience with the king, and get some more blueprints from Goddess Chihiro’s vault! Gahahaha, I’m gonna make Hestia and Saori some armor they can use in their real form! Right, Ellaine?”

He stared up and down at his apprentice, admiring their newest work in preparation for the blacksmithing contest against his clan. Although a prototype, it was a creation made with the knowledge and ingenuity of his second apprentice, Daichi. This was a piece of armor made to morph with the body of the user — the Heavy Enhancing Shapeless manaTech Incursion Armor.

Or short, H.E.S.T.I.A. E. 0.9

… Certainly a first for Daichi and his terrible naming habits.

However, despite the terrible name, this new armor did exactly what its acronym said it would. Ellaine poured some mana through the faceplate in her armor, opening it up to reveal she had demonized with Klea’Hatma’s power.

Made in the design of her old armor, Ellaine’s newest equipment could morph with her current form as long as it was configured through artificer work beforehand. In other words, Ellaine could transform into her demon form whenever she wanted while hiding her demonic appearance from everybody with the armor. Although, it wouldn’t block out the demonic aura.

““Lady Ellaine?!”” Svena and Josine closed their mouths, unnerved to see their mistress becoming a demon.

“Don’t worry you two. I’m alright. I’m getting more used to Klea’s powers, so entering and maintaining this form is getting easier and easier, and with lower demonic blood concentrations too.”

“It’s still experimental and only our ninth attempt, but we got it working for now. Still no runes or enhancements, but for now, it should do. Gahahaha!” Grimnir proudly laughed. “But, it’s not done yet. Not even close! One day, I will make armor the lass, Saori, and Tasianna can wear in their original forms! Ha, my pride as their blacksmith is on the line… so those three better make it back to us alive!”

Trust and faith in their leader were strong, and nobody knew this better than Aurora’s vice-captain. The one who had been with Hestia the longest.

“You heard it, Segawa?” In the depth of a tunnel, a young girl in white robes spoke after retrieving her white-black flowing mace from the skull of an orc knight. She turned around to a wolfkin woman, moving through numerous grimgarian corpses in an armor or her shadow.

“Sure, I did, Asaka-san,” the black-haired woman replied, staring into the darkness with her red glowing eyes.

“Tsk, since when are we on a first-name basis? Come on, just call me Hanazawa, or this’ll get awkward for me!”

“Then call me ‘Saori,’ already. Just because we dislike each other’s personality, doesn’t mean we can't be casual with each other.”

“Oh shut it. You know I hate your guts and how you like to control things for your sake… So why the hell aren’t you panicking since Hestia’s connection to us is gone?”

The wolfkin turned around to her former student, showing her a gentle smile as she replied, “Because Hestia still has to go with me around the world for her tour. She won’t die until our dreams come true, and I sure haven’t explored Peolynca enough to be satisfied.”

Saori then turned around, whistling into the darkness. The noise echoed through the tunnel, reaching its depths before, finally, somebody responded. Four giant garms appeared before her, all staring down at her with their black eyes, while three green virigress jumped out from her shadow. At the same time, a black slime was moving through the cave, eating up the corpses to clean things up.

Lastly, quiet footsteps could be heard, drawing Saori’s attention to them. With red-blood eyes and the appearance of a semi-zombie garm, the creature approached Saori and rustled her head against the wolfkin.

“Hello, mom. How is your new body?”

[“I still need more time. The mana slime Goddess Ilsaphone created for me is doing its work, but I still need some time to fully integrate myself into my body.”]

This was Saori’s garm mother, reborn into her old body. Once buried by Hestia after her death, Saori was the one to dig her out, allowing her mother’s onnikai body to possess her corpse. Using Ilsaphone’s blessing and wish to create her new race, she allowed the garm matriarch to repossess it.

And to think I was so aloof when it came to her when I first met Hestia. Well, what could you do? Just have to make it up for now.

“Come, everybody. We should start causing some trouble for these grimgarians and their Ogre King. They dared invade my forest while I was training, now they will pay for attacking Artorias and my party members!”

“““Gruuuuuuuuuuh!”””

“Grrrrrouuuuuh!”

“Mreeeeow!”

Everybody howled, roaring, and meowed in response to Saori’s demands, only to be followed by Asaka’s deep sigh.

“Those boys will honestly regret going with that bloodsucker,” Asaka complained, reminding herself how both Tatsuya and Kyouya went with Ilsaphone for a trip.

“True, after all, this won’t be a friendly visit into grimgarian territory. We will cause so much trouble they will have to retrieve their forces from Artorias.” She then stared at her shadow pack, smiling as she thought of the hunt. “Time to get all of you enough levels to evolve!”

Hope you’ll enjoy my gift, Hestia. Give those demonkins hell!

A note from AbyssRaven

Aurora isn't staying down after their princess is gone. Saori and Tasianna aren't happy, at least.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Side Story 41: No Threats left Dead.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #2 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! It works on a subscription base now, so pay on the same date next month!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

“Krraaaaak!”

“And you’re saying you can’t heal?! Stop it, take this potion already and ge—”

“Oh shut up, ya piece of— Urgh! I have [Identify], I can appraise my own self! That damn bitch sent me off with a shitty present before her damn mother slapped me away. Urgh, arghk, damn ribs!”

Vifi’Yok, a level 150 demonkin of wrath with the training of a Warbringer from the Yok family. Respected and noble, they were a military family through and through, and were one of the several aristocratic families allowed to send in candidates whenever a position within the seven Princes of Sin was available; specifically in their case, it was for the position of Prince of Wrath.

Although strong, the princes weren’t treated as unstoppable warriors and mages, but rather were beings with the ability to use the few demonic techniques left behind from the War of the Demons — the Original Sins. For example, the demonkin of envy Hestia fought was able to use [Original Sin: Demiurge], the ability to perfectly transform into somebody else, even to the point of hiding their demonic presence.

U’Skaie, the demonkin Hestia fought, was under the employ of the Prince of Pride during the Griffonpeak siege, but was once one of the apprentices under the Prince of Envy. It was similar to the relationship between the Prince of Wrath and his Warbringers. They were to become the prince's replacement if, one day, the associated prince were to die.

As such, it was rare for one of the demonkins to possess an Original Sin technique. After all, it was the method to extract power from their bloodline, literally tapping into the might of their ancestor demons. Outside of those privileged to know these techniques, most demonkins only understood the Original Sin techniques as godly powers, similar to a blessed’s unique skill.

Vifi’Yok, groomed into becoming the newest third seat Warbringer by her adopted father, only managed to obtain one of the two Original Sin blood crystals belonging to Wrath—crystalized blood which allowed none princes to use weakened versions of these abilities. Nevertheless, it wasn’t anywhere close to U’Skaie’s near-perfect execution of [Original Sin: Demiurge], even able to fool a god’s eyes.

But, on the contrary, U’Skaie wasn’t a fighter, he was a spy. His abilities as an envy demonkin were specialized in manipulation and subterfuge. Although she couldn’t fully bring out her abilities without prior preparations, Vifi’Yok still proved a mightier foe to Hestia compared to her senior. Even weakened by Hestia's song [My Darkest Thoughts], she was still able to push Hestia into a more drastic battle style.

And, because of everything that happened, Vifi’Yok was now close to death after her encounter with Melloxtressa.

Urgh, it hurts. Everywhere…

Since Hestia was too preoccupied with escaping the little trick Hee’Rlak used on her, her song had ended just as Melloxtressa appeared. At that moment with all her emotions at 100%, she managed to survive Melloxtressa’s unrestrained [Humanize (Moderate)] slap with her true form and all the protective abilities associated with it. It was fortunate that the dragon matriarch just wanted her out of the way and not to kill her; if Melloxtressa had the intention to kill Vifi’Yok, she would have been dead at this very moment.

… Then again, it would have been a painless death, unlike how every inch of her body down to her bones were creaking in agony at this very moment. With no way to heal herself thanks to Hestia’s [Dread Burn], she couldn’t do anything else but force her body to rest until that status abnormality disappeared.

“… You’re bleeding internally. Those broken bones must have ruptured an organ or two.” Hee’Rlak, having managed to follow her to one of the islands off the coast of Elyonda, was panicking internally, but kept up his facade to not worry his master.

“I’m not gonna die right here, Hee’Rlak. Urgh, you took your sweet time finding me, so I can kinda get the gist of my body. Right lung punctured, muscles ruptured, backbone cracked, heart almost crushed. The fact I flew out of the city, off the coast, all over to where we’re storing our supplies and pirates, is enough to tell you that simple bitch slap wasn’t normal.”

Vifi’Yok grimaced at how even at 100%, she was still outmatched by the dragon empress. She was also an SS rank she heard, causing her to question her original plan of killing Karhalantheel like she originally wanted to.

I still have [Original Sin: Satanael] but… Krk, even at 100%, that simple slap nearly pulverized my body. Not to mention, she was in her dragonewt form. What kinda nature-defying strength does she have as a dragon?!

“[Dread Burn] is a status abnormality, it’ll disappear soon. Urgh, honestly, now that I fought her, she was no slouch.” Vifi’Yok grimaced a bit, but her face was still softer than the one Hee’ralk had.

“She’s a beast, even amongst Champions. Poison, fire hot enough to turn everything around herself into a volcano, high stats, and even a song to prevent me from using [Emotion Surge] properly… Urgh, and she probably still has room to grow since she’s probably around your age. Lord Envy was right, this is a threat we need to stamp out before she grows even further.”

Hee’Rlak had witnessed Hestia’s powers first-hand as well. As a military man, he understood what was needed to win a war. Tactical powers couldn’t be underestimated in Peolynca, as a single soldier could turn the tides of battle if they were strong enough. While numbers as a strategic advantage would never die out, a whole plan could be ruined by a being with powers far superior to everybody else’s.

In his mind, Hestia was a priority target, somebody they had to prioritize even over the Supreme Commander of the Hands of Heaven as well as the Enlightened One, the leader of the Empire’s blessed. On the other hand…

“Hmm? You fought that girl?” Vifi’Yok raised an eyebrow at this sudden revelation.

Hee’Rlak nodded. “We got ambushed while you were away. The whole base was raided and destroyed, including our allies within the city. I was almost apprehended, and only managed to escape thanks to one of the Yanderu bosses we came here with. What a disgrace, to be saved by a human, but he managed to distract Auegor’s Blade just long enough for me to flee with him. Damn knight nearly sliced off my arm.”

Hee’Rlak massaged his arm, thanking the fact they brought along enough Health potions for these situations. Although, a part of him was regretting the fact those same potions couldn’t help his master.

“If that’s so… then shouldn’t you have realized what this means? What that song of hers means to us wrath demonkins, Hee’Rlak?”

“Hmm?” The man tilted his head, unsure what the young girl was saying.

“It managed to stop me from going berserk at M.E.P. That song allowed me to let my emotions run wild, but without any of the drawbacks.”

M.E.P. the acronym for “Maximum Emotional Potency.” The opposite of L.E.P. While L.E.P. left a wrath demonkin in a state similar to depression, M.E.P. was the state where all these emotions entwined into a coalescence of euphoria. Overwhelmed by all their emotions erupting at the same time, most wrath demonkins went berserk while their powers were fully released. It was an accident waiting to happen.

“I disagree with your and Lord Envy’s assessment. Instead of killing her, we need to learn how she’s doing this. How she is able to keep a wrath demonkin’s M.E.P. under control. We need to know that, Hee’Rlak.”

“Master!” The older demonkin shouted, visibly outraged at that suggestion. “Just how injured are you? Such a suggestion is unbefitting of the mouth of a Warbringer. You should be thinking this through from the mind of a commander of the army, which means that that girl is an issue we need to eliminate. If she can cripple you, then she could cripple the other Warbringers, no, our entire army with her power! What makes us demonkins physically superior to humans is our demonic abilities, otherwise, we would just be the same!”

Hee’Rlak couldn’t fathom what his master was telling him. Learn from the enemy? Sure, it was an important to do exactly that, as knowing your enemy would lead to giving yourself an advantage and allow you to defeat them. However, at the same time, it was also imperative to sabotage any advantages your enemy had. To kill Hestia was to steal away a mighty military power from the enemy.

To Hee’Rlak, Hestia was a natural foe to himself and all of the demonkins. The ability to apply [Dread Burn] would cripple Gluttony, Lust, and Greed demonkins, her songs could weaken a Wrath’s power boost, and her poison could silence even the most lion-hearted Pride fighters. Not to mention how she had the tactical potential of disrupting Envy’s disguises and Sloth’s remote controlled drones. Hee’Rlak thought of all of them.

However…

“Don’t give me that shit!!!” Vifi’Yok raised her body as she yelled at Hee’Rlak, catching him off-guard before the girl groaned from her pained body, coughing up blood.

If this were Earth, she would have died before Hee’Rlak had reached her. Unless your Health dropped to zero — or Mana for fairies — you couldn’t die in Peolynca.

“Master!” Hee’Rlak tried to help Vifi’Yok, but the girl pushed his aid aside and instead snapped at him.

“Don’t! You don’t understand how it is in the fucking slums, you spoiled imp! Ya don’t! All ya ever experienced is ya damn bubble as someone with a last name! What about those without ones? Too poor to be relevant? What about all the wrath demonkins forced into ‘shelters’ to keep them away from the normal populace? What about all the orphans and decrepit people this war had produced? Huh?! Tell me, Hee, why did ya only think about the army when it is our people that need help?”

“…!” Hee’Rlak groaned, silent to his master’s question.

“There were two choices for me — either continue being a street rat stealing whatever to survive, or join the military. But not only that, those're the only options every single wrath demonkin is ever given. Either ya join the military so they can keep an eye on ya, or be shunned by everybody because even a child could be dangerous if they suddenly turn M.E.P. in the middle of the city.”

If a demonkin of wrath were to reach M.E.P., they would go berserk with their elemental prowess fully released, no matter where they were. The moment a wrath demonkin turned eight, they were allowed to choose their elemental preference for their powers, but at the same time, they would also become a threat to everybody around them. This was why they were “encouraged” to join the military, or become a pariah and “persuaded” to live in a community made just for them.

Vifi’Yok didn’t think too much about all these problems when she joined the military at eight — all she wanted was to get off the streets. To her, a warm bed with food everyday was all she needed to enjoy her time there, even if the training was harsher than anything she ever experienced.

Still, this mindset changed after she became a Warbringer and took her first step outside the confines of Bole’Taria and the battlefield. Instead of lingering on her own problems, this new breath of freedom allowed her to think more liberally about everything.

And in this case, it was the situation of her race.

“Vifi’Yok…” Hee’Rlak frowned.

“Tsk, that song of hers managed to calm me down. Aurena’s work, most likely, but if we brought her back, Lord Sloth could have thought of something. He's the best inventor and artificer in the world; if anyone could do it, he could! He was able to make that coat that hides our demonic presence, after all!”

But she then glared off to the horizon, in the direction of Elyonda.

“But it’s too late now. If they aren’t here yet, then that means both that girl and the mother were caught by Lord Envy’s trap. No way those two can break through when that item came from the Edjurl gods, right? That means, everything will stay the same for the wrathies in the slums.” Vifi’Yok fell back to the floor, defeated from that fact. “… I think I'll need two days to get back up.”

“Master?”

“Aurena will probably do something this time. Unlike here on Peolynca, she can do something when they are outside, yeah? In another dimension? Maybe they will get out, but even if they don’t, we still have some other people to deal with.” She turned around to Hee’Rlak, letting out a sigh. “As I said before, I’m a Warbringer. This is my duty.”

Larent, Tehmrayn, Kushlek’zar, and Fargryneill. Four more powerhouses were still around. Even with the army of grimgarians incoming, she couldn’t be lax about everything. Even ignoring the other three, ‘Auegor’s Blade’ was a known combatant to every soldier. A monster on the battlefield who could contend against even a prince’s guard.

In addition, he was also a Territory user.

Vifi’Yok didn’t know if the grimgarian army had a Territory user or not. She was sure the Ogre King would have one, as he was an A rank monster, but what about the rest? While Territories weren’t undefeatable for those without one, as you could just bombard the user from afar due to its limited range, those with one were difficult opponents, since it required high-quality skills to unlock.

And this, Vifi’Yok understood too well.

This operation is in my hand. I have to make it work!

“Hee’Rlak, tell those two Yanderu bosses nothing changes with our plans. Tell the third seat to get ready to free the leviathan. We’re gonna use the device reserved for the girl to capture it.”

“Are you sure, Master? It cannot replace the one we just used. The leviathan might break free.”

“Even if we can’t, then just let it free. It’s better to lose on one front than all of them. All we need is enough distraction to kill the royal family.”

“Yes, Ma’am!” He saluted.

“Haaaaa, finally done.” Kushlek’zar heaved a deep sigh as he stared at the rain coming down, cleaning him of the blood on his face if not his robes.

“You can say that again, Kush. We don’t have the numbers to take down a battalion full of people including a bloody high ogre.”

“Mhmm. But we did a lot. Talk about a good amount of experience, although can we really see this as ‘guerilla warfare?’”

The red and green carnosilians Krim-Slak and Grazlatha cleaned off the blood on their axes and spears, all while making sure none of the grimgarian corpses were alive. They then turned around to see their hulk-sized sarcosilian ally Akasht hold up the skull of the high ogre they just fought, roaring into the sky in triumph, as he was the one to land the finishing blow.

“Hmm, well, we were forced into fighting or letting that group of refugees die. Goddess Plesia shall praise us for such a feat my friends, I assure you that.” Kushlek’zar pressed his hands into a prayer and sent the souls of the dead today to Ilsaphone, before opening his eyes. “Let’s move. The longer we stay here, the more we risk getting caught. This should be enough of a distraction for the day.”

Away from Elyonda, the invasion effort had already begun, including any interference the saurians could provide to help slow down the enemy. For two days straight, the Depth Serpents have fought bravely against the enemy through guerilla tactics and ambushes. Although outnumbered, the saurians weren’t only cunning enough but also strong enough to overcome this challenge.

However, as they were nowhere close to the city, none of them knew what was happening and how Hestia and Melloxtressa were swallowed up by a dimensional hole. They believed if they could stall long enough, it would all work out just fine.

“Hey, Kush, we can’t keep this up, you know?” Krim-Slak spoke to his leader as they all rode off with one of Kushlek’zar’s water golems, shaped in the form of a triceratops. “Our rations, tools, and also our stamina in general. Can’t tire ourselves out before the real battle.”

He was right. This was just the prelude. The battle at Elyonda would decide if the city were to fall or not.

“Hmm, I understand that. We aren’t trying to destroy everything. Just enough to save as many as possible and slow down the enemy. Hmm, however, I can see your point. At this rate, they’ll be at the city’s gates in two days,” he replied after assessing his party’s rations.

“We might have had more if you hadn’t given that Renee and those two mages our food, Kush. What are those fools trying to do by pleading to Aleistunum, anyways?” Grazlahta scolded his leader and scorned Renee for leaving the battlefield, finding it less than ideal that she wasn’t helping.

“Ha ha ha ha! You’re thinking too straightforward, my friend! In this sort of battle, we will need all the allies we can afford. We struggled against that high ogre, but there are still 14 more left. Not to mention, how many are coming here by boat?” Kushlek’zar stared east, wondering what Renee was planning to persuade Aleistunum to aid Yeos. “She had the right mindset. The two mages who followed her behind our backs were master mages, correct? If you ask me, if Aleistunum can profit from knowledge, then there will be a way. Hopefully, she won’t use my apprentice as a bargaining chip there; I must admit, I would feel angered in that case.”

Renee had not gone alone to Aleistunum, but with the two Evidian mages Naemon and Joek. When Kushlek’zar noticed those two, Renee had asked him to stay quiet about it in his report, as the mages didn’t want everybody to know their participation in this. It was mostly because they themselves weren’t sure they could persuade anybody to send a helping hand, and didn’t want their names associated with it.

Renee, ready to take the fall if something happened, took them on their gambit. She knew something was wrong, and had planned to call for help from their neighbors in case of an invasion. She understood this after she spoke with Hestia about her Divine Quest, realizing the gods knew the enemy might be sending a large force to kill off any chance for a Champion of Yeostar ever again.

Of course, Yeostar couldn’t foresee this, nor did Aurena. They simply assumed it would be the perfect time to attack, leading to Yeostar sending Hestia in case anything happened. However, Renee’s faith in the gods made her firmly believe that her guess was actually the only answer.

Unfortunately for Renee, over the years Aleistunum had turned into a nation whose interest was reserved for themselves and the pursuit of knowledge in the name of Istari. They understood they were the prime place for magical and arcane advances, and were using this leverage to spread their influence through the mage’s guild and any court magicians they sent out.

Aleistunum hadn’t changed in this mentality for nearly 600 years after their current Archerudite was elected. Both a curse and blessing from having an elf be the supreme leader of this country.

Now, Renee and the two mages had to find a way to persuade this person to help them. How would they do it, only Renee knew. To her, protecting her country and her father’s legacy meant everything.

However, what could she give in return for this aid? She was not sent there by the current monarch of Yeos? She was only a commoner, after all. What could she do with her status? What could she bargain with to gain the military power of Aleistunum? After all, Aleistunum valued knowledge over everything else.

What could an idealistic knight-wannabe possibly offer in this situation?

But, then again, would this reinforcement even come in time even if she succeeded?

“Scale’s blight! We need to retreat now, Kush!” Krim-Slak swore after they participated in another day of fighting.

“Tsk! I understand, this is all we can do! We can’t fight two high ogres with all their soldiers! Retreat, now!” Kushlek’zar gave the command to retreat back to Elyonda, knowing they couldn’t continue after the grimgarian army had begun sending in kill squads after them.

Still, their efforts had seriously delayed the invasion force long enough for two days to pass after Hestia and Melloxtressa disappeared. When the exhausted saurians returned to Elyonda, they were shocked to see large barricades higher than the city’s walls greet them, only to be flabbergasted at how they were all made of earth and looked frozen in place.

They were informed by Jethro that the Fargryneill and Larent had provided some important labor by deconstructing Melloxtressa’s “gift” into shields for the city, which would protect them from any siege weapons being used. Due to the number of enemies, he and Alistar believed they needed to move forward with cunning, instead of hitting them head-on.

“The citizens and nobles are all in the arena, protected in case we fail. We’ve also managed to hire quite a ton of mercinaries and also recruit the contestants of the tournament to our cause,” Jethro explained the situation to Kushlek’zar, before going over to see a leonid man cheering and motivating a group of mercs. “Ghorush, is his name. He’ll be leading the mercenary and adventurer forces, and we’ll probably need his help since our scouts informed us the naval forces were around the coast.”

Invasion forces came from across the land and sea, both coordinating their engagement to sunder their opponents into pieces. While Jethro did believe Tehmrayn spoke the truth of staying on the island to protect the seal, the former had to protect the harbor at all costs to prevent getting cut off from the naga Champion in case reinforcements were needed. This was where his warrior priests and Ghorush’s forces will come to play.

The soldiers under the commands of Alistar, Larent, and Fargryneill would lead the assault on the land forces, using the new terrain to their advantage including the traps Rita had set up everywhere. On the other side, he wanted Kushlek’zar, Tehmrayn, and Ghorush to lead the remaining forces against the naval forces.

“You have our ships and our sailors to work with. A few of the Caedhulens there are willing to help, so I hope you can lead them, Saint Kushlek’zar,” Jethro asked the saurian, to which he agreed.

“Mhmm! Of course, this is your battle as well as ours. Hmm, but tell me, you didn’t mention my apprentice. What will she be doing?”

Jethro frowned at this question, causing the saurian to suspect something was up. “Well… this is a secret we've kept from everybody outside of those who already know. It would cause a massive panic and plummet the morale of everybody, but…”

“Guhahahahaha!” But before Jethro could say something, a tall leonid suddenly strutted over to them, laughing boisterous. “Ha! Don’t you and your friends look strong! Especially that tall one.”

The leonid pointed at Akast, who was minding his own business. Seeing this, Kushlek’zar asked him who he was, although he knew it already.

“Ghorush! I’m here for the thrill of fighting. Ha! Can’t believe I’m fighting for the humans right now, reminds me of all the time my tribe fought against the Empire. Hmm, what an irony…” Ghorush reminisced about his past, all to Jethro’s chagrin. “But, whatever, the past is in the past. You payed me well, and I'll deliver you the results. So you better not cheat on us, manablood, cause we’ve a ton of mercs around who won’t be too fond after learning how we risked our lives for nothing but scrapes. I heard your country ain’t that rich.”

“Hmph, do not underestimate our treasury. We aren’t as rich as the Empire, but you will find enough coin to spend it all on mead, food, and your nighttime leisure after you’re done. Now, get onto it!” Jethro then turned back to Kushlek’zar. “I apologize, but we must hold this conversation later. Time is something we lack right now, so please follow Ghorush to the shore. I shall follow you in a bit to lead you back to the island.”

“Of course, and I can already understand the situation. No worries, my little apprentice is not somebody you can write off that easily. She will find a way, I am sure of it.” Kushlek’zar’s faith in Hestia was unwavering. After all, he had it aplenty for his first real apprentice.

“Ha! The lass might come late, but she will arrive. Just have to make sure we stall long enough, ain’t that right, Grazlahta?” Krim-Slak nudged his partner, prompting the other to nod.

“Waiting a little bit more won’t hurt.”

“Hmm. Yes,” Akast grunted his response.

And so, the stage was set for the upcoming battle, all while Hestia and Melloxtressa were slumbering away. Many soldiers were expecting Hestia to return, believing the propaganda created by Duke Alberstien that Hestia defeated two demonkins and that she needed to rest before the battle.

But, in the meantime, those watching over all of this with sinister eyes, focused on executing their plan once the time came. All the hopes in Elyonda were gone once Karhalantheel was released, and the sweet ecstasy following this despair would fuel the smiles of the demonkins of Bole’Taria.

A war was a two sided coin, and this would never change.

A note from AbyssRaven

Melloxtressa slapped her away, but not hard enough, just so her little daughter can keep inflicting ptsd on the demonkins.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 348: Envy made Manifest.

A note from AbyssRaven

BIG FAT WARNING!

I haven't exactly warned you guys of things before, since it would spoil the story, but this time, I found the need to do so. This chapter is pretty heavy. If you, any of you guys, currently have some problems, I would suggest not reading it until you feel better or ready. Some of you already kind of guessed Hestia's past a bit, but to those who havn't, please be aware.

Another warning. Since I like setting the mood, have a listen to Hestia's [My Darkest Thoughts]'s original song: Rawr

Okay, warning is over. If you guys are ready, then please, enjoy.

Clothes? Check! Hair? Check! Make-up? Check! Backpack full? Check! Nails? Check! And, lastly, a smile?

Using my two index fingers, I pushed up the ends of my mouth, forming them into a big, wide smile. Messing with my face a bit more, I made it look more gentle, but that wasn’t how an idol should be. Sharpening my eyes, I finally ended up with the perfect grin — an energy-filled smile which could infect others.

Nice! Check!

Practicing how to smile and make certain facial expressions was important, as an idol had to know how to do fanservice. Fans and stans were our lifeblood, losing them would stifle my growth and potential future. I had to look pure and innocent, without even a speck of drama, otherwise a single problem could make people want to cancel me. Couldn’t afford the haters as a rising star, right?

Even if it was just school, I had to make sure my silky black hair was styled correctly and that my make-up was placed juuuust right. Mama taught me how to do it properly, but it was kinda hard not to overdo it. It was just school, after all, so I had to use less than I would on stage. I couldn’t exactly come in totally prettied up, and besides, the school had a rule against heavy make-up usage, so shouldn’t break that either.

“Haaa…” I let out a small sigh after getting ready for school, before hyping myself up. Even if I didn’t like going to school, I still had to!

‘You don’t know when you’ll need it, so go learn! Your idol training will stop if you can’t put any effort outside of it!’ Papa said… bleh. But, I guess he’s right. Compromises are kinda important, and Papa and Mama are probably worried about my grandparents’ opinion of me. If my daughter was sooooo focused on becoming an idol, to the point she forgot everything else, I would be worried, too.

Nevertheless, that was how my life was. However, before I left my room, I did a double check in front of my mirror. Yup, this was me. Long black hair which went down my back, black eyes and thick brows like Mama’s, a rounded nose and strong cheekbones from Papa, and a pretty soft jawline from my paternal grandmother.

Half-Japanese, Half-German. That was me. The rest of my body was what you would expect from a 15-year-old, although I kinda wished I was a bit curvier. Then again, Mama wasn’t exactly stacked, but puberty still hadn’t ended yet for me! I could still grow!

Now to totally hype myself up for the rest of the day, I struck a pose in front of the mirror. I could see my image twinkling behind my room light, to the point I couldn’t help but call myself cute! Shine bright!

“H*****! Ganbare!” (You can do it!)

“YOU—!”A loud screech erupted in front of me when I cheered for myself, simultaneously setting my mirror on fire.

“Eeeeeeeeeeek!”

I flinched back, recoiling from the suddenness of everything. In the process, I tripped over my schoolbag, falling hard on my butt. “Ow!” I winced, rubbing my butt from the pain, before my head snapped back to my aflame mirror, only to widen my eyes in befuddlement. The flame and that weird devil weren’t there anymore!

Yes, devil! I was 100% sure that I saw something like that in my mirror for a split second! A person with shoulder-length red hair flaring up like flames with two large horns. Their ruby-colored eyes glared at me as they shouted and set my mirror on fire.

Of course, I would yelp at that! Who wouldn’t? A bloody devil just appeared before me! Or, at least, I believed I saw something similar to that. However … all I saw was gone. As if it was a dream or illusion. Did I … I wasn’t sure if what I saw was real, at this point.

… Okay, maybe I should stop playing DQ late into the night. Maaaaybe going to sleep at 3am wasn’t the smartest choice. I’m seeing things, urgh.

It probably was all in my head. In any case, I stood back up and took my backpack and went out of my room. While going down the stairs, I noticed the beautiful day through our large windows, taking in the sight of our apartment.

Papa was pretty successful as a conductor, so our apartment was actually the penthouse of this building. We had some neighbors downstairs, but most were people Pepe knew from work. I knew the kids there, but we didn’t have much in common outside of our families being in the music business. We got along well enough for being mere acquaintances, though.

Another day, same old city.

“Ojou-sama, did something happen in your room?” My attention was drawn towards an elderly Japanese woman, looking at me worriedly. This was my nanny.

“O-Oh, I apologize, nothing happened. I just fell over my backpack. I’m sorry for worrying you, Nanny.” I smiled wryly, looking embarrassed, which made her giggle a bit before rushing me to breakfast with a warm smile.

“Well, if nothing hurts, then it’s all fine. Come, breakfast is ready. Eat with your Mother.”

Nanny was actually Mama’s nanny back from when she was still a child, but Nanny followed Mama to Germany and then to New York after Mama and Papa got married. My maternal grandparents were extremely traditional and rich, so Mama was brought up like a noble lady as a result, which included somebody to help her out when she traveled abroad.

Nanny’s English and German weren't very good, but they were decent enough to communicate with people during grocery runs. Otherwise, she would speak Japanese at home since she was more comfortable with it, which was fine since our household could speak it fluently as well, even Papa. Then again, Nanny was pretty traditional due to her upbringing, so it was sometimes hard to be totally myself around her.

… Still, love her all the same. She’s practically part of the family with how long she’s been with us. She took care of me when I was still a newborn, so yeah.

“Mama! Good morning!” I greeted Mama with a wide grin, instantly recognizing the Japanese woman before me! Beautiful despite her age, and I was expecting to inherit her traits so my future idol company wouldn’t force me into plastic surgery.

I then clapped my hands at the food before me. Nanny and Mama were an amazing cooking duo!

“H*****, good mor—”

“WAKE—!”

“Urk!” I twitched from suddenly hearing that voice again. Where was it coming from?!

“U-Uh, are you okay? You look a bit pale, dear.” I snapped my head back to Mama when I heard her worried voice, instantly denying anything was happening. “O-Oh, I see? Is it that time of the month, again?”

“NO! I just had it two weeks ago, stop talking about it, jeez!” I sat down on my seat, covering my face in my hands as Mama began giggling, as if what she was saying was funny. As if!

Tsk, what was that voice? I wondered once again.

Out of nowhere it just appeared, but why? Seriously, I didn’t become crazy, yeah? Mentally ill? Sure, failing all those auditions was pretty demoralizing, but come on, that couldn’t be the reason for this voice in my head. Mama and Nanny didn’t hear it, so it probably was just my imagination. I mean, have I done anything wrong in my life to have some ghost haunt me? Ha!

… Although, if that were true— Brrrrr! Scary.

Mama and I had a Japanese-style breakfast together while Nanny pulled my long hair into a ponytail. We made some small talk about my singing and dancing training, where I avoided having to talk to her about my next audition. Sheesh, not a good topic at all for the morning, and from the way Mama and Papa are also pestering me about it, it really did feel like they were losing hope.

However, what was an idol but someone who can transcend these expectations? It was only a matter of time until I became a trainee! Right, just a matter of time before I get one scout to be interested in me! Just have to rush out of school after it's done and get back to training, and it will be A-Okay! Just gotta work hard, and I was sure I could make my parents proud.

In any case, after my belly was full, I said goodbye to both of them and went down with the elevator to the parking lot of the building. Since Mama and Papa couldn’t always drive me to school, they hired a chauffeur, so that was how I was commuting. I took out my phone and earbuds and began playing some music while taking out some music paper.

“Mhmm, mhmm, mhmm~” I hummed along to one of my favorite K-pop group’s most recent comeback — K-pop slang for a new song — and began adjusting the notes and lyrics to a song I was writing for my next audition. I wasn’t that talented in dancing, but what I was very good at was singing and writing songs, so this was my way to distinguish myself from everybody else.

Maybe rhyming would make it flow better. Adjust the melodies here, maybe a bit more violin. Probably should record myself. Hmm, maybe I should learn how to compose music on my laptops? Would make it easier than recording everything individually, but kinda feels like a cop-out. Papa hates electronic music or anything non-traditional.

The City — specifically Manhattan for us New Yorkers — was, as usual, pretty full even in the early mornings. I always had to wake up pretty early to get to school in time with the car, but it didn’t really bother me too much. I could always sleep-in on the weekends, after all. Weekdays were training days, so I had to be active and keep that mindset.

Besides, all the honking and bustling noise of the city didn’t bother me with my earbuds in. The traffic jam was a perfect excuse to do some homework or practice before school began, too. Honestly, it wasn’t too bad after you got used to everything, and it just kept the city busy and interesting for the tourists. Broadway’s and Papa’s orchestra’s main clientele were non-New Yorkers, after all.

Although, I did hear the number of ticket bought by peeps in the city had grown, but… Wait, hold on, HOMEWORK!

“Ahhhhhhh!” I yelled out as I pulled out a thick math book with a piece of paper stuck in between it. Pulling it out, I paled at how I forgot to do yesterday’s math problems!

“Clyde!” I called out for my chauffeur.

“Haha, again? You do know you can’t continue doing all ye homework in the wee car, eh?”

“This is not a laughing matter!” I chided my Scottish driver, urging him to help me with my work. “It’s for stupid Mrs. Mandison! Urgh, please, you need to help me! She hates my guts like the pest, and I can’t fail these things otherwise she’ll have a reason to call in Mama! Please!”

“Aye, aye, jusht ashk me away. Have da keep my eyesh on the shtreets, right? Gotta stop telling me theshe problems in the car, Miss H*****.”

“UP—!”

…! That ghost!

“Young Miss?” Clyde asked me, glancing at me with worry as I suddenly turned quiet.

“N-Nothing! Nothing at all, just thought I saw some cute cat,” I forced out, somehow avoiding him further asking what was wrong.

“Haha! Another shtray? Always thought you like dogs more, Miss.”

“A-Ahaha, yeah …”

Why?!?!?!?! Urgh, whatever, WHATEVER! I understand, you ghost, I will stop playing games late into the night! Jeez!

If I ignored it, then it wouldn’t exist, right? I was probably hearing things, so it was honestly just better to just concentrate on this homework before Mrs. Mandison kicked my butt for forgetting to do it.

In any case, after deciding to not hear the voice again, I began doing my homework, asking Clyde whenever I couldn’t understand a certain problem. Algebra plus problems inside sentences made things pretty complicated for me, as not only did it demand logical thinking but also me remembering the formula, and I was currently too exhausted to remember them. That ghost voice really was just my body screaming to me to get more sleep, huh?

Clyde wasn’t just my chauffeur, but also my private tutor. He was actually a foreign college student Papa took in ‘cause Clyde was the nephew of one of his friends, and so began living inside the same building, albeit at a lower floor. Driving me around and tutoring me was his job, helping him finance his life as an engineering student.

Since I had to hear him, I took out my earbuds and that was when the sound of the city caught my attention for some reason. Even now, people were actively rushing along the sidewalks, either going to the subway or trying to advertise whatever service they were offering. The streets weren’t better, as the loud beeping of cars and even irritated shouting of their drivers made my chest tighten.

Strangely, I knew all of this… but somehow, all of this was beginning to feel nostalgic. As if I went off to Japan and just came back. As if my mind was taking all of it in, despite all of this being a daily part of my life. Weird. I was pretty sure I hadn’t gone traveling in a while.

I shook my head, ignoring even that and continued working through my math issues. After a while, I let out a deep sigh just as we arrived at my private school.

Robert Dawn’s Academy.

It was pretty much where I spent my entire middle school, and now freshman, years at, although it wasn’t really my favorite place. Not only ‘cause I was a terrible student outside of Music and P.E. classes — although I was kinda good in Biology and English — but also ‘cause I had literally no friends here. Well, I had some, but we kinda drifted aparts. Part of life, I guess.

After saying goodbye to Clyde, I stepped into the academy and made my way to my first class. While doing so, I took a look around with my earbuds on, noticing the large campus and the numerous students walking past and around me, all gossiping or looking at their phones. Pretty much what you would expect from a high school, really.

Our school uniforms were one thing that would stand out. For the boys, there was a white shirt, blue-red blazer or vest, blue pants, shoes, and a tie, while the girls pretty much had the same outfit, although the majority opted for either long or short skirts. I chose the former, since Papa didn’t like short skirts for my uniform.

As long as you abided by those rules, you could pretty much add on accessories, hats, scarves, and so on within reason. I was honestly happy this school wasn’t too tradionist when it came to uniforms. We were in the 21st century, after all! Girls should be allowed to dress comfortably!

“Yo, let’s do this! Tomorrow we’ll beat those p.o.s.! Awhooo!”

“““Awhooo! Awhooo! Awhooo!”””

Hmm? Oh, the football jocks are at it again.

Every school needed some idiots who thought they were better than the others, and that came out naturally if you were constantly praised in your area of expertise. I heard the football and baseball teams were doing pretty well, so they were responsible for the pride and honor of our school. We also had a pretty good debating team, and, boy, those guys could be even more arrogant than the jocks.

Yikes, nothing hurts more than being insulted in a way you can’t possibly understand.

After I entered the room, the smell of adolescents and their use of perfumes and cologne seriously blasted up my nose as I pushed myself through to my homeroom. The hallways of the building were pretty wide, so there wasn’t much of a traffic jam, but I still had to get through everybody going to their homerooms.

Inside my room, I noticed a bunch of integrated monitors on our respective desks. I heard from my cousin that his school hadn’t implemented this yet, pointing out how the bureaucracy there was a bit too conservative with accepting technological advancements. A shame, since working on the PC was more efficient than writing everything on paper. Even the blackboard was an interactive screen.

I went over to my seat and then took out my homework for the day, organizing them for later. Our school was slowly transitioning into tablets to distribute homework, seeing as it would be easier to hand them in, but they currently were setting up the servers for them, last I heard. It would cost quite a bit, so the school had to prepare things without raising the tuition costs too much.

This was already a pretty expensive school, so yeah.

“Hey, H*****.”

I turned around, seeing a group of three girls taking their seats. Those were my friends, well, former friends, really.

“Hey, Liz, Virgy, Claire. How was your morning?”

“Mhmm, pretty good, I guess,” Liz, or Elizabeth, answered for everybody before she started to stretch. “Hope you got your homework done, H*****. Heard Mrs. Mandison will probably kick everybody’s butts if even one of us forgot.”

I jerked back a bit, feeling like she saw right through me. “Wh-What is that supposed to mean! Of course, I did them! Come on, I don’t want to be the one responsible. Hmm?”

Didn’t she say my name? Why hasn’t that voice come out yet?

One thing I noticed every time that voice appeared was when somebody said my name. Sure, a weird thing to notice, but you kinda had to considering the shock. Strangely, Liz said my name twice but nothing happened. Honestly, I was pretty relieved considering this proves I was hearing things!

“Hey, H*****, do you want to go to Bucksbucks today? Heard they just introduced a new boba and muffin recipe! Heard from Insta how delicious they were!” Claire brought up, instantly stealing my attention.

“Ooooh!” I clapped in response, only to remember my schedule for they day. “U-Uhm…”

“What, training, again?” Virgy, short for Virginia, raised an eyebrow to my response, instantly deducing the problem on hand. “Well, I guess you have to work hard to get anywhere in the idol industry. Man, you have to hand it to the idols on how hard they work. Oh, did you listen to their comeback?”

I snapped my head up, flaring up in excitement at how we were talking about one of my favorite idol groups. “Y-Yeah, yeah, I did! I was listening to it on the way to school! Pretty nice, right? Especially the harmony afterwards! Ooooh, goosebumps.”

“Right? Good, right?” Liz and Claire nodded, before Liz turned back to me. “So you need to work hard, right? Don’t worry about it, we got you. We’ll drop the drink over at your place, alright? Just don’t stress yourself out, and get it going, girl! You got this!”

“R-Right! Mhmm…”

It sucked. I felt terrible. Once again, once again, I rejected their invitation to go out due to my schedule and my self-imposed discipline. Those three were my best friends since middle school, even before that we knew each other. However, what the hell was I doing here? I was putting my idol dream over my friendship, pushing them away like scum.

I was honestly the worst. I couldn’t believe they were still trying to get to me, even if we only had time to meet up, like, once or twice per month. Most of our interactions came through socials, but it felt kinda bland. They posted numerous photos of themselves enjoying themselves, all while I could only watch them from a distance.

All ‘cause I was the biggest idiot ever. The worst friend these three could deserve. They knew my dream and were okay with it since we all were fans of K-Pop, but it felt hard. What would happen if I were accepted as a trainee? I would probably have even less time with them, even worse, I might have to go over to S. Korea for my training.

It was painful, but it wasn’t like we hadn’t already drifted apart. Nobody came to my 14th birthday, after all. Not even these three…

Strangely, not hearing that voice right now made it feel suffocating. My chest felt so tight for the entire day, all up to the moment Clyde picked me up for training. Once there, I met up with my dancing instructor where we started our private lessons like usual. It had been a long time since I met the other trainees, ever since Papa asked my instructor to teach me in private.

“Hey, hey, what’s wrong? Your singing is worse than usual. You feeling down, H*****?” Hayhoon, my S. Korean instructor’s stage name, asked me with a worried face. He wasn’t exactly the most famous popstar, but he was known as a pretty good instructor inside the K-Pop industry.

Weird, no voice? Mhmm.

“Nah, not really. Just the usual, seonbae,” I replied, using the Korean word for mentor to address him. “Not exactly having the time to get along with friends. Feels pretty lonely.”

“Lonely? Come on, I told you to take some more breaks. You’re good, really good, alright? You’ll have your turn soon enough, you just have to keep improving and you'll be accepted soon enough! You know what, take the weekends off, alright? Take a break, don’t burn yourself out. Every artist needs a small hiatus once in a while.”

My schedule for the weekend changed just like that.

Thursday and Friday began and ended just like Wednesday, just with a different schedule and events, of course. When Saturday came, I slept in, ate breakfast with Mama and Nanny, before learning Papa had to stay out for the day, and would come back on Sunday for our family jam session.

I was pretty disappointed, but Papa had a show next week, so he had to begin practicing. Maybe I could visit him today, but I decided against it. Instead, I just wandered around the city, eating and drinking whatever I could find while listening to music. For some reason, the chest tightness I had since Wednesday never disappeared. The voice also hadn’t returned, which was a relief… I thought.

Hmm?

I stopped at an electronics store in a mall, watching a show about some red dragon fighting against a brutal ogre. Even without knowing the context of the show, something inside me was naturally drawn towards the dragon, as if I had to cheer for it. It was weird, since both the monsters looked pretty scary, honestly.

I did wonder if this was some new show I hadn’t heard about. It looked realistic, or at least real enough to hide the CGI, but had so many crazy moments like the ogre screaming and shooting blood slashes while the dragon could explode like a sun. It felt so anime. Too over the top.

People really want to experiment these days. Though, who is the MC? Too bad there is no sound. Guess I’ll look it up later.

I was about to leave the area only to stop myself when my head snapped over to another TV, broadcasting what looked like an interview. However, that wasn’t what caught my attention, no, it was actually the fact that the interviewee was actually one of my trainee colleagues. One of the bitches who always kept bullying me for my money.

“Yes, thank you very much! I cannot say how much I had worked up until this day, and I cannot — hick! I cannot say how much I wanted this to happen! Thank you so very much for picking me!”

Huh? Why can I hear it? Why is there audio for this, and why was this electronic store streaming something like this? Is this a talk show?

“And that was our last applicant! Everybody, please, welcome these five young ladies into the industry!” Some Asian man announced while the crowd began to applaud.

… Industry? Wait, what?!

This had to be a joke? Industry? As in the idol industry? But how?! There shouldn’t have been an audition for this entire month, I made sure of that! I checked everything and made sure there were no auditions or possible scouting through my dancing instructor. I was sure, but at the same time, I recognized that girl anywhere. She was one of my rivals…

But that still didn’t make sense. Why was she accepted as an aspiring trainee before I was? She worked even less than me, so why was this happening?! Why? Why? Why? Why was everybody accepted before I was?

“Urk…”

I felt sick, as if every bit of energy in my cells disappeared just like that. I felt spent, drained as if I had just run a marathon through the entire city. I just wanted to lie down at this point, but at the same time, I didn’t feel like moving from this spot. Falling on the ground and lying there sounded so appealing.

… Better call Clyde.

I sat down on a nearby bench and waited for Clyde to pick me up. After I returned home, I noticed Mama and Nanny weren’t at home, remembering they wanted to go shopping today. I took this cue to just meandered around until I was back in my room. Falling onto my bed, I suddenly felt… empty.

It felt like I had nothing in my head. As if I had nothing I wanted to do right now, not even continue writing my song. It felt weird. I felt so tired, so exhausted. Staying up sounded so bothersome, to the point where I just closed my eyes and went to sleep.

I eventually snapped my eyes open, jerking off my bed when I heard the door downstairs opening, accompanied by the sound of women laughing. Feeling parched, I went down to greet them.

“Oh, H*****! How was your day, honey?” Mama asked me, to which I gave her a short answer. Smiling, she put down the bags she was carrying and hurried me along to the sofa. “Good! Now, the show is about to start, but I need to carry everything up, so wait for me, alright?”

Show? Oh right, anime. Another episode of an anime we were following was about to premiere… Right, this was one of our rituals. Strange, how did I forget about it?

For some reason, I didn’t feel anything while watching the show with Mama and Nanny. It was like… I felt passive, unpassionate with everything. I forced a smile and acted like I was having fun, but the moment I returned to my room, I just fell onto my butt, feeling so… lifeless.

This feels… All of this feels so wrong. What’s going on with me?

I couldn’t think. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t solve any of my problems, only sliter into my bed to sleep. Sadly, when morning came, nothing had changed. I tried playing some violin and games, but nothing really hooked me. Even reading a book I was saving for a later time to finish felt so boring.

What was going on with me? Why did everything feel so meaningless? Even my whole idol dream felt so far away, so grandiose for someone like me to achieve. Some girl I hated from the bottom of my heart just achieved what I couldn’t. I could only imagine her smirk when I went back to training on Monday.

Haaa… feels like everything could just end right now, and nothing of value would be lost. What’s the point?

My eyes wandered over to my desk, focusing on the ink pen I used to write my lyrics. I honestly didn’t know why I was looking at it, but it felt like I should go and grab it. To do… something. What exactly was it, though? Unfortunately, my mind still felt hollow, as if I couldn’t form a single thought.

Maybe Papa and Mama were right? Maybe I wasn’t made for all of this. Phew, I’m such a disappointment of a musician and daughter. I just can’t do anything right.

I stood up. I walked over to my desk, with steps strangely filled with vigor and energy. As if my drive to do something had suddenly returned, only to feel like it just didn’t matter whatever I wanted. In the end, the world would turn even without me moving an inch.

I picked up the pen.

I inspected the sharp metallic end. My legs then suddenly walked on their own, as if I was driven by an autopilot towards the bathroom. I opened it. Locked it. Looked into the bath, then back at the pen. I then grabbed my neck, noticing how soft and smooth it was. So fragile.

I stepped into the bath.

I sat down and let out a deep sigh. I then looked up at the ceiling, wondering what would happen if I were to make a mess, right now. I wondered what that girl would think if I wasn’t there on Monday. Who would she gloat about? Somehow, my mouth curved into a smile; a weird, twisted, but genuine smile.

I feel so jealous. I should have been on that show. I should have been applauded by everybody. I wanted to stand on the stage, showered by their cheers and smiles. What was an idol, if she couldn’t make anybody smile?

What was an idol, if she herself can’t even force a smile.

“I’m worthless…”

What a life.

Maybe, if I just went to sleep. Maybe…

I raised my pen.

Maybe, then, Mama and Papa wouldn’t always worry about me. Maybe…

I tensed up my hand and gulped. Something inside me was trying to prevent me from doing it, but slowly but surely, it all disappeared. No resistance. Nothing at all. Just acceptance.

It’s all just a pipe dream. Goodbye.

I closed my eyes… and then my arm jerked.

…

…

Darkness.

“Hiek! Hiek huek huek huek. Hirk!”

Voice in my head? But why now?

“We were idiots.”

Idiots? Yeah. I guess we were.

“… Verdammt.”

Indeed. Verdammt nochmal. Zur Hölle mit alles. (To hell with everything.)

“… No. Once is enough. Twice? NEVER! I will never leave our parents behind again! You… WAKE UP!”

Splat!

My eyes opened up again as I suddenly heard a sharp sound erupted next me, all while I felt somebody slap me on the cheeks.

“Huh?”

I blinked, now feeling somebody had also grabbed my arm. I slowly turned my head around, only to see that very devil I saw on Wednesday. Crimson-red hair going down to her shoulders, two large horns, eyes like a lizard, and fangs. But, strangely, this girl looked eerily similar to me.

“A month of dreams is enough. Don’t repeat the same mistake again!”

The girl was crying.

“Huh?”

Something wet was on my cheeks. Touching it, it felt like my eyes were watery, too. Crying? Me? No, impossible, I made sure to promise myself to never cry. So why was I crying? Why was this girl who had the same face as me crying too? What is this?

“H*****, I’m home! Come down already, mein Schatz! The Sch****** family’s tradition is about to begin!”

Papa? Papa?

I dropped my pen into the bath, freed myself from this mysterious girl’s arm and pulled myself out of my bath.

“We brought pizza and also bbq with us! Come down, H*k***!”

Mama! That’s Papa and Mama!

I unlocked the door and opened it, suddenly noticing how extremely dark the hallway was. I couldn’t find the light switch at all.

“Ojou-sama, you should come down quickly! I will get your favorite stew ready!”

Nanny! Nanny! Nanny!

I didn’t care if I couldn’t see, I could still hear! I could still hear all of them calling me.I rushed into the dark corridor, ignoring everything and just ran, ran towards their voices at the end of this tunnel! I didn’t care whatever was holding me back, I didn’t care if that weird girl was behind me.

I had to get to them!

“Hey, Miss! Get down already, come on! Ye old man about to croak if you don— Owwwgh! Come on, Sir, it wash just a wee joke!”

Clyde! That’s you! I can hear you! I’m coming!

My chest suddenly felt… freed, as if all the emotions I was keeping inside myself was being set free to roam and wander wherever they wanted. I felt my eyes watering once again, accompanied by this unstoppable desire to meet them. I wanted to meet them so very much.

I wanted to see them again. Papa, Mama, Nanny, Clyde.

“Hey, H*k**i! I don’t have much time before I gotta go back, so come down already! Don’t make us wait!”

Seombae!

My dancing instructor's voice entered my ears again. They were calling me.

“H*k**i! Come on, already!”

“Yeah, don’t let us wait downstairs!”

“Your mother even invited us over, so get down already! We brought you boba!”

Liz, Virgy, Claire! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!

Light, light at the end of this tunnel.

“Please, w-huek! Wait!”

My voice was breaking down from all my crying. I couldn’t control myself. I just had to pass through that light. And the moment I would, I would—

“Staring out the window while it rains ♫

No one here to talk, silence is all I have ♫

So I delved into my thoughts and wondered, “What if?”♫”

But nothing. Nobody was there. It was my family’s penthouse, but the sky was bleak and all the lights were dead. The only people I saw in the room were girls… girls who looked just like me.

W-What?

“The laughing kid stomping loudly upstairs ♫

The damn lovebirds flirting on the streets ♫

Those rich asses living in their golden bubbles♫

I just wish they would all just disappear ♫?

There were ten of then, with one half looked like that devil girl while the others looked like exact copies of me. All of them were humming and singing along to the sound of a piano. I turned my eyes around, watching a girl with wings, scales, and a tail playing on it with the deftness of a trained expert.

The melodies she was playing pained my heart… until she began to sing.

“Those are my honest thoughts, something I wish to hide from them ♫

My life is stagnating, nothing I do brings me forth ♫

All I can do is sing, drowning my sorrows while it rains ♫

Every step I take just brings me back, to a rundown apartment room ♫”

And then, everybody began to sing in perfect harmony.

“Turn away, close my eyes, lock these wishes far away ♫

Not again, not again…or I’ll cry until the end ♫

All of my darkest thoughts ♫

Will serve me as my muse ♫

So, I’ll sing, I’ll sing, I’ll sing, I’ll sing! ♫

As I fade from your thoughts ♫”

I fell onto my knees. The tears wouldn’t stop.

“I’m sorry. I ruined it all.”

A note from AbyssRaven

No jokes today. I hope you guys enjoyed the read, despite it being more on the heavy side, despite this being your fun-to-read idol story. Thank you for reading Hestia's story and keeping up with it.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 349: A Promise Remembrance.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #3 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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Enjoy! Rawr

Your connection with Peolynca has been severed. Connection with Peolynca’s Divine System has been canceled. This will be your last message until you return. May the Origin Gods bless you

Profile.

…?

Shit.

Admittedly, this message wasn’t actually the first thing I saw when I woke up from a pretty restless sleep. In fact, I had first seen Saori, Tasianna, and all the others friends I made in this world before me, greeting me and pushing me to eat breakfast. I thought nothing of it at first, just finding this small moment of reprieve pleasant.

Still, it didn’t take me long to realize something.

Jealousy. Envy.

“Hahaha, don’t worry, Hestia, in two more years, I will evolve into an A rank and will become so strong, I will be able to protect you. Any enemies you have, I will take them out! Just, don’t worry about your cute head and stay put, alright?”

“Lady Hestia, Her Imperial Majesty, has taught me the secrets of the ice element. I can wield cold beyond your understanding now, so strong your flames cannot even melt them anymore! Do not worry, my lady, all your foes will be destroyed by me.”

"Hestia, I've reached 100 percent assimilation with Klea and also got the aberration from the dungeon. I can now turn into a true demon without any of the side effects! Our enemies will never know what took them down!”

“Gahahahaha, lass, I managed to do it! A weapon to surpass even dragons! A weapon and armor so strong, not even the demons can fathom what I have made. Gahahaha, but how could they? My mind is beyond their understanding! Gahahahaha, this is the steel to take down Bleidla.”

How fun. Was what I thought at that moment, feeling sour as they bragged about their new abilities, all while I had a problem on my hand.

“I’m sorry, my whelpling, your core has been destroyed permanently. If you were to evolve right now, the mana inside you would surge from that core area and explode. It would destroy your heart before your metamorphosis can begin. Please, don’t evolve.”

How unfair. Why is this happening to me? Why am I such a burden to everybody.

“Don’t worry, Hestia, stay back! We will destroy the demonkins for you!” Saori said before waving me goodbye with everybody else, leaving me behind as they moved to the final battle.

“Stop! Please, don’t leave me behind! I’m not useless, arrrrgh, dammit, why is this happening to me, again! WHY?!”

… Life sure sucked.

…

… That’s all the information you’ll get out of me, you piece of shit!

I snapped my head around, staring at a certain spot in the ceiling, eyeing two huge balls of mana in the distance. This was exactly the moment when my mind cleared up and noticed that System message, and it was all I needed to understand what was going on. Even without the System, I could still use anything inherent to my body, from my mana to my dragon abilites.

Mana Eyes wasn’t just a skill, it was part of my eyes. I could see this was all an illusion.

Urgk…

I did have to look away in the end, though, since the concentration of mana was too strong for me to keep watching for too long. Still, this did give me some time to look at the fake copies of my friends, waving at me with impish smiles.

So this is what you’re doing, huh? Watching me suffer? You asses.

I remembered what happened just moments ago. Mother had been swallowed up by the demonkin’s small dimension breach, or at least that's what Aurena called it, and in the process, I jumped right into it to save her. She saved me, therefore I should do the same. In addition, she was my mother, and the last thing I wanted to do was to lose another mom and have a mom lose her only daughter.

In any case, how was I supposed to feel comfortable inside here, given this was obviously an illusion? The mana felt dusty, grainy as it entered my body. I thought since those demonkins were responsible for this, I thought this place would be swamped with their mana, but it felt different here. I felt like my body was rejecting the nasty mana here, while at the same time, I could feel my mana escaping from my body.

Even without the Divine System, I was still a dragon in this world. Aside from System skills, I could do everything not related to the System. Which was funny, since if [Identify] hadn’t evolved into [Mana Eyes], I wouldn’t have been able to use it. What a coincidence, honestly.

… But, the real reason why I wasn’t tricked by this place was obvious.

As if I would feel jealous of them! Do you really think I would stand aside even if I couldn't level up?

Yes, I was perfectly okay with all the members of Aurora becoming stronger than me. There would always be someone at the top and someone at the bottom, as I fully understood back on Earth. For nearly two years, I had been the strongest Aurora member. In this time, I had helped all of them grow in their own ways, and if they had to grow, they had to find their own strength.

The moment I understood Saori could evolve into an A rank before me, I understood it was only a matter of time until she surpassed me. I still wanted to get stronger until then, and maybe even stay on the top after her evolution. However, I also understood after everything that I didn’t have to rely on myself.

My Gluttony was my relationship with everybody, and while I wished to preserve them, I also understood that it could all end one day. Ellaine and Grimnir couldn’t live as long as Saori and Tasianna could. However, despite knowing this, I would persist and fight for them. I would keep them safe when they needed me, and I would smile and laugh with them every chance I got.

And in that sense, it didn’t matter if they became more powerful than me. I would simply keep rising above, challenging them to become better. After all, if I were the strongest person in the world, what would make them stronger than me?

Even if I couldn’t evolve and was max level locked, I would transcend that through Jobs. If I were to run out of Jobs to grind, I would strengthen my profile with stats and skills. If those also stopped increasing, then I would direct my attention towards custom spells and abilities. Even if this method were to fail, I would rely on equipment and turn my life over to become a craftswoman.

In Peolynca, there were myriads of ways to improve. As an idol, my song and dance couldn’t be snuffed out while I was still alive, and as a dragon, I longed for even more.

And the enemy thought they could kill my melody in this musty place? As if!

When I screamed this out, a sharp pain shot through my brain. I saw a large city, a cutely decorated room, a loving mother, a caring nanny, a friendly chauffeur and tutor, an inspiring instructor, and a worried father. My memories were starting to return, again, and in the middle of all of this, I saw a black-haired girl.

It was my past self.

I knew it instinctively. In addition to having the same face, she also had the same mannerisms and thoughts. They were all coming to me, and that was when I also began hearing voices. My voice, echoing inside this place like a cave.

I didn’t know where I was, but I had to find what was causing all these sounds. Mother was in the back of my mind, but I couldn’t sense her mana or her scent. Without any clue, I couldn’t search for her, but with my head hurting like hell, I had to stop this illusion first before I committed to looking for her.

In the process, I noticed the world around me melting and twisting before it splintered into a number of mirror shards. Touching any of them transported me into the same world I just left, the only difference was a different sight. It was here when one of those voices became fully audible.

“Stop it! Stop it! Arrrgrh, THESE VOICES!”

That was when my eyes widened when I saw myself fighting off the same illusions I just had, only in a different setting. Was it my clone? No, I felt a connection between us. Something intimate beyond common sense. It was like this person was part of my mind.

“Manager Mind?” I spoke unconsciously towards my look-alike, shaking her awake from her problem. She turned around; sweat drenched her horrified expression, before it softened into hope.

“Original Mind!”

Manager Mind, my first parallel mind. Just like in my mental space, she and the others mimicked my appearance as they were literally copies of my mind. This was a literal “What the fuck, two Hestias?!” moment, but when she hugged me and even cried out her complaints of this place, it felt normal. Normal as always.

“There, there…” I caressed her head like a caring sister.

“Don’t you ‘There, there’ me! I can still read your mind!” However, my little sister was a bit obstinate, right? “I heard that!”

However, she wasn’t the only one who had to experience this. Just like the two of us, my other parallel minds were also in trouble, but the moment I appeared, the shock and pain they felt from my friends’ words cleared up. The dagger holding them down loosened at my words.

“Arrrgrh, dammit, did you really have to see me in that state?! Verdammt nochmal!” #2 screamed, totally embarrassed.

“Jeez, it felt sooooo bad. I felt like I wasn’t even myself for a moment. Can’t believe I thought like that…” #3 chastised herself.

“It reminded me of some terrible memories. Being useless before them… being a burden. It reminds me of when we turned berserk with [Battle Frenzy (Moderate)] after escaping the Belzac forest.” #4 massaged her temples, looking like sorrow was taking over her.

“… I thought you would forget about me for being useless,” #5 looked at me mournfully. Her eyes struck a chord in my heart.

All of them represented a part of myself. No one knew me better than my ten parallel minds. They experienced my illusions all in their own ways, and the outcomes all differed since they each represented a different one of my emotions. From what I remembered, memories were stored in the brain, but at the same time, memories also lingered inside the soul.

To cleanse a soul for rebirth was to wipe away all their memories.

If my parallel minds were acting out of order until the moment I appeared before them, then it meant this place wasn’t my mind. The two large mana balls I felt before suggested this really was a separate place from before. This place wasn’t extracting information from my mind, but from my very soul.

I became even more convinced once I rescued the remaining five minds. Not a single one of them looked like “Hestia,” but rather as my other, human self. 15-year-old high schoolers with sullen looks, mostly caused by the rather annoying promise I made to myself to never cry. I held all my emotions inside myself, bottling them up with my tears. However, the more I bottled them, the more likely everything would leak. Unfortunately, I didn’t let anything out, and when I reached its maximum capacity…

Boom!

“Urgh, come on, Clyde. Could you please drive me there?”

I focused again on that voice. I saw them — my family. Papa, Mama, Nanny, Clyde. There was also Hayhoon, my dancing instructor, and also my three best friends — Elizabeth, Virginia, and Claire.

I could finally see their faces. That memory had returned, although my past name was still unknown to me. That was when I understood I wasn’t the only one trapped in here, but also my other self. My parallel minds being in here was just a side effect from being a person who had multiple soul personality disorder, just like how [Parallel Thoughts] was created ‘cause of my splintered soul.

Just, I didn’t understand how my souls were suffering one moment, but the next they turned back to normal. I wasn’t haughty enough to say my presence alone was all that was needed, but it sure seemed that way.

“You! Wake up!” I shouted as I made my way into her mind, only to feel like she was trying to reject me. Just like before, it felt like my other self was trying to keep me away from all these memories.

However, I persisted. I felt something was draining me with this annoying headache, and I had to get over it in order to find Mother. I couldn’t let this person keep going like this!

… But, that was when that happened.

“Hiek! Hiek huek huek huek. Hirk!”

There, I stared at her, no, at me. In the bathroom, sitting alone in the bath without any water holding up an ink pen. With eyes devoid of any passion, her arm just jerked on its own… I saw blood. I felt a dull pain from my throat. I saw the sad truth of my…

… Of my death.

… You idiot. You damn, idiot! Why?! Why!? Why?!

I now fully understood why Aurena didn’t want to fully regenerate my soul all at once, as it would just overwhelm me with the truth. She wanted me to slowly ingest everything, until the moment finally came for me to face it. It was why my past self wanted me to forget it all. The greatest sin I could have committed to my parents.

Rob them of a daughter.

“We were idiots… Verdammt,” I scolded myself, biting my lips as I trembled at that fact. I died…

… And all I could think about was how my past self felt. Even now, I could sense her guilt, her self-torment, and her wish to be forgotten. She wanted to fully die to escape this shame of hers. In a moment of weakness after seeing our rival become a trainee before us, we didn’t want to feel her triumph shoved in our face and question all we’ve lived for.

Was all the effort we put in a waste of time? Would it have been better to just accept Papa’s proposal and transition into a normal popstar or even an opera singer? In hindsight, I should have just used the internet to spread my voice, but I was just a stubborn fool back then. Too tunnel visioned into my ideal. Too stupid to see the stages placed before me, ignoring them for the “perfect” one.

However, where did I begin my debut? On a muddy platform I had to create myself with the help of my friends. I didn’t care how I did it, I just wanted to get my voice heard. Low budget? I didn’t care, my voice was heard and I felt my tears dry up at the sound of Carine village cheering for me. I felt… full of bliss. At peace.

How I wished I had met Saori and Tasianna in my past life. How I wished I had listened to my parents to not chase after the light, only to burn down and fall like Icarus into the abyss. My “Daedalus” cried, warned me to not strive for too much, but I ignored them. I even shouted and screamed at Papa when he suggested it, now that I remembered.

I really wasn’t a good friend or daughter. I wasn’t even a good student now that I thought about it… And yet.

“… No. Once is enough. Twice? NEVER! I will never leave our parents behind again! You… WAKE UP!”

I slapped her and pulled out the pen from her throat. This was not the fate “Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor” would face. From the ashes of her life, I would become the bright star she dreamed off. What she dearly wished even in her final moments.

“A month of dreams is enough. Don’t repeat the same mistake again!”

She was dreaming of her ideal life for one month, until the trauma resurfaced. All of that was stuffed right into my brain, closing up the holes in my soul to recover my lost memories. Still, this wasn’t time for me to feel sorry for myself, I had already gotten over that fact a long time ago. Right now, I had to fully focus on what I had to do.

“Please, w-huek! Wait!” And my other self ran out of the bathroom, probably following the whispers of her lingering wishes. Unfortunately…

“Staring out the window while it rains ♫

No one here to talk, silence is all I have ♫

So I delved into my thoughts and wondered, “What if?”♫”

All that was left in this place was our guilt and our sin.

The sky was bleak and our apartment was dark. Nobody else was here but the twelve of us. While my past self stared at us in horror, my ten parallel minds already understood what they had to do as I played the piano in the living room. She wanted to have another family jam session. She wanted to meet her friends again. She wanted her life back to normal, from before she committed that irreversible mistake.

This was her Envy.

What she longed for the most, to the point her desires were twisting her emotions and personality.

“I’m sorry. I ruined everything.”

And it seemed she understood it finally. She was finally crying.

“… You shouldn’t have seen that. That was my memory… you should have forgotten it.”

I didn’t reply. I stood up and walked away from the piano, moving closer to my past self sitting dejectedly on the ground. Her tears kept flowing as she looked crestfallen on the ground.

“If you had forgotten everything, I would have never remembered that. If you had rejected me, your soul would just push me out. But you just kept it up, and now someone else managed to invoke those lost memories inside us. Why?” It felt weird being blamed by my past self like that, especially since the memory didn’t depict her as so forlorn. She felt like how I acted in the first month I was reborn. “This is all just an illusion. I understand now.”

Just like my parallel minds, the moment I appeared, this fake reality broke apart. The happiness she found in this place felt real from the memories I saw. She could finally relive her school life, her youth, away from all the violence I had to experience as an adventurer. Sure, she was my unconscious self, but she still was me and that meant she also felt the sadness I felt too.

Not only did she hide her sin and guilt from me, but she also had to watch Eshe die and all the other things Peolynca threw at us. This world was beautiful and had its good parts, but there was undoubtedly also darkness and grimness here. The world wasn’t simple, and at times I wished all the nasty parts would just disappear, leaving only the good behind for me to enjoy. A happy life without anything dangerous going on.

However…

“It’s all my fault, it’s all my fault. Papa, Mama, Nanny, Clyde… Großpapi, Großmami, Ojii-san, Obaa-chan. What would our grandparents tell our parents after all of that? What would Papa and Mama feel when they found us? Why did I have to torment them like this? Why? They didn’t deserve such a horrible daughter like me. What the fuck did I do?”

Those thoughts were swirling in my mind when I saw how I died, and I had to admit, it made me want to puke so much. After seeing my parents’ faces, I could imagine their expressions and how they would react. Mama coddling my body, screaming “Why? Why? Why?” and Papa blaming himself for everything, to the point he would break down in tears.

Nanny was old, so I prayed so hard she didn’t get a stroke. The same thing with my grandparents, honestly. My German Großpapi and Großmami were extremely kind people and were strong supporters for my idol dream, as they learned they should accept it like with my Papa’s dream. My Japanese Ojii-san and Obaa-chan were less enthusiastic, finding the idea unfitting for a person of my birth, but I knew they cared for me all the same.

Clyde and my best friends… I couldn’t know it perfectly, but I would imagine them cursing my stupidity at my funeral, although I wasn’t sure if the latter three would do it. I also had cousins, although I couldn’t really recall their names or faces. I wondered what they felt and thought.

It felt agonizing now that I thought about it. However, I could blow out steam later, now wasn’t the time.

“Gaaah!” she screamed, probably thinking what I just thought. “Why didn’t I think? Why didn’t I just think through my actions?! Why did I just do it? What the hell— Huh?”

For now, I had to calm her down.

“‘Cause, at the end of the day, we are both ‘H*k**i Sch******.’ On the other side, we are also ‘Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor.’ Two personalities inside one soul, splintered apart to live together.” I hugged her, caressing her head to mourn together. “I deserve to learn about it just as you did, because I share part of this sin.”

Even trying to speak my real name out felt weird. I couldn’t fully hear it nor could I remember it. However, just by being here, speaking out my name felt like a reflex. Normal after all the memories I saw. I did hope my soul would repair itself sooner than later, so I could remember this piece of myself.

“No… you don’t. You’re a result of what Aurena did to us. A byproduct of a failed soul wipe. You aren’t me.” She was still trying to deny it.

“Then what do you call those parallel minds of ours?” I hoped she would raise her eyes to see the ten girls behind us. “One half looks like me, the others like you. H*k**i, you are the missing half of my soul, and I am your half. Tell me, what would that make my dream of becoming an idol, if I am not you? Just a memory ingrained into my soul? Is all I did just the result of your longing to become a proper idol? If you ask me, I don’t think so. I became an idol to assure my parents, but I also did it for myself. I believe in making others smile with my songs.”

I noticed my other self’s body slowly turning black like the shadow veil she had when I first met her properly. Her head wasn’t covered, but the rest was unrecognizable to me. It didn’t reflect on my parallel minds, as they still looked like school girls, but maybe this was my other self’s way to express “they aren’t me?”

“I believed in it, too.” However, what came out in her voice was regret. “I wanted to make others happy. Make Papa and Mama smile, you know? … I envy you. You managed to do all of that, you managed to make people smile with your actions and songs. You made Melloxtressa grin and clap for you. You’re doing everything I wanted to accomplish. It’s… urgh.”

She groaned, shaking her head before burying her face in my shoulder. I could feel her tears seeping through my clothes. “How did I forget that? When did becoming an idol turn into a competition with Natasha and her lackies? It’s okay to feel jealous, but why did hearing about her success drive me off the cliff? I wanted to make people happy, but all I did was make everybody cry.”

Natasha was the name of one of my trainee colleagues, the one who managed to make it as an idol. You could call us rivals since we competed in nearly every audition together, sadly, we also hated each other's guts. As a result, we didn’t know much about the other, and could only focus on the surface level features.

She didn’t like me being rich, and I didn’t like how she kept trying to shove this fact in my face. Even when I tried to be nice and make friends, she was the one to push to call me a poser. It felt insulting. Eventually I blew my frustrations out on her, and that was when our relationship deteriorated to the point of no-return. I now remembered it all.

“I didn’t want any of it to end like that. Why did I do it?”

“Because we were a stupid kid.” The truth was spoken with no sugar to coat it. “But, that is why I’m here now. Born from your mistake, carrying along what you held dear. Your other self, the person you wanted to be. And there is no shame in accepting it, because I accept you are me.”

“I don’t deserve that. It’s not over yet. I know that. I know I have more memories to share, and they will probably cause you even more pain. Stop it.”

However, just like her, I was stubborn. Guess who I inherited that from — our Papa, of course.

“Too bad for you, but I want to learn about it. Let the past be in the past, right? Well, I don’t think I can become a ‘full person’ without my soul repairing itself.” I tightened my embrace a bit. “… That’s why, it’s okay for you to rely on me. Let me succeed where you failed. What I am doing isn’t for you, but for myself, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it, too. You deserve happiness, even if you committed a big sin, and I am sure if Papa and Mama could see us now, they would be happy for us. Don’t forget my deal with Aurena.”

“… To visit Earth,” she mumbled.

“Yup. Whether you like it or not, I will drag you over there. I will confront our parents, I will plead forgiveness and everything else. I have accepted you, and that means I will also carry your sins and guilt with me as long as I hold onto these precious memories. No matter how painful, I will continue smiling. Stay strong for everybody.”

Eshe’s words filled my heart with warmth. She might not be here anymore, but her last words to me gave me the push I needed to stop mourning when people needed me. I wasn’t a hero, but I sure was a Blessed.

“Whoooooo oooh oooh. Ahaaaaaaaaaaaaa.” Harmony like a choir, the sound of a piano playing. I heard my parallel minds started a song.

“Rely on me… for I am an idol. And to us, an idol’s job is to bring a smile to others with our song. In their darkest moments, our light will fill their sight, wake them up from their sadness, and bring them up with us as we take a shot to the stars!

…

As I stare into the sky, I wonder what happened that day ♫

It was bright, so bright, my dazzling dreams; It pains me, to think of them ♫

I sealed my tears, sadness into a mask, how could I be so blind to theirs ♫

Oh, by chance, I wish a second try, but now, that chance is gone. ♫”

I let my grip loosen, pulled the tearful girl up, and watched with her as our parallel minds sang our song.

“Instead, everything was changed ♫

I could have cast my past into flames ♫

But my memories remained, I couldn’t fail; their hopes for me, I will hold to my heart! ♫”

I will not abandon them.

I let loose my scale-dust, exploding them above me as they began to glow white, lighting this dark and dull apartment, bringing back the light back to it. My Hestia-look-alike parallel minds did the same, helping me shove away any shadows in this place. Our apartment on Earth was a haven for my family, I would not let it turn into such a downtrodden place!

“Like a soaring star, I will fly ♫

Through this darkness, my light will never fade ♫

Even in the darkest hours, this smile will always stay ♫

This promise etched to my eternal soul! ♫

As if reality can break my wings ♫

Defy all, keep your eyes on the prize ♫

For this single chance in life, I will stand tall and proud ♫

Let the world hear my voice! ♫”

“Our promise…” I could hear my past self mumble, staring at the light I had created. Seeing her like this, I let myself go from her, moving closer to the “stage,” where I joined the chorus with everybody.

“Wooohooooooo whoooooohaaaaaaa. Haaaahaaahaaaa… ♫”

We pulled down all the curtains, accepting the dreary sky outside. It didn’t matter if it were to rain, our family would always have fun singing and playing music. This was the tradition of the Sch****** family! Even if I can’t remember my surname, I still remembered the times I spent with them!

“Time and time again I thought, “Shouldn’t I give up on this dream?” ♫

But I would lie, break my heart; I couldn’t live it down, I made a promise to them ♫

I didn’t want to let them down, they brought the light back to my life ♫

So hear me sing, watch me dance, witness this spectacle; for them, I give it my all! ♫

So, please, forgive my selfishness ♫

I dearly wish to see you two, again ♫

But, by chance, I was given a second try, I would reject it, this is my path! ♫”

“W-What?”

Nothing would stop me from singing and expressing my mood. Even if the tears I felt falling down my face were real, I wouldn’t stop. The emotional weight I placed into every single word had to be shown to this world.

“As if reality can break my wings ♫

Defy all, keep your eyes on the prize ♫

For this single chance in life, I will stand tall and proud ♫

Let the world hear my voice! ♫”

Even if the skies were black and dark, I would continue until my flame flicked and died out. That was my dream, that was my purpose, and that was why I continued living up until now! For my family, for my friends, for those who need me right now.

“Like a soaring star, I will fly ♫

Through this darkness, my light will never fade ♫

Even in the darkest hours, this smile will always stay ♫

This promise etched to my eternal soul! ♫

As if reality can break my wings ♫

Defy all, keep your eyes on the prize ♫

For this single chance in life, I will stand tall and proud ♫

Let the world hear my voice! ♫”

“Huek! Papa… Mama…” My past self broke down, tears and snot covering her cute face.

Yes, let your emotions out! Free them all. Express it all with song!

With me.

“However, I will always hold you close ♫

For my life was filled with all your love ♫

So, please, watch over me you two ♫

My promise to you, I will now make it true! ♫”

She stood up, taking over my place and came closer to me. The shadow veil around her dissipated, revealing a cute pullover and short pants. There was no issue with revealing your true self to the world. No need to be shy. To take over the world as an idol, you needed courage. The bravery to face the cheers, the yells, the hate, and even the trails on the path of an entertainer!

Just now… we will do it together. Side by side, in a duet.

““Like a soaring star, I will fly ♫

Through this darkness, my light will never fade ♫

Even in the darkest hours, this smile will always stay ♫

This promise etched to my eternal soul! ♫

As if reality can break my wings ♫

Defy all, keep your eyes on the prize ♫

For this single chance in life, I will stand tall and proud ♫””

““LET THE WORLD HEAR OUR VOICES! ♫””

Phooooo.

The clouds disappeared, the light of the sun shone on us through the windows. The sound of a crying girl could be heard, but she was smiling so radiantly after she let it all loose through this song. Our “Promise” etched eternally into these lyrics. Although I still felt doubt from her, the way she laughed with my parallel minds made me think there will be a day when H*k**i and Hestia will become one.

Even if it can’t happen now, I at least wanted to help my past self out a bit. A person can only hold onto a limited amount of burden, but what about two people? Her past was also my past.

With the final part of my soul finally rejecting this fake reality, the borders of this place slowly crumbled apart, revealing the true self of this place. Hidden behind all the glamor was a dark and desolate wasteland with alien geometry you wouldn’t be able to see on Earth nor the places I visited on Peolynca.

Stalagmites that moved like spines, tentacles that looked like wood, and small critters that might make even frogs and toads look normal. Fiendish was one way to describe them, but maybe Lovecraftian would be better? Just watching them move around made me question the possibility of these things' existance.

“… Thank you.” My past self hugged me in gratitude before releasing me. “Let us find you… our new Mother.”

“Yeah, let’s— Woah!”

“Ha, don’t forget us, you two!”

“Yeah, don’t you think this is unfair how you two are having a moment? We’re part of the soul, too! Kinda.”

“I mean, we technically are inventions of the System, so how are we in this place where the System isn’t working? Weird, right? If our soul is involved, that means we are part of you two, right? We demand proper rights, then!”

All my parallel minds came together, wrapping their hands around us in a big group hug. Initially, my other self and I thought they were trying to kill us in order to overthrow us, but our worries vanished as I felt the warmth and care they gave us. And that was when all of them, including my past self began to shine bright.

“W-What is happening?!” I cried out, but none of the others seemed to find this strange.

“Hey, Hestia…” My other self spoke to me. “I’ll go back to sleep. It’s time for me to do so, anyways… so stay strong, alright! When I’m awake, I want to see you beat up the people who put us through this. Save Elyonda. Be that idol we wanted to become.”

“Ha, you kidding?” I replied as some of my parallel minds turned into light particles and entered my body, returning to where they came from. “That sounds like what a hero should be doing. I’m just your normal idol who wants to spread music to this world… but, as a blessed, I will do exactly as you wanted.”

“Ehehe…” She smiled in silence, before she too disappeared.

I held onto my chest and grinned. I then turned around, headache over, and caught the sound of someone's voice in the distance. Since I couldn’t use my System spells in this world, I relied on my white flames to light up the path before me and began making my way towards the next person I had to free.

Mother, wait for me!

“How?”

In the distance, a being expressed his shock as he saw Hestia break through his illusion. A magnificent interrogation ability created through the demonic power [Original Sin: Yaldabaoth]. Even in his wildest dreams, he couldn’t fathom somebody being able to break through this skill, especially when it was fueled by this simple breach into the Edjurl god’s world.

However, Hestia managed to do it.

“How could such an undeveloped blessed usurp my powers? How is this possible!? Aurena?!”

The being stared into the distance, watching a giant being with many legs and arms destroy hordes and hordes of demonic beings, preventing them from even coming close to Hestia and Melloxtressa. It was too dark to see its full form, but this person knew who that was.

She was Aurena, in her true form, molded by her worship in the world of the Edjurls. Although she took on the appearance of an angelic woman on Peolynca, here, she would assume the form she needed to destroy the ravenous bands of beasts. All to protect her blessed, risking the wrath of the Edjurl gods now that she wasn’t in Peolynca anymore. A deed that would almost certainly go unnoticed by Hestia.

However, she wasn’t here by herself. Aurena wasn’t a person to be rash, and she quickly knew who she had to bring over to aid her.

“Shie shie shie, who do you think made her like that? Did you honestly think you could trap my little blessed, Thals’Yond?”

The Prince of Envy, that was the person who tried to absorb Hestia’s soul. His plan was to consume Melloxtressa in this sphere, but with Hestia’s intervention, that plan was about to fail. The young girl was to be contained in the other contraption he gave to Vifi’Yok, but due to circumstances, it all fell apart. Now, he could only watch as Hestia freed herself and make her way to Melloxtressa.

“W-Why?! Why, oh, unholy lord! Why are you doing this?! I-I was serving all of you! The Edjurl gods; I would have brought glory to you! Peolynca would have been yours! Why are you helping Aurena?!”

“Shie shie shie!” The god laughed gleefully, but at the same time released his aura, scaring the Prince of Envy. “I like how you make assumptions. Not everyone supports those aiming for Danterno, you know. Just like the Origin Gods, we have different factions even inside the same Pantheon. It’s just godly nature, shie shie shie!”

Who was this person? Why would this person help Aurena?

“That tyke is my usurper. My way to break the stagnation of Peolynca, to help out my dear Master over there. I’m pretty sure he would get bored, so I had to add some spice, even if my little sister got mad about it. All fun and games, don’t you agree? Shie hahahahaha!”

The Prince of Envy stared at the god bellowing a malicious cackle, envisioning it as doom approaching. He tried to turn around, open a portal he received from the Edjurl gods the demonkins served, and escape this situation, however…

“No no no no no… the fun is about to begin.” The god’s face stared right into the prince’s soul, causing the latter to groan and fall onto the ground in pain. “You aren’t leaving here. I want to see how my usurper is doing. How long will she need to turn into the Ragnarok I planned? To topple the status quo of the world, just as the Master wanted! And for that… I need to reap my friend’s rewards.”

“Urghh… kak! Please… mercy!”

“Ohohoho, mercy, you say? Sorry, wrong gods you’re praying to. Make a deal with the Edjurl, be prepared to pay the price. Rejoice, though, I won’t make it as painful as my friend would. I just need you to see what happens when my usurper takes in your powers and expels it. Aren’t you also curious about what will happen? Shie shie shie shie… shie shie hahahahahahahaha!”

“Krak!” The Prince of Envy clenched his chest, feeling like his soul was slowly being wrung like a towel. The maliciousness of this god’s mana was corrupting his very core, twisting and changing it… the price of this Faustian deal.

“Shie shie shie shie hahahahahahahaha! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

He would have the last laugh.

A note from AbyssRaven

"Promise." Probably the most from-the-heart song Hestia had in her disposal. Also the name of Chapter 100 and the crowning moment of her first concert. And now, she performed it in front of her past, beckoning her to accept the future and present. To remember the promise the young girl gave her parents, and to fulfill it, even if it would take two lifetimes to do so.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 350: Taste of Your own Medicine.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #4 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! It works on a subscription base now, so pay on the same date next month!

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Dragonkins.

Beings of unrivaled mana created by the naturally disasterous event of a monster spawning. Everything on Peolynca was born from mana and earth, and to them we return once we die. Elves, elementals, and dragons, all originated from this singular phenomenon, evolving through the millennia into what we see today.

That voice… it was undoubtedly Mother’s. I was surprised at first when I found a large bubble of mana, forming wobbly images of Mother and, presumably, her memories on its surface. Just like with my situation, it was clear that whoever was doing this was purposely targeting our souls, extracting information from them, plus I also knew they were trying to drain it of power from the feeling I had before.

Mother, trapped inside this place was in danger, so after making sure there wasn't any sorta traps, I delved into the bubble, only to realize her voice was getting louder. She wasn’t using [Telepathy], no, she wasn’t talking directly to me. It seemed more like she was narrating her own dreams.

Sadly, in this swirling ice mist, I couldn’t really see anything. Everything was just like a haze with nothing visible. I was wandering around, following after Mother’s voice, despite how futile it seemed. It came from every direction, so I ended up merely walking around aimlessly.

From mana, the dragonkins became one of the apex predators of this world. In the skies, the dragons reigned free while on the land the drakes terraformed their land to their needs. On the surface of the oceans, the adamantoises created more and more lands for the weaker beings to live on, while in the depths the leviathans battled in lonesome supremacy against their kin for territory.

The land, the sea, the sky; everywhere you went, you would find a true dragonkin or perhaps one of lesser ones. It was truly the age of dragonkins back before my birth.

However, that was when we noticed the birth of elves.

Born from mana and earth just like us, they took on a familiar form of the beings already in existence in this world. While we inherited the forms of the many reptiles of this world, the elves took on the presence of the faefolk.

Fairies and elementals; from them, the first elves were born. Strangely, unlike us, the elves became seapient and intelligent before most dragons. They were gifted with this perk, almost as if a god had created them. Through them, we observed the first beginnings of a proper society.

We dragonkins are territorial beings. At best, our only communities were our nests and families. The bond between parent and child was strong, even back then. However, even we couldn’t fathom what the elves would do with their intelligence, and many of us only ridiculed them. Still, they were like a skorr running around us, so we left them in peace to foster, aside from one of two belligerent feral dragons.

For some reason, Mother had turned into a historian. Why exactly was I listening to a history class right now? No, a history documentation narrated by her. Sure, it was interesting to learn about how the elves were created, but why exactly would that matter? It was like learning from biology classes humans descended from apes — not really something I would use in my everyday life.

There were conflicts, yes, but what wasn’t one in those years? My parents told me wars between elves and dragonkins usually revolved around a single dragonkin. It was obvious the elves would find our existence a threat to theirs. However, over the many years, some societies flourished as they made peace with our kind, even turning some of the dragonkin into the elves' guardians.

We were worshipped like gods by them.

Due to the circumstance of their birth, the elves already knew how to use fae magic, communing with the faefolk to cast spells. The first faemancers and mages. However, from our relationship, the elves evolved their knowledge even further. The birth of wild magic, or as we called it today, custom spells.

Over the years, however, something strange did happen. Some elves were born without their racial features like sharp ears and high magical potency. These were the first humans.

Ironically, humans were treated back then just as badly as humans treat beastmen today. To the elves, the born humans were mutants and weaklings. They couldn’t easily bond with an elemental like them, and acted strange. The humans were more curious and true to their feelings.

I heard the elves thought of them as the curse of some god, a being created from their sins. However, in that age, everything was a god, really. We dragons, the elemental kings, and some even imagined an invisible being in the sky; anything could become a god to them, and due to this, some attributed random occurrences to a god’s punishment.

This reasoning became even more pronounced as more and more humans appeared. It wasn’t normal to the ancient dragons. They didn’t understand how something like this could happen, but it did. It felt almost like the mana in this world was purposely creating a new race similar to the elves, almost like a monster spawning, but different.

Just like us dragonkins, entire races could be created by this event. It just felt weird they had to be born from the elves. The bond between an elf and human would create a half-elf, confusing the remaining elves even further, to the point many communities exiled their human children.

Over the millennia, this history blurred as many documents of this event faded due to age. Even the ancient dragons I asked about these times weren’t sure of every detail. Strange, as they could share this information with the elves of today, but many couldn’t be bothered. Even I only just remembered something this insignificant…

Then again, it wouldn’t matter now. The elves and humans were as racially different as an elf and a dwarf, despite being both born through the elementals. Even humans and beastmen have started to drift apart. Still, one thing they all had in common was the way they were born from mana and earth. Even the grimgarians could be considered as such.

I honestly wondered why Mother was thinking of these things. Did it matter so much to her how these races were created and how they were interlinked with each other? It never felt like Mother really cared about this.

However, maybe she just kept this to herself? If I remembered correctly, my uncle, Mother’s brother, was married to an elven woman, and through them, the Nordor clan of dragonewts was created. Yorshka and Priscilla were dragonewts of this clan. Mother cared for her family quite a bit, so maybe that was— What?

I stopped walking forward, noticing the world around me changing as the mist cleared up, morphing along with the ground underneath me. Once it all cleared up, I saw two humongous, godzilla-sized beings in front of me. They were both dragons, silver dragons, in fact. Both were looking up, watching two silver dragons literally ascending to the sky through a beam of light.

[“Father! Mother! Noooooo! Please!”]

[“No, no, no, no, don’t leave us! Please!”]

A female and male, both crying out to the two disappearing in the clouds.

[“Nooo! Emperor Kargryxmor, why?! Why our parents?!”] That was Mother’s voice. She was screaming from the top of her lungs, sounding like she was weeping.

It all happened that day. The Black Tyrant of the Skies ruled over all dragons in his Empire of Kargryx. However, after the War of the Demons, it all changed when the ancient dragons of yore followed their emperor’s apotheosis. They were to make way for the new generation, but to the many battle-scarred dragons around our age? We only thought of this as a tragedy.

I had heard from Mother how much the Demon Wars took from the dragons, how they were in the frontlines more often than not, and that was how so many died. I looked up again, now also noticing other dragons being pulled up to the skies, as if this was judgement day or something. The mountains and beautiful vista of this place were elevated even further by this incandescent sight.

However, at the same time, I would understand what this was, at the end of the day — the day of their parent’s passing. Mother’s father should have fought bravely during the war, and it seemed like he survived till the end. If I were in her shoes, I would be thrilled to see my parents returning from war unharmed… only for my happiness to vanish as they still had to “die.”

Many dragonkins lost their parents or older siblings on this day. ‘What an honor,’ right? However, all I could see was my parents being dragged away from me without anything I could do. How could Aurena do this to us? How could the Emperor do this to us?

Eventually, Odlesstrus and I accepted their passing, realizing they still looked down on us from the heavens. I still had hoped they were with us. I had to, as I believed they wouldn’t abandon us completely. Still, neither my brother nor I could ever hear their voices ever again. To me, they were ‘dead.’

Sadly, this event also left a power vacuum in our Empire. Who would be the new emperor? A war of succession began between Kargryxmor’s children, all striving to reach for the crown to make their father proud.

From what I heard from Eltharion, many weren’t too keen to fight, but were dragged into the battle through their maternal clans anyways. Many wanted to become the right-hand clan underneath Clan Kargryxmor. Because of this chance, their siblings or their clans couldn’t allow such an opportunity to pass.

Eltharion himself was expected to fight his siblings, as he was heir apparent. He needed to fight, slay his family, and unify Kargryx for his father’s legacy. It was tragic, even more if you considered this happened not long after the Demon Wars ended.

The Civil War of Kargryx’s Succession.

My brother and I were neutral. We supported no one, as I determined it was the best course of action. Unlike the dragons fighting during this time, we were still considered pretty young compared to them. There was a thousand-year difference between Eltharion and me, for example.

Without the ancient dragons to guide them, many of these ‘youngsters’ became belligerent and thirsted for power. Without my parents, I couldn’t muster the strength to fight back. I felt weak in front of all them, as I was just a newly evolved S rank back then.

Sadly, in this war, there was no way for us to stay out of the conflict. Eventually, a clan came over, aiming to recruit us. We accepted under threat. We were the only Nordor dragons, after all. We couldn’t reject their demands, risking making them into our enemies at that point.

I knew they came for me, as Odlesstrus was only A rank back then. Even if I was a new S rank, I still was an S rank. The more they recruited, the better their chances were. For my brother, I would fight and survive, as that was all I could do.

[“Mellox— Grraaaaaak!”]

[“I’m sorry! I’M SORRY!”]

I had to slay former friends. For this was war. Even those who wanted to stay neutral were dragged into battle, forced by their new masters to fight. Friends battled friends, family slew family. It was the bloodiest part of our history.

… Mother did not tell me this. I just witnessed her flying in the sky, killing those she once considered friends. She saw the friends she made during this war getting burned and ripped apart by her enemies, some of which were even her old friends from before the war. Whose side was she supposed to fight on? Although, at the end of the day, she could only think of her brother.

In all the blood raining down on me, I could only see her tears. The rage she felt for this tragedy, the sadness she experienced as she wished for the ancient dragons back, and the grudge she had for Kramps for not listening to her prayers.

However, none of her feelings mattered. In her wake, Mother gazed at those she froze, staring at their cold dead eyes. Mother sure was a force back then, but it seemed she showed little to no joy in surviving for this long. To me, survival was winning, but during a war like this was it actually winning if you killed your countrymen as a result? For Mother, the answer was obvious to see from the pain and rage in Mother’s eyes.

This was why she despised wars and Kramps.

I… could understand from the sight I was watching. Dragons ripping each other apart, others burned or torn asunder by magic and dragon breaths, while some were crushed by the strength of mountain-sized drakes. This was carnage. This was hell. This was…

… war.

Senseless violence… performed as sacrifices for the goals of those above. The ones fighting limb and limb would never fully reap the rewards from this conflict, as many were traumatized by the fighting. Mother was strong, but even she only considered herself a foot soldier.

So… what was I then? I fought for Aurena to fulfill my deal with her to return to my parents. I couldn’t give it up as I wanted to meet them again to apologize for being an idiot daughter. After what I had learned, my conviction just became stronger. Still, wasn’t I just another puppet to end this war for Aurena? Sure, I knew this already, but it felt harder to swallow after seeing what a real war was like.

Was this what I was leading up to? Sure, instead of a civil war, we would be fighting the “enemy,” at least, that was what I thought. However, how much did I know about the demonkins? How much had Aurena told me about them? Was I just a puppet? If you thought about it, I was lacking information, and only through knowledge you could move forward with agency.

In this case, I sorely lacked a real idea on wars. I couldn’t fathom seeing a civil war like this, even if I had watched movies about them. The reality inside a movie wasn’t as intense as watching a dragonkin’s corpse rotting alone on the ground. The fields of dead dragonkins. The roars of battle filled with both blood rush and agony.

I felt ignorant.

“KrrrrrrrrrrrrrrruaaAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

Then, just as Mother told me once, he turned the war around.

My father, Eltharion Kargryxmor.

He was a jet-black bipedal dragon with four wings just like Kramps, however Father’s face looked more tame and peaceful in comparison. Kramps had this strict and bossy look when I visited him in his divine realm, but Father looked… almost sad.

Father wasn’t a dragon who focused primarily on magic or dragon breaths, but used his scale manipulation and other racial abilities to create weapons. Swords, spears, hammers, anything he thought could change the tides of battle. This was his advantage of being a bipedal dragon. At least, that was what Mother was narrating.

— he swooped through, cleaving enemies with his scale blades as if they were trees. It honestly is funny to see how there is even a dragoon cult reserved only for his fighting style. Ironic even, since Eltharion began to despise wars after all this ended.

… The oldest brother had to kill all his younger siblings. I could never do that to Odlesstrus. His will was firm, and that is why he deserves to be called emperor.

To take the life of family… the two eldest siblings stood before each other.

Father and his brother… the second eldest of the Kargryxmor siblings. Flying in the clouds, they glared at each other. Mother could only watch as the civil war looked like it was almost about to end… and the memory showed only that — victory. There was no battle, just the results.

Eltharion left the battlefield for a year, heartbroken from this battle. His siblings who survived up until now didn’t falter though, believing this was a grace period they needed to take advantage of. They had to get stronger and grow their might before he returned.

At the same time, I took advantage of this chaos and sneaked out with my brother. Funnily enough, the others did the same. My ‘sisters’ appeared before him.

The six Empresses of Kargryx followed after our future Emperor.

Dragons were captivated by strength. After seeing that, I could understand why Mother would willingly follow him. There was no stronger dragon than Father right now, but unlike the females who cowered from his strength, these six dragonesses walked behind him.

Gyadiosa Bellamsa Jormangra

Gaistrus Mianaxt Goldduragon

Forminaxtrass Azura Leviretus

Virrflax Kainena Arviosa

Yuilengreill Huanlong Gueillxar

Melloxtressa Wisperia Nordor

Those were the full names of the six Dragon Empresses of Kargryx.

And as if it was fate, all of them were entranced by him at that moment. They didn’t leave him in the one year he needed to rest, as with the death of his brother by his hand, he gained enough levels to evolve into the next stage.

SS rank. The first SS rank of the newest generation after the Origin Gods’ descent.

While he rested, it wasn’t all rose and sunshine amongst the future Empresses. Gyadriosa, a flying mutant leviathan, wanted Father all for herself, even challenging the next eldest Giastrus, a mountain drake. Forminaxtrass, a lichdragon, wanted everyone to be calm, but even she understood if she wanted her partner, she had to fight against the others.

Virrflax, a feathered dragon with the appearance of a bird, and Yuilengreill, Neill’s mother and as such a kirin, were frightened by the sheer pressure of these three, trying their best to appease Eltharion in their way. On the other hand, Mother and my uncle could only watch as all of this unfolded… but to my surprise, Mother was the one to take the first move.

[“Your Majesty, is it really alright to wait this long? You have already evolved.”]

Father changed a bit after his evolving, but didn’t grow much in size. He still could tower over a skyscraper and crush a human like an ant, but outside of his glowing scales and another pair of wings, he still looked pretty much the same. Possibly, he didn’t get a good evolution and just continued down his evolution path, as I did during my time in Belzac.

[“… I understand, but I need this power. I must reach the strength of Father before I can do anything. For that, I have to control my battle frenzy in this new form. I need to practice… and then I will end it all.”]

[“… I understand, then, trust in us to protect you. We six will be all your need, so rest easy.”]

[“Thank you… Melloxtressa.”]

…

It was romantic. Mother taking the first step towards the heartbroken prince… It felt like a fairy tale or some romance story. Unfortunately, it reminded me of something worse.

Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! H-How could you?! Father is a bloody harem protagonist?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! I was born from that?!

Mother! How could you do this to me?! How could you possibly fall in love with a blood harem MC?! This sucks! My existence sucks! Ooooooooh, this whole dragon thing sucks! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! CRINGE!

I couldn’t control myself. The moment that thought came to mind, I couldn’t help but fall to the ground and squirm around from the sight of Mother and the other Empresses falling in love with this-this—

“PERVERT! Argh! Unfaithful, lover’s boy! Disgusting! Dragon Father? More like Casanova trash!”

Pff! But suddenly, somebody cackled and it wasn’t me.

Hmm?

I turned around, but couldn’t hear it anymore. Was it part of Mother’s memories? Why would she suddenly laugh then, when everything had been pretty sad or tragic? Then again, it could also be… Yup, this might be her only happy memory during this entire war. Her brother was safe and here she also met her future husband.

No wonder.

Thankfully, Mother seemed to have skipped that memory but did show me how at the end of this one-year period, Mother made a vow with the other Empresses. All of them managed to get over their antagonism with each other, but they still made a deal with how they would be called once they proposed to Eltharion.

In other words, an argument over who would marry him first, as everybody wanted to be called “First Empress.” Unfortunately, only one could become the first, and to not cause a fight between them, they all decided to just go down the list.

[“Okay, it’s obvious I should be first since I’m the oldest!”] Gyadiosa began, but that was quickly shot down by the others.

[“Nonsense! I was stronger than you, so I should be the first!”] Gaistrus argued.

[“And? Who cares, I care for Eltharion the most! I shall be the first empress!”] Forminaxtrass glared at the others.

… As I said, my Father was disgusting. How could he do this to these six women? Does he have no shame? Harem protagonists… honestly.

In any case, the rest of the memories from here began to cheer up due to Father’s presence on the battlefield as a SS rank, however, due to his one year hermitage, his number of siblings had reduced to two.

Eltharion looked… happy, but at the same time sad at how everything went. He was mournful about what happened to his brother and didn’t want to feel like a kinslayer, but sadly, the situation wouldn’t allow him to live with his claws clean. His last two siblings were far too gone at this point, and any attempts for peace were long gone.

Eltharion blamed himself for this. His inaction meant he now had the strength to end it all here, but it also meant his family was exterminated. Thus, to bring about the peace he desired, he slew his last two siblings, then punished those who fanned the flames of wars in their greed, and also established a more strict governance of the Empire.

Mother had left a lot of this out when she explained our history to me. Even Yorshka missed out on a ton of these details, so watching all of this first-hand felt pretty surreal. Mother’s narration was pretty biased, but the sight she showed me wasn't. It felt like… somebody throwing cold water at me to face reality.

Strangely, after the empire began to stabilize with my father’s coronation, the memories began to fast forward a bit. My uncle falling in love with an elf and establishing a dragonewt clan in Loatryx, Mother’s training in the [Dungeon of Infinite Feasts] to become SS rank, her oath to become the strongest before fighting Father, and then the eventual battle against him.

Dragon courtship was determined through strength where both male and female had to prove themselves to the other. While both could be attracted to each other through physical features like humans, at the end of the day, both could only be sure the other was a worthy mate through power.

Suffice to say, Mother and Father were both two SS rank, and while Mother was only a new one, they still fought tooth and nail until Father came out as the winner. Still, this was enough to prove to Father her will, and Mother got her wish to marry the strongest dragon in existence for the strongest hatchling.

Mother also got back in touch with the other empresses. Due to all the time she spent training, Mother had lost contact with them, but it seems that they got along pretty well, although Mother still felt they became strangers over the years.

All of these memories came to me in a sorta Powerpoint manner — a bunch of slides with small videos. Then again, considering what the demonkins were planning, maybe this place was only choosing selective memories to break her like what they did to my other self and parallel minds? Torment your mind while draining your soul in the background.

What a nasty attack.

[“Thank goodness!”]

I opened my eyes when I heard Mother’s voice again, snapping it around until I noticed my surroundings having turned sparkly. Wherever I looked, I could see the shining of diamonds embedded in the walls of this gigantic cavern, almost as large as the cave Mother made in my subspace.

Going closer, I touched them, noticing they weren't diamonds but actually scales. Very thick and cold to the touch scales, mind you. That was then I realized this wasn’t just any cavern, it had to be the cave where Mother lived before she met me. Which meant, that voice—

[“Grow strong, alright? Grow as strong as your father. Grow so strong the world can’t hurt you, okay? However, don’t worry when somebody bullies you. Mama will take care of you. I will make sure you will grow strong. That’s what your Mama is here for you.”]

— came from over there.

Mother, in her dragon form. She was coddling a rather small egg despite her size. I could only gulp as I recognized its shape and form… that egg was the one I was born from.

I couldn’t think of a name. In fact, I couldn’t think of anything else outside of the fact I finally was having a child. After so many years, I would finally become a mother.

Mother’s voice.

My brother, the other empresses, and a few of my underlings came to celebrate with me. Eltharion stayed behind at his home, wanting to give me some space, but I knew he did it because he wasn’t in the right mind. The older a dragon gets, the less stable one's mind and soul becomes. That was why ancient dragons must slumber.

However, I couldn’t think of sleeping. My hatchling would soon be born. I wouldn’t be alone anymore. My family could finally grow!

She lost her parents, she lost her friends, and her brother had made his own life after he found his wife. It seemed like Mother was feeling lonely, despite her having Father and the other empresses. The look she gave my egg made me feel like she was looking at me. A mother’s love sure was something, huh?

However, if we got to this point, then the next memory should be— Woah?!

Out of nowhere, my body began to move forward. I snapped around, only to see Mother’s tail pushing me. I didn’t know these illusion could influence somebody else’s body?!

[“This isn’t an illusion anymore, dear.”]

Huh?!

[“So there is no need anymore for me to watch those thoughts again. The pain should be left behind, for I have you — my dear daughter.”]

“Woah?!” The next thing I knew, Mother’s gigantic face rubbed against my entire body. My egg in her hands disappeared, vanishing into thin air as it transitioned into caressing me. “M-Mother?! You’re awake?!”

[“The moment you entered the bubble. Thank you, but you sure took your time, dear. I had to experience losing your egg ten times before you finally came, hiehie. What a nasty power our enemy has,”] Mother giggled as mana mist was exuded from her body, changing her back into her dragonewt form before she gave me a thick hug.

“Ehehe, i-is that so?” I grimaced nervously at the sound of ten repeats. “S-Sorry about that, I had some problem on my own to deal with.”

“No, don’t apologize! Why, I don’t know why, but you seem more… mature. I think that fits you well. Yes, you seem a bit more mature than before, although maybe it’s just the presence you’re exuding.” Mother smiled before releasing me from her embrace. “So, how was it? It sure was a boon for you to watch all of that.”

“Your memories? Wait, you controlled all of that?”

“This space is influenced by your soul. I realized that when I woke up and questioned what happened to me. During the time I needed to figure things out, I also saw you… and strangely, the space distorted and it began showing you, well, my memories…” I was surprised to hear that part, figuring maybe that was the reason why when I entered the bubble everything was just mist. “In the process, I thought it might be good for you to finally learn a bit more about myself. Telepathy would be overloading your brain, but this was fantastic for the visuals… and well, it just all happened.”

Mother…

“Still, hehehe, how funny it even worked afterwards. Sure made me nostalgic for my past. This thing shows your inner wants all to invoke one feeling from you —”

““Envy,”” we both answered simultaneously.

Just with my other self and longing for our parents and friends. Even with me inside disrupting the influences, it still shows you what you want to see.

“If that is the case, then shouldn’t it be easy for you, my dear?” I raised a brow, not understanding what Mother was saying. “This trap was created by the demonkins to trap you, but, this is still a dimensional breach. That means, a space-time magic. Unless the demonkins had a void-touched, this is probably the works of the Edjurl gods. If the Edjurl gods are supporting them this much, then it has to be on the wish of a prince of sin. The Prince of Envy, to be exact, I think.”

I looked at her with suspicion. “… You think? Hey, Mother, didn’t you say you didn’t care about this war? Why do you know this much?”

“Hmm? Dear, I lived through the Demon Wars. I know enough about our enemies to make an educated guess, alright? It’s critical thinking.” Mother raised her head up, looking proud of her ability almost to the point she wanted to be praised. “Hiehie, then, if this is the work of the Prince of Envy, then shouldn’t you be able to do that?”

“… Right, I can usurp this power of his. Just like what I did unconsciously back in my illusion.” I nodded. I could still feel my blessings on myself, and my ability to usurp has already showed its effect prior. “Huh. but how are we supposed to get out of here, then? Mother, I didn’t explore, but it honestly seemed like the depths of the abyss outside. Creepy, dark, and it looked endless. No clear exit in sight.”

“Ooooh, in that case, then you don’t have to worry. We’ll just make it ourselves~” She leaned her head forward, looking at me impishly. “We just have to find whoever it is who did this to us, no? Then force them to free us~ No System, you noticed? Well, I can still sense mana even without my skills, and I know where that wretch is.”

I could technically see the two sources with my [Mana Eyes] as it apparently was an innate ability of my body. Still, if I were to confront them, having Mother with me would be best.

“You’re willing to help me— Oh wait, right, I already crossed that line, huh?” I remembered how Mother had to save me from entering this place in the first place. “Guess it can’t be helped then.”

“Oh, you meant that? Well, in the end, I still failed to protect you, no?” I widened my eyes in confusion. “Well, I tried to help you free yourself from getting sucked into that dimension breach, but lo and behold, you jumped right back into the portal to save me. Not like I helped you out at all when all of that happened, right? So, if you ask me, I didn’t manage to save you. So, the deal between us is still up if you ask me.”

“… Really? So, does that mean you won’t drag me to Miononbolax?”

“If you hadn’t jumped into the portal and had saved me afterwards, I would have considered the deal broken. However… even I am not that terrible of a mother to ignore what you did to me, Hestia… Besides, didn’t you call me something when you jumped in for me~” She grinned, staring at me with lovey-dovey eyes.

“U-Uh, I did?”

She nodded. “I think you finally called me ‘Mama,’ again.”

“…” I felt like my head would explode any moment now. The heat was accumulating. “Haaaa…”

“I need to get out of here. If you want, you can usurp the powers of this demonkin prince, but I’ll make sure you will stay safe, but for a single price.” I gulped when her eyes stared at me like an imp’s. “I can’t forgive you for calling my husband those words, Hestia~ Even if you are his daughter and have all the right to~ So…”

Shit, she heard me call Father that?! But, it’s true! The dude is a harem protagonist! See the light, Mother! See the truth of your husband! He has six wives!

“You have to call me ‘Mama,’ once again~”

“…”

Even in this empty void of a world, Mother wouldn’t stop teasing me.

“Now, watch~ Watch as your puny powers get usurped by my blessed. Watch her bring down your world and experience the true terror of who the one you call ‘Aurena’s dog!’”

“Krrrgh!”

The unknown Edjurl god pulled the demonkin Prince of Envy’s head up, forcing his eyes open as he stared at the ball of mana in the distance. A creation he made with [Original Sin: Jaldaboath]. A brilliant ability to look into the souls of his enemies while also sucking it dry of lifeforce.

The Prince of Envy had the chance to be the first demonkin to learn of Klea’Hatma’s survival, one of the demons who invaded Peolynca. Such news would rock the kingdom of Bole’Taria. To rescue their ancestor from the clutches of the enemy would have warranted an entire army. And now, this piece of infomration now belonged to the prince …

… if only he could have relished it. If only the price for this information wasn’t an encounter with this unknown god. To stare into the soul of Hestia had only invited a greater being to stare into his.

This act of hostility deserved the heaviest penalty.

“KRUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!”

“Urk!”

“Shie shie shie shie! It’s happening! Yes, Hestia! Usurp his powers! Use the power of Envy against this maggot! Sow chaos, sow disaster! Sow the seeds of change and entertain my master! Bring him joy!” The god pulled the prince up and restricted his movement with his mana. Now unable to move or talk, pinned to this ethereal cross, the god smiled deviously before vanishing into thin air. “Embrace it well, demonkin~ May you enjoy my blessing. Your soul and your sight!”

His seed was already inside the prince’s soul. All that was needed now was a trigger.

“Kuhhhhhhhaaaa!”

With the sound of water exploding, the ball of mana meant to trap Melloxtressa burst open. From the remnants of the rain, a dragon rose out. Her scales were black like the deepest ridges of this place. Her form twisted from the otherworldly mana inside this realm, corrupting her visage and form.

This was what the demonkin saw.

“There.” A woman’s voice resounded from the distance, commanding the dragon as it crawled forward along with eight legs. The woman herself, though, also started to have her form distorted, turning into a giant of a woman.

The fear of spiders came into full display here as the weird, eldritch dragon lunged its long legs forward, roaring out with its slime-like maw wide open. The Prince of Envy saw this and jerked back at its freakish pace.

If this had happened on Peolynca while the Prince was fully alert, he would have seen through the illusion and engaged Hestia in a normal fashion. However, in this place, where the Edjurl’s control was the highest, it was just unlucky for the demonkin to meet one favoring Hestia. The unknown god’s mana and influence had already infected his soul.

The seed of madness had met its trigger. The usurper had arrived, and a vision of his downfall would now plague him for eternity.

“KuuuAAAAAHHHHH!

“GaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

Unconsciously, the Prince’s arms transformed with [Original Sin: Demiurge] into those of a [Ridge Climbing Clawreaver]. A monster only found in the precarious mountains of Bole’Taria, this beast had long claws made to extend and swipe at unexpected mountaineers and prey. In other words, the demonkin Prince of Envy was a so-called “blue mage” with this demonic ability.

Take on the powers of others by transforming themselves into them, that was its essence. For example, if the Prince were to transform into Hestia, he could possibly use her abilities … if it were possible in the first place due to Hestia’s uncontrollable usurpation powers.

Out of fear, the prince fought back through instincts alone, using more and more of his various forms to prevent Hestia from coming closer. However, as a result, his visage of the pope of the Church of Aurena vanished as a consequence. He returned to his proper appearance … that of a ghoulish man with mismatched features and limbs, all assorted in a way without rhyme or reason.

A consequence of overusing [Original Sin: Demiurge] was the fact that eventually over the years, even a Prince of Envy would forget what he actually looked like. Just like the demonkin of envy Hestia fought in Griffonpeak, this new form was nothing more than a collection of all the beings and people he had copied.

But even then…

“Are you trying to harm my daughter even further?”

Melloxtressa was fully immersed in the situation, finding the demonkin’s screams of terror quite amusing. Although not a sadist, she was instead fueled by anger for endangering her daughter. This fury just turned into schadenfreude. In the eyes of the demonkin, though, this titanic woman was casting a curse on him, binding him with ancient words to a torment beyond his imagination.

“KuuuuuAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

[“oPeN THe poRTal!!!”] Even her telepathic messages were discombobulating to read. All to heighten up the fear factor to the extreme as Melloxtressa explained to Hestia.

Torment—that was all. Since Hestia couldn’t use System spells here to open up a door nor did Melloxtressa have her subspace runes, this was the only way. Find the perpetrator and make him open the way out.

Torture him not with pain, but with fear unimaginable. To the dragons, all they could see was an easily frightened man, but to the demonkin, all he could see was an illusion.

… An illusion of the greatest fear in his heart—being rejected by the Edjurl gods and reliving the fear of “Aurena’s dogs” hounding him until he couldn’t run, hide, or sneak anymore. The beasts he saw in Hestia and Melloxtressa were his accumulated nightmares becoming real from the Edjurl god’s ruinous powers.

A trickster’s deceit was the truth to the gullible and weak.

This is too easy?! Why is he only flailing around while T-Posing?! Hestia did not know her secret benefactor had already assured everything would work out.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh! Free ME!!!” Upon command, the bindings were loosened and the prince could finally move again. Without even retaliating, the demonkin threw an item on the ground, causing the air to rupture apart. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

In it he jumped.

“Hestia!”

[“Got it!”] With her Mother, the two followed right behind their enemy.

Pushed forward by a strange watery sensation, the pair traversed through this dusk without an idea of where they would land. They waited as long as it lasted, and the moment the light at the end of the tunnel appeared, they were spit out of it into the sight of a medieval room made from fairnite.

Unfortunately, due to the force of it, they were ejected right out of the window, into the skies of Peolynca once again. The Divine System returned to Hestia. The girl wanted to celebrate, but her battle instinct instantly returned to her as she snapped her head around. The Prince of Envy was right in front of her—this was the opportunity to expose or to kill him!

As she readied a flame breath, the cowering body of the demonkin twitched as he howled like a madman, filling the entire area with noise. Before Hestia could do anything, Melloxtressa instantly grabbed her daughter and beat her wings. Her scales instantly flew out, covering the mother-daughter duo in light-reflecting scales. Invisible, she zoomed out of the area without a second delay, preventing anybody from witnessing the duo blasting out of the building’s window.

“Mother?!” Hestia's quivering eyes expressed her shock and confusion, wondering what her Mother was doing, only to see what was behind them through the gaps of her mother’s scale veil.

A large church city as white as the wings of Aurena. The largest religious city of the Church of Aurena—Aureolis. Through the portal, they ended up right in the room of the pope.

Melloxtressa, having sensed something was up the moment they returned to Peolynca, flew right away, making sure nobody would know the dragon duo were here in the first place. Without breaking a sweat, she then used wind magic to protect her daughter before flying forward at mach speed after casting a grey magic circle.

“Wait, are you—That’s [Haste]!”

Correct, because of this accident, Melloxtressa had become what was known as a “void-touched.” Just like Hestia, she had met the requirement to cast [Space-Time Magic].

With this new-found skill, Melloxtressa made sure they fled the scene. Even if Hestia could destroy the Prince here, it would take too long for her to do so, when confusion could cause a terrible misunderstanding. Due to their agreement, she couldn’t help with her daughter’s battle, but she could guide her.

Knowing exactly where her daughter wanted to be at this moment, what her highest priority was, she made this decision. However, the moment they appeared in Elyonda, they were introduced not to the city they had gotten to know for over two weeks now, but a battlefield.

Two days had passed since they were taken.

A note from AbyssRaven

Have a mother like Melloxtressa who would show your young daughter some traumatic stuff like war and death, before starting to talk about your love life. Also, have a mother like Melloxtressa who would go Trick o' Treating, just to scare people's souls out. What a mother.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 351: The Siege.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #1 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! It works on a subscription base now, so pay on the same date next month!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

Temporary connection to the Divine System of Peolynca has been established under the authority of the Goddess of Light, Aurena. Limited functions possible

Entering World of Peolynca. Former Peolyncian profile detected. Reactivating profile of individual   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]… success. Welcome back

389 human followers lost

Total follower count updated. Total followers of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 14317

Hello, Peolynca! Your idol is back!

What a trick!

It was a bit surprising that Mother’s plan to just scare the demonkin worked in the end, but how shocking was it for the portal to put us in Aureolis of all places? First time there, but Yeostar properly told me that was where I had reappeared. He also informed me the siege had already begun, which explained why I had suddenly lost 389 followers the instant I returned to Peolynca.

So, watching the siege of Elyonda was a pretty dread-filled experience.

Hordes of goblins, kobolds, and orcs filled the landscape far as I could see. Tamed monsters were being ordered about, either transporting their master around the siege camps or moving around large siege weapons like those mana cannons. Orcs, trolls, and various shamans from these grimgarian races acted as commanders for this army.

Even to me, watching this tidal wave of grimgarians on the ground was frightening. I have never seen this many people in a single place before. Like an endless sea of flesh and metal, they blanketed the ground and area in their visage, trampling every strand of grass in Elyonda’s vicinity. It was bone-chilling … This was what an army looked like.

Over 10000… Can I even take down so many before my Mana or Stamina ran out? Even with the sun up?

I was second-questioning my capabilities.

“Hestia!”

“Woah!” Mother tucked me to the side, narrowly dodging what looked like a ball of condensed mana.

Don’t tell me—!

I snapped my head to my side, only to grimace as I noticed that multiple cannons were aimed at us at the same time. Those grimgarians were planning on shooting us down!

“Well, dear, since our deal is effectively back to normal…” Mother let go of me. “See you in the city, dear~ Be careful~”

And she zoomed off into the safe confines of Elyonda, leaving behind a shattered hole in what looked like a mana barrier around the city. It quickly regenerated, but did she have to punch through everything with her head?! I could see the destroyed parts of the town even from here.

That, however, wasn’t the problem. I didn’t have the time to complain to her. All I could do was watch her fly away as I was suddenly falling towards the ground.

Mother!!! Child abuse!

However, I quickly snapped out of my shock as my parallel minds reminded me of the situation on hand and her last words before she flew away. “Since our deal is effectively back to normal,” she said. In other words, what she mentioned in the void wasn’t a lie. She was letting me off the hook since she didn’t prevent me from being swallowed into that place. Meaning, she was back to assessing if I was ready to stand on my own.

Dammit! Can’t believe I already forgot about it! Mother’s training is hellish! I trembled at how she pounded into me how to manifest my Territory. Mother was nice, but the way she lived her life wasn’t. I just saw her life go by like a Powerpoint, I shouldn’t forget about it.

Urgh, but not enough power yet.

[Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s solar core status: [24%]

I had used up all my energy when I fought that demonkin, then I used [Battle Frenzy], and was then forced to use it again to use my usurped demonic powers. I was drained. Mana and Stamina were both below 25% as a consequence of me nearly going all out on that demonkin, and since it had been raining then before I got caught in that dimension breach, I couldn’t recharge my solar core during all that time nor was I able to eat and recover my Stamina while trapped in that space.

I honestly should be happy I didn’t get [Starvation] during all of that, but I could hear my stomach rumbling about right now. Although my Health was at 100%, I actually couldn’t fight right now, especially in this dragonewt form!

Dammit, no choice. Humanize!

“Kuuuuuraaaaaah!”

I was now a larger target, sure, but I needed to get back to the city! For some reason, it was protected by large, silvery earth walls. Anything was better than to get peppered to death by those cannons. I needed all the Agility I could afford.

Haste, Swift Winds, Overload. Let’s go! Rocket!

[Various Spell Buffs] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Pushing through my body’s exhaustion, I ignited my scale-dust and shot forward, flying past a few mana shots in the process. However, the closer I came to the city, the more eyes focused on me with the intensity of hawks. The fact I haven’t even made it to the city yet felt absolutely scary.

I could see the enemy army’s camps, siege weapons, weapon storages, but, most importantly, also the burning of corpses. Battles had already begun and from here I could even see cannons shooting at the city. The mana barrier surrounding the city was protecting them, but how long had the battle lasted already? I thought the grimgarians would appear in two or three days with Master’s guerilla attacks.

Don’t tell me we’d been that long in that void?! Shit!

“UuuuuuuAAAAAAAH!”

[Danger Perception] activated as I heard that roar. Following my instincts, I barrel rolled to the side, dodging what seemed like a red projectile. I snapped my head down, noticing an ogre had shot an arrow at me. High ogre or not, that shot looked like it would pack a punch. I probably should appraise them, but I had to let it go when I noticed echikobolds preparing their arrows as well.

Sure, they wouldn’t be able to hit me up here, but goodness gracious it was like a hail of arrows coming from below. Including the mana cannons, I was starting to remember what happened when I escaped Belzac forest. The grimgarian army did the same to Astalos and the twins back then! Now I knew how they felt!

Help me!

[Draconic Barrier] and my scales were active. I even had [Air Shield] and [Tailwind] on to redirect the weaker projectiles, but flying through all of this was a real hazard. The longer this went on, the more timeI spent on dodging than flying forward. The city seemed further and further away.

Do I actually have to fight back? I couldn’t probably rely on wind spells to reduce the amount of mana I use. Urgh, but I need storm spells for this… Or, maybe I should just drop that nuke already?

“HEY! LOOK HERE!”

As I was about to contemplate on expending the last bit of mana to the point of going into the negative, my eyes widened up when I saw not only an explosion but also a blue crescent projectile rip right through the grimgarians right in front of me.

What?! Two signals incoming from the city.

“HEY! COME ON, SIS!”

Neill!

I managed to hear her voice even from up hear and through all the chaos below me, meaning she was using [Draconic Roar]. I couldn’t see her, but the commotion caused by the sudden attacks forced the grimgarians to send most of their soldiers towards it, including some of their mages. Even the ogre archer had to look away, commanding the surrounding grimgarians forward.

More explosions and slash projectiles decimated the enemy lines, until I saw Neill jump out of the smoke, waving at me to go to the city. I nodded and blasted forth, grabbing Neill mid-flight and flew into the city with the cover fire of what seemed to be Larent's sword attacks.

Huh, the mana barrier didn’t break?

[Humanized (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Ahahaha, I knew it! Took you long enough, you brat!”

The first thing I did when we landed on the walls of the city was to transform back into my dragonewt form. The walls were too small for me and the numerous scared soldiers were panicked enough as it was, but most importantly, Neill asked me to shift.

“Two days! Do you know how long that was? We were fighting together one moment, then the next you disappeared and I had to deal with all the things you were supposed to do! How can you leave your big sis out to dry like that!”

“… Why are you complaining?” When I heard that I had been gone for two days, I felt this tight feeling in my chest upon realizing I left her without saying anything for two days, only to lose it all when she started being bossy. Glaring at her, her face tensed up a bit and she began to laugh nervously.

“E-Ehehe… Not a good joke, huh? Sorry.” She then tightened her embrace and began grinning again. “Still, I knew you would come back! Glad to see you and Melloxtressa looking bright as ever!”

“… Pff!” To her, it was only two days, but to me, it felt like a month ‘cause of my other self’s illusions. “Sorry for being late to the battle. And thanks for helping me out of that pickle.”

“Ha! That’s what big sisters are for, you little skink… just glad that you out of there in time.”

“She’s right.” Sis loosened her grip around me and I turned around, seeing Larent walk up the stairs with Alistar. “Haha, your sister’s intuition really came true. Two days of you being away really made me worry, but nothing takes your mind off worry more than war.”

Panic. Fear. Battle. Wounded. Death.

That was the super short summary of everything that happened after Mother and I disappeared for two days. Sis and Larent managed to keep everything calm and collected while I was gone, with the former believing I would come back. Two days of preparations were slower without me, especially since a bunch of the civilians panicked after they saw the state of the city.

Looking over, I could visibly see the places my battle with the demonkin occurred. Rubble, ashes, and even a large hole. Mother also left a huge indestructible wall behind after she came to save me, which Neill and Larent had turned into the impromptu earth walls in front of the city. Dragon paths and mana blade were pretty instrumental for all of it.

After all the defenses were up and the forces assembled, the city with its commanders prepared for the siege. With the return of Master, it also signaled the incoming grimgarian forces. Everybody but the combatants, logistics staff, the mages, and the medical group were sent to the arena, where they would take shelter until the siege was over.

“The inland and navel forces of the enemy arrived at the same time. We sent Saint Kushlek’zar with his group to the port to defend them. Even from here, you can hear cannons roaring.” Alistar pointed my attention to the south of the city after he gave me a quick recap. “We hired all the mercs and adventurers in the city, any of them with the will to fight. Sir Jethro also went over there with his warrior priests.”

… How nerve wracking.

Alistar left out a bunch of the details but I could figure things out even without him saying it. In front of the city’s walls was an army of grimgarians, but the walls placed there funneled all the cannons into a single area. With these mud walls taller than the city’ walls, this was the only choice, but it gave the city a better way to anticipate things.

All the cannons and trebuchets were located in the northwest, with the mana barrier protecting the city. This was honestly the first time I saw the magic properly protecting everything, as during the battle of Griffonpeak the giant geisenlarg king destroyed it pretty easily. However, seeing as mana barriers are fueled by mana, they couldn’t let this siege go on for too long.

They needed to fight back.

“… People have already died, right?”

Larent nodded. “Our first attack failed. Your virigress, Rajah, managed to scout an attack route but we were ambushed. Princess Fargryneill and I managed to wipe out the battalion, including one of their B rank ogres, but we lost numerous brave men and women in the process.”

Princess? Did Neill reveal herself? I noticed how she was perturbed by it.

“The saurians also took out a B rank commander during his guerilla warfare. They are down to 13, but reports say they have five more on the ships,” Neill sighed, looking frustrated. “… Rajah is safe, just saying.”

I guess she noticed it from my face. The fact I didn’t see Rajah around made me nervous.

“That easy to see?”

“Mhmm.” Neill scratched her head. “Rita and Rajah are our only scout troops right now. That girl might be a coward, but for some reason found it in herself to do something for this war. Her plant magic and Rajah’s shadow magic really compliment each other when it comes to subterfuge.”

Rita was a dryad and Rajah could enter other’s shadows. If Rita uses her dryad powers, she could use the vegetation around her for easy travel while carrying Rajah around. I could feel my tamer link with him, even my party bracelet confirmed he was alive, but it still felt unnerving. Just as I got out of that weird place, I was placed right into this mess without a way to cool down.

Two days lost. I need to do something now!

“Okay, so ho—”

“We proceed by having you rest up, Hestia.” All four of us turned around as we heard Mother’s voice, seeing her fly over before she threw a basket of bread and jerky at me. “Military rations. Your soldiers are well trained, Sir Alistar~”

“T-Thank you, your Majesty! Sir Alistar greets your Grace once again!” Alistar bowed, causing the soldiers and knights to follow suit.

I looked between them and then back to the basket of food Mother threw at me, but before I could say anything, she spoke.

“I think you got the gist of things. Two days, and you used [Battle Frenzy] twice, including going overdrive with [Solar Beam]. I know I’m famished, but thankfully, I can sustain myself with mana alone, unlike you, child. Fortunately, it isn’t raining today, but before you go into battle you should eat,” Mother said before taking a bite of the bread she had. “Urk! … This tastes like rock.”

I raised an eyebrow, before noticing Neill making a blank face while the soldiers around us looked normal. I took a bite from the bread, immediately noticing the toughness with my teeth.

… How long has it been since I ate bread without any yeast? Not only that, but it's gone cold already. A day, or two old? At least it’s not moldy. It’s edible.

And I ripped a piece from the loaf before slicing it in half to put the jerky between it. Sandwiches were faster to eat, anyways. Food should not go to waste. Even if I had food inside my storage, I shouldn’t be unthankful to Mother who went out of her way to get them for me. Even if she did ditch me.

[“Sorry, and good job.”] Mother sent me that telepathic message with a smile while chewing the bread. As heartless as that last move was, she was adhering with the deal. Besides, she brought me here from Aureolis, after all. There were two countries in between the holy capital and Yeos!

Larent, Alistar, and Mother then left me alone to go back to what they needed to do. Neill accompanied me on my break and led me to the clinic. While I was munching on my bread and let the sun refuel me, my ears couldn’t ignore all the shots hitting the mana barrier. Was this how people felt having guns shot at them?

“You’re probably wondering why we’re not launching an attack, right?” Neill suddenly brought up, drawing my attention.

“Not really,” I answered bluntly, shocking Neill. Hey, I haven’t had the time to digest any of this in time. My mind was still occupied by the war in Mother’s illusion.

“… Jeez, just hear me out, okay. I need to vent.” I nodded, satisfied with being her ears for now. “Every decent city has a mana barrier, yeah? Invented by the Aleistians to not only protect the city from attacks but also to detect intruders. Needs mana to keep it up, and that means batteries and mages.”

“And, let me guess, Yeos doesn’t have an abundance of mages despite being this close to Aleistunum?”

Neill slumped her body. “The damn city doesn’t have anything despite being allies with the empire, you mean! Not enough soldiers, mages, or any kind of resources for a war. The only thing they have enough is food! Look.”

Neill pointed at a cannon stationed on the walls, including a few trebuchet and giant crossbows. She explained the city could defend itself since the city itself was pretty old and had some good defensive properties like their high-quality mana barrier. Prince Markval told her they were all present from Aleistunum in the past.

However, no matter how strong these defenses were, since the city was undermanned and didn’t have enough batteries, they needed Neill to use up 75% of her mana to keep them patched up today. Just after that, she was sent out with Larent for that failed ambush. Due to all the people lost in that attack, Larent has been reassessing the situation.

“I don’t really understand much about warfare, and the stuff Larent explained was pretty barebones, but essentially there are three ways to skew a war to your advantage.” Neill put three fingers up. “First, strategic combatants — you, me, Larent, Tehmrayn, Kushlek’zar, Melloxtressa. People who can deal with large amounts of enemies at once. Second, good ol’ numbers. Third, your technological and manatech advancements. Stronger custom magics, better abilities, better equipment, and anything else you can think of.”

Quality was superior to quantity in this world, but nobody should ignore what insurmountable numbers could do. For example, the city was terribly undermanned while 10k grimgarians were outside this place. Sure, a tactical nuke could wipe them all out, but from the look of it, Larent hadn’t given the signal to attack yet despite being the highest level amongst us, not including Mother and the never-moving Tehmrayn.

However, while stats and numbers mattered, you shouldn’t forget about items and magic itself. I still remember when I sparred with Master in Carine Village before and after I became a B rank. Despite having lower stats than me, he still managed to overwhelm me by using a catalyst. That was why I thought Ellaine’s and Grimnir’s craftsmanship were extremely valuable.

Tasianna was the one who benefitted the most from a single item. That catalyst she got from Kiiro and then blessed by Zephira? Helped her develop her current fighting style. Turned it all around for her.

“So… with a lack of soldiers, the only way for us to fight against this horde is to rely on number one and three.” Neill looked at me with expectation. “However, everybody has a limit, even if you can regenerate Mana or Stamina infinitely, there is arcane corruption. Even a mana being like Tasianna can only regenerate a certain amount of mana before everything around them is used up. Numbers matter, no matter how strong you are.”

I nodded, understanding her logic there. Even if we couldn’t outnumber the enemy, somebody like Mother could kill them off in one go. However, we didn’t have that option, so with our current number of strategic combatants we had to rotate people around. I heard from Saori sieges could take weeks on Earth, so maybe this was the case here, too?

“And that is only if Rajah and Rita can find a way for us to launch an attack. Creating a funnel increased our defencess, but it also meant all the B ranks are concentrated in that area. Fighting this head-on won’t work, so we need to do this properly,” Neill contemplated.

“Oooh? So you won’t just charge in like with our encounter under Renee’s house?”

“Arck! Come on!” I giggled at her outburst, causing my Sister to get all flustered. “A-Anyways, just look… as you can see, we aren’t doing well enough to have the leeway to do anything stupid.”

After turning around, my face tensed up as I saw and realized where all the moaning and groaning was coming from. A clinic for the injured was created at the local temple of Aurena where alchemists and holy mages were healing anybody in there. For such a sanctified place, the floor and walls were covered in blood.

“Aahaaha! Please, stop the pain!”

“Uuurgh, arck, please… Urk! Send these to my wife. Oooh, Goddess, please, protect my fami…ly.”

“Hahahahah! Hahaha, nooo… C-Can’t, dammit, you have to do something! My arms! My leg! I don’t want to end up as a cripple! Help me, please! Goddess! God Yeostar!”

“…” The sight wasn’t unusual at this point. I’d seen enough.

“The end result of our first attack,” Neill stated. I could see what she wanted me to do, even without her voicing it.

… So this is how I lost 389 followers. How many were my fans? How many actually died? … Miraculous Grace? No! Too much mana, I can’t use it all up! I just need to stabilize them. Parallel minds, go!

Sanctified Blaze: Halo of Consecration.

“In the midst of the desert ♫

A bright ray of light shines ♫

Pure and brave, that she was, as she walked ♫”

[Shield of [The Light]] [Music Resonation] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Huh, what?” The healers and alchemists were shocked to hear my [Aerokinesis] playing music.

I pulled out my white mage robe from my storage and wrapped it around myself like a cape, not having the time to put it on properly. Ignoring the stares I got, my halo spread it flames in the surroundings, shocking some while others went silent.

“Hahaaaa! Fire! Fire!”

“Wh-Who are you?! Stop these fire—”

“Stop!” One of the alchemists shouted before the healers could do anything. I was thankful to see him here, as he was one of the alchemists I helped out at the arena. “P-Princess Hestia! That’s the sister of Princess Fargryneill! She’s the blessed of the Goddess!”

“Correct! And I am here to grant these brave warriors life through the white grace! Let these flames purify those poisoned and grant them life. May my song protect your life and invigorate your bodies.” Once I identified those who needed my help the most, I materialized [Major Heal] magic circles. “Brave soldiers of Yeos, I commend you for your deeds! May light keep you anchored to this life, and may you embrace Goddess Aurena’s grace! Upon my authority as her idol, I swear I will save your bodies, so please endure this pain just for a bit more!”

I will perform surgery for the remainder afterwards. Those who lost their limbs, those who lost their eyes; everything will be done afterwards. I apologize to those who I couldn’t save in time… may your souls find peace with Ilsaphone. To those who live, I shall end this fight for you!

47 human have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total followers of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 14364

After I was done healing everybody and had some talks with the priests inside, I excused myself and walked back to Neill.

“… You certainly have an aura, Sis. No wonder Aurena chose you. You’re like the perfect champion and saintess for her,” Neill said with a teasing smile.

However, I couldn’t accept her praise, shaking my head. “Nah, I don’t think so… I think I just grew into the role.”

Neill seemed to have noticed something in my tone or voice, as her smile fell and she patted my back. “Well, whatever happened in your past life, you’re doing your best in this one. Be proud. ‘Cuz you’re certainly doing a lot more with your life than I have.”

“Sis…?” I glanced at her, noticing something gnawing on her. Not knowing what to think about it, I clapped my cheeks and then wrapped my arm around her shoulder, despite how hard it was due to our size difference. “Well, sadly, ‘Princess Fargryneill,’ I’m not the only one who knows you by your real name.”

“… You noticed?” She was frowning.

“Why wouldn’t I? No one even batted an eye when they heard your name from Larent. You told me to not do it and I can guess you asked Larent to not do so either. However, you aren’t bothered by it. You told them, right? To rally them?”

“…”

I took her silence as acceptance.

“Well, now there are two royals from Kargryx here. I’m not done with those demonkins yet, and I have a Quest to protect Yeos. If those grimgarians won’t want to leave peacefully…” I took a deep breath, calming myself down. “… then I will need my big sister to double team with me. We gotta keep the city safe until Renee comes back, right?”

“…!” Neill’s eyes widened for a second before she looked away and closed them. After a few seconds, she opened them up again. “You’re right. You’re right. Jeez… Renee would laugh at me with how much I’m regressing back to how I was two years ago… Hoooo, hooooo… My mother taught me to hate war, but at this moment, what a good chance for us to gain levels, right?”

“… Pff! Hahahahahaha!”

“Hahahahahahaha!”

She was right. The best way to steel my resolve was to treat these grimgarians just like the ones I met in the Belzac forest. Or, even better, enemies endangering my happiness. The war I saw in Mother’s illusion was brutal, but at the end of the day, an inevitability. If this one couldn’t be stopped anymore, then I had to put an end to it with force.

If diplomacy doesn’t work, then violence it shall be.

“You ready?”

[Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s solar core status: [85%]

“Lead the way.”

“First stop, the port.”

To assure this siege could last, we needed to make sure our naval escape route wasn’t be destroyed. For that, we needed to wipe out the fleet there.

Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor, officially joining this war now!

A note from AbyssRaven

Destruction upon the green tide. Lok'tar Ogar!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 352: Heaven’s Sword and Dragon Fire.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #2 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! It works on a subscription base now, so pay on the same date next month!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

156 human and beastmen followers lost

Total follower count updated. Total followers of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 14161

Shit!

Boom, boom, kaboom. The air was filled with the sounds of wood planks being blasted away by mana cannons, the screams of the sailors and warriors, and the creaking of the ship as it sank into the sea with all the corpses on board. The port was even more chaotic.

Neill and I informed Mother, Larent, and Alistar of our plan and they agreed it would be the best way forward. The port couldn’t be lost, as it was the last bastion before the enemy reached Karhalantheel island. The siege would be lost, not only ‘cause of the lack of food, but also we would be in danger of having an SS rank leviathan rampage.

So, here we were, having flown over here with Mother accompanying us. That was when we saw a ship being bombarded by mana cannons. I wasn’t a ship expert, so I didn;t know their names, but the ships Elyonda had were far smaller and shorter than the grimgarian’s. They looked a bit patched-up and poorly maintained, as if they didn’t have a proper shipwright, but it didn’t seem to matter if you had mages to cast defensive spells and cannons to attack.

“Regroup first, you can blast things afterwards.” I nodded at Neill’s suggestion, and we flew over to what looked like a small makeshift war camp in the middle of the port.

“Princess—” The moment we landed, a group of soldiers, priests, and even some adventurers came running, but were immediately stopped by Neill with an annoyed face.

“Don’t make me repeat, call me by my name. I’m here as an adventurer, okay? Okay?” The people around us nodded vigorously, but before they could notice Mother and me, Neill changed the topic. “Anyways, injured? I saw a ship just sink.”

“O-Oh, that— Yeah, we’re having some problems,” a merc answered. “Those five B ranks are fucking the whole place up. This damn city’s ships are still using mounted crossbows! Not a single cannon or mana turret! Even the Empire's scout boat has a cannon on each side!”

Unfortunately, this clear criticism against Elyonda was loud enough for the soldiers to hear. “Hey, shut your mouth, drifter! Consider yourself lucky we’re allowing you on the ships to fight in the first place! It’s only because of Lord Jethro's grace that we’re allowing you to fight on them!”

“Shut it! We took on the job to protect the city. Ghorush already told us everything! You tin cans ain’t got the damn soldiers to afford to shoo us away, and you’re letting us die out there? Met some terrible employers in my time, but you stink the most with how desperate you are!”

“You’ll die anyways once you get out of the city! You fight or die, that’s the deal, mate!”

“Shut it, conscript! Damn city has to force you rookies into fighting. Don’t think you're any different!”

The hostility between the soldiers and adventurers was a normal thing for any city, due to the fact both were military forces. It wasn't like a city could do anything about it since adventurers brought in money due to their visit and the Quests they fulfilled within a city. Some adventurers were city inhabitants, but the majority came from other cities or even countries. Rapport was hard in that case, since you couldn’t bond through patriotism.

“Hey, hey, please! We need to calm down here. We’re all fighting for our lives here, we need to settle down, or you want to die to a goblin or kobold? How embarrassing is that?” Thankfully, those Yeosian adventurers were coming in clutch by speaking to both sides. “God Yeostar is watching, probably. We can’t let the city fall, right? Don’t forget the manabloods offered us proper rewards. Look, we got two, no, three dragons watching over us. You’ll help us, right, Princess Hestia!”

“H-Huh?!” The man suddenly dashed forward and grabbed my hand. “Ooh, I-I saw your fight and also your singing, Your Grace! Mhmm! I knew you’d come back! Ghorush said you were gone, but I knew the Goddess’s blessed wouldn’t leave us in our time of need!”

Ghorush? Wait, did he mention that?

“Hestia? Wait, Crimson-Scaled?!”

“O-Oh, wait, that’s her! Crimson Horns! Yeah, I saw her in the arena. Two of the four semifinalists are here!”

T-Two nicknames?! That damn arena commentator!

“Oi, settle down!” As the horde of adventurers began to swarm around me, Neill pushed them away with her scales. “You can cheer her on after this damn siege is over. Where is Ghorush? Jethro or Kushlek’zar? We need to talk with them now.”

“I-Is it time for the counterattack!” One of the soldiers blurted out.

Neill raised an eyebrow but decided to nod in the end. This seemingly raised the soldiers’ and adventurers’ morale as they cheered, shouting out how they were ready to take revenge on the grimgarians for their fallen comrades. Immediately, the soldiers offered to show the way, but I told Mother and Neill to go, as my place was somewhere else.

“I’m a healer, so my place is with the injured. Fill me in later, alright?” I told Neill and she agreed. She already knew what I was planning to do later, so my input to the strategy was already there. [“Oh, and, Ghorush? How did he know I was gone?”]

Noticing my telepathic message, Neill changed to it, too. [“Uhm? Dunno, maybe Jethro? For some reason, the both of them have become pretty close over these past two days. Dunno why he said that you were gone to some random mercs, though.”]

To be honest, from the times I met him, he really did seem like a loud mouth. Bit belligerent, too. Musclehead. If Jethro were stressed out, he might have revealed something and if Ghorush were drunk, it could all happen…

Whatever. Not my problem.

“In the midst of the desert ♫

A bright ray of light shines ♫

Pure and brave, that she was, as she walked ♫”

[Shield of [The Light]] [Music Resonation] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

21 human and beastman have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total followers of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 14182

My job here was to heal people. As I just learned from the outburst from those adventurers and even the eyes of some of the soldiers, a couple of the people here were my fans. With hope-filled eyes, they cheered when they thought it was time for the counterattack. I wasn’t a hero, but an idol had to do some fan service, right?

As in, healing and saving their lives.

“W-Woah, the bleeding stopped! M-My stomach—”

“Ahahaha, thank you! Praise the Goddess and you, blessed! My arm is back on, hahaha!”

“Honey, you’re safe! Thank the Goddess, thank the Light!”

It felt good… but it’s also another warning how this wouldn’t be the last if I couldn’t end this siege soon. My core was back to 100%, so now it was time to fight. I was still feeling a bit peckish, but it couldn’t be helped considering I haven’t eaten anything for two days in that dimension breach, and only a bit of rations since we got out. I should eat on the way.

Hmm?

While snacking on some sandwiches from my storage, I looked around the port. It sure was as lively as always, just for the wrong reasons. Soldiers ran around with porters transporting supplies like rations, giant crossbows, and weapons, either towards the port or into the city. The adventurers were heavily split between those enjoying themselves despite all the chaos while others were trying to keep themselves cool and collected.

Honestly reminded me of the Griffonpeak battle, with that giant A rank looming over the walls. It did make me wonder if my bad encounter luck was starting to seep out, spreading to other people. I came into this Divine Quest believing I just had to punch some demonkins and mercs, not deal with a whole army.

Haaa, this— Woah!

“Scatterbrained when a mana cannonball could fly over. Gutsy… but expected for a true dragonkin.”

I nearly bumped into somebody while thinking about the situation on hand, only to suddenly hear their voice and snap my head around. Not only did he tower over me but his frame was bulky from his trained muscles and thick, marine blue armor. Just looking at his scaled, inhuman face, I wouldn’t blame anybody for fearing this person.

“Chahayat!” Fortunately, I knew this caring person already, so I grinned widely. “Good to see you’re still kicking! You managed to repair your armor and weapons in time, I see!”

He grunted with a nod. “You didn’t destroy the catalyst inside of the tank. Everything else was replaceable.”

He raised his axe and harpoon, two things I had broken in our arena match. I had been planning on destroying his catalyst but now I was happy I hadn’t, ‘cause the plan I had in mind needed people like him in action.

“You’re fighting?”

“Elyonda is my base,” he replied with as few words as possible. “Good to see you back. Heard rumors. Been told to hold back until you returned, but the adventurers didn’t believe you would.”

“Mhmm, sorry about that, but it’s time to turn this siege around. I need your help, so would it be okay to lend me it?”

“Of course, Kargryx princess. Your sister has already inquired me about it. The depths demand these intruders’ blood.” He offered me a fist bump out of nowhere. With a smile, I reciprocated it. “The tribe I mentioned is hiding in the arena. Let us clean it up for them.”

Chahayat still had something to prepare before he could engage. Separating from him, I steeled my resolve one more time, remembering why I was here. I wasn’t here to kill for fun, revenge, or bloodlust, I was here for a reason. I had to end this siege, and if I could get some experience on the way, then even better.

Regardless, as I said, I had to end this siege. That was the real objective.

I met up with Neill and Mother after I calmed myself down, where they told me they had explained everything to Jethro. Master and the other saurians were currently fighting on the frontlines against the grimgarian’s navy. Using his unique skill, he was doing his best to defend against the constant bombardment from hitting the ships and port, but he needed an opening to attack with his party.

This was where I came in.

“Don’t worry about the walls. Even if the grimgarians do something, we gotta trust in that old man Larent. Sword saint candidate, right? Means a lot, considering the [Sword Saint] title is a pretty powerful buff, I heard,” Neill explained. “Go. All. Out. We’ll get Tehmrayn and Kushlek’zar to deal with the aftermath.”

“Are you sure about Tehmrayn? He won’t leave the island, and I think that’s for the best. We can’t underestimate the enemies since we don’t know where the demonkins are.”

The dude wrath demonkin was probably still alive, although I wasn’t sure about the girl. Mother mentioned not having put much weight into her slap, but the girl should have had [Dread Burn] applied to her. Unless she died from her wounds before the status abnormality wore off, we still had a big problem on our hands.

Neill couldn’t say anything about that, as nobody had seen the demonkins since then. “They probably also have those mercs around. You know, the reason why that male demonkin escaped was ‘cause one of the mercs showed some pretty dangerous skills. Heard he’s the skull mask you met during the tournament.”

Skull mask? God Yeostar, can you confirm that?

<Yes, Larent has a connection with me as he was a former knight. The person he fought was Qaltil and he revealed himself as one of the Yanderu Eluseuss leaders. The seventh, in fact.>

… Those bastards, huh? Of course. Then, Eithalr might be here… No, focus! Come on, focus. If he appears, then I’ll get my revenge, otherwise, I need to focus on breaking this siege.

“However, considering what you are planning, we need their help. If the grimgarians break through the naval defenses, that naga will have to deal with all the ships himself. Jethro went over to persuade him. I had Ghorush fortify the harbor, in the meantime,” Neill tried to reassure me. “There is a landing party with pretty much a B rank and his C rank goons at the docks, so we need you to wipe out the naval forces. Once they are down, we can clean things up here.”

“And, if that giant leviathan were to break out, I’ll just stop him,” Mother added, looking a little peeved. “Even now, he’s taunting me. What a shameless ancient. He really wants to die by my hand, hehehe…”

“…”

“…”

Yeah, if the worst were to happen, we could rely on this freebie from Mother. She was really eager to fight that thing for her own benefit, to the point she was spamming [Haste] over and over again to slowly level up her new [Space-Time Magic] skill after becoming a void-touched. It was still level one, strangely, but I could attribute that to how hard it was to level up in the first place.

Regardless… It was time.

“Alright, see you later.”

I flew up onto the roof of a nearby building, allowing myself to see the action happening on the seas. Five ships attacked about nine smaller vessels on our side. The sky was orange, it was almost time for everything to stop, time for people to take a break. However, before it stopped, the battle was still rampant and chaotic.

I looked down, watching multiple soldiers and adventurers looking up at me. Most didn’t, as they rushed around the streets in a hurry. Those armored like knights were running along them, shouting out commands of the plans Neill made with Jethro. They were informed the counterattack was about to happen, but while some were motivated, others only seemed to be more demoralized.

… Alright.

<[Music Resonation] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]>

“Feel the echoes of our voice ♫

Quivering the core of your very soul ♫

Rally up your strength, you soldiers ♫

Be brave, find hope in it ♫

Let strife not frightened you away ♫

From the peace of the brilliant light ♫

And let the Star shine bright ♫

Inside your hearts! ♫”

To bring about the power of their souls, to grant these people hope. It was an idol’s job to raise their morale!

“Will you roar out to the world ♫

And stand tall next to our flag ♫

To see the very tale ♫

Of what the gods have in plan ♫

So don’t cower away ♫

In your fears of the departed and be free! ♫”

[Stage Fever (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

More eyes. More ears. I wanted the whole crowd to see me before I departed.

“Feel the echoes of our voice ♫

Quivering the core of your very soul ♫

Rally up your strength, you soldiers ♫

Be brave, find hope in it ♫

Let strife not frightened you away ♫

From the peace of the brilliant light ♫

And let the Star shine bright ♫

Inside your hearts! ♫”

[Stage Fever (Major)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

It was just a matter of time until those who were my fans joined up, having heard me sing this song multiple times during my musical festival. Their chorus amplified the message of the song, pushing others up from their seats. Soldiers and Yeosians adventurers saluted, while the others clapped along.

“Will you join in our chorus ♫

And make your life clear to hear ♫

The same with the epics of the Knight ♫

That we feel safe under his watch ♫

So live up to your own songs ♫

And raise up your sword to the stars! ♫

Feel the echoes of our voice ♫

Quivering the core of your very soul ♫

Rally up your strength, you soldiers ♫

Be brave, find hope in it ♫

Let strife not frightened you away ♫

From the peace of the brilliant light ♫

And let the Star shine bright ♫

Inside your hearts! ♫”

““Woooooooo!””

““For Yeostar! For the God of Knights! Our swords are yours, blessed!””

““For Yeos! For Prince Markval! For the brilliance of the Goddess!””

The knights were naturally drawn to the values and virtues this song was promoting, to the point the few knights and warrior priests in this camp drew their weapons and raised them into the skies. Seeing them all motivated and saluting, the soldiers and adventurers were rallying as well, although there were still some party poopers around.

With my duty here done, it was time to reveal myself to the enemy — that the dragon idol was here to fight for Elyonda!

Humanize!

“Kraaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” I roared! At the same time, I continued playing the song through my [Aerokinesis].

“Feel the echoes of our voice ♫

Quivering the core of your very soul ♫

Rally up your strength, you soldiers ♫

Be brave, find hope in it ♫

Let strife not frightened you away ♫

From the peace of the brilliant light ♫

And let the Star shine bright ♫

Inside your hearts! ♫”

Any surprise the soldiers felt vanished as the song continued and I flew up to the sky. At the same time, I saw Neill take her place while the knights and other leaders reorganized the platoons for the upcoming battle.

[“Everybody, fight with me! For the Goddess! For God Yeostar! For your lives and families!”]

521 human and beastman have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total followers of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 14703

[Various Spell Buffs] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

I blasted myself up with all my buffs up, overwatching the naval battle underneath me. I focused my eyes, noticing only four of the five B ranks commanding the ships. Three were high orcs and one was a troll. Well equipped, competent, and exuding tension as they ordered the grimgarians on the ships without hesitation, using the momentum of the battle to motivate everybody.

However, what was more terrifying about this force was the fact I could see merfiends and also some giant snake-like monsters fighting alongside them. After appraising them, I learned they were sea serpents, the lesser dragonkin version of the leviathans, the water equivalent of the wyverns. Not only did they manage to tame these things to fight with them, each of the five ships seemed to have a personal mana shield and manatech weaponry, as the soldier from before mentioned.

Tasianna and the twins should be safe. They would have disappeared as my followers if they had died. If they hadn’t returned yet nor were they prisoners of these grimgarians, then they should have managed to rescue the Caedhulens. Good.

On the other hand, our side was not doing as well. Master and the saurians were doing their best on the leading ship, the only real warship Elyonda had in this fight, but they were completely focused on defending everybody from the shot and sea serpents. This left the remaining eight smaller vessels to fend for themselves, not including the invasion forces already at the docks, engaging the soldiers and adventurers. The last B rank, a high ogre, was being stopped there by Ghorush.

Luckily, it seemed the knights commanding these groups were all for show. The ships moved fast, supporting Master’s ship despite their far inferior weaponry and ships. All their shots were blocked by the grimgarian’s mana shields, but they didn’t give up. The docks also didn’t look too bad, despite the invasion forces.

Yeos’s pride are their knights, after all. Even in the arena, they didn’t disappoint too much.

Okay, let’s do this… but—

“KRAAAAAAH!” I roared with [Draconic Roar] at the waters underneath me, blasting up fountain-worth of water into the air, stunning each side’s leaders. The fighting stopped for a moment.

[“This is Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor of the Dragon Empire Kargryx! I am the only idol of Aurena, a blessed of the Light Pantheon! Children of God Marsven and Goddess Edna, Descendants of Goddess Kronnaz! Invaders of Yeosian soil and waters, this is my first and only warning to you! Retreat, and never come back with swords and blood on hand!”]

I gave them an ultimatum, before turning my eyes at the sea serpents and exuding my [Draconic Aura]. Even from up here, those dragonkins noticed it immediately and froze up.

[“Begone.”]

“““Krrrruuieq!!!”””

Noticing I was a dragon, they didn’t even try to act tough and escaped, leaving their kobold tamers stranded in the waters. Sadly, the merfiends weren’t as naturally intimidated by dragons, so they just stood still in fear.

With my demands issued, I urged the grimgarians to answer. [“Now, what is your answer, children of the Goddess of Vengeance? Make it quick!”]

Diplomacy over violence, even if the battle had already begun. I understood I was acting naively here, but the plan was to break the siege, not win it. This way, I would preserve the most lives. I wasn’t a reaper in personality, and if I could solve this peacefully, I would like to pursue it.

However…

‘They’re stalling. The ship in the back is preparing a narrow, long-barreled cannon. Fire?’ Manager Mind informed me, confirming my suspicion.

I tried and offered.

Kill them all. Purple Flash! Cyclone Madness!

Paying for triple the normal amount of mana for a single spell, [Purple Flash] allowed me to instantly materialize a giant tornado right in the middle of the ships, disorientating the enemy in the process. If they had their mana barriers protecting them, then why attack to break it if I could just crowd control them?

Now… It's time for a song.

[“In my purgatory, I make the devil cry ♫

In Hellfire ♫

All you hear are his screams, begging to be released ♫

It’s Music ♫”]

Pumped up the volume to the extreme, [Dragon Fire] could be heard by everybody in the vicinity, even piercing through the sound of the natural disaster happening below. I wasn’t a reaper, but songs weren’t only there to soothe a person’s soul… they could also be used to herald doom upon the world. At least, when it came from demons or angels.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Light to darkness, ice to flames.

Level eight [Sacred Magic] spell:

Purple Flash.

<Heaven’s Sword: Bring down the blade of the Goddess upon the world. Materializes Goddess Aurena’s arm of light upon the world, allowing it to gather up mana to form an incandescent blade of destruction upon everything but the light’s followers. Purifies all necromancy magic, status effect, and effects, while granting allies a [Sacred Field] around the impact zone. Highly effective against the enemies of humankind>

Urgh!

[Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s solar core status: [57%]

[Purple Flash] into [Heaven’s Sword] drained up 35% of my current mana pool just like that, while [Cyclone Madness] only took up 5%. The conversion rate of solar power into mana wasn’t one-to-one, sadly. As expected from a level eight advanced magic spell, it better pay me back with the corresponding power!

Above the clouds, a giant white magic circle around the size of [Omnictus] materialized, conjuring from it a yellow translucent arm of a slim woman. As it held its hand up, light gathered around it until it reached the length of a skyscraper. To all the people below, this thing was probably gigantic. However, to me, it was the proper punishment for trying to wage a war under my supervision.

If the grimgarians wanted war, then I shall deliver it to them! If a war could be turned around with so-called “strategic combatants,” then I shall be the one they needed! A mage to turn around this whole siege!

Heaven’s SWORD!

The female arm of light held the blade in a reverse grip before it swung it down, piercing and dividing the clouds before it destroyed the [Cyclone Madness] below. The pressure of this gigantic mass of mana was too strong for anything else… but that wasn’t all I had.

Remix. Remixing a song was my answer to how to update my songs.

[“I descend on Earth with Wings of Death! ♫

A Storm of Fury ♫

Creating Ash and Dust ♫

I am the Incarnation of the Sun ♫

I shine so brightly, I bring your death ♫

My lineage belongs to the God of Dragons! ♫”]

Different ways to vocalize the lyrics, more emphasized in one word, less in others. Even the way I played the instruments could be attributed to a different interpretation. Like “modernizing” an old song.

For example, the previous [Dragon Fire] was focused on its guitar and drums, putting more focus on its symphonic metal rock identity, to make me appear as the devastating and unstoppable boss monster; however, what would happen if I were to replace everything with violins, trumpets, and pianos?

Instead of making me seem like an important but mid-range boss, what if I elevated it into the grandness of orchestra music? Instead of focusing only on myself, what if I gave this song an almost worldly feeling, as if the whole world was looking at this battle? A music fit for the heavens, fit for the end boss!

[“Despair, color the sky crimson! ♫

Earth scorched by rain of undying flames ♫

Hope born from misery! ♫

Quash it all, you are facing me! ♫”]

Your brilliance is radiating on the world! Remixing of song is finished. [Dragon Fire] has been updated to fit its new themes and images. You have created a new function for your idol system, unlocking the remix function

As the sword of heaven was about to descend, a ball of fire surrounded me and, hopefully, also everybody else in the vicinity. What Master said was correct, I had accidentally given [My Darkest Thoughts] and [The Heir of Light] power from [The Light]. As such, I should probably use my position as a usurper to good use.

And for my first test, I shall use Shiterno’s “gift.”

“Kiiiiiiiraaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

Scorch the skies!

Mana was drained for me to be gathered up in the air, transforming themselves into the form of an infernal dragon! Although, shorter than the [Heaven’s Sword], it wasn’t by a mile. This golem-like depiction of a giant dragon flew down onto the world, aiming for the destruction of my enemies… like a meteor.

I shot out my scales, having them cover up the flame dragon as much as I could without overusing my scales. Its form made clear, this beast could be seen as another monster by everybody else.

My plan to create a meteor never died! Although just a bluff against the demonkins in Estralia, after how Mother showed me how she combined her scales with her spells, I just had to do the same. So, what would happen if you duct tape some scales with the same properties as gunpowder on a meteor?

Overkill.

Eliminate all of them! Heaven’s Sword and Dragon Fire!

First, the sword. The sea was cleaved as the blade’s impact caused everything around it to be launched upwards, which included the ships and their crew. From here, I could see the vessels breaking apart and hundreds or maybe a thousand grimgarians falling in a world where they couldn’t tell up from down. A tsunami higher than the port hid everything from their eyes.

Then to end it all, the fire dragon roared again. I had to stand in place and sing this song myself without [Aerokinesis]’s help outside of the instruments. However, the result spoke for itself. The moment this thing collided with the enemies, a massive nuclear kaboom erupted in this short vicinity.

Dragon Fire

A song created by the Idol   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]. Through the image of becoming the peak of challenge and opposition, becoming a power to burn down even the heavens if needed, this song will herald ultimate destruction in the form of a dragon. Through the power of song and fire, a giant golem of fire in the form of a dragon shall descend onto the world, burning anything like a God of Fire as long as mana is provided. Can only be activated while the idol is singing the song in one place. All allies affected by [Music Resonation] will receive these effects: A barrier of fire providing perfect immunity against all fire, magma, and heat-based attacks coming from the idol. All enemies affected by [Music Resonation] will receive these effects: Receive 10% more damage from all fire and dragon attacks and abilities. All entities affected by [Music Resonation] will receive these effects: All water spells and abilities will lose 50% of their effectiveness. All ice spells and abilities will lose 50% of their effectiveness

I couldn’t form an arena anymore, but that part was now taken over by my Territory [Magmakammer] anyways. After all, every fire-based boss should be able to shower down a meteor rain, right? Why trap enemies, when I can just vaporize all of them?

Even better, only my enemies would be affected by this flame! Since Shiterno’s blessing [Divine Inferno] gave me immunity to my own fire spells, so I shall share its effect with everybody with my song! Just so I could give the most brilliant show ever!

[Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s solar core status: [0%]

Urgh!

In the face of the world around them grimgarian ships turning completely red and filled with steam, I clutched my chest as I felt the rebound of using up the remainder of my solar energy just to fuel this, and still I used up 40% more of my mana! This nuclear option alone drained me to the point I had to rest up.

However, oh, the rewards…

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has risen from [Level 19] to [Level 23]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 2250 skill points

I lost strength in my wings for a moment, stopping the song as I calmed down my body from using such a large amount of mana in the span of what felt like a couple of minutes or so. What was it, again? 75% of my mana from a [Purple Flash]ed [Heaven’s Sword] and [Dragon Fire]? Holy smokes. My solar energy was trying to recover as quickly as possible, but this just knocked me out of the battle in one go.

Argh, thank goodness for the level up!

The power of leveling up. If I hadn’t gotten a single level, I would have complained like a kid. I still felt tired, but at least my Mana was back to full. Easy gamble.

Once I got my bearings, I looked down. I made sure to not let it affect the port or the other ships, but the water around the grimgarian ships was just gone after the steam dissipated. The sea around it quickly rushed in to fill it up, but at the same time, tsunamis had risen and were endangering the harbor, the ships, and the island. This was the aftermath I was talking about.

As such—

6 kirin-dragon and saurian have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total followers of [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 14709

… What? Kirin-dragon and saurian? But, aren’t the only they—

However, before I could finish forming that thought, I saw the tsunamis suddenly being pushed back. Two giant dinosaurs suddenly appeared around the ships and harbor, protecting them, while the waves directed at the other island just stopped and slowly shrank.

I knew the dinosaurs were created by Master’s unique skill, but what was surprising to me was how I saw a single person looming over at the beach of the island. Looking closer, I actually saw that naga champion, Tehmrayn over there! With a movement of his trident, the tsunami directed at the island slowly became smaller and smaller, returning into the sea to fill up the area I blew up.

Jeez, that’s som— Urk!

Kring!

That noise!

‘Uuuuh, yo, Original Mind, we got a problem here. Looks like our core just got a small crack.’

… Are you kidding me?

Hadn’t I just regrown this stupid thing about two weeks ago? Why did it get a bloody crack again? Not only that, but it wasn’t ‘cause of overloading myself with heat from [Solar Beam] or [Symphonie des Feuergottes], but from just using up… two pretty large spells… Now that I thought about it, didn’t I just empty it out in a few minutes? I guess, I placed a large amount of stress on it anyways, so the methods didn’t really matter.

Well, I wasn’t feeling lightheaded, so arcane corruption probably was still low. Nevertheless, even if I knew I could fully recover my mana through a level up, maybe I underestimated how much using up 75% of my mana at once would put a considerable strain on my body. As I said before, what I did was just overkill. For the future, I should try to minimize the mana cost and also maybe cast this as a dragonewt, so I could use my mana cost-reducing catalyst.

Okay, this is done. Let’s get some rest befo—

<Hestia, we have an issue!>

Nooooooo!

<Jethro is in danger! To the island, now!>

Arghk, come on, I ju—

“Uuuuuurghk!”

That voice just came from the island! Was the universe trying to overwork me here, why did this have to happen?! Tehmrayn, being on the island himself, probably heard that scream and rushed towards it, but I was a mile or whatever away! Did I have to go rush off— Oh, what was I complaining about!? Of course, I had to!

Leaving the rest behind, I blasted my way over to the island. Not knowing exactly what would happen, I remained in my dragon form and delved deeper into the island as Yeostar instructed me. However, at the same time, my eyes wandered around as I not only noticed dead warrior priests but also what looked like earth statues — broken earth statues.

Never mind, gotta hurry! Something happened here. How did these priests die?!

They were all dead. Either crushed by these weird animalistic earth statues or decapitated by one clean slash. What the hell happened here while I was dropping that nuke on those grimgarians?!

The deeper I went, the more unnerving it got. Destroyed defenses, fields filled with dead priests and shattered earth constructs. How did this happen? Why was there a battlefield here of all places?! The fight should have been at the seas, and if that failed—

No way, did a small elite troupe get past the defenses? During the time Tehmrayn was away from the center to prevent my attack?

How did they predict I would do that?! Impossible, no way something like that could be anticipated. It could only be… leaked.

“Tsk… how?”

“How? Why, with support, of course, dear Champion. This is our specialty.”

I passed through the barrier of the island shrine, where Karhalantheel’s seal was located. There, I saw Tehmrayn facing off against not only those monster-like earth statues but also a group of skull mask assailants. But, more shocking, were the two people looming behind Jethro’s fallen body.

One was a skull mask with a pretty conspicuously long coat holding onto a dagger. Knives were floating around him, as if he was a psychic, and from how many horns and decorations his mask had, I presumed he was the leader and that seventh boss of Yanderu Eluseuss. While I was sure to think of him as my primary target, what caught my attention more was the person next to him.

B-But, how? You were just at the harbor?! How did you make it here before me?!

[“Ghorush?!”]

“Ah! Dear girl! What a fine showing of supreme arcane magicks! As one mage to another, I salute and bow my head to you, Your Grace. Something a half-fraud mage like me can never achieve with this mana-stunted body.”

Instead of his poorly-maintained armor and two-handed axe, the leonid I saw in front of me was wearing a perfectly-fitting suit with a top hat. He bowed with it, showing off his well-groomed mane and hair, before standing upright and holding his rapier up in a noble posture.

“I dare say, it was just as our employer mentioned, you certainly are dangerous. Sadly for you, however, your arrival was a bit too late.”

He snapped his fingers and an explosion happened at the back of the shrine. In the next moment, the ground beneath me shook.

Hostile Territory detected! [The Krakenlord’s Graveyard] has been activated!

A note from AbyssRaven

Reminder: When you reject a peaceful retreat offer from Hestia, she will go nuclear on you. She will drop a flame meteor on you.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 353: The Krakenlord’s Graveyard and the Fimbulvetr.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #3 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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Hostile Territory detected! [The Krakenlord’s Graveyard] has been activated!

“Kmmmmmmmmm!”

Are you kidding me?!

The earth underneath me shook as the sky darkened with black clouds. In an instant, it turned from the clear afternoon sky to a stormy mess. Rain poured down like crazy, falling onto the barrier with “pip pip pip” sounds. Just like, the mana of a monster changed the weather itself.

Mana was the foundation of this world, and through a Territory — a being’s aura and mana made manifest — you could change the environment into your most beneficial arena to fight in. Which meant, that rain wasn’t the only thing this Territory could do. This was the power of an SS rank leviathan here, after all. A strong shower couldn’t be the end of it!

[“Ghorush! You’re that damn golemancer!”] Snapping back to reality, I snarled at the damn lion bastard as the Territory notification appeared. [“You mole!”]

This wasn’t just a plain switcheroo, this guy might be dressed differently and showing a new set of skills compared to the berserker lion during his match with Sis, but it was definitely him. Not only that, but was he a spy all this time? Did he get close to Jethro to get all the information he needed? Was this the reason why that ambush attempt Sis and Larent mentioned failed?

The leonid bowed while the world rocked underneath us. As the shrine began to change shape, he smiled at us coldly. “Streiga the Pacidus, formally Ghorush. Third head of the Yanderu Eluseuss. Pleased to meet you, Dragon Princess.”

“Kraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” I roared, disliking the face he was making. The mockery.

Damn it, Yanderu! Its always you!

“Huhahaha!” the leonid laughed in the face of my threat. “This is Qaltil, the seventh head. Not much of a talker, but you met him before. I apologize on his behalf for trying to assassinate you, but a job is a job for him. Our employer’s coins spoke, so we had to listen. Although, seeing as you are here, it seemed like he wasn’t successful either.”

[“You damn bastard!”]

[Music Resonation (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

The Will to Fight and Survive, on!

“Is this the fated battle, the light shines ♫

It’s blinding my sight ♫

But I’ve gotta hold on, the stage calls ♫

The cries of a thousand, the flames of war will descend ♫”

No sun, no regeneration. No solar energy meant I had to act conservatively with my Mana. I wasn’t fit to fight now that the sun was blocked, so I now had to rely on my Stamina-related skills more. I couldn’t play this like a mage, I had to fight this like a melee combatant.

With [The Will to Fight and Survive] pretty much giving me unlimited Stamina, I dashed forward with my rocket boosters, destroying the walls and other structures of the shrine with my sheer size. Setting my tail aflame, I cleaved down at the enemies with [Hellblade Edge.]

However, my attack was stopped by what seemed like a black tentacle grabbing my tail before it could hit the two mercs. It swung me up and would have slammed me into the ceiling if I hadn’t bisected it in half.

I turned my body around, only to notice water puddles appearing from the ground all over the place. From them, actual tentacles the size of cars, with lengths that even snakes would be envious of, appeared. They sprouted everywhere inside this shrine, just as a deep, booming growl came from below me, shaking not only the ground but even the air, making me feel like I got tinnitus.

“An ancient lord of the oceans has been released,” Ghorush exclaimed while nodding. “Oh land, oh sea, witness its wrath firsthand. Fleeting your time might be, observe, honor. For—”

[“Shut it!”]

“Conceited fool!”

Simultaneously we shouted at this irritating leonid, even asTehmrayn cast a custom spell of his, summoning a watery serpent while I breathed out a [Hellflame Breath]. His spell ripped right through all the golems and the skull mask assailant before it enveloped Ghorush and helped him dashright through the tentacles blocking my breath attack.

Ghorush smirked and raised his left arm up, causing his bejeweled gauntlet to shine before the rocks around the shrine joined up into a golem arm hovering in front of him. It clashed against Tehmrayn’s trident, prompting the champion to jump back for a moment before his water serpent gathered around it. Using his lower body — his snake-like naga tail — like a spring, he jumped right forward, demolishing the golem and nearly hitting the two Yanderus.

“Huhaha! I might have the mana, but I am still not a really competent mage! A real golemancer would have created something better!” Ghorush shouted ecstatically before readying his rapier.

It was just a short confrontation, but Ghorush’s skill with the rapier was mesmerizing. Swift and deadly; he moved in and out against Tehmrayn’s attacks while creating more and more golems without rest. Still, this gimmick was nothing against the naga as he demonstrated the power of an experienced champion, forcing the leonid back with his masterful control of the water he conjured, moving it around like whips and blades.

[Various Spell Buffs] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

This short skirmish ended immediately the moment I reapplied my buffs on myself, sharing them with Tehmrayn through [Music Resonation]. Ghorush was pushed back, and the naga champion even managed to cut down the tentacles blocking my path by summoning a giant grab claw to cut them into pieces.

“Qaltil!”

“Ready! Come!”

Before I could fly in to join the battle, Qaltil cut his finger and smeared his blood on an amulet before shaking it thrice before shouting “Home Return!” My eyes widened as the air ripped apart, revealing what looked like a beach on the other side of the thing. It was a portal!

“I bid you goodbye!” Ghorush bowed while his comrade entered the portal. “You aren’t the only void-touched in this world, Princess Hestia. Surely, you know of its applications.”

[“Ghorush!”] A vein burst in my head as I unleashed another [Hellflame Breath] at the smirking leonid, only for him to jump backward. With a simple “We will meet again” the portal closed, allowing the two thugs to escape. [“Dammit, are you kidding me?! Fuck!”]

My eyes snapped to a broken wall in this large shrine, tall enough to accommodate my mammoth-sized dragon form. Before those mercs blasted it open, the pictograph on it displayed the story of Yeostar’s battle against the giant leviathan. There was no sign the seal was there, but those mercs somehow knew. I thought the altar or Yeostar’s statue was the more obvious answer.

“Champion!” Tehmrayn called out at me while carrying Jethro in a fireman’s carry. “This isn’t the time to worry about this. I failed my task. We must leave the island now before the leviathan destroys it upon his release.”

I darted around the shrine, noticing the earthquake and the periodic tentacle spawning hadn’t resided, not how this place was looking like it would break apart. I grit my teeth and hurled both Tehmrayn and the unconscious Jethro onto my back. Strangely, he wasn’t seriously injured. My parallel minds told me he just had a concussion.

Sadly, this was the only good news in this whole mess. As I ran out of the shrine, Tehmrayn mentioned how he had to fend off those golems on his way back to the shrine. The warrior-priests tried to hold on, but the overwhelming number of golems and the surprising entrance from the skull masks took all of them out.

“KMMMMMMMMMMMMH!!!”

Woah!

The earthquake intensified even further as we made it to the forest, almost to the point I lost balance and fell. Abandoning the ground in favor of flying, I flew myself to the beach by Tehmrayn’s order. Once there, the storm created by the leviathan’s Territory got to the point even whirlpools were being created, spawning even larger tentacles.

“Transform into your dragonewt form. Flying with this weather is a sure way to get you killed.” I nodded and did as Tehmrayn wanted.

[Humanize (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Once I was small again, Tehmrayn gestured for me to jump on his back. Now in a piggyback ride, I curled my tail around his torso to hold onto him tightly, before holding onto Jethro for him as he used his [Hydrokinesis] to slide on the water like a jetski.

The waters were tulmultuous from not only the heavy drizzle but the random whirlpools turning into water cyclones. This was a whole bloody monsoon. With the tentacles also attacking us, Tehmrayn seemed even more focused than usual to get us through this. Then again, he wasn’t usually communicative anyways.

[“I’m sorry for asking, but how did they get on the island?! I saw Ghorush at the port fighting one of the naval commanders. How did they get passed all the defenses and traps you and Master set up?”] Still, my confusion about all of this wouldn’t stop me. I needed to ask.

Surprisingly, he answered, [“You saw it for yourself. We didn’t account for the fact the enemy might have a void-touched with them. [Space-Time Magic] can even bypass that restricted shrine barrier, which I presume you might have figured out considering you’re used to its spells. It doesn’t matter how rare void-touched are, this is a major mistake on my part. Depth Goddess, forgive me.”]

[Warp Point] probably wouldn’t have worked since I couldn’t place the exit on the other side of the portal, but that didn’t mean [Space-Time Magic] wouldn’t have worked. There was a reason why it was called “space-time,” as I proved to myself with [Room] and the nexus teleportation. I didn’t know how the Yanderu did it exactly per se, but if I could figure out fast travel, others could also.

From the looks of it, the amulet that skull mask leader used probably was the catalyst for it, similar to how I used Grimnir’s runes to establish my nexus teleportation. Even then, I was nowhere near an expert in this. The lack of materials to read and the fact that even Master couldn’t help much proved to be a challenge for me.

But, more importantly… Plesia, huh? God Yeostar, I—

<Do not be, Hestia. This isn’t your fault.>

H-Huh, but this was one of the problems I had to stop, right? Won’t Karhalantheel be freed at this rate?

<It is as you say, but your Quest is to prevent the destruction of my blood. Nothing else. Whether Karhalentheel was freed or not was not the issue. However, I know you’re worried about what Erithia mentioned. Banish that idea, I shall deal with that woman. After all, as a god, I cannot blame you mortals for everything.>

He saw right through me. I still remembered how much that Aurena-Simp Goddess was ready to scold me about everything. Just being in her presence felt more suffocating than when I first met Kramps. She did warn me to protect the seal, so I thought the next time I visited Yeostar’s divine realm, she would appear and lecture me. As the Goddess of Wealth and Nobility, guess she was as haughty as one, too.

<I lost track of Ghorush when the high ogre at the port blasted him away. He probably made his way to the island with the skull mask and space-time magic. I should have anticipated something like this from how much he lingered around Jethro. Never asked many questions, he just listened. Still, this is my Quest. Even if I cannot inform you of everything per the rules, I should have at least warned you of him! Forgive me, Hestia, I am a failure of a god.>

Wha-What?! Hey, hey, don’t say that about yourself, jeez! One mistake, it was just one mistake.

<It is fine. I know when to take responsibility for my actions. I’ll handle the repercussions of this, so meet up with your mother. If that damnable monster is coming out, then the only one left to stop him is the only other SS rank currently in this land. I need to inform her on how to defeat him, so please meet up with her, now! Also, watch out for those tentacles. The suction cups can spawn drowned — water undead.>

Got it!

Suffice to say, Yeostar’s warning came into play the moment we made it far enough to see the ships. The tentacles were assaulting the vessels like a kraken from a pirate movie, wrapping itself around while skeletons and rotting merfolks were pushed on board through its suction cups.

[“Leave this to me!”] I told Tehmrayn.

[“Holy mage for an undead extermination. Finish it quickly. I will lead the boats back to shore.”]

There were nine ships and he wanted to “lead them back to shore?” Crazy, but this guy was a Champion, after all. My senior in this case, also. If he said he could do it, then I better believe him and leave him to work.

[“However, do not use your Territory.”]

I nodded. As useful as my Territory was, using it while an enemy one was up was just suicide. The rebound of losing a Territory dispute meant you had to take in all the arcane corruption from its usage. Seeing how large this Territory was, it most likely was using a lot of mana.

Halo of Consecration. Uhm, let’s play The Heir of Hope! Prioritize survivability.

[Shield of the [Light]] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“In the midst of the desert ♫

A bright ray of light shines ♫

Pure and brave, that she was, as she walked ♫

She was the ideal for me ♫

The bringer of children’s smiles ♫

Alas, the world seemed bleaker without her ♫”

I handed Jethro back to Tehmrayn and jumped off his back onto the closest ship, noticing two knights leading the front. Mercs and sailors were helping, but with the ship in danger and the undead pouring out as if a lich was around, it was just a matter of time before everything turned into the Titanic.

This was a nightmare scenario.

“Woah!” The boat was rocking like crazy from the monsoon. Flying was dangerous with how the wind was moving, so I decided to ditch my wings with another [Humanize] and began using [Air Walk] and [Tailwind] to control my balance.

Considering the intensity of the storm, I had to amp up the volume a bit more, spending more mana so people could start hearing my song. The moment I saw a bright veil appear on the bodies of the fighters, I couldn’t help but smile a bit.

Can’t stop now. Need to hurry! Spark Crescent!

Taking out my glaive, I charged into the mix with [Sanctified Blaze: Halo of Consecration] blasting waves of white flames at the undead. Purifying them with impunity as I began to cleave them down like a reaper. All of them were Rank E, so they weren’t even worth the experience to fight, but I had to do this in the most economical way possible.

“Sir Knight, I have buffed you with holy fire and sacred light! Listen to my song, and fight these things back! I’ll take care of the tentacle!” I called out before using my glaive to shoot out fire bullets.

““Y-Yes, Princess!”” They responded immediately after recovering from my sudden appearance.

“Not ‘Princess!’ I am here as a Champion! I’m sorry for being late. Let us drive these things away from your home!”

““… Our swords are yours! Mercs, soldiers, if you want to live, follow us! Drive these things back for the Champion to slay the beast!””

2 human have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total followers of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 14711

Good thing they still remember my appearance. Thank goodness I announced that ultimatum to everybody, not only the grimgarians. Now…

My eyes locked onto the tentacle. The floor and walls were creaking from the pressure, and the torrential rain was blocking my sight. They wouldn’t regenerate, but this was still a race against time.

Gale Steps! Hellblade Edge!

After drinking some dragorade to help me stave off the arcane corruption and get some mana regeneration, I poured mana into my catalyst and ignited the scale-dust stored in my weapon. Made using my own body parts, this glaive was just like my tail — a severing blade from the inferno.

With it burning white, I also ignited my tail simultaneously. Unless I allowed it, not even the fiercest torrents or the most harrowing cold could extinguish them. Once I reapplied my buffs on myself, I charged forward.

Spark Crescent!

Stomping and putting my back into it at the moment of impact, I sliced off a piece of the tentacle before twisting my body in to kick the air. With the momentum, I landed right at the thickest part of the appedange and used my tail to sever it completely from the ship. Takoyaki, done.

[“Tehmrayn!”]

[“Done! Next!”]

““W-Woah!”” The people onboard almost fell as Tehmrayn materialized chains made from water to pull the whole ship by himself.

“Exterminate the rest! Champion Tehmrayn will bring you back to the harbor!” I informed everybody to ease them up.

“““YEEEEAAAAH!””” Hearing me say that and seeing the tentacle fall into the sea, the crewmates roared out their excitement before continuing their frenzy.

61 human and beastman have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total followers of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 14772

With a wide smirk, I blasted myself to the next ship with [Wind Blast] and my rocket boosters, continuing the same thing for five more ships. Every time I would do the same: ease their worries, play my song, and then kill off the tentacle. Sadly, the tentacles didn’t give any exp at all, and the undead were worthless as fodder.

Still, even with my belly getting more and more filled with dragorade, to the point I wanted tovomit, I endured it all to blast the music up! I kept my flames burning brightly, even breathing out white [Hellflame Breath] at other ships for emergency healing. When I had the time, I would put down [Sacred Field] for the final patch-up. After all, unless the flames were on me, they could be extinguished.

479 human and beastman have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total followers of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 15251

The mission was to free them all and make sure no one died. That was why I had to keep [The Heir of Hope] blasting. The more allies who could hear it, the stronger the barrier would become. A larger barrier meant more extra Health to keep people alive.

With Tehmrayn eliminating any tentacle as they spawned and keeping the ships together, I jumped over to the last four ships, only to see I didn’t have to. The saurians and Master had already handled it all.

“Hey, hey, took you a while!” Krim-Slak waved at me with his dinosaur head, grinning as he tore off a piece of the tentacle to eat. “Mind cooking this thing for me? Had enough rations!”

Haaa, this idiot.

“Ha ha ha ha! Relish, humans and beastmen, for this is the power of Xohulotel! God of Serpents and Saurians! Give thanks to the Depth Goddess for not dying today! Ha ha ha ha ha!” A lone velociraptor mage cheered maniacally as his army of water dinosaurs destroyed everything on the remaining ships.

… Nah, Master is even more of an idiot.

With everyone safe, Master and Tehmrayn teamed up as they drove the ships back to the harbor, helping everybody avoid the whirlpools and tsunamis created from all of this. Although drenched and cold, I kept on drinking more and more dragorade. I had to keep my resource regeneration up, especially since it didn’t seem like I could level up from these weak fodder!

48 human and beastmen followers lost

Total follower count updated. Total followers of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 15203

Once at the port, we noticed the situation there wasn’t any better. Tentacles and hordes of undead were invading the harbor town. I could see some grimgarians in the distance, but what also caught my eye were two combatants — Sis and Chahayat.

“Run, you damn rats! Run! A damn B rank dares to fight me?!” Neill roared on top of a building while holding up the head of an ogre. The purple highlights on her hair and scales were shining brightly, not to mention the visible mana paths on her body.

She had to be using [Battle Frenzy].

“Capture them!” On the other side, Chayat was strutting around inside his water giant with over 60 enemies stored in its aqua body. They probably drowned there.

It wasn’t in the perfect state, but I was relieved things got cleaned up despite the mess the Yanderus caused us. We really were played like a fiddle.

“KuuuuUuuUUUUUUUURRRRR!”

“Huh?!”

The roar… it just sounded louder than before. Enough for everybody to hear from here, despite him being trapped on the island.

“KUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHH!”

And that was when it happened — a single giant appendage burst from the ocean near the island, large and long enough compared to the [Heaven’s Sword] I cast. Then, another appeared from the other side of the place, before another deep, booming growl appeared.

“KuuuuuuuUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHH!”

The island… it was breaking apart before my very eyes. Even from here, where it looked merely like a pebble, I noticed it crumbled into the ocean as more appendages appeared. Just like that, it disappeared into the ocean… only to be replaced by something else in the distance.

At first, I thought it was just an island, then it became larger and larger until I noticed it opening up to reveal a set of humongous teeth, to the point they looked like the size of cars from here. I took a step back as more of its head revealed itself from the ocean. Not long thereafter, it rose its scaled head out of the water, flapping its numerous fins and hard-looking carapace around.

If the leviathan I met in Belzac forest was more like a crocodile, then this was your authentic and classic serpentine giant. The dragons of the sea. With four large, bulging fish eyes, the beast barred its maw out to roar, only to reveal something like a kraken inside its mouth. It wiggled around, trying to grab the raindrops outside before it closed its mouth, staring down at us with a regal, alien-like posture.

About the size of Mother, this gigantum monster was long enough to make skyscrapers look tiny. A giant even larger than the Belzac leviathan, it felt like I was an insignificant ant in his wake. From the looks of all the people around me, it seemed I wasn’t the only one.

[“Karhalantheel. Remember it as I wash your lives away, descendants of the warrior.”]

Aloof, cold, as if its voice wanted to consume my mind. The sight of this creature in this monsoon… terrifying. I couldn’t even properly see its face in this darkness.

[“The world has changed since I was imprisoned. Origin Gods? I see… we have gods in this world now. Kargryxmor is gone… all my rivals, as well. I am… alone… in this depth. Be honored, you will become my first servants. Serve thy Emperor, plankton. But, first… a deal, is a deal. I keep my word. So, embrace me now, children. I shall grant thee mercifu—”]

[“You will be fertilizer for this land and its children.”]

Neutral Territory detected! [Fimbulvetr] has been activated! Foreign Territory Dispute detected in the area

Plip plip plip… plip… plip…

The sound of the rain… it suddenly stopped falling on me, however, it was immediately replaced by a chill. I glanced around, only to notice the sky slowly turning whitish-gray, all while everything in sight began to dazzle for some reason. Looking closer, I saw the raindrops having been frozen in place.

The whirlpools in the seas began to slow down until their colors changed into snow-white. Even the sea was freezing before my eyes. The tentacles, having no source to spawn from, meekly froze up and fell on the ground and sea, crushing even the undead they spawned. This was unlike the Territory Dispute I had with Tehmrayn, this was a true battle between auras, one meant to kill the other the moment one side lost.

“Mother!” I turned around as I noticed a signal closing in.

Mother slowly walked up to the harbor as everybody stared at her in awe. Everything about her was exuding sheer cold, too dangerous for anybody to touch. [“Leave it to me, dear. This is my battle… the new generation should show this ancient scale he isn’t needed anymore!”]

She was raring to go! Her body was already exuding mana clouds.

“No, wait, I need to tell you something! God Yeostar has—” However, I was too late.

[“Tell me when you’re done with everything else, dear. This senile old man’s Territory is causing trouble everywhere. Unless you want the city to fall, you should help the front gates. Also, go meet up with your friend Amelia already. She’s been stuck in the arena without you to teleport her… save her before those thugs arrive.”]

“W-What?! Arck!”

“KRAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

A gust of wind blew against me and everybody around, sending us flying away as the mana cloud dissipated. Even with my eyes closed, I could see a shadow suddenly appear above me, darkening my sight. I opened them up, only for my chest to suddenly feel more … chilled out.

Mother…

In her entire splendor. Glistening, diamond-like scales exuding elegance and regality at the same time. Her silver powder began raining down on us like snow, and even if a single one touched our skin, it felt like it could freeze up our entire bloodstream in one go.

Her size was as always titanic. Seeing her back in her form after our trip into the dimension breach was a comforting sight. A being probably taller than the Empire State Building in New York was about to face something almost as gigantic.

[“… I see the world has not abandoned all its strength in the bosom of these gods.”]

[“Then, allow me to show it to you, ancient scale.”]

Her silver dust began to harden up her outer layer, hardening it up to the point it began to glisten like ice. The very rain froze at her command, congregating into a giant frozen claymore with her [Cryokinesis].

[“Pleeeeeeaaaaaseeee!”] He smirked. “Kuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhh!”

“Kraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

In a flash, the battle between two SS ranks began.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 354: Feels like a Kaiju and Zombie Movie all mixed together.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #4 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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“Kuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh!”

“Kraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

Mother was above me one second and clashing with the leviathan in the next, creating a massive shockwave with the force of the blow. Another tsunami was created from this attack, ripping right through the ice sheets Mother’s Territory created, but fortunately Tehmrayn jumped forward and swung his trident down, forcefully stopping the tsunami before it hit the shores. Gently twirling his trident afterwards as if he was turning a valve, the tsunami slowly went back into the sea, revealing the real show in the distance.

Ice and water ravaged the skies and sea as dragon and leviathan engaged each other with claws and fangs. While the leviathan relied solely on its body, Territory, and the water around to attack with, Mother wasn’t just using her draconic abilities but also spells. Was the leviathan not a mage? Well, he was sealed before the Origin Gods brought the System, so he probably never had the chance to learn; in that case, Mother should be able to close the gap. Then again, I had no idea, since I couldn’t appraise either of them at this distance.

Regardless, their battle was pretty fierce due to the whole scale of the conflict. Mother was pushing the leviathan further away from the city, but it wasn’t like she had this in the bag. Both sides were taking some rather heavy damage, to the point I felt antsy watching her fight like this. I had to deliver Yeostar’s information to her!

“Hey, Sis! Yo!”

I snapped my head around, unable to calm down, only to notice the tentacles spawning again! Not only that, but Mother’s Territory was also affecting everything around us, turning any inanimate object her snow touched into frozen popsicles. This was just like during my training, as the whole area was looking more and more like a frozen fortress.

“Neill?” I saw her running over to us.

“Yes, me, snap out of it! This isn’t over yet, their Territories will continue clashing against each other until one of them dies. Your Mother can’t focus on its precision this far away from the fight, so the tentacles will continue spawning,” she informed me, explaining why the tentacles were spawning again. “Come on, we can’t do anything. Trying to join a fight between two SS ranks will only slow the Sixth Empress down. We need to do what we can do.”

“…” I felt conflicted on this matter, so I had to ask Yeostar on how urgent it was to inform Mother about Karhalantheel’s weakness.

<Urgent, of course. Melloxtressa is strong, but she still is a level zero SS rank. Karhalantheel is level 14. Just to put it in context to a humanoid’s level system, he is level 364 while your mother is 350.>

Pffffffffffu! WHAT?!

<Rank B level limit is 45. Rank A is 75. To evolve as an S rank, you need to reach level 150. As you might have guessed, the higher your rank, the more experience you need to level up. Not to mention, he lived and fought in an era foes around his strength were more frequent. He is currently wounded, unable to recover from the injuries I inflicted on him. Right now, those two should be equal, but I do not wish to leave this to Ilsaphone’s fate weaving.>

Fate weaving? So she is a fate-based goddess! … Or maybe he’s talking about death and such? Arck, I dunno!

“Heeeelp!!!”

12 human followers lost

Total follower count updated. Total followers of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 15191

My mind snapped back to reality as a giant tentacle suddenly swung down in the distance, killing at least twelve people. Neill was right, the situation hadn’t changed yet. The city was still in danger!

“We should move!” Master announced before pointing at the city. “Fantastic display of strength there, my apprentice. [Heaven’s Sword], a level eight System spell! I cannot help but be proud of you… However, I don’t think anybody would sit still after seeing that in the distance.”

Cannonfire, I could hear loud cannonfire through all this rain. From this angle, I couldn’t really see anything going out outside of some trebuchet shots hitting the barrier around the city. However, with how often I could hear the cannons firing, the siege sounded like it was intensifying.

“Well, that was the plan, elder scale,” Neill replied in my place. “Still, I thought you were only planning on using [Heaven’s Sword], Hestia! Did you have to drop down a flame meteor on the world! Did you try to scare grimgarians? Ogres aren’t known for being cowardly!”

Neill seemed to be complaining, but even amongst all the shouting, I could see a faint smile. It did feel strange how the saurians and Neill just became my followers when I dropped the nuke, but I guess strength was admirable. To another dragon, strength was often more important than appearances and bloodline.

“Go.” I turned around to see Tehmrayn handing Jethro over to a panicking knight. “Leave the coast to me. By the Depth Goddess, we will win this day, so make sure that Larent doesn’t fall in battle before he can contribute. We have a boss monster raid before us.”

He stared at the giant leviathan fighting with Mother in a veil of thunderstorms, tornados, and blizzards. That was the last boss for this siege.

“Gather up all the strategic combatants. Assure the city is safe. Make sure your Divine Quest won’t fail. Champion Hestia, I will rely on your strength.” Seeing Tehmrayn speak so formally with me made my body jerk up for a moment, seeing how aloof his treatment of me was.

I straightened up my back, held my head high, and then replied with full confidence. “Yes, of course, Champion Tehmrayn. Leave it to me!”

“Outstanding.” He turned around to stop a tsunami, only to continue as if nothing happened. “If you find those krill eaters, shout. The seas do not forget slights against them.”

I just nodded.

Imagine stopping a tsunami that easily… besides, I think you have to share your prize. There is someone else who wants to meet Ghorush more than you.

Considering the situation, I pumped up the volume to the point the whole port could hear [The Heir of Hope]. Twelve of my fans just died ‘caused I made it quiet to talk to the others while saving up mana. Twelve! Not to mention how many others could have been spared if I had just given my all! Pathetic, just pathetic.

I need to work harder! I have more Mana than most people, just what am I doing with all of it?!

Neill, Master, the saurians, and a few of the city’s knight went into action as I sprinted towards the cries of help. The undead Drowned, ranging from bloated to skeletal and merfolk to humans, were terrorizing the soldiers and adventurers in their endless march. Every time one fell, another would replace its spot. Even if the living wiped out a ton with the mages and priests, the tentacles would just spawn more.

White flames quickly handled these obstacles with ease, and with the appearance of our group and the knights, morale was raised once again. With my barrier protecting them and granting them bonus stats, the soldier went back into the fight mostly re-energized after my flames healed them. Unfortunately, this didn’t affect everybody, as some of the people were still cowering despite all of this.

I asked some of the soldiers and adventurers about them. Before we arrived, even before we reached the harbor, swarms of these undead had already made their way into the camp. People were swarmed and consumed by the ravenous flood of drowned, shrieking cries the recently conscripted had never heard before. Most of the affected were the militia, civilian support staff, and the younger holy mages. I could hear most of them crying out for Aurena’s help…

However, this was Peolynca. The gods couldn’t directly intervene…

<Hestia, listen to me. The tentacles at the gates are swarming the garrison and soldiers at the walls. Meanwhile, the grimgarians are bombarding the barrier with everything they got to tear it down. Even expending their mages to accelerate the process. It will hold for now, but now a group of them is aiming for the port. In addition, more are swarming around the arena. Whatever deal Karhalantheel mentioned must have something to do with the demonkins.>

Wait, the arena, too?! Shit! Amelia! That’s what Mother meant! Wait, that’s your arena, right? So can’t you do something about that, God Yeostar?

<… You know the rules. I cannot— No, wait, I can. Markval. I can delay them for you— No! The skull masks have reappeared, but their leader isn’t around. That leonid, however, is leading them! They are entering the arena with the drowned! Hestia, the gates and arena are in danger, not to mention the people at the port. I… I need you to hold on for me. Delay them!>

Delay? For what? Reinforcements?

<… In a way, yes. And also something else.>

… W-Wait, are you supposed to say that? What reinforcements are coming? And what do you mean by ‘something else?’ This is kind of ominous.

<As I said before, leave the repercussions to me. I am a Warrior-King, not just a god. My descendants need not ‘Yeostar,’ but… Hestia, go! I request you to aid me in the protection of my people’s city.>

What is this sudden shift in your… No, that’s not important here. We need to save people first, you’re right! Yes, of course, that is my aim here, God Yeostar!

After we pushed the undead out of the camp, I called out to Neill and Master.

“Undead are flooding the gates from inside the city! The arena isn’t safe either! We need to go, but a group of grimgarians is about to attack the port!”

““What?!”” They expressed their shock at this sudden info, prompting me to explain what Yeostar told me.

Sadly, Yeostar didn’t know how many grimgarians were coming or if there was a B rank amongst them all not. His vision was probably restricted to the people on the wall. Since we had three places to be at, we had to divide our forces as such.

“Then, allow me to continue this job on behalf of Sir Jethro. The warriors here already know us well enough,” Master suggested, and Sis and I agreed to it. “However, we need information. Hestia, could you call over Rajah?”

I nodded and took out my party bracelet and opened up the tamer menu.

Tamer System

[Tamed Monster List]

[Tamed Experience Share]

[Tamer Guild]

Tamed Monster List.

Number of Tamed Monster: 1

[Young Monochrome Virigress, Rajah]

Rajah. Command. Return to Owner.

From previous usages, I discovered that the Tamer System does not send a magically enforced order to Rajah, but rather only a message. There was no way in this System to force tamed monsters to obey their master’s orders, but thankfully, I didn’t have to with my little guy. After a couple of minutes probably, I noticed a new signal suddenly appearing out of nowhere.

Looking over, I noticed Rita over there, only for Rajah to jump out of her shadow and jump up onto me. With a loud [“Master!”], he snuggled his blood drenched face on me, acting like the spoiled little cat I knew.

[“I knew you would come back! Master!”] I tightened my grip, unable to stop smiling widely. [“Master! Master! I did as Master Saori and you taught me! Patience, stalking, and then ambush! I even listened to Master’s Master and went reconnaisant— Uhm, yes, that word!”]

“Good boy, that’s what I want to hear for my future B rank virigress!” I praised him and corrected him by telling him how to say ‘reconnaissance,’ before looking back at Rita. “Good work, Rita. I heard from Neill you did a lot. I know you don’t like fighting.”

“… Well, it’s plenty alright.” Rita looked a bit tired, proving to me how unsuited she was to war. “Just promise you tell me what happened with you and the Empress. Your disappearance piqued my interest. Urgh.”

Rita then shivered and crossed her arms, trying to warm herself up. Mother’s Territory reduced the overall temperature to the point you could see your white breath. With the cold rain, it did make things pretty uncomfortable, if it weren’t for all the sweat and action of war warming us up.

In any case, I gave Rita and Rajah a general summary of what I heard from Yeostar and how Master needed their report on the forces. They explained there were three B ranks — two high ogre and one troll. Six blue-skinned hobgoblins were with them, in addition, to two battalions worth of heavy cavalry on the back of those three-horned rhinoceroses — gwunceros.

“Divide and conquer!” Master exclaimed. “They want to take over the port as quickly as possible, believing a good chunk of us are exhausted. The three B ranks are insurance, but how will they fare with us here? The shame of being underestimated!”

“Ha, even without the lass, we can take them out ourselves! Akasht, let us beat them down in Xohulotel’s name!” Krim-Slak fist bumped himself, showing no signs of exhaustion despite participating in the naval battle.

“Kruuuuuuuuuuooooh!” Akasht growled.

The green-scaled Grazlatha quickly chimed in, trying to dissuade the two gung-ho warriors, “You two should lower your damn tails. These are still three B ranks we have to deal with. With how skilled the ones we fought up until now, you can’t just wave them aside. Two well-trained heavy cavalry and six mages; even Kush will have trouble with those numbers.”

“Ha ha ha ha! What nonsense!” Master smirked. “Have you forgotten I still have [Tehenhuin]. I am a strategic combatant, after all, my friends. I cannot allow my apprentice to overshadow her Master so soon.”

Fluttering his robes as he turned around to the gathered knights, staring at all of them with those zealous eyes he showed during a battle or whenever we were spared. “Have you heard that, men and women of Yeos! Grimgarians are charging towards the port, aiming to trap us inside and lead a two-pronged attack on your fellow nobles and the common people! A hammer and anvil… but you will allow that to happen?”

“““No!””” The knights loudly proclaimed to my surprise. When did they build a rapport?

“Your Sir Jethro was nearly assassinated by the enemy on the island, causing the liberation of the SS rank Karhalantheel! However, Kargryx — the dragons are here to protect you! However, will you just watch and let the empress and her princesses solve everything alone? Will you watch as Sir Alistar protects the city until his end?”

“““No!”””

“Good! Now, for Xohulotel. For Yeostar! For your Prince! For your lives!” Master raised his arm up. “Who will follow me into battle?!”

“““THE KNIGHTS OF YEOS!””” The knights shouted before they took out their gargoyles, organizing themselves into an elite group of mage knights.

“““For YEOSTAR!!!””” Even the soldiers were caught by Master’s overwhelming presence, leading and inspiring the people. He was truly a saint.

Master would find a way to shelter those unable to fight, telling us we had to focus on the rest of the fight instead of protecting them. Neill and I nodded, while Rajah and Rita joined in the protection of the port. With the plan settled, I handed over as many of my bombs as possible, telling them to use them liberally.

“Then…” Master and the saurians all nodded before kneeling down before me, leaving me speechless. “It has been a long-time coming, Princess Hestia.”

Formal?!

“You asked us in the past if we would become your followers. We declined since we couldn’t join your party. However, this isn’t the time for pride any longer.” Master and the saurians lowered their heads in my respect. “Princess Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor, allow us to serve you as your retainers! Allow us to join you under your wings and become stronger for you!”

… After thinking about it for a moment, I understood what they meant by that. As terrible as a war was, just like when I dropped a nuke, this was the perfect time to time level and train your skills. The amount of people around meant you could level up like crazy. Meaning, my increased experience share and skill point System would have the most value now.

How could I reject them?

[Raptorsilian, Kushlek’zar], [Carnosilian, Krim-Slak], [Carnosilian, Grazlahta], [Sarcosilian, Akasht] have received the title [Hestia’s Retainer]

“Then … Master, Krim, Grazlahta, Akasht. Your first order, protect the port city until we return with help!”

“Our tails are yours! Zahala’teel garusch Xohulotel! Hisch’kaneel Plesia mefhi’kushtel za!” All of them shouted “Beware the might of Xohulotel! In her grace’s name, Plesia, we bring down justice!” This was the Depth Serpent’s catchphrase and warcry!

With the port under reliable hands, Neill and I fought our way through hordes of undead and tentacles towards the arena, as a way to take some pressure from Master’s hand. Once inside the city, we grimaced at how much the tentacles had already destroyed the city. The houses of the lower city were demolished, to the point it looked like a junkyard to me.

I could still see houses in the distance, probably inside the merchant or noble district. Without the houses blocking the sight, it actually looked like the drowned were a tidal wave of rotten flesh, bones, and creepy growls in a winter wonderland. Mother’s ice was turning everything into a frozen wasteland at this point. The Drowned were heading in two directions — the wall and the arena.

81 human and beastmen followers lost

Total follower count updated. Total followers of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 15110

Another message appeared, which I presumed was just a summary of all the people who had died. Otherwise, that message would appear every time a single person died. That would be inconvenient as hell, as harsh as it was to say. Hearing and reading about a fan dying felt like a mental attack.

Boosting the volume even louder, Neill and I took to the skies before diving right into the horde of zombies. Just like at the port, leaving so many of them in action would only worsen our jobs for later. As such, on our way to our two destinations, we would take down as many as possible.

Thankfully, the both of us had the perfect kits and synergy to do this.

“Take them down, Sis!” I pointed at the tentacles as I flapped my wings, releasing enough scale-dust around me to form a veil. With a simple snap of my fingers, purifying flames cleansed these lands of these fiends.

“Alright, support me!” Meanwhile, Neill targeted the tentacles exclusively, using her far superior single-damage attacks to blast through anything my AOE attacks couldn’t take down in one hit.

AOE and single damage; those two roles divided amongst ourselves to bring out our full potential. Neill had some long-range mass area attacks also, but she understood I could do it better and faster than her, while I knew I didn’t need to spend mana on my stronger attacks since Neill could just punch right through everything.

Number one rule for a strategic combatant during a war was to conserve Health, Mana, and Stamina. Potions were finite, and, sometimes, the enemy wouldn’t allow you to rest and recuperate. This was a lesson I had to learn the hard way when I unloaded everything with my nuke.

I still needed to rest, since there was no sun, so letting Neill go ham while I gave her support was how we could fight to our best. Unlike with my Aurora members, I didn’t need to be a tank here, not when Neill could rampage even better than I could. It brings the supportive build I had out to its fullest.

“Jump! I’ll take care of the fodder!” I ordered Neill before shooting a [Banishment Beam] at an approaching wave.

Neill jumped up with [Dragoon Dive] to land an axe kick onto a nearby tentacle, even rupturing the ground and causing it to explode with her dragon paths. With the path cleared to the arena, Neill and I clapped our hands and separated from here.

“The arena is separated into four sections! Find the stairs to where the medical wards are!” Neill informed me before we departed.

<… Hurry, they broke through into the third layer. The people are alive due to my arena’s special ability to keep anybody with an arena bracelet from falling to zero Health, but you can still pry them off! I gave Markval admin rights to the arena’s defenses, but the skull masks have almost reached the fourth layer! That’s where the blood is!>

Yeostar sounded desperate. It must be going much worse than I thought.

Having to fight an organized force sucks so much! Amelia, stay safe!

I cleaved through any undead in my way, ignoring the tentacles for the moment. Once at the arena, I breathed fire to empty out the entrance for me to enter, noticing once I was in how the undead couldn’t follow me at all. They were blocked from entering by an invisible barrier.

<… Space-Time Magic. One of the refugees accepted was a foreigner, and also a skull mask. Otherwise, none with ill will should have been able to enter. I closed the breach. No more would enter, but the number is staggering. The only way to expunge them… is through death, Goddess Plesia had never allowed me to implement an ejection function.>

Clicking my tongue at this fact, I shook my head and searched for the stairs, only to find not a single zombie around me. The whole first layer was completely devoid of life and unlife. I followed Yeostar’s instruction, but what eventually led me to them was the sound and screams of men and women.

Following them and descending down the stairs, my eyes shot wide open as I saw the horde of zombies devouring the people before me. No, the people weren’t even dead, the damn beasts were eating them alive, all while they cried out in agony. The bracelets weren’t letting them die, healing them up, but this just created a torturous scene from hell!

<I placed limitations on the arena. I gave the bracelet the ability to prevent death because this was supposed to be a place for training! Honorable battle! B-But this… urgh, all these civilians. Suffering like this because I did not think of this loophole… Devouring them as if they were pigs. This is worse than death, at this point, mercy would be a peaceful end.>

“Grraauauuurk! Kill me! Ta— Guuuuuuuuuargjk! Take it off!”

“Nooo-ARK! Gaaieieeeeeerrrrrk!”

“S-Stoppppaarrrrrrrrrrrrrpt!”

Oh g-gods…?! Dammit! Dammit! DAMMIT!

[Battle Frenzy (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

[Hestia’s Retainer] has links for certain abilities from Titles: [Aelozonia’s Ambassador]. Seeking permission for activation… Individual [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has usurped ownership over [Aelozonia’s Ambassador]. Permission automatically granted… Intervention from Goddess Plesia. Usurpation rights activated. Overruling Supreme Administrative rights… declined. Usurpation rights activated. Overruling Supreme Administrative rights… declined. Usurpation rights activated. Overruling Supreme Administrative rights… declined. Usurpation rights activated. Overruling Supreme Administrative rights… declined. Usurpation rights activated. Overruling Supreme Administrative rights… declined. Usurpation rights activated. Overruling Supreme Administrative rights… declined. Usurpation rights activated. Overruling Supreme Administrative rights………… accepted! Permission granted by Goddess Plesia

“Hrrrk!”

With rage filling my mind, I slashed forward, sending out a stream of white flames at the horde of zombies. Locating the huge number of civilians with [Detection Sensor], I aimed at those spots with my flame bullets. I let the flame spread onto the zombies and had them wrap the civilians in their protective flare.

I activated [Halo of Consecration] and [Hellblade Edge] on my glaive. Like a lawnmower, anything resembling a damn undead was hacked and slashed, before I let the burner singe them into ash. I knew the third layer was in danger, even Amelia.

BUT WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO?! LEAVE THEM IN THIS DAMN HELL?!

YANDERU, IF I GET MY HANDS ON YOU! KAHALANTHEEL! I WILL TURN YOU INTO SASHIMI AND ARMOR! I WILL WEAR YOU LIKE A TROPHY AFTER ALL OF THIS IN DONE!

Kriffiek kllk gaaung!

After calming my mind down with my [Battle Frenzy] activation phrase, I used [Flashfire] to dash around as if I was teleporting, accelerating this process as much as I could without hurting the people around me. I could [Dreadflare Aura], yes, I could burn all of them down since the civilians couldn’t die… but I couldn’t do it. They would still feel the pain and my bleeding heart just couldn’t.

Dammit!

Eventually I managed to help everybody I could, but I didn’t feel any better as despite not even losing a limb, none of the people here were okay. The trauma of what happened caused them to even fear me. Should I help them here with my songs? [The Heir of Hope] was playing, but I had to go down right now.

Mana Eyes.

Effect: [Terror (Minor)] [Fear (Minor)]

[The Heir of Hope] could only work if there was something big and scary around or if anybody listening to my song had either of those status abnormalities. Just listening to this song meant those two couldn’t rise above the minor stage. It was good, sure, but the people around me weren’t acting any different. They were too scared.

Unfortunately, I had to move on. I kept the music as loud as possible to soothe everybody’s minds, but I had to save the others. I had to protect the blood and all the other people in need of help!

Once I made it to the third layer, I darted my head around, as I noticed it wasn’t a simple room like before. It was actually an entire battlefield! Looking at the familiar castle in the distance, I could only conclude this was the Battlefield of Schrade simulation! Was this what Yeostar meant by giving Markval “admin rights?”

<Hurry! There isn’t much time left! To the castle, now!>

I transformed back into my dragon form and blasted forth with my rocket boosters and [Overload], along with any other speed boosting spells I had.

[Various Spell Buffs] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

On the way, I noticed large black craters and black harpoons stuck on the ground. Undead bodies were littered everywhere, blanketing the ground, making it look like the bodies of soldiers. The castle’s defenses most likely were activated, however, since it was firing anything anymore, the damn undead and skull masks already made their way through all of this.

Dammit, did I waste— Arck, no! I didn’t waste any time. I saved lives. Think positive!

Once I was close enough, I noticed archers in the castle shooting arrows down at the horde of undead swarming into the place. Seeing the castle’s bridge down and the barrier protecting the place not on, it was likely one of them had an arcane trickster or dark mage. Just like during the battle royale, a [Shadow Dash] could bypass the barrier.

[Humanize (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Deciding against wasting time at the swarm at the gate, meaning I was leaving whatever soldier there to suffer through hell, I transformed into minor form for the extra stats and dived right into one of the castle’s windows. The soldiers were surprised at my appearance, but before they reacted, I [Flashfire]ed to the exit and moved towards where the VIPs and the stairs to the fourth layer were with Yeostar’s instructions.

While evading whatever soldiers who ran past me and cleaving down any undead, freeing the tormented soldiers there, I eventually made it to the basement. Swarmed beyond words, this was where I encountered the first skull mask. After I appraised him to make sure he was an enemy, I sliced his head right off before he could speak or react.

Experience has reached a breaking point. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Main Job [Champion of Aurena] has risen from [Level 4] to [Level 5]

Level 51. C rank. Not a threat! Hellflame Breath!

While [Dreadflare Aura] just send out a massive heatwave out of my body, [Hellflame Breath] were just flames. I could change it to my holy flames to make sure I wasn’t burning anybody. At the same time, I suddenly remembered I could have used my newly remixed [Dragon Fire] and [Dreadflare Aura] in conjunction. Protected by the song, nobody would have been burned!

Shit! Think better! I cursed myself at being unable to handle the stress of what I saw. If I had just allowed myself to think for a second, I would have figured it out sooner and made it sooner here.

“Huuuaarrrrk…”

“Gruk! Gruk! It’s o-over… Huek! Huek! Oh Goddess!”

“Kraaak… I-I… For his Majesty…”

Soldiers, knights, or even the simple nobles. None were spared by this zombie apocalypse. This was truly a Territory you could call cataclysmic. I turned around, looking up the stairs at the incoming zombies. I didn’t know what to do.

If I closed the doorway with [Terra Walls], I would block out any more zombies and stop the suffering of those I saved. However, what if somebody needed to escape into this place? Would I be condemning them to hell?

In the end, deciding I couldn’t anticipate the future of those I didn’t know, I closed the doorway. A hero would have saved everybody, but I wasn’t one. In that case, all I could do was save those I saw in the right place and right time.

I made my way through the stairs until I made it to the fourth layer, where the scenery changed once again. This time, everything around me was just a large, white cavern. With pillars and mosaic windows decorating this place, it had a sense of regalty, in addition to feeling like a place of worship.

Looking forward, I could see small hills of undead being scorched by white lasers and moving statues. Depicting the image of knights, Yeostar told me those were this holy place’s guardians. They were the eternal protectors of Yeostar’s blood; its last line of defense. They could be destroyed, but they would always regenerate.

<Strength-wise, they are around low B rank. You should be able to battle them both at the same time. That leonid… not only is he a master of martial weapons, but he is an experienced golem user.>

Couldn’t you have made stronger protectors, then?! S rank or something? They are supposed to protect this place.

<Hestia, this is still a dungeon. Back then, I followed Goddess Plesia’s rules, believing she was right. These golems were there to also act as the final trial before I accepted a candidate as my Champion. There is a limit to how strong these beings could be considering they could regenerate eternally unless you blocked their healing… Curses! Every one of my past decisions has been proven as mistakes! What sort of god am I?!>

Don’t get a midlife crisis while I’m here! You’re doing well, your followers love you! Instead of wallowing in your pain, help me! Help them!

<You are—>

Without letting him end his sentence, I dashed forward to slice down a few undead to help the knight golems, before I blasted right past them. Unlike the other two layers, this place was luckily not as crowded. Only a few undead made it past, and the rest of the intruders were skull masks.

They were engaging the remaining knights there, including any nobles forced to fight with their magic. Princess Anasthasia, Duke Alberstien, and even the unconscious Mother of Markval were here! Amelia, too!

[“Look AT ME!”] I shouted, using a mental attack to temporary stun them before swinging my glaive at the closest enemies.

“Wh-noooouerk?!”

“The lizar—IIeearck?!”

Experience has reached a breaking point. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Main Job [Champion of Aurena] has risen from [Level 5] to [Level 6]

Three skull masks in one go. They were all around the same levels as the previous guy.

“L-Lady Hestia?! Is that you?!” Amelia called out with slight hesitation after she cast [Wind Slash] to attack her assailant. Knowing she had never seen me in this form yet, I confirmed it, causing her dirt- and blood-riddled to beam a smile.

[“Sorry for being late! I’ll apologize to Duke Greenveil the moment we’re done! Help is here!”] I shouted before [Gale Steps]ing towards the group of skull masks and undead. Gripping my glaive even harder, I swu—

‘Back up!’ My parallel minds warned me in a collective fashion just as my [Enhanced Danger Sense] noticed an attack coming from below. I dodged back, only to see the ground where I stood shoot right up to the ceiling like [Terra Wall].

“Bravo!” I heard a familiar voice in front of me, which revealed itself to be Ghorush! “Fantastic reflexes.”

Clapping his hands, the treacherous leonid emerged from the ground as if it was water. With a smirk on his face, he looked down upon me with the eyes of a beast.

“Kraaaaaaaaah!” I roared the moment I saw that lion-maned beastman, before transitioning to [Telepathy] to spit out my insult in something he could understand. [“BASTARD! Why?! Why?! You damn Yanderus! You fucking piece of shit!”]

“Oho, I guess Eithalr was right ab— Woops.”

Metal clashed against metal as Ghorush protected himself from my thrust with his rapier before pushing me away almost too easily!

“Forgive me, but despite my new tuxedo and hat, I was still once a berserker of Carmaniate’s army. You might overpower me in Strength as a dragon, but when the playing field is leveled in your dragonewt form, do not expect it to go that way.” Ghorush lectured me. “The Yanderu Eluseuss are the best black mercenary company in the Empire, and I will make sure this reputation stays. This job is almost finished.”

[“FRRRRRAAAAURCK YOU!”] I shouted back to attempt a mental attack, unwilling to go at this democratically. [“Just like Eithalr! You do what you want, destroying people’s lives and sanity just for your damn goals! You reek! Damn it, you will pay for this!”]

While holding on his head with his spare hand, the leonid gave a strained smile as he endured my telepathic screaming. “Oh, and how many lives have you destroyed for your own—Woops! Allow me to talk!”

I wouldn’t have it. Once again, I jumped forward and tried to hit him, only for him to block my attack once again. Expecting this, I somersaulted over him and unleashed numerous projectile spells at him, forcing him back and having him use his golemancy to fend those spells off. None of them had magic circles; meaning, he had to be using a seal grimoire! No wonder he called himself a half-baked mage.

“Huhaha! Your spell casting is superior to your sister’s, but fighting you in melee would be a bore!” He taunted me despite me only using two thrusts. He was really talking shit to infuriate me! “However, can you truly only focus on me when that young prince and the blood is in danger?!”

[“What?!”]

<Hestia, the door! Markval is behind it!>

I snapped my head around, only to see three skull masks slip right through everybody’s eyes. They were right at an ornamental door and suddenly attached things on it, looking similar to the items Ghorush attached to the shrine walls to free the leviathan.

I wanted to dash forward, but couldn’t as Ghorush was suddenly up in my face with his rapier. I tried [Flashfire]ing away, but Ghorush just manipulated the flames around me with his golem, stretching me thin for places to “teleport” to!

“As I said!” Our weapons clashed once again. “As long as I am here, we Yanderu will be successful in our job. Next time, do hire us to fight against your enemies, yes~?”

Fucker!

“Stop them now!” I could hear Alberstien shouting. I could only hope he wou—

Booooooom!

—ld make it in time.

“Too late! Huhahahaha!” Ghorush wild laughter pierce through my music and the loud kaboom, before creating some distance from me to cast his golems.

I destroyed them easily enough and immediately ignored him once again to head to the door. I had to make it in time!

“S-Stop! I am Prince Markval Caimlace the Fifth! I am Prince Markval Caimlace the Fifth! Of Yeos! Remove yourself now, o-or I will execute you m-m-myself!” I could hear his voice behind the shroud of dust!

Noooo!

“Your Majesty!”

“Brother!”

Warp Point: Entry! Warp Poit—

“The gall to turn your back to me!”

“Krriek!”

I turned around just in time as Ghorush’s rapier nearly hit me.

Having had enough of this stinking cat, I activated [Dreadflare Aura] while playing [Dragon Fire] to blast him away from me. The surprise of that attack caught him off-guard and I managed to land a hit! The [Battle Frenzy] and [Humanize (Minor)] was actually working on him?!

“No! Stop it, that blood is not yours!” Markval screamed once again, forcing me to turn around now that Ghoursh was out for a few seconds. “AARRRRGKKKKKKKKK! URHK!”

“Gaaaauk! Damn brat!”

Warp Point: Exi—

“Stop!” His desperate voice.

Khish!

… It was the sound of broken glass, splintering.

No…

Just like Tehmrayn, another Champion failed their Divine Quest. I failed a Divine Quest. I… Why was I chosen as a Champion?

“Huhahaha!” Ghorush’s mind numbing laughter appeared from behind me. “A job well done!”

“…” The torturous sound of glass, and the deafening silence afterwards. The demonkins had won.

No, snap out of this! As long as his bloodline survives, we can still make new Champions of Yeostar! The Quest hasn’t ended yet! I need to protect the royal family. Markval! Warp Point: Exit!

Conjuring up the portal, I entered it to land right in front of the smoke veil, closing in the distance. However, the earth underneath me churned around and stone hands shot right from them. Another of Ghorush’s tricks!

Dammit, enoug—

“Air Shiver!”

As I was about to slash at these things, a green light suddenly appeared from behind the green smoke and shot right out, blowing everything out of its way, including those golem hands. I snapped my head around at the sound of metal clanking about with every step. A green, translucent flag suddenly appeared from within the room, waving any remaining dust and smoke away.

It was then raised up, reaching higher than the door frame. A knight in feathered armor with plumage so soft-looking, I thought they were made of silk. They were completely colored in lime green, while the rest of the blue-golden brown armor looked sleek despite how heavy the armor plates looked like. What sorta monsters were used in its creation?

“R-Royce?! Royce?!” Duke Alberstien exclaimed as the helmeted knight showed his full body appearance to us.

A wing flag was in his left arm while a familiar looking flamberge was in his right. Two spell rings were decorating his fingers while an amulet I thought I had seen before was around his neck.

“Brother!” Anasthasia called out.

Markval approached from behind, clutching onto a vial of dark red liquid. He was injured on his left leg and was carrying a blood dagger. His face was twitching from the pain, but he kept it together like a trooper.

“T-the blood of Yeostar is safe!” The young prince exclaimed, causing Ghorush’s eyes to widen this time. I turned around, not understanding how there was another person in the room. If he was there, Yeostar wouldn’t have hurried me.

“My name is—” The knight planted the flag down and pulled off his helmet before continuing speaking in that mascul— Woah, WTF?! “Rhea Renee Sealight! Daughter of Sir Royce, Champion of Yeostar! The flag of the true winds has been reborn in the ash and blood of war, once again granting Yeos the bountiful tailwinds of victory! In the name of my father and God Yeostar, the ‘Typhoon’s Rage Knight’ has returned!”

A note from AbyssRaven

The "Nothing personal" quote, but for good! Also, happy late turkey day. Gobble gobble.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 355: Rally for War.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #1 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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I had Hestia start in her minor dragonewt form due to feedback. I had changed this in the last chapter.

“S-Sealight?” Anasthasia mumbled Renee’s surname in surprise as the returned knight came out of the room and erected an [Air Shield] at its entrance to protect Markval.

Renee picked up her wing flag and held it up high while wielding her cumbersome flamberge. A weapon she normally two-handed was being twirled around as if it weighed nothing at all, and through my [Mana Eyes], I noticed mana streaming around her armor like a river. It wasn’t like manaweave clothing, which was just a giant mass of mana, but it was as if the mana was keeping the armor from falling apart.

“… I did not expect for the little prince to have a bodyguard in you.” Ghorush gazed at Renee’s face with great interest, to the point he didn’t seem hostile anymore. “Royce. I never had the honor to duel such a remarkable warrior. His deeds were known to many. Hmm. The irony, though. He had a daughter, and she was the one to pick up his legacy in service of the misogynistic Yeos.”

The helmet she took off suddenly broke into tiny pieces in the wind, before it flew over to her head. The breeze quickly swirled around her head and reassembled back into her helmet. This just answered my question. Looking a bit closer, I also noticed the mana was linked to her necklace. So the inheritance we helped Renee retrieve was her father’s armor.

<Tsk, that damn elf.>

Elf? I heard a rare curse from Yeostar, prompting me to ask him to elaborate on it.

<Istari. As I was not too proficient with the technical side of the dungeon when I first made it, I asked him for help. We had a bond after the Karhalantheel incident, after all. He helped me solve most of the algorithms and commands for the dungeon, which also included the creation of the arena bracelet. Just, the sly fox added a teleportation device inside the core room, which doubles as the blood creation room. Through Rhea’s eyes, I saw her access the teleportation room in Aleistunum’s possession.>

‘Rhea?’ So you knew Renee was Royce’s daughter all this time?

<Of course. Revealing this would have been more than a breach of privacy, no? The girl wanted to keep it a secret from everybody, even her closest friends. Royce’s “wife,” Rhea’s stepmother as such, even bought the same expensive ID model as yours to help the girl’s masquerade as a normal commoner. If you wish to learn who the father is, ask her yourself.>

No, no, I wasn’t condemning you for it. I just remembered Alistar asking for a woman called Rhea… Which now makes sense why the both of them knew each other so well. Makes me wonder if this mentor she talked about was also Royce—

Rhea Renee Sealight wishes to add you to her party

Accept Decline

? Accept.

Party Leader

Name: Rhea Renee Sealight Level: 88 Unique Job: Plumwind Squire

Name: Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor Level: 103

Main Job: Champion of Aurena Secondary Job: Ravager Unique Job: Locked

Unique Job?! She unlocked her unique job? When?! Also, where are her other Jobs?

“From the looks of it, I do not think I must ask whose side you are on. Ghorush, correct?” Renee responded and raised her sword to threaten him. “Surrender, and accept your punishment without dishonoring yourself even further.”

“Surrender?” Ghorush tilted his head. “Hmmm, but why, though? You might have tricked me with that glass break and killed three skull masks, but why should I give up now? There is only a single person in this room who I consider a threat, and it isn’t you. You aren’t Sir Royce, girl.”

“That may be so, but I don’t need to be my father to put up a fight when it is a two versus one. Lady Priestess!” Renee called out to me, and I nodded. Why she was here and how she got her Unique Job could be answered later!

<Hestia, stall him for a moment. Prevent him from killing Markval at all cost!>

Hey, what are you trying to—

“I apologize for sounding conceited, but I can take on a dragon in her dragonewt form. Even if she is a threat to me, that’s only because of her draconic abilities and spells. I outlevel you youngsters.”

Mana Eyes.

Profile:

Name:   Ghorush Streiga

Level:   171

Race:   Mountain Leonid

Age:   84 Year

Ability List:

Axe:

[]

Unarmed:

[Blood Rush]

Information Blocked

Tsk, dammit. This is sooooo annoying! Let me use my appraisal skills already! This sorta information is useless!

“Urgh, rebound didn’t work. That is one hard-to-crack profile you have there, Princess,” Ghroush grumbled. “However, it did save me some time trying to intimidate you. You saw my level, right? How much did you see? Stats, skills, or nothing at all? Hopefully nothing, otherwise I will have to refund this appraisal blocking armlet.”

Still, level 171? What is with this powercreep? Thought that demonkin girl was the highest leveled enemy I would meet during this siege, but this guy is even stronger? How much stronger are the demon princes and the boss of the Yanderu?!

“Considering I personally do not want to make an enemy of Kargryx, I shall grant you one last chance, Princess Hestia. Step down, and I shall spare you and everybody else not related to Yeostar. A fair deal, no?”

[“Ha! Yeah, I guess it does sound fair…”] The nobles and knights from behind me expressed their shock at my answer, but I ignored them. Instead, I turned up the music.

[“So, to commemorate this deal. Let me sing for you… In my purgatory, I make the devil cry ♫

In Hellfire ♫

All you hear are his screams, begging to be released ♫

It’s Music ♫”]

Since it was remixed, the activation requirement for [Dragon Fire] changed to me having to sing it while standing still. It was annoying being a stationary turret, but I was a mage, after all. Being a spell slinging turret was my speciality!

Once the orchestral version of this hard-rock song began to play, flame shields surrounded every single of my allies. Ghorush, seeing this, let out a sigh and readied himself for a battle.

“Hmm… I can never not love your voice, even if it's only through [Telepathy]. Like sweet honeydew in the morning, a rival to even the most talented divas. If there were ever a God of Songs, you would do better as their blessed than Aurena’s.” The leonid scratched his long mane. “Such a shame. Eithalr would be quite sa—”

[“Look out behind you!”] I warned the merc, only for him to laugh at me.

“Huhaha! I see you can still joke in the face of you— What?!” Ghorush’s head snapped right around as he noticed the small flame meteor right where he stood, only to dodge again as another appeared.

[Dragon Fire] created meteors, whether humongous ones or those around the size of a pebble! Although Ghorush was the main threat, the remaining skull masks and undead were still a problem for the nobles and Amelia. Just like my old [Dragon Fire], these meteors will target my enemies, just this time, with enough severity you couldn’t just ignore them!

[“Everybody outside of Renee, move back! Defensive position or into the core room! Move back, now!”]

Even if they couldn’t take fire damage, I still didn’t want to hit them. I’d rather not think of them as deadweight in a fight that could end with me dead. Whether they realized this or were scared of my sudden form shift, the knights and nobles did as I said.

Meanwhile, Ghorush wasn’t having any trouble evading the attacks, but his companions were slowly dying out the longer I sang. The leonid laughed widely. He was so confident, but how couldn’t he be? The moment he saw a path forward, he moved so fast I thought he was teleporting.

Flashfire! Flashfire!

As such, I had to do the same. Unfortunately for me, he had already seen this technique of mine and had already figured out a countermeasure. Sure, I could choose any flames in this burning cavern, so it should have been random, but this guy dashed at me the moment I reappeared from my second [Flashfire]! Was this his intuition, or was his [Detection Sensor] working better than mine? I didn’t know, as I couldn’t see his damn profile!

Dreadfla—

“Wind Shiver!”

Before Ghorush could drill his rapier into my scale barrier, he took a step back and thrusted at the wind ray coming from the Renee. The mana around his weapon shot out, forming into a blue translucent umbrella. The second the threat was over, his eyes glistened as he turned back to me, only to jump back again as I released [Dreadflare Aura].

With the distance widened again, I shot out two [Lightning Bolt]s and [Tornado Bullet]s each, trying to lead him into a trap where I could roast him alive with [Dragon Fire]. He deftly dodged each spell by the skin of his teeth, only losing a few loose hairs before he turned his eyes to the ground. He somersaulted and slashed at the ground where I was readying an [Bedrock Blades], destroying the brown magic circle before shooting out a mana blade with his rapier.

Unless I wanted [Dragon Fire] to stop, all I could do to dodge was to simply lean my body backwards. I had to stay in one spot, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t move around. Otherwise, how would I be able to dance while singing, right? Idol stuff. It was a test just now, but it should have been evident from how the description of the song was worded.

Arck! That was close! Panzer and Unheiliger Engel, let’s go.

[“Holy, you can do the same thing as Larent?! Are you a sword saint candidate, too?!”] I forced myself to say after a chill ran down my spine. My body still remembered the fear I had for Larent’s mana blades.

“Priestess?!” Renee’s voice shook as I suddenly mentioned that during this rather nerve-wracking battle.

“Ha! I am not, as if, huhahaha!” However, it seemed like my praise just got to him.

Got you! Speak more, waste more time for Yeostar!

“This is just something most warriors have to learn if they wish to continue into S rank, you see. Mages have magic far beyond most common comprehension. They can level entire cities with a single spell, after all.” He gleaned at his rapier, cleaning some of the blood and dirt on it. “Melee combatants train in turning mana not into spells, but sharp blades. [Mana Strike], but taken even further. [Aura Edge], the ‘simple’ evolution of the skill. Very, very difficult to achieve for monsters, since your [Mana Strike] and [Stamina Strike] skills usually turn into your respective ‘- claws’ or ‘- fangs’ skill, and— Huhahahaha!”

Oh, oh…

“You sly little lizard! You had me monologuing there! Huhahaha, if you wanted to live, you could have said so! Huhahaha, I can’t believe this— Hrrrk!” The leonid facepalmed himself, literally slapping away his laughter before he quickly accelerated forward where he stood, prompting me to activate [Foresight] before he ended up on top of me.

Disruption. [Unheilige Engel] and [Halo of Consecration] shot out their load at the incoming threat with corrosive slime and white flames, allowing me to dodge back and use [Terra Wall] and [Bedrock Blades] to alter his attack path. Just like most blademasters around Rank A I’d met in this world, Ghorush had no problems cutting through them, even managed to shoot some mana blades at me.

I reapplied my buffs on my self and turned on [The Will to Fight and Survive] for more combat buffs and mobility. Once done with her own buffs as well, Renee charged forward the moment I gave her an opening with my spells.

<[Various Spell Buffs] [Flag of Valiant Hearts] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]>

<Flag of Valiant Hearts: A wind blessing invoked by [Gem of Valiant Winds]. Increases Agility by 5% of the base stat>

“Wind’s Calling!” Renee held her blade horizontally and pulled it back, invoking a suction effect where Ghorush was pulled into her. No matter what power buffs she got from her new Job and armor, she was still almost 100 levels below him, so I had to chip in to distract him.

With Ghorush focused on dodging my attacks, Renee found the leeway to attack, only for the two warriors’ weapons to clash. Bang; with metal clashing, the two fended each attack off, but Renee was, expectantly, pushed back. Ghorush didn’t just have a higher Strength, he was probably two heads taller than her.

The leonid smirked before he focused more mana on his rapier, to the point it even dug right into Renee’s flamberge. Using [Wind Blast], Renee created some space, to which I used [Warp Point] entry and exit to teleport Ghorush far away from us. Surprised by this, Ghorush tried to dash back, but I used the same trick to get him away from us again by using [Foresight] to time the spell perfectly.

Annoyed by this tactic, Ghorush tried to shoot me down with his mana blade, but I just multi-cast [Cyclone Madness] where he stood to disrupt him. I knew this wouldn’t stop him, considering he was stronger than Larent, probably, but still. I had to delay him!

“Priestess!” Renee warned me, causing me to snap behind me to see the earth turning into a giant golem. Winding up its punch, it struck at me.

Do— Nah, Purple Flash. Gloria Ascendence!

Deciding this was a trap, I instead chose to tank the attack with [Gloria Ascendence], only for my decision-making to be justified. Ghorush attacked me the moment the golem struck.

“Oho?” Ghorush smirked before landing multiple hits on the barrier, sounding like he landed seven strikes in a single second, only to wind up his next attack with a smirk. “I just need to wait for it to disappear, right?”

One second, two seconds, three seconds. Boom. Renee tried to stop him, but he summoned a couple of golems to distract her. I couldn’t move with the giant golem holding this barrier still. Fourth second. I cast [Bedrock Blades] to destroy the golem and prepared myself to dodge.

Fifth second. [Gloria Ascendence] down.

Flashfi—

“Ruptured Skies.”

—fe— Shit!

<Now!>

His rapier gleamed a brilliant azure as it turned golden white, cladding his blade in enough mana to cause my eyes to shiver. My body’s reflexes had me activate [Flashfire] just in time, but the problem was his blade was faster. He locked onto me like a hawk. The attack was without a doubt gonna hit—

Poof.

Exactly that, poof.

“…?”

“…?”

Ghorush and his attack just disappeared. No, in fact, even the undead and the corpses of the skull masks were gone, too. They disappeared, just like that. Vanished into thin air.

“… Eh?”

“… Huh?”

Renee and I were flabbergasted, especially me, as I thought I was about to feel what a level 171 was about to do. The tension…

God Yeostar?

But before I could get an answer from him, light appeared around my body and the sight of the destroyed cavern changed into that of plain sand. Noise; countless voices erupted around me, sounding not only surprised and shocked at this sudden change, but I could hear numerous people screaming anxiously like banshees.

I looked around, noticing I was currently inside the arena portion of the dungeon. Around me, the people I saw hanging onto their dear lives were seated in the audience seats. They were all alive, but all of them looked bloodied, dirtied, and mentally unstable. The undead wave was a horde of fodder to me, but for these people who were bitten and would have been torn to shreds if it weren’t for the undying part of the dungeon, the zombies were a source of unending torment.

How? Teleportation? Wait, but— Wait, you told me— Hold on?!

<Let me handle the repercussions. Just win, Hestia. I place Yeos’s fate in yours and your allies’ hands. May the Goddess bless you with the light to banish this shadow!>

What?!

“People of Yeos!” My eyes snapped around to that voice, where I saw Markval standing on a pillar before everybody else. “Once again, my name is Prince Markval Caimlace the Fifth! Prince of Yeos!”

What is happening?!

“Priestess!” Renee called out for me. We were the only people inside the arena with him. “I’m not sure what happened, but we need your music now. Your music, we need to calm the people down.”

Renee’s head directed my attention to the people around. Hysteria was a nice way to describe it. The understatement of the year, really, as it looked more like anarchy. Pure chaos. People were crying, others were screaming around in terror of their neighbors, and others just wanted to run away. And it was overcrowded to the point nobody even had room to properly move around.

How many people are here?! This is the same arena but… are there more than a thousand people? Or more? Counting all of this, wait, what is that?

[Terror (Critical)] and [Fear (Critical)].

Wherever I looked, that was all I could see in this anarchy. The atmosphere was ripe to spread to others. Looking at the audience seats, everything was divided into three sections — those barely affected by the terror, those looking exhausted as hell, and those completely traumatized as if they went through hell. Most were in the latter category.

Honestly, I had no idea what exactly was happening here. Renee seemed to agree, but from the look of it, Markval was in the know. After all, he was the only other person around who could listen somewhat to what Yeostar could say. In other words, he had a plan, and Renee had caught onto it.

Right. Right. Who cares where Ghorush is? Play The Heir of Light. We can deal with everything later.

[Humanized (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Amid the chaos, I deactivated [Battle Frenzy] and transformed back into my moderate form to appear less intimidating. I didn’t need to fight right now. As such, I started my song with the sound of strings being played.

“In the midst of the desert ♫

A bright ray of light shines ♫

Pure and brave, that she was, as she walked ♫”

Calm, collected. As always. The song was always meant to calm my heart, but as the name said, it was there to keep others hopeful. With the effects of the song, any [Fear] or [Terror] would turn back to the minor stage. I could never forget the fact this world ran on game logic sometimes.

She was the ideal for me ♫

The bringer of children’s smiles ♫

Alas, the world seemed bleaker without her ♫

But all wounds must heal, we must force back the tears ♫

Her legacy remains for everybody to hear ♫

All these wounds will heal, mourning must end ♫

Our path is made clear through the loss of a friend ♫”

[Shield of [The Light]] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

The light barrier signified the effects were starting to take effect on everybody. I couldn’t get rid of the mental demons in their heads, but at the very least, the frantic cries died down. People weren’t trying to kill each other out of fear. Sure, they were all still scared, but at least we could talk to them now.

“Something unholy has happened to all of us today,” Markval continued once I began singing and noticed Renee nodding. “The undead of the oceans, the drowned, had suddenly invaded this holy sanctum of our god. I understand the pre—”

“Fuck off, manablood!”

“Burn with Ilsaphone, you damn liar!”

“Can’t harm us?! In this fucked up prison! Look what happened to us!”

“… Uh?” Markval froze in the place as the crowd erupted, not in hysteria, but in anger. The fear they felt just a second ago was all transferred over to the next possible emotion — rage.

Oh no, this is not gonna be good.

“Get eaten and ripped apart!”

“Damn nobles! All you do is take from us! Where is my son! My husband?! You sent them out to die!”

“Arrrrgh, where was Yeostar when we were being eaten! Fuck! Fuck! They took my fingers! They ate my FINGERS! They ATE us!”

“You left us to die! Swine! Fat pig sprinkled with our hard work!”

The dungeon kept them alive, but it couldn’t do anything about the scars they were carrying. Sure, I healed them, but it wasn’t with [Miraculous Grace]. I healed the people on the second and third layer with my white flames and [Sacred Field].

Those alone couldn’t regenerate limbs or body parts, and now that I was looking at them carefully, some actually look worse than I thought. Almost… ghoulish. Like a beast ripping pieces off their bodies to consume. One at a time, like a picky eater.

…

I couldn’t help but stop singing for a moment to gulp down some hard-to-swallow saliva. It felt like a stone went down my throat. It was even worse when I turned around. Those in the middle, those mildly hurt by the undead scourge were on the fence with things, with some following the riot while others kept to themselves. Only those not hurt by all of this were calm, although that latter group consisted mostly of nobles, knights, and the rich.

And they weren’t calm anymore.

“You filthy street beggars! You’re addressing the ruler of Yeos! This is a rebellion!”

“Knights of Yeostar! Protect the honor of the royal family! Seize and silence these dissenters!”

“Markval! Markval! Protect my son, you imbeciles! Punish those accursed plebeians!”

“W-Wait, Princess Regent, we cannot! Duke Alberstien, we need to stop this now!”

“The princess has spoken! Knights, stand down! Stand down!”

“Alberstien! Why are you listening to that girl?! Anasthasia, you wench! Just like your mother, why are you doing this to my son? PROTECT YOUR PRINCE!”

We just got out of one problem, but more was incoming. This dissent while the siege was still ongoing. I could probably leave them be for now, but wouldn’t something like this cause trouble in the future? However, I needed to get out and rejoin the battlefield. The siege was still ongoing, and I still had no idea where Ghorush was.

“Priestess,” Renee called me. “Your aerokinesis, please. As loud as possible.”

I nodded and slowed down my singing, setting the atmosphere and stage. Did Renee have a plan? Then again, this woman was pretty crafty if you thought about it. There was that speech she gave me after we got her “father’s” inheritance, and how she sneaked past Master to get to Aleistunum. I mean, Yeostar did mention something about an Aleistian teleportation or something, and that was where she probably got her Unique Job.

Compared to me, she seemed like she had a plan for everything. I should just let her do her thing.

Once I handed her an air microphone, I lowered my volume and turned her up, allowing her to take the stage. I also made one for Markval, as a way to calm him down.

“My dear countrymen! Commoners and nobility!” Renee’s voice echoed like thunder in this arena, scaring those in silence. “My name is Rhea, also known as Renee to those who have been watching the tournament for these past two weeks. I am the daughter of Sir Royce!”

“““Daughter?! Wait, Sir Royce’s?!”””

“Wait, did Sir Royce have a kid? No, wait, he got married to some noble in Aleistunum, right? No, just some high-ranking mage commoner.”

Nobles.

“Damn, I remember! I saw Sir Royce on the day of their wedding, but I have never seen such a dull face before. Which man looks so disappointed on the day of his wedding when his wife was that beautiful? The royal family married him off for something, I assure you!”

“That armor is his, yes! Definitely! I saw that, no, wait, wasn’t he a man before? Was it a girl all this time?”

“That does make sense. The damn nobles just kick out all women who want to join the knight’s order. They don’t even accept commoners! Imagine denying such a right to Sir Royce’s child! Unforgivable!”

And commoners. Those who weren’t there to hear Renee’s full reveal in the cavern were equally surprised by this. Although, I had no idea why Renee wasn’t telling them her last name. “Sealight,” was it?

… Is this gonna work?

“Wrong.” Once again to silence all of them, Renee’s voice boomed even without the need to fake it anymore. “Up until now, I did not fight and train to become like my father. A knight is more than just their bloodline and legacy, a knight is somebody who embodies the values handed down through an order, fulfilling them to the best of their abilities. A knight embodies safety and protection in time of peace, and an unstoppable force during war.”

“Then where was our protection?!” The dissenters, those who weren’t affected by Renee’s news, shouted out. “Where were they?! Where were our knights?! The only person who came to our rescue was the Champion! At least the Goddess still watches over us! What has Yeostar done?!”

“The royal family is at fault! And your nobles, too! The last prince sent Sir Royce to his death! What have they done since then?! Send even more our young men and women to their deaths out there!” The majority of the people here were the elderly and those unable to fight due to injuries or those unable to be trained. Whether you were a man or woman, both genders were treated equally under conscription laws.

I guess they aren’t blaming me, but…

“Yeah! We were all idiots! It wasn't the beastmen who were at fault for my daughter’s death, it was the royal family! The nobility! Just like now, they abandoned us and left us to die!”

“Shut up! All of us weren't part of Carmaniate but you discriminated against us anyways! Forced us to only live in the port of the slums! We fought alongside you humans, too, but where was the support?! Fuckin’ furless, you left us to rot and now you’re trying to turn it around?!”

The animosity between the beastmen and humans was just a boiling pot ready to overflow and burn anything around it. The commoners wanted to turn the angry, but quiet, beastmen group onto their side, but it failed spectacularly. Elyonda, or maybe Yeos as a whole, was a city with so many problems, it was a wonder it hadn’t broken apart yet. What kept it together? Definitely not the love for the royal family, and it seemed like Yeostar wasn’t as liked anymore.

Probably has to be Aure—

“ENOUGH!” Renee shouted for the first time in her speech. “Is this what you want, everybody? Quarrel? Now, when the world before our eyes is falling apart? When green rats invade our farmlands and homes, pillaging and burning things down? When the undead roam our streets, piercing through this holy sanctum to feast on everybody like beasts? When your family and friends are fighting outside as soldiers, all so you can come back to a peaceful home? This goes for both commoners and nobility! Are all of you only here to quarrel?!”

“…”

“…”

Those in the commoners, which included the slightly and severely traumatized, section went silent. Renee’s forceful tone seemed to have affected them. On the other hand…

“What nonsense are you speaking, woman?! You dare critiz—” One of the knights tried to speak back, but a hand suddenly was placed in front of his mouth, shutting him up. It was just, the person who did it was the surprising part. “P-Princess Regent?”

“Rhea.” The crazed, almost lunatic mother of Markval came forward, but instead of her usual deranged self, she looked down from the audience seats with an almost longing expression. “… Have you heard everything from your ‘mother’ and father?”

“I have, Your Grace.” Renee only bowed.

“… Are you sure? This isn’t your responsibility, but ours — the current royal bloodline.”

Renee nodded.

“Then… so be it. Markval, my dear, what is your decision?”

Markval looked up to his mother in surprise and flinched, only to suddenly look at the ground in contemplation. Most likely, Yeostar was speaking with him right now. Once he was done, he turned his eyes back up.

“I have. The Caimlace bloodline shall return the crown back to Sealight. As such—” The young Prince turned his eyes back to the crowd. “People of Elyonda and Yeos, please, forgive us!”

And he bowed, deeply, to all the people in front of him.

“M-My Prince?!”

“W-What?!”

“I, Markval Caimlace the Fifth, humbly apologize to everybody in attendance for incompetence as your Prince! As a descendant of God Yeostar, I am a meek representation for our country’s values of Knighthood, Bravery, and Loyalty! The beauty in it… I couldn’t fulfill it. Neither could my father! We brought only despair to everybody…”

“My countrymen!” Renee took the stage again after Markval began tearing up. All I could do was keep singing, knowing this wasn’t the place for me to speak. “I ask you this once more, are you here to fight amongst yourself? Under the watch of the Goddess? In this sanctum of God Yeostar? Knowing, this is all caused by the damn enemies outside! Grimgarians! They have done something to unleash all these undead on us! Those invaders deserve our rage! Not our countrymen!”

Noise. People were talking amongst themselves. Since the arena was packed full, the dissonance between everything was beyond jarring.

Renee conjured up her wind flag and held it up high for everybody to see. “Commoners and noble— No, as I said before, my countrymen! My fellow Yeosian! Tell me, if you are true Yeosians, what was the blessing God Yeostar gave to my father?!”

“““…””” People went quiet for a moment, until… “““[Knight of the People]!”””

“[Knight of the People]! That his title as a Champion of Yeostar!” Renee shouted it out with even more vigor. “He fought for not only the royal family, but for his country! He died alone, fighting off hordes and hordes of demonkins to protect his Prince and the soldiers he left behind! Those who returned home owe him his life! The Knight of the People!”

“““Sir Royce!”””

“Who is our Goddess, my fellow Yeosian? Goddess Aurena! Goddess of Healing and Miracles! Who do we have here?”

“Time will move on, but your stories remain ♫

A legacy made upon the warmth of your heart ♫

The light shines so brightly, all in your honor ♫

May the light guide you to the plains of souls! ♫

And from my despair, awakens a pyre ♫

I will heed her wish and soar all so higher ♫

This stage that she left, the light shines anew ♫

With heavenly fire, this dragon is here for you! ♫”

“Idol of Aurena, Dragon Princess of Kargryx, acknowledged by God Yeostar! The purifier of undead, the Savior of Hope. Must I say more?”

“““No!”””

[“Renee? How did you know I had a spell able to heal even limbs and organs?”] I asked her telepathically, finding her confidence very weird.

Letting the crowd cheer, she sneaked up to me and whispered, “I-I… Please, forgive me once this is over. Y-You see, uhm, well… I didn’t have much to bargain with, and the Archerudite, you know, the leader of Aleistunum… Well, uhm, he has a connection to God Istari, and—”

[“No need to continue…”]

Renee nodded her head quickly and returned to rally the people around us.

Istari… Kramps mentioned him being the other person Aurena trusts the most. Did Istari sell my information away? I haven’t even met him yet, and he’s already trying to do a social media move?! What’s next, is he gonna make his own search engine???

In any case, Renee was undoubtedly a smooth talker. She could probably coerce a dragon to do something for her… well, she did, but that wasn’t the point. In a way, Renee wasn’t the best mage or knight, but she definitely had the best talking skills if I compared her to Aurora and the students.

The [Terror] and [Fear] of most people were completely gone for good after that speech. Of course, this couldn’t squash out all the anger and fear, but it was a start. Markval and Renee, joining together as they reassured people, would have looked amazing in a photo, not to mention how impressive Renee looked while raising her flag.

At this point, I had done all I could.

“Hear me, my countrymen! I am Rhea, but I will not fight today as Sir Royce’s daughter, but as myself. If you cannot trust the knights anymore after what happened, then place your trust in me. No, place your trust in this young woman here, an outsider who came here to help. Although, I can see she didn’t manage to reach everybody—” Renee and I noticed a few soldiers eyeing us with contempt. Those were likely the people I left hanging in the third layer to reach the fourth quicker…

In a way, I abandoned them. What if one of them was a fan of mine? Considering Renee came at just the right time like a real hero, was I really needed back then?

“— Still! Even a knight cannot be everywhere, every time. We are not omnipotent nor gods, after all!” I stopped my singing for a moment when I heard that. “No, those are just ideals. A knight must be stalwart and true, but we aren’t problem solvers. Please, put your trust in us, however, all of you are Yeosians! You are children born on these lands once conquered and ruled by the brave and powerful God Yeostar! The one to defeat the SS rank leviathan! Do not just put your trust in us, you must also believe in yourself! In our beloved world, the gods have blessed us humans with the power of the Divine System. A method to become stronger than anything! Here I stand, a woman born on soil ruled my male knights only, but I still dream to be one. A brave, loyal, and steadfast protector for all of you!”

Her words resonated to everybody, even to those still affected by [Terror] and [Fear]. Noticing my mistake, I continued singing, accompanying her speech as best as I could.

“I wish to become a knight for the PEOPLE! I wish to be your shield as you improve yourselves even further! PEOPLE OF YEOS, MY COUNTRYMEN! DO NOT PRAY TO HEROES, PRAY TO YOURSELVES TO IMPROVE AND BECOME BETTER! ALWAYS! EVEN IF YOU FEAR THE WORLD, LET ME BE YOUR BASTION!”

“““DAME RHEA!!!”””

‘Do not pray to heroes?’ ‘Even if you fear the world, let me be your bastion…’ To not carry everything on your own shoulder, to not become a hero everybody seeks with expectations. Instead of falling into that pitfall, become someone who can inspire others to become strong. Can my songs provide that in this moment?

“… Haaaa… Feel the echoes of our voice ♫

Quivering the core of your very soul ♫

Rally up your strength, you soldiers ♫

Be brave, find hope in it ♫

Let strife not frightened you away ♫

From the peace of the brilliant light ♫

And let the Star shine bright ♫

Inside your hearts! ♫”

[Stage Fever (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

People’s eyes. They are all on me… They aren’t on Renee or Markval anymore.

“Will you roar out to the world ♫

And stand tall next to our flag ♫

To see the very tale ♫

Of what the gods have in plan ♫

So don’t cower away ♫

In your fears of the departed and be free! ♫”

“Ehe… Everybody!” I heard Renee speak.

“Feel the echoes of our voice ♫

Quivering the core of your very soul ♫

Rally up your strength, you soldiers ♫

Be brave, find hope in it ♫

Let strife not frightened you away ♫

From the peace of the brilliant light ♫

And let the Star shine bright ♫

Inside your hearts! ♫

Will you join in our chorus ♫

And make your life clear to hear ♫

The same with the epics of the Knight ♫

That we feel safe under his watch ♫

So live up to your own songs ♫

And raise up your sword to the stars! ♫

Feel the echoes of our voice ♫

Quivering the core of your very soul ♫

Rally up your strength, you soldiers ♫

Be brave, find hope in it ♫

Let strife not frightened you away ♫

From the peace of the brilliant light ♫

And let the Star shine bright ♫

Inside your hearts! ♫”

[Stage Fever (Critical)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

… To my surprise everybody sang it. Almost sounded like a national anthem… No, why would… It was good I tried to forget this memory.

“Hestia.”

After my song and another speech, Renee and I were now preparing to join the rest of the siege. We left the rest to the nobles, after I reconfirmed to everybody I would grant “heavenly white grace” to everybody’s wounds afterwards, and that the royal family would be the one to help me manage them after the battle. This way, it would help the commoners regain some trust in the nobility.

I also got in touch with Amelia afterwards. It was just for now, but it made my heart calm down. I honestly thought I would have arrived late again, just like with Eshe. Good thing it didn’t happen. After I gave her a hug, I sent her back to Greenveil through the nexus, but left them to go back to Elyonda. I was needed here, after all, and that was when Renee started this conversation.

“Ren— Sorry, Rhea.”

“No, no, it’s alright. To you, Neill, and everybody else I consider my friends, I think Renee is perfectly fine. I came before you with lies and deception, so it’s fine if you continue using it. I, personally, find the name more fitting.” Rhea took off her helmet and smiled at me. “Do you remember the promise you made to me?”

“About protecting Elyonda and also changing the whole view on women?”

She nodded. “I managed to give people some time to think with the latter part, but it’s just unfortunate it had to happen like this. Unbelievable… the town is besieged. Karhalantheel was released as well. All those undead were his fault, and the demonkins and their mercs had done so much harm…”

I had already brought her up to speed on the recent news.

“Hmm, there still is so much we have to do. So much I still need to accomplish, it’s just… I’m glad you’re okay, Hestia. I apologize for disappearing for my own goals when you needed help.”

“Heheh,” I giggled, still finding it funny she was finally using my name. It was quite fun teasing her about it before, due to how I could hear her blush behind that steel bucket of hers! “Yeah, the demonkins really had some surprising things under their belt. However, don’t blame yourself. No one could have helped us there outside of the gods or a void-touched. Instead of the past, think of the future and the fact I overheard those demonkins having another one of those tools.”

“… I see. Thank you.” She placed a hand on her chest and bowed. “I’m sure you’re curious about my Unique Job. I’ll give you a full explanation once everything settles down, but the gist is that it’s currently not enough to help me fight at the same degree as you or your sister. However, a Unique Job is there to evolve. Three sub-jobs can be attached to one, and from them, you can level your Job and then evolve it. Just like a dragon.”

“Hmph! Let’s see about that once I get mine after this siege is done. Neill, Tasianna, you, and me. Good think our promise together means we can smack some grimgarians, that will help you level up, too. Let’s do it!”

“Of course, oh, and speaking about Tasianna. Keep an eye out for the sky, alright?” I tilted my head at that comment, finding it weird she would ask a dragon to do that, but I simply shrugged my shoulders.

“You really are a woman of many secrets.”

“Too many, and I’m not even done with my personal ones yet. Look at the skies, Lady Priestess. I wasn’t lazy when I went over to Aleistunum!”

It was time to turn over this siege! … And I should probably look at the list of System messages I got recently. My parallel minds have been nagging me to take a look before they forget.

A note from AbyssRaven

To war, again.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 356: Outnumbered.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Individual [Sunfang Dragonewt, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has switched her Secondary Job to [Flame Lancer]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Flame Lancer Level: 0/20

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Spear Technique Lv. 10] [Spear Mastery Lv. 10] gained

Skill requirement fulfilled.   [Spear Technique Lv. 10] and [Spear Mastery Lv. 10] combined into skill [True Spear Technique Lv. 1]

“And there’s that. Lucky! It’s RestDay, but the total of available Job changes has already reset for me? Guess it’s an aftereffect of being in that different dimension,” I cheered before snapping my hands to explode a tentacle into watery bits inside the rubble of Elyonda’s merchant district, before throwing Aurora’s [Crystal of the Divine System] to Renee. “Need to change?”

“You rich brat!” Renee’s flamberge produced a tornado around its blade before she shot it out to eliminate the undead around us. She then threw the crystal back at me. “Honestly, the fact you can afford something like this is just baffling! Also, no, the Unique Job System works differently. I need to level up all my ‘attachment Jobs’ first, before I can change.”

The benefit of being ultra-rich a few days ago was that I could finally get our own [Crystal of the Divine System]. The only way for humanoids to change their Jobs, and I had one in my hands now. This was mine — no, it was Aurora’s. The price we paid dropped our funds back to before we made all those merchant deals — to the point I felt poor again — but the reason I made this investment was for situations like this.

Changing Jobs whenever and wherever we wanted. To make leveling and dungeon diving more efficient.

While I contemplated on changing my Main Job to something more suitable for this situation, to my surprise, I discovered my max weekly Job changes had reset back to three. Today was only Sunday. From previous experience, the counter only ever reset on Monday of a new week, making me believe my little interdimensional visit caused this somehow. Somehow.

Regardless of the real reason, I could acquire new Jobs, and so I did. [Flame Lancer]. Why? Obviously, to level up my spear skills and also ‘cause I needed a quick to level up Job, since I was about to rack up some big-time experience! There was a horde of grimgarians outside the city; this was the perfect time to level up, change Jobs, level up, and repeat. If the weekly reset would still happen tomorrow, then I better not waste this chance!

After dispatching the undead and tentacles right in front of the arena, I told Renee to ignore the rest, as they posed no danger to the evacuees inside. I summoned [Unheiliger Engel] and took to the skies, since we needed to hurry up to the walls. Watching the undead swarms beneath us made me a bit squeamish; just remembering how hell erupted in the arena made me sick.

All’s fair in love and war, sadly.

However, my attention was quickly taken away by something happening to my left. A giant blue magic circle appeared in the sky as it materialized the form of a giant serpent with six pairs of feathered wings — a ryuukoatl, I believed.

It spread its limbs out as it gazed at the ground before roaring. It flew around in a circle before this magical golem turned into a giant water tornado with enough ferocity to create a small hole in the clouds above, letting some sun rays through. This was Master’s strongest custom spell — [Tehenhauin], at least, that was what I believed it was, since he never actually showed me the spell.

It’s also Tasianna’s inspiration for her [Slithering Frozen Serpent] spell. No wonder.

In any case, the port seemed secured if Master was using his grand AoE spell. With his catalyst, Master was a pretty fast caster. I could leave the place to him for now, as I rather focus on the dire state at the walls.

Undead and tentacles were starting to swarm and overwhelm the garrison and adventurers there. I could see large mana slashes outside the gate, in addition to the sound of small explosions piercing the rain and blizzard. A few mages were at the gates shooting spells at the undead inside the city, while knights flying around on their gargoyles picked the tentacles off. Leading them was a familiar-looking knight.

Ping.

My parallel minds just notified me they were done tallying up all the System messages I had been ignoring up until now. I really should hurry, but I asked them to do this since I probably have to use my skill points later on. Whether it was Ghorush or the demonkin girl, I couldn’t bridge the level gap, but I could equalize things a bit with skills and tricks.

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Mental Stability Lv. 10] [Mental Warfare Lv. 8] [Mana Eyes Lv. 7] [Concentration Lv. 10] [Night Vision Lv. 10] [Aerial Fighter Lv. 7] [Fear Resistance Lv. 7] [Speed of Sonic Lv. 6] [Tranquil Mind Lv. 3] [Thought Acceleration Lv. 5] [Multi-Thought Processing Lv. 6] gained

2096 human and beastman have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total followers of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 17287

Also, this…

[Hestia’s Retainer] has links for certain abilities from Titles: [Aelozonia’s Ambassador]. Seeking permission for activation… Individual [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has usurped ownership over [Aelozonia’s Ambassador]. Permission automatically granted… Intervention from Goddess Plesia. Usurpation rights activated. Overruling Supreme Administrative rights… declined. Usurpation rights activated. Overruling Supreme Administrative rights… declined. Usurpation rights activated. Overruling Supreme Administrative rights… declined. Usurpation rights activated. Overruling Supreme Administrative rights… declined. Usurpation rights activated. Overruling Supreme Administrative rights… declined. Usurpation rights activated. Overruling Supreme Administrative rights… declined. Usurpation rights activated. Overruling Supreme Administrative rights………… accepted! Permission granted by Goddess Plesia

[Aelozonia’s Ambassador] makes sense since Master is more-or-less promoting his continent and making money to finance his countrymen’s immigration. Hmm, but the rest…

Obviously, Plesia got pretty frustrated there. How strange that my usurpation didn’t fully work on the blessing due to Plesia’s intervention. Aurena mentioned I just took over her blessing out of nowhere, which I attested to the fact it took her by surprise. Plesia probably was prepared for this, seeing there were exactly 182 of the same messages.

If my parallel minds hadn’t taken over, I probably would have gotten a migraine from all of this. Eventually, it did cease with Plesia granting her permission, although, considering this was a System, couldn't she have done a macro or left some program to handle this? Maybe it just got annoying after a while? Then again, if she could resist my usurpation attempt, why not just squa… Yeah, I wouldn’t want to die.

Thank you very much. I don’t care what ability I got. Thank you for your mercy, oh great Goddess of the Depths.

Regardless, seriously, I had no idea what ability I got from this deal. In Saori’s and Asaka’s case, when they got their blessings, I could’t extract anything as they were apparently “empty.” Guess the gods were doing everything in their power to not give me free gifts. To find out, I probably had to go [Battle Frenzy]... although it kinda went against Sis and Mother, since they told me not to overdo it since it could tire me out and mess up my mood.

Well, I was confident in my mental protection skills, so it should be good. [Young Sunfang Dragon] and all those mental skills were there for a reason. I made these investments to control [Battle Frenzy], after all, so they better make it worthwhile! I wanted to use it more than just a couple times in a row!

“Dammit! Run!”

Huh?

The soldiers on the wall—those who were using the giant mounted crossbows to fight back against the grimgarians outside—were evacuating themselves. They were making a mad dash as a decorated soldier commanded them with that loud shout. Even the mages on it were escaping, preferring to go on the ground where the undead were.

What is going—

It was then I saw six black magic circles appearing on the mana barrier around us. This was the only thing keeping the grimgarians outside, forcing them to siege us with mana cannons. If it went down, this whole city would be swarmed. That was why Larent and Alistar were determined to protect it.

However, at this very moment—

Boom. Six times, followed up by multiple blue balls, only for six black lasers to attack a singular spot in the barrier. All of this happened in the span of ten seconds, I believed. Far too fast for me to realize there was a crack forming.

“Hestia!” Renee cried out the moment I saw it. I activated my scale-dust boosters, but it was too late.

A weakness was found, and the invaders didn’t let this go. The lasers stopped as something flew right through it, causing a loud glass cracking sound. In the next second, the barrier surrounding the city began to flicker, before it started fading entirely.

Time was of the essence, they say, and it seemed like my escapade in the arena finally caught on. This siege was never meant to last more than a day. The grimgarians were ready for everything the moment they came.

“Abandon the gates and camp! Retreat and reform ranks!” Renee shouted right next to me, almost falling down from her floating obsidian chair. Her voice, however, couldn’t reach the people below.

The monsoon and blizzard from the Territories of our two SS rank kaijus was raging about.

“NIAKASH BAAL’AK!!!”

The “human” cannonball was none other than a heavily armored gnoll, crying out as it raised its arms in victory. It wasn’t clear what he was doing, but it was clear this was a signal. Unfortunately, there were still people on the walls, including the decorated soldier from before. None of them could hear Renee. It was too late for her to say it again through [Aerokinesis]...

… Good thing I heard it. Good thing my scale-dust boosters were already on. Good thing I was a wind mage and also a dragoon squire.

Wind Blast! Tailwind! Air Walk into Dragoon Dive!

Like a rocket, I crash landed right onto the knoll with my glaive. The wall cracked from the impact, but I knew it would survive this attack since I didn’t even turn on my catalyst. My head snapped out of the wall, detecting a few individuals taking the lead, readying their weapons in a gap in the earth wall maze Sis had created. Just looking at them sent a chill down my spine as I understood their plan.

Instead of panicking, I activated my music and cast [Featherfall] on myself. It had been a long time since I used this spell since I never had a use for it ever since I created [Unheiliger Engel] and learned how to fly. This level nine [Wind Magic] spell wasn’t useful for somebody like me, but its application was pretty crazy if you thought about it.

[Featherfall] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Seven Wind Blasts, let’s go!

The enemy were about to unleash their attacks, but before they could, I materialized seven [Wind Blast]s right on the wall and below me. With a second delay, all of them activated simultaneously, blasting any human, beastman, or ungrounded object away from the wall like a ragdoll.

All of them either crashed onto the ground or some still-in-tack building. Some landed safely, but some were immediately shot into the mix between undead and soldiers, forcing them to participate immediately. A good thing [Featherfall] negated any landing damage from falling, and a good thing [Idol] acted as a [Synergist’s Oath], sharing my Featherfall buff with anyone that could hear my music.

It was just… how was I supposed to get out of here in time?

Oh oh.

“““Ggugniak! Chiksu yuf shariyk!””” How they trumpeted and howled as my hero move saved the people from meeting the same end as I was about to feel.

My legs bent down, ready to perform [Dragoon Jump] to jump away, but before I could, the gnoll from earlier grabbed both my legs and pulled me down. As I could feel his breath touch my head, I snapped my head up.

“NIAKASH BAAL’AK!” he roared with a fat smirk.

Niakash ba- Fuck yourself! Spark Crescent!

With my tail and glaive, I slashed this trashtalker into tiny pieces, to the point I realized he was just a C rank from how easy it was. It also helped that my Jobs leveled up in response.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Secondary Job [Flame Lancer] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 2]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Main Job [Champion of Aurena] has risen from [Level 6] to [Level 7]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Just, all these levels didn’t matter when I clearly didn’t have the time to celebrate!

Fly! Wind Bl—

Just then, black tendrils erupted from my shadow and wrapped themselves around my limbs, including my wings. If I were still weak to dark magic, I probably would have groaned in pain, but thankfully that wasn’t the case anymore. It was just kinda annoying they had a tenebrous mage around just when I thought I could escape.

“Ehe~”

My eyes widened in a glare as I stared daggers as a blue hobgoblin mage, seeing her smirk of superiority. She nudged her staff to her right, showing me the sight of mana cannons and their army readying their long-range attacks to destroy the walls. And with me with them.

Tsk! White flames burn these bindings! Panzer. Sanctuary! Terra Walls! Shit, am I gonna make it time! Please, stall long enough!

I grasped that hope with my hands and snapped around, focusing on a far away point with a horde of zombies. I’d rather crowd surf with a bunch of undead then get blasted by whatever was coming here. No way would I get hit by even more mana cannons, please, oh gods, please!

I activated my boosters the moment the bindings were burned away and used [Dragoon Jump] with [Tailwind]. However, it just wasn’t enough. Although my [Haste] and other Agility buffs from before still hadn’t expired, I had just used up all the time I could use. Even with superhuman, rocket-like speed, at best I could only dodge a fatal direct hit. I couldn’t even transform back in time, so tanking it up was all I could do now!

Now! Wind Blast! Juuuuuump!

Like the sound of a crashing landfill, I heard rock and earth splinter apart from behind the wall of earth I constructed. I jumped and blasted away, ignoring it as I already knew what it was. Escape and survive, that was how victory was acquired. Nothing else mattered. All that mattered was my instincts and the lessons I had learned up until today.

Just get the hell out of here and LIVE!

“Hestia!”

Ignore and blast off! RUN! RUN! RUN!

kaasSTOOOOOUUUUUUUUUMMMMMP!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

… For a moment, I thought I heard two similarly loud explosions. One, happening right as I flew away, sounding as if something was destroyed and falling apart… like a wall. Like the demolishment of a building. The next, sounded like real kabooms, destroying everything in its wake. That was a real explosion.

So, what was this?

I didn’t feel hurt. I didn’t even feel sore, although I did feel something supporting my back and legs, in addition to something fluffy covering up my entire face. I thought I would be flung away like the people I blasted off like ragdolls. I thought I had to kill some grimgarians as revenge to get the level up bonus.

I thought… I wanted to see what was happening as I felt the blow of the rain and blizzard ruffling my hair. So, I pushed aside what was blocking my sight, only to see a familiar purple-black yukata. However, instead of those irresponsibly exposed pink skin, I saw black scales with purple highlights glistening in front of me.

I took a closer look, noticing that the fluffy thing was actually purple fur, large enough to cover not only a chest but also this person’s shoulders, going all up to their long, mane-like hair and going as far as her horse-like tail. There were familiarities, but her muscular legs and arms, equipped with beautiful scales and carapace, confused me. Even more when I saw her lizardman face look a bit similar to a horse’s. Although you could call it derpy, her frown and wide fanged mouth gave her more of a cool-beauty kinda feel.

And this person was now carrying me in a princess carry.

“... Neill?”

[“You brat, don’t you dare laugh, alright! Don’t you dare after I came this fast!”] I heard her voice in my head. It really was Neill.

However, even without her telepathy, I saw the purple colors on her body flaring like neon lights, in addition to all the blue seams of mana flowing along the crevasses of her scales. She was clearly in her [Battle Frenzy] mode. Even if this was the first time she showed her dragonewt form to me, the sweet, sweet pheromones I could smell on her would have me think of her as nobody else than my shy older sister.

“As if, you look like a cool superhero from a niche, but extremely loved, comic book! Damn, I really want to see your kirin form now!”

It was the first thing that came out my mouth as I saw the explosions behind her. Just like a real movie character… cool girls weren’t allowed to look at them, after all.

[“U-Uh?!”] Her face contorted, looking as if I just said something outrageous, before looking up. [“Oh, could you keep playing that so—”]

Bwaaaarck!

“Oh, could you keep playing that song so your [Featherfall] is still active on me?” was probably what she wanted to say as we crashed right into a building, flying out of it like bullets before landing right in the mix of a couple of undead. Well, I guess Neill’s [Draconic Barrier] or whatever dragon path shenanigan she used couldn’t stop physics.

… Just, why the hell did she land perfectly? With her two legs right on the ground? With a clear, dragonewt-shaped hole in the buildings we broke through just before they broke down? Was my sister actually a movie star and this was just a movie all this time? This went way beyond what I was expecting!

[“... Could you not look at me as if I was some god? This is just the same ability I used when we were in the cave. Concentrate mana into the building at the moment of impact, spread the dragon paths around to maintain stability and form. Strengthen. Harden. Then use mana to forcefully root myself onto the ground like a plant to land ready for a fight. Rita helped me perfect it, since kirins aren’t supposed to fly, you know?”]

… Regardless, we punched and flamed our way out of the horde. I didn’t want to crowd surf with all of them moaning and groaning about brains. Figuratively speaking.

Of course, after that attack, Neill wasn’t exactly unharmed. Instead of me, she took the brunt of the incoming attack, something she felt more comfortable with given how her Vitality and scales were probably stronger than mine. Which made sense, especially since she was in her minor form and [Battle Frenzy] at that moment. In any case, I healed her up after that was done and we made a mad rush away.

94 human and beastman followers lost

Total follower count updated. Total followers of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 17193

“What are you doing there, soldier! Three to the back, side-by-side, walls! Shield up, one, two, three, PUSH! Bards, we need Vitality songs!”

With Neill back in her moderate form, since she didn’t want anybody else to see her minor form, we suddenly heard some familiar voices piercing through the rain. For some reason, it was far louder than the rain droplets and the roars of war, helping us find our way back to the main camp. There, we saw not only people pushing the undead back, but also the bards from “Bardic Inspiration Music.”

I couldn’t find them at first, which worried me, but it seemed like those 21 bards were fighting with the whole crew all this time. After Neill and I helped them destroy the undead before them, we quickly greeted them, happy to see the whole group was still alive. It was unfortunate our meeting was cut short when Neill heard Renee.

Renee was most likely stuck in the air on my corrosive wings when I tried to save the people on the walls. So, how the hell was she on the ground? Why was she also taking charge of the soldiers and adventurers as if this was normal. This seemed so quick, it made me question how long Neill and I spent getting through that ground of fodder. Also, ‘cause I could see my [Unheiliger Engel] still in the air!

“[Featherfall]. I heard it from there,” she answered the moment we helped push through the horde. I should have figured. “Also a reminder that I still haven’t learned [Wind Magic Lv. 9] despite how much my father told me to learn it… Sh-He really doesn’t understand how hard it is for a ‘normal’ person to learn his swordsmanship while leveling up magic.”

“... I-I can kinda imagine that part of your life. You had it bad with your parents too, huh?” Neill blurted that out, not reacting strangely at all despite Renee somehow returning to the city. In her PoV, Renee was gone for multiple days without a word, and then appeared out of nowhere with a new set of armor.

“Yeah, you complained about your mother’s training— Arck! In any case!” Renee snapped out of that discussion, returning us back to the dire state of things. “I had a chat with Alistar. He’s leading a knight force behind their numbers for the mana cannon. The mages mentioned they can get the barrier up again, trapping the grimgarians, but we need time. We cannot lose this location!”

Renee pointed at the broken down wall, explaining this was caused right after Neill saved me. The cavalry had already broken through the rubble from the walls, taken over the area for the incoming orc knights and a buncha goblin and kobold foot soldiers. Alistar had managed to save the majority of the fighters by calling an immediate retreat, but things were far from perfect, as I had been notified of their deaths.

It was then Renee came in contact with him and quickly explained things. Since he already knew Renee was Rhea — the woman Alistar had mentioned in our first meeting — everything was quickly solved and Renee took command. Due to her charisma and the fact her armor was visibly stunning, listening to her felt natural to soldiers and adventurers. It also helped her orders were precise in this time of panic where they were being attacked from both sides.

“We cannot let them take the city. The arena might be safe, but then they would commit to the two headed attack on the port. Karhalantheel is obviously supporting them, so we need to endure! I’ve sent a message to the port for Rita’s help and any reinforcement they can send, but time was not on our side.” Renee then raised her flag to give out her commands to the people around us before continuing speaking. “Larent is fighting against four massive high ogres at once. We need to support him. Also, the grimgarians archers and mage squad are bombarding us. We need them gone before Alistar strikes!”

““Leave that to us!””

There was no need for a fancy order. We knew exactly where we were needed now.

“Good! You, soldier, recall all soldiers protecting the wall entrance to the central camp. Immediately!” With a salute he ran off. “Let some grimgarians in, I have a plan for that. Just stop the cavalry, I don’t care about some foot soldiers. Stop the breach, and we can divide and conquer! Hestia, I’ll transfer Party leadership to you, so invite anybody you think we can coordinate with. Go! May God Yeostar keep you safe on the battlefield!”

[Human, Rhea Renee Sealight] has transferred the Party Leader to you

Party Leader

Name: Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor Level: 103

Main Job: Champion of Aurena Secondary Job: Ravager Unique Job: Locked

Name: Rhea Renee Sealight Level: 88 Unique Job: Plumwind Squire

Name: Larent Antonodius Level: 147

Main Job: Bloodoathed Avenger Secondary Job: Sword Savant Unique Job: Locked

Name: Fargryneill Qilinus Kargryxmor Level: 111

Main Job: Dragonkin Destroyer Secondary Job: Esoteric Pathfinder Unique Job: Locked

Ah, Neill and Larent were already in a party. Gotcha.

Neill’s eyes widened in surprise, probably at Renee’s unique job but kept quiet about it for now. She could read the room. “Then you better keep all of them safe and sound, then, you greedy punk!”

“War is never safe, but I will hold this place, even if I were to lose my limbs and head. Just come back before that happens, you two! Alistar will signal us when the operation is executed. Just create an opening afterwards for him to escape!”

With a sound “Got it!” the two of us dashed out after I reapplied my buffs on myself for the incoming battle and summoned my [Unheiliger Engel] back. As Renee mentioned, echikobolds riding on giant rhinos were wreaking havoc as soldiers and adventurers ran for their lives.

Seeing this happen, Neill then placed her hands onto the ground like a sprinter. I could see her mana faintly concentrating itself all into her legs as she shot from her starting position like a bullet. She then threw her body up, leg first, the second she passed the escaping soldiers, before flapping her wings to give her the momentum and form to move forward like a human drill.

Her legs eviscerated any grimgarians before her, slaying the heavily-armored rhinos. Feeling a slipstream created from her mana, I entered it with my glaive ready and [Gale Steps] forward to cleave the head of two echikobolds aiming at my sister’s back.

I wanted to fight this like an artillery mage, but at this current moment, it was better for me to move with my indomitable frontline. It honestly felt good fighting like this with her again.

“Grrrrrruuuuuaaaa!” Goblins cried out as they ran away, alarming the orc knights. A certain one in the back roared out, probably giving orders, as the black knights reformed their ranks and moved back slowly.

Seeing them act like this, Neill stopped her assault and tapped my shoulders, giving me the signal to do what an artillery mage could do. Seeing as we had to close up the broken down wall, this was also a chance to stop more incoming cavalry for a moment.

Purple Flash, Ruinous Rockfall!

Level four [Terra Magic]. If [Rumbling Might] could summon up a small-scale earthquake, then [Ruinous Rockfall] was a spell that simulated a landslide. Certainly not as destructive as [Heaven’s Sword], but having giant rocks fall on you could still pretty much squash most things.

In the sky, a giant brown magic circle suddenly split into five smaller ones. Each materialized rock in the sky before it just began raining car-sized boulders onto the orcs and breach. Before they fell though, my eye sharpened when I saw a tall, blue-skinned hobgoblin make her way forward with her staff raised.

She slammed it on the ground and created an army-wide black magic circle. It activated and the shadows of everybody in the circle flew into the sky to form into a thick blob that blocked even the light from coming in. I couldn’t even see a proper form.

Tsk, that mage is back. Info?

Shadowtouched Hobgoblin

A blue-skinned hobgoblin marked by Marsven. A goblin blessed with shadows upon evolution, allowing them to cast [Tenebrous Magic] as if it was a natural part of themselves. Can manipulate shadows of others as if it were another tool at their disposal to topple the status quo of the world. Rank B

Level: 27

Intelligence: 5014

Wisdom: 4312

Well, that is problematic. You want me to Heaven’s Sword you, huh?

A shame I had almost 2000 more Intelligence despite being in my dragonewt form! Sure, I had less Wisdom, but my defensive stats were usually weak as hell. Ahh, it felt so good being able to see an enemy’s profile again!

Whatever, white flame Hellflame Breath!

As such, I knew I could overpower her spell! White flames burst from my mouth as they struck the shadow barrier. Seconds went by before my attack dissolved a hole into it, dispersing it consequently and leaving the orcs below vulnerable to my terra spell. However, the mage bought enough time to minimize casualties.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Secondary Job [Flame Lancer] has risen from [Level 2] to [Level 4]

Attributes have increased due to level up

The mage slipped out with the orc crew as the rocks filled up the breach in the walls. Meanwhile, Neill had quickly dispatched any remaining grimgarians within the wall. Since we had to help out Larent, we flew up on the wall, where we saw the grimgarian mages having constructed siege ladders using [Dark Tendrils].

I wanted to blast them away, but Neill told me to stop. Sure, it would endanger the rest of the people inside, but Renee explicitly told us to mostly ignore the foot soldiers. The cavalry and the hulking trolls, orcs, and gnolls were the real problem. As such, I sprayed some white flames on the tendrils to cause the grimgarians to fall down, delaying them as we flew towards Larent’s side.

“Come on, that old man is tough, but not when he’s getting engaged by four high ogres with mages bombarding him!” Neill urged me. She told me she and Larent were trying to hold off the invaders before I arrived, so she knew best in what state he was in right now. “There we go. See those mages, Hestia? Take them out. Gotta be quick though, otherwise the rest of the B ranks will gang up on us!”

Using [Wind Blast], I blew Neill right into the mix of things with Larent, while I followed her directions and went over to the mages. Archers and orc knights noticed me immediately, seeing as how I was in the sky, and began retreating with the mages using [Shadow Dash].

Expecting this since this was Saori’s go-to move whenever I wanted to fight her head-on, I had already prepared something in advance as they were still Invoking the magic circle. My body jerked back a bit before I felt something hard being pulled up my throat. Vomiting this [Hellflame Breath] out, it wasn’t your typical crimson fire breath, but actually a spray of lava!

“““Wuuuuuraaaaaagh!”””

They cried out as I washed my mouth with my hand, before using [Volcanic Blaze] to control the lava and melting earth below it. Whether it was to harden it into obsidian or let it flow to poison them with my corrosive lava, I made it extremely hard for any of them to escape, even with magic.

At the same time, it gave me a chance to sing.

“In my purgatory, I make the devil cry ♫

In Hellfire ♫

All you hear are his screams, begging to be released ♫

It’s Music ♫”

I had to bump up the music a bit to make sure Larent and Neill could hear my voice, otherwise they would be left vulnerable to the incoming meteor shower. I looked in the sky, noticing elephant-sized flames in the shape of dragons forming, before they rained down upon the enemies before me and the four high ogres.

minimize casualties.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Secondary Job [Flame Lancer] has risen from [Level 4] to [Level 5]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Seeing how I was done with my side, I glanced over, only to see a rather impressive sight between our side and the four ogres.

“Larent!”

“Personal Form 3: Sparrow Whirl.” Latent’s blade flared up with blue as he twisted his upper body to unleash a graceful slash, looking like a dancer, as the mana turned into a sparrow taking flight. The air stirred for a moment, before it launched two ogres into the sky, lacerating their bodies and spraying their blood like a watering can.

Seeing this happen, Neill’s purple scales and hair lit up as she concentrated mana into her palms. With a loud “Pulse Arcana: Maxima” a giant mana beam burst from her hands as it nearly consumed both ogres weren’t it for the timely intervention of [Dark Tendrils]. However, in the process, one of the ogres lost his right arm and weapon. Just like back at the cave, that move was really destructive.

As my [Dragon Fire] was still playing, the flame meteors kept raining down, forcing the arriving mage to raise her hand, creating a shadow barrier right above all of them with a ring. I remembered the mage from that battalion I fought in Greenveil using that trick.

However, memories could wait, as the mage quickly went on the offensive with six black magic circles. I couldn’t remember the spells she was casting, seeing as I hadn’t studied the System spell for dark. As such, I decided to play it safe and counter hers with six [Banishment Beam]s.

In that moment, simoustanly, six black and white lasers shot from our respectives sides, clashing against each other like in a beam duel. They wavered from side-to-side like a tug-of-war for a moment, before I quickly overwhelmed the mage with my higher stats. Understanding she lost, she [Shadow Dash]ed away before the impact.

Once she reappeared, I readied myself to end her, only to top myself when I heard her shout something at me.

“You’re that mage, right, dragon?! The scouts told us the navy got destroyed! You did that, no?” I was flabbergasted at how she wanted to start a conversation during a war, so I didn’t answer her immediately. “Don’t play coy, our allies told us as much. That means, you must be the one who killed Vul’grim!”

Vul-who? Has to be a grimgarian, right? Maybe it was the name of that high ogre I killed? Can’t remember.

“Our King has placed a bounty on your head in the name of vengeance, sworn before our Mother Goddess! Kargryxmor’s pawns has unsettled us enough times now!” The hobgoblin mage from before shouted out in a frenzy with a wide smile, causing the surrounding high ogres to roar in response. “We are here to regain that honor you took from him. You’re a powerful mage, indeed, so let us settle this as such! You and me, mage duel. We let the warriors fight and see who’s superior! Now, let us beg—”

“Yeah, as if!” I gave the hobgoblin the middle finger, mind boggled at how stupid she thought I was. “I gave you all a chance to retreat and escape with your lives! A warning! This is war, now. I’m not playing fair!”

Fairness? Fairness never assured my life in the Belzac forest!

Dragoon Dive! Wind Blast. Tailwind! Hellblade Edge!

I dived right at the mage, intending to get rid of her before the fight continued. This sudden gust of speed surprised the mage, who believed I was gonna fight her fairly in a mage duel. However, unlike her, the ogre reacted in time, sacrificing his left arm to protect the mage.

“Krrruhk!” It was the same ogre who lost his right arm, probably believing this was all he could do after losing his weapon, too.

With my brain working on overdrive, I immediately raised the heat of my glaive, burning his arm, and also unleashed a purpe flame breath on his face to fully assure his death. I then split his arm up and used my [Unheiliger Engel] to pierce his skull to move him away from me. Neill immediately went into action, pummeling the ogre before Larent dealt the finishing blow.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Secondary Job [Flame Lancer] has risen from [Level 6] to [Level 12]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Main Job [Champion of Aurena] has risen from [Level 7] to [Level 9]

Attributes have increased due to level up

No level up despite it being a B rank? Mhmm, sharing EXP between four people is a lot, after all.

With that in mind, I stared at the mage with greed. There was a bundle of EXP just before me. All I needed to do was to reap her with a [Dreadflare Aura] and the grimgarians would lose another B rank. A level 27 B rank at that, too!

… If only that were so easy.

“Hey!” With that loud, growly shout, my [Foresight] activated, telling me to stop attacking and dodge. Clicking my tongue, I still obeyed my skill’s judgment as a giant arrow flew right past me.

Terra Wall.

The earth below me grew, launching me up into the sky where I identified the source of the attack — an archer, an ogre archer to be precise. His hawk-like eyes snapped right at me as a vulture on his shoulder squawked in response, forcing the archer to delve right back into the woods nearby.

The mage had made her escape in the meantime, unable to be found with the naked eye. At the same time, I felt numerous signals approaching us. Looking around, I saw the cavalry had arrived.

One, two… a total of seven B ranks, right?

Orc knights, trolls, C rank ogres, a bunch of archers and mages. Amongst the newly arrived, there were two more B ranks — a high orc in a suit so thick he looked like a human tank while the other was a troll. Most of the bulk of their B ranks were ogres, it seemed.

With five from the navy dead, three engaging at the port, two killed prior to my arrival, and one just dying right now. There were seven before us, so that meant two were missing from the 20 B ranks they brought to this siege. Where were they? That was a concern, but I guess for now, it would be better to listen to Renee and buy some time for Alistar.

“Hahaha, even now, it seems like I am still getting saved by youngsters during a fight. Two young women, at that!” Latent smiled with the ferocity of a predator looking for a way to kill his opponents.

“If you have time to joke around, then start swinging that sword. Here!” Neill threw him a yellow potion — a Stamina potion — before downing a Mana potion of her own. “We’ll leave the support to you, Hestia! Let’s take these idiots down!”

“Hey, Sis, remember how I bought a Crystal? You need to change your job?”

“Aren’t you being cheeky already? I still have some levels to gain!” Neill answered with an unperturbed grin.

An army and seven B ranked monsters were in front of us, while on our side, we had an old veteran knight and two B rank dragons. Not exactly fair numbers, right? However, it wasn’t like we had much of a choice left, anyways. Being outnumbered was what I expected coming into this match.

Little do they know, they are just my source of skill points before I get my rematch with that demonkin! I will have a surprise for her once this is done!

“Then enough wasting time, let’s turn this siege on its head!”

A note from AbyssRaven

There might be a lot of goblins, but goblins were still goblins.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 357: But not Outgunned.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #2 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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The most common type of grimgarian were the goblins and kobolds. Ogres, trolls, even orcs weren’t as often seen on human soil mainly due to the hunter’s guild targeting those grimgarians, as they were more threatening than unintelligent monsters.

A nest of goblins left unperturbed could grow into an entire colony within weeks due to their rapid gestation period and, coupled with their ability to grow similar to humans, even G rank goblins could prove dangerous to a village. Not to mention how trolls and ogres had a base rank of C, making even a single one of them more than enough to decimate an entire town.

This is without accounting for how grimgarians could also gain Jobs and also evolve like normal monsters. Kobolds evolved into echikobolds and then, with a further evolution, into a gnoll. The more they evolved, the more the common grimgarians would be able to escape their weaker base rank, eventually becoming equal or even superior to humans, beastmen, and elves in certain fields.

However, even if their form changed, it was hard to change the personality they grew up with. In this case, goblins, no matter how strong, were still cowards.

In this case, a single hobgoblin scout was frozen in place, unable to move as [Terror (Major)] had frozen his brain and muscles. He was one of the grimgarian army’s most prominent rangers, being responsible for reconnaissance since the beginning of this invasion.

Their goal was clear: conquer the Divide of the Five Princes in one fell swoop. Years had gone into preparing this plan, even before the main forces from the Ogre King had arrived on this side of the continent. Tunnels were established, all to accommodate the invaders. Once it was time, the army was snuck into the country with the help of the demonkins and their network of sympathizers and supporters amongst the human race.

With the navy readied and the “rats” in place, the first stage of the grimgarian invasion was executed. A two pronged attack from land and sea, launched far too fast for the humans to react in time. While Hestia’s involvement had saved Artorias from the full brunt of this plight, the other countries along the coastline weren’t as lucky. This included the Kingdom of Yeos.

As such, the morale of the grimgarian army was sky high, in addition to being fueled by religious fervor. Despite some inconveniences at the start of the invasion, as in the destruction of multiple battalions and even a B rank being killed, the army still arrived in time at Yeos’s capital, Elyonda.

With a combined pincer attack from the navy and army, even the usually cowardly goblin foot soldiers thought it was decisive victory. They held an overwhelming advantage over the enemy in number and strategic options, to the point the goblins even joked how they wouldn’t have to act as fodder. They were so confident, they thought a majority of even the G rank goblins would survive! Their commanders had boasted how this siege would only last a single day.

It was joyous! … Oh, woe to them, for overconfidence had blinded them. Their wishful pride, eager and already accepting of the bright illusions of victory, was easy to break and crumbled into fire and blood.

This hobgoblin saw all the dominoes fall. Mighty magic decimating the entire fleet in one go, killing five B ranks in the process. Although the ancient SS ranked monster Karhalentheel was freed just as intended, the sudden emergence of Melloxtressa had only driven the scout down into despair. Still, he held onto hope that Kronnaz’s chosen would lead them to victory.

Unfortunately, when he saw those sent to the port being pushed back by giant water dinosaurs and a giant serpent in the sky, the hobgoblin’s only thought was to flee back to the main army. When he arrived, his feet were paralyzed. His eyes stared at the hell unfolding before him,

A decisive victory? What a joke. A close victory would already be embarrassing with their clear number advantage, but what kind of victory would they actually get? Only a strategic, or maybe, a tactical victory? At least they would fulfill their goals, even at the cost of massive casualties. There was still honor there, right?

So, why did this feel like it would lead into a pyrrhic victory at best? To the point they wouldn’t even be able to take over the territory?

Why did this thought flash in the hobgoblin’s mind?

“I descend on Earth with Wings of Death! ♫

A Storm of Fury ♫

Creating Ash and Dust ♫

I am the Incarnation of the Sun ♫

I shine so brightly, I bring your death ♫

My lineage belongs to the God of Dragons! ♫

Despair, color the sky crimson! ♫

Earth scorched by rain of undying flames ♫

Hope born from misery! ♫

Quash it all, you are facing me! ♫”

To some, it was the voice of an angel. A perfect pitch fluctuating around with the notes and musical instruments, bringing life and character to this opera-style remix. However, to the grimgarians, this voice sounded nothing like that … To them, it felt like they were facing something beyond their comprehension. As if they weren’t worthy of being in her mere presence.

However, words were just words, after all. It was just unfortunate her words translated also into action, as her song brought down dragon-formed flame meteors. In addition, giant rocks were falling from the sky, large hurricanes ripping through the land, and giant balls of lightning sizzling anybody drenched and freezing in this monsoon-blizzard combo.

This was nature’s terrors made manifest, brought about the power stored within flesh and blood, summoned by the wellspring of this world—mana. It wasn’t the keen blade before them which scared a soldier, but something they could not stop. The unseen arrow, a warrior of unstoppable might, and a mage free firing grand magicks.

To the fleeing goblins, the being flying in the skies could not be compared to the white dogs of Aurena they had faced in the past. No, this was a being which left nothing but fear in their hearts. Those flame-like hair, crimson clothes, and the steam from all the rain and snow boiling from her body temperature alone; to them, it looked almost as if the God of Fire, Danterno, had personally descended onto the mortal realms in the form of a woman.

“Graaaaaah!”

“Graaa! Graak! Graaaa!”

The first to flee were the lowly goblins and kobolds foot soldiers, far too terrified to continue fighting even with the mages and orcs screaming for them to stop. This caused the giant blob fighting against Hestia, Fargryneill, and Larent to dwindle.

Up next where the evolved hobgoblins, echikobolds, and D rank orcs. With so many dead from Hestia’s spells, Fargryneill’s mana blasts, and Larent’s swordsmanship, they couldn’t rally when their commanders ordered them to. To the woods, the cravens fled. To live another day.

The undead and tentacles spawned from Karhalantheel’s Territory were also quickly taken out from this chaos. To see their allies destroyed so easily and their numbers falling like flies, the usually stouthearted C rank orcs began to fear the inevitable. The B ranks, knowing disaster would strike if the morale were to plummet even further, tried to roar and reinvigorate everybody, but Larent, the seasoned army man, aimed for these moments with his blade. A moment of hope was quickly turned into despair.

The screams quickly spread to the forces at the walls. The grimgarians saw their brothers and sisters-in-arms flee from their stations, drawing their senses towards the fight happening behind them. It was then when they finally heard the sound of the devil’s voice singing in their ears, and with it, the sound of meteors falling onto their heads.

In a panic, they rushed up the walls, pushing down anybody in their way as they tried so desperately to cling onto their lives. To see these flame dragons dropping down from the sky awakened a primal instinct in them. But, this was all the newly-appointed commander of the walls was aiming for.

“Archers! Fire!” A knight in feathered armor waved her wind flag around, accelerating the force and speed of the arrows released from behind her. This tailwind surged, accompanying the projectiles, almost as if the Goddess of Wind had blessed them.

Numerous grimgarians fell from this attack, blocking the wall off from others as these meteors crashed against the large earthen walls and army. Cries of despair rang out, only hastening the destruction of this plan. They had no way to flee, so the grimgarians fought and moved even fiercer to find some inkling of hope.

Unfortunately for them, whether it was outside or inside the city, nowhere was safe. Outside, meteors would rain down while their kinsmen would trample each other to death. Inside, roots would sprung up from the ground, trapping the grimgarians for easy pickings. Even if assassins and mages snuck by with [Shadow Dash] through… conveniently placed crevasses, adventurers would await them there with wide grins.

“Rita, I need you to cast over there and there. Use those roots to open some holes in that wall over there, too!”

“Arck, Renee, you’re overworking me like crazy! I’ll die from arcane corruption at this point!”

“You and I both know you can’t, so stop complaining and cast! We need to win this or we will all die! Soldiers, listen to the winds! This monsoon has nothing against us!” She waved her flag once more, calming the winds within this area of the battlefield.

This can’t keep on going! We need to do something!

It wasn’t an exaggeration to say this siege had been turned on its head by a single person. It wasn’t Larent, a war veteran with more medals than most soldiers could ever imagine, or the Champion Tehmrayn, who had challenged and killed many arrogant Champions from the other gods of the Water Pantheon. No, it was a lone dragoness with the third highest amount of mana in this entire battle. And it wasn’t even a contest.

Mighty spells ravaged the battlefield before the [Shadowtouched Hobgoblin] shaman. She was a B rank mage who had access to [Tenebrous Magic Lv. 5] spells, making her the leader of the shamans and mages of this army. She knew her role in this battle was to take down enemy mages, to prevent them from causing terror onto the bulk of the army. As such, when she saw the dragon responsible for the destruction of the navy, she understood she had to challenge her.

Although anxious, since she wasn’t sure she could win, she had to for the sake of vengeance and victory. She thought she could conjure up a trick or two, using her catalyst and potions to tip the scales, believing victory wasn’t out of hand already. Although a mage could control an entire battlefield if trained enough, they could easily die from attacks if they weren’t careful, even if that mage were a B rank dragon. After all, she had B rank ogres on her side.

A mage’s most frightening enemy was arcane corruption, as even the strongest archmages had to stop casting otherwise their bodies would crumble away from this corrupted mana. Even if the dragon had restored her mana from a level, she should still be weakened and feeble from the [Heaven’s Sword] and giant dragon-fire she had conjured to destroy the fleet. That was what the hobgoblin thought.

She thought she had a chance.

How is this possible?!

The reason for Hestia’s mana dropping so quickly during the navy attack was due to overkill. She had invested too much mana into [Dragon Fire]’s singular blast and even recklessly used [Purple Flash] on her [Heaven’s Sword]. While it did make casting the spell instantaneously, it also tripled the mana cost of the level eight [Sacred Magic] spell. If Hestia hadn’t had more mana than a normal dragon of her rank, this wouldn’t be possible.

She would have exploded like a balloon from overusing her mana so much. Or, the [Mana Stress] and [Arcane Fever] would have knocked her out of the battle entirely. It hadn’t been too long since the nuclear option.

However, behold, for the dragoness was consuming dragorade like crazy. Normally, she wouldn’t be able to cast her grand spells in this chaos, since the B ranks, mages, and archers were all aiming at her. Her casting spell of the high tier spells wasn’t fast enough, forcing her to use [Purple Flash]. Fortunately for her, this would only be the case if she were alone.

“Come at me, you bastards! You stinking rats, get yourself back into the fight, I’m not done turning all of you into compost!” Fargryneill shouted like a madwoman as she not only decimated waves of grimgarians but also protected her sister from anything endangering her. Hestia didn’t even need to use her scales for protection in this case.

Like the classic RPG party composition of Tank-Mage-Healer, the trio of Larent, Fargryneill, and Hestia were doing something similar.

Larent led every attack diving into the mix with his swordsmanship, Fargryneill kept a proper midline defense by supporting him and her sister, while Hestia kept both of them alive with her white flames and by culling the weak with her massive spells. In this formation, Hestia could cast spells unperturbed while in the air. A supporter and damage dealer in one package with eleven minds to cast spells with — a sure-fire plan to horrify the shamans who very much understood what this meant.

I can’t beat her!!!

In a pure magic duel, even if she had the time and space to cast six tenebrous spells at once, the hobgoblin shaman understood this meant nothing to Hestia. She could just cast faster to counter them. Even then, as the dragoness just mentioned — “This is war now. I’m not playing fair!” — there was a high chance that the floating glaive would slice her up in a one-versus-one fight.

Mother Goddess, give me strength! GIVE ME STRENGTH TO CHALLENGE THIS MONSTER!

She prayed in her mind as she cast the level five [Tenebrous Magic] spell [Eldritch Hand], summoning a long arm with a single-floor-sized hand from the magic circle. The hand swung at Hestia, but the girl blocked it by casting [Sanctuary], before blasting it into pieces with her scale-dust and [White Flames].

The spell, however, wasn’t over, as the pieces simply fell onto the ground and returned to the circle, reforming the hand in a more grotesque figure. It continued attacking until the barrier broke, but that was when Hestia reappeared right behind her. The flames coming from her wings were still warm while a veil of lightning was around her body, evidence of her using [Overload] in conjunction with her boosters.

The B rank ogres around her swung their weapons at the dragoness' sudden appearance, trying to protect their mage, but another barrier formed around the girl — [Gloria Ascendence], the unbreakable level seven sacred spell. Hestia grabbed onto the hobgoblin mage before she could escape, and with a smile, detonated her scale-dust with [Dreadflare Aura].

Mother—?! Her last thought went unfinished.

Health and Mana fully restored. Levels up. Another B rank down.

“Bye bye, boys!” She crackled as the ogres desperately tried to cool down their burned bodies, before she entered a portal and escaped from that position. Once on the other side, she took out her [Crystal of the Divine System] and changed her secondary Job into [Dragonkin Fighter].

At the same time as all this was happening, an explosion erupted in the distance, causing some of the fleeing grimgarians to stop and watch as smoke rose to the cloudy skies. Although some weren’t aware of the importance of this, the B ranks fighting against the trio knew exactly where the smoke was coming from.

The artillery camp!

Larent instantly noticed the change in the ogres' behaviors and told Neill and Hestia to hold back their attacks for now, letting some of the B ranks rush over to the camp. Some were left behind to delay the trio, but seeing over half of their commanders suddenly leave only caused the morale of the attack force to drop into the negative.

After all, unless they all shouted together from the bottom of their lungs, normal voices couldn’t pierce the sound from the spells and weather chaos all around them. However, even if they did inform the army about it, nothing good would happen. They were struggling against three fighters, and now their artillery was in danger? The main component of their siege plans?

Regardless of whatever they did — being silent or being transparent — everything would lead to the same mess. A single rout wasn’t too problematic, but Hestia’s [Dragon Fire] song had already scared many away. It was a chain-reaction which escalated into the army loss.

“Urgh, damn…” Fargryneill fell onto one knee as she saw the enemies waver and break. She was on the precipice of naturally reaching [Battle Frenzy (Moderate)] and felt aches all around her body from fighting nearly nonstop the moment she and her two allies were encircled.

“Up, lass, this isn’t over.” Larent helped the girl up before handing her a dragorade to drink. “Three B ranks here, three left. Two more at the camp, probably.”

Larent looked at the two ogres and presumed the annoying archer was still around, hiding in the woods. He readied his blade and looked up at Hestia.

“Lass?” He squinted his eyes. Even in the darkness, he could see Hestia’s face turning blue.

She downed an entire dragorade in one go while massaging her temples, feeling the effects of attrition on her mind. Her parallel minds quickly identified her body was accumulating too much arcane corruption. Despite just leveling up from killing the B rank shaman, she had only recovered her Mana. Arcane corruption could only be dispelled over time.

“I can still go on. Your plan?”

Hestia believed around 30 minutes had gone by since this fight had begun, although her perception of time was thrown off thanks to [Haste]’s effect and how her brain was slowing down everything with [High-Speed Calculation] and [Thought Acceleration]. In truth, about 21 minutes had eclipsed.

However, 21 minutes of nonstop fighting against seven B ranks would obviously tire out two B ranks, namely Hestia and Fargryneill. While the former had arcane corruption problems, the latter was struggling with her Stamina.

Understanding his companions needed a break urgently, Larent readied his sword and steadied his breath. He assessed the situation just as the ogre ranger shot an arrow at Hestia, causing her to swerve around in annoyance. It took them 21 minutes to take down one exhausted mage, but that didn’t mean the other B ranks were tired.

In fact, since all of them were warriors of some kind, they had high amounts of Stamina. Unlike the trio, they had plenty of time to take a breather in between trading blows. Now, these three just had to hold on until the rest returned from the artillery.

“Princesses, the ranger now, and then Alistar! I will handle these two!”

““Got it!””

He fought solo against four B ranks, then fought against an army, and now he wanted to fight two B ranks alone. Truly, this was Auegor’s Blade. The two ogres standing before him couldn’t help but give their respects to this man, whose armor was slowly falling apart from all the damage he took from the 21 minute fight. If Hestia hadn't been around to heal, he would have fallen already.

This isn’t the time for me to stop yet. I still need to avenge him! GHORUSH!

<Bloodoathed Target: Ghorush>

[Bloodoathed Avenger], Larent’s current Main Job, caused the flare up from its Job skills. Having heard who killed Arlond from Hestia, the man felt reinvigorated. He now had a target for his Job, and with it, a sudden burst in stats for this singular goal. It was a one-time use Job with barely any long-term benefits, plus it had a pretty damning detriment of sealing his Job slot permanently once the target was taken down.

However, to him, it was a worthy price to pay for revenge on a young knight he had great aspirations for. It was just lucky he now had two Job slots to spare.

“Woah! He’s getting away!” Hestia noted as the vulture squawked and warned its master, causing the man and bird to enter their shadows.

Clicking her tongue, she could only shake her head to her sister as she scouted the woods. No signals could be found outside of frantically running grimgarians. Considering those two would flee the moment Hestia blasted over to them, it meant she couldn’t play this head-on. They didn’t have too much time, so it was time to do this as efficiently as possible.

“Sis, go to Alistar. I got a plan!” Fargryneill gave her sister a thumbs up and vanished from the woods, before Hestia descended down on the ground and talked to her own shadow. [“You ready for some cat-and-mouse?”]

[“It’s hunting time, Master?”] A white-black virigress slowly emerged from her shadow with his mouth wide open, looking ecstatic. [“Rajah couldn’t hunt much, Master. Only scouting!”]

[“Then, have some fun.”] Hestia picked up a feather from the vulture and wafted it in front of her virigress’s nose. [“Take it down for me, Rajah.”]

[“Yes!”]

A sniper needed a spotter if they didn’t have some way to overlook to find their targets. Even with [Detection Sensor], Hestia usually needed some time to line up the perfect shot with her air rifle. The idea was to take down the target without compromising their own location. She could burn down this woods, but that would give the ranger time to escape. Considering how often he nearly hit Hestia with an arrow, it was prudent to solve this problem now before Alistar and the flying knights escaped.

Larent gave this order to the dragonesses, believing Hestia would understand this well.

And so, a cat-bird hunt began, with Hestia dampening her steps. Although not as densely packed as the Belzac Forest, this was still a woodland. Although she was a fire dragon, she felt at home in a forest like her birthplace. As such, she disliked burning down trees, no matter how often it happened inside and outside Belzac.

To the Belzac-born duo, navigating through the vegetation and trees was a non-problem, even with the rain and blizzard making it far harder to traverse. It was then Hestia noted some emergent signals. Rajah nodded and moved towards them while Hestia moved in a different path, trying to draw the ranger’s attention towards her.

Arrows began flying, but Hestia simply dodged them all. The ranger would disappear with every shot, and the vulture would move with him. With this happening five more times, the vulture had left its guard down, leaving it vulnerable as Rajah jumped out of its shadow and bit right into its neck.

Its thick plumage prevented a decisive blow, but using [Shadow Tendrils], Rajah kept the bird from flying away. With his long claws, Rajah dug right into the vulture's body, injecting his toxins while avoiding the vulture’s own claws.

It squawked and tried to escape into its shadow, but Rajah kept the beast out of it with the tendrils. The vulture countered with its own [Shadow Tendrils] before summoning a [Shadow Clone] to attack the young tiger. In an encounter between two dark elemental monsters, it was clear both knew what the other could do. Only, the vulture didn’t know Rajah has a trick up his sleeve.

[“Smite!”]

Faster casting due to [Chant Revocation Lv. 10] since he had access to the SP System from Hestia as well as also [Holy Magic]. A direct counter against dark monsters.

“Squuueeewk!” The vulture’s clone popped into nothingness, surprising the bird, leaving it open for Rajah’s bite. Although it struggled and managed to hit Rajah a few times with its talons, it still breathed it last in the end. “Squuueee …”

[“Ouch, Moderate Heal! Master, I have bird for dinner!”] Rajah picked the corpse up and began heading back towards his master, looking like a happy cat after hunting a sparrow as an offering to the pack.

“...!” With the death of a tamed monster also came the tragic notification afterwards. To the ogre, time stopped… “Beakshell? No… Beakshell. Tsk… I need to- GUUCK!”

Whether it took five seconds or 20, the shock of losing his long-term partner caused the ogre to drop his guard for a moment, and this was all Hestia needed to make a bullet from her scales. Lock-and-loaded, the bullet shot through her wind rifle right into the ogre’s left shoulder, blowing it up.

The ranger tried to escape, but his abysmal casting time was further delayed by the fact his shoulder was messed up and had a crater. Hestia flew over to the ogre and kicked him away from his magic circle. She inspected the damage of her bullet, noting how it didn’t completely dismember him, before ending his misery with her glaive.

If this was when she fought her first high ogre, it wouldn’t have ended so quickly.

[“Master!”] Rajah strutted proudly before Hestia and placed the vulture corpse before her, wagging his tail, wanting his master to acknowledge him.

… He really is a cat. He’s even doing the bird thing. Hestia thought while stroking her virigress before storing the bird and telling him to hide back in her shadow. With the anti-air B rank down, it was time to help with the rescue effort.

She rushed over, following the smoke. While flying she noticed grimgarians fleeing from the area before noting the knights flying on gargoyles. Many of them were dodging mana cannonballs and arrows, while others kept attacking with spells. On land, she saw a couple of knights led by a familiar man and winged girl with a noticeable horn.

Before them was a troll, two orcs, and two ogres. All were B ranks and they were engaging them in a rather fierce battle. One of the knights was Alistar, and while he wasn’t down yet, he was struggling. On the other hand, the other knights were close to death from how their wounds looked. The only one hanging on was Fargryneill, but even to her, five B ranks were too many.

It would have been a different story if she were in her true form, though. Stubbornness was one quirk both sisters had in common.

Hestia glanced to the left, noticing more than ten mana cannons before preparing ten [Tornado Bullet]s. Shooting them out caught the attention of the B ranks, forcing them to either dodge or block them and delay shooting the cannons. Regardless of what they did, this gave Fargryneill the chance to stomp the ground, spreading her dragon paths to explode right in front of them.

She and the knights quickly dashed away, with them all getting back into the sky with Hestia providing cover fire. However, instead of retreating, the knights turned to the mana cannon. The two girls were flabbergasted at this, but apparently the cannons weren’t all destroyed yet. Seeing as this was the case, Hestia told them to focus on fleeing and to leave the rest to them.

“... All of you, retreat! Make it back to the walls. Lady Hestia, Lady Fargryneill, I’ll cover your retreat with spells!” Alistar stated.

With no complaints to that idea, the two sisters flapped their wings and immediately went on the offensive. Fargryneill, although tired, dove right into the mix of the B and C ranks to get their attention, leaving Hestia all the time to unleash her breath attack on the remaining cannons, scorching them all of them black until they exploded.

The cumulative explosions nearly blew away Hestia, but by twisting her body a bit, she began shooting spells again at the B ranks. However, this time, unlike when they had been taken by surprise, the B ranks blocked and countered by throwing either weapons or broken items at her. Some even cut themselves, using their blood as projectiles like the time Hestia fought Vul’grim Beastslaughterer, the high ogre responsible for the grimgarian battalion Aurora met in the Greenveil duchy.

[Enmity Axe], one of the skills of the Slaughter Blade techniques taught amongst this group of ogre berserkers. All of them knew Vul’grim. All of them understood what the hobgoblin shaman said before, and now they knew who killed their blood brother.

““NIAKASH BAAL’AK””

“Niakash go fuck youselves!” Unlike back when she fought Vul’grim, this time she knew how to deflect weapon abilities. Using her aflamed glaive, she parried both blows and sharpened her glare.

Always annoying when even warriors can use long-range attacks like this. They won’t let Sis escape at this rate.

However…

…Great, I’m turning purple now? Fuck. Would’ve been better if I were just blue, dabadee dabadie.

The arcane corruption was worsening. Flying with her boosters demanded mana, after all. She thought it would take a bit more for her condition to worsen, but looking at her mirror, she really had to slow down.

She stopped her boosters and landed on the ground, swinging her glaive to confront the B ranks. Fargryneill grimaced, understanding from her face she couldn’t hang on for too long. She needed a break. Fargryneill herself was tired, but neither exhausted or in danger of arcane corruption. While she knew her younger sister was a fantastic mage, her melee capabilities were still lacking compared to herself.

Hah, is this what you call being an elder sibling? Really feel anxious seeing her nervous like this. Putting yourself in danger for me, who do you think I am, huh?

Fargryneill took in a deep breath and invoked memories from her past, resurfacing these memories to jumpstart her heart and brain. Adrenaline pumped through her veins, hastening her blood to the point her body couldn’t stop trembling.

[Battle Frenzy (Moderate)].

“Hestia!”

“H-Huh?!” Hestia’s head darted over to her sister for a moment, before adjusting back to the B ranks. She couldn’t let her guard down.

The enemy were wary of the two, even more now that they could visibly see and feel a difference in Fargryneill. The neon bright purple tints on her hair and scales were glowing even brighter, her three horns emitted translucent mana, and a veil of black flames covered her form. They quickly understood this opponent was just hiding her real strength up until now.

“I’ll take the lead, okay? Follow my steps and attack. Just assume this is another part of your training, this time, to help you fight without relying on your spells and scale manipulation.”

“Urgh… arcane corruption sucks.” She readied her weapon and took the stance her two weapons teacher — Farron and Yorshka — had taught her. “Right behind you. Let’s do this and then escape!”

“Ha, you jester! I didn’t go [Battle Frenzy (Moderate)] for nothing! We’re taking these bastards out and then I’m changing my class you hear! These grimgarians think they can take on two dragons?! Ha, by father’s maw, this nightmare of theirs hadn’t ended yet! To evolve into an A rank, sometimes you just need to take a fucking leap of FAITH!”

“... You are crazy, huh? Then… how about becoming my retainer for the exp boost? Would help you out, right?”

“HA! What? Want to break my pride? Sorry, but I really want to act like a good elder sister to you, alright, and that means I need to prove you can do this without any random blessings. Curse you for having stupid Kramp’s blessing.”

[Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] was a blessing, not a title naturally given to Kargryxmor dragon descendants.

“However, I’m not an idiot. I’ll do it after we’re done, but only if you manage to get more or the same amount of B rank kills,” Fargryneill said, despite knowing there were only five B ranks in front of her. She was confident she wouldn’t lose this bet against her own sister. “Alright, you ready? HEY, YA PUNKS! STOP STARING AT US AND GET YOUR WEAPONS READY!”

It seemed foolish at first, but both girls still had an ace up their sleeves — their dragon forms. With [Battle Frenzy] and their dragon forms, stats alone could probably solve their issues, but this meant losing experience for their Jobs. It was risky, but it was possible. At least, in Fargryneill’s mind, it was in the realm of possibility for a Kargryxmor.

“Now… Let’s go!”

“Gotcha!”

Both girls charged at the B ranks, their bodies poised to strike first. This would the the decisive blo—

“Ooooooh, that’s good form, auntie~”

“Truly magnificent, Lady Hestia. I could feel your lingering mana saturate the area to the point I was scared an A rank would spawn, even from up in the castle.”

“Hmm, but take a break, lass. Let us take over for now.”

[““Princess Hestia, we have returned. Your orders, fulfilled!””]

The girls stared in the sky as those voices echoed through all the rain and— No, now that they had time to focus, there wasn’t any rain or even snow falling on them. After all, a single mage fluttering in the sky with her butterfly-like wings was freezing anything, stopping them from falling onto her one and only mistress.

“T-Tasianna? Shay? Beth?” Hestia exclaimed as she saw her familiar fairy maid smile while forming a giant blade of ice with her catalyst, while two snow wyverns hovered over the B ranks, eyeing them as prey.

However, her surprise didn’t stop there as she saw two people she hadn’t expected to see standing in the air right now. No, she wanted them to be here, but she had mostly forgotten about it due to how hectic everything was.

“Yorshka? Farron? You guys made it time?”

“Family comes when you need them the most, right? And from what I can see, my little aunt seems to have an arcane corruption problem. So, who's the big, bad green meanie who pushed you to this point? Is it those guys? Because I kinda have had it enough with grimgarians for one week…”

The allies from Griffonpeak had arrived, accompanied by a giant, floating fortress appearing from the dark clouds. It glowed red like blood and had the malignant appearance of a monster’s head. What was it, and why was it here with her friends and family? This was what Hestia thought.

However… to her sister, all of these random visitors only sent a chill down a spine.

Are you kidding me?! I was trying to look cool in front of my whelping sister! Fuck! I wasted moderate for this?! … Wait, nooo! I need to kill one of them! Come on, mo-

“Well, then I better pay these grimgarians a lesson. Tasianna, Shay, Beth! Look at them bullying our Hestia! Farron, let’s do this quick! Princess Neill seems to be in trouble, too! Nordor Style: Silver Dragon’s Skyfall!”

Stoooooooooooop iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!

… Today, somebody lost a bet.

A note from AbyssRaven

There is something satisfying about writing this as a third-person narrator and displaying how much the goblins fear goblin slayer—I mean, Hestia, to the point they thought Danterno had assumed a woman's form, lol. Oh yeah, reminder that gods receive their form through prayer.

Also, RIP Neill's bet. Hestia just got her sister as a retainer.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 358: Assemble the Boss Raid Team.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #3 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! It works on a subscription base now, so pay on the same date next month!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

<Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Secondary Job [Flame Lancer] has risen from [Level 12] to [Level 20]>

<Attributes have increased due to level up>

<Max level of Job [Flame Lancer] has been reached>

<Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Main Job [Champion of Aurena] has risen from [Level 9] to [Level 23]>

<Attributes have increased due to level up>

<12 human and beastman followers lost>

<Total follower count updated. Total followers of [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 17181>

<Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has risen from [Level 23] to [Level 25]>

<Attributes have increased due to level up>

<Acquired 1500 skill points>

<Individual [Sunfang Dragonewt, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has switched her Secondary Job to [Dragonkin Fighter]>

<Dragonkin Fighter Level: 0/25>

<Attributes have increased due to level up>

<Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Secondary Job [Dragonkin Fighter] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 12]>

<Attributes have increased due to level up>

“Nordor Style: Silver Dragon’s Skyfall!”

Remembering exactly how that move had taken out that colossal rachonoid queen back when we first met in Cedaraille, I ran the hell away from the epicenter of Yorshka’s attack. For some reason, Neill was screaming “Ahhhhhhhhhh!” as she sprinted towards one of the B ranks with a glowing fist surrounded by her black flames instead of retreating.

[“Neill, get away!”] I tried to warn her, but she didn’t listen!

[“You run away, then! Take a breather, sis!”]

Was it [Battle Frenzy (Moderate)]? Most likely, since even with my control over [Battle Frenzy (Minor)], I still felt compelled to fight. The higher the intensity of the effect, the more you had to keep it in check. I could only imagine how much it was influencing Neill, to the point she willingly went into a dragoon’s crashing site.

Regardless, it was a bit too late as both Neill’s and Yorshka’s attack landed at the same time. The silver dragon’s head illusion created from Yorshka’s mana crashed into the ground, causing it to explode, blowing everything around it away. With the earth shattering before my eyes, I saw Tasianna fly over to me with her giant ice sword, blocking the shockwave from hitting me.

With her standing by my side, she gave me a short bow and smile, looking like she wanted to say “I am back.” Considering I probably scared her since [The Light] could inform my retainers of my health status, meaning she probably knew I was outside of Peolynca for two days, I was glad she looked alright.

It was then that I noticed her overall appearance; sure, her hair and clothes looked immaculate, as if she had the time to groom it all, however, what caught my eyes were the fact her right ear was cut in half, she was missing three fingers, and how her two braids was reduced to one.

[“Too many B ranks, sea serpents and merfiends, my lady. Don’t forget, I am a fae, they will regrow back over time,”] Tasianna explained. [“I… was careless. High stats matter a bit more than pure skill when it comes to war, apparently. Ehehe.”]

With every body part a fairy lost, the lower her maximum mana capacity would fall. Tasianna probably didn’t lose too much mana, but seeing my friend like this did ache my heart. I had sent her to find and rescue the levianewts, but it also meant sending her to support Artorias’s war effort as she had to accompany the ships there.

However, instead of complaining, the first thing she did was to come right back to my side. I knew it was ‘cause of how seriously she took her maid duties, but still, it did warm my chest and also made me aware how hardened she seemed. Stronger, not only through stats alone, but also emotionally.

Tasianna Marina Siverpond’s party wishes to integrate into yours

Accept Decline

Of course, accept!

Party Leader

Name: Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor Level: 105

Main Job: Champion of Aurena Secondary Job: Dragonkin Fighter Unique Job: Locked

Name: Rhea Renee Sealight Level: 92 Unique Job: Plumwind Squire

Name: Larent Antonodius Level: 147

Main Job: Bloodoathed Avenger Secondary Job: Sword Savant Unique Job: Locked

Name: Fargryneill Qilinus Kargryxmor Level: 113

Main Job: Violet Tyrant Pathfinder Secondary Job: Dragonkin Destroyer Unique Job: Locked

Name: Tasianna Marina Silverpond Level: 95

Main Job: Cryo Fae Secondary Job: Ice Archmage Unique Job: Locked

Name: Yorshka Nordor Level: 135

Main Job: White-Winged Dragoon Secondary Job: War Veteran Unique Job: Locked

Name: Farron Nordor Level: 120

Main Job: Wing Ripper Secondary Job: War Veteran Unique Job: Locked

A normal party bracelet was only able to handle five members for a party; thankfully, however, the ones my party had could handle up to 20. Pretty useful to share experience with everybody. However, what made it even more impressive was the fact I could see everybody’s growth.

Yorshka’s level was 132 before she went to the battle at Port Annencia, while Farron had been stuck at 113 for over a decade or so due to his crippling lung damage. Now, both were reaching new heights. Even Tasianna, whose level was lagging behind everybody since she couldn’t kill anything, was close to 100 now.

War might be terrible and unnecessary… but it sure was a good source of levels.

[“For you, my lady, nothing can stop me. These temporary scars are proof I am more than a sheltered woman.”] As the dust began to settle, Tasianna kneeled in front of me. [“My lady only deserves to smile without any worries when she sips her morning tea. I shall make it so.”]

Your bond with your retainer [Fairy, Tasianna Marina Silverpond] has reached a new height. Loyalty, friendship, and trust had sealed your bond with each other. With the strength to serve and protect you, your retainer deserves appropriate rewards

The title [Hestia’s Retainer] has evolved into [Hestia’s Imperial Guard]. The title has been adapted according to the memories the both of you have shared

“...?”

“...!”

… Friendship really is as important as anime and games make it out to be.

“Dammit! Yorshka!” However, before either of us could address it, Neill’s loud voice interrupted it all.

“Whew! Sorry, Princess Neill, but we should speak later. Farron, honey, now!” And another dragoon dive bombed the ground below, kicking up another dust cloud, only this time, this knight did not stay on the ground. Farron, with his rejuvenated body, diving and jumping without any rest. “Take a break, both of you, we’ll take over. Tasianna!”

“Yes!” Tasianna levitated her giant ice sword. “My lady, please, allow me.”

Just like the cold wind, she breezed away, accompanied by Neill’s incessant complaints. Shay and Beth, from above, shot their ice breath at some of the fleeing B ranks, imprisoning them in an arena. None of them would escape us.

The situation was pretty much done from down here, to the point I felt my body weaken as the adrenaline wore off. I fell onto my butt and stared up in the sky, enjoying the fact no rain or snow was falling on me. The sky was so dark, but it couldn’t feel brighter than now.

Alister and his knights were swarming in the sky, cheering as they returned to the wall. It wasn’t just ‘cause the situation with the artillery was covered, but also the fact Elyonda’s cavalry wasn’t just Tasianna and co. There, in the skies, it welcomed the arrival of the griffon and hippogryph knights of Artorias.

“Lady Hestia!” One of the knights came flying over to us. I might not have been able to recognize the armored figure by sight, but I did recognize that voice. “My daughter! Amelia! Please, tell me she’s safe!”

… Poor Duke Greenveil. Amelia is in another castle.

I closed my eyes and gave him a thumbs up.

<[Violetshock Kirin-Dragon, Fargryneill Qilinus Kargryxmor] has received the title [Hestia’s Retainer]>

<Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has risen from [Level 25] to [Level 26]>

<Attributes have increased due to level up>

<Acquired 750 skill points>

<Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Main Job [Champion of Aurena] has risen from [Level 23] to [Level 30]>

<Attributes have increased due to level up>

<Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Secondary Job [Dragonkin Fighter] has risen from [Level 12] to [Level 25]>

<Attributes have increased due to level up>

<Max level of Job [Dragonkin Fighter] has been reached>

<Individual [Sunfang Dragonewt, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has switched her Secondary Job to [Idol]>

<Idol Level: 0/30>

<Attributes have increased due to level up>

<Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Idol Lv. 5] [Draconic Roar Lv. 7] [Scale Manipulation Lv. 3] gained>

<Spell song slots +2>

<Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Secondary Job [Idol] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 9]>

<Attributes have increased due to level up>

“The Floating Capital of the Vampires, Purchigchia. It is also goes by the name ‘Blood Fortress, Drascul.’” Tasianna pointed at the skies, the both of us riding on Beth on the way back into the city. Rajah and Neill were on too, although my sister was pouting, while the rest were cleaning things up with Shay. “They suddenly arrived at Port Annencia a day ago, helping us banish the remaining enemies there. Well, this was after the grimgarian fleet suddenly began retreating. For some reason, they had broken the siege before anything was decided. I’ll be honest, my lady, I had not expected to come here today.”

“This is… really too much information.”

Tasianna had left out most of the details concerning the actual fight at Port Annencia, only mentioning that Yorshka and Farron, or any of the knights who arrived with them, could explain it better, since when Tasianna arrived there with the levianewts, the battle seemed to have already reached its peak.

Yorshka had been fighting on the very frontline with silvery lances conjuring around her in a small area, all while the warships kept trying to shoot her down. There were even larger grimgarian forces over there, with every ship having a mana barrier and a B rank shaman to protect them. Since the Lecartiglio Duchy placed more focus on martial skills, they didn’t have any mages with actual large AoE attacks like me.

Duchess Morgiana was supposed to arrive to help turn the tide, but the situation was already getting dicey with Yorshka and Duke Lecartiglio becoming exhausted. As a consequence, Tasianna was roped into the mix immediately, to the point she had to act in the same role I did. By working together with Shay and Beth, seeing as they were B ranks, Tasianna managed to pretty much turn the whole port into a winter wonderland.

“... The Duke gave me a lot of Major Mana potions seeing as I was the only magical strategic combatant they had. Yorshka, Farron, and the Duke could duel any of the B rank commanders, but without magic, we couldn’t pierce the ships. He even gave me a bunch of accessories with mana storing catalyst as an investment, to the point they became my reward for helping out.”

Tasianna twiddled with her fingers, looking a bit embarrassed as she pointed at a necklace, two spell rings, a bracelet, and a pair of earrings. None of them seemed enchanted, but seeing as all of them had catalysts, Tasianna could easily store her mana in them for emergency usages in the future. Not to mention, they were hers now, meaning we could have the mage guild enchant them for us later on, strengthening them even further.

Damn, no way did Duke Lecartiglio give those out for “free.” Even if they were Tasianna’s rewards. He is a noble, and even if my impression of him was him being the straightforward type of dude, he probably had an ulterior motive to give them to Tasianna. One of them, alone, would have been more than enough.

Regardless, with Tasianna using her ice spells to support Artorias, the knights managed to finally turn things to their side. However, before anything could be resolved, the grimgarian had suddenly made preparations to retreat. Coincidentally, that flying fortress had also arrived at the same time, sending out a few of their own knights to help out and act as emissaries.

Vivachel, the Goddess of Vampires, probably was involved in this somehow. However, why would she? Gods weren’t supposed to meddle directly, meaning she didn’t order them to come over. It had to be something else.

“It’s Tatsuya and Kyouya, my lady.” I turned around, looking at Tasianna in surprise.

Seeing as Vivachel was the self-proclaimed Vampire Queen, she gave the two boys a chance to train with the knights of her country. They were the reason why the castle was even around Port Annencia and why they even transported the others over here in record time. However, the boys themselves weren’t allowed to join the fighting, as the vampires considered them “the blood princess’s little pets.”

While it sounded dangerous, since my perception of vampires was that of predatory bloodsuckers, Tasianna said this “blood princess” was simply doing what her mother told her to do: train the two up. She explained the vampires had a different way of perceiving anything less than an elf.

“The vampires pretty much think they are the finest race of the world and see their floating castle as the ‘seat of the elite.’ Humans, beastmen, even dwarves are ‘pets’ and ‘playthings.’ We only stayed for one day and it was pretty terrible.” Tasianna shivered. “However… I had a chance to talk with the two. Miss Saori and Asaka are both doing well. In fact, Miss Saori managed to reunite with her mother.”

“M-Mother?! … Oh.”

Now that I thought about it, her garm mother did mention Belzac or something during our second meeting. Although I could only hazard a guess, it was likely the garm matriarch became an onnikai or something considering this happened. Weird. Since she turned into an onnikai, didn’t that mean her death was unpleasant or filled with pain? Well, her limbs did explode due to arcane corruption, so that did make sense.

In any case, I was glad to hear Saori was alright, especially since it had been almost a month since we last spoke. I did hope she was getting along with her mother, considering how much trouble she had with accepting her monster bloodline. I could speak with the boys later about it, but that would be after this siege was over.

“They will loom over for the time being. We better hurry to the Empress’s side,” Tasianna urged me, so we flew over to Renee at the walls, who was communicating with Duke Greenveil and Alistar at this moment. With the newly arriving knights of Artorias, the situation had seriously stabilized.

Seeing Renee’s reaction was enough for me to guess this wasn’t the cavalry she was talking about before. Outside of that, the three had informed me that Larent was currently making his way to the port after having soloed the two B ranks he was “distracting.” As such, the only B ranks remaining were the ones who went to three who went to the harbor.

More and more are falling. Even the five we fought didn’t last long after our reinforcements came. Two for Shay and Beth, two for Yorshka, and one went to Tasianna. Kinda sucks for Neill since she lost the bet to me and has to become my retainer now. No wonder she is pouting right now.

“We got news from Kushlek’zar that the B ranks have fled. With the rest of the grimgarians in flight, we need to hunt them down so they don’t build up some nests,” Renee continued before turning over to the monster battle happening in the distance. “However, the priority is right there.”

“Leave that to me, Rhea,” Alistar came forward. He really sounded happy being able to call her by her real name. “It’s extremely important that we either kill or reseal Karhalantheel. I can run the rest down with the knights.”

“You will have my bow and order for that, too, Sir Alistar,” Duke Greenveil chimed in. “I came here to save my daughter but she had already been saved. I need to unleash this anger out somewhere, and besides, when it comes to monster hunting? It is better I leave this to the experts.”

He nodded my way, reminding me of when we stopped the rachonoid queen together. Honestly, it was a bit daunting since our opponent this time was an SS rank, but I couldn’t sit still and do nothing while Mother fought all alone. At the very least, I had to make it her way to deliver the information on the leviathan I got from Yeostar.

“Is that so? Then alright, Lord Duke Greenveil. It would be better if we leave this duty to our strongest combatants.” Renee then looked to the east of the sky, before taking out a gargoyle. “I don’t know if I can be that much of a help, but let me help out with the raid. My ‘ally’ will probably be able to read the mood, so let us go.”

Renee was being secretive again, to the point I was starting to get a feeling about what she actually did in Aleistunum. Now, what exactly she planned to do with this “ally” of hers was a mystery, but it was undoubtedly help coming from the Magical Capital, who were initially reluctant to help out Yeos. Really made me think about what she did to persuade them.

In any case, she joined us. We went over to Rita and left Rajah with her, since we couldn’t exactly bring the latter with us for this trip. Rajah was quite disappointed, but what do I do when he was still a D rank? Technically, he could evolve. The experience I got was also shared with him, and with all the EXP boosts, he could gain levels pretty quickly. However, evolving took at least a day, so until then, he had to wait.

After informing Yorshka, Farron, and Shay to Alistar and Duke Greenveil about our plan, we left for the port. As I expected, not only did Master’s spell really distort the landscape into a small twisted hill with plants, rock, and earth, it had also completely ruined all the buildings and structures around it. Just like the rest of the city, the port seemed almost inhabitable at this point.

Glug, glug, glug… Urgh, I’m getting sick of drinking all of this… I complained as I drank another dragorade, right before I realized this was my last bottle. I really just went and used up over a hundred bottles of these.

“I’ll make some fulinoe tea once we’ve landed, my lady.’ As always, Tasianna was truly amazing.

In any case, outside of some soldiers and adventurers chasing down some stragglers, I also saw a giant being of water emerge from the coast, dragging two dead merfiends from it. It seemed Chahayat was doing well. With the grimgarian fleet gone, only the merfiends were left to be defeated… Well, them, and that overgrown noodle.

[“My Princess, we’ve arrived.”] Beth announced as we landed, sounding a bit harried. Considering that her eyes were focused on Mother in the distance, it seemed she was quite worried about her.

Yeah, even if she is strong, I can't shake this feeling off. This creeping fear.

“Ahh! My apprentic- You don’t look good.” I flinched as I heard Master say that so bluntly. “No, in fact, you look terrible at this very moment.”

“Master, I know what you mean, but do you mind phrasing these things a little differently? Unlike you, I do care how I look, so hearing that does make me a little bit annoyed~” My eyes twitched as I tried to keep up a grin. I was really keeping myself from jumping on his back to pull off his damn head plumage

Speaking of Master and the saurians, they didn’t look too beat up. They had some wounds, but all of them were still alive. Considering the low amount of fans I had lost, they probably did a good job defending the people here. Although, the same couldn’t be said about the surroundings. The future of this city looked bleak, no, maybe even the entire principality? As Tasiana mentioned, this place was so saturated with mana, an A rank monster could spawn at any time.

Can you even get rid of all this mana in time? Not to mention the construction efforts.

Well, we could worry about that later. Besides, this isn’t my problem.

“Mhmm, but Hestia, you do know your face looks like it was dipped into a bath of poison, right?” Master elaborated on what he said, causing me to sigh.

“Your face is quite purple, Lady Priestess. It makes you look a little bit like a merfolk,” Renee commented.

“I did say you needed a rest.” Finally letting go of her poor mood, Neill interjected herself. “Arcane corruption isn’t a joke. I don’t want to see your body explode from all that ‘gunk’ in your mana paths.”

“I know, I know, I’ve seen it happen before…” I answered them while Tasianna prepared some fulinoe tea for me. “We might have some reinforcements, but I don’t think I can just settle down like this. If that thing keeps on rampaging, then this land will truly become uninhabitable.” I paused to take a sip of my tea, before turning to look towards my fellow Champion. “Tehmrayn is better used on the front lines than a protector.”

That aloof Champion of Plesia said he would keep the port intact, and he kept to his word. Right on the edge of the coast, he was swimming here and there, keeping the tsunamis back using his [Hydrokinesis]. I didn’t know his level was or if he was an A or S rank fighter, but the fact was clear having him babysit the port was a waste of his talents. He needed to be there to fight… something.

I let out another sigh and stared in the far distance with furrowed brows. “But… Uhm, how do we fight against an SS rank of that size?”

“You don’t.” I turned my head towards that voice, prompting me to widen my eyes as I saw Prince Markval approach us with a retinue of knights. “I-I mean, w-we can’t. I don’t want to be rude, but our only hope is the Imperial Empress, Princess Hestia.”

“Prince Markval?! Why are you—” I wanted to question him being here, but Master quickly answered that for me.

“Just arrived. Not very smart for royalty to appear on the battlefield, but then again, you, your sister, and your mother are all fighting on the frontlines.”

I kept silent, unable to speak back against what Master said. Sure, I was fighting ‘cause of the Divine Quest, but I was also fighting ‘cause I did make a promise with Renee to help her out with all of this. Noblesse oblige or whatever, but I still found a kid like Markval on the battlefield too dangerous… Ironic, coming from a one-year-old like me.

“I had to come. I couldn’t stay hidden while all of you fight for my country,” the young prince announced before pulling something from his coat, handing it over to Renee. “Miss Rhea… My uncle is still unconscious and my older sister shouldn’t risk herself since we need her for our future. And, I don’t know how to fight. If I were to have everybody escort me, I would just be a burden. So—”

“I understand.” Renee kneeled down, took her helmet off, and smiled as she ruffled the prince’s head. She took the scroll from him and held it against her chest. “This is my duty as well. Just like God Yeostar, no, Reinhardt Sealight who sealed the beast, the seal requires the blood of the royal family. It would only be right for a Sealight to do it, not a Caimlace.”

… Ahhh, I get it now. Rhea Renee Sealight. Reinhardt Sealight, also known with his divine name, Yeostar.

<...>

I couldn’t hear him speak, but considering his silence, he probably was aware of this all this time. He kept this a secret from me, as well, huh? Which meant, was this Royce also part of the royal bloodline? Or was Rhea’s real father part of it? It didn’t matter. However, I did wonder why there were two royal lineages. Was the Caimlace family a cadet branch?

“Mhmm. Thank you.” The young prince nodded before asking all of them to join him for a meeting. Everybody involved with the raid party would be here.

To count: Tasianna, Neill, Master, Renee, Tehmrayn, Larent, Yorshka, Farron, Shay, Beth, me… and surprisingly, Adhi. I thought Markval was joking when that happened, but it seemed like Adhi had joined up with the rest of the vampire fortress to report back to me. I thought this levianewt was crazy, but he actually entered a war-torn battlefield just to inform me he fulfilled his contract?!

“I, Adhi Bayudra, will see my contracts and promises through! I’ve brought you your reinforcements, young scale, and, aye, I won’t abandon ye after some coins. I’ve survived my fair share of storms, and this ain’t the last one, hahaha!” the chatterbox captain howled. “I might be loose with my tongue, but I can see a treasure like any sailor. Keeping you as my customer, princess, so how about I show you my real worth as a levianewt ship captain.”

Real?

“There are no finer ship captains than Caedhulens. Nobody understands the currents, wave manipulations, and the salt-filled winds more than them, my apprentice,” Master praised el capitano. “After all, if you want to help your mother, how are we supposed to get there in the first place with this monsoon? Through the sky? Risky. However, with Champion Tehmrayn leading and a Caedhulen manning a ship? Why, I think we have a sure-fire plan.”

The right man in the right place, in other words.

“I have already talked to them about it, Princess,” Markval answered. “After all, to succeed with this raid plan, we need the proper people in the right place. First, we need the vessel to transport you to the island.”

Adhi nudged his captain hat, smiling fearlessly. “I left my men behind, but there are a few Caedhulen sea-scales hiding about here. They’re coming over and we’re getting the ship prepared. Human one, but it’ll do.”

“Which leads us into our second point: this.” Renee placed the scroll she received from Markval and unfurled it, revealing an elaborate magic circle with its chant. “The seal holding Karhalantheel was created by God Istari, and as such, he had prepared a plan if it ever broke. We shall reapply to activate this seal, causing the mana within it to pull the leviathan back into the seal.”

“So we are sealing him?” Tehmrayn looked at the plan suspiciously, however, Markval shook his head.

“No, as I said before, Empress Melloxtressa is the lynchpin of this operation. Instead of sealing him and keeping this problem for our future descendants, I wish to nip it by its bud. While the Karhalantheel is being pulled into the seal, we shall give an opening for him to be slayed,” Markval announced, impressing me that he had thought of such a plan. “For that, we need a massive amount of mana to fuel it. After all, the beast is an SS rank, but only enough to bind him. Then, we would need the blood of a descendant of God Yeostar.”

“You have me, in that case,” Renee fully admitted her connection and bloodline relation to the god. “I will also have to perform the iIncantation for it. As such, I will need people to defend me.”

We all nodded before Markval then directed the discussion to me. He knew I had been in contact with Yeostar and asked me to reveal the weaknesses of Karhalantheel to the group, as this would elaborate on the other task we needed to deal with.

There were three important points he told me to remember.

First, during his fight against him, he had left a deep wound underneath his third tentacle, which led into his pressure stabilizing organ. A leviathan required this organ to stabilize the pressure around him, allowing him to swim in the darkest depth and emerge on the surface without any problems. Similar to my sun core, it was an important organ for a leviathan to enable their lifestyle.

Second, Karhalantheel was actually extremely vulnerable against the lightning element, to the point it was similar to how feeble I was against ice and water. Due to his race, [Grand Moskstraumen Eel-Dragon], his underskin wasn’t able to conduct electricity properly, meaning its outer layer of scales was there to protect him from it. With a strong enough blow, or enough ice to turn it fragile, this weakness could be exposed.

Lastly, the tentacles it had were actually there to protect it from whirlpools and maelstroms. They helped him prevent his body from twisting and curving too much. Even now, they were there to prevent him from being blown away by Mother’s blizzard, and the water vortexes around him were under control by his Territory. However, if we introduced a foreign whirlpool, we could potentially weaken its offense even further.

It was actually quite elaborate. Thank goodness we had somebody who actually fought that thing in the past.

“Leave that last part to me,” Tehmrayn announced. “However, I will need my Territory for that. As such, once we come close enough for us to speak telepathically to Melloxtressa, we should have her forcibly focus the Territory radius of the leviathan to just around their battlefield. This would enable all of us to use our Territories in the case of an emergency, but if Melloxtressa were to lose the Territory dispute, it could mean her death through arcane corruption.”

“However, that won’t happen if we manage to follow through with the plan. If he loses the dispute, he would have to shoulder all of the losses,” I interjected. “As such, let me handle the lightning part. I am the only one who has [Lightning Magic].”

It’s only at level four right now, but I could level it twice to get [Ramuh]. I’ve been saving my SP for these reasons, after all.

Seeing as nobody rejected my proposition, I nodded. “Okay, since I also have the highest amount of Mana, let—”

“Foolishness! Denied!” Master suddenly shouted in my face, grimacing at me for some reason. “Can you not perceive the state of your own body? Of your arcane corruption? Are you telling me you wish to take over two duties while in your condition? Foolishness, my apprentice. I may not have over 40000 Mana like you, but I will not let my apprentice risk her life for this foolery.”

“I agree, my lady. If Renee requires mana, then it should fall on somebody who has no problem with arcane corruption. The faefolk are the perfect fit for this role, after all.” Tasianna proudly declared, despite being around humans like Larent and Markval.

“And I can be the battery.” Neill raised her hand. “I can gather and expel mana through my dragon paths. A faefolk’s stats reduces itself the less mana they have, but that is no problem if I can just recharge her. So, leave this job to us two, Sis. Do what you do best: casting spells.”

“Haha, wow, that takes most of the jobs off the table. I bet the two twins would like to be around their Mistress, after all. We can leave breaking the shell of that beast to them and the Empress,” Yorshka stated with a crackle. “However… let's be honest here. Whoever planned this won’t just leave us alone and let us walk all over it.”

“Ghorush. Skull Mask. The demonkins.” Larent’s eyes flared up with rage. “The rest of us are muscles.”

“Ha ha ha ha! How fitting that we old-timers are responsible for keeping the young safe.” Master laughed with an excited grin.

“Oi, you are the oldest, saurian priest. Don’t call a lady like me as old as you. I am quite young for a dragonewt! … Relatively speaking.” Yorshka let out a sigh. “Well, I won’t complain. It’s an honor to fight with you, Sir ‘Auegor’s Blade.’”

[“Princess Hestia, leave your protection and the Empress’s in our hands. Soaring in the skies, we will be there when you need us,”] Shay announced while Beth roared.

Jeez, everybody…

“... Let me just say I am just middle-aged.” Farron mumbled but I didn’t believe anybody heard him with everybody cheering on.

… This really felt like a full-on raid team. We’re about to raid a boss monster. Damn.

“Everybody! Please, I beg all of you to come back home, safely! May the Goddess bless your path with light!”

“Make your preparations then!” Tehmrayn raised his trident with Markval’s announcement. “We depart for that leviathan’s head!”

Eleven raiders and one ship captain were about to depart. Krim’Slak, Grazlahta, and Akast had to stay behind as the threat of the remaining B ranks was an issue, not to mention, the merfiends in the waters. Without Tehmrayn, everybody would evacuate back to the city, leaving the port probably doomed by the incoming tsunamis.

As such, they needed more than a few adventurers and Chahayat to defend everybody. Those three saurians were the perfect fit. Not everybody could participate in this fight, after all.

Under the cheers of everybody, we hopped onto the ship. The shaking wouldn’t stop, and I could see the fear in the Caedhulen’s faces. It was only until Adhi manned the steering wheel that the mood changed for the better.

“Caedhulens, I understand this trip of ours seems daunting, but what are we but sea-scales who have braved through the ire of the gods of the ocean? Every time we depart on a voyage, we risk our very lives. How many prestigious vessels have sunken through their arrogance? Not respecting the waves just because they’ve survived through countless trips? Nay, I say, for we need no drunken sailors and stones-for-head on these wooden floors. Our fear is our anchor to life! We respect the depths! We understand confidence will drown us! We understand the gods do not seek jesters, but brave sea-scales who ignore their fears to finish the journey! Now, let us transport these landlubbers to their destinations. On my name, Adhi Bayudra, I say: HOIST THE SAILS!”

““AYE, AYE!””

Aye, aye, captain! Karhalantheel, you are dead!

“Prayer!”

On this stormy day, a bright light appeared from the sky, blanketing a brave ship in a veil of warmth. In this darkness, a shimmer illuminated everything, heralding the departure of warriors. Just like in the age of the gods and heroes, this overgrown noodle will regret ever coming out of its egg!

A note from AbyssRaven

Tasianna?! Imperial Guard! :O

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 359: Rivalry Forged from Flames and Lightning.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #4 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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[Prayer (Major)] [Music Resonation (Moderate)] [Various Spell Buffs] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

A giant water beam shot right out of Karhalantheel’s mouth, soaring through the stormy skies at the silver dragon dancing in the air in front of it. Its tentacles and appendages tried to swipe at her, dragging her down into the ocean. From the damaged spots on her ice armor and how her underskin was showing, it seemed the leviathan had been successful at least once or twice in catching her.

On the other hand, Melloxtressa, my dragon mother, had hardened her silver powder into her own shimmering ice version of “[Panzer].” She was using her tail like a humongous spear, striking, thrusting, and slicing the tentacles and water beam away from her; at one point, this left a large enough opening to swoop in. She grabbed the leviathan on its neck and tried to pull him out of the water, only for the beast to roar and summon a water twister using its appendages.

That’s one of Yeostar's hints. It needs its tentacles to control its flow, but it can also make those maelstrom with them.

Mother’s wings fluttered, slicing at the beast with her razor-sharp ice armor, before constructing a gigantic ice dagger to deliver a strong blow on the beast. However, it twisted its body around like a snake, constricting around Mother’s leg and unbalancing her. While Mother was trying to pull him out, he was trying to pull her into the waters.

Magic circles then appeared around Mother’s body and she blew everything away, resetting the situation before the two giants entered into a beam battle. Water and ice breaths clashed against each other in the distance, creating a shockwave strong enough to form tsunamis higher than Elyonda’s walls.

“Hahahaha! My tail is shivering! Men, hard starboard, wrap up the topsail! We’re flowing with the waters!” Adhi shouted his commands like a madman at the helm, steering this shaking boat the best he could. “Fast to the wave’s side. Weakest point! Tell the Champion!”

Everybody, even the twins, were hanging on to their dear lives as we avoided whirlpools, tornados, and the clashing of the monsoon and blizzard. Since my solar core was nearly out of juice, I was feeling the biting cold of this terrible weather. I was shivering, unable to warm myself up since I had to be careful of arcane corruption. My skin was slowly turning blue, but it was still very much purple.

“Urgh, dammit!” Unable to handle it, I took out my glaive and activated my catalyst on it, creating a heatwave around it. “Shit, I'm sooo gonna get a cold after this.”

Tasianna had used her catalyst to create an [Air Shield] around us, and due to Zephira’s blessing on it, it allowed her to control it pretty much perfectly. Even better than my [Aerokinesis]. It blocked the rain and snow, but it allowed us to breathe and hear the sound outside. Tasianna was even manipulating the temperature with her [Cyrokinesis] for us, but it was still pretty cold.

“Bit embarrassing for the daughter of a silver dragon, you know?” Neill stumbled over to me with Renee and Tasianna. The former two were shivering like a bit, while Tasianna was shrugging this off as if it was nothing. “Grrr, why doesn’t a stupid harbor city have any better coats?!”

“Because the land is warm all year outside of WinterSun. We don’t have heavy-furred monsters around, nor do we have a proper dungeon in the entire country. We would need to import these coats, and who would expect such a situation?” Renee tried to excuse her country, reminding me outside of Elyonda, Yeos wasn’t exactly a wealthy country.

“I do apologize. Her Imperial Majesty’s Territory is a bit too much for me to handle. If I don’t constantly maintain my control over the surrounding air, it would just drop into freezing temperatures again,” Tasianna apologized for her lack of control, but the rest of us told her it wasn’t her fault.

“Grrrr, nothing we can really do. The closer we get to the center, the colder it’ll get. Just look.” Neill pointed at how the battlefield between the two SS ranks was quickly freezing into a castle before the water and twisters broke them apart. All for it to be repeated over and over again.

Sis shook her head after showing us how two elemental masters were fighting. She then excused herself and activated her dragon paths, walking away without any problems despite how wobbly the ship was. “I’m asking Yorshka’s husband how he’s not shaking at all. That man has to have a secret.”

“Oh, I have to speak with Shay and Beth about our plans. Please, excuse me for a moment, Lady Hestia.” Tasianna bowed, almost falling over, before she left Renee alone with me.

I looked over the others on the ship. The merfolk and naga sailors were trying their best to keep the ship on course while avoiding the natural disasters around us. Meanwhile, Yorshka, Farron, and Master were toasting before taking a single shot of some hard liquor. I didn't know what it was, but it seemed it came from Master’s pockets.

Latent’s eyes were focused on Karhalantheel island — our destination — while Tehmrayn was literally pulling the ship around like before, where he saved Elyonda’s navy. Shay and Beth talked about how they were looking through their SP shop, since they had skill points to spend. Tasianna was speaking with them now.

“Nervous?” Renee suddenly asked. “I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t have a problem with the cold.”

“You’re overestimating me here. No energy in my sun core means I can’t properly control my body temperature. My control is pretty bad right now. If I try to increase the temperature any further, I might accidentally burn down the ship.”

It was true. My core was responsible for managing my internal temperature, to the point that if it didn’t have any energy, I couldn’t overuse my flames. I could literally overheat and burn up, dying by cooking myself up. It happened once already, and my current sun core even had a small crack.

Not to mention, I had arcane corruption. I had bad status afflictions just waiting to appear on my Profile at any moment now. Once on the island, I really should focus on pure support. Just play some music and buff people up, just ‘cause we had a ton of hard-hitters on this raid team. If the demonkins and their Yanderu mercenaries come back, then we have the squad to win against them.

Karhalanetheel island wasn’t particularly far from Elyonda’s coast. You could see it clearly from the harbor, but with all the tsunami’s and water disaster, it felt like we were sailing towards some far distant location. The trip felt far longer than usual, but we were making steady progress.

Once the island was just a couple of minutes away, Larent shouted for everybody to get ready. We didn’t know if the enemy was there, but we had to be ready. Renee tapped my shoulder, telling me that we had this, no problem. I turned my head around to her, finding the way she said it weird.

“What? We have two Champions, one blessed, a dragon princess, two A rank adventurers, two B rank wyverns, and a ‘wind elf’ far stronger than her level suggests. I am, technically, the only normal person on this ship. Even if I am one of the few with a unique Job right now.” Renee tried to reason her statement. “Sometimes, we just need a bit of positivity. As in, we WILL WIN THIS! When the enemy is daunting, it is even more important to cheer for yourself! A moment’s hesitation could mean death!”

… Hold on, I thought she was just about to jinx things. That is actually a pretty good motivation speech.

“... Well… Honestly, do you have a charisma or persuasion skill or something like that? You’re really good at speaking.” It really felt like she was a natural-born speaker. “In any case, I know what you mean, but don’t say things before a battle. You’re setting up a flag.”

“...?” I couldn’t see her face, but I could imagine what she was thinking. “I don’t know about putting my flag down on the ship.”

Well, didn’t plan that pun.

“No, I mean jinxing things.”

“For a mage, you really believe in weird things, huh? Look, we’re about to arrive on the island. It’s just a bit—”

And just then — BANG. As if it was waiting for Renee’s word, a giant thunderbolt struck the water right in front of our ship, blasting water up like a fountain and creating a wave large enough to swallow the ship. Tehmrayn quickly took control and helped us ride the wave, negating any damage it would have caused. However, it still managed to push us away from the island.

More lightning appeared, falling around the island like a thunderstorm. I looked up, noticing there was a purple magic circle in the sky, a clear sign that we were being targetted with a spell. In other words, that demonkin girl was around!

“We got enemies inbound!” Adhi shouted, steering the ship to the side as something suddenly burst from the waters. If my eyes weren’t deceiving me, this random encounter was an entire bloody ship!

“Cannons!” Tehmrayn shouted as he manipulated the water underneath the ship, sending us flying into the air to avoid a barrage of cannons.

Seeing us free falling, I immediately called up a cushion of air around us with [Aerokinesis], softening our fall back into the waters. We expected the ship to continue its assault, but what came next caught us off-guard — the ship began to fade away. As if it was never there in the first place?!

“Skull mask! Enemy illusionist!” Larent shouted before brandishing his blade, darting his head around to try and find where the enemy was. However, with the thunderstorm intensifying and moving towards our direction, we had to abandon locating the mage and take evasive maneuvers.

Only, that was when Tehmrayn noticed something actually surfacing from underneath us, this time. Adhi, too slow in his reaction, couldn’t steer the ship away in time as something sprang up from the water, nearly capsizing our vessel.

A stone monster formed like a ship appeared and smashed its arm against Tasianna’s [Air Shield], breaking it. It then shot stone hooks into the side of our ship to pull us closer to it. I instantly recognized it as a golem, probably one that Ghorush made. On the creature itself, a bunch of skull mask gang members started boarding the ship, all while the illusive man himself — the actual Skull Mask — began throwing bombs at us.

Skull Mask didn’t care one bit if his grunts were blasted by his weapons, no, in fact, they supported his decision by throwing poisoned knives at us. This might have been a the last ditch effort to stop us, but this was just plain suicidal!

Yorshka and Farron, however, were far too fast for them, defending themselves against the knives before jumping into the sky. Meanwhile, the wyverns froze everything around themselves with their ice breaths and Master shouted to abandon ship before creating water dinosaurs with his skill for us to escape on. Larent wanted to charge at Skull Mask, but Tehmrayn immediately stopped him by cutting the hooks and pushing the golem ship away with a tidal wave.

“Swim off! We got this!” Adhi shouted to us.

“Head to the island! Stick to the plan!” The naga Champion agreed, reminding us why we had to reach the island first. Tehmrayn not only had to trap Karhalentheel in a whirlpool to entangle the monster’s tentacles, but it seemed like he was saying to leave the ship and the sailors to him.

“Let’s go!” Renee grabbed my arm and pushed me forward. “We nee—”

“H-Huh, look out!” The moment she let go of me, my [Danger Perception] activated, prompting me to grab her this time and pull her behind me. Noticing something bright red coming straight towards me, I released my scales to defend us from an incoming fire ball.

While the fire’s strength was far enough below my resistances and Wisdom that it dealt literally zero damage to me, the blast from the attack was still physics. I couldn’t just ignore physics, no matter how high my stats and skills grew. So, I was forced to use my scale barrier to prevent myself and Renee from being knocked into the water, and immediately [Danger Perception] activated once again, this time it told me an attack was coming from above me now.

I snapped my head around, only to see that familiar looking girl in the sky. Six electrical arms were on her back, all holding weapons like some martial artist. Red lighting trails were around her leg, but my eyes were focused on the fact she was readying her lightning halberd for a throw.

Oh sh—

Seeing as it was too late to cast any spells, even [Purple Haze] into [Gloria Ascendence], I spread my wings and tried to dodge it by flying away. However, I only made it a foot above ground as the lightning fast attack struck the timber beneath, exploding and launching me and Renee into the air.

Taking the full brunt of the attack with my scale barrier, Renee was thankfully unharmed, but we were still forcibly separated as I was knocked away a bit too far. Renee, about to fall into the water, immediately recovered by using [Wind Blast] to blow herself up, closer to me. Seeing this, I activated my rocket boosters to catch her, but unfortunately once again, [Danger Perception] did not allow me to rest.

Only this time, it felt like if I didn’t dodge this attack, I would actually die. I looked at the island, where the notice was coming from, only to see Ghorush at the beach, holding onto his rapier with a large grin. These guys came here prepared.

Up? Left? Right? [Foresight], come on!

[Foresight] told me all those decisions were wrong as my brain went into overdrive to think. Any of those choices were immediately rejected by the skill. I only had one way to avoid this.

Verdammt. Kriffiek kllk gaaung!

[Battle Frenzy (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

It was to hope I survived in the tulmotious water.

I grabbed Renee, cast [Panzer] on myself, and took a deep breath before diving right into the water as whatever Ghorush did shot past us. The crashing waves and torrents of the water immediately caught me off-guard though, as even my rocket boosters were having trouble keeping me from being dragged around like a piece of driftwood. I couldn’t even use wind magic properly.

Woah!

[“Hold your breath! I’m getting us out of here!”] I told Renee as I turned up my body temperature to keep the two of us warm in these freezing waters. Since I could set flames while underwater and keep them from dying due to my mutation skills in [Hellblade Dragon], I ignited more scale-dust to brute force through all the currents.

This damn water! [Draconic Barrier] was protecting my eyes from the salty water, but it couldn’t stop it getting into my nose. Any opening, really.

It was then I saw something drop into the water, only for me to realize it was an ice anchor. Coating myself with [Panzer], I then grabbed onto it, leading to me being dragged out of the water by Master’s water dinosaur.

“Lady Hestia! Renee!” Tasianna called out. She was the creator.

However, celebrations didn’t last long as my skills rang out again. I snapped to the side as I unfurled my wet wings, noticing that damn demonkin girl readying another attack, this time with her staff. The purple magic circle shot out a [Lightning Bolt] at me.

My rocket boosters were already on, helping me dodge it, but the demonkin already had her lightning crossbow aimed at me. Bolts were shot out, prompting Renee to help out by activating a rune on her armor — [Defensive Rune: Auracoil]. The barrier of mana, however, cracked open from every attack, showing the futility of defensive measures against this level 150 beast.

Naturally, I already had a taste of that person’s power, and the only way for me to equalize this fight was to start singing. [My Darkest Thoughts], to be precise.

“Staring out the window while it rains ♫

No one here to talk, silence is all I have ♫

So I delved into my thoughts and wondered, “What if?”♫

Aerokinesis began to play, immediately showing its effects as the size lightning arms dissipated behind her. Smirking at this success, I was even more elated Tasianna and Master were covering my way back onto the ship. Only, of course, this wouldn’t be this easy.

“FUCK YOU!” Was all I heard before my body instinctively wielded my glaive, blocking the surprise attack from the girl. Noticing the veil of lightning around her, I guessed she had used [Overload] and her red lightning move to launch her attack.

I saw the demonkin’s surprised face, probably not expecting me to just block her attack like this. Sadly for her, this was why I had leveled up the [Flame Lancer] Job during the siege! To get my [Spear Technique] and [Spear Mastery] both up to level ten for their fusion skill — [True Spear Technique]!

Finally, I broke through [Spear Technique Lv. 9]. It had been a long time since I got stuck at a skill level due to the breakthrough requirements. In fact, ever since I began using my SP to upgrade skills, it hadn’t been a problem. However, since my spear skills weren’t my priority as a mage, I had decided to just do it the hard way to save SP. Well, surprise, constantly swinging the spear against enemies until a point and getting an advanced spear-related Job was all I needed.

Now, with [True Spear Technique], the System was helping me out a bit by teaching me how and when to strike. Not completely autopilot, just suggestions. Pretty good ones, too, since it allowed me to parry the attack just in time. In the battle of fire against lightning, it seemed like my fire won.

“!!!”

Oh oh.

I might have also wounded her pride a bit, seeing as she was glaring at me as if I was her mortal enemy. Before [Foresight] and [True Spear Technique] could do anything, however, she tackled me. The weight of a sledgehammer rammed right through my protective scale barrier, right into my [Panzer] and [Draconic Barrier], before I suddenly heard the sound of electricity reach my ears.

Arck! No!

[“I’ll handle this! Go!”] Was the only thing my parallel minds and I could say to the others before Renee and I were launched off from the ship. I couldn’t hear my ribs breaking, but oh boy, it felt like they would give up any second now.

I looked down as I felt my body prickly from electricity, only to see it was the demonkin girl. Renee was hanging onto me for dear life, before she pulled her curved shortsword out to slash at our abductor.

The latter, of course, blocked it, but it gave me the opening to twist my glaive to bash at her side. She caught it, though, but I used this chance to spread my wings, killing our acceleration before letting out a magma breath at the defenseless demonkin.

Her eyes widened and she let go of my staff, falling down before using her red lightning to jump right behind me. Snapping my body around, I tried to react against her attacks with my glaive, only for her to use it like a springboard to stay afloat. WIth this second momentum, her lightning figure launched a right hook right at my face, breaking right through any defenses I had and sending me crashing into the ocean.

“Krak!” My white flames immediately wrapped around me to heal me, but I was sure I just heard my skull or jaw cracking. Whatever it was, this knockout punch sent my head into chaos as I couldn’t control my breathing. “Uup!”

Fuck!

Water! I just drank a huge amount of water before I could react, coughing on it as a reflex. However, this involuntary action just made it worse, causing me to let even more of this salty water into my lungs. This had to be a joke! Drowning? Seriously? What a stupid way to go out! With this sudden realization and with my head healed up, I —

Hold on, what?

… I had water in my lungs, but I wasn’t drowning? No, after calming myself down, I noticed I was actually doing just fine in this torrential abyss. Weirdly, I could breathe. Or, at least, my lungs weren’t feeling like they would burst from water.

To test things out, I took a small breath. However, instead of choking, I felt like I could continue? I quickly checked my status, looking for the spell [Marine Lungs] in my Profile, however, I couldn’t find it. It wasn’t there, but…

… You gotta be kidding me. No way, I don’t have the ability to do this. I’m a dragon, not a leviathan. I shouldn’t be able to breathe. I don’t even have such a skill, so how— No… System, open up [Battle Frenzy]. I want to see my available usurped skills.

<[Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] effects on [Battle Frenzy]: [Flashfire] [Light Horizon] [Marine Lungs]>

… Plesia… So this is why she gave up so quickly on my usurpation attempt on Master’s blessing. What a bi… Troll.

For some reason, I felt like I got scammed. Instead of giving me a proper skill, she went and trolled me by giving me the ability to breathe underwater. Although it wouldn’t be too bad usually, the problem was, I had to be in [Battle Frenzy] for it to activate. This was beyond trolling… this was advanced trolling.

… Goodness… Flashfire!

Speaking of abilities, I could still see my magma falling down from above. [Flashfire]ing out of the water, I activated [Humanize] to transform back into my minor form. Not into my full form, since Renee could fall down while I turned larger. I couldn’t risk her falling into the water.

[Humanize (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Are you alright?” Renee tried to keep her composure, but the last few minutes were more than just wild. I could hear her voice break a bit.

[“Not one bit!”] I was honest. This felt like a rollercoaster, in the worst kind.

And it wouldn’t stop, as I snapped my head around, noticing the red streaks in this monsoon. [Foresight], this time, activated in time, allowing me to block the demonkin’s next attack.

“Arck!”

“Ya trying to save that deadweight, hero? Keep it up, so I can splat ya!” The demonkin trash talked before her halberd exploded right in out faces, sending me flying away.

I wanted to stop the knockback, but Renee, for some reason, grabbed them, keeping them furled. “Just fly! Land in sight!”

I turned my head around, finally noticing how far this aerial battle had pushed me away from Karhalantheel island. Right here, I could see the islands Chayahat mentioned where the Caedhulen immigrants’ home was. We were so far away from the coastline, I had to turn my head up to witness the kaiju battle. I was probably close enough to send Mother a telepathic message!

I used [Dragoon Dive] to crashland at the nearby island, praising internally for finally being back on land. Sea water sucked ass. Although I wanted to continue taking in this moment, I had to get ready for our guest. I let Renee down, who in return took out her flamberge and wind flag.

[“You sure? I have my subspace to keep you safe.”]

“I might be a burden, but I can at least take the front for you. Just buff me up, Hestia. Let me show you how I’m not just a maiden-in-distress for a knight to save. I am the knight!” She raised her flag and planted it on the ground, buffing us up before activating her father’s medallion, turning her armor almost into wind.

[Flag of Valiant Hearts] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Sure, she looks stronger, but is she? Damn, I have to keep playing [My Darkest Thought]. If that song wasn’t playing, how much damage could that demonkin had done?

I massaged my head, still feeling the phantom pain from my skull cracking. If Neill or any of the other frontliners were around, I could probably play around, switching songs to turn the tide, but right now, I had to focus on defense. We had to survive… just long enough. The goal wasn’t to defeat her, but to escape. The moment I saw an opening, I was taking Renee out of here.

However, I did have something special for this fight. Prepared just for it.

Skill Points: 8050

I took another breath, before I looked up at the sky. The demonkin girl appeared there before she landed on the ground in a hero pose. She cracked her neck and knuckles, before conjuring her lightning rapier in one hand and a staff in the other.

[“The laughing kid stomping loudly upstairs ♫

The damn lovebirds flirting on the streets ♫

Those rich asses living in their golden bubbles♫

I just wish they would all just disappear ♫

Those are my honest thoughts, something I wish to hide from them ♫

My life is stagnating, nothing I do brings me forth ♫

All I can do is sing, drowning my sorrows while it rains ♫

Every step I take just brings me back, to a rundown apartment room ♫

Turn away, close my eyes, lock these wishes far away ♫

Not again, not again…or I’ll cry until the end ♫

All of my darkest thoughts ♫

Will serve me as my muse ♫

So, I’ll sing, I’ll sing, I’ll sing, I’ll sing! ♫

As I fade from your thoughts ♫”]

“... Ya really want to do this? Starting with that shitty song of yours?” she growled, contorting her face like some third-rate gangster.

[“Yeah, yeah, come on, talk more trash, will you? A mouth like that deserves to be cleaned with soap,”] I retorted. [“You got lucky back then. That idiotic partner of yours really ruined that fight.”]

“Gahahaha! ‘Lucky?’ Me? Ha!” Her [Tyrant Aura] flared out, taking Renee aback. “Put some respect on my name, you lizard. I am a Warbringer by the name of Vifi’Yok. Third highest authority in Lord Wrath’s army after our Prince himself.”

[“Fourth in the ranking, but if my mother had taken you a bit more seriously, you probably wouldn’t be standing here. In fact, I’m surprised you lasted long enough for [Dread Burn] to disappear.”]

“I can admit where I failed. I underestimated your skills, I also just underestimated how good you are with your glaive. I carelessly approached an SS rank. I also apologize for that… misunderstanding with your friend. I just wanted to repay her back for giving me those donuts for free.” Her face suddenly softened up, looking more like a normal teenage girl than this bloodthirsty warmonger I saw a second ago.

Repay? Was she talking about Amelia?

But in the next second, her face changed back. “But this ain’t some time for merriment. I’ve been tasked with your death, and since I know ya want to flee with ya tail in between your legs, let me spice things up.”

She suddenly pulled something out of her jacket, causing my eyes to widen a bit.

“Ya see? Like I said, we got a spare. Yours, in fact.” Although it looked different, it was the same item they used to trap me in that dimension with Mother. “Ain’t strong enough to trap ya mom, but it’s enough to keep her preoccupied. Just like ya trying to do with Karhalantheel.”

[“...”]

It was obvious, why would they be on the island otherwise?

“What is that reaction? Hmph. Ya probably should have figured something was up with how weird the tournament was going, right? Why did some two no-names know how to operate that demon castle? Who hired them? Well, probably wasn’t obvious, since he’s a pro. That Gh—Sorry, Streiga, sure knows how to do research. Got everything figured out for us, even managed to guess you would come back to the island. Some seal made by the God of Knowledge won’t just break apart completely by a bunch of mortals, right?”

Ghorush … I hate the Yanderus so much!

“So, ya wanna run? Leave ya mother to die after I activate this trap?” I steadied myself, but kept up the song to weaken her. “Ha! Well, thought so. Then let me get right—”

All in, [True Spear Technique] and [Lightning Resistance]! Go, go!

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [True Spear Technique Lv. 10] [Lightning Resistance Lv. 10] . 3650 SP spent.4400 SP remaining

Clang!

“...? Again?” The demonkin was flabbergasted as I parried her rapier almost perfectly. Seeing this exact expression was why I saved up all this SP!

I might have shown quite a few of my skills and cards in our previous bout, but so had she! With minimal movements, I twirled my glaive, forcing her to dodge, before I unleashed my [Hellblade Edge] combo with my tail and glaive, sending out a flurry of attacks.

The demonkin was sent onto the defensive for a moment, but as you would expect from a more experienced weapon user, she quickly adapted to this surprise. As mentioned before, [True Spear Technique] only showed me suggestions. Attack paths I could take and which seemed the best to use, however, if the opponent was especially skilled, the variety of attack choices would dwindle.

Strike here and there, deftly and with just enough power to not overexert myself, and she would counter. It was like a dance where neither of us were hurt, locked into a duel of metal and lightning. We were both mages, but none of us were using spells at all, too focused on our display of skills.

Only—

“Tsk!” I clicked my tongue as the demonkin finally broke through my assault.

“Slow!” She roasted my attack patterns before sidestepping around me in a circle, before performing a feint. I tried to parry it, but the moment she stopped midway, the number of my attack paths just dropped down into the single digits.

What?!

“Come on, where is that moxie—”

“Royceman Style: First Act — Wind Shiver!” Before she landed her next attack, a wind blade shot right at the demonkin, pushing her back, although it didn’t deal much damage. Immediately afterwards, Renee charged in, swinging her wind-covered flamberge at our enemy. “Agility, Strength, and probably Wisdom! Pronto! Give me those buffs, now!”

There was no time to think about it. I just had to act, so I cast [Overload], [Sacred Veil], and [Swift Winds] on my self to buff up Renee through [Music Resonation].

[Various Spell Buffs] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

[“I have no Strength related ones! I don’t have [Strengthening Flames] anymore!”] Since Shiterno took that damn System spell away from me!

“Thanks for the speed, but where the hell is my damage supposed to come from! I don’t have the stats for this!” Renee complained, but she swung her blade regardless of it. However, despite her complaints, she was keeping up pretty well with the demonkin.

Not in speed, no way, but the way she swung her sword felt swift and precise. Feints? She never fell for them, only countering back. It was mesmerizing, honestly. Although I was happy with my sudden skill progress with my glaive, it felt like Renee was utilizing her weapon far better than I could, despite the clear stat difference.

It was nowhere close to Larent’s swordplay, but at this moment, I recognized how much that old man had gone easy on me. Our duel was quite honest and straightforward, as he never tried to overwhelm me with this sword. Now that I thought about it, it felt like a spar. However, right now, it felt like both Renee and the demonkin were doing their best to survive.

“You’re better with the blade … but this ain’t ya place, ya weak ant!”

And that was when the lightning staff began to materialize a magic circle. Instantly, I shot out a fire bullet at her left hand, forcing her to dodge the attack and disrupt her attack, only for Renee to follow up. Even by sharing my buffs, Renee still couldn’t keep up, but she didn’t need to if I could cover her with spells.

Terra Wall. Sacred Smite. Banishment Beam. More, and more!

Distraction, impediment, guard breaking, intent to kill; all while I weaved my spells as if I was conducting my own symphonia. There was a rhythm to my casts while my parallel minds juggled spells arounds with [Delayed Cast] and [Continuous Cast] to ruin the tempo the demonkin thought she had. Being unpredictable and annoying.

Just like when I was fighting with Neill or Saori. I had my role, and my frontliners had theirs. They kept the enemies away from me while I rained down spells and buffs to tip the scales. I didn’t even have to stop there, as I could dash in and out with my high Agility to block attacks Renee just couldn’t handle. Sure, my glaivemanship was still very blunt, but having [True Spear Technique Lv. 10] wasn’t a joke!

“What?!” She cried out as I face tanked a [Lightning Bolt] of hers without showing any signs of damage. Even my white flames didn’t appear.

“Royceman Style: Second Act — Cometh Breeze.” Renee tugged her sword backwards, ordering the wind to flow towards her. The demonkin was pulled in!

She tried to jump out with her red lightning dash, but I just blasted the grounds underneath her with holy flame bombs. As Saori told me, I had to disrupt the mana concentration at her feet to impede her movements. With her trapped like this, I took this chance to attack her with my alfamed glaive.

Seeing no way out, she clapped her hands, suddenly blowing us all away with a magnetic push. Mid Flight, I shot a fire bullet right at her, using it to [Flashfire], to finally land my first glaive hit right at her chest.

“Ssshrk!” The armor she was wearing glowed up as she crashed against a tree. Looking at her, the armor was repairing itself as white flames began to burn her up, attempting to “heal” up that wound of hers. Of course, it was impossible, since she had [Dread Burn] on.

There were three reasons why I wasn’t fighting as a dragon right now.

Number one, due to my Job skills of [Champion of Aurena].

Holy Demon Slayer

Increases all damage against demonic forces. Healing magic will turn into damage on demonic forces

Humanity’s Foe Slayer

Deals increase damage towards any race or nationality considered an enemy by 75% of the world’s humans. Enemy: Demonkin, Carmaniate, Grimgarians

Secondly, ‘cause the island wasn’t large enough for me to fight properly. If I grew in size, Vifi’Yok only had to target me since I was bulkier than Renee. Right now, I was small enough to slip through as Renee kept her busy.

And third…

“Tsk.” The demonkin clicked her tongue.

[“... That’s some good armor. No runes, but I can see it has enchantments. You also have two rings, a necklace, and also some specialized carapace boots this time,”] I remarked, finding that appraising them was just as hard as their wearer.

“This time I ain’t just ‘sneaking around’ for that favor. This time, I’m fighting in a war.” Vifi’Yok stretched while fidgeting with her ring. “Countermeasures for nasty demon-suppressing abilities.”

“...”

“So this is about to become even harder?” Renee sounded depressed. Obviously, since it was already quite hard to keep up.

“Sure will be. Dunno if you two have any idea what being a Warbringer really means, but I don’t really care. Ya about to find out… But, before that, I guess some are willing to equalize this fight a bit.” She looked to the side, causing us to do the same as all three of us could detect three people coming closer.

Now, the third reason why I was still in my dragonewt form instead of my dragon form… It was the party bracelet’s party finder function. As long as I had the thing on, my party could look for me within a certain range.

This was why I only wanted to survive this for long enough… Not only to escape, but also to delay enough for some friends.

“Lady Hestia!”

“Sis!”

Tasianna and Neill were here.

“Master!”

“Tch, well, it would be too hard if you can’t fly well. Using flames to propel you forward means you won’t have anything to attack them with… Oh, and be careful, her song is—”

“Arck!”

And the third person was that fire demonkin from before. The moment he came close enough to listen to my song, his fire arms disappeared and he crashed onto the island like an idiot. Meanwhile, Tasianna and Neill landed gracefully, immediately getting ready to fight.

“Good work staying alive up until now, you two!” Neill praised us with a grin.

“... Well, just barely. Bridging over 50 levels of stats is impossible if Hestia hadn’t been such a good support,” Renee summarized the situation.

“Of course, my lady is the best, after all.” Tasianna looked a bit too proud of me. “But, let everything up until now be ignored. Princess Fargryneill and I are now here for the both of you! Let us turn this tide over… the Aurora way!”

[“Just what I wanted to hear! Just feels a bit wrong saying that without Saori, Ellaine, and Grimnir. Ahem… In my purgatory, I make the devil cry ♫

In Hellfire ♫

All you hear are his screams, begging to be released ♫

It’s Music ♫”]

“Master, I apologize!” The older demonkin kneeled down as his fire arms reappeared from me changing songs.

“It’s all right, Hee’Rlak. This just feels better anyways. We can stomp down on all four of these idiots, all at once. No need to chase after them.” Vifi’Yok slowly walked forwards and removed one of her rings. “Ever heard of the Original Sin, you shitty dragon? Ever heard of the Original Sin for us wrath demonkins? Well, let me show you it… I call upon the demon inside me, the blood of the rebel fueled by betrayal and falsity. Rage incarnate, unwilling to bend towards the higher will. Eternal strife and carnage, neverending in pursuit for true freedom! Original Sin—”

[“We’re taking this to the second act! Let’s start the climax and finale of this event! Symphonie des Feuergottes!”

“—Satanael.”]

A note from AbyssRaven

The climax begins.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 360: A Concert Raid.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #1 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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Hestia is going all-out idol fighting, so here! A reminder on her four spell songs to get you in the mood! R A W R

Even as [Dragon Fire] continued playing through my [Telepathy], my three comrades next to me began to panic as the waterfall of fire began to gush down on us. However, seeing me simply stare at the demonkin shouting a chant of their own, my companions quickly calmed themselves and allowed the symphony’s intro to wash over them.

[Symphonie des Feuergottes (Allegro)] [Stage Fever (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Protected by [Dragon Fire]’s buffs, any ally of mine was completely immune to any of my personal fire attacks. I could feel my body become lighter, the spell boosting my Agility by 50%, and couldn't help but grin and twirl my glaive in anticipation as my senses registered a sudden burst of mana coming from behind this inferno veil. The demonkin girl mumbled something like [Original Sin: Satanael], meaning this probably was the Sin of Wrath’s demon powers, similar to Envy’s [Original Sin: Demiurge].

I managed to usurp that weird dream ball from that Envy prince when I was trapped in that dimension. Could I usurp her powers, as well? Cancel it? Well, who knows. Gotta touch her first.

And to do that, I had to close in and see what she was doing. Using [Mana Eyes], I could see the demonkin girl slowly ascend in the air as her mana arms sprouted from her back, again. However, they suddenly also began to form into wings — wings of lightning most likely. I had to immediately switch to [My Darkest Thoughts] as soon as the cascade of flames dissappated.

Just before I could do that, however, something rushed past me, dissolving the flames in front of us. The bullet charged forward with dragon paths forming in its way — both on the ground and in the air — before a lightning shockwave ruptured the air next to the demonkin.

It was Neill. She had charged forward like a blind bull once again!

“Master!”

“Dammit, Fargryneill! You dimwit, stop charging in alone all the TIME!”

The demonkin man and Renee shouted at their respective companions as their fist slammed into each other. However, even though I half-suspected this would happen, a tiny part of me was still surprised to see Neill being launched backwards. She had lost the strength test!

“ReeeeeBAAAAAAAAAL!”

“Arck! Shihahaha! Damn, you really are strong!”

Music now!

“Staring out the window while it rains ♫

No one here to talk, silence is all I have ♫

So I delved into my thoughts and wondered, “What if?”♫”

The song changed once the fire died down, immediately taking effect as the demonkin girl recoiled from her maddened shout. She grunted and shrieked as if she was in pain, leaving a clear opening all of us saw. None of them were even close to honorable enough to let this chance fly by.

Tasianna responded with a hail of ice swords, Neill with a [Pulse Arcana], Renee with a Wind Shiver, and I decided to go with a [Dragoon Jump] attack since I had the Allegro buff on myself right now; all of us attacked the vulnerable Warbringer simultaneously. The demonkin man tried to stop us by blocking us with a fire shield, but I [Flashfire]ed right in front of it and stomped him into the ground with the [Dragoon Jump] meant for his boss, followed by a fire bullet heading right over to the other demonkin.

With our combined attacks, all of us planned to deal critical damage on the Warbringer, hopefully enough to bridge the gap in our stats. Any wounds she took while my [Dread Burn] was active on her would be another point for us in this attrition fight.

This is it! We’ll— Wait, why aren’t they— Urk!

“Tsk. I knew it. I knew it.”

Six feathered winged arms formed from lighting, each holding onto six of her elemental weapons. With her warhammer and halbard she blocked my attack, an elated smile blooming on her face before using her remaining four weapons to block all the other attacks. She then aimed her crossbow at me, though with my Agility — buffed up by spells, [Battle Frenzy (Minor)], and the Allegro movement — reacting to it was doable.

I twisted my body to jump with [Air Walk], using [Spark Crescent] to trade blows with her, earning an opening for Neill to dash right in front of her. Switching our positions, she took the lead with quick and precise punches and kicks, while I supported her with my rapid attacks from the side.

“Royceman Style: Second Act — Cometh Breeze!” With Neill now being the best suited for taking the brunt of the Vifi'Yok's attention, Renee quickly switched herself to a supportive role, using her techniques and wind spells to hinder the enemy.

“I’ll— Hm?”

“You will buuuuuurn, ICE MAGE!”

On the other hand, Tasianna had to take care of herself for the moment as the fire demonkin rejoined the fight. Strangely, even with my demonic suppressing song, his form suggested he had 75% in all three emotions. Shouldn’t he be weakened?

Then again, it was a similar situation with Vifi’Yok.

“Bye for a moment.” She clapped her hands, flinging Neill and me away with her magnetic pulse, killing our momentum. She then created some distance between us by using her red lightning to dash away. “Fuck those orders! I knew it, I can’t let ya die here! Ahahaha, unbelievable, ya actually managed to stop [Original Sin: Satanael] berserker mode!”

Berserk mode?

“Sure, I feel weaker than I usually do using the bloodline power, but who cares? What is more dangerous than a berserker? A rational fighter who doesn’t fear death, of course. Frantic battle style? How about I mix it up, since I can actually think?” She smiled dangerously once again, spreading her eight arms out with her growing smirk. “Hee’Rlak! This is an order from your Warbringer! Ignore Lord Envy’s orders, and do not kill her! We will subdue her. Bring her back alive!”

“What?! Mas— Urrf!” The man called Hee’Rlak tried to respond, but couldn’t while Tasianna had her eyes set on him.

“The hell you trying to say, huh?” Instead, Neill spoke up for me in her stead. “You ain’t draggin’ my sisters body anywhere, you dumb imp.”

“True. You really are an imp. Mischievous and all that, considering how you’re just changing your thoughts whenever we meet,” I agreed, thinking back to even our first meeting. “Every single time, you would do something completely contradictory to your words. Or even now, ‘ignoring orders?’ Come on, you think I’m that naive?”

There was no way I could.

“Oh, but that’s the thing, bitch. I’m a Warbringer. I bring war, not falsehood,” she said in the calmest way possible. “The tainted lies and deception of Lord Envy really isn’t Lord Wrath’s style, but I gotta listen cause I’m just another grunt to the Princes. Even if I am a future candidate. The thing is, I really can’t help it right now. That's how important what you just gave me is.”

“?” I tilted my head, now completely confused about what was going on. Why were we speaking anyway? This was a waste of time, and the longer we talked, the more Mother’s fight would be delayed.

“[Original Sin: Satanael]. The rage brought out by deception fuels this ability’s power, bringing out the knowledge to rebel against even the gods’ lies. However, the problem is, it will bring me to full M.E.P. Meaning, I would go berserk.”

‘Mep???’

“It’s the cost for reaching powers close to a demon. My elemental limbs looking more like an arvisian’s is the proof of that. Sadly, up until now, there are no records of a demonkin being… liberated. So, thank you for freeing me from my shackles.” She pointed at me, before readying her arms. Her gaze turned from soft into sharp and relentless. “That ability of yours allows me the power to rebel against my weaknesses and free me from my chains, while also inspiring those around me. That ability is a way for us Wrath demonkins to fight against demonic-suppresion weapons and skills; in other words, thanks to you I have no weaknesses right now. Not ya holy spells, not your blessed Job skills, not your mental attacks. But, ya song? For the good of my sin kins, I need to bring ya back to Bole’Taria!”

“Nice work telling me, so I can be prepared for it!” I retorted, seeing as she told me how her sin powers worked. I could find a way to go around it now, without second questioning things. Although, maybe she was lying?

“I know how to show gratitude, ya skink. Just so you know, though, I can still smack you like an ant!” Shooting out multiple cross bolts at once, she then lunged at me with her rapier, all while the former were still flying over to me. With all my Agility boosters, I could finally see things happening, but whether I could dodge them was a different question.

“Kriiark klish garfinik!”

It was just, I didn’t have to do a damn thing.

Boom! Mana surged right next to me, nearly knocking me off balance before a loud “Bam!” erupted before me.

“... You.” Vifi’Yok scowled as black flames and blue lightning wrapped around my sister’s body. Her body once again was glowing bright purple with mana seams appearing all around her body like tattoos.

“All eyes on me, brute. You want my little sister? Then you better know how to beatdown like a dragon! Humanize!” Mana paths exuded from her body as Vifi’Yok simply moved to the sides, aiming at me with her attack, only for her to flinch back to dodge black-scaled hand reach out from the mist. Next, black flames surged from it.

Sis!

She transformed back into her minor dragonewt form. It wasn’t her kirin form yet, probably since due to her apprehension. Maybe I should turn dragon right now to maybe force her?

“Fargryneill?”! Renee blurted out as she finally witnessed her companion’s next form.

“Tsk!” On the other hand, the demonkin girl clicked her tongue.

[“She ain’t the only predator here, demonkin. Us Kargryxmors have a legacy of beating down demons and worse! You aren’t the first, nor the last one!”] Neill exclaimed before striking and kicking. It didn’t seem anywhere near as flashy to fight, but with the air and earth exploding with every movement of hers, it looked like she was controlling the very environment with her dragon paths. [“Hestia, your mother! You should be in telepathy range!”]

Right!

[“Mother!”]

While Sis was keeping the enemy at bay, I could speak and tell Mother our plan. It was still long-distance with a lot of disturbances, but I hoped it would reach her.

[“Y… Dear! … hear you a bit.”] The words entering my head were unfinished, but this only lasted for a bit as Mother took to the skies during her fight. [“Yes! Speak!”]

As such, I sent over the necessary information as quickly and concise as I could. Her battle even from back at the port was already fierce, but seeing it happening at this distance — close enough for me to feel the wind whirling around with each of their blows — made me wince at what was happening.

I mean, why the hell were we here? We were practically ants trying to help a giant fight against another giant. Sure, there was the stuff with David and Goliath, but it still felt a bit too unfair, considering how much stats meant in Peolynca. All we could do was to act as interrupters, to help mother defeat her foes. Raiding the boss didn’t include actually fighting it, but to do the right things at the right moment for the real star of this battle to take the victory.

Melloxtressa Wisperia Nordor was the protagonist of this raid. We were her little helpers.

But, oh boy, I would be the best little elf for our big Ms. Santa Claus. All I needed for her was to trust in us, that we could and would turn the scales in her favor!

[“… Then, please, hurry.”] Was all she said before roaring, shaking the ocean beneath us. Suddenly, the snow falling down on us stopped, followed by the leviathan reciprocating Mother’s gestures.

Just like that, the black clouds in the sky began to vanish and all the whirlpools and giant undead-spawning tentacles stopped appearing, although I still couldn’t get any sun. Instead, the sky above Mother’s fight began to grow even darker and more turbulent, to the point it felt like a veil of snow was blocking them.

However, this did mean one part of our plan was fulfilled. We managed to have Mother reduce the range of hers and Karhalantheel’s Territories. Meaning, we could use ours now. Just, when would be the right moment to do so?

[“Shihahaha, come on! You can do more than this, right?! Give me the fight of my life, come on!”] Neill was all but consumed with battle fervor, only the occasional glance making sure Renee could provide proper support while staying safe suggesting anything but a total focus on the fight.

“How about ya die, punk?” On the other hand, the demonkin had a weird smile on her face. Something mixed with impatience, anger, and the sheer thrill of battle.

Two battle-hardened warriors, alike in their hot headed berserker blood and battle junkie personalities, continued to clash. In terms of hand-to-hand ability, Vifi’Yok had the advantage due to her wide-ranged arsenal of weapons and superior stats. However, Sis narrowed the gap with how her dragon paths could literally reshape the environment around them with her mana.

Vifi’Yok would pound the earth with lightning spears like Zeus, before being forced to engage Neill in close combat thanks to the latters relentless pursuit. Whether it was the warhammer or halberd, or even the swift rapier, Neill would parry the weapon using her dragon path abilities to redirect the attacks and send [Pulse Arcana]s at the lightning demonkin.

“Royceman Style: Fourth Act — Rising Storm!” Renee suddenly exclaimed as she raised her flamberge up in the sky, summoning a violent tornado around her, similar to [Cyclone Madness].

The sudden hurricane disrupted the ongoing fights, including the one between Tasianna and Hee’Rlak. This gave me the chance to re-enter the battle by blasting shotgun pellets of light rays right in front of the demonkin girl’s face, which she narrowly avoided by using her red lightning.

Unfortunately for her, Neill would just catch up to her. Vifi’Yok, unfazed by this, continued defending against our triple assault, even managing to hurt Neill and me a couple times, forcing me to heal us. This new form of hers might seem normal, but it became more and more clear why I kept comparing her to Zeus. She was literally slinging lightning like him while having the speed of Hermes.

Even with [Battle Frenzy] and our minor forms, we were actually being pushed back. I wasn’t taking that much damage since I had [Lightning Resistance Lv. 10], but that didn’t stop her punches from working

Is this what she meant by my song helping her? I guess having a clear mind— Wait.

[Symphonie des Feuergottes (Adagio)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

……… I think I just got a plan. Adagio, my slow-paced song. Thank you!

Problem number one for me was the fact my face looked like a grape. Arcane Corruption was dangerous, as I knew from personal experience. As such, I understood I had to go easy on my using my mana, which was why all my mana was being used on maintaining [Symphonie des Feuergottes], my song, and my spear's flame attacks. I wasn’t even using spells.

During the Adagio movement, my Agility was increased by 50% but my fire attacks also received a boost. On the other hand, Adagio meant the music was slowing down. It emphasized my Strength and Intelligence, while also reducing mana consumption for spells. All by 50%, too.

Spells. Well, good thing my songs were called “spell songs” even by the System.

Divine Crystal!

I took out my [Crystal of the Divine System] right as Neill and Vifi’Yok were about to clash, shocking both of them with what I was doing. On the other hand, Hee’Rlak guessed something was up and immediately came after me, but both Renee and Tasianna protected me from him.

All I needed to do was one simple thing.

Would you like to switch your Main Job with your Secondary Job?

Yes!

Individual [Sunfang Dragonewt, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has switched her Main Job [Champion of Aurena] with her Secondary Job [Idol]

Main Job benefits have been updated due to Job change

Job Skill gained:   [Acoustic Power Lv. 5] [Bardic Cadenza] [Musical Crescendo] [Heavenly Performance]

Acoustic Power: Increases acoustic and sound-based attacks and increases the natural range they travel

Bardic Cadenza: A skill focusing on the bard’s musical abilities. Activates once a spell song is used, increasing the effects of the song’s effect as long as the bard only uses songs as a means of attack, defense, or support

Musical Crescendo: A skill that applies additional effects the longer the bard continues playing any kind of spell songs. Escalation depended on [Music Resonation] and the length being played. Minor: Increases bard’s stats by 5%. Moderate: Shares the full effects of all buffs on the bard without reaching Major. Major: Songs travel through mana, bypassing any silence fields or sound protection areas

Heavenly Performance: An idol’s voice and body are their most prized possession during a performance for the world to hear and see! The art itself is reward enough!

And also this:

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Draconic Roar Lv. 10] [Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 10] [Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 10]. 2400 SP spent. 2000 SP remaining

She was currently resistant against [Champion of Aurena]’s Job skills, making the Job practically useless combat-wise. I couldn’t exactly acquire more Jobs for this week, since I used them all up already. However, I could still change Jobs. A mid-battle paradigm shift, in other words.

Then again, this was exactly how changing the tempo of a song should be. The emotions during a symphony were directed through the way the musicians played, meaning they had to change the way they played to shift things up. Allegro, from high-octane battle, to adagio, to a more controlled but still impactful battle style.

Neill and me fighting together did do the trick for a while, but it wasn't anymore. Just like when I fought with Renee, Vifi’Yok just changed things up once things got a bit dicey for her, revealing even more things under her sleeves. This couldn’t continue, we had to change things up.

As such, it was time to try something else out. While [My Darkest Thoughts] did prevent the demonkin from going all-out, it also meant that she kept her intelligence and didn’t go berserk. That wasn't great, considering she was fending us all off pretty well.

“In the midst of the desert ♫

A bright ray of light shines ♫

Pure and brave, that she was, as she walked ♫”

[Shield of the [Light]] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

[The Heir of Light] began to play, plus:

“KraaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAH!” I tried to sing it with my dragonewt voice, making sure [Bardic Cadenza] continued working.

“AARRRGK!”

The demonkin was blasted away, only to suddenly cry out again as she cradled her head. Her form also began changing as lightning covered her body, forming into a new suit of armor. Once I saw she was trying to attack, I changed the song back to [My Darkest Thoughts].

“KaarRRARK! Arrrck!” Groaning and painful shrieks, once again. She shook her head before looking like she reached some sorta equilibrium, only for me to switch back to [The Heir of Light]. “Wha-arrrRRRKAAACK! Grrrrrrraaaaaaah! Guuuf!”

Neill just suckerpunched the poor girl!

Wait? Song switch.

“Staring out the window while it rains ♫

No one here to talk, silence is all I have ♫

So I delved into my thoughts and wondered, “What if?”♫”

“Urrrrgk! Grack! Grrk!” She dodged the attack from Neill, but failed to avoid the next attack as she moved her weapons in front of her. With a single kick, Neill removed the obstacles before blasting her with [Pulse Arcana]. “AAAAAhhhhh!”

… Are we? No way, this isn’t what I wanted. I had an entirely different plan!

“In the midst of the desert ♫

A bright ray of light shines ♫

Pure and brave, that she was, as she walked ♫”

“Kraaaaah! Stop! Ooof!”

[Music Resonation (Major)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Staring out the window while it rains ♫

No one here to talk, silence is all I have ♫

So I delved into my thoughts and wondered, “What if?”♫”

No, no, no, no, no, no, this can’t be! Did I just accidentally find out a way to cheese this boss?! Stinky camembert to troll the Warbringer in her second phase. B-But that means… all the investments I just put into my skills were wasted! Oh come on—

“Arrrrgh, dammit!”

[“Oh, shi—! Urrrgh!”]

But as I was agonizing upon the fact I just found a safe tactic to defeat her and couldn't put my plan into action, Vifi’Yok slammed her electric warhammer into Neill’s scale barrier before I could apply the spell song’s effect. There was a delay between songs, since I had to play enough of the lyrics to let it take effect.

Nice! The cheese doesn’t work! Great work finding a way through it! I couldn't help but cheer a bit as Neill was flung out of the way, before she [Air Walk] back into the fight, only for Vifi’Yok to dash towards me. Wait, hold on! Hold!

“On second thought, ya really are annoying!” She thrust with her rapier, forcing me to swerve my body like a ballerina as I transitioned back into [The Heir of Light]. 10% more stats, which was further increased by [Bardic Cadenza] as long as I didn’t attack, was too useful!

With that single attack, Vifi’Yok then transitioned into a flurry of strikes, not only with her rapier but also her other weapons. Relying on my Agility, scale barrier, and increased resistances I managed to avoid any severe damage. With my white flames healing me up pronto, and the fact the demonkin was turning feral again, it bought me just enough time for both Tasianna and Neill to bail me out.

Wait, wasn't Tasianna fighting the other demonkin?

[“Keep it up!”] Neill encouraged me after grabbing my shoulder and shoving me out of the way, before beginning to parry her attacks.

Meanwhile, shimmering snow began to appear around the roaring demonkin. Consumed by her berserker mode, she didn’t notice as her feet and arms were slowly being covered by them. Frost appeared, slowly her down, allowing me to transition into [Dragon Fire] to launch a flame meteor on her.

“In my purgatory, I make the devil cry ♫

In Hellfire ♫

All you hear are his screams, begging to be released ♫

It’s Music ♫”

Boom! Neill was protected from my attack, but the demonkin was slung away in the air. With the immediate threat away, I changed back into [The Heir of Light], buffing up Neill to help her fight against the berserked demonkin.

“UhhhhhSHAAAAAAAAAAA!” The electrifying eight-armed girl wielded five of her weapons with wanton destruction, throwing and slashing at anything with a pulse. Her two normal arms kept generating halberds of lightning only to throw them like javelins.

With her dragon paths, Neill could control both earth and air as if they were her personal weapons, either punching them forward, or even using them as shields. Thanks to all the weapons Vifi'Yok had, there was a clear range difference, but once Neill got anywhere close, her punches would deal damage.

A simple punch could inject her mana into the demonkin, creating dragon paths to cause minor or even major internal explosions. Even without this technique, Neill had her martial arts techniques on her side. Although she wasn’t screaming them from the bottom of her lungs like Renee was, I could identify them when her movements suddenly felt more polished and refined than her normal attacks.

Trained footwork, quick hand movements to parry preceded by a quick counter, or even her usual mana blasts. Courtesy of the fact we were tournament rivals, I never asked her what her skills or abilities were. In fact, considering her competitive nature, even had I asked, she probably wouldn’t have revealed anything unrelated to our usual draconic abilities, the ones which she promised to train me in. So, nothing outside of [Scale Manipulation] and [Battle Frenzy].

“Cometh Breeze!” Renee liked to shout her moves out, but it made it clear for Neill when she had to be careful. Wind around us was being manipulated to inconvenient Vifi’Yok, allowing Neill openings to attack.

With another [Pulse Arcana], she blasted Vifi’Yok’s left arm bloody, allowing her to follow up with a punch right into her guts. The next second, two small explosions appeared around where she was punched.

I could do damage, but I had buffs to allow my physically stronger and more proficient older sister to contend better, while Renee couldn’t do damage but had a lot of crowd control. Neill, on the other hand, was like an unbroken horse with the aggressiveness of a honey badger.

Now, of course, this girl wasn’t exactly alone, right? So why had her partner not done anything yet? Well, he was seemingly meeting his match at this very moment. Saori wasn’t the only one in my party who could contend with him.

Even if he was of a higher level than her, Tasianna, just like Saori, was a woman who told me she would become strong enough to subdue me if I ever were to go on a rampage. My “first imperial guard” shouldn’t be struggling with somebody like him, after all.

“Wooooo,” Tasianna breathed out white air as she flew above the flaming demonkin with her two sets of wings — her fairy and ice ones. The latter was scowling, occupied with trying to thaw out his frozen leg.

That was ‘cause Tasianna just got her first unique skill from [Hestia’s Imperial Guard].

Fae Frost: Ice elemental attacks are harder to melt and are more effective in lowering the temperature surrounding the user the higher the level. The user may release frost powder from their fairy wings, allowing full control over them and how they freeze using the moisture in the air

The perfect skill to help her ice survive my fire. Although I had no proof that it could actually resist melting from my flames when it reached level ten, it sure had no problem surviving long enough against this demonkin’s. The ice had eventually melted, but it took long enough for Tasianna’s [Winter’s Golem] to strike him and give her the chance to help out in the fight with Vifi'Yok.

The demonkin immediately took out his flame sword and slashed the golem down, but this bought Tasianna enough time to finish her other spells. An [Azure Blade] from the sky sundered the earth he stood on, forcing him to dodge right where she materialized a [Kraken’s Destruction]. The giant tentacle forced him onto the defensive, blocking the tentacle with his fire shield.

As the water began to evaporate, the demonkin grimaced as Tasianna kept breathing more white mist from her mouth. Her wings also kept fluttering, releasing more and more of her now functional fairy powder. With his body freezing in this trapped situation — either get frozen or get crushed by the level six [Torrent Magic] spell — Tasianna looked like she was about to end it all for him.

“Graaaaaaaaaah!” Vifi’Yok cried out as she saw this, and shot out a lightning slash at <someone> with her halberd, before throwing the whole weapon at me, forcing me to dodge it. She then formed it again and her eyes flared up red. “Voltaic Red: Thunderspeed Roar!”

[“Tasianna!”] I called out, noticing the demonkin's line-of-sight went over me. I decided to change the song to [My Darkest Thought] to weaken her stats, while I cast five [Banishment Beam]s to slow the halberd just long enough.

“Going! Slithering Frost Serpent!” Tasianna flew away from Hee’Rlak and began to materialize her giant ice snake. Once it was up, I stopped my spells, and let the red spear literally pierce the ground, rocking this small island with an eruption of water and sand.

Halo of Consecration.

A halo of white flames appeared over my head, blasting fire around me to heal up everybody around me. The next moment, I saw the red lightning approach Tasianna, forcing me to [Flashfire] over to her to block the attack with my glaive.

Urgh!

“One little trick won’t stop me, bitch!” Vifi’Yok declared before pulling back her halberd, and slammed her warhammer right at my scale barrier, breaking it and smashing right into my [Panzer] and left arm.

Oof!

I took the damage, relying on my flames to heal me, before grabbing her and pushing Tasianna away, releasing my [Dreadflare Aura] at the same time.

[“Come on! Magmakammer!‘]

Mana Release activated. Aura used as control unit: [Draconic Aura Lv. 4]. Territory [Magmakammer] has been established

With the two suffocating Territories gone, it was now possible for me to establish mine without accidentally killing myself in the resulting Territory Dispute. So, what better time to use it when the enemy was right in front of me, ready to take a long, deep breath of the toxic obsidian smog.

My body heat, heightened by [Symphonie des Feuergottes], flared out and struck the demonkin as I kept a tight grip on her. Although her skin wasn’t melting, probably since she had the necessary Wisdom to endure it, Tasianna’s ice serpent began to melt and the air turned stuffy and thick to breath from the scale-dust released from my wings.

“Blark!” she coughed! Only to then pierce my abdomen with her rapier, forcing me to let go and stomp her to free myself.

I landed back on the ground and began turning everything around me into a lava field. Rock turned into molten rock while the water around the island started to turn into land as lava dominated this place. Of course, that meant the heat was raised, burning both Tasianna and Renee given their low fire resistances. As such, I had to play [Dragon Fire].

Urgh!

However, at the same time, I looked in the sky, noticing Vifi’Yok had already finished her preparations. The large, three magic circle formation of [Ramuh] was done in an instant, suggesting the demonkin had just used [Purple Flash] to speed cast it. Seeing as her skin was turning slightly purple, I could guess her Mana capacity and [Arcan Corruption Resistance] weren’t as high as mine.

Still, that didn’t change the fact she was preparing to toast us all with that lightning magic. I was sure I could endure it with all my resistances, but what was I supposed to do about Tasianna and Renee? They couldn’t avoid it in time, meaning I had to be creative about it.

[“[Room]!”] I picked up a piece of lava and cast [Room] on it, creating a small subspace on it. Telepathically telling them to get in it, I also had Neill cover for me while getting them away from this.

[“Got it! Whooooooo…”] The mana seams on her body lit up, forming a ball around her two palms. [“Pulse Arcana: Maxima!”]

“Ramuuuuuuuuuuh!” The cry was immediately followed with a roar, before everything disappeared from sight as the purple lightning struck us, clashing at the same time against Neill’s mana beam.

“Ghrrrk!” Neill grimaced with her kirin-dragon hybrid face, looking a bit more terrifying than usual. Still, seeing how much she was straining herself most likely, she wouldn’t be able to push the [Ramuh] back.

As such, I had to run away with the blob of lava in my hand, only for that demonkin man to suddenly try to hit me with his flame sword. I just took the blow to my head with [Panzer].

“Kuek?!” He obviously clicked his tongue, seeing as I just took no damage. Did he really think he could hurt me even if he was at over 75% with his three emotions? I took zero damage when we fought in that underground base.

If he had a water or ice weapon, sure, I would be more scared. They were my weaknesses after all. But using a fire weapon against a sunfang dragon should be reason enough to report him for stupidity. My Vitality wasn’t high for my rank and level, but I sure enough had the [Inferno Resistance] to ignore those attacks.

What did scare me was the fact I heard that demonkin girl’s rabid cry. In her berserker mode, that aura of superiority turned into that of a feral beast. Menacing and it activates my instinctual fear for her. When I saw her rapier nearly hit my legs, I [Flashfire]d away and used [Light Horizon] to light into my fist.

“Uraaaaaaaaaah!” She charged right at me, and right when she hit me, I released the light with [Shine]. “Arrrrk!”

She wasn’t affected by [The Light]’s dark and demonic super-effective spells, but her eyes were still weak against pure light. However, even when she was covering her eyes in pain, she kept rampaging around. Wanton destruction fueled with rage.

Using [Volcanic Blaze], I controlled the lava around her and turned it into a flexible little room. Even if she began to hit it, I would just reform it

[Symphonie des Feuergottes (Minuet)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Shit. Took too long.

Minuet was even slower than adagio and was there to create a relaxing moment before the finale. It increased my Vitality and Wisdom by 50%, while also increasing my Health, Mana, and Stamina regeneration by the same amount. The tanking phase, in other words, but I didn’t need that right now.

My Darkest Thought. Draconic Roar! Aerokinesis boosters!

An echo chamber, a literal one, made from lava and nearly hardened obsidian surrounded the demonkin from behind. [My Darkest Thought] was played to lower her berserker mode, and with [Musical Crescendo], even if she couldn’t hear me ‘cause of [Draconic Roar], she probably could feel it internally since my songs transmit through mana with [Music Resonation] at Major.

Blasted by my roar, the demonkin was stuck against the lava room, getting damaged by the shearing heat, toxic obsidian gasses, and the loud sonic attack. Regardless of how high her poison resistance was, you couldn’t resist mine. My purple flames could pierce through all resistance!

“Uuuuuuuuuiiiiiiii!” The demonkin forced her trembling arm through my sonic attack, materializing her warhammer. “Voltaic Red: Rumbling Crash!”

The hammer crashed against the lava room, summoning a red lightning to envelop the area around her. Like a plasma ball, lightning kept striking everything inside it, pulverizing any lava inside. Once the ball disappeared, she dashed out of the sonic attack and used [Voltaic Red: Thunderspeed Roar] with her halberd again.

Seeing that, I finished up my warp point. With both entry and exit set, I just teleported out of the attack and the Ramuh, releasing both Tasianna and Renee now that they were probably safe. Since I had [Magmakammer] active, the island was growing larger and larger from the extra land, meaning it might actually be time to humanize.

Allied Territory detected! [Supremacy’s Manaspring] has been activated! Territory coexistence established

Huh? Neill?

Neither Tasianna nor Renee had an advanced aura like [Tyrant’s Aura], meaning they couldn’t use a Territory. Since it was an “allied” Territory, the only one who could perform one in our team was Neill. Also, that name…

Underneath the beam duel, the ground began to float up as mana seams appeared around Neill like a spiderweb. However, before I could see how it ended, Tasianna’s ice blade began to weave around me as a red lightning appeared before me.

“Cometh Breeze.”

The weapon crushed right through the ice with no problem, buying me some time to dodge. At the same time, Renee expedited the process by having wind forcibly pull me back. Able to get my bearing, I flared my weapon, tail, and claws up and engaged the now sane demonkin girl.

With Tasianna and Renee as my support, metal and lightning clashed. Despite increasing my [True Spear Technique] up to level ten, I already knew I wouldn’t be able to contend against her, especially with her stats. This would have been such a good time to learn and improve my glaivework, if we were sparring. Sadly, we were enemies.

Vifi’Yok was a formidable foe who forced my focus to its peak. I swung my glaive while reflecting on my mistakes in our previous duel, while using magic and the lava around me to keep me and my allies from any harm. Tasianna’s ice and new ice powder were useful and kept the enemy slowed down, while Renee was commanding the fight in an attempt to lead the enemy around.

However, with lightning spears raining down on us and the destructiveness of those “Voltaic Red” moves, it sure was hard to land a proper blow. We needed Neill right now, just ‘cause she was our best frontliner. The moment Hee’Rlak appeared and began threatening Tasianna, our effectiveness as a group dipped.

And that was when it went… BOOOOOOOM! Like the sound of thunder crashing against the ground.

The five of us were blown away as [Ramuh] crashed against the ground, sundering and liquifying anything there. I caught both Tasianna and Renee, protecting them from the shockwave by flying away. This was when Renee told me Neill suddenly disappeared from our party. She was gone, and I couldn’t see her anywhere.

[“Whe— Arck!”] I stopped my flying as I saw a red spear race right passed me, only for the demonkin to appear behind me and land a hit on me with her warhammer. [Voltaic Red: Rumbling Crash] sent all of us crashing onto the piece of lava field below us.

While Tasianna and Renee were okay, I wasn’t feeling alright.

Urrrgrkkk! Kuuuek!

It felt like my organs were being constantly zapped by lightning. As if somebody placed a still-charged battery inside my body, the current was streaming throughout my body. This, also inevitably caused my body temperature to rise, forcing my sun core to go to work. It was just problematic. I couldn't control it, to the point my heart and core even got damaged by it.

“Krak!” I coughed, almost vomiting from the pain inside my body. What the hell was this attack?!

“The spear to destroy everything, and the hammer to crush the innards.” I heard Vifi’Yok’s voice above me, before she stomped on my head, pressing it right into the lava. “Come on, transform already. Or don’t, 'cause this is easier for me.”

“Lady Hestia!”

“Priestess!”

Dammit! No choice now. Dreadflare Aura! Humani—

[“Get off her!]

“Hu— OOOFFK!”

A loud crackle followed by the scream of a girl appeared above me just as the weight on my head disappeared. I raised my head, only to flinch back as I had something black and purple breathing down on my face.

On my butt, I then looked up again, only to see a scaled beast with three horns. A dragon’s face elongated like a horse’s, while its front arms were armored by thick carapace and black fur. It had claws on its front legs while hooves on its back; all four were standing on floating rocks. A horse’s tail and dragon wings were the other remarkable details, making this weird chimeric hybrid of a horse and dragon certainly pretty wild.

[“Neill?”]

Around the size of Saori’s fenrir form, who was larger than an elephant, this dragonkin was entirely foreign to me. I had never seen this appearance once before… but the mana seams, the purple highlights on her black scales, and the three horns — two dragon ones and one from a unicorn — showed through her fluffy lion-like mane. There was only one person this reminded me of.

There was someone who disappeared from our party.

[“You’re pretty purple. Think you can keep it going?”] It was Neill’s voice.

[“… I don’t think you can beat her alone. Sadly.”]

I activated [Humanize], exuding mana mist from my body. One more push. As a dragonewt, I couldn’t match her with my melee abilities. That demonkin had a way to cripple Mother’s combat abilities against Karhalantheel. I had to win against her.

[“Tasianna!”] I spread my wings out, blowing the mist away. [“On me. We’re taking to the skies.”]

[“Renee! Come on, you get on me. Probably can wield that toothpick better on me.”] Neill, having the same idea, had her partner mount her. With the dragon paths created from her Territory, the ground below the two began to hover, creating a small floating skydom above the island.

A lava field below and a floating island above. What a weird sight.

Hostile Territory detected! [Magnetic Storm] has been activated! Territory Dispute engage

Now, thunder clouds began to cover up the sky, shooting out red lightning around us while it began to feel like something was pushing us away from the demonkin girl. Magnetism, maybe? Polarity?

“…” Vifi’Yok began to crack her neck, massaging it as she regrouped with Hee’Rlak. Clear hoove-sized marks were on her face and chestplate, meaning Sis probably gave her the horse stomp special.

[“Tasianna, I’m on my third movement now. The timer is almost over,”] I informed her.

“I understand, Lady Hestia. This time, I will be the one to cool you down.”

The finale was approaching for this battle.

“Off the ship! Storm is over, so swim back to shore! Leave those corpses alone you looters!” Adhi shouted to the greedy Caedhulen sea scales, disapproving of them trying to reap what Champion Tehmrayn had just done to the enemies.

One ship crash landed on Karhalantheel island while another was sinking. The corpses of numerous skull mask assassins littered the bloodied waters around the latter. Something had destroyed it all.

“Haaaahaaaaa…” A purple Kushlek’zar breathed heavily before he began smiling, looking over the destroyed sanctum of the island at their new arrival.

“Urgh…” Lying in a field of destroyed earth golems, Farron groaned as the wound on his stomach was being healed by Kushlek’zar’s [Ocean Healing].

“Dear, come on… Gotta stand up and leave.” Yorshka, his wife, pulled him up, before she began taking off her dented and destroyed scale armor. With them crashing on the ground, a large bloody gash from her shoulder going down to her waist could be seen on her dragonewt torso.

“Aye… This really is a bit too much for me. Good luck, and stay alive. Our daughter still needs her mother.”

“Yeah, I got it. I can’t exactly torment her and little Hestia now, right?” Yorshka helped her husband off from the field, before doing the same for Kushlek’zar. [Arcane Fever] had turned the proud Saint into a burden

“… There goes one water mage… Now, a new one arrives.” Ghorush, no, Streiga held up his rapier with his left arm. His right arm was broken beyond normal means by the combined strength of the opponents before him.

He managed to take down Farron, almost killing him and his wife. Kushlek’zar had expended too much mana in a short amount of time, to the point he had [Arcane Fever] and was almost out of mana. While Hestia had to be conservative with her mana pool, Kushlek’zar was forced to go all-out if he wanted to keep everybody alive.

[“…”] The wyvern Shayatierus looked at the unconscious body of his younger twin, happy she was alive, but guilty for forcing her to block that near fatal attack directed at him. After Yorshka helped her out of the battlefield, his head snapped around to the leonid responsible for this tragedy. [“This is now personal.”]

“Shayatierus, support, alright?”

[“Of course. My ice will freeze the field for all of you.”]

“Good.” Larent smiled as he kept his blade up, enduring through the fact one of his eyes was gouged out and another was almost blind. He was elated; nobody had died yet, in addition, he managed to take out Streiga’s dominant arm with that last attack.

Golems were still being created with every second they stared at the leonid, but he didn’t feel rushed at all. After all, their last member of this strike team had arrived.

Tehmrayn, a Depth’s Adjudicator and a Champion of the God of Tridents and Divers, Zennithra. This Champion of Plesia threw the head of a skull mask before the leonid’s feet.

“… Qatil is dead? Hmm, well, it was to be expected. I just didn’t think it would be this quick.” The leonid’s smile faded, aware his situation had just worsened. “Wonder if I can escape this.”

“You won’t,” the naga declared, pointing his trident at the Yanderu. “Not after you blindsided me.”

Allied Territory detected! [Jewel of the Monsoon’s Torrent] has been activated!

The Territory Tehmrayn had shown Hestia was just a reserved version of the real deal. With it out on the field, this deathmatch between the Champion and the Third Yanderu boss would begin.

“I see…”

Hostile Territory detected! [Lament of the Lion] has been activated!

“… Hmph. Dame Yorshka, wouldn’t it be better to leave? You have a family to return to.” Larent grabbed his sword and began to unleash his aura, while trying to dissuade Yorshka from continuing this fight.

The white-scaled dragonewt crackled in face of this, before downing a dragorade and a Major Health potion. “Haaaa… Sadly, you two need somebody to take down the golems he’s producing. A dragoon taking care of the fliers and giants should be helpful, no?”

“Hahaha, so be it. Well, I hope those young ladies have had it better than us.” Larent took another deep breath before he sharpened his gaze. “Quite fortunate they didn’t have to see me like this.”

Allied Territory detected! [Knighthood’s Battlefield] has been activated!

“Haha, you underestimate them. I personally am sad I can’t show this off to my great aunt. Without her help, I wouldn’t have been able to get my [Territory Release]. Skill points are beyond practical.”

Allied Territory detected! [Skyward Bladeworks] has been activated!

… I really am lacking. These ‘lowly beings’ are all so much stronger than us. I thought Astalos was killed because Princess Hestia was a dragon but… No, he was just weaker than her. And I am weaker than all of them.

Shayatierus watched as the island was consumed by a waterball while a mountain with a sun appeared inside this sphere. The landscape of the island turned flat with the ground turning into fine, white fairnite slabs. In the sky, silver spears formed up there, ready to shoot down the moment their mistress called for it.

Empress Melloxtressa, Princess Hestia, Princess Fargryneill. Forgive this weak dragonkin. I will survive this and better myself.

Shayatierus made his oath to Kargryxmor. His admiration for the humanoid races of Peolynca had just increased.

A note from AbyssRaven

Reminder, Hestia's Job skills can't be used in her dragon form. Also, the island before [Magmakammer] was far too small for her to move around properly. Hestia had four powerful spell songs able to turn things around, she wants to be able to sing uninterrupted.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 361: Kyrie for Brave Girls.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #2 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! It works on a subscription base now, so pay on the same date next month!

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What a fitting scenery.

A lava field had consumed the island below, turning water into hardened rock and earth for platforms. As toxic gases and lava fountains threatened anything below, boulder-sized molten earth began to levitate up to the sky, joining the intricate web of dragon paths. As such, a small island, just large enough to accommodate my mammoth-sized dragon body.

A kirin-dragon dragon skipped and galloped in the air and on small floating rocks, menacingly pointing her unicorn horn at the flying eight-armed demonkin. Although she wanted to attack, she couldn’t as the black clouds above rained down red thunder. If I wasn’t part of this battle, I honestly would have fangirled at how cool this looked.

It felt like an authentic boss arena. So this was what the presence of three Territories did to the environment.

“Huuuuuraaaaagh!” The demonkin, Vifi’Yok, roared as she pulled up her crossbow. Shooting it like a repeater rifle, each bolt was a red lightning the size of a normal spear.

The land had no constraints on a dragon who could fly, so I took to the sky with my rocket boosters to dodge bolts. At the same time, I also noticed the red thunder caused by her Territory moving with her attacks, literally aiming at me like a heat seeking missile.

Tasianna, who was sitting on my back, decided against casting her defensive spells, telling me no way she could block these attacks with her stats. Since a spell’s strength came from your Intelligence, I could understand. So, I had to focus on avoiding these attacks before an opening could be revealed.

But, this weird magnetic force. What is this? I wondered as it felt like my body was being pushed away from the demonkin. The closer I tried to move towards her, the more an invisible force made it harder for me to close in.

As I was zigzagging through this storm, I noticed a streak of black flames hopping from one spot to the next, eventually attracting the attention of the demonkin. Neill, in her full kirin-dragon form, was jumping around on her floating island, even using the molten rock like projectiles by kicking them at Vifi’Yok.

Then, using her horn, she would shoot out concentrated beams and blasts of mana, only for red thunder to strike them before they could reach their master. However, Neill, with Renee on her back, kept this assault up, slowly making progress towards their target.

Meanwhile, since I took on my dragon form, my Job skills also disappeared, meaning all the [Idol]-related skills are now unavailable to me. Meaning, I had to go on the offensive while keeping [My Darkest Thoughts] on. It also didn’t help that I had [Symphonie des Feuergottes Movement (Minuet)] on. It incentived me to go slow and defensive.

… Then how about I turn it around? If I barely took any damage, then I should abuse it. I didn’t buy [Lightning Resistance Lv. 10] and [Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 10] for nothing.

I materialized [Unheilige Engel] and placed it over Tasianna, creating a dome over her body. Since I still had [Panzer] on and could just create an outer layer of scales and use [Draconic Barrier] on them, I was ready to juggernaut this.

With our protection secured, I dived down towards the lava river. [Magmakammer] released incredible heat which created a miniature magma chamber. With [Volcanic Blaze], I scooped this lava up and molded it into a barrier before my head. Using [Mana Eyes], I could even see the demonkin’s silhouette through this thick barrier.

The effects of the presumably magnetic field showed itself as my advanced slowed down. It was then I saw Vifi’Yok throw her halberd at Neill, probably [Voltaic Red: Thunderspeed Roar], before using something directed at me. With the silhouette mixing together, I couldn’t fully tell what the attack was until it hit me.

Oof!

It was her crossbow again. This time, it hit me exactly on the shoulder, and while it did do some damage, with my defensive stats boosted like crazy right now, it was neglectable. Still, it slowed me down, so I still did my best to avoid them.

Eventually, she did transition into using her remaining arms to sling lightning bolts at Neill and me. My lava and scale barrier began to crumble ‘cause of the continued attack, but I just kept reforming them over and over again.

Can’t [Flashfire] effectively when my speed is lowered by this magnetic field. Still, gotta try. Hellflame Fire! Corrosive Fire!

Vifi’Yok was without a doubt still poisoned from a previous attack, not to mention having [Dread Burn] on her. The attrition war was still on-going.

Purple flames burst from my mouth, piercing through the lava barrier and towards the demonkin. As I kept flying around, the demonkin responded by throwing a lightning bolt through the breath attack. I [Flashfire] over it, towards the other end of the lightning, only for a lightning strike to hit me right in the face.

Arck! I knew it! I grimaced, realizing my hypothesis was correct. [Flashfire] was a high-tempo movement which made it seem as if I teleported, but anything slowing me down would drive its speed way down.

White flames began to cover my face, healing me from that wound, as I u-turned around to avoid another lightning bolt. However, at that very moment, she clapped her hands and the magnetic repulsion turned into attraction, forcibly pulling me towards her.

However, before I reached her, Neill jumped right in and nearly kicked her with her back legs, forcing the demonkin to hastily turn her polarization back to before, blasting Neill right out of the former’s vicinity. Seeing she was flying right into a red thunder bolt, I shot a [Tornado Bullet] in her direction, throwing her away, although also hurting her, to help her flee. We then resumed dodging through all the long-range attacks.

As I was rattling my brain on how to handle this, I suddenly got a telepathic message from Neill.

[“Thanks. Quick thinking.”]

[“No problem. Come closer, I’ll heal up. Anyways, you got an idea on how to handle this? This might be even worse than her previous battle style,”] I complained, preferring how she was heavily melee-oriented before. [“We get slower when we approach, and any spell or dragon abilities I use gets destroyed by those red thunders. I can’t go all out right now, just a reminder.”]

[“Yeah, arcane corruption. I know, or, more specifically, Renee knows.”] My interest was piqued once Renee was mentioned. [“Electromagnetic pull and push. The Territory probably has the demonkin as the center of it. However, after testing it a bit, anything too blocky seems to be reflected. Mana-based attacks aren’t though.”]

[“It can’t possibly repulse air, otherwise, the demonkin would suffocate herself. Lady Hestia, it's probably similar to Astalos’s magnetic field, so we can use our past battle with him as reference for this,”] Tasianna reminded me of my battle with the [Boltreaving Wyvern]. [“Magic and any intangible attacks should work.”]

[“Then I guess Renee has a plan with her wind blade?”] I asked.

[“She does. Dragon paths work on her, as I injected mana into some of the lava boulders, turning them into bombs. Mana lightning works, too, and I can spread the paths as close as her. Renee has a plan to use them to bring the demonkin closer to me.”]

[“Good! Then come closer for a moment.”] The both of us flew around this flying arena, before we quickly made a stop at the floating island for me to transfer Tasianna onto Neill’s back. We quickly took flight before a thunder struck us. [“Alright, I can’t overuse mana and get [Arcane Fever] before the ‘finale’ comes. I’ll try to act as a distraction this time. Keep the same battle plan, though.”]

With what she showed just now, escaping wasn’t possible. She would just pull us right back towards her. However, we also had to force her to change her polarity, otherwise we were forced to maintain ranged attacks. When that happened, I would immediately change to [The Heir of Hope] to grant Neill a 10% increase in her stats. At this point, I got the song transition timing down.

Once I reformed my lava barrier, I kept the pressure up by throwing not only some [Sacred Smite]s but also breathing fire as I zoomed through the storm of bolts and thunder. I had to keep up with my natural arcane corruption decay and my mana usage.

Neill, on the other hand, kept her offense by kicking boulders at the demonkin, while having her dragon paths advance forward to shock her. In both cases, thunder struck them down, destroying any progress, but it did mean her attention was being divided.

Eventually, Tasianna was also able to establish a foothold in this battle as her retinue of [Slithering Frost Serpent] began to multiply and strike at the demonkin. Blades of ice descended down like hail, while frost powder covered the whole area like a miniature mist. She didn’t need to do damage, she just needed to distract the enemy like us.

[“Renee’s plan is easy. Keep her occupied, and thinking. Just like us, she has to be susceptible to arcane corruption. She will be forced into fighting us close once she’s used up her mana.”]

Was what Neill told me. I didn’t know if [Original Sin: Satanael] could prevent arcane corruption, but no way could it stop you from consuming a ton of mana. Even I had a limit on my regeneration speed.

We just had to force her into that position. Play our cards correctly, and she will have to play the game our way. Intentionally drag her along the stream. As much as we couldn’t keep this going for long, she couldn’t do it either. The five of us were all tired and exhausted. This was truly the final act.

“Hraaah!” As Neill was turning around to dodge a thunder blast, that demonkin man, Hee’Rlak, suddenly appeared from below Sis, using the floating rocks as platforms. The six armed demonkin of wrath wielded his flaming greatsword, trying to slash at Sis, but probably due to her skills, she reacted immediately and stomped him in his face.

With a loud crack echoing through air, the man was flung away and landed on a floating boulder. Neill, wanting to end him, galloped over, only for Vifi’Yok to fully focus on her, leaving her back open to me.

“Get your filthy claws away from him!” The demonkin girl cried out in rage, telling me this man was more than just a subordinate for her.

The rain of bolts threatened Neill, forcing me to create an eruption with [Volcanic Blaze], nearly engulfing the demonkin in the lava flood. She used her glaive to cleave it away, but this gave Neill the chance to shoot a [Pulse Arcane: Maxima] from her horn at the demonkin. This time, it hit!

“Argh!”

Renee then swung her blade, activating [Cometh Breeze] to pull the demonkin closer, which inevitably also caused the magnetic force to push Neill away. However, this allowed Tasianna to shoot her spells at the incoming demonkin, forcing our opponent to respond by slashing everything apart, leavening her wide open for Neill’s next attack,

Mana seams appeared on her black-scaled face, all moving towards her horn as it began to produce purple lightning from it. It wasn’t blue like her previous [Pulse Arcane: Maxima]. This was something else!

“Dammit! Thunderspeed—!”

“Kurieieieiie!” With a wild growl, she arched her head back and then snapped it forward, releasing a large lightning beam which destroyed the three electric hands on her right side, neutralizing the attack Vifi’Yok planned to use.

Freikugel! I remembered Neill using that move against Ghorush in their arena duel. It was more reserved back then — similar to a laser beam — while this one looked more like a cannon beam in size.

“Wind Shiver!” The [Freikugel] already caused a change in the winds, stopping the effects of [Cometh Breeze], but Renee immediately followed it up by shooting out a wind blast. Vifi’Yok responded by using her red lightning to dash away, though.

[“Hestia, dash next to her! To her right!”] I heard Neill call out for me, giving me precise instructions. Probably from Renee, since she was the only one who couldn’t use [Telepathy].

Following the streaks of red in the air, I could just barely predict where she was going to end up and used [Flashfire]. With [Magmakammer] and all my scale-dust spread around from my flying, I had plenty of places to dash towards. I only needed a single spark, and boom, there we go!

“You!”

I appeared right before her, causing her to instinctively swing her warhammer at me, only for the repulsion effect to activate and literally fling me away before she could hit me. Seeing her flabbergasted face sure was funny.

[“Ha! Get fooled you idiot!”] Neill suddenly spoke to everybody around. [“Did you really think we’re that dumb to stay around and fight you?! Go, Sis, get to the island!”]

[“Lady Hestia, we’ll be right behind you! All the plan needs is your mana!”] Even Tasianna joined in, spouting the same banter Neill did. [‘We’ll keep her occupied so the Empress can fight properly!”]

“Wha— So you’re gonna aband—?!” Vifi’Yok tried to taunt me as I flew away, using my rocket boosters to increase my speed.

[“As if you can trick me! That toy would never trap my mother! Goodbye, you idiot!”]

“What?!” she exclaimed as I disappeared even further in the distance. Neill’s precise order to me was for the repulsion effect to sling me in the direction of Karhalantheel island. “Dammit!”

And all to agitate the demonkin into doing something we needed her to do. Confusing the enemy and then forcing her into doing something desperate, as she probably had to worry about her mana. Deceit and trickery.

A purple magic circle appeared on her staff, activating a lightning spell which instantly shot her closer to me. There, she clapped her hands, changing her polarity where she pulled me closer to her. Only, I also made it easier on her as I blast myself towards her with my rocket boosters and [Wind Blast].

“Huh?!”

[“Neill, it’s the hands! She probably needs to clap her hands to perform the move! We need to stop her from doing that again!”] I informed Neill before tackling right into the demonkin, having us both crash land onto the floating island.

With the magnetic field active, the island began to crumble, affected by Vifi’Yok’s Territory. At the same time, red thunder rained upon us, hitting me thrice in a row. However, with all my defenses up, I took them like a champ. With my [Halo of Consecration] active too, heal tanking was back on the menu once again, girls!

“Kraaagh!” Still, it didn’t mean I was completely impervious to her attacks.

“Urrrgh! Urrgaaaargh!” Once she pierced my chest with her rapier, she pushed me off of her and kicked me away, although the magnetic force just kept attracting me towards her. Knowing this, she attempted to clap her hands, but I had my [Unheilige Engel] wrap itself around them, creating a thick layer of slime.

Hellblade Edge!

With the tides of the battle turned once again, I slashed at the demonkin with my tail, forcing her to block it with her warhammer, glaive, and fist.. The arms blown away from Neill’s shot were slowly regenerating, but now that I looked at her closely, her slightly tanned skin was pretty blue right now, even turning slightly purple.

I [Flashfire]d closer to her and grabbed her leg, pulling her back on the island, only for Neill to land and nearly dropkick her. As soon as she tried to jump away, a giant ice serpent appeared from underneath the island and attacked her, forcing her to destroy it with a thunderbolt, only to be left open to my dragon breath.

Poison, unhealable damage, my song, and then the arcane corruption in her body. Not to mention, how was her Stamina doing? If we couldn’t brute force our way through, then playing this smart was the way to go.

Click!

Huh?! Verdammt! I grimaced as I heard that noise resound in my head, repeated by my parallel minds as they just told me my sun core cracked again. Just like the demonkin, my body was starting to tire from all the heat.

Everybody else was sweating up a storm, so how could I, as the one controlling everything, still be perfectly fine? However, I couldn’t think too much about this. We had to take down the demonkin as soon as poss—

“Graaaaaaaaaaaargk!”

[Foresight] activated, prompting me to dodge to the side as a thunderbolt flew past me. I then charged right at the demonkin while Neill tried to keep the island intact with her dragon paths. At the same time, I had to duck as a glaive flew over me.

I lunged forward, claws ablaze, blocking her next attack. A large monster versus a single humanoid person; it sure tickled my gamer fantasy. Only problem was I was in the former position. Dodging around against an equally large opponent wasn’t too tricky, but against somebody as small as this demonkin felt quite the challenge.

I took damage, but I kept on slashing, casting spells, and using my scale-dust to explode. Fireworks blew up everywhere, you could say, while lightning weapons flew around, trying to hurt me. The demonkin clearly was feeling pressured, but even in this state, she kept trying to clap her hands, but I kept her from doing so with [Overload] and [Flashfire].

Of course, I wasn’t alone in this, as Tasianna kept raining more and more spells upon her. Whenever I would get hit, she would land a counter attack, dissuading the demonkin from attacking any further. Followed up by Renee’s wind attacks, it kept the enemy guessing who was doing what.

Then, you also had Neill. Whenever the demonkin landed a strike at my chest, dangerously close to my sun core, Neill took over and began harassing the enemy. Size difference aside, Neill almost seemed like a fox while approaching her battle with Vifi’Yok. Galloping, kicking, and then using her draconic abilities to keep the demonkin suffering damage. Black flames and dragon paths were integral to her combat style.

“In the midst of the desert ♫

A bright ray of light shines ♫

Pure and brave, that she was, as she walked ♫”

And, oh boy, I did not let these chances pass. The moment I anticipated Neill would land a hit, I would change the song, only to switch back to [My Darkest Thoughts]. Never would I have expected my combat usage of my spell songs would improve today.

Vifi’Yok tried to escape multiple times, but [Flashfire] was all I needed to keep up with her speed. Even if she tried to attack me, I just took the hit. No dodging. While the symphony’s minuet was on, I was a tank. Plain and simple!

From this rhythm, our tussle continued. We would exchange blows and keep “dancing” around on this crumbling lava island. A dragon and kirin swinging their bodies around while sundering this place up, while a human and fairy kept shooting out spells, all to bring down a single demonkin.

Our goal was to push this demonkin’s mana to zero, but that was easier said than done.

“Hrkk!” My body froze in place as I felt a sharp pain in my head, leaving me open as I stopped my attack. [Danger Perception] and [Foresight] activated and it felt like my body could avoid them, but my limbs didn’t want to listen.

Boom!

Kraak!

My frozen body took the hit right to my head, nearly knocking me to the ground. However, instead of recovering and sending a counter attack, my body just instinctively roared out and my consciousness began to… fade a little bit.

What the—?! Koff!

It felt like I just had a black out, and in this moment, Vifi’Yok hit me again, only this time, she used that weapon ability with her warhammer. That electrifying feeling from before, where it felt like a battery was placed inside my body and continuously produced lightning to shock my organs and nerves, happened again.

“Kraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” My body roared out once again, swiping at the demonkin crudely without stringing it into a combo attack. Was my body moving on its own?!

[“Hestia, disable [Battle Frenzy] now!”] I heard Sis speak in my head.

[“Wait, what?! Disable? Are you kidding me, I need … the stat boo—”]

[“Don’t argue with your older sister in this case! I told you to not overuse [Battle Frenzy], you’re going to enter the moderate stage at this rate!”] Neill then jumped in front of me, and took all the attention by herself. [“Shut it down!”]

Was this really ‘cause of [Battle Frenzy]? Then again, the times where I went over the minor stage, I would go unconscious as my body went wild on its own. It was a self-preservation function. I thought I finally had [Battle Frenzy] under control, but when I would … Shit! I just had a blackout there for a moment, again!

Verdammt, out! Out! Calm down! Think about my sloth. What keeps me rooted to this world!

Deep breaths in, deep breaths out. Think about the happiness I wished to grant everybody. To see my family and friends safe and smiling would give me happiness. I had to remember this. As such, I couldn’t lose myself until that goal was achieved.

Hoooo.

The white highlights on my scales dulled, eventually disappearing and returning to my usual crimson color. I felt not only my stats drop but also my mind’s aggressiveness die out a bit. I could think a bit clearer now, but it didn’t help, since the situation was still the same as before.

“Tor Eiclere’s Finulaflei!”

As I finally calmed myself down, a blizzard suddenly appeared on this molten rock island, engulfing not only the demonkin but also Sis with it. It was Tasianna’s finishing spell!

Looking to my left, Renee and Tasianna had gotten off Neill, as the latter was keeping the demonkin occupied.

Both were freezing in this crazy spell, being sliced by the army's worth of ice blades spawning from the spell. Thunder rained down towards Tasianna, but I immediately caught wind of this and charged over to her, covering my friend and absorbing the blows. I could still act as a tank.

[“Lady Hestia?!”] Tasianna sounded dismayed.

[“Continue the attack! I can take these!”] I ordered her, and my friend nodded. She knew what was more important here.

Neill, seeing through all the pain, kept the demonkin from fleeing, using dragon paths and even biting at her to keep her down. Frostbite appeared wherever Tasianna's ice swords hit, slowing anything they struck down. Holding onto thunder halberds, she tried to throw them, but in the next moment, the demonkin began coughing as her skin fully turned purple.

Is that [Arcane Fever]? Mana Eyes!

Information is blocked

Boo!

“Arrrrrrrrgkk! TAKE THIS!”

“Krrrriiiiek!”

As I thought victory was so close, Vifi’Yok suddenly dug her halberd right into Neill’s incoming claw attack, piercing her hand before using her warhammer to break it. Her right front leg’s bone is sticking out!

Neill!

Vifi’Yok then used her gauntlet to smack Neill’s head right into the ground, leaving her open to a pummeling with her lightning arms. I used [Volcanic Blaze] to morph the lava around her, grabbing onto her legs, allowing Tasianna to keep buffeting the demonkin.

This might have stopped her from attacking, but she also used this time to regrow her remaining elemental arms and used them to tear off the [Unheiliger Engel] slime. It tried to reattach itself, but the enemy was faster than the slime without Neill around to stop her. Once she broke away from the ground, she tried to clap her hands, only for Neill to bite into her leg.

“Krak! F this! Rumbling Crash!” She landed a hammer strike right at Neill’s head, knocking her right out of commission.

NEILL! I cried out as my rocket boosters activated, shooting myself forward as I bit right into the demonkin’s arm, pinning her down on the ground in this hailstorm.

I tried to tear off her limb, but she threw her glaive right into my eye, blinding me and causing me to wail as the excruciating pain immediately went up to my brain.

“Kraaaaaaaaaaaah!” I roared out as I plucked this lightning polearm out of my head, only to see the demonkin almost performing her clap. I couldn’t react in time!

“Cometh Breeze!” I heard, followed by strong wind pulling me and the demonkin closer to Tasianna and Renee. This pull was just enough to make the demonkin stumble, delaying her clapping just enough for me to make it! “END THIS BATTLE NOW, HESTIA!”

Crack.

[Symphonie des Feuergottes (Finale)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“KriiiAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!”

Symphonie des Feuergottes Movement (Finale)

The curtain call is near, the spotlights shine brighter than ever, for the final act is here. Like the epitome of the inferno god, fire will explode. Fully heal Health, Mana, and Stamina. Increase all stats by 100%. Increase fire damage by 50%. After this effect ends, apply   [Exhaustion (Moderate)], [Arcane Corruption (Minor)], and [Mana Stress (Minor)]

Double Agility! I smashed the demomkin right into the ground, shattering our footing.

[“GET NEILL OUT OF HERE! TASIANNA, GET READY!”] I called out to the other two before I grabbed Vifi’Yok in my arms and pulled her closer to me as I flew into the skies with my rocket boosters.

Dreadflare Aura! Come on, Magmakammer, burn everything around me now! Music change! THE WILL TO FIGHT AND SURVIVE!

“Is this the fated battle, the light shines ♫

It’s blinding my sight ♫

But I’ve gotta hold on, the stage calls ♫

The cries of a thousand, the flames of war will descend ♫

The carnage of the blazing sun ♫

Blood rain from swords and claws ♫

The strive to pierce the sky ♫

The light that beckons you forth ♫

I couldn’t just stop now, my heartbeats ♫

The show must go on ♫

You cannot silence my voice now ♫

Be dazzled, be humbled ♫

I’m destined for the stars ♫

Prepare for a beatdown, no mercy ♫

Gonna overwhelm them♫

A chance for the spotlight ♫

Don’t regret getting burned to ash ♫

The carnage of the blazing sun ♫

Blood rain from swords and claws ♫

As the music drops, our emotions will run wild ♫

Top the world ♫

The strive to pierce the sky ♫

The light that beckons you forth ♫

The promise to stand fast ♫

Family and Friends ♫

The Will to Fight and Survive! ♫”

100% increase in all stats. 50% more fire damage. All from this volcanic explosion inside my body. It burned me, strained my sun core, and it made my head ignore all the pain and damage I accumulated up until now.

Then, [The Will to Fight and Survive]. 10% increase to fire attacks and also 5% decrease in the enemies’s Wisdom. If we took away [Dragon Fire]’s meteor attacks, it only increased my fire attack by 10%. However, was this the most efficient song, though?

[My Darkest Thought] not only decreased all demonic abilities' effects but also reduced 20% of their stats. It was what kept all of this mildly competitive, after all. [The Heir of Hope] increased all stats by 10%, though. As such, if you did the math, it didn’t seem like [The Will to Fight and Survive] was the correct choice here. What made the song good, though, was its infinite Stamina spam.

However, at this very moment, I didn’t need a depressing [My Darkest Thoughts] or an inspiration filled [The Heir of Hope]. I didn’t need a boss threatening [Dragon Fire] either. What I needed was a blood-pumping song that made me feel like I could break through any wall! To break my limits to survive!

Like a true finale!

“Graaaaaaaaaak! Leeeeeeeet meeeeeeeeee gooooooooooo!” I heard her scream, but I ignored all the pain around my arms and poured more mana into my [Draconic Barrier]. Even skill points! I didn’t care if I got [Arcane Fever] at this point! I’d have to deal with it later anyways!

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Draconic Barrier Lv. 10] . 700 SP spent. 1300 SP remaining

“KriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

Like a rocket, I flew past the grey clouds above me, finally taking in the power of the sun. My sun core managed to take in some solar energy, refueling it a bit, but not long enough for it to reach an amount that mattered.

Once the heat I'd been building up reached a tipping point, I directed my eyes back to the ground. Was I melting this demonkin or not? I didn’t really care! I couldn’t stop this attack one way or the other at this point anyways. All I needed to do was execute it!

“Graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak!” Agony-filled cries echoed from below me as I passed the clouds, descending like a meteor. “NOOOOOOOOOO!”

Shit!

The demonkin was actually trying to clap her hands at this point?! Was she crazy?! Regardless, I had to stop her—

Kuek!

Crack!

Another crack, but this time, it didn’t feel like it was created by my own body heat! This time, it was accompanied by a deep pain in my chest!

[Overheat (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrk!”

You broke my core! That’s my second heart, you bitch!

A virtual volcano from inside me burst out again, this time singeing my organs and muscles now that I didn’t have an easy way to control this heat. I could maintain it for now, but the pain was unreal. Unable to fully endure it, it felt like my reactions were lagging behind a second. My trembling hands were too slow!

“Leeeeeet gooooo!”

No! Faster!

“Uuuuuurgh, you’re not killing me! I will be your death!” Her hands moved, closing in for another cla—

“Krihihihihie! Kruaaaaaaah!”

Another spike of pain ran through my body, but surprisingly it wasn’t at any of my vitals. In fact, I thought I just saw one of my fingers fly right past me, along with a human arm.

“Arck!”

I looked down, seeing the demonkin had lost her left arm while I lost a finger and chunk from my right foreleg. Also, I thought I just saw a beam. So, if everything added up … then it had to be [Freikugel]?

[“WIN FOR US, SIS!”]

That voice!

… Was all I needed for the last bit of motivation.

“Kraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

Releasing every single bit of my remaining scale-dust, the impact not only tore through the floating island but also devastated the island below that. From previous experience, I knew better than to even try to limit the explosion range with [Pyrokinesis].

This powerful crash landing blew up the entire area, even affecting the other islands around. I was blown away into the sky, before landing right in the middle of the ocean. [Magmakammer] was still active, so it hardened up the water, creating a small patch of island where the overwhelming heat began to rip through my body.

[Overheat (Moderate)] [Exhaustion (Moderate)] [Arcane Corruption (Minor)] [Mana Stress (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Arghk! Hot! Burrrrns!

The power of [Symphonie des Feuergottes Movement (Finale)] was impressive, but, oh gods, it had a terrible side effect. My organs were burning, an intense headache appeared, and my body felt sore and numb. This sucked!

[“Lady Hestia, I’m here! Aifli eir Vintral. Tor Eiclere’s Finulaflei!”]

Okay, okay, dial down the heat! I don’t need a sun core for this, I just need to control the temperature for Tasianna’s spell to work! I trained this with Mother, I can do THIS! ARGH, HOT!

Using mana was painful, as in, sore muscle-like pain. However, unlike sore muscles, using any mana at all while I was in this state would worsen both [Arcane Fever] and [Mana Stress] by a mile. Still I had to do something to help out Tasianna.

As the heat around me began to die down, I could feel my body being torn apart as my mana left my body; however, at the same time, I could also feel the cold snow touching my scales. A blizzard took over the area, helping cool me down. I didn’t know how long it took, since the pain was making time seem longer, but eventually, I could just fall onto my back, huffing and puffing.

[“Lady Hestia?”] I looked in the air and saw Neill approach us with Renee and Tasianna on her back. My fairy maid immediately gave me a hug around my head, despite still sweating from [Magmakammer]’s heat. I should turn it off.

[“By Father’s black horns, Sis, that was really an attack.”] I heard Neill congratulate me from the side, slowly approaching me with her broken leg. However, I couldn’t speak. [Telepathy] demanded mana.

Tasianna, noticing this, immediately explained the situation to them, having left that out when she told them about my finale. Hearing this, both Renee and Neill couldn’t help but sympathize with me, seeing how I couldn’t fight at all anymore. In fact, I was slowly falling asleep.

“Well, I guess it can’t be helped. Guess you have to carry your little sister over to the port,” Renee joked, now that the situation was resolved.

I kinda wanted to transform back into a dragonewt, to make it easier on Neill, but unless I wanted to go through some excruciating pain, I couldn’t. [Mana Stress] technically stopped me from using any spells or even expending my mana until I moved out of zero Mana. Technically, I still could, but that meant drawing mana right from my very cells.

Meaning, my Health. And I was already bleeding Health from developing an [Arcane Fever]. My automatic white flames weren’t even healing me for that same reason.

“Anyways, Hestia, could you turn your Territory off? It’s blazing out here.”

Oh, right, I should probab—

[“Wait, hold on,”] Neill interjected suddenly, stopping me. [“… Just, Hestia, let me make sure. Did you get a message on how you won the Territory dispute? Or getting a level? ‘Cause, I’m sure you would have gained at least three or four levels from killing her.”]

… Wait.

My eyes burst open and I shook my head vigorously. She was right!

[“Shi—!”]

“YOOOOUUUUUUU!” Just as that ominous feeling began to form, it manifested as a burning corpse jumping out of the water and grabbing onto Neill’s horn. “THIS DAMN HORN!”

With only one fleshy arm, but with six lightning ones, she ambushed us right as we let our guard down. With her warhammer and halberd, she struck at my sister’s horn, shattering it before she could react.

“Krruiiiiii!”

“Ugak!” In the ensuing moment, Neill slammed her head against the demonkin, sending her falling on to the ground, where I finally got a clear look of her current form.

Her armor had melted right into her charred skin, deforming and twisting her features. Bald and skinless, the demonkin looked more horrifying than ever before, especially since most of her demonic features were still there. Thankfully, her lightning arms were back to normal instead of being feathered, meaning [Original Sin: Satanael] was off.

Wai— Shit! I forgot to cancel her Original Sin ability in all this chaos. Could I have usurped her power?

“Uuuuuuuarghhhh!” Vifi’Yok stumbled back onto her feet, shouting out like a howling beast as Renee and Tasianna readied themselves. Neill tried to stand up, but the loss of her horn seemed to have been more painful than I had thought.

Damn, I can’t move!

My body wouldn’t listen.

“ARRRRRRRRGH! I AM WAR! I BRING WAR! A— Wuarrrgh!” The demonkin girl coughed up blood before falling onto the ground like a broken marionette. Her six lightning arms were slowly dissipating as she tried to push herself up. “A WARBRINGER MUST END HER BATTLE SUCCESSFULLY! BREAK—ahak! FREE! I need to …”

Her weapon, horns, and tail disappeared with her elemental arms. She then clutched her charred chest, gasping for air with every pained breath.

Our victory seemed almost at hand, we just had to wait for her to die. However, it still amazed me how she managed to survive my last attack and even broke Neill’s horn as a final act of defiance. Honestly, this beast of a girl was truly as tenacious as a cockroach, but even she couldn’t escape this any longer. All we needed to do was to let her die or finish her off.

“ARRRRGHHH! INSECTS!”

“W-What?!” However, before we could, Renee screamed was directed at the large shadow coming from the ocean. The water separated for this creature, before the very sky was blanketed by a giant scaled tail. To the point, it looked like it was larger than even Elyonda’s port.

The leviathan…

This… was not good.

“ARRRRRRRRRGH! DIE!”

“Shit, Neill, get us out of here!”

“Master!”

“Lady Hestia, get in! Lady Fargryneill!”

[“Get in the subspace yourself! I’ll handle th—”]

And without any more warnings, the tail slapped down.

A note from AbyssRaven

We began this siege with a bomb, we will end it with a bomb … a meter bomb. Also, I apologize if there was a bit too many "Kriiiiahs" and screams. I think I went a bit overboard with them, but your opinion?

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 362: My Choice, My Ending.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #3 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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Territory deactivated. Territory Dispute completed in favor of individual [Sunfang Dragonewt, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] and [Violetshock Kirin-Dragon, Fargryneill Qilinus Kargryxmor]

“Oh no, the living room! The furniture!!!”

Urgh…

“I humbly apologize, Svena, but we had no other choice! Are you hurt? Anybody else? Haati, Josine, Lorena?”

Gosh… my head. My body. This effing arcane corruption, man.

“I can’t believe the living room was large enough to accommodate a giant dragon. You people really did consider even this, huh?”

I want to sleep already… urgh.

But I forced myself to stay conscious. I had to. It wasn’t done yet. I had to keep on moving.

“Kuurgh…” I groaned, although to others I probably was growling. My dragon voice was significantly rougher, after all.

“What happened?! Is something wrong with Lady Hestia?!” I heard Haati’s voice resonate, followed by the katzune rushing over to me, worry wrinkling her youthful face.

Haati, Josine, Svena, Lorena. Priscilla shouldn’t be working right now. Thank goodness I didn’t accidentally crush them.

“[Arcane Fever] and [Mana Stress]! She had to use up the finale phase of her symphony spell. Svena!” Tasianna called out to my second maid, to which the latter immediately nodded and acted on it.

“Understood! Haati, rush into the storage and bring out as many fulinoe leaf bundles as possible. Lorena, we need tea. Hot mana water, please. As much as possible!” Svena began issuing her orders. “Josine, I need you to get the dragorades we prepared out, now. All of them. Tasianna, I’ll get the meat ready. I’ll need your help after you’ve cooled her down.”

“Good work. Everybody, for our lady!”

““Yes!”” Haati and Lorena shouted in response, while Svena and Josine were already moving to the kitchen. Tasianna, on the other hand, began producing two [Winter’s Golem] to have them hug me.

From the look of their quick responses, it looked like Tasianna and Svena had prepared an emergency plan after what happened at Griffonpeak. [Symphonie des Feuergottes Movement (Finale)] had only happened once before today, and that application nearly killed me due to [Overheat]. If Mother hadn’t come, I didn’t know if Tasianna could have saved me.

Did that affect her that much? To the point she and Svena planned out an entire pipeline for when it happened again? Just to treat my condition? If so, then I really couldn’t believe I deserved to have these people in my life. Honestly, even if I was their master, this sorta care was still heartwarming.

… Brrr. I shivered from having the golems further cool me down, all while Renee couldn’t help but literally collapse on one of the still intact couches. She looked around the room, making me realize if the nexus part of the subspace wasn’t connected with the living room, I probably wouldn’t have fit in. Right now, it was cramp and I could barely move.

Well, it was an emergency escape, after all. The leviathan, whether it was intentional or just accidental, nearly wiped us all out with its tail slam. If Tasianna hadn’t reacted in time and shoved me into the subspace, I probably would have been crushed. I couldn’t even move my body, after all.

[Exhaustion (Moderate)] was such a killer. Mana and Stamina were both at zero due to the finale. Lightheaded, a pained chest from a broken solar core, and also the fact I lost a finger. Well, I was doing well enough. I was more worried about Neill.

Renee, Tasaianna, and I were inside, but Neill, well, she stayed outside to protect the [Room] runes. If they had broken, then we wouldn’t have a way to get back to Elyonda right now. My closest fast travel point would be in Estralia. That was two countries away from Yeos. It was an unfortunate weakness of my nexus teleportation, since the [Room] runes had to be intact and working.

I could forcibly open any of my [Room]s while I was inside the subspace. The nexus connected all openings, after all. However, if the runes weren’t preserved, I couldn’t fast travel. Obviously. If you destroyed a fast travel point in a game, you wouldn’t be able to go to it anymore.

So, while we were safe inside here, Neill was outside still in danger. Since I had no idea where Neill was, opening the portal up wouldn’t be too good, even if I could forbid unwanted visitors and even water from entering this place. It could be inconvenient for my sister.

Thankfully, Neill had [Hestia’s Retainer] and was one of my fans, so I would know if she was dead or not. Still, it didn’t tell me if she was mortally wounded or not. That was the reason I was anxious.

“Don’t worry about her.” Renee suddenly spoke to me, pointing at her eye after she took her helmet off. “Yours were wiggling around a lot. I guessed it from that. Hehe. Your sister is tough. She might seem reckless, but she gets things done, as you could see with how she dragged herself back from a blackout just to shoot that [Freikugel].”

And an extremely accurate one at that. Sure, I lost a finger, but she shot off one of Vifi’Yok’s arms. Right. Renee’s right. I need to calm down and believe in her. She’ll come when it's safe.

Tasianna then went to bandage up my finger. It wasn’t bleeding much, due to [Abnormal Status Nullification] having [Bleeding Resistance Lv. 10], but leaving the wound open would make regrowing it later a bit harder. Necrosis meant I had to work harder.

Moments later, Josine and Haati began bringing out dragorades and fulinoe tea. Stabilize my arcane corruption and to help me regenerate mana to recover from [Mana Stress]. I really should tell Tasianna how invaluable her garden was, considering how much of those plants she had been growing.

The three of them then dumped all the water into my mouth. Inelegant, but I needed quantity, right now. Speaking of them, Josine and Haati were a bit nervous when I opened my jaw. Figures, since I was a giant dragon. They’d seen this form before, since they frequented Mother’s den when I was training with her, but there was a difference from seeing me from afar compared to me breathing down on them, up close and personal.

Renee was then served some of the tea, before sizzling steaks and shishkebab began coming from the kitchen. Svena and Lorena were cooking up food to help out my Stamina recovery.

Honestly speaking, they weren’t anything special. Salt and pepper for seasoning then medium-rare. Both were better chefs than this, but, as I said, quantity was more important right now. I had to eat.

Still, eating and drinking wouldn’t remedy my condition immediately. It helped, but I still felt nowhere close to combat ready. The finale truly was a finale, considering I now had “ending fatigue.” Really bad, since I still had a role to play for the raid.

After around three more rounds of meat dishes, I felt something poke me in the back, before I heard somebody’s voice in my head.

[“Managed to keep the exit safe.”]

It was Neill.

Humanize—Urgh!

[Humanize (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

I didn’t have a dragon-sized exit out of my subspace. Getting in was one thing, due to [Room]’s formless entrance not exactly conforming to physics. However, getting out was quite a bit harder since I installed normal, human-sized doors. As such, I had to either become a dragonewt to get out, or use mana to change these door’s sizes.

Regardless, Tasianna chastised me like crazy the moment I transformed back and vomited out blood and all the food I was about to digest. 2% of my Health just vanished just like that. Internal damage caused by the fact I used mana while in [Mana Stress].

Arck! Just like before … Urgh, my organs feel like they’re gonna explode.

Unless [Arcane Corruption] got to moderate, I didn’t have to worry about my body exploding. With all the fulinoe tea I’d drank, it shouldn’t be a problem. Everybody wanted me to sit this out, but I had to see this through. Sure, I couldn’t fight, but I wanted to see if that demonkin was dead or not.

Tasianna vehemently disagreed, arguing I should just rest until I could participate in the rest of the plan. I had to cast [Ramuh] or something on the leviathan, after all. It was the wiser choice, sure, I understood that. Still, my irrational side just wanted to see things to its end. Find some finality considering my finale couldn’t kill that girl. How did she survive something like that?! She looked like a corpse.

“If you’re worried about her, Tasianna, then you don’t have to. Come, let her out,” Neill argued in my favor after she transformed back into a dragonewt, seeing as she didn’t want to show her true form to anybody other than the three of us who fought with her. However, seeing her in this form made me a bit sad, seeing as I couldn’t heal her clearly broken arm, right now.

Seeing my sister acquiesce, Tasianna let out a sigh and told the others to start producing dragorade again. She placed any finished fulinoe tea into her potion vials and placed it in her satchel, before she helped me walk out of the subspace.

Once we were outside, I immediately took a step back as I noticed where Sis placed the runes. It wasn’t an island, but our floor was made out of sand. It was just a small, floating patch of sand, really, kept together with dragon paths. Considering how drenched the sand was, it looked more like mud, really.

“I got caught by a tsunami after I escaped the initial impact. The shockwave flung me into the water, and before I could recover, another tsunami caught me,” Sis explained why it took so long for her to appear. “Without the storm, everything was okay. I could swim out, but then I couldn’t find any land. So, I just stuck some sand into tiles and voila.”

Neill then kicked it, letting us know it would crumble at any moment.

“Good thinking.” Renee showed her a thumbs up, causing Neill to slick her soaked hair back, looking proud of herself.

As Tasianna picked up the runes and placed them back in her satchel, I looked around, trying to find that demonkin. “The Territory was canceled in our favor. Which means she’s either dead or…”

“The latter. There, come.” Neill picked me up in a princess carry and flew up with Tasianna. Renee, on the other hand, was using her gargoyle to fly since the storm wasn’t around now to toss her around and disturb her flight.

While we flew over, I looked down into the clear blue ocean, also noticing some of the clouds had dispersed, letting sun through. However, in the distance, the fight between my mother and Karhalantheel still waged on, reminding me I couldn’t relax just yet. Also, the fact I looked like a horned purple alien due to arcane corruption was kinda frightening.

“Noo…”

After a while, I could hear a weak voice echoing through the constant waves. The further we flew, the more it became more audible, until I finally saw the flooded remains of the island groups.

Naturally, the one I bombed with my meteor strike compltely gone. What would happen to an island if a comet were to hit it, right? Even if it somehow was still sorta intact after my attack, no way would it be after the leviathan slammed its tail. Speaking of that tail attack, it seemed like Mother noticed it and was now attacking him even more aggressively.

“Come on, you big bastard, get up! You’re a damn soldier! You’re still too damn weak to meet Father at Ilsaphone’s! Come on! This is an order! LIVE!”

Bare of plants and vegetation, the surviving islands looked dead. Only sand or mud. And on one of these islands, a purple-colored burned corpse with metal fused on it was shaking the body of that demonkin male—Hee’Rlak— next to a fallen palm tree. Looking at the “corpse,” it was missing an arm and had no electric arms, in addition, red sparks flew around the chest and stomach area.

“Before I got swallowed by the tsunami, I saw the girl fish out her companion. Well, whatever was left of him. If you ask me, those two are walking corpses,” Neill snorted as we landed, eying the pleading demonkin as if she was the worst enemy ever. “Her [Identify] blocking item is off. We can appraise her, and it doesn’t seem like she’s too long for this world. That [Arcane Corruption] is eating up her body.”

I didn’t use [Mana Eyes] right away, instead, I checked out what Neill meant with “what remainined” of Hee’Rlak, only to stop my steps as I saw how deformed his body was. I could see his chest going up and down, evidence of his breathing, but for how much longer was the question.

His limbs were… ouuuf; outside of his left arm, his remaining limbs looked like they were pulverized. “Bloody meat chunks with splinters of bones inside them, easily torn away,” was the most apt way you could describe them. His torso and head wasn’t doing better either, as I could see ribs piercing through his skin and pieces of his skull falling onto the ground with his blood.

The man demanded medical attention right now, otherwise, he would be gone in the next few minutes. I didn’t need to appraise him to understand that.

Not to mention…

“No—Urrragaaahhh!” A part of the burned corpse’s, Vifi’Yok’s, shoulder suddenly grew in size like a tumor, only for it to burst open like a balloon. “ARRRCK!”

As I had witnessed back then with the garm matriarch, once your [Arcane Fever] worsened to moderate, your body might just begin exploding from all that contaminated mana. That open, bleeding hole in that demonkin’s back was another reminder of that fact.

Jeez. She really is a lost cause, too, huh? … Well, I might not have taken her life somehow, but I couldn’t see that dimension capture item anywhere. It probably was destroyed in all that mess. Haaaa… I should have guessed, but thank goodness.

The last thing which could inconvenience mother, that blasted dimensional trap reserved for me, was gone. I could finally take a breather, to the point I just fell onto the ground in relief. I wanted to check out myself. It was done. It was our victory.

“You…” However, my body tensed up the moment I heard Vifi’Yok’s voice. The girl staggered up, almost falling back on the ground before pushing herself back up. “I want a deal. You’re Aurena’s Champion, right? I want a deal. I need a miracle.”

… You gotta be kidding me.

“Desperation.” Renee pulled out her flamberge and put her helmet back on with that mumbling, before moving in between me and the demonkin with Sis. Tasianna helped me back up, on the other hand. “The death of a Warbringer sounds more convenient for us.”

“You broke my horn, you little shit,” Neill growled, tapping her lost horn with a frown. “Hestia, don’t think about it. We help them now, they will come back later on. Like a pest.”

I glared at the dying Warbringer. “… You aren’t wrong.”

This was our chance to get rid of one Warbringer. Even if temporary, killing a level 150 enemy would be a major win for me purely for the experience. Showing mercy for an enemy who had no qualms in killing and kidnapping us was foolish.

“Please.” However, despite the heavy resistance, the demonkin girl stumbled further forward, undeterred. A sorrowful look, that of somebody who was about to lose something important, was plastered on her skinless face.

“… I thought you were the realistic type. The sorta person who understands war. Do you really think we could afford that?” I retorted, fully agreeing with Renee and Neill. “You can’t offer us anything. I already know the pope is the damn Prince of Envy. Don’t even try divulging that. You have nothing to offer for our help.”

“… Do I really?”

Huh?!

A chill went down my spine as the demonkin’s head snapped up, glaring at us as she pressed her hand on her chest. The red lightning began to increase, zapping and sizzling louder and louder.

“You’re probably curious how I survived right? Well, hold ya breath, mate, cause you did kill me with that attack. To the point you activated [Original Sin: Satanael]’s effect.” Her mood did a 180, returning back to that abrasive personality of hers she had during our fight. “‘The rebel doesn’t kneel before the false god’s injustice, to nothing short of death.’ A lifesaver for a certain cost. Well, too bad, I’m still gonna die now due to arcane corruption and I can’t stop it … but that also means I’m blowing everything up.”

“You little—!” Neill clenched her fist before quickly picking me up. “Fly! We need—”

Zoom! That sound was followed by a trail of red lightning. The demonkin re-appeared before us and immediately collapsed onto the floor, coughing up blood.

“I snap at yer butts! I will use up my last remaining mana to kill us ALL! Or, ya can spare me the pain of this shit and just eff me off already. Blow up by yer own accords.” She pushed her body up, only to fall to the side, breathing heavily. “Yer know the ‘Twin-Elemental Lake?’ Created after Plesia enacted the first and only divine punishment. The humans say we blew up the dungeon core to destroy them. Well, on our side, we say the humans did it to kill us. The Water Goddess punished them. With all the propaganda … So what's the truth? Dunno. Don’t care. The dead ain’t here anymore.”

What the hell was she talking about?

“Well … my little gift—this red lightning— came from that place. Not natural. Forced into me. The ruinous power of the fallout of a dungeon core explosion and a god’s divine punishment. If it gets set off, ya won’t escape that easily. Understand?”

“You psychopath …” Tasianna blurted out before pulling out our [Room] runes.

“Don’t. See who’s faster? Yours or my trigger finger?” Tasianna stopped herself as Vifi’Yok began to tear a chunk out of her chest, causing the lightning to even zap us. “The device keeping it in check melted, however, I can keep it under control until you leave. But, under one condition…”

She pointed at the body of her companion.

“A miracle. Please. Save him. I’m not saying this ‘cause he’s a good person. No, I’m pretty sure he’s done some fucked up crap against humans and such. A soldier who will follow whatever orders he’s been given. Morality be damned.”

“You’re not making this very enticing.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

Says who? I thought a vein of mine was about to pop at how confident she sounded while threatening us with a suicide bombing. I really wanted to test an easy way to solve this situation, but I was worried I wouldn’t be fast enough in my current state. With [Mana Stress], the moment I use mana, the pain might delay my thinking process. It was too risky, so I held back.

“This is my last wish as his master. Help him and let him escape. Swear it to me with an oath, spawns of Kargryxmor, and I will go and die alone. You’ll be rid of me. Seems fair. He, on the other hand, isn’t worth looking at, right, dragon? A nobody. You can deal with him again on the next battlefield. Please.”

“… Don’t think about it.” The first to speak up was Renee. “I have an idea for this. We can—”

“I’ll do it.”

“—have Fargryneill handl— WAIT, WHAT?! Priestess!” Renee tried to argue against me, but I waved my hand in front of her face before pulling Vifi’Yok up.

“Renee. Tasianna. Go and handle the damn sigil. Get back to the island and help Mother out. We’re wasting time.” I pushed myself off Tasianna and onto Neill, who caught me with a conflicted expression. “All this arguing and threats. I’m too exhausted for all of this … it’s too much for a single day. Pretty sure Tehmrayn or Larent should have dealt with Ghorush already. I think. If not, then they probably need help now. However, I can’t fight at all, and I need Neill right now. So, the both of you, enough wasting time, and just go.”

“Lady Hestia, I really can’t condone leaving you here with the enemy! She might be tricking you!” Tasianna disagreed with me, but listening to her only made my head hurt even more.

“And it’s all giving me a headache. I know, I understand … but, this is what has to be done. This is, in my opinion, the way to get our happy ending for this invasion.”

“I— Hmm … I understand.” Tasianna bowed and then left her satchel full with fulinoe tea in my care. “Then, I shall be off once again, my lady. I will come back with pleasant news.”

“Thank you. Of course.”

“Princess Fargyrneill, please, keep yourself and my lady safe.”

With Tasianna flying off, Renee eventually acquiesced and rode off towards Karhalantheel island. Neill sighed deeply at the events and quickly helped me and the demonkin back to Hee’Rlak.

“Neill, your dragon paths move mana, right? Well, then you should be able to also move mana contaminated with arcane corruption, right?” I asked her once I was in front of the messed up Hee’Rlak, causing my sister to groan.

“… So you guessed it, huh?” I nodded to her question. “Well, I can do it, but I’m also kinda close to [Arcane Fever] myself. Dragon paths are all about the flow using my body as the connector. I can help rid you of arcane corruption, but the mana has to flow through me to be turned into workable dragon paths. It’s sorta unpleasant and hard to work with, since I’m used to pure mana. I can try it, though.”

“Thanks, then. Please, keep me alive.” I pulled out some cups of fulinoe tea and began drinking them before shaking some scale-dust on the man’s body and snapping my fingers. A spark was created and white flames exploded from the mess, causing my arm to turn numb and prickly, to the point it was overly sensitive to everything. “URGK! Sheeeesh!”

Fuck. This will be so bad. [Miraculous Grace] with all this arcane corruption. I need to get [Mana Stress] gone at all cost, though. So, Hee’Rlak, survive until it's gone.

I kept drinking more and more tea, drowning myself in it to the point I got sick of the leaf juice. I wanted to hurl so much, but I kept on drinking more. Neill, meanwhile, was slowly taking care of the arcane corruption inside my body. Purple dragon paths were appearing on her skin, worrying me a bit if she was overdoing it or not.

“… You accepted it faster than I thought.” The demonkin’s voice was feeble, almost too quiet to hear. “I could have backstabbed you, just as that weird winged elf said.”

“Time is of the essence. Every second counts if this guy wants to live,” I answered without turning over to her. “Besides, you demonkins of wrath are supposedly honorable, right? Imagine trying going back on your word to a miracle bringer, right? Nice bringing that to your grave, huh?”

Of course, that wasn’t the only thing influencing my decision here. The fact Klea’Hatma vouched for the Demon of Wrath being honorable and that his descendant should have inherited it, coupled with how she wanted to help Amelia. All over some donuts, even. Those donuts in the underground base were hers, after all. What a surprise that she liked my donuts, huh?

For the price of some free donuts, she thought she was indebted to Amelia, to the point she risked getting in trouble by warning her of the invasion. She tried to get her out of the city, before I attacked her. Was it a misunderstanding, or was she lying? Why would she lie? If she was trying to emotionally manipulate me, then yeah, Klea’Hatma was wrong with her assessment.

But what if she wasn’t?

“Also, you cherish him, right? The way you defended him during our fight. He was kinda useless, though.”

“Worthless, you mean,” Neill chimed in. “Burden to you. He should have known his place instead of trying to jump into the thick of it. Idiot.”

“Hehe …” Somehow, the weakened demonkin let out a small giggle. Truly, if we were in a different world, maybe we could have bonded over some coffee and donuts. Maybe even bobba tea?

Vifi’Yok looked up in the sky with a crestfallen feeling to her. Without any skin, it was too hard to guess her facial expression, sadly. “Nice to hear that from somebody else. But, that’s how most wrathies are. The thrill, just to keep our emotions in check.”

“… War isn’t needed.” I finally forced myself to say as [Mana Stress] finally disappeared.

“Eh?” She let out as I pulled my hair up to a ponytail.

With [Mana Eyes], I began to identify the organs and body parts I had to rescue in order to allow this guy to make a full recovery. Everything I learned from my last two operations—on Reajaen’s son and on Farron—I used on this one. With my body now capable of doing work, I began ordering my white flames around to start healing up blood vessels.

“If you ask me, I would rather all this war stuff just end. Peace. All this fighting has brought to the world is tears and pain. I hate solemn songs. I make them because it's my job and it does feel fulfilling when I get the message out correctly, but I hate having my heart shaken. Chilled. Bittersweet is still bitter … and I hate the fact I’m being forced to act like a ruthless predator.”

Well, it wasn’t as if I wasn’t used to it at this point. I could turn off my compassion for my enemies and kill them, seeing as it was survival of the fittest on the battlefield. However, it didn’t mean it was okay. After every celebrative war song, there would always be a sad one.

To me, war was fantastic for experience, but that was about it. Then again, maybe it was just a lack of conviction for me, since the only reasons why I was participating in this siege was for the Divine Quest and my promise to Renee to keep her city safe. Even my whole party and family only did it for me or Renee.

As such, all of this felt like what Mother showed me with her memories. War really never changes.

“…” Both Neill and Vifi’Yok turned silent.

“So, for this very moment, let me act as a healer. A cleric. Outside of all this war. Just let me save a life. In the midst of the desert ♫

A bright ray of light shines ♫

Pure and brave, that she was, as she walked ♫

She was the ideal for me ♫

The bringer of children’s smiles ♫

Alas, the world seemed bleaker without her ♫”

[Shield of [The Light]] [Music Resonation (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

I began singing quietly. Almost humming.

Neill nudged me by the shoulder. “Slow it down. I can’t go faster.”

“Sorry. I’ll rely on you, Sis.” She grunted in response to my plea. “So, at this very moment, I will make you a promise, Vifi’Yok. I will save this man. And promises are something I always respect, so make one with me. If this ends well, you will hand yourself in and allow me to get to know demonkin culture better.”

“What are you—” I stopped her before she could speak.

“Think about it. I need to work.”

The surgery began.

Miraculous Grace.

To be honest, I had thought I would hear from Yeostar, Kramps, or Aurena. I thought one of them would come out and order me to not do it, but they were silent throughout it all. I even asked Aurena if what I was doing was okay with her. All she told me back was:

<Do what you believe is the correct choice, Hestia.>

Such a god-like way to say it.

The surgery, although it required me to act as fast as possible, still had to be performed slowly. I couldn’t rush it since my body wouldn’t be able to handle me going all out like I did with Reajaen’s son. Thankfully, Hee’Rlak was a tough and high leveled warrior, meaning his high Health and skills were keeping him alive better.

So, at my own pace, I kept on going. Of course, Vifi’Yok was waiting in anticipation since she too was dying at this very moment. [Arcane Fever] was a bitch. Thankfully, she didn’t have the energy to complain for me to go faster. It also helped that I was showing results while reconstructing Hee’Rlak’s organs and skull.

During all of this, I also noticed a giant magic circle appearing in the distance. I could only take a quick glance, as I had to focus on my healing, but Neill described it as having the same appearance as the one Prince Markval showed us. In other words, Renee and Tasianna managed to reestablish the seal.

In the next moment, that circle shot out four giant hooks at the leviathan, tearing the leviathan away just as it was poised to launch an attack and helping Mother freeze off two of its tentacles. The leviathan tried to struggle out of it, but with the hooks keeping it from moving much, Mother’s Territory began to create her little ice kingdom, freezing him in place.

Nice~

However, I kept my head down, looking at my patient. His squishy organs were being repaired, but I had to rearrange them into the correct order as I regrew his torso back to normal. Normal, bodily functions were restored. We were out of the danger zone.

And just when that happened, Neill noticed the leviathan roaring, pointing out how the water it was swimming in was starting to turn into a whirlpool. The leviathan easily managed to stop it, but every second he spent on this, Mother could attack him. She even helped out by using her blizzard to create snowstorms.

Tehmrayn is doing his side of the job. I should try to break his armor now with a thunder spell… but, well, body says no.

I could buy the levels for [Lightning Magic], but I didn’t have the mana to call down a [Ramuh]. Even then, would it even deal any damage?

“Can you cast some strong thunder spell on the noodle?” I asked Vifi’Yok.

“… Noodle? Whatever, but no. Ya think I can channel my mana while I look like charcoal? Wanna kill me faster? I want to die knowing ya got this promise thing under lock.” She sounded annoyed.

“You’re right. Sorry. Pretty insensitive of me to ask that.” I took a look over at her before reaching my hand out, shooting white flames at her body. “But, you’re an eyesore. At least look like a person.”

“Huh!”

Melting off the metal pieces, extracting them with [Volcanic Blaze] since they were kinda like lava when slag, and then having my white flames heal up her missing skin and hair. I didn’t heal anything more, but at least if she died now, she would leave a pretty corpse. Albeit, a naked one.

“… Ya are insane. The deal was only my companion, ya didn’t have to heal me—Mumpf?!” Since she was loud and annoying, I stuffed two donuts into her mouth.

“Wrong, you are part of the deal, too. You owe me now, Vifi’Yok. Enjoy them. They are my experimental low fat alternatives with powdered sugar for the figure-conscious. Put in the report for the taste test later.”

My actions probably didn’t make sense to anybody right now, but I really had enough of conflict. Whether she survived this or not, I wanted to cash in my debt on her. Why? Why wouldn’t I when I had a chance to finally gain some information on the demonkins.

“… Mind giving me one, too?” Neill whispered, asking for a donut too, so I took a few more Berliners for her. Kinda taboo since I was doing surgery, but I was breaking more than enough rules right now.

“Why art …” she mumbled through that mouth full of donuts, before she began eating them, seemingly enjoying them as her lifeless eyes sparkled for a moment. Weird how I felt happy having her eat it with so much gusto, despite how we just had a life-or-death battle.

“You enjoying it? Good, because I meant it with the debt.” My mouth curved up a bit, but I kept myself serious since this was the important part here. “That is why I want you to turn yourself in. If possible, I will guarantee your safety but I will keep you as my prisoner. I want information about demonkin culture.”

“I willt nyot betray myat peopld.” Her full mouth made it hard to understand her, but I could guess.

“That’s fine, but what I want isn’t that. I want to know about your people. How you live, how you love, how you have fun, and how you grieve. I want to know everything about the demonkins through an unbiased lens, neither from the people on this side of the planet of the gods. I want to hear it from your mouth, Vifi’Yok, demonkin of wrath.”

That was the end goal of this interaction and transaction.

She only blinked, visualizing her confusion now that I had healed her burned eyelids. “… Why? We are your enemies. You don’t need to know about us, in fact, I can tell you it makes it easier if I believe all you human-loving people were equally as terrible. That there aren’t any good humans, that all of them just wish for our deaths … It makes killing you all so much easier.”

“And I am not a soldier.” That was my answer to her. “I am an idol, and I have a responsibility not to make you cry, but to make you laugh. Make you smile! Make you dream of hope and a better life. That is my passion, that is what I want to do! Call me naive if you want, but that is how I want this war to end! No more death …”

Neill patted my back, letting out a sigh that told me this was just wishful thinking. I understood that perfectly, but it was still what I wanted. The nuke I dropped on the grimgarians shouldn’t have happened if they had only listened to me and surrendered! I told all of them to do so! … It just sucked.

“… Naive.” Even the demonkin couldn’t look me in the eyes any longer. It really felt like I was the only one who would even consider such a route, but so was the life of an idealistic dreamer like me. How I told myself to not fall into the Hero dilemma … but I guess Eshe would have wanted the same thing.

A path for this war to end without the whole extinction of an entire race.

Anyways, so how do we do this with the lightning? Huh?

And just when I was worrying about what to do with my part to kill the leviathan, I suddenly heard a rumbling in the sky. I looked up, only to see a giant purple magic circle above Karhalantheel, while Neill pointed at something floating in the distance. I couldn’t exactly see what it was from here, but it looked like it was a small floating island.

I asked Neill if she forgot about her dragon paths or something, but she rejected that idea as she had to be close by to control them. This medium-sized island with a small house on it was not hers. In fact, as the spell began to finalize, somebody suddenly came out of the place and began to stretch. Seconds later, this [Ramuh] was cast and struck the leviathan.

What the fuck? What is this sudden intervention? Who the hell is that?

I didn’t really know who that was, whoever it was just watched their spell stun the SS rank leviathan before they returned into their house. Mother didn’t let this moment go and quickly shot a frost breath at her enemy before piercing its sides with a humongous ice blade.

“KRRUUUUUUUARRRRGHH!” You could even hear its agony-filled screams from here.

Mother then shook the leviathan up and down before she bit into its head, crushing the leviathan’s skull before severing a portion of its snake body from its rest. She then slammed the half she was holding into the icy ground and roared in the sky.

Holding her hands up, an icicle in the form of a greatsword began to form in her hand, looking like she was about to perform a ritual sacrifice. She then pierced the blade into the monster’s skull, digging it right into the ground before she took flight, twirling her body up as the ice rose like a twister. Once it was done, she stood upon this monument, this sigil of her victory over an SS rank leviathan.

[Divine Quest: The Champion of Yeostar] completed. You have done well, Champion, please accept your reward

Experience has reached multiple breaking points.   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has risen from [Level 25] to [Level 27]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 1500 skill points

Congratulations! Your efforts have rewarded you with the privilege of unlocking the Unique Job System. Your Jobs timeline have all been integrated into a single Unique Job which you can mold and evolve with

Due to your combined Jobs, you have unlocked the Unique Job [Idol Tyrant Fledgling]. Please use a [Crystal of the Divine System] to assign three development Jobs to influence the growth of your new Job

Your reward from God Yeostar will be sent at a later date

… It was sadly not over yet. I still had a patient to cure. The victory march could happen after all of this was resolved.

Arms. Identify bone shards, remove them. Find a shoulder blade. Take this as the origin. Tear off the remaining arm … regrow. Slight healing for the intact left arm. Now, legs. Tear off then regrow. Regrow once again for the other leg. Now, check to make sure the brain is stable. Hopefully he didn’t get any brain damage, cause I really had no idea how to fix that.

This wasn’t the explosive and exciting ending a hero should be having. It was quiet for me. Doing one good thing, even if the recipient was the enemy. It was my choice, and this was the ending I chose for myself. This was the path I had decided to handle everything.

“Next time, just pay for the damn pastries. We at Aurora are always willing to sell to polite customers.” I told Vifi’Yok as I finished the operation to save Hee’Rlak’s life.

“…” She kept silent, her face expressing her doubts and bafflement at how all of this was going. Never known peace, huh?

So, I stretched my hand around, drawing the attention of the girl to it. “So … then why not join us? My party, the Aurora, I mean.”

“… Ya are actually stupid.”

“No, I mean it. You aren’t fighting this war just for yourselves, right? If you had, you would have just escaped, instead of ruining your honor by asking an enemy to heal your friend. Even if you died, you would have not died as a traitor, because at this point, I can and will make you a prisoner,” I stated, unnerving her. “That is why I am asking you. I believe you are honorable and will honor your debt, so … will you join me freely, or must I force you?”

“What an ultimatum …” She looked at my hand before forcing herself up, her breathing rough. “You really are crazy … But, maybe, I was right. Maybe you could help us—”

“Hestia!”

However, before Vifi’Yok could answer, Neill dragged me away from her just as something flew at where we stood, sundering the small area of the beach into two pieces. The waves rumbled, causing some of the salty water to enter my mouth.

“PFFFFTTT!” I coughed up the water, which only caused me to vomit out blood and fall onto the drench sand. It shouldn’t have been a problem, but this sudden disturbance caused the fatigue to reactivate, draining my body of any remaining strength.

Shit! Damn headache!

“HESTIA!” I could hear Neill call out to me as I forced myself up, eyes wobbly and unfocused. Unfortunately, who I saw was the last person I wanted to see right now.

“Ghorush …” I eked out as the leonid stood before us, wobbly on his feet—foot and completely blooded. He picked up both Vifi’Yok and Hee’Rlak and without saying another word, jumped on a shark-like golem to flee.

“Shit! You won—”

“Grruuck!” I fell onto the ground again, this time feeling like the world was turning around. I couldn’t even focus my thoughts.

“Hestia! No, no, no, no, no, Sis! Stay with me!”

Tuck me in, big sis. Sorry for being a burden at the very last moment … Scheiße … Vifi’Yok, please, think it over.

And with those last thoughts, I fell unconscious.

A note from AbyssRaven

So ends the Champion of Yeostar arc. A sea noodle is dead, turning into exp for Mama dragon, the defeat and disfigurement of Ghorush, Vifi'Yok, and Hee'Rlak, and the decimation of the Grimgarian army. Hestia nearly succeeded in her Fire Emblem moment of recruiting an enemy with Talk-Talk no Jutsu, but failed. Saintess Eshe's morales still lives in her.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Side Story 42: The Darkness’s Light and Trickster.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #4 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! It works on a subscription base now, so pay on the same date next month!

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“Ooooooh, my goodness…”

In the divine realm of the Goddess Aurena, the goddess in question herself fell back on her chair with a relieved expression. She lightly slapped her spotless face, moving it up and down in an attempt to calm herself. She opened up a single eye, watching Hestia’s participation in the Elyonda siege once more, before letting out a deep sigh of contentment? exasperation? delight?.

She closed her golden-colored eye after a while and fixed her posture, before personally reviewing and completing Yeostar’s Divine Quest to Hestia. The rewards for her were already prepared in advance, so all Aurena had to do was to implement them. The numerical increases were simple, but the personal reward Yeostar planned for the girl would have to take a while longer.

In addition, she also took a look through the other point of views of the siege’s end, since Hestia was unconscious. She looked through Renee’s view, looking through the injured allies her Champion had made, realizing all of them had survived the battle against Ghorush. However, unlike the seventh Yanderu boss, Qaltil, the leonid man seemed to have escaped.

Aurena didn’t mind it; in fact, she had anticipated his escape. A mercenary wouldn’t give up their life for a job, after all. Still, she was a bit impressed at the performance of Tehmrayn, one of Goddess Plesia’s most devoted Champions.

Stoic, dutiful … also very inflexible, in a way.

Aurena was wondering if a meeting with her other Blessed would really benefit Hestia at this point. From her meeting with Tehmrayn, Hestia had learned how a Champion should be acting and how important strength was. After all, power was what helped a Champion complete their risky Divine Quests.

In the end, though, Aurena decided against it. From the way she handled this battle, Hestia most likely would clash with the majority of her Blessed instead of getting along with them. Most were either born or indoctrinated into the Empire’s view of the world. Most vehemently disliked demonkins, to the point most of them believed even handing one of them a loaf of dried bread meant being a traitor to humanity.

It was an inevitable outcome of the Folschreck Empire and Bole’Taria being in a constant state of war. Hatred and prejudice were just so deeply ingrained in the major players of this war. Although, Aurena couldn’t exactly fault them. She too disliked the demonkins and thought Hestia having to fight them was inevitable. She still thought it was the only outcome, but…

… I can’t believe she actually reached a ceasefire with that demonkin. Even healed her companion. I thought Hestia was slowly growing into this draconian girl fully focused on destroying her enemies for the sake of her happiness. That’s what her Sloth and Gluttony told her… but it seemed her draconic and human side are once again clashing.

Or, maybe it’s the opposite? Maybe … the two sides of her soul—the two personalities created by her imperfect reincarnation—are influencing each other? Hmm. It’s weird. Souls are weird. However … in the end, this isn’t a bad outcome.

A Champion was allowed autonomy over how they fulfilled a Quest, although they had to live with the consequences. For example, being distrusted or even hated by their patron god. The gods were supposed to be guides and watchers only, so such an outcome wasn’t too uncommon. Sometimes, mistakes or misunderstandings just happened. Or, a Champion was starting to change from the person the god first believed was a suitable person to bless.

To Aurena, though, Hestia acted just as she always did. She wasn’t your traditional Champion, since the girl had no deep love for her patron god. To Hestia, Aurena and all the other gods were her “boss” and “supervisors.” She saw in them not as people to revere, but people who handed her jobs to deal with.

As such, Hestia treating a demonkin in such a manner wasn’t outrageous. She defined herself as an “Idol of Aurena,” after all. Idols weren’t there to kill or preach; they were there to make people idolize them.

Yes, while being a Blessed could gain the admiration of others, Hestia’s definition of an idol was more focused on entertainment. The elevating messages to brighten a person on a rainy day. To bring smiles on a sour face with her performance. Pure ruthlessness without a sense of compassion didn’t belong in Hestia’s path. Aurena understood Eshe taught this ideal to her junior.

Eshe would slay enemies when needed. She wasn’t naive. None of my blessed are. A world without bloodshed would be nice, but it was an impossible feat to achieve. Sometimes, violence is the only answer to the situation.

Hestia showed this quality by allowing the grimgarian army one last chance to surrender and retreat, before massacering them with her spells. She showed mercy to Reajaen in Estralia, despite how many people the foxian woman had indirectly killed or ruined with her organization. She hated outlaws immensely after her encounter with Eithalr, but also understood sometimes people just couldn’t help it when fate brought them low.

It was all about assessing the situation and finding a way to sympathize with others. If she didn’t, then her draconic instincts would have overtaken her a long time ago. This was the human side of hers.

Ehehe, if her sister were the one in charge, she would have killed the demonkin without hesitation.

Aurena was a bit worried this decision would bite her in the butt in the long run, but she couldn’t fault her Champion for doing what she believed to be right. She did think Hestia was a bit naive, though, since letting an enemy live during a war wasn’t exactly smart. Warbringer Vifi’Yok could very much become her enemy again, and next time, she would be stronger.

But, this is how my Champion wishes to conduct herself. All I can do is watch and assess.

She then closed her windows concerning the Yeos matter and then began sending out messages to a few people. Two were directed to Vivachel and Istari respectively, thanking them for indirectly helping Hestia out by having their descendants solve the situation in a roundabout manner. Although they didn’t break any rules, she knew Goddess Plesia wouldn’t look at their actions too fondly.

The other messages were directed at her own subordinates, specifically, Erithia. Probably the most vocal of her subordinate gods when it came to her dislike for Hestia. Due to the zealous love the majority of her gods held for the perfect image of their Goddess, most weren’t fond of how Hestia was beyond the norm of a Blessed of the Light Pantheon.

A Saint and Champion should show both love and reverence of their patron god, as they were the one to bless them and grant them power in the pursuit of elevating their religion. It was entirely normal for and expected of a Blessed. However, not only did Hestia not love their “idol,” but she was also the one to let another Blessed die under her watch, despite being a Champion.

To the majority of the Pantheon of Light, Hestia’s reputation wasn’t the best. Only a few actually viewed her favorably, or even fondly in Kargryxmor’s case.

Haaaaa… Annoying. Now, Aurena had to make sure her Champion’s image wouldn’t tank too much.

“‘Oooooh! She doesn’t live up to the Goddess’s brilliance. Oooooh! She’s too naive and not dutiful enough. Ooooh! We need to train her so she becomes a proper Champion!’ Pah! How annoying. Just let the girl spread her wings. Have all of you forgotten your role as gods, or must you complain about how mortals do stuff? Ridiculous.”

“Shie shie shie!” Aurena twitched at the sound of that chilling laugh, frowning as she noticed a distortion inside her realm. She turned over to face the source of the distortion, only to grimace at the appearance of a man exiting a dimension rift. “Are you that much of a gossiper? Talking behind their backs? Why, little sister, you truly have changed.”

The appearance of a Victorian gentleman in a black suit with leather shoes and elegant white gloves bowed before the Goddess of Light. His naturally waving hair flowed down to his shoulders, looking like a river of shadows, disappearing at the tips in a smokey haze. This mist of darkness wrapped itself around his body, covering it up like a cape. To finish it off, his body began to light up, revealing small, verdant green buttons? trimmings? along the openings of his outfit.

To Aurena, this man felt eerie. Not because she was scared of him, but because of his manner of conduct and thinking. The wicked smile he held on his too human face made her uneasy. This erratic man had an arbitrary manner of thinking similar to her father, making it hard for her to even presume anything in his presence. A hedonist, a person willing to anger and topple the natural order for a good laugh, just to switch up his actions for philanthropic deeds in the next moment.

However, this feeling quickly turned around as her eyes and mouth turned down, making the beautiful Goddess look like she had missed out on two days worth of sleep. Her mood soured, to the point her guest cackled like a madman.

“Must I repeat myself again? I am not your sister!” Aurena frowned in irritation as his maniacal laughter tainted her home. “You come off as such a pest whenever you ignore my wish like that. Do you know that? Gel’Glariri?”

“Oho. Maybe, but we have barely ever met ever since you came to this world El—Sorry, Aurena. Master, too. As his daughter, just humor me for a bit. Yeah?” The Edjurl God of Trickery and Laughter began to float in the air, posing in a rather eccentric manner for amusement.

Aurena looked at him, before letting go of her animosity. She felt embarrassed, seeing as she should have known he would be like this. Turning around and returning to her work, Aurena decided to just treat him like a random bug flying into the room.

“Why are you here? I already thanked you for helping me out.”

Aurena was talking about her stunt to help out Hestia escape the dimension trap set up by the Prince of Envy and the Edjurl god who gave him the boon. As she didn’t want to go to the plane of the Edjurl alone, she had called on one of her allies to watch over her as she dealt with the monster lurking there.

She had guessed Hestia’s usurpation ability would have been able to turn the tide, but she was unsure what would happen if an otherworldly monster had attacked her there. As such, while Gel’Glariri handled the matter of the Prince at his discretion, Aurena destroyed anything which could endanger her Champion.

“Can’t I just take a peek into your life? Visit you? I mean, how long has it been since you assumed your true form? It was glorious seeing you shed that benign form to reveal your true form as the shadow god’s daughter!” he announced in an elated fashion. However, since Aurena was mostly ignoring him, the silence only dampened his act, forcing him to shrug and say “too bad.”

Similar to Aurena, this wasn’t this god’s true form. This was a form he had received according to the very, very few followers he had in this world. A “gentleman magician” was the image of the leading follower of Gel’Glariri. A proof that, even if you had very few followers, they could still construct a vision of you as long as they were organized. Although, even with faith, none of the power from that faith would go to the god, as he wasn’t officially recognized by the Divine System as a Peolyncian god.

“… Well, I am here to ask you for my favor.” In the end, the god decided it would be best to just go to the real point of his visit.

“A favor? Well, of course. A debt must be paid, so ask away.” Aurena turned around to give him a small nod before returning to her work. “If it weren’t for you, my old acquaintances probably would have tried to kill me when I was around.”

The God of Trickery and Laughter wasn’t a combat-focused god, but he was proficient at illusions, space-time magic, and also soul manipulation. A traveler who would wander dimensions for his amusement, he was well versed in the art of subterfuge. Hiding himself and Aurena was easy for him, allowing the Peolyncian Goddess to revisit her old home without alerting those keen to attack the world.

“However, do make sure to watch your words. I am still, and probably Elder Plesia is as well, angered by how you decided to just do whatever you wished with Hestia. Sure, it ended up all right, but the fact you broke our deal in the first place…” Aurena glared at the trickster god, causing the latter to form a weary smile. “That divine usurpation ability you gave her was unwarranted. If all you had wanted was to watch her life, you should have just given her [Mana Eyes] and let that be. Now? How are we supposed to deal with your changes without damaging her still recovering soul?”

“Shie shie shie!”

“Don’t you ‘shie shie shie’ me!”

Aurena and Kargryxmor were the first two collaborators in Hestia’s reincarnation, but since neither of the gods were versed in soul manipulation nor in its transportation from another world, they had to ask somebody else for this duty. Ilsaphone was still too young of a goddess, so they only had one other person they could rely on. The god who helped Crustacia bring in the first [Otherworldly Reincarnator] — Gel’Glariri.

Entirely a surprise to all the Peolyncian gods, Crustacia had described her encounter with him as a random occurrence. Suddenly one day, the god had just appeared in her divine realm as she was trying to think about a way to prop her patron race. Although it wasn’t possible for him to have bugged her home, it also was too much of a coincidence for him to appear like that.

In truth, Gel’Glariri had gotten lost in his dimensional hopping on that fateful day. He had wanted to visit his old senior god, Marsven, to ask him if he was feeling bored or not, but in the process had ended up in Crustacia’s realm. Unnerved by this, he had hid himself from the Earth Goddess’s perception, only to overhear her woes as he was about to teleport out.

Having adopted his senior god’s mentality of change being the defining trait of evolution and progress, the sly god had made the goddess an offer that day. To unclog the dire stagnancy of Peolynca, he too thought introducing a foreigner to the world would be beneficial.

As such, when that offer once again came up, he accepted it without question. This was his way to please Marsven. However, when he had heard of Kargryxmor’s and Aurena’s initial plan of wanting to mostly erase Hestia’s soul’s memories, he had secretly objected. A reincarnator without their memories wouldn’t change anything in the world. They would simply adapt to the status quo and simply follow the gods like a drone.

To Gel’Glariri that was boring. Uninspiring. In an act of defiance, he had given the newly-reborn soul her former memories in a tight package, just enough for her soul to slowly recover itself. In addition, he added a few gifts to assure no god could erase his work, mainly the usurpation process as well as Hestia's [Mana Eyes]. The latter was there mostly so he could watch her POV for entertainment reasons.

I’m still waiting for the girl to fully unlock that skill. Can’t wait for her reaction. Shie shie shie!

As a consequence, the only way for Hestia to lose her usurpation powers was for one of the Peolyncian gods to personally remove it from her soul. This would undoubtedly harm her. The fragmentation had already shown a consequence in the fact her soul split into two personalities, so what would happen if somebody were to further damage her soul in this state? Even Plesia found it too cruel, and decided to remove the powers once some time had passed for her recovery.

Aurena, although in favor of her development, still found Gel’Glariri’s betrayal damning. She already found it hard to trust him, but now she was also wary of him. Sure, she had asked him to help her out, but a favor needed to be repaid fairly. This was what she meant.

“Nothing too weird, of course. I just want to meet her!” the god answered in a carefree manner.

“Meet her? You know you can’t do that. You can only have your one apostle preach to her. You are insane. The girl would despise him.” Aurena rejected the idea entirely, believing that meeting him would go against Hestia’s ideals. “You lack the patience of Father, making your way of changing the course and direction of a world too crude. While Father seeks the world’s continued existence and growth, you only look for a quick laugh. You don’t care about the process. This is what you teach to your followers, how you make them like you.”

“Now that is insulting, dear Aurena.” Gel’Glariri frowned at how Aurena phrased her opinion of him. “What is entertainment but the most important part of a soul’s continued existence? With the world dull and suffocating, what can the gods’ possibly look out for in the future? It makes you slow and inflexible. That’s the thing. A quick laugh here, or a quick table slam there, and boom! Life has meaning again!”

Gel’Glariri landed on his feet and approached the Goddess of Light with wide eyes, exuding the aura of a madman. “We don’t need stoic gods, Aurena! You and I aren’t the same as the one on Earth. And we shouldn’t be! It’s boring, after all, and don’t tell me you don’t agree. Your father is the embodiment of change, after all! Even if he was in consideration for the Sin of Sloth, he understands the status quo is poison! The growth of Earth and so many similar worlds are evidence of this.”

The talk of other worlds had no meaning to Aurena, who quickly sighed at the annoying pest flying around her eyes. His whispers were ineffective, unable to turn over the daughter of the Dark God. In a world of darkness, she was the light born from it, to bring out the necessary change to Marsven’s existence and life. She understood very much how important it was to move forward, never letting stagnancy cloud one’s mind and conviction.

As such, she couldn’t accept the Trickster God’s ideology. To her, the madman was just that—mad.

“Regardless, I want to meet her. I was as much a part of her reincarnation as you were. She is probably curious why I did all of this, so why not elucidate her?” However, despite all of Aurena’s glaring, Gel’Glariri kept his stubbornness up. “Also, wouldn’t it help you if her [Mana Eyes] were to level up and evolve? It would mean she would be able to appraise anything she liked.”

“No, I don’t care about that. Information is power, but having her meet you would be terrible. I am not trusting you near her even when I’m around.” Aurena stood up from her seat, confronting the trickster about his intentions. “Why do you really wish to meet her? You don’t do things for no reason. I know I said those things about you, but you are cunning. That is dangerous.”

“… Talk about being ungrateful. Pfff.” In the end, the god gave it up quickly after Aurena stood up for herself. “Alright, then let’s compromise, have her speak with my apostle. Or, his apprentice.”

“… His apprentice? You are just the worst are you? You know exactly who this apprentice is, and you’re still sending Hestia to them?” Now, Aurena was outraged. Her dislike for this god reached an all-time high… However, this time, she knew she didn't really have much of a choice. “Fine then. But I will decide when she does it.”

A favor had to be repaid for his help. He had helped Aurean with Hestia’s reincarnation and also her rescue. Even if Aurena hated his guts at this point, she couldn’t exactly break her word as a god. A deal between gods had to be kept out of principle, otherwise, a conflict between the two side’s leaders could break out. At this moment, Aurena didn’t want to burden Plesia with more enemies, especially since the latter had given her her trust.

Aurena didn’t want Gel’Glariri to meet Hestia personally, believing the mad god would corrupt her. However, if it was a meeting between two mortals, Aurena could prepare Hestia for that day. If the enemy tried to do something to her Champion, she knew she would be ready for when it happened.

“Alright, then. It is a deal~” With a smirk, the trickster god opened up a dimension rift and said his goodbyes, disappearing from the world and dimension.

Aurena shook her head, letting her angel wings droop down in relaxation. Another encounter with this devil so soon was to be expected, but it still drained her. Aurena did wonder if she should have asked him why exactly he betrayed her, granting Hestia so many boons from her situation.

Without him, Hestia would have turned exactly how she and Kargryxmor had planned on using her. However, since her memories remained and her ability to break away from a god’s influence through usurpation made it hard for any god to win her decisively onto their side, it actually turned Hestia into a better Blessed than she would have been otherwise. Unironically, the one who is the least faithful, interested Aurena the most.

However, at the end of the day, prying into the void for answers wasn’t smart. Speaking with Gel’Glariri was like looking into the abyss, wishing to steal a prize without risking blindness. Although he wasn’t a strong combatant, he was still a god. A god specialized in using illusions and soul manipulation to defeat others.

And, despite everything he did, Aurena knew he wasn’t an enemy. He was still a friend of the family. She knew he wouldn’t want to anger her, seeing as Gel’Glariri respected and revered Marsven, her father, like a true god. To him, Aurena was his young miss.

He wouldn’t ruin her plans, in fact, he might be helping her out in the long run. However, his execution was a different matter. To Gel’Glariri, all that mattered were the results and the upcoming changes to the world, but to Aurena, the process was equally as important. The man would burn down the world, all for his goals.

Aurena hoped he wouldn’t rely on anything extreme.

Ahhh, okay, okay. Let’s not think about it. He didn’t give me a timer for their meeting. I’ll wait until after she reaches A rank and then inform her. It’ll give her more time with her mother, her party, and also any other trainers she meets along the way.

Aurena then returned to her desk, only to suddenly receive a new notification sent by Plesia to the entirety of the Divine Realm of Peolynca.

<Announcement: The Trial of God Yeostar, God of Knighthood, Bravery, and Loyalty, under penalty of divinity subjugation shall soon be starting. Every associated god and goddess shall attend this trial under watch of the Head Goddess, Plesia.>

… Yeostar.

The reason for why Aurena had to take over Yeostar’s duty was because of the god’s conduct in the recent siege. His forceful participation in the war by forcibly granting the arena the ability to transport all intruders out of it was considered a direct violation of the divine rules. The fact he saved Hestia, Renee, and Markval from their meeting with Streiga was reason enough for Plesia to judge him.

Now, it was Aurena’s duty to help her subordinate.

You did this knowing full well this was the consequence, Yeostar. Truly, you weren’t fit to become a god. A ruler, yes, but not a guide. Don’t worry, I will assure your status is intact for your next Champion to be born.

To court.

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Side Story 43: The Aftermath of the Enemies.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“So, Qaltil is dead and we failed the job.”

“Right, boss—Urgh …”

“… Well, at least you’re alive. Although missing an eye, a leg, and having your stomach nearly separated into three sections will surely take you out of the dance … Considering what they managed to destroy and obtain, it seemed this new Champion just won the high stake bet.”

Streiga mused at the sound of “high stake bet,” imagining what his conversation partner was speaking about. He thought back to the results of this siege, ruminating over the benefits his side had lost and what the other side had gained.

First was most definitely the feast of experience in the form of the 10000 grimgarian strong army, composed of a total of 20 rank Bs. The majority of the forces were killed during the fight, while the remaining were now being hunted down by Artorian reinforcements. All rank Bs were exterminated, donating their hard-earned levels to Hestia and her allies.

Second would be the death of Qaltil as well as the elimination of the two demonkins leading this operation. The complete defeat of a Warbringer, even. From what Streiga heard, the fact a teenage girl like Vifi’Yok was chosen as the next one just after the previous Warbringer died wasn’t a good sign. To him, it meant there weren’t any more capable, more experienced candidates. He believed it would be hard to replace her if she had died.

Lastly, there was the death of Karhalantheel at the hands of Melloxtressa. He had heard she was an SS rank dragon, but he hadn’t fully believed it. However, this new age SS rank not only slayed an ancient one, but she also managed to acquire his corpse. In addition, Streiga knew Melloxtressa escaped the dimension trap the demonkins set up, meaning the dragon empress had become a void-touched. If she used her newly aquired [Storage Magic], then the enemy had just acquired the body of an SS rank leviathan.

So many benefits were lost, and not a single win for Streiga’s employer. If they had managed to end the birth of a Champion of Yeostar, he probably would have called it a worthy price, but this mission was a complete disaster.

“Kuek hahaha …” Streiga shook his head, waving his lion mane around before he groaned and leaned against a cavern’s wall, somewhere east of Elyonda. He was elated; he and Qaltil had the foresight to establish a small hideout, in case they had needed somewhere to flee to.

He looked down at his right leg, massaging it as he thought of the person who cut it—Larent. The vengeful swordmaster had failed in getting his revenge, but managed to still cripple the leonid. He then moved his trembling hand up to his stomach, pulling up his tattered chainmail to reveal three puncture wounds.

He smirked, bumping his head against the wall three times in shame, before shivering a bit at the dangers of facing a well-trained Champion of the gods. Tehmrayn, although only ten levels lower than Streiga, had completely overwhelmed him. Sure, he had his allies, but the leonid wasn’t sure if he could have beaten the Plesia Champion even in a duel. He felt inadequate; exposed.

However, while he expected his two former opponents to prove a challenge, what angered the leonid even more was the wound on his left eye. Silver scales had lodged themselves into his skull and eye socket, while freezing ice had frozen off his fur and skin. He couldn’t feel anything.

Hahaha, dammit …

Yorshka and Shayatierus, two opponents far below his level, had managed to deal such a terrible wound on him. He would have beaten both if they were alone, but with the aid of Larent and Tehmrayn, those two managed to cripple him like this. Levels were important, but so were skills and equipment. There was a reason why the combination of Jobs, equipment, and technology could allow a human to surpass their limits and slay a monster far above their weight class.

They probably wouldn’t have killed him, but he still felt like he had severely underestimated his opponents. Was it the arrogance of age? Or was his “Ghorush” side showing itself after all these years? If that was the case, then he could only lament his stupidity. His past and history as a leonid warrior of Carmaniate had been sealed in the depths of his mind. He was now “Streiga,” the third boss of the Yanderu Eluseuss.

“Streiga.”

“Yes, Boss?” The leonid stopped his daydreaming and returned to look through the small dimensional rift, created by a space-time tool the Boss of the Yanderu had created. A manatech only a void-touched could have made.

“How did you survive? I had not expected them to show you mercy.” The person on the other side asked him in an aloof manner, although there was a hint of compassion hidden somewhere between those words.

“Haha … you know the effects of my Territory, right? [Lament of the Lion] recreates the steppe I used to live in with my wife, in which I stored the best golems I ever made. All the golems she created to defend her tribe, or, at least the ones she planned to use to defend them, were also in there as a memento. Well … it seemed even I didn’t know the extent of her creations.” Streiga brushed up his pelt, noticing his purple-colored skin. “… Twice. She saved me twice. She left her masterpiece behind just to save me.”

“… What kind of golem was it?”

“… My past self. She recreated my past self. A golem with its own intelligence. Not like the barely aware golem monsters in the wild, but an artificial creation able to think and reason with others. I had thought it was just like all the other golems, but who knew she managed to create something like that in the wasteland of the steppe?”

“… ‘Own intelligence?’ That is new. I heard the alchemists and golemancers of Aleistunum have been trying to create self-thinking gargoyles and golems for a while now, but who would have thought some random beastwoman from a random tribe in the middle of Carmaniate would have been the one to create the first of its kind. However, if she managed to create your past self, then it probably wouldn’t last long. Nothing personal, friend.”

“None taken. And, yes, you’re right. The thing didn’t last for too long, but the way it acted and moved felt real. I thought I was looking at my past self. Well, if it made me feel nostalgic, then it also could fool my enemies. I made my escape after sacrificing it.”

“Shame. What a waste.”

The two conversationalists fell silent. While Streiga reminisced on his past from before he joined the Yanderu, the person on the other side was wondering what all of this would lead into. He tapped his finger in a perfect rhythm over and over again as he began to predict the consequences of the events at Elyonda would have. What it would change in the stagnating Empire of Humans and the Kingdom of the Demonkins.

A never ending war between two races born of a religious conflict, going on and off just long enough to allow both sides to recover enough wealth and population to begin again. Of course, fatigue would build up over the hundreds of years of conflict, but it didn’t show any semblance of ending soon. Then again, a war such as this could only end when a weightsudden enough and heavy enough tipped the balance of the war's scales in an instant.

“Streiga, return back home. I’ll call in this job a failure and take the penalty from the demonkins. I’ll have Eithalr get ready to recruit two more bosses to replace the missing ones. I’ll get somebody to see after your wou—”

“What is with this letter?!”

And just then, the words of the Yanderu boss was interrupted by the sound of an opening door ramming against the war. The hidden face of the boss turned around from his desk, looking at his unwelcome intruder with a small smile.

“Welcome.”

Franz Akabane, also known as “Light” to the majority of people in the Empire, entered the office of the boss of the Yanderu Eleuseuss with a scowl, glaring at the smirking man with two sharp eyes. With every step he took into the room, the more his grey hair waved around, contrasting the veiled figure of the person in front of him.

The young boy from Earth pulled out a crumpled piece of parchment from his pockets and slammed it on the desk. Two two stared at each other in silence, each waiting for other to break the awkwardness.

“You … I knew you were planning to use me when you sent your people to approach us, but from the look of it, it seemed you even lied about your goals. I looked into it. You didn’t tell me the timing and location of those demonkin assassins just to gain my trust. This was all part of their plans, right?”

“I never lied to you.”

“Bullshit!” Light clenched his fists, trying his hardest to stay composed before this man. “You told me your aim was to change the Empire. All the crimes you performed and all the lives you ended. They were all a means to a goal. I tolerated them because I needed an ally against the church and the emperor, but all of you Peolyncians are just here to use us like pawns. Was all that about the demonkins even true?”

“All of it. Aurena didn’t summon you into this world, the demonkins did with the help of the Edjurl gods,” The Yanderu boss answered, unperturbed by Light’s outrage. “Also, my goals have always remained the same. How I achieve them doesn’t matter. All that matters to history are the results. In this world, the results are all that matters.”

“You …!” Light scowled, biting his lips until they began to bleed. His rage filled his mind to the point he couldn’t control himself any further, but even if he punched the person right now, it would only hurt himself.

“You also seem to agree with me to an extent.”

“Tsk!”

“The church is controlled by the demonkins while the Folschreck Empire is being driven forward like a machine helmed by decrepit nobles only interested in their own advancement at the cost of everyone else. No justice can be found here, when commoners have to fear the prejudice and harsh judgement of the Lycerepth every day. When faith turns into zealousness, the bottom will rot.” The Boss then took the piece of parchment from the young man’s hand and began smoothing out the wrinkles. “You joined my faction because you couldn’t trust either side. You have no allies when you are stuck between two massive forces. You are no hero. You haven’t been the protagonist since the moment you were transported to this world. You and your classmates are doomed to be another means to win this war for the demonkins.”

“Kuek!” Light trembled, fully acknowledging the truth of the matter. No matter what he or his classmates had tried since they came to this world, it all failed.

Their attempts to escape Aureolis’s grand cathedral were thwarted multiple times by the clergy and holy knights. The cathedral's followers interrupted them the moment the summoned classmates tried to do anything, stopping them before any progress was made. Each time, a warning was given to scare them off.

Even now, after they came to the Folschreck Empire, they had thought they could gain some advantage, but with the church looming over every single step, they couldn’t move anywhere. Strength was a major factor in an adventurer’s and warrior’s survival, but none of the students had reached the level where they could contend against the monsters of this world.

They were simply weak.

The boss stood up from his seat and pointed at the young man, eyeing him intently. Light flinched back, just seconds before the boss continued his lecture. “That is why the results are important. Not the path towards it. What good is a creed when you cannot achieve victory? Would you howl and whine when your classmates are killed after you decided to play nice? What justice can you bring to this world if you break like fragile glass, Light?”

“…” Light looked down, clutching his head in pain as these words reminded him of his father. It felt like his nefarious father was whispering scoldings into his ears, demeaning his sense of self and ego. Light felt like his own personality was being pushed back in favor of the objectives of the person before him.

“You can’t do anything, Light. But with me on your side? You can do whatever you wish in this world, Light! You can change this world just like Goddess Chihiro!”

Light was an idealistic young man raised by Japan’s most ruthless prosecutor. He wanted to join the judiciary system in a different manner than his father, to bring proper justice despite the swamp his father had created. A corruption he had despised since childhood ever since he learned of his father’s abuse of his mother.

To his father, Franz was just a product to show-off to his friends and allies. A “hāfu,” a half Japanese. To Franz’s father, his son was nothing more than a novelty. A trend to seem international and trendy. What an achievement it would be if he could raise a “halfling” to the top of the judicial system, in a society with outdated values on foreigners.

The young man had hoped he could perform some good in this new world. His idealism clashed with what the majority of the class felt about killing other humans for survival. He wanted to judge bandits and thieves like a normal prosecutor, but this wasn’t something he could do in this world. Just like on Earth, however, he had no power against those more influential.

As such, he allied with the Yanderu Eluseuss behind his classmates’ backs. It was a chance meeting where he thought the boss shared his views, only to become disgusted when this organization showed its basement full of skeletons. He honestly thought he could make a change after he was declared a “Champion Candidate” by the Empire … but he soon learned all of this was part of the demonkin’s plan.

The truth of the Church of Aurena being controlled by the demonkins was a severe blow, but it was something he had already anticipated. However, hearing how he was being manipulated every step like a marionette only caused the young man to question his free will.

“And that is what I can, no, the Yanderu can give you, Light. You must use us like a weapon to build your own strength, preparing to throw us away the moment your goals have been achieved! Destroy the hypocrisy clouding your past.”

“What?!” He took a step back from the boss. “Are you telling me to betray you like that?! Are you insane?!”

“I told you already. All that matters are the RESULTS!” The boss raised his arms up, speaking like a preacher. “Change can only happen if you are willing to accept the trash of the world and throw them all out! Break down the foundation to replace it! If you aren’t willing to do the extreme, then you can’t expect anything to change. Compromises are left after everything else has been resolved. This war between Folschrek and Bole’Taria is evidence of it!”

“That still doesn’t make any sense! Why are you trying to build me up just to take you over? Eithalr had told me enough to make me understand your organization is more than just a few hopeful people trying to change their lives. You also harbor murderers, pyschopaths, and truly sick people! You aren’t anything different from the normal black mercenary company, you are just the same!”

“That’s the thing, though, the company itself isn’t anything special from the others. I don’t make it out to be.” The boss spoke in a nonchalant manner, accepting anything the young man had ready to throw at him. It was as if he had prepared in advance what to say. “I know we are criminals. Murderers. I bring pain to others by simply keeping this organization going. But that is the point I am trying to tell you! The funds, a place to train, and the proper people to control. I’ve gained it all. Through blood and sweat. Through every setback.”

He then reached out his hand to grab a glass chalice to pour wine in it. He then offered it to Light. “Now, I am willing to share the bounty. You took a sip. Why not take more?”

Light accepted the chalice after some hesitation, acknowledging he couldn’t go back. He couldn’t reject the allies he had made with this person. “… What is your end goal? Why are you working for both the Empire and demonkins? You said you wanted to end this war, but from the looks of it, you’re just prolonging it.”

“As I said from the beginning.” He sat back down on his seat, crossing his legs and leaning his head on one of his arms. “I want change. Whether it is to splinter the Empire into pieces or to destroy the demonkin’s only safe haven in this world. I don’t care how it will all end, I just want something to happen to further the evolution of this world. As such …”

He leaned forward.

“… I cannot become the flagbearer for the future. A vague goal is nothing more than an unsharpened blade. What I need is someone with ambition, ready to whet the blade sharp! To move me forward!”

“To become a puppet under your control.”

The boss shrugged. “What matters are the results. What you can gain from all of this. Don’t you want to return home? Don’t you want to leave something in this world to show that you existed? Take a sip. I am missing some underbosses.”

“…” Light looked at the wine in this dark room, unable to see his own reflection from the lack of light. As such, he closed his eyes. “That letter of yours; you sent it to me for a reason, right? I heard about that ‘Hestia’ girl from Ryuji and Eithalr.”

“Yes.”

“You know she’s an otherworlder, right?”

Light remembered the Berliners and pastries his best friend and right-hand man Ryuji gave him. Although they had gone bad from the trip, he still felt nostalgic when he bit into them. Light, just like Ryuji, quickly surmised that “Hestia” was without question an otherworlder after they learned the recipe came from her.

Also learning she was a dragon, they presumed this girl was similar to Goddess Chihiro, a Japanese woman born as a dwarf who later became known as the Revolution Queen. They didn’t know who Hestia actually was, but they knew they couldn’t exactly abandon this thread. Was she an ally or would she potentially become an enemy? To the desperate Light, he wanted to work and trust somebody who didn’t completely go against his morals.

However, with the letter he was presented, he had learned the demonkins had set a bounty on the girl. They wanted her dead. It almost reminded him how everything around him was not in his control. Even a potential ally would soon be snuffed out. Sure, she defeated Eithalr, but what about Streiga? What about the first and second underbosses of the Yanderu?

“Of course. However, Streiga just informed me the operation was a failure. The girl, apparently, survived and was one of the siege’s major contributors.”

“… What?” Astounded, Light opened his eyes, widening them up like a goldfish’s.

“Surprising, right? The demonkins wanted to kill her and her mother, but both survived. Instead, we lost our forces in a considerable manner. Sure, it wasn’t a decisive victory on their part, but Yeos managed to eke out a close victory through the participation of so many strong fighters. In hindsight, maybe trying to take out a dragon empress was a bit too overconfident of us. All of them should have been alive during the demon wars, after all.”

“…”

“So? What will you do? Light, tell me.”

“…” Light gulped, perturbed by how this man was carrying himself.

Anything he said today was quickly redirected towards him, demanding him to find an answer to counter. He felt as if he was a fish in a barrel.

“… Stop the bounty hunt, reject any further contracts against her. If you do, I will join your organization.”

“Ooooh? Aren’t you showing your cards this time?” The boss tilted his head, smirking through the darkness. “It’s clear how much you want her as an ally. Aren’t you afraid she might control you? Similar to how the saintesses and church are controlling that ‘Hero’ from your class? Don’t you already have a woman by your side?”

“I know full well Saintess Fleindia is only associating herself with me because the church wants to promote my image as a ‘Champion candidate.’ She might not have anything to do with them, but I know the demonkins are planning something with her. I won’t be like Takuma.”

“But are you not fully accepting my help? For what? To help out this dragon princess who probably can defend herself without your help? Aren’t you thinking of yourself too highly?” The boss cornered Light, causing the latter to stay silent. “Very well. I personally find it riskier to make an enemy out of Kargryx anyways. They are staying neutral for now, but what will happen if they begin to fly out? Ha! Then again, the death of their princess would certainly bring in this ‘scale tipper’ I dearly want.”

Light squinted his eyes, grimacing at how this man was already forming another plan. He had to stop it before his eyes grew brighter. “… Are you accepting my deal or not?”

“… As I said, very well. Hope you understand what this means, Light.”

“I do. I will have the contract finished in two days.” Light then turned around, done with his business here. As he was about to leave the room, he turned his head around for a second, before closing the door with a heavy fist.

“I shall await it. Have fun making friends with the girl.”

And in the darkness, the man smirked once again.

“…” Streiga watched all of this happen through the dimensional rift before saying goodbye to his boss. He leaned his head back on the wall, closing his eyes to contemplate on what his boss was now planning.

… Can’t think with these ice shards in my head.

Instead, he turned to his visitor. “Come out. I’m done.”

A young girl came out of the corner of the cave while caring for a man, stumbling into the cavern with the look of someone about to die. She looked exhausted, but more importantly, about to keel from arcane corruption.

“Hmm.” Streiga looked over her naked legs before raising her eyes to his huge shirt hiding her naked body, outside of three holes. Remnants of Tehmrayn’s attack. “Hmm, thought so. Couldn’t hide your legs.”

“Still, thanks,” the girl said before tripping onto the ground from her lack of focus, letting go of the unconscious man on her shoulders. She pushed herself back up and leaned against the wall. She placed a hand on her forehead, only to click her tongue at the heat coming from it.

“I thought you died, lass. Took you long enough to put that shirt on.”

The demonkin girl, Vifi’Yok, shrugged. “I thought about what happened. Couldn’t believe the two dragons who brought me down were two idiotic goodie-two-shoes. They really should have killed me … but, thanks. For rescuing me before I did something stupid in a moment of weakness.”

She couldn’t help but reminisce at what happened. She honestly had thought this was her last day on Peolynca, only to be surprised when she saw the crimson dragoness heal her.

Whether Vifi’Yok would have survived or not, Hestia had insured herself with the “honorable” side of the wrath demonkins. Demonkins were beings influenced by their demonic blood and emotions, fueled by the sin left behind as their birthright. It was hard for demonkins to overcome this legacy, and Hestia preyed on this fact by repeating “debt” and “owe” over and over during the surgery.

On the other hand, Fargryneill had made this debt more tangible when she almost accepted Hestia’s offer. To either be imprisoned or join her, to help Hestia learn more of the demonkins made Vifi’Yok weak as she always wanted to have a better life. What would have happened if she wasn’t born in some slum, all alone with nobody to care for her.

But, then, what would have happened if Hestia still would fight her homeland? Break her promise? What would happen if Lord Wrath came to avenge her? Would Vifi’Yok stay still and watch, or break through the prison cells holding her back? What if she began to like her new life away from battle? Could she force herself to run away?

Considering she had a fat headache right now, thinking about it any further made Vifi’Yok feel queasy. Regardless, it didn’t happen so that was a weight off her shoulders. Still … she was still worried about the fact she owed Hee’Rlak’s life to Hestia. The dragon girl was her enemy, but at the same time, she felt obligated by her blood to not forget this debt. Once again, the demonkin blood compelled her to do something she didn’t want to.

As such, Vifi’Yok had no choice.

“Still better than being tortured for information, right? They could have done that to you. Be grateful, kid, for surviving all of that and only losing an arm,” Streiga tried to brighten the girl’s mood, but Vifi’Yok wasn’t in the mood for something like that. Realizing this, the leonid nodded and asked her why she wanted after noticing the focus in her eyes.

“Hee’Rlak is alive. I need you to get him back to Bole’Taria and tell everybody I died.”

“… Pardon? Say that again? You want me to tell them what?”

“That I died today.”

“… KuhahaHAHAHAHA! Aren’t you a Warbringer, lass? Are you seriously deserting the army the moment you get a chance to do so? Kuhahaha, you have some guts!”

Vifi’Yok grimaced at his unexpected reaction, feeling even guiltier at what she was about to do. She had thought through the idea when Streiga saved her, fleeing from her deal with the two dragon princesses. Her conscience was telling her no, but her heart, the one she gained after her trip over to the “Twin-Elemental Lake,” told her to be free.

Vifi’Yok held pride for her country, even wanting to better the life of her fellow Wrath demonkins. Although she joined the army purely for survival, she still thought fondly of the people she had befriended there. In fact, to her, it was heaven compared to the wet streets she used to live in, scavenging for soggy bread and dirty meat, trying to sleep through ale-reeking drunks shouting like goblins through the night.

However, at the end of the day, Vifi’Yok wished for more. She was not picky; in fact, she liked eating hard, dry rations and sleeping on the ground, as long as she was dry and didn’t have to smell vomit. There was more to life than complaining. As long as she was full and alive, she wouldn’t make a big deal out of it.

But, she couldn’t keep it all bottled in any further. She wanted to know more about the world. She wanted to continue eating good food. She wanted her life to be filled with more than just battle and carnage, even if she had to betray everything she knew and everyone she befriended.

“Am I being greedy? I didn’t know my parents, you know.”

Understanding the demonkin idiom, Streiga shook his head. “You think one of your parents was a Gluttony or Greed demonkin? Ha, I dunno, kid. Seems more like you’re just acting your age, or like anybody else, really. Even adults can be like this.”

“You’re not gonna judge me?” Vifi’Yok raised an eyebrow, surprised to hear the leonid was playing along with a joke.

“Want me to? Because I used to be a soldier, too, before I took years off service after I was hurt in enemy territory. I didn’t report it to anybody, until I returned a few years later. I can sympathize. But I can act like a soldier and scold you—Uurgh! Kuragh!” Suddenly jerking from the pain caused by Tehmrayn’s attacks, Streiga coughed uncontrollably. Once he was done, he slammed his head lightly against the wall behind him. “You aren’t a kid, so don’t try to have me treat you like one, kid. Deserter, or not, I have no right to question somebody else’s choices. I am not a role model.”

“I see …”

Both stayed silent, simply taking in the situation they were currently in, until Streiga ended up speaking first. He tried to find some charcoal, but realized everything was wet. He couldn’t find any parchment or writing material, so instead, he used his catalyst to morph the ground into a golem.

“Why’d you want to leave?” he asked while he did so.

“Donuts,” she answered, causing the leonid to flinch in surprise, before letting out a burst of laughter. “I want some better bread, too. Soft, you know. Like the ones those noble humans eat. Some nice butter. Slices of meat and fresh, green orslagges as salad. Oh, a warm soup, too, would be nice. Something more creative than vegetable soup, though.”

“Pay?”

“This.” Vifi’yok then reached at her chest and mumbled a quiet chant, before her chest began to glow red. After a few seconds of wait, she pierced herself with her claws, pulling out a red crystal around the size of a finger.

“… Well, aren’t you generous. However, isn’t this considered treason?” Streiga smiled with interest.

The girl brushed some of the blood off her shirt before twirling the crystal in her hand. “The moment I decided to desert, I had already committed treason. If I don’t remove this, then Lord Wrath will surely find me. I’m going away. Far, far away, so I can’t allow him or the other Warbringers to track me. A small price to pay for freedom.”

“That is still a huge one to pay, though. Without it, you can’t use [Original Sin: Satanael], again. From the looks of it, it probably saved your life, right?”

A Prince of Sin differed from their prince candidates through the fact that they could use original sin abilities without severe burdens placed on their body. This was because only seven demonkins could become a prince of sin at once, each representing one of them.

However, Bole’Taria didn’t want the original sin powers to be reserved for them alone. In addition, to prepare the candidates, it was also necessary for them to get used to these powers so they would be ready to be deployed if necessary. As such, the demonkins invented these blood crystals of sin.

Each crystal granted the demonkin host an original sin ability, allowing them to use them, albeit, at a weaker efficiency than the original. In addition, each would place heavy strain upon the person if they overused them. Right now, Vifi’Yok was abandoning hers using the removal chant she learned after sneaking into the library of her adopted father.

“It sure did. Without Satanael, I would have 100% died to that crimson dragon. Her last attack was beyond belief, honestly.” Vifi’Yok grimaced as she felt the sheer terror of death as Hestia’s smashed her into the ground like a comet. “To prevent my death, Satanael sealed my ability to go M.E.P. In fact, I can’t go above 15% in any of my emotions. Essentially, I can’t conjure up anything more than my horns and tail. No elemental weapons.”

“Damn. So, you’re practically like a human now, huh? Hahaha, no even worse, since you’re missing an arm!”

“A human with more stats than a rank A human … but, yes,” she sighed, slightly annoyed as she clutched the stump where her left arm used to be. “Besides, even if I went back, I would be discharged since Satanael sealed my powers. In the worst case, they’ll harvest my organs for my red lightning. In the best case, I’ll be chained to House Yok as its heir. I’m not letting them treat me like that; I didn’t join the army to be used like a dirty rag.”

“Pessimistic, little street urchin?” Streiga raised an eyebrow, finding his information on the demonkins a bit outdated from the way Vifi’Yok explained her situation. At the very least, three of the current Princes of Sins wouldn’t agree to the extremist idea. “Why do you think so? I had a different impression.”

“As I said, in the best case, I would only be chained as an heir. Lord Wrath … I’m sure I will keep my life with him helping me. The new Lady Lust won’t let me die either. The thing is, it won’t get any better from there.” Vifi’Yok reminisced of her time in the home of her adoptive father, grimacing and sighing deeply. “… I am not used to opulence, you can say. I don’t want to be some ‘heir’ who can’t help out my fellow wrathies. I don’t care who my Lord Father is; the life of a noble isn’t for me. I didn’t fight, survive, and scavenge to end up like that.”

“… Poor little street rat. Not the best choice, but, well, you are still a kid. Wherever it’ll lead you, I hope you know the consequences will come to greet you one day.” Streiga wanted to scare her off, but, once again, he was reminded why youth was so frightening to him.

The conviction in Vifi’Yok’s eyes told him she knew exactly what she was getting herself into. It did make him remember the last moment before he came for her rescue—how she had almost accepted the hand of that Aurena Champion, Hestia. He wondered if that had anything to do with all of this … but he would keep this information to himself for now. If it was blackmail, then it hadn’t ripened yet.

“Heh, then you’ll need to get used to human society then, lass. Here.” Streiga picked up the golem he had made and nonchalantly threw it over to the girl, presenting to her a slate with his instructions. He grinned for a moment, before coughing up some blood. “Urk … Okay, there is a small town past the closest imperial port from here—Saltzwieder. I have a former subordinate there who retired from the organization and opened up an orphanage. Give him the slate, he’ll give you what you need to survive. Some coins, clothes, a weapon, and also some education.”

“What?”

“What do you mean, what? Bole’Taria is completely different from Folschreck or the rest of Altrust. The damn propaganda education you got in the military won’t help. I listened to them!” Streiga shouted, reminding her he was the one responsible for most of the intel for this operation. “Anyways, you need to know things. How the guilds work. Get yourself a proper ID with a false identity so you don’t get exposed. How to handle things without breaking a law. Things work differently here. I learned myself how cultures can differ.”

“… So you’re telling me to learn with those snot-nose brats he’s teaching at that place?”

“What? You’re parentless yourself, kid.”

“… Tehe. Guess you’re right. I do wonder what’s so special about providing urchins a place to live, though. Keep them off the streets, I guess.” Vifi’Yok then stood up and flicked the crystal into Streiga’s palms.

“Why not rest?”

“Nah … I wanna see it. Human society. Without the burdens of being a Warbringer. What’s it like?”

“I see … then, good luck. Keep yourself safe. You saw that giant thunder spell shock the leviathan, right? Pretty sure that’s the archerudite of Aleistunum and his floating home.”

With that, Vifi’Yok left the cavern and Hee’Rlak in Streiga’s care. She had her destination and also a chance for a new life. With [Original Sin: Satanael] sealing her demon powers and elemental weapons, all the girl had left was her red lightning and the skills she had developed over the years.

However, for the sake of her disguise, she had to seal off her Voltaic Red abilities to keep herself hidden. She had to adapt to her new life. In a way where she would never ever meet another demonkin or a member or ally of Aurora. The demonkin Vifi’Yok would stop “existing” from today onwards.

“… I wonder where I should go afterwards? Should get out of the Empire if I want to stay hidden. Maybe I should try Carmaniate? The dwarves?”

She clutched her left shoulder, feeling the phantom pain of clutching her left hand. She felt like she was back at the bottom after all these years. Like a little rat, trying to escape the eyes of all the enemies surrounding her.

A part of her yearned to return to her home, to the people she liked—the safe haven she had worked for, but another side, the one that kept her alive all this time, made it clear her return won’t be easy. She had failed twice already, and this operation was important. Was becoming a traitor and deserter the correct choice, here?

She wasn’t sure, but she knew well enough how valuable her red lightning was for the military. Her survival instincts told her going back would only be a detriment to her. In that case, living on the streets sounded safer.

She then turned her head around, looking in the distance where she had fought her enemies. Her left shoulder ached once again. She couldn’t get the image of the four women who defeated her out of her mind. Not to mention, the naive idea of their crimson dragon …

Stupid girl … She couldn’t help but call Hestia, although not in a hostile manner. A part of her wished for her home, no, her former home to find peace. It was just … impossible. She felt ashamed she was almost swayed by the girl’s words.

“I am an idol, and I have a responsibility not to make you cry, but to make you laugh. Make you smile! Make you dream of hope and a better life. That is my passion, that is what I want to do! Call me naive if you want, but that is how I want this war to end! No more death …” Vifi’Yok recalled those words clearly.

Whatever. Just get outta here. I have a new future to worry about, so, goodbye, dragon. You won’t see me again.

A note from AbyssRaven

Well, bye Vifi'Yok. We will definitely never see you again.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 363: Deju Vu Awakening.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #2 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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HAPPY NEW YEAR! Welcome to 2023!

Unique skill creation completed. [True Spear Technique Lv. 10] [Evasion Lv. 10] [Acrobatic Lv. 10] [Air Walk Lv. 6] [Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 6] [Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 9] [Aerial Fighter Lv. 7] [Speed of Sonic Lv. 6] merged into unique skill [Drakonian Sunlight Edge]

Unable to automatically merge   [Hellblade Dragon Lv. 5] into [Drakonian Sunlight Edge]. Requirement: [Hellblade Dragon Lv. 10]

…?

This was … my room. In my subspace. Definitely … Hmm? My last piece of memory … What was the last thing that happened?

Ah, right. The fight! The siege and the giant sea noodle. Urgh, and then those demonkins … Ah. I get it now.

I pulled my hand out of my blanket and looked at my right hand, noting how I was missing my index finger. Bandages covered the stump and I felt slight phantom pain whenever I clenched my hand into a fist, feeling the sensation of my thumb and middle finger touching what was no longer there. What a scar, honestly.

It was then that I noticed soft whispers touching my neck. I turned around, where I caught a glimpse of Mother’s sleeping face. She was in her [Humanize (Moderate)] form, as usual, whenever she wanted to sleep next to me. Her silver white hair was a delight to the eyes, and I could feel the soft touch of her fingers on my left arm, hugging it like a body pillow.

Deju vu. Yeah, damn. [Symphonie des Feuergottes Movemetn (Finale)] might be freaking strong, but it sent me into the same dangerous situation as before. Well, I guess it is a low price to pay for nearly defeating a rank A Warbringer.

… Nearly really sounds pathetic. I need to defeat people like that with my finishing ability. Two casts of it, and I couldn’t finish things off. However, next time? It will truly be a finale.

“Thanks for working so hard … Mom. Good work defeating that noodle.” I gave her a quick peck on the cheek, feeling a bit embarrassed I was kissing her with such fondness. Still, considering how she was, she probably would love this sorta affection from me.

“Pff!”

“H-huh?!” I snapped my head around as I heard the sound of somebody crackling in my room, activating my [Detection Sensor] to notice another person was in the room outside of Mother. Two, in fact.

[“Master!”] And this person jumped right on me, shoving me right back onto my pillow. Licking my face once, the black-white tiger cub began rubbing his face against mine, to the point I felt like sneezing.

No, actually, I had to sneeze right about—

“Kra! Kraaachooooooo!”

Argh, that was not cute at all!

A noisy sneeze coming from my throat, instead of a soft one from the nose. I immediately hid my mouth and nose with my hand, feeling conscious of what happened, before feeling like I had something slimy in my nose. It made it stuffy and hard to breathe. Wait, did I actually get a cold? It wasn’t mentioned in my Profile, though.

“Shihehe, well, that is a surprise. Once you get [Abnormal Status Nullification], catching something like a cold or a cough should be impossible. You really overworked yourself with that healing stunt,” the second person—Neill— spoke up after waving at me with a carefree smile. I also noticed her horn was still missing.

“Well, this is a sur—” I tried to speak with her, but a white magic circle suddenly appeared in front of my face.

[“Cure!”] Rajah shouted. [“Master’s sick?! No! I’ll cure you, Master can’t be sick!”]

My little tiger cat was rubbing his face on me like crazy, forgetting the fact he was nearly as big as an actual tiger! Sure, he technically was still a cub, but he was smothering me with the intense care of an actual cat. Was he attempting to suffocate me with his thick fur as revenge for leaving him out from the raid?!

I finally forced him to sit down so I could lean against the headboard. With my overeager cat finally disciplined, I also made sure he didn’t wake up Mother. However, seeing how some of his fur was on her face, I raised an eyebrow in surprise at how she hadn’t woken up.

“Don’t be surprised. Your ‘mom’ is finally catching up on all the sleep she neglected just to make sure she was awake when Karhalantheel attacked,” Neill answered my confusion.

“Sleep?” I was reminded how I was worried Mother hadn’t been taking her usual multi-day sleep.

Neill nodded. “The older a dragon gets, the more sleep is important to make sure they rest their soul. Immortality doesn’t come without some problems, after all. For example, your soul being filled up with memories.”

Neill reminded me how Mother hadn’t slept much when she was impregnated with my egg and then after when she lost it. And once she met up with me, she had been recovering her schedule, but since she wanted to make up for all the time we lost as mother and daughter, she had only taken two to three day “naps.” They should have lasted for months or even years.

“You’ve been asleep for a week or so. I think, nine days?” she told me after I questioned her how long I was out.

Urk, this is deja vu. I massaged my temples, smiling wryly as I noticed the similarities to what happened last time. This really wasn’t a good habit to start.

Then, I remembered why I shouldn’t have slept nine bloody days. “Tch, dammit. Neill, how is Elyonda? Did something bad happen after the raid? What about all the injured people?!”

I knew I had that System message with all these weird skills combining into [Drakonian Sunlight Style]. Although I wasn’t sure how I earned it at this very moment, the message sounding in my head certainly woke me up. At the same time, it made me worry if I had missed other messages or not, considering I was unconscious for this long. Did anybody die? Did I lose any fans?

“Jeez, okay, calm down. Come on.” Neill stood up from the chair she was sitting on, telling me she had fallen asleep yesterday. She began to stretch, looking rather stiff from her terrible sleeping posture, before slapping me on the back. “Get up. I’m hungry. Let’s get some grub before we speak.”

My stomach then grumbled, causing me to look through my profile to confirm I had [Starvation (Minor)]. I was starving, right now, which made sense since I only had a light snack after the finale fiasco.

Meanwhile, I also removed my wings with [Humanize], noticing I had ruined my bed between them, my talons and my tail. My scales and claws were sharp; I always have to remind myself how, if I wasn’t careful, I would just break and tear things up. It felt like living in a world made of glass. As nice as having power was, it felt less nice to have when you realize not everything was as sturdy you were.

“Orrrgh.” I groaned as I stood up, feeling like the blood was all rushing to my head.

“Take it easy. Here.” Neill handed me a pair of somethings as I recovered, noticing they looked eerily similar to my sun core, only split into two. “Your mother extracted your core before she went to sleep. That stinking demon bitch really likes breaking things, huh?”

Neill pointed at her horn, making me realize it wasn’t broken, but instead was regrowing. I looked down my shirt, noticing a small gem set in the crevice where my core was usually at. I wasn’t as heavily injured, but that final battle did take a toll on me.

As I was comforting Rajah who was worried about my injuries, Neill rang the bell next to me, causing the door to open. Behind it was Beth.

[“Your Grace!”] The snow wyvern, in her dragonewt form, charged right into the room and embraced me just as suddenly as Rajah, swinging me up and down before placing me back on the bed. [“Thank goodness, you’re awake, Princess! Brother and I are beyond sorry for our failure! We should have been stronger …”]

Hmm? I raised an eyebrow as the wyvern twin grimaced, looking like a child waiting for a scolding. I looked over her shoulder, noticing Neill pointing at her winged arms.

They were bandaged and the webbing of her wings were ruined. They looked like they were punctured and ruptured by something sharp. While her arms weren’t broken, probably healed by Tasianna or Master, it seems that, from the way her bandages were wrapped, she was missing chunks of her flesh. Upon a closer inspection, there were similar wounds all over her body.

This wouldn’t do, of course. Water magic had [Ocean Healing] for most of their healing needs, but it just wasn’t as strong as [Major Heal]. The battle was as brutal for her as it was for me, and I couldn’t overlook this no matter what. Especially since she was this glad to see me.

So, before we continued this discussion, I healed up her wounds. Beth was overjoyed, plucking off any bandages and the leather things over the wounds like a kid picking candy. In the end, her hand was filled with all the rubbish, filling up the trash can in my room in a matter of seconds. At the same time, she mentioned how her brother, Shay, had been unconscious after the ordeal, so I decided to postpone breakfast until after I checked up on the people in the medbay.

Oh, right.

Before we left, I bit off the recovered flesh on my missing finger and used [Miraculous Grace] on it to regrow the digit. As I was testing out the new sensation of this new body part, Neill, Beth, and Rajah didn’t give much of a reaction to what I did. I guess to all of us, this was just normal now.

I also corrected Mother’s sleeping position and tucked her properly in my bed. Since she was hibernating, I had to leave questioning her about her battle with Karhalentheel for later. It certainly would be an awesome story, but for now, she deserved some rest. Another sneaky kiss to the cheek and I left my room.

“Beth, inform the others Hestia’s awake. Yorshka planned to have a giant feast before she and the others went back home, right? Get it ready, okay? Don’t skimp on anything, you understand?” Neill ordered Beth with a wide smile, infecting the snow wyvern with her enthusiasm. Neill listed out the dishes she wanted to eat, which mostly included the Earth cuisine Priscilla would have to prepare, while Beth wrote everything down. I suppose she needed to listen to Neill as much as she did to me, seeing as my Sister was an imperial princess, too.

Once Neill was satisfied with the menu, she sent Beth off while she wrapped her arm around my shoulder and licked her lips. When I asked her why she was so excited about breakfast, Neill eyed me like a cheeky delinquent. “There was a ton to do after the fight, and poor Renee worked like an equerochs. Well, she kinda hinted about it, but you know she’s technically Yeosian royalty, right?”

I nodded. She and Markval pretty much confirmed it to me after they told us their plan.

“So, something happened in the past with the Sealight and Caimlace families. The latter were the former’s cadet family, intended to be a knight's house for the Sealights. Yeostar? A Sealight, and also the reason why the family nearly went extinct,” Neill explained on the way to our subspace’s clinic. “After Yeostar was turned into a god, his son and daughter, both heads for their respective families, went on to rule the principality. It expanded and grew over the years since Yeostar’s training and wisdom was still ingrained into his family and knights. ‘The golden era of knighthood,’ as Renee described it. You gotta remember, Yeostar was alive when the Origin Gods came, so this family is over 2000 years old.”

“… Now that you say it, that is pretty impressive for a human family.”

Over 2000 years. The Kingdom of Artorias wasn’t even close to that age. However, it did make me question something Princess Anasthasia mentioned before, about how the Principality of Yeos used to go under different names.

“Oh, is that what you think? One of the problems of being a human is the fact you die far too young compared to the long-living races. It doesn’t matter if your first and second kings were fantastic individuals if you suddenly get a bad egg later on. Bad decisions lead to arrogance, and arrogance leads to bad downfalls.”

Neill explained Yeos used to not exist at times, being either absorbed into other countries or being founded under a different name. Regardless of what happened, the Sealight and Caimlace family survived through it all, though. Yeos, in whatever form, would reappear as long as these two families stayed alive.

However, it all crumbled at one particular ruler. During all the struggle, the values of Yeostar was maintained. Knighthood, Bravery, and Loyalty; these tenets endured through Caimlace and Sealight. So it made sense that when, one day, a Sealight ruler completely abandoned these values their country started to deteriorate.

“The ruler at that time was a woman, apparently. You know how the Yeosian nobility has such a hatred for women with authority? Mhmm, Neill told me history didn’t treat her too well, but she also totally blundered everything. In fact, history completely killed her off. Not even a name is left. People only remember her for her issues.”

I heard this story from Jethro. This princess almost caused the downfall of Yeos as a culture, but before she could, she died from a “sickness.” Neill explained from there, the Sealight family started to die out since this conflict caused them to distrust their Caimlace knights.

Yeos survived this ordeal, but it still caused a major problem as a result. Most of the history during this time period was destroyed or lost, so only the gist was retold to people of this time. The Sealight family kept this history to themselves, as they were forced to abandon the throne for their own survival. From there, the Caimlace family took control as Yeos’s rulers.

“Royce, Renee’s genderbender … crossdresser? Lady—I-I don’t know how to call it properly.” Neill scowled at her inability to find a proper adjective to describe the situation. After I told her I understood what she meant, she dropped the subject. “Anyways, her mother was a Sealight, a fact known by the previous prince and his wives, the current Princess Dowager and Princess Anasthasia’s deceased mother. What an irony that their roles were reversed, right? Royce was the knight, while Markval’s father was the ruler.”

It certainly cleared up one mystery. I wasn’t too interested in Yeos’s history, nor the cultural background of why the nobility were misogynistic, as this place was just a Quest destination for me. It wasn’t like Artorias, a kingdom I had learned quite a bit about. Even if I didn’t consider Artorias a home, it sure was a place I wanted to learn more about, just ‘cause we were allies.

“So, where is Renee now?” I asked after Neill’s story was over.

“Doing royalty stuff. Meeting with dignitaries, making deals, and also taking care of the country. For now, it seems, Markval will stay as prince until they sort things out. Can’t do much, if they don’t figure out how to accommodate all their serfs and yeomen.” I could only imagine how hard this had to be. I guess lifting the siege was only the first part of Yeos’s problem.

However, that could wait until after I took care of my own party.

Just as I thought that, we went through the corridor for our living quarters and ended up in the living room. Nobody was there, surprisingly.

[“Master’s attendants and friends are all in the other rooms. Miss Svena and Miss Josine are taking care of your yummy drink, and Miss Tasianna went to train. Master’s sister told them she would call them when you wake up!”] Rajah informed me, allowing me to understand why Neill sent Beth away.

In any case, we went through a random exit door, teleporting us to the clinic.

[“Oooh, I see, I see!”] I heard somebody’s telepathy being sent to everybody inside. [“How brave of you, Sir Farron! I now understand how lacking I am as an imperial guard. You’re a far cry from the ‘knights’ of this country!”]

“See! I told you can’t be so serious about it, father! Shay is the type of person who takes every advice to heart, whether exaggerated or not!” Priscilla complained to her bedridden father, before she turned to snow wyvern, who was also stuck in a bed. “Shay, you can’t take Father’s tales too much to heart! He likes to bring himself up! In fact, I know it! Mother told the same story, but I know she did more than you, Father!”

Farron panicked as his daughter glared at him, forcing the man to laugh it off, only to start coughing like he was going to hack up one of his new lungs. His daughter groaned, blaming him for trying to joke about it. At the same, I heard more laughter erupt to my left, noticing both Krim-Slak and Grazlahta were there, also injured!

“Gahahaha! Look at that guy, Graz! Gahahaha!” Krim, as always, was a cheerful fellow, but his laughter stopped the moment he saw me. The red saurian grinned, baring his sharp teeth, despite having bandages covering his scalp. “Young scale! Good to see you awake, finally! Hahaha, don’t I just look pathetic, right now?”

And with his loud outburst, it also signaled everybody else to turn towards me.

“Hestia!” Priscilla charged right at me in a giant embrace, raising my count of “People trying to squeeze me to death today” up to three. “Everybody said you would be alright, but it still took you this long to wake up! Mhmm, don’t you know how much I wanted to cook for you? Mother wanted to celebrate so much!”

Priscilla was jumping like a small rabbit, swinging her tail up and down without rest. I could only smile wryly at her affection before I couldn’t help myself, ignoring my embarrassment as I returned her hug by lifting her. The young girl smiled, shining so brightly I couldn’t help but feel my heart was being enraptured by her cuteness.

Oof!

[“Master. Priscilla. Hug me, too!”] Rajah, the jealous little tiger snuck right underneath us to rub his head against our legs. Since he wanted to play, I placed Priscilla on him, causing the tiger cub to groan a bit, before accepting it.

“Wooah, Rajah!” Priscilla yelped a bit as Rajah began running around with his insane Agility, making me worried he would hurt the young dragonewt, but I trusted him.

“My lady!” Moments later, Shay tried to stand up, only for him to groan.

“Hey, Shay, get back to bed. Warriors need to learn when to rest,” Farron chastised him, waving at me with a defeated look. “Not the greatest look, huh, kiddo? Urgh, the first thing I do after you heal me is get my chest caved in. Ahaha, urgh!”

“And now I have to heal you again, old man. At least, you’re still alive for me to do so.”

“Ha! Just barely, if it weren’t for that Saint. Urgh, the wyverns, my wife, and I probably would have died if Kushlek’zar hadn’t kept us alive. Cast too many spells, though.”

My eyes widened as I heard this, wondering where my master was if that were the case. I shouldn’t have lost a fan, however, maybe I actually missed that notification ‘cause I was asleep?!

“Woah, calm down.” Before I could speak, Grazlahta slapped his tail on the ground, standing up. “Kush is doing well. He’s with Tasianna, I believe. Don’t forget, Kush isn’t just your mentor, he’s also hers.”

I sighed in relief, happy to hear he was all okay. However, my attention was then turned over to Grazlahta, noticing how he was missing his tail. I remembered the saurians wanted to hunt down the last two remaining grimgarian rank Bs.

Once I questioned him on this, Krim bellowed out a loud laugh before tapping the short horns on his carnotaurus head. They were one of the few unharmed areas on his head. “Dead. Our experience. Akast really ripped them into pieces once one of them smashed my head in. I would have died if he hadn’t since the level up saved my tail. Oh, just saying, but that last rank B really felt my wrath once the knights arrived! Gahahaha!”

“Krim …” Grazlahta shook his head, looking like he had a headache. “Well, such is war, I guess. We nearly lost Krim, but he also went out of his way to save some of the knights. Fearless, hardy, and foolish.”

“Fuck off, gahahaha!”

“Hehe.” I couldn’t help but laugh, too, seeing the gusto of Krim and the aloofness of a real warrior from Grazlahta. Their dynamics was something I missed, seeing as they weren’ making jokes during the siege. “Well, you guys all worked hard. No worries, the best healer—probably—in this world will heal all of you, now!”

If they had lost a limb or a small body part, I would simply use [Miraculous Grace], while anything else could be covered using [Major Heal] and my white flames. Grazlahta and Farron were the only ones who needed the former spell since both either lost a limb or an organ respectively. Just after I healed up his lungs the first time, Farron just went all-in using them by letting Ghorush smash them up. Does this guy have something against breathing?

Krim’s injuries were mostly blunt force trauma, so he really only needed some rest. Still, I healed him up since it would help accelerate things. Shay was probably the one with the best condition, but that wasn’t saying much, since he had lost a few fingers and toes. Still, he didn’t have any internal injuries compared to his sister, so he did come off the battle better than the others.

[“My princesses.”] Just as I was about to leave, Shay stood up and kneeled before me. [“I apologize for not being able to completely fulfill your wish. We couldn’t slay the leonid. If it displeases you, you may punish me for my lack of ability. My sister is still lacking when it comes to fighting properly, so please, I ask you only punish me.”]

Huh? I was flabbergasted at Shay’s sudden behavior. This guy was a pretty aloof wyvern who rarely spoke more than he needed. However, here? He was speaking up a storm when he could have just said “I failed in killing Ghorush. I deserve a punishment.”

Seeing me like this, Farron suddenly began to speak. “Well, can’t say he’s wrong. We did let that Streiga go. In an embarrassing manner, too.”

Ghorush is still alive?

Wanting to know more, I asked Farron to explain it to me, prompting him to ask me to sit down, before Priscilla realized she should be going to the kitchen to prepare my breakfast. Once she was gone, Farron began telling me what happened on his side of the battle once I was taken away by Vifi’Yok.

Essentially, after I was separated from the group, Ghorush further split the party by sending out his ship golem to separate Tehmrayn from the rest, dragging him away from the island. Tasianna didn’t help with this, since she immediately flew away before anybody could say anything.

“Ghorush tried to stop her, but the others handled him. I was sent after her since we kinda realized you guys wouldn’t have a proper frontline since Renee was underleveled,” Neill explained, imitating how Tasianna panicked and just acted by shrieking and shouting “Lady Hestia!”

“…” I stared at her weirdly, seeing as she was laughing her ass off at Tasianna’s expense.

“Well, regardless, we had to deal with that guy. Streiga was a rapier master and also could create enough golems to the point he forced Yorshka and me to focus on only them. Would've given all of us holes if Kushlek’zar hadn’t reacted fast enough. Beth and I were both nearly killed by him. By the time Tehmrayn returned with that Qaltil’s head, your Master looked like a purple lizard.”

He smashed right through the armor Farron used, breaking his bones and chest. Ghorush was fully ready to take everybody down to finish his job and did a pretty good job of it,since everybody but Larent was heavily injured before Tehmrayn came back. Even the swordmaster himself had injured both of his eyes in the process.

Once the Champion was back, however, Yorshka, Shay, Larent, and him challenged Streiga for the final phase, while everybody else retreated to treat each other's wounds. It was then they were forced to just jump off the island entirely, as four Territories activated simultaneously.

“Yorshka got her Territory after she spent some SP to evolve her [Terror Aura] into [Tyrant’s Aura]. She has been waiting so long for it, since she had a terrible time leveling it up during her job as a holy knight. She just didn’t get any targets to use it on, outside of the Knight-Commander.” Farron slapped his face, expressing how he acquired one himself but was disappointed in how he couldn’t use it during the fight.

[“We had him,”] Shay interjected as Farron was chastising himself for the rust on his body. [“Sir Tehmrayn and Sir Larent had cornered him after Dame Yorshka and I froze his head. We took his leg, destroyed the army of golems he conjured with his Territory, and were a hit away from depleting his Health. It was then he tricked us by sending in his last golem.”]

A perfect replica of the leonid, down to the personality and fighting style. However, Shay did describe the golem clone of the leonid to be in a berserker state, so the group were fooled by this at first. It was only for a split second, but none of them noticed how this clone had an intact head and two functional legs.

Although they eventually realized what was happening, the golem still stalled everybody long enough for Ghorush to swim away on a shark golem. Tehmrayn wanted to chase after him, but that was when Tasianna and Renee arrived, announcing they had to take down the leviathan.

“The Champion determined the Divine Quest was more important than the leonid. Yorshka, Shay, and Larent were all too tired to chase, so we had to abandon it. A terrible decision, considering what had happened afterwards on your side.” Farron’s retelling causing me to twitch a bit. It made me wonder if he knew. “Well, I guess it was a small price to pay for taking that leviathan down. Tehmrayn had to create that water vortex, right? He was the only one who could do it.”

“Yeah, and that isn’t counting the fact you wanted to leave those demonkins alive,” Neill complained, causing me to frown a bit. “H-hey, I didn’t want to sound angry, alright? It isn’t a choice I would make, but it isn’t like I couldn’t sympathize with it. War is not cool.”

“… I guess you told that part to everybody, huh?” I mentioned after noticing how nobody in this room reacted to her comment.

“Yeah, of course, why shouldn’t I? It’s a big deal. Just a reminder for next time you’re crazy enough to let somebody that strong live, make them swear an oath under your name to not kill you and yours, okay? At least if they break it, you’ll have a reason to argue against Father if you want to bring a dragon or two to help defend your honor. Tsk, I cannot believe Ghorush managed to save them before I could do it.”

I nodded at Sis’s tip, feeling like I really shouldn’t have let my sympathetic side out in such a crucial moment. In a way, it wasn’t rational, but in another way I also had Mother’s memories still in my head when this whole siege began. What would have happened if we had met under different circumstances? Just like my dragon father and his siblings. Was war really the only answer?

Honestly, I really didn’t have the mindset for a war. I was okay with a small skirmish or small tussle against bandits where I didn’t have to think about the morality of keeping them alive. I thought I would feel the same with the demonkin, but hearing that Warbringer mentioned how she wanted to repay a debt to Amelia, how she cared for her subordinate, and how she liked my singing and donuts …

It reminded me how I wanted to learn both side’s story. I wanted to understand what I was actually fighting for, instead of following whatever Aurena said. Sure, the demonkins probably were destroying her region, but I wanted to understand if the demonkin race as a whole were the target, or just the Princes of Sins and their Edjurl gods.

I wanted an unbiased view of the demonkins through Vifi’Yok.

However, before I could continue contemplating this, Neill ruffled my hair with a slightly tired look. “Hey, it’s alright. You have your own way of doing things, and I have mine. You let her live, I would have killed her. If it comes back to bite your tail later on, then so be it. Deal with the consequences of your actions then.”

Reajaen and Vifi’Yok. Rationally speaking, I shouldn’t have left either of them alive. Reajaen was a criminal who had performed numerous irredeemable crimes, even if they were for her son. Vifi’Yok was an enemy who would undoubtedly hit back in some way, even if her honor told her she owed me for saving not only hers but her friend’s life.

“Thanks for cheering me up, Sis. You’re cool.” I gave her a thumbs up.

But I stood by my decisions. They were mine to make.

“Shihaha! Of course, I am the best older sister you could ever wish for! You should be happy Tehmrayn has already departed.”

“He did?”

“Yup, he’s a Champion and Depth Adjudicator, Hestia,” Krim answered. “His Divine Quest was a success, so he had no other reason to stay. The moment he made sure the Caedhulens were alright, he was gone. That Larent, too, is gone.”

“Left to chase after that leonid,” Grazlahta added.

It shouldn’t have been surprising, but I still felt a bit down hearing this. I thought our feast would include everybody, but it seemed the party would miss a few important participants. I had to remember not everybody had the same goals as us. That everybody had their own lives. A whole week went by, so it was to be expected.

“Well, nothing to be done, I guess.” I stood up and picked up Rajah. “More food for us, right?”

“Yeah!” Krim cheered, jumping off his bed before slapping Grazlahta off his.

Obviously, his partner wouldn’t enjoy that. “Krim, you skink!”

“Wooo! Food! Let’s gooooo!” Neill cheered, clapping her hands and skipping out of the room.

Shay and Farron joined up, in a less audible manner, as all of us left the room while Rajah kept “Mreeewing” to express his hunger. Once we were in the dining room of the restaurant, two familiar faces walked up to me and bowed.

“Lady Hestia!”

“We are ready to serve you once again!”

It was Svena and Tasianna. Neither of them made a big deal about me waking up, but I could see in their eyes that they couldn’t help but be happy about my recovery.

“Happy to have you two at my side again. Is the food ready?” I grinned like a greedy girl, anticipating a grand feast seeing as I could smell all the aromas covering the room, enrapturing my taste buds. I couldn’t help but swallow my spit.

“Heeeessstia!” And just when I took a single step into the room, number four on my list of “people trying to squeeze me to death today” ran right up to me, only this time, it felt like a train ran right into me.

“Uuuuurgh!” I yelped as the dragonewt bullet slammed me against the wall, only to fling me up into the air and catch me. “Yorshka! Stop!”

[“Master will vomit!”] Rajah tried to help, but he was helpless against Yorshka’s gorilla embrace.

“Hahaha, I can’t hear you, great aunt! How could I? It’s time to begin the damn feast, woooo!”

Her wings beat hard before she carried Rajah and me over to the tables, gently letting us down as Lorena and Haati both came over and placed some spaghetti bolognese, a meat-toffel stew, and some fragassa milk on the table. “Please, enjoy!” both told me with wide grins.

“Don’t stop eating, alright?” My head moved up, noticing Master sitting directly over to me. He raised a tankard full of ale up before putting some meat, soft bread, and grilled fish from the set of dishes Akast was placing on this party-sized long table.

“Hestia … eat … much!” The giant sarcosilian greeted me before helping my attendants out.

“Ahoy!” I snapped my head around as I noticed a lizardman wave at the corner of my eye, only to notice he was Adhi. “Hey, Lady Hestia, glad to see you up and about! Sleep is good when you’re done with a voyage, but a sailor shouldn’t lie down when it comes to a feast! Waiting for ages, we were, so come on, let’s eat!”

“Ha, as if!” Neill came over and ruffled my hair, pointing at Adhi with a snarky grin. “You’re just staying around since you heard from Farron that you can teleport back to Artorias with Sis’s nexus.”

“Pah, you’re putting words in my mouth, Lady Fargryneill! By the Depth Goddess, I haven’t said a single lie! I can ask Her Grace after the party is done! So, first, we eat! Then, please, send me back! My crew is waiting for me, Lady Hestia!” Adhi went from excited to pleading in a matter of a second.

Everybody gathered up, taking their seats at the table once the last few dishes came out of the kitchen. Josine, Lorena, and Priscilla, once done, expressed their thanks for everybody's patience, before turning to the person this feast was dedicated to.

Tasianna, Neill, Rajah, the saurians, the Nordor family, the twins, Svena, Josine, Lorena, Haati, and Adhi were all here. It was lively and full to the brim, even with Tasianna and the other attendants not eating with us out of principle for their job.

However, sadly, it seemed Renee, Rita, and Mother weren’t here. It was also a shame that Larent and Tehmrayn couldn’t stay, but me waking up was a sudden surprise, after all. Renee and Rita were probably busy. I did wonder where Duke Greenveil was, but that was something for me to figure out later on.

“Alright!” I picked up my fragassa milk, readying myself for a toast. “I don’t really have much to say for something like this, but it is with a fact we all survived the conflict over a week ago! All the strife, all the problems, all the fighting. We survived! As such … TOAST!”

“TOAST!” Everybody on the table cheered with me, including my attendants, as I had forced them to do the same. Even if they were my maids, they were part of this small family, so they better participate!

[Music Resonation (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Okay, everybody!” With the music on and everybody filled with anticipation, all that was left was to let loose! “Bon apeti—”

“Uhm, excuse me?”

I snapped my head around the moment I felt somebody entering the subspace. Behind me, entering through a door, was an elven man in his pajamas. With unkempt lime green hair and tired eyes barely hidden behind some glasses, the man stumbled forward, adjusting his glasses while carrying a book.

“O-oh, I apologize. It seems I came too late for the toast, right?”

Who is that?

“Hmm?” The man adjusted his glasses once again, leaning his body forward as he stared at me. “Are you—? Hoooo! The dragon princess!”

… Okay, this guy is creeping me out.

“Lord Erudite…” Tasianna shook her head, looking embarrassed as the man tried to stop himself from yawning. “Lady Hestia, I would like to introduce to you the leader of Aleistunum. The highest authority of the mage’s guild and the archerudite of the Church of Istari. This is Archerudite Uzerra.”

“Ohayo gozaimasu, as the Japanese would say it.”

A note from AbyssRaven

A pretty celebrative chapter for the New Years! Even if you read right now or the day after, regardless, it should be fitting! Happy new years, everybody. Thank you very much for all your help and support! Welcome to 2023 and another year of arcs! This one, will be interesting to you Grimnir lovers. ;)

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 364: Selling Information on Friends was Wrong.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #3 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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“Mhmm! Mhm, yup, this is delectable.” The pj-wearing elf slurped up the spaghetti in a manner like he was eating ramen, only for Tasianan to quickly correct his action by teaching him how to eat it properly. With the rolled up noodles around his fork, the man placed it back into his mouth and nodded with satisfaction. “What luck. I chose the correct day to visit.”

Uzerra, archerudite of Aleistunum and the de facto leader of the Magical Capital. An elven man over a 1000 years old, he seemed quite lethargic as you would expect from an old man, looking and acting as if he had zero energy in his bones. Maybe this was why everytime he moved, he did it only after carefully considering things.

“I had heard much about you already, but—”

“Woooooo! Yoho, you sea scale! CHEERS!”

“CHEERS!”

Just as Uzerra began to talk with me, Krim drowned out his voice with his raucous behavior. He, Adhi, Yorshka, and Neill banged their tankards against each other, toasting before downing their drinks down in one gulp. They wiped the liquid from their mouths before each of the four began devouring their full dishes without a care for the mess they were making.

“Mom, stop eating like that! You’re making such a mess for us!” Priscilla tried to stop her mother, reminding the dragoon how her daughter was part of my staff, meaning she had to clean this mess up later.

“Ah, who cares, Priscilla! Let them have their fun!” Haati, though, supported the tavern-like atmosphere those four scalekins were creating. As a former tavern waitress, I guess she liked it more like this.

“True, we can clean it all later on. Just have fun with your family. We’ll earn our wages later,” Lorena added, cheerfully bringing more food before the devouring machines.

Well, that is what a feast is for. They’ve been waiting this long for me to wake up, so I guess it’s fair.

Of course, this wasn’t the only little group on the table, and, thankfully, they were having fun without being like those clamorous food munchers. For example, Master, Farron, and Grazlahta were drinking together, laughing boisterously as they talked and bonded like a trio of afternoon salary workers.

There was also Akasht who mostly kept to himself in his small area. He was humongous, compared to everybody else, so he didn’t want to inconvenience anybody with his size. A gentle giant; he was laughing and cheering whenever somebody else did, but he simply enjoyed watching everybody’s excitement.

Shay and Beth were also eating at their own pace, with Beth gorging down anything until her mouth was full, forcing Shay to take care of her like a gregarious child. She was laughing and enjoying herself, looking at things in a lighter tone, while her brother tried to remind her that I was around. The sister’s unkempt and cheerful nature with the brother’s dutiful and aloof self; what a duo.

Which meant, there was only one group left amongst them.

“… Certainly loud.”

“Well, what did you expect, sir?” I smiled at the old elf in a joking manner, finding his reaction a bit funny seeing how he joined this feast willingly. “A library?”

“Well, why not? A nice, comfortable space to read and maybe sleep after you are done. Eating while enjoying the tranquility of solitude, it certainly wouldn’t be too bad. I guess I had hoped the dining space of a princess would be more … reserved,” Uzerra went with the flow of the joke, not taking it too seriously.

[“Master likes to have fun! That’s why she’s playing music, magic man!”] Rajah commented as he was chewing on some ribs, breaking and licking the bones clean.

“The cheerfulness keeps everybody together. This is how Aurora does it, Archerudite,” Tasianna remarked as she refilled my cup with more fragassa milk. My party’s continued fragassa innovations was just the best.

The elven man raised his hand up while cleaning his mouth. “I apologize for the insult. I’m an old man if my appearance had fooled you. I like to do things my way. Funnily enough, I believe I had mentioned something similar to Chihiro once.”

Chihiro, huh?

Also known as the Revolution Queen, she was the dwarven queen responsible for most of today’s manatech improvements, apparently. I hadn’t exactly researched the matter that much, compared to Saori, so I didn’t know too much about her outside of the fact she had introduced a ton of Japanese values to the world.

For example, rice, noodles, and sake weren’t as prevalent outside of the dwarven country, Ankor-Nazta, and only spread to the humans through her. In addition, Yorshka had mentioned how Loatryxian culture had changed quite a bit during her reign, to the point they knew about bushido and stuff.

Although, I did know she brought the train and gun to this world. I couldn’t exactly forget how I saw the train station in Estrali and how the latter caused Grimnir’s exile. Maybe there were other mundane manatech around, invented and created by Chihiro, but I didn’t know about them.

“Mhmm, yum. Hmm, well, it certainly would be interesting to hear more about my fellow transmigrator … but, I guess there is something more pressing to ask you,” I said after finishing my stew, now switching over to my spaghetti after cleansing my palate with some fragassa milk. “How and why are you here, sir?”

I was blunt about it. Even if this man was the foremost authority when it came to magic and Istari, it didn’t mean much to me since he, well, didn’t look like it. He didn’t exude the aura of a king. He seemed more like a tired college student or professor, seeing as how he looked like a man in his early thirties.

Even after I heard he was the archerudite and greeted him with the respect you should give to a man of his position, it felt weird after he told me to stop. He was lax and introverted. He wasn’t like Tehmrayn, who was aloof in an intimidating manner, or Saori, who was mostly quiet until she had to talk. He was the analytical type who enjoyed watching others.

“Lady Hestia, please,” Tasianna chastised me a bit, prompting me to apologize for my behavior. Regardless of why he was here, he was invited to this place by Tasianna, so I really should show him some courtesy.

“Don’t. In a sense, I’m not here for anything else but my selfish desires as a scholar. I’m perfectly alright with however you wish to treat me, as long as it remains truthful and yourself. Deceit troubles me more. So tiring when I have to separate truth from lies.” The man yawned, massaging his eyes in the process. “Anyways, after dealing with that leviathan, I’ve been coming over to your subspace every day, waiting for you to wake up. I was just in the toilet before you gave your toast.”

“He was the one who performed the lightning spell in your place, Lady Hestia,” Tasianna informed me. “I believe Princess Fargryneill mentioned seeing his [Ramuh] from where you were.”

“Ooooh, right.” I remembered how I saw the purple magic circle while healing the demonkins. “W-wait, does that mean that floating island with the house was also yours, sir? I believe I saw somebody on it.”

“Yes, correct,” he answered after swallowing some noodles. He continued after drinking something to clean his mouth. “Knowledge seekers; those are the people we call scholars and mages whose only goal in life is to seek more information. Knowledge is power. As archerudite, I personally believe this to be true even for those on top of the world. I don’t care if you are an archmage capable of toppling the world, once you swear this oath to God Istari, you do so knowing you cannot stop wandering the world and learning. For even I am just a child before the vastness of the Origin Gods.”

As such, this floating island was his preferred method to wander the world. Uzerra was a mage who could use all six elements at their highest level, but he still wasn’t a [Space-Time Mage]. He couldn’t teleport around. Although, I still had one question though.

“Why an island? Why not a griffon or gargoyle, sir? Honestly, I’m still confused how you managed to make an island float with you. Even my sister would have trouble doing so outside her Territory.”

[“Because he likes to sleep, Master!”] Surprisingly, it was Rajah who answered. [“I asked Mister Uzerra about the island! He brought me up there himself. He has a place to sleep, a room with lots and lots of books, and also so much paper! Also a small garden like Tasianna’s! Oh, and the view! Master, I touched a cloud!”]

“Hmhm, hmhm,” Uzerra giggled before he started stroking my virigress. “The innocent curiosity of a child. Nothing is more pure than that … To answer your question, let me ask you in return. Why make a subspace using [Room], o’ ingenious one?”

“… Touché.”

I had to admit it was a stupid question. If I thought about it, wasn’t his floating island just like Grimnir’s wagon or our [Room]? In fact, why did I question such a smart idea? Wasn’t it an old school RPG classic to have a flying or floating base for the late game? Meaning, why haven’t I exactly thought of upgrading our wagon into a flying wagon?!

“… I see I piqued your interest, but the mechanism of a floating island isn’t exactly something I can explain in one lecture. You probably saw its larger, upgraded version in the blood fortress of the vampires, Drascul.”

Prompted by this, I asked Tasianna if the fortress was still around, to which she nodded. I also heard Tatsuya and Kyouya were on it, so I wanted to ask them about Saori.

When I mentioned the two, Uzerra suddenly leaned forward, showing an enervated smile. “This is why I came. Knowledge like this. I had heard there were otherworlders—Japanese—summoned by Aureolis, but I never got to meet them properly. Which brings me to the current situation, Princess Hestia. You.”

“Me?”

“The reason why I came to help Elyonda was due to a deal I made with the rightful Princess of the Yeosian throne—Rhea Sealight.” He then raised his hand up, pointing a finger at me as his sharp ears began to twitch uncontrollably like wings. “The deal was the information on a new dragon princess. The eight. Where she was, from which mother, and also how she was an ‘idol’ of the Goddess of Light.”

Tasianna and I both snapped our heads at the man, eyes wide open as we couldn’t believe what we had heard here. This was why Renee apologized to me after we dealt with the enemy in the arena. It all made sense now. No wonder she looked so guilty, since she just sold my personal information!

“… I really don’t want to curse her since she’s a friend, but …” Tasianna had that human-hating look on her again. Obviously, since it probably felt like a betrayal.

Seems like Tasianna doesn’t know about it at all. Did Renee keep this secret from everybody?

“In Aleistunum, knowledge is more valuable than davi,” Uzerra clarified. “Since the founding of the country through God Istari, coin nor bloodlines have ever been more important than information. None of the archerudites have ever changed this fact. Not the second, the third, fourth, or when I was elected 600 years ago.”

It doesn’t dull the sting, though …

“Pardon for being late!”

Speaking of the devil …

Renee, still wearing her wind knight armor, rushed into the room with Rita in tow, looking as if she hadn’t had a day of sleep since we last met. Sure, her hair was well-kept and it seemed she was eating well, but even through her thick make-up, I could see her dreary eyes.

“Hello, we’re here! Sorry for being late!” Rita cheered, still disguised as a human. She gave me a quick greeting and how she was happy to see me awake again, before she noticed the dishes on the table and pulled out her notebook to document the taste like a food blogger.

Naturally, Uzerra smiled at her behavior. However, Rita wasn’t the person I was super focused on.

Noticing Tasianna’s and my glare, Renee flinched. She then looked over at Uzerra and quickly put two and two together. “I-I apolog—!”

“Come on, let’s enjoy the feast, first.”

“Huh?” Tasianna and Renee reacted.

“You had your reasons. However, I don’t want to sour the mood, since this is the time to be happy that we all survived and managed to win! So, come on, eat, Renee! I’ll beat your ass with Neill, afterwards!”

“Y-yes, of course. Thank you.”

There was a place and time for everything. Right now, Renee was still a friend, and I was a good person towards my friends. I didn’t want to ruin this feast which my friends had wanted to celebrate with me up until now.

Tehmrayn and Larent didn’t come, not to mention Mother who was resting. As such, seeing Rita and Renee join was a good thing. Somebody probably informed them but came late since they probably were busy. As if I would turn them away.

For now, I was hungry and wanted to eat and drink. I wanted to laugh and sing with everybody else, so I would satisfy this itch I had. Doing all of this with a group was far more fulfilling than eating all alone. This was how I enjoyed my life.

“CHEERS!”

And I would bloody “Cheers!” along with everybody else.

“I’m SORRY! SORRRRRRY!”

“You better damn be, you fucking bitch! Hrk!”

… Until everything was over and it was time to inflict punishment upon the sinful!

“ArrrrrrrrrrrGHHHHK! My arm!” Renee cried out in pure agony as Neill landed the eight wrestling move on her, twisting her body and limbs around like clay.

“F-Fargryneill, is this really—” Before Rita could interject, Tasianna grabbed her shoulder, causing the former to tense up. A chill probably went down her spine from my icy fairy.

Appropriately, her new frost powder was enveloping her figure and grimace. “Naughty children must be punished.”

“Fascinating. A newly chosen blessed of Yeostar is currently struggling to free herself against the might of a frenzied Kargryxmor spawn.” On the other hand, Uzerra was noting things down, even sketching how everything was happening. Was this guy actually a historian documenting everything?!

“Ark! I apologize, I really am sorry for what I did. Arrrghk!” Renee tried to plead for her life, but Sis didn’t let her go for one second. “I understand what I did was wrong! I really do! I knew this would happen, but my original plan to sell my information didn’t work! He knew about me from my substitute mother and real father!”

Her substitute mother probably referred to the woman Renee’s real mother married to keep up her image as “Royce, the male knight.” I didn’t know who this substitute was or who her real father was, but if I remember correctly, didn’t the people after I saved them in the arena mention something about Royce being married off to an Aleistien? So, was Renee’s family from Aleistunum?

“Ooof! I thought we needed help! Hrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiik! Arck!” Renee cried out as Neill let go of her, before resuming her punishment with a different pose. “Ahahak! I’m sorry, it was the only thing I had left! I-I had nothing else!”

“Bullshit, you had my information! Even with accidents here and there, you are the human who knows about me the best! You could’ve given the elf my information instead of my whelpling sister’s! Did you even try?!” Neill asked her with a scornful look, having activated [Battle Frenzy] as proof for her anger. “Dammit, I introduced you to her since I trusted you! I damn trusted you with my family!”

“Aaaaahi, and I know that means breaking unwritten rules in your Adulthood Pilgrimage! I’m sorry!” Renee cried out, but to no avail. “I’m sorry! I’m really sorry, Fargryneill! I couldn’t give your—Ark—information out! I couldn’t!”

“And you gave my sister’s! That’s not better! Do you really think this is touching when you know how much my family matters to me? I finally, finally got a younger sister, and I really, really wanted to be a good older sibling, okay? Just like my older sister and brothers! However, now lookie here, my friend does this to me?!”

“ARRRRRGH!”

Renee had explained why she sold off my information like a social media platform, mentioning how this was the only way to bring Aleistunum to help out against the invasion. Considering how her country was her top priority, including the emancipation of women in Yeos’s noble society, being willing to risk things like herself was commendable!

However, it all turned into moral greyness once she admitted she had sold my information off. What the hell was that? Sure, her original intention was just to sell off her own life’s story, but why was I her next target once her gambit failed? Couldn’t she have figured something else out? I didn’t know how difficult it was to bargain with Aleistunum, but come on.

Just like Tasianna and Neill, I felt betrayed by Renee. She was supposed to be a shining knight!

“To be fair, the information she gave me wasn’t exactly too intrusive. All the information had already come to me through my contacts in Saelariel and Artorias. I just wanted confirmation on the rumors. More POVs. You look at information through different eyes,” Uzerra was trying to defend her, but I was not having any of that.

“Neill, you can stop …” Still, I had sis stopped for a moment. “Maybe, but this is still a breach of trust. Renee, I considered you a friend, even if our interactions hadn’t been too long. I promised you to defend your city and I did. While Mister Uzerra’s participation in the raid was at the end of the day necessary, it doesn’t absolve the fact you told him my information without my permission.”

“Urgk … I know. I had intended to tell you everything once you woke up.” Renee groaned and tried to stand up, but decided against it and prostrated before me. “Still, it isn’t an excuse. I know I can’t just earn trust after I threw it away, so, please, do whatever you wish with me. I’m content with all you’ve already done for me, Hestia. I, and the entirety of Yeos, owe everybody in this subspace a major debt.”

“… Haaaaa.” I sighed.

The feast had ended and as such, I decided to deal with this now. Everybody outside of Tasianna, Rajah, Neill, and Rita were here to listen to what Renee and Uzerra had to say. The majority were either drunk, not willing to intrude, or waiting outside this room.

In the process of listening to Renee’s reasoning, I also learned she had become the next Champion of Yeos. Not ‘cause of the siege, mind you. Whether she was considered a war hero or royalty by the populace or not, every Champion had to go through the same process—the Tournament of Yeostar.

The next match scheduled was mine with Neill. However, I was unconscious and Neill was too exhausted after everything, willingly giving up her match to recover her broken horn. Naturally, with both of us out, the only ones left were Renee and Alistar. Since the populace needed something to clear up their minds after such a disastrous siege, a match sounded like the perfect time for some celebration.

In any case, Renee won after what they described was a pretty narrow win on her side. Alistar, having trained with Renee’s mother, was already used to the knight armor and her swordsmanship. In addition, Renee wasn’t used to her unique Job yet, having only had some time to get used to it. It was a match won by the narrowest margin.

Would have been an entertaining match to watch, seeing as Neill described it as such.

Regardless, even with Renee becoming the newest Champion, it didn’t mean I could forgive her so easily even if she was a “colleague” now. Neither could Neill, which prompted her to activate [Battle Frenzy] and suckerpunch Renee into a wrestling match. That was how we ended up like this.

“… What did you reveal?” I asked after deliberating over it.

“Your name, Melloxtressa’s name, location, the fact you’re a blessed, and that you are currently fighting in a siege due to a Divine quest. I swear, that was all.”

… Honestly, that doesn’t sound too bad.

Renee didn’t know I was a reincarnator. In fact, everybody but Adhi and she knew about this secret of mine. I had told Priscilla, Haati, and Lorena about it after they joined up, since the fact would have probably slipped out of somebody’s mouth if I hadn’t. Renee only knew I was a blessed and that was it, since I never found it important to tell her.

Uzerra then turned to me, looking tired as always. “I only needed your name to make sense of everything, Hestia-san. Knowing Chihiro made it easy to notice certain names.”

“Hestia Atsuko” was not a common name in this world, in fact, I was 100% sure it was unique. Hestia was the name of a Greek goddess while Atsuko was a Japanese name, even if you wrote it in romaji instead of in kanji. You wouldn’t find either of the two in Peolynca which could only mean one thing.

Considering Uzerra had met Chihiro before and considering his inquisitive nature, he probably had learned some Japanese. With how he introduced himself and how he just addressed me, it was crystal clear that he knew I was a reincarnator.

While the information Renee had given him was rather miniscule, to the point anybody with a good information network could find out, it had given probably the most knowledgeable man in the world all he needed to deduce things. I did feel less bad about Renee’s loose tongue, but it still felt awkward.

“If it’s of any solace, knowledge is there to be savored. Aleistunum is neutral in everything concerning the world’s politics, which includes the war. In a way, you could consider us like Kargryx and Loatryx,” he continued to defend Renee. “I want to know and continue learning. Knowledge by itself has no good or evil, but I understand its worth in my hands. I know how threatening I am, even if I just want to be a scholar. Waaaah.”

He yawned and rubbed his eyes. “In any case, I have done what I wanted today. Enlightening day. Lady Hestia, if you can, come visit the ruler of the blood fortress. She, too, would like to give her greetings. Once you do, invite me with you. You will want a chaperone.”

He then opened his book and took out a bookmark and gave it to me. “It’s enchanted for a single use. Call me with it. Also, after you’re done with this, if you ever need something, visit Aleistunum. As I said, knowledge is more valuable than gold there. Information is not cheap, so if you wish to share your story, come. I will welcome you with an open door. Waaaaaaaah … Huaah. Well, as long as I am not hibernating.”

He’s really yawning a lot. Low energy, too. Nothing like Mother’s sleeping cycle. Is he okay?

The lime-haired elf adjusted his glasses one last time before he left the room … only for me to click my tongue and dash over to the door, confusing the elven scholar with my sudden behavior. I reached out my hand, pointing at the sketch and documentation he just made just now on Neill’s wrestling moves.

“… Already?” He figured it out immediately. He tilted his head, looking a bit forlorn.

“I wasn’t born yesterday. Since you cherish the proper transaction of information so much, why don’t we start our business relationship now? Please, hand it over since this is my home, and you are my guest.” I kept a serious face on, trying to imitate how Saori or Ellaine usually did it.

“… I’ve already met your siblings, Lady Hestia. I know what [Battle Frenzy] does. Your sister activating it and performing some grappling moves isn’t special,” he tried to argue his way out of it, but the fact he was so defensive about it made it all the more suspicious.

“Oh no, not when you were so focused on the sketch. If it’s valuable enough for the most knowledgeable man to try to obtain and defend, then it has some worth. I’m not wrong to think of that, right?”

“… I submit.” Uzerra flung his hand up in the air. “I shall await your price at a later date, after you’re done with your business.”

With a smile, I let him go. By opening the door, it signaled Shay and Beth to come in and ask if everything was alright. I asked them to guide Uzerra out of the subspace, and made it clear they shouldn’t let him explore too much of my home.

Once he was gone, Tasianna approached me, telling me I did a fine job. She told me Uzerra hadn’t made an effort to ask any questions about us until now, explaining he only asked“Is Lady Hestia alright?” before he left. It seemed he couldn’t help himself today.

“Although, if Miss Saori were here, I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t have let him go with the notebook. She probably would have taken it away to make sure she would have more leverage during the deal. Understand what exactly he wrote and documented?”

I flinched at what Tasianna just said. I hadn’t thought of that scenario at all! I thought I did a fine job, but it seemed I still had a long way to go to reach Saori’s or Ellaine’s merchant senses. After I let out a sight, I turned to the others inside.

“Your opinions?” We had to return to the subject at hand.

Rita was the first to answer, “Please, forgive her. I understand the implications of selling off information without your permission. As a knowledge seeker, I knew that well. I am sure Renee thought about it thoroughly, considering she had brought two mages with her to the archerudite.”

The two Evidian mages, Naemon and Joek, had reportedly escorted her to Aleistunum. When I asked Renee about it, she told me she had told them about her secret to get them to help her. As such, she thought her plan would work, considering it was such a tight-lipped secret. She just hadn’t expected Uzerra to have questioned her family about it.

“Yeah? And here I thought I was the reckless and impulsive one of us three! You really are just a—Nevermind.” Neill felt conflicted on the subject, moving left and right as she tried to think of an answer. In the meantime, Tasianna answered.

“In my opinion, forgiveness, my lady.”

“Why?”

“Because from a strategic standpoint, her decision to gain the support of Aleistunum, specifically the archerudite, was the main reason why we could execute the plan properly. Yes, I am confident Empress Melloxtressa wouldn’t have needed the help, but it made it so she didn’t need to stall out the battle. In this situation, it was a war, my lady, and wars usually require sacrifices.”

Tasianna’s body had already recovered from the scars she gained in Artorias, since she was a fairy, but she had seen two battlefields in the span of two days. I could understand this logic of hers.

“If she had returned, prior, to ask you for permission, the deal wouldn’t have progressed, since you were stuck in that dimension hole. As backhanded as it was, it was the correct decision, in case you and Empress Melloxtressa hadn’t returned. Yes, she could have sent a manatech bird to ask, but there was a risk of it being destroyed. Not to mention, Yeos didn’t have access to those long-range communication crystals we saw Lady Maverina show us.”

The crystal was a magical E-Mail, but it wasn’t just a prototype, it was also flawed. It hadn’t spread around the world yet, only reserved for mage’s guild leaders and the inventors of it.

The fact that asking me about this subject wouldn’t have been possible made me rethink Renee’s situation. Yes, she had asked without knowing about anything, but in such a situation, where her country was in danger, wasn’t it the best decision she could have made? Should I fault her for it? Even then, as Uzerra mentioned, the information she gave was rather lackluster.

“… Now that you mention it, Renee was also the one to promote all of us as heroes.” As I was thinking this through, Neill spoke up after she was done thinking. “Quite a lot of people were asking if you were awake yet, Sis. I think quite a few people know your name. Shouldn’t it have helped your fan counter or something?”

… Now that you mention it, this didn’t come up, huh? [The Light], show me my fan count.

Total followers of [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 17980

… An increase of 799, if my parallel minds remembered correctly. Huh. That’s quite a lot.

“Honor should go to those who deserve it the most. The fact you were a major player in this siege was unquestionable. I know I have ulterior motives, but I didn’t sing your praises just to push my agenda about female warriors. I did it because I am indebted to everything you have done for me, Hestia. Without you, I don’t know how many people would have died.”

“…” I frowned, even more conflicted than before.

“Hey.” Neill tapped my shoulder. “At the end of the day, I can be angry for you, but only you can forgive her. If you ask me, it can’t be ignored, but it isn’t that big of a deal.”

“… Hmm. Guess that is true.” I scratched my head, frustrated about what happened. “Whatever. Renee.”

“Yes?” She finally stood up.

“You owe me.”

“Yes, absolutely.”

“Then, let me think of a way to make you repay it. Just make sure to do your best to also persuade your people if needed, Renee.” I smirked, causing her to flinch back when she heard it. She probably realized the meaning behind my veiled words.

If you thought about it, getting my hand on a Champion of Yeostar, no matter how young, would help out my position as Champion. To help out Artorias, I had to also defend them from the church, so having Renee on my side would undoubtedly help me out. They could question me, but what would happen if they got on the bad side of the “strongest potential Champion?”

Oho, I was onto something here. Sure, there was still the problem that I couldn’t fully trust Renee after what she did, but who could I trust? My Sis. From the look of it, Renee really valued her friendship, considering she was more willing to share information from her best friend’s younger sis. Okay, that didn’t sound as cool as I thought it would.

In any case, what was important here was the debt. She just said it twice; Rhea Renee Sealight was indebted to me. Royalty. Tasianna was right, I had to look at it rationally, instead of my usually emotional side.

“Alright, Renee, then let us go?” I pointed at the door, confusing her with my sudden remark. “What’s with that look? Have you forgotten? I promised the people I would help them with their wounds. Even if they lost an arm or body part, I will regrow them!”

That was right. Now that I was full, it was time for me to get back to work as a priest. After every battle, there would always be relief work. While in Cedaraille and Artorias, I didn’t have [Miraculous Grace] so I could leave the work to the priests and alchemists to solve things. However, right now, I had this incredible spell to use, and I was fully willing to use it.

Once Renee understood this, she immediately agreed to it and began guiding me and the other three. We walked out of the subspace, where I noticed we were inside a room from the palace. I walked over to the window and looked outside, only to widen my eyes at what remained of Elyonda.

The city itself was already severely damaged before returned after my dimensional trip, but Karhalantheel’s Territory and the grimgarian’s assault had further destroyed anything else. It honestly looked like an earthquake had greeted the placed, following the arrival of a tsunami flooding the streets and rubble, before a landslide had covered everything up with earth hills.

Not a single house was intact, not even the ones over at the noble’s and merchant’s district. The palace was still standing, but I wouldn’t exactly call it livable anymore, seeing as a whole section in its left wing was missing and the whole garden and ground floor was flooded. Even without mentioning all the destruction, there were also the mounts of undead bodies.

I saw citizens and soldiers both working together, throwing bones, body parts, and other leftovers into carts to be transported out of the city. Neill told me she had been helping out, pointing at the smoke signal rising to the sky. She also told me looters were also around, “helping” out by dismantling the grimgarian corpses.

Even after a week, there was still so much to do before they could even rebuild their homes.

“Anasthasia and the Duke are planning on asking the archerudite to help us out. He told us he wasn’t as omnipotent as Empress Melloxtressa to excuse us, but I know he’s definitely an S rank adventurer. His magic alone could terraform this entire place,” Renee then let out a sigh, before I suddenly heard some commotion from the sky.

I looked up, seeing gargoyle-riding knights fly past me. They were moving outside the city, where I noticed people were fighting against some monsters. I instantly realized what was up.

“Monster spawnings?”

“Yes, Lady Hestia. It hadn’t been easy, even after we filled up our storage with plenty of full macula plants,” Tasianna informed me. “Rank Cs and Bs have been spawning, which is a relief, since the mana in the ground could spawn a rank A, without a doubt.”

“Even the plants have been overgrowing. Mana nurtures them, but most just die out from the overflow,” Rita commented from a plant’s POV. “If you ask me, this land should be inhabitable now. There is just too much mana around.”

Either we manually removed all of it, or we had to wait for it all to dissipate by itself. However, we also risked having this all place turn into a monster-infested area like the Belzac forest. Regardless, it didn’t look too good for Elyonda.

Nevertheless, I had a goal. I told Renee to begin announcing I was awake and that people should come to me for healing. Neill suggested going to what remained of the church, saying the emergency clinic was over there. I nodded and walked over there as Renee prepared things.

Once there, I was instantly greeted by the priests and alchemists, as I had met all of them once or twice already at the arena. As such, we got through the pleasantries quickly and I could suggest to them my plan.

“Of course!” without warning, the bishop shouted. “Yes! Please! A miracle from a Champion, no, idol of the Goddess! Please, elucidate our poor eyes with a true white grace, my lady! Humble us with your brilliance!”

… Okay?

I somehow got their support. However, I had also not realized this reaction wasn’t the last one I would receive today. How could I, when people hadn’t treated me this reverently before? And I meant it, as these people were actively praying and pleading with me for my aid.

When Renee arrived, I was told manatech birds were sent to soldiers to announce my wish to help, mentioning people should be coming at any moment now. It was just, she had a rather conflicted face when she said it. Once again, this was a warning I had ignored.

And when it came, it came hard.

“Champion Hestia! Please, treat me first!”

“No, me! Grant me the honor to be the first to embrace your warm flames and divine healing!”

“Please, grant me my arm back through your miracle! I swear, I will work harder than anybody else! I will build a statue for you, m’lady!”

My performance in the arena, the gossip of the soldiers who saw me fight, and the fact I had announced my wish to heal them in the arena. All of this coupled together into a neat package, before Renee came out to announce my contributions.

If Artorias considered me a hero, Elyonda considered me even more than that. To the people rushing into the clinic, to the point Neill had to use her dragon paths to crowd control them before they formed a crowd crush, I was something more than a typical blessed, right now. To most of them I was an—

“Please, save us, the Goddess’s Angel Dragon!”

DIY: How to turn your fans into stans and then into cult members.

A note from AbyssRaven

The information given was pretty worthless to the person, but the moral aspect had to be considered. Everything is fair in war, though. Not everybody might agree with her decision, but Renee had her reasons for it.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 365: Relief Effort in the City of Troubles.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #4 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! It works on a subscription base now, so pay on the same date next month!

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Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Continuous Cast Lv. 6] [Mana Eyes Lv. 7] [Benevolent Aura Lv. 6] gained

423 human and beastman have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total followers of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 18403

“Rank B. Hunter’s and Mercenary’s guild. Thank you so very much for all your help, Princess Hestia.”

“Eh?”

Four days of healing. It took me four days to finish healing everybody in Elyonda, which included the civilians, the tourists, the adventurers, the knights, and any nobles. Which was why my follower count rose up so high, since I actually got to personally meet some of the people who were still a bit apprehensive of me.

As much as Elyonda was a religious state, there were quite a few people who admitted to me they didn’t believe I could have actually regrown some people’s limbs. In fact, they didn’t even bother to come with the initial wave of people, which was mostly made of fanatics who came purely ‘cause they knew of my singing and healing abilities. It took these hold outs until the third day to actually appear, after they saw two days of my hard work.

Well, outside of that reason, all this healing took me four days also ‘cause of the time involved. While using [Miraculous Grace] wasn’t a problem if I did it slowly and for a single person, having to do it more than once and for hard procedures like regrowing limbs or bones was a herculean task. The spell by itself consumed a ton of mana, which meant arcane corruption. That alone meant I had to be careful considering how many people were injured in this city.

Now, I could have had Neill perform the same thing she did when I healed the demonkins—eject the corruption right out of my body with her dragon paths. However, the city had a severe mana spawning problem right now, to the point you couldn’t go a day without at least ten rank Cs or Bs appearing. This meant those capable of fighting, like my group, had to be sent out hunting monsters repeatedly over the past few days.

Sure, the saurians, the wyverns, Neill, and others were leveling up pretty well and the slain monsters provided food, but the city was beyond understaffed. The place had so many problems, including building temporary shelters for everyone that lost their homes with earth magic. I also was included here.

Honestly, I could go on and on about how much this ruined city needed—water mages to push the flooding away, fire mages to burn corpses, earth to build homes, and wind magic to clean up rubble—but it wouldn’t end. There just was so much. Even poor Rita was being overworked like a horse, since she had flora magic. The land had to be cultivated again. And we couldn’t forget Mother’s ice had also frozen a good chunk of the place, too.

You know, I saw a ton of these natural disasters hitting cities and towns on the news, but the moment it affected you, you really realize how much of a nightmare this all was. Healing could only do so much until hunger came into play. Food and safety really were the biggest problems here.

It was when I was resting after the mass healing that a representative of the hunter’s and mercenary’s guild asked me to come to their temporary guild hall. Although, it was just a tent with the receptionists and guild master, really. This was prime time for adventurer work, after all.

This was how I just got my ranks upgraded.

“But why?” I asked the temporary de facto guild master as I took back my ID.

“The adventurer guilds are usually neutral when it comes to wars, but this was technically a monster invasion. While you didn’t formally receive the Quest, my lady, you still partook in the Quest that Duke Alberstien and Lord Jethro issued. As Lady Renee said, ‘You deserve what you are due,’” the guild master, a rather drained-looking man in his forties, explained. “My own contribution to the invasion was quite meager, I admit. I shot down a few high orcs and echikobolds, but for a rank B? Pitiful. However, the reports I read from the people I asked told me you had done more than just kill a couple of monsters.”

I guess I did.

“Wooooo!” While I wasn’t feeling that too enthusiastic about the rank up, the person next to me was feeling it for me. “Rank A! Finally! Ahahaha, come on, why aren’t you more excited about it? Rank B? That means more possible Quests you can take, so why not just say ‘WAAHOOOOOO!’ Eh?”

Neill was pretty much a pure adventurer with a tendency to plan her trip towards cities with tournaments. I had forgotten that fact.

“Wahooooo!” Seeing her so excited, I just did my best to sound hyped up, although it did kinda remind me that I have barely taken on any normalQuests since that geisenlarg extermination. I made such a big deal of raising my rank when I first became a hunter, but now, it just was something I put behind my idol and blessed work.

“Well, it does make things more exciting though.”

Also next to me was Tasianna, who was here since she also got her rank upgraded. In her case, her actions and contributions were just delivered to us this morning from the guild master in Port Annencia, probably ordered by Duke Greenveil, who I sent back home with his knights on the day I woke up.

In addition, Shay and Beth also got their contributions reported, but since they weren’t adventurers, we couldn’t do much about it. Beth, who had come with us alone since one of the twins had to watch over Mother, didn’t think it was necessary. To her, she would do whatever I wanted, even if she was officially part of Aurora or not. Her brother had a similar opinion.

Wanting to know why Tasianna was more excited about it than I was, I asked her to elaborate. “Well, obviously, dungeons, my lady! Don’t forget that we need higher ranks to enter the higher level ones!”

“… You goddamn genius, I had forgotten all about that! THE LOOT!” I jumped right up, before I snapped my head over to Neill and back to the guild master. “… There were 20 reported rank Bs, and I managed to kill five of them—the navy ones—with a spell and a spell song all by myself. Not including their battalions and fleet. Why am I not rank A, then? Why only B? I thought you needed a couple of rank As to defeat a rank B monster?”

“Oh, that’s because you still need to fulfill the rest of the requirements, Sis,” Neill answered for the man, before deepening her voice to sound like an officious old man. “Ahem. ‘Requirements to become a rank A hunter or mercenary: first, 40 rank B and ten naturally gained rank A points, reaching level 100, and, lastly, a qualification test against a rank A adventurer or acknowledged combatant.’ I took my test a while ago. Ha, should have brought somebody at Yorshka’s or Vifi’Yok’s level.”

Neill was smirking, knowing full well how impressive of a feat becoming a rank A adventurer was. Sure, I had been meeting more than my fair share of rank A adventurers, despite how rare they were, but most were either associated with the guild or some high-ranking position like a knighthood. Like Yorshka and Farron were knights, and the saurians weren’t rank A yet, but they would have a meeting with the guild after us. Even then, they belonged to a recognized warrior faction.

Outside of them, Tehmrayn was a Champion and knight, Larent was a former knight, Muraina, the elven ranger in Griffonpeak, was the representative of Artorias’s hunter’s guild, and Neill was my sister. … Aside from my enemies, I was pretty sure those were the only official rank As I had met up until now. Those I could confirm, anyways.

… Then again, wasn’t Tehmrayn level 161? Wouldn’t that make him rank S? Honestly, I should finally ask about it.

“Question then: how do you become a rank S?” It was a question I hadn’t asked up until now just ‘cause it wasn’t relevant to me. I was a rank C for most of my adventurer career, after all.

The guild master placed his hand forward, only showing two fingers in a peace sign. “Level 200.”

“… That’s it?”

“How many people in this world are at such a high level?” the guild master asked me, but I couldn’t really answer it. “We cannot test you outside of sending you off to slay a rank A all alone or have you join a party to slay a rank S. However, those were the only few ways you can level up to such a level. What do poultry sums of points mean in the face of overwhelming power?”

If that is the case, then getting to rank S will take a looooooong time. I can’t evolve, after all.

“You were promoted to rank B because of your ability to decimate rank Bs as if they were nothing. Even fighting a single rank B would have sufficed. The same thing applies to Miss Tasianna. Lady Hesita, through your deeds in this siege, you have gained enough rank B points through slaying rank Bs, slaying hordes of rank Cs, and taking on a raid against an SS rank. You also recieved enough rank A points from this battle as well. You are over level 100 too. All you need to do now is to take the test, and you will be promoted to rank A.”

And thus concluded my meeting with the adventurer guild. How long has it been since I started out as an adventurer? Nearly a year, I believed. I was this close to becoming a rank A. All I needed to do was to ask Farron or Muraina for a test, and I could probably become one.

Tasianna on the other hand was still missing some rank A points, due to her contribution mostly coming from the Port Annencia battle in the Lecartiglio Duchy. Apparently, Yorshka was the star over there, so she and the wyverns had less to show for themselves.

Speaking of the wyverns, I had asked Beth if she still didn’t want to become an adventurer, arguing that they could only join me in a dungeon if the twins became one. Hearing me say this, Beth said that she would discuss it with her brother. Both were feeling like they were severely falling behind us.

“Blessed Hestia!”

As I left the guild tent, a horde of people holding up baskets suddenly ran up to me. Some of these people were wearing tattered clothes while others looked like they were soldiers. Still, all of them held up the baskets they were carrying, offering them up to me. Looking inside each of them, I noticed there were sun-dried fish, fruits, and wild vegetables.

“What is the meaning of this?” I asked with slight irritation, prompting one of them to answer.

“Our gratitude! Please, today, please accept them!”

Another side effect of my healing was the fact some people had become even more fanatical. I couldn’t understand why. Sure, some people were entranced by my singing, which was what I expected, but even more were coming up to meet with me ‘cause I was a blessed. They called me a miracle worker, considering my healing spells were stronger than a normal priestess’s. Well, the spell I used does have “miracle” right in the name, but still!

It felt like I was being adored too much, and in a way I didn’t want. This behavior was even more grating since some of them even offered “donations” and white grace payment, despite how I didn’t want them. I wasn’t here to take things from people in need. Sure, I ate a lot, and with my solar core broken, I couldn’t harness solar energy. But I couldn’t just accept this, right?

“I told you this already, but I don’t want your gifts. Yes, I appreciate them, but I didn’t heal you because of monetary or materialistic gain. I did it because I promised it to you and that it was the correct thing to do. Just accept it already, please!”

This was not the first time.

“How could we?” This time, a woman spoke up. “You saved my child’s legs! Those godless undead were eating my child and I in the arena, but you came up to save us! You burned the enemy away with your purifying flames! Oh, Goddess above, please, accept it, Lady Hestia!”

“Yes! Not even the knights came to our rescue! Not even the nobles! We forgave Prince Markval, but he wasn’t the real reason we survived! It’s like Champion Rhea has said, you and the many other adventurers were the heroes!”

As the man said that, others came up to us, each presenting presents to Tasianna, Neill, and Beth. Looking at their frowns, I could understand their feelings too well. They, too, were victims of Renee’s “owe what is due” speech.

[“Master …”] From my shadow, Rajah was growling a bit, frustrated by how they were inconveniencing me. How, just like Beth, he had to hold his temper.

“No!” Still, this was something I couldn’t just accept like a rug. Hearing me raise my voice caused the people to cower a bit.

As a normal internet dweller, I had learned of the more devoted fans—the stans—spending obscene amounts of money towards somebody they idolized. Whether it were streamers, entertainers, or just political figures. They would throw away money on merchandise or donations, despite needing it themselves!

Some might call them suckers. Others, simps! All these insults may be true, and to an idol, the support of their fans was an important factor for their career. “Free money,” you could say, and I could understand it. Idols work hard; breaking sweat and ruining their bodies to perform for their fans, so why shouldn’t they accept some compensation? It made sense.

However, my goal as an idol was to bring smiles to people’s faces. I was born and raised with a silver spoon, so I never knew the importance of money until Saori forced it into me. If I had become an idol on Earth, I wouldn’t have cared about the money. I just wanted to perform.

However, with my current situation in this world, davi was important. I needed coin for nearly everything. For example, the recent [Crystal of the Divine System] purchase really hit my party’s funds like a freight train. Monetizing my concerts for the nobility and rich and selling people merchandise and food during the performance were a necessity. Still, I had my limits to this.

For example, taking food from people clearly losing weight due to rationing. With water mages, water was abundant, but not the ingredients for a healthy and balanced diet with two or three meals a day.

“If you want to show your gratitude to me, then show it by helping people out who need your help!” If personal feeling arguments wouldn’t work, then the next best way to do it was to take advantage of their religious feelings towards me. “I cannot be everywhere to help everybody, so I do my best wherever I can. This is why we people, those living in society, join up together. A single person, no matter how strong, cannot do everything. But, in a team? We can share the burden, widen our horizon, and reach the ledges a single person cannot.”

I looked over at Tasianna, Neill, and Beth. I smiled and gave them a nod. “Defeating the leviathan and the grimgarians wasn’t a one-woman job. I couldn’t have done it myself. We did it together. However, with the fighting over, you now have a bigger problem. Your ruined home. Helping us when we don’t need it won’t get you anywhere, but if you can lend this hand of yours to others, those too weak to stand here with you, then I am sure the Goddess will smile upon you. Even if it isn’t Goddess Aurena, I would be happy to see us all work together.”

A bit too preachy, honestly, but it felt like the right thing to say here. Fortunately, it seemed to have worked when they started speaking to themselves, before nodding to my face.

“You’re right, Champion Hestia! No, Idol Hestia, you’re right!”

“Truly an idol to how we should act and behave to thank the Goddess for the blessings she had given us! In the darkest moments, we also need to shine bright! We must light up the fire to banish the shadows away!”

“Yes! The Champion maker! You brought us Dame Rhea! To bring a human up, despite being a dragon. Thank you for your wisdom, Lady Hestia!”

Turning their heels around, the group of men and women dashed away from us, shouting that they would do me proud. Did I do the right thing here? This honestly looked like I indoctrinated them into what I believed they should be doing.

“Ahh, don’t worry too much about it, Sis.” Neill showed me a thumbs up. “Dragonewts are worse. They took everything I said as gospel.”

… That doesn’t make it better.

[“Mhmm! These humans understood your brilliance, Princess! Ooooh, it makes me excited to join them! Maybe I can help them out more than just going out to hunt?”] Beth stroked her chin as she glanced around the now slightly rebuilt city, curiosity looking around for a task.

[“Yup, yup, Master. You always know best!”] Rajah stated with the utmost admiration for me.

“… Can you both not act like yes men? I want friends and family, not people parroting everything I say as if it were the truth of the world.”

The two were shocked to hear me say that, but I couldn’t foster such behavior in my group. To accept everything I said or did just ‘cause it stroked my ego was a one-way trip to arrogance and unnecessary pride. I developed into the woman that I was ‘cause Saori kept objecting on my stupid ideas, Tasianna keeping my moral compass steady, Ellaine reminding me of where I started, and Grimnir granting me the wisdom of reality. To continue staying true to myself, I needed capable companions, not bootlickers.

[“I-I apologize, Princess. I got a bit too ahead of myself.”] Beth bowed deeply, letting her wings and tail go limp.

[“Mhmm, but Master …”] Rajah wanted to argue, but stopped when I reminded him how I trained him when we first met in the Belzac forest. I would praise him when he was good, and admonish him when he was being feisty. [“… I understand. I’ll try to be less … childish. Master, wants a powerful Rajah, after all! Not a weak Rajah who only hides in her shadow!”]

As long as you understand. I nodded, content with the fact I put my foot down as a tamer. I still hadn’t chosen his rank C evolution yet, but that would change today. I just had to make sure he went into it with the correct mindset.

Still, rank B, huh?

I took out my ID and poured some mana into it, activating the emblem on the left of it to turn into one with a bow and arrow, symbolizing the hunter’s guild and their quasi-patron Goddess Themestra, Goddess of Hunting and Archery. I then looked down, where I saw a clear blue “B.” I did the same for the mercenary’s guild’s emblem, silently rejoicing at the fact I was a rank B.

I didn’t do many mercenary Quests, since being a bounty hunter and bandit killer wasn’t my style, but it was good to have it. Who knows? Maybe I would one day get a Quest to hunt down some Yanderu Eluseuss? Now that would be something I would gladly do. Having the correct rank would ensure I could get into it.

Hear that? The Yanderu Eluseuss are fine game, but a demonkin girl I could sympathize with isn’t? Feels so hypocritical of me.

Well, that was my daily self-deprecation moment, so it was time to do some work. Neill excused herself, as she and the saurians were part of the hunting crew. Monster could emerge from the ground at any time due to mana in the area, so it was best to have somebody on patrol.

Meanwhile, the rest of us went to the castle. Today was technically my day off after all the people were healed up, but there was still a ton of things that had to be done to get this city back onto its feet. Sure, most of the rubble and flooding was gone, but there were still a ton of people who didn’t have any shelter and there was a huge famine problem right now.

Why wasn’t I sharing my food? Well, there was a reason why I had the skill [Gluttonous]. With no solar core, I couldn’t make any solar energy, which meant I had to eat. A ton. Like a dragon’s share. Just like Neill. As “cold” as it was, I had to take care of myself and my party first. Another reason why I found the people trying to give me food kinda annoying.

After we made it to the castle, I looked around the place, trying to find Renee. The servants and guards were all busy with their own tasks, and I didn’t want to bother them right now. As such, it was time to use my nose for a change.

“Rejected! We can’t possibly afford such a price for all the supplies. That is simply robbery!”

Hmm? I noticed a lot of arguing behind a still undamaged door, recognizing the voice behind it.

“Nonsense. This is business, as callous as it is to say. Feeding an entire city, not to mention a nation at this point, isn’t an easy task. The labor, transportation, and time must be calculated into the pricing.”

“The Greenveil Duchy is loyal to His Majesty, King Drangleic. As the Grand Duke of House Greenveil, I have a responsibility as the kingdom’s Grand Duke of Economic Affairs. I need to calculate every possible event, seeing as we are currently entering winter. As abundant as our harvest was, I must sell it at an appropriate price.”

Seems like negotiations aren’t going too well.

“Hestia?” I turned my head around at the sound of that familiar voice, noticing Renee was approaching us. “Here so soon?”

“It was quick. Neill is probably getting the saurians right now,” I told her, before returning my attention to the noise coming from behind that door. “Seems like Anasthasia and Duke Alberstien aren’t handling it too well.”

“… Sadly. Anasthasia did tell you the principality had financial problems already, right?”

Due to the war sortie a few years ago, the principality was slowly declining due to civil unrest and an economical downfall. From the looks of it, the civil unrest was sorta dealt with after the siege when Renee, Champion Royce’s daughter, became the next Champion of Yeostar. However, thanks to the ruined city and the fact every village and town on the way to Elyonda was razed by the grimgarians, things weren’t exactly shiny.

Anasthasia had wanted to use the Festival of the Stars, with the harvest festival and tournament of Yeostar, as a way to generate money from tourists and foreign merchants, but that had failed spectacularly. Although my flash mob was a general success, all that effort was put to waste by the siege.

Speaking of the flash mob, the bards from “Bardic Inspiration Music” had already departed from the city. Neill told me that, as adventurers, they had to look out for work. While they wanted to help, they needed to find work or they would end up in poverty. This was the case for a lot of adventurers, even the Yeosian ones. I couldn’t blame them. People should seek what would make their lives better, not fall into the pitfalls of morality. My party, on the other hand, could afford it.

“Well, this is what happens when you bring in two experienced merchants to the table, Lady Hestia,” Tasianna let out a small sigh as she reminded me of the people behind the door. “Reajaen and Duke Greenveil are a frightening duo. If we had brought in Duke Equevanna, too, those two probably would be suffocated.”

One good thing about having me as a friend was how I had a ton of contacts. What did Elyonda need right now? Clothing, food, and tools. Who could provide this? Merchants. Now, from the people who I knew who were merchants, other than Saori, Ellaine, and Haruka? Exactly; Duke Greenveil and President Reajaen.

The Kingdom of Artorias’s Greenveil Duchy was known as the merchant duchy jokingly since most of their nobles were more merchant and land cultivator than nobles, while Reajaen currently presided over the largest merchant state in the Republic of Estralia. If Elyonda wanted a fair price, one not influenced by the fact that the city was in dire need of food and as such was susceptible to scrupulous merchants, then they had to speak with my allies.

Also, yes, after I allowed Duke Greenveil three days to spend some time with his family after he fought on two battlefields, I just brought him back to Elyonda. Kinda scummy, in a way. However, he had already negotiated with Princess Anasthasia about my concert with his daughter, Amelia, so he already knew what a dire situation the city was.

With Reajaen taking the position of a pure merchant while the Duke gave his input in the matter, the two of them were perfect to assure Yeos got the support they needed, but wouldn’t have to pay more than necessary. Sure, it sounded like they were destroying both Anasthasia and Duke Alberstien behind the door, but what could you do? This wasn’t a charity. There had to be some debts and such. The whole merchant and price thing wasn’t my specialtiy, so I left it to the experts.

“… We can offer some of the valuables we’ve accrued over the years. Our port was a haven for Imperial goods.” I heard Duke Alberstien suggest.

“That sounds enticing, but we can do better, my fellow duke. Griffonpeak has a dungeon, but I am sure His Majesty, King Drangleic, could possibly direct some funds for the goods if Artorias could gain access to your arena as a training ground. I saw how magnificent its area simulation was.” That was Duke Greenveil. Even now, he was trying to gain more favor from King Drangleic through this deal.

[“… It seems he might be building up to that,”] Beth noted, to which I had to agree.

“If it happens, then it happens,” Renee replied with a deep sigh. “The general populace already hates the Empire after they abandoned us. The summit you are meditating over will probably be an important event. If we can persuade the nobles …”

That was right, the Summit of Ankor-Nazta. The land of the dwarves was pretty much my next destination, barring anything unexpected happening. The summit where the alliance of the eastern races would be held, where the dwarves of Ankor-Nazta would form an alliance with the Kingdom of Artorias. Although, that was just the initial goal, since the plan was to cajole the elves of Salariel and dragonewts of Loatryx to join in.

I would be attending as the “Head” of this alliance, since I was made the pretty figurehead by King Drangleic. Since this alliance would give me the military power I needed to deal a decisive hit to the demonkin controlling the Church of Aurena—the Prince of Envy.

Now, I just had made Renee try to bring Yeos into the mix.

“Duke Alberstien and Sir Jethro, although he’s still stuck in his bed, are both against doing anything to upset our relationship to the Empire; however, both Prince Markval and Princess Anasthasia were for it. Although, as you can guess, our geographic position would be terrible if we were to take such a large leap. The Empire is literally just a day’s trip away with a boat.”

Yeos was weak militarily, so chances were low they would join us. However, I had hoped to bring Renee into the party for the future raid on the Prince of Envy. As a Champion of Yeostar, she would be a good companion if she could get trained by the God of Knighthood himself. But, if it wouldn’t work out, then so be it.

“Speaking about boats, I presume they made it to the Empire by now.” I was speaking about a merchant vessel we had sent to Port Saltzwieder, the closest port city to Elyonda. “I hope the city’s merchants can do something. We need food pretty urgently.”

Two days ago, Renee had sent out a merchant vessel with the help of the remaining Caedhulens, which included our reliable transport captain, Adhi. Yeosian merchants were entrusted with the funds the royal family were able to make from the festival to buy any food or items the city needed. Watched over by Master and Alistar, we were hoping this could help the famine problem out.

Pretty much everything was done to solve this problem right now. Even Rita was currently trying to make some farmable land for the farmers to work on. I even sent out a letter to Cernust, a woodland drake and [Flora Magic] user, asking him to come over. As a fellow dragonkin and friend, I trusted him, not to mention he managed to regrow the burned area around Cedaraille after the rachonoid queen raid. Also, I believe Rita mentioned how she knew him, so it should be the time for the two plant whisperers to reunite.

“In any case, why are you here?” I asked Renee after our discussion was over.

“Oh, I was planning on delivering some documents to the Prince and his mother. They need to be reviewed. One of them contains the schedule for my official knighting.”

“Woooah! Good for you, Renee!”

Prince Markval’s mother, the Princess Dowager Estelle, was known by people as an insane woman who had lost her mind after learning of the fact her husband had died. Due to this psychosis, some people had even spread the rumor that she killed the mother of Anasthasia, despite Anasthasia herself claiming her mother had died from a sickness.

In any case, I hadn’t heard any other rumors since I rarely visited the castle or anything Yeosian nobility related, but I knew Estelle was crazy. Like, fanatical mother kinda deal. Well, apparently, she had feigned her craziness to drive people away from her son as a way to protect him from the more overeager retainers. People would be less inclined to do risky stuff, when the fear of the crazy princess dowager could just order your head to be cut. Talk about extreme.

Oh yeah, speaking about nobility and stuff, the four princes—the leaders of the four other countries of the Divide of the Five Princes—were sent back home safely after they got stuck here for the siege. Apparently, those countries were currently in a similar state to Elyonda. Maybe even worse, since the grimgarian invasion in those areas hadn’t been repelled yet.

Yes, crazy to say it, but the invasion hadn’t totally ended. In Elyond and Artorias, we managed to drive them off, but in the nations along the coast, the grimgarians had managed to create a foothold. In other words, this wasn’t the end yet, and it seemed like this side of Altrust would continue to be tumultuous in the future.

Shouldn’t I be helping them? Why should I? They weren’t my allied states and I wasn’t some justice-crazy hero. Aurena hadn’t sent a Quest to me yet to help them, so why should I lift a finger to go there when Elyonda needed my assistance. Yes, I did feel bad for the innocent people there, but as I said, I wasn’t a hero. I have had enough of war for now.

Well, if they sent a request, I might consider it. It’s still good experience.

… Oh wait.

“Hey, have you heard anything from God Yeostar?” I asked Renee after remembering that fact, but she shook her head. After she first heard his voice during her inauguration as a Champion, she hadn’t heard anything from the man.

In fact, Aurena and Kramps hadn’t spoken to me ever since the siege. This silence was so weird. Was something happening up in Heaven, or were they ignoring us? In any case, thinking about it didn’t do me any good. I had something to do with Renee today.

“Anyways, Tasianna, can you help Renee out with the documents, please? I want to start my information session with her right away!” Tasianna nodded and left us to deliver the documents, while Beth, Rajah, and I went to the training fields.

After all, I had a Unique Job and skill to appraise! Uniquer!

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 366: Uniquer!

A note from AbyssRaven

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Up, down, back dodge, twi—No! Left! Woah!

“Hahaha, it’s been a while since we trained Hestia! You’ve definitely gotten better, but you’re still a newbie with that [True Spear Technique]! Don’t rely on its predictions and attack paths!” Yorshka lectured me on how to wield my glaive, all while her hands kept moving up and down her spear’s shaft.

Urgh! I groaned as I parried one of her blows using my glaive.

In that moment, the [True Spear Technique] in [Drakonian Sunlight Edge] activated. The System then provided me lines of attack—afterimages of myself—directing me in how I should fight Yorshka. Each presented an opening I could abuse, but when I picked one of the double digit suggestions, Yorshka’s body jerked and the number of moves suddenly were reduced to about five.

When I stopped my body to readjust to the new lines, [Foresight] activated suddenly. In her current stance, she could only do a thrust at my legs, but my skill told me an attack would come at my head. I spent some mana on [Foresight], and apparently Yorshka would twist her body around and smack me with her weapon’s shaft.

And it all came true in a matter of a half-second.

“Hrah!” Yorshka made the feint with a loud cry, before her feet adjusted to turn her body around.

“Ngh!” I was already retracting my spear when I saw her feint, forcing me to just duck my head from the incoming attack. Seeing as it would take too long to think and choose an attack with [True Spear Technique], I just followed my instincts and tensed up my legs. “Hup!”

Using the momentum of ducking, I jumped back, bending my back around to do a cartwheel while sliding my long tail against the ground. The scale-dust ignited with a loud spark sound, allowing me to slash at Yorshka, forcing her to break off her attack and defend herself. Mid-way in my cartwheel, I used [Air Steps] to stomp the air and launch myself forward like a missile.

“Tsk!”

“Damn!”

As elaborate as it was, my attack missed.

“Woo!” Yorshka let out a sigh of relief as I slid across the dirt of Elyonda castle’s training ground. “See? Your battle instincts have already been honed to a razor’s edge. You don’t need to listen to [True Spear Technique]’s fickle suggestions. It’s a trap every newbie falls into. Feints, slight environmental shifts; pretty much anything which changes the chances of hitting things will affect it.”

“… It’s confusing,” I summarized what Yorshka wanted to tell me, to which she nodded with a smile.

She then dug her spear into the ground and then tied her long, beautiful silver hair into a ponytail, swinging it around as she wiped some of the sweat off her forehead. Once she was done, she picked up her spear again and took a defensive stance. “Alright, the warm-up is over. Try it out and then we’ll take the skies like real dragoons!”

“Got it!”

Training, oh, training. Without a doubt, most of my schedule was filled to the brim with training; idol, magical, martial, or whatever it was, it would always take up a large portion of my day. Pretty much whenever I wasn’t busy with something else like providing healing, doing princess or blessed work, or even the occasional much needed rest.

Suffice to say, the moment I was done with my healing duties in Elyonda, I got right back into some sparring. In particular, weapon fighting, since I learned how woefully behind I was when I had to duel a weaponmaster. Vifi’Yok and Larent both humbled me quite a bit.

Sure, I thought I had magic to always help me out, but the war also taught me valuable lessons. During active conflict, either I managed my resources well or got crippled by [Arcane Fever] and [Exhaustion]. I couldn’t rely on the best scenario. Murphy’s Law: always expect the worst. In this case, being able to defend myself when I couldn’t afford to cast or use mana.

As such, the best method to resolve this problem was the reason why I took up spearmanship in the first place: learning to become a master dragoon.

I glanced at my glaive as I reminded myself of it, gliding my hand across its sharp black blade, made from my corrosive obsidian. It was hardened and fused with eoriant—a metal that any decent weapon in Peolynca needed as part of an alloy at a minimum—so it wasn’t venomous anymore, but it still retained the edge and hardiness of it. After all, it was a material that came from my body.

I then touched the catalyst I had embedded on its head, on the blunt side of this single-edged weapon. I could see the remaining scale-dust inside, before I refueled it with more from my wings. I then touched my chest, where my solar core should be, and tried to scrounge out a bit of solar energy absorbed by my scales, channeling it through my arms and into my weapon.

Warning. The solar energy inside your solar core is at 0%. [Drakonian Sunlight Edge] will not activate properly

Just as the System said, the bright light and low heat emanating from my glaive was rather pitiful. Still, it activated. It was glowing, even just barely.

“Nope, test number one is a failure. I guess I can’t use it until my core is back to normal,” I concluded after this one test. I did try if I could continuously absorb and channel the solar energy until my weapon had enough juice, but it never really got over the slightly glowing phase.

“Well, it is connected to your [Solar Core] skill, so no wonder. Unfortunate.”

Indeed.

Drakonian Sunlight Edge

A skill connected to [Solar Core], and requires a core able to absorb and store solar energy to perform. If the total solar energy is above 1%, allows the user to harness this energy by spreading it throughout their body or anything they touch like mana, although it will dissipate at medium range. The element of this attack will be treated similarly to [White Flames], if the user possesses that skill. In addition, allows the absorption of solar-based energy, reducing any damage dealt to the owner from them. The skills combined are: [True Spear Technique Lv. 10] [Air Walk Lv. 10] [Continental Drake Stride Lv. 10] [Superior Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 10] [Superior Aerial Fighter Lv. 10] [Speed Of Sonic Lv. 10]

Continental Drake Stride

An improved [All-Terrain Maneuvering] reserved for drakes. An irreplaceable skill for the land moving drakes, allowing them to manage their weight and balance to adapt to the terrain they are traversing. Increases speed and balance while on land

Since when did I become a drake? I thought when I saw that skill.

It was clear at this point that this was Yeostar’s reward to me. Aside from the levels and the Unique Job, this unique skill was what I got from the Divine Quest of the God of Knighthood, Bravery, and Loyalty. Needless to say, a skill based on melee combat made absolute sense considering he was the God of War of the Pantheon of Light.

Honestly, I did wonder if he would have mixed the skills together if I hadn’t leveled up [True Spear Technique]. If he would’ve, then I wanted a refund, like, right now. Bloody hell, I spent enough SP to level up a Tier 3 skill from level one to ten! That was a lot of points!

… Regardless, this was my Unique skill.

“Arrgh, whatever! Let’s go!” I flapped my wings and took to the sky, followed by Yorshka who [Dragoon Jump]ed into the air. She then stomped the air and twisted her body forwards in my direction like a twister with [Spiral], forcing me to block it.

As my glowing glaive clashed against her spear, I felt my arms numbed from the force of her attack, before I pushed through it. I forced myself through her defence, launching a thin solar slash projectile at Yorshka, creating an opening for me as she dodged. With my momentum, I slammed my tail at her, prompting her to do the same to me in return.

Urk! Hard!

Scale-dust exploded, while silver powder hardened. That was the main difference between the standard Norder dragonkin scales and my mutated scales.

The initial blow of her tail slam felt heavy, but it quickly turned around when sparks from her attack triggered a massive explosion right in Yorshka’s face. She survived, of course, so we quickly resumed our sparring session in the sky. She was my dragoon mentor, after all.

In any case, outside of training itself, I had hoped I could have practiced with [Drakonian Sunlight Edge] a bit more. The solar energy I shot out was pretty much all I could muster, and all my solar energy was consumed when I shot it out. At least, I confirmed I could use it somewhat.

Now, of course, there was some overlap, right? My [Sunfang Dragon] unique ability [Solar Beam] used up all the energy inside my solar core to unleash either a powerful beam or blast of solar power centered on myself, before it sent my body into overdrive, rapidly heating my body up until it could release all the extra energy as either an explosion or outward blast, usually as flames or another beam. It, along with [Symphonie des Feuergottes], were my two finishing moves.

So, why did I believe this skill was so fitting? Why did it unlock a section in my battle kit I thought I should have had from the beginning? Well, it opened up a fourth resource for me: solar energy.

Health. Mana. Stamina.

These were the three main resources that most people had, not including things like bullets or other kinds of ammo, of course. What this skill gave me was the ability to use solar energy as an offensive tool, instead of just as a regenerative power or as a last resort.

Before I got this skill, I could only use solar energy to restore Health, Mana, and Stamina or with my [Solar Beam] skill. I could shoot out beams of solar energy, or clad myself in it. Now, I could do more. And, one more thing, despite its similarity to mana, solar energy didn’t generate arcane corruption. Meaning, I could continue using “magic” even when I had [Arcane Fever], [Mana Stress], or [Exhaustion].

Sure, it had a short range, since it was a melee skill, but if I were to focus on fighting at close-range, I could literally grill somebody with sun power, instead of relying only on expending scale-dust. I understood it overlapped with some of my skills, but … there was one thing my flames couldn’t do, but solar energy could.

“Lady Hestia! It worked!” My spar with Yorshka stopped as I heard that voice. Panting from what felt like a half hour fight, I looked down as Tasianna and Rita stormed out of the castle with elated faces. “Your solar energy can feed the plants!”

Rita grinned, licking her lips as if she had just finished some dessert. “I confirmed it! You can act as a substitute sun, even in the middle of the night! The plants told me you tasted good! Scrumptious!”

Yeah. Correct. Not only was I a rice cooker, grill, and steamer … I was now also a sun lamp.

… I managed to accept it, but it still felt like I was reducing myself into an item, again. Well, leaving my pride aside, this new ability allowed me to act as a sun for farmland to accelerate food growth. With mana drowning the ground to the point rank Bs were spawning, crops were growing extremely fast; now, they could grow even during the night.

… Life was weird.

After the castle bell rang, an hour had passed since my spar with Yorshka had begun. With my hair and brows drenched in sweat, I splashed some water on my face and wiped it away with a towel. The cold air of autumn immediately began to cool me down, making me feel so much better, albeit, a bit sleepy too.

Taking a break from sparring, I walked over to a slouched Renee. Looking over at Farron running lapses around the field while topless, I concluded he and Renee were done with their training, too.

Put a shirt on, old man. You have a daughter and wife. Don’t try to make the single ladies swoon in vain! I thought when I heard a few of the maids and other female workers stop what they were doing to stare at Farron. Sure, the dude was well-built and hot, but, sadly, ladies, he’s taken.

Offering Renee a hand, I helped her stand up, before Rajah jumped out of my shadows with two bottles of water. We both took them and thanked my little virigress before we took a seat. Rita and Tasianna also came to us, showing us the fragassa plant they managed to grow from a seed inside my subspace, only using me as its “sun.” Experimenting with our skills was what my party did best.

As Tasianna then transitioned into serving Renee and me some tea, we noticed some noise coming from the castle. Nudging my head a bit to the side, I saw a tall scalekin walking through the castle’s windows, followed by butlers and maids running away from him. From the look of it, this scalekin was dragging the corpse of a merfiend into the castle.

“Hmm?” The man in full armor with a scuba diving tank on his back suddenly noticed us and opened the window, waving at us while holding the tail of a bled out giant shark.

“Chahayat, good work!”

“Good hunt, today. I gave your slice to the little dragonewt already,” Chahayat, the merfolk, informed us, probably talking about Priscilla.

The good Tide Watcher merfiend who I fought in my second round of the tournament didn’t have too much of a spotlight during the siege, but that was ‘cause he hadn’t been around at the port. He had been fighting the merfiend summoned by Karhalantheel underwater, and was still fighting them, since a ton of monsters were spawning in front of the coast, too.

Just like with the inland hunting party, we were getting a lot of food from the ocean monsters. Chahayat led Jethro’s warrior priests out to hunt the monsters, providing the city with a ton of fish meat. Anything to feed all the hungry mouths.

“How are those Caedhulens doing?” I was talking about the merfolk living under the ocean close to where I fought Vifi’Yok. They hid inside the arena during the siege, but their homes were underneath the spot where Karhalantheel slammed his tail at us.

“Rebuilding. They’re helping out, right now,” the merfolk answered in his usual raspy voice. “Making a new home isn’t without trials. I must go. More work. Take care. Come visit us, young scale.”

“Will do when I get the chance. Stay safe while hunting!”

After he left, I finished my tea and ate some biscuits before I felt mildly rejuvenated, enough for me to take on another matter. A matter that Renee and I had originally planned to do today before Yorshka and Farron told us to train with them. Exactly. It was time. Not only did I have a ton of unique skills and a unique race, I now was the proud owner of a Unique Job.

Unique Job: Idol Tyrant Fledgling

Open it up, System Voice. I want information.

Congratulations for unlocking and acquiring your Unique Job. From here on out, your Job System will now abide by the functions and rules of the updated “Seraphim Protocol.” This new System emphasizes the evolution of humanoids by allowing them to grow their personal Job in any way they wish, allowing them to close the gap between the ever-evolving monsters. While the majority of the world will still experience the old Job System, you will have the privilege, granted by the Origin Gods, to empower yourself now. However, please be aware, chances and events in the future will allow others to claim this chance, before the full integration of the “Seraphim Protocol” to Peolynca

Well, that was a lengthy introduction. They even threw in a ‘granted by the Origin Gods.’ Laaaaaaame. Sooo, what is this protocol thing? Mana Eyes.

Seraphim Protocol

A protocol implemented by Origin Goddess Crustacia to renew the Job System in favor of the growth and evolution of the blessed. By combining the gradual progression of evolutions and the free-forming growths of the Job system, the Unique Job System was created

Hmm, doesn’t say much. But, really, ‘seraphim?’ As in, the angel seraphims? Huh, wonder if Crustacia has any ulterior motives with this. Very weird way to call it, since the word ‘seraphim’ doesn’t exist in Peolynca, so the people here wouldn’t understand it.

Since you are a monster transformed into a humanoid with [Humanize], you may use the new Job System without any issues while in this form. However, once you transform back, the new System won’t be available to you under most circumstances

… Wait, what? ‘Under most circumstances?’ Ohohoho, now hold on! What did the gods do? Did they account for dragons like me? Yo? Yoho? Ooooh, anyways, System Voice, explain what is new about this System.

The Unique Job System’s most important function is the implementation of the three ‘development Jobs.’ Similar to the Main and Secondary Job you should have gotten familiar with, the new System will increase the number of Jobs you may have active up to three. You may change the Jobs freely with any you currently have in your Job list, however, be aware you cannot access the Job skills, spells, or abilities of those not attached to your Unique Job

… Jeez, three now? So, how many will they add if they rework this System again? Five?

“… Did you get to the whole development Job part?” Renee suddenly brought up, pointing out how I was frowning in confusion. “There are a lot of new words in there. A lot of words you have to appraise. It’s quite overwhelming, if you ask me.”

I nodded. I then did what she alluded. It was time for [Mana Eyes].

Development Job: A sub-Job related to your potential and gradual progression as an individual. These Jobs are formed around the affinity and preferences of the user, creating a list of Jobs specifically designed to produce evolution points for your Unique Job. The list of development Jobs will differ from one individual to the next

Evolution point: The building block of your Unique Job’s evolution. Each development Job may be leveled up a certain amount, allowing the owner to choose a bonus from it before resetting its level to redo the process and earn more rewards for your effort. One of these rewards will be an evolution point. Each Unique Job requires a different amount of evolution points until they may be evolved

Okay, this is a lot to digest. System Voice, are you done with the explanation? ‘Cause I have more questions.

In this new System, each Job will work on a ‘Prestige’ function, allowing you to level up and reset Jobs once they reach their max level. Through this process, the owner may earn the right to acquire Job skills, spells, and abilities and embed them into a Job slot. Each development Job will start out with a single benefit slot, but you may grow them to acquire more Job skills, spells, and benefits. Through the careful selection of which Jobs to level and prestige, you will decide the future evolution of not only your Unique Job, but also your development Job, which will unlock more fascinating and powerful rewards

This was the introduction into the new Job System. If you wish to have any information elaborated, you may appraise the information with your preferred appraisal method, or you may inquire all of it at your nearby [Crystal of the Divine System]

… My gosh, that last point sounded so much like an admin!

It … certainly was a huge surprise. It really sounded like the Job System was completely overhauled, meaning possibly any levels I had in [Idol] and [Champion of Aurena] were now gone? Well … gotta say, that sounded like the System blindsided me. I understood it was to give me access to a, possibly, better power source, but come on!

… Phew. I took a deep breath. Okay, let’s look at this properly now. Objectively.

One thing the current Job System did have was the fact there were sooo many Jobs available that it could become overwhelming. Of course, since you could only obtain three new Jobs per week, it kept it more balanced and less confusing, since you didn’t need to rush your choices. In the end, the Job System was meant to give people the ability to grow and become as strong as monsters, so the more jobs you could take, the better.

However, from the sound of it, the gods didn’t like this “quantity over quality” kinda deal. I hadn’t looked at it yet, but presumably, once I open the Job list, I would have far less Jobs to pick from. Instead, each should be more important for your growing strength. Meaningful choices, as a game designer would call it. I probably had to weigh my options and future paths more carefully while taking these “development Jobs.”

In the current System, new Jobs would unlock according to your skills and which Jobs you had already leveled up. As such, you would one day reach a point where your main Job would fit you like a glove, as if it was made just for you. In a way, you could say this new System was the refined version of that idea. After all, I knew Yorshka had her very own [White-Winged Dragoon] Job, matching the nickname people gave her.

So, I couldn’t tell if the new iteration would become better or not. From the sound of it, it would limit the amount of development Jobs you could take until you evolved your unique one. That meant I couldn’t power farm them for all the small stat boosts and skill proficiencies anymore. At the end of the day, however, what really mattered was how the evolutions would benefit me.

“Hestia, please!” I turned my head around, looking at a drooling Rita with star-speckled eyes. Her hands were holding up a piece of parchment and some charcoal to write things on it. “Please! Everything you read. Information! It must be documented!”

… Well, not like I had a reason to say no, right?

“Thank you!” the dryad cheered.

After I was done appeasing her curiosity, I took out my [Crystal of the Divine System] with giddy hands. It was time to unveil the mystery of this new System.

Open up the Job menu! I thought as I touched the orb, causing it to glow a soft blue color.

Unique Job Owner: [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Category: Monster

Unique Job: [Idol Tyrant Fledgling]

Job List: [Idol] [Mage] [Dragoon] [Tyrant Hatchling]

Job Slots:

Empty

Empty

Empty

… Four?

I couldn’t exactly remember how many Jobs I had available, but I was pretty sure there were more than just FOUR! I had expected the “quality over quantity” kinda deal, but not this!

Well, my reaction aside, it really looked like I only had four Jobs to choose from now. There wasn’t a list under the Jobs or something, meaning this was all I had to choose from. A bit irritating, but I guess this is what happens when game developers just radically rework an established System. Honestly, it could cause vertigo with how different it was.

Hmm, well, it certainly gave me quite specific Jobs. Even [Tyrant Hatchling] is a reminder that I’m Kramp’s granddaughter.

As the description mentioned, the Jobs offered differed from person to person. Somebody who was more used to crafting would probably get a crafting Job to build up. Considering how flexible and adaptable the Divine System was, it was all feasible.

I did wonder about this “evolving” Job part of this whole System. Not only could my Unique Job evolve, but my development Jobs, too. What did that mean? Would they change names? Could I make a branch and gain a Job for fire and one for holy? I didn’t want to only focus on one of them, after all.

Okay, wanna check this out. Show me [Idol]’s description.

Job: Idol

Benefit Slots: [Empty]

Level: 0/10

Prestige Level: 0

Actually barebones, huh?

It felt so empty. Like, there weren’t any words on it. Maybe after I began growing it, it would get to the point that it would bloat things up, but right now, it felt so unsatisfying. I guess I was just taking the changes not too well. A bit of trepidation, really. Well, as long as I was here, I could also look at the other Jobs.

Job: Mage

Benefit Slots: [Empty]

Level: 0/5

Prestige Level: 0

Job: Dragoon

Benefit Slots: [Empty]

Level: 0/5

Prestige Level: 0

Job: Tyrant Hatchling

Benefit Slots: [Empty]

Level: 0/15

Prestige Level: 0

… Uhm, what? Wait, there are actually differences amongst them?

[Mage] and [Dragoon] had to only be leveled up five times, compared to [Idol] or[Tyrant Hatchling]. I guess this was the System’s way to tell me the importance and the tier of the different Jobs. Was this something important? I guess I could test this “prestige” function with them.

Okay, now, please tell me about my Unique Job. What makes it so unique?

Unique Job: [Idol Tyrant Fledgling] Evolution Points: 0/30

Development Job: Empty Empty Empty

Unlocked Jobs: [Idol] [Mage] [Dragoon] [Tyrant Hatchling]

Evolution Bonuses: None

Uhm, what? ‘Evolution Bonuses?’

Evolution Bonuses: Every bonus gained through evolution will be recorded in this field. You will receive choices upon your Unique Job’s evolution, allowing you to choose into what new form it will evolve and which bonuses it should keep for your continued progression. In addition, bonuses gained from Job Quests received through System Events or any System-based interactions, will also be recorded here

System Events are a real thing, huh? I thought it was just fluff. Hmm, actually, let’s just ask. I’m curious about the ‘Unlocked Jobs’ field, too.

Unlocked Jobs: Every Job you have gained for your Unique Job will be recorded here, allowing you to choose them from the List to embed into your development Job slots. Jobs evolved into new ones will have their names and description changed, while any branch Jobs you gained through the prestige function will also be recorded here

So, you can get new Jobs! I guess this had to be true for normal people, or just newborns in general.

System Event: A random event hosted by the System similar to the Quest System. Will most of the time only occur inside dungeons, but may also happen through Divine Quests. These Events will challenge every participant, pitting them against each other to obtain the right to obtain prestige rewards for your development Jobs or bonuses for your Unique Jobs

So, the gods gave even more power to the Divine System, even allowing it to balance all the goodies you could get to increase the strength of your Unique Job? Wow. Now I could just imagine what would happen if the System were to go rogue or haywire. The chaos it would cause would be terrible, so I really hoped the gods had a failsafe or something.

In any case, this should be pretty much it. Which made me question what they would do since there weren't any acquisition bonuses anymore. The old Job System allowed you to gain skills and stats from just acquiring the jobs, but in this one, you couldn’t just get an increase right away. It would surely do so through the prestige System, but I had it test it out first.

In any case, it didn’t seem like the gods intended to make this new System too overly overpowered. Maybe it would be later on, but for now, I didn’t know too much about it. I could probably ask more, but I felt more inclined to just test it out. As such, I guess I should go with the Jobs I wanted my Unique Job to be influenced by for now.

Individual [Sunfang Dragonewt, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has embedded [Idol] [Mage] [Tyrant Hatchling] as her development Jobs

Job benefits have been updated due to Job change

Idol Level: 0/10

Mage Level: 0/5

Tyrant Hatchling Level: 0/15

It felt a bit annoying to lose the old [Idol] and all its skills, but if I could customize these Jobs for my Unique one, then it should pay off in the future. I could make my own skill combinations without having those obviously hostile skills like the ones in [Champion of Aurena]. Skills increasing your damage against races the humans hated? Ahem, I was an idol. Please keep that away from me.

For [Idol], I was aiming for sound- and music-based skills to complement my current skill set, for example, [Musical Crescendo], which allowed my songs to reach others through vibrations in mana, and not through soundwaves. Those skills weren’t available in the SP shop. The only way to get them was through the Job system.

… Now that I thought about it, couldn’t I use SP on this new System? Like buying those mutation skills when I unlocked them through my dragon Jobs.

Skill Points may be used to acquire Job bonuses, but their prices will be adjusted by the importance of the buy

It was pretty much a confirmation, right? Score! Skill Points were still overpowered!

Which meant, I could test things out once I leveled the Jobs up to their first prestige. [Mage] was low level, so it wouldn’t take long, and I could try out what Kramps had in plan with this [Tyrant Hatchling] stuff.

“Tasianna, you need to gain your Unique Job! It seems really interesting,” I hyped up Tasianna, but my maid could only tilt her head.

“I would love to, but how, though? There is no known way to gain Unique Jobs outside of a Divine Quest.” She then turned over to Renee. “How did you gain one, Renee?”

Renee placed a hand on her chin, looking equally as confused as us. So, instead, she just retold everything that happened. “Oh, my [Plumwind Squire]. Well, you see, I actually was surprised when it happened. I got it when I was meeting with the Archerudite. After my initial offer was rejected, I became desperate.”

Renee then picked up her necklace, the memento of her mother. “I prayed to both God Yeostar and my mother, hoping they could grant me some wisdom. Any tidbits worthy to trade. In the end, I had to resort to selling you information, Hestia. Once again, I’m sorry.”

“What’s done is done. I don’t hold it against you anymore, so long as you don’t do it again. ‘Fool me twice, shame on me,’ right?” I patted her back, urging her to continue.

She nodded. “Saying it now probably won’t make it better, but I did feel quite guilty when I said it. Lord Uzerra was filled with glee, wanting to meet you, but I couldn’t help but feel like I backstabbed a friend. So, I clutched my amulet and committed myself to my path as a Sealight. That I would serve either as Yeos’s true princess, or as its mightiest knight. That I would win the tournament and become a Champion, to become a knight everybody would look up to. That, for the cost of my soul and honor, I would bring Yeos’s lost glory back.”

“Ohhh, and you’ll become a true knight in a few days, despite all the murmurs I’m hearing. You should be happy Fargryneill hadn’t cracked her knuckles and punched some of them yet,” Rita joked with her friend, causing Renee to let out a cackle.

“Haha, she might be a hothead and reckless, but she knows decorum. I guess she probably didn’t want to have her little sister hear she was a brute from the nobles, right?” Renee then turned to me, causing me to imagine what Neill’s thought process here was.

“Hmm. Sis is pretty awkward sometimes, but she has a good heart. If she can get rid of her fear of people disliking her cool, awesome, majestic, powerful, amazing kirin-dragon form, she’d be even better!”

“… I didn’t take you for a doting sister, Hestia.” Renee eyed me as if I was crazy, but I simply shrugged.

“Yeah, yeah, praising my sister who has an inferiority complex is soooo being a siscon. What do you know, huh? Single kid?” I grinned mischievously, causing Renee to nod back.

“Point taken … Well, speaking of the dragon.”

“Emergency!” I snapped my head around as Renee looked in the sky, noticing the silhouette of Sis flying over to the palace. “Hey! Yorshka! Get all the remaining knights! Yo, Renee, Sis, Tasianna! Get your asses up! The mana in the area caused a dungeon to spawn in the forest and the coast area! We have a dungeon break!”

“YES!” Renee shot up from the bench, rocking her hand into a fist. She then shivered for a moment, causing her helmet to materialize over her reddening face. “Ahem! I mean, this is a problem! We need to handle the matter now! Protect the citizens! Those dungeons are now under ownership of the royal family of Caimlace!”

From what I understood, while the mana in the ground was a serious threat to everybody, the Divine System would intervene if there was a large amount of mana in the area and quarantine it. Just like how a dungeon was nearly created when I fought the onnikais in the Greenveil Duchy. A dungeon, while dangerous to handle since monsters could break out of it, was also a gold mine for a city if its rank was high enough.

And Elyonda just gained two dungeons. Renee was obviously excited, as this was what she, Princess Anasthasia, and Duke Alberstien had gambled on after the battle.

I heard dungeon ranks were technically random, but you could predict it somewhat from the monsters spawned in the area. As such, this was a risky, although lucrative, method of dealing with the mana problem. After all, if you didn’t take care of the monsters inside, they could wander out like the giant spider queen I fought in Cedaraille. That would be an apocalyptic event for any city.

As such, if it was any higher than C rank, then it would be better to just break the dungeon core and sell them for funds. After all, Elyonda was not in a state where they could attract rank B or A adventurers and manage them. Opportunity cost, in other words.

Urgh … I couldn’t help but be reminded of how buying a single [Crystal of the Divine System] nearly bankrupted me, and that was with us supplying the dungeon core pieces. 90% of our funds just went poof, and we were technically considered as rich as a lower noble house before I bought it. In any case, our squad mobilized after Neill’s warning.

Let’s go! Grinding time! Woooo!

A note from AbyssRaven

Yup, time passed pretty quickly. The third anniversary of Dragon Idol had finally come.

Honestly, I've already spoke so much about everything already that I would just be repeating myself even further. Still, I do want to continue thanking everybody for staying around for this long. Of course, not to mention everybody who had lately come to enjoy the story enough to support me here. All of you have made it possible for me to keep writing this story and be proud of it.

Now, I had wanted to present a special artwork for this anniversary, but some complications had come up with the art. It will come, don't worry, and I will reveal it once I have it from my artist. A bit of bad planning on my side, sadly.

Well, I hoped you guys enjoyed the chapter and will await for the next. We aren't done yet with the blue screens! (Ow, my poor fingers)

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 367: The Monstrous “Aurora.”

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #2 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! It works on a subscription base now, so pay on the same date next month!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

Experience for development Jobs has reached multiple breaking points.

[Idol]: Lv. 0 -> Lv. 10 | Multiple reset accumulation finished | Prestige 2 Lv. 4

[Mage]: Lv. 0 -> Lv. 5 | Multiple reset accumulation finished | Prestige 3 Lv. 8

[Tyrant Hatchling]: Lv. 0 -> Lv. 15 | Reset accumulation finished | Prestige 1 Lv. 14

Prestige requirement achieved! Job max level has increased. Experienced accumulation and reward quality increased.

[Idol] Max level -> 20

[Mage] Max level -> 15

You may spend your prestige points when you are ready

Even the UI of the System Message got improved!

“KiiiiiiARRRRRRRRRRH!” A bestial roar erupted, but I was too preoccupied to actually look at it.

“Oi, that’s a rosey, Graz! Don’t touch its thorns, it's damn poisonous and can keel you over in seconds! Rank B! You need us to take it down, lass?” Krim-Slak shouted from the top of his lungs, I believed.

“… No! The rest of the dungeon is filled with rank Cs and Ds. We can probably handle it!” A girl’s voice, probably Renee’s, replied to Krim’s question.

Okay, let’s see.

Job: Idol

Benefit Slots: [Empty]

Level: 4/20

Prestige Level: 2

Show me the prestige menu for [Idol].

[Idol] prestige points: 2

- Benefit Slot increase

- Job Skill: [Acoustic Skills: Proficiency Lv. 1] [Giocoso Dreamer Lv. 1] [Musical Renaissance Diva Lv. 1] [Acoustic Power Lv. 1] [Bardic Cadenza] [Musical Crescendo] [Heavenly Performance]

- Growth Boosts: [Mana] [Intelligence] [Wisdom]

- Spell song slot (3 prestige point)

Oh, I can buy more slots for spell songs? That sounds nice, but I still haven’t used any since the Griffonpeak fight. I still have plenty of spots to make songs, not to mention I can get more from leveling up the unique skill [Idol]. But … Mana Eyes.

Acoustic Skills: Proficiency: Increases the proficiency gain from all acoustic- or sound-based skills. Reduces breakpoint requirement by 10% * skill level

That solves the loss of the acquisition bonuses. In addition, if you level this up to level ten, you just ignore the breakpoint requirements? Okay, that sounds quite good. This is the replacement, and it isn’t bad. So, what are these two new things? Man—

“KuuuuuuRAAAAGAHHHH!”

“Incoming! Young scale!” Grazlahta’s voice finally forced me to take this seriously, otherwise I could imagine the lecture he would give me later.

Jeez, so much noise. Can’t a girl check her Profile?

I let out a sigh before raising my head, only to see a large green wyvern with table-sized red thorns all over its body. Its large horn on the front of its head gave a certain majestic aura coupled with its well-formed, but fearsome looking head. With magenta-colored flames streaming from its mouth, this beast was charging right at me.

“Don’t kill it, Hestia!” Renee shouted at me as I readied my glaive.

“Yes, yes, I heard it. Last floor, so let’s end this! Rajah!”

[“Yes, Master!”] Rajah jumped out of my shadow, conjuring up a strong [Light] to momentarily obscure our bodies for us to dodge to the left. Once the spell dissipated, the wyvern was almost close enough for it to bite me, but before it could, I cast [Shine] like a flashbang.

“Krrrugh!” The wyvern yelped and flinched back, only to smash its spiked tail all around it, flailing in an attempt to ward us off.

Naturally, we took a step back, but any time we could buy would help the others to catch up to us. After all, the entrance into the last floor of this dungeon was through random holes on the ground which closed once anybody fell through. This meant my whole party was scattered throughout this vast, jungle-like boss stage.

Since Rajah could enter my shadow, we cheated this gimmick. While the others could see and hear the boss monster, it would still take even the fastest amongst them, Neill, some seconds to reach me. All the two of us needed to do was to buy enough time by stalling.

“Rajah.”

[“Beginning apprehension.”] Rajah immediately understood what I wanted and activated [Dark Tendrils], wrapping the monster in black bindings.

Naturally, this wouldn’t hold the monster for too long, so I blew on some of the ground, heating the ground up until it turned liquid, enabling me to use [Volcanic Blaze]. As the heat spread around the area, I manipulated the lava into chains and hardened them into obsidian once they were on the wyvern. With a simple tug, I held the monster down.

Mana Eyes.

Rose-Thorn Wyvern: A monstrous wyvern from Aelozonia with thorns filled with neurotoxins. Although usually a docile herbivore due to its tough carapace and threatening thorns, this monster will immediately go into a frenzy if its young are put in danger. With a mighty horn to pierce through hard-to-break armor and venomous fire breaths, this monster is highly adaptable. Rank B

Dangerous, but not dangerous enough compared to me. You’re only level 0!

“Kuura—Krack!” It tried to free itself, but the moment it did, I simply wrapped more lava around it. It was a fire element monster, so it could handle some heat, right? “Krrri! Kra?!”

“Up you go!” Just as some of the obsidian was about to break, the faint noise of a woman’s voice echoing in the forest caught my attention. When I turned my head around, I had to snap it back to the wyvern when Neill slid past me to uppercut the monster. “Aaaaaaand, takedown!”

That crazy sister of mine couldn’t help herself. As the wyvern’s head was launched into the air, Neill grabbed the beast’s neck, avoiding the thorns, and used [Air Walk] to adjust their position to land a piledriver on the poor monster.

Okay, no, really, where did she learn all these wrestling moves?! Or, maybe she just made them up herself? Gosh.

“Queeeeeeeh!” The monster yelped once again, cradling its broken horn after Sis shattered it with the impact. In this vulnerable period, Akasht ran up and tackled the monster.

“Keep it down, Akast!” Krim shouted, followed by Grazlahta throwing two spears at the monster’s legs. With chains attached to them, the two saurians then pulled on them, tripping the monster.

“Grrouuuuh!” Akasht roared out before he slammed his boulder-sized fist into the monster’s head, knocking the poor thing out completely. Looking at its Health, I could tell that it wasn’t dead.

“… A bit excessive, no?” Finally, Renee and Tasianna rendezvoused with us. Renee looked a bit flabbergasted, while Tasianna just bowed.

“We need to check the dungeon core, so we have to move past the boss. It was a necessity, just like in the last dungeon.” My maid answered, prompting Renee to nod her head.

And with that, we cleared the second dungeon which spawned in Elyonda. Honestly, if you asked me, we were faaaaar too overleveled for the both of them. It was a nice change of pace to re-enter and have some fun fighting in a low-stakes environment, considering how we just handled an invasion, but I would be lying if I said they were a challenge.

Still, it gave me a chance to level up my Jobs. Obviously, considering the dungeons we entered were presumed to be rank D and C respectively. A great score for Elyonda’s future, of course, but not adequate grinding spots for pretty much anybody on my party.

I mean, how many rank As do we have in name only? Krim, Grazlahta, Akasta, and me. Then we had Neill who was officially a rank A from today onwards, and then we had Tasianna and Renee who were just a few levels behind 100. Although Renee did mention she wasn’t ready to be a rank A, since most of her levels came from Neill hard carrying her.

“You better behave, alright? We are your new masters!” Speaking of Sis, she was exuding her [Draconic Aura], right now, scaring the poor wyvern.

“Kraaauwgh— Krruuuu!” When the monster tried to bite back, Neill just slapped it and showed the remnants of its horn she broke, silencing it. If that was her attempt to tame it, then, boy, she was rough with it.

In any case, after we tied the wyvern down, we searched if there were any treasure chests. Although the boss monster of this dungeon was rank B, it was still just born with the dungeon. Everything inside here was pretty much new. We did find some small trinkets on our way down and in the other dungeon, but nothing to be happy about. Easy money, though.

[“Found one, Master!”]

After we picked up a sizable chest, we then left the boss room and entered the dungeon core room. There, floating over a pedestal inside an ancient Maya-like ruin, a clear crystal glimmered like a priceless diamond. This was the dungeon core.

“Okay.” Renee then stepped forward and drew her sword, slashing at an invisible mana field protecting the object. With it damaged, the field began to wobble, distorting the air in front of me before Renee attacked once again, destroying it.

She then came closer to the core and placed her hand on it. After a couple of seconds, the crystal brightened up like any [Crystal of the Divine System], before it dimmed. Renee was now officially the dungeon’s master.

“Alright, this should do it. Thank you everyone for your help.” The woman saluted at us, signaling it was time to leave.

With her new authority, Renee created a door leading to an empty room. When we all entered and closed the door, the platform’s seams lit up blue, before it slowly moved us all up like an elevator. When it stopped, we were all back to the first floor.

“Hey, nice work!” We were immediately greeted by Yorshka as we exited the elevator room, before our eyes moved towards the countless soldiers and knights fighting a large wave of monsters, all while a couple of priests and mages backed them up. “This place is fantastic to train up your stronger fighters. I reckon it's a rank C. Am I right?”

As I mentioned before, most of the adventurers had left Yeos after the siege was done. A ton of the tournament fighters, too. No one wanted or could afford to help a sinking nation. Yorshka and Farron were the only other strong fighters, outside of Chahayat and the twins, who were around and able to fight.

As we ventured into the depths of this place, there had to be somebody to maintain things on the surface. They were strong enough to do so. Just ‘cause a dungeon was around didn’t mean everything was fine. Monsters could still spawn. Dungeons were there to collect the overpowering mana in the area. One dungeon was at the coast and the one we just left was in the forest.

The former herded the rampaging merfiend spawns into a underwater palace of deep blue, almost like a submerged aquarium large enough to fit sharks and whales. You could see fish, manta rays, turtles; all these beautiful marine creatures were there outside of the water bubble keeping the underwater palace intact, until the ferocious merfiends crawled themselves in.

Here, in this place with the lush trees and the humid climate, it made me feel itchy wherever I went. There weren’t any mosquitos, but there were these giant mantises and beetles, not to mention—

“Krrrruuuuu!”

— dinosaurs. As Krim mentioned when he saw that wyvern, this place was like a small invitation to the realm of Aelozonia. What a surprise that a dungeon was able to show us this. Trekking through the moist ground and the muddy swamps made me remember my time in the Belzac forest.

The beauty of dungeons made it easy to forget all of them were like prisons. Jails to keep rampaging mana from destroying the environment. It took nearly two weeks for these two dungeons to appear. Two weeks of constant monster spawnings. Our party managed to grow so many of those mana-sucking macula plants, to the point we ran out of room to store all the mana-infused water. I had to expand our storage room.

Just saying, even after all that, two dungeons still appeared. What a mana fallout from the battle. In the end, the Yeosian’s royal family got lucky and managed to land profitable dungeons. In any case, the dungeon problem was resolved, and now that Yeos has managed to contain both of them and hand the dungeon master role to somebody trustworthy, these dungeons should become the foundation for Elyonda’s regrowth.

However, as I said, dungeons only formed at the coast and nearby forest. Mana still was rampaging around where Mother fought Karhalantheel and the islands. Even inside the city. Yeostar’s dungeon was a fine place to stay in until we could build more houses, but until we solved some even more of the mana problems, the city would be like Shaturein, the undercity in Griffonpeak—constantly in danger.

As such, we had to get help. Today was the day for a visit … However, before that, there was something equally as important.

“Rajah,” I called out for my virigress after the dungeon trip was done and I could leave everything else to Renee, the saurians, and the Nordor parents. So, I went back into my subspace with Tasianna and Rajah and headed into Mother’s cave, where Shay was currently flying around, probably training.

[“Yes, Master!”] Rajah, knowing what was about to come, stiffened up just as Shay landed on the ground and turned himself back into a dragonewt to bow to me.

I nodded and then began slicing up some of the skin on my shoulder, right at the point where my scales were missing. I then gathered some of the blood, just enough for a handful and then offered it to Rajah. Tasianna frowned at the sight, while Shay jerked back in shock.

[“Princess!”] the wyvern shouted.

“Stop it, Shay. You should know about it from Saori. We’re just testing something,” I answered his worries, reminding him how Saori mutated into a dragonkin wolf after she drank my blood. I wanted to test out if it was just Saori, or if maybe there was something more special about my blood than just being Kramp’s granddaughter.

“Miss Saori evolved into her current form due to my lady’s blood. Drank it like a vampire, merged with it like a druid. I do not know anything about Belzac’s powers, as they weren’t written down in books. And we all know Lady Hestia is quite inquisitive, so this much is just natural.” Tasianna kneeled down to stroke Rajah’s fur. “Are you okay?”

[“Mhmm!”] Rajah nodded his head, although from how stiff his tail looked, I could tell he was nervous. [“Master Saori became stronger after she drank Master’s blood. Rajah thinks he’s ready. Thinks. Mhmm … Hopefully Mom will recognize me once we meet again. It’s been a while.”]

It sure had. I had to go speak with Tatsuya and Kyouya soon. I still had no idea why they hadn’t visited us once yet. Were they actually stuck up there in the vampire castle? Like prisoners? They were my only source on Saori, so I had to ask them now.

Not to mention that hadn’t I heard anything from Grimnir, Ellaine, or any of the students on their side. Svena had mentioned Ellaine was inside the subspace back on the day I was swallowed by the dimension hole, but why hadn’t any of them come into the subspace since then? It felt weird. Worrying really. I had to get the ball rolling and head out soon, now that I had done what I could for Elyonda.

“I’m sure she will. Don’t forget how she instantly recognized you when we found her injured? Instead of worrying about herself, she licked your fur clean.”

Memories of our time in the Belzac swamp reappeared in my head when I thought of Rajah and his family. How I picked him up after he barely managed to survive a monster stampede, how we found his near dead mother all greased up with mud and blood, or how we rescued Rajah’s siblings from the lizardmen.

Memories of how weak and small he was back then, like a real tiger cub, to how big he now was. I thought I would never see him again when I said my goodbyes. To become a good cat owner, to a good tamer master. To a dragonkin, blood might be important, but to me, my friends and family were worth my blood being spilt … at least in a good way, this time.

Let the past never be repeated.

These were his options.

Evolution

[Young Brightmane Saberlion]

[Young Duskwalker Virigress]

[Young Blacklight Virigress]

[Young Noxtoxin Virigress]

[Young Bladehair Virgarcuga]

Rajah had access to SP, so I told him to level up his holy and dark skills up to level ten to evolve them into [Sacred Magic] and [Tenebrous Magic]. It unlocked evolution choices for him, so it was important. This gave him access to the [Young Brightmane Saberlion] and [Young Duskwalker Virigress] evolutions options.

Young Brightmane Saberlion: An unmatured sacred saberlion with fangs hard enough to pierce steel. Standing majestically, the saberlion possesses a mane capable of absorbing holy magic or sunlight to steel their fur, toughening it up before an impact. Able to mold mana to wrap the holy element around their body. Rank B

Young Duskwalker Virigress: A young mischievous virigress variant able to traverse the world of darkness through a pact with the Hound of Grim. As a shadow pack beast, this virigress is able to control their shadow like a part of their body, using it like a fluid to fend off enemies. Rank C

Certainly a surprise, since the first option was rank B while the latter was rank C. In my case, when evolution options opened due to my advanced magic skills, all of them were rank B. I guess in this case, the fact that Rajah was part of Saori’s shadow pack probably influenced it. So … what about the last three?

Young Blacklight Virigress: An unmatured mutated cat monster who accepted both holy and dark into their heart. On the precipice of being pulled over by either the light or the dark, this virigress combines both as it stalks the enemies threatening them. Holy and dark magic and attacks will possess the element of the others. Rank C

Young Noxtoxin Virigress: A virigress who has taken its toxin-secreting organs to the point they can bypass the resistances of even the strongest creatures. Potent neurotoxin clad the fur and claws of this beast, endangering anything flesh stung by it. However, due to its strength, the young body of the virigress hadn’t built up a resistance against it yet. Rank C

Young Bladehair Virgarcuga: A young evolved virigress that can toughen and sharpen its fur to the point even a strand could cut flesh when agitated. Can secret poison through its sweat glands, making even a touch dangerous for its enemies. Due to its large size and developed limbs, it can jump and pounce at a speed surpassing its previous evolution, allowing it to end enemies with its muscular tail. Rank B

Two Bs, three Cs. One was turning Rajah into a “saberlion” and the other was a direct evolution to “virgacuga,” similar to how Saori was first a warg, then a garm, and then turned into a fenrir when she reached rank B — Not counting how she had a pitstop as a cadejo as rank C. As such, Rajah’s rank Cs kept him as a virigress.

[“Mhmm.”]

Rajah had already looked over his evolution choices for nearly two weeks now, waiting for me to give my input in it. I did feel bad I kept him waiting for this long. I really had to treat him to some premium hunting grounds once he evolved. Of course, into a rank C. He too understood he would lose SP if he went directly to rank B, even if you did gain some good bonuses if you reached that rank before your “matured.” Still, the rank B bottlecap did stifle your experience gain.

My virigress had already checked his SP shop for anything special, but I guess similar to Ellaine, there weren’t any “outstanding” skills he could buy. Nothing like Tasianna’s talent for ice magic, or Saori’s mana thread weaving, at least. As such, I was trying out the blood trick, hoping it could help him like Saori.

After nervously tapping his paws on the ground, Rajah then licked the blood off my palm. After a couple seconds, he then checked his evolution page again, but nothing new showed up. Either this proved Saori’s Belzac lineage was a bit more special than we thought, or I didn’t give Rajah enough of a dosage.

I tried it again, sapping more blood from my shoulder to the point Shay and Tasianna couldn’t help but look away. After Rajah finished his second drink, we proved there really wasn’t anything super special about my blood. At least, it couldn’t cause some random evolution. In other words, there really was something more to Saori than I thought.

… Didn’t Tatsuya become a druid after he drank Belzac’s blood or something? … Maybe I should ask him about it.

“Rajah, which evolution do you want to take?” Regardless, while a shame, it didn’t change what my cat had to do. I urged him to choose for himself with my stare, telling him just ‘cause I was his tamer didn’t mean I could choose his future.

He too was an individual. I didn’t want to choose everything for him like a mother hen.

[“… Rajah wants to help Master. Not only become strong, but be useful for Master. Fight with her! Not stay back from a difficult fight, or be a burden because Master too strong.”]

Rajah probably was talking about what happened during the siege, when I told him he had to stay at the harbor. Even if I had his [Dark Tendrils], Vifi’Yok probably wouldn’t have been held back by it for long enough to matter. Taking him with me wasn’t feasible.

As such, it seemed like he was seeking a power which could help him fit into our party. Take up a niche only he could do. The thing was, from the five options, none of them really sounded like he could do it. Objectively speaking, Aurora alone had a member for everything.

Grimnir in the frontline as our tank, Ellaine as our skirmisher with her whipsword and demonic powers, Saori as our rogue to take down the backline or crowd control the enemies, Tasianna as our main magic damage dealer, and me as the support and cleric. Even then, I had built up my skill set so I could act as a one-woman army, due to my stay in the Belzac forest and how I had to protect Saori and Tasianna when they were still weak. Now, these companions could stand with me.

As such, it made it hard for Rajah to pick something. [Young Brightmane Saberlion] was a holy mage and frontliner, from the sound of it, but that was covered. [Young Duskwalker Virigress] was a rogue, but even without Saori, we had the rest of the shadow pack. [Young Blacklight Virigress] sounded special, but it seemed like a mage. [Young Noxtoxin Virigress] felt like the worst choice since my [Corrosive Fire] could handle our toxin production. Lastly, [Young Bladehair Virgarcuga] sounded like your standard virigress, and I didn’t believe Rajah would like to be “normal.”

What should he choose? This probably was the reason why he wanted my opinion before he evolved. He just didn’t know which to choose. If he wanted to take on a niche our party needed, then it would take him quite a while to find one if it wasn’t an artisan role.

“May I give my input, my lady? Rajah?” Awakening us from this inertia, Tasianna chimed in, having thought of an idea. Rajah and I nodded for her to continue. “Thank you. Rajah, if you ask me, trying to find a niche in our party composition would be folly. Just take Master Grimnir’s new apprentice, Daichi, for an example. Too envious of Lady Hestia’s mastery of fire, the young man couldn’t think of anything else but his own place in our alliance. His role. What could he do, now that somebody stronger and more adept with destructive magic was around?”

“Right, it was a major problem. He just wanted to show-off and have people look at him more.” I was reminded of the talk I had with him, and how his bootlicking tendency came to be. “However, how does that fit with Rajah? I don’t think he’s like that. He just wants to fit into battle tactics.”

“But that is the point, Lady Hestia, he cannot. As long as we five members of Aurora are together, we have everything covered to win. From debuffs to buffs to even a Territory. Finding a niche when you alone could cover all of them alone would be hard. Outside of elemental resistances and weaknesses, would you actually need us for every fight?”

“… I can’t smith.” I tried to act smart, but Tasianna immediately saw through it so I apologized.

“Not artisan work. Combat. You can stealth, skirmish, perform magic, and support all by yourself. This is what Miss Saori and I feared so much before you evolved into a rank B. That you didn’t need us. However, would you like us to remind you how we overcame that dilemma?”

Back then, I didn’t want to evolve into a rank B due to [Battle Frenzy], since we just came out of two events where I went berserk and couldn’t control myself. [Battle Frenzy (Moderate)] inside the cave after we escaped the wyverns, and after Shiterno stole some of my skills to “gift” me his.

I was plagued with nightmares, thankfully, but it still made me feel like I was a living threat to everybody. If I became stronger, how would they stop me when I went on a rampage? Master stopped me during the latter problem, but he was a rank B water mage back then. He was already good enough to become a Saint. So, it frightened me. The scariest thought for me was how I could hurt them, possibly even lose them.

My Sloth—to see them happy. My Gluttony—to never be alone.

I … had heard Saori’s rant, of how she didn’t want to keep me back. I believe that was our second fight. After it was resolved, I hadn’t thought too much about Saori’s and Tasianna’s feelings. Didn’t even ask.

“‘Even if Lady Hestia can do everything, I will still continue. I will just be stronger than her in one aspect,’ I told myself. Miss Saori already knew she could surpass you when it came to reconnaissance and assassinations. From then, I also understood I could become a better mage than you in my own field—ice and water,” Tasianna revealed to me one of the reasons why she kept training with us so fiercely. “To protect you, I would do anything, my lady. Once again, please, don’t forget that. After all, all my efforts had culminated into this moment—I am your royal guard, eternal.”

Tasianna kneeled down like a knight. “An honor I had never thought I would receive back then when we first met. An honor I had thought the System would never grant me. However, I am always reminded how I must continue my training and journey, because I am [Hestia’s Imperial Guard]. Your first. As such, I must set the standard.”

I felt guilty. I felt ashamed that I hadn’t asked her about this back then. I felt embarrassed I had to learn it here. She was my friend, but it felt like I wasn’t curious enough about her emotions. Back then, I was only worried about myself, and how I could harm others. It was one of the reasons why Saori’s speech felt so … raw. How she and Tasianna expressed the fact leaving them would hurt them more. Even now, after all those memories I regained, I was still making mistakes as a friend.

I felt like my eyes were wet. I confirmed it when I had to wipe a tear off my cheek.

[“If I may give my wisdom on this,”] Shay asked for permission to speak, so I gave it to him. [“I agree with Tasianna that sometimes real strength doesn’t come from trying to become more special than before, but by overcoming your current self. In my 58 years of living, I had thought my sister and I were the strongest ice wyverns. Only the dragons could be stronger, however, from my travels with you, my princess, I had my fair share of contemplation on my arrogance.”]

Shay spoke how he still vividly remembered how I was able to defeat his sister, despite me being a rank C dragon back then. Sure, they were level zero back then, they had just evolved a few weeks ago, but he still found it impossible how his sister was on death’s bed ‘cause of Saori and me. Even if she had held back since I was their princess, he thought it shouldn’t have been possible.

[“The Avitor Peaks are perilous, so I thought since 23 was chosen by Astalos to help him on his Divine Quest, I thought Bethlieranha and I were worthy. Mhmm … the wyverns close to your Mother’s lair were ruthless, we wouldn’t have made it weren’t it for the help of her dragonewt relatives,”] he sighed as he recalled that memory, surprising me since neither Mother or the twins had told me about this. [“My sister and I have no special talent. We will stay true to our ice, so witnessing Tasianna train herself to the point she could rival us, made it clear how much we value her as a fellow ice mage. A rival. Someone we cannot allow to surpass us.”]

The wyvern then turned to Rajah, kneeling down to speak with him. [“Tasianna, my sister, and I seek frost cold enough to one day rival the Empress. Even if we all are ice mages, we will strive to become the best. Rajah, as the guard of our princess, you don’t need to be special, you need to be the best in something. When the three of us fought at that harbor, uhm, Port Annencia, we didn’t have Princess Hestia to protect. We just fought together. We fought, we froze, and we destroyed the enemies before us as three.”]

Wise words. I really didn’t have much more to say on this topic. All that was left was for Rajah to decide on his path.

[“… Then, I shall take [Young Blacklight Virigress].”]

“Why?” I asked.

[“Because it is the right thing to do,”] he said in such a resolute manner, staring in my eye without a single doubt. [“The light is my Master, but the dark is our other Master. You and Master Saori. If I had an ice option, I would have taken it in honor of Master Tasianna. You … three saved me. You saved my family. I came back to … to you because I missed you. I wanted to repay you back. Masters taught me much in the short time we’ve been together. So, I didn’t want to be useless, like when we first met.”]

Rajah …

[“So, I trained hard! I learned to speak! I tried to be strong and not childish … But, I understand now. I understand to repay you back, I need to be strong enough to help all three of you!”] he exclaimed, trying his best to roar to show his determination. [“The light to help Master Saori, and the dark to help Master Hestia. Even if the two of you were to separate again, I will be there to support both of you. I will become a healer just as strong as Master, but also a proud shadow pack member like Mom and the garms! [Holy Magic] and [Dark Magic] were the present the both of you gave me, so I will never throw them away for the other!”]

He got [Holy Magic] due to the blessing Aurena gave him after he left me, earned after his first evolution. He got [Dark Magic] after becoming a member of the shadow pack, so this bound him to Saori. It wasn’t a lie to call them gifts received from his interactions with us.

[“As such, I will take blacklight!”]

“So be it, Rajah. Then, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

And so, my virigress had chosen his own path. I honestly had thought he would choose [Young Duskwalker Virigress] after Tasianna’s and Shay’s advice, seeing as he would be more useful to me if he could control shadows as well as Saori, but it seemed like he wanted to commit to his evolution path. From a [Young Monochrome Virigress] into a [Young Blacklight Virigress].

In Mother’s lair, his evolution cocoon wrapped around him as his evolution began. I wanted to visit the vampire princess today, but it seemed the day was almost over. As such, I decided to retire for the day. Do it tomorrow. I also was quite curious how Rajah would look, so speeding up time by sleeping sounded quite nice.

So, I spent the evening with my group inside the subspace. The saurians and Neill were explaining what had happened after I left, mentioning how some hobgoblins had spawned close to the city. They thought these monster were members of the grimgarian army at first, but they recalled how unintelligent the hobgoblins seemed. Monster spawning really was wild.

After dinner was over, I finally had the time to look up the prestige stuff. At last, some free time. So, what did I have, again?

[Idol] prestige points: 2

- Benefit Slot increase

- Job Skill: [Acoustic Skills: Proficiency Lv. 1] [Giocoso Dreamer Lv. 1] [Musical Renaissance Diva Lv. 1] [Acoustic Power Lv. 1] [Bardic Cadenza] [Musical Crescendo] [Heavenly Performance]

- Growth Boosts: [Mana] [Intelligence] [Wisdom]

- Spell song slot (3 prestige point)

Right, Mana Eyes.

Giocoso Dreamer: An [Idol] skill aimed to help the idol chase after their dreams, bringing the shining stars upon all who listen to their songs. Boosts beneficial spell song effects like barriers, buffs, and resource regeneration by 5%, increasing it by 5% per level. Anybody hearing your songs will have increased resistances against mental attacks or corruption. Can spread your songs’ effects through others, extending its range, as long as they can hear you and follow your performance. Will exclude [Musical Renaissance Diva]

Giocoso is … Italian for playfulness. Cheery. Jeez, Papa would hate me if I forgot the terms …

Musical Renaissance Diva: An [Idol] skill aimed to bring the dawn of a new music culture, brought forth by a generational diva. Boosts offensive spell song effects by 5%, increasing it by 5% per level. Effects will increase the more people listen to your songs at the moment of the performance, also increasing your Mana and Stamina regeneration. You are able to play two spell songs, applying both effects. Will exclude [Giocoso Dreamer]

… Damn. Exclude? Are you serious? So this was how the Unique Job System wanted you to develop your Jobs. By taking such powerful skills, or evolution deciding ones, with benefits and detriments. In this, would I develop my [Idol] skill into a supportive “dreamer” or an offensive powerhouse of a “diva?”

Honestly, it was a hard choice, and thankfully not something I had to pick right now. Good thing was I could choose the other skill I was robbed of from the old [Idol] Job. It was good to have [Musical Crescendo] again, since that prevented my songs from being blocked by [Air Shield] and such.

It also seemed like you could get flat stat boosters with the “growth boosts” section. Was it a one time thing, or could you gain multiple? How much did you gain? The System didn’t say, so should I buy a skill and test the boost out? I didn’t want to make a choice on those two new skills, just yet.

[Idol] Prestige spent. [Musical Crescendo] [Intelligence] gained

… An increase of 50 Intelligence. Shit! That’s nothing for me! Damn, I should’ve saved that option when I went to the [Mage] options. Damn! Hasty me. Urgh, whatever, it was for science. System Voice, can I buy Prestige points for SP?

No

Fuck off!

Well, mistakes were made. I tunnel visioned a bit too much on the whole testing stuff that I forgot I had to choose the rewards for [Mage] and [Tyrant Hatchling], too. I could’ve asked Renee about it, too. “Haste makes waste.” Well, lesson learned. I should probably check out—

“Hestia.”

And just as I was about to check things out, somebody interrupted me. Well, I could keep the others for tomorrow.

I turned around, seeing Renee had tapped my shoulder. She visited us, wanting to ask me if I wanted to speak with Uzerra now. “I think I’m ready. Anasthasia wrote down how many buildings we needed and how we could ask the archerudite to help us. We just need to call on that favor for ‘illustrating our portraits.’ Would you come with me?”

“Sure.”

Uzerra was staying around due to his fascination with me. As the most knowledgeable man alive, one of the strongest mages, and also the leader of Aleistunum, we had a lot of things we wanted to ask of him. He could be the key to help the city out, now that they had dungeons to finance the nation’s rebuild.

We could always ask for help from Artorias and Estralia, but both nations were multiple countries away from Yeos. It just wasn’t feasible, and I didn’t want to turn into a cargo transporter with my nexus. Also, with the grimgarian army literally occupying the ports of other countries, traveling with a ship from Port Annencia to Elyonda could be risky. This grimgarian war wasn’t over, even if I wasn’t dealing with it right now.

As such, getting help from Aleistunum, a neighbour, would be for the best if Yeos couldn’t rely on the Empire, or didn’t want to. Renee had to strike a deal with Uzerra, no matter what. Fortunately for her, I was willing to help.

“Are you sure he’s still awake during this time?” I asked as we exited the subspace and the castle, on our way to the beach where you could see his island literally floating above the coast.

“Oooh, probably. He likes reading, right? Just use the bookmark he gave you,” Yorshka reassured me.

Accompanying us was Yorshka and Tasianna. The former just wanted to make sure we didn’t get a bad deal, while Tasianna was Tasianna. Neill wanted to come to but—once again, despite how she said she disliked alcohol—she was drunk and sleeping like a log right about now. Goodness gracious, the girl couldn’t handle her drinks. Lightweight. Smiled like an idiot after two mugs.

“As rude as it might be, the archerudite had visited our subspace once during midnight,” Tasianna informed me, saying it happened two days after the siege was over. “If he’s awake, then there should be no problem. We can also fly up and knock on his door. I don’t believe he should have a problem with that.”

“Maybe appraise that bookmark, though,” Renee suggested. “Rajah mentioned how there was some magic field around the island when he visited it. None of us really visited him outside of your virigress, so maybe there might be a trap for unwelcome visitors. Check if the bookmark has a clue or not.”

Good point. I haven’t appraised this thing once yet.

With that in mind, I took out the bookmark Uzerra gave me and use—

“Eyaak!”

What?

A scream.

“—oooooooooooooo!”

Followed by a man’s groan.

“Dammit. I expected something would happen, but this is still not acceptable!” Renee donned her helmet and ran towards the screams echoing through the night. It was just for a moment before they were muffled, but they clearly were the screams of a woman and a man.

The city ruins already had some buildings here and there, made from earth mages, so all of them were pretty much uniform in appearance. Some braziers were placed around the rebuilt houses and arena, so people could still walk around the night.

Usually, there would be knights and mercenaries patrolling the streets as well, since there was a risk of disputes amongst the people. Even if they were united to rebuild their home, some people were less enthused about it. These troublemakers would cause unrest if we didn’t stop them.

With this in mind, Yorshka, Tasianna, and I followed behind Renee, darting through the ruined streets and its rubble, before I noticed a few figures hiding in a corner with my night vision. When we came closer, I noticed three well-dressed men standing over a woman and man, both dressed in patched up clothes.

Wait, aren’t those—? I immediately noticed the faces of the two, recognizing them as two of my patients. Looking closer, I noticed how both of them had their mouths agape, staring into the starry skies with twitching eyes.

“—elp … Krok!” The man on the ground tried to mumble at us, but was swiftly given a kick by one of the three men standing over him.

“Sssz! You incompetent morons. Must you dine on these street rats so curtly, they managed to eke words out? Bumbling fools, a lot of you!” The man who delivered the kick lamented about the situation to his two associates before turning around, revealing two long elven ears hidden behind long black locks, carefully taken care for until they shimmered under the moonlight.

“Rrrah. Phew!” One of the other men turned to, spitting something red onto the ground. “Nasty, rancid beasts. Forgive us, my comrade. I would not have let go weren’t it for the fact we are dining on low-tier beef. I require a palette cleanser immediately.”

“Grrgrggr! Mhmm!” The third took a long whiff in our direction. “Females, too. Although, one of them looks like a wind elf. Cannibalism, my friends. Let us invite her to some tea later. Indulge her in the finest tea, one not even her low-born woods could produce. We are gentlemen, after all. We should treat her little girlfriends well.”

The first licked his lips, revealing four long fangs. “True. It would be an embarrassment for us to act in any other way. Don’t drink for too long, yes? We shouldn’t kill them, otherwise the princess would find out.”

“Rrrr … Two lizard women would do the trick. Exotic. How delectable.” Mister “Palette Cleanser” noted before taking a step forward.

“… Who are you?” Renee unsheathed her sword, forcing those words through the unbridled anger I could hear from her helmet.

“You dining partners, knight.” The last of the three elf men sniffed like a dog, before his shoulder jerked up as two bat-like wings burst out from his back. “FOR OUR DINNER!”

All three growled as their forms morphed into something grotesque and unreal, looking like thinner felgheists, those giant vampire bat monsters. Once their forms changed, they charged at us like hungry beasts.

“Vampires!” Tasianna screamed.

A note from AbyssRaven

Oh great … Get the stakes, everybody. Also, poor wyvern! Neill just bullied the thing.

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Chapter 368: Bloody Vampires.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Grrraaaaaaaaa!”

Appraise them!

Lv. 72

Lv. 54

Lv. 89

Buffs!

[Various Spell Buffs] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

‘Fuck them up, Original Mind!’ my parallel minds encouraged me, also feeling the rage boiling up inside me. Vampires were like elves, right? Well, right about now, they were no better than the grimgarians I killed!

“Stand down, mage, or this wi—UFF!” Before Mr. Lv. 72 vampire could speak, I [Gale Step]ped in front of him and grabbed him by his hideous bat monster’s face, and slammed it right into the ground.

Jeez, so weak! I cringed. I didn’t even have to use any solar power even if vampires were weak to sunlight or not!

“Don’t kill them, my lady!” Tasianna shouted, making me annoyed I had to actually hold back against these filth.

“Y-you?!” Seeing their companion bashed into the ground, the two vampires froze in place, looking at me as if I had done something impossible. However, this shock immediately turned into rage as both growled at me. “Shraaaaa! Predator! Hunter! We were tricked, friend, we need to—Ook?”

“Not a fan of fighting people this weak, but you’re nothing but brigands, right? Might as well do some ex-paladin work on some ‘Predators.’” Yorshka too [Gale Step]ped into the front, slashing off the legs of the weakest vampire, causing the surprised elf to fall onto the ground like a sack of potatoes.

Vampires were technically still elves, dark elves to be specific, but unlike the ones I’ve met up until now, these filth were nothing to me. I didn’t care if you were human, beastman, or grimgarian. You try to pull this bandit crap on me, you deserve a beating. These vampires really got lucky. My moral compass—Tasianna—was telling me to not kill.

“Guawaararararak!”

However, that didn’t mean I couldn’t cripple some of them. I had [Miraculous Grace], after all. The vampire I was holding down could scream and struggle as much as he wanted, but I might return the right arm and wing I cut off later on. Might.

“You two—!” The last vampire, the strongest, took a step back. We didn’t know if he wanted to flee, but I wasn’t the only one who was furious with what they did.

“Cometh Wind!” Renee called the wind with her flamberge, pulling the vampire closer only for Tasianna to buffet the vampire with ice blades.

Not surprisingly, the level 89 vampire managed to deftly avoid everything, only taking glancing hits. This, however, seemed to only make the vampire smirk.

“Knock him out before he can use blood magic!” Yorshka commanded after she kicked the two vampires we already took out in their heads, sending them to sleep.

Just as Yorshka said, the blood flowing from the monster bat’s tiny wounds grew as blood started to pour out of them like a faucet. He even managed to gather enough for a whole ball, before it formed itself into a blood sword. The vampire took aim and then—

Draconic Aura!

I stomped the ground, exuding my [Draconic Aura] to create a pressure around me similar to a Territory. The vampire jerked back, snapping his head to me, allowing just enough seconds to pass for Tasianna to [Humanize] for her wings to blow frost powder at him.

The [Fae Frost] immediately took effect as they froze the blood sword solid, before closing up the wounds on the vampire’s body to seal off his ability to get blood from his body. Seeing this, his eyes immediately darted over to the pool of blood from his comrades, but it was a bit too late for that.

White Flames!

“What?!” The vampire tried to dodge, but, sadly for him, Yorshka and Renee knew how my [White Flames] worked. They grabbed him, holding him tightly as the flames engulfed them all. “Whaaaaaarrrrr!”

[Dread Burn] inflicted on bloodsucker.

***

“Thank you very much. Thank you so very much!” After we had dealt with those Twilight morons, I healed up the two civilians they had been preying on. The woman was still wobbly on her feet, having lost a lot of blood, so the man did most of the thanking. “Thank the Goddess for sending you to our land! For everything! Thank the Goddess. Thank Yeostar for making you a blessed, my lady! Thank—Urgh!”

“That’s enough gratitude, good sir.” Renee grabbed his arm, supporting him as he was about to fall. I had only healed him up with my white flames, since he hadn’t lost that much blood for [Miraculous Grace], but he still probably had anemia.

Magic was nice and all, but sometimes healing was best done naturally, especially if it wasn’t a life threatening wound or a loss of a limb. [Miraculous Grace] could solve most physical injuries, but using it too often would lose the importance of the spell. Anything non-severe could be handled, and should be, handled by my white flames and my sacred spells.

After Renee handed the two yeomen over to the knights for help, we then turned over to the vampires. They had transformed back into their elven forms and had their hands sealed by those mana suppression shackles. They couldn’t use their mana while they had those cuffs on.

Eoriant Fairnite Mana Suppression Shackles: Shackles made with the metals eoriant and fairnite, both possessing mana absorption attributes. Mana is absorbed by the shackles whenever a high concentration is being formed, and then diffused into the air

Speaking of shackles, I had also heard that the prison inside the castle was destroyed after the siege. Quite a few criminals and brigands had escaped or died during the fight, the former of which included that stupid poison brother I fought in the tournament. He also stole away his twin catalysts in the process, so that bastard was now roaming the world again. Really should have cut off his legs.

But, well, what was one more problem on top of all of Elyonda’s other issues, right? It was already pretty bad, but I guess none of us thought that vampires would start attacking us. Sure, their castle was floating above the clouds right now, but I had thought they were here to help us.

“Ha!” The vampires glared at me with intense disgust, almost to the point they were showing off a sense of superiority. As if it was incredulous that they got themselves in this situation. “I hope you are ready to face Goddess Death, you simpletons! Our lord will dine on your life fluids and your minced fles—Agrak!”

“Don’t try to use your mana.” Yorshka kicked the level 89 vamp in the face, knocking him over. “The shackles detect when you use it. If you’re thinking of trying to overload the thing, then think again. Do you think we would stand by and do nothing while you try? For an elf, you are pretty dumb.”

“Elf?! Blasphemous lizard! You dare call us such a degrading thing?!” The one Yorshka cut the legs off cried out, insulted by such a factual statement. “We are no elves! We are superior to those tree huggers! We are vampires! Children of the Night Mother! Scions of the Blood Queen! Descendants of a God!”

The one I had attacked felt no fear at all, either. He, too, found it fitting to spit venomous words at us despite the fact he was at our mercy. “And you have taken a step too far, serf! We would have only taken some of your blood. It should have been an honor! We deigned your filthy red suitable for our palettes, but you dared ambush us? Blindside us? What honor do you have, knight? Our blood knights will make short work of you!”

Ambush? Was this man seriously that delusional? If you asked me, the one who ambushed us were these three idiots, but they called us the dishonorable ones? What did this guy smoke to put himself on a pedestal this lofty? His superiority complex oozed out so much, it felt nauseating to be near him.

“Tasianna, psh.” I lowered my voice as those vampires continued their tantrum. “Arrogant? Is this what you meant when you said they thought of themselves as the ‘finest beings’ and that their castle was the ‘seat of the elite?’”

Tasianna nodded. “There are three factions inside the castle. The Predators—such as these three—who seek to only feast on the most prestigious ‘playthings.’ Gourmets, you could say. Then you have the Skyborne, those who believe the vampires should remain in the sky and not mingle with us ‘dirt people.’ Please be careful, they are known to adore the flesh of any flying monsters. Lastly, we have the Royal faction, those closest to the current overlord of Purchigchia and their elders, who wish to keep their culture close to the elves.”

“Soooo.” I turned to the vampires, causing them to instantly flinch at my glare. “Will we get in trouble for hurting them?”

“No,” Tasianna answered resolutely.

“Ha! Whad nonsensess are youd speaking, eld? Our lo—Ahahk!” the strongest vampire tried to speak back, but Yorshka kicked him in the face again. He fell on his back again, clutching his bleeding nose once again and his already broken jaw. “Damnb you! Damnb you!”

He already had enough trouble speaking from the first kick. How many teeth had he lost already after getting kicked twice by a person over level 130? Yorshka had informed me vampires could regrow limbs and missing organs if they could drink blood, but with [Dread Burn] on him, healing was practically impossible. Well, too bad, immortal guy, you met the wrong person to piss off.

“Yes, we will not get into any trouble,” Yorshka reiterated what Tasianna said so the vampires could understand. “Do you really think your friends would care about you after the three of you snuck out of the castle and tried to steal a drink from the people living here? Excluding possibly angering your princess, you attacked two of her former guests, as well as somebody she wants to meet.”

Yorshka pointed at Tasianna and herself, before ending at me. “Third Imperial Princess of Kargryx, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor. Get it now?”

“Ueiik!” All three vampires shuddered when they heard my title.

They’re nothing like Elrick.

Elrick was one of the knights assigned to the students, who left us after we learned of his vampire heritage. He had been hiding as a knight of Aurena, acting like a human for his faith. I had thought we would meet here again, but Yorshka learned he went back to his family in the Empire. Apparently, acting like a human wasn’t a one-time thing, as vampires would hide amongst the population.

Regardless if I had met him here or not, that wasn’t the point. What I was now worried about were the boys stuck in the castle. I pulled out the bookmark Uzerra gave me. We couldn’t delay my meeting with the vampire ruler any longer. We had better send them off.

Uzerra’s Bookmark: A bookmark enchanted by the archerudite of Aleistunum. Used as a bookmark to read.

Owner: [High Elf, Uzerra Leister Dawncall]

Enchantment: [Bookmark Caller]

Bookmark Caller: Calls upon the owner of the enchanted item by pouring mana into it

Simple, huh?

I did as instructed and poured my mana into the object, causing the simple beige bookmark to shine blue before it dimmed. I looked up in the sky, where Uzerra’s island was, and noticed something flying towards us. Squinting my eyes, I saw the pajama-wearing elf in a bed! The bed was flying over to us!

“O-ok, this guy likes to sleep!” I exclaimed before the bed suddenly stopped over us. It then slowly descended to the ground, gently placing itself there, softly enough to not wake its master.

With Yorshka guarding the vampires, the rest of us looked at the snoring mage, noticing how he seemingly fell asleep while reading a book. His glasses had fallen off his face, nearly off his bed, while his blanket and hugging pillow were spread all across his mattress in an disorderly fashion. I didn’t think the archerudite would be such a messy sleeper.

“Uhm, sir?” I waved the bookmark over his face, only to find out that a barrier was protecting him. Banging on it like glass, I decided it would be a bit too rude to break it in an attempt to wake him.

“… I guess it was too late. You don’t think he has been sleeping all this time? He hadn’t exactly shown himself since he met you, Hestia,” Renee commented, bringing up a good point. The man had been quite sleepy when we met.

“How do we wake him?” I asked, and Tasianna took a step forward.

“Well, he is a knowledge seeker like Rita, right? Well, the easiest way to wake her up was to tempt her with knowledge, so, why don’t we try it with him?” Since we couldn’t do it in a politer fashion, it was all we had. “Ahem, Lord Archerudite. My lady, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor wishes to tell you something about her home~”

“Bah, plah, ahuk! Dragon, dragon what? Hestia? Otherworld? What?”

I don’t belive it! It actually worked!

The elven man looked exhausted, like waking up somebody from a deep sleep. None too pleased, he scowled at us, before yawning and rubbing the sleep grains from his eyes. “Uuuh, what? Urgh, mwaaaaaaaaaah! Urgh … chamk, chamk. Urgh, how long have I been asleep?”

Tasianna bowed. “We do apologize for waking you up this late, but, to answer your question, we hadn’t seen you in four days, Lord Uzerra. After you met with my Lady.”

“… Then I probably fell asleep not long after that.” He pulled the blanket from him, revealing he was still wearing the same pajama he wore when we first met, before snapping his hand. Wind then formed around his bare feet, forming into wind sandals as he stood up. “I was recording our conversation in a book. ‘The Children of the Second Dragon Emperor.’ Good name. Fitting. Especially since I’ve officially met the two newest imperial princesses at last.”

… So he already knew about [Battle Frenzy], probably. Considering he met all of my other siblings, somewhere. Either on their Adulthood Pilgrimage, or maybe he had visited Miononbolax.

Uzerra seemed to have noticed my inquisitive thoughts, as he turned around and nodded. “That look … To answer your question, I met your other siblings here and there. Either as a guest, or as a host. Nothing special. I also know your father. [Battle Frenzy] had been recorded since God Istari first met Kargryxmor. It’s not public knowledge, of course, as per Kargryxmor’s wish, but most of the elders like me know about it. Don’t worry, I will keep my promise and not sell or spread your information without your consent.”

“No, no, not that … I mean, if you already knew about [Battle Frenzy], then why did you record what happened when Neill used it? You were even drawing that picture.”

“You and your sister are unique. Individuals. Just because I have met your siblings, does not mean I have met you. Stereotyping and biased expectations poison the minds of a scholar. We are to record everything as objectively as possible,” Uzerra stated, making me believe Saori would like him. “Mwaaaaah! … Besides, you don’t need words alone to record knowledge. Pictures, artifacts, prints. Oh! When Chihiro and I spoke, it was like the heaven had blessed me. Computers, videos, photographs, and, ooooooh, such much more! What ignorance I lived in!”

The tired elf’s eyes flared up with interest, stroking his soft, perfect jaw like an old sage. Fantasy elves were beautiful and handsome, and the Peolyncian ones had never failed me at this aspect. Every elf, even these vampires, were objectively attractive.

After Uzerra grumbled to himself a few times, he then looked around, noticing the vampires and the blood on the ground. He didn’t need us to understand what had happened.

“Well, let’s make that old woman’s wish to see you come true. Come. We shall move to Karharlantheel island, or at least what remains of it. Drascul is right above it.”

No objection here. I cast [Unheilige Engel] and had it wrap itself around the three vampires, dragging them along with obsidian ropes. Uzerra sat back on his bed and had it fly him up like a magical carpet, while the rest of us followed with our own preferred method of flying.

Up in the sky, above the clouds where it became harder to breathe, a giant, city-sized island could be seen. The floating fortress of the vampires had a giant rock skull adorning it like a belt, from which flowed scarlet blood down its eye sockets and mouth like a waterfall, forming a crimson lake as its bedrock. Kept together by magic, I presumed. This alone made it seem like an evil god’s lair. End boss material.

However, we got a second look, when we flew up higher, and that was when the city aspect of the place came into play. The architecture of this place resembled those high gothic cathedrals with their overly stylized symbols and figurines. Almost like a cliché, stone statues in the form of those giant bat monsters—felgheists—decorated many of the upper city mansions, looking like gargoyles.

On the other hand, the lower city seemed almost like late Victorian. Probably not actual Victorian era style, but more of the fantasized version. Dusky and murky, with manatech street lights illuminating only the bare minimum of the place, it seemed super unfriendly. Every street corner was dark, warning you from listening to your foolhardy bravery to enter them.

However, despite all those descriptions, the city was … lively. Under the shine of the moon, elven men and women with dark grey skin were wandering the eerily-lit cobblestone streets, laughing and speaking. Whether they were in the lower or upper city, all the vampires wore fancy dresses and suits.

However, they stood in stark contrast to the many non-vampires living in this floating nation. Wearing only rags, collared like pets, and all of them were branded with the slave and two fang marks. While the vampires had their fill of the night fun, drinking red wine and dining on aromatic meat, these slaves were toiling away as the main labor force. All while the knights in their blood red, shimmering armor, patrolled the streets and kept them on a tight leash while their masters were away.

“Slave labor. Not really endorsed by Artorias, I heard. Nor, your world,” Uzerra commented, causing Renee to give us a weird look.

“‘Your world?’ I guess Kargryx wouldn’t endorse this either, huh?” she stated, mistaking Uzerra’s real meaning. I think it might be time to reveal the truth to her. Although, could I trust her?

“I’ll tell you later, alright? I kept quite a big secret from you,” I revealed, teasing her. “Just, be mindful you don’t spread it this time, alright?”

“My word or my life.”

Jeez, don’t go that far. Even I wouldn’t go that far for a promise … maybe.

“Well, whether you say anything or not, Hestia, be ready to say something when we arrive.” Yorshka pointed at the red knights on the streets, who had noticed us and were now spreading their wings. “Also, don’t get angry. Duke Greenveil got angry, too, but he mildly calmed down after learning all the thralls here were former criminals. Sold, though. Even the ‘blood cattle’ to sustain the hungrier vampires.”

“That doesn’t make it better,” I shook my head. Whether innocent or guilty, I was pretty sure nobody actually deserved to be enthralled by these vampires or turned into “cattle.”

Yorshka smirked before sending me some info I had to be mindful of through [Telepathy].

For starters, vampires weren’t like the vampires from Earth, but that was already clear. They were dark elves with the power to transform into bat monsters and use blood magic. They were immortal, yes, but they weren’t exactly weakened or threatened by the rising sun. They wouldn’t turn into ash, in other words.

Instead, just as I was stronger while the sun was out, vampires received increased abilities under the light of the moon or in the depth of the darkness. Their blood magic would be powered up and they could regenerate better. And, unless it was dark, they couldn’t transform nor could they use their [Vampiric Aura] to cajole or allure people like pop culture ones from Earth could. It was like me using [Benevolent Aura] or [Royal Presence] to “manipulate” people.

Vampires technically didn’t need to drink humanoid blood. They could consume any kind of blood, even insect blood if they had to. That was why Elrick could survive in the human world without causing trouble.

Blood wasn’t necessary for a vampire to exist, since they were just dark elves with special powers. However, without the blood, their vampiric powers would weaken, eventually reaching the point they wouldn’t be able to use blood magic. Another reason why vampires lusted for blood was due to addiction. It was like a drug to them, especially since many of them were fed it during their youth. A habit most weren’t able, or even wanted, to resist.

As such, showing blood was bad, as it would just entice the vampires to be aggressive, especially the Skyborne and Predator factions. They could already smell us, so they probably would be looking at me as if I was prey. However, even if that were to happen, being confrontational or aggressive back would probably harm the only people who didn’t want any problems, the Royal faction. Be tranquill. Zen.

In fact, it was best to use that snobbish nature of the vampires to my advantage. They thought of them so highly, Yorshka called them Pride demonkins as a joke. As such, some would debase themselves by attacking people like animals. The majority, at least, didn’t want their peers to think of them as mindless bloodsuckers. “The elites of the elites.” A man should be a gentleman, and a woman a lady. I had to treat them as such, even if they looked down on us.

As such, it was more common for vampires to woo people if they wanted blood or hunt monsters. Thralls and blood cattle were stale snacks, like canned food. They would do it if they had no other options. As such, people like the vampires we captured, those unwilling to act noble for a snack, were looked down upon.

And that was how we should handle the situation to get by easily.

“My name is Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmo. Princess of Kargryx.” I pulled out my ID, revealing it to the blood knights in front of us. Showing a small curtsy in the air, I kept my back straight and my eyes as if this was just normal for me.

The blood knights bowed before flapping over to me to confirm my identity. Once they did, they handed it back to me and saluted Uzerra and me, before asking us to follow them.

“Who are they?” the leader of the group asked, pointing at the vampires I had chained.

“Assaulters. They had attacked two humans from the city below, drinking them, before all three decided to attack us.”

“Lies!” But our captive vampires were of a different opinion. “We did not attack them! Falsity! We were strolling in the dark, admiring the power of two SS ranks, when these insects came and attacked us for no reason! Boorish fiends! Do not believe their words, good sir!”

… I should have just punted his head off.

The knights listened to the wailing of the vampires, before they turned to Yorshka and Tasianna.

“Dame Yorshka. Miss Tasianna. Your statements?” the leader prompted.

“My aunt speaks the truth, Sir Grigori. Three Predators, and they attacked us. The one without any legs is mine, while the other two were taken down by our princess.”

It seemed Yorshka knew this person. It made sense, since they had traveled on this floating island for an entire day to reach Elyonda from Port Annencia. From the look of it, the knight didn’t sound as pompous compared to the bloodsuckers we captured, probably since a knight could respect another knight.

From the look of it, Tasianna knew him also. “Lady Hestia has the truth in this matter. They attacked us without provocation, probably to silence us since we witnessed their ‘meal.’”

The knight nodded to Yorshka’s and Tasianna’s statement of what happened, before turning to his entourage and asked two of their knights to grab our prisoners. “I understand. It shall be noted down when judgement is dealt. Please, follow us.”

“What?! No, stop!”

“Let us go! Release us! This is unfair!”

“Unjust punishment! We have done nothing!”

The vampires really couldn’t stop speaking. They really were third-rate villains.

Would you please shut up!

… Okay, disregarding the prisoners now that they were handled, the knights then led us to the castle through the sky, avoiding the vampires below who were only watching us with keen interest. As Yorshka mentioned, they could smell us pretty well.

Once we arrived at the castle, we were greeted by a red-eyed butler. He smiled as he bowed, revealing long fangs behind his lips. The butler took over for the knights, leading us through the castle’s luxurious halls, almost as if he was showing off the many well-designed statues and gem-embedded furniture. Human nobles liked to show-off, so it shouldn’t have been surprising that vampire nobles did too.

“Princess Hestia, please, enter. We have already called the young men to the room,” the butler spoke.

“‘Young men?’ Wait, are you talking about Tatsuya and Kyouya?”

“Affirmative. The young men have informed us about you, not to mention, Lord Uzerra had already spoken to our great lady at length as well. Considering you are now here, it seems he has managed to deliver our lady’s wishes.” The butler then turned to Uzerra, keeping his poker face despite how absurd the archerudite looked.

After all, goodness gracious, the man brought his bed into the hall.

“I presume you already know, my lord?”

“Of course, Igol. She always hated how I would walk everywhere with my pajamas … I will leave my bed and books behind. However, I could fall asleep at any time.” Uzerra was adamant about his attire, wanting to actually come in and talk with the lady of this place in his … sleepwear. What a crazy man; respect.

“… I understand. If that were to happen, I will have your room readied like always. Would you like us to wake you up?”

‘Like always?’ Wait, how often does this man come here to sleep? Was he and the princess friends?

However, I wouldn’t ask these questions. Not only ‘cause I shouldn’t since it didn’t concern me, but ‘cause Uzerra urged us inside with a yawn. “Urwaaaah, wake me up. I believe I will be very ready tomorrow.”

The butler bowed with a smile before he opened the door, revealing a clean white room, contrasting the eerie black, velvet, and golden color scheme of the rest of the castle. Funnily enough, the color change alone made my mind calm down for a moment. Really, the colors you see really affect your mood.

“Hestia-san!”

“Hey, you’re finally here!”

But before I could look through the place, my attention was drawn to the two men sitting at a red couch in the middle of the room. Both were waving at me, but both looked far different from the boys I had traveled with, only recognizing them through their voices.

I was sure the first was Kyouya and the second Tatsuya, but what I saw was one person in thick, shadowy armor, looking like black lightning was surging from its gaps, and the other was a young wolfkin man jittering around while continuously sipping on some dark green tea. A tea I quickly recognized from the aroma was like coffee—it was fulinoe tea.

“Ahah, I look different right?” The armored man spoke, sounding like Kyouya but with an echo. “Long story, so it would be better—”

“Yo, Hestia-san! Good to see you again! Wrooooh!” The wolfkin, thought, howled like a wolf before taking another sip of his tea. I was doubly sure it was Tatsuya since his face and voice matched, but he seemed so much more … elevated. “You’re never going guess what happened! I learned a unique skill today! Ahaha! I finally got a unique skill! My own! Not something those demonkins gave me!”

… Yup, Tatsuya, alright. So, then … I Looked over to the third person I found with [Detection Sensor]. … Who is that?

A woman with scarlet hair and eyes and skin so grey, she looked like a ghost. Despite her ill-looking face, her wide smile and firm eyes betrayed her general appearance, looking as if she had all the energy of the world. Her clothes, just like every vampire in this place, were impeccable, designed to compliment her appearance, turning her from just mesmerizing into elven art.

… She really does look like her.

“Please, my guests, have a seat. I have prepared snacks for all of you. No blood or anything which would spoil our gossip, of course. Great-great-great grandmother would lecture me to death before my soul reaches great-great-great-great aunt after my eternal slumber.”

So that was why. She really is a descendant of the Vampire Goddess.

“Apologies for my manners. My name is Vadisma, the current blood princess of the Floating Kingdom of Vivachel, Purchigchia.”

A note from AbyssRaven

Man, I resonate with Uzerra. I, too, want a floating bed which will deliver me from one spot to the next. Can we please get a flying bed already? That should be the future, not flying cars!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 369: The Fantasy of Immortality.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #4 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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“Her shadow consumed you two?”

“At first, yes. Wrapped itself around us like a cocoon, just like how monsters evolve. The goddesses didn’t really tell us anything, simply suggesting that Sensei ‘just do it.’ Well, it’s not like them speaking would help us. Every time they speak, I get this damn itch that feels like it's coming from inside my head. Muffled words.” While his story was intriguing, his constantly shaking leg and how giddy he seemed was pretty distracting. In addition, he was also drinking his tea like crazy. “Anyways, we didn’t turn into ‘shadow humans’ or whatever, but it still made us part of her shadow pack. However! Here is the—”

“Tatsuya, could just you, please—” Before Tatsuya could continue, Kyouya grabbed his shoulder and took away his tea. Then, after he made Tatsuya take some deep breaths to calm down, Kyouya just shook his head, but I couldn’t see him through his helmet. “Sorry, this is his coffee addiction in full effect after nearly a month of withdrawal. He’s hyperactive. It happened after our first month in this world, too, and he couldn’t sleep once he tasted it for the first time. I thought it was over, but it seemed his addiction was never gone to begin with.”

I was a bit flabbergasted at what Kyouya was telling me here, finding it baffling how much Tatsuya was relying on coffee, or in this case, fulinoe tea. It hadn’t happened once since we met, but it seems that was ‘cause we were supplying him with a daily cup of tea when we were still together. The usually socially awkward Tatsuya felt a bit too extroverted today.

“‘Nearly a month?’” I noticed, before turning my head over to our guest giver. A vampire so eye-catching, she seemed almost like the magnum opus of an artist.

“Three weeks, actually. Goddess Vivachel had asked me to have these two train with my knights. Well, she gestured, at least. I might be her descendant, but speaking with a god is still rather hard on my old soul.” The vampire, Vadisma, took a sip from her steaming brown tea, going against my expectations. I thought she would be drinking blood wine, or something, but she was partaking in the same drinks and snacks she placed before us.

“She picked us up after the Belzac forest got invaded by some grimgarians,” Kyouya added. “Sensei and Asaka-san probably attacked their base after we left. At least, that was the plan, since Sensei told us it was time to evolve her garms.”

“After that, we ‘coincidentally’ arrived at Port Annencia after a few days, or so.” Tatsuya eyed the still smiling Vadisma, making it clear it was all planned out by somebody, probably. “Just during the Elyonda fight, we were forced to stay on the island. In fact, outside of the transportation, the vampires really didn’t help much.”

“Stay your tongue.” A sharp voice came out of the vampire’s mouth, now no longer smiling. She placed her cup back on its saucer and on the table. “I see you don’t understand the hospitality I have given you. A host should respect her guests as long as they are under her roof, and I expect the same in return.”

“Tch!” Tatsuya’s energetic demeanor changed completely, clicking his tongue and glaring at the vampire. Meanwhile, Kyouya couldn’t help but shake his head, gritting his teeth as if would derail if he continued.

He probably didn’t want it to, but I was curious.

“What exactly—” But before I end my sentence, somebody else spoke up.

“This is why I told you to bring me with you, Hestia. Milder than the others or not, Vadisma is still a vampire.” It was Uzerra. “This is what happens when you treat them as nothing more than prisoners. The boys would, of course, be enraged. You probably treated them like thralls.”

“I gave them proper nourishment,” she answered.

“Hard bread, disgusting soup, and raw meat.”

What? My eyebrows wrinkled as I heard that from Tatsuya.

“As I said, proper nourishment.”

Tasianna sent a telepathic message, giving me some context on the matter. Thralls were basically only given kibble to to maximize their blood cell regeneration and keep them healthy enough for labor. As guests, they were given proper food, as Vadisma insinuated, but since vampires didn’t know how to cook normal food, the vampires instead offered what they would call “pet snacks.”

In other words, Tasianna, Yorshka, Duke Greenveil, and the boys were given the equivalent to doggy treats. Tasianna really wasn’t joking around when she explained the way the vampires viewed anyone who wasn’t a vampire. To them, the whole world was just filled with either “pets” or prey.

Looking into Vadisma’s eyes, I now could understand why I didn’t feel any warmth. She was just welcoming us like it was business. Maybe I even misinterpreted how those vampire knights treated Yorshka. It might not be respect, but just cold professionalism.

So these are vampires, huh?

It felt like I was just plunged into some dark fantasy story. The way the vampires had thralls and how they just treated them like farm animals, in addition to how these bloodsuckers viewed themselves. The appearance of this fortress was an actual warning to what I should have expected. The smile the vampire princess gave us was just a mask.

“So, before we speak of why I asked you here, tell me, Uzerra.” She turned over to the archerudite, glaring at him with a dark facade. If glares could kill, this one would freeze your soul. “Princess Hestia brought you here, but I did not ask for you. Why are you here?”

“Am I that unwelcomed?”

“You know nobody outside of me or the elders could possibly stop you from entering and exiting this place. It's even worse when you fall asleep and start blasting your spells!” Her scarlet brows stiffened as she said that, followed by her venom-tipped words. “You are a blight to Purchigchia, to my people, and to my eyes, Archerudite. Sleeping Menace. Unfaithful Low-Elf.”

“… Must you curse me even now? I told you, it was an accident. It was the first sign of my age catching up to me.” Uzerra’s eyes looked down at his tea for a moment, before he returned them back to the vampire. “Sorrow was affecting me then, as well.”

“Hmph!” She leaned slightly forward. “Time doesn’t always heal wounds. For the world’s most knowledgeable man, your years of living have not made you wise. When you enter your last slumber, remember this as your consciousness slips away into the eternal darkness of God Marsven: my daughter will destroy everything you hold dear. Aleistunum will fall. Your books will burn.”

What the f? What exactly did I get myself into here?!

“…” Uzerra stayed silent at that provocation, simply drinking his tea. “She will not destroy herself.”

???

I looked over at Tasianna and then to Tatsuya. While the former didn’t know what was going on, the latter grimaced as he nodded. He then pointed at the two, made a heart with his hands, before gesturing a cross sign.

… Am I understanding this correctly? I looked over to the growling Vadisma and the sleep deprived-looking Uzerra, before figuring out what they meant by “she.” Ok, I got myself into some family business. Why did I bring him here, exactly?

“Uhm, pardon me for interrupting.” To my surprise, somebody was actually brave enough to interject themselves into this staring contest. We all turned around, learning Renee was speaking up. “Can I assume all of our presences here, outside of Lady Hestia, are unwanted, Vampire Princess Vadisma? As such, may I propose we speak and discuss, instead of arguing? It would accelerate things along.”

“Oooh, the young human speaks the truth. How fitting that someone as young as her can see beyond the veil of arrogance clouding your narrow mind.” She glared at Uzerra with those words, but all he could do was yawn. Vadisma squinted in irritation, before calming herself to speak to the rest of us. “That is right. Igol has already informed me about the matter with the Predators on the ground. How may I call you?”

“Rhea Renee Sealight, your highness.”

“‘Sealight?’ Ahhh, a descendant of Yeostar. I had thought the family line was extinguished and was replaced by the Caimlaces, but it seemed my information was incorrect. Well, I am no ‘most knowledgeable woman,’ so, please, forgive me for my ignorance.” Even now, she was taking potshots at the poor high elf.

She then picked out a piece of parchment from a bag she was hiding underneath the table, handing it over to Renee. After Renee picked it up to read it, she noted how it was titled “Blood Debt.”

“Yes, a blood debt. We harmed your citizens, therefore you deserve, as the representative of your country, retribution for what happened. However, as they are my people, I cannot have you punish them. I will do so myself,” she spoke in a rather matter-of-fact tone, removing any traces of her animosity. “As such, you may ask for an appropriate recompense. I wish for our two nations to remain peaceful.”

I raised a brow as she said that, making me question why she was being so diplomatic.

Probably sharing my thought, Renee was equally as suspicious. “Yeos is currently quite weak. I do not need to say this, as you can see the state of our country from your window. Even if we were to engage in conflict, you know the Empire wouldn’t come to our side after all of this. Why are you being so lenient?”

“It is the duty of every rightful sovereign to rule and act fairly, no matter how powerful. Lady Rhea, do not presume I, or my race, are as debauched as those Predator bloodlings. Purchigchia is a neutral force, and we wish to remain as such … at least, as long as a certain someone is still alive.” She glared at Uzerra, again! Holy moly, this woman really hated that man. “But, aside from Aleistunum, I have no wish for disputes. As the leader of my race, I have a responsibility to maintain the status quo, so my people may live however they wish.”

“They fed on two people, Princess Vadisma. You denounce what the three did, but you insist your people may live however they wish,” I interjected, causing the woman to nod.

“I agree with what you said, that is why I will punish those under my rule. Or, are you also suggesting you, a dragon princess, should also take responsibility for the many feral dragons attacking innocent villagers and caravans and such?” she snapped back. “I speak of those living in Drascul, Princess of Dragons. The Predators, the Skyborne, and Royals. Not the people hiding amongst the land’s populace.”

Erm … I couldn’t speak back.

Seeing me silenced, she nodded and returned her attention to Renee. “Regardless, a blood debt is an important part of our culture. As their ruler, I only allow my people to feed on wild monsters and criminals. No comments on the latter, I presume?”

She glanced at me. At this point, I understood my remark probably reduced my standing in her mind. She probably thought I was some idealistic kid.

“None, of course,” Yorshka answered for me, noticing how my mood was worsening. “Criminals deserve punishment. How that punishment is enacted is reserved for the country in question.”

Vadisma smiled. “Yes, true. Having them act as a source of blood for my ever hungry populace means the innocents are protected. It is just right. That is why those three will pay … and I will pay for our country’s failure to control them. We are guests, but we harmed you. Ask, and I will pay. Help with buildings, reduction of the land’s mana accumulation, weapons; just ask, with reason, of course.”

“Thank you very much, your highness. I am glad we were able to resolve this without any issues.” Renee stood up to bow slightly.

“As am I. Now …” While Renee was writing down what Elyonda needed, Vadisma then turned to me. Her smile was as unfeeling as before, only this time, her eyes stared even deeper into me, almost as if to judge me. “You would wish to know why Drascul is still here, yes? Why have I transported your friends to this place? Why do I have your two otherworldly friends here?”

Renee twitched at those three last words. She probably already heard from Kyouya how they “came to this world,” so she probably could guess from context. Now, she probably was asking how we all knew them. I really should explain things to her.

In any case, I nodded to Vadisma. “Lord Uzerra asked me to come here. While I do have my own questions, I am more curious as to why you are interested in me. Is this about the boys?”

That was the only clue I had to follow. Sure, there was the fact I was a dragon and otherworlder, but what would she need from me, if she had the boys already? She could just ask them about Earth. What could she possibly gain from meeting with me, when her attitude up until now really didn’t seem like she cared if I was in her good graces or not?

“Partially.” She then leaned forward as the ends of her mouth went up. A shiver went down my spine. “How much blood would you like to pay for their freedom?”

“What?!” Tatsuya and Kyouya blurted out.

[“Calm down.”] I sent that telepathic message to them, stopping them from doing anything we might regret. Right now, outside of Uzerra, none of us could antagonize this woman without incurring the full wrath of Purchigchia.

As such, I kept my calm. I knew this wasn’t the real reason why she invited me. If she had any clue as a ruler, then she should know dragon blood was considered extremely sacred by the dragonewts of Loatryx. If she wanted to stay neutral, as she said, then trying to anger the dragonewts and my family wouldn’t be too smart.

Not to mention, “rule and act fairly.” If she wanted to be more than just a common thuggish ruler, then she couldn’t just ask for my blood for their freedom. Not to mention, didn’t she mention how she valued her guests?

Let’s play this smart. I needed information, first. “So Lord Uzerra was right. They are your prisoners. Why? Goddess Vivachel was quite mysterious and we couldn’t speak much, but I didn’t take her to be hostile to us. Or, is this your own choice?”

“It would be mine, yes,” she confirmed. “My ancestor only gestured to me that I should train them. Whether I treat them correctly or not didn’t really come into the discussion. Of course, only criminals are thralls and blood cattle, so I decided to treat them like normal guests. Still, they’ve been here for a while. Too long. Doing nothing more than training and eating.”

“You didn’t present us with any other option. You didn’t even speak to us, up until now,” Kyouya revealed. “You sent all your orders through Igol. I understand we should show some gratitude, Princess Vadisma, but this is unreasonable!”

“Unfair, you mean! I brought a storage full of fulinoe leaves for this trip, but those knights told me we were only allowed to live where we were told and eat what we were given!” Tatsuya complained. “Dammit, Hestia, they even stopped us from speaking with Tasianna and Dame Yorshka a few times. When we finally got the chance to speak, we just arrived at Elyonda!”

“…” Yorshka turned her gaze over at Vadisma, almost to the point of a glare. “So that is the reason. I did wonder why they were so agitated when they spoke to me. Sir Grigori told me they were training and that you were keeping them in the castle for their safety because of Goddess Vivachel’s wish.”

Even the knights were in this mess, huh? Seems like those third-rate villains weren’t the only assholes in this flying junk.

“… I guess I should have acted on my instinct. I apologize, Tatsuya. Kyouya.” Tasianna bowed slightly.

“Same. I should’ve probably come over the moment I heard I was invited here. I guess the mess in Elyonda preoccupied my attention, when I had friends waiting for help up here.” The more I learned, the angrier I got at the vampires. I then turned to Uzerra, wanting to know if he knew about this.

He shook his head. “I presumed. No evidence, since I didn’t meet them. You heard her speak to me. Me randomly visiting her could be attributed to ‘Archerudite Uzerra is spying on us.’ That’s a reason for war.”

“A war we would love, snake,” Vadisma struck again. “How I would love to see your face when we burn down your library. That agony, the despair of losing years upon years of work. A millennia of work, reduced to ashes.”

Uzerra managed to stay calm the first time his library was mentioned, but the second time, now even more descriptive, was his breaking point. “If you’re so vehement about it, then I will respond in kind. You do not have a chance against me, Vadisma. Not you, not your elders. I could reduce your entire kingdom into ash. Only your moth—”

Vadisma slammed the table, breaking it in half as all the snacks and tea fell down, staining the carpet. “Do not speak her name, snake!”

She’s even prickly about any mentions of her mother? What exactly is Uzerra’s history with her?!

The two glared daggers at each other, sparks practically flying between them, only for the volatile atmosphere to fall apart when Uzerra began to yawn. His body suddenly jerked forward, holding onto the sofa’s arm to stop his fall.

“He!” Vadisma smirked, looking down at the mage as his breathing turned haggard. “I just need to wait. Then you, my only problem, will be gone. Or, will you strike first and break your wish to stay neutral from everything?”

“Grk!” Uzerra strained himself, pushing himself up. He grimaced at Vadisma, but couldn’t help but yawn.

What is going on with him?

“… How long, Lord Uzerra?” The one to ask was Yorshka, looking at the ailing elf as if she had him figured out.

“… A few more years,” he replied, closing his eyes until he corrected his posture. “A few more years, yes. More, if I just stay asleep.”

“… Can somebody tell me what’s going on?” I asked, prompting Vadisma to scoff at me.

“He is dying, young dragoness! Immortality is such a fantasy for those young humans, but little do they know how much of a struggle it is. A curse. To watch everybody they love slowly perish, vanishing from their lives.” My eyes widened at the mention of immortality. “A soul can only take so much abuse and only has a finite amount of space for memories. Things are different for the divine, but the gods are gods for a reason. And he? Well, Uzerra doesn’t have much time left. Sleeping away months just so he can continue living.”

… That’s why he’s sleeping so much? Because he’s trying to continue living? Then, what about Mother? Isn’t she sleeping a lot right now.

“Lady Hestia!” As I was having this thought, Tasianna immediately grabbed me, making me notice how I was shivering. “Empress Melloxtressa is strong. She has you. She might need to sleep, but I don’t believe she will vanish from your life with how fulfilling you are to her life!”

“She’s right,” Uzerra agreed, gesturing with his hand for me to calm down. “Soul deterioration affects the body, too. However, I saw your mother. A soul fits their vessel, and I don’t need to be knowledgeable to know hers is larger than mine. If she really cherishes you this much, then don’t worry. Happiness keeps you alive … On the other hand, you might want to worry about your father.”

Father? My dragon father? Wait, is he insinuating that he’s … dying?

If we were talking about abuse, emotional and physical, then Eltharion, Emperor of Kargryx, probably had it extremely hard. He witnessed his parents depart, he had to win a civil war by killing his siblings to obtain the throne and regain peace, and no telling how old he was. I hadn’t asked Mother. After Mother showed me of her memories of the Kargryx civil war, it would make sense if Father was … depressed.

… Dammit, why am I feeling sad for him? I don’t even know him! Urgh, is he … is he-he doing well?

True immortality really was just a fantasy if you weren’t a god. Over time, the passion of life would just dwindle away, right? If I were to turn immortal, there might be a time I would lose Mother. Lose Neill. Lose Tasianna and Saori. When that time came, Ellaine and Grimnir would have already died from age. The pain in my heart would always be there.

Death really was sad.

“Krk! True!” Vadisma broke my thoughts. “Happiness does keep one's soul clean and strong. It might not be as strong, but I, too, feel my eternal slumber approaching.”

“…” Uzerra went silent when he heard this, giving the woman eyes of pity but also of guilt.

Seeing him like this, Vadisma growled and turned her eyes away from him. She grit her teeth, showing-off her long fangs before she looked down to the ground. She then returned her eyes to me.

“You pass,” she stated plainly. “Whether you planned it or not, you caused my mood to sour. Don’t go to the negotiation table in a sour mood. Good job bringing this filth to my home.”

Not like I could say anything about that. I was starting to appreciate having Uzerra here, even if I had to continue listening to all this bad news.

“… Then, they are free to go?” I looked at Tatsuya and Kyouya, both hopeful this nightmare could end.

“… Princess.” After a couple seconds of silence, the vampire turned her attention back to us. “The real reason for your invitation was for something else. I want to ask what you did at Aureolis.”

“Aureolis?” Both boys looked at me with frowns, both asking the same question. “You were in Aureolis? When?”

“Well, some time during the siege, apparently. On the same day we arrived here,” Vadisma clarified, prompting me to ask her where she got this information. “I have spies. You know that boy Elrick, yes? Well, if a bloodling like him can sneak into Aureolis and become a paladin, then my experts can do it as well, and do a better job of it too. They saw you and another dragonewt. I presume your mother?”

They know.

But they didn’t know I was trapped inside a dimension hole. Outside of our group, nobody really knew about it.

Seeing me keep my mouth shut, Vadisma took it as her cue to continue. “You want to know why I’m asking this, yes? Well, if you hadn’t heard about it yet, then Elyonda really is completely defeated. In any case, it’s known inside the church that the pope has gone insane.”

“Insane?”

“He cries and shouts in the night of a huge spider-legged dragon and a giantess of a dragonewt. Crying out how they would find and kill him. Reap his soul! How thrilling, eh? The pope of the Church of Aurena has finally gone mad. Hehe, weak human.” Vadisma smirked, and from the way she was speaking, she probably didn’t know he was a demonkin. The Prince of Envy really was good with his disguise.

Insane, huh?

“Well, I won’t continue denying it. Yes, my mother and I were there for a moment, before we dashed back here.” She shared information, so I had to reciprocate. If I wanted more, I had to play nice. “So, why do you want to know more?”

“Because my spies know of that summit you are planning with the dwarves, child. The Artorians were good at keeping it hush-hush, but those dwarves aren’t known for subterfuge. Urgh, their drunken stupors make it easy to get information out of them.” No matter who she was speaking about, if it wasn’t a vampire, she would sneer at them. “An alliance, right? Well, that would attract attention from the Empire. And with the Empire, Aureolis.”

“You apparently did something to the pope. I know, so other people will figure it out too,” or something like that. That was the message I got from her.

“I wish to keep my people safe. This won’t lead to a war, right?” I couldn’t answer her, making her sigh. “Good. That is what I wanted. Information, just like Uzerra. If the pope is insane and this ‘spider-legged dragon’ and ‘giant dragonewt’ were you and the Empress, then he won’t stop. He will hunt you down. He will have plenty of reason to send the full force of the Knight of Aurena … including those ‘Heroes of Aurena’ whelps.”

This was bad. If you thought about it, the main reason why King Drangleic was so confident in the alliance working out was due to me. I could act as a figurehead of faith as a Champion to prevent the Empire from attacking Artorias once they renounce their vassalage.

However, if the pope hated me and had a proper reason—a casus belli—then it could all end up in a war. I didn’t want that. I witnessed the horrors of war through Mother and also the destructive nature of it through my own action during the siege. I didn’t want another war to start!

I used to think that the demonkins were my enemies, but not every one of them were terrible. They were still “human.” Vifi’Yok with her love of doughnuts and willingness to repay a debt to Amelia, or how Hee’Rlak sacrificed his life for the young girl.

I understood sometimes it couldn’t be helped. I had killed people who had lives and ambitions before. They weren’t faceless fodder like the feral monsters I hunted. Even then, in the Belzac forest, I had met beings like the kobolds, the orcs, and the wyverns. Everybody had a life. Everybody possessed the ability to feel joy. I didn’t want to reap it all, not only ‘cause I was an idol, but just ‘cause.

If it came to it, I will probably have more moments like when I fought Vifi’Yok. Those knights weren’t my enemy. The pope was—the Prince of Envy was our true enemy! If war was inevitable, then I had to do something to stop it.

… Fuck, now I sound like an idealistic hero. Urgh, cringe! You can’t save everybody, Hestia! Dammit. Understand that already.

As I was having a moral crisis about war, again! I heard Vadisma crackling, “Haha, oh Tatsuya. Kyouya. Who will you stand with? Oh, then again, this girl, this ‘Hestia Atsuko,’ was an otherworlder, too, right? Oh, you Japanese. Will you side with your friends, or with this girlfriend of yours?”

“S-she’s not my girlfriend!” Tatsuya cried something, but why was he taking her provocation? We had other things to worry about!

“Hoho! Go, leave my home. Enjoy those unique Jobs, you two.” Vadisma picked up the bell lying on the ground and rang it, summoning the butler into the room. We were then escorted out of this pristine white room of the ruler of the vampires.

“Unique Jobs?” I asked the boys.

“Right, we wanted to tell you this.” Kyouya scratched his helmet. “Instead of evolving or changing into shadow human, we somehow met some requirements and unlocked out Unique Jobs. I have [Shadow Squire].”

“And I got [The Rush] … Yeah, I know, it’s a lame name.”

“Cool! I got mine after the Divine Quest. How about we compare them tomorrow? I really want to get a full update on Saori and what you experienced.”

“Urgh, don’t make us remind ourselves,” both boys said simultaneously. Did they share a brain cell?

In any case, our bantering didn’t last too long since the eerie nature of this place was as terrible as always; actually, it got worse since I now knew who the vampire princess was. Without a question, I had a feeling she would become a problem in the future. She really just seemed chaotic.

As I was worrying myself about the possible wars that could erupt, I noticed Uzerra suddenly stopping. He was looking out of the window, which led to the castle’s courtyard. There, I could see a vampire girl with lime- and scarlet-colored hair, wandering the garden in an evening dress. I couldn’t really see her face from up here, but what caught my attention was how Uzerra was just staring at her.

“Lord Uzerra?” I spoke up, but it seemed my voice caught the attention of the girl as she turned around, revealing an almost mystifying beauty … almost like Vadisma.

She saw us for a moment before she hurried along, away from our sight. Once she was gone, Uzerra shook his head and turned around and called for his bed. He sat back on it and had it carry him, all while he took out a book from underneath his pillow.

“Don’t read,” he told me, so I backed away.

Who was that girl? I wondered, considering Uzerra was so entranced in her.

In any case, after we left Purchigchia with the boys, we returned back to the surface where Uzerra told Renee that he would repay me for sketching Neill’s [Battle Frenzy] by calling for mages to help out Yeos. He mentioned how he wanted to restore the diplomatic friendship between Yeos and Aleistunum, but under the condition that the country not break up again.

“… I cannot promise you that, but I can promise that it won’t happen as long as I am alive, Lord Uzerra!” Renee stated loudly, causing the mage to nod.

“Good. Write up the contract and what you need. Send it to Aleistunum with my seal, and they will handle the rest.” He handed Renee a bookmark and the seal. “Use the bookmark to return the seal. My bed will grab it for me. I will most likely not be around to answer you … I think I need to sleep. I feel … like I could nap for quite the number of years.”

Uhm, please, don’t. I really want to ask you stuff.

Well, little did I know that this actually was my last meeting with the man, as the next day, his island was gone. The vampire island also vanished from the skies, probably a good thing since we wouldn’t want vampires stalking everywhere. Hopefully I could meet Uzerra another time. I really hope he didn’t mean it literally that he would sleep for multiple years.

… Sadly, my worries wouldn’t end just with this.

“Hestia!” Tatsuya’s loud voice caught me off guard while I was working on rebuilding some houses. He then pointed at the skies, where I suddenly noticed a swarm of birds fly over us.

In the next second, something began falling from the sky. Tasianna caught two of them with floating ice and brought them down, revealing them to be paper. Actual paper, not parchment! And not just some empty, white paper, but they had words written on them as if somebody used a typewriter or something.

“Newspaper,” Kyouya, Tatsuya, and I blurted out.

The written parts on the two newspapers were completely identical, to the point you knew they were printed. When we took a closer look, we noted it was called “Imperial News Weekly: First Edition.” Just like an authentic one, it had stories written on every page, including what seemed like a word puzzle on the backside. Whoever did this really put their heart into it.

… Which made it even worse when we read out the front page’s story of focus.

“Bastards!” Tasianna cried out when she read the title.

“‘A New Threat to the Empire: Crimson Dragon Menace!’”

My hands tensed up.

“‘Destroyer of Yeos and Blasphemer! A crimson dragon with white shimmering scales had attacked Elyonda while it was being invaded by an army of monsters. Not only did this beast lead the army forward, it had also annihilated the renowned port of Elyonda with a single spell. In addition, reports show that this dragon had personally attacked the Pope! Under the orders of the Holy Emperor of Mankind, the Empire offers a bounty for the capture or any information on the whereabouts of this monster. Dragonslayers, we seek the swift live capture of this dragon. People and vassals of Folschreck, do not be swayed by the vixen’s dragonewt disguise! Behind the guise of a beautiful girl lies the might of a volcano!’”

Mother might have made us invisible, but that wouldn’t stop the Prince of Envy—the false pope—for shouting lies.

… Verdammte Scheiße.

A note from AbyssRaven

I kinda enjoyed writing a real B in Vadisma. Welp, Hestia is now public enemy number 1 in the Empire. Good luck doing your idol stuff there.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 370: A New Adventure Awaits Us.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Mhmm, Hestia … Don’t worry, Mom is here for you, ehe.” She kissed my check, even wrapping her tail almost instinctively around mine. Almost as if the warmth of my body was agitating her to move. “Once we visit my lair, I’ll show you the icy vale of the wyverns. Beauty crystallized forever in ice. Mhmm. My jewel collection, ehehe …”

Mother … I felt my face warm up in a flush as she rubbed her head on mine, nearly stabbing me with her horns. Her mumbling as she kept sleeping was certainly a surprise to me, since I never heard her do this before.

“… Well, anyways, so—” But before I could speak, a young man’s voice interrupted me.

“Hestia-san, why exactly are we doing this inside your room? And why are you allowing yourself to be treated like a body pillow by your mother?” Tatsuya asked me, looking a bit embarrassed for me.

Even the usually nice guy Kyouya couldn’t help but nod. Now that he was out of that weird armor of his, I could finally see his face again. “… I agree. It seems really weird. We could have compared Unique Jobs in the living room.”

“Oh, come on. Leave me alone. It isn’t that weird,” I rebuked them, but the fourth person in this room had a different opinion.

“No, Sis, it is weird. You might be a whelpling in age, but you’re mentally a young woman, or teenager or whatever humanoids like to call it.” Neill sounded a little spooked at my sudden behavior, as if she wasn’t expecting me to suddenly want to lie in my bed and allow my mother to hug me while she slept. “Honestly, it didn’t seem like you and Melloxtressa were that extremely close. You had some banter here and there, but it was like you kept her a bit at arms length.”

I guess that was true …

“So, what’s with this?”

I looked at Neill’s complicated expression, although with her lion mane-like hair, it was a bit hard to see her brows so I couldn’t tell how shocked she was. Still, with the tone of her voice, I could slightly imagine how she saw the relationship between Mother and I. Honestly, I thought we were pretty close, but maybe from my older sister’s perspective, I did seem more worried about my own issues instead of Mother’s.

Then again, I was a Mama’s and Papa’s girl. I already knew that from the first moment I came to this world and my other soul half just reinforced it after I escaped from the Prince of Envy’s trap. As hard as it was to learn how I actually died back on Earth, it did show me how much I enjoyed spending time with all the people in my family. How I would gossip with Mama, watch anime with her, and how often Mama complained to me about my lack of fashion sense.

They’re back. I can remember most of my life on Earth once again … On the other hand, I’ve been treating my relationship with Mother as if she was another Saori. Another adult friend. Hmm.

At the end of the day, I only had one answer to Neill’s question. “Can’t a daughter just, you know, spend some time with her mother? Just hug it out? Not like a dragon can’t have a moment of weakness.”

“… Fair enough. Sorry.”

It was a bit awkward for me to be here, letting Mother just hug and kiss me while she was napping, but I thought, maybe, some skinship could help. The words “Mother and Daughter” was something Mother wanted so much. I was trying to get closer, but unlike her, I probably wasn’t trying enough.

As much as the Prince of Envy was a dick for creating those things to trap us in another dimension, I guess he did help me sympathize with Mother better. I could see her pain, fear, and happiness through her memories. Up until now, I only heard about her insecurities. After she shared her memories with me, I now knew about her loneliness, her wishes, and … her love. A Mother’s love.

I felt blind. I knew about all of that through Yorshka and Mother’s stories, but it never really clicked with me. I guess that past self of mine still felt like I only had one mom. But now… I had two. Hestia had one and H—I couldn’t remember the rest of my past name—had another. I had two Mamas.

Mom … Yeah, you liked it when I called you ‘Mom,’ right? I kissed her on her forehead. … Sorry for leaving you hanging for this long. I am your daughter. Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor is your daughter’s name, Mom … Although, what do dragon mothers and daughters do outside of training? And speaking about the lewd stuff? And grooming themselves. Hmm.

“Hestia …” While Neill had accepted the new reality of things, Tatsuya and Kyouya groaned as I continued. “Did that newspaper affect you that much?”

They finally asked the big question.

“Took you guys a bit to realize that,” I replied a bit snarky. “You guys read it. I’m public enemy number one in the Empire right now. What did I do to deserve it? Kill off the invasion force after I ordered them to leave after announcing myself. Bullshit. I didn’t even want to resolve it with their deaths, but, oh no, they kept on thinking they could win. Puuuh.”

I didn’t even read the rest of the newspaper, but from what I overheard Tatsuya and Kyouya read aloud, it was mostly events happening within the Empire, religious stuff, or news about the grimgarian invasion. Nothing important to me. What mattered was that I was the target of a smear campaign.

Two weeks had gone by since the siege, so it was possible for a merchant or tourist from the Empire to have visited and spread some rumors. This also included mercs and those who hired them to attack us, meaning the Prince of Envy was also a potential culprit. Considering what the vampire princess told me, the false pope wasn’t exactly my biggest fan right now. Propaganda as revenge wasn’t out of the question.

So, what if I felt sad and depressed about it? This was my image as an idol tarnished! Blemishes like these hurt, but the worst part was that I couldn’t respond back! This wasn’t social media, this was a newspaper. And apparently, this was supposedly something completely new in Peolynca, since none of the Peolyncians knew about it before now. From city criers to newspapers. Wow.

“Whatever.”

In the end, I decided to just forget it for now, giving Mom a hug before telling the others I wanted to check out my prestige rewards for my two other Jobs.

[Mage] prestige points: 3

- Benefit Slot increase

- Job Skill: [Magic Skills: Proficiency Lv. 1] [Arcane Skills: Proficiency Lv. 1] [Elemental Resistances: Proficiency Lv. 1] [Fire Element Lv. 1] [Holy Element Lv. 1]

- Growth Boosts: [Mana] [Intelligence] [Wisdom]

Oh, far simpler than [Idol]. I guess this is a beginner-level Job.

Arcane Skills: Proficiency: Increases the proficiency gain from arcane, magic casting, and mental skills. Reduces breakpoint requirement by 10% * skill level

Fire Element: Increases the proficiency gain of all fire based skills, while increasing general fire damage dealing and resistances by 1%. Decreases general water damage dealing and resistances by 1%. Effectiveness will increase by 1% each per level. Will exclude other “Element” skills, but under certain conditions and Job evolutions, this exclusion will be lifted

I could imagine what the rest would do, so I decided not to appraise every single one and just go to the next Job. However, before I could, Tatsuya chimed in. Similar to Renee, they got their Unique Jobs before me under another weird circumstance. I got mine just from a Divine Quest, but they each got it randomly for an unknown reason. All we knew was that in all three cases, they were either praying to or in the vicinity of a god.

“You don’t level the skills up by using them. Once you obtain the skills, you have to use prestige to level the skills up. So, don’t forget to plan things out. We managed to get prestige five on our Jobs,” he explained. “Oh, and make sure you take the ‘exclusive’ skill you want as your evolution. One of my first Jobs was [Footman] and it was my physical-based Job with choices like [Spearmanship], [Swordsmanship], and [Shieldmanship]. I took spear, of course, and it influenced the evolution of the Job.”

“You managed to evolve your Job?” I felt pretty happy that the boys rejoined the party. This was pretty important information.

“Only out of [Footman]. We both got another Job outside of it, but it didn’t evolve. Mine is [Protector] while his is [Shapeshifter].” Kyouya pointed at Tatsuya and how he could turn from a human to wolfkin to a huge garm similar to [Bestialize]. “[Footman] evolved at level five into [Shieldman] while Tatsuya got [Spearman].”

It did mean they couldn’t predict [Mage], though. So, the Element skill I choose would decide my Job’s evolution, but it did mention how it would allow me to gain more Elements later on. It made sense, since I bet the compound elements like lava and ice would have one later. That should be good for Tasianna.

So, [Tyrant Hatchling]. What do you have?

[Tyrant Hatchling] prestige points: 1

- Benefit Slot increase

- Job Skill: [Draconic Skill: Proficiency Lv. 1] [Spark Fire Dragon Lv. 1] [Tyrant of the Skies Lv. 1] [Tyrant’s Successor Lv. 1] [Job Crossover] (10 prestige points)

- Growth Boosts: [Health] [Mana] [Stamina]

Ten? Oh my.

Spark Fire Dragon: Increases the proficiency gain of [Spark Fire Dragon] mutation skills. Reduces breakpoint requirement by 10% * skill level. Enables a Job evolution specialized in [Spark Fire Dragon] skills

Tyrant of the Skies: The embodiment of Kargryxmor’s legacy, constructed by the God of Dragons in accordance to his earlier years. A skill specialized in the solo battle prowess of the Kargryxmor spawn, increasing [Battle Frenzy] stat boost by 2% regardless of the stage. Increases 2% of all stats if the owner fights a monster of a higher rank or of the same rank but of a higher or same level. These percentages increase by 2% per skill level. Will exclude [Tyrant’s Successor]

“Fuck! That is beyond overpowered!” Neill blurted out the moment I told her of the skill’s description. “So, at level ten, it literally gives [Battle Frenzy (Minor)] a 20% increase on top of the normal 10%? And if you are fighting somebody like Vifi’Yok, you get another 20%?”

“… And with my [Symphonie des Feuergottes] buffs, I get 50% depending on the movement and 100% during the finale.” A weird idea just came into mind as I said those things out loud. “… Does Kramps love us?”

“… I don’t know, Sis. Kramps is pretty rude and grumpy … I’m pretty sure he hates me since I’m a half—”

“Don’t call yourself that.” I stopped her before she could speak another word, startling Neill. I didn’t care if you were the king of the world of a god, nobody was allowed to call my sister a “half-breed.” Not even Neill herself.

“… A kirin-dragon.” Neill shrugged, stretching her mouth out in a rather comedic manner. I could relate to her self-confidence issues, so I wouldn’t let her continue demeaning herself. “Well, I don’t know if it is true until I can get a Unique Job, but … maybe it's a Hestia-exclusive? He doesn’t like our other siblings either.”

“… You’re saying I’m the only one of our family who he likes? I’m pretty sure he hates Mom, too.” I recalled the interactions I had with Kramps, which I would describe as a grumpy grandpa trying his best to help his granddaughter, but only knew how to do it in his antiquated way.

… Nothing, Kramps? Hey, come on! Goddess Aurena! Any of you! Speak with me, please! But none of them answered. Once again, the god wouldn’t speak to me.

“Yes, Sis. None of us like him, and he doesn’t like it. Now, there is a difference between liking and admiring! Our fifth sibling, Nongramos, wants to become the next ‘Tyrant of the Skies.’ Remember?”

I nodded, remembering how Sis had mentioned that. I then turned back to the last two skills.

Tyrant’s Successor: The embodiment of Kargryxmor’s legacy, constructed by the God of Dragons in accordance with his rule as emperor. A skill specialized in leading others and ruling the land as an imperial royalty of Kargryx. While leading retainers or soldiers fully loyal to you, you increase their stats, experience, and proficiency gain by 1%. Increase stat gained by 5% through monster or Unique Job evolutions. Increases percentage by 1% per skill level. While battling any non-royal dragonkins, decrease their stats by 15%. Will exclude [Tyrant of the Skies]

“… Hestia-san.”

“… Please.”

Tatsuya and Kyouya looked at me almost as if they were pleading. It made sense, considering this skill’s effect. It was entirely selfish, outside of the last, which you could technically call selfish since this also allowed those fighting with you to gain from it.

It didn’t include demonkins or humans, but it did count monsters like leviathans, drakes, ryuukoatls, and the many lesser dragonkins like wyverns and sea serpents. In a way, this skill would become so overpowered if we were to end up in a dragonkin-infested area with a ton of feral and mindless wyverns. 15% reduction in stats was not a joke. Although, it did mean I would lose the also overpowered [Tyrant of the Skies].

To be honest, I hated having all these choices! Even [Idol]’s [Giocoso Dreamer] and [Musical Renaissance Diva] were pretty bonkers if you think about it. However, I could only choose one of them! One! Damn! Which one should I choose? I honestly couldn’t decide on any of them. This was why it felt so painful. I felt bad having to give up something for something else.

“Don’t choose it.” However, as if she overheard my thoughts, Neill ordered me to not choose this skill.

“W-what!? But, Fargryneill!” Tatsuya complained, fitting since he was the most gamer-like amongst us. “By ‘retainers,’ it probably also includes people with [Hestia’s Retainer]. You should realize how powerful this would be, right?”

“Oh, yeah, of course, Tatsuya, but don’t think about dragging my sister in our succession war!” Sis shouted, intimidating Tatsuya as she revealed her fangs.

The boys got to meet everybody yesterday. Neill was already drunk at the moment, so it seemed she got a good impression of them since they liked drinking, too. However, when she got serious, she would get serious.

“Are you talking about our eldest brother and sister?” I remembered Neill saying two of our half-siblings were currently in a succession dispute.

“Yes, and that is why you should not even think about getting this skill. I don’t care how good it is, it will only make you into a threat to those two.” Neill sounded like she was panicking a bit. “Kahalameet and Wendriosa love us as siblings, yes, but that is ‘cause we’re siblings. They see us as their cute little brothers and sisters who they can love and cherish after a day of hard and stressful work. I love big sis Wendriosa a lot! I was the only other girl in our family before you were born, so she spoiled me quite a bit … But, I know. Instinctively. If I dared to become a competitor, she won’t see me as family anymore, but as a rival to defeat.”

“… But it’s just a skill,” I argued. “I don’t have any ambition to become the next heir apparent. I just want to become an idol and continue my career, not be stuck in a country ruling over people. That’s not what I want to do in my life.”

“I get it, and I bet those two would believe you. They aren’t stupid. They don’t want any additional disputes within our family; however, that doesn’t mean the other dragonkins would think the same.”

Politically, there was a risk I could garner the interest of the holy and ice dragon clans to see me put on the throne, regardless if I wanted it or not. Neill told me that none of our siblings could use holy magic, so the more power hungry of the holy dragon clans would probably gather under my wings. In addition, while I wasn’t an ice dragon, my mom was the strongest ice dragon in the world.

“Melloxtressa was the de facto ‘Dragon Ruler of Ice,’ before she had to abdicate the title after becoming the Sixth Empress. Dragonkins usually only like their own kind, so we have a system in Kargryx to name the strongest dragonkin of an element a ‘Dragon Ruler,’” Neill explained. “It is there to support camaraderie amongst the elemental dragonkins and to keep the balance and peace. These rulers are, of course, under Father and the empresses.”

As such, it was guaranteed that they would support me. Similar to how Beth and Shay were supporting me without question after they became Mom’s retainers, the many dragons Mother ruled over before would seek me out to put me on the throne.

This was why I was a threat to Karhalameet and Wendriosa. They wouldn’t be able to get those dragons to support them like I could. That was a risk, since it could potentially ignite some friction amongst their supporters.

“… Politics,” I scowled at that word, prompting Sis to do the same.

In any case, I should choose this later. For now, let us see the last new skill.

<Job Crossover: Enables leveling your Jobs while in monster form, however, you will not benefit from their skills>

“…” I blinked as I read the description. “Cool. Grinding up ten prestige points.”

That would solve one big problem about the Job System I had. Without this skill, it incentivised me not to assume my dragon form to grind, as it would just hinder the progression of my Jobs. While I wouldn’t be able to benefit from these OP skills while as a dragon, I could still level them up. I could rampage around as a dragon more often.

It’s clear. Let’s take the [Mage]’s ones.

[Mage] Prestige spent. [Magic Skills: Proficiency Lv. 1], Benefit Slot, [Fire Element Lv. 1] gained

Why [Fire Element] over [Holy Element]? Well, it was because I would benefit more from my fire damage. As the skill said, it increased “general fire damage” not fire spells. Meaning, this skill benefited all three of my flames, my fire spells like [Symphonie des Feuergottes], [Solar Beam], scale-dust, [Dragon Fire], and probably [Drakonian Sunlight Edge]. Solar power was also fire damage, right? Right? Even if it didn’t, that was still a long list.

As much as I liked my holy spells and attacks, the skill only mentioned damage and resistances, not healing. That didn’t benefit me. Meaning, I could rely on my [Idol] Job skills for that later on, or, hope I could take [Holy Element] another time. There was the fact that without [Holy Element], I probably couldn’t get a cleric Job since a holy mage was the general term of a holy priest.

And, that was it for my Job management. I was out of prestige points, and I wouldn’t be using any for [Tyrant Hatchling] until I got ten for [Job Crossover].

Now done, I kissed Mom on her cheeks once more and corrected her posture on my bed before leaving her alone to sleep again. Once my five-man group left the room, Beth bowed to us and went into the room to watch over Mom, while Shay followed along with us.

Once we left the living area of the subspace for the bistro—our little restaurant manned by Priscilla as the head chef until Tamae returned—I spoke with Svena who was currently cleaning up the tables. “Has Tasianna come back yet, Svena?”

“My apologies, Lady Hestia, she hasn’t. It probably would take a while to get to Shaturein and back.”

I had sent Tasianna to speak with one of the pillars, the leaders of Shaturein’s underground guilds, for information on the newspapers. Specifically, Jenghil, the brothel mistress. Since she had spies in the Empire after what we did for her in Estralia, we wanted to use them to track down the pesky person who committed such a sin as writing propaganda against little cute ol’ me!

Unfortunately, Tasianna wasn’t back yet. Sad, but she knew where we were if she came back late. For now, our party had to continue with what all of us had planned yesterday.

“Then, please, continue. Haati! Lorena!” I called out the other maids working inside the bistro. “I’ll rely on you guys, ok! Use up all the ingredients if you have to, I already sent an order to Amelia and the Sarlenzia company.”

“Yes, Lady Hestia!” Both pumped their hands up, fully energized as the bistro would officially reopen again after a long hiatus. After all, now that Elyonda could finally pay after Renee struck some deals with Uzerra and Vadisma, it was time to properly feed the starving populace. Poor Priscilla will be overworked, but at least she would have her parents to help her out today.

After we spoke with them, it was finally time to say goodbye to Elyonda and Yeos. Well, I say goodbye, but I could always visit them later on. After all—

“Hestia!” Renee greeted us the moment we left the subspace for Elyonda. “All good?”

“Yup, we got everything settled. It’s finally time to go for us, but don’t worry, I’m planning on seeing you get knighted!”

—there were still people in Elyonda I had to meet with.

“Lady Hestia!”

“Princess Hestia!”

“Our idol!”

Cheers and raucous shouts came from outside the window, blasting things up to the point it sounded like a celebration was happening. Renee chuckled for a moment and led me outside the room to the balcony where we met Rita equipped with a ton of documents and a mana pen.

“Hestia … are you really leaving us?” the dryad girl in her human disguise asked in a pleading manner, almost as if she wanted me to stay despite everything I had to do. “Only five days after all that happens doesn’t seem fair. And it's not like we had a chance to spend a lot of time together since we were all busy with the relief effort. Uuuuuh, and now I want to learn so much more about your world, Hestia!”

I had revealed everything to Renee yesterday, about my past self, about being a reincarnator, and how I was sent to this world for a Divine Quest to stop the demonkins from destroying Aurena’s church. Rita knew a bit of it, since she was really attentive with information gathering, but she, too, didn’t know the entire truth.

Now that she did, however, she wanted to keep me here to question me about Earth. I couldn’t, of course, which made Rita sadder since she decided to stay and help Renee out with Elyonda. To her, she found the complete rebuilding of a city quite interesting and wanted to document everything. She also believed that, with me as their ally, Elyonda’s future seemed bright, and that was something she couldn’t miss out on.

“Not like I will leave forever,” I told her. “Besides, our garden is in Anko-Nazta currently. We need to get there to show you it, so make sure you stick around, okay?”

“… Of course.” She pouted. “It would be a shame to lose the two friends I made. Traveling usually makes me forget about things, so maybe staying here, working as a farming advisor might help. I could probably help populate the local faefolks. Although, I might need to get [Faemancer] for that.”

With my talk with Rita over, we then went to the balcony, where Prince Markval, Princess Anasthasia, Duke Alberstien, and Sir Jethro were standing off to the side. They greeted me and the people behind me, before urging me forward to speak to the people below. I laid my hands on the worn stone railings, remembering the horrifying battle we all survived, from the invasion force to the zombie chaos caused by Karhalantheel’s revival.

The applauding and whistling crowd below me had experienced everything the enemy had thrown at us. Many weren’t here anymore and many came out of this war with trauma from losing their loved ones or suffering their physical injuries. I did question if it was smart to let Vifi’Yok go, since she was responsible for all of this … but it was too late to second guess myself about it.

At that moment, I personally thought it was the correct move. My sympathetic side had appeared, making me feel like a hypocrite in hindsight, since I have killed bandits and black mercs in droves for harming others. In fact, the grimgarians counted too as soldiers. I had experienced two wars, now, no, three if you counted Griffonpeak. The demonkins were my enemies … but at the same time, they weren’t.

What would the world be, if Vifi’Yok and Hee’Rlak had met us as allies? What if, instead of cursing each other, the humans and demonkins hadn’t gone all genocidal with each other? Why was an idol like me participating in these wars?

Regardless, if I stopped the Prince of Sins and helped Aurora recover her religion, this war probably wouldn’t stop unless the demonkin and humans could find something in common. They both wanted the other race to go extinct. If this hatred continued and grew with more deaths, nothing would change.

Next time, I will stop the battles from happening at all! Instead of making the soldiers and people pay, make the damn leaders answer for their actions!

“People of Elyonda!” I began, however, before I could continue, the crowd below bellowed out what they wanted to say.

“We don’t believe them, Lady Hestia!”

“Lies! Damn lies from the Empire!”

“They abandoned us and left us to die! You saved us! You didn’t do anything wrong!”

I gripped the railing, feeling the supportive words channel right into my heart. The pain I felt from reading that newspaper title was slowly fading away, replaced by the heartful cries of the people I tried to help smile. To an entertainer, the gratitude of their fans was one of the greatest rewards.

“We won’t let the Empire fool us! No, fuck them!”

“They lie to all of us! Lie to the world about what you did today! We know the truth!”

“Lady Hestia, even if the Lycrepth sends people over, we won’t talk, you have our support!”

“No!” I stopped them before things got out of hand. “Everybody, I know what you are feeling today. I can feel it, too. I read the newspaper which arrived today, but please let me tell you that letting your anger out won’t help you!”

I hadn’t expected so much support, but I expected some of the angrier people would say things like this.

“I had seen enough conflict. Elyonda and Yeos have seen enough conflict. Many of you cannot return home as your houses and lives were uprooted by the grimgarian invasion. Not to mention, the city Elyonda was destroyed by the combined forces of the leviathan and those invaders.” This wasn’t a time for anger, it was a time to unite. “What good does it bring you if you antagonize the Empire?”

Chattering and gossip. It seemed people didn’t expect me to respond like this so they instantly spoke to each other if they heard me correctly. I needed to quell any dissent before I left. This was my last task in Elyonda.

“I will not say I support them, for they have clearly put a bounty on my head. I am an idol! I am a blessed of the Goddess. It feels unfair … but right now, you need to think ahead, people of Yeos. Think of your lives, think of your future, think of your children’s futures. Think about your country!” My words spurred the people into even louder chattering, but this time, it seemed like people weren’t cursing the Empire anymore, at least, not to the point they wanted to force the prince to do something stupid. “This city will be rebuilt, for you have the return of your Champion! Rhea Renee Sealight! Champion of Yeostar!”

“T-that’s right! Dame Rhea!”

“Champion of Yeostar! Our hero!”

Renee stepped forward, a bit of a reverse from our speech in the arena. While she took the front there, I was taking care of everything now.

“As such, people of Yeos, I ask you to think about yourselves right now. Rebuild your homes and shelters, rebuild the lives you lost, rebuild all your passion back from the ashes! Listen to my voice and words! You may keep your anger and rage at what happened, but don’t let it control you! Right now, your country and countrymen need all of you!” I looked over at the royal family and also the nobles watching us from the courtyard of the castle. With a resolute nod, I finished my speech. “People of Yeos, commoners and nobles alike, this is time for you to rebuild your home. Rebuild Yeos from the ground up to become the bastion of Knighthood in Yeostar’s honor! Hear this, for a blessed believes in you! May the Goddess bless all of you in her bountiful light! Purple Flash! Prayer!”

[Blessing of the Goddess of Light (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!”

The shouts exploded like bombs, filling up the air with the pure energy of the audience. With the white magic circle pouring incandescent light onto all of us, empowering our bodies with its mana, hope and faith alleviated the negative feelings most of the crowd were feeling. While some weren’t so optimistic, I had to hope Renee would be able to help them.

I really should have sang for them one last time.

I really wanted to perform one more concert before I left, but I didn’t have enough time. As I mentioned before, I had to leave for Ankor-Nazta. Why? Well, we still haven’t heard anything from Ellaine, Grimnir, and the students for a long while, since before the siege.

Tatsuya and Kyouya had just told me everything that happened with Saori, so I was confident she was okay. I didn’t want to sound like I didn’t trust Ellaine or Grimnir, but Svena told me Grimnir had just made a new armor for Ellaine that they planned on presenting to the blacksmith challenge Grimnir made to his old clan. It should have ended already, so why weren’t they around?

Something must have happened.

That was why we had to leave now. I wanted to know what was going on.

After departing from the balcony and thanking Prince Markval and his family for everything, Renee escorted us back to the subspace runes. There, we met with the saurians and the Nordor family.

“Don’t worry, young scale, we’ll tell Kush everything. Just come back, alright? Kush will want to continue his training with you.” Krim patted my back, laughing as if he was inside a tavern. The red saurian was always a moodmaker.

“We will stay around. Keep things safe for a while,” Grazlahta informed me of their plans. “Chahayat wishes to help the Caedhulens establish a tribe here, so we agreed to stay around and help. Most likely, after that Adhi returns from his trip to the Empire with Kush, he’ll probably head back home and tell everyone what happened. With the news of what happened, I think some of the Caedhulens will get curious about you. Expect to meet some, if you come back in about a month.”

“Haha, we will most likely be gone for two months. The summit begins then, after all,” I corrected him, before nodding to the giant Akast. I then turned to Yorshka, Farron, and Priscilla. “Are you sure, Yorshka?”

“Yup. It’s time for my family to take some days off for us again. Priscilla also wants to help the people out here with her food, so a mother can’t just leave her alone. Say hello to the boys and girls for me, and bring them back safely so I can say hello, too!”

“Thanks, Mother!” Priscilla beamed a smile. “Hestia, I’ll still keep up cooking things, alright? Just, please, make sure Tamae comes back safely! I haven’t spoken with her in a long while.”

“Of course, Priscilla. I will, I promise. Pinky swear and all of it!” Priscilla and I locked out pinky fingers together, making this promise a must to fulfill. I then turned to Farron. “You sure you want to stay around? What about your guild?”

Farron waved his hand dismissively to my question. “Gael will handle it. He might be my second in name only, but he should work as one to keep it official. Besides, I need to get stronger. With the mana still around, there are plenty of monsters I can hunt here. You kiddo, though, should make sure to remember you have to take the rank A test, alright? Meet up with Muraina.”

“I will. Thank you.”

With every goodbye said, I then opened the subspace, causing the air to distort as a door began to appear. Our group then took a step … before I turned around, watching the one person standing still.

I frowned. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” It was Neill. “I do want to come with you. Feels like I should keep on watching you, but … I think I need some time for myself. Look for who I am.”

“… That’s too bad.” It seemed like I would have to part with my older sister for the moment, despite all that we experienced together. I felt … a bit lonely.

“Don’t worry, I’m just gonna help Renee out a bit. I still think traveling with you would help me more, now that Renee is going to be staying in this place. Although, I think when you finally decide to go to the Empire, we should drag her along with us. I still want to have her join me in a dungeon dive there too, you know!”

I smiled at Neill’s continued positivity. It was a goodbye now, but it won’t be forever. We would meet again.

“Also … I think I have my answer to break through Envy.”

“You do?” My eyes widened. If she got past the Envy stage of [Battle Frenzy], she would reach the last gate—Pride.

“Yeah, after watching you, Renee, and Rita all find things you wanted to do, I think I have an idea of what I am missing. Makes me jealous, but it helped me understand how all this drive to be stronger and better was just a way for me to cope with everything.” Neill looked out of the window, smiling as if she was longing for something. “So, that is why I want to see for myself who I really want to become. For that, I think I need a rest from traveling and fighting. I need … to stay still for a moment. Stop wandering about. As you said, sometimes a bit of peace is better than conflict.”

“… My speech or what happened with the demonkins? Which inspired you to think like that?”

“Both, I guess?” Neill shrugged. “I don’t agree with you letting those two go, but I respect it. A normal dragon would have killed them, but you are a merciful person. Naive, but good. That’s what makes me proud of you as a sister, Hestia. So, whatever you’re planning on doing in Ankor-Nazta. Make sure to—”

She twirled her body around and posed!

“Krasasa!” She shouted that cute cry with a wide face. “Keep shining!”

I did the same thing, remembering the time I told Neill the story of when I first posed like that in Belzac Forest. “Krasasa! Will do, Sis! Just watch me beam like a star!”

‘Arrrrrrrrghh! Cringe!’ Meanwhile, Manager Mind was dying inside along with my other parallel minds. They really didn’t understand anything.

And so, our last day in Elyonda was over. We left the subspace runes in Renee’s care so we could keep the fast travel point open, before my group of Tatsuya, Kyouya, and Shay went over to the nexus. Rajah was still in his cocoon, so it meant this was the team I was taking into whatever lay behind the door leading to Ankor-Nazta.

For the first time, I was in a group predominantly made up of guys.

“Ok, boys! Let’s do this!” I pumped my hand up, making it seem like we were going on a school trip.

“Oh!” The boys cheered, knowing the feeling.

[“Please, be careful, my lady. I will protect you in Tasianna’s stead!”] On the other hand, Shay still had a stick up his ass.

I grabbed the door knob, noticing the portal was closed, meaning the subspace on the other side had to be forcefully opened. I injected some mana into my grip and then ordered the rift to open up. With our way secured, we could—

“Aeeeeek!”

“Haruka-chan!” Kyouya was the first to react to that scream, somehow instantly realizing the shriek belonged to one of the students—Haruka.

“Wait, Kyouya, she might be changing—And he’s gone.” I lift my hands in the air, thinking he might have acted a bit rash. If Haruka screamed ‘cause she was surprised the portal opened up and was changing, then what would he do, huh? That was a comedic anime moment made into real life!

Jeez.

“Come on! Help!”

However, the moment Kyouya cried out, the rest of us instantly knew this wasn’t one of those moments. Something actually was happening on the other side. We charged through the portal, reappearing in what seemed like a dark alleyway. The ground was wet and stank like old grease mixed with rain water.

The three of us darted our heads around, finding that Kyouya had put on his shadow armor again. He was standing in front of the small, feeble-looking Haruka, but unlike her usual human form, she now had the tail and ears of a fox. Instead of her usual colored hair, she now had it colored brown with streaks of white, fitting her fox aesthetics.

However, what also caught my attention was the fact she was wearing rags instead of the clothes Saori made for her. They were frayed and in tatters, while the girl herself looked like she hadn’t eaten in days. She was cowering behind Kyouya like a little mouse, weeping and asking for help in a small voice.

“Damn ‘e!” A deep man’s voice resounded from the side, causing the rest of us to snap our heads around. “‘Ittle bitch got help? Seriously, the clan lead ain’t gonna be ‘appy to hear that toy of theirs got worked again. Those runes will get worn down, so we oughta do this quicker next time, lads!”

The speaker turned out to be a dwarven man, but not just any dwarven man—he was a taz dwarf, just like Grimnir. Slightly shorter but bulkier than their racial cousins—the inko dwarves. In addition, like all taz, he had two large ram horns, slightly tanned skin, and could spit out flames like a dragon.

“‘Kay, lads, probably some helpers. Knock them down and put them into cages. We needta get that ol’ Grimnir to stop his sheit.”

Did he just say Grimnir?

“Oi, dragonewts! Lads! Put your hands up if you ain’t wanna—Grack!”

“Boss!” The minions behind the taz dwarf screamed as I dashed forward, grabbing his head, only barely able to control myself to not crush it.

“Speak or die.”

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 371: Ire to Those Greedy Dwarves.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Speak or die.”

“Grwak?!” The dwarf didn’t respond correctly, so I slammed his head into the stone floor, quickly realizing from the lack of a dent that something was protecting the floor. “Ghuuurk! Aka!”

“Boss!!!”

Hmm? But, from the sounds of it, the damage I inflicted is still pretty much what I expected. Good thing all these dwarves are suited up in heavy armor.

While the floor didn’t even show a small crack or even a slight mark from my action, the indented helmet and the fact blood was seeing from the dwarf’s head proved to me it wasn’t ineffective. Slamming the dwarf's head back into the stone once again for science, the dwarf cried out in pain, but the floor still wasn’t damaged at all.

Mana Eyes.

I knew there was something suspicious here, but what I didn’t realize was that this whole place was brimming with mana. There wasn't nearly as much mana as Shaturein or current Elyonda; no, in fact, the mana wasn’t nearly as disorganized as those other places. The mana in the former two was like a wild, untamed river, while the one in this place was like a perfectly outlined waterway.

The mana below me was streaming through this alleyway to the end of the walls surrounding us, where I noticed the stream flowing into these blocky boxes. I also noticed multiple manatech decorating the place, each given either a share or the mana was entirely isolated from this network of mana. Fascinated by this, I looked even further, where I noticed spots where Peolyncian words were scribbled on. Were these runes?

“—go of me!” Finally finished with my inspection, my attention returned to reality as I noticed the dwarf trying to punch my face. As it landed, I noticed a green and brown rune lighting up on his gauntlet.

Wind blasted from his gauntlet, increasing the strike force of his punch before I felt mana suddenly enter my body, bypassing my [Draconic Barrier]. Did this mana really ignore it?

‘Crack sounds coming in our skull,’ my parallel minds informed me, visualizing in my mind how the mana was seeping from his gauntlet and was forming something like a crack. My Wisdom immediately went into action, protecting me from the full brunt of the attack the moment the mana exploded.

From the look of it, this foreign mana was passing through my mana paths. Maybe this was why my [Draconic Barrier] treated it as normal, outside mana, instead of something dangerous. Well, at least my Wisdom came into play.

“W-what?!” the dwarf stuttered as I pushed his fist away with my head, showing no signs of damage despite his tricks. “A-attack!”

“Save the boss!” The remaining dwarves all charged towards me with their weapons ready in hand. However, before they could do anything, Shay body checked the dwarf in the front, sending the Taz flying back into the rest of the gang before he unleashed his cryo breath.

The dwarves quickly activated their barriers, probably [Defensive Rune: Auracoil], to defend themselves. The ice froze over their mana barrier, leaving the dwarves undamaged and allowing them to use their equipment to break through the ice. Just like the dwarf I was threatening, all of the Taz dwarves we were dealing with had runes adorning their metal armor and weapons.

I snapped my fingers. “Boys,” I called out, signaling for Tatsuya and Kyouya to help out Shay while I healed Haruka.

“Got it!” Both shouted before activating what seemed like new abilities they probably had just gained from their training with Saori.

Kyouya, in his bulky shadow armor, touched his shadow and began pouring mana into it to not only clad Tatsuya in a shadow armor like his own, but also to create a shadow shield for himself. He unsheathed his sword and charged forward like a steam train, seeing as how his armor was exuding black mist.

Tatsuya, on the other hand, took out a single fulinoe leaf and placed it in his mouth as he began to transform with his druidic powers. However, instead of the wolf form I was used to seeing, he transformed into a felgheist — one of the giant bat monsters! In fact, it looked eerily similar to the vampire transformation we saw those poachers use, but I couldn’t tell for sure, due to the black goo-like armor from Kyouya’s shadow.

I had only asked them about their Unique Jobs, but I clearly forgot that Tatsuya was celebrating a new unique skill too. I should ask them afterwards.

In any case, I left the fight to the boys while I slammed the “boss” dwarf once again on the ground, knocking him unconscious and busting up his helmet to the point someone would need to pry it off his head to get it off. I then went over to comfort the frightened and crying Haruka, all while the fight against the dwarves continued.

As mentioned before, the dwarves were using their weapons to break free from the ice. Once they had a clear shot, the dwarves used their weapons to begin shooting out spells as projectiles through their runes. The basic four elements were all they had, but I could recognize spells like [Fire Ball], [Wind Slash], [Water Bolt], and [Rock Bullet] amongst them.

However, Kyouya remained unfettered. As Shay flew up to dodge, Kyouya passed under him and charged right through the spells. He was slowed down and I saw fragments of his shadow shield and armor breaking off, but he still reached the dwarf in the front. Whether these mobsters were actual fighters or not, the dwarf didn’t panic, simply slamming his hammer right into Kyouya’s shield.

“Got you!” he shouted as his shield snapped around the dwarf’s weapon. Kyouya then touched the coated weapon, forcing the dwarf to drop the weapon, as if it was too heavy to hold on to, the weapon slowly being submerged in his shadow.

“Wh—Tuuwark!” the dwarf wanted to cry out, only for Tatsuya to slide right in and interrupted the cry by running his spear into the dwarf’s shoulder.

Too shallow! The spearhead couldn’t even pass through whatever under armor Tatsuya’s opponent had, being stopped completely by the shoulder plate. I knew dwarven culture was very artisan-heavy, but to the point some random thug could afford armor strong enough to block Tatsuya’s spear? Then again, to be fair, it wasn’t made from my materials like my spear was; this was still the spear he got from the church.

Realizing this, Tatsuya instead chose to kick the dwarf in his head. It didn’t deal as much damage as I could do, but it still staggered the dwarf. The boys had clearly improved, but I was still a bit worried they couldn’t handle this … but all that worry disappeared once Shay descended.

[“Support me!”] he commanded, and both boys agreed immediately.

With the boys acting as tanks, disrupters, and engagers, this allowed Shay to pressure the dwarves with his ice and temperature control. Even if the dwarves had runes to back themselves up, Shay was still a rank B wyvern and trained by Mom. The dwarves could put up a good fight, but Shay ultimately was far too strong.

I can leave them be.

“Hestia-chan!” Haruka suddenly hugged me, forcing me to look away. “They took them away! They took them away! We need to—”

“Okay, okay, okay!” With her face covered in tears and snot, coupled with how she had clearly lost weight and smelled as if she hadn’t shown in days, I could understand the gist of it. “I know, but you need to calm down. You’re safe. I’m late, but we will handle everything once you’re back on your feet!”

I helped her up, noticing how she winced when she tried to straighten her legs. Haruka wasn’t a combatant, as she had a strong blood phobia, so her level was extremely low compared to our party’s standard. Her stats were decent, as she had been training to keep her body fit, but she was mostly our party’s treasurer and our third merchant.

Still, seeing her like this was unbelievable. What happened during the two weeks when the siege began and up till now? There was no question this unconscious dwarf knew something. As such, while helping her up, I grabbed the guy by the arm and slowly dragged him towards the open portal. I didn’t like to interrogate people, especially if I had to use torture, but that might be needed this time …

“Stop!”

… However, it seems that time wasn’t on my side.

What?! I snapped my head around, noticing there were now several armed Taz dwarves blocking the right entrance of the alleyway, just as the earlier thugs were blocking the left side. Similar to those thugs, these dwarves were heavily armored and equipped with long polearms to compensate for their height, but unlike the former, all of them looked like they were uniformly equipped. Like soldiers or guards.

“By the order of the Hold King, stop right there! Cease any further hostilities, or face the earth’s punishment!” the guards shouted at us, slightly relieving me of the stress, since I could just turn this guy in.

“No!” However, the moment I took a step forward, Haruka shouted at me. “Don’t! The guards are all in cahoots with the Luedbrumdar clan! The entire hold is on their side, including the ruler! They tricked us! They were responsible for Nishio-san’s beating. No, we need to get out, Hestia-chan, please!”

What exactly was happening here?! I didn’t follow along with their travels, but I never thought it would be this complicated. However, now Haruka was telling me the guards were corrupt? What exactly did she mean by Nishio here? Did something happen to him? And what did all of this have to do with Grimnir’s ex-clan?

I darted my head from side to side, evaluating what exactly I should do here. Shay, Tatsuya, and Kyouya had stopped their fighting, but they had already beaten up the majority of the dwarven thugs. They didn’t look tired, especially Tatsuya who was tapping his feet on the ground like a restless dog. We could still fight.

Mana Eyes.

Lv. 57

The levels of these guards were around level 50 and 60 and their skill build was pretty average for normalpeople, as in, the average skill level amongst these people was around five. They didn’t have any advanced or hybrid skills. Their weapon skills were mostly level six, so they were decent with their weapons, but not masters.

Essentially, they were on par with capable rank C adventurers, and clearly stronger than the average guard of Artorias and Elyonda, who were around level 30 or so. In fact, these guards could probably fight on par with a standard human knight, though people like Renee or Farron could kick multiple of their asses at once.

In comparison, the thugs were around level 25 to 45. No wonder Shay was able to overpower them without any problems. The only thing that was problematic about the group was their equipment. That closed the level gap, as Tatsuya and Kyouya had to actually try to beat them. Which made me a bit impressed at how these guards’ standard armor was pretty up there.

Standardized Eoriant Dwarf Guarder: A dwarven breastplate made from eoriant alloy. Standardized and perfected in its form and function in accordance with the materials and labor required, the efficiency of this armor is unparalleled. Although not the best, it is the standard-issue armor for the common guards of the dwarven holds. As such, it is the perfect graduating test for novice blacksmith, as it didn’t require any local materials and ores to increase its function.

Vitality Power: 220

Wisdom Power: 220

Skill: [Sundering Resistance Lv. 3] [Piercing Resistance Lv. 3] [Crushing Resistance Lv. 3] [Fire Resistance Lv. 3] [Heat Resistance Lv. 3] [Physical Resistance Lv. 2]

Rune: [Defensive Rune: Auracoil] [Defensive Rune: Pavise] [Utility Rune: Clean Armor]

It had been a long time since I spoke with Grimnir or seen a lot of runes being used, as I was the only one in the Elyonda siege who had a weapon with a full set of runes, but I still remembered the Rules of Blood. Each individual weapon or armor piece normally can only contain three runes, but the higher the rank of the being the blood came from, the more you could add. At rank D you could add two more runes, and it increased twice with every higher rank.

Since it only had three, they probably just used whatever blood was available to bind the runes on the weapon. The more runes you wanted, the more intense the runesmithing session. After all, you had to etch all the runes you wanted during the same day, since the ritual to start runesmithing was pretty elaborate. That was why Grimnir could only do so much as our only runesmith.

That was why seeing about … 21 guards with this armor impressed me. This was not mentioning their gauntlets, helmets, and greaves. At least chainmail couldn’t carry runes, since the rings weren’t large enough for a rune to fit on it.

“Surrender now!”

My accelerated thinking speed stopped once the guards shouted once again, the lot of them not readying themselves for immediate combat. What should I do? Should I try to speak with these guards and use my title as princess to turn things over, or … risk losing time and a chance to rescue my friends if Haruka was correct about these people. What was the correct decision here?

“You have until the count of three to stop! If you do not, we will take this as a further act of hostility!”

“Stop, stop!” And just like that, the remaining thugs gave up, dropping their weapons and kneeling down with their hands up. Strangely, their faces were all too relaxed. They weren’t smiling, but it seemed like they were expecting the situation to turn around in their favor… now that we weren’t beating them up.

… Really?

“Hestia-san!” Tatsuya called me, looking nervous at what to do.

Shay turned around, too, looking at me as he gave me a nod, almost as if he was urging me forward before speaking with telepathy, [“My lady, I will listen to whatever decision you want. I will follow through, but you need to make a decision before it is made for you!”]

He was right, but this decision wasn’t easy. It was a diplomatic situation the moment I disobeyed these guards, but I also couldn’t risk losing a chance to rescue my friends. To me, my friends and family were the most important people to me. Some dwarven king? Unless you were the High-King of Ankor-Nazta, I didn’t believe they were allowed to stop an Imperial Dragon Princess!

Besides, if these people did help some gangsters kidnap and hurt my friends, then they were my enemies. Plain and simple.

“Are you their allies? Do you know them? Did you help kidnap a few humans who were friends of this girl?” I demanded from the guards, wanting to confirm one last time before I did anything. Even if this was a precarious situation, these guards did not attack me yet, so I had to show at least some willingness to end this peacefully for my later excuse.

“One! Two!”

I squinted my eyes as they clearly ignored me. Raising my voice and covering Haruka’s ears, I roared out with [Draconic Aura] active. “ANSWER MY QUESTIONS! My name is Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor, third Dragon Princess of Kargryx! You will answer my questions! ARE YOU ALLIES TO THESE IDIOTS, AND IF YES, WHERE. ARE. MY. FRIENDS?!”

“U-uh?!” The dwarves froze in place, shuddering as I shouted at them. Some even shivering so much, they almost dropped their weapons, only to clumsily catch them with their huge, sausage-thick fingers. The silence waved around the stuffy, almost cave-like air, to the point I noticed the ceiling wasn’t showing a blue sky. No, the bright lights above were actually lamps illuminating the dark grey cavern ceiling.

… Most likely under a cave, or inside this hold. Can’t remember Grimnir really mentioning his homeland. Not like he talked too much about himself either way.

“Y-Your Highness!” Finally, somebody spoke up. I turned around to my right, where a guard was walking up, towards the thugs with his hands placed up high. “W-we apologize for not recognizing you. W-we are guards of the hold city, n-not one of these thugs. I-if you wish, you may hand them in to us and we can—”

“Last chance.” I glared at him.

“Grrrk!”

“Answer my questions. Are you these people’s allies, or are you not? If you are, where are my friends? This is your last chance. Don’t put in your demands, just answer my questions if you don’t want any trouble. Because, I will be your problem. Speak the truth.”

“I …” The guard looked over to his fellows. It really didn’t seem like he knew what to do in this situation; he couldn’t even answer. That made him a bit too suspicious.

However, I still didn’t know if these guards were just doing their jobs or actually complicit. I had started thinking of them as enemies, so I was carefully parsing through their Profiles to find some clue, but they really were just a bunch of guards. Some were also miners, woodcutters, and had some side skills, but that was about it.

“Are you going to make me repeat myself?” I spoke. “If you’re not going to answer, then move out of the way. This is my business.”

“W-we can’t do that! Stop!” They pulled up their weapons again the moment I tried to pick up my subspace runes. “We will call our commander! Yes, so please put down the criminals you are holding, Your Grace, and we will—”

“You really can’t read the mood, huh?”

Volcanic Blaze. I stomped the ground as I said that in my head, only for nothing to really happen. Flabbergasted, I looked down, only to realize the ground had started to suddenly shine blue. I was trying to heat up the ground by controlling the temperature around my feet, but somehow it wasn’t working as well.

“Stop using mana!” The guards shouted, now really agitated. “You have violated the Laws of Mana within a Hold. Mana casting, mana usage, and mana manipulation is reserved for only specific areas or for certified professions. Princess Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor, you are under arrest for breaking the law.”

I, what now?! Using mana is a crime, how?! How did they even fig—Oh damn, hold on, was that flicker the mana barrier on the ground? Was that why the ground didn’t even crack when I slammed his head? Is it also restricting my mana usage?

The dwarves couldn’t cast spells nor expel mana unless it was a tool. In a society where the culture was disadvantaged compared to other races, it would make sense for them to make contraptions to avoid this weakness.

However, Shay and the boys were still able to cast spells and use mana normally, but [Volcanic Blaze] didn’t work. Specifically, I couldn’t heat up the rocks beneath me to turn them into lava. Which meant, mana usage wasn’t restrictive per se, but it was blocked from interacting with the ground. I couldn’t confirm it yet, so I tried to cast [Terra Wall].

However, the ground turned blue.

Aha.

“Enough!” And that was enough for the dwarven guards to engage us. It really did seem like I would be treated like a literal criminal right from the get go.

“Shay, get us out of here! Do not hurt them … too much.”

[“Your will, my wings!”] Shay blasted ice cold breath at the right side of the alley way, stopping the guards from advancing as they focused on using auracoil.

Meanwhile, Tatsuya and Kyouya took on the left side as I picked up my runes and lifted Haruka up into a princess carry. She yelped, but I ignored it to cast [Unheilige Engel] to make a chair for her to sit in. Once that was done, I decided to spit up some lava. If I couldn’t heat up the ground, then I had to be resourceful.

“Bwwuuuuuuargh!”

Noticing this sound, Kyouya and Tatsuya dodged backwards and turned around, ducking under the steam of lava. Once again, it reminded me to finish the three custom spells I had been developing ever since I reunited with Master. When I couldn’t heat things up for lava or use [Magmakammer], I needed something to use [Volcanic Blaze] on!

Regardless, the stream of lava crashed against the dwarves’ shieldwall, so I continued releasing more of it until I was satisfied. Using [Volcanic Blaze], I controlled the lava and created something like a staircase with it.

[“Get on!”] I told everybody with [Telepathy] before clearing up my voice.

“In my purgatory, I make the devil cry ♫

In Hellfire ♫

All you hear are his screams, begging to be released ♫

It’s Music ♫”

[Music Resonation (Minoir)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

[Dragon Fire], but not for the flame meteor, but for the fire immunity to my attacks. I didn’t want a certain person to burn himself now. So, before we left, I picked up the unconscious body of the “boss” dwarf and threw him on the stairs, letting his face hit the burning lava. Good thing he couldn’t be burned.

In any case, once everybody was on, I manipulated the lava stream to begin moving us forward at a decent speed. Outside of the alleyway, our group quickly came to realize the huge crowd of tazics and inkos, the slightly smaller and stereotypical looking dwarf, forming around the alley entrance. It was then that I also fully realized what sorta city I was in.

Neon light illuminated more than just the ceiling, it also banished the darkness in this place, as everywhere I looked there was some color brightening up the place. Like the glaring lights of nightlife in Tokyo or Manhattan, this dark cavern felt more like I was outside in the sun right now. [The Light] wasn’t making me feel uncomfortable, in fact, I felt right at home.

Similar to Gleisvale’s dwarven district in Estralia, most of the architecture involved stone. However, instead of being uniform, most of the stone houses looked sleek and individualistic. The dwarves would add colors, those neon lights, or even jarring shop signs to attract your attention. The aesthetics was a far cry from all the cities I’ve visited up until now, to the point it almost went to the gaudy zone, for me. Certainly unique.

With so many people looking at the flying lava, it was clear we couldn’t stay here, as somebody would just report us to the guards again, so I used the lava stream to fly us slightly away before taking to the streets once again. As such, we dashed through the people, running as fast as we could while helping Kyouya keep pace with us as he carried Haruka.

It was simply fascinating, honestly—this city, I mean. The loud ruckus from the area we came from was just the prelude, as a few corners away the liveliness of this place was further accentuated. The streets weren’t super filled with dwarves, but there was either a tavern, a street stand for noodles, or some smithy in every corner we went to. All of them were filled to the brim with people working or drinking their Davi away.

The slurping of noodles, the cooking of rice, and the ear-ringing singing of drunk patrons; you couldn’t avoid them even if you wanted to. The only way you could find sleep in this underground version of Chinatown—or maybe Japantown—was if you either drank yourself into unconsciousness, or if you got a runesmith to install a silence rune in your bedroom.

Speaking of noise, just like in Estralia’s dwarven district, there were minecarts transporting people around like a metro through the railway system above all the houses. The sound of rails clunking and creaking would amuse any train fan. In this already cramped space, the dwarves managed to use their available space wisely, although it did make this place feel even more claustrophobic. I thought Tokyo and downtown Manhattan were bad, but this place made me feel so tiny. Insignificant.

The bright lights and the loud roars of this underground city were mesmerizing to me. We took a trip on the roof of this place to shake off some guards we nearly met. There, we saw just how big this “hold city” really was. And, boy, was it large enough to make me amazed. It wasn’t nearly close to the actual size of the big cities I’ve been to or even Shaturein, but the amount of apartments and people stuffed into this place made it feel super large. With all the people traveling with the minecarts, it probably solved the problem of overcrowded streets.

“Jeez, this place would be really amazing if we weren’t running around. Haruka-san, do you know where we are going?” Tatsuya asked for our only clue, outside of the dwarf.

“… Yes. We should be around the Beats’N’Rocks district,” Haruka answered meekly.

“‘Beats’N’Rocks?’” Kyouya looked at her funny.

“The Revolution Queen was a western rock fan. She has pretty much spread the culture around here. Uhm, it’s called the Quarry Beats music culture here, but the musicians just call it ‘Beats’N’Rocks.’” Just as Haruka told us that, the loss of tension also meant our beating hearts managed to calm down enough, relieving us of our tunnelvision. It was also then that we started hearing more than just the random noises of the streets below us.

We heard … roars and string instruments … in particular—

“Wait, is that an electric guitar?! Drums?” I blurted out, dashing over a few rooftops in pursuit of the sound, until I finally stopped.

I looked down, noticing streams of blinding neon lights like a disco rotating around at the entrance of a garage-like door, luring in dwarven men and women with weird orange and black mohawks and pompadours. Most of them wore black leather outfits, making them look like some Yakuzas or sleazy bikers, while the others had clothes with mismatched colors mixed with parts of metal and monster armor.

“Ahwrrrrrrrrooooooh! Wooooo!” One of the dwarves even slid right into the crowd, knocking people over as he howled like a lunatic while looking like a sunglass-wearing rocker boy in a miner’s outfit. However, despite his clearly rude behavior, none of the people he disturbed complained, in fact, they were cheering him on.

“YYEAAAAAAAAAH!” That sunglass taz then pulled out the two sheathed sticks from his back, revealing them to be axes as he danced like some tribal raindancer. This, similarly to before, hyped up the group even more as they copied that howling he did before.

The noise was outrageous. It was a real WTF moment I had never expected to experience in Peolynca.

“Let’s goooo! Down with the corpos! Down with them guilds! Rocks on, Beatles!”

‘Beatles?’ I noticed as the sunglass guy bellowed his message out.

“Wooo, down with the corporations, man! Down with the Hold King! Rocks on!”

“Punker Paradise, unite! Fuck them industry sellouts! Goddess Chihiro ain’t wantin’ this quarry waste!”

“Chihiro! Chihiro! Chihiro! Punker Paradise, unite! Rocks on, peeps!”

And now those dwarves were chanting Chihiro’s name before they all shouted “Punker Paradise” simultaneously. Once that was over, the bustling noises didn’t stop, but they began entering through that garage door. As the crowd slowly entered the place in a orderly manner, contrasting the wild nature of their chants, some of the Taz dwarves were spitting out fire breaths while Inkos were shooting out neon-colored confetti with some manatech, leaving no waste behind as it was made from mana.

“What the hell?”

[“Indeed. It sounds pretty asinine …”] Shay expressed his dislike for the loud sounds, covering up his ears once he caught up. Was it that unpleasant for him?

“… This really feels like some rocker scene, right?” Tatsuya talked to me after he and Kyouya arrived, probably only witnessing the latter part of the hype show.

“It does, right?”

Huh?

I snapped around as I heard that unfamiliar voice, only to see an Inko dwarf walking forward as he held onto a metal guitar with an axe head on the body. He reached up to my waist and, unlike the wild crowd below, this guy seemed more normal.

As in, he was wearing a black tank top which revealed his trained muscles while his pants were just a set of metal greaves. He wore a small cap on top of his slick blond locks, greased up to hell with fat or some kind of oil. His long beard, which reached down to his chest, was decorated not only with that rock hair dwarves had but also with rings, strings, and some braids here and there. Two glowing tattoos covered his respective shoulders, telling me they were runic tattoos.

All in all, he was pretty bulky like most dwarves, but he didn’t have a belly like Grimnir did, caused by all his drinking. Then again, the fact he was an Inko dwarf made him look incredibly different from Grimnir. Especially the fact he seemed far more confident and charismatic.

“Heya, I guess from those red clothes and that shrine maiden robe, ya that explosive lass of a princess, ey?” he asked as he strung the strings of his guitar, causing it to light up blue as it reproduced closed-to electric guitar sounds.

“… And who are you?” I kept my distance from this guy.

“Ha, cold shoulder from a fire dragon! Ya pal Grimnir didn’t describe you like that!” The moment I heard Grimnir’s name, I reacted, causing the dwarf before me to smirk and perform a guitar solo. “Wraaahaaaaahaa!”

I took a step back as he screamed from the top of his voice, reaching some notes most men shouldn’t be able to reach. It was falsetto, a term to describe people singing higher than their normal vocal range. And this dwarf did just that without cracking, sounding almost like a woman for a moment.

“Names Rosserto. I’m the band lead of the punk rock band ‘Punker Paradise.’ Follower of Chihiro, and ONLY the Revolution Queen!” he stated as he ended his solo. “Also, a friend of Broggi, Grimnir’s cousin.. I’ve been sheltering two of the kids from ya group, and the ol’ twat told me to wait for ya to come. Wraaaaahaaaaaaha!”

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 372: Stepping on a Dragon’s Toes.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Hesti-chan!”

“Kazumi-chan! Kohaku-chan!”

The voices of two girls pierced through the raucous roars echoing inside this stone house. Despite being backstage and inside a room that rocker Rosserto lent to us to rest in, you could still hear his audience's cries through the walls. In any case, seeing my friends’ faces as they smiled at our group's appearance made it impossible for me to not reciprocate with a hug.

I squeezed both girls, glad they were okay. Kazumi, in her katzune form, was wiggling her ears and tail, clearly happy that we all came, while Kohaku was spouting, “Haha, I told you everything would work out!” in such an energetic tone, despite her puffy eyes. When I released her, I could also see how much she had chewed up her fingernails, all to her embarrassment.

“You actually made it out!” From behind, Haruka was slowly approaching us with Kyouya’s help. “Nishio-san told me he bought you time, but I-I didn’t think you could of been hiding here all along.”

“Haruka-chan!” The two girls ran up to her, noting her appearance and the ragged clothes she was in. The petite girl explained to the two what she had told us, about how the Luedbrumdar dwarves had thrown them into their jails, stripping them off their belongings and even forcing them to change into simple clothes.

The boys and I were outraged when we first heard this, and the two girls couldn’t believe something like this could happen. They told us the initial meeting with Grimnir and his old clan had been pretty hostile, but they thought, after they told the clan they were part of “Princess Hestia’s retinue,” that the clan's responce would be just to shun them. However, the fact it derailed so much was beyond their imagination.

Just hearing it all again made my face heat up in anger, making me imagine what I would do to the people responsible for this. This was practically a declaration of war with me. I abhorred the word, but I was suddenly taking a liking to it now that Grimnir, Ellaine, and everybody else was in danger! They took their belongings and threw them into jail? My friends? These dwarves really wanted to know what a sunfang dragon could do to their mountain homes, huh? A [Magmakammer] should make them learn.

I was adamant to start the rescue mission immediately. “All right, I’ve heard enough, tell me—”

“If you would, your grace …” However, before I could finish my sentence, the door was opened. I turned over, eying a greased-up Inko dwarf with a well-kempt beard, carrying around a set of tools and looking like a mechanic or engineer. “May I suggest not attacking them so early?”

“… Mister Jadhund, correct?” It took me a bit for parallel minds to remind me who this person was. He was the chief manatechnician of the train station in Estralia, and, apparently, a friend of Grimnir’s cousin, Broggi—also known as Broggart.

“It is an honor you remembered me. It’s been over a month, so I wouldn’t fault you.”

We only met once and it was mostly for Grimnir’s sake, so I understood why he would think I wouldn’t remember his name. If it weren’t for my parallel minds, that would have even been true. It might be weird to say about a dwarf, but due to his long beard, it made it hard to recognize his facial features, unlike Grimnir. Thankfully, the accessories on his beard and his bronze-colored hair gave me enough clues to piece it together.

I was sure he was Grimnir’s supporter, since he agreed to help Grimnir acquire his cousin’s tools from said cousin's workshop. Grimnir told me he could create even better stuff if he could get the equipment there. That was why he, Ellaine, and the students were all in this place. And now, Jadhund was telling me to stop?

“… Your reason?” I wanted to shout, but I kept myself composed.

“It’s not a one-sided story … and I have some loyalty to the clan as Broggi’s friend.”

“Are you crazy!” Kohaku shouted, anger contorting her brows. “Mister Jadhund, why did you rescue us then?! Daichi-san, Tama-chan, Nishio-kun, Misa-chan; they are all waiting for us! We have Hestia and the rest of the cavalry now. We can stage the rescue!”

“I agree.” I sided with her, too eager to start. “One-sided or not, they have my friends in jail. They know whose retainers they are, and even if they don’t know me personally, they could have confirm this with Loatryx. The dragonewts are situated north of here. Ask them! They can’t be this stupid!”

Jadhund took my complaint face on, stroking his beard as he contemplated how to best speak me down. “… Trust me, your highness, they know. The Hold King most likely knows and so does our Ankoran King. And, while they have changed a lot, the clan leader of the Luedbrumndar is no fool. Despite his hatred for Grimnir for helping Broggi, the clan’s most established and loved artisan, break a taboo, he kept his cool… up until now.”

Jadhund explained he had been with the group until everything fell apart, repeating pretty much exactly what the students had told me when we first reunited about half-way through our stay in Elyonda. In essence, they got into a dispute with the Grimnir’s ex-clan while he tried to stay incognito, leading Grimnir to challenge them to a smithing contest for disrespecting his honor.

Not wanting to leave anything up to luck, Grimnir suggested entering one of the many dungeons in Inkoran-Tazul, the capital of the dwarves and where they initially got off the train. While under watch, he and his party managed to mine up and train, to the point every student outside of Haruka made it to level 70. With the ore, they then headed back to his home hold — in other words, in the place where his clan was situated.

Gazahan-Orn was the city’s name, meaning “Rubblerain Hold.” Named after the fact earthquakes happened here often, to the point the houses were mostly stone buildings that could stand up to the damage from a quake. Kazumi added how the capital was like a melting pot of cultures with Japanese aesthetics, meaning there were elven, human, beastmen, and dwarven houses to accommodate all the races. It was a trading hub, while this place, as I saw, was made to adapt to the environment.

In any case, once Grimnir’s party made it here, the contest began and Grimnir won. The dwarves, although furious, were oath-bound to keep their words. They gave Grimnir his cousin’s old workshop, but he soon learned most of the tools weren’t there anymore.

“The deal was for Broggart’s studio, not what was within it. That glass-wearing boy, Nishio, tried to persuade Grimnir into changing that point when the challenge was issued, but the old fool thought his clan was still honorable. Blames God Bleidla all the time, never the damn people in front of him!” Jadhund spat out, his face turning redder with every word. “He still thinks his clan leader is still that same numbskull, but after being forced to exile Broggart, his own son, he’s gone crazy! Bleidla made the rules, but he didn’t punish Grimnir outside of stripping him of his [Blacksmith’s Eyes]. It was the dwarves who punished him for breaking a clan tradition!”

As I mentioned, Jadhund had been quite supportive when this all began, but now it seemed he was on the edge on who to support. Could Grimnir have hid something else? Grimnir did hide the finer details on how he and his cousin were exiled, but I just thought he hid it ‘cause he was ashamed. Could he have hidden even more?

However, regardless of what the truth was, I still stood by Grimnir until I heard his side of the story. And it still didn’t excuse the dwarves for what they did to my friends!

“The fool got himself into another match, this time for the tools. A proper deal, with the exact ones he needs. Nothing to finesse yourself with words with. Finally, I thought, finally he was listening to somebody else!” Jadhund banged the table, closing his eyes. Seeing how Kazumi, Kohaku, and Haruka weren’t protesting, it seemed everything was the truth. “… Broggart had a brother. Shameless little fiend. Always jealous of his brother … and once his position as clan heir freed up, his tongue hasn’t been tied up ever since. That boy, Daichi …”

“… No.” I swirled my head around, shaking it in disbelief as I began to understand what was happening. I knew Daichi’s personality and how he had begun to admire Grimnir. “Don’t tell me.”

I looked over to the girls, noting how Haruka was making the worst face amongst them. Was my suspicion actually true? Tatsuya and Kyouya both smacked their faces, probably also realizing what had probably happened. What could cause a supposedly smart clan leader to do something fatally idiotic?

And Jadhund was the one to answer it. “Always jealous of his older brother, always jealous of his gifted cousin, Grimnir. One word in the wrong place, and Grimnir’s apprentice couldn’t hold it back. I saw it. I was also the one to be brought forth as a witness to tell the clan leader how that lad burned his son’s beard and hair off. … Meaning, his crust’lock, were also removed.”

Crust’lock, the unique part of a dwarf’s appearance were the rocky hide around their ears and the petrified strands on their beard and hair. It had a cultural significance, pretty much reminding the dwarves from where they came from and how their race was created. It was a status symbol, a badge of honor, you could say, as the more you achieved, the more you were allowed to petrify your beard.

Which was why removing them was considered such a problem. A zuekluk, a dishonored dwarf, was someone who was forced to remove his or hers. In other words, Daichi probably committed a pretty big sin against the clan which warranted such a drastic measure. Jadhund didn’t need to explain it to me, as I knew how precise Daichi was with his spell casting. With his temper, he probably retialited the moment he heard his master insulted once too much.

“Pfff!” And the moment it came to me, I couldn’t help but let out a suppressed laugh.

“Gruhahahaha!” On the other hand, my bodyguard was unable to, and let out a huge crackle. [“That boy is good in my book, my lady! These dwarves place so much pride in everything, it is nauseating! Is this how this feud began? Laughable.”]

“Pff. N-no, Shay, you can’t say that. Ehehe, Daichi was an idiot who should have—pfff—kept his temper. Look what he brought onto everybody?” I couldn’t keep myself from smiling. The fact Daichi did something like that was amazing … even if the consequences were a bit dire on everybody. “We need to scold him … Ehe.”

Literally everybody but the two of us were laughing at the situation, which made me instantly apologize to Haruka and the other two, as I understood they had experienced something dreadful. I just couldn’t help myself. I knew I was being insensitive and I should condemn Daichi, but it was something I wanted to do myself. Yup, I was that angry.

“Wraaaaahaaaha!” Suddenly, with that explosive laughter, the door slammed open, causing Haruka, the boys, Shay, and I to instantly put our guard up. I noticed the signal coming, but I didn’t think they would kick down the door!

On the other hand, Kazumi, Kohaku, and Jadhund were only slightly startled. Did this happen often?

“That’s what I want to hear!” That booming voice belonged to none other than Rosserto. “Got yourself comfortable, highness? All dandy, no problem taking care of some lasses, but getting them around ain’t easy. Ya got human and beastmen miners, but this hold doesn’t get many tourists. Outside of the Luedbrumdar, the hold’s just a mining place.”

The guitarist of the Punker Paradise appeared, holding onto his manatech guitar and adjusting his pair of sunglasses like some rockstar. Now that I took another look at them, I realized that Kazumi and Kohaku weren’t wearing their normal clothes, the ones Saori made for them. They were actually wearing tank tops, leather jackets, and hot pants, making them almost look like a couple of groupies.

The tank tops had an emblem of a guitar with an axe head strapped on its end lodged itself into the skull of a shining, metal golem. The golem itself was growling,wearing a pair of sunglasses on its forehead, staring at people in a provocative manner. I didn’t understand the symbolism behind it, but it really had a strong “I don’t give a shit” vibe.

“Jadhund, the old Luedbrumdar clan is gone! No more than another piece in the wall. Just like every single guild and merchant pinning for more money, they lost their honor. They forgot their history and what they stood for. That old man values the words of that old fart Bleidla over his clan members.” Rosserto then began playing his guitar, creaking havoc inside this room with his fierce and electric performance. “Oh, this ain’t your usual corpo, beloved going bonko ♫

Nostalgia got ya thinking googoo, gaga ♫

Now’s the time to bash them ♫

Remind them who they were ♫

Or we’re all gonna twist to their call ♫

… Hmm, the middle part needs work. The ending is good enough.”

Rosserto took out a stone slab and a manapen, writing down and crossing out words as he corrected the lyrics he just spun out of thin air. That was certainly a catchy tune he just weaved, not to mention how perfect the first two lines were. The middle two didn’t fit the rhythm, and the last line could use some work with the message.

His singing, on the other, was pretty boisterous and loud, similar to metal rock. His rough, growly voice gave the song a rather crude and raw vibe, befitting the fact it was supposed to convey a message. It was different from mine; it was a matter of refinement through training over the rawness of good talent. He could sing and his voice caught onto you, but it was clear he was using his deep voice to drive his song forward, instead of techniques, like I was.

Nice. I couldn’t help but praise his little tune, from one musician to the next. Despite my criticism, I liked it.

“How about trying it out like a rap? Messages are better delivered when people can hear you better. Start it a bit quieter, then start your louder notes during the chorus,” I suggested, drawing the dwarf’s attention. “For example … Oh, this ain’t your usual corpo, beloved going bonko ♫ Put some emphasis on the corpo and bonko. The corpo going bonko, which draws into the ‘beloved’ part.”

I showed him two thumbs up, hoping I could have helped him on the song.

However, the dwarf only gave me a blank look. “… Not to sound rude, but I don’t really need your help, lass.”

Kuek! I felt a dagger stab my heart, feeling pain from that rejection. I guess I really should act so holier-than-thou just ‘cause music was my life.

“However … I had the same idea, wahaha!”

“Oooh!”

“Right, right, I don’t know what you meant by ‘rap’ but I getcha ya point! The rhyme in the first two lines will catch your attention. Do it low, but keep the catchiness!” Rosserto played the tune again on his guitar, repeating the verse twice to vibe with his voice. “Yeah, yeah, I got some ideas for the rest of the lyrics … Lass.”

Watching him so excited about music made me feel a bit giddy, but the moment he reigned in his excitement, he stared at me with a small silence. I tilted my head. I was wondering what was with all his mood changes. From creative, to offended, then to excitement, and then lastly to this awkwardness.

“You’re ‘Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor,’ yeah?” I nodded, but asked him why he was asking it now since I had introduced myself when he let us in his auditorium. “‘Cause, I didn’t really care. Grimnir asked me to help, but I’m helping the lasses there for Broggi. Not for Grimnir, that greedy bastard.”

“U-uh?”

Once again, another mood change. Now he was badmouthing Grimnir? What was wrong with this guy?

“But, you? I’m starting to take interest in ya, lass. Not cuz you’re royalty—down with the caste system, I say—but you as a person. That tip from yours came from the heart. A bit too much, but you know music.” His thick, greasy beard curved up, revealing the fat grin he was hiding behind it. “This rap also comes from your world, huh?”

“…” My eyes widened a bit when he said that, but then I remembered he probably either knew it from Grimnir or from my name, like Uzerra did. The “Atsuko” was very Japanese, not to mention he knew Kohaku and Kazumi. “… I’m not a rapper, but yes, rap comes from Earth.”

He nodded his head at that information, pulling a string to let out a note, before swinging it over his shoulders. “Good, good. Knew it; Chihiro ain’t gonna be the last otherworlder. ‘Course not, when we have the Origin Gods. The music notes she wrote down only mentioned ‘rock’ and how she loved the music culture from her home, but never really talked about rap. You a musician?”

“I am.” I pulled out my geigler, the Peolyncian violin Ellaine gave me. The bad mood I was in disappeared as I was speaking to him as entertainers. “On Earth, I knew how to play violin and piano. I am also a singer and dancer, but I’m not a ‘rocker’ like you. I’m an idol.”

“Idol?”

“Yeah, my music is there to uplift people. Shine in the spotlight, dance to the tunes, and give my audience music to elevate their souls. To help some find hope and drag them out of the sadness of life for a moment,” I described my career the way I first learned about it, not mentioning how I had formed a new definition of the word “idol” in this world. As the only idol, I was the one to decide the idol culture.

Rosserto nodded his head, showing clear interest in what I was. “Oooh, I see. Understood. Goes a bit contrary to mine, then. No matter what, I won’t cover the truth in sugar. The world deserves the facts, even if it brings the world a bit closer to ruination. No lying about things; bring the battle to the davibags … But I catch your drift, Hestia.”

“So do I. Music is all about expression; it's an art. Every entertainer has the right to perform how they want, as everybody’s taste is different.”

“… Right.”

He reached his arm out, offering me a handshake while I took. The both of us hardened our grip and smiled as we seemingly just hit it off. I kinda wanted to play my geigler right now! A jam session, let’s goooo!

“Oi!” However, before I could express myself, Jadhund interrupted me. “Nice seeing the two of you bond, but what did you come in here for, Rosserto? And what do you mean you support what she said? Are you crazy?”

What exactly were we talking about just a moment ago? I honestly had forgotten after I started talking about music with Rosserto. I was fully drawn in.

However, it seemed the dwarf before me still did. While replying, he also pointed at Kazumi and Kohaku. “I said, she’s right. Bring the damn battle to Luedbrumdar and free ya friends and get that fool Grimnir and his apprentice out. No sugarcoating it. In fact, ain’t this a reason to complain?! What in Crustacia’s twin tails is the hold king doing, huh? I know everybody in the city owes the Luedbrumdar for all the jobs and keeping this hold from dying, but that doesn’t give the damn guard the right to help those bastards!”

“Not all of them are on that brat Darlion's side!” Jadhund rebuked him forcefully. When I raised an eyebrow on who that person was, Kohaku explained that it was the name of Grimnir’s younger cousin, the jealous younger brother of Broggi.

Rosserto clicked his tongue in response, pulling out his guitar to play as he spoke, “And it doesn’t matter! The king might not be personally involved, but he’s shielding his friend. Maagneil fucked up by fucking over Grimnir, and then he lets his emotions run and possibly just caused a dispute between our home and the dragonewts and Kargryx! What an idiot! And the king is trying to hide it all?”

Maagneil was probably the name of the Luedbrumdar clan’s leader, from context, anyways.

“He’s right,” Haruka agreed. “We aren’t even treated properly. In fact, the people who pursued me weren’t from the clan, but a local gang! We were literally prisoners, and those criminals just walked into the jail and even tried to pry information from us because they knew we were otherworlders! They are like the Yakuza, but worse!”

“You heard it, Mister Jadhund,” Kazumi supported Haruka. “You can’t expect us to stand still now, do you?”

“Agreed.” Kyouya bashed his shadow shield, still stuck in his shadow armor due to his unique skill. “We’re rescuing them, one way or another. We don’t know the full context of the situation, but they are treating and interrogating our friends, right? That makes them our enemy.”

“All right!” Kohaku pumped her hand up, unsheathing her runic sword. “Let’s go then! Don’t steal too much of the fun, Hesti-chan. I leveled up a lot since we last met, and I want to beat those bastards down for what they did to Nishio-kun! Not to mention what they are doing with Misa-chan and Tama-chan!”

“Wa-wait!” Jadhund jumped in our way, holding his hands in front of him. “Please, we can solve this! Let us talk to the hold king. This doesn’t need to end in another fight!”

“They started the fight!” Tatsuya shouted. “Daichi is a bastard, but he’s a bootlicker. He’s an ass kisser. He knows exactly when to bow his head and act submissive. I’ve known that asshole for long enough to know he doesn’t start a fight unless he knows he won’t lose anything. In other words, he’s probably feeling regretful right now for what he did to everybody, but it also means that bastard Darlion really insulted Grimnir to the point he lost his head.”

Tatsuya had a point. Daichi was book smart and a good people person since he knew when to put on a mask to butter people up. Of course, I did think he might have gotten a shorter fuse after he became Grimnir’s apprentice. Would he have started a fight from a small comment? Maybe. I didn’t know him well enough, so I was following Tatsuya’s opinion on the matter.

“Wraaahaaaaaha!” Rosserto brought his guitar to shine blue after playing its string. “The hold king better answer! If he won’t talk, then music will make him!”

Rosserto then turned around, roaring out as he walked away from the room. I looked at Jadhund for a moment and shook my head, a bit annoyed he wasn’t trying to help. Even if I was only looking at it from one side, it didn’t matter. Those guys hurt my friends and placed them in the hands of criminals! Were they trying to fuck with me here?!

Enough wasting time.

“Haruka-chan, I’ll send you into the subspace, but we need directions.”

Haruka, already exhausted from all the running, quickly nodded to my request. Even if she wanted to stay for the main event, she just wasn’t a combatant. On the other hand, we had a whole group ready to wreck some dwarves. You don’t just mess with some Japanese, without expecting more to come to punt you away!

With the roars of the crowd rocking away as I could hear Rosserto’s thunderous voice boom through this entire building, our group left Jadhund behind as we entered the streets. Haruka gave us the directions we needed, which prompted Kohaku and Kazumi to point out how it would take a while, even by running across the roofs.

“We would be more inconspicuous if we hid inside the crowd.”

“Kyouya-kun can’t take his armor off, right? Then he has to take the rooftops. Shadow us. The rest should probably fit in.”

The two guys then pointed at their clothing and how Shay and I both stood out as dragonewts. I had [Humanize (Major)] to turn into a complete human, although it would mean I couldn’t use my dragon abilities. Shay, on the other hand, had enough SP to level up the skill as he had leveled up a bit during the fight in Port Annencia.

However, my wyvern guard was apprehensive about it. He told me he very much liked his scaly form and thought weakening himself for appearance-sake was the wrong move. However, we had to sneak past the guards and rescue the others. And we had to do it quickly, before they relocated the prisoners. If the guards stopped us, it would just be a bother.

“… As you wish, my lady.” With his tail laid flat on the floor, the snow wyvern bought the remaining levels for [Elvenize Lv. 10], helping him transform into a tall elven man with white-blue hair and skin as pale as snow.

Handsome and with his light skin tone, it made him look almost fragile like a beautiful sheltered princess from a fairy tale. In fact, while the other elven men I had met up until now were all attractive, they all looked like men. Shay, on the other hand, looked androgynous, now that I took a closer look.

“Oh my gosh …” Kazumi and Kohaku gasped, while Haruka couldn’t help but stare at him. Kyouya, as he had a crush on Haruka, was obviously uncomfortable with this fact.

“… Please, stop staring.” And there it was. His lighter tones stood out like a thumb, making him seem more feminine, but the moment his face reddened slightly, it accentuated the fact even more. I could hear the three girls shriek behind their closed mouths.

“Wow, Shay, you really have the face of a lady killer. Did you take inspiration from Mom?” However, since I was only a year old, I was immune to his charms.

“Y-yes,” he answered. His elven voice resembled his mental one exactly, meaning it was slightly deep but still youthful without any hints of growling. “Of course, I didn’t make myself exactly like Her Majesty. I wouldn’t dare. But, I took the basis of her appearance and added other features from elven men I’ve met in my life. Princess Fargryneill also helped me with it, as she wanted to see it one day …”

Nice going, Sis. You just created an absolute lady killer face. Now I can’t wait for what Beth would look like. Would these twins share their elven forms?

“Hesti-chan, here.”

Once everybody stopped fawning over Shay, Kazumi handed me something like a walnut. Looking at her wiggling her cat tail like crazy, I had a bad feeling when I asked her what this what.

“It’s one of the hair coloring dyes Yorshka gave us! Instead of how we did it back on Earth, the dyes are inside the nut. You open them and spray the powder-like content on your head. You then inject some mana into it and then think of a color, and from there, it will change. If you want your crimson back, you just need to wash it off while concentrating your mana in your hair.”

In Peolynca, people had all sorts of colored hair due to the mana governing this world. As such, it wasn’t exactly weird for a blue and red haired pair to have a child with purple hair. Of course, if the mana in your blood was strong enough, you could have your children inherit your bloodline’s natural hair color.

As such, having weird colored hair wasn’t unnatural, in fact, a group of people having the same hair color was more suspicious. These [Ocran Powder Nut]s, was something the Folschreck Empire’s high society cultivated. Yorshka told the students when she gave them that nobles there apparently love changing their hair colors for every event.

In any case, once I transformed into a human and changed my hair color to mix into the crowd, we departed, ready to annihilate some scum.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 373: Chaotic Five Star Alarm.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #4 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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[Humanize (Major)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Mhmm! Oooohh, drown yourself in booze, until you feel so loose, then the hammer falls, and you’d forget it all! ♫”

“Cheers! The smiths and artisans roar, as their flames burn and die. All the miners can show are their prayers to the Goddess for more. The mines are empty and dead, oh the longbeards will complain!”

“Damn, lad! I’ll whip ya ass for that damn song!” A white-haired dwarf with a beard long enough to reach his thighs interrupted the singing inside a tavern with a thunderous roar. He banged his tankard twice on his table, furrowing his brows like some grumpy grandpa. “We shabba’lockus ain’t gonna cry around, ya twerp! We go mining and look for another vein! Pesterin’ the damn Goddess for a blessing, ya lads and lasses are weak!”

“Hahahahaha! Cheers, old man! Cheers, everybody!”

“Cheers!” Women and men, from young adults to old men with overgrown beards drank their beers empty, before banging it on the table with loud, satisfied moans.

You would think they were celebrating something, but from the few seconds I observed them, they were all there separately for their own reasons. However, the fact they were so friendly with each other told me they all knew each other. Which made sense, since this dwarven hold was apparently about the size of a town. People just knew each other.

Strangely, this wasn’t the only occurrence of spontaneous singing, as other taverns were equally as jubilant inside. I looked up, noticing a giant metal clock attached to a castle-like building in the distance; most likely that was the hold king’s palace. Now, this clock——miner’s clock, to be precise—slowly ticked up in numbers like a digital clock, until it reached 3SS. The moment it did, it emitted a ringing sound like a church bell or those old grandfather clocks.

Miner’s Clock: A creation from the Goddess Chihiro using dungeon core pieces to accurately display Peolynca’s time. Using the System as an assistant, the clock will show the time of the current location according to the positioning of the sun or moon. DS means “Dawning Sun” and lasts until noon, before switching to SS, “Setting Sun,” until midnight

To be underground meant managing your time, as you didn’t have the sun to determine when to wake up or sleep. It was surprising to me that there was a digital-like clock in this place, but I guess it made sense the Revolution Queen would invent something like this. It did make me wonder from which year she was born back on Earth.

Of course, I didn’t miss the fact that this was the first actual clock I’d seen in this world. Up until now, I always had to determine the time by looking either into the sky or listening to the ringing of a church bell. I understood it needed a dungeon core to work, but I thought Estralia, a dwarven-made city wealthy enough to afford whatever manatech they wanted, would have had one. I guess it made sense why it was called “miner’s clock” and not “general-usage clock.”

I nodded before switching my attention to a small noodle stall. It was exactly as what you would imagine from an Asian street stall, really. The stall itself and the owner behind it cooked the noodles while the patrons waited for their aromatic soups sitting on stools. The moment they got it, these dwarves would noisily slurp up their noodles and broth, wetting their long beards or cheeks, for the women, in that savory, yellowish soup.

The surroundings were still the same as before—pretty much like a little Tokyo placed inside an underground city. However, a major difference between the district we were just in was the fact there were less city guards in this area; instead, more dwarves equipped in decorated armor walked around. Of course, there were guards, but most of them were here casually for lunch or just merriment.

Of the former, the ones in the decorated armor all had a uniform emblem painted on their breastplates and shields—that of an iron bearded mask colored bronze surrounded by a cave’s entrance with pickaxes on it. Kazumi and Kohaku told me that was the emblem of the Luedbrumdar clan. Grimnir never showed me his, so this was my first time seeing it.

In other words, we were in the correct place.

And in the middle of this district, there were two dwarves dressed in dusters coats and pieces of metal armor. They were sipping their noodle broth while speaking with each other. Every now and then, I caught a glimpse of the blue runic tattoos on their faces. They weren’t slave marks, they were simple empowering ones, some kind of stat-boosting runes. None had the Luedbrumdar emblem.

“Phhah!” One of the pair, an orange-haired dwarf, finished his bowl of noodles. He then turned to the stall’s owner and bowed his head in respect. “Thank you for the food as always, Master. Delicious.”

The stall owner gave him a boisterous laugh, nearly burning his beard on his stove weren’t it for his rather long rock hair. With the flame and the neon lights around him, you could see how unkempt and dirty his beard was, almost as if this man had dedicated himself only to his craft. He was clearly enjoying the praise, after all.

Once he gave his thanks, the orange-haired man turned to his companion, a scarred man with a single working eye, and began speaking. It was a bit hard to hear anything from my distance. With the bustling crowds and the attention-grabbing tavern parties, I could only rely on [Idol]’s enhanced hearing to eavesdrop from inside this dark alleyway.

“Ya hear it?” the tattooed man started.

His one-eyed eating companion nodded. “Yeah. Give me a moment to finish this and then we’ll go. Can’t believe they caught one of the gang leads.”

“The boss won’t be happy. Heard from the people who chased the girl that those kids’ reinforcements have arrived … That means we’re really in big trouble now.” The orange guy took his mug and poured the alcoholic contents right into his mouth, guzzling it all down as if he was on time. “Crustacia’s chest, we’re fucking dead. Why’d the boss accept the job?!”

“Shut it!” The scarred one banged his fist on the table, prompting the stall owner to chide him for it. Once he apologized with a deep bow, he turned back to his companion. “Honor, you idiot. Honor. We might be criminals, but at least we work on honor. The boss is a blood brother of the Luedbrumdar clan leader, which makes all of us family. We protect our family … Makes our death worth a shite.”

“Oi!”

The orange-haired guy now began whispering into the other’s ears, forcing me to use [Aerokinesis] to amplify the sound coming from there. This was quite hard, since the skill worked best controlling the air within arm's length. In fact, trying to isolate the sounds around them or funnel everything to me was literally impossible. Meaning, I couldn’t hear their whispers with all the ruckus drowning it out.

“You think it’ll work?” Once they were done mumbling under their breaths, the orange-haired one raised an eyebrow.

“That's all that we can do. If we go down, they go down. That’s a fact.” The scarred man then finished his drink and soup, giving thanks to the shop owner just like his companion. He then prepared himself to stand up.

The orange guy shook his head in dismay, clearly stressed out. “This ain’t honor. We treated those kids badly, now we’re reaping our due.”

“Come on. At least let us die with blades in hand in protecting our boss’s honor. We’re just footmen, but we can do that, at least.” The scarred man reached his hand out.

And the orange-haired accepted it. “… For the boss.”

“Hello.” However, before any of them could stand, a man in shadowy armor laid his hands on the two, greeting them in a distorted voice. “The Aurora sends her regards.”

The two dwarves snapped their heads around, already unsheathing their weapons, but before they could retaliate, the armored person gripped their shoulders and threw both of those bulky dwarves right onto the ground. In the process, the gauntlets around his arms broke apart, dissipating like mana, causing him to grunt before they reformed around him.

Before the dwarves could stand up, that armored person roared out, causing his helmet to deform into a wolf’s mouth. He then clapped his hands, causing his armor to separate from his body like sticky gum. The levitating armor pieces then surrounded the flabbergasted dwarves, before they reformed themselves into a pitch-black barrier.

“What in Crustacia’s locks?!”

“A fight! Damn, a fight today?”

“Argggik!” Under the loud gawking of the bystanders, the armored man revealed himself to be Kyouya. He fell onto the ground, looking in pain as his skin reddened.

This was one of the after effects of his unique skill.

Shadowed Martyr: A defensive skill used by defenders to shield their allies with veils of shadows and darkness, scorning the sun as they control the battlefield as a shadow knight. At the cost of a percentage of the user’s current Health, they may invoke their shadow to wrap themselves in the defensive version of [Shadow Armament]. Although losing its offensive and mobility effects, the armament is sturdier and is able to reform itself into shields and armor. Once activated, your attacks will leech Health, but reduce all outside healing sources by 50%. Costs and effect: 25% for limbs and weapon, 50% for full armor and weaponry, 75% to assume knight form

A very high-risk skill that allowed Kyouya to gain shadow armor like Saori’s, only that he couldn’t use it as flexibly as Saori’s. While my friend could use something like “umbrakinesis”—darkness manipulation—in her armor, Kyouya couldn’t. In fact, even if he learned [Dark Magic] and [Shadow Dash], he couldn’t bring people into the shadow realm with him.

It did seem weird. His armor lost the most interesting part about the dark element, and that was its trickery and ability to adapt to every situation. However, Kyouya’s skill was fully defensive, to the point it harmed him with every cast! In addition, he couldn’t even take his armor off unless he used it offensively, like just now. So, what made it worthy of being a unique skill? What made it better than his one, the one the demonkins gave him?

The fact that, with a dedicated healer, his armor was like a secondary Health pool. It only consumed Health, not Mana. After he tested it himself, his armor actually inherited all his sacrificed Health, meaning if he healed up, you had to break through two Health pools to kill him. As long as he had Health, he could continue activating it. Of course, the more injured he was, the less useful it would become.

This wasn’t a problem with me around.

A magic circle tattoo on his neck suddenly shone white, releasing white flames all around his body to heal him. [Sanctified Blaze], my first self-made custom spell, was still useful despite its superior [Sanctified Blaze: Halo of Consecration] form. This way, I didn’t have to stick close to heal him.

Once his Health was full, he cried out, “Tatsuya!” before resummoning his shadow armor but leaving the barrier intact. As you could hear the dwarves hammering on the barrier, Kyouya dug his hands into it, prying it open for a moment. He couldn’t control shadows in general, but he could still manipulate the armor he created.

In that same second, something looking like a werewolf dropped from the roofs and dashed into the barrier alongside Kyouya. You could hear the dwarves crying out in surprise when that happened, only for their voices to be muffled at the howl of a giant wolf.

Fighting then ensued, with the dwarves coordinating their fighting for the most part, only for two wolves to howl out. Moments later, you could hear deep, pained voices escape the barrier, all while the crowd around it went into panic. In fact, some of the ordinary, looking citizens pulled out whatever weapons they had and intended to break the shadow barrier down. Were dwarves natural samaritans amongst their kind, or did they really know these gangsters?

However, before they could do anything, the shadow barrier burst open, sacrificing itself to disrupt the dwarven crowd’s vigilante intentions. Fortunately, none of them were hurt as both Kyouya and werewolf Tatsuya escaped the scene with the two gangster dwarves.

I nodded in satisfaction and began walking through the streets, taking in the chaos those three had left behind and watching the vigilantes running after them. I could hear insults being slung after them, cursing them for disrupting the peace and using magic. Imagine that, a Peolyncian city forbidding mana usage, unless you had permission from the government or if it was done by some manatech.

It certainly reminded me how dwarves couldn’t cast spells or expel mana without their tools. Such was civilization. Rules were there for the local’s benefits.

After walking a bit through the streets, witnessing how everybody was going along with their lives, it was finally time for this area to be engulfed in chaos. Not the boys, they had their part to do; no, it was somebody else.

“Oi, assholes!” A voice came from above.

Jumping from the roof, I noticed a black-haired girl with red tints touching a red rune on her sword, setting it on fire as she landed on the ground, behind some more dwarven gangster. She then slashed at one of the Taz. Undoubtedly, this girl was Kohaku.

The dwarf she attacked groaned in pain, unable to activate his defensive runes in time. This naturally caught the attention of his two companions, two female dwarves, prompting her to touch a green rune on her blade. With her ponytail swinging around, the chuuni girl shouted, “Fly, fly!” before blasting the dwarves away with a tornado sword. Even better, her strike was accurate enough that she didn’t hurt any onlookers or caused collateral damage.

“Where the hell are my friends! Give me back my damn friends, you traitors!” Kohaku shouted from the top of her voice, animating around with her hands as if she was in some drama play or anime. Shedding some crocodile tears, she wiped it away in such a flamboyant manner, she caught the attention of the people around them. “We thought you were our friends! You backstabbed us!”

“Grak! Fuck you, you flat stick!” the injured Taz growled before his face reddened, until he unleashed a fire breath, forcing Kohaku to sprint away, causing another chase to ensue.

With the commotion from the attacked dwarves and Kohaku’s loud accusation, it naturally attracted the attention of the passersby.

“What in Crustacia’s locks?! Were those Edgesworns?”

“What did that human lass mean by ‘backstab?’ They’re honorable, they work with the Luedbrumdars!”

Just as I eavesdropped on those two gangsters, I couldn’t help but pick up more gossip from the crowd around me. It really seemed like these “Edgesworns” and the Luedbrumdar clan were pretty popular around here. Jadhund didn’t kid around. Now it made me feel bad that I was allowing this chaos, but then again, we were making sure not to draw the locals into our beef.

[“Hesti-chan.”]

I looked up to the rooftops, where I saw Kazumi in her [Beastialize (Moderate)] form, dragging that dwarf boss we had captured before. He was awake and struggling, trying his best to free himself from Saori’s mana threads, but—and this was her quote, but I always wanted to say this myself—as long as Kazumi poured mana through them, he couldn’t break through them.

It also helped we removed his armor and disabled his runic tattoo—slicing them up, disrupting the mana paths on his skin was what was needed. He was stubborn, but we managed to learn how his friends acted and what they were planning by stroking his pride. Then, all we needed to do was to watch how the locals acted around people, and we would know if they were part of those “Edgesworns” or the Luedbrumdar clan. The latter showed off their clan emblem, so we knew who to target.

Now, like the katzune form she was taking on, Kazumi was sneaking around on the rooftops while dragging the guy around, seeing his expression whenever we attacked somebody. If he was agitated, we knew we hit the spot and could execute what we planned. It wasn’t the most elegant plan since we had figured it out in a couple of minutes after using Haruka’s directions to the gang’s base.

[“The boys are moving west, slightly north. I’m sending Kohaku-chan up north, too,”] Kazumi reported, keeping me informed since I was currently in my human disguise. Outside of my crimson eyes, my appearance, especially my black hair, reminded me a bit of my past life, which surprised the students quite a bit.

… Tatsuya did act a bit weird, though. Am I that more attractive with black hair?

Well, it was a useless thought.

[“No, send her west, then have her U-turn to the east. Have Shay and Beth cover for her.”]

Kazumi approved of my plan before casting [Shadow Clone], creating an identical duplicate. She then sent the clone off to inform my people of the plan, while she kept shadowing me as I walked through the streets, moving towards the designated spot. On the way, the commotion increased even further as Luedbrumdar guards and gangsters rushed about, asking anybody for information on the latest attacks.

Two interrogated me in fact, but couldn’t identify me without a sketch of my face. Being a human and having black hair made it far harder to scrutinize everybody, even if they guessed that I had [Humanize]. They were in a rush; there was no time to waste on every single person, even if elves, humans, and beastmen were attracting the guards’ and gangsters’ attention.

“Hold on, akongs, umskongs, and yfleis. If it’s a young woman, kindly ask them to come with us!” One of the guard captains suddenly ordered, shouting out “humans, beastmen, and elves” in dwarvish. I froze up for a moment before melting back into the crowd with my stealth skills.

Me and my big mouth! I just had to jinx it!

Regardless, chaos was what we wanted, and the guards would help with that, even if some of the women would be unfairly treated. Well, I have it all on record now! In my brain at least, but I heard that captain order it! If they were to treat them badly, and in an unjustifiable manner, I will lodge a complaint!

Nevertheless, this chaos train couldn’t be stopped. After moving through more crowds and dodging even more guards, a pair of pale-skinned elves caught my attention. One was a tall and lanky man with a rather sour expression, while the other one was a hyper-energetic woman about an eye-level shorter than him. Both had white-blue hair and looked exactly like twins.

They were talking with one of the guards. The woman was hysterical, over-describing how a black armored man and a werewolf had hit them in a run.

“That giant thing just came out of nowhere, hit us and ran away without even saying sorry! What is wrong with this city?!” the woman complained, throwing her arms around like some drama queen.

“M-Miss, we can—” the guard tried to respond, but the elf continued.

“Stop can’t-ing and do more can dos! Catch them! Go! Go that way!” the woman pointed northwest from here, towards the hold’s castle, causing the guard’s eyes to widen.

“The castle?! Dammit, they really want to bring war for what happened!” the guard spouted before running off, shouting at his fellow guards to follow him. They had to bring the information to their captain.

With all of them moving away from the south, where the Luedbrumdar district and Edgesworns’ base were, I gave the twins a thumbs up. Shay looked at me and bowed a bit, while his sister grinned mischievously and stuck her tongue out. That was Beth, and just like Shay, her personality had become more pronounced now that she had a elvenoid form.

Now, of course, why was she here? Wasn’t she supposed to be guarding Mom, considering how Shay was a stickler to proper conduct? Well, she was, until I thought “Why not bring more allies into the mix?” So I went into my subspace to potentially recruit some helpers from Elyonda. However, according to Svena, not only were they all in a dungeon right now, even Tasianna hadn’t returned yet!

Well, that sucked, right? I thought I had a good plan there. It would have been awesome to bring the full might of Aurora and friends on this plan, but, no. The only combatant inside when I was there was Beth, who was elated she could help out. I could understand Shay was worried about Mom being unguarded, but no one could enter my subspace without my permission. Well, no one who couldn’t tear through space and time, of course. I was pretty sure since the Divine System worked inside it, that the Origin Gods could do something if they wanted to.

In any case, Beth made fun of Shay’s elven form, of course, causing the stoic wyvern to flush in embarrassment. Although not exactly needed, Beth decided to follow along the plan by leveling up her [Elvenize]. The twins’ role in this was to help the students confuse the guards by sending them all around the place.

Elves and dwarves were allies, after all, and while a lot of dwarves did call them by slangs like “sharp ears” or “twigs,” they never did it maliciously, but more as nicknames. Due to the alliance between the races, the dwarves were just acting friendly in their way. Similar to how Grimnir would sometimes just omit our names and just call us by our features like “lass,” “wolf,” or “braids.”

So, we used this method to make the dwarves trust them. Sure, they were looking out for female humans, elves, and beastmen, but Shay being with Beth all the time seemed to have quelled any distrust. They didn’t expect Shay to be the wyvern who fought with me.

Technically, Beth was all that was needed for this plan. Shay wasn’t talkative at all, but I guess him being there was insurance for Beth to act however she wanted. In a way, Beth didn’t regret spending her SP, but Shay sure did. They did earn it fair and square during the war. It did make me feel bad for the dude … maybe a freshly baked cake would cheer him up.

So, that was the plan, and it would be repeated over and over again across the city. Tatsuya and Kyouya would take out lone groups of dwarves, while Kohaku would act as a distraction on the other end to draw some towards her. The twins would run around, bewildering the guards and gangsters with their correct and false directions, while Kazumi helped guide them through this undermountain city from the roofs.

Me? Well, my role was quite important after it reached its boiling point.

… Speaking of which.

“Send in the damn samurai and earthquakers!”

If this were a crime-based video game, I would describe the current situation as five stars. We had police and SWAT teams come in already, so now it was time for the military. And, by the military, I meant the city guards decked out in fat armor and equipped with well-crafted weapons.

“Shabba’locku,” a respectful term to describe dwarves with long beards going down to their hips. The longer a beard, the older, wiser and more experienced the dwarf was. Dwarves had a strong “respect your elders” culture, and as result, expected as the majority of the “military spawns” were old, greyed guys with lots of levels.

Earthquakers seemed like fortified tanks on two feet, so heavy it could shake the very ground. From the amount of glowing blue seams running through their whole armor, they probably needed runes and other stuff to even move in that armor.

On the other hand, we had samurai. Yes, samurai. That was the exact word I heard from their mouths. Non-altered by the Peolyncian accent. They even looked like Japanese daimyos with those exaggerated demon and kabuto helmets. They wielded long polearms and had something like katanas on their hips.

Was the Revolution Queen a weeb? Wait, she was Japanese, so maybe otaku was a better word?

Oh, oh, time to dip.

The earthquakers acted like riot cops while the samurai were the fast and hard hitting shocktroopers. Poor Kyouya and Tatsuya were being hunted down by these ultra fast dwarves—fast, at least, by dwarven standards—while Kohaku was being led around by the former.

It really got to the point where we nearly had to execute the second stage… but before they forced our hands, loud brazen music began playing during this chase.

“Down, down, down! You fooooorrrrrced us! Down, down, down! You’re bringin’ down society! Wraaaahhaaaaaaha! ♫”

Rosserto!

That iconic scream coupled with that manner of singing was too easy to recognize. I had only met him for a moment, but I instantly knew it was him when I heard that hard rock music echo throughout this city. It was so loud, I had to close my ears, and even then, I could still hear his voice clearly!

“The guilds have the lords in their grasp! Filling gold right into their guts! Smiling and laughing, all while we’re forging and mining! Greedy corpo scum, bringing down our hoooold! ♫”

Droves of dwarves in exaggerated and aggravating outfits appeared from side and alleyways, screaming and shouting along the songs their rockstar was blasting. Their over-the-top hairstyles and belligerent attitudes quickly caught the onlookers’ attention. Almost immediately, the road before me was being blocked off, stopping the guards from advancing.

Even better, I could hear more singing and shouting coming from other directions. Rosserto was screaming his lungs out in front of me, but it seemed either the rest of his band or his fans were doing the same for the other places. When I said he would help, I didn’t think he would do something like this! We had just met!

“Oi, get the fuc—” the guards wanted to kick them out, but the fans only bellowed out even louder to drown their voices out.

“THE HOLD KING IS CORRUPT! WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO PROTEST! THE KING SHOULD BE A NEUTRAL FORCE IN BETWEEN THE CLANS AND GUILDS!”

“DOWN, DOWN, DOWN! YOU FOOOOOORCCCED US! CHIHIRO LOOKS DOWN IN SHAME! SHE DIDN’T BRING OUT A TECH REVOLUTION FOR YOUR CORPORATE ASSES TO STOP US!”

It was insanity. It was a riot. And the military didn’t give one F about their reasons for being there, as they quickly neutralized anybody in the way. I wanted to step in, but Kazumi stopped me. I then could only look in pain as I saw Rosserto raise his hand up in the air, showing the devil sign as guards began to beat him up, stopping his voice from reaching anybody else.

Verdammt, Rosserto! I won’t let your sacrifice be in vain!

I turned my head away and followed Kazumi’s direction, running away from the scene to go south. South from all the commotion. Once I was far enough away, Kazumi went back to execute the second phase. On my end, I reunited with Beth and Shay and looked at the tall, two floor stone building. It wasn’t anything impressive, but it did have a few neon lights here and there to fit with the rest of the city’s aesthetics.

It had a fence surrounding it, separating itself from a bunch of workshops and industries. The base of the gangsters was located right in the middle of the artisan district of the Luedbrumdar clan’s territory. Apparently, there were other clans with their own locations in this place, so each had their own artisan, merchant, and residential districts. Unlike human cities, there weren’t any noble districts, as the clans lived right with everybody else. It was pretty humble.

“Ready?”

“Yes, my lady!” both wyverns answered, eyes flaring up for a fight.

With all the chaos we’ve created, it did mean their base would be the least defended right now. Even if there were any, we would still have the upper hand in strength, and all we needed to do was to finish this before the rest came back and noticed our attack. Of course, we wouldn’t be doing this all by ourselves and leave the others to be captured.

I opened my subspace after a couple of minutes and entered it, where I saw Kyouya, Tatsuya—in his human form—and Kohaku drinking water and eating some small sandwiches to fill up their energy. They all showed me a thumbs up, telling me they managed to sneak away without being detected.

This would mean the guards and gangsters would still be looking for them, and due to Rosserto’s distraction, they had a wonderful smokescreen to disappear completely, leaving everybody befuddled. They entered the subspace through their [Room] runes, and left the collection to Kazumi, who was probably on her way back right now. Even without Saori, we had a ninja with us.

Once the three students were done, we headed out. During our initial arrival, we had already scouted the place as best as we could. There was a mana barrier around the place like the one in Elyonda and Griffonpeak. So, either it only warned people in it of our arrival, or it could protect them like a shield. Regardless, it didn’t matter.

“Let’s go, Beth!”

“Yes, Brother!”

Both elvenized wyverns charged at the entrance of the place as mana mist spread from thier body. Dwarven craftsmen took notice of this, but it was too late for them to say anything as the twins roared out, peeking their long, snow-white heads out of the mist.

Flash freezing the moisture around their wings, they created a blanket of ice around them, before using them like blades to slash at the barrier. Seeing their attacks reflected with a loud boingsound, the two roared again, attacking it again and again, before finishing it off with an ice breath.

Like shattering glass, the barrier broke down with the loud cries of the onlookers and the few guards rushing out of the buildings. They cried out, only for the twins to take up flight and pounce upon any enemies with their talons. More and more gangsters flooded out of the buildings equipped with weapons now that the barrier broke, prompting the three students to charge in.

Kyouya began the fight by shouting “Taunt!” attracting everybody’s attention from the wyvern. With his shadow armor and shield, he fearlessly charged into the mix while Kohaku began her assault. Tatsuya, on the other hand, took out a piece of fulinoe leaf and placed it in his mouth, fulfillingthe activation requirement of his unique Skill; curiously, instead of using it now, he turned back into a werefolk with his druidic powers and attacked the dwarves with his spear. He probably was saving the charge for an unexpected moment.

So, what did I do?

… Well, I just snuck in. I mean, somebody had to save the others, otherwise this wouldn’t be much of a distraction. They were all enough, so all I had to do was get to the others fast enough and, once we freed them, flee back into the subspace.

So, during this conflict, I activated my stealth skills and just … walked in the building. Slipped through the dwarven reinforcement and used [Detection Sensor] to find the perfect timing to slip past. Once inside, the rather orderly and well-decorated rooms made me nod my head. They might be our enemies, but they at least had some nice decoration sense.

<[Humanize (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]>

Of course, trying to be inconspicuous at this point was redundant. I couldn’t transform into a dwarf, so being a human inside a dwarven gangster’s lair made me stand out too much. So I turned back into my moderate form without my wings. Instead of worrying about sneaking too much, I decided to just use my Agility. Minor would have been faster, but it made me a bit too bulky to hide behind furniture and such.

In any case, finding the basement was a bit hard since there were still quite a few gangsters inside. I entered it and walked down the stairs, noticing how much it smelled like an old cave and rusted iron. It was also quite dark, but with [Night Vision], there weren't any problems.

Once I was at the bottom, I looked around, noticing some iron bars. My eyes widened and I frowned as I found Tamae and Misaki in rags, sitting on the floor, supporting the heads of Nishio and Daichi. While the girls looked a bit pale like Haruka, the boys were completely bloodied and beat up. It looked like they had a ton of wounds, both new and old.

“Guys!” I shouted.

Tamae snapped her head around, smiling widely with glistening eyes, almost like somebody finding hope once again. “I knew it. I knew those sounds were you guys. Misa-chan, look. Its Hestia-chan.”

“Wooo …” Misaki next to her sighed. “Bit embarrassing to have you see us this way.”

They had those mana-suppressing shackles on them, explaining why Tamae couldn’t just heal the two boys. Using my scale-dust, I blasted the jail cell open and quickly tore the shackles off them before beginning my treatment. Once they were all healed up, I opened my subspace and had Svena and Josine bring them in, where they would be cared for.

I told them I had to get the others out and teach our enemies not to mess with us. Not to mention, we still had Grimnir and Ellaine to rescue. I would hear everything later once Daichi woke up.

Once I had returned to the jail and closed the subspace, I walked up the stairs only to stop my steps once I noticed a few signals in front of me. They weren’t moving, so that meant people were waiting for me outside the basement.

Buffs up.

[Various Spell Buffs] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Girls, take care of my heat management, okay? No core means we can’t fight for too long. Ready [Battle Frenzy] and [Magmakammer] if needed.

Once I gave my parallel minds that order, I pulled out my glaive and summoned [Unheilige Engel] and [Halo of Consecration]. I then opened the door, where I was confronted by two samurai-looking dwarves along with a bunch of heavily armored shielders.

“Princess Hestia …” The samurai guy in the middle stepped up. He had his hand on the katana oin his hips and the large battle axe he placed on the ground. “You seem to be intruding. My na—”

“I don’t fucking care who you are,” I spat out, interrupting the man before glancing at him and the samurai. “But, I know what you are. Enemies.”

“…” The dwarves went silent.

Despite the chaos and the loud roars from outside, the awkward quietness inside this room drowned out everything else. We all knew what this would lead into.

“At least the Luedbrumdar sent you help with that person next to you. At least they weren’t complete assholes and abandoned you the moment everything was getting out of hand. Sadly, you took on the wrong job. The people here love you, I respect that. You are honorable, they say … but you deserved this,” I scoffed at him at the very last moment, baring my fangs.

“… Enough talk.”

They unsheathed their weapons.

“We will bring you in. Princess or not, you will be tried here before being sent back to your home! We might have an alliance with Kargryx, but this is still a diplomatic violation!”

“… You started it, you better finish it. Magmakammer!”

Humanize, Panzer, Mana Eyes!

Kriffiek kllk gaaung. Battle Frenzy!

A note from AbyssRaven

So, somebody in the last chapter commented on how Hestia should send the city in chaos for what they did. Certainly not what they expected, but she just went GTA on the guardsmen. With allies saved, it is now time to take down some little dwarves like a real dragon.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 374: Bad Team Composition VS. Boss.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #4 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! It works on a subscription base now, so pay on the same date next month!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

There are also other lizard related novels on there, so check them out if you want to. ^^

[Battle Frenzy (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Mana Release activated. Aura used as control unit:   [Draconic Aura Lv. 4]. Territory [Magmakammer] has been established

Proficiency requirement fulfilled.   [Territory Release Lv. 1] evolved into [Territorial Release Lv. 2]

Name: Hector Radagan Level: 91 Race: Taz Dwarf Age: 71 Years

Jobs:

Main: Ronin Duelist

Secondary: Soba Master

Unique: Locked

Information Blocked

Name: Varglaf Luedbrumdar Level: 103 Race: Inko Dwarf Age: 45 Years

Jobs:

Main: Samurai Gokeni

Secondary: Journeyman Gemsmith

Unique: Locked

Information Blocked

??? What are those Secondary Jobs!? [Soba Master] and [Journeyman Gemsmith]?!

Putting aside those weird Jobs, the rest of their Profiles were, unfortunately, blocked from me. They probably had those [Identity Blocker] items, just like many of my recent enemies. For goodness sake, could I please get the chance to appraise someone completely?! Was that so unreasonable to ask for? I wanted information to gain advantage with to make fights easier!

Then again, knowing their levels did make me more cautious. Aside from the Edgesworns’ boss and the Luedbrumdar helper, the other dwarves were around the lower rank Bs or higher rank Cs—so in the level range of 50 and 75. This did make them pretty strong, but there were only five of these armored men.

And now, just like in an RPG, these seven dwarves had to fight a level 27 rank B [Young Sunfang Dragon], equivalent to level 107 for humanoids. Of course, if I were a dragonewt, the 103 dwarf would be pretty comparable … but I was going to fight in my dragon form. And I had fought people far stronger than him already.

This wasn’t going to be an easy battle since I couldn’t appraise their Profiles fully. Even their armor and weapons were slightly obstructed, making it hard for me to predict anything. Well equipped and also state of the art tech. How annoying.

“Shield wall!” the dwarves shouted, activating their [Defensive Rune: Auracoil] in response to the heat wave I was exuding. Their barriers and the walls and floors of the building began to flicker blue.

“Kraaaaaaaaaaaah!” I roared out while I activated [Humanize], increasing my body temperature with [Dreadflare Aura] and containing everything with my [Draconic Aura]. As the blue veils protecting the building began to break down, my Territory was established.

“Dammit! Move back!” the Edgesworn boss cried out as the mana mist started to dissipate and my true form was revealed.

My increased mass pushed pieces of the building away, but since I was melting everything into light purple, glowing lava—technically magma, I suppose, since we’re underground—already, everything felt more-or-less like liquid. I grabbed the remnants of the semi-solid wall and threw it at the dwarves, using [Volcanic Blaze] to turn them into obsidian spears.

With a resounding shatter, two of the dwarves’ barriers broke apart, letting the spears lodge themselves into their armor. However, the blows were too shallow, as the spears immediately fell off. However, as long as these dwarves were inside this Territory, I had enough resources to take them all on, no matter how strong they were. Fortunately for me, the magma had already enclosed this entire place.

Again! I grabbed some magma and threw it at them, turning them into obsidian spears mid-air. However, instead of letting one of the shield-bearers take the hit, the Luedbrumdar samurai stepped in front of them and slashed forward using his katana, slicing everything into two with impeccable reflexes.

Immediately afterward, the blue seams on his body turned green, before two runes on his boots began to glow. He unsheathed his blade and took out his bardiche, before closing the distance between us in a matter of a second. Taking me by surprise, he swung his polearm at my neck.

I arched it back, avoiding the hit, where I noticed he was reading another hit. Dodging any further would just put me at a disadvantage, so I sent my floating glaive to block his attack. With my catalyst inserted, I could control it through mana.

A clash of metal erupted as my glaive and his bardiche dueled, allowing me enough time to recover and have [Halo of Consecration] blast a white flame ring out. The samurai retreated, switching with the ronin, who bisected my flames in the process, before sending his five tanks to obstruct my movements.

With their armor glowing blue, they charged in with unprecedented speed, just like the earthquakers I witnessed before. They slammed their shields against me, trying to push me back while relying on their mana barrier to survive. Two of them, though—the ones I had broken the auracoil of—had to endure the heat of my attack full-on. Looking at the red glowing rune on their chestplate, they probably had some heat resistances, considering dwarves mined a lot.

The [Magmakammer] had closed off the area with the entire building’s molten stone, and while it trapped them inside, it also meant I had barely any room to move. I couldn’t use my [Hellblade Dragon] attacks effectively. I could only rely on spells and flame breaths … or so these dwarves probably assumed.

[“See ya!”] I taunted them as I turned my [Unheilige Engel] into an obsidian drill, before jumping up and drilling my way through the molten ceiling. I quickly manipulated the magma, having it close up the hole before activating my stealth skills.

Sure, I might have told them I would fight them, but, honestly, we needed to get the hell out of here! The moment the city guards and soldiers arrived en masse, then our escape route would be closed out. We would be trapped. That was what those dwarves were planning, stalling until help arrived. Since I rescued the prisoners, all we needed to do was to— [Danger Perception] activated!

Woah!

I snapped my body and the drill to the side, as a mana slash pierced right through the magma, opening a section of it open. I looked down, seeing the samurai standing there in a slashing motion. He then sheathed his blade, and like those overdramatized anime samurai, did an “iaido” slash with a blue glowing katana.

Controlling the magma, I used it to push myself out of its trajectory before closing things up. Well, my fleeing plans just went poof. If I didn’t take care of them now, that samurai would chase us down. We wouldn’t be able to flee into the subspace with him around. Kazumi wouldn’t be able to outrun him and the hold would be too high of an alarm for me to escape. I didn’t even know where the exit was!

Can’t help it. Dreadflame Breath.

If I had to fight, then I had to increase [Magmakammer]’s size first. Increase its volume to the point I could swim and appear anywhere like the training I did in my Obsidian Orchestra. As such, magma burst from my mouth, filling up everything as I swam and dodged the attacks of that samurai.

His attack speed was fast, but my Agility made it possible for me to continue. Even though he was an experienced fighter, so was I. It was as hard for me to predict him, as it was for him to predict me. After all, I also had spells and my glaive on my side.

The moment he would open up the magma, I would dodge and prepare my spells, keeping them readied with [Delayed Spell]. The more my magma room grew, the more spells I had readied. I was running on timer, but so were they. If they didn’t come up with anything until then, then it would be my win!

‘Original Mind, temperature rising and rising! No core means we can overheat, so don’t delay this for too long. Our body can only endure so much!’ Manager Mind informed me before my arrogance took over my decision making.

I know! Trust me! Keep it up!

Ten magic circles. 20 magic circles. How about five more! The potential damage increased even further, and when the next slash happened, I noticed it. I noticed the samurai’s arm slowing down by just a tiny bit. The rhythm he was keeping up was delayed, nearly costing me some scales as I mistimed my dodge.

Now!

And the moment the next slash happened, I hardened up the area where he shot his mana slash into solid obsidian, nearly blocking the entire attack. I had full control over my magma, and I meant it! Cooling and hardening a concentrated area into obsidian wasn’t a problem for me, nor was opening up the areas where I had stored the magma spells!

“Is this the fated battle, the light shines ♫

It’s blinding my sight ♫

But I’ve gotta hold on, the stage calls ♫

The cries of a thousand, the flames of war will descend ♫”

[Music Resonation (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Just as the spells blasted forth, sending down lightning, wind, and holy attacks, I played [The Will to Fight and Survive] to increase my fire and holy damage by 10%. The dwarves activated their auracoil, protecting the samurai who was readying his attacks. The barrage of spells, however, were too much for the dwarves to endure as barriers left and right broke apart, to the point the dwarves had to act like meat shields.

Watching this through one of the slits I made, I threw my obsidian and glaive at them, forcing the dwarves to defend against them, only for my obsidian to turn fluid again while my glaive was made by Grimnir. As if it would break! Using this fact, the dwarves reacted too slowly when the [Unheilige Engel] slipped past their shields and lodged itself into the few gaps inside the armors, while my glaive continued attacking.

I couldn’t inject my toxin into their protected bodies, at least, it didn’t seem like it was possible from here. However, my magma’s second phase—corrosive slime mode—stuck onto their joints and limbs, and once hardened, would slow them down enough for my glaive to force them to focus on defending. The samurai, noticing his allies’ inconvenience, decided to strike my glaive, but outside of sending it flying, the blade stayed intact even after he unleashed an iaido slash.

“Again?” the samurai let out. I guess he thought that was some second-rate glaive, but that thing was made not only from my materials but also the skills of Grimnir!

I closed up all the holes in my Territory once the spells stopped, instead, having to use my [Unheilige Engel] and glaive to delay them. Still, they were good enough, as I now had their backs to the wall. With a [Flash Fire], I figuratively teleported from the ceiling side to the ground underneath them.

“Kraaaaagh!” I roared out as I resurfaced, successfully grabbing one of the dwarves in my jaw.

“Woooooraaaah!” he screamed.

Without delaying another second, I stomped down on two tankers with my front legs, pulling all three of them into the magma. I submerged just in time, as the samurai slashed forth, only for my glaive to obstruct him.

Now inside the magma, I crushed the armor they had on, causing them to ingest some of the lava. Thankfully, they were Taz dwarves, meaning they were far better suited to survive hostile temperatures like that of a volcano. Their bodies may have been born for this kind of environment, but letting them burn inside here would be murder. That would be harder to excuse later on.

So, once they were unconscious, I threw them outside the [Magmakammer]. One thing the dwarves probably hadn’t noticed, since they were trapped inside, was that through the expansion of the Territory through my magma breaths, this building had turned into a large ball. This was the only way for me to swim around without any problems, and none of the dwarves realized they were in a glorified hamster ball.

With three enemies down, I only had to take care of four more. Using this new environment to my advantage, [Magmakammer] was in full effect. Like a real [Volcano Dragon], I would swim through this place, attacking from random angles by either surfacing and trying to drag people into the magma or using my tail to slash at them.

Spells would be slung to distract them, or even outright dent their solid armor. Although I couldn’t use [Terra Magic] right now, I could still inflict terror by using the magma. I could change up the environment inside by melting the ground they stood on, scorching their legs until they used some rune to stand up on it. I could topple the ground, turning the whole place upside down. I could do so much!

But … as I said, they were running on a timer, too.

“Urgh!” The samurai finally dropped onto one knee!

The Edgesworns boss snapped his head around, leaving him exposed to my glaive to disarm his axe, throwing it into the magma where I snatched it away. He was worried about his ally, but he shouldn’t leave himself open either.

[“Hey, did you guys look around you? No one wondering why the magma is, you know, purple?”] I directed their attention away from the samurai and to the surroundings. [“I have a skill: [Corrosive Fire]. You Taz can endure the volcanic gas, but can the Inko?”]

The dwarves were hardy mountain people, meaning they could endure the toxic gasses of my [Magmakammer] far longer than the other races. However, even with their natural resistances, nothing could stop them from getting [Poisoned] and [Paralysis]. Of course, if I was planning to kill them, they probably would end up like the demonkin girl. I wasn’t, of course.

While a Taz was far more hardy, a surface dwelling Inko wasn’t. That samurai had that interesting distinction. So the moment he fell onto his knees and I managed to distract his allies, it was time for strike.

With my blazing tail, I pierced through the magma and slammed it right into the samurai. He blocked it with his auracoil and bardiche, but the weight dug his feet right into the magma. I pulled my tail back before forcing the ground to rumble and shake, breaking the dwarves’ balance. Now off-guard, I struck the samurai with my claw, sending him into the air. I then opened a small hole in the ground where I could peek my head out.

The samurai noticed this was his last attack and readied his bardich, but the falling liquid magma from the ceiling and all the magma he accumulated fighting on the ground started to harden upon my command. Obsidian now decorated his colorful samurai armor, restricting his joints and sticking limbs to his body from the slimy nature of its transitional stage.

It was all over.

Dreadflame Breath.

“Guek! Slipped pa—”

I fully enveloped the dwarf in my dragon breath, breaking through his mana barrier and scorching him and lighter armor, compared to the tanks. I then boosted myself up and grabbed him, submerging myself like a fish into the ceiling. Once the samurai was out, I threw him out of my Territory like a broken doll before I finished off the last three foes.

The dwarves might have had a lot of tech and equipment, but when it mattered the most, they didn’t have an answer to combat my Territory. Well, not like they had a chance, anyways. I didn’t even use [Flash Fire] that aggressively, now that I thought about it. [Battle Frenzy] was only mostly good for its stat increase, but due to my size, I couldn’t move around too well.

Once again [Flash Fire] was not a teleport, it was fast movement. Due to my size, moving around was far harder inside a small, closed up space. If I was in my dragonewt form, it would have been easier, but the stats I had as a dragon dealt with the dwarves without a problem.

Once it was all over, I stopped my Territory and jumped out of my magma ball. Too bad they only had melee fighters. If they had only had one or two water mages, things probably would have turned around. Being strong physically wouldn’t do you any good, if the boss could control the entire environment. Bad party compositions were the worst.

[“My lady!”] Once I landed, the wyverns spread their wings and welcomed me. Although, they did take a step back since, you know, I just took a swim in lava and probably was radiating skin melting heat right now. [“We are done with our part.”]

I looked at their faces, seeing some wounds here and there, but it didn’t look like they were roughed up too much. With [Halo of Consecration] still active, my white flames quickly healed them up.

[“Awesome, you guys did well, too. So, let’s ge—”] However, before I could speak, I noticed Kyouya, Tatsuya, and Kohaku appearing from under the wyverns as Shay spoke to me.

[“About that …”]

The wyverns lowered their wings, revealing that there were more than just the students behind them. In my decision not to just kill the dwarves, I had allowed too much time to pass for my perfect win. Bringing chaos to the city was a great distraction, but I guess the giant magma ball probably attracted everybody's attention.

After all, I could see numerous dwarves with a bearded mask surrounded by a cave’s entrance emblem on their chestplate—the Luedbrumdar’s clan crest. I was a bit too slow.

Walking out from the frontline of dwarven warriors, I could see one in a full set of gold and brown dwarven armor with a Japanese kabuto helmet. He strutted up, stroking his grey beard and its brown rock hair. His left eye looked larger, as if it didn’t fit inside his eye socket from his lack of an eyelid.

He snapped his fingers, prompting a soldier to hand him a rod from which he spoke into, “My name is Maagneil. Clan leader and patriarch of the Luedbrumdars. Princess Hestia, I presume, you are trespassing on—”

I knew it. Stupid talk again.

Instead of letting him monologue, I sat down in my dragon form and grabbed the leader of the Edgesworn and the Luedbrumdar ally he had. I then pulled them up, showing all the dwarves who I had just defeated, shocking a few of the soldiers as they snapped their heads up in disbelief.

I created a telepathic link to everybody before me—clan members and civilians. [“I heard enough from these two. I know your quarrel with my friend Daichi and Grimnir, but you had no excuse for harming my other friends! Nothing! This is an eye for an eye. Don’t you dare come at me with a speech where you paint me as the sole villain in this situation. Own up to your own mistakes, or will you put all the blame on me? A dragon whelpling?”]

“… You are a criminal who has trespassed into my land, created chaos inside my home, and attacked my people. You will answer for your crimes. As I expected from people associating themselves with a zuekluk! Surrender or we will bring you down like any other beast!”

Tsk, what? Bring me down? I hope that was just a metaphor or is he really trying to kill me if I refuse?

This was not good. I had planned to escape in time before they could come. Should I act? Would this still remain a personal thing, or would this derail into something political if I were to act? Then again, why should I even care? It wasn’t as if I was at fault here. Sure, maybe a bit, but I had as much of a reason to do something when my friends were in danger!

I looked down at the students. All three of them were looking like they were waiting for a fight, as if they were trusting my decision in this matter. Suffice to say, the same was for the wyverns. Still, if we fought, we would be outnumbered severely. I was also overheating slightly, to the point if I activated [Magmakammer] again, I would just burn myself. I couldn’t endure a long fight without my core, not to mention how much mana I would be using up to fight all of them.

Sometimes, you have to know when to fight and when to give up. In this case, it seemed we—

But before I could answer, a loud distant explosion drew everybody’s attention. There, in the sky, we saw something emerging, flying up before it stopped, spreading its wings out. Although, it was too far away for me to see clearly, it looked like a … demonkin?! A demonkin holding onto something bulky on their right and something smaller on their left.

In the next second, another explosion resounded from there as it launched the demonkin right at us. As I readied myself for a fight, the demonkin swooped up, dropping the bulky thing off. It was a dwarf, and a dwarf with what looked like a giant hammer.

“Bastard!” The dwarf dropped right into the ground in front of the Luedbrumdar, sending people flying away as a dust cloud erupted.

In the next moment, the demonkin graceful landed in front of us, dropping off K-Kazumi?! My eyes widened when I noticed this, snapping my eyes towards the demonkin, only to notice it had a female frame with bone wings and a three-forked tail. Her whole body was covered from foot to head in black armor-like carapace with two horns sticking from her forehead.

“Attack!” I heard somebody shout as two dwarven warriors came charging in.

With her head still turned away from us, the demonkin held up what seemed like a broken sword handle, only for a blue rune to light up. Just as the dwarves were about to attack her and Kazumi, sword fragments came flying towards her as she jumped over her foes, before something like a blue mana thread spread from the handle.

In the next second, the fragments attached themselves onto it, until the blade was reformed. In the next sword, the demonkin swung it, causing it to extend like a whip. With this length advantage, the demonkin quickly disarmed the warriors, allowing Kazumi to throw two small balls into their faces, causing them to explode.

That’s a whipsword! That’s Ellaine’s whipsword!

I stared at the demonkin, flabbergasted at what I saw, but the surprise wouldn’t end as a boisterous laugh woke me up. The dust cloud dissipated as that hammer from before waved it away, only for its head to open up, revealing a large gaping hole. As the weapon began to glow blue, the dust veil finally disappeared enough for me to see who its owner was.

[“Grimnir!”]

“Gahaha!” He turned his weapon towards the tomato-red faced Maagneil, to the point he was livid enough to probably bust a vein!

“Grrrrriiiiimniiiiiiiiir!”

“Broke your own promise, you bastard. You’re the damn zuekluk!”

And with mechanical sounds resounding from the weapon, it then unleashed a powerful mana blast at the crowd, blasting people away in a storm of dust and shouts. Once again laughing like a madman, the orange-haired horned dwarf turned around, showing off what looked like a new set of armor. He thumped his chest; a metallic sound echoed as I noticed a dragon-headed emblem on his breastplate.

With a big fat smirk, Grimnir’s eyes flared up as he saw us all. “Nice to see my mistress came to save her stupid retainer. Good to see you here, my princess!”

The demonkin girl also bumped her chest after sheathing her blade. [“No city can escape our party’s bad luck, right? The Aurora can’t get a single calm adventure.”]

Grimnir! Ellaine!

A note from AbyssRaven

Okay, that last part was a diplomatic problem, right? Right? The fact the boss dude just said he wanted to kill our lovely idol?

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 375: Aurora Reunion.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #2 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! It works on a subscription base now, so pay on the same date next month!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

The scene was turbulent, filled with furious, pained, and confused cries. Grimnir’s mana blast had sundered the earth, destroying a small section of it before the blue barrier protecting this hold flickered back in sight. The damage to the road wasn’t restored, even if the barrier was. So it was possible to break it!

In any case, with the smoke almost done dissipating and the hoarse orders of the Luedbrumdar clan’s leader, Maagneil, echoing inside this part of the industrial district, I reordered my list of priorities. From wanting to handle this peacefully to not endanger everybody’s lives, to getting the fuck out. We had everybody here!

[“Ellaine, Grimnir, flee or surrender?”] However, I still asked their opinions on it. With the twins and students ready to follow up on any of my decisions, I only had to ask those two.

[“Flee!”]

“I ain’t hearing one more word from that bastard uncle of mine!”

Guess that was decided.

Volcanic Blaze!

The magma ball leftover from [Magmakammer] was still around, glowing bright purple and exuding mild noxious fumes. [Magmakammer] was a Territory that kept burning things around it using my aura, making it extremely simple but a clear counter against anything susceptible to the volcanic heat. As such, the magma would still linger around, available for me to use [Volcanic Blaze] on it.

With my path forwards clear, I blew the ball up like a volcanic eruption, raining shards down onto the people in front of us. Bombarded by this poisonous magma, the dwarves couldn’t do anything but defend themselves, giving us the opportunity to flee. Even if some of them were to get hit and get poisoned, they wouldn’t die. At this point, I had learned to not mix in anything too strong.

The twins, noticing my action, forcefully heaved the students onto their back before taking flight, flying around me while spraying their ice breath on me to cool down my body in Tasianna’s stead. We would break through the siege.

“Don’t let them—argh—flee! Shield wall, now! Auracoil! Pavise! Use whatever in Crustacia’s name you have!” Maagneil did not want us to escape at all cost, but the corrosive magma rain wasn’t just disrupting their formations but the sticky slime left behind also created gaps in their defenses they couldn’t cover up.

[“Master, let’s go!”] Ellaine grabbed Grimnir as black slime oozed out of her armored arm, forming it into a long, eldritch arm. [Whiplash]—how long has it been since I last saw her use her demonic powers?

She then shot it at Shay’s leg, using it to tether herself onto him before jumping up and retracting the demonic claw. I heard some outcries at Grimnir, calling him “demon maker” and “cursed smith” which made me pretty angry at those allegations on his behalf. In any case, once everybody was on the wyverns, I charged forward like a tank with [Panzer].

The dwarves began shooting crossbows at me, which prompted my [Foresight] to activate, telling me to dodge them if I could. Considering their runecraft, I took this as a precaution and swirled my body around their hails. Using [Halo of Consecration]’s periodic flame wave, I also managed to blast some of them away that way.

Once I was right in front of the shield wall, I activated [Volcanic Blaze] once again, controlling the stationary magma. Enough accumulated around the entrance from the magma rain to the point I could create a small tidal wave with it, washing the dwarves away using the small gaps in their defenses.

We charged through and into the city, where I took flight, as my body was far too large for the dwarven streets. As a reminder, I was the size of a large mammoth, while the best you could fit in these dwarven streets was probably either three elephants or two Saori’s. From just a quick glance, I knew if I ran through them, I would break the buildings on both of my sides with my bulk. They were made for dwarves, after all.

“Lass, go to the eastern entrance. There is a dungeon there that also acts as a mine. The lasses and lads found something interesting there the last time we went there, and I think it might be a good place to hide out the noise.”

Kohaku also explained that was where the Grimnir team had been mining for the smithing contest while under watch. It was good, hard work, plus there were monsters they could hunt there in addition to gathering ore. Kazumi also emphasized how they found a pretty big secret there that even the hold didn’t know about, so if we wanted a place to rest, that would be it.

Therefore, we flew over there. Immediately, a guard station came into view. It was an entrance, after all, so it made sense for guards to be there. The moment they saw us, the guards on the roof took out a crossbow, readying them to shoot at me. Grimnir warned me dwarven crossbows were designed to break through monsters with hard, stone-like hide and carapace, so while they were heavier and slower than conventional ones, they could probably pierce my [Panzer].

I didn’t doubt him. My defense had always been my weakest point, and while it had increased with my [Young Sunfang Dragon] evolution and all my defensive skills and spells, I still shouldn’t tank things, if possible. Well, outside of heal tanking, but our intention was to escape, right now.

“I’ll handle this!” Tatsuya shouted as he placed another fulinoe leaf in his mouth, before assuming his battle stance. “Let’s go! All-In!”

Tatsuya’s skin began to turn red as he [Dragoon Jump]ed off of Shay, before using [Spiral] to turn into a human drill. Once the crossbows were shot, he stopped his movement mid-air and swung his spear, creating a small amount of gust to blow the bolts away from me. He then stomped the air with [Air Walk] and used [Dragoon Jump] again.

With his skin turning red once more, his speed increased even further before he landed on the guard station’s roof. With swift movements, he disarmed the guards of their crossbows, only to flinch and jump back when they pulled out their melee weapons. However, this did distract the guards quite a bit.

All-In: A skill revolving around explosive powers at a cost. By consuming fulinoe leaves or seeds, the user may store up to three charges at once, enabling them to consume 20% of Health, Mana, or Stamina per charge to increase specific stats. Two or all charges may be used simultaneously to further increase the boost by 10%, 30%, or 75%. The boost will only last for one attack of any kind, and the user may only have one [All-In (X Charges)] active at once, with X determined by the amount of charges used. These effects may be gained:

Health: Strength and Vitality

Mana: Intelligence and Wisdom

Stamina: Agility and ignores Vitality and Wisdom of the enemy

Killing a humanoid or monster while the status is in effect will refund half of the used resource

The high-risk, high reward unique skill of Tatsuya, similar to his previous one—[Rush Hour]. Only, this one was even riskier as overusing it could kill him. Without regenerating any Health, using this skill to increase his Strength five times would actually kill him, per the rules of the System. Really fitting name, as such.

Unlike Kyouya’s unique skill, Tatsuya’s didn’t have a level, so it couldn’t get any better than it already was. As such, the only way to strengthen it was to either level up and get better base stats, or use his druidification.

Also, coffee addict, jeez. His unique skill just had to involve the coffee-tasting tea.

With our opening created, I cast [Wind Blast] behind me, boosting my speed even further. I then stomped on the ground, blowing every single dwarven guard away from the entrance, allowing the wyverns to pass by. Ellaine even grabbed Tatsuya with her [Whiplash], allowing us all to make a perfect getaway.

We dragonkins rushed through the tunnels, following Grimnir’s instruction before we were forced to transform back into our dragonewt forms due to the size of the dungeon’s entrance. There were few confused miners, adventurers, and guards around, but after Kazumi and Kohaku showed the latter their IDs, we headed right in. Technically, some of us weren’t allowed to enter, since we needed permission from the local adventurer guilds—myself included.

[Humanize (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“W-wait, is that Grimnir?! Get him!” Well, it didn’t take too long for the guards to notice our group’s most notorious member. We pretty much had to run.

“This way!” Grimnir ordered as his armor lit up blue, activating a few runes on his boots as he sprinted away, far faster than before.

Seeing him rush away like this, I had Shay and Beth carry the students under their arms, while I moved to help Ellaine. However, the Aurora’s fourth member shook her head before the armor around her legs began to twitch around, to the point she could catch up with Grimnir’s run. What the hell did those two do while I wasn’t around?!

In any case, the Gazahan Iron Mine was the name of the dungeon we were headed for that also acted as a mine for the dwarves. According to Grimnir, the old ore veins had dried up ages ago, before he was even born, so most of the hold’s minerals came from the two rank E and one rank D dungeons in the area.

The monsters inside were barely a threat to us, as they consisted mostly of rank Fs in the first five floors. Once we got to the sixth, rank Es finally appeared, but they were mostly slow rock monsters or golems. To a new adventurer group, these monsters were a real threat as their Vitality were high and most normal dwarf adventurers didn’t have magical attack weapons. In addition, they were just far taller than a normal dwarf.

To us, though, they were living target practice.

Experience for development Jobs has reached multiple breaking points.

[Idol]: Lv. 4 -> Lv. 7

[Mage]: Lv. 8 -> Lv. 12

[“Seventh. Are you kidding me, how did you guys train? I barely get anything from them!”] I complained as we had to take down monsters as they stood in our way.

“Further in!” Kazumi replied. “Everything will be answered once we get into the secret location.”

“Also, you guys owe us an answer, too! Tatsuya-kun, Kyouya-kun, Hesti-chan. We need to catch up now that everybody’s together! I mean, you got everybody, right?” Kohaku looked at me, prompting me to show her a thumbs up, before showing off my [Room] runes.

We got everybody… Although I did point out that I didn’t have the time to look for their equipment, to my surprise, Kazumi told me it was alright. Apparently, all their equipment was stored at the Luedbrumdar clan’s warehouse.

With a smug meow while twitching her katzune ears, our team’s cat burglar smirked as she told us she knew everybody would go towards the Edgesworns’ base. She saw my Territory appear, so she hazard a guess she didn’t need to reunite with us. Instead, she went to get their stolen equipment, where she found Grimnir and Ellaine sneaking into the place as well.

[“We were trapped inside the artisan district, under the Luedbrumdar’s sanctioned smithy. That was where the smithing contest was held and where they trapped us after Daichi got a bit too hotheaded,”] Ellaine exclaimed. [“We noticed the commotion and Master decided to demolish pretty much everything in his way with his new armor. We got to the clan building, and then we decided to hurry over to you guys. Our perfect timing was a coincidence!”]

Aurora really had bad luck when it came to our encounters, but there really was that little bit of luck that connected us all, huh?

“Oi, speaking about that coincidence, how is that damn brat? He okay?” Grimnir sounded angry—rightfully so considering what Daichi’s outburst caused. Still, the look through his open open-face helmet told me he was still concerned about him.

[“Bruised, but I healed him. He’s with the others.”] My answer visibly caused the wrinkles on his face to soften, returning it to his natural expression. He still looked like he would lecture people, but that was just Grimnir before a drink or food. [“Speaking about others, where is Klea’Hatma? At this point, she should have made an innuendo or something.”]

[“…”]

I turned my head around, seeing as Ellaine wasn’t answering. I couldn’t see her face through the face mask of her body suit.

[“We’ll talk later. First, let’s head into the secret passage.”]

Ellaine?

On the ninth floor, just before the staircase to the dungeon’s boss room, Kazumi hurried us over to a dead end. She then pointed at the floor before the wall, telling Kyouya to wipe the dirt away. Once he did it, we noticed a small slit. Kohaku told him to pull the stone brick out, and once we did, he told us there was something like a handle inside it.

Kyouya then pulled on it, causing cogs to suddenly turn, clanking together as the brick cavern-like wall lit up blue, before it moved up like some hidden door. The entrance was revealed and the dark tunnel behind it was lit by manatech lamps.

“It’s safe,” Grimnir reassured us before letting out a deep sigh, swinging his manahammer over his shoulder and attaching it to a small sheath on his back. “Broggi, that crazy fellow, really had secrets even he never told me during our travels.”

Broggi?

[Humanize (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

While I transformed back into my moderate form, the twins remained in their minor form to stay on-guard. Well, Shay wanted them to stay in their minor forms, while Beth wanted to use her moderate and even major form, since she already spent the SP on it.

[“My lady, please, tell my sister she should worry about her duty! We cannot let our guard down, even in a place of safety!”] Shay pleaded to me.

On the other hand, his usually disciplined younger twin argued back, [“Mistress, my brother’s reasoning only follows that of a wyvern despite our current situation! We are no longer in the Avitor Peaks, so we don’t have to follow the law of the strong with every step, and should be allowed to experience more than just our world. It is our duty as royal guard to understand what you and the Empress have to deal with everyday!”]

… Well, this certainly was a pickle. Either I become a hypocrite by agreeing with Shay’s reasonable demand, or determine that leaving your guard down to “feel more comfortable” was the correct choice with Beth. Considering I always go around in my moderate form cause it combined being cute with my combat prowess, I should go with Beth … but I kinda agreed with Shay.

“… Do what you want.” As such, the best answer was just to ignore and run away from the problem.

[“My lady?!”]

Well, after deciding to ignore the constant arguing of the twins, the rest of us traveled down this tunnel. It was still the same mine-like aesthetic, but now, instead of torches, manatech lamps lit up the place. You also couldn’t see miners digging up ore or adventurers hunting monsters crowding the place in noise. It was eerily quiet, outside of the distant rattling of cogs.

“Broggi was always more of a supporter of Crustacia, unlike the rest of us Luedbrumdars.”

Hmm?

Grimnir suddenly began talking, filling up the silence with a conversation about something new. Which made it weirder, since he usually grumbled. He only talked when it was necessary.

When he noticed me raising a brow, he clarified on his reason for speaking up. “Just giving you all the context of the situation. The people who came with me already know, but you probably don’t. With everything you got yourself into to help us, it would feel bad if I left you all in the dark.”

Grimnir then turned silent from here on forward, leaving the rest of us only able to talk about Tatsuya’s and Kyouya’s unique skills. Once they told everybody about their skill’s description, Kohaku and Kazumi couldn’t believe they had such risky skills. Both could pay Health for their powers, making them extremely reliant on healers like Tamae or me.

Although I had already heard this before, listening to them explain how they got their unique skill once again still stunned me. Outside of them gaining their unique Job from entering a pact with Saori’s shadow pack, they gained their unique Skills after they evolved their first development Job during their stay with the vampires.

“It’s something with the food.” Kyouya grimaced as he recalled what they were served by the holier-than-thou vampires of Purchigchia. “Bread, some meat stripes, and practically no vegetables or fruits outside of … ‘blood oranges.’ Literally, blood. Well, at least they tasted decent … outside of the heavy iron taste. Although, I guess they gave us some to acclimate ourselves before they put us into blood knight training.”

As the vampire princess told me, they were gestured by Vivachel to take care of the boys, although training was never hinted at. Still, they did it anyway and put them into an almost spartan-like training where they had to learn fast and train while under the effects of hunger. That was why they complained how they couldn’t eat or drink anything for days.

The only thing they were given were these blood oranges and a ritualistic meat dish similar to tartar at the beginning of it. From then, the boys trained and trained, as the only way to get any oranges was to pass each checkpoint. While the vampire’s squires had to go through the entire process, the vampire princess decided it was enough once they gained their unique Skills after killing flying fortresses and alchemical gargoyles.

“We can show you guys it. We actually brought some of these oranges with us.”

The boys then took out some of the fruits from their storage, even a sample of the tarter they were given. They had already appraised them, telling us they weren’t anything special. They couldn’t really believe they had gained their unique skills due to the training, so they presumed they had spiked their food.

Blood Oragha: An oragha fruit mutated in the bloody soil of Drascul, turning its savory juices into that of real blood. Acting as a feeding substitute for vampires to satiate their thirst before their next big drink, these fruits cannot fully replace their hunger due to a lack of mana

Bat meat: The meat of a bat

I swear, sometimes the Divine System really was trolling with its description of mundane objects. It even did this to me back in the Belzac forest!

… In any case, I should give them to Tasiann and Rita for analysis. In fact, Cernust was coming to Estralia too so once he arrived, I could have him and Rita actually analyze these things so we could actually determine how the boys gained their unique Jobs. My guess was that these things did something in their bodies, mutating it in addition to Saori’s adding them to her shadow pack. After all, Kyouya’s unique skill was too similar to Saori’s own unique skill [Shadow Armament], while Tatsuya had the killing aspect of her [Life Taker].

They didn’t look or feel any different, and I even checked with [Mana Eyes] to see if there was anything weird in their bodies. Still, we probably should find an answer soon, since I still didn’t trust vampire princess Vadisma. Her hatred of Uzerra and wish to destroy Aleistunum and kill the people there didn’t resonate with me at all, to the point I had a feeling it would affect me in the future.

The boys and girls agreed with me, sharing my suspicion she might be trying to use the two boys as a contingency plan. Just like the demonkins. It really looked like everybody was trying to lure my friends in with nice and cool unique skills, only to remind everybody how there was some ulterior plan.

“… The world hates us.”

I couldn’t agree with Tatsuya anymore. I had the feeling there was something weird which made it that, wherever we went, there would always be trouble of some kind. Maybe Aurora wasn’t cursed, maybe us otherworlders were cursed! Just like in those light novels where the protagonists always got themselves in some trouble!

In any case, while we were wondering how all this would affect us in the future, we stopped our discussion the moment we reached the end of the tunnel. Our eyes widened as we stared at the rusting walls and ceiling of the chamber before us.

Not brown, black, or grey rocky walls, but solid metal plates decorated everything inside like some sorta ancient factory. The specks of dirt and rust eating away the glistening metal really emphasized the neglected state of this place. Even the floor and the few tables around that were made with wood were slowly rotting along the aging chamber.

What also caught my attention was the fact this was where the sounds of those cogs came from. As I walked inside the place, I noticed giant cogs slowly moving around as blue streaks illuminated the place inside translucent pipes. Like a river stream, what looked like mana was all moving towards a singular location in the middle of the place.

The chamber was mostly empty, outside of a large smithy with a large pit full of dead, cooled down magma on the left and a large workbench with plenty of tools and other gadgets. The few tables and chairs inside didn’t look too usable nor aesthetically pleasing, but I noticed some dirty wooden dishes and scraps of meat and fruits here and there, giving this rather dour place some character. Although, it did contrast the abandoned nature of the rest of the chamber.

Grimnir then walked towards the middle of the place, where I noticed something like an altar was there. A statue of a short stack woman was placed on the very top of it, holding onto a tablet and what looked like those rod-like tools Ellaine always used for her artificer work. Looking closer, this woman seemed like a dwarf, as she had long rock hide around her ears, to the point she looked like an elf from afar.

I then looked down, noticing signs of the altar being pushed away. My eyes then turned to a small keyhole where all the mana pipes were feeding their mana. I looked up at Grimnir as he took out his helmet, prompting him to shake his head.

“The room was empty when we first found it,” he answered.

[“We used the room as our temporary base where we hid from the Luedbrumdar soldiers. However, we couldn’t do anything else as there weren’t any tools. The forge was dead and we couldn’t start it up with even Master’s fire breath, and the artificer bench was barren.”] Ellaine explained before she suddenly stood still.

Seconds later her bodysuit armor hardened up, to the point it looked like some sorta futuristic exo-skeleton with all its cogs and widgets. I took a step back as I saw blue seams lit up the armor like all the other dwarven armors I’ve seen up until now. It then made some yik-yik sounds as a brown and green light began radiating from her right and left hands.

The armor then opened up like some iron woman suit, revealing Ellaine’s face and real body. Surprisingly, Ellaine was actually wearing an actual skin-tight bodysuit behind that armor. In fact, the pieces of the armor formed up around her frame, morphing itself into the knight armor she used to wear. Some of the pieces were missing, but most of the wing and feather themes she had before could be identified, although the colors were now only white and black.

Where did the red parts go? My body pieces!

Not realizing my internal sadness, Ellaine cleaned up her messing blue hair before wrapping it all up in her usual ponytail. She then stared at me with her yellow eyes, smiling widely. I couldn’t help myself any longer.

“Woah!”

We hugged.

“Good to see you again, Ellaine,” I couldn’t help but eke out.

Recovering her breath from my sudden embrace, Ellaine tightened her hands around me, even as I made sure my wings didn’t get in the way. “You say that as if you thought I would be in danger again, hiehie! … Aurora member, Ellaine Fiero Helvas, reporting in after a prolonged venture.”

I then released her, smiling back as I remembered how Aurora was slowly coming back together. Sure, we went our ways for a bit due to our differing goals and it had only been at most two months, but it was still good to see both Ellaine and Grimnir after only having Tasianna with me.

“What is that armor? And where did my parts go?” I asked.

Smiling wryly Ellaine, scratched her cheeks as a blush appeared. “… This is the Heavy Enhancing Shapeless manaTech Incursion Armor … Or H.E.S.T.I.A. 0.9, for short.”

“…” My eyes went wide and my mouth opened up a bit. I looked over at Grimnir.

He shook his head.

I then looked over at Ellaine, and she too shook her head. So I turned to Kazumi and Kohaku.

“… Daichi.”

That was all I needed to know.

“Never say that acronym ever again.”

Everybody nodded while I tried to refocus to get rid of this second-hand cringe. Regardless, while the acronym was a bit too embarrassing to say out loud, the full name did pretty much tell me what it was—a shapeless armor.

“The vault here wasn’t completely empty of treasure. In a small corner, hidden behind the smithy, we found not only the prototype version of this armor that had been made for a dwarven woman’s body, but also this.” Grimnir then nodded to Kazumi, who took out a book from her subspace and handed it to him. “A little work diary from Broggi. This place here was all his. A hidden workshop where he could create whatever he wanted without needing to justify it to anybody… makes you really think, huh?”

Grimnir’s eyes closed up a bit, looking down as he stroked the little book. Ellaine frowned a bit as she looked at him, causing the students, the twins, and me to appear confused. Was there something important in the book? Why didn’t Kohaku or Kazumi know about it?

“Broggi had always been the extremely inventive type, to the point he was beloved by the people of our home. He was one of the best artificers of this generation, respected by even those in the capital. However, here, in our clan, Broggi never was that well liked, although nobody ever said that to his face. After all, he was our pride,” Grimnir murmured, reminiscing a bit. “I thought I knew him. I always thought so. The Luedbrumdars are followers of Bleidla, but he loved Goddess Chihiro like a mother. The mother of inventions. He revered her even more than the Earth Goddess.”

Grimnir then burst out in laughter, although it somehow felt awkward. Almost solemn. “I always endured how much he spoke about her, because I respected him as a fellow artisan … and as a friend. I thought he shared those feelings.”

His grip tightened around the book, wrinkling the leather cover of it.

“The only loyalty he ever had was to Goddess Chihiro, and his life goal was to recreate everything she couldn’t finish. The gun blueprints he wanted were for this goal, and I always condemn myself for talking him into it despite how much he told me it wouldn’t be possible … What a fool I was.”

He then opened the book at its end, scrolling a few pages back until he showed me the page. However, the handwriting was so messy, it was impossible for me to read. As such, Grimnir read it out loud.

“‘Finally, I did it! My cousin, Grimnir. I finally managed to talk him into it! He found the conviction and curiosity to follow me into the vault! With his expertise and crafting, he can make the tools I need. The best blacksmith and runesmith of our clan is now in my hands. Goddess Chihiro’s vault… her forbidden room, the one sealed away by Bleidla’s followers! ‘The room of Taboo,’ ha! Fools! Those blueprints are the future of our world! I must obtain them. I must! This is my goal, my life's work! I will assure all of them get to meet the sun once again. Whether it's me or anybody else, we will finish the Goddess revolution over the world and show how wrong Bleidla was!’”

“…” I was speechless.

My parallel minds reminded me of who Broggi was and how often Grimnir spoke highly of him and how he was the best artificer he knew. The techniques left behind in Grimnir’s hand were imparted onto Ellaine, helping her become the artificer she was today. Even Jadhund and Rosserto established this person as an impressive person… But what was this? Was this really his diary?

“I finished it when Ellaine and I were imprisoned. Nothing to do but read it, right?” Grimnir smirked before letting out a deep sigh, closing his eyes. “Broggi …”

“… The armor and materials; we found them there. Master and Daichi thought we could refashion them, fit me up with it since I needed armor which could hide my demonic form,” Ellaine explained. “It was also our entry into the blacksmithing contest, but everybody thought he had made an armor using demonic powers. It was a misunderstanding.”

“Hahahaha!” Grimnir interjected with a loud crackle, before putting the book onto a nearby table. “The ‘demon smith.’ A good misunderstanding, lass. With that, you can use your demonic powers whenever and wherever and we can just use the excuse that we claimed a few materials from the demonkin we fought in Griffonpeak. It doesn’t matter, right? All that matters is we resolved that problem of yours …”

… Where is Klea’Hatma? Why hasn’t she said anything about this yet?!

But before I could bring up the matter of her silence, Grimnir walked up to me, bumping his chest and showing off that dragon head emblem once again. “The Luedbrumdar place their clan crest on their breastplate. This is the Kargryxian Empire’s emblem—the head of the black dragons breathing fire in the shape of the crescent moon. Princess Hestia, I have a favor to ask of you.”

“… Are you sure?” I could already guess what he wanted, looking at how long he looked at that keyhole before. “Your cousin didn’t seem like he cared about you. You even admitted it—he used you.”

The dwarven smith nodded. “I still dislike Bleidla and how so many blacksmiths revolve around this god and his gift of the [Blacksmith’s Eyes]. Nay, I say. What is taboo about trying to keep the world turning? Inventing more? I will not blame everything on him, again … but, if my princess values promises, so must I somewhat. Broggi and I still made a pact, even if he wasn’t sincere to me.”

“… Then speak, and I shall do whatever I can as your party leader and master, Grimnir Luedbrumdar.”

“Will you help me retrieve Broggi’s equipment and unlock the secrets he held hidden here? So I can make you armor even your dragon form may wear?”

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Chapter 376: Oh, How I Missed Our Hot Springs.

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“Here.”

Ellaine handed to me something that appeared to look like an egg. This beige, spotted “egg” felt warm to the touch, but its shell was rough like sandpaper. Rubbing on it with my shoulder irritated my human skin, and knocking on it caused a deep rocky sound. I did not expect this.

“This is your aberration?”

An [Aberration of Indulgence], also known as a demonic soul core, was in my hands right now. To be precise, it was the former aberration of the Demonkin Prince of Envy, which I had usurped during our stay in Estralia. Meaning, the Prince of Envy had lost one of his insurances were he to die.

Klea’Hatma had suggested to Ellaine to use it to ensure her life, since she was the only one from Aurora able to use it, even if only when she was in her [Assimilation] form. It was like that vampiric necklace we found in that dungeon—it acted as another life for Ellaine were she to receive fatal damage… Although, hopefully she wouldn’t go out of her way to get beheaded again.

Ellaine nodded, caressing the egg with a small smile. “Well, pretty much. Klea told me the aberration usually forms around the owner’s deepest wishes with a touch of the sin type. Since mine is lust, I presumed it would be something… Klea-like.”

“… An egg, huh? I guess it has something to do with birth or something?” I scratched my head at the weird explanation. I honestly thought it would be like its former form—an eyeball monster. “… And you’re saying the demon hadn’t spoken to you after you decided to tether your mana to this thing?”

The smile Ellaine had instantly vanished as I mentioned that, causing her to sigh as she took back the egg. While caressing it, her eyes looked down on the ground, genuinely saddened at what I said.

“Klea did mention she could store her mana in the aberration to grow back into her real form, but the Goddess would just smite her if she were to do so. However, when I finally decided to use the aberration as a weapon for myself, Klea just… she went silent. It’s been weeks.” Ellaine looked at her mana rings, where Klea’Hatma’s mana should have been stored. “I thought she would return, so I’ve been going on with my life. I couldn’t exactly abandon Master as his apprentice when he needed help, and worrying about Klea wouldn’t make sense since she is stuck with me.”

Her arm then darkened in color, forming her right hand into a massive claw. “But, as you can see, I can still use my demonic powers. We made the H.E.S … I apologize, the suit armor to accommodate and hide my demonic powers. With all the misunderstandings surrounding Master, I can now be a real threat whenever I want. Although, I’m still only level 80… Well, I’ll worry about leveling more once I cannot improve myself even further with my current training regiment.”

The students, Ellaine, and Grimnir all managed to level up a bit while they were here, but they were still nowhere close to those who participated in the war effort. And with Saori training with Belzac and off hunting that grimgarian army, the Grimnir group were practically the only ones who are still needed to power level. Tasianna wasn’t level 100, either, but she only needed five more levels to break into the rank A tier.

“I know what you are thinking, Hestia.” Ellaine caught my attention. “I still keep your words close to my heart. ‘Stats aren’t everything.’ I know that after traveling for this long, so don’t worry. For the upcoming operation, I will be reliable.”

I smiled wryly as I heard those confident words from her, before shaking my head. “You’ve been reliable ever since Griffonpeak, Ellaine. Don’t demean what you did back then and during your fight against that Warbringer in Estralia. You are a member of Aurora, and that means I can trust my back to you whenever!”

Ellaine widened her eyes, taken aback by my words. “… Something happened after visiting Yeos, right? You seem… more radiant. More regal, to the point I believe you share almost the same aura as His Majesty.”

Well, that was my cue for a story time. However, first, my people needed to take a break and we had other people to meet, so I opened my subspace. Everybody except Grimnir headed inside for a break..

Once there, we checked up on Haruka, Misaki, and Tamae. The three girls were taken care of by Svena and the other members of the staff inside my subspace—bringing them food and clothes—while Daichi and Nishio were both sent to the infirmary, still sleeping off their injuries. Seeing everybody okay, Kazumi, Kohaku, and Ellaine were fully relieved and this allowed us to just take a moment to speak about what happened… in the hot springs.

“Woooooo! Hot springs!” I cheered as I took a dip into the warm waters after a nice scrub, relishing how rejuvenating it felt to let the water permeate around my skin and scales after my shedding session. I touched my chest, feeling the empty space where my core usually sat, noticing how it was slowly regrowing.

Sadly, this was a natural occurrence, like growing your hair and nails out, so there weren’t any practical ways to speed up the growth. Even Neill still needed time to regrow her broken kirin horn. It would take awhile for me to return to my top form.

“Yeaaaaaaah! Feels good to be back here with everybody. Only missing Asaka-san and Sensei.” Kohaku stretched as she entered the baths, before submerging everything but her head. Her black-red tinted hair waved around with the water.

Kazumi nodded to her best friend’s opinion, shaking both her katzune ears and tail as she poured a bucket full of water on her head. She then stood up and walked over to the bath’s edge, clapping happily. “Yeah, yeah, a private one feels the best. The ones the dwarves manage aren’t bad per se, but I really didn’t like how they were so, whatchacallit, looky. They really don’t know proper hot springs etiquette.”

“We could start by being a bit more quiet, Kazumi-chan,” Misaki chimed in, prompting Kazumi to apologize for raising her voice. “Don’t forget, Chihiro didn’t introduce hot springs to the dwarves. They found them themselves, so their etiquette would of course be different from us Japanese. But … ooooh, two weeks of being stuck in that stupid cell.”

The stoic brunette stroked her slightly feeble-looking left arm, massaging it. She then took in a deep breath, moaning before resting her head on the bath’s edge. “… Those Luedbrumdar will pay. It took so long to build up the proper muscles for archery, and they just had to ruin it by giving us nothing but scraps to eat and no way to stretch our muscles. Tsk!”

Seeing Misaki so aggravated was such a rare sight, in fact, I was pretty sure this was the first time when she really let out any of her frustration in front of me. Then again, it was understandable since archery was very important to her, and not just ‘cause she needed it to defend herself. A professional athlete who lived and breathed her sport; I guess you call my obsession with being an idol similar to her’s. I would definitely be mad if somebody damaged my vocal chords or hearing.

“Sorry about that. I should have noticed something was up sooner,” I told her, even though I technically couldn’t have done anything since I was unconscious for nearly two weeks.

“Don’t be, Hesti-chan.”

I turned my head around to the voice, noticing Tamae and Haruka covering their drenched bodies with towels, before they submerged themselves into the hot spring. Just like Misaki, both moaned pretty timidly, letting the stress of their imprisonment out.

“This was our task and we wanted to help Grimnir out, so if we got ourselves in trouble, it should have been ours to solve.” Tamae showed me a thumbs up and wide smile to encourage me, before putting her purple hair into a bun to not let it land in the water. “Still, thank you very much for saving us … Oooh,still, I do wish we could have done something.”

Haruka nodded sheepishly, her eyes downcasted. “… Being weak really sucks. Here I thought I wouldn’t have to fight and could just manage being a supportive member. Unless I want to NEET it out inside the subspace, I really have to become stronger, somehow.”

Haruka …

Haruka had a pretty strong fear of blood, which made it impossible for her to fight properly. Which was a shame since her petite frame and quick-thinking would have made her into a good scout. She had performed those roles before she joined Aurora, but it seemed she was reconsidering things right now.

“… I can feel you, Haruka-chan. I want to shoot an arrow through those prison guards’ eyes right about now.”

I snapped my head over to Misaki as she said that, wondering if her inner beast was unleashed after two weeks inside that prison cell. Then again, Haruka did tell me how the Edgesworns practically tortured them to spill information on Earth’s tech. The boys—Daichi and Nishio—especially were beaten up, while the girls couldn’t do anything but watch. If that were to happen to me, I would be pretty furious.

“Please, nothing as violent. His Majesty still has to attend the summit …”

The final two were finally done with their showers. First to enter the baths was Ellaine, who did it properly, while a humanized Beth followed up by nearly diving into the baths, forcing me to catch her before she sent everything flying like a fountain. Once we emerged from the waters, I coughed up some water from my lungs and literally threw the wyverns out of the place.

“Beth! Just because you look like that doesn't mean you can just jump in! Control yourselves!” I lectured Beth, causing the wyvern woman to smile wryly while in her [Humanize (Moderate)] form. I knew it; she really was acting far more unleashed after she leveled [Humanize] up to level 10.

[“Bethlieranha, do not inconvenience our Young Mistress!”] From the other side of the hot springs, we could all hear Shay scolded his younger twin, causing the latter to freeze up.

… Maybe I should add a soundproof wall. The boys probably heard everything. I shook my head to get the image of Tatsuya and Kyouya just sitting in the water, all naked, while listening to everything we girls were doing and saying. I felt relieved that they hadn’t said anything yet.

Once we settled down, Beth and I entered the baths again. We girls then enjoyed a moment of reprieve, before we all started to feel restless at what Ellaine had said before Beth nearly dive bombed us. “His Majesty still has to attend the summit,” she said, implying King Drangleic and the impending alliance between Artorias and the dwarves.

I stared up as I realized what I had done today. Sure, I knew this was part of the consequences of my actions to free my friends, but goodness, what would be my excuse? I felt so confident I could deal with everything, but just imagining the dwarven high king glaring at me made me feel so small. Then again, I didn’t even know what he looked like, so maybe he wouldn’t be so scary.

To clear up my mind, I asked the girls if they wanted a recap of what happened in Yeos, to which they agreed. The boys already knew about it, and we could always explain things to Daichi and Nishio afterwards.

After a pretty long winded retelling of everything—since I spoke too much about my sister, apparently—everybody, outside of Ellaine, felt like things were a bit too crazy. They mentioned how we had just met the Warbringer girl, Vifi’Yok, in Estralia, but she just reappeared again in Yeos. Sure, it sounded weird, but it would have been weirder if she wasn’t there, considering the demonkin wanted to destroy the Champion of Yeostar.

Speaking about her, Ellaine and the students did question why I decided to let her live, considering she could become a future enemy again. As I told everybody else, it was just a spur of the moment decision. Watching her care so much about her subordinate, how she loved my donuts, and how she wanted to repay Amelia for the free donuts by saving her, it all accumulated to me thinking “What if we didn’t meet like this.” It also didn’t help Mother’s memories and hatred for war had influenced me a bit.

Vifi’Yok just reminded me of any other girl, albeit one with a more military background. As Neill said, it was my decision to save her—she had already accepted her death. I had to stand up and accept the consequences of my actions when they eventually came back to bite me. Crying about it was as productive as my other half wanting to make me forget about my past.

She probably heard that … Oops.

“So that is why you wanted to speak with Klea,” Ellaine figured it out after my story. “[Original Sin: Demiurge] and [Original Sin: Satanael]… Klea did mention the original sin abilities to me. She told me that, if I wanted to unlock mine, I had to reach [Okl’Luthier’s Power Lv. 9]. It would be good if we could learn more about these abilities, but…”

“But Klea isn’t awake, right now,” she probably wanted to say. It was really inconvenient that I couldn’t discuss things with her, considering she was our safest source of demonkin intel. If Ellaine had no idea about the demon, then Aurena probably would… If only she or any god would just speak with me. Or could. They have been silent since the Elyonda siege.

In any case, nothing could be done about that, so we decided to turn the subject to my unique Job. Since they knew I would get mine after finishing the divine Quest in Elyonda, they had a lot of questions. However, they were even more fascinated about Tatsuya’s and Kyouya’s recent improvements.

It took quite some time for me to explain the whole unique Job system to them, to the point we had to get out of the hot spring before everybody overheated. Once we cleaned up and put our clothes back on, everybody, including the boys, went into the living room. There we finished our talks.

“Yeah, pretty much don’t trust vampires. Most of them act so holier-than-thou, I thought I was attending one of those parties the school usually hosts for our parents.” Tatsuya complained about his stay in Purchigchia.

“Then again, our training with Asaka and Sensei probably wasn’t better. I mean, didn’t Sensei see everything about our past? Even that embarrassing part?” Kyouya’s face turned slightly red, reminding us how Belzac placed the boys into a memory sphere or something. Saori’s group had to apparently face their past.

“Yeah …” Tatsuya suddenly turned towards me. “Say, Hestia-san… you mentioned how you met your ‘past self’ in that demon thing, right? Well, I don’t want to bring back any bad memories but… your black hair? Is your current face similar to your past life’s?”

Tatsuya was trying to be considerate, seeing as I committed suicide back on Earth. It was nice of him, sure, since it was a pretty sore topic. I hadn’t actually talked about it with Tasianna or Sis, yet, since I wasn't really okay speaking about it back then. It made sense with the students since we shared being from Earth. It felt easier to talk to them about it… although Ellaine, Shay, Beth, Svena, and Josine knew about it now, too.

Suicide—it was not a good topic to talk about. The students were being helpful, and it helped me deal with it better. Still, they didn’t know how to encroach the topic the correct way, and nor did Ellaine. It was awkward, after all, and not a truth that was easy to swallow. Still, as I mentioned before, crying over my past actions wasn’t productive.

“Yup.” I confirmed Tatsuya’s question. “I saw her—my—face. Outside of our hair colors differing, we look exactly alike. So, yes, if I was still my Earth self, I would look exactly like this. I’m cute, right?”

“Y-yea— s-sure. Mhmm.” Tatsuya nodded all flustered, prompting me to feel a bit speechless. I didn’t think he would be that shy. “Ahem, t-that’s the not the question. Ahem! I mean, since you got some of your memories back, can you tell, uhm, have we met before?”

Now I had to scratch my head. What was he saying?

“… The first time we met, you told me you didn’t know me, and now you’re asking me if we’ve met before? Tatsuya, the last time I checked, I was the amnesiac.”

Tatsuya didn’t seem too convinced by my answer, but he had to agree it sounded pretty weird. Kyouya even chimed in that they should leave it, since bringing up past memories probably wouldn’t be too good. I did want to know more about myself, so unless Tatsuya could give me a concrete answer, I couldn’t help him. At least, I couldn’t remember somebody like Tatsuya being my friend in the past.

Regardless, once we were done with this discussion, we returned to the main subject—what happened to have caused all this drama with the dwarves. As Haruka had explained, all of this started after the Luedbrumdar clan’s leader had played around with the wording of his deal with Grimnir.

The blacksmithing competition was won using Ellaine’s new armor, meaning Grimnir should have gained access to his cousin’s old workshop. However, since the deal had technically only included access to the workshop, and not the tools, the clan leader had the workshop emptied beforehand. Technically, it was all by the letter of the original deal, but it was clear this competition was done in bad faith. Regardless of the wording of the deal, this was such a legalist way to conclude things.

“Master told us we couldn’t do anything. While dishonorable, you couldn’t punish somebody for that since it followed the rules,” Ellaine explained, but I had to bring up how dwarves valued honor and such. “They do, yes, that’s where all this ‘zuekluk’ comes from. But, at the end of the day, honor cannot be enforced, only the law. Being honorable amongst dwarves is all a social construct, like being a knight is. People expect you to be honorable, but you need to decide if you care about it.”

While Ellaine had a pretty tight moral compass, to the point she would disagree with a plan if I were to break a law, she could still view it from a more objective viewpoint. What she said made sense, after all. The law technically wasn’t broken, and Grimnir had obtained his part of the bargaining.

As such, Grimnir decided to compete once more, this time making sure the Nishio, Kazumi, and Haruka took a proper look over it. They might not be lawyers, but they had learned how to keep an eye out from their parents.

Which, begged the question why Maagneil, the clan leader, even accepted it this time? Well, since he hated Grimnir, it was easy for him to be taunted into accepting it. It all looked well, up until Daichi burned the clan leader’s second son’s beard off due to a fight. The son, Grimnir’s second cousin and Broggi’s brother, ridiculed Grimnir, which tipped the hot-blooded Daichi over the fence.

“Daichi was beaten up afterwards, but Mister Jadhund managed to stop it before it escalated,” Haruka continued the story after she gave me the summary. “However, he was also a witness to everything… Daichi accepted the punishment but… we didn’t want to. Grimnir stubbornly tried to stop everything.”

“I guess you could say this was what Jadhund meant with ‘two sides of the story.’” Kohaku shrugged. “Still, we might have protested, but that didn’t mean they could just treat us like that! We wanted to speak with the hold king, solve this in a better manner, but, oh no, the clan’s supporters in the city guard just ambushed us! They tried to silence us!”

Tamae gave me a less emotional recounting of it, since most of the girls were beyond livid at what happened. She explained that after they made their initial disagreement to the verdict—ten years of prison for burning down a stupid beard—Grimnir insulted the clan leader in front of everybody, calling him a coward and stickler to the past. In addition, Grimnir even spat out his usual Bleidla rant, which infuriated even more people.

This probably got leaked, and when they heard the students would petition the hold king to resolve it, those loyal and appreciative to the clan attacked them. Both members of the guard and the Edgesworns took things in their own hand and captured the students, with only Kohaku and Kazumi escaping with Jadhund’s help. Once the news got to Ellaine and Grimnir, who wanted to bide their time and win the second competition first, they confronted the clan leader.

However, it was, naturally, too late as the messengers were sent by Maagneil. Threatened and surrounded, those two couldn’t do anything but give up and return to the forge, where they were imprisoned until the competition began. It was essential black mail, at this point, and Maagneil was taking advantage of this situation to permanently end Grimnir’s honor and standing in dwarven society.

“‘Give up the hammer and the flame, hand them in and swear to the gods to never work in the forge ever again, otherwise be permanently branded as an oathbreaker’ … Not like it would change anything since Master is already exiled!” Ellaine was twisting her blue hair out of stress, looking pissed as she recalled what was demanded. “If we gave up on the competition and admitted we had cheated with this armor, that we had colluded with demonkins to make it, they would release everybody. As if we could agree to that!”

“… Neither could we,” Misaki interjected. “Kohaku and Kazumi, thankfully, managed to tell them to not accept any threats. That was what we had planned when we helped them escape. We could wait, since we knew we had backup waiting to beat up those punks. Two weeks? Better than to give in to a bunch of bastards!”

Goodness gracious, Misaki! When did your mouth get fouler than mine?! I couldn’t be the only one who thinks this, right?

I darted my eyes around the living room, noticing nobody was really reacting. Maybe Ellaine was, but she was frowning the moment I finished my story and we talked about the original sin abilities.

… Yeah, only me, huh? Kinda forgot I’ve only known them for a few months now. Even took a while for Saori and Tasianna to tell me more about their past, after all.

“What about the torture part?” I bought up, wanting to get to understand that part, too.

Tamae sighed before she answered, “It was mostly just beating up the boys. They excused it as them wanting to be gentlemen even in such a situation, which while admirable, didn’t mean much since Daichi-kun and Nishio-kun always returned bloodied. From what I could guess, they knew what they did was wrong and now that it got to this point, they had to commit to everything.”

“‘Supposedly,’” Haruka snarled a bit, before noting her aggression and looking away in embarrassment. “I-I’m sorry, it’s just that … It feels so fake. They wanted to force us to speak about Earth technology since everybody knew we were otherworlders. It was just greed and they tried to gaslight us to speak. There is nothing gentleman-like about what they did!”

“I concur.” Ellaine nodded. Her face had not softened up once since the start of this talk. “They call Master a zuekluk because he broke some taboo God Bleidla had set up, but from what I heard, only his clan punished him for it. The hold king didn’t do it, nor did God Bleidla, outside of stripping him from his [Blacksmith’s Eyes]. Treating guests like this, even insulting them in their faces; it's unforgivable, and if they were in Artorias, they would be the ones to be punished by the law!”

“She’s right, but speaking about the law, where was the hold king in this whole discussion?” From the side, Tatsuya interjected, causing some of us to realize we hadn’t spoken about him yet. “You girls were trapped in a prison for two weeks. Didn’t you guys inform the hold king that you were in his city?”

All of them nodded, explaining that was the first thing Grimnir did since exiles weren’t exactly allowed back to the cities they were banned from. Although zuekluk, exiled dwarves, would be frowned upon wherever they went, Grimnir was only legally banned from coming back to his home without a solid reason.

Since he had established a competition with the Luedbrumdar clan while he was still in the dwarven capital, Inkoran-Tazul, his reason was solid. As such, the hold king knew about Ellaine and everybody else, and it was made clear by their names that they were otherworlders. They were even questioned about it during their first day.

As such, it was strange the hold king did nothing when they disappeared for two weeks. Sure, he could argue he thought they just left without saying anything, which was a normal thing for adventurers to do. However, what about the guards? What about the criminals who helped? Even if we couldn’t blame the hold king for everything without more information, I could at least bring this to his attention.

Not to mention, I have to bust out Rosserto for helping us. Hopefully he didn’t get beaten up too badly for protesting.

I believed I had heard enough, so I stood up and returned to the Broggi’s cavern where I saw Grimnir sitting on the ground. He was waiting for me, finished with what he wanted to do.

“Can you make the portal entrance and workshop larger, lass?” Grimnir asked and I nodded, before looking at the pieces of the forge and the artificer workstation. The forge with its huge, table-size coal-powered hearth was literally dug out of the wall.

“I can understand the table, but how did you break down the smithy?”

“Easy. The individual stuff like the bellows and anvil are easy to deconstruct and I can rebuild everything later. The hearth took some hammering. Every dwarven blacksmith was once a miner, didn’t I tell you? I think I talked about that when we first ventured into the Cedaraille dungeon.”

It was true. That was how we first met, after all. Our party needed weapons and I wanted a dwarf to make them for me, so we had gotten the drunk and sad Grimnir off his butt and had him help us mine some minerals in the depth of the dungeon. It was a fond memory, if you ignore the fact a giant fire spider nearly burned down the city and us having to deal with some crazy Shiterno cultists.

“Hey, wait, we’ll help!” Kyouya called out as he, Tatsuya, Kohaku, Kazumi, and Ellaine came out. There was nothing to disagree with.

And so, we brought literally everything usable into Grimnir’s workshop, upgrading it from his small smithy into a medium-sized one where two people could forge at once. Ellaine too got an upgrade, since her workbench was larger, but without the Broggi’s tools there was still a lot left to be desired.

Grimnir recalled how he had so many additional tools to make things go easier, mentioning how he had different hammers for different tasks, or how he was picky about his choice of coal, since every type burned differently. He couldn’t be as picky in our situation, but he had thought of it as a challenge to better himself. He worked with the best tools as a clan member, but had to find new ways and try out new techniques to create the things we needed as best as he could.

“So, what is the plan?” I asked after we were finally done with the renovation.

Grimnir looked at me for a moment before looking at his new forge, scavenged from the one his cousin had in his cave. “… You know me, I’m not a schemer and I don’t want to go and break things in my home. Besides, I am a blacksmith, and I don’t run away from challenges. But, we need to get things settled first, so we don’t destroy your reputation, lass. First things first, we need to speak with the hold king, and if he won’t listen, then the High King.”

“Woah, bringing in the big guy?” I was shocked to hear him suggest something like that.

“Hold kings are all retainers to the Ankoran King. If one of them acts dishonorable and brings down the combined prestige of the Ankor-Nazta, the Ankoran King has to take care of it. Depending on the crime, things could happen.” Grimnir then turned back to me, looking at me with a determined face. “As I said, my honor and competition matters little if you get harmed by it, lass. You are an entertainer, and what would you do if the dwarves hated you? Can you perform in this place then?”

“Hmph, every public figure will have haters. Whether they have a proper reason or not, it doesn’t matter. There will always be somebody that hates you for whatever reason, even if you are the most generous person in the world.” I closed my eyes, reminding myself of the celebrities on Earth and, of course, Eshe.

“Fair … then let me sleep it over and we’ll get to it. Here.” He stretched his hand out. “It’s been a while, but I hope you didn’t go and bust up the glaive I made for you.”

“Pff!” I couldn’t stop myself from giggling as I remembered this was his role in Aurora. Grimnir was our blacksmith, and he had to make sure our equipment was alright before the ensuing event.

I handed him my glaive. “It took on some dwarven weapons without even a chip.”

“Ha! I expected that from weapons made from your materials, lass.”

Everybody needed to rest. We had done enough today, so it was decided that we slept through the nights and handled the rest tomorrow. I had to think of a way to persuade the hold king, after all … and hopefully it wouldn’t end in a fight. Although, letting that clan leader have a whole day to speak and act might actually be detrimental …

“Lady Hestia!”

After dinner was served, Tasianna finally made it back. She looked sweaty and out of breath, as if she had run a marathon, but she had this wide smile on her face. She suddenly grabbed my arm and told me to come with her for a moment, telling me to teleport myself through the Griffonpeak runes. I did as she told me.

Once we passed through the portal, we landed inside the Helvas’s mansion in Artorias’s capital. I thought Tasianna would finally explain to me why we were here, only to drag me along and create an ice chair for us, before flying us up with it like an [Unheilige Angel] knock-off using her [Cyrokinesis]. We flew higher and higher, until my eyes widened as I saw a large group of torches in the merchant district’s plaza, forming letters.

“Hes … tia?” I read, tilting my head at what the hell was happening.

“Champion Hestia!” Somebody shouted from the group. “We don’t believe a word!”

What?

“Not a single word! Nothing the Empire says is true! Lies!”

“You and Saintess Eshe saved us! Like so many others! As if you would lead an army to attack another kingdom!”

What were they all saying?!

Shouts, shouts, and even more shouting; there were so many people shouting that their words began to mix together to the point I couldn’t pinpoint who said what. I could have if I was focused, but right now, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I turned to Tasianna, asking her what was happening.

She smiled. “… I apologize for taking so long, but dealing with everybody’s gratitude to you was a bit too much. These, my lady, are the fans you made in Griffonpeak.”

I stared back at the crowd, taking aback at how I could read my name from the torches they were holding up. Did somebody plan this?

“Everybody was onboard when I suggested it, mostly to get them away from me since they were being too forceful. It took a while to prepare, but I think I managed to gather around 300 people in the square? There should be more, but people need to work and sleep, sadly, hehe,” Tasianna continued. “Lady Hestia, whether it’s in Elyonda or Griffonpeak, people will appreciate it when you help others. As an idol, that is the best reward, no?”

“…” I stared at Tasianna, only blinking my eyes before returning my attention to the crowd.

“Lady Hestia! Lady Hestia! Lady Hestia!”

I kept hearing that chant over and over again, causing something to form in my chest.

Helping? Right, helping. I did help them.

It felt good to see all these people cheering for me, filling my ears with their “Woooo!” and “Yeeeaah!” while the chants kept coming and coming. Was this my reward for all that I have done? The people of Elyonda did the same thing for me there … Just realizing that I made the decisions I had done up until now mean so much more.

The wild dragon girl back in the Belzac forest had not only evolved physically, but also as a person and idol. I guess fearing I would scare everybody back then was just a weird worry. Right, people remembered you for your actions.

So, what would an idol do in the current situation?

“THANK YOU EVERYBODY! IT MEANS A LOT TO ME!” Almost out of instinct, I shouted it all out, almost overwhelmed by tears. “ THIS IS A BIT LATE, BUT LET ME SING FOR YOU! WILL ALL OF YOU LISTEN TO MY VOICE?”

“PLEASE!”

Right, that was what an idol had to do to show her gratitude. Keep singing, keep dancing, keep performing. Not every battle had to end in a fight, sometimes things could be handled with a small song.

Name: Ellaine Fiero Helvas Level: 80 Race: Human

Age: 16 Years

Main Job: Eldritch Whipblader Secondary Job: Artificer Journeywoman Unique Job: Locked

Status: Health: 5309 (+1792) Mana: 6712 (+1927)

Strength: 2270 (+680) Intelligence: 2958 (+735)

Vitality: 2415 (+992) Wisdom: 2297 (+680)

Agility: 2163 (+650) Stamina: 3812 (+871)

Effects: None

Skill Points: 100 (-5250) (14950 SP spent)

Skill: Unique Skills:

[Okl’Luthier’s Powers Lv. 5] (+2)

Magic skills and related:

[Mana Efficiency Lv. 10] [Mana Control Lv. 10]

[Arcane Mind Lv. 10] (+2)

[Earth Magic Lv. 10] [Earth Amp] [Earth Magic Efficiency]

[Terra Magic Lv. 4] (+1) [Wind Magic Lv. 10] [Wind Amp]

[Wind Magic Efficiency] [Storm Magic Lv. 3] (+2)

[Synergist’s Oath Lv. 6] (+2) [Silent Casting Lv. 10] (+3)

[Chant Revocation Lv. 10] [Mental Warfare Lv. 10] (+4)

[Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 4] (+3) [Mental Stability Lv. 10] (+6)

[Long-Range Spell Enhancement Lv. 2] (+1)

[Fluid Cast Lv. 3] (+1) [Multi-Cast Lv. 3] (+2) [Continuous Cast Lv. 3] (+2)

[Delayed Cast Lv. 2] (+1)

Physical skills and related:

[Unarmed Technique Lv. 7] (+4) [True Sword Technique Lv. 1] (New)

[True Whip Technique Lv. 1] (New) [All-Damage Enhancement Lv. 1] (New)

[Mana Strike Lv. 6] (+2) [Stamina Strike Lv. 6] (+2)

Senses and movement skills:

[Stealth Lv. 8] (+2) [Accuracy Correction Lv. 8] (+1)

[Concentration Lv. 8] (+1) [Foresight Lv. 1] (New) [Tracking Lv. 1]

[Danger Perception Lv. 9] (+1) [Detection Sensor Lv. 1] (New)

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 6] (+1) [Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 8]

[Enhanced Vision Lv. 5] (+1) [Night Vision Lv. 8] (+4)

[Presence Killer Lv. 5] (+1) [Evasion Lv. 10] (+2) [Acrobatic Lv. 10] (+2)

[Air Walk Lv. 1] (+1) [Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 4] (+2)

[Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 2] (New)

Resistances:

[Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 3] (+1) [Absolute Pain Tolerance]

[Lava Resistance Lv. 4] [Holy Resistance Lv. 6]

[Inferno Resistance Lv. 4] [Abnormal Status Nullification] (New)

[Fear Resistance Lv. 4] (+3) [Water Resistance Lv. 9] (+2)

[Terra Resistance Lv. 4] [Wind Resistance Lv. 8] (+2)

[Arcane Corruption Resistance Lv. 10]

Stat growth and related:

[Health Recovery Lv. 6] (+2) [Mana Recovery Lv. 7] (+1)

[Stamina Recovery Lv. 5] (+1)

[Prime Vigor Lv. 1] (New) [Arcane Conduit Lv. 1] (New)

[Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 4] (+1)

[Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 4] (+2)

[Enhanced Intelligence Growth Lv. 5] (+1)

[Enhanced Intelligence Enforcement Lv. 5] (+1)

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 8] (+5)

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 8] (+6)

[Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 4] (+1)

[Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 4] (+2)

[Enhanced Agility Growth Lv. 4] (+1)

[Enhanced Agility Enforcement Lv. 4] (+2)

[Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 4] (+1)

[Enhanced Stamina Capacity Lv. 3] (+1)

Others:

[Singing Lv. 6] [Dancing Lv. 5] [Musician Lv. 7]

[Merchant Lv. 3] (+1) [Handicraft Lv. 3] [Woodworking Lv. 1]

[Enchanting Lv. 4] [Artificer Lv. 8] (+3) [Identify Lv. 10] (+2)

[Identity Blocker Lv. 10] [Terror Aura Lv. 4] (+2)

[Battle Mind Lv. 5] (+2) [Noble Aura Lv. 5] (+1)

[Royal Etiquette Lv. 8] [Riding Lv. 6]

[Mounted Fighter Lv. 1] [Scholar Lv. 2]

[Cooking Lv. 1] [Dismantle Lv. 6] (+2)

[Calligraphy Lv. 6] [Mathematician Lv. 7] [Telepathy]

Ability List: Unarmed:

[Dragoon Jump] [Gale Steps]

Okl’Luthier

[Claw] [Whiplash] [Musclesmass] [Blade] [Ribcage] [Flesh Absorption] [Assimilation]

Sword:

[Power Slash] [Demon Reaver] [Alt. Sword Style: Cascading Blade Stream]

Whip:

[Piercing Shot] [Cage of Blades] [Crusher Serpent]

Magic List: Custom Spells:

[Create Crack] [Wind Gust]

Earth Magic:

[Earth Wall] [Rock Blast] [Earth Strike] [Rock Bullet] [Sturdy Earth]

[Earthen Spears] [Earthen Shackles] [Terra Wall] [Bedrock Blades] [Rumbling Might]

Wind Magic:

[Wind Bullet] [Wind Cutter] [Air Shield] [Wind Slash] [Swift Winds]

[Wind Blast] [Featherfall] [Aerial Blitz] [Tornado Bullet] [Slylphid’s Cloak]

[Tailwind]

Title: [Hestia’s Retainer]

A note from AbyssRaven

A bit chill, catch up with everybody on Grimnir's side.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Side Story 44: The Alpha of the Belzac Forest.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #4 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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Oh yeah, fellow lizard author SavageMercy has returned from their haitus! If you want a dinosaur novel, go and check "A Gamer's Guide to Waking up as a Dinosaur!"

[“… You are not ready yet, Saori.”] His voice echoed in my head, souring my mood as I stared at his stone statue. The dark, musty smell of this plain, underground cave I was trapped in made his words hit harder.

“I know.”

[“Then why must you keep persisting on this point! Why must you act so recklessly?!”] The voice of the old wolf was filled with bafflement, annoyance, and slight outrage. His already deep, growly tone was grating for my mind to listen to, not to mention the thick, stifling aura he was exuding.

However, unlike when we first met, I wasn’t afraid of this old wolf any longer. His aura was still oppressive, but I could hold on, keep my wits through it. Although my Territory training was a bit unorthodox, since it relied on [Shadow Armament], I had gotten better with using my personal aura skill.

I released [True Wolven Bloodlust], my evolved [Tyrant’s Aura], to push back against the old wolf’s aura. We stood there in a deadlock, unwilling to give any ground to the other. I was steadfast in my decision, and nothing would stop me.

Eventually, Belzac released his aura, letting it fade. [“… You haven’t finished your training yet. I still have so much more to teach you, my successor! Your shadow manipulation isn’t like liquid yet, nor have you finished your Territory! [Yomi] isn’t the real deal, it is only the catalyst for your true Territory!”]

Seeing Belzac finally acting normal, instead of forcing his opinions and decisions on everybody else eased the tension between us. However, after what felt like one and a half months, it was hard to not get used to his demeanor. He was like an old war veteran with a grouchy attitude, not to mention his own grudge fueling his determination.

“Then tell me. How will I continue hunting for levels? The swamp is being cleaned up by my pack. We have five rank Bs now, not to mention myself and a pretty hungry slime,” I argued back. “There is one thing I learned in my journey, and that is unless you keep pushing yourself, you don’t just magically become stronger. To see the mountains by yourself, you can create a goal and a plan to overcome them.”

My fight with the demonkin girl was still vivid in my head, unwilling to fade. She was one of Aurora’s biggest threats right now, and, unless I could surmount her, then I couldn’t call myself ready for the incoming battle with the demonkin princes.

Belzac went silent, a sign he was agreeing with my words. He then grumbled, before continuing his rant. [“Your reckless decision to dive into grimgarian territory might have worked this time, but it could just as easily have gone terribly wrong. Invading another region without any information at all was foolish! Know your place and role!”]

Belzac was talking about how I had invaded the grimgarian army’s territory with Asaka and my shadow pack earlier. Honestly, it would have never have really happened if a scouting party hadn’t tried to actually invade my forest while I was out hunting. It all felt like all of it happened yesterday.

It was planned that Tatsuya and Kyouya would leave us after they became part of my shadow pack so they could train under the vampires of Purchigchia. Vivachel, through Belzac, explained they could be trusted and that it would enrich the boys, but I did feel a bit wary since the vampires’ blood knights felt so… apathetic towards us.

Regardless, I didn’t think Vivachel would betray our trust at this point, or at least, her sisters didn’t think so. Ilsaphone and Kronnaz, the two other night sisters, told me I shouldn’t worry, before they just straight up vanished the next day. Honestly, those daughters of Marsven really made me not want to trust them.

In any case, after the boys departed with the vampires and Vivachel, we were also informed by former of the impending grimgarian invasion on Artorias. At the same time, some grimgarians had entered the forest, which helped me confirm the intel after I took them down. Thankfully, there weren’t any rank Bs amongst them since it was just a scouting party. I knew my students had met another scouting party when they first visited the forest and those trolls from when Hestia and I first met Tasianna, but I had mostly forgotten about them up until then. After I interrogated the grimgarians, which was quite easy since the goblins were beyond cowardly, I had made up my mind to attack the grimgarian army’s base.

Not only to take a chance to scout out the grimgarians, but also to help out Hestia, since that was the day I had lost her signal. Thankfully, her signal reappeared two days later, which was also when I had decided we had attacked enough. Our assault on the grimgarians forced the Ogre King to return his warships, since we literally went on a rampage with my shadow and [Shadow Armament: Yomi].

Oh, how I had a lot to tell the other Auroras once we reunited. The grimgarian army’s base was over the Avitor peaks, south of the levianewt’s Caedhul. When we entered the region through a tunnel, we found a forest area with multiple grimgarian camps acting as an impromptu border control.

Since the plan was just to cause chaos, I didn’t really check things out too much and just went ahead and began the hunt. With my shadow pack and Asaka, we destroyed the camps before they could even call for help. Outside the forest was also a rather rickety stone fort with a whole garrison and a rank B ogre as a commander.

While scouting and planning my attack, I had noticed a bunch of beastmen slaves working as labor, maintaining the fort and also taking care of the farm lands. This reminded me of the time Hestia, Tasianna, and I traveled with the lizardmen we met in the Belzac swamp and how they were brought to this side of the continent by the grimgarians to act as slaves. Naturally, this presented a grand opportunity for the rest of the campaign.

Where there were grimgarians, there were slaves. From what I remembered of what the lizardmen told me, most tribal beastmen from Carmaniate were used to fighting. As such, there were warriors amongst them, and although most were weakened, they still knew how to fight.

As such, the assault on the fort involved freeing the slaves and using them as an attack force while also having my shadow pack kill any grimgarian for experience. There were even more forts on the way to the main camp of the army, and that meant more kills and more freed slaves. It got to the point that, after everything was done, my garms and the mother virigress could all evolve into rank Bs. The two cubs, of course, still had a long way ahead of them.

Asaka and I had also leveled up a ton, not to mention even my garm mother had leveled significantly! Well, that wasn’t as important right now, and I believe I was rambling a bit, but to summarize, yes, the Ogre King knew my face now. Yes, he swore vengeance. And, yes, he was planning on avenging all the grimgarians I killed by attacking the Belzac forest eventually.

When that would happen, I did not know, but I understood that, until that day came, I had to expedite my training efforts even further. Or, if Belzac wasn’t willing to speed up my training, then I had to get ready to protect my forest from these invaders. This was my birth place, and a rather fond memory I shared with Hestia and Tasianan despite our tribulations here.

However, the old wolf wanted to have his way. He wanted me to continue on his plan to become his successor so he could get his vengeance on the elf who ordered his death, in addition to honoring his deal with Edna, the Goddess of Monsters and Fertility. He didn’t want to lose me like my great-grandfather garm who died during the garm hunt over ten years ago. As such, he was scolding me for attacking the grimgarian’s base.

When I brought these things up, Belzac couldn’t help but snarl. [“Unlike that rank A great-grandfather of yours who had an entire pack to protect him and still died to some rank A adventurers, you have my personal tutelage. You will follow my lessons and teachings without fail, and I will make you into a beast that can and will dwarf me in the future.”]

Belzac unwittingly followed a rather weird interpretation of the Shu-Ha-Ri idea, a Japanese martial arts concept about learning and mastery. From a short story I once read, the meaning behind the idea could be translated into “to keep, to digress, and to break away.”

In essence, it was a three stage cycle where you first learned and obeyed every single lesson from your master, following them even to a fault. The second phase was where you started to branch out, using not only your lessons from your first master, but also from the experience and people you met on your path. In the third and final path—the mastery—you overcame your “digression” from your master’s teaching, reaching a form of enlightenment where instead of copying others, you can adapt and approach every single situation in your own manner.

The third stage was essentially what every teacher wishes their students to adopt during the final exam. Honestly, I thought my party had reached the third phase a long time ago since we have to adapt our fighting styles against our different enemies.

However, the moment I went under this old wolf, I was sent back to “Shu.” I was to learn whatever he said and just obey, instead of thinking about it too deeply. Which went against what I wanted in my students, as I wanted them to think for themselves.

Even when I learned from the saurians, Gael, and Muraina, I never really had somebody as stubborn as Belzac. The former three always taught me one thing before letting me go, instantly putting me into the “Ha” phase. That was how I developed myself and continued evolving, but Belzac was so old-fashioned and completely different to Melloxtressa who gave Hestia a sense of autonomy.

I clicked my tongue, annoyed by his words. “You want me to act like a pawn.”

[“We already had this discussion. You are my successor. Young. How do you know better? How do you know what I am doing is incorrect when you cannot read my mind? I talk with you, explain to you, and be patient with your youthfulness. Do you believe I am a one-minded old fool?”]

… Sure. Maybe. I didn’t say anything, of course. Speaking with him about how he taught me always felt like I was speaking with the old teachers in my school.

Still, it wasn’t like he was incorrect, and that was important here. Looking through it from his perspective and weighing things on a scale.

“… Then, tell me, what will we do when the grimgarians attack?” I prompted. “I might have attacked the grimgarians without proper information, but you know best I usually don’t fight like that. I scout, I gather intel, and then I strike when the moment is right. My realm is the shadows, and I know it well.”

Hestia fought in the light, while I kept myself in the dark. Sure, I fought here and there like an actual bulky thunder wolf, but most of the time, it was Hestia in the front while I stood behind.

“Belzac, your home was invaded once, leading to the near extinction of your bloodline. The only ones left were the small pups. The fact my mother somehow survived all of that was a miracle. I heard her story.”

My garm mom’s story… It was a long one, but I had come to know her history. Of how her childhood was peaceful until the day the adventurers led a hunt on her grandfather—my great-grandfather. Most of her family died on that day, and her mother forced her to run away with the remaining pups.

As the new [Belzac’s Successor], she was forced into a role she didn’t expect to receive this early. Under the presumption she would reunite with her mother, she journeyed with her pack to the swamp where her mother told her to go, only to turn back once she accepted her mother’s death. She was so close to meeting the leviathan Vanialasma, the same one my party met.

With a new conviction, she kept her pact going, growing not only as a leader but also as a garm. However, these days wouldn’t last as when she birthed her first litter—my elder siblings—her pack went into disarray due to conflicting opinions. One side wanted to fight their way back to their ancestral home, the one where I was born, or to remain in their safe haven in the mountains. Sadly, Mom couldn’t stop the fighting.

Which all led to the events when Hestia first met mom when she was just a little rank F. How funny… my garm father could have killed Hestia on that day, weren’t it for a dispute Mom had with him. How unlucky Hestia had to meet them on that day, and how lucky she got away from them. Hestia really had protagonist powers sometimes.

In any case, the rest of the story didn’t go well… Mom had finally recaptured her old home after all the fighting had ended, but this left her weakened, causing her to develop complications with her next pregnancy. Outside of me, the entire litter were still births and this distress caused my Mom to have a mind break. She broke down, was close to death… only to then learn how Hestia had killed her remaining family.

I knew it was not a happy story when Hestia told me about it… but back then, I had no care for the garms. I did not blame Hestia one bit for what happened, it wasn’t my place to do so. However, I did feel some sympathy for what Mom had to endure. Thankfully, Mom didn’t blame Hestia too much since it led to my survival and growth.

“And that is why if you want to keep your legacy, you need to choose, Belzac,” I remained resolute with my decision. “Either you train me harder, or you help me ambush those grimgarians when they invade us. In other words, either help me with the theoretical teaching, or give me insight in how to ‘properly’ wield my powers in a practical situation.”

[“…”] Belzac went silent once again. Did I manage to persuade him?

Hell no.

[“… My empty vessel skill [Umbral Chaos] is too strong for you, Saori. You need [Territory Release] first.”]

“I can always buy it from the SP shop. I have an advanced aura skill to establish my Territory.”

[“You wish to cheat? You were a teacher in your past life, act like one!”] he scolded me, but I thought that argument didn’t work here. I wasn’t cheating when he didn’t want to teach me. [“No, you will learn when you are ready. This is for—”]

“Stop.” I held my hand up, shaking my head in exasperation. “Enough, if you will not even concede the point even a bit, then this discussion has no merit any longer. I shall go now, Belzac.”

I turned around and left Belzac’s chamber in silence, with the old wolf not complaining about it. A first.

“Saori-yo.”

I turned my head around after I left the tunnel leading to Belzac’s chamber, noticing a blue-haired girl lounging around on an impromptu sofa I had made by stuffing feathers inside my mana threads. She was upside down, swinging her head around as she played with both Shere and Ajay, Rajah’s two virigress siblings.

Both were rank D [Young Blackvenom Virigress] now, about the size of doberman. Despite their size changes, they still acted like children as they played with the girl. Speaking of virigress cubs, since I was technically the actual master of Rajah, I had also recently received a notification that he evolved into a rank C. I believe it has been four days now?

“Asaka, why are you using that honorific now?” I massaged my temples while confronting the girl on how she addressed me, finding it a bit unfamiliar.

“What? Don’t like it, teach? Well, whatever, I tried, right?” The girl then stood up from the sofa, holding herself up with a handstand. Her arms then began to light up black and white before she jumped onto her feet where her arms turned back to normal.

She then went close to a wall and watched the white glowing painting on it. Suddenly, a ying-yang symbol appeared on her hand as it transformed into a can of graffiti which she used to continue her graffiti. “You shouted. Didn’t work?”

I sighed, accepting that Asaka liked to express her creative desires through this hobby. In any case, I shook my head.

“Figures. You and that wolf fit together like great-great-great-whatever-grandfather and great-great-great-whatever-granddaughter. I see the resemblance.”

I glared at her, tilting my head a bit to show my annoyance before just shaking my head, ignoring her usual teasing. “… It sucks.”

“Yup,” she agreed before going to our impromptu kitchen and handed me a wooden bowl of cooked meat and greens. “Time to eat away our annoyance.”

I nodded and accepted it. We then walked over to our stone table, which we also had to make since we had nothing else. If we didn’t start furnishing everything, Belzac’s cave would have remained uninhabitable for any normal person.

Strangely, it reminded me how Hestia, Tasianna, and I had to make furniture, utensils, and everything else when we were first staying in the forest. Now, I was sharing this moment with the one student I never thought I would get along with. Well, we still didn’t get along, but since we were forced roommates, we had to endure each other’s personalities and quirks.

“Well seasoned,” I praised her.

“Still not as good as yours,” she spat back, unwilling to take my simple praise. “Enough flattery, what do we do? Starting to want to go out. Back to the others.”

I sighed and frowned. “I understand. You want to get back to Haruka-san and I want to reunite with the others of Aurora.”

“Hey, it’s not just Haruka-chan, okay?” Asaka’s face reddened, before she turned away and gave the two virigresses their portion of the meal. They thanked her through [Telepathy] before devouring the bowl with meat ravenous.

Watching them eat made Asaka smile for a bit, before she turned around where her mouth curved back down as she looked at me. “That girl just … needs somebody to push her. No backbone. Urgh, thinking about it just makes me worry about her, not to mention how she’s away from Kyouya.”

Kyouya and Haruka both liked each other, but I haven’t exactly heard of them going into a formal relationship. Haruka has always been a shy person since the moment I met her, where I instantly noticed her social skills were below average. On the other hand, she was a fantastic student, to the point people called her a genius with math.

With Asaka mentioning her, it did worry me a bit since she wasn’t in an environment where her natural skills could flourish. Introverted and analytical, she was the sort of person who could work the best in a room all by herself, keeping track of everything in spreadsheets and files.

Currently, she was part of Aurora’s merchant team alongside Ellaine and I, where she could use her ability to crunch numbers in a record time. Still, she had to speak with others, which was beneficial for her growth, but probably made her nervous. She could also help others with their SP usage, but that was about it for her talents. In a world where technology was better established, she could show her ability better. Then again, maybe she could ask Daichi and have him hack the Divine System.

… It was a weird idea, though. Daichi wasn’t a real hacker, he was just a tech wiz with severe self-confident problems, though different from Hestia’s issues, since she was more a perfectionist when it came to her goal as an idol. On the other hand, Daichi wanted people to like him since his parents taught him the importance of networking. He clung to others.

Daichi and Haruka couldn’t help each other, since both wanted different things.

Hmm, just thinking about those two makes me anxious. I really want to see them again. Even Kyouya and Tatsuya haven’t really gotten over their own problems …

I then looked over at Asaka, again.

“What?” She raised an eyebrow.

… Well, whatever.

I closed my eyes and finished up my lunch before I continued speaking, “We have no choice; if he won’t help us, then we need to do things our way.”

I couldn’t leave Belzac yet since he was right about one thing—I haven’t learned everything he could teach me. I wanted to accelerate everything since I wished to meet Hestia and the others again, but what good would cutting my training short do? This was a prime chance to learn from a rank S monster and inherit his techniques. To better Aurora, I had to become stronger.

As such, if Belzac didn’t want to help me, I had to do things my way.

I pulled out my [Room] runes and opened the portal. Belzac had always forbidden me to use them, but what punishment did he have after what happened today? He would force me to slow down? As if. Besides, I wasn’t planning to leave, I just wanted to update everybody on our situation.

However, when Asaka and I entered the subspace, it felt eerily empty. I thought at least one of the students or an Aurora member would be around. I walked through the restaurant portion of our place, realizing it hadn’t been used in a while due to a lack of, well, dirt. It has been cleaned, but every restaurant should have one or two imperfections from being used.

Did Tamae not open the restaurant once?

“Mhmm?” I snapped my body around as I heard that voice, tensing my body. “Woah!”

However, the moment I heard her voice, again, I loosened up. “Priscilla?”

“Hey, what’s going on?” A silver-white haired woman darted out of the kitchen, grimacing a bit as she held the young girl’s shoulders to support her. Her eyes then widened as she saw us. “Oooh, Saori! Asaka-chan, too! Wow, long time no see! … A-Also, when have you last taken a proper bath?”

“Y-Yorshka …” My mouth twitched as I turned my head away, too ashamed as I hadn’t noticed my smell in weeks.

In any case, seeing the mother and daughter reminded me of my own, my human and garm ones. Shaking away that sentimental thought, the four of us got to recap with each other, allowing both sides to learn what had happened to the other. The way they experienced the war and what Asaka and I had done against the grimgarians.

Hestia… Hmm, well, it would make sense why you would let that girl away… Vifi’Yok. I’m not ready yet to fight her alone or with my shadow pack.

Hestia had matured as a person, but she still had these reckless moments of hers. I was glad to hear she was getting along with her dragon sister, but felt wrong that she let a potential enemy like a Warbringer go because of her moral compass. During a war, morals would only stop you from doing what was the correct thing to do to survive and win…

And yet, I couldn’t help but be relieved that it was her decision. To be the idol she dreamed of, she wanted to bring a smile to everybody’s faces. When forced to act on moral decisions, an idol should choose the moral high road, but she still had to stoop low to protect others. War truly brought out the worst from us… so was it good that Hestia decided to spare those demonkin

I didn’t know. Yorshka told me Hestia wanted to either imprison or recruit Vifi’Yok to gain intel on the demonkins and get an unbiased view of their kingdom, Bole’Taria. It was admirable, and, honestly, I could understand why she would want to end the war with as little bloodshed as possible. However, just because a few demokins or humans sympathized with each other, didn’t mean it would stop the hardliners—the Princes of Sins.

For them, only strength could reason with them.

After we had caught up, I asked them where Hestia and the others were, but their answer was surprising. “And they haven’t been around for four days now?”

Priscilla shook her head. “Something bad happened when they were with the dwarves. Hestia managed to save everybody, and is now trying to get revenge for Mister Grimnir and the others.”

Yoshka nodded. “Grimnir wanted to end it quickly, deal with it in a single day, but they suddenly changed the plan. They came back with these furious looks. You know, when I first met her, I really didn’t think she would accept her princess situation. But, now, I think she actually understands the value of her title and what it can do.”

“… Oh.” It took me a moment, but I understood what she meant. “I see. Right, King Drangleic was supposed to travel to the capital of Ankor-Nazta around now, right? Since there is around two months left until the summit begins.”

Today was the 1st of HarvestMoon and the summit would begin on the 30th of AutumnSun. There was still a long way ahead but King Drangleic probably wanted to meet with the dwarven High King first to get to know him personally. The summit had to work probably so some backdoor meetings would probably happen.

So, what exactly was Hestia’s plan? Why did it take so long for her to execute it and how would she solve her problem in the best manner possible? What exactly made her angry? I really wondered, but I could understand what Yorshka meant with “value of her title.”

Still, seeing as they weren’t around, I had to leave my message to the two Nordors. Asaka and I returned back to Belzac’s cave where I heard its owner grumble and that I should expect a “harder time.” I sort of welcomed it. More training, less time wasted.

However, first…

“Everybody, ready?”

[“Alpha, give us your commands.”]

Five newly evolved rank Bs. Uno, Song, Sarasa, Quatre, and Varya.

The four garms— No, the four fenrir appeared from the shadows, exuding their presence and pride in their new forms. One came from hell, the other flickered as if a ghost, the third stood as a werewolf, and the last as an armored juggernaut. No longer [Shadow Garm]s, each now possessed a different race and role in our pack.

The last form was that of a panther with hardened fur formed into large sickle-like wings and a spiked tail. Her green fur bristled with glistening venom to fit my need for toxins now that I didn’t have Hestia around. If Hestia was a one-woman army, then I would become the leader of a special force.

“Mom, Shoyi!” I called out before looking down, picking up the two virigress cubs. “Ajay, Shere, ready to go hunt and put down some traps?”

[“Yes, Master!”]

Cute.

[“You pamper them a bit too much, daughter.”]

I turned my head around when I heard that voice, noticing a zombie-looking garm approach us. Her form still needed more time to develop despite joining my shadow pack, but her recovery was decent, meaning she too could evolve soon. It really helped that Mom was already super close to evolving while she was still alive.

Similar to how my garms needed their old pelt to open up their unique mutation evolution, Mom wanted to wait for hers. When Ilsaphone first told me to collect my garm’s pelt, I was a bit suspicious, but I now understood why that was the case.

Belzac’s blood was special. It was why Tatsuya became a druid, why my garms needed to complete their bodies with their pelt, and why Hestia’s blood had such an effect on my evolution.

His deal with Edna made him into her blessed, and subsequently, his successor would become one as well. As such, he had a title and a blessing as well. A title that couldn’t help him but instead exalted his bloodline, helping each generation to one day grow into the creature the old wolf and goddess desired.

[Harbinger of Grim], that was his title.

The details, though, he still wouldn’t divulge. One day, though, I will learn about it…

Quuuuiish, quuuish. I heard behind the tunnel leading outside of this place. I nodded to them.

“Coming, Shoyi!” I called out to my slime, who was hiding itself from everybody.

My shadow pack has come a long way …

“Hey, Saori.” I turned around to Asaka. “What should we do with the slaves we freed?”

I just smiled.

“Ever heard of the Haitian Revolution?”

“… You failed once again, Ogre king.”

“…”

In a ruined cavern, a giant ogre sat on his throne, listening to the furious temper of a yellow-skinned demonkin. The prideful being stomped on the small debris of the ogre’s previous throne, pulverizing it into dust in a fit of rage. The demonkin then looked at the ogre, disappointment clear to be seen.

“A new Champion of Yeostar was chosen. What pitiful rank Bs you sent. How pitiful!”

“Mhhrrrrm!” the ogre with a crown on his head growled, standing up from his throne to look down at the man before him. If this demonkin were a normal being, he would have been crushed by the rank A ogre’s aura, but he would not kneel to anyone but the Edjurl gods.

Huffing rancid air at the demonkin, the ogre was trying his best to keep his anger in check. “Do. Not. Speak. Of. My. Warriors. And. Shamans. They all died honorable deaths, so do not speak ill of them.”

“… We lost a Warbringer because of your incompetence. You told me your men could handle the commandeering themselves, but all I could see were buffoons walking around, rambling like primitives. You lost your last piece of grace, ogre king.”

“We won multiple ports for you! We have created multiple entry ways for you! How dare you criticize me!” The ogre king roared, outraged at this poor assessment. “Not every battle can be won. All that matters is the total victory against the humans and beastmen, not two lost battles! You spoiled brat, you truly are conceited!”

The ogre then sat back on this throne, his expression as terrible as the demonkin. With their aura clashing, it was only a matter of time before their Territories would be established. Only one more provocation was needed.

He looked at the demonkin, his yellow skin slowly turning red. “Tell me, oh, so haughty Prince of Pride, where were you when the Siege of Elyonda began? Where were the other princes of sin? Why send a child to do a man’s work?”

This was the tipping point… However, the Prince of Pride remembered what his sin was. It was not wrath, it was pride.

He shot his glare back at the ogre king, but he took a deep breath, stabilizing his mood and returning it to his calm demeanor of before. The red skin started to dissipate, turning back yellow. He was in control; he must maintain control.

“… Do not fail once more,” he said, cold like the winter’s breeze. “Expand, enslave, and destroy the human countries you managed to invade. Build your kingdom. I will allow you to enjoy the fruits of our initial success. However… you know who our enemy is, right? What truly stands in our way to victory.”

“… Aurena’s Champion. The crimson dragon.”

The Prince of Pride nodded once more, a smile finally crept on his face, before he vanished into black. Silence now filled the throne room, allowing the ogre king to finally calm down. He then stood up and walked out of his throne room with his axe, born from the broken horn of the lightning wyvern Astalos.

He glanced at his fellow ogres, all downtrodden unlike their usual behavior. The ogre king couldn’t chastise them. He could sympathize with them as he remembered what the Prince of Pride said.

The invasion of Elyonda was a failure …

“The-the fire god! Fire-Inferno Goddess! Danterno appeared in a woman’s form! She destroyed everything!”

“D--Danterno is a woman! Not a man like many has said! She appeared before us, yes-yes! Ogre king, the Origin Gods-Divinity cursed us!”

The ogre king could remember the mad rambles of the few survivors of the Elyonda siege. They recalled how two giant dragons fought and slew the rank SS leviathan Karhalantheel and how Danterno had descended in the form of a fiery-winged woman, scorning everybody and turning everything into ash.

The king couldn’t believe it. He knew the cultist of the Church of Danterno called him a man or a spirit of fire. True, the different factions within the religion could never accept one single image of the god, unlike the other Origin Gods, but never once did any mention Danterno’s form was that of a female.

It should be impossible, yet… Damnation. Goblins ramble.

He couldn’t accept it as the truth, but the survivors had already spread the news. Everybody in the grimgarian kingdom knew this and thought of Danterno as having the vision of a fiery woman… Suffice to say, a certain fallen arvisian fire mage in the far east would soon feel the pain of this small misunderstanding. After all, a god’s form was determined by their follower’s image.

Regardless, the ogre king couldn’t keep thinking of this. He walked out of his cave and laid his hands on the railings on top of this small mountain. He looked down, immediately noticing the rubbles and destroyed fields. Many of their beastmen slaves were also freed, and from what he heard, they were all forming into their own faction somewhere in his land. A rebellion—he understood it was a matter of time unless he squashed them.

In addition, he also has to trust his fellow commanders to manage the human ports they had successfully invaded. Those will be his army’s future battle stages. The fertile lands there will feed his army and the human slaves will act as the replacements of those he had lost weeks ago.

The ogre king knew the war effort wasn’t done yet and that there was much he needed to prepare. The most pressing concern was retaliation from the Folschreck Empire, but he knew the demonkins had them already dancing in their palms. The grimgarians were their pawns, the ones responsible to topple the rest of mankind so they could destroy the Empire.

However… Even with all this in mind, he couldn’t shake away two other problems. Two monsters who had haunted him the last two weeks. The giant silver dragon who killed Karhalantheel and her crimson-white tinted dragon companion who disrupted the grimgarian invasion on Yeos that led to the victory of the humans, and the black-lightning wolf who ravaged through his kingdom while the vast majority of his forces were away for the invasions.

I had miscalculated.

He thought it was safe to send everybody since nobody knew he was here, but it seemed the information had leaked. Was it the lizardmen slaves they had lost a year ago? They escaped into the Belzac forest and that was where the black wolf came from.

He remembered the tale of Belzac, but he had thought the last of Belzac’s bloodline had been extinguished thanks to the demonkin’s associates, but it seemed a rat had slipped through. And this rat had grown into a beast strong enough to ruin everything, to the point he had to recall the ships in Artorias to defend against the monster’s pack of garms.

He could have killed the fenrir if he had only acted sooner. However, with her freeing the slaves, it was impossible for him to do so. The savage beastmen took women and children hostage. His people were what kept the ogre king standing. He fought for them, he fought for the entirety of the grimgarian race. How could he betray their trust in their time of need?

Without a proper military and the remaining soldiers killed by the fenrir and her pack of wolves, there was no one left to defend the weak but him. Even now, the ogre king couldn’t forget the blood mist exuding from her eyes. The blood-stained black lightning raging around her body; he would never forget her.

Belzac. I will enact my vengeance on your kin! Mother Edna, watch me! Watch me prove I am the right person to lead Father Marsven’s faith forward! Watch me, Ogre King of Grimmeirgon, fight for the Church of Marsven! Dear Mother Krooooonnaz! I, Kreigst Thunderslayer, will become your Champion!

The ogre king held his thunder axe into the air, his oath now completed.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Side Story 45: The Princes of Sins.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“… Envy isn’t responding.”

“It doesn’t matter. Begin the council.”

Tarnished, harrowing, and macabre—these were a couple of adjectives the world outside of Bole’Taria would describe the demonkin’s home. A nation infested with eldritch horrors, sick beings, and twisted architecture. A Folschreckian mother would tell tales of these beings in a boogeyman manner, sending fear into the hearts of their children.

However, at the end of the day, while Bole’Taria truly wasn’t the most hospitable place to live in, it was nowhere as terrible as the grossly exaggerated descriptions from the PTSD-stricken soldiers and the old wife tales. As Vifi’Yok had mentioned, her home had its problems, but it was still a land suitable enough for numerous people to survive off of.

Segregated into two continents, Bole’Taria was a split kingdom that originated from the continent Numerus before they managed to gouge out a piece of the Folschreck Empire on Altrust. Due to the rapid expansion of the Folschreck Empire during that time before they were named an Empire, a portion of it was left open, allowing the angered demonkin to establish their own home and place, one away from the terror of human oppressors.

The hatred and discrimination against demonkins had always been real since the emergence of their race. Although there were smaller fights, mainly skirmishes and slave rebellions, never had there been an actual, large-scale war between demonkin and human nations.

As time passed, the Folschreck Empire was officially founded during the year 2000, and five years later, the official war between humans and demonkin began with the Empire’s declaration of war with the blessing of the Church of Aurena. As such, the war had lasted over 600 years. Although not always turbulent as both sides had to rest and recuperate after they drenched the rivers and ground in human and demonkin blood, the animosity never stopped.

Nevermind the Empire’s equally as bloody war against the beastmen alliance of Carmaniate, or their inhuman experiments with faefolk mana which led to the War for the Faefolk, the true enemies of the Empire had always been Bole’Taria. In the name of the Goddess of Light, Miracles, Healing, and Kinship, it was their divine mission to purge the demonkin from the face of Peolynca.

As such, it was obvious this hatred would lead to terrible rumors. Although Bole’Taria’s lands were mostly mountainous and cold, the piece they gouged from the Empire on Altrust allowed them to grow crops. Not to mention, Bole’Tarian cuisine was heavily focused on seafood, as they had multiple ports and harbors.

You couldn’t find luxurious ingredients like honey, juicy fruits, or bountiful spices here, but you could survive, even if the variety of food and dishes were rather low. If Bole’Taria had been allowed to trade in peace, they would have been a major importer to satisfy the cravings of their sin-focused population. Gluttony and Greed demonkins desired the luxury from the rest of Peolynca, for example.

So, while not the richest nation, Bole’Taria was still “normal.” They had normal-looking houses you could find in a human village, and they had markets as bustling as any other. Men and women would work, eat, and sleep everyday, just like any other. Children would play, even if most let their sins influence their behaviors a bit.

Of course, even with a war waging outside their lands, there was discrimination and segregation even within this unified nation of the demonkins. Each of the seven sins influenced their host differently, and that created easy stereotypes amongst the different subraces. Envy demonkins were petty and generally untrustworthy, Pride ones were terrible to befriend unless you were a Pride yourself, while Lust demonkins were debauched hedonists.

As such, every sin was treated differently by the collective. Unless a Wrath demonkin joined the military to be monitored, then even a child with that sin could pose a danger to others, causing them to be shunned. Due to the gluttonous appetite of a Gluttony demonkin, the meals of each was regulated to even the crumbs, and it was illegal for them to eat anything outside of their sanctioned meals. Sloths were mandated to take a regular dose of “emotional amplifiers,” to force their bodies to stay active to avoid their consistent desire to laze around and sleep.

United against their common foe and accepting of regulations to achieve this goal. This was the most apt description of the world of Bole’Taria, which had helped eliminate most potential crimes. Still, most of the fringe communities or those left to their own devices, like the impoverished neighborhood Vifi’Yok was born into, were plagued by those willing to turn on their fellow demonkin for their own survival. It was the perfect breeding ground for soldiers, away from the eyes of most.

Ruling above all of this was the demonkin king, voted in by the seven Princes of Sins who acted as “archdukes” for the nation. The king was seen as the symbol of Bole’Taria, as the one who would lead the demonkins to glory, as they were the one closest to the Edjurl Gods or to God Marsven, depending on which of the two big Bole’Tarian religions you followed.

The Princes of Sins, on the other hand, were not only the de facto rulers over their own subrace, but were also the body of government. No law, treaty, or dealings was allowed to go unnoticed by them, not even the king’s orders. However, at the same time, they were also the ruler’s hands and mouth. Their loyalty was owed to him and the Edjurl Gods only… or, at least, that was the intention.

In the capital of Bole’Taria, Oolaz’Cile, a meeting was currently being held. The city was nothing like a demon king’s capital that you would find in fantasy novels, no, it was far from it.

Situated in the middle of a mountain range, the city was protected by large, imposing walls of metal and black stone coming from the local quarry. Style and function mixed together, it was something even a dwarven mason could marvel at, for Oolaz’Cile was created to withstand constant sieges during their founding years. This aesthetic was shared with their buildings, for during the night or when torches lit up the streets, the place could be described like watching the gaping mouth of a sandworm, beckoning one into the pits of hell.

However, when the morning sun showered it with warm rays, the colors of the buildings, streets, and inhabitants would bloom. Vibrancy could be found anywhere, for the seven sins of the demonkins forced many to follow their instincts. Creative endeavors could be found everywhere, from artwork, music, to clothing; anything to satisfy their greed, gluttony, lust, envy, and pride.

Just like everywhere else, Oolaz’Cile was a city filled with many individuals who wanted to live their lives. Whether good or evil, one could find barmaids helping drunk patrons with water, or find merchants swindling poor day workers on their last pieces of coin.

And here, at the very center of the city—the epicenter of this mountain range—was this “entrance to hell.” Once one descended into this hole, the demonkin king’s palace could be found. The heart of Oolaz’Cile and Bole’Taria as a whole. Unlike the city above, this palace would find its match in any fantasy story.

Here, the seven Princes of Sins gathered before their king inside a late gothic-style room. However, one of them was missing—envy. In addition, only the king as well as the archdukes of Lust and Sloth were physically around. The rest had their seats occupied by a small crystal ball displaying the silhouette of a person.

This was not a [Crystal of the Divine System]. This was an aberration—a demonic soulcore—with the sole function of conveying its master’s word from wherever they were in the world. As this was their sole duty, the aberration’s evolution had not increased the powers of the seven Princes; in fact, this form of these aberrations made them feeble and easy to destroy. As such, they acted not only as the Prince of Sin’s transceiver, but also as a final resort to preserve their final life, should they lose all other aberrations.

As the strength of the revived Prince was tied to their aberration, that was a situation no demonkin wished for outside of the most dire emergencies. A rank A aberration would allow a Prince to inherit their full former strength, while a weak one would cripple a Prince, costing them years of training.

One of the Princes watched the aberration placed on the ‘Envy’ seat, shaking his head in disappointment. “What happened?”

“Sloth, you should stay less in your laboratory and come out more often, or at least, read our notices more often,” a raspy man’s voice came out of the seat marked as “Greed.” His form was only that of a silhouette, like the others in his situation, as the aberration could only convery words, not their appearance.

“It happens. Lord Sloth had been doing quite some interesting experiments lately. Even I couldn’t keep my eyes away, like, goodness, I do not understand manatech that much.” The only woman inside this council hugged herself in excitement as she reminisced about what she had seen. Her constant shaking caused her loose, skimpy outfit to reveal much of her naked skin, much to the annoyance of the other listeners.

“… Lust.”

“Yes, Lord Wrath?” the woman replied to the deep, powerful voice of the warmongering demonkin, her pink eyes glistening with innocence as she rested her head on her hand. Once she moved her long light red hair from her face, she smiled at the man behind that voice.

“… This is your first council, so stop acting as such. You are not a candidate anymore, you are the ‘Prince of Lust.’ Show your predecessor some respect.”

“But Lady Lust acted just like that, no? She told me to enjoy life as much as possible, and I can’t tell you how exciting it is to meet all the Princes of Sins in a single place! Oh! Well, except Lord Envy, but still! Hmhm! I really, really wanted to ask for an autograph from all of you, hiehie,” she stated innocently, before licking her lips clean, revealing the sharp teeth inside her mouth. “Of course, written in blood! Your smell would last faaar longer.”

“…” The council went silent as they all heard her speak like that, with Wrath clearing up his voice at the perturbing display of the youngest of the seven Princes, elected just recently.

To push the discussion forward, the sleepy Prince of Sloth pushed his enervated body up, trying his best to keep his closing eyelids from falling. “… So, why summon everybody?”

“It is to speak about her.” A haughty voice came from the seat marked for “Pride,” drawing everybody’s attention. “The newest Champion of Aurena—Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor. And how she was able to ruin our plans in Elyonda, not only preserving and helping the rise of a new Champion of Yeostar, but also her participation in the death of Karhalantheel and the newest Warbringer.”

“W-wait, Vifi is dead?” Lust’s curious eyes suddenly ballooned up as her pink eyes turned a dark blue. “W-wait, that is … Lord Wrath?”

She looked over at Wrath’s side, only to be answered by silence. The woman clicked her tongue after a few moments, frowning in displeasure at the lack of answer.

After a few moments, Wrath replied, “Her apprentice, Hee’Rlak, told me. He was safely brought back to us by one of the mercenaries we hired. From what he could remember, she had narrowly survived one of the Champion’s attacks with Satanael, only to die after Karhanlantheel slammed his tail at them, in an attempt to kill the Champion.”

“… She-she’s dead?” Lust’s eyes began to wet as she remembered the sight of the energetic demonkin girl, almost letting out her tears before she quickly composed herself. Wiping the tears away, she took a deep breath, turning her blue eyes back to pink. “Is this account correct?”

“The mercenary who handed him over to us recalled watching my Warbringer dying in the hands of the Champion, burned to crisp by white, holy flames. It seemed like Aurena had given her a powerful skill. It even destroyed her sin crystal in the process, according to him.”

“Destroyed?” Sloth raised an eyebrow.

“True.” In response, Greed spoke, sounding like an old man with a creaky voice. “Sloth, you mentioned once that your crystals shouldn’t be destroyable by normal means, right? Coagulated by a Prince’s blood, they are there to prepare our candidate for the day we might perish. They store the powers of our ancestor’s Original Sins, so destroying them shouldn’t be possible.”

“Hard. Not impossible.” The Prince of Sloth wanted to return to his laboratory to test out the conclusions his always active mind was rummaging through, however, he stayed low for now. “Divine power is easy for a Champion to receive. The Origin Gods know how to counter Original Sin abilities.”

“That is not exactly the point,” Pride interjected himself before the discussion was derailed. “The problem lies with the fact that this Champion had once again foiled another of our plans. Multiple times in Artorias, then in Estralia, and finally in Yeos. While the former two weren’t as significant, Yeos was a major failure. Two of our younger generations have already died at her claws. We are not in the position to lose talented young soldiers like this!”

“Vifi’Yok, my latest Warbringer, was one with many talents…” Wrath spoke in a saddened tone, barely hidden by his deep voice. “She was young and had a head full of desires, but she was a good soldier, even if it was driven by her survival instincts … Losing her is a major hit to our military. Since we can’t even recover her blood crystal, that means I can’t announce a third Warbringer until Sloth can create a new one.”

Nobody needed to speak up. Over many generations, the demonkins of Bole’Taria had relied on the Prince of Sloth for their technological advancements. As such, they knew how Sloth would answer: “If I have the time and energy.” Unless something excited the Prince of Sloth, it would take a while until the destroyed crystal would be replaced.

… Although, the truth was that Vifi’Yok hadn’t died and, instead, gave her crystal over to Streiga Ghorush. The leonid mercenary had told the Prince of Wrath a lie, and none would become the wiser now that the truth was hidden away.

“… I see.” A youthful voice from Gluttony’s seat announced, sounding like he couldn’t remain still any longer. “So, this summon is to announce we have a new target we have to kill, right? Just like the blessed we assassinated in the Empire?”

Pride confirmed his suspicion, before bringing up the missing Prince of Envy. “Envy wanted to trap the girl and her mother, one of the dragon empresses, in an illusory world with Yaldaboath, but somehow failed. His attendants in Aureolis had informed me he barely shows himself any more, only using letters to communicate with them. It’s gotten to the point where, during the night, he constantly has nightmares, screaming about a ‘dragon terror’ and a ‘giant dragonewt.’”

Pride had explained how the priests at the Holy Capital of Aureolis had seen two dragonewts burst out of the pope’s—that is, the Prince of Envy—window, before they flew away. As such, Pride had made sure this information had been passed along to the Empire, where the first newspaper of Peolynca was written and then spread through the world via messenger birds.

He had made sure the Empire knew of Hestia as the enemy, but during this whole time, he had barely gotten a lick of word from Envy. He had dressed everything up to make it sound like the pope had ordered Hestia’s capture, aiming to potentially bring Kargryx to attack the humans. There was a risk, since she was a Champion of Aurena and people might know her real enemy, but he was ready to gamble on matters to achieve his goals.

“Why not kill her, Lord Pride?!” Lust demanded to know with an empty-looking stare. “You are the closest to her, right? Why not stop her now if she is such a threat?”

However, the implications behind her words only angered the prince. “… Lust, hold your tongue. Do not order me around.”

Aura couldn’t be transmitted through the aberration, as such, his intimation attempt failed. However, everybody but Lust understood how Pride could act in such a time. As the most prideful demonkin, he loathed people looking down on him.

“I will deal with her once I am sure we have the power to kill Eltharion and his wives. Envy’s decision to kill her was a mistake, something that could have ended terribly. His silence is, thankfully, a welcome surprise from his usual paranoia,” Pride answered in a forceful tone. “He thought his cover would be unmasked by her, but now his rash actions only gave him just what he feared. He tempted fate, and was beaten by it. Bole’Taria can only win by doing what we always have done!”

“Relying on our expertise and controlling everything from the shadows,” Greed answered, causing Wrath to let out a dismissive grunt. “Very well, then we shall do just that. Continue our original plan. I shall have the dwarves make our dragon killer.”

“Gahaha!” Gluttony bellowed out a deep laugh. “Good! Pride, what do you need me to do? Should I send those heroes to do our job for us?”

“No. Do not. We already lost two parties of those otherworldly brats to that Champion. We cannot risk her dispelling their marks,” Pride denied, referring to the unique skills the demonkins gave the students when they were first summoned. “Keep them in the Empire, have them continue their actions. The more they are trusted, the more it will hurt when they fall and break it.”

He then looked over at Wrath and Sloth, but didn’t say anything as even Pride couldn’t say much in the face of the “Warlord of Destruction” and the “Erudite of Inventions.” They knew what they had to do. He could sympathize with their pride in their own works.

“The Evidian desert will be ours, yet,” Wrath announced before his aberration dimmed.

“I shall try to get that tonic finished,’” Sloth stated before falling asleep on the table.

With Gluttony and Greed also signing off, Pride then looked over at Lust. “Do not depart.”

“Pah! A hedonist does what she wants, Lord Pride!” The Prince of Lust stomped out of the room, leaving Pride to sigh deeply.

He shook his head, already accepting that he couldn’t convince a Prince to forgo their desires. It was sinful. “… We cannot lose even more of you. You, Vifi’Yok, and U’Skaie. You are all part of the next generation, to see a world blessed by the Edjurl Gods … How is being born in this world a gift?”

False Goddess, Aurena, what more will you do to torment us? The weak should keep attracting the weak! That dragon of yours will die to show you where your place is!

He then turned to the only person who hadn’t spoken yet, noticing how his feeble body was slowly decomposing.

[“We need to ‘elect’ a new king soon …”]

“… You didn’t write it?”

“Nope!” The girl standing before Light shook her head, before she had to correct her purple tinted green hair. She then adjusted the sunglasses on her head, making sure it didn’t fall down. “The Church just got some information and they wanted to add their section into it. Couldn’t really say no, right? Just ‘cause I brought newspapers and proper media to this world doesn’t mean I own it.”

Light couldn’t believe it. Up until now, he had been away from the rest of the students who came to the Empire with him. He had to fulfill his part of the deal with the Yanderu Eluseuss, which meant training, as he needed to be strong enough to control his future gang. As such, he hadn’t witnessed the creation of the first Peolyncian newspaper nor was he there when it was first published.

He only learned about everything today, about a week after it first came out. He couldn’t believe how it demonized the dragon girl he wanted to ally himself with, to the point he thought this was a trick from the Yanderu’s number one. Suffice to say, it was even more surprising this information came from the Church, of all places.

What are the demonkins planning? He wondered, but couldn’t say it outloud since the walls had ears and the students outside of his party were mingling around the church people a bit too much. They didn’t know the demonkins were controlling them, and he couldn’t risk them not trusting him.

“Yuuko-san, how can you be so sure this information is valid? Why would a dragon lead an army of goblins and orcs?” Light asked, trying to get some more information from her, however, she just shrugged.

Yuuko Takeshita, that was the name of the fashionable girl in front of Light. Also known as “Magic Breaker” by the church due to her unique skill, Yuuko was not only the last of the five known party leaders of the students, but she was also the best counter the students had against any magic users.

Although not exactly in love with fighting, she was still an important combatant for the student group, in addition to being the creator of the recent newspaper. If marketing or social media presence was what you wanted, you went to Yuuko.

“Hey, I’m a fan of non-fake news as anybody else, but it’s not like I can just whip out my journalist skills, alright? I’m a content creator, not a detective. Even if we can’t trust the church 100%, saying no to them will just make them angry,” the girl turned back to her desk, checking on the piece of paper she was writing on. “Do you know how long it took to persuade the emperor and the cardinal to give me the funds to make paper? To make the printing machine? It took my party such a long time to get the machinery to work, and you’re telling me to potentially risk having it all taken away? Hell no! Come on, networking. Should’ve known it, Lawyer boy.”

Light stayed silent, playing with the newspaper on the table, before approaching it in a different manner.

“… Any luck with your whole video creating career?”

Hearing him ask her that, Yuuka’s shoulders slumped and she let her face rest on the table, looking dejected. “… Nope. I can’t figure all this manatech things out at all, and none of us have an engineering background. Only way we knew about the print machine was ‘cause of Sensei’s lessons. Maybe that creep Daichi figured something out since he’s a tech boy, but who knows?”

Yuuka was, as she mentioned, a content creator and streamer. She knew the importance of modern media, to the point she “invented” printing and paper just so she could do something she wanted. It took her a long while to gain the funds needed for her to experiment ever since she landed in the Empire, and now she was aiming for video streaming … even if the concept of the internet was a completely foreign topic in this world.

“Just think about it! Aiko, dancing on her stage, cheering for her fans! Ooooh, what about streaming her music to the entire Empire! She can go full-on idol mode in this world if we can just invent some sorta video capture! Or music capture! Arck, but none of the artificers in the Empire understand what I say! Some have the talents, but none understand what I want! It’s soooooooo frustrating!”

Aiko Hasebe, the other saint candidate after Asaka, although, at this point she was the only saint candidate, considering Asaka was taken in by Ilsaphone as a Saintess. She was also a close friend to Tatsuya and Kyouya when they were all stuck in Aureolis. Who would have known this girl would have made herself a career as an idol in the Empire?

“It’s propaganda.” However, despite Yuuka’s positive imagination, Light had to settle her back to reality. “The Church wanted her to promote herself as a saint, and that was all you girls could think of. I know you’re her producer, but you don’t need to make it seem like she’s doing this for herself.”

“But she’s enjoying it, Light! That’s the important part! Why can’t you be happy? Who cares if the church is spinning us around, or whatever they are hiding. At the moment, we have nobody else to rely on.”

We could have, if you hadn’t given the church the chance to demonize her.

Light shook his head, exasperated by his fellow students’ naive thinking. He felt too frustrated after the whole idol talk, to the point he was getting a headache, again. He turned away, having heard enough, which irritated Yuuka even further.

“Jeez, come on … dream a little, would you? Instead of trying to act like you’re some brilliant lawyer like your father, how about you just settle down? You can’t bring those corrupt nobles to justice for what they did. To the humans here, beastmen are nothing but animals. They even treat the human slaves terribly. Not to mention everything else …”

The students’ stay in Riekwelst, the capital of the Folschreck Empire, hadn’t always been a pleasant one. They had to mostly deal with nobles, but they also worked as adventurers to get to know people better. They had seen both the good and bad side of the Empire, the Bulwark of the human race.

“Somebody has to do it. If we ignore everything, justice will just die out. No, it’ll just mix around until it festers like a plague upon the stem. The Lycerepth are a prime example of this.” He couldn’t hold those words in after how he saw the religious police of the Empire conduct themselves against religious freedom. “What else can I do?”

It wasn’t just the situation in the Empire, but also the fact he knew the demonkins were behind them being in Peolynca, not Aurena. He felt compelled to help out the Yanderu to gamble on the fact the crimson dragon in Peolynca was a benevolent one, just as Eithalr had told him. He felt like a fish in a pond, too weak to defend himself against the creatures trying to eat him up.

But Yuuka couldn’t understand this. She thought Light was just a stressed out student with lofty ideals, too out of his element. “Hey, I know you hate your father, but you can’t just strawman the people here in your personal quest. How about you go listen to Aiko’s second concert? Let the music—”

“‘Let the music heal my soul,’ I know that already. But, I don’t need idols to give me dreams, or even give me some fantasy.” He opened the door. “… Let’s not talk about idols, again. I hate them.”

He stepped outside the room and left Yuuka to finish the second volume of the Imperial News Weekly. He walked through the doorway back into his room, thinking about everything that had happened and how much he still didn’t know. He considered leaving the Empire to actually understand everything. He wanted to know more to execute his future plans and ambitions.

However, could he actually leave the corruption to fester in the Empire? Shouldn’t he try his best to overhaul the judicial system? A trial should be reasoned with facts, not have religion influence the biases of everybody. At least, that was what he believed … but in the religious empire, his words would be nothing more than blasphemy.

Not now. I need to become much stronger. Strength is the first thing I need. I need—Urgh.

He remembered his father’s face. Those judging, hawk-like eyes preying on his mind and confidence. He felt ill knowing in his youth he once looked up to this man, to the point he tried to mimic how he carried himself and general behavior. The most corrupt attorney he ever knew, and the worst prosecutor Japan ever had, not because he was incompetent, but because he was too good.

He didn’t want to end up like him after he attended high school. He wanted to bring him down… but he knew that, outside of school, he was nothing. He was not as good as his father, nor did he have the outrageous networking skills his father had. Suffice to say, unless he became the valedictorian of his college, one his father would choose for him, he would also inherit nothing from him. He didn’t even have any wealth.

Light felt lost on Earth, and as such, found a new goal on Peolynca. If he couldn’t beat his father, then he just had to become better eventually. That was why he intended to overhaul the justice system here on Peolynca.

Even inside this castle, he saw maids pocketing money they received from random “servants” they snuck out to see to share some “gossip” they heard while cleaning. He saw dark figures running around in the night, blending themselves as best as they could into the night while using dark magic, a frowned upon element by the church, trying to monitor the students. Not to mention how a guard was currently dragging a katzune slave into a nearby shack, angry the beastman stood in the way of their patrol route.

Light thought he had to do something.

“Champion candidate Light.”

However, his thoughts ended the moment he reached the front of his room, where he saw not only Saintess Fleindia, the Saintess the church attached to him as a monitor, but also his guardian knight Royce Albert Loucestro along with another person. The third was someone in a spectacular set of knight’s armor, literally screaming he was more important than the two people he knew.

As the man pulled off his helmet, he revealed himself to be a young man in his thirties. The way he swayed his medium-long hair and how he smiled gave Light the impression he was a narcissist. It seemed he wanted to give a perfect impression, not to mention how he was eyeing Saintess Fleindia with the look of a casanova.

“Lautrex von Cashim, Hand of Heaven. Well met, Champion candidate.” The man introduced himself, as did Light in return, before the student questioned why the Hand came to see him. “I have come to personally hand you direct orders from the pope, well, His Holy Excellency, more like it, but His Holy Excellency gets his orders directly from the pope. Haha, I apologize for my lack of detail. I am just so enamored by the mission I was given as His Holy Excellency's royal guard! A job worthy of a Hand of Heaven!”

Oh gods, he loves the sound of his own voice.

“May I receive these orders?” Light pushed the conversation forward before Lautrex kept derailing the conversation.

“Yes, of course, good sir!” The knight pumped his fist up, even to the point he was posing to show off his hair and smile. Light did his best to keep himself composed, before the knight finally continued. “Ahem, as the pope ordered, we are to destroy and slay the ‘dragon beast haunting his dreams.’”

“… Wait, slay!?” Light became agitated when he heard that word. “The newspaper said we had to capture her! That was what the Holy Emperor ordered!”

“Haha, rightfully so, but it seemed like this notice came directly from the pope, it even has his signature and sigil. That crimson dragon mentioned in the newspaper? Not only are dragonslayers currently being recruited, but His Holy Excellency wants all you heroes to explore the world a bit, so he is sending you out to slay your first dragon. Exciting, no? Right out of the fables! And, don’t worry, for I, a Hand of Heaven, shall accompany you!”

… Curse you, world, but I will take this chance to speak to her! Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor, I am coming!

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 377: Obsidian Trap.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Train, incoming! Make clear at boarding platform zero! VIP, incoming!” The station announcer bellowed through a metal-square microphone, transferring her voice through metal pipes to resound throughout the station.

The train station in Gazahan-Orn was one of the smaller ones, due to the hold being primarily a mining city. Still, even if the city wasn’t visited often by tourists, merchants, or adventurers, the ores, coal, and gemstones were great export goods, keeping the hold financially steady. Not to mention there was also the Luedbrumdar clan, famed for their blacksmiths’ quality… Although, that wasn’t an uncommon statement for dwarves.

However, strangely, today was different. As the train stopped at the station platform, echoing its creaking wheels along the metal rails as blue seams lit up, filled to the brim with mana, dwarven spectators got curious. They watched as a single dwarven adventurer exited from one of the grey locomotive-like train’s commuter cars, along with a few miners.

Some were interested in the adventurer’s sharp look, fierce demeanor, and beastman-like eyes. They quickly recognized the man as a dwarf-beastman hybrid from the claws and fangs once he yawned. The dwarven artificers and train engineers immediately took notice of the quality of his equipment, despite the rust and lack of stylistic designs. From the scars and knicks on it, they knew he was a veteran fighter.

However, their attention was immediately taken away when the VIP came out of the sharp-nose train head. An Inko woman with long brown hair in a beige-pink gemstone-patterned kimono with a fur coat came out after multiple hand-maidens and four dwarven earthshakers and two samurais. The woman had her back-length hair entirely petrified, out of the roots on her scalp, where she was wearing a crown adorned with multiple red gems.

“H-High Queen Tragaya!”

This was the Ankoran Queen of the dwarves of Ankor-Nazta, wife of the Ankoran King and current ruler. Outside of that role, she was also an elder of the Council of Wisewoman, a group of hold queens and clan matriarchs tasked to advise their husbands or siblings, while also acting as a facilitator between royalty and the Church of Crustacia.

As the spectators noticed their high queen, they all bowed except for a few who slipped out of the station. High Queen Tragaya waved at her subjects as she moved through the station, only to be greeted by the Gazahan-Orn hold king Ulshuk, his wife, another member of the Council, and the clan leader of the Luedbrumdar, Maagneil.

“Ankoran Queen.” The three most important figures of the hold bowed in respect, welcoming their queen with slightly visible trepidation.

“You may rise,” the gentle-voiced queen ordered, allowing the three to rise before Tragaya looked over to the hold queen.

Kings spoke to kings, queens to queens, wisewoman to wisewoman. At least, that was the etiquette if it was possible.

“My queen, it is good to see you well. I hope you had a good trip.” Standard greetings came out first as the two queens conversed and complimented each other’s appearance, before it was time to get down to business. “… We read the Ankoran King’s letter. Certainly a surprising visit, no?”

“Aye, Queen Bashira, but our ears have heard notice of something happening four days ago. Some sort of attack? After some discussion, my husband and I thought it prudent to investigate, see if you need anything. Honestly, that husband of mine is probably just elated to finally get out of the palace. Eager-footed, as always.” The high queen then turned to the hold king, gazing into the man’s dilated eyes, noticing his shaking hands and lack of sleep. “I do apologize, though. My husband will be arriving soon, King Ulshuk, but he will be delayed due to his work.”

The king shook his head, bellowing out a laugh in an attempt to hide his nervousness. “Nonsense, my Queen! We can wait, of course, gahaha! We can just take this opportunity to celebrate two feasts, no? Wonderful, I say! We shall serve you the best beer and meat pies we have!”

Tragaya smiled. “Wonderful. Queen Bashira, I shall be asking a few questions here and there about the accidents, but let us visit the Church and speak. I need to inform you of a few changes. And, Lord Maagneil, right?”

Maagneil bowed, closing his enlarged eye as he responded, “Yes, my Queen.”

“The accident involved your clan, correct? You shall inform me much.” The wisewoman’s eyes shimmered for a moment, silencing all three of her guest givers.

“… Yes, my Queen.”

And so, with her entourage of bodyguards and handmaidens, the High Queen of Ankor-Nazta was led through the streets for her inspection, allowing her to take in the gossip and noise of this small hold. There were some who showed her reverence, while others greeted her quickly before returning to their task or food. Unlike most societies with a caste system, the need to show exaggerated reverence to a noble or lord was unnecessary outside of simple respect.

After all, the Church of Crustacia, the national religion of the dwarves of Ankor-Nazta encouraged simple worship. As long as you gave Goddess Crustacia your respect and dedicate your work and even feast in her name, it was sufficient. There was no need to visit and pray in churches if one didn’t wish to, which also influenced how dwarves interacted with their royalty.

Then again, this attitude was also a remnant of the past. Born from the earth through the powers of the earth elemental emperor, one of the old “gods” of Peolynca before the Origin Gods arrived, dwarves were hardy and stubborn like rock.

Old and mulish, dwarves didn’t live as long as elves or the dragonkins, but they had a far longer lifespan than humans. Although inventive, driven by their strong pride to stay on the cutting edge of the technological race, dwarves could also be a hindrance to themselves due to their greed and, ironically, fear of change. Meaning, many of their current customs were similar to the past.

An important foundation of dwarven culture were the guilds, even when the first dwarven settlements were founded.. A fact the Ankoran Queen knew precisely as she visited them, asking questions of what had happened four days ago when Hestia and company rescued their friends. In pursuit of the truth, she drove many in a corner to see how they reacted.

Guilds, associations created around workers, artisans, and merchants for a specific trade, were important pillars of a city’s economy. Given some authority through the city’s monarch or government, guilds were able to control the flow of trade and work, maintaining it for the city or town for personal gain. They were a method to enforce copyright to prevent low-quality knock-offs, protecting the vested interests of the people involved.

However, at the same time, guilds forced most to join them if they wished to sell or work in the local area. You could only accept Quests and receive the rewards if you were a member of one of the adventurer guilds, you could only sell your products if you joined the merchant guild, and you were only allowed to work as a professional craftsman if you registered yourself with one of the local artisan guilds.

In essence, guilds prevented competition outside of vested interests between two similar, but different, guilds—for example, between a parchment and paper guild. Still, as one was part of a guild, it was also the duty of each member to enforce and hold others to a standard of quality. For a failure would also bring down the prestige of the guild. In theory, that meant quality could be assured.

“… I had heard from merchants that the quality of products had sunk after the Luedbrumdar fiasco with smithmaster Grimnir and manatechnician Broggart,” the Queen began as she inspected a piece of armor, unnerving her guest giver and the workers in the smithy. One of her goals as an inspector was to assure the guilds worked as intended. “However, it seemed like that was a lie. Wonderful work.”

She handed the armor back to the smith, causing him to bellow out a cackle, thanking the queen for her praise. Hearing the Ankoran Queen complimenting his work was a huge honor, as every smith dreamed of having their work used by professionals. Being in the grace of a queen assured his ability to promote his work in the future, aside from bringing prestige to his local guild.

Every society had guilds of some kind, from the draconic lands of Loatryx, to the deep forests of Saelariel, and even in the mountainous landscape of Bole’Taria. However, none had such a strong guild culture than the dwarves of Ankor-Nazta.

To be part of a guild was an honor, while being exiled or fired by one could be described as a great shame, to the point others could shame you. While some rules could be overlooked in human guilds, depending on the situation, similar ones would be heavily enforced by the dwarves. As such, if you were guildless, you were essentially jobless. However, if a guild member were to receive recognition, that would be a reason for the guild to sponsor the elongation of their crust’lock—rock hair.

This system of theirs was also a reason for the dwarf’s continued ingenuity, for competition between artisans, workers, and merchants drove the economy of the dwarves. Aside from being the main regulators of the Davi, the universal currency of Peolynca, dwarves also had a hand with trading with practically most of the races, aside from the saurians of Aelozonia and the demonkins of Bole’Taria. Their love for money would allow their manatech to spread to every corner of Altrust.

So, why were their actions contrasted with this ideal? Why did the Bleidla followers forbid advancements like the gun? What made the dwarves so conservative? Their fear of advancing their society? It was essentially due to their guild system and their strong honor. Whenever a new trade or tech was discovered, a new guild had to be made unless they overlapped with a current one.

A new type of manatech lamp? No problem, just add it to the lamp guild. However, what about a new industry created around a new type of artificer technique involving a specific kind of ore or material? Make a new guild. What would happen if this new technique were better than the current, although established and accepted method? Well, this was where the competition came from.

Older and beloved guilds had more supporters due to a dwarf’s honor and customer loyalty, whereas upstarts would be looked down upon for “disrupting the balance” and “making people jobless.” It was a constant battle between the old and new, but despite all of it, the dwarves still continued to advance… even if one could call it slow.

Nothing of that sort here. Everything looks good enough, and it seemed like most had forgotten what happened four days ago. Like an afterthought… Hopefully, Fugnarus can find something. Then again, I should assert myself. As a member of the Kongun, I do have a duty to otherworlders.

The Kongun clan—a royal clan with a king voted into becoming the current Ankoran King. However, aside from this, they were also known for being the clan of the Revolution Queen—Dravlia Kongun, also known by her divine name of Chihiro.

An otherworlder and reincarnator, brought to this world by an Origin Goddess similar to Hestia. Born into this world with her memories of her past life on Earth, Dravlia was responsible for the “Golden Age of Crustacia.” A renaissance for the Church of Crustacia, which allowed the goddess to gain enough fame and followers to move from fourth to third in the strength ranking, beating Marsven.

Strangely, though, she wasn’t exactly commanded by Crustacia to do so. Born as royalty and marked by Crustacia, Dravlia actually used the wealth of her family for her selfish desires to improve her own living condition by creating and inventing almost to the point of insanity.

As a princess, she didn’t need to worry much about her lifestyle. While it was possible for both male and female royalty to become a hold king or queen, it was usually reserved for the men due to a difference in childhood upbringing.

Boys were groomed to lead by example, going through life as lowly workers, disciplined as warriors, and forced to create and sell like the artisans and merchants which held dwarven society up. This created worthy heirs for the crown, as every royal clan wished to one day receive the honor to lead all dwarven hold rulers as the Ankoran King or Queen—the high ruler with the honor to relocate themselves in the palace of Inkoran-Tazul, the capital of Ankor-Nazta.

On the other hand, girls were prepared to join the Council of Wisewoman, an order of queens and matriarchs to act as their husband’s or sibling’s advisors and voice of reason. They were also the second highest authority within the Church of Crustacia, to the point their word could have more weight compared to their male counterpoint. As such, their childhood involved learning and becoming wise, gathering knowledge and experience to aid others.

However, Dravlia was different. Written in her biography, left unfinished due to her untimely demise to a chronic illness, she recalled her life on Earth. Of her time as a student forced by her parents to study and grow into a “good housewife,” or how she severed her ties from them to pursue her passion in the wake of growing industrial and information technology fields, or how she loved the westernization of Japanese music.

She broke from the tradition of a dwarven princess while hiding her reincarnator title from everyone but her father, mother, and caretaker. She aimed to become neither a queen, nor a wisewoman. She just wanted to create a life for herself, similar to her old one, to the point she spread her interest in music, her idolization of the Japanese warlord Oda Nobunaga, and a fantasized samurai culture.

This was the Revolution Queen, a moniker she earned after pushing her creations despite the constant nagging and complaints of the many guilds. Beloved and idolized by many today, she was in truth hated by those same guilds during her lifetime. The few longbeards, older dwarves with long beards, who knew her and were still alive today could only throw insults at her, despite her apotheosis.

In fact, her role in dwarven society clashed with the second most important god in the Earth Pantheon—Bleidla, the God of Blacksmithing and Searing Volcanoes. Dravlia, now under the Divine name of Chihiro, went against his ideals as a dwarven god who promoted traditional living and culture. As such, the dwarves prayed to her as the Goddess of Change, Ingenuity, and Ambition.

A god who guided many blacksmiths for over 2000 years versus a young goddess who only ascended 200 years ago. History repeated itself, for the dwarves once had to choose between the Earth Elemental Emperor who created them, or the Origin Goddess of Earth who descended before them one day. Did the dwarves learn?

No.

For after Chihiro’s mortal death, many of her inventions and creations were made tabooed and hidden away under the excuse of Bleidla forbidding them. And, while true since Bleidla did dislike Chihiro, it was simply a guess from Bleidla’s blessed, interpreted from his fragmented messages.

While not every creation of Chihiro was taken away, as many had integrated themselves into daily life like the train, minecart transportation system, and the bushido code, other blueprints like the gun were deemed “too dangerous” and different. Ironic, as dwarven smiths created the warhammer mana cannon from the remains of Castle Fatalisa after Yeostar destroyed it during the demon war.

It was a renaissance of Bleidla’s ideology, in a way, as dwarven ingenuity slowed down drastically after Dravlia’s lifetime. Money and tradition spoke louder, after all, and constant inventions would only destroy the old order. People simply didn’t want everything to change, they didn’t want their life to be uprooted so suddenly, even in the name of advancement.

Faith in Bleidla grew, and so people like Broggart, Grimnir’s cousin, were simply undesirable. Then again, being unable to control their feelings and desire to the point they broke a taboo, maybe that lifestyle wasn’t worth defending.

… But, if honor and pride was dialed to the extreme, to the point they prick the feet of a dragon by endangering her friends, what would the dwarves say? Would they side with those they trusted, or would they side with what was just?

“Hmm.”

Four more days had passed, a total of eight days had gone by since Hestia’s visit. Maagneil and the hold king noticed this problem, as both had expected her to appear sooner or later. They had readied themselves for a fight, wanting to kick out the fierce dragon princess for what she did. Maagneil expected revenge for what he did to Grimnir and her friends, while the hold king, Ulshuk, worried for his crown.

The king, despite his royal peerage, had effectively less power and influence than the Luedbrumdar clan. Built upon the citizen’s love for Broggart and his constant inventions and wish to improve the hold, the Luedbrumdar clan had done whatever they could to improve their standings with trade, training more artisans, and building up a military force. This had earned the current leader immense bargaining power.

Responsible for the majority of the hold’s wealth, the Luedbrumdar clan essentially had the hold king wrapped around their hands. In particular, the arrest of the students wasn’t ordered by the king, but was an emotional act by his guards, egged on by the Luedbrumdar clan. The king didn’t even have any power over his soldiers, as the vast majority loved the clan more than they were loyal to the king.

For all that he accomplished, Maagneil showered attention on his son Broggart even as he neglected his second son, Darlion. Even before Broggart was born, the once young clan leader Maagneil had attempted everything to claim the hold. He didn’t want to be king, but he wanted his clan to reign over it. He didn’t want the responsibilities of a hold king, but he yearned for the respect similar to one.

And that was what his talented, but problematic, first son brought him. Although he was jealous of Broggart’s ability to captivate people with his inventions and attitude, he appreciated him for his contribution to the clan. Still, there were many times they clashed, as Broggart refused to become the next clan lead, forcing the aging Maagneil to direct his attention to his second son as the substitute. He believed Broggart only needed to outgrow the fantasy of Chihiro, that he would soon realize how Bleidla was the correct god for him.

Unfortunately, his hopes shattered when the Kongun Clan and the current Ankoran King accused his son and his nephew Grimnir of trespassing into the taboo location of Chihiro’s old workshop where her old and forbidden blueprints were stored. Grimnir lost his [Blacksmith’s Eyes], losing favor with Bleidla, meaning everything was true.

Grimnir took my son away.

Forced to act as the clan leader and a follower of Bleidla, he had to exile the two to keep his position. His second son Darlion cheered, as he had always been jealous of his older brother. Maagneil, driven by pressure of losing his only capable heir and the fact this might mean he could lose the favor he built up all this time, started to turn more aggressive.

He drove the hold king’s to depend on him even further as well as forced his son to go through inhumane training to become not only a capable blacksmith, but also a warrior. He thought he could salvage everything… but he understood when Grimnir sent Broggart’s corpse back to him that he dearly missed his first son.

Grimnir … Griiiiiimniiiiiiiir! May Kronnaz destroy your soul! Let Ilsaphone feast on its remains!

This was how Maagneil had changed from his image of a capable and intelligent leader to a gloomy dwarf with an intimidating big eye. This was how he was connected to the hold king. Now, both had to survive a storm.

The storm of having the Ankoran Queen under their nose, investigating everything. This time, they could not use brute force or their influence to get themselves through a problem. Even then, when they did so against Daichi and the students, they only got themselves in trouble against the third dragon princess herself.

Maagneil, driven by his sheer hatred for his nephew, accepted Grimnir’s challenge to acquire Broggart’s workshop as an act of revenge. He wanted to humiliate Grimnir for taking away his son, for not protecting him and letting him die. He also wanted to show that the Luedbrumdar clan under his new control was better than the past “golden age,” and that the smiths he trained were better than not only Grimnir, but also his own son Broggart.

This was his chance to tell the world how he didn’t need Grimnir and Broggart to make his clan successful.

However, what happened? Not only did he lose to Grimnir, he lost against a piece of armor he had never seen before. He wanted to accuse him of cheating so badly, but that would only make him seem pitiful in the eyes of the entire hold. As such, he went back on the deal, using wording to swindle himself through and challenge him once again, this time, so he could find a way to defeat him. It was to give himself a chance to get revenge.

Unfortunately, his youngest son got himself into a fight with Daichi. At first, he thought this was a boon, he could just get rid of Grimnir’s support cast in this manner, but he had never expected the students to defend their friend’s freedom despite the clear-and-dry situation. In dwarven society, if somebody else burned or cut another’s beard or crust-lock off without proper justification, that was a crime.

Now, their actions had led them here.

The hold king took a small glass of purple liquid from his pocket and poured it into a metal ball. He then attached the ball on a mouth mask, designed to help Inko miners breathe in the depths of a mine. Once he lit up a small fire to burn it up, the king took in the fumes, enjoying it and calming down his jittering hands.

“Ooooooh…” he groaned in relief. “Thank you… the last dosage was a long time ago.”

Maagneil stared at the hold king, smirking for a moment as he once again asserted his authority over “his king.” The purple fluid he got from one of his connections allowed the clan leader to control the king even further.

Drug usage, aside from harmful ones, was generally not frowned upon. Smoking, alcohol, and essence smelling were all accepted as part of a hard worker’s recreation. As long as one didn’t indulge in substances harmful or altered one’s body and mind, then it was mostly allowed.

“So, Maagneil, have you heard of anything? Grimnir and his princess couldn’t just have disappeared, right?” the hold king asked, having regained some form of regality after smoking the unknown drug.

“… Still trapped inside that dungeon, nowhere to be found. I have the whole place watched by my guards, they ain’t getting out of that place without me knowing. Even got measures up against dark spells.”

The two were convinced Hestia and her group were still stuck inside the dungeon, as they did not know about the [Room] runes. No, Maagneil had heard about the portal when Hestia, Tatsuya, Kyouya, and Shay first entered the hold from the Edgesworn grunts. Since he knew the students were void-touched, he understood they could use space-time magic.

However, what he didn’t understand, nor could he imagine, were the possible applications of the magic. A dwarf’s inability to cast magic meant dwarven magic education was abysmal, meaning he didn’t know about [Room]. He knew they managed to open up a portal, but Maagneil just couldn’t imagine anybody opening up portals and traveling through checkpoints to different locals, outside of maybe the gods.

This creative failure meant he couldn’t understand the intricacies of what was happening, but his instincts told him something was off. Why was the Ankoran Queen still around? Where was the Ankoran King? He was supposed to have arrived already, but he was nowhere to be found. If the Queen knew something, why hadn’t she directly confronted Maagneil on it?

The clan leader was confused and anxious. He wanted Hestia to finally show up so he could challenge whatever she threw at him. He had everything prepared, from documents to witnesses. Even if Grimnir and the dragon princess were to fight him through the Ankoran King, he could defend himself, and even reverse it on them.

He was confident he could win.

As such, after taking their time to talk about everything, the hold king suggested they take a stroll to calm down. Ulshuk was dragged into this mess by his subordinates, but he couldn’t punish them since they supported the Luedbrumdar clan’s safety. He didn’t have their loyalty now, and he would not gain that loyalty if he were to raise his hand. As such, all he could do was to help Maagneil to save his own hide.

His wife was stalling the Ankoran Queen, for she knew, if the crime were to be revealed, she would be punished, too. It was the responsibility of the wisewoman, the queen, to prevent such problems from occurring.

Bang!

“Hmm?” Both men stopped as they suddenly heard the sound of a loud bang, drawing their heads towards a group of people walking together on a side street. They looked through the alleyway, noticing among some of the normal dwarves were a few Beats’N’Rock followers.

Damn, rockers … Maagneil frowned as he remembered Rosserto, the leader of a Quarry Beats band called Punker Paradise. The clan leader despised the loud screaming, focused more on the volume of the voice and instruments instead of the rhythmic beating of a well-known miner shanties.

He cursed Chihiro silently for introducing the Quarry Beats, the Beats’N’Rock, to the world, finding it a perturbing evolution of a normal miner shanties. It enraged him even further when he remembered how Rosserto had aided the dragon princess in the rescue of the students and Grimnir. The man was tried, but his crime and resulting punishment were minor, as nobody could pin anything more severe than “disturbing public order.”

He was recently released, so Maagneil assumed Rosserto was performing again. However, as he was shaking his head and turned away, the music played again, but it was unexpectedly quite soft. There was still the drumming and electric string picking he hated, but it actually felt pleasant in his ear.

Although, the moment the drum banging continued as it built up towards a climax, Maagneil scoffed, chiding himself for liking it for a moment. Still, Maagneil’s and the hold king’s interest was piqued. With their guards, they walked with the crowd, until their eyes widened as they noticed people entering through a door. There, they peeked at the sight of something similar to a portal gateway.

They charged through the crowd, pushing people aside as they made in front of it. The loud complaining of the dwarves was quickly ignored as they opened the door, only to be stunned as they saw onyx-glistening stone covering the floor. They stepped in, touched it, only to confirm it was obsidian.

They looked around this waiting room before they followed towards the song of music with the rest of the guests in this weird place. They told their guards to keep their guards up, while they pulled out their weapons and readied their runes. No dwarven warrior worthy of their crust’locks would leave their house without their equipment.

However, when Maagneil entered through the second door, he thought an enlarged eye would pop out of its socket as he gazed around him. Obsidian; everything before him was made from obsidian. At the same time, the place was humongous, to the point he couldn’t help but feel like an ant before this grand cavern. There was barely any light, only a single spotlight in the middle of the place with a few colorful sparkles here and there.

He stared, unbelieving how he saw not only humans but beastmen gathering on the opposite side of where he was. The dwarves around him gathered around areas where seats were placed, in addition to a few stalls manned by humans, selling what looked like baked pastries. Pastries he never saw before, although he was more of a noodle man, himself.

“Urgh!” Finally, though, his eye widened to the point he could physically feel it nudge out of its socket. He groaned, feeling the pain but being unable to close his eyes.

He pulled out a handkerchief, slowly pushing in the widened left eye back in place.

“Our work upon we stake our life ♫

With one chance to fulfill ♫

A misfortune, taketh it all away ♫

How we cry for death’s will ♫”

“Ukrak!” he cried out as he heard that soft, angelic voice sing, only to have his eye nearly pop out again! He couldn’t stop, everything that was happening was giving him nothing but a terrible premonition!

[Music Resonation]?! He heard the Divine System speak in his mind, informing him of an unknown status effect. His confusion delayed his thinking, only for the hold king to pull the cowering dwarf up, pointing at the singular lit up location in the middle of this cavern.

There, he saw not only one, but two of the people he didn’t want to meet again. One was a dragonewt girl with crimson hair dressed in a black-white, frilly dress, wearing black and red make-up to accentuate her slit eyes and lips. The other was a dwarf with an axe-head guitar, playing along three other dwarves to accompany the girl as she sang.

“And all that’s left: an unfinished work ♫

With nothing for you to remember ♫

But will that really lay me to rest? ♫

Enough I say, I shall grab on this last ember ♫”

Strangely, even from here, he could hear her voice and the music clearly. In fact, it was neither loud nor silent, it was just perfect. The soft rocker music went well with the girl’s high-pitched voice, giving it a perfect harmony the dwarf had never really experienced before. In fact, most dwarves would never listen to such music. To them, this was too human, or elven… but the gravitas of the lyrics…

“Reincarnation, I take my second chance ♫

I can’t give up, nothing to do but advance ♫

Even if I forget it all, my soul will continue my prance ♫”

It was compelling. She sang each word slow enough for a first time listener to listen, and while she did raise her voice here and there, it never went overboard like the Beats’N’Rock of the Punker Paradise. However, just like their songs, this one delivered a strong, realistic message, instead of how most miner shanties were meant to keep morale up.

I feel drawn in! Fuck!

“Men!” Maagneil shouted as he finally shook off the confusion, raising his hand up to get the attention of not only his guard but the hold king’s guards. “Capture that dragonewt! She’s the dragon princess!”

Even if he had never seen Hestia’s dragonewt form before, he could guess very well from her crimson hair and scales. He had heard her description from his subordinates already.

Without delay, the bodyguards raised their weapons, annoying the hold king as his soldiers were listening to Maagneill. They slowly made their way as the dwarves around them complained, nearly throwing their food and drinks at them, before they noticed it was the Luedbrumdar clan leader and their hold king. None wanted to stop them any longer… outside of a single adventurer.

“Out of the way, vagrant!” one of the guards, a samurai ordered as he stared down the beastman-dwarf, however, the dwarf in question simply shook his head. As such, the vagrant aimed his blade at the man. “This is an obstruction of justice in the name of the hold king of Gazahan-Orn! Ya will move, or I will cut ya down and slog you into a cell! Beat it!”

“I refuse.” The adventurer’s eyes then widened as he released his aura, stifling the guards, causing them to take steps back, as they couldn’t breathe under the pressure.

Maagneil and Ulshuk felt the intensity too, but while Maagneil was confused at who this person was, Ulshuk’s eyes widened as his mouth fell agape. As royalty, he knew very well what this aura was. After all, he had the same one. The moment he realized this, he stared into the dwarf hybrid’s eyes, only to remember where he had seen them before.

“H-High King?!” the hold king shouted as he fell onto his butt, sweating profusely as he shivered like a scared child. “N-No, no, no, no, no!”

What?! Maagneil bellowed inside his mind, staring down this adventurer from top to bottom. To him, he looked like nothing but an adventurer.

To most dwarves, they might know they had a high king, but most had never seen him before if they never visited the capital of the Kongun clan’s home hold. Maagneil, even though he usually visited the capital for business, rarely ever got the chance to see the Ankoran King in person. The same applied to his wife.

However, Ulshuk knew. He knew, alright. He had seen his high king multiple times for feasts, not to mention, he voted the man into office! How could he not know his king was born from a pantherae woman—a panther beastman. This knowledge cursed him, as he tried to stumble back on his feet to flee, only for his heart to drop.

There, in front of him, was not only his wife, but also the Ankoran Queen. His wife, crestfallen, while the high queen stared down at him as if he was nothing but filth. She then turned her face up, smiling as she looked at her husband.

“Had ya fun, bubby?”

“Aye, me love. Feels good to act and be treated like some wanderer, again. The soba and noodle soups taste far better when the chefs ain’t scared they’ll burn ya tongue.”

The wisewoman nodded in satisfaction, glad to hear her rowdy husband managed to have his fun. She then turned back to the hold king, her business far from done. “Hold King Ulshuk, I will have you stay here with me. We have much to talk about. And, Maagneil, I advise you to listen to our dignified young lass sing. She has something to say.”

“So listen well, let those tears dry for me ♫

Understand my wish, let those tears dry for me ♫

Time will continue on, live for my memories ♫”

Maagneil turned around as the song ended, followed by the wild clapping and cheering from the human-beastman side opposite of his, while the dwarves on his side bellowed out “Encore!” and “Rocks on, beatles!” They were filling this whole cavern in wild chanting, with some of them calling out the singer’s name.

Hestia.

“Thank you, everybody!” the crimson-haired girl called out. “Welcome, welcome to the Obsidian Orchestra, my grand stage from which I sing and dance for all of you! Today, leave your stress and worries outside this subspace, and allow yourself to submerge your soul with my songs! Let yourself dream and release the wild fire inside you!”

“Woooooooooooo!” Even wilder chanting erupted.

“Please, not just me! A grand applause to my collab partners, Punker Paradise!”

“Wraaaaahaaaaaaha!” Rossert on the guitar played a small solo as he laughed, arching his body back in a pose. This immediately caused his fans to follow up, copying his exact movement to the tee.

Once the commotion calmed down as the girl and rockers gestured for them to quiet down, the girl then moved towards the direction of the dwarves she was singing for the first time. “Citizens of Gazahan-Orn, my name is Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor, third dragon princess of Kargryx, and your idol for the day. Thank you very much for coming today!”

Many of the dwarves didn’t know Hestia, although some had heard about the tragic news of the eighth dragon child’s egg having disappeared. Those who were in the know understood from her statement that she safely made it back, but were confused how she looked like an adolescent despite the news being from last year.

However, what came afterwards shocked people even further. Speaking in Japanese, the girl bowed her body in a 90 degree angle, perfectly mimicking how Chihiro followers would apologize to each other.

“Moushiwake gozaimasen!” (I’m sorry)

Japanese. To the ears of the many soba and noodle masters, that was without a doubt Japanese. Introduced by the Revolution Queen, noodles made from the dwarven tazlok wheat were a delicacy. Quick and simple, it was perfect for dwarven mining culture, as they could not only hydrate but fill their stomachs up with a savory meal, even in the depths of a mine.

As such, to become one, these noodle makers learned Japanese, as that was how the Revolution taught everybody how to make them. Stubborn as always, the dwarves disliked change, and even after 200 years, they kept the old teaching methods as it already worked. Why change when it wasn’t broken?

So, they knew what she said. “I’m sorry,” but in the most respectful manner possible where she took full responsibility for a wrong. So, they were confused. Why was this girl apologizing?

“I was the dragon who caused that commotion eight days ago. I apologize, I admit that wasn’t the best manner to conduct myself. Please, may I ask for your forgiveness?”

Now, the dwarves were even more confused, but before they could respond, Hestia raised her body, dodging their questions and leers by speaking as charismatically as she could.

“However, I did all of that for a reason, even if it isn’t an excuse. I came to the hold to reunite with my friends, but found them tortured to extract information from them by criminals. In a moment of fear, I charged in, trying my best not to unsettle everybody as I rescued them. Still, I scared all of you. For that, I take full responsibility!”

Her quick and decisive decision took the heat from the many surprised dwarves’ faces. Her quick answer made it impossible for them to complain, but that wasn’t where she stopped.

“As an apology, I wish to entertain you. As you might have already heard, the pastries, beer, and other things you can buy are free of charge! In fact, everybody may partake without paying today!”

“Wooooooooooooooo!”

“Three cheers for Princess Hestia!”

“All is forgiven!”

Hestia earned their apology… although the girl herself was quietly screaming in her head, as she knew how much this entire operation was costing her. She was already “poor” after buying her [Crystal of the Divine System], but now? Now she was in debt.

However, at this very moment, she didn’t stop. She couldn’t, for the show had to go on even if there was no profit to be made. She darkened the spotlight above her, before letting one light up Maagneil and the other …

“Today, for everybody’s entertainment, we won’t just have a concert, but also a blacksmithing contest! You Gazahan-Orn already know them, but let me introduce them for our guests on the right side!” Hestia then pointed at the side of the humans and beastmen, the Artorian, Estralia, and Yeosian side. “Griiiimnir!”

You! Maagneil felt like he was about to explode as the sight of Grimnir came into view.

“And on the other side, Luedbrumdar clan’s leader, Maaaaagneil!”

Grimnir! Grimnir! You hide behind that gal?! Larrunda! Grrrriiiiiiimniiiiiiir!

Maagneil had fallen for the obsidian trap.

A note from AbyssRaven

Big rawr trap. Dude is getting a social embarrassment and also has to answer to their king. You don't fuck with foreign royalty.

Song for today is King Crimson's "Epitaph" Rawr

Also, I got a big surprise. A bit too late for the anniversary, but still, happy 3rd anniversary to Dragon Idol!

Thank you to Nuraproject! Twitter for anybody who wants to commission her: Rawr

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 378: A Stage of Grudges: Royal Edition.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #3 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! It works on a subscription base now, so pay on the same date next month!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

“How does one punish a despicable asshole for what he did when the person is both influential and sorta beloved by the people in his city? Not to mention—and very importantly—in a manner that wouldn’t make me public enemy number one in the eyes of the city folk?”

Well, that was the biggest issue in our plan to get back at Maagneil, the current clan leader of the Luedbrumdar clan. Grimnir thought we could talk with the hold king, but here was the thing: I didn’t trust the situation. The weird city guards, no punishments on them, no apology, no nothing from the hold king. After the students, Ellaine, and I spoke about these matters, it became clear we couldn’t go with Grimnir’s “dwarvish” plan that relied on honor and respect and such.

This especially became clear after Tasianna showed me the crowd in Artorias and how they cheered me on and how they refused to believe the lies in the newspaper. It made it clear to me that doing good could benefit you, although I also understood some situations required a stronger hand. Killing and violence shouldn’t be overruled, if I wasn’t worried about my reputation as an idol.

So, that was what got me into this current situation where I was shoutcasting inside my obsidian orchestra, filled to the brim with Artorian, Estralian, and Yeosians to one side, and a good amount of seats full of Gazahan-Orn citizens on the other. This was the result of me questioning myself on how to solve this not only as Hestia the leader of Aurora, but also Hestia the dragon, the idol, and the princess.

As such, it took me eight days to finish all this planning. Why? Weren’t we planning to meet the hold king of Gazahan-Orn and get Grimnir to solve this like a blacksmith and dwarf? Well, we were, until I decided to send Rajah to confirm the king’s real intentions. Well, when he returned, the news wasn't very thrilling to listen to.

Essentially, the dude was on some stuff and Maagneil was his supplier. Got the king twisted around his fingers, he did. Rajah even overheard him say “I hope that dragon just disappears … just go away. Leave me home alone.” He actually wanted me to never come back and confront him on the fact he just ignored everything, meaning he was fully okay with what happened!

Rajah, of course, also checked on his wife. Sadly, she was also in the know, although she seemed a bit more ashamed about the fact. Unlike her stoned husband, she understood the gravity of the situation a bit better than him, to the point she couldn’t sleep the night after my rescue plan. Respectable in a way, since she was protecting her family, but it also meant this was a pretty big problem.

So, this was where my princess status came in. Seven days ago, the day after my initial visit to Gazahan-Orn, King Drangleic began his trip to Ankor-Nazta. Since I had a fast travel point in the capital of the Equevanna duchy, which bordered the dwarves to the northeast, he could cut his trip down to two days.

While he was there, getting comfy with the Ankoran King—essentially the ruler of all dwarven hold kings—he also delivered the message I wanted the dwarven high king to read. It was a report of everything that had happened, and that I wanted him to help us out, if he could. Apparently, his way to help was to wander the city as a random adventurer and to conduct his inspection like some detective.

Why didn’t I visit him myself, or why didn’t I meet up with him while he was in the city? I was busy, getting this giant concert ready and also accepting the fact this apology concert to increase my reputation as a idol would send me into the red. Yes, even with all the passive income I was due, I couldn’t stay in the green …

Saori, where are you? Being poor sucks.

Well, I didn’t know the worst of it, but seeing how I owed Duke Greenveil and Arcanuess Helvas money, it sure was demoralizing. Ellaine and Grimnir advised me not to put money in between friendships or alliances, which probably would be Saori’s suggestion in this scenario, so I just took the debt, instead of demanding money from them for free.

Even asking countries I helped felt a bit awkward, honestly. Yeos was currently in a financial hole and I’ve been in a give-and-take relationship with Artorias for a while, to the point I valued them as an ally, so I didn’t want anything to get in our way. Which left me with Estralia.

Fortunately, I could demand money from them, specifically Reajaen, since she owed me her life right now. Still, I only had her cover the cost of promoting my concert, workforce to get this set up, and to act as today’s security. Forcing her to give me plain cash felt morally wrong, to be honest. It felt like I was stooping to her level with such a tyrannical or mafia-like manner of blackmailing somebody. This was why I had her offset some of the cost this manner.

Having favors and such was nice, but abusing them could just spiral things out of control. Although I was indebted to Duke Greenveil and Arcanuess Helvas, they practically told me I could repay them whenever and however I wanted, with no additional costs or interest. So, really, no pressure on my side. Having trust for each other was quite awesome.

To summarize, what did all of this planning and debt taking result in? Well, my obsidian orchestra was set up for a concert, the dwarven high king and queen visited this place and inspected things for us, I got to torment our enemies and watch their furious and anxious faces, not to mention, more fans.

231 human and beastman have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total followers of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 18634

Well, free food and some good music didn’t help me out with dwarven fans. I was collabing with Rosserto so I could produce music dwarves would like, that was why I was doing a progressive rock song with him. My singing did excite Rosserto’s fans, but most of the love went to him. Which was cool.

In any case, the main stage of this performance wasn’t really ours, it was actually the showdown between Grimnir and Maagneil’s smithing contest. With Grimnir now on the stage, illuminated by the spotlights above, I turned my head back to the angry dwarf in the distance. Standing next to a merc-looking dwarf, the leader of the Luedbrumdar clan looked on the verge of exploding.

“And on the other side, Luedbrumdar clan’s leader, Maaaaagneil!” I announced, pointing at him with a wide smirk. “So… what is your answer, honorable clan leader? Will you honor your deal?”

I used my dragon princess title to cajole royalty to help me out as the dwarves were allied with Loatryx, and in a way, Kargryx. I used my idol role to create a stage fit to not only prop up Grimnir and hopefully help him get his exiled status revoked, but also to shame Maagneil and bring out the truth.

So, what about my dragon role? Well, killing was completely off the table, no matter how much this man annoyed me. In the eyes of the dwarves, I would just be a murderer no matter how justified I was, since he was a prominent figure. I didn’t want the controversy, in this case. No, no, what a dragon did was to stomp the ants down. In this case, the plan was to ruin this guy in the face of society. Dwarves respected honor, like samurais? Well, let us use that against him then.

“Ha, as if!”

And how would I do that? Well, obviously, with social pressure. The moment the challenge was issued, the dwarves around him began to shout. The crowd became restless as a zuekluk was issuing a challenge against an honorable dwarf leader.

“That last ‘ime was damn luck! The Luedbrumdar don’t need’cha anymore, zuekluk!”

“Damn fraud kicked Broggart down! He dead ‘cuz you spited Bleidla!”

“Blacksmithing ain’t for ya anymore! Stay outta the mountains, ya damn milk drinker!”

Tough crowd.

Since the rescue operation involved no deaths or collateral to the city, outside of the Edgesworn’s base, the dwarves easily forgave me for my actions. Maybe they still held a grudge, but some beer and food was enough to make them overlook my actions. What my apology didn’t help was Grimnir’s reputation.

As my blacksmith mentioned, there had been a competition between him and Maagneil before, where they showed off their creations around spectators. Grimnir was chosen the winner with Ellaine’s new armor, but there were doubters who accused him of using demonic materials to make it. That was the misunderstanding, which I presumed wasn’t just random comments as I had a feeling Maagneil or his clan cajoled them to say it.

The last challenge was to make some equipment before the competition, which resulted in the chance for people to pounce at him for using a trick to win. However, this time, before a huge crowd where everybody could see what was happening, I was planning something more traditional but effective.

“That is why, dear crowd!” I interjected using my [Aerokinesis] microphone to drown out the voices. “We will be having this competition once again! Grimnir issued Maagneil another challenge behind doors, but this time, let’s keep this fair and square, yeah? If these dwarves call themselves real blacksmiths, then let them show it! Or, will they reject it in front of not only their Ankoran King and Queen, but also a foreign guest in the form of moi, the eighth child of Emperor Eltharion of Kargryx?!”

“As if! Clan leader, do it!”

“This time he ain’t gonna fall for that zuekluk’s tricks! Maagneil, get your smith here already!”

Social pressure, social pressure, social pressure; oh, how lovely. It just needed a sprinkle of salt, to spice up the wound now.

“To make this fair, we will be using the forges and ores High Queen Tragaya had brought with her when she arrived on the train! No one can cheat!”

Aaaaaaaaaaagrrrrrrak! I felt something pierce my heart as I said that, experiencing pain beyond my expectations. It was just phantom pain, but the fact I had to make a third debt to assure Grimnir’s reputation got restored somewhat pained me like crazy. It was for a good cause, but I felt terrible.

The third debt I made was with King Drangleic, asking him to request the Ankoran King to bring two forges and its tools, in addition, to some ores. It was to make the competition so fair, no one could question the results of the match. It was such a shame that doing this the correct way cost money.

As I was feeling horrible, High Queen Tragaya, a brown-haired Inko dwarf who looked like a Japanese noble with her elaborate kimono and fur coat, clapped her hands, and from the foyer of my orchestra, multiple of her handmaidens and guards appeared. All of them transported the forges, tools, ingots, and buckets of blood onto the stage, prepping them there for everybody to see.

The Queen then entered the stage herself, presenting the ingots for everybody to see, stating how they were of the same purity and size, with each side having the same amount. In addition, with the furnaces already roaring blazing fire, she also explained how each forge was fitted and ready to create runes.

“Pig blood! Simple, but always dependable!” She shouted, showcasing the buckets of blood. “The chants have awakened the fire of the undermountain, ready for a runesmith to smite Dhuinn’s words onto steel! No large-scale equipment or smelters, nothing but ya own hands shall touch this craft! Runesmithing, blacksmithing, and artificership; showcase what a real dwarf can do in the forge! Show these humans and beastmen what we children of the mountains can do! Our pride!”

The invigorating speech of the Ankoran Queen spurred the dwarves to chant and bellow out “Umslid fie Dhuinn! Umslid fie Crustacia!” meaning “Honor to Dhuinn! Honor to Crustacia!” The sheer energy coming from them was intimidating, but the people from the Artorian, Estralian, and Yeosian seats couldn’t help but be infected by the sheer energy.

The words of the Ankoran Queen wasn’t just a display to the dwarves, but it also told everybody else how this was a privilege to watch dwarves craft. Some of the humans and beastmen were probably crafters or smiths, meaning this by itself was an incredible opportunity to watch and learn.

My performance had kept the mood from dipping, but Queen Tragaya’s voice sent it to its peak. Running away now would only shatter everybody’s opinion of whomever fled.

“Elaborate, young highness.” The high queen glanced over me for a moment, prompting me to nod in response. “Good to finally meet the lost egg child of Emperor Eltharion and Sixth Empress Melloxtressa. Royalty should speak, so let us delay that for later.”

Her voice from before was rough and wild like any dwarf I had met up till this point. However, right now, it was soft and gentle like a cool breeze, making me want to let my guard down for a moment.

In a whisper, I replied, “It would be an honor. Thank you very much for your help, despite the short notice.”

“It was our honor to help an ally of Ankor-Nazta and the mediator for the future summit. But be warned, your friend Grimnir and his cousin still broke into the workshop of Goddess Chihiro. That is still a crime.”

Reading between the lines, his exile was still justified, in other words. Gentle but strict… Maybe my plan to help Grimnir wouldn’t pan out completely, but it was too late to turn back now. All that was left was for the man himself to execute on it.

“Maagneil! Maagneil! Maagneil!”

“Luedbrumdar! Luedbrumdar! Luedbrumdar!”

Even the crowd couldn’t stop after what had happened. Although the Artorian, Estralian, and Yeosian were a bit more quiet than usual, it was also ‘cause they came here for me, not the two dwarves smithing it out. So, I really had to make sure I kept their attention. As boring as it might seem, I had watched Grimnir’s smith so many times now; it really wasn’t boring watching him work.

“I will be fully investigating this matter now.” She curtsied slightly before leaving with the hold king, his queen, and his guards, leaving Maagneil standing there alone with only his guards. The merc-looking dwarf clapped Maagneil on the back before, pointing at everybody shouting for him to step into the ring—Uhm, stage.

The merc then walked away from him, waving at me for a moment, before sitting down hard at an open seat next to King Drangleic and his wife. He adjusted his posture and position, trying to get himself comfortable before letting out a loud crackle as King Drangleic commented on his thick armor.

“You shouldn’t have worn something this heavy, King Fugnarus. I am sure you got the memo,” King Drangleic joked, causing the dwarf to bellow out again.

“Gahahaha, for sure, my good man. There aren’t many opportunities for a king to don his armor in this time of peace, don’t you agree?”

“I would rather there not be any. Us Warrior-Kings should know fighting isn’t everything.”

“Wise words. Let’s drink to it, eh? Would ya like to partake, my lady?” The merc-like dwarf, now revealed to be the Ankoran King, addressed Drangleic’s queen, prompting her to decline. As such, the two men shared a glass of wine.

Jeez.

Ellaine acted as my contact person for the whole group, since I was busy during the waiting time. This was my first time meeting the Ankoran royalty, so we still had a whole introduction thing going for later. In addition, as the Queen mentioned, there was the whole egg thing. She probably was probably notified that I had been found from the dragonewts of Loatryx thanks to Yorshka’s messages, but maybe she wanted more details on things.

Oh well, I could just consider it the price to ask her about Chihiro. Grimnir told me they were related to Chihiro’s mortal family, so they probably could give me some context on the dwarven reincarnator.

Nevertheless, back to Maagneil trapped inside my plan. We didn’t need to reveal the truth of the matter, since we could leave that to the Ankoran Queen. He probably understood what we were planning, but what if he made a stink about everything? Well, I already apologized for everything, so if he wanted to handle this the hard way, then I would double, no, triple down on it.

Meaning, he had only one choice to keep his “honor” intact. Anything else would just lower his standing with his non-diehard fans and followers.

“… Get Ugoval and the others here, right now! One of each!”

The challenge had been accepted.

“Yeaaaaaaaaaaah!” And the crowd cheered.

During the down time, I continued my singing, entertaining everybody and just emulating how dwarves would behave inside their taverns. With the lax and comfy atmosphere, it was the right choice not to heavily promote the concert to nobles or rich merchants—my main income source if I wanted to monetize things.

Instead, I kept everybody’s moods up, collabing with either Rosserto for my rocker moments or Tasianna for ballads and pop songs most of my fans came for. Switching from my goth outfit to my popstar one felt pretty weird, but this was just part of show business. Still, it was fun sharing my hoarse voice with everybody, reinforcing how I really should start turning more people than just Ellaine and Tasianna into my idols-in-crime.

Once the Luedbrumdar team arrived, the show had to stop, but I widened my eyes a bit as I saw the team. Behind Maagneil and a beardless dwarf, an organized row of nine dwarves walked with them. Amongst them, three middle-aged dwarves flounced around with fire in their eyes, eager to start the competition, while each had two younger and short-bearded dwarves accompany them, looking more nervous than cool.

This was a bit worrying, as I thought they would bring three people max. While Maagneil and the beardless one stepped to the side, the nine artisans walked onto the stage. Watching the three older ones glared at Grimnir, I became a bit anxious, but watching Grimnir just shake his head as if it was nothing, I kept my cool.

“Since I’m not an expert with blacksmithing, let me introduce you to my co-commentator. Jadhund Heimhunter!” The name of the man came with mild fanfare, as not everybody knew him too well. Those in the artificer and railroad, the train, guild cheered quite heavily for him, though.

The man himself came onto the stage with a deep frown, only deepening when Maagneil and the beardless man glared at him with widened eyes. Jadhund wiped his face with his hand before moving next to me, trying to avoid them as best as he could.

“Is that the son?” I whispered to him.

He nodded. “I told the Ankoran Queen everything… Thank you… for solving this in this manner.”

I nodded back. Jadhund had been vehemently against me rescuing the students, Grimnir, and Ellaine due to the two-sided nature of this story, including how the Luedbrumdar clan was being viewed. Whether he was worried I was planning on causing a huge ruckus or not, he never told me, but it seemed going down the pacifist route earned me his trust.

Not like I would call this the pacifist route, really. ‘Cause, let us be honest here, this would be bloody as hell. Bloody since dwarves used blood for runes and such, you know! Not to mention, Grimnir would smear Maagneil’s tears on the ground after he beat his ass in this smithing contest!

“Get the damn zuekluk, Maagneil!”

“Show the King and Queen who da real deals are! Show them!”

“Zuekluks ain’t cheating this time with so many people watching! Crustacia and Bleidla, witness this challenge!!”

On the other hand, the dwarves in the crowd thought differently. Let the haters come!

“Grimnir…” Maagneil scoffed at our blacksmith, glaring at him with his enlarged eyes as he took a seat in the front rows. With Grimnir ignoring him to check on his tools and the furnace, all the clan leader could do was stay silent with a menacing look.

On the other hand, the beardless son of his couldn’t stop himself from cursing. “Where is that damn milk drinker?! Huh, zuekluk?! Spraying fire at me beard and letting some gal rescue him? Bleidla’s hammer, strike him.”

“Here.” A girl’s voice answered the man’s provocation through the sounds of cheers. Instead of armor or a dress, the noble girl of Artorias strutted on stage in her artificer clothes, consisting of a simple-designed shirt, a baggy trousers, and an apron with all her tools.

“Ellaine!” Three people from the side called for her, drawing the girl’s attention before she smiled sheepishly, scratching her cheeks a bit. As I looked over, I could identify not only her brother Jonathan and parents, Arcanuess and Arcaliess Helvas, but also her best friend Amelia.

While her brother, father, and Amelia looked proud of her, even clapping to encourage her to continue, her mother had a worried smile on her face. To a noble lady like her, it probably was a shame to see her only daughter look like some random commoner, if you disregarded her clean face and well-groomed hair.

On the other hand, the young man accompanying her was wearing standard blacksmithing clothes, aside from the eyepatch he had covering his left eye. With blazing red hair, he grimaced at the beardless son of Maagneil. However, at the sight of him, the cheers from the dwarves instantly turned into boos and curses.

“Daichi?” Ellaine turned around, worried, but the young man didn’t bat an eye.

“Hey, assholes! If you can’t shout louder, I can’t HEAR IT OVER THE DAMN BANGER THE SINGER IS PRODUCING!” Instead of cowering, Daichi for some reason provoked them even further. “YOU CAN SLAM ME IN A JAIL LATER! Watch me beat these dwarves in your own game!”

The baseless swagger infuriated the crowd even further, to the point Daichi taunted them all into showering him with curses, instead of Grimnir. The amount of “zuekluks” and other name calling disappeared, replaced by people hurling insults at him. Nevertheless, he took the hate onto himself as he grabbed a hammer from the prepared forge, trying to stop his shaking hand.

I couldn’t help but shake my head before increasing the volume of the background music. He was right, a competition like this demanded louder music, something that can keep people up.

“Take your positions!” I announced before pulling out a piece of parchment, given to me by Ellaine this morning. Quickly reading through it, I then nodded and announced the goal for this challenge. “This is an urgent request from High Queen Tragaya herself! Her husband demands a new set of armor for himself. You are to produce high-quality plate armor from the ingredients provided, including a pair of gauntlets equipped with a mana circuitry for increased mana flow. Using the set of blood, you are to fill up all three rune slots. If any of the three requirements are not fulfilled, you are automatically disqualified!”

I then looked at both sides, furrowing my brows a bit.

“… According to the rules of royal challenges, each required craft may have only one certified master artisan in each artisan field, while each master may have two certified apprentices under his or her leadership. As such, you may have a maximum of nine participants, but you may participate with less, as long as the prerequisites are to be followed!”

On our side, we only had Grimnir, Ellaine, and Daichi. Grimnir was a master blacksmith and runesmith, but his two apprentices were still just that. As such, we could only bring those three since we had no other smiths.

On the other hand, the Luedbrumdar team brought nine people. I was a bit worried when I read it this morning, as I figured this would be the case. And, what did you know, it happened exactly as I guessed.

“Don’t worry. Grimnir knows these rules,” Jadhund reassured me, reminding me how Grimnir told me to not worry. Daichi and Ellaine both looked rather undaunted, meaning they probably had a plan… right?

“This time, it will be different, zuekluk.”

The pre-battle smack talk began with the Luedbrumdar side beginning it.

“Broggart wouldn’t have died if you had just kept your greedy mittens off Goddess Chihiro’s vault.”

“You are old and forgotten. Make way, Grimnir. Runesmithing don’t need’cha.”

There seemed to be history between the three master artisans and Grimnir, but that was to be expected. He was one of the most competent smiths in the clan before his exile. Although, the hostility might be a bit too much.

I thought Grimnir would spit back and grumble like he always did when he was angry, but surprisingly, he began to laugh. “Gahahaha! You three? Show me up? Crustacia’s twintails, the only thing you will do today is show this place why I am serving a dragon princess and you three are still working in some downtrodden hold with an incompetent hold king and a tyrannical clan leader!”

“Zuekluk!” They all shouted, but it went into deaf’s ears as Grimnir and his two apprentices turned their backs away, readying themselves for the challenge.

The time for talk was over.

“Now, with the rules established, you have one and a half bell time to finish your product! For you dwarves, that is one hour and 30 minutes! You will finish your product in that time!”

It was just not enough. An hour and a half for not only plate armor, runes, and a pair of gauntlets with mana circuitry? For a nine man team with professional craftsmen, it should be possible since each person could take on a job, but for only three people? It was just downright insane.

As I remembered, when Grimnir and our party of five helped him with his runes, it took us far more than an hour to even finish a single rune, not to mention he needed to finish three. The issue was, Grimnir had to make plate armor and also some gauntlets. How would he have time for that?

Ellaine was the artificer and, while talented, if they couldn’t finish the runes, Ellaine’s circuitry work wouldn’t do them any good. Daichi learned blacksmithing from Grimnir, but he couldn’t finish everything in time for Grimnir to start making the runes. You had to make the piece of armor first before you could attach the runes on them.

Urgh, what are you guys planning?

Regardless, this was the time for me to believe in them. Grimnir was our resident blacksmith; if he, Ellaine, and Daichi believed that they could surmount this, then I just had to give them the chance to everybody who was actually superior.

“As such, your allotted time be—”

“Stop!”

But before I could start the match, somebody interrupted me. He charged onto the stage, pushed a blacksmithing apprentice off, before putting on a work apron. It was the beardless dwarf, Maagneil’s second son, Darlion.

“I haven’t taken my master exam yet,” Darlion stated as he eyed both Grimnir and Daichi. “I can act as an apprentice, right?”

I looked over at Jadhund, who reluctantly nodded.

“Always jealous of his cousin. Always jealous of Grimnir,” was what Jadhund told me when I first met him in this hold. The stocky, sharp-eyed younger brother of Grimnir’s cousin Broggart, Darlion, was somebody I heard about, but I didn’t know much about. What did he mean by saying he hadn’t taken his master exam yet?

… This could be problematic.

Sadly, without further ado …

“Begin!”

A note from AbyssRaven

Set up for the smithing chapter! Next one will be full of it for the crafting novel fans.

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Chapter 379: The Hammer and Anvil.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“And the Luedbrumdar clan’s artisans moved first!” I began my career as a shoutcaster, providing play-to-play information on what was currently happening on this stage of grudges. With the smithing competition having begun between Grimnir and his former clan, sparks naturally flew, both metaphorically and literally.

“Nine versus three, it is obvious there is a massive difference in labor between the two groups. We have a master blacksmith and runesmith on one side with his apprentices, while the other has a master for all three professions.” Right next to me, I had Jadhund give the audience the much needed analysis as my colorcaster partner. Although he was an artificer, he was also one of the chiefs in the railroad guild who oversaw the blacksmiths, artificers, and runesmiths in charge of the maintenance of the train station.

Aside from that, he was the only one I knew with such extensive knowledge to help me. Outside of our crafter trio who were participating, the rest of Aurora had little they could say about the finer details of this match. Speaking of them, they were all in the audience right now, sitting on bleachers and watching the show.

Nishio, like Daichi, recovered pretty quickly with the help of my white flames, which seemingly also lit a fire in their eyes. Daichi wanted to participate in this competition for his own sake, while Nishio was my loudest supporter for this plan. He wanted to humiliate the Luedbrumdar’s for what they did to everybody.

Now, aside from the students, we also had Tasianna and Rajah. Well, Tasianna was just on stage with me and was taking a break right now, but what about my virigress? The virigress who just evolved into a rank C seven days ago? Well, let me just say he was doing his own thing for now. Not like he could do much for this match.

Frankly, I couldn’t really focus on his task, since the competition was flaring up. I had to concentrate on this match!

My eyes darted from Grimnir’s side to the Luedbrumdar’s, noticing that they had already organized everything. “Mister Jadhund is right here, as the Luedbrumdar members aren’t wasting a moment as they inspected the ingots and began smelting them! The three masters are taking full command over this battlefield!”

Not missing a beat, Jadhund latched on my last point, using this chance to introduce the three masters. “Master Ugoval is the clan’s best blacksmith, the one who replaced Grimnir after his exile. Not only was this man Grimnir’s rival, he was also the one to face the orange-haired Tazong in the last competition. However, Grimnir’s hammer hadn’t rusted yet, as he defeated Ugoval with an astounding set of armor last competition, never seen before!”

“This is a grudge match, everybody! Not only is there a family dispute, but these two rivals are going head to head once again. The old defeated the new, and the new now wants his revenge! Can he get it? Now in this even field with more than enough helpers?”

Shoutcasting was necessary to keep everybody on their toes and invested. The human and dwarven craftsmen were naturally interested in this match, unable to keep their eyes away. Naturally, the entire dwarven population inside my subspace were holding their breath as the heat kept increasing and increasing.

Therefore, I had to keep the remaining “casual” viewers interested and in their seats. Most came for me, so switching up the show could mean I could lose my audience. If they wanted to leave, then it was all okay. There was no need to force them to stay. As such, I had a duty to entertain those who remained.

A few on the Artorian and Estralian side had already left, but for the Yeosian, this was probably one of the few chances for relaxation. Not only was there food, but with all the chaos that happened in Elyonda, they wanted to stay here for the laughs and excitement. Knowing this only made me feel even more pumped.

Give them a narrative they can follow! Let’s make this the best show ever!

“Mister Jadhund, what about the other two masters? What are they bringing to the table?” I asked, causing some of the Luedbrumdar apprentices to glare at me with annoyance, although they were quickly rebuked by their masters.

Didn’t mean it as an insult, sheesh.

“Master Peregrin, the clan’s first student of Broggart Luedbrumdar. Meaning, you have one of the best artificers you can find under the Ankoran Mountains. A staunch follower of his teacher’s, you can understand why he is glaring so much at Grimnir, the one who took away his master.” Jadhund then turned his attention to the runesmith of the trio. “Then you have Master Meriadoc, the one most envious of Grimnir, probably.”

“Oi!” The man himself shouted, blasting a stream of fire from his mouth. He then growled, shaking his head and pointing his face and ram horns back to his work.

“That’s a Taz for ya. In any case, that was not an exaggeration, sadly. Grimnir was not only a talented blacksmith and runesmith, but had grabbed many young dwarves’ attention during his journeyman years. Meriadoc is one of them. Still, not to be trifled with.” Jadhund then pointed at the beardless son of Maagneil, who was working with a face full of wrinkles from his constant frowning. “That Inko lad posing as an ‘apprentice,’ however, is not one you should overlook. Darlion, trained by his father to replace his older brother Broggart, isn’t some random lad. As you can see from how he is coordinating with Ugoval, he ain’t a fraud. He would be a master blacksmith, if he were to only pull up his pants and take! The damn! Exam!”

I did as he suggested and observed the group, squinting a bit as I saw the three masters coordinating brilliantly with their apprentices. Currently, since the artificers and runesmiths couldn’t do anything, as they needed to actually make the armor first before anything else could be done, they were helping the blacksmith create.

Ugoval and Meriadoc were Taz dwarves, meaning they were responsible for smelting the ingots with their fire breaths. As the ingots turned blazing yellow in their smelter cups, Ugoval placed the smelter into the furnace until it was ready. Their apprentices then poured the molten metal into the given molds, creating sheets for the gauntlets first, then the shoulder plates, and finally the breastplate.

The brilliant yellow and white lights shining from the molds brimmed with power. It was just molten metal, but to the dwarves and smiths, this was the beginning of a new creation. All in the Honor of Crustacia, you could say. Therefore, the moment Ugoval picked up his hammer, I couldn’t help but hold my breath.

… BANG!

The loud metallic echo of the anvil erupted in the concert hall, drowning out all the cheers, muttering, and awe-stricken gasps. With the first blow, we knew the match had officially begun; everything before was just preparation. With the second blow—bang—the jubilation amongst the audience reawakened.

“It’s begun! The pounding of metal! The three blacksmiths—master and apprentices—have started forming the metal plates into workable pieces!” I commented through my [Aerokinesis] to wake people up from their awe. Even if I was against them, I had to at least act unbiased as I shoutcast. “You can feel the full rage and power with every blow! Sparks are flying as the artificers are keeping the metal down with the tongs, letting the smiths do what they are best at! Meanwhile, you have the runesmiths, spraying blood into the furnace!”

“Sadly, that is all you will see for the runesmithing portion, everybody,” Jadhund announced. “There is a reason why there is a set of curtains available. Challenge or not, the runesmith guild will have a bone to pick with any artisan who tries to showcase techniques to ‘outsiders.’ Sorry, folks.”

Runesmith techniques and methods were technically a trade secret, meaning they were protected by one of the dwarves’ largest guilds. It seemed that, even for a short show like this, even the Ankoran King and Queen couldn’t do much about it. As Grimnir told me, runesmithing was part of dwarven pride, so it could only be shown to other runesmiths.

As such, once the “quenching of the fire with blood” was done, the three runesmiths immediately helped out the blacksmiths with the forging process. Hammering, reheating, repeat, until it was time to quench it in water, or alcohol, as the dwarves liked to do it.

Just watching their coordination made me a bit nervous. As I finished my commentary on them, I then turned around to Grimnir’s side, wanting to know how they were going, only for my face to freeze up a bit.

Oh no …

Bang! The sound of metal echoing finally erupted from their side.

“A-and with the sound of Grimnir’s hammer, his side had finally begun the creation of the armor! Surprisingly, instead of the components for the easier pieces, like the shoulder pauldrons or gauntlets, it seemed they were trying to assemble the platemail first!”

It was just as I said. Grimnir, Daichi, and Ellaine were all bringing down their hammers on the three anvils they had, all to bend and form the glowing metal sheets. I knew Daichi was working under Grimnir as a blacksmith, but seeing Ellaine also smithing was certainly a surprise. Although, similar to the other team, she couldn’t do any artificer work right now, so she had to participate in doing something. There was still a strict timer.

“Surprisingly, the Grimnir team is seemingly allowing the apprentices to take the lead on the creation of the tasset—the waist part of the armor—while they left their master to create the cuirass. Not to mention, why exactly the plate first, when you can make the vambraces and gauntlets first so the artificer can get to work?” Jadhund agreed with my worries. “However, people, whether their strategy is correct or not will be decided later. For now, just watch! This, people, is why Grimnir was known as the best blacksmith in the entire Luedbrumdar clan!”

Just like during the blacksmithing contest in Cederaille where Grimnir first joined our party, our resident blacksmith’s hammering speed was truly unrivaled. The constant banging was far louder and more obtuse than the more controlled rhythm of his opponent, but with my very eyes, I could see not a single strike was random, they were extremely precise.

Just watching him work after so long, I couldn’t help but smile. I knew taking him on our trip was the right call. “Ringing, ringing, can you hear that people? That is what happens to your ears if you listen to loud music! And this is what I call pure power! Even metal or punk rock can’t beat something the wild banging Grimnir is doing!”

From a distance, people couldn’t see what Grimnir was doing, but everybody could clearly hear the sound of his work. Compared to the rock concert I gave, Grimnir surely beat me and Rosserto’s band on a loudness scale. The speed of his strikes sent so many sparks flying that you would think my scale-dusts were flying around.

If the Luedbrumdar’s Ugoval could do 20 strikes in ten seconds, then Grimnir far exceeded that with 40. It wasn’t just due to a difference in levels or Agility, it was just the fact Grimnir looked like a man possessed. He was giving it his all in this one work, to the point nothing in this world could break his trance. Except…

“Lad, hold your hammer tighter! That sweat is weakening your blow!” Even while full focused, I could see his eyes glancing over to his apprentices. Even now, he was giving them tips. “Lass, prepare a spell! Keep up the [Air Shield] so you don’t burn! One, two, three, NOW!”

Just as the white glow of the metal he was banging started to dim, Grimnir belched out a burst of fire onto it. At the same time, Ellaine cast [Air Shield] around her and Daichi, protecting them from the sheer heat for a moment before she canceled it.

In the next moment, Daichi raised his hand up, invoking the magic circle for [Imbue Fire] before using it on the metal he and Ellaine were working on. As the flame surrounded it like a coat, it reheated the piece of metal, saving the duo precious time on reheating it in the furnace. Unlike the Luedbrumdar, the two of them were mages! Their spells would accelerate things for them!

“This is something practically enviable if I must say! The elven blacksmith techniques of weaving spells in their smithing. Certainly far faster than our process, but unless you have perfect control over the flames, that metal will be unevenly heated. Ya can’t bang on metal like that! Can’t replace a furnace if you aren’t a master fire mage!”

Jadhund was right about that. Daichi was letting the [Imbue Fire] linger around for too long. It still saved them on time, but not by much, considering the Taz dwarves in this match could just use their fire breaths to emulate something similar.

This single comment was causing some commotion in the crowd as the dwarves cackled in glee at this sight. I could hear them grumbling how mages shouldn’t be sitting at the furnace, and how they figured team Grimnir were arrogant for using magic to “speed things up.” Similarly, the human and beastmen craftsmen shared this opinion, worrying about them as I heard them cheer for Ellaine and Daichi.

“Mister Jadhund, you mentioned your surprise that they started with forging the plate armor and the fact that making the gauntlets would be faster. As we can see, the Luedbrumdar smiths are doing just that; in fact, the artificers on their side have even started making the finger armors! The dexterity of an Inko’s fingers, correct?” I kept the commentary up, trying to get some information on what was going on, as I couldn’t figure out Grimnir’s plan.

“Correct, lass. Taz dwarves are great miners and smiths since they are hardier and stronger than us Inko dwarves. On the other hand, our fingers are almost similar to human’s in size, unlike the tazics’ cumbersome thick sausages. That makes us better manatechnicians, but also important for the detailed work like the gauntlet.” He then turned around, facing and holding his hand out to present the smiling Ankoran King. “Our High King is an Inko! Meaning, the armor has to fit his frame. If you are a smith, you need to fit your armor exactly for him. That is why the molds were given.”

He then turned around, clearing up his voice to continue, “On that point, I don’t think I need to remind our audience, but this armor is made for him. Not as battle armor, though, but for ceremonial reasons!”

“But runes and mana circuitry are to be attached,” I questioned.

Jadhund nodded but also shook his finger, telling me I am right, but that I didn’t understand the whole story. “Correct, but unlike for humans, elves, or dragonewts, a dwarven lord expects even ceremonial armor to be usable in a fight! Old habits, you can say, as the early history described our holds constantly being in danger of random monster attacks. Underground, monster spawnings just happen more often. You got mana floating around with mana-hungry ore. The contamination is just higher down here.”

It reminded me of Shaturein, the underground city of Griffonpeak. Everyday down there, monsters would spawn since the mana concentration couldn’t be completely removed. Not to mention all the hedge mages working illegally in the undercity to make things worse, it was no wonder they couldn’t solve something like this.

However, here in this dwarven hold with all the mana lamps and other technology cluttering the place, I haven’t seen a single monster around. It shouldn’t be possible naturally, weren’t it for the fact they had some sorta contraptions which kept all that mana in a single place. I still didn’t get the details on it, but that was what created the mana barrier along the street. It was why my [Mana Eyes] noticed all the mana moving like a river to a single location when I was inside the hold.

“Therefore, the armor created today has to fulfill three criterias. First, they must follow the instructions given to them. Second, they need to endure blows, which means the stats of the armor will be evaluated. Lastly, the aesthetics. It needs to look good!” Jadhund emphasized that last point. “A dwarven warrior’s normal armor is composed from monster material, like any respectable fighter, but this armor is only made from normal eoriant alloy. So, all of you better remember to make it look good! Don’t hand the damn king some shoddy piece of crap!”

Eoriant—the alloy made from the Peolyncian ore euorinium and steel. As Grimnir described it, the ore had incredible mana-absorption features, but they were brittle to a fault. That was why steel was added to strengthen it while keeping its ability to conduct mana well. Iron, steel, and the leather stuff were for beginners or those low on cash. Armor and weapons made from eoriant was the tier you wanted to achieve as an adventurer novice, as you could start dabbling with enchantments and runes.

If I’m remembering right, my glaive is made from eoriant to bind my dragon materials into a proper form.

In any case, back to the match, it seemed Jadhund’s warning didn’t faze any of the experienced crafters. Some of the apprentices on the Luedbrumdar side were unnerved, but that was about it. On the other hand, the crowd was excited by this fact. They weren’t just nitpicking the way the craftsmen were working, but also the details of the works now. And here I thought we were all just laymen, yeah?

“Hey, come on, m’lady Ellaine! Don’t let those dwarves show Artorias up! You got this as a manablood!”

Is that supposed to be encouraging?

“Oi, Ugoval! Ya hear them akongs speak to ya? Show some fucking spine and hammer faster! Ya lost the last match cause Grimnir got more spirit!”

Is that supposed to be encouraging?! What?!

It actually started to feel like a real sports show with all the toxic comments being thrown around. Thankfully, it hadn’t escalated into any fights yet, but I could feel the tension between the Artorians and Gazahan-Orn … nians? Whatever. All that mattered was how the Artorians were showing their national pride in Ellaine, encouraging her to win even more after hearing what the dwarves were spouting.

Witnessing all the people cheering for her, Ellaine raised her sweat-filled face up. She then looked over at her parents and brother, watching them clap and call out for her to do her best. Not to mention, the students were cheering her on as well; the hype-filled orchestra even caused them to stand up and cheer for both Ellaine and Daichi.

Watching Kohaku and Kazumi stand on their seats, swinging their arms up and down like cheerleaders, prompted Daichi to raise a thumbs up at them before he swung his hammer down again. Performing on a stage like this could be unnerving, but it could also infect you with the audience’s energy. Nothing could trump the power of people cheering for you; it just gave you this indescribable exhilaration. As if you were the main character at this very moment.

A feeling I knew very well as an idol.

“Reminder, focus on your work! So everybody give it your all! Swing those hammers down and up! This is the—”

Bang!

A chill ran down my spine when that loud metallic bang somehow drowned out my voice. I stopped speaking and snapped my head around to the Luedbrumdar side, eyes wide when Ugoval moved away from the main anvil for the beardless son of Maagneil—Darlion.

A fire grew in the eyes of the Inko as he raised his hammer up. In the next moment, he dropped it down again, creating more noise. When he raised it again, he let out a loud war cry, before accelerating his speed of hammer strikes to the point it mimicked Grimnir’s obtuse banging.

“Wroouuuuuuuuugh!” It reached the voice breaking heights of Rosserto’s wild singing. He wasn't taking a single breath as he used the anvil’s edges and sharp horn to mold the metal sheet into a workable shoulder pauldron.

The moment he exhaled, he inhaled deeply before continuing his work. One, two, three more plate layers, just like that! The artificers then took the layers away from him, clearing up his workstation to assemble the pieces into a piece of equipment.

“Woooooooooooooaaaah!” The dwarves exploded in jubilation at the sight of this man finishing one of the plates before continuing on the next. An apprentice only in name, Darlion excited the audience with his hammering speed, almost rivaling that of Grimnir’s.

“That’s our young master! Darlion! Darlion! Darlion!”

Hearing all of the cheers caused the man himself to smirk widely, proud of his work. He then wiped away the sweat on his face before he turned around, only for his smile to disappear. Grimnir, the one he wanted to triumph over, didn’t even give him a speck of his time. The always dutiful blacksmith kept swinging on the cuirass, bending it more until it was to his satisfaction.

Darlion then grinded his teeth, grimacing in annoyance before he snapped his eyes over to Daichi. Unlike Grimnir, Daichi did respond, twitching a bit at the dwarf’s rage-filled glare. However, Daichi didn’t dodge it, taking it in and even reciprocating it with his own.

“Continue working, lad!” Grimnir shouted as he gave the platemail its last swing. “Never stop swinging your hammer!”

Unlike with Darlion, Daichi stiffened up, saluting. “Y-yes, Master!”

Grimnir didn’t react, instead, he looked over to Ellaine. “Lass!”

“On it!” she responded before taking the platemail from his anvil, leaving her master to smelt the next pieces of ingots.

“Division of labor!” During my moment of silence, Jadhund took over. “The artificers with their more deft hands are starting the assembly of the individual pieces. The Luedbrumdar have the pieces necessary for the gauntlets and, thanks to Darlion’s spectacular display of skill, manage to finish one of the pauldrons. On the other hand, the platemail was just finished by Grimnir, and his apprentice is starting its assembly with the tasset the two had made.”

I thought the cuirass would have been more simple, considering the time, but from the look of it, Grimnir had added more than just two layers. Four layers of metal sheets were ready to be strung together, each having indents ready to be colored to give it some texture. Outside of that, more details have to be added afterward, and from the look of it, that was Ellaine’s job.

Meanwhile, Grimnir finished pouring the molten ingots into molds for the gauntlets. I thought he would start making them, but in spite of his faster hammering speed, he handed the work to Daichi? Furthermore, he picked up a ladle with blood, spraying it into the furnace!

“Grimnir’s begun the runesmithing process!” I announced as he placed an ingot into the fire.

“What?!” Meriadoc, the Luedbrumdar’s runesmith master blurted out, baffled at how Grimnir had begun hammering the heated ingot to remove all of the impurities inside it. “Are you insane?!”

The Luedbrumdar clan had only splattered the blood into the furnace, a ritualistic action to “link the blood with the rune in preparation.” Since the armor wasn’t done yet, they couldn’t start making any runes, but Grimnir had already begun the second step.

Once the ingot was finished, he placed it back into the furnace, before ordering Daichi to throw an [Inferno Blast] into the flames. [Inferno Magic]’s 1st level spell! As you would expect, the huge flame scorched the stone furnace, setting it ablaze before it was blown away by Ellaine’s wind magic. As it cooled down, Grimnir pulled out the molten ingot and placed it on the provided runic anvil, before pulling out a metal stick.

“Ellaine!” he called, ordering her to place the nearly assembled cuirass on the anvil.

She then wiped the sweat away on Grimnir’s brows before pulling the bucket of blood next to her feet. Seeing she was ready, Grimnir then dipped his metal stick into the molten ingot before he began drawing something onto the platemail. Meanwhile, Ellaine began pouring blood onto the mana-infused metal, binding everything into a proper rune!

“Recklessness!” Jadhund shouted. “Grimnir and his apprentice have begun the runesmithing process, but where is the damn cape! Hide ya damn craft, you bastard!”

Jadhund’s cry fell on deaf ears on Grimnir’s side, causing the runesmiths on the Luedbrumdar side to freeze. In the next moment, they spat insults at him, calling him a “zuekluk” and damn “traitor.” Telling him he was shaming the runesmith guild, Meriadoc and his apprentices ran over to their side and pulled their curtains over Grimnir’s workplace, blocking everybody’s sight of the smithing process.

Did they plan that? That’s what I call abusing the personalities of others, jeez!

Grimnir knew how runesmiths acted the best, meaning he probably knew this was exactly how the runesmiths on the other side would react. They stopped working and ran over to their competitor’s side, just to do their work for them. My goodness, Grimnir really had no fucks to give, now that he was crafting for his grudge.

“Uuuuuuuh, huuuuuaaaaaandaaaa vieeeeeeeee,” Grimnir bellowed out the ritualistic song of runesmithing, letting his deep bass voice fill the orchestra with his singing. “Saaaaaarlooooontaaaaa fieeee uuuuumsliiiid! Feeeeelknuuuuln lasaaa mahoooooj’ku ruuuuunek daaaaaahbu, Cruuuuustacia.”

“Bastard! Ya damn larrunda, Grimnir!” Even now,the Luedbrumdar team couldn’t help but throw insults at him. They were completely thrown off their game. “Ya damn bastard, I’ll report ya to the guild and have them—”

“Master Meriadoc!” But before he could finish his rant, Darlion shouted. “Get ya damn ass over here already, or are you trying to bring us down?!”

“Y-ya brat! How da—”

“How dare you blemish this royal competition! Get ya damn ass over here and work! Or are you gonna dishonor yourself by making us work the last bit? Bloody 48 minutes left!” He slammed his hammer down. “Get ya ass over here to win! Or are you gonna let Grimnir keep tormenting you?”

“Kuek!” Meriadoc flinched, unable to speak back.

“Look!” Darlion then pointed at Daichi. “That’s the linchpin of this operation! It doesn't matter if they finish the runes when they can’t finish the gauntlets or pauldrons! The crusty bastard is letting the weak human mage do the forging! Ya think we can lose? Get over here, already!”

“R-right away, Young Master!”

Oh damn! Smacktalk.

Darlion smiled when the master runesmith listened to him, crackling a bit as he turned his arrogant eyes to Daichi again. “Hear that, human? Ya think ya can beat a dwarven smith? Ya think the trust Grimnir gives ya is actually deserved? I’ll show ya why humans don’t have a chance against us! Why he’s a damn fool for choosing some transmigrating failure like ya as his—”

“Shut up!” Daichi shouted. “You don’t get to—”

“Daichi!” Grimnir’s singing stopped to shout. “Work. You don’t have to prove to anybody of ya worth with words. Actions! Actions speak louder than anything in this damn world! Let them call me zuekluk, let them call you a failure. We all know better. We all know better! And we will be better than them!”

Grimnir!

“Master’s right, Daichi!” Ellaine interjected to support. “Who cares what others think about you when you can show them your worth. Stop listening to the insults from that bully. Work harder! Faster! So we can show him what the Aurora can do! What Master Grimnir managed to teach us! WORK!”

“Kuek!” Daichi clenched his hands into fists, turning his weary face first to the two hidden behind the curtains before back to Darlion. The dwarf was stils smirking, trying to egg him on, but Daichi returned his eyes to his work, his anvil! “Ellaine! I got the fingers almost ready!”

“Good!” Ellaine then suddenly charged out of the curtain, her spell rings shining brightly. She cast [Swift Winds] onto herself, but the light from her rings didn’t dim, meaning she was using her demonic powers here.

Her entire body, outside of her face, was hidden behind her thick worker clothes. If she was using [Musclemass] to strengthen herself, then nobody would be able to see it happening.

With her increased Agility from the skill, Ellaine put on her mana breaker gloves and picked up her thinker’s wand.

“Insanity!” Now Peregrin, the runesmith master, couldn’t help but react to what was happening. “Madness! She’s doing the mana circuitry while the metal hasn’t been bent into shape yet?! While it’s still hot?!”

“It’s exactly what you heard him say, people!” I followed up on his reaction, seeing as most probably couldn’t hear him. “Ellaine has not only started the artificer part of the challenge, but she’s doing it while Daichi is still bending things into shape. That means, she’s creating the circuitry of mana all while avoiding his hammer strikes! This is a massive risk. Her hard work can just blow up if Daichi makes a single mistake!”

Is this how you guys are trying to save time?!

Recklessness — that was all you call this strategy. It finally dawned on me what they were planning on doing as I watched Ellaine not only start putting in the circuitry, but also helping Grimnir out with the runesmithing.

“Ellaine!” Daichi called.

“Lass!” Grimnir would order her to him.

It was a crazy plan. Grimnir and Daichi would do the smithing, while Ellaine would act as a real apprentice for both of them, all while keeping herself busy with the mana circuitry. I didn’t understand why they thought this strategy was the best. Ellaine was fast due to her spells and demonic power, but this should still be incredibly stressful on her.

Seeing them work like this, the Luedbrumdar’s side were clearly unnerved, but moments later, Ugoval shouted. He told everybody to focus, denouncing their actions as ones made from desperation. They were only three, so the only way Grimnir could win was to risk it by trusting his apprentices on the more extensive work.

“That fool is trusting some kids on work for the king? Fool! As if apprentices will do anything but ruin proper work!” His words rallied the masters and Darlion, but it also had a side effect of demoralizing the five apprentices. Although the masters rallied, the apprentices looked far more nervous, almost as if the pressure was starting to get to them.

… However, this was just the start.

“Kuooooooooooooh! Dhuiiiiiiiiin! Hoshkuuuuuuut, vie Dhuiiiiiin!” Now, Grimnir’s voice wasn’t just the sound of a bass, but it felt like there was an echo coming from it. A deep, unsettling reverb; it was almost hard to listen to… but only for me.

“D-Dhuinn?!” Jadhund took a step back.

“Kuek!” Meriadoc stiffened up, looking in Grimnir’s direction with terror. This fear, though, became reality when Grimnir’s next strike created a blue-red lightning from behind the curtains. “Dhuinn rune!”

I snapped over to Jadhun, shaking him awake to have him explain what they were talking about.

“Dhuinn runes, dear crowd, is what runesmiths call the best of the best, named in honor of the God and Father of Runesmithing himself, Dhuinn! Although it isn’t some sorta secret method or something, as even apprentices can learn how to make them, creating them is a different question.” Jadhund then nodded, taking a deep breath. “Able to hold onto magic and special effects on the same tier as level six advanced magic skills, these runes not only take up three possible slots from a piece of equipment for a single effect, they also require you to strain, possibly even break your voice to create them.”

“Break?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Infuse mana into your throat, that’s why you can hear his voice echo as he sings. However, that’s not really a problem with potions and a holy mage around.” He waved his hand before pointing in Grimnir’s direction as another blue-red lightning bolt appeared behind the curtains. “The problem is that ya can’t make Dhuinn runes with pig blood. Ya need, at least, rank D monster blood for that. The fact the lightning coming from the anvil is red tells you that the blood can’t bind the amount of mana he’s hammering into it.”

Hearing this, I snapped my head up. “Wait, isn’t that bad?!”

“Not at all, lass. Actually, that damn fool might have figured out how to win this match! Dhuinn runes are huge, compared to normal ones. You need two ingots of molten metal to make everything.” Just as he said that, Grimnir came out of the curtains to place an ingot into the furnace. “Those runes cannot work! That’s the point! He ain’t here to make a battlefield set of armor, he’s making ceremonial ones. Unlike normal runes, he doesn’t need to make sure the runes work, he just has to make sure they look good. It’s a decoration!”

“T-that means… it’s another time saver!”

“Correct!”

“Uuuuuuuh, huuuuuaaaaaandaaaa vieeeeeeeee.” The sound of Grimnir’s singing voice was almost as if he was agreeing with us.

This was the first time I’d heard of Dhuinn runes, but just the fact Grimnir had thought of another way to save on time and labor made me excited. Not just me, but also the rest of the audience as we understood the more tricks the Grimnir side was showing, the more it was likely they could finish on time.

“20 more minutes! A whole bell had passed everybody! This is the final stretch!” I announced.

“Done!” The artificers on the Luedbrumdar shouted as they held the finished gauntlets up, causing loud roars to come from the dwarves.

On the other hand, Daichi had only just now finished the gauntlets, allowing Ellaine to work on them without fearing her fingers might get crushed. Sadly, Grimnir wasn’t done yet, so she still had to divert her attention. While those two were continuing the artificer and runesmithing parts, Daichi was now beginning the creation of the pauldrons. There was less than 17 minutes left, and none of them were finished yet!

This contrasted with the Luedbrumdars, as the artificers were now helping out with the rune creation. Meriadoc had been unnerved by Grimnir’s blatant challenge with the Dhuinn rune, but he had composed himself. He was almost finished.

“Keep it up!” Ugoval shouted as he and Darlion were adding details onto the rest of the platemail. He then snapped his head to his real apprentice, pointing his finger away. “You! Paint! Get more paint!”

“Y-yes, Master …”

Unlike Grimnir’s side, the apprentices on their side, outside of Darlion, had only done menial tasks. All to support their masters, as they weren’t trusted with even hammering some metal. Wiping off the sweat from their master’s faces, holding metal down, and being fetch boys; they weren’t even trusted to pour blood onto the runes! Were the masters this nervous, such that they couldn’t even have their apprentices do the bare minimum as craftsmen?

Sadly, commenting on that might be a bit too BM—bad-manners. I mean, I shouldn’t be biased, right?

Ten more minutes, but Daichi, Ellaine, and Grimnir weren’t done yet.

“Done!” Meriadoc shouted, presenting three glowing runes on the breastplate of the cuirass. They then left the assembly to the artificers to help the blacksmiths add the last bits of details, like the Kongun’s clan emblem.

Five minutes left.

“Done!” Ellaine shouted, almost collapsing on the ground. Her face was drenched with sweat, to the point you could see how soaked her clothes were.

Sadly, she couldn’t rest yet. She had to force her exhausted body back to Grimnir, as the runes weren’t done yet.

“Lad!” Grimnir called Daichi, prompting the young man to rush behind the curtains with the still unfinished metal pauldrons.

Two more minutes.

“Finished!”

I snapped my head around, grimacing slightly as I saw the Luedbrumdar proudly present their finished armor and a set of gauntlets. The fact they were brimming with mana, lighting it up to accentuate the details and color they gave them made me feel very unwell. I could feel my stomach churn a bit as Grimnri still wasn’t finished. There wasn’t much time left.

“We have our first finished contestants! As expected, the Luedbrumdar clan!” I kept shoutcasting, despite wanting to bite my lips. “They were already done a while ago, but the fact they gave their all in adding the details on their armor was surely a feat worth mentioning! What a landslide in creation time! On the other hand …”

I looked over.

“Saaaaaarlooooontaaaaa fieeee uuuuumsliiiid! Feeeeelknuuuuln lasaaa mahoooooj’ku ruuuuunek daaaaaahbu, Cruuuuustacia.”

Grimnir was still singing.

Shit! Shit! Shit! Come on, finish up!

One minute.

Come on! I snapped my head around to the Ankoran King, watching him laugh aloud as he began to get off his seat.

30 seconds.

Grimnir! Daichi!

Ten seconds!

Please!

“Ten!” I began the countdown. “Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two—”

Come on! Finish it up!

“—one, ze—”

“Done!” Three voices resounded in unison as they dashed out from the curtains, slamming gold and red painted cuirass onto the anvil. All three were breathing heavily, ready to collapse.

“Zero! It’s done, put down your hammers now!” At this point, it was just courtesy to say it, but the fact I said it caused everybody to finally let out the pent-up tension.

First to feel it were the apprentices on the Luedbrumdar side, all falling on the ground, taking in deeper breaths than me after stamina training during P.E. The next was Daichi, who couldn't hold himself on his legs any longer. He couldn’t even pull himself up with how strained his arms were. Hammering that much would do that to you.

Nevertheless, until the King accepted a winner, this competition wouldn’t end. As such, the Ankoran King came onto the stage, followed by Grimnir and Ugoval presenting their work to him.

He stared at the works first, before turning around to me. “Well, dear, dragon princess, would you not finish your duty?”

Seeing him smirk, revealing those sharp canines of his, made me think the summit I would have with him would be quite troublesome. It really seemed like his personality wouldn’t be one I would very much like… or maybe I was being too judgemental. Still, he was right, I still had a job to do.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the final stage of this competition is finally here! The declaration of a winner!” I then cast [Unheiliger Engel], producing two wings with them to hold both pieces of armor in the air for everybody to see. “First, you have the Luedbrumdar’s!”

Two words: straightforward and pretty. There didn’t seem to be any problems with them at first glance, but while I called them “normal,” they still had added color and hard ridges along the pauldrons to give the armor some personality. It looked heavy, but with the gold and blue coloring, it made the armor exude regalness. The gauntlets, too, have a similar vibe.

On the other hand, Grimnir’s gauntlets looked… less impressive. There were some deformation here and there, evidence that the creators weren’t masters like the Luedbrumdar’s. The mana circuitry inside still looked like a beautiful stream of rivers, perfectly giving that techie-look. There were good things here and there, and you could see the smith did their best, but it wasn’t comparable to its competitor.

When I gave those descriptions to everybody, Darlion naturally smirked, holding himself from laughing. He knew the gauntlets would go into his favor. However, a single superior piece wouldn’t decide the actual winner. You won it all, or you didn’t.

As such…

“This is the last piece—the armor made from the Grimnir side. A cuirass composed of four layers, colored blue and red, instead of blue like the other side. However, as I could guess from everybody’s attentive look, it should be obvious what is the main selling point of this piece of armor—the rune!”

As Jadhund mentioned, the Dhuinn rune was quite huge, in fact, it looked almost like a tattoo on the armor. Starting from the chestplate, the rune spread its ever-glowing blue color throughout the cuirass with detailed paintings like a mural. As if Grimnir was telling the story of somebody, you could see the figure of a person as they went through trials and tribulations, before finishing in the middle, where a crown sat on top of a metal bearded mask.

“… Speak.” High King Fugnarus ordered Grimnir. “Is this what I think it is?”

“Yes.” He bowed respectfully before responding, sounding extremely hoarse. All that signing probably destroyed his voice. “Before today came, I had figured this would be a sorta competition, considering the High Queen’s preposition for theater and kabuki shows. As such, I had already planned everything for this to be your armor. I have read her memoirs.”

Even kabuki shows? Man, the Revolution Queen is such a weeb … Oh, wait, she’s Japanese. Otaku.

While I was contemplating that fact, Grimnir then began tracing his finger along the armor, dimming the blue glowing runes outside of the places he touched. “… I apologize… for what I did in the past, my king. I know she was your aunt. I shouldn’t have invaded such a place.”

Aunt? Wait, hold on, right. Kongun. Chihiro’s mortal name was Dravlia Kongun.

“This is your forgiveness after so long, Grimnir?” the king spoke calmly, picking up the gauntlets to try them on. They fit him perfectly. “Well, Queen Dravlia’s is one thing, zuekluk. Laws are laws, even if God Bleidla never enforces them. Still… I can see what your travels have given you. Wisdom.”

“And far too much forgiveness.” He then kneeled down, holding his head down. “Aside from the competition, I wish to dedicate this gift to you not only in my name, but also in my princess’s name! To commemorate your meeting and to bid this acquaintanceship to turn into friendship!”

Grimnir!

W-what was this guy planning?!

“Gahahahaha!” While I was embarrassed and stunned at Grimnir’s entire plan, Fugnarus crackled loudly, letting everybody see the remains of the pastries he had been dining with King Drangleic. “Good! You are exiled, so you have the right to choose who to serve, zuekluk! But, my, what a great mistress you found. She has good taste. What a gift this is, Dragon Princess Hestia. I didn’t know you knew my love for good armor! What an amazing cuirass; I could tell this story to my future children!”

“…” I couldn’t say anything. I was just too baffled at how this was developing, so I could only smile back.

Seeing my lack of reaction, the dwarf turned around, putting Grimnir’s armor back on a table to inspect our competition’s. “However, I cannot let a silver tongue bribe me here… Ugoval!”

“Yes, my liege!” The man kneeled.

“I can see your improvements ever since Grimnir left the clan. I can see the precision in your strikes, but I can also see your bad habit of holding the tongs too tightly. This little indent on the edges here, almost like your inscription.” The King traced his hands along the ridges of the armor, feeling them out. “The runes might be well placed, but as you can guess, they aren’t a match for even a faulty Dhuinn rune. Still impressive. If proper blood was given, then what an honor to witness its birth.”

He then tried on the gauntlets, given a satisfactory nod. “Gauntlets, though, far superior. Design-wise, fitting, and it feels great in my hands. Lad!”

“Yes!” Daichi answered as the king turned to him. The young man jumped onto his feet, running over to bow.

“Needs work. Tis an insult to present such soddy work to a king, do you understand?” Daichi twitched, forcing himself to nod out of respect. “… But, I can see the passion. Work harder. Don’t let the lass’s work go to waste next time, eh? Tis some good mana circuits. Feels like a Tazong made it, not some human. ”

“Thank you, High King Fugnarus!” Ellaine bowed with full confidence. “It is an honor.”

“Y-yes! Thank you very much for your kind words!” Daichi did the same, only that I could see him unable to keep himself from smiling.

“Hmm …” Fugnarus then began to contemplate, before letting out a small sigh. “Ugoval, Meriadoc, Peregrin.”

“… Yes.” All three moved forward.

“I must say, it was good to see your work. I will remember your names. Bless the capital and the mountains with your work and skills, alright?”

“…” The three dwarven masters bowed their heads in crestfallen manner, only to snap them up, banging their fists on their plate armor. “WE ACCEPT YOUR DECISION! Thank you, your Majesty!”

“Grimnir!” He then turned around, now holding the armor and gauntlets he made. “… Still a long way to become a real teacher. Still, good work; your skills have not rusted one bit since you left. I like it very much. Congratulations, I shall take yours back home.”

“Tha—”

“YEEEEEESSSSSS!” I charged forward the moment I heard this, grabbing Daichi and Ellaine before shoving them close to Grimnir. In a large embrace, I hugged all of them before jumping around in pure joy! “You can’t believe how much I was worrying! What the hell was that last moment reveal, huh? Jeez, that’s how you make people worry!”

“H-Hestia, stop! Please! I’m—”

“Oi, oi! Stop it, Hestia-san! This is really nauseating!”

“Gahahaha! Dammit, lass, couldn’t you have waited a moment more? Hahahah!”

The pent-up anticipation holding this crowd on the seats was finally released, as people cheered and clapped to those who won and lost. It was a graceful loss by the Luedbrumdar clan members, allowing the mood to be jubilant. Sure, some dwarves were shocked in their seats, and I could see the apprentices on their side crying a bit.

It was strange. I felt bad for them. Despite all the animosity between our two groups, in this very last moment, there was genuine respect. The three masters couldn’t help but praise Grimnir for his impressive work, seeing as he basically beat four master artisans, with only the help of two apprentices. Obviously, there was still some lingering hostility, but in this very moment, it was all forgiven for the craft.

“Griiiiiimnir! Wraaaahaaaaaaha!” Even Rosserto couldn’t stop himself as he charged onto the stage to perform with his band. His emotions were expressed through song.

“Nice one, Daichi-kun!”

“Yeah, great work, ass kisser. You did a great job there!”

Even the students came to celebrate Daichi’s victory, despite Kyouya and Tatsuya not liking him so much.

“Shut, you assholes! Hahaha, but yeah, hehe, can’t believe… I did something like this.” The emotions were getting to him. I could see from his wet eyes.

“Ellaine, my dear, you did a wonderful job! Still, I have to tell Josine that you need some proper shampoo! You reek, my dear!” On the other hand, Ellaine’s friends and family had a different way to congratulate her.

Naturally, the person herself couldn’t take it as she pouted with a reddened face. “Mother! Please, you don’t know how disgusting that makes me feel!”

“Oh come on, Mother. Our poor youngest will probably melt after being exposed to so much heat! Just look at her face, a fever!” Jonathan added to the teasing. “Don’t you think so, too, Lady Amelia?‘

“Hiehie, the academy will love this story. Sweaty and soot-covered Ellaine. Even your arms are starting to bulk up like a man’s, my dear friend.” Even Amelia joined the teasing train!

“W-wah, now you’re going too far!”

It was a moment of reprieve and celebration… Sadly, two people didn’t think the same. As the orchestra was filled with music and jubilation, two people snuck out.

Rajah, we’re counting on you.

A note from AbyssRaven

Well, this story isn't really a crafting story, and its been a while since we have one. This one was a real long one, but I hoped you guys liked it. Any feedback on it? Too much description?

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 380: When Amongst Dwarves, do what the Dwarves do.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Bladdarg! Lashrunda boyo!”

An ear-throbbing sound echoed inside this stone room as metal struck metal. In the next moment, a heavy-sounding thud replaced it, accompanied by loud groaning and pleading, only for it to be muffled up by another loud metallic bang.

Inside this room, only two dwarves were around. Nobody else could hear or see the altercation happening… outside of a single eavesdropper. Hiding inside a small shadow created by the light of a manatech lamp, the shadow beast stared at what was happening. He did nothing else, as that was his orders from his master. Although he had learned morals, he did not think it was necessary to intervene… no matter what was to become of it.

“‘Fels-guk pal drahi tazong gazon oyti?’ Bladdarg! Bladdarg! BLADDARG!” The elder-looking dwarf with a single large eye kept kicking the younger man on the floor, targeting his head, stomach, and even his groin. His armor brimmed with mana and runes, strengthening his attacks against the young man in a blacksmith’s garb.

The young man, persisting through the pain, grabbed the man’s sabatons, pushing it back for him to speak, “Valto! Grak! Ugrrruk! Valto, plearsik, meshto! Grruk!”

Unfortunately, the older dwarf didn’t let up, rambling with a reddened face similar to the wild fire of a forge, and most likely insulting and demeaning the young man. Sadly, the beast couldn’t understand what they were saying. He had not learned the dwarven tongue. Still, he knew who the people in front of him were, as he had been observing them the moment they left the Obsidian Orchestra of his beautiful master.

Rajah really doesn’t like that old man. Maybe I should attack? Hestia’s virigress kit wondered what they should do in this situation, feeling slightly uncomfortable as Maagneil kept kicking his second son, Darlion. The old man’s unhinged voice and the constant failed pleas and grunts from the young man made this stalker of the Belzac forest feel like he had to do something.

However, once again, he followed the teachings of his mother. Although he had evolved, he was still a virigress, an ambush hunter. The shadows attached to his body were his only defense, so he decided to stay low; quiet as the dead.

After however so long, Maagneil finally stopped, watching his youngest son lying on the ground in his own pool of spit, tears, and blood. Without a beard, it was easy to see his broken teeth, large purple bulges covering up his eyes, and bloody, dislocated nose.

“Zuekluk.” He spat on his unconscious son before turning around, walking towards a door. “Broggart… jou shatala finidi.”

“Broggart, you wouldn’t have failed,” a rather tragic mumble of this crazed man. His first son had died, his beloved first son, but he still could not find the affection in his heart he needed to show his younger one. Darlion only seeked his father’s approval, the attention he was due during all those years of simply being his older brother’s shadow—an afterthought, even to his parents. Whether that made both pitiable was reserved for the future to decide.

Maagneil opened the door.

Move.

And so, Rajah accompanied him, instead of his son. Left forgotten and broken on the floor, even by the intruder.

***

“Ahhhhhhhh, my beloved carriage. Ahahaha! I have come back for you, my little one!” Watching Grimnir hug the walls of our carriage was a pretty surreal thing to see, but then again, when it came to his creations and craft, he could be as eccentric as any other dwarf.

Then again, not like I couldn’t sympathize with him. How long had it been since I touched the hardy wooden walls of our carriage, the one we had started out with since Grimnir joined us? Well, I guess nearly two months, but it seems that being stuck inside this hold after being confiscated by the Luedbrumdar clan had a pretty drastic impact on its appearance.

There was some mold here and there, and I could even see some fungus growing on the wheels. Not to mention the shoddy treatment it received from its captureres. The Luedbrumdar clan did not treat our baby well at all, to the point you could see points of impact from axes and hammers.This wasn’t even mentioning the inside!

“Tasianna?” I snapped my head as I spotted her exiting the carriage with Haruka. “Please, tell me they didn’t ruin the RV too much.”

Sadly, both girls shook their heads, prompting me to clench my fist up. I wanted to punch that bastard Maagneil’s face so much, but I kept my cool, asking the two what the damages were.

“… The garden is completely ruined.” Was all Tasianna said before sighing, looking crestfallen. The garden was Tasianna’s baby, after all; her most important location inside our RV and subspace, where she could grow her tea leaves, produce, and alchemical ingredients.

Haruka patted her back, before producing a sheet of parchment. “I’ve documented all the damages. We can sue the Luedbrumdar clan to repay everything, not to mention compensation for the stuff they took from us.”

“Haaaa, well, let’s hope Queen Tragaya can uncover everything to turn this case in our favor. At the very least, there are some reparations I can force through since Kargryx is allied with the dwarves. One of the moments when this princess stuff isn’t just a drag.”

A day had passed since the Obsidian Trap had gone off, successfully humiliating Maagneil for what he had done to Aurora in addition to showing off Grimnir’s skills. Naturally, watching him being chosen the winner by Ankoran King Fugnarus caused him to jump up the popularity poll for the Artorian, Estralian, and Yeosian blacksmiths and craftsmen. Some even were gutsy enough to ask him to become his apprentice after watching Ellaine and Daichi work. Naturally, they were rejected.

Furthermore, King Drangleic even wanted to commission some equipment from Grimnir, and since I owed him a debt for even bringing the Ankoran King and Queen here, we couldn’t really reject him. Indeed, the fact Grimnir’s reputation increased was actually a great boon I hadn’t thought about when I proposed this plan. Grimnir could make money through crafting requests… although, that would still put us at odds with the blacksmith’s guild, since Bleidla took his [Blacksmith’s Eyes] away.

In any case, after everything was done, instead of going to confront Maagneil, we instead took this time to finally take a break. Dude, eight days of preparations for all of this was tough work. No time to rest, so much paperwork and marketing, not to mention all the training. Preparing for a concert was always tough, but since this also involved Grimnir’s problem, there were even more things I had to account for. For example, my big fat debt and bankruptcy.

Meaning, my role as Aurora’s leader wasn’t finished yet. I still needed to plan out how to earn more money soon. The debt had no time limit, but if I had more favors to ask in the future, I better start cleaning my current ones up. Well, R.I.P. my training. I still needed to finish my new custom spells and finally get through the next stage of my [Battle Frenzy]. The moderate stage was so close.

“Hey, Grimnir, you don’t mind me finessing money from your clan, right?”

Grimnir, while not stopping hugging his RV, answered, “Not one bit, lass. Father’s been dead for a while. Mother lives with her maiden clan. Siblings been working freelance in other holds, so they won’t care. Take as much as you want, ahaha!”

His father is dead? Oh… probably shouldn’t have said that, but what’s done is done. Isn’t bothering him, so let’s just drop it.

In any case, where were we? Outside the main building of the Luedbrumdar clan, evidently as I could see numerous Luedbrumdar members glaring at us, instead of the few guards Queen Tragaya brought with her. Yup, we weren’t using the city guards for this, as we couldn’t trust them.

We were here to get back what was ours and to make sure the clan lived up to their end of the bargain—giving us Broggart’s tools and key. It was just strange how we got here in the first place. Not Grimnir’s party’s whole ordeal, but what happened after Grimnir won.

I wanted to use yesterday night to rest from the competition and my performance, plus I was thinking of opening Saori’s portal up and going to visit her. I couldn’t believe it when Yorshka and Priscilla told me she and Asaka came to update us on their end. Even more crazy was the fact Saori, the madwoman, had infiltrated and attacked the grimgarian army’s base. Didn’t she need help? She didn’t even try to ask for assistance when she came over, she was more worried about updating us, at least according to the mother and daughter duo.

Considering we had nothing to do right now, helping her wouldn’t really be a bother. We still had over a month left until the summit, after all. Then again… I really didn’t know how to deal with the situation. I wanted them to stop working with the demonkins, so a peaceful option would be nice, but if they couldn’t be reasoned with, then another massacre with [Dragon Fire]? After experiencing Mother’s memories and launching that [Dragon Fire] on the grimgarian’s navy, the idea of war just felt… bad. Well, not to mention, the entirety of the Elyonda siege.

Feels like I’m worrying about everything at this point.

Just when I was contemplating on this matter, trapped in what I should be doing, Rajah appeared, bringing news of what happened as he spied on Maagneil and Darlion. What I heard was pretty shocking, to the point I had to go and inform the Ankoran King. Once morning came, we met with him and told him everything.

And so, while waiting, we decided to reclaim our RV wagon, and this was the result.

[“Master.”]

I turned around as I heard that voice, watching my shadow slowly grow larger and bulkier. A horse-sized tiger revealed himself, before shaking off black goo from his fur, revealing white glowing stripes. As the goo landed on the ground, it slowly returned to Rajah, only this time, they attached themselves on his black legs and tail.

Curiously, the goo hardened up and began exuding some sorta black mist, forming sharp razors and claws as weapons. My virigress began to stretch and yawn, revealing a set of disturbingly green-glowing teeth and fangs, probably laced with the usual virigress venom. To finish off his new appearance, Rajah now had two clear white eyes with the ability to light up like his fur. He was like a lamp now!

[“They are done,”] he told me.

I nodded in response and turned to the others, letting them know it was time to collect our prize. While Tasianna and Haruka would stay back to check on the RV, Grimnir, Rajah, and I went ahead. As the most influential clan in this hold, outside of the royal family, this place was huge like a traditional Japanese-styled mansion with the ponds, garden, bridges, and multiple wings and buildings attached to create this, rather, nice scenery despite it being underground. A bit nostalgic even, as it reminded me of my Japanese grandparent’s place.

Almost as if he had lived here for most of his life, Grimnir led me through the place with little problem, not even relying on the guards or servants to help him. In fact, I could hear some mumbles about “Master Grimnir is back…” or “Does Master Grimnir have a right to inherit the position now?” Of course, some were insults, which I just ignored. Did they think I couldn’t hear them?

We eventually ended up in front of the stone door in the furthest left of the place. Although it was decorated like a Japanese place, the building was still very dwarven in style with their stone buildings. This door, in particular, was quite interesting, as it had multiple holes and things removed from it. Sitting before it were broken metal planks and pieces of junk I didn’t care to closely inspect.

“Who would think he would hide everything here.” Grimnir shook his head in exasperation, speaking of Maagneil. “He didn’t put anything in the main storage room, but in Broggi’s room? Hmm… sometimes I wonder if sending his body back home was the right decision.”

“I think it was,” I reassured him. “Sure, Broggi’s dairy didn’t show him in the best light, but you loved him as a cousin, right? People deserve to go home… and his family, especially, deserved to know their relative perished. Just because Maagneil turned mad doesn’t mean it's your fault.”

“Hmph. I wish I had your optimism, lass.” Grimnir sighed before moving into the room.

The room was mostly empty outside of your usual bedroom furniture like a bed, cupboard, and so on. However, there, in one of the corners of the room, a part of the floor was taken out, revealing a red button. Two of Queen Tragaya’s handmaiden, kimono-wearing women with face masks, noticed us and bowed, before pressing the button to reveal a trap door opening underneath the floor next to it.

Another of Broggart’s hidden paths, similar to the one in the dungeon we found. Since it was too small for him, Rajah reentered my shadow as Grimnir and I walked down the stairs, where we met the rest of the students waiting behind a noisy door. I could hear some deep sounding man trying to get somebody to talk, making it sound like an interrogation.

“Has he not said anything yet?” I asked them, to which Nishio shook his head.

Although still looking a bit under the weather from the injuries he gained during his long-stay in the Luedbrumdar’s prison, Mister Glasses couldn’t stop himself from getting back into action. “Darlion won’t even say anything, despite looking worse than when they pummeled Nishio and me.”

I clicked my tongue, finding this beyond irritating. “Are you kidding? His father knocked him unconscious! Leaving him in his own puddle of blood, spit, and piss! He still won’t say anything?! How can you he still think to defend his fucking bastard of a father even now?!”

What Rajah told us wasn’t just this hidden place but also the fact Maagneil had escaped. It was to be expected, considering Queen Tragaya was inspecting the hold king. According to them, they had every entrance and exit out of this place guarded, to the point they even stationed some people inside the mansion.

They had even followed and accompanied Maagneil and his son until they went into Broggart’s room. Due to the mana barrier surrounding the ground, it was very hard to break or dig through it, outside of disabling the barrier itself or creating enough damage to break it, which would have been loud enough to key everyone in on the escape if he had done any of these things. They even had blueprints of the place, making sure Maagneil and Darlion couldn’t escape if justice awaited them.

The thing was, Broggart’s trap door was not only well hidden, but never reported. According to documents, Maagneil knew about it, but chose to not inform the hold king, as he knew this was a crime. Breaking the barrier could land his prized son into trouble, which was why this place was kept out of everybody’s attention. The Queen thought she had everything covered… outside of the fact Broggart was Broggart.

Rajah didn’t know about this either when he trailed Maagneil. I mean, I didn’t even consider that could happen, so I didn’t give him such an order. Just a reminder that Rajah was still a cub; a child, essentially. He watched Maagneil escape but when he tried to follow him, a door slammed shut, preventing his pursuit, forcing him to report everything to me. Which led to our current situation.

“Dammit! The Queen should have just arrested him there on the spot! This wouldn’t have happened if she had just acted instead of waiting for him!” I complained, feeling so irritated we let him flee like this.

“Oi, not like you had never made a mistake before, huh?” Grimnir rebuked me.

“Oh, shut it …” I shook my head, reminded of how I let Hamil, one of the perpetrators of the Griffonpeak attack, as well as Vifi’Yok escape. Two major enemies I could have stopped there if I had just ignored my sentimental side.

“Also, it wasn’t like they had any evidence when Grimnir won,” Tamae supported Grimnir. “The fact they had guards stationed around was all the Queen could legally do. Each hold ruled themselves, while the Ankoran King ruled over the capital and the hold kings and queens.”

The Ankoran King and Queen were respected figures inside dwarven culture, but an age old law prevented them from actually interfering with a hold’s belongings and people unless the hold’s ruler allowed it or was decommissioned. Essentially, they had no jurisdiction here and trying to do anything of that sort was considered tyranny and a crime, even if justified. Why? ‘Cause each hold feared a power-hungry ruler stomping down on their traditions and lives.

Not like I couldn’t understand it; in fact, it sounded pretty fair. However, in a situation like this, when the hold king was uncooperative, the Queen had to accuse the king for wrongdoing first. Complicated bureaucratic stuff even happened in Peolynca. Crazy, honestly.

I could complain as much as I wanted, but unless I actually wanted to get into trouble by arresting Maagneil myself, my hands were tied. Kargryx might be an ally, but it didn’t mean I had enough influence to do something. If I caused trouble, I wouldn’t have my dragon father’s support, I understood that without anybody explaining it. After all, Kargryx had a strong isolationist mindset.

Too bad I’m trying to be a good girl…

As I was sighing in displeasure, Daichi suddenly walked up. “Hestia-san, I know it’s crap, but if I have to remind you, I am technically also a criminal right now. That burning beards stuff was actually a crime, and not something the Luedbrumdar tried to use to find a leeway over Master Grimnir.”

“He’s right, lass,” Grimnir chimed in, stroking his orange beard. “Our crust’lock is part of a dwarf’s honor. You burn it or break it, a clan is in their fight to bring you to court, or, in some holds, allowed to attack you for it. If you argue my uncle should have been arrested, then the lad shouldn’t be with us right now either. He would be behind bars.”

“Argh! Come on, he attacked me! He had his soldiers attack me. Not only me, but all of you! There had to be something we could have done…”

“No.” However, my anger suddenly subsided when I heard that voice. I turned around, watching a kimono-wearing inko with a fur cape walk up to us.

It was Ankoran Queen Tragaya.

“U-uhm, good morning, High Queen Tragaya. Hmm, right! May your wellspring of life be ever filled with joy on this fine WaterDay,” I greeted her, even invoking the religious greeting for the day. Once I curtsied, she did the same.

“Yes, a fine day, my dear. No earthquakes, magma plumes, no disasters. Wonderful.” Once the small talk was over, she then turned my attention back to what she just said. “Back to the topic, no, you couldn’t.”

Hearing her drop her formalness, I did the same. “Why? You can’t say his subordinates didn’t attack me. What about the Edgesworn? Ellaine told me you managed to investigate a lot during the four days you were here.”

“Y-yeah, about that, Hestia…” Sadly, the way Ellaine responded to me made a chill run down my spine. “Maagneil placed the blame on the individual captains and leaders. He never once took any responsibility for anything. I just found that out today, sorry.”

Tragaya nodded. “To explain, the Edgesworns and the guards were the only ones directly responsible for your friends’ kidnapping and torture. It was clear as a diamond, but as distorted as an opal. They are admitted to be at fault, and now that I have successfully confiscated the hold king’s influence and privileges, I can now punish them.”

“What about when he attacked me himself? When he led a squad to fight me?” I mentioned what had happened after I stormed the Edgesworns’ base.

“You were trespassing and attacking a building in his district. As clan leader, he had all the right to do so. My dear princess, words matter, and he never once said to kill you himself. Politically, you have nothing to say here. Legally, even worse, you are technically a criminal in the eyes of Gazahan-Orn. Vigilantism is not legal.”

I kept silent, flabbergasted this was how it was going. I thought she was on my side here, however, all I could hear was accusations and, worse, rigid rule-keeping.

“I understand you are a dragon princess, but Kargryx rarely ever uses their political influence on anything. The last time they did was to look out for your missing egg, my dear lost princess. Do not think we Ankoran dwarves are weak and pitiful, so much you can strut in with your status to force your orders and wishes upon us!” Her brown eyes began to glow blue as her gentle voice turned oppressive.

“…” Now, I wasn’t just flabbergasted. I didn’t know what to say at all at this point, a fact everybody around me was sharing. This short woman was baring her fangs, and they weren’t blunt.

As I was starting to believe I had to hit back harder, just to make sure she wasn’t threatening me here, she shook her head. The blue light in her eyes dimmed. “… But, the thing is, my husband doesn’t want to be on your bad side, young princess. He has taken… a liking to you. A wisewoman I may be, but his queen, also. Secondly, politically, we do need to be allies for the upcoming summit. The lectures were harsh, I apologize. But we dwarves do not like others forcing their opinions on us.”

Her eyes then wandered left, looking over towards Grimnir, before she looked back at me again. “As I now hold the power over Gazahan-Orn, I will drop any charges against you and your friends. You were, in my humble opinion, completely justified. However, there is the matter with Mister Daichi …”

I looked over to him as he took a deep breath. He took a step forward. “I’ll take responsibility. I shouldn’t… have let my emotions run hot like that. I shouldn’t have used magic to attack him and burn his beard. That’s three charges, right?”

She nodded. “We will handle that later. Princ—Ahem, Hestia-oujo-sama. I know my lack of action angered you. But it isn’t like I had much power, myself. So are our traditions, so are our laws. Being flexible means breaking them, and that endangers my husband’s position as Ankoran King. He can be voted out by the other hold kings due to my actions. He might not care… but I am his wife, so I do care.”

“Mhmm.” I nodded back, accepting the fact I was politically and legally powerless in this place.

She smiled. “Now, I have preoccupied you far enough now. You probably want to see everything and collect what is due. Before that, though, I must inform you about the people who we had arrested.”

She first looked at Grimnir. “The Luedbrumdar clan are required to pay reparations for all the reputational and political damages they did in Ankor-Nazta’s name. They will mostly lose everything.”

She then turned to me. “Anybody not responsible won’t be punished, however, we have clear culprits here. The leader of the Edgesworns and a few captains and grunts, the captain of the guard and those who participated in the kidnappings, some Luedbrumdar’s who supported Maagneil’s plans, as well as the hold king and queen.”

“What will you do with them?” Tatsuya asked.

“The majority—execution.” I stiffened up a bit when I heard that. “The former two groups are obvious; conspiracy against a foreign allied imperial, detainment of her retainers, assault on mentioned imperial. The mentioned Luedbrumdar members and the hold king will be executed, for illegal contraband smuggling, conspiracy against the merchant and blacksmith guilds, and also profiting from Maagneil’s schemes. The hold queen—admittedly, she was my friend—will only be exiled. Surprisingly, she didn’t know anything about the contraband, but she did help her husband conspire against you. As a wisewoman, she broke her oath and duty. Strangely… I do not know if I should be happy she is alive or sad she must be exiled.”

“Complicated, huh?” I interjected, causing her to nod a bit crestfallen.

“Now, to my point, would you like to execute them yourself?”

At this point, my eyes widened like a goldfish, unable to answer the Queen immediately. Seeing me like this, the Queen nodded and explained, “The Rule of Vengeance. You have the right to personally execute a criminal, if they did you wrong. Reason? For experience. To settle the grudge. To find some catharsis. Now, your answer. This also applies to your friends, but not to Grimnir as he is an exile, and Daichi, since we still need to judge him.”

“… Weren’t some of the people we fought not very strong, Hestia-san?” Tatsuya suddenly mentioned, causing him to be wacked by Kyouya.

“Dude!”

“H-hey! I know!” Tatsuya cried back while massaging his head. “I was just saying! Some of them were rank Bs, and weren’t the people Hestia-san personally fought over 100 or something? That’s a lot of experience! We could really use some levels.”

“It feels wrong,” Tamae interjected, looking troubled.

Kohaku nodded. “Seconded. Killing somebody already feels bad, but execution? Their eyes, cries, anything else would make it feel even worse.”

“It would leave a bad taste, yeah,” Kazumi argued with her friend, but didn’t look too sincere.

“… Tatsuya isn’t wrong.” On the other hand, Nishio looked at it with a bleak outlook. “I couldn’t defend any of you. None of us could defend ourselves. What use is all this coddling and nice doing, when we can’t even survive without Hestia-san? We need levels.”

Nishio, you’re just gonna make Tamae sadder with that …

“Artorias has that law, too. However, it rarely applies to nobles, that was why none of us were offered it after the Firwood and Griffonpeak problems,” Ellaine gave her insight into it. “I am, personally, impartial to it. I believe a true knight shouldn’t execute others, that is the job of the executioner. Still, consider how the Edgesworn commanders were strong, not to mention the Luedbrumdar samurais.”

Instead of killing him, Ellaine did hand in that Charlesylt when he turned out to be a demonkin conspirator. She could have killed him right then and there, but instead chose the more noble direction and had him interrogated for information to incriminate the Cardinal of Artorias’s Church of Aurena.

The executioners must be at a very high level …

Haruka would definitely decline, but I wasn’t sure about Tasianna. Maybe she would choose that option. What about Grimnir? Or Daichi?

Grimnir shrugged. “I would call dibs on the hold king and Maagneil’s loyalist. Bad blood, but I can’t.”

While Daichi just let out a sigh. “I don’t really care, Hestia-san. I don’t know. After participating in that competition, I don’t really feel that angry anymore. Just happy.”

So, what should I do?

… After thinking about it, I didn’t know what was the correct answer here. However, if I was on the fence about it, maybe it would be better to leave it to the rest of the party.

“I decline my right,” I answered before turning around to the students and Ellaine. “Not like I would have a problem with it. I killed enough people already, so whatever. However, I do agree with Tatsuya and Nishio here. They would be worth the levels, so, I’ll give you guys the choice. Me killing them wouldn’t benefit me as much, what would benefit me would be Aurora becoming stronger. So I can leave my back to you guys. We are a team, right?”

“Hestia-san…” All of the students just looked at me in surprise, almost as if they couldn’t believe what I said.

Tamae was the first to say anything. “Right… we should talk about this seriously. Our morals haven’t gotten us very far, right?”

“… Yes, let’s do that,” Nishio agreed.

Despite the lacking responses, the Queen smiled. “Take some time, but don’t dally, dears. I know this world is different from Earth. The Great Goddess had spoken much about her home, so we wisewomen know a certain extent about it. If you have your answers, speak with us in the capital. Due process has to happen there, anyways.”

As she was about to leave, I had asked her about Darlion, but she told me he didn’t commit any crimes. In fact, Maagneil had left his son in the dark so much, he barely knew anything. He didn’t know his father’s businesses, he didn’t know where his father escaped to, he didn’t know anything. For the heir, Darlion had been left far too much in the dark.

This, alongside the beating he got from his father, just drove the point further how much of an asshole Maagneil was. Deluded and crazy; what a terrible combination. The situation was so weird, I didn’t want to believe Darlion didn’t know anything. I mean, with the way Maagneil treated his own son, shouldn’t Darlion shout? Complain? Scream? However, he did nothing of the sort.

“Hestia-san, just leave it.” But before I could let it out again, Daichi stopped me. “It isn’t our problem. Sometimes, kids just don’t want to betray their parents… no matter what. You know, they just want some love. Attention.”

I sensed he knew more about it, but decided to not prod further. I couldn’t deal with every problem. As such, we moved into the room where we found Darlion. There, behind the stains of blood, a single door was left open, and when we moved through it, we saw how it led into an underground cavern-like labyrinth.

The artificers on site told us how baffled they were about the door, mentioning how it would have taken them a whole day to figure out if they hadn’t noticed it was made with Broggart’s techniques. After some reverse engineering, they managed to open it. However, after that, they couldn’t tell where Maagneil fled to.

The guards there told us they wouldn’t pursue him, since they didn’t have a map of the place. Even the dwarves were scared of venturing somewhere without a clear goal, given the mana levels underground. If they wanted to continue, they needed an expedition team kitted for it. It will be done in the future.

So, we left it to them and decided to gather the stuff Maagneil had stored here—Broggart’s tools. Unexpectedly, all of it was stored inside what looked like his workshop. Interestingly, a lot of it was machinery, which Grimnir told me was to make crafting easier and quicker.

“For example, this machine here is for smelting ores quickly and easily.” Grimnir patted something like a furnace, pointing at two cabinets on the back of the thing. It didn’t look shoddy or homemade. “A normal smithy has a large one, but Broggi made a smaller one for his personal use. Supposedly faster and more efficient. It can extract the minerals better, separating it from the rocks and impurities.”

I shrugged. It wasn’t like I fully understood his excitement… or Ellaine’s and Daichi’s.

“Master! Look, your cousin’s artificer tools! By the Goddess, look at this wand.”

“Master! His hammers and other stuff are here! We also got some blueprints on stuff he couldn’t make.”

“Pack it all in, you two! Gahahaha, it’s time to expedite the process! No more hand smithing everything, we’re gonna push Aurora’s smithy into the next age!”

“Oooooh!” Both apprentices cheered.

As long as they were happy.

Still, some of those blueprints did state how to make the material Grimnir used on Ellaine’s new armor. He told me we needed to visit a mine to gather the objects we needed, since we were now bankrupt. With the new machine and tools, he told me the idea of making armor for my dragon form wasn’t far off.

He repeated this statement again once we also retrieved his tools and stuff, the ones he had in his old workshop before his exile. They were all stored inside the smithy of the Luedbrumdar’s industrial area. As you might expect, the people there weren’t too thrilled, but who cared? It wasn’t like it was theirs to begin with.

Once we had gathered everything and placed them inside my [Storage Magic], we left to pick up the RV. On the way, Grimnir asked Rajah if Maagneil had taken anything, to which he confirmed it was something that looked like an ID. He couldn’t [Identify] it in time, as he placed it in his pocket.

[“It was a bit smaller than an ID, but it has the same shape! Yup!”] Rajah answered.

“Nothing we can do. As long as it isn’t something that Broggi needed me to get.” Grimnir then pulled out a key. “All we needed was this.”

After we had stored everything in the subspace, including the RV, everybody then followed Grimnir back to the mine and into the safehouse left behind by Broggi. Once there again, we went to the center, where a key-like hole could be seen. Grimnir then placed the key into the hole, unlocking whatever was locked by it.

Suddenly, the mechanical gears in the place began to rattle faster, clanking and danking as more mana streamed into the center. Since we didn’t know what was going on, we all ran away to the entrance, where we saw the ground literally opening up. The stone floor broke open, prompting Grimnir to question how this was possible.

I had to concur, since this was a dungeon, not an ordinary mine. A dungeon master had to have known what happened here and allowed Broggart to do this. When I told him we should ask the dungeon master about this, he told me we probably couldn’t, as the previous dungeon master had died after Grimnir had been exiled. The current one couldn’t know. Meaning, all we could do was walk down.

As if we were walking down some ancient dwarven ruins in a video game, the stairs revealed by the moving platform led us deeper and deeper. Manatech lamps lit up, shining our path forward blue. Once at the bottom, most of us couldn’t believe we ventured down like this, but instantly raised our guards when we saw two statues guarding a small gate.

Using [Mana Eyes], I confirmed they weren’t golems or anything, so we passed them, opening the shut gate. What was there, however, was far less impressive than the trip down.

“It’s an altar,” Tasianna stated, pointing at the statue of a woman.

On the other hand, Kohaku scowled. “No… It’s a creep’s cave…”

She pointed at the many small figurine-like statues of a dwarven woman, looking similar to the larger one. Grimnir shook his head when he took a closer look, mentioning the portrayals of Chihiro, the Revolution Queen.

Dressed in a kimono with small tools on one hand, and a round orb in the other, Chihiro instantly came off as this technical Goddess. A craftswoman. However, not only did she have a kimono to represent her Japanese heritage, but she also had a sheathed katana attached to her sash—the obi. To finish off the outfit was the emblem of a dwarven mask, which looked quite familiar to the ones on the Ankoran King’s and Queen’s clothes.

At this point, it was clear this was Broggart’s hidden altar for Chihiro, but the question was, why hide this? Not to mention, behind a pretty elaborate contraption he probably needed years to finish. The answer to this question was stored inside a chest placed in front of the statue.

When we opened it, we found a single piece of manatech plus some sheets of paper underneath it. Strangely, this object wasn’t just something we could just ignore. In fact, while Tasianna, Ellaine, and Grimnir didn’t think too much about it, we Earthlings could only widen our eyes. The object had a small rectangle body with a lens attached to the front, while there was a small hole just large enough for an eye to look through. In addition, there was something like a card attached to the side like a gun’s magazine.

Yup, it was—

“A video recorder!” The students and I shouted in unison.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 381: You need Techies?

A note from AbyssRaven

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“It’s Braille,” Haruka answered after we put this crude-looking video recorder aside to read what was written on the piece of parchment underneath it.

“Braille? Brille? What is that?” I turned to Grimnir, Tasianna, and Ellaine, who all shrugged, meaning that wasn’t a Peolyncian word.

Seeing me confused, Tatsuya came to my rescue. “Braille. You know the finger-touching dots on modern elevator buttons or Kombini shelves? Very hard to the touch, also on credit cards?”

“Oooooh! The alphabet for blind people!” I snapped my fingers, finally understanding what it was. To be honest, I had never heard the name of it until now.

“There is a language for grey-visioners?” Ellaine tilted her head. When I asked her if that is what Peolyncians called the blind and if there was an alphabet like braille in this world, Ellaine first nodded before tapping her head. “Why would we need to invent a whole ‘tongue,’ when the System could just perform the same function?”

That was a deviation from my common sense, but it made sense now that she mentioned it. Not only could the System transfer information into your head, a blind person could also learn skills to help them walk and live a normal life. There was [Enhanced Enemy Sense], [Prediction], you could also have superhuman hearing with [Enhanced Auditory Sense]. Being blind wasn't as inconvenient as I thought in this world.

Nevertheless, society still invented options to help the blind on top of that. To prove it, Ellaine raised her party bracelet and opened one of its functions. It was called [Quick Message] and it opened up a keyboard with all the letters and punctuation Common used. When I wondered why the layout looked so familiar, Grimnir interjected.

“The previous version just listed all the letters like those letter cubes for them toddlers. It was a huge screen! The Revolution Queen adjusted it to be smaller and easier to type with.”

So another addition to the world from the Revolution Queen, and from the look of it, she was used to keyboards, huh? That narrowed down the year and age she was born in.

“So, why not use it all the time? It looks pretty useful compared to sending letters and so on. Why didn’t I get one?” I looked at my own bracelet, which only had the same functions it had since the day I got it. Ellaine got a new bracelet after she broke hers during the Griffonpeak siege when she fought Charleslyt, so she has the newest bracelet out of all Aurora.

“You can just ask any guild to grant you the function, Lady Hestia. Also, we don’t use it as often simply because it isn’t convenient,” Tasianna answered. “It only works when you are in a party, only when both party members are close by, anyone nearby can see what you write, and it has an easily recognizable mana signal that can be detected. Using it to spy doesn’t work, nor is it useful for your daily life, outside of transferring information to a grey-visoner.”

Ellaine nodded. “[Telepathy] is faster, more efficient on mana, and you don’t make it clear to others that you’re using it. If you want to quietly inform somebody, a discreet letter through a spy would be more effective. Not to mention, all this typing makes my hands feel awkward. Urgh.”

Ellaine’s typing discipline was pretty shoddy. She was only using two fingers, like some beginner. Still, she showed me it worked by sending me a <Hey!> message directly to my head. It essentially was like a short-ranged E-Mail, which was redundant as you could, you know, just speak. It was useful for the blind, but really cumbersome to use for anybody else, even for the mute and deaf, as they could just write stuff with mana.

Still, I did feel the Peolyncians in our party weren’t seeing the full potential of a technology like this. Sure, right now, it was pretty limited but what if it was improved in the future? Hmm, it really seemed like the Revolution Queen was trying to introduce computers before she died. Or maybe not, and it was just a coincidence. Then again, Aleistunum was currently trying to create a functional long-range messenger using mana, so maybe in the future computers might exist.

“I forgot people from Earth don’t have the Divine System.” Ellaine scratched her cheeks, looking a bit embarrassed. She then returned the discussion back to the subject of the braille code. “So, how are we supposed to decipher it? There were so many dots on the parchment.”

[“Master?”] Rajah looked at me, prompting the others to do the same.

“Just because it comes from Earth, doesn’t mean I know about it. My [Parallel Thoughts] isn’t some universal library if I never heard or learned about it.”

As such, I asked Grimnir if his cousin had written anything about it. Considering he hid the recorder here with the parchment, the diary probably had some answer. Grimnir nodded and looked through it again, specifically trying to remember if he had heard any weird words.

After some page turning, Grimnir found something at the end of his cousin’s dairy, specifically after their illegal entry into Chihiro’s workshop. “Bideo Nencordo” and “Baelle” were written in there using Common, instead of Dwarven. The book mentioned how Broggart had snuck some other items out of the workshop along with the blueprint for the gun.

“They are hidden in the other dungeons?” Tasianna placed a hand on her forehead, looking annoyed. Broggart had mentioned having made more than just one hiding spot. “Goddess forbid, must we seek out the other places, too, now?”

“Probably. He might have hidden the instructions in Braille somewhere there. Don’t worry, we don’t have to search for them. We’ll ask the dungeon masters; they have full control, so they can help out.” He then turned to me. “Probably have to use your influence again. They won’t listen to me, especially with the Luedbrumdar clan in this situation. They will blame me for it.”

Bit unfair and unjustified, but dwarves really had this serious “honor” problem. Grimnir could be pretty prideful himself, so it was just something I had to just accept. In a controlled setting, it could be pretty wholesome like with the ending of the smithing competition. The Luedbrumdar smiths were pretty good losers, congratulating Grimnir despite their hostile relationship.

I shrugged. It was par for the course at this point.“Nah, it’s okay. If he wants us to go on a scavenger hunt, then so be it; our fir—”

“Finished.”

“Huh?”

I turned around, looking at Haruka as she smiled, holding up the parchment with the braille code. There, underneath the dotted code, Japanese Hiragana was written. I was speechless, blinking my eyes as I tried to make sense of this. How did Haruka decipher this in, what, a couple of minutes or something?

“‘Human calculator,’ was her nickname back in school,” Tatsuya laughed as he saw me flabbergasted, only for Kyouya to lean over and smack him.

As Tatsuya cowered away, Kyouya cleared his voice, causing most of the girls around to smirk and giggle at his expense and making him blush. Haruka herself, though, could only smile wryly before she answered my confusion.

“M-my grandmother became legally blind after her 80th birthday. Sooo, well, when I was still small, I told my parents that I wanted to learn with her. It stuck around. My grandfather also taught me a few other things—”

“Oh, that’s adorable!” I blurted out, covering my mouth as I couldn’t keep myself from smiling.

“Right?!” Kohaku, Kazumi, and Tamae joined in, agreeing with me as we fawned over Haruka’s little tidbit of her personal history. Learning braille just to help your grandmother? What an absolute doll!

Seeing our reaction, Haruka jerked back a bit, looking uncomfortable. “B-but th-that’s not really important, okay! Here! Just read it. It’s the instructions to make the recorder turn on.”

She was right. Just as she said, the translated code was just an instructions manual to activate the recorder. Looking back at the rectangle object, I couldn’t see any buttons or other ways to turn it on and use it, but that was for a reason—to save space inside. To use it, we simply had to connect it to the chain of our party bracelet.

However, instead of me, I handed it over to Haruka, who gave me a weird look. I told her since she deciphered it, she should be the one to activate it. It was only fair. Besides, if there was another weird riddle or code the moment we opened it, it would be better for her to have it and solve it right away.

“… It’s not like I can solve everything. Nishio-san can do it, too …” Haruka pouted a bit, but she didn’t reject the idea so she accepted the recorder. “Hmm … certainly not dusty. Did you guys notice how this whole room isn’t musty or full of dirt?”

Now that she mentioned it, this place was pretty clean. Sure, there was some dust on the altar, but not to the point I would consider it dirty. How long ago had Broggart been here? I was pretty sure Broggart died around one or two years ago? Inside a cave like this, debris had to be falling from the ceiling, so why was this place so clean?

However, this thought died out the moment Haruka locked her bracelet’s chain on a small hook on the object, only for blue light to form around it.

“Oh!” she cried.

Not only did the hook seal shut with the mana, but according to the instructions, we could also pour our mana into it to extend the chain. She did just that and a blue string, almost like to mana threads, extended from the recorder, long enough for her to hold it in her hand comfortably.

Haruka then took another look at the instructions, reading through them from start to finish before opening her bracelet’s blue screen, where she pointed at a new function on it. “Recording and Reviewing,” it displayed. Once she pressed on it, a new screen opened, where she had an entire section just for the recorder—all the basic stuff you can imagine a normal video recorder to do.

The other side, however, was to check on the “film card,” specifically what was inside the card attached to the side of the object. Inside was only a single video, one titled “To Grimnir.”

Haruka immediately disconnected the recorder and handed it over to him. “Here, Mister.”

Grimnir accepted it, looking down at the recorder with a deep frown. “… Thank you, lass.”

He attached the recorder to his bracelet and opened up the function to watch the one video inside. The blue screen coming from his bracelet distorted a bit before a new screen opened, and this time it wasn’t full of buttons or functions, but an actual video. A recording of somebody playing with a blue screen on their party bracelet, before they sat down on a chair.

“Broggi!” Grimnir cried out as the video continued.

“Crustacia’s hair, hope this is working …” The Inko man in the video stated cautiously as he fumbled with the blue screen, before holding up the extra long thread coming from his bracelet, probably linked to the recorder. He then looked up. “Well, it says it’s working, at least. Chihiro-sama, oh, please have this work just fine. I know it’s just a prototype, but please, have it work. Huuuuf. Grimnir, cuoso!”

“Broggi! It’s me!” Grimnir pushed his face closer to the blue screen in response, only to jerk his head back in surprise. He shook his head before his eyes darted around, looking at us, the ceiling, and back to the screen as his expression turned solemn.

Grimnir … Ellaine, Daichi, and I patted his back.

The dwarf in question looked pretty close to Darlion, they were even both beardless! Still, while Darlion looked well-kempt and like a normal person, the grey-haired dwarf in the video looked as if he had not slept in days. To be blunt, he looked like a hardcore shut-in with how greasy his long hair were, how many pimples he had, and how gross his work clothes looked. Not to mention, he looked a bit too pale, even for a dwarf living underground; it could be an illness or just general exhaustion.

Compared to his relatives, Broggart was a far cry from Grimnir and Darlion. I wasn’t sure if he was older than Grimnir, but he certainly had more wrinkles than him. Honestly, this wasn’t the “famous Broggart of Gazahan-Orn, known as one of the best artificers around” I envisioned. It wasn’t even a super-idealized version; I just thought he would look more like Grimnir!

Goodness gracious, he’s a NEET! I wanted to shout out, but I kept it to myself as the situation felt too tense to say anything.

With all of us quiet, the video Broggi continued speaking, “Cuoso Grimnir, at this point, if ya’re the one watching this, then it means I am either dead or we have parted ways. However, if ya aren’t my cuoso—cousin—then I hope you can understand this. Stop the video and please send it to him, if possible. Otherwise … Well, this video recorder, as Goddess Chihiro calls it, is now yas to use and profit.”

That was the reason why he was speaking Common, instead of Dwarven.

“In any case, I hope it is the former … Cuoso. I believe you have read my diary to find this place. If you had read it all—”

“Damn right, I did, bashthuda! Bladdarg!” Grimnir cursed. This was his moment.

However, the video Broggi did not respond. Grimnir, however, looked like he wished his cousin had answered back. “… then ya probably are pretty angry. If I know ya as well as I do, ya probably called me a ‘bashthuda’ or something similar.”

“Yer damn right …” Grimnir slammed his arm on the stone table of the altar.

They were close …

“Well … ya know I’m not the type to apologize. I didn’t think what I did was wrong. Bleidla and his constant grating restrictions, not to mention, how his followers always swallow it up and regurgitate it like its gospel! That damn father of mine … Why? Why can’t the Ankoran King understand what a waste it is to leave Goddess Chihiro’s plans and ideas to rot in that measly cave?! The world deserves to learn from them! Learn from Earth!”

However, this part of Broggi was expected. The guy stood up to stomp on the ground, wildly scratching his messy hair in frustration. His ramble was focused on praising Chihiro and her inventions, while he kept complaining about Bleidla’s more conservative rules. He kept ranting on and on, showing no signs of stopping. He really seemed like a kid throwing a tantrum.

There was a button to fast forward it, but Grimnir didn’t even think about using it. His eyes were glued to the video—No, he was engrossed in seeing his energetic cousin once again. To him, this video was probably a very important memento at this point.

“… Haaaa.” Eventually, Broggi stopped, slumping on his chair in defeat. “Well, if I had died, then you probably sent my body back to the clan. Proper burial, right? Not like we zuekluks really deserve it for our greed—My greed. Considering how Father reacted when he had to exile us, he probably didn’t take it too well. He had always been a failure … pushing me into the role of clan leader! Insanity! As if I could!”

He really is rambling even more. Come on, dude, say something meaningful.

However, against my expectations, he stopped after he said that. He took a deep breath and stared at the camcorder. “… Cuoso. There is something I need to say. That I couldn’t have said, since I felt too embarrassed by it. I am … I apologize for dragging ya into my wishes. Ya wanted to see Chihiro’s workshop like me, but ya knew the consequences. Ya took them seriously. I tipped you over the edge.”

“Bladdarg … Don’t take all the blame, you fool.” Grimnir shook his head.

“I enjoyed our trip … how we overcame the dungeon as only two fighters, how we got around that damn drake without waking him, just like actual robbers, hahaha!”

Drake?

“Hehehe … Aye, true.” Grimnir nodded with a wide grin, taking me away from the fact there was a drake protecting Chihiro’s vault.

“Ha! Then we figured out that puzzle, you know, that one! We used ya hat and that fruit to find the clue; got ourselves in a real problem in that labyrinth, I tell ya. I thought we were gonna die in there.”

“Ha! Eating our shirts and leather boots! Right! Damn disgusting, I tell ya, lads and lasses! Haha!” Grimnir suddenly slapped Daichi and Tatsuya on their backs, nearly sending them crashing on the ground with his big hands. For some reason, seeing him finally happy again made it hard not to laugh with him. “And then the—”

“—workshop. Wow. Can’t believe she placed all her ‘problematic’ inventions in there, right? But, smart. Quite smart. Despite seeing the beast, I still can’t believe she managed to persuade that thing to allow her to settle there. Guess it enjoyed her stories of the other world.”

When one of us finally asked what he was talking about, Grimnir explained the dungeon master for Chihiro’s hidden workshop was a rank A drake. A young, unaffiliated one at that, meaning it was a monster spawn. About 400 years old, the beast had settled into a dungeon underneath the dwarf’s capital, using it as his nest to become stronger.

Although the dwarves had ways to actually get rid of him, the Ankoran King during that time decided to make a deal with him instead. In exchange for peace, the drake would govern the dungeon and allow the dwarves to hunt and mine there. Over time, the deal had been modified, to the point there was a “Gambit System” where adventurers would offer riches to the drake for him to create a special dungeon course.

“More difficult monsters, more loot, and more dangers. Some people are simply daredevils, you see, and as a drake, he was the perfect dungeon master for the job. He had the mana to spare to constantly modify the dungeon to his whims,” Grimnir explained. “As a monster spawn, he had no loyalty to Kargryxmor or your father, lass. In fact, as a dragonkin, he probably wouldn’t like you at all. Dragonewts and levianewts are forbidden entry for this one reason.”

“Territorial, huh?” I reckoned, and he nodded.

[“Master’s scent is quite strong. Beth and Shay says that a lot!”] Rajah told me, causing me to wince. I knew he didn’t mean it, but it sounded like I smelled.

Tasianna suddenly tilted her head, crossing her arms to think. “Hmm, I think I heard about him from one of the elven visitors at my village. Man—Manethala? Was that his name?”

Grimnir nodded. “Correct, fiflei. Manethala the Avaricious. Not only gold and gemstones, but also stories, at least according to the Revolution Queen. That was how she managed to sway the drake. Most of the dwarves, especially the Bleidla followers and guild leaders, are pretty scared of change or outlandish manatech. She could have gotten in quite some trouble if she had revealed everything before she built up her influence. What better place to hide everything than in the gold hills of a moody dragonkin?”

“Then how was it revealed? I mean, all of you know about it now. The Church of Bleilda even forbade entry into it,” Kyouya asked.

“Hrm, I don’t know the details. The Revolution Queen never mentioned it, but we presumed the drake and her got into a fight some time before her death. Manethala told us tazongs everything that happened outside of their last meeting, and that was how we knew about her workshop. Bleidla probably knew about the workshop through his godsight, but probably was forbidden from saying anything until it was revealed. His followers latched onto it immediately.”

Gods weren’t supposed to meddle in mortal affairs, essentially. What a life Chihiro led, huh?

Unpausing the video, Broggi continued, “Haha, but I guess ya can’t fool a drake. He was quite mad when he found us out. Nearly would have cooked us if you hadn’t thought of throwing away some of the items we got from her workshop. Manethala was more worried about his stuff getting taken than us. Good riddance.”

“Haha … ten years on the road. Ah, the eleventh is coming soon.” Grimnir smiled, reminiscing. However, that joy quickly disappeared, turning into a frown. “… Almost two years since you died.”

“Hey, cuoso.” Grimnir’s slightly wet eyes snapped back to the video. “ The diary … I can’t take back what I wrote there. But I can say that … it was an honor to travel with you through that dungeon. To adventure with you. I always thought you were just a blacksmith … my talented cousin. That you were only useful as a hammerer and craftsman … I have never been that wrong.”

“Broggi …” Grimnir’s tears dropped on the recorder’s screen, blurring the image.

“I … I’ve found more than the blueprints and this recorder in that vault. I found my blood-brother. It is an honor to have been exiled with you!” Broggart stood up, smacking his chest thrice.

Grimnir followed it up, trying his best to hold back his remaining tears. “Dammit! Ya could’ve written that bladdarg in ya diary! It wouldn’t have been so confusing! I thought ya lied to me all this time … all those ten years. Bladdarg.”

Even now, Grimnir couldn’t help but grumble. I caressed his back, happy to see our grumble machine was back.

“I hope we managed to finish building that gun together. We hadda,” Broggi begun.

“Took us too fucking long! Eight whole years just to make sure it didn’t blow the whole thing up! Ya stupid idea to keep it contained in a small gun form was just impossible with how ambitious it was! We didn’t have the money or equipment to make more precise stuff!” He then turned to us, his teary eyes squinted in rage. “Aye, could you believe that?! This fool was too tunnel-visioned in the perfect recreation, instead of adapting a bit. It took me so long to persuade him to make this hammer!”

He swung his blasthammer around, before pounding the thing on the ground. The rest of us could only smile wryly as he was the one now giving a tantrum.

“Bladdarg, not to mention how often you just wanted to try something new. Dropping the gun creation to try and make one of ya old tools! We didn’t have the money! I couldn’t get a job at the blacksmith guild, and nobody wanted to meet with an Inko who hadn’t bathed in two weeks! Bladdarg, all that monster killing just to feed ourselves!” Like cousins, they showed the same behavior. Just like Broggart, Grimnir couldn’t help but complain and complain, only to slow down eventually.

He fell on his butt. He closed his eyes and raised his head, showing off his shivering lips. Eventually, the muscles in his face began to spasm out of control, looking like was in pain. He hid his eyes with his left hand, grunting a bit as he tried to hold back the last lock holding his tears back.

“B-but, you idiot … Ya just had to try to try to get back in Bleidla’s good graces. Just cuz I believed that damn god cursed us, didn’t mean you had to! Bladdarg, bladdarg, bladdarg! B-Broggi … I’m so sorry, cuoso.” He couldn’t stop them any longer. “B-Broggi, I’m so sorry. Why did ya have to pull that stupid stunt? Bladdarg! Why? Why? What a stupid accident … Did the gods really want him dead and was that just fate’s whim? Oooh …”

“Master!” Ellaine hugged him, holding him tightly while Daichi patted him on his shoulder, unable to say anything. Ellaine, on the other hand, tried her best to soothe him. “It’s alright, Master Grimnir. He won’t blame you. Accidents happen … It isn’t your fault.”

“I KNOW THAT!” Grimnir shouted, but he didn’t shaked her off. “ I know that … I know that now. Bleidla wasn’t at fault, he didn’t curse us all this time. Me trying to anger Bleidla with the lass’s ideas and inventions was just my way to cope with everything … That his death had more meaning than just a random, unfortunate twist of fate. That it wasn’t just an accident. A man like him deserved a better death.”

He took his hand off his face, showing himself sniffling and red. “I deluded myself all these years just because I was angry. He took away my [Blacksmith’s Eyes], and that was it. Why would he care for us tiny mortals? That skill to me was like a badge that said ‘I am a great blacksmith.’ I told myself and everybody else but … I honestly thought I didn’t deserve it. That is why I blamed Bleidla for everything. Why I wanted to get a laugh at his expense.”

He stood up, thanking both Ellaine and Daichi for their time before wiping away the tears and snot. “But … I’m okay now. I’m done hating myself and portraying it as Bleidla. I’m happy to be here with all of you … Happy to have two apprentices willing to learn from this fool. If I really was cursed by Bleidla, how did I deserve to join Aurora?”

“Oooh, Grimnir!” Now I was the one to hug him, including the other girls who hadn’t given the guy one. Well, except Haruka, who was a bit too withdrawn to do so.

Once we were done, the boys came over to pat him on the back, encouraging him how he was an excellent blacksmith and how they wouldn’t have wanted anybody else.

“… Crustacia’s twin locks, stop it! At this point, all of this will just … Urgh!” I waved his hands around, looking both embarrassed and annoyed. He then looked away as we all laughed. “… Bladdarg.”

Once he dried his second set of tears, he let the video continue, allowing his cousin to speak his last message.

“Cuoso, do me a favor, yeah? Whether I am dead or gone, don’t give up on the dream we had. The gun blueprints. If ya ask me, guns might become a good weapon for warriors as a secondary weapon. I probably told you about it.”

“All too much. That’s why you wanted it to stay in a gun form,” Grimnir explained, shaking his head.

“If, however, we failed, then it might be time to seek her workshop once again.” Grimnir scoffed at the mention, telling us the Broggart he knew during his travels had mostly given up on the idea. “In any case, do what you need to, cuoso. Keep the video recorder safe, yeah? The card on the right side is a ‘memory card.’ It saves data for these videos to watch again. However, it has a capacity, but you can free it up with a crystal. Even save some of them.”

“What?” Daichi raised an eyebrow. “We can use a crystal for this? Wait, hold on, if that is the case, then couldn’t we do something like streaming? If we can make more of these memory cards, or even better, adjust them a bit to the ones on Earth, we can probably start spreading videos!”

“… And music.”

My eyes widened when Haruka said that. I snapped my head around, looking at her as if she knew how to do it.

Haruka, on the other hand, just shrugged. “I won’t know. I’m not an artificer or engineer. You’re better off asking Ellaine or Daichi.”

Right, Daichi was born the son of two tech-savant parents. He probably knew something.

However, he could shake his head. “This is more than just hardware, and I am a builder. I can make you a PC, but I can’t write you the program to make apps and such work. That’s why I like blacksmithing and why I haven’t asked Ellaine to teach me. However …”

He then looked at Haruka. “The thing is, this video recorder somehow works with the party bracelets, and only them! Meaning, the Revolution Queen did something to make her tech work with dungeon cores. Work within the Divine System. If we want to make the whole streaming and music CDs work for Hestia-san, then we need to either reverse engineer the Revolution Queen’s work, or—”

“… We need to figure it out ourselves,” Nishio answered, but grimaced.

“How long would that take, though?” Haruka added. “How complicated? If this is like software, then I wouldn’t be as useful as you think, Daichi-san.”

“But you’re good with math!” Kyouya tried to persuade her. “Algorithms! Logic. That’s all part of being a programmer, right? I mean, the fact you remember Braille—and didn’t you mention Morse code, too? Anyways, you have a good memory. I mean, the demonkins gave you [Foxian Slyness] for a reason.”

“Right, Haruka had the only [Identify Blocker] defying unique skill, right?” Kazumi stated as she turned to me. “Before we joined, Haruka did all the appraisals for us. She would scan everybody and send it to everybody with [Telepathy]. She has a really good memory.”

If it was true, then she was doing all of that without [Parallel Thoughts]. My parallel minds had been a real boon to me not only with recalling information, but also with appraisals. Working through an entire Profile was quite exhausting. There was soooo much information to look out for.

Kohaku nodded as I acknowledged her talent. She wasn’t a fighter, but I always valued her ability with numbers. “Besides, if we can’t figure it out, there really isn’t anything to worry about, Haruka-chan. If you can’t do it, then we know exactly who already did it.”

“Hold on …” Grimnir murmured. “You kids aren’t thinking—?”

“Yup.” Tatsuya smirked. “Chihiro-sama’s workshop.”

“Hmm? Wait, it turned on?”

In a loud metropolitan city filled with skyscrapers and vivid lights expelling the darkness inside this night city, a woman suddenly jumped off her bed, walking over to her desk. She stared at the screen placed there, noticing a notification with the “P” sign.

She then grabbed her mouse and clicked the sign, opening up a screen of a video. There, she saw more than she expected.

“… Kufufu! Oh, Goddess Aurena sure did something now. Haha, I really should update myself on them. Hmm.”

She stared at the crimson haired girl, looking at her horns and tail before turning around to her companions, noticing who they were. Now understanding what was happening, she opened up another screen, this time about the disappearance of an entire school class and the death of their classroom teacher. An earthquake had happened during that time, so most people, outside of the parents, had mostly forgotten about this story.

The woman smirked.

“Now this is interesting.”

A note from AbyssRaven

Hope you guys liked Grimnir's personal arc. It's not exactly over yet, but he finally got some closure for his cousin. Just, his uncle is still wandering around, not to mention, Grimnir's goal to make Hestia the best equipment she could ever imagine.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 382: Riding on a Train, Choo, Choo!

A note from AbyssRaven

I wanted to give a shout-out to jmasst and their story "The Maid Got My System." It's a LitRPG about a crazy maid fighting for her fallen prince, that will certainly give you light-tone story like Dragon Idol. Give it a try if you want to see maids bashing people with brooms and laundrymats.

Experience for development Jobs has reached multiple breaking points.

[Idol]: Lv. 7 -> Lv. 20 | Multiple reset accumulation finished | Prestige 5 Lv. 16

[Mage]: Lv. 12 -> Lv. 15 | Multiple reset accumulation finished | Prestige 5 Lv. 0

[Tyrant Hatchling]: Lv. 14 -> Lv. 15 | Reset accumulation finished | Prestige 3 Lv. 11

Prestige requirement achieved! Job max level has increased. Experienced accumulation and reward quality increased.

[Idol] Max level -> 25

[Mage] Max level -> 25

[Tyrant Hatchling] Max level -> 20

You may spend your prestige points when you are ready

Job evolution has begun for [Mage]. Please, choose from the below option to continue leveling your development Job. Your choice of Job evolution will affect your unique Job’s future evolution and your choice of prestige awards

[Fire Mage]

You have chosen [Fire Mage]. [Mage] will now evolve into [Fire Mage], resetting your level and prestige level. Prestige Points: 2, retained. Max level -> 10. Evolution bonuses given: [Mana] [Intelligence] [Wisdom]

Experience for development Jobs has reached multiple breaking points.

[Fire Mage]: Lv. 0 -> Lv. 10 | Multiple reset accumulation finished | Prestige 3 Lv. 14

Prestige requirement achieved! Job max level has increased. Experienced accumulation and reward quality increased.

[Fire Mage] Max level -> 20

[Idol] Prestige spent. Benefit Slot, [Bardic Cadenza], Benefit Slot gained

[Fire Mage] Prestige spent. Benefit slot, [Arcane Skills: Proficiency Lv. 1], 3 Prestige Points to [Magic Skills: Proficiency Lv. 1] -> [Magic Skills: Proficiency Lv. 4] gained

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Lightning Magic Lv. 5] [White Flames Lv. 7] gained

[Idol] Spell gained:   [Clouds of Thunder]

“This is your cabin. His and Her Majesties are in the cabin next to yours. Your friends and retainers will be situated in the car behind us. If you wish to check on your carriage, please, ask one of the staff. As such, please, enjoy your trip, Princess Fargryneill, Princess Hestia.” The suited dwarf bowed deeply before going into the car behind us, returning to work now that he was done with his explanation.

Sis and I eyed each other before shrugging and entering the cabin, only for us to nod at how impressive it was. The train was made for dwarves in mind, but our royal cabin was extremely spacious, to the point you could fit six people inside and there would still be space to move around. There was a small table, a place for our belongings and luggage, and also two retractable beds!

Sis tested her bed out, turning the couch on the left side into a bed by extending it forward. She then rolled on it, spreading her limbs out to move them like a snow angel. Meanwhile, I went over to the table, inspecting the items on it. There was an obsidian glass bowl with some fruits and honey crackers, as well as some glass bottled drinks. From the looks, and smell, of them, they were ale.

I then pushed the table and its contents to the side, creating more space, and stretched my arms out. The cabin was about two Hestias wide to the side and two and a half from front to back. The ceiling, however, was still pretty low, to the point that Sis had to slouch her neck a bit to fit in. She was almost as tall as Saori and Yorshka, so taller people probably wouldn’t find this too comfortable.

I then sat down and clapped. “He’s gone, you can come out now!”

[“Master! Master’s sister!”] Rajah jumped out of my shadow and onto Neill who was caught off-guard. The bed rocked like crazy as Sis tried to gently push over Rajah, slightly annoyed at the big kitten.

“Dammit, this isn’t what I came here for!”

“Hahaha!” I really couldn’t help but laugh before picking Rajah up.

Since his evolution, Rajah had become too large to actually be a lap cat. He was a genuine monster tiger right now, with sharp claws, fur, and dangerous venom. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t put him on my lap as he just didn’t fit anymore. As such, instead of a lap cat, he was now a lean-on cat.

I turned my couch into a bed and placed Rajah on it, happy he fit on it, even if only barely, before sitting down and leaning my body on his. While scratching his head and butt, I relaxed my arms, smiling as it felt like my head was resting on a soft pillow.

“Hehe, can’t believe that cat fits on the bed. Guess most of his bulk is the fur,” Neill let out a giggle as she watched me relax. She then tapped her growing horn, giving a short nod. “Pretty stark difference. When I last traveled on a train, I had to stay in the commons. No bed and you have to share your room with three others.”

Trains, trains, trains; that was where Neill and I were currently relaxing. Two days had passed since we found the video recorder and had Grimnir kit his workshop out with a bunch of his cousin’s old tools and such.

After we solved Grimnir’s problem, we also made sure to check out Broggart’s other hideouts, making sure we didn’t leave anything important behind. Sadly, there wasn’t anything good, as the first hideout only hid the braille alphabet and the third only had a stash of money and smithing materials. Well, I guess the money was pretty nice, as it allowed us to pay off some of the debts.

Since we had nothing else to do in Gazahan-Orn, and since Grimnir had no intentions of reconnecting with his clan, we decided to leave with the Ankoran King and head to his capital. It took the train two days to return to the hold. I wanted to travel with it, so we didn’t really have a choice but to wait.

Now, why did it take two days exactly? Well, according to Jadhund, there were only four operating trains—three were for traveling and one was purely for merchants and cargo transportation. According to protocol, royals were only allowed to ride on the original train, the one the Revolution Queen helped build but couldn’t finish before her death, while the other two travel-focused trains were mostly for the general populace and commuters.

Apparently, the original one wasn’t just the most efficient and fastest train they managed to make, but it also was runed to high-heavens, making it extremely safe to travel in. The reason why it was still better than the newer models was primarily due to the materials the Revolution Queen used to make it. It was made after the War for the Faefolk, and as thanks for helping the elves out in the war effort, they were given the heart of a rank S fire drake from Kargryx to use as the train’s core. Some criminal executed by the Dragon Ruler of Fire, or something.

After receiving my letter, High Queen Tragaya had immediately set out for Gazahan-Orn and arrived as soon as humanly… err… dwarvenly possible. Using her role as a wisewoman to investigate a problem, she broke protocol and rode on one of the newer models with her disguised husband. Now, though, we were riding on the real deal. The first of its kind.

Still weird, it took them over 200 years for four trains.

While I did complain a bit, it was exactly the death of Chihiro’s mortal form that caused this problem. She left at the most important stage, and while she left plans behind, the guilds’ politics began to get in the way of any actual progress without her leadership to pave the way. Aside from the railroad guild, plenty of others wanted to have a bigger part in the train’s creation, which caused undue strife between everybody.

Eventually, they did finish the train, but there was also the problem of putting down the railroad itself. The Ankoran mountain ranges weren’t just humongous, but the inside and underground were even larger. Not to mention, small mining towns and holds were being created once per year or something. The train had to connect to most of them, meaning, the artificers and engineers had to plan the tracks and paths. It took years before it was finished, and even now, it was being updated almost monthly. This didn’t even account for any monster problems.

As such, it took some time for the next train to be made. This time, since they didn’t have a powerful engine, they had to start anew with a different source. These trains couldn’t be made with expensive rank B or higher monster materials, they had to be cheaper. No matter how rich the railroad guild was, they wanted to adhere with Chihiro’s wish to popularize train travel to the general populace.

As such, each new train would also be part of a new model. Improvements and other quality of life additions were added, as the dwarves’s pride forced them to always strive for innovations. That was all Jadhund told me, since he didn’t want to go into guild politics.

But, yeah, two days of waiting wasn’t too problematic, since I just used this time to grind a bit and do some guild Quests. Leveled up my jobs and my skills. In addition, I also evolved [Mage] into [Fire Mage]. No new prestige benefits, but I got some stats and I also leveled up [Magic Skills: Proficiency] to Lv. 4. Made it easier to level up my [White Flames] and other similar skills.

“Away! Doors closing!” I heard the sound of the station’s announcer’s voice echoing through the metal megaphones. I opened the door and looked out of the window, smiling as the [Defensive Rune: Auracoil] barriers were appearing to block anybody from coming closer to the train.

I clapped my hands and wanted to open the window, but I was quickly reprimanded by one of the staff, who informed me I should do it in my cabin. So, I immediately headed back, and once I returned and closed the door, I opened the window inside.

First, it was a clear view of the right platform of the station. You could see a few dwarven manatechnicians running around, but that was about it. Similar to Estralia’s train station, this place felt more like it was “under construction” than operating like its Earthly counterparts. There was no rush hour at all, since the trains didn’t come too often.

Hmm, nobody came, huh?

Jadhund and Rosserto were coming with us to the capital, since both had business there. I could guess with Jadhund, since he mentioned the railroad guild’s HQ would love to meet us otherworlders, while Rosserto had a concert there. As such, we had nobody else here who knew of us. Well, aside from the people from Grimnir’s clan.

Naturally, they weren’t on good terms, still. Especially now that the clan is in turmoil withMaagneil escaping from judgement and his son now having to inherit the position, even if he wasn’t ready for it. There was also the whole hold king and people who attacked me situation, but that got handled pretty quickly. The prisoners were currently on the train, being guarded. They would face justice and their sentence in the capital.

So, with nobody saying goodbye to us, it did feel a bit lonely, but what could you do? Grimnir probably didn’t care anyways. So, I turned around to see the dragon-mouth styled train head. Once the announcer finished his announcement, the dragon head suddenly let out sprays of fire, lighting up the darkness of the tunnel. Its eyes glowed vermillion red as you could hear that iconic “choo choo” sound. Honestly, Chihiro certainly knew how to make things stylish!

Without further ado, the train departed from the station on top of racketing metal rails and the sound of roaring fire. Nicknamed “Draco Skull,” a rather very fitting name for the first Peolyncian train.

“The normal trains would need a week or more, depending on the amount of stops, to go from the capital to the furthest point of the mountain range; straight into Carmaniate territory. Bit less, if you only want to reach the human Empire,” Neill informed me. “I heard this thing only needs four days, and that is only ‘cause it has terrible fuel efficiency. Very fast, but quite pricey.”

“Wouldn’t it work like any other train when it isn’t on a rush mission, though?” I questioned, to which Neill nodded.

“It’s just a nice tidbit I overheard once. I mean, as dragons, we can fly faster; you definitely can with your scale-dust boosters. But you need to rest, while this thing only needs to refuel. It outright beats carriages, though. It wouldn’t surprise me for the Empire to have one of them already, considering how huge Folschreck is.”

Now that she mentioned it, what about the Empire? I knew it was probably the largest nation on the planet, even larger than Kargryx if you only counted the owned territory. Did they have to travel on the backs of gargoyles and use carriages like Artorias, Estralia, and Yeos? Maybe Jadhund had more information on that, but I wasn’t too worried about it.

Currently, what I did know was that the Empire used ships a lot. They got their naval design from the Caedhulens, after all, so it wouldn’t shock me if their marine travels were almost as fast as this train.

Due to the formation of the continent of Altrust, it was far faster to simply go through the ocean to reach the western part. If you wanted to avoid the sea, then the roundabout way was either travel with a carriage, or the more efficient method of the dwarf’s trains. Also, if they had any flying mount, they probably could fly over the ocean too. Gargoyles couldn’t, since they would run out of mana during long travels.

Once the both of us began to settle down, enjoying snacks and drinks from my storage, a knock came from the door. We invited whomever was at the door in, which turned out to be Haruka and Kyouya.

“Hey, Hestia-chan. Tasianna wanted you for the soil,” they informed me, prompting me to leave the cabin with Rajah. Haruka and Kyouya, on the other hand, were invited by Neill to look around and check out the cabin, which caught the two’s interest.

Jeez, what are you doing here if you’re just gonna relax? Hehe.

Neill had taken a break from her [Battle Frenzy] training a day ago. As she mentioned, she had isolated herself completely from everybody to finish the envy and pride part of the training. According to her, she managed to get through envy pretty fast, but had some trouble with pride, which forced her to leave the isolated training

Apparently, she didn’t have trouble with the mental imagery part of the training, but she had trouble controlling her powers in it. Essentially, she unlocked [Battle Frenzy (Major)], but could only use it for around a minute at best before she would go berserk. As such, she called it a failure. Meaning, she would have to continue once she was ready.

In the meantime, however, she told me she wanted to continue my [Battle Frenzy] training. With Kramps not answering me, Mother still asleep, and Klea’Hatma, for some reason, inactive, she was the only one who could keep watch over me. I appreciated it … but also felt a bit pressured, since I still had my spells to finish.

There were three custom spells I had started working on during the tournament part of my Elyonda visit. All spells were designed to cover up three of my weaknesses.

First, there was the fact I had to belch out lava breaths since I had no efficient way to create a lot of lava quickly for [Volcanic Blaze] to have material to work with. It was either use my Territory, melt everything with [Dreadflare Aura], or create a ton of corrosive fire. I could also learn a [Lava Magic] custom spell from the Mage Guild that did something similar, but I wanted to customize mine for personal usage. Since I didn’t have [Lava Magic] anymore, I couldn’t create those sorta custom spells myself, so I had to rely on the SUPERIOR [Corrosive Fire].

Who needed normal magic skills, anyways?

Second, there was also the fact I couldn’t regenerate solar energy during the night, or a storm, or some weird space-time trick, like with demonkin’s trap. The thought of coming up with a work around to this problem had already occurred to me when I first entered a dungeon, but it became a priority after the Elyonda siege.

Third, was my melee capabilities, as I was shown how weak I was in that department when I fought Larent during the tournament. The fact he overpowered me wasn’t really an issue, since he was clearly stronger, but the problem was that I didn’t have many ways to get out of it outside of my usual [Dreadflare Aura] if I was in a pickle. It worked, yes, but what would happen if I fought somebody with high heat and fire resistance but was still strong in close-combat? What then?

Well, I was happy to announce that I did in fact cross off one of these problems. As in, number three as I realized something after Rajah evolved. Double elemental attacks, methods to reduce resistances or ignore them, and also a funny evolving cat. As in, Rajah was part of my powers since I was a pseudo-tamer, and he was slowly getting more and more strength, similar to Saori.

There was always a difference in our strength since I was a dragon—a dragon difference—but not if Rajah could get a good rank B. Just like Saori and I, Rajah was also a “young” monster. He would be blocked from evolving into a rank A until he got old enough, which meant he couldn’t count on the bonus boost in stats and skill points. Not to mention how he had more free time than I did, since he was also a big reason why I could level up so much during the two day break. He was hunting like crazy when we went into the dungeon.

Meaning, with my improving glaivemanship and Rajah’s growth, melee was mostly handled. In addition, I began to wonder why I should make three spells? Shouldn’t two be enough? After all, if an enemy was strong against my fire, then I just had to abuse [White Flames]’s and [Corrosive Fire]’s secondary elements and effects better. My toxins could pierce resistances, as they could affect even fighters like Vifi’Yok. Not to mention, if my holy flames became stronger, then my enemies had to adapt to two elements to survive.

Terra, lightning, storm, and sacred spells would always be around, naturally. They were the foundation of my ability to control the battlefield, just like in Elyonda. I was a swiss-knife mage, I shouldn’t worry about some minor worries.

As such, I reduced my amount of spells to two. Less divided attention.

“Woah!” Just as I finished my thoughts, my [Detection Sensor] sounded a ping, prompting me to narrowly dodge walking into somebody.

“H-Hestia?!” A girl’s voice called out, which I realized belonged to Ellaine. “… Daydreaming?”

“Y-yeah, sorry about that.” I scratched my neck in embarrassment, only to realize Tatsuya and Daichi were also behind her. “Oh! Are you guys going to the RV, too?”

“Yeah, we have to help Master after all!” Daichi confirmed, pounding his hand up in the air. “We still need to adjust the workshop. Don’t forget we’re only three people, so we somehow have to get everything rolling as such. No automation yet, but we have machinery now to reduce labor on certain tasks.”

“And I’m getting a new spear. Kyouya can rely on his unique skill for weapons and armor, but I need a weapon made to work with mine,” Tatsuya said, making sense since his [All-In] relied on his weapons being able to do the maximum possible damage.

Since our destinations aligned, the four of us walked together.

As we walked through the train cars to the very back, we Earthlings found it quite particular how most of the front cars had cabins for sleeping and relaxation. The hallways were pretty small, barely wide enough for two dwarves to pass through. However, the moment we arrived at the “commons,” as Sis liked to call them, the cabins disappeared entirely.

Both sides of the train had multiple sets of four seats arranged together with a table to divide them. Dwarves occupied them, using the table to eat and drink with each other. Even if they were strangers, everybody was treating each other pretty well. There were, of course, some passengers who wanted quiet or were sleeping, so they used a rune attached to their seats to create a bubble to protect them from the rambunctious noise. Probably some sorta silence rune.

There was, of course, also a bar and diner on the train. Well, it was more like a pub. Since we weren’t in a hurry and felt peckish, we decided to take a moment and try the noodle soup they served there. It was as authentic as you could get to Japanese ramen in this world, only that it was “hardier” to fit the tastebuds of the dwarves. With the amount of toppings on it, it was great for a hard day of work for the calories, but my goodness, the calories!

Once we were done, we ventured with a train staff into the cargo cars. Even if this was a transport train, there was plenty of cargo stored here since you had everything from royalty to merchants riding the train. A few of them were closed and locked cars, while others were open-air to make space. Our RV was loaded on one of the latters.

Once inside, Ellaine and the boys went into the subspace while I headed up the stairs to our RV garden. Just as Tasianna and Haruka mentioned two days ago, the Luedbrumdar really did a bad one on our baby. We really had to renovate it.

There, I found another set of three people. This time, though, they were a bit more racially diverse.

“Ooooh, Princess!” The first to notice me was none other than the only other living dragonkin I had met in my travels who was not in our party already. His verdant-green scales and bull horns made him instantly recognizable, not to mention how much of a jock-like appearance he had.

“Hey, Cernust,” I greeted the bovine-disguised drake, waving as he rushed forward to bow before me. “Woah, come on, I told you it’s okay, right? Don’t worry about it and just treat me like normal.”

“… You say that after how your sister glared at me? I thought I was freezing up when I met Her Empress, but your sister is even frostier!” he blurted out, but that was an exaggeration!

Neill only smirked at him, calling him “interesting” since he was the first—actually second now that I thought about it, since the leviathan counted—true dragonkin I met. Obviously, a dragon princess a rank higher would probably intimidate the lower rank drake. She didn’t mean anything by it, but poor Cernust couldn’t really do much with all the royals around him.

In any case, I didn’t bring him around to meet my family, I brought him to the RV since he and Rita were here to help Tasianna’s garden out. Ever since we separated from Grimnir’s group, Tasianna hadn’t been able to maintain the garden, the soil had degraded from what it used to be, since Tasianna tailored it to the plants she cultivated. With two plant experts ready to help, our plan was to optimize the garden even further, so we could build up our passive plant income.

It also hinged on the fact the plants loved having dragon mana in their soil. Mana helped them grow faster, which was one of the reasons for our fast production speed. Too much mana could spawn monsters, and yes, it could happen right in our RV, while too little mana could even kill some plants. The Belzac herbs, one of our most profitable produce, required mana to grow, for example.

“We’ll also get Tasianna’s alchemy bench sorted out!” The dryad, Rita, stated with dazzling eyes before darting her head to Cernust. “Anyways, she’s right! We don’t have much time to do everything today. The crops in Elyonda need our attention after this!”

“Emperor’s horns, Rita, you just don’t change, huh? We have enough time on our hands.” Cernust shook his head in exasperation as he pulled up a bag of soil and showed it to me. “You can’t get anything better outside of maybe a dryad’s or a treant’s grove. A forest drake’s home just is amazing for anything a plant wants. Absorbs water and nutrients better, and feeds it straight to a plant.”

“Oh!” I took it from it, before squinting my eyes at what was written on it. “‘Moreschi Forest Drake Soil’ … I see you are getting along well with your future parents-in-law. Severa mentioned you staying over there all the time.”

“Ahaha.” The bashful drake grinned, laughing his embarrassment away. “W-well, yeah, I guess. Well, since I've been around, I’ve been taking care of the soil, farms, and anything else earth and plant related. I guess Severa’s father appreciates me being an alchemist, too. Her parents are good people, even if they’re prejudiced against anything with a tail. Took a while to persuade them not to treat the beastmen immigrants too badly.”

The Moreschi family, a noble house in the Lecartiglio duchy. It had been a while since I first met Cernust and his, now fiancée, Severa Moreschi. Back then, I was helping her brother, Antonio, “rescue” his sister as she was allegedly kidnapped by Cernust. It already sounded weird, but once we resolved the misunderstanding, we got dragged into rescuing some adventurers from a grimgarian battalion.

Now, the two were to be married. I was a bit concerned since Cernust was a drake, so he would outlive her, but I guess love conquered all in this situation. In any case, he was extremely helpful since he was working like a gardener for everybody, and this was one of his ways to help us out.

“You shouldn’t disregard the soil making prowess of the gnomes, though,” Tasianna argued against Cernust, mentioning something about ‘gnomes.’

When I asked her about them, she told me to activate [Mana Eyes] and look outside the RV’s window. When I did so, I couldn’t really see anything outside of some mana signals, but that was about it. When that didn’t get the point across, Tasianna had to explain to me gnomes were the names of lesser fae.

Similar to how spriggans were faefolk born inside forests, gnomes were those born inside mountains and underneath the earth. While far less mischievous and childish, they were also less talkative. In addition, they were also a boon for local soil or rocks since they try to make their homes more comfortable, enriching them.

When Cernust heard this, he waved his hands in denial, stating with pride how forest drakes could produce the best planting soil. Even normal earth drakes wouldn’t be able to beat him and his clan in that, something he swore on the name of Kurnistus, his ancestor. Well, I personally didn’t care where I got my soil, so I left the three to their squabble, with Rita taking notes on everything the two said, after I drenched the soil in my mana.

I then entered the subspace, looking into Grimnir’s smithy. Just like always, there was a small shop in front of it to serve as Grimnir’s way to make some money. We would reopen it soon, but first he had to finish the renovations in his workshop. The moment I entered it, though, I had to take a step back as flame roared, nearly hitting me.

“… Uhm, okay?” Slightly cautious. I entered the workshop again, this time I was greeted by the fervent laughter of a madman. To be specific, it was the crazy laughter of Grimnir.

“Gahahahaha! Burn that fuel!” he shouted before he snapped his head around. “Oooooh! Lass! Got that damn moldable metal from Broggi figured out! We’re ready to make some dragon armor!”

My mouth curved up.

Panzer über Feuerpanzer über Drachenpanzer, hehe. Panzer armor over [Panzer] over dragon scales.

A note from AbyssRaven

Sheldon would probably like these magic trains. Ooooor, maybe not. Anyways, we have dragon armor incoming, finally!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 383: Rhytilic Alloy.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“There are multiple reasons for why we don’t wear armor.”

Before me stood four dragonkins: one kirin-dragon, one drake, and two wyverns. Well, if we counted scalekins in the mix, there were also four saurians nearby, all currently speaking to Grimnir about armor and weapons. As much as I didn’t want to take money from the latter four, since I owed them a lot, our party didn’t have the option to actually reject money right now.

The first to continue was the kirin—my sis. “Here’s the thing, why do we dragons need conventional armor when our body is one huge piece of equipment? Humanoids of all kinds would kill to turn our scales and materials into weapons and armor. Dragonewts themselves love using their own scales as armor, as it’s a matter of pride.”

“The matter of pride is really important to true dragonkins, as Princess Fargryneill said,” The drake, Cernust, confirmed her assertion, using his own experience to support it. He pulled up his fingers to count his examples. “What exactly do we have? Let’s see … [Draconic Barrier], scale manipulation, and, well, continuous scale fortification through states, molting, and so on. Appearances matter, but so does confidence. A dragon that doesn’t have confidence in their own scales is less attractive to potential mates.”

Sounds like what Mom would say … I couldn’t help but shake my head. If Mom was here, that would be exactly what she would say, which made sense for Cernust to say the same thing, since his mother probably lectured him on the topic.

[“However, it isn’t done because we are idiots or ignorant, Princess Hestia,”] this time, Shay spoke up. [“There is something like ‘natural’ armor we dragonkins use. Fire wyverns clock themselves in lava or their own fire. We snow wyverns flash freeze moisture into icicle armor, similar to Her Majesty. I presume true dragonkins accept them, as well.”]

Beth nodded her wyvern head, making me imagine her energy despite her less expressive face. [“It’s all about the origin of the armor! It’s about showing-off your abilities! Besides, most humanoid armor won’t fit our bodies, right? Not to mention, what if we [Elvenize]? Armor isn’t transformation-friendly like mana clothes.”]

Good reasons, they were all good reasons. If I had to add to them, I also had [Panzer] acting like my de facto “armor.” That was the reason for why I invented the spell in the first place, after all, since normal armor just wasn’t feasible. What if I wanted to transform during a fight? Either my humanoid armor would break, or huge chunks of armor would fall off my dragon body. In either case, it would be sooo annoying to manage.

Dragons should mostly fight as dragons. That was where most of our stats were, but that also exacerbated the issue. Considering how huge I was in my real form, how much effort and materials had to be invested to create an armor to fit me? What about even larger beings like Mom? The time sink would be tremendous, not to mention the armor had to be stronger than her own scales to be worth putting on, as extra weight would slow her down.

Sis and Cernust mentioned there weren’t even any dragon or leviathan smiths, as they just weren’t needed. Every single dragonkin with [Scale Manipulation] effectively became their own smith, since their scales could act as barriers, extra layered armor, and even weapons. Both my Sis and Cernust were prime examples of dragonkin martial artists—both could create scale gauntlets and greaves to fight with.

In fact, their entire outfits were mostly made from their scales. Sis usually wore her scaled kimono with the huge cleavage, although she did mix things up since she was a fashionista. Cernust, since he didn’t want to attract any attention at all, had his scales cover normal leather armor, making him look like a normal adventurer. It was as they said, every dragonkin was their own smith with [Scale Manipulation].

It was just common sense … until Grimnir.

“Hmm, I see,” Master inspected Ellaine inside her new armor with focus, all while Rita was writing down her thoughts in her notebook. “Rita, write down the composition of the materials. We should note how the metal is able to soften and harden upon mana injection.”

“Already did, but what I am curious about is how much is needed? Can you maintain it for long? Is it really that hard?” Rita then knocked on Ellaine’s arm, testing what sound it made.

Those two Istari followers …

“Master …” Ellaine behind her armor grumbled, probably embarrassed and annoyed.

“Bear with it, lass. We had combat tests, but it’s better for the scholars to take a better look on the H.E.S—”

My body jerked forward as I heard him say that last bit, unintentionally shouting, “Oi, I told you guys not to say that name! Arrrrgh! Daichi-kun, this is all your fault!”

Once again, fire mages were ruining my life. The fact Daichi was the one who coined the name on Ellaine’s new armor was just infuriating. Just remembering it made me want to punch him.

In any case, since we successfully retrieved both Broggart’s and Grimnir’s old equipment and upgraded our workshop with all those new tools and machines, it was time for Grimnir to do what he did best—smith. His plan to create a full suit of power armor was still underway, even if his current set of armor was almost close to it.

When we reunited, I only took a quick glance over the new armor before my eyes were enraptured by the big dragon head symbol on his chest—his mark of loyalty, as it was based on Kramps’s religious symbol and doubled as the Kargryxmor clan’s family emblem. Looking at it now, the whole set consisted of three layers.

First, eoriant plates about as thick as my hand encased everything, protecting all his vitals and limbs. Second, heavy scalemail made from my old scales sealed up any needed gaps to maintain mobility, while also providing him both holy and fire resistances. Lastly, padded leather armor—probably gambeson—kept it comfortable to wear, while also acting as a last line of defense. I heard he also slipped the last pieces of chitin from that rank A geisenlarg king into it.

He wasn’t wearing it right now, so the blue glowing mana seams weren’t lit, nor were the many runic letters on it. He only used simple blood, since all armor pieces only had three runes on each. However, what intrigued me the most were the mana batteries attached on his gauntlets, giving it a very futuristic vibe to it. Without those two mana batteries, Grimnir probably wouldn’t be able to even run with all that armor on.

Essentially, with this armor on, Grimnir would transform into one of those dwarven Earthshakers I saw, the ones with armor so fat and heavy, their every step would shake the ground. Grimnir’s was the same, but I bet his was faaar better. I was certainly not biased. After all, his was power armor! … Well, almost.

In any case, the point was that our crafting game was better than ever before. The entire workshop was now like an industrial building with a giant smelter, large machinery to speed up work, and also a large storage for every single material and ore we had. After Daichi and Grimnir finished setting everything up, most of the large machinery could be used by just about any kind of pushover with barely any muscle strength. Handles, levers, and so many more were around. With the smell of coal and the fiery warmth of the forge, Aurora successfully had a place for even the most demanding equipment.

Of course, we shouldn’t forget Ellaine’s little artificer workshop. Due to the noise of the forge, her workshop had to be moved and was now attached to the front shop, meaning she had a place just for herself. Haruka had also been hanging out with her as the two of them attempted to understand the video recorder better. The plan was to recreate and improve upon the Revolution Queen’s works, so we could potentially make travel recordings, music videos, and, if possible, streaming. That last part was really just a pipe dream, since we probably needed the System to help us there.

The Divine System, if you thought about it, was kind of like Peolynca’s version of the internet. Well, it wasn’t completely comparable, but there were similarities. For example, you could send information through one party bracelet to another with mana using the System. That was why streaming could be possible.

Naturally, we had to be realistic, but that was why I was planning on asking the Ankoran King for a little favor if reverse engineering the recorder wasn’t possible. I mean, come on, inspecting an old, hidden workshop of a goddess protected by a dragon inside a dungeon just sounded like an adventure. Far better than the crap I’ve been encountering lately. I could use a less morally stressful trip.

“Lass!” Finally, after a long wait, Grimnir called me over. More like, it was the sign for everybody to come over to witness the birth of the new alloy we would be using for my armor.

“Come on, everybody, me first!” Pushing herself through the growing crowd, Kohaku dashed right in the front, holding the recorder in her hand and training it on Grimnir and a small metal box with blue seams. “Okay, okay, Grimnir, want to tell us anything before you start?”

“… Why are you recording me?” Grimnir frowned, clearly annoyed at her.

However, the perky city girl didn’t let that discourage her. Instead of retorting harshly, she kept up a smile like an experienced content creator. “Shouldn’t it be obvious? I’m filming everything for anybody who missed this! For example, Sensei isn't here, but she probably would love to see all of this. Come on, she’s not around, but she can come and go whenever she has the time during her training with Asaka-san. However, just like last time, we miss her! We have to show them this!”

“True! This is also your cousin’s gift, so we have to use it more!” Kazumi, who followed right behind her best friend, supported the argument. “Don’t you want to know its limits and so on? How much can it store! How long can the videos be?”

“Bladdarg, alright, I get it, lasses! Mhrm, can’t believe this …” Grimnir, as usual, grumbled with everything getting a bit too noisy for him. Well, if he didn’t want so many people inside his place, he probably shouldn’t have asked me to make it larger now, right?

Regardless of his temper, he still allowed over 20 people to crowd around him. As he sighed at how full his workspace was, he shook his head before turning his attention to a small metal box. Once he opened it, cold air escaped from it before he grabbed a black metal bar from inside it with some tongs.

Mana Eyes.

Rythilic Bar: An ingot made from rythilic alloy, created using rheolic plant sap as the main binding agent between arcanuit and fairnite to maintain the function and stability of the two different minerals. Due to the addition of the rheolic sap, the alloy allows for incredible flexibility when it absorbs mana, but turns rigid and solid if it is manaless. The fairnite prevents large amounts from escaping, but it will break under its own weight when left manaless for a prolonged time

Arcanuit was the ore used to create mana batteries, characterized by being the best mana absorbing ore you could find on the market. However, while it was incredible for this job, it was extremely fragile and, if left empty of mana for too long, it would just shatter. Farinuit, on the other hand, prevented mana leakages and was the closest this world had to marble in appearance.

I didn’t know too much about this rheolic plant or its sap, but I also didn’t need to appraise the word. I could just hear it from the mouth of the person who made it themselves.

“This is the alloy my cousin had been secretly making according to something he read from Goddess Chihiro. ‘Plastic,’ or something. No instructions at all on how to make it, so he decided on making something similar.”

“Ah, you need oil for that, but the process is a bit too hard to explain for us to help you recreate it in this world,” Nishio answered, looking a bit perturbed. “So, is this plastic? It’s a far cry from what it looks like on earth, but I guess it's as black as fossil oil.”

“More like a metal version of it,” Tatsuya chimed in, instead of explaining things a bit for the Peolyncians amongst us. “Can you really bend it?”

“Pretty much,” I turned my head around to Ellaine, who was still inside her armor. Her voice was slightly muffled, sounding deeper than usual. “ As you can see, the armor is fully flexible, acting almost like clothing. However, it’s hard enough to resist attacks.”

Ellaine pulled out her sword and began slashing at her arm, resulting in some shallow cuts. She then cast [Wind Slash] on herself, showing off the armor’s respectable mana resistance.

Honestly, if she wasn’t part of the masochistic Aurora, attacking herself like that would make her seem weird. Thankfully, we at Aurora appreciated party members who cut, burn, and hit oneselves for the sake of growth.

Once her demonstration was complete, she ignored Master and Rita who were howling in excitement and continued her explanation. “Thanks to the addition of fairnite to the alloy, it is extremely resistant against magical attacks and the like, while the eoriant structure it was built around gave it some physical resistances. The form you see in its dormant state is the frame.”

“However!” Daichi pulled our attention to him. “And this is a big however here. It might be really good for everything, but the armor is seriously weak against anything that can sap mana from it ‘cause of all the fairnite. It will protect people from sucking the mana out of your body, but without any mana, the armor turns useless.”

Rita clapped when she heard that. “No problem! If it protects you from people absorbing your mana, then it should be extremely valuable for us faefolk. Tasianna would love it.”

Tasianna was currently taking care of the garden since Cernust and Rita wanted to come in. As such, the video Kohaku was filming would come in handy for her later on.

Ellaine nodded to that statement, before transforming her armor. As the mana stopped surging around its body, it solidified and turned back to its usual knight form. “Also, the H.E.S.—”

“Please!” I cried out.

“… The armor. The armor was made with my abilities in consideration. Yours can be tuned for your needs. The runes are also important.”

“If it’s that good, then it probably will become a good seller,” Sis stated, to which the majority of us agreed, only for us to raise a brow when Grimnir shook his head.

“Yes, but there is a problem with its production.” Grimnir then took out a black-green liquid from his pouch, swirling the little bit of fluids in its glass. “It needs, as mentioned, rheolic sap.”

“… Ahhh, I see, so it’s that, huh? Where exactly do we get it?” Krim asked, already looking worried.

“Carmaniate. Deep in its cold snowscape.”

“Troublesome.” Grazlahta massaged his temples, prompting most of us to ask him why exactly. Instead of answering it, he told us we had an expert in plants and seeds right here, prompting us to turn to Cernust.

Knowing the majority of us were Earthlings—a fact I had told him recently, lifting the confusion he had when he learned how young I was during our first meeting—he cleared his voice and told us he would give us a long description.

“Right, yes, here’s the thing. Carmaniate is the beastmen alliance territory, as all of you know. Folschreck Empire hates them, so trading is rare. Now, the dwarves do trade with Carmaniate here and there, since they have a train going deep into their territory. However, the issue is that the rheolic is a snow plant which, first, doesn’t like warmth. Second, it only grows around the dung of a local monster. And thirdly, the plant only spreads through the seeds the monster ingests. It’s rare.”

“And a local favorite alchemic ingredient for the tribes there,” Grimnir added. “It’s used for drugs—hallucinogens.”

“… Meaning the supply we can get will be scarce unless we go there ourselves,” Haruka concluded from all of that. “And let me guess, even if we go there to get the beast, it has some conditions, too, right?”

Cernust nodded. However, that was just the first problem, leading Rita to point at the next issue in her notebook.

“To turn the sap into something usable, we need to use alchemy. Don’t worry, though, Cernust, Tasianna, and I have already settled on a recipe from the samples Grimnir has. Tasianna can make it anytime you need it!” Rita gave us the good news with a wide smile, only to shrug when it was time for the bad. “The thing is, we also need some rather valuable ingredients for the concoction. Nothing too rare, but they need to be above-average in quality. Depending on how much you need, it could get costly.”

Sis’s and my face contorted when we heard that, agonizing as we shared that terrible memory of the mage’s guild taking over 90% of my wealth for that stupid [Crystal of the Divine System]. Considering how huge I was and how much larger I would grow in the future, I couldn’t even start to fathom the price of it.

“So, let me get this straight.” Tatsuya began to count with his fingers. “First, we need lots of money. Second, we need to get into beastmen territory to find some plant or a monster to tame. Third … Well, Grimnir is making it, so I don’t think that should count that as a problem.”

Grimnir shook his head. “It isn’t. The alloy was created by an artificer, so instead of something complicated, it’s quite easy. The only hard part, if I was a normal smith, would be to find a way to flash freeze the alloy the moment it is finished. If you don’t cool it down immediately, the alloy will harden too much.”

[“You have us for that,”] Beth interjected. [“Or, well, that small box, but we can do it faster! And more efficiently! How many can you fit in that thing? Well, we can even freeze a mountain for Her Highness!”]

Beth then turned to me, eyes sparkling as if she found something she could help me with. I rubbed my hand on her shoulder and smiled, telling her she would be great for the future.

“But, that isn’t the problem here.” However, this moment didn’t last as Tamae spoke up, worry crystal clear on her face. “We learned the Folschreck Empire is hostile with the beastmen alliance, and from what we heard, the beastmen there dislike and distrust humans a lot. Slavery is par for the course in the Empire and the Alliance, with each taking prisoners of war as slaves, and anyone left would just be executed.”

“Right … that would mean we can’t enter.” Kyouya let out a sigh. “Not to mention, it’s deep in some snowscape? I guess the far north?”

“That means we cannot go, either,” Master replied. “I apologize, my apprentice, but while I would gladly help you out, as it would benefit my party, we saurians deal with the cold very badly. We can endure it if it was just a winter breeze and if we had a fire, but a blizzard? It would be life threatening for us to even remain there.”

“If you can’t do it, then you don’t need to apologize, Master. I won’t risk your life for something like this.” I then looked over to Neill, but she only shook her head.

“I’d been in Carmaniate once for a trip. Only on the border of Folschreck, though, but I got to listen to a free beastmen mercs there. Their people are divided into many tribes, each governed by a ‘grand tribe’ like a city. Some tribes are more like a dictatorship with a single ruler governing everything. Everything is a meritocracy, and the leaders of the alliance are the tribe leads of these grand tribes.”

My encounter with the lizardmen in the Belzac swamp had been a while back, but I did remember them mentioning something about a grand tribe market or something. It wasn’t super important, so I didn’t pay much attention to it.

She continued, “Dragonewts and levianewts are seen as great opponents for the warrior creed-loving fighters there. While I like a scuffle, I don’t want to get challenged everywhere I go. Sis, just imagine Ghorush, but worse. In fact, now that I think about it, considering how tame he was compared to a normal leonid warrior, I should have probably figured something was wrong! Dammit!”

Don’t blame yourself for that. I patted her back but didn’t say anything. Sis seemed to be blaming herself for not deducing Ghorush’s true intentions sooner. I mean, to me, he seemed quite boisterous and rowdy, fitting his image of a berserker. However, was a leonid supposed to be even more irrational?

“As such, I won’t go there alone. Even if I make a straight path up north, how am I supposed to find that plant? At least, Cernust or Rita needs to come with me. Also, other strong fighters so we can dissuade the lone or duo belligerent drunk warriors. The portal can help out a bit, but I am still going into unknown territory. I don’t know anybody there. Not to mention, the cold will be a problem.”

[“We are at your service!”] Shay and Beth both kneeled down.

It made sense. Since both were snow wyverns, they wouldn’t have any trouble navigating the cold waste up there, not to mention, they become quite strong after the grimgarian invasion. At least, combat experience-wise. Not to mention, I could probably also ask Reajaen for help. Maybe she had a contact here or there to help us out, since Grimnir didn’t say anything about Broggart’s contact. He had all the time up until now.

We had the people to send on this expedition, however …

“No.” I shocked everybody with my answer, so I elaborated on it. “The problem is that we don’t have enough time.”

“We have a month,” Tatsuya argued, but I had to rebuke it.

“No, you guys don’t understand. We might have a month left until the summit, but that is about it. Guys, what exactly do you think would happen once the summit is over and the alliance is signed?”

A few caught on to what I was talking about, but to the few who hadn’t heard the full details on the Summit of Ankor-Nazta, it was to be expected they couldn’t figure it out. These included anybody not officially part of the Aurora.

So, I answered their unspoken question. “If Artorias wishes the support of the dwarves, they must break their vassalage to the Empire. This is the minimum, not to mention they could even end up allying themselves with the elves of Saelariel and the dragonewts of Loatryx, if everything goes well. If those two join the summit, at all.”

“… War.” Ellaine frowned.

I didn’t want to agree, but it was the most likely outcome. That was why the alliance had to be made for Artorias to break free. If we could get Saelariel and Loatryx to help them out, they might scare the Empire from a war. However, the situation had vastly changed after the initial plan.

Back then, we thought we could use my status as a blessed to prevent hostilities. Unfortunately, right now, I was the Empire’s public enemy number three, right next to the demonkins and Carmaniate. The pope—the Prince of Envy—hated me and the Empire newspaper painted me as the leader of the grimgarians. The Prince of Envy, if given the chance, would happily send a warband to kill me after what Mom and I did to him.

With Mom asleep, a huge contingency plan was not possible. If I had to, I would use up my deal with Mom to prevent the war in the first place—by killing the Prince of Envy and exposing him.

Technically, the Empire wasn’t my enemy. They were supposed to be one of my best allies here in my Divine Quest, since they worship Aurena like, well, a literal goddess. They should be helping me, so going to war with them was the last thing I should be considering. It was what the demonkins would want!

Not to mention, I’m a bloody idol.

“Do we really have no time?” Haruka asked sheepishly, but it was clear by everybody’s faces that things were starting to ramp up. This last month was essentially what we had left to prepare.

“Sis.” Neill grabbed me. “Training time. I am going to make sure you get to the moderate stage with [Battle Frenzy] before then. I’ll also help you out with your Territory and other stuff until Melloxtressa wakes up.”

“Jeez!” I stomped my feet down, stopping her. “Chill! Really, Sis. Thanks for your consideration, but I am not planning to die. You don’t have to worry about me like that.”

“…” She frowned, looking at me as if she didn’t believe me. I guess what happened during the end of the Elyonda siege scarred her a bit. “You don’t have the personality of somebody who should go to war. It’s like that demonkin said— you are naive and too sympathetic. I’m not worried about your fighting abilities, Hestia, I worry more that you can’t handle what you have to do.”

I couldn’t fault her for that. Still, I pulled my arm out of her hand and, instead, hugged for a second before releasing my embrace.

“That’s why I’m murdering that stupid Prince of Envy~ I have no problem killing him, even if he has some sad backstory. I want his head for what he did to Mom and me~ Bastard should burn.”

Now, everybody else was silenced by my words, but I meant them for real. I didn’t have anything personally against five of the Princes of Sin, but I did have something personally against Pride and Envy. Pride was responsible for the Griffonpeak siege and sent his minion to kill Eshe. Envy tried to kill Mom.

I will kill them.

That was the line I was drawing here. Yes, Vifi’Yok was close to killing Tatsuya, Saori, and Ellaine, and that was why I was targeting her when I knew she was around. Not to mention, I thought Amelia was in danger. I was fully ready to kill her there and then. However, as proven when I tried to have her surrender herself peacefully, she could be reasoned with. She, just like me, was just another cog in this war.

The Prince of Envy, on the other hand, has been an eyesore since Griffonpeak. Now, he was making his intentions clear, and I had this feeling we wouldn’t find any real compromise here. Besides, wasn’t cutting off the heads the most efficient way to stop and win a war? Situations determined choices, and in this case, I had a target for my anger.

“Well, said!” Just as the silence was starting to turn awkward, a foreign voice broke everything. I snapped my head around as I realized four new signals just entered the subspace … Thankfully, they weren’t an enemy.

“High Ki—” Grimnir was about to kneel, but the dwarf accompanied by Tasianna shook his hand.

“Stuff it, Grimnir! And the rest, too, if you don’t mind. I might be king, but I would prefer it if we don’t have to deal with it right now.”

Ankoran King Fugnarus had entered my subspace.

Tasianna bowed once she was close. “He had wanted to speak with you, so I invited him in, my lady. I had managed to convince his guards to wait outside the workshop, at least, but they were watching us from afar. I apologize if I disturbed.”

I shook my head and then turned to Fugnarus, curtsying to him out of respect. Even if he didn’t want it, I found it was necessary here.

“Polite. I appreciate it, unlike most dragonkins.” He then turned to Neill, who was looking away, trying to whistle. “… Yup, unlike most dragonkins.”

Oh, Neill … Your past sure must be interesting.

When I prompted him on what he needed, Fugnarus, though, told me I didn’t need to worry about it. “I had wanted to talk to you about the summit … but, from what I had just heard, I don’t think I need to worry about it until then. You have a clear head. Know what consequences will be caused by your actions. Good. So, don’t worry too much about it. We can deal with all of it during the summit, Princess Hestia.”

The regalness of a real king; it has been a while since I felt it. Instead of the accent he used to speak with his fellow dwarves, Fugnarus was now speaking proper Common, clear to hear. Seemingly, he had heard what I had said before, meaning he probably eavesdropped on the thing with the war. I was so focused on the conversation, I didn’t detect them in time.

“What exactly do you mean by that?” I asked, wanting to understand what he was saying.

“I mean, have some fun before the real problems come, kid. Enjoy the dungeons we have at the capital, ahahaha!”

“And, lass!” I snapped my head around, seeing Grimnir smiling as he pulled up a box full of black ingots. “We got enough for your chest armor, at least. Broggart might be a fool, but at least he didn’t squander the Davi he made.”

“Oh …”

And so, my trip on this train was filled with training, preparing, and having myself measured by Grimnir. It didn’t take too much time for us to finally reach the capital of the Ankor-Nazta—Inkoran-Tazul.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 384: Inkoran-Tazul, Capital of the Ankor-Nazta.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Please, mind your feet!” The sound of the station announcer woke me up from my sleep.

Just like me, Neill had just woken up too. With still drowsy eyes, she darted her head around, slightly confused by the sudden loud announcement. “Wh-wha? We’re here?”

Suddenly, the sound of clanking metal and fire burst out and echoed all around us, the shock of it all driving away the last vestiges of sleep from us. Rajah, who was standing on watch for some reason, nudged our bodies off our cabin beds onto the ground. Once we sisters stretched to get rid of the last of the lingering stiffness, we looked out of the window, confirming we were indeed at the next station—or, in this case, our last.

Inkoran-Tazul, the Capital of the Ankor-Nazta, seat of the dwarf’s Ankoran King. Naturally, this was also the capital of the Church of Crustacia and many more of the subordinate gods from the Pantheon of Earth. Not to mention, this was also the primary hub of everything dwarven, from runecraft down to simple noodle masters.

Neill then suddenly pointed at a clock, the time showing us we just arrived here in the middle of the night. Two hours, or rather bells, after midnight. Meaning, two days had passed since we first got on the train. It should’ve taken only a day to travel from Gazahan-Orn to the Capital, but we had to wait a bit at two stops.

Two hold kings and their retinue had boarded the train, so it took longer than usual to get everything ready. Personally, I didn’t care to socialize with them, so I had avoided them entirely. It helped that I spent most of my time in the back cars to stay with our RV more, in addition to being measured by Grimnir. My armor still needed some time.

A knock on the door stirred us away from the window. “My ladies?”

“Come in!” I called out, allowing Tasianna, Shay, and Beth to enter. Once they bowed, they began to clean up our cabin, since Neill and I had a slumber party moment where we snacked and talked a bit too much. Meaning, our cabin was more than a bit filthy.

“…” Naturally, Tasianna wasn’t too happy about it when she noticed bits of cake and even pizza stuck on the ground. Tamae recently returned to cooking and managing our bistro and restaurant, and in the process, I had suggested we introduce something interesting to attract some new loyal customers.

More Italian specialities like pizza and ice cream, of course! Easy and satisfying to eat, not to mention, very different from what was normal. Pizza was very cheap to make since the ingredients we needed were in abundance in the Greenveil duchy, while ice cream had to be marked as a “luxury item” since the need for refrigeration made it more expensive. Well, more things to sell to the nobles wasn’t a problem, as we needed the money, anyways.

“It’s fine inside our home, but please be aware we are in public …” Tasianna squinted her eyes a bit as she lectured us, forcing us to apologize to her.

We stayed in our cabin for a while longer, only so the other royals could get off the train first. Although we still haven’t had our deep talk yet, the Ankoran King had invited me to a meeting tomorrow morning. He told our party we could either crash at his place, or rent an inn room. It was our choice where to enjoy our time, but he did tell me I had to stay at his palace during the weeks approaching the summit for courtesy’s sake.

In other words, I had to appear like a princess once the time came, since representatives of the summit would be arriving. This also doubled as good news, as it confirmed Artorias and the dwarves wouldn’t be the only guests. Loatryx would definitely join, since I was named in the invitation letters, but hopefully Saelariel and Caedhul would come, too. I was also planning on having Estralia participate, and maybe Yeos, depending on how they wished to approach the future.

So, until then, I had free reign!

After some time had passed, our entire party finally exited the train into a slightly crowded station. It wasn’t just filled with only engineers and workers, but I could see a few simple passengers waiting for “Draco Skull” to be boarded, including a number of human, beastman, and elven adventurers!

“O-oi, Kyouya, Kyouya! Look!” Tatsuya furiously tapped on his best friend’s shoulder while mumbling. He then pointed at a group of female adventures consisting of two katzunes and an elf, ignoring the two beastman men behind them. “We’re so close! Finally, this is a fantasy world!”

“U-uh, yeah, dude.” On the other hand, Kyouya was taking glances at Haruka, who was just speaking casually with Tamae, totally ignorant of what was happening. “Y-yup, just as you said. Yup.”

“Ooooooh!” Neill turned her body around, walking backwards as she grinned wolfishly at the two boys. “We aren’t enough for you, hmm? Isn’t ‘fantasy,’ as you like to call our little party, here?”

Well, nevermind the fact Tatsuya got horny about cat and elven girls, Sis was right, our current party was pretty diverse when it came to races. Four dragonkins, one fairy disguised as an elf, a dwarf, and a giant wolf if we included Saori. The rest were humans, even if a couple of those humans had Beastification.

Master and the saurians weren’t around anymore since they still planned on helping Elyonda get back on their feet, meaning they were out hunting some pirates and scavengers. Rita and Cernust didn’t join since they had other things preoccupying their interests, which I hadn’t asked, since I didn’t need to know every single bit on their schedule. However, I did invite Renee to come with me, since she was part of my plan to integrate Yeos into the summit.

However, she declined, as she was currently using her right as a Champion of Yeostar to train with Yeostar! Sadly, she told me Yeostar hadn’t appeared, but instead an “angel,” one of Yeostar’s aides, as they liked to call themselves. A follower of Yeostar during his days as a mortal, who ascended with him during his apotheosis. It was similar to how Kramps took the older dragons with him to the Divine realm after he became a god, without the side effect of leaving people like Mom and her brother parentless, and literally kicking off a civil war.

Well, I didn’t want to talk too much about history. In any case, Renee was training with the goal to become as strong as her mother, so some ancient warrior becoming her mentor sounded like straight from a story book. I would leave her to that.

So, our party was the usual with the main Aurora members plus Rajah, the wyvern twins, and the two groups of students. Well, Neill didn’t really count as an Aurora member since she hadn’t joined us officially, but she practically was our replacement for Saori, until our favorite wolf returned with Asaka. Yorshka and Farron could’ve come, too, but they were currently busy with something else.

Jadhund and Rosserto wanted to join us, but it seemed they had to go. Business called, they mentioned. So, we had to wait until tomorrow to meet again.

As we were leaving the train station, Nishio pointed at one of the signs. It read “Minecart Transportation ► 5 meters,” meaning we had to turn to our right. Just like the party finder function on our party bracelet, the metric system was on full display here. Then again, it was introduced to this world by the dwarves through Chihiro.

It was pretty confusing when we first learned Peolyncian used an Earthen unit system, but it made sense after we learned about the Revolution Queen. Just like the clocks around us, Chihiro's influence was clear to everybody.

Our first stop in this Dwarven-Japanese city was to find the minecart station so we could travel through the town faster. A bit of a waste, since this city was actually beautiful. Just like in Gazahan-Orn, this place was colorful, filled with bright lights illuminating this whole cave. However, unlike the previous hold, this place was right next to the surface with a cavern opening.

Just looking at the right, you could see the sheer size of this place. The cavern’s ceiling was so high, it towered over Mother’s nest in my subspace, giving her plenty of room to wander around in her dragon form. Humongous, and the dwarves utilized it all. No space left unoccupied, as even the walls had buildings attached to them. In fact, the whole train station was built into the wall, meaning you could lean along a railing and look down and get dizzy from how far up we were.

“Woah! Guys!” I cheered, smiling as I saw buildings below us with people coming and going on the streets. It was like looking down the balcony on the third floor of a building.

“There is even a building on the ceiling itself!” Daichi exclaimed, pointing at an edged pillbox-like structure. Grimnir confirmed it was a watch tower, pointing out several other ones along the walls and on the ground.

“The minecart system isn’t just used for transportation, it’s also there for our defence. Mount some crossbows and mana cannons on them, and you have a fast-moving defence system,” Grimnir described, before pointing at the cart tracks connecting the individual towers to each other. “A lot of tazongn holds have been modernized after Goddess Chihiro’s death, but none of them are more impressive than ‘Inko-Taz,’ as the locals like to call the capital. Here is where the goddess got full reign to experiment and implement.”

Honestly, it made Gazahan-Orn look like some prototype. Even down to the decoration and architecture. Whoever thought it was smart to build the train station so high up was a bloody genius. You could see so much of the city from here! It was a sightseer’s dream, and I couldn’t help but bring out the video recorder to film all of this.

I darted the lens from the industrial complexes, to something similar to Little Japan with their entirely traditional houses, to a still-active marketplace. It was in the middle of the night, but this place was still active! It was so bright and full of people just like New York and Tokyo, despite it being past midnight, so you could only wonder how crowded it would be in the morning.

Similar to how we saw some elves before, the place was full with a variety of races, compared to Yeos or Artorias. You had your elves, but I also saw some scaly, winged dragonewts and scaly, scary-looking levianewts and scaly, finned merfolk around. They were drinking through the night, or puking out what they had intaken. Curiously, it was here that I also spotted my first manatech golems; the dwarves were using them like heavy maintenance carriers and guards.

Grimnir told me I could think of them as a construct held together through manatech and runes, similar to how gargoyles were created with manatech and alchemy. They were different from the golems that spells could create, like Tasianna’s [Winter’s Golem]. Apparently, it was a hot trend to be one of the golemancers, or golemtechnicians.

Regardless, that last bit didn’t keep my attention for too long, as I was quickly mesmerized by all the sounds of the city. You could feel the overwhelming talking, footsteps, and general noises from the buildings. Us city kids felt full nostalgia from watching everything, while those less used to this were left just baffled and amazed. Ellaine couldn’t believe something like this could exist, while Tasianna even felt nervous just being here.

We all witnessed Griffonpeak, and to be honest, it was pretty large as well. But there was a difference between seeing everything from the ground to watching over this place from up high. It was just like flying, where you could just appreciate the grandness of everything better.

“Ahem!” Sadly, this moment couldn’t last, as we woke up from it and turned to Tamae. She was clapping her hands, drawing our attention to her. “We have a whole day to be tourists tomorrow! Let’s go find some accommodations before then, right? I bet everybody is tired!”

She was one of the class presidents for the Shirako High students, so it was obvious she would be used to taking command. I mean, outside of Grimnir, we didn’t really have an actual adult with us. The twins were still new to all of this, while Sis was … well, Sis. Without Saori, Yorshka, or Master, there really wasn’t anybody who could keep us together.

So, with Tamae leading us and Grimnir as our guide, we first walked to the minecart station, trying our best not to bump into anybody, like the random tourists we were. Once there, I pulled out a ticket King Fugnarus gave me. A “Premium Ticket” for a whole party, guaranteeing free rides throughout the city as long as everybody was in my party. Since my high quality party bracelet allowed up to twenty people, instead of the standard five, it accommodated all 16 of us, minus Rajah since he was in my shadow.

Now, as you might expect, the transportation methods were minecart. Nothing really special, but still pretty avant-garde, if you thought about it. Here was the thing, though. The friendly dwarven staff member should’ve probably warned all of us with how fast this thing was about to travel.

“Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!” I flailed my arms in the air, taking in the incredible speed of this minecart.

“Ahahaha!” Sitting right in front of me, Sis turned her head around with a wide grin as she crackled at my enjoyment., “Shiehahaha! What the hell are you so excited for? We fly faster than this!”

“What do you mean?!” I shouted back. “Roooollller coaster! Wooooooo!”

It was exactly that. The setting of the station, the way they kept you safe in your seats, and the manner they decorated the minecarts to look more than just minecarts, made it oh so similar to a roller coaster! I could see the others enjoy themselves, although some didn’t really share in the excitement.

Tatsuya, Kyouya, and Kohaku were naturally captivated, waving their arms up just like me. Meanwhile, Daichi, Kazumi, and Misaki were holding onto their restraints with slight timidity, still taking in the fun of the acceleration. On the other hand, Tasianna, and Ellaine didn’t take the speed too well, as they looked pretty scared.

As you might expect, those of us used to this kind of thing weren’t in any way affected. The wyvern twins and Grimnir looked like this was just a daily activity, while Nishio and Tamae were instead more enthralled by the surroundings. What surprised me, though, was how Haruka was really enjoying this, laughing aloud despite her usual sheepishness. Who didn’t like roller coasters?, Come on!

It didn’t take too long, but the thrill of the ride remained in my body as we exited the station. I felt so jumpy and full of energy from that joy ride. Although, I did notice we kind of annoyed a few of the other passengers, as they glared at us as we exited the place. I guess we were a bit too loud.

Walking through the Dwarven-Japanese style streets, it did make me feel a bit overwhelmed by the styles. Nothing really conflicted with each other, per se; it was more how fantastical it was to see all of this again after Gazahan-Orn. You would think it was only a one time thing, but this dwarven hold brought it up another level. With all the stone walls, manatech decorating everything, and Japanese style giving it an oriental flavor, this city was definitely unique.

“T-thank you very much for staying, Princess Hestia!” An Inko woman in a kimono bowed before me, stuttering a bit as she greeted me as a dragon princess of Kargryx.

“Hai, arigato gozaimasu. Konbonwa! (Yes, thank you very much. Good evening!) But, please, drop the ‘princess’ part. ‘Lady’ or not at all would be more comfortable for me,” I responded, stunning the woman with my Japanese “Yes, thank you very much.” This woman, one of the innkeepers, was absolutely speechless.

We booked two rooms at an inn close to the opening of the cavern, recommended by Jadhund before he left. It was a Japanese styled inn right in the middle of the Little Japan section I noticed before, to the point it honestly felt 100% authentic. The dwarven staff members were all wearing yukatas and we were even given spares to wear during our stay!

When we noted our surprise at how there were enough rooms left, despite how late it was, the innkeeper told us they made most of their money through the public bathhouse and the hot springs they had. The inn was more on the expensive side, though.

Separating ourselves by gender, we girls were led to a large room with tatami mats and so on. I mean, was this still Peolynca, or did we teleport back to Japan for a moment? Goodness gracious, Chihiro was amazing! She really brought a slice of Japan to this world.

“Arigato gozaimasu!” We Japanese girls thanked the innkeeper with a slight bow out of respect, before we started to change into the yukata they gave us. With the fact they saw my full name when I gave them my ID to register our stay, I wondered how long it would take them to think of me as more than just a dragon princess.

Sadly, since it was so late in the night, we didn’t do much afterwards and just went to sleep. Once morning came, our group decided to split up for the day, since walking around together made it feel too much like a school trip.

As such, the “Magical Biscuit” members went off to the market to check out the local products and such. Aside from Tatsuya, everybody from the “Misfits” decided on inspecting the tech and the local guilds, particularly the adventurer guilds, since we need permission to enter the local dungeons and see what we could do to earn some big money. The borrowed money we had on hand wouldn’t last us forever.

Since the students had been here before with Grimnir and Ellaine, they knew how to navigate through the city and which parts to avoid. Crime was still a normal thing here, so we shouldn’t let our guard down. Most of the time, we could identify the dwarven thieves by their lack of rock hair. In other words, zuekluk. Grimnir really had it hard.

“Okay,” Grimnir said after putting his helmet on, using a wide face mask to hide the fact he was an exiled. While he wasn’t legally allowed in Gazahan-Orn, he could wander around the capital with no legal problems, albeit socially, he would be treated pretty badly just like anywhere with dwarves.

Even the innkeeper gave him the eye and would have probably kicked him out if I hadn’t shown my ID. It was a constant reminder to us that while we managed to protect his honor as a blacksmith and allowed him to get back his stuff, he was still considered a criminal within dwarven society. In a way, only getting ostracized here was probably good for him; better than something worse.

In any case, my groups’ first goal of the day was to sightsee. We could always roam around in the hold, but what I was curious about was outside this cavern. Bright sunlight was shining into the city, really showing off the huge wall protecting the inside of the cavern. All the bright neon lights were off, instead, white light coming from the many watch towers above illuminated everything.

To travel around, we took the minecarts, again. It was just like taking the sub, or metro. This time, though, I didn’t cheer too much as I instead, took in the sight the moment we exited the cave.

“W-woah.” I was speechless as my eyes witnessed the two gigantic dwarven statues standing in front of a valley. The right one had two giant ram horns, similar to a Taz dwarf, while the left was slightly smaller in stature, probably an Inko.

Grimnir explained the two statues represented the kinship between the Inko and Taz dwarves, while also showing respect to the two mountains which created the Ankoran mountain range. To the left was the Inkong mountain—a small and singular mountain with bountiful soil for mushrooms but also where you could find most of the mana-rich minerals. To the right was the Tazlok mountain ranges, which pretty much was about 95% of the entire thing.

While the Tazlock mountains was where tazlock wheat was grown and where the vast majority of people were living, the Inkong mountain was a special place as it was where the first dwarves were created by the Earth Elemental. That was why the palace of the Ankoran King was situated right there.

“Urgh!” After a couple of moments, my skin finally realized something far more important than this amazing sight— the fact it was literally snowing! “Waarh! It’s cold!”

“Brrr! Use your core already.”

Reminded by Sis, I activated my core and increased my body temperature slightly, warming Neill and myself up in the process. It was still growing, but it could do simple things like this.

In addition, Neill also pressed a rune attached to the inside of the minecart, activating a mana barrier around us which slightly regulated the temperature. Seeing as how I could now feel the freezing air of Ankor-Nazta, it was clear the inside of the cavern city had a temperature regulator like most nobles and rich merchants. It was a type of manatech, so it was obvious the dwarves would have the technology.

In addition, seeing as how it was just HarvestMoon—October—maybe I should have guessed it would be cold since we were north of Artorias, now. The others in our party didn’t feel the cold too much, either ‘cause they were either an ice elementally-aligned person, like Tasianna and the twins, or were already wearing thick clothing and armor—Ellaine, Tatsuya, and Grimnir in this case. Since Neill and I had Kargryxmor blood, we were naturally weaker to ice and the cold.

Regardless of that, once us sisters stopped shivering, we continued our sightseeing. Specifically, we stared at the city built right outside of the cavern! We were currently driving over a bridge overlooking the place, stopping by the minecart station there. Similar to a metro, this place had multiple platforms, each leading to a different location.

“Jeez, Saori would be fangirling about this so much. Hey, Grimnir, do you think I can take out the recorder?” I asked a bit cautiously, since I could already guess his answer.

“Not if you want to attract the attention of those artificers,” he sighed deeply, reminding me how the recorder was taboo outside of subspace. “You should know how we tazongs act, lass.”

Eccentric, right.

While I was waiting in my seat, I kept darting my head around like some school kid on a trip. Meanwhile, Tasianna asked Grimnir why there was another city outside, to which he answered this was where most immigrants and “surface-dwellers” lived.

“You have humans, beastman, elves, sometimes even Caedhulens and Loatryxians. Not everybody can adapt to living inside a cave where you can’t always see the sun and the nights are always loud and bright. This is the place for them, but made with dwarven architecture. This is as much of a ‘surface’ hold as you find in the entire Ankor-Nazta.” Grimnir then pointed at the staff members. “Also why most tazics like me would rather avoid this place. Our place is under the ground or at work. This hamlet was originally built for Inkos to farm ‘normal’ crops, before it became a hub for travelers, merchants, and such.”

“There are two adventurer HQs in this place: one outside, one inside. Both share their Quests boards, since they use the crystals to monitor everything,” Tatsuya explained. He was coming with us as the representative of the students. “You should see the different racial districts. They got a whole elven bro—”

“Tasianna, air bubble around us. Now.” Neill cut him short, ordering Tasianna to cast [Air Shield] for some reason. However, my fairy friend didn’t question her and erected one.

As I wanted to ask Neill what was wrong, Neill turned my head around and pointed at the entrance as five dragonewts suddenly charged right up the stairs, knocking people out of the way. Unlike the train station, this place was crowded, to the point it felt like rush hour, so they were knocking down more than just three commuters.

Neill then pressed my head down the minecart, hiding me inside it. She did the same and began to sigh, shaking her head in annoyance.

“Dragonkins can smell true dragonkins; you forgot?”

My eyes widened when Sis told me that, remembering how Cernust and Yorshka met up with me. Both of them were guided here by my dragon pheromones. Not to mention, Mom found me in that fashion, too.

Neill then turned on her [Telepathy], sending her voice to everybody in our party. [“We got some annoying reverers. Beth. Shay. Just act normal and let them think they smelled you two, alright?”]

[“Draw their attention away with dummies? Understood, Princess Fargryneill.”] Dutiful Shay nodded after summarizing the plan.

On the other hand, Beth questioned her, [“Would it be that bad, My Lady? Lesser dragonkins should show you the necessary respect, though! To My Lady, especially!”]

[“We can deal with that when the damn Loatryxian reps arrive, but until then, I don’t want a repeat of everything. I already caused that damn dwarf king trouble once already!”]

Now that I thought about it, High King Fugnarus did mention how certain dragonkins weren’t polite. It was clear he was mentioning Neill, but I didn’t think the trouble was due to dragonewts. Here I thought she punched somebody she shouldn’t have, according to the description she gave me of her past self.

When I peeked, I noticed how both human-like and full beast-like dragonewts were shouting something. According to Tasianna, they were shouting how they were looking for dragonkins and they smelled like royals. The people around them didn’t take them too seriously, although a few station workers did notice how Neill and I were ducking. I heard from Grimnir one of them even told us we shouldn’t be using magic inside the city, but they would overlook it for helping them avoid chaos.

Goodness gracious, what the hell is wrong with them!

“You look like somebody who can’t believe this is possible …” Neill stated with a disappointed expression. “Oi, just ‘cause Yorshka and Priscilla are both normal people, doesn’t mean every dragonewt is the same. Most of them are fanatics when it comes to dragons, you remember? Didn’t you hear about this or how they hate dragonslayers with a passion from Melloxtressa, or Yorshka? Or, even Cernust?”

I nodded, only now remembering that very fact. Something about dragonewts even declaring a public war against any dragonslayers, to the point they would even execute them on the streets if they found one. They revered true dragonkins like literal gods, or ascended beings, to the point even just the blood of a dragon was considered sacred.

Yorshka did say how she wasn’t like them ever since she got married, but was something similar to what Neill described in the past. It was such a long time ago that I had almost forgotten about it. Remembering this again made me feel even more disturbed by this—as an idol, I mean. They sounded like unreasonable stans, honestly.

In any case, before they could find us, the minecart started up again and we departed. Us sisters breathed a short sigh of relief before we took in the rest of the sights.

The “surface” city looked pretty much like a normal human city, returning to your usual medieval setting. It wasn’t overly spectacular like the cavern, but it also wasn’t boring. There were multiple pretty landmarks like farms, giant trees, and even … what looked like floating, wooden houses? Okay, I take that not spectacular comment back, this place was also pretty wild!

“That there’s your first taste of Loatryxian architecture, Sis. Floating, stationary houses, created through manatech and dragonkin scales,” Neill explained. “Also, you got the tree huggers in the elves, and the mini aquapolis of the Caedhulens. Inkoran-Tazul’s surface hold is truly a melting hub of cultures. Each district was made to accommodate every race who comes here … well, except demonkins.”

“… Because they don’t get any as guests. Right. The demonkin capital is literally on the other side of the continent.”

Aside from that, this city was really something you could walk around for weeks for and you would still find something interesting about it. Sadly, our stay here didn’t last too long as we finally reached the Inkoran mountain; this was where the royal palace was.

We entered through a tunnel and stopped at the station. After exiting the place, we noticed a slight round woman in a butler suit approach us. Behind her were multiple samurais and Earthshakers, including one giant mana golem. Clearly guards.

The female butler bowed deeply before us. “May the light guide your path on this brilliant LightDay. We people of the earth greet our illustrious visitors. My name is Ikkun Jodlaham, a servant of the Ankoran Queen. May we presume you are Princess Fargryneill and Princess Hestia of Kargryx?”

The both of us nodded, although Sis did it reluctantly.

“Brilliant. Thank you, and I hope you have had a chance for a good rest after your travels with His and Her Majesty. Ankor-Nazta will always appreciate our alliance with the Dragon Emperor Eltharion. Please, allow us to lead you to the palace.”

Instead of minecarts, we got on normal-looking carriages. For safety’s sake, no minecarts were installed inside the royal palace, so if you wanted to move around, it had to be with your traditional carriage or on your feet.

After we got on, our slow trip to the palace, where I noted how this place seemed more like a second city than an actual palace. Aside from the bright, white-golden fortress with two dwarven statues flanking it, the buildings surrounding this one point of interest were reserved for the different guilds. Since guilds were an important part of dwarven society, while there wasn’t a traditional nobility system, the many guilds were essentially like a senate for the Ankoran King.

At least, that was what Grimnir explained.

In any case, once we passed through some gates, we approached the giant white-gold fortress and entered it with Ikkun as our guide. After some walking around in this illustrious and opulent palace, we reached a certain room. Once she opened it for us, the voices of two men greeted us into the room.

“Ahh, our guests of honor! Welcome, to the seat of the Ankor-Nazta!” One was the Ankoran King himself, spreading his arms out to welcome us. His queen stood up, too, bowing before us.

“We’ve been awaiting you, Aurora. Please, have a seat.” The second was King Drangleic, extending one of his arms forward to invite us, while his wife curtsied.

I curtsied, while Neill bowed. Looking at her, I knew I had to greet them for us. “Thank you very much, Ankoran King Fugnarus Kongun and King Drangleic var Artorias. Let us begin.”

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 385: The Warrior King of Ankor-Nazta.

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“Yes, we are declining the offer to execute the criminals. As much as the experience would benefit us, we would rather power level inside a dungeon. It’s not a morality thing—some of us agreed it was necessary—it’s more about the setting and atmosphere of an execution block. Hunting seems less stressful.”

The conference room of the Ankor-Nazta hold kings, where meetings would be attended by every single one of them. Currently, there were only twelve seats inside, just perfect for the amount of people currently talking here, which meant I couldn’t guess how many kings under the Ankoran King would normally attend. Well, not like I wanted to know. It wasn’t like I knew all the schwert- and magnobles of Artorias, either. I barely knew any of their marquesses

Speaking of the seats, to my right, sitting on an impressive bronze-golden throne-like chair was the Ankoran King Fugnarus Kongun and next to him was his wife, Tragaya Kongun-Vagunyga. To my left, on a similar chair, was the Griffon King Drangleic var Artorias and his wife Filene var Artorias—to note, we have only had to exchange pleasantries till this point, so this was our first time actually speaking. Since I was expected to know their full names after this meeting, I made sure my parallel minds made a sticky note on all of their last names.

These four filled up four of the twelve seats. Their advisors and guards all stood behind them—Ulquint, King Drangleic’s political advisor, was here, for example. On the other hand, everybody aside from Tasianna, Ellaine, Rajah, and the twins took a seat on our side. Considering how they viewed themselves and their “official” roles and duty to me, their princess, it made sense why they were acting like guards. My maid, lady-in-waiting, cat, and bodyguards; those were their “official” jobs, in a way.

“Hrm.” King Fugnarus grunted at Tatsuya’s response, frowning at the student’s decision on the execution of the prisoners from Gazahan-Orn. He really looked dissatisfied. “Let me say I do not mince words; not to the hold kings, not to the council of wisewomen. I am really disappointed in your decision, young Earthling. It is wrong.”

Ellaine, Tatsuya, and I were clearly confused by this admission, while Neill and Grimnir looked like they knew this would happen. They hadn’t exactly given their opinion on the matter, so we didn’t think anything was wrong about it. As such, I asked the king to elaborate on it and he nodded.

“King Drangleic and I have spoken much before my queen and I departed to Gazahan-Orn to help you out, Princess Hestia. About your letter, about his kingdom’s circumstances—the battles, you see—and naturally also about you, our mediator and figurehead. Tell me, do you know the exact reason for why Ankor-Nazta wishes to ally itself to Artorias?”

Unlike his heavy accent when we met at Grimnir’s home hold, his speaking mannerism here were far more refined and clear to listen to. The rough, wanderer look he had as a disguised adventurer was gone, replaced by fierce regality through his ornamental armor and his beastman eyes.

Unlike King Drangleic—a griffon arvisian—King Fugnarus had panthereon blood in him, making him a part feline dwarf. At least, that was what the dwarves around me had said. While King Drangleic exuded pride and confidence as a ruler, the Ankoran King was far more stoic, militaristic, and, I guess, more pragmatic.

I shook my head to his question. While this discussion wasn’t too serious, I still had to choose my actions and words correctly since I was here as “Third Princess Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor.” “I do not know your side yet. I only know Artorias wishes to ally with you due to economical and political reasons. King Drangleic wishes to fulfill his grandfather’s wish to repair relationships with the northern races, and personally wishes to break off from the Folschreck Empire. As I have spoken with his dukes, I can confirm they wish for the same.”

“Then let me elucidate you, Princess,” Fugnarus’s wife, Tragaya, answered in his stead. “The main reason is that we dwarves need to expand.”

“Expand?”

She nodded. “Yes, expansion through cultural means, similar to our influence as the world’s leaders in manatech and the regulators of the global currency Davi, and also to spread tazongs—dwarves—to more places. In other words, we also strive for financial gain in addition to weakening the Folschreck Empire.”

“There is also a problem with our people’s interest,” King Fugnarus added. “Many dwarves do not have any wanderlust at all, which is natural since we like to stay where we have everything to make us happy. However, those who do? They will go out and form mining colonies. We have been regulating the creation of king, clan, and guild-issued colonies and holds for centuries now to prevent our mountain range from being riddled with abandoned or terribly managed settlements. Too many, and it would weaken our home, but most don’t care. The High King must care, though.”

“As such, instead of dwarves moving deeper and deeper into the mountain range, to the point it becomes harder and harder to manage, Artorias would extend a hand to accommodate more dwarven artisans, laborers, and general immigration. Paper-work would become easier on both of our sides once an alliance is formed,” King Drangleic explained.

“How many holds and colonies are there?” I asked.

“Officially? There are ten major clans, each holding a hold through their clan leader, the region king. As a whole, though, there are countless minor holds, either under the complete control of a minor dwarven king or under shared custody of two or more clans. This conference room usually only accommodates these ten and the current Ankoran ruler; exceptions, though, exist.” King Fugnarus stroked his beard and closed his eyes, trying his best to remember everything. This topic seemed far more wide-reaching than I thought. “Gazahan-Orn was a minor hold, under the fealty of Clan Vagunyga.”

I looked over to his wife.

“Yes, my family. We are a major clan.”

So that’s why she knew the Queen of Gazahan-Orn. It isn’t just ‘cause they’re in the same organization.

“While mine is a minor clan.” The dwarven king’s answer surprised me. “Every royal clan can introduce a candidate to become the High King or Queen, whether major or minor. Through a democratic decision, we vote on who is the most capable to lead everybody, which aids in smoothing relationships, since every hold king is oathbound to serve and raise armies upon my call. I may serve for life, but having less enemies is important.”

While the dwarves didn’t have a hierarchy of nobles like Artorias and Yeos did, they had something similar. There weren’t any nobles, per se, but these major and minor clans acted similar to a noble house, despite being called royals. To be called a royal clan within Ankor-Nazta, you had to have a bloodline coming from the first and second “batch” of created dwarves.

This was another piece of dwarven history, mostly concerning their creator, the Earth Elemental Primarch. The dwarves were created in batches, until the elemental was satisfied with his “finished” work. The ten major dwarven clans descended from the first group of dwarves, while the minor ones came from the second. While human, beastmen, and elven creation wasn’t well documented, the dwarves had everything written down.

Over the millennia, many major and minor bloodlines had gone extinct, reducing them to ten major and an assortment of minor ones. That was why the Ankoran Ruler vote worked this way. It prevented too much animosity through a single royalty system, while also promoting friendship between each other to develop a proper candidate. Of course, making enemies couldn’t be completely avoided this way, but it worked for the dwarves up until now.

Although, why aren’t the last batch the royals? Shouldn’t they be ‘perfect?’ Uuh, okay, that sounds extremely rude now that I asked that in my head. Let’s not.

“Now, back to my point,” King Fugnarus returned the discussion back to the main topic after I had derailed it. “Aside from my personal goals, politically speaking, taking away one of Folschreck’s vassals while expanding culturally will strengthen us while weakening them. That is why I want Artorias to secede. It isn’t just because of Saelariel.”

“You want to prevent another ‘War for the Faefolk,’ I presume?” I was asking a lot of questions here, but it seemed the king didn’t mind it. In fact, he seemed pretty happy to speak.

“Yes, and no.” I raised a brow to that, prompting him to elaborate on it further. “Yes, we don’t want another war in that manner. No, though, since if the Empire wishes to ‘crush’ us for the past, then so be it. The dwarves of Ankor-Nazta will not shy from battle. If they wish to inflict pain on my people, then I will steel my heart with Kronnaz’s grudge and fight with the fire of Bleidla’s roaring volcanoes!”

The king slammed his fist on the table, rocking to the point we had to steady our tea cups. Meanwhile, his wife could only sigh deeply, placing a hand on her enraged husband’s shoulder.

“Still, we wish to avoid it if possible … but, from the look of it, that won’t be possible.” She looked at me, reminding me how King Fugnarus came to my subspace two days ago to speak about the incoming summit. “You now know our reason for this alliance, you also know this room is filled with people who know you are not only an otherworlder, Princess Hestia, but also a blessed of Goddess Aurena. We know your Divine Quest and what you have to do.”

“Hrm!” King Fugnarus leaned on his chair, crossing his arms. “To not take a chance to gain experience … Will you go to war with that attitude?”

Tatsuya and I frowned. It was clear he was talking down to us, right now. Despite my higher standing of being a princess of an empire, the King didn’t hold back at all. The manner he spoke to me was ridiculing me.

I knew I had to speak up to this; however, before I could, to my surprise, Neill spoke up, “Ankoran King Fugnarus.”

“Second Princess of the Dragon Empire, Fargryneill.”

Neill leaned forward, supporting her head as she gazed at him with an icy stare. Her horn wasn’t trained on him, but it was close, prompting Fugnarus’s guards to take a step forward. He told them off, instead, awaited my sister’s response.

“You are overreacting too much to a single rejection. Are you thinking my sister weak? A Kargryxmor dragon, at that? Are you implying that to my face?”

“You are putting words in my mouth.”

“Then what are you talking about?”

The King frowned, his mouth became slightly visible through his thick beard. He grumbled once again, before speaking his mind, “What are your plans for the attack? If you wish to stop the war from beginning in the first place, what is your contingency plan against this demonkin of envy? How will you expose them? Are you planning on using this new alliance for your own needs? Answer me this: how can I trust a war leader who doesn’t inspire the confidence I need to know I would win a battle?”

Those were hard-hitting questions. I thought this was supposed to be a casual meeting or sorts, but it seemed he really was one who wore his feelings and thoughts on his sleeves. He was a caring king, but steadfast when it came to politics and diplomacy. However, the thing was, Grimnir had already met him once, so I wasn’t exactly caught by surprise by this. I was more surprised he was going this hard.

Maybe I should’ve worn the tiara Mom made for me …

As such, instead of letting Sis continue, I took over, exuding my [Royal Presence] skill to counter his. “High King Fugnarus, I can see that you care very much about my Divine Quest. I appreciate it, but I dislike how you are assuming I am going into this with not even a speck of a plan. If the information hadn’t reached you yet, I do have the potential support of my Mother, Sixth Empress Melloxtressa, on my side if I need it. If you, and the rest of the dwarves, so wish to stay out of my affairs, then do so. I do not need the alliance to send support my way.”

His argument centered around the dwarves potentially being pulled into my Divine Quest, meaning I might be risking dwarven lives if I continued. He was aiming for the fact I was an ill-suited war leader, and while true since I really couldn’t shut my heart out completely, it didn't mean I was entirely inept.

Yes, there was no complete plan nor did I have information on Aureolis, outside of what the students and Eshe told me. I haven’t had any time for that. However, what did I have right now? Shaturein’s network of spies and information brokers, Artorias support through our alliance, and also the strength of my mother in return for three years of my personal freedom. To kill one Prince of Sin and expose him to free Aurena’s church? Sounds like a worthy sacrifice for the long run.

At the end of the day, Aurena did tell me that, thanks to my memories, her plans had been accelerated. I shouldn’t be around doing all of this right now, I should have been staying inside Mom’s cave, sleeping and eating. I had years to live and enough time on my hand. It didn’t have to be all solved right now, all I needed to do was to deliver a strong blow and build up my foundation.

So, I continued speaking. “You presume I am being hasty, no? But have you heard anything from me yet? For someone of your age, you are presuming too much and not asking enough. Do not forget, High King, your alliance is made between you and Artorias, while I was nominated the mediator by King Drangleic. My name was given for the summit to begin. We have not even started with the real discussions yet.”

“You should have learned this from Grimnir—we dwarves honor our debts and oaths. If we become allies, I will muster my people to fight in your name if you need to, Princess Hestia. I will fight and prevail. Your common sense is not ours; if I were to sit back while you go out to die, what would my subjects think of me? A weakling who doesn’t even lift a finger to protect his ally?” King Fugnarus became agitated again. His face reddened. “I will not, so I swear in your grandfather’s name. Believe me, I will not besmirch the honor of my clan and ancestors.”

“But you are dishonoring the reputation of my lady, Ankoran King,” Grimnir suddenly raised his voice, further agitating the dwarven guards. “You think of her as weak, just because she has a heart. You eavesdropped on us, no? Her quest doesn’t take place entirely on the battlefield, and she doesn’t need to finish a war for it. The goal, as you heard, is still the Prince of Envy disguised as the Church of Aurena’s religious leader.”

Neill leaned forward, supporting her head with both hands now. “I get that you think of my sister and her otherworlder friends as weak since they aren’t taking this chance to level up. That it’s a waste in the face of war, and while I do understand. You aren’t talking just to her.”

Neill pointed at me then back to her.

“I count two royals on this side of the table. Here is the thing, Ankoran King, just like the other dragons I am not too keen for a war, but for an assassination? Exposing somebody? That sounds way more doable. Don’t you think, Sis?”

“Well, depending on how strong the Prince is and if he has any bodyguards, right? I mean, I can’t exactly waltz into Aureolis, since I am public enemy number one to them. If the dwarven and Artorian army starts showing up, it becomes clear it will be a declaration of war. In fact, the moment the alliance is formed, Artorias will secede, right?”

King Drangleic nodded, smiling a bit. “That will be the agreement. If we delay it for a military advantage, then Saelariel will not agree to it.”

“Right! Other nations. We don’t need to ask for help from Ankor-Nazta, if you do not wish for me to. If rejecting you will hamper your influence, then I will make up an excuse.” In this sorta situation, putting my foot down was the only way for me to walk forward. I had the authority; I should use it. “Also, there is one thing you seem to have not understood, Ankoran King Fugnarus. I am an idol, not just a blessed champion or saint.”

“… It’s that word, again.” He squinted his eyes. It seemed Chihiro did not spread idol culture to this world, but then again, she was more of a rocker girl, right?

“And I am the Second Princess of Kargryx; I might not be an ‘adult’ yet compared to my older siblings, but I can fight. If you truly think we are wasting an opportunity here and are disappointed by it, then how about allowing me to perform the execution? Tatsuya? Hestia?” She looked over.

Tatsuya shook his head. “We have already rejected the idea. You can do whatever you wish.”

“The Rule of Vengeance, correct, Ankoran Queen Tragaya? Am I allowed to send my representative?”

The queen gave out a small chuckle, shaking her palm in response. “Unfortunately, no. If you cannot kill yourself, then you are not worthy of the experience.”

Shame, but I can still argue using this as the point.

“Then—”

However, before I could speak, I stopped myself as I looked over. King Drangleic’s wife had raised her hand.

“I believe this is enough. At this point, the discussion will lead nowhere, as I believe Princess Hestia had made her case,” Queen Filene spoke for the first time during this meeting. “Ankoran King Fugnarus, shouldn’t this be enough? You cannot plug all the holes in a plan through one sitting. Don’t you agree?”

“…” He stared at her, frowning slightly before looking back at me. As we didn’t back down, he suddenly reduced his aura and settled down with a sigh. “… I hadn’t wanted it to derail this much. Sure, for now, I will accept your reasoning, Princess Hestia. Maybe I did overreact, but I do believe you shouldn’t have felt anything for the criminals. They did you wrong, and you have the right to bring them to justice.”

“Who says I won’t?”

“Hrm?” Now the Ankoran King was confused.

“The fact you think I have such a kind heart I would forgive every single criminal in the world is condescending. I don’t. Didn’t you listen to your wife? Maybe if you had let me speak, instead of forcing me to defend myself, we wouldn’t have derailed it so much,” I called him out for that. “I gave Tatsuya and my friends permission to take the execution because they needed levels. Do you know what a rank B ‘young’ monster has to deal with?”

Seeing him baffled, I quickly explained to him why I didn’t want to take the kills for myself. Due to my early rank B evolution, I had reduced experience gain. It was obvious within my party and my close associates, but to people like the Ankoran King, the fact monster’s had a limit to leveling was such an obscure piece of knowledge, he couldn’t have possibly known.

From the look of his face, his wife probably told him I had declined the execution for the students. However, since they rejected the offer, he thought I had a bleeding heart for people who knowingly hurt my friends. Goodness sake, I still held a grudge against the Yanderu and even Vifi’Yok for that. I couldn’t care less about the people we imprisoned after the Gazahan-Orn incident.

“It would be a waste,” I finished my explanation. “My sister, my virigress Rajah, or my wyvern twins; they would have no problem doing it. Or take it yourself. At this point, we should be allies. So, you becoming stronger will help me out, too.”

Ellaine was quite a good person, so she disliked the idea of having to execute somebody defenseless, while Tasianna would be less hesitant if it was a human. Grimnir wasn’t allowed since he was a zuekluk, and Saori was unreachable, right now.

Which left me with my less moral team members, who were practically all monsters. Sis didn’t care one bit for them, Rajah was a feral monster just a few months ago, and the twins were pretty much the same. Would I lose sleep over my party members executing people? No. Why would I? As I said, if they were criminals who willingly and knowingly hurt my family and friends, then so be it.

“… Then I really must apologize to you. Hrm. Well, I wanted to celebrate it with a feast anyways, but now I really have to bring you a lively party.” He stood up and bowed deeply. “Will you accept my invitation for later?”

“Sure, you don’t know how ravenous I am!”

Now this was it. More casual and less stressful, no longer at the point I had to watch every single word I said. Still, it was still decided that Neill, Rajah, and the twins would handle the execution in two days once the judgement was handed down. Although I understood what I had just said and my general demeanor about things, I still was glad I didn’t have to discuss this morbid topic any longer.

Thankfully, the rest of the discussion was more about the summit itself. King Fugnarus confirmed Saelariel and Loatryx will send emissaries, while Caedhul had decided to leave the decision to the elves to their stance. I had also explained I wanted to invite Estralia and Yeos, to which Queen Tragaya agreed with the latter, but the former was more complicated.

“I heard some unsavory rumors about the current President. I do not believe it would be smart to invite her.”

I had explained Reajaen was currently my retainer, or more like a debt worker, as compensation for what she did in the past. Due to Tasianna’s decision, Reajaen would be later judged by the elves for what she did. Still, this didn’t persuade the queen as she thought of Estralia as too materialistic to trust. Fair, but sad. Still, having Yeos on was still a win.

In addition, we had also spoken a bit about Daichi’s punishment. After Tatsuya and Grimnir gave their statements in his defence, King Fugnarus stated he would try to reduce his sentence, but that it would probably still be hard labor to repay the Luedbrumdar clan for “desecrating a dwarf’s beard.” Well, as long as he wasn’t in prison.

After some more talking and planning about the feast for later, King Fugnarus suddenly turned silent for a moment before telling his guards to bring a crystal. When it was on the table, he pulled out his ID and placed it over it, causing it to shine blue and project a blue screen.

“This is the point where I want to ask you for a favor.” He turned the crystal around and pushed it over, closer to King Drangleic and my side. “I think the first ‘event’ after the unique Job System’s implementation will happen soon.”

“Hmm?” I raised a brow before looking at what was written on it.

Event Quest: Host of the Event

Quest Giver: Subordinate Goddess Chihiro, Goddess of Change, Ingenuity, and Ambition

Description: Become the host of the Event Quest [Manethala’s Greatest Gambit]. Invite people from all around to join the dungeon dive to quell Manethala’s anger, otherwise, incur his wrath and allow the dungeon [Manethala’s Nest] to break, releasing monsters onto Inkoran-Tazul. This Event Quest will be officially announced one month before the 30th of AutumnSun, while the Quest will become active a week afterwards. Until then, [Manethala’s Nest] will be sealed and expunge anybody currently inside.

The party who succeeds in the duty first, will all have their Unique Jobs unlocked!

Rewards: Unique Job unlocked

“…” I stared at the screen in silence, before turning my head to everybody around me. All of them couldn’t get their eyes off the screen.

Eventually, this silence was broken. “Fuck!”

Tatsuya looked at me.

“Hestia-san … Fuck.”

I couldn’t help but nod. I was almost to the point of tears. Why?

[“FUCK! WE JUST GOT OUR UNIQUE JOBS!”]

[“WHAT A WASTE!”]

Unable to stop ourselves, the both of us crashed onto the table like corpses.

A note from AbyssRaven

A heavy lore and political chapter today. The prelude to the Summit but all the other stuff I am planning for this.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 386: The Greatest Gambit Event.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“… Now that we have all calmed down, let us proceed forward,” Queen Filene announced, resetting the table after she calmed down her husband and giving Tatsuya and me a bit of time to overcome our slight depression.

Well, depression, of course, was an exaggeration. We were just flabbergasted and sad, really.

So, [Manethala’s Greatest Gambit] was supposedly an “Event Quest,” something that had been mentioned in the initial unique Job update description. Funnily enough, we just talked about the earth drake a few days ago when we entered Broggart’s hidden vault.

The history between Manethala the Avaricious and Revolution Queen Dravlia Kongun, also known as Goddess Chihiro, was a well known story in dwarven lands, due to the former revealing their relationship. The latter had hidden her workshop deep inside his dungeon after they somehow became friends, and the drake was now even protecting it in addition to all the dwarven laws considering it sacred and taboo to enter.

Now, after over 200 years after Chihiro’s mortal death and ascendence to godhood, the probably first Event Quest involved them. Not to mention, next month on the 30th was also her Peolyncian birthday, and the Quest would officially be announced to the world and begin during it. This couldn’t be a coincidence. It was clear the Origin Gods had this planned out.

“King Fugnarus, would you explain this so-called Gambit System? I had heard from Duke Groushia that it involved the drake inside one of your dungeons, but I wished to learn the full details from you.” I agreed with King Drangleic’s question.

Grimnir had only mentioned the Gambit System was there to increase the difficulty of a dungeon, and subsequently, also the possible rewards you may get. It was similar to adding challenges or restrictions to a rogue-like game, but … if you actually died in it, you were actually … dead-dead. Although, you could think of dying and reincarnation as rogue-like, right? … Yeah, too dark of a joke.

King Fugnarus nodded, already aware he had to explain everything properly. “I assume all of you have heard about ‘Manethala’s Nest,’ correct? It is our only rank A dungeon, although that is only due to our special dungeon master, the rank A drake himself. If our ancestors hadn’t made a pact with him, the dungeon most likely would have been graded rank S.”

“Oh, it has the same situation as ours?” King Fugnarus nodded to King Drangleic’s comparison.

Griffonpeak’s rank A dungeon was once manned by the rank A griffon Assurfel—R.I.P.—who was also the beast ancestor of the Artorian royal family. King Drangleic, for example, was a griffon arvisian, and the great-great-great-grandson of Assurfel. Since the Griffonpeak dungeon was more a training ground and roosting spot for their griffon and hippogryphs, its guild-recorded rank didn’t really reflect its true danger.

Looking over at him, I could see King Drangleic’s fists slightly shiver when he mentioned the dungeon. Assurfel, after all, was assassinated by the demonkins during the Griffonpeak attack. It was the Prince of Pride, from what we concluded. He had as much of a reason to go to war against the demonkins as I did, making us natural allies for the upcoming attack on the Prince of Envy. Although, if a rank A monster was defeated by a Prince, what chances did we have?

That was why I wanted Mom to wake up before then. She was my ace if the Prince of Envy was too strong.

“But unlike Griffon King Assurfel—Ilsaphone have mercy on his soul—Manethala is more of a neutral force. If the dwarves were threatened with extinction, he would not even raise a hand,” King Fugnarus grumbled, frowning at his description of the drake. “Still, he is the best dungeon master we could have. He provides an ever-changing dungeon, perfect for training and to attract adventurers. If you saw our ‘Hub,’ the outside part of the city, then you would understand it better. Inkoran-Tazul is as much of a dwarven city as it is a multi-racial one.”

That was a major reason why so many smiths and craftsmen were inside this city. With so many adventurers around, the more monster materials would circulate, meaning more money. The sheer size of the city was already a representation of its wealth, not even including the tax money from the humongous Ankor-Nazta territory, due to dwarves making the best use of underground habitats.

While Inkoran-Tazul had four dungeons in total, Manethala’s Nest was the most popular. However, since it was rank A, you had to have the appropriate rank before you could enter it. Not every dungeon was managed by the adventurer guilds—like Griffonpeak’s—but the ones in this city were. Thankfully, I just got promoted to rank B and I could get rank A at any time to raise our party’s rank, so it wouldn’t be a problem.

King Fugnarus continued. “However, since the hunter’s guild only allowed adventurers and parties above rank B, it isn’t the most visited dungeon. However, since the treasure you could get in there could be sold off for hefty prices, it is still a gold mine to us. Not to mention, all the materials you can get from it.”

“You mean, ‘not to mention the amount of equipment you export,’” King Drangleic smirked, causing the dwarven king to crackle a bit. He then turned to me to explain what was happening. “My equipment was made with rank A monsters from Inkoran-Tazul. I was once an adventurer before my father’s death, so it made sense to spend some of my ‘allowance’ on it.”

“What rank?” I had never asked him that, nor could I really remember his armor during the Griffonpeak attack.

“Rank B. I am level 79 … although, I have become too rusty over the years.”

“Well, that is why you have royal guards protecting you, dear. Although, if you are complaining, you may find visiting the training grounds once in a while a good pastime, instead of your endless naps.” His wife kept smiling throughout that burn!

“… You say that, but the amount of work we must do can’t be handled by a single person.” His eyes drooped a bit as he looked at Queen Filene, letting go of some of his regality. “Our dinners will only get worse if I were to do so.”

“Gahahaha!” King Fugnarus burst in laughter. “I can understand that, my fellow king and husband! My love would flay me if I were to go around, training and ‘playing’ around, instead of helping her with paperwork. If you have it bad with Artorias, imagine me with Ankor-Nazta! Gahahaha!”

“Well, that is why you had your moment in Gazahan-Orn, dear. At least, you don’t have to deal with the Church.” Queen Tragaya gave a pretty dark smile, unnerving her king. She then turned to Neill and me. “Pray, enjoy your younger years, Princesses. Once the time comes, fighting won’t be the biggest challenge for you.”

“… I will take that to heart.” I forced myself to smile, finding myself already swamped in paperwork and managerial work. Everybody in Aurora was helping out with their parts, but it still fell on me to give the final say on the more important tasks.

“Oh, I am!” On the other hand, I couldn’t help but give my sister a stink eye. She had zero bureaucratic abilities at all.

Returning to the topic at hand, King Fugnarus explained how the Gambit System could be set for each individual party. The dungeon was only 15 floors, which was quite short considering how the Griffonpeak one had 40 stages. Still, overcoming only 15 stages was still a challenge of endurance and resource management.

Every five floors there was a floor guardian, meaning a mini boss, with Manethala presiding on the 16 floor. Due to the dungeon’s protective status, though, trying to fight the dungeon master was considered a crime by the adventurer guilds, and subsequently the nation itself. Not to mention, stepping into his roost was a religious taboo due to Chihiro’s workshop behind it.

“Mhmm. That is why I wasn’t kicked out of the hunter’s and merc guild after what happened,” Grimnir stated with a bit of pride, clearly annoying the other dwarves in the room. Since he and Broggart only avoided Manethala, they didn’t break the instructions from the adventurer guilds.

Now, with all of this as the foundation, the Gambit System itself was something like a challenge run, allowing you to set restrictions and demerits to increase the rewards you can get on each floor. For example, setting a set time to clear a dungeon before a dangerous force appears to kill you, increasing the amount of damage you would receive by a percentage, or even increasing the amount of traps.

There were even styles to customize your dungeon dive. You could have a zero trap dungeon or one without a single monster inside, only puzzles. Due to the high variance, Manethala didn’t even bother with the environment. Meaning, there wouldn’t be any lush greenlands or forests, similar to the dungeons I’ve visited up until now; it was all just caverns. It sounded dull, but less variations in the environment might help people survive better.

Also to note, according to his pact with the dwarves, the dungeon couldn’t be impossible to clear. There always had to be a chance that, if you were properly prepared, you could finish it all … Sadly, luck and moment-to-moment actions could determine if you rolled death or life for even the strongest contenders.

“But, you don’t know what this ‘greatest gambit’ will be, right? The System message doesn’t say anything about it,” Tatsuya asked, immediately understanding it like a rogue-like, just like me.

King Fugnarus shook his head. “No. It can be anything really. We haven’t been able to ask the wisewomen and the Church of Crustacia yet for their opinions.”

“… That is unlike you, though, Your Eminence,” Grimnir aimed the statement at Tragaya, considering how fastidious she was in our first encounter.

“Not at all, Grimnir. The problem lies with the fact we had just received this information about four days ago. Exactly on the night we arrested everybody in Gazahan-Orn and your little adventures through Broggart’s hideouts,” she stated to our surprise. “Our messenger may have reached the capital before us, but we still needed to give everybody some time to contemplate everything.”

“Well, it doesn’t really matter in the end, right?” Neill brushed aside the difficulty of the gambit. “At the end of the day, we need to get through it if we want to get our unique Jobs. There is no going around it. You need to take the plunge if you want to get something that impactful.”

Neill knew what my unique Job was giving me, in addition to the four special skills I could get from my development Jobs [Idol] and [Fletchling Tyrant]. Without a doubt, she was aiming for the power they would give her in her dragonewt form, since she was more reluctant to fight with her kirin form.

“Hest—Ahem, Princess Hestia,” Tatsuya corrected himself since he was in a formal setting. He then tapped his party bracelet. “Your party can hold up to 20 people right? The Quest stated the ‘party’ to clear the Quest would get the unique Jobs.”

King Fugnarus snapped his fingers, pointing at Tatsuya with a smile. “Good eye, lad. That’s what we also thought. Sadly, we still haven’t been able to make a bracelet that can hold more than 20 people in a single party. Too many mana signals for the mana battery inside to handle.”

A normal, standard bracelet could only hold onto five people inside a party, while the ones Tasianna, Mom, the twins, and mine could hold onto twenty. They were reserved for royalty mostly, to not only hide their true Profiles but also party up with all their retainers and guards.

Looking over to the two kings and queens, they all had a similar model to mine, outside of the crest, which represented their nations. Neill had a cheaper version which only hid her Profile, while Tatsuya had a Church of Aurena-issued one. Ellaine’s and Grimnir’s were standard bracelets.

After King Fugnarus’s little tidbit on the advancement of party bracelets, King Drangleic nodded his head, before flapping his wings a bit. “Well, since only one party can win this, it would be in our best interest to not conflict with each other, right? As such, let me—”

“Rejected.” Queen Filene came in with the marriage veto!

“I am of the same mind, Your Majesty.” Even Ulquint, their advisor, gave his opinion to the mix without even being asked first.

“Y-you two?!” And it was super effective! King Drangleic was flabbergasted by his wife’s and advisor’s daring move!

“We, the Kingdom of Artorias, cannot lose you, my King. You are not risking your life when the kingdom itself is currently in need of a ruler, especially with the upcoming political and religious uncertainty.” The Queen was looking into the future after the summit and the attack on the Prince of Envy. “Our son is not ready yet, and I dare say, you wouldn’t want to place the same amount of stress on the young prince as you just went through, correct?”

Drangleic groaned, setting his wings down to his guard’s and retainer’s relief. King Fugnarus nodded to his disappointment, looking like he could understand it, too.

“Admirable work, my fellow queen. I haven’t had the time, but you should come and meet the council of wisewomen with me. We have a tradition of inviting foreign female rulers or leaders to speak and exchange ideas.” Queen Tragaya’s impression of Queen Filene seemed to have improved, which the latter gladly accepted. She then turned to her husband. “Sadly, and rather quite fortunately, my husband isn’t allowed to join. Since he will have to monitor everything, he will receive his unique Job through the completion of the Quest. Which means, if we wish to create a joint party, then Princess Hestia—”

“I want to go with them!” I stated without a single hesitation, turning everybody quiet. The royals especially looked at me with widened eyes, while Neill just smirked.

They didn’t know I had my unique Job yet. Their astonishment was ‘cause of what had just happened to King Drangleic.

Tatsuya also looked at me in an uneasy manner. “H-hey, you know why we shouldn’t be joining, right? Also, shouldn’t we tell them about it?”

My face twitched when he suggested that, since I knew he was correct. “… Right, so, uh, I got my unique Job already.”

“???” Even more bafflement filled the room as I nonchalantly informed them of something pretty rare, at this moment. Even if they knew I was in Elyonda for a divine Quest, they couldn’t have guessed what my reward for it was.

As such, I was forced to give them a quick summary of everything, including what unique Jobs were. Although not in depth, it gave them a good idea of what to expect. Consequently, they were now even more vehemently against me joining the expedition party.

“You are the most important member of the summit, you cannot go and risk yourself! The Loatryxians will only fume if we allow this!” King Fugnarus was slowly returning to his former mood, even looking at me in the same way when we spoke about the upcoming battles.

“Then, will you stop my sister?” I countered, causing the dwarven king to flinch. “Because, unless you do, she will go.”

Neill smirked. “Oooh, you know me too well, my little sister. We’ve only known each other for a few months, but you already know me better than most.”

Honestly, even if I were the one to ask her not to go, she wouldn’t agree with it. She was the type of person to seek challenges to test herself, to show off her value as a person. Her draconic gluttony, her need and desire to strive forward, was to make her existence important. What better way to express this than striving for her own, personal unique Job?

“So, whether the Loatryxians complain or not, just tell them how would you stop us?” I shrugged. “Yes, I know I am risking my life here, but what doesn’t if I am to become stronger? Will you stop me from fighting people in the future just because I could potentially die? We are going in circles; it’s back to the war topic.”

“You have a unique Job already, though. Aren’t you taking a spot from someone who needs it?” King Drangleic stated. “From what I understood, this Gambit System pits everybody in different trials, correct? Even if you wanted to support them from the side, you wouldn’t be able to, or, at least, you cannot be sure about it.”

Queen Filene agreed with him. “If we are talking about efficiency and a joint party, then it would be best if we support the otherworlders in their endeavors to become stronger. We had also planned to add one or two of our people into the party, to not only aid you, but also have them gain a unique Job.”

“There is also the problem with the fact we are honor-bound to respect the words of Goddess Chihiro, Princess Hestia,” Queen Tragaya stated. “We will and must send notice to the different countries. Subterfuge would benefit our party the most, but wouldn’t it just bring dishonor to my husband’s name if people were to find out we kept this to ourselves? It will take a whole week for the people in the Empire to reach Inkoran-Tazul by train.”

Her King nodded. “Even if someone is allowed to join late, it still means they will join. Meaning, adventurers, potential enemies, and … the chance for dragonslayers aiming for Manethala’s head. Yours and Princess Fargryneill’s head will also be on the line.”

“There is a law that prohibits dragonslayers from entering dwarven land, though. Even wyvernslaying is strictly forbidden unless you’re a true or lesser dragonkin, and only if that wyvern is a feral.” Neill brought up, revealing how Kargryx and the Empresses had set up an entire list of laws and conditions for their alliance with Ankor-Nazta.

One of them included making the dwarven lands a safe haven for young dragonkins on their adulthood pilgrimage. The same logically also applied to elven, Caedhulen, and Loatryxian land, of course. In those countries, true dragonkin slaying was taboo and deserving of the death sentence, while lesser dragonkin slaying was heavily monitored to make sure they weren’t hunting intelligent wyverns, kirins, and so on. Only ferals were allowed to be hunted to maintain peace, and only allowed for certified and trusted individuals.

There were instances of feral dragons and drakes appearing from monster spawning, but in those cases, the right to handle them was handed over to the corresponding Caedhulen or Loatryxian embassy, depending on the type of dragonkin. I guess it made sense since Kargryx was an Empire made for—what the System considered—monsters. Rules had to be complicated.

However, just as Neil finished catching me up on dragonslaying laws, the Ankoran King shook his head with a deep frown. “Never underestimate the sheer insanity of a person dedicated to slaying dragonkins. Laws do not matter to them. Even the wyvern slayers are obnoxious; there is always an issue with them every year, since wyverns spawn a lot in the mountain ranges.”

Thinking about it, I actually didn’t know much about the situation within the Ankor-Nazta. As a nation, it was humongous.

Thinking about it, those were all sensible arguments. Nothing I could argue back against. From a min-maxer’s standpoint, me participating was a total waste. If we had Tasianna lead the main expedition crew, then we could have 20 more people with new unique Jobs for the upcoming battles.

There was also the fact the Empire was now sending people to kill me, a fact both kings and queens knew about since that newspaper had already reached both Artorias and Ankora-Nazta. Apparently a second one had also arrived a few days ago, but I hadn’t had the chance to read it, yet.

Regardless, once the notice reached them, the dragonslayers would convene in this city without a doubt. Whether they believed I would be here or not was a non-issue; they would come here for the chance to slay a rank A drake. If I participated in this, there was a huge chance I would run into at least one of their parties, perhaps more.

Realizing this, too, Neill was starting to look a bit unsure of her participation. She had a run in with some of them once before, so she was undoubtedly nervous ‘cause of them. It did sound like if we were to participate in this, it would just bring us more than trouble. I had no experience with dragonslayers, but everybody was making a fuss about them, to the point I was unnerved.

“As the High King of the dwarves, I assure you, Princesses, that my vassals and I do our best to make sure dragonkin slayers don’t enter our soil, or at least, stay long enough to be a danger. However … there are many, many tunnels inside the mountain. Ways for people to slip in, despite our security. Zuekluks; our damn own kin selling off their principal and honor for money! We close a smuggling den, more will be made.”

King Fugnarus glanced over at Grimnir, assessing the latter’s reaction to everything, but turned his attention back to me. I guess this was why the dwarves hated dishonored dwarves so much. They were practically like any other scoundrel … and it made more sense why people treated Grimnir as if he was a pariah.

“I will not risk your life to chance, so a compromise. If you want to train, then you can enter our second dungeon—a rank B one. The boss monster there is starting to get stronger, almost to the point of evolving into a rank A. We’re planning on exterminating it for the experience. Take it for yourself.” King Fugnarus was seemingly even begging at this point. “25 floors. Come on.”

… There went that plan out of the window. I thought I could join the main expedition, but I really couldn’t say anything. In fact, if I tried to argue back without some godly reason, I would just make myself look like the same naive girl when I was first dropped into the whole royal shtick. I wasn’t about to let my growth go to waste.

“… I understand. I’ll try to stay out of trouble.”

In the end, I had to acquiesce. Neill, though, managed to gather her courage in the end and told everybody she would go. There was a huge debate between her and everybody else, but it all ended when it got nowhere. Instead of trying to stop a “boorish horse,” he would find a way to keep her safe.

With things settled here, I told the kings I would submit a list of people from my side who would be going, and once the numbers were decided, they would add their representatives to the party.

Since it was likely the other alliance members wanted to join and get a unique Job on their warriors, I had to, at least, accommodate about five members—Artorias, Ankor-Nazta, Saelariel, Loatryx, and Caedhul. There was also Yeos, but I wasn’t sure who or if they would send somebody. Still, maybe keeping room for one more wouldn’t be hard with 20 slots.

After my group left the royal palace, Ellaine and Beth let out some deep sighs, as they weren’t even able to speak one bit during the whole discussion, meanwhile, Tasianna and Shay took it in stride. Wanting to cheer them up, I decided to take a foodie tour around the city before we notified the others about what happened during the meeting.

Since Inkoran-Tazul had such a deep Japanese subculture, I took this chance for the students to indulge in some nostalgia and also to introduce my party’s native Peolyncians to it. With Tatsuya and Grimnir as our guides, we returned to the cavern city, so we could avoid the dragonewts in the outer part, and ventured through little Japan.

“Master, please continue making more, alright?” I reminded the noodle shop chef, to which he gave a loud affirmative nod. “You ready?”

“Of course, lass!” Grimnir responded loudly with his mask still on, to keep his beard status a secret.

“Time to beat your scrawny ass, little whelpling.” Neill cracked her neck and hands, looking like she was about to get into a ring.

“Don’t think you can beat a true ramen eater, Hestia-san! You’re going down!” Tatsuya smirked, looking like he had an ace as he picked up his chopsticks. “All-In!”

Crazy! He’s using his unique skill for a ramen challenge?!

Food meant food challenges, and the four of us couldn’t pass this chance up. Who could eat the most bowls; it was clear this was a divine challenge!

“Please, enjoy.” Meanwhile, the rest of our group just took a small location and began to enjoy their meal.

I ignored those party poopers; instead, I began the countdown. “One! Two! … Three, begin!”

Suffice to say, our debt kept growing. However, it was all about having fun and making memories, right? What was money there for if you couldn’t use it to have some fun.

After finishing our challenge, we started visiting shops for any delicacies and treats, and to our surprise, quite a number of Japanese ones were around! You could find mochi, dangos, even bloody rice balls! This area was just a small part of the city and you could see they added their Peolyncian twist to everything—as in, all of them felt a bit hard since they used tazlokwheat for everything—but it sure was an experience. It had been so long since I, well, I felt like I was back on Earth.

After our tour, we returned to the inn to inform everybody about what happened. It quickly became clear to everybody that not everybody could come, but it wasn’t a problem really. Tatsuya, Kyouya, and I couldn’t participate since we already had unique Jobs, while Haruka, Tamae, and, surprisingly, Daichi didn’t want to join since they weren’t combatants.

“I am a smith now. I’m content with that if we can give the pure combatants a chance to get better.” It was a pretty mature response from Daichi to everybody’s surprise. Had he actually grown from his experience in Gazahan-Orn? “O-oi, fuck you guys! Just let me have my moment!”

As such, our current roster consisted of Tasianna, Ellaine, Grimnir, Neill, Nishio, Kazumi, Kohaku, Misaki, Shay, and Beth.

Rajah didn’t want to join since he felt he could become stronger by being with me instead of away. It felt like a waste, since if he could buy [Humanize] and get a unique Job, he could become far stronger. Still, I respected his choice. Unless we needed him on the final roster to fill up a spot, I could let him have his way for now.

I also planned on asking Cernust and the saurians, since they were strong allies to have unique Jobs on. Not to mention, Yorshka and Farron had to be asked, too. I also had other people in mind, like Muraina, the hunter’s guild master in Griffonpeak and also one of the few elves I knew, but I couldn’t fill up every spot with my allies. I had to think diplomatically.

However, before I asked any of them, there was one person who had a right over everybody else. The first person I met in this world and also Aurora’s vice leader. When I brought it up to everybody, I pulled out my subspace and entered it, before going to the nexus location.

I’m coming to visit you now! Saori!

I forcibly opened the portal belonging to Saori and entered through the portal with Tasianna, Ellaine, Grimnir, and Rajah first. The first thing that took us by surprise was how incredibly dark the place was, as in, there wasn’t even a speck of fire or light around. I could still see with [Night Vision], but it was without a doubt scary.

Looking around, I saw some furniture scattered around, crudely-made ones, at that. It was clear people lived here, meaning I got the correct place. Considering Saori had mentioned living inside the cave where Belzac’s corpse was, it shouldn’t have surprised me we would be here.

[“Who are you?”]

Urgh!

A chill went down my spines as I snapped my head around, darting my eyes everywhere once that voice came into my mind. Everybody else who followed me here did the same, even readying themselves for a fight.

[“Intruders …”] That low, deep voice echoed inside our minds once again, just as I noticed something black seeping out from a nearby cave entrance. They wafted around like flickering fires, before congregating together into larger beings—into the form of wolves!

“Onnikais!” Tasianna called out.

[“Grave robbers!”] he growled once again.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 387: Aurora in the Forest of Garms.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Shine!”

I’ve encountered and fought enough onnikais already to know what to do here. While not all were connected to Ilsaphone, the Goddess of Death, a good portion of onnikais were weak to holy attacks. In addition, the place we teleported to was where Saori was supposed to be—the Belzac forest—meaning these wolf-like spirits could only belong to one being.

Bright, glaring light shone from my fingertips, forcing the onnikai wolves back. With the spell still active, I snapped my fingers and created a spark to ignite some white flames, before using it to create a small firewall to separate our two groups.

[“I am Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor! I have come to meet with my friend Saori Segawa, the current [Belzac’s Successor]!”] I announced for everybody to hear, including the owner of that telepathic voice.

[“…”] As the onnikai wolves began to cower, the voice remained silent. It wasn’t answering me, but it also wasn’t accusing us of being intruders either. [“… I see. The dragon who invaded my realm.”]

“Huh?” I tilted my head. “What do you mean with invade? I was born here.”

[“False.”] That growly, old man voice rebuked resolutely. [“Your egg landed here, dragon whelp. You are no more a denizen of this forest than a migrating bird. Your place here is questionable. Furthermore, you are not supposed to be in my rest area, nor were you allowed to bring your allies with you! This insolence … as expected of an outsider!”]

I snapped my head back to Tasianna, Ellaine, and Grimnir, all of whom were considered intruders by Belzac. Not to mention, the portal was still open, so any of the students would follow us through any moment now. Was this actually about to turn into a fight?

Not only could I vaguely feel an aura coming from the tunnel where the onnikais appeared from, but with [Mana Eyes], I even confirmed a strong concentration of mana at the end of it. It was nowhere close as strong as mine, meaning I could defeat them in a mana endurance. Not to mention, I had long lost my severe weakness to dark elemental attacks, so I wasn’t even scared of Belzac or his tricks.

“Guys!” I called out to my party.

“Already on it, lass! Just give us the go,” Grimnir stated as his new armor activated, shining bright blue before the sound of moving cogs began to fill out the eerie silence of the cave. The widgets of his blasthammer began to move, letting out some steam as if to say it was ready for a fight.

Tasianna and Ellaine had also gotten ready, with the former already preparing her catalyst and the latter cladding her entire body with her exosuit. They readied their weapons, intending to fight back against this wolf tyrant.

[“You trespass in my home. You bare your weapons and fangs at me! Worst! Grrrrrm!”] I heard him taking a loud sniff. [“That stink! Do you think I will forget that stink?! You dare free her and bring that fellbeast into my home?!”]

Fellbeast?

[“You dare bring her to mock me?! Me? Belzac, the Harbinger of Grim?! That demonic stink! I will never forget it, and you dare BRING HER TO MY HOME AND GRAVE?! Dragon whelp! Humans! Dwarf! Elf! YOU ARE ALL THE SAME IN EVERY AGE! KLEA’HATMA, I SMELL YOU!”]

“Grouuuuuuuuuh!”

Shit! He’s coming!

My eyes instantly noticed the concentrated mana explode in size, gathering the mana from the surroundings to suddenly form itself into something I couldn’t really describe. Regardless, it wasn’t as if I had the time to think. This newly formed creature was crawling with elongated arms towards us, before, finally, my white flames shone a light on its form.

Before us stalked a skeleton of a wolf attached to a small pool of black slime, only able to move with those weird, longer-than-its-spine arms. Weird thing was, it wasn’t an actual skeleton but it looked more like solidified slime. Was this Belzac himself manifested, or was this just a golem of his?

Nevertheless, he was attacking!

“Rajah!”

[“Yes, Master!”] With that confirmation call, [Dark Tendril]s shot out from the shadow cast by my fire, grabbing the limbs of the skeletal wolf as it charged forward.

[“Pack member?!”] Belzac shouted in surprise during this ambush, almost letting the skeleton fall onto the ground.

With an opportunity created, Grimnir jumped before me and turned his blasthammer into its gun form. Instead of a manablast or its flamethrower, his weapon shot out a blast of steam at the onnikais and the skeleton, pushing them back through the force instead of hurting them. Without any skin, the blazing hot steam was more like crowd control.

[“GET! OUT! OF! MY! HOME!”]

It felt like one of my veins just popped! “Then don’t attack us before we can, you castle doctrine abuser!”

“Grrrrraaaaah!” Belzac’s golem thing roared out again, forcing Tasianna, Ellaine, and me to actually conclude this might be a potential battle we couldn’t avoid.

Rajah’s and Grimnir’s moves were to prevent a battle, since I knew we weren’t enemies. However, if Belzac really wanted a fight, then he would get it! I did not come here let him run over me, if he didn’t want to help me diffuse the situation!

[“Begone!”] Black magic circles began to appear around the skeleton golem as well as above and under us. It was a fight, then!

[“Stop!”] A female voice suddenly called out.

Due to this sudden telepathic message, my head snapped to the left, towards another tunnel entrance, as I detected three signals coming towards us. Noticing my momentary lapse of attention, Belzac shot out what looked like [Dark Bolt]s, prompting me to snap my head back to him and raise my aflamed arm.

Yet, I didn’t need to spray any flames out or use [Sanctuary] to defend us. Instead, from the left tunnel, a sudden wave of black-purple slime stormed right out of it, blocking the dark spells before it retreated from the white flame wall. The purple fluids squirmed for a moment before it grew in size, turning itself into … a plush dog?

“What?” The four of us blurted out at this unexpected sight. What was this comical thing inside the den of a dead wolf?!

[“Slime, get out of my way!”] Belzac shouted, only for the dog plush to slightly turn fluid again, moving forward to block the skeleton wolf from coming any closer. [“Slime!”]

Slime?

“Shoyi!” Instead of me, Tasianna managed to shout out its name first, causing the melting-looking dog plush to turn its head and form its bead-like eyes into happy half-crescents.

“Damn! The slime really grew in size the last time we met! Is it supposed to still clean our latrines at that size?” Grimnir crackled a bit after he said that, raising his hammer up and down as if to cheer for it. “Nice one, Shoyi. You’ve grown stronger!”

The giant purple plush dog quivered in excitement, confirming this really was our toilet-cleaning slime. The weird liquid sounds it made felt slightly disgusting to hear with all the squishing noises. Even with that and my dislike for slimes, in general, I still couldn’t help but feel happy to see it again.

Not only did it help us, it was even pushing Belzac and agitating him further. It was good to see Shoyi in his evolved form, but it was even better to see he was still an ally as always.

<Minor Shadow Waster Slime: A shadow slime with a voracious appetite, able to turn biological materials into weak toxins to allow it to digest even the most virulent wastes and filth. Due to its connections to the shadows, its outer membrane is thicker than usual, growing in strength with its [Dark Magic] skill to ward off intruders. Although it lost a slime’s natural weakness to fire, it is more susceptible to physical attacks. Its core can only be permanently destroyed with a holy elemental attack, while dark elemental attacks will heal it. Prefers detritus over living organisms. Rank C>

If Shoyi was here, then that meant the others couldn’t be far away!

[“Mom!”] Rajah suddenly jumped out of the shadow as a signal rushed at us, revealing itself to be an elephant-sized, green-black leopard. My black-white horse-sized tiger cub pounced at the leopard, licking her with full affection as the other reciprocated in kind.

[“Rajah!”] The female voice from before appeared in my head again. It belonged to Varya!

“Varya!” I called out to her; the pressure inside me dissipated with her appearance. With wide arms and wings, I joined the mother and son duo, hugging before it as best I could, despite the huge size difference. “You evolved as well! C? No, no, B!”

[“Mistress!”] Varya gave me a big lick against my face, drenching me in her spit. [“It’s been too long!”]

Just like her son, Varya had evolved twice since our party split up during the Elyonda events. Once only the size of a normal virigress, she was now double of Rajah’s size with a muscular body. Her fur around her legs and tail were hardened to the point they felt like metal, and sharp enough to cut things, including me if she hadn’t intentionally softened them up before I hugged her.

It sounded exactly like Rajah’s rank B evolution descriptions—Vayra, Rajah’s mother, had evolved into a rank B vircaguga.

[“What is this?!”] I could still hear Belzac’s voice. [“Step away from her, vircacuga! She brought an enemy into our ho—”]

[“Ancestor, stop.”]

“Gruk!” My body snapped as I felt a freezing shiver running down my spine, forcing my body back into combat mode. I stopped hugging the virigress pair and stood back up, warily looking for the origin of that voice.

What the—?! I was slackjawed; that woman’s voice caused such a weird reaction from my body. I didn’t just feel agitated, but a sense of fear was welling up as an old memory resurfaced from my mind.

It’s her … I could hear the beating of my heart inside my head, followed by the slow footsteps from the tunnel Shoyi and Varya came from. The audible tapping of claws against a hard surface, something any dog or cat owner would know too well.

[“These are—”] I snapped my head around, feeling smaller than usual as the figure of a zombie-like wolf with black slime covering its body appeared. It looked down at me. [“—our allies.”]

Garm matriarch …

I could never forget her face nor her destroyed limbs.

“Sensei!”

“You are alright, thank goodness!”

Saori hugged Tamae, Kohaku, and Kazumi, while the boys and Misaki stood aside to smile. All of them looked happy to see each other again, especially Saori brightened up a bit, despite her more feral-looking appearance.

“Asa-chan.” On the other hand, Haruka embraced a surprised Asaka, who couldn’t hide her embarrassed face in front of Kyouya, Tatsuya, and Daichi. The latter two were even smirking, making fun of the usually abrasive blue-haired girl.

[“Hmph.”] Meanwhile, the voice of the displeased Belzac was mostly ignored by the now more celebratory mood. Still, since I wasn’t hugging anybody, it did weigh on my mind a bit.

[“Don’t let him agitate you. Outside of this shrine area, the ancestor’s presence and ability is non-existent. You should have realized with that excuse of a golem.”]

I snapped my head around to that voice, noticing the zombie-like wolf sit next to me. Hearing her voice after so long … it felt unnerving. [“It’s hard not to … But, thank you, Vidia.”]

Vidia, that was the name Saori gave to the garm matriarch—to her garm mother. Just like mine, her name had some mythological inspiration, coming from an alias of the Norse giant Angrboda. Also known as Iarnvidia, the giantess was known as the mother of the monsters Fenrir and Garm, making it far too fitting. It felt weird for a daughter to give her mother a name, but hearing it from Saori herself, it seemed her mother wanted her to give her one.

Seeing Saori once again really drove home just how long it had been since we last saw each other. I missed her a lot, but I had mostly gotten over since I had Mother and Tasianna around during my Elyonda stay. Now that we met again after Vidia calmed Belzac down, it finally felt like my heart could calm down. The full Aurora reunion was finally here after so long … Even if it only was just a month or so apart.

The siege made everything feel so much longer …

Now, though? Saori and Asaka were catching up with their group, while mine were taking care of the virigress, Shoyi, and, well, Vidia. Ellaine and Grimnir were playing around with the form-morphing Shoyi, who seemed to have gained a more developed ego ever since its first evolution. It was playing around with the two, stunning them at how it could understand us well.

Meanwhile, Rajah was playing with his siblings, who were still only rank Ds. The two other cubs were stunned at how large Rajah was, while their mother looked over them while laying on a bed Saori sewed for them. This medium-sized cavern could fit everybody inside it, and it really looked like a home after some lights were turned on.

Meanwhile, Tasianna had just finished preparing tea, handing me one while offering Vidia some, too.

[“I am good, but I appreciate it,”] Vidia stated before pointing at her body, noting how she was more-or-less still in an onnikai-like state. [“Unlike my daughter’s pack, my black slime hasn’t fully repaired my body yet. So I still haven’t been able to integrate my onnikai form into it yet. I still need some time, but I am already a member of the shadow pack.”]

I looked down at her legs, noticing the fractured bones. The last time we met, Vidia was my enemy … and my first teacher. She died from blood loss with [Arcane Fever] reaching the critical stage, which caused her rampaging mana to explode, destroying her limbs. The wounds I inflicted on her torso and head with my spells were gone, only her legs remained to be repaired.

“… I’m sorry.” Overwhelmed by seeing her like this, I couldn’t help but eke that out sheepishly. I couldn’t even find the confidence to directly look in her eyes; something inside me was still frightened of her, despite our current gap in strength.

Vidia looked at me, tilting her head around as she couldn’t understand what I was saying. As such, I explained to her what had happened after our battle, even reminding her how I had killed not only her partner but also her older children. I couldn’t understand why she was so calm around me; the fact she wasn’t showing any hostility made me feel even worse.

“I know it was self-defence, and that I didn’t have much of a choice after they didn’t relent, but still … I stole everything from you. If the fight hadn’t happened, they would still be alive. I might have even been able to heal you before your condition got worse. I could have bought [Major Heal] to save you.”

A certain part of me didn’t regret killing them, as it was all part of surviving, but I still felt a shimmer of guilt that it had to end like this. The loneliness of being inside the Belzac forest was suffocating, to the point I thought I was going crazy. If we had just become friends or just tolerated each other, how would my story have gone?

[“You are wrong, child.”] Unexpectedly, Vidia didn’t agree with my statement. [“You didn’t steal everything. Don’t you remember? I entrusted you with my daughter, and look how she grew. It has only been a year since my death … but she’s grown so much. Far beyond what I could have achieved. Child, I hold no anger towards you, as you managed to fulfill my wish. You kept her safe.”]

“…” I looked away. “I guess I did … Still, it feels complicated to me. I didn’t just do it for you … I just wanted somebody around. A friend. I mean, I even forgot how you told me to bring her back here. I didn’t even know you were talking about Belzac back then, that he told you Saori and I were the same.”

The last part wasn’t confirmed by anybody, but I figured it out through the evidence on hand. Her words, “The ancestor had advised me not to do it after I communed with him.” Everything that happened that night felt so vivid. The lessons I learned from the garm matriarch during her spartan training were ingrained in my body and were the reason for my continued growth.

While I couldn’t remember every single detail, I could recall a good portion of my discussion with Vidia with the help of my parallel minds. All of it just made sense now. Which confused me since Belzac should have known me. I mean, he did, but he was instantly hostile.

“Life is more complicated than a few exchanged words,” Vidia countered. “However, considering how I was reborn as an onnikai with the ancestor’s powers, maybe a portion of me is angry at you. Enraged that everything I built up was destroyed during that night, no, during the last months before my death. All those years I’ve dedicated to regrowing the Belzac garms, and it was all destroyed by my singular mistake … Can I truly be angry at you, when you managed to preserve my happiness? Allowed me to witness my daughter with all her gained strength?”

I didn’t know her past. I couldn’t deduce it all, but I could understand what she was trying to tell me. Maybe I should follow her example and bury the hatchet; water under the bridge. Since she wasn’t feeling any rage, then I should just accept it. Still, what did she say again? “Life is more complicated than a few exchanged words.” Emotions shared the same problem.

“Hestia! Tasianna!” Saori came over to us, hugging us. I could smell quite a strong stench of blood on her. “I hope everything worked out with the dwarves, but seeing how Grimnir looks better than usual, I can already guess.”

“What is that insult, eh, lass?” Grimnir pouted. “Calling me weird looking when we’ve just met again? Why not just be blunt and call my appearance disgusting! I can say the same with how you reek!”

“Master Grimnir, please!” Ellaine scolded our resident grumbler.

Saori laughed, though, waving her hand as if she wasn’t taking it seriously. “Hehe, forget it. I will not take it personally. I know how much Asaka and I have started to smell. All the fighting and hunting, and I forgot to restock on shampoo and such after we revisited the subspace after so long. It reminded me of our days before we met Tasianna, Hestia.”

My face flinched. “Urgh! You mean the greasy hair and stuff? Oof, yeah.”

“And the cold showers and baths!” Asaka suddenly interjected. “Segawa told me you had those heater ball thingies back then. Why aren’t you making more of them? Segawa only has [Create Water]; she even told me she wouldn’t buy [Fire Magic] to make our life easier!”

Oooh, the memories. The heater balls I used to warm up our showers when we were first stuck in the Belzac forest. That was nostalgia, alright. Sadly, since Shiterno stole my fire spells, I couldn’t reproduce it properly until I got my catalyst, but by that point I had forgotten about it. Honestly, I haven’t done much tool creation outside of different kinds of bombs ever since we first reached Firwood.

Seriously though, it had been so long since I was in the Belzac forest that I did feel some homesickness. This was my birthplace, no matter what Belzac wanted to say to me. Sadly, we were stuck in this underground place due to the old wolf, so I could only continue my discussion with Saori here.

Once everything settled down, we did begin on a nearby table, where I noticed Saori had a husky plushie sitting on a rock chair. She and Asaka had made all the furniture inside this cavern by themselves, so a dog plushie stood out a lot. When I brought it up, Saori quickly hid it, mumbling something about “Goma-kun” or something. Also, didn’t Shoyi transform into a dog plushie as well?

“Oh, so that is how it concluded. Wow.” Saori and Asaka were watching the footage we had made on the video recorder after I had explained everything that had happened on our side to them. “So there is an entire Tiny Japan in Inkoran-Tazul.”

“Yes, yes, but you shouldn’t just focus on that, Sensei!” Tamae, the biggest foodie amongst us, couldn’t help but put another video on. “Here! Look! This is actually a new carbohydrate that I couldn’t find an equivalent to. The shopkeep told me it can only be harvested in Loatryx and the border of Caedhul due to the soil being cultivated by forest dragonewts.”

“Ah, you mean ‘Knakahai?’” Grimnir added. “Yeah, very crispy and quite hard to bite. Weird thing is, you can’t eat it entirely cooked, otherwise it turns almost as hard as rock from the heat. You need to keep it cool once you harvest them, but it soaks up juices like a sponge.”

“Yup!” Tamae pulled something like a dark brown cube from her storage. “Raw—it looks like an apple, but trying to break it apart felt like the crust of a pie. There isn’t any meat inside, but you can taste the juices and other ingredients so well!”

Saori tasted it, breaking a portion off like an energy bar. Once she swallowed it, she couldn’t help but nod as she agreed. She seemed to have liked it, making me curious enough to visit the local market to find some more dwarven or other cultural food. It was nice to have little Japan and dwarves liking Japanese food, but, honestly, outside of the nostalgia, it was weird to eat Earth food in Peolynca. Similar to eating a burger or fries when you visit a place like Vietnam or Spain.

Furthermore, Grimnir explained the reason why we haven’t seen this ingredient more often was due to its low international demand. Knackahai was loved by levianewts and dragonewts since it was crunchy and stimulated their stronger jaws, but even to the hardy dwarves, it felt too difficult to eat and prepare. Evidently, as Tamae told us she could only find them being sold by dragonewts.

Now, our little catch-up sessions turned into an impromptu meal. Well, having some food was nice since the next topic was also about what had happened to Tatsuya and Kyouya after they left the Belzac forest. Not to mention, the heavy topics weren’t over, since we also got an update on the whole grimgarian invasion Saori and Asaka did.

“…Vampires really are assholes.” Asaka looked downtrodden, sounding like she had vaguely figured out Vivachel shouldn't be trusted 100%. “What now? That vampire princess sounded like a lunatic, boys. Do you two think she might become a problem, ‘cause I think she has that sorta vibe.”

“She definitely hates the archerudite of Aleistunum. A fight probably won’t be avoidable,” Tatsuya declared, which I fully agreed with.

Vadisma, the current Blood Princess of Purchigchia, seemed like a problem ready to happen. Sadly, back then, trying to confront her on these topics didn’t seem smart. I mean, even the archerudite, Uzerra, didn’t want to do anything right there. With them most likely once a couple with a strained history, I could guess what he was feeling.

“Although, would they even call for help? Aleistunum struck me as a place that is too proud to call on others. They believe their magic is everything, after all,” four-eyes, Nishio, gave a concise analysis on the situation. Hopefully, this problem won't come to a head any time soon … So we better hope Uzerra’s lifespan wouldn’t end in the near future.

Once that problem was covered, we then went over the grimgarian situation, with Saori explaining how the beastmen slaves she released were starting a rebellion. She reminded me about the lizardmen we met in the Belzac forest and how the grimgarians invaded their lands and turned them into slave labor to work on their “kingdom.”

With the ogre king mostly isolated since he sent a major portion of his forces out to invade the ports as part of the grimgarian invasion, Saori’s invasion was actually very easy. There was barely anybody strong enough to threaten her and her shadow pack outside of running into the ogre king and a few shamans. Still, she made it through and managed to evolve all her garms and Varya to rank B.

“Uno and the others are currently traveling to the swamps. Belzac ordered me to consolidate my role as the ‘alpha predator.’ Since we left, a ton of monsters have spawned, and a good portion of them have taken territory. I am cleaning things up.”

[“The dragon is a threat. She threatens your role!”] Belzac suddenly interjected, trying to frame me as somebody evil in Saori’s eyes.

“Ancestor, shut it!” Without a single hesitation, Saori shouted to defend me. “I do not need you directing every action of mine. I know you ordered my mother to entrust me to Hestia, so will you not keep quiet and let us speak?”

However, grumpy grandad wolf couldn’t care a bit. [“She has done her duty. Fulfilled our wishes. She must now leave like any other outsider. You are still weaker than her, she threatens your rule as the alpha!”]

“Yeah, threaten my friend’s goal. Are you serious?” I scoffed at how scared he was of me, making me feel embarrassed at how intimidated I was of him. “You should be lucky I didn’t bring my sister with me, or my mother! Or my wyvern guards.”

Saori clapped her hands, smirking at the silenced voice. “Ha! Speaking of your sister, you should introduce me to her eventually. It feels like somebody else had to handle your antics in my stead, and I want to hear it all from your sister. Oh, ahem, and I hope Melloxtressa is also doing well.”

I nodded. Mom had been sleeping pretty well, to the point she was sleep talking. A lot. Since I hadn’t moved her out of my bed yet, outside of when my maids had to change bed sheets, I knew her condition pretty well. Still, there was no sign she would wake up anytime soon.

In any case, with the less annoying topics out of the way, Saori and Asaka explained to us the grimgarians were threatening to invade the forest. They had found scouts and even an attempt to make a forward camp through their logging attempts. It was likely another fight would soon begin.

“Then let me help you,” I suggested.

“Us, too, Sensei!” Kyouya joined in with Tatsuya in tow. “We have to sit out of the Event Quest anyways, so we have a ton of time to kill. Daichi, Haruka-chan, and even Tamae-chan are around to help. Well, with the planning, at least.”

However, Saori shook her head. “There will not be a fight. The army is far too large for our small group. Instead, I am planning on using their slaves against them to deal them a bigger blow to them.”

Saori’s plans were inspired by something called the “Haitian Revolution,” which I honestly had never heard about. She was planning on freeing more of the beastmen slaves over there, inciting conflict by having the beastmen flee into Caedhulen territory with the grimgarian’s warship.

This would seriously reduce the grimgarian’s development potential, which would forcefully curb their aggressive tendencies, even forcing them to recall some of their troops overseas. This would help the affected countries from fighting back, potentially even calling for help from stronger countries like Artorias or the Empire. Her intention was to stop the invasion.

“But that won’t stop them from attacking you,” Misaki pointed out. “They are followers of Kronnaz, right? They will only take this as an even worse slight. With more troops recalled, they would only have you as their target.”

“Which is okay,” Asaka replied. “The big bad wolf told us it didn’t matter if we lost the Belzac forest or not, we could always reconquer it when we were stronger. All that mattered is that Segawa survives with her shadow pack and manages to master her training.”

“… So when you meant the ‘clean up,’ you meant you are hunting the monsters in the forest?” Haruka figured it out, causing Saori to nod.

“I have gained a good amount of levels after everything happened, but there are more monsters around to hunt. If the grimgarians want revenge, then let them. I will leave an empty forest for them to own; an empty forest with endless respawning monsters.” Saori then turned silent, letting out a silent sigh as she looked away. She then returned her eyes to us. “As such, Asaka and I cannot leave the forest. We will not join the Event Quest.”

We were shocked, but before we could complain, Asaka raised her hand.

“It isn’t just ‘cause of the grimgarians and our plan. I mean, I would rather go with you than stay with this nagging hag.”

“Oooh, and here I thought we were building up a rapport, Asaka. You wound me.” Saori smirked, looking mischievously towards the uneasy Asaka.

“… Shut it, you … Whatever. The point is, the wolf gave us a Quest to prevent us from leaving this place entirely. Or, to be precise, he had asked Ilsaphone to send us a Divine Quest to learn what he wants to teach Segawa.”

“Yes, and it will unlock our unique Jobs for us.”

We all widened our eyes when she said that.

“As such, we will stay here and handle things for you on this front. Get stronger and then we will attack the Prince of Envy together! Hestia, could I ask you a favor and have the Ankoran King send a message to Caedhul for us? To potentially await beastmen slaves?”

I frowned as I heard Saori say all of this, feeling very conflicted on what to say. I nodded to her request but my tensed face couldn’t relax, urging me to speak my mind.

“Saori … are you sure? This … All of this has nothing to do with your dream. Why are you staying in a single location; in a cave inside the Belzac forest at that! What about traversing the world with me! Watching me perform as an idol? Why … W-why …” I kept stuttering, as I realized I was being a bit too pushy here. “Why are you doing all of this? This shouldn’t make you happy, or?”

Saori showed slight shock when I said all of that, letting her eyes wander as everybody turned quiet. She rubbed her hand against her right eye, frowning like an annoyed kid as looked at the table.

“Things … Things just never work the way you want it all to work. I do not really know either. Maybe I have just changed?” She shrugged. “Like I changed personally by being around you. I do not think I would have done something this absurd without you showing me there was more than just being a coward. Too careful about everything.”

“Sensei …” The students knew Saori just as well as I did. In fact, they even knew her past self on Earth, so they should understand what Saori was doing here.

Instead of pursuing her own dreams and wants, she was once again forced to adapt to her new situation out of necessity. She had to become a teacher back on Earth instead of a historian due to money issues, and she even turned into a chef and seamstress to make money for our group, instead of pursuing her more intellectual pursuits.

At least, before, she could wander the world with us, seeing new sights and meeting new people, but now she was stuck inside this cave. For what? For training? Why couldn’t she visit us more often? Why was Belzac restricting her? It felt insane. She was placing our happiness before hers, just like what she did on Earth.

“… I don’t want to lecture any of you, but, sometimes, an adult just has to do what is necessary.” She shrugged once again, thinking nothing of it.

“You can do more than that, thought, lass,” Grimnir reprimanded her. “I know balddarg ain’t always good, and sometimes you just don’t have a choice, but don’t look at it too bleakly. If I had, I would have never joined Aurora.”

Tatsuya nodded. “Sensei, we’re not just your students anymore. We are adults. Ask us for help, too.”

“You should take your own advice, Saori …” I frowned, finding it sad to see her like this. “Lean on me, too, alright? We won’t push you about the grimgarians, but call for help, alright?”

“Hehe.” Saori smiled, but Asaka didn’t look too convinced of her changed mood. “Do not forget your situation is just as hard, or even harder, Hestia. Politics and your role as a party leader; you have grown well into it. Do not worry, once I am done here, I will get some fresh air. In fact, we still do not have information on our enemies in Aureolis, right?”

“We were planning on sending some Sarlenzia spies over,” Tasianna answered before frowning. “Please, don’t tell me, Miss Saori …”

The fenrir suddenly gave a wolfish grin. “I was planning on testing Belzac’s tricks and magics on somebody. Also, it would be fun to travel through Artorias again, if you ask me. Right, Asaka?”

“Leave me out of it. The moment we’re done here, I’m going back to Haru-chan.” She wrapped an arm around her best friend.

Saori just shrugged. “Then, I will just travel the country with my mother.”

My eyes widened when she said that, reminding me how she had wanted to do it with her human mother. I nodded, accepting Saori's decision at the end of the day.

“We have a date in Aureolis, alright?” My statement naturally caused the others to question why I was giving up so easily, but I told everybody we weren’t her parents. “I’ll kick her ass if she intends to stay here. In fact, I will kick Belzac’s stinky, skeleton out of his grave if he forces her to stay here.”

[“You insolent little …”] I could hear his growling and grinding teeth.

I smirked. “The point is, the intervention can wait until she breaks her promise. We won’t be able to persuade her when her mind is settled on this plan.”

“Thank you,” she thanked me.

I nodded before standing up to stretch.

The easy part is over.

“Ellaine?” I turned around to our blue-haired noble.

She nodded and raised her hand where her spell rings were. She then turned towards the direction of Belzac’s position. “Lord Belzac, I wish to ask you about Klea’Hatma.”

[“Grrrr … The filth.”]

Once mortal enemies, Belzac was probably one of the few mortals who was still “alive” to speak about the Archdemon of Lust, Klea’Hatma. Now, he would speak with her contractor.

A note from AbyssRaven

Sorry for the long wait. Also, Belzac is an old man shooing kids off his lawn.

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Chapter 388: Oh, Wolf; Woe to thy Demons.

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Belzac and Klea’Hatma.

Normally, you wouldn’t expect a wolf to have any interactions with a demon stuck in this world for over 2000 years. At least, not to the point both would have a grudge against each other. Well, it wasn’t like the demon really cared about the wolf, but, certainly, the wolf held onto his hatred for the demon.

Immortalized on the murals of an old dwarven fortress we found inside the Sirius March of Artorias, the story of Belzac and his growth in power until his death and the formation of a Belzac cult or something lay hidden and forgotten until the Tasianna, Saori and I stumbled onto it. There, not only did we learn the elves, dwarves, and humans had a hand in his demise, but also the fact he battled Klea’Hatma so many years ago.

Back then, Klea’Hatma was still sealed in that same fortress by Marsven—for some god-knows reason, although even Aurena couldn’t exactly tell me the reason—and was accidentally released by a human. Belzac, under the command of Marsven, hunted down the demonkin, driving her injured state back into her hiding hole. Once defeated, she was sealed once again.

Naturally, it was obvious my party found the orb she was sealed in and accidentally let her out, but, thankfully, nothing really happened. With Aurena controlling that demon with a noose around her neck, she was deemed suitable to use for Ellaine. Initially, I thought of the demon as a threat, but somehow, Ellaine managed to … tame? Befriend? Well, however you wanted to call it, she had become more helpful.

But, while Klea’Hatma had her own story to write, Belzac’s drew to an end after his fight with her. Critically injured, the rank S fenrir was too weak when he was ambushed by his enemies, and eventually slain. However, he defied true death by striking a deal with Edna, the Goddess of Monsters, to help him and grow one of his descendants into becoming her Champion. For that, his soul lingered, remaining behind in this place as an onnikai.

Which, surprisingly, led to the whole Belzac wolf thing and how Saori was now stuck in this place with him. Well, with a daughter who could control souls, I guess Edna had the privilege of fulfilling such a deal. Then again, her husband was also Marsven, and who knew what that Origin God had up his sleeves?

Now, due to Ellaine’s request, we were meeting Belzac “face-to-face,” concerning Klea’Hatma. As Ellaine had explained, the demon was dormant, having not responded once since they first found one of Broggart’s hideouts. Considering the gods weren’t answering me, the demon was our only way to identify hidden demonkins.

On our way to him, through one of the tunnels connecting Belzac’s shrine to the Saori’s and Asaka’s living area, our group suddenly stopped when we noticed something bright on the wall. Everybody but Saori and Asaka.

“Oi, come on, it’s nothing bad.” Asaka gestured for us to follow us, all while I noticed her mouth was slightly twitching upwards. Almost as if she was suppressing a smile.

Going closer to the bright lights, our eyes opened up a bit as we realized it was actually a drawing. White and black colors were painted on the tunnel wall, depicting something, a maybe, semi-pro drawing of a wolf. It was visually appealing with how the artist mixed the monochrome colors together, but it was a bit amateurish due to the over-the-top exaggeration on it, specifically, the cartoonish eyes and claws.

It was almost looked like—

“Graffiti,” Haruka stated after a couple moments of us observing it, drawing our attention to Asaka when the former walked up to her. “How?”

Asaka grinned boisterously, before she clapped her hands together, materializing two comma-looking objects with mana—one black, the other white. They twirled around, before they finally formed a ying-yang formation. She then snapped her fingers, causing the commas to swirl around and mix into a magic circle, becoming bright beige, just like the wall painting. It was a spell, and once cast, created an orb.

She then pushed her finger through it, before tearing off a piece of it like some kind of semi-solid fluid. She then used that slime to quickly paint a long stick with a handle in the air, which somehow was floating around, just like the weird beige orb. We were then left speechless as the painting became real, turning itself into a sword Asaka could wield.

She started swinging the blade around, causing the air to swoop with every slash. “My unique skill, [Twilight Paladin], was kinda difficult to actually figure out, you know? As in, what is a ‘Twilight element?’ Well, Twilight is the dim, orange light before the sun sets, right? Doesn’t make sense as an element, right?”

We all nodded. It always seemed weird that Asaka’s unique skill obtained after becoming a Saint of Ilsaphone allowed her to create those weird ying-yang things—one holy, one dark element.

Moonlight Guider: A title granted to a mortal recognized by the Goddess of Death and Necromancy, whose control has been usurped by individual [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]. Enables the ability to communicate with all types of faefolk. Enables the ability to control and speak with the undead. The owner of this title will be immune to all mana ailments while the moon is up

Twilight Paladin: A unique skill given to the [Moonlight Guider]. Enables the owner to enchant equipment with either the Holy or Dark element. Enables the user to conjure up Holy and Dark mana into a twinned object of light and darkness, enabling them the usage of the compound element [Twilight]. Dramatically increases Health regeneration when the sun is up, and Mana during the night. Reduces damage received from all undead-related sources by 80%. The skills combined are: [Mana Efficiency Lv. 10] [Mana Control Lv. 10] [Holy Magic Lv. 10] [Dark Magic Lv. 10] [Health Recovery Lv. 10] [Mana Recovery Lv. 10] [Arcane Conduit Lv. 10] [Sorcerer’s Power Lv. 10]

You would think the Goddess of Death and Necromancy, who was also in control of soul rebirths, would give her Saintess a skill around those domains, but nope. It was something else entirely.

“The wolf can mostly translate what Ilsaphone told me. Over 2000 years of being dead and stuck in this place for Edna to strengthen his soul does that to you. Similar to your situation, Hestia.” Using me as an example made it simple for everybody else to understand the situation. “‘Light is life, darkness is death. The coalescence of those two concepts is the essence of true necromancy,’ or, whatever that philosophical ramble is supposed to mean.”

She then threw her sword in the air, causing it to dissipate into thin air, before she used the rest of the beige orb to paint something else. This time, though, it was in the shape of a thin gun and a can; the latter was loaded into the former, before she used that gun to spray shining white and black colors on the wall.

Asaka was fully immersed in her work, drawing more and more without saying another word. Seeing her like this, Saori sighed and continued the explanation in her stead.

“Essentially, our initial training involved Belzac trying to help us find our ‘drive.’ I experienced my memories of my human mother, including a chance to find closure to my past life’s death. Tatsuya and Kyouya had some … private stuff, while Asaka, well, she wouldn’t tell me anything, but I can guess.” Saori stared at the girl too focused on her job to respond. “The onnikai slime we saw with Kiiro, Tasianna’s catalyst, and the slime holding my garm mother together are not unique things. The idea behind the slime gave her the idea for her first custom spell, [Vivid Graffiti].”

<Vivid Graffiti: Create a sphere of condense mana, solidified into mana slime with the twilight element, allowing the caster to create weapons and armor using it. Little mana cost for the usage and Activation of the spell, but will require mana to maintain the weapons and armor, becoming more expensive the longer they are active. The user can change the element of the equipment to holy, twilight, or dark, with each respective element becoming stronger depending on the time of day. Damage and defence of the equipment increase with both Strength and Intelligence equally. Restricted to one equipment at a time>

I knew from everybody that Asaka was very much a delinquent who did graffiti, but I didn’t expect that she would use that hobby of hers to do this. I mean, it certainly was creative, something I probably wouldn’t have thought about doing, but was this really the best use of her unique skill? Maybe I wasn’t seeing the use-case for it.

After some more time had passed, Asaka was finally done, showing off a well-done painting of a husky plushie, once again reminding me of the one Shoyi suddenly transformed into. What surprised me, though, was how Saori once again reacted strongly to it. She wanted to complain at Asaka, but she just shot her graffiti gun at Saori, painting her black dress white.

“Still think you dress like an emo, teach, hehe.” She grinned.

Meanwhile, Saori just glared at her, before letting out a sigh as the white color just vanished like the sword from before. “… It is not only a way for her to deal damage, but the graffiti gun, especially, can act as her range healing after she lost [Holy Magic].”

Asaka still had [Sacred Magic] to give her access to [Sacred Field] and [Major Heal], but the idea behind the gun she was using was to give fast healing for far less mana than those two spells. Since [Vivid Graffiti] didn’t demand mana upon use, it allowed her to spray almost indefinitely outside of the fact she needed mana to maintain it.

Now, you might ask, why not just make an actual gun? Apparently, a gun with some ammo counted as two separate pieces of equipment, while a graffiti gun with some paint in it counted as one item. That was a restriction I hadn’t expected, but it did make sense in a way. Still, I guess the power coming from this spell was the fact she could stay relatively flexible in whatever situation she was, as long as she could paint the item in time.

Also, the fact they explained it to us now made what happened later far easier to understand. After all, the moment we entered Belzac’s shrine, we noticed the whole place was filled to the brim with graffiti, making it look like some ghetto. The colorful and bright “decorations” were a stark contrast to the bone wolf statue in the middle, giving off a more macabre feeling.

[“… You never listen, girl.”] We all could hear Belzac’s displeased voice enter our voice, followed by Asaka shrugging her shoulders.

“Try some colors and change, old man. You’re all grumpy and moody cuz you’ve been stuck in this shithole for over 2000 years. Might make your soul happier.”

[“My mood is ill because my time is waning like any other mortal, while you squander your precious human life with petty interests and tardiness. How would you feel if your descendant and her allies did nothing but trouble you, all while you know true death lingers around the corner?”]

Immortality being a curse was again shown clearly with Belzac. As Saori explained, the fenrir had an extremely old soul and it was nearing its end. Similar to the archerudite of Aleistunum, Uzerra, Belzac spent most of his days sleeping to ward off the deterioration of his soul and prolonging his life.

As such, unless he believed a [Belzac’s Successor] could succeed with his goal, he would simply remain dormant. Whenever he woke up, he would give this sorta training to them, allowing them to get stronger so they could become Edna’s Champion. However, time was waning, to the point every second was precious to him.

[“I explained that I leave my shrine empty so as to not overindulge my senses, reserving only the most important memories for my soul. This … This is poison,”] Belzac snarled at Asaka for all the graffiti, but the blue-haired girl could only scowl and shake her head.

“It’s that attitude that’s killing you, old man … Lighten up.”

As Uzerra had mentioned, happiness could enhance a soul’s life. Maybe Asaka wasn’t as heartless towards Belzac as I thought. I, too, was worried about Mom’s advance age and … maybe also my dragon father’s.

After that little argument, Asaka just left the room with Haruka following after her. Meanwhile, the rest of us remained silent, observing the creepy statue in the middle of this shrine, all while Ellaine moved forward. She raised her left hand, showing off the two spell rings—one green, one brown—to the legendary wolf.

[“… Yes, I can sense her mana. Smell it. How did she survive?”] Belzac asked, acting far less aggressive than before.

“You didn’t know?” Ellaine tilted her head, looking over at Saori, Tasianna, and me. We, after all, saw the murals of his fight with Klea’Hatma. “Do you remember where you fought Klea? A dwarven fortress occupied by humans?”

[“It is a scar. You don’t forget them.”]

Ellaine nodded, continuing the story, “She was sealed in a catalyst there. Hestia, Saori, and Tasianna found it there, before we accidentally released her. I have been using her as a source of power ever since the Goddess allowed me to use her.”

“Not we. It was my fault,” I corrected Ellaine, making sure everybody else wasn’t at fault for my actions. I didn’t know it would have happened, but it still did.

[“… That doesn’t matter. Saori, you knew about this but didn’t tell me?”] His attention was now on my vice-captain, slightly growling at her in displeasure.

“Because Klea’Hatma was never brought up in our discussion, isn’t a real threat with Goddess Aurena keeping her in check, and, finally, you never talked about your grudge against her. Only against the one other person alive responsible for your death. Will you now tell me how I should kill the demon, despite our control over her?”

[“You cannot control a demon!”] Belzac snapped at her. [“No, they are beings controlled by their whims alone. You can only play around them, manipulate them as such. But you will never have full power over them, and if you believe you do, you are a fool. Grrr … Of course, it had to be God Marsven …”]

“Goddess Aurena did tell us he was the one to seal him, correct, Lady Hestia?” I nodded to Tasianna’s question.

Belzac’s growling stopped when he heard this, going silent for a moment before continuing, [“The Origin God of Darkness is also the ever mysterious maker of change for the sake of change. I have heard of Chihiro who ‘possesses’ the domain of change, but that is only in this world. It is God Marsven who is the true god of change, even back when he was still an Edjurl god.”]

“You didn’t know he was behind this up until now? Didn’t he send you to attack her?” Daichi brought up, also knowing about the story since we informed everybody about it during our story sessions.

[“His mood is fickle and he holds no strong love for mortalkind, seeing us as mere beings pleading for his power. Amongst the gods, he is the least intrusive one, leaving us to live however we want, never becoming angered even if we slight him. For he is the God of Progression, Defiance, and Fate in this world,”] Belzac gave us a detailed explanation of who Marsven was, but he wasn’t done just yet. [“Although I say that, he still chose Edna, a mortal elf, as his wife and had three daughters who went and created three new races for Peolynca. While he hasn’t reached his hand out personally, his daughters, who inherited many of his traits and power, still are expanding his power.”]

Belzac then groaned, sounding irritated. [“He gave me a Divine Quest to slay the demonkin, which I accepted, as it would bring me closer to rank SS. I do not know how the demon was sealed, as I was sure I left the demon dead to lick my wounds. I suspect God Marsven kept her alive, but it cannot be through his personal hand. It has to be through other mortal hands.”]

“The villagers and followers you gained,” Saori brought up, pointing at the people who once lived inside the dwarven fortress during Belzac’s era.

[“Correct … I remember those humans. They worshipped me as their savior and helped heal my wounds. They made me this shrine when I died. I cannot remember where their descendants went, or if their bloodline still lives.”]

“None of them were beastmen, at least,” Tatsuya stated before explaining how he and the other Saori’s group buried them beneath this shrine, as their remains were left unburied. “Honestly, I thought one of them would be a beastman, but I—”

[“You guessed wrong.”] The grumpy wolf interrupted him, growling. [“I do not have an interest in human females, nor did I learn [Humanize]. Regardless, their story doesn’t matter, but if you wish to seek to learn more about Marsven and what he planned, you might wish to ask somebody who is in the know.”]

Like Aurena. She might also know if Belzac’s followers were still alive somehow, or not. Actually, the Night Sisters could know, too, but speaking with them just sounds like trouble.

[“Now, human girl, explain to me, why did you bring this creature’s mangled pieces before me?”] It felt like the big, bad wolf was standing before us with the gloomy voice he was speaking with. Not to mention, his aura was active once again. [“Is this my tribute?”]

Ellaine covered her left hand with her right and took a step back. “N-no, I just wish to ask you since you are the closest being I could ask about this. Uhm, Lord Belzac, I wish to ask you about Klea’s state. She had been dormant—non-responsive—for a long time now. Do you know why?”

[“There, you said it, again. ‘Klea,’ only her first name. Do you know demons separate their full names with an apostrophe? Do not tell me you consider this filth a friend? She once endangered the entirety of Peolynca; every single being was in danger of being defiled by her!”] Belzac shouted, almost to the point of scolding. [“If she is dormant, then leave her that way! I can smell the scent of demon mana around those rings, and if Goddess Aurena allows it, then you must be wielding her power. The power of a demon of lust.”]

“…” Ellaine couldn’t speak back, looking almost intimidated by him, reminding me of how Ellaine was afraid of her father. As in, the expectations he had for her.

[“Wield it, as long as it doesn’t corrupt you. The blackness of the void I am teaching Saori is almost as rare as the power of the demigods of Edjurl. Leave the demon alone. Leave her to die. Let the little bits of mana inside those rings perish.”]

“W-wait, die?!” Ellaine’s body twitched. “Hold on, Lord Belzac, are you telling me Klea is currently dying?!”

[“No.”] However, his answer was blunt, throwing us all off. [“That demon is essentially already dead, since I cannot even smell a soul. Only her mana. I presume this is what Saori meant with Goddess Aurena ‘keeping her in check.’ What I mean is that you should leave her like that until you are finished with your duty. Then, exterminate her for good. Do not risk the world with your naivety.”]

“The Goddess has her under her control!” Ellaine argued back, but such an argument couldn’t sway the wolf one bit.

[“And once you are dead, Goddess Aurena will just destroy her just as well. Why not just end her earlier?”]

I kinda understood what Belzac was meaning to say, but his bluntness was a clear turn off. It just made the situation sound bleaker than usual, while not helping with the problem at hand.

Almost as if he read my mind, Grimnir grumbled at the response. “The fact you can’t see why we are using the demon in our quest is the problem here. The lass asked ya a clear question, but instead of answering it, you derailed the conversation to prop up your own opinion. Bladdarg. Give it a rest until ya’re finished. Now what is it, wolf? Why is the demon dormant?”

[“Hrrrm?”] Belzac questioned Grimnir’s words with the sound of his displeased voice. [“What use is this knowledge, when it is more acceptable to just leave the dead to sleep? The girl can still use the demonic mana however she wishes as long as she can control herself. In fact, waking up the demon is a prime risk. You wish to corrupt your ally?”]

“Whether Ellaine’s action will produce proper consequences or not is not for you to decide, Belzac,” Saori supported Grimnir in this matter. “I understand you want to prevent the risk, and while I can agree with it, trying to hand hold everything until the very end to have your perfection will only hinder a person’s growth. Instead of hiding information, try to trust that we know what we will do is the right thing.”

“Sensei?” The students were shocked to hear that from Saori; from my recollection of her stories about her time on Earth, it did sound a bit different to how she was before she was reincarnated. Then again, I had been with her all this time, so I knew how much she had changed from our first meeting.

Belzac’s bullheadedness was met head-on by Grimnir’s abrasive attitude and Saori’s new teaching philosophy. If he was still alive, you could imagine him grating his teeth with how oppressive this silence was. However, from the look of it, those two really knew how to deal with a person like him.

[“Saori …”] he eventually growled in response, his attention fully on his “heir.” [“Everyday since you’ve been with me, you have become more and more bold. You spoke back to me when I told you to stop attacking the grimgarians. You spoke against me when I told you we should just let them reign. You spoke back against me when I told you to handle Asaka better, reining her in as is your job as her alpha! You have learned nothing!”]

“Wrong! I learned enough that sometimes dreams just can’t come true if you aren’t even willing to sacrifice something about your life. The hardships, the compromises, the emotional rollercoasters; those make a person whole. Something I’ve learned well enough after you made Mom interact with me in my human mother’s form. The past gives rise to fear, consuming your every step. Prevents you from embracing what is right.”

I instinctively gulped, remembering everything I did during my first year of being in this world. I was too scared of becoming an idol, too afraid of being rejected once again after all the training I did and the glimmer of hope I held of being in a new world. The fear of being alone again, causing me to nearly abandon my friends out of worry that I might end up hurting them.

The same thing had also happened to Saori, with how she acted at first. Even back then, I could tell she was a bit of a control freak with how she was scared of being “worthless” in my eyes and losing “power.” How she always wanted to keep us safe from everything, whether it was risks, poverty, or just general unhappiness. I thought she was selfish, but her attitude always hid her more caring side, to the point she neglected her passion for history.

Saori then shook her head. “It isn’t right that I needed to argue with you five times to overturn your opinions on the grimgarians. You want to keep your territory, but you don't want to fight for it. You want me to become your successor, but you keep me locked inside this place.”

[“Your life has more meaning than some petty squabble between the humans and the grimgarians, Saori!”] Belzac shouted to interject himself, not even letting Saori finish. [“You are the last Belzac. Literally. You are the last of my bloodline, untainted by death. If you die … then all the effort I’ve made for 2000 years will become irrelevant. All the descendants I’ve groomed—dead. I’m stuck here, unable to do anymore.”]

“…” Saori’s face was tense but it didn’t soften a bit. It seemed they had this discussion already.

[“According to Goddess Kronnaz’s lessons, the grimgarians have the right to fight back. Revenge. Why are you fighting them? The humans, the elves, the dwarves … they’ve done nothing but destroy our bloodline! They killed your great-grandfather and your grandfather. They forced your mother to lead a pack of young wargs all by herself when she was still barely an adult! The collapse of my bloodline is their fault. Why won’t you listen?”] His pleading voice was grating my consciousness. I could feel his stoicness fading.

“… Because I know you want me to succeed. Because you want me to live, I decided to break the loop and stop history from repeating. There are better ways to solve these problems if you think outside of the box,” Saori argued, steadfast in her opinions. “For what it is worth, Belzac, I am glad you decided to agree with my plan. We don’t need to hold the Belzac forest when I am the only Belzac left. Maybe … seeing the world will help you. See how much it has changed over the years.”

She then turned around. “Sadly, just as always, our arguments have derailed into constant fights. Ellaine, everybody, this is enough. Let us go. We will not gain any answers while he is like this. Belzac, after I’m done with my plan, we’ll move out towards Aureolis. We’ll continue the training within the subspace during our travels.”

Seeing Saori just walk away caused some confusion amongst us, but since she had the best handle on Belzac, we followed along with her. Ellaine looked disappointed, but it couldn’t be helped.

[“Wait.”] But our steps stopped when Belzac’s voice came. [“… The demon, if what you told me is true, is probably in the same state as when you first found her in the fortress. She cannot wake up by herself; she is trapped in her own dreams, so to speak. I don’t know why, but maybe she is hiding her presence from somebody. I could only ‘smell’ her due to my increased powers within this shrine of mine. If not for that, I don’t think anybody could sense her being within your rings. Even if they were a foot in front of you.”]

Ellaine instantly turned around, walking a few steps towards his shrine. “But she has already done this before, multiple times even! She would always suppress her aura to make sure the demonkins cannot trace her. She never fell asleep like this before.”

[“What if it is somebody she believes can find her? Tell me, girl, does an enemy know you can use demonic powers?”]

Vifi’Yok!

Ellaine, Tasianna, and Saori looked at each other, followed by the Tatsuya and Kyouya groaning. They probably had the same thought. During their fight with her in Estralia, Vifi’Yok and her apprentice saw Ellaine use her demonic powers. We used the smokescreen of “Ellaine is a Sin of Lust contractor” to hide the truth, but it would make sense if the demonkin decided to investigate her.

After all, did Ellaine ever have contact with a demonkin outside of combat? Who was it who gave her the powers? If the demonkins did their research, they would quickly find an inconsistency. Was that why Klea’Hatma hid herself to the point she was like when we first found her?

Ellaine began to piece the puzzle together. “… So to wake her, we need—”

“The last time I had her wake up was when she was in contact with one of the demonkin’s manatech—a Rebellion orb, meant to agitate a dungeon’s boss into a dungeon break.” I remembered the Cedaraille events and how an insane Shiterno cultist was cajoled by the demonkin or one of their sympathizers to destroy the city. “We need something like that again. Or, maybe anything with demonic energy?”

“… No.” Ellaine grimaced, understanding this was a near impossible task at this very point. Trying to find something like that without the proper contacts just sounded insane.

But, the question was, why did Klea’Hatma hide herself like this? And why did she do this when they entered Broggart’s hideout? What was going on?

I instinctively gulped when I realized this puzzle was starting to get more complicated than I thought. It might actually be time for me to visit one of Aurena’s shrines and try to talk to her in person about all of this.

“Thank you, Ancestor Belzac.” Saori bowed deeply to Belzac, before turning around and leaving without awaiting an answer.

With our questions finally answered, it was finally time to say our goodbyes to Saori and Asaka once again. Rajah, too, had to say goodbye to his mother and siblings, as they would stay here to train with the girls. It made me smile when I saw Rajah promise them he would become even stronger the next time they met.

Saori and Asaka would execute their plans before they traveled to Aureolis for their sneak mission. After my discussion with Saori, I knew I shouldn’t worry about her too much. At the end of the day, adults had a lot of bottled up feelings and emotions. I should be glad she showed more of herself today and just trust her. Similar to how she trusted me and Aurora as a whole.

Once everybody said their temporary byes, we returned to the subspace and then headed back into Inkoran-Tazul to go out for some food. After that stressful meeting, I was hungry again, and this time, I couldn’t wait to taste some traditional dwarven food.

Outside of your screaming drunks and merry party-makers, the best place to eat was truly the locals taverns. Hearty and filling dishes like pies, meat loaves, and so many more helped me understand how much the underground life had influenced their culture. If most of your people were miners and smiths, you needed to make food which could keep those tummy-engines roaring.

Naturally, since I had a feast to attend tonight, I didn’t fill myself up too much. After all, I had to make an impression on the Ankoran King and Queen that idols were the best moodmakers around. Naturally, I couldn’t help but show my skills off that night and then quickly asked him to allow me to perform in the city.

It was settled that I would perform on the first EarthDay of next month. Since it was AutumnSun and the start of a new season, I quickly understood he was talking about the Binding Festival—the seasonal wedding day. Since dwarves were rowdy, they celebrated in a far more unique manner than humans, and for that, he needed musicians.

Meaning, I was booked for the 2nd of AutumnSun, about three days after the dungeon announcement. After that, I would also enter the other dungeon to exterminate its growing rank B, while waiting for everybody to finish the Event Quest.

Honestly, I was still sad I couldn’t participate, but avoiding the dragonslayers sounded smart. Hopefully, Sis would also avoid them.

Sadly, fate and luck were fickle if you were part of Aurora. Meaning, it was time to train, and for me specifically, it was time to finish my new custom spells and also continue my [Battle Frenzy] training with my sister.

“Well, we didn’t get a chance to fight in Elyonda’s tournament, so how about now?” Sis offered as we began the first day of training.

I grinned. “Dragon form?”

“Ohoho! I’m going smack you, you little brat!”

“Less talk, more fisticuffs!”

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Side Story 46: The Travels of a Lone Demonkin.

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“Hahaha! Good work, good work, that probably demanded quite a bit from you, human. Taking out that many people as a loner; didn’t think you were capable enough.” The giant rhinoncerum—a rhinoceros beastman—huffed at a short, young human adventurer, eying her with a malicious grin as he counted the copper and silvite coins scattered on his bar table.

He looked the girl up and down, once again noticing how her gambeson was showing only one of her arms, with the left sleeve wafting loosely from the cool breeze coming through the open windows and door. From the sound of clanking metal, he also suspected she wore some chainmail underneath it, although it might also be a coincidence, as she had metal sabatons and gauntlets

Although he wasn’t an adventurer, his natural strength as a rhinoncerum would outclass even trained rank E humans. Not to mention, as a beastman who was born in one of the many tribes of Carmaniate, he was a trained hunter and warrior, to the point he could take on rank Ds without any problem. He had gotten rusty over the years, slacking off on his training for his job as a gang boss, but with money, he could buy anything he needed. With Davi, he had hired four rank C black mercs and their rank B boss to guard him.

That was why he was surprised to see the rank F adventurer still alive and having fulfilled the Quest he gave her by bringing him the head of a rival gang's boss, along with a pouch of coin. She was only a human—one-armed at that—and her only weapons looked like a crossbow, a quiver of bolts, and a single rapier. He could see how dainty she was, but apparently, this girl took out his rival?

The rhinoncerum stopped counting his money and instead began playing with the decapitated head of his lizardman rival. The scales stimulated his tough skin by poking it and he could see the blood had already drenched the bag the head was in in scarlet red. His wide smile waned, as one of his minions stormed right into the tavern.

“B-Boss!” A foxian runner heaved heavy breaths, recovering only moments later to straighten his posture. “Can confirm! A whole blood bath! The whole lizardman gang got exterminated in their district, with their base crumbled into pieces! The rest of the gang even found their boss’s body. Mangled and burned, but the only one headless.”

“Hoooo?” His smile suddenly dropped, before he plastered it back on his face to nobody’s attention. It also helped that the facial expressions of rhinoncerums were harder to read than others.

However, this didn’t go unnoticed.

“You really are capable, huh? That rank F really betrays your true abilities. Can’t help it, huh? The merc guild isn’t so lax when it’s around the border between Carm and the Empire. With how many criminals crowd Olinta town, the guild isn't so appreciative of black mercs or underbelly rats.”

“Can I get my money?” the girl interrupted the man’s speech, knowing it was all a pretense.

Shaking his head, the rhinoncerum understood the girl was in a hurry to leave. “You didn’t steal any, right? Any of the coins, I mean.”

“I don’t need to stoop to your level to earn my wage.”

“Wage? Huh?” The beastman nodded, getting to know the girl more and more. Still, the stoic expression she had on the whole time still grated him. “Got out, huh? Yeah, I can understand that. Stealing, killing, and swindling every day just to live, right? Ha, got born in a tribe, so I didn’t have to experience it. Had to cut many rat’s down for doing it to us, though. Though, you? Got some hope in your eyes, despite losing that arm. Got caught, right?”

“Money.”

“Hueheikhuek,” his bodyguards began to crackle at the short girl’s attitude, finding it a bit too cute.

A human female standing up to multiple beastmen warriors? If she had been a leonid or another strong and imposing beastman variant, they could understand her swagger. Sadly, none of them could take her any more seriously than a little mouse.

In the Beastman Alliance of Carmaniate, strength was all that mattered. A meritocracy where their alliance leader could be of any tribe, any beastmen race, any gender, any origin; as long as they were strong and could lead well, they would be respected. And respect was a powerful word for many of them, even to the weaker and cowardly people amongst them. The Law of the Strong and Jungle was rampant in this place.

However, despite this barbaric ideology, the people of Carmaniate weren’t entirely unreasonable. There was still order here and there with large, bustling cities and well-governed trading hubs. Strength wasn’t just prowess, it was also ingenuity, speechcraft, and righteousness. A true alliance leader had to assemble his retinue with more than muscles, as he was not only a warrior, but also the political pillar of an entire alliance with so many cultural differences it could rival even the humongous Empire of Folschreck.

Unfortunately for the rhinoncerum and his bodyguards, it had been too long since they last tasted the true Carmaniate. They had been living in the neutral zone between Carmaniate and Folschreck, where humans, beastmen, and dwarves could live in relative harmony. Relatively.

In addition to that, they had been living as criminals, robbing and killing similarly to bandits. They took the ideology of Carmaniate to the extreme, turning themselves into nothing more than barbarians. If this were in any other town, they would be ganged up by officials or bounty hunters, but in the lawless town of Olinta, there was no such worry. Here, strength really was all that mattered.

“…” The rhinoncerum boss tapped his large fingers on the table, almost as if he was trying to agitate the girl. In the end though, his smirk appeared once again and began collecting the coins on the table. “Here, your share.”

He threw the coins onto the girl’s side of the table, prompting her to count it before collecting it all without any complaints. She stood up without saying anything and left the tavern, leaving the men to watch her walk away.

“And here we thought some overconfident brat took the job. You really see a lot.” The leonid leader of the rhinoncerum’s bodyguard group stroked his long mane, contemplating the reality of the situation. “Here I thought you would hire her after the runner came.”

“You saw those eyes, right? That girl isn’t some random street rat; she has the flare of a warrior. A true warrior; not like those human wastes the Empire put on the frontlines to die.” The malicious grin on the beastman’s face returned after so long. “She doesn’t have any enchanted items. Or runes. It’s magic. She’s a caster, and a strong one at that if she looked relatively normal after massacring all those lizards. Brat or not, I want her in the crew!”

The extreme of Carmaniate’s ideology made sure whether you were born an orphan or as another race, as long as you earned a beastman’s respect, that respect was true. To see this girl destroy his enemies made it clear they had to gain this girl as an ally or risk having her turn an enemy one day.

Challenging her head-on would only create complications. They had to do this correctly.

“Money. Post another Quest for the merc guild and make it extra lucrative!”

Wasting a potential recruit was not the name of the game. If you wanted to survive in the neutral zone, you needed either the support of somebody powerful, make your own power, or live inside the only secure city around—Hadjuk-Orn, the most-eastern dwarven hold along the Ankoran Mountain ranges.

As the dwarves acted as trading partners for both the Folschreck Empire and the Beastman Alliance, neither side wished to annoy the dwarven merchants and risk losing their trade. It was through this presence that the neutral zone was created. As neither nation’s power and influence were able to completely take hold in this area, it was a thriving place for refugees, criminals, and deserters … especially for a certain deserter.

I need to get out of this town now. The young woman from before determined after leaving the tavern and her employer. With fast steps, she rushed to the closest mercenary guild and handed in her Quest, earning her the reward for the completed request. The share she got from the rhinoncerum was the extra fee for bringing in the lizardman’s head and the extermination of the entire group.

Her original Quest was to just steal the pouch of coins he gave him, but during their initial negotiation, the straped-for-money woman had to drive the conversation towards a more beneficial proposition. Although she hadn’t done any real mercenary work up until now, she knew it wasn’t any different from her time in the army. It was just now, she had the initiative and decision to execute it or not without any real repercussions.

With coins now shuffling inside her fuller money pouch, her steps caused the snow underneath her foot to crunch as she walked towards the nearby marketplace. She let out a deep breath, before the cold breeze blew her white breath away. Born and raised on the streets in Bole’Taria, this girl felt nothing at the chill of the upcoming winter. To her, it was just like home, maybe a bit warmer.

This “human” woman was Vifi’Yok, former Warbringer of Bole’Taria and one of their most promising rising stars. A demonkin, hidden in plain sight as an one-armed young human.

Now, though, she went by the name of Valeria, given to her by the orphanage director in a town close to Port Saltzwieder, the closest harbor to the western part of the continent. A necessity, as she was trying to create a new life for herself, away from the army of Bole’Taria. Although homesick, she understood if she wanted to continue living, this was the only future for her.

Provisions first. Restock bolts, tools, materials to make more in an emergency … Maybe some new clothes.

A month had passed ever since Vifi’Yok participation in the Elyonda siege as one of its commanders—a scar of defeat she couldn’t forget no matter how much she tried. Her near death experience at the claws of that dragon blessed of Aurena's and her older sister; it was without question the biggest military defeat in her entire career as a soldier and general, despite how short it had been.

Beaten down and only able to survive by the mercy of her opponent, to the point she was nearly swayed by the dragon blessed’s tender words, she fled. With the help of another commander, Streiga Ghorush, she managed to sever her ties with Bole’Taria and wandered into her former enemy’s territory, the Empire of Humans, Folschreck.

Through a favor, Vifi’Yok was taken in by one of Streiga’s old allies, allowing the young demonkin girl to learn the ins and outs of human society. Used to briefings, she took in the information given to her like a sponge. It was all for her survival, after all.

Although initially dissatisfied with her new “human” name and the energetic orphans treating her as if she was one of them, Vifi’Yok thought of this as a chance to actually start over. She went into all of this with an optimistic outlook, but even she couldn’t stop herself from feeling homesick. Everything was different, from the people, to the food, to the rules. It felt alien to her.

However, her time for living peacefully ended two days after she got her new party bracelet from the director, one that allowed her to hide her Profile from others. A group of Lycerepth agents arrived in the small town. Being the Empire’s religious police, Vifi’Yok staying around any longer would only endanger the people who were nice enough to harbor a deserter and demonkin.

Although one-armed and unable to use her full demonic potential after the siege, Vifi’Yok was still level 150—worthy of being one of the finest rank A adventurers in the world. With speed unmatched by most, she raced out of the town and the region itself. With only some Davi and the clothes the orphans sewed for her, Vifi’Yok began her new life and adventure in this new “world.”

However, life wasn’t too easy for a vagrant with no home and ability to officially work. She couldn’t stay around for too long in human territory, as it would run the risk of her old companions finding her. She didn’t stay in any location for more than three days—the first for arrival, the second to restock, and the third to leave. Eventually, though, her money dwindled even after she tried to be as conservative as possible.

Facing poverty once again, Vifi’Yok had wondered if she had to steal. Stoop back to the level of her childhood. Honestly, she thought she would, as in her escape from Elyonda, she had to steal a boat from a fishing village in Aleistunum to cross the sea to Port Saltwieder. However, as if her fortunes finally turned around, she learned of a local bandit group having robbed a carriage close by.

Better than stealing, she thought before making quick work of them.

She left most of the stolen goods behind, only taking whatever was necessary which included equipment, food, and money. She didn’t want to steal. She didn’t want to relapse back to her older days. She was now a proud demonkin soldier … or, at least, she used to be one. As a demonkin of wrath, she had her own honor to take care of.

After some prolonged travel, using bandits and brigands as prey to restock her coffers and bags, she eventually made her way to the neutral zone. There, she registered herself as a mercenary and hunter. Having taken the words of the orphanage director to heart, if she wanted to make herself a new life, this was the only place she could go.

“Welcome!” As the demon girl entered a nearby shop, the lizardman clerks greeted her with warmth, before their eyes widened as they recognized her. “Oh! It’s you!”

“Hey.” With her usual stoicness she waved back to the husband and wife manning this small bakery. “You two sound happy.”

“Oh, it’s you! Come in, come in, pale-skin!” The lizardman hurried her into the shop, away from the cold and into the warmth of their active ovens. “Of course we’re happy! It’s finally over! Haha, those damn bandits finally got what they deserved!”

“Pale-skin” was how lizardmen called humans, a similar term to “scale-kin” which described every beastman with scales. Although it might sound like an insult, Vifi’Yok knew better. She had gotten used to these two already. It had only been three days since she arrived in this town.

“Those blasted scale-kins are finally gone!” the female lizardman shouted in elation, wagging her tail around to demonstrate her happiness. “Haven’t you heard about it, lass? The Mudwater Gang were finally taken out!”

“Taken out?” Vifi’Yok played dumb, tilting her head in confusion.

“Ah, we really shouldn’t be too happy with them dead. The other gangs will just get in the way, again, but … it feels good. I’m okay with protection money if we get actual protection! Not having to fear for my partner’s life is a small price to pay.” The husband mostly ignored Vifi’Yok, unable to keep himself composed. After he realized his mistake, he waved his hands around, apologizing. “Sorry, sorry. You know the gang of lizardman bandits we told you about yesterday? Finally dead! We can finally get back to work!”

“Hmm. Nice to hear. Could I get three loaves, please?”

“Of course!” both lizardmen cheered, quickly bringing out three freshly baked loaves of bread, prompting the demonkin girl to finally break into a smile.

<Effects: [Excited: 1%] [Anger: 0%] [Fear: 0%]>

She paid for her bread before taking a bite from it, causing her to stop and take in a deep breath, allowing herself to enjoy the aroma of it. Once please, she continued chewing and swallowed it.

<Effects: [Excited: 5%] [Anger: 0%] [Fear: 0%]>

A fleeting moment of happiness, but happiness, nonetheless.

“Oh right.” After she recovered from her stupor, Vifi’Yok remembered her second business here. “I just wanted to say goodbye. I have to leave today.”

“What? You do? Didn't you say you planned to stay here for a week, pale-skin?” The husband looked at her in surprise. “Well, I guess that’s how adventurers are. No worries. It’s been great doing business with you, lass.”

“Even better when you like our bread so much! Most wouldn’t buy bread from lizardmen, you know? Not part of our culture back at home.” The lizardman wife then snapped her fingers, running back to the oven to take out two loaves of bread. “On the house!”

“… Really?” Vifi’Yok didn’t expect this. She understood generosity, but she thought they were still strangers—a patron-shopkeeper relationship at best.

However, the husband nodded. “Take it! Happy moments don’t come as often out in this hellhole. You gotta share the love sometimes. Keep yourself safe out there, alright? See ya next time! Oh, didn’t catch your name.”

Vifi’Yok stood still as they shoved the bread in her arms, causing her to become speechless. She shook her head in confusion, before scrounging her face a bit. “… Valeria. Thanks. May God Marsven keep you safe in his shadows.”

“May God Marsven keep you safe in his shadow. Oh, we need to introduc—” But before they could, Vifi’Yok had already left the shop.

Nice people. Just like them. Just like the dragon. Just like everybody back home …

Vifi’Yok packed her bread into her bag as she contemplated everything that just happened. She felt her mouth was forming a smile, meaning she was finally out of L.E.P—low emotional potential. This was the true reason why the rhinoncerum boss believed Vifi’Yok was a veteran mercenary despite her low rank.

Due to their heritage, demonkins of wrath were emotional beings. L.E.P. was similar to depression, while M.E.P.—maximum emotional potential—was their berserker moment. However, due to her injuries after the siege, specifically her usage of [Original Sin: Satanael], she could no longer raise her [Excited] [Anger] [Fear] above 15%, meaning she couldn’t gain access to the powers she fought Hestia with.

Still, it didn’t mean she was completely vulnerable.

“Hmm?”

Vifi’Yok snapped her eyes around, before she turned down a nearby alleyway. After a while of her not coming back out of it, three foxians suddenly came out of their hideouts, wondering what was going on. They looked into the alleyway, noticing it was a dead end with a large wall blocking anybody from going through.

They would have noticed if Vifi’Yok had gone out or climbed onto the roof. They had lost their target and were unable to pursue her. Their boss, the rhinoncerum gang leader, had thought she was a mage and now it was confirmed. They now knew she was a dark mage … Well, at least, that would be the most common answer to such a disappearance.

In the middle of this bustling town, nobody really noticed as a red streak of lightning flew around from place to place, before it finally stopped as the demonkin girl reappeared at the other side of town. She let a sigh out before she walked into a nearby building—a smithy.

After quickly restocking on everything, Vifi’Yok said her goodbyes to the town, leaving the annoying gang wars behind her. She wished the lizardmen couple good luck with everything. She managed to help them this time, but she had to go somewhere else now.

Once she was a good way away, Vifi’Yok once again activated her most iconic ability—[Voltaic Lightning]. Red lightning sizzled around her legs as some of her red hair was slowly turning yellow and red. This was not a demonic ability, this was hers and hers alone, gained after a gruesome trip into one of the most dangerous locations in Bole’Taria.

With her lightning now ready, she dashed forward, using its magnetic push to launch her forward, leaving on a red streak behind. While others might need a week to reach from one place to the other, Vifi’Yok only needed a day or so, depending how much she wanted to rush. This time, though, she was in a hurry, as her goal was Hadjuk-Orn.

Lord Wrath said the dwarves weren’t a target right now. Pride and honor are such huge things for those stunties, makes them hard to win over to our side. There might be kinsmen spying there, but where aren’t there? Just need to keep my head low, then go deeper into Carmaniate.

Money ruled everything, and this was something Vifi’Yok couldn’t disregard. She couldn’t rely on plundering the meager scraps from the bandits and brigands she hunted like sport. Although she could try for stronger and more profitable targets, she understood she would just become a bandit herself if she tried something this unsavory. She had outgrown her stealing days.

If she wanted to create a new life, she needed to adapt to it, which meant she needed to work. And not for some random gang boss like some criminal, but as a proper mercenary or hunter. What better place to start that than the only lawful area in the neutral zone? Even if it brought risks, it was a necessity to her growth.

After two days of running through the mountainous and forest area of the neutral zone, she finally made it to the dwarven hold. Although not as grand as Inkoran-Tazul, the masonry of this dwarven hold was a sight to behold. To Vifi’Yok who had seen Gleisvale, the dwarven-made human city of Estralia, she could fully see the resemblance.

Massive walls, filled to the brim streets, and architecture she could gaze upon like art. It had a very different charm to the capital of Bole’Taria. Vifi’Yok felt energized, as if her wish to make a new life was fully possible.

With a cloak to cover her face and on L.E.P., she explored the vast city by her lonesome, slipping through the crowds from one vendor to the next. She ate, she relished, and enjoyed every moment she was inside this city until she had to call it off due to her dwindling money. She had to find an inn for the night now, but before that, her eyes were drawn towards the inner part of the hold—the underground part.

Just like Inkoran-Tazul, Ankor-Nazta’s capital, Hadjuk-Orn had an outer, “surface” city for all its tourists and other non-dwarves, with the inner, cavern-like city reserved for most of the city’s industry and other dwarven specialities. In addition, it was also here that Vifi’Yok found the train station.

Wow. So this is dwarven technology, huh? Lord Sloth, it is no wonder you would frequently travel the world.

Curious, the demonkin woman walked into the station, stopping at the entry gates as she didn’t want to buy a ticket to go any further. Even from here, the sound of clanking metal and shouting dwarves captivated her, making her feel smaller than usual.

The station itself was just a long tunnel with no branching paths, making it hard for anybody to get lost. There were some blocked doors leading somewhere here and there, with loud, shouting dwarves and the sounds of hammers, fire, and tinkering behind them. Vifi’Yok couldn’t find any spots to hide around, making her feel at ease as it was less likely somebody was watching her.

She also learned a train was about ready to depart from the voice of an announcer coming from metal cones attached to long metal tubes on the ceiling. They weren’t manatech, they were simple engineering ingenuity. The demonkin couldn’t help but giggle that the technologically-advanced dwarves would still use such plain contraptions.

The world really was different from how she learned of it.

The propaganda, as Streiga called it, propagated throughout the populace of Bole’Taria, especially within the army, made it seem like every other race had some weird or bad trait about them. Dwarves being condescending and greedy, humans being jealous, elves uptight and stubborn, and beastmen complete brutes with no sense of morals. It wasn’t completely false, but it wasn’t the full truth either.

It just made it easier to hate them, “demonized” them to make killing them easier. It wasn’t like the Empire wasn't using the same tricks against the demonkins. This was simply war and nationalism. Another lesson from the Prince of War that Vifi’Yok couldn’t help but acknowledge.

Her people believed the other races wanted the demonkins to go extinct. The suffering and poverty people like Vifi’Yok had to endure was something caused by their enemies, and while not wrong, it didn’t really show the full-scope of things. It was the same thing, again; always half-truths, never a full lie.

The moment she stepped foot into this new world, she had witnessed warmth and care, whether they knew she was a demonkin or not. Sure, if her real identity were to be revealed, things could change, but the fact kindness wasn’t a foreign concept reminded her what the dragon told her, what Hestia told her.

She wants to get to know us, huh?

Still, where there was kindness, there was also animosity and hostility. This was a universal fact. It existed in Bole’Taria, and also was prevalent in this place. The common demonkins could probably get along with the common human, beastman, or dwarf, but it was an entirely different case when it came to politics and religion. A difference in opinion—that was all that was needed to spark a war.

As a Warbringer, she knew this too well.

With her curiosity sated, Vifi’Yok was about to leave the train station when her body flinched and she dashed around a pillar, hiding herself from a group of knights suddenly entering the place. Without attracting too much attention, she peeked at them, instantly recognizing the knight leading the others.

Thick, plated armor so white it was glaring to watch attracted her attention first, due to the detailed ornaments decorating it. Although it looked cumbersome, she noticed how the armor didn’t seem to inconvenience the wearer. Her eyes then wandered to the tabard decorating it, noticing the sigil of the Imperial family of Folschreck, the Church of Aurena, and that of the imperial knights of Folschreck—the Hands of Heaven.

“Two hands grasping a winged blade under the light of heaven,” that was how the Prince of Wrath had described it to Vifi’Yok, and, finally, she was able to use this information. How unlucky. How terribly unlucky. She just had to come here when these dangerous people appeared!

She didn’t dare take another look now that she knew they were coming closer. The station wasn’t exactly too crowded, but it was still full enough. Vifi’Yok couldn’t risk being found here, and using magic was prohibited inside a dwarven hold. If she was found out, it could be over for her.

Not to mention, even if she ignored the repercussions and focused on escaping, she couldn’t use her Voltaic Red movements with the mana barrier on the ground. Similar to how Saori countered her movements back in their initial Estralia encounter, concentrated mana close to her made it harder to control the speed boost. The magnetism would fail and she could be flung around randomly.

Noticing they were actually fanning out across the area, searching or assuring the safety of somebody, it became too clear she had literally no choice. The station was just too tight. With quick steps, she ran over to the ticket booth and slipped her ID and money to the dwarven attendant for a ticket to enter the train station. She hadn’t planned to leave the city already, but she couldn’t flee through the normal path. She couldn’t risk one of them possibly knowing who she was, either as an enemy or as a demonkin sympathizer.

“Where to?”

“Huh?” Vifi’Yok couldn’t answer immediately, too shocked at the situation.

“Location! Destination! Bladdarg, lass, you just want a ticket to buzz off or something? Pah!” The ticket seller complained before counting her coins. “Hmm? Gave me just enough for a trip to Inkoran-Tazul? Oooh! Hahaha, sorry for shouting at ya, lass. My bad!”

Inkoran-What? Wa-wait, what was that place, again. Think, think, I heard that name before. Where was—

“Sorry for the wait, here ya go! Traveler’s cabin; ya got two others inside. Ask one of the attendants where to go, and try not to make too much of a mess. You’re gonna need over a week to get there, depending on how many stops.” The clerk then began to cackle, patting his big belly. “Then again! You should know it! Haha, where in Crustacia’s name did you hear the big announcement already? Well, enjoy the trip! Enjoy getting there before all the others!”

Announcement? What? What is—Curse it all, let’s go!

Without confirming anything more, Vifi’Yok dashed to the entry gates and showed the staff members there her ticket. She was then directed to the second platform, where a metal beast of a train was waiting for her, causing her to slow down for a moment. She had thought it was a monster, before noticing people entering the place.

Seeing them all going into the train without anybody guiding them in, Vifi’Yok looked out for the shortest queue, noticing the front cars were mostly empty. She just had to slip in and she could figure something out later. She just had to get herself away from any of those Aurena fanatics.

Dammit, why am I panicking so much? As long as they don’t have a blessed around those knights, they shouldn’t know who I am. Dammit, ooooh, I should have calmed down! Shit! she lamented after having some time to steady her breathing. What’s done is done. Let’s just go. If I get any more agitated, my demonic features will show. Calm heart, calm heart—Wha?!

“Woah?!”

“What?!”

Just as the demonkin girl was about to enter the train, her [Detection Sensor] notified her of somebody rushing at her, causing her to stop her thoughts and step aside. A girl had almost rammed into her, but due to the shock, she flinched back, almost falling onto the ground hadn’t Vifi’Yok grabbed her.

“Uh-uh, sorry about that,” Vifi’Yok stuttered as she saw the girl, noticing she was around her age or maybe a bit older.

She had bright pink hair, styled into a ponytail with long bangs. Her eyes, on the other hand, were black and slightly smaller than most humans she had seen, making her stand out a bit more than others. This wasn’t to mention her flashy outfit, incorporating frills and lace with flashy colors like yellow, white, and pink.

As the demonkin girl pulled the other up, she noticed with her grip how weak it was. From the look of it, the girl was clearly a noble, which explained her extremely dainty form. Vifi’Yok’s own frame wasn’t bulky, but it was still muscular. She couldn’t help but think the girl before her should train more. Even if she was a mage, muscles were important!

“N-no, I should apologize to you!” The girl quickly bowed. “You stopped just in time, and if you hadn’t caught me, I would have looked like an idiot!”

Interesting accent, Vifi’Yok noted.

As the two girls looked at each other, finding it too awkward to start talking first, Vifi’Yok scratched her neck and began talking, “Uhm, I should probably get on before we bother somebody else.”

“Oh, you’re a passenger?” she asked Vifi’Yok before looking her from head to toe. “Uhm, could I see your ticket? I think you are in the wrong cabin.”

Vifi’Yok raised a brow but shrugged. She knew she was probably in the wrong one, so trying to anger a noble would probably bring her trouble with the knights around. As the other girl inspected her ticket, she nodded and then smiled.

“Valeria, correct? Your car is the fourth before the last. It’s the last traveler’s car before the ones for the luggage and other packages,” the girl answered before handing the ticket back. “I wanted to check out the other cars, too, so would you like to come with me? I can show you the way. It won’t make up for helping me, but it should be a start.”

Vifi’Yok found this suspicious. Far too suspicious. Not because the girl was somebody problematic, but because being around a noble might bring trouble towards her. As such, she wanted to reject the offer and find it herself, but before she could, another woman suddenly rushed up to the girl before her.

“Lady Aiko!” A woman around her early thirties in a white-golden robe came jogging by, looking not only exasperated but also worried. “I heard you scream, is everything alright?”

W-wait, that’s an Aurena priestess! Shit!

“Saintess Fleindia?” the girl named Aiko called out.

… S-saintess? S-saintess?! … BwuuuuuWAARRRRRGHHH! Nooooo! Vifi’Yok eyes widened at this fact, trying her best to hold back her screams as she quietly tried to get out of the train. Her intuition was correct, the girl called Aiko brought trouble! Big, godly, trouble!

“Who is this girl?”

Vifi’Yok froze up as the saintess finally took notice of her. Her brain was going into overdrive, trying to find an excuse to get out, but it came too late.

“Oh, her name is Valeria. She got lost and we almost bumped into each other, but she grabbed me before I fell down. Hehe, I was about to help her find her cabin to show my gratitude.”

The Saintess clapped her hands, nodding with a large smile on her face. “Perfect! That is exactly how a saint candidate should act. It doesn’t matter if they are commoner, noble, or serf; we have a responsibility towards the Goddess to aide those in need. If you want, I can help, too.”

“Wonderful idea, I can use this chance to promote the concert to everybody.”

… Did she just say saint candidate. Hold on, hold on … Aiko. Blessed candidates don’t really exist, that’s just a thing we have been promoting since we took over Church of Aurena. Wasn’t there somebody called Aiko who we … Oh no … Oh no. Oh no. OH NO!

Her intuition was wrong. Aiko was trouble herself, because she was one of the [Otherworldly Visitors] the demonkins had summoned in this world.

“Oh, aren’t you an adventurer? Oh dear, did you lose an arm?!” Fleindia gasped, realizing the loose left sleeve of Vifi’Yok’s gambeson. “I can offer my white grace if you wish, young miss.”

SHIT! GET OUT!

Vifi’Yok snapped her body around to rush out of the train, but—

“Hello, excuse me for being late!” A knight stood in front of the entrance with a wide smile of flirt, winking at the two young women behind Vifi’Yok before looking at the demonkin. “Oh, miss, did you lose your way?”

The sigils he had on his tabard proved this knight wasn’t a normal person … he was the exact Hand of Heaven she was trying to avoid.

“… Uuuuuuuiiiiiiiiieeeeeee.” A weird, inaudible voice escaped the poor demonkin girl’s mouth.

God Marsven, you truly are a fickle god.

A note from AbyssRaven

Sorry, the title should be "The Misadventure of a Lone Demonkin." Her luck is as terrible as certain other adventurers.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 389: Is this How Sisters Bond?

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #2 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Dreadflame Dragon Lv. 6] [Hellblade Dragon Lv. 6] [Unarmed Technique Lv. 10] [Unarmed Mastery Lv. 7] [Dark Resistance Lv. 10] [Stage Fever Lv. 7] [Handicraft Lv. 7] [Woodworking Lv. 8] [Territory Release Lv. 3] gained

Skill requirement fulfilled.   [Dark Resistance Lv. 10] evolved into skill [Tenebrous Resistance Lv. 1]

There were two weeks left until the Event Quest began. Twelve days had passed since we slipped out of Inkoran-Tazul to go to speak with Saori. Naturally, as an idol, I couldn’t exactly stay still. I had to do something to prepare for the big day, not to mention I had an upcoming concert to prepare for. So, what exactly did I do?

Custom Magic gained: [Hydra]

“All-growing serpent, all-growing monster

From flesh you came, of molten fire you are made

Obsidian skin and bones cover your body, your breath as vile as noxious flames

Heed my call, oh beast, fight by my side. Explode in pure heat!

Hydra!”

A brown magic circle appeared behind me before it sent an eruption of purple lava into the air, scorching the air and the ground around me. Using my wings as cover, I blasted the splashes away from me, protecting me from my own spell. After some seconds passed, the lava congregated back to the still visible magic circle, before it turned into a molten sludge with three serpentine heads.

This [Corrosive Flame] spell created a golem; that was my answer to two of my current weaknesses. First, a lack of quick lava creation, and then my just-average melee capabilities when I was away from my close-combat oriented team members like Saori or Neill. Similar to Tasianna’s idea of covering up her weaknesses by spamming golem-type spells like [Winter’s Golem] and [Slithering Frost Serpent], I had the fantastic idea of an ever regenerating lava source.

It just so happened the mythological hydra was the best inspiration source for it … Even if those monsters were a real thing in this world.

Obsidian Blaze!

Even if the hydra golem could move by itself, it was still more useful if I took full control over it. Unlike [Unheiliger Engel], which was a more jack-of-all-trade spell, this new custom spell was here for one thing only—carnage!

“Fire!” I unleashed the triple-headed monstrosity, forcing it to spew corrosive lava sprays at my opponent in front of me, following up with my own [Corrosive Flame] breath.

The feminine silhouette of my opponent disappeared under the inferno, however, with [Detection Sensor], I could tell she managed to dodge the blasts. In fact, snapping my head to my left, I saw her skating along several blue seams—dragon paths—covering the ground. A fat grin was on her face as she glared at me with her hands accumulating pure mana into a ball.

Pulse Arcana! I instantly recognized one of my sister’s moves. Striking with pure mana—something kirins could harness with their dragon paths—counted as a magical attack, but it wasn’t affected by any resistances. Meaning, if you had low wisdom, these attacks could hit like trucks!

I’ve been able to pad my vitality and wisdom for a while now, but this would still sting! Fortunately for me, I didn’t need to dodge, all I needed to do was continue spamming spells as my trusty companion helped me!

And just as I thought that, I felt a signal coming from below me. I kept my eyes on my approaching sister, shooting out spells and using the [Hydra] to hinder her, but I knew whoever this new signal was, it was coming out of my shadow. Seconds later, I was launched into the air, avoiding the [Pulse Arcana], all while I felt somebody carrying me.

“Let’s go, Rajah!”

[“Yes, Master!”] Fully adorned in new Grimnir-made armor, my battle cat, Rajah, roared like a real tiger before he used [Air Steps] to softly land on the ground, only for him to dodge away again, as Neill nearly landed a sucker punch on us! [“I’m ready!”]

I nodded and took out my glaive before grabbing the added handle on Rajah’s full-body armor, holding onto it tightly before I placed my feet into his stirrups. Once I was finally ready, Rajah jumped into the air, prompting me to activate my rocket boosters to blast us forward while charging at Neill with my glaive pointed forward like a calvary.

Using her floating scales like a shield, she redirected the attack slightly away from her, allowing her to grab my glaive. Instead of fighting over it, I let go of it and sent my own set of scales out, creating small floating platforms for Rajah to step on to conserve his [Air Steps] usage. Undeterred by our failed attack, he continued staying mobile while I resumed my spell onslaught and my [Hydra] attacks.

Inside my subspace’s training area, we were allowed to go all out with the destruction. As such, I was free to use [Bedrock Blades] to push Neill back into [Hydra]’s range, and then use my new spell to slam its sludge heads on the ground, creating more lava while threatening her with irresistible toxins. With [Obsidian Blaze], even if the initial attack didn’t hit her, it allowed me to use my magmakinesis to attack with.

“That’s good! Keep moving around, Rajah. Keep spamming that mana pool of yours, Sis!” Neill encouraged us before stomping the ground, sending her dragon paths forward to stop my [Bedrock Blades] before [Gale Step]ping forward to smash the ground before us.

At that,rocks flew up out of the ground, blocking our sight and path, but Rajah got creative. Using the numerous shadows created by this move, he cast three [Dark Tendrils]. One to grab onto his front paw to help us continue moving with my rocket boosters, while the other two to keep Neill in place as my [Hydra] launched a lava breath at her.

She shielded against the breath with her scale barrier, giving me the chance to retrieve my glaive and flank Neill in a pincer maneuver with my [Hydra] golem. Once enough speed was created, I jumped off Rajah’s back and set my tail and glaive aflame. With one deep breath, I recited my going-all-out battle cry.

“Kriffiek kllk gaaung!”

“Kriiark klish garfinik.” And so did she.

[Battle Frenzy (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Strands of my hair turned glowing white while some of hers turned neon purple. This was how two Kargryxmor dragons fought, with the one who could last longer in [Battle Frenzy] mode usually winning due to the huge stat boost at the major stage. At least, that was what Neill told me. As this was training, though, she limited her usage to the minor stage for my sake.

Battle Frenzy: The battle will of the Black Tyrant Dragon Kargryxmor coursing through his descendant’s blood, tamed by the dragon to release the full potential of the Black Tyrant’s spawn. When activated, depending on the stage, stats and resource regeneration will increase

Based on Neill’s own experiences, minor gave 10%, moderate 25%, and major was a whooping 45% increase in stats and resource regeneration—health, mana, and stamina, in other words. Since she just unlocked her [Battle Frenzy (Major)], it would be a bit unfair for me, even if I had [Symphonie des Feuergottes] and [Stage Fever] to keep up. It was training, at the end of the day.

And this little fact became even clearer when Neill used her dragon paths to pull out some of her scales to form a temporary baton to block my glaive. Sure, I broke through it, but the little opening she created with this trick meant the flame breath of my [Hydra] struck me, sending me flying back.

Terrible mistake in a real fight which a real fighter could take advantage of, but something to remember in the future since this was just a spar. This was, after all, my first real golem-type spell. I needed to learn to manage it better, and keep tricks like what Sis did in mind.

As I stood back up, my [Foresight] activated and I ducked as Sis nearly kicked me, only for her to stomp down at my glaive, once again separating it from me. Usually, I would rocket boost myself out of a melee confrontation, but this was training and I wouldn’t shy away from bettering myself.

I grabbed her leg, pulled her closer to me and jumped, nearly landing a kick to her head, before thrusting my tail forward. Being more proficient and my CQC trainer, Neill barely needed to sweat to block them, but I continued, even copying the motions Sis used to fight her.

“Good! Keep your arms up! Guard when you hit, don’t let your legs slow down! Footwork! It’s even more important to keep attacking as if you’re flowing like a river while you’re fighting with your limbs only!” She handed her advice as she dodged, blocked, and even countered.

Using the fighting style I developed on my own, Yorshka’s martial training, and Sis’s pure close-combat instructions, I kept pushing Sis back. By also using my flames, rocket boosters, scale-dust, [Flash Fire], and draconic abilities, keeping up pressure was even easier. Alternating between them, even mixing some spells here and there, made it so Sis could counter less and less.

Eventually, Rajah joined in, using his shadows and dark magic to our advantage to keep her movements in check. I even got [Hydra] to come over, using the lava like limbs with [Obsidian Blaze]. With all of them here, I didn’t need to focus on my artillery mage skills, I could fight and relish in this blood-pumping action.

Neill might have been holding back, and not only with her [Battle Frenzy], but it still felt hard to continue fighting with my claws and tail. It did feel like I was trying to punch a hummingbird.

However, like all good things, it had to end. Rajah, being a rank C virigress, couldn’t keep up with us in Stamina. I didn’t even have to use my solar energy nor did Neill have to go full-serious, but we still stopped today’s sparring match.

“Good work.” Neill threw over a towel so I could clean off my sweat. Well, it was more her sweat landing on me as she used her grappling moves. Unless it was really hot, I just wouldn’t sweat.

Still, I accepted it just as Tasianna and Svena came over to serve us some ice tea, letting the both of us cool and wet our parched mouths. We both moaned at the same time, letting out sighs of happiness after a tiring training session, while Rajah just devoured his tea bowl like a dog. My body didn’t feel too exhausted yet, but I could feel the burn with how taxing Neill’s training regiment was.

Funnily enough, Svena did let out a small giggle when this happened, prompting us to ask her what was wrong. She told us up until now, she had never seen two sisters bond this much through fighting and exercise. Very understandable.

“It does make us seem more like tomboys, huh?” I noted, only for Neill to wrap her arm around my shoulders.

“Nah, that’s just a human thing. Nothing beats some roughhousing for rapport, if you ask me. You get to know a person better when they are ready to show you their weak and strong sides,” Neill gave her opinion on it, to which I could agree, as sparring with Saori and Tasianna in the past had brought us closer. “Still, wouldn’t this be more common if you have a primarily dominant male household, though, Svena? The girls have to fight back. I had to with my brothers, even if they only did it to teach me of draconic society.”

She tilted her head, contemplating the question. “I guess that is a good point, Lady Fargryneill. Although, I didn’t have any siblings myself, so I couldn’t tell you.”

On the other hand, my virigress gave a concise answer. [“Rajah likes to fight with siblings. Shows who is strongest and who has to protect the other. Can’t really fight and train with anybody else but family when we still lived in the forest.”]

“Fairies do pull pranks on each other, both male and female,” Tasianna stated. “Maybe we can ask Tatsuya and Kyouya? Have they ever mentioned if they had siblings?”

As such, we turned around to the other group currently using the training grounds—Ellaine’s training pals.

“Faster! Faster! Come on, this isn’t just endurance training but this is also for your agility! We’ve done this so many times already, so keep up!” the blue-haired noble girl shouted while wearing sweatpants and a tank top, all sweaty as she had been keeping up with her own training since past lunch.

“Huurgh …” the archer Misaki groaned softly as she wiped away some sweat from her forehead.

“Getting used to this everyday just won’t happen if you make it harder with every passing day!” our resident runeslayer, Kohaku, complained, looking slightly annoyed as she rushed right next to Ellaine.

Along with those two, four other students were participating in this training— Tatsuya, Kyouya, Kazumi, and Nishio. Aside from the Tatsuya and Kyouya, they were all members of the upcoming Event Quest, so Ellaine—as the de facto captain of the students—had been training them intensely ever since we learned about the quest twelve days ago.

The first part of the training involved going to Griffonpeak and Cedaraille to hunt in dungeons to level up, and this was the second part of it. Leveling and increasing your stat skills might be the fastest ways to raise your base power, but neglecting simple training regiments and sparring wasn’t good. Especially sparring should never be left out, since it helped you learn how to fight by sooo much.

Speaking of training, I haven’t had the chance to go to a dungeon myself with any of them. Aside from my usual training with Yorshka, Master, and Neill, I have been preparing my concert for the dwarves. Just like last time, I was collabing with Rosserto. Meaning, I had to write and accommodate him and his band once again, which took some effort. It also helped that I wasn't going into the more difficult dungeons this time, so I didn’t have to try hard and could just focus on my actual profession.

Gaining more fans to upgrade [The Light] was equally as important, considering the rewards I was gaining from it. I could power level my Jobs once I was inside the rank B dungeon [Menagerie of Golems].

“Hey, Tatsuya! Kyouya! You two got any siblings?” I shouted, prompting them to turn around.

“No!” It was fully synchronized.

I nodded. “Well, there you have it.”

While everybody else shrugged and pushed that topic aside, Neill turned her head around to shout at them. “You two! Stop slacking and keep up with Ellaine! You’ll be keeping my Sister safe while I’m gone, so you better get stronger!”

“Y-yes!”

Oh dear …

Okay, setting that part aside as well, once Neill and I were done with our break, we left the training area and entered Mother’s roost. Since its owner was still sleeping inside my room, it was empty, which made it the best place for my [Battle Frenzy] training. With the twins, Shay and Beth, around and with Tasianna fully taking over the maid duties after Svena left, it was time to continue this important part of my development.

“What is your lust?” Sis asked the moment I sat on the ground, crossing my legs in a meditative manner.

Lust, the third step of the [Battle Frenzy] training. Instead of Neill or Kramps explaining to me what the sin of lust actually entailed, it was Ellaine who did it due to her connection to the archdemon of lust herself, Klea’Hatma.

According to her, lust wasn’t defined in the same way to how Earth characterized it. It wasn’t just sexual and bodily wants, lust was about being a hedonist—doing what you want regardless of the consequences. The pursuit of your pleasure should rank above everything else in this world. Just as Klea’Hatma told us, she wasn’t really on anybody’s side right now, she was just following who was more interesting to her, who could bring her more satisfaction and stimulus.

Meaning, if we failed to entertain her, she could backstab us at any moment. She was a wildcard. A joker.

Which was a perfect segue into Neill’s explanation on what the lust stage entailed. Just like greed and gluttony, lust was about desires. I had to remember this, but there was one little caveat to the process.

“My gluttony is relationships; whether friendly or hostile, I don’t want to be alone. I need others,” I replied. In the twelve days we’ve been preparing for the dungeon trip, I have been repeating this over and over again.

After all, every [Battle Frenzy] step was influenced by the past phases. Sloth was about being content with life—which was the happiness of my friends—while gluttony was needing something to stay alive. They build up upon each other, and was a major reason why the higher you went, the more difficult it would get.

Gluttony was a “gate,” according to Neill; it was the stimuli or “button” to enable me access to [Battle Frenzy (Minor)]. Greed, the fourth step, was the second gate while lust was the connection between the two. The third step kept things together while also acting as mental preparation for the next stages.

A good example would be Neill’s lust. When she told me about it, it fully explained what exactly was demanded of me.

“If the only way I had to make the world respect me as an individual, to treat me as if I was something more than just my name or appearance, then I would even fight the gods. Even if it would be for a small, fleeting moment, if my name could be written down in history, I would gladly give my life to bring up my mother’s clan. Make people fear and respect the Gueillxar name.”

It was determination and will to do anything to fulfill your lust. That was the essence of this meditative stage—for ultimate power and to make yourself happy, what were you willing to sacrifice and endure? What sad and vile acts could you perform for what you deemed the most important part of your happiness. This was the connection with your gluttony.

… Meaning, this was also the part where it began to contrast with the foundation of your [Battle Frenzy]—Sloth. Now, it was about transcending past your contentment to achieve more power. To unlock the fourth stage and [Battle Frenzy (Moderate)], I now had to move out of my comfort zone.

Naturally, my answer to this was—

“I don’t know.” I shook my head, still unable to answer Neill’s question.

When Neill first posed this question to me, I couldn’t answer like she did. What exactly would I sacrifice to obtain happiness? If I had to defend my friends, family, and all my relations, then could I kill somebody? Of course, that wasn’t even a question. I was helping Aurena out ‘cause I wanted to see my Papa and Mama back on Earth.

I was willing to fight the demonkins for them and also for the people around me. I thought I had it down, but then Neill came in with the questions which just shook my internal convictions.

“Could you martyr yourself to ensure everybody’s happiness? Could you become the villain for everybody’s sake? Could you sacrifice your own gluttony for the happiness of everybody else?”

And I just couldn’t answer. Could I martyr myself? Could I die to assure everybody else would be happy when I was currently living the life I had dreamed of? My entire first life had been dedicated to being an idol, to shine and give people smiles. To heal their souls with my song and dances! … Could I turn myself into the villain they turned their weapons at? Could I become the person who would make them sad?

I didn’t even have to consider the last point after I couldn’t even answer the first two. Once again, this training went fully philosophical and ethical. When I first tried to solve and mentally jump over all these problems, I just overheated and forced everybody to cool me down. It just made me so angry having to even think about this.

If you thought about it, Kramps probably had an easy time with these questions. His gluttony was survival; an extremely selfish wish which would have no problem solving this lust issue. Neill was, of course, harder since her happiness was tied with her kirin clan and her own self-worth. Still, in her pursuit for power, she would be glad to put down her life to do so.

If it was to protect somebody I loved, I would also give my life. That wasn’t even to debate, but since I desired everybody’s happiness while also maintaining relationships, the question naturally turned into a scenario where I would have to perform terrible acts to assure them. If the question was only reserved with how much I would train or risk bodily, it would have been too easy to answer.

“How much evil could I do to achieve what I want” was essentially the question lust wanted me to answer.

“… Yeah, I had a feeling.” Sis shook her head, sighing in exasperation. “It’s weird, honestly. Cuz to me, greed felt faaar harder than lust, but you have them in reverse. Once you conquer your lust, acknowledging what you want, what you’re greedy for, is even easy for a hatchling. Well, wrath, envy, and, finally, pride won’t get any easier. They’ll make you question your motivations and all that, really.”

“… It’s all about being a dragon, right?” I hit the point of this training. This wasn’t about being the best and moral human, it was about being a strong descendant of Kargryxmor, the Black Tyrant of the Skies. “We are following his pattern; his training. How he conquered [Battle Frenzy].”

“That’s the only way I know, sadly.” Neill could understand my frustration, as I honestly had hit a huge wall, similar to how envy was her insurmountable wall for a while. “The training, as you say, is to bring out your full draconic instincts while allowing you the clarity of mind to control the increased aggression. That is why I can only maintain [Battle Frenzy (Major)] for a very short moment. Enough for one or two attacks.”

When I temporarily had access to [Battle Frenzy (Major)], I defeated that demonkin of envy with ease. He couldn’t retaliate at all. According to what my parallel minds told me, since I was unconscious when that happened, it felt like a max level player toying with a beginner who had just made it through the tutorial session. They weren’t defenceless, but not a challenge either.

An easy comparison to it would be [Symphonie des Feuergotess Movement (Finale)]. A moment of supreme power for a heavy cost. In [Battle Frenzy (Major)]’s case, it was the possibility of going completely berserk, while finale would leave me extremely crippled even with my solar core intact.

Oh, speaking of cores, my solar core had finally regrown and was back to normal. Yay! Tasianna and Grimnir were planning on doing something with my two broken ones, so I gave them the shards.

In any case, with today’s training still showing no fruits, since I just couldn’t find an answer to this whole lust thing, we stopped for today prematurely … just like the last ten days. With training done, we went and took a quick shower before having dinner, filling ourselves up so we could do the last thing on the list for today.

In fact, it was something I had been waiting for a while now! I charged into Grimnir’s workshop, where I saw him, Daichi, and Haruka packing something in the former’s tool bag. Once they were done, we picked up Ellaine from the dining room and prepared for our departure.

“Princess …” As I was about to put on my boots, Shay and Beth approached me in their full elven forms. They weren’t assuming these forms ‘cause they preferred it over their dragonewt appearances, it was ‘cause they had to accompany me while staying incognito. “Must we really go out? Have you forgotten how dangerous it is?”

Neill, who was coming with me for the same reason as they were, stroked her hair. Just like them, she wasn’t in her dragonewt form, but her human one. “You two know you can’t stop her. We just have to be careful of any dragon and wyvern slayers.”

Right. It had been twelve days now since the Ankoran King sent the notice of the Event Quest to as many places as possible. It was his duty to Goddess Chihiro. Sadly, this was a huge problem for us, as this meant it attracted some very unwanted guests: dragonkin slayers.

Yes, it also attracted tourists and just people who wanted to witness this historical moment, but it brought out people who wanted to kill Manethala the Avaricious. These people were independent adventurers who didn’t care if Kargryx went to war with the humans. Most were consumed with envy or hatred for dragonkins, and they just wanted to kill them and harvest their parts. While a lot of hunters respected them simply for the prestige of killing feral true dragonkins, it did get problematic when they wanted to kill intelligent ones … like Sis, Cernust, and me.

With the whole Adulthood Pilgrimage thing, Sis and Cernust had to actually be wary of people wanting to hunt them. Due to tradition and the established rules of it, even if they got into a problem with them, Kargryx, as in our dragon father, mothers, and siblings, couldn’t really intervene. I was a special case, but I also couldn’t count on proper support.

Aside from the whole “leave them to fend for themselves” mentality, there was some support we dragonkins could get. It was in the form of the dragonewts of Loatryx, fervent followers of the dragons, to the point dragon hunters were instant kill-on-sight in Loatryx. No judge, no questions, no court. Dragon blood was also a taboo subject, unless you were a true or lesser dragonkin.

As the Ankoran King mentioned, Ankor-Nazta forbade the entry of dragonkin slayers into their land and cities due to their alliance with Kargryx. In fact, if you tried to enter the city, some guards were even instructed to outright arrest you on the spot. That was why it should be safe for us in the city … but, you always had to expect people being smuggled in if you were a huge metropolitan like Inkoran-Tazul.

A few days later, a few wyvernslayers managed to enter the city despite the guards managing to find three groups of dragonkin slayers. We had only learned this later, after dragonewts and levianewts just jumped on them like some sorta gang. About thirty of them attacked a party of six, killing all of them. Wyverns weren’t even respected that much by them, but they didn’t risk it at all in case they were dragonslayers.

“The usual vigilantism.” Those words from Sis stuck in my head when she commented on the situation, as if it was just a normal thing. “When security starts to fail, the normal person will rise up to ‘fix’ things, regardless of the method.”

Those thirty vigilanties were punished under the laws of Inkoran-Tazul, with the local Loatryxian and Caedhulen embassies trying to lighten the sentences. It was weird there was a punishment for this despite laws forbidding dragonkin slayers on dwarven lands, but it was more about the principle and peacekeeping.

Neill recalled her mother telling her how a law had to be installed to stop dragonewts actively murdering dragonkin slayers inside prisons, or how some would kill whoever people accused as a slayer, despite them being proven innocent afterward. It got so messy diplomatically, the six dragon empresses had to personally oversee everything after an entire dwarven hold lost over half of its land to a misunderstanding between the dwarves and humans on how to “hunt dragonkin slayers” and where the justice in all of this was.

Violence bred violence, no matter how honorable the reason was. There was a reason why vigilantism was called vigilantism.

“Sis, just change.” Returning to the present, Neill ordered me, shivering a bit. It wasn’t cold inside my subspace, it was just her trauma of having encountered some crazed dragon slayers in the past.

[Humanize (Major)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

I then used some ocran powder nuts to dye my hair black, once again assuming my complete human disguise. For my own safety and also to prevent dragonewts from smelling me, I had to go around the city as a human. Thankfully, we have been growing these [Ocran Powder Nuts], so we now have a surplus for me to use.

“Atsuko Licht,” that was my pseudonym while I was going around town. I mean, it wasn’t needed, but if you asked me, it fitted an idol and celebrity to have different identities. I was a complete other person appearance-wise right now, so I decided to use an old name. “Licht,” the German word for light and also the name I took when I posed as a noble lady from the Empire to stop a slave auction.

Now, as “Atsuko Licht,” I entered Inkoran-Tazul alongside Ellaine, Shay, Beth, Neill, Grimnir, Daichi, and Haruka. Our goal? The railroad guild and our acquaintance there—Jadhund. We weren’t going there just for trains and stuff, there was also something concerning manatech and artificers we had to deal with.

We were here for the Church of Chihiro.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 390: Sis, Get the Camera! I’m on the Crystal!

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Welcome.” A bronze-haired engineering dwarf clapped his hands as he stopped right in front of a large dwarven metal face, which served as the front of a certain guild building embedded into the side of the cavern of Inkoran-Tazul. “A bit pretentious, but you get used to the aesthetics.”

The bronze-haired Inko was none other than Jadhund Heimhunter, our contact with the railroad guild as well as Ellaine’s third artificer teacher. Her second, after all, was Grimnir using his experience working with the master artificer Broggi, who in turn was building on the foundations Ellaine learned from her mother.

Jadhund and I had a slightly damaged relationship after what had happened in Gazahan-Orn, where he had preferred to deal with the insane hold king and the Luedbrumdar clan in a moderate manner. Unfortunately for him, they had hurt and imprisoned my friends. Peace was not on the table. For what they did to me, I sent their hold into chaos, severely injured their criminal underlings, and then embarrassed and exposed them in front of not only the hold’s citizens but also the Ankoran King.

After what had happened, Jadhund and I had mended our issues slightly; after all, he appreciated I didn’t kill anybody in the process and turned to the King and Queen to uphold the law instead of taking it into my own claws. Well, I guess he still had PTSD when he saw Mom scare his crew back when we first met him in Gleisvale. She had threatened to freeze them up, so … understandable. He thought I would be similar to her, so no wonder he was so passive.

Now with my upcoming concert, we needed his help. Or, at least, the help of somebody used to making manatech from dungeon core pieces. Haruka and Daichi—the ones responsible for researching the video recorder we found in Broggart’s hideout—weren’t like the Revolution Queen. Still, we had some plans to start our own technological revolution.

As such, Ellaine needed to upgrade her knowledge so she could create what we wanted. To do that, we used Jadhund’s connection to enter the railroad guild, situated just beneath the train station, so we could get somebody to teach and give her some tips. Grimnir only knew about traditional mana engineering, while things concerning dungeon cores demanded a different set of skills.

It was like a general doctor trying to do the work of a liver surgeon.

“Well, let’s go,” Grimnir stated with his helmet on, covering his face and beard to not expose himself as an exile. It didn’t matter what had happened in Gazahan-Orn, Grimnir was still an unpardoned criminal to the dwarves.

We entered the railroad guild through their headquarter’s “teeth” gate, only for us to be pushed out just as a bunch of artificers rushed out of the place. They were shouting something about needing to get supplies or something, prompting Jadhund to explain that they were speaking about ordering new parts and materials.

Ellaine asked him why they weren’t using manatech birds as messengers to deliver missives and orders, but he told her they did. The issue was they were currently in the process of making the fifth train, and the railroad engineers weren’t exactly patient. They were excited, and that meant things needed to be expedited to keep up with the schedule.

“Our guild-hired smiths can’t keep up with the demand, since everything requires a ton of pieces. On our honor, every train is supposed to be better than the previous model. Eventually, we will be able to create a version even better than the Revolution Queen’s!” Jadhund explained it with a strong sense of pride. “That means a lot of experimentation. How to make it faster, less expensive to maintain, defenses in case monsters attack. And all that means we need more material. Our smiths have to disassemble and craft, which means we need to rely on the blacksmith guild a lot.”

“Artificers in general need a lot of materials,” Daichi added, looking a bit under the weather considering he had just finished his public service. The Ankoran King was pretty lenient with his punishment, despite the cultural crime of burning a dwarf’s beard. “You’ve seen it during the smithing contest. Ellaine couldn’t start working until we got the metal and gauntlets ready.”

Haruka nodded. “You can’t start working on a machine unless you have the parts first. The hardware for a computer needs to be delivered, only then can you start. If there is a shortage or people start scalping things, it just gets super complicated.”

“Ooh, you get it, Haruka-san! Even my parents had a hard time getting my new GPU when it first came out! My specs were outdated for a month! People were buying things in bulk to scalp them away!”

Oh, PC gaming … Why not just buy a pre-made one?

Nevertheless, their explanations did make it clear to Neill and me why things were so hectic. So it didn’t surprise anybody, once we actually entered the guild, we witnessed dwarves running around like mad in this grand, mansion-like hall. You had porters pushing carts full of ores and and parts from one side to the other, while engineers ran around with scribes noting ideas down on parchment.

There was even a reception where people were signing magic contracts, trying to preserve their copyrights on ideas. Jadhund mentioned there was a mage’s guild in the Hub area of the city, and described how having them in Inkoran-Tazul meant they could enforce magic contracts with ease. Even if dwarves couldn’t be mages, they did benefit from Aleistunum’s presence here.

“We dwarves lead the world in manatech, while Aleistunum leads in alchemy and magic,” Grimnir stated, repeating what nearly every mage’s guild member had mentioned.

In any case, with Grimnir hiding his face, people weren’t giving him a second look at all. The Earthshakers, those heavily-armored dwarven warriors looking like mobile tanks, were a thing, after all. Right now, Grimnir kind of looked like one of them, so people probably mistook him for our bodyguard. It was better this way, since people wouldn’t insult him.

As such, we continued into the railroad guild without any interference, allowing us to witness the guild’s smithy and artificer workshop. We couldn’t see the new train, sadly, as it was a trade secret until it could be publicly presented. When it came to their products and work, the guilds of Ankor-Nazta were beyond unreasonable.

Thankfully, due to our contact in Jadhund, we weren’t immediately kicked out, allowing us to go and meet with the person responsible for the artificers of the guild. In other words, we got to meet with Jadhund’s boss and one of the best dwarven artificers you could find.

Jadhund knocked on the stone door with a metal handle. “Master, I’m here.”

After waiting a few seconds, he pushed it open with his entire body, moving the heavy door until it was wide enough for all of us to enter. Once in, we instantly noticed how dark the room was, but also how warm it was. Almost like a sauna.

At the same time, the artificers working outside this room instantly turned off the lights, darkening everything as they laid down their tools. Jadhund then placed a finger on his lips, asking us to be quiet as he gestured us in.

With my night vision, it was easy enough to see through this veil of darkness and notice the desk full of papers at the end of the room. Next to it was a couple of shelves with items on them; from the glow of mana, I presumed they were manatech. Still, they were dim, not bright enough to work with.

Which meant my attention was naturally drawn towards two separate areas. One looked like a magma seam flowing through a see-through tube inside a fireplace, probably the reason why it was so warm inside. The other area, though, was manned by a single Inko as low sizzling sounds resounded from there. A bright blue manatech lamp illuminated the workstation, shining light onto the objects the man was working on.

“Wrench.” The working dwarf raised his arm, holding his hands open as if he wanted something. Before I could ask what was happening, Jadhund walked over to the shelves and grabbed a wrench, before throwing it over to the man, who dexterously caught it. “Thanks.”

He continued his work without noticing us, prompting his apprentice to explain what was happening in a whisper. “Master likes it quiet and warm when he works. The door is thick to stop the heat from escaping, and the silence runes keep things from annoying him.”

“He’s not like most dwarves. He dislikes the celebrative nature of our culture. Not even alcohol,” Grimnir grumbled, sounding like he knew this person.

And speaking of the devil, the man himself didn’t let this slide. “I’m also the sorta dwarf who doesn’t care that ya are here. Close the bladdarg door. Freezing me toes.”

The artificer had a soft, gentle tone to him, completely different from most males dwarves with their deep, growly voice. He had the same accent as both Jadhund and Grimnir, but it was far easier to listen to him than the former two.

When he turned around after Grimnir closed the stone door, he revealed himself as an actual grandpa, as in, he had enough wrinkles and grey hair to seem like a senior citizen. His beard, like most dwarves, was petrified but long enough to reach down to his legs, making him a “longbeard”—a respected elder or a very old man. His long face hair was also held together by a single metal bracelet with the emblem of a train on it.

As an Inko, he was less bulky compared to Grimnir, but he just oozed an aura of respect, different from the Ankoran King and Queen who exuded authority. He didn’t seem intimidating or overly charismatic, but it felt like you could rely on this person. Like a very handy and resourceful grandfather who just has the ability to fix everything.

“Zuekluk … Grimnir. I never thought you would show your damn face here again.” However, the first thing he did once the door was closed was to belittle Grimnir like many people in this nation. Still, it was clear both knew each other, considering the old man recognized him through his voice alone.

Grimnir took off his helmet before bowing before the longbeard. “Master Metosei. Lads and lasses, this is Metosei Gunnisor, one of the three elders of the railroad guild and the Church of Chihiro. Department leader of the artificers, train engineers, and smiths.”

The old dwarf leaned back on his wooden chair, rocking it a bit as he let out a deep breath. In the process, he revealed the items on his workstation. Outside of his tools, there was the object he was working on—some sorta open metallic cube with mana wires and a spherical catalyst inside of it. There was also a small figurine of a kimono-wearing dwarven woman holding tools and an orb, meant to represent Chihiro, Goddess of Ingenuity.

“… Pardon the memory; I’m getting on with my years. Thing is, heard from Jadhund I was supposed to greet some proper, interesting guests.” He sounded pretty polite. “Not a zuekluk and … two high elves and five humans. Not too sure what I am supposed to expect here with these kids.”

Aaaaand that was rude. Well, I guess I didn’t really look the part since I was a human right now. As such, Neill and I looked at each other and released mana mist from our bodies, changing back to our dragonewt forms.

[Humanize (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Once the mist was gone, I greeted the old man. “Sorry about that. With all the possible dragonslayers, we didn’t really want to catch their attention … You don’t look too surprised.”

Nonchalantly, Metosei shrugged as he kept rocking his chair. “You’ve seen enough transforming dragonkins when you get to my age. I see you’re on your pilgrimage, lass. That your sister or cousin?”

“Sister. Also, she’s not on her pilgrimage yet. It’s complicated,” Neill answered, before she turned to Haruka, Daichi, and Ellaine and clapped. “Come on, you three. The longbeard is already getting bored of us, so let’s hurry up before he ignores us.”

“Gahaha! You’ve been here already, that’s for sure!”

Taking this as our cue, I opened my storage, finally drawing the dwarf’s attention as I pulled out the video recorder and handed it over to Ellaine. With it in hand, she, Haruka, and Daichi moved forward with Jadhund standing next to them.

“Master,” Jadhund began. “This is Ellaine, a noble kid from Artorias. She’s Grimnir’s artificer apprentice, meaning she’s currently learning Broggart’s techniques. I gave her some tips and advice, too. Talented. Quite committed.”

“Broggart, huh?” Metosei eyed Ellaine up and down, before pointing at the video recorder. “Grimnir, don’t tell me this is what I’m seeing here? No wonder Bleidla cast you away after what you and that idiot Broggart did!”

“I hope this isn’t a problem,” I stepped up, causing the dwarf to crackle.

“Gahah! Took that the wrong way, lass! I can see when something was made by Queen Dravlia without even checking it. Wasn’t old enough to meet her, but you’re in the railroad guild here. We are followers of the Revolution Queen! We study her techniques, skills, and craftsmanship.” He then stood up, coming closer as he eyed the video recorder with a sense of wonder. “And this … this is authentic! You see here, uneven screws! All her later work seem rushed, since she knew she only had a limited time left to live.”

Metosei then went on a long tangent, describing every single detail on the recorder while adding small tidbits about Goddess Chihiro. About how she liked softening edges out as it made it look more “modern,” while insisting on coloring all her work. Functionality mattered to Chihiro, but appearances were also as important.

It got to the point that Jadhund had to forcibly stop the old man, telling him exactly who we were and why came to his workshop in the first place. This, naturally, shock Metosei as he hadn’t actually expected otherworlders to be here. He had heard the Church of Aurena had summoned “Heroes” to this world, but he thought it was just propaganda.

However, when he heard our names, he quickly asked us to prove we came from Earth. Or, to be more precise, from Japan, as that what his only Earthen reference point. He noted how our description sounded like a far cry from what Chihiro had written down, noting how computers and the internet weren’t fully developed, and how streaming was a completely foreign topic.

“70s. 80s. Actually, she loved rock and roll, right? Which means, she was probably born in the 60s, since she managed to experience how it first came to Japan in the 70s,” Haruka guessed after all the information we had gotten about Chihiro to pinpoint from which year she was born. When I asked her how she knew so much about rock, her face reddened. “As I said, I spent quite a lot of time with my grandparents when I was small … You just hear these things.”

“Her father is a known rock fan,” Daichi nonchalantly revealed the truth, causing the small girl to flinch and punch him.

“Will you! Stop!”

However, her little tantrum didn’t faze the leveled Daichi at all. He might be a mage, but he was laughing with his higher stats, especially after he started doing physical work under Grimnir’s tutelage. Now that I thought about it, he was slowly turning into a muscle mage.

Leaving this cute sight out, Neill asked the Metosei why he didn’t seem fazed at all when we described what had happening in Gazahan-Orn. He told us he didn’t really care what sorta drama was happening in another hold, saying his life was here in Inkoran-Tazul. The less we worried about everything happening around us, the less angry or annoyed we would be.

“Now, here’s the thing. Grimnir deserves to be exiled; rules and laws are established for a reason! You start breaking them, you start sending all this bladdarg into anarchy. The guilds live and die by the royal family’s intervention, and if there’s no control then every single guild will get more aggressive with the prices.” He slammed his knee, scowling as he gave his opinion on things. “The thing is, I ain’t a fan of the Church of Bleidla! Those damn smiths make things just worse, if ya ask me! The Earth Mother brought Queen Dravlia to our world to help our technological progress, and she did it! She got an apotheosis for her damn work! And those smithing bastards think they can just block it off? Stop us from actually learning more from her work?! Earth take them!”

The soft-spoken dwarf went ballistic, showing his full disdain for the other major subordinate god religion in Ankor-Nazta. It was clear he didn’t care about the video recorder being here, he only cared that Grimnir broke the rules in the first place.

“This ‘video recorder,’ as you otherworlders called it. It’s something fine! Show me! Come on, lads and lasses! Show it!” He hurried gestured us over to his desk, where he pulled up his [Crystal of the Divine System]. “You want help with this project of yours, ya gotta pay me. Pay me in curiosity!”

And we did just that, but instead of using his crystal, I pulled out mine to show the videos we recorded. Metosei watched them all, eagerly envisioning what was going on as these were being filmed. One of them was even the rhytilic alloy video, where he noted he hadn’t seen such a material before, causing Grimnir to stop it before any details were shown.

At this point, Metosei pretty much understood what he wanted, satisfied he actually met some “interesting” guests as Jadhund promised him. He then turned to Neill.

“So, Princ—” he started, but was quickly silenced by my sister. Wafting her finger, she then pointed at Ellaine.

“It is a project the three of us wish to begin for a future event. As such, I do need to improve on my ability as an artificer; in addition, I must learn how to work and handle dungeon core-made items,” Ellaine asked for tutorship, before Daichi came forward.

“We also want to make more of them. One isn’t enough, but Ellaine is worried she might break it if we were to reverse engineer it, so—”

“I’ll do it,” Metosei interjected with widened eyes. “No need to pay, I’ll gladly do it for free!”

“A-are you sure?!” Haruka stammered a bit at his confidence.

“Lass, I’ve studied and worked with Goddess Chihiro’s inventions for my entire life now. Since I was a wee lad. My father worked under the Revolution Queen herself, so I have first-hand knowledge from that ‘Golden Age.’” He bumped his chest with his fist, huffing with pride. “I might not the best artificer in the entire Ankoran mountain range, but there currently isn’t a clear ‘top.’ We are all good, and I am here to grind that niche to reach the top. This ‘filming’ thing as you call it, seems like untapped potential. Like the ‘photography’ Goddess Chihiro once wrote down.”

It was clear at this point the Church of Chihiro knew a lot, and by that, I meant Chihiro did a lot to spread Earth’s influence on this world. It also was clear that Chihiro followers were clearly addicted to such fascinating tech. Even Jadhund couldn’t exactly hide it after a while, wanting to pounce on the recorder and reverse engineer it himself.

“Lass—Ellaine, right? You’re the group’s primary artificer, not Grimnir?” Metosei asked.

“Yes, that is correct. If you wish a demonstration of my skills, sir, you may check Master Grimnir’s blasthammer or I can show it to you now.” Despite confronting one of the best artificers she could possibly find, Ellaine didn’t cower back. Instead, she showed her confidence in her own ability, a stark contrast when I first met her.

Curious, Metosei gestured to do so, prompting Grimnir to lay his weapon on the table. Ellaine then began to open it up, showcasing the wiring and connections between the individual parts. I honestly had no idea what was going in there, but Ellaine, Jadhund, and Metosei were all having a deep conversation about it. Even Daichi and Grimnir chimed in when the quality of the smithing was brought up.

“Did you teach the lass that damn technique of yours, Jadhund?! I told you how clumsy it is but you keep butchering it! Human hands can do it since their fingers are smaller, but ya’s damn sausages! Bladdarg!”

“Will you shut it with that, Master?! Focus on what the hell is going in there! Connecting wires to the runes in an efficient manner with no complications, it will shoot out what it needs to!”

However, they were mostly arguing between each other. All this artificer work could be interesting, but I had the same mindset to this as engineers building their stuff. It was interesting, just not for me.

So, I mostly turned my mind out until Metosei brought up the crystal, telling me if I wanted to make stuff with dungeon cores, then I needed it to have the correct functions for them. As such, he connected his [Crystal of the Divine System] with mine and pushed some buttons on the blue screen.

Once it was done, he activated ours and navigated to these new functions, opening them up for everybody to see. As I stared at the blue screen, I noticed the window was completely empty and looked a bit like an internet browser with the menu bar on top. A few buttons were there which allowed empty prompts to be produced, which Metosei used to write some words on.

After creating three more, he began connecting them together until he was happy. He then pressed the “Start” button and then—

“Welcome to Peolynca.” Suddenly that message showed up on the blue screen, causing Haruka and Daichi to stare at it with their mouths agape.

Metosei noticed their surprise, raising an eyebrow to them. “Mages should understand it better, since it’s pretty similar to creating custom spells. The big issue is that you need to connect everything together to—”

“This is just programming!” Haruka and Daichi shouted before they looked at each other.

“Th-that’s the blueprint scripting system, right?” Haruka asked in bafflement.

Daichi nodded. “Well, it’s different. Seems more freeform and less restrictive, since it can create stuff like the party bracelets.”

“And the fact this world has mana! Electricity and radio waves aren’t the major connectors in this world, it’s magic! We need to account for magic! Daichi!”

“I am a mage! Hestia-san knows how to make custom spells!”

“Mana links are created! If I can understand the mathematical principles and how mana effects physics, then I can probably do something here! I-I need to read a book! Ella-chan, book, please! Book on magic and mana, do you have one? Oh wait, we can ask Mister Kushlek’zar for that!”

“Guys!” I stopped the two as they were about to charge out of the room, telling me to calm down. “What is going on here?! Breathe in, breathe out! Tell—”

Haruka grabbed my shoulders, shaking me with all her might. “We might know how to stream your concert using the recorder and the crystal, Hesti-chan!”

“Wait, what?! Already?” We came here to find out if we could turn the recorder into a streaming setup, but the fact those two figured it out this quickly was not something I expected.

“It’s just a theory!” Daichi chimed in, correcting her. “We don’t know it yet unless Ellaine can make what we need and Mr. Metosei can teach us how to properly operate this! If we can, that means we can—”

“Music video!” I shouted!

“Yes!” Both cheered along with me, confirming my thoughts after I cut off the technical part of everything. I just needed to understand the summary!

It was a plan, and a bloody good plan at that! If this could work, that meant I could potentially level up from being a normal idol to a music video selling one! What was this feeling? I felt … hyped up about the future. The future of technology!

As such, that was it for me being here. I hated to admit it, but I was hopeless when it came to all the technical stuff. I just knew how to use it and I liked using it. Well, thankfully, I didn’t have to worry about this since I had techies with me! That was the purpose of a party, after all. Division of labor and expertise!

So, we left Ellaine, Daichi, and Haruka behind with Metosei, while Grimnir mentioned wanting to talk with Jadhund a bit. As such, we dragonkins were left to our own devices. Since we actually didn’t have anything more to do today, we decided to just retire. I wanted to train a bit more, to be honest, before idol practice with Tasianna and Ellaine.

“Welp, I guess—”

“Princesses!” Was the first thing Neill, the twins, and I heard when we exited Metosei’s workshop, followed by our noses suddenly picking up some peculiar scents.

Neill and I turned around, only for our eyes to widen as we grimaced at our surprising greeters—dragonewts. And not just any, but a group led by a black and a silver one.

“Clan Nordor representatives! We lower our tails before our clan’s illustrious princess!”

“Clan Kargryxmor representatives! We lower our tails before our clan’s second and third princess! We kneel before your rage!”

A note from AbyssRaven

Video recorder. Also, Ellaine and two of the students got themselves a Crystal expert to teach them!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 391: Loatryxian Fervor.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Clan Kargryxmor of Loatryx; ready to serve.”

“Clan Nordor of Loatryx; ready to serve.”

An assortment of dragonewts kneeled before us, interrupting the many dwarven artificers trying to work. They were glaring at us while stuck at their workstations, unable to move with how cramped it had gotten with all these people inside. Not to mention, all these dragonewts had large wings, long tails, and were just bulky in general.

“Out,” Neill suddenly stated while waving her hand at the dragonewts. She was pinching the bridge on her nose as she tapped my back.

“Yes, Your Grace!” Without hesitation, all the dragonewts stood up with their tails placed in between their legs, before they rushed out of the room.

Neill turned to the dwarves, apologizing to them for the interruption, to which the latter told her that since it was resolved quickly, we should just forget about it. With the room emptied, they quickly resumed their work, having just removed what had happened from their minds. Professionals.

Neill then led the way, telling the twins and me to just follow her lead. Noticing this, I asked if she had to deal with this sorta situation when she first came to Inkoran-Tazul, but she told me this was a thing way back on Miononbolax. She had to deal with them the moment she was born!

“Just imagine the Church of Aurena being able to meet Aurena all the time; that she walks with us in the mortal plane. That is exactly how most dragonewts think of us, so prepare yourself with that thought,” she explained.

“Ooooh, so they are like us!” Beth concluded, nodding her elven head. “Most wyverns dream of becoming similar to true dragonkins one day, or, in our case, be useful to them! Being close to the glory makes us shine, as well.”

Shay scratched his chin, looking a bit pensively at the ceiling. “A lesser dragonkin can’t transcend their limit though … You can only strive for greatness through evolution like Astalos. However, that point is a bit moot since we have Princess Fargryneill before us.”

Neill shook her head, letting out a sigh as she looked at the two wyverns. “You two … I will just say it now, but true or lesser doesn’t mean anything. It’s all about how you use your strength and your rank. At best, your lineage affects your true potential, but don’t let that stop you. Rank A. That’s our goal, alright?”

“Ours?” The twins looked at her in confusion.

“Think. I need to get to rank A to return home! You two aren’t my retainers; you are my sister’s and Melloxtressa’s. However, all three of us will join the Event Quest expedition, meaning we will be working together. The unique Job isn’t our only goal, it’s also the experience we can gain.”

[Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] granted people with it increased experience gain, and I could share it with others through [Hestia’s Retainer]. Neill was currently level 34 in her kirin form, while the twins were both level 13—level 93 in humanoid terms.

Neill herself had the [Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] title since she was a Kargryxmor dragon, but it didn’t have the special features about it, since mine was an actual blessing. Meaning, she just got the increased experience gain after I gave her [Hestia’s Retainer]. Naturally, to my prideful sister, this was a blow to her ego, but sometimes we had to do what we had to do.

So when Neill made that clear to the twin wyverns, they immediately latched onto the idea with Beth pumping her fists. “Strength matters! Brother, we cannot stray too far behind from Tasianna! We must gain Princess Hestia’s respect and gain [Hestia’s Imperial Guard], too!”

“Correct, Sister.” Shay curled his hands into a fist. “It is our duty.”

Are they that jealous of Tasianna?

Those two were the only ones who really minded that Tasianna gained [Hestia’s Imperial Guard] during the Elyonda siege, which made sense since those three were among the few real retainers I had. Svena, Lorena, and Haati were household attendants, while Grimnir was my personal smith. Technically, I also had Ellaine and Yorshka amongst my knights, but they didn’t seem to care.

Now, Saori, the saurians, the students, and anybody else I haven’t listed were just there for the benefits. I saw all of them more as allies than anything retainer related. Saori liked the roleplay of it, but she rarely committed to it outside of official situations.

In any case, that wasn’t really important right now. Neill and I had to deal with these dragonewts.

However, the moment we stepped outside the room, we noticed the dragonewts were kneeling down, blocking the hallway for multiple dwarves. The latter were complaining loudly, even trying to threaten the former with physical violence, but they just didn’t care. They greeted us with glistening eyes, as if they were talking to their idols, while they gave the cold shoulder to anybody else.

Neill smacked her face with her open palm, looking exasperated. “Go to the foyer. We will talk there.”

“Yes, Your Grace!” Just like before, they dashed away with one single order.

Yorshka was right. Dragonewts really were enamored with dragons, especially royalty. Neill’s advice to prepare myself mentally wasn’t a tip, it was a necessity.

Now in my princess mindset, the four of us walked through the hallway, but before we met the dragonewts, I noticed a medium-sized room with a shrine, looking like a chapel. A single female dwarf in a brown-grey robe cared for it, cleaning it and placing offerings to the many small figurines on it.

Entering it, I noticed from the figurine it was a place of worship for all the dwarven gods—members of the Earth Pantheon. There was the Origin Godddess Crustacia, the God of Runesmithing Dhuinn, the God of Alcohol Gnogvir, the God of Artificers Khungard, and so many more. Naturally, though, Goddess Chihiro was in the very center with Crustacia, acting as the second most important figure in this small church.

Strangely, I couldn’t identify the figure for Bleidla, and I was sure Grimnir had given me a quick summary of all the dwarven gods. As such, I asked the priestesses manning it, causing her to scoff at me, telling me off for expecting “to find that swine” in this guild.

“Dear, Bleidla is a damn bladdarg for what he did to Goddess Chihiro and her works. Taboo? Pah! Preposterous; her works allow us dwarves to branch out in new directions! See, it is because of Bleidla’s constant worship that our ingenuity keeps stagnating! It’s too damn conservative around!” she answered with the mouth of a sailor despite being a priestess, although that was just a normal dwarf thing. “He should have stayed in Origin God Danterno’s pantheon, I say! He betrayed the Earth Mother once, now he is ruining everything once again after he begged her to join the Earth Pantheon. Tazics and Inkos forget this fact too easily! Read more books, I say!”

“Oh right, I heard that happened,” I remembered Grimnir saying something like that. “How did it happen exactly? God Bleidla joining Shi—God Danterno and then transferring to the Earth Pantheon?”

“Oh child, that is a long tale. History isn’t so easily distilled into a few words, and I can see your companions wish you to hurry up.” She pointed at Neill who was leaning on a wall with her eyes closed. “To summarize, God Danterno and Bleidla just have an affinity with each other. Smithing requires fire, not just earth. However, Bleidla also didn’t understand that the Fire Pantheon is also filled with mighty fighters with explosive personalities. Every man and woman of our race grows up learning how to fight, but not to the point we can kill beasts of any size. Bleidla realized he was in the wrong pantheon, not to mention the many arguments he supposedly had with God Danterno. Of course, this all came from the Blessed of that time, so take it as hearsay or not.”

The priestess suggested reading a book to learn more about it, or asking the archbishop of the Church of Chihiro and one of three elders of the railroad guild, Yvonne. Not only was she a wisewoman, but she was also a member of the Church of Crustacia on top of her role here in the guild.

Well, it wasn’t like I needed to associate myself with Bleidla, so I put that option to the side for now. Instead, I asked her if I could pray to Crustacia and Chihiro, to which she agreed. The reason for this was to potentially speak with them, considering Aurena did mention how I was allowed to speak with other gods and garner their support.

Essentially, I wanted Grimnir to be blessed by Crustacia or Chihiro, or any of the other gods. I wanted this whole zuekluk thing to stop for him, even if I understood he broke the law. Not to mention, since Saori was a Champion of Edna, the Goddess of Monsters and Fertility, having another blessed in our midst would help our party strength.

Aside from Shiterno, I planned to do the same with Plesia and Zephira when I reach Caedhul and Saelariel respectively. Having them bless my members would helpAurora’s total power soar.

Sadly, though, neither Crustacia and Chihiro answered back. Just like all the other gods recently, they were completely silent. There wasn’t even a single message. If I remembered correctly, Renee mentioned how Yeostar had gotten into trouble or something. Wait, did this mean somebody forbade the gods to speak with me or something?

Did Yeostar get in trouble ‘cause of me?

… Goddess Aurena. God Yeostar. Kramps! Anybody! Please, I need an answer!

But my plea entered the void, as nobody reciprocated. I understood I shouldn’t be speaking with them too often, but this was unreasonable at this point. This was beyond infuriating and it just made me want to visit Aurena’s shrine in Griffonpeak to speak to her in her divine realm.

Sadly, that had to wait, as I had an envoy of dragonewts awaiting me. As such, I returned to the others and we went to the foyer where we saw the dragonewts kneeling before we came in view. Did they smell us, or were they in that pose all this time?

Regardless, after we stood before them, Neill sighed and told them to stand up. As mentioned before, quite a few dragonewts had either black or silver scales, with a minority having a different scale hue. All of them towered over me and were bulky, making it hard for me to differentiate between them.

Quite a few looked like knights, similar to Yorshka in her dragonewt form, while the four in the front were either diplomats or merchants with their embroidered and decorated suits and dresses. Two of them—the right was a Kargryxmor and the left a Nordor—came forward, bowed with their tails in between their legs.

“We lower our tails to—”

“Right, Air Shield.” I snapped my finger before they could speak to envelop ourselves in an air bubble to stop the dwarves from listening. At this point, it was a bit too late and probably didn’t matter, but I guess stopping dragon and wyvernslayers from hearing it was necessary. “I don’t want to be rude, but let’s get to introductions.”

“Same. Anyways, you know me already.” Sis then turned to me. “Hestia, this is Pradreo Kargryxmor, the diplomatic representative of the Kargryxmor clan and Loatryx. Yes, they are distant relatives to us yada yada many generations and so on. Just like the other Kargryxmor dragonewts, as they descended from Kramps.”

“It is an honor!” This Pradreo stiffened up, placing a hand on his chest before bowing once again. “The Kargryxmor dragonewts are eternal servants of the Kargryxmor dragons. It doesn’t matter which prince or princess, we are all your ardent followers. Your Grace, we have all heard Dame Yorshka’s message. Is it true?”

He kneeled down with the rest of his entourage, looking up at me with wet eyes. Some looked like they were about to cry, while others couldn’t help but stutter while mumbling how it had to be me. They noted how I smelled similar to Neill in some aspects.

“Lord Pradreo, it is exactly as you expect.” However, I didn’t need to answer as the left dragonewt kneeled down with his posse, too. “Princess Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor, my name is Skardrvo Nordor. Clan representative of Clan Nordor. The moment the Ankoran King had sent his invitation to us for the summit, we have been here. Waiting for the long-lost hatchling of our clan matriarch. I can sense her scent on you, You Grace. Your horns, your tail; they match hers … We are hon—guek, huek—honored! Elated. That you—huek—alive!”

<20 beastmen have become your followers>

<Total follower count updated. Total followers of [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 18649>

Wha—?!

I was flabbergasted, to the point I didn’t even bother to read whatever the System notification told me. The silver-scaled dragonewts before me cried, shedding tears to the point they couldn’t even speak properly. Seeing this, the black-scaled ones couldn’t hold their tears back either, unleashing the waterworks as they all shouted “Princess Hestia! We welcome you to Peolynca. May you live long and find the happiness you seek!”

I gulped, finding it hard to stop my eyes from feeling wet. The raw emotions they showed their words and actions infected me. I didn’t really think of them as family, although I knew they sorta were since Yorshka and Mom told me about them. The former treated me as a great-aunt, loving me the moment we met despite being strangers. Now here, these dragonewts were crying for me.

I had distant relatives on Earth, too, but I couldn’t ever remember such a scene. Then again, my memories weren’t completely back yet. However, this certainly struck my heart strings.

I left them to cry, until they calmed down and stood back up. At that point, I thought it would be a bit insensitive to ask them about it, but I did want to know why they cried that much for me. We were strangers; it just … Honestly, it felt exactly like when I first met Yorshka and Mom. I just couldn’t get my head to understand it properly. A mental block that took a bit to resolve itself.

“Your mother, Your Grace. Although Queen Melloxtressa hasn’t been active inside the clan, she does frequently visit us. Our clan also manages her roost back in Miononbolax,” Skardrvo began. “Not to mention, your uncle, Lord Odlesstrus, had been searching for you all this time. He flew and dived into the ocean, believing your egg fell into it when your royal egg-carrier died. We have searched Caedhuel for the entire year you went missing, until Dame Yorshka brought us the great news. You are our matriarch’s daughter—a child she had wished for so dearly she pushed her body through many trials.”

Mom wanted children like her brother, but due to her trauma from the dragon civil war, she swore to herself to only become a mother once she was strong enough to protect them. She trained and became the second rank SS dragon in the modern era and married my dragon father, the Dragon Emperor. She trained so I could live a safe life.

Sadly, nothing worked out like she planned. I went missing in the Belzac forest and she was stricken with grief. Nobody found me but Kargryxmor, but due to the god’s restrictions, he couldn’t exactly tell them about me. And, well, everything else was history now that we met. I met my mother now … so I couldn’t understand why these dragonewts were like this.

It was like a giant, loving family finding out one of their newborns was lost. If I was in their shoes, I would be panicking and crying, too. I understood it now. This damn mental block was finally gone, and now I just felt terrible for having trouble getting used to this. These people were my family, too.

“So … will you be joining the summit between Ankor-Nazta and Artorias?” I asked now that things became clear to me.

However, both representatives shook their head. “We are only diplomats, not actual leaders.”

“Then it’s probably the current leader of the kinkyuro,” Neill stated, earning her nods from the dragonewts.

The kinkyuro was a grouping of the most influential dragonewt clans, composed of the Kargryxmor clan and the five clans descended from the five other rank SSS dragons who ascended with Kramps. One of them was the Gueillxar clan, which was Sis’s dragonewt relatives. Sadly, the Nordor clan wasn’t amongst them, since Mom’s father was only rank SS.

After trying to remember who it could be, Neill shrugged her shoulders. “Anyways, it doesn’t really matter who they are right now. Actually, now that I think about it, I did want to talk to you about something. But, first, how did you even find us? We were walking about as humans.”

Both dragonewts looked at each other, before they turned back, anxious. Skardrvo cleared his voice before giving his response, “We have been alert for a while. Three dragonewts reported smelling dragons about two weeks ago. We’ve been searching around, but nothing. We only recently overheard some drunk dwarves talking how dragonewts entered the royal palace—”

“Oh, those damn dwarves, of course!” Neill acted as if this was that serious. “Urgh, well, it was a matter of time anyway with how much those shorties can’t keep their mouths shut over a drink. Then, let’s get down to my question, since it really only looks like you are only here to greet us, right? You aren’t trying to bring us to ‘safety,’ right?”

The dragonewts went silent, until a group of the knights came forward, kneeling before us, causing Shay and Beth to move forward. Even in their elven disguise, they hissed at the knights, almost like territorial cats. Nobody talked, but it seemed like both understood what was going on.

Even Sis took a step forward, almost as if she was protecting me. What exactly was going on here?!

“We don’t need it,” Neill stated before releasing her [Draconic Aura] to intimidate them.

However, both endured it and stepped forward, with Pradreo rebuking his princess. “… Dragonslayers are coming to the city, Your Grace! We lodged a complaint to the Ankoran King when the notice came out with the Event Quest, but he didn’t increase security high enough! Wyvernslayers have managed to enter the city, not to mention, there may even be a dragonslayer here hiding!”

“We cannot risk it!” Skardrvo insisted, offering us a hand. “Please, ignore this Quest and come with us! We must depart to Loatryx, where you may find safety. You are risking your lives here. Our agents, with the help of Caedhulen sympathizers, helped us cull some of those miscreants but we haven’t been able to find—”

“Wait! Hold on!” I pushed myself forward. “High King Fugnarus told us some wyvern slayers were murdered a few days ago. I thought they were random vigilanties, but you’re telling me you ordered for them to die?!”

Skardrvo shook his head, allowing me to breathe out in relief, but what came out of his mouth next caused my chest to tighten up, again. “Wyvern or dragonslayers, it matters little. They are rats! They coat their weapons and armor in dragonkin blood, making potions and oil to increase their effectiveness against dragonkins! Wyvernslayers feed dragonslayers with lesser blood, allowing them to make weapons able to circumvent dragon resistances! They are criminals, every last one of them!”

“Death to wyvernslayers! Death to dragonslayers!”

Every single dragonewt shouted those two sentences over and over again, almost like the chorus of a bunch of zealots. Their soft, caring eyes hardened up, looking bestial as they radiated pure animosity.

“Silence!” Neill shouted, even causing me to jerk back.

W-woah, Neill. Wow.

The dragonewts, hearing her roar, shut their mouths immediately, before prostrating themselves before us to ask for forgiveness. “Stand! I don’t care about the formalities here, but are you two admitting you just broke Loatryx’s agreement with Ankor-Nazta? We have laws to prevent vigilantism, to avoid you going feral within allied areas! If you aren’t part of the local guard, hunting of dragonkin slayers is forbidden within any dwarven hold!”

“This is a special case, Your Grace!” Pradreo shot his head up, standing up to retort. “Your sister—our youngest princess—is here. We didn’t know you were in the city, but we had to take measures against them for her!”

My face grimaced, distorting itself, not enough if I should be angry or flabbergasted. “You killed them for me?!”

Skardrvo nodded, repositioning himself to kneel before me. “The summit is approaching. With the Event Quest out, it was only a matter of time until you would visit this city with Queen Melloxtressa. We could not risk it. We could not allow any of them to raise a finger, even if the matriarch could kill them all! If only we knew you were in the city all along, and with Princess Fargryneill.”

“We would have increased security. No! The Ankoran King knew you were here but he didn’t raise the defenses at all?! How is he allowing dragonkin slayers entry into the city?! Abhorrent dirtman!” Pradreo slammed his long tail on the floor, agitating the rest.

What is even going on here?! This is getting out of control.

“Stop it!” I shouted, slightly perturbed at all the tail slamming. “I-I admittedly am new to all of this. All of you. I do appreciate you going so far to help me, despite me only being a stranger, but—”

“You are no stranger to us! You are our matriarch’s daughter; aren’t you still family, even if I don’t know you? This is our duty. To protect family, to protect you and Princess Fargryneill.” Skardrvo stood up. “We know the Empire sent murderers, assassins, and killers. They are not here for a random rampaging dragonkin, they are here for you. What would you do if one of these slayers were to attack you?”

“… Then I-I …” I grimaced, knowing he pushed me into a corner, argumentatively. “I would hurt them back. Self-defence. Kill, if I have to.”

“Then why can’t we, your ardent subjects, defend you by cutting the root of the problem? Preventative measures.” Skardrvo had abandoned any sense of his caring side at this point, looking nothing more than a psychopath. “Besides, we warned them. Intimidated, threatened, gave them time to flee before we called the guards; they did not listen. We told them they couldn’t slay either Manethala or target you … they did not listen. They asked for it.”

… Th-that does make sense.

“Princess Hestia, allow us to speak with Queen Melloxtressa. We know your circumstance, and we respect that you are an otherworlder. Our cultural differences aside, you as a dragon are not allowed to be on Altrust. To be outside of Miononbolax until your adulthood pilgrimage. By the laws set up by your own father, Dragon Emperor Eltharion, we must ask you to accompany us so we can return you to your home. Allow us to speak with the Sixth Queen.”

I couldn’t say anything, considering Mom was asleep. What was going on here? I thought this was supposed to be a happy family reunion of sorts, but they were now ordering me around? Didn’t they know we were just strangers and they were now deciding what I could and could not do? What BS!

Sadly, before I could speak up, Neill did, “Queen Melloxtressa is currently in slumber, but before she fell asleep, she gave me guardianship over her daughter. My sister is staying with me. Father’s law does not affect her, as she was born outside of Mionionbolax. Do our laws affect dragonkins born outside of Kargryx? No, they don’t.”

Neill was my guardian? Why did she never tell me—Wait, why would she? It wasn’t like she needed to do so up until now. Mom knew this would happen?

“Shay! Beth!” she called out for my wyvern retainers, causing them to transform back into their dragonewt forms and spread their winged arms out. “We don’t need your protection. I don’t care what you do with the dragonkin slayers, but abide by the agreement and do it outside the city! You bring only trouble for the Queen Mothers as they will have to resolve this with our allies, the dwarves.”

All this talking about the dragonslayers, reminded me that to me and any other dragons they were practically hitmen. Professional killers sent after me for a bounty. If somebody were to send an assassin at someone close to me, wouldn’t I act similarly to Pradreo and Skardrvo? It just made me wonder even more how Neill was thinking about this situation.

“Also, don’t criticize one of our allied dignitaries when you know yourself no one can prevent all rats from slipping out of the cracks. The city would have to undergo a total shutdown for that to be completely prevented, but that is impossible for the Event Quest told him to keep the gates open. Keep that in mind. Now, I have said enough, my sister will stay with me. I can deal with her threats.”

Neill’s strong showing silenced all of them, allowing themselves to cool down to the point their eyes looked normal again. However, there was still a glimmer of determination. None of them gave up, or wanted to listen to what Neill was ordering. As such, Pradreo stepped forward.

“… Princess Fargryneill. Dragonslayers are coming.”

“I know that, you told me that already so—”

“Twin Reaver Galg is coming with his party.”

“—Gurk!” Neill stiffened up, trembling after she heard that. A sense of fear appeared on her face and eyes, replacing the haughtiness she just showed them.

Sis?

Pradreo, seeing this, shook his head, confirming the fears of all the dragonewts before us. Their rage reawakened, they flaunted their teeth as they grimaced. “… You’ve changed Princess Fargryneill. You barely resemble the young fletchling I met all those years ago. You’ve grown, developed. Was that because of your sister, meeting someone younger and wishing to protect her? Or did the sense of dread scare your arrogance away, revealing the truth why we dragonewts must exterminate all dragonslayers in the world?”

They bowed to me, wishing for me to dispel the [Air Shield]. However, worried about Neill and how she was grabbing her arms, shaking to the point she looked nothing like the proud older sister I’ve came to know, I had to ask them. What did they mean by this “Galg?”

“Twin Reaver Galg, the most prolific dragonslayer currently alive, and the best at his work,” Skardrvo snarled. “Not only does he have a party of rank A slayers, he himself is a rank S, certified by the Empire himself. Apparently, three rank A non-Kargryx associated true dragonkins died by his party’s hands. He is the Folschreck Empire’s greatest weapon against dragonkins … and he very much will come here.”

One of the dragonewt suddenly pulled out a newspaper and handed it to me.

“We read about it, Princess Hestia. The crimson dragon and your crimson scales … As we said, we know they are coming here for you. Galg is coming here for you!”

I nodded to Skardrvo’s comment.

“Then, please, come with us! Please! I beg you, Princess Hestia!” He prostrated himself before me. “Please! Stop being so prideful of your own power and come with us! Please! Don’t risk the life your mother fought for so desperately!”

My parallel minds suddenly reminded me of something. A small sentence too long ago, when I first was in Griffonpeak. At a ball where I presented myself to the Artorian nobility, I met a Lycerept agent—the Empire’s faith police—called Pestrodus. He mentioned something about the Empire not being afraid of the dragons.

I thought it was to show he couldn’t be intimidated, but was this the real reason? A dragonslayer? So the Empire … was actually declaring war against me?

… Right, a real “hero” wouldn’t be treated this way, no, if they were to be treated this way, they would just stand up. They would shout “I don’t care!” and continue being a symbol of justice. Aurena tasked me to help her religion, to make sure the rot would be removed. Now, the nation with a huge portion of her followers were now trying to kill me ‘cause the church they were following was taken over by a demonkin, their greatest enemy.

How bloody ironic.

“Sis,” I grabbed Neill’s shoulder, before giving her a hug from behind, trying to help her warm up. “… My vendetta aside, your happiness and that of my family and friends is the most important part. We don’t need to be here. The summit can still be held in a different manner, even if we are in Loatryx.”

“… Wh-what are you t-t-talking about?” Neill turned around, stuttering out words as she looked like on the brink of tears.

I knew this look on hers as I shared a similar trauma—she was afraid and this phobia controlled her emotions. However, unlike my fear of amphibians, Neill forced a smile and looked me straight into my eyes.

“I-I’m your big sister. You have a job to do for the big angel woman upstairs, and you’re asking me to let this chance go b-by? A chance to get stronger? To help you beat the ass of the fucker trying to kill you? D-don’t give me that shit!” She took a deep breath, slowing down her trembling body. “W-what better way for the world to know about Fargryneill Qilinus Kargryxmor, than for me to kill the strongest dragonslayer around? Rank S? Come on! We beat the ass of that Warbringer! We two, with Tasianna, can beat anything we want! I-I am noooot a coward! By Father’s horn, I am Emperor Eltharion’s daughter!”

Her shrieking voice, to the point I thought her voice would break from how high it was going, showed her real feelings. She was terrified and from the look of it, she had met these dragonslayers before. That trauma controlled her … but she was no coward.

She was brave—courageous! Far more than I was. Even now, she was thinking of helping me out, not wanting to jeopardize our future attack on the Prince of Envy. It wasn’t her responsibility to do so, but she was willing to help me out ‘cause we were family. ‘Cause she was my older sister.

Was this how it feels to have a sister? My embrace tightened around her body as I closed my eyes.

“Princess Hestia!” I immediately opened them when two voices called me out. It was Shay and Beth. “We will keep Princess Fargryneill safe in the expedition. Please, trust in us.”

Correct, the Ankoran King and King Drangleic had accounted for something like this to happen. They knew I wasn’t allowed to die since I was the figurehead of the alliance. If I were gone, Loatryx and Saelariel might not join up with the dwarves and Artorias, meaning the Empire might declare war on the latter.

As such, Neill would join the Event Quest expedition force to obtain the unique Jobs, while I settled myself in a different dungeon. It wasn’t my choice in this matter, it was Neill’s choice. And she chose to stand tall and fight against her fears.

What else could I do but support her?

“We won’t leave with you,” I declared, shocking the dragonewts before I fizzled the [Air Shield] out. “… Stay safe, though. We will meet again.”

With the four of us, we left the railroad guild, but were immediately stopped by Skardrvo’s shout, “Any who slip into the city despite knowing the laws banning them from this soil will die by our hands! We will kill all of them in the dungeon! If this is what you wish to do, then we will remain your ardent protectors! Allow us to kill them all!”

I did not turn my head around nor give them an answer. From their point of view, what they said today was justified, especially with how Neill was traumatized by a previous encounter with dragonslayers. She even warned me of them.

Today, I learned the true nature of the dragonkins and it wasn’t what I had wanted to hear. The zealotry was all hyperboles up until now, I thought, but Yorshka was correct all along. At the same time, it made me wonder how they got to this point culturally. Skardrvo even mentioned it was a duty to his family … to Mom, our clan’s matriarch.

To protect those they consider important, they are willing to break laws and speak back at us. Their princesses. Is this … considered a lust?

Once again, time passed and more training filled up my days. The various representatives for the summit slowly entered the city, wanting to meet with me. At the same time, the time for the Event Quest was drawing closer and we have gotten information that a train from the far east—close to the Empire—was traveling to Inkoran-Tazul.

Who could these people be? Dragonslayers? Empire knights? Or, could these people be one of Saori’s students? … Or worse, could these people be demonkins?

A note from AbyssRaven

Here, people, we can see Neill has the education of a princess. Really props herself up as the older sister and princess. Call back to the side story I dedicated to Neill's backstory back in the Elyonda Arc. If you want to read it again, it's Side Story 38.

Edit: Made some rewrites to how I handled the dragonewts and Hestia's understanding of things. I reworded sentences to better convey what I wanted this scene to mean since I failed to do so in the previous version due to sloppy sentences and arguments. Thank you for the feedback!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Side Story 47: The Fickleness of Fate.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #1 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! It works on a subscription base now, so pay on the same date next month!

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“So, this is Inkoran-Tazul, huh?”

One word: humongous.

The capital of the Ankor-Nazta and the seat of the Ankoran King; nothing else would be able to describe this grand and majestic dwarven hold better. Located right in front of the valley connecting the two mountains of Inkong and Tazlok, Inkoran-Tazul was a connecting city between the dragonewts of Loatryx and the humans or Artorias, with the elves of Saelariel just over the Inkong mountain.

Not to mention, due to the invention of the train, the dwarves weren’t restricted to just trading with the locals any longer. Similar to Hadjuk-Orn in the far east connecting the neutral zone with Carmaniate and Folschreck, as long as you were a nation adjacent to the Ankoran mountain ranges, you could benefit from the trade and craftsmanship of the dwarves.

After having ridden the Revolution Queen’s “Magnum Opus,” the train, Vifi’Yok couldn’t help but stare in wonder at Inkoran-Tazul’s train station and the bustling city literally underneath where she was standing. For a race used to mountainous living, the dwarves utilized every single space inside their underground holds to the best of their abilities, which meant entire districts were just attached to the side of the walls or just hanging from the ceiling.

Vifi’Yok looked down from the railing, witnessing the city below, and then up, squinting at the numerous guard houses with mountain crossbows. Depending on how accurate they were, she could imagine them being able to snipe intruders from almost any angle. Naturally, they were better at taking down larger monsters than small humanoids. As an arbalist herself, she greatly respected good marksmanship.

“Hey, Valeria!”

Vifi’Yok stiffened up as she heard that familiar voice, reluctantly turning her head around. She had to endure it. Nothing had happened yet. She got to this city without any problems and she would leave it as such! All she needed to do now was to act nice and good like any other human woman, and she could leave her troubles behind the moment she had the chance.

“… Didn’t you say you wanted to get off at Estralia’s capital? Uhm, Gleisvale, was it?” Vifi’Yok replied before realizing she had forgotten something. “Uhm, Lady Aiko.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that!” The pink-haired young woman waved her hand in rejection, instead, smiled at the hiding demonkin girl. “That was the plan, at least. We were supposed to meet some people there, but we got the message that they went to Inkoran-Tazul instead. Well, obviously, right?”

“… Yeah, the Event Quest. I heard about it after you got off the train.”

Over the 2679 years the Divine System had been active on Peolynca, it wasn’t uncommon for updates to happen, however, most of them were just minor tweaks to accommodate Peolyncians or new Sub-System additions. It was all to make life in this world easier for its inhabitants.

However, the recent overhaul of the Job System was one of the few major changes to an existing System. In the past, some Systems had to be completely altered due to the evolving technology of the world, primarily due to the creation of manatech which use or otherwise influence dungeon core fragments. The [Crystal of the Divine System] and party bracelets were two prime examples which forced the hands of the Origin Gods.

However, it was rare for an entire System to simply be changed from the ground up. The new Job System involving the ability to accept three Jobs and the mysterious unique Job. The Jobs the Peolyncians have been using for over so many years was about to be changed. It was a historic moment, and to the many adventurers and warriors in the world, it was something they had immediately latched onto.

After the Divine Message explained everything, many people were ready to find methods to obtain their unique Job. A few have already managed it, and it became known that the blessed—the Saints and Champions of the gods—had the best chances to gain one before anyone else through Divine Quests. However, that was about to change, as the first Event Quest was about to begin.

For that reason, Inkoran-Tazul was currently in a fervor. When the Ankoran King sent his message to almost all races on Altrust, a “gold rush” had begun with people flocking to the grand capital of the dwarves. Adventurers, nobility, soldiers, and even criminals had come to witness this momentous event; obviously, some were even here as hopeful participants.

Even now, the city was filled to the brim with life, to the point you couldn’t move around without bumping into another person. Even here, at the train station, streams of foreigners and dwarves were coming out from the entrance, filling the large platform the demonkin was standing on. Right now, two of the four existing trains were resting at this station.

So that is what that dwarf meant with ‘big announcement,’ Vifi’Yok quickly made the deduction now that all the clues were on the table. The ticket seller she met at Hadjuk-Orn had confused her when he thought she wanted to go to Inkoran-Tazul.

And if he had not misunderstood her situation, she wouldn’t now be stuck with these [Otherworldly Visitor]s.

“Aiko-chan! Don’t run off like that!” A young man pushed himself through the crowd, followed by an older-looking knight around his late thirties or early forties. Vifi’Yok couldn’t help but grimace as the young man brushed his blond hair with his hand. “The crowd is thick enough for us to get pushed back. Better not run away.”

“Definitely not without me, my lady!” The knight scolded her, furrowing his brows before he turned his glare at Vifi’Yok. “This vagrant, again? My lady, you are a Saint candidate. Please, stop trying to associate yourself with potential threats!”

“Valeria is not a threat!” The pink-haired girl, Aiko, tried to defend the hidden demonkin. “She helped me before, as I told you. Takuma-kun, you had a talk with her, right? Sir Royce is in the wrong here; in fact, this is pure paranoia at this point!”

However, the knight couldn’t accept it, shaking his head in exasperation. “You may call it however you wish, but your safety is more important than anything else! You and Saintess Fleindia are blessed, so still your emotions and think for the betterment of the world. You and Hero Takuma will in the future become our sword to pierce through the darkness to defeat Bole’Taria and wipe out all demonkins!”

Demonkin here, buddy. Pah, the things ya don’t even know with ya head stuffed with all that misinformation, Vifi’Yok mocked the self-righteous knight, knowing the real truth behind the summoning of the otherworlders.

Vifi’Yok shook her head and began going away, only for Aiko to grab her shoulder. The demonkin snapped her head around, giving the girl an exhausted look, prompting her to pull her hand back.

“S-sorry,” she apologized, noticing she was being pushy. “Don’t worry about them. If you want, would you like to join me and my friends for some local food?”

“Lady Aiko!” Royce complained, but it went in one ear and out.

“Sir Royce, please, it’s alright when I am here to protect Aiko-chan!” The young man that Aiko called Takuma drummed his chest with a fist, showing off the gaudy, paladin white-gold armor he was wearing. His confident attitude and strong stare could charm most, but Vifi’Yok only thought of him as a spoiled brat, unaware of the true world and too self-absorbed in his own.

Vifi’Yok felt her chest tighten in agony. For nine days she had been stuck on a train towards Inkoran’Tazul. Although it should have only taken a week, due to the frequent stops as people came on the train due to the Event Quest’s announcement, their arrival ended up being delayed by two days. And during this entire trip, Vifi’Yok had to humor these “kids.”

No more. She had been able to meet seven of the 15 [Otherworldly Visitor]s accompanying her on the trip, and all seven seemed like they only wanted to talk and gossip with her after her chance meeting with one of the Saint Candidates, Aiko Hasebe. However, the demonkin only found them a nuisance. It wasn’t that Vifi’Yok hated talking, it was just the more often they spoke, the more likely it would be for her to be exposed.

Now in L.E.P., her attitude was rougher than usual. She had almost offended the immigration officers due to her worry. She didn’t want to stay around them any longer.

“It’s okay. Besides, the Knight of Aurena is correct. You don’t know me, I don’t know you. You really shouldn’t randomly trust people like this, just to talk. It’s naive.”

“How dare you take that tone towards her!” Once again, this Royce was seemingly looking for an argument. “Lady Aiko was gracious enough to—”

“Save it for when we’re in the Empire or in Aureolis. You don’t have any authority while in dwarven territory, knight. Not even a Hand of Heaven does,” Vifi’Yok snapped back, knowing right now, the chance for her to be exposed was quite low. It didn’t matter who you were, respect was earned, not given. “Anyways, have fun. Goodbye.”

I’m skipping the Event Quest. It’ll just cause people to look at me.

Vifi’Yok had to rethink her travel plans, now that she was here. Honestly, it was problematic. Now only was Loatryx up north, but the Kingdom of Artorias, now an ally of the dragon of Aurena, was in the south. Not to mention, with the Event Quest announced to the world, wouldn’t it be obvious the dragon could be found here?

Vifi’Yok found her situation troublesome. She wasn’t Hestia’s enemy any longer due to her desertion, but that didn’t mean she wanted to help her. The crimson dragon’s words might have almost convinced her, but she was still not really sure about her intentions. To not risk anything, she needed to flee from here. However, there was a small problem …

She opened her money pouch, noticing it only had some copper coins left. She grimaced.

I need money. Ooooourgh.

She could hunt, she could scavenge, and she had the training to survive in the forest for a prolonged time. Her time in the army and on the streets gave her all the skills to survive by herself, but the biggest issue to all of this was—

I want bread. Some donuts would be nice, too.

—the girl had developed a sweet tooth ever since she tasted the delectable pastries of Aurora. On the train, she hadn’t been able to get her hand on any bread at all, as the dwarves preferred noodles and their savory pies. She had to make some money before she left the hold.

Wanting to save on money, Vifi’Yok decided against using the minecart transportation system, and instead, chose the stairs. She had to find the local adventurer guilds and hope it wasn’t too filled with people. After all, right now, she couldn’t even move down the stairs with the amount of people around.

Shadows protect me …

“Sir, there you are!” Her ears caught somebody speaking, somebody’s voice she had heard before. As she turned around, she snapped her head back around as she noticed it belonged to the Hand of Heaven knight she met—Lautrex von Cashim.

“Hmm, sir?” Lautrex seemed confused as he addressed a group of five people, all wearing normal clothing outside of one who was covered in thick robes from head to feet, hiding their face. Although the four former were in casual, everyday clothing, Vifi’Yok’s eyes instinctively noticed their many scars disfiguring their faces, making most hard to look at without feeling intimidated.

Strong. Vifi’Yok immediately noticed.

Lautrex, being one of the royal knights of the Folschreck Empire, was quite strong, but compared to the former Hand of Heaven Larent Antonodius, who Vifi’Yok had almost met in Elyonda, he didn’t feel like a threat to her. Larent was at the level of a sword saint—a master even amongst swordmasters—while Lautrex seemed “green” before a Warbringer like her.

It felt like she could relate to him, as he was young, far younger than the people the Prince of Wrath had noted to be dangerous. As a Hand of Heaven, age truly was a medal of competency, as a spot could be quickly vacated either due to death or the disappointment of the Holy Emperor himself.

On the other hand, the five man group Lautrex was addressing … they actually seemed dangerous. Not because of their strength, but their attitude. Born and raised on the streets, she could tell who was trouble, and these humans and beastmen were just that.

“… Quiet. Newts watching and hearing,” the front man warned Lautrex before turning his attention away from him, causing Lautrex himself to move his eyes around to detect any potential enemies. “Employer?”

“… Yes, you must be Sir Galg, then. The rank S dragonslayer, correct?” But the man didn’t respond, only staring at him as if to push Lautrex to continue speaking. Although irritated by this rude behavior, the knight composed himself. “Well, I presume by ‘newts’ you mean ‘dragonewts.’ I guess problems should be obvious between your profession and those beasts. In any case, why are we meeting here?”

… Oh, dragonslayers? That’s why they’re wearing nothing conspicuous. Vifi’Yok noted from this tidbit of information. If armor was made from true dragonkins, dragonewts and levianewts could sniff them out, even if they tried to hide.

As the demonkin girl reasoned out why she thought they were a threat, “Galg” did not respond to the young Hand of Heaven. He kept his mouth shut, almost to the point he found nothing worth answering.

Lautrex clicked his tongue, almost red with rage, but calmed down when he realized the man’s dull eyes, uninterested in anything before him. Was it pure business with this person or was something else in his mind? “The crimson dragon is supposedly in Elyonda, so why are we here? The other dragonkin slayers are going there.”

Once again, “Galg” did not speak. The knight, exasperated with this “unsocial plebeian,” then pulled out a piece of parchment. “We were supposed to meet in Gleisvale, so we could take a boat to Elyonda. Why exactly did you want to come here? Is it the Event Quest?”

“Got that right,” thankfully for the knight’s mood, a leonid woman almost a head taller than the two men spoke. “Manethala the Avaricious! Imagine that, protecting a drake on our continent! Damn dwarves. How could we let this chance pass when he’s finally huntable!”

“Rikara, shush! Hold that tongue,” a man in a mage’s robe grabbed the leonid woman’s shoulder and pulled her back to the group. Looking at the amulets he was wearing, it seemed he worshiped Plesia, Zephira, and Istari. “You want those dragonewts to haunt us? Get the dwarves to kick us out? This is our chance! A lifetime chance to take down a rank A, so keep your voice down!”

They were not supposed to be here. Their very presence on dwarven land was taboo, for the dwarves were allied to Kargryx, the Dragon Empire. Dragonkin slayers were automatically considered criminals due to their profession in these lands, for they were judged as murderers for hunting an allied race in the true dragonkins.

However, no matter how rigid a city’s security was, there would always be a way to enter it. Coins could sweeten any deal, and those scrupulous and smart enough to perform smuggling services wouldn’t bat an eye if it was a dragonslayer, a refugee, or a random noble. Whether humans, elves, dwarves; not everybody was as noble as what you would perceive of a race.

“Oops, sorry, Lod.” He leonid woman scratched the stab scar around her neck, only for her to suddenly grin and lick her lion snout. “Drake meat, heheh … We paid those beardless dwarves some good money for this one in a lifetime chance.”

“… Think about that after we take them down. After the drake is dead, we’re going for that crimson dragon. Two large prey in a row; rid the world of those lizards.” A katzune with a blindfold covering his eyes noted, before he began to perk his ears, directing them towards the last member of the group. “Meik. You got your enchantments and runes set, right? It’s an earth drake, this time.”

The robed adventurer took a step forward. “… Almost. Spear and shield ready. Got my spare fire armor in my [Storage Magic], though.”

The mage called Lod shook his head to that response, looking a bit perturbed. “We don’t need more armor on you for this. Put three shields in, instead of a set of metal. You’re not a mage, so don’t strain yourself with space-time. Rikara, Namul; as usual.”

“Carry them? Sure.” Both the muscular leonid and the blind katzune answered back, respectively.

Vifi’Yok sensed they were professionals from the way they spoke, but her opinion was still distorted by the fact the leader of the group still hadn’t said anything notable. All he did was scan the area and watch his member’s lively exchanges. For some reason, she felt he was just bored.

However, although she didn’t know who they were exactly, she could guess they were the people Aiko was talking about wanting to meet. The demonkin had, after all, read the newspaper and she knew the Empire had set a bounty on Hestia, the crimson dragon who “led” the grimgarian invasion on Elyonda.

It was all lies, of course, but the populace wouldn’t know about it. In fact, Vifi’Yok found it weird for the Empire to take such a strong move against the dragon already. She knew, after all, the real culprits behind this decision were the demonkin Princes of Sins, which meant, her lords must have had a reason to do so. Vifi’Yok, though, found it just a shame.

The girl could possibly help us wrathies control our emotions, and you are trying to kill her? Lord Wrath, you can’t possibly want this, right? … Hee’Rlak, why didn’t you report anything. Dammit!

However, she was a traitor, a deserter. Trying to rectify something while like this would only harm herself. Maybe Hestia’s worth couldn’t be compared to her threat, which Vifi’Yok could understand. The fact the dragon could weaken her demonic and Original Sin powers made her the perfect counter to her race.

It was all too complicated. Dragonslayers were now in Inkoran-Tazul, and Vifi’Yok had this weird feeling Hestia was either already in this city or was coming towards it. After all, the Event Quest awarded a unique Job! A small part of her wished none of them would meet.

Regardless, it wasn’t her problem. Not at all. So, instead of waiting around and continuing eavesdropping on those lunatics, she forced herself through the crowd and into the lower city, where found the local adventurer guilds. Sadly, they were so full, it made it hard for the short demonkin girl to do anything. Instead, one of the nearby dwarves had advised her to go to the guilds in the “Hub,” the surface city.

Fitting its name, the Hub really was the outside city of Inkoran-Tazul, where foreign races and people could linger around in this melting pot of cultures. Humans, elves, beastmen; they were all here. While not as crowded as the inside part of the hold, it was still clear people were congregating in this city for the Event.

After strolling around the city just to sightsee, she managed to overhear how representatives from Loatryx, Caedhul, Saelariel, Artorias, Yeos, and even Estralia were in the city. It was crazy hearing all of this, but Vifi’Yok understood people didn’t want to miss out on this incredible opportunity.

… Little did she really know that this was all just a cover up. A ploy from the Ankoran King and Hestia to hold the summit, by using the Event Quest as the smokescreen to allow all the summit members an excuse to visit the city. It hid the true meaning of their visit.

“To the Ankoran King, now! Send the bird already!” Vifi’Yok noted a few well-dressed dragonewts running out of their inn and entered a carriage, just as a scribe-looking person sent out a manatech bird in the direction of the castle. They were probably the representatives from Loatryx, but why exactly were they in such a hurry?

Oh, right, the dwarves are probably forming an exploration group. Only a single party may get the Unique Job. The other nations are probably trying to curry favor. Well, whatever.

She eventually entered the local hunter’s guild, trying to find an easy Quest or something to earn some money to buy some bread ration before she left the city. She initially wanted to visit the mercenary guild, but there were so many people there looking for groups for the future Event, she just couldn’t move around. At least, this guild building was relatively empty … at least relatively to everything else.

“Party! We need a mage! Healers! Water or holy; don’t care!”

“It’s gonna be a long trip! We need cooks, alchemists, smiths! We’ll go for the long haul while following groups from behind! We’re making money, and you should come with us!”

People were urgently trying to form parties or entire exploration groups to tackle the Event Quest. Many, though, knew the Ankoran King would send his warriors in to win the prize, so most were only seeking to make some money from the treasures. Those who were eager to gain their unique Job were already in parties, while those here were only looking for some profits and goodies.

Vifi’Yok couldn’t help but shake her head, looking at it all in a more pessimistic manner. Laws didn’t exist in dungeons, so trusting strangers was an easy way to get backstabbed. Even in the army, you couldn’t always trust your comrades-in-arms. You had to take care of yourself.

However, at this point, Vifi’Yok wished she was in a party as the Quests posted on the blackboard were all outside her rank. As she had only recently registered herself, she was only a rank F merc and rank E hunter. She hadn’t had the time to do many Quests, meaning her rank was insufficent. She had to be at least one rank below the Quest recommended to accept anything.

All the Quests were rank C or above, demanding her to enter the various dungeons in the city. She couldn’t join any of them, nor could you acquire a dungeon pass with her current rank. No matter how strong she actually was, she was currently Valeria—a new adventurer. Her falsified Profile supported this image and the only time she actually dropped the pretense was around those beastman gangsters in Olinta Town.

As Valeria, neither the demonkins nor Hestia’s group could track her as long as she kept a low profile. However, it limited what she could do vastly.

This sucks.

“Hey, you. Girl.”

Vifi’Yok turned around to see a group of three young men. All three were clearly adventurers looking at their garbs and equipment, but their appearance left a lot to be desired. It was clear they were probably around rank E or D.

The person who addressed her smiled, widening his arms to make her feel welcomed. “Are you looking for a job? We have a spot on ours for an archer. Or are … O-oh, sorry …”

All three grimaced as the girl turned around, showing them her missing arm. Scars and missing limbs wasn’t an uncommon sight amongst adventurers. In fact, it was so normalized, most wouldn’t even care if another had lost a part of themselves during an adventure. To these three, it just came to a surprise and they couldn’t help but feel disappointed in their “prospect.”

“Well, good luc—”

“Hey, wait,” Vifi’Yok called out to them.

The third dungeon in this city is rank D! I can go there if they have a dungeon pass for it.

The rank A [Manethala’s Nest], rank B [Menagerie of Golems], and the last of Inkoran-Tazul’s dungeons, the rank D [Palace of Ghosts]. As all dungeons were owned by the city but managed by the adventurer guilds, to gain the permission to enter them, one must acquire a dungeon pass.

As long as you weren’t a criminal and had the correct rank, any guild would gladly grant permission to adventurers. If you were in a party, your party rank would be used in the requirements. However, once you got the permission, you could, technically, add additional party members later on, even if they were far too weak for the dungeon. Although, in this case, it was the job of the dungeon guard to enforce these rules.

As Vifi’Yok was a rank E adventurer, she could join the third dungeon. With a whole party, she wouldn’t even get any unwanted attention for dungeon diving solo.

“If you’re going to the dungeon, I can help. I’m a mage.” She then pulled out her crossbow from its self-made sheath, twirling it in her hand and reloading it in a single, fluid motion. “If you’re worried about the arm, then I can run quite fast. Magic and range support; how about it?”

However, their reactions weren’t what she had expected.

“… You can run fast?” They all looked at each other, before they began to smile. They snapped their heads back to her, addressing her with the same energy when they first saw her. “Awesome! That’s what we needed! What’s your rank?”

Suspicious …

She squinted her eyes. Reservingly, she answered, “… Rank E.”

“Perfect! We need to kill the fifth floor guardian. It has extremely high Vitality, but it is quite slow and dumb. If you can act as our distraction, we’ll be grateful!”

Vifi’Yok decided to play along. Whether these three would try something didn’t matter to her, since everything would happen inside the dungeon. If there weren’t any witnesses around, then “Valeria” didn’t have to hold anything back.

However, what caught her off-guard even more was the fact they didn’t go to the rank D dungeon, but, instead, they headed into the rank B [Menagerie of Golems]. Vifi’Yok’s instinct kicked in.

“Our leader is a rank B while we’re rank C. We played around with the system and got our passes, haha!” The young man who recruited her tried to play it off. “Don’t worry, our leader is extremely powerful! He was once a potential recruit for the Hands of Heaven! He’s rank A, in fact, but he just hasn’t done enough Quests!”

Suspicious.

When this “Hands of Heaven recruit” was introduced to Vifi’Yok, she couldn’t help but take a deep sigh. The man was not even a little bit similar to Larent Antonodius or Lautrex von Cashim. In fact, she questioned if this middle-aged man was even a rank B.

He wore decent armor with what looked like monster materials and a couple of runes. If it were any other girl, she probably would have been fooled, but his terrible posture—probably not used to heavy armor—and the way he stood on his feet made it obvious he had just bought this set of armor. In battle, footwork was one of the most important aspects of a melee fighter. You need to react fast, or you would die.

“Let’s go! For the money!” This “rank B” called out, pumping his fist into the air like a juvenile.

The three posse members did the same. “For the money!”

As they came in front of the dungeon guard, Vifi’Yok noted it was a human. The rank B smiled and handed him everybody’s ID, and after some quick glances, the rank B moved closer and slipped some money into the other’s pockets.

Not everything about the adventurer business was as pretty as most would make it out to be. At the end of the day, every person prioritized themselves and weren’t afraid of using others to gain what they wanted.

Even now, why was a bribe needed? Why bring a rank E to a rank B dungeon? Why did she have to run fast? Why does she have to be an archer?

…

Vifi’Yok went totally silent. Her eyes glared at the four men with pure bloodlust. If she wasn’t L.E.P., her face most likely would have contorted from her anger. Fortunately, the emotional imbalances of the wrath demonkins helped her stay inconspicuous. Nobody could feel or see the rage she was feeling right now.

And so, this “party” entered the depths of the rank B dungeon. Whatever would happen would be left in the depth of this place, as the screams and groans of adventurers was just another part of a dungeon’s atmosphere. The riches and power you may find inside would lure in the “food” the dungeon needed to continue growing. A hunter one day, a prey on the next.

However, the life of adventurers weren’t just filled with trust-issues and problems like what Vifi’Yok experienced. Friendship could bloom inside. Bonds made fighting with each other could turn unbreakable, as who could you trust better than those protecting your backs during a life-or-death situation.

Vifi’Yok might not find it here, but another group could. Another group of young adventurers not from this world, to be exact.

“Everybody!” A blond-haired young man raised his sword, causing it to gleam bright blue. “We have one week until the Event Quest begins! As such, we will be preparing ourselves in this rank B dungeon! Don’t forget, we are all over level 80—we are all the future of this world! We are the Heroes of Aurena!”

He sheathed his sword and turned around, letting his cape twirl with the help of winter’s breeze. The bright grin he showed wasn’t just filled with confidence, but unbridled pride in himself. “And I am the HERO who will lead us against the demonkin king! Takuma Akan—!”

But before he could end his monologue, a white-haired young man walked past him, disrupting his “moment.” “Instead of stalling everybody, why not just go already? Ryuji! Sir Karlst. Let us all go!”

“Heading out, Light!” The muscular adjutant of the scowling “Light” followed behind his leader, leaving Takuma to once again repeat his motivational speech to everybody’s chagrin.

Crimson Dragoness, Hestia. I know you will come to this city. Let us meet. Light clenched his fist, holding onto the hope to free himself from the demonkin’s influence.

And so, 15 otherworlders entered the rank B dungeon [Menagerie of Golems]. Accompanying them were three Knights of Aurena, a Hand of Heaven, and Saintess Fleindia with her three personal guards. They would enter a few hours after Vifi’Yok had descended, but it seemed fate was quite fickle once again.

As Vifi’Yok liked to say, “God Marsven is a fickle god.”

A note from AbyssRaven

Oh hey, wasn't that the same dungeon Hestia wanted to enter to level up? Oh, hey, those students entered the city! I hope some dwarves reported this. Oh my.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 392: The Debut of “Atsuko Licht.”

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #2 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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The Binding Festival.

Peolynca’s religious day dedicated to the binding of two souls together, or in other places, binding of several souls together. Regardless, it was a joyous day under the watch of the Origin Gods, as people wed each other and became family with the blessing of their local church.

As was tradition, the Binding Festival always took place on the first week of a new season, meaning there were four chances for people to get married each year. Each day of this entire week would have one Binding Festival associated with their respective Origin God outside of the last day—RestWeek. In other words, on FireDay people who worship Danterno would marry, while on EarthDay the dwarves would begin their grand celebration.

For on that day, clans would ally with each other as their stout sons and crafty daughters decide on their life partners. As usual, you had to associate revelry and alcohol with the dwarves, and that meant a lot of feasts, bar visitors, and many, many, many drunks. Today, the Dwarven God of Alcohol, Gnogvir, and the Fairy Goddess of Festivals, Aniuqa, would benefit the most from this merrymaking.

However, there was something different happening at a certain dwarven hold. The capital of Ankor-Nazta, Inkoran-Tazul, was experiencing something beyond the normal frolicking. Not only were there more dwarves in the city than usual, there were also far more foreign visitors.

Why? Well, why not? For this was the last week before the first ever Event Quest in history, and it would be hosted before the throne of the Ankoran King.

“Today is a day of love! No borders shall stop you from binding your souls to your significant other! Come! Be blessed!” A Crustacia priestess shouted out before the cathedral of the Church of Crustacia, promoting not only her race’s Binding Festival but also for every other faith. “Priests and priestesses of every church are in town! Come! Join your hands with the one you love!”

The dwarves were an inventive and crafty race. Through clever business deals and their lead over the rest of the world in manatech, they have amassed an insane amount of wealth for themselves, probably making them the wealthiest nation in Peolynca when it came to liquid assets. At the very least, they were only rivaled by the Aleistunum and the Folschreck Empire.

Realizing the Event Quest was a major opportunity for merchants, the Ankoran King had not only informed the world of the Event Quest, but also invited the priesthood of Saelariel to the city. The reason was clear: if so many people were to visit the city, then it was necessary to invest in the Binding Festival for each of the pantheons.

Danterno, Crustacia, Plesia, Zephira, Aurena, and then Marsven; every religion would have their Binding Festival begin on the first EarthDay of autumn inside this hold. Although some criticism was lodged with the Ankoran King, it didn’t matter to the average person. Those who visited the city to witness the historical event were elated that their plans to marry weren’t disrupted by their travels.

Even if it was uncommon for people to marry on the day of a different Origin God, it didn’t matter. The dwarves have been known to break from the status quo since the Revolution Queen, and one of her mortal relatives, the current Ankoran King, would follow in her footsteps.

As such, this event was important to Ankoran King Fugnarus. Over the many weeks coming up to the Event Quest, people have arrived in the city, causing it to fill up to the point guards had to be dispatched all across the city to prevent overcrowding and accidentally crushing someone. Wherever you went, you could see at least a guard or even a soldier making sure nothing went awry.

Naturally, criminal activities rose with the number of people. There were also cases of racial and cultural friction leading to fights, or even straight-up murders, right in the streets, meaning the guards also were needed to act as peacekeepers. This was especially necessary since the tension between elves and humans as well as dragonewts and dragonkin slayers could blow everything up. It was like a powder keg.

With the council of his wife, the Ankoran King had managed to control everything up until now, but once again, his planning would be put to the test today. For the Binding Festival would raise the morale and celebrations to an all-time high. With the number of celebrants getting drunk, anything could happen today.

“May the eternal fire of the God of Fire bless you! Fire consumes fire; may your love fuel the fire between you!”

The first of the six Binding Festivals began with the church of Danterno. An elven priest of the church gave a long-winding sermon, finishing it with the wedding ceremony. In the large, grand halls of the main cathedral of the church of Crustacia, the priest had a palace-sized nave to work with, allowing hundreds of people to gather inside to listen to him.

… Sadly, nobody came.

“…” The priest of Danterno gulped after he finished his sermon and the wedding ceremony, before taking a deep breath as he realized outside of his fellow clergymen, nobody was inside. The grander the cathedral, the emptier and more desolate it seemed if nobody was inside.

Most priests of Danterno were used to it, since the religion itself was the least popular amongst the Origin Gods. Not to mention, the social stigma surrounding most fire mages made them feel unwelcome. Even in Saelariel, where every religion was respected, it was rare to see a mage who only focused on fire magic. They would customarily diversify their magics and usually follow a different Origin God who seemed either kinder or had a more approachable religion.

This difference was immediately shown when the Danterno priests left the room, making way for the priests of Crustacia. The grand hall was filled up immediately with not only the wedding pairs, but also their clans and friends to celebrate things. Outside alcohol and food was forbidden inside the cathedral, but the revelry already intoxicated everybody.

“Ahaha, that’s my daughter! Ooooooh, your hand will be taken away from us. Ohohoho … my daughter—huek—is getting married.”

“Son! Be sure to not let your wife beat you when it comes to smithing! You have your pride and she has her own. Never forget, though, that you are husband and wife from now on! Bleidla and Earth Mother guide you!”

The cathedral was swarmed by people and filled with their words, making it near impossible for anybody to eavesdrop on anybody. After a bit, order was finally regained as a wisewoman entered the podium with a following of other wisewoman and clergy people.

She gave a sermon in Crustacia’s name, giving praise to her and the people of Ankor-Nazta for their hard work to build up the nation. She reinforced how Crustacia was watching over everybody, elevating everybody’s mood as the build-up prompted the wedding ceremony. As the many brides and grooms gathered before the congregation of priests and shrine maidens, a special alchemical tonic was handed out to everybody to drink.

Once every pair slowly imbibed the slightly alcoholic concoction for the ceremony, the priests raised their brown staves into the air. After a moment, they illuminated everybody in a topaz glow. This was the Church of Crustacia’s version of the Church of Aurena’s [Prayer]. Since dwarves were unable to cast spells, they rectified the problem through manatech and runes.

This one was a simple process to grant the “blessing of the Earth Mother.” Anybody who drank the tonic had not only their digestive system fortified for the upcoming feasts and drinks, but they also made the dwarves’ crust’lock—the petrified bits on their hair and beard—and the rock hide on their ears glow a dazzling topaz.

This ceremony was to prevent adulterers for the later feasts. People would get drunk, meaning accidents could happen. The gemstone glowing crust’lock and rock hide was to help drunkards identify who was married or not, hopefully preventing any problems for the newlyweds. It would only last for a single day, but it was a tradition made just for the dwarven lifestyle.

Speaking of wedding pairs, if one of the pairs wasn’t a dwarf, they would receive a different tonic. This one would turn their eyes and hair brown, allowing it to glow topaz once the manatech was used.

And so, the ceremony ended with the newlyweds embracing themselves either lovingly or for appearance sake, before they returned to their families and friends. With the Binding Festival for the church of Crustacia ended, it was time to empty and clean the room for the next ceremony.

It was revelry time; it was time for the in-laws and new clan allies to celebrate their familial ties with food and drinks. Once they left the cathedral, all of them suddenly stopped, stunned in silence as they stared at the scene happening right before them.

The sound of trumpets blasting drew their attention. Music, naturally, wasn’t a foreign thing for the dwarves, as many miner chanties existed, not to mention the Beats’N’Rocks genre was popular among the younger generations. Bands like Rosserto’s Punker Paradise were prevalent in all holds, and it wasn’t unusual for them to play on days of festivals like this one.

However, this wasn’t a rocker. This wasn’t even a dwarf. Strangely, the person performing the music wasn’t even physically around. No, what surprised the group of dwarves wasn’t that music was playing, but that the musician was being shown through a blue screen, similar to the one on everybody’s party bracelets.

Just as the trumpets stopped, the sounds of a violin—or geigler in Peolynca—took over, continuing the music. The musician in view deftly played her instrument, creating an energetic but also grand composition as she passionately danced while playing her geigler. As more people listened to it, it sounded similar to a marching song. However, for some reason, it felt fitting. The Binding Festival was an important day, and to the newlyweds, it felt like the world was welcoming their love and their new lives. They felt confident, as if they were the protagonists of this day.

The people already standing in front of the cathedral were drawn into the mood and the walk of the married, clapping and cheering for them as the music continued playing. Due to the mood, most didn’t really recognize or remember the black-haired girl playing on the blue screen. They didn’t realize how she was wielding wind to create the sounds, nor notice the obsidian stage she was playing everything upon.

Felix Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March” would stay unknown to Peolynca’s denizens … for now.

However, the singer herself did not remain unknown. No, just as the wedding march began to die down, everybody’s eyes instantly noticed something in the sky. A floating sphere of a purple material moved in the air. It had neither wings nor any supporters to keep it up there. It was clear this was magic.

Mana usage outside of workshops, buildings, and any private establishment was usually outlawed if you weren’t a soldier or somebody with permission to do so. While small usages in daily life were often overlooked, since punishing every single usage would cause more unrest than solve anything, casting spells or overusing mana would mean a high fine or a more severe punishment.

Since dwarves couldn’t cast spells, this law was established to stop mages from potentially causing trouble. While the dwarves weren’t against magic and mana usage per se, they disliked the potential risks associated with it since not everybody could afford crossbows or wanted to bring runic weapons with them.

As such, the dwarves inside the mountain hold were slightly anxious when they saw this. However, seeing as none of the pillbug-like defenses situated on the ceiling of their city reacted to it, some guessed this wasn’t a threat. And this was further reinforced by what happened next.

.

“The day’s so wonderful ♫

The night’s so colorful ♫

But all I need is your smile ♫

These hands will catch’em all ♫

But all I want is you ♫

However far it is ♫

But I’ll never give in-in ♫”

.

Music, and it all originated from the floating platform. A young woman’s voice blasted from up there, piercing through the noise currently on the ground. Some didn’t mind her too much, some listened but quickly ignored her, but those currently in front of the cathedral could see it all.

The girl they saw play the wedding march was now singing with a band of dwarves behind her. Some even recognized that Rosserto, frontman and leader of the band Punker’s Paradise, was playing with this unknown human girl.

The voice of an angel and an enviable appearance; those who watched her perform a love song dedicated to the Binding Festival were captivated. Then, Rosserto went up, continuing the song after the girl finished her chorus. The verse continued the love story, causing quite a few of the newlywed or those about to be married to reminisce of their love lives.

.

“My heart’s all-in, rock solid ♫

My body keeps on working ♫

Tireless for my passion ♫

But this voice of mine is yours ♫

So I’ll never give in-in ♫

My heart’s all-in, fire hot ♫”

.

The rock band intensified with the woman raising her voice to match them. While tamer than what most were used to the Beats’N’Rocks genre of music, it was clear the influence was there. It was softer and easier to listen to what Rosserto was used to play, but that only lasted until the end of the first verse, as the beginning of the refrain caused the music to climax.

.

“You make me want that (Ring on Hand) ♫

Give my soul for (Ring on Hand) ♫

Our happiness (Ring on Hand) ♫

Reminds me of the flames of life (Flames of life) ♫

Wild emotions (Flames of Life) ♫

Roaring engines (Flames of Life) ♫

All so I can say, ‘I love you!’ (I love you) ♫

Motivates me (I love you) ♫

You’re my muse (I love you) ♫

All to share this ring on hand ♫”

.

Once the chorus began, the rocker dwarf took over, singing every word with power while the girl followed behind to create harmony. An unexpected union of voices was created between the two, as both synchronized to deliver a soul warming performance. It was like a second Binding ceremony, as the majority watching their performance kissed and embraced their significant other.

Those used to Punker’s Paradise were elated as they joined in. Although not completely to their taste, due to the girl’s softer voice and the unknown saxophone music no Peolyncian had heard before, their musical taste allowed them to understand the deeper intent of the song. They understood this duet was a love song, but at the same time, a celebration of life and to enjoy it while it lasted. Including warming up to the love of your life to set your heart on fire!

.

“We got heaven’s blessing ♫

Life’s too short to wait ♫

We gotta keep our smiles rolling ♫

So I’ll never give in-in ♫

My heart’s all-in, full power ♫

.

You make me want that (Ring on Hand) ♫

Give my soul for (Ring on Hand) ♫

Our happiness (Ring on Hand) ♫

Reminds me of the flames of life (Flames of life) ♫

Wild emotions (Flames of Life) ♫

Roaring engines (Flames of Life) ♫

All so I can say, ‘I love you!’ (I love you) ♫

Motivates me (I love you) ♫

You’re my muse (I love you) ♫

All to share this ring on hand ♫”

.

As the song died down, the platform in the air suddenly approached those at the cathedral. The girl waved at everybody below.

“My name is Atsuko Licht! Thank you very much for listening! It was a pleasure to see all of you and congratulations on getting married! May the gods bless all of you!” The girl introduced herself to everybody, causing the woman among the crowd to greet her, thanking her for the beautiful song.

Moments later, the girl’s duet partner stomped into the front, shouting, “But this ain’t the end of the day yet! Ya got time for family parties later! Come join us at the Hub for some real noise that will beat’n’rock ya up! Bunch of merchants, food, and drinks! Wraaaaahaaaaaaaha!”

It was a promotion, and it was an effective one since the duet immediately started to perform another song after the platform moved back to the sky. This time, however, they didn’t stay still, and instead began to fly away. All of this, however, was still projected through the blue screen at the cathedral, just like a live showing.

.

“The day’s so wonderful ♫

The night’s so colorful ♫

But all I need is your smile ♫

These hands will catch’em all ♫

But all I want is you ♫

However far it is ♫

But I’ll never give in-in ♫”

.

Urgh … the girl groaned internally, but kept her facade up for the song.

This “Atsuko Licht” was none other than Hestia’s pseudonym to hide herself from dragonkin slayers. As part of her plan to gain followers, she was performing as an idol while collaborating with Rosserto.

Still, how was it possible that she was on a floating platform and how was her image shown to everybody? First, the platform was a large [Unheiliger Engel] while she used another one to keep the video recorder following behind them. This was how Hestia was “streaming” her performance to everybody, for her team of techies managed to figure out how to make it work.

However, while that was interesting on its own—a true technological marvel—Hestia herself was more worried about how much mana she was consuming. Not only was she keeping everything in the air with her parallel minds, but she was also using [Aerokinesis] to perform her usual tricks to emulate instruments and to boost her voice.

Sadly, unlike the last time she performed a flash mob, this time she was in her complete human mode, meaning [Humanize Lv. 10]. Not only did she have to pay mana to keep her form active, she was spending a ludicrous amount for everything else. Since her human form reduced her total stats by two-thirds, she was weaker than her usual self.

As such, she rushed out of the undermountain hold and into the Hub. Since she wasn’t in her dragonewt form, she couldn’t even use her solar energy. She was, more or less, working on fumes at this point.

I need … urgh. To stop before my mana drops too low.

However, it would all be worth it in the end as they reached the Hub—the outer city—after finishing the song. The video recorder was shut off and Rossert and his band members helped Hestia into the building next to where the platform was placed, not to mention, where a crowd of dragonewts and other races were already waiting for her.

“Lady—Miss Atsuko!” The dragonewts Hestia met two weeks ago at the railroad guild—Skardrvo and Pradreo—tried to call out for her, but a large white-black virigress growled at them, reminding them what exactly was going on today.

Regardless, Hestia was immediately given some fulinoe tea by her maids Tasianna and Svena, allowing her to heal herself after consuming so much mana in the process of bringing her idea to life.

“Bad idea. Very bad idea, urgh! I should have practiced this in my human form,” Hestia agonized over her wish for today’s flashy show as she guzzled the tea down her throat. “Bwah! Haruka-chan! Daichi! Did it work?!”

Rushing out of a door inside this wooden building, a pale and sleep-deprived Daichi appeared and showed her a thumbs up. Haruka, on the other hand, didn’t appear from the room, as she was currently going through the blue screens on Aurora’s [Crystal of the Divine System].

Hestia, seeing them like this, could finally relax on her chair. A smile crept on her face as she realized she just had her performance not only streamed but also recorded for others to watch. However, seconds later, tears began to form around her eyes as she realized all of this had cost her.

My money … my money. I don’t want to be in debt anymore, man. Being a poor indie idol sucks …

Manatech cost money. Even if Haruka, Daichi, and Ellaine managed to construct something to Hestia’s demands, everything had a cost, and that meant Aurora had to go further into debt. Fortunately, though, that was just what she had to do to promote her new concert.

Hestia clapped her cheeks and stood back up and looked at Tasianna up and down, noticing she had already changed into her idol outfit. Ellaine wasn’t inside this room right now, but she had to be ready to. It was time to show Inkoran-Tazul what three trained idols could do to shake things up in this gruff place.

Not only that, but it was a brilliant chance to actually make some much needed money …

“Alright, let’s go!” Hestia jumped onto her feet, before entering the changing room for her next performance.

“Hurry up, though! I can’t stand in for you if ya takes years!” Rosserto called Hestia out before leaving the building with his iconic “Wraaaaahaaaaaha!”

Not only for the concert, but Hestia also had to hurry up for another reason. Something not part of her idol job.

Yesterday, a report had just come in that fifteen “Heroes of Aurena” and a Saintess by the name of Fleindia had arrived in the city through the train. Not only had they not spoken with the Ankoran King, but they had entered the rank B dungeon [Menagerie of Golems] but haven’t returned yet.

A note from AbyssRaven

Today's songs are Mendelssohn's Wedding March! Well, Hestia already mentioned it but have another listen if you need some chill music Rawr

Now to our second song, something more peppy and fitting for a wedding day! David Bowie's classic "Modern Love" Rawr

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 393: Rank B Dungeon [Menagerie of Golems].

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #3 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! It works on a subscription base now, so pay on the same date next month!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

3798 humans, elves, dwarves, beastmen have become your followers

Total follower count updated. Total followers of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 22447

2 humans followers lost

Total follower count updated. Total followers of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 22445

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Unarmed Mastery Lv. 10] [Scale Manipulation Lv. 4] gained

Skill requirement fulfilled.   [Unarmed Technique Lv. 10] [Unarmed MasteryLv. 10] merged into [True Unarmed Technique Lv. 1]

Custom spell gained: [Sun, Consume All]

“Mhmm, an accident happened in Elyonda today. With Yeos’s royal family in the city and the guards having to stay with them, that meant less people around to protect everybody from the roaming monsters,” Rita gave me a report of what caused the loss of two of my human followers. Even after the grounds in Elyonda were cleansed from the overabundance of mana, there were still accidents.

Neill, hearing this, nodded but frowned a bit as she noticed I felt sad hearing this. “People die all the time, Sis. Elyonda is just in a very tricky situation, you can’t do everything. Don’t let it bother you.”

“I know,” I replied, but it didn’t mean I felt any better. Well, I guess this was why I didn’t promote myself as a hero, but more as an entertainer.

… Even if I am a Champion, who is supposed to protect Aurena’s followers.

The concert was a massive success.

The whole square was filled to the brim with people who listened and watched my concert and collab with Rosserto, allowing me to gain a whooping 3798 followers during the whole process. Naturally, a lot of them were dragonewts and since they knew who I was, they were easy to convert to the [The Light] cult—Ahem, my fandom. Honestly, though, the people from Elyonda and Artorias have mostly turned into real stans—overzealous fans.

Well, it did mean they didn’t believe any of the lies the Empire produced with that damn newspaper. Oh, speaking of newspapers, from what I remembered from a report from Shaturein’s spies, one of Saori’s students was actually responsible for creating the newspaper printing press and also for the newspaper defaming me as an ally of the grimgarians. Sure, the church probably misconstrued the story, or outright lied, but reading it calling me a menace did make me a bit angry.

Not only did it attract dragonslayers and make my existence known to them, but now the Empire had a bad impression of me. It made it far harder to negotiate with them until my reputation was cleared. Idols shouldn’t get into these issues, and I’ve been a good girl wherever I went, but this was just the problem with the media. Always targeting cute girls like me!

“Well, it doesn’t really matter now, considering ya goal is deep in the ground, lass. Only think about finding them, hopefully ally with them, and don’t get into any problems,” Grimnir reassured me and helped me refocus with a hoarse voice, before he banged his hammer on my chest. However, it didn’t hurt as a loud metallic sound was produced. “… You like it?”

“I LOVE IT!”

I smacked my chest with both of my hands, one again producing that metal sound. With a wide smile, I looked down at my torso. I couldn’t see my usual adventurer clothes, as they were hidden behind a white-black chestplate with red and gold tints. A dragon head emblem with flames formed in a crescent moon was embedded on the left side of my armor—the Kargryxmor clan’s sigil.

Sadly, as Grimnir mentioned, there was only enough rhytilic alloy for the breastplate. Normally, it would have been enough to create another exosuit like Ellaine’s, but in my case, I needed it for my dragon form. And, outside of Mom, I was the largest member of Aurora. Similarly, I was also a member who couldn’t get any armor as, once I transformed, anything not moldable or made from mana threads would just break.

This was why the form-changing rhytilic alloy came into play, as it had a “dormant” form as my dragonewt breastplate, while its “unleashed” one could cover up my entire dragon torso. This not only increased my defenses, but also protected my two “hearts.” My actual one and my sun core. My Vifi’Yok fight proved that, if somebody were to target it, it could break and that would really doom me.

Identify.

Crimson Dragon Princess Exoarmor: A rhytilic armor made using materials from a [Sunfang Dragon] and [Violetshock Kirin-Dragon], vastly increasing both fire and arcane corruption resistances. Laminated with cockatrice feather resin, reduces the effect of anti-draconic blood coatings, while also preventing dragonkin pheromones from spreading too far. By ingraining a [Sunfang Dragon] solar core into its creation, allows absorption of solar energy and will glow a radiant crimson if mana is channeled through the armor.

Intelligence Power: 29

Vitality Power: 3080

Wisdom Power: 3090

Skill: [All-Damage Reduction Lv. 1] [Inferno Resistancel Lv. 8] [Lava Resistance Lv. 8] [Terra Resistance Lv. 5] [Lightning Resistance Lv. 5] [Arcane Corruption Resistance Lv. 10] [Water Weakness Lv. 5] [Ice Weakness Lv. 5] [Mana Conductor Lv. 10] [Mana Efficiency Lv. 10] [Aerial Fighter Lv. 5] [Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 8] [Durability Reduction Lv. 10] [Wind Pressure Nullification] [Explosion Pressure Nullification] [Anti-Draconic Resistance Lv. 5] [Pheromone Reduction Lv. 5] [Rhytilic Alloy Transformation] [Solar Energy Absorption: 0%] [Sorcerer’s Power Lv. 3] [Prime Vigor Lv. 5] [Sage’s Wisdom Lv. 5]

Rune: [Dhuinn Rune: Fearless Defense] [Utility Rune: Weight Reduction] [Utility Rune: Mana Leech] [Defense Rune: Pavise] [Defense Rune: Auracoil]

Armor made from not only my but also Sis’s materials, meaning that not only did I have my usual defenses but the armor also reduced arcane corruption accumulation. Considering how much mana I use up during a fight, especially through my supportive songs, this was a real boon. Honestly, I could kinda understand why dragonkin slayers existed when a smith like Grimnir could produce something like this.

One of the broken solar cores I had lying around was used to make this armor, allowing the armor to act as a secondary solar energy source if I ever needed it. Sadly, it couldn’t store as much solar energy as my ever-growing core, but if I ever ran out of solar energy in my core, I could use the armor to refuel it. Accidents like me overheating shouldn’t be possible any longer, as long as I kept my core safe.

Aside from the amount of benefits already clear to see in the description, I was especially excited about Grimnir’s prized creation in the form of this [Dhuinn Rune: Fearless Defense]. Called the epitome of rune smithing, dhuinn runes consumed three rune slots all at once and only one could be embedded onto a piece of equipment. Since we used my blood to make them, I had seven total rune slots available in total.

Fearless Defense: Turns the vitality and wisdom bonuses on the armor into strength and intelligence respectively. These stat bonuses will count as base stats for buffs and magical effects. Mana is continuously consumed until turned off

Not only was the creation of dhuinn runes strenuous on a blacksmith’s voice and body—this was why Grimnir had lost his voice and sounded extremely hoarse right now—but they also required an object large enough for it to be placed on. It couldn’t be placed on smaller weapons like rapiers or lances, or stuff like gauntlets, as such. Mine, for example, had to be placed on my back, underneath the open slots for my wings.

Thankfully, the effects of the rune did excuse its more problematic requirements. While the rune itself sounded pretty since it added over 3000 in my offensive stats once activated, the actual benefit was the fact it counted as a base stat, meaning it stacked with my numerous buffs like [Symphonie des Feuergottes], [Solar Beam], [Prayer], and my spell songs.

Speaking of the other runes, they were really the standard ones dwarven smiths usually placed on their equipment. Pavise, auracoil, and mana leech to cover defensive utility, while the weight reduction rune was actually a necessity in this case. Just a reminder, this armor was made to transform into my dragon form, meaning, there was a ton of bulk condensed into this human-sized armor piece.

For reference, if the rune wasn’t active, it would be like strapping literal boulders onto your body and trying to run around with it. It was impossible for a normal person to wear it, let alone walking around without breaking your back.

“And now, the finishing touch.” Grimnir smiled as he opened a box, revealing a beautiful red catalyst. Gently placing it in the middle of the breastplate, the alchemical stone looked like a simple gem to elevate the luxurious status of this already illustrious piece of armor.

This was my third catalyst, and it was made from another one of my broken sun cores to act just like my armor—as an additional solar ray absorber. After all, my destination now that my concert was over was the rank B dungeon [Menagerie of Golem].

Core of the Sun: A simple catalyst made from the solar core of a [Sunfang Dragon], allowing the owner to store a massive amount of mana and some solar energy for later usage

Owner: [Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Skill: [Inferno Amp] [Sacred Amp] [Solar Energy Absorption: 0%]

“I hope it’ll be useful, Lady Hestia … Ooh, it didn't turn out too well, huh?” Tasianna grimaced after Grimnir finished putting my armor on for me, looking mortified while still wearing the idol outfit for our concert as an idol group.

However, I shook my head, telling her it was all fine for her first real go on making a catalyst all by herself. After all, when she made Saori’s and my catalysts, she had the help of a meister alchemist in the form of the dark elf Krymdar. Neither Cernust or Rita knew how to make one, so this was just another step in her journey as an alchemist. I was proud of her.

Heart of the Volcano Catalyst: An alchemical orb created using the volcanic heart of a [Volcano Furnace Volchark]. If mana is registered to this catalyst, it will levitate and float around the owner using stored mana. An aura is emitted from this catalyst, reducing any fire or lava element damage by 50% against the owner. This reduced damage will be turned into Health for the owner. Significantly reduces Health, Mana, or Stamina cost of any fire elemental attacks and its compound elements.

Owner: [Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Skill: [Resource Efficiency Lv. 8] [Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 8] [Chant Revocation Lv. 10] [Flame Furnace Aura] [Cast Activation Speed Increase Lv. 7] [Inferno Amp] [Lava Amp] [Artillery Spell Enhancement Lv. 1] [Explosion Spell Enhancement Lv. 1]

Enchantment: [Flame Accumulation] [Heat-Mana Transmutation] [Spell Song Amplification]

This was my primary catalyst made by Krymdar with Tasianna’s assistance. There was a night-and-day difference, of course, but Tasianna didn’t have his years of experience.

Zazail Orb of Sealed Shadows: A black orb that can absorb a tremendous amount of mana for future usage. As a catalyst, it would prove to be an inefficient tool as it cannot aid the magician in their spell cast, however, as a source of mana, it is an ideal tool. The true power of this orb was sealed by the God of Darkness, Marsven, preventing anybody from releasing its true power, so it is safe to use

Mana Capacity: 10000/10000

And this was my third catalyst, which usually acted more like a mana battery to help others fast travel without dying from the insane mana costs. It was just a more elaborate mana potion, essentially.

However, that was exactly why I was bringing it with me to the dungeon. No sun meant no constant solar energy to feed me, which meant mana potions, dragorades, and catalysts like these gained in value. Honestly, for the dungeon raid, Tasianna and Grimnir were probably the most important contributors.

“… That’s good to hear.” Tasianna let out a small sigh of relief, before her face suddenly beamed up, again. “Thankfully, these have turned out far better.”

Major Health Potion: A very potent health potion

Major Mana Potion: A very potent mana potion

Major Stamina Potion: A very potent stamina regeneration potion

Moderate Strength Elixir: Raises strength by 5% for a limited time. Only one strength elixir may be active

Moderate Intelligence Elixir: Raises intelligence by 5% for a limited time. Only one intelligence elixir may be active

Winter’s Gift Antidote: A tonic made from cockatrice egg yolk and hydra venom as its base with vulotie herbs mixed in to warm up the imbiber’s stomach. Slowly alleviates the effect of the winter’s gift poison

After Tasianna finished placing all the potions and tonics on a table, she began to explain things to everybody in the room. “Twenty of each resource potion. Five strength and intelligence potions. I also have resistance potions, but by your wish, they will be distributed to the expedition force instead of yours, Lady Hestia. Now, this is probably the most important part—six antidotes against the Winter’s Gift poison.”

“Winter’s Gift,” also known as the fire dragon killer. A venom that only worked on fire elemental dragonkins and their close relatives, like lava and magma dragons. While the poison was rather rare, it was potent enough to heavily cripple even rank A fire dragons since it caused their body to experience hypothermia, nullifying their fire attacks. As such, dragonslayers usually brought some with them on their hunts for fire dragons.

Six were made using our connections in Shaturein and Estralia, as the vulotie herb only grew in the inside of volcanoes, not to mention, we also needed stuff like cockatrice eggs and hydra venom. Not only did I have to increase our party’s debt even further for them, it was also quite hard to make as our alchemy team failed in the process of making three of them.

Three for me and three for Neill, since there was always the chance of meeting a dragonslayer. Without this antidote, we probably would die even against a weak slayer, according to Yorshka and Farron.

Well, this isn’t even considering the cost to make the manatech for my concert. Ahhh, so much money lost even if I know it’s all worth it! Thank goodness we managed to recuperate a ton through the concert.

I didn’t really want to speak too much about the profit margins and stuff from the concert, but with Amelia selling my party and my merch to everybody who attended my concert, I did earn quite a bit back. It helped us pay back my debt to King Drangleic and Duke Greenveil, but the thing was that I had to make another loan to get all the things before me.

Alchemy ingredients and also the creation of the streaming devices for my concert. Ellaine, Daichi, and Haruka did a grand job as we not only managed to record my performance but it was also streamed at specific locations in the city. These “streaming cameras” as Haruka called them, cost a lot of money to make, since items using the [Crystal of the Divine System] usually required dungeon core pieces.

I just learned this recently, but my special ID and party bracelet had dungeon core pieces in them too. Which was why they would have cost me an organ or two if I hadn’t asked Ellaine’s dad to buy them for my party. Rough times, honestly.

I had to rely on Reajaen in the end for the money, especially since she had her own connections for some of the stuff we needed. Honestly, the days leading up to the event were more stressful than ever, and I was just a small time indie idol!

“Ready. Tatsuya? Kyouya? Rajah?” I called out to the people who would accompany me down into the dungeon, as the others had to prepare for the Event Quest in a few days.

All three of them nodded, shouting in support as they wore brilliant armor, all created by Daichi and Grimnir. This was, after all, still a rank B dungeon we would be diving into, so any protection we could get was incredibly important. After Grimnir’s moment in Gazahan-Orn where he managed to get some closure to his cousin’s death, he had only been working harder and harder.

The “power armor” design of his own armor influenced Tatsuya’s and Kyouya’s, as they looked more like those super ancient, but technologically advanced, warriors in some of those fantasy novels. Brimming with blue mana lines, they looked extremely capable.

Rajah, though, shared my armor design instead, as his looked more grounded and elegant. He was already large enough for me to ride him, but in his battle cat armor, he looked like a mount some hero would be riding into battle. Honestly, if I wasn’t wearing my breast plate, I honestly thought I looked pretty underdressed to be riding him.

But this just meant I was even more confident we could do this.

“Keep her safe, alright, boys?” Yorshka tapped Tatsuya’s and Kyouya’s shoulders. “If something were to happen to my great aunt, I will … actually, I wouldn’t need to do anything considering we have a horde of dragonewts ready. Right?”

“… Yes, Ma’am,” both answered sheepishly, clearly intimidated by Yorshka’s care for me. Even if she didn’t need to say anything, Tasianna, Neill, Shay, and Beth were all glaring at them to take this seriously.

Poor boys.

[“Master, should we go?”] Rajah asked me, to which I nodded.

However, before that, I had to address everybody in the room.

Tasianna, Ellaine, Grimnir, Neill, Shay, Beth, Yorshka, Farron, Rita, Daichi, Haruka, Tamae, Nishio, Misaki, Kazumi, Kohaku, Master, Krim-Slak, Grazlahta, and Akast. Twenty people, and while Rita, Daichi, Haruka, and Tamae wouldn’t join in the Event Quest, there were still so many. All of them were my allies, and once again, I wouldn’t be able to lead them into our next adventure.

Due to my agreement with the members of the summit, I couldn’t join them. Not to mention, I already had a unique Job, so me clearing the Event would be a waste. As such, in place of Kyouya, Tatsuya, Rajah, and me, three representatives from the summit alliance would join them.

The dwarves, Artorias, Saelariel, Loatryx, Caedhul, Estralia, and Yeos; all of the members for the alliances were in the city, with the Loatryxian diplomats having just arrived yesterday. It was certainly a surprise to see all of them, and while I haven’t met any of their leaders yet—like the King of the Saelarian elves—I would soon. Just, not today.

For today, I had to find those students who entered the city yesterday and went into the [Menagerie of Golems].

“I will be back and watch all of you! All you, this is an order, come back alive!” I demanded from everybody as all of them were [Hestia’s Retainer].

[“We will come back as your imperial guards, Princess Hestia!”] Shay and Beth announced, kneeling before me with Tasianna.

“I’m stronger than ever, Hestia! We will get through this!” Ellaine, still in her idol outfit since she and Tasianna were my group partners, reassured me.

Grimnir bashed his fist against his chest, grinning widely. His grumpiness was nowhere to be seen. “We’ll bring back the goodies from Goddess Chihiro’s vault, lass! You can count on me!”

“Leave it to us, Hestia. We’ll keep them safe,” Yorshka and Farron declared, seeing as they were the highest leveled fighters in this group.

The next were, of course, the saurians, as Master Kush couldn’t help but join in. “And you will have my magic for that! For Xohulotel, I shall become a stronger Saint!”

“Aye! And he ain’t dying before he gets to that point!” Krim-Slak announced with Grazlahta nodding to it.

On the other hand, the giant sarcosilian heaved me up onto his shoulder, letting me see everybody inside the room on his massive body. “You … Hestia. Speak from … up here. Strong. Proud. Akast … protect all.”

I know you will, you big dummy! I couldn’t help but caress his head, finding this giant always reliable. Not much of a talker since he couldn’t pronounce things well, you could still feel his big heart.

“Don’t worry, Hestia-san. We got it. We’ll make sure to get strong in there,” Nishio answered me, adjusting his glasses as the rest of the Magical Biscuits supported him.

“We’ll protect the fort! Come by if you need to!” Daichi said with Haruka and Rita to his side.

“Hesti-chan!” Haruka, though, called me out, offering me the video recorder. “Make sure to record things! I can keep everybody informed of your status whenever you open the portal to your subspace.”

“Record everything, Hestia!” Rita cried out, urging me to film things to quench her thirst for knowledge.

Since Haruka’s additions, the video recorder now immediately sent whatever was recorded to our crystal, so it was possible for her to keep watch over us. Only if I opened the subspace, of course, since they were connected by mana. Well, there was more complicated stuff about it, and I didn’t fully listen to Haruka’s long-winding lecture about it.

Maybe she could explain it to me again … but only after she learned how to make it digestible. She might be smart, but she was a terrible teacher.

“I will win.” Neill gave me one last thumbs up as I was about to leave. “Even if I face a dragonslayer … I’ll make sure to beat them up until they’re dead.”

I grinned. “You better!”

In any case, the potions and other consumables were divided and our portions were given to us. After I gave Tatsuya and Kyouya the winter’s gift antidotes, I told them I would trust them to give it to me if I were poisoned. With a fist bump to seal it off, they all joined my party.

Now ready, we left the subspace and departed for the entrance of the dungeon, which was actually outside the city, located right underneath the two giant dwarven statues next to the valley entrance towards Loatryx. My concert lasted until just before midnight, so the queue was nonexistent for us this late at night.

However, there were a couple of dwarves and dragonewts waiting there for me. As I approached them, the dragonewts bowed down while the dwarves saluted.

“Are you really sure, Princess Hestia?!” Skardrvo, the silver dragonewt I came to meet two weeks ago, showed up with a worried face. He looked mortified as he blocked our way forward. “We can join you! You don’t need to risk yourself.”

I let out a sigh in exasperation, feeling a bit bad he was so worried about me. “Skardrvo. Does Yorshka have to speak with you again?”

“Grruek!” He stiffened up, looking ill as he heard that name. He didn’t speak anymore.

Fun fact I just learned after I met him. He was actually Yorshka’s cousin, and she used to bully him since Yorshka was essentially the Nordor dragonewt clan’s golden child. Before she developed her more milder nature when she became a wife and mother, she was a pretty prideful tomboy, who would challenge anybody to a fight.

Skardrvo, sadly, was still traumatized to this day. Although, it did help that Yorshka introduced herself as my knight, since that meant he couldn’t impose himself without getting in her line-of-sight.

Knowing this, I didn’t want to scare him off too much. “However, while I won’t need too much help, I don’t know what will happen during the Event Quest. Dragonkin slayers will join it, and my sister with my two wyvern retainers are joining it. So—”

“By your will,” he interrupted me with a nod, before kneeling down. “… But, I cannot and won’t order my men to hold back against them. Princess Fargryneill nearly died to one of them, and that is something neither Pradreo nor I can forgive. Nor any of the many true dragonkins who died during the Adulthood Pilgrimage.”

The Adulthood Pilgrimage of Kargryx; sending out young, adolescent dragonkins out to the world to explore and get stronger. It sounded smart, but the main caveat about it was how it sent you out alone. Without any help from other dragonkins or dragonewts. You were allowed to ally with anybody else and even others of those on their own pilgrimage, but dragonewts? Your parents or siblings? Nope.

As such, it wasn’t uncommon for some true dragonkins to just die. Cernust and Neill had been the only ones I met up until now, and neither were sure how many more were out there. Both had mentioned how if they were to die out here, it was likely their parents would never know about it, especially if they didn’t send back letters.

I didn’t know my dragon father, and while Mom always kept putting him on a pedestal, I couldn’t imagine how. Sure, he suffered and did what he could during the civil war, but what was this bullshit rule? Dragonkins had to hide themselves when out in this world, all ‘cause they didn’t have proper support and were vulnerable to dragonkin slayers. It was stupid.

Hmph.

However, I only had to worry about her once it was the tenth. Until then, it is training time.

You have entered the dungeon [Menagerie of Golems]

A note from AbyssRaven

Toot many tables. My hands.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 394: Into the Depths of the Golem’s Ruin.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #4 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! It works on a subscription base now, so pay on the same date next month!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

[Humanize (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Evolution Points: 16/30

“I need 14 more prestige points to evolve my unique Job. It probably would go by faster if I had [Dragoon] instead of [Tyrant Hatchling], but I prefer the bonuses of the latter.”

Tatsuya nodded to my statement, agreeing that it was the better choice. “I only need six more levels. Our Jobs level faster than yours, so you can use us as your guinea pig. Then again, I am a bit excited to evolve my Job first. Hands feel giddy.”

“Then you can go first! I’ll wait once you’re done.” Kyouya smacked Tatsuya’s back hard, nearly causing him to go tumbling down the dungeon stairs. Thankfully, Tatsuya’s new set of Grimnir armor kept him from feeling the slap, and instead just looked annoyed at his best friend’s teasing.

Tatsuya, Kyouya, Rajah, and I; certainly, not the most conventional party since this was, honestly, the first time only the four of us teamed-up together. Still, as far as party composition went, it was well balanced with two frontliners in the boys while I stayed in the rear with my healing and offensive spells. Rajah, on the other hand, was our scout, flanker, and assassin—essentially our rogue.

Well, I could also take on the role as our archer since I could make my air rifle, but at that point, I could be anything considering I had a Swiss Army Knife Profile. It really didn’t matter what role I took, though I had come to prefer my supportive, idol combat style when I was fighting with others. It just worked.

“The adventurer guilds will have a field day once more and more people start getting unique Jobs,” I stated, continuing our discussion. “Not like it matters to us, since I bought a crystal for our personal usage, but I wonder how the guilds will demand usage fees in the future.”

“Hmm, let’s see—you have a set amount of Jobs, you can spend your prestige points and evolve development Jobs without a crystal, uhhh,setting the skills of your development Jobs?” Kyouya listed things out with his fingers. “… The adventurer guilds will need to change quite a bit, yeah. There aren’t that many things you could monetize using the unique Job.”

“Not our problem!” Tatsuya declared, waving his hand as he sped his pace down the stairs up. “With great changes, comes great turmoil. The guilds will have to figure things out themselves, and they’ll complain. But, not like complaining to the gods will do anything for you.”

True.

Party Leader

Name: Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor Level: 107 Unique Job: Idol Tyrant Fletchling

Name: Tatsuya Nagata Level: 73 Unique Job: The Rush

Name: Kyouya Ishigami Level: 73 Unique Job: Shadow Squire

[Menagerie of Golems], the rank B dungeon of Inkoran-Tazul sounded like a good challenge for me, but it probably would get pretty difficult in the later floors for the boys and Rajah. There were 25 floors in this humongous dungeon with a more consistent intensity curve than their rank A [Manethala’s Nest].

Naturally, this meant if we kept our guard up, I could power level all three of them up in a good amount of time. Not only in overall levels, but also specific Job levels to help them acquire certain Job skills.

Our enemies from now would probably be around the level of Vifi’Yok and Ghorush. Some might be weaker or just be fodder, but we had to treat all our enemies as stronger than us right now.

There was much to do, outside of our other goal of finding Saori’s fifteen other students, but that was something we had to go at slowly. This was a rank B dungeon, after all.

Fittingly, the mood was set the moment we entered the first floor.

Ruins—that was the most apt way to describe the building before us. The entrance was a dark, sinister-looking forest in the middle of nowhere, to the point we couldn’t see anything else but trees. Once again, the space-time power of these dungeons showed as this forest looked and felt far larger than when we first entered this dungeon.

An artificial night sky covered the ceiling, and it was clear there was only one way forward—through the ruins. In fact, there was even a sign saying “Way to next floor!” right in front of the ruins, with the side paths all blocked out by metal fences. You had to be either a contrarian or an idiot to not follow along.

As such, we abided by the instructions since we were good kids. We, of course, noticed how there weren’t any other people around, but it was also close to midnight on the surface. Due to some intel we got prior, we knew there was a 100% chance we would meet some people outside of the students, but that could wait for later. For now, we had to deal with some obstacles.

Fairnite Gargolye Leech: A living golem made in the form of a vampiric bat with the ability to slightly shrink and enlarge their size like an alchemical gargoyle. With a body made from fairnite, this monster is heavily resistant against spells and mana attacks, to the point it will heal from them. Weak to crushing damage. Rank D

“That’s a rank D? Three of them, too,” Kyouya grimaced as he let out a sigh. “It’ll be a hard road when the difficulty of all the monsters on the floor is Ds. Well, let’s just deal with it.”

“Hestia-san. Buffing, yeah?” I nodded to Tatsuya's assertion. “Rajah, let’s get some warm up!”

[“Mreew! Master, rest!”]

This was a long journey as well as a training session for them, meaning it was better for me to put myself on the backburner. Keep a watch over them and keep them buffed up, and everything would be alright. As such, I began singing.

“In the midst of the desert ♫

A bright ray of light shines ♫

Pure and brave, that she was, as she walked ♫

She was the ideal for me ♫

The bringer of children’s smiles ♫

Alas, the world seemed bleaker without her ♫”

[Various Spell Buffs] [The Shield of [The Light]] [Music Resonation (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

My three teammates all had different combat styles.

Kyouya, with his [Shadowed Martyr] activated, could act like a mobile wrecking ball by turning 75% of his health in a thick knight-like shadow armor. Tatsuya was a single-target damage deal with [All-In], allowing him to gain a significant boost to specific stats depending on which of his Health, Mana, or Stamina he was willing to pay. Rajah, although not a damage dealer, had the spells and agility to overwhelm these slow golems. Even if the fairnite protected them from his offensive spells, they didn’t reduce the effectiveness of his utility ones.

Shadowed Martyr: A defensive skill used by defenders to shield their allies with veils of shadows and darkness, scorning the sun as they control the battlefield as a shadow knight. At the cost of a percentage of the user’s current Health, they may invoke their shadow to wrap themselves in the defensive version of [Shadow Armament]. Although losing its offensive and mobility effects, the armament is sturdier and is able to reform itself into shields and armor. Once activated, your attacks will leech Health, but reduce all outside healing sources by 50%. Costs and effect: 25% for limbs and weapon, 50% for full armor and weaponry, 75% to assume knight form

All-In: A skill revolving around explosive powers at a cost. By consuming fulinoe leaves or seeds, the user may store up to three charges at once, enabling them to consume 20% of Health, Mana, or Stamina per charge to increase specific stats. Two or all charges may be used simultaneously to further increase the boost by 10%, 30%, or 75%. The boost will only last for one attack of any kind, and the user may only have one [All-In (X Charges)] active at once, with X determined by the amount of charges used. These effects may be gained:

Health: Strength and Vitality

Mana: Intelligence and Wisdom

Stamina: Agility and ignores Vitality and Wisdom of the enemy

Killing a humanoid or monster while the status is in effect will refund half of the used resource

With me healing them all from the back with [Halo of Consecration], I kept the boys going as we smashed right through the first floor, finding no obstacle too hard to slow us down. Same with the second to fourth floors, really. However, since the boys mostly fought, I was able to enjoy the scenery while I sang.

While some dungeons were dull, I have seen enough of them to know sometimes dungeons could be a spectacle for your senses. It was like wandering into a whole new world.

The whole mood of the ruins felt like some ancient robot complex, as not only were there moving golems but actual statues standing around. Unless we appraised them, we didn’t know if they were an enemy or just part of the decorations. Even worse, it was pure darkness in the ruins outside of the occasionally blue glowing and dimming symbols sprawled on all the walls and ceiling.

The anticipation felt like spiders were crawling on our skins, as the darkness coupled with these robotic, “lifeless” creatures made us really question when the next attack would come. The sounds—the eerie rusty metallic movements and their heavy quaking footsteps—kept us all on our feet.

I could perfectly see with my [Night Vision] with the minimal lights around, able to recognize the grey colored rock ground and some green plants growing through the slits, but nevertheless I stillfelt uncomfortable being underground like this. I could barely fly nor could I transform into a dragon within these claustrophobic hallways. There was just enough space to fight those troll-sized golems.

The boys, on the other hand, had to endure the dark unknown with their weaker [Night Vision]s. Even with my [White Flames] illuminating our surroundings, they admitted to me they felt trapped in a horror house. They didn’t do too well with horror, it seemed, hiehie. Well, if I wasn’t confident in my strength, I probably would be shaking, too. The uncertainty in this musty, cellar smelling dungeon and what it would throw at us was part of the fun, I guess.

Experience for development Jobs has reached multiple breaking points.

[Idol]: Lv. 16 -> Lv. 25 | Multiple reset accumulation finished | Prestige 7 Lv. 1

[Fire Mage]: Lv. 14 -> Lv. 25 | Multiple reset accumulation finished | Prestige 5 Lv. 6

[Tyrant Hatchling]: Lv. 11 -> Lv. 20 | Reset accumulation finished | Prestige 4 Lv. 15

Prestige requirement achieved! Job max level has increased. Experienced accumulation and reward quality increased.

[Mage] Max level -> 30

You may spend your prestige points when you are ready

Evolution Points: 16/30

Prestige Points

[Idol]: 2

[Fire Mage]: 2

[Dragoon]: 0

[Tyrant Hatchling]: 4

Job: Idol

Benefit Slots: [Musical Crescendo] [Bardic Cadenza] [Empty]

Level: 1/25

Prestige Level: 7

Job: Fire Mage

Benefit Slots: [Magic Skills: Proficiency Lv. 4] [Fire Element Lv. 1] [Arcane Skills: Proficiency Lv. 1]

Level: 6/30

Prestige Level: 5

Bardic Cadenza: A skill focusing on the bard’s musical abilities. Activates once a spell song is used, increasing the effects of the song’s effect as long as the bard only uses songs as a means of attack, defense, or support

Musical Crescendo: A skill that applies additional effects the longer the bard continues playing any kind of spell songs. Escalation depended on [Music Resonation] and the length being played. Minor: Increases bard’s stats by 5%. Moderate: Shares the full effects of all buffs on the bard without reaching Major. Major: Songs travel through mana, bypassing any silence fields or sound protection areas

Magic Skills: Proficiency: Increases the proficiency gain from elemental and empty vessel magic skills. Reduces breakpoint requirement by 10% * skill level

Arcane Skills: Proficiency: Increases the proficiency gain from arcane, magic casting, and mental skills. Reduces breakpoint requirement by 10% * skill level

Fire Element: Increases the proficiency gain of all fire based skills, while increasing general fire damage dealing and resistance skills by 1%. Decreases general water damage dealing and resistance skills by 1%. Effectiveness will increase by 1% each per level. Will exclude other “Element” skills, but under certain conditions and Job evolutions, this exclusion will be lifted

Hmm, I’ll leave the skill points for [Idol] out for now. Let’s get some mage ones.

[Fire Mage] prestige points: 2

Benefit Slot increase

Job Skill: [Elemental Resistances: Proficiency Lv. 1]

Growth Boosts: [Mana] [Intelligence] [Wisdom]

Uhh, yikes, guess I’ll just level up the skills.

[Fire Mage] Prestige spent. 2 Prestige Points to [Magic Skills: Proficiency Lv. 4] -> [Magic Skills: Proficiency Lv. 6] gained

Anyways, that was the update on my unique Jobs and so on. I technically could spend some points on [Idol], but since I had barely any SP left after what happened in Elyonda, it probably was better to hold on for now.

[Idol] prestige points: 2

Benefit Slot increase

Job Skill: [Acoustic Skills: Proficiency Lv. 1] [Giocoso Dreamer Lv. 1] [Musical Renaissance Diva Lv. 1] [Acoustic Power Lv. 1] [Heavenly Performance]

Growth Boosts: [Mana] [Intelligence] [Wisdom]

Spell song slot (3 prestige point)

[Heavenly Performance] was just fluff unless some hidden function were to be revealed, while the acoustic-based skills could be useful but weren’t that influential right now. [Giocoso Dreamer] and [Musical Renaissance Diva] were still the highlights of all of these options, but they were also the most impactful choices I could make for my future.

Giocoso Dreamer: An [Idol] skill aimed to help the idol chase after their dreams, bringing the shining stars upon all who listen to their songs. Boosts beneficial spell song effects like barriers, buffs, and resource regeneration by 5%, increasing it by 5% per level. Anybody hearing your songs will have increased resistances against mental attacks or corruption. Can spread your songs’ effects through others, extending its range, as long as they can hear you and follow your performance. Will exclude [Musical Renaissance Diva]

Musical Renaissance Diva: An [Idol] skill aimed to bring the dawn of a new music culture, brought forth by a generational diva. Boosts offensive spell song effects by 5%, increasing it by 5% per level. Effects will increase the more people listen to your songs at the moment of the performance, also increasing your Mana and Stamina regeneration. You are able to play two spell songs, applying both effects. Will exclude [Giocoso Dreamer]

“Yeah, I can evolve my Job,” Tatsuya mentioned as our party made camp for the night, seeing as Rajah was starting to get sleepy. After we opened the subspace to update the others of our progress, the boys needed the crystal to evolve their unique Jobs.

Filming this with the recorder for the others, Tatsuya told me he had two options to evolve which were [Overclocker] and [Caffeinator]. Kyouya, on the other hand, had [Shadow Knight] and [Black Bulwark].

“…” Kyouya and I eyed Tatsuya, concerned about his options since they all sounded like someone who lived a rather unhealthy, caffeine-filled life.

Regardless of Tatsuya’s excuses for his caffeine addiction, the boys took [Overclocker] and [Black Bulwark] respectively. Tatsuya wanted to become faster and have this single moment of overpowered-ness, similar to my finale, while Kyouya continued down the road of a tank.

In addition, the evolution itself not only opened up a new development Job for them but also gave them more stats. It wasn’t a huge boost like the monster version, but by itself it was a good boost to the boys. Oh, and apparently they got 500 SP from that … Well, Tatsuya certainly was a good guinea pig.

“So … do we want to return to the subspace? Not like we have to stay inside,” I presented them with an option, considering the subspace was available from here.

However, Tatsuya shook his head. “Sometimes we won’t have the luxury to do so. Honestly, if we went back to the subspace, I would honestly feel less tense and I don’t want to drop my guard with how casual it seems.”

“The monsters around here are easy enough,” Kyouya supported his friend’s opinion. “I mean, thinking about it, Hestia-san. A hotspring bath, warm meals, a comfy bed. It’ll be hard to get back into the right mindset after all that. Not to mention, somebody has to stay back to make sure nobody or anything steals the [Room] runes. I’ll keep watch, first, then let’s rotate. Back to the basics, as Captain Yorshka likes to say.”

I shrugged and accepted their choice. It was true that we might have gotten too lazy due to our fortunate situation, so maybe “living” inside this dungeon like real adventurers would harden us up a bit. Peace was nice, but it did dull my senses. I got strong due to the constant terrors in the Belzac forest after all, and this place was a good substitute for it.

Back to the basics. It’s nostalgic.

Once everybody got enough sleep, we had a light breakfast using whatever cooking tools I had in my storage. We didn’t check the time, as I did agree with Tatsuya how we should probably act like we were in a dungeon, and not some lax run. Setting the mood and keeping it sounded important for our mental state.

In any case, the rest of the monsters on floor four were the same ones we met since the beginning. The real challenge of these floors really was the jump scare factor, probably to weed out weaker adventurers and parties with mostly mages. The dungeon master was responsible for all of this, so they probably had that in mind.

Experience for development Jobs has reached multiple breaking points.

[Idol]: Lv. 1 -> Lv. 3

[Fire Mage]: Lv. 6 -> Lv. 7

“Floor five entrance!” Tatsuya shouted just as he decapitated a golem. Jumping down from the collapsing body, he rushed towards a large silver-glistening gate, acting and looking like some hyperactive kid on coc—caffeine. “Traps will start spawning on floor five, right? That’s what the Ankoran King men—HESTI-SAN! KYOUYA!”

Tatsuya’s loud shout alerted my mind, drowning out the loud fall of the gargoyle. I snapped my head up as he used [Gale Steps] to dash away from the gate, drawing my attention to a blue sigil on the ground growing brighter and brighter, to the point my instincts took over—I shot my scales forward, using them with [Draconic Barrier] to shield Tatsuya, Kyouya, and Rajah from a massive explosion that rocked the hallway we were fighting in.

The ceiling rattled as it cracked, letting rock-sized debris fall down. Noting this, Rajah first jumped back into my shadow while Kyouya grabbed Tatsuya, dragging him closer to me. With everybody around me, I created a scale dome around us and added [Sanctuary] to further bolster our defenses.

Hearing the loud bangs and cracking from above was quite unnerving. Considering my intelligence stat, [Sanctuary] should be strong enough to endure something like this without any problems.

“He could have warned us a trap was right before the entrance!” Tatsuya complained, frustration clear to hear.

Kyouya, in response, smacked him on the head. “YOU!Could have not run forward like that! If Hestia-san hadn’t reacted in time, you probably would have been blown to smithereens!”

“Ooooor. Survived while the floor cracked open to find some hidden place? If you think about it, there wasn’t a single treasure on our way here. No hidden pathways, interesting points. Sure, the fairnite from the golems will fetch a nice price, but that’s about it,” Tatsuya looked at me, causing me to nod in exasperation.

The golem corpses were fairnite, plain and simple. That meant we got our hands on Peolyncian marble, which was well loved by the nobles of Artorias. Sure, it wasn’t a huge amount, but it already made this trip worthwhile since it would help relieve our debts.

Regardless, once the rubble rain stopped, I dispelled my defensive measures. Then, we noticed the entire way to the large floor gate was destroyed, leaving a sizable hole none of us could determine how deep it was. Based on our prior experience in the Cedaraille dungeon, we knew there couldn’t be a “deep hole into nothingness.” It had to be connected with another floor.

“If we jump, we could potentially skip over your classmates,” I brought up that idea.

Tatsuya grimaced, stroking his neck in displeasure. “Yeah, but look at that gate. It didn’t budge, and the information we got seems to be incorrect. The Ankoran King said the door should be open, so why isn’t it open? There shouldn’t be any traps on the fourth floor; they start on the fifth. Was the scout’s information wrong, too?”

The former pieces of information came from Ankoran King’s knowledge of the dungeon itself. So, its theme, traps, and so on. We even got a map from him, but the boys and I decided to not use it unless we needed to to get the authentic adventurer experience. Have some fun, you know?

“The black mercs, right?” Kyouya replied.

Reports prior to our entry noted how black mercs were gathering in the depths of this dungeon for some reason. Apparently, some dungeon guard was taking bribes to let people through even if they didn’t have the necessary rank or were in possession of a dungeon pass. We had no idea why, but it didn’t matter. There was a possible collision course between them and Saori’s students.

“… I need to speak with Daisy, so I don’t want to miss them, but how are we supposed to find our way through the gates?” Tatsuya chose option one to go the normal way down. “Kyouya, any ideas?”

Kyouya shook his head. “Not like we don’t have a map, right? I mean, we got down here so fast because the ruins weren’t super large and paths were easy to navigate. This is a spook house, nothing else.”

Tatsuya, though, didn’t like that answer as he placed a hand on his hip. “Think outside the box, come on? Where is all that game knowledge I put in your head all over those years? There is always a way forward if a game stage is well designed, and these dungeons aren’t so different. A state-controlled dungeon wants us to reach the finish line; fair but hard.”

“You just listed out the number of strange changes. Something is happening inside the dungeon,” I rebuked Tatsuya, telling him what my gut was feeling. “Well … not like I have anything better to say. Also, wouldn’t comparing this to a game just take the tension out? I thought we wanted to treat this seriously?”

“I am, Hestia-san.” Tatsuya answered stoically. “I’m just using references all of us understand to illustrate it. I’m not a coffee-boy gamer, alright?”

“What do you mean? You are one! Hiehie!” I couldn’t hold in my giggle with the way he was looking at me, finding it too amusing considering Tatsuya usually was too addicted to fulinoe tea to really act serious like this. He really meant it, huh? “I can blast the gate open.”

“Idea outside the box, I like it!” Tatsuya gave me a fist bump, which I accepted.

“Emm.” At the same time, though, I noticed Kyouya’s brows furrowing. He looked a bit displeased.

Dude?

I wanted to question him about it, but his whole demeanor changed as he took a deep sigh, acting like the dungeon’s atmosphere was suffocating. I dropped it; maybe he was just tired since this place even creeped me out.

In any case, I transformed back into a dragon and took a deep breath before unleashing [Hellflame Breath], scorching the giant silvery gate and melting it down. After I cooled the heat down, the boys got on me and I flew us over the gap before transforming back into a dragonewt.

[Humanize (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

We made our way down. The fifth floor was where we could find the first of four floor guardians, with the three others appearing on each subsequent fifth floor. The only way forward was to fight them, and they would usually drop some nice goodies through treasure chests.

Our intel told us it was a rank C, but we most likely wouldn’t have to fight it. Considering the black mercs and the students ahead of us, one of them probably cleared it already.

Similarly to the previous floors, the environment was still a ruin, but it was starting to look more decrepit, with vines and weathered walls. The golems also started to vary, ranging from those farnite gargoyles to small, skirmishing golems and even animated rock armors with weapons. All were rank D, and while nothing special, they could swarm you like crazy if you wandered too deep and fast.

Fortunately, the boys and Rajah had literally no issues taking them down, although, considering their unique skills, I had to heal them quite a bit. There was no challenge up until now, and that wouldn’t happen for a while since the floor guardian was, as we expected, defeated. Our trip down floor six and then to eight was smooth, in other words. It was here that we found our first clue.

Experience for development Jobs has reached multiple breaking points.

[Idol]: Lv. 3 -> Lv. 25 | Reset accumulation finished | Prestige 8 Lv. 0

[Fire Mage]: Lv. 7 -> Lv. 25 | Reset accumulation finished | Prestige 6 Lv. 3

[Tyrant Hatchling]: Lv. 15 -> Lv. 20 | Reset accumulation finished | Prestige 5 Lv. 6

Evolution Points: 19/30

Prestige requirement achieved! Job max level has increased. Experienced accumulation and reward quality increased.

[Tyrant Hatchling] Max level -> 25

You may spend your prestige points when you are ready

Job evolution cannot begin for [Idol]. Please buy [Heavenly Performance] to continue with your evolution. You cannot choose any other prestige skills until you have bought the required evolution skill

“H-hey, look!” Kyouya pointed with his arm as he bashed an animated armor with his shadow shield. “A body!”

Dungeons were “living” beings in a way, as they desired mana to continue growing to create more defenses to protect its dungeon core. As such, in a day’s time, dungeons could “consume” both dead organisms and outside inanimate objects like equipment, potions, and others. Anything with even a speck of mana—which included everything in this world—and came from the outside would disappear in a day’s time.

Corpses of humanoids weren’t an exception, and if Kyouya just found one, then it means that they should have died pretty recently. After cleaning up the area, we confirmed the body was from some adult—Eh, actually, they looked grizzled but it was mostly the dirt and blood covering their face. It was more accurate to call them an adolescent.

Strangely, though, their death wasn’t caused by a spear thrust, getting crushed, or anything the local golems could do to him. After doing a quick field analysis, I noted how his body wasn’t injured in any critical spot outside of his chest. A single, clean, arrow-sized hole dug right into his chest, to his heart, leaving the flesh burned.

When I relayed this to the boys, Tatsuya whistled, calling me a forensic scientist. “Neither Asaka nor Tamae would be able to do that with such a calm hand.”

“Happens if you have [Miraculous Grace]. I already had to review everything I knew about anatomy and such when I first learned how healing magic worked, so I’m just practicing with all the surgeries.” I pointed at how I manned the clinic in Elyonda after the siege, having forced myself to heal as many people as possible. Regrowing body parts, surgery to heal an organ, and so on were the and I just got used to them.

Well, all my base knowledge came from biology classes on Earth and I had to force my parallel minds to remember all of it, so it wasn’t like I was perfect. I had to learn and practice during these surgeries. I hated to admit it, but it sorta has become a morbid hobby of mine just like toxin making … I really wanted to heal my eye right after Vifi’Yok dug her lightning halberd into it, but, oh well. Thankfully [Symphonie des Feuergottes Movement (Finale)] did it for me.

“In any case, I think this guy got into some altercations with his group or an enemy. I don’t think it’s a physical arrow, but maybe a spell or something similar.” I then pulled out his ID, noticing how he was a rank E hunter and merc … but also a rank C hunter. “It’s faked. We found our first black merc.”

“Our classmates have been in this dungeon since two days ago. They were, uhm, 19 people? Three five man parties with a guardian knight each. There’s also that Saintess; she probably has some guards?” Tatsuya tried to remember, prompting Kyouya to correct him.

“22 people from that group arrived by train. The Saintess probably had three guards. They vastly outnumber us and probably pushed harder than we did. I think our second day is about to arrive.”

[“Rajah tired …”] my virigress voiced his exhaustion. His circadian rhythm was far more accurate than ours, not to mention how much we’ve been fighting.

Worried about him, I wanted to make camp, but I also had to respect the boy’s opinion in this. “Do you guys want to push? We don’t know what’s happening, but your classmates might be in trouble.”

“I’m not friends with any of them,” Tatsuya declared.

“Dude, Aiko …” However, Kyouya reminded him of one of the students, causing Tatsuya’s brows to furrow. “Not to mention, Sensei is relying on us here, even if she doesn’t know what’s going on yet. She would want us to help them, not to mention, how will you make up with Franz if we let him die?”

“Shut up! I’m not trying to make up with him! I just … want to speak and clear things up. In any case, Takuma is supposed to be a ‘hero,’ right? They even have a Saintess, so their guards are probably strong. Don’t forget, Takuma’s and Aiko’s group have the second ‘knight-captain’ assigned to us all. Yorshka said that she was stronger than him, but that knight probably isn’t that weak.”

Tatsuya did mention how he had a bad relationship with this ‘Daisy’ fellow. This Franz. I wonder why?

“Who are the knights?” I asked.

“Karlst von Kriemhild. Royce Albert Loucestro. Falamm Astolfus,” Kyouya answered. “Royce is the knight we should watch out for. Don’t forget, they probably got the notice to hunt you down, Hestia-san. You probably shouldn’t appear as a dragon.”

“You look like a Japanese in your human form if you color your hair black.”

I nodded to Tatsuya’s remark. Those students weren’t my enemy, but they were controlled by the demonkins to treat me like theirs. There was also the Saintess … but Aurena hadn’t spoken to me, so no idea if the Saintess would know about me. I had to clear things up with her. We weren’t enemies, and I really should ally with Aurena’s other blessed.

In any case, after a three-to-zero vote to rest, we made dinner and played some red hands during camp. If we had cards, we probably would have used them, giving me a big reason to maybe have people mass produce them for us.

“Yeowch!”Tatsuya cried when Kyouya successfully slapped his hand. “Dammit, how are you faster than me?!”

Kyouya showed a boastful smug, knowing where to tease his best friend. “Underestimating me, that’s why! I’m not as fast as Hestia-san, but you aren’t, either!”

Drinking some fulinoe tea, our worries for everything just disappeared. Right now, it was resting time, and we just had to believe the students were doing alright. With no showers for two days, we all smelled, but we stood united as four stinky adventurers.

Let’s do this already.

[Idol] Prestige spent. [Heavenly Performance]

[Fire Mage] Prestige spent. 1 Prestige Points to [Magic Skills: Proficiency Lv. 6] -> [Magic Skills: Proficiency Lv. 7] gained

Job evolution has begun for [Idol]. Please, choose from the below option to continue leveling your development Job. Your choice of Job evolution will affect your unique Job’s future evolution and your choice of prestige awards

[Star Idol]

You have chosen [Star Idol]. [Idol] will now evolve into [Star Idol], resetting your level and prestige level. Prestige Points: 2, retained. Max level -> 25. Evolution bonuses given: [Mana] [Intelligence] [Wisdom]

[Star Idol] prestige points: 2

Benefit Slot increase

Job Skill: [Acoustic Skills: Proficiency Lv. 1] [Giocoso Dreamer Lv. 1] [Musical Renaissance Diva Lv. 1] [Acoustic Power Lv. 1] Evolve [Heavenly Performance]

Growth Boosts: [Mana] [Intelligence] [Wisdom]

Spell song slot (3 prestige point)

Evolve? I can evolve [Heavenly Performance]?

Heavenly Performance: An idol’s voice and body are their most prized possession during a performance for the world to hear and see! The art itself is reward enough!

There was a bit of a risk since I just had no information there. I already felt bad having to spend a prestige point for a literally useless skill, but doing it again? Just to evolve it without knowing if it would turn out well? That sounded awful.

After all, I didn’t have Benefit Slots anymore since I had to buy that skill. To gain one of [Giocoso Dreamer Lv. 1] or [Musical Renaissance Diva Lv. 1], I needed to spend two points to acquire them. One for a slot and another for a skill.

Job: Star Idol

Benefit Slots: [Musical Crescendo] [Bardic Cadenza] [Heavenly Performance]

Level: 0/25

Prestige Level: 0

Skip for now.

After everybody got their rest, we had to rush forward. Mounting Rajah, I cast [Unheiliger Engel] to carry the boys and we just rushed through the remaining floor eight and also nine, ignoring as many enemies as possible to reach the tenth floor as soon as possible.

With another scenery change, this time the ruins had deteriorated to the point you could see nature reclaiming it all, turning some chambers into literal groves. Even the golems started to show aspects of this, with trees and greenery growing on them. It was also here that we started seeing rank C monsters in the midst of the horde of rank D.

Unfortunately, those weren’t the only threats ,as traps like pitfalls, spikes, golem ambushes, and spell projectiles were now everywhere. Avoiding them was problematic, but having [Mana Eyes] for these situations helped a lot.

“Rajah, I’ll handle the offense, just move through!”

[“Yes, Master!”]

With my glaive on hand and parallel minds ready, I was shooting spears of flames and holy spells at all the enemy, prioritizing pushing things away and telling Rajah how to avoid the traps. Again, once we reached the supposed floor guardian area, it was empty. No boss, no treasure, no—No, actually, there was a treasure chest! There was also a huge hole right in the middle of all of this.

Kyouya dashed forward and grabbed whatever was in the chest and placed it in his storage without looking at what he grabbed while the rest of us contemplated if we wanted to jump down. Something really was happening here. Dungeon floors, walls, and ceiling were indestructible, unless the dungeon master or core decided otherwise.

Meaning, this was something the dungeon decided. Just like the hole from before. This was, in other words, a trap.

“Or a secret area!” Tatsuya suggested, but I disregarded it.

Kyouya, though, gave a rather important suggestion. “The boss is gone, but the treasure chest was still filled with stuff. If the mercs or our classmates defeated them, then no way would they leave it behind if they had a choice. They must have fallen into the hole.”

It was decided. Our goal was to find them so while grabbing the boys and with Rajah in my shadow, I flew down. I couldn’t see how deep this was, but I did find how the hole diverged into two sections. Not knowing which to take, we decided everything with a coin flip, leading us to take the left path.

Not knowing on which floor we were, we landed on the ground and inspected the area. The nature-reclaimed ruins were still the theme of the environment, meaning we were probably around floor elven to 14.

… Blood. I noted how I smelled fresh red stains on the ground.

Following the trail, we passed numerous golem corpses, including two rank C ones. In addition, there were also human and beastmen bodies among them. All fresh, all black mercs, all having burns and deep arrow wounds. Something wasn’t right. But we also knew the person who killed these people were close by and certainly not a fan of them.

When I picked up on the noises, that was when I was sure of it. This really wasn’t right. I could smell the stench of burning meat, but it felt too precise. Too perfectly aimed. If this was a normal fire mage, then they wouldn’t have left them burned like this. This is only considering this was a normal fire mage.

They could be an abnormal one, this could be a magical archer, a lightning mage, or we could have an empty vessel user on our hands. Nevertheless, I knew how to confirm my suspicion. The noises were close.

When it became louder and louder as we headed to them, we all readied ourselves in case this was an enemy. And … who could guess it … there was an enemy. An enemy I had not expected to see again so soon.

“YOU!” I shouted as I entered the decrepit ruin chamber, noticing a young woman with black and purple hair holding a human male by his collar. She snapped her body around, allowing me to notice her missing left arm and the spark of red lightning around her feet. “Vifi’Yok!”

This was not a good omen.

The demonkin girl understood this too. “… W-why are you here?! God Marsven’s shadow, WHY ARE YOU HERE?!”

A note from AbyssRaven

There are too many blue tables! My hand hurts! Please, make it stop!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 395: Random Encounters Between Boss Characters.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #1 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

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“It’s that demonkin!” Tatsuya and Kyouya cried out at the only person standing inside the chamber, instantly realizing who it was just like me.

Inside this decrepit room wasn’t only my just-recently-fought enemy but also multiple bodies of men and women, human and beastmen. Some laid lifelessly, others were still jerking a bit, but all of them were either covered in blood or had puddles of it forming next to them. Burn marks were obvious to see, but those same arrow wounds on the previous corpses were on these bodies as well.

It was clear Vifi’Yok, a Warbringer of the demonkins, was responsible for this. A level 150 soldier I could not beat alone back in Elyonda—the first time she didn’t even really fight, as our encounter was caused by a misunderstanding, while the second time I had to gang up on her with Tasianna, Neill, and Renee.

We defeated her back then in the end, but could I repeat that feat with my current teammates? No. Tatsuya and Kyouya still needed practice with their unique skills, and Rajah couldn’t perform the same utility role as Saori or Tasianna. His main points of powers were his ability to use both dark and holy spells in conjunction, while also possessing powerful venoms.

Nevertheless … why was she here? Was Inkoran-Tazul in danger? Did the demonkins find out about the summit? I knew the vampires knew about it, but they also told us they wanted to stay neutral in this conflict. Then, there were also these black mercs. Why did Vifi’Yok eliminate them?

Not to mention, why does she look like that?

I might exaggerate how stinky the boys and I were, since we haven’t taken any showers and had to take our toilet break inside the dungeon, but I could smell Vifi’Yok’s stench even from here. It didn’t look like she had cleaned herself in days with how greasy her hair was and how dirt stuck to her face and hands like stains.

Not to mention, the trousers and coat she was wearing looked like some amateur had sewed them. There was even mismatched patchwork on the two, clearly either Vifi’Yok or somebody else had just given it a quick fix up. This wasn’t even including how rancid her gamebesom appeared, or how her chainmail was starting to rust. Even the crossbow in that self-made holster looked like it was about to break apart.

This wasn’t the Vifi’Yok I knew. The one I had to fight in Elyonda looked and appeared like a general or elite soldier. Her armor and clothes exuded authority and respect, clear to anybody she was a top dog. However, right now? She looked like a beggar at worst, and a vagrant at best.

“Shit!” Vifi’Yok threw away the body of the guy she was holding up, and turned around. Red lightning began to focus around her feet.

Stop! Warp Point: Exit! Entry!

Pointing my left hand forward, a grey magic circle formed behind the demonkin girl, while another was next to me. I couldn’t get there in time with my rocket boosters with how fast her red lightning made her, so the only way to stop her was to disrupt their effect. High mana concentration could stop the magnetic effect of her super speed.

Sadly, the spell didn’t materialize soon enough. Just as the portal formed, Vifi’Yok flew out of the room, through the entrance on the opposite side. Clicking my tongue, the boys and I ran through the portal as it closed, before I mounted Rajah again and had the former two get on [Unheiliger Engel].

Sadly, my parallel minds did a sweep through the room and all the people were already dead. The few who were jerking around were probably just twitching from the remaining electricity running through their nerves. I couldn’t help them, so I had to focus on the demonkin.

She’s still so fast!

The red lightning trails were the only things I could see, and were the only reasons I didn’t lose her. Just like our fight, she was just bloody fast. The worst part about this was that she could avoid the golems since they couldn’t register her. Even with my rocket boosters, these random monsters were like roadblocks.

“There she is!”

Suddenly, though, I managed to hear somebody’s echoing voice resounding through the ruin halls. Following it we noticed a small party of people rushing into a room, where I saw them immediately attack Vifi’Yok as she was taking a breather.

Without any hesitation, she pulled out her crossbow, loading it with a bolt to shoot one of the mercs in the head. All in a single, seamless movement. She might not look like it, but she still had the skill of a Warbringer!

The shot man fell onto the ground, groaning before he threw his helmet away. He grimaced in pain but was still alive, only to stand up again and grab his spear. Along with his four buddies, he used [Gale Steps] and charged right at Vifi’Yok, forcing her to engage the lot of them with her rapier.

Even with one arm, the demonkin evaded hits with minimal effort while striking back. Sadly, that weapon of hers was shorter than I thought, making me think it lost its tip. Still, she fought on, not even relying on her red lightning or lightning spells to retaliate. Even with this, though, the merc still couldn’t keep up despite having clearly superior equipment.

Jeez, she’s good.

“Hestia-san!” Tatsuya called me out, breaking my trance. “Orders! What do you want us to do? Help?”

We didn’t have any information here. Were these people black mercs or normal adventurers? Why were they fighting Vifi’Yok, and why wasn’t she giving it her all to kill them. She should have no problems. All of these questions made it hard for me to choose the correct decision here. Vifi’Yok was clearly an enemy … but there was that talk I had with her in Elyonda.

No choice.

“We’re trapping her in the Obsidian Orchestra. Boys, get those people away from us.”

“Understood, Hestia-san!” both roared, with Kyouya donning his entire shadow armor, prompting me to heal him.

[Humanize (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

I then transformed into my minor form, not only to hide my identity from the men but also to gain some much needed stats. Rajah went back into my shadow while I cast [Terra Wall] underneath myself, launching me forward before I activated my rocket boosters.

With a [Dragoon Dive], I smashed my glaive right into the ground in between the Vifi’Yok and her adversaries. While the latter were blown away and pushed even further by Kyouya and Tatsuya, I confronted the grimacing demonkin with a white glowing weapon—my newest unique skill, [Drakonian Sunlight Edge], active.

Panzer. Halo of Consecration.

Violet armor clad my body and my new chest armor, while a halo of white flames floated above me. I eyed Vifi’Yok, and she reciprocated. Weirdly, I couldn’t feel any hostility coming from her eyes, or really aggression. She looked … exhausted, tired; as if she hadn’t had a good sleep in days. I didn’t even think she was treating me like an enemy right now, more like a nuisance.

[“We haven’t finished talking,”] I stated, lowering my glowing glaive. I had to change my plans. [“I am still offering you to come with us; the same choice before Ghorush rescued you.”]

“…” However, she stayed silent. Instead, my attention was directed to my left as I saw her eyes moving.

“Kill her!” somebody shouted without my [Foresight] activating.

Before I could turn my head around, Tatsuya landed a [Dragoon Dive] right in front of the charging man, dust and rubble scattering everywhere, before kicking the merc into the ground. Kyouya, in the meantime, rammed right into the bulkiest-looking dude, before raising his shield and sword in a defensive manner. The three other randoms cowered back at their two members being pushed back, prompting Rajah to wrap them up in [Dark Tendrils] and mana threads.

However, my attention instantly shifted back to Vifi’Yok when I noticed her getting ready to flee. I reached out to grab her arm, only to remember she didn’t have a left arm anymore. I grabbed for the wrong one! So, instead, I ended up catching hold of her cloak, pulling on it to stop her from disappearing again.

[“Vifi’Yok, please, can we talk! Why are you even here?!”]

“Let me go!”

[Foresight] activated, warning me of a kick, forcing me to dodge it. Her head darted around, now fully irritated as I saw her fangs grow in size, a sign one of her [Excited], [Anger], or [Fear] stats grew. Probably [Anger], given how irritated she looked. Demonkins of Wrath were easy to read like that.

She continued trying to kick me away, but I kept my distance, forcing her to take out her rapier to attack me, only for me to snap the blade off its handle. The girl, undeterred, threw the broken weapon at me, blocking my sight. Regardless, I had my other senses and I could hear her taking out her crossbow, so I readied myself to dodge the bolt.

However, instead of targeting me, she shot the ground, causing an electric shock to explode on the ground. It didn’t deal any damage to me, but the resulting dust cloud caused me to cough a bit, creating an opportunity for her to rip her clock off. Sadly for her, I wasn’t some third-grade fighter.

Blowing the smokescreen away with [Aerokinesis], I swung my glaive, shooting out a fire bullet at Vifi’Yok’s feet, stopping her red lightning before using [Drakonian Sunlight Edge]’s [Continental Drake Stride] to run faster as I activate [Gale Steps].

[“Don’t try to trick me here; why aren’t you attacking me? Why are you fleeing? Why do you look like that?!”] This time, I got into a combat pose, showing Vifi’Yok I couldn’t allow her to run away from me. [“You know exactly why I can’t let you go. You know what you did in Elyonda! Who are the people you just killed? If you really think I would just let you go, then you really must believe I am some dumb bimbo!”]

“I owe ya for Hee’Rlak’s and my life, but ya don’t get to order me around!” She aimed her crossbow at me. “I’ve given up too much to ‘talk’ with ya, and ya know for yaself I ain’t helping with ya plans! I’m already a deserter, but I can’t risk you killing my peo—Bastard!”

“Shit!” Tatsuya shouted as he suddenly lunged forward with his spear, missing Vifi’Yok’s leg before she wrapped her leg around his neck. “Kragh!”

Twisting her body, she jumped up and would have body slammed him right into the ground if I hadn’t caught him with my scales. Using this distraction, she shot a crossbolt at me, nearly zapping me with it, before using her red lightning to dash out. However, just as this happened, Kyouya managed to shed his shadow armor, morphing it to create a giant door at the entrance, causing Vifi’Yok to crash through it, falling onto the ground.

“Nice one, Kyouya-kun!” I praised him as we ignored the randoms and followed after the stumbling demonkin.

Since I wasn’t committing [Battle Frenzy] or [Symphonie des Feuergottes] to the battle right now, I was just a bit slower than her. Thankfully, Kyouya’s little action allowed me to track the demonkin a bit better, as I could hear the thuds of her feet and her reappearing on every corner, before dashing away. It seemed like her super speed ability was less useful in a crammed, hallway filled area.

In our chase, we found the stairs to the next floor and confirmed once we were down that it wasn’t floor 15, due to a lack of environmental change. In addition, we also found even more random adventurers there, but just like the previous set of randoms, these people all aimed their hatred at Vifi’Yok the moment they noticed her. In fact, they got so angry, they even attacked us.

“This damn urchin got herself more support! Didn’t we just lose those church fuckers?!”

“Damn, more brats! We aren’t getting out of here with those knights around so just take one of them hostage!”

Church? Knights? What exactly did Vifi’Yok get herself into?!

If we came into this without any intel, we would have been confused at this misunderstanding, but we knew exactly how the last of Saori’s students had entered this dungeon with some knights and a Saintess. Meaning, they were actually here! Right on this floor, or maybe further ahead? It was confirmation that they fell through the large hole with Vifi’Yok.

Wait, Vifi’Yok might know them? Hold on, hold on, the demonkins are controlling them through the church of Vifi’Yok! Is this why she’s trying to flee, is she luring us away from them?!

When I brought this up to Tatsuya and Kyouya, both immediately agreed with me. The demonkins were supposed to work from the shadows, so maybe Vifi’Yok was assigned to guard them after her failed job in Elyonda. She might have taken these black mercs down to protect them, ‘cause they were important to the demonkin’s schemes! It all made sense!

“Those mercs will know about it. Leave this to us, Hestia-san!” Tatsuya declared, causing me to flinch. He sounded too confident going up against … 14 mercs. “Kyouya and I know how to fight, and if you leave Rajah with us, he can heal and act as our rogue. We won’t die or get caught, trust us on this! We’re a liability to you if you’re fighting the damn bitch!”

[“Master, I will keep them safe!”] Rajah assured me. [“Belzac beasts won’t shy from weaklings!”]

They understood it. Sadly, they wasn’t incorrect. As such, I left them here to stop the mercenaries from following me, hoping they could gain some intel from them. Now alone, I followed after that demonkin and relied on the “party member search” function of our party bracelets for them to find me afterwards.

Bypassing some golems, it only made me more worried for the boys since the golems could attack them. Regardless, all I could do was trust in them. Vifi’Yok was a far larger issue if our assumptions were correct. Why wouldn’t they be, right?

The Empire demonized me through the newspaper created by one of Saori’s students, dragonslayers were sent after me, and now the students were in this city. After what I did in Elyonda, it wouldn’t be a surprise for the Prince of Envy posing as the pope to want me dead. The vampire princess even confirmed he went crazy or something after the siege.

“Argh!”

Eventually, I managed to catch up to the demonkin, thanks to the fact she finally was out of fuel. As I entered the room, I froze in place as I saw how grand and majestic it looked. I gaze about, noticing how it was probably as large as Mom’s lair in my subspace.

Vifi’Yok had fallen onto her knees in the middle of this platform. Walking closer to her, I noticed how there was another entrance to the right and a set of stairs leading down a steep cliff with an exit at the end of it—the entrance to the next floor, I presumed, considering how auspicious everything looked. I could probably fight in my dragon form and fly around, if this led to a fight.

Refocusing on the demonkin, from what I could see, her skin was turning blue, a sign she was suffering from arcane corruption. Good to know demonkins had a problem with mana like everybody else … not like that was a hard thing to assume. Unless you had a body made from pure mana, arcane corruption would hold back anybody.

Although, her general lack of stamina was a bit concerning, honestly. Had she been fighting those random mercs for so long that she would be affected by arcane corruption? No way. She used far more mana when she fought me during the siege. As if those random mercs would even hold a candle against her.

What exactly is going on with her?

[“… Can you please just give up and let me speak?”] I said as I approached her. [“You called yourself a deserter. Why? Also, where are the transmigrators you brought here?”]

“Wha-wait, you know about—Right, ya’re a bloody princess. I forgot that. Probably got ya information from the dwarves.” She struggled back onto her feet, looking wobbly and breathing heavily. When she turned around, her eyes looked dull, looking like someone completely out of energy or sugar crashing. “Ya heard it right there. A deserter. I’m nothing more than that.”

I squinted my eyes, confused and flabbergasted at what she was saying. [“Hold on, you’re telling me you aren’t—”]

“Enemy. Yes. If you thought I came here to kill ya, forget it. Those damn brats? I didn’t come here for them, or to help them. In fact, I wished I could have never met them. Urgh!” She straightened her back, having had enough time to recover. “So, leave me alone. I can’t and I won’t help you. Your plan is all nice and dreamy, but it’s naive. You don’t know anything about us demonkins and why we are even fighting all of this.”

[“Then teach me!”] I shouted. [“Teach me! Tell me! Do you think ignorance about another race can just magically stop if neither side wishes to talk? There is no spell for that! That’s why I am here trying to talk with you, but you keep running away.”]

“There! That’s the crap that annoys me, keeping me wondering if all of this could work! It won’t! Ya don’t understand anything, ya are a stupid giant lizard, thinking you can make a change between the humans and demonkins. Ya a damn interloper, trying to solve a problem you never were a part of!” Rage filled her eyes, giving her the energy to argue back. “In fact, you know what? You are probably causing problems for your home and parents considering ya are here. Doing all in your power to intervene! People want ya dead; I read that newspaper!”

[“How is that my fault?!”]

She slapped her forehead, looking like she was speaking to an idiot. “Propaganda! Lies! Rage baiting! I was in the Empire for a while, hiding there from everybody to try to make a new life for myself. I heard people speaking about you, people who don’t even know you. Speaking how dangerous dragons were and how the Dragon Empire is supporting the grimgarians? Why? ‘Cause ya’re all monsters to them! A dragon and a goblin? The only difference is ya sizes!”

My head unwillingly shook, exasperated by what she said. [“That’s … Uh?”]

“Stupid? I get it, but that’s just part of a war. The humans think of us demonkins like beasts, horrors creeping from some hell … But not all of us are like that. We can be sweet, happy, angry; all the crap humans can be too. The world is a damn cesspool, if ya ask me, but at least I know that. You, though? Living in a fantasy world where everything will work out if you preach Aurena’s spit … Tell me, can you assure the Empire will not declare war against the demonkins in the near future if you somehow manage to mend things?”

[“I will try!”] I responded without hesitation, knowing full well I could not assure it. [“And I will continue trying, because I do not believe in this damn war for genocide. How old are you exactly, huh? Why are you speaking like some geezer at the end of her life? If nobody tries to change things, then how is anybody supposed to evolve? This cycle will just continue if everybody’s a cynic like you!”]

I tore off the [Panzer] on my head, revealing my dragonewt face to the demonkin. I then slammed the blunt end of my glaive on the ground, before pointing it at her. [“This is why I am asking you to teach me about the demonkins. Without any filters. Without Aurena, her priests, her followers, or whoever not related to you people giving me second hand and biased point-of-views. Verdammt, are you trying to make me bring up that stupid debt I had with you, or is—Huh?!”]

[Foresight] and [Danger Perception] activated, warning me of a sudden projectile from my right. I managed to narrowly dodge it, drawing my eyes towards it as I noticed it was blindingly white. I snapped my head around, reading my spear at the sudden trespasser.

“… You should run.” I heard Vifi’Yok whisper to me.

From the darkness of the hallway, I saw a man in sparkly white and golden armor strut into the room, showing off two sets of bulky gauntlets. He smiled, showing an air of superiority and confidence as he shook his arms. “I see you aren’t one of those foot soldiers,” he said as a blade of light suddenly grew from the slot of his right gauntlet.

“Meaning, you are one of the leaders of that merry band of rogues. A role fitting for a filthy lizard. Maybe I should have you captured and send you to the Lycerepth to have you ‘educated.’ Would be a waste to put the head of a strong beast on a spike, if you can better serve as a slave.”

… What did this guy just say to me?

“Valeria!” Some girl’s voice resounded from behind the man, calling for somebody I didn’t know. As she finally appeared, revealing herself to be an Aurena priestess, she was quickly stopped by the knight in front of her. “Sir Lautrex! You found Valeria!”

Who?

The man, presumably Lautrex, shook his head and pointed at me. “I did, but we also found the band of brigands trying to kill your friend, Lady Aiko. The young lady over there … Hmm, as a gentleman, I really should correct things and kill that lizard. Stand back, my lady, I shall—”

Wait, did he just say Aiko?!

[“Wait, are you Aiko Hasebe?! Hasebe Aiko!”] I shouted the moment I recognized that name and created a telepathic link with her, however, instead of reacting warmly to it, she flinched and shrieked.

“Hyaaa!”

“Filth!” This caused the knight next to her to shoot out a bolt of light from his left gauntlet, forcing me to block it with my glaive this time. “Wh-what? You blocked my sacred projectiles with your weapon? Impossible! Who are you?!”

What is impossible!? Why did you attack me?! Who the fuck is this Valeria?! What-what-what is going on here?!

“Lady Aiko! What happened?!” Holding his hand in front of the shocked girl, the knight was guarding her while directing one of his blades at me, all while exuding his aura.

This guy isn’t a joke! I need to apprai—

“I-I heard a voice! A woman’s voice in my head. T-they somehow knew my full name!” Aiko answered.

Only, that just agitated the knight in even. “Blackguard! Assassin! Now I know why they wanted to capture Valeria! They saw her with us on the train, and they wanted to capture her to lure you and the other heroes in to assassinate you! These scum!”

“Wh-what?! Valeria, noo!”

WHAT IS GOING ON?!

I wanted to clear things up with them, but before I could, I was once again interrupted. This time, even more people rushed into the room. From simply counting them, I ended up with a total of 13 people. That was about half of the people we came to help with, and amongst them, only ten of them looked young enough to be a student.

“Aiko-chan, what happened?!” A young man with glistening armor adorned with runes and gems asked the priestess girl, before snapping his head towards Vifi’Yok and me. “Sir Lautrex, is that our enemy?”

“Yes, Master Takuma. Lady Yuuko, that lizard is using [Telepathy] or something similar, we need you to disrupt the mana around us with your skill!”

“On it!” A fashionable girl with a heavily modified mage robe nodded her head before she snapped her fingers, creating what looked like a white magic circle on the ground. Strangely, something like a barrier formed around all of the students and knights, making them seem fuzzy.

Even more alarming, I also noticed my telepathic link with Aiko just got cut. I couldn’t form another one with any of the people inside that barrier.

“Hey, didn’t you hear me?! Run!” I jerked my head back to Viif’Yok as she shouted at me, but at the same time, this exclamation caused the students and the knights to react to it, too.

“Valeria, we came to rescue you! We won’t abandon you!” Aiko shouted, followed by the boy named Takuma, then the girl called Yuuko.

Hold on, Valeria is Vifi’Yok? Is that her pseudonym?

“That’s right!” The knight named Lautrex exclaimed. “A Hand of Heaven shall not flee when somebody is in need. Prepare yourself, blackguard!”

Hand of Heaven? This really is a big misunderstanding! Shit, I can’t talk to them. I need to transform back before this gets out of hand.

Only …

“Move aside! This is exactly what your Emperor paid us for!”

My nose caught onto a smell, an intense one I had never smelled before. Instead of sweet and calming, it was bitter and made me anxious, to the point a chill ran down my spine. If I had human skin, my hair would probably stand up, giving me goosebumps.

Five people walked through the entrance—a leonid, a katzune, a heavily-armored person, and two humans. The leonid grinned widely, licking her lips as she burst into laughter, all while a blindfolded katzune archer readied an arrow at me and the human mage his staff. The armored person moved forward, bringing up his tower shield and lance, protecting his comrades.

The leonid woman with the giant, boulder-sized hammer and the human with a set of blades walked next to the shielded lancer, taking in deep breaths.

W-why am I shivering? W-why am I feeling scared of them?

“Oooooh, we found it, Galg! Also, mhmm, smells like a female. And a strong one at that! Hmm, not too sure if it’s just a dragonewt or a dragon, though. Never easy to tell between them,” the leonid woman smiled, looking at me like her prey.

Arck! I flinched, feeling an indescribable, almost primal fear welling up from the depths of my body. I couldn’t control my shivering, nor my breathing. I-I couldn’t keep myself from fearing these five.

Almost as if she saw a moment of weakness, the leonid woman’s grin widened to the point of being creepy. “Heyie, scalekin! We are dragonslayers, are you a dragonewt who wants to kill us?”

D-dragonslayers! Wait … Galg? Galg? Where have I heard that name before? Didn’t Pradreo and Skardrvo mention a rank S dragonslayer na—Oh no. OH NO!

“She shivered,” the katzune mumbled.

“SHE SHIVERED!” the leonid and shielded lancer shouted in unison.

“RUN, YOU IDIOT!” Vifi’Yok pushed me away from them as my body suddenly froze up.

“Ahhhhhhhhh …” The human man unsheathed his dual blades. A small smile broke his stoic expression. “Hunting time.”

A note from AbyssRaven

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuh, this is bad. Also, sorry for the late chapter, everybody. My motherboard had an error two days ago that made it impossible for my Wifi card to work, and while I attempted to fix this annoying issue, I wasn't exactly in the mood to write it. So, sorry about that.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 396: Bane of Dragonkins: Dragonslayers.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #1 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! It works on a subscription base now, so pay on the same date next month!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

[Terror (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Woah!” Vifi’Yok’s kick pushed me right onto the floor, a testament she was still strong as ever. However, just as I braced myself for the landing, my [Foresight] activated just as an arrow flew past where I had been standing, far too late for me to dodge it if the demonkin hadn’t intervened.

“Ha! The true dragonkin dodged your shot, Namul!” The leonid female somehow misunderstood the situation, looking more excited than before. “We got a real challenge here, boys! That thing’s skull will make a fine hammer!”

S-skull?! Shit! Get a grip of yourself, Hestia! This isn’t the time to feel scared! Stand up! Stand up! Wuraaaaagh! HYDRA!

I smacked my hand on the ground, conjuring a brown magic circle to summon a large glob of purple slime, morphing it with mana into an elephant-sized creature with three heads. The corrosive slime corroded the ground, causing it to slightly sizzle as the creature towered over the dragonslayers.

Survival! This is a survival match! I need to fle—Fuck, wait!

I couldn’t run now. Saori’s students just got the wrong opinion of me, thinking I was actually an enemy. Did Vifi’Yok assume a new identity to trick them? This Valeria persona? But, if she had bad intentions, then why did she just save me from that arrow? How was I supposed to convince the students I was not their enemy but Vifi’Yok was if I couldn’t speak with them through [Telepathy]?

Regardless, these high-speed thoughts of mine were quickly interrupted as the armored spearman shouted “Taunt!” drawing my attention with one of the most annoying abilities in this world. I couldn’t flee, my body was forced to target the man. Still, at least I could choose how I would fight and that was to spam spells.

Buffs! Music! Clouds of Thunder!

[Various Spell Buffs] [Music Resonation (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

[Lightning Magic Lv. 5] spell [Clouds of Thunder] was another huge, continuous spell similar to [Cyclone Madness] and [Levin Core]. In other words, a fantastic spell to create chaos on a battlefield, helping me control the situation better.

With a black cloud forming at the ceiling, thunder began to rain down on the three dragonslayers, avoiding the students as best as I could. I also readied [Bedrock Blades], [Levin Core], and [Cyclone Madness] to further escalate everything to create a “smokescreen” for me; however, [Taunt]’s job wasn’t just to pull my attention towards the tank, it was to keep me in place.

‘Dodge!’ my parallel minds shouted in unison just as [Foresight] and [Danger Perception] activated, a second too late as the dual blade hunter rushed at me, appearing before me as if he had used [Flash Fire]. His weapons clashed against my halberd. My reflexes saved me.

However, as I was just on the ground a moment ago, my balance and posture was terrible. The man pushed me back, causing me to stumble. As I saw him swing his weapons, I shot my scales out, trying to block his attacks, but to my bafflement, he sliced through them as if they were butter.

“Huh?!” Our weapons clashed again, this time the impact pushed me onto the ground.

Auracoil! Pavise!

My [Crimson Dragon Princess Exoarmor] finally had its maiden voyage with this dungeon dive, and now, it would have its first use as I activated two runes on it. Two barriers of mana surrounded me instantaneously. The yellow Auracoil, sadly, broke upon impact but the blue Pavise withstood it. Auracoil for magic, Pavise for physical; I forgot!

A chill ran down my spine, the same fear I felt before reappeared as I glared at the dual wielder’s psychotic smile. His brown eyes were wide open, showing all the red veins, as his focus was completely on me. His constant “hunting time, hunting time” mumble sounded like a mantra, irritating my ears. Thankfully, this narrowmindedness helped as my [Hydra] smacked him into the floor with its—No, it missed!

The shock and adrenaline brought me back to my feet as I saw the man once again do that [Flash Fire] trick—superspeed movement. However, with the panic subsiding and my fighting instincts activating, I noticed his two green, monster-material made scimitars were glowing red. A visible aura was surrounding his weapons, arms, and legs, which I confirmed was made from his mana and linked to his heart with [Mana Eyes].

Before my parallel minds could finish the next set of spells, I snapped my head up as I saw a blue magic circle appear in the air, materializing a giant water tentacle. [Kraken’s Destruction]! The mage amongst this party was using water magic!

Transform!

Five-versus-one. This was beyond unfair! I couldn’t afford to attack, I had to dodge and humanize back into a dragon. With my rocket boosters, I flew out of the trajectory of the spell as blue mana was released from my body. I swung my wings out, roaring as I showed everybody my true form.

“It’s the crimson dragon!” One of the students shouted. “The church is right! That lizard is an enemy! Everybody get ready!”

It was that “Hero” Takuma Akanishi; his brilliant, flashy armor and the fact he was wielding a sword and shield made him look like a stereotypical hero. However, just as Tatsuya once described him to me, he had this annoying, confident, arrogant attitude. And it showed as his blade shone white just as his appearance transformed into that of an armored angel.

With a hood covering his face, making him look less angelic and more intimidating, he swung his feathered wings and took flight. At the same time, the other students went into action, along with the knight—the Hand of Heaven.

“Yuuko-chan, barrier around our frontliners!” That transformed Takuma shouted as his blade grew to the size of a greatsword, ready to swing at me. “Everybody support the dragonslayers and rescue Valeria!”

“Hai!” (Yes!)

[“I’m not your enemy! Saori Segawa sent me to help you!”] I shouted, hoping dearly my message would reach them, but once again, I couldn’t form the telepathic link. That damn Yuuko, or whoever, was still blocking my mana from reaching them!

Identify!

Name: Takuma Akanishi Level: 89

Name: Galg Level: 141

Name: Lautrex von Cashim Level: 120

Verdammt!

I managed to appraise the people before me, but once again, information was getting blocked here and there. I got a general gist of their skills—since most were stock standard—and stats, though. The summary was that I had to flee, right now. I was vastly underpowered even in my dragon form to handle all of them.

Takuma was the strongest, being higher leveled than any of the students I have met, with an annoying unique skill called [Savior]. Not only a higher boost in stats but also this transformation where he was near immune to any holy and dark elemental attacks. On the other hand, his student allies had a myriad of unique skills which allowed them to support him as a competent team. Even if I could defeat all ten of them if we fought alone, they were a medium threat if they support the stronger fighters.

The next was Galg and his team of level 110 and up dragonslayers. Galg was almost as strong as Larent Antonodius, the ex-Hand of Heaven I met in Elyonda. While not the strongest person I’ve fought before, this guy was decked out in equipment made from true and lesser dragonkins, including blades drenched in anti-draconic blood and the venom “Winter’s Gift.” Largest threat.

The Hand of Heaven knight was, on his own, probably a huge problem considering he was an imperial knight of the Empire of Folschreck. Larent was once part of this organization, so I naturally couldn’t underestimate him. The thing was, his weapons and armor were all focused on holy and sacred attacks. In other words, no threat unless he pulls out his normal sword.

Mid-way through my thoughts, I set my tails on fire using [Hellblade Dragon] and channeled some solar energy there, using [Drakonian Sunlight Edge] to fully boost its damage. As Takuma came flying at me, I held back my strength, not wanting to kill him, and smacked him out of the air with my tail.

Strangely, though, one of his party members appeared before him, taking the blow aimed at Takuma. Both fell onto the floor, but while the person I wanted to hit was alright and engaged me again, his friend was being healed by the priest-looking Aiko.

This is a problem!

Back to my thoughts, how the hell do I escape?! The hallways were far too small for my dragon form to fit through, but I needed this form to fight and run right now. That was the dilemma here. I had to speak with the students, but at this point my survival was more important and I had to cut my losses. If I got away, I could always deal with them another time.

Which brought me back to the original point: how do I escape?! The obvious answer was to call for support. Subspace emergency reinforcement was an option—I could call Yorshka, Master, and Neill over—but I had to have the subspace open. In the meantime, could I defend the runes from the dragonslayers? In the worst case, they could destroy the [Room] runes

Meaning, the game plan was this: create chaos -> open subspace -> reinforcement -> defeat or escape.

Let’s go! Parallel minds, engage!

“In my purgatory, I make the devil cry ♫

In Hellfire ♫

All you hear are his screams, begging to be released ♫

It’s Music ♫”

Set students as allies. Set dragonslayers and … only them as enemies! Hand of Heaven as an ally to not agitate the students! Levin Core, Cyclone Madness, Ruinous Rockfall. Go, go, go! Purple Flash, Symphonie des Feuergottes!

“Music?!” The students on the ground noted, before the Hand of Heaven knight told all of them to back off at the sight of the huge red magic circle in the air.

Takuma, noticing this, retreated, too, while the dragonslayer just didn’t call. In fact, all of them outside the armor guy kept targeting me. The mage shot water spells, the archer was trying to shoot my wings, the leonid hammerer was supporting the duel wielder, while the latter swung his blades around as mana chains kept them chained to his arms.

Banging his shield on the ground, the shielded spearmen then raised it up in the air. “Martyrdom!”

“Swamp Monster!” the mage shouted as a chocolate brown magic circle appeared next to the dragonslayer tank, creating a giant mud golem to shield him.

As my strongest fire spell was almost ready to activate, fire meteors in the shape of dragons bombarded the area, thunderclouds and a lightning orb rained electrical shocks, a brown magical circle showered everybody with a hail of rocks, while a tornado began to suck everybody in. However, these dragonslayers didn’t look back. They activated their [Auracoil]s and continued fighting as aggressively as ever.

And just as the duel wielder almost reached me, the flame waterfall erupted.

[Symphonie des Feuergottes Movement (Allegro)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

My vision was clouded in a veil of flames, but my instincts told me that an annoying dragonslayer would still hit me at this distance. I swung my tail, defending myself and sending the guy flying down.

A moment of silence fell onto the battlefield as the flames dissipated, causing me to grimace as I saw my five targets still standing. Four of them were unharmed, aside from some trivial burns. How did they survive my spells? The answer was the golem hidden inside that mud monster.

As the golem slowly broke apart from all the damage, the shielded spearman revealed himself, falling onto the ground with a loud metallic thud. His giant tower shield was burned to a crisp, looking carbonized, while the man himself was covered in ash. Why was he the only one damaged? What did “Martyrdom” do?

“… I see. That armor is laminated in cockatrice resin. A dwarf-made armor for a dragon? Survival before pride …” Galg noted, finally noticing my exoarmor’s true form.

As promised by Grimnir, my chestplate had a “dormant” and “unleashed” form. While as a dragonewt, it was “dormant,” but the moment I transformed into a dragon, the armor expanded, covering up not only my chest and solar core, but also the upper parts of my limbs and tail. I was no longer relying on just [Panzer] or my scales for protection, I now had Grimnir’s sweat and effort shielding me from danger.

“She burned down Meik’s armor and shield?! They were made from that fire drake we killed!” the leonid expressed in horror. “Strongest fire elemental dragonkin ever, I see. This might be a problem!”

Galg didn’t react to this, instead, he dashed towards his fallen comrade. “Cover me!”

That shielder isn’t dead! They are planning something. Hydra, attack!

The chaotic battlefield was still filled with tons of spells, still keeping things in my favor. However, just as I ordered my still intact [Hydra] to attack Galg, a giant water sword—[Azure Blade]—split my spell in half, forcing my golem to regenerate itself before it could continue attacking. In fact, the mage in the back seemed to be fully focused on disrupting my spells with his own.

Meanwhile, the leonid hammerer and the katzune archer covered their boss by attacking me. Using her hammer, the former was slugging the rocks from [Ruinous Rockfall] at me like a baseball player, while the blindfolded archer was far more accurate than I thought he would be. Two shots hit my wings, piercing through my membrane.

Are you kidding me?! Pradreo and Skardrvo were right, these dragonslayers have weapons that ignore my [Draconic Barrier]!

Thankfully, those arrows didn’t do any substantial damage, but the showed me staying still to breath fire would be a problem. I had to constantly fly around, keeping the archer and hammerer in check with [Dragon Fire] and corrosive fire. At the same time, my parallel minds covered me in a new set of [Panzer] while conjuring [Halo of Consecration] to heal my wounded wings.

I can’t escape with Galg alive or conscious! Take him down! I need to take him down, then I can call for reinforcement!

As I shot out more and more spells, while using [Symphonie des Feuergottes Movement (Allegro)] to the best I could to dodge everything, I managed to inflict several injuries onto the three people trying to stop me. This allowed me the space to aim at Galg. For some reason, he wasn't using his superspeed to rush to his comrade; instead, he was just running normally. Why was this? I couldn’t appraise this part of his Profile and that just made me nervous.

… A fact that was proven correct the moment I breathed [Hellflame Breath] at him, only for my eyes to look up, seeing the guy appear from the shadow cast from the light of my flames. He was a dark mage!

This is why I hate [Identify] now! I hate you! Give me back the ability to look at Profiles!

And from his shadow, his superspeed showed again, appearing right next to my eyes with a new set of dual blades. White, beautiful, and elegant; two longswords with an edge made from scales. I could feel an icy chill around them.

Don’t risk it! Just dodge! Kriffiek kllk gaaung!

[Battle Frenzy (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Flash Fire!

As white tinted my crimson scales, my stats increased and I used a god ability to teleport over to a portion of fire in the sky, completely avoiding the dragonslayer. I gnashed my fangs before spewing purple flames at the guy in midair. I was sure I got him this time.

Unfortunately, my moment of elation vanished as my [Detection Sensor] noticed somebody was actually right next to me, hidden underneath a pile of mud, rubble, and smoke. The armored spearman from before appeared, suited up in a new set of armor and weapon. Two empty potions dangled from his mouth like cigars—which should be completely useless since [Dread Burn] caused by my fire attack nullified all sources of healing—before he aimed his spear at me. Two runes lit up—one cyan and the other blue—but it blasted a freezing ice blast at me.

Hydra!

[Hydra] sprang before me, taking the attack in my stead, but the liquid slime froze up, turning into some kind of non-obsidian solid. I had to thaw it, but without a moment to act, the other dragonslayers re-engaged me. All of them were drinking potions like crazy, ranging from stamina, fire resistance, and even stat boosters. They came here extremely prepared! Thankfully, with [Dread Burn], they couldn’t heal themselves, so an attrition battle was still possible.

I had to shut my mouth, forced to dodge with my rocket boosters as I saw Galg hanging on the ceiling with a burned arm. Casually, he drank antidote to combat the toxin from [Corrosive Fire]. All while his teammates kept me busy.

“Taunt!” Once again, the tank managed to shout that annoying ability, but unlike the first time, it only lasted for a couple of seconds. Still, a second of delay was enough for the hammerer to smack my left front leg and the archer to land an arrow into one of my wings.

‘Venom! Winter’s gift, confirmed! Not enough to cripple us, but it’s spreading!’ Manager Mind warned me, pushing [White Flames] to heal.

Shit! Why do they have good teamwork?! Enough, Territory time! Dreadflame Aura into Magmakam—

A portal appeared right in front of me, and from it, the girl called Yuuko came out.

“Beast of Yore! I call upon thee, Magic Breaker!” The veins on her face bulged up as her hand grew blue. After everything that happened, I wasn’t in the position to dodge this point blank shot … but I could prevent it since [Dragon Fire] still counted her as an ally.

Meaning, she couldn’t be damaged by my fire attacks!

Burn!

“Krrriiiiiaaaaaaahh!” The intense heat wasn’t meant to hurt her, only blow her away, while damaging the dragonslayers. It all worked out just as I wanted, with Yuuko being blown back through the portal—meaning one of the students had learned [Warp Point].

[Magic Breaker] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

But … my eyes widened as I felt something inside me disconnect. My mana stopped streaming out of my body, instead, it was locked up in my body as if chains held it all back. I could only stare in horror as the countless spells I had inside this room slowly dissipated as their magic circles vanished.

Effects: [Battle Frenzy (Minor)] [Terror (Minor)] [Magic Breaker]

This trepidation grew as I looked at my Profile, noticing how all my buffs were gone, including [Symphonie des Feuergottes], replaced by a new one called [Magic Breaker]. My music stopped, I couldn’t use [Aerokinesis] and keep [Dragon Fire] playing, meaning all the fire meteors stopped … and also the fire protection on Yuuko.

“Kayyyyyaaaaaaaaahkkkk!” A shriek, a chilling shriek colder than the icy blast from the spearman’s attack.

What? How did she stop my—

“Yuuko-chan!”

Another cry, but this time, it confirmed the reality I was hearing.

I could not appraise people correctly. I couldn’t not fully look into their Profile as I wanted to, meaning I lacked intel. Yuuko’s [Magic Breaker] somehow managed to affect me without touching me, explaining why it felt like my mana couldn't escape from my body. However, it didn’t seem to affect draconic abilities, since [Hellblade Edge], [Drakonian Sunlight Edge], and, most importantly, [Dreadflame Aura] were all still active.

I had just burned Yuuko.

Wait, no! No! No! No! I didn’t mean to! Turn it off! Turn it off!

“YOU LIZARD!” Takuma, in his angelic form, rushed out of the portal as I deactivated [Dreadflame Aura], his blade ready on hand with four other students. All of them cried out how I had burned their friend.

Krk! Shit!

“Kriiiiiiiiiiaaaaah!” I roared, fighting through my guilt, to blow all of them back into the portal. I then gouged out the ground where the portal was, destroying the magic circle hidden there.

Get out! Get the [Room] runes out! We’re forcing the portal open now!

I opened my [Storage Magic], pulling out two runes and op—

“Hunt!”

Swoosh!

The sound of wind being cut resounded in the chamber, followed by the sound of bones cracking. The world slowed down in my head as [Foresight] and [Danger Perception] rattled my head with warnings. I looked down as I noticed a spray of red droplets from underneath me, only to see it all come from my right leg. The limb itself flew off my body, landing with a loud thud a bit farther away.

[Poisoned (Winter’s Gift) (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

I could feel the pain, but I also couldn’t. My nerves hadn't sent the damage to my brain yet, but at the same time, I perceived my body getting hurt. My heart drummed louder as I stared at the person responsible for this—Galg. He had successfully cut a limb off and was now aiming for my stomach. Once again, how was he so fast? Why was he surrounded in an aura of red?

Why does my [Identify] not work? Why has it not worked properly on any of my strong opponents ever since I first fought the demonkins? Why is this once-useful skill so useless now?

But, that was a question for later. For now, I had to think of a way to save myself.

Rune ac—cold!

My mind. Why was I seeing double? Why did I feel … so drowsy? I needed to … activate … activate—

“Hestia-san! Taunt!” A voice I couldn’t recognize.

Why was I losing balance? Why was the world turning around me?

“Oof!” Somebody’s groan entered my ears, but I couldn’t tell who it belonged to. I couldn’t concentrate on anything, I felt so tired. I wanted to sleep. What was I doing here>

“Hestia! Hestia!” Somebody called for me, but I couldn’t recognize anything as I felt something land on my face and body … or was it more apt to say that I landed on the ground? I wasn’t sure, I wasn’t sure.

I couldn’t think.

‘Original Mind! Snap out of it! Give us [Telepathy]—Shit, we can’t use it! Our mana is still blocked! Parallel minds, we need to get rid of it! Tatsuya, please understand!’

Voices in my head. Who was speaking? I didn’t know. I couldn’t see properly. Everything was duplicating in front of me—the wall, the floors, the colors, even the people.

“What—”

“She’s poisoned!”

But I could still hear. I could still hear properly, but I just couldn’t recognize any of them.

“You?! You bitc—”

“Yer gonna lose Hestia if you keep complaining! Winter’s Gift! Do you have an antidote for her?”

“What?! W-we d—”

“FEED IT TO HER! I’ll keep these bastards off her and your friend! Cat, fight!”

Who? What? What is going on?

“Uurgh! Shit! Hestia-san, open your mouth, please! Dammit, I need to All-In this!”

[“Master! Please, stay awake! Master, Rajah is here for you!”]

Rajah? Rajah? Are you here? Mouth? Mouth, right, I’m hungry.

I couldn’t feel anything. Everything felt numb. I didn’t know if I was moving my jaw down or not but I tried my best to do it. I felt cold and hungry. I wanted to e—

Uuurghp?! Urrrrgk, wh-what is this nasty taste?!

“Rajah, close her mouth! She’s about to puke it up!”

[“Yes!”]

I wanted to puke, I wanted to puke, I wanted to puke! But I couldn’t! Something was stopping me and I couldn’t control it at all … somehow, though I could taste. My tongue didn’t feel numb anymore. I felt … warmth. A comforting and soothing liquid; it was rancid but I had to drink it. I couldn’t puke it out!

“Raaaargh!”

“Kyouya! Drink a potion! Hey, bitch, how are you—Woah!”

“Snuff it, I know what I’m doing. Keep that dragon safe, otherwise I can’t repay my debt to her!”

“Fuck off yourself! Potions! Here! Drink them! Health, mana, stamina! I’ll cover you! All-In!”

… Tatsuya? Kyouya? Rajah? That last one … Vifi’Yok?

“Stop it!” However, this time, I really couldn’t recognize that voice … but, for some reason. Something in my soul told me I should. “That dragon isn’t an enemy! Saintess Fleindia!”

“Huh?! Bastard!”

I could see! The world wasn’t turning any longer, but it still felt like I was trapped inside a blizzard without the strength to move my body. However, with my mind intact, I could do something even if I myself was incapable of it.

Parallel minds, I grant you permission to control my body! Save me!

‘You got it, girlfriend!’ Ten voices cheered inside my head as my body suddenly jerked up.

An injured Kyouya, Rajah with his new armor busted, Tatsuya fighting but being unable to hold back Galg, and, surprisingly, an injured Vifi’Yok fighting back four dragonslayers all by herself. What exactly—my limb! The dual blades! Winter’s Gift, right!

So this is how it feels to be poisoned by that venom? Urgh, the ‘fire dragon killer’ is a fitting name for it.

At the same time, the [Magic Breaker] from Yuuko was still active. I still felt the limiting factor inside me, meaning I couldn’t use my spells. That limited my options as it included [Aerokinesis], however, it couldn’t block draconic abilities. From what I could see, [Draconic Roar] couldn’t be stopped either, as it worked on pushing Takuma and his friends back through the portal.

‘Permission to use prestige points to buy [Musical Renaissance Diva]! We need to bust through and that is only possible with Vifi’Yok’s or Tatsuya’s help! We need to increase their stats!’

… Granted!

[Star Idol] Prestige spent. Benefit slot, [Musical Renaissance Diva Lv. 1] gained. [Giocoso Dreamer] now unavailable

Goodbye, [Giocoso Dreamer].

[Humanize (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

I had to sing, and that was not possible in my dragon or minor form. I had to assume my moderate body even if I halved my stats. I had to rely on my allies.

“In the midst of the desert ♫

A bright ray of light shines ♫

Pure and brave, that she was, as she walked ♫

She was the ideal for me ♫

The bringer of children’s smiles ♫

Alas, the world seemed bleaker without her ♫

In my purgatory, I make the devil cry ♫

In Hellfire ♫

All you hear are his screams, begging to be released ♫

It’s Music ♫

I descend on Earth with Wings of Death! ♫

A Storm of Fury ♫

Creating Ash and Dust ♫

I am the Incarnation of the Sun ♫

I shine so brightly, I bring your death ♫

My lineage belongs to the God of Dragons! ♫”

[Music Resonation (Moderate)] [Stage Fever (Minor)] [Shield of [The Light]] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

It was a butchery of songs, far too rough to call singing. However, [Musical Renaissance Diva] allowed me to have two spell songs active as long as I could sing and perform them correctly. Even if I had to ruin my beautiful songs and rap them, singing so quickly you really couldn’t call this proper music, it was still working.

Our gambit was correct. [Magic Breaker] did what it said, break magic. Not spell songs nor draconic abilities, fortunately. It was the right gambit.

“Everybody on me!”

Rajah swooped me up, with Tatsuya and Kyouya getting on. Vifi’Yok hesitated, but changed her mind when she had to block an arrow for me. She went and mounted Rajah with the boys, and with everybody now on, I kept blasting my vocal chords before activating [Magmakammer].

Mana Release activated. Aura used as control unit: [Draconic Aura Lv. 4]. Territory [Magmakammer] has been established

The plan was to utitlize two of my strongest spell songs in unison. The 10% stat boost and barrier from [The Heir of Hope] and then the fire immunity and dragon meteor from [Dragon Fire]. Both used in conjunction would act as our smokescreen, but in order to use [Bardic Cadenza] and [Musical Crescendo] from my unique Job to further enhance my spellsongs, I was required to fully focus on nothing else but on singing.

Bardic Cadenza: A skill focusing on the bard’s musical abilities. Activates once a spell song is used, increasing the effects of the song’s effect as long as the bard only uses songs as a means of attack, defense, or support

Musical Crescendo: A skill that applies additional effects the longer the bard continues playing any kind of spell songs. Escalation depended on [Music Resonation] and the length being played. Minor: Increases bard’s stats by 5%. Moderate: Shares the full effects of all buffs on the bard without reaching Major. Major: Songs travel through mana, bypassing any silence fields or sound protection areas

Vifi’Yok on shooting duty, Kyouya on blocking duty, Rajah on running duty, and Tatsuya on steering duty. We had to escape!

“Down the stairs!” Tatsuya shouted, pointing at the entrance to the 15th floor. “Hey, use that lighting—”

“Can ya see my face, you blind asshole?! Purple! Purple! I already had [Arcane Fever] long before you came, asshole! The more mana I spend, the more unstable my heart will become. I can use my voltaic lightning if ya want, but I'd also turn into a bomb with no way to tell when I’d explode! Move it, cat!”

“Mreow!”

“Stop arguing! Defend Hestia!”

Everybody was shouting ‘cause I had to sing. I had to blast their ear drums out otherwise I wasn’t sure if [Musical Renaissance Diva] could work. If I had [Aerokinesis] active, I could have definitely toned it down, but I didn't.

I turned my head around as Rajah started to run, only to notice only the archer and dual wielder were continuing their pursuit. The others looked like they’d given up as they looked injured and tired from all the fighting.

Using [Shield of [The Light]] as best as he could, Kyouya was abusing it with his shadow armor to block everything. If he needed healing, he would chug a health potion to heal himself. Vifi’Yok, on the other hand, had to keep shooting bolts at Galg, but the veteran dragonslayers could just use his superspeed to close into us.

Tatsuya turned around and used his spear to block the attack, but that nearly caused Rajah to fall over. Vifi’Yok shoved him back to the front, telling him to focus on guiding Rajah forward, while she defended us from the guy.

“Dammit, if only you hadn’t broken my rapier, dra—What?!” My glaive flew into her hands, guided by my parallel minds.

“… I’ll trust you with it,” I mumbled quickly before continuing my song.

“… Just watch a Warbringer work.”

I couldn’t control the lava inside [Magmakammer] with [Obsidian Blaze] due to [Magic Breaker], but the unstable footing and intolerable heat was clearly slowing Galg down. Despite being heavily weakened, Vifi’Yok managed to block any of his attacks with my glaive, fending him off as we quickly made it to the staircase, nearly reaching the entrance to floor 15.

However, at the same time, Galg used [Shadow Dash] to spring up in front of us, forcing Tatsuya to redirect Rajah, narrowly dodging the dragonslayer. His pursuit, however, continued.

“Hunting time! Hunting time! Hunting time!” the psychopath continued shouting.

Things were going well enough, but with all the stress and everything going on, the boys and I somehow had forgotten the dungeon’s gimmick—an exploding tile on the floor to the guardian boss.

The shield from [The Heir of Hope] protected us completely from the damage, but it still sent us flying up, leaving a window of opportunity for Galg to use [Dark Tendrils] to pull himself towards us. His bloodthirsty eyes stared at me as he formed a grin, ready to slice my head off with his weapons. But—

Clank!

An arrow hit his blade moments before they hit me, ruining the slashing angle. As he missed, he tried to attack once again, but Vifi’Yok reacted in time, parrying his duel blades as he slowly flew over us with his [Dark Tendrils]. As he stared at us in shock, Rajah twisted his body, kicking him in the face to accelerate our trip down into the hole created by the explosion.

“Daisy?” Tatsuya mumbled.

“Tatsuya! Kyouya!” A man’s voice entered my ears but I couldn’t see who it belonged to. However, once again, it felt like my soul had the answer for this.

I just couldn’t think of it as we fell into the abyss. I deactivated [Magmakammer] and my songs, taking deep breaths afterwards to fill up my empty lungs. As we kept on flying down, I told everybody to hang on tightly before I flapped my wings and activated my rocket booster, softening our landing.

Sadly, there was no time for rest.

You have triggered a monster house. Prepare yourself for waves of monster spawns! Survive and you will be rewarded

The five of us stared at knight status gaining sentience, moving with loud cracks as their eyes gained a blue color. They looked at us and moved forward like soldiers, turning this large room smaller and smaller with their numbers. It looked like an army had surrounded us.

Like a terracotta army.

The challenge chamber will begin

“You missed?” Rikara, the leonid woman twirled an arrow, displeased as she looked at the young man who just barely reached her chest.

“Yes, I thought I could kill the dragon for the experience. I apologize, I was greedy,” Light answered the giant woman, trying to lie his way through his actions. The leonid hammerer, however, wasn’t so easily fooled, baring her fangs as he ruined a perfect hunt.

However, people quickly came to his rescue in the form of his allies, his party members and Saintess Fleindia. They supported his excuse, which prompted the katzune archer dragonslayer to laugh. “Humans are lousy archers, anyways,” he exclaimed, insulting Light and throwing some shade at Lautrex.

“Quit it, Rikara,” in the end, though, the leader of the dragonslayers interjected. “We have a dragon to hunt. Meik, pick up that dragon arm.”

“Yes, boss.”

Galg, without saying anything to the students and their allies, walked ahead, following Hestia's escape path. However, he didn’t jump down the hole. The single-minded dragonslayer had no need to hurry. His party needed rest and every dragonslayer knew the importance of patience and proper preparations. One couldn’t survive long in this profession without a healthy dose of caution coupled with insanity.

As such, his team went down to floor 15 the normal way. After all, the only way for the dragon to escape was through the normal path—through all the stairs. There was nowhere the dragon could hide from this cantankerous hunter.

Meanwhile, back at students, Lautrex sighed, “I apologize … I should have been there to protect her.”

Everybody stared at Yuuko, the [Magic Breaker]. Her armor was burned to cinders, sticking to her skin like glue while large blisters formed underneath her skin, ready to burst open. Black spots could be seen, evidence of the searing pain she had to endure.

Now unconscious and sleeping, Saintess Fleindia was trying to heal the damage, hoping she arrived in time to stop the scars. However, similar to Saintess Eshe—Hestia’s blessed mentor—Fleindia had gained a buffing blessing from Aurena instead of one for healing. She could heal well, but it couldn’t be compared to Hestia’s [Miraculous Grace]. There was a low chance Yuuko would look the same after this incident.

“… That dragon must die!” Yuuko’s party members shouted, calling for Hestia’s head, further agitating the already exhausted students. Nobody rejected the idea.

Light, unwilling to participate in this, walk away, trying to inspect everything only to find two interesting-looking rocks. He picked them up, noticing they had grey-colored runes on them. He wasn’t sure what they were, but he was sure the dragon had dropped and forgotten about them when she escaped. He placed his [Identify Ring] over them.

[Room]? These are runes made from [Room]? What are they supposed to do?

He packed them up, safely, hiding it from all his classmates.

We will meet soon, ‘Hestia.’

A note from AbyssRaven

Well, that went in the worse way possible.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 397: Monster Room.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #2 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! It works on a subscription base now, so pay on the same date next month!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

My body felt numb. Numb to Rajah’s fluffy fur rubbing against my skin, numb to Tatsuya’s sweat falling on my head, even numb to Vifi’Yok stepping on my tail. My nerves wouldn’t send the signal to my brain, even though I could see it all happening right in front of me. A lack of feeling combined with my parallel minds working on overdrive to ensure my survival meant I witnessed everything in a slight slow-mo.

Well, it wasn’t like I could do anything about it right now. This “Winter’s Gift” toxin was a real punch to my gut. Yeostar warned me about the venom, mentioning how it was one of the best tools to kill fire dragons. It felt kind of like anesthesia but with a side effect of extreme chill. I couldn’t feel anything but the cold creeping through my body; probably a realistic description of the venom coursing around my body.

Frightening, truely. Even after Tatsuya fed me the antidote, I couldn’t feel anything at all. Even my muscles were rebelling against my parallel minds’ decisions. I could, thankfully, still use my skills and release scale-dust, as evidentced by my Territory release. Aura skills were still usable. However, physically, I was a burden, right now. I could technically still move, but it felt like I was paralyzed throughout my body. Like I was a vegetable.

“[Gnomacotta Warrior]!” Tatsuya shouted, before sending the appraisal details through telepathy.

Gnomacotta Warrior: A rock statue possessed by vivacious gnomes—small earth faefolk—who long for the embrace of the Earth Elemental Emperor. Jealous of their “siblings,” the dwarves, and how they were allowed to live and prosper under the watch of Origin Goddess Crustacia, the gnomes have created humanoid rock bodies in honor of the dead Earth Elemental Emperor. Living in symbiosis with dungeons, these gnomes possess rock to protect their temporary home. Rank C

In other words, just like spriggans who could become treants and dryads like Rita, gnomes could possess rock to become something more. These lesser faefolk were essentially too weak to do anything in their normal bodies, so they possessed something to gain a strong body. Now that I thought about, that was a real trend for lesser faefolk. Onnikais possessed corpses, spriggans vegetation, and now these gnomes with stone.

“Hestia-san, how are you doing?” Kyouya asked me while keeping his guard up, cautious about the still rock statues. “A monster room was one of the mentioned traps. Three waves of escalating enemies. Rank C now, but a rank B might appear later.”

“You asking if I can fight? Barely,” I forced myself to say. The only parts of my body that didn’t feel completely numb were my stomach, throat, and stomach. “Fuck … I burned Yuuko. I’m sorry …”

I still felt bad for what I did. Sure, she was a stranger to me, but saving them was one of Saori’s goals. As their former teacher, she wanted to rescue her students from the clutches of the demonkins. Not to mention that Tatsuya and Kyouya were fellow students as well. I didn’t want to burn her, but that whole sequence of actions were just the worst!

“Who cares about that! It’s her fault getting in your way!” Tatsuya callously stated to sooth my worries. “That bastard Takuma isn’t any better either, even if there was a misunderstanding. Don’t worry about it; just fix that girl’s face up later with [Miraculous Grace]!”

I guess he was right … It wasn’t like it would solve anything to ask those two for forgiveness. Tatsuya wasn’t too close with his other classmates, while Kyouya was on the fence about it. In addition, those two also lectured me how I forgot about [Magic Breaker]’s effect. I mean, come on, I wasn’t planning on fighting with them!

When they gave me the briefing on the student’s unique skills, I hadn’t really paid attention ‘cause I wasn’t there to fight them! I wanted to persuade them about everything. Even if we stayed enemies, I thought I could resolve everything peacefully. These were Saori’s students; the last thing I wanted to do was give her grief. Prepare for everything, but how the hell was I supposed to guess Vifi’Yok being there with the students and some dragonslayers?! Crazy!

Magic Breaker: The user becomes a conduit of mana, severing the mana link between the target and their spells. Nullifies all spells and magic-based skills, including buffs and debuffs caused by them, and prevents the target from using them until midnight of that day. Restores the user’s mana by the amount of nullified items while also transferring arcane corruption from target to user. Very high mana cost per usage

How broken was that? It didn’t have to touch me and I was locked out of spells for an entire day?! Meaning, this locked up, sealed feeling I had with my mana, my inability to release it out of my body or move it around fluidly like hardened blood or something, was a result of [Magic Breaker]. Fortunately, I could still use my draconic abilities, spell songs, and also scale man—

“Arrrrrgh! Owww!” I grabbed my right arm, feeling the sensation of my fingers touching the dried, black stump. My missing arm; the feel of touch had just reappeared and I could feel the pain. “Well, adrenaline is over. The venom causes necrosis … Jeez, the phantom pain.”

“Tell me about it, dragon. Now, how about we not deal with something that minor, and instead figure a way to survive this?”

I snapped my head around, noticing Vifi’Yok speaking with me. Her snarky comment was directed at my complaints, despite the fact she was missing her left arm. She really was prickly.

How about you step off my tail? I wanted to complain, but Tatsuya took over the discussion.

“Hestia-san can’t use magic and is paralyzed until the antidote fully takes effect. Rajah has [Exhaustion (Minor)] and his armor is in shambles. And … our unexpected companion here is in danger of exploding in our face.” He sighed, before assuming a battle pose. “Hestia-san, I presume you can still support us?”

I nodded. “With song and flames, yes. Can’t use any -kinesis skills, though, so I rather not use my Territory with you guys around.”

“Neither can I, for obvious purple reasons.” The demonkin scoffed, but seemed wobbly on her feet. Her expression confirmed my worry for her health, as she looked like she could fall over at any second. “These things aren’t moving though.”

The humans-sized stone golems weren’t moving an inch as she mentioned. There were … a bit too many to count. This room—this clean, polished room made from fairnite, showing no signs of the decrepit ruins from before—looked about the size of a large cathedral. No entrances could be seen, not even a closed door. We were flanked by so many of these golems, standing there like soldiers with shields, various melee weapons, and bows.

On the other hand, we only had a small area to fight in, too tiny before this monster room swarms us. I put my party bracelet on, realizing the golems were waiting for us to make a move, a mistake they could capitalize on. However, at the same time, I understood this might be a mistake. I looked up, confused why the dragonslayers hadn’t pursued us through the hole yet. Whatever it was, lucky us.

“I’m tanking! Humanize!” I transformed back into a dragon, causing my exoarmor to transform, morphing back into its true form. Unable to cast [Panzer], Grimnir’s masterful armor gave me the protection I needed to trust in my tanking abilities.

Now back as a dragon, my large size seemed to have taken a step over the “boundary,” causing the blue eyes of the golems to light up. Their bodies creaked and cracked in a robotic manner, before everybody had assumed a battle position. Without any warning, they ran and shot arrows, almost seamlessly, resembling the fluid movements of a human.

Pavise!

I couldn’t use magic, meaning I had to fight like a dwarf right now. It didn’t matter, for I had dwarven-made armor to work with! Runes could work even with [Magic Breaker] on me.

As the barrier protected me, but also pushed the other three away, I smashed my tail onto the ground, decimating numerous golems before sweeping them away like a broom.

“Krriiiiiiiaaaaaaah!” I roared, forgoing buffing everybody to focus on combat.

“Let’s go, Kyouya!” Tatsuya called out, pumping him and his best friend up.

Rajah, too, couldn’t help but participate. [“Master, I’ll take care of your flanks!”]

Meanwhile, Vifi’Yok didn’t say anything; instead, she used my glaive with deadly precision, looking like a whirlwind of flames and metal as she cleaved through the numerous golems. Seeing her like this, I had one of my parallel minds keep an eye on her, not for surveillance, but to learn her movements. Learn from how she fought with my weapon.

Even with a single arm, she was outmaneuvering the golems as if they were untrained recruits, weaving parries, feints, and strikes with the occasional scale-dust explosion stored inside my weapon. She was even using the runes I had on it, using the fire she created to regenerate mana.

On the other hand, I had to rely on my parallel minds fine tuning my movements for my precise attacks. Even though my body felt “airless” in a bad way, my constant training with Neill through three weeks had ingrained my attacks into my muscles. Even if they were “asleep,” the motions felt natural.

With Vifi’Yok and the boys taking care of my flanks, I slashed and stomped, being agile and destructive in one. With pavise shielding me from everything, I could even stand still and breath fire down, melting the golems.

Wave 2 incoming

When that System message came, holes on the outer edge opened up, letting hands the size of a single gnomacotta warrior reach out. A giant menacing statue with black armor appeared from each cardinal direction, all ramming their giant axes onto the ground, creating small shockwaves of dust to blow around. More of the warriors appeared from behind these giant figures, who even rivaled me in height as I stood on four, errr, three legs.

Fairnite Guardian Statue: An animated golem made from fairnite using mana. With the agility of a normal giant warrior, these destructive creatures can challenge even the swiftest groups. While heavily resistant against magical attacks, their defences aren’t as impenetrable through physical means. Rank B

“Hestia-san, target focus! We’ll take care of the legs, you take care of yourself!” Tatsuya shouted out our orders, prompting me to charge towards the western statue, bulldozing my way through the horde of enemies like a ram.

“Krrrriiiiiah!” With a single swift motion, I grinded my tail along the ground, not only causing it to ignite on fire but also sending another wave of warriors flying out of the way. I jumped in the air and flapped my wings, before slamming my tail right onto the golem.

It defended itself against my attack with its weapon, causing its solid shaft to crack, before I grabbed the golem’s head with my left claw, smashing it onto the ground. Despite the description, it was sturdy. Still, initiating my [Spark Crescent], I somersaulted, slashing the golem and destroying its weapon.

As it tumbled back, crashing against the wall, Vifi’Yok and Tatsuya pierced the golem’s legs with their Grimnir-made weapons and pulled it back for me to grab with my jaw. Using my tail as an anchor, I swung my neck around, throwing the golem at the three approaching ones with all my strength, only for me to miscalculate my trajectory and smash my head right into the wall.

“Hestia-san?!” Kyouya called out.

Shit!

My horns were stuck! I couldn’t pull them out!

Knowing it would take too long for me to pull myself out without my dominant right arm, I gestured for the others to run ahead. Once they saw sparks forming around me, they understood what I was trying to do and ran ahead, slicing through all the fodder. Gnashing my fangs together, I unleashed the surrounding scale-dust, blowing up the entire area and the monsters around.

I thought blasting apart the wall would reveal some kind of way to escape, but there was just more thick rock behind it. There really was no way to exit outside of defeating these things.

Once I flapped my wings to blow the dust away, I saw Rajah keeping the heavily injured giant golem down with his [Dark Tendrils]. Sadly, since these golems couldn’t experience fear, all my “rawr, I’m a dragon” moves weren’t scaring them. This monster room was just an endless wave of these creeps!

“Dammit!” Tatsuya shouted as he was pushed back by a shieldwall of warriors, causing him to finally realize he was at his limit.

Kyouya, too, was having trouble. His unique skill allowed him to continuously conjure black armor to shield himself from damage, but they cost his health to create. Sadly, while I could continue healing him with my normal white flames, his skill reduced healing from all outside sources by 50%. Meaning, his only reliable healing method was to leech off the damage he did. While good in shorter battles, this was an endurance challenge.

This wasn’t even mentioning Vifi’Yok. The girl was fighting like a berserker despite her physical limitations, prompting me to remember her scorched, almost zombie-like figure at the end of our fight in Elyona. She still kept fighting, even when death was near. She wasn’t even taking damage from anything, but the strain of all the fighting was clearly catching up to her.

The boys had to not only fight a bunch of black mercs before we seperated, but they also held off the dragonslayers for a bit to protect me. They weren’t even fully rank Bs yet, and they had to take on all this crazy? Dammit, we all needed a bloody level up!

Boys, how—Ahhh, I can’t use [Telepathy]! Yuuuuuuukooooooo!

“These damn things aren’t dying fast enough!” Kyouya noted as he realized some of the broken golems still had blue glowing eyes. “That’s why we haven’t level up yet, Tatsuya! Crush those heads! Those damn gnomes!”

Understanding I had to support them with this, I charged towards them, but instead of attacking, I circled around them and pushed the remaining golems away. I was acting as the meat shield, giving them some moment of rest.

“Krriiiiuu!” I growled softly, causing the boys to catch on after Rajah appeared.

[“Master, wants us to rest!”]

I knew I could rely on you, Rajah!

Tatsuya nodded. “Got it! Vifi’Yok, get on Hestia-san and rest. You can’t level from these things, right?”

Huffing like crazy, she stomp on a broken warrior head, “killing” it before nodding. With the boys covering her, Vifi’Yok rushed over to my body, only to snap her head up. The three still unharmed rank B golems had reached us and were swinging their axes down.

“Kra!” I shouted at her, before sending my scales out, relying on them with [Draconic Barrier] and [Defense Rune: Pavise] to protect us.

As the stone crashed against my defenses, I could feel the loud sound rupturing through this room. Thankfully, no damage. Seeing me smirk, Vifi’Yok nodded and jumped onto my leg and then on my back, allowing me to standing up and dodge out of the way just as the golems tried to grab my wings.

Hellflame Breath!

“Kraaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” Flames burst from my mouth, swallowing the golems and the warriors, pushing them away from us.

“Idiot! Mana attacks won’t harm them, that includes your breath!” Vifi’Yok, the armchair expert, commented.

I know that, but I had to push them away somehow.

“Got a level!” Tatsuya and Kyouya both shouted, before they rushed over to me. The former had a wide smile on his face as he opened his [Storage Magic], retrieving two [Room] runes from it.

Genius!

That was our way out! This was far too taxing on us, and the boys figured this was the timing to get out.

“Things were too hectic, I kinda forgot about them!” Tatsuya admitted, to which I couldn’t fault him considering the shit situation we were in. Even then, it wasn’t like I could blame him, considering opening a portal here could risk them being destroyed. “Alright, I—”

Wave 3 incoming

What?!

“Gnuuuuuuuuuuu!” A reverbing groan echoed throughout this monster room, only for our footing to suddenly shake as the ground lit up blue. The numerous warriors and even the giant golems saluted, staying in place even as this entire room was moving!

What is with this dungeon?!

The crazy finally appeared, with the arrival of the final wave breaking the room—ceiling, floor, and walls—into pieces. The numerous gaps were so dark, I couldn’t even properly see into the depths of them, making me almost want to jump down to avoid whatever this next surprise was.

Sadly, the gaps were instantly closed up with mana. The wall I destroyed separated itself, revealing a new room, before the room we stood on, literally, tossed us into the new one with no fanfare.

As we recovered, the warriors and golems dropped down, forming a statue wall in front of the morphing monster room. Like smashing solid rocks against each other, that grating crunch of fairnite tiles being pulled into each with mana, combining into one being like a bunch of lego. The monster room was a literal monster.

I snapped my eyes around this new room, noticing how it wasn’t as white and pristine as the room we were just in. That actually bamboozled us. This “normal room” looked identical to the nature-overtaken ruins from the previous floors, making it more likely to be an authentic room. This was … a killing trap.

The bomb before floor 15 was there to kill us, but if we weren’t, we would fall into this place. The monster room would send waves at us, trying to kill us like suckers. The Ankoran King sent us in here for training, not wanting to endanger my life by letting me join the expedition force for the Event Quest. However, what the hell was happening here?! I probably would have been safer in the Event Quest just ‘cause I had people like Yorshka, Neill, and Master around!

Who did I have here? Two exhausted upper Rank Cs, an injured rank C virigress, and a demonkin who looked like she could die at any second now.

We needed to escape, and as if everybody understood this, we all stared at Tatsuya. However, my heart skipped a beat as I saw his deadpan face, pointing at the wall of golems. Looking over, I saw the crumbled remains of the [Room] runes, crushed underneath the sole of one of the golems. Tatsuya must have dropped them when we were tossed into this place.

… Why? Why is my encounter luck so bad?

We all stared at Kyouya, who nodded and opened his [Storage—

<Wave 3 will now commence. Survive and defeat this rank B floor guardian-level enemy, and you will earn a grander reward. Survive for 10 minutes and the monster room will stop, earning you the normal rewards. During this battle, an anti-mana field will be deployed, nullifying any mana usage completely outside of runes and enchantments. Spells, skills, and abilities relying on mana cannot be used. Good luck!>

—Magic] …

…

“… Ahem.” Kyouya gulped as we all saw his storage close up on us. His head slowly turned to everybody else, and his mouth began to twitch. “We have a problem.”

I lost my [Room] runes when the dragonslayer cut my arm, Tatsuya just lost his, and Kyouya lost access to his. We were trapped.

‘Master … Rajah doesn’t feel so good.’

Neither do I, buddy.

Or, at least that was what I imagined our dialogue would be when I looked at Rajah’s crestfallen face. After all, no mana usage also meant no [Telepathy]. While that wasn’t too bad, the real problem was how he couldn’t even use his spells any longer. He needed them to fight properly.

Similarly, I couldn’t use [Humanize]. I tried it, but I couldn’t transform back into a dragonewt. Meaning, I couldn’t sing, but even then, spell songs probably wouldn’t work. Not to mention, this also meant I couldn’t use my Territory nor manipulate my scales and use [Draconic Barrier], since they all relied on mana.

Ankoran King, do you want to kill me? I’m a FUCKING MAGE!

No way, no way would the Ankoran King send me into this just after everything, right? No way, there had to be an explanation for this. There had to be!

I snapped my eyes back to the giant room golem, noticing how the pristines walls from before had changed, giving more chiseled edges and wedges around its body as details. The mana seams flowing through it made it look like some kind of mantech, but the stony surface of its body was clear to see. Its face looked a bit cartoonish with its cube teeth, giving it a less intimidating force compared to the statue faced warriors and the helmeted soldiers.

On the other hand, as the room golem latched its hands onto the edges of the hole where the monster room was. Pushing itself through, it revealed its full appearance. Mostly top-heavy, its arms were as thick as a small family house, probably enough to quash me as it was larger than me in size. Its lower body, though, looked far frailer as it was weirdly thin and only had two tree trunk-sized legs to support it.

“So … how are we supposed to kill that thing?” Tatsuya said with dazzling eyes, probably captivated by the “grander reward” part of the System message.

With my tail, of course.

I raised my tail, fully accepting Tatsuya’s optimism. After all, there really wasn’t any other way to survive, so why not be a bit competitive about it? A star like me couldn’t just die in this forgotten place, and definitely not a dragon who had family and friends to lose.

No risks, no rewards, right?

A note from AbyssRaven

Get that reward, Hestia! Get the loot, even if you can't talk!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 398: Burn, Golem, Burn.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #3 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! It works on a subscription base now, so pay on the same date next month!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

Here were our options:

Tatsuya’s [All-In] and a pouch of six fulinoe leaves he took out before the monster room sealed our mana skills. Meaning, he had six usages of [All-In], depending on how many he used at once, so he had options for burst damage.

Kyouya’s [Shadowed Martyr], allowing him to clad himself in armor and turn into a charging bull. It worked off his health, with the more health he paid for his skill, the sturdier it became. However, he needed healing after every use and his skill also reduced healing from outside sources by 50%.

Rajah had some of his mana threads. Sadly, since we were going up against golems, Rajah’s venom wouldn’t work against them. He was heavily reliant on his dark spells to stay mobile, so this might be a problem for him.

A very tired Vifi’Yok with my glaive, but since the weapon was bond to me, it was heavily nerfed in her hands. It still was a good weapon, but Vifi’Yok couldn’t utilize all its potential.

Burn My Dread: A manatech-based dragoon glaive created using [Geisenlarg Queen] and [Sunfang Dragon] materials, supported by the enchanted bark of a [Stonewood Treant Guardian] and voldunna ore. As the blood and flames of a [Sunfang Dragon] were used during the smelting process, this spear exudes a natural heat as if it was a miniature sun core. The [Dragonkin Blacksmith Technique] used to create this weapon causes the weapon to only show its full potential in the hands of its true owner.

Dragonkin: [Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Attack Power: 2281

Skill: [Mana Conductor Lv. 8] [Mana Efficiency Lv. 6] [True Spear Mastery Lv. 1] [Increased Weight Lv. 5] [All Damage Enhancement Lv. 1] [Herculean Power Lv. 1] [Speed of Sound Lv. 1] [Superior Aerial Fighter Lv. 1] [Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 8] [Mind’s Eye Lv. 1] [Durability Loss Reduction Lv. 10] [Explosion Pressure Nullification] [Flame Core Aura] [Dragonkin Ownership]

Rune: [Utility Rune: Guided Projectile] [Defense Rune: Scale-Dust Barrier] [Passive Rune: Clean Blade] [Passive Rune: Mana Drain] [Passive Rune: Stamina Beast] [Passive Rune: Crimson Cloak] [Attack Rune: Triple Attack]

Tatsuya’s and Kyouya’s weapons and armors were all decent, since they were made by Grimnir for this trip. However, unlike mine, theirs were placeholders for when Grimnir could find the time to dedicate to making their personal weapons. Ones he could continuously improve and improve.

We had seven major health potions, six major stamina potions, one minor strength tonic, and also some mana and intelligence vials, but they were useless for our current situation.

And then we had myself, the big, bad dragon. I was a mage, but all my mana-based attacks were blocked. I couldn’t use my Territory, my scale manipulation, nor even my spell songs. Thankfully, I had Neill train me for situations where I could only rely on my physical attacks. Honestly, this situation reminded me of my early days when I had to rely on my claws and fangs to survive.

So, what could I use here? What exactly wasn’t reliant on my mana to be used? Well, firstly, my scale-dust had never relied on mana, but on friction and heat. My spark flames and setting my fangs, claws, and tail on fire were available to me. I just needed mana to increase the flames’ size, meaning I couldn’t use my dragon breath. This, sadly, also meant I couldn’t use my [White Flames] or [Corrosive Fire] since I needed mana to switch them around.

In addition, I had the runes and skills on my armor to rely on, specifically, [Dhuinn Rune: Fearless Defense]. It transformed the vitality and wisdom my armor granted into strength and intelligence, respectively. Not to mention, [Battle Frenzy] and [Solar Beam] were available; the latter required solar energy, not mana, so I could go into my overdrive mode.

In other words, [Fearless Defense] plus [Hellblade Edge] plus [Battle Frenzy (Minor)] plus [Solar Beam] equaled our winning strategy … Sadly, I couldn’t speak as a dragon and [Telepathy] required mana. My companions did not know the plan my parallel minds and I had just formed.

“Grrrrrrrrrr!” I growled, stepping forward while raising my tail and swinging it up and down.

Tatsuya, noticing this, nodded, smirking at me like a daredevil. “I know, I know, you’re our trump card here, Hestia-san! I don’t need to hear you to understand that; don’t worry, you lead, I’ll improvise with what you want! I’m not much use as a combat specialist here, but I like shot calling when I play games, so I’ll communicate with you!”

We’re gonna bloody dump on these trash! Make them uninstall from life!

“Here!” Kyouya handed Tatsuya all but one stamina potion and three of the health potions. He then looked at Vifi’Yok, throwing her the strength tonic. “Give Hestia-san the tonic for the final attack! Everything matters; the rest, use however you want to survive! Incoming!”

“Oi! I—” Vifi’Yok wanted to interject, but the combined three waves of golems had already began their march towards us. Arrows flew, a stampede of stone legs, and the booming crackling of the giant [Monster Room Mimic (Fairnite)].

Monster Room Mimic (Fairnite): A golem with the ability to separate its body parts to form a room, acting like a monster room until the time comes to strike. This version is made out of fairnite, increasing its resistance against magic. Although imposing and sturdy due to its impressive size, easily able to dwarf the smaller rank A monsters, this mimic does not have the stats to match its size. Regardless, one should not underestimate it with its army of monsters. Rank B

[Mana Eyes], while it sounded like it required mana to use, didn’t. Its primary function was to allow me to see the flow of mana when I activated them, which, fortunately, allowed us to gather some intel. I couldn’t appraise its Profile due to the annoying [Information Blocked] notification, but this description alone was good enough, meaning I could beat it. Just like all the other rank Bs I defeated in the past, this thing will become another piece of experience fodder!

Problem was, I couldn’t tell anybody about this. No [Telepathy] meant I was reduced to my Belzac Forest form of communication—emoting. Seeing how that turned out, I was a bit nervous. Regardless, with the boys attacking, I could only focus on my killing blow.

Either survive for ten minutes or kill the mimic golem. The situation was pretty effed up, though.

“Drinking!” Tatsuya and Kyouya both drank a stamina potion each, although it wouldn’t remove [Exhaustion (Minor)] from Tatsuya’s Profile. Either I had to sing [The Will to Fight and Survive] or he had to take a good, long rest to remove that annoying debuff. “Rajah, the three of us coordinate together, find a path forward. We’ll take care of the fodder to make way for Hestia-san to take care of the rank Bs!”

“Mgreewwwh!” Rajah roared in affirmation.

However, I was certainly not on-board with this plan.

What?! No, wait, not you, Tatsuya! You need to help me down those rank Bs to get to the boss quicker! Don’t waste your [All-In] on the mooks! Also, don’t use Rajah’s tricks and higher agility for the mooks, use his threads to help Kyouya immobolize the minions! Crowd control!

“Kraaaa!” I roared, drawing everybody’s attention, but Tatsuya snapped his head around to dodge an arrow. With his attention on the problems at hand, he dismissed my roar as a warcry, before continuing commands while all I could do was to watch them.

Dammit!

I couldn’t stop them now when they were getting attacked, then the knight golems and the boss would just rush at me. No, I had to correct their plans—

“Oi, dragon, if you got something on your mind, it’s better to not try to disrupt the flow of things.” But before I could rush forward and stop the boys by bodyblocking them, Vifi’Yok smacked me on the head. “No mana means no [Telepathy] or [Humanize]. The cat can’t speak, either. Aside from logistics and morale, communication is another high-priority pillar for war and battle. Break even one of them, and everything will eventually crumble.”

“Krrruh?” I questioned what Vifi’Yok was saying with this, but my head snapped around as my [Foresight] activated, quickly dodging out of the way of a thrown axe, noticing my sense of touch was almost back to normal.

“I need some time to rest. Give me a moment, dragon.” I turned my head back to Vifi’Yok, eyeing her small body, which was barely larger than my mouth. “The operation plan should be you taking down the fodder; don’t worry about their level ups. Let them occupy the rank Bs with their movements and crowd control. Let them take down the weakened golem you nearly killed, which would allow them to gain levels, an extra boost.”

But wouldn’t that mean the boys would gain less experience outright? The Gnomacotta warriors are rank C, which gives me far reduced experience, while the boys and Rajah will benefit from them greatly.

“The only way for all of us to clean this room out, saving us, is for you to take the majority of the damage, naturally taunt all aggression, and clean the most enemies out. Your size, fire attacks, and range of attacks is what will win this battle, not those boys’ making room for you. As the strongest, you lead them, rally them, and support the weak so they can do their job!”

Three opinions. Three different methods to engage this battle.

My plan was to utilize everybody’s talents to carve the victory with my finishing blow. Tatsuya’s focus is to have his side clear the path forward for me to take down the rank Bs, since the victory condition was to defeat the boss. Vifi’Yok’s, on the other hand, wanted me to take down the fodder, acting like a one-woman army to draw attention away from the boys so they can use Tatsuya’s [All-In] to kill the golems.

Since the golems were weaker to physical attacks, Tatsuya should be able to do it. I didn’t need to babysit him … So, what was the correct plan?

I have no other options, really. I dislike Tatsuya’s plan.

“Kraah!” I decided to entrust the leadership to Vifi’Yok, following along her plan. With a simple nod, she understood I would be following her plan, as she could vocalize what she wanted.

Unable to speak, this was the only path to victory.

“Graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” I roared before slamming my tail on the ground, letting the friction ignite my tail ablaze. Without my right arm, I stood up on my two hind legs and jumped up, before twisting my body around and slamming my flaming down onto the approaching army, stopping the boys from reaching their target before I did.

“Woooah!”

Tatsuya, Kyouya, and Rajah were blown away by the shockwave as I unleashed another roar, before swinging my edged tail around, scorching the ground, leaving behind a straight and circular scar on the ruin floors.

“The dragon is taking out the fodder, taking the damage and attention away from you! Take down that weakened B golem!” Vifi’Yok shouted her orders, before I charged into the mix to enact her plan with her on my back. My willingness to do what the demonkin wanted should persuade them to follow along without giving the boys the chance to argue.

I smashed my wings onto the ground, before grinding them along the floor, setting them aflame. If I couldn’t use [Hellblade Edge] on my two hands, then my wings would have to serve here.

At the same time, I dodged the first rank B golem’s axe swing, then another before jumping away. I was attacked by three of them, while the weakened golem ran ahead to retrieve the axe it threw, meaning it would be isolated. This was the time to taunt the rest!

“Attention to the army! Cull the weak! And get rid of the golem’s meat shield!” Snappy orders, quick and precise. Finding no fault in it, I follow her and instead of engaging the golems, I ran away, circling them while smashing the rank C warriors.

At the same time, I noticed the boss—the mimic—moving slowly, fully unable to catch up to me, unlike the knight golems. Even then, thanks to the size of the small room, it was impossible for me to run away forever. This meant that all the golems would gang up against me, but by luring their attention onto me, I successfully isolated the weakened one from every other enemy.

Boom! Like the sound of a building crumbling in a construction site, the noise of rocks broke apart, scattering throughout the room, only attracting the mimic golem’s attention. I snapped my eyes around, noticing the boys were doing what Vifi’Yok wanted.

The golem was still alive, but its legs were tangled by Rajah’s mana threads, while Kyouya had encased the Golem’s hands in his shadow armor, making it impossible for it to grab its thrown axe. Tatsuya, meanwhile, had situated himself near the golem’s head, readying his spear.

“Dragon, did you sense the golem’s core when you attacked it?!” Vifi’Yok demanded as I tried to defend myself from the other knight golems. “Monster golems aren’t like alchemical gargoyles, or the golems from spells. The stronger ones form a mana core, similar to slimes and such. Keeps everything together and allows them to heal themselves.”

I hadn’t thought about that. I hadn’t really use [Mana Eyes] to really inspect all the golems up until now in detail, and even though I appraised them, it was just a quick look. This whole place was saturated in mana, after all. My headache would return if I left the skill on for too long.

Mana Eyes! I activated, looking into the golem’s body, noticing there was a concentration of mana around its stomach, forming something like a spehere. It was small, far too tiny compared to the giant mammoth-sized golem.

“Kraaaah!” I roared, standing up to draw Tatsuya’s attention. Using my remaining arm, I pointed at my stomach, before pointing at the golem. Thankfully, it seemed he understood my gestures and ran to the location of the mana concentration.

At the same time, the golems charged forward, nearly grabbing me. I jumped over them, only for my [Foresight] to activate, prompting me to snap my head up as I saw the boss’s head began to glow blue. Energy was concentrating around it, ready to blow out.

Cheater! I called out, realizing it was using mana despite the rules of the room!

No getting around it, then. Solar Beam!

Heat rose from the center of my body, warming up every cell in my body. The stream of solar energy reached my mouth through the fiber of my body, coalescing into a single ball of power, which I released just as the golem shot out a mana beam. White, burning hot solar energy shot out of my mouth, crashing against the foreign beam attack!

The blowback from the attack helped me stay in the air for a moment, only for the knight golems to grab my tail, pulling me down before swinging their axes at me. [Defense Rune: Pavise] protected me from all three swings, but I also noticed how the axes managed to penetrate the mana barrier, lodging their weapons.

Thankfully, these golems didn’t realize their mistake. [Solar Beam] sent my body into overdrive, making it burn hotter than anything you could possibly imagine. My scale-dust was burning like crazy, bursting into flames underneath my scales.

“I’m going!” Vifi’Yok ran away during this entire mess, cleaving through some warriors with sweat drenching her black hair and clothes.

With her out of the way, I snapped my fangs together, causing sparks to blow up in my face before it detonated the flying scale-dust around me, sending the golems flying as anything around me was reduced to ashes.

A sizable crater was created where I was laying. I snapped my head up, only to jerked it back as the boss finally reached me. Its blue glowing face sent a shudder down my spine, only for me to roar and stand up, pushing the golem back as I sunk my fangs right into its right arm. It didn’t respond, instead, it tried to grab my wings, but due to [Solar Beam], that also meant I could use my rocket boosters without mana. My body was too bloody hot with my solar core active!

‘Everything is going well!’ Manager Mind informed me, assuring me my new solar core was handling the stress without any issues.

I shot up with the rocket boosters, before using [Drakonian Sunlight Edge] on my tail to imbue it with my solar energy, cleanly slicing off the boss’s right arm, before grabbing it with my mouth. I spread my wings, looking down at the boss as I glided down. The heat of my body began to melt the fairnite arm, allowing me to slurp it up like some chunky sauce.

Not yet.

After the molten fairnite churned in my stomach for a moment, I shot forward with my boosters, prompting the golem to suddenly conjure a mana barrier around him, forcing me to fly up to the ceiling. Scouting another of its abilities, I took a mental note to avoid that shield before my final attack.

At the same time, I jerked my eyes to the side, noticing the crumbled mess of a rank B golem to the side. Its stomach was gouged out, looking like some bomb was set off, turning that part into nothing. Tatsuya had done it, but it looked like mana concentration acted like a bomb once it was destroyed.

Fortunately, the boys were already engaging one of the scorched knight golems I just blew away. All three were fine; Kyouya probably protected his best friend in time!

Knowing I had to stick to the plan, I ignored the boss, using its slow speed to our advantage as I flew towards the boys and landed right before the golem. The smaller warriors about to swarm them were dispersed, or were melting around me. I roared before swinging my bright white tail at the burned golem, slicing it in half by its torso, only to realize its mana concentration was forming on its head.

The boys seeing me have this charge at the third golem while I took the aggro from everybody. This also allowed me to kill my first rank B in the process, smashing its head into pieces with my tail.

Experience has reached a breaking point. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has risen from [Level 27] to [Level 28]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 750 skill points

Health filled up!

“Grroon!”

I snapped my head around as I heard that, seeing the boss open its mouth out to shoot out a blast of mana at the boys. I rocket boosted myself in front of them, before being blown away as pavise didn’t do anything. Once again, I forgot to use my Auracoil rune, being too accustomed to relying on my scales and [Draconic Barrier] to protect me instead of my new runes.

Thankfully, Grimnir’s armor shielded me from it, not even showing a crack or chip. Unfortunately, however, the boss was readying more blasts. I flew forward again, blocking a second and third—this time remembering to use Auracoil—before being blown away from the recoil. As the boss readied a fourth shot, Kyouya jumped forward and had his armor split from his body, forming into a large black wall.

The blast crashed against it, pushing it back and taking a chunk off it. Kyouya produced another knight armor from his skill before drinking a health potion, to then pull his shield alongside the others as they avoided the constant mana barrages.

Did this golem figure us out?! I noted how it was focused on them, instead of me, who should be easier to hit.

Knowing I had to stop him, I shot myself forward, only for my [Foresight] to activate and warn me of a flying axe. I killed my speed by stomping my feet down, but failed to dodge it outright and just relied on my armor to protect me. With a loud, metallic “dund” the stone axe bounced right off my chestplate, a testament of Grimnir’s work.

However, while I didn’t take any serious damage, the shockwave did rock my chest, causing the air to fly right out of my lungs. Regardless, this stopped my forward rush.

The golem, though, deftly caught the stone axe and swung it down, forcing me to dodge, only for the boss to take advantage of this with another mana blast. With my rocket boosters, I managed to dodge it by flying up, but now like a turret, the boss continued shooting more projectiles at me while the two last knight golems ran at the boys.

“We can take care of this! Deal with that boss, first!” Tatsuya shouted before putting a fulinoe leaf in his mouth. “Rajah, disarm duty. Kyouya, ram it down! I’ll deal with its legs once you’re done!”

The fodder destruction I did up until this point had really cleaned the room from hostile forces, but their remains still crowded the floor. Rocks and even fairnite boulders were everywhere. It certainly was better than the alternative of blood and viscera … Better make sure that stayed that way.

System, time for this event.

4:29 minutes remain

Almost six minutes have passed since the battle started? Felt shorter, but I could take that. Meaning, I wouldn’t have to risk escalating things if I used it now.

“Kriffiek kllk gaaung!” I growled, fully able to replicate the draconic language with my dragon throat.

[Battle Frenzy (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Overuse of [Battle Frenzy] could cause me to go berserk, as Neill warned me. I just had to use this power-up when I needed it, and for not too long, but now was just the right time.

As my white tints colored my crimson scales, the internal heat inside my body soared even higher, smoldering everything around me. I could feel the solar energy surging and keeping my overdrive active, ready to be unleashed for a devastating solar power attack. Even without [Obsidian Blaze], the flames my scale-dust produced began to surround me as if they were magnetically attracted to my body.

Just as the boss tried to shoot at me, once again, I let out a small burp, sending the molten fairnite from my stomach back up my throat, before belching out magma. As they crashed against each other, the magma exploded, sending it spraying all over the battlefield like some water sprinklers.

Kyouya kept the others protected, while I noticed Vifi’Yok was mostly avoiding, taking a break behind some dead warriors. So, as everybody was mostly safe, I took the chance to transform this area into mine. Even without a Territory, I now had all the agency to win this.

Flash Fire.

Quick movements towards any source of fire; it required stamina, not mana, to use. As such, I dashed behind the golem boss, surprising it as I slashed at it with my tail. As if his body was butter, the golem lost another arm to my white glowing tail, fueled by all the solar energy in my body. Yeostar really knew what sorta skills I like.

As the golem stumbled back, armless, I couldn’t help but form a smile as I raised my tail, aiming it at it like a spear. I then lunged forward, ready to cut its legs off.

The golem’s mana seams brightened, looking like it was ready to shoot another mana blast, however, to my surprise, [Danger Perception] didn’t warn me of anything in front of me, but something behind.

“Dragon, duck!” I heard Vifi’Yok’s voice in addition to my skill’s warning, prompting me to lower my body, only to see an axe fly over me. It didn’t hit the golen, no, instead it stopped just before it did and flew over to his right arm.

At the same time, the numerous rubble created from the fallen golems started to fly up to the golem’s shoulders. With [Mana Eyes] I confirmed it was using mana to do so, but without the skill, it looked like it was done telekinetically. The broken pieces attached themselves on its body, reconstructing its arms, only this time, it had an axe!

“Gooooon!”

You gotta be kidding me!

It swung its axe right down, forcing me to dodge with [Flash Fire] before throwing another tail slash; only this time, it managed to block the attack. Still, I cleanly cut right through its weapon, demolishing it. Before I could swing at it again, its mana barrier materialized, blocking one attack, only for it to turn the axe into a make-shift hammer.

It swung once again while blasting mana beams at me, forcing me to dodge more and more. Everything I tried to attack with failed, this geomancy-golem was cheating its way for its survival.

2:01 minutes remain

Oh, shut it!

It knew it couldn’t win! This bastard was trying to stall me to rob us of the victory, and it could do so using mana and the golem corpses I handily created for it. It could even use the magma I belched out for its own use! Unfair!

Time was running out, while the golem had unlimited rubble to use against me and I couldn’t get a good hit on it with my final attack.

There were two attacks I could use with [Solar Beam], both resulting in me releasing this surging solar energy coursing through my body. Either it was to just release it through my body like a radiator, turning myself into a bomb—I primarily used it during my meteor dive attacks, like what I did to Vifi’Yok in Elyonda or the geisenlarg king in Griffonpeak. The second was by condensing all that energy into another beam attack—like my attack against the demonkin of envy in Griffonpeak.

To be honest, both sounded quite generic, but the techniques worked just fine. In any case, the former option was impossible since I would cook everybody. Without [Dragon Fire], I wouldn’t be able to prevent everybody from dying, so I could only use the latter way.

And that meant I needed an opening for a precise shot!

0:41 minutes remain

But, while the golem stalled me, I was also stalling it for myself.

“All-in times three! Health sacrifice! Dragoon Dive!” And, just like me, that person I was stalling for loved shouting out his attacks.

My eyes snapped up just as Tatsuya dived from the ceilings, destroying the boss’s right rubble arm once again. As the make-shift hammer fell onto the ground, Tatsuya got stuck on the boss’s fairnite body, far too hard for his boosted strength to break through. Regardless, it still unbalanced the boss enough for Kyouya to come in.

Releasing his shadow armor, the pieces extended themselves and wrapped around its left rubble arm, pinning it down onto the ground. Meanwhile, Rajah jumped onto the golem’s body and snatched Tatsuya. He then pounced off and allowed Kyouya to get on, bringing both to safety.

And just in time, as the second strongest of our boss party finally showed her head. Just as the golem was about to find its balance, Vifi’Yok swung my glaive, cleaving one leg and then the other with four slashes, two on each.

The boss landed on the ground, unable to move or protect itself. It tried to assemble some limbs for itself, but could only stare at me in horror. Its mouth began to light up blue.

0:37 minutes remain

Not even close … Mana Eyes! Fearless Defense, on!

After locating a small concentration of mana around the boss’s diaphragm area, I activated the Dhuinn rune on my armor, causing the Kargryxmor’clan symbol to light up on my white-black armor. The red and gold tints glowed brightly as I felt [Dhuinn Rune: Fearless Defense] decreasing my vitality and wisdom to give me the equivalent in strength and intelligence. I felt power coursing through me, further boosted by [Battle Frenzy (Minor)].

[Solar Beam], released!

With my prep done, I unleashed the hot beam of solar energy, drilling straight through the golem’s body. The burst of energy scorched through the ground behind it as it let out a last crumbly whimper. Mana leaked out of its mouth as its blue eyes dulled.

Congratulations on completing this monster room by defeating the room guardian! In honor of your incredible performance, everybody who participated will each receive a full amount of experience from the boss as if they had killed them. This will not be shared through the party function

Experience has reached a breaking point. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has risen from [Level 28] to [Level 29]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Acquired 750 skill points

Woooooooooooo, two levels!

In addition, a treasure chest will spawn, filled with items worthy for a rank B clear. Please, pick them up before leaving the room

‘Original Mind, we’re burning!’ Manager Mind warned me, causing me to stop my jubilation to see that my body was still aflamed. I wasn’t overheating just yet, but without mana, it was kinda hard to managed my body temperature.

Especially if my solar core was empty, which it was after that attack … but not for long. There was a reason why I had Grimnir use my broken cores to help create this piece of armor. Just like my solar core, it could absorb the sun's rays, just not as much. Regardless, as long as I had even a 0.01%, my solar core could handle the rest.

“Grooo!” I let out a massive sigh as the flames on my body died down, falling onto the ground, just like all the remaining golems. They all just dropped dead, showing no signs of life.

I also noticed the corpses of two of the knight armors were cut into four individual pieces. Which probably meant Vifi’Yok helped the boys deal with those things.

We effing did it, ha!

“Here.” As I was praising everybody for their efforts, Vifi’Yok’s voice woke me up, drawing my attention to her giving Tatsuya an empty bottle. “Used the strength tonic myself. Not angry, right?”

“…” Tatsuya glared at her, causing her to shrug her shoulders. He still had a grudge with her, as during their first meeting, she almost killed him.

Well, can’t solve that this easily.

“Oi, Tatsu—”

“Stop it, otherworlder. I don’t need this twat’s bitching.” The demonkin glossed over the details, before handing him my glaive. “Now, if ya’ll excuse me, I gotta dip. Enjoy the treasure.”

What?!

“Hey!” Tatsuya tried to grab her shoulder, but she just dodged to the side and—

“Urgk!”

—fell onto the ground, tripping over some of the rubble. At the same time, I heard her stomach growling so loud, I thought she hid a lion or something underneath her clothes.

“Mreow?” Rajah walked over to her as the boys were stunned at what was happening. With a confused meow, my virigress grabbed her by her scruff and swung her onto his back as if she was some lifeless puppet.

He then rushed over to me, showing me her face. My eyes widened as I raised my head, only to see her closed eyes, looking not only red but purple. She was breathing heavily in an uneven rhythm.

Fever? Heatstroke?!

***

“Meik’s face looks like a bloody thumb at this point. The wounds this time really hit him hard … do we have to let Lod ‘play’ with him?” Rikara, the only female party member of the dragonslayers chasing after Hestia, noted.

Galg, the party leader of the “The Dragonpikes,” looked over the man who always doned a full set of armor, acting as the party’s important tank. His face was completely disfigured to the point you couldn’t really tell his race, showing barely any details a normal face should have like a nose, ears, lips, skin, or even eyelids. Even to the scarred members of this party, the man laying on the ground was beyond horrid to look at if he wasn’t wearing a helmet.

Galg touched his own scars, taking pride in them as badges for his effort. However, he couldn’t help but feel pity for one of his most trustworthy friends. For his dedication to help overcoming Galg’s ordeals, this man had sacrificed his appearance.

Galg touched his bandaged left arm, noting how it still stung. “… [Dread Burn]. Once you have it, you can’t heal your wounds even with the best potions. Only time can heal this ailment.”

Rikara nodded. Aside from the scars blemishing this once beautiful leonid’s face, the burn scars from her battle against Hestia had cost her an ear. She touched it, noting how she could feel the phantom pain of it. She sighed, but instantly grinned as she felt her heart pump faster. She couldn’t stop thinking of Hestia and the battle she had with her.

Unlike most dragonslayers, Rikara did not feel any hatred for dragons. She only felt the excitement of facing them. Just like many leonids from Carmaniate, fighting was truly her calling. The viscous tearing of flesh gave her life, and she wanted to continue doing so until she breathed her last. To her, dying with those she trusted with her life was more thrilling than to die in battle for her homeland in another of their senseless battles.

“Galg, we’re done. Your turn.”

The man in question nodded, looked at the wounded Meik, before turning around to Lod, the pure mage of the group. The human man’s robes were scorched, looking in tatters, only barely hiding the bandages underneath them. He did not say any more, just taking a sip of water.

The last member to join his party, Galg knew very little of this mysterious man, but all he cared about was he could trust him in battle. Just like Rikara, Lod showed no hatred for dragonkins of any kind. Instead, what drove him forward was his faith in Istari, the God of Magic and Knowledge.

And Lod’s thirst for knowledge could even rival that of Aleistunum’s archerudite. He wished to know everything in this world, and what better way to gain this but to travel? Travel with the strongest adventurer he could find. Even if his Quest would lead him to endanger his life for the information, he would do so. Even against giant dragons and wyverns.

In exchange, all he asked for was to treat people using his abilities as a mana surgeon.

Rikara could only frown as the usually stoic mage walked past their leader, only to stare at Meik with a gleeful smile. He placed his doctor’s bag, pulling out instruments like pinchers, knifes, and others to “experiment” on Meik’s body. To hopefully find a cure for [Dread Burn] and brew it using his alchemical alembic. To Lod, “helping” the wounded and “preserving” the dead was his greatest motivation to never betray Galg, for he was his greatest benefactor.

Just like Istari thought of Aurena as his greatest muse.

The only one Galg didn’t have much of an opinion on was Namul. After all, Namul was just like him, even though their motivations couldn’t be more different.

His eyesight was lost not due to a wyvern raid, but due to his former status as a slave. As a katzune, a beastmen, Namul was always treated badly by the humans of the Empire as he was nothing more than a body to them. Galg, too, was a slave, sharing the same master as Namul. Both were freed when the slavers died to wyverns.

While Namul walked alongside Galg due to an obligation to save his life, Galg only wanted to experience the “hunt.” Even to all his companions, Galg’s definition of “hunting time” was unknown, for the man would never let his reasons leave his mouth. Only he knew what he saw in the beasts who killed the people suppressing his freedom. Nobody knew if he even hated dragonkins.

All they knew was that Galg loved the feelings of their scales, blood, and bones touching his naked skin. And for that, he became the group’s blacksmith.

“So much blood.” Galg’s sour face brightened up, completely ignoring the painful groans of Meik, the complaints of Rikara, the crackling of Lod, or the sighs of Namul. Right now, just like during his hunts, he was in his own world.

He picked up the four buckets of blood his party managed to siphon from Hestia’s amputated arm.

“Gotta replace our lost armor. Gotta prepare for the hunt.” He picked up his hammer, sat down before his anvil, and inspected the ruby-like scales of the crimson dragon the Holy Emperor of Mankind ordered him to slay. “The perfect tools to kill her as fast as possible.”

Clank!

A note from AbyssRaven

We had a dragon fight multiple golems, and other books might have written about it already, however … What novel has written about a dragon slurping up the molten arm of a golem to regurgitate it as molten puke. Not only that, but that same dragon uses the power of rock as she danced on their broken bodies while using the power of the sun to blast a hole right through a golem's mouth to kill it?!

NOWHERE, BUT DRAGON IDOL! BURN, GOLEM, BURN!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 399: An Unlikely Camaraderie.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #4 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! It works on a subscription base now, so pay on the same date next month!

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[Humanize (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Stew, again?” Tatsuya questioned me over the crackling of the fire and the boiling of our meal.

I glared at this picky eater, annoyed his stupid coffee addiction was showing again. “What do you have against stew?! I’m changing things up, even, so shut it! How about you cook?”

He cowered, sheepishly responding with, “… Uh, yeah, no thanks.”

What a disaster of a dungeon dive this was. But, for Aurora, this was just another day of adventures. Honestly, I felt a bit bad that I was getting used to all this madness, but it wasn’t like I had a choice. The first day of my reincarnation involved me running away from kobolds as a small gecko dragon.

Fortunes and tribulations could strike at any time, so it was best to enjoy the peaceful moments whenever you could. This was one of them. Cooking some stew for everybody while stroking Rajah, who was rubbing his head against my leg, felt relieving. His armor, sadly, was battered to the point we had to remove it, but we were all alive.

I touched my right arm, closing and opening my regrown hand to loosen up the joints. [Miraculous Grace] really was a powerful tool, but this dungeon also showed me that even if you were the best mage around, things could still go wrong. [Magic Breaker] and dungeons being able to set up anti-mana areas was frightening to me. Having no access to my dragon breaths outside of regurgitated molten rocks and [Solar Beam] made me feel incomplete.

Then again, the real question was really why the hell were we still in this dungeon? Why was I cooking not only stew but also some hot porridge in two separate cauldrons? Well, the monster room wasn’t the only damn trap in this hellish place; bloody booby traps were everywhere.

I lost my [Room] runes, Tatsuya’s had his broken in the monster room, and Kyouya’s—our last hope to get out of this place—just had an accident with another of this dungeon’s ambushes and tricks. As in, the moment the monster room was cleared, golems rushed into the room, forcing us to snatch the treasure and run for it, since Vifi’Yok, Rajah, Tatsuya, and Kyouya were all exhausted and were barely holding on.

Thankfully, I still had a bit of gas in my system. I wanted to stall things out by fighting the golems, especially since the anti-mana effect was gone, while the boys opened the subspace portal. Well, another trapdoor awaited us as we were retreating, and while I was fending the monsters off, the boys fell into the depths with the unconscious Vifi’Yok. Since they had [Exhaustion (Minor)], using [Air Steps] was impossible as it required mana and stamina to use.

I rushed after them, jumping into the hole and managed to save most of them before they landed on the floor below… aside for Vifi’Yok.

I stopped cooking and looked over to our injured, seeing Vifi’Yok sleeping peacefully with Kyouya next to her. Our “hero,” Kyouya, jumped after her, shielding her using his shadow armor. He, thanks to his armor, survived the fall with nothing more than a huge concussion and a lot of broken bones. It was just fortunate things worked out for us like that.

If only I could have used [Featherfall] … I blamed myself for not being fast enough with my rocket boosters to save him. Speaking of unable to cast spells, [Magic Breaker] was gone—obviously since I regrew my arm and could cook now—but I also confirmed I couldn’t usurp the damn thing. It acted more like a debuff; I had to touch Yuuko to remove that annoying skill from her.

Regardless, here we were. Kyouya’s runes broke after he fell. I honestly had to tell Grimnir to put the runes on sturdier material. I knew my luck was bad, but this was starting to feel like the world—Hold on, didn’t I have such a thought already? Pretty sure I complain everytime—

“Urrgh …”

Seems like the Miss is awake.

Moans escaped Vifi’Yok’s mouth as her eyes finally opened. She let out a dry cough, prompting me to open my storage and take out some cold water for her to drink. As I reached out to give it to her, her body suddenly jerked away from me, almost knocking the glass out of my hand if I hadn’t reacted in time. She was fidgety.

This alertness caused her to fully awaken, jumping up and readying herself for a fight, only for her knees to give up on her. She fell onto her knees; her face looked baffled as her eyes were trained at us. Years of being on edge, huh?

“Water?” I asked her, but Vifi’Yok still looked like a tiger about to pounce on us. “… Just saying, but I fed you while you were asleep.”

“You what?!” Her face reddened as I stated that as nonchalantly as possible, touching her leathery lips, probably thinking something dirty. “Y-you f-fed me? W-with what?”

Tatsuya and I smirked as we saw the hostile demonkin girl act “normal.” As I could see her gritting her teeth at us, annoyed with our teasing, I decided to elucidate her, “Stew. My favorite dish! Specifically, stew with pork belly, carratas, and a lot of cepillium for the acidity to counter the fatty broth. Putting in some spice, herbs, and good stir, and voila!”

Carratas as carrot replacement and cepillium for onions; good thing I stocked up on a ton of ingredients and water before we dived into the dungeon. My old habits to store everything in my [Storage Magic] came in handy here. Too bad I didn’t store another set of [Room] runes, but a single pair took Grimnir several hours to make, so it wasn't like we couldn’t mass produce them for everybody to take multiples.

In any case, when I answered Vifi’Yok and told her how I fed her by just slipping the stew into her mouth and agitated her swallow reflex, she seemed to have calmed down. This girl actually thought I did something lewd or something! She really was weird and distrustful.

“Fever?” When I explained to her what happened after the fight, Vifi’Yok touched her forehead, probably noticing it had cooled down after I took care of her. She then looked at Kyouya, before sighing. “… I guess … Thanks.”

She then turned around, probably wanting to run away, but Rajah blocked her path. As she wanted to complain, she suddenly lost her footing again, falling onto her knees again. I hadn’t fed her that much, since people who starved for too long shouldn’t eat anything too hard to digest. Refeeding syndrome, as Saori had told me.

At least a full day should have passed, since [Magic Breaker] was now gone from my Profile. I wasn’t sure if a second day had gone by, though, since Rajah’s sleep schedule was ruined after the exhausting fights we faced. It was like three fights or so in a row for him and the boys. I’ve also been only taking naps since I was on constant watch duty.

I stood up, bringing a bowl of light stew and water with me. I tapped Vifi’Yok on her shoulder with my tail. “Do yourself a favor and stop being stubborn; if I wanted to kill you or manipulate you, I would have done so already. Or, if you want to keep a stick up your butt, you owe me and Kyouya, so stay.”

Vifi’Yok’s head snapped around, grimacing at me. “What? Debt? I paid it back by saving your sorry ass from those slayers, dragon! What debt do I—”

“Saving your friend, saving you from dying, and then, Kyouya saving you from dying during the fall just now. Or, if you want to be pedantic about it, save you from dying after we cleared the monster room. You know we could have left you there, or how Kyouya could have left you to fall to your death. Even if you are strong, your body wouldn’t have survived a fall like that.” I pointed at Kyouya. “His body was shattered; we had to keep him alive with potions until I had my spells back to bring him back into shape.”

“He’s an idiot, then,” Vifi’Yok scoffed, causing Tatsuya to shoot up.

“And he’s my best friend, you little fiend. He has enough of a heart to come to your rescue, and that’s all you have to say? Bitch.”

“… You know, now that I think about it, dude, why are you hostile towards me? Pretty sure you’re one of those goons the Princes summoned, so you probably shouldn’t have that bad of an impression of demonkins. But I can feel the venom whenever you look at me. Have we met before?”

W-woah, what?!

“Y-you!” Tatsuya took that extremely personally. “We met before, yes! You nearly killed me back when we fought in Gleisvale!”

“Gleisvale? Estralia, ya mean?” However, while Tatsuya and I were flabbergasted by her cluelessness, Vifi’Yok actually couldn’t remember him. “Hmm, pretty sure I fought a giant wolf, that damn elf Tasianna, and some human who’s contracted with a demonkin. Was that anybody else?”

“Yes!” Tatsuya, his pride hurt, shouted.

“… Oh, yer right! That damn otherworlder girl! She had that fat human pig I was supposed to protect as a hostage! Urgh, if Hee’Rlak and that idiot weren’t captured, I could have mowed everybody down until the dragon came!”

In other words, she remembered Asaka better than Tatsuya and Kyouya, who she had fought along with Saori, Tasianna, and Ellaine. Also, to note, our plan actually worked; we wanted the demonkins to think Ellaine was contracted with a lust demonkin, instead of Klea’Hatma. It allowed her to use her demonic powers during that fight.

But, back to reality, Tatsuya’s looked crestfallen. His expression was frozen in place, realizing Vifi’Yok really only thought of him as some goon. Well, it wasn’t like I couldn’t sympathize with that; with the number of grimgarians I’ve killed, it wasn’t like I could remember all of their faces. No, more like, I didn’t want to remember them.

Vifi’Yok, though, was a different person. She wasn’t me, not even close from the few times we managed to interact.

“Please, sit down, Tatsuya.”

He nodded obediently. I was a bit annoyed that the demonkin thought of Kyouya as nothing more than a fool, but I wasn’t here to get angry. I was here to speak.

I pushed the bowl of stew and the glass of water into her hands. “As I said, can't you just accept our goodwill?”

She raised a brow, looking up at me before looking back at her meal. She stood back up and walked over to the warmth of the campfire. As Rajah and I sat back down, we watched Vifi’Yok slowly eat the stew. She nodded, either liking it or realizing I didn’t spike it—even with her [Abnormal Status Nullification], I could still poison her. In any case, she didn’t say anything as she ate, keeping silent.

It was an awkward mood, and even though it was a rare moment of peace, it wasn't like we could completely let down our guard. We were still in a dungeon, having made camp in a hallway and the moment I noticed a golem approaching us, I killed it with my dragon form to make it quick. I didn’t want to attract any attention.

Once our meal was done, Tatsuya stored everything in his storage and I told Vifi’Yok we needed to go. She questioned us, forcing me to tell her that we were trying to avoid the dragonslayers and the students. The former were guaranteed to come after me, while I wasn’t so sure with the latter.

Based on the information the Ankoran King provided to us, I managed to confirm we were on the 18th floor due to the layout of the place. I thought I wouldn’t need to use the intel they gave us—more like we wanted to keep the suspense of adventuring—but it was helpful that we took the maps they had on hand with us.

Using one of these maps right now, we also confirmed something was really wrong with this dungeon. The traps and monster rooms were wrongly placed, to the point we couldn’t be 100% sure we would be safe. The only thing we knew for sure was where to go for the next floor.

“So we dropped two floors through that hole?” Vifi’Yok noted while riding on Rajah with Kyouya, eating and drinking. “… Why exactly am I going along with ya people again?”

“Why are you being like that, jeez!” I growled at her, finding her constant prattle annoying. Especially with how she was eating up my stew as if she was like Saori or me; refeeding syndrome, my ass! “‘Valeria,’ right? Is that your human name, huh? Oh, you know exactly why I want you around, but you also know you can’t go anywhere else right now. If you go up, the dragonslayers or the otherworlders might attack you for helping me. You don’t have the map of this place, nor any food, so do you really want to continue going around all alone, with no help?”

I was calling the students otherworlders for now to keep up the facade. Vifi’Yok, nor the rest of the demonkins, knew I was an otherworldy reincarnator. Well, the Prince of Envy knew, but he couldn’t have told Vifi’Yok any of that. While I did want to bring Vifi’Yok over, or at least make her into an informant, I had to keep my own cards tight to my chest. Gotta play this right.

“Tsk, lucky void-touched,” she scoffed at me. I did wonder if she somehow overheard us talking about the [Room] runes or how they worked; sadly, I couldn’t confirm it now outside of the fact she knew I could use [Space-Time Magic].

Sighing, she stuffed up her mouth before asking for more, to which I happily obliged. Currently, we weren’t enemies, and I still technically had two debts. I could force her into helping us against the dragonslayers, so I had to make sure she was combat-ready. Even if she ran away later when we reached the surface, it would be worth it if all of us survived.

After I found a safe space to be around, we made camp again and had everybody take a rest until Kyouya woke up. This time, we were hiding in a small room to the side of a hallway. This was one of the secret hiding spaces the dungeon master made for adventurers.

“Hey, otherworlder, why—” Vifi’Yok began after we finished making camp, which she helped by laying Kyouya down.

But Tatsuya snapped at her. “The name is Tatsuya. That is Kyouya. The virigress is Rajah, and she is Hestia. Use them. We aren’t calling you ‘demonkin’ all the time.”

Vifi’Yok, though, just shook her head. “I am not ya friend. We aren’t even supposed to be acquaintances, we are supposed to be enemies. It’s just a mishap of events that led us to this, so do me a favor and don’t try to get closer to me. We shouldn’t be.”

“Says who?” I frowned. “Hmm? You know I’m a Champion of Aurena, but look at me, being nice to you and trying to get you on our side. Demonkins are supposed to be my Goddess’s enemies, but she’s allowing me to do this. Not even a single complaint during this entire trip. Who actually is telling me to not get close to you? You, right? This is what I am saying about not understanding your side of the story. Are you so narrow-minded that you can’t get your mouth to open up and tell me anything?”

Well, Aurena hasn’t spoken to me once yet, so it was still the truth. Regardless, I didn’t need to tell her this.

Vifi’Yok, affected by my words, seemed to have shrunk down as she began to drink some water. Remembering she liked donuts, I pulled one out, showing it to the widened eyed girl. She gulped, looking like she wanted to eat it, but wasn’t brave enough to take it. I placed it on a dish and gave it to her.

While she nibbled on it, picking off a piece here and there to eat, Tatsuya and I sat opposite of her. Rajah was taking a nap, right now. Him and the boys had gained quite a good chunk of levels, to the point Rajah was almost ready to evolve into a rank B. Just needed a bit more grinding, but we couldn’t afford it with Kyouya like this.

“I know you don’t want to speak about it, but you can at least tell me why you’re here, right?” I addressed Vifi’Yok’s sudden appearance. “How you’re surprised to see us, how the otherworlders knew about your human name, and why were you fighting the mercs? I won’t bring up my debt here, if you want, but if you want some payment for the information, I can regrow your arm.”

As I flexed my renewed right arm to her, Vifi’Yok shook her head before taking a big bite from the donut. Her ears perked up, to the point I noticed her demonic features were showing—her eyes and fangs. She cleared her throat, calming herself down.

“The arm is a scar of my failure. I reaped this injury for being overconfident in wanting to fight a rank S, and I reaped it for being weaker than you, your sister, and friends. The arm is the reminder that I’m still weak.” She swallowed her donut before drinking some water, clearing up her throat. She took a deep sigh, looking down at the fire. “… I’m not gonna spill my history, just saying.”

“We want to know why you’re here. We knew you wouldn’t say anything about your childhood or anything,” Tatsuya bluntly stated, causing me to urge him to stop. I still wanted to learn more about the demonkins here.

Vifi’Yok, though, was receptive to it. “Fair. Fairly sure you want to know exactly why you’re here, but you’re asking of the mercs and why I’m here? Good enough for me to answer. But, I want something in return. You, dra—Hmm … Tatsuya. You know we summoned you otherworlder to this world, right?”

We nodded. This was getting interesting.

“Guess so, considering ya somehow removed your unique Skill. Not possible by normal means, just saying. So, whoever did this, either has to be a god, one of the Princes themselves, or … an Edjurl god.” Vifi’Yok raised her chin, noticing how the both of us were attentive. She knew she was feeding us knowledge, but I thought she didn’t want to do this? “That’s the deal I’m speaking, so tell me, who removed it?”

I squinted my eyes. Even if she deserted the army, she was still trying to gain information. Was she trying to buy herself some bargaining chips in case she ever got captured by the demonkins? To save her life? Well, it wasn’t like sharing would do me any more harm.

… But, Edjurl god, huh? Aurena did mention how my usurpation rights came from the third god who participated in my reincarnation. Who were they? How did they allow me to usurp not only my blessings, but also the blessings on my retainers? I could even remove the unique Skills the students had. Who exactly was the god who participated?

“Me,” I responded. Tatsuya looked at me slightly in horror, but seeing as I was composed, he nodded and went along with my decision.

Vifi’Yok noticed this, eying me suspiciously. “… Aurena really is training her dog well. Can’t believe she’s giving such a boon to you. You really seem like her favorite, at this point.”

I didn’t even need to lie. Vifi’Yok spun the tale for me.

“Good, so this is why you’re working with her, huh?” She looked at Tatsuya. “Smart. All I can say is that you picked the correct straw by staying in the western part of Altrust. The Empire, after all, is practically controlled by us. The pope of the Aurena Church is even our Prince of Envy, as you said, Hestia. Allowed us to slowly corrupt all the individual organizations, bribe nobles, and just break the Folschreck Empire from within. Subterfuge is part of wars, after all.”

She then gave a small chuckle, looking amused as she revealed the next bit, “Fun fact, the blessed candidate thing? Entirely unofficial; the gods don’t announce candidates, but we made it ‘official’ so we can gain favor over certain people and just tell them later ‘you weren’t pious enough.’ Humans eat it up! It’s funny, really. The religion, as in the Church, is so powerful we can even silence the few Saints and Champions who know too much about things. Example: we launched a coordinated assassination attempt on those who wanted to rebel.”

The ‘rot,’ as Aurena called it, is even more severe than I thought. Also, did she mention ‘only a few?’ As in, some blessed don’t know jack? I know Aurena can’t talk too much about mortal events, in fact, she can’t talk with them properly, unlike me. Still, this is ridiculous. I really should check up on the Empire, eventually. My allies were being turned to enemies.

Vifi’Yok then turned to her donut, devouring it whole and beaming a wide smile as she licked her lips clean of the sugar and fat. She let out a satisfied sigh, before continuing, “Me getting here was just a huge coincidence. I, as I said, deserted the army and while on the run, I unwittingly got onto the same train those otherworlders were.”

She told us how she was trying to find work in the eastern most dwarven hold, Hadjuk-Orn. She was sightseeing and took a look at the train station, but got spooked by the Hand of Heaven I met just a day ago. She tried to hide by getting on the train, as that was the only way to escape, but she bumped into the students, a Saintess called Fleindia, and the Hand of Heaven.

From there, she ended up stuck traveling with them to Inkoran-Tazul. Due to a shortage of money, and her cravings for bread, she wanted to take on a dungeon job. There, unfortunately, she got into contact with some black mercs who wanted to use her as a sacrificial pawn to kill off the dungeon’s fifth floor guardian.

Funnily enough, she managed to bring the boss down instead of dying. She had intended to lure out the people’s intention before killing them, but failed spectacularly. Once the boss was down, they moved on, while she just hummed and was having fun as the mercs worried. There, though, things got out of hand when the black merc group targeted some normal adventurers for their loot.

That was when Vifi’Yok was driven to an ultimatum. She decided to kill the black mercs, but that was when they got ambushed by the students who decided to enter the dungeon too. A goose chase happened, and all of them landed inside the floor ten guardian boss. People were slaughtered in all the chaos, until the floor blew up when the Hand of Heaven knight killed the floor guardian.

With her ruse revealed, Vifi’Yok went on to slaughter all the black mercs the moment they landed on the floor, wanting to pay them back for using her. An eye for an eye, I guess. I seriously wondered if she was the type of person who liked to act all weak before surprising people with how overpowered they were.

“I didn’t see the dragonslayers, just saying. It was just those otherworlders, the Saintess, and the knight. I met them at the train station on the same day I entered the dungeon, but it took me like into the evening to get the job, so maybe they entered beforehand. That dual-blades fellow is not to be trifled with.”

I nodded.

“… So, that’s my part.” Vifi’Yok pouted a bit. “What’s the plan now?”

“You finally want to help out?” Tatsuya became suspicious of her attitude change.

Vifi’Yok nodded. “Trust me or not, but know this, I will do anything to survive. I’ve grown up on the streets as an urchin who was forced to kill and take to live. My … After joining the army, I’ve got more-or-less a moral compass now. I would rather not fall back into my past, but it still doesn’t change how I want to live, so I will help, if that increases my odds of living. Ya happy?”

Tatsuya looked over to me. He looked conflicted about it for an obvious reason, but he also knew our current situation. Vifi’Yok was level 150. If we met the dragonslayers again, then we needed to work with her.

I looked back at her. “We can’t go up; trying to find the dragonslayers is a death sentence, but we need to beat them eventually. But, there is also a secondary escape plan, and that is if we can find the runestones I dropped.”

Vifi’Yok tilted her head, so I elaborated on it, although I kept the details back. “You saw Tatsuya take some stones out, right? Dwarven-made, you get me? There is a trick with them we can do.”

She nodded. She totally didn’t! As if she would know about the [Room] runes! I didn’t even need to lie, again, just weave words like a politician.

“So, we either find a way back to floor 15 and I can get us out, or, if one of the otherworlders or dragonslayers picks them up, we steal them back. However, this is a secondary goal as I can’t confirm things. As such—” I pulled out the map. “—we follow the map. I know how to proceed forward to the dungeon core room. Our main goal is to set up a battle location. In addition, get strong enough to fight back!”

Tatsuya continued, “You know we’re weak, but the original goal of this trip was to get strong enough for us to fight in the upcoming war. As such, we continue. There are two bosses left—the 20th guardian boss and the 25th dungeon core protector. Each will drop treasures and a lot of experience. Not to mention, whatever monster room we can find.”

“The biggest issue is our lack of resources. I have a lot of food, so don’t worry on that front, but we’re missing potions. We have three health, eight mana, and four stamina potions left. Some dragorade and fulinoe leaves, too. However, with you on the team, I think we can speedrun to the bottom before the dragonslayers get to us, giving us the time to set things up!”

In addition, I could use [Solar Beam] two more times. Thankfully for Grimnir’s and Tasianna’s help, my armor and my new catalyst could all store solar energy like my solar core. I just absorbed the energy from my armor, so I still had my new catalyst as a backup. There was also my newest custom spell [Sun, Consume All], but it was a bit tricky to use.

“I like it.” Vifi’Yok, though, didn’t question it too much and accepted it.

“Good, then let’s make the party.” And with that, this temporary party was created.

Party Leader

Name: Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor Level: 109 Unique Job: Idol Tyrant Fletchling

Name: Tatsuya Nagata Level: 90 Unique Job: Overclocker

Name: Kyouya Ishigami Level: 90 Unique Job: Black Bulwark

Name: Vifi’Yok Level: 150

Main Job: Sharpshooter Secondary Job: Lightning Sorcerer Unique Job: Locked

“Unique jobs, huh? Interesting,” Vifi’Yok noted, but I was more impressed by how the boys got up to level 90 from 73 when we started this. Weirdly enough, that monster room was a huge boon to us.

“Why are your Jobs so simple?” I asked, to which she answered she had to take them to hide in plain sight. Smirking, I took my [Crystal of the Divine System] out. “Want to change them, then?”

Her eyes widened for a moment, but she didn’t question me. She just nodded and touched the Crystal.

Hopefully, she doesn’t backstab us. Well, even if she did …

A note from AbyssRaven

Well, hello temporary Team members. I do love myself Final Fantasy temp party members.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 400: The First Event Quest.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #4 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! It works on a subscription base now, so pay on the same date next month!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

Good Morning, to those in Anko-Nazta’s Inkoran-Tazul! Regardless of where you are or who you are, the Origin Gods wish all of you a fine WaterDay. Today marks the beginning of the first Event Quest after the implementation of the unique Job System. Participation in the rank A dungeon [Manethala’s Nest] will yield many rewards and bonuses. For the grand prize for those able to complete this challenge, you will be eligible to gain a unique Job.

Rules:

1. Your participation will be registered through your party the moment you enter the dungeon. You may not change members mid-way through, even if you lose a member by any means.

2. Betrayal of your group through any means will be scrutinized by the Goddess of Order, Plesia. In this revelry, punishment shall be the reward reaped for those willing to break the concept and theme of this Event Quest.

3. Victory goes to the party able to reach the last floor of the dungeon, where you will confront the rank A drake, Manethala. Your challenge will depend on the drake’s mood and decisions, scrutinized by Goddesses Crustacia and Chihiro.

4. The designated party leader may surrender at any time, meaning the party will give up further participation and be automatically transported out of the dungeon for their safety. You will still acquire a reward. The party leader will be scrutinized under rule 2.

5. Individual members may leave the party at any time by either leaving the dungeon through the front entrance, emergency exits within the dungeon, or through space-time. You may also call out your surrender, forcing the dungeon to expel you automatically for your safety. Your rewards will be determined by how far you made it.

6. Everybody has one entry. Once you surrender or leave the dungeon, you forfeit your right to continue in this Event Quest.

Event:

1. [Manethala’s Greatest Gambit] is the name of the Event Quest and involves parties to forge themselves through 15 floors of trials ranging from the physical to mental challenges— monster subjugations and puzzles.

2. Each party will face the same trials during this Event. You are allowed to help other parties.

3. Your reward will depend on how many floors your party manages to clear before Manethala’s last challenge is completed. The hard time limit for this Event will be this year’s New Year’s Eve.

4. Each member of a party will receive their individual rewards after the Event is over. Those with a unique Job already unlocked will receive a different reward if they become the victors.

This Event Quest is very difficult. The recommended level for the participants will be level 100, but during the duration of the Event Quest, anybody will be allowed to enter the dungeon as long as the rules are followed.

May you be blessed by the Origin Gods. Let [Manethala’s Greatest Gambit] begin!

And so, the day has come.

Raucous cheers coming from the filled streets of Inkoran-Tazul’s “Hub” entered my ears. The whistling of the wind was replaced by this tumultuous storm of sounds, ranging from shouts, to music, to just general fanfare. The sharp prickles of winter’s snow did not deter any of them for an obvious reason. The day of the Event Quest had finally begun.

Meaning, it was also time for me to fulfill my duty as Princess Hestia’s only [Hestia’s Imperial Guard]. As her second retainer after Miss Saori, it was my responsibility to lead our expedition force and make sure everybody survives in her stead!

My name is Tasianna Marina Silverpond, and I will not fail Princ—

“Tasianna.”

—Eyyyyaaah!

I snapped away from the window overlooking the streets, turning my body around in a panic. Once I realized who it was, I calmed down, trying to slow down my breathing and heart. “Princess Fargryneill.”

“… Sorry for scaring you.” My illustrious lady’s half-sister scratched her black lion mane-like hair as she apologized. Since Princess Hestia considered her an important person, I did as well. “I didn’t think you would be this worried about the Event. We got enough hard-hitters in the party after the diplomatic leaders handed us their representatives that we should have no problem. Relax.”

“T-that isn’t what I am worried about, Your Highness. My mind is more occupied with Lady Hestia’s absence …”

It had been over a week now since Princess Hestia went into the [Menagerie of Golems] dungeon with Tatsuya, Kyouya, and Rajah. While I had full trust in my lady, it still felt weird that I wasn’t by her side. No, it was worse. The fact she hasn’t visited us through her subspace made me worry. I wanted to serve her some tea again. Not being able to be her maid was making me anxious.

Princess Fargryneill, understanding this, couldn’t help but sigh at my response. “My hatchling sister isn’t weak. In fact, she’s far too strong for her age! If we were in Kargryx, she would be ruling over all the rambunctious whelplings of her generation. We still have [Hestia’s Retainer] and it hasn’t warned us about anything yet. She’s fine.”

“I understand, but why hasn’t she come to visit yet?! She hasn’t taken a shower for days now! Oh, Depth Goddess has mercy on her body odor! What is a mistress without her retainer?”

I have been serving Princess Fargryneill during Princess Hestia’s absence as a substitute, but it didn’t feel right. Nothing against her, she was a good mistress to serve, but not being by my lady’s side made me feel incomplete. I understood I was worrying too much, but I couldn’t help but compare her to Princess Schuri at this point. If something were to happen to Princess Hestia, I would never be able to forgive myself.

[“We understand your plight, Tasianna. We, too, struggle.”] A female’s voice entered my head as I heard footsteps coming up the stairs.

[“However, as her retainers, we have a duty to become stronger in her name.”] A new voice, this time it was a male’s. [“We have to rely on Svena, Haati, and Lorena to keep the Empress safe for our mission. You must, too, Tasianna. Rely on Tatsuya, Kyouya, and Rajah that they will keep our Princess safe.”]

It was Shay and Beth, the twin snow wyverns!

Once dragonkins we mistook for enemies, now they were loyal retainers to Princess Hestia’s mother, Empress Melloxtressa. Just like me, they’ve been worrying about our young mistress from a retainer’s perspective. Now they were telling me I should stop worrying?

Shay, seeing me frown, continued, [“Our mistress told us she wouldn’t be entering the subspace during her adventure. For the authenticity, correct? If she was in trouble, she would have entered the subspace already.”]

“But what if she ran into one of those anti-mana areas Grimnir mentioned? Or, what if her [Room] runes broke!” I tried to argue, but Princess Fargryneill brushed it aside.

“The Ankoran King gave her maps for every single floor. State-controlled dungeons rarely change, since the governments control them as money-makers, and that is especially the case for monster rooms and any trick areas. The maps will guide them … unless Hestia and the boys are completely dumb and decide to recklessly charge forward.” The princess massaged a temple, looking annoyed at the thought of that. “The [Room] runes getting broken is a concern, yes, but Hestia is smart enough to handle things. I believe she’s smart enough, at least.”

Well, that is true. She has her moments, but Her Highness would rarely risk the lives of her friends.

[“Also, weren’t there just some random adventurers and black mercs in the scout's report?”] Beth brought up. [“Aside from those otherworlders and Imperials, there shouldn’t be any issue for our lady. There's no hint of any dragonslayers entering.”]

That’s also true.

With the dragonewts’ and levianewts’ clear antagonism and constant patrols, any dragonkin slayers either had already fled the city or were hiding before the Event Quest today. We even made absolutely sure no dragonslayers would enter the [Megenarie of Golems]. Well, at least the Ankoran King made sure everything worked out.

Speaking of King Fugnarus, he has been quite stressed out recently. The big reason for this was due to all the representatives within the city and how he kept noting how he wished Princess Hestia would come back safely. The representatives of Loatryx have been pestering him how “irresponsible it was to send our young Princess into the dungeon without a proper guard.” Well, not like I could argue against that … but they also complained to our faces about it.

I sighed when I had that thought before shaking away my worries. The Event Quest had begun, so I had to start doing my job as this expedition force’s leader. I walked down the stairs with the three people I spoke with, while also noticing some gnomes flying around.

They were the earth elemental lesser fae, and these yellow little buggers were just as dutiful as their dwarven “cousins.” Cousins since they were created by the same Earth Elemental King who created the dwarves. Since I was a faemancer, I could see and interact with these little guys.

“Any problems?” I asked them.

Little, weird sounds inaudible to non-faemancers entered my ear. At first, they were indecipherable, but the System interpreted it for me to understand.

“Much action happening in golem farm. Much action and destruction.” One of them kept repeating a message I’ve been hearing ever since Princess Hestia entered the dungeon.

“Scaly, scaly always barely therie. Always scary, scary for scaly, scaly,” another answered, probably speaking about the dragonkin slayers inside the city.

This was one of the challenges of speaking with these faefolk. You rarely got any clear or concise information, but since they could exist everywhere and be undetected to the normal person, they made perfect spies. If only they could speak properly, instead of in these riddles.

While gnomes were less of a hassle to interact with compared to spirits and spriggans, they were still quite mischievous. I guess it was the nature of all faefolk—lesser, fairies, or elementals—to be a bit of a bother.

Well, I guess they will be useful once we enter the dungeon. They should be everywhere there.

Whether they would answer me was a different question.

Nevermind them, we were currently relaxing inside the Loatryxian embassy. We were scheduled to meet everybody here due to the safety of the place, especially for Princess Fargryneill. We were still worrying about some extremely strong dragonslayers, especially the rank S slayer called Galg, finding our two dragon princesses. As such, the dragonewts decided to host us here as we prepared for our trip.

Once we reached the lobby, I couldn’t help but smile as the rest of our group greeted us. Grimnir was making the last few equipment checks, Ellaine was checking on the manatech equipment she made for our members, and the students kept reviewing the possible trials, or “gambits” as they called it, and what to expect.

Ellaine, Grimnir, Nishio, Misaki, Kazumi, Kohaku, Shay, Beth, Princess Fargryneill, and I; we were the first to be chosen for the party. Meaning, we already had ten people going from the get go. Afterwards, we got confirmation from Saint Kushlek’zar, Krim-Slak, Grazlahta, and Akasht, bringing our crew up to 14.

Now, the issue was that, while we all wanted for us to win and gain a unique Job, the same could also be said about everybody else. Specifically, the different countries stated to join the summit. In addition, we also had nobles and people from outside of the summit, like Atadoro, Astraford, Rakatheen. Surprisingly, there weren’t officials from the Folschreck Empire, the Alliance of Carmaniate, or the church of Aurena. You only had “randoms” from those latter three.

Regardless of the reason, seeing so many political parties visiting Inkoran-Tazul for the Event Quest was a sight to behold, even to me. The tension between different countries and factions, though, was quite severe. Artorias and Atadoro were mortal enemies, the elves of Saelariel were not fond of humans, and vassal countries from the Empire were hostile with any non-human. Well, at least the vampires of Purchigchia weren’t here, or we would have some problems with Aleistunum, too.

Nevertheless, the point of these quarrels was the Event Quest. Monarchs and leaders wanted their people, their country, to benefit the most from this Event. And since the rules clearly stated there could only be one winner, everyone's competitive nature was heightened to the point the Ankoran King probably had a headache keeping it all from boiling over at this point.

As such, to accommodate people and make sure we didn’t anger Princess Hestia’s future political allies, we had to leave room open for their representatives. Due to modern party bracelets allowing up to twenty people in a party, we still had space for six more members.

I stepped towards the side of the room, where the reception of the embassy was located. Due to our presence, the lobby was kept mostly empty for our, or rather Princess Fargryneill's, usage. Along with Ellaine, Grimnir, Saint Kushlek’zar, and the princess, I walked towards the people waiting there for us.

These six people were not only their country representatives, but also our bodyguards. Honestly, I couldn’t help but be nervous in their presence.

The first to greet us was a tall, but slim, high elven man in a beautiful, silky green-white suit. He bowed, letting some golden hair strands fall onto his face. “Honor to the Wind Mother, Tasianna Marina Silverpond, my na—”

“Princess Fargryneill!” However, the poor man was immediately interrupted by a strongman-built, black-scaled dragonewt knight. He shoved the elven man aside and kneeled down before our kirin-dragon princess. “‘Tis an honor for a dragoknight like me to become your shield, my princess. Allow this body of mine to bleed in your stead as we journey into the depths. As a member of Kary—Grwwah!”

“Shut it, you idiot.” Out of nowhere, a dragonewt woman with white-snow scales kicked the dragon-headed dragoon, pinning him on the ground with her foot. The snow-haired dragonewt smiled at Princess Fargryneill, grinning mischievously. “Not as bad as Pradreo or Skardrvo, but still pretty annoying, right, Your Highness?”

She nodded to the woman, looking already exhausted. “… Always is, Yorshka.”

Artorias, Saelariel, Ankor-Nazta, Loatryx, and Caedhul, had all sent their representatives. Estralia and Yeos were allies as well, but the former rejected joining our group since they had no strong fighters, while Yeos could not spare anybody, even if they had somebody equally as strong as the people before us.

However, that left one spot open, meaning the remaining five could bring one more person on. Decided by a very anti-climatic game of drawing straws, the one who drew the longest one was the Loatryxian. As such, they decided on bringing another dragonewt and that was Yorshka. Although she hadn’t visited her home country in years, she was still considered one of their best dragoons. In addition, she had synergy with the rest of us already, so that helped her case amongst her countrymen.

Still, I presumed this was more a political move from the Loatryxian, not due to foreign but inner diplomacy. As this party was organized by Princess Hestia, having one black-scaled Kargryxian dragonewt and one from Nordor was to essentially appease the latter clan. Well, I wasn’t too privy to all the political details, so that was just my presumption.

Regardless, that wasn’t why we were here.

“Oi, we ain’t got much time. Get the introductions over with, bladdarg.”

From the side, a Taz dwarf came forward with heavy steps, practically creating small quakes with each step he took. On his back was a large tower shield and a polearm with a curved cleaver head—a voulge—that looked far too broad and stocky that no normal person should be able to carry it. This, however, didn’t surprise me too much as I had seen such a warrior already in Gazahan-Orn; this person was an Earthshaker, the dwarven term for a warrior who wore armor so heavy and imposing, they looked more like golems or mobile foretresses.

“Rudigan Vagunyga. Earthshaker and Champion of Crustacia.” The Taz then grabbed the facemask of his helmet, causing his manatech armor to create mechanical noise as the metal plates pried themselves open. He stared at us before he glared at Grimnir. “Grimnir … Ya ain’t here to besmirch your new mistress, right?”

Grimnir, in his own manatech armor, scoffed at him and began stroking his growing orange beard. He eyed him up and down, before shaking his head. “Hope that armor of yours won’t die on us during battle. Earthshakers without their runes are sitting ducks.”

“Ha! That’s why I have you here, right? Runesmith of clan Luedbrumdar? With what my cousin did to ya clan, they need a heroic feat to bring them some honor now that they were stripped of all their wealth and privileges.”

“Ha! I’m a Luedbrumdar only in name. My place is by Dragon Princess Hestia, Lord Rudigan.”

“… Let the Earth Mother be the witness to your new life.” He closed his mask before taking a step back.

Clan Vagunyga, one of the major dwarven clans and also the family of Ankoran Queen Tragaya. This person was her Majesty's cousin and a Champion of Crustacia, meaning we not only had Saint Kushlek’zar on our side, but someone to represent Goddess Crustacia. In addition, from what I heard, Gazahan-Orn was under the rule of clan Vagunyga, so Grimnir and Rudigan seemed to have a history.

“Then let me continue.” A human man with a unique polearm called a swordspear stepped forward, stretching his shoulder. His flaring red hair and eyes reminded me a bit of Princess Hestia, but unlike her, this man was quite a bit older. “Farron Nordor. I’m a bit rusty from an old wound, but I used to serve as a knight for Artorias. I’m not as reputable as the rest of you, but here is to a new friendship between our races.”

The representative of Artorias was none other than Farron. From what I heard, Duke Lecartiglio’s son and the leader of King Drangleic’s royal order were both candidates for the role, but in the end, Farron was chosen due to the former two’s importance. Meaning, they weren’t allowed to die. A bit callous of a reason to choose Farron, but since Yorshka was to be chosen, he was just the best candidate even if he still hadn’t gotten rid of all his rust.

“Hahaha, and I toast to that, my friend! Farron!” The black-scaled dragonewt freed himself from Yorshka’s foot and jumped up, grabbing Farron over his shoulder. The tall dragonewt towered over the human, warmly embracing him before bashing his chest as he looked at us. “Here’s to a new alliance between us western countries under the watch of our newest dragon princess, Hestia Atsuko KARGRYXMOR! Do not worry, my friends, I, Midirn Rango Kargryxmor will be your protector!”

He then let go of Farron and kneeled back in front of Princess Fargryneill. “Heir to Clan Kargryxmor of Loatryx and a candidate to the position of commander of the Imperial Dragonflight. I greet you in my father’s and the kinkyuro’s place, my princess.”

“Stand. You know I don’t like this,” the princess ordered.

He did as she said before looking over at Ellaine, causing her to flinch back a bit. He grinned, showing off his razor-sharp teeth. “Yorshka said she trained you, little human. You’re a representative of not only our youngest princess, but also of Artorias, like my good friend Farron! I will watch over you, so impress me!”

“U-uhm, uhm! Yes, of course! As Princess Hestia’s knight, I have a duty to fulfill here!” Ellaine stuttered for a moment but quickly recovered, saluting him with as much dignity as possible.

“Graaaaaah!” he growled as he raised an arm in the air. “Good! Count me as your protector! A Kargryxmor does not shy from a fight—Awwrk!”

“Stop shouting!” Yorshka punched him on the head, only to sigh as she saw him grin at her. She then used [Humanize], changing back into her imposing white dragonewt form. “Yorshka Sirris Nordor. Former Knight-Captain of the Knights of Aurena, former platoon leader of an Imperial Dragonflight squad—Loatryx’s royal dragoons. They called me a genius back home, but in front of everybody here, I don’t think I really am. What do you say, Sir Champion?”

The fifth person of this wonder group stepped forward—No, slithered forward as he had no legs but a snake’s tail. He was a naga in a suit of thick metal, looking like a scary knights of the depths. His helmet opened, letting out steam as he revealed his human-like face. It was somebody we already knew.

“Tehmrayn. Champion of Zennithra, God of Tridents and Divers, and a depth’s adjudicator of the Depth Goddess. A pleasure.” He closed his mask. Just like our first meeting in Elyonda, this Champion of the Water Pantheon wasn’t much of a talker. “Saint Kushlek’zar, it is good to work with you again.”

“Aye, Champion Themrayn. Xohulotel bless us!” Our saurian priest prayed, slapping his tail on the ground in elation. “You should have stayed, my friend. The feast Champion Hestia gave was marvelous; you missed out on a chance to celebrate a victory!”

“I was needed elsewhere,” he answered bluntly. “I came here on Caedhul’s wishes. The unique Job shall be ours, so we may serve the Depth Goddess better. Tasianna, you too.”

“May the Goddess of Water keep us safe.” I gave a small prayer, unable to help myself as a fellow Depth Goddess follower. However, I still had to address one more person.

I turned to the last person waiting— an elf as tall as Farron, but shorter than the two dragonewts and the saurians. His golden blond hair was a sight to behold, not to mention his beautiful verdant-green bow made from a combination of wood and metal. His quiver was partially empty, but from the mana I felt from his gloves and bow, I guessed there was a trick to them.

He bowed before Princess Fargryneill before taking out his amulet to the Wind Mother, Goddess Zephira. He gave a silent prayer before turning over to me to do the same.

“Meoshaera roy Sheothrudra. Aifli. (Princess of Dragons. Fairy.) Azelfa Yungrun Groveshield.”

“Groveshield?” I immediately picked up on that name. I knew I heard it somewhere.

“Yes, my elder sister has sent me letters from your group. Muraina is her name; she acts as the hunter’s guild master of Griffonpeak.”

That quickly reminded me of the elf woman our group met in Griffonpeak. Muraina Yvetta Groveshield, an extraordinary archer and a member of the Haireti, the ranger’s corp of Saelariel. I remembered how she was a major part of how we managed to repel and kill the rank A geisenlarg king which attacked Griffonpeak. If she hadn’t held it back until Princess Hestia could fight it, the city would have most likely fallen.

“I may be a Champion of Zephira, but I pale in comparison to my elder sister. Regardless, please, allow me to provide you with my bowmanship.” He was extraordinarily humble, considering you couldn’t become a Champion of a god for no reason or without any feats. Honestly, the fact he mentioned his sister, a rank A archer, at the very least, increased my impression of him.

Then again, how could it not? We had a blessed of Crustacia, Plesia, and Zephira in our twenty man party. This was, honestly, beyond excessive if this was just a normal Quest. Sadly, it wasn’t, and we had to make sure everybody got out of this alive and with a unique Job. This was just the minimum effort required.

“Alright!” I clapped my hands, drawing the students, wyverns, and saurians close to us. “Today marks the start of the Event Quest as all of you know. My name is Tasianna Marina Silverpond, and by the order of Princess Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor, I shall be leading this expedition force into [Manethala’s Nest].”

I then turned to the rest of this group. “Everybody, I assumed you listened to us. I shall be splitting our parties into smaller groups for us to coordinate better and to allow everybody some room to get to know each other better. Is everybody alright with this decision?”

“Yes!” Everybody nodded.

As such, I placed everybody into their pre-planned division.

First and foremost, we had our frontliners, our tanks, as Princess Hestia would say. They would consist of Grimni, Akasht, and Rudigan. Two stout dwarves and a saurian hulk who was the size of an actual rank C monster would act as our shields.

Our second line of defense were our fighters, those responsible to support the frontliners by fending off flankers or any agile enemies. The red and green saurians, Krim-Slak and Caszcur, would be the main unit of this group, while Champion Tehmrayn and Princess Fargryneill would further support them through sheer power. I would also have Kohaku in this group, to allow her to learn from her seniors.

The next were our skirmishers, responsible for get-in-and-out fighting styles. However, this was mostly a dragoon party, as the people inside this were Ellaine, Yorshka, Farron, and Midirn. In addition, Shay and Beth would join in, making this our main offensive force. Although the fighters had people like Champion Tehmrayn and Princess Fargryneill, they would be less involved in flanking and were there to draw people’s attention to them.

The second to last group were our archers and scouts, meaning Misaki, Kazumi, and Azelfa. Misaki was a talented archer, so she would benefit greatly from Azelfa’s help. Kazumi, after Grimnir’s gave her a new set of weapons, could contribute greatly as a harasser.

The last division were the mages and healers, meaning Saint Kushlek’zar, Nishio, and me.

Ellaine, Grimnir, and I were also responsible for secondary tasks like repairs, artificer work, and alchemy. Everybody had a sub-role, but those three were the ones I considered the most important.

“How is your eyesight, Miss Misaki? I am not aware of how otherworlders fight.” And right after everybody had met their teammates and introduced themselves, they immediately started talking. Azelfa, for example, was quite curious about his black-haired co-archer.

“Quite good. Peolynca’s System allows me to see further than I could ever imagine. My eyes are like a sniper scope. I will be relying on you, Sir Azelfa.” Neither were reacting much, but it seemed like they were building a fast friendship.

Meanwhile, there was a commotion with the dwarves.

“Guns?!” Rudigan raised his voice as both Kohaku and Kazumi showed off their new sets of weapons.

The red-tinted haired Kohaku grinned widely, wielding both her sword and a handheld projectile weapon called “gun.” “It’s just a prototype, don’t worry! It still needs some tuning, so I’ll mostly fight as a runeslayer.”

“This was our best option for a range weapon without impacting our equipment load. We can’t use [Storage Magic] everywhere,” the katzune-like Kazumi mentioned, showing off her bulky dual mana-pulsating guns before switching over to her knives. “Although … we’re not Americans, so I don’t think you should expect good marksmanship. Not to mention, they are so heavy without the runes.”

“ ‘American?’” Rudigan sounded confused. Since we had told everybody our secrets, people knew the students came from Earth.

“Stop questioning it, Lord Rudigan. And, don’t even try to speak about Bleidla to them. They came from Goddess Chihiro’s world, so let them have the managuns. It took Ellaine and I too long to create those three beauts. Still too huge to my liking, and not enough power.”

“… That ain’t the problem. You made them using the stuff you stole from the Revoution Queen’s vault, right?” He looked at Grimnir, but since his mask was on, we couldn’t see what his expression was.

Grimnir shrugged before turning over to Ellaine, who was speaking with Farron. “Lass?”

“Got it, Master!” Ellaine nodded, before turning back to Farron. “Once again, I can’t wait to fight with you, Sir Farron. My father has spoken too much about you when you were still active. I apologize I didn’t bring it up, but, you know.”

Farron waved his hand, dismissing her worry. “Don’t mention it. I couldn’t fight much back then but … Mhmm, Lord Andre would be proud of you. You’ve grown, Lady Ellaine.”

“Thank you!”

I left everybody to gather some rapport while I turned to three students who wouldn’t be participating today. Haruka, Daichi, and Tamae weren’t as confident in their ability to fight, so they ended up staying back. As we couldn’t access the subspace due to the rules, they couldn’t support us, unless we had Princess Hestia around to circumvent it.

This included our other support staff like Rita, Svena, Haati, Lorena, Cernust, and Priscilla. They would all stay behind, wishing us luck and to come back safely. It was also my responsibility to ensure their wishes came true.

Once we all told them goodbye, we departed from the embassy and headed towards the dungeon located at the bottom of the Inkong mountain where the royal palace was situated. People were already entering the dungeon, as the fanfare had risen to the point of chaos. Soldiers were trying to keep everything in control, but the vast majority were too absorbed in the excitement to listen. If this wasn’t outside the city, a huge accident could have happened.

Our group didn’t say any goodbyes to our respective leaders, since it would be more of a bother with how crowded everything was. In fact, it would just put a target on our back. Instead, we met up with our support crew.

“Ready!” Pradreo and Skardrvo, the two dragonewts Princess Hestia met a few weeks ago, greeted us. “We’ve noticed some dragonkin slayers entering the dungeon. We will send in our troops before you, Tasianna.”

Playing the rules, as they say. Since the rules stated people gained rewards depending on the floors they reached, it was also important to our allies that we allow their troops to venture as deeply as possible. In response, they would also act as our support group while we delved, ensuring we made it to the end.

In other words, we had the help of a limited number of forces from the summit alliance. Meaning, we had an army helping us out. This wasn’t a solo expedition, this was essentially the alliance’s unofficial first mission together. All I could hope was that everything worked out, since not only dragonkin slayers but also hostile countries would be entering this Event Quest.

Things are about to turn chaotic.

I could feel the glares of some people on our backs, but where they came from, I wasn’t sure. There were just too many of them. For sure, it was clear Princess Hestia’s journey into her dungeon wouldn’t be the most eventful. Our dungeon dive was about to turn into something more, something based on diplomacy.

Gods have mercy on us.

Welcome to [Manethala’s Nest]. The Event Quest [Manethala’s Greatest Gambit] will begin in a moment … Welcome to my lair. For our first contest, let us cull some of these numbers.

As the robotic voice of the Divine System changed to that of a man’s, a chill went down my spine as I took a step into the dungeon’s stairs. In the next moment, my vision blurred, turning blue as that same voice continued.

How about some hide-and-seek? Try to find your party members inside a giant forest with a bunch of enemies. Not only monsters, but your competition. Only groups who assembled their entire party may proceed … don’t worry if some die, that is just a minus one to your total count! Huuuuhahaha! LET THE GREATEST GAMBIT BEGIN!

In the next moment, I was all alone in the middle of lush green trees. I looked around, unable to find anybody familiar, only to suddenly notice the look of three dirty, rancid-looking humans I had never met before. They glared at me, grinning with greed as they pulled out their weapons.

“… White flag? Until after we fuck her?” one of them suggested.

“Sure!”

… Tch. Humans.

An ice age upon humanity!

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Chapter 401: The Alliance Marches Forward!

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Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Fairy, Tasianna Marina Silverpond]’s Secondary Job [Imperial Guard] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 3]

Attributes have increased due to level up

“M-m-mercy …” The pitiful death rattle of a freezing man, aware his health was slowly dropping down to zero. His eyes could only stare up at me, having fully forgotten about the two other people he was fighting alongside just moments ago.

Those two were already dead. Frozen in place like a couple of statues, destined to turn into nutrients for this dungeon. This same fate would soon grace the last of these scoundrels in a few moments. I could only watch him slowly die in anger, not in satisfaction, pity, or glee that I was able to right a wrong. This man and his random allies only wanted the worst for me. To harm me.

They earned this death; I believed it was good they would depart to Goddess Death. Sadly, I was angry not at them, but at myself, for I killed them not because they were scoundrels but because my hatred for humans resurfaced for a moment. I should have grown out of it. This was, undoubtedly, embarrassing.

Get a grip. This is extraordinarily embarrassing. I should be better than this. Kill them because they are scum, trash.

I shot an ice dagger into the man’s head, ending his life before my ice could.

Experience has reached a breaking point. [Fairy, Tasianna Marina Silverpond]’s Secondary Job [Imperial Guard] has risen from [Level 3] to [Level 4]

Attributes have increased due to level up

I then turned around, letting out a long sigh clear to see from the icy mist. [Frost Body] gave me a body as cold as ice, so a little bit of frost whenever I cast an ice spell was to be expected. Although, considering the state of this situation, maybe I should consider [Elvenize (Moderate)] to gain access to [Fae Frost].

Yes, my own unique skill in [Fae Frost], a gift given to me by Princess Hestia after she acknowledged me as her first imperial guard. A prestigious role and something I hoped I could live up to … which I blew after letting my old hatred for humans resurface. Damn me! Urgh, whatever, the point was that I now had a reason to finally go below [Elvenize (Major)] for combat prowess instead of the occasional evasive maneuver.

I had to consider this new tool in my arsenal.

Where did the others end up, I wonder?

The Event Quest had finally begun, but the moment I stepped into the dungeon, I was teleported to a random position away from my allies in this forest. I did wonder how large this floor exactly was, but I was too wary of exposing myself by flying up in the sky. I had to play it by the ear and also ask a few of the little people.

I turned my eyes towards the ground, noticing a few yellow mana bundles flying around. I approached them, waving at these faefolk. As a faemancer, I could see and speak with them.

“Little gnome, could you tell me how huge this portion of the floor is?” I addressed one of them, hoping they would help me.

Thankfully, this faefolk wasn’t a mischievous little bugger. “Very, very large. Many homes for MANY gnomes! Fairy, fairy, play?”

It always fascinated me how lesser faefolk were able to see right through [Elvenize] and [Humanize]. It even happened to Princess Hestia and Miss Saori once.

Regardless, I nodded to the little guy, accepting him. It was quite rare for a lesser faefolk to act this accommodating and cooperative. I couldn’t act ungrateful, otherwise when I needed help next, it might ignore me. Such was the fickle nature of a fae. Such was the personality of a common fairy, if they hadn’t experienced what I had.

“I can’t play, but how about you join me? I have many friends I would love to introduce to you!” Hearing me say the magic word “friend,” the little yellow fae flew up, moving around energetically before resting on my shoulder. The other gnomes, though, waved goodbye and stayed where they were.

Scout gotten. Now, let’s check on the others.

I pulled up my party bracelet. It was clear in this “hide-in-seek” stage, as the dungeon master liked to call it, that the most efficient method to clearing this place was to use one of the functions of the party bracelet: the party search function.

Once the blue screen was projected in front of my face, I scrolled through the party menu, grimacing a bit at how many people there were.

Too many Jobs to look at … Let’s just skim through it for now.

Party Leader

Name: Tasianna Marina Silverpond Level: 100

Name: Ellaine Fiero Helvas Level: 90

Name: Grimnir Luedbrumdar Level: 93

Name: Shayatierus Level: 104

Name: Bethlieranha Level: 103

Name: Fargryneill Qilinus Kargryxmor Level: 116

Name: Nishio Kudo Level: 84

Name: Misaki Kawamo Level: 83

Name: Kohaku Kobayashi Level: 85

Name: Kazumi Hoshino Level: 81

Name: Kushlek’zar Level: 111

Name: Krim-Slak Level: 115

Name: Caszcur Level: 115

Name: Akasht Level: 115

Name: Yorshka Sirris Nordor Level: 135

Name: Farron Nordor Level: 121

Name: Rudigan Vagunyga Level: 139

Name: Azelfa Yungrun Groveshield Level: 134

Name: Tehmrayn Level: 161

Name: Midirn Rango Kargryxmor Level: 140

An average level of about 111. The remaining members of Aurora, the twins, the students, and even Princess Fargryneill had some level sessions when we went to Griffonpeak’s dungeon to train up a bit. The students, well, they struggled a bit since all of us needed to gain some levels, so they’ve been lagging quite behind.

I, myself, barely got to level 100 in time for this Event. Leveling without Princess Hestia or Miss Saori felt awkward. I have gotten too dependent on them. As far as I could tell, I haven’t once really grinded levels all by myself, without anybody else to help me. Learning how to do so was quite perplexing.

Regardless, our “base” party’s lack of levels really showed, as nobody before Akasht was over level 120. We already knew Dame Yorshka was over level 135, but just looking at the people the alliance members sent us to help us out kept making me speechless. All of them were rank A in level, at least, with Champion Tehmrayn probably rank S. Then again, I already saw his power in Elyonda, so seeing him stand out as our strongest ally here wasn’t too surprising.

We can’t always rely on these people, though.

Our duty in this Event Quest may be to gain our unique Jobs, but to us in Aurora, it was also a chance to level up. We needed to catch up to the real powerhouses of this world if we wished to defeat the demonkin Princes of Sin. Mostly for Princess Hestia’s sake, I needed to grow.

Name: Yorshka Sirris Nordor Distance: 134 m

Dame Yorshka was the closest. Rendezvousing with her first would be for the best. Now, since the distance calculator didn’t have a compass, in which direction was—

“Say ‘hello’ to Ilsaphone for me!” A woman’s voice echoed through the forest before I saw somebody jump out from the canopy, clear to see in the sky. Her white armor, hair, and spear were too conspicuous, prompting me to grimace as I watched her [Dragoon Dive] right into the ground, causing the ground to shake wildly.

Well, that was easy.

I went towards the destruction. Once there, I saw about eleven men and women—human, beastmen, and dwarves—sprawled on the ground, groaning and moaning in pain. Some had terrible wounds ranging from rock pellets piercing their skin, or wood chunks sticking out of their bodies, though it looked like none of them died. I appraised them quickly.

… Rank C and D? They are all far below level 75. Some even below 50.

Fortune riders, I guessed. There was no minimum level, so anybody could enter the Event. Since you could gain rewards for how many floors you reached, it was enticing to try out a few floors and then escape. However, the dungeon master—probably Manethala—anticipated this and presented us with this first floor. A culling game, essentially.

“I-I surrender! Get me out!” Some of them began to cry out, remembering that giving up was one of the options. Similar to the expulsion teleportation in the Elyonda arena dungeon, people were basked in blue light before they disappeared from sight.

They would leave the dungeon and probably start warning people about the severity of the first floor. Now that I thought about it, wouldn’t it be smart to send some people in first to check out the challenges and gambits before going all in? Once the scouts were done, you could just breeze through the early stages, especially this one, as the difficulty was determined by the number of people around.

The early skorr finds the most fruit, but the patient griffon awaits his dinner to fatten.

“Tasianna!” I ignored the people around me and looked up as the woman descended with her white-scaled wings. “I knew that move would bring you to me!”

She used the party finder, too, huh? Wouldn’t have expected it from anybody else.

Once I greeted her, Yorshka and I bumped fists. It felt quite nostalgic, as we did this during the Port Annencia siege. “I think I saw some ice in the distance? Already killing things?”

“Three scum. You held back, though.”

“You saw them, most are around their twenties. I’m a bit too old, despite my looks, so I didn’t really want to end the lives of a few reckless newbies. If they don’t change their attitude after this, well, hehe, somebody else will eat them up.” Yorshka’s full dragonewt form looked quite intimidating as she giggled, courtesy of her dragon-like head. But this imposing sight of hers made me feel safer already.

“Tasianna. Tasianna. Beasts, beasts, coming!” The gnome on my shoulder warned me, prompting me to inform Yorshka about them.

“Seems like taking [Faemancer] as your Main Job paid off!” Yorshka exclaimed as readied for battle, to which I agreed.

Since Princess Hestia took our party’s [Crystal of the Divine System] with her, and the Ankoran King didn’t have any spares to give us, all of us had to take our Main Job according to the Job benefits we wanted. I for one knew being able to speak with faefolk would be a major help to us here.

And my fae friend proved to be correct when three horse-sized monsters with the head of iguanas and the tail of lions appeared. Covered mostly in scales with tiger fur on their backs, these beasts reminded me of my encounter with them in the Belzac forest. They were panguanas!

“Like we did it in Port Annencia! I lead, you support!”

“Got it!” I shouted in agreement before the both of us cast [Wind Blast] to create and close the distance between ourselves and the enemies respectively.

Using her silver dust, Yorshka coated both her spear and tail, turning them into razor-sharp weapons ready to cleave these rank C monsters in two. Meanwhile, I jumped on a tree and shot [Ice Spike]s at them before taking out my catalyst.

As the panguana reacted to my attack by dodging them, I took the chance to pour my mana into the crystalline ball, making it ooze out cyan-colored slime. I morphed the slime into daggers, readying myself just as both my [Detection Sensor] and the gnome with me warned me of some approaching signals from below the ground.

Two giant snakes with heads large enough to swallow a carriage burst from the ground as Yorshka killed the three panguanas in a matter of seconds with her overwhelming stats. They stood no chance! As I ignored the System messages entering my mind, I sent the newly-created ice daggers into the snakes’ mouths, stunning them in place just long enough for Yorshka to [Dragoon Jump]. Shooting herself through the air with her spear, she drilled right through the head of one before turning to the second. Now covered in gore, she [Dragoon Dive]d into the other snake, ending it.

Five rank Cs, all destroyed in less than a minute, I believed. The strength of a rank A dragoon.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Fairy, Tasianna Marina Silverpond]’s Secondary Job [Imperial Guard] has risen from [Level 4] to [Level 8]

Attributes have increased due to level up

“Cull the weak, empower the strong! What an interesting challenge!” Yorshka burst into boisterous laughter as I cleaned her from the snake viscera. “We better hurry, then. The kids won’t last long without us. Hopefully Ellaine and Grimnir won’t have too much trouble.”

“Ehe.” I couldn’t help but giggle as she worried for two members of Aurora. The students still needed some more time, but neither Ellaine nor Grimnir needed us to babysit them. Just like me, they were a bit too strong for their current levels.

“Kraaaaaaaaiiiiih!”

And that was when the both of us caught wind of some loud noises in the sky. Yorshka grabbed me and we both flew to top of the tree canopy, where we saw two white-scaled dragonewts flying high in the sky. They were both roaring and had wings in place of their arms. It was both Shay and Beth.

“Not staying inconspicuous, I see?” I stated.

“Smart! If everybody can see them, then we know where to regroup,” Yorshka concluded from their actions. The earlier we managed to regroup, the greater our chance of survival. “Our foes will be watching for us, so prepare yourself!”

Yorshka then suddenly tightened her grip around my wrist, causing my mood to drop. Like aunt, like niece; Princess Hestia and Dame Yorshka were so alike. I’ve gone on “Hestia Airlines” too many times before, so how about—

“Wooooooah! Air Shield!” I cast as she blasted us towards the twins, protecting us from the strong wind. Mostly, it was to protect the gnome from falling off me.

As both Shay and Beth noticed us, they pointed at the ground, where we saw some adventurers. Equipment-wise, they were mostly made from monsters, especially the armor which was primarily made with scales. Another thing I noticed were their eyes; they were opened wide to the point I thought they would slip out of their head at any moment while they kept sniffing the air.

“Dragonkin slayers! They seemed to have sniffed out the wyverns!” Yorshka exclaimed before releasing me mid-air, prompting me to use [Air Steps] to stay afloat. Once I was safe, she [Dragoon Dive]d right into the ground, preparing to engage the enemy.

So it begins.

“Beth! Shay! Support like back then!” I ordered, reminding them of our cooperation during the Port Annencia siege.

… Elven—No, no, no, no, no, no. Not yet. Not yet. I reduce my total stats and also leave my real identity open for people to see and abuse. Instead, I should cast Slithering Frost Serpent.

A golem of ice formed from my magic circle, transforming itself into a giant ice snake of a similar size to those we had just met. With me on it, the twins nodded their head before they had to dodge a couple of arrows heading their way. They then flash frozen the water around them, cladding their bodies in frozen armor, all while growling loudly.

I snapped my head to the ground, where I saw Yorshka confronting the adventurers. Most looked nervously at her, but a few were laughing maniacally despite coughing up dust. Yorshka approached them slowly, cautiously, but the enemy immediately rushed at her.

Taking my duty as her support seriously, I reached my hand out and poured my mana around that area, conjuring a green magic circle. Invoking [Cyclone Madness], a viscous tornado of slicing wind appeared, creating an invisible wall between the two opponents. As people began to turn away from the wyverns and bring their attention to me, I let my golem serpent slam its head on the ground.

“Wooooaaah!” People were flung in the air before I sent ice daggers flying at my enemies. No mercy.

The twins began to unleash their wyvern breaths, turning this portion of the forest into an icy paradise. Trees were freezing in place while ice daggers were scattered on the ground. Yorshka called them dragonkin slayers, but it didn’t seem like they were putting up too much of a challenge.

Yorshka, after all, was already taking advantage of the chaos the three of us were creating. Like an assassin, she took out the opposition pretty easily. This … didn’t feel like a challenge at all, especially after the Elyonda and Port Annencia sieges. Compared to when our backs were up against the wall fighting against an army of grimgarians, undead, demonkins, and a rank SS leviathan, this felt like …

… Forget it. Comparing a war with this small skirmish is unhealthy.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Fairy, Tasianna Marina Silverpond]’s Secondary Job [Imperial Guard] has risen from [Level 8] to [Level 14]

Attributes have increased due to level up

And so, we remained at this location after our enemies were slain. A couple of people had wanted to approach us, but after seeing the numerous dead bodies around, they seemed to change their mind and just avoided us. It was better this way.

After catching her breath, Yorshka told us she would look for the students, while I suggested for the twins and I to stay behind, considering this was a great landmark for everybody to congregate at. After glancing at her party finder, Yorshka departed.

[“Calm before the storm.,”] Shay expressed, shaking his leg.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Fairy, Tasianna Marina Silverpond]’s Secondary Job [Imperial Guard] has risen from [Level 14] to [Level 16]

Attributes have increased due to level up

As time went on while we talked to each other, a Divine message entered my mind. My Job’s level was going up but we weren’t hunting anybody. This could only mean one thing.

“Tasianna! Shay and Beth, too! Ha ha ha ha!” The first people to join us were none other than the saurians with Tehmrayn in tow.

Saint Kushlek’zar was laughing merrily while Akasht, Krim-Slak, and Caszcur were dragging the bodies of the monsters they had killed. Champion Tehmrayn, as usual, was stoic before he found a place to sit down.

“Hey, Tasianna, how about we start making some grub?” Krim-Slak suggested, much to the delight of the wyverns as they couldn’t help but lick their lips.

With a campfire lit, we all began to dismantle the monsters in preparations for some lunch. Using the dungeon’s flora, we even found some fruits and spices to add to our meal. During all of this, more and more of our party found their way to us.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Fairy, Tasianna Marina Silverpond]’s Secondary Job [Imperial Guard] has risen from [Level 16] to [Level 20]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Kohaku and Rudigan were the first, with the former waving at us while covered completely in blood and dirt. Apparently, the two of them had to contend against a horde of monster right after they found each other. They also met a few other adventurers, but most were friendly or at least averse to attacking other adventurers, especially with Rudigan around. With a student around, we had access to [Storage Magic], again.

The next were Midirn and a group of dragonewt warriors hailing from one of our support parties. Elven rangers, dwarven soldiers, and even human knights also managed to find us, all joining up as our base camp grew and grew. At this point, it seemed like a war camp.

Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Fairy, Tasianna Marina Silverpond]’s Secondary Job [Imperial Guard] has risen from [Level 20] to [Level 25]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Max level of Job   [Imperial Guard] has been reached

As more and more of our support parties began to arrive, so did our own members. Azelfa, Misaki, and Princess Fargryneill found us next, to which Fargryneill complained how the former was too cautious, slowing them down.

Soon, Ellaine, Grimnir, and Kazumi reached the gathering point, followed by Yorshka, Farron, and Nishio, who were the last to arrive. For a stage where hide-and-seek was emphasized, it was certainly pretty easy when we made our location conspicuous.

Congratulations, you have fulfilled the goal of this stage. The party leader may accept to be transported to the next floor, bringing all their party members with them

And that was my cue, but we waited a bit until everyone had settled a bit. Once we made sure everybody was accounted for, I called everybody for a meeting. To assure nobody could overhear us, I erected a giant [Air Shield] around everybody before I began my speech.

“Everybody, this is a quick reminder! We are all here as an alliance; Ankor-Nazta, Artorias, Saelariel, Loatryx, Estralia, Yeos, and Caedhul! Each of your individual countries have sent you here to aid all of us in our journey to the depths of this place. All of us managed to survive the first stage, but there are still 14 more!” I stated to draw everybody’s attention. “Let me tell you we appreciate this. All of us for your aide! There are many enemies lying before us, even with the many culled today. However, let us not be overconfident and remind ourselves that our combined survival and success will be a boon to all our countries!”

I raised my fist up, trying to channel what I had learned from Princess Hestia and Miss Saori when it came to speeches. With them both away, it was my duty to take over as the third member of Aurora.

“I can see from your eyes some of you have your grievances!” I looked at the humans of Artorias, Estralia, and Yeos being eyed at by the elven rangers. “However, lay your hatred and biases aside for now! All of us are here to fight for the alliance of the western countries! We fight not for ourselves, but for our lords, ladies, countrymen, kin, gods, and friends! Do not forget! This is not a competition between us, but a competition of all of us against everybody else! If we succeed in this Quest, all of us will bring honor, rewards, and prestige back to our homes! As the representative of Aurora and Dragon Princess Hestia Atsuko KARGRYXMOR! Have I made myself clear, ladies and gentlemen?!”

“YES! FOR KING DRANGLEIC! FOR THE GODDESS!” the knights of Artorias shouted, bringing unsheathing their weapons in salute.

In unison, the knights of Yeos did the same, finding some companionship with their fellow humans. “FOR THE CHAMPION OF YEOSTAR AND THE ROYAL FAMILY! FOR GOD YEOSTAR AND THE GODDESS!”

“Origdila haikeli, Saelari wictorii!” (Origin Gods watch us, victory for the Saelari!) The elven rangers, mages, and fighters cheered, joining the dwarves as they patted each other on the backs.

“Umslid kain, kawuk kaan, fie Crustacia!” (Honor lost, in death regained, for Crustacia!) the dwarves roared like cannons before raising their weapons at the humans. “For our alliance! For our gods! For our KINGS! The throng is mustered for our akong allies!”

“RAISE IT HIGHER, TAZONGS!” Rudigan bellowed out, stomping forward with his weapon and shield up high. “HIGHER, HIGHER, TO SHOW THEM OUR COURAGE!”

“Dragonewts!” Midirn, intoxicated by the atmosphere, raised his, too. “WHO DO WE FIGHT FOR?!”

“PRINCESS FARGRYNEILL! PRINCESS FARGRYNEILL! PRINCESS FARGRYNEILL!” The dragonewts went rapidly, ramming the ground with their weapons as if they were beasts. “PRINCESS HESTIA! PRINCESS HESTIA! PRINCESS HESTIA!”

“For the aquapolis!” Although at a lesser intensity, the Caedhulen forces joined their neighbours in Loatryx.

The only ones who were quiet were the Estralian forces, but that was okay. All of them were working on the bankroll of Reajaen and they were all here for money. Us succeeding meant they would profit the most. Some of them were even beastmen, so they probably didn’t have any real relations to Estralia, unlike Artorais and Yeos being combined in faith.

Regardless, with that, the morale was at an all-time high. It was time for all of us to proceed to the next floor.

You may always rely on me, Princess Hestia. Miss Saori. I am Aurora’s third pillar!

Acquisition requirement fulfilled. [Leadership Lv. 1] acquired

Nighttime had finally graced the capital of the Ankor-Nazta, Inkoran-Tazul. The wild festive nature of the Event Quest hadn’t died down, but it was far less intense than what happened in the morning. People were celebrating this “Divine Quest,” as most considered it as such, while the few who managed to survive the first floor were telling stories about it.

About how an army was already being built while rumors of an alliance were spreading. Naturally, most assumed it was the dwarves, dragonewts, Caedhulens, and elves would were allying with each other. Anybody with some knowledge of the current political spectrum should be able to guess that.

“That’s why I’m not joining! I ain’t here to get an arrow in my brain just ‘cuz some knife-ear wants some revenge ‘cuz of our dumb ancestors!”

“You want to say that, again, human? We can deal with this outside where the gods can see me stitch that mouth up.”

Racial tension was at an all-time high as dwarves, humans, scalekins, and elves argued who would be the true winners of this Event. In fact, some of the more educated understood this wasn’t a case of which country or race would win, but rather it was a case of which blessed, high official, and respective warriors would gain a unique Job.

“Aye, this is all about the countries rekindling their alliances! You ain’t letting some random soldier win it all, you give it to a blessed! Lord Rudigan! AYE!” The dwarves gave a toast to one of their Champions of Crustacia. “I saw him today! He’s in this to win!”

“The stonebeards are correct, I saw bishop Azelfa in the crowd, walking around with some humans, scalekins, and dwarves. It's clear our leaders are planning something here, and they won’t let anybody win but them. Those poor fools who entered this Event!”

“Hmm? Humans? You gotta be kidding me, knife-ear. Humans? They got some allies? Who? You gotta mean Aleistunum mages, you elves would accept no other humans, after all.”

“He’s right,” a naga agreed with a random human adventurer. “From what I've heard, the majority of the elder council of Saelariel wants to isolate the rest of the continent. Even suggested a magical barrier to segregate every human from the west.”

One of the dwarves shook his head before taking a drink from his mug. “Not much that I would know about, Caedhulen. Enough about this politics, I say! I rather speak about—Dragonewt, what in Goddess Aurena’s wings are you smirking about.”

“N-nothing.” The dragonewts in the bar tried to keep themselves composed, for most knew what was going on as they saw everything that was happening in the Loatryxian embassy. However, knowing their dragon princess was inside this Event, they wanted to keep themselves quiet.

This was just one of many bar events happening, all talking about what was happening today. Some informed others about the challenge on the first floors while a couple managed to make it to the second before surrendering. Suffice to say, Inkoran-Tazul would continue to feel the benefits of this Event for months to come … aside from a certain dwarven king.

“WHAT?!” Ankoran King Fugnarus shouted as he stood up from his desk. Pale and disheveled, the many weeks leading up to this Event Quest did not help the overworked and exhausted King much. “Th-the dungeon master is dead? H-how IN CRUSTACIA’S NAME DO WE ONLY KNOW ABOUT THIS NOW?!”

The dwarves standing before the man cowered, looking troubled as they delivered the message. High Queen Tragaya, Fugnarus’s wife calmed him down, allowing the messengers to speak.

“I-imposters, sir. The earthshakers and samurais guarding the dungeon master were disguised black mercs; we managed to capture all of them. They are zuekluks who have sold any hope of regaining their honor by tricking us. We execu—”

“I DON’T CARE!” Fugnarus bashed his fist on the table. “What happened to the dungeon master?! How did they trick us up until now? I thought we had constant updates about his safety?”

“The prisoners explained their employer handed them a man able to imitate others well. Writing style, speaking voice; he never left their house, saying he don’t want to be annoyed unless something was wrong with the dungeon or his family. He was working on some mantech!” the messenger summarized everything. “The guards were all in on it. We only found out 'cuz the person disguised as our dungeon master wasn’t responding. The prisoners said they had to depart for the day!”

Oh no. No, no, no!

“… Then you’re telling me the dungeon master of the rank B [Menagerie of Golems] dungeon was killed? And we haven’t heard of this for weeks? You are telling me I sent the youngest daughter of Eltharion into that masterless dungeon?” Fugnarus took a large gulp, audible to everybody in the room. The mental drain he had felt all this time was replaced by adrenaline, heightening his attention.

With its old master dead, the dungeon core was now able to accept a new owner. Even without one, the core could continue to function as it normally did, only, it would now actively try to kill anybody getting closer to the final stage. Any number of unfair tactics would be used to eliminate any percieved threat, whether small or large.

“… So it’s either a masterless core … or the person who killed the old dungeon master has now taken over the dungeon.” Fugnarus stood up, only for his wife to grab his arm. “Tragaya, I need to right this wrong.”

“And potentially die? Do you even understand how important you are to our—”

“The lass dying would be an even harder blow to everything!” he reproached his queen, shaking her arm off him, only for Tragaya to grab her husband’s hair and slam him on the table. “Tragaya!”

Runes lit up on Tragaya’s bracelets, increasing her strength to the point she could momentarily overpower her King; however, the once-capable adventurer broke through her grip without using his own tools. Both husband and wife stared at each other, anger and worry clear for both to see.

The first to speak was the queen. “You are the Ankoran King now, not some random adventurer. Your pride, your honor, your conscience does not matter in the face of our home’s safety! You left those out of the door the moment we married and you became our High King. Listen to me, King Fugnarus, I am your wise-woman. This is my advice to you: call for aid!”

“Bring this up to the other countries?! Are you insane?! That affects our own pride here as a race! Our trustworthiness. Mine! I need to right this wrong, I need to save Princess Hestia. How long has she been stuck inside?!”

Over a week had passed without Hestia informing her friends and allies. They knew she was alive due to [Hestia’s Retainer], but what if something happened to her?

“Do you want the guilt of sending that lass into her death?” Fugnarus raised his finger, baring his sharp fangs, showing his beastmen legacy. “I will not let her die. Not like I allowed our so—”

Bang! A slap.

“Do not bring him up … Do not bring him up, Fugnarus!” The queen’s voice quivered, weakened by the memory of their deceased child.

“… I allowed him to go. To die. You understand the rage of a mother. Do you even comprehend the consequences if Hestia’s mother wakes up?! Inkoran-Tazul would be doomed!” Fugnarus couldn’t stop his legs any longer and he began to move away from his wife, speaking to one of the messengers. “The damn guilds have already failed at their jobs, but give me a detailed list of who entered the damn dungeon! I want everybody! Did a dragonslayer enter it?”

“We are not su—”

“Then confirm it! If even a single dragonkin slayer slipped in, disguising themselves as a normal adventurer, that would make this into a massive diplomatic emergency. This entire alliance would fall apart if Hestia dies! Wake up my retainers, get them up! We need to dive into a damn dungeon!”

With those orders, the King stormed the room much to his wife’s chagrin. Tragaya slammed the table with her fist, only to do it thrice more out of anger. She then snapped her head to the petrified messenger.

“Bladdarg! Send a message to King Drangleic, Prince Markval, King Elutis, and the representatives of the kinkyuro about what happened. Get them to help us! Curse pride, Earth Mother be my witness!” She wrapped her hand into a fist. “Whoever this is, they will suffer for endangering my country! The throng will be ready!”

The mild-mannered queen rushed out of the room, heading after her stubborn husband. As his wife and lover, she would not allow him to risk his life and would stop at nothing to prevent him from going. On the other hand, the King bared his fangs at the enemies below, those who dared to endanger the wedge keeping this alliance of the western countries together.

Lass, stay alive until I arrive!

Name: Tasianna Marina Silverpond Level: 100 Race: Wind Elf

Age: 88 Years Main: Faemancer Level: 25/25

Secondary: Imperial Guard Level: 25/25

Unique: Locked

Status: Health: 4251 (+815) Mana: 16489 (+5046)

Strength:1320 (+331) Intelligence: 5268(+1382)

Vitality: 1632 (+450) Wisdom: 3928 (+1078)

Agility: 6002 (+1964) Stamina: 5120 (+979)

Effects: [Elvenized (Major)]

Skill Points: 550 (18500 SP spent)

Unique Skill: [Fae Frost Lv. 2] (New)

Skill: Magic skills and related:

[Fairy Magic] [Arcane Mind Lv. 10] [Ice Magic Lv. 5]

[Water Magic Lv. 10] [Torrent Magic Lv. 6] [Water Amp]

[Water Magic Efficiency] [Wind Magic Lv. 10] [Wind Amp]

[Wind Magic Efficiency] [Storm Magic Lv. 6] (+2)

[Synergist’s Oath Lv. 10] (+2)

[Chant Revocation Lv. 10] [Silent Casting Lv. 10] (+1)

[Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 10] (+2) [Mental Stability Lv. 7] (+2)

[Mental Warfare Lv. 8] (+1) [Fluid Cast Lv. 5] (+1)

[Continuous Cast Lv. 5] (+1) [Delayed Cast Lv. 4] (+1) [Multi-Cast Lv. 10] (+3)

Senses and movement skills:

[Silence Lv. 4] (+1) [Accuracy Correction Lv. 10]

[Detection Sensor Lv. 2] (+1) [Foresight Lv. 2] (+1)

[Danger Perception Lv. 10] (+1) [Enhanced Vision Lv. 8]

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 7] [Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 8]

[Night Vision Lv. 8] (+1) [Tracking Lv. 5] [Odorless Lv. 1] (New)

[Evasion Lv. 10] [Acrobatic Lv. 10] [Air Walk Lv. 3] (+2)

[Aviation Master Lv. 1] (New) [Superior Aerial Fighter Lv. 1] (New)

[Concentration Lv. 10] [Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 6] (+2)

Resistance:

[Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 7] (+5) [Absolute Pain Tolerance]

[Abnormal Status Nullification] [Mana Leak Resistance Lv. 10]

[Ice Resistance Lv. 7] (+1) [Lightning Resistance Lv. 10] (+7)

[Lava Resistance Lv. 10] (+5) [Sacred Resistance Lv. 2] (+1)

[Inferno Resistance Lv. 10] (+5) [Torrent Resistance Lv. 3] (+1)

[Terra Resistance Lv. 1] (New) [Storm Resistance Lv. 4] (+1)

[Tenebrous Resistance Lv. 1] [Fear Resistance Lv. 4] (New)

Stat growth and related:

[Health Recovery Lv. 3] (+1) [Stamina Recovery Lv. 8]

[Enhanced Health Growth Lv. 1]

[Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 5] (+1)

[Arcane Conduit Lv. 8] (+7)[Sorcerer’s Power Lv. 1] (New)

[Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 2] (+1)

[Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 4] (+2)

[Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 4] (+2)

[Sage’s Wisdom Lv. 4] (New) [Speed of Sound Lv. 1] (New)

[Unyielding Endurance Lv. 1] (New)

Others:

[Singing Lv. 10] (+2) [Dancing Lv. 7] (+2) [Identify Blocker Lv. 10]

[Identify Lv. 10] [Cooking Lv. 10] (+1) [Dismantle Lv. 8]

[Herbalist Lv. 9] (+1) [Alchemy Lv. 6] (+2) [Brewing Lv. 9] (+1)

[Sewing Lv. 4] [Tranquil Mind Lv. 1] (New)

[Tyrant’s Aura Lv. 1] (New) [Fae Talk Lv. 3] (+1) [Royal Etiquette Lv. 8] (+1)

[Thought Acceleration Lv. 1] (New) [High-Speed Calculation Lv. 1] (New)

[Elvenize Lv. 10] [Frost Body Lv. 10] (+7) [Leadership Lv. 1] (New)

[Cryokinesis] [Telepathy]

Job Skill: [Fae Talk Lv. 5] [Faefolk Aura Lv. 5]

Magic List: Custom spells:

[Create Water] [Greater Create Water] [Marine Lungs] [Ocean’s Blast]

[Aifli eir Vintral (Fairy of Winter)] [Tor Eiclere’s Finulaflei (Ice Age’s Paradise)]

[Slithering Frost Serpent]

Ice spells:

[Ice Spike] [Frozen Shield] [Icicle Gust] [Glacial Protection]

[Winter’s Golem] [Liquid Winter]

Water spells:

[Water Ball] [Water Wall] [Water Bolt] [Cleanse] [Protective Water]

[Droplet Torrent] [Aqua Prison] [Aqua Beam] [Torrential Rain]

[Ocean Healing] [Azure Blade] [Sapphire Membrane]

[Kraken’s Destruction] [Perilous Tidefall]

Wind spells:

[Wind Bullet] [Wind Cutter] [Air Shield] [Wind Slash]

[Swift Winds] [Wind Blast] [Featherfall] [Aerial Blitz] [Tornado Bullet]

[Sylphid’s Cloak] [Tailwind] [Cyclone Madness] [Hammerfist Bellow]

[Flight Zone]

Title: [Hestia’s Imperial Guard] (New)

A note from AbyssRaven

The table changed style because I needed to a find a way to not over stress my wrist and that's the compromise. Probably will change them in the future as preserving my hands is more important to me than making blue boxes.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 402: Everybody Loves Dungeon Loot!

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #2 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! It works on a subscription base now, so pay on the same date next month!

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Experience for development Jobs has reached multiple breaking points.

[Star Idol]: Lv. 0 -> Lv. 25 | Reset accumulation finished | Prestige 3 Lv. 6

[Fire Mage]: Lv. 3 -> Lv. 30 | Reset accumulation finished | Prestige 8 Lv. 7

[Tyrant Hatchling]: Lv. 6 -> Lv. 25 | Reset accumulation finished | Prestige 6 Lv. 16

Evolution Points: 24/30

Prestige requirement achieved! Job max level has increased. Experienced accumulation and reward quality increased.

[Fire Mage] Max level -> 35

You may spend your prestige points when you are ready

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled.   [Idol Lv. 6] [Mana Eyes Lv. 8] [Draconic Aura Lv. 5] [Scale Manipulation Lv. 5] gained

Good Morning, to those in Anko-Nazta’s Inkoran-Tazul! Regardless of where you are or who you are, the Origin Gods wish all of you a fine WaterDay. Today marks the beginning of the first Event Quest after the implementation of the unique Job System. Participation in the rank A dungeon [Manethala’s Nest] …

[Various Spell Buffs] [Blessing of the Goddess of Light (Major)] [Music Resonation] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Yikes. Big yikes.

Morphtronic Shiegydios: A golem specially made by a dungeon to act as its core boss. With a flexible frame made from many pieces, its mana allows it to assume various forms to decimate any opposition. Its main form allows it to act as a siege engine, able to break down any wall or gate with its giant horns. Created in the form of a bipedal earth drake, its specialized front arms allows it to punch, grab, and smash to dissuade both monster and humanoid enemies. Extremely high vitality but crippling low wisdom. Rank B

Race: Morphtronic Shiegydios Level: 40

Health: 30000

Vitality: 10000

Wisdom: 500

This wasn’t the 25th floor, this was only the 20th. This was not the end boss, this was just a mid-boss, a floor guardian. Yes, this monster with health and vitality far higher than mine was just a mid-boss. Talk about an unfair dungeon, really.

From the look of the System message, the 10th of AutumnSun had finally arrived, meaning the Event Quest had officially begun and my friends were probably already in their dungeon by now. I wished them good luck and hoped to see them again … Strangely, I had more faith in their survival than mine at this point.

This boss seemed easy, right? Just use magic, it had 500 wisdom, probably lower than most rank Ds. Since Vifi’Yok recovered, she should have been able to use her lightning magic again to supplement my own arsenal. Well, there was one major issue.

During this battle, an anti-elemental magic field will be deployed, reducing all elemental damage from spells, runes, enchantments, and abilities to zero. Neutral mana attacks and any non-elemental damage sources will work as normal

That was the big problem.

“Guuuuuhn!” The golem roared as it detected Tatsuya, Kyouya, and me in my dragon form. The entrance we came through closed right up, blocking our way back.

The golem’s mechanical pieces rattled and clanged around as rammed their thick, developed arms on the ground, pointing a trio of triceratops-like horns in our direction. In the position of a sprinter on the starting position, the front horn of the monster snapped down, turning into a spear with a loud metal clunk!

Crap! Humanize!

[Humanize (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

As I noticed the backside of the golem transform into a cylinder, reminding me a bit too much of a cannon, my [Foresight] and [Danger Perception] activated, prompting me to turn back into my dragonewt form from my dragon self. Using my smaller frame, I slipped right under the monster’s horns with the boys. As we ran for it, Tatsuya noted how it was turning around to follow us.

Drifting like a car, the beast swerved around this dome-like chamber, redirecting its charge trajectory. I cast [Hydra] to act as our shield, while Kyouya created a black wall with his armor before I healed him. The room said we couldn’t deal damage from elemental magic, but unlike the anti-magic area we encountered in the monster room, this room's gimmick was far less dangerous.

With Kyouya’s wall blocking the monster’s sight, we managed to dodge out of the way as it rammed right into it, landing into my trap with the [Hydra], constricting its movement. Although it couldn’t deal any damage with its flame, the acidic toxins I planted in the corrosive slime of my spell was causing the beast’s body to sizzle.

Undeterred by the pain, the mid-boss lit up before it blew up like a bomb, sending the peices of both my [Hydra]’s and its own body flying across the room. However, the boss' parts reversed course and returned to the blast's epicenter, reforming itself back into its previous form before it began punching the ground. The boys and I kept dodging before I found a moment to cast [Terra Wall], tripping it before I used [Humanize], once again.

[Humanize (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Enjoy the show!” I shouted before I activated my [Aerokinesis] and readied [Draconic Roar]. “Is this the fated battle, the light shines ♫

It’s blinding my sight ♫

But I’ve gotta hold on, the stage calls ♫

The cries of a thousand, the flames of war will descend ♫”

My empowered voice blasted the creature away with a sonic attack. When I checked on it with [Mana Eyes], I confirmed it could take damage from my audio-based attacks, as they were technically elementless.

With [The Will to Fight and Survive] boosting everybody’s stamina regeneration, the boys went into action as they executed their part in this plan. I technically could have played a second song now that my [Star Idol] had [Musical Renaissance Diva]—allowing two spell songs to apply their effect simultaneously—but I didn't have another song to help out with.

The best second song would be [The Heir of Hope], which provided everybody with a 10% boost in their stats and a shield, but it also applied the holy element to everybody’s physical attacks. As the rules of the room mentioned, ANY elemental attacks would have their damage reduced to zero. I would effectively cripple the boys’ attack with it. [Prayer]’s 30% boost with [Blessing of the Goddess (Major)] would have to be good enough.

As the beast pushed itself up and turned one of its arm into a large shield to block my sonic attack, Tatsuya began to physically morph into a werewolf, letting loose an ear-splitting howl. Now covered with black fur, razor-sharp claws, and a ferocious look, he ingested three fulinoe leaves and activated [All-In].

“Going for strength now! Boost me!” Tatsuya stopped a bit away from the monster, readying his spear.

The boss, probably with its skills, noticed Kyouya's continued approach, prompting the monster to turn one of its arm into a cannon. Just like the monster room golem, it began shooting mana blasts at the boys, but Kyouya once again used his unique Skill to produce protective walls.

Unlike the monster room, though, I could still cast spells so I overlapped three [Sacred Field] over the boys, giving them some healing-over-time as this was happening. Kyouya was even using some holy flame grenades as burst heals to top himself up instead of using up our few remaining potions.

With his shadow armor, he was protected from the explosion, allowing him to stand his ground and continue creating more walls while I kept the boss mostly preoccupied with my voice. Still, the golem managed to push back, eventually running into the ideal spot for Tatsuya to [Dragoon Jump] into the air and [Dragoon Dive] right into the back of the golem with [All-In].

With all the buffs and [Prayer], his total strength skyrocketed to the point the golem was pushed back by a level 94 human. Somebody this guardian floor boss shouldn’t even consider a threat!

Still, it wasn’t a killing blow due to the monster's higher defence, but that was okay! With all of this happening, it gave my [Hydra] just enough time to regenerate and grab its legs, pulling it closer to me. The golem fell onto its back with Tatsuya jumping off it just in time. However, instead of helplessly accepting its death, the thing morphed its hands into two hooks which it used to anchor itself on to the ground.

Once again, the mechanical parts of this clearly stone golem began to loosen, escaping my slime golem. With its split body, it turned one part into a large cannon and readied a mana blast at us. The boys ran back to me as I poured my mana into the ground in front of me, leaving a magic circle there.

The boys gulped as the cannon continued charging powers while my hydra kept the golem’s other half from joining its cannon side. With a bellowing, ear-splitting sound, the mana cannon shot its blast at us, signaling our plan’s last stage!

“Warp Point: Entry!” I shouted, opening a portal in front of me that led back to a room on the 19th floor of the dungeon where I had [Warp Point: Exit] placed.

With a wide grin, the boys and I watched as the blast entered the portal, probably blowing up the room inside and releasing a massive shockwave, one which didn’t affect us as we were on the other side of the portal! Instead, the golem was caught by its own backblast, causing it to crash against the wall.

However, this wasn’t all. There was a very good reason why Vifi’Yok and Rajah weren’t here in this room with us, and it wasn’t due to us getting lost or separated. I had a map, for goodness sake. They were just hanging back for this very moment. This moment of our plan we made during our scouting!

“Mreeeeewww!” Rajah roared as he jumped out of the shadow with Vifi’Yok on his back, holding onto my spear.

“The crack I made! That’s where the mana core is!” Tatsuya shouted, pointing at a small loose part on the golem cannon.

Vifi’Yok didn’t respond back as she readied to jump off Rajah. My battle cat used [Dark Tendrils] from the shadow cast by the golem’s frame due to the light from [Sacred Field]. Just like Saori, he sling shotted himself forward, allowing Vifi’Yok to jump off him and ram my spear right into where the core was, pinning it into the wall.

“Guururaaaaahhhh!!!” The golem roared out as its core broke, causing its pieces to rattle like crazy, looking like the thing was about to explode.

“Out!” I hadn’t expected this to happen, but it was convenient I had a portal open. The five of us quickly escaped through the portal before I closed it.

“… That could have been easier if your sister was around,” Vifi’Yok complained. “We wouldn’t have to plan all of this for that long.”

“Oh shut it,” I threw a donut towards her, causing her smug face to brighten up before she devoured it.

Well, that was how this boss should be handled when the dungeon was a pure mess of unfairness. I mean, come on, 10000 vitality? Good thing a golem’s weakness was their mana core, similar to a slime, otherwise this would have been pretty impossible.

Acid to weaken armor, Tatsuya to land a singular attack to crack the defenses open after I located its mana core, and Kyouya keeping everything stable with his walls. Then, just use Vifi’Yok stats as a level 150 demonkin of wrath soldier to end the thing outright. That strategy was easy enough to pull off.

Experience for development Jobs has reached multiple breaking points.

[Star Idol]: Lv. 6 -> Lv. 25 | Reset accumulation finished | Prestige 4 Lv. 24

[Fire Mage]: Lv. 7 -> Lv. 35 | Reset accumulation finished | Prestige 9 Lv. 20

[Tyrant Hatchling]: Lv. 16 -> Lv. 25 | Reset accumulation finished | Prestige 7 Lv. 15

Evolution Points: 27/30

Prestige requirement achieved! Job max level has increased. Experienced accumulation and reward quality increased.

[Star Idol] Max Level-> 30

[Tyrant Hatchling] Max Level -> 30

[Star Idol] Prestige Points: 4

[Fire Mage] Prestige Points: 4

[Tyrant Hatchling] Prestige Points: 7

You may spend your prestige points when you are ready

“…” The five of us, Rajah included, could only stare into the chest left behind by the guardian boss. It was in pristine condition, unaffected by the explosion of the boss unlike the rest of the room, which looked like it had expanded a bit if you ignored how much rubble there was on the ground. The place looked like a landfill.

We all sighed as I picked the one item inside it: a stick.

Wooden stick: A stick from a normal tree

“The fact it emphasized the ‘normal’ part really makes it feel like its mocking us.” Tatsuya glowered at the thing before I threw it away like any other piece of trash.

“Something is seriously wrong with this dungeon,” Kyouya expressed. His eyes were twitching like crazy, looking annoyed at the effort he put it into killing this thing, only for our reward to be some miscellaneous throwaway.

“You should have realized this the moment the dungeon master placed a trap in front of the path to the fifth floor.” Vifi’Yok shook her head, looking actually mad at this feeling of being scammed. “State-owned dungeons—whether managed by humans, dwarves, or demonkins—are structured to make your adventurer feel ‘welcomed.’ Not too hard, good rewards, and a decent challenge for the rank.”

“… This is the last straw.”

Would the Ankoran King want to kill me? If you thought about it logically, probably no, as the dwarves were not only allied to Kargryx but the King knew my mother was around. She might be asleep, but if he were to send me into my death, his realm probably wouldn’t last long after she woke up. She was a rank SS, after all.

There was a difference of being put in my place due to my lack of political power and wanting to kill me, but that was probably something Mom would only chastise them for. Meaning, the Ankoran King couldn’t have known this when he sent me deep down to this hellhold. He probably didn’t even expect the dragonslayers, since the report never noted them.

Sooo … what were the other options for whatever's going on here?

“Dungeon master killed and the core overtaken, or the dungeon master is going rogue?” I suggested, at least that was all that my imagination could come up with, considering the rules I knew. Tatsuya, Kyouya, and Rajah agreed while Vifi’Yok just stayed silent. “… No suggestions?”

She looked me in the eyes, the brightness from before having vanished from her irises. “Does it matter? Regardless of whatever the situation is, we need to proceed forward. Set a trap for the dragonslayers, kill them, and then speak with those students. That’s your plan, right? If you’re so scared of the dungeon core, then just avoid it and we’ll be good.”

I frowned before sighing, realizing her mood probably dropped after the disappointing treasure chest rewards. I pulled out a sugar-glazed donut, dangling it in front of Vifi’Yok as she jerked back. Her eyes were fixed on it.

One of the lessons Klea’Hatma taught me had finally become useful, and that was the fact demonkins of wrath were pretty emotional beings. To the point they had an entire “low emotional potential,” or L.E.P for short, where they turn depressed. By increasing their emotions, they become stronger, but if it was too low then you get this grouchy, bull-headed demonkin girl here.

The fix? Donuts, sweets, and pastries. In the few days we’ve spent together getting through this dungeon, I’ve learned just how much she loved bread, even the plain kind. In addition, she hated fish, as in if she had something better to eat, she would throw it all away. She once told me she hated wasting food due to having to live as a street urchin when she was younger, but due to her hometown’s abundance of fish, to the point they would rot from oversupply, she wouldn’t eat them freely.

“… You do this too often, and people will start biting your hand,” she said before snatching the donut away. Her eyes regained some radiance and I saw her fangs and claws grow in size, a sign her [Excited] levels increased.

The boys and I watched her as she devoured the piece of pastry like some starving lion before she began to lick her lips and fingers. I watched her finish before asking a different question, “… You really can’t use your demonkin abilities, huh? That was a perfect moment to use it to ensure you kill it. Even if we hit its weak spot, that’s still 10000 Vitality to work through.”

I inspected my glaive. There was no damage on it, courtesy of Grimnir’s craftsmanship, but I was still a bit worried.

“Two points: the polearm is well-made, to the point a former Warbringer like me wants to keep it as a personal weapon, and secondly, skills. Skills matter a lot, as you should know.” Vifi’Yok sighed, but looked more enervated compared to before. Her face was emoting more, showcasing how troubled she was on the matter. “As I said before, it’s the price I paid for surviving your last attack. [Original Sin: Satanael] prevents a deathblow, but at the cost of my ability to go over 15% in any of my emotions.”

“Meaning you can’t use your lightning arms or conjure up your elemental weapons,” Tatsuya ended her sentence, since she gave us a quick summary of her situation to make sure we understood her strengths.

At best when she gets 15% in [Excited] [Anger] and [Fear], she will manifest her demonkin horns, tails, and a few other, minor features, but that was about it. She was extremely weakened compared to when I fought her. I initially thought it was just a temporary thing, but it seems that it was permanent. Simply the cost of using an [Original Sin] ability. A Faustian deal, in other words.

After we settled things here, we entered the next floor, where we found another change in scenery. This time the decrepit ruins setting was completely gone, instead replaced by just an earthen cave. As in, it was your stock-standard cave you could find anywhere; boring and uninspired, really, but fitting for the continued theme of this dungeon. The first floors looked beautiful but old, while the deeper you went, the more the ruins were being overtaken by nature and looked like some horror crypt.

Without the shining runes on the walls, this cave was consumed by complete darkness. Like the void, it was impossible for anybody to see in here without [Night Vision]. For the boys, I had to light up my catalyst.

[“Mrew. Master, I can smell something sweet nearby. Do you want me to lead?”] Rajah suggested, to which I agreed. According to the map, this zone of the dungeon was a “quality over quantity” area, where the number of rank Ds and Cs dropped significantly and you could only find rank Bs.

As we followed my virigress, the sweet scent Rajah mentioned became noticeable. When we stopped in front of the room, we all grimaced as we saw the source of it: a fruit situated on a piece of land in a room full of traps.

I sighed and cast [Wrap Point: Entry] and [Warp Point: Exit], using the portal for a short distance teleportation to avoid everything to snatch the fruit. We appraised it.

Sweet Tofel: A toffel which emits a sweet scent but is actually poisonous. Do not eat

“…”

Correction, it was a vegetable, not a fruit. With that done, we threw the piece of junk away before going towards a safe spot the map showed us. We avoided any potential threats on the way, but strangely, there was barely anything here. As in, I couldn’t find any enemies with [Detection Sensor]. Weird, but also unnerving.

“Uhm, you guys think whoever is doing all this is planning something? Couldn’t they just summon a bunch of monsters to attack us if they don’t want us to reach the core?” Kyouya asked, so I put on some music for him to listen to calm his mind.

“Dungeons have resources, too,” Vifi’Yok began. “The more you want to add a new floor or monster, or even a trick room, you need to spend mana. However, you have a finite amount since you need new mana to come in from the outside. You know, dungeon mana decomposes dead adventurers for more mana. It’s how a dungeon grows. It can’t spam monsters, otherwise it would eat through everything.”

“Well, good thing we saved up on using spells with the last guardian boss. We also couldn’t use any spells on the monster room boss, so that probably spoiled things for whoever is managing this place,” I concluded. “Well, whatever. I say we can deal with it later, so let’s take a break. I want to take a look at our loot now that we know the 20th floor is a dud.”

“Woo!” Tatsuya cheered.

We saved this fun part for now since it was just more fun to gather everything and compare it. Why do it individually, when we could just have an appraisal session with everything at once!

Once we took our seats, Tatsuya rubbed his hands together, feeling giddy about everything, before pulling things out of his storage. Within included the contents of the level 10th floor boss room and the monster room we narrowly defeated.

Ooh, boy, 10th floor, first! Mana Eyes!

Gold ingot: An ingot made from gold. Sell it!

Five of them, too. Nice.

Gauntlets of Arm Strength: A pair of gauntlets which increase the power of melee attacks done with your hands. Low defensive values due to weak monster materials, but the skills compensate

Vitality Power: 112

Wisdom Power: 41

Skills: [Skill Usage Restriction: Arms] [All-Damage Enhancement Lv. 1] [Mana Efficiency Lv. 10] [Mana Conductor Lv. 10]

Trash.

“Oh, hey, that doesn’t look too bad!” Tatsuya noted along with Kyouya’s agreement, causing me to snap my head around to them. Unnerved by my weird look, he explained his reasoning. “[Skill Usage- Restriction] is what the Empire likes to put on their armor. The church of Aurena knight use them all the time so they can funnel better skills into the armor. Usually, they focus on either defense or skills with their armor, not both.”

Kyouya nodded his head. “Grimnir is a master smith, don’t forget that, Hestia. Most of the equipment you see on standard issue equipment is stuff like this, since most people can't afford to put a lot of monster materials in them. Once you use monster materials to enhance them, they get better!”

… Wait, this was actually standard? I was baffled at this, but then again, I rarely ever appraise a random person’s armor since it just didn’t make sense. The only times I appraised equipment was … Hold on, the only times I ever did it was on stuff made by dwarves. First in Firwood at a small dwarven smithy, and then Grimnir’s stuff.

I looked over at Vifi’Yok, wondering if she would confirm this. She looked at me, confused, before shrugging and knocking on my metal chestplate.

“This is worthy for a general. I don’t know its stats since yer [Identity Blocker] is getting in the way, but seeing it work against those dragonslayers and the golems, I can assure ya even Lord Wrath—us wrathies’ Prince of Sin and Bole’Taria’s chief of armies—would wear this. Not royal heirloom level, not yet, but close.”

“It’s only made from rank B materials,” I argued.

She shrugged. “Shows the skills of the smith.”

… I am lucky to be your friend, Grimnir. Thank you for all your work and help.

Seeing me contemplate, Tatsuya unsheathed his sword. “Don’t forget that our blades and equipment have runes on them too. Runesmiths are rarer away from Ankor-Nazta, and while many do commission them, it just makes things expensive. Having somebody like Grimnir around with Ellaine working harder and harder makes us pretty fortunate.”

I nodded my head. I got too used to Grimnir’s talents.

Let’s continue. I looked over the rest of the stuff, but nothing caught my eye. Most of the tenth floor stuff were materials we could use for smithing later, or to sell. As such, I went to the monster room stuff, which should be worthy for rank B adventurers.

And, oh, boy.

Elemental Armguard: A full-arm guard made from andurenium, euorinium, and materials from a rank A [Magic Swallowing Slime], making it light-weight and easy to use with mana. A catalyst is stored on the gauntlet, allowing a user to be designated, allowing them to control this piece with only mana. Allows users to invoke elemental weapons using their mana or enchant existing weapons. Extremely fragile and requires a second smithing session to become whole

Vitality Power: 290

Wisdom Power: 401

Owner: None

Skill: [All-Damage Reduction Lv. 1] [Elemental-Damage Increase Lv. 5] [Arcane Corruption Resistance Lv. 5] [Mana Conductor Lv. 10] [Mana Efficiency Lv. 10] [Arcane Conduit Lv. 1]

Enchantments: [Elemental Weapons Invoke] [Elemental Magic Absorption] [Elemental Blessing]

Scale Helmet of the Staunch Defender: A helmet made from hydra and cockatrice material, reducing damage from anti-dragon weapons and tools. This bone helmet is fortified by scales from rank B versions of these two, making them durable and resistance against any of their attacks. Due to the production of the helmet, it allows the user to use [Taunt] without the penalties. Exudes of an aura that reduces 5% damage on all allies in a party or associated with them

Vitality Power: 1009

Wisdom Power: 978

Skill: [All-Damage Reduction Lv. 1] [Inferno Resistancel Lv. 1] [Arcane Corruption Resistance Lv. 3] [Abnormal Status Nullification] [Mana Conductor Lv. 6] [Mana Efficiency Lv. 10] [Durability Reduction Lv. 5] [Anti-Draconic Resistance Lv. 3] [Pheromone Reduction Lv. 8] [Prime Vigor Lv. 1] [Sage’s Wisdom Lv. 1] [Taunter’s Protection] [Aura of Protection Lv. 1]>

<Mimic Golem’s Mana Core: A core of a mimic golem still intact and able to house a vessel. This one in particular allows the creation of a [Monster Room Mimic]

… I can make a monster room for my subspace?

A note from AbyssRaven

How to know your blacksmith is indulging you in high-tier stuff to the point you don't know what is "normal" and standard. You were never normal, Hestia!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 403: A Heart to Heart Moment.

A note from AbyssRaven

Take this with you! Rawr

Also, I also wanted to announce that a fellow author had to just adapted their webnovel into a webcomic, or manwha as the Koreans call it. Maybe you've already guessed it, but that person is MelasD and their story Salvos! One of the biggest story on RR, and aside from books, they actually turned their story into pictures! That's awesome and I love that idea, so give the free chapters over at tapas a try! Link

The armguard was for the left arm. To test it out, I put it on, noticing how the blue-yellow armor piece was a bit too large for my arm and how it contrasted with my chestplate too much. It was a fashion disaster. No wonder its description mentioned it needed a reforging.

As I slipped my hand into the gauntlet, I closed and opened it, feeling the armguard out but concluded I couldn’t wear it during a fight. It looked like it was made for a stout dwarf or a large beastman, not a human or average-sized dragonewt girl like me. Regardless, it still functioned.

The metal clattered as it lit up blue, only to turn into red a moment later. With [Mana Eyes], I confirmed my mana was surging into the catalyst embedded into the middle of the gauntlet, being focused there. A flame then appeared on my hand which I was able to turn into a dagger even without [Volcanic Blaze].

“I shouldn’t use it. It’s pretty much redundant for me,” I stated, considering I had [Volcanic Blaze] and [Battle Frenzy] mode’s [Light Horizon] to manipulate fire and light into any form I wanted, respectively. Not to mention, why would I need to conjure elemental weapons when I had [Hellblade Edge] and a tail sharp enough to cut through steel? And I wasn’t even talking about my dragon form's tail.

“Well, I can’t use it,” Tatsuya grumbled, with Kyouya concurring right away. “I mean, I can buy an elemental spell from the SP shop. I even bought [Enhanced Intelligence Growth] and [Enhanced Intelligence Enforcement] despite not being a mage just for such a moment, you know. Futureproofing! In case I ever want to become a spellblade.”

“Then why can’t you buy one?” I asked, confused. “You have [All-In] to boost up your intelligence, too.”

“I don’t know how to cast spells! I never took a magic course!”

“What?!” My voice broke for a moment, squeaking as I was baffled at his laziness. “I can give you the rundown right now, you idiot! Get on the Hestia boot camp for arcane tricks and I’ll make you a mage in no time! Not to mention, casting spells is easy enough with the System’s help! Using SP to buy spells is the broken part about this, considering you would need a year to learn it normally, and years to master it!”

Tasianna, Master Kush, and then Mom were all my magic theory teachers, and through almost two years of fighting and working as a mage, I should know enough to take on my own students. The principal of the royal university of Griffonpeak even offered me a position as a fire mage professor when I first met her. Technically, I was even Ellaine’s mage instructor! I could teach either Tatsuya or Kyouya.

“Yeah, but can you do it now?” Kyouya came to his friend’s rescue. “We’re inside this ruin, and we needed to get ready to progress, unless you want to risk getting caught by those dragonslayers.”

I went silent. Teaching would still require at least some time, especially for a newcomer to understand how to focus on casting spells while fighting. It did require quite a lot of concentration until you invested a large amount in making it easy.

A quick calculation for the three basic skills you required to be a proper mage would be an investment of 4650 Skill points if you wanted to level [Mana Control], [Arcane Mind], and [Arcane Corruption Resistance] all up to level ten, ignoring purchase price discrepencies due to affinity varying for every individual. Then, if you wanted to use your spells while in melee, [Chant Revocation Lv. 10] and [Concentration Lv. 10] were needed, which added another 2400 SP and 1550 SP, respectively. This wasn’t even mentioning buying and leveling your elemental magic skill!

Very high SP investment if you wanted to become a mage instantly. Buuuut …

“That doesn’t matter. I just need to give him the rundown on how to control his mana and let it flow through his body. He already has [Mana Control], all he needs it some more [Arcane Corruption Resistance] levels and an elemental skill, and, boom, he can use this armguard,” I argued back. He didn’t need to become a mage to use this, meaning it wouldn’t even take a day to have Tatsuya master things.

“Then, why would I prefer to use it over my own spear? At best, this will become a range option, but that still requires an investment of SP that I could use on my other skills? Leveling up my physical and dodging abilities,” he rebuked me, looking almost ill as he rattled his hands as if to tell me he didn’t want to. “Not to mention, that thing looks so big, it’ll be loose on me, too. My arms might be thicker and more muscular than yours Hestia, but I don’t even think I can fit my arm in it.”

He certainly wasn’t as huge as Farron or Grimnir, but Tatsuya was still quite muscular.

“Then we’ll strap some belts around it and call it a day! Come on, stop being stubborn! It’s an objective improvement to your arsenal, you now have a range option. Put it on!” I pushed the armguard into his arm, causing Tatsuya to frown before offering it to Kyouya.

“Then why not ask Kyouya? He has a better frame, it’ll fit him better. Not to mention, [Shadowed Martyr] is something like a magic skill, right? Him getting [Dark Magic] wouldn’t hurt him?”

Kyouya widened his eyes, pushing the armguard back to Tatsuya. “I already have a range option, dude. My armor can be shot out. Besides, my role is tank, [Taunt]er, and making walls in general. Besides, I am saving my SP for the defensive options since that is my whole thing! My unique Job wants me to act as the frontline with some offensive options to leech health, but all of them focus on strength. My intelligence and mana isn’t good enough, unlike yours.”

Tatsuya pouting, looking like he would accept it any second now. “Urgh, dammit, that’s kinda right … Jeez, I dunno, I just feel awkward using anything but my spear.”

“Dude, you don’t need to make elemental weapons, you can also just enchant your weapon with magic. Wind makes thing cut better, fire stops regeneration, or whatever. The armguard is very useful!” I reminded him of the enchantments on the catalyst—[Elemental Weapons Invoke], [Elemental Magic Absorption], and [Elemental Blessing]. It was a utility monster, perfect for a close-combatant like him. “Come on, give it a try, alright? Or, are you telling me you’re like those single-minded MMO-players who can’t come out of their comfort zone? Try something new, you warrior-only player.”

“Oi, don’t lump me—” Tatsuya wanted to speak back at my slight, but was interrupted by the fourth person in this discussion.

“Em-Em-Oh?” It was Vifi’Yok, and she was looking at me in confusion. “Is that one of those otherworlder words or terms, or what? What’s that supposed to mean?”

Shoot! Right, she shouldn’t know I’m an otherworlder.

“Something I caught from them. Those terms are for little games they had over there,” I explained while keeping things mostly vague, only for me to suddenly look over to her left arm. Her missing left arm.

The description of the armguard mentioned how you can move it with mana. You don’t need an arm—Wait, no, no. Even if we were working together, I can’t fully trust her rig—

[“Master, all this arguing is keeping everybody restless. Why not give it to Miss Demonkin?”] Rajah suggested, causing the boys and me to flinch.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Tatsuya waved his hand at him. “Don’t think about giving Vifi’Yok the damn thing! Her being weaker than she used to be is the only reason I’m feeling safe around her! Don’t suggest something like that, Rajah!”

On one hand, giving it to Vifi’Yok would help us, but Tatsuya wasn’t wrong either.

The mood instantly soured as Tatsuya let out his complaint, to the point we three could only watch Vifi’Yok quietly chew on her roasted meat. She looked unperturbed while we three couldn’t help but be speechless. Poor Rajah was confused, he was practically still a child, so the relationship aspect probably flew over his head.

To diffuse things, Tatsuya and Kyouya volunteered to keep watch so we could get some rest. Once they were gone, Rajah came over to me, looking like he was confused. I stroked him, telling him his suggestion wasn’t wrong but that it was … complicated.

“Hey, I won’t take those comments to heart, okay? Ya don’t need to worry about me, in fact, if he wasn’t distrustful of me, I would think his brain rotted away,” Vifi’Yok remarked, explaining her nonchalant attitude. “But, the cat is probably right. I would be the best user of the armguard since I know how to use elemental weapons properly. Kyouya should get the helmet, and you can do whatever with the golem core. It’s just a matter of trust.”

“… Trust, huh?” I let her murmur repeat in my head.

Could I trust Vifi’Yok? No, as she mentioned, we were only working together to survive all of this. With her on our side, getting down here was easy enough and she could take Neill’s position as the physical powerhouse I could power up with my buffs and songs. That said, there was always this lingering feeling in the back of my brain that all of this was planned by Vifi’Yok and that she was still part of the demonkin army.

I mean, killing me here in this dungeon would be perfect for them. They could place all the blame on the Ankoran King, even if blaming him was unfair since I was responsible for my own life and so on. Mom would destroy Inkoran-Tazul in her icy rage, and she wouldn’t even know the demonkins were at fault. Checkmate; perfect plan.

… Haaaaa. It was exhausting.

As such, I ignored the situation on hand and just played with Rajah. Pulling out an old wooden comb I had made for Saori and me, back when we were still stuck in the Belzac forest, I began brushing his fur. “You like it?”

[“Mhmmmmr.”] He was purring, closing his mind, enjoying this distraction from this wild dungeon dive.

Seeing his pleased face really brought me to a singing mood, but at the same time, looking at us stuck inside this cavern-like floor—dark caves still gave me the creeps sometimes—and the tense moment form before silenced me. I couldn't help but wonder what Tatsuya must be feeling, what Kyouya must be speaking to him about, and what Vifi’Yok might be thinking.

What if she really was a deserter? What was she actually thinking? Behind this cold facade, what did this girl around my age actually think about everything? On the other hand, why was I trying to sympathize with her when she was directly responcible for many deaths during Elyonda’s siege. She was at fault, no matter how you spun it.

Just thinking of this made my chest swell in anger. I had to take a deep breath … Just like Reajaen, she couldn’t be forgiven and it didn’t seem like she was asking for it. She knew what she did, at least, that was what I caught from her tone and eyes … Great, another problematic moral situation.

“… I must choose, down the road that I wish to walk ♫

That others might condemn me ♫

To not fall flat in hypocrisy ♫

It’ll work itself out for now (The future will judge) ♫

I believe this is the way (don’t try to appease everybody) ♫

Maybe I am in the wrong (sins stain like blood) ♫”

Melancholic and slow—that was how I felt the song had to be sung, while accompanied by an electric keyboard or synthesizer. With the quiet beating of drums to give the song its tact, I also emulated my voice with [Aerokinesis], whispering the secondary lyrics once the fourth line began. Even without understanding the lyrics, the music was calming but mostly sad.

[Music Resonation (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“You’re singing?” Vifi’Yok interrupted me. “Not just playing with the wind?”

I kept the music going, but I decided to answer her question, “Emotional bliss isn’t the only source of inspiration, striving and being downtrodden can evoke strong emotions that lead into creative endeavors. Bit philosophical there, sorry, but I just felt like singing. I am a musician, and music is my life.”

“Your life?” her brows were raised, not understanding what I was meaning by that. “I heard marching bands, but they are only there as bards and to boost up morale. I thought this whole spell song thing was just part of your combat arsenal.”

“It is, yes, but I am an entertainer first and foremost—an idol, as I like to call myself. A musician who also sings and performs to bring others happiness,” I flourished my arms while sitting down, trying to gesture a choreography. “I am not a warrior like you. I am an adventurer because it fits with my lifestyle, and this whole blessed business is just … part of a deal between me and Aurena. I might be a dragon, but I prefer doing this.”

With my two index fingers, I pointed the ends of my mouth up, forming a smile.

“Over this.” I then pulled them down, making me sulk.

“… Greeeat. Lost to a minstrel, makes me feel soooo better.” I let out a chortle as I heard that, finding it humorous how she was in a good enough mood to make that sarcastic remark. Then again, it did prove she was unfazed by Tatsuya’s insult. “Well, don’t let me stop you. Do what you like.”

“Just say you like my singing … Lost in all those fears (what is right?!) ♫

But somebody has to— ♫” My eyes burst open, widening itself as I took a deep breath. BREAK FREE! Away from all this pain ♫

What can my life do before it all ends ♫

BURN all the hatred away ♫

Let them all know when I bring this wall down! ♫”

The chorus began and my voice boomed just like Rosserto’s, smacking the silence away in this eerie dungeon. The energy of his soul infused mine, once again allowing me to deviate a bit from my idol-like and anime-like songs to be more alternative rock. Lacing my voice with all the emotions building up in my chest, I bellowed out the lyrics with no care for anybody being around me.

“But my heart, I shiver to do the move ♫

Even though I know I must ♫

How could I forgive myself (stagnate in silence) ♫

But this path is filled with spikes (bear these sins like scars) ♫

Lost in all those fears (what is right?!) ♫

But somebody has to— ♫”

Only to return to the slower singing from before for the second verse and pre-chorus.

“Break free, away from all this pain ♫

What can my life do before it all ends ♫

Burn all the hatred away ♫

Let them all know when I bring this wall down! ♫”

To return to the explosive singing.

“My mind is breaking apart to think right, with those nightmares I see all night ♫

My mind is breaking apart to think right, with those nightmares I see all night ♫

(What’s right?!) My mind is breaking apart to think right, with those nightmares I see all night ♫

(What’s right?!) My mind is breaking apart to think right, with those nightmares I see all night ♫

Break free, away from all this pain ♫

What can my life do before it all ends ♫

Burn all the hatred away ♫

Let them all know when I bring this wall down! ♫”

Followed by a climax-like bridge repeating the same musings over and over again, expressing my current issues with the situation. With another repeat of the chorus, I finished the song off with an “oooh” for the coda—the outro.

“… Hey.” Instead of an applause, Vifi’Yok looked at me with bafflement. “D-don’t tell me you just wrote that whole song right now. Those lyrics really sound like you’re telling me exactly what you’re feeling right now. With the music with your wind manipulation.”

“I did. I do that all the time. Oh, and don’t feel obligated to really take the lyrics seriously. My friends always tell me how I think and worry too much about everything. It’s just a habit of mine since I worry about how others perceive me. Fanservice and such is important for an idol, so I dislike being disliked.”

If Saori or Tasianna heard me sing this song they would be livid; then again, I was expressing myself better compared to the past. Maybe they would praise me?

Seeing her expression unchanged, now I was confused. “Come on, songs are easy to make, generally. People sing about what is happening. It’s an expression and a way to let some steam out. Your people must do the same, right?”

“… Now that you say it, yer right.” Vifi’Yok put her food down, looking up at the ceiling as she began to think. “Aside from the army and random bars where people sing just ‘cuz, the most notable parts would be the sailors and fishermen. The regions my country currently holds ain’t good for farming—very little of them. An abundance of sailors to keep our country fed is needed, and they all sing like crazy. You can hear shanties even deep into the town, and I used to stay quite far away from the port ‘cuz of the smell.”

The demonkin Kingdom of Bole’Taria sounded like a place which required trade to survive. They might have other natural resources, but without anybody wanting to help them, they practically have to loot and raid to survive. They must have some farmland, but it probably wasn’t enough to feed everybody. At least, that was the impression I got from this tidbit.

“Oh, right, sometimes we have some thieves singing and being happy about their loot, but most of the time, you don’t hear much singing, really.”

“Lack of hope and energy.” I could envision it with what I saw in Shaturein, the undercity of the bright capital of Artorias, Griffonpeak.

Vifi’Yok snapped her fingers, nodding in agreement. “Correct. If the country itself is poor, those at the very bottom feel it the worst. Even worse if you’re one of the ‘wrong’ sin types. Us wrath demonkins have to be isolated from others since we’re like walking bombs ready to explode if we get too excited. Being put in a situation where we cannot feel happy, angry, or afraid makes us safer for everybody else to be around. Well, with the war happening, those streets are more filled with war orphans than not … so, we all kinda just lived together.”

“… That’s really detailed. Hold on, you mentioned being a street urchin, but I thought you were just poor. You’re an orphan?” The double meaning of urchin confused me when she first mentioned it when we made this party.

“The other orphans took care of me until I was able to walk and work after my mother died trying to feed me. Think we could have been happy? Pah, it doesn’t matter, I don’t remember her.” Vifi’Yok shrugged, but watching her do that only hurt my own heart. As a family person, that just sounded terrible. “Urchins die everyday, but we had to keep the neighborhood ‘supplied’ with able thieves, you know. It’s like a fucked up family. Glad I got out of there when I got old enough to join the army.”

“What did you do?” Maybe the bread and donuts were finally working, but her lips really seemed loose.

“Kill, steal, rob, like I said before. Morals are kinda useless when you need to do anything just to live. Did some singing … to earn some pity money, but not like it helped. I was also a loner. Just ‘cuz the neighborhood was a ‘family’ didn’t mean we cared for each other equally.”

Vifi’Yok explained how the different demonkin types—the seven sin types—were treated differently by everybody. Wrath, envy, and greed had extreme biases against them, since all of them could hurt others without any warning. Wrath was feared for those time when they lost control of their emotions, turning them into berserkers, while envy was hated for hating others for what they didn’t have, and greed for backstabbing people for even the most trivial stuff.

In the neighborhood she grew up in, she was segregated into a place for wrath orphans only. Town law, but it also didn’t help her feeling of kinship since they were all forced together there. They weren’t a family, just a band of misfits.

“For a wrath like me, the army was the best place to be. The government wants you there anyway, since you can be better controlled and leashed. Second best time of my life; warm food, warm beds, and I didn’t have to steal from merchants coming into town just to buy fish. Fucking fish.” She made a weird groan, pressing her hand on her chest with an ill face. “Makes me want to puke. Dried fish was the ration for lower-tier soldiers; really motivated me to get strong, aside from just staying alive.”

I guess her trauma is similar to my frog phobia. Then again, she seems diligent enough to eat it if she didn’t have anything else.

“… Ya know, speaking of motivation. Mind singing me something, minstrel?”

“Idol. Call me an ‘idol.’”

“Idol. Got a song favor. Sing me that song ya used to stifle my demonic powers during our fight.”

[My Darkest Thoughts]?

She raised a finger and mumbled [Emotion Surge], causing her face to tense up as her demonic features appeared before me for the first time since our fight in Elyonda. Her eyes sharpened into the slitted eyes of a cat, her fangs grew in size to resemble a vampire, and her claws elongated to the point they could leave deep scars. However, they were trivial compared to the lightning horns brimming with mana on her hand and the waving thunder tail coming from her butt.

Her human-like appearance vanished as she glared at me with a quiet intensity, almost like a commander awaiting a soldier’s report. It was her expectations, like a police officer waiting for a criminal to slip to warrant an arrest. Her nonchalant attitude was entirely gone; she looked like me when I was ready to pounce at a bandit or black merc.

The pressure …

I took a deep breath. She wanted me to show my spell song’s true function to her. As such, I stopped thinking of her as an ally but as an enemy.

“Staring out the window while it rains ♫

No one here to talk, silence is all I have ♫

So I delved into my thoughts and wondered, “What if?”♫

The laughing kid stomping loudly upstairs ♫

The damn lovebirds flirting on the streets ♫

Those rich asses living in their golden bubbles♫

I just wish they would all just disappear ♫

Those are my honest thoughts, something I wish to hide from them ♫

My life is stagnating, nothing I do brings me forth ♫

All I can do is sing, drowning my sorrows while it rains ♫

Every step I take just brings me back, to a rundown apartment room ♫

Turn away, close my eyes, lock these wishes far away ♫

Not again, not again…or I’ll cry until the end ♫

All of my darkest thoughts ♫

Will serve me as my muse ♫

So, I’ll sing, I’ll sing, I’ll sing, I’ll sing! ♫

As I fade from your thoughts ♫”

As expected, her demonic features quickly faded away the moment the song started. Her horns and tail vanished, while her other demonic features slightly dulled. They were still there, but [My Darkest Thought]’s primary function was to weaken demonkins and demons, not make them useless.

“… Just as I thought, you might actually be the solution for us wrathies. Your voice, at least,” Vifi’Yok once again stated, one of the few things I remembered she told me during the siege battle.

[“Master’s voice is really good, right? She can entertain people, and when somebody gets angry at her, she has the ability to just stop them! She knows how to make others see her as the Alpha!”] Rajah said something incredulous! He was describing me as a thug!

“Rajah, that isn’t—”

“Good point, cat,” to my surprise, Vifi’Yok agreed with him before addressing me. “If you were a demonkin and we put you in Bole’Taria with everything you have aside from your imperial dragon status, you would definitely be somebody influential. Pride demonkins would love you, wrath would follow you just ‘cuz you can stop them from going berserk—allowing us to live ‘normal lives.’ Uhm, lust might befriend you easily since you seem a bit hedonistic.”

What?!

“Gluttony and sloth would be neutral, but that is the case for nearly everybody. The envy and greed factions would despise you, though, haha.” Shocked by this statement, I encouraged her to elaborate. “You shine too much.”

I tilted my head.

“Envy demonkin are born quite, uhm, let’s just say ugly, alright? They look too much like grimgarians, honestly. Monster-like. All of them want to become the Prince of Envy so they can transform their appearances, so somebody like you who is confident with their appearance, able to act well, and is just overall successful in general, makes an easy target for those snakes.” Vifi’Yok then frowned, moving her lips around in frustration. “… It would be great if you could help Bole’Taria out. I guess I still wish for that, but it just seems weird.”

Shoot, she finally realized it!

“It doesn’t have to be. I’m still ignorant with all of this, so I really appreciate you telling me this. It gives me an idea how to form my opinions on you demonkins … instead of all the villainization I’ve been hearing.”

She shrugged, though. “Hey, I’m just a soldier. Even though I don’t know if any of what I said is correct; I deserted to find a better life for myself, after all. How can you trust somebody who is willing to jump off a boat the moment they see gold? … Besides, if the current Lord Greed is around, you probably won’t be able to do anything anyways.”

“‘Lord Greed?’” I nudged my body forward. This could be a chance to gain some information from an enemy!

“… Let’s stop this here.” Vifi’Yok let out a deep sigh. Scratching her forehead, her face contorted, looking like she was about to cry. “… I-I … I really can’t. It feels like all I’m doing is betraying my people even further.”

She stood up, shaking her head.

“But, I guess you’re right. Something has to be done to change things … From the viewpoint of a Warbringer, the only way for you to achieve what you want, as in, peace between the demonkins, will bring you down a rough road as your song suggested. You need to kill certain people to make room. Your targets would be Lord Envy, Lord Greed, Lord … Wrath, the Holy Emperor of Folschreck, the current leader of the Lycrepth, the full rebuild of the church of Aurena, and … the leader of the Yanderu Elueseuss.”

Wait, she’s telling me to kill two people from the human’s side? Two people I’m supposed to be allies with?

This … really was a grey road. Changing things as an outsider to all this conflict, but still, this was crazy. Also, the leader of the Yanderu Elueseuss? I knew they were gonna be annoying in the future and I had a grudge match against all of them, but I had to kill their leader, too? Why exactly?

Hold on …

“Why not the demonkin king?” I suggested, remembering how the students mentioned having to kill them for the church.

However, the truth was a bit different than I expected.

“Our ‘king’ is just a vessel so we can channel the powers of the Edjurl gods into Peolynca. To allow them to watch us and guide us during the rituals, like when we summoned those otherworlders to this world.” And she said all of that with a straight face. “They have always been a puppet, made from a volunteer demonkin. The church people we controlled didn’t want those kids to ‘kill our king,” they want to fatten them up, build them up as ‘heroes’ only to either slay them or turn them against humankind to totally demoralize everybody. This is our gambit to bring down Folschreck for within.”

… Then, does that mean killing me is some kinda ploy to build up their heroism or what?

“Hey.”

I snapped my head around as I heard Tatsuya’s voice, noticing both boys walking up to us.

“Why exactly are you telling us this? Just a moment ago, you were hesitant to tell Hestia everything and now … you’re giving us your tips? To go kill all these people? No diplomacy?” And he did not look pleased.

“As I said, this is only the view from a Warbringer. I don’t do diplomacy, I leave that to our leaders. I bring war.”

“Cut that bullshit!” Tatsuya ran up to Vifi’Yok, forcing me to put myself in between them. As I held him back, he snapped his head to me. “Hestia-san, I know you want to trust this girl. I understand that, I really do, and I want to solve things peacefully just as you, but don’t trust every word coming from her. If you ask me, by telling us so much, it really seems like she wants us to confront Aiko and the others right now, right here. To make us turn away from the dungeon core.”

… Wait, he’s right.

By hearing this, the best choice was to explain things to the students. If I could prove I was from Earth just like them and explain everything, then things should work out for them. Especially if I could usurp away their demonkin-given unique Skills from them. It wasn’t to potentially walk into whatever was going on in this dungeon, but to find the students and then get out of here.

There was 100% a situation at the dungeon core considering everything. Tatsuya just reminded me of my suspicion that something was going on. Every time we mentioned the dungeon core, Vifi’Yok tried to avoid things. Did she know something?

“It would also bring us on a collision course with the dragonslayers,” Kyouya added. “Vifi’Yok doesn’t need to fight them. She only needs them to preoccupy us and then she would be able to slip through, and she is fast enough to do so since she still has her voltaic lightning.”

“…” Against all these accusations, the demonkin stayed silent. I turned my head to her, looking her in the eyes to see if this was true.

[“Master. I smell people.”] Rajah informed us. Did we wait too long?

“Come, let’s go down then.” Vifi’Yok walked away, leaving her meal behind. “I’ll take the gauntlets of strength. No complaints?”

“… None,” Tatsuya answered before taking up the armguards, while Kyouya equipped the helmet. Tatsuya then threw the mana core to me, telling me to hold onto it for later. “What element do you suggest I buy?”

“Wind and earth; utility and defenses for you help your [All-In]. I’ll give you a crash course while we run.” Before we ran off, I grabbed his shoulder, turning his attention back to me. “Thanks. I nearly went ahead and trusted her.”

“Hey, I’m not telling you she’s wrong. It seems like she was speaking from the heart until that very last moment … I think. I think that song of yours hit a nerve for her, and maybe that’s why she began speaking,” Tatsuya tried to reassure me. “Oh, right, did you recognize Daisy?”

I tilted my head for a moment, only to remember how Tatsuya addressed the student called Franz by Daisy. Was he there when I first met the students? No, I didn’t think so, at least. So I shook my head.

“… I see. Uhm, Hestia-san, I have this—You know what, that would have been awkward to ask. Just forget it for now, I’ll bring it up again when we’re back on the surface.”

Seeing him walk away like that without finishing what he wanted to ask just made me more curious. Why did it seem like I had no idea what was going on in my companions’ head? At least Saori, Tasianna, Ellaine, and Grimnir were always truthful to me! These three made it so difficult.

[“Master?”]

“At least, I have you, Rajah!” I hugged my virigress before patting his back. “When we find a safe spot, I’ll have you evolve, alright? But, not now.”

[“Yes, of course, Master!”]

After the floor guardian fight, Rajah had finally reached level 30 as a rank C, allowing him to evolve. Sadly, since it took an entire day to finish, we couldn’t afford to do it now.

With that delayed, we continued down the dungeon, facing literally no challenge at all as the paths were clean and hostileless. No traps, no enemies, no treasures. It was barren and dull, but it did accelerate our trip down to the dungeon core. With the map navigating this labyrinth was easy enough.

Meaning, eventually, we made it to the last floor of the [Menagerie of Golems] after taking two sleep breaks. There we entered a humongous battlefield large enough to fit three baseball stadiums. It could be comparable to Mom’s cave nest in my subspace, meaning whoever the dungeon core boss was, they would be humongous.

“We can’t scout this like before. Hestia?” Kyouya prompted me to set down a [Warp Point: Exit] outside the room, just in case this empty place had a nasty surprise.

And, our expectations were correct.

“Woah! I’m humanizing now!” An earthquake happened, prompting me to transform back into a dragon. I cast [Panzer] on myself, protecting my armor with another set of armor.

[Music Resonation (Moderate)] [Various Spell Buffs] [Blessing of the Goddess of Light (Major)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

As I buffed everybody up for this confrontation, I reminded myself I couldn’t access my Job skills as a dragon. If I wanted to focus on support, I had to be a dragonewt, while my dragon was for offensive prowess. Even if I couldn’t trust Vifi’Yok, I had to rely on her … Although, could I even do that?

“Incoming!” Vifi’Yok shouted as the ground splintered and shattered, revealing two snake-like beings made from rocks.

They reared their heads, shaking the rubble and dust off their body. Upon a closer look, just like the rest of the enemies in this place, it was clearly a golem. Two lizard-like heads, almost draconic, watched us with four blue glowing eyes as the rest of their bodies made it seem like a skeleton.

However, its entire body was definitely made from rock with a metal underlayer consisting of its trunk. Along these two serpentine bodies, multiple blue glowing orbs decorating them as the moveable rock pieces rustled, ready to transform. As the two snake golems opened their mouths, I noticed they had metal tongues moving around with incredible flexibility.

Mana E—

Individual [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has been offered a Divine Champion Quest. Please, confirm the Quest details before you accept

What?!

Divine Quest: Uncover the truth behind this “golem” and solve the problem on hand with them

Quest Giver: Origin Goddess of Earth, Craftsmanship, Minerals, and Creation, Crustacia

Description: Yo, Crustacia here on the permission of Aurena, little Hestia! Kinda a bad moment for me to “meet” you, but I honestly didn’t expect to meet them in this dungeon. The earth told me they would return, but this?

Well, me vision through me dwarves told me enough to get the gist of the plan, but I can’t tell you! Yeostar’s intervention made Goddess Plesia veeeery mad and she just put out a punishment I ain’t wishing to experience. You gotta do it yourself and it’s not gonna be easy, but I promise ya a big reward. And, trust me, I know how to please an otherworlder quite well! So, accept it, little Hestia!

Reward: A unique skill on anybody you wish, +1 level, reason for why the gods aren’t speaking, an additional reward depending on how you solve this whole situation

Mana Eyes!

Information Blocked

Oh, come on!

A note from AbyssRaven

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 404: The Dungeon Usurper.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Arrrrgh!

I recoiled from the intense mana backlash the moment that <Information Blocked> appeared in my head, my eyes throbing as I kept them closed. An overflow of mana from too much information trying to enter my brain. As I told the others I was alright, I turned my attention back to the Divine Quest.

I accept the Divine Quest!

With the blessing of your championed God, may you be successful in your Quest!

The rumbling of the chamber intensified as the twin snake golems rotated their heads like owls, letting stone grinding sounds out as their blue eyes gazed at us. There was no announced trick to the room, but the entrance closed behind us, blocking our escape. Wanting us to regroup, Vifi’Yok called for me to open my portal, so I obliged with [Purple Flash] to quickly cast [Warp Point: Entry].

The portal immediately opened up, so I prepared to turn back into a dragonewt so I could fit through the portal, only for my [Foresight] to warn me not to enter. The fact all five of us froze up in place confirmed this wasn’t a coincidence. And it proved itself a moment later as the ground under the portal, without any warning, rose up and slammed against the ceiling.

Shit! That was the worst! I couldn’t feel my mana connection with that portal any longer, meaning that entry point closed, which just …

[“Our way out is gone!”] I informed everybody to their chagrin.

If one of the portal openings closed once linked, both close. I had not expected the golem to punish me for this weakness.

At the same time, warnings came from underneath us. Vifi’Yok grabbed Tatsuya and Kyouya with her good arm before immediately dodging to the side and activating her voltaic red speed. Rajah used [Shadow Dash] to escape while I activated my rocket boosters, taking to the sky.

All of us avoided the spikes bursting from the ground, creating miniature hills. As I hovered in the air, I noticed the left head of this “golem,” as Crustacia called it, had its blue spheres turn brown. Even its eyes had changed colors. For a split second, they dimmed back into blue, but it returned to brown just as my [Danger Perception] and [Foresight] had me snap my head to my sides, noticing the debris falling from the ceiling were being turned into rock spears.

This thing is an earth mage?! Wait, why aren’t there any magic circles? Mana is flowing but there has to be some magic circles somewhere! Unless … [Geokinesis]!

The mystery of this situation was growing and growing. Even if my appraisal didn’t work, usually it allowed me to at least appraise the race of the monster on hand. However, when I had turned [Mana Eyes] on for a split second, it showed me <Appraisal Blocked> and I was forced to deactivate it to stop the stream of mana information from exploding my brain.

Whatever this thing was, it was a problem. We had to regroup!

Dreadflare Aura!

My scale-dust exploded as I raised my body temperature, releasing a superhot aura around me, melting away the debris and rock spears before I flew down and cleaved through the spikes below me with my [Hellblade Edge] tail. With the heat melting everything around me into molten rock, I stared up at the golem serpents.

One head had brown eyes, while the other was still blue. One was constructing rock spears around itself, while the other was gathering blue energy inside its mouth. Just like the monster room golem and the drake-like one, was this another mana-based attack? As in, one similar to Neill’s elementless dragon paths?

No information, no nothing. Great. Feels great going into this without any information!

I readied a breath attack inside my throat, challenging the golem to shoot at me so I could avoid it and counterattack. However, just as I was zoning in, small fire blasts hit the golem’s left head, causing it to slowly turn its attention around. It wasn’t taking any damage; it looked like it was just annoyed by whatever was pestering them.

I snapped my eyes to the side, noticing Vifi’Yok was using my glaive’s gun form to shoot fire bullets at the golem, covering for the boys who looked like they were about to retch. Fast movements did that to you if you weren’t protected by an [Air Shield], but any concentration of mana close to Vifi’Yok feet made her voltaic speed impossible to use. Tatsuya couldn’t have used the spell even if he wanted to.

“This thing looks groggy. Sleepy, even. Hestia, can you appraise it?” Vifi’Yok spoke, relaying her assessment, as the golem snakes still haven’t attacked. They were assessing the “fly” that was the demonkin girl.

[“Negative. Everything is blocked, I can’t even understand its race.”]

“If this is the dungeon boss, then we have a problem. But, honestly, if you ask me, we can take this down! Get your buffs up, boys and cat, both of you get inside that damn [Room] and leave this fight to us!”

All three of them snapped at Vifi’Yok, demanding to know why they couldn’t participate, but Vifi’Yok simply spat a curse at them while twirling my glaive around as red lightning crackled around her body, forming something like an aura. “You see the size of those things? If any of you want to be useful against a stronger opponent like this, get your level over 100 already! Emotion Surge!”

The lightning increased in intensity around her until her demonkin features fully appeared. With a loud shout, she bashed the blunt side of my glaive on to the ground, making her seem like she was being controlled by her rage. However, all of us knew better.

As if it was intimidated by her, its coiled rock parts spun around, similar to its owl-like rotating head. It clattered its jaw together and shot a volley of earthen spears at her, prompting Vifi’Yok to ready herself in a throwing pose, setting my halberd on fire.

“Voltaic Red:” she mumbled as the spears almost reached her. “Thunderspeed Roar!”

She threw my crimson-aflamed glaive at the golem, destroying the rock spears from the sheer force of the attack as she disappeared from sight with her red lightning. The golem roared out as it had to snap its head to the side, barely avoiding my glaive and causing the other head to clatter in anger.

My glaive pierced into the ceiling, stuck there until Vifi’Yok appeared to hang from it using her magnetism. She retrieved my weapon before three purple magic circles appeared in front of her with it aimed at the golem. It was the [Lightning Magic Lv. 6] spell [Ramuh]!

“Hestia-san! Shelter!” Tatsuya shouted at me.

I grimaced for a moment, but nodded in the end. [“Sorry, guys. I don’t want to leave you out of this.”]

“And we don’t want to weigh you down! The demonkin spoke the truth, so beat the snake’s asses for us!”

Hearing Tatsuya’s outburst motivated me. Rajah, the boys, and I originally came to this dungeon to train and become stronger together, but due to everything getting out of control, we had to stop the training arc. This was the time for me to go all-out.

I looked at the golems, noticing how they both had their eyes at Vifi’Yok. As she said, she was creating room and space for me.

“In my purgatory, I make the devil cry ♫

In Hellfire ♫

All you hear are his screams, begging to be released ♫

It’s Music ♫”

[Music Resonation (Moderate)] [Stage Fever (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

With the fire immunity from my spell song, played by [Aerokinesis] since I was in dragon form, the boys managed to reach me, hiding underneath me at the impending disaster. To make sure they survived, I cast [Room] underneath me, creating a subspace for the boy to find safety in. As long as I blocked any attack from coming in, they wouldn’t be in any danger.

[“Rajah, go in, too! All of you, drink the remaining buff tonics we have! Spend your SP and get yourself ready for the fight! Get earth resistance, physical, and anything else! Just get ready, in case I need help!”] I gave out my orders, to which they obliged.

Due to [Volcanic Blaze] having [Volcanic Resistance Lv. 1], I was already super resistant against earth magic.

Volcanic Resistance: The advanced fusion between [Lava Resistance] and [Terra Resistance], reserved for creatures who live inside volcanoes and in the magma core of the world. Raises resistances against fire, lava, and earth attacks even further to allow the owner to survive the blazing hot depths of the world. The skills combined are: [Lava Resistance Lv. 10] [Inferno Resistance Lv. 10] [Terra Resistance Lv. 10]

I could tank Vifi’Yok’s [Ramuh], even if it was one of the most devastating spells I’ve ever seen. [Lightning Resistance Lv. 10], my armor’s rune, and also [The Heir of Hope]’s shield. Not to mention, I could even potentially use[Symphonie des Feuergottes Movement (Minuet)], [Prayer], and [Battle Frenzy] to increase my wisdom for more magic resistance. Though it was a bit of a shame that I couldn’t sing two songs as a dragon. Job skills didn’t work while I wasn’t a dragonewt but that didn’t matter here!

“I descend on Earth with Wings of Death! ♫

A Storm of Fury ♫

Creating Ash and Dust ♫

I am the Incarnation of the Sun ♫

I shine so brightly, I bring your death ♫

My lineage belongs to the God of Dragons! ♫

The song continued, raining dragon-shaped meteors onto the golems to divert its breath attack from Vifi’Yok. More seconds won, more seconds I had to take advantage of. Spell time!

Purple Flash! Prayer! Symphonie des Feuergottes!

“Kriffiek kllk gaaung!” I roared out, letting my blood rage through my body!

[Battle Frenzy(Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“What irony, I’ll get the damn Church of Aurena’s buff! Do it, Hestia!”

All buffs on! My parallel minds used the miniscule amount of time I had left until [Symphonie des Feuergottes] to buff myself up into high-heavens! I had expected to only scout out this fight, but things went awry, so it was time for a rush job!

[Various Spell Buffs] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Despair, color the sky crimson! ♫

Earth scorched by rain of undying flames ♫

Hope born from misery! ♫

Quash it all, you are facing me! ♫”

A huge amount of mana was getting consumed. 20% just vanished, creating everything happening on this battlefield. I felt my core slowly helping me regenerate, but those tiny moments didn’t matter as my mind was fully focused on the battle on hand. Fully focused as my huge fire magic circle readied itself for an attack!

Burn!

[Symphonie des Feuergottes]’s waterfall of flames engulfed the entire area beneath it, including me and the golem serpents. Knowing I had to keep the [Room] where the boys were safe, I guarded it by using my body as a wall, sending everything away while my scales saw no harm. I was completely immune to my own fire spells, after all, thanks to my blessing, [Divine Inferno].

[Symphonie des Feuergottes Movement (Allegro)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

50% more agility gotten, but that was important here. As the waves of flames subsided, disappearing and clearing from my vision, I grimaced as it didn’t seem to have damaged the golem snakes. In fact, a brown-golden earthen crust covered their entire bodies like armor. Pieces of it was cracking off like clay, though, but its brown-eyed gaze had its attention turned on me now.

“In the midst of the desert ♫

A bright ray of light shines ♫

Pure and brave, that she was, as she walked ♫

She was the ideal for me ♫

The bringer of children’s smiles ♫

Alas, the world seemed bleaker without her ♫”

[The Shield of [The Light]] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

I switched songs as I saw the golem gather debris around its face, while the blue-eyed one continued aiming at Vifi’Yok. Regardless, that was all everybody needed. I gouged out the piece of earth where [Room] was, hardened it up with [Terra Wall], and held it close to my chest. As time started to distort in my mind, slowed down due to the rising tension …

Prayer!

[Blessing of the Goddess of Light (Major)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

The spell basked Vifi’Yok and me in radiant light, buffing us all up! Just in time as everybody’s attacks activated!

“Die! Ramuh!”

“Gooooooooon!” The snakes roared as beams of mana and a gathering of rocks shot at Vifi’Yok and me, respectively.

Purple Flash! Gloria Ascendence!

Just as the purple thunder from [Ramuh] and the stream of rocks hit me, an indestructible barrier of light covered my entire, giant body, covering me and the [Room] up. Time was of the essence. This barrier could keep me undamaged, and would even heal me from any damage I would have received, but it could only last for a short amount of time. If it went over, I would have to tank the rest.

Sadly, that was the case. Something like 15 seconds passed, or something similar, and [Ramuh] still hadn’t finished blasting yet. The uncracked barrier of light disappeared, forcing me to use my chestplate’s [Defensive Rune: Auracoil] but it couldn’t compare to the [Sacred Magic Lv. 8]’s [Gloria Ascendence] in terms of sturdiness.

Crap!

I coiled my body like a snake, protecting the [Room] while relying on my scales to create a wall and my armor to protect my weak spots. With [Lightning Resistance Lv. 10], [Ramuh] shouldn’t be able to kill me. Especially with how I was abusing all my stat boosters! With [Battle Frenzy] and [Blessing of the Goddess of Light], I had a 40% increase in my stats, with my wisdom being at 7023 base and an additional 3090 from my armor. This wasn’t even mentioning my spell buffs, my resistances, and also [Draconic Barrier].

I could and would survive this!

Arrrrghhh!

The sizzling feeling of my nerves being fried up caused my heart to pump adrenaline throughout my body. My mana was getting killed from [Draconic Barrier] taking damage, but I had two “solar cores” left for everything. I could endure it!

“IT’S TIME, DRAGON! THE SHELL IS CRACKED!” A thunderous voice pierced through all the crackling and destruction, moments before it all began to quieten. “REAL BODY IN VIEW, HESTIA! LET’S DO THIS!”

Solar—!

I snapped my head around, face tanking the last bits of lightning with my floating scales. My solar energy went into overdrive, causing the stream of power to gather inside my throat. I saw the golem snakes, partially damaged but still alive, attached to a large round, rocky body. The [Ramuh] had completely disintegrated the ground, turning everything but the golem and me into a black stain.

I didn’t know what that body was, but I knew I had to target it.

—Beam! Come on, Purple Flash into Heaven’s Sword!

I activated my rocket boosters as my body went into overdrive, heating everything up. I flew close to the body and unleashed a beam of concentrated solar energy before materializing a giant woman’s hand on the ceiling, making it drive a blade of pure light into the monster below me. The impact of everything blew me away, sending me flying towards the ceiling before I threw the [Room] into the air and began singing [Dragon Fire].

“In my purgatory, I make the devil cry ♫

In Hellfire ♫

All you hear are his screams, begging to be released ♫

It’s Music ♫”

As the song echoed through the area with the entire room blinded by a bright light, Vifi’Yok charged into the [Room] to recover while I grabbed the [Room] once again and held it close to my chest. I took a deep breath and unleashed a boosted [Draconic Roar] with my parallel minds unleashing my arsenal of spells at the beast before directing a skyscraper-sized dragon-figured fire meteor to land on our enemy.

This excessive use of mana was drenching the dungeon so much, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the dungeon master summon something soon, but it wasn’t like we had a choice. As even after all the massive spells and abilities I had unleashed, my [Danger Perception] still pinged me to dodge the next attack coming towards me.

With my rocket boosters, that was no problem, but what came next caused me to swallow a bit. My eyes snapped around as I saw an earthen spear the size of my dragon body fly right past my head, destroying the wall behind me. I looked down, noticing how the snake golem’s rocky hide had broken off, revealing they weren’t even snakes to begin with, but tentacles! Metal tentacles sparkling as if they had gemstones on them.

“Goooooooooh!” A deep booming voice erupted, all while my fire meteor kept raining on it.

The ground then burst, breaking apart as something even larger appeared from the ground. Two large, stocky legs appeared first, pushing the rest of the colossal monster out of the ground. Not only was it larger than me now, but it almost looked like this thing could even rival the geisenlarg king in size; it was large enough to cast a shadow ov two baseball stadiums!

It turned its body around, revealing a jewel-eyed rock beast with the head shape of a bighorn sheep, including the large ram horns, but the hardened maw of a snapping turtle with molars inside its mouth. Those horns were glistening, looking like they were made of silver with prized jewels adorned on their ridges. In addition, it had a beard made from rocks growing from below its head, going all the way to the ground. It snatched its stone beard with its large, bulky arms, stroking it as it looked at me curiously.

[“… I can not only sense her on you, but three other scents of divinities as well.”]

It can speak?! Telepat—Arrrgh! A croaky voice entered my mind, causing me slight pain as I tried to listen to it. Noticing me flinching, it stopped caressing its rock beard.

[“… You can hear me? A dragon? You can listen to my voice?”]

Grak! The more it spoke, the more painful it got. It wasn’t even a headache, similar to the telepathic attacks of the garms, but more like something attacking my body.

[“Confusing … What is happening here? Hmm.”] It closed onto me while I was still in my overdrive mode.

I was questioning if I should continue this fight or not, it wasn’t exactly showing that much hostility towards me. Maybe I could talk this—

[“Getting a live dragon to test out that dragon killer weapon might solve my debt to that fiend.”]

Fuck that!

Hellflame Breath! I unleashed my dragon breath right into his face, before igniting my scale-dust, turning myself into a miniature bomb before continuing playing [Dragon Fire].

The beast didn’t even flinch as it stretched its cumbersome arm out, trying to catch me. Far too fast for it with my rocket boosters, I was flying around him like a jet plane, showering him with more and more of my flames. Wind, lightning, and even holy spells flew out as well, striking everywhere around his body, trying my best to find a weakness.

[“Futile.”] It snapped its finger, causing the ground beneath me to turn into spikes before they shot at me. With all my speed boosts, this was easily thwarted as I sliced everything in place before sending a flame slash at the monster who seemed to be frowning now. [“This body is too weak, even if its too sturdy for you to damage. Deal with somebody your age.”]

It went down onto all four, raising its two metal tentacles—the “snake golems” from before— before slamming his hands on the ground. I continued trying to take this raid beast down, hittingit with all my magics, but it completely ignored me to twist and mold the ground before it finished creating a set of ten golems made in its image but … far smaller, around the size of humans? No, the size of teenagers or even children, but with extremely stocky builds like those from a bodybuilder.

[“Weapons.”] It snapped its fingers again, causing the earth to quake before various glistening rocks burst out, flying over to the golems as they morphed into bows, axes, and spears! [“Figh—”]

“Thunderspeed Roar!” That iconic ability shout blared into my ears as a fire arrow shot out of my [Room] and landed right into the mix of golems, destroying five of them. “NOW! Territory Release!”

Allied Territory detected! [Magnetic Storm] has been activated!

Now shoeless, she jumped up and tapped her bare feet together, causing electricity to erupt from her body and flingthe golems and rock beast across the room and into the walls, utterly destroying the child-sized golems. The earth around Vifi’Yok began to hover around her, almost as if a magnetic force surrounded her. Which, naturally, was exactly what was happening, since this was her Territory.

Then I should help out too, making lava out of this will give us a better grip on things!

Mana Release activated. Aura used as control unit: [Draconic Aura Lv. 5]. Territory [Magmakammer] has been established

The air became harder to breathe with all this heat exuding from my body, even if with my lungs, it only felt just slightly more stuffy. Since I wasn’t on the ground, nothing was being turned into magma, but the moment I got close to the ground, everything started to melt. I also summoned my [Hydra] for further support, even using the newly made magna to make its body grow even larger.

[“Everything earth is under my command!”] It pressed itself out of the wall before Vifi’Yok began striking it with her lightning spells, trying to stop it, only for the rock beast to slam its hand against the wall, demolishing it with a single blow!

At the same time, the ceiling and floor suddenly started to move, looking like the beast wanted to crush all of us. At the same time, the broken down wall started to turn into gravel, letting the beast swim through it, disappearing before the wall solidified.

Vifi’Yok ran up to me, knowing I was the only safe point in the room right now.

“I’m trusting you! Don’t fucking kill me!” she called out, prompting me to instantly nod. This wasn’t the time to be enemies!

I covered her in an [Air Shield] before grabbing her with my left hand. I continued having [Dragon Fire] play so I wouldn't burn her before I had my slime [Hydra] turn its heads towards the ground. Turning my hydra into an obsidian drill, I covered my body in [Panzer] before diving with it into the depths of this place. With [Magmakammer] active, the earth was being turned into magma, allowing us to swim through it.

As we swam a bit, Vifi’Yok’s and my sensory skills caught onto some signal, coming in fast. Using my rocket boosters and increasing my body temperature, I shot right past it, before continuing my pursuit.

[Symphonie des Feuergottes Movement (Adagio)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Sadly, just as I did that, the movement of my Symphonie changed to adagio, making me lose my agility boost. However, the adagio stage increased my strength and intelligence up by 50%. Still a worthwhile trade!

With my speed down, I had to increase the burst of fire, causing my parallel minds to remind me not to go all out, otherwise my core might crack again. The only reason the [Heaven’s Sword] and [Dragon Fire] combo didn’t do it this time was I held myself back a bit.

Do I even have a plan to kill this thing? Fuck no, there was nothing! I can’t appraise it, can’t know its limit. What even is it? Can I even talk with it after what it said? Fighting doesn’t seem like the correct answer here.

My train of thoughts instantly stopped as the ground around me disappeared, creating a spherical hole, empty of anything but the rock beast falling towards me. Before I could react, Vifi’Yok sliced through her [Air Shield] and clapped her bare feet again, using her powers to drive me to the ground by an invisible force. Same thing happened to the rock beast, only it was sent crashing into the ceiling instead.

With my body heat, I melted the ground before I landed, diving into the magma before resurfacing and shooting my [Hydra] up at the monster. [Corrosive Fire] allowed me to inject the corrosive obsidian with any previously experienced poison, so I charged it up with something highly acidic.

“Guoooh!” It let out a surprised roar, causing it to snap its head around and manipulate the ceiling like moldable paper.

[“whO ArE yOu?!”] Using a telepathic attack, I tried to distract it, even using my parallel minds to try to scramble its mind, but it didn’t seem fazed at all. In fact, when he responded, it caused me damage instead!

[“Your thoughts cannot threaten mine, whelpling!”] Like an organ, it boomed through my mind. [“You have no right to know who I am, if you cannot discern it yourself. Ignorant whelp, I know from whom you are running from. If these old limbs cannot catch you, then your enemies will!”]

What?!

[“But first, you, go away!”]

The rock beast threw a house-sized chunk of Earth at Vifi’Yok, prompting her to stand her ground on the air and slice it in half, only to tap her feet again. This time, her magnetic force reversed, pulling the rock beast and me towards her.

“Shut off your Territory!” she shouted as her Territory disappeared. “Here’s the set up you need, so deal some damage! I’ll come out once it’s my turn!”

Allied Territory [Magnetic Storm] deactivated

I did the same.

Territory deactivated

Some heat around me vanished as I caught Vifi’Yok, only to then turn my attention to the incoming beast. I heated up my tail with [Hellblade Edge] and [Drakonian Sunlight Edge], before I began singing [The Heir of Light] for its additional 10% stat boost. This also included the 10% boost from [Battle Frenzy (Minor)], 30% from [Prayer], the 50% from adagio, and also my various buffs!

Dammit, if only I could just unlock [Battle Frenzy (Moderate)]. It would have been 25% instead of only 10%. Enough, let’s go! Dhuinn Rune, activate!

[Dhuin Rune: Fearless Defense] switched the 3090 vitality and 3090 wisdom into strength and intelligence respectively. Furthermore, they would add onto my base stats, meaning the total of 100% plus the amount from my spell buffs would be added onto this next attack. Double attack!

Solar Beam, release!

I channeled my solar energy throughout my body, turning my entire body into a humongous bomb, lightning myself up before I channeled all this strength with [Drakonian Sunlight Edge].

Drakonian Sunlight Edge: A skill connected to [Solar Core], and requires a core able to absorb and store solar energy to perform. If the total solar energy is above 1%, allows the user to harness this energy by spreading it throughout their body or anything they touch like mana, although it will dissipate at medium range. The element of this attack will be treated similarly to [White Flames], if the user possesses that skill. In addition, allows the absorption of solar-based energy, reducing any damage dealt to the owner from them. The skills combined are: [True Spear Technique Lv. 10] [Air Walk Lv. 10] [Continental Drake Stride Lv. 10] [Superior Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 10] [Superior Aerial Fighter Lv. 10] [Speed Of Sonic Lv. 10]

“If the total solar energy is above 1%, allow the user to harness this energy by spreading it throughout their body […]” was the part I wanted to finally abuse! It didn’t matter how I got rid of this excessive energy, it only mattered that I release it to get out of my overdrive mode.

I honestly had no idea if this would work. I never bloody tried it, but it was too obvious if you read the description! God Yeostar—he fucking knew how to make a girl happy! He was a far better war god than stupid Shiterno!

You rock, God Yeostar!

With all the energy channeled into this my tail blade, I roared out!

“Kraaauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuungh!”

[“STOP!”]

NO!

The blade of light struck, piercing right into the beast’s stomach with a grand explosion. I activated my rocket boosters, sending me flying forward with my tail, slicing his entire stomach and chest wide open before I reached its neck. With one last push, my tail swiped right through.

Crack! That sound of glass breaking! Damn! I overdid it again!

With my final attack finished, the stream of solar energy was shot not only into the beast’s body, but also at the ceiling, slicing a portion of it the size of a football stadium right off. I could only stare at ceiling falling down before noticing my body began to overheat. My core was at 0%!

Arrgh! Solar energy absorb!

Using up my last spare “core” by absorbing the solar energy from the sun catalyst Tasianna made from one of my broken solar cores, I managed to refill my main core back to 60%, stopping my body from overheating. I then took a look at my tail, noticing how incredible blunt it had gotten. That last attack completely totaled my strongest body weapon.

I also took a look at my right hand, letting out a sigh of relief as the [Room] hadn’t broken. I somehow managed to prevent it from melting.

“Ooooooorrrrrrrnh!”

However, knowing it couldn’t have died since my level didn’t go up, I snapped my head down, where I saw the rock beast having lost its head. Its “beard” was cut off and a large scar decorated its torso. The rocky body was melting from all the solar energy, turning into fuel for my [Hydra] still on the ground. It absorbed everything, turning into a gargantuan beast to rival the rock beast’s former size.

[“… Ah, I see. Crustacia sent you to kill me.”] Its voice entered my head.

Wait, how did it—Hold on, it did say that just before.

[“Once again, I lost. I guess it was inevitable with how weak this new body is. I am defeated, I accept it.”]

More questions. What did it mean by “Once again?” Did this thing live when the gods descended down to the world, or—Hold on … I believe, I was overlooking something here. Crustacia called this thing a “golem” with the quotation marks, meaning she knew this wasn’t a golem since second one. She also mentioned how “The earth told me they would return,” and “[…] didn’t expect to meet them in this dungeon.”

… Also, didn’t it just create those humanoid golems? If you took away the sheep-like head, it had a beard and horns like a ram. Was the size of a human teenager and was stocky … Where the hell have I seen something like that before?

… Grimnir. No, all Taz dwarves … No way.

It was just a guess. [“Are you … the Earth Elemental Emperor?”]

“Again.”

Hm? That voice …

A deep, growly voice suddenly silenced me, causing my body to stiffen up as I turned my head around to the side as a piece of the wall suddenly began to tremble. As it kept rustling, it opened up like a door, allowing me to hear the sounds of footsteps.

“Oh, great honored creator, oh how you failed in your task. Your rebirth so far, for thou body broketh. Your children—unchained. Your youngest? Buried. Your eldest? Shining. Surpassed their creator!” The shadow revealed itself to be an old Inko with a long, dirty beard that hadn’t seen any cleaning in weeks. “But, I do not blame you. You just had to face the one lizard willing to interfere in everything, instead of just minding her own business.”

Ma-Maag—!

“Krrriiiiaaaaashhhha!” I roared out, eyes flaring up as I realized who the person was. [“Maagneil!”]

I had expected somebody else. Maagneil was literally the last person I had expected to find at the very bottom of this dungeon. Unfortunately, he was also the person who was about to give me the greatest headache in my life.

Fla—

“Begone.” Just as I was about to react, he pulled out a red orb from his smithing apron, letting it shimmer before the entire dungeon began to rumble.

[Flash Fire] managed to activate next to the few magma patches inside this arena, but as my body rushed over there as if I teleported, the ground suddenly shifted upwards. As [Flash Fire] made me rush towards the magma, I narrowly missed hitting Grimnir’s uncle as the ground was raised up, pushing my body into the air. I tried to use my rocket boosters to reach him, but the wall just in front of me bashed my head in, knocking me further away.

No!

The piece of earth where I placed [Room] on nearly flew out of my hand, forcing me to prioritized the safety of my friends over the person possibly responsible for everything happening inside this dungeon. Once it was safe in my hands again, I snapped my head around, widening my eyes as I saw the figure of Maagneil through the small gaps of the raised earth.

W-wait! That-that thing!

I knew what that was. I saw what it had done the last time I encountered one inside a dungeon.

A rebellion orb!

The catalyst able to cause a dungeon break to happen, sending its monsters crazy. An item able to send a dungeon boss to destroy the city supposed to benefit from having a dungeon nearby.

And, it was a creation from the demonkins. How and from whom did Maagneil get that object? It didn’t matter what those answers were, since I had my primary answer: Maagneil was a demonkin sympathizer.

The light of the orb shone red, causing the dungeon to quake. Maagneil mumbled, “Dungeon. Break apart, connect yourself to Manethala’s. Activate rebellion orb.”

The entire arena cracked, separating itself from every corner while my body was pushed away from all the earth. Whatever I tried, I couldn’t break through; this was the unbreakable dungeon ground.

I’m gonna get crushed! Territory! Territory Rel—

[“Am I to be disposed?”] The voice of the boss I just fought entered my head as I was trying to find a way out of this situation. [“Then I will take my moment before I slumber. Unworthy creation of mine, you shall rue this moment. Your ideals will crumble with your allegiance, mad on!”]

“Gooooooooooun!” The boss suddenly roared with its decapitated head, rallying some serious energy and life despite my finishing blow. An ordinary being would not be able to move from having its body eviscerated.

The rocks pushing me around like a ragdoll suddenly stopped, prompting me to stop my Territory release as I flew away from everything. The boss’s broken down body suddenly began to move, telepathically reforming themselves before pushing itself out of my [Hydra]’s acid bath.

Controlling the earth around it, its melting body was slowly reforming itself as it barely managed to regrow its humongous body. I did not have [Hydra] stop him. After its speech, I had the feeling it was better to support it than whatever Maagneil was trying. Just as I thought that, it roared once again before slamming its massive arms into the ground, causing the entire ceiling to just crack open.

“Stop!” I heard Maagneil shout, but it was easily drowned out as I saw large, bus-sized fragments drop from the ceiling drop onto the ground, breaking on the raised earth.

… Shit, that smell! I snapped my head up, widening my eyes when I saw a man falling down with the ceiling I had just cut.

He was wearing crimson-red armor, something I definitely acknowledged as mine since I could sense my smell on it. In addition, that scarred face with those two highly focused eyes instantly sent a shiver down my spine when I locked onto them.

It was him.

“Found you.” With a new set of red daggers on hand, he stomped the ground, launching himself at me at a frightening speed.

You have to be— That same chill when I first met him reappaeared again, stunning me for a second as my instincts told me he was real trouble. It got even worse now that I knew he turned that severed arm of mine into his armor! Hydra! Attack!

As that frightening red aura exuded from his body, [Hydra]—now the size of a ten floor building, completely dwarfing me—roared as it went to protect me, striking the dragonslayer mid-air. Sadly, he sliced my corrosive slime golem’s hand into tiny pieces, but that didn’t matter as, just like a real hydra, the arm just formed a new one to attack him.

The dragonslayer was making no progress forward, being forced to use [Air Steps] to move around while the entire dungeon was seemingly crumbling away into dust. But, in the next moment, things just stopped and the dungeon began to reform itself, turning dust into blocks. I glanced over to where the boss golem and Maagneil were somehow fighting with each other, when I noticed that sympathizer was holding up a blue, pearl-like crystal on one hand and the rebellion orb in the other.

Is that the dungeon core?

Whatever it was, I was caught in the crossfire with two fights happening around me. I didn’t know which to focus on, still prioritizing the safety of the [Room]. It was then I decided I had to take Maagneil out, but that was when the chaos climaxed.

Woah!

The dungeon around me morphed, with its ceilings and ground moving around at such a rapid pace I couldn’t even tell what was up or down. Like a rubik’s cube, it rotated like crazy, until something hit my head, causing me to tumble onto another hard spot, again and again.

Still holding onto my consciousness, I saw [Hydra] turning into a large cascading black-purple tsunami and drowned out the boss golem and the dragonslayer. But trying to focus on controlling my [Hydra], I eventually became so sick from all this vertigo that I was starting to see triples of everything.

I was too disorientated. I didn’t even know if I puked or not, as I couldn’t feel my body moving at all. All I knew was that my Symphonie stopped and I blacked out from my brain banging against my skull far too many times.

When I eventually woke up, I could only stare at the ceiling. It was … No, it was not a ceiling, but the sky. Or “sky,” considering where I was supposed to be.

“Bastard, get away from her!”

My “nap”was interrupted by a foreign voice. A man’s, but I couldn’t tell who it was.

“Tatsuy—”

“Fuck you!” That one, though, was definitely Tatsuya’s.

“Dude!” And that was Kyouya’s.

“Great … I’m stuck with these idiots, again. Cat, did you find any people?” That was Vifi’Yok’s.

[“No, I hav—Master!”] While everybody was occupied with something else, my trusty virigress instantly noticed when I was awake. Just like a real cat.

I rose my head, feeling the clattering of my scales, meaning I was currently in my dragon form. I opened my eyes, only to see a young man … with white-grey hair.

“Hikari!”

I lost consciousness.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Side Story 48: The Belzac Wolves Rebellion.

A note from AbyssRaven

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[“On! On! On the ship, now!”] My voice resounded through the minds of the many fleeing beastmen swarming past me into the makeshift ‘grimgarian ship docked on the pier. Since I was in my fenrir form, my elevated height allowed me to overlook the entire chaos, where I quickly noticed a few of the beastmen were actually fighting back! [“Stop fighting, get on the ships, now!”]

“Go, Miss Saori! They killed my mate! We will relish bathing in these demihuman’s blood!” A bovline, the Peolyncan minotaur, shouted her response to me while she smited a hobgoblin warrior with the help of an arvisian archer.

“Grawwwr! Torment! They used a warrior like me as a slave! Goddess of Vengeance, fuel my strength to fight your spawns for tainting my honor!” A leonid roared out, scaring the few goblins and kobolds away. With a blood-soaked cleaver, he covered the escape of a pair of katzune slaves.

In fact, quite a number of beastmen were fighting instead of fleeing. Many were doing it in the name of vengeance or to regain their honor after being forced into slavery by the grimgarian army. Their anger was understandable, but this was not the reason I came here for, leaving the rest of Aurora to do the Event Quest.

Even if I accepted that I had to be less controlling, since not every situation would turn in my favor, there was a limit I would allow. This was too much, too many people trying to do whatever they wanted with no rhyme or reason. Irritating!

“My honor will—”

“Ahwroooooooh!” I howled, interrupting their shouting before shooting out black lightning at some incoming grimgarian. I used [Air Step], walking up to the sky to growl down at the agitated beastmen [“You will stand down! Who gave you the order to die?! Move! Into! The! Shi—”]

[“Watch out.”] A deep, growling voice interrupted my telepathy, but I didn’t need him to tell me when my skills already did it.

With my [Shadow Armament]’s armor, I had some separate from my body to create two small footholds—floating discs essentially. I looked at both and cast [Warp Point: Entry] and [Warp Point: Exit] both, respectively. Even though I could feel my mana draining quickly, the spells still required some time to form, far slower than what Hestia could do.

Once they were fully formed, I snapped my head around as I noticed a blue glow in the distance, before a ball shot at me. I opened both portals and used the space-distortion to have the projectile go into one and out of the other. Essentially, I was redirecting the attack back at the mana cannon that shot at me.

[Lifetaker (280)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

Owch! My eyes twitched, still unused to [Space-Time Magic]’s level level 4 and 5 spells. My mana had grown, but I was just not used to the amount I would lose just to keep the warp portal open for more than three seconds.

However, this was what Belzac was training me for.

[“Get on the ships! I will defend you, I told you this the moment this rebellion began! The moment I freed you from your shackles! Move!”] I growled, intimidating the last few unconvinced beastmen onto the four ships docked at the port. A good majority of the warrior caste were naturally unhappy, but I could start being more understanding with them after I was done with this Divine Quest.

Divine Quest: Your First Quest

Quest Giver: Goddess of Fertility and Monsters, Edna

Description: First real Quest. Enjoy, Saori.

Free the slaves. You know. Bring them back to Carmaniate

Reward: +1 level, Divine Quest [Belzac Wolves Alpha Training] will conclude, [Ambassador of Grim]’s function unlocked, my official acknowledgement of being my Champion

And, this.

Divine Quest: Belzac Wolves Alpha Training

Quest Giver: Goddess of Death and Necromancy, Ilsaphone

Description: Train under Belzac. Master his teachings. Become a fenrir beastmen will follow. Become an alpha.

Hestia’s soul protects yours. Still not strong enough. Sentences short.

Belzac will train you in his empty vessel magic.

Reward: Unique empty vessel magic [Abyssal Sacrilege], [Belzac’s Successor] upgrade, unique skill [Shadow Armament] upgrade, unique skill [Shadow Pack] upgrade, unique Job unlock

Unlike Hestia’s incredibly detailed Quest descriptions whenever she got a Divine Quest, mine were made with short or even incomplete sentences. This was how most blessed communicated with their patron gods, and while I wasn’t an exception, [Hestia’s Retainer] was fortifying my soul somewhat, making the deciphering process easier.

Asaka had a similar Quest, but hers gave a different reward. In fact, she didn’t even get the Divine Quest to free the beastmen since Ilsaphone’s sister was Kronnaz, the ancestral mother of the grimgarians. I did wonder why Edna was making it difficult for Kronnaz, seeing as they were mother and daughter, but if there was one thing I learned from Earth myths it was to not question the gods. Trouble in the family was like a weekly event for the Greek gods, at least.

In any case, while it wasn’t exactly what Belzac had planned, my efforts to rescue the slaves from the grimgarian army and the Ogre King to effectively cripple them was my final test. I had already intended to do this, as I explained to Hestia and the others, as weakening the grimgarian army also meant the demonkins’ plan would be stalled as well. Their invasion would be made impossible. In fact, would the grimgarians be even able to maintain their current base to the east of Artorias without their slave labor?

That thought made me hopeful that my little “Haitian Revolution” would bring about that very result. Well, I say Haitian, but unlike the actual Earthen revolt where the Haitians expelled the French government out of their country, I was helping the beastmen slaves escape the grimgarian cities and towns they were forced to build under the commands of the Ogre King.

“Oi, Segawa!” I heard Asaka’s voice call out while I was defending the pier from the hobgoblin archers and other projectiles from the grimgarian army. Before long, a large shadow passed by the grimgarians, freeing me from having to pay attention to them.

I turned my head around, looking over to see Asaka underneath the docks, standing on my slime Shoyi’s amphibious body as she used a spray canister to color the ship’s hull white and black. Glancing at the other three ships, they all had the same treatment.

“I fixed all the holes and breaches! All four ships are ready to sail! I’ll add a sail with my empty vessel in a moment! Is everybody on?”

Miss Graffiti Artist was quite useful when her graffiti could be used in such a manner. Well, her unique skill [Twilight Paladin] allowed her to create spells using “Twilight” as an element, a mixture of holy and dark magic. It was, honestly, rather incredulous how “Twilight” ended up as an element; then again, what else would you get from a compound element made from holy and dark?

With the skill, she could also solidify the mana of whatever she made, similar to the slime Ilsaphone gave the onnikais. It was fitting for Ilsaphone's Champion, in other words. With this knowledge, Asaka created the custom spell [Vivid Grafiti] to bring her passion to reality, while also making her unique Skill useful for situations like this.

That “Twilight” slime kept the holes on this makeshift grimgarian ship sealed.

[“We’re nearly done! Shoyi, get her on the ship and prepare to protect everybody!”] I commanded, prompting it to respond with some gurgle sounds to make sure it understood.

I then landed on the ground, looking over this small harbor village, made from local wood and stone. It could have passed as any other medieval village if it weren’t for the many grimgarian and beastmen corpses. Sadly, I didn’t manage to protect all of them.

As I explained to Hestia, the slaves I rescued during my mission to force the grimgarians to recall their invasion ships from Artorias wanted to take down the grimgarians as revenge. That was why I called it the Haitian Revolution, but now due to my new Divine Quest, the plan changed to an escape mission.

After freeing more and more slaves, to the point I believed I had everybody unshackled, we were making a last ditch effort to get out of here. The cave towards the Belzac forest was blocked by the grimgarian army, and I heard from Svena in the [Room] subspace that it had been a week since Hestia hadn’t returned from her dungeon dive. Without her, I couldn’t just teleport people away and with, from my calculations, about 1357 beastmen slaves it was literally impossible to sustain that many people in the [Room].

Our small subspace was never made to accommodate an army’s worth of people for multiple days. Even teleporting them from the grimgarian kingdom to Firwood couldn’t be done in even a week. Unless you were Hestia, everybody had to spend mana to fast travel from one location to the other. The longer the distance, the more you had to pay, and even with our numerous catalyst tools, it was a logistical nightmare of possibly catastrophic results.

Even if we considered Artorias or another country willing to feed that many beastmen, how could we assure the peace? I could not trust any of these people fully. Boredom could force even the most sensible person to perform unpredictable acts.

As a result, the only possible method was through the seas. Yes, it would still be a problem, but this was our only way out.

Haaa, if only I could fly like you …

[“Alpha!”] I turned my head back to the blood-filled village streets, seeing Uno appear from the shadow of a house, emerging with black flames covering his body. A proud rank B fenrir larger than an elephant, standing taller than even me, he was now a [Seething Shadow Fenrir].

With a body as black as charcoal, as if he was just burned alive, Uno raised his head, directing my attention at an incoming army of grimgarian with an ogre wearing a crown leading the way in the horizon. I couldn’t count how many appeared despite this area being an open plain with only a few small hills. They could begin artillery shots, but it should take them a bit longer to reach us, probably an hour or so.

Nevertheless, we had to prepare. Uno, noticing my worry, agreed. His shadow flames—shadow smoke similar to my [Smokey Haze] custom spell—that were exuding from his body suddenly changed in size, making him taller than usual. With a loud howl, four more shadow beasts surrounded me.

My second garm, and now fenrir, Song appeared—a fenrir around my size but with a far slimmer frame which made her look more like a fox than a fenrir. However, unlike Uno and me, she didn’t focus purely on overpowering others with her physical prowess. With blue, silvery fur covering her body, this [Lunaghost Fenrir] could slip through the night almost undetected and kill with the highest mana, intelligence, and wisdom in our group.

Our third member was Sarasa, but unlike the others, she wasn’t standing on four legs. In fact, she was about the size of a wolfkin form. However, her body was completely covered in thick fur to hide her highly developed muscles. Our brute force member, the one who sacrificed her spellcasting potential to reach a strength level to hopefully rival Hestia’s—[Shadowfist Wererir].

And then, there was the last of my former garms, Quatre. With a size and frame similar to Uno, this beast of a wolf was completely covered in heavy bone armor, only showing his four through the slits. Looking like a skeleton wolf, he growled at the approaching army as black slime oozed from his body, covering his body up, turning him into something similar to a juggernaut. Fittingly, his race was called [Deathcharger Fenrir].

Last, but not least, we were joined by our only non-wolf rank B—Varya, the virigress mother of Rajah and his siblings. A [Splintertail Virgacuga] now, the feline was the size of Song with a similar build, only her front legs and tail were highly developed, being thick and strong. Her green fur could now harden up, turning sharp like blades and able to inject venom into others. With a tail able to shoot harden fur like spikes at others, she was our venom producer whenever I was away from Hestia.

Unlike Hestia, the one-woman army, my shadow pack was my army. My swissknife. Black lightning from me, shadow flames from Uno, the perfect assassin in Song, the “hammer” in Sarasa, the shield in Quatre, and the venom producer in Varya. Not to mention how Varya’s cubs still had time to grow and how Shoyi, my slime, was close to rank B, too.

This wasn’t even mentioning …

[“Saori, we are ready.”]

… my mother. Although still a rank C garm, she was still a pack leader with years of experience. This person was now guiding me as I took command of everything.

[“Yes, Mother.”] I nodded before turning to attention to a wolf skull necklace hanging around my neck. [“Belzac, will you watch me?”]

[“I will evaluate you, yes, Saori.”]

As planned, we abandoned the Belzac forest nest of his, leaving his shrine behind while I carried his remains with me to keep him close as my mentor. It was, after all, time for me to take a step back into the real world and continue my training in a more useful manner.

We just have to delay until the ships depart … Can we do this?

Six rank Bs versus the rank A Ogre King. Could we win against him? Probably not, since he had an army behind him, including numerous rank B commanders as his bodyguards. My small group couldn’t win … but my job in Aurora had always been more on the difficult side. Saving a few people?

Easy enough.

[“Spread out,”] I ordered, noticing the rage-filled face of the Ogre King, before using [Identify] on him from afar. It was a bit hard to pinpoint him from this distance, but my eyesight could manage it if I focused.

Ogre Giganvin: An ogre who had grown larger than its peers, towering even the healthiest ones. A bulwark of muscles and rage, these ogres have chosen to follow along the path of vengeance of the Goddess Kronnaz. Unlike most ogres, this one has well-rounded stat growths, allowing it to act as a mage with its one track mind to destroy its enemies. Able to use their racial skill to increase their size even further to rival those of the same rank. Rank A

Name: Kreigst Thunderslayer Level: 25 Race: Ogre Giganvin Age: 62 Years

Status: Health: 67890 Mana: 9578

Strength: 14289 Intelligence: 6213

Vitality: 13900 Wisdom: 10006

Agility: 9021 Stamina: 23189

Titles: [Watched by Kronnaz] [King]

Information Blocked

…

In humanoid terms, this monster was level 155. Not to mention, he had far more stats than even Hestia in her dragon form aside from mana and intelligence. I was actually faster than him, but my strength wasn’t even close to his vitality, and he was also wearing a set of armor to further boost it. With that insane strength and his weapon, he could cleave any of us in two!

Also, what in God’s name was that Health pool?! This ogre could tank Hestia’s attack and probably still be able to fight just like … that rank A geisenlarg king we fought in Griffonpeak … Oh no.

Okay … as the second-in-command to Aurora, I knew exactly what sort of battles I could win. This one, though, uuuuuuuh, maybe this wasn’t the time to try to use my new abilities. I wasn’t even close to his level and stats!

[“… Maybe you aren’t ready just yet.”] Belzac’s voice warned me.

[“Retreat! Cover the ships!”] I corrected my orders, which my shadow pack instantly followed without questioning it. They heard my panic.

“Beeeeeeeeeelzac!” The Ogre King roared as he saw us turn our backs to him. With me using [Identify], he probably realized we wouldn’t want to challenge him right now.

He rushed ahead of his army, running with his lightning-infused horned hammer raised up. His army did not follow, letting their king charge with eyes filled with rage. His muscles suddenly swelled and that supposed size change the description mentioned happened.

Before, he had been around Uno’s height—slightly shorter than a giraffe’s height—but now he was large enough to tower over even Hestia. A real gigantification, this ogre was a massive monster like in those kaiju films, although he still couldn’t be compared to Melloxtressa.

With every step, the earth quaked as he took a massive leap towards the port, leaving three house-sized foot imprints on his way like an Olympic triple-jumper! He would reach us before the one hour ETA!

[“Sarasa! Quatre! On me! Everybody else, take care of the ships!”] I quickly gave my commands before having everybody in my pack cast [Shadow Pack], effectively doubling our number of combatants.

Just delay! Haste, Swift Winds, Strengthening Flames!

[Shadow Armament (Full Cover)] [Various Spell Buffs] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

[Wind Magic Lv. 5]’s and [Fire Magic Lv. 5]’s buffing spells. With my growth as a mage, I had also finally taken the step to broaden my spell arsenal. Not for their offensive powers, no, [Stygian Voltage] and my dark elemental attack buffs meant using anything outside of my black lightning and dark spells meant I was weakening my damage. I bought these two skills and leveled them up for their buffs and utility!

I then clapped my front paws together, causing my white fur to start producing black lightning. I placed them in my shadow before conjuring a black black circle.

Behold, my new spell, Hel’s Thunder!

I then grabbed hold of my shadow with [Shadow Armament], allowing me to use [Umbrakinesis] to enlarge my shadow and make it connect with the ones cast by the nearby houses. Just as the Ogre King reached the pier, my spell activated, using all the shadows mine managed to touch to unleash a maelstrom of black lightning, striking the ogre right in the chest just as he was about to land, making him fall onto his back.

Hel’s Thunder: A custom spell made with [Stygian Voltage]. Allows the user to channel their [Stygian Lightning] through their shadows and any other as long as the owner’s shadows touches the rest. Grows in strength the more shadows that are connected, with its effectiveness lessoned when used in complete darkness

Unlike my trump card [Hadaen Dragon Thunder] which was meant as a crowd control spell, I could channel each individual lightning bolt into one enemy, shooting all of the bolts like a minigun. And I could continue using the spell as long as I had mana!

Fire!

The black lightning shot in the sky, gathering into a single point before turning into the form of an arrow to strike the ogre. However, his body suddenly started to shrink to the point I couldn’t see him from here anymore. The lightning struck, causing the black light to dissipate from the area. However, for some reason, my skills warned me of an incoming attack.

Just as a shiver ran down my spine, I noticed the color green in the the area where my lightning had hit, before I realized that was the attack of the ogre! We had to dodge!

Sarasa, Quatre, and I all dodged the right just as a giant cleave of a green lightning shot out from that direction, bisecting the entire harbor into two. The crackling electricity still caught us, though, causing some minor burns as we crashed against a few buildings to escape. Loud chirping sounds resounded in my head, as I felt slightly light-headed from the crash. After shaking it off, I snapped my head around.

My shadow pack was alright, I could feel it, but what about the ships? Thankfully, I made the correct choice by assigning four members to take care of the ship. With Shoyi’s help as a platform on the water, Uno, Song, Varya, and Mother cast [Dark Tendrils] and managed to pull the ships off the pier and out of the water.

Aside from Uno’s rescued ship, the rest had almost capsized due to the other three lacking strength to control them. Thankfully, Asaka and Shoyi already handled them, with the former using her graffiti spell to create a large balloon to make the ships bounce to the side. With Uno quickly helping out the other three, they managed to get the ships to stabilize.

“Wroooooooooh!” I jerked my eyes around as I heard Sarasa’s howl, noticing the Ogre approaching, charging up his axe once again.

Shit, I have to use it!

[“Sarasa! Quatre! Delay!”] I gave out my orders, prompting our two physically-focused fenrirs to charge at the ogre. He eyed them, before throwing his axe onto the ground and began to provoke them by gesturing “Come at me” with his hand.

This guy knows he’s stronger!

“Wrooooooooooh!”

However, we wouldn’t take this lying down.

Sarasa howled once again as her shadow spread in front of her before slamming her arms into it.

Her shadow began to quake and then lashed out, attaching itself to the ogre’s shadow and suddenly causing him to sink into it as if it was a swamp. The ogre’s eyes looked down, unperturbed.

Quatre dove into the shadow just as Sarasa grabbed a nearby house, pulling it and its foundation out of the ground before slinging it at the ogre. He was about to defend himself, only for his body to jerk back, slowing him down and causing him to get hit by the house. As the dust settled down, he frowned, shaking his head to get rid of the dust.

He eyed the shadow, having noticed Quatre using his unique racial skill [Underworld Charger] to slip into the shadow without [Shadow Dash]. There, he was fighting the Ogre King, swimming around and ramming his hardened bone armor into him.

The ogre king raised his arm, prompting Sarasa and I to intervene. We Belzac wolves fought dirty.

[“kmkpASAMDAmsakmasassdKFKSDKdkfsdfldllasd”] Sarasa and I sent scrambled thoughts through our [Telepathy] into the ogre, followed by the four other members of this shadow pack.

“Grruk! Wolves!”

The mental attack worked, dazing the ogre king and allowing our six [Shadow Clone]s to attack him. However, none of them could deal any damage, and instead of dealing with them, the ogre just ignored them and raised his arm again.

Sarasa, in response, pounced at him, kicking the arm before wrapping some mana threads around it. She then threw the strings towards me, which I caught and began pulling to stop the ogre, but that quickly proved to be a bad move.

But instead of trying to break out, he began to flex his muscles before an audible “pop!” sound resounded from around the arm the thread was on. In the next moment, blood oozed out of his bronze-black armor, dripping into his shadow, causing it to shake and create small waves in it.

As I was confused at what happened, Quatre suddenly dove out of the shadow, panting as his shadow armor was sizzling for some reason. At the same time, the ogre king jerked his arm and pulled me over. To save me, one of the [Shadow Clone] bodychecked me out of the ogre’s grip but ended up taking my place.

Squeezing the elephant-sized wolf like a plush toy, it exploded, before the ogre forced himself out of his shadow, then grabbing his axe and throwing it at me. Sarasa, thankfully, was faster, slingshotting herself up by using [Dark Tendrils], where she grabbed the axe mid-flight and flung it away. I caught her with my own tendrils, before using [Wind Blast] to weaken her acceleration.

At the same time, a rune lit up on the axe, causing the axe to fly back to the ogre’s hand, Sarasa along with it. Telling her to let go, I used another [Wind Blast], changing my trajectory towards the Ogre King while I channeled my dark lightning around the white fur on my front paws to land an electrifying [Voltage Impact] right at my enemy.

He, however, grabbed his shadow with his blood-dripping left arm and used it to produce a shield to block my attack, before grabbing his flying axe to slash at me. I jumped off the shield, and used both [Wind Blast] and [Just Blink], my first custom ability. For a single second, I disappeared from everybody’s perception using [Shadow Armament] to disappear. Even the Ogre King couldn’t detect me running to his back to land a back attack on him with [Voltage Impact].

However …

… Dammit.

“… It seemed you weren’t just a feeble little wolf, scurrying around my kingdom like a rat, infesting the foundation. You can fight.” He pulled his helmet off, showing his scarred face to me with its two large horns. His beard was short, as if he had shaved it a week ago. “We finally meet eye-to-eye, Belzac wolf.”

I took a step back, far enough from his attack range. He turned his body around, hiding the sizzling, black mark on the back of his armor—a mark that showed that, while I managed to deal some damage on him, it was not enough to penetrate his defenses. Red lines suddenly showed on his face as blood oozed from them, making him look a bit shamanistic before he put his crown-like helmet back on his head.

He pointed his axe at me before glaring deep into my eyes, flashing his fangs at me.“I am king of the grimgarians, Kreigst Thunderslayer, as you already know. You stand in my kingdom, Grimmeirgon, the haven I have built up for all grimgarians willing to find a place where they can live without being treated like ‘monsters’ by every other ‘intelligent’ race. Present yourself, rogue.”

… He could appraise me just as I did, but isn’t trying to? Tsk, makes me look bad.

[“Saori Segawa.”]

“Kneel and surrender these beastmen, and I will give you a painless death. I will let your pack flee, for I only want your head for the blood you spilled.” His eyes widened, anger seething as he raised his axe. He really was holding back his rage, sadly …

[“I kneel to no one but my best friend.”] I readied myself. [“And your men have hurt us over and over already. Your warpath have caused enough of the people I care for to suffer.”]

“Suffer? Your naivety in this manner is stunning!” he raised his voice, clearly irritated. “We grimgarians have suffered just as much as any human, beastman, elf, and dwarf! Hunted down like bandits! How is it fair that we are treated like the feral monster spawns? There is a distinction, nuances … But everybody thinks of us as if we are just monsters. Goddess Death take them all!”

He let out an ear-splitting roar, strong enough to cause the ground to shake and push everybody away from him with a strong shockwave. It was so loud, the grimgarian army coming towards us roared as well and were increasing their marching speed. They were running! My attempt to delay him failed!

“Hear this, Belzac wolf! I don’t know how you befriended humans or whoever your master is, but know this! The rest of the world will never think of you as a normal being. They will monsterfy you just like they did us! Not every grimgarian is a ‘monster!’” He pulled his axe back, putting it over his shoulder, readying himself to continue this fight. “They hunted down your family seven years ago. They still hunt you. Even if they share no grudge, they will hunt you for your fur, your bones, your fangs, your claws; you are nothing but a sack of materials in their eyes!”

… Not as long as I keep with the ideals of Aurora. Diplomacy and talking can solve more than enough issues.

This, however, was maybe not one of them. [“I know enough, King Kreigst. I know the demonkins sent one of their sympathizers to hunt my mother’s pack and family down. I know you are working with the demonkins. You wish for war, I wish for it to stop.”]

I remembered what I had learned about Davison during our stay in Firwood. How he put out a Quest that attracted rank A adventurers to kill my garm grandparents and my many uncles and aunts. Although I didn’t acknowledge it back then, I acknowledged it now as my second mother was a garm. A garm whose life was dramatically changed due to all of this!

Davison worked with the demonkins to cause chaos, in particular, created a diplomatic situation by kidnapping and experimenting on faefolk. He used a demonic brew to fight back against us. If the Ogre King knew about this, then he was my enemy.

“Then we are enemies.” The blood on his face oozed out, covering his armor before it hardened up into a protective shell. This blood-covered warrior was setting himself up to use his berserker abilities! “Any last words … warrior? Be quick about it, my heart beats with my desire to avenge everybody you killed!”

The ships were almost far away enough, having departed after the ogre sent that lightning cleave. He could probably do the same again, so I had to delay him even further. Anything was worth a try at this point.

[“… I am a Champion of Goddess Edna. I am here to rescue the beastmen from your clutches by a Divine Quest. Will you let us go?”]

“… Even if you had asked me this before all the bloodshed, I would have rejected it. We need these beastmen to know our suffering; we need them to build this nation! A nation where we grimgarians know our toil and death resulted into something! For revenge on this world!” He closed his eyes, meanwhile, Belzac suddenly spoke to me.

[“I told you.”] He acted all smug, as he knew I couldn’t convince the Ogre King. [“Grimgarians might be very loyal to the dark pantheon, but ultimately are fueled by vengeance. Until a wrong is righted, they will not talk and cannot be reasoned with. Talking with them is a fool’s errand.”]

It was the exact thing he told me before we departed from his shrine. I knew it was the truth, especially after the countless grimgarians I had to kill to protect Hestia, Tasianna, and everybody else. I had to force their hand and have them bring back their fleet from Port Annencia.

Hearing the ogre reject my proposition felt bad. Then again, even if we managed to peacefully deal with everything, the beastmen slaves wouldn’t have been let this go quietly. The warrior caste amongst them would have caused an uproar even if I ordered them to not to. This fighting was, sadly, unavoidable.

It was a war where the only way to change things was to wait for the aftermath.

His eyes snapped open as I finalized my resolve. “Now though, I believe the Ancestral Mother sent you here to die … For I will show my worth as a Champion to her! Bloodsoak—”

His axe was covered in his blood, reminding me of how an ogre we fought in the past used blood-based attacks. As the scarlet blade shone, reflecting the sun, he was about to shoot it at me.

My agility has been over 10000 for a while now. I could dodge and outmaneuver him!

“—Cleav—”

However, just as he was about to do it, my shadow pack launched another mental attack before our five remaining shadow clones threw themselves at the ogre to delay him. Sarasa and Quatre did the same, and this sudden attack forced the ogre to stop his own attack; instead, he swung his weapon, cleaving two shadow clones with one strike.

A black magic circle appeared on his left hand as he destroyed the third shadow. He then cast it, shooting out the [Tenebrous Magic Lv. 2] spell [Abyssal Bomb]. I countered by shooting out some stygian lightning, causing the bomb to explode in between us, causing a black smoke to blind me. At the same time, I felt [Foresight] warning me of an attack, prompting me to use [Shadow Dash] just as blood cleaved the ground where I was standing.

Since I had no line-of-sight on a nearby shadow, I jumped out of the same spot, into the air, intending to use [Air Steps] to jump away. However, it was this moment that the ogre had been waiting for.

“Niakash baal’ak. Victory or death. You will not flee!” He slammed his axe onto the ground before he roared out, “KNEEL! TERRITORY RELEASE!”

Oh boy.

Hostile Territory detected! [Revenge’s Throne Room] has been activated!

Sarasa and I dodged out of the way as the Ogre King’s mana exuded into the surroundings through his aura. The ground turned black—not shadows, but as if it was corrupted. Any grass or plant life died before the grimgarian’s body turned black. From it, black armor similar to [Shadow Armament] covered his body and equipment, turning it into a mix of pitch black and blood red.

At the same time, Sarasa, Quatre, and I were suddenly pulled onto the ground, softly landing there and forced to kneel before the ogre. We couldn’t pull ourselves up; it was like an invisible power was holding us in this pose. Was it his mana?!

He raised his axe, but instead of killing us while we were in this compromising situation, he pointed his axe at me as the shadow on the ground began to enclose our surroundings. It was just large enough to act as an arena.

“This is Goddess Kronnaz’s throne room, brought down into this world with my aura!” he spat out. “Those who reaped grimgarian blood are the most guilty—those like you. Mercy kill, trial by combat, or do you wish to flee like a coward? Choose.”

… Territories are usually pretty simple. This has to be caused by his unique skill or something else. Regardless, I can’t move right because of one of those reasons. Whatever I answer, it will probably have an effect on my next move.

Belzac’s voice appeared in my head after I told him of my thoughts. [“Correct thoughts, Saori. The Territory has to be related to the arena he created and the sudden gravity control. Asking for your answer is probably related to the unique skill. Meaning, whatever you do, you will not like it. There is only one way to get out of this without penalizing yourself.”]

[“Can I use it now?”] I asked him, knowing what he was insinuating.

He sent me a mental nod. [“Yes, but only for a short moment. The shorter the better. The arcane corruption backlash is determined by how much mana is consumed while the Territory Dispute is happening. However, you need to push away his effects by using your own Territory! That’s the winning play!”]

Alright … Territory Release!

Mana Release activated. Aura used as control unit: [True Wolven Bloodlust]. Territory [Yomi] has been established. Territory Dispute engaged

My shadow exploded from underneath me as it began to overflow everything like a water leak inside a submarine. The breach that was my shadow broke, opening up even further as everything began to turn black, even helping the grimgarian’s Territory to close up.

Thankfully, as Belzac explained, the existence of another Territory within a Territory meant I was pushing the effects of his away from me. My wolves and I could move.

Seeing me stand and activate my own Territory, the ogre smiled, crackling and stating how overjoyed he was. “This will be a good battle,” he said, explaining that, if I could beat him here, he would forgive everything that happened and let my pack leave alive with the slaves. He would order his army to stand down.

If I were to die, though, he would only let my pack go.

“Now, let us fight!” he roared, raising his axe in the sky as it burst with green electricity.

Hehe.

[“I refuse.”]

“Hu—”

Yomi: A Territory Release that uses an aura to exude dark elemental mana into the surroundings, encasing everything in a shadow the user can manipulate without any problems. Every shadow within this Territory is under the authority of the owner, unless the shadow’s owner has their Territory activated. The shadow is like a liquid

I could not control him like a marionette, buuuuuuut, the liquid part was the important part here!

Hel’s Thunder! Voltage Impact!

My wolves dove into my shadow as I cast [Hel’s Thunder] on to the ground, before stomping the ground with a huge blast of black lightning, creating a shockwave that forced the ogre to take a step back. He, however, quickly recovered and was about to swing my axe to decapitate me, but he was immediately held back when both Sarasa and Quatre emerged from underneath him and held his legs back.

I then summoned a [Shadow Clone], having it bodycheck the ogre, blocking his sight of me as I jumped to the top of the arena where my Territory just closed up. As it was all part of my Territory, I easily broke through it, getting out of the sphere before releasing [Hel’s Thunder] within the sphere, causing countless black lightning to strike the ogre.

He wouldn’t die from this, but I didn’t care. I quickly rushed to the ships, smiling as they had made it far enough that the grimgarians had to use their boats to catch up. The distance was as long as three baseball stadiums.

Instead of the ships, I landed on the floating body of Shoyi, where I rejoined with an exhausted Asaka and the rest of the pack. At the same time, Quatre and Sarasa emerged from my shadow, panting and happy to see I succeeded in my escape.

I looked to the side with a wide grin as I saw a black sphere in the distance. Unlike Hestia’s Territory, which was an unbearable heatwave able to melt most things, mine was just that shadow ball. When my black liquid “leaked” out of my shadow, that was essentially my Territory when I fed it mana, allowing me to produce more of that “liquid shadow” as I called it. As such, it was tangible.

[“Good boy! Good girl!”] I praised both Quatre and Sarasa for delaying him long enough. One bad move and they could have died.

Speaking of which, I frowned when I saw the ogre breaking through my Territory, looking barely injured. He, however, was quite angry. To commemorate our meeting, I should give him a taste of my next spell—[Hadaen Dragon Thunder].

Lightning channeled around the magic circle before I unleashed my spell, large enough to consume the ogre’s entire body and my shadow spehere. As he was still stuck in it, he was sent flying away like a ragdoll until I dispelled my Territory. With the ogre nowhere close to the port, all we had to do was to speed up the ships and our escape would be a success.

Uuuurgh!

Territory deactivated. Territory Dispute completed in favor of individual [Ogre Giganvin, Kriegst Thunderslayer]

[Arcane Fever (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

Are you kidding me?!

It was just for a moment but I still got so much arcane corruption I got [Arcane Fever]?! What was this insanity?! Belzac explained to me the consequences of losing a Territory Dispute, but for something that didn’t last even a minute, I got penalized this heavily?!

[“It is a good lesson for you to learn. Do not use your Territory for every single encounter, especially if you know your enemy has a Territory themselves. Sometimes, things can backfire really hard. If you were forced to disable your Territory for any reason, you could potentially just burst like an explosive frog. Poof.”]

…

W-well, leaving that aside, I should just stop worrying so much and tell everybody the good news. After I had all my garm enter my shadow again, Asaka took out some dragorade for me to drink to help my headache. She also began teasing me how she “had” to heal me now and how I should praise her for being a “good person.”

… Yes, this girl was telling me, a person who has [Arcane Fever] to use [Telepathy] to praise her, while I wasn’t allowed to use mana to recover. Haaa, well, at this point, I was just happy she was willing to speak with me … If you realy thought about it, I undoubtedly was the worst teacher she could have gotten. I should have been more supportive of her, instead of wanting to push her for my own selfish needs.

[“… Thanks for sticking around this long with me, Asaka-chan.”] I groaned as I told her this.

Noticing me in pain, she screamed, “Oi! Shut it! Don’t speak, it was just a joke. Jeez, you should know better, Segawa … You fought enough, come on, let’s enjoy the break and wait for Edna to be happy.”

Yeah … let’s. I nodded.

I didn’t know if I got any closer to Asaka in the time we stayed in the cave, but … I hoped so. I wasn’t her teacher any longer, but I still felt guilty about the way I treated her. She was, after all, just a troubled kid. While I was just the control freak who wanted to abuse her students’ academic prowess to get more money.

I stared up as Shoyi moved us onto one of the boats, where the beastmen were cheering for me, praising how I fought bravely against their leader. Some scorned me for fleeing, saying how I should be ashamed for fleeing, but I ignored them. To be honest, unlike Hestia and my human dad, I didn’t feel that happy about all the cheers.

Unlike them, I wasn’t much of a hero. I was just happy everybody from my party survived and that the mission was a success. I guess that was one part I couldn’t get rid of—my wish for everything to go perfectly. That little control freak side of myself wouldn’t die for a long time, and I was happy about it.

Alright, time for the next stage. Hestia, Tasianna, Ellaine, Grimnir, we will all meet up soon. Set sail!

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Side Story 49: Saori, Leader of 1357 Beastmen.

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[Humanize (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

“Saori Segawa, vice-leader of Aurora, and Princess Hestia’s head retainer. A pleasure to meet you once again, Madam.” The burly man and I grasped our hands in a handshake, with both of us putting our strength into it. I was originally intending to hold back, but this man was strong enough to make me change my mind.

Staring into his scarred face where I noticed he was blind in his right eye, I gave him a short curtsey out of respect, before standing as tall as I could, but he was still a bit taller than me. He was probably around the same height as Yorshka, or perhaps a bit shorter. Regardless, despite meeting me in a suit, I could see his muscles barely being contained behind his clothes.

“Marquess Alessio Franzesco Lifcio, correct? You say ‘meet,’ but at best, we have only seen each other twice—once during the anniversary ball and another time when Lady Hestia spoke with King Drangleic and all seven dukes.”

I was speaking about that time we went to that ball made in honor of the founding anniversary for the Kingdom of Artorias, and then latter was when Hestia formalized our alliance with Artorias.

When the man heard me say this, he released my hands and gave a hearty laugh, stroking his shaved chin with an interested look. He agreed, but the fact I knew his name despite never personally meeting was what impressed him. After all, as a princess’s retainer, why would I need to know the name of some marquess?

Well, the reason was this marquess was the ruler of Port Annencia, Artorias’s only harbor city, and the right-hand man of Duke Lecartiglio, the current Grand Duke of Military Affairs. As if I wouldn’t try to know the important personages of this country. And, thankfully, knowing who I was supposed to address helped me quite a bit when I had to find a place to dock four grimgarian-made ships full of beastmen slaves.

Once again, networking was king. It also helped that I borrowed Ellaine’s manatech bird to send a preemptive notice about our arrival so our ships wouldn’t be sunk by the cannons.

“The rebuild seemed to be going well,” I brought up, prompting the Marquess to agree, telling me the mages did a good job.

Looking around the city, I was currently in the port area of Annencia. About a month ago, this whole city was the recipient of a grimgarian attack—the same attack I had intended to thwart with my attack on “Grimmeirgon,” the grimgarian nation founded by the Ogre King, Kreigst Thunderslayer.

There wasn’t any rubble lying around and the many houses I noticed in this giant multi-layered city had already been repaired. Although it didn’t look like an attack had happened, it was easy to notice that the majority of the buildings looked brand new.

I looked up and took in the multi-layered view of the city, with the harbor town at the very bottom protected by giant walls built on the ocean floor right in front of the piers, with three gates allowing ships to enter. The second layer looked like the commoner’s part, as most of the buildings didn’t really catch your eyes aside from their sturdy design, probably made that way in case of tsunamis, sieges, or such. The third layer was the noble district, with their mansion homes, and at the very top, you had the palace itself.

If I had a camera, I would immortalize this sight. Just like Griffonpeak, I was astonished by this incredible scenery.

“Tasianna told me the city was in a terrible state when you left. I know mages expedite construction, but this is still spectacular,” I noted.

“Lady Duchess Morgiana sent her mages to help us out, and then we had Lord Duke Myrrdin doing the same. Both of them wish to have Lord Duke Lecartiglio’s support for the next Grand Duke selection,” he informed me. “Well, good for us! The Lecartiglio Duchy puts more focus on martial achievements, so if you’re a mage, you would rather go somewhere else. Extra hands made sure our kingdom’s only big port is back in business.”

So, when not around to help Hestia or their king, the nobles are being nobles. Well, to be expected.

However, this little greeting of ours had to stop when the Marquess sighed and looked behind me. “Well, I would love to show you my appreciation for helping my city by invading the grimgarians' base. We have a fantastic winery which uses a sea fruit to create wine even sailors cannot handle more than three glasses of, but … business, Madam. Sadly, business.”

His frown drew my attention to the four docked grimgarian ships, where I noticed a large commotion. The beastmen slaves were slowly walking down the exit ramp, only for them to be confronted by guards blocking their paths. Similar to entering a city through the gates, you had to get your identity verified before you could enter. While Asaka and I didn’t have any issues since we had our IDs, there were over 1000 beastmen who didn’t. Another logistical nightmare.

“Back away! Put your hands up!” One of the guards called out as multiple of his colleagues drew their spears at an approaching leonid.

The lion beastmen snorted with a gruff tone, cracking his hands at this threat. “I fought and killed more than my share of human fodder. You western humans are softer than the Empire’s, so how do you think you can stop us?”

“‘Hand ups?’ You drop your weapons, or I’ll ram my horn into your head! Not even your mother would recognize you!” a rhinoncerum growled. Despite being in nothing but rags and bits of rusted metal armor he picked up from some orc, he and many other of the warrior caste beastkin were not exactly being cooperative.

“Over a 1000 of them … have you heard how we have an immigration problem right now?” I nodded at the Marquess’s question.

My students had told us how beastmen slaves from the Atadoro Kingdom were fleeing into the Lecartiglio Duchy, causing a huge public safety issue as many were stealing and harassing the residents. It was a large enough of a problem that Duke Lecartiglio was forced to leave the capital and return to his home to handle the matter right before the demonkins attacked Griffonpeak.

“Tensions are high for dealing with any beastman. Our duchy and nobles were never big fans of them, but it has just gotten worse. Unless you’re a Caedhulen or Loatryxian, my seaman will dislike you, the residents will mistrust you, and our beastmen residents, those who've lived here in the city for years, will avoid you. With everything happening, they don’t want to associate themselves with foreign beastmen.”

[“In other words, you would need to push your authority onto them to let these thousand into the city,”] Belzac spoke with me, and I agreed.

It took us two days to reach Port Annencia by ship due to the beat-down state of them. Since they were carried by the wind and using the oars, instead of some sort of engine, it took us a while for the malnourished and weakened beastmen to row us over here. We had to have Shoyi push them during the night to even make it in time.

As mentioned, there were over 1000 beastmen spread on these four ships, including my pack and I. We required a ton of food, and while we fortunately got some rations by stealing from the grimgarians, we only had enough for a day until people began to go without meals. The slaves were already used to scraps of food, so they, thankfully, didn’t eat much. Water was also easy to make since a few of the beastmen were shamans and had [Create Water].

I couldn’t enter the subspace during this time since I was forced to act as the peacekeeper. People might have been celebrating being freed, but that also meant old tensions were reignited. I was used to caring for, at most, 100 students on a school trip. Not a 1000 children, teenagers, and adults all cramped on four separate ships with vastly different cultures I couldn’t understand, not to mention, some of them couldn’t even speak Common!

Regardless, I had to control them. They were here because of me, and my Divine Quest wasn’t over just yet. I still had to bring them to the dwarves so they could help them return to Carmaniate.

When I walked up to them, the normal, non-aggressive beastmen took a step back, separating themselves from the 47 warriors confronting the guards. The city’s guards noticed this and took a step back, giving me the space to confront them.

Some of the larger beastmen sub-races, like the leonid, rhinoncerum, and bovline, towered over me. I recognized a few who scorned me for running away from the Ogre King, but after our one night stay on the ship, most didn’t want to stand in my way as I walked over to their leader. Surprisingly, when I learned about this yesterday, I didn’t expect who this leader of theirs would be.

“Tell them to stand down, Shizar,” I ordered, prompting the person to reveal themselves behind two panthereons.

It was a loopridae woman.

“You think we’re the ones at fault here, Belzac’s Successor?” the rabbit beastman rebuked me, eying me in anger with her two elongated upper canines. She tilted her head, letting her one intact rabbit ear hang loosely to the side. “We ain’t taking this shit. We got the treatment from those demihumans, we ain’t ignoring it for humans. Especially not some soft westerners.”

Looking at rabbit beastmen—the loopridae—was a constant reminder that in the far past, there was some super strong rabbit monster that managed to turn into a humanoid with a skill before, ahem, making love with somebody. I have met some feisty rabbit monsters before, but I had not expected the leader of this group to be a rabbit. A rabbit who earned the respect of leonids, rhinoncerum, and many more.

Looking at this shorter woman, I noticed her human-like face had a deep gash scar underneath the left side of her head, exactly where her missing left ear was supposed to be. As a member of the warrior caste, she was a soldier and had fought the Empire before being enslaved by the grimgarians. A war vet, essentially, and her glare showed how undaunted she was, even towards me.

“I thought I had already made myself clear. While I am on this Divine Quest to bring you back home, you will not cause trouble to the people on our way. You will not loot, kill, or otherwise vandalize their lives.” I crossed my arms, trying to act intimidating without using my skills. “You owe me your freedom.”

“And I am holding everybody back. You know what we did with humans directing their weapons at us back in Carmaniate? We strung them by the legs and dragged them on the hot ground of the savannah to make them regret what they did. They do this in the north? The snowfolks bury them in an early snow grave,” the brown-white furred loopridae spoke back. “We are being tolerant. You think we can fight cities like this?”

She gestured down at her body—thin like a stick, barely enough muscles to perform physical labor for the grimgarians. She was wearing a ragged one-piece dress made from linen, so used up there were holes which showed glimpses of her dirted, rough skin and fur. The other warriors were in the similar situation—just enough muscles to work, but not enough to fight for too long.

In their situation, even if they managed to unarm some of the soldiers and take some weapons, I knew the Marquess wouldn’t let this sit. I haven’t appraised any of the beastmen yet, but even if they had somebody who was over level 100, you couldn’t do much with numerous ailments weakening your body.

“You want us to stand down? You tell them to stand down, Belzac’s Successor. Carmaniate follows the strong, we respect those able to stand tall. We endured the grimgarians long enough because they beat us, but you are telling us to lower our heads for these humans?! We would rather die!”

“TO THE DEATH!” The over 40 warriors around her shouted in unison.

I failed. As such, I activated [True Wolven Bloodlust].

“Grk!”

And just like that, everybody was silenced, as my bloodlust was spread through my aura. The howling of wolves replaced their roars as the four original members of my shadow pack emerged from the various shadows around, heralding the appearance of mother, Varya, and Shoyi. Shere and Ajay, Rajah’s siblings, also showed up, trying their best to roar, but it only made them seem cuter. Thankfully, they were sitting on their growling mother’s back, a rank B tiger with fur as sharp as blades, so nobody could make fun of them.

I didn’t assume my true form as all of us stared the beastmen down. Carmaniate respected strength? Then so be it. I shall handle it like a Carmanian.

“I do not want to lecture you here; we are not friends, only acquaintances at this point. While I am trying my best to change, I like it best when things go smoothly. One part about it is to respect another culture or city whenever you travel. It makes sense.” I noticed my eyes were exuding red mist, something the even Shizar couldn’t help but gulp at. “Respect must be earned, I agree with that. It also works vice-versa, for them.”

I pointed at the guards, then the Marquess, and then to his bodyguards behind him.

“You are here as guests; these people are willing to grant you a safe haven because I asked them to. I asked them to give you a space to recuperate, so we can make our way towards the dwarves, allowing all 1357 of you to return to Carmaniate! If you disrespect them, you disrespect me!” I put my foot down, unwilling to let any beastman the chance to do whatever they wanted. It would be chaos. “Tell me, Shizar, can you control all 1357 who came on the boat? Can you ensure they will not cause any trouble?”

“… I cannot. The shamans do not look up to me, but to you. You are a Champion of Goddess Edna, after all, Belzac’s Successor. There are rogues amongst us, too, people I would not give a chance to creep out of their holes. Some warriors will also not agree with me, or you, because they come from a different tribe,” the loopridae answered as precisely as she could, just like a soldier reporting to a superior.

“Exactly. Do you think I can control all of you when I do not know anybody well enough to build rapport? It is impossible, even with my shadow pack. And you are asking me to have the people in this city to make room for you? Can I vouch that you will not blemish my reputation, Shizar?”

I then looked at the warriors around me. “Can any of you? Or, do you not respect me for doing what was correct? Dying against the Ogre King in a duel? For whatever reason. Honor? Glory? I do not share your vengeance, nor is my life worth throwing it away like a coward.”

“You dare call us cow—”

“Grrrk!” Just as a rhinoncerum was about to rebuke me, Uno already had his jaw around his head, ready to bite it off before he could react in time. With Uno’s fangs penetrating his skin, letting blood flow down his face and neck, the rhinocerum beastmen could only shudder as he glimpsed at his death.

“Yes. You are cowards,” I reiterated myself. “Tell me, is your life so worthless you wanted to throw it all away in a worthless fight? Even if I had an escape plan where my shadow pack could protect all of you? I managed to protect those who couldn’t fight and the shamans, but you warriors allowed yourself to die! I cannot stop suicides!”

I still remembered the blood-soaked harbor village filled with grimgarian and beastmen bodies. Most of the deaths were from the warriors, with a few being from enthusiastic youngsters. They overestimated themselves. Yes, your opponents were goblins and kobolds, but still healthy, well-fed goblins and kobolds with weapons.

“You should hold those who died in your heart, those who endured slavery with you, but to those who threw away their lives for honor or glory and nothing else? You should be ashamed. Heroes are those who have died to save others, to buy meaning with their deaths! Do not spoil their deaths with your selfishness!”

I took a deep breath there, realizing I was turning emotional from my memory of my human father. Another person I couldn’t forget was Eshe—Hestia’s Saintess mentor, and a good friend to her, who gave her life to save the people of a foreign country.

Once I recovered, I continued, “Call me a coward, but my life has more meaning than to die by the hand of a ‘king.’ My life has a higher calling to serve my mistress, a person I have dedicated my dream with! I have a duty to prop her up! I have a duty to live for her and our friend’s sake! … Can any of you say the same? Or are you only fueled by pitiful vengeance? You!”

I pointed at a bovline woman, the same one I chastised for trying to continue fighting to avenge her fallen partner.

“Will you die to join your partner? Are you willing to die in the grimgarians' land? Do you not have people back home?”

She went silent, looking around with her brows wriggling around in contemplation. “O-our children. My parents. Our siblings. Those we helped escape during the raid. I-I need to know if they are still alive.”

“And you wanted to die before knowing that?” I dug that point even deeper into her conscience.

Her eyes widened up, mouth agape. She clenched her hands, gritting her teeth together to hold back the anger and tears. “… I forgot. I forgot. It has been so long …”

And the same realization happened to the many beastmen around her, even those behind this warrior caste group began to reminisce about their past. The years of working had broken them down, fueling their hearts with only hatred. Now, free from bondage, they were allowed to remember the happiness they left behind in their home.

“My mate. H-has she forgotten about me?”

“… My son would only think of me as weakling. Beaten by grimgarians, enslaved, and left to die. I can’t allow that as his father!”

Whatever their reason, I could tell I was getting to them. As such, I turned to Shizar who had her eyes closed. When I called her name, she opened them and looked me straight into the eyes.

“I need your word and your assistance. It will be a long trip.”

Students rarely ever spoke with teachers about their inner problems or troubles. While I would regularly have students coming into the teacher’s room to ask me for advice or study tips, I rarely got to know them intimately. Even in my class, I hadn’t known Tatsuya’s hatred for Franz was so deep-seated. I didn’t know Franz met Tatsuya once along with his young cousin.

Even Kyouya, who couldn’t forgive himself for losing contact with his childhood friend just because his parents moved away. He felt betrayed that Tatsuya didn’t tell him about how his mother was sued and how their family was put in a precarious and controversial situation. Kyouya, though, understood why and always wanted to pay him back for it, developing some sort of martyr complex.

I mean, I didn’t even give Asaka a chance. I was so tunnel-visioned on making money, I was never able to think of her as anything but a risk to my raise and bonus. I was a terrible teacher who only thought of her students as nothing more than a financial boon. It took me dying, meeting Hestia and Tasianna, and then meeting my students in this world to understand it all.

I am pathetic.

However, at the same time, I also realized why student representatives were so invaluable. People the rest of the students could speak with about their troubles. Have a reliable student take care of the class’s problems while relaying everything to me. In addition, they understood themselves better than an outsider like me. Teachers in Japan were, after all, respected figures similar to a public servant. That also meant you couldn’t always confide with them.

Shizar, understanding the meaning behind my words, nodded. “I shall also introduce you to the other groups’ leader, Belzac’s Successor. I apologize. I acted out of line. I shall follow your orders as long as you lead us well. Ma’am!”

She suddenly saluted with the rest of the warrior caste.

Good.

With things settled, the identification process could continue. In the meantime, I also asked the Marquess if he could help me transport these beastmen to the dwarves, but he told me it would be quite expensive. I told him to put a tab on Aurora, only to have his assistant show me a recipe of Aurora’s debts made in Hestia’s name.

So, how much did yo— Hestia?! HOW did you …

“Madam?” Marquess Lifcio called out worryingly.

“Sorry, I think I just had a heart attack. A blackout.”

The amount of money Aurora owed people was so astonishing, my brain immediately pushed the number to the back of my head. It was so drastic, my heart skipped a beat or two. For some reason, I wanted to puke right about now. My stomach felt bad.

In any case, Marquess Lifcio had an open plain right in front of the city, next to a farming village, reserved for me and the beastmen to settle in for a few days. Allow them to gain some strength while doing some jobs. We would build the refugee camp there until all the slaves regained their energy and we could move up north, make our way to the dwarves.

Leaving the area for a while, I went into an empty alleyway where I opened the subspace. From inside it, Asaka walked out, looking squeaky clean. I couldn't help but feel happy to see her finally have the chance to take a bath, as it meant that I could finally have a proper bath of my own after like a week! I felt so grimy.

Sadly, Asaka wouldn’t let me have this without some bad news.

“Hestia was sent into a trap?!” I let out while keeping my voice quiet to prevent people from hearing me, only to use [Air Shield] around us to stop everybody from eavesdropping.

Asaka then explained to me everything Svena was told about the situation in Inkoran-Tazul, the capital of the dwarves. The rest of my students appeared there to hunt Hestia down, and for some unexpectant reason, chaos was currently wrecking havoc inside there as the Dwarven High King entered the dungeon to save Hestia from dragonslayers and whoever took over the dungeon she was diving into.

This was the reason why Hestia was gone for so long. Why she couldn’t enter her subspace to teleport people. She was trapped and probably had her [Room] runes broken. It was the worst situation.

“I’m going there,” Asaka stated. “However, Segawa, you need to stay here to make sure those beastmen can’t cause any trouble. If you leave now, all hell will break loose here. Don’t worry, the moment I find Hestia, I’ll have her teleport you to the dwarves.”

“Make sure you stay alive, alright!” I told her, trusting her with this mission.

“Tsk … You know you have this terrible personality of always putting pressure on me, right? It’s a real curse getting all these responsibilities.” She grimaced, reminding me of one of the reasons why I disliked her back on Earth. Now, though, I have accepted this part of her personality. “But … sure. Haruka will be in danger if Hestia dies.”

She then took out what looked like a small statue of an elven woman. She was wearing a long, black robe, covering up everything but her pale face as she gaze into a ghost-like object. This was Ilsaphone’s small portable shrine, given to Asaka for her to pray and speak to her.

She set it down and prayed for a moment. Minutes passed before she opened her eyes again.

“She told me if I visit the onnikai village, then she will officially recognize me as her Saintess,” she told me; meaning, she would fulfill her Divine Quest once she returned to the village.

In other words, her unique Job would be unlocked and she would gain the real effect of her title, adding another blessed to Aurora’s power. It felt a bit strange to say Asaka would become a power figure for our future.

“Then, I’ll be off,” she told me before we went back to the Marquess, requesting for him to have a griffon or hippogryph knight to fly her towards her destinations. Once they were off, I could only pray that everything would work out fine.

My shadow pack is ready to fight Aurora’s enemies, Hestia! Call for me!

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Chapter 405: Your Name is …

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Hey, you’re running too fast!”

I could hear something.

“That’s so unfair, stop!” That same voice called out again, although it felt closer this time.

“Haha, I’m not even trying. You’re too slow.” Then another voice appeared, echoing a bit further away from the first. “I can’t help it that I’m tall, Hik*ri-chan! You just need to keep drinking your milk and if you want to grow big and strong just like me.”

My senses once again shifted to focus on the first voice, swinging its shadowy arms around in frustration. “How much do I have to drink, cousin? Mama is forcing me to drink so much already.”

Slowly the haziness of this whole scene cleared up, the vivid details of the scene coming into focus. It felt like I was waking up after a tiring day, and my brain was still half-asleep. However, at the same time, this place felt too familiar to be real. Was I dreaming?

Looking around, I noticed a grassy area filled with trees, benches, and even a playground for kids. It was most likely a park from how organized and clear of shrubbery it was. It looked a bit what you would expect from some noble’s demesne.

The two voices came from two shadowy individuals, far shorter than I was. Probably elementary students. Their faces and bodies were covered up by a black mist, making it impossible for me to identify who they were, but their clothing was exempt from this.

The one lagging behind the other was wearing a pure white dress with flower embroidery, making me imagine the little shadow person as a cute girl. She was also wearing a backpack with an animalistic theme on its back, probably carrying some essential items for this outing. Somehow, I felt a bit of a kinship with it.

The other one was slightly taller, like an older sibling. They were wearing an outfit consisting of a pullover and jeans. It was carrying a thermos in its hand while it ran, although I was not sure what the contents were.

Both continued running on an unpaved road, while I followed them against my will. Well, maybe not entirely against my will, since I wasn’t even trying to resist. It didn’t even occur to me to do anything besides watch. Well, it was better than to stare at nothingness, I guess.

Huh, another new memory, huh? Guess my soul is recovering. Who exactly are—

“This isn’t a new memory.” I heard my own voice to the side, prompting me to turn around where I saw somebody who looked exactly like me, only she had black hair and eyes without any draconic features. “It’s a memory I’ve sealed away from you.”

It was my other self, the original “Hestia.” My ego and self from when I was still on Earth, and who was now still around in our soul despite the gods’ failed attempt to erase her. She was me, but at the same time, she wasn’t. Still, we managed to strike some sorta deal back in Elyonda, some peace between us despite her embodying all my hesitation of accepting my new draconic life.

Then again, it wasn’t like she was telling me not to accept Mom. In fact, she even pushed for me to become my own person and forget about her and all our memories from the past. This included Papa, Mama, Nanny, and everybody else from my life on Earth. That was the anxiousness I was speaking of. To accept my new life felt like I was abandoning my past one, so I was thankful, I accepted my situation and managed to persuade her to do the same.

After all, she was me. We both shared the dream of becoming a proper idol.

“And to ruin the enemies who are doing this to us and how they threatened our new mom.”

Well, at least I managed to persuade her that Melloxtressa was our mother. Even if she was the second, she was still our mother.

“Y-yeah, so what do you mean by ‘sealed memory?’” I asked, feeling liberated from this dream’s rather restrictive nature. I felt like I was just a spectator a moment ago, being pushed along by an invisible power, but now I could move my body around.

My other self pointed at the dream’s scene. “Watch,” she said.

“Look, Hika*i-chan!” the taller shadow person began pointing at a large colorful totem. “You don’t come to Japan very often, so you have to see everything you can in this short time! This is the most memorable sight in this whole park.”

Japan? That’s Japanese, alright.

“Wow, are those robots?” the white-dressed shadow clapped while expressing its enthusiasm with a high-pitched voice. Weirdly enough, it sounded familiar. “They are all stacked on top of each, and there are so many colors! It’s like a totem rainbow, cousin!”

“I told you already, Hik*ri-chan.” The taller shadow spoke with a fairly high-pitched voice, although it was breaking a bit. Most likely it belonged to a prepubescent boy. “It’s not ‘cousin,’ it’s ‘big brother!’ Japanese is hard but you have to make sure you get it correct, okay?”

Gak! Cringe!

“Hiehie!” My other self just burst out in a giggle, prompting me to question her about it. Her mouth turned into a wry smile as she looked at me with her two black eyes. “Sorry, sorry, it’s just that you made the exact reaction you did last time.”

I did?

“… I think I sealed this memory when you fell asleep during the monster rush in the Belzac forest. You know, the one Asterios, Shay, and Beth stirred up, forcing you and the other two to run into the swamp earlier than expected.” When she mentioned that, I snapped my fingers, remembering how I fell asleep while Saori was caryring me. Honestly, back then, I didn’t even understand how I feel asleep during such a moment. “I’ve been sealing this memory for that long … I didn’t want you to remember him.”

“‘Him?’”

She nodded. “Our cousin. The one person I didn’t want us to meet, again. I broke our promise to him by killing myself; I felt horrified when the girls mentioned his name during that sleepover you had with them. There.”

I turned around when she pointed her finger back at the scene, where I noticed it was sped up like a video. Once the acceleration stopped, the shadow with the white dress showed the taller one a thumbs up.

“… Do you promise, *ikari-chan?” the taller shadow questioned her warily.

“Of course! I haven’t broken a single promise in my life yet, and I don’t want to disappoint my family.” The girl clenched her entire right hand, except for her pinky finger. She held it up. “Promise me that you will come to my concerts and I will be there when you need me the most. Yubikiri, Onii-chan!”

“... Yubikiri. If you promise then I will too.” The boy also performed the same gesture.

… ‘Yubikiri?’

“The Japanese pinky promise,” my other half answered my questioning thought.

Although, I already knew its meaning. “… But, if you break it, you have to cut off your finger. That’s the old meaning for it.”

Silence.

The two of us watched the scene as it froze up; the memory was over. The taller shadow kept repeating the same name over and over again, but due to something going on with my soul, I couldn’t properly listen to it. However, I had so many clues at this point. I even called my other self with that static-sounding name.

‘H*k**i Sch******’ I called her during our last meeting. The name was too obvious now. What was my name back on Earth?

“Hikari,” I said, and my other self nodded. “Japanese for ‘light.’ The Kanji ‘光’ also means light. Written as ‘ひかり’ in Hiragana … And that stage name I chose myself while posing as a human for the dwarves was ‘Light Atsuko.’ How ironic.”

“If you want to know the rest and what our cousin’s name is, then … wake up.”

I nodded. I had a promise to fulfill.

“Grwaaaargh!” A feral, bestial roar woke my consciousness up after I had a small discussion with my other half.

I opened my eyes as my parallel minds greeted me, before showing me the number of signals on my [Detection Sensor]. There was enough to create an entire battalion, and they had me surrounded. However, three of the signals were clashing against the rest of them, making signals disappear as they moved around. In addition, I also felt another signal right next to me.

“Yo. How’s the sleep?” It was Vifi’Yok.

I stared at the demonkin girl. Her black hair was covered with dirt and blood while the glaive I lent her was smoking, looking slightly worn out by the amount of charcoaled pieces of viscera stuck in its mechanical pieces. After all, Grimnir and Ellaine made me a manatech weapon, so if stuff got into the finer parts, my weapon would lose effectiveness.

Since I was the owner of it and my catalyst was still attached to it, I used mana to recall it, surprising Vifi’Yok as she let it go. [“… How long was I out?”]

“Far too bloody long.” She sighed, before taking a bite from a kebab. “We have a bit of an issue here.”

[“Issue? Wait, wha—”] But that was when I remembered everything that happened before I lost consciousness. I remembered who the dungeon usurper was, as he not only showed the dungeon core of the [Menagerie of Golems] but also had a rebellion orb, a catalyst made to cause a dungeon to break! [“You! Vifi’Yok, I swear, you better have a fucking good excuse for everything. You told us not to go into the depths, so you BETTER have a good excuse for this! Why was he there?!”]

My body woke up immediately as my rage surged, causing me to ignore all the noise around me as I pressed my head close to the demonkin. Growling with my fangs exposed, I could imagine taking a bit out of her. With my current size, Vifi’Yok was still taller than my snout, but my mouth was large enough to crunch her head off.

She stared at me with a deadpan face, frozen in place as she was about to take a bite from her kebab. She blinked, looking to the sides as she contemplated an answer. Her already sweat-covered face began to glisten even further.

“… Would you even believe what I say?”

I nodded, but I kept my gaze locked on her, treating her like when I first met her. Meaning, my body temperature was increasing with every second, ready to atomize her if she gave the wrong answer. I just needed one spark, and [Dreadflare Aura] wouldn’t just turn her into charcoal.

[“I want the truth. Did you lie to me all this time, trying to hide the fact you were supporting that bastard of a dwarf? Why did he have a rebellion orb?!”]

However, she shook her head slightly. “… I really had no idea he was there, I swear. As I said, I am a traitor, a deserter. The reason why I didn’t want to go down was ‘cause I had a feeling I could run into another demonkin, and I didn’t want to be seen.”

I stomped the ground right in front of her, huffing and puffing black smoke out of my nose and mouth. [Corrosive Fire] smoke was already wafting in the air. [“So you thought a demonkin was there? Who? Huh? You’re right, this does make it hard to believe. What exactly did you think your ‘friend’ was trying to do? You didn’t even warn us? We walked into that like blind rabbits waiting to be slaughtered. I remember Tatsuya confronting you, but you ignored him, even pushing us back down to the core!”]

“And I also asked everybody to go up with me, so what’s your point?” she snapped back, almost hysterically. “Do you even have an idea how confused I was when I saw that dwarf hold up that red catalyst? The last time I checked, there was no plans on agitating the dwarves! Do you think I know everything, just cuz I was a Warbringer? We have factions in Bole’Taria, just like any other country. I don’t know everything! I just have the instinct to know, and the logic to guess the rest with! Get it through your head!”

Ignoring my piping hot breathing, Vifi’Yok pushed my snout back, making place for herself to speak, “I didn’t want to meet any demonkin, you fuck! My country believes I DIED! I died in their honor, but look at me, I’m a fucking rat slipping through every hoop I find to stay incognito, only for everything to blow in my face! The fact I’m in this place at all was because I tried to run away from some knights, and the fact we’re stuck in this Event Quest is cuz I can’t afford to have you die before I escape!”

Event Quest?

“If they find me, they will hunt me down, I can guarantee you that! They have agents everywhere, and how do you think they would deal with little traitors like me? Let me lead a happy life? Fuck that, I have no chance for that! I will have to run away everywhere I go, just because YOU have to make me realize what a fucked up situation all of this is! What am I truly fighting for? Is it Bole’Taria due to patriotism, or is it for my own, selfish survival? I dunno, I dunno know what the hell is going on in my head! Why didn’t I just go back?! Why the hell did you have to try to persuade me to help you! Why didn’t you just kill me! It would have made everything easier!”

Is she for real? She’s blaming me for her plight? What is this crap?

Her exhausted eyes widened up as she pointed her kebab at me. Her rant was loud, almost from the heart, but I still couldn’t believe it. There was still something hidden behind her words. There was something she was still trying to keep away from me.

[“Leave your attempt for pity out of this; don’t forget how many innocent lives you destroyed, Warbringer. As you said, you aren’t asking for forgiveness, so don’t try this shit on me!”] I rebuked her, causing her face to tense up to the point I could see her veins. [“Even now, you’re still trying to hide things from me. Why did you have a feeling a comrade of yours was there? Why specifically in a dungeon inside Ankor-Nazta? Who exactly is responsible for all this? Do you really think I am that stupid when I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt up until now?! You said you got instinct and logic, so who is the grand puppeteer?”]

“…” Just right there, she turned silent. “This … this goes into the ‘helping you out against my own kind’ kinda deal.”

[“And? You see what happened because you stayed silent?”] I kept the pressure on. [“You could have mentioned anything, but you keep playing the silent card. You wanted to get out of this, but you didn’t even tell me to be careful. You didn’t say anything! Arghk! Fuck! I couldn’t even get to Maagneil before he got rid of me. I could have caught him for Grimnir if I had just—”]

“Aren’t you crying too much over spilled milk?”

I snapped my head around as I heard that familiar voice, only to see a vampiric bat monster humanoid walk up to us with a spear resting on his shoulder. Aside from their head, every piece of their body was covered in black armor, reminiscent of Saori’s [Shadow Armament].

Next to him was an armor-clad Kyouya, waving his hand around before he began shaking his head. His black armor was drenched in blood, looking like somebody from a dark fantasy story.

That familiar voice—Kyouya’s—continued speaking, “Sorry, one of us should’ve been by your side when you woke up, but we got preoccupied by the monsters swarming around us. Vifi’Yok just finished her shift. Bad person to see after waking up, I presume.”

The vampire bat monster body began to spasm as it grew smaller, losing its wings, claws, and dangerously long fangs. It was Tatsuya, he had just used his [Druidification] skill. “Yeah, things didn’t work out too well with the silent treatment she gave us, but at least we now know the demonkins were the ones Maagneil was working with all this time. It’s good enough we forced the rat out of his nest!”

[“Master!”] Rajah’s voice surprised me, but what surprised me even further was his appearance. [“Master, you slept for so long. Don’t worry, we defended you from all the monsters! Did I do good, master?”]

However, I couldn’t answer him properly. Had he suddenly grown in size? Before, he was a bit larger than a normal tiger, but now he looked as long as a four story building. Height-wise, on our fours, he was just a bit shorter than me while prone, but if he straightened up his posture, he was probably as tall as Saori in her fenrir form.

However, what surprised me the most was how his white-black fur coloration changed once again, to the point his entire torso was covered in silvery fur, while his limbs and tail were navy black. His tiger-like appearance has not disappeared, as he was still the handsome virigress I’ve always loved, but his sleeker, less fur bluky head shape had certainly made me do a double take for a moment. It was like giving somebody an entirely different haircut that made people wonder if it was actually the same person.

Rajah, in addition, also had a body make-over as well. Aside from being as wide as a truck from one shoulder to the other, Rajah’s fur on his front legs and tail were longer. When I looked at them, my excited virigress hardened them for a moment, turning them into massive blades for him to cut things. His tail was even as thick as a smaller tree trunk with how hard it was, to which he explained he could use it similarly to a blade, like mine.

[“Master slept so long, I took the chance to evolve! Master!”] He straightened his posture, pushed his chest forward like a proud tiger, and continued speaking as dignifiedly as possible. [“Rajah is now a rank B [Young Silverlight Shadow Virgarcuga]! An evolved version of the virigress!”]

Young Silverlight Shadow Virgarcuga: A mutated version of the [Young Blacklight Virgarcuga] who has managed to evolve both [Holy Magic] and [Dark Magic] into their advanced form. Using its racial ability, allows it to use both light and shadows to mask itself in a misty veil, concealing not only its body but shadow as it ambushes enemies with blade-like fur and stat debilitating skin toxin. With an equally as strong body as most virgarcuga, this monster can assassinate monsters around its rank with its boulder-crushing tail. Rank B

Right, Rajah hit max level after our fight with the last guardian boss. He just couldn’t evolve due to our problematic situation and our chase. Since monster evolution took up an entire 24 hours, it meant I had, at minimum, been asleep for that long … Wait, what? Minimum?!

[“… Although, Rajah is annoyed now. I’m too big. I can’t sleep on your legs any longer, Master. Maybe I shouldn’t have evolved.”]

Hearing him say that in such a sad tone, I couldn’t help but rub my head against his head before reminding him I can scratch his back now while I was a dragon. This fact reignited his enthusiasm for his new evolution before he let out an actual, intimidating sounding roar! My goodness, my little cat was growing up so fast, it was actually making me emotional.

However, it made me even more excited when he noted his unique skill [Lucent Illusion] allowed him to cast illusion magic. As in, the skill [Illusion Magic] was created by combining [Sacred Magic] and [Tenebrous Magic] into it. Meaning, he lost his ability to cast the advanced spells for those two latter elements, but in return, he now had an empty vessel. It was a similar situation to what Shiterno did to my fire magic, or Saori with her Tenebros magic. He still had access to [Holy Magic] and [Dark Magic] spells, but that was about it.

Lucent Illusion: The Silverlight’s ability to turn light and shadow into one, creating a misty veil able to hide their presence for a limited amount of time. Consumes mana as long as invisibility is in effect, increasing its cost the longer one stays in it. Using this ability as its core, allows the user to cast illusions to fool enemies. The skills combined are: [Illusion Magic Lv. 10] [Illusion Efficiency] [Arcane Conduit Lv. 10] [Speed of Sound Lv. 10] [Unyielding Endurance Lv. 10] [Silence Lv. 10] [Odorless Lv. 10] [Night’s Vision Lv. 10]

He even showed me how he could just disappear! For a split second, bright white and black lights sparkled around him before his silvery fur turned back and he just vanished before me. I couldn’t even sense him with my skills, but the moment he began to reappear, my skills immediately warned me.

It was extremely similar to Saori’s [Just Blink] ability, allowing her to “not exist” from everybody’s perception for a single second. Meanwhile, Rajah could stay invisible for longer at the cost of mana, but if he were to attack somebody, skills like [Danger Perception] would work on it. It was a trade-off; Saori’s ability worked better for an assassination, but Rajah could cause confusion while going invisible for longer while casting illusion spells.

[“I have no idea how to make custom spells, though, Master. I don’t even understand what all this illusion thing means,”] Rajah told me, which meant Master Kush was about to have a new student. I bet he would be happy about that.

In any case, while I was happy to see Rajah all well, I suddenly noticed the boys' silence and also how a new signal was slowly approaching us. Tatsuya frowned, showing a bad tempered grimace to somebody behind me, while Kyouya couldn’t help but sigh. Neither seemed to like whoever was coming.

Leaving Vifi’Yok’s answer for later, I turned my head around to see a young silver-haired young man walk closer. He was wearing mostly medium-heavy armor similar to Tatsuya, with a stylized gambeson in the appearance of a suit with a bunch of metal and bone armor pieces covering his vitals and arms. Clearly monster materials.

His blood-soaked sword, on the other hand, was an entire contrast to the rest of his equipment. Silver, long, and brimming with elegance with its decorated handle and crossguard, it looked like something you would give to a holy paladin to not only inspire others but also to show off. I couldn’t exactly read what was on it, but I did notice three runes on it, the standard for most equipment meaning it wasn’t drenched in quality blood.

“… Hika—Hestia-san?” He spoke with a longing tone, eyes furrowed and widened in anticipation. Worry clear to hear, he clenched his sword but looked vulnerable at the same time.

He …

“I didn’t expect you to be an otherworlder, too, Hestia,” Vifi’Yok suddenly stated, unable to understand the air at all!

[“Quiet, you. Finish your kebab before I continue chewing you out!”] I scowled at her, before returning my attention to Tatsuya, then Kyouya, and then back to this young man.

[“… Who are y—”]

“T-that voice!” He took a step forward with an expression looking like he was seeing a ghost. The horror and hope in his eyes made him look deranged as he pointed at himself. “F-Franz Akabane! Nagata and Ishigami told me you lost your memories, but you have to remember that name, right? No, wait, how about Ako Schartner? Leon Schartner? You have to remember them, right?!”

Schartner? Schartner? I did not recognize those names.

Even without a response, the delay in my answer caused the young man to become agitated. He didn’t say anything further, but it was clear he was being overwhelmed with stress. If his hair wasn’t already white, I would have probably made a joke about it … but, then again, if what my other half told me was any indication, then joking about anything would have been the worst thing to do.

As such, there was only one way to solve this.

Humanize.

[Humanize (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Although, was this really the right move?

“…” The boy froze on the spot as the mana mist dissipated, revealing my form to him. I walked closer, anxious and nervous, and he kept staring at me. “… T-this is unreal. T-this shouldn't be possible. Y-you died. Y-you cut your throat. You were so pale, but you’re … here.”

… So, he is him, huh? He even knows how I died.

“… I—Could you-you sing something for me? Is it okay to hear your voice?”

I nodded. I felt pity, but also immense guilt. He did not look fine. I couldn’t feel any happiness coming from his face, or even relief. It looked like he was reliving a trauma with how blank his eyes looked. Just looking at him made my skin crawl, as if a million little frogs were covering my body in their tiny steps.

Wuuurierk! I cringed from this chill running down my spine, but immediately began to think of a song I could sing. In the end, I decided to choose an easy with little instruments to emphasize my voice. With the tapping of a wooden block and a flute, the song began.

“Let the music play, let it enter your soul ♫

Rest your weary body here ♫

To a tune or melody ♫

Listen now, to a soothing remedy ♫

Listen now, let your stress disappear ♫

Let my song reach you, fill your heart with wonder and more ♫

Gaze up to the blue sky ♫

To smile to the light ♫

Listen now, you know what is right ♫

Listen now, don’t need to look so wry ♫”

The sound of a saxophone accompanied me as this jazz song continued. The soothing tone was pleasant to hear, until I reached the climax where I raised my voice.

I nearly stopped singing when I saw the young man’s eyes become watery. Life returned to them as he gazed at me, the floodgates having been opened. He couldn’t stop the more I sang, to the point he was sniffing and smiling. When I stopped, he tried to wash the tears off his face with his sleeve, but as it was drenched in blood, he only made it worse. Covered in wet blood, he sniffed once again before looking at me.

With a wavering smile, he raised his right hand. He clenched his hand before only raising his pinky finger. “Were you able to become an idol?”

My eyes widened and I did the same. My eyes became watery, but unlike him, I managed to hold myself back. “I’m ready to invite you to my concert … ‘Onii-chan.’”

“H-H-H-H-Hikari …” He fell onto his knees, hiding his face behind his hands as his sobbing filled the silence for minutes to come. Nobody stopped him. I couldn’t, either.

My heart felt like it was tearing apart.

A note from AbyssRaven

Some of you guys already guessed her name, and I know who they were. Well, it helped I could just look at the comments themselves, lol. Anyways, it's been a while but we finally got the cousins reunited.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 406: Memories of a Bygone Past.

A note from AbyssRaven

This story follows a young man named Jay that has grown up in a world where dungeons, monsters, and humans with leveling systems are a cultural norm.

At the age of 20, he awakens a skill that allows him to steal the abilities of monsters. While others are stuck with a specific skill set, the MC continues to grow stronger after every battle.

Follow Jay on his journey as he collects rare magical items, reaches new levels of power, and realizes the dangers of modern-day dungeon diving.

(Over 100 chapters posted + Continuous daily uploads!)

Dungeon Diver: Stealing A Monster’s Power

One of the current Popular of the Week Top 10 from Kaenovels. Give it a try if you're waiting for my next chapters!

“So … essentially, we were forcefully entered into the Event Quest despite wanting nothing to do with it? But … how? That isn’t possible; a dungeon should be in a separate pocket of space, similar to a [Room]. That’s why they can get as big as they want without ruining anything around their entrance. Even if it were possible, the dungeon walls are indestructible, unless the dungeon master says otherwise.” I couldn’t help but deny what the boys told me about everything that happened while I was out.

To summarize, due to the confusing changes in the dungeon caused by the Maagneil’s rebellion orb—a catalyst made to create trouble within a dungeon—I fell unconscious from the insane amount of vertigo. Since everything was morphing around with no stop, my brain couldn’t figure out what was up or down, right or left. Not to mention how often my brain was probably jumping against my skull as all this was happening. Trying to remember it made me feel wobbly while sitting down.

In any case, while that was happening, my song and control over [Hydra] had stopped, since my parallel minds shut down whenever I fall unconscious. At the same time, the rock where I placed the [Room] broke, suddenly releasing the boys and Vifi’Yok. While confused at what was happening, they weren’t caught too unaware as the former three were prepared to support me if I needed help, even if I pushed them on the bench for their safety.

Without [Hydra] keeping the dragonslayer back, Vifi’Yok had to take over despite being slightly exhausted from using her big spells and a Territory. Kyouya even debuted his new ability and skill related to his [Shadowed Martyr].

To be honest, I was flabbergasted how the dragonslayer’s armor and weapons weren’t corroded by my corrosive slime, but if he made equipment out of my severed limbs, then that was the answer. My scales were highly resistant against fire, holy, and toxins, and one of them managed to smith the materials from my cut arm into something useful. The sludge tsunami would hurt him if it got into his body, but otherwise, he might have just gotten soooo much harder to deal with.

Jeez, I need Tasianna, Saori, or maybe Sis to deal with that annoying guy.

He managed to cut off one of my arms, after all. He was, as Pradreo, Skardrvo, Mom, Yorshka, and Neill noted, very scary. My scales should also be resistance against lightning and solar energy attacks, so that just made Vifi’Yok weaker against him, too. Rajah and the boys all got some sorta power-up, but the level difference from a rank B to a rank S was too massive. They couldn’t fight him.

That was why I needed people who could counter me to fight him. Sadly, none of them were here! Well, Tasianna and Neill were in the Event dungeon, but I had a feeling they weren’t even close by.

… I could technically buy [Water Magic]. Only, the issue was it wasn’t feasible from an economical standpoint. Due to terrible affinity, buying [Water Magic] would set me back by 2100, not to mention how I had to level it up to even use the good spells. Which was another issue since the level up cost was unusually expensive. I didn’t know the exact amount, but if I were to use [Water Resistance] as my reference, leveling it up to level 2 would have cost me 300 SP, instead of the usual 50 for a Tier 1 skill.

Regardless, everybody managed to protect me when I was unconscious. The boys executed their plan while Vifi’Yok dueled the dragonslayer, allowing all of us to get out of there. Kyouya, especially, was proud of the Job skill he bought.

Shadowing Martyr: Allows you to grant those within your party a weaker version of [Shadowed Martyr]’s knight form for 20% of your health, granting them the ability to leech health according to the latter skill’s level. Leeched health will only heal you, but will also repair the specific shadow armor

“Realistically, I could only really give you a gauntlet or chest armor here or there before, since using the skill cost me so much health to activate. 25% per small armament, 50% for a full armor, and 75% for the real deal, something on par with Sensei’s [Shadow Armament]. Now, for 20%, I can give you a full knight armor at about 10% ‘shielding power,’ but by doing damage, you can repair it up to 100% of my health. Meaning, just like your [Shield of [The Light]], you can stack extra health upon your titanic amount already, Hestia-san,” Kyouya explained his ability. He was literally shadowing me by giving me armor like a buffer.

“So, he wrapped you in it before Vifi’Yok literally kicked you into the ground, crushing everything around. The dragonslayer survived, but with all the craziness going on, the impact broke through the ground, and all of us fell down. No idea about the golem boss or Maagneil, but you see where we eventually ended up,” Tatsuya ended his retelling.

“… So, to count, with Kyouya around, I can have your Panzer over my scale Panzer, over my armor Panzer, over my [Panzer] Panzer, over [Draconic Barrier] Panzer, and then over my scale Panzer. That’s six layers of defenses now. You’re turning me into a juggernaut.” Scratching my chin a bit at the protective measures available to me, I also looked around the grassy landscape, noticing the local forest area surrounding us like a circle and that they all had signs of destruction—broken trees, destroyed patches of earth, and magic.

[“Master was already one!”] Rajah expressed, reminding me I was already extremely tanky. Now, I could even help Kyouya survive better. [“Master, don’t worry, once Rajah learns how to cast illusion, Rajah will make sure others can’t see you!”]

My virigre—virgacuga smacked his tail on the ground like an excited cat, cracking open the ground as he was unable to control his new strength. Randomly, he would also turn invisible. Maybe I should have him buy [Humanize] or something similar so he could get access to Jobs to level his stats, since, just like Saori and me, he was a “young” monster at rank B, meaning he had reduced level growth now. Surprisingly, he had to reach five-years-old to evolve into a rank A, just like me.

Individual [Young Silverlight Shadow Virgarcuga, Rajah] has reached rank B through evolution. Congratulations, you have reached the maximum rank achievable for a [Young] monster. Bonus: 300 in all stats, 3000 Skill Points

Due to becoming rank B, individual   [Young Silverlight Shadow Virgarcuga, Rajah] will receive reduced experience gain until maturation requirement is achieved. Evolution is blocked until maturation requirement is fulfilled. Maturation requirement: Age: 5 Years, [Lucent Illusion Lv. 10], [Virgacuga Bladehair Lv. 10], [Virgacuga Toxin Lv. 10], [All-Damage Enhancement Lv. 10]

Those were the requirements. He had a ton of skill points he had to spend, which I had to help him with, and I would after this entire discussion was over. After all, our current situation was pretty problematic.

Welcome to [Manethala’s Nest]. The Event Quest [Manethala’s Greatest Gambit] will begin in a moment … Welcome to my lair. You, all of you, are cheating a bit, no? You should start at the very beginning, but, alas, that wouldn’t be as fun. You do not break my rules when coming into my home, but I will allow you to stay on the tenth floor … if you can survive the onslaught. Enjoy the gambit, and until we meet, have fun, cheaters.

A dungeon master was the ruler over his dungeon. They controlled the flow of everything, but they weren’t omnipotent within one. There were rules. He couldn’t exactly kick somebody out of the dungeon unless somebody agreed to it. However, he could control the amount of monsters, the traps, and what trials dungeon divers had to bypass.

One of the things the dungeon master could control was the indestructibility of a dungeon’s walls. Once again, I had to repeat this fact to myself and everybody. With everything going on in the last dungeon, to the point I probably guessed the golem boss’s true identity—that of the earth elemental emperor—it only made me more paranoid. Crustacia’s Divine Quest wasn’t done, meaning she knew there was an even larger conspiracy going on.

In fact, I for sure knew since Maagneil had that rebellion orb. Also, as the boys mentioned, the earth elemental emperor probably didn’t die from everything we did. What were those two planning to do with that orb?

I shall put all of you into a group, with the dragon automatically joining the party once she puts her party bracelet back on. Once the party is set, don’t transform back, little whelpling. Your virigress will act as a pet. Once your party is set, your stage mission will begin. Until then, an army of monsters will spawn that will give anybody any experience, so, don’t dally. It will get worse.

That was the message from the dungeon master. The boys had to tell me since I slept through it.

“I’m sorry …” The reason why the boys were drenched in blood became clear. Since I was sleeping, Rajah, Tatsuya, Kyouya, Vifi’Yok, and … my cousin, Franz, protected me.

“There is nothing to thank me for, Hika—Sorry, I’m still not used to this. Hestia. Hestia. Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor … It wouldn’t be appropriate to call you by your Earthen name.” Franz, the silver-haired half Japanese, half German young man stared at the ground, still finding it awkward to speak with me.

Frankly, I couldn’t help but feel the same. I couldn’t muster the confidence to speak to him, feeling even meeker than when I was just the size of a gecko. Whenever I tried to say anything after I realized that he was, in fact, my cousin from my past life transported to this world along with the rest of Saori’s students, my throat just became dry. My mouth was knit closed, and my mind went blank.

I wanted to thank him, since because of him, I managed to relearn the names of my human parents—Leon and Ako Schartner. My name was Hikari Schartner, the only child of two American immigrants. Even if I wanted to find a reason to deny it, to be untrusting, I couldn’t. He was able to explain all the gruesome details about my past life’s death. He knew it was suicide, even when that information should have been confidential.

In fact, I hadn’t even told Saori about it when we had our reunion.That should’ve been a happy moment for us to catch up, not to make Saori feel bad for me. However, I did decide to tell her everything the next time we met. Everybody else in Aurora, even the students, knew. My best friend deserved to know my past.

However, my past also made it kind of awkward between Franz and me, right now. The thing was, I still had no bloody idea who he actually was. My memories of him were foggy, as even the memory my past self just showed me had his face covered up with shadows. I couldn’t remember anything about him. I didn’t know what sort of person he was, or what he had experienced in life.

On the other hand, he knew everything about “Hikari Schartner,” but nothing about “Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor.” I identified as Hestia, not Hikari, as that name belonged to my other half. At the same time, I recognized that I was Hikari … just that I wanted to associate myself with my new life. “Leave the past behind, embrace the future, but don’t forget about it,” something like that.

We were cousins, but at the same time, we were little more than strangers right now.

“… Even now?” Tatsuya suddenly expressed his annoyance after he finished his explanation. He sighed, before pouring some fulinoe tea for me. “Here I thought you two were going to have a moment, especially with how much Daisy cried like a little bitch.”

“Dude!” Kyouya smacked him on the back, causing the latter to just groan. However, neither Franz nor I said anything. “… This is just suffocating.”

Vifi’Yok, finally seeing a moment to speak, nodded in agreement. “True. Not like I can properly relate, but here I thought family members would be happy to see each other. Somebody in the family died—gone forever; they were here one moment, but gone in the next … Goddess Death takes everybody one day, but not many are able to reincarnate as the same person. You too can meet, despite having death separate you once already.”

She was right, but at the same time, I couldn’t help but scowl at her. I felt annoyed, irritated. This unjustified rage inside me wanted to lash out at her.

“… Then, how about this, we return to what we discussed? Why are you still here? Why the hell are you still not saying anything? Is my trust valued that little, that you can’t just speak to us?”

My trust in Vifi’Yok had faded. Well, a small part of me still wanted to trust her just for the sake of finding a way to make peace with the demonkins, but another side wondered if I couldn’t find somebody else. There had to be one or two other dissatisfied demonkins like Vifi’Yok, right?

“Oh right, that part is mostly cleared, Hestia,” Franz suddenly spoke. “‘Valeria,’ or Vifi’Yok as she’s properly called, told us she isn’t working for anybody. She’s correct.”

I turned my gaze to him, confused how he could be so calm. In fact, shouldn’t he have only now learned she was a demonkin who was posing as a human? Weren’t the students told the demonkins were enemies? Why was he suddenly trusting her?

When I brought that up to him, Franz shook his head. “I wasn’t there when everything happened—I don’t know how I was separated from my group aside from the ground collapsing under my feet before finding myself in this area—but I questioned her with Nagata and Ishigami.”

He’s calling them by their last names, again … Tatsuya had some friction with him, right? Something about Franz’s father suing his mom?

Ignoring it, Tatsuya supported Franz’s claim. “And we didn’t go easy on her. You know I’ve never trusted her for a moment. I wasn’t letting this moment go to blast her, especially with our current situation. The demonkin can’t try to kill us before she knows what the dungeon master is asking of us.”

True. With me unconscious, she could have killed any of the boys, even Rajah, with no issue and just gone away. However, unless she knew what to expect to get out of this Event Quest, she was once again checkmated.

“See, Light-san has his unique skill like all of us when we first came to this world,” Kyouya prompted before he explained what “Light’s”—Franz—unique skill was.

<Justice For All: A skill that equalizes the stats with each other. Health and Mana equalizes to the highest amount between each other. Strength and Intelligence equalizes to the highest amount between each other. Vitality and Wisdom equalizes to the highest amount between each other. Agility and Stamina equalizes to the highest amount between each other. All stat growth and enhancing skills will benefit both corresponding stat. The owner can tell truth from lies by activating this skill with mana, and will received a 10% boost in all stat as long as they fight against somebody who lied to them>

“It evolved once the church announced me as a ‘Champion Candidate’ … but, well, that was all really a lie from the demonkins.”

I looked over at Tatsuya and Kyouya, prompting them to explain they had caught up with each other—mostly facilitated by Kyouya, since Tatsuya and Franz despised each other. Franz had known the demonkins were behind the summoning of the students since he got to the Empire. Aside from his party—his closest friends—none of the other students knew about this, as Franz knew he couldn’t convince them, especially the boy called Takuma—somebody he also has a bad relationship with.

Franz, why do you have so many bad relationships? I was really, really confused about my cousin’s personal life, but at the same time, I didn’t want to intrude into it. I kinda wished I could just switch places with my other half, but that was literally impossible since I was the primary personality at this point.

In any case, Franz didn’t specify from whom he learned all of this, merely mentioning the person wanted to stay low. I looked over at Vifi’Yok, but couldn’t get any information from her expression. I had the feeling she would know, or at the very least, give me candidates.

Franz then explained he wanted to meet me for a while now, having recently learned that I introduced Berliners, donuts, and so on to this world, a fact he didn’t brush aside as some coincidence. He wanted to learn if I could become an ally, as he had been looking for ways to get the students on his side to safety, away from the demonkins.

Which, then prompted me to use [Telepathy] to tell him I had the ability to usurp demonic influences. My other half probably recognized him instantly as my cousin, so I trusted him, but I couldn’t let Vifi’Yok know. She probably hadn’t realized it, and it was an ace I wanted to keep to myself for now.

[“Not now,”] he suddenly responded, explaining he had [Telepathy] for a while now, as it was rather useful.

Ignoring the topic for now, Tatsuya told me he gave Franz a quick rundown of our trips and experience, without telling Vifi’Yok too much. As such, he knew enough that the “Hikari” he knew had completely changed. It was also why he felt so standoffish, and a little bit crazy, when we spoke. He was probably afraid his cousin actually died, but that girl was still inside me.

“I’m sorry …” Once again, I couldn’t help myself but to apologize, this time to Franz himself. I knew I was a big reason for his current issues, especially as I was still in my dragon form to make sure we didn’t begin the quest.

“Don’t be.” Franz smiled. “I’m just happy you’re alive and well, being that idol you always wanted to be. I am sure your parents will be happy to see you again once we make it through all of this … We miss … We’re happy you made your dream come true.”

‘We miss,’ huh? Hmm …

“Now, as for Valeria, we can trust her when she says she isn’t working for the demonkins. That’s the one thing I was able to confirm as a fact. Most of the other questions we posed, she dodged,” Franz continued, prompting Vifi’Yok to speak.

“That’s what I’m saying … I know, you shouldn’t trust me, but I am not trying to throw you under an equerochs, here. I just can’t afford to be found out. I will die if they find me; don’t forget, I am a deserter. All this time, I was trying to get away, okay, because I had a feeling something was going on.”

“Which brings me back to my same point! Why didn’t you try to tell us anything?! That’s the real issue I am having with you! You keep talking about not wanting to help me with your people, but at the same time, it makes me nervous trying to trust you. You don’t trust us, and you don’t even try to! But I tried, but it’s too clear now.” I grit my teeth, unable to get this stinking feeling away. “You belong to the military. Can you trust anybody who is keeping things from you? Important intel to the success of a mission?”

“That’s why I don’t expect your trust. I expect us to work together, that’s all.” She stood up, stretching her arms. “Mercs and soldiers can work with eachother, even if they won’t entrust their backs to each other. Sleep with a knife under your pillow, kinda deal. I already told you, I just … just want to leave all my past behind.”

She looked conflicted, almost frowning in a crestfallen manner. Biting her lips, she turned around. “I can sense more monsters are coming. Just … catch up, or whatever. Let’s just do this thing already. All this talking is just obnoxious.”

Without my spear, she left. A few seconds later, I heard the sound of roars but they were instantly silenced by the flicking of red lightning sizzling all around us.

While Rajah was tending to his paws, licking them clean, I turned my attention back to the boys. With everything said, they stayed silent. Tatsuya, especially, was glaring at Franz, while the latter kept his eyes onto the ground, pondering. I couldn’t exactly remember what went on between each other, but I was also afraid to ask. It was weird, I was afraid to ask about my past, despite always wanting to learn more about it ever since I understood my memories were broken.

The first to speak was Tatsuya, “… Hestia-san, you know how I’ve been asking you about your hair and how we probably met before?”

I nodded.

“If you’re Daisy’s cousin, then it confirms it. We did meet when we were all in grade school. First in an arcade, then the next day in a park” My eyes widened as he told me this, but I kept quiet so he could continue. “Summer, after Kyouya moved away. He couldn’t come, and I had some tickets for a movie. I gave it to you two after we played a bit.”

I turned to Franz, who kept his eyes closed. “A year before my entrance exam for middle school. We met. I was nervous, you cheered me up.”

That was the exact memory my other self showed me.

“We were playing around in the park before our mothers picked us up. On the next day, to show you around, I showed you a local arcade because you always loved playing games. We met Nagata there, and thought he was harassing you since your Japanese was pretty broken. Happens.”

“You mean you overprotective ass shoved me back, acting like a punk when I just tried to speak with her!” Tatsuya shouted, slapping his leg. “… We played some games after you diffused everything, where I gave you some tickets to the new pocket monster movie. We then met on the next day at a nearby park. I think you bought your handheld with you to play with Light, only for us three to spend some time there. Well, I didn’t get to meet you after that, so I forgot about you over time.”

I shook my head, telling him he shouldn’t worry. I had zero recollection of this time, so it wasn’t like I could blame him. Forgetting the name of a girl you played with as kids was just normal, I probably did, too … Which just confused me even further how Tatsuya and Franz were so antagonistic. When I asked them, both just turned silent, prompting Kyouya to sigh.

“Haaa, well, I wasn’t there so I don’t really know if this is 100% accurate. It’s just Tatsuya’s recollection, after all.”

“Huh? Now that I think about it, Tatsuya-kun didn’t mention you at all. I thought you guys were childhood friends and always hung around?”

Kyouya looked at me for a bit, before realizing something and snapping his fingers. “Sorry! We didn’t exactly tell you how Sensei held a counseling moment when we trained with her, right? Yeah, well, to summarize, I moved away when we were in grade school and in the summer when I was supposed to meet with him, I ditched him for, well, the ‘friends’ I had at my new school.”

“Yeah … felt really bad back then, but we made up when Sensei made things clear for us. We both got lonely without each other and tried to make do with things, but while Kyouya bettered himself by going to the gym, losing a ton of weight to the point his pudgy belly became a six pack, I kind of just … isolated myself into otaku stuff. Games, manga, and just … this feeling of boredom.”

Kyouya used to be overweight? No effing way!

While I was baffled at this, Kyouya continued the story, “I should have been there, losing contact was my fault, when you tried to speak with me. Well, I’m here for you now, Tatsuya.”

“Kyouya!” Both booths slapped their hands into a handshake, letting out a loud clapping sound. “I meant it when I said I admired your change, okay? It’s better than me going around trying to protect you from bullies. It’s better. As you said, you’re here now and I couldn’t have asked for anyone better than you when we came to this world. Without you, I would have continued staying in my room.”

“Ha! You’re right, you would have just gotten coffee migraines for the entire year if Aiko hadn’t given you some fulinoe tea!” Both boys smiled brightly, the proof of their friendships clear. Kyouya tensed his arm and gave his best friend a hug. “We’ll continue to get stronger, alright? To survive and make sure we aren’t deadweight. To make sure we kill Daisy!”

Huh? What did they say?

“Yeah!” Tatsuya roared, even howling like a wolf. “All to kill Daisy!”

… WHAT!

“I’ll take that as a statement of threat …” Franz suddenly stood up, pulling out his sword, prompting me to pull on Tatsuya’s and Kyouya’s cheeks, breaking up their embrace to have them explain what the hell was going on.

Apparently, they were talking about “Imaginary Daisy,” an imaginary version of Franz Tatsuya was showing his anger at. Franz looked at them for a moment, before clicking his tongue, saying “no lies.” These two boys can really cause some chaos!

In any case, with this sudden drama, Franz suddenly had the urge to speak, explaining how their grudge was created when his father sued Tatsuya’s mother in an attempt to create drama concerning his father. Apparently, Franz’s dad was hired by somebody to take Tatsuya’s position as a competitor down, which he successfully managed.

“Nagata-san lost his position as CEO, but managed to start anew at another company. After the drama died down and rumors came out that my father targeted him, things turned around for the better,” Franz explained, but Tatsuya could only glare at him.

“No thanks to you …” he snorted. “You could have done something. You could have spoken to your father. You know it was false! The floor being wet? No sign? Bull-shit! Your father tripped and broke his hip by himself!”

Franz didn’t dispute it, instead, only sighed. He closed his eyes, before brushing his silver hair off his eyes, revealing his dirty forehead.

“… Do you really think I could have acomplished anything?” His eyes narrowed, glaring at Tatsuya with this exhausted but irritated look, almost as if he was ready to blow up. “The only person my father listens to are the people paying him. Do you really think a snot-nosed little brat like me can stand up to Japan’s most notorious prosecutor?”

He didn’t contort his face. His glare was enough to kill.

“My father, who married a foreigner so he could get a ‘hafu’ for clout? He did not love my mother, nor her family, he only thought of me as his next step to immortalize his legacy. Akabane? The devil’s name. If I could change my last name, I would have, but that would have cut me off completely from everything. That man, the moment he noticed my weakness, would have cut me off completely. Ruined me. Made sure I could not do anything to him. Nagata, you blamed me for ignoring your request? Wrong. I didn’t ignore you, I just couldn't do anything. He would have taken me down.”

He then turned to me, his eyes having calmed down. “… He never told me you died.”

What?

“My parents divorced once my mother’s ‘use’ was over. When she told my father you died, he held it back so I could focus on my college exam. He never planned to tell me. I missed your funeral … You were-You were the only reason why I kept fighting. I wanted to be one of the best lawyers, so whenever you signed up with an agency, I could make sure you got the best deal ever. H-Hi-Hikari …” Tears welled up in his eyes again, while I was frozen in place. “I-I … I-I should have been there for you. You-You wouldn’t have ended that way if I had just been better … But it’s all my father’s fault. He pushed me! He kept me away from you!”

He suddenly took two deep breaths, almost as if he was hyperventilating. He clutched his neck, looking at the ground with two blank, wide eyes. “… So that’s what he meant when ‘God’ had it all planned. I see … this is my second chance. Hestia.”

“Uuh, y-yes—Woah!” He suddenly lunged forward, grabbing my shoulders. His eyes were piercing, as if they were looking at my soul.

“Do you still plan on becoming an idol? Do you still want to become the star that brings everybody joy?”

Why is he asking this? Franz? Franz?

That look in his eyes. I knew it, something was wrong with him. What was the correct answer here? It felt like whatever I said next would probably influence him quite—No, by a lot. Call it draconic intuition. That ghastly skin-crawling sensation returned.

I might as well do it now.

I touched his right hand, caressing the thick gauntlet before grabbing his wrist.

Usurp! … Huh?

In fact, I for sure knew since Maagneil had that rebellion orb. Also, as the boys mentioned, the earth elemental emperor probably didn’t die from everything we did. What were those two planning to do with that orb?

Your usurpation rights aren’t high enough to activate on this person. Usurpation attempt failed

… ! No way!

It was at this point my senses shot up to 200%. There was something seriously wrong with Franz, not just mentally, but something else. Never has my usurpation rights ever failed before, not even when it came to me usurping Master Kush’s blessing. I even got that long-winded System message where Plesia kept blocking the attempt until she just gave me a lousy, weak buff to make the attempt stop.

Franz mentioned some god before, so who were they? Some Edjurl god? How did Franz know the demonkins were controlling the Empire of Folschreck? From whom? … Who was using my cousin against me?

Hestia—No, this answer has to come from Hikari.

I activated [Thought Acceleration] and had my parallel minds think with me. With [Multi-Thought Processing] we went and reviewed a few memories of our past, including our meeting with my other half. We analyzed my speaking habits, my bratty personality, and how I died. Anything to gain that one answer to turn this around.

… Wait, the rest of the memory of our meeting with Franz. Look! Look!

Memories of the skipped part of the memory went rushing out, revealing the truth of that event to me. The sealed memories were mine to review, and that was where I saw the shadow silhouette of my cousin when he was still a kid.

Shy and nervous around me, he didn’t seem anywhere close to the person giving me this piercing gaze. However, time was wasting, so I ignored it and began watching. Any details was good!

“I … this is a bit embarrassing but recently I wished I could have more family around.” and then “Haha-ue and Chichi-ue aren’t getting alo … woah!” but then this happened, “Enough! It’s such a fun day and you’re bringing it down. Come on, come on! Let’s go have some fun at the playground before Mama and Auntie pick us up!” Damn, I acted like such a tsundere … But I was trying to make him feel better.

A moment of childish fun was plagued by the young boy’s issues. “Chichi-ue would always drink coffee before he went to work. I thought, even if it’s empty, I could mimic him to understand what he wants from me. It always feels like I’m a disappointment,” was one particular moment that struck my core. He was talking about his father, and how he wanted to make him proud, but kept failing. Even back then, his family was a dysfunctional mess.

I never felt lonely at home, always finding some comfort in my parents or nanny. However, the opposite was the case for Franz, to the point it seemed I acted as his emotional pillar. Meaning, despite knowing this, I allowed myself to get weak? Verdammt!

I always lamented how terrible of a friend and daughter I was, but my Earthen self was also a bad cousin, huh? Damn. What a brat I was.

… However, it also made me understand what was driving Franz. White hair that seemed to have greyed out from stress, probably caused by my death or his college exam prep. His eccentric behavior, caused by relieving his trauma. I couldn’t read his mind. I couldn’t understand what or who he had met in this world, but it didn’t matter.

Even if “Hestia” was a stranger to him, I had a duty as “Hikari” to correct my mistakes!

I had to go with this path.

“Will it make you smile again, Onii-chan?” I gave him a wry smile, unable to hide my sadness at seeing him like this.

He twitched, continued with a stutter, “Huh? I-I would b-be happy if—”

“Would it really? Are you doing this for me, or are you doing this for yourself?” I pushed his hand off, causing him to step back, but I kept holding his, pulling him slightly back with my higher strength. “What about Auntie? Your mom?”

“‘M-my mom?’”

“Franz, I am an idol. I already made it, and I want to continue shining, but I also want to make you happy. Make my friends happy. My family happy. Have all of you smile so brightly you could blind others.” My smile softened, remembering why I was on this journey. Why I decided to walk down the path of Aurena’s Champion and my desire to finish it. “I want to see my Mama and Papa. I want to see them again, and ask them for forgiveness for what I did. This is why I am doing this for Aurena. Why I became her idol!”

My chest tightened, feeling cramp as I let out my emotions.

“And I want you to be there! I want everybody to see me make it, so, Franz, don’t give me that look! Don’t show me that look! What were you thinking?”

Unexpecting my scolding, Franz’s face softened as he began to frown, confused why I was turning things around in this direction. That was ‘cause this was a Hestia plus Hikari moment, a culmination of how I dealt with my problem ever since I was reborn in this world.

“I have a Onee-chan, now, you know?” I showed a smug smile to him, causing him to turn red as he stuttered “Big sister?!” “Fargryneill is her name, and she’s part of my new family in this world. I want to introduce her to you, Franz. I want you to know of the people ‘Hestia’ has befriended, but also to show you the growth ‘Hikari’ has made during my stay in this world. The conviction I made for myself!”

He went silent, but kept his eyes sternly on me. He did not dismiss anything.

“And also a dragon mother. A second mother; oh, have I told you how I’m an auntie in this world? However … despite all of that, I still want to get to know you.”

“Me?”

“Of course! Why wouldn’t I? Don’t forget, I have a case of amnesia, right? So … make new memories with me, Franz. Now that we’re reunited, let us have a second chance as cousins once again.” I tightened my grip on his wrist. “And I will show you how much I’ve grown. How much I’ve come to experience in my life that I can stand by you, so we can both help each other. To assure we make it to our goal—to reunite our family. Everything for family, right?”

He widened his eyes, flabbergasted at my answer to his question as he blinked multiple times. However, the tension in his body faded away as he gripped my arm and wiped away the tears on his face. He looked me in the eyes again, showing me a gentle smile. The stress wasn’t gone completely, but Franz no longer looked like he was about to make the worst mistake in his life.

“… To do that, we will have to do quite a lot. Not only people will stand in your path to fulfill your Divine Quest, but you will also run into clashing ideologies, Hestia. Things will never work as you planned. Murphy’s Law.”

“Then I will overturn them! There is always a way forward when options are available! Unable to think about them is what will stop you, and that is something I will not do again! For you, for my friends, for my new family! I will not make that stupid mistake again. Rules be damned! I am a dragon in this life, Franz. I am Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor, and through these veins, the blood of a god flows! Idol culture? Apologizing to Mama and Papa? They better send a nuke at me if they wish to stop me!”

1 human has become your follower

Total follower count updated. Total followers of [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 22446

Descendant of the Black Tyrant Kargryxmor, you have continued your path towards the inner peace of your blood. The seven paths of transcendence await you onwards on exalted wings. The path of Lust has been fulfilled. Paths unlocked: 3/7

Huh?!

Lust? A month had gone by since Neill began training me to master my lust and all this time, I’ve been having more and more trouble controlling it, as I never could really break free of the mindset of doing anything for my goal. I always questioned my future moral choices and their consequences … but in this one moment, I threw it away.

Was it the conviction in my words and mind that unlocked? Was it the ability to just think “if there is a way, I will find it to fulfill my lust?” I honestly couldn’t really tell. “How much evil could I do to achieve what I want,” was the question … and in this moment, I told Franz I would overturn the world.

Hold on, good and evil were just two sides of a coin. One side might condemn me, but another would praise me … what if I overturned this rule? Then it would be the same, only, another side would hate and love me … just like my decision to overturn this war between the humans and demonkins. I wasn’t seeking total extinction, but to stop it all.

For that, rules had to be broken and everything had to be overturned. Would it involve more than just the mortal realms? What about the gods? Their influences? What would I have to do to achieve this goal?

Now, I understand … It-it makes sense now why Pradreo and Skardrvo were so adamant about it.

The answer was right in front of me all this time. The two dragonewts who announced I was part of their clans, their families. I understood they saw me as their princess, but Skardrvo especially left a very strong impression on me on why he went out to killed random wyvernslayers.

“To protect the child the clan matriarch wished for so long,” was his motivation. Family was everything, and I had to second-guess myself to the point I couldn’t open this gate immediately. I still felt fear of my dragon side, huh? Here I thought I already accepted it, but a part of me was always still apprehensive, too reserved.

“Could you martyr yourself to ensure everybody’s happiness? Could you become the villain for everybody’s sake? Could you sacrifice your own gluttony for the happiness of everybody else?” Those were the questions Sis asked me to test my lust, to find holes in my reasoning.

Could I martyr myself? What have I been doing to myself to help others, or how I pushed myself with the mindset of bringing a smile to people’s faces? No, I wouldn’t just martyr myself, since a real star wouldn’t die down without rocking the world one last time.

Could I become the villain? To some, I will become evil, similar to how the Empire thought I was evil. Evil? Good? Those were two sides of a coin, and it was all about perspective. Besides, having a “bad boy or bad girl” inside a group wouldn’t be too bad. A group had to cater to different demographics, right? “The Shining Star Blackens,” sounded like an amazing headline.

The only hard question was the last one, as giving up my gluttony for others would be like abandoning a part about myself. However, as mentioned before, these trials were more about the philosophy behind my actions and how I perceived the world. Even the greatest philanthropist had to be selfish for a moment—a hedonist.

So this is my lust?

And this conviction would meet its first roadblock in the challenge the dungeon master had set for us.

Once Franz and I made peace with our current situation, I set our party up using my party bracelet to make a party of six with Rajah as my tamed monster. It was then, the stage mission was explained.

Finally! Good … the goal of this stage is simple. There are two temples in the center of this stage, where you may find two keys. Only two parties may obtain them, while any party who doesn’t will die. No buts. Usually, any loser would be able to teleport out, but little cheaters deserve a punishment. After all, this is all a gambit of yours, right? … The System will tell you the rest of the rules. Let the drama begin as six parties fight for their survival!

“Here.” Franz handed me a rock, causing me to widen my eyes when I noticed it was one pair of a [Room] rune! “I found it when you escaped. I guess it’s yours. Sorry, I had Saintess Fleindia check on them before we were separated.”

There was finally a chance for us to escape this hell home and get some reinforcement. All we needed to do was find this Saintess Fleindia.

Only …

“What?!” The boys and I shouted as we saw the list of participants.

No!

It was the worst possible situation where my new conviction would be tested. Six teams—split between mine, the three parties from the students, a party made from the knights, and … Ankoran King Fugnarus.

Six parties; only two may live. I had not expected to participate in another Battle Royale …

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 407: The Keys for Survival.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Fugnarus Kongun, …

Takuma Akanishi, Aiko Hasebe, …

Ryuji Enokida, …

Yuuko Takeshita, …

Lautrex von Cashim, …

Six groups, and only two may survive.

Tenth Floor Rules

- In the middle of this stage, there are two temples with artifacts that act as the key for the entrance to the next floor. Only teams with these artifacts may use them to teleport themselves from this floor to the next

- Leaving the dungeon floor in any other way aside from these artifacts will result in death through the dungeon master’s choice

- Once both artifacts leave the floor through their usage, the floor will be destroyed by the dungeon master along with everything on it. A heavy penalty debuff will be applied on everybody remaining on the floor

- All surviving parties will receive a generous treasure chest to compensate for the heavy-handed gambit

- All rules from an Event Quest is applied to this one aside from the exceptions stated here

And the Event Quest rules were as follows:

Good Morning, to those in Anko-Nazta’s Inkoran-Tazul! Regardless of where you are or who you are, the Origin Gods wish all of you a fine WaterDay. Today marks the beginning of the first Event Quest after the implementation of the unique Job System. Participation in the rank A dungeon [Manethala’s Nest] will yield many rewards and bonuses, including the illustrious unlocking of your unique Job. For the grand prize for those able to complete this challenge, you will be eligible to gain a unique Job.

Rules:

1. Your participation will be registered through your party the moment you enter the dungeon. You may not change the members mid-way through even if you lose a member by any means

2. Betrayal of your group through any means will be scrutinized by the Goddess of Order, Plesia. In this revelry, punishment shall be the reward reaped for those willing to break the concept and theme of this Event Quest.

3. Victory goes to the party able to reach the last floor of the dungeon, where you will confront the rank A drake, Manethala. Your challenge will depend on the drake’s mood and decision, scrutinized by Goddesses Crustacia and Chihiro

4. The designated party leader may surrender at any time, meaning the party will give up further participation and be automatically transported out of the dungeon for their safety. You will still acquire a reward. The party leader will be scrutinized under rule 2

5. Individual members may leave the party at any time by either leaving the dungeon through the front entrance, emergency exits within the dungeon, or through space-time. You may also call out your surrender, forcing the dungeon to expel you automatically for your safety. Your rewards will be determined by how far you made it.

6. Everybody has one entry. Once you surrender or leave the dungeon, you forfeit your right to continue in this Event Quest

Event:

1. [Manethala’s Greatest Gambit] is the name of the Event Quest and involves parties to forge themselves through 15 floors of trials ranging from physical and mental challenge— monster subjugations and puzzles

2. Each party will face the same trials during this Event. You are allowed to help other parties

3. Your reward will depend on how many floors your party managed to clear until somebody clears Manethala’s last challenge. The hard time limit for this Event will be this year’s New Year’s Eve

4. Each member of a party will receive their individual rewards after the Event is over. Those with a unique Job already unlocked will receive a different reward if they become the victors

This Event Quest is very difficult. The recommended level for the participants will be level 100, but during the duration of the Event Quest, anybody will be allowed to enter the dungeon as long as the rules are followed.

May you be blessed by the Origin Gods. Let [Manethala’s Greatest Gambit] begin!

So, since we technically bypassed the second event rule, the dungeon master compensated with this ‘heavy-handed’ floor. Considering the original intent of the dungeon, it made sense. Higher risks, higher rewards.

“… I am not dying, just saying,” Vifi’Yok stated with no hesitation after we read all of this. “I don’t care if it’s a king or your friends, I will not die. I will drag all of you over the finish line if I have to.”

“And it wouldn’t break any of the rules,” Franz responded with a nod. “Even if we wanted to sacrifice ourselves, would it count as a betrayal for you to save us? Would it count as a betrayal for us to sacrifice ourselves if you don’t want it? What constitutes a ‘betrayal’ in the eyes of the Goddess of Order, Plesia?”

“We don’t need any rule lawyering from you …” Tatsuya cut him short, although he didn’t look him directly in the face. After what had just happened, it seemed the tension between Tatsuya and Franz just got worse.

On the other hand, my relationship with the latter was turning, uuuh, better, I guess.

“Hesti-chan, are you planning on charging towards the middle?” Franz spoke with a wide smile, a complete departure from his previous expressions. “The monsters stopped spawning, but we don’t exactly know where the ‘middle’ of this place is.”

I suggested I could fly up, in fact, I could even use [Unheilige Engel] to transport everybody over. In terms of speed, nobody should be able to beat us. The challenge itself wasn’t too difficult, but the real test will be the social-dynamic challenge afterwards, including a very, very unpleasant meeting with Yuuko … the one student I burnt.

Kyouya snapped his fingers, forming a question. “Oh right, Light-san, how—”

“Franz is enough.”

“Didn’t you vehemently ask everybody to call you by that nickname? Why the change?”

“‘Franz’ was the name my father gave me. After everything, I didn’t want to associate myself with him in this world.” He then looked over at me, showing me warm eyes. “I’m happy with my original name now.”

… Yikes. I internally thought, unable to process it properly. I was grateful for the warmth, but, somehow, unlike with Neill, I couldn’t feel comfortable around him. Maybe it was just the way he worded his sentences.

Ignoring it, Kyouya continued, “Oh right, Franz-san, I wanted to ask you about your experience in the Empire. We read the newspaper, but did the Empire actually issue a death sentence for Hestia-san? You guys were sent to kill her?”

His face twitched, looking unsure. “You know the newspaper sent around the world to each of Folschreck’s vassals and provinces? Well, one of our own made it—Yuuko—but the idea was hijacked at the last moment with the church forcing that statement about Hestia-chan leading the grimgarians. It was capture first, but then the church ordered her execution. It was all really sudden. And, yes, our group was sent here to slay her.”

Franz then looked over at the demonkin. Vifi’Yok sighed and shrugged.

“… Lord Envy, posing as the pope of the Church of Aurena as you all know, had always wanted to kill, or at the very least, mind control Hestia. When I led the battle on Elyonda, he ordered me to awaken Karhalantheel with the black mercs he hired. That Streiga, for example, is a—” Vifi’Yok stopped for a moment as she looked at Franz, drawing my eyes, where I only saw him look forward with a thinking face. Shaking her head, Vifi’Yok continued. “He’s a real scholar, despite his looks. We had the plan perfected to destroy the Champion of Yeostar forever.”

She then pointed at me. “The only real obstacle was your meddling, since the gods can give you a Divine Quest. After your whole involvement in Griffonpeak, Lord Pride had exposed your existence to us. You killed the Warbringer-esque version for the Envy demonkins, you know. U’Skaie—he was in a similar role as me but for Lord Envy, although far weaker in combat. The commotion you caused would have been similar if you actually killed me … which happened anyways, since I faked my death.”

In other words, he was one of the replacements in the event that the current Prince of Envy died, since he had an Original Sin ability.

“Just saying, I feel no regrets. He killed somebody important to me. Having his body atomized was his just dessert.” My answer was filled with disdain. I didn’t even care if he had a name or was a nameless little insect like any other criminal.

Vifi’Yok chuckled for a moment, smiling as she waved her hand. “As I said, Lord Envy and Lord Wrath have always been in contention. You’ll find no problem with me. U’Skaie and I were speaking acquaintances at best. In fact, I can guarantee you, none of the sensible Princes of Sins are happy Lord Envy is putting a bounty on your severed head. The moment you die, we face the wrath of Melloxtressa. If she dies, then we might get some unwelcome visits by the Dragon Empire.”

The way she’s saying that makes my life value less than Mom’s …

She continued, “That’s why Lord Envy gave me those two objects. Both were to lock the two of you up. We blame the humans for your death, and boom, dragons and humans are in a very precarious situation. And, it doesn’t matter if the evidence points towards us, when the elves, the dragon’s original ally from long ago, leads a force against Folschreck because of a very, very thick hatred due to the War for the Faefolk.”

“… And the gods can’t directly influence something like this,” I stated, understanding the plan they were going with. Unless it was through Champions and Saints, but in that case, it would be a total mystery on how everything would be resolved, not to mention how the demonkins would just twist things in their favor.

She spoke a lot. Is this her way to gain trust? Doesn’t matter. Gotta be careful.

Franz then began giving us a breakdown of the people on the other side, including their current levels and combat styles. The average level of the students on the Empire side was around 75, with Takuma and Franz being the highest level at 89 and 85 respectively. Unlike my group, they didn’t have an experience increasing title, and were just sent into more and more battles with the help of the Imperial Knights

In other words, they got power leveled. Which was still quite useful since all of them have access to the skill shop.

The knights protecting them, on the other hand, were a bit stronger though. Royce, Karlst, and Falamm were the names of the guardian knights for the three last student parties, with Royce being the strongest and holding a similar rank to Yorshka back when she was still a Knight of Aurena.

“Royce is an Artorian, around level 116. Sir Karlst is my knight guardian, and he’s level 94. Falamm is the weakest at level 90. Unless we can change their opinions in some manner, we won’t be able to persuade them. The Church of Aurena’s word is higher than the Holy Emperor’s, and only matched by a blessed.”

“Which I am.”

“And also the person they are trying to hunt down. You also burned Yuuko-san to the point Saintess Fleindia couldn’t even heal her for over an hour, or so; that means you have lost all the goodwill from my class, even if I try to persuade them. I can bring my party over, aside from Karlst, but that is about it,” Franz presented the terrible news to me.

[Dread Burn]—whether ally or foe, if you were burned by my flames, you literally couldn’t recover your health as long as it was active. That was why my song [Dragon Fire] was so invaluable, since it made it so my allies couldn’t get hurt by any of my fire attacks. Sadly, Yuuko’s [Magic Breaker] sorta ruined that idea of mine as the moment she cast it on me, she was burned since I couldn’t use [Aerokinesis] to play my song.

Now that she was disfigured and had gone through an hour of agonizing pain, I could very much understand why none of them wanted to listen to me. To them, I was essentially the demon dragon boss, and if I were in their shoes, I wouldn’t forgive me either, even if it wasn’t technically my fault.

I could try to show them the proof of who I actually was. Unless they did some mental gymnastics, it should work, and I could also use my [Miraculous Grace] to fully heal Yuuko. I owed it to her. Then again, there was also the chance no one would think about it logically if they really, really hated me.

“I guess the Hands of Heaven is out of the question, too?” Franz nodded, explaining that the Hands of Heaven only reported to the Holy Emperor. To them, blessed were a rank lower. “Saintess Fleindia?”

“… We could, yes. She also has the other half of your stone pair, anyways, so we can’t avoid speaking with her. In any case, they are probably planning their own tactics at this point, so we better move.”

I nodded and had everybody get on my [Unheilige Engel]. With Rajah in my shadows and four people flying on it, it was quite unbalanced since it could support two people at best. I had to cast it once again to make controlling them easier. Meanwhile, Rajah had to run on the ground as he was far too large now to fit into my dragonewt shadow. The pains of being big, huh?

Once I took to the skies, I also took this time to look over Rajah’s Profile. I had planned to help him with his skill points.

Name: Rajah Level: 0 Race: Young Silverlight Shadow Virgacuga

Age: 1 Year

Status: Health: 7789 Mana: 6790

Strength: 4079 Intelligence: 2589

Vitality: 3211 Wisdom: 2901

Agility: 6789 Stamina: 6892

Effects: None

Skill Points: 24300

Unique Skill: [Lucent Illusion Lv. 1] [Virgacuga Bladehair Lv. 1] [Virgacuga Toxin Lv. 1]

Skill: Magic skills and related:

[Mana Efficiency Lv. 3] [Mana Control Lv. 5]

[Arcane Mind Lv. 8]

[Holy Magic Lv. 10] [Holy Amp] [Holy Magic Efficiency]

[Dark Magic Lv. 10] [Dark Amp] [Dark Magic Efficiency]

[Silent Casting Lv. 4]

[Chant Revocation Lv. 5] [Mental Warfare Lv. 2]

[Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 1] [Mental Stability Lv. 1]

[Fluid Cast Lv. 1] [Multi-Cast Lv. 1]

Physical skills and related:

[All-Damage Enhancement Lv. 1]

Senses and movement skills:

[Accuracy Correction Lv. 5] [Concentration Lv. 6] [Prediction Lv. 7]

[Danger Perception Lv. 7] [Probability Correction Lv. 3]

[Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 7] [Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 9]

[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 8] [Enhanced Vision Lv. 10] [Tracking Lv. 9]

[Evasion Lv. 10] [Acrobatic Lv. 10]

[Air Walk Lv. 2] [Terrain Maneuvering Lv. 8]

Resistances:

[Physical Super-Resistance Lv. 1] [Absolute Pain Tolerance]

[Mental Corruption Resistance Lv. 3] [Mind Protection Lv. 1]

[Mana Leak Resistance Lv. 1]

[Fear Resistance Lv. 9] [Lava Resistance Lv. 1] [Sacred Resistance Lv. 1]

[Inferno Resistance Lv. 1] [Water Resistance Lv. 9] [Ice Resistance Lv. 2]

[Terra Resistance Lv. 1] [Wind Resistance Lv. 9]

[Lightning Resistance Lv. 1] [Tenebrous Resistance Lv. 1]

[Arcane Corruption Resistance Lv. 10]

Stat growths and related:

[Health Recovery Lv. 5] [Mana Recovery Lv. 5]

[Stamina Recovery Lv. 10]

[Prime Vigor Lv. 1]

[Herculean Strength Lv. 1]

[Sorcerer’s Power Lv. 1]

[Indomitable Bulwark Lv. 1]

[Sage’s Wisdom]

Others:

[Identify Lv. 10] [Identity Blocker Lv. 10] [Battle Mind Lv. 4]

[Terror Aura Lv. 4] [Dismantle Lv. 7]

[Telepathy]

Ability List: Virgacuga:

[Hair Harden] [Tail Cleave] [Lucent Veil]

Spell List: Holy Magic:

[Minor Heal] [Cure] [Modest Heal] [Smite] [Light] [Holy Protection]

[Holy Strength] [Purify]

Dark Magic:

[Dark Bolt] [Dark Tendrils] [Shadow Dash] [Dark Slash] [Shadow Clones]

[Shadow Snake] [Enfeebling Winds] [Claws of Darkness]

Titles: [Hestia’s Retainer] [Shadow Pack Member]

Stat-wise, Rajah was far below Saori and me when we first became rank B, which made sense considering the difference in our lineages. Also, unlike us, he hasn’t been living with the skill point System since day one. Saori and I weren’t the best maximizers, but we managed to eke out some considerable training and combat experience by the time we left the Belzac forest.

Since I had the experience, I was able to advise Rajah on what skills to spend his points on, without wasting any on some random choices forced on him by circumstances. For example, unlike Saori and I, our stat growth skills weren’t in their advanced forms when we evolved, but since Rajah wasn’t pressured to level up certain skills to survive, he could invest everything in growth.

Rajah was actually stronger than most fresh rank Bs I’ve seen, but he was still weaker when I started out as rank Bs. It really showed how much Mom’s and my dragon father’s bloodline helped my growth.

Now, though, I had to make sure Rajah economized his skill points, even if he had 24300 of them. He hadn’t used any SP he gained during his latter rank D phase and his rank C period. He had been hoarding them like crazy, in case he ever needed to spend everything immediately. This was the time to use them.

[“Rajah?”] I sent a telepathic message to him, causing him to jump up before continuing running along this barren plain beneath me.

Due to his far larger body now, he was rather conspicuous, it would be hard for him to ambush anything if he either wasn’t in a shadow or using his [Lucent Veil] to turn invisible. [“Yes, Master?”] he growled.

[“Okay, first things first, don’t forget to continue your training with the magic fundamentals, alright? We will be talking about that after we’re done here, so we can give you some custom spells,”] I explained, which led into talking about my conversation with Franz, about my inability to usurp his unique skill and also the other suspicious things I wondered about him. I kinda wanted to trust him since he was my cousin, but it would be better to not risk it.

As for why I couldn’t usurp his unique skill, there was most likely a very irritating explanation for this, even if I didn't know it yet. It was just a gut feeling, but I trusted my instinct.

In any case, I instructed Rajah to max out his magic related skills, like [Mana Efficiency Lv. 3], [Mana Control Lv. 5], [Arcane Mind Lv. 8], [Silent Casting Lv. 4], and [Chant Revocation Lv. 5]; this should be the minimum for him now. Before, he could get away with lower skill levels since he was mostly my supporter, but now, he could take a frontline position. He had to increase his skills for that very reason.

The next part would be [Accuracy Correction Lv. 5], [Concentration Lv. 6], [Prediction Lv. 7], [Danger Perception Lv. 7], [Probability Correction Lv. 3], [Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 7], and [Battle Mind Lv. 4]. Detection and combat prediction skills were amazing for general combat, allowing you to take more risks since your skills could warn you of attacks better. [Concentration] and [Battle Mind] was especially important to make sure Rajah could cast spells during melee combat without distracting himself.

With this alone, he had already spent a total of 12950 SP to level them all up to level ten, including evolving a couple of the skills into their advanced versions. [Foresight Lv. 1], [Detection Sensor Lv. 1], and [Tranquil Mind Lv. 1] were a couple standouts for Rajah.

Resistances had to be leveled up in reaction to your foe, so forcing levels now was a waste. Resistances were far easier to level up than others skills anyways. I also wasn’t so sure if he should level up his unique skills, right now.

[Virgacuga Bladehair Lv. 1] and [Virgacuga Toxin Lv. 1] did exactly as they said they would. They were practically similar in usage to my [Hellblade Dragon] and [Corrosive Fire] skills, as in, a melee-oriented and a debuffing skill. Damage skills were similar to resistances, as in, they should be leveled up in reaction to your enemy. Since we got through the utility-based skills to make his fighting easier, we should be careful with the remaining SP usage.

I had also considered leveling his [Terror Aura] up to level ten to allow him access to a Territory, but you actually had to train in them. To release your mana with your aura, then using it to mold your surroundings to fit your fighting style, and that might just be a bit too complicated for him. Rajah was smart, but he was still practically a child.

Looking through his SP shop, he did have access to [Mana Weaving] and [Elemental Mana Weaving], similar to Saori, but I didn’t think he should focus on them. In fact, I wanted him to focus on his unique skills.

Virgacuga Bladehair: The gleaming fur of a virgarcuga which hardens up from a chemical reaction with the venom it excretes from its glands. Sharp like razors, these beasts can wield thier body like a living weapon, including shooting the fur out like projectiles. The skills combined are: [Enhanced Claw Lv. 10] [Enhanced Fang Lv. 10] [Mana Strike Lv. 10] [Stamina Strike Lv. 10]

Virgacuga Toxin: The debilitating venom of a virgarcuga, evolved from that of a virigress. To compensate for its larger bodies, virgarcuga toxin is less potent than their smaller relatives to preserve energy, only applying a mild neurotoxin and anticoagulant on other species. As a trade-off, the venom has a more pronounced effect on virgacugas as the stronger the venom, the more effective it’s bladehair will harden. The skills combined are: [Toxin Secretion Lv. 10] [Abnormal Status Nullification]

So, copying Rajah’s toxin with [Corrosive Flame] won’t help me? Meh, no venom dish today. Anyways, System Voice, give me a run down of all the archery or projectile improving skills. Non-magic ones.

Skill List

Sort by: Archery or projectile improving skills. Non-magic ones.

[Archery Technique] [Archery Mastery] [Projectile Accelerant] [Distance Multiplier] [Throwing Technique] [Throwing Mastery] [Critical Sniper]

Huh, never checked this part out. Probably should have asked Misaki for archery tips. Mana Eyes.

Projectile Accelerant: A skill that only works on physical, small projectiles with reduced effectiveness concerning magic-based projectiles. When a projectile is shot, it increases the speed and the distance it may fly before losing velocity and power. Requires 1200 SP

Distance Multiplier: A skill that increases the damage of a small projectile based on the distance of the shot. The damage increases depending on your current Strength and the level of the skill. Requires 1500 SP

Critical Sniper: A skill when activated at the cost of Stamina causes the damage of the next projectile to increase or decrease depending on the target hit. If the projectile hits a vital area of the target, multiples damage inflicted by the level of this skill. If the projectile hits any other area, the damage is reduced by 95%. Works in tandem with other [Critical]-based skills or weapon ability. Does not work with magic-based projectiles. Requires 2000 SP

What are with these exuberant prices?!

The moment I had that thought, my parallel minds chimed in, explaining the price was the reason they never really recommended me to buy them. Affinity-wise, I was always supposed to be a mage, instead of some sorta archer. Since I relied on my parallel minds to buy skills for me, I just trusted them.

On the other hand, Rajah had it far easier in this aspect. The SP cost for those skills were 300, 300, and 600 respectively for him. Considering he had a ton of SP left, even for emergency resistance levels, I told him to buy them to practice them.

14150 SP was just used in a single moment, reducing his total SP down to 10150. He was still in the safe zone.

Once we were done, we rushed the rest of the way to the center, noticing there really was nothing else around. The constant monster swarm the boys and Vifi’Yok told me about weren’t around any longer. The floor really just changed into “Get to the temple and grab the artifacts!” before everybody else. Well, unless they could fly or had some speedster on their side, they shouldn’t be able to make it to the destination in time.

Looking from above, the small grassland from before was beginning to disappear in the horizon, telling me this entire floor was actually pretty massive. Looking forward, I was also beginning to notice a pretty conspicuous hillscape with multiple extremely steep mountains, looking like near perfect pentagonal prisms.

With a misty veil covering them, they gave me the impression of those Asian mountain tops where monks would seclude themselves for training or meditation. On the two highest peaks, a pair of temples had been built, overlooking everything with a fog so thick, it made it hard to identify their real form.

This was all so aesthetically pleasing, I couldn’t help but capture some of it using the recorder, to everybody’s questioning eyes. I mean, why not? Not like showing it to Franz or Vifi’Yok was damning or anything.

Warning: From here on out, there is a no-flight zone. Breaking this rule will inflict a debuff on anybody above a certain height from the ground. You have a five second grace period

Well, okay. Hiking it is then.

After all of us got that message, we landed right in front of the entrance of the mountainous region, being forced to find our way through this place on the normal path. Luckily for us, we had a giant virgarcuga to act as our taxi. Once everybody was on, our monster ride sprinted through the mountainous path, climbing and ascending cliffs with the help of his [Dark Tendrils].

Rajah also got the chance to show me his hardened fur projectiles, hardening up his tail before shooting out knife-sized fur missiles to use them as grips for his ascension. I managed to grab hold of a few of them, nodding my head at their toughness. I could still snap them like twigs, but they were strong enough to dig into rock.

As we approached the first temple, we considered separating the party and going to the other, but we decided against it in the end. The reason was the list of participants.

“Only seven people on the Ankoran King’s side? Hmm, the students and the knights were separated into individual parties, it seems. I guess you guys weren’t given royal-styled party bracelets? The ones allowing you to make a 20-man party?” I addressed Franz, to which he nodded.

“I saw the price for one … Not on our budget. We already needed proper equipment, and even then, most of us didn’t have the luxury to get enchantments. Some of our equipment doesn’t even have runes.” Franz showed me his longsword, showing me that it only had three runes and even then they were basic ones. “The church got us an expert human runesmith for them, but supposedly, getting more than three runes on a single piece was too expensive. In fact, when we brought up the dwarves, they weren’t willing to hire them for their services.”

“Shouldn’t Takuma’s party have all the benefits, though? They have the [Hero] and Aiko, a Saintess candidate,” Tatsuya brought up, to which Franz nodded.

“They are the only party fully equipped with everything. Stuff worthy for rank A adventurers from what I was able to see. Catalysts with all three enchantments, a sword with five runes, three layered armor set with enchanted plain clothes, high-quality chainmail or gambeson, and then, of course, the metal armor.” Franz adjusted his own armor, showing the three layers he mentioned. “I got a massive upgrade after the church deemed me ‘marketable’ and appointed me a Champion candidate. Whatever that means. Aiko-san never heard Aurena’s voice, neither have I. Asaka?”

Tatsuya and Kyouya looked over at Vifi’Yok, prompting them to just nod. We shouldn’t tell her Asaka was made a Saintess of Ilsaphone.

In any case, the important part was again the fact there were six parties. Not three or two. There was also the problem that Saintess Fleindia and her two guardian knights were somewhere on the floor. Meaning, my opportunity to get the other pair of my [Room] runes had yet to come around, meaning I still couldn’t get reinforcement. The dragonslayers, thankfully, weren’t here.

In addition, if any of us were to be found without Franz by four of the other five parties, I did not believe we would get out of the situation without at least a fight. We had to stay together … and I also didn’t want to send Vifi’Yok anywhere without me around. She could nab the key and teleport our party out of the floor, leaving one of the five parties to their doom.

Here was the thing, nobody would win in this race, unless both artifacts left this floor through their effects. In fact, the rules didn’t even state the artifacts may only be used once. There were loopholes.

The dungeon master wanted to kill us? Well, sadly, my lust prevented me from accepting such a thing. I would not endanger the people I was responsible for in my party. I would not allow Saori’s students to die. I would also not allow Ankoran King Fugarus to die, not when our alliance was so close! As I told Franz, if I had to overturn rules to reach my goal, then so be it.

After all, what was a dragon who couldn’t do that? If Kramps could do it, then why couldn’t I?

Well, it’s all bark until I can figure a way to actually circumvent the rules. I don't know enough right now.

Regardless, to prevent us getting into a deadlock where it was impossible for me to solve this, getting both artifacts for our group was the only way to ensure this. As Franz mentioned, “What was betrayal?” Was helping us get off this floor betrayal, or was it helping us? The rules seemed quite lax and full of potential loopholes for something made by the Goddess of Order. Well, it was due to these potential holes that we might be able to solve this situation semi-peacefully.

Rajah continued his hike and got us to the doorsteps of the first peaceful and tranquil temple. Walking through the wooden gates, the clean surroundings caught my eyes, especially the flowerbed to the side of the path, with a pink-petal tree standing over them. The cherry blossom flowers were beautiful to behold, calming my mind before I noticed the small statue of a woman right next to the temple’s front door.

“That’s Chihiro, right?” Vifi’Yok noted, to which I agreed as I stared at the replica of the dwarven woman called the Revolution Queen. It was clear that this place was made in dedication to her.

The dungeon master has to be Manethala. What is he trying to tell us?

We walked into the building, where I noticed it looked similar in style to the temple of Chihiro in the railroad guild in Inkoran-Tazul. There were some changes, since this was more similar to a parish, however, there was nothing out of the ordinary. We walked up to the altar, looking down at a chip-like item laying on it inside a glass chest.

Without any issues, I opened the chest while darting my eyes over to Vifi’Yok, causing her to let out a deep sigh. I knew my distrust was probably annoying her, but it had to be. Once I picked the chip up, it made me frown as it looked like a data chip you could find back on Earth. Manethala knew about Chihiro’s past, so maybe this was a callback to that.

Unsure if putting the chip into my [Storage Magic] would make it invalid, I kept it in my pocket for now.

“I guess you won’t use it immediately?” Vifi’Yok shrugged, already knowing the answer.

Regardless, I still answered it since we had nothing better to do. “We have three groups that have to get out of here, but only two artifacts. I know you only value ours, since it’s the only way for you to survive, but losing any one of the three will affect me a ton. Just, you know, trust me, okay?”

“… Trust is hard.”

I get it … Well, Mana Eyes.

Floor 10 Key: The key to transport your party to the next floor, effectively winning the Floor 10 challenge. Hold it up and shout “Activate” to activate the key

It was nice to know the instruction manual.

With the first key in our hand, we got back on Rajah and set off for the other temple as our next destination. As we continued the monster ride, I took out the recorder again to continue filming everything, still astonished by the beauty of this place; too bad the experience was slight ruined by the rather sickening challenge. Sadly, just as I was about to record the sight of the second temple from the bottom of its feet, my sensory skills suddenly took notice of a few signals.

Oh oh.

Nine targets, with two dashing up to us at an incredible speed. The rest were slowly surrounding us, which Rajah could probably break through if my guess was correct on who these people were. However, this was also an opportunity to put some knights in their place. If all six parties wanted to live, we needed to work together.

“Traitors!” The first of the two approaching signals appeared from the sky, looking like an archangel with his white armored robes and wings, before he landed onto the floor. He brandished his greatsword, pointing it not at me, but at the boys. “Aiko-chan really tried to persuade me that you two were mind controlled by that dragon. Helps to be friends with a Saintess candidate, right? Thing is … No, no. I know those eyes everywhere. If Light was mind controlled as well, you two wouldn’t look so grumpy. But, you two look like you are about to kill each other! Traitors!”

You figured that out ‘cause both of them still hate each other’s guts?! Gosh, these guys are classmates, alright.

He then pointed the blade at Vifi’Yok and me. “Valeria, nice to see you, again. Sorry, but you’re in big trouble. Now … Mhmm? Couldn’t get a good look before, but you are hot just like the bishops mentioned.”

… This guy for real?

Takuma Akanishi, the [Savior] and [Hero]. I had exactly no idea who he was and my short meeting with him before made me think he was a self-righteous, asshole hero-archetype. It turned out, he was a bit of a flirt, too.

“Takuma …” Franz eyed him with annoyance, about to draw his sword, but another voice interrupted him before he could.

“Ah ah ah!” A light-hearted, teasing tone drew out attention to our back, where we saw a white-golden armored knight wag his finger in disapproval. He pointed his right gauntlet at us, causing a mechanical sound as white light appeared from his gauntlet, creating something like a lightsaber. “Unsheath, and I will shoot, Sir Light.”

“… Sir Lautrex,” Franz addressed the very same Hand of Heaven I had the misfortune to fight. That wasn’t a good first impression.

“We know you were at the first temple,” the knight stated before starting to circle around us with Takuma. He was delaying, allowing me to notice the presence of the other seven signals in the vicinity. “We are kindly asking you to hand it over to us and cease your movements to the second temple.”

I sighed as that was their first demand. “Tha—”

However, before I could say anything, Vifi’Yok clicked her tongue.

“Pfff! Yeah, yeah, give it over to you! Great suggestion so we can die, while you two parties may leave, right?” she snapped her head over to me, eyeing me with a rather terrifying glare. “It’s your call.”

“You don’t need to tell me anything,” I snapped back at her, although I understood her sentiment. Rajah was my lovable cat, Tatsuya and Kyouya were my friends, and Franz was my cousin. I could not risk their lives.

With those being our answers, both men stood still until the rest of the group arrived. While the students looked nervously at what was happening, especially a girl in a white-robe who was grimacing at Tatsuya and Kyouya. Both were mumbling “Aiko …” taking deep breaths and looking like they were in pain.

The guardian knights of the students stepped forward, all unsheathing their swords. Their faces and features were covered up by their armor, unlike the flamboyant Hand of Heaven. Everybody was ready for a fight, huh?

“My name is Knight-Captain Royce Albert Loucestro, a Knight of Aurena in the service of the Church of Aurena and Pope Gwyn. Our blades are guided by the Goddess, blessed by her!” He gave me a stern look, only focusing on me and nobody else. “Your form does not fool us, dragon! Your actions against humankind have been noted down by our scribes! The Goddess knows of your sins!”

She knows, alright.

“As it looks, you have not accepted Sir Lautrex’s mercy. I respect your wish to fight to the very end, but your alliance with the green-skins has sullied your soul! You will not receive a good death. We do not need the dragonslayers here to end you!”

Ohohoho, but you do, little insect.

“By the Holy Emperor’s and Pope Gwyn’s commands, we will avenge the damage you die to Aureolis! Knights of Aurena, ready yourself for combat! Heroes of Aurena, ready for battle! Sir Lautrex!”

The very knight raised his arm, still readying his lightsaber gauntlet at us. He finally put his helmet back on, now getting into a fighting stance. “Ready as ever, Sir Royce. We have to make sure Lady Aiko makes it out of here alive.”

Valuing a potential blessed, huh?

“Superb!” That Royce guy expressed before continuing his speech. “As such, today we will avenge the many deaths in Elyonda! Let us fight for the honor—”

“Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor.” I jumped off Rajah’s back before closing my white mage robes, making me look like any other shrine maiden of the Church of Aurena. I then pulled out my icicle, diamond-looking tiara made by Mom back when we first met, putting it on to signify my status. “Third Princess of the Dragon Empire of Kargyx, daughter of Dragon Emperor Eltharion and Sixth Dragon Empress Melloxtressa, Party Leader of the rank B adventurer party Aurora, rank B hunter and soon-to-be rank A. Ahem, direct Idol and Champion of Goddess Aurena. You may now kneel, knights.”

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Chapter 408: What is a Hero and Knight to [The Light]?

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“Princess?”

“Champion?”

The knights and students both mumbled the most important points in confusion, looking between me and each other, wondering if this was true or not. Since it was a pivotal point to persuade them, I pulled out my amulet of Aurena, given to me all the way back from my second visit to the Firwood temple during my first few months in civilization.

Having it dangle over my neck, I also shoved my robe to the side a bit, showing everybody the dragon head emblem painting on my chest armor by Grimnir, signifying my status as an actual Kargryxmor. I even pulled out my ID from my storage, showing it to everybody around me and shocking them. They did not think I was a void-touched.

“If you still question me, I can show you my Profile. Unchanged; fully exposed. I am [The Light], a Champion of Goddess Aurena. I am also a [Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood]—my blessing given to me by my grandfather, Dragon God Kargryxmor, the Black Tyrant of the Sky.” I played with my ID like a casino chip, waiting for anybody to say something. “Or, we can stop this and just talk, unlike last time when I got attacked before I cou—”

“HERETIC!”

Oh come, let’s jus—Woah!

I stomped my foot down and dug my tail into the ground as I noticed wind suddenly pulling me closer towards the Knights of Aurena group. Royce had his sword held down and pointed backwards, with his back bent down. It had a been a while, but I would recognize that pose and the effect instantly, especially after Franz told me he was from Artorias.

[Artorian Lionheart Swordsmanship] attack, [Calling Wind]!

Farron, being my humanoid combat mentor until I met Yorshka, made me ingrain his swordsmanship abilities in my bones throughout my training with him. I couldn’t replicate it, as I never practiced his moves, but I could identify the style if somebody else used the attacks. Royce was legitimately a knight of Artorias’s Lionheart Order—the royal knights—before he joined the holy knights, huh?

Royce then changed his pose as his two companions charged forward. However, I decided not to move here; instead, I just took out my glaive from my storage, inevitably agitating everybody. But, that was okay, for I had people around me to protect me.

“Grrwaoooooooooh!” Rajah let out a high-pitched tiger roar, snarling at the knights as he raised his tail, hardening it. Almost as if he was trying to intimidate everybody, he shook it, causing some rattling noises from all the hardened fur.

“…” The knights stopped as Royce glared at me and Rajah. It was silent for a while until I noticed him strengthening his grip on his sword. “Go—!”

[“Now!”] I gave the order before he spoke, prompting Rajah to shoot out his fur, forcing the knights to parry the missiles before using [Gale Steps] forward, but were instantly stopped as Kyouya stepped forward and turned his armor into a giant black wall, blocking their path forwards.

Lautrex sliced right through it with his lightsaber though, before aiming at me with his gauntlet, only for Vifi’Yok to throw my glaive at him, forcing him to dodge aside due to the force. Slightly caught off-guard by the sudden strong wind pressure, I recalled my glaive through the catalyst embedded on its tip, pushing him further on the defensive by the boomerang effect.

Vifi’Yok caught my weapon and aimed at Lautrex, but was instantly marked by the two other holy knights, only for her to slip right past them, ignoring them like two nuisances to engage Lautrex. Noticing this, both shouted at her but Tatsuya challenged them by jumping into the sky with [Dragoon Jump] and forcing them to pay attention to him by [Dragoon Dive]ing into the ground and used [Druidification] to transform into a werewolf.

“Woah?!” The students waiting on the side gasped as they saw their classmate pounce at the two knights in his new form.

However, his assault immediately stopped when Royce came in, cleaving right into the middle and kicking Tatsuya back before using another sword ability. Blood was spilled from Tatsuya’s body as multiple lacerations appeared over his arms and legs—the areas where his Grimnir-made armor was the least protected.

Royce clicked his tongue, probably realizing his blade hadn't managed to slice through the armor. Nevertheless, his interference gave his comrades the time to cast spells, buffing themselves and Royce up before attacking Tatsuya with spells, forcing Kyouya to come up and tank all the spells with a shadow shield. Royce didn’t give up on the pressure, so I decided to actually step in.

Halo of Consecration.

I snapped my finger, drawing not only Royce’s attention but also Lautrex, only for the latter to grimace as Vifi’Yok kept up the pressure.

“You really suck for a Hand of Heaven! Haha, I knew my instincts weren’t off! You’re losing to a one-armed girl, haha!”

“Grk! The nerve!”

That girl really can’t help herself from insulting a HoH, huh? That Warbringer side of hers, man …

Disregarding those two, a halo of white flames appeared over my head before it blasted a wave out. It did not burn anybody, but instead, it healed Tatsuya from his wounds and simply brushed against any “enemy” of mine like some stage mist. Once again, everybody was stunned by this display and it allowed the boys to regain some ground against the highly skilled knights.

“H-holy magic?! Holy fire?!” Due to their helmets, I couldn’t really tell the two lower knights apart.

Only Royce was distinguishable due to his more feature-full armor. This person, too, was stuttering by what I was doing. “W-white grace?! That white flame can heal?! W-who—!”

“Graooow!” And in that little moment of surprise, everybody somehow forgot about the bus-sized Rajah who had turned invisible. He reappeared and slammed his hardened tail onto the ground, sending the knights falling down and giving Tatsuya and Kyouya the chance to take advantage of everything.

“Dammit! Get out of the way.”

I slowly turned my head around as [Foresight] warned me of an attack, only to take a step back to avoid the greatsword of the [Savior]-boosted Takuma as he swung at me. I couldn’t see his face through his hood, but the little silence between us was enough for me to understand—he was in a slight panic.

His angelic feathered wings moved, helping him recover from the swing of his attack, enabling him to throw another slash at me, only for it to be blocked by Franz. With his normal sword in one hand and a …spectral blade in the other, he parried Takuma, kicking him back before covered his blades with his mana.

“There are only two keys. Where is my party, Takuma! Where is Yuuko-san’s?!” Franz demanded to know. Up until now, he had been the one to hold back Takuma. “Were you planning on leaving them all to die to protect your own and the knight’s?! Answer me!”

“Tsk! I know your unique skill’s effect, you idiot. You think I’m saying anything?”

Ooh, smart. If he lied, Franz’s unique skill would give him a 10% boost in stats.

“Oh? I don’t need you to lie to know the truth. Good luck being a [Hero] after letting everybody else die. You certainly fit the role.” Franz showed a smirk as he finished his trashtalk.

This, clearly, pricked Takuma’s pride. “Bastard!” he shouted before charging up, prompting me to jump back as the two continued their fight. A greatsword user versus a dual blader; pure power against flexibility.

At this point, both should have nearly two years of experience fighting in this world, using their weapons and other techniques to bolster their strength. Neither were using magic, but they were clearly using weapon abilities to try to inflict small injuries in preparation for an inevitable mistake. With trained movements and instincts clearly developed through multiple fights, these two weren’t pushovers.

“Dammit! Aiko-chan! Everybody!” Takuma suddenly shouted as he noticed whatever injury he inflicted would be healed by my white flames. “The dragon can’t transform back! You saw the System message! We need to push back now, or we won’t survive! Fight! I will fight, but I need your help! Don’t forget what she did to Yuuko-san!”

Yikes … I grimaced at that last point before looking over to the four students who were still unsure if they should fight or not.

Remembering the list of students, I was somehow able to identify them. The priestess-looking girl in a white robe made for a noble clergy woman was Aiko Hasebe, a “saint candidate” to Aurena like Asaka. Only it was the demonkins who gave her that idea. It wasn’t true. Although, she certainly did have the look and aura that a Saintess should have, considering how sparkly her blond-dyed hair looked.

The other three were … Chifuya Agano, a magic swordswoman looking at the sword in hand, the catalyst embedded in her left gauntlets, and the many scrolls hanging on her belt. Natsume Otonari, a mage—probably the offensive one in the party, since she didn’t need to heal with Aiko around. Then we had Hayato Yodogawa, clearly the rogue of the party considering he was kitted up in a black gambeson, some knives, and shortsword for protection. He even had a crossbow!

Now this looked like a well-rounded party! With Takuma going crazy in the front, the rest could just follow up on him. Damn, it was clearly the party made to support the “hero!” … Okay, I had no right to tease like that, considering Saori and Tasianna mostly focused on supporting me during our early months together as a party.

“I recommend you stay back,” I spoke to them as they were about to make a move. “I am not here to fight you, as I said. I am—”

“We heard the reports!” Surprisingly, the girl called Aiko interrupted me. “W-we heard it all! The church told us you will try to speak us down! Y-y-you brainwashed Tatsuya-kun and Kyouya-kun, y-you vixen!”

… What?

“You nearly killed Yuuko! One of our friends! Do you really think we can solve this situation that easily? She’s scarred; disfigured because of you! We barely managed to keep her alive with how the flames kept burning her even after we used water spells on it. She would have died weren’t it for Saintess Fleindia! N-now you are trying to brainwash Light!”

… I could understand the hatred she felt towards me at this very moment. I found it extremely hard to forgive Vifi’Yok after meeting her again in Elyonda after she nearly killed Tatsuya. My PTSD of seeing Eshe die by the hands of a demonkins made it impossible for me to stop fighting Vifi’Yok, at least until I got roped into that dimension hole and witnessed Mom’s memories, which made me to want to forgive Vifi’Yok and create a bridge with the demonkins.

However, the scars were still there. Tatsuya disliked and distrusted the demonkin girl, giving her no leeway. Now, Yuuko’s friends were naturally affected by the accident I caused. But, as mentioned, it was an accident.

“Aiko-san!” Kyouya shouted, only for him to be pushed back by the pressure from the knights. “Misunderstanding! It’s a mis—argk—understanding! Hestia-san didn’t mean to!”

Shaken by Kyouya’s words, I used this chance to confront Aiko and the students on their accusations. This was the time to resolve the issues.

“It’s as Kyouya said, it was all an accident,” I stated firmly, putting on my princess persona. “I know all of you were sent by the church to kill me. I read the newspaper, I heard it from Franz. I expected it, after all the reports I heard about dragonslayers coming to Inkoran-Tazul for the Event. Do you think it’s fair for me to just stay quiet and let you take my head? I value my life, and I have too many people who care for me to just die.”

I reached my hand out, forming the magic circle for [Major Heal] to showcase it to everybody in attendance. “Yuuko used her [Magic Breaker] on me, stopping my spell song [Dragon Fire] that allowed me to give everybody I recognize as allies complete immunity to my flames. She used it the moment I activated my heatwave attack, dispelling my song through a [Warp Point: Entry] portal. It was an accident. An unlucky timing that caused her to be burned, and due to how my flames work, they cannot be doused unless I ordered them to. At that moment, my arm was sliced off by that dragonslayer. I think you can give me the benefit of the doubt that I couldn’t focus when a deadly dragon poison was surging through my body, which probably would have killed me if the boys hadn’t given me my antidote to save my life!”

I was proud of [Inferno Coating] and [Fire Abnormality Effect: Dread] which prevented my flames from being doused and stopped healing, respectively. I loved how overpowered my fire was, but when I heard Yuuko’s screams, the guilt crushed me.

“LIES!” Takuma smacked Franz away, before charging at me, swinging his blade semi-wildly to cleave me in half. “We heard about how that grimgarian army destroyed Elyonda! The capital of Yeos was leveled and the new Champion of Yeostar barely survived! You led them! We are the Heroes of Aurena! You and the demonkins will fall by my blade! You think you can fool us into thinking that you actually care about us—W-what?!”

I caught his greatsword just as it was about to hit my neck and stopped his attacks, much to his astonishment. With [Draconic Barrier] and my scales perfectly blocking the damage, I kept a tight grip on the blade, prompting Takuma to struggle, even kicking me to try to get me to let him go. Sadly, everything he was doing did literally no damage. He was just too weak.

I pulled him closer and smacked him right into the stomach with my tail, before sending my scales to pin him on the ground. I walked up to him, looking down at this idiot.

“… You think you can fight the demonkins with that strength? You think yourself a hero? How many people have you saved? How many people have you seen die before your eyes because you weren’t strong enough to protect them? How often have you had to accept that there are stronger people than you out in the world, Mister ‘Hero?’” I chastised him for his self-righteous mindset. “Here’s the thing, I actually don’t care about the 14 other students sent to this world to ‘fight for humankind.’ I care about Tatsuya, Kyouya, Haruka, Tamae, Nishio, Misaki, Kazumi, and Kohaku. Daichi and Asaka are a bit weird, but I do care about them too. They are all my friends.”

I pointed at the five students before me. “You all are strangers,” I declared before looking at heavy-breathing Franz, exhausted from that short bout with Takuma. “He … is important to me.”

“Huh?” Everybody seemingly tilted their heads, but I didn’t let this moment stop my speech.

“The only reason I am even trying to speak with you, even care for you enough to the point I feel guilty for what happened to Yuuko despite it nearly causing my death, is because of my best friend Saori Segawa! The same Saori who is your sensei! The same person who wanted to meet you all again in this world!”

Silence. Even the fighting behind me has stopped from what I had revealed. Seeing everybody so flabbergasted, I gestured for everybody to come back to me, to Vifi’Yok’s chagrin. However, she endured it and just sat on the ground. While she didn’t look tired at all, Tatsuya and Kyouya looked defeated. They didn’t have any wounds, but it seemed like the knights really taught them a lesson. If they performed any less, the value of the Knights of Aurena would just plummet.

I turned to Lautrex, who was slightly out of breath. I gestured at him with a finger, telling him to come at me. “I can’t change into a dragon. So, how about this—I’m level 107. I know there are two people here who outlevel me.”

I pulled out the key, revealing the data chip to everybody around. “Here’s the deal. Sir Royce and Sir Lautrex; come at me, both of you at once. You win, you get the data chip. You lose, you start changing your tune and work with me.”

“You dare insult us?!” Royce was naturally agitated, although I still couldn’t see his face. “You want to duel a Hand of Heaven and a Knight-Captain of Goddess Aurena?! Who do you thi—”

“I repeat, I am Princess Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor. I am a Champion and Idol of Goddess Aurena herself, not a blessed under her subordinates. I am a direct blessed. I know who exactly I am, and the last time I checked, I rank above you two when it comes to religious importance. Thankfully, I don’t care, I respect your seniority, but you want to kill me. This is the perfect time, no?”

“You have nothing to say to us you heretic! You dare call yourself a ble—”

“Sir Royce.” Lautrex stopped him as he took a step forward, taking his helmet off to show me his aloof expression. “We accept this duel, my lady.”

“Sir Lautrex! You cannot earnestly put yourself down to this-this blasphemer! She put the name of the Goddess in her mouth, despite being the cause for Elyonda’s near destruction! Neither the Pope nor the Holy Emperor would scorn us for not listening to this woman's mind washing words! She has set a trap! I swear, she has something planned!”

… Is it paranoia, or did he really guess what I was trying to do?

Slightly unnerved by this guy’s constant rambling, I put my gauntlet on the table once again. “Then, how about this? I won’t use my glaive. I won’t use my spells. I won’t even use my draconic abilities. I will only use my limbs, my armor’s runes, my voice, and my head. How about that?”

“Now you’re looking down on us!”

Oh, come on! Shut it!

Eventually, Lautrex managed to persuade Royce as both took their stances in front of me. Everybody on my side moved away, while Takuma pressuring the knights to let him join in the duel. I had no problem with it if his ego prevented him from seeing how badly he was outmatched, but the two knights stopped him, telling him to stand down. That probably hurt his pride more than anything I could have done!

I began to stretch, wanting to look as nonchalant as possible but kept my eyes on the two. Now, the question was, was Royce better than Farron and was Lautrex anywhere close to the ex-Hand of Heaven Larent? If not, then this was about to end very badly, and not in their favor.

“Banish the evils of the world, forc—”

Too slow. Gale Steps.

They could cast spells, but without a high enough [Chant Revocation], it was far too easy for a fast fighter to get close to them. I charged right in front of them, claws ready to slash at them. I targeted Lautrex first, using my hands, feet, and tails in a hurricane of claws, forcing him to cancel his spell.

He reacted well, using his lightsaber to block and parry, but I could see he realized my hands weren’t taking any damage despite touching his sword of holy mana. I even kept up my end of the bargain as [Draconic Barrier] wasn’t turned on. This was my base wisdom and my ridiculously high holy element resistance doing work. [Venerated Saintess], [The Light], and plain old [Sacred Resistance] made it so that his attacks dealt zero damage to me.

At the same time, I was suddenly blasted by a [Banishment Beam] by Royce from the back. It was large enough to completely consume me as all I could see was white. However, looking at my health, it didn’t even need to regenerate. That [Sacred Magic] spell had zero oomph behind it.

“In the midst of the desert ♫

A bright ray of light shines ♫

Pure and brave, that she was, as she walked ♫”

[Music Resonation (Minor)] [Stage Fever (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

As the spell was beginning to die out, I began to sing [The Heir of Hope]. Sadly, it only gave me the 10% stat boost and elemental power up. [Shield of [The Light]] could only be applied if at least one ally of mine was scared of somebody or somebody was strong enough to make me feel threatened. Despite being 13 levels above me, I didn’t think Lautrex was a real problem here.

Which was immediately turned around when the spell dissipated and I saw the knight floating above me on discuses made from light. Blades of lights formed around him before he shouted “Heaven’s Rain” and sent the barrage of blades at me.

I immediately went into my fighting stance, ingrained into my body by Neill’s close-combat training. Parry a light blade, slight side step, block a blow to the vitals, tank a blow using scale-armored area; everything I learned from Neill was used in this moment. Having a pretty high agility, even in my dragonewt form, was also helpful, but it still didn’t help me avoid every single attack.

I could have just run away with [Gale Steps] or used [Dragoon Jump] to catch Lautrex, but this was a statement. “You two can’t hurt me!” was the message. If the Empire wanted to kill me, they would have to send people who could directly counter me, like those dragonslayers. Sadly for them, they weren’t here and now all the students and knights were stuck on this floor with me.

Having had enough of these attacks, I dug my tail on the ground and threw pebbles at Lautrex before seeing my slightly damaged health bar instantly restored to full due to my general regeneration. I didn’t even need [White Flames] here! I then charged over at Royce, forcing him to use the Artorian Lionheart style to defend himself.

[Stabbing Charge], [Storm Devastation], [Calling Wind], [Vortex of Talons], [Griffon’s Claw], and [Bird of Prey]; I knew them all. Unlike Lautrex, though, I had to take care of the many wind-based sword Abilities. My vitality was still not the highest, and even if the chip damage was barely noticeable, I couldn’t be too careless, although my chestplate tanking up so many attacks made it very easy to be lax.

Multiple sword stomps by [Storm Devastation], a dome of slashes with [Vortex of Talons], and an aerial slash down with [Bird of Prey]. The dance between Royce and me continued until Laturex joined up, adding onto the pressure. I was forced to go onto the defensive until Royce made a big mistake.

“What?!”

I caught his leg with my tail while blocking his vision with my wings. He didn’t have any experience fighting against a dragonewt, while I had plenty against humans.

With a wide smirk, I tripped him, grabbed his arms and disarmed him, before slamming him right on the ground. I then saw Laturex trying to come to help his companion, but I kicked him away and used my wings to fly up. With my rocket boosters, I kept myself in the air as I caught Royce in an arm lock, choking him before doing a seismic toss—essentially a pile driver from wrestling, only that I flew up in the sky instead of twisted my body. I slammed his head on the ground, knocking him out and taking his helmet off, smirking as I finally caught a glimpse of the brown-haired forty year old man.

Once done, I dashed over at Lautrex with [Gale Steps] and stepped on the gas, relentlessly chasing after him while ignoring any damage he sent my way. A sword stab? Take the hit and land a right hook, leaving the wound to be healed up for later. While I couldn’t imitate Neill’s kirin abilities, I could empower my punches and kicks with mana, strengthening their power as I landed dents and claw shaped rents all over the knight’s armor.

With my claws, I ripped through his gauntlet, disarming him and forcing him to unsheathe his sword, only for my tail to grab it and pull it towards me. Losing his balance, I smacked him with my wings, using them as a fist until I grabbed his face and pulled it closer to land a knee kick. With my oponent disoriented, I jumped up and landed a kick into his chest.

He instantly recovered, but he was bruised up at this point. Seeing him stand up, I charged at him once again and continued my onslaught. Level-wise, he might have the advantage, but from the look of it he lacked the stats and skills to really challenge me, unlike the many enemies and mentor’s I’ve fought. I was used to Neill using her abilities during fisticuffs; an inexperienced brawler like Lautrex was an easy target.

Once I got him on the ground, I dislocated his right arm before holding his throat up with my tail, essentially giving him the chance to give up now or going unconscious like Royce. What did he choose?

“Arrghh—I-I gi—guurp!” He couldn’t even speak! The poor guy wanted to give up but it was too inaudible for me to notice until my parallel minds told me to let go.

As compensation, I healed him and Royce up with [Major Heal], once again showing I was a holy mage.

“Good enough, but I really am the worst enemy you could have fought against, Sir Lautrex.” I reached my hand out to help the knight up. Flabbergasted, he didn’t take it at first, so I decided to continue speaking. “I had enough mentors to teach me how to fight properly without magic. Not to mention, people like Sir Larent really showed me where I needed to improve.”

“S-Sir Larent! Antonodius!” He grabbed my hand almost instinctively, allowing me to pull him up. “Hand Guardian Larent Antonodius?! Auegor’s Blade?! You know him?”

“Fought with—with—him during the Elyonda siege. Instrumental when it came to the city’s protection and without his expertise and command, the city would have probably fallen before I could have helped out without him taking command.” I patted Lautrex’s shoulder as I walked back to the others, noticing their shocked faces.

Takuma and Aiko, especially, had this weird look on their faces as they stared at me, looking almost mortified, actually. On the other hand, their classmates looked mostly cautious, apprehensive of me. The two other Knights of Aurena, though, were furious, looking like they were about to attack me but were held back by Vifi’Yok tapping my glaive on the ground.

She smiled. “Once again, I like your style. That’s exactly how you bring people down and put them in place.”

I opened my mouth, wanting to answer back, but seeing her smile only made me more worried of her. I couldn’t really tell how genuine she was about it, so I instead took out a donut and gave it to her. “Thanks for listening.”

She accepted it reluctantly, knowing I only did that to avoid an awkward conversation with her. At least when it came to pastries, she showed her true self.

I then turned to the knights, ordering them to pick up Royce and follow us, before I mounted Rajah. The boys, Franz, and Vifi’Yok decided to follow on foot, wanting to make sure the students and knights wouldn’t backstab us.

“I don’t know what your plan was, but I’ll just make it clear here: I will bring us all out of this floor, even if I have to find a loophole in the rules. So, hop on the ride and let’s make sure everybody gets back home!”

With that, two objectives were fulfilled. We now only had to find the three other parties and obtain the last key. It was time to move to the next temple.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Chapter 409: Towards the Second Key.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“She’s driving us forward like slaves … Why do we have to hike while she rides on that tiger monster?”

“Do you think she actually knows Segawa-sensei? I mean, she could have gotten the information from brainwashing Nagata and Ishigami. Maybe that dragon is posing as a holy mage, but is secretly working for Marsven?”

“Don’t forget what the cardinal said. Don’t go too close to her. They said she removed our classmates’ unique skills. I mean, look at Tatsuya and Kyouya. One turns into a werewolf, the other gains an armor of shadow? Screams the Dark God.”

My god, are you telling me they ate up everything the people at the church said? Come on, even I know Marsven, Edna, and their daughters aren’t completely antagonistic, even if their followers constantly try to kill me …

“If you want to whisper, make sure you buy and use [Telepathy] for it. I’m a dragon, remember?” My response caused three of the student party members to jerk, looking at me slightly scared as they kept their heads down. I couldn’t help but sigh here. “Just saying, but I really am not a follower of God Marsven despite all the rumors the church made up about me. I’m not a fiend who enjoys the misery of others. I promise you, I will heal Yuuko of the wounds I inflicted on her. No matter how terrible.”

I then looked up at the temple lingering behind the veil of mist. “… I hope I can promise to get everybody off of this floor, though.”

Seeing me sigh out loud probably didn’t do anybody's morale any favors. The fact they believed I had them “captured” and that they had to look for a way to “get free” really wasn’t doing me any favors either. Just as I was wondering how I could overcome this wide distance, I noticed Franz suddenly coming up to me.

But before that, he looked over to those three students. “She keeps her promises. Even if it takes a while to fulfill.”

Always weird to think that ‘Hestia’ had only met him for less than a day, but he already knows some of my tendencies.

In any case, I dismounted from Rajah and waited for his report.

“Sir Royce is back on his feet, and it seems Sir Lautrex is amicable for now. There is the issue with Sir Karlst, my guardian knight but—”

“No, there is no ‘but’ here!”

Speaking of the devil, my next two challengers came up to me, strutting up with their hands on their weapons, thinking they might have a chance now that I was “tired” from my previous “fight.”

The first to speak was Falamm Astolfus, the guardian knight for Yuuko’s party. “Do you really think that we will accept thi—”

“Accept going hungry? Oh, of course not,” I immediately interrupted him, pulling out a stone pot full of uncooked rice kernels. “I’m fully willing to cook for everybody. The food can even come from my pockets, even if I’m technically in debt right now … Don’t worry, food cooked from Aurora will always have assured quality. Restaurant Aurora has a reputation to uphold, after—”

“Would you stop interrupting us?” Karlst spat out in that thick accent of his, sounding a bit French. “You call yourself a Champion of the Goddess, but I have never seen such a loudmouth like you before! Goddess Erithia forgive me, but watching you act and speak is a disgrace to all blessed of the Goddess! Learn some manners!”

“Oh, I grew up with manners and two friends pretty much urging me to act like a proper girl. Speaking of which, Goddess Erithia didn’t seem to like me that much the last time I spoke with her, so bringing her up won’t help it.” I shrugged, waving my hands in the air at that suggestion. “She’s probably watching me now, like all the other gods in the Light Pantheon. ‘How will I solve this situation?’”

Falamm’s mouth went agape at my words, looking like his head was about to blow up like a microwaved tomato. “Blasphemer! You dare suggest you have the piety to be graced by the words of a Goddess?! You ungrateful cur, you dare show so little respect to the gods you serve?!”

“Oh, so you do admit I’m a blessed of your religion!” I snapped my fingers, smiling widely only to further agitate the two knights. The original reason for why they wanted to talk to me was probably forgotten at this point.

“You! Little—How dare you treat us Knights of Aurena with such little respect! Do you even have any idea what we—”

“No, I don’t,” once again, I did not allow any of the knights to get their last words in. It was grating to listen to. “I have told you my identity, I have shown you the minimum courtesy for people who were sent here to assassinate me! You have not shown me an inkling of your respect, neither for my status or as a person. Respect is a two-way street, and I owe you nothing. The Empire and Aureolis have both blemished my reputation, making it possibly impossible for me to perform a concert in any of their affiliated countries. Your emperor sent dragonslayers after me … I will tell you this, you four knights are currently on the very bottom of my ‘caring’ list.”

Maybe it was the stress of dungeon diving for too long. Even if [The Light] wasn’t making me uncomfortable being underground or inside caves any longer, my past bad experiences being inside one probably contributed to my agitation. It also didn’t help that I hadn’t seen the sun for over a week now and only had one core-worth of solar energy left, until I was completely depleted.

Or, the actual reason for my bad mood was that I was putting up with nine people who were sent here to kill me, who showed me as much distrust as I was giving Vifi’Yok. Speaking of the latter, I was also anxious about her trying to snatch the chip away from me. Could I trust her? Could I rely on the students to not try to knock me out with the knights? I didn’t want to underestimate them just ‘cause I was stronger than all of them.

While I walked away from them, going in front of Rajah, Franz came running up.

“That was quite … I would like to call it sass, but the truth leans more towards haughtiness. Not the same I am used to,” he stated, reinforcing the idea that my past life did have moments where she went ballistic. To my fellow trainees, maybe my parents, maybe even my friends.

I guess I am not that extremely different.

“Happens, I guess. It’s not that I even want to act like this but speaking with them just annoys me. Even if I can sympathize with them and what they might think of the situation.”

Franz nodded, expressing his own worries of how he would have acted if he hadn’t learned about me before the church’s propaganda. Once again, he showed how he had information on me despite how little the Empire actually knew about me beyond the church's propaganda, all because he realized I was an otherworlder due to the Berliners I sold in Griffonpeak. Imperial merchants had brought some pastries back and he had gotten his hand on me from them.

It sounded plausible, but that made me just wonder how he would be able to get his hand on something like this? Olive’s Garden, the name of the shop Amelia sold my pastries through, should be selling Berliner even today, but how would a merchant know how good I was through some pastries they bought back home to sell or give to friends? I mean, Amelia’s employees could have spoken well of me, but still.

However, before I could really finish this thought, Franz brought up another important matter. Something he had to use [Telepathy] for.

[“You won’t tell them you’re an otherworlder?”]

I shook my head. [“If your classmates can’t guess it from my name, then it isn’t my problem for now. I don’t trust the knights with this information, and the last thing I want is for the demonkins to try to use any of this information against me. After this is done, I will have no further responsibility towards them and I won’t imprison them or something, you know.”]

[“Right, not to further antagonize people. Smart.”] Franz then looked back, making sure nobody was looking and reached his hand out. [“You've heard it already, but the church knows you can get rid of ‘our’ unique skills. Nagata and Ishigami confirmed it with me. You did the same for their party and Tamae-san’s. Considering they know about it, those unique skills are most likely used like GPS signals. I want you to get rid of mine.”]

[“Now?”] I snapped my head around.

So he doesn’t know I can’t usurp it? So, why can’t I usurp it?

I already tried to get rid of his [Justice for All] before already, but was somehow unable to. Trying it again wouldn’t help here, but I also didn’t want to make it awkward so I decided to delay it for later. I didn’t think bringing it up now would be beneficial.

[“Are you sure you want to do it now? Don’t you need the power boost?”] I deflected. [“We don’t know what will happen and I certainly would like to have your lying detecting skill for Vifi’Yok. We don’t need to rush things. Also, since I know the demonkins are responsible for all of this, taking away your GPS signal now won’t benefit you or them.”]

[“Well, if you think so, then I’ll rest the point for now … So, do you have an idea how solve our little predicament?”]

He was probably talking about the situation about the key and how only two teams may live. How were we supposed to break the rules without actually breaking them?

[“Let me guess, [Space-Time Magic]”]

I snapped my fingers. [“Bingo. That’s our only way forward.”]

[“The main rule we have to abuse is number three. ‘Once both artifacts leave the floor through their usage,’ it demands, but what happens when the used artifact returns to the floor? Can it be used again? The description didn’t say it was a one time use,”] Franz correctly caught on to the reasoning why I thought it might be possible to get everybody. However, there were some issues here.

[“Will the dungeon master let us? [Space-Time] spells cost a lot of mana to maintain, so how long can we do so? There is also a huge problem about trust here, as I bet at least three teams distrust me completely. If you trust me, then your party might, I presume. And then we have the Ankoran King and his party.”]

[“The dwarves are fully allied with the elves, and the elves have a multi-generational alliance with the dragons. High King Fugnarus will not betray you … On the assumption he knows you’re a princess.”]

Geopolitical knowledge, too, huh? Well, aren’t you certainly prepared my dear cousin.

28 humans and beastmen followers lost

Total follower count updated. Total followers of   [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 22418

“Wha—!?”

People died. Some of my fans suddenly died, which hadn’t happened since, well, for a veeeery long time now. Honestly, considering the Event Quest, I had expected to lose a few fans here or there but how did I lose 28 followers just like that?! At once? Where was this happening?

It couldn’t be the Ankoran King, but seeing this annoying System message caused my stress to surge again. I snapped my head around, noticing the others were having a lull time right now. I even saw Tatsuya and Kyouya speaking with Aiko—I heard they were good friends back on Earth.

“Eh?!”

Strange?

The moment Aiko turned around to look at me, she snapped her head back and began to move slower to the boy’s confusion. Well, it certainly unnerved me, too.

Yes, stress. Stress. It is stress, definitely. I need to calm down.

Losing followers was a normal thing; it shouldn’t be weird for me to expect to lose some of my fans here or there considering the world didn’t revolve around me. People die every day, it was just reality. Maybe I lost a few people from the Event Quest, but none of them were people I personally knew—my friends.

Knowing my mind might be a bit unstable from all the chaos, I called for Franz and Vifi’Yok—I should call her Valeria while the students were around—to help me out. I jumped up on Rajah and pulled out some pots and ingredients. Using [Unheilige Engel] I asked them to cut some of the stuff for me; starting to make some good food would help everybody.

Since we had to slow down our hike for the students and knights, it probably was the correct time to do so. Pouring some water in a stone pot full of rice, I placed it on my head, balancing it there while increasing my body temperature. While I very much disliked Saori and Tasianna using me like a rice cooker, popcorn maker, and so many other weird cooking utensils, it was, unfortunately, efficient of me to act as one right now while we continued our march.

With mobile cooking stations for both Franz and Vifi’Yok to cut some stuff in, I began making some stew, adding the usual spices Saori, Tamae, or Asaka would use and began the stew. As more and more ingredients were added, the rice finished, allowing me to let the aroma of everything spread around before I finally found some time to pull out my geigler.

Franz watched me play a tune as I controlled the stew ladle with [Aerokinesis], prompting him to laugh a bit before asking me why I didn’t have a violin made specifically for a dragon. As in, wasn’t my tail similar to a bow in some sense? What a weird suggestion to make … Although, he does make a good point. Why don’t I have a violin made for my dragon form?

“Good to see you still enjoying it,” Franz smiled as I kept playing. “If I had one myself, we could do a duet like we used to do.”

Franz can play, too? That wasn’t part of my memories.

In any case, music and food; it was a good combination which enticed people’s senses. I could see the students eagerly looking at what I was cooking, only for it to stop when the knights and Takuma told them to refocus. “It might be poisoned,” they stated, which was a grave insult to every chef’s handiwork.

As such, they didn’t get to eat anything if they wanted to stay stubborn. Instead, my party got to enjoy some rice with beef stew, coupled with some fresh iced fragassa milk. Oh, naturally, some fulinoe tea to keep Tatuysa’s addiction at bay.

“Can I have some more fragassa, please,” Kyouya asked as we all ate on top of Rajah, while I fed the latter by holding up his plate with [Unheilige Engel].

“Seconds, please. More meat, too,” Vifi’Yok demanded, which I obliged immediately. Although I didn’t trust her, I wasn’t callous enough to deny her a meal.

The six of us filled up our stomachs before Aiko broke down, asking if she could get anything. This escalated into a situation where everybody but the knights and Takuma came up and asked for a portion. The former could only sigh before they took out their rations and began to eat their dried meals, while Takuma glared at me as if I was the devil.

“So, you really know Segawa-sensei? Strict, overly perfectionist, history nerd?”

“So, Tama-chan and the others from The Magical Biscuits are with you guys?”

“I don’t really care. I haven’t gotten proper warm food in over a week with all the golems attacking us in the previous dungeon.”

“… Are you sure you three weren’t brainwashed? Valeria, are you okay?”

What the hell, don’t speak about me like that in the open!

Well, it was better than their complete mistrust but hunger drove them towards me. Whether this would help later or not would be left up to future me, but it was nice to share a meal with everybody as we hiked through this hillscape.

Eventually, we had to stop, as we finally reached our destination. Tatsuya instantly noted how there were clear signs earth magic was used, and how he could see two ropes along the walls. After we scouted the area a bit further, we also noted how there was an entire staircase of earthen walls made from the earth of this hill. Whoever created this was clearly a skilled mage.

Using it we quickly made it up to the top of the hill, where we confirmed a similar looking temple from the first was there. We entered through the gates, noting how it was open. The door into the parish had a small gap, and this was where I noted signals coming from below. There also wasn’t a date chip at the altar placed next to the miniature of Goddess Chihiro.

“Heard somebody,” Vifi’Yok brought up, confusing everybody but Tatsuya and me, who had pretty strong hearings.

Rajah had to stay outside due to his size, sadly. The demonkin led us deeper into the building until we found an opened basement door. Getting closer, it was clear voices came from it.

“H-hand over the key!”

“You aren’t getting through us!”

“R-Ryuji-kun, do you think—”

“Shut it! We need to fight or we will die! Doesn’t matter if we’re outnumbered, we need to figure out a way!”

Girls and boys; the voices were varied and generally pretty young sounding, full of energy. In addition, they were speaking Japanese. On the other hand, the next set of voices were deeper, growling and had audible accents you would attribute to the dwarves of Inkoran-Tazul.

“Lads. Lasses. Out of the way.”

“Crustacia have mercy, but you will not stand in our king’s way.”

And then there were two more holier-than-thou voices which accompanied the former two. I wasn’t sure if they were deeper-sounding women or higher-pitched men, but they were easily distinguishable from the dwarven accents.

“Our king ordered for the Ankoran King’s survival, you won’t stand in his way.”

“You young folks are so devoid of wisdom, it is only the fate of humans like you. I say it’s mercy to end your lives now.”

“Shit! Back up! Behind me!” one of the younger voices from the beginning shouted as I heard something wooden running along a wooden table.

One of the antagonistic voices responded, oozing bloodlust to the point my [Danger Perception] warned me to be careful. “Your chances are over. Mundari, let us take them down!”

That’s the sound of a bow!

“Fuck! Ryuji!” Franz, surprisingly, was the first to storm through the door, running down the stairs, only for an arrow to suddenly graze his arm, causing him to slip down.

“Franz!” I shouted.

“Their reinforcements are here! Take them out! Avoid the second one in the far front!”

“Aye, yfleis! I feel something dangerous!”

My [Danger Perception] and [Foresight] instantly went into action as I noted multiple attacks coming at us. I used [Wind Blast] to blow everybody behind me back, before sending my scales out to protect them. As the first arrow shot through the ground, it pierced through my scale barrier, but got stuck in it.

I jumped into the basement, somersaulting down, protecting Franz from incoming arrows but flapping my wings, causing a miniature explosion to destroy it, before turning my body around. I noted nine young humans to one side, being bombarded by arrows and getting attacked by two short heavily armored people. None of them were hurt, but their frontline was easily broken through and pushed back.

“Ryuji!” Franz sprang up on his feet again as he conjured up his spectral sword, throwing it towards an axe-wielding warrior, completely unidentifiable due to his, or her, armor. However, unlike the other armored warriors, he, or she, was taller than all of them, dwarfing them by a half of a head.

Elves! Dwarves! I instantly noted seven opponents, only for my eyes to snap around as I saw a dwarf with a katana easily deflect the spectral sword flying towards the axe-wielder. His, or her, blade shone brightly by a rune and it looked like they were about to attack Franz while the axe-wielder took care of a tall young man wielding two gauntlets, looking like a brawler.

Stop! I poured mana through my throat, ready to shout but stopped when I saw the katana dwarf snapp their head up.

“Hmm?!” They reacted, before shouting in a deep voice. “Stop! Princess Hestia, sighted! Meoschaera roy Sheothrudra, yflei! Hands down, stop your aggression!”

The chaos was instantly stopped by the voice of that dwarven man. The ranger-looking elves retracted their bow and arrow and kneeled, greeting me as “Princess of Dragons” in elvish, while the dwarves saluted me.

However, this momentary peace was instantly broken as the students charged at the axe-wielding dwarf, almost grabbing what looked like a data chip from his belt, only for them to be suppressed by the other dwarven warriors. The katana-wielding dwarf had his blade pressed against the brawler-looking guy, causing the latter’s face to turn pale.

Franz stood up, but instantly froze up when the elves suddenly got back on their feet, bows readied on him. They were like gunslingers with those reflexis!

“Stop! Weapons down!” Understanding the gist of the situation, I stepped in front of Franz, shouting at them to stop all aggression. “Saelari, this person is my party member! Arrows down or I will fight!”

The elves looked at each other, before they relaxed their grips, giving me a quick bow as they acknowledged my order. What a dicey situation, Franz or any of the people upstairs could have been turned into a pincushion if you only evaluated the elves by their drawing speed.

“Hestia!”

I snapped my head around as I heard that familiar voice, noticing the axe-wielder taking his helmet off, revealing himself to be the High King of Ankor-Nazta, Fugnarus Kongun. The beastman-dwarf moved forward, looking at me in elation with his two tiger eyes. He even bellowed out a laugh as he rested his axe on my shoulder.

“I shouldn’t be laughing, but am I ever glad to see those damn dragonslayer didn’t get to you first. Urgh, lass.” His face tensed up as he frowned, looking sad and frustrated about himself as he lowered his head. “It’s my damn fault. May Kargryxmor and your father, Eltharion, judge me for nearly sending you to your death. I should have made sure my damn dungeon master was still alive before sending you into the dungeon. If you demand my head to restore my clan’s honor, then you may have it!”

“Your Majesty!” The dwarven warriors instantly pushed the students aside as they rushed to their king’s side as he sat down on his knees. “You mus—”

“Silence! This is my punishment for my failure!” He roared out. “Goddess Crustacia had entrusted me with the first Event Quest, and I have failed in properly assessing the massiveness of it! I have failed to protect Eltharion’s youngest daughter! This face isn’t even worthy to see Elutis’s eyes ever again, until my honor is restored! Hestia!”

He pulled out the data chip the students almost grabbed from him. “As a recompense, I have gotten you the second key out of this death hole! Take it, but I ask of you to save my subordinates! It is selfish, I know, as you went down for the students, but please, listen to this fool of a dwarf’s wish!”

“Your Majesty!” All the dwarves kneeled down as they looked up at me.“We die with our liege! Princess Hestia, if you must restore his clan’s honor, then let us go down with him! Take the chip and rescue your allies! We accept the consequences for attacking them, even if it was for our king’s honor!”

“Nonesense, mundari! Stand up, High King!” The elves suddenly protested. “These humans? Your lives are more valuable than these waste of air and resources. Stand up, for the future demands you live, Ankoran King Fugnarus!”

Dammit!

“Stop it, right now! We can solve this situation, I just—Huh?”

My [Detection Sensor] suddenly warned me of a signal which just appeared underneath me. My eyes snapped down, noting that there was now black magic circle under our feet. Out of it, a black covered arm reached out, about to reach into my pockets where I placed the data chip. My tail moved, ready to smack it away, but I was too slow.

“Arrrghhhhh!”

For Vifi’Yok’s reaction was faster.

“Bastard!” she shouted as she pulled Hayato out of the shadow, kicked his stomach and broke his arm before throwing him onto the bottom of the basement.

However, this stressful moment didn’t end as her eyes recognized another arm slipping out of another shadow, this time aiming for the data chip the Ankoran King was offering me. Vifi’Yok didn’t rush, though, as the samurai dwarf instantly sliced the arm off with an iai-slash, causing the person to dissipate into nothingness—it was a [Shadow Clone].

“Don’t let them get the chip! The moment they have it, they get out of here scot-free!” Vifi’Yok commanded me as we suddenly heard the loud cries of two young men. Two very familiar men!

“Uraaghhhhk!”

Kyouya! Tatsuya!

Only to be followed by the sound of a shrieking girl.

We rushed up the stairs, only for my eyes to widen in shock as I saw Tatsuya holding his bleeding throat as his spear dug right into Chifuya’s stomach, causing the latter girl to cough up blood as she held her bloodied blade. On the right side, Takuma had already assumed his [Savior] form and had sliced off Kyouya’s left arm and was about to end his life before Franz charged in, parrying the greatsword before pushing Kyouya back, allowing Kyouya the time to materialized his knight armor and roar out Takuma’s name as he readied himself for a fight.

“Night Slayer.” Without his gauntlets, Lautrex suddenly materialized a sheathed sword made from light right in front of him. He grabbed it and pulled the blade out, revealing a longsword with an ever-moving chainsaw-like mechanism revolving around the weapon’s edge. It shone grey.

The knight smiled, showing his handsomeness since I healed his beat up face after our fight. “If the light of the Goddess can’t smite you, then I will rely on something more simple—mana. Aura blades, the true weapon of a swordmaster!”

Fucking betray me in the worse moment, you bastards!

A note from AbyssRaven

Well, it looks like the first smack down wasn't so successful. I guess its time to beat them up again …

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 410: Trust is a Two-Sided Road.

A note from AbyssRaven

Betrayed and condemned to death by her own people, Aurianna, the Saintess of a human kingdom, finds herself reborn with a burning desire for vengeance. She wakes up in another era and embraces her darkened heart rather than being the kind soul expected of a Saintess. Fueled by memories of her downfall, Aurianna chooses the path of violence and bloodshed as she seeks to destroy those who once caused her demise in a past life.

- Strong & Evil Female Lead

- Fast Progression & Epic Battles

- Multiple Chapters Posted Every Week!

If you need a book to read while waiting, give this one a try for that reverse saintess! A new book that is rising up!

Certain sections of my scale wall were cut down, which should be rather hard to do for the knights, even if Lautrex had some hidden weapon that didn’t apply holy damage. But that was when my nose caught the smell of that bitter scent I attributed to those dragonslayers. That uncomfortable skin prickling feeling came from bone daggers the four knights were carrying with their mainhand.

It was then my suspicion became true as I saw Karlst and Falamm slice through some scales with those very dagger, albeit, with some difficulty as they had to hack into a section twice to separate them. Meaning, those daggers were coated with anti-dragon blood poison. Did they get them from the dragonslayers, or were they given to them by the Empire? Question, I couldn’t smell those daggers up until now, so where—Oh shit!

[Storage Magic]!

I was mostly a trial and error type of person, but goodness, I should have probably thought about checking the students' inventories. One of them probably carried those daggers and kept them hidden.

However, what confused me the most was how the students even betrayed us. I kept my ears sharp and listened to everything, only for my parallel minds to remind me I had told the students to use [Telepathy] if they wanted to speak behind my back. Seeing the four students before me as enemies right now, I activated [Mana Eyes], and to my elation, I was able to read their entire Profiles! Yay!

Although, my mood instantly dropped when I noticed how, well, solidly rank C they were. Well, I shouldn’t be too surprised considering Tatsuya and Kyouya weren’t that much better than them. In any case, I did confirm they all had [Telepathy]. Did they just buy that? Did I actually just give them good advice, only to have it turned on me?

Well, it didn’t matter. I tried to get along with them, but I guess their paranoia just got the better of them.

Tatsuya! After my brain assessed the situation, my eyes locked onto Tatsuya as he pulled out his spear from Chifuya’s stomach. His throat was bleeding and the pain on his face contorted his expression as he began to cough.

“Sorry, Tatsuya-kun!” The magic swordswoman grimaced in horror as she tightened her grip over the blade she used to cut Tatsuya, before a flush appeared on her face.

“Adrenaline Rush!”

Veins appeared on her face as she steeled her resolve, blade ready to attack Tatsuya as his body began to morph, growing in size as he took a step back. However, before that could unfold at all, the heat inside my throat grew to the point I unleashed a white flame breath at them, intending to heal Tatsuya and push Chifuya back, not kill her!

However, my flame breath suddenly avoided them, traveling to the side as I noticed the flames disappearing as they gathered around Natsume—party Takuma’s offensive mage. They entered her right hand as she carried a crystalline ball with her left—probably a catalyst—before it began to glow red and white.

“Too much! Too much! I’m overflowing!” she screamed as her face began to turn purple-blue. It was arcane corruption, and it probably would have surprised me if I hadn’t made sure to learn the student’s unique skills before this.

Savior: Sacrifice 20% of max health to shroud your body with holy mana and obtain savior armor, granting temporary [Sacred Resistance Lv. X], with X = [Savior Lv. X]. Grants a 10% increase in stats and 5% more up per party member you lead, up to 25%. Increases every allies’s stats by 10% and amplifies aura-based skills or attacks

Saint’s Oath: Allows the sharing of all current positive status effects on the owner through an aura skill. Efficiency of the transferred buff is determined by the skill’s level. While an aura is active, it applies a passive health regeneration on all allies and periodically reduces the effects of status afflictions. Effects boosted with a beneficial aura skill

Enmity’s Pain: Activates upon the sensation of pain regardless of the source and can only be maintained by that sensation. Limits abnormal status afflictions to the minor stage. Reduces damage taken by [Enmity’s Pain Lv. X] * 5%. Increases strength and intelligence by a percentage according to the owner’s health or mana, respectively

Elemental Absorption: Allows the absorption of elemental spells and attack, neutralizing the elemental effect or spell entirely, turning it into mana. Excess mana can be channeled into other objects, or released into the air. If the intelligence stat of the absorbed attack’s owner is higher than this skill’s owner’s intelligence + wisdom, slowly build up arcane corruption. Decrease arcane corruption gained by [Elemental Absorption Lv. X] * 5%

Takuma’s [Savior], Aiko’s [Saint’s Oath], Chifuya’s [Enmity’s Pain], and Natsume’s [Elemental Absorption]. According to Franz, their unique skills “evolved” during their stay in the Empire, apparently due to a ritual performed by the pope after they performed a major feat. It was used to “ask” Aurena to evolve their skills, acting as a propaganda piece as the entire Church of Aurena HQ in the Empire was filled up with people.

To visualize, it was apparently as large as the Vatican’s main cathedral, although still smaller than the faith’s capital in Aureolis. The Emperor, many noble families, and even dignitaries attended the session, so it was a pretty big deal. It really was good advertising material, even if I knew the demonkins probably influenced the skills somewhat, although I wasn’t sure how.

[“Don’t kill them!”] I reminded Vifi’Yok, since I couldn’t speak with me breathing fire.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll beat them an inch before death. Start heal—Huh!?”

The demonkin suddenly fell back, barely stopping herself by planting her foot down, but her body still fell down the stairs, looking like she was being pulled away by an invisible hand. She struggled, even digging my glaive into the wall to stop herself, but it was useless. This relentless force’s source only became clear when I saw Hayato fly past her, up the stairs towards me.

Switcheroo: Using mana, switch position with a target. The process cannot be stopped until the positions have been switched or the user or the target perished mid-way through the activation process. The usable distance increases per level. Mana cost is determined by the distance

All their unique skills are so unbelievably broken!

Downing three health potions like some alcoholic, Hayato’s beat-up and broken body was healed up, as if Vifi’Yok hadn’t just given her a traumatic experience. He pulled out two bone daggers from an opening in the air—[Storage Magic]—and attempted to slash me with them.

Seeing how my flames weren’t doing anything with another anti-mage around, I closed my mouth and snapped my body around. Although my scales couldn’t defend me properly from those anti-dragon weapons, I could use them to deflect his attacks, allowing me to use this opening to use Sis’s martial training to disarm in.

“I can play this game, too!” I shouted before grabbing his daggers and stuffing them into my own storage, before taking out a holy flame grenade.

I pushed Hayato out of the way to gain the space to throw my grenade, but the latter used his unique skill again to switch positions with me. He caught the grenade as it just left my hand, but I was already prepared for this. I blew him away with [Wind Blast] and snapped my fingers as I began singing [Dragon Fire]. The scale-dust I left on his body from disarming him blew up as I performed a simple spark fire, causing the grenade to blow up in a hail of white flames.

[Music Resonation (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Although he couldn’t get hurt by the flames, he was still vulnerable to the explosion itself. He was blown away as my white flames healed him, Tatsuya, and Chifuya. Natsume was already absorbing the fire, but this still gave everybody enough time to react.

Tatsuya transformed into his vampire bat form, frightening the students as he spread his leather membrane arms. He challenged Chifuya with his spear, prompting the girl to pull out a needle to stick into her finger, activating her unique skill before she engaged her classmate in a clash of magic and steel. Although still a newbie, Tatsuya’s elemental armguard allowed him to perform some simple magical attacks, but he was mostly overpowering her with his spear techniques he honed through Yorshka’s training.

I also wanted to check on Kyouya and Franz’s side, but my [Danger Perception] warned me as Lautrex charged in. I ducked under his blade, finally feeling some threat from his attacks. I thought he was hopeless without his gauntlets, so where did he get this sword from?

I cast [Panzer] over my body like armor before pulling the dragon daggers I just stole from Hayato to parry his blade, only for me to lose one of them as it instantly broke apart the moment it touched his weapon.

Dammit! This isn’t Grimnir-sanctioned equipment! Ahhhhhh! Useless!

So, instead, I formed purple flames around my arm and hardened them into an obsidian spear, using it to shove Laturex back. The weapon splintered, but it didn’t matter as I could just continuously produce more throw-away weapons. I saved the last dragon dagger and released my body heat while singing [The Heir of Hope].

[The Shield of [The Light]] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Your paranoia really got to you, huh?” I snarled, exposing my fangs as I considered him a bit of a nuisance at this point. “You could have had me swear to Kramps to not scam you. Here I thought my promise would do the trick.”

“My duty is to serve the Holy Emperor of Mankind. If protecting the Heroes of Aurena is the only way for me to bring peace to this endless struggle with the demonkins, then I will give up my life! Even if we knights die, if we get that key to the Heroes, we will have served our role!” Lautrex’s formerly lackadaisical expression hardened as he scowled at me. “If you have fought Sir Larent before, then I shall not dishonor you once again, my lady. I will show you what a real Hand of Heaven can do!”

He raised his free hand, revealing three magic rings he was wearing. “The Emperor sent me here for a false mission. I was sent here to slay an evil dragon, but I see how that was a—Urgk!”

“Woah!” I snapped my head as I noticed a signal coming at me, pushing me aside before jumping up and slamming his axe onto Lautrex.

“Don’t need a casus belli any longer; the fact the other has to die for the other to survive makes this a war! Whether Kargryx is neutral to its princess’s suffering or not, that is a casus belli in my book, youngling. Bladdarg, and she’s my guest, idiot!” It was the Ankoran King, and he didn’t sound happy. “I heard even the lowest Hand of Heaven can take on a whole party of rank Bs, maybe even duel two As. How about two As and four Bs?”

“King—” My aura stopped a bit as I noticed four dwarves move past me—three earthshakers and one samurai. I wanted to respond to them, but King Fugnarus did not allow it.

He kicked Laturex back before swinging his axe over his shoulder before pulling out the data chip “I told you this already, Princess. My word is my honor, and if I commit myself to a cause, I will fight with it till the bitter end. Shake up; I’m here to rescue you, so sit back and watch. Come on, knight, you need one of these, right?”

‘We dwarves honor our debts and oaths. If we become allies, I will muster my people to fight in your name if you need to, Princess Hestia …’

Those were his words to me when I first arrived in Inkoran-Tazul and had my meeting with him and King Drangleic. They repeated in my head as he walked forward with his dwarven guards. Behind me, I felt unnerved as the silent steps of the elven rangers were barely audible, only for me to watch in horror as they pulled out their arrows. “Incapacitate,” I told them, but their weak “We will try” did not inspire much confidence.

But that was when I heard Franz shout “Eyes!” before I saw a rock ball being thrown at the ceiling of the building. It exploded, releasing a blinding light like a flashbang, catching everybody surprised.

“[Switcheroo]. Weakness: The target needs to be within eyesight to perform the switch!” Franz’s words pierced through the combined groans inside the room, following the war cries of the dwarves, probably saved from the blinding light due to their helmets protecting their eyes.

As I opened mine, I saw the four knights were quickly assaulted, with the king taking on Lautrex by his lonesome while the samurai took on Royce. The three fully armored shieldbearers ganged up on the remaining knights, quickly overwhelming them and pushing them back.

Franz, Kyouya, and Tatsuya, on the other hand, took on the students. Franz—maybe he had suspected this ambush—was taking out multiple tools and items from his storage, using them against his classmates to neutralize their powers.

Kyouya, donning his black armor, pushed back Takuma, tanking whatever attack the other threw at him while keeping him at bay with the help of [The Heir of Hope] boosting his stats. Meanwhile, Tatsuya used his druid form to knock out the shouting Hayato, stopping him from using his unique skill, again.

Seeing them all fight without even needing my help, I had to admit I wasn’t needed here. In fact, all I needed to do was sing.

All buffs up.

[Various Spell Buffs] [Music Resonation (Moderate)] [Sanctified Blaze] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“L-Light?!” Chifuya was next after she saw one of her comrades blacking out.

“You're the ones that provoked us. [Enmity’s Pain]. Weakness: Dull nerves, anything to prevent physical and mental sensations. Answer: Laughing gas, sleeping poison.” Franz pulled out a glass bottle with a lid with a hole just large enough for the dagger he pulled out. He placed the bottle back in his storage before rushing at the girl.

“Back off!” Natsume, though, reacted just in time, shooting out a fire ball at him and forcing him to dodge back.

However, in one swift motion, he opened his storage again, pulled out what looked like a wooden pipe and threw his dagger at Natsume, instead. It barely glanced at her cheeks, but blood was drawn. He then blew into the pipe, shooting out what looked like a needle at Chifuya, who swiftly cut it down.

Franz landed on his feet and conjured up his spectral sword, again. “[Elemental Absorption]. Weakness: Mana paths blockage. Close up mana entrances into the body, preventing mana from exiting or entering the owner’s body. Very, very hard to do … that’s why we use arcane corruption poison to make it hard for the mage to cast in the first place. Words are the same.”

Just like he said, Natsume’s skin around her cheek turned purple. Despite the healing aura coming from a cowering Aiko, Natsume coughed, looking ill as the poison spread through her body.

Speaking of Aiko, she was hiding herself from the battle by staying in the corner of the room. She had her staff raised, but her eyes darted around the room, unsure what exactly to do. It didn’t even seem like she had ever seen a real battle with how she acted.

“Hestia, camera! Record this!” my cousin ordered me to, only for him to interpret my hesitation that he had to elaborate on his plan. “Nagata, Ishigami, and I have this! Stand there and record everything. Sensei needs to know what exactly is happening! You also need proof for the other students in the basement.”

Basement!

I snapped my head around, only to see Vifi’Yok sitting on the stairs, pointing her glaive at the other two student parties. She was blocking them from coming up by looking intimidating.

Seeing that was covered, I pulled out the recorder and began to film everything. From the fight with the knights and King Fugnarus, to how Franz was exploiting everything about his classmates.

“Arrgh!” Natsume fell onto her knees, unable to hold herself up. “Argh, there’s more than just arcane corruption in there! I feel numb!”

“Well, of course,” Franz stated as if it was obvious. “Do you think I have an infinite storage? Some of my toxins just have overlapping effects.”

“Light!” Chifuya charged in with a wild scream, only for Tatsuya to take her on. “T-Ta—Get out of my way!”

“Greeeeeeeeccck!” he screeched, causing the girl to flinch back in fear. “You really should have just listened to Hestia-san!”

Two students unable to fight, one occupied with Tatsuya, one too afraid to move away from her corner. Meaning, there was only one more person to take care of.

“[Savior]. Weakness:—”

“I have no weaknesses, you bastard!” Takuma interrupted Franz as he pulled out a scroll from his storage. “I am the hero in this story! I will bring all of us back to Earth! Dragon, dwarves, elves? I am the son of the Akanishi clan; I am made to reign over all—”

“—Weak, but too prideful and scared to admit he’s weak and scared of his father. Scared of his abusive father who slaps him when he ruins something. Kicks him out of rooms for failing to ‘be the best.’ Failed to enter the best school in Japan, instead of the ‘second fiddle.’”

“What?!” Takuma stopped fighting Kyouya the moment everything was said, snapping his head around, leaving an opening wide enough for the latter to land a right hook on the former’s face. “Bugahk!”

Franz saw this and continued. He knew he was in Takuma’s head now. “[Savior] is strong, but it isn’t because its owner is strong. It was luck. Luck, that the church decided to treat you any better than a blessed—the real heroes in this world. He has an overinflated ego, born from the fact he thinks he’s like his father. Wrong. We sons are not like our fathers. We are not their clones; only their tools for their continued success. Just like in this world. You are nothing but a tool for the church, Takuma.”

“Shut up! Grrahk!” Kyouya landed another hit.

Jeez …

Compared to the other students, this actually felt personal. Takuma’s weakness wasn’t related to his skill, it was emotional. That, somehow, made it feel terrible to listen to.

However, its effectiveness couldn’t be discounted. Franz’s tactic worked, worked so well it bought enough time for Tatsuya to finish hisr bout with Chifuya—he successfully hit her with his spear coated in Franz’s poison. With her unique skill nonfunctional, he quickly beat her before tackling Takuma alongside his best friend. With both of them on him with Franz giving his support, the fight quickly ended.

In fact, even on the Ankoran King’s side, the fight was over before it could even end. Lautrex and the king were still standing, but the Royce, Karlst, and Falamm were already down. Lautrex, against an opponent he could deal damage to, wasn’t that much of a disappointment. Then again, I didn’t know the Ankoran King’s level and actual power, so I couldn’t really tell.

Lautrex, though, did not surrender as everybody pointed their weapons at him. He held his sword up, face showing nothing but clear focus, and it didn’t look like he would stop. I stopped my recording for now and let the rest be handled by the people up here, and instead, went down the stairs.

I looked over at the students cowering in the corner. Some of them looked injured, probably caused by the dwarves, while others were just exhausted. They looked, honestly, like me and the students upstairs—dirty, stressed out, and stinky. They addressed Vifi’Yok as Valeria, and they were not pleased she was holding them down here.

“V-Valeria, what is going on?!” One of the girls questioned, turning furious when she saw me. “T-that’s the dragon! T-those scales! The bishops mentioned it could change into a human!”

“N-no, she’s here to end it!”

Panic and antagonism was clear in their eyes and action. My eyes weren’t focused on them, though, but at the fully bandaged person protected by a tall, brawler-looking boy—an Asian jock. His face was bruised up, even bleeding, but he didn’t shy away from glaring at me with his bleached hair. He looked a bit like a delinquent; more of one than Asaka, at least.

“Ryuji,” I probably correctly guessed, considering that was the person Franz was looking at the moment he charged into the basement. I threw my ID over to him. “Could you do Franz a favor and check my ID? I hid most of my skill and stats, but name, age, titles, and things I can afford to show are there.”

He raised an eyebrow, but still took this chance to put my ID onto the chain of his party bracelet. If I was an enemy, this was the best time to take a sneak peek on my profile, after all. Fortunately for me though, his eyes widened in surprise and he lowered his guard. He looked over to a green-haired boy.

“… Shiki, down. She’s the one Light wanted to find.”

“Well, it’s clear she was the dragon, so …” He paused before he nodded. “Right, right, it’s confirmed then? Ichiyo, let her through.”

While it was clear Ryuji and Shiki were on board with whatever Franz was planning, making it clear they were part of his party, the boy called Ichiyo was less inclined. His brown hair fluttered as he snapped his head around, looking outraged at what was suggested. He shouted, “W-what?!” but I didn’t let that stop me.

Vifi’Yok stood up and let me by. I walked closer to the bandaged girl, but three other girls and that Ichiyo girl tried to stop me, even unsheathing their weapons. Ryuji didn’t do anything aside from offering my ID back. I nodded and used my superior agility to outmaneuver them, bypassing them and grabbing my ID back.

“I don’t know what you’re planning, but even a real Saintess couldn’t do it. She’s scarred for life, so you think you can forgive them for their attitude?” he asked, looking a bit timid now.

“Don’t worry about it,” I stated before taking a step forward.

At the same time, the student from behind tried to grab me, but Ryuji and that Shiki guy held them back just long enough for me to cast [Sanctuary] around me. I stopped all my songs except [The Heir of Hope], before pulling the bandages off the injured person’s body.

“Uuuh …” Yuuko in her ruined appearance groaned out loud. It was clear healing was performed to preserve her body, but I couldn’t help but stare at my “handiwork.”

The outer skin was completely gone, showing the consequences of third degree burns. In fact, some of the wounds were so deep, I could imagine it reached down into her muscles and even bones. Whoever this Saintess Fleindia was, she managed to keep this girl alive. She received the full brunt of my [Dreadflare Aura] without any real protection. Even Vifi’Yok looked like a carbonized corpse after I defeated her in Elyonda.

I couldn’t even make out a “face.” She didn’t have any outer features you would recognize on a face, like ears, nose, lips, or hair. Her new “features” looked like blisters or melted flesh, reddened in reaction to me taking off her bandages. She was making small moans, but I couldn’t tell if she was awake or not. The lack of real eyelids made it so her eyes were open.

“She’s going to kill Yuuko! GET OUT OF OUR WAY!”

“Ryuji! Shiki! Stop! Let us through—Urgrgh!”

Yuuko’s party members protested, one even slipped through the two boy’s hold and was starting to bang my light barrier with the sheath of her blade. I ignored them all and began my treatment. To fix what I caused.

Miraculous Grace.

My mind blanked out of all external stimuli, fully focused on the person on hand. I poured some of the pain numbing potion I got from Duchess Morgiana and Thyra when we did our surgery on Farron’s lungs. Once I was sure the potion worked, I sterilized my hands with soap and made sure my operating field was clean from any debris and laid down a white-piece of sheet and put Yuuko on it.

I first began separating any necrosis or melted skin, even carving out the scars to make sure her skin was clean. I had my parallel minds bring up my knowledge on surgery using the knowledge I learned from House Morgiana, the students, and my own experience of operating on the people in Elyonda to fix their issues. With a hand so steady real organ surgeons would be jealous of, I cleaned her body of her wounds.

Once I made room for her body to regrow, I activated [Miraculous Grace] here and there, while using [White Flames] to fix any wrong growth here or there. I fed her some dragorade and sugar water, keeping her body fueled since healing such a surgery usually caused strong fatigue, a lesson I learned after Farron’s surgery.

From her face down to her feet, I didn’t miss out on anything. Her rough, unappealing skin returned to being smooth and soft. I also corrected bones, muscles, fat, and even checked her organs to see if anything was wrong. It might look weird since I was examining her like some coroner, but no half-measure here.

After her surgery was done, I gave her one of my spare white robes, wrapping her with it before dispelling my light barrier. I held the unconscious Yuuko in a princess carry before bringing her over to six fish-eyed young men and women. I reached out to them.

“I am not sure I managed to correct her face. I only had the chance to look at you guys that one moment, so I mostly forgot your face features. Sorry.”

The boy named Ichiyo took her off me and pulled her closer to the students. All of them gasped before looking at me. Ryuji and Shiki were the only ones who nodded.

I nodded back and let out a small sigh of relief. Still, I had to talk to them. “I really, really didn’t mean to hurt any of you or Yuuko-san. I didn’t account for her [Magic Breaker] when I defended myself from the dragonslayers, and that caused me to accidentally burn her. I apologize for that, and I hope you can forgive me for defending myself from getting killed.”

I bowed deeply as was the custom for a Japanese person, but I didn’t go all out as I still felt like this wasn’t even my fault to begin with. At the end of the day, Tatsuya was right when he soothed me after I experienced the first wave of guilt over burning Yuuko—she got in front of me while I was defending myself from my contract killers.

Yet, the correct way to solve this issue wasn’t animosity, but forgive and forget. Saori’s student’s safety was still my top priority as I was doing this for my best friend. Even if the Empire and the demonkins lied to them, I honestly should condemn some of them—like the idiots above—but a momentary satisfaction to gloat or blame them would only ruin everything later on.

Instead, I pulled out my recorder from my storage and showed them the footage from before, showing everything up to when Franz told me to film. I showed them the entire fight, causing them to widen their eyes.

Once I was done, I showed them footage of the students already in my party—Haruka and the rest. Our happy moments, when we went out to eat with each other, talking while having a slumber party. I even showed them footage of us girls going into the hotspring, causing the three girls before me to gasp and shout “Don’t look!” to the boys! They then turned around to me, chastising me for showing “Tama-chan’s and the other’s bodies!” to the boys.

I couldn’t help but smile before putting the recorder back into my storage.

“I am not your enemy, no matter what the Empire or the church of Aurena might say. Tatsuya, Kyouya, Tamae, all of them; you are their classmates and they want you to be safe. If that is the case, then I will worry for you. You are all Saori Segawa’s former student; as her best friend, I don’t want to hurt any of you.” I reached my hand out before forming it into a fist. “You don’t have to trust me. You don’t need to believe me. But, do know my goal is to get all of you out of here alive.”

I pulled out the key to get out of this place, showing it to them. “There are only two keys. The rules state only two parties may escape, while the rest will die. I want you all to follow me upstairs. I want everybody to listen to what the other five parties want out of each other. Will you follow?”

“… We don’t have a choice, right?” Some of them turned over to Vifi’Yok, to which the latter shrugged.

They followed us up where we saw Franz, the boys, and the Ankoran King had wrapped the Takuma party and the knights in mana threads. I also noticed the wall was destroyed and Rajah was looking into the room, waving his tail. It seemed in my focus, I missed how Rajah broke through the door to slam the unconscious Royce a couple of times with his tail, putting him on the brink of death.

In any case, he wasn’t important, since Lautrex was still conscious. He was sitting down like a good student, despite looking like he would keel over at any moment now. His face was filled with bloody wounds and it looked like an arrow or two pierced his hands and feet. The elves’ contempt was clear to see.

“Y-Yuu-chan!?” Aiko was the first to notice, eying Yuuko’s unconscious body with a grimace. “H-how?”

Yuuko’s party members nudged their heads towards me, pointing at me being the healer. Since I already showed I could heal people, there really shouldn’t be any doubt, but Takuma really had to mumble, “Even a Saintess couldn’t heal her, how could this-this girl do the impossible?! I—Right, it’s her flames, of course, she could.”

Aiko kept staring at me, mouth agape as she didn’t do anything else. Did she really not believe I could do it, either? Or, what was her issue with me? Well, it didn’t matter, I had something more important to deal with.

“You want to use them now?” King Fugnarus offered me his key—the data chip the dungeon master left at the two temples of Chihiro we visited. I took it off him, but shook my head.

Instead, I stepped up, looking down at Tatsuya, Aiko, Lautrex, and the nine students from the basement. Apparently, the two boys all bruised up were also part of Franz’s party, and he was currently catching up with Ryuji and Shiki. After letting them speak a bit, I began by holding both keys up.

“The dungeon master has demanded of us to gather these two keys. I have my own plans for what we should do with them, but it is clear from the rules that only two parties may leave the floor, while the rest are probably doomed to die.”

Nobody said anything, while some gulped.

“However, before I say anything, I wish to hear every party leader’s opinion. If I were to give you these two keys right now, who would you want to give them to?”

The first to answer was, naturally, King Fugnarus. “Princess Hestia and I. No offense to you otherworlders and Folschreckians, but I have to look out for what benefits me the most. I came here to rescue her, and I will make sure she and the people who came with me make it out of here.”

The next was Lautrex. “Saint candidate Aiko. Whoever else doesn’t matter, even if it isn’t us. We knights live to serve the Goddess, only.”

The dwarven king did not care of Folschreck, nor did a representative of the Holy Emperor of Folschreck care about the dwarven king. That was the statement both sides gave.

I then turned to the students. All of them looked down on the floor, unwilling to answer. In fact, seeing each other having difficulty answering only made the other side more anxious, even eyeing the other as if they couldn’t believe “you wouldn’t choose me?!” Whoever answered first would probably have the other’s contempt.

As such, Ryuji took the fall. “Mine and Light’s, so, Hestia-san’s … party.”

“Ryuji!” The students from Yuuko’s party shouted out.

Seeing this, Takuma couldn’t help but jump onto the bandwagon. “See! I told you guys that bastard Light will probably show his ugly facade. The child of that demon lawyer! His attempts to make Folschreck ‘better’ in his image, and what exactly is that, huh? Always sneaking away to meet people, never telling us. Of course the bastard’s party would abandon us! The heroes!”

“R-right! We will choose Aiko-san’s and our party then! If you want to leave us to die, then so be it!” Ichijo shouted due to being cajoled by Takuma, supported by the rest of his party. However, for some reason, Takuma didn’t take it too well, looking irritated for some reason.

When Ichijo turned the question onto him on who he would choose, Takuma grinded his teeth as he looked over at Aiko—non-responsive and still staring at me like a broken puppet. Takuma let out a deep sigh, before his mood did a 180 and he began to smile brightly like some celebrity. “Of course. Whatever. Who else should we choose but you guys? Sir Laturex, thank you very much for your trust in us!”

“…” However, Lautrex could only stare at the obviously faking Takuma. A charismatic person could identify when another had their mask on.

Surprisingly, though, Ichijo didn’t believe Takuma either. Instead, he gulped and turned to me. “… I-I … Can we trust you to save us all? Bring us all out of here? If … If you really can then … please.”

“Ichijo? Are you serious?” Once again, Takuma’s eyes widened, staring at Yuuko’s party as if they had gone crazy.

With all the answers placed on the table, I nodded before casting [Warp Point: Exit] on the ground.

“Well, then all of you have to trust me then because I will get all of us out of this place. Nobody will die under my watch.” I closed my fist with one of the keys, while holding the other out, offering it to somebody. “Trust only works when it goes both ways. Can everybody put their trust and faith in me?”

A note from AbyssRaven

One step at a time for trust.

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 411: Rules were Meant to Be Overturned.

A note from AbyssRaven

"In a world of magic and power, Viktor Ashford, a failed assassin, seeks knowledge and strength. Reborn in a realm ruled by strength, he becomes a Wizard, delving into forbidden arts. Driven by ambition, Viktor manipulates and hunts for artifacts to become immortal and master magic. Facing enemies and moral dilemmas, Viktor's journey takes a dangerous turn when he encounters a terrifying opponent. Will he sacrifice his humanity to regain his power and achieve the pinnacle of magic? Or can he transcend his limitations without making enemies of the world?"

this novel inspired by WMW What to expect: -From weak to OPMC -Creative tactics with magic 5 chapters a week

The Failed Assassin Wants to Be a Wizard [LITRPG, Progression Fantasy]

“‘Once both artifacts leave the floor through their usage, the floor will be destroyed by the dungeon master along with everything on it. A heavy penalty debuff will be applied to everybody remaining on the floor.’ That rule is the basis behind my theory that we may all be able to survive, as long as one of us has the ability to transcend floors and hand over the key after each usage,” I began as I explained my thoughts and the possibility of surviving this death trap. “However, how are we supposed to do this when rule two states ‘Leaving the dungeon in any other way aside from these artifacts will result in death through the dungeon master’s choice?’ That’s why the only answer to this problem is [Space-Time Magic].”

“Hmm, that’s why you placed that grey magic circle down, huh?” King Fugnarus inspected the magic circle I placed in front of me. “However, how can you be sure you’ll survive it? Sorry if I get this wrong, not a mage after all, but isn’t that the circle for [Warp Point]? The simple, two way portal?”

I nodded.

“That spell takes a lot of mana to maintain it … Depending on how far down the next floor is, you might just kill yourself before you can rescue everybody. Distance, time, they both bring up the mana cost, from what I read.” Even for a non-mage, King Fugnarus had basic knowledge on how some spells worked, which makes sense as warriors knowing which spells took shorter or longer to cast could help them stop a mage.

While I appreciated his worry, I couldn’t accept it. “Unless you have another idea, this is the only way we all survive. That’s my goal, and I’m not budging from it.”

“Meoschaera, please!” I turned around to one of the elves, addressing me as “princess” in elvish. “You have no need to sacrifice your own self for these … We saw that rogue attack you. If they raise their hands against you, you have no need to treat them with courtesy. The gods witnessed their savagery!”

Urgh … it’s been a while since I spoke with a less ‘worldy’ elf.

While it was true Peolyncians across the world were quite religious, the elven nation took things far enough that Tasianna compared the elven kingdom Saelarial to a theocracy due to their worship of all Origin Gods and their role in society. It also didn’t help how, aside from Artorias-integrated elves, the ones I met have been pretty uptight and holier-than-thou.

“You heard the king, elf,” but to defend and excuse their actions, Lautrex spoke up. “Whatever … Her Highness is attempting to do what will most likely not work. Four parties will die. You call Sir Hayato a rogue, I argue he tried to assu—”

The elves drew their arrows, aiming their bows at the knight. “Always with these petty excuses, human. Never taking responsibilities for your own actions, also bla—”

“Haireti,” I called the elves out, calling them by the name of the elven ranger corps—Forest Phantoms, or Haireti. They did not stand down, but they perked their ears in my direction. “What are your names?”

“Astello, my lady.”

“Ihrwin, your grace.”

The first was slightly taller than the second, but outside of their ears poking out of their hoods, I couldn’t make out anything else about their physical features, not even being able to tell if they were wind or high elves, although I was pretty sure they weren’t dark elves since their skin wasn’t grey. Fitting for forest rangers, they had long dark green cloaks hiding leather and wood bark armor, obscuring their entire body, even to the point I couldn't tell if they had backup weapons.

As such, I couldn’t exactly tell their mood aside from their actions and the tone of their voices. Still, regardless of the historical animosity Saelariel felt towards humans, none of that mattered here.

“Mr. Astello. Mr. Ihrwin. Why exactly did you accompany Ankoran King Fugnarus down into the dungeon?” I asked, causing both to momentarily turn their heads around, only to refocus on Lautrex.

“We were ordered by our king, King Elutis Anduriol from Saelariel, to come to your rescue after we heard there were complications in the [Menagerie of Golems]. Due to our alliance to Kargryx and your father, Empero—”

“She’s telling you to listen to her and just put the damn bows down, yfleis!” A sudden interruption came from one of the dwarves, specifically, the samurai-looking one who was standing behind King Fugnarus like a shadow. He tapped his feet on the ground, impatient at how slow this was going. “For bladdarg elves, ya two sure are dull.”

Outraged, they dropped their aggression at Lautrex and snapped around, shouting “Mundari?!” only for the Ankoran King to silence them all with a deep, booming shout. Like a commander, his voice carried the authority to not only force everybody to listen to him, but also make sure they remained quiet.

Thanks, I quietly thanked him.

“Ungi, your tongue doesn’t need to be as sharp as your blade.” After he chastised his bodyguard, he turned back to me. “You came here for these kids, but it seems like something happened with how that brat is looking at you. Mind filling me in, Hestia?”

I nodded, also thinking Takuma is giving me too much of a stink eye, before eyeing Kyouya who had lost his arm to him, and how Kyouya was touching his neck after it was sliced opened. “Sure, but, I have to handle something first.”

King Fugnarus nodded his head before I turned around to Takuma, before pointing his attention to Yuuko, who was still unconscious in Ichiyo’s arms. I then turned back to Lautrex.

“It seemed none of you believe I am a blessed, even after I told you plain to your faces. Not only did you hurt my friends, but you also threatened to leave us to die by taking the keys. Still, I forgive you all, because I understand.” My unexpected answer caused Aiko, Takuma, and Lautrex—the only conscious people of the coup—to widen their eyes. “I understand why you are so paranoid. I hurt Yuuko-san, and for that, I am sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt any of you, and I meant it when I told you this before. That food I shared? I was happy to do so, even to you, Sir Lautrex. People deserve good food, nobody deserves to starve. That I believe.”

I looked over at Vifi’Yok for a moment, before I gestured to Kyouya for him to come over. He sighed, picked up his severed arm and showed it to me. Unfortunately, during the fight, it was stomped on multiple times to the point the bones were completely broken. Well, it was nothing a bit of [Miraculous Grace] couldn’t heal.

I could probably regrow him a new arm, but that was a waste of mana and resources from his body. Doing it this way was much faster and showcased my skills better.

Ignoring the stunned Aiko, I attached Kyouya’s arm back on him and healed it up, before patting him on his back for hanging on well. While doing so, I was contemplating if I should ask the students to empty their storage out, but this probably wasn’t the correct timing. I needed their trust due to the uncertainty of my plan. I had to snuff out any possibility of betrayal to assure everything would work out as I wanted to.

First, I told King Fugnarus I wouldn’t hold him responsible, telling him the moment I entered the dungeon, my life was my own responsibility. That was the adventurer way, and blaming somebody else was just weak. Yes, he should have made sure his dungeon master wasn’t secretly assassinated and then taken over, but that was hindsight at the end of the day.

Instead, I told him what I knew.

“… That blasted Maagneil is actually still alive? And he’s the one who caused all of this?!” The dwarven king’s eyes grew wide in rage after he took off his helmet, looking like he was about to eviscerate somebody. However, he calmed down, instead his face looked pensive. “A ‘rebellion orb,’ you say? Those nasty, dungeon agitating catalysts? I heard Folschreck has had their fair share of issues with those. Demonkins, huh?”

“Nonsense.” However, my recollection of everything that had happened to me in the last dungeon up till my party’s landing in the Event one was quickly dismissed after I was finished by Lautrex. Ha! I haven’t even told him about Crustacia, the elemental emperor, nor Vifi’Yok true identity.

Regardless, I heard him out.

“Why would the demonkins try to attack Ankor-Nazta? We are already pushing them back, but they are trying to antagonize even more people?”

“… But, Sir Lautrex, then how are we here in the first place?” Surprisingly, Takuma was the one who spoke up. “We learned from our tutors that dungeon walls cannot be broken. They are indestructible unless the dungeon master wills it. How else … unless, the dragon is the real—”

“Brat, I swear to the Earth Mother, shut up!” King Fugnarus shouted at him.

The dude had a moment of clarity and he blew it?!

Enraged, King Fugnarus took a step forward towards Takuma. “Fugnarus Kongun; that is my name. My relative is Dravlia Kongun, also known as Goddess Chihiro, the Revolution Queen. An otherworlder just like you came from a nation called Japan. Nippon. Unlike her who was a reincarnator, I heard your title allows you to automatically translate everything I say. [Otherworldly Visitor], wasn't it? Then, listen here.”

He kneeled down, now eye level with the boy. “Do you actually know anything? Are you presuming this royalty here is guilty of everything the Empire wrote in that ‘newspaper’ of theirs? From whom did you receive this information?”

“… T-the church of Aurena,” Takuma meekly answered, prompting Franz to suddenly interject.

“Are you seriously telling me all of you actually believed what they told you? Every bit? Are you serious?”

“They are the only ones who have been mostly helping us!”

“They’re using us just like the imperial nobles! Like everybody else in this world! You can’t be serious!” Franz stormed up, pulling Takuma up by his armor’s scruff. “You have no idea just how much I want to punch you right now.”

“Same.”

“No, no, this is far more personal than you think. You’re supposed to be smart. Where did all those high scores get you to, Takuma, huh? A little pawn listening to the wishes of the church’s pope? Thinking they are our allies?” Franz pushed him down, now directing his attention at Aiko and Yuuko’s party. “All of you! Especially you guys, Ichiyo! Where has all our distrust for the church gone? All of us wanted to flee from the church, but the moment we learned it’s impossible, you all decided to just ride the train? Ha! I thought I was paranoid about analyzing everybody’s weaknesses in case I had to one day exploit them, but I really was naive! I never thought we would turn against each other!”

“You’re the one who switched sides!” Takuma shouted, only for Tatsuya to suddenly kick him in the face, knocking him to the ground.

Nice one, dude. I was about to do the same.

“Tatsuya!” Aiko shouted, but Kyouya quickly went over to her to quieten her down, allowing Tatsuya to speak.

“Here’s the thing, everybody knows I hate Daisy. And I still do, even after we had the chance to speak, but I understand his position now. Here’s the thing, I know you ordered Chifuya, Hayato, and Natsume to attack us, Takuma. You have always been the person with the honeyed words.” Tatsuya pulled him back up and gave him a right hook to the face, sending Takuma back onto the ground. “So thank you, for making me feel bad when I instinctively drove my spear into her stomach. We fucking talked at lengths on how to deal with some bandits back at our second assembly, and it seemed like that bloodthirst of yours influenced everybody else. Are we killing each other now, Takuma, huh?! Not only Peolyncians, but the people we’ve known for four years now?!”

He then snapped his head to the other members of the coup-d’etat. “But don’t think any of you will get out of this with a slap on the hands. He might have cajoled you, but none of you decided to use your brains for a moment! Mind washing? If we actually were ‘Aurena’s Chosen,’ you think she would make us this weak against it? No. You are at fault. You tried to kill Kyouya, Hestia, and me. And you’re blaming us?”

Bad cop, good cop. This is the correct way. They know Tatsuya better, so having him say all the things I’m holding back delivers the message better.

“W-we didn’t mean to!” Aiko tried to stand up, but she immediately tensed up when she saw the elves had their arrows trained at her. Pale and terrified, she sat back down, shivering so wildly it was hard to hear her. “W-we just didn’t want to die. W-we—”

Takuma spat blood at Tatsuya’s foot, pushing himself back up despite being tied up. “Two teams! Two parties are allowed to live, you bastard! You think it was that easy to persuade everybody?! Fuck no! But, I want to live! I have a company to lead when I go back to Earth, and am not letting anybody in this world steal that away from me! I will NOT die in this third world crap of a place! Do you think I want you all to die here?! Hell no! Ichiyo, say something!”

“… We’re on her side.” The only boy in Yuuko’s party sheepishly looked at me, only for him to twitch when Ryuji and Shiko patted him on the back.

Ryuji sighed deeply. “We heard it, dude. You made your decision on who to trust, and there is no shame to it. Stand straight, say it outloud, and announce it. If you think about it clearly, the fault for this entire feud is on your end as, instead of trying to talk, you immediately went to attack her. How would it have felt if you managed to kill her with that Galg and later learned she was innocent and just a good person?”

“Kuek!” The bruised up Chifuya, Natsume, Hayato lowered their heads, grimacing and gulping at that very thought.

“Stop it!” Takuma jerked his body forward, elevated by the tension between the classmates. “We. Are. Not. At. Fault. Here! We are in the right! All of you, stop trying to listen to these idiots who think they got it all figured out, because they don’t! You think we could just leave our fate to that dragon? That dragon the church knows more about than us? She is the one who is driving a wedge between all of us! She is the—Uurrgh!”

In the end, Franz couldn’t hold himself back. With a straight punch, he knocked Takuma on his back. He then stomped on his face, preventing the latter from resisting at all.

Looking down at the groaning young man, Franz swept back his grey hair. “… You still didn’t answer my question. Did you really think the church is our ally? Then, how about I tell you something; the Church of Aurena has been under the control of the demonkins since we arrived in this world.”

“What …?” The students went speechless, unable to process what he had just revealed. Sadly for them, the bomb wasn’t done detonating.

“Correct. It wasn’t Goddess Aurena who summoned us into this world, it was the demonkins using the power of the Edjurl gods. They don't have the power to send us back to Earth.”

With the exception of King Fugnarus and his bodyguard, the elves and dwarves looked around and whispered in surprise, confused at this reveal. After all, this was still pretty classified information, but it was honestly okay to reveal right now. Vifi’Yok, on the other hand, could only sigh and sit down.

“How do I know? I’ve been doing my research, never standing still the moment we arrived in the Empire. The moment they wanted to send us into war like child soldiers, I’ve never given them an inkling of my trust. Manipulators, the lot of them, and we are their propaganda. What exactly is their plan with us? I don’t know, but I know if we had actually killed my co—Mhrm, Hestia. If we had killed her, we would have lost our only one true ally.”

“You are being mind controlled …” Takuma expressed his suspicion, all while eating dirt. “You’re talking about all this crap about the demonkins, but you’re telling us this city destroying dragon is our ally? How, huh?”

“Because I’m a reincarnator, you idiot. How long does it take for you to finally get the fucking memo?” I snapped at him, before taking out the video recorder. “Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor. I told you already! Or, has Saori not taught you anything about Greek myth? Or, how about the ‘Atsuko’ part about my name? Do you want me to explain to you the katakana? Or, how about this: Ich bin eine Amerikanerin. I am an American. Amerika-jin desu. I can continue speaking in German, English, Japanese, or, do you want some Korean?”

[“Are you sure?”] Franz suddenly spoke with me telepathically.

[“If this is the only way to drill it into their thick brains, then sure! This fucking arrogant bastard!”] I glared at Takuma, wanting to feel the same sensation of punching him like Tatsuya and Franz.

“… Are you kidding me?”

However, there was one person who wasn’t so quiet, and that was Lautrex.

“What you are sayin—”

“The Pope is the Prince of Envy, Sir Knight. Want to know my source for that? How about the fact Goddess Aurena herself warned me of that? Or, how there was actually one truth in the newspaper, and that was how he saw us break into his room. How was I there? Well, he was the one who brought us there; in fact, there shouldn’t even be any other witnesses who saw us as my mother, Empress Melloxtressa, can reflect light with her scales, making us invisible.”

I straightened my back and turned the video recorder on, showing Aiko and Takuma the videos I recorded with it. Everything I showed Yuuko’s party, I showed them, even the one with the hot spring. Once it was done, I put the recorder back into my storage before taking a step back.

“As I said, I will bring everybody out of this alive, so trust me. King Fugnarus.” I handed him one of the data chips, entrusting him with it. “Then, hopefully, we can do this. If this won’t work then—”

“We can wait, lass. I will take this as my punishment for sending you into that death trap with that rank S dragonslayer. We got the rations to last us for weeks. Enough to share, too.” His eyes widened a bit, though, as he remembered something he wanted to ask me. “Right, if you see the other half of the rescue party, tell them we’re okay. We lost nobody on our side.”

“Other half?”

He nodded. “My wife … she went behind my back and informed everybody about your disappearance. Loatryx, Artorias, Estralia, and Yeos were quick to send their people to help me, with Saelariel barely able to, as King Elutis’s advisor told him to not send too many rangers. We had around 56 members, including the six you see here.”

A chill went down my spine. “… Perchance, can you remember the number of humans and dragonewts who joined you?”

He raised an eyebrow, shaking his head, but instead his bodyguard had the answer to my question.

“28, your grace.”

And my eyes widened in horror as I remembered the System message I received on the deaths of exactly 28 humans and beastmen. Looking at me stuttering, trying to process the news, only made King Fugnarus pester me until I finally told him what was wrong, much to the shock of him and his party.

They wanted to make sure I was absolutely certain about it, but I nodded, telling them it was part of my blessing from Aurena. Seeing no reason why I would lie, all of them slowly accepted the truth, but some seemed to be grieving for the people they lost.

“… Then Goddess Kronnaz better be our witness then,” King Fugnarus stated with a neutral tone. “Aye, those humans weren’t my people, but King Artorias, President Reajaen, and Prince Markval entrusted their knights’ and warrior’s lives to me. Not to mention Loatryx … if an elf or dwarf had also died, then … hopefully your plan works, Hestia. I don’t think I have the patience with the key in my hand.”

“W-wait, please—”

The students tried to protest but King Fugnarus glared at them, silencing them before they could speak.

Only Takuma was able to complain. “Now we have to trust our lives on these strangers. Dammit, I should have bided my time, instead of sending Hayato in to—Ark!”

Franz stomped Takuma to silence him, again. “And you may continue biding your time, otherwise I’ll actually put mana into my leg to knock those teeth of yours out.”

I ignored them and took a deep breath. I went outside the temple, joining Rajah as I stroked him. He entered my shadow before I turned to Tatsuya, Kyouya, Franz, and Vifi’Yok. Kyouya’s uneasy frown made it clear he was conflicted on the matter.

“… Aiko-san didn’t seem to take the news too well. Ichiyo probably is okay, since you healed Yuuko-san but …” He scratched his neck, before touching his formerly severed arm. “A-are you sure this will work? I know they backstabbed us, but I still don’t want them to die. I-I don’t think Haruka would be able to handle it …”

“It’s all up to luck now, if this’ll work. I mean, the dungeon master could just change the rules in a matter of seconds, you know?” Vifi’Yok just had to scare me with that thought, but it was entirely possible.

Franz pointed at the [Warp Point: Exit] I placed down inside the temple. “Nothing in life is 100% guaranteed except in a highly isolated and prepped location or environment. Well, then again, a 99.99999% chance is effectively 100% … If we don’t forge ahead, nothing will work. A bit of risk to maintain some integrity is alright.”

“Well … you should be the person to say that,” Tatsuya sighed, looking like he was about to start another fight, but he shook his head. “You were the one who asked us not to start killing the bandits. Although I went along with the decision, it still felt so naive.”

“As I said, not everything is 100%. It did make me aware that even if you have lofty goals and ambitions, if you don’t have the connections, power, or ability, the world doesn’t care about you. We are all insignificant little pebbles in this entire world, until we take the reins in our own hands to lead us forward.”

“Franz?” His sudden monologue made him too much of a doomer for me to take in easily. Noticing my worry, he shook his head.

“It’s what my father always said to me … I always fought back against it. How ironic that I finally understood what he meant, despite how nihilistic his philosophy was. A terrible, grotesque person and parent he might be, but he didn’t get to the top without some kind of plan.” His tense face turned pensive, looking back at the nervous students. “The Church of Aurena isn’t the only thing that must change. It is the whole Empire as well. To its very core, it is beyond rotten and corrupt, damaging the good people living on the surface, minding their own business. You have a tough Quest, cousin.”

“Haha, true enough …” I shook my head, noticing Vifi’Yok eyes turning down, sullen and dejected, at our words. I slapped my cheeks, clearing my head up, before turning to Vifi. “I don’t know where we will land, but the moment we do, I will need your help, alright? Can I count on you and that you won’t just run away?”

The demonkin turned her head up, showing me her entire open palm. “Five bags full of donuts after we’re done, alright? Free, each with a different topping or preparation method. I want them after we’re done so I can depart right away, alright?”

“My god, what sort of rancid sweet tooth do you have?” Tatsuya grimaced, looking disgusted at her. “You’ll rot your teeth if you eat that much! No, wait, all that trans fat will clog up your heart. Eat more than that!”

“Oi, I don’t want to hear that from you, coffee addict,” Kyouya glared at him.

“Ha! What the big guy said, you loser!” Vifi’Yok jumped right onto him, causing me to giggle before I agreed to her demand.

With everything set, I raised the data chip into the air, shouting “Activate” before my vision was basked in a blue light. I felt my body move but at the same time, it didn’t. I didn’t know how long it took while I was in this state, but once I opened my eyes, I was greeted by my party’s gasps and voices, expressing their shock as we landed in … another ruin.

Well, it wasn’t similar to the one in the [Menagerie of Golems], as this one seemed less decrepit. I looked around, noticing the rock slabs covering the floor, walls, and ceiling had none of those magical blue lines I was used to seeing in the previous dungeon. This was a plain old ruin, but with the distinct difference of many glowing doors illuminating this place.

In fact, one of those was just behind us. We tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge at all. Franz suggested scouting the place, as we could see there were corridors in this place, but I declined, telling him we had to save the others first. As a compromise, I sent Rajah, Tatsuya, and Kyouya out, while I placed [Warp Point: Entrance] down.

I can feel the connection!

I opened up my storage, taking out all of our excess health, mana, and stamina potions in addition to a bunch of fulinoe leaves and dragorade. I began to brew some fulinoe tea, making sure I had enough mana recovery pots before I opened the portal. I also took out my zazail orb, finally having found the moment where its mana battery-like function was useful.

I wanted to transform into a dragon to gain more mana, but I had to settle with my minor form.

[Humanize (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Woah!” Franz was freaked out by how my form changed, but he quickly accepted, mumbling how this was the “new Hikari.” I reassured him that while I did look scary, I was still just as cute as always, before opening my portal.

“Krriiiiiiaaaaagh!” I felt the pain coursing through my body as mana was sapped out of my body, reaped away as if someone had swung their blade at me to gouge out a chunk from my body.

However, through this pain, I was able to fully smile, even crackle as I saw the surprised faces of all the students, rescue party members, and Lautrex.

[“Told you I could do it! Now … catch!”] I threw the data chip through the portal at Ryuji. [“Don’t exit through the portal, it will break the rules. Ryuji-kun, please, please, make this work!”]

My heart beat like crazy, not only due to how [Warp Point]’s mana cost to maintain the portal was steadily increasing with every second, but also at the slight chance this might fail. If Ryuji couldn’t use the data chip now, then it would be pretty much over. All I could do when that happened was hope the Ankoran King kept to his word and be patient in the hopes I could solve the situation.

As Ryuji held the data chip into the air, I held my breath as he recited the activation word. I could hear my heart beat inside my ears, including the burning sounds coming from inside my slightly cracked sun core. My eyes widened as, after a full second of roaring “Activate,” nothing happened.

Two seconds. Three seconds. Four. Five. Six! Horror filled my heart as nothing happened, only for me to let out a deep sigh in relief as I saw his body finally being consumed by white light. I roared in triumph, shouting “Yes!” over and over again despite my inability to pronunciate Common with my minor dragonewt form.

Yuuko’s party even joined me, expressing their apology for doubting me, but I took it in stride. I gave them a thumbs up. Meanwhile, Lautrex, Aiko, and Takuma did not react much at all.

However, this moment of elation was quickly drowned out as I felt a headache. The mana cost was getting higher and higher, and it seemed like the Ankoran King was correct—the distance between portals was too much.

Headache, illness; some symptoms of arcane corruption.

Ryuji and his party did not appear before us, forcing me to send Vifi’Yok to scout for them. They landed somewhere, but those doors were most likely a clue on the strangeness of this new stage. Maybe they were teleported into another section of this place.

With her voltaic lightning, she dashed through the place, all while Franz began feeding me mana potions and dragorade. It was a good thing the boys didn’t use up all our major mana potions during our first encounter with the dragonslayers.

“H-hey, why is it taking so long?!” The students started to panic after the early cheers, in addition to how I was slumping forward, more focused on maintaining the portal than speaking. After all that, the moment this portal closed, it would be all over.

Thankfully, Vifi’Yok managed to find the boys, but instead of bringing them over, she just brought the data chip with her. She told them to stay put until everything was over, as it was more important to get everybody over here first.

“It’s an entire maze, but no traps or monsters. It’s safe … probably.”

Franz made sure she didn’t lie with his unique skill, assuring me I made the correct choice by not usurping his skill too early. I then threw the data chip to Yuuko’s party, having Franz explain to them what will happen and what they should do.

Once they were transported out, Vifi’Yok departed and the most excruciating part about all of this continued—the wait. At this point, my parallel minds made me aware I was on the brink of arcane fever and how my mana was now below 40%. I grabbed my zazail orb and began absorbing the 10000 mana stored inside of it. Considering my [Humanize (Minor)] form had a little over 32000 mana, that 40% meant I was almost below 10000; that extra 10000 mana I absorbed from this catalyst was a godsend.

Vifi’Yok once again got the data chip to me and I handed it off to the next group, deciding it should be Takuma’s party next, making it clear to Lautrex once again that I didn’t care about the knights. Saori’s students were my objective and I was getting them out of here alive, even if it cost me my bloody limbs.

I owe that much to her after all our time together!

Takuma, though, held the chip in his hand, not moving a bit despite the elves freeing him from his binds. He was just staring at it, to the worry of Aiko in the back. On the other hand, Chifuya, Hayato, and Natsume all stared at him, causing him to take a step back. I couldn’t see their expressions, but I could guess they were starting to turn on him.

“… Takuma?” she shook him, waking him before he nodded to her.

He held it up and spoke “Activate” before he and his party members—conscious and unconscious—were swooped away by light.

[Arcane Fever (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Iioourgh!” I dropped onto my knees as the pain finally climaxed into [Arcane Fever], causing me to actually feel sick using any mana at all, including staying in my humanized form, instead of my dragon self.

“Hestia!” Franz supported me back on my feet, helping me drink the next batch of fulinoe tea, but it didn’t feel like I was getting better at all. The portal was draining too much from me.

I looked at my arms

“… Champion Hestia.”

Huh?

With bated breath, I moved my head up, noticing Lautrex speaking to me.

“Close the portal. You’ve shown your worth enough at this point. I admit it, you are a Champion of the Goddess, and I am … a heretic who raised his arms against you. I am not worthy of the title of Hand of Heaven, neither in strength nor dignity as a knight.” Lautrex took off his ring after the elves freed him from his binding, throwing it through the portal to me. “‘Night Slayer’ is her name. I found her in a dungeon, but still a blade worthy for a knight as it increases damage against those with [Sacred Resistance]. Very ironic for a knight like me to wield one, but oh so many demonkin and beastmen have gained resistances against holy spells during the war. It is now yours.”

He also threw over the broken shells of his gauntlets, telling me any artificer could repair them. They were actually weapons he received when he became a Hand of Heaven, mentioning how grateful he was when he received them from his Emperor. He told me to either use them, or return them to the Empire, for they were now in my ownership.

“Thank you very much for showing how delusional I am. I swear, even when I meet Goddess Death, I will dedicate this life to you—Huh?!” Lautrex dodged to the sides as I threw one of his gauntlets back at him. “What are you—Woah?!”

I threw the second gauntlet back at him, leading him perfectly for me to hit him straight at the nose with his ring, causing him to flinch back from the sheer surprise factor. Once he recovered, he snapped his head towards me, looking like a tomato as a flush covered his entire face.

“What possessed you to do that?! They are prized equipment, to the point even some rank A are unworthy of them! Why would you—” But before he could continue I just turned around and drank the entire piping hot tea pot without a single worry, all while showing him the middle finger. I didn’t even flinch.

“Guhahaha! Never been rejected by a girl before, lad? Even threw the ring back at you, as if she couldn’t even take it as a joke! Guhahaha, you tried to kill her, you think you can fault her?” King Fugnarus laughed at him, smacking his back without a single care.

“Rejection? I was—” He fell onto the ground with another smack.

“Hahah, the lad can’t even take it! He’s already rejecting his own failure! Huhuhahaha!”

Ungi, King Fugnarus’s bodyguard, nodded. “Ha, comes with the fact he can’t even get a beard going. Boy needs to let it grow if he wants a woman to take him seriously. Also, she’s too young for you, lad.”

… I didn’t even think of the implication with the ring. Jeez.

The dwarves were completely making fun of Lautrex, to the point I even heard the elves join in the laughter. Whether they actually found the joke itself funny or just found it hilarious that Lautrex in particular was made fun of was unknown to me. Regardless, this little moment of comedy certainly helped clear up the tension of the situation, to the point I couldn’t feel the pain for a moment before it came back.

I wanted to sleep so much, but, fortunately, Vifi’Yok came back just in time. She threw the data chip through the portal and I was finally allowed to close the damn thing. I fell right onto the floor, feeling so numb all around my body. Franz checked up on me, mentioning how he could see some seriously dark patches of purple behind some of my scales.

“… Nice work, dragon.” The demonkin showed me a thumbs up. “I’ll go get your friends. Oh, and don’t forget the donuts.”

I showed her a thumbs up. A deal was a deal.

“… Hey, Hikari?”

Franz and I were now alone, with nobody around to talk with. He stroked my head, caressing my forehead as if it was naked skin. He stopped after a while, forming a large smile as he looked down at me.

“Just so you know, I’m happy to be able to meet this new you. You’re not my Hikari any longer but … people can change. Despite what happened on Earth and how your death affected all of us, I’m sure both your parents will be able to forgive you.”

Franz …

“Because I can. I … couldn’t forgive you for going on and breaking your promise to me and your parents. How you would become an idol and I could become your lawyer, maybe even manager to make sure those companies don’t scam you. I blamed myself … but it spiraled down to hating you, hating idols, hating my father, hating my mother for leaving me. I felt genuinely alone, despite having friends loyal enough to follow me down any road like Ryuji, Shiki, Fusao, Hirofumi …”

I grabbed his hand, pressing through this staggering headache, making sure I absorbed every single word he told me. I could see his downcast eyes, looking down at me with tears dropping on the hard, cold ground.

“I’m proud. I’m proud that you managed to become an idol, you hear me. And, and that only makes it more important that I make sure I do my part. I can’t become your manager in this world. You’re your own woman, after all. I’m not much use as a lawyer in this world where you’re a princess. After all, I’m not ‘Hestia’s cousin,’ I’m not related to your dragon—”

I clenched his hand harder, shaking my head.

“… Thank you … That sister of yours? Fargryneill? It would be nice to meet her, make sure she knows exactly what you like and to not mistreat you. Can’t be too careful.”

Oi, jeez! You’re not my babysitter, Franz! Annoyed by that attitude of his, my grip tightened, causing him to jerk back, calling it a joke and apologizing to me before I let him be. Still, I kept his hand tightly with me. I wanted to make sure I remember this warmth from him.

“Then … although I haven’t seen your idol concert yet, I want to make a new promise with you.” He moved his hand around, freeing himself and locking our pinkies with each other. “I promise, I will make sure to change the Empire. At the rate it’s going, it’s clear the nation is about to crumble under its own weight, and not just because of the demonkins and the church, but rather from how complacent they had become for being ‘Humankind’s bastion.’ They take too little care of their vassals, throwing their levies at the beastmen and demonkin as if they were nothing more than fodder. Meatbags. Kids, all of them, but thrown at the wolves for nothing! Not even as bait! I-I-Arrrrrgh! Why is—”

Huh? Oh shit …

My mind was turning numb. I heard Franz’s voice, I could make out he was still speaking, but I couldn’t register his voice. I opened a health potion and drank it, making sure I wouldn’t randomly die from the continuous damage. I drank another dragorade and some fulinoe tea, losing sense of my time, unable to make out what I was doing.

Was I even holding Franz’s hand?

I couldn't tell until I felt my body falling. Gravity took me and my head landed, although I couldn’t tell. The pain was numbed. In addition, I suddenly felt so incredibly sleepy, but my resistance against drowsiness forced me back up, only something to gently push me back. I felt something tickle my ears.

I didn’t resist and went to sleep.

“Shuuu.”

Franz pressed a finger against his lips as he heard the sound of footsteps close in. He addressed the students Vifi’Yok had successfully brought back to the rendezvous point. He counted them, making sure they were all here, discounting Tatsuya and Kyouya, but still grimaced as Lautrex from Cashim was here with the knights.

He didn’t want them here.

“She’s sleeping.”

Vifi’Yok who was walking up to him nodded. “With her mana supply, tsk tsk. Really shows how dangerous [Space-Time Magic] is for weak mages. You brats got lucky.”

She turned around, addressing the three groups of students she managed to bring back. She hadn’t been able to find King Fugnarus, but got lucky enough to meet the knights on the way. She would soon go find the dwarven king, but for now, she had to make sure her donut maker wouldn’t just die on her.

She went over to the sleeping dragon, looking at the purple patches under her scales—evidence of arcane corruption. Vifi’Yok opened the last health potion left and slowly helped Hestia drink it.

… Marsven take me. What am I doing?

Vifi’Yok was once again feeling these weird feelings inside her chest. She didn’t know if it was respect or admiration she had for the dragon.

Her determination to solve a problem in her manner, the way she brokered peace between the students, and how she resolved to sacrifice her own well-being to achieve what she desired, not compromising if she could afford it. And, as the dragon was still alive, she managed to achieve what she wanted. Vifi’Yok was impressed.

At the same time, though, she didn’t want to feel so attached to her former enemies. The moment she got her emergency rations, she would vanish from her mind, never to be found again by any of her former allies or enemies. She had resolved herself that that was her future, and it was something she could live with. Regardless of how the main conflict would end, she would decide how she would live and die by her own terms.

Well, it was a fun time. Then again, there is still a long road—Huh?

Vifi’Yok suddenly noticed the discussion the students were having with Franz. They were arguing for some reason. When she turned around, she squinted her eyes when Franz suddenly groaned, nearly falling onto his knees. He pulled an amulet out of his storage, designed in a weird form with an emblem she couldn’t recognize. The only feature she noticed was the hat of a jester.

It rattled, shaking as if it was a living being before an eerie laugh was released from it, causing it to glow grey. In the next moment, the air exploded, breaking part.

What?!

Vifi’Yok braced herself, ready for a fight, only to notice the hole in the air looked similar to something she had just seen—a space-time portal! A chill went down her spine as her sharp ears picked up the sound of footsteps underneath the loud crackling around the portal, caused by air rampaging around, trying to replace the missing air despite it already being “filled.”

The students cried out in surprise as a figure in a long robe walked out of the portal. The demonkin couldn’t see who it was from behind, but the students’ eyes immediately widened.

“You?! How are you here?!” Takuma shouted.

“My god told me you were finished.” The figure spoke, turning his head slightly around. “Are you satisfied?”

Franz’s mouth was agape, looking shocked as the other students, but a smirk appear his face. He shook his head, looking at the robed man with a wry smile. “I am, Boss. I have revealed everything to them. I’ll uphold my end of the bargain … and, I also made sure who the dragon was.”

Franz turned his head around, looking at Hestia and Vifi’Yok.

“What is your decision?”

“… I will ally with her, so you will leave her alone in this conflict. I will make a world she can be happy in. I will make sure her second life will be long, filled with happiness, joy, and without any of the stress that came with her past. She will do her part, and I will do mine. We are both adults in this matter now, and I made sure she doesn’t need me around her. She has enough people to make her happy. She has … her family.”

“And your fellow otherworldlers? Will you leave them here?”

Franz scowled as he turned to Takuma and the others, causing everybody but his party to flinch back. “I won’t let them run away from hurting my cousin. I will make them work for their way back home.”

“C-cousin?!” The rabbit was finally out of the hat. The students’ widened eyes couldn’t become wider.

“Good. Then, let us go. Heroes of Au—I mean, students of Shiroko High, let us make sure you will find a way back home to Earth. To Japan and your families. Allow my god to help you for the purpose of changing this world for the better or worse!”

What! Vifi’Yok’s eyes widened as she saw the air split apart behind the students, revealing an even larger portal. Whoever this person was, he was a far more adept space-time mage than Hestia currently was, and it seemed like he was not restricted to [Warp Point] as his only portal option.

“Stop!” Vifi’Yok didn’t know why but her legs moved on their own. Her voice spoke before she could think. Her lightning began to crackle as she identified this person as an enemy!

“Former Warbringer, Vifi of House Yok.”

The demonkin’s body froze as the man spoke. The robe figure did not show his face, but she was sure it was a man.

“I will not reveal your existence to the Prince of Wrath, if you stay still. Do not interfere.”

Lord Pride?!

“If you obey, I will allow you to choose your time to decide to reveal yourself or not. Your consequences should remain in your hand, not in mine.”

Her fear of her former general caused her body to stay still, draining her of any desire to stop him. Her mind wandered to the man who helped her get out of her old life, to ascend to the role as a Warbringer of the Bole’Tarian army. She couldn’t, no, she wouldn’t want to meet him again and reveal her betrayal of his trust.

The sin she wanted to leave behind to embrace a life without war. She couldn’t give her new life up! As such, she obeyed, she stood still. Her lightning disappeared as the students were swallowed by the dimensional hole, taking them to a place she could not tell where.

“Vifi’Yok.” Franz spoke with her, taking off his bracelet. He threw it onto her feet. “Give it to Hestia. Make sure my cousin survives all of this. Otherwise …”

He walked up to her, drawing his head close to her face. With a glare that could freeze even this demonkin, Franz gave this girl an ultimatum she would not forget.

“I will make your life a living hell. Bring her to the Empire when she is ready, and I will free you of your shackles binding your true potential. That demonic sin plastered on your soul; I will remove it. Until then, make sure she lives.”

Franz walked away, entering the portal while only thinking of the one person he cared for. His mind began to brainstorm on the ways on how he would turn the Empire upside down, changing it into something his beloved cousin would not have to dirty herself with.

He began to envision his new dream.

Father, I will be better than you. I will bring happiness where you brought damnation! I will change this world for the better! And then … I will crush you when I come back.

Aurena’s deal with the third god had been fulfilled.

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Chapter 412: A Renewed Promise Between the Two.

A note from AbyssRaven

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Welcome to the 11th floor, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you had your fun on the 10th floor, for that was quite a gamble considering what you had to do to overcome the challenge. Risks need to be taken to achieve your goals, for fear of failure is the doom of progression. The fear of the unknown is what prevents the world from growing! … As such, let this be a lull moment. No particular rules, but to get out of this floor and onto the next, you must find your way through a maze of portals leading to everywhere but also nowhere. Nowhere for you, aside from that one door everybody can use to get out. Also, to note, those artifacts are defunct now so throw the empty husks away before I blow them up. I’ve also sent your rewards to everybody’s current position and more will await you if you continue down! … Or, you may find that one portal which will let you out of this nightmare, but where is the fun in that, little cheaters?

“Gruuuh …” I let out a deep moan, before grabbing my head, as I felt such a pain rushing through my brain and into the back of my skull, giving me this terrible uncomfortable feeling I wanted to punch out of myself. Unable to stop groaning, I pushed myself up, finally able to see my hands pressing on the ground, causing me to smile.

Urgh, survived another stupid fever.

[Arcane Fever] successfully survived; well, thankfully it hadn’t gotten to the moderate stage thanks to the fulinoe tea and dragorade I drank en masse during that entire portal ordeal. Still, this hangover-like feeling wasn’t pleasant, no matter how often I lived through one. It couldn’t be helped since it was necessary this time, and once again, I couldn’t be more thankful to be born with insane mana growths and arcane corruption resistance.

Thank goodness for my [True Draconic Lineage].

[“Master!”] Out of nowhere, a signal appeared below me as that voice entered my mind, only for my strained body to be assaulted by the head of a tiger jumping out of my shadow, striking me back onto the floor as he rubbed against me.

“Raakaah?!” My eyes widened as I heard my voice, instantly realizing I was still in my minor form. Now that I thought about it, my snout was quite long. [“Rajah, stop! Haha, I’m happy to see you too but my head hurt.”]

I pushed his purring face back into my shadow, finding it increasingly hard to keep this overgrown kitten from acting as if he was still a lap cat. Still, the power of cat rubbing seemed to have cleared up my head a bit. I stood back up, stretched a bit, and … I suddenly noticed there were more people behind me than I remembered before I fell unconscious from the [Arcane Fever].

I turned around, noticing Tatsuya, Kyouya, the Ankoran King and his party, and Vifi’Yok … but Franz and the students weren’t around … Oh, or the knights either, of course. Couldn’t forget about them, of course.

“Lass, you’re awake.” The king waved at me while the two elven rangers bowed, greeting me with what looked like a thick white-sauce stew with carrots, meat, and mushrooms. “Asked the lads what you liked to eat. The elves prepared something for us while we waited for you.”

Reintroducing himself as Astello, he pulled off his hood and mouth mask, revealing his short lime-colored hair marking him as a wind elf. “The freshness can be argued with, sadly, your grace. Still, it should be to your taste. Melted mottra cheese from our finest milk moths—creamy on the tongue, light on the stomach—dried venison, vegetables and fungi to energize your body with sufficient nutrients, and, of course, seasoned with care but abundance.”

“We are but humble rangers, your grace, so we apologize if it doesn’t reach your standard.” Ihrwin, a high elf, stated almost as a precaution, looking slightly unconfident in what they both created. “We are not used to cooking for royalty, well, the mundari king doesn’t mind the quality too much, so we aren’t too sure. However, we assure you we put our all into it out of respect for the forest and lives we used for this meal.”

“Oi, yfleis!” With his samurai helmet off, King Fugnarus’s samurai bodyguard, Ungi, shouted at the two elves as he cleaned off some white sauce from his beard. “We don’t need knife ears to hear ya! The shame these Saelari throw at us after we shared our finest wines and sake with them! Aye, mates?”

The three dwarven earthshakers raised their mugs, toasting each other with a loud “Aye” before they drank some of it. With a loud moan in satisfaction, they agreed with Ungi's proclamation.

“Since when have we tazongs devolved into rats, aye?! Nothing beats a drink with a fine meal, and we have tongues to figure that out!”

“Aye, for shame! From our own drinking allies! Didn’t even bother bringing some wine to share, just to hog all we brought with us!”

“Throw the bottle at those bootlickers, I say. Not like we ourselves made some meat loafs to contribute!” one of them commented sarcastically, pulling out a wooden plate with a near finished meat pie showing it off before he placed it back on the ground.

“Your food culture was made from miners and smiths! We wield the gifts of the forest to prepare something for a princess!” the elves fought back. “The stew is ranger and traveler food, but we didn’t just stuff up that pie to make it filling! There is an art to cooking, mundari! Learn something from your soba and noodle masters; the fine arrangements of a noodle soup would be brilliant here!”

“Oi, all of you, shut up and eat!” Finally having enough of all this shouting, King Fugnarus stopped everyone's grumbling by ramming his axe into the ground, splitting the ground. He then pulled out a clay pot cooking from inside the camp fire they made, opening it and revealing some steaming rice. “Come on, lass. Eat. A day probably has passed since you passed out.”

At this point, passing out after some extraneous activity should always warrant time passing … It’s as bad as my bad luck with encounters.

While I did want to eat the stew, I handed it back begrudgingly. Instead, I turned back into my moderate form and faced Tatsuya, Kyouya, and Vifi’Yok who had been quiet for the whole conversation. Hearing me address my party also silenced the rowdiness of the dwarves and elves, making me doubly suspicious of what was happening here.

[Humanize (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

“Where is my cousin? Where are the other students? The knights?” I composed myself, but everything still felt extremely off since not even a single student was around.

“‘Cousin?’” The dwarves and elves reacted to that, but I ignored them. I had kinda forgotten I hadn’t told them about Franz yet.

The boys spun their spoons as they looked at each other, not making this situation any easier on me. With conflicted expressions, they nudged Vifi’Yok with their feet, causing the demonkin to let out a deep sigh, looking more annoyed than frustrated. She looked into my eyes.

“Just don’t get mad, okay?”

“If you keep stringing me along, I will.” I tried to keep up a smile, but dropped it as I had a feeling this wouldn’t turn comical. “… Just the truth. Like I told you before, I only want the truth. Don’t hide things from me.”

Shrugged before picking up what looked like a party bracelet from where she sat. I swore I saw it before, somewhere.

“That makes this discussion of ours easier. Just … I tried to stop him.” She shoved the party bracelet onto me and told me to access the notepad function; however, when I tried to access it, the bracelet mentioned how I didn’t have the correct mana signature for it. Only the person who owned it could.

The normal functions like making a party and sharing exp was available, but I couldn’t access any of the additional features like inspecting an ID, making notes, or even opening my Quest list with it. Vifi’Yok suggested I could unlock the bracelet since I had a [Crystal of the Divine System], but I didn’t know how to do that.

“I can do that.” The Ankoran King stood up and walked over to me, prompting me to pull out my crystal and hand him the bracelet. “Just to tell you, it’s illegal to actually de-register a party bracelet without a proper reason, like death of the owner, them giving it up, or due to a law. In fact, as a private owner, if you were to break that law, you would have to give up your crystal and pay a fine! An elf once abused the crystal so much, we were forced to make it an international law!”

I stared at him with a horrified look, remembering the cost to create and buy this thing. However, he bellowed out a laugh and patted me on the back.

“No worries! We aren’t on Ankor-Nazta grounds right now, so I can’t enforce those laws. We are in Manethala’s land.”

With that chilling remark showing how much he respected Manethala’s rule over his dungeon, he invoked a blue screen before calling me over to read it with him. He pointed at a section of it, explaining that performing any ID creation was also strictly regulated by the governments of the local lands.

“You don’t have any power in that field, understand? Once again, some elf ruined it all for everybody so we have to enforce these laws to make sure we don’t have a similar situation like in the past. The books described the incident as just a giant mess, financially and logistically.” Once he was done with that warning, he returned to the process on hand. “Now, when it comes to party bracelets and IDs, all of them are made with a piece of a dungeon core. Regardless of the size, they all work with a crystal, no problem, but you usually want to use some special tools to make the process easier. We’ll be doing it the old way.”

“You know a lot about this,” I noticed.

Surprisingly though, the Ankoran King suddenly went silent. With a small frown, he shook his head. “… Well, I had to listen through the entire lecture once. Too enthusiastic to stop, but I guess that’s how we tazongs act when we’re passionate about our craft. Forget about it. Look.”

He pointed at a few icons on the blue screen, where I noticed there was a “Connect to party bracelet” function there. King Fugnarus explained how everything revolved around the [Crystal of the Divine System] and the numerous manatech nowadays, which used dungeon core pieces to connect to the Divine System itself, surprisingly.

As I learned pretty early on from Tasianna, the System adapted itself to the world’s inhabitants and what they wanted to do. The entire backbone with the Job and Quest System and how it functioned nowadays with the Crystals was due to the System adapting itself to everything. This knowledge meant the development of manatech was all thanks to the deepening understanding of the Divine System.

It reminded me of how the mage’s guild was currently trying to innovate on the current messaging system. To get messages from one area to the next the fastest, it was dependent on messenger birds—either mechanical or living—and couriers. The mage’s guild wanted to create a device that could send messages to a different location similar to the way an internet forum or a social media direct message worked on Earth.

In any case, after some menu moving, King Fugnarus removed the ownership over the bracelet—Franz’s. I knew I recognized it. Keeping my word to not be angry at Vifi’Yok, I didn’t question her and instead opened the notes function of the device to only find a single one stored. I opened it, showing Franz’s message to me through a blue screen. It was filled with typos.

Dear Hestia,

I know finding what happned through this mesage wouldn’t be the most ideal method, but I had to rush. as such, please, excuse the mistakess I made.

To put it plainly, since I noticed a few times how suspicious you loked at me, yes, I did not find about you purely due to the Berliners. My associates, theos who told me about the demonkin, and I have made a deal. I am allowed to utilize their facilities, trainers, netowrk, contacts, and other benefits—although, I do not trust them—in exchange, I will join their organization as a commander. I will be bringing the others under me, although I have a feeling Takuma won’t be too accepting of it. Hopefully, with us revealing the truth to them and also knowing who you are, they will be cooperative.

I also want to admit, I had wanated to meet you at a different time. The call from the church to assassinate you was not planned, in fact, until I saw your dragonewt form after your first encounter with the dargonslayers, I did not know who you truly were. I am sorry for being discreet about it.

I am sorry I cannot join you. I very much want to. However, at the same time, you deserve a better life—a better chance on everything so the same mistake won’t happen again! But, I also witnessed how you aren’t that same Hikari I’ve always known, despite being the very same I’ve come to love as my cousin. I won’t babysit you; you’ve your own goals, plans, and objctives that only you can fulfill. I too have the same, and to assure my issues and ambitions will resolve themselves, I have to be away from you. I have to be in the Empire with this organization.

I apologize that I left when you fell asleep, but the circumstances did not allow me to stay. Don’t worry, the dungeon rules allowed us to leave however we wanted without any consequences.

And, to end it all, you probably cant remember it, but while you were drowsy, I promise to you: I will change the Empire, while you change the Church of Aurena. To fully reconstruct the Church of Aurena, you have to also influence their largest supporter in the Folschreck Empire. However, doing this alone is reckless, and you dont know enough about the Empire to do so.

I do, even if I am still ignorant. You cant change it in a short period of time, the nation is far too large to do so, but that is why I will help you in my own way. I will set the foundation for when you have to make the radical step, for when you enter the Empire as Champion and Idol of Aurena. As one of their blessed. I will not allow the scum and corruption of this despicable country to spoil that light youve regained after so long!

That promise we made for each other when we were still kids … I want to see you perform, and I will help you achieve it in the Empire. The greatest star … but for that, I have to leave you. Hikari/Hestia, this is from Franz Akabane. I am your cousin, even if we do not share blood any longer. We will meet again.

P.S. I know about “Valeria” so thats blackmail my associate is able to use to deal with her in case she betrays you. I recommend you keep her close. Her strength might be useful.

“…” I clutched the bracelet, feeling so unsatisfied after reading all of it. This organization he mentioned wasn’t even named; he was keeping their name hidden from me. Did he trust me, or what was he planning to do here?!

Franz …

I turned to Vifi’Yok. “… You mentioned trying to stop him. How did they escape?”

“A void-touched is on their side, someone who’s far better than you at the magic. They opened up a giant portal to transport the students out.” Vifi’Yok frowned a bit when she mentioned that other person. I had to prompt her to continue, seeing as she might possibly know him. “Hey, I’m not trying to lie here, okay? They concealed their face, and I honestly have never heard their voice before.”

“What’s the blackmail?”

She froze up when I mentioned that, eyeing the dwarves and elves, prompting me to tell them I would cast an [Air Shield]. King Fugnarus told me he would let me, but he did want to be briefed about it in the future. Considering we were allies, I had to acquiesce to his demand. Regardless, once the shield was up, Vifi’Yok spoke.

“That void-touched somehow recognized me before your cousin could tell him who I was. It shouldn’t have been enough time to use [Telepathy], I think. The blackmail itself is related to him knowing who I am and implying he might tell Lord Wrath. Unless you’re a demonkin in his platoons or one of our ‘helpers’ you shouldn’t be able to recognize me that easily. I was quite new as a Warbringer.”

“He’s really showing signs of being his father's son.” Tatsuya commented from the side, causing me to snap my head over to him. Surprised by this, he apologized and explained himself. “His father is known to use literally anything and everything to gain an upper hand. Blackmail, threats, instigating small incidents to discredit people. Worse part, he represents a lot of shady organizations and firms just because of the money.”

Kyouya nodded. “We already talked about it, but that father is the reason why Tatsuya hates Light, I mean, Franz. Caused a scandal for Tatsuya’s father just because he was a business rival for somebody. Well, considering how we now know what Franz’s attitude is towards his father, I can guess he must be talking about some corruption within the Empire or something. If we had the chance to speak to Aiko, or any of them, we probably could have figured this out.”

“… So, a shady organization, somebody with [Space-Time Magic], and they are demonkin sympathizers … It’s a bit early for me to make a guess, but something is telling me the answer is already on the tip of my tongue.” I grimaced as only a single name came to mind. “Yanderu Eluseuss … Of fucking course, they would ruin my life once again. One of their underbosses, Eithalr, bought a ton of the Berliners I first sold there …”

“Eithalr, huh? Streiga mentioned that name once or twice when he talked about you,” Vifi’Yok noted, but her composure suddenly changed as she gulped. She looked at me. “I—”

“You don’t have to listen to them, Vifi’Yok.” I quickly ascertained what her worry was, shocking her as her eyes widened up like a fish’s. “As I said at the very beginning, I want your help, yes, but I won’t force you into it. I’m planning on making peace between the Empire and Bole’Taria, and trying to put you in a hard spot by pitting you against your own people because of a threat? That only makes me a hypocrite and my ideals moot; if you want to help us, then it has to come from here.”

I pointed at my head and heart. I wasn’t about to drag a person into a war who didn’t want to fight it. I was already worrying about having to fight the unwilling conscripts in the future, so even if Vifi’Yok was an extraordinary fighter, if the reason why she deserted the army was to get away from the fighting, then so be it. Trusting her was already hard enough with how much she kept from me, I didn’t want to stoop so low as to force her to fight.

“But, I’m not naive enough to let you go entirely. I still want information, Vifi’Yok. I won’t force you to fight, but the number of people you’ve indirectly led to their deaths is still a reality. I’m having you take responsibility.”

The demonkin kept staring at me after I made my demand, not looking away, only blinking as her mouth was slightly agape. We stood here, staring at each other before my stomach began to growl, indicating I was getting hungry. However, I kept still until Vifi’Yok finally rebooted, stuttering around as she was trying to find an answer, only to finally let out a loud and long sigh.

“… Feels like you’ll have more time before I get those stacks of donuts from you.”

My eyes widened as my mouth twitched, forming into a smile as I managed to understand what she meant. “You work, you’ll get more of my pastries. You don’t even need to take a step onto the battlefield.”

“Can we trust her though?” Tatsuya brought up. “That she won’t betray us? You trusted Daisy, but look where that got us. This demonkin still hadn’t mentioned anything substantial to us yet.”

“And I probably won’t in the future … at least, not everything,” Vifi’Yok looked onto the floor. “It’s not because I care too much about the people I met in the military … but it’s as she said, I don’t like the idea of having to fight my own people. If I told you everything, I would indirectly cause their deaths. I might be the reason Lord Pride and … a friend of mine will die by your hands.”

“A friend?” Kyouya raised a brow. “Didn’t you just mention you didn’t have any close bonds?”

She scratched her head, looking conflicted before giving up on staying quiet. “She’s the next Prince of Lust. Her predecessor sacrificed herself to summon a favor from the Edjurl Gods; that was how we summoned you brats. At a pretty hefty cost too, from what I heard, aside from the life of a Prince of Sin.”

Wait, didn’t Aurena mention this to me when she told me how the students were summoned to this world?!

“Hold on, this ritual, can you perform it, again?” I asked, to which Vifi’Yok shook her head.

“It was a one time trick, since the Origin Gods did not expect it. Unless you pray to them, the gods can’t see through your eyes, right? A good chunk of demonkins are also Marsven followers since he resembles the Edjurl gods the best, but is close enough for us to pray, but once you become a prince, you're effectively cut off from all connections to the gods of this world,” she explained. “So, no, we can’t do it, again. It was even, more or less, a last resort move since we can’t do it again. As I said, whatever they used for the ritual, it probably was pretty expensive and rare since Lord Wrath mentioned how it wasn’t doable again.”

“… This is a headache, you know?” I groaned. “I knew you demonkin were planning something with them, but it’s that grand to the point you can’t do it again?”

“I can say this much — the plan has always been to destabilize the Church of Aurena and the Empire, in addition to bringing this war between the humans to an end. To bring about the extinction of one of our races.” She paused, before she continued. “Your cousin is smart enough to figure something like this out, depending on who his friends are. If they really are the Yanderu, which isn’t something I can guess. Streiga survived the Elyond siege, so he’s planning things. With him scheming, I wouldn’t let my guard down.”

“… Do you know their leader?” I asked, taking advantage of this moment where Vifi’Yok was willing to talk.

Sadly, she shook her head. “At the end of the day, I was the newest Warbringer. I know some things, but I don’t know much. If you want to know about their plans, I can only guess, like with this dungeon attack here. I don’t know much about the Yanderu, but Lord Wrath had told me before I ventured to this part of the continent to always be wary of them. ‘They are on nobody's side,’ he told me.”

“Daisy isn’t an idiot; at least, I don’t think he is. He is going into this with some plan, otherwise, he wouldn’t leave us. Leave you with how he reacted,” Tatsuya stated. “What’s your opinion? Should we chase him after we’re done here?”

I thought about it for a moment, rereading his message to me, before shaking my head. “It’s not feasible. Entering the Empire at this point is like wandering into the den of a dragon flight. We will be surrounded by only enemies. I can’t go there, even if I wanted to help him … so we have to follow up with what he wants us to do. Attack the church, while he deals with the Empire from its underbelly.”

“The Prince of Envy.” Both boys stated simultaneously, followed up by Rajah mentioning how he will train for that moment. I then turned to Vifi’Yok. “Last chance to jump off. I won’t stop you. Even if Franz placed a spy on us, he would know I let you go peacefully. He should respect my wish.”

She shook her hand. “I won’t give you an answer for now. I will delay my donut package. Your cousin told me to keep you alive through this dungeon and then bring you to the Empire, so at the very least, I will have to stick with you for that. Whether I will help in any meaningful manner aside from some bits of information, I won’t guarantee anything.”

“What’s keeping you here, though? Didn’t you hear what Hestia-san said? You should be free, you don’t need to escort her to the Empire,” Tatsuya snapped at her, showing his disdain for her presence.

She conjured up some of her red lightning before answering, “Franz told me he’ll help lift up my restriction over my wrath powers if I help. I don’t know how, but I did give my sin stone to Streiga. If this really is the Yanderu, then I believe I can help myself. As much as the severed arm is a scar, I don’t want to stay crippled forever, if possible. So I’m taking a chance, even if it means going into the Empire where my former compatriots might find me.”

Tatsuya groaned in dissatisfaction, but Kyouya kept him from continuing the act. Satisfied with what I heard, I offered Vifi’Yok a fist bump, causing her to recoil back a bit. After I told her this was my sign of a temporary peace, she told me I was naive, but still responded back with a bump … after telling me to give her a donut.

Eat more of it, come on. Get fat so I can punt you away, you little brat! I kept my childish complaint behind a smile. It didn’t really mean it.

Once that was done, I told King Fugnarus we were done and I finally had my meal. During it, we discussed what we all wanted to do considering the situation we were in. Who wanted out and who wanted to continue the trip.

The king wasn’t willing to exit, since he wanted to investigate the instigators of all of this, and he was sure something was happening with Manethala, the dungeon master of this place. However, if I wanted out, he was willing to go since he came here for me. I declined it. I wanted to get to the bottom of this, as well.

I personally felt something was off considering the giant drake allowed us to circumvent the rule with a space-time portal. Considering how long it took, he could have stopped us at any time if he wanted us dead.

We considered sending somebody out to inform the others outside the dungeon, but it wouldn’t benefit the ones staying at all. People who left the dungeon couldn’t re-enter due to the Event, and getting down here would take days, probably, considering the Event had been going on for nearly a week now and nobody else was here yet. In fact, without my [Room] rune, getting any reinforcements was out of the question.

Our first goal was to find Saintess Fleindia.

“Hmm?”

Just when we finally finished our meal, eating enough to the point even I was full, one of the nearby doors suddenly began to brighten up. In fact, multiple doors were sharing the same action.

Ahh, it seems like the gambles are going well. I always love it when little humans, elves, and dwarves try their best and exceed my expectations! You can’t have good rewards without risks, now, right? You on the 11th floor should hurry up, though, because I don’t want this Event to last for too long, now! People are incoming!

What?!

“Hestia-san, we packed up the rewards for our side and our classmates and the knights!” Kyouya called me out. “No equipment, just a bunch of super good materials we can give Grimnir and Tasianna later for gear!”

I gave him a nod, but just as I did so, everybody’s head snapped towards a single door opening up. Two signals were coming out of the portal. It was then I also picked up a scent that sent a chill down my spine, jump starting my battle instincts as the memory of a single man came back in my head.

Shit.

“Ahhh, good thing we listened to you.” A man’s voice came out of the portal before a woman was sent flying out of it, crashing onto the ground as if she was a lifeless corpse.

I took a glance at her, but my eyes still widened when I noticed her white-golden robes, decorated to the brim with embroideries and sigils. However, this beautiful robe was in tatters, littered with deep cuts and blood discoloring the white. She was a holy priestess, definitely, and I could hear her ragged breathing before she coughed up a bit of blood.

“A gamble well chosen.”

From the portal, a man dressed in red-scaled armor appeared, holding onto two long ice swords. Strangely, I could smell myself on it, but there was a terrible bitterness to it, irritating my nose. I couldn’t see his face through the helmet, but I knew exactly who this was.

S-shit!

[Terror (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

The sight of that dragonslayer. He was here again and close enough to attack me. Memories of him cutting my arm and nearly killing me with that anti-fire dragon venom flashed before my eyes, stunning me in place. Like being watched by a predator awaiting my next, futile move. The feeling of my limbs shaking from having to fight this person again made me light-headed.

“Hunting time.” That red aura from before appeared again as he bashed his swords together, causing a loud metallic sound to echo throughout the area. He sunk down, readying himself in a stance to—

Shit! I tried to pull out my glaive from my storage, but my trepidation made me act a second too late. One second he was in my eyesight, and in the next, my skills were warning me of an attack coming from my side just a millisecond too late!

Clang!

I couldn’t fully avoid the attack, as it left a long scar on my black armor, but Grimnir’s craftsmanship didn’t disappoint. It protected me from the surprise attack.

This was my window of opportunity, but before I could grab my glaive, it disappeared right before me before another metal sound erupted around us. Vifi’Yok to the rescue!

“You, again?” The dragonslayer stared down the demonkin as she protected me, only for him to blink away, appearing in front of the injured woman as the Ankoran King smashed his axe onto the ground, sending a dust cloud to cloak up the area, including my vision of the man.

“Hahaha!” I could hear the boisterous laugh of King Fugnarus. “It seems I am allowed the chance to protect you, lass! The Earth mother is allowing me to restore my honor … MUSTER, MY MEN!”

“AYE!”

The sounds of metal shield slamming against the solid ground burst out like a choir, perfectly synched as the rhythm was maintained with no issue, making this excessive display more intimidating than it probably should be. The dust settled as it continued, followed by two arrows piercing through everything, nearly hitting our enemy before he was forced to dodge.

“Dragonslayer!” The elves shouted. “On Saelariel grounds, you would have been dead! Human, you will die here for raising your hand against Kargryx’s princess!”

“Say it louder, yflei!” Fugnarus shouted before walking up to the agitated dragonslayer. “Rank S, Galg. The laws set up by my predecessors say I may allow you passage, but if your kind keep on hurting my allies, I will have to deal with this issue by changing the laws to fit the changing of era!”

Runes on his armor and axe began to shine brightly, lightning up as they were ready to activate.

“Move,” Galg murmured in a low voice.

King Fugnarus readied himself. “She’s my guest. You don’t tell a tazong to move, akong … Dhuinn Runes.”

A pair of large, chest-sized runes began to light up on the front and back of his chestplate, while another illuminated the blade of his axe. Dhuinn runes—powerful runes able to create battle changing effects like my [Dhuinn Rune: Fearless Defense].

“The Ankor-Nazta musters its strength to protect the Third Dragon Princess, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor. Prepare to face the landslide of the mountains!”

“I ordered you to kill them!”

[“I cannot break the rules, dwarf. You did not tell me one of them was a space-time mage.”]

In the depths of the earth, two individuals were currently arguing. One was a massive being able to dwarf the mansions of nobles with ease, protected by hardened scales tempered by the heat of the earth itself. The other was a dwarf.

However, the one to bow their head was the former.

“Be warned, Manethela, if you fail once again, my master will assure your precious belongings will be destroyed. Your wealth, your memories, everything!” The crazed drooling of the dwarf kept going and going, slinging out threats left and right to intimidate the massive being before him.

Was it fear that made the dragon bow, or was this just a chance to bolster the ego of an already broken man before striking?

“Work!” he shouted before turning around. “Yes, that dragon will die, hehehe. Grimnir will die, too, hahaha! Ahahaha, Broggart, you will be avenged by your father and the glory you lost to that damnable nephew of mine will be restored! I will help you! Soon! The ultimate weapon! Just a bit longer, my son; listen to father, ehehe.”

Pitiful puppet …

Manethela did not fear the dwarf walking away, as he was nothing more than a disillusioned maniac. Still, he listened, for he feared the puppet master behind the deranged and grieving father, for if he were to fail in his task, everything he loved would be lost forever.

He touched his dungeon core, the item he thought of as the only other life he could value was quivering as if it was in pain. The usually azure-blue color was nowhere to see, tainted black by the many deaths happening above this room. Usually, a dungeon would be happy for the many dead visitors, for it would be able to feast on all the mana left behind, but at this moment, it was gaining none of it. Everything was being siphoned somewhere else.

A blue screen appeared before the being’s face, revealing a large text log notifying him that the participants on floor 10th had successfully survived the gamble he set up. He couldn’t help but smile, for his own play was successful. The people he needed were here, brought to him by the Event Quest.

Chihiro, you junior reincarnator is here. So close. It was fate that we met, but this time, the puzzle pieces are aligning perfectly. All I need to do is to push the rest in.

He clicked a button, opening multiple portals throughout the Event dungeon. Each presented people a trial to take on, allowing them to all skip right down to the eleventh floor.

Chihiro, you might be gone, my beloved, but I will protect your workshop until my dying breath!

A note from AbyssRaven

Oh no!

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 413: Fierce Ambush.

A note from AbyssRaven

It has been a while, but it's finally here, people! I apologize that it took this long for me to announce it, but I'm ready now! Book 1 version of A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale will soon be on sale on Amazon, KU, and will also receive an audible version! This is just a teaser for now and I will announce the release date for later, so make sure to keep the book in mind! When that comes, I will also announce that the story will be stubbed due to KU. Sadly, that does mean that I have to private the early chapters that are inside Book 1.

Still, I do hope you guys will continue supporting me through the book, patreon, or just by reading the web serials. Also, P.S. I've made sure to edit and rewrite certain scenes and information to make the book a new experience. It is still the same old Hestia and her travels, but you will see it through a new lens. This is especially a thank you to all of you readers out there, as your feedback has helped me grow and evolve as an author. Make the story better as best as I can.

Now, promotion is over! Please, enjoy the chapter!

Artificial Allied Territory detected! [Dhuinn Rune: Territory] activated. [Earth Ruler’s Reign] activated

[Earth Ruler’s Protection] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Earth Ruler’s Protection: A beneficial effect from the artificial Territory [Earth Ruler’s Reign], created through the epitome of runecrafting—the Dhuinn runes. Supported by an artificial aura, every ally inside the range of the Territory will receive a 50% increase in their vitality and wisdom, in addition, to a temporary [Terra Resistance Lv. 5]

The Ankoran King’s pumpkin-sized rune on his golden-brown armor lit up, turning him into a giant torch inside this dimly lit hallway. Another one on his axe began to glow as well. With both shining a vibrant dark brown, the area around us began to creak like dry rocks grinding against each other, creating that ear-throbbing noise you would associate with scratching a blackboard.

However, before it could finish, the dragonslayer—Galg—flourished his elegant twin blades with the white, freezing scales on the edge—the same weapon he used to cut my arm off—and vanished from our sight. His speed was at the point where it was hard to see, but not fast enough for me to not sense it. It was just that my agility wasn’t high enough yet to follow him with my eyes since I haven’t gotten my buffs up yet!

However, that didn’t matter since we had our own speedster on our side now. Someone with a far greater speed boost.

Clank!

The loud sound of steel clashing against steel erupted from my left as my head ducked instinctively to avoid an attack my sensory skills picked up. My eyes looked up, noticing my scale-dust sparks igniting as Vifi’Yok blocked Galg’s attack. The former’s red lightning and the latter’s red aura clashed against each other.

“Again?” I could hear Galg’s baffled voice, but this moment of vulnerability wasn’t ignored as two arrows flying towards him caused the dragonslayer to jump away. However, he was forced to dash back even further when he saw these arrows with drill-like stone heads twist to follow him like a pair of heat-seeking missiles.

Sadly for him, this hallway wasn’t very large; in fact, it was even far too small for me to transform into a dragon. In this small room, Galg’s body snapped around as he heard the sweeping sound of a sword leaving its sheath. The samurai dwarf, Ungi, slashed at Galg, forcing the slayer to defend himself by blocking the samurai’s attacks with his weapons.

Galg wanted to distance himself, but the samurai sent a flurry of attacks his way, keeping him close and preoccupied. Vifi’Yok immediately charged into the duel, wielding my glaive with her lightning spells to push Galg back in this dance of blade and spells.

“Low agility, good reflexes, runes aimed for fast attacks!” Ungi suddenly shouted out, catching Vifi’Yok off-guard, but she quickly caught onto the meaning behind his words.

“Very, very fast attacks, hard-hitting Abilities, but I’m one-armed.”

These two statements alone changed the rhythm between these two, as the timing of their attacks slowly changed to fit the other, synchronizing as if the two of them had fought together before. Ungi would cover for Vifi’Yok when she found it hard to keep up her momentum due to being one-armed, while the latter would hit hard and build up pressure on Galg, giving the dwarf time to land precise slashes aimed at Galg’s vital, slowing down his momentum to allow Vifi’yok and the elves to land a glancing hit here and there.

Get a hold of yourself, Hestia! Fight through the fear! Buffs! Buffs, now!

[Music Resonation (Moderate)] [Various Spell Buffs] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

As my parallel minds were casting more and more spells on myself, my music began to spread around the area, buffing everybody up. The fear I felt for these dragonslayers was slowing me down, but I mustn’t freeze up when it mattered. I had to participate.

[Shield of [The Light]] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

I put on [The Heir of Hope] and [The Will to Fight and Survive] as they were my general buffing spells. The hallway was far too small to cast giant area-destroying spells or abilities, so I kept it small. I bit my lips, still feeling my heart pump not ‘cause of the action, but seeing that dragonslayer wearing armor made from my materials. Materials I’ve been using to give my friends and allies significant boosts, and he thought he could just steal them and turn that into armor?

… Honestly, yikes. I still remembered the pain of losing my arm to him.

No corrosive breath for now. Would hit the others if they breath in the fumes. Attack!

I blasted [Banishment Beams] and [Tornado Bullets] at Galg in support of Ungi and Vifi’Yok, helping them take advantage of the situation better. I then directed Tatsuya and Kyouya to rescue the unconscious woman Galg had unceremoniously thrown on the ground, while getting the dwarven earthshakers and elven rangers into position to kill this dragon slayer.

However, just as Vifi’Yok managed to knock one of Galg’s blades out of his hand, he jumped on the wall and used the blade’s chain to pull it towards him before kicking it at Tatsuya and Kyouya. Seeing this, I quickly raised a [Terra Wall] to block it, but the blade pierced right through it, forcing Kyouya to clad himself in his armor to deflect the blow.

As the blade swung around the hole it created in the earthen wall with its chain hook, my [Foresight] activated, warning me just in time as I saw Galg deftly bypass both Vifi’Yok and Ungi. He swung his arm to the side the moment he was free, retracting his blade before he dashed towards me.

I tensed up my body to dodge, but before he could get anywhere close, a giant tail erupted from my shadow, nearly turning the dragonslayer into a kebab as it pierced through the air and into the ceiling above. It was Rajah!

The hardened fur on his tail stood up as if he had goosebumps and he swung it down on the ground, shooting out the strands like a porcupine’s quill on the dragonslayer. Naturally, Galg ignored it all, tanking the damage as if it was nothing, only for him to get ganged up on by the three earthshaker dwarves—the heavily armored knight-types.

Using their shields, they pushed him away from me. When he tried to climb over them, the elves forced him back down with their arrows before I resumed my bombardment of spells. As the creaking of the Ankoran King’s Territory continued, Vifi’Yok’s voltaic lightning momentarily drowned the sounds out as she dashed over to Galg, landing a red lightning-infused kick on him, shoving him back even further.

Dammit, stop moving around and just die, you dual blader freak!

“Hmm?!” His head snapped back as he felt a presence behind him.

“Underestimate dwarven runes at your own peril, akong!”

Ungi was standing behind the dragonslayer, holding his blade’s handle and preparing to draw it from his sheath. Just as he was about to unsheath it, the ornamental markings on his katana sheath began to glow, looking a bit like runes from their design alone. After a moment, the sheath’s runes began to glow cyan and green, before Ungi unleashed a blade surrounded by ice and wind at the dragonslayer in a powerful attack.

In response, the slayer slammed his twin ice blades against the katana, unleashing a freezing blast at Ungi, pushing him back. Recoiling from the attack, he resheathed his blade once again, prompting the ornamental markings to turn completely red, allowing him to send out a slashing wave of fire when he drew the blade again. That confirmed it, that engraving was most likely a Dhuinn rune considering the more complicated effect and the size of it, similar to King Fugnarus’s.

Speaking of …

“Move.”

Ungi and the dwarven earthshakers stepped away upon the command of their king, who was raising his axe into the air. The hardened earth inside the hallway began to telekinetically gather around him like a storm, literally breaking down the floor, wall, and ceiling.

Vifi’Yok didn’t immediately react to the dwarves’ quick action and was still attacking the dragonslayer when the king was ready to unleash his attack. So, to support, I created a warp point between us, grabbing Vifi’Yok towards me just as she caused Galg to dodge, leaving him wide open as a fusillade of stones struck him right as he deployed a [Defensive Rune: Pavise] to protect himself.

In addition, the ground beneath him molded itself into tendrils, grabbing his ankles and anchoring him down, leaving him vulnerable to the near endless storm of attacks from King Fugnarus’s unexpected ability. In fact, it even looked like the very room was getting smaller around him, and my suspicion was confirmed when stalactite and stalagmite formed around Galg, making it look like the dragonslayer was about to get eaten by a stone beast.

“Reforged, rebuilt, remade, over and over again for the Ankoran Kings and Queens! This is the heirloom who will only accept the one on the throne as its master!” King Fugnarus shouted as he grabbed his axe with both hands. “MOVE!”

We all moved as far away from the dragonslayer as possible, including Tatsuya and Kyouya who managed to carry the unconscious woman away. The dwarven earthshakers immediately placed their tower shields to protect me, giving me a moment to check on the woman’s bloodied face, but that was when the room exploded in noise.

I snapped my head up, seeing brown light glow up behind the shields of the earthshakers, as the ceiling and wall broke apart and filling up my vision in a maelstrom of stone. With the thunderous sound of a stone crashing against each other in a landslide, a shockwave launched all the stone to my left—at the dragonslayer, I presumed. The impact was so strong, the earthshakers were forced to activate [Defensive Rune: Auracoil] to protect everybody.

As the noise died down, we slowly peeked out of the cover from the tower shields, only to be stunned to see the entire place was completely eradicated —

as in, the floor, wall, ceiling were gone, replaced by a crater. Even the glowing portal doors were gone. The Ankoran King had to just made the hallway large enough for Rajah to come out to fight, but it was still too small for my dragon form.

Still, while it was impressive what the Ankoran King did, I was still shocked to see that Galg was completely unharmed, only for my heart to sink when I saw how he managed to survive this. Grossed out and horrified at what he did, my mind momentarily retreated, unable to hear the loud shouts the elves and dwarves were spitting at him. Once my mind returned to reality, I was swept away by the raw emotional rage from everybody.

“YOU! YOU KILLED THEM?!” The Ankoran King’s voice thundered.

“It was pure self-defense,” a man’s voice laced with sarcasm responded as he revealed himself from behind a broken down wall made from the corpses of humans, elves, dwarves, and dragonewts. It looked like their flesh and armor had melted together, forming a single “structure” able to protect everybody behind it from the King’s attack, only it was riddled with so many holes, it looked like swiss cheese.

Oh my fucking gosh?! I grimaced as I could see bones, muscles, and so many human organs I didn’t want to look at this huge mess of gore. The King’s attack truly did a massive amount of damage, as none of the bodies, armor, or anything really, could be even properly identified.

The mage of the dragonslayer group showed himself, tapping the “wall” before it collapsed down like a block of tofu, wobbling around, causing my stomach to turn. With it down, another member of the dragonslayer group showed themselves; this time, it was the heavily armored lance warrior. He was crouching on the ground, grabbing the body of a male human from a distortion in the air—[Storage Magic].

“They attacked us first, why shouldn’t we defend ourselves, Ankoran King?” The mage smirked as he twirled his staff. “Who would have thought so many countries would want us dead? Well, it gave me easy subjects to test out some of my elixirs and embalming tricks I picked up.”

“Ready,” the lance wielder declared through his metal helmet, before pulling out his tower shield from his storage, once again showing off he was a void-touched. The shield landed right on the human corpse, decapitating him, sending his head rolling before it stopped as his helmet fell off, revealing the person’s face.

“…” King Fugnarus looked at the face as his grip tightened around his axe. I could not see his face through his helmet, but he was shaking so widely with rage, I could imagine how he looked. “By Crustacia, I swear this on my honor, this is a grudge. I will not forgive you until I see your head on a spike … Umslid kain, kawuk kaan, fie Crustacia! Tazongs!”

“Oh oh …” Vifi’Yok let out, only it was drowned out by the roars of the fury-driven dwarves.

“Umslid kain, kawuk kaan, fie Crustacia! For the Ankor-Nazta! For our fallen comrades!”

The same applied to the elves. “Falakash, leistari! Origdila haikeli, Saelari wictorii!”

“Urrgarck! Grak!” And just when I thought the fighting was about to begin once again, Tatsuya and Kyouya called out to me when the unknown woman began to cough a spasm. Dark blue lines similar to veins spread from below her neck.

Damn! White flames.

My medic senses activated as I covered the woman in white flames to heal her wounds as arrows flew and metal stomped on the ground behind me. I groaned a bit as I looked away from them as my worry for this unknown priestess made me want to prioritize her. After all, while I did not know how she looked, Franz did mention how a Saintess came with him and that she had the second half of my [Room] runes.

If this person was her, then I had an obligation from my boss-employee relationship with Aurena to at least keep her alive. I had to make sure … not to mention I couldn’t exactly let her die when I could potentially heal her.

Mana Eyes. Only the name!

Name: Fleindia Alsternich

Bingo! She was the person I was looking for!

“Guys—!” I wanted to tell the others who this was, but my [Foresight] suddenly warned me of an attack coming from behind me, following the loud alarm of my [Danger Perception] usually reserved for life-threatening attacks.

I followed my instincts and bent my knee, only for Vifi’Yok to trip me, sending me falling right on my face before she jumped and tackled the boys onto the ground. Before I could say anything, an arrow suddenly flew right over us, dragging us along it through wind pressure alone.

I activated my rocket boosters to catch the boys, the demonkin, and the Saintess. As I snapped my body around, Vifi’Yok yanked my right wing, causing me to destabilize and fly to the side, avoiding another incoming arrow. My eyes darted around, trying to find the sniper, only for two more arrows to fly, but not at me, but at the elves.

“Kuuraagh!” Both cried out as the projectiles pierced their throats, sending them flying back.

What?!

Those two arrows were strong enough to not only break through the shield from my spell song, but also whatever armor they were wearing. Not to mention, wasn’t there a 50% vitality boost from the Ankoran King’s Territory? Also my 10% stat increase from my spell song. Who was this sniper?!

Both collapsed on the ground, clutching their throats, prompting me to drop the ones I was holding on the floor before flying over to the freshly injured elves. I shot out my scales, creating a cover for myself before summoning [Hydra] as extra defense. However, just as I was about to reach them, my wings jerked back, sending me up into the air as an arrow pierced through my scale wall, passing right under me.

A couple more flew through, all aimed at the four people behind me. Kyouya barely managed to parry one with a shadow shield, Tatsuya threw Fleindia into the air, dodging one but had to tank the second, while Vifi’Yok casually caught the arrow aimed at her.

“Tatsuya!” I cried out.

“I’m fine, it’s just my hand!” he answered, showing the arrow stuck out of his right arm where his elemental armguard was. The arrow busted it! “Arghk, but I think it’s poisoned!”

“It’s that dragon venom from before!” Vifi’Yok shouted before grabbing the falling Fleindia. “This Aurena’s dog—woman here probably got it in her blood.”

“Here!” Tatsuya threw one of our two last antidotes over for the Winter’s Gift venom. He pulled the arrow out of his hand, but ‘cause I used up all our health potions to keep myself alive during the portal shenanigan, he couldn’t heal himself. “You’re the fastest. Hestia’s body can’t handle that damn venom at all, so you need to give her that the moment she even gets a scratch.

“Ya hear that, not even a scratch!” Vifi’Yok shouted at me. “We’re getting shot at and ya just have to rush in to help those rangers? Unlike when we fought, you can’t just easily take a hit and heal yourself without a big consequence!”

“I know!” I replied before turning to the elves.

They had already pulled out the arrows and were already drinking their potions and performing emergency first aid to dampen the pain and wound. Through telepathy, they told me they had heard everything from Vifi’Yok and that I shouldn’t worry about the venom. They were trained to endure strong toxins, and any dragon-specific venoms were no more effective on them than any other poison meant for humans and elves alike.

I didn’t have to worry about Tatsuya, in other words. As such, I just healed them up with my white flames, fixing them up quickly but I also realized Winter’s Gift was quite hard to remove from their body. My flames were certainly weakening the symptoms slowly, but it made me understand how important the last two vials were for me as the venom had a worse effect on me.

Even if they weren’t blocked by [Magic Breaker] this time, [White Flames] would not be able to heal me of the venom. It would take too long and that was enough for my head to feel foggy and my body to feel terribly fatigued.

“Did you two see who shot at you?” I asked the rangers, but before they could answer, a massive explosion rocked the area, filling up some of the hallway in crimson flames.

What?!

“Graaaahkkk!”

“Ca-can’t get it off!”

As I dashed around to my scale wall’s side, I saw two of the three dwarven earthshakers on fire and fleeing from a maniacally laughing mage. He held his staff up, celebrating before pulling out what looked like a bottled up vial of crimson dust.

The dwarves were trying to shake off the crimson flames but any attempt they did was futile. The flames wouldn’t die! Which made me instantly realize what was happening here, not to mention how I could smell myself there.

Don’t tell me!

I activated [Volcanic Blaze], which allowed me to control the flames, confirming that the dragonslayer turned the scale-dust they got from my severed arm into bombs! They stole my idea! Worse, they knew [Dread Burn] was still in effect ‘cause of that!

Since I was the owner of the scale-dust, I naturally could control the flames, helping the dwarves get doused. They fell onto their knees and began drinking potions with me helping their recovery with [Sacred Field].

“Ooooh, I guess that was obvious. The master can control her tools, right? If we get rid of you, though, those bombs would be fantastic!” the dragonslayer mage stated, sending a chill down my spine, as he was right. If I were to die or just not be around, bombs made from my scale-dust would be devastating! “Well, down the hatch.”

He pointed his staff at us, instantly conjuring five light blue magic circles which all shot the [Water Magic Lv. 10] spell [Aqua Beam]. The high-pressurized water laser shot out, giving him the opportunity to run away from us while drinking a green potion.

I wanted to engage him, but the last of the three earthshakers was sent flying at us. I caught him but somebody suddenly shouted “Taunt!” causing my attention to fully focus on the lance fighter. He too drank a green potion.

[Taunt] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

My animosity for this man increased to the point I couldn’t fully control myself. I charged at him with [Gale Steps], but Tatsuya stopped me after he transformed into a werewolf, pushing me back long enough for the [Taunt] to subside. He then grabbed me and jumped up, signaling Rajah to jump out of my shadow and land a tail slam directly on the spearman; sadly, it wasn’t very effective.

Rajah jumped back, shooting out his hardened fur like quills as he slipped back into a shadow, before Kyouya formed a shadow wall to block the knight from retaliating. He was slow and cumbersome as he dragged his weapon around, but he was incredibly tanky, making me realize he too was wearing armor made from my materials. He too was resistant against nearly everything I could shoot at him like that annoying Galg!

Fucking monster hunters! Stop making equipment out of my materials to counter me!

And this fact made me even more nervous, as it seemed the dragonslayer was far more prepared than before. When I fought them the first time, I was nearly able to take them out due to surprise, even to the point of nearly killing one of them. Sadly, for the rematch, they made sure they had everything: that armor, those bombs, the sniper who wasn’t in this hallway but somewhere else, and also that mysterious potion I couldn’t appraise in time before they finished it.

In addition, that trepidation of experiencing Winter’s Gift and anti-dragon blood was making me scared of fighting them. Unlike them, I haven’t had the chance to fully analyze what I would do if we fought again. I didn’t know their tricks enough; my inability to appraise them was dooming me here!

The same thing was happening with Vifi’Yok here. Her head and eyes were darting around, but she was mostly standing over me like a bodyguard. Was she that scared I might die and Franz would put his blackmail into effect? Well, I could understand that. It would be bad if her former boss were to hunt her down.

Unfortunately, this fear kept me wary and in the backline buffing people up, which meant Vifi’Yok wasn’t participating in the fight… I didn’t need to tell her since she was smart enough to do something if she wanted to. However, ‘cause of all this, the Ankoran King and Ungi were fighting Galg alone, and it wasn’t looking good.

“Ungi, support me!”

“Yes, my king!”

Acting almost like a mage with all that stone whirling around him, the Ankoran King engaged Galg, but the swift dual blader was overwhelming him with speed alone. While Ungi could keep up momentarily to protect his king, without Vifi’Yok, both had clear moments of weakness where they were vulnerable.

I wanted to help them, but my sensory skills activated once again as the arrows began flying at us again. We narrowly dodged the first wave, but the second would come soon, prompting me to use [Hydra] to body block some. This was also when we finally figured out exactly where the sniper was hiding.

“There!” Vifi’Yok pointed at a portal.

It was not the one Galg came out from!

She then readied my glaive, telling the three of us to block the arrows long enough for her to charge up her attack. As we knocked arrows down here and there, her red lightning formed around her arm before she shot out the [Voltaic Red: Thunderspeed Roar] at the portal, destroying it. However, I also noticed two silhouettes jumping out of it, landing in the hallway.

“Giehahahaha!” With a wild crackle, a deep woman’s voice echoed through this battle-ridden hallway before she appeared from within the dust veil. “We were found out. Too bad, but more fun now that the weaklings are gone.”

It was the leonid berserker. She roared like a lion as she raised her white, elegant hammer into the air. It exuded that same chill I felt on Galg’s weapons. Ice weapons? These people really were prepared.

“More dwarves, elves, and humans to kill.” The blind kaztune archer revealed himself, drinking a green potion before telling the leonid to drink hers.

“That’s right!” A boisterous cry causing my eyes to glance to my side, noticing the mage slowly walking up to us with the lance fighter next to him. “Galg might be dissatisfied when we take the prey this early, but we better end it now. A specimen of a lifetime! And nearly all her protectors are dead.”

The lance fighter nodded. “Already killed a ton, so what are a few more? A king? What is a king to the hunt?”

The leonid held her weapon with both hands, roaring like a lion again to release her tension, showing it off with a wide grin. “Krrrrruak! You did a number on all of us, dragon whelp. I had to endure that bastard mage’s insane prattling ‘cuz of you, so how about you do me a favor and give me the fight of a lifetime!”

The dwarven earthshakers and elven rangers weren’t dead, but they were heavily damaged and needed care. I haven’t really healed anybody to full yet since the hecticness of the situation didn’t allow me to. Regardless, if these dragonslayers were the reason for the extermination of the Ankoran King’s rescue party, then they had just done even further damage.

According to King Fugnarus himself, he and Ungi were the only rank As in the rescue party, with Vifi’Yok and I being the As from our side—although wasn’t the former more of a rank S? Regardless, we were still up against a party who had fought with each other for years now. Four of them were probably rank A from what I could tell, with Galg a confirmed rank S. They had synergy, a plan to kill me, and were all here in a room where I couldn’t transform into a dragon to fight back.

If only I was around Saori’s or Rajah’s size, or maybe a bit shorter like Neill. However, it was not looking good, even if I transformed into my minor form.

There was only one play left.

“Sanctuary! [Hydra], attack!” As a light barrier covered up our party, I sent my corrosive slime golem to attack the dragonslayers. Sadly, it was quickly eliminated by the leonid berserker, but I had to ignore it as I began frisking Fleindia.

“Hestia?!” Vifi’Yok cried out, but I didn’t answer and just grabbed the unconscious Saintess off her.

“We need to find the rune! Protect me while I looked through—Woah!”

That damn sniper nearly hit my head with an arrow, only taking a few strands of hair. That same missile pierced right through my barrier, making it clear even a simple arrow was enough to break through my defenses.

While my party members were confused by my sudden behavior, they quickly refocused when they heard the leonid berserker using [Gale Steps] to charge at us, aiming at me with her hammer. She jumped up into the sky, swung her weapon behind her back and was planning to slam her weapon right into my skull.

I retrieved my glaive for Vifi’Yok to reuse, while she grabbed Fleindia and me to dodge backwards with her lightning jump. Tatsuya and Kyouya, on the other hand, were hit by the shockwave and flung into the walls.

As this all was happening, I just had to hope everybody would be alright, as all I could do was pray even harder that Fleindia had what I needed! I patted down her body, trying to make sure I didn’t miss anything at all, until I finally felt something hard in one of her robe’s pockets. I touched it, noticing it felt like a stone and pulled it out, gazing at it with a smile once I confirmed it was my [Room] rune!

“Shit!” Vifi’Yok cried out before she kicked me in the back, sending me tumbling on the ground as she didn’t hold herself back. This saved me, as she had to fight both the berserker and lance fighter, all while she was holding herself back by not using [Emotion Surge] to power herself up.

Unfortunately, the archer and mage had their projectiles already aimed at me, causing my skills to distract me with my survival instincts telling me to dodge. I couldn’t waste any time before activating the runes, but I need to prioritize surviving this first.

But it was then that the surprise factor of my party happened—Rajah! Despite his massive size, he maneuvered through everybody’s attention as he used his invisibility to sneak up at the mage, almost slamming him into the ground had the archer not spotted him and unleashed a warning shot.

Rajah jumped up, shooting his hardened fur at the archer before diving back into the many shadows inside this place.

Thanks! Even if it was just a second, it was just enough for me to pull out the second [Room] rune—the one Franz gave me.

As I held these two together, I poured my mana into them, opening a portal I hadn’t been able to activate in over a week. I grabbed it, but instead of entering, as the moment I let even a finger go into the subspace, I knew the rules would disqualify me. I couldn’t flee now when everybody needed me here. I couldn’t leave when something was happening inside this dungeon that could endanger everybody.

I closed my eyes, envisioning the mana link I possessed with my [Room]. I was the owner of this subspace, and my word was law. If I could control the destination of a [Room] portal somewhere, then I could also access the nexus from outside of it! I just needed to relocate everything so I could—

“Die.”

“Huh?!”

I snapped my head around—it was Galg. With two white swords stained in blood, he swung down at my head. I couldn’t react. I didn’t even hear him approach me. I couldn—

Dreadflare—

“Just Blink.”

Clang!

My eyes widened. Metal clashed against metal—two white blades were blocked by two daggers made from dark purple metal. However, my fullest attention was drawn to the raven black-clothed person standing before me, eying Galg with blood-red eyes. A red mana mist exuded from her eyes as rage distorted her beautiful face.

“S-Saori?!” I called out to her as black lightning covered her arms.

“You are messing with my best friend here … Move.”

Thunder roared as the black wolfkin unleashed a stygian dark bolt of lightning out, blasting Galg away as he let out a loud moan. As he landed on the ground, the wolfkin turned around to me.

She smiled. “Sorry for taking so long.”

But this moment of reunion between two friends didn’t last for long before another unexpected entrance caused the room to shudder. From our side through a portal, a large beam of mana shot right through into the room at Vifi’Yok. She managed to dodge it with the leonid berserker, but the lance fighter was less fortunate as it crashed against him, sending him crashing against the wall and right through it as the attack erased everything it touched.

When the attack finally dissipated, there was now a deep hole into the wall. Darkness clouded what was inside it, but with my [NIght Vision] I could see everything—the lance fighter laid there with most of his armor melted right off him. In the next second, the air exploded like a loot pinata, sending various pieces of equipment, food, and other stuff I couldn’t make out.

He’s dead.

“W-what?!” the leonid beserker cried out as she checked her party bracelet, but her chance to recompose herself was lost as a new voice drowned out everybody’s surprised cries.

“Arrrrrrrrgrh!” Stepping out of the portal was a young woman with a unicorn horn on her forehead. Her black hair was lit up by purple highlights while her arms and legs were covered with blue lines. “Bastard! All of you! You want a dragon? HERE IS THE STRONGEST DRAGON YOU SCUMBAGS WILL EVER, EVER MEET! BE HONORED, FOR FARGRYNEILL QILINUS KARGRYXMOR IS HERE TO DESTROY ALL OF YOU FOR HURTING MY HATCHLING SISTER!”

It was Neill … and, boy, she was ever mad.

A note from AbyssRaven

Yeah, F them up, Neill!

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Chapter 414: A Speechless Reunion.

A note from AbyssRaven

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“Demonkin!”

Oh no …

Neill's eyes were aimed at Vifi’Yok, completely ignoring the dragonslayers in front of her.

Her hair having purple tints on them meant she was in her [Battle Frenzy] mode, and from how she was looking, it was in the moderate stage at least. The fact I could see the glimmer of light surrounding her body like a veil meant she was also receiving the buffs from my spell songs. Taking all of that into account, it made sense how that giant mana beam—her [Pulse Arcana: Maxima]—completely eviscerated that lance fighter. She was being buffed up to high heavens.

“Uuuurgh!” However, just as I was worried she would attack Vifi’Yok, Neill fell onto the ground, her purple highlights blinking wildly before they disappeared, returning her hair color back to her usual black. “Oh shit, too long …”

What remained purple, though, were her hands. Now that I looked at her, her face was also starting to turn blue—[Arcane Fever], without a doubt! She tried to push herself up—her face was still filled with rage as she glared at Vifi’Yok, but that quickly changed as she groaned in pain. She took out two potions—one to recover health and the other … was for Winter’s Gift?!

“Sis!” I called out for her as I saw this, realizing she must be in more trouble than I thought.

This worry got even worse when I noticed a signal suddenly moving towards her, agitating my instincts to the point my body temperature rose without my consent. My rocket boosters activated as my parallel minds cast [Wind Blast], sending me flying towards her.

I saw the flicker of something red, followed by Galg appearing before me. With his back facing me, he shouted “Nice to see you again!” before he swung his blades, only for metal to clash as Vifi’Yok came to Neill’s rescue. This gave me just enough time to change [The Will to Fight and Survive] into [Dragon Fire], before unleashing a flame breath onto the dragonslayer.

Unfortunately, my fears became real as I saw Galg fully tank my [Dreadflame Breath], not even bothering to block it with an arm or anything; instead, he just kept attacking Vifi’Yok while to get to Neill. That armor of his really was made from my materials. Not to mention, it was obvious his blades were coated with that fire dragon killing venom Winter’s Gift. His preparations made him one of my worst counters!

Huh?!

My sensory skills just picked up on an attack coming from my flank, causing me to increase the power of my rocket boosters, sending me flying up to the ceiling to avoid an arrow flying at me. Three more flew, forcing me to stop my breath attack to zoom around like a fly and locate the archer responsible for this inconvenience.

As I was thinking of a way to handle that blind katzune, a hand suddenly emerged from his shadow as a wolfkin woman jumped out of it, barely missing the archer’s head as she slashed at him with her dagger. It was Saori! With [Dark Tendrils] emerging from the shadow as well, the archer had to run backwards to avoid them.

As she was about to shoot a black lightning bolt at him, Saori was attacked by the leonid berserker, nearly smashing her arm, only for another person to jump out of the shadows. Another wolfkin, about the height of Yorshka but with the appearance of a werewolf, grabbed the berserker’s arm and protected Saori, before wrestling the leonid to the ground. The mage intervened by creating a [Terra Wall], separating the two sides.

While I did want to continue watching what was happening with my best friend, the clash below me was intensifying as Vifi’Yok and Galg were hard locked into single combat. Their weapons did not slow down despite both duelists moving at hyper-accelerated speeds—the former with their voltaic lighting and the latter while a red aura covered their body.

Dammit, snap out of it! I chastised myself for feeling scared of this person. A single encounter where he managed to cut my arm and poison me was making me useless in this fight?! Preposterous! I’ve dealt with this crap enough times now to charge through the fear, charge through this damn fear!

Act! Terra Wall!

Rock walls erupted from the ground, sending Neill up to the sky and separating the two duelists from each other. I couldn’t fight him, but I could still support. I’ve made a combat style where my supportive abilities were my most effective option!

I grabbed Neill and fed her the two potions while I blasted spells at Galg from up here, forcing him to dodge around before throwing one of his chain-hooked blades at me. I blasted it away with a [Draconic Roar] while using the recoil to fling myself back to the subspace portal. Vifi’Yok took this chance to throw a [Voltaic Red: Thunderspeed Roar] at him and the rest of the dragonslayers, causing Saori and the werefolk fighting with her to retreat back into the shadow.

Saori’s thunder spear finally tore through the room, covering the place with a storm of dust.

Once in the clear, I snapped my head around to Tatsuya and Kyouya pushing the injured dwarves and elves into the portal, until they brought Ungi and the Ankoran King over. The former was battered and almost dead, with his samurai armor cut apart to the point it couldn’t be used any longer. The latter was still up and kicking, but half of his helmet was just cut in half.

“Controlling the damn earth ain’t doing me much when I can’t hit him!” the king chastised himself before he looked down and grabbed Saintess Fleindia from up the ground. “I don’t know what exactly is happening here and how the kirin lass and wolfkin got here, but I suggest we get out of here first. Get a larger room to fight in. There are too many people in this hallway, and not enough space for all of us to fight.”

“Your majesty, you—” Kyouya tried to interrupt him, but the dwarven king pushed himself off him and handed him the unconscious Saintess.

“Nah, nah, I can still fight. Fought longer even after Ungi shielded me. I’m getting the lass out of this place one way or another, and that is not before we find out what the bladdarg is going on here. Heal me, Hestia, we need to run.”

Allied Territory [Earth Ruler’s Reign] deactivated

He banged his chest plate as the pumpkin-sized runes on it and his axe dimed in color. He then threw away the other half of his helmet before he turned around, watching as Vifi’Yok ran over to us with my glaive. He glared at her, but before he could speak up, Neill gasped for air.

“Aaaaah!” She clenched her claws around my shoulders, pushing herself up. Uttering a stammer, she growled as she pointed in the direction of the dragonslayers. “We need to leave, now! Wyvernslayers! Two full parties of them came hunting! Bastards have dragon blood coated weapons, too.”

“… More snuck into the city, after all. Once again, I failed.”

Regardless of the situation, was fighting the dragonslayers here smart? Fight or flight? I was always a supporter of “fleeing was winning,” but at this point, I once again had this strong urge to fight and win. I wanted to shred that Galg to pieces for not only attacking Neill, but also for causing this damn fear I had. A single fight, and I felt like a damn coward!

Shit! I jerked as I saw the shine of his red aura coming from the dust veil. I snapped my body around, waiting to heal everybody, but somebody suddenly threw a white ball on the ground, causing it to explode.

Whatever was in that ball attached itself onto everybody’s body, causing me to retch a bit at how slimy it was, only for it to suddenly start being absorbed into our body. For some reason, it felt soothing, almost as good as a massage with a silky-feeling cream. In the next moment, my body felt rejuvenated, as if my white flames had just healed me.

It was Asaka who appeared through the portal.

“Took you long enough to open the damn portal! You know how much Haruka has been worried for you?” the punk girl shouted while wearing a modified priestess robe and holding onto what looked like a graffiti can. She was still behind the portal, not entering the dungeon. “We need to catch up, but I see you’ve got problems behind you. I can heal the injured, so if you need to get anybody away from the battlefield, send them in! I got the gist from the Ankoran Queen!”

The moment I lost my [Room] runes, everything began to fall apart as my party and I were driven deeper into the dungeons, but now that I had them back, what happened? Saori and I were reunited on the battlefield and even Asaka was giving me background support by acting like a clinic.

If anything, this showed I really needed to keep those runes safer. Kyouya and Tatsuya already lost theirs on our trip.

These thoughts ended when Neill’s warning came true as more people suddenly stormed out of the portal. As the dust settled, the dragonslayers and the adventurers clad in scale armor faced each other, with the latter demanding to know where “the kirin dragonewt” was, confirming they were the people Sis had mentioned.

Once all the injured were inside the portal, I summoned Rajah, having all of us mount him aside from Vifi’Yok, who decided to keep the rearguard safe with her speed and higher stats. With the hallway just large enough for Rajah to move in, but not fight, we dashed away with my [Room] runes back in my storage and [Hydra] canceled.

“That wolfkin is a dragonkin, too!” the katzune archer shouted as Galg dashed forward with [Gale Steps], only to once again be blocked by Vifi’Yok.

“That girl …” Saori raised a frown as Rajah raced through the hallway with us on his back. “I want to ask how the demonkin is here, but …”

Saori suddenly embraced me out of nowhere, before grabbing Tatsuya and Kyouya, pulling them into her hug as the three of us were squished together. She released us three flabbergasted adolescents before patting Rajah on his back.

“Good boy, good boy, you managed to evolve! Haha, you do not know how overjoyed Varya was when I discovered that little bit of news through my shadow pack menu! Haha!” She then turned to us. “Asaka was right, you know! You do not know how worried we were but, haha, how I missed this! The Aurora special of running into the stupidest misadventurers, haha, it has been too long—Hey.”

Saori’s wild elation as if she was letting loose for the first time in a while was quickly interrupted as the bone amulet she was wearing, looking very similar to a miniature wolf skull, began to shake. At the same time, we snapped our head back as we saw not only Galg but the leonid berserker rushing at us. They were keeping up with Rajah.

However, before they could come any closer, Saori whistled, causing one of the shadows to the side to rumble, before a large tail lashed out, slamming on the ground. A vircarguca, just like Rajah, only different in size and appearance, appeared before us, intercepting the dragonslayers before she melted back into the shadow.

[“Mom!”] Rajah called, confirmed that it was Varya. I knew she evolved, but wow, seeing her in the flesh excited me with how much Saori’s shadow pack grew.

And the surprise wasn’t ending any time soon, as four fenrirs lept from the shadows and attacked the dragonslayers. All of them were members of the shadow pack.

Uno the fenrir covered in black flames, looking like the devil’s hound. Sarasa the mage wolf, jumping in and out of the shadow to cast spells. Sarasa the werewolf from before with full focus on strength to overpower even the strongest enemies. Quatre was the wolf clad in armor, made to lead the charge. We even had Shoyi, our party’s sewer slime who could turn into a tidal wave like my [Hydra].

Lastly, we had Saori’s garm mother. The garm matriarch I had fought during the first few months of my new life. Although still a rank C, she possessed the experience of the beast who once managed to control a large part of the Belzac Forest through her prowess alone.

Everybody here was covering our rear to keep them back. Even if the shadow pack couldn’t stop Galg, it was enough for Vifi’Yok to get to us in time to save us. In this mad rush through the hallway, only the leonid and Galg could keep up, and the former was being kept back by the shadow pack. Once again, meeting these hunter bastards was a nightmare.

At least we knew one of them was dead this time from all the equipment and loot he dropped, as he was a void-touched. The dragonslayers might forget about that stuff if we ran too far away.

“Out of the way!” Galg shouted as he kicked Vifi’Yok into a wall and jumped, aiming his blades at us. Being in the air, he was vulnerable to my spells as I blasted him away from us, only for the leonid berserker to grab Rajah’s tail during this chaos.

She pulled him back, stopping him. My virgacuga hardened his fur around it, turning himself into a porcupine, creating a momentary confusion which Vifi’Yok used to slash the berserker, leaving a large gash through her torso. Vifi’Yok then landed a thunder kick right to her head, sending the dragonslayer crashing into the ground with a chilling crack.

The demonkin jumped on before we resumed our run, but our eyes widened as the leonid burst in laughter from the pain and stood back up. She then pulled out what looked like a bomb and detonated it behind her, sending her flying toward us. I thought she was crazy, causing herself damage, but instead, the opposite was the truth. She was healing!

Wait, that crimson glow? That’s my scale-dust.

Once again, the preparations of the dragonslayers astounded me as I realized what was going on. She was somehow healing from my own scale-dust explosions, or was it just the fire element in general? How was that possible? Did her armor have some special effect? It could also be that green potion she and the other slayers ingested before they fought me.

“Cry! Rending Flesh!” she shouted, launching her hammer attack.

The Ankoran King jumped off Rajah, swinging his axe to intercept our enemy with a loud warcry, yelling out his attack. “Activate!”

A rune lit up on his axe as stone began to materialize around its blade, cladding it in it until it transformed into a hammer. The king clashed against the leonid’s hammer, causing a loud bang to erupt as the Ankoran King successfully parried the attack, able to redirect her strength away from us.

Saori managed to catch the king as he fell with her [Dark Tendrils], leaving the leonid wide open for Neill’s counter. With mana gathering around her one horn, she shot out one of her strongest attacks—the all-piercing [Freikugel]—ripping right through the left side of the leonid, eviscerating it similar to how she destroyed Vifi’Yok’s arm.

As her bloodied body crashed on the ground, tumbling like a fallen toy, Sis clicked her tongue. “Those damn lions are always so sturdy! That didn’t kill her!”

“That ripped through her entire right side! I saw her lungs and ribs!” I shouted in response, before groaning myself, remembering as long as your health stayed above zero, you could survive some seriously crazy stuff.

“Hey, hey, forward! Look!” Tatsuya shouted as he pointed at a couple of portals along the way, noting how people had started to come out of them.

“The gambit is catching up …” Neill responded, causing the majority of us to question what she meant by that. With Vifi’Yok telling us she would keep watch for any further enemies, Neill began her explanation. “The whole Event Quest is about different gambits on every other floor pitting every party against every other party to advance to the next floor. I don’t know how all of you made it here, but it doesn’t matter now. On the eighth floor, the gambit was about taking risks on how to advance to the next floor. Tasianna chose our path after everybody decided to follow her lead, but the trick separated us all. That’s why I was alone.”

Neill was alone with people she didn’t know as the gambit teleported her to a random location. Two groups of wyvern slayers led everybody after some goading the other adventurers at the fact Neill was one of the top performers on the other floors. If they wanted to win the Event, they had to take care of her.

Naturally, she beat most of them back as she made her way towards the portal which led her here. She was far too strong for all of them, but knowing the wyvern slayers had weapons and armor made to combat dragonkins, she decided to regroup with her party instead of risking a fight all alone. In fact, I wasn’t confused when I saw her drink that antidote, one of the wyvern slayers had some Winter’s Gift on him—they worked just as well on fire wyverns as fire dragons.

“That was when I saw the demonkin.” She pointed at Vifi’Yok.

“Demonkin, huh?” The cat was out of the bag as the Ankoran King looked at me, to which I shrugged and replied with “long story.”

Neill continued. “I was already in battle frenzy, so I just unleashed the pulse arcana when I saw you to the side. I didn’t notice those … Shit, why did it have to be them!”

Her voice broke as she cried out, rubbing her hand against her face in annoyance. She grimaced, looking ill, before realizing I was worried about her. She shivered a bit, but took a deep sigh.

“Those were the people you met, right?” I finally asked her, trying to find the confirmation despite it being hinted on multiple times. I wanted to hear it from her.

She nodded. “Warnings make sense, but you rarely take them seriously until they hit you on the head and you have no answer for them. Getting hunted for days without any sleep or rest, just cuz you know you can’t fight them. I saw that guy. He smelled like you. He made armor from your body, right?! That bomb, too. That guy hunted you before, right?!”

She got all that information from that small moment. Neill’s rage was clear to see, overwhelming the fear she felt for Galg and his crew. Her shivering didn’t stop, but her irises had thinned up so much they looked laser focused. Those were the eyes of not a hunter, but someone who wanted revenge.

<Announcing: The correct portal had been chosen by one of the participants. All portal skips will now close up. Congratulations, you may now proceed to the next floor! … But for the little cheater who tried to sneak in, let me say I have had it with you cheaters. For that, I have something special for you and your friends …>

Light suddenly began to bask all of us as that System message informed us of the dungeon master’s words. His message lingered in my mind as my vision was blinded by that light, only for it to return after a while.

I looked around, noticing I was inside a … workshop—a smithy to be precise. I could identify an anvil, a set of tools, the furnace, and quite a few metalworking machines to the side. All of the latter were fueled by manatech from the look of it.

“Uuurgh …” I jerked around as I noticed a signal, readying myself, only for my guard to drop when I saw who it was.

“Grimnir!” My eyes then locked onto a bright silhouette behind my party’s blacksmith, only for my jaw to drop when it was also another friend! “Ellaine!”

“La-—Woah!?”

I embraced both of them before they could say anything, tightening my arms around them. I haven’t seen them in so long! But, at the same time, why were they here? How did they get here?

Well, all those questions were about to be answered when three of us noticed more lights appearing—all of them were from the people who were just with me before the teleport. Saori, Neill, Tatsuya, Kyouya, Rajah, King Fugnarus and Vifi’Yok. All of them were here, equally confused with where we were and why this was a smithy.

Everyone fell silent, however, when we heard footsteps coming from behind the workshop’s door. A dwarf wearing a smithing apron with small hammers and other smithing tools appeared and calmly walked towards us. At the same time, Grimnir let out a questioning groan as he took off his helmet. He slowly walked forward, looking at the dwarven man with an agape mouth.

“Grimnir …” he spoke. He stroked his beard as he licked his lips, looking like he was trying to find his next words. “It’s good to see you, again … cuoso.”

Cuoso? Cousin?

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, guhahahah, no, no, no! NO! You’re dead! You’re dead! Damn you Manethala, don’t bring my cousin in this! Broggi is DEAD! BROGGI IS DEAD!”

… That’s Broggi?

A note from AbyssRaven

Get it? Saori making Hestia speechless and then the ending!

If you guys want to support me, Hestia and "A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale" (or just read up to 20 advance chapters + any Patreon-only chapters) please check out my Patreon: Rawr!

For two dollars, for the cost of a coffee, you can read up to four chapters! You will have my eternal gratitude for any support you can give me! Please.

Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 415: How to Fake your Death.

A note from AbyssRaven

Parallel mind #4 here to promote our Patreon. 20 more chapters + maps + patreon-only chapters + artwork! You all want to know what is about to happen, so come and join us on Patreon! Here's the link: Rawr'

Join now and you can read up to 20 chapters ahead of RR! It works on a subscription base now, so pay on the same date next month!

Also, we got a discord to speak about the story, so if you guys want to join then come over: Rawr

“If you wish to talk, I will be waiting outside.” The dwarf Grimnir called “Broggi” stepped outside the door almost right after he greeted us, willingly allowing us to remain inside and talk things out alone. Grimnir, though, wasn't thinking straight after his dead cuoso—cousin in dwarvish—appeared before him, and wanted to rush out and immediately confront this Broggi but I stopped him, warning him that it might be a trap.

After all, we didn’t know where we were and why we all ended up here with someone Grimnir recognized as his deceased relative. As such, we took this chance to calm down and gather ourselves, with me explaining to Saori about what happened to me and why my party was unresponsive for nearly a week.

Grimnir, Ellaine, and Neill couldn’t enter the subspace since they were participating in the Event, so they hadn’t known I was in such deep trouble when I ran into the rank S dragonslayers the dragonewts warned me about. The mood got even worse when I told Saori I met the rest of the students and how we had an entire misunderstanding going on.

Rubbing her hand on her face, massaging her temples as she had that “hunter” look on her face. “… I came to help a friend, but hearing all of this certainly brought my mood down.”

“You can say that again, Sensei,” Tatsuya chimed in.

“Did you manage to talk with him without ‘killing him?’” she asked, mentioning that therapy session the boys told me they had with Saori back in the Belzac cave.

He shook his head. “No, because Daisy doesn’t feel he did anything wrong, and while, sure, he shouldn’t, as we know now that it wasn’t his fault, I still can’t forgive him for acting so indifferent about everything. Well, I did learn he is Hestia-san’s cousin, so I won’t beat him up too hard for thinking he can do everything alone. I mean, who does he think he is allying himself with some shady as hell group and dragging everyone else along with him? Aurora is the best option for getting all of us back to Earth.”

Hearing that from Tatsuya did make me feel better. His belief was fuel for my conviction to fulfill Aurena’s divine Quest. I wish Franz had the same thought, instead of trying to “divide the effort” by going separately.

In any case, everybody learning that my other life’s cousin was in this world was a real shocker, but Grimnir quickly brought everybody back to the main topic on hand. Seeing as he had to make sure this “Broggi” was real, he, along with Saori and Kyouya, went to ask his supposedly returned from the dead cousin. Everybody else had to rest or have their injuries treated.

As such, this smithy was filled not with the sounds of banging metal, but that of a bunch of adventurers enjoying some R&R. I for one had three patients to help out, and one of them was fully willing to trade me information for what happened on the expedition’s side. I wanted to know how the Event Quest went, and Ellaine was talkative as always.

“Arrghk! … Thank you,” she thanked me after I put her arm back into her place before healing her wounds. Her exoarmor was still in place, and while it protected her well against most kinds of attacks, a few blunt attacks made it through it and broke her bones. “Urgh, Master Grimnir and I got into a small scuffle with some rank B thugs. This Event hasn’t been nice to us when it comes to making friends.”

Competition breeds excellence most say, and while it was true to a certain extent, it also bred rivalries and animosity … I for one had experienced it enough in my past life. This Event was going exactly how I imagined putting a bunch of highly ambitious and powerful people in a contest where only one party may win. The reward for all the toil would be something too enticing to give up.

Tasianna led the Event Quest expedition consisting of 20 people through eight floors of conflict, involving both brawns and brains. She did me proud as the third member of Aurora, but as Neill and Ellaine had experienced, if you were the front runner with multiple other parties underneath you to support you, the others might get envious. If there was a larger threat, the smaller, trivial rivalries would shake hands and oppose the “tyranny.”

In this case, multiple Saelari, Ankor-Nazta, Artorian, Yeosian, and Estralian parties helped our 20-man expedition force. It was to ensure they got to the very end for the unique Job, and … well, as Pradreo and Skardrvo promised, the dragonewts were also there to kill dragonkin slayers.

As such, everything turned into a three faction war inside the Event dungeon. Our faction, those who banded with the wyvern slayers, and the independents who wanted to stay on the sidelines while the two former factions fought. After all, this competition wasn’t about fighting, it was a race. The first to reach floor 15 would win.

Ellaine suddenly stopped talking as she looked over at Vifi’Yok, who was taking a break, eating a sandwich I made for her while staring at us from afar. “This … is really a surprise.”

“I already told you, she’s … mostly on our side now. I want to believe that, anyways. My cousin blackmailed her, so I think it should prevent her from betraying us,” I replied.

She knew Vifi’Yok was on our side for now, but considering how unlucky our party was when it came to encounters, she was rightfully apprehensive of our former enemy. I wanted to think the demonkin wouldn’t betray us, but she kept too much from me to believe in such a naive idea. What if she believed Franz was bluffing and she were to run away?

Too much suspicion wasn’t unhealthy here. I just had to learn how to best use her talents before it all broke down. Regardless, we had to continue this discussion with [Telepathy].

[“No, no, that wasn’t what I was worried about. You think she noticed?”] Ellaine’s eyes glanced at her spell rings, the source of her demonic powers. Up until now, Vifi’Yok had no reason to believe she was anything but a demonkin contractor, not that she had the lust archdemon herself inside her rings. [“According to Belzac, Klea hid herself from something, right? I don’t know how to hide the power properly, and I was just using [Whiplash] a moment ago. Do you think it might have leaked?”]

I shrugged. [“Klea’Hatma probably isn’t that careless. Vifi’Yok might get suspicious something is going on since she probably guessed we have no demonkin supporter on our side, but she won’t addressed it since, unless she knows about Klea’Hatma, she would never be able to guess what's really going on.”]

[“No, no!”] She shook her hand vigorously. [“I-I brought my aberration with me.”]

I gave her a gaze that should express my complete befuddlement as accurately as possible. Her aberration? That aberration that also acted as her phylactery for her demonic powers? That egg-shaped demonic catalyst once created for the Prince of Envy to have an “extra life” was with her?!

[“It’s dormant and in my satchel.”] She pointed at the slightly tattered leather bag she was carrying around. It was a wonder it still was functional, considering how much she had been fighting. [“Mother gave it to me after you went into the dungeon. The inner stitching is made from mana threads, so we manage to apply a [Silence] and [Odorless] enchantment to suppress people from sensing the demonic mana. But, with the demonkin’s senses …”]

Haaa, must feel good to have a rich mom instead of being in debt … Wait.

[“I’m more surprised you have it with you, instead of leaving it in the subspace.”]

[“It can only grow as long as I feed it my mana. The aberration can only work as a phylactery if I allow it to grow, otherwise, it’s just an inedible chocochuckle egg,”] she replied, reminding me of the spotted “egg” she showed me when we reunited after my Elyonda trip. [“But! Worries and suspicions aside, while the whole Event has more or less been a constant fighting competition, we did procure quite a good amount of rewards for our toil.”]

Well, now that was something to make a girl happy! Aside from monster materials, alchemical ingredients, and nice to haves, similar to the reward the dungeon master gave us after we passed floor ten, Ellaine noted how they managed to get some nice gear from all the challenges. While the ingredients were with Kohaku and the other students of the expedition force, Master and the saurians got their first real upgrade in a long time, since Grimnir couldn’t make their gear as he needed so much time for my armor.

The dungeon gear still needed runes and enchantments to reach their fullest potential, but Krim-Slak and Grazlahta especially appreciated just having something more fitting their levels without breaking the bank. Oh, how I wanted to see them in their full glory.

“Hey, girls.”

The two of us turned around when Tatsuya called for her, serving us two wooden cylinder bottles with cream on top. Once we had them in hand, we noted how cold it was to the touch, before he placed a metal straw in them.

“Frap or boba?” He looked at me.

“Boba, but how? Tapioca isn’t grown anywhere in the western countries, and none of the merchant countries know about the starch version. Does an alternative even exist in this world?” I replied before taking a sip, noticing immediately it was iced fulinoe tea with sugar and milk added, simulating bubble tea. Only … I couldn’t feel any of the “bubbles.”

When I noted this to him, he shrugged. “Yeah, you’re right. Just wanted to ask. I would have made some more frappuccino now that we have access to the subspace, again. Even if we can’t enter it, your maids and Asaka are giving us stuff … Uuugh, it makes you miss all the conveniences of your subspace once you go over a week without it.”

Svena, Haati, and Lorena were naturally completely devastated when I was gone without any word for over a whole week. They really made sure I knew about it, before opening the waterworks that I was alright. Yikes, just watching them cry really gave me some complicated feelings, but that was the life of an adventurer.

Speaking of those feelings, it once again reminded me that we managed to survive that ordeal without my subspace. Meeting Vifi’Yok and so on, and now we could sip on some iced tea and recover.

“… Delicious.” Ellaine and I complimented Tatsuya’s drink, as it hit just the right spot without being too sweet. I gave him the thumbs up. “If you ever want to open up a coffee or tea branch in this world, just say the word. I’ll get the funding somehow.”

“Where did that come from?” He raised a brow.

“You know why. Franz wasn’t at fault, but his father did give your parents some grievances. Not like I feel guilty or compelled because he’s family, now that I learned about it, but … you know, to our childhood friendship.”

Tatsuya let out a hearty laugh, almost dropping the two other drinks he was holding, but composed himself to reply, “Hehe, nah, don’t worry about it. I did help mom out with the shop, but making drinks isn’t really one of my goals, right now. Besides, there is no real coffee in this world, and I want that. Getting back to Earth, away from all this fighting, is more important to me.”

I nodded, understanding his reasoning. Unlike me, he hadn’t accepted Peolynca as his new home. As stated back when I spoke with Aurena for the first time, I just wanted to visit my parents back on Earth to give them an apology, but my obligations remained in this new world. I had another family I couldn’t abandon.

Once this little moment ended, Tatsuya turned around and gave Neill and the Ankoran King their drinks. Both of them were currently laying on a makeshift bed, recovering from their prior fights. Sis especially needed the rest, as her body was gagging from the Winter’s Gift antidote she took. Similar to me, she was not prepared for the outright rancid taste that remedy caused our tongues, but the venom was already out of her system so it was fine.

“Haaaaaa, my tongue is saved!” Neill let out a long-winded moan, smiling without any reservation.

“Guuuu, I'd have prefered some mead or wine, but I can save that for later.” The dwarven king couldn’t control himself despite his words, indulging himself in the drink until it was half-empty. Once he noticed this, he wiped the cream on his beard off, before looking over at the open [Room] portal. “My men and the rangers doing well?”

Tatsuya nodded, but still frowned. “Your bodyguard, on the other hand … Well, Asaka says she can stabilize him, but he needs proper treatment from Hestia. Whatever that dragonslayer did, his organs were nearly frozen solid. His heart, especially, nearly stopped beating. It’s a good thing his health was so high, but if we delayed treating him for any longer, he probably would have … died.”

“…”

The silence from King Fugnarus made it clear what a threat Galg was. King Fugnarus told me Ungi was level 129 while he was level 119, making them solid rank As when it came to levels. Nevertheless, Galg beat both of them in a two-on-one battle, and nearly killed one of them. Well, considering how he could keep up with Vifi’Yok, even if she was weakened, it shouldn’t have been a surprise.

The dwarven king stared at the ground without blinking for a while, before he closed them and hid them behind his hand. “… In a battle, a commander should expect casualties. I thought I had everything covered, but … I hadn’t expected those dragonslayers to kill over 40 rank Bs and Cs by themselves.”

If that wall of human corpses was any indication, including their own testaments, the dragonslayers were fully responsible for the deaths of King Fugnarus’s rescue team. Not to mention, what happened to Saintess Fleindia. Asaka was making sure she stayed alive so we could talk to her later on.

I tried to remind the king that his group had been split apart, with him landing on floor ten with me, but he didn’t accept the excuse. As the leader of the party, he was willing to take full responsibility for everything. 40 people, huh? That was quite a number of dead warriors, knights, and others.

“Well, they should only be three now.” After I failed to reassure the king, Vifi’Yok came over. “Twice you got ambushed by them, Hestia. We never managed to put our plans to ambush them into action … but that has to end in the next encounter.”

“You say that as if that was so easy. Where are we even?” Tatsuya complained. “We’re stuck knowing nothing until we get something out of that ‘Broggart.’ In both cases, we had no reason to expect the dragonslayers, so how can we anticipate where we'll run into them next inside a dungeon where people could be anywhere?”

First was when we met the “Hestia hunting team” in the previous dungeon and just now when they just appeared out of those portals on floor eleven. They were prepared like crazy, while I wasn't able to appraise Galg due to his appraisal blocking skill. Fire and holy wouldn’t work against him, and my scales were naturally resistant against [Corrosive Flames]; the only way to punch through them would be ice and water attacks.

Speaking of ice and water, Tasianna and the others from the expedition forces weren’t here, sadly. According to Ellaine, hers and Grimnir’s situation was similar to Neill, as they were separated due to a gambit to skip floors, so we didn’t know where they were or if they were still together. We weren’t sure if they were on floor eleven to begin with, but I presumed they weren’t, since Grimnir and Ellaine were, and they were teleported to this place with us.

As the dungeon master mentioned, he would teleport the “cheater”—Saori—with her friends to a special location.

… Is the dungeon master truly against us? He’s showing quite a lot of favoritism, if you think about it.

“Hey, whether we can kill those bastards or not, doesn’t matter right now. I’m more concerned why the fuck you are here …” Forced back to reality by Neill’s forceful tone of voice, it became clear her antagonism was once again directed at Vifi’Yok. She knew why she was here, as I told everything.

“Where in Marsven’s name am I supposed to be, huh?” Vifi’Yok snapped back. “Should I try to ignore you? Would that be better? I could if you wanted me to, but at the same time, we’re stuck here together so why shouldn’t I chime in a bit?”

“Oh, I know you can’t be anywhere else. You got blindsided by some otherworldly brat, not to mention how my little sister, who is a whelpling, nearly killed your butt the last time we fought. I know you have to stay and protect her!” Neill was obviously teasing her, finding it humorous considering her smirk. “Good to know your place, ex-Warbringer.”

“Krk!”

I could hear the demonkin’s veins popping …

“Neill, stop it.” I had to intervene. “Whether we like it or not, she is our ally in this. Sure, not the most cooperative, but at least we can rely on her hitting things well. She’s one of the reasons why I survived against the dragonslayers in the first place, so, please, can you not try to instigate a fight? For me?”

“Sure, for you. But I trust this demonkin as much as I trust a dragonslayer making my meal.” Neill continued drinking her ice tea, ignoring how Vifi’Yok was about to explode.

I handed her a donut to calm her down. “I will.”

With these two “cats” occupied themselves with their food and beverage respectively, I looked over at Rajah and his family. The four headed-family were fawning over each other, specially Rajah’s siblings were amazed at how much he grew as a rank B. I wanted to go over to them, but I also had to be here to speak with everybody.

“I suggest we regroup.” The first to break the ice was Ellaine. “The expedition force consists of four Champions—two Goddess Plesia, one Goddess Crustacia, and one Goddess Zephira blessed. Especially Champion Tehmrayn is a trump card we have on hand, considering he’s a rank S who beat another rank S. Not to mention, with Saori back, we really should reunite Aurora, right?”

“You read my mind!” I cheered at that last remark, finding it equally important to bring my party back together. It had been too long since the five of us fought together.

“If we want to get out of here, we better listen to some proper info, then. Well, speaking of the smith …” King Fugnarus pointed to the entrance of this smith, where we saw Saori and Kyouya appear from it, waving for us to come over. After we packed everything up, we went out of this place, where we saw Grimnir sitting on a chair, crestfallen while the inko dwarf sitting in front of him silently stared at him.

That was “Broggi,” and while he did share similar features to the person in the first video recorder on our video recorder, he wasn’t as homeless-looking. He didn’t look like an unkempt NEET who had never taken a step out of his house for months on end, nor did he look like an engineer who had never taken a bath before.

He was, rather, clean as if he had just taken a shower with an extremely trimmed down beard not usually seen on dwarves not named Grimnir. King Fugnarus, for example, had his beard go right down to the bottom of his stomach, with almost half of it petrified into stone hair. Meanwhile, “Broggi’s” beard looked two weeks old and with his short hair cut, he looked like any regular human man, just shorter and with stone skin on his ears.

“He asked us to show him the video recorder,” Saori stated. After some reluctance, I nodded and took it out, causing him to smile as he received it gently, treating it like his most treasured item.

“Ahhh, Goddess Chihiro’s recorder. I am happy to see it cleaned and maintained. Hmm, you’ve opened it, right? Who did it?” he stated, sounding exactly like the person we heard on the video. He even played the recording where he filmed himself to further prove it!

It became even harder to not believe this person was “Broggi” but Grimnir mentioned how he personally witnessed his cousin die and even sent his body back to his clan. No complaints were given, so if Broggi’s body was somehow snatched away during the delivery, somebody should have noted it. For example … his father.

Hmm? That seems too much of a coincidence. No, keep it to yourself for now.

“I did, with Mister Metosei Gunnisor from the railroad guild,” Ellaine stepped forward, telling the truth.

He stroked his beard, showing some mild interest in her. “Oh, I see. You cleaned it well, then, lass. Never thought a human would be able to make such a solid clean, especially with how small and delicate everything is considering what Goddess Chihiro strived to do. Hmph, that old coot Gunnisor still has it in him to teach people.”

“Nah, not him.” Grimnir raised his head, showing eyes reddened and puffy from crying, and pointed at “Broggi.” “Your apprentice. Her name is Ellaine, remember it, you bashthuda.”

“Mine?” The dwarf raised a brow, before sizing up Ellaine, only too look even more confused.

“Master Grimnir taught me your techniques. Through your notes and documentations; I’ve read them all, I believe … Master Broggart?”

Astonished by what she said, “Broggi” froze on the spot, staring at Ellaine without moving a muscle. He kept looking like this until he nearly dropped the recorder, hectically correcting his posture to assure it didn’t fall. He then clutched it tightly to his chest, carrying it as if it was a newborn. He blinked, before loosening up.

“Ha, ha …” His breathing was ragged, probably since his “treasure” nearly fell down ‘cause of his own clumsiness. “Girl. Uh, a malfunctioning of the mana wires due to an overload of mana flowing through them, causing the circuitry to break down and damage the mechanical piece. What do you do?”

Ellaine tilted her head at that questioning, looking over at Grimnir as he gestured her to look at “Broggi.” She did so, nervously glancing around before letting out a deep sigh. “Put on protective gear, first, as the mana ‘knot’ could destabilize the machinery, causing it to explode. Locate the knot once you are protected, remove it by cutting the mana link. Remove the circuitry surrounding it and check on the battery, making sure the breakdown didn’t damage it. Use a 10cm mana conducting hook to test out the conductivity of the issue. If everything is above 80%, then the pieces are at fault and it’s the smith’s mistake. If it’s below, then too many wires were attached, causing too much stress on the entire item.”

“Exactly! You even took my wording on it! Never. Blame. Your. Own. Wiring. The smiths ruin most of the pieces anyways; either a lackluster quenching, terrible balancing of eoriant and arcanuit making it too mana conductive, or they just fucked up the bladdarg hammering!”

“Oi, bashthuda!” Grimnir stood up, picking up “Broggi” by the scruff. “I ain’t forgetting that way you spoke to me. Smith’s mistake?! You crazy? The fact of the matter is that we do what we can to appease you artificer’s demanding requests. You want this, you want that, always asking for more until you test it out and it doesn’t work! You think I got the time to make the 50th piece of junk so you can test out if it can handle the full throttle of six mana batteries?”

“Pah!” he smacked Grimnir’s hand away, pushing him back on the chair before bashing his fist into his chest. “Ya punk, you think you get to say that? Ya got the hands of a master, but I’ve been working in this workshop for months now, and I ain’t seeing the problem. If you just listen better, everything will work out! Right, lass?! This damn fool probably scuffed things up once or twice!”

“W-well, not exactly. Master Grimn—” But Ellaine couldn’t finish before Grimnir struck back, pulling “Broggi” by the beard.

“Crustacia give me patience to endure this fool of a Luedbrumdar! She may have learned from your techniques, but I was the one to teach her everything! Everything! Down to the damn wiring that I can’t do cuz of me Taz hands! You know who could have done it better? You!” He pushed his cousin onto his chair. “You! You fool! If only you hadn’t faked your damn death … Pah, you think I WOULD BELIEVE THAT?! WHO ARE YOU … and why did you assume my cuoso’s appearance and mimicked his memories?”

“… Grimnir. I am not dead, I made a dea—”

“LIAR!”

“Woah!” I let out as Grimnir was about to punch “Broggi,” only for a wolfkin to suddenly jump out of his shadow and grab his arms, pulling him away while he was kicking and shouting.

“Thank you, Sarasa,” Saori said to her third fenrir, before grabbing Grimnir’s fist and tightening her grip around it. Slowly but surely, he calmed down, not wanting to hit one of his friends. “It’s alright.”

I forcibly pulled his hand away, turning away from her. “It’s not … I told myself to act better for the lass and lad, but look what I devolved back into. That pitiful, angry zuekluk who would drink to forget, showing none of that skill he meticulously trained for over 60 years. I … thought I made peace.”

“… Apologies, cuoso,” “Broggi” said.

“Daichi-san is probably waiting for you behind the portal. Maybe give him a wave and that you’re okay?” Saori suggested, causing the old dwarf to nod. Once he went into the smithy, she turned to me and the others who weren’t here for the initial talks. “That was how it went for a long while.”

“But, Grimnir is probably 80% sure this really is his cousin Broggart,” Kyouya stated. “We checked his memories, and he is able to recall events only he and Grimnir shared. Grimnir couldn’t find any flaw in anything we mentioned, except for—”

“Why he faked his death, right?” King Fugnarus stepped forward. “I understand why Grimnir is satisfied with this. I too would like to question you, ‘old friend.’”

Old friend?

He drew closer, but unlike his calm or more goofy appearance when he addressed Grimnir and Ellaine respectively, he scowled at King Fugnarus, looking at him similarly to how Neill looked at Vifi’Yok. However, the latter was undeterred and sat down where Grimnir sat.

“On the day I exiled you from Inkoran-Tazul, what did we speak about? … Not even Ungi or wife knows about it, so if you truly are Broggart, then you should know.”

“Broggi” leaned forward. “You asked me if I found anything worthwhile in the Goddess Chihiro’s workshop. I told you, ‘You should have never become the Ankoran King, you child murderer.’”

Hmm? What is this about?

King Fugnarus stood up. “This is Broggart. Whether he’s undead or not, he has his memories.”

Wait, what?! Hold on!

But Saori stopped me. “I also checked his Profile. He’s not undead or anything. Just ‘Inko Dwarf.’ Nothing seemed awry, he was also at level 59, five levels higher than before his ‘death.’”

So this is … Broggart, huh?

“You can believe me if you want or not.” He stood up, his sour face still contorting his face before he looked at Ellaine. It was awkward he was showing her, but it was a smile nonetheless. “Well, I know this is weird for all of you. You must have questions for why you are here. Come. I want to show the lass here my workshop! Might as well get some answers for it, aye?”

“Might as well.” Vifi’Yok joined in immediately without asking anybody else, but even I couldn’t reject his offer. I was quite curious about things.

Grimnir joined us eventually after he was done, handing me over my [Room] runes before telling me to be more careful with them. “They take a lot of time to make,” he told me, before showing me a chuckle. Was he hiding his worries behind a joke?

Nevertheless, we boarded a minecart train, similar to the ones you could find in any dwarven city for quick transportation. After activating the lever, the carts slowly began to move along a rail, moving us through what looked like a mine.

“All of you are currently on the 14th floor, right over Manethala’s lair—your goal if you want to gain your unique Job. Well, it’s currently closed, and while I am on good terms with him, the old drake won’t let you through that easily,” Broggart began.

“Bladdarg,” Grimnir called him out. “Good terms? Manethala? We broke into the one place he wanted to keep us out of us, including how he nearly killed us in a rampage after we showed ourselves, and you call that good terms?! I knew it, you are a damn—”

“Close yer trap, cuoso, and let me end my bladdarg explanation.” He threw a nearby rock at his cousin, causing it to crash right against one of Grimnir’s ram horns before it flew away. “Even former enemies can become allies if the opportunity shows itself. He and I share a goal, currently, and to achieve it we must work together. It’s that plain and simple.”

I glanced over at Neill, who was sitting next to me, causing her to roll her eyes. She couldn’t bury the hatchet. Well, I couldn’t admonish her for it, since this was Vifi’Yok’s third chance with me, so if she blew it, I would really rip off her last arm. Then Franz could do the rest, depending on what he was planning on doing, but if possible, I would rather avoid the cruelness of such an action.

“But, I guess you still are all wondering how it got to the point, or why I am stuck inside this dungeon, right? Well, to answer your question—yes, I did fake my death.”

“BULLSHIT!” Grimnir shouted.

However, Broggart ignored it. “I made a deal before, well, I ‘died.’ See, I never really told this to anybody, but my valto had some shady dealings behind the scene. I was supposed to be his heir, but everybody in the bladdarg clan knew I wasn’t going to be wasting the best years of my life sitting in some room, trying to settle every single matter and issue for the clan and its connections. I am not a people person; manatech and gnomes are always easier to deal with.”

Jeez, he really does sound like a recluse. Fitting his former appearance. ‘Valto,’ huh? Dwarvish for father, so Maagneil that bastard, huh? I should probably bring it up now—

“And after my father went mildly insane after I was exiled, his dealings and issues got worse, to the point he had to ‘sell’ my talents to his dealer to make sure he wouldn’t get killed. Well, they would have killed me too, if I hadn’t accepted it, so it wasn’t like I could do anything else,” Broggart interrupted my thought process.

I knew it! Maagneil that bastard really deserves the worst parent ever trophy! Piece of crap, that piece of dung!

I completely forgot what I wanted to bring up at this very moment where I understood Broggart too well. He really sounded like he hated that scum! Truly the correct way to treat that person, but the course of the storytelling quickly changed to the point he reminded me I should have probably spoken up sooner.

“Well, as you can see, I’ve been stuck inside this place for a while now. Probably, hmm, a year? Yeah, yeah, I’ve been working on what my valto’s employer wanted for that long, and that’s why I got all of this set up. The proof for that is in the dragonewt lass’s head, since she met him in the other dungeon, right? Where she fought the earth elemental emperor?”

“WHAT?!” King Fugnarus’s and Grimnir’s head snapped over to me.

“Uuuuuuuh …” Broggart, that dwarf, caught me off-guard! “I swear, I wanted to tell you guys about it eventually. It sort of … slipped my mind. I mean, the boys knew about it!”

I looked over to Tatsuya and Kyouya for help, but they completely ignored me, looking over at the ore veins inside this mine. These two traitors!

“Guhahaha! Well, it doesn’t really matter, right now. I’m gonna spit it out, anyways.” Just as he almost sank me, he rescued me from drowning under the two dwarves’ glare! This Broggart knew how to manipulate people. “Before I continue, again, sorry about everything, cuoso. I really didn’t mean to fool you, but I had to fake my death. Didn’t you think it wasn’t weird how I feel into that ravine and ‘died?’ Me? I might be an Inko, but we dwarves are made from harder stuff! Dying from cracking my head, pah!”

“… You weren’t wearing a helmet. That drop would have killed me if I cracked my spine and head,” Grimnir wanted to rebuke, but it didn’t dissuaded Broggart.

He knocked on his head, causing that usual skull knock sound. “Hard as ever … but, seriously, I do apologize. That video … I-I probably should have deleted that recording when I last visited the shrine. Had a chance to go out when valto was trying to deal with you and your friends. Visited my shrine to Goddess Chihiro, cleaned it … everything to await you … aside from deleting that recording.”

… Ooooooooooooooooh, didn’t Haruka mention how the shrine where we found the video recorder was unusually clean despite supposedly being decrepit and abandoned? It makes sense now.

Probably realizing it too, Ellaine, the boys, even Rajah made an “aha” sound. Everybody but Grimnir, who only remained silent. He didn’t seem intent on shouting for this part.

Until he finally caved in, replying meekly, almost too quiet for us to hear over the sounds of tracks. “Why didn’t you?”

“For Goddess Chihiro. I was the first person to ever use the recorder since I managed to repair it. I couldn’t delete the one proof for one of my greatest achievements back then, before we finished the blasthammer.”

That sounds selfish.

“Sounds like you, cuoso.”

… Alright, alright.

Grimnir didn’t smile, but that dejected, crestfallen look returned. I hoped his inner turmoil wasn’t leading him down somewhere, and while I wanted to support him, I couldn’t as Broggart finally continued.

“Which brings me to the prime question here: tell me, non-dwarves, do you know why the first waves of dwarves are nowadays considered ‘nobility?’”

“Brogg—”

“You can shut up,” Broggart immediately silenced King Fugnarus. “This isn’t your court, Fugnarus. You can’t play king inside Manethala’s lands, so keep that abrasive temper of yours sealed. I don’t need ya causing another incident to kill off another of my apprentices.”

“Huh?” Ellaine and I let out, before we looked over at King Fugnarus, followed by Saori giving him an inquisitive stare. However, he stayed silent, acting exactly as Broggart wanted.

“Good, he can listen to me, but not his wife. Got himself in this situation cuz of that temper of his, probably.” With that snarky comment, Broggart composed himself, snapping his fingers to bring our attention back to him. “With no one to stop us, let me give you some insight on dwarven history the wisewoman council and the nobility wished to hide from the rest of the world. The story of a generous man who watched how monsters evolved into the race we call ‘elves nowadays.’”

“An origin story?” Saori’s interest was immediately piqued. It was good to see her nerdy historian side was still there.

“Correct. How else did the current races become sentient, right? Well, it all started with the elves, and this is really something anybody can read from a book. Lass, mind telling us?”

Nobody answered before Ellaine realized it was her he was speaking about. “Me?! Uh, uhm, well, this part of history is rarely repeated since it’s so long ago, but to be specific, elves were monsters turned sentient, similar to how dragons were intelligent, only that elves lost their ability to evolve. I-I do know humans were a sort of ‘mutation’ from elves and that they separated themselves over soooo many years ago, but that is where my knowledge ends. Nobody in the Empire studies this subject, believing it’s all elven hearsay.”

“Yeah, yeah, the Imperials think humans are ‘pure’ beings, and that they were born alongside the elves as two of the three first sentient beings, with the dragonkins being the third. Well, it’s all antique history that nobody really cares about anyways. History that far in the past has nothing to do with the future, so it doesn’t matter how elves and humans came to be.”

“I do.” Nobody but Saori cared about the subject, and she wanted everybody to know about it. “I mean, why have I never heard about this before? Ah, right, I have mostly researched ‘recent’ history.”

Ignoring her, he continued. “However, nowadays, we know about how dwarves, beastmen, grimgarians, and demonkins were created, since it’s ‘recent’ enough for people to care about. One of them, the dwarves, were created by the earth elemental emperor, as he was jealous he couldn’t create proper children like beings made from flesh. Faefolk are loosely related, after all.”

It applied to fairies and lesser faefolk, this rule would apply to elementals as well. They just popped into existence, similar to monster spawning.

“We dwarves—Inkos and Taz—were the first couple waves. His ‘imperfect results’ since we couldn’t harness mana and use it like the other races. It is kinda obvious, I guess, since this whole inability to create mana caused us to strive more than enough in the very beginning.” He sighed. “But, sadly, when he made the last few waves of his ‘perfected children,’ molded after himself in appearance, he underestimated the complexity of life. He was the ruler of the earth, the lifespring of the world … but when he made the ‘perfect’ creation, their lifespan was too short for them to work as a sentient race similar to the elves and humans. They couldn’t make enough babies before all of them died from old age. Perfection? Flawed.”

“… And that is why the major clans consist of the oldest dwarven families, correct? Since imperfection was considered flawless? Or something like that?” I stated.

King Fungarus nodded. “The emperor forgot about us when they found out their ‘perfect’ creation was a flawed being. They isolated themself from us, but we still prayed to them. It all changed when Goddess Crustacia banished him, usurping his throne as the primarch of the earth element. We have prayed to her ever since, knowing she was a face we could see and speak to. Sadly, even she couldn’t fix our race's inability to expel mana.”

“Maybe that is how creatures made from earth and soil were allowed to even exist, Fugnarus?” Everything became quiet as this small moment ended, allowing us all to soak in what had been told to us. “… Philosophy aside, the point I am trying to make here is that my valto and his employer successfully managed to revive the real earth elemental emperor. They require it to make something for them, and that is why they have allow it to grow. Well, after its defeat by the hands of the dragonewt lass, they still managed to get what they wanted.”

The minecart suddenly stopped just as Broggart was about to reach the climax. He told us to leave the carts, leading us into a nearby tunnel before we stopped at a small hut, similar to the smithy from before. He opened the door, and in it, he revealed his artificer workshop. A huge desk was placed in the far end of the room, fitted with multiple tools I couldn’t identify at first glance.

“Fugnarus, listen to me, for I am not lying here.” Broggart let out a deep sigh. “The creation I am working on for them requires an immense fuel source, something that an ordinary battery cannot create so easily. To create something that can transcend our current technological limits, valto’s employer suggested delving into history for the first being who ruled over this world’s rocks and ore. He found out that Goddess Crustacia did not kill the earth elemental emperor, for it was too connected to the very world to eliminate without repercussion.”

He turned around. “He needs an ore that has no limit to its mana absorption. We want him to recreate the ‘perfect’ dwarf, for the reason why their lifespan was so short was that they could absorb and expel mana better than even the elves. An impossibility to create a tool to kill even the dragons. To threaten the son of the Black Tyrant of the Skies.”

Weapon? What is that supposed to mean?! Kill us?

“Grimnir. All of you. I have something to ask of ya.” His face tensed up. “You must kill my father and destroy his invention.”

A note from AbyssRaven

Patricide, I see.

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Thank you for reading this chapter.

Chapter 416: Operation: “Patricide.”

A note from AbyssRaven

Guys

I would like to remind you guys that the first book of A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale will soon be released! To be exact, it will come out on the 1st of August for Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and Audible as an audio book! It's soooooon! And I will deliver the next piece of information once we get even closer, just remind yourself that on the 1st of August, you can read an edited version of the story fitting after 3 years of writing it. Please, remember, because I will remind you guys again!

Now, please enjoy the chapter!

“Alright.”

That was quick!

Grimnir’s answer was swift, but his reasoning came out even faster. “Maagneil deserves the worst after everything he did to our hold, our hold king, our clan, and your brother, Darlion. Not to mention the bladdarg he put the people I was responsible for through. Honor-less skorr.”

“Since when do you care about Darlion?” Broggart asked, looking confused. Grimnir did mention their relationship was terrible since Maagneil’s younger son was always jealous of his older brother and his cousin.

“Your brother is a joke of a dwarf, but he didn’t deserve getting beaten up by his own father. The person he wanted approval from the most … You didn’t see in what state he was left behind after Maagneil fled. Everything is his fault, and I have a grudge to settle with him.”

I didn’t have much to say about the dynamic in their family, but I did know I didn’t like Maagneil. He not only endangered my friends but also tried to arrest me when I wasn’t at fault for any of the stuff he tried to twist around and blame me for. Daichi did cause trouble, to be fair, but the way they reacted to everything was beyond warranted.

He tried to flee from getting arrested by the Ankoran King for all the crimes he committed, and now he was related to a pretty huge scandal. I wasn’t an expert in terms of crimes and punishments, but I knew this was big. Big enough that an execution was impossible to avoid.

“I’m helping.” As expected, King Fugnarus did not hesitate, similar to Grimnir. “But who is this ‘employer’ of Maagneil? How did they find out that the Earth Emperor was dormant all this time? Not even the council of wisewomen knew about this, and this ‘employer’ does? Informant? An insider?”

“Probably a historian of some sort,” Broggart answered, but even he looked unsure. “I have not met this person before. Valto has been prudent when it comes to their information, revealing nothing more than they need a ‘dragon killer’ able to kill even rank SS.”

“Impossible,” Neill chimed in. “Any anti-dragon tools able to kill a rank S dragon easily have been lost to time. Didn’t the dwarves themselves dismantle that, uuuuh, what was it called again?”

“Castle Fatalisa from the Demon War,” I answered, still remembering the copied version inside Elyonda’s dungeon.

Snapping her fingers, Sis patted my back, thanking me for the info. Saori, too, gave me a thumbs up as she told me she was proud I was digilent enough to remember a historical moment, but immediately told me she was disappointed I left that out when we caught up last time. Honestly, this woman …

Snapping her fingers, Neill continued, “What she said. Also, Father might be old, but thinking that somebody could just create something with the power to pierce his scales is nonsense. Even that rank S Galg wouldn’t stand even the smallest chance, even if Father didn’t even try to fight back. I never saw him truly fight, but I’ve seen him scare even the rank S dragons on Miononbolax with his presence alone.”

“… I would like to say you’re overestimating your father, but that would be my artisan pride speaking, dragon princess …” Broggart snorted, almost sounding sarcastic about it. “No, I don’t think it’s possible, even if it’s my design. But that’s why we’re using an earth elemental emperor’s creation to fuel things. When a power source is strong enough for the ambition to become true, then nothing is impossible!”

… He sounds excited for something meant to kill my race.

“What is it, Broggi? Spit it out already,” Grimnir urged him, causing the artificer to bring us into his workshop where he sprawled some blueprints out on the table.

I looked at it, identifying something like a … body? In addition, there was a drill and something looking like a gun arm? To be honest, the schematics were terribly drawn, far messier than what Grimnir and Ellaine could do. Still, it was clear enough that I recognized a—

“Is that a tank?! Or a driller machine?” Tatsuya spat out, eyes widened like a goldfish as he took a closer look. “Right, right! This ‘gun arm’ looks like a long barrel for a missile or mana bullet. The drill, I don’t know, can you do something when you come in closer? I mean, this body looks so close to a tank, it can’t be anything else!”

We all looked at Broggart, while Grimnir asked if this was influenced by one of the designs of the Revolution Queen.

He nodded, but also frowned at the same time. “Well, I don’t know about this tank thing. Cuoso, you should know by now that, back when we delved into Goddess’s Chihiro’s workshop, I took a gander at more than just the gun design. I picked up the video recorder, I looked over some of her notes, and I also remembered reading a blueprint she called ‘The Romance of a Dying Woman (Unfulfilled).’ That’s the concept I drew on for valto, as her notes mentioned it being the ‘ultimate weapon to pierce the sky.’”

‘Pierce the sky?’

The Peolyncians in our party turned to us, wondering if it might be an Earthling quote, but none of us could really tell. It sounded familiar to Tatsuya and Kyouya, but they couldn’t pinpoint it in their memories. Neither could I, and Saori just shook her head, mentioning how “I am just a decade older than you, not that old.”

We estimated the Ankoran Queen was born sometime in the 1940s or 50s, since she had to have experienced the rock & roll era of Japan during the time it rose to prominence. Rosserto told us enough of the rocker culture of the dwarves that it just made sense. It was all still just a guess, though.

“Well, regardless, my sketch skills have never been too good, compared to yours, Grimnir. Ironic, since an Inko’s hands should be more deft than a Taz’s. The end design is a bit more golem-like in the end,” Broggart revealed before putting his schematics to the side. “Anyways, can’t show too much about the ‘dragon killer’ since a good portion of the construction is also handled by valto after he came over here a month ago, or so. The Earth Emperor was in the other dungeon, remember? He’s been handling that part, so I don’t know exactly what the energy source will look like. Probably brought along a mana path monocle to detect it, I say.”

He pulled out a monocle from a drawer, handling it over to Grimnir. I did remember this manatech back when the high bishop of Firwood lended me one to try out, making me realize it was an inferior version of my [Mana Eyes]. You could see pure, unmodified mana, but it wasn’t as accurate or clear compared to my skill.

If what Broggart made was a manatech golem, then finding its core would be the best way to destroy it, just like all the monster golems I met in the [Menagerie of Golems]. Still, what worried me was how this golem was being advertised as a “dragon killer,” meaning it must have anti-dragon blood weapons. Maybe that “tank barrel” Tatsuya called out might be the clue here … but I haven’t seen Peolyncians use tank shells or something similar. Even the dwarven warhammer cannons used mana blasts as projectiles.

“It’s the drill and an enchantment,” Broggart answered my question. “The employer has a special enchantment reserved for the core, and the drill itself will be coated in true and lesser dragonkin blood to break through the scales of most dragons. I can tell you this. I trust my design enough to pierce through a rank A dragon’s chest.”

“… An A rank isn’t just a fancy title, you know that, right, dwarf?” Neill scoffed, looking displeased. “I can understand if it’s a tool wielded by a strong rank A or S adventurer, but that ‘dragon killer’ is still just a tool.”

Neill didn’t use any kind of armor or catalyst in her fighting style; in fact, she was technically completely naked in her dragonewt form. She used her scales to create her kimono, gauntlets, and legguards for her martial arts. Including her spell usage and dragon paths, she was entirely independent of traditional gear, relying purely on her skills, both trained and System-based.

She didn’t say anything when I got my armor, but considering what Galg mentioned off-handedly when he first saw my armor in my dragon form, I did get the impression dragons had too much pride to use armor. After all, as Mom explained, our scales were our pride and joy. Strong scales able to ward off any attacks was like a medal of honor and something to be proud of. “Pride before survival,” you could say.

“… Well, at least your sister seems to be smart enough,” Broggart remarked as he checked out my armor, showing a wide smile as he gave Grimnir’s a thumbs up. “I’ll always notice that signature handiwork of yours. Glad you figured out how to make that rhythilic. Hehe, made one for this here lass too, huh?”

He was talking about Ellaine’s exoarmor, causing Grimnir to let out a loud laugh. Seeing him so proud, Broggart clapped his shoulder and gestured to Ellaine to come closer.

“Good. I need some workers now, okay? Seeing as ya are intending to kill my valto, I better help out. Manaethala gathered you all here for that plan, and I’m telling you here that he can be trusted. Valto got Goddess Chihiro’s workshop as hostage.”

Broggart explained Maagneil’s employer managed to put a bomb or something similar in Chihiro’s hidden home on floor 15, and was using this as a threat to coerce the drake to work with them. Now, considering he was the dungeon master, why wasn’t Manethala doing something about it? It should be easy, after all.

However, before I could pose that question, Broggart pulled Grimnir and Ellaine away to work with him on improving the blasthammer. He was especially curious what improvements the latter two had done on it, so he bade the rest of us rest and wait outside. The workshop wasn’t large enough when they got working.

Once we were outside, Saori’s shadow suddenly rumbled before a giant wolf appeared from it. Her appearance, especially, wasn’t somebody I could ever forget.

“Vidia!” I called out Saori’s garm mother.

[“Hello, young dragoness. It is good to see you healthy. My pup has been stricken with anxiety when she heard you might have been in danger, but her worries were for naught.”]

“Mother!” Saori turned red, snapping her head over to her. “I already had my moment with her, you do not need to bring it up, again!”

Hiehie. Saori being Saori.

In any case, after the two had their mother-daughter moment, we found a nice space in the mines where we sat down. It seemed I wasn’t the only one with some suspicion.

[“If he was an onnikai, either I or any one of the fenrirs would have smelled the stench of death on him. Further, the creation of a ‘living’ onnikai is reserved for Goddess Ilsaphone only. Only she can create the black slime necessary for us to be counted amongst the ‘living,’”] Vidia informed us, having taken the time while we spoke with Broggart to check things out with the other shadow pack members. [“He is alive, that is for sure.”]

“As I said, his memories are there. I’ve known Broggart from before, since his home hold is affiliated with my wife’s clan. He … hasn’t changed too much, but he certainly has gotten more humble. Those moments when you heard him defend his creations was what I remembered of that stubborn Inko, not to mention how much he reveres Aunt Dravlia’s creations.” King Fugnarus stroked his beard. He might have sounded confident, but he too felt suspicious of Broggart.

There were, after all, quite a few things I didn’t like about the way he retold and informed us of everything. For example—

“Who is Maagneil’s employer, and why do they want a dragon killer weapon or construct?” Saori stated, causing all of us to nod.

“Considering the diplomatic tensions, it has to be either the Empire of Folschreck or the demonkin’s Bole’Taria,” King Fugnarus stated. “The former understands the power of the dragonkins, that is why they hire and employ so many dragonkin slayers and use them to clean the feral dragonkins spawning in their lands. It is a preventive measure caused by fear, which I understand from the position of my race—we developed runes and runic tattoos to combat our weakness against mages, after all—but it feels weird for two members of my own race to create a weapon against one of our old-time allies.”

“The backlash will be bad for you …” Neill frowned , scratching through her lion mane-like hair. “Against the law established by our alliance, you let too many dragonkin slayers on dwarven grounds; not to mention, the dragonslayer party attacked my sister twice. The Queen Mothers won’t say anything since Kargryx wants to be off-handish with the situation, but—”

“The dragonewts won’t.” I ended her sentence. At this point, I knew enough how Loatryx would act. “Pradreo Skardrvo complained about you a lot when I first met you.”

He nodded, not looking any less perturbed. “I understand. As King, the responsibilities of my failures lie on me to endure. Once again, let the Earth Mother witness my confession, I do apologize to all of you.”

He bowed his head to all of us, not only Neill and me, but also Tatsuy and Kyouya since he sent them into a deathtrap with me.

“Stop it. Blaming yourself right now won’t do anybody any good,” I tried to reassure him. “As I said, as an adventurer, my life is my problem. Enough of this, though, what is everybody’s opinion on who is behind all of this?”

“Demonkin.”

It was unanimous from everybody, except for one person. We all looked at her.

“… I,” Vifi’Yok stutterd.

“You were the only one who was suspicious about everything. You even knew that the demonkins might try something similar, didn’t you?” Tatsuya accused her. “You told us that. You thought a demonkin was behind all of this, and from the sound of it, Maagneil isn’t the person we should be looking for. It is his puppeteer.”

Kyouya nodded. “Broggart left quite a bit of information we might need out of his explanation. Like how he faked his death. Grimnir specified how he made sure his cousin was dead, right, but he just skipped over it to tell us more about the entire plot. I mean, sure, I understand getting to the point, but I think Grimnir would have appreciated him mentioning how he was fooled.”

“A lot of statements, but no proof,” Saori presented. “I would want to know what this energy source is supposed to be, or whatever catalyst the enchantment should go on. Enough information to form a proper plan … But, I just came into this situation. I do not know much. How about it, Miss Vifi’Yok. Are you willing to speak?”

A lot of us had a rivalry with or hostile feelings towards Vifi’Yok, Saori included since she nearly saw Tatsuya getting killed by her. Still, my vice-captain was professional as always, keeping her aloof nature while she questioned possibly our only source in this. I really missed this dynamic of hers ever since we had to go our separate ways; it would have probably helped a lot for the Elyonda siege.

“… Hestia, my agreement to help ya only goes as far as protecting ya. Making sure ya get out of this place alive. Besides, it isn’t like I can say anything with certainty, and that’s where ya’ll will blame me if something goes awry.”

“Hmph, she’s a former Warbringer. A commander-tier soldier. I can understand her reluctance to talk. Even if she’s a deserter, this does concern her own race, after all,” King Fugnarus reminded us, trying to keep the peace amongst us for now. “I’m more interested in the Earth Emperor. You saw it, kids? How did … it look?”

“Like a snapping turtle with giant sheep horns similar to the Taz. It has two snake tails and its body is riddled with small gems,” I stated bluntly, not knowing how else to describe it.

“… Well, that fits the records we have on it. A true giant that could tower over the entire Ankoran mountain range at its prime. An elemental that looked like an adamantoise with gems covering its body like a robe of priceless value, glistening even in the very depths of the world, illuminating even brighter than lava!”

“… A far cry from what we saw.” If I was blunt, Vifi’Yok was blunter than a sphere.

However, he ignored her. “The issue is … what is it supposed to create? The ‘perfect’ dwarf was a failure due to it being too good at controlling mana, causing its body to break down from it. Have any of you heard of ‘Raffarson’s Debilitation?’”

I nodded. I had a patient in Firwood named Amadeus who had it, causing his mana paths to be weak to transport mana throughout his body. In fact, they were so weak, they could rupture and cause serious internal problems. It was named after an archmage who had it.

“The issue is not prominent for people with low mana capacity, but for those—like a noble—who do, it is a severe birth defect which may cause somebody’s life to end early,” Saori recalled, using our example of Amadeus to explain it.

“That’s the principle behind the ‘perfects’’ flaw. The earth emperor wished to create faefolk with bodies of flesh and blood, but he failed in that attempt, making the original wave of dwarves the real ‘perfects,’ even if we had our own issue.”

“What about those in the middle? The few other waves?” Kyouya asked.

King Fugnarus pointed at his head and his hands. “That’s how the Inko and Taz were born. The flawed dwarves were like shorter elves back in the day, while the wave created between the ‘flawed’ and ‘perfect’ had elements of what the emperor wished us to have. Giant horns similar to his, our talent for ore, and these rock skin on our ears. It makes us look like elves from far away, right? Hahaha!”

I couldn’t disagree with that. The rock skin around their ears looked petrified, but it did make them pointed, like an elf’s or a dragonewt’s.

“The ‘perfect’ were molded in the emperor’s image. He had ‘perfected’ his ability to create life, and wanted one last attempt to create ‘his people,’ but the rest is history now. When it left us, disappointed that its perfected dwarves were unsuitable as a race, the ‘flawed’ first creation mixed with the Taz and Inko. That is how the two races of dwarves came to be and why we look so distinct, despite being so similar.”

“Why do you call yourself that? Inko and Taz? I know it comes from the two mountain ranges within the Ankoran mountains, but still.” Tatsuya’s question made the King stroke his beard and close his eyes.

Once they were open again, he answered. “The Inkong mountain range is smaller than its brother to the east—Tazlok. Supposedly, the Inko were made closer to the surface in an attempt to inherit the elven ability to channel mana, while the Taz were born in the depths of Tazlok with ore and lava streams in an attempt to make them bond with the earth. I will not hazard what the Earth Emperor thought, but that is all I know.”

“Whether they could cast magic or not, once the ‘flawed’ mixed their bloodlines with the Inko and Taz, you all became Inkos and Tazics unable to cast magic,” Saori summarized, earning her a nod from the king. “… Then, could it be, is this Maagneil having the Emperor create his progeny once again? To act as the power source of everything?”

“Oh!” I snapped my fingers. “I remember! In my fight with it, the Emperor did create golems with its appearance, just around a dwarf’s height. They weren’t impressive aside from their appearance, though.”

It was all conjecture though, but it was all that we could work with since Broggart didn’t specify anything. We left this discussion alone for now.

At the same time, we did wonder why Manathala wasn’t issuing any System notices to us, but we quickly reminded ourselves that Broggart said Maagneil was threatening to destroy Chihiro’s workshop, forcing Manethala to work for him … Hold on, was this why the first Event Quest was inside this dungeon? Wait a minute, then didn’t this mean that Crustacia knew all about this …

The Divine Quest she gave me!

<Divine Quest: Uncover the truth behind this “golem” and solve the problem on hand with them

Quest Giver: Origin Goddess of Earth, Craftsmanship, Minerals, and Creation, Crustacia

Description: Yo, Crustacia here on the permission of Aurena, little Hestia! Kinda a bad moment for me to “meet” you, but I honestly didn’t expect to meet them in this dungeon. The earth told me they would return, but this?

Well, me vision through me dwarves told me enough to get the gist of the plan, but I can’t tell you! Yeostar’s intervention made Goddess Plesia veeeery mad and she just put out a punishment I ain’t wishing to experience. You gotta do it yourself and it’s not gonna be easy, but I promise ya a big reward. And, trust me, I know how to please an otherworlder quite well! So, accept it, little Hestia!

Reward: A unique skill on anybody you wish, +1 level, reason for why the gods aren’t speaking, an additional reward depending on how you solve this whole situation>

Now that I understood the situation even better, I decided to reveal the Divine Quest to everybody, except Vifi’Yok for now. She was, surprisingly, pretty content with being left out, mentioning how “I was finally being smart.” Annoying!

With the context given to us by Broggart, the Quest made sense now. The golem was the Earth Elemental Emperor as I had suspected, and the issue was that it was currently being enslaved by Maagneil and his employer. If we solved this situation, Manethala’s issue would also be solved at the same time.

“… Could it be, the Earth Mother intended you to enter the Event Quest all this time and, ‘cuz I sent you into the rank B dungeon, she had to issue that Quest to you?” King Fugnarus suggested with widened eyes, causing him to fall into temporary depression as he realized how he ruined the Earth Goddess’s plans. “By her twin-tails …”

That, too, made sense … unfortunately for him.

In any case, with the context of everything on hand, we wanted to interrupt Broggart and ask him to lead us to Manethala, but the moment I entered the workshop, Grimnir shouted, “We’re working!” before we got shooed back out by Ellaine, who had eyes so wide I thought she was high or something.

“I-I’m sorry, b-but this is a chance I cannot give up! I’ve only read about his techniques up until now, but being able to see my master’s talents in person is an undeniable opportunity! I’m sorry!”

Boom! She slammed the door shut on us. The urgency of the situation had disappeared from the minds of these three artisans.

“You are like that, too, when it comes to singing,” Saori teased me, causing me to groan.

As such, we decided it would be a good idea now to take a long rest. We might already have our break from before, but it seemed Neill was starting to fall asleep. I was too worried about the Tasianna and those not with us, so I decided we maybe scout the area a bit, but Broggat suddenly ran out of the workshop.

“Sorry, sorry! Uh, I had forgotten to tell you this, but Manethala warned me to never go out of this area of the floor, as the rest will be the place for the last real gambit. Unless you want to risk yourselves, it would be best to stay here. I’m using a special entrance the drake made for me to transition from one floor to the other. Once we are done, we can go!”

The project was to ensure we could destroy the “dragon killer,” in case his father managed to make the thing workable before we confronted him. For that, he was trying to modify Grimnir’s weapon. Unable to really tell if he was lying or not, we agreed to stay put … except for Saori’s shadow pack.

So, Neill went to sleep, including the boys as they felt tired after what happened with the dragonslayers. King Fugnarus wanted to stay up, too, but Saori urged him too since Saori had just arrived at full power while it was clear Vifi’Yok wouldn’t put her guard down.

When I was about to go to sleep, though, Saori called me over. I thought she wanted to catch up, but when Vidia appeared from her shadow, I had a feeling there was something else she wanted to talk with me about.

And it became clear when her wolf skull amulet turned completely black, as if she was shrouding it in her dark mana. I cast an [Air Shield] just to be safe.

[“Whelpling.”]

It was Belzac’s cranky voice.

“… When you said you wanted to bring him out to see the world, I hadn’t exactly thought you meant it that literally.”

She shrugged at me, showing me a wry smile. “Belzac is literally dead. He is an onnikai, just like Mom when she appeared before me. He just has more of a presence compared to the others. And, no, I am not planning on turning him into a shadow pack member.”

[“My deal with Goddess Edna does not permit me to return to life in any way. I am still just a teacher for my descendant, making sure she understands her place as Goddess Edna’s Champion and that my unique—”]

“I do not think Hestia would appreciate you going on a tangent again, Belzac. Let us keep it short, so we can all take a breather from everything, and maybe form a plan,” Saori urged him in the nicest way possible.

[“… So be it, Saori.”] And the old cranky wolf listened to her just like last time! [“It is about the demonkin, whelpling. I must remind you that you have that abominable demon of lust with you, right now. If you wish to bring the demonkin along with you, I suggest you either think of a measure to keep the secret hidden, or reveal it to her.”]

“… You sound like you're suggesting the former option.”

[“Of course!”] The amulet waved a bit as his voice rose. [“Do you think this is a jest? That deserter has only one way to return to her masters’ laps, and that is to reveal that the archdemon of lust is still alive, and that she is under your control! It doesn’t matter if Aurena were to destroy her before then. The information itself is important here. If you reveal that demon’s presence to her, you lose that blackmail over her. You risk that demonkin having a good reason to backstab you now!”]

I couldn’t really argue back, but how the hell was I supposed to hide Ellaine’s power? It was a logistical impossibility for Ellaine to completely hide Klea’Hatma’s presence forever, as Aurora had the worst luck ever when it came to these issues! Murphy’s Law and so on, and I fully believed in it! I mean, how the hell were the dragonslayers around to kill me, huh? If I had better luck, this would have never happened.

As such, trying to follow Belzac’s first suggestion was daunting, maybe actually impossible since I also knew of the way to awaken the demon from her slumber. As Belzac mentioned, she needed a stimulus to awaken from her slumber. And it was just below us with our enemy.

“… Maagneil had a rebellion orb.”

Saori slapped her face, knowing exactly what I meant with my words. Bad memories resurfaced for her when we experienced it last in Cedaraille. “Great, just great. So, not only will we have to fight him with his ‘dragon killer’ but there is also the high probability that the entire dungeon will go into a frenzy with all the monsters inside turning feral.”

“Manethala was born in this dungeon,” I added, remembering what Grimnir told me. “The dungeon master loses control over the monsters inside, but what would happen to Manethala then? He’s intelligent, but what if?”

“… This is not to mention the possibility of the puppeteer revealing themselves. Could it be a Prince of Sin?”

I shrugged. “Or one of their lieutenants or something similar to a Warbringer for the other sin princes. I don’t know. But, back to the initial problem, how are we supposed to hide everything from Vifi’Yok?”

Saori shook her head, equally as confused as I was. “Jeez, I know I signed up for this, but it already turned into a headache. Hestia, can’t we just have a normal adventurer here or there? Can you just get in trouble with some random snake again, so we can have a simple issue to deal with?”

“You call fighting that rank A leviathan a simple issue?! It was a single snake head and it nearly one-shotted me! Here is the thing, I already got into trouble with another big serpent, and my mom had to go beat his ass up while the snake kept spawning more and more water zombies.”

“… Right, the Elyonda siege had a leviathan as an enemy. I forgot, I apologize.”

[“Melloxtressa sounds like a respectable parent, young dragoness,”] Vidia commented, to which I proudly exclaimed she was. Once Mom was awake again, I suggested to her for them to meet up, since they were our parents, after all. [“… Daunting task.”]

I guess that was a normal reaction to meeting not only an empress but a rank SS.

In the end, we decided to ask Ellaine and Grimnir for their opinion on the subject, as it concerned the entirety of Aurora. With the discussion done, I went to get some shut-eye until dinner or whatever. Once I was woken up by the smell of food, my body snapped wide awake as I saw Saori up and about, cooking food as if it was like any other day. Nostalgic.

She had the subspace portal open too, revealing Asaka was behind it, talking with Tatsuya and Kyouya. I also noticed Haruka and Daichi were there, too, so I greeted them. In addition, Vifi’Yok showed how stunned she was when she saw what our space-time tech could do, to which I told her she was welcome to join our hotspring.

I should probably install a defensive protocol in that case. This is the first time where I’m inviting a possible enemy into the subspace, huh?

I thought of the monster room core I received from our dungeon rewards, realizing I might be able to turn my subspace into an impromptu dungeon. Considering Vifi’Yok might become an enemy, and that fact I couldn’t kick former invitees out of it once they were inside, it would best if I had a plan B for the future.

There was so much I could improve on it. As long as Vifi’Yok didn’t know that you needed my permission to enter my space, she couldn’t abuse it, even if she gave a [Room] rune to an informant or whatever. Only the people I allowed in may enter it.

“Emergency!”

But these little issues weren’t so urgent when Broggart and Grimnir rushed out of the door, sweaty and greasy. When they stopped before me, Broggart had to take a breather before Grimnir shouted, “We have a massive problem!”

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Chapter 417: Deceit’s Truth Revealed.

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“Manethala sent me a message that my valto is coming. He suspects our collusion. He’s coming over this way, right now, but we haven’t finished the damn installment yet!” Broggart exclaimed with a haggard voice, looking as exhausted as if he had stayed up the entire night, or however long our nap took, working.

“Good, then we can deal with him now,” King Fugnarus stated, swinging his axe over his shoulders.

However, Broggart’s already reddened eyes glared at the man, looking like he was about to choke the king to death. Broggart stomped over, poking King Fugnarus' chest with his index finger. “You bashthuda! Is that all you can think about?! Fighting to show off ya honor that way!? Didn’t I already tell ya valto’s employer has Goddess Chihiro’s workshop as a hostage in this situation? My old man isn’t the only issue here.”

King Fugnarus frowned, grabbing the offending arm and shoving the other dwarf back a bit. Despite the clear lack of respect, he didn’t burst out in anger. “You're the one that stated we had to kill your father and destroy the creation YOU built, but now you’re telling us to hold back? The workshop being in danger is an issue, but do you even know the political consequences this will have? I can already imagine the Event’s aftermath being a headache considering what the dragon princesses experienced, and now you’re telling me to hold back instead of striking down that traitor Maagneil?!”

“I am not telling ya to hold back, I am telling ya to keep that hand of yours in control until we can assure Goddess Chihiro’s legacy is safe. Do I need to spell it out for ya? Isn’t ya aunt’s work important to ya, considering how much you wanted to know from me?”

Fugnarus eyed him with disdain, speaking back sharply at his accusation, “Think of me whatever you will, but I still have a role to play as the Ankoran King. Stopping this insurgence from happening within my land and getting the dragon princesses out of this mess alive are my only goals.”

“You don’t need to treat us as if we are some damsels in distress, dwarf,” Neill snapped at him. “If you need help with the political side, then so be it, I can always speak with the kinkyuru about it. In fact, if we find Midirn, he can probably talk his father out of issuing a complaint to you. I’ve had that bastard Galg and his party try to hunt me down once already, and I know how tenacious he is. Even if you tried to stop him, he would have found a way in the city regardless.”

“Midirn?” I wondered, having heard that name before, but not even my parallel minds could remember who that was.

“The son of the patriarch of the dragoenwt Clan Kargryxmor.” I snapped my head around to see Ellaine coming out of the workshop, looking disheveled and ready to collapse. Tatsuya offered her an iced fulinoe tea to help wake her up, to which she accepted before continuing. “He’s the representative of Loatryx sent with our expedition. Also reason number two why all the wyvern slayers hate us, but that is besides the point.”

“What did he do?” Kyouya asked, piquing my own interest, but before anybody could answer, Grimnir clapped his hands.

“We can have story time and whatever kinda fight later on, but we actually have a problem right now. How about we solve it?” He then pointed at the workshop. “Broggart is correcting the mana transfer efficiency from my elemental runes to make their burst shots less damaging to the core. I need more time, but we can’t do it here. We need to figure out how to handle Maagneil’s presence.”

“And not have the workshop destroyed!” Broggart interjected.

However, I could only raise a brow at how serious he was about it. “Why? This is a fantastic time to get rid of that man once and for all, and so what if the employer activated the dragon killer? We can always destroy it afterwards. It’s just a workshop.”

“Just a workshop?!” the artificer glared at me as if I had just said the most profane statement in the world. “That isn’t just a workshop, it is the crown jewel of all the possible tech progress we Peolyncians could implement! I thought an otherworlder like you might understand, but it seemed that bashthuda Bleidla got into your damn brains, dragon!”

Sheesh, talk about touchy.

“Then how would you suggest we go about doing this?” Saori came to my defense. “I would rather not risk my friend’s life when something like a ‘dragon killer’ is still operational. We will have to rely on the non-dragonkins for the fight if that is the case, and most of the heavy hitters are in the expedition force, no?”

“Kushlek’zar and the saurians, Themrayn, Rudigan, and Azelfa are the non-dragonkin rank As on the expedition force. And, well,” Neill turned to Saori and Vifi’Yok. “Those two.”

“No, I’m a dragonkin, sort of,” Saori answered, reminding me how I had molting training with her when Mom was still around. “I drank Hestia’s blood before I evolved into a rank B. Yorshka and Melloxtressa could pick it up from my scent, can’t you?”

“Ooooooh, so that’s why you smell so much like Hestia. I thought you just had one of her scales on you or something, since she mentioned you being her best friend. Well, glad to meet and know about that, Saori. Got a good amount of questions for you after this is done, concerning my new little sister.”

“And I would be happy to answer them.”

Please, don’t embarrass me, Saori. Don’t tell her about the time I ate rocks …

This small moment of bonding ceased immediately, though, when Neill returned to the subject at hand. “Although, that doesn’t explain it. You’re actually a dragonkin? Can you molt? How is that possible? Drinking the blood of dragons doesn’t just turn you into a dragonkin or something like in some of those crazy stories, even if it’s the blood of Kramps.”

As evident when nothing happened to Rajah when he tried drinking my blood. Saori’s transformation was a huge outlier to everything. I had always wondered what was the cause of it, but then I remembered we had somebody who could answer it for us, right now.

[“The explanation to that lies with my evolution choices when I ascended to a rank S. It is the same reason why the boy Tatsuya has the ability to transform into bestial forms through [Druidification]. Saori can explain everything to you later; the current situation demands your focus,”] Belzac explained to me, also telling me this message only went to me as he wanted to keep his presence a secret to everybody who didn’t have to hear him.

As such, Saori told Neill it was a secret for now, and that she would elaborate on everything later on. Instead, our focus returned to how we should handle Maagneil, especially since we had Broggart who was adamant about not wanting to attack him now.

Now, I was alright with some subterfuge to make things easier, but this felt and sounded like such a wasted moment, as King Fugnarus mentioned. Chihiro’s workshop might be filled with stuff I wanted to know, yes, but it felt like we might be risking our heads a bit just to preserve it. Then again, I did understand why someone would value something to the point they would not hold back to protect it.

This showed when we all tried to persuade Broggart, only for him to coldly wave it all aside. He urged us to follow his idea and just go back to the smithy at the moment. There was supposedly a hidden room he had dug out for himself there which we could use to hide in. As a sign of trust, he relied on Ellaine to finish the last step of the implementation process for the blasthammer.

Once he got the hammer and the component from the workshop, Broggart handed them to Grimnir and Ellaine respectively. “Okay, don’t forget to keep them safe, alright? If I can’t come back ‘cause valto took me away, then finish the thing while I’m away and make ya way down the tunnel in the opposite direction. There should be the set of stairs Manethala made in secret. Oh, and if ya want those unique Jobs, any of ya entering the last floor will do it for ya entire party.”

With that, he shoved us to the minecart trains and sent us off. In his hurry, he hadn’t gotten the chance to inspect the [Room] runes Girmnir made, nor did I have the time to close them. As such, everything that happened was witnessed by Haruka, Daichi, and Asaka.

“… Was that man really Broggart?” Daichi asked through the portal, to which Ellaine nodded.

“He is the real deal, yes,” she said with a slight gulp. Her mouth formed into a smile as her mind wandered a bit, before she realized what was going on and apologized. “It is almost as if the very person who wrote the notes I’ve read all this time was right in front of me! … Although, he seemed quite eccentric.”

“Nonsense, lass, that’s the ingenuity of my cousin speaking,” Grimnir let out a boastful crackle, almost as if he was showing how proud he was of his relative. “It’s as if he hadn't changed once since I lost him. Well, he seemed less stressed compared to before, but maybe it’s cuz I got his earnest opinion of me through the video recorder. It felt like … Nah, I’m being too sentimental here. Haha! I’m just glad he’s not actually dead.”

“… Hmm?”

Haruka? Looking at our math wiz, I raised a brow as she sat there, having a pensive look. When I called her out, she fumbled with her hands a bit, looking nervous through the portal’s opening.

“I-it’s nothing. Probably just my imagination.” She tried to wave it off.

However, Saori wasn’t persuaded. As her former teacher, she knew her well. “Haruka-chan, you do that sometimes due to your social anxiety. Why not speak your mind? We have nothing better to do while riding here, and we might as well get your opinion on things.”

“O-oh, well, if you want, Sensei. I was just thinking … when did Broggart fake his death?”

“A year before we found Grimnir in Cedaraille, all depressed and indulging in his alcoholism,” I answered, still remembering the day I met Grimnir and how he joined our party clearly.

“Oi, lass!” The man himself wasn’t too thrilled about my description, but it was all true.

Haruka, too, ignored him and continued, “I see … that should make it two years by now, right? … I have a question, Mister Grimnir, wasn’t the whole reason why you told us your uncle went mad due to your cousin’s death? No, wait, it wasn’t just you, it was also Mister Jadhund, too, no? Hesti-chan, we listened to him explain everything to us after you rescued me, remember?”

I looked at the ceiling after being reminded by Haruka. “Now that you say it, Jadhund was adamant about defending Maagneil, right? How the entire bad blood between Grimnir and Maagneil wasn’t just because his favorite son was exiled, but also because Grimnir sent his body back. Maagneil supposedly went ‘mad’ after Broggart got exiled. That fits what Broggart, said, no?”

“No, no, exactly! You’re thinking in the wrong way, Hestia-chan,” Tatsuya blurted out. “Didn’t he and the hold king of Gazahan-Orn perform political suicide by trying to arrest all of you? Think about it, it doesn’t make sense. Hey, Haruka-san, Daichi; that’s what happened, right?”

Daichi nodded. “After I burned the younger son’s beard off, the guards arrested me when Jadhund was around. However, after Nishio and the others went to complain to the Hold King, all the soldiers tried to arrest them since they loved the Luedbrumdar clan. You guys found out the King was in with Maagneil’s shady business, right? Something about improving his own situation?”

“Thanks! So, here is the issue we’ve been questioning all this time. Why did they do such a heavy-handed move? Just arrest Daichi, have the others complain, and continue the damn competition with Grimnir. Why try to sabotage Grimnir, when they knew he had you behind, supporting him. It made no sense, and then we had to deal with the guards when we entered the city to rescue Haruka-san!”

“… So, you’re saying the issue here is that we have logic failures?” Kyouya tried to understand Tatsuya’s rambling. I was also having trouble understanding his point.

“No, that’s not what he meant.” Surprisingly, though, King Fugnarus seemed to have understood everything. “If Maagneil only had bad blood with Grimnir, he would have just arrested his apprentice and had him be judged fairly. The boy almost ruined his master’s chance to win the smithing competition, and an embarrassment like that would have been far more precious to the man’s ego … but he went radical. You might not trust me, but my wife told me Maagneil was known to be a cunning business man. He isn’t foolish enough to invite the scorn and wrath of a foreign princess, especially not one related to a high ranking dragon clan.”

“The dragonewts could cause him more problems,” Neill added. “Any dragon offspring would be treated like a prince or princess by their respective dragonewt clan; it’s just that we are proper royalty. If they mess with you, even dwarves won’t be too safe from those fanatics.”

“… Wait, is that so? Hold on, Hestia-san, you really are a young mistress straight out of a cultivation novel,” Tatsuya stated, prompting me to snap at him for comparing me to something like that!

“Oi, am not!” But this joke could rest until we unraveled it. Pondering on King Fugnarus’s and Tatsuya’s words, it was really starting to seem weird. “… Meaning, Maagneil was acting too irrational, despite him knowing Broggart was alive all this time? Wait, YOU’RE RIGHT! Why did he doom his clan to its current existence? Why did he throw away everything he had just to get back at Grimnir, when he didn’t even care about his youngest son? I mean, the fact he pummeled him to the point of his face deforming was brutal. No loving or sane father would do that!”

Bingo.

“… Haruka-chan, you really catch on to those small details,” Kyouya praised her.

She was also the one who noted how to clean the room where the video recorder was. If it was old, it would have been dusty, but she guessed somebody must have cleaned it and that person was Broggart … But at the same time, if Broggart was alive all this time, just put away to work on this dragon killer, then why did Maagneil even try such a stupid plan. He could have just gotten revenge on Grimnir in another way and just left “sleeping dragons to sleep.”

Logically, it just wouldn’t make any sense. If he destroyed his clan when his son was still alive all this time, then how was the latter supposed to inherit everything his father built up? Wasn’t that one of the main reasons why Maagneil loved Broggart? That he was a genius who would inherit his legacy as the clan lead?

“… I don’t want to hear any more.” Despite the loud rocking of the minecarts riding along the tracks, Grimnir’s gulp was still very audible to me. I turned around as he looked pale into the depths of this tunnel. “This … has to be a joke, right? D-didn’t Saori and her mother not just tell us he can’t be an onnikai. He-he has to be alive. He acted—Demonkin!”

Grimnir stopping his pleading and snapped his head over to Vifi’Yok. “You should be able to answer this, right? Amongst the princes, is there an Original Sin technique that allows you to brainwash somebody?”

“MASTER?!” Ellaine flinched, looking at our smith with widened eyes as if he had gone crazy.

Brainwashing?

“RIGHT! Lass, that has to be the answer!” Grimnir shouted, grabbing Ellaine’s shoulder, acting far more energetic than usual. No, this was completely out of character for him! “There has to be, right?! You got the damn envy bastard mimicking the persona of Aurena’s pop. He has to be able to brainwash, right?!”

“… Uh?” The demonkin looked confused, before letting a sigh out and reaching a hand over to me. She gestured for me to come closer, but I already understood what she really wanted and gave her a donut. “No.”

She took a bite of the pastry, before turning her head away. She ignored the fact Grimnir’s face paled again, agitating him as he nearly jumped from his minecart into hers.

“EXPLAIN IT, EDJURALONG! There has to be!” But his begging went into one ear and out oft the.

Vifi’Yok turned back around, replying with a full mouth, “Princes of Sins can only possess two Original Sin abilities. These abilities come from our demon heritage and are more a culmination of their main techniques. Here I thought your lust contractor would know better. Couldn’t you have asked her?”

Ellaine winced. King Fugnarus raised an eyebrow.

“Whoever you contracted with really didn’t explain anything to you. There are only two Original Sin abilities per demonic sin—wrath, for example, possesses Satanael and Satan. Lust has Asmodeus and Lilith. Envy only has Demiurge and Yaldabaoth,” she emphasized. “You’ve seen what Demiurge did—transform you into another person perfectly after touching them. That’s what the Prince of Envy did with the Pope of the Church of Aurena. Yaldabaoth was what was done on Hestia, and it was using the envy of your memories to corrupt you to either eat your soul and control you. That’s the brainwashing you probably wanted to know.”

“Then—” Grimnir saw a glimmer of hope, but Vifi’Yok immediately stomped down on it.

“As I told those three and the cat, the demonkins had no plans on doing anything to the dwarves. None at all. The moment we try to cause aggression, it would invite the elves, at the very least. In fact, trying to corrupt a dwarf is harder than just doing something with a human; the whole zuekluk culture makes it hard to find dwarves willing to fall into the deep end,” Vifi’Yok scoffed, shaking her a head a bit in amusement. “No offense to your cousin and uncle, but they aren’t ‘special.’ If we wanted a ‘dragon killer,’ or whatever, we could have gotten any of the other master dwarves.”

“Or a human,” King Fugnarus stated. “I am not that prideful to disregard human ingenuity. With how many possess dwarven masters, our crafts have spread to the Empire. Many elves use dwarven techniques, too, after all.”

Vifi’Yok shrugged. “Something like that. Look, I haven’t been a Warbringer for more than a year now. I’ve been an apprentice of one, but I wasn’t privy to the inner circle until I became one, so I can’t assure you this information is fully correct. However, a prince of sin replacement like me can only use one of the Original Sin abilities, so if you have Demiurge, you cannot use Yaldabaoth. Only the Prince of Envy could have done anything … but why risk getting caught and ruining our grandest scheme in centuries to destroy the Empire?”

“… It makes sense,” Neill agreed. I had to agree, and that meant Grimnir had to start facing the truth of the matter. “So, who do you think is behind all this?”

The demonkin shook her head. “Goes too far. I gave you the basic knowledge I possess, but I don’t know who could be behind this. Just not Lord Envy, so make your guesses. I don’t want to reveal any more for this donut.”

There were six princes of sins, but we couldn’t narrow it down any further. This entire discussion also sorta exposed Ellaine, making Vifi’Yok question her disguise as a Lust contractor. We might not have told Grimnir to hide it, but he was smart and resourceful enough to know better. I knew his emotional outburst was warranted since this was his cousin we were speaking about, but this was really not like Grimnir!

[“Don’t confront it yet,”] Saori told me, her eyes trained at Grimnir and how much he was gesturing. He looked emotionally unstable.

Still, I listened to my best friend, trusting her judgement. I should return to the subject on hand, first.

Alright, if Tatsuya was implying that Broggart was dead all this time and that was the reason why Maagneil went so crazy, then how was all of this possible? The wolves didn’t smell the scent of death on him, nor did Belzac mention anything. However, unless Broggart was dead and resurrected in some way, how could we explain Maagneil’s behavior?

“There is somebody we could ask,” Saori stated, telling us to wait until that person came.

As our minecart stopped at the smithy, we quickly managed to find Broggart’ hidden space and pushed ourselves into it to hide. There weren’t any silence runes or something to hide our presence, so we had to just rely on our skills to do so. As we waited, Saori told me her shadow pack hadn’t returned and that I should close the portal for now.

With my patience starting to wear out after however long we’ve been waiting here, Grimnir suddenly suggested adding the mechanism he got from Broggart to his blasthammer. The preliminary tests were done while I was asleep to make sure it would work, now it only needed Ellaine to add it on.

“Broggart perfected the function of the mana blast my original blasthammer had—that single massive shot, remember? The one that overloaded the mana battery, making its application hard since I had to replace the battery after every usage?” Grimnir showed me the mana battery Broggart gave him. “A far more powerful one; one he learned to make with the dragon kill core in mind.”

“Wait, didn’t he tell us he never saw the core before?” My suspicion radar went into overdrive.

“He did, yes, but you heard him. He understood the theory behind it, predicting there was probably a more optimal combination of arcanuit and euorinium by using a fragment of the earth elemental emperor as an additional conduit for the flow of mana. A fragment! Of course, the original creator—”

“Grimnir!” I shook his shoulders, before looking over at Ellaine. “And you agreed to put this battery into his blasthammer?”

“W-well, I originally thought it would be a good idea … The issue with Master Grimnir’s blasthammer still hasn’t subsided, simply my skills aren’t really at that level yet. I still only have [Artificer Lv. 6], but Master Broggart, he was able to figure out the flaws and pointed out the problems of the design Master Grimnir and him made. In fact, I learned so much, I could probably improve on the guns I made for Kohaku and Kazumi!” she said with a pleasant smile, showing her enthusiasm to learn.

“Exactly! This is a revolution, lass! Trust us!‘ Grimnir almost managed to curl his fingers into a fist, hiding the battery away before I grabbed his hand. “Lass?”

“Grimnir … I will ask you this only once, alright? Did you and Ellaine drink anything weird? Inhaled anything?”

“He did offer us some fruit ale,” Ellaine sheepishly answered. “It was hard work, so we drank it. We didn’t really eat anything. I just lost myself in my work to noticing being peckish, which I am now.”

That was all I had to hear. I turned back to Grimnir. “Grimnir, I need you to give me the batt—”

“NO!” He pushed me back with full force as if he was trying to punch me, but I managed to catch it before it could. “THIS IS MINE! MINE! MY COUSIN’S TREAU—GRRRK!”

Saori immediately acted and grabbed his throat and shoulders, pushing him onto the ground before Kyouya and Tatsuya came over and helped me get the battery. This was the confirmation we needed; there was something going on with Grimnir!

Ellaine’s enthusiasm for her craft was invigorating to listen to, and while it did make me happy to hear her passion for it was as strong as ever, it did worry me at the same time. With how suspicious everything seemed, why was she and Grimnir not questioning the situation? Why were they acting so … off? As if something was messing with their heads.

And here it was.

I couldn’t let them put that battery into the blasthammer without checking on it. Ellaine and Grimnir hadn’t done so, but I could. The secret to this was in this damn thing … and why Ellaine wasn’t acting off, but Grimnir was.

“Mas—”

“EllAINE!” Grimnir shouted before Kyouya rammed him on the ground to stop his frenzied struggling. Eventually, King Fugnarus stepped in and held his axe forward, pointing at Grimnir as a rune activated, causing the ground to mold by his command, entangling him as if he just used the spell [Earthen Shackles]. “LASS, FREE ME! SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH ALL OF THEM! HELP ME!”

“… I don’t need to tell you what is happening, right?” I looked at the fourth member to join Aurora.

As expected, she nodded after hesitating. “I-I didn’t mention this … but the thing in my satchel wiggled around quite a bit while I was working with Master Broggart. I hadn’t taken too much notice of it when I worked but …”

Oh boy, the plot thickens …

I ignored Grimnir and held the battery up—this thing was the size of one of those cylindrical batteries you put into your TV controller. It was far smaller than the one Grimnir used for his blasthammer, and it was supposed to replace it? That one was like the size of a smartphone.

Mana Eyes.

Manaheart Battery: A mana battery created with the inspiration of the mana heart of major elementals—a crystalized mana organ to allow these elemental to maintain a more corporeal form. Using arcanuit and euorinium as the main components of this manatech, it allows the storage and usage of mana absorbed from the air, however, it maintains the fragility of the original minerals due to a lackluster ratio. A part of an elemental was embedded into this battery, granting it higher resistance against earth elemental attacks

…

I looked at Ellaine, who seemed flabbergasted at the very least. “… Ratio? W-wrong ratio?!”

“That’s the first thing they teach an artificer before they are allowed to make them,” King Fugnarus explained in Ellaine’s stead, sounding more confident with the subject. “A master artificer wouldn’t make such a rookie mistake. You double check the ore amount between the two to prevent the arcanuit from becoming too fragile, while the euorinium can’t outweigh it by too much, otherwise, the conductivity would suffer greatly.”

“So, the rest of the description is just fluff?” Ellaine stated, looking dismayed.

With my mana eyes still active, I noticed there was something in the middle of the battery that seemed off compared to the rest. Its mana signature was higher than the area that looked like the main mana storage of the battery. It seemed off, so I gave it to Ellaine.

“You cannot keep denying it,” Saori stated, before waving my [Room] runes around. “Please open it up and check on it. Do not risk it. Hestia, Asaka should have come back from the toilet by now.”

“ELLAINE!” Grimnir shouted, but we all ignored him, leaving him for King Fugnarus to watch over.

With that said, Saori also checked on her shadow. As it rumbled, Rajah’s head jumped out of it, looking excited at the fact he was working with his mother to scout out. Son and mom; how precious.

He informed us the shadow pack managed to scout the entire tunnel area and found a large, arena like area a bit further from Broggart’s workshop, while behind this smithy was a large entrance, as Broggart instructed. There were also smaller side tunnels with signs of being mined in in the area, all connected to the train tracks.

[“Song found another dwarves exiting the workshop area. Old, twitching, stinky; the same person who tried to hurt Master!”] Rajah growled. It had to be Maagneil. [“He left, but that other dwarf is driving towards here with a minecart. I dashed back as soon as Mom told me so!”]

“Good boy!” I scratched his head before dismissing him.

Eyes in the shadows with the shadow pack, and eyes in the sky with my two wyvern retainers. Speaking of them, I hoped they were doing alright with the expedition. Ellaine didn’t mention Shay and Beth much, but they were still alive and kicking, at least.

In any case, with not much time left, all of us exiting the hiding spot and I opened my portal, where we saw Asaka waiting for us. Saori cut straight to the chase, “Did you notice anything about Broggart? With your connection to Ilsaphone, I mean.”

“Huh? Oh, Grimnir’s cousin you mean?” Asaka was around when Broggart stormed out of the workshop. “Well, I thought the wolves or the old wolf could tell you, so I can’t say I can provide much better. Still … I don’t know if this is my connection with Ilsaphone speaking or not, but it feels he’s … empty.”

“Empty?” I tilted my head.

“Yeah, like, I don’t know, seeing him gave me the same feeling I have while seeing corpses. Empty husks. To be honest, seeing the onnikais also gives me that feeling if they haven’t fully possessed a body, but I am sure that person wasn’t an onnikai,” she elaborated, but it still felt confusing to listen to. “Listen, this is one thing Belzac made sure to punch into my head, ‘Either you become an onnikai, or your soul will be sent to Goddess Death to be reincarnated.’ Ever since her birth, true necromancy we see from movies and so on can’t exist in Peolynca. Despite being her Saintess, I am not a death summoner or something, but I can sense the absence of a soul.”

“…” All of us remained silent at what she said, before we looked at Grimnir who was staring at us with eyes so wide they could pop out of his socket at any moment.

Asaka looked around, sighing as she realized what she was implying. “… It’s just a feeling, alright? I’m still not much of a Saintess, so you better check him out, Hestia. If he really is a walking corpse, then there has to be a reason for that. Some strings, right?”

“With [Mana Eyes], right. Got it, see you later.”

She nodded. “Stay safe. Send people inside the subspace when they need to be healed. This twilight slime is pretty nice for healing.”

Once she was gone, Vifi’Yok let out a loud sigh. “… Sooooo. ‘Mine. Mine. Mine.’ Sounds clear?”

“… Greed. Right, you did mumble it when we had that heart-to-heart moment,” I stated, causing her to sigh and nod. “One of the three desires sins along with gluttony and lust. However, lust is about debauchery and hedonism, while gluttony is about the necessity to survive. Greed isn’t about need, but—”

“—the wish to possess something even if it’s unnecessary,” Neill ended the sentence for me. “But how? Is Broggart a demonkin of greed? I thought Asaka just said he was soulless?”

“Oooh, yeah, since we now know who is behind all of this, I think I know exactly what caused your smith to act like that … and in the case I am right, I might just be in a some biiiig trouble.” She gulped, forcing up a smile. “I know what is causing it, yeah … I also want to know why this girl here showed no reaction to it. Humans aren’t as resistant to demonic corruption like dwarves are, and greed was one of the sins which managed to corrupt the stubborn dwarves. Its just like history repeated itself … but what’s your excuse?”

Ellaine stayed quiet.

“Not a real lust contractor, are you? A blessed? Blesseds are usually resistant against demonic corruption due to the god’s blessing … but how were you able to use a demonkin of lust’s powers? How are you able to resist the creeping greed from corrupting your mind? If this is the Prince of Greed we are talking about, not even I can ignore it.” She walked closer to Ellaine. “Who are you really?”

“…” Ellaine could only stared back at the punkish demonkin.

“Uuuh, everybody?”

We all snapped our heads to the front door. The signal had finally reached us.

“Is everything alright?” Broggart walked over to us, gingerly. He probably already understood how intense the atmosphere was and how sharp our eyes were while staring at him.

“Cuoso!” Grimnir somehow freed himself from the earthen shackles and ran up to Broggart, grabbing him by the scuff. “Y-you’re alive, right? I-it’s as ya said! You’re alive! You faked your death and all that nonsense afterwards was cuz of your damn father! That bastard Maagneil is at fault, right?! Cuoso?”

“…” He didn’t say anything, only closing his eyes. “Grimnir … know this: I apologize for using you. I respect you, cuoso, and I will continue to keep the shame for underestimating you all these years. You, my cuoso. The only one I would ever wish to work with on grander works to impress Goddess Chihiro! To shame Bleidla for losing one of the best blacksmiths in the world!”

“… Cuoso? Broggi?”

Broggart grabbed his arms, tearing his hands off his clothes almost effortlessly.

“But I would be lying if I said those words really came from ‘Broggart.’”

Mana Eyes!

There! Right where his heart should be! The dwarven body before me was entirely true, to the point it even has a Profile to prove it! But there was no heart in this body, no, there was something entirely else inside there. The mana signature was hard to see, but the concentration of it reminded me of something else I had once seen before. I snapped my head to Ellaine’s satchel, noticing something similar, but smaller inside of it.

An aberration! Shit, Grimnir!

“But I am no envy, I can’t continue playing around like one. My creator needs me to work again.”

“Broggi!” Grimnir shouted as something suddenly burst out of Broggart’s chest, revealing itself as a crystal heart. Blood oozed out of it before it formed a flower with petals filled with teeth, before it screeched out a horrendous noise!

“Kriiiiiiieeeeeezzzzzzzzz!”

“Kriiiiiiaaaaah!” Before it popped our ears, I shouted from the top of my lungs, blasting the weaker sonic attack with my [Draconic Roar], blasting both “Broggart” and Grimnir away with it.

Shit! At the same time, I also noticed that a sonic attack had pierced and damaged Grimnir’s power armor’s pauldron, causing a dent in it.

Before I could fly over to catch him, I saw an arm blackened in black armor peer out of Grimnir’s shadow, grabbing his leg before he flew away too far and clad him in [Shadow Armament]. Once it covered his entire body, he was pulled into a shadow and reappeared behind us with Saori.

Nice!

“My creator gave me this power for this very instance!”

“W-woah!”

As I was celebrating our tiny victory, everybody in the room suddenly fell onto their knees, caused by some invisible force. Even if I tried to stand up, the force was so powerful, it felt like my bones were cracking under this intense weight. The more I struggled, the more pain I felt.

Play My Darkest Thoughts. Now!

“Staring out the window while it rains ♫

No one here to talk, silence is all I have ♫

So I delved into my thoughts and wondered, “What if?”♫

[Music Resonation (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

If this was a demonic being, then playing [My Darkest Thought] was the best way to counter and weaken them! Just as I suspected, the weight put on my body weakened, helping me stand right up, even if I was still trembling. The “Broggart” before me tilted his head, looking confused as all of us managed to walk.

“… I feel weakened. What is this song, and why is it inhibiting my powers? No matter, my creator—”

I didn’t even let him stop speaking, blasting myself forward and holding my head out to touch that flower of his. I only needed one touch to usurp him!

“—allowed me to use gravity magic on myself, too.”

But before I could do so, all the gravity around me disappeared, helping me speed up but it seemed to have fully focused itself around Broggart as the dwarven was unceremoniously squished into paste onto the ground, just before I could touch him.

As I flew over, I also saw the ground trembling, before it just broke and fell downwards, creating something a hole too deep to see into. As my entire group looked down, we suddenly heard the sound of beeping from the mana battery in Ellaine’s possession—the very same Grimnir almost had put in his blasthammer!

Saori grabbed it and threw it away before touching her shadow with both hands. Her entire body was then immediately covered in her shadow armor [Shadow Armament] before I felt her [True Wolfen Bloodlust] exude from her body. “Territory Release! Yomi!”

Allied Territory detected! [Yomi] has been activated!

Black ooze spread from Saori’s shadow as if it was water, covering up the entire area around us as the beeping of the battery intensified, sounding like it would explode any second now. Saori stomped the ground before grabbing it, pulling the shadow as if it was tangible over her body, controlling it like a puppet as a massive tidal wave of black consumed us all.

I haven’t been in the shadow world in a while, but the thought of it sent a chill down my body as I revisited the world of nothingness. The grand abyss of blackness where light was the faintest glimmer of hope we had left. If not even that was available, then death was an assured fate as you drifted in this world with no clue what was up or down, whether you were asleep or awake.

Regardless, no matter how poetic I could be, Saori wouldn’t let me get too dramatic as she pulled us along her fluid-like shadow, dragging us through the light of a hole. As we all emerged back to the light world, the sound of a massive explosion drowned out our ears as we snapped our head to the left, noticing the rumbling of the tunnel.

Saori was the last to come out, followed by the giant body of Uno, the black flame hellhound. Saori reached her arm out, patting her fenrir as a [Shadow Snake] suddenly slithered back on her arm.

“You really are prepared for everything, huh?!” I expressed with a wide smile, feeling nostalgic at the always prepared Saori.

“Well, after we had that entire discussion on the minecarts, it would be weird if I hadn’t at least put down a way for me to perform a long-range [Shadow Dash], right?” Her smile beamed with pride at her own foresight. Since [Shadow Dash] required line-of-sight to activate, the best way to ensure you could do so was with [Shadow Snake], which allowed the user to look through its eyes to spy on things.

The cunningness and creative moves you could do with dark magic would never stop astounding me.

Allied Territory [Yomi] deactivated

I also smiled when I saw that System message. “I see you also managed to perform a Territory release.”

“Thank my Mom and Belzac for teaching me. Fitting that our relatives would teach us how to perform them, right?”

That was my number two!

… But we could celebrate everything else later, as we now had to run from the collapsing tunnel. Grabbing a dazed Grimnir, Saori summoned her shadow pack to allow us to run away from the immediate threat on their backs. Midway through, I also noticed Broggart’s workshop, meaning we were making our way to the arena, the place Broggart warned us to not enter as it would activate the floor’s event.

Sadly, we had no other choice.

Once we arrived there, I could hear the sounds of people cheering for some reason. At the same time, Neill and I caught the whiff of something we had not wanted to meet again this soon.

The last floor gambit … Good work everybody for making it here. There is no real task here, instead, it is a free-for-all. A last try for everybody to reach the goal. After all, the task is to reach me and perform my task to gain your unique Jobs. Now, one last time, fight and win your gambit! Find the stairs behind this arena and reach me!

The message appeared as I saw the arena before me, unable to compare its size to any stadiums I’ve seen in my two lives. It felt large enough to be comparable to Central Park in New York. As in, it was huge enough to fit multiple blocks of apartments, sky scrapers, and football stadiums. The last time I checked, Central park was even longer than some cities!

And this humongous area stood before us as we notice a few dots coincidentally waiting in front of our entrance. All of them smelled like trouble … literally.

“The dragons!” Multiple parties of people shouted in unison at us, waving their weapons in the air as they rallied around three people leading them—the dragonslayers.

Galg …

The lance fighter was killed by Neill and the leonid berserker was nearly killed by Neill, but she wasn’t around right now. Still, three of them were still here and that was enough to send a chill down my spine. The archer, the mage, and the rank S dragonslayer.

“…” He did not speak this time. His eyes were aimed at me as he downed a green, red, and purple potion, before pointing his dual blades at me.

“Galg! Galg! Galg!” Around 19 people shouted.

“For the loot! For the loot! For the loot!” Far too many for me to quickly count shouted out, but it looked like there were over 100 adventurers.

“Kill them! KILL THEM!” And another group far too numerous to count cheered out as well.

Suffice to say, we were outnumbered.

Barooooooooooooooom!

… But not for long, for in the distance behind this army of dragonkin slayers and adventurers, another one marched towards us. With the bellowing sound of a horn announcing their arrival, it also signaled the large-scale battle to come. Once it stopped, the slithering movement of a train-length serpent made from ice drew my attention to the person standing on top of its head—the one leading this secondary army.

There she stood with flying ice swords covering her flanks, looking imposing as I noticed her wearing a new set of dazzling gear I had never seen on her before. While not as cute as her usual maid outfit, this crystalline wardress with ice armor covering her created this image of a general leading her soldiers into battle.

She held her catalyst up, causing it turn into a sword for her to wield. She pointed it at our enemy. At Aurora’s enemies!

“Event Expedition alliance has successfully rendezvoused with our missing allies! New allies detected! Princess Hestia, Princess Fargryneill, and King Fugnarus!” she shouted under the silence of everybody below her. “Wyvern slayers and dragonslayers detected! They threaten our allies!”

“Uraaaaaawwwwwgh!”

And her speech invoked the combined roars of the many dragonewts and dragonkins under her command.

This was our number three.

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Chapter 418: The Greatest Gambit!

A note from AbyssRaven

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We don’t have time for this!

Our targets in this entire debacle weren't these dragonkin slayers or the random adventurers vying for the Event reward, it was the person behind all these disasters. The ones who probably are responcible for the gods issuing the first Event Quest inside this dungeon.

Right now, our objective wasn’t to fight, it was to chase. We had to reach Maagneil and “Broggart” before they escaped! Letting them flee into the unknown again was a no go!

But, just like always, that red aura from that bastard unnerved me ‘cause he always knew when the best time to strike was.

But not this time!

Galg, ignoring the incoming army led by Tasianna, only had eyes for me as his red aura intensified, but there was something I just noticed after meeting him three times at this point. He wasn’t that insanely fast that I couldn’t see him. Compared to my fight with Vifi’Yok where she zoomed around with that lightning of his to the point I could only predict where she went, Galg was just slow enough for me to see.

It was all in my mind. That creeping chill running down my spine whenever I smelled him. The stench of the dead dragonkins covering his armor and body, telling me how many fights he has seen, how many dragonkins just like me he has slain. The armor he made from my arm to counter me, the potions his team created to heal from fire damage, and just the fact he made sure he had everything planned to murder me.

Nothing scared a prey more than a prepared hunter … something I’ve known and taught others here and there. This was a crash course I haven’t had in months … but the third time was what I needed to understand—my fear of him slowed my thinking and actions down!

Snap!

Anticipating him to dash at me again, I snapped my fingers just as he jumped to reach me while riding Uno, causing a spark blast to erupt. While it didn’t hurt Galg, Uno flinched from the damage from the blow, creating enough distance for me to cast two [Wind Blast]s, blowing us far away from this man.

“Sorry, Uno!”

[“Do not be, Alpha’s Master!”] That low, manly voice coming from Saori’s second-in-command reassured me before he stomped on the air, using [Air Walk] to get further away from the dragonslayer. Still, that guy was relentless as always.

However, the moment he tried to pursue me, not one, but two of my allies charged right at him. Vifi’Yok preoccupied his right blade, while Saori kept his left arm restricted with [Dark Tendrils]. That was when the third punched him right in the chest, spreading blue mana lines on the armor before sending him away through the force of her strike.

It was Neill, and she already was in her [Battle Frenzy] mode with her black hair shining neon purple.

Galg fell onto the ground, tumbling around before he recovered his balance. The mana lines spreading on his chest suddenly stopped, leaving a large scar on his armor, but it wasn’t broken. I should feel proud my scales managed to endure a punch from an enraged Neill, but this wasn’t the moment to express that.

As he recovered from that blow by taking a breather, his two remaining allies—the blind katzune archer and the eccentric human mage—began to barrage us with arrows and spells respectively, forcing Kyouya to dismount and construct shadow walls with his unique skills, creating enough of a diversion for everybody else to bypass the projectiles.

Once Saori rescued her student from the incoming fire and teleported him on Quatre, I was ready to unleash hell back by bombarding them with my own spells.

[Various Spell Buffs] [Music Resonation (Moderate)] [Stage Fever (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Not this time! I’m not cowering before you all, this time!

Not only the dragonslayers but also their cronies had to dodge as [Bedrock Blades], [Banishment Beam], and [Levin Core] riddled the battlefields with destruction, blowing the ground up and inconveniencing everybody around.

I did managed to damage a couple of the random wyvern slayers and adventurers, but the mages amongst them immediately went into action to stop me from killing any of them, especially that dragonslayer mage. Aside from holy and dark elemental spells, that guy had been using fire, wind, water, and earth spells, in addition to their various compound elements—lightning, ice, magma, and mud—to fend me off.

He had access to [Bedrock Blades] to force us to dodge, [Tailwind] to speed up his allies movements, [Blazing Twister] to force us into positions for the katzune archer to fire at us, and even [Sapphire Membrane] to create a barrier of water to shield everybody. This wasn’t even to mention how I noticed him being able to cast seven spells simultaneously, making me fully acknowledge this person was without a doubt a rank A mage.

Just like me with far more room to work with, unlike the tunnel we just fought in, this was about to copy our first meeting where we went wild with our spell casts. Only difference was I was fighting against eight more mages, all able to cast at least three spells at once. They were rank B, probably, but any spells slung at us forced us on the defensive as even a weak earth spell was enough to disrupt our dodging rhythm.

“Can’t attack!” Vifi’Yok cried out as she dodged at an incoming arrow, forcing me to cast [Sanctuary] to block a few more spells to allow us to get in a better position for me to cast spells. “Too many!”

Vifi’Yok was one of our only fighters who could equal Galg when it came to combat speed, so having her act as our vanguard would leave our slower members in danger. King Fugnarus had his artificial Territory in store to allow him to control the earth at a more large-scale fashion, but if his armor or axe cracked, all of would be for naught. Tatsuya and Kyouya were completely out of the question since they weren’t strong enough.

I couldn’t just charge in since I was weak to their attacks, especially Winter’s Gift would knock me easily. I couldn’t even transform back into a dragon since the moment I did, I would have to take off my bracelet. That meant I would forfeit my stay in this dungeon and would be transported out by the rules of the Event Quest. I had to rely on my allies, but …

Grimnir wasn’t responding, looking like he was still in shock at what happened, not to mention, he probably was still feeling the aftereffects of the demonic encroachment, even if [My Darkest Thoughts] probably soothed his mind. I felt confident in Ellaine’s powers now … but only if she turned into her demonkin form, and that could expose her to Vifi’Yok. Was it worth it?

As such, only Neill or Saori could be sent in, but both of them were weak to anti-dragonkin weapons. Neither of them could fully one-woman army all of them due to the number of wyvern slayers and the three dragonslayers looming around with Winter’s Gift ready to take them out.

The shadow pack, also, required far larger shadows to jump out from now that they evolved into rank Bs. They were far too large for human shadows now, and this huge arena was surprisingly well lit by a large artificial sun.

Sun? Wait, wait, wait! This place is large enough! The requirements are set!

And just as I got an epiphany on how to solve this situation, the more obvious one was about to dawn on me. I mean, while my hearing was quite good, it couldn’t hear people from too far away … still, it did sound like the air was whistling as multiple missiles were quickly approaching us from the sky.

Looking up, I knew why.

“DRAGOONS!” the enemies before me shouted, momentarily stopping their assault.

For up in the sky, spirit-like silver and black dragons formed before they lunged at us, striking and launching numerous of our enemies up in the air. Easy pickings while they were airborne, but I held my spells back as I squinted my eyes, noticing numerous other figures diving onto the ground, barraging the ground as if it was an artillery strike!

The rumbling, ear-splitting sounds of all those attacks forced the dragonslayer mage to focus entirely on defense, constructing multiple [Sapphire Membranes] to dampen the attacks. Still, those spear-like missiles pierced right through the watery barrier, wrecking the people underneath it.

Allied Territory detected! [Skyward Bladeworks] has been activated!

Just then, a System message appeared in front of me as the dust was swept away by the sight of twelve spears made from glistening silver. They rotated around a silver-scaled dragonewt, slicing anybody around her before she jumped up, using those floating weapons to destroy the [Sapphire Membrane], opening for the assault of two familiar dragonewts and the sightings of a blue-haired elf blasting ice unto the battlefield.

“Glory to Kargryxmor! Glory to Eltharion! Glory to the True Dragonkins! Dragoons! Dive!” The silver dragonewt shouted before she pointed her spears at the enemy below. “Protect our Princesses, Loatryxians! Clan Nordor, protect our matriarch’s beloved daughter!”

Yorshka! That’s her Territory!

“By the command of my father, a representative of the kinkyuro, Loatryxians, we give our lives to our Emperor’s daughters!” And from below, a bulky, black-scaled dragonewt raised his halbard into the sky as black flames began to rise around him, covering his black-scaled armor like a poncho. “Our honor as knights depends on it! I, Midirn, order every able Clan Kargryxmor member to protect our two princesses! Protect Princess Hestia and Princess Fargryneill! Gahaha!”

The rousing battle cries and speeches fully invigorated the many dragonewts on the grounds—the ones who bombarded the area with their [Dragoon Dive]s. They all raised their polearms in unison, pumping them up and down like handbells in the middle of the shattered ground and the bodies of some of the deceased adventurers.

“Kill the dragonslayers! Kill the wyvern slayers! Kill all dragonkin SLAYERS!”

I noticed Pradreo and Skardrvo amongst the dragoons—the two dragonewts ambassadors I met—before they had to defend themselves from some incoming attackers. In fact, all of them went into action, with archers targeting Yorshka in the skies. Fortunately, the two dragonewts and Tasianna I mentioned before had them covered.

Ice breaths coming from Shay and Beth blanked the field before countless blades of ice showered everything, turning the battlefield into a spike field. Tasianna was riding on the back of the brother of the two twins, doing what she did best. As the chaos raged on, a giant green magic circle appeared on the ground, before Tasianna unleashed one of her new spells upon everybody.

“Support is here! Flight Zone!” she shouted for everybody to hear before the spell activated, causing a strong updrift from the magic circle, shooting everybody in the air as we floated around as if we were in an indoor skydiving room.

“Tasianna!” I shouted as I noticed the katzune archer aiming at her, but before she even needed to react, an arrow landed directly on the man’s bow, ruining his aim.

Following his direction, the other archers readied their bows at Tasianna, but this was the dragoons’ playing field. If it came to the air battles, this was their moment!

“Huuuraaaah!” The only human amongst the dragoon shouted, swinging his swordspear downwards, causing the wind to move towards him, bringing the archers closer. This rusty dragoon—Farron—then stomped the air with his fellow dragon knight, shooting themselves forward in a rotating moment with [Spiral] to eviscerate anybody they touched.

The uplift suddenly stopped, causing everybody to fall down who wasn’t floating with a skill or ability. My team, for example, were going back to the ground.

And there was when all of saw the reinforcements of the cavalry incoming. Riding on the backs of dinosaurs made from water, numerous humans, elves, and dwarves quickly approached us with the giant ice serpent acting as the vanguard. I also noticed a priest-like wind elf aiming his bow at a few adventurers but not shooting, while a heavily armored dwarf was laughing out loud as he bashed his gemstone-embedded shield with a hammer.

However, it wasn’t these over twenty allies that made me smile, but the five scalekins sitting on the last dinosaur. Saurians; it was Master, Krim-Slak, Grazlahta, Akast, and Tehmrayn! That ass who didn’t want to join the after-battle feast in Elyonda was back!

I could even see Nishio, Kazumi, Kohaku, and Misaki in the middle! The students weren’t fully injured! Everybody was alright, and they were charging into battle with the rest.

The whole bloody expedition was here … I couldn’t really them show me up but—

“Go!” Neill shouted. “Find the person behind this and beat the shit out of them! We can handle this!”

“What?!” I snapped my head around. What was Sis suggesting here.

“This is another Elyonda situation if you ask me, Hestia. We failed to stop Ghorush from releasing that rank SS leviathan cuz we got distracted—even Tehmrayn realized it was his mistake in the end. Whatever they are planning with that ‘dragon killer,’ we need to stop it now.” She grabbed my shoulders. “Manethala might not be part of Kargryx, but you heard that fake Broggart. It might not be the whole truth he said, but I have this feeling Manethala is still an unwilling participant in this. As a dragonkin myself, I know what it feels when somebody stomps on the things you love, especially if all of the things are in your nest!”

She then began shedding the upper layer of her scales, allowing them to form two gauntlets and greaves, before she continued, “But, if that guy is a threat, then we better stop him now. What did you say? A rebellion orb or something?”

I understood what she wanted us to do. “… You’re telling me to divide our forces?”

“Yes … cuz killing that dragonslayer is my job, not yours.”

Huh? My mouth went agape as I heard her say that.

“Either that, or we can all wait here, kill the dragonslayers together, and possibly risk Maagneil or that ‘thing’ running the fuck away. Or, in the worst case, that thing becomes active and wants to kill us. Do you get what I mean? I—all of the expedition force—can handle these two last assholes!” Neill readied to jump off Uno the moment we landed. “… Besides, you made me realize I can’t continue running away from my kirin form. As I told you, if I want my name to spread throughout the world, then it better be from me killing the rank S dragonslayer ‘Twin Reaver’ Galg! GALG!”

“W-wait!” I reached my hand out as she jumped off, joining the fray as she regrouped with Pradreo and Skardrvo, leaving me here, flabbergasted at what just happened. “… But I was supposed to prove I’m not running away any longer. Why are you—”

“Cut it with the jokes! Uno, move!” Saori pulled me back on the fenrir’s back before he snapped his body around and ran. “Song found a tunnelway. They are sure Maagneil came from it, but they were sure he visited Broggart from the arena area.”

“Wait, you can’t be serious! We can’t just—” I wanted to protest to Neill’s and Saori’s wish to split up the group, finding it more too risky unless we make sure we kill Galg here and now, however, that was when a telepathic message came to interrupt me.

[“Lady Hestia.”] It was Tasianna’s voice. [“Miss Saori briefed me as much as possible. I am not clear on your situation, but I know the real enemy to this entire mess is on the last floor. Leave these scoundrels to all of us.”]

[“Tasianna, you can’t—”]

[“Trust us! I won’t die. Your sister won’t die. Saint Kushlek’zar won’t die. Yorshka and Farron will not fall! The twins will reap before they fall! This is not where we will die, so trust us, and move! What I’ve learned as a leader during this expedition is that sometimes, you need to put your faith into those under you. Even if you are the strongest ever, you cannot solve every situation without letting repercussions build up!”]

Tasianna … What have you experienced during this trip?

“Lass,” King Fugnarus called out to me. “Justice doesn’t always have to come through our hands. Maagneil. Broggart. The Prince of Greed. They can not be left to their own devices!”

The king of the dwarves who lost an entire rescue party to the dragonslayers wanted to avenge all of them for his honor, but he put it aside for his responsibility as a king. He pushed me forward, reminding me what my role in all of this was. Reminding me of what Eshe and Tehmrayn told me to do as a Champion.

I was given a Divine Quest by Crustacia. I was given the role to fulfil a task by the gods … and as a Champion who agreed to it, I had to answer their trust in me. Crustacia’s trust in me to find the filth staining her lands and to get rid of it!

This wasn’t the time for my idol side to win over, this was the time for me to act upon everything I’ve learned on my adventurers. I was a blessed of Aurena; a Champion and self-proclaimed idol!

I clenched my hands. [“Then you better return, Tasianna! Keep everybody safe! This is an order!”]

[“Yes, Princess Hestia!”]

She was so far up in the sky, dazzling so brightly with that new wardress of hers. Where did she get it? From a dungeon chest? It didn’t matter, for her resplendent figure felt so … No, it felt like the same old Tasianna, but she was now forged through trials where she didn’t have to rely on me any longer. She had already grown strong, but it felt like she got even better.

On the backs of Uno, our eight man group dashed through the battlefields, through the rain of arrows and spells. Some wyvern slayers would appear before us, but before any of us needed to fight, somebody from the expedition force would block them.

“Move, Princess Hestia!”

“Clan Nordor will keep you safe!”

First, it was Pradreo and Skardrvo. I argued with them, finding their zealous fanaticism to the killing of dragonkin slayers quite frightening and intimidating, but when it mattered the most, they stood by me. I didn’t acknowledge them as family just yet … but they did. For my dragon father and mother, they were here to protect me.

I really should apologize to them the next time we meet.

In addition, numerous humans, dragonewts, elves, and dwarves helped us get through all the conflict. People I had never met in my life before were fighting in my behest, slaying those I deemed enemies.

Unlike in Elyonda where I led and fought for the people of Elyonda, this time it was the other way around. Still … it felt undeserved. Their trust in me was due to my political connections and standing as a member of the imperial family of Kargryx … But that only made me more motivated to shine brighter. I had to live up to their expectations.

I couldn’t speak with Yorshka, Farron, Shay, Beth, or the saurians, but it didn’t mean I could exit the stage without some words.

[“Victory will be ours! Trust in me!”] I announced to everybody as they roared out in response.

We shot through the battlefield and into a cave. I looked back, noticing Ellaine was still trying to get Grimnir to stop looking like he was in a daze. I shuffled back, shaking his shoulders, telling him to get a grip.

“Grimnir, we’re about to confront Broggart! Stop looking like this isn’t your problem!”

However, he didn’t respond, only lowering his head while keeping his eyes widened. Was he having a flashback or something? Regardless, it didn’t look like any of us could solve his situation for him, as Ellaine figured he might be relapsing to when we first met him. To the Grimnir who blamed himself for his cousin’s death.

Shit!

“Company!” Vifi’Yok shouted as she pointed ahead.

“Fuck! They caught onto us!” A couple adventurers shouted as they readied their weapons at us. Ellaine quickly informed me those were the third faction of this Event Quest—the neutral faction only interested in the win, instead of the fighting.

I can’t let you win this!

I left Grimnir in Ellaine’s care before jumping forward to spew out purple flames at our competition. Once they were set ablaze, I immediately used [Volcanic Blaze] to extinguish the flame, leaving only the fumes of my [Corrosive Fire], causing them to quickly become drowsy and numb to their burn pains.

As we ran by them, I blasted them with some [White Flames] to assure they weren’t about to die and left them there. Ellaine didn’t specify them as our enemies, just competitors to the reward of this Event. After all, the entire reason for this expedition was the acquisition of the Unique Jobs and that was why Ellaine had to stay with us.

[“Found it, Master!”] Rajah’s voice entered my mind before he jumped out of the numerous shadows in this tunnel. He ran through one of the side tunnels, leading us to a set of stairs where Varya and Vidia were waiting for us.

[“The smell of that dwarf is through this path,”] the latter informed us. The power of a wolf’s nose.

Ellaine jumped off Uno’s back, understanding she had to be the first to enter the last floor. After some time passed, she finally shouted, “I got it!” and sent the message to us telepathically.

Congratulations on becoming the first party to reach the final floor of [Manethala’s Greatest Gambit]! The trial for your last gambit has been chosen; fulfill it and you will receive your reward! Objective: Kill or expunge the invaders into Goddess Chihiro’s workshop, and protect the dungeon core stored inside of it

… This really is his ‘greatest gambit.’

With that message in mind, we joined up with her, prompting another System message to be sent to me which gave me the same info, only that they called me the “second party.” Without further delay, we rushed forward until we entered a humongous chamber about the size of my obsidian orchestra. We all stood still for a moment, as our eyes were captivated by the dazzling sight of the mountains upon mountains of radiant ores and minerals.

It was a literal dragon’s pile of gold. No matter where you went, it was inevitable for you to step upon at least something valuable. Even more impressive was the fact that this drake decorated his lair’s walls with topaz- and emerald-glass sheets as if they were tapestry, even adding gems and such as “embroidery.” Manethala the Avaricious, indeed. Manethala the No-Home-Decoration-Skill sounded more accurate at this point, though.

“Grrraaaaaaak!” Speaking of the devil … that very terrible home decorators suddenly was blown through a gold-plated door to the right, destroying it while the former crashed right into his pile of wealth. Blood splattered all over everything as a deep wound on his stomach began to spray around like a fountain.

That’s a drake.

The humongous dragonkin before me was almost the size of the geisenlarg king I fought in Griffonpeak, towering even over my dragon form. This beast …was probably the length of a medium navy warship, with the outer shell looking like the armor of a desert reptile. In fact, with the sharp protrusions limited to his back, Manethala looked like an armadillo lizard with the bulk of a komodo dragon, but the gigantification needed for a rank A true dragonkin.

We gazed at the groaning drake for a moment, before we snapped to the broken door, hearing the rumbling footsteps of something approaching. The clanking sound of gears turning and the cracking of metal put through stress and tear drowned out all other noises, even our own awe as it revealed itself.

A metal colossus, just as Broggart explained with his “golem” description. A creation made from metal with a giant drill on its right arm and a laser barrel on the left. The robotic face of this golem stared at us as it revved up its drill, causing its body to shine blue from all the seams flowing through its body and revealing a dark truth behind the “power source” Broggart mentioned would power up this giant.

“Cuoso?”

Grimnir stared up at the thing’s chest, witnessing the fake Broggart’s broken body acting as the core for the entire thing. Mana was sapped from his body as it turned purple, while the aberration squirming on its chest let out a ghastly, outlandish chuckle.

Grimnir could only continue staring. “Broggart …”

“Hestia, that’s a—” Tatsuya was silenced from his shock.

Kyouya nodded. “C-can’t believe she lived through that early age, too! That’s not like the modern versions, but that still is a—”

“Gundam!” I shouted!

It wasn’t the more modern looking giant robots which looked more fantastical with their designs, but more like those bulky toys with those blocky shoulders and limbs. It looked as if some giant was wearing the armor with how simple it was. Only, the encroaching eldritch influence caused by the aberration was slowly twisting it, making it look freaky.

It became even worse when a dwarf stepped in front of the colossus’s head, revealing themselves to me Maagneil. With no words, he held up a red orb with one hand and a brown one with the other.

[“… Help … me.”] I heard from somebody telepathically, almost recognizing the voice until my parallel minds reminded me that it belonged to the earth elemental emperor. Did it come from that brown orb.

“Witness … my son’s greatest creation. The one to bring the Luedbrumdar’s name into the next world! My … chance to bring him back to life,” the deranged dwarf monologue before the robot’s face opened up, revealing something that looked like a cockpit. “His greatest creation … the killer of dragons, the one to bring Kargryx down. To bring the Ankor-Nazta down.”

“False!” King Fugnarus jumped down from Uno, walking up with his axe held up high. The Dhuinn rune on his chestplate and axe lit up. “Maagneil, you dare speak that name when you betrayed us all? You will find no glory under the clutches of the demonkins! You will fall here and lose that beard, zuekluk!”

“… You exiled my son and brought him to death, Fugnarus. You and Grimnir will not live to witness the destruction I will bring upon your home!” He went into the cockpit. “GRIMNIR! YOU WILL PAY FOR KILLING MY BROGGART! YOU WILL NOT STOP ME FROM RESURRECTING HIM!”

The endgame of this event was upon us.

I clutched my hands and touched my sun core, realizing it was almost out of solar power. It had been so long since I saw the real sun, and without a full core, I wouldn’t be able to use [Drakonian Sunlight Edge] too well, or [Solar Beam], honestly. I needed a full charge to bring havoc, including a chance to be in my dragon form.

Guess I have to make him desperate, then.

I flew up in the sky, confronting the enemy before me as it aimed its laser barrel at me.

“Hestia?!” Saori called out, but I stayed calm.

Unlike with the dragonslayers, I couldn’t smell the stench of dragonblood on the colossus that much, aside from the drill. I wasn’t scared of this thing. It was just another of the many giant foes I’ve taken down in the past. It would be another piece to my collection of victories.

I held my hand up, creating a purple magic circle as the barrel began to lit up blue.

“Purple Flash. Humanize.”

[Humanize (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

I felt my mana surging up, demanding me to cast my next spell. I poured my mana out as two white magic circle materialized above and under me, each a part of the other according to the mana link between them. This was one of my newest custom spells along [Hydra]. Speaking of which …

Hydra.

The giant obsidian slime snake began to appear from the ground, hissing at the enemy before me. I tensed up as I sent more of my mana out until the holy spell was ready. With a deep breath, I roared!

“Kriiiiiaaaaaaaaah!”

Sun, Consume All!

A note from AbyssRaven

I'm releasing this chapter like an hour before dawn. I am sleepy. I want to sleep. So I will sleep. Hope you guys enjoyed it.

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Table of Contents

Title Page

Art Gallery of Dragon Idol

Chapter 0: Prologue

Chapter 1: Why Am I a Lizard?

Chapter 2: I Wish Using Magic Would Come With a Manual.

Chapter 3: I’m a Strawberry Lover Now.

Chapter 4: An Informative Night.

Continue with Dragon Idol on Amazon KU

Chapter 37: Of Magic and Mana.

Chapter 38: I have officially become a party leader.

Chapter 39: Skydiving is a wonderful hobby.

Chapter 40: Who knew the dragon had a phobia?

Chapter 41: Can I sweat poison?

Side Story 6: The Gathering of the Misfits.

Side Story 7: I must become stronger!

Chapter 42: A spar among friends.

Chapter 43: Cadejo and Fairy vs. Spark Inferno Dragon.

Chapter 44: Hunting Strategy: Portable Hestia Rifle.

Chapter 45: How many monsters were in the area?!

Chapter 46: Why can’t I remember my dream?

Chapter 47: Monster kitty adoption!

Chapter 48: This must be Revenge!

Side Story 8: The church’s magic is amazing!

Side Story 9: This party has no future…

Chapter 49: Hunting with Rajah.

Chapter 50: Reunion.

Chapter 51: I found the fiends…

Chapter 52: Doctor Hestia is in the house!

Chapter 53: Emotional bliss and embarrassment.

Chapter 54: The lizardmen’s backstory.

Chapter 55: Rescue mission start!

Chapter 56: The Thrill of the Chase!

Chapter 57: Reptilian Showdown!

Chapter 58: Heilige…what the hell is that thing?!

Chapter 59: A goodbye to dear friends and a message from above.

Character Summary 14.6.2020

Side Story 10: Laveata Town.

Side Story 11: Realizing and making up for my mistakes.

Chapter 60: Preparations for the March.

Chapter 61: The Importance of “Followers”.

Chapter 62: The Rhythm of the Wandering Scale-kins.

Chapter 63: Thundering Roars!

Chapter 64: Take that damn Wyvern down!

Chapter 65: The Leviathan.

Chapter 66: No, anything but that!!!

Chapter 67: A Raging flame growing inside the Cave.

Chapter 68: Crying is not so bad.

Side Story 12: Three-way duel.

Side Story 13: The Start of a Classroom Assembly.

Side Story 14: Lethal or non-lethal, that is the question.

Chapter 69: Evolution and Skill Predicaments.

Chapter 70: This is why you should take traumas seriously.

Chapter 71: Tasianna's true reasons.

Chapter 72: The Start of a new Request.

Chapter 73: Carine Village.

Side Story 15: A Proud Dragon, a Worried Goddess, and an Ambitious Inferno.

Chapter 74: Meeting with Carine Village’s Chief.

Chapter 75: First Quest accepted.

Chapter 76: I’m terrible at SP usage.

Chapter 77: Lizards playing with Magic.

Chapter 78: How to sneak a bomb into a bandit camp.

Chapter 79: Agent Hestia ‘007’ Atsuko.

Chapter 80: An Idol always seeks the Spotlight!

Chapter 81: The Cold Touch of a Fairy.

Chapter 82: Leading the Prey.

Chapter 83: An Unexpected Boss Battle.

Chapter 84: The Aftermath and Spoils of a Quest

Side Story 16: A Storm in Heaven.

Side Story 17: Bandit Subjugation.

Chapter 85: Sermon of the Crimson Dragonewt.

Chapter 86: Daily Training and Lessons.

Chapter 87: Insecurities issuing a Challenge.

Chapter 88: Crimson Storm Challenge

Chapter 89: No Tea Party is complete without some Cake!

Chapter 90: The Prelude of an Awakening Star.

Chapter 91: The Star Blazes forth.

Chapter 92: Master and Student.

Chapter 93: Preparations for the Dinner.

Chapter 94: The Dragoness dresses for the Occasion.

Chapter 95: Dinner with House Helvas.

Side Story 18: Plotting under the moonlight.

Chapter 96: Barracuda Migration Event.

Chapter 97: My first Davi.

Chapter 98: The Planning of the trip to Firwood.

Chapter 99: An Idol's Fire.

Chapter 100: Promise.

Chapter 101: A Pleasant Trip to Firwood.

Chapter 102: Firwood.

Chapter 103: The Church of Aurena.

Chapter 104: Aurena, the Origin Goddess of Light.

Side Story 19: Hestia’s future.

Chapter 105: Did I mention I hate Slimes?

Chapter 106: Farron, the Guild Master of the Hunters Guild Branch.

Chapter 107: We are Adventurers!

Chapter 108: Groceries for the Hungry Dragoness.

Chapter 109: Guilds.

Chapter 110: The Binding Festival.

Chapter 111: Training Ellaine.

Chapter 112: Discussing Saori’s Business Plans.

Chapter 113: Bards and Music.

Chapter 114: Temper.

Chapter 115: The Dragoon.

Chapter 116: The Idol System.

Side Story 20: A Maid’s Respect.

Side Story 21: A Butler’s Appreciation.

Chapter 117: Dwarven Smithy.

Chapter 118: Equipment Talk.

Chapter 119: On the Road, far from Home.

Chapter 120: The Faemancer.

Chapter 121: Rashan Village.

Chapter 122: Into the Abyss.

Chapter 123: Adventurers Vs. Onnikais.

Chapter 124: Momentary Respite.

Chapter 125: Second Phase, Start!

Chapter 126: Unquenchable Fire Vs. Undying Beast.

Chapter 127: Wolf Hunting.

Side Story 22: The Battle at Castle Teullon.

Chapter 128: Advent: Zephira.

Chapter 129: The Onnikai’s Revelation.

Chapter 130: The Murals of an Artist.

Chapter 131: “Aurora” Rises!

Chapter 132: “Anti-Davison” Coalition.

Chapter 133: That would mean less Dragorade for us, right?

Chapter 134: Blade and Shield of Ice.

Chapter 135: Bottles.

Chapter 136: Chezaic Tea Party.

Chapter 137: Rumors are scary.

Chapter 138: Restaurant “Aurora.”

Chapter 139: The Pale Child.

Chapter 140: Firwood Concert.

Chapter 141: Raider: Saori.

Chapter 142: Saori vs. Kaian.

Chapter 143: Raider:Tasianna

Side Story 23: Outside the Raid.

Chapter 144: Raid Battle: Davison.

Chapter 145: The Terror of Firwood.

Chapter 146: Aftermath of the Alchemist Raid.

Chapter 147: Talks over Curry.

Chapter 148: A Normal Temple Visit.

Chapter 149: To Life.

Chapter 150: A Helvas Reunion.

Chapter 151: Ellaine.

Chapter 152: The Mystery of Yeast...kinda.

Chapter 153: Tracking the Bull.

Chapter 154: Bull vs. Hippogryph Knight.

Chapter 155: Cernust and Severa.

Chapter 156: A Dilemma.

Chapter 157: The Grimgarian Battalion.

Chapter 158: Prelude to Grim.

Chapter 159: The Beastslaughterer.

Chapter 160: The Enmity Berserker.

Chapter 161: Draconic Lineage.

Chapter 162: Stygian.

Chapter 163: Goodbye, Firwood.

Side Story 24: Firwood.

Chapter 164: Cedaraille.

Chapter 165: “Emerald-Flare Forest” Dungeon.

Chapter 166: Illusionist.

Chapter 167: The Magic Tinkerer-in-Training.

Chapter 168: The Dishonored Dwarf.

Chapter 169: The Sarlenzia Trading Company.

Chapter 170: Training Arc #1...or is this the third?

Side Story 25: The Actions of Aurora.

Chapter 171: The Magical Number 9.

Chapter 172: The Alpine Felwings.

Chapter 173: The First Year.

Chapter 174: Ready to Heat up!

Chapter 175: The Students.

Chapter 176: The Volchark.

Chapter 177: The Fenrir, the Fairy, and the Dwarf.

Chapter 178: Student Discussion.

Chapter 179: The Goals of the Church of Danterno.

Chapter 180: The Demon of the Orb.

Chapter 181: Dragon vs. Slazzigula.

Chapter 182: Aunt and Niece.

Chapter 183: Dungeon Break.

Chapter 184: Boss Raid: Molten Core Rachonoid.

Chapter 185: Raid Aftermath.

Chapter 186: The Blacksmith’s Commitment.

Chapter 187: A Pleasant Day with my ‘Niece.’

Chapter 188: Clan Nordoramsul.

Chapter 189: A Wolf taking her Wolves out for a Walk.

Chapter 190: Sleepover.

Side Story 26: The Saintess and the Mother.

Chapter 191: Dragoon Princess’s Armor of Crimson Glow.

Chapter 192: Country Roads, Thundering Clouds.

Chapter 193: Boltreaver’s Revenge.

Chapter 194: Faust.

Chapter 195: A Champion’s Divine Quest.

Chapter 196: Kargryxmor and Hestia.

Chapter 197: Time to meet the King.

Chapter 198: Griffonpeak.

Chapter 199: Eldritch Warrior, Ellaine.

Chapter 200: Religious Teachings.

Chapter 201: The Mage’s Guild.

Chapter 202: Runesmith.

Chapter 203: The Artorian Ball Begins.

Chapter 204: Idol of Aurena.

Chapter 205: Drama is the Spice of Life.

Chapter 206: On Wings of Crimson.

Chapter 207: The [Room].

Chapter 208: The Bullied fights back.

Chapter 209: Support to Find a Brother.

Chapter 210: More Plans on my Schedule.

Chapter 211: The Saintess of Orphans

Chapter 212: Griffonpeak Concert.

Chapter 213: Aurora RV, New and Improved.

Chapter 214: Elven Outpost Mission.

Chapter 215: Whipsword and Hammer Duet.

Chapter 216: Geisenlarg Infestation.

Chapter 217: A Royal Extermination.

Chapter 218: Hotspring

Side Story 27: Training in the Belzac Forest.

Side Story 28: The Three-Eyed Fenrir, Belzac.

Side Story 29: Grimgarian Ambush Battle.

Chapter 219: Hestia, Unwilling Mediator.

Chapter 220: No School for You and Me!

Chapter 221: Rank C Promotion.

Chapter 222: Imagine getting a Morality Check from a Demon.

Chapter 223: The Power of Fast Travel!

Chapter 224: Big Sis Hestia.

Chapter 225: Shaturein.

Chapter 226: Even Criminals can make decent enough Allies.

Chapter 227: The Young Mistress Hates Slave Auctions.

Chapter 228: Human Trafficking Prevention Mission.

Chapter 229: The Necromancer.

Chapter 230: Eithalr’s “Peace” Talk.

Chapter 231: To be a Dragon or a Human.

Chapter 232: On a Day with Ellaine.

Chapter 233: A Meeting with the Cardinal.

Chapter 234: My Definition of an Idol.

Chapter 235: To the Arena.

Chapter 236: To Bring a Smile.

Chapter 237: The Start of the Invasion.

Chapter 238: Griffonpeak in Danger.

Chapter 239: The Aurora shines through the Darkness.

Chapter 240: A Desire for Happiness.

Chapter 241: Ellaine Fiero Helvas.

Chapter 242: A Lust for Happiness.

Chapter 243: The Lich.

Christmas Special: A Dragon’s Wintery Special.

Chapter 244: A Thunderclap on a Sunny Day.

Chapter 245: The Phantasmal Armory.

Chapter 246: The Crimson-White Fledgling Tyrant.

Chapter 247: The Heir of Hope.

Chapter 248: Geisenlarg King, A rank Holy Moly.

2nd Anniversary Q/A with the Aurora.

Chapter 249: Hope has Descended and She’s coming for You!

Side Story 30: Onlookers of the Winter’s Coming.

Chapter 250: Those Memories inside my Other Half.

Side Story 31: Origin God Summit.

Chapter 251: Waking up after Three Weeks.

Chapter 252: Taking my Mind off.

Chapter 253: Nerding Out.

Chapter 254: Mother and Daughter Talk.

Chapter 255: Our Party got Huge.

Chapter 256: Aurora doing Politics.

Chapter 257: Making Allies through Politics.

Chapter 258: A Fragassa Smoothie on a Sunny Day.

Chapter 259: Going Shopping with Friends.

Chapter 260: Saori and Asaka.

Chapter 261: How to Molt a Dragon.

Chapter 262: Draconic Family Feud.

Chapter 263: Kramps, the Originator of [Battle Frenzy].

Chapter 264: Helping my Company’s Members.

Chapter 265: Arriving in Ullistar.

Chapter 266: Sun Worship Festival.

Chapter 267: Mage Tutor, Melloxtressa.

Chapter 268: Mother-Daughter Dragon Training.

Chapter 269: Enter, Estralia!

Chapter 270: Not so welcoming “Welcome to Estralia.”

Chapter 271: Gleisvale, the Dwarven-Made Human Republic.

Chapter 272: Train Station, chooo, choooo!

Chapter 273: What is a “Zuekluk?”

Chapter 274: Shaturein’s Favor.

Chapter 275: The Mark of the Tempting Serpent.

Chapter 276: Shopping Time with the Girls.

Chapter 277: Culinary Recruitment.

Chapter 278: The Culinary Revolution, Again!

Chapter 279: Encounter with the Resclaves.

Chapter 280: Idol Promotion!

Chapter 281: Dragon Bigotry.

Chapter 282: Interrogation with an Angry Fairy.

Chapter 283: Frost in Summer’s Sun.

Chapter 284: The Mysteries Continue.

Chapter 285: Vampires.

Chapter 286: The Adventuring Group’s Mystery.

Chapter 287: Fighting against a Goddess.

Chapter 288: Asaka all Alone.

Easter Surprise! A Meeting between Protagonists Part 2.

Easter Surprise! A Meeting between Protagonists Part 4.

Chapter 289: The Onnikai and Ilsaphone.

Chapter 290: Conviction.

Chapter 291: A Blessing in the Shadow.

Chapter 292: The Answer: Curry.

Chapter 293: The Scent of Lurking Schemers.

Chapter 294: The Church of the Edjurl.

Chapter 295: The 5th Sin: Wrath.

Chapter 296: An Accord.

Chapter 297: Baited.

Chapter 298: The Obsidian Orchestra Debut.

Chapter 299: A Prepared Rematch.

Chapter 300: Voltaic Red.

Chapter 301: Scars and Miracles.

Chapter 302: I, Usurper.

Side Story 32: Vifi’Yok and Hee’Rlak.

Side Story 33: The Pantheon of Light.

Chapter 303: Checking of the Checklist.

Chapter 304: The Exile’s Resolve.

Chapter 305: A Freezing Boat Ride.

Chapter 306: Elyonda, Capital of Yeos.

Chapter 307: Duty and Family.

Chapter 308: Karhalantheel Island.

Chapter 309: Sometimes there is too much Pressure.

Side Story 34: Saori in the Forest of Garms and Fenrirs.

Side Story 35: A Fenrir’s Legacy.

Chapter 310: A City in Trouble.

Chapter 311: Festival of Yeos.

Chapter 312: Sisters.

Chapter 313: Family Bonding.

Chapter 314: The Tournament of Yeostar Begins!

Chapter 315: Tournament Frenzy.

Chapter 316: Dance of Blade and Magic.

Chapter 317: Tournament Alliance.

Chapter 318: Castle Assault.

Chapter 319: Dragon Toxicologist.

Chapter 320: Royale Rumble End!

Chapter 321: [Battle Frenzy] Training Phase Two: Gluttony.

Chapter 322: A Plant’s Matter.

Chapter 323: An Alchemical Bonding.

Chapter 324: Battle in the Underground.

Chapter 325: The Kirin-Dragon Destroyer.

Chapter 326: The Flag of Resistance.

Side Story 36: A Sensei’s Duty.

Side Story 37: Job Counseling.

Chapter 327: Bracket Stage.

Chapter 328: Corrosion Vs. Acid.

Chapter 329: News from the Desert.

Chapter 330: Territory.

Chapter 331: Gluttony Conquered.

Chapter 332: A Champion’s Worth.

Chapter 333: Second Round set Aflamed.

Chapter 334: Unwanted Seafarers.

Chapter 335: A Sword Savant’s Rage.

Chapter 336: Fargryneill vs. Ghorush.

Chapter 337: Pen, Sword, and Heart.

Chapter 338: Rich one second, Poor the next.

Chapter 339: Grim escalation.

Chapter 340: The Three-Way Plan.

Chapter 341: Rapping Dragons.

Chapter 342: Bardic Inspidragon.

Side Story 38: A Kirin’s Uncertainty.

Side Story 39: The Warbringer’s Stroll.

Chapter 343: Musical Flash!

Chapter 344: An Unraveling Mystery into Burning Disgust.

Chapter 345: Underwater Cavern Raid.

Chapter 346: Wrathful Encounters.

Chapter 347: Abyss of Despair.

Side Story 40: Trust and Faith.

Side Story 41: No Threats left Dead.

Chapter 348: Envy made Manifest.

Chapter 349: A Promise Remembrance.

Chapter 350: Taste of Your own Medicine.

Chapter 351: The Siege.

Chapter 352: Heaven’s Sword and Dragon Fire.

Chapter 353: The Krakenlord’s Graveyard and the Fimbulvetr.

Chapter 354: Feels like a Kaiju and Zombie Movie all mixed together.

Chapter 355: Rally for War.

Chapter 356: Outnumbered.

Chapter 357: But not Outgunned.

Chapter 358: Assemble the Boss Raid Team.

Chapter 359: Rivalry Forged from Flames and Lightning.

Chapter 360: A Concert Raid.

Chapter 361: Kyrie for Brave Girls.

Chapter 362: My Choice, My Ending.

Side Story 42: The Darkness’s Light and Trickster.

Side Story 43: The Aftermath of the Enemies.

Chapter 363: Deju Vu Awakening.

Chapter 364: Selling Information on Friends was Wrong.

Chapter 365: Relief Effort in the City of Troubles.

Chapter 366: Uniquer!

Chapter 367: The Monstrous “Aurora.”

Chapter 368: Bloody Vampires.

Chapter 369: The Fantasy of Immortality.

Chapter 370: A New Adventure Awaits Us.

Chapter 371: Ire to Those Greedy Dwarves.

Chapter 372: Stepping on a Dragon’s Toes.

Chapter 373: Chaotic Five Star Alarm.

Chapter 374: Bad Team Composition VS. Boss.

Chapter 375: Aurora Reunion.

Chapter 376: Oh, How I Missed Our Hot Springs.

Side Story 44: The Alpha of the Belzac Forest.

Side Story 45: The Princes of Sins.

Chapter 377: Obsidian Trap.

Chapter 378: A Stage of Grudges: Royal Edition.

Chapter 379: The Hammer and Anvil.

Chapter 380: When Amongst Dwarves, do what the Dwarves do.

Chapter 381: You need Techies?

Chapter 382: Riding on a Train, Choo, Choo!

Chapter 383: Rhytilic Alloy.

Chapter 384: Inkoran-Tazul, Capital of the Ankor-Nazta.

Chapter 385: The Warrior King of Ankor-Nazta.

Chapter 386: The Greatest Gambit Event.

Chapter 387: Aurora in the Forest of Garms.

Chapter 388: Oh, Wolf; Woe to thy Demons.

Side Story 46: The Travels of a Lone Demonkin.

Chapter 389: Is this How Sisters Bond?

Chapter 390: Sis, Get the Camera! I’m on the Crystal!

Chapter 391: Loatryxian Fervor.

Side Story 47: The Fickleness of Fate.

Chapter 392: The Debut of “Atsuko Licht.”

Chapter 393: Rank B Dungeon [Menagerie of Golems].

Chapter 394: Into the Depths of the Golem’s Ruin.

Chapter 395: Random Encounters Between Boss Characters.

Chapter 396: Bane of Dragonkins: Dragonslayers.

Chapter 397: Monster Room.

Chapter 398: Burn, Golem, Burn.

Chapter 399: An Unlikely Camaraderie.

Chapter 400: The First Event Quest.

Chapter 401: The Alliance Marches Forward!

Chapter 402: Everybody Loves Dungeon Loot!

Chapter 403: A Heart to Heart Moment.

Chapter 404: The Dungeon Usurper.

Side Story 48: The Belzac Wolves Rebellion.

Side Story 49: Saori, Leader of 1357 Beastmen.

Chapter 405: Your Name is …

Chapter 406: Memories of a Bygone Past.

Chapter 407: The Keys for Survival.

Chapter 408: What is a Hero and Knight to [The Light]?

Chapter 409: Towards the Second Key.

Chapter 410: Trust is a Two-Sided Road.

Chapter 411: Rules were Meant to Be Overturned.

Chapter 412: A Renewed Promise Between the Two.

Chapter 413: Fierce Ambush.

Chapter 414: A Speechless Reunion.

Chapter 415: How to Fake your Death.

Chapter 416: Operation: “Patricide.”

Chapter 417: Deceit’s Truth Revealed.

Chapter 418: The Greatest Gambit!